Going Viral in Ancient Rome: Spreading and Controlling Information in the Roman

Republic

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of

Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Brendan James McCarthy, M.A.

Graduate Program in History

The Ohio State University

2018

Dissertation Committee:

Nathan S. Rosenstein, Advisor

Greg Anderson

Tina Sessa

Copyright by

Brendan McCarthy

2018

Abstract

In recent years scholars have discussed the role of communication in the Roman political system. These studies have focused mostly on major public events like votes and contiones. This study will add to that discussion by looking at word-of-mouth communication. Rome’s political elite formed information networks to spread news and took great care that their public events like contiones and ludi were well attended and made news. Rome’s non-elite lived in a thriving city that encouraged the movement of people and information. Using theories taken from communications studies, sociology and the spatial turn of archeology, this study will examine the way information was spread after public events. The Roman elite relied on word-of-mouth to ensure that their reputations grew and their agendas received public support. They took great care to ensure that their public events would become news by encouraging favorable audiences to share accounts of the events with their peers. Sharing news, therefore, would have been an integral way from Romans to participate in politics.

i

Dedication

Dedicated to my grandfather, Edwin McCarthy, who loved history and now is history

ii

Acknowledgements

This project was a long time in the making and I am grateful for all the support I received throughout the process. Thank you to all the faculty in the History department for their open support and wonderful ideas. Not all of those ideas made it into this dissertation, but many did. Chief among the faculty, I must thank my advisor, Nate Rosenstein for all of the meetings and edits he gave me. Thanks also go to my undergraduate advisor, Linda

Hall. When I was at St. Mary’s, I always left her office feeling like a million bucks. She has continued to provide me support by sending me opportunities and reviews to help my dissertation along.

I also want to thank my fellow graduate students. I have learned so much about the craft of history by talking with my peers in the office and I have received countless book recommendations and helpful tips over my years here. I can only hope that my future colleagues will be as generous and supportive. Special thanks go to Frank

McGough and Lee Marmor, my one-time roommates. Our house was very messy when we were going through our candidacy exams, but our library-receipt based home decor was well worth it. Even though they are far away now, the support I continue to receive from them is a source of inspiration.

I am deeply indebted to my family. My mother deserves great credit for fielding panicked calls for the last seven years and calming my concerns for all that time. My iii father deserves perhaps even greater credit as the one family member who has read my one published paper. Despite all that has happened in their lives since I entered graduate school, they have always been a bulwark for me, giving me the confidence I needed to finish this process even when it looked most desperate. My aunts, uncles, and cousins have always been supportive and interested in my project. I rarely see their eyes glaze over when I talk history.

Finally, my greatest gratitude goes to my wife, Hallie. We started dating when I was a junior at St. Mary’s, so she has been a part of my graduate school journey from its inception. She took a big risk and moved away from her family in DC at the start of my second year in the program. In May 2015, we got married. I have always admired her curiosity and insight. Even when I was most jaded about my project and field, her curiosity kept me inspired. She has a knack for asking the right questions at the right time. More than anything else I admire and thank her for her total love and support.

iv

Vita

2007...... St. Ignatius High School

2011...... B.A. History, St. Mary’s College of

Maryland

2013...... M.A. History, The Ohio State University

2011 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of History, The Ohio State University

2017 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of

History, The Ohio State University

Publications

“Avitus of Vienne.” A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide to Letter Collections in Late Antiquity. Edited by Edward Watts, Christiana Sogno and Brad Storin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017.

“August 2014: Celebrating Roman Emperor Augustus.” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2014-celebrating- roman-emperor-augustus

Fields of Study

Major Field: History

v

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... i

Dedication ...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Vita ...... v

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1: The High Price of Information ...... 27

Chapter 2: Word on the Street ...... 75

Chapter 3: All the News That’s Fit to Share ...... 110

Chapter 4: Stage Managing Public Oratory ...... 136

Chapter 5: Give the Audience What They Want ...... 170

Conclusion ...... 205

Bibliography ...... 227

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Introduction

Social media played a large role in the 2016 presidential election. Websites like

Facebook and Twitter became major outlets for political news and discussion, and targets for advertising budgets. News articles, fabricated stories, and opinion pieces were shared between friends and followers. The news people received and the opinions they shared were dependent on their social connections, not the channels they watched and publications they read. Studies and editorials have shown that social media has changed the way Americans share information, placing social networks, not national media, at the center of political life. By encouraging the spread of information between users’ social networks, major campaigns created a cost-effective way to reach a large and motivated audience.

Social media has allowed people to interact in large digital communities with billions of users from every region of the world with seemingly minimal oversight.

Connecting with people across oceans and subcultures has never been easier, yet studies have shown that users still self-select communities based on narrow ideological factors.1

A study released earlier this year has found that Twitter uses segregate themselves into

1 Eveland, Jr., “Linking Social Network Analysis to the Spiral of Silence, Coorientation, and the Political Discussion: The Intersection of Political Perceptions and Political Communication.” 1 politically homogeneous communities.2 Research into Facebook discovered that algorithms the site uses to decide what advertisements and public posts to share withusers creates segregated networks of people defined by ideology based on their reads and likes.

The technology that allows so many different people to connect also allows, and even encourages, isolated communities to develop.

Using the digital trail of social media, the liberal bubble, ivory tower, silent majority, and other ideological divisions can clearly be seen. It is easier than ever to study how people cultivate their social networks and community norms and how the news we share and opinions we form affect our interactions with others. Instead of exposing people to new and diverse ideas, social media has created distinct groups which encourage particular forms of thought and share only material that conforms with their worldview.3

In 2016, American politicians learned how to use social media to further their campaigns. They could rely on digital communities to publicize information and gain support with only a small investment of their own. This study will show that many of the same practices used in the 2016 elections would have seemed normal to Romans. Chants like “lock her up” would have been perfectly normal in ancient Rome (correcting for gender, of course), and spreading short and simple messages through social networks was as integral for candidates in ancient Rome as it is for modern Twitter users. Like Bernie

Sanders and Donald Trump, Roman politicians relied on word-of-mouth and social

2 Brady et al., “Emotion Shapes the Diffusion of Moralized Content in Social Networks.” 3 Moy and Hussain, “Media and Public Opinion in a Fragmented Society”; Eveland, Jr., “Linking Social Network Analysis to the Spiral of Silence, Coorientation, and the Political Discussion: The Intersection of Political Perceptions and Political Communication.” 2 networking to spread their message. Where modern candidates use social media as one form of mass communication among many, word-of-mouth was the only form of mass communication in the ancient world. Despite the importance of word-of-mouth communication and social networks in Rome, most scholarship has focused on mass oratory to the exclusion of intimate discussion. This study will highlight the importance of word-of-mouth communication in Rome and study how Romans shared information with each other and what techniques politicians used to encourage it.

Politics and Communication in Rome

Recent debates about the nature of Roman politics have focused on communication between the political elite and the voting public. In a 1984 paper, Fergus

Millar argued that the democratic component of Roman politics was considerable.4

Instead of focusing on elections and the men (and policies) who won them, Millar focused on persuasion. These essays called for closer study of contiones, political

“meetings” where magistrates addressed the public about current affairs and debates that were taking place in the Senate. For Millar, the orator was the medium between the people who drafted laws and the people who enacted them, and the contio was where the orator took action.5 The mere act of persuasion was alien to the models historians had previously used. He followed these essays with a book focusing on the essentially democratic nature of the comitia tributa and its legislative role focusing again on the

4 Millar, “The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200-151 B.C.”; For the pre-existing debate, see Gelzer, The Roman Nobility; Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar; Münzer, Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families; Syme, The Roman Revolution,. 5 Millar, “Politics, Persuasion and the People before the Social War (150-90 B.C.),” 1. 3 ways politicians tried to persuade voters to accept or deny specific legislation.6

Millar’s argument that Rome had an important democratic element has not had success among historians but his papers have encouraged a new way of looking at politics of the Republic through public oratory. Instead of focusing on patronage and elite social networks, historians have now expanded their inquiry into other social structures in the

Republic, most notably the ways in which Romans communicated.7

Millar’s greatest detractors have followed the call to look at contiones and comitia. Henrik Mouritsen approached the issue of public action by describing how hard it was for the public to act. He argued that there was no space in Rome large enough for a representative number of the public to gather, that contiones were partisan rallies, and that the voting places used in the comitia tributa were always stuffed with people ready to vote favorably for whatever measure was going to be presented.8 In fact, most Romans were apolitical and politics was controlled by a relatively small amount of politically active citizens mostly from the upper class.

Robert Morstein-Marx approached the question of democracy from the direction of the contio which he styles as “mass oratory.” Despite focusing on the same institution as Millar, Morstein-Marx arrived at a different conclusion, claiming that contiones were inherently aristocratic because they could only be called by magistrates. The political elite controlled the most important (to Morstein-Marx) form of communication, creating

6 Millar 1998, 204. 7 For more detailed overview of this debate, see: Jehne, “Methods, Models, and Historiography”; Hurlet, “Democratie a Rome? Quelle Democratie? En relisant Millar (et Holkeskamp).” 8 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 33–35, 44, 67. 4 a cultural hegemony and defining the distribution of power in the state.9 Another scholar,

Karl-J Hölkeskamp has argued, likewise, that the sole purpose of contiones was to give aristocrats control of the public debate, not to present it to the public.10

While they stand on the same side relative to Millar, Mouritsen’s arguments about physical space actually undermine those of Morstein-Marx, although Morstein-Marx had tried to respond to Mouritsen’s other points.11 Mouritsen argues that the venues used for contiones were too small to effectively spread a message. The Forum or Comitium could hold no more than 5,000 people, the Temple of Castor no more than 10,000, and the

Saepta between 40,000 and 70,000 (he believes that a form of the Saepta was used in the

Republic although Caesar had built the first permanent one).12 These were the venues in which the vast majority of contiones took place. In a city with perhaps one million residents, each venue was tiny.13 Morstein-Marx is therefore in shallow waters when he assumes that contiones were “mass oratory.” This further damages Morstein-Marx and

Hölkeskamp’s arguments that contiones were an important way for the elite to display their popular outlook and control of public discourse. Such small audiences would be a poor way to broadcast power, unless you assume that the audience is spreading the message. This assumption, however, has been poorly studied.

These scholars have approached Millar from his own starting points: contiones and comitia. Millar used historical descriptions of those events, especially from Polybius,

9 Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, 33; See also Hölkeskamp, Reconstructing the Roman Republic, 20. 10 Hölkeskamp 2010, 103. 11 Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, 11. 12 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 33. 13 For a discussion of the population of Rome, preferring a lower count, see Scheidel, “Roman Population Size: The Logic of the Debate.” 5 as the basis of his study. His detractors have used archeology, other historical sources, and more theoretical approaches to re-examine the bias in Millar’s sources. They have focused more on the social conditions of Rome by looking more at the atmosphere around contiones and comitia, not simply at the results of the votes and the material of the speeches.

The largest challenge to Mouritsen and Morstein-Marx has come from scholars looking towards the audience of public oratory. James Tan argues that the discursive tricks (mostly the ideological monotony) of contiones which Morstein-Marx attributes to elite desire to appear as populares, are the result of the occasion. When speaking to the public, the orator had to be popularis. By extension, only populares would use contiones as a first measure (as opposed to the Senate) to deliver political messages.14 In contrast,

Yakobson has argued that the ideological monotony apparent in contiones would have been easier for Romans to see through. It is a result of a vocabulary of inoffensive ideas that could be repackaged by diverse groups to discuss various issues the same way both

Democrats and Republicans can talk about the “American Dream.”15

Both of these studies still focus on the elite as the agent in the contio. Contiones and comitia were both formalized political events with long running traditions, but

Roman politics was not confined only to these official spheres.16 In order to expand research beyond oratory, scholars have also looked at informal events like bribery, the

14 Tan, “Contiones in the Age of Cicero.” 15 Yakobson, “People’s Role.” 16 Helmke and Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics”; For the distinction between formal and informal politics in Rome, see: Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 17. 6 spread of rumor, and public violence.17 Informal politics are political actions that are taken outside of established rules. In Rome, these actions include bribery, the politicization of collegia, the use of social networking in campaigns, and many other behaviors that are not directly proscribed in tradition. It is easy to see the informal nature of these behaviors because there was a lot of legislation and litigation against them in the late Republic. The collegia compitalica were banned in 64 BCE, leges de ambitu (laws on political campaigning) were passed throughout the late Republic, covering bribery, combining campaigns of candidates, and hosting munera (gladiator fights) as a candidate.

These laws were not merely on paper. A tribunal existed solely for litigation on ambitus, and many elections ended up there.18 These laws reveal what was official sanctioned in campaigning, but being excluded from those laws does not make an action formal. This study looks at the informal acts of social networking and gossip. Contiones will be considered with informally politicized court speeches. Oratory will be compared with the use of ludi and triumphs as informal political events.

Morstein-Marx himself has recently led the charge on informal political actions, calling for a look at the subtle ways in which the Roman plebs resisted elite dominance.19

This paper only offers a theoretical framework for further study without fully exploring the agency of the non-elite. Cristina Rosillo-López has now emerged arguing that public opinion, including the opinion of the non-elite, was an important factor in the decisions of

17 For bribery, see: Lintott, “Electoral Bribery in the Roman Republic”; Yakobson, “Petitio et Largitio”; For rumor, see: Laurence, “Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics”; For public action, see: Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.). 18 Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 212–24. 19 Morstein-Marx, “‘Cultural Hegemony’ and the Communicative Power of the Roman Elite.” 7 the elite and that displaying the support of the public was a central aspect of political success.20 Despite the agency both historians award to the audience and public at large, these studies are both focused on texts. Morstein-Marx’s examples of popular resistance come from graffiti and plays (reported, of course, through elite accounts). Rosillo-

López’s study focuses on political literature which was almost entirely written by members of the elite. In order to truly give agency to the Roman masses, a non-textual approach must be used.

Archeology has recently tried to develop just such an approach. Recent studies of

Pompeii, Ostia and other Roman towns have focused on the way the physical environment affected life. These studies focus on the street network and built environment as a whole to ask questions about how easy it was to travel through cities, how businesses attracted customers, and what pathways through the city were people likely to use. These studies have opened up new lines of inquiry into everyday life in

Roman cities, making it possible to recreate social interactions by reimagining social spaces.21

From Spaces to Networks to News

The theory behind the spatial turn in archeology is that spaces reflect and impact other aspects of culture. For example, a common area of research is street networks.

Archeologists study which streets were the most used, which direction traffic moved, and how crowded a street would have been. There are several forms of data used to make these observations: how long is each street, what is the route in relation to gates and

20 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic. 21 See Newsome, “Introduction: Making Moveent Meaningful” for an overview of the spatial turn. 8 major sites, how deep are the wheel ruts, how many streets intersect it, how wide is it, how many doors open onto it, and many more.22

This type of study can be built upon to ask more social questions. For example, street networks can show how easy it is to get from a main street to any location. By looking at the number of turns a traveler needed to make to get from one street to another

(and other factors), archeologists have divided cities like Pompeii into integrated and segregated blocks.23 The more integrated a block, the more foot traffic and business a neighborhood would attract. The more people who go through a neighborhood, the more gossip can spread. Other studies have examined how many people would use a typical water fountain and how ethnically or economically diverse a block would be. These studies help to show the social life of neighbors in a small community.

The archeology of space has been made possible by the use of geographical computing. By using powerful programs, archeologists can populate a map with data points and run programs designed for traffic control and other modern applications to better understand the way people would use the space around them.24 These tools have allowed archeologists to add people back into the empty spaces of excavations, but only as models often based on modern assumptions. However, the use of historical accounts on people moving through ancient cities adds a critical ancient perspective.25 In order to use this emerging archeology to better understand politics, the social life of people regardless of their environment also needs to be considered.

22 Laurence, Roman Pompeii. 23 van Nes, “Measuring Spatial Visibility in Pompeii.” 24 Dell’Unto et al., “Experiencing Ancient Buildings from a 3D GIS Perspective.” 25 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams.” 9

The behavior of people in social situations is the subject of its own area of study in the fields of communications and mathematics. The emergence of viral media has encouraged new growth in the study of social networks that builds off an already established interest in the field.26 Using mathematical models, social network scholars are able to study how a message can spread through extensive networks using dozens of criteria and randomization. Such modeling was not possible before modern computers.27

The most common model used for this problem is based on the mathematics of epidemiology.28 The simplest models of epidemiology divide a population into the infected, the susceptible, and the recovered. For the spread of rumors these groups equate to people who have heard the rumor and want to spread it, those who have not heard the rumor, and those who have heard the rumor and do not want to spread it.29

Social networks are made of “nodes” that are connected to each other in different ways. Nodes can be individuals or groups. For example, a typical person would have connections with her family, her workplace, and her various social groups. A network plot of her workplace would be a web where each node is connected to the others, but not every node would connect to her family. Likewise, the recreational softball team the office runs would have nodes from people outside the office on the team or on opposing teams. Her college friends would be totally separated from these networks. This person’s social network can be plotted as a series of nodes with links indicated as lines.

26 For a basic overview, see Scott, Social Network Analysis. 27 For a description and study of several models of social networks, see Trpevski and Tang, “Model for Rumor Spreading over Networks.” 28 Trpevski and Tang, 1. 29 Goffman and Newill, “Generalization of Epidemic Theory”; Daley and Kendall, “Epidemics and Rumours.” 10

Mathematical modeling can allow this network to expand into thousands of nodes using programs to randomly create the social networks of other people in her community based on her own social network. This allows researchers to better study the connections between people and how they share ideas.

Social networks can take many different shapes. It is most intuitive to imagine social connections as a web, with nodes being places where connections meet. These webs, however, vary from node to node. When focused on one node, the web might look chaotic with connections reaching nodes around the web seemingly at random. Another node might be the single connection between two very dense webs of nodes. A third node might only be connected to the nodes just around it. One node might look like a hub of many different nodes connected to it by spokes. All of these different arrangements have been modeled by mathematicians and can all co-exist in one community or even in one person’s different communities. A person’s family might be a densely connected web while their workplace is a series of hubs and spokes. As mentioned below, my second chapter will study which of these shapes of networks best fit Roman society.

The archeology of space gives researchers a way to approach the daily lives of

Romans in the absence of historical sources. By looking at Romans as members of a large population living in a shared space, mathematical modeling can be used to demonstrate how the city and culture encouraged the formation of social networks and aided or stifled the spread of rumor. Knowing the size of neighborhoods in Rome, the number of water sources the public could use, and how integrated each neighborhood was, we can now calculate how large a Roman’s social network might be and how likely he or she was to

11 know people in different parts of the city. Like the woman imagined above, each Roman would have networks in their family, living place, vicus, collegia, patron-network, or other social groups. The insight gained from spatial archeology allows us to see how social groups and individuals in different parts of the city could be linked. The street network becomes a tool to study social networks. Spatial archeology provides a way to see the shape of the social networks typical Romans made.

Mathematical models for social networks work because they are able to calculate multiple variables for how likely a node or person on the network was to interact with any other node and whether they were likely to transmit gossip and how likely the other node is to receive the gossip favorably and spread it further. 30 Studying the urban environment of Rome allows one way to narrow down the set of variables applicable to

Romans. These assumptions can be further narrowed using a large body of scholarship from the social sciences about the way gossip is used and received.

Rules of Rumor

Beginning in the 1960s, anthropologists began studying rumors and gossip as an essential aspect of a community.31 These studies do not associate moral judgment with gossiping and spreading rumors like most people tend to do. Instead, they view them as ways of spreading information through word-of-mouth. Because gossip takes place in an intimate social setting, it can be viewed as an important part of social interactions that make up communities. While researchers view gossip as value-neutral, the illicit nature of gossip in everyday life adds social pressure to the act but also helps demonstrate the

30 Daley and Kendall, “Epidemics and Rumours.” 31 Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal”; Paine, “What Is Gossip About?” 12 importance of the reward for sharing good information.32 Anthropologists were quickly followed by sociologists and psychologists.33 The consensus in all of those fields is that spreading information among a group helps to form bonds within that group, allows for the group to define norms (by encouraging or censuring behavior), and allows groups to police the behaviors of their members.

Sharing information about others and judging their behavior allows groups to develop and police their social norms.34 This works in three ways. First, a member of the group must moderate his behavior knowing that any transgressions will be spread among the group. Conversely, he is encouraged to act in a way he knows would be praised by the group. Second, discussing the transgressions and successes of people outside and within the group allows members to define the limits of proper behavior.35 In fact, sharing information about a perceived wrong-doing has been shown to improve mental health regardless of group membership.36 Finally, members of the group can set rules for gossip as a barrier to entry in that group. One must learn the types of gossip that are acceptable to share in the group and likewise be a member of the group before gossiping about the other members.37 Once these norms have been established in a group, members can then use gossip as a way to advance their own interests by exchanging information for esteem or by policing other members of the group.38

The Catilinarian conspiracy gives a good example of gossip being used to police

32 Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions. 33 Rosnow and Fine, Rumor and Gossip; Feinberg et al., “The Virtues of Gossip.” 34 Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal,” 308. 35 Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions, 142–44. 36 Feinberg et al., “The Virtues of Gossip,” 1016. 37 Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal,” 313–14; Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions, 8. 38 Paine, “What Is Gossip About?,” 282. 13 membership and behavior in a group—the Roman elite. Caesar was implicated in the conspiracy by multiple sources. Suetonius claims that an informant named Vettius implicated Caesar in the conspiracy but that Caesar proved him untrustworthy.39 Vettius was an equis, far below Caesar’s standing. According to Sallust, Caesar opposed

Vettius’s accusation by citing Cicero’s testimony that Caesar had aided in the investigation. In a battle of social standing, a knight could not hope to win against the consul. If the Senate believed the knight over one of their peers, it would harm the authority of the entire body.40

Sallust and Plutarch deepen the controversy. Both claim that Quintus Catulus and

Calpurnius Piso started a rumor that Caesar aided Catiline. Catulus was jealous of Caesar because he had become pontifex maximus.41 Caesar went “out of turn” by running for the priesthood as such a young man when Catulus was more qualified for the office after a long career guiding the public. Piso was angry that Caesar led an extortion claim against him. Because of these indiscretions, his peers spread a nasty rumor that he was involved in the conspiracy. Prosecution was usually an unpopular move for a politician and the fact that he stole the pontificate from more deserving men showed an ambition and lack of concern for the norms of Roman politics no different from Catiline’s.42 Piso and

Catulus used this rumor to harm Caesar as retribution for his socially unacceptable

39 Suet. Iul. 17. Dio gives a different view that Vettius was not widely trusted but his testimony led to many trials. Dio 37.41.2. 40 Goodwin, “Cicero’s Authority,” 52. 41 Sal. Cat. 49. Plut. Vit. Caes. 7.3, 8.1. The accounts disagree somewhat. Sallust does not name an informant but believes it might have something to do with the Allobroges. He also gives Piso and Catulus separate reasons for targeting Caesar where Plutarch believes both were jealous of Caesar’s election to the pontificate. 42 Brunt, “Amicitia in the Roman Republic,” 372–76. 14 behavior.43

Group dynamics not only affects the way gossip is spread but also the way gossip is received. People believe gossip that conforms to preconceived notions created by their social groups. The rumor that Piso and Catulus started about Caesar was motivated by

Caesar’s misbehavior but caught on because he was already alienated from the optimates and remained current until Plutarch’s account because he was alienated from the optimates for his entire career. In a similar way, Cicero could point to his own reputation to help dispel unfavorable gossip like he did when he asked Atticus to claim a pamphlet written against Curio was a forgery based on a writing style that was not up to Cicero’s published standards.44 Cicero avoided the worst of the pamphlet despite being the author because he was perceived as a better writer than the pamphlet demonstrated.

Martial offers a further example of using gossip as social censure. Four of his epigrams focus on a man named Fidentius whom Martial accused of plagiarism.45 Martial not only accuses Fidentinus of stealing his verses, but of reciting them poorly. He exaggerates the social aspect of the crime by comparing Fidentinus to a magpie among nightingales or a raven among swans. Among the beautiful singing of the nightingales or the pristine whiteness of the swans, Fidentinus is a “laughingstock.”46 This epigram, in particular, highlights the social aspect of Fidentinus’s discretion and indicates that he is being censured by his peers (which, Martial implies, are actually his superiors).

43 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 93–97 analyses Cicero’s decision to join Pompey in the Civil War through this lens. 44 Cic. Att. 3.12.2=57.2 SB. Discussed at great length in Chapter 1. 45 Mart. 1.29, 1,38, 1.53, 1.72. 46 Mart. 1.53. 15

Martial was just one of many Roman poets who highlighted the transgressions of their peers. In fact, Martial opened his first book of epigrams by faulting other poets for their harsh social criticism and for using the real names of their targets.47 Catullus accused a man named Asinius Marcus of stealing from hosts at dinners.48 Juvenal argued that it was the duty of all good Romans to comment on poor behavior they saw.49

Petronius and Horace used satire to critique society indirectly by highlighting the common faults they saw.

It is clear that Romans were avid gossips. Virgil and Ovid both envisioned Fama as a cosmic force.50 For Virgil it was a monstrous bird with ears, eyes and mouths under every feather moving from city to city, spreading whatever it hears with no regard to truth.51 Ovid portrays Fama as the ruler of a vast citadel located where the earth sea and sky meet. There are a thousand entries and she allows everything and everyone to enter.

She oversees a court of powers: Belief, Fear, Whispers, Joy, and Sedition. Thousands of people enter each day to spread throughout the world what they see in the citadel.52 While the portrayals of Rumor differ, both authors emphasize how quickly her work is done and how susceptible people are to her messages. On a less cosmic level, Horace talks about rumors going from the Forum to the vici of Rome faster than he can travel.53

47 Mart. 1.1.1-7. 48 Catull. 12. 49 Juv. 1.22. 50 Hardie, “Why Is Rumour Here?” 51 Verg. 4.173-190. 52 Ov. Met. 12.39-63. 53 Hor. Sat. 2.6.50. 16

Social Networks and Public Opinion in Rome

The best example of networking in ancient Rome comes from the

Commentariolum Petitioniis, a text providing advice for canvassing for the consulship.

Elections are also a place to view public opinion on display, but in the Roman political system, the pressure from the masses had its greatest effect long before the election and was diminished by the lopsided electoral power of the wealthy. The general endorsement of the people was important to show to wealthy voters, but rarely did anything like a majority of Roman men cast a vote. The tract was supposedly written for Cicero by his brother Quintus during Cicero’s candidacy for the consulship but it is almost certainly a forgery, but an ancient one. Therefore, it is useful but only with caution.

The goals of canvassing were twofold: to gather support from friends and to create support among the people in general. This was done by tapping into a career’s worth of social connections. The Commentariolum advised Cicero to approach his friends and people in his debt and that this is the best opportunity to reciprocate the favors he had done for them in the past. Likewise, this was a good opportunity for people who wanted

Cicero’s help in the future to create an obligation.54 The Commentariolum specifically lists senators, equites, publicani, freedmen in and around the Forum, leaders of collegia, vici, and tribes as the people Cicero should be befriending. The author claims that Cicero should focus especially on the friendship of men who can gather the support of entire tribes or centuries.55

The Commentariolum takes a wide view of friendship. Friends are not only

54 Cicero, Comment. pet. 4, 19. Brunt, “Clientele,” 389–90. 55 Cicero, Comment. pet. 18. 17 people sharing family ties and social and professional bonds but also fellow tribesmen, clients, freedmen, and slaves.56 People Cicero defended in court are expected to support him, as are Pompey and others whom Cicero has supported in the Senate.57 Likewise his household is expected to support him because of their natural ties.

Cicero, however, lacked one of the most integral aspects of a candidate: family history of holding office. Magistrates were capable of performing larger beneficia than a privatus, like hosting religious festivals, building a temple from spoils of war, or gaining higher honors like a triumph. Such grand acts of generosity and good leadership inspired gratia among the public. Powerful Romans expected the public to pay them back when they ran for office or supported legislation. Scholars argue about the extent to which sons could invoke the gratia owed their fathers and depend on people to pay them back with their votes, but the fama of a man’s ancestors did start a career on a strong footing.

Nobiles had opportunities like the pompa funebris to display themselves to the public that a man without magistrates in his family lacked. Cicero needed to compete with nobles who could gain gratia and fama not because their families had it but because they were better known and wealthier.

Cicero therefore needed to cultivate his reputation and gain wider notoriety. It was too expensive for Cicero to give beneficia to the entire city but he could give what he could and trust that his friends would spread word of Cicero’s generosity to the masses.58

Likewise, the Commentariolum explains that enlisting the help of the household is

56 Cicero, Comment. pet. 17. 57 Cicero, Comment. pet. 19, 51. 58 Cicero, Comment. pet. 44. 18 specifically important because members of the household were the source of the reputation (fama) of the candidate.59 When the Commentariolum encourages Cicero to gain the friendship of the leading men in the collegia and vici of Rome, it promises that those men will enlist the masses to support him.60 The importance of fama defines the help they give. They cannot force people to vote but they can spread Cicero’s reputation.

Canvassing was not focused on gaining votes in reciprocation for beneficia, it was focused on growing a reputation.

Reputation was also a large factor in friendships. The Commentariolum states that a candidate “can make friends of any people you wish without disgrace, which you cannot do in the rest of life.”61 The author does not specifically state which friendships were disgraceful but we can see from Cicero’s writings what associations he found disgraceful. Cicero certainly felt no disgrace being friendly with lower classes. For example, he had represented sodalitates (in this case referring to business groups) in court. These would have been “professionals” beneath his station. Likewise, Cicero often criticized his enemies for cavorting with actors, prostitutes, and other unsavory types.62

Indeed, Romans judged each other’s friends not by class but by character. The author of the Commentariolum uses Catiline’s friendships to make a point about the quality of Catiline’s character. One example was Vettius, a man who gained notoriety for falsely accusing Curio for framing him for the attempted murder of Pompey.63 Cicero

59 Cicero, Comment. pet. 17. 60 Cicero, Comment. pet. 30. 61 Cicero, Comment. pet. 25. 62 Arena, “Roman Oratorical Invective.” 63 Cicero, Comment. pet. 10. On Vettius: Cic. Att. 2.24=44 SB. 19 commonly used and alludes to the same technique in court by focusing on the personal shortcomings of the opposing legal team.64 Clearly the author of the Commentariolum believes that candidates can set aside any qualms about the friends they make during canvassing, but he also believes that long-held friendships reveal much about a person.

The Commentariolum thus outlines some of the basic ways in which social networks aided Roman politicians. It gives an indication of the size of Cicero’s social network and the basic way in which social networks were formed and activated to achieve a goal. It highlights the reciprocal nature of friendships and other relationships.

Finally, it shows how important spreading information through social networks was. A beneficium or other public deed could only enhance fama if people new about it. In order to inform the city about such deeds, politicians needed to use social networks.

Canvassing gave Romans an opportunity to shamelessly self-promote but they were only unique in scope. Romans relied on word-of-mouth networks to spread their fama at all times.

Public Opinion Politics

Gauging and using popular opinion was an important process for Roman politicians, even outside of electoral campaigning. For example, Cicero chose his court cases based on his feeling of popular opinion. In 54 BCE, Cicero wrote three letters to his brother Quintus debating whether he should take on a case against Gabinius for acting against the Senate and invading Egypt.65 The case was clear, but Gabinius was so popular

64 Cic. Mur. 3: Cato claimed that Cicero’s involvement in the case is beneath the dignity of a consul to which Cicero defends his stance. Cic. Mur. 8: Cicero defends himself against Servius Sulpicius’s accusation that by picking Murena’s side in court Cicero displays infidelity and thus is not to be trusted. 65 Cic. Q. Fr. 3.4-3.6=24-26 SB. 20 that Cicero felt he would lose support if he took on the case. Likewise, Cicero decided against supporting Pompey’s motions against Antonius in 61 BCE because he feared he would harm his reputation. This example is especially informative because Cicero states that he is concerned not only with the opinion of the boni but also the general public.66

Cicero saw value in cultivating popular support from people and groups with whom he did not align.

Even juries took public opinion into account when making their decisions. When

Sex. Cloelius was accused of leading a mob to burn down the Curia as part of Clodius’s funeral pyre, he was acquitted by the senators on the jury because of “Pompey’s unpopularity.” The only juror group that voted to convict Cloelius were the tribuni aerarii.67 The popular outcry against Pompey did not prevent juries from convicting less important associates of Clodius, however.68 Most juries had no issue convicting Clodius’s supporters, but the highest profile case was heavily swayed by public outcry.

Scholars have noted how few times legislation failed in the late Republic.69 This has been attributed to the power of patronage, and to the various blocks differing factions could use in the Senate and comitia. However, the impact of public opinion has been understated. As shown above, Cicero went against Pompey in favor of public opinion in

61 BCE and against his better judgment in favor of the equites in 59 BCE. Politicians in

Rome wanted to act in the public interest, so they gauged public opinion and made

66 Cic. Att. 1.12.1=12.1 SB. Cicero may only be speaking about the factions in the Senate, the wording is ambiguous. 67 Cic. Q. Fr. 2.5.4=9.4 SB. 68 For more information on Cloelius see Damon, “Sex. Cloelius, Scriba.” 69 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 104. 21 decisions based on it. They would allow projects to die in the face of public resistance and support popular legislation even against their political goals. Cicero’s career offers a good example: Clodius rallied the public against him, leaving Pompey unable to support

Cicero without alienating his own public support. Once Clodius’s tribuneship had ended,

Pompey and Cicero’s other allies were able to lead the restoration movement with the support of the senatorial class and the equites. In order to gather that support, Cicero’s allies, particularly Lentulus Spinther, used the Ludi Florales and Ludi Apollinares to gather Cicero’s supporters to Rome and call the comitia centuriata to vote for his restoration.

Social Networks and Mass Oratory

The social relationships and information networks explained in the

Commentariolum are at the heart of this study. By combining the observations of archeologists, social network modelers, and sociologists with historical sources like the

Commentariolum they can be evaluated and refined to best fit Roman life. This study will demonstrate that word-of-mouth communication was pervasive and that Roman politicians relied on their audience to spread their message and reputation. This encouraged the standardization of public speeches and the growth of ludi as informally political events in the late Republic. Finally, the need to gain vocal supporters emerged from and exacerbated the highly competitive politics in the Late Republic.

This study is divided into four chapters, expanding from the most intimate sources and occasions to the most massive. Beginning with private conversations among the elite, this study ends with Rome’s largest venues. The study also moves from arguments based

22 on texts to arguments based on models taken from archeology and social networking.

The first chapter is an overview of elite social networks and the way they shared information focusing on the letters of Cicero and Pliny. I argue that politicians needed a considerable investment of time and money to be informed, making it impossible for the typical Roman to participate fully in public discussions. As explained later in the second and third chapters, this goes some way to explaining the monotony of oratory and the focus on personality over policy in rhetoric.

As a member of the social elite, being informed was essential not only for making decisions as leaders of Rome but also in their private networks. Sharing information was a form of reciprocal exchange that formed the basis of Roman social bonds. It was thus integral for social life to be able to discuss current events and share novel gossip with your peers. A further aspect of elite social networks is that they were necessary for the running of the empire. Without a professional bureaucracy, the government ran purely based on the personal connections between the political leaders. Political decisions and the ability to govern were both dependent on social networks.

The second chapter uses the archeology of space and social network models to study how information spread among Rome’s non-elite. I argue that a typical Roman’s social network was mostly closed to the people who lived in their neighborhood but that there were many day-laborers, clients, and other professionals who acted as links between those neighborhoods and the city in general.

The third chapter demonstrates that there was an interest in sharing political

23 gossip among the non-elite, who have often been called apolitical.70 I study forms of gossip in Rome through poetry, comedy, and graffiti. I argue that Romans engaged in the sharing of gossip as an extra-political form of empowerment and engagement.71

As mentioned above, the issue was that gossip was happenstance unless a large sum of money and time was used to gather it. This meant that gossip tended to focus on personal characteristics and behavior than on opinion and policy. People were real and their behavior was visible, and Roman politicians worked to be visible in the city. This made their lives real to typical Romans in a way that the farms of Campania or publicani of Asia could not match. Hence much discussion on political issues devolved into competitions between the men on either side rather than policy. As will be discussed in the fourth chapter, Romans considered discussion of character no less important than discussions of the facts in an oration.

The fourth and fifth chapters both discuss how word-of-mouth affected the way

Rome’s elite presented themselves to the public. The third chapter studies contiones and other forms of public speech. I argue there that Roman speeches were designed in a way that encouraged comprehension among the audience but that the complicated matter in speeches made it difficult for speakers to guarantee that the word-of-mouth that emerged after the speech would be focused and favorable. It was easy to lose the message despite the focus on comprehension. Speeches were thus likely stage-managed. Because orators realized the difficulty Romans had getting news, they worked to make news available by seeding audiences with clients from different vici.

70 Mouritsen, “From Meeting to Text: The Contio in the Late Republic,” 72. 71 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. 24

The fifth chapter discusses the largest venues in Rome: ludi and triumphs.

Because it was difficult to transmit a focused message from a public speech, politicians relied increasingly on spectacles to build their reputation. Instead of asking the audience to share often complicated and multifaceted arguments, the host of a spectacle was transmitting a simple display of his generosity for the audience to share. These were multisensory experiences designed to make big impressions. Not only was the message simpler, the original audience was orders of magnitude larger than the audience at even the largest speeches. The reliance on these large displays once again makes money a large issue. The cost of ludi was astronomical, making them a large gamble.

Ludi and triumphs are one of the few places where crowds were encouraged to participate through applause and chants. Where the audience of a contio was ideally controlled by the orator, the audience of ludi cheered as the host entered and throughout the performances and hunts displayed. These venues thus gave the audience a way to communicate with their elite that did not exist in any other space. The host was trying not only to send a message through his audience but also to display a favorable audience to his peers in the Senate.

The goal of this work is to survey the way in which Romans communicated person to person and how that communication was used by politicians and their audiences. The study, therefore, concludes with a short survey of the period between the death of Caesar and the Battle of Philippi where, in the absence of political normalcy, several different actors attempted to curry public favor and elite support through large public acts. The competition between these men allows for a study of all facets of

25 communication studied throughout the project. Through the lens of Caesar’s death it is easy to see the way in which word-of-mouth communication impacted Rome.

Once word-of-mouth communication is taken into account, many of the arguments historians have made against the fairness of contiones can be laid to rest. Most

Romans would never hear the words of an orator delivering a contio. What they were far more likely to hear was a summary from an acquaintance. They might then share the news with others and have a conversation about it. Roman politics depended on these interactions and engaging the audience was as important to Roman speakers as it is today.

The spread of news by word-of-mouth was central to Roman life and empowered

Romans to actively, if indirectly, engage in politics.

26

Chapter 1: The High Price of Information

In 45 BCE as Caesar was consolidating control of Rome, Cicero was spending his summer at his home in Tusculum, a village in the Alban Hills just twelve miles from the center of Rome. In the hills wealthy Romans could trade the stagnant stench and deafening commotion of Rome for the cool breeze from Lake Albano and the solitude of their expansive estates. As Cicero was discussing philosophy with friends, who should arrive but Varro, the very man they were discussing. Cicero was so excited to see him that he nearly tore Varro’s cloak taking it off. Shortly after Varro, however, C. Capito and C. Carrinas arrived. Both were up-and-coming partisans of Julius Caesar.1 Cicero was not so eager to entertain them but felt compelled to invite them in because of the time of day. Nevertheless, everything worked out in Cicero’s favor because Capito shared a bit of important policy—Caesar was planning to redirect the Tiber River as part of a larger plan to expand the city of Rome to include the Campus Martius and turn the

Campus Vaticanus into the new mustering place. This interfered with Cicero’s months of planning to buy an estate on the Vaticanus on which to build a shrine honoring Cicero’s

1 Cicero does not give much information about either. C. Capito is probably the man assigned as prefect to distribute land to veterans by Caesar in 44 BCE; C. Ateius Capito (7), MRR 332. As for Carrinas, Cicero identifies the visitor as T. Carrinas but probably means C. Carrinas, D.R. Shackleton Bailey in Cicero, Letters to Atticus, Vol. IV (Crambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999) 411. 27 recently deceased daughter.2 Cicero was sorry to hear the news but he knew to trust

Capito, a well-known news hound.3 This one evening tells us much about the way

Cicero’s peers travelled and shared information with each other. Cicero was already entertaining when people arrived unannounced. Cicero felt that he was obligated to let them in even without any forewarning and even though Cicero did not like them. The men entertained themselves through conversation, first on philosophy and later on policy and real estate. This chance encounter founded fruitful relationships. The year after the meeting, Cicero wrote Capito two petitions while Capito served as the prefect for distributing land to veterans.4

In the absence of mass-media, most news and information in Rome was spread from person to person. This meant that in order to be truly informed on events around the city and empire a Roman needed to have a network of people with whom to share information. The sharing of information was a reciprocal act that satisfied the reciprocal nature of Roman relationships.5 Both elite and non-elite would expect their friends and associates to share news with them but wealthy Romans were members of expansive and well-connected social networks that gave them access to information directly from the source. This access cost them dearly. Hosting parties, hiring messengers, and leisure time to participate in high culture were all costly and maintaining connections to Rome when abroad added another layer of high costs.

