6. EDUCATION AND LEARNING
During the Ciceronian period Roman education was organized on similar lines to that in the Hellenistic world.12 Apart from children who were educated at home by private tutors, boys and girls went to a primary school where they learned to read, write and count at the instruction of a magister ludi, whose profession was despised. Many a Roman, beside Horace, in later life remembered his cane if not his flogging. Those who were fortunate enough to proceed to a secondary education went to a school presided over by a grammaticus, who was generally badly paid. There they would make some acquaintance with the works of Livius Andronicus, Ennius and the comic poets, and with such texts as the Twelve Tables: when through Varro (see below) Latin grammar was studied scientifically, it too would be included in the curriculum. But Latin was not the only language: many young Romans learnt Greek at home from Greek slaves and education became bilingual. Higher education consisted chiefly of rhetorical studies. Greek rhetoricians held classes in Rome, and many young Romans went to study at Greek university towns, as Athens; Cicero and Caesar both studied rhetoric at Rhodes. In 93 the first school for the study of Latin rhetoric was opened at Rome by a supporter of Marius, but it was closed the next year by the aristocratic censors. Political motives may have operated: the Optimates may not have wished to make it easier for Populares to gain oratorical skill. Further, a Manual of Rhetoric dedicated to Herennius and written in the 80s B.C., suggested as themes for declamation not only traditional Greek subjects but also topical questions about the Gracchi, Saturninus, Drusus and Sulpicius; the unknown author seems to have been favourable to the popular party, although not suppressing arguments on the other side: such topics might prove inflammable.13 Cicero through his rhetorical writings (p. 170) helped to promote the teaching of Latin eloquence, but it does not seem to have gained a real foothold in Rome until the time of Augustus.
The growth of scholarship is illustrated by L. Aelius Stilo, who was born at Lanuvium about 150 B.C. Of equestrian rank and a Stoic in belief, he wrote on many subjects, including grammar, etymology and literary criticism, and produced critical editions of Ennius and Lucilius. His pupils included Cicero and Varro. The life of M. Terentius Varro (116–27), who became one of Rome’s greatest scholars, was not one of unbroken academic calm. A supporter of Pompey, he was pardoned by Caesar who appointed him keeper of his intended public library; he was then outlawed by Antony, but settled down peacefully after the Civil War. His writings were encyclopaedic in range. Among those that survive in part are a treatise on Latin grammar and vocabulary (De lingua Latina; 25 books) and the three books on agriculture. His Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum, in 41 books, is a great loss. Other works included 15 books on famous Greeks and Romans, dialogues, an encyclopaedia of artes liberales, and 150 books on Menippean satires; in all he published some 620 volumes.
7. LAW14
Roman legal science, no less than other branches of Roman thought, was compelled during this period to come to terms with Hellenism, but as its roots went down deep into Italian soil, it was not overwhelmed by Greek influences: rather, it accepted or rejected at will. Roman sacred law had originally been exclusively in the hands of priests, especially the college of pontiffs, who had gradually encroached into the realm of private law. During the third century secular jurisconsults increasingly helped in the development of private law alongside the pontifical jurists, and before the end of the Republic laymen were beginning to concern themselves with sacral law. But all this is less surprising when it is realized that all these men enjoyed the same social background: they were all members of the governing nobility, and many of the priests held public magistracies. But although the three famous members of the Mucian gens who all held the office of Pontifex Maximus, P. Mucius Scaevola, P. Crassus Mucianus and Q. Mucius Scaevola the ‘Pontifex’ (p. 22), all acted as consultants in private law, after their time the pontiffs began to withdraw from this activity. Later in the Ciceronian age the jurisconsults began to come from a different social class; some were of equestrian stock, others of even humbler origin, while a few men even broke off a public career to dedicate themselves to the law.
In addition to their practice some legal experts turned to writing. The publication of the Annales Maximi by the Pontifex Maximus P. Scaevola (p. 167), provided much material for legal, religious and secular history, and his son Q. Scaevola (cos. 95) published the first systematic treatise on the Ius Civile, an exposition of the whole private law. Q. Fabius (cos. 142) had published a large work on pontifical law, and in the late Republic at least four augurs wrote on augural law. Cicero’s friend Servius Sulpicius Rufus (cos. 51), who was a jurisconsult of the older traditional type, wrote on the praetorian edict and on sacral law.
