Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T18:14:49.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Livy and the chronology of the years 168–167

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

O. P. Dany
O. P. Dany
Affiliation:
Frankfurt am Main, dany. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

All our ancient sources agree on the basic sequence of events after the battle of Pydna on 22 June 168: the consul L. Aemilius Paullus advanced to take possession of the whole of Macedonia and finally managed to capture Perseus, the defeated king, who had taken refuge on Samothrace. Once in complete control of the situation he sent his troops into winter quarters and himself set off on a trip that was to take him round the most famous sights of Greece. Only when he heard of the arrival of the customary senatorial commission did he return to Macedon, settle its affairs, hold magnificent games, and finally return to Italy. Thus far there is little cause for concern, but what most of these events lack is a properly established date. Livy, our only ancient source venturing to date them, places everything up to sending the troops into winter quarters (45.8.8–9) in the same consular year as Pydna and assigns the remaining events to autumn and winter 167 (45.27ff). He thereby creates an awkward gap of somewhat more than a year between the battle of Pydna and the subsequent actions of Aemilius Paullus. A majority of scholars either seem to have ignored this point altogether or silently corrected Livy's chronology by simply shifting the events in question back to 168/ (Julian calendar). Others, ranging from Miiller and Weissenborn to Hammond and Walbank in their magisterial History of Macedonia, have kept Livy's date,4 while only one scholar has actually attempted to argue for a correction of Livy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 432 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The major source for events after Pydna is, of course, Livy (44.43ff.), of whose source, Polybius, only a few fragments survive in Books 29 and 30. Cf. also Plu. Aem. 23ff., Diod. 30.21ff. and 31.8, App. Mak. 16 and Flor. 1.28.9ff.

2 Plu. Aem. 23.1 merely connects the journey with the preceding reception of Perseus in the Roman camp through a vague κ τοτου.

3 See e.g.De Sanctis, G., Storia dei Romani IV. 1 (Torino, 1923), 338Google Scholar (the problem is not discussed in his chronological appendices either);Oost, S. I., ‘The Roman calendar in the year of Pydna (168 b.c.)’, CPH 48 (1953), 220Google Scholar; Errington, R. M., The Dawn of Empire: Rome's Rise to World Power (Ithaca, NY, 1972), 223Google Scholar; Will, E., Histoire politique du monde hellenistique 2 (Nancy, 1982), 282.Google Scholar

4 Miiller, H. J. and Weissenborn, W., T. Lin Ab Urbe Condita 10.2, Buch XXXXV und Fragmente (Berlin, 1881)Google Scholar, ad 45.27.5, comment that Paullus’ journey must have taken place more than a year after the battle.Hammond, N. G. L. and Walbank, F. W., A History of Macedonia III: 336–167 b.c. (Oxford, 1988), 563 and n. 2Google Scholar, mention that the date is disputed and opt for the later one (Hammond, responsible for this section, has thus changed his mind since his Epirus [Oxford, 1967], 632). Also the relevant chapters of Livy in J. Briscoe's Teubner edition are headed by the date ‘167 A.c.’, although Briscoe has on other occasions changed Livy's date to the correct one (see e.g. Livy 32.32. Iff.: according to Livy in 197 but on the evidence of Polybius clearly still in 198).

5 For this see Meloni, P., Perseo e la fine delta monarchia macedone (Rome, 1953), 408Google Scholar with n. 3 and 413, n. 3, restated in Ancora sul calendario romano nell’ anno della battaglia di Pidna (168 a. Cr.)’, Latomus 13 (1954), 558–9.

