1On one occasion in the reign and presence of the emperor Antoninus Pius, the Greek orator Aelius Aristides dispensed with direct adulation of the ciuilis princeps and instead addressed an encomium to a personified Rome. He commented on the opportunities the Empire offered all its inhabitants, regardless of ethnic background (Rom., 70): “a common democracy (δηµοκρατία) of the earth has been established under a single, best ruler and organizer (ἄρχοντι καὶ κοσµητῇ) and, as though gathered in a common agora, all will obtain what they merit”. Aristides advertises the enthusiasm of Eastern, provincial elites who by the middle of the ii century were beginning to enjoy not only the privilege of Roman citizenship, but also the ability to participate in the imperial government at the highest levels. He justifies the current world order by connecting it to the precedent of the classical Athenian δηµοκρατία, in the sense that all citizens were equal before the law and could attain public office by merit alone. In this system there was in place of nine ἄρχοντες just one, who as κοσµητής arranged this global commonwealth providentially into a perfect and beautiful order.

2In the West, despite the indignation of conservatives seeing their traditional Italian supremacy threatened by such egalitarian policies as celebrated above, Latin-speaking provincials such as L. Annaeus Florus were similarly delighted to see emperors from beyond Italy elevated, one of whom, Antoninus’ predecessor Hadrian, tirelessly toured the provinces on a mission of global inclusion in Romanitas². Like Aristides praising a personified Roma instead of the princeps Antoninus, Florus offered an historiographical panegyric of the princeps populus treated as a single biological entity. Whereas Aristides needed to graft monarchy onto the exemplum of classical Athens invoked to legitimize Roman imperial rule, Florus, as I demonstrate in this chapter, was able to appeal to the regal period of Roman history (753-509 BCE, traditionally) in order to show that the original populus Romanus was globally diverse, meritocratic, and brought into being and harmony by a sole ruler. By reshaping the regal past in such a way, the rule of contemporary emperors could be validated as mos maiorum, i.e. ancestral custom. In so doing Florus not only continues the practice of Roman historians since Livy of suggesting regal-imperial parallels, but also specifically reflects the celebration of early Rome in contemporary imperial iconography.

3Florus’ historiographical agenda, as I will show, involved a careful and systematic rewriting of Livy’s authoritative account of Rome’s founding and seven kings. Through a close, contextual reading of the text, I add to the growing appreciation of Florus as an author creative in his own right³. Rather than simply epitomizing, Florus transforms Livy’s kings from complex, often problematic characters into exemplary types that serve to validate ii-century imperial ideology. They are employed to emphasize not only military uirtus tempered by a preference for peace and security, but also the benefits of choosing rulers on the basis of merit, irrespective of pedigree or foreign origin. Furthermore, I argue that the kings play an architectural role in the construction of the populus Romanus as a living, cosmic entity in the Stoic sense – a role later reprised by, and modeled for the emperors.

4Florus’ work is first and foremost a celebration of the exemplary characters and deeds that brought Rome to its present prosperity. R. Syme characterized it as a school textbook, “pious and ecstatic, condensed Livy”, and an example of the shallowing of historical thinking in Latin historiography and biography after Tacitus⁴. Contrary to manuscript titles as Epitoma de Tito Livio bellorum omnium annorum DCC, scholars now acknowledge that Florus did more than abridge Livy, nor was his work intended to be a scholastic textbook of Roman history as it was used in later ages; rather it is an epideictic work whose honorand is the populus Romanus⁵. It consists of two volumes, covering Rome’s foreign wars in one then civil wars in the other, ending with Augustus’ inauguration of the pax Romana. Florus compares his work to a “small painting” (praef., 3: breui […] tabella), which may recall the types of paintings sent back to Rome by generals or paraded in a Roman triumph⁶. Such artworks better display outward effects rather than underlying causes, and deeds as the mark of exemplary character instead of probing true motives and psychology. Though presented in arto, in much fewer books than Livy, Florus’ optimistic display is a counterpoint, perhaps consciously so, to the inglorius labor of his near contemporary Tacitus (Ann., 4.32.2).

5The kings first appear in the preface, where Florus indicates their progenitive role in the grand scheme of Roman history. It begins, “the people of Rome, from king Romulus to Caesar Augustus, for 700 years accomplished so many feats in peace and war that anyone who compares the greatness of its empire to its years would think it beyond its age” (praef., 1). The associations between Romulus and Augustus, both in the emperor’s iconographic program and in literary sources from during and after his reign, have been well documented⁷. Florus continues this tradition through ring composition, directly comparing the two rulers in the first and last sentence of the work (2.34.66). Next, the historian informs his readers that the Roman people “encompassed the world with its arms (arma) so widely that those who read of its affairs learn not of the deeds of a single people, but of the human race” (praef., 2). The character and destiny of the Roman people take on a cosmic and cosmopolitan dimension, further suggested by its designation as the princeps populus (praef., 3), not only the preeminent people but also the first. Florus then develops this notion by his analogy of Rome’s history to the lifespan of a single human being (praef., 4: quasi unum hominem). While what scholars call the comparatio biologica is not original to Florus, but his version is idiosyncratic⁸. The Roman people’s infancy was under the kings (praef., 5: sub regibus), then its adolescence and maturity lasted from the consulship of L. Brutus until the reign of Augustus. After Augustus it declined into decrepit old age (praef., 8: consenuit atque decoxit) due to the inactivity of the Caesars (inertia Caesarum). Under the emperor Trajan (sub Traiano principe), however, it resumed its military activity and “is growing vigorous again as though its youth were restored” (senectus imperii quasi reddita iuuentute reuirescit). Like the work itself, the populus has returned to being under (sub) monarchs as it began.

