adventures in my head
I’m spending Thanksgiving on the chronology of food distributions in Rome. Which led me to sumptuary legislation (laws ostensible curbing expenditure and gratuitous consumption). Which led me to this reference:
This should not surprise me. But it did draw my mind very suddenly to Turducken. In case you are unaware of this phenomenon, I provide a celebrity chef recipe link. Do not consider this an endorsement. Similarly I fear many Romans would have enjoyed this variation (again no endorsement):
That is Yonge’s 1891 translation of a clause of chapter 103 of Cicero’s Pro Sestio. Here is the Latin:
cum multis in rebus multitudinis studium aut populi commodum ab utilitate rei publicae discrepabat
The problem is commodum. Cicero was a cranky old fart who had no time for the scum of Romulus’ cesspit, BUT he does not here speak of their whims. [He’ll get to that topic just a few lines later.] The English connotations of whims include: trivial matters not well thought out of perhaps only fleeting relevance. That just isn’t how commodum is connoted in Latin. It means something good and advantageous perhaps arriving at just the right moment. It is very closely related in meaning to the next noun in Cicero’s passage “utilitate”. Cicero’s point isn’t that the people don’t know what’s good for them. It’s that what is good for the people is not good for the state. It separates the identity of the people from the state. That’s a pretty important idea to get across in the translation. Yonge brings his own assumptions about the poor and their relationship to the upper classes to his reading of Cicero and thus sees implications that just aren’t there in the original.
Now thanks to the public domain. Many (most?!) readers of Cicero in translation will take Yonge’s prejudices for Cicero’s.
I was thrilled to find how much the Thornvaldsen Museum has digitized, especially their gems. To that end here’s a nice illustration of the same subject as this obverse design from RRC 399/1:
In the past week I’ve let go a draft of a chapter to my editor. A long overdue step. I became very anxious about the Minucii and their column on which I’ve written many thousands of words that I no longer believe the more I look at the coins. I also wrote some about the coins of Lepidus the future triumvir. The Minucii material may end up on this blog once I’ve figured out what I think about it all. The Lepidus material will probably end up as a publication. I’ve also been reading about written ballots at Rome. I’ve struggled with the residency permit process and I’ve entertained a dear old friend. So many words but not much blogging.
So I was reading about Tiberius Gracchus and came across the account of his dealings with the Numantines in Plutarch’s Life:
This outstripping of one’s commander in diplomacy seems so oddly reminiscent of Sulla receiving Jugurtha’s surrender while Marius’ Quaestor. Then there is also Scaurus’ claim to have defeated Aretas of Nabatea while Pompey’s proquaestor. How odd is all this behavior? We could throw into the mix testimony of the decree of Lampsacus honoring their ambassador Hegesias. Hegesias travels nearly the breadth of the Mediterranean in his efforts to secure Roman favors for his city. He leave no stone unturned and is usually quoted for his use of kinship diplomacy mythical and otherwise. For our purposes though we should note that he takes very seriously his diplomatic engagement with a quaestor, even after having dealt with higher ranking officials.
Update 28/11/2013: Or maybe it is a literary topos? Consider the same characterization by Plutarch of Gaius Gracchus‘ actions in Sardinia as Orestes quaestor. I owe the reference to the discussion by Garnsey and Rathbone in JRS 1985. They emphasize how Gaius may have borrowed from his experience as quaestor in his grain legislation.
Update 5/7/2014: Here’s another instance of possible interest. Snippet from Brennan, Praetorship (2000) 226:
In my previous post on bread and circuses, I used a translation by Kline. I admire very much Kline’s work making contemporary translations of Latin poetry available on the internet for non commercial use. Poetry translations suffers perhaps most of all when we default to works that have aged into the public domain. Open source is the ethic way forward. All that said as I thought about using it in my chapter I found myself concerned about pieces of the Latin not reflected in that translation. Translation is very much interpretation, especially with such a value laden text as Juvenal’s 10th Satire! Here are parallel sections of Kline and a much earlier translator Ramsey:
But what of the Roman Mob? They follow Fortune, as always, and hate whoever she condemns. … They shed their sense of responsibility long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob that used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything, curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only, Bread and circuses. ‘I hear that many will perish.’ ‘No doubt, The furnace is huge.’
