¹ Pliny, , HN 7.117Google Scholar.

² Gotoff, H. C., Cicero's Elegant Style: An Analysis of the Pro Archia (1979), 8.Google Scholar

³ Fam. 2.12.2. The injunction would offer no great revelation to its addressee, M. Caelius Rufus.

⁴ No eyes were directed upon Cicero when a scrupulous quaestor in Sicily: Verr. 2.5.35Google Scholar.

⁵ cf. Tac., , Dial. 36.6–7.Google Scholar.

⁶ e.g. Scott, J. C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990).Google Scholar The impossibility of disentangling the substance of domination from its trappings has been much observed: e.g. Russell, B., Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), 9–10Google Scholar; Geertz, C., ‘Centers, kings and charisma: reflections on the symbolics of power’, in Ben-David, J. and Clark, T. N. (eds), Culture and its Creators (1977), 152Google Scholar. For the Principate, Yavetz, Z., Plebs and Princeps (rev. edn, 1988) provides a handsome analysis of the political significance of popular admiration.Google Scholar

⁷ Polo, F. Pina, ‘Procedures and functions of civil and military contiones in Rome’, Klio 77 (1995), 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nicolet, C., The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome (1980), 388.Google Scholar

⁸ Pina Polo, op. cit. (n. 7), 204.

⁹ Cic., , Fin. 2.74Google Scholar; Gell. 18.7.6–8 (quoting Cic., Contra Contionem Q. Metelli = Frag. 2 (J. W. Crawford)).

¹⁰ Lukes, S., ‘Political ritual and social integration’, Sociology 9 (1975), 289–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The term ritualization conveniently points, as glosssed by C. Bell (Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (1992), 204–5), to the differentiation and privileging of particular activities which may use ‘a delineated and structured space to which access is restricted; a special periodicity for the occurrence and internal orchestration of the activities; restricted codes of communication to heighten the formality of movement and speech; distinct and specialized personnel; objects, texts, and dress designated for use in these activities alone; verbal and gestural combinations that evoke or purport to be the way things have always been done; preparations that demand particular physical and mental states; and the involvement of a particular constituency not necessarily assembled for any other activities’.

¹¹ e.g. Pliny, , Ep. 8.14.4Google Scholar.

¹² cf. Gleason, M. W., Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (1995), xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Millar, F., ‘Politics, persuasion and the people before the Social War (150–90 B.C.)’, JRS 76 (1986), 1Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Debord, G., Society of the Spectacle (1983), 24.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Millar, F., ‘The political character of the classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.’, JRS 74 (1984), 2Google Scholar. This passage continues: ‘Polybius, it is claimed, failed to see the social structures which ensured the domination of the nobiles; that must mean the relationships of patronage and dependance which supposedly dominated Roman political decision-making and rendered popular participation passive and nominal. But the existence of these structures is itself a modern hypothesis, which has very little support in our evidence. It is time to turn to a different hypothesis, that Polybius did not see them because they were not there. Or rather, vertical links of obligation can of course be found in Roman society. But … they cannot serve as the key to the political process …’ Cf. the most important essays on Republican history this century, by Brunt, P. A., conveniently gathered in The Fall of the Roman Republic (1988).Google Scholar

¹⁶ The prefatory footnote of the article of 1986 (op. cit., n. 13) speaks a suggestive metaphorical language of vision: ‘As will be equally obvious, [this article] pretends to be no more than an essay or sketch, recommending one way of seeing the politics of this period …’

¹⁷ 6.14.4. The focus upon the election of officers and the law-courts is found in Plato, , Laws 3.697Google Scholara-b: Walbank, F. W., A Historical Comentary on Polybius I (1957), 682Google Scholar.

¹⁸ cf. Davidson, J., ‘The gaze in Polybius' Histories’, JRS 81 (1991), 10–24Google Scholar.

¹⁹ 1.14.6; quoted again at 12.12.3; cf. 34.4 if correctly ascribed to Polybius; Walbank, op. cit. (n. 17), 10. Note too the importance of enargeia, in particular at 15.36.2.

