Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T22:34:28.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

WAS CAMILLUS RIGHT? ROMAN HISTORY AND NARRATOLOGICAL STRATEGY IN LIVY 5.49.2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2020

Ulrike Roth*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh

Extract

This article deals with one particular aspect of Livy's narrative of the Gallic Sack of Rome, told in Book 5, and traditionally placed in 390 b.c.—namely the issue over the validity of the ransom agreement struck by the Romans with the Gauls. The broader context is well known—and needs only brief reiteration here. When the Gauls march on Rome, the Romans give battle at the river Allia, leading to a resounding Gallic victory. Most of the Romans flee the battlefield and then the city, except for a small group of both old and young, male and female, who hold out on the Capitoline Hill. That hill is subsequently put under siege by the Gauls. Following several months of beleaguerment, both sides are depicted as severely worn out by hunger and fighting. It is important for present purposes to stress that, when the Gauls stood at the gates and besieged the city, one of Rome's greatest heroes, Marcus Furius Camillus, was noticeably absent. Camillus was in neighbouring Ardea, some fifty miles south of Rome, training an army of Roman soldiers to challenge the Gallic invaders after his recent recall from exile and appointment to the dictatorship. But before Camillus’ return to Rome, the besieged Romans surrendered and agreed a ransom with the Gauls in order to liberate their city. The continuation of the story as given in Livy is equally well known. Camillus arrives in the middle of the ransom exchange, asking for the exchange to be stopped. Unsurprisingly, the Gauls are not keen on following Camillus’ orders, and insist on the ransom. Consequently, Camillus challenges the agreement between Romans and Gauls on a constitutional basis; the agreement was reached with a lesser magistrate after Camillus’ appointment to the dictatorship (5.49.2):

cum illi renitentes pactos dicerent sese, negat eam pactionem ratam esse quae postquam ipse dictator creatus esset iniussu suo ab inferioris iuris magistratu facta esset, denuntiatque Gallis ut se ad proelium expediant.

When they, resisting, said that they had come to an agreement, he [Camillus] denied that an agreement was valid which, after he himself had been made dictator, had been concluded by a magistrate of lower status without his instructions, and he announced to the Gauls that they should prepare themselves for battle.

The constitutional argument has often been repeated by modern scholars. Ogilvie comments that ‘(t)he dictatorship was held to put all other magistracies into suspension.’ Feldherr notes similarly that, ‘(o)nce Camillus has been appointed dictator, his imperium supersedes that of the lesser magistrates who negotiated the surrender.’ And to explain why the Gauls nevertheless entered into negotiations in Camillus’ absence, Ross observes that ‘the Gauls, of course, could hardly have known either of Camillus’ appointment as dictator or of the fact that the dictatorship superseded all other magistracies.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

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.)

Footnotes

For exchange on various Livian adventures, including the present one, I owe thanks to Dennis Pausch and to Michael Crawford. I should also like to thank the editor, Bruce Gibson, for his very helpful input. For Livy's text, the following OCT editions have been used: R.M. Ogilvie (ed.), Titi Livi Ab urbe condita. Tomus I. Libri I–V (Oxford, 1974); C.F. Walters and R.F. Convey (edd.), Titi Livi Ab urbe condita. Tomus II. Libri VI–X (Oxford, 1919); J. Briscoe (ed.), Titi Livi Ab urbe condita. Tomus III. Libri XXI–XXV (Oxford, 2016). The translations are mine.

References

1 390 b.c. is the year given in the so-called Varronian chronology; Polybius gives by contrast the year of the Peace of Antalcidas and the siege of Rhegium by Dionysius of Syracuse, in the (Olympiad) year 387/6 b.c.: 1.6.1–2, with Walbank, F.W., A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1957), 46–7 (on 1.6.1)Google Scholar. A brief summary of the matter (with further bibliography) is in Humm, M., ‘From 390 b.c. to Sentinum: political and ideological aspects’, in Mineo, B. (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Chichester, 2015), 342–66, at 362 n. 1Google Scholar.

