Politics and policy: Rome and Liguria, 200-172 B.C. Eric Brousseau, Department of History McGill University, Montreal June, 2010 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. ©Eric Brousseau 2010 i Abstract Stephen Dyson’s The Creation of the Roman Frontier employs various anthropological models to explain the development of Rome’s republican frontiers. His treatment of the Ligurian frontier in the second century BC posits a Ligurian ‘policy’ crafted largely by the Senate and Roman ‘frontier tacticians’ (i.e. consuls). Dyson consciously avoids incorporating the pressures of domestic politics and the dynamics of aristocratic competition. But his insistence that these factors obscure policy continuities is incorrect. Politics determined policy. This thesis deals with the Ligurian frontier from 200 to 172 BC, years in which Roman involvement in the region was most intense. It shows that individual magistrates controlled policy to a much greater extent than Dyson and other scholars have allowed. The interplay between the competing forces of aristocratic competition and Senatorial consensus best explains the continuities and shifts in regional policy. Abstrait The Creation of the Roman Frontier, l’œuvre de Stephen Dyson, utilise plusieurs modèles anthropologiques pour illuminer le développement de la frontière républicaine. Son traitement de la frontière Ligurienne durant la deuxième siècle avant J.-C. postule une ‘politique’ envers les Liguriennes déterminer par le Sénat et les ‘tacticiens de la frontière romain’ (les consuls). Dyson fais exprès de ne pas tenir compte des forces de la politique domestique et la compétition aristocratique. Mais son insistance que ces forces cachent les continuités de la politique Ligurienne est incorrecte. ii Ce thèse évalue les développements dans la Ligurie entre les années 200 et 172 avant J.-C.—les trentes ans pendant lesquelles les romains faisaient de la guerre à presque chaque année en Ligurie. La thèse montre que les individus influençaient la politique plus souvent et plus fortement que Dyson et autres historien(ne)s concèdent. Les continuités et changement dans la politique régionale sont mieux expliqués selon un cadre qui prend compte de la tension entre la compétition aristocratique et le consensus Sénatorial. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Prof. Michael Fronda. Without his painstaking editorial work while halfway around the world, this thesis would be replete with Germanic compound nouns and other less egregious grammatical and syntactical errors. His suggestions regarding structure and analysis have also been tremendously helpful. Any remaining errors are entirely my own. Table of Contents Abstracts and Acknowledgements i Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Developments in Liguria, 238-183 25 Chapter 3: Developments in Liguria, 182-175 66 Chapter 4: The Popillian Affair: A Case Study in Roman Politics and Foreign Relations 92 Conclusion 126 Bibliography 131 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Book thirty-nine of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita opens with a passage that directly addresses the importance of the seemingly endemic Roman campaigns in Liguria, which were fought almost yearly from 197 to 171: This enemy [the Ligurians] was born, as it were, to keep alive the military discipline of the Romans during the intervals between their great wars; nor did any province do more to put an edge to the soldier’s courage. For Asia, on account of the pleasantness of its cities and the abundance of its treasures of land and sea and the feebleness of the enemy and the wealth of its kings, made armies richer rather than braver. Especially under the command of Gnaeus Manlius was discipline slackly and indifferently enforced; and so a somewhat more difficult advance in Thrace and a rather more effective enemy had taught them a lesson with great slaughter. Among the Ligurians there was everything to keep an army alert- hilly and rough ground, which was difficult for both the men themselves to occupy and to dislodge the enemy who had already occupied it, and roads difficult, narrow, dangerous by reason of ambuscades; an enemy lightly equipped, mobile an unexpected in his movements, who permitted no time or place whatever to be quiet or safe; the besieging of fortified points was necessary and at the same time toilsome and dangerous; the district was poor, which constrained the soldiers to simple living and offered them little plunder. Accordingly, no civilian camp-follower went along, no long train of pack-animals stretched out the column. There was nothing except arms and men who placed all their trust in their arms. Nor was there ever wanting either the occasion of the cause for war with them, because on account of their poverty at home they were constantly raiding their neighbors’ land. And yet the fighting never brought about the final settlement of a campaign.1 Livy’s moralizing is unmistakable, and indeed this passage sets the tone for a series of moralizing episodes throughout book thirty-nine.2 But Livy’s point is well taken. Roman involvement in Liguria demanded tremendous expenditures of manpower and military effort. In twenty-two of the thirty-four years between 200 and 167, at least one and 1 Livy 39.1.2-8. Ligurians as a nation ‘inured to war’: Livy 27.48. 