²⁰ The person actually present at events described is contrasted with the hearer of the narrated event (e.g. 1.26.8–9 and 15.36.4), although the activities contrasted do not seem meant to be entirely exclusive of each other. His grand purpose as a historian is to mimic the work of Tyche, who steers the affairs of the world in one direction: the historian must διὰ τῆς ίσιορίας ὑπò μίαν σύνοψιν ἀγαγεῖν τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι… (‘through history bring into comprehensive view for his readers’), 1.4.1. The idea of a specific and single point of view also occurs at 14.1a.1. Rome is a ‘fine spectacle’ in history (θέαμα καλόν): 1.64.3; cf. 32.6.4.

²¹ Arist., A. Po. 88 a19. In Plato, of course, mental contemplation is so assimilated to the model of seeing that epistemology is represented as the aesthetics of the soul: e.g. Gorg. 523a; cf. Arist., Metaph. 1003b15. Even in regard to Polybius' anacyclosis of recurring degenerations of various constitutions, inherited ultimately from Plato, the degeneration from monarchy to tyranny will be made evident in matters of visible, pompous distinction, such as dress: 6.7.7.

²² 3.3.6 (‘next bringing into view’). Events and individuals are obviously presented didactically as worthy of both attention and emulation: esp. 9.9.10, re war-leaders. (Note that in the following chapter (9.10.6–8) the narrative posits a spectator whose identity slips from one actually present to a hypothetical observer who, for all Polybius' strictures on avoidance of emotion in historiography, is merely gazing upon a vivid representation of events); cf. 16.8.8. On a vivid yet relatively trivial level the plight of the man who went mad when held in chains, refusing to eat or take care of his own person, provides a θέαμα θαυμάσιον (32.3.7 — a certain Isocrates, a particularly hapless grammarian).

²³ War can be compared to a boxing match in which generals gain an idea of respective strengths and weaknesses: 1.57.1. (Other comparisons with athletics: 2.65.11, 16.28.9, 27.9.2, 29.8.5, 8.9, 17.4, 39.18.8, 39.1.8; with fighting cocks, 1.58.7–8.) There is a lesson in Philopoemen's behaviour as a cavalry commander (10.24.3): he did not ride out in front of his troops; it might be more important to see than to be seen. A plain of battle (the Campanian) is turned into a theatre where the Carthaginians could stage an object lesson in their superiority (3.91.10). The reader can be presumed to learn from the events of history staged by Tyche (29.19; cf. Livy 45.3.3). Tyche is elsewhere dramatic: as a producer of plays (11.5.8 and 29.19.2), as an umpire (1.58.1), and as a stager of contests (2.66.4); on the image see Walbank, op. cit. (n. 17), 21, n. 6. My examples are only casually illustrative.

²⁴ 2.28.11 (‘for all who could afterwards from the reports take the event into view’).

²⁵ Walker, A. D., ‘Enargeia and the spectator in Greek historiography’, TAPA 123 (1993), 353–77, at 354Google Scholar. Obviously, as much of my paper implicitly suggests, there is little that is modern about postmodernism.

²⁶ Polybius refuses comparison (6.47.7) between the Roman mixed constitution and the constitution of Plato's Republic, on the grounds that comparison of something not tested in action with actual constitutions would be like comparing a statue with living and breathing men (ibid., 10). Polybius may not have been particularly well-acquainted with Plato (cf. Cole, T., ‘The sources and composition of Polybius VI’, Historia 13 (1964), 484Google Scholar n. 113) but his analogy of a statue is a pertinent critique of the mimetic nature of the Republic itself.

²⁷ 6.15.8 (‘through which the generals bring the vividness of their accomplishments into the view of the citizens’).

²⁸ Apelles enters Corinth ‘in pomp’ (Walbank, op. cit. (n. 17), 559) at 5.26.9; ‘melodramatic’ (ibid., 579 ad 5.48.9).

²⁹ Cato meanwhile, opposing concessions to Equites, spoke in the Senate as though he was living in Plato's Republic, jeopardizing Cicero's policies: in January of 60 it seemed (Att. 1.18.3) as though the two foundations of the res publica he alone had established, the auctoritas of the Senate and the concordia of the Senate and Equites, had been overturned.

³⁰ Dio 37.50.1; Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Cicero's Letters to Atticus I (1965), 333Google Scholar. In March, Cicero had told Atticus, (Att. 1.19.4Google Scholar) that he was trying to satisfy the Populus and Pompeius but was insisting upon purchase rather than expropriation of land for ‘draining the dregs of the city and repopulating Italy’; the rich after all were his army. ‘Dregs’ — cf. leg. ag. 2.70, supposedly Rullus’ derogation (and of course duly criticized by Cicero).