6 Although the crucial latter part of a.u.c. DXXC[VI] does not survive, there can be no reasonable doubt about the correct restoration of this particular year. Livy's account of the triumph and the preceding complications are, however, likely to derive from annalistic sources (cf.Nissen, H., Kritische Untersuchungen über die Quellen der vierten und fünften Dekade des Livius [Berlin, 1863], 277Google Scholar ) which are usually reliable on such Roman dates. See also Walbank, F. W., A Historica Commentary on Polybius III (Oxford, 1979), 491.Google Scholar

7 Throughout this paper I shall accept the crucial synchronism of the battle of Pydna on 22 June 168 (Julian) with the Roman date 4 September 168. For this synchronism—now almost the communis opinio—see Meloni (n. 5, second item), 553fF.,Derow, P. S., ‘The Roman calendar, 190–168 B.C.’, Phoenix 27 (1973), 345ff.Google Scholar, Brind’ Amour, P., Le Calendrier romain. Recherches chronologiques (Ottawa, 1983), 151ff.Google Scholar, Prack, N., Der römische Kalender (264–168 v. Chr.). Verlauf und Synchronisation (Sinzheim, 1996), 134ff.Google Scholar The synchronization of Roman and Julian dates for 167 is discussed by Derow (355) and Brind’ Amour (156).

8 This was argued by Oost (n. 3), 219 and n. 19 (with ancient references).

9 This seems to be the most natural translation of this passage, but even a less forceful rendering of iam (e.g. ‘by now’ or ‘at this time’) emphasizes Fabius’ timely return.

10 The victory over Genthius had been described at Livy 44.30.1–32.5 (under the year 168), preceding Macedonian affairs just as here. Illyrian affairs are thus picked up at 45.26.1 by the phrase rege Genthio, sicut ante dictum est, in potestatem redacto.

12 See the regional Epirote histories of P. Cabanes, L'Epire de la mort de Pyrrhos á la conqurête romaine (Paris, 1976), 301–2 (cf. the chronological table p. 310), and Hammond, Epirus [n. 4], 632.

12 Gallus’ advance into Epirus flows straight out of his measures in Illyria where he had garrisoned the surrendered places (Liv. 45.26.1): praepositis his Illyrico reliquo exercitu in Epirum est profectus.

13 The exact date of the Olympic Games—and even more so of the change from one Olympiad year to another in years in which the (Games were not celebrated—is still disputed. For references see Walbank, F. W., Polybius (Berkeley, 1972), 101.Google Scholar

14 On Polybius’ method of dating by loose Olympiads, see Pèdech, P., La Mèthode historique de Polybe (Paris, 1964), 449ff.Google Scholar and Walbank (n. 13), 101–2.

15 Cf. the correct order and arrangement of the corresponding fragments from Polybius’ history (29.14–18; 30.10) by Walbank (n. 6), ad loc.

16 Polybius was fond of such ‘obituaries’, which usually summarize the life and character of some important personality (e.g. 18.41: Attalus I, 32.8: Eumenes II, 36.16: Massinissa) but can, just as here, in the rare case of states coming to an end include the entire dynasty (e.g. 7.7–8: the Sicilian kingdom of Hiero, Gelo, and Hieronymus).

17 On this rather typical mistake, see J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy. Books XXXI-XXXIII (Oxford, 1973), 2–3, with his comment ‘Livy evidently found difficulty in marrying these two systems’ for this various examples (e.g. Greek events of autumn 198 dated to 197) are provided. Cf. also the remarks of Tränkle, H., Livius und Polybios (Basel/Stuttgart, 1977), 46ff.Google Scholar

18 Theoretically, of course, it could go back to Polybius whose Res Italiae 168/7 preceded the Res Graeciae of this period. Polybius, however, will probably have been aware that the commission had not even been appointed at that moment.

19 On other aspects of the arrangement of Livy's source material in those two books, see e.g.Luce, T. J., Livy. The Composition of His History (Princeton, 1977), 117ff.Google Scholar

20 See e.g. Brind’ Amour (n. 7), 156, who seeks to accommodate this date in his chronological system.

21 What exactly the relation between the different messengers from Illyria is, can, I fear, only be guessed. Perpenna may well have been the original messenger of victory while Nerva and Decius perhaps accompanied the captured king whom Anicius is said to have sent to Rome soon after Perpenna's dispatch (44.32.4). Such an interpretation is, however, contradicted by Livy's account of Genthius’ arrival in Rome, on which I will comment below.