6While praising the past, Florus is optimistic about the present. While in its youth the populus was aggressive and warlike, and in its old age peaceful and sluggish, Florus claims that in his own time it achieved, thanks to imperial policy, a balance between the vigor of iuuentus and the wisdom of senectus⁹. This sense of proportion is in line with Hadrianic military policies of aggressive defense, of keeping the army in peak condition, but following the Augustan prescription of not overextending the empire’s natural boundaries with wars of conquest. Prescriptions of such policies have been highlighted in Florus’ work: “it is better to retain a province than to make one” (1.33.7) and “it is harder to maintain provinces than to make them” (2.30.29)¹⁰. Following my analysis of the kings in Florus’ text I will consider their resonance with the the author’s own time, linking Romulus Conditor to Hadrianus Augustus.

Romulus rewritten

7Over a third of Florus’ narrative of the seven kings is devoted to Romulus, who not only founds Rome but also attains and exercises his rule through heroic deeds. Florus presents Romulus as a model ruler by revising Livy’s text. The moral exemplarity of Livy’s Romulus is highly controversial¹¹. The Augustan historian leaves matters such as his right to rule, and the manner of both his and his brother Remus’ death, undecided. The Hadrianic historian, for the most part, decides in Romulus’ favor as regarding his divine sanction to rule, the justice of his actions, and the veracity of his apotheosis.

8“The first founder of both the City and Empire (primus ille et urbis et imperii conditor) was Romulus, born of Mars and Rhea Silvia” (1.1.1). So the narrative begins, the primary position of primus suggesting that Rome was, and could, be founded more than once. As to Romulus’ Martian paternity, Florus next states that “the priestess professed this about herself when she was pregnant, and soon common talk (fama) did not doubt it”, in light of the miracles of the Tiber not drowning the twins and their rescue by the she-wolf (1.1.2). Unlike Livy (1.4.7), Florus omits the opinion of some historians that the lupa was a euphemism for Acca Laurentia’s disreputable profession. Instead he suggests that Rhea’s claim met with no skepticism from Romulus’ contemporaries. Livy (1.4.2) was much more skeptical, and thought Rhea either believed it herself (rata) that Mars had impregnated her, or else made it up to save face. Livy (praef., 7) eschewed investigating Romulus’ paternity, though he had earlier stated in his preface that if any people deserved to claim divine origin, the Romans’ military supremacy permitted them to claim the paternity of Mars. Florus (praef., 2) does not explicitly attribute the Romans’ success to divine pedigree, but rather to the uncommon alliance of uirtus and fortuna that allowed them to overcome so many trials. The uncommon frequency of miracles, similarly, was enough for Florus to suggest that Romulus was divinely sired.

9Next, Florus rewrites the relationship of Romulus and his twin brother Remus in order to strengthen the former’s claim over the latter to sole rule, not only by divine sanction but also by his superior merits. One of the chief moral complications of Rome’s founding myth is the rivalry of Romulus and Remus, and the latter’s resultant death. To Florus, the twins no longer represent the duality inherent in the Roman psyche that scholars such as T. P. Wiseman and J. Neel have read as prefiguring the consulship and struggle of the orders¹². In Florus’ narrative (1.1.2), Remus is not even mentioned until the infant twins are set adrift on the Tiber. In the overthrow of Amulius and the founding of Rome, Florus diminishes Remus’ agency so much that both the founding of the city and right to rule it are Romulus’ alone. Romulus single-handedly drives Amulius “out of the citadel” (ab arce) and restores his grandfather to the throne (1.1.5). He thus resembles a stock tyrannicide from scholastic declamation, alone deserving a prize for valor (cf. Sen., Contr., 3.6; Quint., Inst., 7.4.22; Calp., Decl., 13). Florus then explains Romulus’ motivation for founding a new city (1.1.5): “himself a lover of the river and hills by which he had been raised (erat educatus), he began designs on the walls of a new city”. Florus follows Livy (1.6.3) almost verbatim, with the key difference that he makes Romulus the singular subject of both the tyrannicide and the founding. Livy assigned both twins the desire to found a city (Romulum Remumque cupido cepit) where they had been brought up (educati erant).

10Remus’ only role in the tale is to fail and perish. It was only because the brothers were twins (gemini erant) that they took the auspices to decide who would rule the new city (Flor. 1.1.6). Livy ascribed the contest to the lust for power inherited from Amulius and Numitor (1.6.4: auitum malum regni cupido); but Florus characteristically downplays ancestry as what decides rulers’ destinies. The contest results as follows (Flor. 1.1.6): “[Remus] first sees six vultures, [Romulus] later, but sees twelve, and so as victor in the augury erects the city”. Rather than remarking on the ambiguity of the omens, Florus suggests that quantity of vultures trumps priority in time as a matter of course. Romulus is the rightful king through superior merit and divine sanction.

