Livy, Folklore, and Magic: a Reappraisal of Rome's Foundational Mythology

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LIVY, FOLKLORE, AND MAGIC: A REAPPRAISAL OF ROME'S FOUNDATIONAL MYTHOLOGY

Jeremy Leonard Albrecht

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2020

Committee:

Casey Stark, Advisor

Amilcar Challu

James Pfundstein

Jeremy Albrecht

Casey Stark, Advisor

This paper argues for an additional manner in which the social and cultural history of

Rome can be both examined and understand through the implementation of folkloric practices.

While folklore and history are two distinct academic traditions, there exists a certain amount of overlap between the fields and this overlap is worth exploring in more detail. In the course of this paper, it is argued that many aspects of Roman social and cultural history can be understood and examined through folkloric means. In chapter one, a working definition of folklore is established and shown to apply to the foundational mythology of Rome as portrayed by Livy in his Ab Urbe

Condita. Chapter two continues to examine Livy and provides an argument that, in the process of his writing, Livy himself was more concerned with a folkloric interpretation of Rome’s history than he was in staying firmly within the bounds of historical accuracy. Finally, chapter three branches off from Livy and focuses on the arcane and magical traditions which were prevalent in

Rome to show that not only were folkloric traditions present in Rome’s traditional mythology, but can also be seen throughout the Republic and even into the early Empire. iv

For my parents:

You always believed I could do whatever I set my mind to.

Even when I didn’t. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Stark, without whose knowledge, patience, and prodding this thesis would likely never have happened. Thank you for putting up with all my crazy ideas and seeing me through this process. You were the best advisor I could have asked for.

Next, I would like to thank Dr. Pfundstein and Dr. Challu, who were gracious enough to agree to sit on the committee for a strange, interdisciplinary thesis. Both of you provided ideas and insights without which this final project would be the lesser.

I would also like to thank Dr. Greene. While you did not have a direct hand in the content of this manuscript, I would surely have missed numerous deadlines throughout the process if not for your requests for updates and your reminders.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank my family for their contributions. Mom and Dad, thanks for pushing me to stick with the plan of writing a thesis when I was thinking of switching to exams. You were right, as always. Ryan and Brianna, thanks for reading drafts of this when it was quite nearly illegible and taking an interest (or, at the least, doing an excellent job feigning one) in the subject matter of this manuscript, even as divergent as it is from your own interests. vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I: ROME AND FOLKLORE: FOUNDATIONAL MYTHOLOGY AS

FOLKLORE ...... 10

CHAPTER II: LIVY AND FOLKLORE: WHY HISTORICAL ACCURACY WAS LESS

IMPORTANT THAN CULTURAL BELIEF ...... 31

CHAPTER III: MAGIC, CULTURE, AND FOLKLORE IN ROMAN SOCIETY ...... 52

CONCLUSION ...... 74

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 77 1

INTRODUCTION

All roads, as the saying goes, eventually lead to Rome. Though this was originally meant in a geographic sense (if a somewhat pithy one), if one studies history to any great extent it tends to hold true in an intellectual and research-centric sense as well. The fingerprints of Roman ideals and traditions permeate most western societies in some form, regardless of whether the adoption was intentional. Similarly, most academic traditions have, at some point, interacted with the legacy of Rome, whether through the physical culture it left behind, the literature and language it produced, its economic impact, or its contributions to philosophical thought. Given this, it is often challenging to provide a fresh voice when discussing matters related to Rome, both in terms of content and approach to the material. Nevertheless, this is precisely what will be attempted in the following pages.

Specifically, this project will be looking at social and cultural understanding of Roman foundational mythology and folklore, as well as the folkloric implications inherent in the writings of Titus Livius, who is more commonly known simply as Livy. His work, Ab Urbe

Condita, is an attempt to trace the entire history of Rome from the foundation of the city, as the title of his work implies. Since the establishment of the city is distinctly tied to many of the more popular myths and pseudo-historical traditions of Rome, Livy’s work is the most beneficial primary source upon which to base a folkloric reinterpretation. In doing so, it will be shown that the foundational mythology of Rome and, consequently, the writings of Livy on the subject, are better understood as folklore than an attempt at a historically accurate narrative. Due to the at times arbitrary divides between scholarly traditions, avenues and aspects which ought to be considered distinctly as folkloric are often overlooked because they have tended for the past century and a half to be viewed as the domain of a different branch of scholarship. This is, as 2 will become evident, the case with the foundational mythology of Rome, both as a city and later as a true international power in both its form as a Republic and finally as the Empire it eventually became. As Graham Anderson notes, “Classicists, in particular, tend to classify folkloric materials in so many other ways and tend to avoid folklore as a subject in its own right.”1 While the recent cultural turn in the historical profession has moved them further towards the sort of social considerations often seen in folklore studies, there is still a distinct divide between the fields. It is this divide which I seek here to remedy.

While there is a dearth of academic inquiry upon the precise themes which this examination will explore, the same cannot be said for topics which border it and thus have both relation and relevance to the current inquiry. This scholarship tends to be divided into a few relatively distinct threads depending upon which academic discipline produced the work. For instance, when looking at the most complete and applicable primary source for this topic, Livy’s

Ab Urbe Condita, it is common practice for historians to focus on the events portrayed therein and, since large portions of what Livy portrays either cannot be externally verified or seem to be at odds with what we see from other sources, treat the work as a poor example of the historian’s craft. The most prominent example of this is Ogilvie’s A Commentary On Livy Books 1-52 which is perhaps the most widely known and well-regarded commentary on Livy and, as a result, tends to be considered the defining work in the field. In fact, many of the other secondary sources which deal with the first five books of Livy are responses to Ogilvie or draw heavily on his work. While Ogilvie’s analysis is quite good and accurate from a perspective where historical accuracy is the only thing which truly matters, he overlooks Livy’s true intent to which historical

1 Graham Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006), IX. 2 R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). 3 accuracy must take a backseat. This true intent, the driving purpose behind the work, is much more in line with folklore than a focus on strict historical accuracy. Thus, Ogilvie and the various historical works which find themselves sharing a like mind will be used both to establish an understanding of the traditional historiographic thought on the primary source and as a way to strengthen the argument of this paper via refutation of that traditional historiography.

The second academic discipline which has contributed to the historiography relating to these topics is classics. Unlike historians, classicists tend to focus on the quality of the work as a piece of literature, considering historical accuracy as being of secondary importance. This is, in many ways, a more accurate representation of what Livy was trying to accomplish, though their focus on his prose as a piece of literature tends to omit the more socially and culturally inclined aspects of Livy’s work which are of at least equal, if not greater, importance than either the historical accuracy or the overall literary worth. Such is the case in works like Conte’s Latin

Literature: A History3, which places a great deal of emphasis on the annalistic structure Livy employs. Conte also focuses on comparing Livy to other Roman authors in such ways as how they write historical speeches, how they were influenced by the prominent figures of their day, and in how successful their work was, both commercially and throughout subsequent Roman history. This is not to say that his analysis does not provide useful insight or that he focuses on such comparisons to the exclusion of questions regarding the social implications of the work and the catalyst behind the book itself. However, questions of this nature are given considerably less thought than the comparisons which comprise a considerable portion of his manuscript.

There is a third branch of secondary literature worth mentioning: scholarship on Roman folklore. Little work has been done specifically on this subject as scholars tend to focus on the

3 Conte, Gian Biagio, Latin Literature: A History, trans. Joseph B. Solodow (Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press, 1994). 4 aforementioned categories or on Roman religion and mythology. While there is some natural overlap between Roman mythology and religion and Roman foundational myth and folklore, this is something that has not been adequately explored by the field. In fact, there are only two works which fall into this specific field and are worth mentioning: Anderson’s Greek and Roman

Folklore4 and Halliday’s Greek and Roman Folklore5. Neither work has been particularly influential, likely due to the hesitancy of other academic disciplines to embrace the importance of folklore. Both focus on the more traditionally folkloric aspects, trying to draw parallels to folklore as it would be understood in a later European context: faerie stories, monsters, unexplainable happenings, and other events and traditions of a comparable nature. Neither really focuses on the primary literature and the social ramifications or the effects a belief in these folkloric elements would have had on the population. Further, they seem more inclined to draw parallels between the perceived folklore of Greece and Rome than to examine each tradition on its own merits.

This project fits in the middle of these competing scholarly traditions by focusing on the mytho-history and foundational mythology of Rome and showing how it was understood on a social level by the Roman people during the late Republic and early Empire. While some examination of Roman folklore has been undertaken, these works focus more on cataloging the work and comparing it to other more modern folkloric traditions, such as the Brothers Grimm.

The type of analysis which is here being advocated is reminiscent of that undertaken by Darnton in his examinations of 18th century French cultural history.6 Thus, applying this frame of thought to history is hardly a new phenomenon. Despite this, the application of this formula to the more

4 Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore. 5 William Reginald Halliday, Greek and Roman Folklore (Norwood, Massachusetts: The Plimpton Press, 1927). 6 Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Books, 1984) 5 ancient historical civilizations is an avenue to which scholarly inquiry has yet to be applied. As such, this examination is focused specifically on Rome and seeks to establish an understanding of how the aspects of folklore and foundational mythology, often tracing back to the Monarchy period, would have been understood by the people of the time and what this understanding might have meant for their daily existence. Further, this project differs from the majority of prior secondary scholarship which focuses either on historical accuracy or on literary value by placing an emphasis on why the work was written. By doing so, it will be shown that, specifically in the first few books of Livy wherein he deals with the foundational aspects of Roman history, he was focused more on an almost propagandistic interpretation of the events, rather than a historically accurate portrayal. This interpretation will show that the events he writes of are intended to serve as a folkloric account and he merely terms it history and writes using the historical methods of his day because these were the tools available to him at the time.

As was previously alluded to, this examination has the additional benefit of fostering a more complete understanding of how the folkloric aspects of Roman history and mytho-history were viewed by the common people of the day. While it would be impossible to prove that all aspects of the Roman folkloric tradition were known to the entire population, a considerable portion of the general populace were familiar with at least the basic themes of their traditional foundation myths, even if there was some disparity in this knowledge. This is, as will be shown, a common way in which folklore and similar concepts were understood by a society. Given the aforementioned limitations in the primary sources available to the modern audience, only a portion of this argument will be based on strictly literary sources. Many aspects of Roman material culture, particularly those which were erected in public venues, can shed light on what the common people would have been exposed to on a daily basis and thus can speak to their 6 cultural knowledge. While some secondary scholarship touches on these themes, they focus on related questions, not on these specifically.

Given the limitations in the surviving primary source base, those which are utilized to form the base of this argument are not groundbreaking for anyone familiar with ancient Rome, but merely what is available and, as a result, are those which have been used by the field to answer similar questions to those which this examination will explore. The most important primary source for this analysis is Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, with particular emphasis on book 1.

Livy’s authority as a primary source for the events surrounding the foundation of Rome is problematic at best, given the approximately seven centuries which elapsed between the founding and when Livy was writing. However, because so many of the works on which Livy based his history are lost, we are left with little choice but to consider him a primary source.

Book 1 of Livy will be the most heavily used of his work for the purposes of this inquiry, as that is the portion which contains his account of the foundation of Rome and, as such, where he focuses the majority of his more folkloric aspects. Later books from Livy will be used to further expand an understanding of how he structures his work and intended for it to be interpreted.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities is also of distinct interest to this examination, though he will be used less often than Livy, due to Livy being Roman and Dionysius being

Greek. From a historical perspective, this may be of only rudimentary importance, but from a more folkloric interpretation it becomes clear that the work produced by a member of the culture itself ought to be given precedence. Further, the two sources tell largely the same story regarding the foundation of Rome. As such, Dionysius will be used when it is prudent to provide a counterpoint or an external perspective to Livy. Some portions of Virgil’s Aeneid also touch on

Roman foundational mythology, as Aeneas eventually finds his way to Latium. These events are 7 also mentioned in Livy’s account, though they do differ somewhat. Similarly to Dionysius,

Virgil will be used to reinforce and provide a counterpoint to Livy depending on which particular aspect of the foundational mythology is being discussed. When the discussion turns from a strictly folkloric discussion to include other aspects of Roman culture, sources such as Pliny,

Ovid, and Apuleius become relevant and will be used to illustrate these aspects. Finally, multiple aspects of material culture will be brought into focus. Of particular interest are inscriptions and monuments placed in public locations, such as the Forum Augustum.

This paper is divided into three chapters, each of which is concerned with aspects of

Roman society and culture as they relate to folklore. Chapter one focuses on establishing many of the folkloric terms which are used throughout the paper, as well as laying out an argument as to how aspects of the Roman foundational mythology conform to the folkloric criteria. This is done by isolating specific elements of the definition of folklore and explaining what they mean in context. After this, information regarding the foundational mythology of Rome as found in

Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita is examined through the lens of the established folkloric definition. By doing so, it is shown that time and again the myriad of narratives surrounding the foundation of

Rome meet the criteria to be rightfully termed folkloric.

Chapter two examines Livy’s work in the context of Rome during the time he was writing and argues that Livy was attempting to write his history in a propagandistic manner, rather than focusing on the historical accuracy of the events he was portraying. Any reading of

Livy with even a passing knowledge of history would show that some of the events Livy portrays as history were likely fiction, as he himself sometimes admits. However, whilst the facts and events themselves may not be true in a historical sense, the common understanding of them is vital to a sense of cultural identity. Even more than this, having a shared understanding, if not 8 truly a shared belief, in the origin of their city and their home was vital to the Roman sense of self and the common belief in their inherent superiority. Combined with this is a discussion of the various external influences which may have exerted pressure on Livy during the time he was writing and thus influenced his narrative, for good or ill. While on the surface this may seem only tangentially related to the overarching theme of folklore, upon a closer inspection it becomes clear that not only do the events Livy relates qualify as folkloric but that Livy himself intended them to serve this purpose. While propaganda and folklore and clearly not the same, in the context of Livy’s writings the areas in which they overlap are sufficient to view them both through the folkloric definition established in chapter one.

In the third chapter, the focus switches away from mythology to examine other folkloric aspects of Roman culture, with emphasis placed on how Roman society dealt with issues of magic, religion, and the supernatural and whether these approaches were influenced by the common understanding of the more unnatural elements which are prevalent in the mythology and foundation narratives of Rome. The inclusion of magic, supernaturalism, mysticism, and other occurrences which fall decidedly outside the realm of the ordinary are quite common in narratives and traditions which are properly termed folkloric. In examining the roles which these themes play in the Roman stories which draw upon them, it becomes clear that supernatural elements of folklore are seen not only in the foundation myths of Rome but also in narratives and literary traditions throughout the centuries which this examination has as its focal point. Further, based on the manner by which these unnatural elements are presented and perpetuated, it becomes clear that the people of Rome had a largely accepted and pre-conceived understanding of how such supernatural elements ought to be understood and reacted to. This societal agreement, combined with the representation of supernaturalism in so many varied mediums, 9 leads to the conclusion that magic was an intrinsic part of the folklore of Rome, particularly as it relates to the more unbelievable elements found in the foundation myths.

While on the surface it may seem largely unimportant to argue for a folkloric interpretation of Rome’s foundational mythology, when one only digs a little deeper the importance becomes clear. After all, it is impossible to understand a society, a people, a nation without understanding where they came from and how they think. In short, it is necessary to have as complete an understanding of their self-conceptualization as possible. This, I contend, would be an impossible task without understanding the shared cultural knowledge upon which this sense of self, of national identity, is constructed. Put another way, it is necessary to formulate the folklore which permeated the society. Without understanding this, any picture painted of the society would be missing a vital pigment and would be a shadow of the whole. Given the loss of so much Roman literature to the ravages of time, it is likely impossible to understand the full extent of the shared cultural belief which their folklore represents. Still, through examining the sources which have survived it can be seen that folkloric elements were indeed present in Roman society and that these elements permeated both the Roman sense of self and their outlook on the world. In this sense, it would be a disservice to not examine these historical documents through a folkloric lens.

