The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire (67 page)

22
  
He issued silver shekels
CAH 8, p. 39.

23
  
It was necessary to cut through rock
Livy 21 37.

24
  
“a kindlier region”
Ibid.

25
  
Scipio had put his son in command
Polyb 10 3 4–5.

26
  
A spring sacred to Hercules
Livy 21 62 9 and 22 1 10.

27
  
This was a correct judgment
Flaminius’s contemporaries were unkind to him, and classical historians perhaps exaggerated his failings. There is no good reason, though, for rejecting the charge of impatience. It explains his actions.

28
  
The Consul’s death was the beginning
Livy 21 6.

29
  “Magna pugna victi sumus” Ibid., 22 7.

30
  
because of his gentle and solemn personality
Plut Fab 1 3.

31
  
he had read a lot “for a Roman”
Cic Sen 12.

32
  
“because he had not despaired of the Republic”
Livy 22 61 14.

13. The Bird Without a Tail

Livy and Polybius follow the Second Punic War to its close. The latter is especially useful on Rome’s military organization.

  
1
Unus homo nobis cunctando Cic Off 1, 24, 84.

  
2
  
He threw a spear over the wall
Plin Nat Hist 34 32.

  
3
  
he looked down on the city
Plut Mar 19 1.

  
4
  
he looted so many paintings
Ibid., 21 5.

  
5
  
“The Tarentines can keep their gods”
Livy 27 16 8.

  
6
  
the Senate was unable to make up its mind
Ibid., 26 18 3.

  
7
  
“If the People want to make me aedile”
Ibid., 25 2 6.

  
8
  
Polybius was a friend of the Scipios
Polyb 10 2 5.

  
9
  
“I am happy to be spoken of as kingly”
Ibid., 10 40 6.

10
  
Hasdrubal’s army was already drawn up
Livy 27 47.

11
  
When fortune had deprived him
Polyb 11 2 9–10.

12
  
“Now, at last, I see plainly the fate”
Livy 27 51 12.

13
  
“it had an enclosure surrounded by dense woodland”
Ibid., 24 3. The discussion of the Temple of Juno was informed by Jaeger.

14
  
If we can believe Cicero
Cic Div 1 24 48.

15
  
pro-Carthaginian original source
From Hannibal’s personal historian, Silenus, via Coelius Antipater.

16
  
some Italian soldiers in the Punic army refused
Livy 30 20 6.

17
  
You must pardon me
Polyb 15 19 5–7.

18
  
the Republic’s military dispositions
Ibid., 6 19–42.

19
  
“When we consider this people’s almost obsessive concern”
Ibid., 6 39 11.

20
  
a huge number of olive trees
Aur Vic Caes 37 3. A late source, but consistent with the nature of Carthage’s economic renaissance.

21
  
He ordered a treasury official to appear
Livy 33 46 1–7.

22
  
“We should be satisfied with having defeated him”
Ibid., 33 47 5.

23
  
Scipio laughed and asked
App Syr 10.

24
  
Scipio seems to have been in Carthage
See Lancel, p. 195; Holleaux, pp. 75–98.

25
  
His only remaining option was suicide
Plut Flam 20 4–6 (including Hannibal’s last words).

26
  
he took poison
Aconite was the deadliest known toxin in the ancient world, and usually takes an hour to begin to take effect, although a large dose can be fatal almost immediately. The symptoms are unpleasant. It might not have been easy to obtain a large dose, and to be certain of its effect. Suicide by slave was the surer choice.

27
  
“like a bird who is too old to fly”
Plut Flam 21 1.

14. Change and Decay

The sections of Polybius that cover this period have been lost, and Livy is the main source. Plautus and Terence evoke daily life in Rome.

  
1
  
a workshop of corruptions
Livy 39 10 6–7.

  
2
  
There were more obscenities
Ibid., 39 13 10–12.

  
3
  
An inscription has survived
CIL i2 2, 581.

  
4
  
“no slur or disgrace”
Livy 39 19 5.

  
5
  
“would jeer at their habits and customs”
Ibid., 40 5 7.

  
6
  
“method of infecting people’s minds”
and
“Greek of humble origin”
Ibid., 39 8 3–6.

  
7
  
moved by madness
Cat 63 6–10. Catullus wrote in the first century, but he echoes what was believed and practised in the third.

  
8
  
Whenever a magistrate
Plut Marc 5 1–2.

  
9
  
The image consists of a mask
Polyb 6 53–54.

10
  
Rome was more than a space
For a fuller account of urban living see Stambaugh, passim.

11
  
a tour of the Forum
Plaut Curc 461ff.

12
  
“From virtue down to trash”
This description of the Roman Forum is drawn from Plautus’s
Curculio
, pp. 462–86. In theory, both Plautus and Terence (see below) set their plays in Greek towns, but their urban descriptions are evidently Roman.

13
  
there was room, at a squeeze
, Dyson, p. 49.

14
  
Most thoroughfares in the city were unpaved
The paving of streets began in 174.