11Romulus is not only the rightful king without question; Florus also strengthens his claim by effectively absolving him of Remus’ death. Livy reported two conflicting accounts (1.7.2): Remus died either in a brawl between the brothers’ factions, or by his brother’s own hand after he leapt over the new walls. As the brawl had erupted over the ambiguity of the auguries, it has no place in Florus’ assertion of Romulus’ divine right. Instead, it is affirmed that Remus died as punishment for violating the boundary, the uncertainty being whether on Romulus’ orders (1.1.8). Alternative reports beyond Livy identify a centurion named Celer as Remus’ killer (D.H., AR., 1.87.4; Ov., Fast., 4.837-844; Plu., Rom., 10.1). Regardless of Romulus’ responsibility, Florus also draws from traditions beyond Livy (such as Propertius) in order to justify Remus’ death as necessary for the future inviolability of the walls (Flor. 1.1.8): “he was surely the first sacrificial victim (uictima) and consecrated the fortifications of the new city with his own blood” (Prop. 3.9.50)¹³. In place of Livy’s augurial ambiguity and fratricide, Florus strips Remus of both a claim to sole rule and a band of followers, and virtually redeems Romulus of fratricide by appealing to traditions beyond Livy’s text.

12In his first acts as founder, Romulus takes on the role of the cosmic architect of a variegated society. In vaguely Platonic language, he begins with the form of a city (imaginem urbis), and for its substance he invites by way of the Asylum a diversity of peoples (1.1.8-9):

“Latin and Etruscan shepherds, and also certain people from overseas (transmarini), Phrygians who had flowed in under Aeneas and Arcadians under Evander. Thus as though out of various elements he gathered together a single body, and by himself (ipse) made the people of Rome”.

13Romulus is not unlike Ovid’s opifex rerum (Met., 1.79) who brought order to the chaotic elements of the universe. Such an identity for Romulus suits Florus’ cosmopolitan conception of the Roman people as the inhabitants of a world empire. As Romulus founds both city and empire, so the populus is the citizenry of both polis and cosmopolis. Whereas Livy’s account of the Asylum only speaks of “bordering peoples” (1.8.6), Florus goes beyond Livy to note that some of these people were of foreign descent, even from overseas, and thus Rome and the populus Romanus were from the beginning a multinational creation¹⁴. Moreover, Aeneas and his “Phrygians” are but one source of this population, no longer privileged as the primordial Roman ancestors whose settlement in Latium occupied the beginning of Livy’s narrative. The multitude convened by Romulus is the proper origin of the princeps populus.

14Romulus’ subsequent heroics, and Florus’ omission of crucial details from Livy, further establish the founder as a model monarch who needs no equal. The narrative proceeds swiftly through the wars caused by the abduction of the Sabine women, the original spolia opima, the treachery and death of Tarpeia, the vow to Jupiter Stator, the Sabine women’s intervention, and the combination of both peoples into one city. While Romulus makes peace with Titus Tatius and the Sabines agree to migrate to Rome (Flor. 1.1.14), there is no mention of Tatius becoming co-ruler with Romulus, whereas in Livy (1.13.4-5) he reigns jointly for a number of years. Instead, the “most wise king” Romulus (1.1.15: rex sapientissimus) on his own organizes his now doubled society of subjects into tribes and assigns military duties, while also creating the Senate. As with the augury episode that denies Remus’ equal right to rule, here Florus also treats Romulus’ right to rule the combined peoples as a matter of course.

15Finally, as he was of Romulus’ divine parentage, so Florus is less skeptical than Livy of his apotheosis as the god Quirinus. In Livy Romulus’ disappearance in a storm created a conflict between the Senate and people over whether the king had been assassinated (1.16.4): “I believe that there were even at the time some who were quietly making accusations (aliquos […] arguerent) that the king had been torn apart by the hands of the senators”. But Florus presents the question as a conflict of his sources who wrote much later (1.1.17): “some think (aliqui […] putant) that he was torn apart by the Senate”. He then offers as evidence against the assassination a solar eclipse and Proculus’ epiphany, with no insinuation that it was fabricated to diffuse the class conflict. Instead, Florus suggests that belief in Romulus’ apotheosis was unanimous.

16Florus transforms Romulus into a model worthy to be imitated by anyone who aspires to be styled a new founder of Rome. While his sole rule is divinely sanctioned, he earns his position through personal merit. The city he founds is a microcosm of the imperial macrocosm, united into a single, living being out of diverse elements. Such a career earns the first king deification by unanimous consensus.

Romulus’ royal successors

17Romulus’ reign initiates a wider program of regal exemplarity in the work. Florus describes the character and accomplishments of the seven kings in his narrative, as well as in a recapitulatory analysis that divides the regal and republican periods. In his preface he claimed that Roman history was guided by the unusual cooperation of uirtus and fortuna, and here he suggests that the history of the regal period was especially so. Fate provided that seven kings of diverse talents impart those talents to the Roman people (Flor. 1.2.1). Romulus and the five good kings after him embody, in both the attainment and conduct of their rule, a distinctive set of virtues. These include the qualification to rule by merit rather than birth, military strategy tempered by justice, and the incorporation of diverse peoples and cultures into a harmonious cosmic body. The seventh king, Tarquinius Superbus, embodies the opposite vices to cast those virtues in greater relief. To emphasize these qualities, Florus not only abdridges but carefully reworks Livy’s text.

