“Quaeque Memoria Digna Videbantur: Digressions in Sallust's Historical
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“Quaeque memoria digna videbantur: digressions in Sallust’s historical monographs” Edwin H. Shaw A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ancient History Department of History, UCL 1 I, Edwin Shaw, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. ________________________________ 2 Abstract This thesis examines the digressions in the historical monographs of Sallust, as important and under-utilised documents of the construction of his text and of his place within a Late Republican milieu. It aims to demonstrate the central place of digressions in Sallust’s historiography, and to argue that Sallust is a more sophisticated thinker than is usually recognised, engaging with a variety of contemporary ideas in his construction of a new form of Roman historiography. The first part of the thesis explores the role of digression, a basically rhetorical technique, within historiography more widely, contributing to the current debate about the relationship between the two genres; I establish that digression is an important aspect of the historian’s activity of dispositio, through which the historical account is constructed. Drawing on classical rhetorical textbooks, works on historiography and the practice of other historians, I demonstrate that digressions have a key role within historiographical narrative, as impositions reflecting the historian’s own analysis of events, and that as such we need to pay careful attention to the relevance of ostensibly digressive material. The second part of the thesis examines three sets of digressions in detail, arguing that in each case such passages serve to advance Sallust’s wider historiographical aims, and that the disparate material they contain demonstrates his close engagement with the intellectual developments of his period in philosophy, historiography, ethnography and geography. By close reading of passages on causation, politics and individual morality, I advance a new interpretation of Sallust’s thought and the state of Rome based on the idea of expediency, which is central to the analysis offered in the digressions; approaching these passages from the perspective of the contemporary intellectual climate allows a better appreciation of Sallust’s historiographical project. 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 7 Chapter 1 – History and rhetoric 21 Chapter 2 – Digression in theory and in practice 53 Chapter 3 – the archaeologia and African digression 86 Chapter 4 – the political digressions 143 Chapter 5 – the character-sketches and synkrisis 213 Conclusion 269 Bibliography 277 Appendix I – Texts and Translations 301 Appendix II – A.J. Woodman and Rhetoric in Classical Historiography 318 4 Acknowledgements Sallust’s prefaces concern themselves in large part with self-aggrandisement; my obligations are much more agreeable, in keeping with the many debts I have accrued over the writing of this thesis. My most important obligation is to Dr Valentina Arena, who in addition to outstanding service as a supervisor was first responsible for converting me from a mediocre Hellenist into a Roman historian; to her is owed much of my interest in the Late Republic. Her advice and guidance has improved this work enormously. Professor Gesine Manuwald provided a salutary alternative perspective (and assisted with many questions of Latin), reading full drafts and replying with outstanding speed and perspicacity. I am very grateful to my examiners, Professor Christopher Smith and Dr Paola Ceccarelli, for reading and considering the thesis with such interest and care, and for their insightful discussion and suggestions. The thesis has greatly benefited from discussions with other academics, in seminars and informally: conversations with Professor Andrew Feldherr, Professor Tim Cornell, Professor Hans van Wees, Dr Benet Salway and (via email) Dr Lydia Spielberg, and with audiences in Dublin, Reading and London, were particularly helpful. I am grateful to Professor Feldherr for generously sharing with me part of an unpublished commentary on the archaeologia of the Bellum Catilinae, and to Dr Duncan MacRae for an in preparation article on the Late Republican antiquarians. The staff of the Institute of Classical Studies and University College London libraries ably assisted with my more abstruse bibliographical requests. My research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to whom thanks are also due. More personally, many friends deserve gratitude. David Haywood, Andrew Gyford, Ivor LeFauv, Tom Risdon and Sam Smullen all provided particular diversion and amusement at crucial times! Thanks are also due to Kim & Bryan Alker, members of the ICS postgraduate seminar and other friends and colleagues in London. Finally, my greatest debt is to my family. My parents, Christopher and Mandy, have supported me with great care and love throughout my (prolonged) education and continue to do so. 5 My brother Toby and his wife Rachael have provided much affection, moral support and distraction throughout, including a refreshing trip to Rachael’s native Australia at a pivotal moment. My grandmother Ruth, as well as members of my extended family, have shown interest in my work and encouraged me enormously. This thesis is dedicated to Lucy (sine qua non), who has seen it through from planning to completion with encouragement, patience and love, and has become much more familiar with Sallust than could ever have been imagined. “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them.” Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy 1.22 6 Introduction sed nemo annalis nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit qui veteres populi Romani res composuere. ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges, aut si quando ad interna praeverterent, discordias consulum adversum tribunos, agrarias frumentariasque leges, plebis et optimatium certamina libero egressu memorabant. Tacitus, Annales 4.32. Let no-one compare my annals with the works of those who have written about the deeds of the Romans in the past. With free digression they recalled great wars, the assaults of cities, defeated and captured kings, or, if they should wish to turn their attentions inwards, the discords between consuls and tribunes, agrarian and grain laws, the struggles between the plebs and the optimates. In Tacitus’ catalogue of the subject-matter of Republican historiography, a testament to the historiographical traditions within which he located his writing, one of the characteristics mentioned is freedom to write libero egressu, to cover a variety of topics in contrast to his own inglorius labor.1 Tacitus mentions no specific predecessors, and the themes cited appeared in many writers’ histories; but foremost among them is his great stylistic model, Sallust, whose works have an important place in the tradition.2 Written in the turbulent period after the Ides of March, Sallust’s monographs are our earliest extant works of Roman historiography (excepting Caesar’s commentarii, distinguished by their particular form and aims).3 Immediately popular, and central to the Latin historiographical canon throughout antiquity,4 the Bellum Catilinae, Bellum Jugurthinum and Historiae represent a 1 On Tacitus’ digression (and for this translation of libero egressu) see Moles 1998:97. The terminology used of digression is variable: Lausberg 1998:§340 collects the following list: παρέκβασις; parecbasis; egressio; egressus; digressio; digressus; excursus. 2 The themes mentioned are all treated by Sallust: e.g. ingentia bella, Jug. 5.1; expugnationes urbium, Jug. 76; fusos captosque reges, Jug. 113.6; discordias, Cat. 36.4-9; plebis et optimatium certamina, Jug. 41-2. Tacitus’ debt to Sallust is frequently apparent in syntax and attitude; Ann. 3.30.1 refers to him as rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor. See Syme 1958:196-9, 353-6. 3 The commentarii are at least ostensibly closer to the tradition of political memoir and autobiography (on which see Landau 2011). Cf. Cic. Brut. 262 for the distinction and Cleary 1985, Kraus 2009:164-5 on the peculiarities of Caesar’s form. 4 La Penna 1970; Canfora 1986; Syme 1964:274-301; Schmal 2001:154-62. 7 major corpus. Sallust’s writing was recognised as among the most important in Latin;5 his idiosyncratic style spawned a host of imitators.6 Sallust’s works cast light on the complex political climate under which he lived, providing an informed source on one of the most studied periods of human history, the declining phase of the Roman Republic. Sallust’s statement of historiographical intent at the beginning of his first historical work promises to include quaeque memoria digna videbantur, “whatever seemed worthy of memory”;7 the purpose of this thesis will be to investigate digression, Tacitus’ liber egressus, as a feature of Sallust’s historiography, and to consider precisely why the subjects he treats might be deemed worth remembering.8 Sallustian historiography: structure and style Before setting out my aims, some remarks as to the nature of Sallust’s historiography will prove useful, since my approach is closely linked to the specifics of Sallust’s historiographical technique; these considerations are part of the justification of my project. Two factors are worth particular consideration: Sallust’s style and the nature of his historiographical form. Sallust’s style is idiosyncratic and difficult: his works combine distorted syntax with archaism in vocabulary and phrasing.9 Particularly marked is his compression, the brevitas which was identified as a virtue of his style, but which when pushed to extremes sometimes could result in difficulties of sense.10 Sallust’s works deviate from a Ciceronian periodic style towards something 5 See e.g. Quint. Inst. 10.1.101. 6 Cf. Sen. Ep. 114 esp. 17-9. 7 Cat. 4.2. 8 Translations are my own. References unless otherwise specified are Sallust’s works; dates are BC. Abbreviations are as per L’Annee Philologique, with the exception of Cat. for the Bellum Catilinae, Jug.