Roman society was founded on generosity and reciprocity. One important feature

2 Cic. Att. 12. 35-37, 12.40, 13.12 (274-276, 281, 320 SB). 3 Cic. Att. 13.33a.1 = 330 SB. 4 Cic. Att. 16.16C and 16.16F = 407C and 407F SB. 5 Brunt, “Amicitia in the Roman Republic,” 355. 28 of those ideals was hosting friends at your own house. Indeed, hosting was so important that Romans felt slighted if they were not imposed upon by their friends.6 Furthermore,

Romans scheduled their days to “foster personal contact.”7 They threw their houses open to clients and friends in the morning, went into town in the afternoon and usually joined friends for dinner. They planned their days around creating situations where they could gather with a wide range of people from clients to business partners to intimate friends.

These gatherings are the core of Roman social networks. They show us the way Romans thought about relationships and how they spread and received news.

For wealthy Romans these social interactions spread well beyond the city of

Rome. These men usually owned multiple properties in different regions of Italy and would travel between them throughout the year. This offered opportunities to expand their social networks to both the regional elite in different parts of Italy and other Romans who may also “vacation” in the same towns. They even stayed at their friends’ houses as they traveled. Lentulus Spinther spent the night at Cicero’s house at Puteoli in April 44

BCE on a night when Cicero also played host to Balbus, Hirtius, Pansa, and Octavian, the men who would soon decide the fate of Rome.8 With the exception of Cicero they were all traveling north and stopped in the port town on their way. One of Pliny’s letters shows how these stays worked: his friend Junius Mauricus invited him to spend the night, Pliny accepted the invitation on the understanding that Mauricus would not go out of his way.9

This shows that these stays were not uncommon or extravagant and also that Romans

6 Cic. Att. 4.8a = 82 SB. 7 White, Cicero in Letters, 18. 8 Cic. Att. 14.11.2 = 365.2 SB. 9 Plin. Ep. 6.14. 29 were actively interested in having overnight guests.

While hosting a guest overnight seems like a grand gesture, the real pinnacle of

Roman society was the dinner party. Juvenal goes so far as to call them the “harvest of a great friendship.”10 Dinner parties provided Romans an opportunity to gather, impress each other, and expand their social circles. The size, entertainment and cuisine varied between each, but it is clear that dinner parties were an important way in which Romans interacted. These dinner parties could fulfill many different kinds of social obligations both in equal and hierarchical relationships. Cicero and Pliny both write about the extravagant dinner parties they attended and hosted with their peers, but Juvenal and

Martial both write about their experiences dining with fellow clients at their patron’s home. By looking at specific examples of dinner parties and the reactions to them, we can reconstruct the norms of the events and from there reconstruct another aspect of the way

Romans interacted.

The most famous dinner party in ancient Rome comes from satire—the banquet of

Trimalchio from Petronius’s Satyricon. Trimalchio was a freedman who became fabulously wealthy as a merchant. Guests entered his home greeted by slaves and were seated in front of copious hors d’oeuvres and served by singing slaves.11 Once Trimalchio made his grand entrance they were served an egg with a cooked song bird inside, and a themed dinner inspired by the twelve signs of the Zodiac along with a short recitation about the significance of each sign by the host.12 When presenting each guest with a

10 Juv. 5.14. 11 Petron. Sat. 31. 12 Petron. Sat. 33, 35. 30 suckling pig to bring home, Trimalchio carted out a boar which erupted with living birds.

And that was only the first half. Trimalchio later summoned a roasted pig which appeared ungutted. After a confrontation with the chef, the chef opened the pig only to reveal that the innards were already sausages. This was followed by a recitation from the Trojan

Cycle featuring a fully armed reenactment.13 Throughout the dinner Trimalchio mortified his guests with poor recitations, tasteless displays of violence toward his slaves, and head-spinning reversals in every aspect of the meal.14

Petronius’s description of the dinner is an indictment on the rampant wealth in the era of Nero especially among freedmen, but the exaggerations in the account serve to illustrate aspects of real dinner parties. First, Trimalchio’s food is served on silver dishes intricately designed and each marked with their weight. It is not enough from Trimalchio to merely display his wealth, he wants everyone to know its exact value.15 Instead of merely showing off the jewelry she was wearing, Trimalchio’s wife pulled out her entire collection and Trimalchio revealed the exact weight of the gold she was wearing.16 In addition a slave was counting gold coins just outside the entrance to the dining room.17

These are cartoonish ways for Petronius to comment on the ostentatious nature of real dinner parties. At the midpoint of the meal, Trimalchio makes sure to inform his guests about the etiquette and availability of his private facilities, a humorous comment on the gastro-intestinal distress surely caused but more tactfully handled in any lavish party.18

13 Petron. Sat. 49, 59. 14 John H. D’Arms argues that slaves were often mistreated at such events and that Trimalchio was not an extreme case. D’Arms, “Slaves at Roman Convivia,” 181. 15 Petron. Sat. 31. 16 Petron. Sat. 67. Six and a half pounds, for the record. Quite a strain on the neck one would think. 17 Petron. Sat. 30. 18 Petron. Sat. 47. 31

Even dour Cicero admits that he came away from dinner parties with indigestion.19

Trimalchio’s banquet is a distorted mirror to Roman excess, but it still follows the basic rules of a dinner party.20 At one point in Trimalchio’s gastic journey a friend of his drops by and talks about the dinner he had just come from—a neighbor was having a funeral dinner in honor of her recently deceased slave. His description is a telling foil to

Trimalchio’s banquet: a roasted pig with honey cakes and beetroot, whole wheat bread, a cold tart with wine and honey, pease, lupines, nuts, apples, cheese and wine, eggs, tripe, liver, turnips and the piece de resistance—roasted bear.21 This seems meager compared to Trimalchio’s meal—where guests took home suckling pigs, roasted chickens, and were fed multiple fish and pork prepared several ways along with the honeyed birds and other sweet and savory fair—but was plenty to satisfy any apetite.

Pliny and Cicero were no strangers to grand dinner parties, but Pliny had more interest in making his readers salivate. Pliny asks one friend why he disliked the mimes, clowns and dancers at one dinner party, a clear indication that Trimalchio’s acrobats and reenactors were not so excessive.22 Pliny further gives us contrasting descriptions of two parties that happened on the same evening. Pliny’s own party featured lettuce, snails, whole wheat bread, eggs, and chilled wine and honey. The entertainment was a comic play, a singer and a recitation. The other party that night which Pliny was writing his friend about, had oysters, sea urchins, and Spanish dancers.23

19 Cic. Fam. 7.26=210 SB. Rosivach, “Cicero, Epistulae Ad Familiares 7.26” explains the humor in the letter. 20 Jones, “Dinner Theater,” 185. 21 Petron. Sat. 65. 22 Plin. Ep. 9.17. 23 Plin. Ep. 1.15. 32

Many hosts failed to live up to these lofty expectations, and their guests were vocal about their disappointment. The freedman poet Martial mentions one dinner party with 60 guests but only roasted boar. The host clearly tried to impress with sheer numbers of guests but failed to provide a suitable dinner. Martial laments the absence of fruits and honey and sweets and condemns the meal as no better than the fare at the arena.24 In a similar fashion Pliny complained of a dinner aspiring to “elegant economy” but felt more like “cheap excess.”25 Clearly in both cases the hosts were trying to impress, once with excess guests, again with perhaps a lot of inexpensive fare. They went for excess but they focused on excessive quantity without corresponding quality.

As the above examples imply, dinner parties were popular matter for conversation. Even Petronius felt that a description of a fictional dinner party was incomplete without people discussing a separate dinner party. Pliny and Martial also reveal the social pressures on a host. His dinner party will be talked about, and he must ensure that the reception is favorable. Neither Martial nor Pliny name their hosts in their descriptions, but their peers could easily surmise his identity, especially if he had 59 other guests. Hosting a feast was high stakes. One had to account for the generosity of the dinners he had attended in the past and for the reception of his own dinner. Romans attending would judge the event based on dinners they had hosted and attended.

Reciprocity was competitive as well as compulsory.26

Other social events were only one of the many topics Romans discussed while

24 Mart. 1.4. 25 Plin. Ep. 2.6. 26 For more on the public and even competitive aspects of dinner, see Peachin, “Friendship and Abuse at the Dinner Table.” 33 together. Sharing news and intimate gossip was expected. Pliny constantly guarded his behavior for fear of the gossips of Rome yet constantly shared stories in his letters about intimate moments with others.27 Here again, Petronius gives us a colorful example. At a quiet moment in the banquet, our protagonist turned to the man who invited him and received the history of everyone else at the party—how much money they were worth, how they made that money, and their personal scandals.28 A little later, when Trimalchio left the dining room, the guests began a lively conversation starting with a disagreement about a man who had died, moving on to a complaint about the price of food and gossip about upcoming games.29 Personal and civic matters were all fair game, and the guests had no qualms about the judgments they cast on those not present, even the dead.

Trimalchio, in comic contrast, had all of his personal news delivered to the party “as though from a gazette.” A reader announced the news from Trimalchio’s estates including the lives of his slaves and the value of his investments and salacious news from town essentially amounting to a police blotter.30 Just as Petronius lampooned the use of a feast to display wealth, he is here commenting on the way both host and guests used dinners as an opportunity to brag.

Cicero felt it was important to keep abreast of dinner conversations, even those he did not attend. He often wrote his friends to share conversations he heard and to ask for news from Atticus’s events. Sharing these conversations was so ingrained that at one

27 Complaining about gossip: Plin. Ep. 1.9.5. As for sharing private moments, Pliny does it often but most salaciously with the stories he reports about his nemesis Regulus: Ep. 1.5, 2.20, 4.2, 4.7. 28 Petron. Sat. 37-38. 29 Petron. Sat. 42-46. 30 Petron. Sat. 53. 34 point Cicero wrote Atticus a letter to discuss a letter Atticus had forwarded to him in which Cincius discussed a conversation he had had with a man named Statius. Statius had told Cincius at a dinner party that Cicero supported the divorce of Quintus (Cicero’s brother) and Pomponia (Atticus’s sister). Neither of the people in Cicero’s direct exchange were present for the conversation being discussed yet it affected them both and they both received information about it.31 This is just the most extreme example.32 Cicero shared a drunken legal debate from a dinner party with his friend Trebatius and Pliny gave an account of a dinner party to show how courageous a friend was.33 Since Roman gossip could be so candid and since these parties were ubiquitous and involved a social class with a dense web of personal connections it was important for people like Cicero both to ensure that gossip about themselves was favorable, to inform their friends when they were the subject of discussion as Cincius had done, and even to support their friends as Pliny did.

This became all the more important at the beginning of the war between Pompey and Caesar. Cicero accidentally became an important player between the two and was thus a common topic at dinner parties. 34 Cicero claims that their talk was not influencing him, but he did take time to comment on it in his letters. Indeed, the letter in which

Cicero was most concerned with the rumors is the letter in which he declares his support

31 Cic. Att. 6.2.1 = SB 116.1. 32 A similar example is Cic. ad Brut 1.1 = 13 SB in which Cicero asks Brutus to ignore rumors he has heard about a man named L. Clodius and to instead trust what Cicero has to say about him. 33 Cic. Fam 7.22 = SB 331; Plin. Ep. 4.22. 34 Cicero had the misfortune of governing Cilicia the year before the war began. When he returned to Italy he still had imperium, the right to command an army, making him a target of recruitment for both sides. Cic. Att. 9.1.3 = 167.3 SB. 35 for Pompey.35 Despite his claims to the contrary, it is clear that peer-pressure affected

Cicero’s decision (or at least his decision to make a decision). Cicero needed to know what people said about him. nce he did know, he silenced the discussion by making his choice.36

While handling these affairs over letters was common, it was critical attend these events. In the first place, turning down an invitation to dinner was not taken lightly. In one letter Pliny responds to a claim that he has been “failing” his friends presumably by declining invitations to poetry readings. Pliny defends himself by simply denying the claim and countering that he had stayed in town longer than he expected in part because he had so many parties to attend.37 Juvenal describes a dinner party as an important feature in a friendship, one which a friend cannot decline lightly.38 Cicero was concerned when a he discovered a friend of his was in town for some time without once paying a visit. He went so far as to ask Atticus to confront the man about it.39 One of his final letters expressed distress that his friend Paetus had stopped attending dinners.40 Visiting a friend was expected, and accepting his invitation to dinner was even more important.

Attending dinners was also important because it gave people a better way to communicate and bond. Body language is an important tool when handling delicate matters and a clue when trying to tease out information from someone. Romans had a fiction that letters in a small way made up for a person’s absence, but the fiction shows

35 Cic. Att. 9.1.4 = 167.4 SB. 36 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 93–97. 37 Plin. Ep. 1.13.6. 38 Juv. 5. 39 Cic. Att. 4.8a.3 = 82.3 SB. 40 Cic. Fam. 9.24.3 = 362.3 SB. 36 how important physical presence was. Letters could never fully make up for missing a person, but they helped in a small way. Likewise, written language can never match the experience of seeing someone in the flesh. Sarcasm often seems sincere in writing, and emotional nuance is hard to convey in text. In the flesh both are easily conveyed with something as small as a tilt of the head. Cicero shows the importance of meeting in person: Balbus appeared at his home in Puteoli about two months after Caesar’s death and began to talk about the news coming from Rome, urging Cicero to side with Antony.

Cicero barely wrote about what Balbus said, instead he wrote Atticus about what Cicero could clearly observe (perspicere)—that Balbus clearly felt war was coming.41 Cicero also makes note of how difficult it was to trust Balbus and how “guarded” he was, more observations based not simply on what the man was saying. The message Cicero took most of all from this meeting was one which Balbus had not spoken: that Rome was headed for another civil war.

Dinner and a Show

Dinner parties featured many forms of entertainment including music, dancing and even drama, but one of the most common were readings from the host or the attendees. As mentioned above, Petronius includes Trimalchio’s poor poetry in his narrative. Pliny reveals just how extensive these readings were. Pliny was concerned that turning down too many invitations to dinner would leave him out of the loop on emerging literature and art.42 In a later letter, Pliny felt compelled to defend his practice of having people over for public readings. He argued that no one was forced to attend and that his

41 Cic. Att. 14.21.2 = SB 375.2. 42 Plin. Ep. 1.13. 37 invitations were “a source of pride to many.”43

Pliny was in good company. Cicero asks Atticus to have his treatises read at dinner parties.44 While Cicero’s letters do not have the amount of literary criticism

Pliny’s do, both Cicero and his contemporary, Catullus, do hint that there was a thriving literary culture in their time. Accounts of dinner readings help us see how Romans spread information among their social networks starting with dinners and extending to those unable to attend or even uninvited. Roman literary culture was analogous to other forms of spreading information and is useful as a case-study for the way in which information spread through a social network.

Dinner readings served a specific purpose for men like Cicero and Pliny. They were an important way for authors to receive feedback. Pliny used these events as one step in his drafting process. As he explains:

I do not seek praise for my speech when it is read aloud, but when the text can be

read after publication, and consequently I employ every possible method of

correction. First of all, I go through my work myself; next, I read it to two or three

friends and send it to others for comment. If I have any doubts about their

criticisms, I go over them again with one or two people, and finally I read the

work to a larger audience; and that is the moment, believe me, when I make my

severest corrections, for my anxiety makes me concentrate all the more

carefully.45

43 Plin. Ep. 5.3.11. 44 Cic. Att. 16.2.6 = SB 412.6, 16.3.1 = SB 413.1. 45 Plin. Ep. 7.17. Translated by Betty Radice. 38

Giving readings to a small and controllable audience allowed authors to receive constructive criticism from friends and associates without broadcasting potential faults for all of society to mock.

Reading aloud had advantages over sending manuscripts for others to read and critique because those manuscripts could sometimes be copied and “published” without permission.46 Another advantage is the physical presence of the audience. As mentioned above, Romans appreciated being able to use body language when they were discussing touchy subjects with someone. For Pliny the act of viewing the audience allowed him to use body language to mitigate the politeness of his guests:

[The author] has a kind of panel of experts to confirm his decision on any

doubtful point. He receives suggestions from different members, and, failing this,

he can infer their various opinions from their expressions, glances, nods,

applause, murmurs and silence, signs which make clear the distinction between

their critical judgement and polite assent.47

Romans were usually complimentary when discussing a person’s writing to their face to the point that being critical could provoke censure as Martial gives Laelius: “although you don’t publish your own poems, Laelius, you carp at mine. Either don’t carp at mine or publish your own.”48

Despite Martial’s combative tone, his poem does reveal that Romans of his time enjoyed discussing and critiquing the literature their peers produced. Pliny compiled

46 Cic. Att. 8.9.1 = SB178A. Late examples also abound: August. Ep. 72.1, Ruricius of Limoges, Ep. 1.8. 47 Plin. Ep. 5.3.9-10. Translated by Betty Radice. 48 Mart. 1.91, translated by D. R. Shackleton-Bailey. This is just one of many epodes Martial wrote about Laelius, a nemesis of sorts. 39 multiple letters in which he discussed the literary and rhetorical skill of men he knew personally and travelling philosophers. For example he gave a quick note on the literary skill of Silius Italicus in an obituary he wrote for him.49 He also wrote his friends about the speeches he heard at the centumviral court often highlighting the eloquence of the authors more than arguments.50 He also responds in one letter to a friend who warned him that a lot of people were getting into heated discussions about his writings—particularly that humor was beneath his dignity.51 Catullus tells his friend Varus about the poetry of

Suffrenus concluding that “the same man who was just now a dinner-table wit…is more clumsy than the clumsy country, whenever he touches poetry.”52

Attending dinners was important also for staying current with art and literature as well as maintaining friendships. Catullus, Martial and Pliny and many of their peers enjoyed creating and critiquing literature. It was a way for them to display their talents and bond. It also reveals the ways in which they transmitted and transformed information.

The men in Pliny’s letter 5.3 were not just talking about Pliny’s poetry. They were trying to convince each other to perceive it in a particular way. The conversation was divisive so there were clearly at least two perspectives being discussed. Likewise, Catullus does not just inform Varus that Suffrenus enjoyed writing poetry. He also told Varus what he thought of that poetry. In a similar way Laelius was giving an opinion on Martial’s poetry, not necessarily presenting the poems as they were intended to be perceived.

The readings performed at these dinners also met the Roman need for gossip in

49 Plin. Ep. 3.7. 50 Plin. Ep. 2.12, 2.14, 4.9, 5.9, 5.20. 51 Plin. Ep. 5.3.1. 52 Catull. 22; translated by F. W. Cornish, J. P. Postgate, J. W. Mackail; Revised by G. P. Goold. 40 their subject matter. Pliny recounts one evening where an author was reading from a history he had written, but he chose to finish on another night. Some of the guests begged him not to read the second half because they were ashamed that he would narrate their shameful actions in the past.53 Pliny claims that the story is a lesson on the “powers of history,” but it is clearly an example of just how damaging the conversations and performances at these parties could be.

Martial took a stand against such malicious literature, claiming that his mission was to strike a balance in his poetry between humor and insult, claiming that his “jesting is with respect of persons, even the humblest, respect which was so lacking in writers of old that they made free not only with real names, but even with great ones.”54 Here he is contrasting himself particularly with Catullus who was never afraid to accuse people of hypocrisy or deviant sexuality. Both poets made very personal accusations about the things their peers and betters did in what we would consider their private spaces and times. Their poetry was another way of generating and sharing gossip, another insight past the polite discussion of dinner parties and into the raunchy.

Literature reveals another important way in which Romans shared their experiences with their friends. As mentioned above, public readings were a step in the drafting process for men like Cicero and Pliny, and both obviously produced a lot of material that was thence copied and shared.55 These compositions could be purchased by book-sellers or copied from a borrowed manuscript or requested from the author

53 Plin. Ep. 9.27. 54 Mart. 1.1-7. 55 Probably not all Romans wanted to publish their composition. Catullus implies that Suffrenus kept his poetry private, for example Catull. 22. 41 himself.56 More telling about the way Romans shared gossip is the way they shared works that were never meant for public consumption: their peers’ letters.

Cicero’s collection includes 39 letters sent to his friends as attachments. These are letters Cicero received from someone which he then copied and sent to a third person.

Another 39 letters from Cicero’s collections allude to attachments but do not have them, and 5 letters in the collection were neither sent to nor addressed to Cicero but do not have their cover letters replicated.57 In many ways, these attachments are physical artefacts of the way Romans shared information. They show Cicero sharing the news he had heard by providing the source itself.

The most notable examples of this practice come at the start of the Roman Civil

War. Cicero sent several attachments to Atticus as he was weighing whether to join

Pompey. In one letter Cicero included two letters from Pompey and Cicero’s responses.58

The next day Cicero sent Atticus another letter with four attachments: the first was a letter from Pompey to the consuls C. Marcellus and L. Lentulus, then three letters from

Pompey to Domitius.59 Those four letters came to Cicero as attachments from Pompey.

These letters would horrify modern intelligence agencies; but, for Cicero, they were physical manifestations of shared information. Instead of just commenting on and summarizing the letters Cicero wanted to share with Atticus, he included the letters themselves. The main letters to which these were attached gave Atticus the context with

56 For book-sellers see Plin. Ep. 9.11, Mart. 1.117. 57 White, Cicero in Letters, 44 and n. 36. White also adds that these attachments are included mostly in the most dramatic points of Cicero’s correspondence: the Civil War and the events after Caesar’s assassination, so there is a clear indication of editorializing. 58 Cic. Att. 8.11A-D = 161A-D SB. 59 Cic. Att. 8.12A-D = 162A-D SB. 42 which Cicero wanted him to read. Cicero molded the intentions of the original author, adding his insight to the original. In the earlier letter he showed Pompey’s hesitation. In the latter he sent Pompey’s response: he tarried because he was trying to unite his army with Domitius’s.

The very practice of attaching letters shows several things about how Cicero shared information. Most immediately, Cicero and Pompey both felt comfortable forwarding letters to people who were not directly party to them. Cicero and Pompey felt that they could share private correspondence with trusted people outside the conversation, but they could also be very guarded about their own correspondence. Cicero complains that Pompey was always guarded and rarely shared his opinion on policy.60 Cicero reveals that Atticus was also worried about letters falling into the wrong hands. When

Cicero was stuck in Brundisium for most of 47 BCE Atticus was responsible for getting mail to him and was clearly concerned that the mail sent to Cicero would be intercepted along the way and reveal skeletons in the closet along the way.61

Romans also published open letters. Cicero made several copies of the letter he wrote Caesar in March 49 BCE in which he offered to mediate between Caesar and

Pompey.62 We know this because Atticus wrote to inform Cicero that people were sending copies of the letter to each other. Atticus again shows concern for the privacy of

Cicero’s correspondence and perhaps he wants to ensure Cicero that he was not the

60 Cic. Fam. 1.5b = 16 SB. Without the collection of Pompey’s letters it is difficult to evaluate Cicero’s statement, nor does Cicero indicate whether he is speaking of letters specifically or face-to-face or both. 61 Cic. Att. 11.22.1 = 237 SB 62 Cic. Att. 9.11A = 178A SB is the letter in question. Cicero says he distributed copies of it in Cic. Att. 8.9.1 = 188 SB. 43 person making copies of the letter in question. In contrast Cicero was using the letter to broadcast his opinion on the conflict and wanted this “private” correspondence circulated.

Romans had large and fluid social circles. They traveled around Italy throughout the year and many had reasons to travel around the Mediterranean during their lives for business, education, or pleasure. They opened their houses to new people, expected their friends to visit whenever they were near, and introduced each other to new acquaintances.

They enjoyed talking about local news and art, the happenings in Rome and the major affairs abroad and they also liked sharing gossip about their peers. They did so in person and in letters. Most important they liked to have verifiable information and they tested their information by asking other friends. They protected their friends’ reputations by informing them what was said and by passing along their compositions and news.

The costs of socializing were astronomical. First, being a member of elite social circles came with the expectation that you could reciprocate. For any social event you attended, you were expected to host your own. This limited the social circle based on wealth. The costs of the dinners Pliny and Cicero describe would have been large. A host needed slaves to man the door and set up the event; cook, carve, and serve the food; and a separate group to serve the wine.63 Multiple performances added to the cost. Next, the skills and information needed to participate in discussion and literary culture required leisure time, education, and access to gossip. Perhaps the greatest cost was the need to reciprocate. The return on such costs was a powerful network of allies who not only entertained but helped their friends rise to political prominence.

63 D’Arms, “Slaves at Roman Convivia,” 172. 44

Keeping in Touch

Because our best sources about Roman friendships are letters, we can see the way friends interacted best when those friends were far apart. Romans considered letters a proxy for physical presence, so the subject matter and style of letters can be considered an imitation (not necessarily faithful) of the way Romans spoke when face-to-face. The letters of Cicero and Pliny are particularly obsessed with sharing the news. When they are away from Rome they share the gossip from the country and ask for news from the city.

When they are in Rome they share news from the city with their friends in the country.

They have a reciprocal exchange of information.

Cicero and Pliny focus on three types of gossip in their letters: personal gossip, cultural news, and political intrigues. These three categories were all integral to staying an informed political actor. Private rumors affected the public reputations upon which

Romans built their political careers. The popular events and high society of Rome were an indication of the political atmosphere and public conscience, which was still central to

Roman politics even if the system was not exactly democratic. Finally, politics has an obvious significance for men like Pliny and Cicero who needed to maintain their positions within the elite.

Romans did not simply share gossip. They supported their friends’ political agendas as well. This support could take the form of guiding senatorial debates, proposing decrees, or writing up detailed accounts of Senatorial business. In 51-50 BCE,

Cicero relied on Caelius Rufus to keep him up-to-date on Roman news while he was in

Cilicia. Both halves of this exchange survive and they help illuminate the type of

45 information Romans craved when abroad as well as the strain such a correspondence could put on a relationship. Cicero relied on Rufus to help him fulfill two modest goals in

Rome during his tenure in Cilicia: to end his proconsulship as quickly as possible and to find Tullia a suitable (second) husband.64 After Cicero took the field in a small campaign he then began a campaign to receive a triumph, but for the most part he and Caelius

Rufus wrote about the news of Rome, all of it.

Maintaining a correspondence was expensive and time-consuming at the best of times and Caelius Rufus did not cut costs when writing to Cicero in Cilicia. There was no postal system in the Roman Republic so Romans had to find a person to carry mail, a tabellarius. Many tabellarii were merchants or travelers hired to deliver a message to someone on their route. In fact, travelers would call upon the wealthy sharing news and offering to carry mail as a source of income on the road. The publicani had a vast number of tabellarii who would take private mail along with their official correspondence. This system worked to the advantage of all involved and Caelius did use tabellarii publicorum occasionally in his correspondence with Cicero but Romans were often forced to use members of their own households as tabellarii. These would not have been professionals, instead they were chosen at need.65

Just as Cicero and his peers expected their friends and neighbors to call upon them at home, they also expected them to correspond at every opportunity. Cicero excused himself for gaps in communication by claiming that no (reliable) couriers were

64 Cic. ad Fam. 8.6=SB 88. Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, “Political Bedfellows.” 65 Smadja, “Esclaves et Affranchis de Ciceron,” 92. 46 available.66 This is most notable in the reverse: Cicero and his peers usually make note of making the most of any courier that crosses their path. For example, Caelius Rufus wrote

Cicero a short note just because a tabellarius publicorum came by despite that fact that he had sent a full letter the previous day with one of Cicero’s freedmen.67 The letters would have taken at least a month or maybe three to arrive and probably came at the same time.68 The letter did not have any timely information, thus it was merely a formality, a social necessity. Cicero expected such behavior from his contacts. He expressed disappointment whenever a courier came from Atticus’s direction without a letter.69

Tabellarii were not only unreliable, they were always rushing, leaving at the first hint of dawn and waiting for no reason, if Cicero and his peers are to be believed.70 Even a young Marcus Aurelius was rushed by his couriers.71 Couriers could arrive at any time.

Cicero mentions meeting couriers on the road before dawn, and receiving “night-owl” couriers after dark.72 If these couriers were in a hurry to deliver other mail, Cicero would have to write a quick letter like the letter Caelius Rufus wrote him. Conversely, the couriers might stay overnight, in which case Cicero could use the time to amend a shorter letter or write a longer one.73 The haste of couriers could mean that letters were shorter, written with poorer penmanship, and altogether less polished. Hence Cicero and his peers

66 Cic. Att. 1.13.1 = 13, 15.4.3 = 381. Cf. Plin. Ep. 8.3. 67 Cic. Fam. 8.7.1 = 92. 68 In Cic. Fam. 2.12 = 95 dated June 50 he mentions events in Rome from March as if he just heard about them. 69 Cic. Att. 12.39.1 = 280, 14.21.1 = 375, 16.9.1 = 419 70 Cic. Frag. 4.16. 71 Fronto, Ep. 4.7. 72 Cic. Att. 16.13.1 = 423; 12.1.2 = 248; 2.16.1 = 36, 15.26.1 = 404. 73 Cic. Att. 4.15.8 = 90. It is unclear if Cicero personally hosted the couriers he mentions in this way. In this case it seems unlikely since Cicero was in Rome at the time and the courier could presumably stay at his employer’s house. 47 felt compelled to describe the mitigating circumstances as a way to save face.74

Caelius’s correspondence with Cicero was usually handled by Cicero’s freedmen.

Cicero names fifteen tabellarii in his works but many more would have gone unnamed.75

When Romans went abroad their house in Rome became a clearing house for their correspondence. Cicero’s letters to his wife, Terentia show her gathering his mail as it arrived in Rome to send when he was away.76 He went so far as to arrange for constant couriers to handle his correspondence with Atticus and Quintus when he needed timely news.77 This was a far more reliable and far more expensive system than waiting for a courier who might never come. In fact while Cicero was governor of Cilicia he chose to use couriers from his own household to carry official dispatches to the Senate instead of entrusting them to military personnel.78 Furthermore, Cicero only specifically mentioned using tabellarii publicorum while he was in Cilicia, and only as a supplement to his own men.79 Only the extreme costs of sending mail from the edge of the Roman empire could tempt Cicero into using a sub-par courier. So it seems that private messengers were more desirable than the other options even when those options were available.

Letters came with large costs. Besides the cost of materials (ink and papyrus or a wax tablet depending on the distance the mail would be traveling), the costs of travel and

74 White, Cicero in Letters, 79. Cicero does the opposite as well, explaining that he was personally to blame for a poorly written letter to his brother, not time constraints: Q. Fr. 2.15.1 = 19 75 Smadja, “Esclaves et Affranchis de Ciceron,” 75–85 lists all of Cicero’s named slaves and freedmen. 76 Cic. Fam. 14.1 = 8 SB. He also arranged for regular couriers from Quintus and Atticus at various times: Cic. Fam. 14.3 = 9 SB. 77 Cic. Att. 15.8.1= SB, 16.13.3= SB, 16.15.3= SB; and Cic. Fam. 14.3=9 SB. Nicholson, “The Delivery and Confidentiality of Cicero’s Letters,” 35. 78 Cic. Fam. 2.7.3=107. Cicero mentions the couriers in Att. 6.1.9=115. For more discussion, see Nicholson, 33. 79 Cic. Fam 8.7.1 = 92, Att. 5.21.4 = 114 48 the time of the tabellarius could add up. As mentioned above, the tabellarius would earn money and lodging along the way by taking more mail or sharing the news. Nonetheless, a letter traveling across the sea faced several potential setbacks. Cicero was forced to wait days at Leucopetra for the wind to change just for a short trip.80 Illness could also discourage travel. Cicero was indisposed for twelve days with a fever, though it is hard to imagine Cicero’s freedmen having the luxury to wait so long.81 Nonetheless, the extra lodging for these delays could cost dearly. Cicero considered a 46-day journey from

Rome to Cilicia extremely fast, making a 90-day gap between the original letter and receiving a reply a pipe-dream.82 When writing to his brother in the province of Asia,

Cicero admits that Quintus will probably already know the news from Rome before the letter arrives.83 Rumor travelled faster than the mail in the ancient Mediterranean.

For long distance communication like Caelius and Cicero’s correspondence, tabellarii rarely traveled the whole distance. Once a letter carrier reached a port he could hand his mail over to a merchant travelling to the destination. There he may also receive any mail going to his master in the opposite direction. The journey for the tabellarius is shorter, allowing him to return to his household and return to his usual duties but it also adds the cost of paying the merchant and adds more risk. Mail could be lost, stolen, or opened and published. Cicero claims that banditry in Cilicia often affected travel, and surmises that Caelius’s letters were getting lost because he received news from Rome that

80 Cic. Att. 16.7.1 = 415 SB. 81 Cic. Att. 5.8 = 101 SB. 82 Cic. Att. 5.19 = 112 SB. 83 Cic. Q. Fr. 1.1.1-1 SB. 49 was never mentioned.84 As for intercepted mail, during Caesar’s consulship, Cicero rarely referred to him or Pompey by name in his critical letters to Atticus for fear they might be intercepted.85 The Caelius letters are not so guarded, but Cicero was always wary of writing anything that could be used against him later and did refuse to tell Caelius specific details of a meeting with Pompey.86

These issues made Caelius’s dispatches to Cicero expensive, tardy, and risky.

Despite all of these problems, Cicero felt the need to have Caelius’s account of politics in the city and provided the men to carry the mail. The exchange begins with Caelius confidently claiming that “everybody abroad likes to be told of even the most trifling happenings at home.”87 Cicero had not even left Italy by that point but Caelius felt it necessary to send Cicero a letter including “all the Senate’s decrees and edicts, gossip, and rumors.” In fact, Caelius hired men to report the news to him and compile it into a

“volume” attached to the letter. The letter itself focused mostly on Pompey, Caesar, and a rumor that Cicero had been murdered on the road.88 Cicero’s response to the letter was disbelief, but it also enumerates all the information Caelius thought to include in his

“volume”: “Really! Is this what you think I asked you to do—to send me pairings of gladiators, court adjournments, Chrestus’ pilfering, all the trivia which nobody would dare tell me when I am in Rome?”89 This “volume” seems almost like a newspaper. It has the business of the Senate, sports, juicy gossip, but Cicero claims it is missing the section

84 Cic. Fam. 2.9 = 85 SB and 2.10 = 86 SB. 85 Cic. Att. 2.14 = 34 SB and Cic. Att. 2.16 = 36 SB, for example. 86 Cic. Q. Fr. 1.2 = 2 SB, and Cic. Fam. 2.8 = 80 SB. 87 Cic. Fam. 8.1 = 77 SB. 88 Cic. Fam. 8.1.1-2 = 77.1-2 SB. The word volume translated “volume” refers to a scroll of papyrus, not necessarily a fully-fledged book. 89 Cic. Fam. 2.8.1 = 80.1 SB. 50 he desires: the editorials. As Cicero explains:

I have never known a better politique than you! I do not even particularly want

you to tell me day-to-day political developments in matters of major consequence,

unless I am affected personally…What I want from so far-sighted a fellow as

yourself is the future. From your letters, having seen, as it were, an architect’s

drawing of the political situation, I shall hope to know what kind of building is to

come.90

Cicero already has people like Atticus to tell him the news and he will be hearing oral gossip from travelers anyway, what he wants from Caelius is his appraisal of the political situation, his specific thoughts on the issues.

Caelius’s letter is an example of how far a man could go for information in the city. Caelius opens the letter by describing a search for someone who can gather all the information a reader could desire, indicating that he hired someone to work on the

“volume” full time. He mentions several sources: rumores and fabulae (highlighting that he gathered both solid and unfounded gossip), subrostrani (perhaps a specific group of people who loitered around the Forum), official Senate decrees, and “whispers” about

Caesar’s campaigns from well-connected sources. Caelius gathered his news from any source available and even sent Cicero news about false rumors about Cicero himself and who was spreading them! The breadth is astounding and Caelius makes space for every sort of news while also offering his own opinion.

The rest of the correspondence is mostly over Caesar’s actions in Gaul and the

90 Cic. Fam. 2.8.1-2 = 80.1-2 SB. 51

Senate’s growing unease with him. Caelius offers his forecasts just as Cicero asked him to and Cicero offers his thoughts over the long interval in which they communicate. In letter 81 Caelius wrote Cicero about rumors that Pompey may seek to become dictator

(Pompey would end up becoming sole consul).91 In letter 84 Caelius attached a full transcription of the Senatorial debate regarding Caesar’s actions in Gaul.92 The lead-up to conflict was outlined in detail and Caelius offered his version and insights.

Having Rome’s foremost politique did not help Cicero avoid misfortune. Caelius helped Cicero secure an arrangement for Dolabella to marry his daughter Tullia.

Dolabella would make a great son-in-law. He was from a powerful family, showed promise in politics, and was connected with Caesar; but he was also currently prosecuting

Appius Claudius whom Cicero had spent the last few months placating. Appius was

Cicero’s predecessor in Cilicia and a powerful man in his own right but Cicero had upset him in the process of changing control. Cicero accused Appius of refusing to meet him and leaving him uninformed when taking over.93 Appius countered that Cicero was undermining his decisions and legacy in the province.94 Cicero spent months reconciling with him and now his daughter was going to marry the man bringing him to trial. Caelius gave Cicero plausible deniability. He could blame Caelius for spreading a false rumor before Tullia was married and blame Tullia and Terentia for the misstep after the marriage.95 Cicero turned his alienation from Rome into a face-saving excuse.

91 Cic. Fam. 8.4 = 81 SB. 92 Cic. Fam. 8.8 = 84 SB. 93 Cic. Fam. 3.6 = 69 SB. 94 Cic. Fam. 3.8-70 SB. 95 Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, “Political Bedfellows,” 75.76. 52

Cicero bore the brunt of the material costs of the correspondence by running his own direct postal service, but Caelius also expected Cicero to reciprocate for the work he did writing his letters. First, Caelius expected Cicero to write him with any information he had. In the first letter, for example, Caelius asks Cicero for an account of his expected meeting with Pompey and an indication on Pompey’s thoughts. This is a fairly typical request and one which Cicero often asked of Atticus and his other friends, but Cicero refused to say anything other than he expected Pompey to have the best interests of the republic at heart.96 Caelius also requested that Cicero send him panthers for the games which Caelius hoped to host as aedile.97 Caelius was rightly disappointed in Cicero’s end of the bargain after those two snubs. He received far more help with his games from

Curio, and he was defensive in his response to Cicero’s criticism of his first letter.98

Despite these issues, Cicero’s correspondence with Caelius continued at least until the end of his term in Cilicia, but Cicero risked losing an ally as letters crossed in the first few months of his term.

A little help from my friends

In the summer of 58 BCE, while Cicero was in Thessalonica as an exile, a pamphlet he wrote was making the rounds in Rome. The pamphlet had been written years before but was never meant to be published. Unfortunately for Cicero, the pamphlet was a scathing rebuke against Curio, from whom Cicero now wished to have support for his restoration. Cicero turned to Atticus to help. Atticus was the closest thing to Cicero’s

96 Cic. Fam. 2.8 = 80 SB. 97 Cic. Fam. 8.4.5 = 81 SB and 2.2 = 90 SB. 98 Cic. Fam. 8.9.3 = 82 SB and 8.1 = 91 SB. 53 literary agent and publisher. He arranged readings for Cicero’s writings and talented slaves to copy Cicero’s works. This gave him the authority to make Cicero’s plan believable. He asked Atticus to spread the rumor that the pamphlet was a forgery.99

This episode demonstrates the importance of the social bonds I have described above. Not only does Cicero rely on his well-known relationship with Atticus and

Atticus’s own social connections, the spread of the pamphlet is an example of networking at work. This episode also shows the way Romans used social networks to accomplish specific goals. The reciprocal networks they cultivated at dinner parties and over letters could be put to use to accomplish political goals. These reciprocal exchanges were, however, extremely costly both in real capital and in social capital. 100

In 59 BCE, when Caesar was consul, Cicero had dire need of his friends. Clodius

Pulcher, whom Cicero had publically and thoroughly insulted three years earlier, was threatening to have Cicero exiled. During Cicero’s consulship in 63 BCE he unraveled a group of men leading a coup against him and had the leaders of the conspiracy put to death with a vote of the Senate, but not a popular vote which was the usual procedure.

Clodius was now trying to have Cicero punished for murder. In October, Cicero wrote his brother Quintus to describe his situation:

As for my own prospects, however, I do not think I shall lack general support. It

is amazing how people are coming forward with declarations and offers and

promises…Anyway, this is how things stand: if Clodius takes me to court, all

Italy will rally and I shall come out of it with much additional kudos; if he tries

99 Cic. Att. 3.12.2 = 57.2 SB. 100 Griffin, “De Beneficiis and Roman Society,” 99. 54

force, I trust to oppose him with force, supported not only by my friends but by

outsiders as well. Everyone is pledging himself and his friends, dependents,

freedmen, slaves, even money. My old band of honest men is passionately

enthusiastic and loyal. Those who were formerly not so well disposed or not so

energetic are now joining the honest men out of disgust with our present tyrants.

