Les élites municipales de l’Italie péninsulaire des Gracques à Néron
|Les élites municipales et la religion, l’idéologie et l’art
Images of Italian Austerity from Cato to Tacitus
Résumé
L’auteur s’interroge sur l’origine des figures austères d’Italiens qu’on rencontre fréquemment dans la littérature de la fin de la République et du début de l’Empire. Les représentations de l’austérité italienne sont replacées dans le contexte de l’idéologie romaine qui emprunte aux idéologies athéniennes et magno-grecques des éléments concernant les relations avec les autres peuples, par exemple des Grecs vis-à-vis des Barbares, des citadins vis-à-vis des ruraux, et la caractérisation de la décadence par leur truphé. A partir du IIe s. av. J.-C., cependant, l’idéologie romaine se développe dans une autre direction: la qualité de marginalité des Sabins affranchis et, après la guerre sociale, également des populations de l’Apennin central, cesse d’être considérée comme menaçante et devient positive. L’austérité des Sabins et des populations de l’Apennin central, rapportée spécialement à ces peuples peut-être pour des raisons culturelles aussi bien qu’historiques, devient ensuite un modèle pour la représentation de l’austérité italique en général.
Texte intégral
1In Tacitus’ Annals, senators from the Italian municipia, as well as from the provinces, provide an austere commentary on the progressive decadence of Imperial Rome. These individuals are unaccustomed to sycophantic behaviour: their hands tire easily at the performances of Nero (Ann., 16, 5), and they herald the beginning of fashionable frugality when they arrive in greater numbers in the train of Vespasian (Ann., 3, 55, 8). It is my intention to discuss the origins of such imagery, and to show how Roman ideology made novel use of Greek discourse to reflect the peculiarly Roman practice of incorporating other peoples within their citizenship. A figure that one might think of as the incorporated outsider, safely alien, is unique to Rome.
- 1 E.g. Verg., Georg., 2, 167 sqq.; Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 37 sqq.; Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 241 C; Pliny, NH, 3, (...)
- 2 Cf. Wiseman 1971, 113 for the attribution to the novi homines of «all the ancient virtues of the ce (...)
2First, some general remarks. Overall, from the mid-lst century B.C. into the 2nd century A.D., it can be very advantageous to treat the Italian upper-classes as a block: distinctions between them in terms of place of origin, and ethnographical detail can be blurred very usefully to create polarities: the corrupt city of Rome inhabited by urbane nobiles versus the novi homines in their inevitably rustic Italian landscape (e.g. Sall., BJ, 85); or Italy versus the Orient at Actium (e.g. Verg., Aen., 8, 678-713). This blurring of distinctions is one of the by-products of enfranchisement, the incorporation of the Italians en bloc into the political System of Rome. I would, however, emphasize the fact that the moral associations of particular geographical areas are very persistent. Campanians and Etruscans continue to be associated with arrogance and tryphe (e.g. Cic., de Lege Agraria contra Rullum, 1, 20; Cat., 39, 11; Verg., Georg., 2, 193), while central Italian mountain-people occupy a special place within Augustan ideology, as representatives of long-lost uprightness and military excellence1. The attributes of the latter peoples form the core of the much less geographically specific images of Italian austerity that we find from Cicero to Tacitus2.
- 3 See Veyne 1979, 261 sqq., for an excellent discussion of the coraplex, and sometimes equivocal, con (...)
3Images of Italian austerity on the one hand. and Italian decadence on the other, have a very long history, and first appear well before the advent of Latin literature. Already in Herodotus, the Etruscans are “paired” with the Lydians, the latter having supposedly sent out colonists from whom the Etruscans are descended (1, 94). Lydians are, in Herodotus, renowned for their decadent lifestyle. The connection between conquest and “softening” is very close in Herodotus, and the theme of the Lydians, softliving even before their conquest by the Persians (Herod., 1, 71. Cf. Briquel 1991), encouraged to further lengths of decadence by their conquerors (Herod., 1, 155), in some sense anticipates the defeat of Persia at the hands of the Greeks. As an explanation in moral terms of the subjugation of one people to another, the motif of the decadence of the defeated is of obvious importance in ancient historiography. In the case of Herodotus’ Etruscans, it may well be that their pairing with the Lydians suggests an early association of the Etruscans themselves with “softening”. If this is case, their decadence cannot yet be connected with conquest, but it is possible that this association was encouraged by the observation of a highly differentiated, urbanized society, with an élite clearly marked off from the rest of the population by their modes of behaviour. While decadence is often attributed to conquered peoples, it may be more broadly applied to situations in which groups or individuals are perceived to be avaricious consumers, satisfying their “taise” needs with unnecessary products rather than “self-sufficient”, according to the criteria applied in antiquity3.