18First, Florus presents the succession scenarios of each king in order to base qualification to rule on personal merit rather than birth and ancestry¹⁵. The degeneration of these principles, culminating in the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus, serves to further validate them as ideals. He accomplishes this first by having each king spontaneously elected and without any period (or mention) of an interregnum between reigns, and second by attributing their accession directly to their personal talents. Romulus’ divine pedigree did not itself earn him the right to rule, but rather an unambiguous omen from the gods in place of Livy’s ambiguous augury. Likewise Romulus’ successors enjoy undisputed successions. In place of a Senate in a year-long deadlock over whether a Roman or Sabine should succeed Romulus (Liv. 1.17.1-11), the senators “spontaneously petitioned” (Flor. 1.2.1: ultro petiuerunt) Numa Pompilius to take power. They sought Numa not because they resolved to elect a Sabine, but purely “on account of the man’s famed sense of reverence”. His successor Tullus Hostilius was likewise granted the throne spontaneously and in honor of his own uirtus (Flor. 1.3.1: in honorem uirtutis regnum ultro datum). In addition to reporting an interregnum, Livy (1.22.1) suggested that Tullus owed his throne to the heroics of his grandfather Hostus Hostilius in the battle of the Forum – not a word on his ancestry from Florus. Only the election of Ancus Marcius is suggested to be due to his birth, he being Numa’s maternal grandson; but he is nevertheless qualified by being Numa’s equal in temperament (Flor. 1.4.1-2: pari ingenio). As for Tarquinius Priscus, Florus acknowledges that he sought the throne by his own initiative (1.5.1: regnum ultro petens) in a reverse of Numa’s passive investment with power (ultro petiverunt); but he nevertheless attributes Priscus’ election to his virtues of industriousness and good manners (ob industriam atque elegantiam). Servius Tullius’ accession is more problematic, as he takes power by queen Tanaquil’s deception of the people rather than by their election. Still, Florus takes pains to remark on Servius’ legitimacy due not only to the omen of his flaming hair portending divine sanction, but also his inborn talent (1.6.1: eximiam indolem) that Tanaquil nurtured. Florus also notes that Servius’ birth to a slave woman in no way inhibited his rise to power, whereas Livy (1.39.5) had fastidiously argued that Servius’ family was of noble birth but recently taken captive as spoils of war. Servius’ nature and nurture as exhibited in the industriousness of his royal conduct gave the impression that he ruled constitutionally (Flor. 1.6.2: regnum […] sic egit industrie ut iure adeptus uideretur). In Tarquinius Superbus, finally, Florus correlates bad kingship with the assertion of heredity over merit in qualifying for the succession. In place of virtues that earned his predecessors the throne, he earns his cognomen from his generally vicious character (Flor. 1.7.1: ex moribus) rather than specifically from his outrages against the dead Servius as in Livy (1.49.1). Following this designation is not even the appearance of legitimate rule, but the fact that it was taken by force rather than even hoped for, and he felt entitled to it since it had belonged to his grandfather (Flor. 1.7.2). Thus the history of the kings, like the declension of regimes in Plato’s Republic (8.543c-569c) from philosopher-kings to tyrants, is a degeneration from that of naturally qualified rulers invested with power they did not desire themselves, to those who actively seized power out of hereditary entitlement. It suggests that power is ideally conferred by others in honor of merit.

19Next, Florus’ good kings adopt intelligent military policies guided by justice, while the last bad king opts for unscrupulous aggression. Numa “reformed a fierce people that they might govern with god-fearing and justice an empire they had seized by force and injustice” (1.2.4). In Livy (1.19.1) it was only a city founded by “violence and arms” that Numa wished to found anew with laws and morality. Tullus, in place of Livy’s king “fiercer than even Romulus” (1.22.2), reforms Roman warfare by prescribing discipline and strategy (Flor. 1.3.1), and by honing Roman valor with rationality (Flor. 1.2.4: acueret ratione uirtutem). Tullus’ reforms of offensive warfare are then matched by Ancus Marcius’ program of defense, as Florus attributes to him, rather than Servius (Liv. 1.44.3), the construction of walls (1.4.2; 2.4). Tarquinius Priscus strikes a balance, no more prepared to wage war than to exercise the arts of peace (Flor. 1.5.5: neque pace […] quam bello promptior). Tarquinius Superbus, on the other hand, rules through unmoderated violence and rejects reason and justice in warfare, directing against foreign enemies the same irrational furor he inflicts on his own subjects (Flor. 1.7.4-6). His unprovoked conquests of Latin towns include his capture of Gabii by subterfuge and breach of good faith (fides). Overall, the military policies of the regal period in Florus follow an alternating pattern between warlike rulers (Romulus, Tullus, Priscus, Superbus) and peaceful rulers (Numa, Ancus, Servius), despite the military exploits of Ancus and Servius in Livy. This regular pattern strikes a balance of war and peace celebrated in the preface, of territorial gains followed by their consolidation.