Pompey is lavish with promises, and so is Caesar. If I take their word, I do not on

that account relax my preparations in the slightest. The Tribunes-Elect are my

good friends.101

Here Cicero uses a phrase like a mantra to him: “all of Italy.” In this letter, the phrase refers to a vast group of friends, friends of friends, dependents of friends, the consul,

Pompey who was a perennial power in Rome, and the tribunes for the next year (Clodius was a tribune-elect as well but he was only one of ten). These connections were the fruits of socializing for decades.

Cicero was a member of the first generation of Romans after Italy gained the right to vote. This new political reality transformed the way Roman politicians went about gaining support. Cicero is the greatest example of this new technique. He was relatively quick to adapt to the change and brought together “all of Italy” to form a large network of supporters spanning from municipal potentates to the most successful politicians in

Rome. We should perhaps be cautious about using Cicero as a typical example of a

Roman politician, but his letters show that his peers were just as interested in maintaining correspondence with vast networks as he was.

101 Cic. Q. Fr. 1.2.16 = 2 SB. 55

The importance of a Roman’s social network is best seen in the Commentariolum

Petitioniis, discussed in the introduction. The guide focuses on mobilizing a large network of friends, family members, and business acquaintances to spread information about the candidate. 102 At the same time, the candidate was expected to grow this network by approaching people to ask for their support. 103 Special focus was given to men who could offer the support of entire tribes or centuries. 104

While the Commentariolum focuses mostly on enlisting friends to spread information and grow reputation, Romans leaned on their friends throughout their careers for any needs they had. Marriages were arranged within and with the help of their social networks, publications were spread among friends first, and business was often conducted based on recommendations. While the document focuses on the actions of the campaigner and the time and cost spent gaining support, we can also see the costs associated with Cicero’s supporters. By accepting Cicero’s beneficia, his friends and household are expected to participate in his campaign by adding to his notoriety. They are expected to talk about Cicero and display their admiration. His more powerful friends are even expected to provide beneficia of their own on Cicero’s behalf. Cicero would then owe those friends even more.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Despite pulling all of Italy together to support him in 64 and Cicero’s attempts to do the same in 59, he was banished from Rome the next year. Clodius was able to force

102 Cicero, Comment. pet. 17. 103 Cicero, Comment. pet. 4, 19. Brunt, “Clientele,” 389–90. 104 Cicero, Comment. pet. 18. 56

Cicero out by passing into law by a popular vote a bill clarifying that any person who kills a Roman without a popular vote could not be offered fire or water within 400 miles of Rome.105 Had Cicero remained in Rome he would have been tried and put to death.

Cicero’s network failed him in this instance, and it had everything to do with politics. On one hand Cicero had acted contrary to Roman law by skirting due process with the conspirators of 63. On the other hand, Clodius had a network of urban voters who were able to vote and even crowd out Cicero’s supporters if there were any.

The irony of this failure is that Cicero’s network appeared to become active and helpful only once he was exiled. This is for the obvious reason that Cicero relied on writing to his friends only when he was away from them. Since Cicero and most of his allies were in Rome in 59 and 58, it makes sense that they did not rely on writing. This period in Cicero’s career adds to our understanding of how Cicero used his network. The

Commentariolum only gives an ideal case and the rationale behind it. Cicero’s restoration provides us with a specific campaign and the documents needed to piece it back together and see it in action.

Cicero’s network was already in action before Clodius’s law even took effect. He had many offers for places to stay from his friends.106 He had planned to stay with a man named Sicca on Malta but when the exile was expanded to 400 miles he stayed with

Plancius in Thessalonica for several months.107 The surviving letters from Cicero’s exile highlight the efforts of two contacts above all: his wife Terentia and his good friend

105 This is the typical formula for exile. See Cic. Att. 3.1.1 = 46.1 SB and 3.4.1 = 49.1 SB. 106 Cic. Att. 3.4.1 = 49.1 SB. 107 Cic. Att. 3.4.1 = 49.1 SB for Sicca. Cic. Att. 3.14.2 = 58.2 SB and 3.22.1 = 67.1 SB. 57

Atticus. Atticus apparently had connections everywhere in Rome and Cicero relied on him as a clearing house of information. Cicero often wrote him to clarify rumors he had heard or to supply him with new information gathered from his popular dinner parties.

For example in August of 59 Cicero was desparate for Atticus to return to Rome so that he could get his opinion and information on Pompey, Crassus and most importantly

Clodius. Atticus was doubly important because he was good friends with Clodius’s sister and thus could gain information as though from Clodius himself. 108 In the next letter

Cicero told Atticus “you cannot believe how much I rely on your advice and knowledge of the world.”109

Cicero relied on Atticus for much of his news at all times even after he had been restored. Take for example three letters written in the span of eight days while Cicero was in Cumae (Atticus must have been in Rome or at least nearby). In the first Cicero asks

Atticus to handle three pieces of business. First Cicero asks Atticus to ask the historian

Lucceius for a letter Cicero wrote to him and to encourage the historian to write a history of Cicero, then to see about his house, finally to give a good word to Vestorius on

Cicero’s behalf.110 In the second he shares gossip from Cumae that Ptolemy Auletes was back on the throne in Egypt and asks Atticus if he has heard any more details.111 In the last letter of the trio, Cicero asks Atticus to confirm a rumor that the tribunes were preventing the censors from taking the census and also tells Atticus about the

108 Cic. Att. 2.22.5 = 42.5 SB. 109 Cic. Att. 2.23.3 = 43.3 SB. 110 Cic. Att. 4.6 = 83 SB. Ptolemy had been ousted from his throne in 58 BCE and had offered a large sum for his restoration but the Senate had dragged its feet until Gabinius took the matter into his own hands and invaded Egypt without the permission of the Senate. More on the matter below. 111 Ptolemy 58 conversations he has been having with Pompey including Pompey’s opinions of that year’s candidates for the consulship.112 Cicero often offers information while asking

Atticus to confirm, showing a willingness to inform Atticus as well as a desire to be more deeply informed.

The other role Atticus played in Rome during the exile was maintaining Cicero’s reputation. The same connections Atticus used to confirm the rumors Cicero asked about could also be used to help Cicero’s restoration. This worked like the example above where Atticus was asked to visit Lucceius the historian. Cicero trusted Atticus as his literary promoter. This is where we see Atticus’s promotion most clearly. In one letter

Cicero sent Atticus a revision of his eulogy for Porcia and asked him to send it to her son

Domitius and Brutus. Cicero also asked Atticus to forward eulogies written by Varro and

Ollius.113 Both requests are asking Atticus the same thing: to busy his copyists on

Cicero’s request. Atticus’s endorsement could propel Cicero’s works into great successes.

In one example Cicero praises Atticus: “I can see that the weight of your approval has given my speech for Ligarius a splendid start. Balbus and Oppius have written to me that they like it wonderfully and for that reason have sent the little piece to Caesar.”114

Rome’s sole ruler was finally back in the city and this was just the first step in recovering

Cicero’s relationship with him. Atticus kept pressing Cicero to write to Caesar and to send his compositions to the dictator which Cicero did (by sending them through his

112 Cic. Att. 4.9 = 85 SB. 113 Cic. Att. 13.48.2 = 345.2 SB. 114 Cic. Att. 13.19.2 = 326.2 SB. Cicero also wrote that Atticus probably knew all that as a matter of course, another indication of how well connected Atticus was. 59 former son-in-law Dolabella).115 Atticus helped Cicero not just through his own social connections but also by advising Cicero how to use his own connections. Through those connections Cicero was able to regain Caesar’ friendship.

During his exile Cicero praised Atticus for doing “multiple shares” of the work in

Cicero’s legal and domestic restoration without being asked and with little thanks as yet.116 Atticus began by offering Cicero a place to stay in Epirus and giving constant encouragement, even convincing Cicero not to commit suicide!117 In many of the letters written to Atticus Cicero seeks only his presence and companionship without asking specifically for political help. Cicero himself notes that despite his desire more than anything for Atticus to come to him that Atticus was far more valuable closer to Rome.118

Being near Rome allowed Atticus to continue fulfilling the two tasks outlined above: confirming and giving information and promoting Cicero’s interest.

Cicero describes Atticus’s role as an informant best: “you are collecting every item in the political news which you think could afford me some hope of a change.”119

Atticus was especially keen on informing Cicero of his allies and his obstacles. He especially talks about Pompey and Varro. Pompey is a supporter of Cicero and Varro is busy using his connections to the most elite men of Rome to gain Cicero even more powerful supporters namely Hortentius and Caesar.120 Atticus also made sure that Cicero was open to this alliance. In one letter Cicero angrily wrote that Hortentius and his ilk

115 Cic. Att. 13.50.1 = 348.1 SB. 116 Cic Att. 3.20.2 = 65.2 SB. 117 Cic. Att. 3.7.1 = 52.1 SB. On suicide: Cic. Att. 3.3.1 = 47 SB and 3.4.1 = 49.1 SB. 118 Cic. Att. 3.12 = 57 SB. 119 Cic. Att. 3.7.3 = 52.3 SB, translated by Shackleton-Bailey. 120 Cic. Att. 3.9.2 = 54.2 SB, 3.14.1 = 58.1 SB, 3.15.1 = 60.1 SB, 3.18.1 = 63.1 SB. 60 were never going support him and implies that those men allowed or even support

Clodius because they were jealous of him.121 Atticus clearly tried to disabuse Cicero of that notion but Cicero still believed that most of the friends mentioned in his letter to

Quintus were mere pretenders and that the only person he as fully willing to absolve was

Cato.122 Nevertheless Cicero places his faith in Atticus.123

Cicero also relies on Atticus to give him information on the official business of the Senate. Atticus apparently sent Cicero the full text of resolutions presented on his behalf. One letter quotes and critiques a resolution of the tribunes which seems to have failed (Cicero refers to it as “the old resolution”). Cicero even offers his legal opinion on the wording of the bill and gives suggestions for rewording it if his allies planned to follow that route in the future.124 In another letter Atticus informs Cicero on a plan to strike down the law that banished him on the grounds that it unfairly targeted an individual, but Cicero also gives the legal opinion that any discussion of that sort was banned by the bill itself.125

Terentia played a similar role. While Cicero was in exile and again when he was in Cilicia in 51-50 BCE Terentia stayed in Italy. From Italy she could handle daily affairs at home and take care of their children Tullia and Marcus. The children both had to grow into members of Roman society so being away for two long could stunt their social growth, especially when Cicero was in Cilicia since it was time to arrange a marriage for

121 Cic. Att. 3.9.2 = 54.2 SB. 122 Cic. Fam. 14.1 = 8 SB. This letter was written a month after Att. 3.15 = 60 SB yet still Cicero believes that others were jealous of him. 123 Cic. Att. 3.15.3 = 60.3 SB. Cato was a notorious “conservative” and was very active against Clodius and other men using popular votes to shortcut the Senate. 124 Cic. Att. 3.23 = 68 SB. 125 Cic. Att. 3.15.1 = 60.1 SB. 61

Tullia. Terentia did not stay behind merely for the children. She ran a hub for Cicero’s supporters and correspondence.

Cicero entrusted Terentia with building up the campaign for his restoration and specifically asked her to stay in Rome to handle the business.126 Cicero names two main issues Terentia faced. First was the destruction of Cicero’s home on the Palatine and other loss of property. In the earliest letter to her Cicero tells her what will happen to their slaves and clearly assumes she will be in charge of the entire household.127 In another letter Terentia informed Cicero that she was going to sell property (townhouses) because they needed money.128

Terentia’s other job was coordinating communication between Cicero and his supporters. She was something of a campaign manager. She collected Cicero’s mail and forwarded it to him.129 Cicero also asked her to inform him who his supporters were and to whom he should be looking for support.130 Cicero wrote to the people who sent him letters but he also wrote people whom Terentia specifically told him to write. Terentia was so integral to the process that Cicero made clear in each letter that he wrote on

Terentia’s request.131

While Atticus and Terentia make up the bulk of Cicero’s surviving letters from this time, they are far from the only supporters he had. A wide network of senators, tribunes and powerful politicians ultimately ensured Cicero’s restoration. Atticus and

126 Cic. Fam. 14.4.2 = 6.2 SB and Cic. Fam. 14.3 = 9. 127 Cic. Fam. 14.4 = 6 SB. 128 Cic. Fam. 14.1 = 8 SB. 129 Cic. Fam. 14.1 = 8 SB. 130 Cic. Fam. 14.2 = 7 SB. 131 Cic. Fam. 14.1 = 8 SB and 14.3 = 9 SB. 62

Terentia served their roles in a more subtle way but no less integral to the process.

Communication was so slow in the ancient Mediterranean that Cicero needed reliable people in Italy to make decisions on his behalf. For example the letter in which Cicero claimed that he was exiled because of the jealousy of his former supporters was dated

June 13.132 At some point Atticus responded but Cicero’s response to Atticus was not written until August 17!133 Two full months had passed and Cicero had written Atticus five letters in the meantime. It took a considerable length of time to communicate between Italy and Thessalonica. This is all the more enlightening because Cicero chose to stay in Thessalonica because of the ease of communication! Cicero could not allow two months to pass to see how each of his decisions turned out. Terentia and Atticus could gauge the situation and adjust their decisions based on Cicero’s wishes and events in

Rome.

Cicero’s allies failed him leading up to the vote, but they flew to action quickly after he fled Rome. Cicero’s gratitude was effusive in speeches delivered to the Senate and people upon his return and in defenses delivered on behalf of his supporters. These speeches reveal the fruits of the networking Atticus and Terentia led.

Shortly after Clodius’s law was enacted, the Senate dressed in mourning as a show of disapproval.134 As Cicero explains, this made it easy for his supporters to show their numbers and to shame those who did not support him. On the first of June, a man named Lucius Ninnius led a vote of the Senate to decree Cicero’s return which received

132 Cic. Att. 3.9 = 54 SB. 133 Cic. Att. 3.15 = 60 SB. 134 Cic. Sest. 27. 63 unanimous support.135 This decree was vetoed, and all other actions that year were frustrated by the corrupt consuls and for fear of Clodius’s law which forbade any attempts to overturn it.

At the start of the new year, Cicero’s restoration was begun in earnest. On the

Kalends of January the Senate led by the consul Publius Lentulus, Lucius Cotta, and

Pompey decreed its support for Cicero and that an assembly should be held to vote on

Cicero’s restoration.136 That vote was disrupted by a gang preventing the tribunes and voters from entering the Forum.137 Violence prevented further action until the summer at which point the Senate was able to gather people from Italy for a comitia centuriata a far larger assembly than the earlier vote.138 Cicero’s supporters used the games to encourage a large voter turn-out. They announced the upcoming vote at the Ludi Florales and held the vote near the Ludi Apollinaris. Both games were almost rallies for Cicero. The crowd vociferously cheered Cicero’s public supporters and the performers received encores for lines that alluded to Cicero’s achievements.139 The vote took place in August and Cicero returned to Italy on September 4 to an adoring crowd.

Cicero relied on his connections in Rome to inform him. Terentia helped Cicero keep track of his supporters and the debts he owed each. Atticus protected Cicero’s reputation and gave him information from his own connections. Cicero had a large group of friends gained by supporting them in court and political careers whom he could call

135 Cic. Sest. 68. 136 Cic. Sest. 72. 137 Cic. Sest. 76-77. 138 Cic. Red. sen. 27. 139 Cic. Sest. 116-126. Tatum 1999, 181-2 links these games with the vote mentioned in Planc. 78. 64 upon even far away from Rome but he could not do so without knowing whom he could truly depend upon. Again the support of Terentia and Atticus was necessary. Friendship and the good of the republic came at a high price: two games hosted to draw supporters for Cicero and the travel and lodging for the people of Italy who came to Rome to vote.

In return for the support he received in his exile, Cicero cultivated the reputations of his allies in speeches for years and defended them in court. In fact, Cicero received so much support that he was often torn between the men whom he owed and was accused of being ungrateful for choosing sides in court when he had allies on both sides of a trial.140

The High Price of Government

Cicero’s career shows how powerful social networks could be in advancing the career of one Roman. These networks were so powerful, in fact, that the very government of the Roman empire relied upon them. Governing the Roman empire would have been impossible without the dinner parties and social calls which connected the elite into a dense network.

The way Romans used their social connections for governing is clearest in letters of recommendation. Such letters were so important that an entire volume of Cicero’s letters with 79 letters was devoted purely to recommendations and his corpus includes some examples apart from that volume. Pliny also devoted a large portion of his corpus to recommendations with over twenty examples. The letter of recommendation was integral in a world without photographic identification and Cicero provided the blueprint.

A short example will illustrate the way these recommendations worked:

140 Cic. Planc. 78. Brunt, “Amicitia in the Roman Republic,” 372–75 for how Romans handle this situation. 65

From Cicero to Appuleius greetings.

L. Nostius Zoilus is my co-heir and the estate is that of his former master. I

mention these two particulars so you may know I have cause to be his friend and

may judge him a man of good character to be favoured by his ex-master with such

a mark of esteem. So I recommend him to you as though he were one of my own

domestic circle…141

The letter above shows Cicero’s relationship with multiple people. The first is his relationship to Appuleius, the recipient of the letter. Cicero is at once asking him a favor while at the same time offering him a useful contact. The next relationship is with

Nostius Zoilus, a former slave whom Cicero knows from his friendship with Zoilus’s late master. Cicero is using his connection with Appuleius to help Zoilus perhaps in memory of Zoilus’s master.

These relationships bear explaining. Appuleius has not been identified but from another letter we know he was proquaestor in Asia at the time.142 Cicero had been proconsul of Cilicia, the neighboring province, five years before and he was in the habit of offering recommendations to his successors.143 Cicero may not have known Appuleius personally but he felt comfortable making a recommendation because he was familiar with his task. A good recommendation could be a good way to start a relationship.

Cicero’s relationship with Zoilus is likewise indirect. Zoilus was far beneath Cicero’s station but Cicero’s relationship with Zoilus’s master compelled him to act on the former

141 Cic. Fam. 13.46 = 272 SB translated by Shackleton-Bailey. 142 Cic. Fam. 13.45 = 271 SB. 143 Cic. Fam. 13.43, 44, 73, and 74 = 268, 269, 270, and 273 SB are all recommendations written to Roman officials in Cilicia. 66 slave’s behalf. Cicero’s recommendations are the only place he shows any relationships with specific equites, freedmen, slaves, and hospes.144 Recommendation letters are the only place we can see the vertical spread of Cicero’s relationships from Caesar down to the slave of a publicanus. He writes recommendations to his closest friends, important office holders, and to the powerful locals where his friends live. The recommendations foster connections both with the person Cicero is recommending and the person receiving the recommendation.

Romans relied on their connections for far more than staffing their offices when abroad. There was no official process defined for the changing of office in the provinces, so the exiting and entering officials relied on their personal and professional connections to ease the transition. Cicero gives a good description of the transition of provincial power in a letter to his brother, Quintus. Cicero seems to be responding to rumors that

Quintus has been unfair in his governing and ultimately advises him to:

“See to it through friendly agents (it is easy enough) that the following categories

are destroyed: first, inequitable letters; second, contradictory letters; third, letters

drafted inappropriately and contrary to accepted usage; and finally, letters

insulting to any person. I don’t believe all I am told; and if there has been some

negligence due to pressure of business, look into it now and set it right. I have

read an improper letter which your nomenclator Sulla is said to have written

himself and I have read some angry ones.”145

144 Equites: Cic. Fam. 13.43, 44, 74 = 268, 269, 270 SB; slaves: 13.45 = 271 SB; hospes: 13.73, 78 = 273, 275 SB 145 Cic. Q. Fr. 1.2.9 = 2.9 SB. Translated by Shackleton Bailey. 67

Cicero specifically focuses on letters that indicate that Quintus has wronged someone either by contradicting himself or by insulting them. Perhaps he is less worried about

Quintus’s decisions and more concerned for his reputation. He does not want Quintus outed as indecisive, unfair, or even a poor writer. Indeed, Quintus must “leave behind as pleasant a memory as possible.”146 Quintus’s reputation was more important than leaving his successor the full records of the province.

Cicero may seem paranoid about Quintus’s reputation, but Roman governors were often guarded about their time in the provinces. Cicero would know better than anyone how devastating a trial for misdeeds in the provinces could be—he made his name prosecuting Verres for extortion and other nefarious deeds in Sicily. Roman governors often faced trials for extortion and other grievances when they returned from their provinces. These trials were sometimes personal attacks from political rivals who saw an easy excuse to litigate, but they were the only official way for the Senate and publicani to enforce their will over governors, albeit retroactively and by example.147 The litigiousness of the Roman elite and the lack of direct oversight once a promagistrate reached his provinces created an air of paranoia for men leaving office.

This paranoia affected the way power was transferred in the provinces. Apart from Cicero’s advice to Quintus our best example is when Cicero succeeded Appius

Claudius as proconsul in Cilicia. The correspondence between Cicero and Claudius started civilly. Cicero informed Claudius early in 51 BCE that the Senate decreed he would take control of Cilicia later that year. He earnestly asked Claudius for any help

146 Cic. Q. Fr. 1.2.8 = 2.8 SB. Translated by Shackleton Bailey. 147 Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 242–43. 68 available to ease his transition.148 In the next letter, written a few months later, Cicero reveals that Claudius had sent his legate to meet Cicero in Brundisium on his way to the province. The legate also carried a copy for Cicero of the dispatch Claudius had written the Senate, informing the Senate and his replacement of his military activity. Cicero responded to the messenger and letter asking Claudius once again for his help and specifically asking him to retain as many soldiers as possible.149 A third letter again reveals that Claudius was sending Cicero men to familiarize him with affairs in Cilicia.

At this point the exchange turns for the worse. In the next letter Cicero responds that Claudius’s concerns that they might not be able to meet by explaining that he has heard conflicting reports from Claudius’s men as to where Claudius was most likely to be. Therefore Cicero outlined his itinerary so that Claudius could plan accordingly.150

Claudius and Cicero never did arrange a meeting and the correspondence became heated.

Cicero even accused Claudius of unlawfully remaining in the province after his successor had arrived.151 Claudius accused Cicero of tarnishing his reputation among the people of

Cilicia, undermining his policies in the province, and even preventing his supporters in

Cilicia from traveling to Rome to demonstrate his accomplishments.152

Cicero gives a twofold response. Claudius’s accusations against Cicero came from rumors. Cicero believed that Claudius was reporting those rumors as a way of

“attributing to others the thoughts that enter your own mind.”153 Cicero’s first response

148 Cic. Fam. 3.2 = 65 SB. 149 Cic. Fam. 3.3 = 66 SB. 150 Cic. Fam. 3.5 = 68 SB. 151 Cic. Fam. 3.6.2 = 69.2 SB. 152 Cic. Fam. 3.8 = 70 SB, 3.10 = 73 SB. 153 Cic. Fam. 3.8.5 = 70.5 SB. Translated by Shackleton Bailey. 69 was therefore to dismiss the rumors and show that they were unfounded. He did this by referring to the earlier events in the correspondence and his eagerness to meet with

Claudius’s officers and proponents as examples of his eagerness to respect Claudius’s example. He then informed Claudius of rumors current in Cilicia that he had purposefully avoided Cicero but that Cicero would not act upon such rumors. He clarifies his message to Claudius: “if the sayings you attribute to others are your own sentiments, you are very much to blame; but if others do talk to you in this strain, you are still in some degree to blame for listening.”154

This statement forms a transition to Cicero’s second form of response, an appeal to friendship and proper behavior among friends. Cicero’s entire correspondence with

Claudius about Cilicia, starting with the letter informing Claudius of Cicero’s appointment, is full of friendship language. Cicero’s first letter refers to the “close bond” between him and Claudius and promises in latter letters to do everything a friend can to ease the transition of power.155 Cicero outlines in detail all the actions he had taken in the transition, ascribing them to his friendship for Claudius and concludes that Claudius was failing as a friend.156 The issue for Cicero was not simply procedural. Claudius was failing most importantly as a friend and only secondarily as a fellow leader of Rome. For

Cicero the mechanism which ensured the peaceful and smooth transition of power was not the law nor precedent, but amicitia.

Amicitia was crucial not only in the exchange of power but also in the ruling of

154 Cic. Fam. 3.8.6 = 70.6 SB. Translated by Shackleton Bailey. 155 Cic. Fam. 3.2 = 65 SB, 3.4 = 67 SB. 156 Cic. Fam. 3.6.2 = 69.2 SB. 70 the province. As mentioned above, Romans relied on references from their colleagues to staff their provincial offices. Many of Cicero’s reference letters were promagistrates and quaestors sent to Asia on behalf of connections Cicero had in the provinces perhaps through Quintus.

Cicero even relied on amicitia in war. When Cicero was governing Cilicia, the

Parthian Empire attacked the neighboring province of Syria, then governed by Bibulus.

Cicero marched out to prevent a Parthian attack in his province and to provide relief for

Bibulus. This relied strongly on accurate information from Bibulus and his officers. Like the letters between Cicero and Claudius, these letters handle official business with the language of friendship and also reveal the strains between Cicero and his colleague.

Cicero oversaw two campaigns in Cilicia. His first year he took the field immediately after entering the province and avoided heated conflict but needed to be prepared for the looming threat after the winter. He thus wrote a conflicted letter to Cato the Younger. Cicero wanted to write an official dispatch to the Senate but decided against it in large part because he did not want to slight Bibulus, who had just taken control of

Syria where the invasion had occurred.157 Cicero’s dispatches to the Senate barely mention the Parthians and instead inform the Senate first of the threat of invasion and the need for support from Rome, and then of Cicero’s actions supporting Cappadocia and preparing for the threat of invasion through Syria.158 The next campaign, however, strained Cicero’s good will towards Bibulus. In a letter to a Syrian official Sallustius,

Cicero vents that Bibulus had refused to send him any information about his campaigns

157 Cic. Fam. 15.3.2 = 103.2 SB. 158 First: Cic. Fam 15.1 = 104 SB, second: Cic. Fam. 15.2 = 105 SB. 71 even though he asked Cicero to write a recommendation for his son!159 Bibulus also took all the credit for the campaign despite Cicero’s help providing support in major battles.160

Cicero’s letters to Atticus reveal a similar distaste for Bibulus and his staff. They were making light of the war and taking credit for a Parthian retreat when the Parthians were in fact going into winter camp.161 The Senate was receiving conflicting reports because

Bibulus “hated” Cicero “for no good reason”.162

Communication between governors and the Senate also happened using social networks as intermediaries. Cicero’s letter to Cato is a good example of communicating with the Senate indirectly. In a letter from later in the year, Cicero summarized his campaign to Cato win his approval in advance of sending his official dispatch to the

Senate.163 Cato not only approved of Cicero’s action but also advocated for the Senate to recognize him with a supplicatio, a form of public thanksgiving.164 Cicero was hoping for a triumph but expressed gratitude for Cato again, by referring specifically to his amicitia.165

Cato was not Cicero’s only connection to Rome. Once Cicero had restored his relationship with Appius Claudius, Claudius supported his campaign for a triumph.166

Caelius Rufus also expressed hope that Cicero could receive a triumph once he received news that war was brewing (he went so far as to hope the war was big enough), and

159 Cic. Fam. 2.17.6 = 117.6 SB. 160 Cic. Fam 2.17.7 = 117.7 SB. 161 Cic. Att. 5.21 = 114 SB, 5.22 = 115 SB. 162 Cic. Fam. 2.17.6 = 117.6 SB. 163 Cic. Fam. 15.4 = 110 SB. 164 Cic. Fam. 15.5 = 111 SB. 165 Cic. Fam. 15.6.1 = 112.1 SB. 166 Cic. Fam. 3.9.2 = 72.2 SB. 72

Cicero indicates that Caelius did act on his behalf.167 All aspects of Roman provincial government were carried out through personal bonds—from staffing offices to military campaigns. Social networks fostered outside of government were essential to finding skilled men and maintaining open communication between governors. The language of friendship in Cicero’s correspondences from Cilicia shows that he considered his personal relationships with his peers in other provinces and the Senate just as important as his political office.

Conclusions

The Roman elite were voracious consumers of information. The social networks

Romans formed at dinners, salutationes and through written media like literature and letters not only kept them informed but also furthered their political goals. They called upon friends when campaigning and relied on them to share information about their peers and the city, especially when they were abroad. Romans not only relied on information about the events in the city. They also needed to know what their connections were doing which allowed them to keep a rough accounting of social obligations and opportunities to collect. These networks thus allowed Romans to stay informed but also required Romans to keep a large amount of information. They came at high social costs and material costs.

Only a wealthy Roman had the money and time to participate in such developed networks with so many obligations.

These networks were necessary to advance political careers and even the governing of the empire itself. Social connections allowed Romans to effectively

167 Cic. Fam. 8.5.1 = 83.1 SB, 2.12.3 = 95.3 SB. 73 communicate with other promagistrates while abroad and handle transitions of power within the framework of Roman friendship ideals. The information upon which the

Roman empire relied was tangled up in the web of Roman high society. Despite this reliance on elite communication, the masses of Rome had an important role in the economy of information. Romans gathered any rumors from any sources and relied on gossip among all people in city to cultivate their reputations. While the non-elite of Rome did not have the means to cultivate extensive networks they still had networks of their own through trade, business, and movement in the city itself. They also had a role in creating public policy through collective action, even if they did not have the agency of

Cicero and his peers.

74

Chapter 2: Word on the Street

Letters and poetry give historians an intimate but edited look into the lives and interests of Rome’s elite, but those sources rarely look beyond their writers’ peers. The only indication of Cicero’s connections with his social inferiors are in letters of recommendation and when he mentions the work of his tabellarii and other slaves.

The resources of the elite enabled them to form wide-reaching social networks bound by shared experiences of dining and literary culture. These bonds allowed Rome’s elite to maintain information networks throughout Italy and the Mediterranean. In contrast, the typical Roman did not have the resources to devote to entertaining and being entertained in turn. Nor could they participate in literate culture or afford to communicate with people far away. Instead of a busy social schedule, Rome’s “working class” had chance meetings on the job or at tabernae. Instead of travelling around Italy, travelers, in the form of merchants and importers, came into their city and vici. Instead of a wide social network, these people had a dense social circle within their hyper-local vici.1

Because there is so little historical information about the non-elite, other techniques must be used to study their social interactions. If the residents of the city of

Rome are considered as single members of a large group, in a large and defined space,

1 Courrier, “Plebian Culture in the City of Rome, from the Late Republic to the Early Empire,” 115. 75 mathematical modelling can be used in concert with archeology to reveal the way

Romans formed social networks and how those networks behaved.2 This chapter will determine which model best fits the population of Rome, and what stipulations based on

Roman culture might affect the model.

Most models for the spread of gossip through populations are based on the assumption that the population is mixing homogeneously. Large segregated enclaves affect the model by creating locations and groups within the population who do not fit the constant spread of the information. Each Roman belonged to multiple different groups.

The most essential was their household, but other bonds were formed with their neighbors and the people with whom they did business. In order to best model the behavior of gossip in Rome, it is necessary to understand how the connections between

Romans worked.

A Model for Rome

Romans formed their social networks in a variety of shapes. Some lived in densely linked, hyper local communities that were fairly closed to the city. Other Romans were members of networks linked together by one person in the middle. While most people spent most of their time in their small vici, those vici all had important connections to the city and the empire. Romans were linked together through a series of social networks that joined vici together through collegia and the movement of workers and goods throughout the city. Furthermore, within each vicus, members of different social classes lived together. Slaves, freedmen and free people of varying wealth lived in

2 The most common model for this is “access analysis” described in Grahame, Reading Space, 3, 34; Stöger, Rethinking Ostia, 212–19. 76 the same insulae and even the same domus, some lived there permanently and others temporarily.3 They could hear each other’s quarrels and saw each other on the street.

Much of their daily needs were met at each other’s businesses. This means that Rome was a well-mixed city, one of the integral prerequisites for using mathematical models for the spread of rumor.

Despite the mobility of Romans, and their close proximity to members of different classes, the city was not entirely homogeneous. For example, Juvenal, despite being a member of the class between the elite and the non-elite like Martial, viewed the destitute as moochers with concern for nothing beyond the “bread and circuses” and viewed Greeks with disdain as professional rivals.4 It is easy to imagine that Juvenal had little patience to hear the gossip of the plebs frumentaria.

In this situation, it is useful to view gossip as an aspect of the reciprocal exchanges that formed an integral role in Roman social bonds. What gossip could the free day laborer living two floors above Martial possibly offer to entice Martial to share the details of his dinner conversations with senators? Gossip was a social currency in Rome, and bar-room gossip was bound to be less enticing and more confused than the gossip of

Martial and his peers. Nevertheless, it often paid to be generous with gossip, and the poets likely found it useful or perhaps simply polite to share news with their neighbors and local shop owners. Sharing good gossip was a way to display their social standing.

3 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 118; George, “Servus and Domus: The Slave in the Roman House,” 22–24; Frier, Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, 13–15. Andreau and Descat, The Slave in Greece and Rome, 105–6; Andreau and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, 169–70 offers details about the numbers and types of slaves who worked as domestic servants (“domestiques”). 4 On disdain for the rabble: Juv. 10.78-81. On Greeks: Juv. 3.76-85. 77

Horace claims that people flocked to him for news because he was so close to Maecenas.

When Horace was unable to answer their questions, people considered it an insult.5

Horace and his peers could not simply ignore the people asking them for news without risking alienating the people with whom they did business, but their proximity to power gave their notoriety a boost.

The social lives of people within their vicus is best described by the “small- world” model of social networks.6 This model assumes that the individuals in a network are more likely to be connected to each other if they are closer together. A person is more likely to know their neighbor than a person one street over. This concept can also be applied to social status: a person is more likely to network with their peers than their inferiors or superiors. As Juvenal’s attitudes towards his social inferiors shows, Romans were prone to dislike outsiders, and most likely had relatively cliquish friend-groups and fairly closed social networks, especially compared to the expansive networks of their elite contemporaries. Despite these issues, small-world networks, from the most isolated to the most inter-connected, are capable of propagating a rumor as effectively as entirely random networks, although there is also a large probability that a rumor can be stifled.7

Furthermore, Rome was host to different forms of social networks which help mediate the cliquishness of small-world groups.

Making up for the fissures in Roman society were the “weak ties” discussed above. Rome’s size and the complexity of Rome’s economy encouraged a vast number of

5 Hor. Sat. 2.6.50ff. 6 Watts and Strogatz, “Collective Dynamics of ‘small-World’ Networks.” 7 Zanette, “Critical Behavior of Propagation on Small-World Networks”; Zanette, “Dynamics of Rumor Propagation on Small-World Networks,” 2002. 78 weak ties. Large vendors with almost industrial output could provide a weak tie between vastly different networks, and each vicus would have its own weak ties to the patrons, wholesalers, and collegia throughout the city. Each member of each collegia provided a weak tie to each of their vici, and the patron of a collegium tied them with the next level in the social hierarchy. Elite patrons also acted as the weak links between the elite social classes and their lower-class clients, freedmen, and slaves.

Another common form of social network in Rome was a “star model” centered on one person, like the hub and spokes of a bicycle wheel. A patron created this type of network with his clients, and depending how they worked, this network might also apply to collegia. In this type of network, information is spread in hierarchical and ever widening stages. This is the type of interaction that Ray Laurence imagined in his own study of rumor in Rome.8 Each of the nodes emanating from the center was also a weak tie between his patron and his own social groups and vici. Simon Speksnijder estimates that anywhere from 40,000 to 200,000 men could have participated in salutationes every day by calculating the typical area of an urban vestibulum and the number of senators.9

Home Sweet Home

By the late Republic, most people in the city of Rome lived in mixed-use apartment blocks called insulae. These buildings usually hosted retail businesses

(tabernae) on the ground floor and different types of apartments with more expensive and spacious units on the second floor and increasingly small and less expensive units on

8 Laurence, “Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics.” 9 Speksnijder, “Beyond ‘public’ and ‘Private’: Accessibility Ad Visibility during Salutationes,” 89; only senators hosted salutationes: Goldbeck, Salutationes, 60–67. 79 each floor above.10 An insula found under the Church of Ara Coeli, dating to the late

Republic or early Empire offers a typical example: the first floor contained shops. The second floor was divided into two multi-room flats, which may have been sublet into smaller units.11 Many times, the large units on the first floors of an insula would even include a mezzanine level where slaves could sleep.12 The third floor was divided into several smaller apartments. It is likely that this building was originally five floors, but the top two have been lost.13 This indicates a proximity between members of various social classes and incomes. Furthermore, temporary renters and sublets would have brought even more people into contact in the building.14

Insulae like this would often have many of the amenities their occupants needed.

Occupants of the upper floors would use the shops, restaurants, mills and bakeries on the first floor. Studies from Pompeii have shown artefacts traced from the shops in an insula found in the context of the domestic spaces of the same block.15 These types of exchange indicate close and lasting bonds between the people living in insulae with the businesses below.

Rental culture in Rome would have encouraged some movement around the city and connections between renters, their landlords (or their managers), and whatever staff

10 For discussions of renting from a legal and practical perspective, see: Frier, “Cicero’s Management of His Urban Properties”; Frier, Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome. 11 Frier, “The Rental Market in Early Imperial Rome,” 28. 12 Frier, Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, 13. 13 Dyson, Rome, 219; For a physical survey of rental properties in Pompeii and Herculaneum: Pirson, Mietwohnungen in Pompeji und Herkulaneum. 14 Frier, “The Rental Market in Early Imperial Rome,” 32. 15 Leander Touati, “Water, Well-Being and Social Complexity in Insula V1. A Pompeian City Block Revisited”; Ynnilä, “Meaningful Insula: Bridging the Gap between Large and Small Scale Studies of Urban Living Conditions”; Ynnilä, “Understanding Neighborhood Relations through Shared Structures: Reappraising the Value of Insula-Based Studies.” 80 would be around the buildings. The owners of insulae would have been wealthy men, and many of Rome’s most powerful men and women invested in urban properties. Cicero maintained two insulae in Rome which were part of Terentia’s dowry and several rentals in Puteoli which he inherited from a friend.16 Cicero and his peers likely rented these directly to managers who then handled the maintenance and leasing of the property to residents.17 The staff of these insulae could include security, carpenters, and other slaves or freedmen.18

Roman leases began on the first of July, meaning that the end of June was likely a time when many people were searching for a place to live and work or moving their possessions between flats and tabernae. Romans who fell on lean times or struck it rich over the course of a year might even be forced to move to different neighborhoods.

Even a domus would have been home to an economically and socially diverse group of people. The elite often hosted their clients and freedmen in their homes.19 Slaves would also have been an integral part of the elite household. Slaves might have been five or ten per cent of the population of the Roman empire.20 Jean Andreau and Raymond

Descat estimate that 3% of the population of Italy were slaves working in domestic service. The proportion would have been particularly high in Rome.21 The lack of easily identifiable slave spaces in Roman domus may indicate that space in Roman houses was

16 Frier, “Cicero’s Management of His Urban Properties.” 17 Frier, Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, 34–35. 18 Frier, 28–29. 19 Grahame, “Public and Private in the Roman House: Investigating the Social Order of the Case Del Fauno,” 163; Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 118. 20 McKeown, The Invention of Ancient Slavery?, 11. For a discussion of the difficulty in estimating slave population, see McKeown, 124–40. 21 Andreau and Descat, The Slave in Greece and Rome, 106; Andreau and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, 171. 81 fluid and slaves and their owners would have shared it throughout the year.22

Nevertheless, just as Rome was divided into neighborhoods with greater and lesser access to the rest of the city, a domus had areas of varying access. Mark Grahame thus argues that Roman houses did have a class division where public places were fluid but the most private were controlled by the owners.23

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Once Romans left their insulae they entered their vicus, or neighborhood. This was the integral social structure for most Romans in the city.24 A vicus could be quite small—a city block, crossroads, or stretch of street—but each had their own religious cults and leaders. They were the smallest administrative unit in the city and essential to managing the more personal aspects of government, including oversight of the grain dole and emergencies.25 The number of vici in the Republic is unknown. Pliny the Elder claims that when Augustus reformed the administration of the city, there were 265 vici.26

However, Augustus’s contemporaries Virgil and Ovid place the number of vici at 300 and

500 respectively.27 It is most likely that the number and definition of vici was not consistent in Ancient Rome as the population moved and as neighborhoods developed

22 George, “Servus and Domus: The Slave in the Roman House,” 22–24. For the difficulty of finding slave evidence in archaeology, see: Andreau and Descat, The Slave in Greece and Rome, 96; Andreau and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, 154. 23 Grahame, “Public and Private in the Roman House: Investigating the Social Order of the Case Del Fauno,” 162; Grahame, Reading Space. 24 Dyson, Rome, 216; Courrier, “Plebian Culture in the City of Rome, from the Late Republic to the Early Empire,” 114–15. 25 Flower, The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, 197–99. Suet. Iul. 41.3. 26 Plin. HN 3.66; Suet. Aug. 30; Cass. Dio 55.8. 27 Verg. Aen. 8.116-117; Ov. Fast. 5.145-146. 82 their own identities as religious centers.28 Where Pliny’s number might show official administrative units, Virgil and Ovid likely reflect more fluid definitions of vici.

