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OMNES QVI SVNT EIVS ORDINIS A POMPEIO EVOCANTVR: THE PROCONSUL POMPEIUS’ SENATORIAL MEETING IN 49 b.c.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

Roman M. Frolov
Roman M. Frolov*
Affiliation:
P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In his Bellum Ciuile, Caesar reports the events of 1 January 49 with these words (1.3.1):

misso ad uesperum senatu omnes qui sunt eius ordinis a Pompeio euocantur. laudat <promptos> Pompeius atque in posterum confirmat, segniores castigat atque incitat.

When the Senate had been dismissed towards dusk, all who belonged to that order were summoned by Pompeius. He praised the determined and encouraged them for the future while criticizing and stirring up those who were less eager to act.

This meeting has not attracted much scholarly attention and admittedly for a good reason: other circumstances of the outbreak of the Civil War are, perhaps, more significant for understanding the events as well as the intentions and decisions of the political actors. The importance of this gathering lies, however, not so much in what its role might have been in the developments of the year 49 but rather in the context of the phenomenon of the promagistrates’ interference in the domestic politics of Late Republican Rome.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 707 - 716
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

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Footnotes

The research for this article was supported by the Russian Presidential Grants Council (Project No. MК–287.2021.2) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (through the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers). I thank the participants of the session ‘The Public and Private Domus in the Social Topography of Ancient Rome’ at the EAUH Conference in Rome in 2018, where part of this study was presented. I am grateful to Christopher Burden-Strevens and CQ's anonymous referee for thought-provoking and detailed comments. All dates are b.c. The days are according to the pre-Julian Roman calendar.

References

1 See Russell, A., The Politics of Public Space in Republican Rome (Cambridge, 2016), 153–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Russell (n. 1), 183.

3 Russell (n. 1), 183–4.

4 Russell (n. 1), 184–5.

5 Flower, H., ‘Servilia's consilium: rhetoric and politics in a family setting’, in van der Blom, H., Gray, C. and Steel, C. (edd.), Institutions and Ideology in Republican Rome: Speech, Audience and Decision (Cambridge, 2018), 252–64Google Scholar.

6 Russell (n. 1), 185.

7 Russell (n. 1), 185.

8 Markland, J., ‘Explicationes veterum aliquot auctorum, Graecorum et Latinorum’, in T. Gaisford (ed.), Supplices mulieres (Oxford, 1811), 255–94, at 272Google Scholar.

9 Thus Cynthia Damon has recently taken the addition of sui into account, but has not used it in her translation: see C. Damon (ed.), Caesar Civil War (Cambridge, MA and London, 2016), 4–5Google Scholar; ead. (ed.), C. Iuli Caesaris Commentariorum libri III de bello ciuili (Oxford, 2015), 2.

10 Andrés, G. Hinojo, ‘«Misso ad uesperum senatu, omnes qui sunt eius ordinis a Pompeio euocantur», Caes., Civ. I 3’, Emerita 46 (1978), 113–15Google Scholar.

11 Hinojo Andrés (n. 10), 114.

12 On 1 December 50, 370 senators (against 22) voted for the proposal to deprive both generals of their commands (App. B Ciu. 2.30; Plut. Vit. Pomp. 58.5). Given the state of our sources, different interpretations of the numbers of the senators who voted either way on 1 December 50 are possible, but it can hardly be denied that the senatorial majority was not eager to join Caesar's resolute enemies; cf. Meier, C., Res publica amissa: Eine Studie zu Verfassung und Geschichte der späten römischen Republik (Wiesbaden, 1966), 315Google Scholar.

13 Cf. Meyer, E., Caesars Monarchie und das Principat des Pompejus (Stuttgart and Berlin, 19223), 283–4Google Scholar.

14 Cf. Kraner, F. and Hofmann, F. (edd.), C. Iulii Caesaris Commentarii de bello ciuili (Berlin, 1864 3), 35Google Scholar. Apart from the two tribunes, only M. Caelius Rufus and C. Scribonius Curio voted against the proposal to deprive Caesar of his command (Cass. Dio 41.2.1; Meyer [n. 13], 283–4). At best, a few more senators, such as the praetor L. Roscius and the censor L. Piso, may at this point be added here: Raaflaub, K., Dignitatis contentio: Studien zur Motivation und politischen Taktik im Bürgerkrieg zwischen Caesar und Pompeius (Munich, 1974), 56–7Google Scholar.

