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Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate by Ch.
WirszubskiReview by: Arnaldo MomiglianoThe Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 41, Parts 1 and 2 (1951), pp. 146-153Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/298106 .
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REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
CH. WIRSZUBSKI,
LIBERTAS AS A
POLITICAL
IDEA A T ROME DURING THE LATE REPUBLIC
AND EARLY PRINCIPATE (Cambridge Classical
Studies). Cambridge University Press, 1I950.
Pp. XI +
I
82.
I5s.
A pilgrim to Cambridge (from Jerusalem),
iMir.
WVirszubski
has entered into the spirit of the
place and has written a little book which Lord Acton
will read with pleasure in the Elysian Fields.
Havring perused
it in no less distinguished a place-the Ashmolean
lMluseum-I
found it entirely
enjoyable and
would like to recommend it to those who are disturbed by the
present trends in
the
study
of
Late Republican and Early Imperial History.
Naivre apologists for Roman
'
vrirtues
'
are
only too obvriously discredited-except perhaps in
some numismatic cabinets; but the Realpolitiker
who are replacing them are
not
more impressivre(cf.
H. Last,
Gnomizon
2,
I950, 360).
iVMr.
Wirszubski,
unruffled by
the
recent, apparently unexpected,
discovrery that Cicero liked good dinners, that the
Roman populace
took bribes and
that Octavrian's
followers asked for rewards, understands Cicero
well, interprets Tacitus correctly,
and
knows what
Thrasea stood for.
The discussion of
a
book
one likes can
easily
outgrow any tolerable proportions. I must confine
my review to two points. First I shall probe the foundations
of Mr. Wirszubski's history of Libertas;
secondly, I shall try to show by one example that the reconsideration of the principles of Libertas
requires new research in detail.
I.
Liberty
and Libertas.-Two different and,
to my mind, mutually exclusivre interpretations of
Libertas havre been defended. According to one, Libertas is a juridical notion
which, if properly
analysed, provres
to
be identical
with
the
notion of Civritas. Libertas sums up
the rights of a Roman
civris as
MVlommsen aid,
als
dieser Rechtsschutz selbst als Biirgerrecht aufgefasst ward, fiel
diese
ihre libertas
mit
der civitas zusammen'
(R5in.
Staatsr.
iII,
63). According to the other
interpretation, Libertas
is a vague word which usually conceals egoistic interests.
As Professor Syme
puts it,
'
Liberty
and
the
Laws are
high-sounding
words. They will often be rendered,
on a cool
estimate,
as
privrilege
and vrested interests
'
(The
RomizanRevolution 59). Also :
'
Libertas
is a
vrague
and
negativre
notion-freedom from the rule of a
tyrant
or
a faction. It follows that libertas,
like
regnuin
and
donizitiatio,
s a
convrenient term of political
fraud
'
(p.
I55:
the whole page is relevant).
Miir.Wirszubski had to make up his mind whether to choose the former (juridical) or the latter
(ideological) interpretation of Libertas. He has chosen,
in my opinion quite correctly, the former.
It is indeed characteristic of Libertas
that,
though so often mentioned
in
the heat of political
discussion,
it seldom looks like an
empty
word. XVhen Libertas is quoted, some more or
less
important right
of
a Roman
' ciris
'
is
usually
in
question. H. Kloesel's dissertation
(I935),
which
Syme quotes
as his
only
evidence
for the thesis that Libertas was a
v
ague
and negativre
notion
',
provres the contrary. Kloesel's list of passages
shows that Libertas is often associated by Late
Republican
or
Augustan
writers
with precise
laN-s and institutions: such as
the yearly magistrates,
'auctoritas
senatus
',
the
tribunes,
'
provrocatio',
agrarian laws, the Lex Porcia, the Leges Tabellariae,
the ' Lex Cassia
altera
',
etc. Compared with
the use of the words
'
freedom
'
and
'
liberty'
in
political
discussions of our
time,
the use of Libertas
in
Roman
political struggles
seems
altogether
more
juridically minded-which,
of
course,
one would
expect, givren
the
persons
for whom
Roman
historians and politicians
were more
frequently
writing.
Thus, my agreement NwithMr. Wirszubski on the way of approaching his subject could hardly
be greater (cf.
YRS
xxxi,
I94I,
i6o;
XXXII, I942,
I20).
But when one comes to laying
the foundations
of research
on Libertas as a
primarily juridical
notion there is
scope
for
disagreement.
iVMr.
Wirszubski
is not precise enough to my mind, though
I
should
like to add that,
evren
when he
is not
perfectly
clear on
principles,
he is
nevrer
dangerously
misleading
on
details.
(i)
Libertas, we
would all agree,
is
not Liberty, but the process which
leads from
Libertas
to
Liberty
is
a
continuous one.
If
wvestart
from
Liberty and go back to
see what
the Romans
knew
and
practised
about
Liberty,
there are
many things
not treated
in
W.
's book to be
considered:
for
instance,
freedom of
travrelling,
of
teaching,
of
publishing books,
women's freedom,
freedom
of
trade,
freedom of
the
seas, freedom
in the matter
of drinking, eating,
and dressing,
freedom
in
sexual
behavriour,
freedom from want and
fear,
etc.
All
these freedoms
may
or
may
not havre
been
classified
by
the Romans under the
heading
of
Libertas. But
if
one
examines
Libertas
in itself-
to know what the Romans meant
by
it-one does not see what
a
discussion
of Libertas
has
to do
with religious freedom or with the sanctity of the home (pp.
