The happiness of a province depended largely on the personal character of its governor. A man of integrity might withstand the temptations of office, but although few sank as low as Verres, many came to regard their year of office, which was unpaid, as an opportunity to recoup themselves for the great sums they had spent on winning office and to provide for future expenses; their staffs would no doubt follow their example. Among the commonest abuses were the sale of justice and of exemptions from requisitioning and a profitable commuting for money of a governor’s right to demand corn for the maintenance of himself and his staff: he might, for instance, order it to be delivered at so distant a place that the farmer would be glad to make a cash deal to avoid the heavy costs of transport. Beside this semi-official plundering, a governor might co-operate with the publicani, or at any rate turn a blind eye to their exactions; Cicero once told his brother that it was dangerous to offend them, but that, if allowed, they would utterly ruin the provincials. These vultures flocked to all the provinces, especially in the Greek East and they did not lack spoil: the hatred that they inspired is shown by the eagerness with which the Asiatics, instigated by Mithridates, had massacred tens of thousands of them in 88 (p. 49). Governors who tried to protect the provincials from them, might suffer the fate that had overtaken Rutilius Rufus (p. 53) and Lucullus (p. 85). It is true that the jurors, whether senatorial or equestrian, were not always free from class loyalty or immune from bribery. On the other hand many corrupt governors were brought to book and, since it is the most scandalous cases that make the headlines, much straightforward and uneventful administration must have been accomplished: if standards in the first half of the last century of the Republic were not as high as those in the preceding century, they were probably better than those of the second half.
What benefits then did the provincials gain in return for their payment of tribute and the sufferings they endured? Theoretically perhaps peace was the greatest, although this was not fully realized until the Principate. Rome had unified the Mediterranean world and gave it some protection against barbarian invasions from beyond the frontiers. But she did not create a planned frontier system and failed to establish a professional army that could adequately guard the provinces, where the standing garrisons might be too small and the governors might lack the requisite military ability: thus, for instance, it was lucky for the Roman East that the Parthians did not renew their attacks when Cicero was governor of Cilicia in 51, because as he urgently reminded the Senate he lacked adequate troops to meet the threatening invasion. Further the provinces suffered from Rome’s slow decision to eradicate piracy and also from the civil wars, which brought actual fighting to many and exactions to most (e.g. those of Brutus and Cassius in the East). Yet notwithstanding all this, the aim and direction of Roman policy was to establish peace in large areas where previously warfare had been normal.
Rome was also largely successful in securing peace within the civitates and suppressing class strife, an endemic disease in so many Greek cities. But here the cost was the overshadowing of democratic assemblies by Councils drawn from the propertied classes. In other areas, however, Rome’s coming meant political advance, for instance to serfs in Asia Minor and especially in the more backward West, where oppression decreased, the status of the common man improved, and economic prosperity followed. It is noteworthy that Rome normally had never tried to restrict production in the provinces for her own benefit (e.g. by imposing preferential tariffs or arranging for commercial privileges in her treaties), but rather by establishing peace and security, and not least by her construction of roads, she provided conditions which naturally fostered economic development.
Another outstanding merit of Roman rule was its toleration of local differences, in culture, language, religion and law. Apart from encouraging urbanization as opposed to tribal organization, Rome interfered in local matters as little as was consistent with her security: she did not try to force her own civilization on others, and was in consequence slow to extend Roman citizenship to provincials until Julius Caesar adopted a more generous policy (her reluctance is not surprising in view of the fact that it was not until 90 B.C. and only as the result of a bitter war, that she extended her citizenship to the whole of Italy itself). Roman citizens in the provinces enjoyed few juridical privileges (except the right of provocatio) that were denied to the provincials themselves, but in practice they naturally had far greater influence and prestige and would receive more consideration from the governor. The abuse of this de facto privileged position naturally tended to make Roman rule unpopular where it was moderate, and hated where it was oppressive.
One of the most damning indictments of Roman maladministration comes from Cicero’s prosecution of Verres, where he deliberately paints a dark picture but admits that ‘lugent omnes provinciae … locus … nullus est … quo non … nostrorum hominum libido iniquitasque pervaserit’. Four years later he exclaimed ‘difficile est dictu, Quirites, quanto in odio simus apud externas nationes’. Such hatred helps to explain the readiness of the lower classes to follow any leader who challenged Rome’s power, such as Aristonicus or Mithridates. And if a Roman could be so outspoken as Cicero, clearly the sentiments of the provincials themselves must have been even more violent. They have not left many traces in the surviving literature, which is written mainly by Romans or from the Roman point of view, but they do find expression in some of the so-called Sibylline Oracles which hopefully prophesy the downfall of Rome and the coming reign of law and justice.16 Yet in the event it was Rome herself that introduced the new era. The pressing need for reform was only too obvious, but at length Rome recognized her responsibility and although it was too late to save the Republic, Augustus at least saved the provinces.