And what does the mob of Remus say? It follows fortune, as it always does, and rails against the condemned. … Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things—-Bread and Games! “I hear that many are to perish.”—-“No doubt of it; there is a big furnace ready.”
I’ve decided there are a few places I can’t really live with either translation given my sense of the key portions of the Latin. Here’s the Latin:
… sed quid
turba Remi? sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit
damnatos. idem populus, si Nortia Tusco
fauisset, si oppressa foret secura senectus
principis, hac ipsa Seianum diceret hora
Augustum. iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses. ‘perituros audio multos.’
‘nil dubium, magna est fornacula.’
So right now my own version is looking something like this:
But what of the mob of Remus? It follows fortune, as always, and hates the damned … No longer do we sell votes. Responsibilities drain away. Those who used to grant imperium, fasces, legions, everything, now restrain themselves, hoping all the more anxiously for two things: bread and circuses. ‘Many will perish, I hear.’ ‘No doubt, the furnace is huge.’ (Sat. 10.73-82)
The crowd being associated with Remus the murdered brother of Romulus needs to be preserved. But perhaps most critical is the 1st person personal plural active verb “to sell”. Juvenal gives agency to the sellers of their votes and includes himself and his reader in that group. I shy away from reiterating ‘mob’ or ‘crowd’ as the subject of the later 3rd person singular verbs because in the sentence I’m cutting Juvenal uses idem populus ‘the same people’ to gloss turba; populus is a much less negative terms and might as easily be rendered ‘citizen body’. Notice especially how the past concerns of “imperium, fasces, legions and everything” are contrasted with “bread and circuses”. The former evokes not just magisterial offices but particularly foreign policy, the later is standing for domestic affairs, the internal condition of the state. I particularly like the word order of the last two snippets of direct discourse, but see no fluid way to reflect that in the translation.
Obviously, in places my rending is no more literally reflective of vocabulary and grammar than the other two, but few readable translations are.
All the coins of C. Egnatius Maxsumus (c. 75-76BC) have a personification of Libertas. Beside this representation above he also showed her riding in a biga accompanied by Victory and as a bust on the obverse of another coin. Those representations are pretty standard and like this one the identification as Libertas is made by the inclusion of a pileus, the hat given to freed slaves. Here’s the whole reverse. The pileus is above her in the architectural representation:
There’s lots to be curious about this representation. If as Crawford says this is the temple of Jupiter Libertas why are there two cult figures? Also, this is the first time a divinity is shown in their temple like this — a time that will become standard throughout the Roman empire for centuries. The die cutter has gone to a lot of trouble to show the details of these figures the radiate(?) crown of Jupiter, the height of his staff, the different dress of the two figures, and their respective gestures. The gesture of Libertas is an Orans type usually associated with priestesses in both Greek and Roman iconography. Here’s a Vestal from the early second Century AD (said to be from the Roman Forum now in the Terme Museum):
But given that the figure is just the same size and representation as Jupiter it must be a goddess and Libertas remains the best identification. Later, Pietas will be similarly represented on coins:
It rather understandable that Pietas could be personified through the action of prayer. It is harder to find a divinity thus represented. Unless we consider archaic cult figures. Perhaps most famous is Artemis of Ephesus with her out stretched arms:
But also used in depictions of Artemis Anaitis:
It is also know from some terracottas thought to represent Tanit:
Even with attributes in her hands this cult image of Athena from Abydos has a similar pose:
While I don’t put much stock in the idea that this specimen (or many other architectural coin types, with a few key exceptions) can be taken to be ‘accurate’ representations of buildings, it does seem to me the die cutter is going out of his way to represent particular cult statues here, perhaps ones of some antiquity or rendered in an archaizing fashion.