29-30),
unless evxidence s provided that
these
things
were connected with Libertas, which
is
not the
case.
Furthermore,
the evridence on Libertas should
be
presented
in a
rigorous chronological
order
and each author should
be analysed by himself.
W;.
has
givren
separate paragraphs to Cicero's
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REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
I47
De Re Publica and De Legibus, and
to Tacitus, with excellent results, but on the whole he has confined
himself to desultory quotations.
One consequence is that
we
do not
know
from his book
what
Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Seneca, Lucan thought about Libertas: whether
the idea of Libertas was
a central one for them, what notions they connected with Libertas or
what aspects of Libertas they
emphasized, what thoughts they attributed to other persons on Libertas, etc.
Another consequence is that WV.makes no attempt
at a
systematic
use of the epigraphical
and
numismatic evidence and therefore
does not utilize inscriptions and coins even in those cases
in which they really help to supplement the literary evidence.
The Lex Porcia de provocatione
(?
I99.
W. does not seem to be aware
of difficulties about the Leges Porciae: the subject must be
re-examinedafter A. H.
lMJcDonald,
JRS
XXXIV,
I944,
I9)
and the Lex Cassia of I37 are apparently
already connected with Libertas
on coins before
Ioo
B.C. (B.-M.C., Rolz. Rep.
I,
I5I,
I53): the
evidence quoted by
WI.
or both connections
is not earlier than Cicero. Allusions in terms of Libertas
to
the grant of Roman citizenship
to the Italians havrebeen found on coins of about
75 B.C.
(ib.
i,
399-403).
I
feel uneasy about these coins, but the texts produced by
IV. for the connection between
Libertas and the grant of citizenship to the Italians are
evren
more unsatisfactory:
one is the alleged
utterance of an Italian in Velleius
II, 27, 2,
and the
other is the
opinion
of a Greek, Strabo V, 4,
2,
p.
24I.
Among the inscriptions it will be enough
to recall the decree of L. Aemilius of
I89 B.C.
(Dessau, ILS
IS)
which MIommsen's commentary made famous (Hernmes
II,
i869,
261
Ges.
Schriften iv,
S6,
and Staatsrecht
iii,
p. xvii, n.
I).
As MNIommsen bserved, Rome discouraged
serfdom.
(2) The identification of Civitas
and
Libertas requires
careful analysis. One has
to
account for
what the writers said about it at different times and in different circumstances
(e.g. Cic., pro
Caecina 96 ; Livy ii, 5 ;
Dig.
49,
I5, 5,
2, on wrhich
cf. MI. Nicolau, Cautsa Liberalis
1933,
53),
keeping in mind the three notions
which
inevritably
contributed to complicate any statement on
this
subject: the notion
of
Roman
citizenship, the
notion or
suspicion
that
all
men are
naturally
free, the notion of men living
a free life outside Roman citizenship.
In
other words one must
analyse what the texts mean by
'
Libertas ex iure Quiritium, civritas ibera, postliminium (on which
F.
de Visscher, Festschrift P. Koschaker,
I, I939, 367,
will be
found particularly
useful),
capitis
deminutio
'. The ordinary tripartition
of
capitis deninazutio
s
found already
in
Gaius
(i I60-2)
and
involves a series of
problems
which
W.
has not faced.
He
says:
'
Only
a
Roman citizen
enjoys
all
the rights, personal and political, that constitute libertas. The so-called Capitis Deminutio lMledia
whereby
a Roman loses
citizenship
while
retaining
freedom
does not
contradict
this conclusion.
For
Capitis
Deminutio
Miedia
means
loss of
Roman
citizenship
as
a
consequence
of
the
acquisition
of a different
citizenship' (p. 4). This
I
take
to be
an
optimistic
view. For
Gaius
says:
'
Minor
siue media est
capitis
deminutio
cum civitas
amittitur,
libertas retinetur:
quod
accidit
ei
cui
aqua
et
igni
interdictum fuerit.' The
principle
underlying
the
tripartition
of
the
'
deminutio
'
is
explained
by
Paulus:
'
tria enim sunt
quae
habemus, libertatem, civitate;n, famniliam
(Dig.
4,
S,
II).
This
tripartition
is not
compatible
with
the
identification
of
Ci-vitas
and Libertas.
If WN.
hinks
(as
he
seems to
imply)
that the
tripartitioln
of
capitis
demizinuttio
s
already part
of
the
juridical thought
of
the Roman
Republic,
he is
not entitled to
assert
the
identification of Libertas with Civitas. The
truth
is,
of
course,
that it
is
vrery
uncertain when the
tripartition
was introduced. It does
not
yet
appear in Festus
(s.v.
'
deminutus capite ', p. 6i Lindsay
--70
lMfiller),
and there are some
passages
in the Digest
which
taken each by
itself would
give
rather the
impression
of
bipartition (D.
38,
i6,
I,
4; 38,
i7,
i8
50, I3,
5, 3).
The tripartitioncertainlydoes not appear n any of the republican
and
Augustan passages
on
c.d. known to me
(Cic.,
Top.
4
(i8),
6
(29);
Caes.,
BC
2, 32, I0;
Hor.,
Carin.
3,
5, 42
; Livy
22,
6o,
IS).
It is not
necessary
to
go
into the modern theories
on
c.d., though
especially
what has been written
by
H.
Kruger,
UI.
