History Publications History 2016 Lawyers, Friends, and Money: Portfolios of Power in the Late Republic David B. Hollander Iowa State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/history_pubs Part of the Diplomatic History Commons, European History Commons, Political History Commons, and the Social History Commons The ompc lete bibliographic information for this item can be found at http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ history_pubs/88. For information on how to cite this item, please visit http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/ howtocite.html. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the History at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Publications by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lawyers, Friends, and Money: Portfolios of Power in the Late Republic Abstract Rome’s transformation from a regional force in Latium into a Mediterranean superpower (4th to 1st centuries BCE) was accompanied by an accelerated change of economic realities. The persistent influx of vast natural and monetary resources from abroad deeply altered the basis of Rome’s military. As income skyrocketed, the exercise of political influence at Rome became increasingly intertwined with issues of personal finance. Despite claims for frugality, the political power of senatorial families was always determined through the accumulation of wealth. By the 1st century BCE, the competition of these families for rank and recognition was dramatically wrapped up with access to monetary capital and economic resources. When the republic finally fell, this was also due to a financial crash that hit the very centre of Roman society. Examining monetary and financial assets, this volume discloses how economic power and ‘real’ capital augmented the nature of aristocratic power at Rome. Papers are grouped in three topical clusters: Currencies of Power, Money and State Action, Wealth and Status. Disciplines Diplomatic History | European History | Political History | Social History Comments This book chapter is published as “Lawyers, Friends, and Money: Portfolios of Power in the Late Republic” in Money and Power in the Roman Republic. Edited by H. Beck, M. Jehne, and J. Serrati, Collection Latomus 355 (2016) 18 – 25. Posted with permission. This book chapter is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/history_pubs/88 Lawyers, Friends, and Money: Portfolios of Power in the Late Republic David B. HOLLANDER That a young Octavian could prevail over several more experienced and prominent men in the struggles of the late 40s and 30s is a testament to the forbidding com­ plexity of late Republican power dynamics. 1 Traditional forms of power - nobil­ ity, wealth, and high office - might suddenly become positive liabilities in the last century of the Republic. The proscriptions make this abund,antly clear: wealth, according to our sources, sealed the fate of many innocent men while their very dignitas hampered the ability of some former magistrates to flee unno­ ticed by bounty hunters (App., B.C. 4.29-30, 40, 48). In contrast, other changes happened so gradually that apparently few noticed them until literally slapped in the face. Lucius Veratius, observing that the fine for assault, established in the Twelve Tables, still remained in force, went around slapping men, accompanied by a slave who immediately gave his victims the requisite 25 asses, now rather meager compensation (Gell. 20.1.12-3). While the power of a slap had presum­ ably changed little in four centuries, the value of the Roman as had diminished substantially. In response, the Romans quickly developed a new means of assessing damages. It is the relationship between money and power in the late Republic that will be explored in this essay. Money demand theory, I will sug­ gest, provides a useful lens for understanding Roman power because power, like money, can take many forms and the 'exchange rates' are rarely fixed. While Roman historians have identified many varieties of power (political, social, legal, gender, economic), they rarely bother to define 'power.' Michael Mann's definition, that 'power is the ability to pursue and attain goals through mastery of one's environment',2 is a good starting point though it implies that only individual actors with specific goals exert power. Even though the focus here is on the power of individuals, it is undoubtedly the case that objects, institutions, and ideas also have power. 3 Working from Mann's definition, it is easy to generate a lengthy list of powers: official and legal forms such as impe­ rium, tribunicia potestas, and patria potestas, social forms such as the ability 1 All dates BC unless otherwise indicated. 2 MANN 1986: 6. 