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Otho's Exhortations in Tacitus' Histories*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Elizabeth Keitel
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Extract

A striking feature of the speeches in Tacitus' Histories is their responsion to one another. Previous discussions have centred round responsions of theme and argument between speeches given by different speakers. So Galba's advocacy of adoptive versus hereditary monarchy (1.15–16) is balanced by Mucianus' speech urging Vespasian to seek the throne for himself and his son (2.76–77), while Piso's attack on Otho's vicious character (1.30.1) is matched by Otho's criticisms of Piso as a deutero-Galba, harsh and avaricious (1.38.1). In this paper, I shall explore a different kind of responsion, hitherto unnoticed, between four speeches delivered by the same speaker. Tacitus binds Otho's first four speeches (1.21; 37–38; 83–84; 2.47) together through the consistent application of traditional motifs from the general's harangue before battle, although none of them is in fact a cohortatio. The topoi of the battle harangue form a remarkably stable repertoire through ancient historiography and epic and they would have been very familiar to the ancient reader. He would, therefore, have been sensitive to any changes rung on these tropes by the author. An examination of Plutarch's versions of the speeches suggests that Tacitus may well have added these exhortation motifs to express his distinctive point of view. In closing, I shall suggest a possible antecedent for this particular technique.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , April 1987 , pp. 73 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

Notes

1. Fabia, pp. 285–6 discusses thematic parallels between 1.37–38 and 1.83–84; 1.15–16 and 2.47; 1.29–30 and 1.37–38. Ullmann, p. 204, sees 1.29–30 as a pendant to 1.15–16. Chilver, p. 235, describes 2.76–77 as an antistrophe to 1.15–16.

2. I follow Miller, N. P., AJP 85 (1964), 285Google Scholar, who classifies 1.21 as a dramatic speech.

3. Albertus, J., Die Φαρακλητιο in der griechischen und römischen Literatur (Diss. Strassburg, 1908), pp. 37–93Google Scholar surveys the topoiand structure of the battle speech.

4. Mommsen, Th., Hermes 4 (1870), 295–325Google Scholar, established that Tacitus and Plutarch followed a common source for their accounts of Otho and suggested Cluvius Rufus as the source. Fabia touted Pliny. For a summary of the arguments, see Syme, R., Tacitus I (Oxford, 1958), pp. 674–6Google Scholar.

5. Tacitus has apparently developed this monologue from indications of Otho's feelings given in the common source. Cf. Plut, . Galba. 23.4Google Scholar and Suet, . Otho 5.1Google Scholar.

6. Burck, E., Gymnasium 23 (1966), 102Google Scholar cites the phrase in Livian battle harangues: 22.14.14; 25.16.19; 35.35.16.

7. Tacitus has constructed 1.21–23 to build up Otho's resolution in contrast to the common source as seen in Plutarch, (Galba 23.4)Google Scholar. Cf. Fabia, p. 23 and Klingner, F., ‘Die Geschichte Kaiser Othos bei Tacitus’ in Pöschl, V. (ed.), Tacitus, Wege der Forschung 97 (Darmstadt, 1969), p. 412Google Scholar.

8. On the foreshadowing of Otho's death here, see Chilver, p. 84.

9. For Tacitus’ persistently negative treatment of Otho, cf. Fabia, pp. 297–8, Heubner, H., Studien zur Darstellungskunst des Tacitus Hist. 1.12–11.51 (Diss. Leipzig, 1933), p. 14Google Scholar, and Stolte, B. H., Anc. Soc. 5 (1973), 183ffGoogle Scholar.

10. Tacitus' version at 1.37–38 is very different from the brief notice in Suet., Otho 6Google Scholar where Otho promises to keep only what the troops give him, while Plutarch mentions no speech at all (Galba 25.3). Accordingly, Ullmann, p. 204, argues that 1.37–38 is a free composition by Tacitus.

11. Ullmann, p. 206 adduces the Livian parallel without comment.

12. Cf. Albertus, , op. cit., pp. 69ffGoogle Scholar., for examples of this topos.

13. Cf. Livy 21.40.11; Dio 50.24.1; 27.7; 62.11.3; Appian, , B.C. 4.96Google Scholar; 99, and Albertus, , op. cit., pp. 58ffGoogle Scholar.

14. Borzsak, I., Association G. Budé, Actes du lXe Congrés, Rome 13–18 avril 1973 (Paris, 1975), p. 232Google Scholar, calls 1.37.4 the overture to this Thucydidean theme in the Histories. For this theme elsewhere in Roman civil war literature, cf. Jal, P., La Guerre civile a Rome, Étude litteraire et morale (Paris, 1963), pp. 460–73Google Scholar.