³¹ Att. 1.19.4; ibid., 16.11; cf. Brunt, P. A., Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic (1971), 124–6.Google Scholar

³² He justified (Att. 2.1.6) his friendly relations with Pompeius by noting that Pompeius had become less inclined to court the Populus and had taken to eulogizing Cicero's achievements in saving the state; he did not know how much this praise helped his own cause but was certain it helped the res publica.

³³ ibid., 6–7, asking ‘Don't you think I do service enough if I succeed in removing the desire to do harm from those who have the power?’ ‘nonne tibi satis prodesse videor si perficio ut ii nolint obesse qui possunt?’ (Shackleton Bailey's translation).

³⁴ ibid., 2: ‘videtur enim posse aliquid nostris rebus lucis adferre’. ‘Achievements’: Shackleton Bailey, op. cit. (n. 30), ad loc. This concern was uppermost in his mind after his receipt of his friend's own, less ornamented monograph (1). In March, Cicero recollected the ‘immortal glory’ he had won in the last month of his consulship and which Pompeius had acknowledged in the Senate and announced to Atticus that he was sending him a memoir in Greek of his consulship: Att. 1.19.6–7 and 10.

³⁵ ibid., 3. Since the speeches were intended to show Cicero's oratorical prowess, the published texts are hence likely to testify accurately to the persuasive tactics he adopted: cf. Brunt, P. A., ‘Laus imperii’, in Garnsey, P. D. A. and Whittaker, C. R. (eds), Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), 160–1Google Scholar. Although Cicero does sometimes impart to a text the illusion of being a real speech actually being delivered (Kennedy, G., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World 300 B.C.–A.D. 300 (1972), 164Google Scholar, with the example of Verr. 2.3.167 and an allusion to Verres' countenance), the text of De lege agraria II is unlikely to offer a verbatim transcript of Cicero's oratorical performance. Cicero was not one to deliver his words with eyes downcast upon a script, unlike (a less compellingly eloquent) Pompeius: Sest. 129. It is possible that texts of consular speeches were already in some sort of public circulation: so McDermott, W. C., ‘Cicero's publication of his consular orations’, Philologus 116 (1972), 277–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Besides the De lege agraria II, there was the speech opposing repeal of Sulla's law that deprived the sons of the proscribed of their full citizen rights, the (sadly now lost) speech he had delivered to the people in a (surely tricky) defence of Otho, calming their anger (Pliny, , HN 7.116Google Scholar) that had long festered at his bill (of 67) governing seating in the theatre; there were also two Catilinarian speeches delivered to the populus, and the speech he delivered to a contio in which he renounced his claim to a province.

³⁷ With these speeches Cicero satisfied the keen interest of younger contemporaries (Att. 2.1.3), offering presumably useful lessons.

³⁸ Val. Max. 3.7.3.

³⁹ De imp. Pomp. 2. Caesar perhaps addressed the same contio: Dio 36.43.2.

⁴⁰ Leg. ag. 2.71; cf. Brunt, op. cit. (n. 15), 245 and 250–1. Rullus presumably had made himself vulnerable to Cicero's charge that he planned ‘to drain off’ city dwellers: supra, n. 30.

⁴¹ Modern scholarship has followed Cicero's lead (leg. ag. 1.11, 16, 22; 2.20, 23, 63, 98) in looking behind Rullus for ulterior powers. Sumner, G. V. (‘Cicero, Pompeius, and Rullus’, TAPA 97 (1966), 569–82Google Scholar) provides a useful summary of various theories, whilst arguing for Pompeius' ultimate support of the bill. This is unconvincing: few senators in that case could have been expected to be influenced by Cicero's insistence that the bill attacked Pompeius (leg. ag. 1.13), since such a grand secret was unlikely to be kept in Roman political society. Tribunes, moreover, surely consulted their own political interests as well as powerful friends. Cicero's discussion of the bill's contents seems especially fanciful at leg. ag. 2.37 and 53.