CHAPTER I: ROME AND FOLKLORE: FOUNDATIONAL MYTHOLOGY AS FOLKLORE

Since the coining of the term “folklore” in 1846 by William John Thoms,7 there has been seemingly endless debate as to how the term ought to be defined and, based upon the various proposed definitions, what precisely qualifies for inclusion as folkloric. As folklore began to develop into an independent branch of scholarship it sought to attain a singular identity separate from other related branches of scholarship, such as archeology, history, and ethnography. While this separation has in many respects been beneficial not only for folklore but also for these other scholarly traditions, it has also led to a number of limitations in the sort of questions which have been both asked and addressed by folklore scholars. As a result, avenues and aspects which ought to be considered distinctly as folkloric are often overlooked because they have tended for the past century and a half to have been viewed as the domain of a different branch of scholarship. This, I shall argue, is the case with the foundational mythology of ancient Rome, both as a city and later as a true international power in both its form as a republic and the empire it eventually became.

Before an argument can be made toward this end, it first becomes necessary to establish a working definition of folklore to which this paper will ascribe and under which the argument shall be framed. Though nearly countless definitions have been proposed and revised since the coining of the word, and in many ways the term is still a matter of debate amongst the profession, for the purpose of this paper the definition proposed by Robert A. Georges and

Michael Owen Jones will be used. They posit that,

The word folklore denotes expressive forms, processes, and behaviors (1) that we customarily learn, teach, and utilize or display during face-to-face interactions and (2) that we judge to be traditional (a) because they are based on known precedents or models,

7 Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones, Folkloristics: An Introduction, (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995), 35. 11

and (b) because they serve as evidence of continuities and consistencies through time and space in human knowledge, thought, belief, and feeling.8

This is among the broader definitions which might be applied, which is fitting as the field of folklore encompasses a rather broad range of topics. As such, definitions such as this are becoming far more common amongst professional folklorists than their more limited predecessors. While a broader definition is distinctly beneficial for the argument this paper will be making, it was not chosen solely for this purpose. Rather, because folklore by its nature demands such a broad definition in order to fully encapsulate the various aspects which have need of falling under the blanket definition of folklore, this definition is accepted for how well it meets the needs of the profession on the whole and not this paper in particular.

In addition to this overarching definition, Georges and Jones go on to trace certain categorizations of folklore based on how professionals in the field have tended to understand the folklore which they encounter. In brief, these include Folklore as a Historical Artifact, Folklore as a Describable and Transmissible Entity, Folklore as Culture, and Folklore as Behavior.9 While there is some disagreement amongst the profession as to whether or not an example needs to meet the criteria of all four of these sub-categorizations in order to be properly termed

“folkloric”, for the purposes of this inquiry it will be shown that the foundational mythology and mytho-history of Rome qualifies in all four sub-categories. As Georges and Jones note, these sub-categories can be complementary, but often go beyond such a basic understanding, making them essential and inherent in any worthwhile folkloric inquiry, even if the basis of that inquiry is focused only on some subset of the four.10 Therefore, in order to eliminate any doubt that the

8 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 1. 9 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 29, 91, 157, 229. 10 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 315. 12 material in question qualifies, it becomes advisable to show how all four sub-categories can be seen in the traditional mythology of Rome, rather than only focusing on one or two and thus leaving the matter ambiguous. These sub-categories will be explored in greater depth as they become relevant, though a brief definition of them is necessary. This is a more complicated endeavor than it would seem on the surface, as Georges and Jones fail to offer concise definitions of these sub-categories, relying instead on the use of narrative examples. As the narratives which they utilize are of no real relevance to the current inquiry, it becomes necessary to distill them down to the overall theme they convey, in order to arrive at a usable definition or, failing that, at the component parts which each sub-category is intended to convey.

Folklore as a Historical Artifact is, perhaps, the most easily accessible in the present context. In this tradition, folklore is examined through a distinctly historic lens, tracing a piece of folklore to its historical roots and then following the trail forward through the evolution of that particular folkloric tradition in terms of its survival and continuity.11 In some instances, this tradition also attempts to argue for the usefulness of distinctly folkloric examples as a historical source. Notably, this tends to be more focused on a social and cultural analysis of how a particular tradition affected development and may have lent itself to either a cause or an effect of a historical event. Rarely does this tradition place an added emphasis on the truth or falsehood of a tradition, as a folklorist would contend that the folkloric tradition itself has independent value, regardless of if it conveys a version of how history truly unfolded. As Georges and Jones note:

These expressive forms and certain examples of them come to be regarded as traditional—and hence become identifiable as folklore—when, over time, others repeat or imitate what particular individuals were the first to say or do. Viewing folklore as artifact thus acknowledges its historicity and attests to its durability and utility for human beings.12

11 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 31-40. 12 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 59. 13

This is separate from examining the tradition as Historical Fact, as the semantics inherent in such a discussion would quickly become murky between a folklorist’s and a historian’s understanding of the values attributed to such categorizations. The historian might argue that the term applies to a single, truthful version of how events unfolded, while the folklorist would attribute the term to a broader understanding of the value the tradition itself held, either to the person who first perpetuated it, to those who repeated it, or to the society in which it is found as a whole. After all, as Georges and Jones point out, “Individuals learn, imitate, and perpetuate selected forms and examples of expression that are created more often by others than by themselves. With time and repetition, these can become readily familiar and widely known,” and that, when this occurs, the examples of expression in question “tend to be objectified and conceptualized as collective traditions that multiple individuals know and share with one another.”13 In this conception, a tradition can be perpetuated by a person who did not have a hand in the original creation without having the value of the tradition diminished

Folklore as a describable and transmissible entity is perhaps the most clearly defined of the four sub-categories. Georges and Jones state that this tradition, “orders the folkloric data base by (1) grouping together similar folklore examples; (2) labelling them in common ways; and (3) describing and systematizing the resulting sets.”14 They further explain that, “to view folklore as describable and transmissible entity, then, is to configure folklore examples into sets, to define those sets, and to chart their distribution.”15 The main manner by which folklorists have accomplished this is through a cumulative effort to create an understanding of the sort of folklore which exists and then to distill them into categories which are then assigned a numerical value.

13 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 31. 14 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 93. 15 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 93. 14

The most accessible example of such a system is the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification

System, commonly referred to as the ATU.16 The specifics of how this system functions are not relevant for the current inquiry. What matters at present is that such a system exists and is in fact one of many such charts and data sets used for the purpose. Further, it is the understanding of what is meant by the phrase “describable and transmissible entity” which takes precedence, rather than the precise manner by which the tradition is both described and transmitted.

It is at this point that the definitions and applications of these sub-categories and approaches to folklore begin to grow murky. Folklore as culture and folklore as behavior are both infinitely easier to apply when the society which produced the traditions in question is still in existence, which is not the case for the traditions of ancient Rome. However, this is not to say that culture and behavior cannot be applied in the current context, but rather that the lines intended to divide these approaches are thin, nearly to the point of merging them into a single category. In the original conception, folklore as culture examines the value of a tradition to the society which both gave birth to and perpetuated it. As Georges and Jones note when discussing this aspect, “Examples of folklore can also serve as ‘pedagogic devices’ and hence as means of educating people,” and further, that “Fables and proverbs teach and reinforce morals and values.”17 On the other hand, folklore as behavior examines the traditions on a personal level, both in terms of the tradition’s worth to the one who instigated it and to those who perpetuate it.

In many ways, this leads into a discussion of the psychological worth of the folkloric tradition and of its value as a personal resource. Given the vast discrepancy in time since the traditions in question were both instigated and perpetuated, undertaking a psychological inquiry is clearly out

16 Aarne, Thompson, and Uther. “Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folktales.” Accessed February 1, 2020. https://sites.ualberta.ca/~urban/Projects/English/Content/ATU_Tales.htm#ATU0300 17 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 189. 15 of the question. With that said, certain inferences can be made about the worth of the tradition, both to the individuals who recorded them and to the culture among which they were circulated.

As is noted by Georges and Jones, “Folklore is not only a means for individuals to selectively reveal or conceal who they are. It is also a way for them to identify vicariously with groups for which they do not qualify for membership.”18

Having now established a working definition of folklore, it is time to begin applying this definition, as well as the various aspects indicative of folklore which Georges and Jones note, to the traditional narratives surrounding the foundation of Rome. Therefore, in order to show that the foundational mythology of Rome is and ought to be seen as folklore, it is necessary to show that the aspects of that foundational mythology conform to the aforementioned definition of folklore. After all, “the folklores of people everywhere… are pervaded by recurrent preoccupations and themes, such as animal-human liaisons; magical acts, objects, and transformations; interactions between deities and humans; and intercourse between natural and supernatural beings and realms.”19 These are all distinctly folkloric elements which are clearly present in the foundational myths of Rome, as will be shown. To demonstrate this, three main aspects of the traditional foundation myths will be focused on: the foundation of Rome’s precursor city of Lavinium by Aeneas, the lives of Romulus and Remus, and the narratives surrounding the Sabine Women and Romulus’ asylum which, given that they deal with similar themes and are often grouped together in the sources, will be considered here as a single category.

The founding of Lavinium begins, as so many tales from the ancient world do, with the

Trojan War. As Livy recounts in his history, “It is generally agreed that when Troy was taken

18 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 220-221. 19 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 52. 16 vengeance was wreaked upon the other Trojans, but that two, Aeneas and Antenor, were spared all the penalties of war by the Achivi,” and that the reason they were so spared was, “because they had always advocated peace and the giving back of Helen.”20 Eventually, Aeneas makes his way to the Italian Peninsula, to a land called Latium. Next, Livy sees fit to convey two differing accounts of events: in one Aeneas carves out a territory for himself through force of arms and in the other he parlays with King Latinus of Latium who was, “filled with wonder at the renown of the race and the hero, and at his spirit, prepared alike for war or peace.”21 In both versions, peace is achieved via the wedding of Aeneas to Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus. So this inclusion of Aeneas as the ancestor of the Roman people provides them with a heroic heritage, a deific lineage through Aeneas’ descent from Venus, the wisdom to make peace when it is called for, a warlike spirit, and a distinct connection to the land on which their city would eventually be founded through Aeneas’ marriage to Latinus’ daughter. As Emma Dench notes,

Mythological genealogies were the broad common ‘language’ of ethnic identity in the ancient Mediterranean world. Notions of shared origins and of descent from gods and heroes delineated human groups of all kinds, including families, clans, tribes, and urban communities. Mythological genealogies were the ‘language’ in which kinship, distinction, differentiation, and ethnic plurality were regularly articulated, in which the world was mapped and selves were located throughout the Mediterranean world.22

The connection of Aeneas to the land and the native inhabitants is of particular importance because, “The heterogeneous and ethnically mixed nature of Rome was an important part of

Rome’s foundation myth, legitimizing the later mutability and transferability of Roman status

20 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, trans. B. O. Foster. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976), 9. iam primum omnium satis constat Troia capta in ceteros saeuitum esse Troianos, duobus, Aeneae Antenorique, et uetusti iure hospitii et quia pacis reddendaeque Helenae semper auctores fuerant, omne ius belli Achiuos abstinuisse 21 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 11. et nobilitatem admiratum gentis uirique et animum uel bello uel paci paratum, dextra data fidem futurae amicitiae sanxisse. 22 Emma Dench, Romulus’ Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 12. 17 and the multi-ethnic nature of the city of Rome by linking it to the actions of its founder.”23 This issue of multi-ethnic origins will be explored in more depth when discussing Romulus’ asylum.

Right from the beginning, with Livy’s use of the phrase “it is generally agreed,” it starts to become evident that not all accounts of the story were the same, even around 25 B.C.E when

Livy was writing.24 Livy further confirms this when he deems it necessary to portray two different accounts of the original meeting between Aeneas and Latinus. This conforms with the view that, “Variety in the folkloristic data base [sic] comes about as well because the same events are reported or memorialized in more than one way, either in the same or different forms.”25 Already it is clear that the traditional narratives being discussed existed then, as they still do now, in myriad forms due to the effects of time and retelling morphing the original tale.

This is a distinctly folkloric element present in these foundational narratives, since, “Folkloristics includes in its data base [sic] examples of myriad forms or genres, many of which have language as the principle medium of communication, such as fairy tales, ballads, myths, proverbs, and rhymes.”26 Excepting the realms of folklore and myth, accounts of events which are mutually exclusive would imply that at a minimum one source or the other is flawed. However, in these realms different accounts of events are more a staple of the profession, regardless of how large the differences in the accounts may be. More than that,

Diversity in folklore also occurs because of variation. By definition, every folklore example exists in multiple versions or variants. Each version is distinctive because it is generated at a given time and under a unique set of circumstances. Differences among multiple versions of a particular folklore example range from the imperceptible to the obvious. There is usually no difference, for instance, in wording each time the proverb ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss’ is spoken, even though there may be notable contrasts in stress and intonation or in the situations they comment on. By contrast, verbatim

23 Kathryn Lomas, Andrew Gardner, and Edward Herring, “Creating Ethnicities and Identities in the Roman World.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, No. 120 (2013): 1-10. 24 R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 2. 25 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 12. 26 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 10. 18

repetition is rare, if not impossible, in telling fairy stories such as Cinderella or Rapunzel, whether the narrators and audience members are the same or different from telling to telling.27

So not only is it acceptable for a folkloric account to have multiple variations, it in fact goes to show that the tale in question has been subjected to the alterations of time and retelling, thus fracturing it into separate parts of the original whole. As Georges and Jones note, “there is variety in the folkloristic data base [sic] because folklore gives rise to folklore,”28 and, “Folklore is self-perpetuating too when aspects of specific traditions are incorporated into other folklore examples.”29 In this way, a story or a myth having such varied formulations makes it more folkloric.

When this line of thought is applied to the foundational mythology of Rome, in this case as portrayed by Livy, it becomes clear that this portion of the narrative, at the very least, conforms to the overall conceptualization of folklore. The foundational mythology has multiple variations which, as Livy notes, all tend to be accepted among the people and incorporates specific traditions into other folkloric examples. In this case, the other folkloric examples also fall under the category of foundational mythology. However, this is not problematic, as it would be entirely foolish to accept only one portion of the mythological tradition as folkloric. If, as this paper argues we ought to, we accept the foundational mythology of ancient Rome as an example of folklore, it must then logically follow that other mythological traditions are likely to contain similar themes, thereby permitting them to also meet the requirements which the currently accepted definition of folklore prescribes. Thus, it is clear that the narrative traditions dealing with the foundation of Lavinium qualify as folkloric.