Like insulae, vici were not segregated based on class.29 Even the most famously impoverished neighborhoods in Rome—the Subura and the Agiletum—were home to wealthy and powerful Romans. Julius Caesar lived in Subura until he was elected pontifex maximus in 63 BCE.30 An elite domus discovered under the church of Santi

Sergio e Bacco in the Subura date from the first century BCE.31 While there is some debate over whether these elite houses were always present in otherwise impoverished neighborhoods or whether they emerged only in the Late Republic, their presence in the period of this study is irrefutable.32

Rome’s elite strived to be or at least appear to be available to the public at all times. They therefore chose to live in the most trafficked places in the city, particularly the Palatine Hill near the Roman Forum.33 Livius Drusus ordered his house built so that

“whatever I do can be seen by everyone.”34 Cicero later bought that same house so that he could be “in view of nearly the whole city.”35 This meant, as in the example above, that Roman elite often found it advantageous to live in neighborhoods usually associated

28 Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 15; for a general discussion of round number approximations in antiquity, see Scheidel, “Finances, Figures and Fiction.” 29 Flower, The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, 116. 30 Suet. Iul. 46. Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 110–11. 31 Andrews, “A Domus in the Subura of Rome from the Republic Through Late Antiquity.” 32 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 107–8 argues that Rome’s Aventine and the Argelitum in particular were home to economically diverse communities since at least the 3rd century BCE. Andrews, “A Domus in the Subura of Rome from the Republic Through Late Antiquity,” 75 argues that elite houses are present in the Subura and Viminal only in the 1st century BCE. 33 Russell, The Politics of Public Space in Republican Rome, 81–83; Speksnijder, “Beyond ‘public’ and ‘Private’: Accessibility Ad Visibility during Salutationes,” 94; Beck, “FROM POPLICOLA TO AUGUSTUS,” 265. 34 Vell. Pat. 2.14.3: quidquid agam, ab omnibus perspici possit. 35 Cic. Dom. 100: in conspectus prope totius urbis. 83 with less entitled residents of the city.36

The significance of their vici to the Romans is best seen in the festival Compitalia.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus links the creation of the cult of lares Compitales with the division of Rome into vici.37 Each vicus was home to its own lares Compitales whose cult was overseen by the vici magister, a locally elected official, often a freedman or slave.

Compitalia or the related ludi Compitalicii were banned multiple times in the Republic, but were also restored multiple times and remained a target of political controversy and opportunism.38 The political concerns over Compitalia show the significance of the festival and, in turn, reflect the way Romans felt about the communities Compitalia celebrated. The bonds formed and celebrated in Compitalia were some of the strongest bonds Romans in Roman society.39 These bonds extended through all classes of Roman society from the wealthy landlords to the freedmen renting the humblest flats.

One of the issues the Roman elite had with vici was the central role freedmen and slaves played in the running of the neighborhoods. Dionysius of Halicarnassus argued that Compitalia was designed in part around the growth of slavery in the city as a way to empower and include slaves in Roman civic religion.40 Livy’s Lucius Valerius refers to the vicorum magistri disdainfully as the lowest people in the city, a clear reference to the importance of the poor and freed in the vici.41 The political suspicion surrounding the vici

36 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 110–11. 37 Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 31. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.14.3-4. 38 Flambard, “Clodius, les collèges, la plèbe et les esclaves. Recherches sur la politique populaire au milieu du Ier siècle,” 117–22; Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 37–38, 50–53; Flower, The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, 222–25, 248–49 argues that collegia and the ludi compitalicii were regulated by the Senate as a matter of course. 39 Donahue, “Toward a Typology of Roman Public Feasting,” 429; Dyson, Rome, 93. 40 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.14.3-4. 41 Livy 34.7.2. 84 in the late Republic stemmed from a social concern about the role lower classes and foreign freedmen were playing in Roman politics and should be understood in context of political debates over how much political power to give freedmen and whether they should be enrolled in all 35 tribes or just the four urban tribes.42 In fact, J. Bert Lott argues that the ludi Compitalicii were banned in 64 BCE in large part because Romans were uncomfortable with the tradition that the vicorum magistri who oversaw them wore the toga praetexta (a symbol of Roman citizenship and senatorial status) regardless of their slave status or citizenship.43

Vici were the link between most Romans and the magistrates of the city. Magistri vici played an important role in everyday administration and safety by regulating the water supply, dispersing subsidized grain, and watching for crime and fires in the neighborhood.44 They also worked closely with the aediles with the grain supply and infrastructure. This essential role of vici in public life might date from the creation of the aedileship itself (the office originated to support the tribunes of the plebs in 494 with the curule aediles added in 367), and Livy claims that vicorum magistri handled grain distribution as early as the Second Punic War.45 While many historians focus on the role of vici in politics only in the context of Publius Clodius’s ambitious career, these institutions played a central role in administration and society from early in the Republic and encouraged strong ties between the people living within them.

Much of Roman life took place on the very streets and crossroads overseen by the

42 Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 49–50. 43 Lott, 52–54. 44 Lott, 44. 45 Lott, 40. 85 lares Compitales.46 Tabernae would use the streets outside of their entrances as extra space to display their goods or perform their services. Mobile vendors would travel around vici selling goods like fresh produce. Fountains would have been a natural gathering place for everyone using the local water. The residents of Rome’s small apartments probably viewed the streets as a better place to spend their time than their cramped and poorly ventilated apartments. The streets were so crowded, in fact, that

Julius Caesar attempted to regulate traffic into the city (particularly prohibiting large ox- drawn wagons from entering the city during certain hours) and Domitian attempted to force businesses to keep their goods and services within their thresholds.47

Vici could have their own hyper-local economies.48 Residents of the insulae were the primary market for the businesses on the ground floor of their buildings. The local restaurants, bakeries, and fullers all took their water from the same fountain. The fullers and tanners might have used the waste gathered at the nearby balneae. Businesses worked together to provide goods and services to their small community, but despite the size of the community, it was economically diverse. As mentioned above, poor freedmen and relatively leisured families lived in the same building. This is evident in Pompeii where city blocks clearly show elite houses nestled among modest tabernae.49 Part of the elite lifestyle in Rome was being visible in public. This was just as true for the leaders of vici as it was for the leaders of Rome.

46 Holleran, “The Street Life of Ancient Rome,” 251. 47 Holleran, 257. 48 Courrier, “Plebian Culture in the City of Rome, from the Late Republic to the Early Empire,” 114. 49 Viitanen, Nissinen, and Korhonen, “Street Activity, Dwellings and Wall Inscriptions in Ancient Pompeii: A Holistic Study of Neighborhood Relations,” 76. 86

Streets provided a place for people to meet others within their insulae and their vici. Water provides a good insight into how people would have interacted in these streets. Most Romans would have gathered their water at public fountains fed through aqueducts. At the very height of the Empire, Frontinus counted 591 fountains in Rome, about two for each vicus. The number would have been much smaller at the end of the

Republic, indicating that even more users would be drawing water from the same fountains. Wealthy owners and businesses could also pay to have water delivered directly to their homes. However, if Pompeii can be used as an example, many people who could afford private access to water chose to use fountains. Only one third of the bakeries in

Pompeii had private access to water.50

Another major site of activity was the local balnea, the bath. Unlike the monumental thermae, balneae were small operations common in the late Republic.

Agrippa counted 170 balneae in the city, about two for every three vici.51 Both Plautus and Cicero consider balneae centers of local activity where people met and mischief followed.52 Balneae attracted a crowd, but they were not in every vicus and some neighborhoods, like the southern Campus Martius seemed to have more balneae than others. Martial mentions several in the Campus Martius and city laws prevented balneae from being built in some residential areas because of the threat of fire.53 Most Romans would not have the leisure to sample different balneae, but the fact that balneae were not

50 Ynnilä, “Understanding Neighborhood Relations through Shared Structures: Reappraising the Value of Insula-Based Studies”; Studies from Augustan Rome do show distinct differences in the use of water between elite neighborhoods, where private access to water was more common, and Rome’s valleys: Noreña, “Water Distribution and Augustan Rome’s Residential Topography.” 51 Pliny. NH. 36.212. 52 Plaut. Rud. 527. Cic. Rosc. Am. 18. Cael. 61-62. 53 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams,” 84–85, 88. 87 found in every vicus means that they were locations where Romans from different (albeit neighboring) vici could meet. Unlike the fountains, balneae were places designed for spending time and socializing, making them a nexus for local information networks.

Moving Outside of the Vicus

Navigating an ancient city was difficult. There were no street signs, so instructions were given by referencing well-known local monuments like temples, trees, and shops.54 While these would be understandable for local people, they might not be for outsiders. Even a Roman outside of her vicus might have a difficult time differentiating a temple to Silvanus from a temple to Artemis or one baker from another. Once a person strayed too far from her vicus, she would be confronted with an intimidating network of streets, alleys, and minor landmarks.55 The confusion necessitated frequent stops to ask for directions, but it also likely discouraged exploration of the city for pleasure. When

Caesar admitted Gallic men to the Senate, the Romans made jokes urging citizens not to show new senators the way to the Curia.56 Even the Forum was hard to find for a non- local.

In order to go through the city without getting lost, Romans would have travelled on main streets and rarely ventured away from them until they were near their destinations. Scholars of movement in a city use these main streets as the basis of understanding the way cities work. The basic understanding in the field is that locations nearer to main streets are more integrated with the wider city, and locations off the main

54 Martial gives a good example of such directions: Mart. 1.70. 55 For a brief description of the streets in Rome see Holleran, “The Street Life of Ancient Rome,” 246–51. 56 Seut. Iul. 80.2. Corbeill, Controlling Laughter, 202. 88 streets are increasingly segregated based on the amount of turns one takes from the main street to get there.57 The closer a vicus was to these main streets, the more integrated the community was with the city, and thus the more integrated the people living there were in the gossip of the city. Because they were more integrated with the city, main streets attracted more activity and construction meaning they had more landmarks which made them easier to navigate.58 Roman cities (that is, outside of Rome itself), designed around a decumanus maximus and cardo maximus, naturally take advantage of this concept.59

This layout allowed the people who traveled within the cities just two streets (give or take a few running parallel or perpendicular as the city expanded) along which they needed to travel to arrive near their destination. The people of Pompeii and Ostia rarely had to turn twice off a main road (any road leading to a gate) to arrive at any destination in the city.60

Rome itself did not follow the rules of its colonies. The dense and sprawling city was so large it was hard for even the people living there to define where the outer border was.61 The city had few main streets wider than ten feet.62 Many regions of Rome, most notably the Subura, were a dense network of cramped insulae nearly touching on opposite sides of small, muddy alleys. While most vici would have inhabitants who did business in the wider city or itinerant salesmen entering from the city, many would have

57 van Nes, “Measuring Spatial Visibility in Pompeii,” 102; Stöger, Rethinking Ostia, 212, 221. 58 Fridell Anter and Weilguni, “Public Space in Roman Pompeii,” 36. 59 Ironically, Ostia, despite growing from a well-defined castrum does not fit this model. While the Decumanus is the most integrated street in the city, the cardo is not well-integrated at all. Stöger, Rethinking Ostia, 217–19. 60 van Nes, “Measuring Spatial Visibility in Pompeii,” 107. 61 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.13.4. Dyson, Rome, 298; Morley, Metropolis and Hinterland, 33–34. 62 Holleran, “The Street Life of Ancient Rome,” 247; Macaulay-Lewis, “Walking for Transport & Leisure in Rome,” 289. It should be noted that this is after the Great Fire, after which many of the streets were widened. 89 been relatively segregated from the city in the sense that they would have been difficult to find from the major roads. People who did business in other parts of the city would have avoided living in such vici and fewer salespeople would have traveled there.

The individual’s experience of travelling through Rome was defined by the

“pathways” in which they travelled. Pathways are not simply routes, they combine the physical space through which a person travels with the experiences they encountered as they travelled. They are unique to each individual. The pathways of many Romans would have converged in the most integrated sections and streets of a city. The convergence of travelers encouraged businesses and individuals to locate themselves in these integrated streets to become a part of the pathways of the people moving near them. This in one reason why so many politicians wanted to live on the Palatine. Living there made them visible to anyone doing business in or moving through the Forum. Being present in the lives of Romans, even just through physical proximity, was an important way for politicians to grow their reputations.63 Likewise, in Pompeii and Ostia, collegia and major businesses tried to locate themselves as close to the most integrated streets as possible.64

The fact that Rome had so few large, integrated streets indicates that neighborhoods were more segregated in Rome than in smaller ancient cities, but they also forced the pathways of Romans to converge onto a few main routes. People from relatively far away vici travelling in different directions were all forced onto the same few

63 Dyson, Rome, 88. 64 Stöger, Rethinking Ostia, 229–56; Stöger, “The Spatial Organization of the Movement Economy: The Analysis of Ostia’s Scholae.” 90 routes when navigating the city. The convoluted road network of the city ironically brought people together, even though it kept their neighborhoods apart.

The “Weak Ties” of Rome

Many people relied on services, relationships, and goods that were not available in every vicus and thus needed to travel through the city every day. These services could be patronage, wholesalers, and jobs in construction or farming. The people who relied on these services could be found in every vicus and acted as conduits for goods and information. In social network theory, these people are called “weak ties.”65 Weak ties are people forming the single direct bond between two different, otherwise entirely separated, groups. The one baker in the vicus linked the community with his collegia, likewise the ambulatory grocer connected the vicus with farmers’ markets in the city.

Each vicus would have multiple weak ties to groups like wealthy patrons, wholesalers, and other local businesses. Weak ties are essential for the spread of information because they are the only way in which information can spread directly between the two groups they link. If a segregated society does not have many weak ties, then no gossip can disseminate through it. Rome’s social and economic needs fostered many weak ties between vastly different groups.

Rome had several organizations that united people from different communities.

Some, like the archaic pagi and montes linked vici together into religious communities, but they were arcane by the Late Republic.66 The six major festivals (Ludi Romani,

65 Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” 1973; Granovetter, “Threshold Models of Collective Behavior”; Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” 1983. 66 Dyson, Rome, 85. 91

Plebeii, Ceriales, Apollinares, Florales, and Megalenses) similarly brought people together through religion. In total, these events accounted for approximately 58 total days of games.67 Other festivals like Saturnalia and Lupercalia encouraged Romans to leave their crowded alleys to enter the city in celebration.68 Each of these festivals were also preceded by markets to sell the religious materials for the celebration (wool dolls for

Saturnalia, for example) and followed by large mercati where tradesmen from around

Italy and Rome would gather to sell their goods while the city was crowded with festival goers.69 Worship of Diana, Bona Dea, Liber Pater, Flora, and others would have brought

Romans to the Aventine.70 Other cults like Silvanus encouraged Romans to leave the city altogether and worship in the countryside.71 Romans with personal connections to particular deities like Isis would likely have to leave their vicus to participate in their cultic activities. Not every inhabitant of every vicus participated in these societies and events, but those that did acted as a conduit between their vici and the social groups that did participate.

Another major link many Romans would have had outside their vici was their collegia. Collegia were associations for members of the same trade, religious sect, or some other common interest. While they are often compared to guilds and unions, they seem to be more social organizations that also provided burial benefits for their members than organizations to set standards and prices for their craft.72 They were also associated

67 Balsdon 1969, 245. 68 Dyson, Rome, 236. 69 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 190. 70 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 5. 71 Dyson, Rome, 330. 72 Flower, The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, 217; Perry, The Roman Collegia. 92 with rowdy political movements like Clodius’s supporters in the late Republic, indicating that political activism was also a part of membership in the collegia.73 Collegia were such a large social force that Varro joked that collegial dinners were using so much produce that the price of food was rising.74

Collegia also took a central role in the geography of the city. While it is impossible to locate for certain where the headquarters of Rome’s collegia were, examples from Ostia are mostly located on the most integrated streets of the city, placing them in prominent view of people travelling though the city and making them conveniently located for members.75 These would have been organizations that encouraged engagement both through the services they provided and their well-chosen locations. While not every Roman belonged to collegia, these organizations helped bring

Romans from different parts of the city together united by their trade. Those tradesmen then returned to their families and neighbors with news from other parts of the city and did business with members of the community.

Another example of the organizations Romans made comes from the Bacchanalia scandal of 186 BCE. An inscription of the senatorial decree responding to the event banned the organization supporting the cult of Bacchus. This decree offers historians a look at the type of organization Romans made and might indicate how early collegia were modelled:

73 Perry, “Organized Societies: Collegia,” 512; Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 51; Flambard, “Clodius, les collèges, la plèbe et les esclaves. Recherches sur la politique populaire au milieu du Ier siècle,” 144 argues that Clodius transformed collegia into politically active organizations. 74 Dyson, Rome, 279. Varr. Rust. 3.2.16. 75 Stöger, Rethinking Ostia, 251–55; Stöger, “The Spatial Organization of the Movement Economy: The Analysis of Ostia’s Scholae.” 93

No man is to be a priest [sacerdos]; no one, either man or woman, is to be

magister; nor is anyone of them to have charge of a common treasury [pecuniam

commune]; no one shall appoint either man or woman to be magistratus or to act

pro magitratu; henceforth they shall not swear any oaths together [coniurasse, can

also mean “conspire”], make any vows together [convovisse], to enter contracts

together [conspondisse], or make any agreements together [compromisisse] nor

shall anyone among them offer credit [fidem inter se dedisse].76

The Bacchantes of 186 were accused of disrupting the peace and encouraging depravity.77 Whether those rumors are true, the relatively fast growth of Bacchus worshippers and the fact that the Senate chose to confront the new cult by banning their organization shows the power such groups could have.

The Bacchantes came from all groups of the Roman social structure. Lisa Marie

Mignone performed a prosopography of the members mentioned in Livy’s account arguing that, whether the names Livy gave are true, the variety of populations—from patrician senators to freedwomen—shows the scope of the threat.78 Indeed, the variety of members of the cult and the structure of their organization threatened the create an alternative social hierarchy in Rome.79 This was a unique group in Rome, but it was organized according to the principles that later collegia were.80 The Bacchantes had both

76 SC de Bacchanalibus 10-14, Pailler, Bacchanalia, 58. Latin words are given in their classical forms. The archaic text can be found in Pailler. 77 Livy 39.8-19. 78 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 107–8. 79 Mignone, 100. 80 Religious collegia are well-attested. The group banned by the SC de Bacchanalibus was likely one such. Flambard, “Clodius, les collèges, la plèbe et les esclaves. Recherches sur la politique populaire au milieu du Ier siècle,” 131. 94 a priest and a leader (magister) along with other officers (magistratus and pro magistratibus). The leadership was thus divided between religious positions and administrative positions. They also kept a treasury and lent money to members. Finally they engaged in communal acts both sacred (convovere having a particularly religious flair) and mundane (conspondere connoting more businesslike agreements). These activities bound Romans from different neighborhoods and social classes together.

Perhaps the best example of a weak tie in Rome is Martial. His epigrams often reflect upon his own and his peers attempts to form social connections with elite patrons.

His days were designed to bring him into close contact with a wide variety of people outside of his own neighborhood. Martial was a client by class, situated between the elite and the masses on the social ladder.81 Therefore, he does not represent the true majority of Rome, but he does demonstrate the type of movement that united the neighborhoods of

Rome.

Martial complains about going to his patron’s home two miles away in a judgmental epigram:

May I be unwell, Decianus,

If I not be with you every day and night,

But there are two miles which divide us:

These become four when I must return.

Often you are not home, also when you are home you often refuse:

Often you have time only for an excuse or for yourself.

81 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams,” 95. 95

Going two miles in order to see you is no trouble:

Going four not to see you is a nuisance.82

Martial lived near the center of the city on the Quirinal Hill, so two miles took him either directly across the city or a good deal away from the center.83 Martial’s complaint about the distance is also understandable considering the aforementioned issues with Rome’s congested streets. The two miles Martial traveled would have been along crowded roads used by people going in various directions throughout the city. Seneca gave a dire picture of Rome full of men going to salutationes every morning filling every street with people.84 This brought the poet in contact with all sorts, but also made for a trudge.

Because Martial was a professional client, not seeing his patron would be analogous to a failed business transaction. Now that he was far from home and probably far from the neighborhoods he frequented (the southern portion of the Campus Martius), he needed to find a way to recover his day.85

The salutatio was not only for the men of Martial’s class. Freedmen business- managers, the leaders of collegia, and people like day laborers throughout Roman society had links of patronage to Rome’s senators. These people would be asked to meet at their

82 Mart. Ep. 2.5: Ne valeam, si non totis, Deciane, diebus Et tecum totis noctibus esse velim. Sed duo sunt quae nos disiungunt milia passum: Quattuor haec fiunt, cum rediturus eam. Saepe domi non es, cum sis quoque, saepe negaris: Vel tantum causis vel tibi saepe vacas. Te tamen ut videam, duo milia non piget ire: Ut te non videam, quattuor ire piget. 83 Sullivan, Martial, the Unexpected Classic, 26. Mart. 1.108.3, 4.18.1. 84 Sen. Ben. 6.34.4 85 Sullivan, Martial, the Unexpected Classic, 151–53. Mart. 2.14. 96 patron’s houses in the morning to demonstrate support, ask for money or supplies, and offer their services as laborers. Patrons would use the sautatio to gather rumors and disseminate them, making the salutatio a nexus of gossip where the weak ties from various neighborhoods gathered in one place.86 When Romans travelled through the city to their salutations, they filled the streets with movements.87 When they left, they left with news from different parts of the city, even if they did not meet their patron, they would have encountered other clients and the members of their patron’s household.

The salutatio was just the first part of Martial’s day. In another epigram he outlines the daily schedule of the city:

The first hour and the next wears out those making salutationes,

The third keeps the hoarse lawyers busy,

Into the fifth, Rome spends various labors,

The sixth is rest for the weary, the seventh will be the end thereof,

The eighth into the ninth is employed in the glittering palaestras.

The ninth commands that we slam the piled cushions:

The tenth is the hour, Euphemus, of my little books.88

This is a full day which encouraged movement throughout the city.89 Martial and his

86 Laurence, “Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics.” 87 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams,” 87. 88 Mart. Ep. 4.8.1-7: Prima salutantes atque altera conterit hora, Exercet raucos tertia causidicos, In quintam varios extendit Roma labores, Sexta quies lassis, septima finis erit, Sufficit in nonam nitidis octava palaestris, Imperat extructos frangere nona toros: Hora libellorum decuma est, Eupheme, meorum… 89 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams,” 88. 97 peers left the salutatio to attend the speeches of their patrons as a show of support. They did business in the city, or attended the business of their patron, then went to the baths as a social activity. This culminated in dinner, their reward for a day of work as a client, and, for Martial and other artists, a chance to display their talents. Those who failed to gain a dinner invite at the baths or porticoes of the city essentially failed to do their job.

Martial describes this process as desperate and necessary.90

Despite the apparent mobility in Martial’s schedule, his day still followed a pathway. His two-mile trek took him from the Quirinal, where his apartment was located, to the house of his patron, Decianus. From there he went with Decianus to the forum for business (which forum would have depended on the day, but they were all near each other). His afternoon activities usually brought him to the Campus Martius, a location with several balneae and multiple thermae for his bathing and porticoes for other exercise and socializing.91 Even this amount of movement through the city was the result of the political system. In the Republic, the Palatine Hill was the center of social life and patronage in the city, filled with clients clamoring for work, money, and dinner invitations. With the eclipse of public politics and the central place of the Roman Forum, powerful families with a desire for clients could locate themselves in other parts of the city.92 In the period at the center of this study, a large proportion of weak ties all gathered in one neighborhood in the morning, making Rome of the Republic even more united by gossip than Rome of the Empire.

90 Mart. Ep. 2.14. 91 Mart. Ep. 2.14, 3.20 and 3.44 all take place in the same region. For more on porticoes see Macaulay- Lewis, “Walking for Transport & Leisure in Rome.” 92 Dyson, Rome, 225. 98

Martial’s example of daily life is not directly applicable to all Romans, but there were some groups who would have had a similar scope to their day. Ambulatory sellers would have gathered at markets or workshops in the morning much like Martial’s peers gathered at their patron’s homes, then they would have gone with their goods to their own corner of the city to sell much like Martial frequented the Campus Martius. Like

Martial’s Selius, who desperately darted around the Campus Martius for a dinner invitation, day laborers would have gone around construction sites and marketplaces offering up their services.93 Although Martial had an uncommon connection to the elite, his daily rituals would have been familiar to many Romans.

The Economy and Movement

One way to examine the movement of the illiterate masses around Rome is to consider the movement of the goods which they bought and sold. Behind every economic transaction was the meeting of at least two people doing business. As the largest market in the Mediterranean and the capital of a vast empire, Rome was the center of much economic activity. By recreating the economic conditions of Rome, it is possible to intuit the movement of people around, into, and out of the city.

Rome’s most abundant product was its people.94 These people were employed in dozens of industries, but the majority would have worked in the food industry or as temporary laborers. In fact, the work force was so abundant that industries like iron smelting used less efficient designs that required less specialization and more manpower

93 Dyson, 258; Brunt, “Free Labour and Public Works at Rome.” 94 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 29; Scheidel, “Roman Population Size: The Logic of the Debate,” 42–44 discusses the effect the population of the city (in numbers) would have on the labor market. 99 to take advantage of this abundance of labor.95 Other wealthy Romans would have seen the same advantage to using similarly inefficient methods. The switch from opus incertum where irregular pieces of rubble were used to make a wall to opus reticulanum which used regularized pyramid-shaped pieces of stone would have wasted material but allowed less-skilled workers to participate in construction.96 In a market where labor was so abundant, the cost of relying on unskilled workers for unloading ships, hauling building materials, and other mundane work was low. This would have discouraged the adoption of more efficient techniques with high up-front costs and the use of trained slave labor. Furthermore, Roman social values privileged the use of free manpower as a way for the elite to provide a beneficium to those they hired.97 Putting your name on a building not only showed a wish to beautify the city, it also showed a project that gave the people of Rome gainful employment. Paying day laborers was also less expensive than owning slaves because owners were obligated to care for their slaves for long periods of time whereas free labor required very little obligation on the part of the employer.98

This labor force would move within and outside of the city as it needed. Extra labor would be needed during sowing and harvesting on nearby farms, loading and unloading goods brought into the city, and other menial tasks. Like modern day labor, these people would have met at well-known locations where potential employers would

95 Blair, “The Iron Men of Rome.” 96 Cornell, “The City of Rome in the Middle Republic (400-100 BC),” 51–53. 97 DeLaine, “Building the Eternal City: The Construction Industry in Imperial Rome,” 135–36. 98 Brunt, “Free Labour and Public Works at Rome,” 92ff. Cato, Agr. 39.2: “Cogitato, si nihil fiet, nihilo minus sumptum futurum.” 100 know to go. A parable from the Gospel of Matthew describes the process: the owner of a vineyard goes into town early in the day, to the marketplace, and negotiates payment for people to work on the farm. After the people at the marketplace agree on a price, he takes them to his vineyard and they work through the day.99 When the owner hires more workers later in the day but insists on paying them the same wage as those who worked all day, the workers from the morning are forced to accept the wage they agreed on.

Matthew uses this parable as an example of the promise that the last on earth shall be the first in heaven and equal with everyone else. The message only works if the audience recognizes the truth in the story and sympathizes with the workers who worked the entire day, so it seems likely that prices would be negotiated based on how much work was done, but the laborers have no recourse when they are treated unfairly. Indeed, Cato emphasizes the negotiation between the land-owner and the workmen, particularly to establish fault for broken tools and missed goals. Cato, however, claims that workers were brought in by “custodes” who covered all the liability, not on an individual basis as in Matthew.100

Matthew’s parable reveals much about the use of day labor. The marketplace in

Matthew’s unnamed town acted as a place for people not only to sell goods but to offer their own labor. A farmer dropping off his produce at the market could leave with day laborers to work on his farm for the day. Even those without anything to bring to the market would know to go there when they needed extra hands. The employers negotiated

99 Matthew 20:1-16. 100 Cato, Agr. 144-145. DeLaine, “Building the Eternal City: The Construction Industry in Imperial Rome,” 122–23 discusses the role of day laborers and more permanent teams in Roman constuction. 101 terms or advertised payments to the people looking for work. Unlike Matthew’s owner, landowners would have tried to find as much of the labor they needed for the day in one trip, as it makes little sense to waste time traveling to and from town to find workers.

This also explains the different method used by Cato. However, the idea that the workers at the market changed throughout the day, and that people would offer their services at different times throughout the day (perhaps after finishing other jobs, or after being turned away at salutaiones) is sensible.

The day laborers, and the men who hired them, form an important aspect of mobility and fluid social relations in Roman society. The people gathering at the markets may have formed bonds with each other as they waited for work to come. They could share stories about the different work they had done recently and share advice on the best and worst employers. Like a patron at a more traditional salutatio, an employer might ask his laborers for news and might seek to form more permanent relationships with them.

These social bonds not only connected Romans from different vici, it also connected them to landowners near the city, construction foremen, and other people who worked closely with the wider Italian and Mediterranean.

Day labor and other forms of free work were not just for men. There were several temporary jobs that could only be performed by women. The most gendered jobs were midwifing and wet nursing, with other forms of child-rearing often performed by women as well. One character in Miles Gloriosus complains about all the women he has to pay: his wife’s fortune-teller, sorceress, the laundry girl, the woman who delivers the food, the

102 midwife, and the slaves’ wet nurse.101 While this line begins as a joke about all the soothsaying the man’s wife does, the effect shows how many forms of work women did in the city and household. These women, just like the men above, created important connections with their peers and with their employers. With labor like this, word of mouth networking would be an important way to maintain regular employment.

Slaves, both male and female, also performed temporary work, or operae, both on their owner’s behalf and for their own enrichment.102 Atticus’s scribes, for example, were often loaned to Cicero.103 Two of the slaves in Plautus’s Asinaria discuss going to the forum to look for a way to earn money.104 Naturally for a comedy, those slaves were trying to trick people out of money, but outside the norms of comedy, slaves would have to look for work both to enrich themselves and work towards freedom and as a way to defray their own costs to their owners. Even when working for their owners, slaves formed an important connection with people outside the family. Slaves would do the shopping and communication for their households, forming connections between them and the vendors they dealt with. These economic functions kept slaves close to various groups in the city and connected them into the vast networks throughout Rome. Indeed, slaves and freedmen likely played a significant role in many industries that were considered beneath a free man.105 Like Martial, slaves existed between wealthy Romans and the urban masses. They were members of elite households and thus their closest

101 Plaut. Mil. 691-698: praecantrix, coniectrix, hariola, haruspica, quae suercilio spicit, plicatrix, ceraria, opstetrix, nutrix. 102 Andreau and Descat, The Slave in Greece and Rome, 82–85; Andreau and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, 133–37. 103 Cic. Att. 13.13.1. 104 Plaut. Asin. 250ff. 105 Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic, 90. 103 social connections were to other slaves or other masters, but their operae and daily business linked them into wider society.

While labor connected Roman people through employment, Rome drew many people together through its role as a market. Both sellers and consumers came to Rome to do business, creating major industries within the city. The grain subsidy offers a good case study for the movement of goods around and inside of Rome, and the various impacts a good like grain could have on the economy. By tracing grain as it was grown, harvested, stored, distributed, milled, baked, and eaten, a clear picture of Rome’s intricate economy appears.

The grain dole is especially useful because we know approximately how much material was given away: about 150,000 men received 5 modii of grain every month.

That accounts for over 80,000 tons of grain given away in the city every year.106 The grain was more than enough for one person but not enough for a family. In order to make up for the extra grain needed by the plebs frumentarii and the rest of the people in Rome, the city would have needed over 120,000 more tons. Supplying Rome with grain was a major undertaking, demanding ever more government intervention until Pompey was given proconsular authority to oversee the grain supply in 58. This position became formalized in the Empire as the praefectus annonae.107

By the late Republic, Rome had long been dependent on grain imported from

Sicily and Africa. The taxation, transport, and storage of this grain was a large administrative undertaking which would have required a large bureaucracy. Imported

106 Dyson, Rome, 242. 107 For extensive discussion of the grain supply see Sirks, Food for Rome. 104 grain was shipped to Ostia where it was unloaded by day-laborers and stored in large warehouses.108 This was most likely seasonal work due to the difficulty of sailing the

Mediterranean in winter, requiring careful accounting to ensure a regular supply. While the shipments to Ostia may have come for only a month or so, the grain was stored there and sent to Rome throughout the year. Indeed, there is evidence that the Horrea Galbana, a large warehouse on the Aventine, was staffed year-round by workers who lived on site.109 Loading the riverboats and carts that transported the grain, unloading them, and transporting the grain to the 44 depots in Rome where the plebs frumentaria received their monthly dole would have been a constant effort requiring many workers, and linking Rome and Ostia in perpetual exchange.

Once the grain arrived at the warehouses, the plebs frumentaria could receive their five modii every month. They received unmilled whole grains which needed to be milled and baked before they could consume it. This supported a large market for pistores, combination millers and bakers within the city who most likely took payment in the form of extra grain from the plebs frumentaria who sought their services.110 In order to use this surplus material, the pistores must have relied on a market beyond the dole.

The dole created a chain of connections from the breadbaskets of the empire, through

Ostia, into just 44 locations in Rome, thence to the bakeries and mills in the vici and finally to all of the paying customers of those bakeries.

108 For more on porterage see Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 36. Apul. Met. 1.7; Petron. Sat. 38.7, 46.8, 117.11. 109 Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, 93. 110 For an extensive look at the process of breadmaking in antiquity see Thurmond, A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome. 105

Other goods had a similar effect on mixing Rome’s population around. Romans consumed 300,000 amphorae (give or take 50,000) of olive oil every year.111 Unlike grain, much of this was produced in Italy, but much was also imported. Regardless of the source, most of the oil entered the Roman market at the “portus olearius” on the north side of the Palatine. From there ambulatory salesmen could bring oil to individuals or businesses like bakeries, or perhaps bakers went to the portus themselves or sent an employee.112 Similar exchanges would have happened for every major good in Rome.

Grocers sent people to the macellum, thence to the tabernae and domestic tables. Trade kept Romans moving through the city, forming important bonds between trusted sellers and their customers.

The construction industry was likely the largest in Rome. A typical insula in Ostia took approximately 30 mandays per square meter to build. This would take 16 to 17 men two years (working 300 days) to complete.113 A large public building requiring more mechanical lifting would have required even more workers and higher skill. Janet

DeLaine calculates that the Baths of Caracalla (an extreme example) would have needed between 6,000 and 10,000 men to complete the building in four years including the transportation of materials. Approximately half of these would have been unskilled laborers.114

Specialized production is a good example of the effect space in Rome had on

111 Dyson, Rome, 247–48. 112 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 203–203. 113 DeLaine, “Building the Eternal City: The Construction Industry in Imperial Rome,” 127; See Frier, Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, 3, 14 on the comparison between Rome and Ostia. 114 DeLaine, “Building the Eternal City: The Construction Industry in Imperial Rome,” 131–32. 106 movement and social networking. Tradesmen like cobblers and silversmiths would gather in one neighborhood. For example, Xenophon describes a street where leatherworkers and cobblers lived together. One worker specialized in the soles of shoes, another specialized in the heel and so on until the last worker assembled them.115 This process is also evident in sculpture where certain workshops specialized in facial features. This process had three major results. First it centralized the trade, making it easier for people to locate in the labyrinthine city. Second, increased specialization allowed for better products as tradesmen focused on the minute aspects at which they were best. Third, breaking these trades into simple tasks allowed the workshops to use less-trained workers.116 Entire vici would be dominated and connected by these industries, but they would have connections with the larger city through regular trade and by participating in mercati.

Rome’s expansion as a chief market for an empire had a profound effect on this economy. Meeting the needs of the vast city was difficult for cottage industries and small farmers, and with the expansion of the empire it was difficult to compete with grain growers in Sicily or the garum factories in Spain. As Stephen Ellis shows, at the height of imperial expansion in the second century BCE, small garum producers in Pompeii disappeared, replaced either with larger operations outside the city or with imported garum.117 This is the same period in which Appian describes the hardships of family farms competing with latifundia.118 These changes had the effect of consolidating

115 Xen. Cyr. 8.2.5. 116 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 27, 33, 53–54. 117 Ellis, “The Rise and Re-Organization of the Pompeian Salted Fish Industry,” 76. 118 App. B Civ. 1.7.1. 107 production of goods under large businesses as the growth of the city and empire necessitated a move towards economies of scale and away from domestic production.119

While this is seen as a disruption and hardship for the Roman people, it also expanded their economic networks and, therefore, their social networks.

Rome’s vast population and constant trade provided opportunities in the service economy. The movement around Rome throughout the day and into Rome for business encouraged the growth of tabernae and other businesses devoted to serving people on the go and perhaps those who disliked spending time in the cramped, tinder-box apartments.

The importance of attracting business is easily seen in the tabernae of Pompeii, which are oriented towards the city gates to tempt the people entering the city into entering their establishments.120 These business owners were trying to lure customers acting on impulse. This further appears in the city of Rome itself where retailers displayed their wares on the street and barbers offered their services at the fountain.121 Indeed, barbers were particularly noted as inveterate gossips.122 The use of these techniques demonstrates that even when Romans stuck to their pathways they were not locked into the exact same routine. Shops all along Martial’s two-mile walk tried to lure him in by displaying their offerings. They expected that he and his like would not go to the same place every time.

They encouraged impulse and thus brought people into contact. Roman economic connections, like elite social networks, were not exclusive.

Romans lived their lives in small, relatively closed communities. At first glance,

119 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 25. 120 Ellis, “The Distribution of Bars at Pompeii,” 381. 121 Holleran, “The Street Life of Ancient Rome.” 122 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 177–78. 108 this would indicate that Rome was a fairly segregated city, but this discussion has focused on the social and economic connections these neighborhoods had to the wider city. With all of these connections, these neighborhoods would have been able to participate fully in Rome’s gossip, and their participation would be integral for gossip to work as an effective and pervasive form of communication. Nonetheless, it has yet to be shown that Romans took interest in gossip and whether what interest they had political consequences.

109

Chapter 3: All the News That’s Fit to Share

The previous chapter discussed the types of social networks Romans formed based on their needs and the way they moved through the city. While the shape of their social networks are important, it is also necessary to show that Romans were actively engaged in gossip and to discuss the kinds of news they liked to share. Unfortunately, in contrast with the wealth of information from men of Cicero’s class, there is no surviving literature from a truly non-elite Roman.

Roman writers were equivocal about the role of rumor in their society. Cicero found Rome relatively devoid of gossip, in contrast to his countryside retreats.123 Pliny reported the opposite: only at Laurentum can he truly relax his guarded behavior away from the gossips of Rome.124 Ovid painted a colorful picture of women at work sharing stories to while away the hours.125 Catullus claimed that the people doing business on the streets in Rome have no time to care about an attractive boy walking among them.126

Horace stated that he cannot go anywhere in the city without people begging him for gossip.127 Cicero and Catullus characterized Romans as generally incurious, while Pliny

123 Cic. Att. 2.13=33 SB; 16.14.1=425 SB. 124 Plin. Ep. 1.9.5. 125 Ov. Met. 4.39-41. In this case, the speaker goes into the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. 126 Catull. 15. 127 Hor. Sat. 2.6.32ff. 110 considered the city difficult to live in for all the prying. Ovid argued that workers were as gossipy as Cicero considered his peers in the country. Horace depicted the people of

Rome as voracious consumers and loquacious spreaders of gossip. Unlike the previous chapter, there is little material evidence that can help resolve the conflicts in these authors. However, knowing the mobility of people in Rome and the shape of their social networks allows us to better understand the types of rumors and gossip we see in poetry, comedy and on the walls of Roman cities.

A Not-So-Hidden Transcript

In Domination and the Arts of Resistance James C. Scott outlines the ways in which people in stratified societies enforce and resist the norms of subordination through performing social roles. The elite enforce norms through public transcripts and the subordinated play along. Contrary to those public transcripts, the subordinated members of those societies produce their own hidden transcripts as a form of resistance.128 Put more simply, subordinated groups have their own form or rhetoric and cultural institutions that provide an outlet against the domination of the elite. These are “hidden” because they were practiced outside the gaze of the literate elite.

Rome does not precisely fit the criteria Scott imagined for his stratified societies.

His study focuses mostly on the antebellum American South and colonial India which feature “an institutionalized arrangement for appropriating labor, goods, and services from a subordinate population. As a formal matter, subordinate groups in these forms of domination have no political or civil rights, and their status is fixed by birth. Social

128 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. 111 mobility, in principle if not in practice, is precluded.”129 Romans did appropriate the labor and services of slaves and freedmen and practiced acts of violence upon the former. Even free clients were forced into acts that subordinated themselves to their patrons. However, social mobility was a distinct possibility for slaves and the freed who were not only commonly manumitted but also attained citizenship.130 Nonetheless, freedmen still had subordinating bonds to their former owners, owing them work and other forms of ingratiation.131 While free Romans did not face such burdensome ties of patronage, they still lived in a society which was heavily stratified by legal distinctions based on wealth and citizenship. Scott’s understanding of hidden transcripts, then, give us a way to better understand the motivation Romans had to share gossip and the types of gossip they shared.