4My second illustration of pre-Roman perception of Italians concerns the Tarentines and the Samnites in the latter half of the 4th century B.C. Strabo provides us with the fullest account of the theme of Samnites as Spartan colonists, and also with the biggest clue about the origin of this tradition:
- 4 Strabo, 3, 4, 12 = 250 C. It is not clear whether the one obol of the Peripoloi Pitanatai from the (...)
τινὲς δὲ και Λάκωνας συνοίκους αὐτοῖς γενέσθαι φασὶ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ φιλέλληνας ὑπάρξαι, τινὰς δὲ καὶ Πιτανάτας καλεῖσθαι, δοκεῖ δὲ καὶ Ταραντίνων πλάσμα τοῦτ’εἶναι, κολακευόντων ὁμόρους καὶ μέγα δυναμένους ἀνθρώπους καὶ ἅμα ἐξοικουμένων, oἵ γε καὶ ὀκτὼ μυριάδας ἔστελλόν ποτε τῆς πεζῆς στρατιᾶς, ἱππέας δ’ὀκτακισχιλίους.4.
- 5 Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 250 C; Festus, p. 250 L; cf. Pliny, NH, 3, 110, for mythological connections bet (...)
5The most likely background for this Tarentine “invention” is the friendly relations between Tarentum and the Samnites in the 330’s-320’s B.C. The Samnites were not the only people to whom ancient authors attributed Spartan mores and origins: Sabines and Lucanians also came to be noted for their Spartan-ness (e.g. Ar., Pol., 7, 10, 1329b; D.H., Ant.Rom., 2, 49, 5; Servius Auct., ad Verg. Aen., 8, 638; Just., 23, 1, 3-7). It is not possible to prove conclusively that the Sabines and Lucanians were included with the Samnites in one Tarentine package in the later 4th century B.C. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of suggestive details. For example, the myth of the Sacred Spring serves to assert connection between Sabines, Piceni and Samnites5; there have been interesting suggestions that the “Samnites” mentioned in the Strabonian passage cited above included the Lucanians (Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 250 C; Musti 1984, 71 sqq.); Central Adriatic texts from the area of Penna Sant’Andrea further suggest the importance of the naine *safineis outside the areas inhabited by Samnites in historical times (Prosdocimi 1978, 29 sqq.; Prosdocimi 1984.59 sqq.: Prosdocimi 1985, 35 sqq.; Prosdocimi 1987, 53 sqq.). In the context of fourth century confrontation between Tarentum and Rome, the more peoples that could conveniently be linked in by tales of kinship to Tarentum, the better.
- 6 E.g. Aristoxenos, fr. 124 Wehrli2 = Athenaeus, 14, 632a; cf. Plato, Ep., 8, 353e for Sicily (questi (...)
6Obviously, on one level, this “invention” is an assertion of kinship between two Spartan colonies. It is not irrelevant that the Tarentine “invention” takes place against a background of Greek anxiety about the “barbarisation” of the cities of Southern Italy6 close association between Greeks and non-Greeks must therefore be retrojected into the remote past. But the moral associations of an idealised Sparta should not be ignored either. In the course of the 5th century, an austere, orderly, self-disciplined and self-sufficient Sparta had come to be admired in Athens as a resuit of anxiety about the political, social and moral consequences of the acquisition of empire, admiration that seemed justified by eventual Spartan victory in the Peloponnesian war. Even after Leuctra, the myth of Sparta lived on, although her virtues were now firmly fixed in the past (Tigerstedt 1965, 44 sqq.).
- 7 Livy, 9, 1-15; 9, 3, 9, for dicitur with référencé to Pontius Herennius’arrivai in his cart.
