"The Sainted Julius": Valerius Maximus and the dictator

Classical Philology

Volumn 92, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 323-345

  Wardle, D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN   (South Africa)

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EID: 61449501799     PISSN: 0009837X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/449362     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. I will not be dealing with the representation of Julius Caesar in art or on the coinage. Although as princeps Augustus initially reduced references to Caesar, moneyers of the mint at Rome could represent Augustus crowning a statue of Caesar (12 B.C. BMCRE I, p. 26, no. 124)
2. and Caesar's deification (17 B.C. BMCRE I, p. 13, nos. 69-73).
3. See P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, MI, 1988), 33-37, 193, 220-21.
4. G. Herbert-Brown (Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study [Oxford, 1994], 109-28)
5. reacts to the views of P. White, "Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome," Phoenix 42 (1988): 334-56
6. and E. S. Ramage, "Augustus' Treatment of Julius Caesar," Historia 34 (1985): 223-45.
7. See also J. Briscoe, "Some Notes on Valerius Maximus," Sileno 19 (1993): 403-6
8. and R. F. Dobbin, "Julius Caesar in Jupiter's Prophecy in the Aeneid," CA 14 (1995): esp. 21-23.
9. How Caesar's image fared under the subsequent Julio-Claudian emperors has received only the barest treatment, e.g., L. C. Duxbury, "Some Attitudes to Julius Caesar in the Roman Republic: Catullus, Cicero and Sallust" (Ph.D. diss., Oxford, 1988).
10. A possibility suggested by F. G. B. Millar, "Ovid and the domus augusta: Rome seen from Tomoi," JRS 83 (1993): 4.
11. R. E. Wolverton, "Speculum Caesaris," in Laudatores temporis acti: Studies in Memory of Wallace Everett Caldwell, ed. M. F. Gyles and E. W. Davis (Chapel Hill, NC, 1964), 84-85;
12. W. M. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (London, 1992), 207-26.
13. Cf. Millar, "Ovid," 4, on the preface: "Precisely because it is intended to represent conventional wisdom, its importance for the ideology of the period can hardly be exaggerated."
14. T. F. Carney, "The Picture of Marius in Valerius Maximus," RhM 150 (1962): 289-337.
15. C. Rubincam ("The Nomenclature of Julius Caesar and the Later Augustus in the Triumviral Period," Historia 41 [1992]: 88-103) omits Valerius completely.
16. Valerius Maximus, 209.
17. According to Bloomer, "[e]ven the tersest allusion to Julius Caesar has two of the three essential elements of Valerius' characterisation" (p. 208), but see e.g., 1.5.6 or 8.3.2.
18. This is argued in more detail in section 3 of the introduction to Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings Book I (Oxford, 1998).
19. Contra F. Römer, "Zum Aufbau der Exemplasammlung des Valerius Maximus," WS 103 (1990): 100-101
20. and R. Combès, Valère Maxime: Faits et dits mémorables livres I-III (Paris, 1995), 24-25.
21. B. M. Levick ("Mercy and Moderation on the Coinage of Tiberius," in The Ancient Historian and his Materials, ed. B. M. Levick [Farnborough, 1975], 128) can write that "two cardinal virtues of Tiberius mark his two preoccupations as Princeps."
22. Cf. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 207.
23. Fasti evidence is set out at Herbert-Brown, Ovid, 111.
24. See J. Ober, "Tiberius and the Political Testament of Augustus," Historia 31 (1982): esp. 318-28;
25. and T. J. Cornell, "The End of Roman Imperial Expansion," in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. W. Rich (London, 1993), 149-50.
26. Cf. A. T. Corbeill, "Augustus' libellus," in Studies in Roman History and Latin Literature, vol. 5, ed. C. Deroux (Brussels, 1989), esp. 274-75.
27. 4.1.10. See W. V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 B.C. (Oxford, 1979), 118-20.
28. If the legal notion was foremost in Valerius' mind he may have been influenced by the contemporary view that Britain was rightfully Rome's (cf. C. E. Stevens, "Britain Between the Invasions," in Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond, ed. W. F. Grimes [London, 1951], 332-44).
