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SCIPIO AEMILIANUS AND GREEK ETHICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2018

Jonathan Barlow
Jonathan Barlow*
Affiliation:
Trinity College, University of Melbourne
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Philosophical influences in the personality and public life of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, consul in 147 and 134 b.c., were once emphasized in scholarship. In 1892, Schmekel demonstrated the reception of Stoic philosophy in the second half of the second century b.c. among the philhellenic members of the governing elite in general, and statesmen like Scipio Aemilianus in particular, in what he called the ‘Roman Enlightenment’. In the 1920s and 1930s, Kaerst showed influences of Stoic philosophy on Scipio, contemporary politics and the Principate to come, while Capelle and Pohlenz identified Stoic ideas in Scipio's foreign and domestic policies. Together they formed a body of scholarship which held that Scipio possessed a serious interest in philosophy which defined his character and informed his public life. In the 1960s, the challenge to this scholarship was led by Strasburger in two articles, and by Astin in his 1967 biography. Both scholars downplayed and devalued philosophical influences on Scipio and denied him the pursuit of the Greek virtuous life. They placed him within the traditions of the Roman elite, ambitious for glory and results-driven, and they have successfully formed influential views to this end, despite the critique made by Erskine. Astin remained the authoritative study of Scipio and there was much in his Realpolitik that scholarship found compelling, even when it allowed Scipio an attachment to Greek culture. For example, Gruen, Elvers and Badian acknowledged Scipio's interest in Greek culture and philosophy, in combination with the practices and goals of a traditional Roman aristocrat, but they placed their accent on the latter by affirming that Greek learning did not change the current of a traditional aristocratic life. The contention of this article is that the pre-Strasburger/Astin interpretation of Scipio, despite its shortcomings, was indeed correct to detect a deep current of philosophical influences on Scipio. The article argues that the evidence demonstrates that in education, character and public life Scipio was informed by the Greek moral and political tradition; that Scipio had claimed to possess the cardinal virtues, derived ultimately from Plato; and that he had acted under a moral imperative of power formulated by the Stoic philosopher Panaetius; the conclusion will address the ethical intention of Scipio.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 112 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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References

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6 Xen. Cyr. 1.3.4–7, 1.3.11, 1.5.11, 4.2.38–45.

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11 Gruen (n. 4), 254.

12 See Astin (n. 2), 27–31.

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15 Cic. De or. 2.154–5; cf. Amic. 104; Top. 78.

16 Cic. Tusc. 4.5; cf. Tusc. 1.3.

17 M. Pohlenz, RE 18.3 (1949), s.v. ‘Panaitios’, cols. 418–40, at 422–4; Schmekel (n. 1), 4–7.

18 Cic. Mur. 66.  See also Cic. Att. 9.12.2; Tusc. 1.81.

19 Cic. Brut. 101, 114; Tusc. 4.4; Acad. 2.135; Off. 3.10, 3.63; De or. 1.75, 3.78; Amic. 69, 101.

20 A ‘Scipionic Circle’ was rejected by Strasburger (n. 2 [1966]), 71–2 and Astin (n. 2), Appendix VI. Ferrary (n. 3), 587–602 and AErskine, ., ‘Scipionic Circle’, OCD 4 (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar, 1330 were skeptical. But see Sommer, M., ‘Scipio Aemilianus, Polybius, and the quest for friendship in second-century Rome’, in Gibson, B. and Harrison, T. (edd.), Polybius and his World. Essays in Memory of F.W. Walbank (Oxford, 2013), 307–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Cic. Acad. 2.5; Diod. Sic. 33.28b.2; Plut. Mor. 200E–201A, 777A; Ath. Deipn. 12.549d. Embassy date: Mattingly, H.B., ‘Scipio Aemilianus’ eastern embassy’, CQ 36 (1986), 491–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Schmekel (n. 1), 29–46; Pohlenz (n. 1); Dyck (n. 8); Stone, A.M., ‘Greek ethics and Roman statesmen: De officiis and the Philippics’, in Stevenson, T. and Wilson, M. (edd.), Cicero's Philippics: History, Rhetoric and Ideology (Prudentia 37 and 38) (Auckland, 2008), 214–39Google Scholar, at 214–18; Walsh, P.G. (trans.), Cicero. On Obligations (Oxford, 2000), xvii–xxi, xxvii–xxixGoogle Scholar.

23 Lefèvre, E., Panaitios’ und Ciceros Pflichtenlehre. Vom philosophischen Traktat zum politischen Lehrbuch (Stuttgart, 2001)Google Scholar. Straaten, M. van, Panétius, sa vie, ses écrits et sa doctrine avec une édition des fragments (Amsterdam, 1946), 276–83Google Scholar realized that the criterion of only including fragments directly attributed to Panaetius could not be sustained in the case of De officiis Books 1 and 2.