7It has been suggested, I think convincingly, that the attribution of Spartan-ness to the Samnites forms part of an important post-Pythagorean discourse on Italie virtus dating from the latter part of the 4th century B.C. (D’Agostino 1981, 117 sqq.; Mele 1981, 61 sqq.). Attention has focussed on traditions concerning the Caudine Pontius Herennius. This individual appears in Livy’s account of discussions of the Caudine Peace, giving counsel at an advanced age. Livy alludes to an older tradition concerning this story, and the whole episode, centred on Roman hybris, is unavoidably favourable to the Samnites7. The Caudine crops up also in the de Senectute, where Cicero makes Cato claim to have heard from his Tarentine host Nearchus the story of an encounter between Pontius Herennius and the Pythagorean Archytas of Tarentum in the presence of Plato. On this occasion, Archytas was apparently discussing the role of voluptates in detracting from virtus and temperantia (de Sen., 41). Pontius Herennius’symbolic role in this imagined encounter may be deduced from a passage elsewhere in the work, where Manius Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius are attributed the desire that the Samnites and Pyrrhus might be converts to voluptas: in that case, they could be easily beaten by the Romans (de Sen., 43). The Samnites, therefore, are such threats to Rome precisely because of their lack of indulgence in voluptates. Pontius Herennius is thus, presumably, a representative of virtus and temperantia.
8It is not possible to prove conclusively that either of these traditions originated in a later 4th century B.C. Tarentine context, but it must be said that they fit very neatly with Strabo’s explicit attribution to the Tarentines of the story of Spartan origins for the Samnites, and also with traditions of friendly relations between the Pythagoreans and Italie peoples. It seems likely that Tarentines of the later 4th century B.C. knew how to make a virtue out of necessity. The Tarentines’use of Samnite manpower could be portrayed in terms of Tarentine Spartans and their Samnite perίpoloi rather than in terms of the dependence on foreign mercenaries that was fell to be a characteristic of tryphe (Mele 1981).
- 8 Ann., 104 (Skutsch): «O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti».
9When Roman literature begins in the late 3rd century B.C., we find her authors self-consciously proclaiming her as a Greek city. This proclamation involves not only the assertion of respectable Greek roots, but also the redeployment of ideology first developed within Greek contexts. Rome’s relationship with other Italian peoples is explored in ways that are familiar in Greek and particularity classical Athenian ideology. The Etruscans, for example, are a by-word for luxury and decadence (Plautus, Curc., 467 sqq.: 562-563). Most surprising, however, is a body of imagery concerning the Sabines that does not agree with the rigid portrayal of Sabine austerity which is predominant in late Republican and early Imperial literature. Dionysius of Halicarnassus seems surprised by the detail of Tarpeia’s desire for the Sabines’ bracelets and rings, a detail which he claims to have got from Fabius and Cincius (D.H., Ant. Rom., 2, 38, 3 = Fabius Pictor, fr. 8 P = Cincius, fr. 5 P). I would point also to the depiction of Titus Tatius as a tyrant, expressed in the famous alliterative line from Ennius’ Annales8.
10Positive austerity is attributed to Sabines, or at least to their environment, for the first time (as far as we can tell) within a Roman context by Cato:
«Cato in ea, quam scribsit de suis virtutibus contra Thermum: ego iam a principio in parsimonia atque in duritia atque industria omnem adulescentiam meam abstinui agro colendo, saxis Sabinis, silicibus repastinandis atque conserendis» (Cato, ORF4, no. 8, 128 = Festus, p. 350 L).
- 9 Preface 4: «at ex agricolis et viri fortissimi et milites strenuissimi gignuntur, maximeque plus qu (...)
11I would compare with Cato’s portrayal of his exemplary youth Polybius’description of the admirable behaviour of Scipio Aemilianus as a young man: he goes out hunting in the countryside, thus avoiding the contemporary evil tendency of young, well-born Romans to stay in the city and indulge themselves in conspicuous consumption and the associated behaviour of “courting the people” (Polyb., 31, 20). The city, where, presumably, conspicuous consumption would be most effective, was becoming increasingly problematized. Comparable also is the Preface of Cato’s de Agri Cultura, in which the moral aspect of farming is stressed9. What is particularly interesting about this last passage is the connection between farming and soldiering. Although Cato’s farmer is to be an absentee landlord, his lifestyle is assimilaled to that of the peasant-farmer, and even the physical exertion associated with the latter becomes his. The same kind of “hands-on” activity is seen in the contra Thermum passage. What is striking about the contra Thermum passage, however, is that the rugged, non-corrupt environment has a name.