⁴² Besides the Rullan and Flavian schemes, Cicero opposed Caesar's legislation: Att. 2.16.1–2Google Scholar. Naturally Cicero publicly claims (leg. ag. 2.10Google Scholar) to support agrarian reform' and to be sympathetic to the Gracchi and the tradition they and their popularly-prized memory generated. Pompeius: esp. Comm. Pet. 5, 14, and 51.

⁴³ Leg. ag. 2.14; he will further insist towards the close of the oration (ibid., 101–2) that he is not frightened of a contio and is indeed popularis. He so established the nature of his contest with Rullus in the Senate: leg. ag. 1.23.

⁴⁴ Millar, F., ‘Popular politics in the late Republic’, in Malkin, I. and Rubinsohn, Z. W. (eds), Leaders and Masses in the Roman World: Studies in Honor of Zvi Yavetz (1995), 91–113, at 104.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ That would be indicative of autocracy — the time of Sulla, for instance, was a time ‘when all gaze upon one’ — Cic., Pro Rosc. Am. 22. On this occasion Cicero remarks (leg. ag. 2.56Google Scholar) that Sulla acted outrageously but at least did not avoid the conspectus of those he outraged.

⁴⁶ From a letter submitted by an artisan reader to The Pennsylvania Evening Post on 27 April 1776 (quoted in Fliegelman, J., Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (1993), 110–11Google Scholar).

⁴⁷ Yakobson, A., ‘Petitio et largitio: popular participation in the centuriate assembly of the late Republic’, JRS 82 (1992), 32–52Google Scholar, remarking (at 43) that ‘the social gap between the lower strata and many of those registered in the first class was less dramatic than is often assumed’. Sallust speaks (BJ 73.6) of the unusual presence of opifices and agrestes at the consular elections of 108.

⁴⁸ While details of this sociopolitical class are hard to reconstruct, the generosity of Caesar (though not in an electoral context), in giving rent relief of up to 2,000 sesterces, is suggestive: Suet., DJ 38.

⁴⁹ Yakobson acknowledges, op. cit. (n. 47), 32–3, that ‘a Roman politician could have many reasons, personal as well as political, to practise and display generosity; not all of them had to do with elections’.

⁵⁰ Lintott, A., ‘Electoral bribery in the Roman Republic’, JRS 80 (1990), 11Google Scholar.

⁵¹ As Nicolet has emphasized: op. cit. (n. 7), 356–61. Of course, escorts marked the fame and celebrity of some who are not obviously politically powerful or greatly consequential — at least in imperial times: Thessalus, a doctor in the time of Nero, had bigger escorts than any actor or any driver of three-horse chariots: Pliny, , HN 29.9Google Scholar.

⁵² Gell. 2.13.4. Also, ‘the many’ saw C. Gracchus surrounded by contractors, artisans, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and philologoi: Plut., C. Grac. 6.

⁵³ Vell. 2.14.1 (‘immensa illa et incondita, quae eum semper comitabatur, cinctus multitudine’). The crowd had to be dismissed when the assassins struck: App., , BC 1.36Google Scholar. Even the infamous pseudo-Marius was a serious political force, for he drew a large crowd: e.g. Nic. Dam., F 128.32.

⁵⁴ e.g. for Caesar in 62: Suet., , DJ 16.2Google Scholar. A passage of Nicolaos (F 130.127) also gives some idea of the audience attending a great notable at a crucial political moment: when Octavius was accused by Antonius of trying to have him murdered, Octavius made his protests to those who came to greet him at his salutatio. Senators, however, might have different favourites. Cato was escorted by senators when led off to prison on Caesar's order s in 59: Gell. 4.10.8. Cato again acted unexpectedly and thus memorably in remaining silent: Plut., Caes. 14. Cato had, it seems, a habit of being oblivious to grand receptions: e.g. Vell. 2.45.5. His extraordinary behaviour was none the less spectacular.

⁵⁵ 36–7.