24 Brunt, P.A., ‘Panaetius in De officiis’, in Griffin, M. and Samuels, A. (edd.), Studies in Stoicism (Oxford, 2013), 180–242Google Scholar.

25 Cic. Off. 1.108.  See Walsh (n. 22), 147, citing OLD, tristis 4.

26 Cic. Rep. 1.13, 1.14, 1.17, 1.29, 1.34, 3.5–6, 3.47–8; Amic. 13–14.

27 Cic. Mur. 75–6; Val. Max. 7.5.1; Sen. Ep. 95.72, 98.13; cf. Xen. Cyr. 8.7.25.

28 See the discussion in Kierdorf, W., Laudatio Funebris. Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede (Meisenheim, 1980), 21–33Google Scholar, who argued (31–2) that the consolatio element was a later entry into the laudatio tradition; and, in general, Flower, H.I., Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford, 1996), 128–58Google Scholar.

29 Astin (n. 2), 17, 21–5, 31–2.

30 Astin (n. 2), 15–16, 26.

31 Xen. Cyn. 1.1–18, 12.1–21, 13.11–18. Education of youth in δικαιοσύνη (Xen. Cyr. 1.2.6), σωφροσύνη (1.2.8) and θήρα (1.2.9–11). See also Cyrus’ πρόνοια (1.6.8, 8.2.1–2) and φιλανθρωπία (1.2.1, 1.4.1, 4.2.10, 8.2.1, 8.4.7, 8.7.25).

32 Long, A.A. and Sedley, D.N., The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1987), 1.377–80Google Scholar; North, H.F., ‘Canons and hierarchies of the cardinal virtues in Greek and Latin literature’, in Wallach, L. (ed.), The Classical Tradition. Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of Harry Caplan (New York, 1966), 165–83Google Scholar, at 174–6.

33 Cic. Off. 1.13, 1.15, 1.17, 1.20, 1.93 (decorum translated the aesthetic πρέπον ‘what is fitting’); Stone (n. 22), 217–18.

34 Cic. Off. 1.61–92; Dyck (n. 8), 183–5.

35 E.g. Cic. Mil. 1.61, 1.69; Sest. 85.

36 Diog. Laert. 7.128; Rist, J.M., Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), 7–10, 189–90Google Scholar.

37 See Kaerst (n. 1), 671–3; Pohlenz (n. 1), 144; Smuts (n. 14), 114–16; Nicolet, C., ‘L'inspiration de Tibérius Gracchus (A propos d'un livre récent)’, REL 67 (1965), 142–58Google Scholar, at 154–7; Hadot, I., ‘Tradition stoïcienne et idées politiques au temps des Gracques’, REL 48 (1970), 133–79Google Scholar, at 161–71, 178–9; Erskine (n. 3), 152–8.

38 See Polyb. 31.28.13 and Walbank, F.W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957–1979)Google Scholar, 3.492–3.

39 See also Diod. Sic. 31.26.4–27 (especially 5–6), which drew on Polybius and the virtue language he used of Scipio. Walbank (n. 38), 3.499–514 downplayed Stoic influences at Polyb. 31.25.2 and 31.25.8, made no mention of the cardinal virtues and he (3.499) called Diod. Sic. 31.26.5 ‘of no independent value’.

40 Walsh (n. 22), liv and 165; Cic. Off. 2.33–5.

41 Walbank, F.W., Polybius (Berkeley, 1972), 58–65Google Scholar; Walbank, F.W., ‘Fortune (τύχη) in Polybius’, in Marincola, J. (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Malden, MA and Oxford, 2007), 349–55Google Scholar.

42 Polyb. 1.4.1, 1.4.4–5. Polybius (1.1.5, 6.2.3) credited Rome's acquisition of world power to her constitution; a predetermined Fortune (or Providence) worked through the constitution in order to achieve this goal (Polyb. 8.2.3–4; cf. 21.16.8, 4.2.4).

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44 Tweedie, F., ‘Appian's characterization of Scipio Aemilianus’, in Welch, K. (ed.), Appian's Roman History. Empire and Civil War (Swansea, 2015), 169–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 178.

45 For Scipio Africanus Maior acting under the guidance of πρόνοια, see Polyb. 10.2.13, 10.5.8, 10.11.7–8. For the divine inspiration of the elder Scipio in Spain, see App. Hisp. 18, 19, 21, 23, 26. Foresight, in the avoidance of the need to use the phrase non putaram, is linked to Panaetius in philosophy and to Scipio on campaign in the field (Cic. Off. 1.81; Val. Max. 7.2.2; Dyck [n. 8], 213–14).

46 Cf. App. Pun. 71, where Scipio witnessed battle from a lofty height, like Jupiter and Neptune before him. Contrast Scipio with Piso, who was sent to Africa and was repulsed, as if a divine agent were working against him (Diod. Sic. 32.18, probably from Polybius).