20Finally, the kings advance and embody Romulus’ mission of integrating diverse cultures into a single cosmopolis. Numa is still living in his native, Sabine town of Cures when he is invited to the kingship (1.2.1). Tullus’ demolition of Alba Longa and transfer of its population to Rome is viewed as a biological necessity (1.3.9): “it seemed not that a kindred city had perished, but that it had returned to its own body”. Ancus founds the port of Ostia in anticipation that the “resources and commerce of the whole world” would be collected in Rome (1.4.2). Priscus earns the throne “although of overseas origin” (1.5.1: quamuis transmarinae originis), recalling the transmarini who gathered in the Asylum. Being “sprung from Corinth” (oriundus Corintho), Priscus “mingled the Greek genius with Italian arts”. Florus does not specify that Priscus was born in the Etruscan town of Tarquinii and that his father Demaratus was an exile from Corinth, and with the ambiguous terms origo and oriundus suggests he himself had migrated from Greece. It is by Priscus’ conquest of Etruscan towns, 12 in all, that he imports Etruscan political regalia to Rome (e.g. the fasces, curule chairs, and togas). His successor Servius, finally, conducts the first census to bring order and harmony to this diverse population, allowing the res publica to “know itself” as a single thinking being (1.2.6). Superbus, conversely, tears apart the body politic rather than uniting it. He inflicts murders and beatings upon the collective bodies of the Senate and people (1.7.4: in senatum caedibus, in plebem uerberibus), while he has the chief men of Gabii executed instead of incorporating them into the Senate as did Romulus with the Sabines and Tullus with the Albans. In sum, the kings contribute to the diversity of the Roman people, while at the same time uniting it into a concordant whole.

Regal echoes in the Republican period

21The kings of Rome cast a shadow over the remainder of Florus’ work, in that they prefigure a pattern of historical cyclicality whereby Rome is founded and refounded. Florus’ cyclical view of history, as shown by L. Morgan, has a Stoic pedigree inherited from the Augustan equation of political and cosmic renewal¹⁶. The refoundation of the Roman cosmos by Augustus forms the conclusion of Florus’ text; but it is anticipated by an intervening cycle of Roman refoundation during the Republic modeled on the pattern of the regal period. Such correspondences are suggested by explicit and implicit parallels with the kings. The first cycle of Romulus to Superbus is followed by that of Camillus to Caesar, then with Augustus begins a new cycle.

22The Republican analogue to Romulus is M. Furius Camillus, whose expulsion of the Gauls from Rome after they sacked and burned the city in 387 BCE constitutes a refoundation. Like that by Romulus, Camillus’ refoundation has a cosmic dimension (Flor. 1.7.18):

“It is fitting to thank the immortal gods in the very name of so great a calamity. That fire hid away (abscondit) the huts of shepherds and the flame [hid away] the poverty of Romulus. What else did that conflagration accomplish than that the society destined to be the domicile of humankind and the gods seem not destroyed or obliterated, but rather expiated and purified?”.

23Livy called Camillus a second Romulus, and his saving of Rome from the Gauls a second founding (5.49.7). Florus does so more subtly, which at the same time fits the historical episode into the providential and cosmic framework of the development of the populus Romanus. The choice of the verb abscondo for the obliteration of Romulus’ original, humble city suggests an un-founding (ab + condo). Taking its place is not only a flourishing metropolis resembling that of the author, but a cosmopolis that embraces the human and religious diversity of the Empire.

24The refoundation and triumphs of Camillus as a new Romulus are eventually followed by an explicit reference to Numa in marking the Republic’s first prolonged period of peace. In 235 BCE the recent conclusion of the First Punic War is marked by the closing of the temple of Janus “for the first time after Numa” (1.19.1). In due course, hostilities resume in response to incursions of the Ligurians, Gauls, and Illyrians, which had the effect of preventing “rust and decay” (robiginem ac situm) from setting in in Rome’s military, and that the Romans may “sharpen the iron of their valor” (ferrum suae uirtutis acuebat) on the whetstone of its enemies (Flor. 1.19.2-3). These similes recall Tullus Hostilius’ resumption of warfare, even reusing the same verb to recall his sharpening of Roman valor (1.2.4: acueret ratione uirtutem).

25As the regal period ended with the overthrow of Superbus, so the end of the republican period recalls his reign in the dictatorship and assassination of Julius Caesar. After he was granted excessive powers and honors, Caesar’s rule becomes a dominatio no longer tolerable, recalling Superbus’ dominatio that incited the populus to assert its independence (2.13.90-95). Brutus and Cassius take action, and Caesar pays with his own blood for the blood of the world he spilled through civil war, again alluding to Superbus’ violence against the body politic. To confirm these allusions, Florus state that Caesar’s assassins “seemed to have toppled Gaius Caesar from kingship as though he were king Tarquinius” (2.17.1). They seemed to have done this, but as Florus goes on the state, they in fact hastened the destruction of the very libertas they aimed to restore. Florus suggests these parallels to frame the death of the Republic as like the death of the Monarchy.