Nothing can be said here about the content of Roman law, which was one of the finest achievements of the human mind, but it is noteworthy that in the last century or so of the Republic civil procedure was being adapted to new needs. The old stereotyped procedure (legis actio), by which the issues to be tried were settled before a praetor, had proved too rigid and was modified under a lex Aebutia (c. 150) by the introduction of an alternative formulary system under which the praetor could allow formulas that were drafted to meet the requirements of the specific case: the legis actiones virtually disappeared under Augustus. At the same time Rome’s own ius civile, which had proved inadequate in dealing with foreigners, had been adapted for this purpose to the ius gentium (i.e. Roman law as applied to foreigners). Beside the old ius civile there also gradually grew up a whole body of law arising from the edicts of magistrates, especially praetors (ius honorarium); the two systems combined, much as common law and equity have united to make up the English legal system. With the growing mass of statutory provisions, actions and the interpretations often embodied in the responsa of jurisconsults, Q. Scaevola was clearly undertaking a very necessary task in publishing a systematic account of the ius civile. The main development in criminal law in the period was the establishment of various quaestiones perpetuae and their development by Sulla and Caesar. The different leges which created them, however, dealt with single crimes and little attempt was made to produce a coherent code of criminal law.
8. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
The two philosophic systems that appealed most to educated Romans, and whose study in fact formed part of their education, were Stoicism and Epicureanism.15 Something has already been said about the reception of the former at Rome by the Scipionic circle, which was joined by the Stoic Panaetius (p. 10 f.). His influence and that of his creed were profound; it was later reinforced by the teaching of Posidonius, whose contribution to historiography has been mentioned above (p. 167). Beside revising further the system of the early Stoics, he displayed wide scientific interests (e.g. he calculated the circumference of the earth), and through his natural philosophy Stoicism influenced many scientists (e.g. astronomers and the geographer Strabo). By identifying political and ethical activities, sanctioned by religious duty, he further enhanced the influence of his creed on Roman life; not least among its followers were Cato and M. Brutus. The rival creed of Epicureanism, proclaimed with such religious fervour by Lucretius, gave solace to many, but its impact on public life will have been negative in that it withdrew men from politics. Only once did some of its adherents desert their philosophic scruples and turn to action: it was the tyranny of Caesar that stirred them. Though some Epicureans remained consistently loyal to the dictator, Cassius, who turned Epicurean in 46, and the majority of his fellow-philosophers decided that liberty and Republicanism demanded violent political action.
Between the claims of rival philosophies Cicero steered a middle course.16 He was attracted on the theoretical level by the Scepticism of Carneades, the founder of the New Academy, and a visitor to Rome in 156/5, who disbelieved in the possibility of certain knowledge and argued that probability was the only guide. Disliking the inactivity of the Epicureans, Cicero was drawn to the practical morality of the Stoics, with their emphasis on
humanity and the social virtues, though he would not go all the way with them. He was thus an eclectic, an interested inquirer rather than an original thinker. Yet his influence was profound, because as a distraction from the grief he felt at the death of his daughter Tullia in 45, he decided, as he says, to make philosophy accessible to his fellow-countrymen. This was almost pioneer work and in his task of adapting his Greek originals to his Latin medium he practically had to invent a vocabulary in which to express simply some of the Greek technical terms. The result was a series of works, written in lucid and graceful Latin which both enhanced Latin literature and popularized Greek thought. They include De Officiis, De Finibus, Academica, Tusculanae Disputationes, De Natura Deorum, De Senectute and De Amicitia. But Cicero did not enrich merely his fellowcountrymen: he put the whole world in his debt, Fathers of the Church, Italian humanists of the Renaissance, and French Revolutionaries alike.