⁵⁶ A summary of views on its authorship is provided by Richardson, J. S., ‘The Commentariolum Petitionis’, Historia 20 (1971), 436–42Google Scholar. Arguments for composition in the early Empire depend upon the silence over the supposed ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’ of 65, parallels to speeches of M. Cicero, and puzzlement over the function of the work. It declares its aim (1) ‘ut ea quae in re dispersa atque infinita viderentur esse ratione et distributione sub uno aspectu ponerentur’ (‘so that things which in practice seem scattered and limitless can be brought by rational classification into a single focus’). It is also tempting to believe that this is a conscious innovation: the epistolary form is often the medium for discourses that have as yet no appropriate generic home. Ratio lies, in the letters of M. Cicero himself, at the heart of a petitio, conveying a sense of system: Att. 1.1.1. The last sententia of the Commentariolum is an expression of a desire that ‘hoc commentariolum petitionis haberi omni ratione perfectum’ (that ‘this handbook of candidacy be considered complete in every ratio’). The work's claim (58) to pertain to M. Cicero himself and not to all who seek honours does not preclude others from profiting from it. The solicitation of desired changes in the final paragraph need not prevent some circulation of the text in this form, although the absence of comment by ancient authors about this text would suggest ‘non-publication’ (Richardson, ibid., 439 n. 34). It can nevertheless be used as a guide to the practicalities of politics in the late Republic, since at worst an imperial writer still knew more about, or at least could better visualize, politics than any modern historian, while Quintus' authorship cannot certainly be disproved.

⁵⁷ ‘desiderat nomenclationem, blanditiam, adsiduitatem, benignitatem, rumorem, speciem in re publica’.

⁵⁸ ‘sic homines fronte et oratione magis quam ipso beneficio reque capiuntur’.

⁵⁹ ‘postremo tota petitio cura ut pompae plena sit, ut inlustris, ut splendida, ut popularis sit, ut habeat summam speciem ac dignitatem …’ The passage continues with the exhortation that the flaws of competitors be publicized.

⁶⁰ Leg. 3.24, so defending the tribunate's contribution to a sense of equality with senators. Such egalitarianism was still an important theme in the Principate. Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Civilis princeps: between citizen and king’, JRS 72 (1982), 32–48Google Scholar, argues that for an emperor ‘to be honoured in the same coin as his subjects ensured that the currency retained its value’ (at 47).

⁶¹ e.g. Cic., Planc. 9.

⁶² Two thousand men of substance: Cic., , Off. 2.73Google Scholar.

⁶³ Vasaly, A., Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory (1993), xi.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ As Plutarch (Rom. Quaest. 81) observes, pomp and circumstance befit magistracies with imperium but not the tribunate. Cicero had been elected consul prior or maior so he held the fasces in the first month of the year. For alternation of the fasces see Cic., , Rep. 2.55Google Scholar, Livy 2.1.8, Dion., , Ant. Rom. 5.2.1Google Scholar, Festus Gloss. Lat. p. 154 Lindsay;Marshall, A. J., ‘Symbols and showmanship in Roman public life: the fasces’, Phoenix 38 (1984), 120–41, at 131CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Etruscan origin of lictors see Dion., , Ant. Rom. 3.61Google Scholar; the consuls retained all the regalia except the crown and the embroidered robe (ibid., 62.2; cf. 4.74).

⁶⁵ Marshall, op. cit. (n. 64), 120. On the aweinspiring aura surrounding higher magistracies throughout the Republic cf. Hölkeskamp, K.-J., ‘Conquest, competition and consensus: Roman expansion in Italy and the rise of the nobilitas’, Historia 42 (1993), 20Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ It is suggestive that in desperate times an official-looking escort might work well as a disguise for the proscribed: Val. Max. 7.3.9.

⁶⁷ F 130.78, describing the procession of lictors ‘restraining the crowd on both sides’ (ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν τòν ὄχλον ἀνείργοντες).

⁶⁸ Suet., DJ 20.1; cf. Taylor, L. R. and Broughton, T. R. S., ‘The order of the two consuls' names in the yearly lists’, MAAR 19 (1949), 1–14Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ e.g. Q. Fabius had two dozen to show the μέγεθος and ὂγκος of the office: Plut., Fab. 4. Sulla had twenty-four axes and a big bodyguard: App., , BC 1.100Google Scholar; Livy (Ep. 89) also found the display of Sulla's power worth attention great enough for the wretched epitomator to mention. The early dictator Larcius wished thus to show the might of his office: Dion., , Ant. Rom. 5.75.2Google Scholar. In 47 Antonius as magister equitum was accompanied by six lictors: Dio 42.27.2.

⁷⁰ On this practice see esp. Cic., , Fam. 12.21Google Scholar, commending the dignitas of C. Anicius (who was on a legatio libera to Africa). Verres as legatus had lictors; one was killed in Lampsacus, which caused quite an uproar: Verr. 2.1.67–8.

