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Imagining Monarchy in the Roman Republic by Jaclyn Ivy Neel A

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Imagining Monarchy in the Roman Republic by Jaclyn Ivy Neel A Creative History, Political Reality: Imagining Monarchy in the Roman Republic by Jaclyn Ivy Neel A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Department of Classics, University of Toronto © Copyright by Jaclyn Ivy Neel, 2012 Creative History, Political Reality: Imagining Monarchy in the Roman Republic by Jaclyn Ivy Neel Doctor of Philosophy Department of Classics, University of Toronto 2012 This dissertation discusses the interaction of mythology and power in the Roman Republic and early Principate. It identifies a mythological paradigm that has not been recognized in previous scholarship ("pairs") and traces the use of this paradigm by Roman writers of the second and first centuries BCE. It argues that pair stories problematize the relationship between Roman elite ambition and the Republic's political ideals of equality and cooperation among magistrates. It further argues that these stories evolve over the course of the two centuries under discussion, from tales that are relatively optimistic about the potential of reconciling the tension between individual ambition and elite collegiality to tales that are extremely pessimistic. This evolution is tied to the political turmoil visible at Rome in this period. Several stories are identified as pair stories. The first and most well-attested is the foundation myth of the city, which is discussed at length in chapters two through six. In chapters seven and eight, the pattern is established through the analysis of Amulius and Numitor, Brutus and Collatinus, and the men known as affectatores regni. The historical development of these tales is discussed as thoroughly as possible. The argument throughout is that narratives from second-century writers depict pairs as representatives of productive rivalry. This rivalry encourages the elite to achieve beneficial results for the city, and can be set aside for the public good. Such depictions become less prevalent by the later first century, when the pair narratives instead tend to illustrate destructive competition. This destruction must be understood in the context of its times; the third quarter of the first century BCE saw the establishment of Rome's first monarchy in centuries. It is under the Principate that the tales again become clearly different: competition disappears. Soon afterwards, so does the use of these stories as a tool to think with. ii Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Pairs: Setting the Stage 9 2. The Second Century 46 3. The Late Republic 73 4. Ritual Evidence 108 5. Artistic Evidence 132 6. The Augustan Age 147 7. Amulius and Numitor, Brutus and Collatinus 175 8. The Affectatores Regni 203 Conclusion 229 Bibliography 232 Figures 253 iii List of Figures All photos were taken by the author. The figures can be found following the bibliography and are not paginated. 1. Denarius depicting the discovery of the twins. RRC 235/1c; 137 BCE. 2. Basilica Aemilia, battle scene. 3. Basilica Aemilia, Sabine women. 4. Statilii fresco. Exposure of twins. 5. Statilii fresco. Young shepherds. 6. Statilii fresco. Detail of shepherds. 7. Ara Pacis. 8. Ara Pacis. Detail of she-wolf and twins. iv Introduction The century and a half of turmoil between the end of the Third Punic War and the Augustan era led to many political changes in Rome. The most radical change of this period was the dissolution of the Republican political system and the oligarchic ideals it espoused. In my thesis, I examine the changing accounts of the city's legendary past in relation to these developments and argue that some of these narratives reflect the power dynamics between members of the Roman elite. Because there are many stories about early Rome, I have isolated several that follow a similar narrative arc; I call this pattern 'pairing', and will explain its characteristic features briefly below and more fully in chapter one. Legends with this basic pattern undergo a dramatic shift over time. By tracing the evolution of these legends diachronically, I argue that these shifts represent a major change in Roman elite conceptions of power relationships among their peers. The pervasiveness of any political ideas among the Roman elite deserves a brief comment. My argument is, by necessity, based largely on literary texts. The authors of these texts, while all members of a broadly-defined leisure class, were rarely identical to the men whose deeds drove political processes at Rome. In my thesis, I assume that our surviving authors were aware of the social values held by this political elite, and that their works react to these values.1 As outsiders of high social standing were encouraged to attempt to join a higher social stratum, it seems plausible that they had at least enough knowledge to emulate, perpetuate, and comment upon the behavior of these higher-status individuals. When I refer to 'the elite', it is with this in mind; I am aware, however, that the responses and attitudes of this political elite are potentially different from what survives in our sources, and that the most 1. This is argued in more detail below, p. 41-3. 