15. For Othonian mutinies, cf. 1.80–85; 2.18–19; 2.23.5; 2.36.2; 2.44.1; 2.49.1; 51. A chief cause of this disorder is the troops' unwillingness to trust anyone other than Otho and vice versa (2.33.3).

16. For the latter point, cf. Ullmann, p. 207.

17. Cf. Robbert, L., De Tacito Lucani Imitatore (Diss. Göttingen, 1917), p. 60Google Scholar.

18. Chilver, p. 151.

19. Cf. also Thuc. 7.64.2 and Polyb. 3.109.9–11.

20. Tacitus’ version is much fuller than the brief summary of the men's pleas in Plutarch, (Otho 15.2)Google Scholar. Mommsen, , loc. cit., p. 311Google Scholar, and Klingner, , loc. cit., pp. 407ff.Google Scholar, point out how Tacitus has built-up Otho's self-sacrifice after Bedriacum, most notably by playing down the peace efforts of his senior commanders.

21. Chilver, p. 212, catches an echo here of Romana vere iuventus (1.84.4). Fabia, p. 76 n.1, points out that the idea of sparing the lives of the soliders for the state occurs in Celsus' speech in Plutarch, (Otho 13.2)Google Scholar, omitted by Tacitus.

22. Hope is commonly couched in extreme terms: your only hope lies in your virtus(Livy 34.14.3; 4; , Caes.B.C. 2.41.3Google Scholar; , Tac.Ann. 2.20.3Google Scholar) or audacia (, Sail.Cat. 58.16)Google Scholar. Closer to Otho's words is Cat. 58.18: ‘Quom vos considero, milites, et quom facta vostra aestumo, magna me spes victoriae tenet.’

23. Cf. Thuc. 4.29; 95; 7.61–62; 66–68; , Xen.Anab. 3.1.15–25Google Scholar; Dio 50.16–22; 24–30.

24. Tacitus and Plutarch's versions agree on two basic points: that his suicide was a genuinely patriotic act; and that he was genuinely concerned for his men. So Fabia, p. 81. As Fabia notes (p. 66), because the two speeches are otherwise so different, it is impossible to reconstruct the content of the speech in the common source.

25. Cf. Otho's obituary (2.50.1): ‘duobus facinoribus, altero flagitiosissimo, altero egregio, tantundem apud posteros meruit bonae famae quantum malae.’ It is not my purpose here to assess the merit of Tacitus’ judgement, which modern scholars have challenged, but rather to show one technique by which the historian makes it plausible.

26. Klingner, , loc. cit., p. 412Google Scholar points to the parallel characterizations of Catiline and Otho. Like Catiline, Otho is a great sinner, especially in 1.21–23. Both suffer from want and indulge in luxus. Otho is generally a product of the morals of Nero's, court just as Catiline epitomized the ‘corrupti civitatis mores’ of his day (Cat. 5.8)Google Scholar.

27. The mutiny of Caesar's troops at Placentia shows none of the parainetic features under discussion here: Lucan 5.261–95; 319–64; Dio 41.27.35.4; Appian, , B.C. 2.47Google Scholar.

28. Cf. Burck, , loc. cit., p. 89Google Scholar. For verbal reminiscences of Sallust's Catiline in Livy's Manlius, cf. Alfonsi, L., Aevum 4 (1967), 509Google Scholar.

29. For the first three as parainetic motifs, cf. Skard, E., ‘Sallust und seine Vorgänger’, SO Suppl. 15 (1961), p. 31Google Scholar; for the last one, cf. Paladini, M. L., Lat. 20 (1961), 7–8Google Scholar.

30. Vretska, p. 324.

31. Paladini, , loc. cit., 10Google Scholar and n. 21, observes the following responsions: Cat. 20.14 and 58.8 (divitiae, decus, and gloria held out as prizes in both); 20.2 and 58.18 (the commander's declaration of faith in his men); and 20.10 and 58.19 (references to the age of the men as a positive factor). Vretska, pp. 306; 315 and 323 notes the following parallels: 20.1 and 58.1 (invocation of virtus); 20.9 and 58.8; 13; 17; 21 (death before dishonour); and 20.15 and 58.1; 19 (word/deed antithesis).

32. Vretska, p. 671.

33. For Catiline as a corruption of traditional Roman values, cf. Büchner, K., Sallust (Heidelberg, 1961), pp. 166ffGoogle Scholar. Vretska, pp. 685–6, thinks Catiline dies a worthy death, but one which in no way redeems his earlier misdeeds. Schunk, P., SO 39 (1964), 77Google Scholar, reads Otho in his dying as a paradigm of old Roman virtue which can no longer nourish in a corrupt world. Scott, R. T., Religion and Philosophy in the Histories of Tacitus (Rome, 1968), pp. 90–92Google Scholar, goes to the other extreme, describing Otho as a degenerate product of degenerate age, boastful and selfdeluded even in assessing the merit of his own suicide.