[A huge thanks to all my social media friends who shared their thoughts on this image with me!]
P. Licinius Nerva’s coin is pretty famous. At least as an illustration of how the Romans voted. It seems to celebrate voting reforms that protected the secrecy of the ballot, namely the voting bridges and the urn. It dates to circa 110 BC [Mattingly, 113/112 Crawford]. It is a unusual coin, one of only a handful that refer directly to the rights of the citizen body that were under contemporary discussion.
With the Saturninus coin of the last post we don’t seem to have any reflection of his ‘radical’ views or concerns over agrarian policies and the grain supply. This is often the case when we have coins of a known historical figure. Memorable deeds usually happened well after a man’s moneyership.
We only know about one other incident in Nerva’s life. As governor of Sicily he began mass emancipation of slaves claiming to be held illegally. In the end that didn’t turn out so well for him and he probably ended up butchering those he originally freed or intended to free, but even so the initial decision is pretty radical in Roman term. I suspect many of his peers would have thought him very very stupid indeed for trying such a thing.
Here’s Diodorus’ account (36.3 from Photius’ epitome). Note how the initial impetus is problems with recruitment of soldiers in Asia to fight in Northern Italy!
The Epitome of Cassius Dio put a different spin on the affair. [I am inclined to put more emphasis on the Diodorus account.]:
Publius Licinius Nerva, who was praetor in the island, on learning that the slaves were not being justly treated in some respects, or else because he sought an occasion for profit, — for he was not inaccessible to bribes, — sent round a notice that all who had any charges to bring against their masters should come to him and he would assist them. 2 Accordingly, many of them banded together, and some declared they were being wronged and others made known other grievances against their masters, thinking they had secured an opportunity for accomplishing all that they wished against them without bloodshed. The freemen, after consultation, resisted them and would not make any concessions. 3 Therefore Licinius, inspired with fear by the united front of both sides and dreading that some great mischief might be done by the defeated party, would not receive any of the slaves, but sent them away, thinking that they would suffer no harm or that at any rate they would be scattered and so could cause no further disturbance. But the slaves, fearing their masters because they had dared to raise their voices at all against them, organized a band and by common consent turned to robbery.
Connecting ideology behind the coin to the ideology to his actions as propraetor seems a stretch, I admit! That said, most everyone is happy to do it to some degree for the Brutus coins of c. 54 BC.
When Saturninus that rascally tribune of the very end of second century was a moneyer he chose types that punned on his name. A pun that is emphasized by the abbreviation of his cognomen. It’s a rather conservative type for a man we don’t generally think of for his conservatism. Quadrigas had already been recently revived by L. Conelius Scipo Asiaticus [103 BC Mattingly].
and puns too were the fashion of the time. Compare this bull (= taurus) used by L. Thorius Balbus. Crawford thinks the bull might be a symbol of Juno on the obverse (see p. 719 n. 8 of vol 2 of RRC). Maybe it is both. [102 BC Mattingly]
Anyway, the interesting thing is the Saturn, Saturninus association. It makes the choice of Saturn for the obverse of the Piso Caepio coin seem a little odd in light of our literary sources:
Here’s the Broughton, MRR entry for them under 100BC, Quaestors:
We might also note the use of Saturn as an obverse in 103BC [Mattingly], the year of Saturninus’ first Tribunate, by L. Memmius Gallus:
Mattingly has Saturninus’ offices as follows:
104 – Quaestor in charge of Grain Supply from Ostia
103 – First Tribunate
101 – Moneyership
100 – Second Tribunate
We usually think of moneyerships being held before these other offices, but the dates of the other offices are well fixed. So perhaps Saturninus had his ‘out of order’. Otherwise his coins would need to be slipped back into the series earlier that 104 and that is apparently hard to reconcile with all the rest of evidence.
Thank you, Mildenberg.
His Dream Collection. I am rather taken with the idea of a ‘dream collection’.