26As Rome was sacked by the Gauls then restored by Camillus, so the civil wars following the assassination of Julius Caesar destroy the order of the Republic. Octavian Augustus restores a ravaged Roman state such that Florus styles him, like Camillus before him, a new Romulus. In his refoundation of Rome, Augustus reprises Romulus’ role as an ordering principle of the collective, cosmic organism that is the populus Romanus (2.14.4-6):

“For otherwise the [people of Rome] could not have been preserved, had it not taken refuge in servitude. Nevertheless, one must be thankful that amidst such great disorder supremacy most preferably fell upon Octavian Caesar Augustus, who with his wisdom and ingenuity (sapientia sua atque sollertia) set in order the body of an Empire (ordinauit imperii corpus) buffeted from all sides and disordered, which without a doubt could never at all have cohered and achieved harmony (coire et consentire) unless it were ruled by the nod of a single presider, as though by a soul and mind”.

27Florus places this analysis at the beginning of his narrative of Octavian’s entry into the civil wars at Rome, so as to justify his means in view of the ends: a return to the monarchy of Romulus is the only viable solution. Florus repeats language applied to Romulus. The former king was “most wise” in his organization of the populus (1.1.15-16: sapientissimus […] ordinatis), much as Augustus used his own wisdom to impose order on the empire (sapientia […] ordinauit). As Romulus brought various elements together into a collective body (corpus), so Augustus was necessary for that body to cohere and harmonize with itself (corpus […] coire et consentire). The last sentence of the work, finally, recalls its first sentence, and suggests that the lifecycle of the cosmic populus began again with Augustus as it had begun originally with Romulus (2.34):

“It was also discussed in the Senate whether, because he had founded the Empire (quia condidisset imperium), he might be called Romulus (uocaretur); but the name Augustus seemed holier and more venerable, so that, even while he was inhabiting the earth, he might be consecrated (consecraretur) by that very name and title”.

28Augustus is almost called Romulus for founding the imperium; yet Florus at the beginning calls Romulus “the first (primus) founder of both the city and imperium”. Octavian is honored not for founding but for re-founding Rome. Augustus is deemed a more divine title and suggests that, unlike Romulus who vanished and then became a god, Octavian took on divinity while still on earth. Still, the homeoteleuton of the subordinate clauses ending in Romulus uocaretur and consecraretur suggests that Augustus’ consecratio be compared to that of Romulus as the parting thought of the whole work¹⁷.

29Augustus also surpasses Romulus because he embodies the virtues of not only Romulus but of the other good kings, balancing the arts of peace and war. In inaugurating the pax Romana he closes the gates to the temple of Janus, “closed twice before him under king Numa and when Carthage was first defeated” (2.34.64). In addition to being compared to Numa, Florus also intertextually associates the ingenuity (sollertia) of Augustus and Servius Tullius: as the state was organized by Servius’ ingenuity (1.6.3), so was the body of the empire ordered by that of Augustus. Augustus becomes the ultimate imperial exemplum, not only by refounding Rome, but by uniting in one ruler the variegated virtues of all the good kings.

The contemporary resonance of Florus’ kings

30The careers and exemplary qualities of the kings in Florus’ text, both in their own narratives and in subsequent allusions thereto, speak to the author’s own age, especially if we date his work to late in Hadrian’s reign. The kings are not only prescriptive models, but also prefigure a pattern of cyclical history in which Rome is founded and refounded. Contemporary evidence suggests the spirit of yet another refoundation gave rise to Florus’ project.

31First, the bookending of the work with Romulus and Augustus as imperial founders can be connected to Hadrian’s program of association with both. Hadrian had throughout his reign linked himself to Augustus: one looks to his rebuilding of Agrippa’s Pantheon and his own circular mausoleum rivaling that of Augustus across the Tiber¹⁸. Furthermore, in the second half of his reign, he also began associating himself with Romulus, as especially evident from coins¹⁹. Aurei, denarii, and sestertii struck by the Roman mint between 125 and 138 CE feature the profile of Hadrianus Augustus on the obverse and Romulus Conditor bearing the spolia opima on the reverse²⁰. Even before the numismatic program, Hadrian had undertaken a number of projects to style his principate as a Romulean refounding, including the rebranding of the Parilia festival as the Natalis Vrbis and retracing the pomerium in 121²¹. The dual association with Romulus and Augustus casts Hadrian as a new founder, of Rome as well as of a number of new cities throughout the empire in his own name²². Florus’ anachronism of Romulus attracting an international multitude to the Asylum matches Hadrian’s program of urban foundation²³. He attracted new residents to Antinoopolis in Egypt, for example, with the guarantee of extraordinary privileges and exemptions²⁴. He toured the provinces to foster a sense of belonging in a common political and cultural project, in which all its inhabitants might participate²⁵. This project is prefigured by the international multitude convening in Romulus’ Asylum²⁶. Aeneas’ Trojans are no longer the elite progenitors but only part of the original population of native Italians, Greeks, and others from overseas²⁷. Moreover, we see in Florus’ explicit associations of Romulus with Camillus and Augustus the notion that the Roman state was, and could be, founded again and again, which can be read as aligning with Hadrian’s program of urban foundation and renewal. Finally, the marginalization of Remus and Titus Tatius as paradigms for joint rulership is indicative of the notion that the empire is best directed by an unrivaled, single ruler. The shared governance of the Republic and the consulship no longer has precedent in Rome’s founding.