2 The full story is in Livy 5.33–5.49.7.

3 This article is concerned with the version of events—and the role given to Camillus—in Livy's narrative only. The literature on the episode in general, and on the figure of Camillus in particular, is vast. Recent contributions that discuss Camillus’ role during the Gallic attack on Rome include Bruun, C., ‘“What every man in the street used to know”: M. Furius Camillus, Italic legends and Roman historiography’, in id. (ed.), The Roman Middle Republic. Politics, Religion, and Historiography, c. 400–133 b.c. (Rome, 2000), 4168Google Scholar; Chaplin, J.D., ‘Livy's use of exempla’, in Mineo, B. (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Chichester, 2015), 102–13Google Scholar; Coudry, M., ‘Camille: construction et fluctuations de la figure d'un grand homme’, in Coudry, M. and Späth, T. (edd.), L'invention des grands hommes de la Rome antique (Paris, 2001), 4781Google Scholar; Gaertner, J.F., ‘Livy's Camillus and the political discourse of the Late Republic’, JRS 98 (2008), 2752Google Scholar; Mineo, B., Tite-Live et l'histoire de Rome (Paris, 2006), 222–37Google Scholar; id., Camille, Dux fatalis’, in Lachenaud, G. and Longrées, D. (edd.), Grecs et Romains aux prises avec l'histoire (Rennes, 2003), 159–75Google Scholar; Piel, T. and Mineo, B., Camille ou le destin de Rome (Clermont-Ferrand, 2010)Google Scholar; Späth, T., ‘Erzählt, erfunden: Camillus. Literarische Konstruktion und soziale Normen’, in Coudry, M. and Späth, T. (edd.), L'invention des grands hommes de la Rome antique (Paris, 2001), 341412Google Scholar; von Ungern-Sternberg, J., ‘Camillus, ein zweiter Romulus’, in Coudry, M. and Späth, T. (edd.), L'invention des grands hommes de la Rome antique (Paris, 2001), 289–97Google Scholar.

4 Ogilvie, R.M., A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965), 738 (on 49.2)Google Scholar.

5 Feldherr, A., Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1998), 81Google Scholar.

6 Ross, R.I., Livy Book V (Bristol, 1996), 143 (on 49.2)Google Scholar.

7 The idea that a dictatorship entailed the suspension of the existing magistracies (but for the tribunate) is stated in Polyb. 3.87.8 (promising also a fuller discussion later on, which has however not survived); yet, it is not borne out by the evidence for the Romans’ political practice.

8 Lintott, A.W., The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford, 1999), 113, and generally 110–13Google Scholar.

9 The standard military remit of appointments to the dictatorship in the Early Roman Republic is discussed in Golden, G.K., Crisis Management during the Roman Republic. The Role of Political Institutions in Emergencies (Cambridge, 2013), 1141CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Brief discussion of the procedural irregularities in Livy's depiction of Camillus’ appointment to the dictatorship is found in Ogilvie (n. 4), 727–8 (on 5.43.6–46).

10 Feldherr (n. 5), 81.

11 In addition to the ambiguity created by Livy's choice of words, the fact that the ransom had not been completely exchanged by the time of Camillus’ arrival has also been regarded as evidence that the surrender (!) was not complete. Thus Davies, J.P., Rome's Religious History: Livy, Tacitus and Ammianus on their Gods (Cambridge, 2004), 115Google Scholar writes that ‘the dictator “happened to arrive”, and duly intervened’ at the point at which ‘the remaining Romans are about to capitulate to the Gauls and ransom the city’ (my emphasis); similarly also Golden (n. 9), 21.

12 I analyse the legal dimensions of the Roman surrender and ransom, as well as Livy's (deliberately) ambiguous narrative, in a forthcoming monograph: U. Roth, Saving Libertas: Livy, the Gallic Sack of Rome, and the Shape of Roman History. See also the contribution in n. 31 below.

13 Although Livy uses the verb paciscor to refer to the act of agreeing the terms between Romans and Gauls, which in other contexts has contractual overtones (see Cornwell, H., Pax and the Politics of Peace. Republic to Principate [Oxford, 2017], 1523Google Scholar), he conspicuously avoids the use of words that would clearly identify the agreement as a contract, such as most notably foedus. This avoidance makes good sense in the context of a surrender and ransom, which are not of a contractual nature (in Roman legal thought): see Roth (n. 12), ch. 2.