Coli
and F. Desserteaux would
be
vrery
relevrant
(the most recent discussion
known to me is between
R.
Ambrosino,
Stuldia
et
Documlnz.
ist. Juris
6,
I940, 369, and
C.
Gioffredi
ib.
II, I945, 30I:
I
am in substantial
agreement
with the
latter).
It seems
reasonable to
conclude
that the
tripartition
of
c.d. was introduced
in
the
early imperial
age
and
does
not
affect
what
republican
jurists
thought
about Libertas. For
the
meaning
of
'
caput
'
in
repu-blican
texts
compare
also
F. De
Visscher,
Le
re'ginze
onzain
de la
naoxalite'
947,
I48.
I
may
perhaps
add that
I
do not
quite
agree
with De
Visscher
'
De
l'acquisition
du droit de
cite
romain
par
l'affranchissernent
',
Studia
et
Documniz.
ist. 7/uris. I2,
I946, 69.
One
of the
reasons
for
my
disagreement
is
to
be
found
in the
'
vendere
trans
Tiberim',
but
I
cannot
argue
the
point
here:
cf. iVM.
aser,
Zeitschr. Sav.
Stift.
Rom. Abt.
67, I950, 489,
n. 59.
(3) Some of the most famous episodes of the traditional history of Rome are connected with
Libertas
(cf.
U.
Coli.
'
Sul
parallelismo
del diritto
pubblico
e
del
diritto
privrato
nel
periodo
arcaico
di
Roma',
Stzudia
et
Docutnm.
,
1938,
95). They
offered an
explanation
of
certain Roman institutions
and represented a powerful stimulus for remembering and cherishing the formalities of Roman Law.
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I
48
REVIEW
AND DISCUSSION
The stories on the origin of provocatio,
the tale of the
origins
of the
Republic,
the
legend
of Verginia,
certain episodes of the struggle
between patricians and plebeians were powerful factors in the
education of the Romans. These
traditions may, of course, be said to have already been in existence
in the second century
B.C.
and
therefore to be outside the chronological limits of
WV.'s
esearch.
But it is evident that some at least of these legends were still being reshaped in the last centuries
of the Republic and that they
maintained, and perhaps increased, their educational importance
during the political struggles
of the late
Republic. They
made it
possible
for Cicero to say:
'
Aliae
nationes servitutem pati possunt,
populi Romani est propria libertas
'
(6 Phil.
i9).
One is surprised
to see that
a
chapter
'
Education
for Libertas
'
is missing
in
W.'s book. This is regrettable because
Roman
legends
with
a
juridical
background
have
recently been
the
object
of
lively
discussion
among
French scholars.
While
my private opinion
remains that there is very little in
Dumezil's
theories, the studies
of
H.
Levy-Bruhl and P. Noailles
are
often
illuminating. Noailles has, for
instance, made it
clearer
that
the legend of Verginia as it appears
in Livy really represents the
reinterpretation by
a
lawyer of
a much simpler legend. It is interesting to see
Le'W-Bruhl
and
Noailles'
opinions
now
spreading
in
Germany (for instance,
M.
Kaser,
l.c.
474).
(4) Though
the
main
emphasis
was
on juridical Libertas,
the
Romans
in
the last centuries of
the
Republic thought
of
Libertas as
a
sign
of
distinguished
humanity irrespective of juridical status.
W. does not seem to have considered this aspect. Unless I am mistaken, he does not quote either
Ennius' solemn
words
in
a
tragedy
(259 R3.
=
300 V.2)
'
ea libertas
est, qui pectus purum et firmum
gestitat
'
or
Terence's
lines
'
feci
ex
servo ut esses libertus mihi, propterea quod servibas liberaliter'
(Andria 37-8,
on
which
cf.
F.
Jacoby's suggestive, though probably adventurous, remarks
in
Herimes
44, I909, 362).
The
non-juridical approach
to
Libertas,
which
provided
M. Antonius
with
some
good
fun
(De
Orat. I, 226),
became more
important
than
the
juridical
when the
Roman
Senatorial Republic
was
destroyed by
Caesar.
Everything
WV. as written on
liberty
in
the first
century
of the Empire is sound and well said.
A
word
on the often misunderstood passage of Tac. Ann.
I,
75 would have been useful, but is not
indispensable.
The
comparison
with
Professor
L. Wickert,
'
Der
Prinzipat und die Freiheit,'
Symbola Coloniensia Iosepho
Kroll . . . oblata
II I-I47, is
favourable to W. Though Wickert quotes
more
passages,
knows
the
inscriptions
and has
some good remarks,
his
conclusion-' jedenfalls ist
die libertas die der
Prinzipat
ertragt und schirmt, nicht mehr die tatige Freiheit des Republikaners,
sondern die zahme Behaglichkeit des Untertanen' (p.
I41)-can
hardly be called a contribution to
knowledge.
Yet
in
some
way WV.,oo,
has missed the full
implications
of the fall
of
the
Roman
Republican
Government.
When
many
of the
rights usually
connected with
Roman
Libertas were
lost,
some
people
rediscovered what
the
Greek
philosophers
had noticed
before,
that
loss of
political rights
involves
almost
unexpectedly
a much more serious offence to
elementary
moral
values.
PrivTateLaw
was not
deeply
affected. The
majority
of
the Roman
lawyers
could
perhaps go
on
working
without
noticing any revolutionary
change:
E.
