University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2014-03-26 Pietas: Gods, Family, Homeland, Empire Natali, Bryan Natali, B. (2014). Pietas: Gods, Family, Homeland, Empire (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27358 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1393 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF! CALGARY! ! ! ! ! ! ! Pietas: Gods, Family,! Homeland, Empire! ! ! by!! ! ! Bryan !Natali! ! ! ! A THESIS ! SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES! IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ! DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY! ! ! ! ! ! DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES! CALGARY, ALBERTA! March, 2014! ! ! ! © Bryan Natali 2014" ABSTRACT! !This dissertation explores the Roman idea of pietas in the late 1st century BC. It concentrates on the development of the idea from a marker of familial and religious responsibilities to its usage as a political tool of the late Roman Republic. The work examines the philosophical writings and letters of Cicero, the histories of Appian and Cassius Dio, and the Latin poetry of the late Republic and early principate. I will argue that pietas functions on a basis of gratitude which prompts obligation and reciprocal duty. These characteristics will be shown to be the basis of Roman familial and political relationships. Cicero’s philosophical writings on the term will be compared to his personal letters to show the distinction between the ideal of pietas and its actual, pragmatic usage at the end of the Roman Republic. In turn, pietas will then be shown to be a tool used by those who had a hand in the reordering of the Roman state. Those who sought to advance their own claims to power utilized pietas as an articulation of the mutual debts shared between leaders and subordinates. This was done within the framework of traditional Roman views of the obligations and duties inherent in their relationships. This language of mutual responsibility characterizes the Roman understanding of pietas. This ancillary language of debt and reciprocity, obligation and responsibility signifies expressions of pietas. Both the Latin and Greek terms associated with pietas show that it maintained a fixed set of principles but nevertheless came to be used to a variety of ends. Finally, I will turn to the poets of the end of the 1st century BC to show the use of pietas as an expression of a complicated set of principles important to the Augustans. Pietas was used to define a justification for the new principate after the civil wars. This principate was represented by these poets as underpinned by a #ii traditional relationship among the gods, family and the state. These relationships, despite their new political context, were still governed by traditional Roman religious and familial notions of mutual obligation and pietas. " #iii Acknowledgments! ! !A large debt of gratitude goes to the Department of Greek and Roman Studies. I would specifically like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Hanne-Sigismund Nielsen, whose guidance made this work possible. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Toohey, whose suggestions and advice have been invaluable. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee: Dr. Reyes Bertolin, Dr. Kenneth Brown, and Dr. Christopher Epplett.! Many thanks go to my family, without whom none of this would be possible. It was because of your encouragement and faith in me that I have been able to accomplish this.! ! ! ! ! ! ! #iv ! Introduction! 1! Pietas: Traditional Understanding! 6! Expectations and the Complete LIfe! 10! Pietas, the Paterfamilias and Familial Relations! 14! Pietas and the Political Climate in Late-Republican and Early Imperial Rome!17! Chapter 1: Cicero and Pietas! 31! Pietas and Gratitude! 33! Pietas and the Divine! 38! Pietas, Roman Dominion and Justice: Hellenistic Ideas ! 44! Pietas as Condensation Symbol: Radiating Outwards from Family to all Aspects of Society! 47! Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares! 49! Pietas and the Absent Represented at Rome! 61! Dolabella’s Advice to Cicero! 67! The Potency of Pietas as Recognized by Caesar! 70! Pietas and the Republic! 72! Pietas in the Period after Caesar’s Death! 80! Chapter 2: Between the Ides and the Triumvirate! 87! Pietas in the Lead-up to Mutina! 104! Cicero and Plancus: Patria and Paternalism! 123! Antonian Obligations to the State and the People! 157! The ‘Anti-Philippics’! 160! Piso and Antony’s Defense! 164! Octavian and the Senate’s ‘Ingratitude’ ! 171! Octavian’s Consulship Pietatis! 174! #v The Lex Pedia and the Violence of Pietas! 178! Chapter 3: Sextus Pompeius and the Dilemma of Pietas! 186! The ‘Cursus’ of Sextus Pompeius! 191! The “Public Relations” Problem of Pietas! 