1 powerful men in Rome would not equate their own standing with that of our surviving authors. Historiographical and anthropological work on the retelling of history has shown that accounts of legendary history are constructed to reaffirm core values and solidify group belonging.2 Matthew Fox, for example, has argued that first-century BCE accounts of the regal period have a "tendency towards the optimistic representation of Rome," although this optimism is achieved differently in different authors.3 I suggest instead that these stories reflect the problems inherent in the sharing of power, which is usually considered the heart of the Republican political system. In narratives dating to the second century BCE, elite cooperation is emphasized. In contrast, accounts of early Rome that were written in the triumviral era indicate that the competitive collegiality of the upper classes damaged the city instead of helping it. I argue that in this regard the Romans' interpretation of their own past is driven by contemporary strife. Through an assessment of the historical development of foundation legends in light of the political changes of the last two centuries BCE, I argue that the emphasis and moral value placed on these legends changed over the course of this period. This change is most visible in the often-retold account of the city's founders, Romulus and Remus, but can also be detected in other legends about the early Republic. These legends display an increasing degree of tension between normative Republican virtues and the ideology of aristocratic ambition. Members of the senatorial elite, through the exempla of their ancestors, were both reminded of the great deeds of the past and challenged to surpass them.4 By the first century, this 2. The bibliography on the creation and significance of legendary history is now vast. The standard work on the intersection of legends and oral history is still Vansina 1985. This has now been supplemented by more recent work on cultural memory; see the works discussed below, p. 24-5 and 40-2. This is a broad trend; see also e.g. Birth 2006 and White 2006, stressing the creation of group unity. 3. Fox 1996:234; he suggests that Livy, for example, achieves this optimistic view by largely ignoring the regal period (p. 99-112), while Dionysius is more teleological (p. 59-71). 4. See e.g. Hölscher 2004a (on monuments); Itgenshorst 2004, esp. p. 457-8 (on the triumph); Flower 1996 (on 2 escalation of competition for military glory and political auctoritas brought contemporary politicians into conflict with the collaborative ideals of Republican government; to increase their service to the state beyond what had already been accomplished, men of distinguished families increasingly needed to take on positions of otherwise exceptional power. The tension between such exceptional offices and the mos maiorum is, I argue, apparent in historical representations of the city's earliest past. This is not to say that historians such as Livy completely invented history by retrojecting contemporary concerns into the past.5 Instead, their accounts of history focused on the issues that were most important in their own day: the problem of reconciling their government with the increasing dominance of individuals. Roman narratives accomplish this through a re-examination of competition between individuals in accounts of the foundation and early years of the city. Although in Ennius' day such competition was depicted positively, by Livy's day the competitive collegiality of the upper classes could damage the city instead of helping it. I suggest that the choices of Livy and other roughly contemporary authors to retell particular versions of a narrative is based on the damaging competition of the late first century BCE. This represents a change from earlier versions of the same legends, in which conflict, when present, is beneficial to the state. I examine the changing significance of political competition through the lens of a discursive pattern that I call 'pairing'. The pair pattern sets up an opposition between two equals in the Roman elite sphere. These men vie with each other to become the most politically authoritative figure in the city, a goal that was culturally impressed upon Romans from a young age. The tension between these rivals reaches a peak when one of them is the funeral). 5. For this position, see e.g. Gutberlet 1985 and as far back as Staveley 1953, both on Livy; similarly, Alföldi 1965 on Fabius Pictor. 3 forced out of the city, either by exile or death. I argue that this discourse problematizes the ideal of shared power. Over the course of the last two centuries BCE, increasing individual dominance is shown to be problematic via the changing variants of these legendary narratives.
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