12How much weight does saxis Sabinis carry in this passage? Plutarch has the tradition that Cato’s family came originally from Tusculum, but that Marcus was brought up on the family’s Sabine estate (Plut., Cat. Mai., 1, 1). In fact, the family, as well-to-do cavalrymen, conceivably had a number of estates scattered around Rome, so Cato may or may not have deliberately selected the Sabine landscape from a number of alternatives. Even if he did not, however, this image of the harsh, rocky, non-urban landscape of Sabinum is striking, and it is worth looking for other dues about Sabinum as a special landscape for Cato.
- 10 Verg., Aen., 8, 638: «Romulidis Tatioque seni Curibusque Severis». Servius Auct., ad Verg. Aen., 8, (...)
- 11 D.H., Ant.Rom., 2, 49, 2: Κάτων δὲ Πόρκιος τò μεν ὄνομα τ(...)
- 12 Contra Poucet 1963, 155 sqq., Letta 1985, 15 sqq. Cato in the Orig. in fact frequently refers to tr (...)
13Certainly, Servius thought that Cato traced the Sabine austerity inherited by the Romans to the Sabines’supposed Lacedaemonian ancestry10. Objections have sometimes been made to Servius’attribution to Cato of this idea. In particular, Dionysius of Halicarnassus might be understood to be saying that there are two distinct versions of Sabine ancestry: one, Cato’s, in which the Sabines are descended from Sabinus, son of Sancus, and another, one of the “local versions” in which a Spartan colony is involved in the early history of Sabinum11. It is true that the Servius passage and the “local version” in Dionysius do not square exactly: the Servius passage mentions an eponymous Spartan founder, Sabus, who does not appear at all in Dionysius’ “local version”. It nevertheless remains possible, and even probable, that Cato made some sort of reference to the Spartan-colony story. It is possible that he himself quoted “local versions”, as he does with regard to other Italian peoples in the Origines (e.g. 3, 4; 2, 1 [Chassignet]). He was also obviously interested in pre-decadent, classical Spartans as models for Rome. He apparently used the Leonidas story elsewhere in a very positive context (Gell., 3, 7, 1-19 = Orig., 4, 7 [Chassignet]). Objections to the story of the Sabines as Spartan colonists on the grounds that Cato wanted to assert the indigenous character of Italian peoples are not decisive12.
14Whether or not Cato explicitly made the link between Sabines and Sparta, what is interesting about the saxis Sabinis speech is that this Sabine environment was expected to conjure up one image and one image only: austerity and a non-corrupt environment. Yet, as we have seen, alternative images of Sabinum certainly existed in antiquity. How is it possible to reconcile wealthy, decadent Sabinum with austere, pre-corrupt Sabinum?
- 13 See, especially. Firmani 1985, 99, note 1, for insistence on the need to move beyond the artificial (...)
15Recent attempts to divide the images up geographically and historically, connecting lowland Sabinum, known to Rome from her early history, with the images of wealth and decadence, and upland Sabinum, known more recently, with images of frugality and austerity, are not successful (Musti 1985, 75 sqq.). Certainly, this explanation does not account for the complex cultural map of Sabinum (as an entity possibly even a Roman creation)13. Nor does this interpretation explain how, in the course of the second century, one image alone, that of austere Sabinum, takes over. By the Augustan period, Vergil can actually set Titus Tatius in Curibus severis (Aen., 8, 638).
- 14 For the “invention” of the Persian character in fifth century Athens, see Hall 1989, 56 sqq.
- 15 Purcell 1990.17, for the character of the third-century Roman conquest of Sabinum.
16I suggest that the “two faces of Sabinum” must ultimately be explained in terms of changing needs at Rome within the course of the early second century B.C. Images of Sabine jewelry, wealth and tyranny can be paralleled by fifth-century Athenian images of Persia: wealthy, decadent, but also with a dangerous edge14. I would suggest that this is the kind of imagery by means of which enmity and subsequent conquest are explained, and, perhaps, justified. I suspect, in fact, that this depiction of Sabinum during the Regal period represents a Roman attempt to explain third-century Roman action in ternis of the Sabines’ early tendency to excess15.