47 Cf. App. Pun. 98, where Scipio proved himself more prudent than the general in command; and Plut. Cat. Mai. 27.4; Mor. 200A, which referred to Scipio's reputation for bravery and judgement as a young man, and the quotation from Homer (Od. 10.495) used of the wisdom of Scipio, ‘the others fly like shadows, only he is wise’.

48 Diod. Sic. 32.7. Tweedie (n. 44), 179 commented: ‘Although the text of Diodorus is fragmentary at this point, it appears to have followed Polybius closely in both the narrative and in the personal qualities attributed to Aemilianus.’

49 Cf. [Cic.] Rhet. Her. 4.43: Scipionis prouidentia Kartaginis opes fregit.

50 Ziegler, K., Cicero Staatstheoretische Schriften (Berlin, 1974), 175, 184–6Google Scholar. For the rector rei publicae, see Kaerst ([n. 1], 688–70); Powell, J.G.F., ‘The rector rei publicae of Cicero's De republica’, SCI 13 (1994), 19–29Google Scholar; Zetzel, J.E.G. (ed.), Cicero, De Re Publica: Selections (Cambridge, 1995), 25–9Google Scholar.

51 Cic. Verr. 2.2.85–7, 2.4.98; cf. Cic. De or. 2.154; Val. Max. 5.1.6.

52 Astin (n. 2), 306, 331.

53 App. Hisp. 84; Műnzer (n. 1), 1454; Astin (n. 2), 136 n. 2.

54 See Astin (n. 2), 4–5 n. 4; Strasburger (n. 2 [1965]), 41–2; Tweedie (n. 44), 171–2, 174.  P. Rutilius Rufus was present with Scipio at Numantia and he wrote a History of the events (App. Hisp. 88).

55 Astin (n. 2), 154; Strasburger (n. 2 [1965]), 41–2, 49; Tweedie (n. 44), 173–5.

56 Strasburger (n. 2 [1966)], 67, 69), citing Cic. Verr. 2.4.98, who contrasted Scipio, homo doctissimus atque humanissimus, with Gaius Verres on the subject of the virtues, especially temperance.

57 Cic. Off. 1.101 and 1.132, 2.18 (= Pan. frr. 87–9). See Schmekel (n. 1), 198–205, 371–9; Pohlenz (n. 1), 64–5; Rist (n. 36), 182–3, 195–6; Erskine (n. 3), 195–6; Dyck (n. 8), 260–1; Sorabji, R., Emotion and Peace of Mind. From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford, 2000), 103Google Scholar; Walsh (n. 22), 146.

58 Posidonius frr. 160–9, 187 (in Edelstein, L. and Kidd, I.G. [edd.], Posidonius I. The Fragments [Cambridge, 1972], 143–62, 170–2Google Scholar); Kidd, I.G., ‘Posidonius on emotions’, in Long, A.A. (ed.), Problems in Stoicism (London, 1971), 200–12Google Scholar; Long and Sedley (n. 32), 1.321 and 1.422–3; Sorabji (n. 57), 93–108.

59 Erskine (n. 3), 195–200; cf. Schmekel (n. 1), 55–63, 228–9, 324–5; Capelle (n. 1), 93–5; Walbank, F.W., ‘Political morality and the friends of Scipio’, JRS 55 (1965), 1–16Google Scholar; Gabba, E., ‘Storiografia greca e imperialismo romano (III–I sec. a.C.)’, RSI 86 (1974), 625–42Google Scholar, at 639–40.

60 The definition of Natural Law at Rep. 3.33 is Stoic: see SVF 3.325; Long and Sedley (n. 32), 67S. See also Cic. Off. 3.23 and 3.69; Leg. 1.29, 1.33.

61 Capelle (n. 1), 91–6, 110; Erskine (n. 3), 192–204. See also Arist. Pol. 1253b15–1255a3, and the discordant, uncivilized, hot-tempered and savage ‘λόγος-hater’ in Pl. Resp. 411a–e.

62 Sen. Ep. 90.4–13 (90.5–13, 90.20–5, 90.30–2 = Posid. fr. 284, in Edelstein and Kidd [n. 58], 248–52).

63 Ath. Deipn. 6.263c–d = Posid. fr. 60; Capelle (n. 1), 99–100.

64 Pl. Resp. 562c–563e, 564a, 572e–573b; Pl. Grg. 492c; cf. Cic. Rep. 1.66–7.

65 See Ferguson, J., Moral Values in the Ancient World (London, 1958), 105–6Google Scholar, 114.

66 Adkins, A.D., Merit and Responsibility. A Study in Greek Values (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.

67 Cic. Off. 1.117–18; Long and Sedley (n. 32), 1.427–8.