The official cults had long been empty of any deep religious meaning for most of those that attended them: provided that their formal celebration maintained the pax deorum they need inspire no personal feelings, though they would offer at least a spectacle, if not a belief, to the poor. While some priesthoods were less regarded, membership of the great priestly colleges was increasingly sought for political ends. No doubt the simple worship of the household continued to retain real meaning for the more old-fashioned, and in the countryside the older cults must have flourished. But if official cults meant little to the educated classes, it must not be supposed that Lucretius and the philosophers had caused them to abandon all superstition, which must also have been rampant among the poor. The teaching of Pythagoras, with its belief in the transmigration of souls, appeared in Rome in the first century, and the learned praetor of 58 B.C., P. Nigidius Figulus, was a follower of this Neopythagoreanism. He also wrote a treatise to expose astrology, which despite the expulsion of ‘Chaldeans’ from Rome in 139, had become popular.17 The way had been paved by Posidonius, whom Augustine described as a ‘philosopher-astrologer’. He regarded astrology as a branch of applied astronomy and believed that an all-embracing power (‘sympatheia’) linked up all the parts of the universe both large and small. This belief in cosmic sympathy and the linking of a fatalistic astrology to Stoicism helped to spread the doctrine widely among the upper classes. But beside rationalists, who found in astrology a link between human causality and the cosmic laws that governed the movement of the stars (and its exponents included Varro), many more were attracted by its emotional and mystic, rather than by its ‘scientific, appeal. Such ‘religious’ believers in its powers of revelation practised various forms of star-cults. Despite the scepticism preached by men like Lucretius, Cicero and Caesar, astrological beliefs received something like official recognition when the comet that appeared during the games in honour of Caesar was thought to be his soul received in heaven and he was officially included among the gods of the State.
It is impossible to establish how widespread was belief in life after death. Among the philosophers it was denied by Academics and Epicureans and in any fully personal sense by the Stoics, but it seems to have revived somewhat in the first century. Cicero, for instance, who after the death of his beloved daughter, decided to erect to her not a tomb but a shrine (fanum) as for a divine being, seems to have had some intimations of immortality. To what extent the thunderings of Lucretius against popular fears of future punishments attest widespread belief in some kind of Hell can only be conjectured.
As an outlet for emotional and religious feelings the Romans had long turned to the more popular ceremonies and cults of Greece and the East.18 The ‘enthusiastic’ cults of the Thracian Bacchus and the Phrygian Magna Mater, which gave rise to emotional frenzy through intoxication from wine and blood, had reached Italy with disastrous results, but their excesses were quickly curbed (see p. 8). The cult of Bacchus is not heard of again until the time of Caesar when it appears as a more respectable mystery-religion. The cult of the Great Mother Cybele was carefully regulated by the Roman authorities: Romans, for instance, must not serve as her priests or take part in her processions. If, however, Lucretius’ famous description of these wild ecstatic processions reflects contemporary practice in the streets of Rome, the cult will have attracted Roman attention if not direct participation. Other eastern religions, as that of Cappadocian Ma and Persian Mithras reached Italy in the late Republic, but only gained importance later. From Egypt the worship of Isis and Sarapis had reached some cities of Italy by the second century, and traditionally was established at Rome by Sulla’s day, no doubt at first as a private and secret cult. In 58 B.C. altars to Isis on the Capitol were destroyed by the consuls; though temporarily recognized by the triumvirs in 43, the cult was again suppressed by Augustus. Thus in the later Republic the authorities made constant attempts to regulate, restrain or expel these foreign religions, but in the long run, especially as the population of Rome was becoming more cosmopolitan, they failed. But before the eastern cults took deep root, the battle against them was to be fought by a doughty champion of the Italian tradition, Augustus. To this cause he was committed while he was still Octavian: were not Isis and the deities of Egypt ranged on the side of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium against the ancestral gods of Rome? ‘Monstrous gods of every shape’, wrote Virgil, ‘and Anubis, the yelping dog, bear arms against Neptune and Venus and against Minerva.’ The battle was on.