Levy's
recent
remarks on this
subject ('
Natural
Law
in
Roman
Thought',
Stutdia
et
Docutmenta
I5, I949, 22)
deserve careful
consideration. But
people
more
directly
concerned with moral life were
less
easy
to
placate.
In
45-44
B.C.,
the
'
anni mirabiles
'
of Latin
thought,
Cicero
worked
feverishly
to
give
Rome
in
her own
tongue
the
system
of moral
and
metaphysical
values she
was still
lacking,
'
ut si
occupati profuimus aliquid
civibus nostris
prosimus etiam,
si
possumus,
otiosi'
(Tutsc. Disp.
I,
3,
(5)).
The
De
Officiis
is a code of behaviour
for the aristocracy just liberated from Caesar s tyranny. During the second big crisis-the Neronian
one-Seneca
repeatedly
faced the
question
of the relations between
personal
freedom and
political
activity;
Lucan
(as
B. Marthi
observed
in her
admirable
paper
in A.j.
Phil.
66,
I945, 352)
showed
that
Pompey's
moral character
improved
with
the
progress
of the
struggle against
Caesar-'
seque
probat
moriens'
(viii
62I);
and
Musonius
explored
unusual avenues of moral action
(A.
C.
van
Geytenbeek,
iMiusoniuis
utfuts
n de Griekse
Diatribe, Amsterdam,
I948,
is
better than
anything
else
on Musonius,
yet
insufficient:
J. Korver,
'
Neron
et
Musonius,'
iMinemos.
V,
I950, 3I9,
is
controversial).
W. does not
seem to have
appreciated
the
magnitude
of the
Neronian
crisis: he
does
not
discuss
either
Lucan or Musonius
and
says
very
little about
Seneca.
Consequently
he is not in
a
position
to assess the disillusionment
of those
who,
like
Helvidius
Priscus, evidently thought
that
Vespasian,
the friend of Thrasea
and Barea Soranus
(Tac.,
Hist.
IV,
7),
did not come
up
to
expecta-
tions.
W.
attempts
to reduce
the
value of
the
passage
of Dio
66,
I2, 2,
pCaloEiaS
T?E &?i Kc(T-ryopEi
icd
i
oKpaTiav ETr?IVEI
without examining the long account of Philostratus, V7ita
Apoll. Tyan. v,
33
ff.,
about
the
discussions
at the moment of
Vespasian's
accession: Philostratus and
Dio
have
at least
this
in
common that
they
describe
people prepared
to
question
the
very
foundations of
the
Roman principate. There is enough in Tacitus to
showv
hat the alternative-Libertas
or Imperator-
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REVIEW AND
DISCUSSION
I49
was still
a
real
one in the mind of some persons
(for instance, Ann.
i5,
52,
4). B. Croce
found
Helvidius
worth
a
close
analysis in
Qutaderni
della
Critica 4,
I946, 25-35. It
would
also have
been
important
to
take an
unambiguous
position about two
recent interpretations
of the opposition
of
the
intellectuals. M. A.
Levi's theory (Nerone e
i
sutoi
tempi I949) that
Seneca and Lucan
were
representatives of a Western ideology against Nero's oriental sympathies can be true only up to
a point.
It is not possible to
combine Lucan's passionate
interest in Roman
tradition
with
Seneca's
concern
for individual perfection.
The details of
Levi's theory are
doubtful:
for instance, he
makes
Barea Soranus
an accuser of Thrasea
(p. 205, n. 4) and
takes kindly to Ciaffi's
truly fantastic
attribution
of the Octavia to
Annaeus Cornutus (Riv.
Fil.
N.S. I5, I937,
246). In strict
theory
there
is
more
to be said for
Miss J. M. C. Toynbee's
distinction between
the Cynic dislike
of
the
emperors
as
such and the
Stoic
dislike
of bad emperors
(Greece and Rome I3, I944,
43). But
the facts about
individual
philosophers
do
not fit
into this scheme. Helvidius
Priscus
who, according
to
Miss
Toynbee,
went
Cynic,
is
described as Stoic
by Dio 66,
I2
; and
it is hardly fair
to suppose
that
Mlusonius
had evinced 'some unexpected Cynic
symptoms' when
he
was
exiled by Vespasian.
WV.
s far
more
persuasive
on
the third big crisis-the
Domitianic one. He sees with
a clarity
denied to other
students of
Tacitus,
but
not
to the
great Tacitist, Amelot
de la Houssaie, that
Tacitus
analysed
the conflict between
Libertas and
'
adulatio
'. W., however,
does not go into the
conflict
between Libertas and imperialism from whose difficulties Tacitus never disentangled himself.
Moreover,
if
Tacitus
is the first to make '
adulatio
' the centre of his analysis of tyranny, the problem
of
freedom
of
speech
inevitably
concerned most
of
the writers
of the imperial age
from Phaedrus
and Persius
to Quintilian
and Juvenal. Precisely
because Libertas was
no longer a clear juridical
concept, these
writers
are not
concerned
with
formal rights to speak
in assemblies, but with
the
opposite
of
'
adulatio
'.
The study
of freedom
of
speech
under the
Principate
is not to
be
found
in W.'s book.
(5)
It
is
an
open question
whether we must introduce
Greek texts
in
a
discussion
on Libertas.
As long
as Libertas represents
the rights of the
Romans as rulers, the
investigation
must remain
strictly
confined
to Roman citizens.
But I
do
not see
how
one could
separate
the
discussion
on
Libertas
from that on
Eleutheria when
one
comes
to the imperial age.