Nearly every one knows the Juvenal quote about Bread and Circuses, or thinks they do, especially after the Hunger Games. First let’s have a bit more context from Juvenal himself:
if the old Emperor had been surreptitiously
Smothered; that same crowd in a moment would have hailed
Their new Augustus. They shed their sense of responsibility
Long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob
That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything,
Curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only,
Bread and circuses. ‘I hear that many will perish.’ ‘No doubt,
If you’d like to check the Latin, click here. In case you’ve landed on this page and aren’t quite sure who Juvenal is exactly, in short: he’s a poetic satirist living under the Roman empire. Think a potential guest contributor on both Howard Stern and the Daily Show. This passage finds a dark humor is some ‘facts of life’:
A brutal dictatorship is in power. The citizen body, especially the poor are disenfranchised. They reconcile themselves to their powerlessness in any significant political decision-making and demand only food and … what? Entertainment? Spectacle? Is that what circuses are?
Circuses are part of Ludi specifically the chariot races, but the circus space could be used for other public spectacles as well. Circuses are part of religious ritual. They were either part of regular annual festivals honoring a specific divinity or set of divinities, or they were one-off affairs given in thanksgiving to the gods for some benefit to the community as a whole, including military victories, protection from disease, the ascension of a new leader, major anniversaries, or the life of a recently deceased individual. The sacrifices made to put on the ‘games’ (i.e. expenditure of resources) and the participation of the whole community ensured the continuing relationship between the state as a whole and the gods. The well-being of the city and the empire depended on maintaining divine protection and blessings.
Juvenal seems to be trivializing the common concerns of the man in the street, but are they so trivial? Government is responsible for the basic infrastructure that makes living possible. Bread is a good start, a fine synecdoche. Let’s add in clean water, protection of the food supply more generally, perhaps some sanitation and even, if we want to get really radical, building codes and fire brigades to avert urban disasters. A decent agrarian policy, market regulations, and open shipping lines don’t make great poetry, but they do bake bread!
Circuses, Juvenal’s other synecdoche, or “part for the whole”, stands for the pleasure of the spectator to be sure. However, that individual pleasure isn’t a choice; it’s an obligation, a civic duty. After other forms of civic engagement are suppressed, only the ‘circus’ remains a space for political expression. Moreover, the gods do not take kindly to being shunned. The well-being of the whole is dependent on complete communal participation. Atheists, Epicureans, and Monotheists were a dangerous breed. That type of thinking endangered the stability of state by threatening divine relations through non-participation in the state cult. The leaders of the state protected the well-being of the city and empire by ensuring divine favor. “Circuses” and other ritual acts where the means by which such favor was maintained. How else could natural disaster, plague, or the barbarian hordes be averted?
Life under a brutal regime concentrates the minds of the people on the essentials. Moreover, a savvy autocrat or oligarch knows as much. He can give “the part for the whole”, cheap grain to mask the inadequacies of the socio economic system. Hungry people take what they can get. The Roman with a loaf of bread still wanted access to the means of production and a functioning market place.
Pulling the Juvenal quote into modern discourse out of context has despicable consequences. It trivializes poverty, suggesting gluttony rather than hunger drives the demand for “bread”. Moreover, it obliterates the ways in which all public infrastructure is our common “bread”. Our private economic resources do not make us independent from the system of government. We gained those resources within the system of public works and regulations provided by the state, from roads and schools to public defense and the farm bill. Like it or not, there is no opt-out option, any more than there was for the religious rites of the ancient city.
Within academic discourse the “bread and circus” view of Roman history tends to portray spectacles and food distribution as means of social control or self-aggrandizement on the part of patron. This is not unrelated to the trivialization just discussed. Should not the ordinary Roman care about the government’s ability to provide for the needs of the community? Would not a good leader be judged by his capacity to improve the public infrastructure and to actively seek divine blessings?
Today, I am sitting down to write about ‘popular politics’ in the last 100 years of the republic as presented on coins. I will be trying to escape “Bread and Circuses” thinking.
– Signed a Grateful and Unashamed Childhood Food Stamp and Welfare Recipient
—