29. Cf. "senatum populumq(ue). Romanum ante omnia dis immortalibus gratias agere, quod nefaris consilis Cn. Pisonis patris tranquillitatem praesentis status r.p., quo melior optari non pote(s)t turbari. . . ." Text from W. Eck, A. Caballos, and F. Fernández, Das senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre (Munich, 1996), 38.
30. See R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace: "Odes." Book II (Oxford, 1978), 7-8.
31. See most recently Briscoe, "Some Notes," 398-402
32. and R. Combès, Valère Maxime, 8-11.
33. Contra J. Bellemore, "When Did Valerius Maximus Write Dicta et facta memorabilia?" Antichthon 23 (1989): 67-80.
34. See Herbert-Brown, Ovid, 112-18.
35. The more Roman historiography is considered as governed by the criteria of forensic oratory (cf. A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography [London, 1988], esp. 83-95), the less surprising such inconsistency is.
36. See S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford, 1971), 233-42.
37. Also A. J. Woodman, Velleius Palerculus 2.41-93 (Cambridge, 1983), 106-7.
38. 2.23.4, although in De ira he does display the virtue. See M. T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford, 1976), esp. 185-86, for an increasing emphasis on the darker side of Caesar's dictatorship over time.
39. The gloss of iuberetur as "tried . . . to persuade" (R. A. Bauman, The Crimen maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate [Johannesburg, 1970], 153) is too favorable to Caesar.
40. On the legal steps against the tribunes, see M. Jehne, Der Staat des Dictators Caesar (Cologne, 1987), esp. 282-85.
41. Levick ("Mercy and Moderation," 131-33) argues that the coins were issued in the autumn of A.D. 16, after the conviction of Libo Drusus for maiestas.
42. Arguments for a date between 34 and 37 better fit the traditional date for Valerius, but do not convince (H. Gesche, "Datierung und Deutung der clementia-moderatio-Dupondien des Tiberius," JNG 21 [1971]: 37-80).
43. Cf. RIC , 88-89: "the year 22 seems most likely."
44. See A. F. Wallace-Hadrill, "The Emperor and his Virtues," Historia 30 (1981): 323.
45. Cf. R. S. Rogers, Studies in the Reign of Tiberius (Baltimore, 1943), 35-59.
46. See J. D. Cloud, "Parricidium from the lex Numae to the lex Pompeia de parricidiis" ZRG 88 (1971): 1-66;
47. cf. Y. Thomas, "Parricidium," MÉFRA 93 (1981): 646-47
48. and D. Briquel, "Sur le mode d'execution en cas de parricide et en cas de perduellio," MÉFRA 92 (1980): 87-107.
49. Cicero alludes to the charge made by the Caesarians that the Liberators were parricidae (Phil. 2.31, 13.22;
50. See A. Alföldi, Studien über Caesars Monarchie (Lund, 1956), 46-47.
51. Cf. R. A. Bauman, Impietas in principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century A.D. (Munich. 1974), 201, 218-19.
52. Cf. Combès, Valère Maxime, 44.
53. On the context, see E. D. Rawson, "Caesar, Etruria and the disciplina Etrusca," JRS 68 (1978): 144.
54. cf. Rawson, "Caesar," 145.
55. Weinstock, Divus Julius, 271-73.
56. on which see A. S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis "De Divinatione" Liber Primus (Urbana, 1920), 311-12.
57. Other versions make it plain that Decimus Brutus raised the specter of public ridicule (Nic. Dam. Vita Augusti 23;
58. See also J. Mossman, Wild Justice (Oxford, 1993), 248.
59. and Appian (BCiv. 2.117) both record the detail of Caesar's modesty and that he hid his face in his toga when he saw Brutus among the assassins; Appian has him struggle like an animal. Valerius may exclude this because immortal gods should not show horror or fear.
60. The clear implication of the preface is that Tiberius, whose providentia is already caelestis, will follow Caesar and Augustus; see also below, p. 337 on his divinitas and sidus. Valerius shares none of Pliny's scepticism (see K. Scott, "The Elder Pliny on Emperor Worship," TAPA 63 [1932]: 156-65).