14 But this actual adherence to good order in a situation of total despair is then reminiscent of Livy's earlier stress, at 5.46.7, on the observance of due procedure by the Romans in Veii who asked for Camillus’ recall from exile: adeo regebat omnia pudor discriminaque rerum prope perditis rebus seruabant (‘due respect thus controlled everything and they observed proper procedure, although all was almost lost’). And like the earlier act, at Veii, the later adherence to what in the context was due process needs including in the list of pious and virtuous behaviour in which the Romans are seen as engaging following their disastrous defeat at the hands of the Gauls at the Allia—which is widely seen as ‘the chief theme’ after the battle: Luce, T.J., ‘Design and structure in Livy: 5.32–55’, TAPhA 102 (1971), 265302Google Scholar, especially 268–71 (and 271 for the quotation); see also Oakley, S., ‘Reading Livy's Book 5’, in Mineo, B. (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Chichester, 2015), 230–42, at 236–7Google Scholar; and Levene, D.S., Religion in Livy (Leiden, New York and Cologne, 1993), 194–5 and 202CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The key actions that signal the return of Roman piety include the decision to hold out on the Capitoline Hill, combined with the rescue of the sacred objects, and their removal from Rome (5.39.10–11); the selfless action of Lucius Albinius, who transports the sacred objects together with the Vestal Virgins in his cart to Caere (5.40.7–10); the sacrifice of the older consular and triumphal senators, who had chosen to remain (5.39.13–5.40.1), prepared for the arrival of the Gauls, clad in the insignia of office, and seated in the atria of their homes, awaiting, for all practical purposes, slaughter by the Gauls (5.41.1–9); the performance of a family sacrifice on the Quirinal Hill by Gaius Fabius Dorsuo, endangering his life by crossing the enemy lines (5.46.1–3); the insistence of Marcus Furius Camillus on the proper procedures for his recall as dictator to Rome, however impractical and dangerous (5.46.11); and the continued reverence for the sacred geese, despite the sustained period of hunger (5.47.4). Note that Luce adds to this list also ‘(t)he reward to Manlius on the Capitol of extra food, despite near-starvation (47.8)’: Luce (this note), 271 (and 274–5 and 277). See also the ‘long list’ in Oakley (this note), 236–7 (but note also Oakley's questioning comments on Luce's clear-cut peripeteia-argument: 241).

15 As was the CQ reader who suggested discussion of this office.

16 For detailed discussion of this office, and the source problem, see Oakley, S.P., A Commentary on Livy, Books VI–X. Volume 1: Introduction and Book VI (Oxford, 1997), 367–76Google Scholar.

17 See the reference to Ogilvie in n. 9 above regarding the irregularities in Camillus’ appointment to the dictatorship.

18 Polo, F. Pina, The Consul at Rome. The Civil Functions of the Consuls in the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2011), 189CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Pina Polo (n. 18), 189–90.

20 Chaplin, J.D., Livy's Exemplary History (Oxford, 2000), 115 (with 43–4)Google Scholar.

21 The news is delivered (in the most cumbersome way from Rome via Veii to Ardea) through the daring act of Pontius Cominus, who passes the enemy lines to return to Veii, whence he came to inform the Senate about the decision of the Romans based in Veii that Camillus should be recalled from exile: 5.46.8–11.

22 Brief discussion, with further bibliography, is found in Pina Polo (n. 18), 189.

23 e.g. Hdt. 5.44–5 (actively also inviting his readers to judge for themselves); and for programmatic statements of reporting what he has been told, and what different people have told him, see 2.123.1 and 7.152.3. For discussion of Herodotus’ use of variants, see Groten, F.J., ‘Herodotus’ use of variant versions’, Phoenix 17 (1963), 7987CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Feldherr (n. 5), 81.