27 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 11. 28 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 12-13. 29 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 13. 19

Moving on to the tale of Romulus and Remus, it first becomes necessary to explain the situation which existed at the time of their birth. Their mother was a woman called Rhea Silvia who was the daughter of Numitor. Numitor was a descendant of Aeneas and thus the ruler of

Alba Longa, the city which had been founded by Aeneas’ son Ascanius. However, Numitor was overthrown and exiled by his younger brother Amulius who took the throne for himself. To purge his brother’s line, Amulius had Rhea Silvia dedicated as a Vestal Virgin, thereby theoretically ensuring her chastity and thus removing the possibility of her giving birth to children who could challenge his right to rule. However, after she became a Vestal, Rhea Silvia gave birth to twin sons, claiming the god Mars as the father. Since exposure was seen as a humane means of disposing of unwanted children, the twins were placed in a basket and set adrift on the river Tiber. Then, the story insists, the basket found its way to the bank of the river and there the cries of the children drew the attention of a she-wolf who took pity on the babes and nursed them until they were found by a shepherd who took them in. Time passed and when the twins had grown, they overthrew Amulius and restored the kingship to their grandfather

Numitor. From here they left to found their own city on the banks of the Tiber.30

It is here that accounts once again branch into two different and competing narratives. In the one, Romulus and Remus agree to let the gods speak to them via augury, in this case bird watching, to determine which of them should have the right of naming the city. However, both claimed to receive favorable omens and, in the disagreement, Romulus and his followers kill

Remus. In the other account, Romulus begins construction of the walls of the city and, when

Remus impinges on the sanctity of those walls by leaping them, Romulus kills him for the offence.31 T. P. Wiseman posits that, “Perhaps it was at the dedication of the Temple of Victory

30 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 15-25. 31 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 15-25. 20 in 294 that the great story of the death of Remus was first represented. For the security of the city wall, even a brother must be sacrificed.”32 This conclusion implies that the first version of events was the more traditional and the second came into being only later in the narrative tradition, to provide a more modern explanation for the fratricide. Additionally, as is noted by Ogilvie, the accounts listing Aeneas and those listing Romulus as the ancestor of the Romans were originally mutually exclusive.33 Romulus is considered the more traditionally accepted ancestor and thus accounts featuring him are by far the more common. However, harkening back to the idea that folklore contains variety as the narrative is constantly evolving, a later addition to the narrative comes by way of the Greeks where Aeneas is included as a common ancestor.34 Stories of this nature changing over time and taking on new and varied life as new generations tell the tale is a folkloric element more than it is anything else. Additionally, as is noted by Georges and Jones,

“One consequence of contacts between groups within a society (like those between societies) is that one group may ‘borrow’ folklore from another, adapting it as necessary to suit its needs and making the other group’s folklore a part of its own culture.”35 It is a well documented fact that the Romans had a certain fascination with Greek culture, thus making it entirely plausible that the Greek tradition of including Aeneas as a Roman ancestor would have appealed to the

Romans both in their desire to assimilate Greek culture and in their desire to further the laudability of their own lineages.

Finally, this brings us to the narratives surrounding Romulus’ asylum and the Sabine

Women, sometimes referred to as the Rape of the Sabines. After the foundation of Rome by

Romulus, the city came to be home almost exclusively to men, likely as a result of what is often

32 T. P. Wiseman, Remus: A Roman Myth, (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 140. 33 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 32. 34 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 32. 35 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 211-212. 21 called Romulus’ asylum. Though there is little historical evidence for Romulus having issued an open call for men of any social background, even those of somewhat unsavory character, it is a common theme in the literary and folkloric traditions. Both Livy and his contemporary

Dionysius provide an account of the asylum and, although the narratives portray the same essential narrative, they take different approaches which are indicative of the concerns they both held. Livy’s version “is emphatically lowly and socially open, his original Roman people an indiscriminate mixture of slaves and free men.”36 On the other hand, Dionysius depicts an asylum which “is a far nobler place, open to political refugees fleeing from oppressive regimes, tyrannies, and oligarchies, a place from which slaves are explicitly excluded, and barbarians excluded by implication.”37 As Dench notes, “It is possible that the story of Romulus' gathering arose originally as a distinctly popular—even a ‘democratic’ version of the origins of the Roman people, something that would help to explain the impersonal nature of those gathered, a nameless mass.”38 And, as has been noted, “The asylum can be invoked as a foundation myth of the social mobility and ethnic mixture of Rome, a cause alternatively of her success or ruin.”39 Regardless of the historical accuracy or lack thereof, the belief that the asylum was a key element in the founding of Rome was inherently a part of the Roman social identity.

The gender disparity in Rome quickly became a problem and Romulus entered into negotiations with the surrounding cities and their kings for the right of Roman men to intermarry with their neighbors. Despite Romulus making this offer in peace and goodwill, he was rebuffed and the right of intermarriage was refused to the men of Rome. In response, Romulus resolved to host a festival to the gods and invite Rome’s neighbors and, at this festival, his men seized the

36 Dench, Romulus’ Asylum, 18. 37 Dench, Romulus’ Asylum, 19. 38 Dench, Romulus’ Asylum, 16. 39 Dench, Romulus’ Asylum, 4. 22

Sabine women as their own and all those not seized in this manner fled.40 This is the event which is traditionally called the “Rape of the Sabines.” Despite the decidedly negative connotations and imagery which the term rape evokes, as Dench points out, “Mythological rapes function in ancient thought in general as a useful metaphor for conceptualizing encounters between different peoples, and particularly for conceptualizing the origins of a “mixed‐race” people who might continue to show signs of ethnic and/or cultural variegation.”41 This abduction was taken quite poorly both by the women themselves and by their families until, “Romulus himself went among them and explained that the pride of their parents had caused this deed, when they had refused their neighbors the right to intermarry; nevertheless the daughters should be wedded and become co-partners in all the possessions of the Romans, in their citizenship and, dearest privilege of all to the human race, in their children.”42 The women were swayed by Romulus’ words and became willing wives to the Romans, even going so far as to plead with their fathers, who thought to make war on Rome in retribution, to instead make peace.

Having now established the three distinct narratives in the Roman foundational mythology which I propose to discuss, we turn our attention away from the stories themselves to examine how well they fit into the established definition of folklore, as well as the proposed requirements for folkloric conceptualization and study. Beginning with the first portion of the definition, it is necessary to show that these are stories, “that we customarily learn, teach, and utilize or display during face-to-face interactions.”43 For the purpose of applying this definition to a culture and society so far removed from our own, both in a geographical and chronological

40 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 35-49. 41 Dench, Romulus’ Asylum, 21. 42 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 39. sed ipse Romulus circumibat docebatque patrum id superbia factum, qui conubium finitimis negassent; illas tamen in matrimonio, in societate fortunarum omnium civitatisque, et quo nihil carius humano generi sit 43 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 1. 23 sense, I propose to replace the “we” with “the Romans” to better reflect their societal understanding and self-conceptualization. Presumably this adheres to the spirit of the definition, as it would be only logical to make a similar concession when applying this definition to any sort of folklore one wishes to study which is from a culture of which they are not a native. That said, this portion of the definition poses a problem for application to events so chronologically removed from the present day. Very few sources have survived the ravages of time and those which have tend to discuss more high-minded aspects of society, thereby making them of less use than might be wished to the current discussion. Further, “Not only do our materials emanate almost exclusively from one gender—male – but also from the upper echelons of society, observing ‘the folk’ from some distance.”44 While this certainly is a problem, as is noted by

Anderson, “But in the modern as well as in ancient experiences of folklore, superstition pervades all classes of society, albeit in varying degrees.”45 Based on this view, it is reasonable to assume that the stories of the foundation of Rome portrayed in accounts such as Livy, Cicero, and

Dionysius represent a shared cultural understanding of the foundational mythology.

The question remains of whether this shared mythology would have been learned, taught, or utilized in face-to-face interactions. Though the definition asks for an individual component, it makes no demand for an oral one as do so many other folkloric definitions for, “If orality were to be a condition for folklore, then any history of folklore going back more than three generations would automatically be disqualified, along with, of course, practically all evidence from the ancient world at all.”46 Though this change from orality was likely made to account more for works such as those by the Brothers Grimm than those dating to ancient Rome, the same logical

44 Graham Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2006), 10. 45 Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore, 11. 46 Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore, 3. 24 patterns apply. We do know, for instance, that these sorts of stories were passed from one Roman to another or to a group, as evidenced in the case of this excerpt from Cicero’s speech, De Re

Publica:

But I am afraid that if I continue further in this way, my speech will seem to be that not of one who is discussing together with you, but of one preaching or teaching. Therefore, I shall move on to those matters which are known to all, and which we have long discussed. For I am quite sure in my perceptions, feeling, and conviction that of all states none is to be compared either in constitution or arrangement or morality with that which our fathers have bequeathed to us, taking it in turn from their ancestors.47

In this excerpt Cicero, speaking as the character of Scipio Aemilianus, is saying to his audience that there is no need for him to continue to speak allegorically of the events surrounding the foundation of Rome, since they are all already familiar with these narratives and of the implications they have for the Roman state and her people. After all, “Everyone must have known the sorts of things uneducated people would come up with so that no one tended to bother to record it. Ancient customs might be introduced, as they still are, with hearsay formulae and little else, rather than with precisely recorded data.”48 Further, as Wiseman notes,

Better to ask ‘How are myths created?’, or more precisely (since we are concerned with a foundation legend) ‘How is a story that explains the origin of a community presented to, and accepted by, that community? Not by the written word. Although there is good evidence for literacy in Rome at least from the sixth century BC, the documentary use of writing as attested in archaic inscriptions does not mean that Rome was a ‘literate society.’49

And, if they were not being passed along via the written word, it follows that the manner of their transmission was more direct, implying a face-to-face interaction. This face-to-face interaction,

Wiseman argues, would likely have frequently occurred at the theatre, both in terms of written plays and speeches:

47 Cicero, De Re Publica, 1.46.70. 48 Anderson, Greek and Roman Folklore, 6. 49 Wiseman, Remus, 129. 25

No sources could be more literary – indeed, more ‘bookish’ – than Varro, Cicero, and Ovid. They lived in the literate, sophisticated, multicultural world of late-republican and Augustan Rome; if the theatre in their day was where Roman citizens heard the stories of the doings of gods and men which made up their mental world, then I think we are entitled to infer a fortiori, that the same is likely to be true of the pre-literate world of the fourth century BC.50

So, while it is difficult to prove from the surviving texts that these folkloric traditions were always passed from person to person, those sources which do survive at the least imply that folklore of this sort was common practice to the people of Rome. As such, it seems a logical inference that it must have been passed from person to person, and thus meets the requirements for this first portion of the definition.

In this analysis of the first portion of the definition as applied to Roman foundational mythology, a few aspects relating to the sub-categorizations and approaches to folklore begin to come into focus. Cicero’s assumption of his audience’s knowledge speaks to both a survival and continuity of the folkloric narrative, thereby making them, and the story as a whole, into a historical artifact in the folkloric sense. After all, folkloric examples, particularly in reference to examples which are viewed as historical artifact, “are phenomena that have purposes and meanings for the human beings among whom they are found, even though the origins of these phenomena may be obscure and their initial purposes and meanings may be unknown or may have been different.”51 Further, Cicero’s assumption speaks to a cultural application as well, since he is clearly anticipating that his reference to the morality of their ancestors will resonate with his audience, not in a religious sense, but rather because they have been raised in a society where the stories of the deeds done by their forefathers and the morality inherent in those deeds was consistently perpetuated and praised. Thus, the presence of the folklore in the society

50 Wiseman, Remus, 132-133. 51 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 65. 26 governs, or at the very least influences, the behavior of the individual. Further, it is obvious, both from the manner in which Cicero assumes knowledge in his audience and from Wiseman’s argument that Romans heard or experienced these stories that there was a manner of transmission for the tales. Finally, numerous aspects of the foundational mythology as previously discussed conform to the categorizations laid out in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification system. For example, the portion where Romulus and Remus are raised by a wolf would be considered an

“animal tale” with the sub-categorization of “animals and humans,” whereas Rhea Silvia claiming the god Mars as the father of her children could be considered as either a “tale of magic” where a few of the sub-categories would work or, alternatively, as a “religious tale” since it is obviously dealing with a god.52 In this way, it is evident that the foundational mythology of

Rome can be seen as historical artifact, as a describable and transmissible entity, as culture, and even as behavior. Thus, even having only examined a portion of the overall definition and having looked at only a few small examples, it already becomes clear that all four of the sub-categories and approaches can be applied to Roman foundational mythology.

Shifting the focus toward the second portion of the definition which demands that the folklore must be of a sort, “that we judge to be traditional.”53 Again, as was done with the first portion of the definition, the “we” here will be taken to refer not to us as folklorists or historians, but to the Roman people at the time these foundational myths were recorded. That is to say, it must be of a sort that would have seemed traditional to the people or Rome during the lives of the authors of the myths, not that would seem traditional to us as a modern audience. This portion of the definition is, on its own, rather vague and, to this end, it will be interpreted as being intended to lead into both portions three and four via something akin to the distributive

52 Arne, Thompson, and Uther, “Aarne-Thompson-Uther Classification of Folktales.” 53 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 1. 27 property. Since it will then be discussed in conjunction with both of those portions, there is no need to discuss it further as a stand-alone requirement.

The third portion of the definition (with the inclusion of the prefix taken from the second portion), “that we judge to be traditional because they are based on known precedents or models,”54 falls into many of the same hardships as did the first and, as such, benefits from many of the same resolutions. The aforementioned excerpt from Cicero’s speech and the implications it has for the collective conscious of the Roman populace (who, in the purpose of this discussion, comprise the “folk” population) implies that the foundational mythology here being discussed was surely based on known precedents. This is seen again in the passages from Livy discussed earlier, where he has combined multiple variations of the same story into a single unified narrative. Though the sources upon which he drew are no longer in existence, the simple nature of his reference to them leads to the conclusion that they once existed, either as a textual volume or as an oral tradition. Thus, we see that Livy’s accounts of the foundational myths are again based on a pre-existing precedent. After all, “The terms in which each author understood his own time are the focal point for his understanding of reality, of the nature of human behavior, of social and political activity. In an aetiological [sic] tradition, such an apprehension of the contemporary world is explained by looking to origins, and likewise, in analysing [sic] origins in terms of their outcome.”55 Of course, in the case of Livy it is harder to say with any degree of certainty if the precedent upon which his narrative was based would have been well-known, or even known at all, by the common people. This, then, leads us back to the previous discussion of the role of the Roman theatre in disseminating the foundational mythology to the populace:

54 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 1. 55 Mathew Fox, Roman Historical Myths: The Regal Period in Augustan Literature, (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 230-231. 28

It is important to try to imagine the effect of stage performances on a largely non-literate audience. What you see performed is what happened; you have no books to refute or confirm it; your only other source of information is what other people (parents, nurse, teacher, etc.) have told you in a far less vividly authoritative way. Even those who do have access to written sources can still accept drama as fact – like Plutarch, who believed Euripides on Phaedra and Hippolytus... What has to be remembered above all is the immediacy of the impact. Once a story has been presented to an audience and accepted, it exists in their minds from that moment. If you don’t like the story, that’s too bad; you can’t just say ‘it isn’t true.’56

In this light, the inclusion by Livy in his narrative of multiple mutually exclusive events begins to make sense. It is reasonable to conclude that one or both versions of the event had been imprinted on the collective mind of the populace, thus granting it an implicit acceptance which in turn forced its inclusion in the narrative. After all, “There are no theoretical grounds for assuming that what is claimed to be true could not really have been thought true, or was the result of a credulity which distinguishes ancient civilizations from our own.”57 From this perspective, it follows that the precedent upon which both Livy’s accounts and Cicero’s speeches were based was known not only to them as members of the upper-class, but to the Roman people in a broader, more folk-oriented context. Thus, these foundational myths pass the third element of this definition of folklore.