15
  
the title of street, or
via Var Ling Lat 7 15.

16
  
“Do you know that arcade by the market?”
Ter Ad 573–84.

17
  
“Why, just now in the Forum”
Plaut Capt lines 4 78–84.

18
  
“It was not without reason”
Var Rust 2 Preface 1.

19
  
“Take all this as true”
CIL 11 600.

20
  
Early in the morning, Cato went on foot
Plut Cat Maj 3 1–2.

21
  
“it is from the farming class”
Cat Agr intro 4.

22
  
He must not be a gadabout
Ibid., 5 2, 4, and 5.

23
  
“Sell worn-out oxen”
Cat Agr 2 7.

24
  
the origins of live performance
Livy 7 2 3–13. Livy probably drew on Varro’s (lost) writings on theater. The explanation is plausible.

25
  
accustomed to hold a/Beano
Virg Geo 2 384–88.

26
  
“mental relaxation should go together”
Val Max 2 4 2.

27
  
When I first began to perform it
Ter Hec Prologue 33ff.

28
  
“hacked to pieces with his bronze”
Hom Il 23 175.

29
  
an extra ration of wine
Cat Agr 57.

30
  
“natural simplicity of his men”
and
“boyish addiction”
Plut Cat Maj 3 6–7.

31
  
“Anybody can see that the Republic”
Polyb 31 25.

32
  
“[It was] her habit to appear”
Ibid., 31 26 3–4.

33
  
One particular case that Cato exposed
Plut Cat Maj 17. There are variations on this story, one being that the boy was a girl, another that the man killed was a condemned criminal rather than a distinguished Celt, a third that the prostitute requested the execution and, finally, that the deed was done by a lictor, not by the consul himself. However, in his account of the affair, Livy (39 42) claims to have read the speech Cato made about the affair, and there is no reason to doubt him. Cato’s version is likely to be the nearest to the truth.

34
  
Matters came to a head
The surviving accounts of the Scipionic trials are confused. I follow what I hope is a plausible narrative.

35
  
“The Roman People are not entitled”
Polyb 23 14 3 (Suid).

36
  
He left instructions
As always, there are different stories. But Livy visited a tomb with a statue of Scipio at Liternum. Although another statue was erected on the family mausoleum at Rome, this was probably a memorial. It seems most likely that Liternum was Scipio’s last resting place. Whom else could the tomb there have belonged to?

15. The Gorgeous East

Livy and Polybius begin to fade. Plutarch’s lives of Cato and Aemilius Paulus are useful. We rely heavily on Appian for the fall of Carthage.

  
1
  
The Gorgeous East
William Wordsworth,
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
.

  
2
  
“fetters of Greece”
Polyb 18 11 5.

  
3
  
“Woe to you, oh land”
Eccl 10:16. This Old Testament book may have been composed in about 200
B.C
.

  
4
  
Consul and king met
Livy 22 10, for the entire paragraph, including the consul’s retort.

  
5
  
The encounter took place in the open air
Polyb 18 1–12. Also Livy 32 32–36. Other examples of similar conferences between enemies include the triumvirs’ negotiations in 43
B.C
. on a river island near Bologna and Sextus Pompey’s encounter with Octavian and Mark Antony at Cape Misenum in 39
B.C
.

  
6
  
“Flamininus has unshackled the foot”
Plut Flam 10 2.

  
7
  
The Senate of Rome
Polyb 18 46 5.

  
8
  
What had happened was so unexpected
Ibid., 7.

  
9
  
Some ravens that happened to be flying
Plut Flam 10 6.

10
  
“And I tell you that it is not the customs”
App Syr 61.

11
  
I observed the powerful Heracles
Hom Od 11 601–3.

12
  
The other gods are far away
Ath 6 253 b-f. See Green,
From Alexander to Actium
, p. 55.

13
  
“If he wishes us to take no interest”
Livy 34 58 2.

14
  
A small town off the beaten track
Ibid., 38 39 10.

15
  
He produced a forged letter
Ibid., 40 23 4–9. Livy was certain that it was a forgery, and there are no good grounds for thinking otherwise.

16
  
his final illness was psychological
Ibid., 40 56 8–9.

17
  
“a kind of speaking tool”
Var Rust 1 17 1.

18
  
Day and night they wear out their bodies
Dio Sic 5 38 1.

19
  
“I know of a slave who dreamed”
Art 1 78. Cited in Toner, p. 71. Artemidorus lived in the second century, but he used material from earlier writers and his examples do not appear to be time-sensitive.

20
The Little Carthaginian Plaut Poen. The play is officially set in Aetolia, in northwestern Greece; as ever with Plautus, one cannot avoid the feeling that the characters resemble everyday Romans.

21
  
opening speech in the Punic language
It is not quite certain whether Hanno speaks in proper Carthaginian Punic, a lost language, or in a comedy pastiche.

22
  
They carefully observed the country
App Pun Wars 69.