- 16 It is not obvious that Varro had any clear notion of what the Sabine language was. LL, 7, 28, for t (...)
17In the course of the second century, however, there was growing consciousness of the moral, social and political problems associated with Rome’s acquisition of empire. The city of Rome is increasingly associated with corrupt behaviour. Images of ideal behaviour in an environment outside the city of Rome become desirable. In the second century B.C., the Sabines had relatively recently been conquered and incorporated within the Roman citizenship. Thus Sabines could be regarded as being still somewhat on the margins of Roman politics: as newly incorporated outsiders, they could embody all the positive aspects of being outside the corrupt city of Rome, seat of empire. It is interesting that, alongside Sabine austerity and uprightness, images of Sabine ethnic distinctness remain, and are insisted upon by Latin authors. For example, there are the “Sabinisms” catalogued by Varro, hints of a past in which the Sabines were imagined to be a culturally-distinct entity, but also part of Rome’s heritage, now imperfectly remembered16. Latin writers focussed also on strange, mystical aspects of Sabine religion, such as prophetic dreaming and augury (Festus, 434 L; Gnaeus Gellius, fr. 7 P). In traditions of the Sabines’early past preserved by Ennius, Fabius and Cincius, Sabine difference has a negative aspect. Once the Sabines have been safely and, above all, usefully incorporated into the Roman citizenship, Sabine distinctness can be both emphasised and idealised. For Cato, the contemporary Sabine environment is non-corrupt, and it is possible that he also retrojected this image of moral excellence into the past with the story of the Sabines’Spartan ancestry.
- 17 Dover 1974, 112-114, for a collection of Athenian evidence.
- 18 E.g. MacMullen 1974, 28 sqq., for a discussion of the concept of a moral division between town and (...)
18It seems important to stress the Sabine backdrop to Cato’s claims of hard peasant-like work. Certainly in later Roman ideology, Sabines are very closely associated with rusticity and peasant-farming. Increasingly, of course, rusticity and manual labour on the land can be associated with any location in Italy outside Rome. This “countryside” is associated with moral excellence: this is where self-sufficiency, real hard work and excellent soldiers are to be found, in contrast with the indolent and dependent city of Rome. This is Athenian town/country ideology17 with some important differences: in the case of Rome, perceived ethnie difference can be idealised, and also, with one stroke, the existence of other cities in Italy is denied18. As for Cato’s Sabine backdrop, il may be possible to see here an early example of an enfranchised people being perceived as the useful country territory of the city of Rome.
- 19 10, 38, 5, sqq. Cf. 10, 39, 16, for the speech of L. Papirius.
- 20 Cic., de Sen., 55; cf. Auct., Vir.III., 33, 8-9; Val. Max., 4, 3, 5; Pliny, NH, 19, 87; cf. the sam (...)
19While images of Sabine worthiness were developing in the course of the second century B.C., such worthiness was not yet extended to central Italian mountain people in general. Second-century Roman interest was directed rather towards the outlandish practices of this area. Lucilius and Gnaeus Gellius reflect Roman interest in the exotic Marsic ability to charm snakes and cure their bites (Lucilius, 575-576 M; Gnaeus Gellius, fr. 9 P = Solinus, 2, 28). It is legitimate also to wonder from what source Livy obtained his very detailed account of the Third Samnite war. The Samnites are, in this section, fundamentally anti-social beings, «montani atque agrestes», pitched against the agricultural plain-people with whom our sympathies are surely meant to lie (9, 13, 7). They sacrilegiously mingle blood of man and beast in a sinister secret ceremony19. The detail of their gold and silver armour is interesting: it makes the enemy flashy and ultimately unmanly when compared with the staunch and austere Romans of the middle Republic (9, 40; cf. 10, 39, 11-14). This detail might be compared with stories of virtuous heroes of the middle Republic such as M’. Curius Dentatus, who refused to be swayed by offers of Samnite gold20. Images such as these do not square well with the developed Augustan theme of “Sabellian” manliness and austerity, and it is tempting to suppose that they go back to an earlier tradition.