⁷¹ Cicero reels off the prizes of office (Cluent. 154) as ‘locus, auctoritas, domi splendor, apud exteras nationes nomen et gratia, toga praetexta, sella curulis, insignia, fasces, exercitus, imperia, provinciae’ (‘place, authority, splendour at home, name and influence abroad, trim on the toga, an official chair, decorations, fasces, armies, commands, provinces’).

⁷² Marshall, op. cit. (n. 64), 130, although perhaps with too much emphasis on fear — Dionysius describes (Ant. Rom. 7.35.5), with some consideration of what his own eyes told him, the power of the fasces to evoke rather αἰδώς.

⁷³ The gesture was made to the people when gathered in either comitial or contional assembly. Cic., , Rep. 1.62Google Scholar, 2.53; Plut., Public. 10; Quint., , Inst. 3.7.18Google Scholar; Florus 3.9.4; Dio 3.13.2.

⁷⁴ Livy 2.7.7; cf. Marshall, op. cit. (n. 64), 132.

⁷⁵ Val. Max. 2.2.4. There is evidence to suggest that magistrates actively order the fasces to be lowered before a superior; e.g. Coriolanus even orders this to be done before his mother: Dion., , Ant. Rom. 8.44Google Scholar.4. Lictors were very conscious of protocol: Quadrigarius (F 59 Peter = Gell. 2.2.13) relates that lictors told Q. Fabius Maximus to dismount from his horse when he encountered his son, the consul: the consular imperium came directly from the Populus.

⁷⁶ Esp. leg. ag. 2.55.

⁷⁷ cf. the observation of Bell, op. cit. (n. 10), 221–2, that ‘in terms of its scope, dependence, and legitimation, the type of authority formulated by ritualization tends to make ritual activities effective in grounding and displaying a sense of community without overriding the autonomy of individuals or subgroups’.

⁷⁸ Details of all such at Versnel, H. S., Triumphus (1970), 302.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Caesarian ‘charismatic’ politics is an instructive example: when C. Iulius Caesar was sacrificing, his great-nephew stood close by him. Others too wished to be seen close to the most powerful man in the western world. But these Caesar ordered to yield to the young man — Nic. Dam. 90 F 127, 17–18: Octavius was everywhere to be seen with Caesar.

⁸⁰ Cic., , Phil. 3.11Google Scholar;cf. 5.24.

⁸¹ App., , BC 3.94Google Scholar.

⁸² BC 1.54. Regarding the distinctiveness of the clothing it is worth noticing how C. Iulius Caesar combined the associations of different roles in one ceremony when he obtained the right to sacrifice in triumphal dress: e.g. App., , BC 2.106Google Scholar.

⁸³ Ryberg, I. S., Rites of the State Religion in Roman Art, MAAR 22 (1955), 20–2, 27–34Google Scholar, esp. 29: ‘the composition is managed in such a way as to throw the emphasis upon the sacrificant …’ The Ahenobarbus scene seems to have generic similarities to representations of sacrifice on official Roman monuments: O. Brendel, Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (repr. 1979). 133. Gordon, R. stresses how the visual representation of Roman sacrifice ‘summarily reproduces key aspects of the social and political system’ in the Empire (‘The veil of power’, in M. Beard and J. North (eds), Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World (1990), 201–34Google Scholar, at 206).

⁸⁴ North, J. A., ‘Democratic politics in Republican Rome’, Past and Present 126 (1990), 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 17.

⁸⁵ Weber, After M., The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (ed. Parsons, T., 1947), 358–77Google Scholar. Weber's discussion is best taken as suggestive rather than prescriptive of the terms of analysis.

⁸⁶ cf. Shils, E., ‘Charisma, order and status’, American Sociological Review 30 (1965), 199–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ cf. Tucker, R. C., ‘The theory of charismatic leadership’, Daedalus 97 (1968), 731–56Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ cf. Millar, op. cit. (n. 44), 103 and 111.

⁸⁹ Although he treads carefully, he does this at some risk of reminding his audience that the M. Brutus (mentioned at 89 and 92), who proposed as tribune in 83 establishing a colony at Capua, had been a supporter of the popularly beloved young C. Marius killed by Sulla: Cic., Quinct. 65; Plut., Sul. 9; App., , BC 1.88Google Scholar and 95; Livy, Ep. 89. This event was perhaps too remote for popular memory or else inserted into the circulated text for optimate consumption.