32Romulus’ royal successors also embody the spirit of the age, earning imperium regardless of ancestry or foreign birth, prefiguring the access of provincials to the mission of empire. The successor kings also represent specific aspects of the contemporary imperial programs. Numa, with whom both Hadrian and Antoninus Pius would be compared by later sources, initiates the first pax Romana where brutal conquest gives way to the rule of law, justice, and piety (Aur. Vict. 14.2; Eutr. 8.8.1; SHA, Hadr., 2.8; Ant. Pius, 2.2; 13.4)²⁸. Numa’s policy of governing with piety and justice the empire they had seized by violence and injustice can be read as a repudiation of Trajanic expansionism. However, as there is more evidence that Hadrian preferred Romulus over Numa in his own associative program, we should reject the dichotomy of warlike Trajan and peaceful Hadrian in favor of an ideal that blends military and civilian virtues. In Tullus Hostilius, transformed from Livy’s brutal warlord, Florus plants a precedent for such moderation. Tullus’ revival of the Roman army (mirum in modum exercita iuuentute) recalls in similar language Trajan’s rejuvenation of a senescent populus Romanus in Florus’ preface (praeter spem omnium senectus imperii quasi reddita iuuentute reuirescit). Tullus and Trajan are equally echoed in the resumption of military activity after the gates of Janus were shut a second time in 235 BCE, as the “rust and decay” that had set in recalls the degenerative senescence of the Roman people (consenuit atque decoxit) due to the inertia Caesarum (praef., 8). Florus’ Tullus, however, is just as Hadrianic as Trajanic, as his contribution is not uirtus itself, but discipline and strategy that makes that uirtus most effective. Hadrian’s armies, like those of Tullus, were kept in a constant state of preparation against any threat. This was because the solidification of Rome’s boundaries, initiated by Ancus Marcius, marked those beyond no longer as potential subjects, but enemies. Florus echoes Hadrian’s programs of cosmopolitanism, urban renewal, and solidifying the empire’s borders in his praise of this “builder” (aedificator) of seaports, bridges, and fortifications. In Tarquinius Priscus, a man of overseas origin and importer of Greek culture, scholars have already detected an “inteferenza adrianea” in Florus’ text²⁹. In both Evander’s Arcadians in the Asylum and in Priscus’ regal program, Florus establishes that Hellenism is a fundamental component of Romanitas. Servius Tullius’ census, in giving the populus Romanus self-knowledge, anticipates the cultural bonds and social networks that unite the ii-century empire.

33Finally, as the antitype of such ideals it is tempting to see in Tarquinius Superbus the unsuccessfully damned memory of Domitian. Owing his throne to heredity instead of merit (which some later writers suspect he gained through assassination), Domitian’s reign of terror and arrogation of the title dominus may be recalled by the dominatio that the adolescent populus Romanus overthrew to establish libertas. Following the overthrow of Domitian, Tacitus and Pliny celebrated how libertas and principatus were reconciled (Tac., Agr., 3.1; Plin., Pan., 36). Moreover, Florus attributes to Superbus alone the construction and dedication of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol. The current version of that temple in Florus’ day was that built by Domitian after a fire in 80 CE had destroyed that rebuilt by Vespasian. Florus’ contemporary Plutarch (Publ., 15.3.) compares Domitian and Superbus in their lavish expenditure on the project.

34With the deeds and character of the kings reprised by Republican figures up through Augustus, and in light of their contemporary resonance with contemporary imperial developments, Florus imposes upon Roman history a kind of Stoic metaphysical framework. The cycles of death and rebirth of the empire not only correspond to Stoic notions of cosmic life-cycles, but also align with the imperial ideology of refoundation: emperors from Augustus, to Hadrian, to Septimius Severus, to Constantine and well into the Byzantine period strove to be styled new imperial founders³⁰. Literary sources during and after their reigns measured these emperors against the standards of the original kings, much as Augustan writers’ accounts of regal Rome made the past in the image of the present³¹. Florus draws from these authors, especially Vergil, the associative program of cosmic renewal with political refoundation³². In this respect, Florus functions for Hadrian as did Vergil, and Livy, for Augustus.

35Also connected to such Stoic notions is Florus’ theory of the alliance of uirtus and fortuna that guaranteed Rome’s success. He marvels how fate was so diligent as to vary the characters of the kings so as to be of the most advantage to the nascent commonwealth (1.2.1). One of his allusions to Romulus later in the work vividly illustrates that theory of alliance (1.33.15):

“Viriathus roused in revolt the Lusitani, [he being] a man of the keenest resourcefulness, who went from a hunter to a brigand, from a brigand suddenly to a general and commander (imperator), and had Fortune yielded, the Romulus of Spain (Hispaniae Romulus)”.