- 21 For comparison with the Persian variety, see Hall 1989, 79-100. Later accounts of Italian perceptio (...)
20These cruel and flashy Samnites might remind us of certain varieties of barbarians in ancient ideology21. These images of Marsi and Samnites build up to suggest a sense of considerable unease, which is reflected also in reports of Roman attitudes during and immediately after the Social war. According to Appian, the double-edged saying «no victory without or against the Marsi» was in existence before the Social war: the implication of military power which could be used either for or against Rome is disturbing (Appian, BC, 1, 46, 203). But Sulla’s activity against the Samnites in 82 is surely the best indication of the fear which the Samnites held for the Romans, or, at the very least, the fear which could be manipulated in order to justify Sulla’s harsh action. According to Strabo (5, 4, 11 = 249 C):
πρòς δὲ τοὺς αἰτιωμένους τὴν ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ὀργὴν ἔφη καταμαθεῖν ἐκ τῆς πείρας ὡς οὐδεποτ’ ἂν εἰρήνην ἀγάγοι Ῥωμαίων οὐδὲ εἷς ἕως ἂν συμμένωσι καθ’ ἑαυτοὺς Σαυνίται.
21The ethnic Sabellus first occurs in Varro, and I would be surprised if this timing were merely an accident of survival (Varro, Men., fr. 17 (Astbury) = Serv. Auct., ad Georg., 2, 168). The term could clearly be used by ancient authors to refer both to Sabines and to Samnites: thus, it cannot fail to put emphasis on perceived connections between Sabines and Samnites. My explanation for the appearance of this ethnic is as follows. After the incorporation of the Sabines into the Roman citizenship, these people no longer constituted any kind of threat to Rome. Sabinum could be viewed entirely in terms of its relationship to Rome, and a desirable simplicity could safely be located there. Sabinum was also such a convincing antithesis of Rome precisely because it was perceived to have a culture, or rather, and this needs emphasis, the remnants of a culture, which was different from Rome. But Sabinum was in obvious ways progressively Romanised: the doser to Rome Sabinum was perceived to be, the less satisfactory it would be as the antithesis of Rome.
- 22 Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 38; Verg., Aen., 8, 510; Georg., 2.167; Serv., ad Georg., 2, 167; Strabo, 5, 4, 1 (...)
22As a result of the enfranchisement of the peoples of the Central Apennines such as the Marsi and Paeligni, and of Sulla’s violence against the Samnites in the 80’s, these areas too could become a moral resource for Rome. Regarding the Samnites, it is interesting that it is the “Sabelli” who come to have the most positive attributes, rather than the Samnites per se22. It is as if, through this new ethnic, the Sabines take on an added aura of foreigness and simplicity from the Samnites without absorbing the less desirable and more anti-social qualities attributed to the Samnites. The inhabitants of Augustus’ fourth regio too come to represent desirable masculinity, as valiant providers of troops for Rome (Cf. note 1, above, for references): their value is now emphasised in terms of their contribution to Rome. I would also emphasise the fact that the “outsider” quality of these people becomes desirable precisely at the moment that these cultures are really in the process of losing their distinctive character.
- 23 E.g. Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 37 sqq.; Strabo, 5, 4, 2 = 241 C; cf. also Cicero, Pro Plane., 22, for the a (...)
- 24 E.g. Livy, 9, 13, 7, for an unfavourable view of Samnite mountain-dwellers.
23Why exactly are such virtues associated with peoples such as these, rather than, for example, the Etruscans? Ancient explanation of human character in terms of “environmental determinism” is of some relevance in the case of Central Apennine peoples: there are a number of specific references to their mountain environment within passages which have moral content23. This explanation does not suffice, however: mountain peoples can be characterised as savage or morally upright24, while areas such as Etruria and Sabinum are very difficult to characterise generally in terms of environmental stereotypes. In these latter cases, there was a considerable element of choice involved in assigning them to an environmental category. The history of the relationship of various Italian peoples with Rome is surely an important factor: I have tried to show that the Sabines were of such ideological importance to Rome largely because of the timing of their enfranchisement. I would point also to the importance of social structures in the formation of Roman ideology.
- 25 Brunt 1971,44-58, for calculations of men of military age in Italy in 225 B.C., and for discussion (...)