At last, we come to the final portion of the definition, which again bears the prefix taken from the second portion and thus reads, “That we judge to be traditional because they serve as evidence of continuities and consistencies through time and space in human knowledge, thought, belief, and feeling.”58 To apply this portion of the definition to the foundational myths of Rome, it is necessary to consider them in the context Rome in the late Republic and early Empire, which is the period when they were recorded in the forms which survive to modernity. As Fox notes,

56 Wiseman, Remus, 138. 57 Fox, Roman Historical Myths, 39. 58 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics, 1. 29

“Their [late-Republic writer’s] accounts of the regal period display a remarkable variety, but they also have a common focus. They all explore the comparability of the regal period to contemporary Rome, and they all display signs of a struggle which this comparison entailed.”59

The phrase “regal period” here refers to the period of time spanning from when Romulus founded the city of Rome in 753 B.C.E., thus becoming its first king, until the death of

Tarquinius Superbus in 509 B.C.E. which ushered in the Republic era of Roman history. While it is perhaps not conclusive, the inherent comparison our authors are drawing between the folkloric traditions they were familiar with and the Rome of their time does, at the very least, point to a general sense of continuity and consistency. As has been established, the authors being discussed were not inventing the narratives they record and thus they were carrying on a pre-existing understanding of those events which, as was established in the earlier discussion of how these narratives fulfilled the first portion of this definition of folklore, was known to the common people of Rome. As Fox points out:

Cicero suggests that the same people who demand the truth in a poem about a recent historical figure are likely to be too credulous when it comes to the stories of the regal period. In other words, they do not understand the particular nature of poetic stories. When it comes to poetic elaborations of events, there is no distinction to be made between distant and recent past.60

Of course, we are less interested in looking at these narratives and the events they describe through a poetic lens than a folkloric one. Despite this, the same line of thought can be applied to the understanding of the populace of Rome for the folkloric narrative: for them, there would have been no distinction between distant and past elaborations of events. This again speaks to a sense of continuity and consistency in the general folkloric narrative. And, as has been alluded to, the folk populace of Rome had a familiarity with the general narratives of these foundational myths:

59 Fox, Roman Historical Myths, 1. Parenthesis mine. 60 Fox, Roman Historical Myths, 6-7. 30 thus, the consistency was in knowledge, thought, belief, and feeling. While there were undoubtedly variations in the manner of portrayal and the precise feelings which these narratives were intended to spark, such variation is expected over time and accepted in the folkloric tradition. Similar lines of defense can be drawn for knowledge, thought, and belief; thus, these foundational myths meet the fourth criterion of this definition of folklore.

Myth and folklore have long been viewed as intrinsically separate and thus have been relegated into distinct disciplines: myth to the classicists and folklore to the folklorists. While many myths, particularly those which deal with themes of polytheistic pantheons and truly heroic deeds, lack any real folkloric elements and consequently ought to remain the sole domain of classicists, foundational mythology is of a different breed entirely. Foundational myths and the narratives associated with them deal with themes directly related and relevant to the common populace who most readily might be termed “folk.” As has been shown, these narratives of foundational mythology conform to the definition of folklore proposed by Georges and Jones and, as such, should be considered folkloric.

CHAPTER II: LIVY AND FOLKLORE: WHY HISTORICAL ACCURACY WAS LESS

IMPORTANT THAN CULTURAL BELIEF

The mythology and traditions of the Roman world have long captivated scholars and casual readers alike with their tales of days gone by and heroic deeds. A common theme that is often present in these folkloric tales is some form of fantastical element: an act of super-human strength, the presence of an impossible creature, a magical item, the intervention of a deity, and so forth. While these stories are often interesting and engaging, they are clearly not historical fact and the events they speak of must either never have occurred or have unfolded in a far more mundane manner than the folkloric tale has portrayed. However, whilst the facts and events themselves may not be true in a historical sense, the common understanding of them is vital to a sense of cultural identity. Even more than this, having a shared understanding, if not truly a shared belief, in the origin of their city and their home was vital to the Roman sense of self and the common belief in their inherent superiority. Livy understood this and so chose to convey the folkloric aspects of Rome’s founding as a portion of his historical narrative in order to promote a more unified sense of what it meant to be Roman.

This phenomenon is perhaps nowhere better shown than in the Histories of Livy, with specific emphasis placed on the first book of his Ab Urbe Condita. Livy wrote the first few books of his History during the 20’s B.C.E., likely between the years 27 B.C.E and 25 B.C.E.61

Since Livy did not record the dates during which this work was undertaken, it is impossible to place it in a specific year. The timeframe of 27-25 B.C.E. is based on the record of Livy’s birth in Padua in either 64 B.C.E or 59 B.C.E., his move to Rome around 30 B.C.E., and his eventual death in either 12 C.E. or 17 C.E., as well as some internal evidence in the work itself indicating

61 R. M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 2. 32 the timeframe during which it was likely to have been.62 Little is known about the personage of

Livy himself as he tended to stay out of public life in Rome and never so much as ran for public office.63 Similarly, it is a matter of some debate as to what class of citizenry into which Livy was born. Ogilvie argues that it is reasonable to conclude that Livy was not of a senatorial lineage and further that his education, at least during the formative years of his life, likely occurred not in the city of Rome itself but rather in Padua. Ogilvie also points out that Livy was not fluent in

Greek, which would indicate he lacked the high class education which would have been expected for someone of senatorial class.64 Foster, on the other hand, notes that Livy’s family, “were presumably well-to-do, for their son received training in Greek and Latin literature and in rhetoric which constituted the standard curriculum of the time.”65 This discrepancy in our knowledge of the author serves to illustrate how difficult it is to piece together the truth of events which occurred centuries ago, which was the very same problem Livy was experiencing in the early books of his Ab Urbe Condita. That said, the precise date when Livy penned his seminal work is truly of no great relevance: what is important is to note that Livy is writing about events that were ancient even during his life. The traditional date given for the founding of the city of

Rome is April 21, 753 B. C. E., though some archeological evidence suggests it may be even earlier.66 Regardless, the important thing to note is that, even by a conservative estimate, Livy was attempting to write about events some seven centuries past.

The obvious question which arises from this vast difference in time is how Livy intended to write about the events surrounding the foundation of the city. While it is true that Livy had

62 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 2. 63 B. O. Foster, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976), XI. 64 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 1. 65 Foster, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, IX. 66Allen M. Ward, Fritz M. Heichelheim, and Cedric A. Yeo, A History of the Roman People, (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003), 1. 33 more sources dealing with this period than have survived to the modern day, this hardly means that he felt comfortable describing such ancient events as historical fact. A portion of this hesitance comes from Livy’s sources themselves which often seem to be in disagreement with each other. Gary Forsythe notes that he, “was struck by the frequency with which Livy alludes to variant versions or qualifies statements by using impersonal or general attributions.”67 Forsythe later clarifies that within the first ten books of Livy there are 380 times when he conveys to his readers that he either doubts his source or has multiple sources conveying different versions of the same event.68 How then does Livy propose to write a history of these events and how does he intend to get to the truth of the historical record when his sources are unclear on a particular issue? The simple answer is that he does not really intend to make such judgements unless they prove absolutely necessary. As Forsythe notes, “Livy clearly saw one of his primary duties as a historian of early Rome was to record faithfully the various traditions, whether true or false, and whether or not he believed them.”69

As is the case with the vast majority of sources from the ancient world which have survived to the modern day, Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita poses a number of problems and, in many cases, raise more questions than they answer. Due to the limited nature of the sources, those we do have tend to be delved into quite deeply, searching for every subtle hint of information they might contain. Livy’s work is no different in this regard and, as a result, his Ab Urbe Condita has found itself the subject of numerous academic inquiries over the years, most of which falls into two camps: historical and literary. While the literary work is interesting in its own right, it is of little consequence to the overall questions which I propose to answer in this paper. Beyond the

67 Gary Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1999), 9. 68 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 9. 69 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 48. 34 simple acknowledgement of their existence, the literary work has no relevance to this paper and as such will be almost entirely ignored. As such, I am forced to consult almost exclusively with the historical inquiries of Livy’s work, though I am asking rather different questions than they.

Despite this, the analysis and contextualization they provide is of considerable worth and provides context for much of the discussion which will form the bulk of this paper.

In the preface to book one, Livy candidly states that,

Such traditions as belong to the time before the city was founded, or rather was presently to be founded, and are rather adorned with poetic legends than based upon trustworthy historical proofs, I purpose neither to affirm nor to refute. It is the privilege of antiquity to mingle divine things with human, and so to add dignity to the beginnings of cities.70

Here Livy is quite clearly saying that, with particular reference to the first portions of his history from a chronological sense, he realizes that a good deal of what he will be conveying seems to fall more into the realms of myth and folklore than historical fact. Ogilvie’s commentary supports this when he says in reference to this passage from Livy that he, “does not imply that his sources for the earliest Roman history were directly the poets but rather that the material which was transmitted about it was more suited for poetical than historical treatment.”71Again in speaking of the tales surrounding the foundation of the city, Livy says, “But to such legends as these, however they shall be regarded and judged, I shall, for my own part, attach no great importance.”72 He goes on to clarify this by saying, “Here are the questions to which I would have every reader give his close attention – what life and morals were like; through what men

70 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, trans. B. O. Foster (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976), 5. datur haec venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augtstiora faciat; et si cui populo licere oportet consecrare origines suas et ad deos referre auctores: ea belli gloria est populo Romano, ut, cum suum conditorisque sui parentem Martem potissimum ferat, tam et hoc gentes humanae patiantur aequo animo, quam imperium patiuntur. 71 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 26-27. 72 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 5. ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animum, quae vita, qui mores fuerint 35 and by what policies, in peace and in war, empire was established and enlarged.”73 What Livy means by this is that he is less concerned with comparing his sources against each other and determining beyond any reasonable doubt what actually happened than he is in conveying the narrative history of the Roman people and doing, “as much as lies in me to commemorate the deeds of the foremost people of the world.”74 This reading is supported by Forsythe when he says that, “Livy makes it abundantly clear that he is not interested in critically evaluating the historicity of every detail or claim associated with early times. Rather, he concerns himself with what he considers to be the larger moral themes.”75

It is clear throughout Livy’s work that he views himself as a patriotic Roman and considers it his civic duty in this role, as it would be for any Roman historian, to make clear the greatness of Rome to those who read his work. This greatness is contingent, particularly to the mind of a historian, on the actions of those members of the society who have come before to a much larger degree than on the deeds of those who are currently living. This is emphasized when

Livy says that, “With the gradual relaxation of discipline, morals first gave way, as it were, then sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge which has brought us to the present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure.”76 By this, Livy means that the current Roman society has strayed from the traditional Roman virtues and embraced vices which run contrary to those virtues. Since Roman society and culture, and indeed the very strength and sustainability of Rome, relies on the continuation of these virtues, the vices cannot be endured. However, cutting off the corrupted aspects and returning to the more traditional

73 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 5-6 per quos viros quibusque artibus domi militiaeque et partum et auctum imperium sit; labente deinde paulatim disciplina velut desidentis primo mores sequatur animo, deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sint, tum ire coeperint praecipites, donec ad haec tempora, quibus nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus, perventum est. 74 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 3. 75 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 43. 76 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 7. 36 moral imperatives would require a great deal of change, which would have negative immediate repercussions for those who held power. After all, the abandonment of vice is rarely if ever easily accomplished, regardless of if it is necessary. As is noted in Ogilvie’s commentary, “A free society requires for its preservation the exercise by individual citizens of the social virtues.

To give way to avaritia (greed, avarice) and to scorn modestia (restraint, modesty) must entail the disruption of society.”77 So Livy is including these more mythological elements not because he believes them to be true in a historic sense, but rather because he believes they show an intrinsic aspect of what it means to be Roman. He is illustrating that these virtues were essential to the successful development of Rome and that, if Rome wishes to remain great, these virtues must again be seen in the individual Roman.

In his criticism of the lack of historicity evident in the Ab Urbe Condita, Ogilvie actually lends support to this reading when he says that Livy’s, “interest in human conduct is not, like

Sallust’s, didactic or philosophical, but psychological. The behavior and reactions of men fascinate him as such, while the work of the gods he is ready to rationalize, abbreviate, or by- pass.”78 Livy is concerned primarily with what it meant to be Roman in a philosophical and moralistic sense, which places the focus of his work more on his human subjects than on supernatural occurrences. Livy is conveying these myths in an almost propagandic manner. He himself does not believe the majority, but he includes them since they are, even if not historical fact, the history and tradition of his people. As such, they are included in his work because they would have been familiar to his contemporaries and expected as an intrinsic portion of Rome’s history. This interpretation runs contrary to the commentary of Ogilvie who accuses Livy of only including the stories of Rome’s foundations, which he could not prove as historical fact, because

77 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 30. Parenthetical translations mine. 78 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy Books 1-5, 27. 37 he wished to use them as a form of escapism from the problems of the Rome of his day.79 This is a rather limited view of Livy’s work and is, I would contend, more inspired by a lack of understanding as to Livy’s intent than by a reading of the text itself. In his commentary, Ogilvie focuses a great deal on the lack of historicity which is present in the first pentad of Livy’s work and, as such, his view of Livy tends to bear a negative slant, burdened as it is by the need for criticism. While it may be true that Livy finds enjoyment is reading and writing on the mytho- history surrounding the foundation of Rome, he includes them for a distinct purpose. They show what Rome once held dear, why she became great, and consequently what virtues ought to be resurrected in the citizenry of Rome in Livy’s time to ensure that greatness continues.

Before a more in-depth conversation on how the mytho-history and folklore of Rome that

Livy speaks of can best be understood, it would seem prudent to first identify the key aspects of these tales which he relates. To this end, it is necessary to discuss the particular accounts of

Rome’s foundation which Livy disseminates. There are five distinct elements which are of particular interest to this discussion: Aeneas as a common ancestor of the Roman people; the tale of Romulus, Remus, and Rhea Silvia; the populating of the city via the inclusion of the Sabine women; the kings of Rome during the regal period and their relation to Roman virtues; and finally, the story of Horatius Cocles and the Bridge.

Beginning the actual narrative of his Ab Urbe Condita, Livy says, “It is generally agreed that when Troy was taken vengeance was wreaked upon the other Trojans, but that two, Aeneas and Antenor, were spared all the penalties of war by the Achivi,” and that the reason they were so spared was, “because they had always advocated peace and the giving back of Helen.”80 In

79 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy Books 1-5, 24. 80 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 9. iam primum omnium satis constat Troia capta in ceteros saevitum esse Troianos; duobus, Aeneae Antenorique, et vetusti iure hospitii et quia pacis reddendaeque Helenae semper auctores fuerunt, 38 relating the tale of the foundation of Rome, Livy sees fit to immediately bind the Roman sense of self to the most important conflict of the ancient world, the Trojan War. More than this, he connects them to the losing side via their descent from Aeneas, but is quick to point out that

Aeneas was different from the other Trojans and had advocated for a peaceful resolution. In doing so, Livy ties the Romans to a powerful and respected figure while distancing them from the blemish of defeat. From here, Livy briefly describes the fate of Antenor who, despite being noteworthy in some traditions, is of no real consequence to Roman history. It could even be argued that Antenor is only mentioned by Livy to segue into his claim that Aeneas, despite losing his home, was, “guided by fate to undertakings of greater consequence”81 than those of

Antenor. These greater undertakings were, of course, to come to Latium and establish his home there so that his descendants might one day found the city of Rome. Here Livy sees fit to convey two differing accounts of events: in one Aeneas carves out a territory for himself through force of arms and in the other he parlays with the king Latinus who was, “filled with wonder at the renown of the race and the hero, and at his spirit, prepared alike for war or peace.”82 In both versions peace is achieved via the wedding of Aeneas to the daughter of King Latinus. So this inclusion of Aeneas as the ancestor of the Roman people provides them with a heroic heritage, a deific lineage through Aeneas’ descent from Venus, the wisdom to make peace when it is called for, a warlike spirit, and a distinct connection to the land on which their city would eventually be founded through Aeneas’ marriage to Latinus’ daughter. This last portion was of particular importance because, “The heterogeneous and ethnically mixed nature of Rome was a important part of Rome’s foundation myth, legitimizing the later mutability and transferability of Roman status and the multi-ethnic nature of the city of Rome by linking it to the actions of its

81 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 9. 82 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 11. 39 founder.”83 While this was likely of secondary importance to Livy, it only serves to enhance the reading of this portion of the narrative was intended more to promote a sense of shared Roman identity than to convey historical accuracy.