XI
THE AUGUSTAN PRINCIPATE1
1. OCTAVIAN’S PROBLEM
Octavian, who had emerged as the heir of Caesar and the leader of a faction, had successfully led his followers to a victory in a civil war that had eliminated all rivals: his faction could now be identified with the State. ‘Per consensum universorum potitus rerum omnium’: in these words he proclaimed his unchallenged and universal sovereignty, and the moral basis upon which he claimed that it rested.2 As long as this consensus continued to include the loyal support of the armies, Octavian was secure. But now that peace was established, how was he to act? If, like Sulla, he retired, civil war would flare up once more; if he retained autocratic power, naked and unshamed, he might suffer the fate of Julius Caesar. He was thus faced with a most perplexing problem. In order to prevent the outbreak of internal disorders and to safeguard the empire against barbarian incursions, he must retain a unified military command in his own hands: to allow provincial commanders too much independence in the protection of the frontiers, would be to invite a repetition of the use that ambitious Republican proconsuls had made of their provincial commands to turn against the central government in Rome. Yet an autocratic military despotism would so outrage a five-hundred-year-old tradition of Republican government that it must lead ultimately to an explosion.
Faced by this dilemma, Octavian must seek a compromise. In the event he produced a solution so successful that it gave the world a large measure of peace and stable government for over two hundred years. But he did not sit down and draft an ideal solution on paper and then try to implement it. Rather, he proceeded by a slow process of trial and error, feeling his way forward with patient care; by thus testing and responding to public opinion he was enabled to create the Principate and establish it on a secure basis. In considering his achievement it is all too easy to concentrate on the result and to overlook the length of time devoted to it: a process that takes many years may appear as a sudden revolutionary adjustment in the eyes of later ages, but to men who lived through it year by year it may seem a far more gradual and natural development.
Until he moved to a new definition of his position in 27, Octavian was content to hold the consulship every year from 31 onwards while he attempted to ease the transition from war to peace and to restore confidence. While still absent from Rome in 30 B.C., he had been granted various honours (prayers and libations), and had also been offered tribunicia potestas (he had received tribunician sacrosanctity in 36), but he probably did not accept the offer; if he did, he made little practical use of this power before 23 B.C.3 He was granted the right
to create new patrician families, whose numbers had been depleted in the civil wars, and he officially used the praenomen Imperator which he had employed unofficially for some ten years. At the beginning of 29 all his acta were confirmed by the Senate.
By August of 29 Octavian was back in Rome and celebrated his triumph, at which his colleague and the other magistrates followed behind him instead of preceding him in the normal position. He used part of the treasures of Egypt to make lavish distributions of money to the people, for various shows and for starting a great building programme of public works. Thanks to some financial measures (e.g. the overlooking of some debts to the State) confidence was restored and the rate of interest dropped by two-thirds. The closing of the temple of Janus, which symbolized the re-establishment of peace, was followed by demobilization on a large scale: not only were there to be no proscriptions, but Octavian’s military backing was to be significantly lessened. He reduced his sixty legions ultimately to twenty-eight, which he judged would suffice for purposes of defence. Some 100,000 veterans received gratuities and were settled in colonies, either old or new settlements, in Italy or in the provinces; twenty-eight were founded in Italy, while those abroad included Carthage, Pisidian Antioch and Berytus in Syria. As the land was bought, the settlement cost hundreds of millions of sesterces. Returning stability and normality were seen when Octavian held his sixth consulship in 28 with his friend Agrippa as colleague, and both consuls for the first time in twenty years remained in Rome throughout the year. They turned their hands to a necessary task, a census of the whole people (neglected since 70 B.C.) and a revision of the Senate. To have sought the censorship might have given offence to the nobility, and so they received a grant of censoria potestas (or else permission to act qua consuls); this would appear quite natural to any historically-minded Romans who might recall that in the fifth century before the institution of the censorship the consuls had exercised these functions. Their lectio (perhaps in 29, before the census of 28) reduced the senators from 1000 to 800, and Octavian’s name was placed at the head of the list as Princeps Senatus. Further, by edict he proclaimed an amnesty and annulled any illegal and unjust orders that he had given during the civil wars. In short, by all these means life was in many ways brought back to normal, and it was time for Octavian to make clearer his own position and intentions.
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Page 29