36Florus’ exemplum is a lesson in how uirtus and fortuna must work in tandem to establish a powerful civilization such as Rome. It was with the help of fortune that a man of Romulus’ particular uirtus was able to survive his exposure and found and establish Roman power. Viriathus possessed the requisite talents, but fortune did not back it up. Matching Romulus’ humble beginnings, his sudden rise to the title of imperator also fits Florus’ theme of meritocracy. Though belonging to a particular tribe, Viriathus might have united the diverse nations of the Iberian peninsula to create a cosmopolitan populus rivaling that of Rome. The potential of a “Spanish Romulus,” on the other hand, could be seen as actualized in the author’s present in the form of Hadrian. Viriathus was 250 years too early in the course of destiny.

37Romulus and his royal successors were touchstones of the original Roman national character³³. Florus’ construction of the regal period as a paradigm for the imperial present suggests a desire for universal consensus between Italians and provincials that the new political and cultural realities of the ii-century empire were not deviations from tradition, but were as old as Rome itself. With monarchy now fixed as not only necessary, but the most preferable form of government, Rome’s kings became prescriptive models of authentic Roman monarchy. To present them as such, Florus carefully reworked Livy’s text and drew from alternative accounts. Romulus and his royal successors as presented by Florus anticipate the emperors as prime movers of an imperial cosmos identified with the populus Romanus. He remakes the kings in an image prescribed by ii-century imperial ideology and iconography as evident, to give one final example, in the emperors’ funerary monuments. As shown by P. Davies, Hadrian’s mausoleum is an image of the universe in whose center resides the emperor himself, while imagery on the base of the column where Antoninus Pius was cremated similarly casts the imperial family as stewards of the terrestrial cosmos³⁴. The latter monument depicts Antoninus and Faustina sent heavenwards by the armored goddess Roma, whose shield depicts Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf³⁵. Florus’ associations between Roman kings and emperors as kosmokratores were reflected vividly in contemporary imagery dominating the urban landscape.

38The Stoic dimension of the text also informs its view of the Empire under Hadrian, a multinational enterprise in which neither blue blood or Italian birth were required to become the first citizen. Florus’ kings earn the throne through their own merits, be they foreigners or former slaves, and the monarchy only breaks down when hereditary succession is asserted. In this Florus is the successor to Tacitus in the criticism of hereditary monarchy: the Julio-Claudians and Flavians each had at least one Superbus. The cyclical view, finally, styles both Romulus and Augustus as forces that organize scattered element into a whole, reflecting Hadrian’s policy of “discarding the goal of new acquisitions and focusing instead on the integration of those peoples already under Roman sway”³⁶.

39All things considered, we must not evaluate Florus’ work simply as uncritical imperial propaganda. It is, after all, an encomium of the populus Romanus, not of its rulers. In his depiction of the original monarchy, to which history had come full circle, Florus defines the proper relationship of a Roman emperor to his subjects. The kings are models of virtues to imitate, and in Superbus, of vices to avoid. By exercising the regal virtues by which the populus Romanus was educated and able to function as a free society, i.e. where libertas and principatus are reconciled, the emperors may continually remake, refound, and rejuvenate the populus. The ideal emperor was a composite of the first six kings to the exclusion of the seventh, simultaneously a warrior, lawgiver, strategist, builder, patron of culture, and censor, and not a tyrant. Florus’ first readers would have recognized Hadrian as such a composite. In this Florus nuances Hadrian’s own self-representation as a new Augustus, and later new Romulus. Florus’ argument for the necessity of Augustus’ sole rule, moreover, reflects back to Romulus, whose right to sole rule, shared neither with Remus or Tatius, is a matter of course. But perhaps also Hadrian’s darker side is criticized in the seventh king Superbus, as Hadrian’s reign, even from the beginning, was not free of the blood of his political rivals. The accession of Servius as orchestrated by Tanaquil, moreover, may insinuate the empress Plotina’s rumored role in bringing Hadrian to the throne (C.D. 69.1.1-4; Aur. Vict. 13.13). Yet overall, Florus’ tone is optimistic. His belief that the “neglect of the Caesars” had been corrected, and the Empire’s old age continued to grow vigorous, reflects a confidence that it was, and would continue to be in good hands.

40Florus’ reception of Livy, finally, participates in a literary and historiographical discourse whereby narratives and exempla of Rome’s founding fathers are marshalled in response to the perennial imperial aspiration to be styled a new founder of Rome. The cyclical view offered by Florus can be detected in later authors who likewise associate regal and imperial history. In the iv century, the breviarist Aurelius Victor not only suggested that the career of the emperor Aurelian reprised that of Romulus in his reunification of the Empire, construction of new walls, and interregnum following his death; but Victor also attributed the coincidence to cosmic cyclicality (Caes., 35.12-13): “this is an especial lesson that all things return to themselves in a circular manner (orbis modo), and that nothing occurs that the force of nature cannot bring back after an interval of time”. The device of the comparatio biologica was also reprised in later authors, such as Ammianus Marcellinus, who also states both that uirtus and fortuna allied to guarantee Rome’s success and that in her old age she entrusted the rule of the world to the Caesars. Since then “the tranquility of the time of [Numa] Pompilius has returned” (14.6.5-6). Like a second childhood, Rome’s senescence is best handled by a return to the rule of patres patriae.