Many of the people
who
wrote
in
Greek
were
by
now
Roman
citizens,
and
in
any case
both Roman citizens and provincials
obeyed
the
emperor.
In
practice
W.
admits
Dio,
on whom
he
follows
von Arnim (discussed
below),
but not Philo, Pluitarch, an-d Epictetus. Mtiisonius is mentioned, but his writings are not examined-
a
clear
'
reductio
ad absurdum'
of the
distinction.
Nothing is better
than Plutarch's Precepts
of
Statecraft
about
liberty
in
Greece
under the Romans. Plutarch
exactly
defines the limits of
political
activity
for an ambitious young
Greek,
he
warns
the officers of the
city not to urge foolishly
the
people
to imitate
the actions and
ideals of
theii
ancestors,
and
he
invites
them to remember
that
they
have the boots of
the
Roman
soldiers over
their head. But
he is also
perfectly
candid about
his way of understanding
freedom of discussion.
It would
be bad for the leaders to give
the
impression
that
they
constantly agree among
themselves.
They
should
make some
show of
disagreement
(8I3
B).
This notion of
freedom of
speech
is also
a
key
to
the
understanding
of Dio.
Any
Greek speaker
had to
rediscover
for
himself
the
narrow
path
existing
between the
suspicions
of the
Roman
authorities and the
passions
of the Greek
crowds. So to Dio
we can turn.
II. Dio
of
Prutsa,
the
Rhodiana
libertas'
and
the
Philosophers.-i.
Introduction.-Synesius
of
Cyrene, dissenting from Philostratus, divided Dio of Prusa's literary activities into a sophistic and a
philosophic period
(Dio
35A,
p.
233 Terzaghi). Synesius,
admittedly,
had a
personal
interest
in
shoiw-
ing
that Dio
was
ultimately
able
to
combine
good philosophy
with
good
Greek
(see
his letter to
Hypatia,
no.
I54
in
Hercher, Epistol.
Graeci ed.
Didot, p.
735).
His
views
were
accepted
and
developed by
H. von
Arnim
(i898)
who classified
Dio's
works
into three
groups: sophistic speeches
and
essays
before the
exile
(which
he dated
in A.D.
82)
;
essays
written
during
the exile
but
subsequent
to his
conversion
to
philosophy;
literary
and
philosophic
production
later
than
his recall
from exile
(96-I20
?).
According
to von
Arnim,
Dio,
after
having
been
a virtuoso in
his
youth
and a
philosophic
rebel
in his
maturity,
subsequently
discovered
the
possibility
of
bringing
eloquence
into
harmony
with
philosophy.
Von
Arnim's
sympathetic description
of
Dio
contributed
much to an
understanding
of
the
first-century philosophers.
But doubts
have
repeatedly
been
expressed
about the
rigidity
of his
chronological
scheme.
Indeed,
as a Russian critic
rightly
observed
(V.
E.
Valdenberg,
'
The
Political Philosophy of Dio Chrysostom,' in Izvestia Akad. Navk SSSK
I926,
p.
946 (in Russian),
but
see also
R.
Hirzel,
Der
Dialog
II, 85,
n.
3),
von Arnim
treated Dio's
life
as if it were
a
Hegelian
triad:
rhetoric-thesis
; philosophy-antithesis
;
final
period
of
harmony
between
rhetoric
and
philosophy-synthesis.
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REVIEW
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Nobody, however,
seems
to
have re-examined the evidence in detail. The
following
discussion
is confined to one speech, but
it is meant to show
that
von Arnim's account of the intellectual
development of Dio is founded upon
a chronology
of his
works which is insufficiently supported
by the evidence.
2.
Dio and the statutsof Rhodes.-Dio's speech to the Rhodians (xxxi) was written after Nero's
death
(prg.
I48)
and describes
Rhodes'
status as that of a civitas
libera (II2
TnV EAUEVpiaV O'iEUeE
aTropacAEiv
;).
But Rhodes lost her freedom
during Vespasian's reign, and probably in
the first
years of it. Thus, one would naturally
date the
speech betwseen
A.D. 68
and, say,
c.
73. Von
Arnim,
however, did not accept this date, because it appeared
to him
incompatible with wvhat
he knew
about the progress of Dio's mind.
He took the
speech
to
be indicative of
an intermediate
stage
in Dio's ascension from rhetoric to philosophy
and
suggested
that a
date about
A.D.
8o would be
more suitable to
it than
a date
about A.D.
70.
His
theory
involved the
assumption that Rhodes
recovered her freedom before the alleged date
of Dio's exile,
A.D.
82. But von Arnim, who did not
hesitate to make this
assumption, thought
he had found some corroborative
evidence in
IG
xii,
i,
58,
a
Rhodian inscription
in
honour
of a man who
as a
Prytanis conveyed the expressions of the
EVo 1a
and
-rriuTis
of
his
island to Titus.
Von
Arnim
agreed
that the
terminology of this inscription (closely
paralleled by Dio xxxi,
II3)
seemed
'
nicht
auf ein Unterthanenverhaltnis, sondern nur auf das alte
Bundesverhaltnis zu passen' (p.
2I7).
His conclusion was that Rhodes received back her freedom
and that
Dio wvrote
his
speech (xxxi)
in the same
years
between
79
and 8i.
Von Arnim persuaded
A.
Wilhelm
to
accept
his
dating
with
consequences
which
became
apparent
in I9I3
when the great
Viennese master
gave
his
opinion
on the
inscription
first
published
in
'Eriji.