After a number of generations had passed, a man named Proca came to the kingship.

Proca had two sons, Numitor and Amulius. Numitor was the elder, though his rule was usurped by his younger brother Amulius. To secure his reign, Amulius imprisoned Numitor, killed

Numitor’s male children and had Numitor’s daughter, Rhea Silvia, appointed as a Vestal to enforce upon her a state of perpetual virginity. But, as Livy puts it, “the Fates were resolved, as I suppose, upon the founding of this great city, and the beginnings of the mightiest of empires, next after that of Heaven.”84 Rhea Silvia gave birth to twin sons, claiming the god Mars as the father. The twins were then cast to the river to die but,

The story persists that when the floating basket in which the children had been exposed was left high and dry by the receding water, a she-wolf, coming down out of the surrounding hills to slake her thirst, turned her steps towards the cry of the infants, and with her teats gave them suck so gently, that the keeper of the royal flock found her licking them with her tongue.85

Time passed and when the twins had grown they overthrew Amulius and restored the kingship to their grandfather Numitor. From here they left to found their own city and determined to let the gods decree via augury which of them would give their name to it.86 Remus is said to have received a sign first while Romulus is said to have seen twice the number of birds and thus,

“each was saluted king by his own followers, the one party laying claim to the honor from

83 Kathryn Lomas, Andrew Gardner, and Edward Herring, “Creating Ethnicities and Identities in the Roman World,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement, No. 120 (2013): 1-10. 84 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 17. sed debebatur, ut opinor, fatis tantae origo urbis maximique secundum deorum opes imperii principium. 85 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 19. uastae tum in his locis solitudines erant. tenet fama cum fluitantem alueum, quo expositi erant pueri, tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset, lupam sitientem ex montibus qui circa sunt ad puerilem uagitum cursum flexisse; eam submissas infantibus adeo mitem praebuisse mammas ut lingua lambentem pueros magister regii pecoris inuenerit. 86 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 25. 40 priority, the other from the number of birds.”87 In the disagreement, Remus was slain and

Romulus became sole king of the newly founded city, to which he gave his name.

This portion of the mytho-history serves to give the Romans another divine ancestor, this time in Mars who was theoretically the father of Romulus and Remus. Mars, being the god of war, was an important deity for the Romans and it would only be natural for them to claim him as an ancestor. It is, of course, impossible to say with any degree of certainty if Mars was claimed as an ancestor because he was an important god to the Romans or if he became important because he was viewed as an ancestor. However, this distinction is irrelevant to the present discussion: what is important is that the tradition of claiming Mars as a common ancestor existed and was understood and perpetuated by the Roman people. The twins also are descended from the line of Aeneas and thus all Romans have the right to claim him and all his deeds as part of their lineage. Additionally, as is noted by Ogilvie, the accounts listing Aeneas and those listing Romulus as the ancestor of the Romans were originally mutually exclusive.88 Romulus is considered the more traditional and more common with the Romans attempting to include

Aeneas as a common ancestor coming as a later addition by way of the Greeks.89 Over the centuries between the foundation of Rome and the time when Livy was writing, these discrepant tales had been steadily synthesized by general historical consensus into a seemingly unified narrative which more closely resembles the account we find in Livy’s work.

Beyond simply tracing ancestry, this portion of the narrative introduces a few key elements and lessons Livy would have his reader learn. Amulius betrayed his father’s wishes for

87 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 25. priori Remo augurium venisse fertur, sex vultures, iamque nuntiato augurio cum duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset, utrumque regem sua multitudo consalutaverat: tempore illi praecepto, at hi numero avium regnum trahebant. 88 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 32. 89 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 32. 41 the sole purpose of accumulating personal power and even went so far as to kill members of his own family in pursuit of this goal. In the end he is slain by Romulus and Livy says nothing in condemnation of Romulus for this act. The implication here is that Amulius acted poorly in his drive for sole power and the actions he took against his family, and that Romulus was honor- bound to not only avenge the wrong done to his family but to remove a corrupt tyrant from power. However, the story of Romulus does not end there and Livy tells us how he went on to kill his own brother Remus. While it is true that in some traditional versions of this tale, Remus’ death was justified by his mocking of the walls of the budding city, in other instances the death lacks any sort of moralistic justification. In the latter tradition, this fratricide becomes a cautionary portion of the tale meant to instill in all Romans the understanding that simply because a person has acted justly in the past does not necessarily mean their actions will always be so honorable. An argument could here be made that Romulus acted as much the tyrant, if not more so, as Amulius had previously. However, in preparation of responding to such an attempt,

Livy includes in his discussion of the ascension of Romulus to deification an alternative version of events. In this secondary tradition, Livy says, “There were some, I believe, even then who secretly asserted that the king had been rent in pieces by the hands of the senators, for this rumour, too, got abroad, but in very obscure terms.”90The Roman people historically had a profound understanding and belief that the rule of a king was inherently dangerous to their way of life and the preservation of Roman virtue. By including this, Livy portrays the possibility to his readers that, if he truly had sought undue power, not even the founder of Rome himself

90 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 59 fuisse credo tum quoque aliquos qui discerptum regem patrum manibus taciti arguerent; manauit enim haec quoque sed perobscura fama; illam alteram admiratio uiri et pauor praesens nobilitauit. 42 would be above the just retribution of the senate. This theme likely resonated with Livy’s contemporary readers, given the relatively recent assassination of Julius Caesar.

The freshly-established city of Rome soon encountered another problem: they were populated nearly exclusively with male occupants and thus had no manner by which to perpetuate their lineage. Romulus attempted to remedy this via negotiation with the surrounding cities but was rebuffed.91 He made preparations to host a festival to showcase the budding glory of the city and, during this festival, his men absconded with many Sabine women with the intent to take them as their wives. This was received quite poorly both by the women themselves and by their families until, “Romulus himself went among them and explained that the pride of their parents had caused this deed, when they had refused their neighbors the right to intermarry; nevertheless the daughters should be wedded and become co-partners in all the possessions of the Romans, in their citizenship and, dearest privilege of all to the human race, in their children.”92 This led to conflict for a time, culminating in armed warfare between the Romans and the Sabines. The strife was eventually brought to an end by the women themselves who pleaded for peace between their fathers and their husbands.93 The account of the Sabine women historically contained numerous threads that, whether by subject or chronology, had no distinct need to be considered as a single story. Despite this, over the centuries it had become common practice for the disparate accounts to be merged into a single unified whole.94 However, Livy

“goes further and turns them into a satisfying romance. His method is to use the Sabine women like a Greek chorus as a constant background to each episode and to allow their emotions to gradually change with circumstances… ranging from defiance and indignation, through

91 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 35. 92 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 39. 93 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 49. 94 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 64-65. 43 resignation, to reconciliation.”95 Of course, in keeping with the theme of Livy using the foundational mythology to extoll the value of Roman virtues to his readers, he uses the story of the Sabine women to do more than merely flex his literary muscles. In this case, the moral Livy is focusing on is that being Roman sometimes requires undertaking endeavors which seem contrary to a traditional sense of morality for the good of Rome. This harkens back to the idea that any action is permissible if it serves Rome and her people, as well as furthering a belief in

Roman superiority. The morality which ought to be enforced throughout the rest of the world does not necessarily apply to a Roman citizen in this conceptualization. While it is true that the individual Roman, even if he acts for the good of his fellow citizen and the ideals of his nation, may suffer some hardship of retribution for his actions, it remains apparent that the action itself was laudable. In the end, Rome is more important than any individual.

After this strictly foundational epoch came what is commonly called either the regal period or the Roman monarchy, during which a sequence of seven kings ruled Rome. Of particular note to the current inquiry is that these kings seem to serve a role more as mythological figures than as literal historical personages. Beginning with the founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 B.C.E. and spanning until the death of Tarquinius Superbus in 509 B.C.E.,96

Rome, at least according to tradition, was ruled only by these seven men. While some discussion on Romulus has already occurred, it is not necessary to launch into a deep inspection of each of these kings. Livy does include a number of tales relating to how the succession took place and what characteristics tended to epitomize each king’s rule, but to include such an in-depth discussion here would be unnecessary. Of greater importance, both to the argument of this paper and, I would contend, to Livy himself, was the attribute which each king portrayed and their

95 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 65. 96 Ward, Heichelheim, and Yeo, A History of the Roman People: Fourth Edition, 29-37. 44 distinct contribution to both the history and tradition of the Roman people. The examples of how they came to personify their associated ideal is, for the present purpose, significantly less crucial than an identification and understanding of what these virtues were. Ogilvie sums this up rather nicely:

Each (of the kings) is singled out for some one particular quality: Romulus for military expertise, Numa for the creation of the religious observances of peacetime, Tullus for ferocity, Ancus for the ceremonies of war, and the comparison between them is expressly drawn. As Numa founded the divine law, so Servius Tullus founds the social order. Superbia (arrogance, pride) characterizes the last Tarquin.97

Ogilvie here is not speaking distinctly of the manner in which the kings are portrayed by Livy, but rather of their traditional use in the Roman historical tradition which, in this case, predates

Livy’s work. So it is evident that Livy includes the stories related to these monarchs because it is an expected element of his narrative, but also because it helps to solidify the point he has been making thus far in his Ab Urbe Condita.

Despite the fact that Livy, as he has said repeatedly, is more concerned with the broader moral themes than on strict adherence to the facts, he does consider himself a historian and thus owes it to both himself and those who read his Ab Urbe Condita to make at least an honest attempt at separating myth from history. While this has often been almost entirely absent until this point in the narrative, upon reaching the Roman monarchy Livy begins to take a more critical approach. This is a bit puzzling, as he is still dealing with a period several centuries removed from his own time and about which he lacks reliable sources. At the same time Livy begins to make this effort, he once again reminds his readers of the lack of certainty with which he portrays such ancient accounts. This causes Forsythe to remark that, “Livy discourages the reader from seeking actively to evaluate his narrative objectively, in terms of historical

97 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 31. Parenthetical mine. 45 reliability,”98 and that Livy, “is often content merely to record alternatives and to register their mutual agreement.”99 In so doing, Livy manages to emphasize that he is placing no more trust in the sources for the monarchy than he did those regarding Aeneas and Romulus while still making it clear that he is now making an attempt to transition from an account that is more folkloric to one that resembles something more akin to history. Of course, Livy’s account of the monarchy still contains distinct elements of folklore and foundational mythology, such as the singling of the kings for their particular qualities which Ogilvie mentioned.

Finally we come to the account of one of early Rome’s most heroic figures, Horatius

Cocles. Livy describes Cocles as, “the bulwark of defense on which that day depended the fortune of the City of Rome.”100 From Livy’s writings, it is clear that in his view, “the individual was not the proper theme for Roman history, the genre did provide reflected glory for the main figures, and, in a similar way to the spectacle of a Roman funeral, it was expected to inspire the reader to emulation of a virtue.”101 And further, that, “Livy viewed Roman history as the joint achievement of leaders and the led; the mores of the people as a whole is a constant in his history; how the national character developed, matured, and decayed. Naturally, the character of individuals is given great prominence, but even his greatest heroes have flaws; more significant is his belief that Rome was the product of a long line of leaders, not of any single individual.”102

This is particularly evident in Livy’s telling of the story of Cocles.

98 Gary B. Miles, Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome, (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 31. 99 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 57. 100 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 249. pons sublicius iter paene hostibus dedit, ni unus uir fuisset, Horatius Cocles; id munimentum illo die fortuna urbis Romanae habuit. 101 M. Toher, “Augustus and the Evolution of Roman Historiography,” in Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 147. 102 T. J. Luce. “Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum,” in Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate, ed. Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 128-129. 46

Livy tells the tale of how Cocles happened to be assigned the guard duty of a bridge over the Tiber along with some of his fellow Romans. His men were terrified of the approaching horde and thought to flee but Cocles rallied them and made a stand. He gave orders to the men to begin the deconstruction of the bridge while he bought them time.103 Livy described the scene as such: “Then striding to the head of the bridge, conspicuous amongst the fugitives who were clearly seen to be shirking the fight, he covered himself with his sword and buckler and made ready to do battle at close quarters, confounding the Etruscans with amazement at his audacity.”104 For a time, two of Cocles’ companions held the bridge with him but as there became ever less of the bridge to be held he forced even these to abandon him and save themselves. Livy continues his narrative, “Then, darting glances of defiance around at the

Etruscan nobles, he now challenged them in turn to fight, now rallied at them collectively as slaves of haughty kings, who, heedless of their own liberty, were come to overthrow the liberty of others.”105 So taunting them, Cocles proceeded to hold the bridge alone against the Etruscan army until such time as his fellows had completed their destruction of the bridge, thus denying the Etruscan army conveyance over the Tiber. Livy concludes his tale,

Then Cocles cried, ‘O father Tiberinus, I solemnly invoke thee; receive these arms and this soldier with propitious stream!’ So praying, all armed as he was, he leaped down into the river, and under a shower of missiles swam across unhurt to his fellows, having given a proof of valor which was destined to obtain more fame than credence with posterity.106

103 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 249. 104 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 249-251. uadit inde in primum aditum pontis, insignisque inter conspecta cedentium pugna terga obuersis comminus ad ineundum proelium armis, ipso miraculo audaciae obstupefecit hostes. 105 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 251 circumferens inde truces minaciter oculos ad proceres Etruscorum nunc singulos prouocare, nunc increpare omnes: seruitia regum superborum, suae libertatis immemores alienam oppugnatum uenire. 106 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 251-253. tum Cocles 'Tiberine pater' inquit, 'te sancte precor, haec arma et hunc militem propitio flumine accipias.' ita sic armatus in Tiberim desiluit multisque superincidentibus telis incolumis ad suos tranauit, rem ausus plus famae habituram ad posteros quam fidei. 47

The tale contains quite a few elements which Livy is only too eager to highlight. First, it praises the bravery of a Roman soldier, the like of whom comprised the backbone upon which the

Republic was built and expanded. Second, it emphasizes that in times of great need and turmoil it is the Roman who stands tall and unbent who will be remembered and praised. Lastly, it makes clear that the duty a Roman bears to Rome is of greater worth than the life of a single man and that a virtuous Roman acknowledges this fact as did Cocles. Of course, the idea of a soldier in full arms and armor swimming across a river without drowning places this tale into a more mythological realm than it might otherwise appear, as similarly improbable aquatic feats are seen in mythological narratives of other cultures. Further, it is reminiscent of a trial by water, wherein an innocent person was supposedly destined to survive the ordeal of immersion. Livy does note the unlikelihood of such a feat through his saying that Cocles’ act was, “destined to obtain more fame than credence with posterity.”107 Forsythe sums the importance of this phrase up nicely:

“Thus, by this single terse expression Livy has discharged his duty as a recorder of received tradition but has also clearly intimated his own skeptical disbelief.”108 Forsythe then notes how,

“Livy’s reverent skepticism stands in sharp contrast to what we find in Dionysius and Plutarch, both of whom record Cocles’ swim to safety with no hint of disbelief.”109 Thus, we can infer the credibility of Cocles’ stand was less important to the narrative themes Livy was conveying than was the demonstration of Roman virtues which are represented by the tale itself. As is noted by

Forsythe, “Livy’s approach here is characteristic of his verbal economy and of his caution toward the historical traditions of early Rome, and it stands in sharp contrast to those of

107 Livy, Livy in Fourteen Volumes Books 1-7, 2253. 108 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 48. 109 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 48. 48

Dionysius of Halicarnassus.”110 Thus, Livy includes the tale and adds emotion and morality to it while still making his disbelief apparent.