- 26 For Samnite material culture in the third to second centuries B.C., see the classic article by La R (...)
24Firstly, the apparent comparatively abundant free peasantry of the Central Apennines which would be available for the Roman army surely encouraged emphasis in the later sources on the bravery and virtue of the peoples of this area25. Secondly, while it is important not to exaggerate overtones of marginality and backwardness regarding Central Apennine peoples, moves towards urbanisation were undoubtedly considerably later here than in Tyrrhenian Italy. While local élites found plenty of opportunities to associate themselves with the magnificent rural sanctuaries, and while private housing was becoming more comfortable by the end of the second century, trappings associated with a Romanised “good life” were still apparently relatively rudimentary by the time of the Social war26. Such factors may more easily have encouraged the assimilation with the peasantry which constituted the Roman ideal of élite behaviour.
25Rome’s enfranchisement of ethnically diverse peoples does not fit any of the conventional models of Greek relations with other peoples. The act of enfranchisement encouraged a sense of cohesion which enabled not just the idealization of different ethnic groups, but actually the location of true Roman-ness outside the city of Rome.
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Notes
1 E.g. Verg., Georg., 2, 167 sqq.; Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 37 sqq.; Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 241 C; Pliny, NH, 3, 106; Appian, BC, I, 46, 203. For Ciceronian antecedents of this ideology, see e.g. In Vat., 36; Pro Plane., 22.
2 Cf. Wiseman 1971, 113 for the attribution to the novi homines of «all the ancient virtues of the central-Italian hill people».
3 See Veyne 1979, 261 sqq., for an excellent discussion of the coraplex, and sometimes equivocal, concept of autarcheia in antiquity.
4 Strabo, 3, 4, 12 = 250 C. It is not clear whether the one obol of the Peripoloi Pitanatai from the Calvi Risorta hoard is relevant to this issue, as its provenance is unknown. See Crawford 1985, 28, with Appendix 4, p. 282.
5 Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 250 C; Festus, p. 250 L; cf. Pliny, NH, 3, 110, for mythological connections between the Sabines and Piceni.
6 E.g. Aristoxenos, fr. 124 Wehrli2 = Athenaeus, 14, 632a; cf. Plato, Ep., 8, 353e for Sicily (questions about whether or not this is an authentic letter of Plato himself are not really relevant here); cf. Pliny, NH, 29, 14, for an indication that the “ethnie” Opikos was being used by Greeks as a term of abuse at least by the early second century B.C.
7 Livy, 9, 1-15; 9, 3, 9, for dicitur with référencé to Pontius Herennius’arrivai in his cart.
8 Ann., 104 (Skutsch): «O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti».
9 Preface 4: «at ex agricolis et viri fortissimi et milites strenuissimi gignuntur, maximeque plus quaestus stabilissimusque consequitur minimeque invidiosus, minimeque male cogitantes sunt qui in eo studio occupati sint».
10 Verg., Aen., 8, 638: «Romulidis Tatioque seni Curibusque Severis». Servius Auct., ad Verg. Aen., 8, 638: «Cato autem et Gellius a Sabo Lacedaemonio trahere eos originem referunt. Porro Lacedaemonios durissimos fuisse omnis lectio docet. Sabinorum etiam mores populum Romanum secutum idem Cato dicit: merito “severis”, qui et a duris parentibus orti sunt, et quorum disciplinam victores Romani in multis secuti sunt».
11 D.H., Ant.Rom., 2, 49, 2: Κάτων δὲ Πόρκιος τò μεν ὄνομα τ Σαβίνων ἔθνει τεθ
ναι Φησιν ἐπì Σαβίνου το
Σάγκου δαίμονος ἐπιχωρίου, το
τον δὲ τòν Σάγκον
πό τινων Πίστιον καλε
σθαι Δíα. For a discussin of the reasons why the reading ∑αβίνoυ should be preferred to Σάβoυ, see M. Chassignet, in: Caton, Les Origines (fragments), texte établi traduit et commenté par M. Chassignet. Paris, 1986, 76.