'ApX.
I9II, 59
(now
Dittenberger,
S11.3
8i9).
The new
inscription
honours Domitian and alludes to a
grant
of freedom:
the most natural interpretation
of it is that the freedom
w-as
granted by Domitian. Wilhelm, however,
suggested that the grant had already
been made by Titus. He also quoted Plutarch., Praec. gel'. r'eip.
8I5
d,
as
evidence for
a later anti-Rhodian phase
of Domitian
(Sitz.
Wien.
Akad.
I75, I9I3,
50).
On
the other
hand,
Hiller
von
Gaertringen,
who
incidentally
seems
to
have misunderstood
what
Wilhelm said, took the view that
Domitian
first
deprived
the
Rhodians of their freedom and then
gave it back to them (P-INV .v. Rhodos,
Suppl. v,
8ii
f.). Hiller's scheme can be sumrnarized
as follows:-
about
A.D.
71, Rhodes
loses her
liberty;
A.D.
79-81, Rhodes recovers her liberty: Dio writes Or.
xxxi;
after
A.D. 8i, Rhodes
again
loses her
liberty;
before
A.D.
96,
Rhodes
recovers her
liberty.
It
is
now
time
to
quote
the texts
and
comment
on them
(i)
Tac.,
Ann.
XII,
58
(A.D.
53).
reddita Rhodiis
libertas, adempta saepe
aut
firmata, prout
bellis
externis meruerant aut domi
seditione
deliquerant.
(2)
Suet.,
Vesp.
8.
Achaiam, Lyciam,
Rhodum, Byzantium,
Samum libertate
adempta,
item
Trachiam
Ciliciam
et
Commagenem
dicionis
regiae usque
ad id
tempus
in
provinciarum
formam
redegit. Cappadociae propter
adsiduos
barbarorum incursus
legiones
addidit
consularemque
rectorem
imposuit pro eq.
R.
(3)
Hieron.
Chion.
p.
i88 Helm
(A.D.
74).
Achaia
Lycia
Rhodus
Byzantium
Samus Thracia
Cilicia
Commagene quae
liberae
antea et
sub
regibus
amicis
erant
in
provincias
redactae.
(4) Sextus Rufius, Brev.
io.
Sub Vespasiano principe insularum provincia facta est.
(5) IG
xii, I, 58. 'Ep,ay6pav
0aiviiTriTov
KXa&oiov
TaTVTa
TpaVQavTa
KaQl
uvvPovuAEJvaVTa
T
co
6a'pcp
-a
7uv9povprTa
Ta-
-TaTpiEl
{T&-
E'V
TC^)
TaS
lTpUvTaVEiaS
XPOVCX)
Kai
lia6ElIaXEVOV
a
&E'X
EX
a
-ForriS
To
rl'
T?
ThOV
aJTOKpaTopa
TiTov
CPaoiniov
Kaicapa
EEpaaCTov
OiVEcruacyiavOv
Kai Tov
cviiYTavTa oIKOV auTou Kai Tav IEpOV COYVKM1TOV
KaC TOV
Ma,uOv
TOV PcoaiCOV EUYvoiaV Kai TTicYTiv
Kai
TUXOvTa
TCY)V KaAiUCTCov
ypaQIa4rTcov
arTo
TOU
eEOl
EEpacrTOU
?V
Trc-
TraS
rpUTvYaVEiaS
Kailpo
KTA.
(6) Dittenberger, Syll.3,
8i9
[DomZlitiano].
Kai
AoPETi'a
E)E
EEPacTr
'Opovoi
'Iaccov
'Ap1CTOyVEVUS
BouA[i((6as)]
ayTCapEVOS
?-rr. XEpO[Va&]aOu Kail
EvXpas,
Eq)
oU a&?E[Ka]TEaTaxeTl
a
TVaXTpios
1TOAErrEfa(s>,
Kai
0o Mios
6o
E\OucYavouvTiCOV
KTA.
(7)
Plutarch.,
Pr-aec.
ger. reip. 815
d.
aAopEv'
6E
Kal KYV6VYEUOlCYO1
01eEYV,
C'OTFE7p
yKUpaV
iEpaV apa,EYOV
E
auTo
1
iv
rappY)iQY
ETFi
TOIS
1EyfaTOIS-
O1Q
fpyop1aouS ?ri
N?poVOS
KTEAa3E
TTpacypaTa
KCi
'Po8iouvS
E'YyKOS ?TF AopETlaVOU.
About
(i)
it
will
be
enough
to
say
that it
refers
only
to the
period
before A.D.
53.
I
doubt
the
wisdom of
pressing
the
meaning
of
'
saepe
',
but
anyone
wlho
wishes to follow van
Gelder
and
state
' also nicht
zwreimal,
sondern saepe st den
Rhodiern die Freiheit entzogen
w7orden
(Geschichte der
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REVIEW AND DISCUSSION
I5
I
alten
Rhodier
I900, 175),
will have to
search the history of Rhodes to find a grant
of freedom before
A.D.
53, which is beyond
our present purpose.
Suetonius in (z)
certainly implies that Vespasian acted in
the first years of his reign, but
St.
Jerome
(3)
does not help to date
Suetonius's passage more precisely. One or
twvoof the changes
mentioned by Suetonius may have been dated in 74 by some other writer known to St. Jerome.
In
A.D.
77 Pliny the Elder had not yet
registered one of the facts recorded by
Suetonius, the change
of
status of
Byzantium (NH IV, 46).