Having now established the intent of Livy in the narrative history he has told, it is only prudent to engage in a brief examination of how Livy treats his sources. As has already been mentioned, Livy had numerous sources for the events about which he was writing, though he often doubted the accuracy of these works and, what is more, the accounts were often discrepant in their portrayal of the same event. Forsythe argues that, “Livy’s caution toward early Roman historical traditions is not buttressed by truly critical analysis.”111 By this, he does not mean that

Livy has been unfair in the use of his sources, but merely that his analysis of which source to more readily believe when the sources tell differing tales is not very critically thought out.

Forsythe goes on the say that, “It seems likely that Livy found the principle of majority view to be a simple and easy means to settle discrepant traditions of the murky regal period, which is superseded by the more sophisticated methods of resolution when dealing with the early republic.”112 However, Forsythe is not using this as a criticism of Livy, although it is hardly said in praise either. Instead, he merely notes it as a point of interest. Along a similar vein, Forsythe concedes that, “Citing alternative views and siding with the more commonly held opinion are consistent with Livy’s verbal economy, his reluctance to linger over seemingly insignificant details, and his obligation as a historian to record faithfully the various accounts of events preserved in his sources.”113 So Forsythe is admitting that Livy is being somewhat practical by siding with the views generally held by the majority of his sources, but is only too eager to point

110 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 57. 111 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 54. 112 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 59. 113 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 59. 49 out that simply because a thing is recorded by the majority does not make it historical fact. He further criticizes Livy’s use of his sources by pointing out that,

Livy’s use of historical probability is in general quite inadequate for the difficult task of critically analyzing the historical traditions of early Rome. On the few occasions in which it is correctly employed, it never goes beyond the application of common sense. Far more frequently, however, Livy erects his conclusions upon dubious premises.114

To conclude his criticism of the manner in which Livy employs historical probability via majority proof, Forsythe says that Livy’s work, “…reveals his respect for the established tradition, his cautious conservatism and reluctance to embrace drastic innovations, and his intellectual inability to find solutions to complex historiographical problems.”115 In spite of all his criticism of Livy’s historical ineptitude, Forsythe does admit that, “By the prevailing, indeed by virtually the only explicit, standard of his age and tradition, Livy could not hope to reconstruct a reliable account of this remote period of Roman history.”116 By this admission,

Forsythe is conceding that Livy’s history is only a poor example of the craft by modern standards but would have been perfectly acceptable in his day and age.

Ogilvie takes a less forgiving view, calling Livy, “a small man, detached from affairs, who writes less to preach political or moral lessons than to enshrine in literature persons and events that have given him a thrill of excitement as he studied them.”117 Ogilvie here is doing the text of Livy a disservice by failing to grasp the concept of the moral lessons Livy is trying to convey. Livy is not speaking of morality in the more universal sense of applicability to all members of the human race as the term would be used in a more philosophical context. Instead,

Livy is speaking of the morality of what it once meant to be Roman, the morality of Roman

114 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 53-54. 115 Forsythe, Livy and Early Rome: A Study in Historical Method and Judgement, 64. 116 Miles, Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome, 12. 117 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 24-25. 50 virtue upon which the Republic was built and rose to greatness and which, Livy would argue, they have slid away from by his day. Ogilvie argues that, for Livy, “the moral content is less important than the literary opportunity thereby provided.”118 But this reading only makes sense in the atmosphere in which Ogilvie is choosing to analyze Livy’s history: that is to say, for its value strictly as a work whose goal was historical validity and accuracy. However, as I have argued, accuracy was not Livy’s primary goal in the writing of the events surrounding the foundation of Rome. This criticism of Ogilvie’s may be valid in reference to Livy’s later work when, in his candor, it becomes clear that Livy begins to place more trust in the authenticity of his sources. However, it is out of place as a criticism of the first pentad of Livy’s history, which after all is the subject matter of Ogilvie’s commentary. Thus, he does Livy a disservice by not differentiating between the aspects of Livy’s history. Livy himself has said that he is not trying to prove or disprove the events surrounding the foundation of Rome: what then is left to him but to enshrine them in literature?

Despite Livy’s candor as to his intent to place no great emphasis on determining the historical validity of particular events, examining his work through the lens of historicity has been the primary method through which the Ab Urbe Condita has been studied. Many historians choose to focus on the lack of historical accuracy which is so often apparent, or at the least suspected, in the historical narrative which Livy is weaving rather than heeding the words of the author himself as to what his overall intent in the writing of this history was. While it is undoubtedly a worthwhile effort to determine what is and is not likely to be historical fact, this is a question which is more aptly applied to the latter books of Livy’s history wherein he is dealing with subjects about which more is known and can be proven or disproven, as the case may be.

118 Ogilvie, A Commentary on Livy: Books 1-5, 28. 51

For the first pentad of his work which deals with times and sources which have more in common with myth and folklore than history, it is more beneficial, and in fact more in line with the intent of the work itself, to view them less through the lens of history and more through a folkloric approach. Livy is writing a history of Rome and is using the established historical traditions of his time, but his goal was never to pick through multiple accounts and determine the most likely sequence of events. While it is clear that Livy distrusts the historical accuracy of most of his sources regarding the founding of Rome and the monarchy period, he adopts an almost folkloric approach in his conveyance of these portions of his history. When doubts arise concerning the accuracy of certain events, Livy focuses his efforts toward a moralistic interpretation, as he is aware that the event itself is likely already known to his readers. As such, it is not important to differentiate between fact and fiction in the Roman historical narrative, but rather to focus on the importance of that narrative to the Roman people. Livy views the stories and the accompanying traditions as vital to Roman history and the overall concept of what it means to be Roman and judges the understanding and continuation of these traditions to be of greater value to his histories than strictly adhering to only a version of history which he can prove as historical fact.

CHAPTER III: MAGIC, CULTURE, AND FOLKLORE IN ROMAN SOCIETY

To the modern reader, magic is certainly a familiar concept. In our scientific understanding, however, most everyone would agree that, in the tangible sense, magic does not exist. Instead, we recognize the familiar concepts traditionally associated with magic from the various works of fiction, both in print and multimedia, which are integrated into seemingly every aspect of modern culture. This integration allows the conceptualization of magic to be prevalent in a society which acknowledges that the world follows a set of natural rules which eliminate even the possibility of magic. In the ancient world, however, this more scientifically driven understanding did not exist. Given that ancient works of literature, theater, oration, laws, and court records all contain allusions to magic, some overt and others circumspect, this inevitably gives rise to the question of whether people at the time believed in the validity of magic as a force which could directly interact with the natural world. Or, perhaps more accurately, it begs the question of how widespread such belief was, as there can be little argument that the belief was held by some. The question then becomes if those who held such a belief belonged to a minority or a majority.

In examining this question, this chapter looks specifically at Rome, mainly during the

Republic period, though also extending both backward into the Monarchy and forward into the

Empire. In an ideal world, there would exist sufficient primary documentation from each of these three periods to examine them separately, so as to chronologically trace the development of

Roman cultural understanding and belief in magic. However, given that such sources are distinctly limited, it becomes necessary to look at a larger picture of Rome, drawing from sources as they are available, situating them in their respective time periods, and drawing logical conclusions from the fullest set of data which may be accumulated. This paper is not designed to 53 catalog events in Roman history and literature which were said to be magical or supernatural in origin, though some events must certainly be discussed. Rather, it will show that the Roman people as a society were familiar with concepts traditionally viewed as magical, arcane, or supernatural and that this understanding was not limited to either the higher or lower classes but extended throughout all of Roman culture. As such, when supernatural and magical elements arose in the folklore and literature of Roman society, the people hearing the elements would have had a contemporary understanding of precisely what these magical elements meant, as well as how they as members of a society were intended to interpret and understand them. In addition, a discussion of magic and the supernatural in terms of Roman tradition provides an avenue to discuss cultural aspects of Roman life which, given the definitions established in chapter one of this paper, can be accurately deemed folkloric. While not all of these folkloric aspects are directly related to themes of magic, religion, and the supernatural in terms of what they portray, they are related in the manner by which they were understood and implemented in the daily lives of the citizens of Rome.

Before a proper examination of Roman magical beliefs can be undertaken, it is first necessary to ensure the language which will be used is clearly defined. This is essential because a large amount of modern scholarship directed toward studies relating to magical beliefs has been devoted to examining magic as a conceptualization, both in an emic and an etic sense. For the purpose of this chapter, Rives’ analysis on this point will be particularly helpful. As he notes,

"there exists today a widespread tendency to regard 'magic' simply as a label that people gave to religious practices they considered immoral, fraudulent, or otherwise unacceptable. This is what

I will call the 'nominalist' approach."119 He later says that the nominalist approach is effective

119 James B. Rives, “Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime,” Classical Antiquity 22, No. 2 (October 2003): 315. 54 both in analysis and as a conceptual category, though only if the analysis is strictly emic, which by nature makes it difficult to look at Roman magic in any sort of large scale chronological time frame, much less to examine it next to non-Roman magic. This line of thought, Rives says, would lead to the need to abandon the term "magic" altogether and instead tend toward a more overt examination of religious deviance.120 As is argued by Versnel, eliminating magic as a conceptual category would be a mistake.121 While religious deviance is certainly a situation where we see terminology evoking magic and the supernatural, it is far from the only such case and further is more useful for an etic examination than an emic one. Put another way, examining magic strictly in terms of religious deviance is likely helpful for forming an overarching definition of magic and in looking at large scale problems in the existing definitions but, when looking specifically at Rome during the time periods this paper is concerned with, such a focus on strict religious deviance ends up being reductive and less than helpful. If this examination were concerned with a later period in Roman history when Christianity had become prominent, such an approach would likely be more valid. However, as Janowitz notes,

Since they were often pagans much of what people claim as ‘ancient magic’ is modern imaginings of ancient Greco-Roman religion. The ancient practitioners would be horrified to be lumped together with ‘witches’ and ‘warlocks’… They too believed that certain other practices were witchcraft and condemned the practitioners as magicians.122

Thus, there is a juxtaposition between a modern, academic understanding of what the term

“magic” would apply to, both in terms of a strict definition and in the sense of religious deviance, and in what the contemporary people would have viewed as the line between magic

120 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 315. 121 H. S. Versnel, “Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion,” Numen 38, fasc. 2 (December 1991): 177-178. 122 Naomi Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (New York: Routledge, 2001), 3. 55 and religious deviance. While this might be a helpful distinction from an etic perspective, it is unhelpful from an emic perspective.

This nominalist approach is contrasted to what Rives terms the "old realist approach", though he does not offer a concise definition of precisely what he means by this.123 Presumably, since he terms this secondary approach as "old" he is implying that by "realist" he is referring to the largely pre-existing manner of examining magic in scholarly discourse, since he previously said that the nominalist approach "exists today."124 Despite the shortcomings of this newer nominalist approach, Rives eventually establishes that, "the adoption of 'magic' as an explicitly etic, heuristic category allows us to analyze much more effectively the sorts of reconceptualization that I have traced in connection with the Twelve Tables."125 Thus Rives is proposing to merge the two schools of thought to a certain extent. He wishes to retain magic as an etic category in the hope that having a pre-existing and overarching conceptualization of what the term “magic” refers to will be beneficial regardless on whether the examination is focused on etic or emic analysis. While there is certainly a great deal of appeal in this dualistic, merged approach, it does seem to raise a problem. Given the flaws which Rives has already established with both the etic and emic approaches, it seems vaguely disingenuous to continue to analyze magic using them. That said, since there does not seem to be a better or more fitting approach available to more fully encompass the scholarly category of magic, it is better to speak of and write about magic in admittedly flawed terms rather than not at all, so long as the flaws are kept in mind. This paper, however, is not overly concerned with larger academic questions regarding conceptualizations of magic as a category, but rather with examining magic in the specific

123 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 316. 124 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 316. 125 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 317. 56 circumstances of the Roman people. Due to this restriction, an emic approach seems more in order in the context of this paper, since it is concerned specifically with Rome and her people, not with establishing an overarching etic definition of magic.

At this point, it becomes necessary to harken back to the previous discussion regarding the definition and conception of magic. As previously alluded to, this chapter is concerned mainly with the emic approach, as it is focused solely on Rome. Even with that limitation, a certain amount of disparity exists between what some scholars would and would not term as

“magic”. For ease of reference and to avoid becoming bogged down in a semantics argument, which is certainly not the purpose of this chapter, a broad conceptualization of the word seems to be in order. Servius, writing in the early fifth century CE, notes that the Romans viewed sacra magica not as merely improper but as strictly illegal.126 As Rives points out, Servius ties this point back to both Virgil’s Aeneid and to the Twelve Tables, establishing that magic in essentially all senses and connotations, were covered under the aforementioned laws in the

Twelve Tables which forbade magic.127 Sacra Magica is sometimes translated as “ritual magic” thereby making the distinction between Roman religious practices and Roman magic even more tenuous. As Burris notes, the term carmen is best understood to mean “incantation,” but was used by the Romans essentially interchangeably for words as varied as “spell, hymn, invocation, or oracle.” Burris further points out that precatio, traditionally meaning prayer and thus having religious connotations, is used by Pliny the Elder to refer to a magic spell.128 Tavenner concludes that there is clearly evident confusion among the early Romans regarding what is magic and

126 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 314. 127 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 314-315. 128 Eli Edward Burriss, “The Magic Elements in Roman Prayers,” Classical Philology 25, no. 1 (Jan. 1930): 49. 57 what is religion.129 In the end, “the distinction between magic and religion, whether phrased as dichotomy or polarity, is unwarranted.”130 Hence there is no distinction in Roman law between secular and religious magic or, if there is one, it is so inconsequential as to render it unimportant for the current analysis. By extension, all supernatural happenings can and should, in an emic sense, fall under the umbrella category of magic.

Next, it is necessary to have an understanding of the laws in Roman society, particularly those which have often been interpreted as dealing specifically with magic and supernatural acts.

For the purposes of this paper, only two are of direct interest. First, the XII Tables, which was

Rome’s first official legal code. There are many problems in speaking with any degree of confidence as to the original wording of the XII Tables, since they have not survived to the present day. As such, the sum total of our knowledge of what the XII Tables contained comes from how it is represented and quoted in later Roman sources, beginning as early as 200 BCE.131

The simple fact that magic is even so much as alluded to in the XII Tables says a great deal about the Roman conception of magic because, as Rives notes, “the XII Tables were not meant to be comprehensive, but only to cover matters that needed particular attention.”132 Secondly, there is a later Roman law code, the Lex Cornelia, which expands on many of the themes seen in the XII

Tables, including laws relating to magical practitioners.133 There is some disagreement amongst scholars in the field regarding precisely how both the laws in the XII Tables and those in the Lex

Cornelia should be interpreted where themes of magic are concerned. For example, Rives argues that the Lex Cornelia was not originally about religious deviance, though religious deviance later

129 Eugene Tavenner, “Notes on the Development of Early Roman Religion,” The Classical Weekly 11, no. 13 (January 1918): 99 130 Dorothy Hammond, “Magic: A Problem in Semantics,” American Anthropologist 72, no. 6 (December 1970): 1355. 131 J. B. Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” The Classical Quarterly 52 no. 1 (2002): 270-272. 132 Rives, “XII Tables Revisited,” 277-278. 133 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 317-318. 58 came to be included under the its purview. As such, it is his argument that, "we should extend the nominalist approach in order to take into account issues other than religious deviance."134 This is particularly vital in the sort of emic examination which is being undertaken both by Rives at times and by this current inquiry, as they are focused specifically on examining magic as it would have been understood by contemporary Romans, not by modern day scholars.