195! Poetry and Propaganda! 202! The Pompeian Point-of-View! 207! Chapter 4: Vergil, Ovid and Augustan Pietas! 215! Infelix Dido, Nunc Te Facta Impia Tangunt?: Putting Dido in her Political Context! 227! Conclusions! 253! Bibliography ! 258! #vi #1 Introduction! !My main purpose in this work is to study the expression of the idea of pietas and the nature of its connectedness with political developments of the late Roman Republic. The intention is to show the means by which an indigenous Roman religious concept with roots in religion and the family came to function as a political tool. The nature and characteristics of pietas will be shown to be marked by obligation and reciprocal duty in keeping with Roman pragmatism. This is distinguished from any abstract religious ideal.1 A deeply pragmatic aspect will then be demonstrated to be the defining characteristic of pietas. For it fosters relationships based on mutual duty and responsibility which permeated all strata of Roman society. The common underlying virtues of which pietas is comprised may be seen as cultural and social concepts of the greatest relevance. Pietas encompasses dutiful devotion towards family, state and gods and stands in the Roman conception of it as the chief virtue from which all others stem. Consequently, this term encapsulates a number of connotations which render it a symbol emblematic of an entire age and one denoted by a complex set of signifiers.2 ! !The idea is informed by Hellenistic philosophy and its product humanitas, whereas the basis of the understanding of pietas is found in Roman religion. This religious understanding is shown to be the reason for Roman supremacy. The relationship to the gods is considered by the Romans the greatest advantage they 1# Wagenvoort 1947, 142 ; Traina (1983, 93) as “eccessivo.” Cf. Fugier, 1963, 380 n. 28: G. Royen sees the origins of pietas as existing in relationships of mutual respect between individuals whereas Wagenvoort places the religious function of pietas above all other considerations. #2 Traina, 97 “But pietas is not only a lexeme or concept: it is a manner of comportment, which can be described without being denoted or it can be denoted by semantic equivalents.” #2 possess in relation to other peoples. This virtue maintains the proper relationship to the gods and guarantees the continuance of the state. Its basis affected the understanding of the relationship between man and gods and among individual Romans themselves. ! !With the acceptance of the clupeus virtutum, Augustus enshrined pietas as one of the most valued virtues in the Augustan mindset.3 It will be the purpose of this study to examine the underpinnings of such a monumental term and to examine the foundations of it to be found in the sociological, cultural, historical and literary expressions surrounding pietas as well as in the related vocabulary that signifies its expression. I will use this work to show the foundations of the term and to display that it did not function as an abstract philosophical ideal but was inherently tied to action. The period after the post-Sullan restoration, up until the final victories of Octavian, which extinguished all competing claims to pietas by his rivals, provide the richest material from which to discern the meaning of pietas to Romans and the inter-play between a societal ideal and political reality.4 ! 3# Res Gestae Divi Augusti 34: clupeusque aureus in curia Iulia positus, quem mihi senatum populumque !Romanum dare virtutis clementiae iustitiae pietatis caussa testatum est per eius clúpei inscriptionem.! ὅ$%&' () *+,-&ῦ' ἐ' τῶ1 2&,%),(3+451 ἀ'7()8ὲ' ὑ$; () τῆ= -,'>%?(&, >7ὶ (&ῦ A?B&, τῶ' !Ῥ5B745' A1ὰ τῆ= ἐ$1E+7Fῆ= ἀ+)τὴ' >7ὶ ἐ$)4>)17' >7ὶ A1>71&-H'3' >7ὶ εὐσέβειαν ἐB&ὶ B7+(,+)ῖ.! “a golden shield was placed in the Curia Julia whose inscription testified that the senate and the Roman !people gave me this in recognition of my valour, my clemency, my justice, and my pietas.”! The bilingual Res Gestae provides the Greek approximation of the term pietas, )ὐ-K2)17, which is important in the later histories of Appian and Cassius Dio, who relate the period before the principate of Augustus and shed much light on the cultural contexts surrounding the term as it comes to be associated with historical events and the rationales surrounding them. #4 The scope of this study will roughly cover the 40 years between Cicero’s valuable studies on the subject of inter-personal relationships and ethical behaviour and the final defeat of Antony by Octavian. #3 !The channels of communication used to convey the Roman understanding of the concept include the following: funerary epitaphs and legal texts; the legal speeches, philosophical writings and the personal correspondence of Cicero; and the histories relating the period before the rise of the Augustan principate.