25 Pausch, D., Livius und der Leser. Narrative Strukturen in ab urbe condita (Munich, 2011), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘läßt sich die zweite “Stimme” vereinfacht als diejenige des Autors verstehen, der sich außer in den praefationes immer dann—zumeist in der ersten Person Singular—zu Wort meldet, wenn unterschiedliche Überlieferungsvarianten diskutiert werden’; see also at 9–12 for discussion of the different voices of narrator and author. The English translation is mine.

26 The broader context of the Roman debacle at the Caudine Forks is that of the so-called second Samnite War, caused by the Roman foundation of the Latin colony of Fregellae in north-western Campania, on the Liris, half-way between Sora and Interamna (as the river flows), in 328 b.c.: see Salmon, E.T., Samnium and the Samnites (Cambridge, 1967), 214–54, and 187–94Google Scholar for discussion of possible treaties involving Rome in the early to the mid fourth century b.c.

27 The polemic against one's historiographic peers and predecessors is a typical feature of ancient historiography: Marincola, J., Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997), 218–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 See de Jong, I.J.F., ‘Herodotus’, in ead., Nünlist, R., Bowie, A. (edd.), Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature (Leiden, 2004), 101–14Google Scholar; for a critical position, see Marincola, J., ‘Herodotus and the poetry of the past’, in Dewald, C. and Marincola, J. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge, 2006), 1328, at 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 The Camillus-legend was first exposed as fictitious by de Beaufort, L., Dissertation sur l'incertitude des cinq premiers siècles de l'histoire romaine (Paris, 1866 [1738]), 248–9Google Scholar; Niebuhr subsequently commented on the groundlessness of the Camillus-legend (‘ihrer völligen Fabelhaftigkeit’): Vorträge über römische Geschichte, an der Universität zu Bonn gehalten, ed. by M. Isler (Berlin, 1846), 386; Mommsen called it ‘die verlogenste aller römischen Legenden’: Römisches Strafrecht (Leipzig, 1899), 1018 n. 2. Camillus is today seen as perhaps the most embellished Roman hero of the age, as, for instance, by Cornell, T.J., The Beginnings of Rome. Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 b.c.) (London and New York, 1995), 317Google Scholar, who described Camillus as ‘the most artificially contrived of all Rome's heroes’.

30 Miles, G.B., Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome (Ithaca, 1995), 74Google Scholar.

31 On the relationship between surrender and ransom, and their constitutional consequences, see generally Dahlheim, W., Deditio und societas: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Außenpolitik in der Blütezeit der Republik (Munich, 1965), 7–14 and 5364Google Scholar. See also n. 12 above.

32 Feldherr (n. 5), 81, referring to Livy 5.49.1: sed dique et homines prohibuere redemptos uiuere Romanos.

33 In her discussion of the narratees of Herodotus’ histories, de Jong suggests for types of passages similar to the passage under discussion here that the narratees are ‘invited to note the contrast’: de Jong (n. 28), 111. Livy's elaboration of the narratees in 5.48.4–8, i.e. the Gallic invaders and the Roman soldiers and survivors, is not detailed enough to allow comment on their expected reaction. My view on the desired reaction of Livy's readers goes, on the other hand, beyond the noting of contrasts and towards active decision-making (for contemporary purposes ultimately) outside of the text, elaborated below (with n. 37).

34 Pausch (n. 25), 191–250, and passim; the English translation is mine.

35 Kraus, C., ‘Repetition and empire in the Ab urbe condita’, in Knox, P. and Foss, C. (edd.), Style and Tradition. Studies in Honor of Wendell Clausen (Stuttgart, 1998), 264–83, at 264Google Scholar.

36 On a broader plane, Thucydides’ repeated lack of comments has similarly been interpreted as evidence for the need of involvement on the part of the reader: Connor, W.R., ‘Narrative discourse in Thucydides’, in Jameson, M.H. (ed.), The Greek Historians: Literature and History. Papers Presented to A.E. Raubitschek (Stanford, 1985), 117, especially 11Google Scholar.