To establish a folkloric element to these magical concepts and beliefs, it is necessary to show that the beliefs were, if not directly held in a religious sense, at least commonly understood by the community. This does not mean that each and every member would have needed to believe that magic was real or functioned in a specific way. Rather, it instead requires that there be a shared cultural knowledge of the sorts of things which one might attribute to the magical or supernatural arts, whether via divine intervention or the working of a magus. While this inquiry will certainly deal with specific accounts of magical belief and action, these magical happenings are useful first to show that magic was something which was on the mind of the common people of Rome, and only as a distant second to demonstrate what sort of actions these same people would view as magical. Tied in with many of the aspects of magical concepts and beliefs of a folkloric nature are numerous features of material culture, most of which are courtesy of the

Augustan period. As Zanker notes, “In the conventional iconography of the gods, a specific position, dress, or attribute was sufficient to evoke in the viewer an entire myth,”135 and “Many of the individual elements were already quite familiar to the contemporary Roman.”136 Much of the iconography which this new wave employed was based on the traditional foundational mythology which has been discussed in the previous chapters. Nowhere is this better shown than

134 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 316. 135 Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1988), 174. 136 Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 175. 59 in the Forum Augustum. “In the Forum of Augustus, in the central niches of the two large exedrae, Aeneas and Romulus stood as counterparts of Mars and Venus. Venus’ grandson was depicted fleeing from Troy in flames, the son of Mars as a triumphator. The juxtaposition was not intended to measure the two heroes against one another, but to celebrate their deeds as the embodiment of two complementary virtues.”137

Now that the definition of magic and the conceptualization thereof which will be used in this paper have been more firmly established, a proper examination can begin to look at specific examples from primary sources in an attempt to better understand what the Romans meant when they spoke of magic. Two of the more famous examples of magic in the writings which survive from Rome come to us from Apuleius in the mid second-century CE, the first being his Apologia and the second his Metamorphoses.138 These comprise perhaps the two best depictions of magic and supernatural belief in the available sources from Rome and, though they are focused on subjects regarding Roman cultural knowledge of magic, they can be interpreted as applying to a far wider range of topics, as will be shown. While these writings of Apuleius will comprise a main primary source used in this portion of the analysis, other primary documentation will be brought in to more firmly establish the conclusions drawn from an examination of the Apuleius texts.

To begin, attention must be given to the Apologia of Apuleius, which is a speech given by Apuleius in his own defense against charges brought against him by a man named

Aemilianus.139 These charges alleged that Apuleius had seduced Pudentilla, a wealthy widow,

137 Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, 201. 138 Keith Bradley, “Law, Magic, and Culture in the ‘Apologia’ of Apuleius,” Phoenix 51, no. 2 (Summer, 1997): 203. 139 Apuleius, “Apology,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 172-73. 60 via arcane and magical methods. The means by which Aemilianus proposed to prove that

Apuleius was a magus (magician) are varied. As Rives sums them up:

Apuleius had sought to purchase certain kinds of fish, presumably for use as venena (poison); he had used chants to send a slave boy into a trance; he had kept a secret object wrapped up among the household gods of Pontianus; he had performed a nocturnal sacrifice; he had commissioned the carving of a ghoulish wooden statuette to which he paid cult; and last but not least, he had used carmina et venena to seduce Pudentilla.140

This is an exceedingly wide and varied list of supposed magical crimes and, in a way, they reveal more about the societal belief of the common people of the Roman world than does the rest of the Apologia itself. While none of these charges, if considered individually, were damning, when viewed as a whole they paint a compelling enough case to bring it to trial. Further, it is worth noting that, as individual events and practices, these were not illegal, but merely occurrences which fit into the pre-existing Roman conceptualization of how a person might interact with supernatural forces. As Bradley notes, “to contextualize the specific claims against Apuleius is to… bring out the element of the irrational, as the all-pervasiveness of magical belief and practice in Roman society is seen.”141 Further, this list of charges speaks not to an elite and high- society understanding of magic for two key reasons. First, Apuleius is extremely dismissive of the charges, making them seem somewhat laughable in how he categorizes and responds to them, even going so far as to call them both, “stupid and disingenuous.”142 Of course, this is not to say that magic as a conceptual category did not exist among the educated in Roman society. Rather, as Dickie notes, their education, particularly in Greek, “will certainly have brought them into contact with the concept of magic and they will have had to come to terms with it to make sense of what they read.”143 Secondly, the charges are brought by a man who clearly lacks the

140 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 323-324. 141 Bradley, “Law, Magic, and Culture,” 207-208. 142 Apuleius, “Apology,” 287. 143 Mathew Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (New York: Routledge, 2001), 125. 61 education and breeding which we see in both Apuleius and in his judge, Claudius Maximus.

According to Bradley, “Throughout the speech, he characterizes Sicinius Aemilianus as a rustic boor who lacks doctrina, whose ignorance is cause enough for his assault on Apuleius to be dismissed.”144 Apuleius clearly juxtaposes Aemilianus on the one hand and himself and Claudius

Maximus on the other when he says,

Maximus knows that I am speaking the truth, because he has assiduously read the phrases “place above the heavens” and “surface of the heavens” in the Phaedrus. Maximus too knows very well—to reply to the charge about the name—who it is that is called basileus, ‘king’ not by me first, but by Plato: “all things depend on the king of all things, and he is the cause of all things.”145

Thus, in this source, Aemilianus is representative of the common people, meaning it is a logical conclusion that the sort of beliefs he holds about how magic is done, as shown in the charges he brings, is a reflection of the societal beliefs of the common people. This is further supported by

Apuleius seeming almost understanding of Aemilianus bringing these charges. It is as if such charges are, while certainly not welcome or appreciated, about all he would expect from such a

“rustic boor.”

It is particularly interesting that, as Rives points out, the main focus of the charges against Apuleius is not that his supposed magical acts caused harm, but rather that he did them at all. This, Rives argues, shows a clear deviance from the original Roman laws in the Twelve

Tables which, as he puts it, both did and did not directly address magical acts.146 In the Twelve

Tables, occult or supernatural acts were only considered illegal in so much as they brought harm to another directly or to their livelihood. Though the original wording of this law has not

144 Bradley, “Law, Magic, and Culture,” 214. 145 Apuleius, “Apology,” 253. scit me uera dicere Maximus, qui τὸν ὑπερουράνιον τόπον et οὐρανοῦ νῶτον legit in Phaedro diligenter. idem Maximus optime intellegit, ut de nomine etiam uobis respondeam, quisnam sit ille non a me primo, sed a Platone βασιλεύς nuncupatus: περὶ τὸν πάντων βασιλέα πάντ᾽ ἐστὶ καὶ ἐκείνου ἕνεκα πάντα, quisnam sit ille basileus, totius rerum naturae causa et ratio et origo initialis, 146 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 322-323. 62 survived to the present day, we have strong evidence from other primary sources which allow the law to be pieced back together, at least in part. Thus, we know that the law applied to a person,

“who has enchanted crops away,” as well as to those who had stolen another person’s crops, “by means of certain magical arts.”147 These laws are seen again in Pliny’s Natural History when

Cresimus produces more crops on his small farm than his neighbors do with their more expansive lands and, as a result, Cresimus is brought up on charges, “that he had charmed away the others’ crops through sorcery.”148 The interpretation that these laws applied strictly to crime committed by magical or unexplainable means is further endorsed by Stratton when she states that, “Although statutes against the harmful use of incantations date back to Rome’s earliest law code, the Twelve Tables, these regulations prohibited using carmina to steal from or harm someone but did not ban the use of incantation itself.”149 Though it is never explicitly stated in the primary text itself, this change in the understanding of the crime makes it fairly evident that

Apuleius was not being tried under the Twelve Tables. That said, there is a side portion to the trial of Apuleius wherein it becomes evident that his accuser, Aemilianus, had also planned to accuse Apuleius of killing his friend Pontianus and the implication is that the only manner by which he might have accomplished this deed was via arcane means.150 This charge of magical homicide was evidently deemed too flimsy to bring to trial and was dropped by Aemilianus prior to the events portrayed in the Apologia.151

147 Various, Remains of Old Latin: Lucilius and The Twelve Tables, trans. E. H. Warmington (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1993), 479-481. 148 Pliny, “Natural History,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 277. 149 Kimberly B. Stratton, “Early Greco-Roman Antiquity,” in The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West from Antiquity to the Present, ed. David J. Collins, S. J. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 99. 150 Apuleius, “Apology,” 286-287. 151 Bradley, “Law, Magic, and Culture,” 205-208. 63

Though there is not any surviving mention of a specific law in the Twelve Tables which dealt with homicide undertaken through magical or supernatural means, it is reasonable to conclude that since theft via these same means is addressed, such an act would have been illegal under the Twelve Tables. Likely, this was either addressed in a portion of the Twelve Tables which has not survived to the modern day or was simply understood to fall under the general laws regarding murder. This reading is supported by Pharr when he claims that, “the law seems to have respected a man’s right to practice magic, so long as it did not interfere with his neighbors.”152 However, given that Apuleius' speech is really the only primary source we have for this topic and that this death is not central to the argument he presents toward his own innocence, it seems reasonable to conclude that the death was of secondary importance to the act of malefica and veneficia to begin with. At the very least, it implies that Aemilianus thought it would be easier to convict Apuleius on charges of malefica and veneficia than magical homicide.

This, in turn, implies that the punishment for these crimes, likely including exile and loss of wealth and status, would have been sufficient to satisfy him, not only for the crime of being a magus but also for the supposed murder.153 Therefore, since there is no indication that acts of magic which were not distinctly harmful were prohibited by The XII Tables, the only explanation is that Apuleius was not being charged under The XII Tables. In this case, the only reasonable conclusion is that he is instead being charged under the Lex Cornelia, which was in many ways a successor to The XII Tables.

As Apuleius points out, he is not on trial for murder or for causing harm or any other act of a similar nature; rather, he is charged essentially with the crime of being a magus and

152 Clyde Pharr, “The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 63 (1932): 278. 153 Bradley, “Law, Magic, and Culture,” 207. 64 practicing magia. Neither of these charges are addressed in the surviving laws from the XII

Tables and thus would not originally have been a crime, as was stated previously. However, since Apuleius has been brought to trial on these charges, it is clear that they have since come to be considered illegal. An argument could be made that Apuleius had indeed used his magical arts to harm another, in this case Pudentilla, who became his wife, or that he had committed theft via magical means, since he had allegedly used his magic to seduce Pudentilla, thus depriving her family of their inheritance. That said, there is simply nothing in the text to support such a reading. Apuleius is meticulous in his own defense, being sure to address all charges against him and either refute them or show just how outlandish they truly are. Since he does not mention any charge of his having caused Pudentilla harm via his magic, it stands to reason that this is not a charge which he has been brought up on. While there is a clear undercurrent to the trial of

Aemilianus wishing to reclaim Pudentilla’s wealth from Apuleius, it is simply that: an undercurrent. Given Apuleius’ aforementioned meticulousness, if he were accused of magical theft he certainly would have addressed this charge directly, which he does not do. As such, the case of Apuleius shows a clear delineation between how the Twelve Tables and the laws which replaced them viewed the crimes associated with magic and magical acts, with the latter applying to a much wider range of crimes than had the Twelve Tables.

There is also an additional interesting element to Apuleius' case: the distinction between a philosopher and a magus, which is pivotal to Apuleius’ defense. In his own mind, Apuleius is a natural philosopher and thus his interest in procuring poisons and poisonous creatures is strictly academic and not to some supposed nefarious purpose. However, since both the acts of casting a magical incantation and performing research would likely be done in solitude and outside of the public eye, there exists no real evidence or witness account to show how the two diverge or to 65 prove that a person belongs to one school of thought over another. As Rives puts it, "one person's philosopher might be another's magus. The key issue therefore became one of perceived deviance."154 The deviance mentioned here was from what was acceptable in Roman society and should not be interpreted as religious commentary. From this perspective, the trial of Apuleius is focused on drawing a line between philosophy and academia on the one side and magia and venificia on the other, the first being innocuous and even beneficial to society, the second being entirely deserving of harsh punishment. Apuleius defines a magus as one "who by an exchange of speech with the immortal gods exerts power in any matter he chooses through some amazing force of chants."155 Further, Apuleius presents his definition of a magus as one which is already accepted, not one which he is necessarily arguing for or trying to prove, leading to a reasonable conclusion that this was, if not a universally accepted definition, at least one which was common enough in his day to require no further explanation or defense. Admittedly, as mentioned previously, Apuleius belonged to the educated elite, as did Claudius Maximus who was serving as the judge in Apuleius’ trial. Because of this, it is difficult to use Apuleius’ views to establish that magic in the way he speaks of it was understood in a similar manner amongst the common people. Aemilianus may well be representative of the views likely to be held by the common people and, while that is valuable, all of Aemilianus’ views are given to us by way of Apuleius.

Despite this, his account does tell us much about how magic was understood among the higher levels of society and in the law codes of Rome. Additionally, the mere fact that Apuleius was brought to trial on these charges serves as proof of at least a basic cultural belief in the validity of magic. True, there seems to be a certain amount of disparity as to how magic worked and what it could be used to accomplish. However, as was established in previous chapters, this multi-

154 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 325. 155 Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 326. 66 faceted approach to and understanding of magic is indicative of a folkloric development, as was previously seen in the more traditional myths and foundation narratives of Rome. As such, the lack of a clear agreement on precise definitions, combined with a certain level of disparity between elite conceptualization and common belief on the subject, ensure that these matters fall squarely within the bounds of the folkloric.

Next, we turn our attention to another work of Apuleius, the Metamorphoses, sometimes called The Golden Ass. While the previously examined source from Apuleius, his Apologia, was a speech given with the intent of proving his innocence against charges of witchcraft, the

Metamorphoses takes the form of a novel written for entertainment and, one would imagine, mass dissemination. This means that the accounts contained within the Metamorphoses are intended to be fictional. However, for the purposes of this paper, the fictional nature of this work does not serve as a detriment. After all, since the Metamorphoses is largely written as a comedic, perhaps even satirical, account, it would not do if its audience were unfamiliar with the themes portrayed within the work itself. Rather, the fact that Apuleius can write about the themes which his work contains goes to show that he was presuming his audience had at least some passing familiarity with them prior to exposure to his work; if this were not the case, they would have no context for understanding why the situations were meant to be humorous and entertaining. Many of these themes and situations involve or are directly centered around magic and supernatural happenings specifically relating to people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. This leads to two possible understandings of the intended audience: either it was intended to be read by the upper-class who could be expected to scoff at the foolish beliefs and practices of the masses, or it was intended for the common folk who would likely have more familiarity with the subject matter and would be more likely to embrace the themes which their economic superiors would 67 likely have viewed as quaint. While determining which of these two competing scenarios doubtless poses an intriguing intellectual dilemma, for the current purposes it becomes largely an unimportant question. In either case, the result becomes the same. If it were intended for the elite, the humor would be lessened the further from reality the portrayal of the common people became, as the readers would be seeking to laugh at the beliefs of those they viewed as their inferiors. Thus, an accurate portrayal of the beliefs of these supposed inferiors would be necessary. On the other hand, if it were intended for consumption by the common people, they would undoubtedly be familiar with the aspects of their own daily lives and cultural beliefs and, as such, would be entirely unimpressed if they were not accurately portrayed. This means that the information and accounts contained in the Metamorphoses can be viewed as providing a frame of reference for the sort of beliefs and knowledge of magic which the non-elites in Roman society were likely to have held.

