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Augustus, the Poets, and the Spolia Opima*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. J. Harrison
S. J. Harrison
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Abstract

The winning of the ultimate military honour of spolia opima, spoils taken personally from an enemy commander killed by a Roman commander, traditionally occurred only three times in Roman history, the winners being Romulus in the legendary period, A. Cornelius Cossus in either 437 or 426 and M. Claudius Marcellus in 222 B.C.1 The dedication-place of these special spoils was the temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol, traditionally founded by Romulus for the purpose, and considered the oldest temple in Rome (Livy 1.10.7): the god was said to draw his name either from the fact that the spolia opima were carried (ferre) up to the Capitol by the victorious general in person, or from the fact that the general had to strike down(ferire) his opposite number before such spoils could be won.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , December 1989 , pp. 408 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 cf. Ogilvie on Livy 4.20.5–11 and Mensching, H., MH 24 (1967), 12ff.Google Scholar

2 cf. Propertius 4.10.45–8, and the introductory note of Butler and Barber on that poem (cf. also n. 11 below).

3 But cf. Oakley, S. P., CQ n.s. 35 (1985), 392–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who convincingly shows that there were more single combats between commanders than commonly believed, even in the Late Republic.

4 Syme, R., HSCPh 64 (1959), 43–7Google Scholar ( = Roman Papers, I [Oxford, 1979], pp. 418–21Google Scholar).

5 This privilege of wearing triumphal dress in Rome had in 61 been granted to Pompey (Cicero, Att. 1.18.6, Dio 37.21.4, Velleius 2.40.4); the grant of the same to Caesar is surely a case of one dynast emulating another.

6 On Caesar and Romulus cf. the evidence collected by Weinstock, S., Divus Iulius (Oxford, 1971), pp. 175–84Google Scholar.

7 cf. Nepos, Atticus 20.3, ‘cum aedis Iovis Feretrii Capitolio, ab Romulo constituta, vetustate atque incuria detecta prolaberetur.’

8 The constant association of Augustus and Romulus in contemporary literature and art is surely a token of this: cf. Vergil, G. 3.27, Horace C. 3.3.15ff., Ep. 2.1.5ff., Weinstock, , op. cit. (n. 6), p. 190Google Scholar, Zanker, P., Forum Augustum: Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen, n.d.), pp. 17–21Google Scholar; so is the mooting of ‘Quirinus’ or ‘Romulus’ as a possible alternative to ‘Augustus’ in 27 B.C. (Suetonius, Aug. 7.2, Cassius Dio 53.16.7). This association may go back some way in the princeps' self-presentation; there is a story, possibly from Augustus' De Vita Sua (in 13 books, describing his life up to 25 B.C. – Suetonius, Div. Aug. 85.1), that as he took the auspices in his first consulship (43 B.C.) twelve vultures appeared to him as they had to Romulus in founding Rome (Suetonius, Div. Aug. 95).

9 Platner, S. B. and Ashby, T., A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1929), p. 293Google Scholar.

10 Fetiales revived in 32: Dio 50.4.4 (cf. Wiedemann, T., CQ n.s. 36 [1986], 482–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

11 Paul. exc. Fest. p. 81.16ff. Lindsay: ‘Feretrius Iuppiter a ferendo quod pacem ferre putaretur: ex cuius templo sumebant sceptrum per quod iurarent, et lapidem silicem quo foedus ferirent.’

12 cf. Dio 51.24.4, a brief narrative; the details may be extracted from Livy – cf. Syme, loc. cit. (n. 4) and Dessau, H., Hermes 41 (1906), 141–51Google Scholar.

13 This passage of Festus is not mentioned in Cardauns', B. edition of Varro's, Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (Wiesbaden, 1976)Google Scholar. In this work of religious antiquarianism Varro is surely very likely to have discussed the cult of Jupiter Feretrius and the rules for dedicating the spolia opima, especially perhaps in Books 30–2, which gave an account of the sacred buildings of Rome (Augustine, CD 6.3).

14 References in n. 4 and n. 12 (above).

15 cf. Ogilvie's commentary ad loc. and Luce, T. J., TAPA 96 (1965), 211–18Google Scholar.

16 I have put in the question-mark after ‘scripserit’, which seems the only way of making sense of the passage without resorting to conjecture: the emphatic ‘ea libera… vana’ seems to dismiss other versions, so ‘licet’ cannot be a statement, and ‘opiniones’ seem to be unfavourably contrasted with the historical fact of Cossus' inscription. Any interpretation which takes ‘cum’ as concessive (cf. Ogilvie ad loc.) thus seems improbable For the construction ‘versare in’ with accusative (‘rem’ vel sim. is understood as object) cf. Livy 1.58.3, Vergil, , Aeneid 4.630, 8.21Google Scholar.

17 cf. Woodman, A. J., Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (London, 1988), pp. 134–40Google Scholar, who regards the first five books as composed before Actium.

18 On the dating of the fourth book of Propertius (published after 16 B.C.), cf. Camps, W. A., Propertius Elegies Book 4 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 1Google Scholar.

19 cf. Hubbard, M., Propertius (London, 1974), p. 131Google Scholar (she takes a less positively Augustan view of the poem).

20 I wholly disagree with the view advanced by Johnson, W. R., CSCA 6 (1973), 151–80Google Scholar, that Propertius 4.6 is in any way anti-Augustan, and with that of Sullivan, J. P., Propertius (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 145–7Google Scholar, that it is a playful parody of court-poetry; it is a sincere attempt to hymn Actium in the Callimachean style - cf. Hubbard, , op. cit. (n. 19), pp. 134–6Google Scholar, Cairns, F. in Woodman, A. J. and West, D. A. (ed.), Politics and Poetry in the Age of Augustus (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 131–3Google Scholar.

21 So Rothstein, M. (Die Elegien des Sextus Propertius II, 2nd ed. [Berlin, 1924], p. 342Google Scholar, Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana [Cambridge, 1956], p. 263Google Scholar; Camps, , op. cit. (n. 18), p. 153Google Scholar) paraphrases ‘omine… certo’ as ‘a sign not to be mistaken of heaven's (or the god's) favour’.

22 Also shared by Festus and Livy is the verb ‘detraxit’, another element which suggests that both depend on an earlier formula.

23 For pre-battle auspices, regularly taken until the second century B.C., cf. Livy 5.21.1, 6.12.7, 41.18.7–8 and Linderski, J., ANRW II 16.3 (1974), 2173Google Scholar.

24 cf. TLL 9.2.574.51ff., and esp. Vergil, , Aen. 11.589 ‘infausto committitur omine pugna’Google Scholar.

25 cf. Austin's commentary ad loc.

26 cf. Sandbach, F. H., PVS 5 (1965–1966), 26–38Google Scholar, N. M. Horsfall in Enciclopedia Virgiliana s.v. ‘anacronismi’.

27 cf. Nisbet, R. G. M., PVS 17 (1978–1980), 57Google Scholar.

28 cf. Griffin, J. in Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects, ed. Millar, F. and Segal, E. (Oxford, 1984), pp. 189–218Google Scholar.

29 cf. Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), pp. 297–8Google Scholar, Griffin, J., Latin Poets and Roman Life (London, 1985), pp. 32–3Google Scholar.