61. Cf. M. P. Charlesworth, "Deus noster Caesar," CR 39 (1925): 113-15.
62. Unqualified: Red. Pop. 15,
63. See W. Leschhorn in A. Alföldi, Caesar in 44 v. Chr. (Bonn, 1985), 387-97.
64. Cf. also White, "Julius Caesar," 345: "Caesar gets fuller and more fulsome coverage than Augustus himself."
65. For Valerius' use of apostrophe, see B. W. Sinclair, "Valerius Maximus and the Evolution of Silver Latin" (Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati, 1980), 72-89.
66. "Prudentius and the Cult of Divus Augustus," Historia 39 (1990): p. 484, n. 59;
67. cf. idem, "Prayer and the Living Emperor," in The Two Worlds of the Poet: New Perspectives on Vergil, ed. R. M. Wilhelm and H. Jones (Detroit, 1992), 343-56.
68. perhaps from the consecration ritual itself (RE XXIII, 84).
69. Cf. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 216.
70. Only K. Scott ("The sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar," CP 36 [1941]: 271-72)
71. and Wolverton ("Speculum Caesaris," 84-85) have thought to comment on this, the latter in a brief sketch of Valerius' Caesar: "Caesar was really a god incarnate." While there is much evidence for this idea (see pp. 338-40 below) it should not be inferred from three passages used by Wolverton.
72. The identification of the emperor with Augustus is preferable to that with Claudius (cf. H. Nissen, "Inschriften aus Campanien," Hermes 1 [1867]: 155).
73. S. R. F. Price, "From Noble Families to Divine Cult: the Consecration of Roman Emperors," in Rituals of Royalty. Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine (Cambridge 1987), esp. 76-81, collects most of these references, but ignores Valerius as a source for ideas on ruler cult.
74. 558-60. D. Possanza, "Studies in the Aratea of Germanicus Caesar" (Ph.D. diss, University of North Carolina, 1987)
75. reasserts convincingly the case for Germanicus' authorship against D. B. Gain (The "Aratus" Ascribed to Germanicus Caesar [London, 1976]). If Tiberius were the author, Valerius' stress on the notion would argue some definite intention to toe the imperial line.
76. See M. Regali, Macrobio: commento al "Somnium Scipionis" Libro I (Pisa, 1983)
77. and K. Büchner, "Somnium Scipionis": Quellen, Gestalt, Sinn (Wiesbaden, 1977), esp. 73-81.
78. Although R. Faranda (Valerio Massimo: Detti e fatti memorabili [Turin, 1971]),
79. adduces Cicero's De Republica Book 6 (the Somnium Scipionis) as providing parallel information on nine instances, only one instance suggests possible use by Valerius in his normal manner, which involves close fidelity to his source.
80. See D. C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford, 1991), esp. 206-24
81. For Ovid's presentation of the emperor as a god, see the references collected by M. L. Paladini, "L'aspetto dell' imperatore-dio presso i Romani," Contributi dell' Istituto di Filologia Classica 1 (1963): esp. 25-27.
82. See now E. Flintoff, "Comets and Confidence Tricks. A Meditation on Eclogue IX 47," ACUSD 28 (1992): 65-71, esp. 69.
83. For discussion, see K. Scott, "The sidus Iulium," 257-72;
84. F. Bömer, "Über die Himmelserscheinung nach dem Tode Caesars," BJ 152 (1952): 27-40;
85. Weinstock, Divus Julius, 370-74;
86. Dobbin, "Julius Caesar," 28-29.
87. 271. See also I. Hahn, 'Die augusteischen Interpretationen des sidus Iulium," ACUSD 19 (1983): 57-66.
88. in the comments of an apparent contemporary Baebius Macer (RE 1: 2731).
89. Ramage, "Augustus' Treatment," esp. 236-41.
90. "Augustus' Treatment," 236.
91. C. Skidmore, Practical Ethics for Roman Gentlemen. The Work of Valerius Maximus (Exeter, 1996).