The Metamorphoses is filled near to bursting with events of witchcraft and magic and it would be impossible to cover them all in the present inquiry. More than that, it would be repetitive, as many of these accounts are focused on similar topics and subject matter. As such, focus will instead be placed on one specific example from the Metamorphoses which is, in many ways, representative of the narrative as a whole. This account is related to Lucius, the narrator of the book, by Aristomenes, a travelling salesman from Aegium.156 The events which Aristomenes speaks of are placed in and around the city of Hypata in Thessaly which, by the time Apuleius was writing, had come under Roman rule.

In Aristomenes’ tale, he is on his way to the local bathhouse one night when he sees his friend Socrates. This comes as a surprise to him, as Socrates has long since been declared dead,

156 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 130. 68 his children placed under the legal guardianship of another, and his wife on the verge of remarrying.157 When Aristomenes inquires why, if Socrates is still alive, he has not returned home to his family, Socrates informs him that he made the mistake of sleeping with an innkeeper who turned out to be a witch by the name of Meroe. Socrates proceeds to attribute a litany of magical and supernatural powers to Meroe, saying that she, “has divine powers that enable her to bring down the sky, suspend the earth, turn flowing water solid, dissolve mountains, raise ghosts, bring down the gods, extinguish the stars, and throw Tartarus open to the light.”158 When

Aristomenes expresses a modicum of disbelief at these claims, Socrates continues to speak of

Meroe’s powers, this time giving specific examples.

Making people fall passionately in love with her, not just the people round about, but even Indians, Ethiopians (both varieties, western and eastern), and Antipodeans, no less—this is an easy thing for her craft, a simple trifle. But hear what she had achieved before multiple witnesses. With a single word she changed a lover into a wild beaver, because he had strayed with another woman, because when the creature fears it is about to be captured by its hunters it gets away by biting off its genitals. She wanted this to happen to him, because he had had sex with another. She had an innkeeper neighbor, who, for that reason, was a competitor, so she transformed him into a frog. Now the old man swims about in a pot of his own urine, hovers in the dregs at the bottom and croaks polite greetings to his former customers. Then there was the lawyer. She transformed him into a ram because he opposed her in court. Now he pleads his cases in this form. A lover’s wife came out with a witty bit of abuse for her. She had a bun in the oven. Meroe sealed off her womb and deprived her of the ability to bring the child forth, condemning her to an eternal pregnancy. According to everyone’s reckoning the poor little woman had now been carrying the burden for eight years and is so distended that she looks as if she is about to produce an elephant.159

157 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 130. 158 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 131. Saga’ inquit ‘Et divina, potens caelum deponere, terram suspendere, fontes durare, montes diluere, manes sublimare, deos infimare, sidera extinguere, Tartarum ipsum illuminare.’ 159 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 131-132. Vis’ inquit ‘Unum vel alterum, immo plurima eius audire facta? Nam ut se ament efflictim non modo incolae, verum etiam Indi vel Aethiopes utrique, vel ipsi Antichthones, folia sunt artis et nugae merae. Sed quod in conspectum plurium perpetravit, audi. Amatorem suum, quod in aliam temerasset, unico verbo mutavit in feram castorem, quod ea bestia captivitati metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium liberat, ut illi quoque simile, quod venerem habuit in aliam, proveniret. Cauponem quoque vicinum atque ob id aemulum deformavit in ranam et nunc senex ille dolio innatans vini sui adventores pristinos in faece summissus officiosis ronchis raucus appellat. Alium de foro quod adversus eam locutus esset, in arietem deformavit et nunc aries ille causas agit. Eadem amatoris sui uxorem quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, iam in sarcina praegnationis obsaepto utero et repigrato fetu perpetua praegnatione damnavit et, ut cuncti numerant, iam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum pariturasuum, quod in aliam temerasset, unico verbo mutavit in feram castorem, quod ea bestia captivitati metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium liberat, ut illi quoque 69

Socrates even attributes to Meroe an ability to commune with demons and, through their secret power, that she had once locked all the people of the town in their own homes until they swore they would do her no harm.160 Having been informed of all this, Aristomenes admits he believes his friend and is now frightened that the witch might be listening to them even while they are having this conversation. The friends go to bed for the night and, before morning comes, Meroe enters into their room, bringing with her another witch by the name of Panthia, whom Meroe calls her sister. The pair of witches cut Socrates’ throat, rip out his heart through the freshly opened hole, and soak Aristomenes in their urine before leaving. When morning eventually comes, Aristomenes finds Socrates alive and well and the pair go on their way. When they stop at a river to slake their thirst, Socrates bends to drink and the wound on his throat once more opens up, a sponge falling out of the wound, causing Socrates to fall over, dead and unmoving once more. Aristomenes buries his friend beside the river, vows never to return home, makes his way to Aetolia, and forges a new life for himself.161

Within even this remarkably abridged retelling, there are quite a few key points which need to be examined in greater detail. Chief among them are the abilities which fall within the power of a witch. The collection of powers which Socrates and, by extension, Apuleius, attributes to Meroe are remarkably varied and draw heavy inspiration from a number of sources.

In doing so, Meroe essentially becomes an amalgamation of everything the Romans believed a witch could be and everything which could be accomplished via magical or supernatural

simile, quod venerem habuit in aliam, proveniret. Cauponem quoque vicinum atque ob id aemulum deformavit in ranam et nunc senex ille dolio innatans vini sui adventores pristinos in faece summissus officiosis ronchis raucus appellat. Alium de foro quod adversus eam locutus esset, in arietem deformavit et nunc aries ille causas agit. Eadem amatoris sui uxorem quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, iam in sarcina praegnationis obsaepto utero et repigrato fetu perpetua praegnatione damnavit et, ut cuncti numerant, iam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura 160 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 131-133. 161 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 131-135. 70 intervention. Though we do not see every single magical feat attributed to Meroe reflected in other sources, the vast majority are certainly present. Cicero accuses Vatinius of necromancy, specifically calling up the spirits of the dead and making sacrifices to ghosts using the entrails of young boys.162 Though there is no mention of entrails in the account of Meroe, the necromantic themes are quite strong. In Lucan’s account of Erictho, he credits her with the ability to reanimate the dead, to rip body parts and organs out of people, to project her power over a large area, and to “constrain the gods.”163 While constraining the gods and bringing them down might well be referring to different actions, they are similar enough for the sake of the current argument to place together. In describing the witch Medea, Ovid credits her with working, “to draw the struggling moon down from its path and to bury the horses of the sun in darkness. She reins back waters and brings rivers to halt in their descent,” and she, “places binding spells on people from afar.”164 Again, there is different language used, but with similar connotations. Extinguishing the stars and bringing down the sky evoke extremely similar imagery to drawing down the moon and burying the sun in darkness and further, if accomplished, would produce arguably the same result. We see similar themes in the Elegies of Tibullus; “I have seen her draw down the stars from the sky. I have seen her turn around the course of a river with her incantation. She cleaves the ground with her spell, brings forth ghosts from tombs, and calls down bones from warm pyres.”165 Though the phrasing once more is different, we see here repeated themes of moving the earth via magic, manipulating water and dead spirits, and bringing objects down from the

162 Cicero, “In Vatinium,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 174. 163 Lucan, “Pharsalia,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 121-123. 164 Ovid, “Heroides,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 126. 165 Tibullus, “Elegies,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 125. 71 sky. As noted by Dickson, the point of bringing down the moon was to compel the associated goddess to descend and carry out the will of whoever had summoned her.166 Petronius, for his part, speaks of a man transforming into a wolf167 as does Pliny.168 Tacitus attributes the death of

Germanicus to “a binding curse.”169 Hence, Meroe is an encapsulation of everything a Roman would think to attribute to a witch, thus making her emblematic of all witchcraft belief in the

Roman world.

Though Meroe does not directly demonstrate all her various powers throughout the course of Aristomenes’ tale, we as readers are given little cause to question that, in the fictional realm of this narrative, they are to be accepted as fact. This is so because Aristomenes is originally doubtful but, when he hears that some of these powers have been demonstrated and is told of specific examples, he ceases to question their authenticity. This occurs before he himself encounters either of the witches and sees their powers firsthand. The implication here is that

Aristomenes’ original doubt was directed at the fact that Socrates had encountered a witch and that this was the reason he had abandoned his life, rather than in the existence and authenticity of witchcraft and supernatural acts themselves. From there, the only possible conclusion is that witches were accepted as a branch of people which existed in the world and supernatural, arcane occurrences were considered rare, though far from impossible.

Furthering this point is the fact that there seems to be an established protocol for what one is meant to do when they encounter a witch. Socrates does his best to stay in Meroe’s favor

(though he eventually falls out of favor anyway), warning Aristomenes not to speak harshly of

166 T. W. Dickson, “Magic: A Theme of Roman Elegy,” The Sewanee Review 35, no. 4 (October 1927): 489. 167 Petronius, “Satyricon,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 176-177. 168 Pliny, “Natural History,” 178. 169 Tacitus, “Annals,” in Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook, ed. Daniel Ogden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 217. 72

Meroe in case she is listening.170 The townspeople endure Meroe’s witchcraft for as long as they are able until they eventually reach a breaking point and decide to stone her the next day. Meroe preempts this by using her magic to lock them all in their homes until she secures their binding oath that they will not cause her any harm and, more than that, that they would not allow anyone else to bring her to harm either.171 After Aristomenes encounters the witches and buries Socrates, he undertakes the same course of action which had previously been undertaken by Socrates: he cuts all ties to his previous life, relocates, and starts a new life for himself. Prior to learning the reason why Socrates had done this and becoming convinced of the truth of Meroe’s witchcraft,

Aristomenes had viewed Socrates’ actions in abandoning his family as disgraceful, but when he is faced with similar circumstances he opts to do essentially what he had previously condemned his friend for.172 There is a common theme permeating these reactions to encountering a witch; fear and a desire to survive and protect those whom you care for. Socrates and Aristomenes attempt this by abandoning their previous lives, trusting that whatever the consequences of their absence from their wives and children might be, they are preferable to bringing their families into contact with a witch of Meroe’s caliber. Ogden notes that, “It is a recurring theme in ancient literature that men who encounter witches do not return home,”173 which is certainly a conclusion supported by both Socrates and Aristomenes. The townspeople are faced with a similar problem, though simply leaving to protect their loved ones is not an option, as they are already known to the witch. Instead they do their best to live in peace with Meroe, accepting her acts of magical retribution when they come and weathering the storm as best they are able.

170 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 132. 171 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 132-133. 172 Apuleius, “Metamorphoses,” 130-135. 173 Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 136. 73

Eventually, this attempt at coexistence is briefly cast aside by the town, as Meroe’s crimes become too great to ignore. However, when Meroe fights back against their judgement and shows precisely how powerful she is, the townsfolk once more bow their heads and acquiesce to her, valuing their lives over their ideals of justice. In all these instances, we see the common theme of people responding to a witch with fear and a simple desire to survive.

As has been shown, themes of magic and the supernatural were present in Roman society and were not limited to either the upper or lower classes. While it may be true that there existed a disparity in precisely what the various classes may have believed, the disagreements fell squarely into the minority, greatly outweighed by the similarities which are seen time and again. Where a difference in understanding is evident, the disparity only serves to strengthen the argument that a folkloric interpretation is justified. Further, it is clear that, at least among the lower classes, their beliefs in magic were not merely hypothetical; rather, they believed that magic and the supernatural existed in the world and could be interacted with. This, in turn, affected how they both saw and interacted with the world and inevitably had consequences for the development of

Rome, both as a society and as a shared cultural identity. Though it is difficult, if not altogether impossible, to trace where and when certain beliefs started to become commonplace, what is more noteworthy is the simple fact that the beliefs themselves did spread and take root throughout all aspects of Roman society.

CONCLUSION

When most people think of folklore, the first thing which comes to mind tends to be fairy tales such as the Brother’s Grimm. While it is not inaccurate to say that the term folklore includes fairy tales within its lexicon, it is limiting if that is all which comes to mind. Folklore in its truest form also includes, and perhaps even places additional emphasis on, forms of cultural belief, repeated tales and colloquialisms which are prevalent in a society and which do not need to include aspects of the mythological or supernatural. While there are numerous complications which arise when examining the folklore and cultural beliefs of a people and a civilization which existed in a time so far removed from the present day, literary sources, speeches, and writings from the period can provide insight into what the people believed and how these beliefs affected their daily lives. While many of the sources which would have provided the most clear and all- encompassing picture of Roman folklore have not survived to the present day, those which have can certainly lend themselves to a detailed analysis and interpretation.

Specifically examining the foundational mythology of the Roman people which became traditional, the best available source comes through the writings of Livy in his Ab Urbe Condita.

As has been shown, Livy was less concerned with recording history as accurately as possible, partially because he himself was multiple centuries removed from the events about which he wrote. Instead, he was recording the events largely in the manner which would have been most recognizable to the Roman people of his time. While this makes his account questionable as a trustworthy written historical account, it does mean that much of what he writes and the manner in which he writes it falls firmly within the bounds of the folkloric and should be examined and appreciated as such. While there has certainly been a large amount of academic scholarship which examines Livy’s writings and their worth both as a piece of literature and as a historical 75 account. While these are interesting and noble pursuits, they do leave out the important aspects of the folkloric which not only play a vital role in understanding Livy’s work but also best convey the author’s intent in the writing.

This is, of course, not to say that folklore and folkloric inquiry applies only to cultural understanding to the exclusion of an examination and understanding of the mythological aspects.

Much of Roman folklore either focuses on or includes narrative elements which fall outside the realm of traditional human experience, including acts of the divine and supernatural. As has been seen time and again, these extraordinary aspects are distinctly indicative of folkloric traditions to much the same extent that the cultural beliefs and societal understandings are. Supernatural folklore is seen not only in the foundational mythology in such traditions as Romulus and Remus being weened by a wolf, but also in the later accounts which fall perhaps less inside the traditional. This is evident in the writings of Apuleius concerning magic and witchcraft, both in his trial as recorded in the Apologia and in his written works, such as the Metamorphoses. These accounts of magic and the supernatural reflect not only the beliefs of a single person or a single economic class, but rather the beliefs of the society as a whole. This, after all, is the benchmark for what folklore entails.

Thus, it is clear that not only did folklore exist in Roman society, but more than this that this folklore can be examined by the modern scholar using the surviving accounts even in their admittedly limited form. While this paper hardly represents a comprehensive examination of the folkloric aspects of Roman society, this was never its intent. Rather, its intent was to show that the modern approach to and understanding of folklore and the folkloric tradition can and often should be applied to historical inquiry in the interest of developing as robust an understanding of the historical societies and cultures which form the basis of the field. This is a particularly timely 76 development, given the modern interest by a growing contingent of historians to look at history from the ground up and to place a focus on showing how the common people in various historical contexts lived. In this sense, an interdisciplinary approach, combining folklore studies and historical inquiry, proves to be distinctly beneficial and fosters a deeper understanding of

Roman society and culture as it applies to the common person of the time.

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