Scott describes gossip as “the most familiar and elementary form of disguised popular aggression.”132 Rumor, by contrast, is a way in which people spread news that they cannot confirm during times of intense crisis or social significance.133 Both are forms of anonymous, face to face communication. Scott views hidden transcripts only as ways in which the subordinated acted directly against cultural norms. Gossips are therefore attacks on the elite while rumors can become distorted by the wishes of the oppressed.134 In a society like Rome, however, citizens used gossip and other forms of

129 Scott, x–xi. 130 On manumission: Andreau and Descat, The Slave in Greece and Rome, 152–56; Andreau and Descat, Esclave en Grèce et à Rome, 245–51. 131 Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome, 32–35. 132 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 142. 133 Scott, 144. 134 Scott, 147. 112 hidden resistance to empower themselves within the social norms of the city.135 Graffiti and poetry was not meant only to protest the system in which Romans lived but to pick favorites among the elite.

The Voice of the People?

The poetry of Catullus, Horace, Martial, and Juvenal allows a glimpse into a rung of society below Cicero and Pliny, but they still occupy a position above most Romans.

While Martial rented an apartment in Rome, he also owned a house outside the city.136

The most successful poets in Rome were patronized by powerful men and spent much of their social lives among the elite and made the elite a major inspiration for their art.137

Regardless of their class, these poets do allow historians to see an approach to forming networks and gathering information using fewer resources than Cicero. Martial, in particular, believed that the best poetry came from writing about reality without exaggeration.138 These systems help understand the social lives and interests of the majority of ancient Romans but as members of the artistic elite their experience is more of a midpoint between the elite and the typical Roman. The persona of the starving artist used by these poets offers a look at the city, even if only imagined, that Cicero never captured.139 Indeed, their proximity to the elite gave them a strong consciousness of their place in society and inspired attacks on elite culture. It is no accident that our best surviving poets all criticized elite society.

135 Morstein-Marx, “‘Cultural Hegemony’and The,” 38. 136 Laurence, “Movement and Space in Martial’s Epigrams,” 89. Mart. 6.1. 137 Howell, Martial, 27–28 highlights Martial’s connection with Pliny. Plin. Ep. 3.21, Mart. 10.20. 138 Mart. 10.4 Howell, 57–58. 139 Fitzgerald, Martial, 9; Lorenz, Erotik und Panegyrik, 4–42; Sullivan, Martial, the Unexpected Classic, 26–30 on Martial’s real or pretended poverty and the use of the impoverished persona. 113

In order to understand how Martial and other poets reveal information about the spread of gossip in Rome, we must first understand the pressures which affected their writing. Roman poets were members of large social groups that were founded on the sharing of poetry. Their poetry was made to be shared with their friends either in person or through writing.140 These poets were connected with powerful patrons, but highlighted a false sense of equality through the language of amicitia.141 Horace often remarked on his connection with Maecenas, and Martial could count several senatorial patrons like M.

Aquilius Regulus, L. Valerius Licinianus, and L. Arruntius Stella.142 Poetry was one of the reciprocal acts that bound these men into their social units. Without poetry, Martial and Horace would have been unable to form the beneficial bonds they made with powerful Romans.143

Poetry thus needs to be understood within the social structure that allowed poets to operate. Writing poetry was a social act and poets were expected to comment on society in their work. Invective, in particular, was linked with short poetry even from the earliest iambic poets.144 Ribald jokes and mocking were common in other forms of poetry like the chants made by soldiers marching in triumphs. Invective, like gossip itself, plays an important role in establishing and policing social norms, making poets like Catullus and Martial important “social guides.”145

140 Spisak, Martial, 8. 141 Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, 30. 142 For a comprehensive list, see Sullivan, Martial, the Unexpected Classic, 16–19. 143 Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, 23–25. 144 Spisak, Martial, 7. 145 Spisak, 12; for the importance of gossip as a form of social policing, see Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal”; and Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions; for more on Roman invective, see Arena, “Roman Oratorical Invective.” 114

A quick reading of Roman poets reveals the typical obsessions of the Roman gadfly and objects of social policing. Sex, money, and social propriety are the main concerns of Catullus, Martial, and their peers. These appear purely superficial and unpolitical, but they were often embarrassing and would have harmed the reputations of their subjects. Roman politicians were judged not only on their public service but also on their private lives.146 Politicians were expected to be open to all public scrutiny and needs. C. Cotta supposedly claimed: “since my earliest youth I have acted in your vision as a private citizen and in office.”147 Plutarch claims that politicians’ “dining, both love affairs and marriage, and both play and work” were all considered important to the gossips of Rome in addition to the things they do in public (ἐν κοινῷ).148

Both Martial and Catullus talk mercilessly about the love affairs and marriages of their peers. Catullus, for example, used one of his poems to share a rumor that Gellius was fellating another man so much that Gellius’s lips turned white.149 Gellius was often the object of Catullus’s invective, appearing in seven poems and accused of having sex with his own mother, sister, and uncle’s wife.150 These terrible accusations were a way for Catullus to attack Gellius because they were both lovers of the same person (Lesbia, perhaps).151 Furthermore, they were the only way for Catullus, an eques from Verona, to

146 Speksnijder, “Beyond ‘public’ and ‘Private’: Accessibility Ad Visibility during Salutationes,” 93. 147 Sall. Hist. 2.43.4: a prima adolencentia in ore vostro privatus et in magistratibus egi 148 Plut. Mor. 800D: ἀλλὰ καὶ δεῖπνον αὐτῶν πολυπραγμονεῖται καὶ κοίτη καὶ γάμος καὶ παιδιὰ καὶ σπουδὴ πᾶσα. 149 Catull. 80. For the power of Catullus’s imagery here, see Wray, Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood, 157. 150 Catull. 74, 80, 88-91, 116. Wray, 186–88 attempts a reading of these poems as a rhetorical arc. 151 Wray, 187 n. 66; Godwin, Reading Catullus, 124. 115 attack a nobilis.152 While not exactly a “hidden” transcript, this does reveal how empowering gossip can be. Martial likewise ridiculed and criticized his superiors but, due to the laws of Domitian, he used false names for the elite he attacked in his poetry.153

Martial often discussed the sexual affairs of his subjects.154 In one epigram he notes all the clues leading up to the revelation that Bassa was having sex with women: there were never any rumors that she had a relationship, she was only ever among women, and she did all of her work herself.155 Martial had concluded that she was a virgin but later discovered her sexual orientation.156 This epigram reveals the process by which Martial interpreted gossip. Starting with rumors he heard about public behavior, he came to his own conclusions which could later be changed.

While “κοίτη” was particularly entertaining for Martial and Catullus, marriage and other heteronormative relationships were also full of material for humorous and scandalous poems. In one of his less insulting poems, Catullus checks of a laundry list of the physical and social imperfections in a Formian woman who was highly praised by a person from Provence.157 Catullus not only insults provincial society, but mourns the low standards of his fellow Romans. Martial claims that Gemellus’s wife was so ugly, the only reason to marry her was to survive her and take her wealth. Martial pithily concludes

152 On Catullus’s background: Wiseman, “The Valerii Catulli of Verona”; Wiseman, Cinna the Poet, and Other Roman Essays, 119–29 has postulated that Gellius is L. Gellius Publicola, cos. 36 BCE; Tatum, “Social Commentary and Political Invective,” 348–50 discusses Catullus’s use of poetry to attack his superiors. 153 Mart. 1.ep.1-5, Suet. Dom. 8.3. Nauta, Poetry for Patrons, 43. Nauta discusses Martial’s invectives in five poems adressed to “Rufus”: Nauta 2002: 41-47. 154 Mart. 1.24. 155 Howell, Martial, 85. 156 Mart. 1.90. 157 Catull. 43. 116 that her most attractive feature was her cough.158 Again, we not only see the poets reporting their observations, Martial editorializes what he knows about his subjects in order to deliver twist endings to his epigrams. While this is certainly used as a literary device, it follows the way real people process information. From raw information he develops an argument about a person’s motivations, character, or secret behavior.

These poems about sex and relationships reveal the authors’ obsession with the private behaviors invisible at first glance. The assumption is that certain behaviors and decisions that the subjects of the poems make in public reveal their secret, private attitudes. The behaviors Martial observes in Gemellus and Bassa are relatively harmless.

One married an unattractive woman, the other has not had any male lovers. When scrutinized, however, those behaviors become reflections of vice: avarice and lust. Such accusations could destroy public reputations. Scrutinizing sexual behavior was a way to investigate moral rectitude and thus the suitability for office of a person.

Such scrutiny was not reserved for Martial and Catullus. Roman stage comedy often revolved around revelations of the kind Martial presents in his epigrams. The plays of Plautus and Terence are especially useful material because, unlike written poetry made to be enjoyed at cenae and convivia, they were meant to be performed in front of a large, public audience. The comic writers relied on the dramatic irony stemming from the fact that the audience and slaves in the play knew something the other characters did not. Part of the humor for the audience is seeing how the wily slaves on stage made fools of their betters by twisting rumors and disseminating fake news. This gave the audience the

158 Mart. 1.10. 117 feeling of having information over their social betters.159

Regardless of the composition of the audience, dramatic irony was part of the humor. In Terence’s Andria, the slave Davus realizes that his master has been lying about the wedding that is supposedly happening between the master’s son and the neighbor’s daughter. He came to this conclusion after seeing that the neighbor had made no special preparations for the event. He had no extra food, and he looked grumpy. Davus then confirmed his suspicions when he saw one of the neighbor’s slaves carrying a modest amount of food from the market for the neighbor’s dinner. Later in the play, the neighbor complains about all the people who are wishing him well on his daughter’s wedding day.

Meanwhile, Davus’s master is trying to convince his son that the wedding is still happening. The confusion between the master and the neighbor is the source of conflict and humor in the play.160

This conflict demonstrates how much news could go around a vicus and how easy it was for neighbors to know each other’s business. This is especially important in Miles

Gloriosus. The central conflict of the play begins when the soldier’s slave, Sceledrus, chasing a monkey on the roof, sees his master’s concubine embracing another man through the hole in the neighbor’s atrium.161 The two houses were secretly linked through a hole in a shared wall. People living in insulae would certainly have understood the risk of being overheard and the experience of seeing private behavior. It is difficult to be discreet when nothing separates you from your neighbor except a plastered-wicker wall.

159 Moore, The Theater of Plautus, 22. 160 Ter. An. 161 Plaut. Mil. 158-9. 118

Even people living in domūs must have been self-conscious about what a neighbor in a five-story insula might be able to see in their atrium.

Miles Gloriosus is a stark reminder of the paranoia Roman slave owners felt about their slaves’ unique insight into their lives. Sceledrus is easily tricked into staying silent by his fellow slave Palaestrio who warns him that nobody likes a talkative slave, stating

“it is more proper for a slave to know than to say.”162 Put more simply, slaves should keep quiet about what they see. A little later in the show, Sceledrus promises the neighbor, Periplectomenus, that he will never gossip again, not even about something he has seen and knows for certain. Periplectomenus leaves him with some parting advice:

“from now on, do not know even what you do know, nor see what you do see.”163

Sceledrus’s experiences in the play demonstrate many issues with Roman gossip.

First, it is clear that Romans were concerned about what their slaves knew and took pains to ensure that they could trust their slaves’ discretion. Sceledrus’s knowledge gave him power over his owner just as Catullus’s skill as a writer gave him the power to lash out at

Gellius. The audience must understand Sceledrus’s position as a slave who knew too much in order to appreciate the plot of the second act. This is heightened by the trick

Palaestrio and Periplectomenus play on Sceledrus to further convince him of his mistake.

They claim that the woman he saw in Periplectomenus’s house was not the soldier’s concubine, but her twin sister. Combined with Sceledrus’s concerns about how much he knew and the moralizing of Palaestrio and Periplectomenus is now the moral lesson that you should not gossip about what you do not fully understand. Unlike Cicero, who could

162 Plaut. Mil. 479: plus oportet scire seruom quam loqui. 163 Plaut. Mil. 572: posthac etiam illud quod scies nesciuerisnec uideris quod uideris. 119 ask well-connected peers about the rumors he heard, Sceledrus could not be certain about what he saw. Even Martial tried to corroborate his thoughts on Bassa. Sceledrus, and many of the people in the audience, had no way to do this.

Romans were not usually concerned that someone else’s slave would know their business like Sceledrus does Peripletomenus’s. Instead, they were worried about what their own slaves knew. Nor is this purely a trope in Roman comedy. After all, Sceledrus was afraid to tell his master what he saw for fear of gaining a reputation for being an eavesdropper and rumormonger. Catullus reveals the true concern in one poem where he is talking to the literal door of a house. He asks the door what happens inside and expresses surprise at how much the door knows about what happens both within the house and outside.164 The door tells Catullus about the family dynamic in the house, particularly the adultery of the mistress. The porter was the public face of the house and while most Romans were not a porter nor had a porter, this passage does show the concerns Romans had with the liminal zone between private and public life.

Politics in Popular Culture

Roman comedy not only shows that spreading gossip was a common aspect of

Roman life, it also shows that politics was part of mass culture. Plautus’s plays were sprinkled with subtle references to Rome’s political situation. A character in Asinaria makes a non sequitur reference to a “scipio,” “walking-stick,” which was probably a call- out to Scipio Africanus, who served as aedile in 212.165 Cicero mentions similar

164 Catull. 67. 165 Plaut. Asin. 124. de Melo, Amphitryon; The comedy of asses; The pot of gold; The two Bacchises; The captives, 137-138. 120 references to Pompey and himself in plays performed in 59-58, so it is not hard to see that

Plautus would do this on purpose.166 Miles Gloriosus might refer to the imprisonment of

Gnaeus Naevius in 206.167 In Bacchides, a character jokes that triumphs are becoming quite common, a reference to the four triumphs in 189.168

These jokes indicate that the audience was informed on the political events of the day. One refers to the host of the play being performed and the others refer to major political leaders and events. These references do not require a large amount of political knowledge. The call-out to Scipio and the references mentioned by Cicero are simply using the name of a famous person. Perhaps the actor made an exaggerated gesture to the person being mentioned in his lines to help the audience make the connection. Other references to the political atmosphere, like allusions to Bacchantes in Bacchides and

Amphitryon, were all to major events.169 Clearly the Roman audience was interested and informed about more that their social elites’ sexual peccadillos.

It is impossible for modern historians to know all of the references Plautus and other playwrights and performers made to contemporary Rome. Michael Fontaine has argued that even ancient copyists missed many of Plautus’s puns when transmitting his texts.170 It appears that Plautus referred only to major events because those are the references that are also made in the historians and other major writing that have survived from antiquity. Without Livy’s account of the Bacchanalia of 186 and the discovery of

166 Cic. Att. 2.19=39 SB; Cic. Sest. 118, 120-1. 167 Plaut. Mil. 211-212; de Melo, The merchant ; The braggart soldier ; The ghost ; The Persian, 163 n.14; Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy, 54. 168 Plaut. Bacch. 1072-3. de Melo, Amphitryon; The comedy of asses; The pot of gold; The two Bacchises; The captives, 360. 169 Plaut. Amph. 703; Plaut. Bacch. 53. de Melo, 8, 360. 170 Fontaine, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, 3–36. 121 the Senatus consultus de Bacchanalia, modern classicists might not even see the remarks in Bacchides and Amphitryon as social commentary. There is a possibility that Plautus is littered with references to all sorts of events and characters in Romans’ lives that were lost to history.

A further complication is the composition of Plautus’s audience. The audience at ludi has been subject to fierce debate, and it is likely that much of the audience was elite.171 In 194, senators received special seating at the ludi, but that was twenty years after Plautus’s career began.172 Unlike the late Republic, where equites and senators were guaranteed the first fourteen rows of the theater, the audiences of Plautus’s era were not physically segregated by class.

In Plautus’s time, the events during ludi were performed at the temple for the god being worshipped. Plays performed during Megalesia, for example, were performed with the audience sitting on the steps of the Temple of Magna Mater.173 The ludi Appolinares were performed in the Forum Boarium and both the ludi Romani and ludi Plebeii were performed in the Roman Forum.174 Sander Goldberg estimate that Plautus’s original audience at Megalesia would have only been about 1,600 leaving little room for people besides senators and their families.175 C. W. Marshall estimates that the other settings would likely hold about 3,000 spectators.176 Katherine Welch argues that a temporary

171 Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.), 77–81; Tatum, “Another Look at the Spectators at the Roman Games.” 172 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 260. 173 Goldberg, “Plautus on the Palatine.,” 7. 174 Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, 36–37. 175 Goldberg, “Plautus on the Palatine.,” 14; Fontaine, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, 183–84. 176 Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, 80. 122 theater in the Late Republic could hold up to 10,000 spectators.177 Plautus and Terence both expected their audience to know some Greek and be familiar with the tropes of New

Comedy. Some historians have even described the audience as “connoisseurs.”178

Despite these factors, it is also apparent that Roman playwrights did not only target the city’s elite. After all, the masters are the butt of the joke in many of the plays.

Indeed, Plautus makes many references to the slaves in his own audience and on his stage.179 The prologue of Poenulus mentions prostitutes, lictors, slaves, freedmen, nurses, married women, and men in the audience.180 Equally important is the need that playwrights had to please the politicians who hired them by entertaining the audience before them. In order to do that, playwrights had to make plays with broad appeal for the philhellene and farmer alike.181 The popularity of the vicus-focused ludi Compitalicii also demonstrates that the lower classes enjoyed public performance (though whether that took the form of fabula palliata like Plautus and Terence wrote is a separate issue). A lowest-common-denominator approach to the theater likely explains why Cicero and his peers sometimes expressed disdain for the shows.182

Caelius Rufus’s letter to Cicero, much discussed in the previous chapter, reveals an entire culture of political gossip mongering. Caelius tells Cicero that a group called the subrostrani were spreading a rumor that Cicero had died on his way to Cilicia.183 The

177 Welch, “The Roman Arena in Late-Republican Italy,” 76. Marshall and Welch disagree on where the stage for ludi in the Roman Forum would be placed. See Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, 42. 178 Moore, The Theater of Plautus, 9; Fontaine, Funny Words in Plautine Comedy, 163. 179 Moore, The Theater of Plautus, 181–96. 180 Plaut. Poen. 17-35 Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, 75–76. 181 Parker, “Plautus vs. Terence,” 606; Beacham, The Roman Theatre and Its Audience, 25. 182 Cic. Fam. 7.1=24 SB. Ludi and their role in Roman politics will be discussed in the fifth chapter. 183 Cic. Fam. 8.1.4=77 SB. 123 word implies a group of people who quite literally spent their time under the Rostrum in the Forum. Caelius further implies that they were acting in a coordinated way to disseminate this rumor about Cicero. They seem to be a group who observed public business and shared rumors for pay.184 These Romans made a living on political rumors.

Cristina Rosillo-López has argued that Rome’s non-elite also demonstrated political interest by giving politicians nicknames. They would declare a popular tribune

“Gracchus” or “Appuleius.” This not only shows an active role in politics, but also their own memory of history and critical take on politics. One of their “Gracchi”, Numerius

Rufus, tribune of the plebs in 58 BCE, was roundly slandered by Cicero (and the men vying for his restoration), yet was awarded high praise by the public.185

The Writing on the Wall

Popular political activity is best seen in Pompeii and Herculaneum where the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius has preserved political advertisements throughout the city.

Around 2500 of these programmata are found throughout Pompeii, clustered around busy intersections.186 These advertisements are very formulaic. Most simply have a candidate’s name. In their fuller version, a person or group asks the reader to support their candidate:

“The onion-sellers ask [you to make] Gaius Iulius Polybius as duovir.”187 The Latin form of the advertisement is displayed as below:

184 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 183–84. 185 Rosillo-López, “Popular Public Opinion in a Nutshell: Nicknames and Non-Elite Political Culture in the Late Repblic.” 186 Mouritsen, “Electoral campaigning in Pompeii,” 515. 187 CIL IV.99. There are 329 inscriptions with rogatores. Mouritsen, 519; Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates, and Municipal Élite, 60. 124

C. IULIUM POLYBIUM II VIR

CHYPARI ROG

This format allows for quick comprehension. The first line shows the name of the candidate and an abbreviated name for the office. The second line shows the supporters

(chypari is a Hellenized version of caepari, onion-sellers) and an abbreviation of the word rogare “to ask.” Another common form of the advertisement includes the abbreviation “OVF”, “oro vos facietis,” “I ask that you vote for…”188

This same layout is followed in hundreds of examples throughout Pompeii and

Herculaneum, making it possible for someone with even basic literacy to understand the programmata.189 A reader would know that the first part of the advertisement was the name of the candidate. Names are easy to identify in Latin inscriptions because of the very few abbreviations used in them, and in these inscriptions, the name is always given in the accusative case, making it identifiable by its ending. The office is abbreviated using the Roman numeral for two to stand for the duo in duovir, the chief office of

Roman colonies, shared by two men. Using numerals in place of the full names makes it easier to understand for a person with low literacy. Abbreviating rogare again makes comprehension that much easier. The real ease of understanding comes from the formula.

The audience only needs to understand the traditional placing of each part of the inscription, not the full pronunciation or understanding of the words used. One name, the

188 For an outline of the common forms of programatta see Franklin, Pompeii, 18–21. 189 Keegan, Graffiti in Antiquity, 175; Lohmann, Graffiti als Interaktionsform, 100 discusses the fomulaic nature of graffiti in general; for further discussions of literacy in the Roman world, see Bodel, “Inscriptions and Literacy” which argues for a more expansive understanding of literacy; the discussion of ancient literacy was defined in Harris, Ancient Literacy, 15, 327 which argues that only about 20% of Romans would have been literate; Harris defends his position in Harris, “Inscriptions, Their Readers, and Literacy,” 506–7. 125 one on top, is the person running for office. The name on the bottom is giving the candidate his, her, or their support. Just understanding an association between the parties would make for a successful message. The form was so ubiquitous it was also satirized.

One progammon has the petty thieves asking for the readers vote for an aedile, and others were written from the drunkards and the sleepers.190

The programmata of Pompeii show political involvement from several different groups in the city. The collegia are well represented. Along with the onion-sellers, the mule-drivers, freedmen, fruit-venders, and worshippers of Isis all lent their support for their favored candidates.191 Some of these requests also reveal the influence of patrons on those collegia. The freedmen are led by Fabius Eupor. The fruit-vendors offered their support in agreement with Helvius Vestalis. Perhaps these men were the elected leaders of the collegia, perhaps they were patrons, or perhaps they were simply the men on whose walls these notices were written. In any case, these notices link the collegia with an individual rogator, lending the authority and support of one to the other. It allows the patron to show his generosity or the leader to show his position in the group. It also allows the collegia to demonstrate their own supporters at the same time they demonstrate support for a candidate. No doubt these groups and individuals also hoped to form or maintain a bond with the candidate himself.

Most programmata were anonymous, but signed endorsements reveal a variety of rogatores. The shop-owner, Phoebus, along with his customers offered his support for a

190 CIL IV.576, IV.575, IV.581. 191 CIL IV.97, IV.117, IV.202, IV.787. 126 pair of duoviri.192 Women are well attested in these notices, appearing in over fifty, usually acting with their husbands and neighbors to support a candidate.193 Caprasia, her putative husband Nymphio, and their neighbors support Aulus Vettius Firmus.194

Appuleia and her neighbor, the fuller, make a request together.195 Many examples feature only women.196 The fact that women, who had no suffrage, took interest in political races and that candidates appreciated their support does illustrate their important role in social networks and Italian society.

Despite the evidence for rogatores in Pompeiian programmata, there is still debate over what role those advertisements played in elections and what the relationship between the candidate and rogator was. Only seventeen programmata clearly state that the rogator was a client of the candidate.197 Furthermore, the placement of these posters indicates that the building owners or renters had little say in their placement. Some intrude upon artistic panels on facades for example.198 These programmata do, however, show social and economic networking. The advertisements were written by professional scriptores, signifying that the process was started with an economic exchange.199 Henrik

Mouritsen argues that rogatores were not grassroots supporters, but were engaged directly by the candidates.200 This indicates long bonds between the candidate and those

192 CIL IV.103. 193 Keegan, Graffiti in Antiquity, 177. 194 CIL IV.171. 195 CIL IV.3527. 196 CIL 1v.3678, IV.7866, IV.7873. 197 Franklin, Pompeii, 22. 198 Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates, and Municipal Élite, 58–59; Mouritsen, “Electoral campaigning in Pompeii,” 518. 199 Mouritsen, “Electoral campaigning in Pompeii,” 522 argues that these scriptores guided the process. 200 Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates, and Municipal Élite, 47; Mouritsen, “Electoral campaigning in Pompeii,” 518. 127 rogatores. The appeal of rogatores must have been important to candidates, indicating that the association between the two parties was meaningful and communicated an encouraging message to the reader. Rogatores also received an important association with the candidate. This may have been particularly important for the women rogatores who could not otherwise participate in politics. The graffiti of Pompeii shows women at their most curt and reflective, the programmata show them at their most politically active.201

The notion that candidates felt empowered by showing their association with women indicates that women played important roles in the public sphere and as members of social networks.

The programmata and other graffiti in Pompeii also reveal the way Pompeiians used space in their city. Programmata are clustered around Pompeii’s six most integrated streets.202 Ray Laurence has shown that the density of graffiti on a street is related to the number of doors on the street, indicating that scriptores were keen to advertise in areas where people lived and did business. Scriptores also targeted streets that connected two major arteries even if they did not have many doors. They were targeting movement, not just the highest volume of people.203 Furthermore, programmata tend to support less well-known families in Pompeii.204 In fact, 25% of all programmata come from five such candidates.205 Taken all together this indicates that programmata had a specific use to raise public awareness of an individual candidate. They were a way to enlarge a

201 For examples of women’s graffiti and the way it reflects their self-definition, see Woekner, “Women’s Graffiti from Pompeii.” 202 Mouritsen, “Electoral campaigning in Pompeii,” 519. 203 Laurence, Roman Pompeii, 97–98. 204 Franklin, Pompeii, 98. 205 Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates, and Municipal Élite, 42–43. 128 reputation either by broadcasting a candidate’s name throughout the walls of the town or by declaring connections with known people and groups.

Pompeii is not an ideal proxy for Rome by any means. It was a small town compared to Rome and the programmata themselves indicate that everyone in the city had a fair idea of the other people in town. Nonetheless, there is no good reason to assume that Roman elections were different other than scale. The notion that Roman elections were decided before the third class voted is still controversial.206 Therefore, people living in the insulae of the city (albeit on the lower floors) would be important for candidates to court. This gives good enough reason to plaster the walls of vici with campaign posters, especially for junior politicians.207 While the Commentariolum

Petitionis does not directly recommend using Programmata, the practice is one way to ensure that Romans are familiar with a candidate.208

Programmata offer one final clue for the way Romans communicated about politics. They often included brief descriptions of the candidate’s moral character: dignus, bonus, pudor, egregius, innocens, and most commonly probus.209 These words all have moral implications, with probus being the root of “probity” and having similar connotations. Likewise, dignus is the root of “dignity” and has the subtext of being an upstanding citizen as well as being “suitable” for office because of his social standing and behavior. Dignitas was so central to Romans that Caesar cited an attack on his dignitas as a casus belli for war with Pompey. Scandalous behavior of the kind Catullus and Martial

206 Yakobson, “Petitio et Largitio,” 46–48. 207 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 144–54. 208 Cic. Comment. Pet. 43. 209 Franklin, Pompeii, 21; Mouritsen, Elections, Magistrates, and Municipal Élite, 31 n. 117. 129 liked to discuss, made a Roman “indignus” for public office. In fact, the censors had the authority to remove members of the Senate for moral reasons including sexual deviancy.

Unsanctioned graffiti offers further example of this process. Graffiti is an interactive medium allowing people from different social classes to express themselves and communicate with each other in ways outside of normal communication.210 Ancient historians, like Suetonius and Tacitus, used graffiti from the city of Rome as an insight into political resistance and popular opinion. Suetonius, for example, offers several inscriptions and slogans lampooning Nero for his matricide, the construction of the

Domus Aurea, and his eccentric competitive performances.211 While Nero’s behavior was extraordinary and the monarchical Empire was a different political system, the graffiti still reveals the intersection between political capability and morality. The criticisms do not focus on Nero’s administration but on his family life, greed, and delusions of grandeur. Cicero offers an even more pertinent example of a common and willful misreading of a political advertisement. A dipinti reading LLLMM which originated as a political slogan was transformed into political satire about a politician biting another man in a fight.212 This story offers a glance into the other side of graffiti, the audience. Graffiti did was not always perceived the way the poster intended, but could be twisted by the viewer and oral interpretations.213 A political advertisement was transformed into a reminder of an embarrassing event.

210 Lohmann, Graffiti als Interaktionsform, 100, 115. 211 Suet. Ner. 39, 45. 212 Cic. De orat. 2.59.240. 213 Milnor, Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii, 99. 130

Speaking Truth to Power

The typical Roman did not have much power. As mentioned above, the debate among scholars today is whether Roman elections were decided at the second or third class, leaving no room for the majority of Roman citizens to express their preference for political office. All of the examples I have given above show important ways Romans could influence politics outside of elections. Indeed, gossip is a powerful invective tool that requires little skill to implement and thrives in a crowded face-to-face society like

Rome. Romans, like modern people, used gossip to police behavior and advance their own agendas.214 This made gossip an important part of the informal politics and “hidden transcript” in Rome.215

As mentioned above, Catullus used his poetry as a social weapon about Gellius.

In his final poem, Catullus threatens to stab Gellius to repay the wounds Gellius had given him.216 In another poem, Catullus threatens to shame the customers of his favorite prostitute by writing graffiti on the front of the tavern.217 The slaves in Miles Gloriosus are palpably aware that Sceledrus’s knowledge profoundly changes the power dynamic between him and his owner. Catullus’s “door” brags about the damage its knowledge would do to the family it guards and watches. Knowledge was a form of power in Rome and could be used to give power to otherwise marginal people.

Women are another group that appear as political agents in the examples above.

214 Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions, 143–47; Paine, “What Is Gossip About?,” 282. 215 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 17; Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 142–48. 216 Catull. 116.8. 217 Catull. 37.9-10. 131

While they could not vote, women did participate in political activities like supporting candidates in programmata. Women attended plays and contiones and wrote graffiti, though the best surviving examples are not political in nature.218 Roman poets also highlight the role that women play in spreading gossip. Juvenal discusses the possibility that a man payed his wife to keep quite about his affairs with other men.219

Another example of informal politics are the collegia. Collegia are better studied than gossip and offer a more concrete connection between public action and political pressure making them an informative example of the informal power of the people.

Publius Clodius’s manipulation of Rome’s collegia demonstrates that the organizations of

Rome were just as politically active as those of Pompeii, if not moreso.220 When Clodius began his tribuneship in 58 BCE, he quickly restored the collegia. This allowed him to use the organizational structure of collegia to mobilize his supporters. Clodius was also able to use the vicorum magistri as important supporters by restoring the ludi

Compitalicii, which were the largest activities the vicorum magistri undertook, and gave them the greatest social reward.221

Clodius was not the first politician to mobilize urban support. Tiberius Gracchus felt the need to resort to urban support to gain his second tribuneship.222 In 85 BCE,

Marius Gratidianus planned on using his support “vicitam”, “from the vici” to win the

218 On theater: Beacham, The Roman Theatre and Its Audience, 21; on contiones: Livy 34.3.7; Russell, The Politics of Public Space in Republican Rome, 53. On graffiti: Lohmann, Graffiti als Interaktionsform, 100; Woekner, “Women’s Graffiti from Pompeii.” 219 Juv. Sat. 2.51 220 Flower, The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, 254; Perry, “Organized Societies: Collegia,” 512. 221 Flambard, “Clodius, les collèges, la plèbe et les esclaves. Recherches sur la politique populaire au milieu du Ier siècle”; Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 117–19. 222 App. B Civ. 1.2.14.1. 132 consulship.223 The fact that the collegia and Compitalia were under threat of regulation and dissolution throughout the Republic indicates that other politicians and provacateurs were able to utilize them. Nor should scholars focus only on the men who mobilized these groups, the collegia and vici and their members had the agency to choose to participate, and they clearly did participate, often quite actively, in politics.224

Members of these groups were conduits of information for non-members in their social networks. That does not mean that all the information was directly political. As mentioned above, most of the rumors spread in Rome would have focused on sex, romance, incredible successes and scandals. This type of information is easy to understand and evaluate unlike the macro-economics of the Roman grain supply or discussions about the land rights of the ager publicus. As mentioned above, someone paid the subrostrani to spread a rumor that Cicero had died on his way to Cilicia. Instead of criticizing Cicero’s politics, restoration, or decision to defend people accused of being in Catiline’s conspiracy, this enemy decided instead to undermine him with a rumor that threw his very existence into confusion.

These rumors, therefore, were political in nature. Roman politicians were keen to protect their reputations and they used scandal to tarnish the reputations of their rivals.

Clearly they believed that rumors, even about their most private affairs were important to control, and not just among their elite circles. The use of subrostrani and the mobilization

223 Cic. de Off. 3.80. For a summary of vici in politics in the late Republic, see Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 47–51. 224 Courrier, La plèbe de Rome et sa culture (fin du IIe siècle av. J.C.-fin du Ier siècle ap. J.-C.), 427–603; Courrier, “Plebian Culture in the City of Rome, from the Late Republic to the Early Empire,” 125–26. Courrier has collected examples of collective actions at https://actoz.db.huma-num.fr/fmi/webd#. 133 of collegia and vici are indications that Roman political elite used the expansive and convoluted networks of Rome’s working classes as important actors in their schemes.

The use of Rome’s walls to display political critiques and the use of those critiques by

Cicero and others to frame their narratives shows strong political opinions outside of

Rome’s political elite and the desire on the part of the elite to understand those opinions.225

Conclusion

Roman people were active and interested pursuers of political scuttlebutt and well-sourced news. It is impossible to know how discerning, skeptical, or gullible the typical listener was, but it is safe to say that there were very many listeners and that those listeners had social encouragement to spread what they heard to others. The fact that

Romans took an interest in politics is not an indication that they had an influence in politics either through voting or public action any more than a fan’s interest in a sport has any real influence on the decisions of the coaches. Instead, we can view gossip as a way

Romans could influence politicians outside of the political process just as Catullus used his poetry to attack Gellius. Like invective and social poetry, gossip is a way to police behavior. Any Roman could participate in gossip, even if they were unable to write hexameters or deliver orations.

The small-world networks Romans formed within their vici tied to the rest of the city by the working men and women who spent their lives finding jobs and securing patrons outside their vici, spread information through the city as well as completely

225 Zadorojnyi, “Transcripts of Dissent? Political Graffiti and Elite Ideology Under the Principate.” 134 random networks. However, a quirk of this model is that rumors can be stifled within a neighborhood depending on the social conditions on which the model is based.

For example, you can make a model founded on the assumption that a rumor- spreader would stop spreading the rumor the first time she encountered another person who had heard it, and also assumed that each person had two bonds.226 Under those factors the rumor was stifled in inverse proportion to the population. That means in a large city like Rome, with a large population of active gossipers, most news would spread easily through different parts of the city even under unrealistically difficult circumstances.

Roman politicians could not assume that the small-world networks most Romans belonged in would reliably spread the information they wanted to promote. When they ran campaigns and made public statements, they needed to assure their message would spread and their reputation grow by manipulating those networks. The next two chapters will show two different ways in which Roman politicians could try to tap into the viral networks of the Roman people: oratory and spectacle.

226 Zanette, “Dynamics of Rumor Propagation on Small-World Networks,” 2002. 135

Chapter 4: Stage Managing Public Oratory

Historical debate about communication in Rome has focused on contiones.

Contiones were events where magistrates and their supporters discussed their stance on proposed legislation and other matters of public interest. Contiones are thus a good way for historians to understand political issues in Rome, but they are not the only form of communication nor were they the best.

The biggest issue with contiones is the audience. Contiones were held in relatively small places like the plaza in front of the Temple of Castor, which held 10,000 people at most. Other locations like the Rostra held perhaps half that audience.1 A further issue is how much that audience could understand what was happening at the contio. A speaker on the Rostra could perhaps be seen by people on the terraces of the Basilica

Aemilia, but he could not have been heard. One study has shown that the voice of a speaker on the Rostra could reach the opposite end of the Forum only in perfect conditions (damp and chilly). When the weather was warm, a voice could only reach halfway to the Regia.2 Even for those who could hear the speaker, speeches we do have from contiones, admittedly almost all from Cicero, seemingly demand close attention.

Contiones have been the focus of debates on the Roman Republic to the detriment

1 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 33. 2 Betts, “Towards a Multisensory Experince of Movement in the City of Rome,” 127–28. 136 of other forms of communication and oratory. When contiones are viewed as part of the legislative process in Rome, they are unique. When considered as part of a political career, however, they are just one type of public act in which a politician can engage to grow his reputation. When a politician ran for office, they did not focus on a resume defined by specific public actions they performed but on a reputation built throughout a career. Therefore, contiones must be contextualized with other forms of public service in order to understand their political impact.

Contiones were not the only form or oratory in which the Roman elite engaged.3

Court speeches must also be considered as a way for politicians to present themselves to the public, albeit in vastly different circumstances. Roman courts ran for the majority of the year and could be a form of entertainment for people in the Forum. Pliny describes large crowds at trials in his letters and one trial was so popular in Cicero’s time that so many senators attended that there could not be a quorum that day.4 While other events like funerals and senatorial debates were also defined by public oratory, contiones and trials would have accounted for the most frequent and accessible public speaking in the city. While contiones were perhaps relatively infrequent, trials were happening all the time in the same public spaces where contiones were held. These events gave Roman audiences a chance to see and hear their leaders speak, and it allowed the leaders of

Rome opportunities to share their agendas and display their talents discussing issues of public importance.

Simply giving a public speech would not be enough to make news in Rome.

3 Steel, “Defining Public Speech in the Roman Republic: Occasion, Audience and Purpose.” 4 Plin. Ep. 4.16; Cic. Fam. 8.9.2 = 82.2 SB. 137

Instead, orators relied on their immediate audience to translate an isolated oration into a news item and a permanent boost in reputation.5 Because Rome was a relatively segregated city with people spending most of their time in their own vici, it was hard work to craft a message that could spread throughout the entire city.

There are two ways to enable the spread of gossip in a segregated community like

Rome. The first is to ensure that the initial audience is as large as possible. This will ensure that many or most of the vici can be accounted for and that there will be many people who can share their experience of an event. Unfortunately, contiones and trials did not have large audiences. Most contiones probably had one or two thousand in the crowd.

Most trials would have had far fewer people in the happenstance corona of people gathered around the court. In a city of one million, those numbers cannot guarantee that rumors will propagate to a large portion of the population. As mentioned in the previous chapter, one third of rumors shared in networks like Rome’s are stifled.

The second option to ensure that the account will spread is to seed the audience with well-connected people who can share their experience with a wide variety of

Romans. Speakers would bring their clients with them to court in part so that they had a receptive audience to spread their message afterwards.6 They could also enlist their friends to bring their clients to larger events like contiones. Clients, as mentioned in the previous chapter, were more well-connected than a typical Roman by virtue of their social bonds with their patron and all of his other clients. Patrons may have cultivated a variety of clients from different parts of the city and different collegia to ensure that his

5 Steel and Blom, Community and Communication, 85, 91. 6 Mart. Ep. 4.8. 138 influence had a wide base. By enlisting these men as audience members, he could expect word of his speech to spread.

Another issue with oratory as a form of mass communication or as the start of

“viral” communication is the fact that it is opinionated. Speakers in contiones and at court both took a side on one issue and usually directly opposed another group. This immediately divided the potential audience based on their affiliations with men on either side of the issue and their preexisting opinions. Those preexisting divisions are caused by complex social factors that no individual audience member or single oration could overcome. Instead, these positions were dictated by family, professional associations, and other groups with which the audience members identified.7 This is confirmed by studies of contiones that have argued that these events were little better than partisan rallies.8 The partisan nature of these speeches did not end once they were delivered. The people with whom attendees discussed the speeches were likely to already share their opinions and the people who did not already share the opinion would be less receptive to the second or third hand accounts of the speech. Romans were aware that politics was polarizing. The

Commentariolum petitionis advises candidates for office to focus not on political issues but on their reputation.9

Finally, the messages given in contiones and trials were usually complex. This is an issue because, in order to effectively control the news about himself, a politician would want the audience to all share the same “sound bite.” Because of the conventions

7 Bergmann, Discreet Indiscretions, 142–44. 8 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 45; in contrast: Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, 11. 9 Cic. Comment. Pet. 11. 139 of Roman trials, Cicero often spent hours taking opponents’ arguments in turn and giving his responses. This was difficult to make into a simple piece of gossip to share. Likewise, contiones often focused on complex issues like agrarian reform which required nuanced discussion unsuitable for quick digestion and spreading. Orators risked a fractured account of their speech spreading from its origin based on what each audience member considered the most gossip-worthy sound bite.