X
ART, LITERATURE AND THOUGHT IN THE LATE REPUBLIC
1. GRAECO–ROMAN CULTURE
The blending of Greek and Roman culture was the result of a long process. Some five hundred years earlier Rome had first encountered Greek influences in her contacts with the Etruscans and with the Greek cities in Italy. Then in the third century her contacts became more personal: Roman soldiers, administrators and traders began to visit Greek lands, and under the stimulus of Greece Latin literature was born. The full impact came in the second century, when Greece itself and part of the Hellenistic East were included in Rome’s empire, and we have already seen how Rome assimilated much without being overwhelmed and gave to what she received a Latin appearance (p. 9 ff.). In the next century Greek culture at Rome was no longer merely a foreign importation but had become ‘naturalized’ and civilization in the late Republic represented essentially the harmonious blending of the two backgrounds, a synthesis to which both traditions contributed, each enriching without destroying the other.
The share of each culture has been differently assessed at different times. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with the romantic revival and the ‘discovery’ of Greek culture and art, many were dazzled by the glories of Greece, and tended to regard the Romans as mere borrowers and to attribute most of what was good in Graeco–Roman culture to the Greek side. But a more balanced appreciation suggests that whereas the technical forms which art and literature assumed in the late Republic were Greek, the spirit within was new. It is true that there were certain main differences between the natural endowments of Greek and Roman, which are summed up in Virgil’s famous lines,
excudent alii spirantia mollius aera
(credo equidem), vivos ducent de marmore vultus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi erunt artes), pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.
Romans had a more practical bent and showed their talent in law, administration and engineering: Greeks excelled in art and philosophy, and in this sphere the Roman was a learner and ‘Graecia capta ferum victorem cep
it’. But their gifts were complementary: Rome’s slower artistic and philosophical development was stimulated by Greece, and Roman political wisdom finally united a world which all the genius of the Greeks had failed to bring together. Thus Greece provided much of the cultural impetus and example and Rome built up a framework in which it could flourish, but it would be wrong to regard Graeco–Roman culture merely as Greek civilization dressed up in Roman guise; Rome did more than preserve Greek culture for later generations: borrowing much she injected her own spirit into it. Latin writers might use Greek forms of verse, but they infused a fresh and individual feeling into them, and Cicero’s thought, though largely derived from Greek thinkers, bore a distinctive Roman stamp and was clothed in a language which he had made sufficiently flexible to convey new ideas to his fellow-countrymen. It was this amalgam, hammered out in the hectic days of the late Republic, that was handed on to the more tranquil days of the Empire for men of genius, as Virgil or the sculptor of the Ara Pacis, to work further upon.
In creating this mixture the inspiration from Greece naturally came from varied elements in Greek culture, and its impact was not the same in all spheres and in all directions. Though educated Romans read and knew their Greek classics, in the late Republic they were even more conscious of the later Hellenistic world of the post-classical period. Thus Cicero owed more to Posidonius than to Plato; sculptors and architects looked to the Hellenistic cities of Pergamum and Alexandria rather than to the Athens of Pheidias and Ictinus; and whereas earlier Latin poets had turned to classical Greek poetry, Catullus and his friends found guidance in the learned poetry of Alexandria. The measure of Rome’s debt varied also in different fields: in art her dependence was greatest, in science (as mathematics, medicine and the natural sciences) she showed most indifference, while in literature she responded best by producing fine work in which both Greek and native elements were harmoniously fused. So too the impact of Greece varied in intensity in the different strata of society. In early days it was the Roman aristocracy that had welcomed Greek ideas and ways, but at the same time Greek and Oriental slaves and freedmen had spread Greek manners at a lower level of society, while Roman soldiers had campaigned, and middle-class business men, had traded, in Greek lands. Thus while one class assimilated Greek philosophy and literature, others welcomed some of the more sensational cults and beliefs of the East. On the whole therefore Hellenistic ideas must have permeated widely through society in a Rome that by the end of the Republic had become a great cosmopolitan city and was overshadowing, not only in political power but also in economic and cultural life, the cities of the Hellenistic world. On the other hand many of the more remote country towns of central Italy must have retained a more untouched Italian way of life, and it was from this healtheir source, rather than from the older Hellenized aristocracy or urban mob in Rome that Augustus was to seek regenerative powers for Roman society. How this fusion of cultures was effected in art, literature and other cultural activities must now be briefly examined.
2. ART AND ARCHITECTURE1
In no sphere perhaps more than that of art was Rome’s contribution for so long ignored in modern times, to the greater glory of Greece. This was due in part to the great influence of Winckelmann (eighteenth century) who believed that Rome made no individual contribution to an art which she inherited from Greece. And even when distinctively Roman elements were recognized, it was at first in the art of the Empire alone; only comparatively recently has the older Italic and Roman contribution to the art of the Republic been established. The nature and extent of Rome’s particular contribution is still debatable in detail, but that she made such a contribution is more widely recognized. In sculpture Rome did not so much invent what was characteristic of herself as recognize in Greek and Hellenistic art those aspects which could best express her spirit, and these she developed or encouraged Greek artists to develop for her. Her chief contributions here were a realistic portraiture, the creation of spatial depths in relief-sculpture and painting by means of illusionistic methods, and the development of Greek narrative art in historical reliefs with a ‘continuous’ manner of narration in which her feeling for history and imperial ideas could find expression. This last development is well illustrated in the ‘altar of Ahenobarbus’ (see chapter II, n. 40) and later in imperial reliefs from the Ara Pacis onwards.