37 The preceding passage, in which Camillus actually appears on the set, benefits from stronger narratological devices to arouse the attention of Livy's reader. Thus the passage begins with a ‘but’ (sed), followed by the contextual information that the expected outcome—i.e. the completion of the ransom payment—will not come to fruition; further, Camillus’ arrival is additionally explicitly labelled as an unexpected happening: forte quadam (Livy 5.49.1). For discussion of the narratological use of what de Jong has called ‘presentation through negation’ to ‘contradict the narratee's expectations or create new ones’, including the use of interactional particles (on the example of Herodotus), see de Jong (n. 28), 111. Outside the study of narratology, Livy's labelling of Camillus’ appearance forte quadam has been discussed in the context of the study of religion in the Ab urbe condita, because of the providential character that can be attached to the phrase: Ogilvie (n. 4), 737 talks plainly of ‘divine intervention’ (see also his comments at 48 [on 1.4.4]: ‘god-inspired’); further exploration is in Davies (n. 11), 115–16. See also Champeaux, J., ‘Forte chez Tite-Live’, REL 45 (1967), 363–89Google Scholar, for an exposition of the unexpected (as opposed to accidental) association carried by fors.

38 de Jong (n. 28), 6.

39 On the use of changing narratological perspectives in the Ab urbe condita, see Pausch, D., ‘“Autor, übernehmen Sie”—der Wechsel zwischen den Erzählebenen in der antiken Historiographie’, in Eisen, U.E. and von Möllendorf, P. (edd.), Über die Grenze. Metalepse in Text- und Bildmedien des Altertums (Berlin and Boston, 2013), 197219Google Scholar.

40 Camillus’ exemplarity has often been emphasized by modern scholars: see e.g. Coudry (n. 3), 49, who speaks of ‘un passé reculé d'actions exemplaires’; Späth (n. 3), 386, who stresses that the ongoing reinvention of the figure of Camillus focusses on mores in order to exemplify social norms; or Chaplin (n. 20), 115, who foregrounds Camillus’ earlier insistence on due senatorial sanction.

41 On the function of enemy speeches in Livy that challenge Roman approaches and viewpoints, see Pausch (n. 25), 170–87.

42 The episode involving Porsinna belongs to the narrative thicket concerned with Rome's transition from regal to Republican rule: Livy 2.10–2.14.4; brief discussion is in Ogilvie (n. 4), 255. I discuss the relationship between the Gallic Sack and the Caudine Fork disaster, as well as the later (related) Roman debacle at Numantia in 137 b.c., in a forthcoming article: U. Roth, ‘Travelling back in time: Numantia, the Caudine Forks, and the (late) making of Marcus Furius Camillus’ legal armoury’.

43 The Romans themselves conceptualized the Gallic Sack as a watershed regarding the availability of archival sources for later historians, allegedly because of the destruction of Roman records in the fire that devastated many parts of the city during the Gallic attack. A key exponent of this view is Livy himself, who states plainly at the outset of Book 6 that he will offer a ‘clearer and more certain account’ of Rome's ‘civil and military history’ from now on than he had been able to in the first five books of the Ab urbe condita—because, ‘of such records as existed in the commentaries of the pontiffs and in other public and private documents, most perished in the conflagration of the city’: 6.1.2–3. See also Livy 7.18.1, calculating a date in Rome's history by reckoning from both the foundation of the city by Romulus and the Gallic Sack.

44 Williams, J.H.C., Beyond the Rubicon. Romans and Gauls in Republican Italy (Oxford, 2001), 142Google Scholar. Our principal sources for the Gallic attack on Rome are—besides Livy—Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch. On the chief differences between the strands preserved (and reworked) in these authors, see Gaertner (n. 3). See also the comments and contributions in n. 29 above.