These issues had a large impact on the way Roman oratory was performed and shared after the initial act. This chapter will look at these various issues in depth and study the ways in which Roman orators ameliorated the difficulties of the medium and the way in which the life of a speech after its performance affected Roman politics.

Hometown Crowds

The magistrate who called contiones could take great care to ensure that his audience was favorable to his message. Henrik Mouritesn argues that magistrates would fill public spaces with their supporters and closing them off to their opponents, making them little better than partisan rallies. This assessment of contiones aligns with

Mouritsen’s overall argument that the political system of Rome was not able to motivate people to participate except for people who had direct connections to the politicians themselves.10 Indeed, comitia were especially time consuming, most likely lasting hours as each of thousands of voters all cast their votes individually at the same location.11 If they did vote, they were voting for legislation that was never properly explained to them and for candidates whom they did not know. Despite these hassles, there still were some

10 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 106. 11 Mouritsen, 35 claims that 3,000 people would have taken seven hours to vote in a tribal assembly. 140 motivations that could inspire Romans to participate.

First, the time constraints Mouritsen imagines would not affect too many Romans.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, a large portion of Rome’s workers were day- laborers.12 Most of the shop-owners and artisans Mouritsen imagines in his book would be slaves or freedmen.13 In Juvenal’s Rome, where slaves and freed lived better than citizens, it was important for citizens to display their superiority in some way.14 Citizens had less pressing obligations to their patrons, more open schedules, more rights, and motivation to exercise those rights. It is reasonable to expect Romans to display their citizenship by participating in the political rituals closed to others. Conversely, because contiones were open to any person, women and non-citizens may have been inspired to attend them as a way to stay involved in politics and engaged in the city.15 This gave contiones a wider audience than comitia and they required less commitment. Attending these events still had a political effect. Speakers needed to demonstrate public support in order to forward their political goals—whether they were campaigning for office or proposing legislation.16 More importantly, contiones empowered their audiences to make choices, they highlighted the auctoritas of the people.17

A second motivating feature would be entertainment.18 Quintilian, though biased,

12 Tan, “Contiones in the Age of Cicero,” 174. 13 Holleran, Shopping in Ancient Rome, 29. 14 Juv. Sat. 3. On Romans’ interest in their rights see: Jehne, “Feeding the Plebs with Words: The Significance of Senatorial Public Oratory in the Small World of Roman Politics,” 52–53; Hölkeskamp, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Addressing the Roman People and the Rhetoric of Inclusion.” 15 Ramsey, “Roman Senatorial Oratory,” 124. 16 Mouritsen, “From Meeting to Text: The Contio in the Late Republic,” 75. 17 Jehne, “Feeding the Plebs with Words: The Significance of Senatorial Public Oratory in the Small World of Roman Politics,” 56–58. 18 May, “Ciceronian Oratory in Context,” 57. 141 claims that public speaking always drew a crowd because people naturally enjoyed seeing wordsmiths perform.19 Cicero claims that passersby would stop and listen in when they overheard a great speaker.20 While Quintilian and Cicero may oversell the attraction of rhetoric, it is reasonable to assume that a day laborer unable to secure work would use a trial as a way to entertain himself. Before the construction of permanent theaters in

Rome, street theater and public oratory would be the major forms of daytime entertainment available to Romans. While listening to a politician speak vaguely about an event or decree of the Senate was not very thrilling, it seems better than sweating the day away in a matchbox apartment.

The final factor encouraging people to attend speeches is the social capital that came from having good gossip. As mentioned in the previous chapters, Romans used gossip as part of the reciprocal exchanges that formed the bedrock of Roman social networks. Because displaying citizenship was important and because they might be entertaining, people might have been eager to know what happened at contiones and major trials. This is easy to see in the letters of Cicero and Pliny which often mention news from big trials and contiones, but it is equally likely that members outside the elite enjoyed discussing these too.21 Being the one person from the vici who could talk about those events gave a person good social capital for a short time, and rewarded the use of his time.22

19 Quint. Inst. 12.10.73-74. 20 Cic. Brut. 290. Jehne, “Feeding the Plebs with Words: The Significance of Senatorial Public Oratory in the Small World of Roman Politics,” 49–50; Jehne, “Who attended Roman assemblies? Some remarks on political participation in the Roman Republic.” 21 Cic. Att. 4.15 = 90 SB, 4.16 = 89 SB; Cic. Q. Fr. 2.3 = 7 SB, 2.5 = 9 SB; Plin. Ep. 2.11, 2.12, 3.4, 3.9, 4.9, 5.9, 5.20, 6.5, 6.13, 6.22, 7.6, 7.10 22 Paine, “What Is Gossip About?” 142

These behaviors benefited Rome’s public figures by increasing the size of the crowd and the spread of news once an event was over. Nonetheless, politicians would use their clients and other reliable people to make a favorable crowd.23 This had two major results. First, they could ensure that their close personal associates would give a favorable account of the event when they shared it with others. By encouraging many of these people to attend the event, the speaker also ensured that the news would spread to far parts of the city. Second, the speaker could control the crowd’s behavior. In small venues like the corona of a trial, this was incredibly easy. In larger venues like contiones, orators would have to rely on their powerful supporters to help bring in the crowd. The size of contiones also made it necessary to ensure that people in the crowd would be able to spread news of the event throughout the city. Romans cared deeply about creating an impression of public support. Without displaying public support, candidates and legislation would be cast aside before a vote ever happened. Speakers could tell their clients exactly when to clap or boo or even teach them a slogan.24 These examples show why Cicero found the crowds at contiones poor indicators of popular opinion, but they also demonstrate the lengths to which Romans went to ensure their speeches were successful.

Auctoritas and the Orator

Speakers brought their clients to their trials and contiones in order to ensure support in a crowd. Those clients had an advantage over the rest of the crowd—they attended the daily briefings of the man speaking. While the only insight into the daily

23 Steel and Blom, Community and Communication, 91. 24 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 127. 143 briefing is a complaint from Martial, those announcements surely told clients about their patron’s expectations and the news they wanted shared with the city.25 Another use was likely to prepare the clients for a major speech by telling them about the format and the talking points that would be addressed. Clients may have received this information days in advance so that information about the speech could make its way through the city beforehand. This could also explain how certain trials and speeches became such popular affairs.

While the clients and perhaps their acquaintances were briefed on a speech, the orator could not expect most of his crowd to have the same advantage unless the event was incredibly stage-managed. Therefore, the orator needed a way to convince the crowd that his speech was trustworthy. The conventions of court gave orators plenty of time and resources like witness testimony and direct confrontation with the opposite side’s material. Contiones, on the other hand, were much shorter and the direct audience was not a jury made up of men from similar social classes but the entire populace, or at least the thousands representing the city in the Forum. Orators in contiones needed some way to display their trustworthiness to the audience without the luxuries of the court.

Romans achieved this by appealing to authority, usually the speaker’s own auctoritas.26 Auctoritas was a manifestation of how convincing a Roman was to his peers and the people in general and it was gained by demonstrating behavior that benefited the people of the city. Winning wars and elections, building public works and hosting

25 Laurence, “Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics.” 26 Hölkeskamp, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen: Addressing the Roman People and the Rhetoric of Inclusion,” 23. 144 religious festivals all conferred auctoritas upon the man who did them. This sway was an important tool for a speaker who did not have the time to present complicated arguments.

It was also something only the most elite Romans had.

The appeal to authority was used equally in contiones and in court. Character arguments in defense of a man accused of a crime and a list of his associates, particularly the august men who led his defense in court, always had a role in Cicero’s defense speeches.27 Pro Sestio, for instance, devolves into a long tirade against the vices of

Clodius, Gabinius, and Calpurnius Piso to prove that Sestius justly used an armed guard during his campaign for tribune.28 By linking the prosecution with those men, Cicero undermined the authority of the prosecutors. Pro Sulla offers another example. Cicero’s participation in the defense was called into question by the prosecuter, Torquatus. Cicero thus spent the first third of the speech defending his own reputation, his approach to the

Catilinarian conspiracy, and his decision to defend Sulla. Cicero ends the speech with a plain appeal to his own authority.29

In contiones the appeal worked in the same way. The speaker informed the audience of the good men in support of his position and of the less good men on the opposite side. As mentioned in the previous chapter, these types of arguments were easy to conceptualize for an audience and thus easy to spread. As will be discussed below, audiences are able to process information linked to prior knowledge better than totally new information. By linking much of their arguments to character judgments established

27 Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 B.C.-A.D. 300,; May, Trials of Character. 28 Cic. Sest. 15-25. 29 Cic. Sull. 48, 80. 145 by common culture, Roman orators could take advantage of that established knowledge.

This is all the easier because many of these character arguments were repetitive and focused on common tropes the audience was likely familiar with from other speeches and drama.30 Furthermore, the mos maiorum was, ideally, universal. By using a common metric to define their argument, orators could avoid polarizing their audience.

Appealing to his own authority forced a speaker to present himself as a man of auctoritas. Since auctoritas was gained by being something like a patron for the entire city, that meant the speaker appealing to himself as an auctor was forced to present himself as a knowledgeable superior. This appeal worked because it created a dilemma for a status-conscious audience. The speaker presented himself as a great man and thus risked his reputation on being right. Meanwhile, the audience had the choice to trust the speaker or to insult his dignity and commit a major faux-pas by denying their trust.31 Part of the ideological monotony of contiones is a result of this unavoidable strategy. The arguments speakers used needed to fit the aura of auctoritas and popular interest, narrowing the options of men who delivered contiones.32

Ancient handbooks on rhetoric do not use the same language as modern researchers. Instead they unanimously recommend gaining the benevolentia or “good will” of the audience. Cicero argues that this is the most important task of the orator.33 Ad

Herennium and Cicero’s de Oratore both argue that the orator should begin his speeches with an account of his own accomplishments, qualifications and reputation, thus

30 Arena, “Roman Oratorical Invective,” 157–58. 31 Goodwin, “Cicero’s Authority,” 51. 32 Tan, “Contiones in the Age of Cicero,” 172; Yakobson, “People’s Role,” 286. 33 Cic. De or. 2.178. 146 establishing his auctoritas.34 Ad Herennium advises the speaker to focus those remarks of qualities that have some bearing on the matter at hand, but Cicero does not add that limiting factor. Indeed, Cicero’s interlocutor even suggests that the orator fabricate qualifications if he does not have them. Thus, for Cicero, establishing auctoritas was more important than the matter at hand, and even the truth. Hence the orator spent so much of Pro Sulla discussing his own choice to defend Sulla instead of on Sulla’s defense.

Manipulating the audience was an important way for orators to ensure their message was favorably received. Both packing the audience with supporters and by appealing to their own auctoritas were in the service of giving a speech people believed.

Ad Herennium, for example, claims that an audience with good will was more likely to listen attentively to the speaker, giving him a better of chance of simply being heard.35

Bringing supporters to the event gives the same assurance. The ideological monotony and other features which Mouritsen and Morstein-Marx view as anti-democratic were natural solutions to a simple problem of grabbing the audience’s attention as well as their trust.

Grabbing Attention

Ensuring good will towards the orator was only the first step in keeping the audience’s attention and maintaining their interest throughout a speech. Roman rhetoric was fairly standardized.36 Orators were expected to have five main talents: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. There were three types of speeches:

34 Auct. ad Her. 1.8.; Cic. De or. 2.182. 35 Auct. ad Her. 1.7. 36 For a short overview, see: Hall, “Oratorical Delivery and the Emotions: Theory and Practice.” 147 deliberative for policy debates, epideictic for speeches dealing with a person, and forensic for court speeches. Each speech had six parts: introduction, narration or statement of facts, division, proof, refutation, and conclusion. Finally, delivery was given in three tones, each signaling a different goal for the speaker and each accompanied by different body language. These forms and parts of a speech could be combined and altered in different combinations. For example, a speech in toga candida would likely be both deliberative and epideictic since the matter is a debate about the suitability of a person for office. Similarly, ad Herennium advises the reader to add conclusions to any part of his speeches in order to aid the listener.37 These liberties give the orator options for forming his speech but still maintain the basic parts upon which all rhetoric was based.

The parts of speech are defined by the material covered in them. The orator introduces himself and the matter at hand then makes a more specific narrative of the issue. In the division he states the differences between his opinion and the opinion of his adversaries. This is followed by supporting his argument with proofs and refuting the proofs of his detractors (or refuting their likely proofs). The speech ends with a quick summary and an emotional appeal for support from the audience. This type of conclusion, as just mentioned, could be added to any part of the speech, giving a recapitulation and also allowing the orator to give the audience time to contemplate each part before moving to the next.

Each of the three tones the orator used was paired with specific parts of the speech. Orators were expected to maintain the same tone throughout a part. During the

37 Auct. ad Her. 2.47. 148 introduction the orator would adopt a conversational tone (sermo) in order to ease his audience in. This tone was accompanied by subtle movements from the speaker to demonstrate his ease. During the narration or statement of facts, the speaker would continue using a conversational tone but begin pacing or leaning towards the crowd.

During the division, when the orator explains the difference between his opinion and his opponents’, he might switch into the tone of debate (contentio) or the tone of amplification (amplificatio). These are more energetic tones and are accompanied by more vigorous movements from the orator. During proof and refutation and using the tone of debate, the orator would could slowly increase the volume of his voice and the vigor of his movements until he delivered his best argument from deep in his chest, with a loud stomp and wide gesticulation. In the conclusion the orator would appeal to wrath or pity. Amplificatio was used to engage with the audience on an emotional level and was used with eye-contact and empathetic body language. When asking for pity the orator would speak quietly and deflate, for example.38

The combination of subject matter, vocal tone and body language gave an audience three ways to understand what was happening at any given time in the speech.

They could hear the tone of the voice, or see the movement on the stage, or listen to the words the orator was using. If the orator was not audible, his body language showed the audience what part of the speech he was in and physical cues conveyed his attitude.39

Some orators were judged solely on their body language, so a person who could not hear

38 Auct. ad Her. 3.23-27. 39 For the physical aspects of oratorical performance: Aldrete, Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome; Hall, “Cicero and Quintilian on the Oratorical Use of Hand Gestures.” 149 a speech could still contribute important information about the orator.40

This system worked because it was standardized. There were specific movements associated with each tone and specific tones associated with each part of a speech. Most of these were fairly obvious. When the orator appealed to the audience’s emotions he used exaggerated facial expressions. When he was declaiming facts, he did so with a level voice and reserved movements. When he confronted the opposition, he used a strong voice and stern movements. Roman audiences would have known these cues.41

Cicero warned his readers that audiences could be very judgmental.42 Romans knew several different types of gladiators, priests, government officials, character types in dramas, and other types of recognition that required some training, so the conventions of rhetoric were not beyond their grasp.43

Orators used other conventions to aid audience understanding. The use of narrative, for example, has been shown to enhance understanding in university students better than stating only facts.44 That Romans conceptualized their statement of facts as a narrative indicates that they understood that advantage. Cicero’s speeches against

Catiline, for example, began with a narrative of Catiline’s actions, not a simple list of his misdeeds. Likewise, the aforementioned passage of pro Sestio where Cicero slanders

Clodius, Gabinius, and Calpurnius Piso belongs to an account of Sestius’s campaign for tribune of the Plebs.

40 Cic. Brut. 224. Hall, “Oratorical Delivery and the Emotions: Theory and Practice,” 231. 41 Vasaly, Representations, 4–5. 42 Cic. De orat. 3.196. 43 Horsfall, The Culture of the Roman Plebs, 16, 60. 44 Miller and Wozniak, “Weaving Yarns into Good Psychological Science Education.” 150

The use of metaphor and historical analogy was also highly praised by orators and likewise has been shown to aid retention. Listeners retain information better when it is linked to something they already know or believe.45 When Cicero compared Catiline to an unbridled horse in the first oration and listed the other occasions where the senatus consultum had been invoked, he gave the audience reference points they understood from which to view the man and his conspiracy.46 Romans were historically literate. Many plays focused on historical characters, and public art and coins focused on history. By alluding to events familiar to his audience, the orator encouraged understanding and gave a shorthand or soundbite the audience could use to share the information later on.

Orators did not just use history to connect to their listeners’ experiences. Instead of focusing on the revolt in far-away Etruria, Cicero focused his public orations against

Catiline on the present threats to the people in Rome. Fire and murder were easier for

Romans to conceptualize and form emotional reactions against because they would have been threats they were familiar with.47

Another important aid to listeners was pausing. Ad Herennium addresses pausing as a feature of tone. The author considers pauses an important way to maintain a strong voice and to engage the crowd by giving different rhythms of speech. Furthermore, when handling a lot of information as in the narrative or the proof parts of the speech, pauses gave the audience time to comprehend what the speaker is saying.48 Pauses could also

45 Ambrose and Lovett, “Prior Knowledge Is More Than Content: Skills and Beliefs Also Impact Learning”; Sweller, Ayres, and Kalyuga, Cognitive Load Theory. 46 Cic. Cat. 1.1-4. 47 Cic. Cat. 1.10, 3.10, 4.5, 4.17. 48 Auct. ad Her. 3.22. 151 allow listeners to confirm what the speaker said among themselves. Once again, this ancient wisdom is now supported by modern study. Covering information at a slower pace and adding pauses helps an audience better retain information. Listeners can become overwhelmed with information. Pausing lightens the “cognitive load” forced on the listener.49

Beyond the Crowd

Gathering and maintaining a favorable and attentive crowd took a lot of effort, time, and resources, as described above. The speaker spent years learning how to give an oration and developing his own style. He needed to build a public reputation, call on favors from his friends and assemble a group of clients to ensure a favorable crowd. He had to gather members of his crowd in salutationes in order to brief them on the reactions he wanted and any slogans he wanted them to chant. All these preparations only affected the relatively small crowd gathered for the speech itself. Once the speech had been delivered the orator needed the audience to spread news of the speech by word of mouth.

While the speaker would likely continue to talk about his speech in his salutationes, at this point he relied on word of mouth from his audience to expose his talking points and performance to the entire city and ultimately grow his reputation.

Even if the speaker did everything in his power to produce a perfectly entertaining and informative speech with a hand-picked audience, excellent arguments, clear reasoning, and multiple sensory cues to maintain audience interest and retention, the audience might still fail to share the message the way the speaker wanted them to. Even

49 Sweller, Ayres, and Kalyuga, Cognitive Load Theory, 17–51. 152 if the entire audience shared the exact same message, the speaker then relied on second and third hand accounts to keep spreading that information. If three thousand people attended the speech and each shared their experience with one other person then all six thousand of them each shared the news with one other person, and so on, it would take nine exchanges to reach one million people.50

As discussed in the previous chapter, in a city like Rome, one out of every three rumors would fail to spread because of the lack of connections between different populations and places in the city.51 Therefore, as mentioned above, the speaker would need an audience representing most of the vici in the city to ensure that his message penetrated the entire city. Even if this was achieved, the speaker also needed to worry about the preconceived notions of his audience and the public at large and how popular his opponent’s position was.

In a community the size of Rome, arranged as described in my previous chapter, two or more competing rumors about a person or a policy can exist at once. In a fragmented media environment, like the segregated, gossip-driven environment of Rome, people could sequester themselves from news they did not like.52 Therefore, in order to convince a majority of the city or even a large portion of the city, a speaker must combat the preconceived notions of the audience. Some of these notions would be the result of campaigning or speeches from the opposite party. Other notions would be ingrained from life-long social experiences. Both of these factors made it all but impossible for one

50 3000 ∗ 2푥 = 1000000 51 Zanette, “Dynamics of Rumor Propagation on Small-World Networks,” 2002. 52 Eveland, Jr., “Linking Social Network Analysis to the Spiral of Silence, Coorientation, and the Political Discussion: The Intersection of Political Perceptions and Political Communication,” 96. 153 speech to reach all of Rome. They stifled rumors and perpetuated contrary rumors at the same time.

All three forms of oratory described in ancient literature—forensic, deliberative, and epideictic—were focused on presenting a clear opinion on something usually in direct opposition to another opinion (in the case of epideictic, the opposite opinion would be implied). For every defense speech there was a speech for the prosecution. For every

Philippic, there was the ever-mounting popularity of Marc Anthony among Rome’s veterans. Oratory by its very nature was divisive. Therefore, no speech could hope to gain total penetration in Rome. By extension, it would be extraordinarily difficult for an orator to gain massive popularity in Rome.

Roman orators, therefore, could only hope to demonstrate a large body of support.

Demonstrating that the opinion you support is far more popular than contrary opinions can further strengthen your position by silencing the other opinions. Because people are self-conscious, they strive to be popular. Thus they will hide their unpopular opinions and tacitly observe popular trends. Roman politicians encouraged this behavior and used it to silence their opponents and build support.53

Roman political discourse was heavily affected by group dynamics. People received information from their peers that conformed to the biases of their group.

Senators received information from other senators or well-connected equites. Bakers received their news from their suppliers and their customers. What they chose to believe was what conformed most to their preconceived notions. The major difference between

53 Eveland, Jr., 21–23; Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 165. 154 the elite and the non-elite was that the elite had more means to check their facts and receive news directly from the source. Cicero often asked his peers to confirm rumors he heard and even forwarded private letters from others to give authoritative evidence for his claims.54 A baker would only be able to ask his landlord or patron (if he had one) to confirm his gossip, but a day-laborer would likely not even have that resort.

Keeping the Facts Straight

Understanding a speech in the Forum in a crowd of thousands would be difficult.

Names could be misheard, arguments missed, and voices inaudible. Competing opinions and narratives crossed continuously around Rome, making it all the more difficult to understand the truth. A useful example for these difficulties comes from the Catilinarian conspiracy. The conspiracy is one of the most discussed events in ancient Rome and has several surviving ancient accounts. Even the surviving speeches of Cicero show that the consul was forced to deal with competing narratives throughout the conspiracy.

In order to understand the reason why Catiline’s conspiracy became so difficult to understand, it is important to reconstruct how the conspiracy came to light for different

Romans. According to Sallust, the Catilinarian conspiracy was well-known due to “volgi rumoribus,” “rumors of the masses” in early 63 BCE, long before Catiline made any public action against the state.55 Cicero claims that his suspicions of Catiline began after

Catiline announced that he would be running for the consulship of 62. He made a private campaign speech threatening to overthrow the elite.56 Cicero later confirmed, in the

54 See Chapter 1. 55 Sal. Cat. 29. The revolt in Etruria began in October. The attack on Cicero during the election would have taken place in July or so, if it did indeed happen. 56 Cic. Mur. 50-51. 155

Fourth Catilinarian Oration, that most people were informed about Catiline through gossip, not any official source on either side.57 This means that Romans were spreading rumors of Catiline’s coup for months before Cicero’s first public statement on the issue in

November. These months gave ample opportunities for gossip to spread, diverge, and become entrenched.

Cicero’s campaign against Catiline was fought in the form of orations given to the

Senate and in contiones. He could not show the armies that had begun to muster in

Etruria weeks before the first oration nor share with the Roman public the letters written by the conspirators asking the Gallic Allobroges to be allies. He could not have his witnesses from within Catiline’s network speak for risk of outing them. Instead, Cicero used several techniques to control the way his investigation was perceived, and those methods differed depending on his audience.

Catiline’s political career was under scrutiny long before the Catilinarian orations.

In 65, Catiline was accused of extortion as propraetor in Africa but was not convicted.

The next year, he ran for consulship against Cicero. Cicero targeted a speech against him where he accused Catiline of a long history of disgraceful behavior and violence. As mentioned above, the character of a man was integral in Roman deliberative and forensic oratory. Catiline’s history was fodder for Cicero’s attacks. Throughout the conspiracy

Cicero would use Catiline’s history to create a monstrous image and present a clear choice to his audience: follow a monster or uphold the res publica.58

The Catilinarian conspiracy was first outed at the election of 63 which Cicero

57 Cic. Cat. 4.17. 58 Cape, Jr., “Cicero’s Consular Speeches,” 143. 156 attended wearing a breastplate under his toga.59 This was a visual display of his concern for safety, a symbol to anyone who saw him that someone was threatening the life of the consul. While this was merely a visual display, it would have encouraged his audience to ask questions about it and learn Cicero’s concerns about Catiline. As mentioned above, visual cues were especially valuable in large crowds because they could be seen beyond vocal range. The crowds at elections were especially large, with room for 70,000 at the voting area of the Campus Martius.

Months later, on October 21, Cicero delivered a speech to the Senate where he revealed that Gaius Manlius would be leaving for Etruria to take arms against Rome six days later.60 Around this time, Catiline was indicted for vis (violence against the city) and placed under house arrest.61

Cicero’s first surviving oration was delivered in a special meeting of the Senate.

The oration was a diatribe against Catiline who was present. The highlight of the speech was Cicero’s account of the meeting at Laeca’s where Catiline’s posse divided Italy among themselves and made plans to assassinate Rome’s leaders going so far as to attack

Cicero that very night. Before those dramatic revelations Cicero outlined his strategy against Catiline. He opened his speech with a brief discourse on the times in which the

Senate acted in defense of the state with the implication that, compared to men like

Scipio Nasica, Cicero was not abusing his powers nor being overly violent.62 Indeed,

Cicero feared that resorting to violence would create a rift in Rome despite the fact that

59 Cic. Mur. 52; Plut. Vit. Cic. 14.5. 60 Cic. Cat. 1.7. 61 Sal. Cat. 31; Dio 37.31. 62 Cic. Cat. 1.3-5. 157 precedents were on his side. Instead, Cicero wanted to force Catiline out of the city and handle the fight once Catiline’s supporters were safely outside the walls and in Etruria.

As mentioned above, this oration follows many of the best practices suggested by ancient orators and modern research. Cicero gives a narrative of Catiline’s actions with specific details that mattered to the audience, like the misuse of military insignia to legitimize Catiline’s revolt. Reference to historical examples gave Cicero’s audience a touchstone for conceptualizing Catiline and Cicero’s response. The attempt on Cicero’s life makes the risk to other senators immediate, increasing their emotional attachment.

The second oration was given before the public. Cicero covered much of the same material as he did in the previous oration but also highlighted the fact that he just made

Catiline flee the city.63 Like the previous speech, this one included colorful descriptions of Catiline’s troubled mind as well as appeals to the gods, and impending threats to the people of the city particularly on the safeguards he had already put in place to prevent the conspirators’ plots.64 The focus was less on Catiline and more on Catiline’s allies remaining in the city. Cicero asked the people of Rome not to become complacent now that Catiline fled.65 This statement especially focused on the emotional response of the audience. Again, he focused on things the people knew and could see. They knew the city and cared for it, they feared arson, and they could see the increased show of force from the consul. Cicero appealed to the fear of the masses just as he used history to appeal to the senate.

63 Cic. Cat. 2.2-3. 64 Character assassination: Cic. Cat. 1.1-2 and 2.7-8; appeals to the gods: Cat. 1.11 and 2.29. Patrols: Cat. 2.26. 65 Cic. Cat. 2.26. 158

Before both audiences, Cicero needed to display his knowledge of the conspiracy without naming any sources. He took to prognostication. In the October 21 speech,

Cicero predicted that Gaius Manlius, Catiline’s second-in-command, would leave within the week. In the First Catilinarian, Cicero demanded that Catiline leave Rome and claimed that fleeing Rome would be an admission of guilt. An honest man would stay in

Rome to defend himself against Cicero’s accusations (and the indictment for vis which

Catiline may have already been charged with) but Catiline needed to lead his army and would thus take the opportunity to run. In the second oration, Cicero announced that

Catiline had, in fact fled the city, and informs his audience that such an act was no less than an admission of guilt and that he knew Catiline had already sent materials to Etruria in advance.66

In all of the Catilinarian orations Cicero was self-conscious that he could face criticism for his treatment of the conspiracy if he did not act carefully. He had the precedents to simply execute Catiline, but he explained to both audiences that he wished to bring the conspiracy to light in order to eradicate all doubt in his claims.67 Cicero argued that his largest issue was one, not of war, but of public relations. He stated in the second oration that, should he act without a public consensus, he may strengthen the conspirators as he hunted them down.68 Cicero was equally concerned with his own reputation. Near the end of the first oration he reiterated that, while Catiline is an enemy of the state deserving death, Cicero’s reputation and the reputation of the Senate are both

66 Cic. Cat. 2.13. 67 Cic. Cat. 1.5 and 2.3. 68 Cic. Cat. 2.3. 159 in danger if they overreact.69 In the next speech he clarified that if he endangered the public trust by violently punishing Catiline, he will not have enough public support to pursue the other conspirators when they come to light.70 Cicero’s orations were not about informing the public of Catiline and Cicero’s successes against him, but of forming the public support he needed to make use the powers of his office.

This explains Cicero’s approach to the Allobroges and the events described in the third Catilinarian. Cicero employed two praetors to catch the conspirators in the act of giving letters to the Allobroges then had those letters delivered, still sealed, to the Senate.

He had the men who wrote the letters identify their seals before opening them. The

Senate also heard testimony from witnesses that confirmed the guilt of the men and provided new conspirators to investigate. Cicero left the Senate and recounted the events to the people, thus the Third Catilinarian Oration. These details were presented to the public as the smoking gun in the conspiracy, despite the fact that the connection to

Catiline was not readily apparent.

Indeed, there are some issues with Cicero’s testimony, despite his thoroughness.

Namely, Sallust gives a different version of Lentulus’s letter to Catiline.71 The two versions have the same message, but they use different words. Curiously, Cicero’s version of Lentulus’s letter shows a few quirks that are also found in Cicero’s own writing. Thus, it appears either that Cicero edited the letter for his speech or the published version, or did not have the letter in front of him when reciting or publishing his speech

69 Cic. Cat. 1.28-29. 70 Cic. Cat. 2.4. 71 Sal. Cat. 44.5. 160 and inserted his own style automatically.72 This is another example of the difficulties in presenting information to the public in the form of a speech. Cicero is limited by the conventions of style and also by consideration for his audience’s comprehension.

This oration shows a shift in Cicero’s perception of the public consensus. Once he recounted the drama with the Allobroges, Cicero began to highlight the success of his investigations and the honors bestowed upon him. It is a speech of thanksgiving. Cicero opened the oration with the announcement that Rome had now been saved going so far as to picture himself as the father of a reborn Rome.73 He also spoke at length about the thanksgiving he had been voted by the Senate.74 Using the thanksgiving as a metaphor, he linked his success with the restoration of the statue of Jupiter on the Capitol and support from the gods. Cicero did still worry that he will become infamous, but this doubt entered only at the end of his speech. He asked the people of Rome to defend his reputation, highlighting the relatively peaceful end to this affair.75 Cicero was no longer worried about strengthening the conspiracy or encouraging revolts, but about the memory of his consulship.76 No longer was Cicero trying to build up a public base of support, he now began to silence the opposition by asking his audience to pressure their peers and silence dissent. He was fostering a “spiral of silence.”77

The fourth oration was given at a public senatorial debate over what to do with

Lentulus and his allies. The two sides were to kill them or to exile them, and the death

72 Gejrot, “Letter from Lentulus,” 20–25. 73 Cic. Cat. 3.1. 74 Cic. Cat. 3.14, 15, 23. 75 Cic. Cat. 3.27-28. 76 Cic. Cat. 3.26. 77 Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence. 161 penalty won the day after a spirited speech from Cato the Younger.78 Cicero addressed the Senate as more of a moderator, but his speech made the important claim that the

Senate now had the full force of public opinion on its side.79 The threat of Catiline’s insurgency and Cicero’s leadership created a concordia ordinum working for peace in

Rome.80 The job was not yet done, but now that the conspiracy has been made real to the public, the Senate could begin to act more aggressively against it. Indeed, they had a duty to protect the Republic.81

Cicero’s approach to the Catilinarian conspiracy was built around discovering details and bringing them to light as much as he was able. He used inside information to publicly “predict” the actions of Manlius and Catiline. He set up an elaborate plot to entrap conspirators into providing him with written evidence of their plots so that he could present it to the Senate and public. Throughout the investigations, Cicero was conscious of his public reputation and acted to build support for his campaign.

This is even clear in the investigations Cicero led after his year in office. Details about these investigations can be found in Pro Sulla, Cicero’s defense of a friend who had been accused of being a member of the conspiracy. Cicero was accused of falsifying the records of his investigations and responded by outlining his process: when an informant was brought in, he had a team of trustworthy men at hand to take down what he said. These men were Gaius Cosconius, a praetor the time; Marcus Messala, a

78 Sal. Cat. 50-53. 79 Cic. Cat. 4.14 80 Cic. Cat. 4.15, 17, 19. 81 Cic. Cat. 4.18, 24. 162 candidate for the praetorship; Publius Nigidius; and Appius Claudius.82 This gave his investigations the authority of elected officials and notable men of the Senate. Next,

Cicero made copies of those reports. Instead of keeping them in the hands of private individuals as was normal with such documents, he had them copied and sent out

“wherever the name of the Roman people is known.”83 Cicero was still concerned with his public image after his consulship had ended and did everything within his power to maintain a sense of fairness through transparency. In fact, this strategy was far more open than his orations because he published the evidence itself instead of simply talking about it. Unlike his orations, the means whereby Cicero published that evidence probably took the form of writing thereby offering only a small audience the chance to understand it. He could no longer appeal to public support and silence, he could only appeal to the authority and process of his investigations.

Rome’s Bodies

According to Cicero, Catiline’s conspiracy began with a rallying cry against

Rome’s elite. When Cicero confronted Catiline about the speech in the Senate Catiline responded in an outburst that Rome had two bodies, one weak with a weak head and one strong with no head at all.84 Catiline was referring to the oligarchy in control of Roman politics and the masses of Romans respectively. Catiline was the head the stronger body was missing.85 Catiline unintentionally described a major issue with public politics in

82 Cic. Sull. 42. 83 Cic. Sull. 43: “quo in loco populi Romani nomen sit.” 84 Cic. Mur. 50-51. 85 Plutarch claims that the speech was talking about the Senate and the people respectively, but Catiline’s conspiracy was not purely anti-senatorial. He had supporters in the Senate and his policies did not include typical popular items like free grain and land redistribution. Plut. Vit. Cic. 14.6-7; Sal. Cat. 17, 21. 163

Rome—total disconnection between groups of people in the city.

Despite Cicero’s claims that all of Italy supported him during his consulship, he was exiled from Rome only five years later for putting men to death without trial as part of a targeted campaign led by his political rival Publius Clodius. Clodius was able to find and display enough public support to lead a campaign banishing Rome’s pater patriae to the East. This stems from a basic issue in word of mouth communication: multiple accounts can co-exist in a community.86 These differing accounts can exist both because of the segregation of Rome’s communities and also because of social differences between the people in the city. Even Romans who interacted with each other every day might have heard completely different accounts about Catiline’s conspiracy.

Reading the ancient authors who discussed the conspiracy, it would come as a surprise that Cicero received any retribution for his behavior as consul. Ancient authorities are effusive about his deliberate and just actions and equally condemnatory of

Catiline’s monstrous greed and violence. This bias is no surprise, however. As members of the literate elite, these authors were heavily influenced by Cicero’s reputation as an author and prone to side with a conservative stalwart over a revolutionary. People who experienced the conspiracy firsthand would likewise be affected by their own upbringing and peer-groups. Just as senators were more likely to believe Caesar and Cicero when an equis accused Caesar of aiding Catiline, Rome’s literate elite were likely to share similar opinions about Catiline.

Similarly, the differences between the accounts of these authors stem from

86 Trpevski and Tang, “Model for Rumor Spreading over Networks.” 164 choices they made about which sources they trusted and which details they found most significant for their message. Sallust included a gruesome scene where Catiline and his conspirators made a binding oath by drinking human blood mixed with wine. The story serves to highlight the monstrosity of the conspirators, but Sallust is also careful to claim he doubted the story was true.87 Florus and Cassius Dio, on the other hand, did not share any doubts when recounting that event. For those two the moral impact of the event was more important than historical accuracy.88 Florus’s history was a collection of moralizing stories borrowed from Livy and using this story aided his argument. Dio was so removed from events he likely had no reason to doubt the story.

Like these authors, Cicero’s audience would have shared and believed different details that they learned about Catiline. Those were dependent on their social groups, upbringing, and the random chance of what rumors they had already heard.89 In order to evaluate how these forces affected the opinions of Romans during and after the conspiracy, it is necessary to understand what the sides of the issues were. Sallust is the only source that gives specific information about Catiline’s platform. Catiline promised the cancellation of debts, the proscription of the rich, and magistracies and priesthoods for his supporters.90 These promises show that Catiline was not necessarily trying to gain a mass of urban support but was instead targeting impoverished farmers and men with political aspirations frustrated by the widening gap between the men who now ruled

Rome and the men whose families had once been great. These groups would have seen

87 Sal. Cat. 22. 88 Florus 2.12.4-5; Dio 37.30.3. 89 Gluckman, “Gossip and Scandal,” 309–12. 90 Sal. Cat. 21. 165

Catiline as a symbol of their plight.91

Men like Catiline found it difficult to attain the same level of political success as their ancestors because of the explosion in suffrage after the Social War and the necessity of taking on debt to host lavish events and give payouts for potential voters.92 Debt was a major concern linked to Catiline’s supporters. Cicero felt the need to confront two of his clients’ debt in order to absolve them of inclusion in the conspiracy: Publius Sulla and

Caelius Rufus.93 Simply being known as a debtor in 63 BCE was enough to link these two men to Catiline.

Cicero was a beneficiary and deft manipulator in the post-Social War political system. He looked to all of Italy for his support and was occasionally able to display it.

Catiline and the recently impoverished Sullan veterans were the victims of that change and thus had little reason to trust Cicero and the old guard. Another cleavage in opinion developed based on Cicero’s handling of the conspiracy. Even those who disagreed with

Catiline’s policies and Lentulus’s violence could still be against Cicero’s extra-judicial execution of conspirators. As mentioned above, shared values like the basic legal rights of Roman citizens helped unite the city. In contrast, the details of the conspiracy would have been harder for Romans to understand and evaluate. Therefore, when Romans were asked to evaluate whether Cicero was right to execute members of the conspiracy without a trial, few people would have understood the facts in the same way. The volatility and variety of public opinion in Rome made it difficult to claim public consensus for any

91 Harrison, “Catiline, Clodius, and Popular Politics at Rome during the 60s and 50s BCE,” 103. 92 Plut. Vit. Cic. 10.1, 10.4. Odahl, Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy, 45. On bribery in particular see, Lintott, “Electoral Bribery in the Roman Republic.” 93 Cic. Sull. 58-59; Cic. Cael. 17. 166 length of time.

Indeed, Cicero’s exile from Rome serves as a lesson for the weakness of oratory as a form of communication and political action. Clodius, in contrast, regimented the urban vote and took advantage of the vast numbers of diverse people living in and near the city by using community and trade organizations, most notably collegia, instead of trying to spread a wide message through large events. Clodius’s success at mobilizing public support effectively silenced Cicero’s supporters, straining Cicero’s relationships and sending the orator into despair.

Clodius’s success against Cicero shows that Cicero was never able to form the consensus he claimed in the fourth oration. That does not mean that Clodius’s supporters did not believe that Catiline and Lentulus were real threats. It shows that Clodius’ supporters believed that no threat was so great that a magistrate should be allowed to execute a citizen without trial. Cicero believed that he had been able to convince the people that Catiline and Lentulus were such threats, but Clodius found a different group of supporters who did not. The fact that Cicero’s exile lasted less than a year is not an indication that Clodius’s support was weak, but that the divisiveness of Roman politics and the various ways to enact legislation could be used by all sides in a political issue. As soon as the fervor surrounding Clodius’s exile had passed, Cicero’s supporters were able to slowly work towards his restoration using yet another technique to build support.

The five years after Cicero’s consulship show a series of changes in public opinion in Rome. Cicero’s success against Catiline was attacked before he ever left the consulship, showing that his Concordia ordinem was little more than a rhetorical

167 creation. Nonetheless, the vote of the Senate to condemn Lentulus reveals that Cicero did have much public support. Three years later, Clodius’s supporters were able to silence protest from Cicero’s, marking a shift in public opinion. The year after that, however, public opinion changed once again. These three shifts are evidence of the existence of multiple popular opinions existing in Rome at the same time. It would be impossible for a historian, or even a Roman, to know what the majority opinion was. Instead we can see three distinct groups’ opinions about Cicero on three separate occasions.

Cicero, Clodius, and Cicero’s restorers mobilized their supporters three different ways, revealing the need for multiple forms of communication in Rome. Cicero relied on public speaking and a network of elite supporters to spread information about the conspiracy. In contrast, Clodius developed a strong network of support using collegia and other networks that tied Rome’s non-elite together. Finally, Cicero was restored by a concerted effort to drive in Italian supporters using ludi to draw voters to Rome.

