FACTIONAL COMPETITION AND MONUMENTAL CONSTRUCTION IN MID-REPUBLICAN ROME by John D. Muccigrosso A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Classical Studies) in The University of Michigan 1998 Doctoral Committee: Professor David S. Potter, chair Professor Bruce W. Frier Professor Rudi Lindner Professor John Pedley John D. Muccigrosso © All Rights Reserved 1998 For Christine, Sabina and Dante ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First to my wife, Christine, I cannot express sufficient gratitude for having endured my seemingly endless studenthood, poverty, late nights, and especially the last year of work on my dissertation. Our children, Sabina and Dante, have been a continual source of joy and refuge from the occasional unreality of graduate school. Many thanks to the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor for its continual support over the past five years, and especially to Susan Sanders and Michelle Biggs for their friendship and expertise in managing a sometimes daunting bureaucracy. Thanks also to the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for several fellowships during the course of my graduate studies at Michigan. Special thanks belong of course to all the members of my committee. I have learned much from many people here and it is difficult to give proper thanks to all of them, but my fellow students Molly Pasco-Pranger, Kristina Milnor and Jeremy Taylor are due for special praise, as are David Potter, Glenn Knudsvig and Sabine MacCormack among the faculty. I would not have started graduate studies in Classics had it not been for Paul Harvey, so it is perhaps fitting that final thanks be given to him. iii ABBREVIATIONS ILS H. Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae, Weidmann, Berlin (1974) LTUR Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. M. Steinby, Quasar, Rome (1993) MRR T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, Philological monographs published by the APA, vol. 15, Scholars Press, Atlanta (1951) RE A. F. von Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft in alphabetischer Ordnung, J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart (1839) RS T. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (vol. 1 and 2: third edition, vol. 3: second edition), S. Hirzel, Leipzig (1887–1888) iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................................................iii ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION: MODELS ....................................................................................................1 Models......................................................................................................................2 The Inevitability of models........................................................................................6 Ancient models .........................................................................................................8 Conclusion..............................................................................................................16 CHAPTER 1: STUDYING THE MIDDLE REPUBLIC...............................................................17 Reliability of the tradition: Historiography..............................................................17 Ancient political groupings .....................................................................................52 Factionalism............................................................................................................61 Conclusion..............................................................................................................67 CHAPTER 2: APPIUS CLAUDIUS CAECUS ..........................................................................68 Introduction ............................................................................................................68 More modeling .......................................................................................................68 The Career of Caecus..............................................................................................79 Conclusion............................................................................................................124 CHAPTER 3: FACTIONALISM AND PUBLIC DISPLAY........................................................126 Factional structure.................................................................................................126 Predictions: Public display....................................................................................131 The Public works of Caecus and the others ..........................................................143 Location................................................................................................................147 Timing ..................................................................................................................151 Other examples.....................................................................................................154 Other displays.......................................................................................................161 Conclusion............................................................................................................163 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................169 v INTRODUCTION MODELS The period of the late fourth through early third centuries was an important one in the development of the city of Rome. Not only did the Romans finally come to militarily dominate their Latin and Etruscan neighbors on the Italian peninsula by, for example, the defeat of the Latin League in 338 and the defeat of Etruscans, Gauls and others at Sentinum in 295,1 but the Roman state reached a new stage in its ongoing evolution, as legislation such as the lex Ogulnia and the reforms of Hortensius gave plebeians official parity with patricians in most important magistracies and priesthoods. At the same time the city itself took on a new look as massive building projects were completed in and around it.2 Unfortunately the first Roman historians began writing only in the late third century. A few Greek historians did write about Rome somewhat earlier than this, though with what detail and accuracy is unknown. Later authors were obviously even further in time from the events of this period, yet we are extremely reliant on these sources, who dominate the extant historical writings, for much of our information about the middle Republic. While we clearly lack contemporary historical narratives of this period, it does not necessarily follow that we lack contemporary sources of information. Before examining the details of the accounts of the Roman Republic that we do possess, it is necessary to consider our approach to them. 1All years are Varronian BC unless otherwise noted. 2See, e.g., T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars, Routledge History of the Ancient World, Routledge, London and New York (1995), p. 380–390. 1 2 Models Mid-republican Rome was a complex social, political and economic system, and, like any complex system, can best, if not only, be understood through the use of theoretical models. A model may be defined as an idealized structuring of a real-life system in which the complexity of the original is reduced and a simpler system that is either analogous to the original or has fewer variables is used instead. As idealizations, theoretical models do not have a physical existence, but they nevertheless do share several important features with real physical scale models, features that can serve to elucidate their functioning and proper use. Scale models Following Max Black, we can list some of the features of scale models.3 First a definition, scale models are “likenesses of material objects, systems, or processes…that preserve relative proportions.”4 They are therefore, almost trivially, always of something. They also serve some purpose, usually beyond the sheer enjoyment to the maker of creating them. For example, it may be easier to manipulate and observe details on a large- scale model of a microscopic object than on the object itself. As representations of an original, certain of the models’ features must be irrelevant to the representation. For example, a scale model will obviously be built at a different scale from the original, and will likely be composed of different materials from the original, say, a plastic model of a metal car. In order to function usefully though, the scale model must be an icon of the original, that is, it must embody the features of the original that are of interest. 3This analogy and description of scale models are adapted from M. Black, Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London (1962). 4Black, Models, p. 220. 3 In its possession of irrelevant new features and the concomitant loss of original ones, the scale model exemplifies the reductive quality introduced in our definition of a model. At the same time as the loss of original features provides advantages over the original, it also ensures that the model will not accurately reproduce all aspects of that original. This necessitates the application of a correct “reading” of the model in order for any results obtained from it to be valid. That is, only