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EXILIUM ROMANUM: EXILE, POLITICS AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE FROM 58 BC TO AD 68 Thesis submitted by Neil Raj Singh-Masuda MA in partial fulfilment for the degree of PhD in Classics at the University of Warwick July 1, 1996 CONTENTS A SENSE OF EXILE: 1 CICERO IN EXILE: 40 EXILE UNDER AUGUSTUS: 86 OVID IN EXILE: 129 EXILE UNDER TIBERIUS AND THE LATER JULIO-CLAUDIANS: 175 SENECA IN EXILE: 229 EPILOGUE: 271 APPENDIX A: PLACES OF EXILE: 272 APPENDIX B: SELECTED KEY MOMENTS IN ROMAN EXILE: 279 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 283 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Dominic Montserrat, for his unstinting assistance, continuous encouragement and wealth of sound ideas; my mentor, old friend and second supervisor, Dr Tom Winnifrith, for guiding me into exile; my inspirational Latin teacher, Dr R. Alden, who is never distant from my thoughts; my brother for his unbroken faith; Claire-Louise Hodges, whose care and support was, and remains, invaluable; and, of course, parentibus optimis, the exiles in whose debt I shall always be and to whom I dedicate this thesis. I should also like to thank the Classics Department of Warwick University, with which I have had such a long association, as well as the Bodleian and Ashmolean Libraries in Oxford and the University Library in Cambridge for allowing me readership status. SUMMARY This thesis investigates the sentence of exile in Rome from the years 58 BC to AD 68. Its central argument is that exile increased in severity from the end of the Republic until it had been turned into a despotic tool at the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. The thesis also aims to convey diachronically the sense of exile through an analysis of its experiential effect on those who suffered banishment from Rome, while taking account of legal changes and explaining the various forms of exile, aquae et ignis interdictio, relegatio and deportatio. Primary sources referred to include the exilic works of Cicero, Ovid and Seneca, the historical texts of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, as well as a wide range of other ancient writers. Additional research methods include the use of epigraphic and material evidence. A full bibliography of secondary sources and appendices on key moments and places of exile are included. SELECT LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Ad Helviam Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione Ad Polyb. Ad Polybium de consolatione Ann. Annals of Tacitus Att. Epistulae ad Atticum Aug. Suetonius' account of the Deified Augustus Cal. Suetonius' account of Gaius Caligula Cic. Cicero Claud. Suetonius' account of the Deified Claudius cos. consul CUP Cambridge University Press Digest Digest of Justinian Dio Roman History of Cassius Dio Ed. Edited/edition Ep. Epistles Ex Ponto Epistulae ex Ponto of Ovid Fam. Epistulae ad Familiares fr. fragment Hist. Histories of Tacitus ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae Nat. Hist. Naturalis Historia OUP Oxford University Press Phil. Philippics of Cicero Plut. Plutarch Q. Fr. Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem Suet. Suetonius Tac. Tacitus Tib. Suetonius' account of Tiberius tr. Translation/translated ILLUSTRATIONS Map 1: Places of exile close to Italy Map 2: Places of exile in the Roman Empire during the Julio-Claudian Dynasty Photograph of Ovid's statue in Constantza by Neil Masuda A SENSE OF EXILE "I sometimes feel as if I had no other wish than to see my country again and to die.., let me assure you that banishment is no light matter." Macaulayl "An exile is someone who inhabits one place and remembers or projects the reality of another." 2 Exiles were commonplace during the time of Aristides the Just in Greece in the fifth century BC and they remain a commonplace in the age of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in late-twentieth century Haiti 3 : the range of exilic characters varies from Daedalus of Athens to Dedalus of Dublin. Exile is a condition capable of arousing great emotion, not only in the person who suffers it but in its secondary victims, those who have been left at "home". Throughout the centuries, it has produced a state of despair and gloom, through which the only flickering glimmer of light is the hope that the banished person might one day be able to return to his native land. In Roman history, the subject of exile has generally been afforded a supporting role, rather than dominating the stage, and yet its appearances have been frequent: from the mythical expulsion of Rome's last king to Tillius Cimber's petition seeking his brother's recall from exile, which delayed Julius Caesar and led to his assassination, from Lucretius' dedication of his great work to a Republican exile to the Shakespearian mention of Ovid in his tragic place of banishment, 'To Selina and Frances Macaulay, September 11, 1837. Pinney, T., ed., Letters (Cambridge: CUP, 1976) iii. 223 2Seidel, M., Exile and the Narrative Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), ix. 3Aristides the Just suffered Ostracism in 483 BC. Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile in 1991 following a military coup by General Roaul Cedras, who himself went into exile in Panama on October 13, 1994 when Aristide was recalled by his people. 1 where, in As You Like It, Touchstone punningly replies to Audrey: "I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths" (Act 3, Scene 3). Exile played a key role in shaping Roman politics and society during the late Republic and the early principate, yet the change in its implementation reflected the radical change in Rome's system of government, from consensus to autocratic rule. By their very attitude towards exile, the Romans strongly declared their own sense of identity and belonging. The sense of exclusion is so profound that the former Roman citizen has far less acceptance in both metaphorical and literal terms than the foreigner by birth. Exile places a person in a state of un-Romaimess. There is a vast difference, however, between the use of voluntary exile during the Republic and the harsher sentence of exile during the principate. It is the main argument of this thesis that the implementation of exile worsens from the end of the Republic to the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. Instead of exile being a sanctuary which could be undertaken voluntarily during the Republic, it eventually became a tool wielded in an increasingly despotic manner by the emperors. The contrast between Republican examples, especially Cicero's banishment, and those of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty emphasises the way in which exile affected, and was perceived in, Roman society. With this in mind, the subject of exile will be approached more chronologically and diachronically than thematically, although certain motifs do recur. In addition, the thesis will analyse the experience of exilic victims and convey the effect of banishment on those who suffered it. For the purposes of the study, the English words "exile" and "banishment" will be used synonymously to convey all types of exile, but any analysis of an individual case will clarify whether the exile is self-imposed or enforced. The differences between the three main types of Roman exile, aquae et ignis interdictio, relegatio and deportatio will also be fully explained. Further, the study will concentrate on those people thought of 2 as exiles in the primary sources, i.e. members of the Roman elite, the honestiores. It is true that other members of society were banished during the period under analysis, but the use of exile as a penalty pertained much more to the aristocracy than to plebeians or slaves. Low-status persons, humiliores, usually suffered execution or penalties such as opus publicum or metallum, though there are some exceptions4. Etymologically, Roman exile has always remained a matter of some debate. The derivation of the Latin term exilium, or exsilium, shows that disjunction is essential, but scholars are less certain whether the emphasis falls on the act of separation (salire, saltare)5 or the place from which one is divided (ex solo)6. Cicero's view seems to concur with the latter interpretation. In the pro Caecina 34.100, he talks of persons wishing to avoid punishment as shifting their ground: so/urn vertunt. Again, in the Paradoxa Stoicorum (4.31.1), he states that impious criminals are exiles even if they do not change their dwellings: etiam si so/urn non mutarint. And, not long after his own return from exile, in the De Domo Sua (30.78), he declares: qui erant rerum capitalium condemnati, non prius hanc civitatem amittebant, quam erant in earn recepti, quo vertendi, hoc est mutandi, soli causa venerant. Since the primary act of an exile is the physical departure from his native land for another place, the emphasis would almost certainly appear to lie, in a literal sense, in so/urn vertere7 . The concept of exilium was based on two ideas which were 4Augustus passed a sentence of /eve exilium on a man e plebe for libel (Suet. Aug. 51) and a freedman called Atilius, who was responsible for the theatre disaster at Fidenae under Tiberius, was driven into exile: Atilius in exilium actus est (Tac. Ann. 4.63). Other types of troublemakers also suffered relegatio or leve exilium.