Another way to create consensus was to silence dissent. As mentioned above, that is precisely the effect that Cicero’s claims about the overwhelming support of Italy and

Rome in his third and fourth speeches had on people who would question the decision to execute the conspirators. Cicero himself became a victim of this strategy when he was exiled in 58. This was partly because of his vocal criticism of Caesar’s consulship.94 By removing Cicero from Rome in 58 (Caesar had also offered Cicero the option to serve as his legate or a spot on the land commission he founded), the policies of Caesar, particularly the Campanian land law, would have one less opponent.95 Cicero was

94 Wiseman, “Caesar, Pompey and Rome, 59-50 b.C.,” 372. 95 Cic. Att. 2.18.3, 2.19.5 = 38.3, 39.5 SB. 168 restored to Rome just in time to propose that Pompey be given the power to oversee the grain supply in Rome.96 Cicero was also a vocal supporter of Caesar’s when it came time to renew his command in Gaul, delivering de Provinciis Cosularibus to the Senate the next year.

Ultimately, consensus could not be created in Rome. There was no form of media that could penetrate all parts of society without being transformed by social pressures along the way. Oral reports were ignored or transformed by social pressure. Instead of creating consensus, the Roman social structure and political system encouraged division.

Nonetheless it was important for politicians to claim consensus and display overwhelming support. Using public orations and large events like games, politicians could build support by displaying their talent and generosity or silence their opponents, but they could not create consensus. Public support was difficult to maintain, and without public support, political prospects waned. When Clodius was at the height of his powers,

Cicero’s allies abandoned him not because there was nothing they could do, but because they would have lost public favor by supporting him. Once Clodius’s success began to wane, Cicero found support once again. Each side was able to beat the other by mobilizing supporters in a different way. The ultimate victory of Cicero’s supporters reveals not only the lack of consensus in Rome, but the power of ludi as a way to mobilize the public. Large spectacles not only drew a large voting body to Rome, it made those voters grateful to the host. Unlike politicized speeches and legislative agendas, ludi were something that appealed to all Romans, making them a superior mobilizing tool.

96 Cic. Att. 4.1.6 = 73.6 169

Chapter 5: Give the Audience What They Want

As mentioned in the previous chapter, oratory was just one way in which a

Roman politician could participate in public discourse and grow his political power.

While it worked for Cicero and many of his idols, oratory was not the best way to gain wide-spread notoriety and spread a message throughout ancient Rome. Instead, Roman politicians looked to larger venues with less overt political significance: ludi and triumphs. These events could have audiences of hundreds of thousands spread over multiple days with a variety of experiences like parades, cash donations, and several forms of artistic and athletic performances. These events allowed their hosts to spread a very simple message to a very large audience: “I am a successful general” or “I have given these conquests to the people” or most simply, and applicable to both: “I have given a great beneficium.”

The venues for ludi dwarfed those for contiones. While the largest venue for a contio, could hold 10,000 spectators at most, the Theater of Pompey held 16,000 at the most conservative estimate.1 Assuming the measurements given by Vitruvius are correct

(a seating area with a height of .3m and a depth of .6 or.7m), the capacity for the Circus

Maximus would be 115,000; but 220,000 people could fit if the values were adjusted

1 Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 33. 170 down by a mere ten centimeters. Likewise, the Theater of Marcellus (begun in the dictatorship of Caesar but built over the earlier Theater of Scaurus) could hold between

2,000 and 42,000.2 Even ancient authorities appreciated the scale of these two venues.

Pliny the Elder believed that the Theater of Pompey (finished in 55 BCE) could hold

40,000 people, and ancient estimates for the Circus Maximus included 150,000 and

250,000. 3 Whether those estimates are correct is beside the point, the estimates prove that the Romans understood that these venues were massive. The audience for a triumph might be even larger, with Romans lining the porticos and balconies of the city to see the spectacle. Even the army marching in the parade might be as large as the capacity for a contio.

Not only were these the largest public places in Rome, these venues were also designed expressly for shows and public displays unlike the Forum or the other meeting places in the city.4 Even temporary bleachers would allow more people to see what was happening in front of them better than standing in an open space where they would have to compete for a view. Peter Rose claims that the Circus Maximus had the maximum possible seating without disturbing the sightlines of the spectators, although some of them may have had trouble seeing over the people in the next row.5 Likewise, the shape of the Theater of Marcellus was ideal for acoustics.6 Vitruvius makes it very clear that

2 Vitr. De arch. 5.6.3-4. Rose, “Spectators and Spectator Comfort in Roman Entertainment Buildings,” 116–18; Golvin, L’amphithéâtre romain: Essai sur la théorisation de sa forme et ses fonctions, plache 3 shows the theaters of Marcellus and Pompey were roughly the same size. 3 Pliny HN 36.24.114; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.68.3; Pliny HN 36.24.102. 4 Vitruvius does claim that a forum ought to be laid out in such a way was to allow for public shows. De arch. 5.1.1-2. 5 Rose, “Spectators and Spectator Comfort in Roman Entertainment Buildings,” 122–23. 6 Rose, 125. 171

Roman architects had a sound understanding of acoustics, so we should not be surprised that their theaters were mindfully constructed.7 The seats of the Theater of Marcellus, for example, had a steep rake from row to row and the distance between the farthest seat and the center of the stage was equal to the distance at which the human voice is audible in open air.8 Therefore, the host could expect communication at the games to be more effective than at a typical contio. The words of the actors would reach more people more accurately. Conversely, the people in the audience would be more visible, allowing people to gauge the crowd more accurately than at a contio. While the temporary theaters used for most of the Republic were most likely not as sophisticated as the Theater of

Pompey, Richard Beacham argues that they allowed Romans to experiment with design until they found the right aesthetics and acoustics.9 The hosts of these games knew the size of the venue and the impact such a large audience could have after they left the theater or circus. Having a large number of initial rumor spreaders made it more likely that news of the event would spread into more vici.

Unlike contiones and trials, ludi and triumphs were not directly politicized. The editor and the triumphal commander were not competing against other editores and commanders at the time of their events like the defense competed against the prosecution at court. They did not argue complex opinions that could divide their audience. This allowed hosts control these events and the messages they produced within the boundaries

7 Vitr. De arch. 5.3.6-8. 8 Rose, “Spectators and Spectator Comfort in Roman Entertainment Buildings,” 125. 9 Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial Rome, 29; Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, 363 maintains that the temporary theaters must have been just as large as the peranent stone theaters. 172 of traditional practice. The basic message of generosity was simple but other messages sent through performances and other aspects of these events could also exist.

While ludi and triumphs were nominally unpolitical, they fostered a lot of competition between hosts and triumphatores. This could foster conflict in the Senate during debates over awarding triumphs and fierce competition among candidates for offices responsible for hosting major festivals. Among triumphatores and editores there would be competition to have the greatest displays. Commanders would capture as many spoils as they could to display on the shoulders of their soldiers, ludi would feature exotic animals or incredible backdrops for the artistic performances or innovative venues. These competitions did not change the message the hosts wanted to send, but they gave audiences a way to compare different events. Hosts wanted to compare favorably with the men who offered games in the past. When the people of Rome talked about ludi, each host wanted to be the one they spoke of in the most glowing terms.

These competitions were heightened by the scarcity of opportunity to host these events. Triumphs, in particular, required a combination of bloodthirst, political sway, and luck. Triumphs were sporadic. After the death of Sulla there were only eleven triumphs in thirty years. There are no triumphs between 61 and 54 on the Fasti Triumphales. In contrast, games occupied a significant portion of the Roman year. Balsdon estimates that, by the end of the Republic, the six major festivals (Ludi Romani, Plebeii, Ceriales,

Apollinares, Florales, and Megalenses) accounted for 58 total days of games.10 While this is a significant portion of the year, there were only six opportunities to host these major

10 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 245. 173 festivals. For a quaestor aiming for the consulship that meant competing against fifteen fellow quaestors and up to eight praetors for four aedileships and the urban praetorship

(given by lot among the winners of the praetorial election).

This calculation does not take into account the games that would have accompanied the opening of a temple, or the funeral of a great man, or a triumph. Nor does it include the Ludi Compitalicii, which Asconius claims were hosted by collegia under the leadership of tribunes.11 These events could diminish the competition for the offices that included hosting ludi. In addition, the lex Tullia de ambitu on 63 BCE indicates that politicians would host games as part of their candidacy without any other reason. The relevant part of the law states that a man may not give a gladiator show within two years of an election unless it is done “ex testemento.”12 There must have been instances of games being hosted for the express purpose of garnering votes, so we would expect to see them many times in a year.13 However, after 63 BCE, this was illegal, making the competition for the magistracies that hosted festivals even fiercer.

The usefulness of ludi and triumphs as platforms for advancing the notoriety of political candidates combined with their scarcity make them one of the most revealing venues for looking into Roman politics. By looking at them through the lens of communication and networking, the interaction between host and audience can be better understood. A level of political discourse can be revealed even in events with no political debate or direct candidacy.

11 Asc. 7c-8b. 12 Cic. Vat. 15. 13 Ville, La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien, 87. Ville adds that this is an aberration in the norm emerging from the nature of late Republican politics. 174

The Host with the Most

At the center of both ludi and triumphs was the host, the editor or triumphator respectively. These men were responsible first for getting the honor of hosting whether through being elected to the correct magistracy or through success on the battlefield. Next they needed to put together the event by making choices as to the venues, route, and performances they would include. For example, a triumphator could include ludi as part of the celebration but not every triumphator did so. Finally, they were responsible for gathering the audience. Each host had a different approach, and many professionals no doubt aided the execution of major events. The end result was unique spectacles tailored to the host but offering the same basic message of generosity.

Scholars have long debated the appeal of ludi. Many studies have viewed games as visceral displays which offer a social release instead of a directly political goal.

Scholars have described games as a structure that instilled the martial values of Rome and taught the people to fear defeat or as displays of the military success of the empire.14 Paul

Plass describes the games as “an interlude of controlled disorder sponsored by society in order to (re)affirm its own security.”15 Donald Kyle took a “necrological” approach to the games, viewing them as a way to display and handle death.16 These studies remove the editor from discussion. The games exist because they need to, not because the editor benefits from them. Likewise, the people are there merely to fulfill their psychological needs and do not engage in wider discourse at games. Despite these issues, these studies

14 Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 2; Futrell, Blood in the Arena, 4. 15 Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome, 8. 16 Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome, 11–12. 175 show that the appeal of ludi was quite distinct from oratory. While speakers tried to appeal to multiple senses and emotions during their orations, drama and fights naturally elicited a visceral reaction that was impossible through speech alone. This gave ludi a greater impact on the minds of the audience.

Many studies focusing on the Empire have focused on the role of the games as a way for the people to interact with the emperor up close. As Keith Hopkins states, “under the empire, as citizens’ rights to engage in politics diminished, gladiatorial shows, games and theater together provided repeated opportunities for the dramatic confrontation of ruler and ruled.”17 Others have argued that emperors used the games as a way to share a common experience and display their interest in popular culture.18 They were also a way to distract the people from political issues by investing them in the competitive factions of the arena.19 In the act of granting a fighter his life or ordering his execution, the emperor highlighted his authority in front of a cross-section of Rome and also showed himself open to the suggestions of the people.20 Indeed, the emperor was as much a part of the games as were the actors or gladiators.21 Ludi provided a public outlet that was lost with the comitia. In the absence of political competition, the emperor needed to display his public support and earn it. Ludi provided a means for him to do just that.

A Republican editor played a similar role in his games. He displayed himself to the people in a very public way and partook in the same acts of judgment as the emperors

17 Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 15. 18 Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps, 101. 19 Yavetz, 100. 20 Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 18. 21 Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial Rome, ix. 176 did. Likewise, many of the audience at Republican games probably felt just as disenfranchised as the audience at games under the Empire. The landless urban poor rarely voted in the comitia centuriata after Sulla’s reforms and they were given only four out of thirty-five votes in the comitia tributa. As will be discussed below, Cicero studied the crowds at ludi as a form of unofficial polling.

The largest connection between the two periods is the concept of beneficium. The

Roman political system worked on the level of reciprocity: powerful men did good deeds for their peers and for the people at large and accrued gratia which was paid back in court or in the comitia.22 This gratia was just as necessary for an emperor maintaining public favor as it was for a candidate garnering public votes. Georges Ville considered games the beneficium “par excellence” for a candidate.23 A speech was a beneficium for only a few people—the supporters of a law, the man being defended, or the other members of the prosecution—but a ludi or the victory rewarded in a triumph were beneficia for the entire city.

The offering of games was controlled by the Roman aristocracy. The state-run games were controlled by magistrates. Funeral games were likewise only appropriate for people whose ancestors had attained a curule magistracy.24 Games given at the dedication of a temple or as a religious act (thanksgiving or supplication) would have likewise been sanctioned by the person who built the temple. The likely reason why the Ludi

Compitalicii were banned by the Senate was because they were usually hosted by

22 Brunt, “Clientele,” 389. 23 Ville, La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien, 78; Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 209. 24 Futrell, Blood in the Arena, 35. 177 freedmen or even slaves.25 Cicero was appalled at the fact that the Ludi Compitalicii of

58 BCE were hosted by Sextus Clodius, “who had never before filled any office which entitled him to wear the praetexta.”26 This example shows just how far the Senate was willing to go to protect access to hosting ludi. The lex Tullia mentioned above shows a further attempt to control access by ensuring that no-one without powerful ancestors could host games except for the public games. Considering the importance of hosting games to a candidate for office, this might be a significant reason why homines novi were unsuccessful in attaining high office. If they were not lucky enough to secure the correct magistracies, they would never have a chance to host a major games.27

Even if hosting games was not technically closed to all but the nobiles, the sheer cost of hosting ludi that could compete with the typical display was staggering. Polybius states that a “generous” funeral games for Aemilius Paulus cost 30 talents!28 The other figure that we have comes from Cicero, who claimed that Milo, desperately trying to win the consulship, was planning to put together games costing perhaps one million sesterces!29 Cicero claims that this cost had never been exceeded. These sums were immense but not atypical. Fabius Aemilianus was forced to borrow money from his birth- brother Scipio to pay for Paulus’s games, and Cicero’s contemporaries were notorious for

25 Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, 56–58. 26 Cic. Pis. 8; Asc. 7c-8b. Lott, 55. 27 Cicero uses the language of chance in Mur. 42 and 43, implying that Murena “lucked out” by being assigned the urban praetorship, which had the responsibility (more like opportunity) of hosting the Ludi Apollinares. Cicero is, of course, the exception. He gained favor by defending powerful people which also put him in the public eye. 28 Polyb. 31.28.6. 29 Cic. Q Fr. 3.9.2. The number is a conjecture by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh in his translation of the letters from 1902. Shackleton-Bailey does not include the numeral in his translations.

178 acquiring huge debt while campaigning.30 If a man did not have a lot of money, or good credit, the prospect of hosting games was unthinkable or self-destructive.

Competitive Display

The various entertainments at games and triumphs allowed the host to interact with the crowd with different modes of discourse where comitia and contiones were limited to oratory. Editores and the powerful men in the audience used the opportunity to compete with each other. Because the audience represented a large portion and a supposedly trustworthy cross-section of the people, the games gained importance as a venue in which politicians could compete against each other for popularity.

The underlying goal of the host was to demonstrate his generosity to the Roman people, and the easiest way to show that was through having more—more animals, more gladiators, more shows, more spoils.31 The editor and triumphator fell back on the simple display of opulence and size to ensure that the people remembered the beneficium he gave them. Aemilius Paulus hosted one of the greatest triumphs in Roman history. People erected scaffolding throughout the city, the temples were all decorated for the occasion, theaters were erected in the Forum. For three days, Aemilius’s army marched famous

Greek works of art, weapons from several nationalities, gold, silver and slaves through the city, ending with the enemy leader, Perseus himself.32

The reputation of Aemilius Paullus’s triumph did not discourage later Romans. In

30 Polyb. 31.26.5. For the debt of politicians, see Suet. Jul. 13.1, or Plut. Vit. Caes. 5.8, 31 Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome, 18 believes that the consumption in these displays showed off the ability of the state to manage larger and larger violence and display more of its power, but the games were not actually run by the state. 32 Plut. Vit. Aem. 32-34. Diod. 31.8.10-13. 179 the 60s, C. Antonius covered the scaena, the backdrop of the stage, in silver; Petreius in gold and Catulus in ivory.33 Caesar had supposedly displayed 320 pairs of gladiators armored in silver in the games that honored his father.34 Caelius Rufus was so eager for a memorable games that he begged Cicero to procure him some panthers while Cicero was in Cilicia.35 The attitude is apparent in the games Pompey hosted for the dedication of his theater. Cicero cannot help but call them “apparatissimi”—most splendid—while also explaining how gauche they were.36 There were 600 mules in Clytemnestra and 3000 kraters in The Trojan Horse! The hunts lasted five days! This consumption displayed the wealth and power of these men, and also their generosity.

This attitude led to the construction of the first permanent theaters. Scaurus and

Curio constructed extravagant wooden theaters in which to host their games.37 Pompey, soon afterwards built the first stone theater in Rome. These beneficia would long outlast the shows that they were constructed for and would thus be lasting reminders of their builders’ merits and a memorial to the fathers. Cicero held the opinion that permanent structures did more service to the public than entertainments and doles. 38 These men gave the people both.

Curio’s theater reveals another remarkable aspect of the competition. Pliny claims that Curio had to look for a way to make his games more remarkable than the games of

33 Val. Max. 2.4.6. 34 Plut. Vit. Caes. 5.9. 35 Cic. Fam. 8.4.5. 36 Cic. Fam. 7.1.2. 37 Plin. HN 36.24. Golvin, L’amphithéâtre romain: Essai sur la théorisation de sa forme et ses fonctions, 28. Caelius mentioned the theaters of Curio two years after his games were held in a letter to Cicero: Cic. Fam. 8.2.1. 38 Cic. De off. 2.17.60. However, Cicero probably would not have considered theaters to qualify as improvements to the city. 180

Scaurus but could not afford to spend as much money as Scaurus had. Therefore, he constructed two theaters back to back which could pivot and join into an amphitheater!39

Instead of outdoing Scaurus by sheer size, Curio decided to make his games more innovative and interesting. Likewise, Pompey attempted to use elephants to pull his chariot in his first triumph in 79.40 The elephants were not only a grand statement, they were a drastic change and a meaningful symbol of his conquest of Asia. Both size and innovation were ways for Romans to compete as hosts.

Politicians needed to show the support they had from the people. This allowed

Romans to use popular opinion to convince other powerful men to lend their support running for office or supporting a bill.41 So long as an editor could fill the theater and

Circus, he could count on the Roman rumor mill to spread news of his display throughout the city. Because the crowd was many times larger than the crowd at a speech, word of mouth would spread even more effectively. He did not have to give games during his campaign, but having given games in the past was always something that set a politician apart from the others in his “year.” For example, Murena gave games as a praetor, over a year before his campaign for consul, but Cicero still argues that they carried the election for him.42 In contrast, Servius, Murena’s accuser, had not given any, prompting Cicero to claim that he had “no idea how to campaign for the consulship.”43 This whole attitude and this particular anecdote reveal the fact that Roman elections were actually

39 Plin. HN 36.24 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 256 argues that Pliny made up this story as an etymology for the word “amphitheater”; Golvin, L’amphithéâtre romain: Essai sur la théorisation de sa forme et ses fonctions, 31 offers the contrary argument. 40 Plut. Vit. Pomp. 14.4. 41 Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 224. 42 Cic. Mur. 37, he also claims that one good games was good enough for Milo: Q Fr. 3.8.6. 43 Cic. Mur. 40, 43. 181 competitive and that games played a large role in that competition. Giving lavish and innovative games that compare favorably to other politicians’ ensured that people would remember the games and talk about them with their acquaintances for a longer time, making them all the more useful.

Games were so necessary for politicians that they began looking for ways to circumvent tradition (and the law) to host games during their political career. If they were unable to secure one of the magistracies that hosted games, and if their father’s lived long enough (or died too soon), they would have to look for an excuse. Caesar, for example, offered funeral games for his father in 65, twenty years after his death.44 Because they could not count on a timely death, aristocrats sought the offices which were obliged to sponsor games. Aedileships and the urban praetorship were popular and competitive, the latter giving Murena his opportunity to host the games that helped him win the consulship.45 When Caesar was aedile, he gave the most lavish entertainments Rome had yet seen, hosting both the Ludi Romani and the Ludi Megalenses as well as the games for his father in the same year! Dio claims that the funeral games were so lavish (these are the games where the combatants were silver-plated armor) that the Roman public forgot about Bibulus, Caesar’s companion in the aedileship. 46 When it came to competitive display, Caesar would not be outdone.

Triumphs were prone to the same forces as ludi. Contrary to popular belief, there was no such thing as a standard triumph. Triumphatores had some freedom in the

44 Dio 37.8; Plin. HN 33.16.53. 45 Cic. Mur. 37. 46 Plin. HN 33.16.53; Dio 37.8. 182 planning of their processions and often made significant changes.47 As mentioned above,

Pompey attempted to replace the horses on the traditional triumphal quadriga with elephants, but they would not fit through the gates of the city.48 More conservative triumphatores would compete with scale: more captives, more spoils, more important prisoners. Like later editores, triumphatores would find ways to make their processions more permanent. They would use their spoils to fund construction of public buildings memorializing their success. These buildings might display the art they commissioned for their triumph and the most valuable spoils from the war. Their triumphs would have a permanent place in Rome. Instead of lasting for days, they became part of the environment.

The competitiveness and innovation in ludi and triumphs shows how integral they were to ambitious politicians. The competitive consumption at the games was thus a simple way for aristocrats to earn more gratia than their opponents and present the voters with a clear electoral choice. The Commentariolum suggested that candidates avoid being topical and political.49 Instead of focusing on issues and opponents, candidates were supposed to focus on their dignity and merits. The displays of opulence and innovation at ludi conformed easily to this ideal. The games thus became the sphere in which political opponents competed directly against each other. If they could give a quantifiable or qualitative reason why their games were better than their opponents’ games, they had a clear advantage.

47 Beard, The Roman Triumph, 82–83. 48 Plut. Vit. Pomp. 14.4. 49 Cic. Comment. pet. 11. 183

Plebs Ludorum? The Audience of the Games

In order to understand the scope of ludi and triumphs in Rome, it is necessary to understand the audience for those events. Knowing who attended the games is integral for evaluating whether the public displays at the games were legitimate expressions of opinion and whether that audience would be able to spread word of mouth throughout the city. Cicero claimed that the games provided the best view of public opinion because the crowd was more diverse than at contiones and less segregated than at comitia.50 This statement, however, came from a speech where Cicero used the support he gained at ludi to strengthen his argument.

Games and triumphs would draw people into Rome from far afield. Caesar’s triumphal games brought so many people to Rome that they had to camp together in the streets!51 Before this, Pompey had used the occasion of the Ludi Florales of 57 to draw voters from Italy and advocate for the recall of Cicero. He held the vote itself at the ensuing Ludi Apollinares.52 Cicero himself mentioned that he planned on traveling to

Antium to see the games with his daughter, Tullia.53 If a municipal display could tempt people from Rome, surely games in Rome would draw crowds from Italy.

More controversial than where the audience came from is what classes the audience came from. In order for Cicero’s claim about ludi to be true, it is important that

50 Cic. Sest. 116. Cicero claims that the people who went to contiones were a particular group, a plebs contionalis: Att. 1.16.11. Mouritsen, Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 44 generally shares Cicero’s suspicion of contio crowds but argues that they were made of political supporters and resembled pep rallies more than actual public debates; see also: Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic, 131. 51 Suet. Iul. 39.4. 52 Cic. Sest. 116-126. Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 181–82 links these games to the vote mentioned in Cic. Planc. 78. 53 Cic. Att. 2.8. 184 the audience for games be from different social backgrounds. The issue itself has been subject to a debate between Paul J. J. Vanderbroek and Jeffrey Tatum. Vanderbroek argued that audiences at the theater were “decidedly anti-popularis,” consistently cheering optimates like Spinther and booing Clodius and the Triumvirs. The audience of these games consistently affirm his opinions, therefore, Cicero claims that all ludi are a good measure of all public opinion. Indeed, only Cicero would benefit from broadcasting the support of the crowds at games.54 However, the motives of Cicero could also undermine Vanderbroek: Cicero always tried showing that the optimates had popular support, so he would likely ignore games where the populares were cheered, leaving evidence from Cicero inconclusive. Considering that there were at least six ludi a year, the amount of testimony we have from Cicero is pitiful compared to the opportunities he had to write about games.

Tatum makes a further argument against Vanderbroek. Since most of

Vanderbroek’s argument is founded upon the games of 57, Tatum believes he overlooks the historical context for Cicero’s testimony. Not only would Cicero want to exaggerate the public reactions against Clodius in Pro Sestio, the crowds at the games that year would have been brought in by Pompey for the express purpose of undermining

Clodius’s legislative program.55 Furthermore, Cicero’s argument hangs on the fact that the popularis Clodius was not popular, and thus would be undermined if the jury expected the crowd at games to be anti-popularis.56 Tatum further argues that Cicero’s

54 Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.), 77–78. 55 Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 304 n. 44. 56 Tatum, “Another Look at the Spectators at the Roman Games,” 105. 185 description of the crowd in ad Atticum 1.16.11 (= 16 SB)shows that he saw the crowd as a rabble, even when he was being cheered. As Shackleton Bailey translates:

With the dregs of the city populace [I am] much better than you left me…this

wretched starveling rabble that comes to meetings [illa contionalis

hirudo]…imagines that I have no rival in the good graces of our Great

One…Accordingly I get wonderful ovations at the games and the gladiators.

First, this is a private letter between Cicero and Atticus and Cicero has no trial to win by describing this crowd. Second, Cicero describes his new adherents with palpable disdain: sordem urbis et faecem…illa cotionalis hirudo…misera ac ieiuna plebecula.

These are not the people Cicero would like cheering him at the games. Finally, Cicero links these with the people who attend contiones, revealing that even when he was not in front of a jury, Cicero did actually believe that the people at contiones were not a trustworthy barometer of public opinion. Indeed, this letter begs the question why Cicero would ever trust the people at games if they were such a sordid crowd!

Cicero would have us believe that the boni disdained the games.57 He makes a show of his own disdain in his letters. In one letter Cicero is thankful that he was able to be away from Rome during M. Metellus’s gladiator show.58 In another he praises (or consoles) M. Marius for missing the dedication of Pompey’s theater. Cicero tells Marius about the games but opens by remarking that Marius was either fortunate that an illness did not allow him to come or wise that he decided to feign illness. 59 Cicero was bored at

57 For a general statement, Cic. Mur. 39. 58 Cic. Att. 2.1.1 = 21.1 SB. 59 Cic. Fam. 7.1.1 = 24.1 SB. 186 the games. The shows were incredible but they were sound and fury.60 The hunts were both unanimously praised and too barbaric for the cultivated tastes of the boni.61 Indeed, the boni were obliged to attend games whether they liked them or not in order to maintain favor with the public. Romans were also expected to support their friends when they were editor as Cicero supported Pompey by attending his games. Caesar lost favor because he would read and dictate letters at the games.62 It is likely that Republican potentates had been held to the same standards.63

Despite the range of disdain and apathy Cicero displays in his letter to Marius, he also remarks about how rapt the audience was at the display.64 In Pro Murena he claimed that, even though they have better things to do, and even if they pretend not to, everyone secretly enjoys the games.65 While often the games pander to the “untutored mob,” the upper classes also enjoyed going. Senators had been given special seats in the orchestra by 194, a sign that they frequented games from their earliest days and that they desired to be visible while in attendance.66 The equites received special seating at the initiative of

Otho in 67.67 Not even rioting plebs could force them to give up their privilege! 68

The picture from Cicero is that the crowd at the games was diverse. It was full of the rabble but seemed to be frequented by equites and senators as well. The stratified seating made it possible for Cicero to claim that an observer at the games could tell where

60 Cic. Fam. 7.1.2 = 24.2 SB. 61 Cic. Fam. 7.1.3 = 24.3 SB. 62 Suet. Aug. 45.1. See also: Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps, 100. 63 Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, 364. 64 Cic. Fam. 7.1.2-3 = 24.2-3 SB. 65 Cic. Mur. 40. 66 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 260. 67 Cic. Mur. 40. 68 Plut. Vit. C. Gracch. 12.3-4. 187 a cheer started and what kind of person started it.69 Seating was not only used as a privilege of social superiority, it also allowed men to display themselves prominently at ludi and observers to make sense of social issues.

The audience of the games came from throughout Italy and included Senators, equites and street urchins, but little is known about how ticketing worked. It seems that the editor took a large part in making his audience. Cicero claims that Murena made sure to give seats to his friends and supporters.70 In fact, Murena was indicted for being too generous with the invitations to the games he presented while campaigning. This indicates that men had control over who came to their shows, but only within certain boundaries. The games described in Pro Sestio have often been used as examples of occasions when the crowd was hand-picked to make a show of support for the cause of a political group.71 Indeed, Cicero does not claim that the crowds at the games are inherently trustworthy, only that it is easier to see when they are being manipulated by a leader. He argues that, while contiones are full of partisans, the crowd at games might have some partisans but they will be only a portion. The seating norms made it easy to see what groups were reacting to certain events.72

Regardless of how the audience gained entry to the games, the editor did not actually have control of what the audience did once they were in their seats. They often acted against his wishes. For example at the games Gabinius hosted in 59, the crowd

69 Cic. Sest. 115. 70 Cic. Mur. 72-73. 71 Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.), 77; Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 308 n. 45 both agree. 72 Cic. Sest. 104 vs. 115. 188 hissed at him and the Triumvirs.73 Pompey lost the crowd at the grand opening of his theater during the elephant show. The people pitied the elephants. Cicero claimed that the audience saw something human about them.74 While this is not much of a political disappointment, if Pompey had bought off the audience, we would expect them not to make such a memorable objection to any part of his shows.

Editores would work hard to ensure that their audience was favorable to them.

Because games and triumphs were extraordinarily expensive, hosts worked hard to ensure that they received a good result from them. After the outbursts of the crowd during

Gabinius’s games, Caesar and Pompey threatened to force a repeal of the law that gave equites special seating at the ludi.75 Caesar identified the equites as the source of the jeers and found the stakes so high and the offense so great that it justified legislative action.

The host’s desired result was gaining a reputation for generosity and a favorable comparison to other men who had hosted events in the past and the men against whom the host would compete in the future. If the audience turned against him, the entire affair was ruined. Instead of spreading good word-of-mouth about the beneficium the host provided, the audience would instead talk about the behavior of others in the audience or on the stage. Pompey was particularly haunted by elephants. In 79, his elephants could not fit through the gates of the city, threatening to ruin his already specious triumph (he had not held an office with imperium yet). Pompey’s games in 55 had higher stakes. They were meant to maintain public favor for his coalition with Crassus and Caesar and to

73 Cic. Att. 2.19.3 = 39.3 SB. 74 Dio 39.38.1, Cic. Fam. 7.1.3 = 24.3 SB. 75 Cic. Att. 2.19.3 = 39.3 SB. 189 mark the opening of an innovative new architectural feature in Rome. Pompey did not want people leaving the theater talking about the poor elephants. He wanted people leaving the theater talking about Pompey. However, because the audiences at ludi and triumphs were so large, it was impossible for hosts to ensure a good reception. Hosting was always a risk, and a particularly pricey one.

These issues are not unique to large spectacles. As mentioned in the previous chapter, orators worked hard to stage-manage their speeches so that the audience would be able to understand what was said and theoretically discuss it with others. For speakers the issue was one of focus—how to ensure that the audience took away from the speech what he wanted. An editor faced a similar issue—how to maintain focus on himself in the midst of a multi-media spectacle. Ultimately the variety of gossip, encouraged by the size of the crowd would aid the editor. More word of mouth about different aspects of one spectacle would highlight the size and variety of the event. For speeches, diverse accounts undermined the argument presented and the skill of the orator.

The Democracy of the Theater

The venues at the games were simply too large to control the composition of the entire crowd. Even if we assume that the host of the games enrolled only his amici to distribute tickets and that they only gave tickets to their amici and clients as Balsdon envisions, that would still be a wide network of people who do not necessarily share political opinions.76 The testimony from Pro Murena seems to contradict such an organized network of distribution. The basis of the accusations against Murena is that he

76 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 258; on amicitia see Brunt, “Amicitia in the Roman Republic,” 351. 190 gave away his tickets willy-nilly, not just to people in his tribe or to his friends.77

Candidates hired divisores to distribute bribes and tickets to banquets and games to people to whom they had no real connection for the purpose of garnering votes.78 These divisores probably handed out tickets for many games, meaning that the editores were excluded from a large part of that process. Therefore, Roman games were frequented not just by the supporters of the editores but by a diverse section of the voting public, many of whom had no direct connection to the host.

The fact that the games were open to such a large audience should make us question the electoral process in Rome further, as Yakobson used bribery to question it.79

The composition of the crowd made the games the perfect opportunity for the powerful to appeal to and observe a large cross-section of Rome. The large crowds gathered could also express their opinions of certain politicians and display their attitude to the times.

Finally, outside groups could send messages by disrupting games. These interactions were an important process in Roman politics. Politicians and politically active members of the audience and outside the audience could all use ludi for their agenda.

Indeed, some games were offered to “get out the vote.” The Ludi Comitalicii of

58 were illegally held just three days before Publius Clodius passed four major laws at

77 Cic. Mur. 72. 78 Lintott, “Electoral Bribery in the Roman Republic,” 7–8; Yakobson, Elections and Electioneering in Rome, 40. Lintott argues that the divisores distributed bribes only to potentates in a tribe who distributed those to their adherents. Yakobson argues that divisores distributed largesse to everyone. Both reconstructions demonstrate that the divisores were a middle-man that took control of distribution away from the source of the money or the editor. 79 Yakobson, “Petitio et Largitio,” 35. 191 the start of his tribuneship.80 Likewise, Pompey planned the votes concerning the restoration of Cicero around the Ludi Florales and Ludi Apollinares.81 As mentioned above, games drew people from around Italy. They were major events lasting several days and attracted large markets and crowds beyond the attendees of the performances. It therefore makes sense that a politician would plan important votes to take place in tandem with games—if only to give his rural supporters a better reason to come to Rome.

Clodius was even willing to ignore the Senatorial prohibition of Compitalia in order to gather the electorate before the vote. These games acted as an important feature of democracy, encouraging voters to travel to Rome and mobilizing the electorate. If the business of the comitia were really decided long before the votes were cast, Pompey and

Clodius would not have put themselves through their trouble.82

The theater was the most audience-focused place in Rome, so “democratic” that the very idea of building a permanent theater terrified the Roman elite despite the fact that the circuses had supposedly been founded during the monarchy.83 Indeed, Pliny the

Elder claimed that nothing had been so detrimental to the morals of the Republic than the construction of Scaurus’s theater.84 Theaters represented a place where the people could gather, a place outside of the restrictions that governed contiones, where the magistrates had little power to control them.85 Emperors bowed to the will of the people and editores

80 Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.), 77. Clodius is generally considered the instigator of the games despite the fact that he was not the editor. 81 Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 181–82. 82 Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 159. 83 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.68.1. 84 Plin. HN 36.113. 85 Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 18; Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial Rome, 30. 192 sought their cheers.86 Indeed, when the crowd was rioting against Otho in the theater while he was consul, Cicero gathered them at the Temple of Bellona instead of addressing them at the theater. After the speech, they returned to the theater.87 As a magistrate, Cicero’s authority was compromised by the theater, so he addressed the crowd at a temple where the Senate sometimes gathered and thus suitable for a consular address.

The theater was ruled by the crowd. The magistrates could use ludi to compete against each other, but they lost their aura of authority upon entering the theater. This was the most honest gathering of the Roman people, a place where a man could see what a typical Roman was thinking with his patron just a few rows in front of him.88 Therefore, the games were a barometer of public opinion.89 The crowd was active during the games, offering their opinions on not only the entertainments but also on the political milieu.

The crowd at the theater could communicate several messages with their hands and voices. The act of applauding was imbued with significance by an observer like

Cicero.90 He studied the reaction of crowds at the entrance of his peers to gauge their popularity.91 This was made possible because Senators entered theaters from the front as the shows were beginning.92 When Cicero claims that the crowd at one games in 59

86 Potter, “Performance, Power, and Justice in the High Empire,” 131. 87 Plut. Cic. 13.2-4. The Theater of Marcellus was later built in that part of the city. Did they choose that site for Marcellus’s theater because it was a common site for temporary theaters? 88 Cic. Sest. 115. 89 Cic. Sest. 106. Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, 364. 90 Parker, “The Observed of All Observers: Spectacle, Applause, and Cultural Poetics in the Roman Theater Audience,” 168–70. 91 In general: Cic. Sest. 115. In particular: Att. 1.16.11, 2.19.3, 4.15.6 = 16.11, 39.3, 90.6 SB; Sest. 117ff. 92 Parker, “The Observed of All Observers: Spectacle, Applause, and Cultural Poetics in the Roman Theater Audience,” 166. 193 hissed “both the leader and his supporters” (usually identified as Gabinius and the triumvirs), he means as they were walking in together. At the same games, Caesar entered to silence while Curio, following him, entered to great applause.93 By distancing himself from Caesar, Curio was making a statement that the audience perceived and responded to. The audience was also making a statement by ignoring Caesar. By associating himself with the triumvirs, Gabinius was opening himself to criticism despite the fact that he was the host of the games and would normally be the center of gratitude.

These were simple ways for the people to display their opinion of the elite. The problem with the data is that the crowd’s reaction does not tell us why a politician was popular or unpopular. The jeers against the triumvirs could mean a number of things.

Perhaps the audience supported Bibulus. Maybe they were frightened of the violence

Caesar used to force his legislation.94 Likewise, when Spinther was so heavily applauded in 57 and Clodius booed, the audience might have been responding to the price of grain or their distaste for Clodius’s politics.95 Clodius’s legislative activity was pretty mild, all things considered, and did little for the price of grain despite expanding the dole. Perhaps

Pompey and Spinther had really done such a good job at filling the theater with partisans, although that would be an incredible accomplishment. Cicero does claim that the crowd at the games skewed toward the “optimo,” so when they cheered they might be showing dissatisfaction for the violent popular politics of the times.96 This should be countered, however, by noting that the populares held very popular games as well, like Caesar’s

93 Cic. Att. 2.19.3 = 39.3 SB. 94 Cic. Att. 2.19.3 = 39.3 SB. 95 Cic. Sest. 117. 96 Cic. Sest. 115. 194 well loved games in 65 or Clodius’s Ludi Compitlicii in 58. Surely they would not bother if crowds were so unforgiving. The audience was unpredictable, and the little information we have from Cicero and his era is not enough to make any conclusive statements on that topic. Instead, each event is one indication of public reaction to political affairs and nothing more.

The crowd could also communicate through the actors by demanding that lines in the plays be repeated. This practice better shows the issues that the crowd responded too, although Cicero is still the exclusive witness. The Roman audience was clever, and could make analogical connections between what they were shown and their own situations.97

As mentioned in a previous chapter, Plautus’s plays were topical, with references to the men in the audience and events of the day. The audience could see the contemporary relevance of lines from century-old plays and understand cues from the actors on stage, as will be studied below. Performers would also update plays. For example, a line was added to one of the plays at the Ludi Florales.98 Cicero claims that one play in 59 was written as if, “by an enemy of Pompey.”99 The audience interpreted the play as a direct commentary on Pompey, despite that fact that it was likely quite old and was at a ludi hosted by Pompey’s associate, Gabinius. Each games gave the editor and audience days of entertainments to which they could give meaning.

While the editor was certainly interested in showing the audience that he was a more generous and inventive editor than his rivals, he may not have been interested in

97 Champlin, Nero, 96; Horsfall, The Culture of the Roman Plebs, 60. 98 Cic. Sest. 121. 99 Cic. Att. 2.19.3 = 39.3 SB. 195 spreading messages in the dramas he presented. It is hard to see how involved the editor was in the planning of the games he was offering. Aemilius Paullus, so it was said, considered planning his triumph as difficult and important as planning his military campaigns.100 Caelius took personal care to have panthers at his show, but he might be unique in that respect.101 We do hear of generals bringing foreign animals to Rome for use in their triumphs, which would be a similar act. Again, Pompey’s games at the dedication of his theater offer a chance to look more in depth.