15 See e.g. Strasburger, H., Caesar im Urteil seiner Zeitgenossen (Darmstadt, 19682), 31–3Google Scholar; Raaflaub (n. 14), 183–6; Jehne, M., ‘Gerechtigkeitskonkurrenzen in der politischen Praxis der römischen Republik’, in Melville, G., Vogt-Spira, G. and Breitenstein, M. (edd.), Gerechtigkeit (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna, 2014), 58–73, at 63–5, 68Google Scholar.

16 Many studies have underlined this: see especially Batstone, W.W. and Damon, C., Caesar's Civil War (Oxford, 2006), 45, 49–50, 53Google Scholar. Cf. now also E. Adler, ‘Caesar's depiction of the Senate in early January 49 b.c.e. (BCIV. 1.1–5)’, AClass 62 (2019), 1–20.

17 On Caesar's use of these emotive words, see e.g. Collins, M., ‘Caesar as political propagandist’, ANRW 1.1 (1972), 922–66, at 948Google Scholar; A. Tronson, ‘Pompey the barbarian: Caesar's presentation of “The Other” in Bellum Civile 3’, in M. Joyal (ed.), In Altum. Seventy-Five Years of Classical Studies in Newfoundland (St. John's, 2001), 73–104, at 87.

18 One can understand euocantur as simply implying ‘out of the city’ or ‘outside the pomerium’: B. Perrin (ed.), Caesar's Civil War (New York, 1882), 134; Finn, J.K. and Groten, F.J. (edd.), Res publica conquassata: Readings on the Fall of the Roman Empire (Detroit, 1998), 90Google Scholar; Raaflaub, K.A. (ed.), The Landmark Julius Caesar. Web Essays (New York, 2017), 311Google Scholar. However, the necessity to gather outside the pomerium was too common a thing to require the use of this peculiar verb.

19 BCiu. 1.3.2: multi undique ex ueteribus Pompei exercitibus spe praemiorum atque ordinum euocantur …

20 Cf. Herzog, M.C.G. (ed.), C. Julii Caesaris Commentariorum de bello ciuili libri III (Leipzig, 1834), 13Google Scholar. On ordo as the term for a stable, officially recognized, social group, see Cohen, B., ‘La notion d’«ordo» dans la Rome antique’, BAGB 2 (1975), 259–82Google Scholar. Cf. also Rilinger, R., ‘Ordo und dignitas als soziale Kategorien der römischen Republik’, in Schmitt, T. and Winterling, A. (edd.), Ordo und dignitas: Beiträge zur römischen Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte (Stuttgart, 2007), 95–104Google Scholar.

21 Hinojo Andrés (n. 10), 114–15.

22 See e.g. Bruhns, H., Caesar und die römische Oberschicht in den Jahren 49–44 v.Chr. Zur Herrschaftsetablierung im Bürgerkrieg (Göttingen, 1978), 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seager, R., ‘Factio: some observations’, JRS 62 (1972), 53–8, at 54–5, 57Google Scholar.

23 Cf. Cicero's evaluation of the Senate that remained in Rome with Caesar. According to Cicero, there could at best be a meeting of senators rather than the Senate (Cic. Fam. 4.1.1 in senatum siue potius in conuentum sanatorium; Att. 9.1.2 in concessu senatorium; <senatum> enim non puto). However, Cicero's words give the impression that it was just his own assessment (siue potius; puto), and technically the Senate could still function as such: the problem was its ‘political’ deficiency (many senators not present, one ‘party’ completely excluded) rather than a technical one. In contrast to this, Caesar depicts Pompeius’ senatorial meeting as if it were very much like the Senate in practical terms, but he carefully avoids any claims that it was technically the Senate.

24 Cf. Russell (n. 1), 184: ‘this was not an official meeting’, even though ‘Caesar's description of the occasion and Pompey's speech evokes a regular meeting of the Senate’.