One of the most striking developments in the first century B.C. is the extraordinary desire by Romans for works of art; since great artists cannot be produced to order, the Romans demanded copies of great originals. This demand was not confined to sculpture, but extended to most branches of art. In sculpture a response was made easier by the invention of a mechanical copying process, the so-called pointing method. Most of the sculptors were Greeks, who either executed the commissions of wealthy Romans in their own cities or else settled in Rome. Thus a booming new industry grew up, in which Greek statues of all periods were reproduced or adapted (e.g. the statue of a Greek god might be copied and then given the features of a living Roman). A similar use of Greek prototypes was made for the copying of bronze statuettes, pottery with relief decoration, terracotta plaques, stucco reliefs, glassware, engraved gems and also probably painting. Since in the process the products came to reflect Roman taste, all this work may justly be called ‘Graeco–Roman’.
Private and public Roman patronage also began to make requests that could not be answered by mere adaptation but evinced new conceptions. The desire for decoration on sepulchral monuments was met by adorning sarcophagi with sculpted scenes taken from mythology or later with battlescenes. This new form is linked with the desire to commemorate public events, such as victories, and it gave rise to the historical reliefs which were to blossom out in their full glory during the Empire. Another striking development is found in portraiture: there was a widespread demand for portraitbusts, which displayed a dry realism (or verism) which contrasts strongly with the idealizing realism of Greek portraiture. This Roman realism may derive in spirit from Etruscan and early Italic art, but since most of the late Roman portraits were made by Greeks and since many Greeks of the Hellenistic period had turned to a veristic style (as the magnificent coinportraits of the Greek kings of Bactria show), this fascinating development of first century portraiture may have arisen primarily from Greek artists responding to a demand from practical realistic Romans for ‘photographic’ portraits of themselves, warts and all.2
Art and portraiture are both well illustrated in the Roman silver coinage (chiefly denarii). Rome’s earliest coin-dies had been cut by Greeks (the so-called Romano–Campanian coins) and no doubt the Roman mint, which was administered by young Roman nobles, continued to employ a preponderance of Greek workmen. Artistically many of the coins are excellent, particularly from the time of Sulla and especially from 68 to 55 B.C. Realistic portraiture on Roman coins started when the mint-official Coelius Caldus (c. 62) issued a coin portraying his grandfather, a tribune in 106. The portraits of living men commenced with the dictator Caesar and were followed by those of the triumvirs. In this, as in other forms of art, the way was paved for imperial developments.
In architecture again the debt of Rome to Greece was immense, but Rome’s individual development of Greek ideas is at once apparent if one visualizes for a moment the Acropolis of Athens and the Fora of Imperial Rome. Rome displayed here her great gift of borrowing what she needed from others and adapting the loan in accord with her own national genius: in the process something new was created. The qualities perhaps most associated with Roman architecture are magnificence of conception and solidity of construction. Something has already been said (p. 154) about developments in the late Republic in Rome and Italy, due in part to the use of new building materials. Here it is necessary only to recall the fact that throughout Italy and the Roman world characteristically Roman buildings, many of which made skilful use of the arch, were constantly being constructed: temples, basilicas, bridges, aqueducts, drains, triumphal arches, city-walls, tombs, baths, theatres, amphitheatre
s, town and country houses. Nor should the work of the engineer who co-operated with the architect be forgotten; not least his genius in the construction of those thousands of miles of roads which bound the Roman world together and made the economic and administrative life of the empire possible.
3. THE POETS3
Early Latin literature had been born under the inspiration of Greek, starting with translation from the Greek classics, then imitating them, and finally, still under their spell, developing into a national literature. The pioneers in epic, tragedy and comedy had been Livius Andronicus (who died in 204), Naevius (d. 199), Q. Ennius (d. 169), M. Pacuvius (d. 130), Plautus (d. 184) and Terence (d. 159), all of whom owed an immense debt to Greece. But in one branch the Romans ‘had it all their own way’, which is what Quintillian in a famous comparison of Greek and Roman literature seems to mean when he said ‘satura tota nostra est’. Early satire, which means a ‘medley’, was probably a form of Variety produced on the stage, but it developed into a literary genre, in poetry, and also in prose and verse intermixed. Ennius was the first to write a poetic miscellany of this kind, but its full potentialities were first realized by C. Lucilius (c. 180–102), a Latin from Suessa Aurunca who settled in Rome and became a friend of Scipio Aemilianus; starting to write about 131 B.C., in all he composed thirty books of satires in hexameter verse, of which less than 1300 lines survive. Turning for his subject-matter to the society in which he moved, he exposed its vices and follies in satiric verses. His connexion with the Scipionic circle brought him into close touch with Roman politics, personalities and life. If he could be harsh (and he did not spare the political opponents of Aemilanus), he could also show wit and grace as he ranged over many events of everday life; his language was colloquial. His writings formed the model for Horace’s satires later and, if they had survived, would have thrown a flood of light on the social and political life of his generation.4
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Page 27