(4)
is frankly
mysterious but does not affect our
question (see, for instance, J. Marquardt,
RZumn.taatsverw.2
I,
348).
(5)
does not say, as
von Arnim and his followvers imply,
that Titus granted freedom to
Rhodes.
Nobody indeed can know
wlhat
the
Ka
-ra
palUua-ra
T
were meant to convey.
But it is arguable
that
a
grant of freedom was a thing to be
mentioned
explicitly as we see in Ditt.,
Syll.3 819,
or in
IG
XII, I, 2.
(5)
if anything rather
discourages the notion
that Titus restored freedom to
the
Rhodians. As for von
Arnim's remark that
ElJvola
and
-TriasTi
suit a free city better than a provincial
towvn,
it is
easy to answver
hat
Rhodes wvas
probably proud
enough not to change her terminology
according to her fortunes and
misfortunes under the emperors. What
may have happened is that
Titus
promised freedom by
his
Ka'?OaTa
ypappara
but
did
not live long enough to fulfil the
promise.
In
that case Domitian would simply
have fulfilled his brother's promise.
(6) prima facie shoows
that Rhodes
recovered her freedom under Domitian (on
TrarTplos
TroAlTfa
cf.
IG xii,
I, 2,
1. 12-13 [aTrroo0eEia]as
Tr
7T0oXE
QS 1TaTpToU
TFoATTEaS
Kal TCOX)6vv
pc
-v
ToX)
[.v
with
reference to Claudius's grant.
(7)
does not say that Rhodes lost her
freedom under Domitian, nor does it
seem to imply any
change of status. Plutarch
seems to say that the wvisemen of
Rhodes managed to extricate themselves
from a difficult
situation. There is no reason to believe that
Plutarch refers to a date earlier than (6),
though
if
he
did,
it would
not prove
anything.
The
conclusion of this
analysis
is
that, according
to
the
best
of
our
evidence,
Rhodes lost
her
freedom in the early
years of Vespasian's reign and recovered
it some time under
Domitian.
To
anyone
who
has
no
preconceived
ideas on Dio's
evolution
this
means
that
Dio
may
have
written
his speech
either between Nero's death
and
Vespasian's move
against
Rhodes or after
Domitian's act of liberation. Three further arguments may perhaps narrow these chronological
limits.
I
write them in order of
decreasing cogency
(a)
Or. xxxi
was written wlhen
the details
of
Nero's
reign
were fresh in men's memories. A date
after
Dio's return from exile
(A.D. 96)
is
unlikely.
(b)
It seems common sense to
suggest that
Dio could
hardly
have
written Or.
xxxi
during
his
exile. The date of the
beginning
of
his
exile
depends,
according
to the most
probable theory,
on
the
date of the death of T. Flavius
Sabinus,
which is
rightly put
between
82
and
89 (A. Stein,
P-WV
.v. Flavius
vi,
2615;
PIR2, F
355).
This would exclude
at
least the
years 89-96.
(c)
Dio
does not seem to be
addressing people who
have
recovered their freedom
only
a few
years
earlier. WIhat he
says
in
xxxi,
112-113
applies
better
perhaps
to
the
period
of
Vespasian (before
the
punishment
of
Rhodes)
than to the
period
of Domitian
(after
the
repeal
of
Vespasian's act).
Anyway,
the
evidence
so far
known seems
to
point
to the
following
conclusions: about
71-5
Vespasian deprives
Rhodes of the
status
of civitas libera
(andfoederata);
after
8i
Domitian restores
her liberty; Dio xxxi was written either between 8i and 89
(wl-hich
would imply that Domitian
granted freedom some
time before 89) or more probably
between
69
and
c.
75.
The
only
date
which seems to be
really unlikely
for
Or.
XXXI
S
79-8I,
the date
suggested by
von Arnim.
3.
Dio
and the
Philosophzers.-The
results so
far
obtained
encourage
us to re-examine
the
problem of the relations between Dio and the
philosophers
before his exile.
Speech
XXXI
contains
a
very favourable allusion to a
philosopher-distinguished by
Roman
citizenship
and
high
birth-
wlho
reproached
the Athenians for
taking pleasure
in
gladiatorial
shows
122.
Kail TOV
ElT?rovTa
TrEpi
TOUJTOU iAaCOpOV
Kai
vOueE-TlbcyavTa
aTous
OVKUaTK
TE?awVTo O18?E
ETF)VEcyav,
a
OUTCA)
E?U Epavav,
C07TE
EKE?1VOV pEV
ovTa
yEVEl PcoCi0v
I8?VO;
UCTEpOV,
sotcv
8E
T
lKc[aJT1)V
EXOVTc
1)AlK1qS
O18?i5
EK
'TTaXVu
7TToAAOu
TETUXTIKEV,
0OPOOyOip?VqOV
8E
p6vov paclcTa
PETa
TOv1
apXaiovS
aK&KOAOU0e
PEPICOKEVai
TOTs
AOyOi,
KQTcOTa-Ta
V
fT V'vO6IV
Kai
pacSov
E'?CEae
8laTp43Elv
a00aXOcUE
S
'EA0axoS.
Reasonably enough,
this has been taken as
a
reference to Musonius
Rufus,
a
knight
of
Etruscan
origin (Tac.,
Ann.
14, 59;
Hist.
3, 8I).