According to Cicero, Sp. Maecius planned the schedule for Pompey’s games, or at least the dramas that were performed.102 Cicero mentions two plays from Pompey’s games: The Trojan Horse and Clytemnestra. The Trojan Horse offered a chance to stage one of the great stories of antiquity, perhaps with an impressive model of the horse itself, but more importantly reminds the audience of Pompey’s own success as a conqueror of the east in the Mithridatic Wars. Clytemnestra may have served a similar purpose, making a link between Pompey and Agamemnon, absent from Mycenae. The opening of that play may have allowed Pompey to “stage” his triumph. Cicero claims that there were thousands of kraters and other props used in the play. Mary Beard argues that these may have been the spoils of Pompey’s wars, displayed in memory of his triumph six years before. The pitiable elephants were a nod to his ill-fated attempt to use elephants in his triumph in 61.103

Balsdon argues that Pompey was unique in hiring a stage manager, but there is

100 Diod. 31.8.13. 101 Cic. Fam. 8.4.5 = 81.5 SB. 102 Cic. Fam. 7.1.1 = 24.1 SB. 103 Beard, The Roman Triumph, 26–28. 196 simply no evidence that can answer whether Romans usually hired people to plan their games.104 Indeed, W.D. Lebek argues that editores would have hired actors and troupes to perform whatever plays they did best instead of choosing plays individually.105

Scholars have long believed that Roman actors and playwrights were professionals, just by judging on the sheer volume of their output.106 Therefore, they needed to pander to their patrons. Likewise, the editores strove to please the tastes of the audience.107 The actors or their leaders needed to chose shows that would please the editor (or shows that would please the crowd in order to please the editor) because they relied on his support.108

The plays at the Ludi Florales of 57, the subject of a long excursus in Pro Sestio, illustrate this dynamic. It seems as if that entire event was put together to show support for Cicero and disdain for Clodius. Cicero says it was as if the actor on stage was pleading for his freedom.109 The plays included the second century drama Brutus. Clodius was used to calling Cicero Tarquin and the play confronted this attack with lines like:

“Tullius, who established safe the people’s freedom.” This was clearly a topical choice, and the audience immediately caught the significance of the line and asked for it to be repeated many times.110 Cicero claims that every play had some bearing on the present and that the actors and audience were all keen to highlight the parts of them that were

104 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 264–65. 105 Lebek, “Moneymaking on the Roman Stage,” 36. 106 Taylor, “The Opportunities for Dramatic Performances in the Time of Plautus and Terence,” 303. 107 Horsfall, The Culture of the Roman Plebs, 59. 108 Galinsky, Augustan Culture, 29–30. 109 Cic. Sest. 120. 110 Cic. Sest. 123. 197 significant to the present.111 Triumphs likewise often featured slogans spread through word of mouth meant to honor the triumphator and others written as jokes or insults.112

Plays were likely filled with similar slogans and applause lines.

Most of the lines the audience applauded at the Ludi Florales highlight Cicero’s role in the Catilinarian Conspiracy: “who with firm spirit upheld the republic…in a doubtful time he never hesitated to offer his life nor did he spare his head.”113 They applauded the line “o pater” in remembrance of Cicero’s honorary title pater patriae.114

Some lines chided the Romans for forgetting their savior. Others reminded them of the hardship Cicero had suffered in his exile and the loss of his home. Just as the proper candidate appealed to the people based on his merits, not his platform, Cicero was being presented to the people in light of the deeds he had done for them—namely preventing the destruction of the city.115 The violence of Clodius was only hinted at, and his legislative policies were never mentioned. It seems that the Roman crowds responded not to politics but to beneficia, further highlighting the use of great beneficia like ludi to further political careers.

Cheering at the games was a powerful and recognized comment on current events.

The games of 59 and the Ludi Florales of 57 furthermore, show that the audience could use the actors onstage as their mouthpiece to express particular ideas. In the first incident, given at the games Gabinius was hosting, the audience was expressing discontent with

111 Cic. Sest. 118. 112 Horsfall, The Culture of the Roman Plebs, 38, 65; Beard, The Roman Triumph, 247–49. 113 Cic. Sest. 120. 114 Cic. Sest. 121. 115 Cic. Comment. pet. 11. 198 the editor’s supporters. Indeed, the fact that the editor may have had little interest in controlling the plays that were staged means that they were that much stronger a tool of public discourse. The editor was not looking to make them meaningful, the actors might have been, but the audience certainly was. The audience could transform a hundred-year- old play about a five hundred-year-old incident into a statement of their support for a particular political figure! They looked for opportunities to use the words of the actors to express their political frustrations and support with senators literally in the middle of the exchange.

Ludi and triumphs were multimedia extravaganza that encouraged audience participation.

Actors engaged the audience by offering slogans to repeat. The soldiers marching in triumphs likewise often shouted chants to the crowd. Orators could encourage participation from their audience but it was considered beneath their dignity. There was a particular concern that a speaker avoid seeming like an actor. The memorable instances of Clodius leading a contio in insulting cheers about Pompey would have been rare.116

The elite who sat in the front of the theater had another way of demonstrating their stances at the games. Just as they competed through display as hosts, they could also make displays as audience-members. There were signals audience members could send both to the host and to other members of the audience to mark protest, favoritism, or public connections. The most powerful men in Rome were in the most conspicuous seats in the theater. Senators and, after 67, equites had reserved seating in the front of the

116 Cic. Q. Fr. 2.3.1-2; Dio 39.19.1-2; Plut. Vit. Pomp. 48.7; Tan, “Publius Clodius and the Boundaries of the Contio,” 123. 199 theater, most likely in the orchestra.117 The editor most likely had a special seat for himself and his supporters. In the Circus Maximus, for example, he would have sat above the starting gates.

People could also make themselves more conspicuous, especially by changing their outfits. Pompey, for example, received the unique distinction of wearing the toga picta and a laurel wreath at the games.118 This would have made him highly visible in the crowd and given him a good venue to show off. When the Senate donned the toga pulla during Clodius’s campaign against Cicero, they did so for the same effect.119 Pompey was allowed to display his greatness, and the Senate was displaying their displeasure. In

56, after Pompey and Crassus disrupted the elections, the Senate avoided the games altogether even after changing into mourning.120 The empty orchestra would have sent a powerful message to people used to seeing their political leaders at the games.

A further public display was association. Roman elite demonstrated connections with each other or feuds based on whom they sat with at the theater. As mentioned above,

Cicero noted that Curio distanced himself from Caesar in 59 and was well liked for doing so.121 The protests of 56 were a massive example of this. The Senate declared unanimous distaste for public business through their absence. The communication of visibility worked both ways. The crowd could use visibility just as well as the people running the show, as these examples indicate. However, this practice was limited to men in the upper

117 Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome, 260. 118 Dio 37.21.4. 119 Cic. Red. sen. 12. 120 Dio 39.28.2; 39.30.4. 121 Cic. Att. 2.19.3. 200 class trying to send messages to the general people.

For people who had no voice in the ludi, protests could turn into violent riots. 122

Sometimes the people were so dissatisfied with their lot and with the politicians that they disrupted the games in the form of a mob. This is a scenario Cicero does not mention in

Pro Sestio, yet one that is very important and prevalent. The people would disturb games in time of great need, especially in a famine. Shortly after Cicero returned from exile in

57, a crowd rushed the games then rioted at the Curia to get the Senate’s attention.123 The result of this riot was the creation of a special grain commission led by Pompey.124 The following year, a crowd rushed the Megelesian Games which Clodius was hosting. While

Cicero believed that Clodius himself had instigated the riots, it seems to be related to another shortage of grain.125 Again, the Senate quickly took action and appropriated funds for the grain commission.

These riots may have little to do with the games per se, but that ludi were targeted by multiple riots is an important fact. As symbols of excess and leisure, games made a perfect target for a hungry mob to attack. Moreover, they were intelligent targets. The riots would be highly visible and likely to be talked about. Just as an aristocrat relied on the games to bring him in front of a large audience, so did the mob. This was the ultimate form of public outcry, the last resort when the government was ineffective and when the

122 Brunt, “The Roman Mob,” 8; Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 440–42; Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80-50 B.C.), 162. 123 Dio 39.9.2. 124 Dio 39.9.3, Cic. Att. 4.1.7. 125 Cicero believed that Clodius was at the head of this disruption, but he was the Boogeyman of Roman rioting and Cicero’s enemy he should not be trusted. Har. resp. 22-26. Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 211– 12 believes that the riots were spontaneous; Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (Ca. 80-50 B.C.), 253 argues that the riots were planned by Clodius. 201 need was greatest.126 As such, the mob chose the most visible venues in the city.

On occasion, politicians would lead mobs to disrupt games hosted by their rivals.

For example, Octavian had supposedly formed a mob to disrupt the Ludi Appolinares in

44 hosted by Brutus.127 These are not equivalent to spontaneous public uprisings.128

When a political leader interrupted the games like this, it was about sending his message to the crowds gathered, or at least about preventing the editor from disseminating his.

However, as the example of the Ludi Megalenses shows, it is hard to know whether certain riots were partisan or spontaneous. Cicero claims that Clodius had formed a mob to disrupt his own games, but it is hard for a critical reader to believe that Clodius would ruin such an important occasion especially when he considers how biased Cicero was against the man.129 It is clear that riots were effective at communicating the wishes of the crowd or the people who led that crowd. Therefore, the fact that rioters often chose to target ludi is another indication of their important role in the political process. If you needed to send a message, the most appropriate venue was the games. The most powerful people in Rome would be there, and they would already be acting in public discourse.

These events were particularly destructive for the host of the games. For the same reasons that the hosts tried to maintain the support of their audience, they also needed to control the venue. By taking over the venue, rioters or political agents were attacking a large investment from the host. These demonstrations were violent ways to usurp the rightful place of the host but often necessary for frustrated and starving Romans. Similar

126 Brunt, “The Roman Mob,” 25; Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 438. 127 App. B Civ. 3.23-24. 128 Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, 440–42. 129 Cic. Har. resp. 22-26; Tatum, The Patrician Tribune, 211–12. 202 outbursts happened at speeches like the trial, mentioned above, where Clodius and Milo’s gangs shouted abuse while their opponents spoke. The incidents at games, however, were more destructive to the host and, like the games themselves, had a much larger immediate audience.

Public Opinion Politics

Games provided a sphere in which the magistrates actively tried to gain public favor and the public actively expressed their admiration or disdain. Politicians in the audience gauged the success of the editor and the cheers of the crowd and put that information to use in their careers. These forces were at work in every public event, but games and triumphs provided especially large venues unencumbered by the stuffy traditions and rhetorical contests of the contio or comitia. They were also the most unabashed attempts made by Roman politicians to gain public favor. That made them especially important to men like Cicero.

Discourse between the elite and the public were integral to Republican politics.

Even though the votes of most Romans did not amount to much, their public opinion guided politicians. Ludi are the greatest example of the importance of public support.

Promising politicians spent fortunes on these events to gather the public and display their support. Their allies and rivals used the venues to gauge his success and the public outcry as people entered the stands and as the performers presented topical material. They might even make a display of support by dressing or entering in a certain way. The people in the crowd would have done the same and they also displayed their opinions through cheering and jeering. The mere fact that politicians would spend so much money on events hosting

203 thousands of people whose vote could not possibly count in the comitia demonstrates the importance of displaying support from all Romans, not just the most politically enfranchised. Other events like contiones and court orations allowed politicians to display themselves and hear the public, but ludi were uniquely tied to campaigning and therefore to the political success of the men hosting. Ludi are where public opinion and policy intersect at a basic level as political hopefuls competed for public admiration.

Ludi and triumphs gained their position as the most significant venues for political display because of their size. They allowed the host to direct his message to the largest audiences Roman venues could handle. Those messages could include political platforms but they were focused first and foremost on the generosity of the host. Likewise, the messages sent by the audience were simple: approval and disapproval. The cheers and hisses of the audience and the conspicuous seating and dress of the elite both acted on binary, simple levels of like and dislike. These venues were designed to present simple messages unlike the rhetorical venues of the courts and the contiones. That made them useful for making simple presentations to the public and gauging clear public preferences.

204

Conclusion

This study has surveyed the ways in which Romans communicated with each other at both the highest and lowest levels of society and the ways in which Roman politicians used those communication networks to increase their reputations and advance their agendas. Roman politicians relied on “viral” news created through stage-managed events to create public support. Now that these aspects of creating and sharing news have been discussed, we can now see how they worked in action.

The Life of News in Rome

Before there is gossip or news or rumor, there is an event. Romans found all sorts of events worth sharing. Whether a man wore a towel in baths, the quality of a dinner party, the price of grain, and the newest travelling philosopher were all suitable for public gossip. This study has focused on public events like trials, contiones, and ludi. This follows the recent trend of scholarship by focusing on public communication. Unlike recent scholarship, however, these events are not the focus of study, they are the beginning.

Speeches and major events like triumphs were targeted to the audience. Most studies focus on the text and ideas evident in the speeches without discussing how the audience perceived the event on a psychological level. Discussions of contiones

205 especially focus on the cultural significance of the events and the language used without asking what, exactly, the speaker expected the audience to do upon hearing the speech.

The role of the audience is merely to be present as a display of support. This study, in contrast, views the audience as an important agent in these events. The audience was central for creating news from an event and expanding the initial audience of the event to a larger group of people informed through gossip. The host or orator, therefore, needed to plan around his audience and present his event in a way that made it possible for his audience to share a favorable account with their peers.

Regardless of whether the subject of gossip was an intimate moment or a major public spectacle, there were several paths for news to spread around the city of Rome.

The initial audience for the event is the most important for understanding how news would have spread. A man overhearing a spousal argument in his insula might share the news with his neighbors and other members of his social network through word of mouth exchanged in chance meetings. A literate Roman might make a bawdry epigram and share it at a dinner or scratch it into a wall. Literate Romans who could afford to send mail could share news with distant peers through letters. Rome’s elite almost certainly engaged in all three forms of sharing and hearing gossip.

There were a few major places where gossip could be consolidated and spread.

The most controlled space was in contiones and other events, like funerals, sanctioned by public tradition. The audience of these events was the public of Rome as an idealized whole. In actuality, the audiences of these speeches could be controlled by the host through much effort. Hosts could encourage their supporters to enter the space where the

206 contio was taking place long before the speech itself and block dissenters from entering.

They possibly trained their clients with responses and chants at salutationes before the speech was held. Just as gathering information was expensive and required much effort, so was controlling the message from a public event.

Salutationes were the next space where gossip was systematically shared. Every morning, clients were expected to gather at the entrance to their patron’s house. Some clients had long-running relationships with a specific patron. Some went to different houses every day looking for work or charity. These events often included a briefing where the patron gave a small address to all the clients gathered. These were an opportunity for a patron to share news with his clients and to ask them to spread that news throughout the city.1

The final opportunity for information to spread was at places where Romans gathered. The barber, for example, had a particularly strong reputation for spreading gossip.2 Romans rarely shaved themselves, so barbers would see many men every day from whom they could receive news and to whom they could share gossip. Other places like fountains and balneae where many people met throughout the day would have also been places to share and receive news.

News traveled in cycles in Rome from major events to the audience, from elite members of the audience to the clients, from the non-elite audience to their vici, from customers to barbers to the following customers. Public reception also became news that

1 Laurence, “Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics.” 2 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic; Rosillo-López, “Popular Public Opinion in a Nutshell: Nicknames and Non-Elite Political Culture in the Late Repblic.” 207 could be transmitted. The political elite noted the attitudes of the general public and made decisions based on what they saw. Therefore, the life of news at Rome did not end once it reached the end of the social networks of the audience, it continued with new accounts of how the news was received.

At each step of this process, opinion inserted itself into the transmission of news.

First, the original audience perceived the event through their own bias. This would often have been through the lens of Roman traditional values. Romans, for example, judged men for drunkenness or for cavorting with actors and other groups who were considered infames. The original audience would have to decide whether what they saw themselves or heard from others was worth spreading. This same process played out each time the news was spread to a new person. Each of those people then had an opportunity to insert their own opinion into the narrative.

The social norms of each person affected the way news was spread. In the example above, the event became gossip because it transgressed social norms. Gossip is often used to police social norms, and the example above is found in invective speeches like Cicero’s In toga candida and the Second Philippic. These taboos are tropes in invective because they gain their strength from how universally they are despised.3 In addition to the social norms that all Romans observed, each social group would observe their own norms. Many Romans were, for example, criticized for their luxurious lifestyle, but the growth of luxury in the late Republic shows that this moral expectation was not observed by everyone. The norms of the lower classes, in particular, are difficult to

3 Arena, “Roman Oratorical Invective.” 208 perceive except through the topics often discussed in invective.

Interest also had a large effect on what news spread through the city. Some issues like land reform or the price of grain were clearly very important to the Roman public whereas laws that banned electioneering likely received little support from them. The amount of shipping into Ostia or the size of harvests near the city would have mattered a lot to importers, grocers, and day-laborers, but less to barbers and household slaves. The hardships of the publicani in Asia were important to Cicero throughout his career but were likely not much of a concern to Romans below the equestrian class.4

Like political opinions, interests were heavily tied to the groups to which people belonged. Peer pressure had a large effect on gossip, encouraging or discouraging the spread of certain kinds of news, influencing the spin that was put on a rumor, or affecting the way a person understood news he heard. In a city like Rome, with well-defined social classes and little movement between them, one group would have received and shared a piece of news entirely differently than another. When a piece of news reached a person who did not feel the need to share it, or disagreed with it, it lost potential growth. If the message of an event failed to find a large enough audience, the effects of the event would be short-lived.

As argued in my previous two chapters, the difficulty of reaching a wide and enduring audience placed heavy pressure on Roman politicians. Oratory focused on character arguments founded on the mos maiorum instead of the political mechanics of an issue or the bare facts of a trial. Roman politicians advocated for triumphs and vied to

4 Cic. Att. 1.17, 2.16, 4.11 = 17, 36, 86 SB. 209 host games so that their names could be associated with large events that were universally admired. The motive to spread news was imbedded in Roman culture. The need to make news guided Roman political competition.

Major political decisions were the focus of immense political campaigning.

During Caesar’s consulship in 59, for example, Bibulus was writing pamphlets against his co-consul while tribunes and senators held long debates in the Senate. Caesar and

Pompey made blustering speeches to their supporters and Cicero made snide remarks in his court speeches. When Ptolemy XII Auletes asked the Romans to help him reclaim

Egypt, he began years of debate. He used his connections to target bribes to senators, public speakers proposed an extraordinary command be made, and debates in the senate led to the consultation of the Sybilline Oracles. Once Gabinius left his province to restore

Auletes illegally, the issue was re-opened in the form of a trial. Litigation, debate, and networking were all integral to the forming of policy and each step allowed politicians the opportunity to gauge public interest and support. These campaigns are, unfortunately, only known from second-hand accounts and short comments in Cicero’s letters and speeches. In order to best understand a public relations campaign, the best example is found at the end of Cicero’s career—his attempt to delegitimize Mark Antony after the death of Caesar.

Cicero against Antony

The death of Caesar created confusion in Rome. Would Caesar’s policies remain in force? What was the fate of the policies he had voiced but had not yet enacted? What would be the process for returning to elections? Would the appointments Caesar had

210 made for consul and other offices be respected? Riots broke out in the city until Mark

Antony took control of the situation and guaranteed that Caesar’s policies would remain in force. After those debates were settled, a new one emerged: how should the republic view the murder of Caesar? The Senate tried to force Antony out of a province given to him by a popular law, leading to war. Cicero worked tirelessly to stop what he considered an attack on the Republic by mobilizing his network, coordinating the response of men throughout the Mediterranean, and carrying a strong campaign through the Senate and in public to tarnish Antony’s reputation and support the men fighting against him.

Cicero’s letter collections contain 212 letters from after Caesar’s death until July

43, less than five months before Cicero’s death. Many of those letters dealt with mundane matters like Cicero’s son’s time in Athens, but most had some bearing on the political situation in Rome. Correspondents included the leaders of Caesar’s assassins, proconsuls in Gaul and Spain, and Cicero’s friend Atticus among others. Cicero also corresponded with Octavian, but those letters are now lost. 53 of the letters in the collection were written by people other than Cicero, ten of which are addressed to others than Cicero, four of which were addressed to the Senate or the Senate and People of Rome. Within the letters are, therefore, official dispatches to the Senate as well as more typical communications. Cicero also forwarded the letters of others as an important means of sharing information.

In addition to the letters that remain are the 14 Philippics Cicero delivered against

Antony between September 44 and April 43. 11 of those speeches were delivered to the

Senate and another, the second Philippic, was meant to be delivered to the Senate but was

211 redrafted as a written text. It is uncertain whether it was published in Cicero’s lifetime.

The final two, the fourth and sixth, were short speeches delivered in contiones that summarized addresses Cicero made to the Senate. The speeches, despite mostly belonging to the same genre, make use of several different techniques to advance

Cicero’s cause against Antony: invective against Antony, praise of his enemies, the proposal of senatorial decrees, and the claim of public support.

While Cicero’s campaign focused on oratory within the Senate and networking with his peers, the evidence from him and other ancient sources reveals that other politicians were creating public campaigns using different techniques. Antony addressed the public far more than Cicero in addition to being active in the Senate before he left

Rome in October 44. M. Brutus hoped to use the Ludi Apollinares to gather support among the Roman public but Octavian tried to sabotage the event by bribing attendees to support him instead. Gaining the support of Caesar’s veterans was a strategy central to both Antony and Octavian. Using the legitimacy of office was central to M. Brutus and

Cassius. Each person adopted different strategies to promote their interests.

Cicero’s immediate response to the aftermath of the assassination was to flee

Rome. He was sympathetic to the conspirators, but he had not had a leading role in politics since the Civil War. In August, Cicero decided to turn back to Rome and support

Brutus and Cassius using his status as a former consul to influence the Senate. In the speeches he made to the Senate he adopted many of the strategies he used against

Catiline, the most notable being the rhetoric of crisis: Cicero’s Philippics eliminate any

212 middle ground between Antony and supporters of the republic.5 By creating a stark dichotomy, Cicero could use the negative values he attributed to Antony and his actions to shame his supporters while using universally admired values to define his own supporters. Where Brutus fought for liberty, Antony fought for tyranny. He divided all of

Rome into two camps. He shamed the supporters of Antony, even those in the Senate, like Calenus.6

Cicero presented Antony as a hostis: an enemy of the state. In order to label

Antony as such he had to distance him from Caesar. This was accomplished in the first two Philippics by accusing Antony and his supporter, Dolabella, of disrespecting

Caesar’s legacy by using his will as an excuse to declare whatever laws they wanted.

Cicero also claims that Antony’s approach to Caesar’s laws contradicted many of the laws Caesar passed before he died.7 Sympathy for Caesar was the dominant mood in

Rome, and as long as Antony was seen as acting on the wishes of Caesar, Cicero would have a hard time convincing the public that he was a hostis.

Cicero also needed to assure his audience that the public was on their side. Riots erupted in Rome immediately after Caesar’s murder and much of the ire was focused on his killers. Brutus and Cassius both fled the city shortly after the assassination. After he delivered the First Philippic, Cicero told Cassius that his relatives were unable to leave their house for fear of the crowds.8 In contrast, his address to the Senate, Cicero cited

5 Frisch, Cicero’s Fight for the Republic; the Historical Background of Cicero’s Philippics; Cape, Jr., “Cicero’s Consular Speeches”; Hall, “The Philippics.” 6 Cic. Phil. 8.11-13, 10. 3-6. 7 Cic. Phil. 1.18-19. 8 Cic. Fam. 12.2 = 344 SB. 213 numerous examples of public support for the conspirators, notably cheers for Cassius’s brother at Brutus’s Ludi Appolinares.9 Cicero often claimed public support in his

Philippics. Cicero claims that the audiences for his two Philippics delivered in contiones were larger and more united than any he had ever seen.10 He also describes the unanimous will of the people to the Senate on numerous occasions.11 By mid-January 43

(after delivering his Sixth Philippic) Cicero wrote both Plancus and D. Brutus to tell them that Antony was unpopular.12

Cicero was almost certainly exaggerating the public support for his side, particularly in the early Philippics. As mentioned above, the accounts in the First

Philippic are contradicted in one of Cicero’s letters. The examples he used in that speech, like the Ludi Apollinares, happened two months before he delivered it. Furthermore, one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus reveals that Brutus, at least, felt that the Ludi Apollinares were a failure.13 Cicero had a clear strategy to grow his public support from those uncertain points.

First, beginning with the Third Philippic, delivered on December 20, Cicero had a clear example he could use that showed Antony seemingly threatening Rome with violence. Antony had left Rome in October for Brundisium to meet with legions arriving from Macedonia. He returned to Rome with those soldiers in late November on his was to his province, Cisalpine Gaul. He then established a siege of D. Brutus at Mutina.

9 Cic. Att. 14.2 = 356 SB, Phil. 1.36-37. 10 Cic. Phil. 4.1, 4.8, 6.18. 11 Cic. Phil. 5.2, 7.22-23, 8.8, 10.18, 12.8, 14.12-13. 12 Cic. Fam. 10.5 = 359 SB, 11.8 = 360 SB. 13 Cic. Att. 16.5.3 = 410.3 SB. 214

Meanwhile, Octavian had gathered an army of Caesar’s veterans in Campania and marched them to Rome to “defend” the city from Antony’s army.14 Octavian’s claim was further strengthened by two legions’ leaving Antony’s army to join his. These events gave Cicero an example of Antony’s violence and a sign that the all-important veterans were not in unanimous support of Antony.

Second, Cicero began to use the Senate to magnify his message. His goal in the

Third Philippic was to persuade the Senate to declare Antony a hostis. This ultimately failed, but he was able to pass a resolution that stripped Antony of his province and maintained D. Brutus’s governorship of Cisalpine Gaul. The resolution also honored

Octavian and the legions who left Antony’s army.15 In his speech to the public following that meeting of the Senate, Cicero argued that those resolutions essentially made Antony into a hostis despite the fact that the Senate had not officially said as much.16 He continued to strengthen that argument in following speeches. In the Fifth Philippic he successfully argued that Octavian should be made propraetor.17 In the Eighth Philippic,

Cicero argued that the Senate should declare anyone who joined Antony a hostis.18 He also argued that the tumultus the Senate had declared the previous day was tantamount to a declaration of war and that they should eliminate the difference just as the Fourth

Philippic argued that Antony was a hostis in fact even if not in law.19 Cicero also proposed that an envoy who died on his way to Antony be given a large monument and

14 Cic. Phil. 3.3-7, 3.19-27. Cicero describes Octavian’s actions in Att. 16.8 = 418 SB. 15 Cic. Phil. 3.37-39. 16 Cic. Phil. 4.1-2. 17 Cic. Phil. 5.45. 18 Cic. Phil. 8.33. 19 Cic. Phil. 8.2-6. 215 statue, that Dolabella (tied to Antony in the first two Philippics) be made a hostis after murdering one of Caesar’s assassins, and argued that the Senate support M. Brutus and

Cassius at all points.20

Finally, Cicero needed the Senate to show a united front against Antony. This concern is highlighted whenever the Senate debated sending envoys to Antony. As mentioned above, Cicero’s arguments depended on forcing a sharp divide between

Antony and his enemies. Any sign that the Senate was willing to work with Antony broke the illusion that Antony was irredeemably wrong. Therefore, when discussing the envoys in the Senate, Cicero warns that the public will see them as acquiescent to Antony and that they will discourage the soldiers fighting against Antony.21 In contrast, Cicero tells the public that envoys were a clear sign of war.22

These three approaches allowed Cicero to craft a coherent argument against

Antony that could appeal to several portions of the population. By focusing on a simple argument—that Antony was a hostis—he could avoid debates about the legacy of Caesar or the needs of the veterans. By honoring just about every military commander but

Antony, Cicero could show how alienated Antony was from the rest of Rome. By honoring Caesar’s legates Lepidus and Plancus, Cicero could show that his campaign was not against Caesar but Antony specifically.23 He worked hard to secure the support of

Caesar’s legates in his correspondence.24 In addition to the dichotomy Cicero created, this

20 Cic. Phil. 9.15, 11.15, 10.25, 11.29-31. 21 Cic. Phil. 5.26, 7.14, 12.7-8. 22 Cic. Phil. 6.4. 23 Lepidus: Cic. Phil. 5.40-41, 13.7-14. Plancus: Cic. Phil. 3.38. 24 Lepidus: Cic. Fam. 10.27 = 369 SB, 10.34 = 396 SB, 10.34A = 400 SB. Plancus: Cic. Fam. 10.6 = 370 SB, 10.13 = 389 SB. 216 focused argument would be easy for audiences to understand and share. The stark contrast between Antony and Cicero’s supporters was demonstrated clearly. The fact that

Cicero was so consistent for such a long period would have further aided the spread of his narrative.

One audience proved harder for Cicero to reach, the most important of all,

Caesar’s veterans. As mentioned above, Caesar’s veterans were the focus of Antony’s efforts shortly after the death of Caesar and Octavian’s by October.25 Antony did this through his support of Caesar’s acts and he gave contiones and published edicts before leaving Rome.26 He maintained his support by creating his own dichotomy along the lines of the Civil War. His letter to the Senate referred to his enemies solely as “Pompeians.”27

In addition, Antony was writing pamphlets while he was at Mutina.28 Octavian, for his part, focused on the veterans in Campania and used bribery to secure their support. He also attempted to have Antony killed, which would have simplified his appeal to Caesar’s veterans.29

Cicero indicates that the veterans weighed heavily on the Senate as well. He often focused on the actions of Octavian and the legions that joined him as a way to demonstrate veteran support. This also explains why it was so important to maintain the support of Lepidus, Hirtius, Pansa, and other former officers of Caesar. As long as large groups of Caesar’s veterans stood against Antony, Cicero could use them as a display of

25 Cic. Att. 14.21 = 375 SB, 16.8 = 418 SB. 26 Cic. Fam. 12.23 = 347 SB, Phil. 1.16, 3.18. 27 Cic. Phil. 13. 28 Cic. Phil. 13.19. 29 Cic. Fam. 12.23 = 347 SB. 217 support for his side (according to the dichotomy he presented). Nonetheless, the question of the veterans continued to be important. Calenus, Cicero’s largest detractor in the

Senate, brought up the veterans multiple times. It seems that Cicero did not have much support from them and Calenus was using the spiral of silence against Cicero and his supporters.30 Cicero’s responses to him highlight Octavian and use the “no true

Scotsman” argument to diminish Antony’s supporters.31 Cicero was dismissive of veterans, going so far as to say that the Senate should focus on doing what is right, not on gaining the support of veterans.32 Ultimately the veterans would decide the war, refusing to join D. Brutus after Mutina and mutinying against Lepidus to join Antony.33

Crafting a message for a large audience was a skill that was in high demand in ancient Rome. Cicero’s approach to Mark Antony was designed to use his best skill, oratory, to appeal to the largest audience possible. Other actors after the death of Caesar similarly focused on their greatest appeal. Antony focused on his close relationship with

Caesar and the veterans and his position as consul to guide the Senate towards passing

Caesar’s legislation. Octavian focused on his adopted parentage and used money from his inheritance to bribe people against Brutus and into his army. M. Brutus used his position as urban praetor to host Ludi Apollinaries designed as a display of support. He then used the imperium from that office to gather an army in Macedonia.

These various approaches focused on different audiences. Cicero focused on the

Senate and, to a lesser extent, the amorphous “public.” M. Brutus, before being run out of

30 Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral of Silence. 31 Cic. Phil. 10.15-16, 11.37. 32 Cic. Phil. 10.18. 33 Cic. Fam. 10.35 = 408 SB, ad Brut. 1.10 = 17 SB. 218 town, had hoped to appeal to a large audience at his games. Antony and Octavian were both highly focused on Caesar’s veterans. Appealing to every person in Rome was impossible. Despite his best efforts, Cicero was unable to capture the support of the armed masses who mattered most of all.

Public Communication in Rome

Mark Antony, according to Cicero, was a poor orator.34 Nevertheless, he was able to gain a large following in Rome, especially among Caesar’s veterans. This example proves how limited oratory was for popular success. Antony did not rely on oratory to gain public support. His relation to Caesar and his reputation were far more important.

More important than that was the network of military connections he had formed over more than a decade of service under Caesar. The public relationships that extended his reputation and the military relationships that granted him the power of force led to his success after Caesar’s murder.

As I hope I have shown, these networks mattered far more in Roman politics than public displays. In fact, public displays were simply a way for politicians to activate those networks to spread a message. Each individual within those networks then spread that message on his or her own terms. That made it necessary to either target specific groups or to make a universal appeal. Antony and Octavian did the former by focusing on the veterans. Brutus had hoped to do the latter through public addresses and displays at the

Ludi Apollinares. Cicero did the latter by making a sharp dichotomy between Antony and his supporters and vilifying Antony on terms that would make him inimical to all Roman

34 Cic. Phil. 2.42-43. 219 tradition.

In more general terms, the need to either make general appeals or to target specific audiences defined the way politicians campaigned and interacted with the public.

Public speaking, for example, was not good for general appeals. First, deliberative and forensic speeches were necessarily divisive. Orators needed to present one side of an issue and thus would have alienated the part of the audience predisposed to the opposite side. This was countered by appeals to basic Roman morality. By focusing arguments on invective or on “ideologically monotonous” themes like libertas and the mos maiorum, orators could appeal beyond the interests of their supporters. When relying on invective, of course, orators would alienate the supporters of their target. Events like games and triumphs allowed their hosts to make large public appeals without the divisive nature of oratory.

Appealing to a specific audience was simpler. Romans often did this among their own social networks. Some politicians, like Clodius, were able to form large blocs of support mobilized through networking. Pompey, in addition, was able to call on his veterans to support legislation in 59, 55, and 52. Catiline may have used a similar approach with his infamous campaign speech that focused on debt forgiveness. Many of his proposals focused on formerly powerful men who were riddled with debt and politically frustrated.

Once those appeals were made, politicians then had to gauge their success. Cicero made several appeals to public opinion in the Philippics.35 The Senate did not want to act

35 Cic. Phil. 1.36-37, 3.32, 4.1, 5.2, 5.23-24, 6.18, 7.14, 7.21-22, 8.8, 10.8, 10.16, 11.37, 12.7-8, 14.12-13. 220 outside of public demand (they had the example of a praetor being run out of the city, after all), so public support defined the options available to them. When Cicero was able to display public support, the Senate was in a safer position to support him. When he was unable to demonstrate that support or when Calenus or others could argue that the veterans were against Cicero, the Senate had less options to support Cicero.

Again, these observations hold true at other points in Roman politics. The fact that there were so few laws that failed popular vote might show that politicians withdrew legislation or never went so far as to propose it if they were not confident in support.

Cicero noted public opinion in many of his letters and speeches, even in forensic speeches where public opinion was not directly important.36 Since triumphs were events where a large and supportive audience could be gathered, commanders would do whatever was necessary to receive them including starting spurious wars. Lucullus was frustrated that he was not voted a triumph for his war against Mithridates that he refused to enter the city for years. With the decline of triumphs in the late Republic, games became increasingly important, leading to incredible debt and a change in the Roman landscape once permanent theaters were built.

These processes relied on a robust information economy in Rome. Like many aspects of Roman culture, the exchange of information was reciprocal. Both elite and non-elite Romans exchanged gossip as a meaningful contribution to a personal relationship. Rome’s elite were members of a large network that met often in controlled circumstances and had the means to gather information in a systematic way. In contrast,

36 Rosillo-López, Public Opinion and Politics in the Late Roman Republic, 204–18. 221

Rome’s masses relied more on chance to receive any single piece of news. As they traveled around the city for business or pleasure they would encounter other people and exchange pleasantries and information.

The physical space of Rome made it difficult for information to spread throughout the city but was not prohibitive. The fact that it was possible for information to permeate through the city is clear by studying the behavior of the elite in reverse. Why else would

Cicero find public opinion important? Why else would public events be worth spending so much time and money on? In addition, the movement of men and women through the city would have opened otherwise segregated neighborhoods up to the events happening in other parts of the city. Allusions of political interest in Roman comedy and poetry and the survival of graffiti and non-elite nicknames for specific politicians also reveal the interest of the masses in political gossip.37

Gossip Beyond Rome and the Republic

This study has focused on the city of Rome and the people within it during the late Republic, but the conclusions are relevant to people outside the environs of the city.

As mentioned in previous chapters, the elite maintained social contacts and living spaces throughout Italy, not just near Rome. Some even stayed abroad. Atticus, for example, was often in Epirus. Events like Cicero’s restoration and the campaign against Tiberius

Gracchus show a network of connections that expand into the countryside and draw rural voters into the city to outvote urban voters.

The economic ties discussed in the second chapter expanded far beyond the city

37 Rosillo-López, “Popular Public Opinion in a Nutshell: Nicknames and Non-Elite Political Culture in the Late Repblic.” 222 of Rome. Traders from throughout the Mediterranean would import and export goods through Rome. Glass, grain, olive oil, wine, building materials, precious art, and all sorts of groceries and animal products made their way into and out of the city every day. These artifacts were manifestations of trade networks that no doubt also carried gossip and cultural norms.

Spreading information outside of Rome worked the same as spreading information between neighborhoods in Rome. There would be “weak ties” that joined different communities to Rome. These could be senators acting as patrons of Italian cities, hospes that linked senators to foreign towns, or shippers who traded goods from different parts of the empire. These networks were more strained than those in Rome, however. First, the distance between Rome and other communities made the spread of information slower and it took more effort. Second, most regions of the empire would have been even more segregated from Rome than Roman vici were to each other.

Imports, for example, would have come from Rome only through major ports. For information to reach a person inland in Spain, for example, it would first have to go through someone sailing from Ostia, to someone in the nearest port, to someone from his village. Each of those steps might involve information spreading through multiple people.

People outside of Rome also had little ability to act on information they received from the city so it’s likely they did not take a great interest in it. This is directly related to the amount of time necessary for information to spread in antiquity. In order to ensure

Italian votes in an election it had to be impeccably timed. The vote to restore Cicero, for example, was scheduled to run at the same time as a major religious festival. More

223 commonly, votes were set after a relatively short window of three market days (about 24 days) after a proposal was announced, giving little time for most Italians to participate. In

April 44, Cicero spent nine days travelling from Rome to Puteoli, a distance of about 240 km.38 Even more vexing, votes could be canceled a rescheduled on short notice.

Therefore, the public pressure that people outside of Rome could exert on politics would have been minimal.

Word of mouth communication and public interest in politics did not end with the

Republic. Emperors used ludi to gauge public opinion just like Cicero did. They dealt with rumor and relied on their public image and reputation. It is no accident that the emperor controlled all major events in the city: that ensured that only he could “hold the megaphone” to reach large audiences.

The public was active in spreading rumors about their leaders. Suetonius, for example, relishes in sharing graffiti and bawdry couplets about Nero.39 The rumor that

Nero survived his assassination attempt and went on to lead a revolt in the East surely did not stem from Rome’s educated elite and is thus a great example of plebian rumor- mongering. The fact that such a rumor survived for decades shows how pervasive it was.

The plebs also placed flowers on his grave.40

The largest change under the Empire was further integrating the neighborhoods of

Rome and the regions outside of Rome. By dividing Rome into fourteen wards, Augustus helped centralize services and bring vici together using common needs. The

38 Cic. Att. 14.2-14.9 = 356-363 SB. 39 Suet. Ner. 39.2-3. 40 Suet. Ner. 57.1-2. 224 reconstruction of Rome after the great fire opened up the streets and likely helped mitigate the isolation of certain vici by improving the roads that ran through the city.

Major venues like the Theater of Marcellus, the Coliseum, and the imperial thermae along with the regularity of major spectacles like gladiator games created places and opportunities for Romans to gather from throughout the city.

Rome’s connection to Italy and the provinces was also strengthened. Investment in roads throughout the empire made travelling over land easier than ever. The imperial mail made it possible for official business to travel very quickly by horse relay. Forts on the frontiers created nodes linked to the center of Rome in faraway places. The reorganization of provinces under Augustus and Agrippa solved many of the issues

Cicero had when he governed Cilicia. Governors no longer had to rely on personal connections with their predecessors, now they had a well-organized bureaucracy.

Public opinion was always on the minds of Rome’s most active politicians. Public events like contiones or even walking through the city were managed to maintain and spread an image of a politician. These practices took advantage of an active network of gossip in the city of Rome. Roman political discourse was a viral discourse that relied on people spreading information to keep it active. While news did not always saturate the entire population of Rome, even a small portion of Romans would be enough to see a political program through so long as the message was spreading.

The example of Roman public manipulation did not end with the collapse of the

Roman state. The idea of luring the public into servitude with “bread and circuses” is as relevant today as it was to Juvenal and Tacitus but opinion is measured and manipulated

225 in different ways. Where modern marketers and politicians use targeted advertisements and take advantage of well-defined communities, Roman politicians could only rely on the power of the human voice and physical presence. Targeted messaging works now because social and information networks around the world have been integrated by technology. Therefore, despite purposefully alienating parts of their audience, advertisers can still saturate a large portion of a population. Romans, on the other hand, worked in a relatively segregated community and focused on developing a message that was popular enough to gain traction. Instead of targeting messages to the most interested audience, they generalized and often relied on aspects of public life that were not directly political like social behavior and generosity.

Gossip drove much of Roman culture and politics. Sharing news by word-of- mouth is the social media that humans have always had. It was the most massive media available to humans until the invention of the printing press. Rumors could raise armies, bring down empires, and create media to last forever. Gossip allowed Romans a chance to play a major role in public life. They chose, completely on their own terms, which rumors to believe, spread, and spin. They were the media of the ancient world.

226

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