3 HARRIS 2010: 564-78. LAWYERS, FRIENDS, AND MONEY 19 to call upon the assistance of friends, patrons, and clients, and economic forms such as the possession of coins, land, slaves, or credit. Noble ancestry, dignitas, glory, rhetorical skill, and even pearls were forms of power. 4 Valerius Maxim us gives some indication of the power of lies with the story of Sentius Satuminus Vetulo's escape from the triumvirs' proscription (Val. Max. 7.3.9). In contrast to other fugitives who hid in sewers, wells or even dung heaps to escape detection (App., B.C. 4.13, 22), Satuminus disguised himself as a praetor. Accompanied by fake lictors, apparitores, and public slaves, he brazenly made his way to Puetoli and then on to safety in Sicily by seizing carriages, ships, and lodgings along the way. 5 The task of cataloguing all the forms of Roman power is theoretically endless and almost certainly thankless, but the most important forms may be grouped into a few big and partially overlapping categories: state-sanctioned power (the authority of magistrates in the courts, assemblies, and with armies; but also knowledge of the law and the ability to navigate legal and political institutions more generally), social power (influence wielded through patronage, friendship, family, and reputation), and economic power (the ability to bribe, corrupt, or create bonds of dependency and gratitude through gifts or loans). Put simply, if imprecisely, power was lawyers, friends, and money. While the categories are fairly straightforward, the relationships between them became destabilized in the late Republic. Some tools increased in importance while others declined. One of the most interesting changes in the balance of power was the vastly increased value of rhetorical ability beginning in the second century. The earliest indication of this phenomenon is in 161 when the senate told the praetor Marcus Pomponius not to admit rhetoricians and philosophers to Rome (Suet., Rhet. I; cf also Gell. 15.11.1). A few years later came Cameades' famous embassy during which the philosopher's rhetorical ability so disturbed Cato the Elder that he sought to have the visiting Athenian removed from the city as quickly as possible. As Plutarch describes it (Cat. Ma. 22), Cato 'hated the fervor for oratory flowing into the city, fearing lest the young men ... prize the glory of speaking rather than that deriving from deeds and military service.' Rhetoric was a threat to more traditional sources of political power. By the first century, the change was irreversible. Despite a ban on Latin rhetoricians issued by the censors of 92 (Suet., Rhet. 1), rhetoric became a regular part of an upper class Roman education. Even leaders now mostly associated with military power, such as Caesar and Antony, spent time as young men studying in the east under Greek rhetoricians (Suet., Iul. 4; Plu., Ant. 2). Cicero, obviously, is the clearest example of the powerful potential of rhetorical ability in the late Republic. 4 Crc., Brut. 7 likens oratio to arma. According to Pliny the Elder (Nat. 9.114), people called a pearl 'a woman's lictor in public.' 5 Appian tells a similar story of Pomponius (B.C. 4.45) and also mentions two men who disguised themselves as centurions in order to escape (B .C. 4.46). 20 DAVID B. HOLLANDER While his military career was unspectacular, 6 he won friends, clients, students, and high office by virtue of his speaking ability. It is not, of course, that rhetoric had been unimportant prior to the late Republic - Cato the Elder himself owed some of his success to his speaking ability 7 - but its potential had vastly increased. This development stems in part from the establishment of quaes­ tiones perpetuae (permanent criminal courts) in 149 and their expansion by Sulla in 81 (Cic., Brut. 106). The new courts provided an important venue for speakers who were not yet magistrates to display their abilities in public. 8 Cicero began his career in 76 before just such a court speaking in defense of Sextus Roscius (Cic., S. Rose. 1). Another important shift in the balance of power, roughly contemporary with the rise of rhetoric, was the growing importance of the plebeian tribunes in Roman politics. The Gracchi provide the most notable example of this; their reform efforts, made possible by the tribunes' legislative powers, are too well­ known to require any elaboration here. Occasionally forgotten, however, is the fact that the trend started earlier. Tribunes jailed the consuls of 151, L. Licinius Lucullus and A. Postumius Albinus, for their harsh behavior in levying troops for a war in Spain (Liv., Per. 48). C. Curiatius did the same thing to the consuls of 138 (Liv., Per. 55; Cic., Leg. 3.20). Even the violent deaths of the Gracchi brothers did not deter later tribunes from wielding the full power of the tribunate. These tribunes include L. Appuleius Satuminus (103 and 100), C. Servilius Glaucia (101), M. Livius Drusus (91), and P.