What matters most
is
that
Dio must
haTve
written
this
passage at a moment in
which
3e
was
friendly
to at
least one philosopher and
did not think
it
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REVIEW
AND DISCUSSION
dangerous to exhibit
his friendship
in public. Other evidence
suggests
that before his
exile Dio
was
not always
of one mind about
philosophers. Here
are the
relevant
passages:-
(i) Fronto,
p.
II5
Naber=
II,
p.
50
Haines (Loeb).
Quid nostra
memoria Euphrates,
Dio,
Timocrates, Athenodotus
? Quid
horum magister Musonius
?
(2) Philostr.
Vita Apoll. Tyan.
V, 27. OivcT-raciavoU 8?ET7V aUTOKpaTOpa
apX7(lV
TVEplVOOUVTOS
T?pi
Ta
oT,opa
Ti;
AiyuTFrTC(
EV,
E
I
1TpOXCOPOvJTOS
ETi
TflV AyuvTTov,
ACOVES pEV
KQI EvppaTal
...
XalpEIV TFapcEKEEUOVTO 'ATro.AAOcvioS
8?
TTapaTrAflai@cS
pEv
Eupp'Tn
Kai
AfCoVI
?TEpi
TO'TCV
EXQIPE. V,
31,
CZ
pc(1AEU, ElTrEV
(Apollonius),
Ev)pp'Trns
Kai
Aicov
ra'ac col yvc'puioi
ovTEs
TTpO?S
elJpalS
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Cf.
also V, 37-8.
(3)
Th-emist. or.
x
de pace p.
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(I39
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8/17/2019 (Ok)Resenha Momilgliano
9/9
REVIEW AND
DISCUSSION
153
Such being
the evidence,
we
must see
hoow
Dio Or.
XXxI,
iz2,
can best be harmonized
with the
other texts.
If Dio's general attack against
the philosophers
(as distinguished
from the
-rpo6s
Moacuw,viov)
ither
was
written
some years after
71
or made an emphatic
exception
for
Mlusonius,
I
do not see
why
xxxi,
I22
could not refer
to Musonius
and have been
written about 70-5. On
the
other hand, if it is felt that Dio must haTveattacked the philosophers in
7I
and that
his
attack is
incompatible with the trend
of
xxxi, 122-3
we
must put
xxxi
in the early years
of
Domitian
and
have it as an implicit recantation
of his former attack against the
philosophers (and possibly
of
his
animadversions on
Mlusonius).
As far as I can see, there is not
evidence enough to enable us
to
choose. But
an early date for
xxxi
is
consistent
with
what
we
know
about the early connections
of
Dio with Musonius
and
Euphrates.
This date
also makes it unnecessary to suppose
that Dio
in
xxxi
withdrew1
his
attack against the philosophers (or
more specifically his remarks
on
Musonius,
if
the
allusion in
122
iS
taken to refer to
him).
I
like
to think that
Or. xxxi
was
written
before
the
attack
against the
philosophers and to imagine that
the
-rpo6sMouvcoviovwas
an address
(or
a
reply)
to
Musonius composed when
it became apparent
that he had lost Vespasian's
favour.
4.
Dio
and the
'
libertas'
of the Greeks.-Dio's speech to
the Rhodians is so
long
and so full
of
sophistry
that one is easily inclined to underrate
its
positive
quality.
By giving
new
names to
old
statues so
as to honour contemporaries in the
cheapest
way,
the Rhodians were first
of all
guilty
of meanness-w hich any well-bred Hellene would know how to classify. But they were also guilty
of
adulation for the Romans
because, obviously enough, many of the ne
w
labels were
put up
to
please the Roman
authorities. Dio is well
aware
of this implication. His
argument
is that
the
Rhodians ought not to try to
preserve the status of a ci?vitas ibera
(and foederata) by practices
which
stultify any pretence of
freedom.
The honour of Hellas is in
question
(157). Because
Rhodes has
no
longer any
possibility of political leadership,
she must defend
her dignity (I62-3).
It
is
better
to
become a
slave
(8o0AElEIV
UpJv
-r65
Trav-rTi
EA-\Tov
fi&r)
than
to
live
in
a
precarious
and
undignified
liber-tas (i
u).
Dio, apart from being loquacious
and
over-subtle,
must needs
appeal to the rivalries between
Greeks
(in this
case especially to the
rivalry
between
Rhodes and Athens). But by putting
dignity
of
behaviour
before the juridical status of a civitas
libera,
Dio was saying something
essenitial.
He
was,
in
fact, doing something
comparable with what certain
Roman
senators
and
knights,
his
contemporaries,
were doing
when
theY
refused
to pay for their privileges by undignified
behaviour-
'adulatio '. He was saying that the status of a civitas liber-a s not worth saving if it must be defended
by constant use of
'
adulatio
'. The allusion to the Roman philosopher
shows
that it was far
from
Dio's
intention to antagonize
the
Romans.
He
presented a Roman philosopher
as a
model
to the
Greeks
(cf.
also the remark of prg.
iii).
If he wrote
in the years
in which
Vespasian reconsidered
the
grant of
libertas
made by Nero to provincial
Greece, there
woould be even more point in
his
discussion.
Few
or
none of Dio's other
speeches provide lessons of
this kind. One of the
reasolns
is that
Dio
himself waasnot independent of the Romans
and had to seek
their
help
when there were
economic
and
social difficulties
in his own
town.
Or.
XLVI,
another pre-exilic speech,
is a very good
example
of this
dependence.
As Dio puts it objectively
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(14).
ARNALDO
MONIIGLIANO.
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