45 A similar disagreement can be traced regarding the question over the city's capture or surrender. Livy's narrative foregrounds the city's successful defence (followed by surrender), also highlighted in Polyb. 1.6.2–3 and 2.18.2–3, twice noting that the Capitoline Hill was not taken (but see also Polyb. 2.22.4–5). Tacitus, on the other hand, offers two different versions of the story: in Hist. 3.72.1 he prefers the version in which only the (lower) city is taken, whilst in Ann. 11.23.7 he has the Gauls also take the Capitoline Hill. The ancient disagreement is mirrored in the modern debate. The notion that the Gauls successfully took the Capitoline Hill has been argued in multiple studies by Otto Skutsch: The fall of the Capitol’, JRS 43 (1953), 77–8Google Scholar; Studia Enniana (London, 1968), 138–42; The fall of the Capitol again: Tacitus Ann. 11,23’, JRS 68 (1978), 93–4Google Scholar (with reference to earlier, similar suggestions by other scholars); The Annals of Q. Ennius (Oxford, 1985), 408. For the opposing view, see especially Cornell, T.J., ‘The Annals of Quintus Ennius’, JRS 76 (1986), 244–50Google Scholar. For a broader discussion of other key versions and variants as well as the wider context for historiographic disagreements in the period, see Williams (n. 44), 142–50.

46 Roman history was more generally characterized in this period by a variety of different rival approaches. The development of various media through which history was communicated in the Late Republic, including opposing methods and perspectives, is discussed in Pausch (n. 25), 24–37.

47 See Roth (n. 42).

48 Polyb. 1.6.2–3 and 2.18.2–3 (with n. 45 above). Polybius himself claimed that his history is of universal interest (1.1.5); he moreover postulated that his work is a possession for all time, specifying explicitly future readers (3.4.7–8). Modern scholars see Polybius’ audience primarily in Greek readers; but Polybius certainly expected Romans to read his history (too) and, perhaps, to be his most eager audience, given the subject matter of his work: e.g. 6.11.3 and 31.22.8–11. Polybius’ late(r) Roman Republican readership is sufficiently documented by Livy's own use of Polybius—intensely discussed, for instance, for the fourth and fifth (and third) decades in Tränkle, H., Livius und Polybios (Basel and Stuttgart, 1977)Google Scholar, and more recently specifically for the Hannibalic War narrative (and more) in Levene, D.S., Livy on the Hannibalic War (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, passim. For a study of Polybius’ narratees (concentrated therefore on the historian's Greek audience), see Rood, T., ‘Polybius’, in de Jong, I.J.F, Nünlist, R., Bowie, A. (edd.), Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature (Leiden, 2004), 147–64, at 157–60Google Scholar.

49 Levene (n. 48), 229.

50 Levene (n. 48), 80–1 and 229.

51 Kraus (n. 35), 264.

52 The perspective championed here has broader implications for our appreciation of the role of inherited beliefs in Roman historiography: a recent, short overview of the issues involved is in Smith, C., ‘Introduction’, in Sandberg, K. and Smith, C. (edd.), Omnium annalium monumenta: Historical Writing and Historical Evidence in Republican Rome (Leiden, 2018), 1–13, at 712Google Scholar.

53 Wiseman, T.P., Unwritten Rome (Exeter, 2008), 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note, however, that Wiseman's insistence that Camillus’ crossing of the enemy lines (to enter Rome) lacks a backdrop in the practice of siege warfare does not hold: Roth, U., ‘The Gallic ransom and the Sack of Rome: Livy 5.48.7–8’, Mnemosyne 71 (2018), 460–84, at 480–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note also that the Gallic siege narrative in Livy features two other scenes that involve the crossing of enemy lines: 5.46.1–3 (i.e. the performance of a family sacrifice on the Quirinal Hill by Gaius Fabius Dorsuo) and 5.46.8–11 (i.e. the daring acts of Pontius Cominus who functioned as courier between Rome, Veii and Ardea) with nn. 14 and 21 above. For discussion of the performance character of Livy's narrative and the associated enlargement of his audience, see generally Pausch (n. 25), 38–45.

54 Dalzell, A., ‘Pollio and the early history of public recitation at Rome’, Hermathena 86 (1955), 20–8Google Scholar; with Sen. Controu. 4, praef. 2. Note also that Suetonius remarks that public recitals could attract large audiences, commenting on the recitals of Ennius’ Annals by Quintus Vargunteius: Gram. et rhet. 2. For discussion of earlier public recitals of Greek histories, see Dalzell (this note), 23.