D.H., Ant.Rom., 2, 49, 4: ἔστι δέ τις καì ἂλλος πὲρ τ
ν Σαβíνων ἐν ἱστοριαις ἐπιχωρίοις λεγόμενος λόγος,
ς Λακεδαιμονίων ἐποικησάντων αὐτο
ς καθ’
ν χρόνον ἐπιτροπεύων Εὔνομον τòν ἀδελΦιδο
ν Λυκο
ργος ἔθετο τ
Σπάρτῃ τοὺς νόμους.
12 Contra Poucet 1963, 155 sqq., Letta 1985, 15 sqq. Cato in the Orig. in fact frequently refers to traditions of the Greek origins of Italian peoples: 2.15, 18, 22, 24, 26; 3, 2, 3 (Chassignet).
13 See, especially. Firmani 1985, 99, note 1, for insistence on the need to move beyond the artificial division between Sabina Tiberina and Sabina interna in considering the cultural complexity of pre-Roman Sabinum.
14 For the “invention” of the Persian character in fifth century Athens, see Hall 1989, 56 sqq.
15 Purcell 1990.17, for the character of the third-century Roman conquest of Sabinum.
16 It is not obvious that Varro had any clear notion of what the Sabine language was. LL, 7, 28, for the belief that the Sabine and Samnite languages were related; LL, 5, 74, for the idea that Pales, Vesta, Salus, Fortuna, Fons and Fides were taken from the Sabines «with small changes», a vague-sounding notion. Poucet 1985, 80, for a sceptical approach to supposed linguistic evidence for Sabine involvement at Rome in the Regal period.
17 Dover 1974, 112-114, for a collection of Athenian evidence.
18 E.g. MacMullen 1974, 28 sqq., for a discussion of the concept of a moral division between town and country, the country being idealised and denigrated at various times and in various contexts; Wallace-Hadrill 1991,241 sqq., for the irony of the importation of urbanity into the country, and “rustic values" into the city via the novi homines; Ramage 1973, for a useful catalogue of the occurrence of instances of approval of sophisticated behaviour and condemnation of boorish behaviour. The particular differences between Athenian town/country ideology and Roman town/country ideology with which I am concerned here are not discussed in these works.
19 10, 38, 5, sqq. Cf. 10, 39, 16, for the speech of L. Papirius.
20 Cic., de Sen., 55; cf. Auct., Vir.III., 33, 8-9; Val. Max., 4, 3, 5; Pliny, NH, 19, 87; cf. the same story attributed to Fabricius Luscinus by Val. Max., 4, 4, 6.
21 For comparison with the Persian variety, see Hall 1989, 79-100. Later accounts of Italian perception of their treatment by Rome in the late second to early first centuries B.C. may be compared with such Italian “barbarians” in Roman ideology. E.g. Appian, BC, 1, 34.152, for Fulvius Flaccus exciting amongst the Italians the desire to be partners rather than subjects; V.P., 2, 15, 2, for the idea of the Romans despising Italians as externos alienosque.
22 Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 38; Verg., Aen., 8, 510; Georg., 2.167; Serv., ad Georg., 2, 167; Strabo, 5, 4, 12 = 250 C; Pliny, NH, 3, 107; Hor., Sat., 1, 9, 29; Sat., 2. 1, 36; Livy, 8, 1, 17; 10, 19, 20.
23 E.g. Hor., Odes, 3, 6, 37 sqq.; Strabo, 5, 4, 2 = 241 C; cf. also Cicero, Pro Plane., 22, for the area around Venafrum and Allifae: «tota denique illa aspera, et montuosa, et fidelis, et simplex et fautrix suorum regio...».
24 E.g. Livy, 9, 13, 7, for an unfavourable view of Samnite mountain-dwellers.
25 Brunt 1971,44-58, for calculations of men of military age in Italy in 225 B.C., and for discussion of the interesting fact that the proportion of free persons to land is apparently much higher amongst the Samnites than it is in Etruria. La Regina 1970, 443 sqq., 449-451, estimates the ratio of free persons to km2 of land in Samnium at 34.8, at the very least, a figure surpassed only by that calculated for Latini (40.6 per km2).
26 For Samnite material culture in the third to second centuries B.C., see the classic article by La Regina 1976, 219 sqq. For Samnite material culture considered relatively within a second century B.C. Italian context, see e.g. Patterson 1991, 146 sqq.: Lloyd 1991, 180 sqq., especially 184.
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