25 Batstone and Damon (n. 16), 49.

26 Raaflaub (n. 14), 56–9.

27 The possible measures against the tribunes were discussed in the Senate already on 1 January 49 but were not implemented (Caes. BCiu. 1.2.7; Cic. Phil. 2.50–3; Cass. Dio 41.2–3). That the SCV presumably could not be vetoed by the tribunes: see W. Kunkel and R. Wittmann, Staatsordnung und Staatspraxis der römischen Republik (Munich, 1995), 602–3.

28 Plutarch reports that on 1 January 49 the tribune Antonius put forward a proposal to the Senate that both Pompeius and Caesar be deprived of their military commands and that the senatorial majority demanded a vote on this proposal, which the consuls refused to countenance (Vit. Ant. 5.4; Vit. Caes. 30.3). This echoes very closely the situation of 1 December 50. Consequently, Plutarch's report is often considered in the scholarship as a doublet: Meyer (n. 13), 284 n. 1; P. Stein, Die Senatssitzungen der Ciceronischen Zeit (68–43) (Münster, 1930), 62–3 n. 339; Pelling, C.B.R., ‘Plutarch's adaptation of his source-material’, JHS 100 (1980), 127–40, at 139–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, according to Raaflaub, it cannot be excluded that the events did indeed partially repeat themselves and that Plutarch, seeing these important similarities, chose analogous formulations when describing the events of 1 January 49, thereby giving an impression of a ‘true doublet’ for what in reality was a ‘seeming’ one: Raaflaub, K., ‘Zum politischen Wirken der caesarfreundlichen Volkstribunen am Vorabend des Bürgerkrieges’, Chiron 4 (1974), 293–326, at 306–11Google Scholar. Raaflaub (this note), 311–12 n. 98 offers what he admits is a highly hypothetical reconstruction of the official senatorial meeting of 1 January 49: if these proceedings indeed developed in a similar way to the proceedings of 1 December 50, the Caesarian tribunes might, in fact, have been able to win the majority over again. This, too, would explain Pompeius’ informal gathering of senators.

29 Raaflaub (n. 28), 310.

30 Raaflaub (n. 14), 59.

31 See Girardet, K.M., Januar 49 v. Chr.: Caesars Militärputsch. Vorgeschichte, Rechtslage, politische Aspekte (Bonn, 2017), 188–9Google Scholar.

32 Caes. BCiu. 1.6.1. See also Stein (n. 28), 62–4.

33 But cf. Raaflaub (n. 18), 311 n. 9.3a.

34 Bonnefond-Coudry, M., Le Sénat de la République de la guerre d'Hannibal à Auguste: pratiques délibératives et prise de décision (Rome, 1989), 69–70, 150Google Scholar; Polo, F. Pina, The Consul at Rome. The Civil Functions of the Consuls in the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2011), 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Given the unsuccessful deliberations concerning the tribunician veto, the official meeting of 1 January 49—just like many other regular meetings during the Republic—could have easily continued until the very end of the day. If the purpose of the informal gathering was to prepare for the official meeting on 2 January after the previous one had been over, no other time was available but the evening of 1 January, pace Rambaud, M. (ed.), C. Iulius Caesar. De bello ciuili. Liber primus (Paris, 1962), 26Google Scholar; Peer, A., Julius Caesar's Bellum Ciuile and the Composition of a New Reality (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2015), 15Google Scholar.

36 See above and, more generally, Burckhardt, L., ‘“Zu Hause geht Alles, wie wir wünschen …,” – Privates und Politisches in den Briefen Ciceros’, Klio 85 (2003), 94–113, at 109–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Russell (n. 1), 184.

38 See Giovannini, A., Consulare imperium (Basel, 1983), 42–4Google Scholar.

39 Russell (n. 1), 184.

40 See e.g. Pina Polo (n. 34), 18. The criticism of the proconsul Caesar's conduct in the Senate is more apparent in Luc. 3.103–9.

41 Caes. BCiu. 1.85.8: in se noui generis imperia constitui, ut idem ad portas urbanis praesideat rebus et duas bellicosissimas prouincias absens tot annis obtineat. Cf. BGall. 6.1.2 simul ab Gnaeo Pompeio proconsule petit, quoniam ipse ad urbem cum imperio rei publicae causa remaneret. See also Vell. Pat. 2.48.1; Cass. Dio 39.39.4, 63.3–4.