55 Sandberg, K., ‘Monumenta, documenta, memoria: remembering and imagining the past in Late Republican Rome’, in Sandberg, K. and Smith, C. (edd.), Omnium annalium monumenta: Historical Writing and Historical Evidence in Republican Rome (Leiden, 2018), 351–89, at 352Google Scholar; see also the contributions by S. Bernard, G. Cifani, P.J.E. Davies and K.-J. Hölkeskamp in the volume.

56 Camillus was included in the line-up of summi uiri in both the Forum Romanum and in Augustus’ new forum—the Forum Augustum. The chronological (and other) relationship between the elogia in the Forum Augustum and those in the Forum Romanum is debated but not critical for the present argument. For brief discussion of the chronological aspects (with earlier bibliography), see Panciera, S. (ed.), Iscrizioni greche e latine del Foro Romano e del Palatino. Inventario generale – inediti – revisioni (Rome, 1996), 100 and 131–9Google Scholar; for an overview of the visual programme of the Forum Augustum, see P. Zanker, Forum Augustum. Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen, 1968). Camillus’ elogium has survived in part, listing inter alia the conquest of Veii, the expulsion of the Etruscans from Sutrium, and the wars against the Aequi and the Volsci: CIL I2 (Pars 1), VII = CIL VI.1308; with Degrassi, A., Inscriptiones Italiae XIII. 3. Elogia (Rome, 1937), 38–9, no. 61Google Scholar; see also Panciera (this note), 102, no. 2.

57 The transmission of historical understanding from father to son is encapsulated forcefully in Livy's own text in the speech put into the mouth of Lucius Lentulus, the princeps legatorum, in the narrative concerned with the Roman debacle at the Caudine Forks in 321 b.c. (see page 220 above), in which Lentulus contends that he has ‘often heard [his] father say that on the Capitol he was the only man who did not urge the Senate to ransom the community from the Gauls with gold’, thus also stressing the regularity of the paternal exposition of the past, here precisely of the Gallic Sack: 9.4.8.

58 A short summary is in Kockel, V., ‘Forum Augustum’, in Steinby, E.M. (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, vol. 2 (Rome, 1995), 289–95, at 293Google Scholar. Note, however, also the careful interpretation of the visual programme of the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias within a Greek myth-history paradigm by Smith, R.R.R., ‘The imperial reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 77 (1987), 88138Google Scholar, especially 93–6 and 135–6. Augustus’ own elogium—i.e. the Res Gestae—was of course to be reproduced for display throughout the Empire.

59 Zanker (n. 56), 27: ‘Die propagandistische Wirkung des Forum—das kann man schon aufgrund der zufälligen Funde sagen—estreckte sich auf das ganze Imperium.’

60 A multiplicity of fora (real and intellectual) for the communication of history is characteristic of Rome more generally, including also the funerary procession, the domestic display of ancestor masks (with elogia), historical epic, drama, etc.: a brief summary is in Pausch (n. 25), 18–24, concluding (at 24) that a high proportion of Rome's population possessed considerable familiarity with a range of diverse historiographic media (‘erhebliche “Medienkompetenz”’).

61 On the broader issue of the reflective capacity of the Ab urbe condita regarding contemporary developments, see Pausch (n. 25), 32–7; for a specific interpretation of the Ab urbe condita in its (Augustan) context, see Mineo (n. 3 [2006]), 71–82 and 109–34 (and passim).

62 The fragmentary record of Rome's historiography makes it difficult to gauge how Rome's (Republican) historians handled this matter: see now Cornell, T.J. (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar.

63 Luce, T.J., ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum’, in Raaflaub, K.A. and Toher, M. (edd.), Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1990), 123–38, at 136–7Google Scholar.

64 Cicero famously contended in 63 b.c. that ‘no king is left, no people, no nation, whom you need fear: there is no evil from outside, of others’ causing’: Cic. Rab. Perd. 33. See also Cic. Cat. 2.11. Nevertheless, the Roman fear of the Gauls is well documented, and has received plentiful discussion: e.g. Williams (n. 44), 170–82 and Bellen, H., Metus gallicus – metus punicus. Zum Furchtmotiv in der römischen Republik (Mainz, 1985)Google Scholar.