2 Briscoe (2008) 209. Ligurian hardiness: Farney (2007) 195, 197, 199-201; Williams (2001) 54, 75-76; Toynbee (1965) 273-277, for Ligurian topography and its effect on the Romano-Ligurian wars. 2 often both consuls were sent to Liguria.3 It was the most common province for Roman consuls in the first three decades of the second century. These numbers alone would justify a detailed study of the Roman involvement in Liguria. Yet these commands also provide an excellent case study for the relationship between politics and policy in the development of the republican frontier. Historiography of Liguria The subject of Roman Liguria has produced a somewhat paradoxical historiographic tradition. The archaeological scholarship’s volume is extensive but text- based, historical treatments have been few and far between. French and Italian scholars have tended to deal with the regions of ancient Liguria bounded by their modern nations, focusing on two topics in particular: pre-Roman Liguria; the Romanization of Liguria.4 In both cases the treatments have been predominantly, almost exclusively, archaeological. Archaeologists and historians have attempted to recreate pre-Roman Liguria from the little evidence available. The trend has been to stress the interconnectedness of pre-Roman Liguria with the wider Mediterranean world, especially with the Carthaginians, Massiliotes, Etruscans and the inhabitants of Magna Graecia. Similarly, recent treatments of the Romanization of Liguria have emphasized cultural continuity and exchange rather than a narrative of cultural imperialism.5 This thesis is emphatically not concerned with the archaeology or the 3 Harris (1979) 225, notes that Roman armies fought in Liguria annually from 197-172 with the exception of the Syrian-Aetolian War; cf. Williams (2001) 21; Gargola (2006) 156. All dates are BC unless otherwise indicated. 4 Crucial work on Italian Liguria has been done by Lamboglia, Mansuelli and Tozzi. In France, F. Benoit, R. Chevallier, M. Lejeune, and H. Rolland have been seminal. 5 See Häussler (2007) 45-78, for a recent survey. 3 Romanization of Liguria. The sources are predominantly historical and the focus is Romano-centric. Surprisingly little scholarship has focused on the Roman conquest of Liguria and this region’s place in the larger framework of Roman imperialism. Indeed, though there are many treatments of Rome’s overseas wars in the post-Hannibalic period6, Liguria has rarely been addressed in depth since William H.B. Hall did so in an 1898 work entitled The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone: a sketch of the conquest of Liguria and the Roman Province. Hall’s work is informed by late nineteenth century Romanticism: “Passing my winters as I do within sight of the ruins of Forum Julii, which is really a Rome in miniature, I have been imbibing an atmosphere as completely Roman, as if I had been living on the outskirts of the Eternal City.”7 Citing an “intimate acquaintance with the locality”, Hall’s aim is to “bridge over the gap in Roman history between the narratives of Livy and Caesar” by integrating history and archaeology into a grand narrative of Roman conquest.8 But the work is mostly narrative history and does not integrate aspects of Roman political culture or domestic politics. A.J. Toynbee dealt with the Romano-Ligurian wars at some length in the second volume of Hannibal’s Legacy. According to Toynbee, after the Second Punic War, a “systematic plan” was developed to conquer Cisalpine Gaul and Liguria. The Po basin was an agricultural Eden and the Roman state fastened on a plan of conquest in order to expand the available ager Romanus.9 Toynbee portrays the wars and the mass 6 Second Macedonian War: Warrior (1996). Antiochene War: Granger (2002). Achaean War: Gruen (1976). Third Punic War: Baronowski (1995). More generally: Eckstein (2006b), Gruen (1984). 7 Hall (1898) viii. 8 Hall (1898) vii. 9 Toynbee (1965) 260-264. 4 deportations after 180 as part of Rome’s aggressive agrarian policy—he cites the Senate’s ambivalent response to M. Popillius Laenas’ attack on the Statellae in 173 (condemnation of the consul’s actions yet forced-migration of Ligurians) as evidence that Roman aims were the acquisition of new land.10 More recently, W.V. Harris devotes a mere two pages to the Ligurian wars in the period 197 to 172. He thinks “the contribution of defensive thinking at Rome is hard to discern” but acknowledges that piracy, the defense of Roman colonies (Bononia and Arretium) and roads (Via Flaminia, Via Aemilia) as well as newly acquired possessions (Pisa) potentially contributed to Roman involvement in Liguria.