⁹⁰ Jonkers, E. J., Social and Economic Commentary on Cicero's De Lege Agraria Orationes Tres (1963), 128–31Google Scholar, seems genuinely outraged at Cicero's claims.

⁹¹ cf. Quint., , Inst. 8.3.64Google Scholar.

⁹² ‘ubi honos publice non est, ibi gloriae cupiditas esse non potest; non contentione, non ambitione discordes’.

⁹³ ibid.: ‘contionandi potestas erat cuiquam nec consilii capiundi publici’.

⁹⁴ Otium is indeed a ‘catch-word’ of the oration, treated with ‘astonishing variation’ in 102–3: Vasaly, op. cit. (n. 63), 237.

⁹⁵ Secretiveness is clearly a topos for suggesting malevolent deliberation. Livy (3.38) casts Appius and the fifth-century decemvirs acting as supposedly does Rullus; the similarity is perhaps suggestive, especially given the proposed decemvirate, of the persistence of such themes in both oral and historiographical tradition.

⁹⁶ Cic., Planc. 33. While it was remarkable and abnormal never to laugh, laughter had its proper time and place: the grandfather of M. Licinius Crassus was known for never laughing (Pliny, , HN 7.79Google Scholar); a man was reduced to the status of a member of the aerarii by the censors for jocular levity (Gell. 4.20.3–6).

⁹⁷ Cic., , De or. 2.236Google Scholar: ‘it is plainly the orator's business to stir laughter’. On the politics of laughter in oratory see now Corbeill, A., Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (1996).Google Scholar

⁹⁸ A physical deformity might prevent a man from winning office: Bailey, Shackleton, ad Att. 1.16.3Google Scholar. The XII Tables adjured that deformed infants were to be killed: Cic., , Leg. 3.19Google Scholar. As for more mundane bodily issues, C. Iulius Caesar was particularly happy to wear wreaths because it saved elaborate combing to cover his baldness, which attracted jibes: Suet., , DJ 45.2Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ De or. 2.237.

¹⁰⁰ Cluent. III.

¹⁰¹ It was his habit to scatter money to the populus from the Rostra while dressed in tragic garb: Phil. 3.16;cf. Val. Max. 7.8.1.

¹⁰² Although when Caesar was a captive of the pirates he stuck relentlessly and uncomfortably to propriety, never taking off the toga and the shoes that respectively marked him as Roman and an important Roman: Suet., , DJ 45.3Google Scholar; cf. (with embellishment) Dio 43.43.1–4; Macr., , Sat. 2.3.9Google Scholar. Among the pirates, he carried himself so as to create ‘equally terror and reverence’ — Vell. 2.41.3. It can fairly be said that ‘to wear one's toga fastened in a certain way was also to suggest something about one's political intentions and about one's sexual proclivities’: C. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (1993), 90. Standards of decorum in dress were articulated by the elder Cato, according to Aulus Gellius (11.2.5): e.g. it was the custom to dress honeste in the Forum, sufficiently at home; dress codes in Rome and Latium condemned tunic-sleeves that reached to the wrist or beyond and P. Africanus (son of Paullus) reproached P. Sulpicius Gallus for his long sleeves (ibid., 6.12.1 and 4).

¹⁰³ As can be imagined from the example of Crassus' comparison of an individual to a picture of a Gaul: Cic., , De or. 2. 266Google Scholar. Physical, gestural mimicry might effectively accompany witty words in a contio: ibid., 242.

¹⁰⁴ Cicero claims (Har. 8) that when Clodius spoke about religious protocols, ‘even his own contio laughed at the man’; the occurrence is cited to show that the whole res publica knew the hypocrisy of Clodius' show of religiosity and, by extension from the person, that Clodius' accusations were without foundation. Note too Cicero's citation of the laughter (‘homines inridentes’) at Numerius Quintius Rufus (tribune in 57?): Sest. 72. Odium too could be invoked as a stamp of deserved humiliation bestowed by the Populus upon individuals: Scipio Nasica was called accursed and a tyrant; over a century later Titius, the murderer of Sextus Pompeius, was driven out of Pompeius' theatre ‘from the spectacle which he was providing, by the execrations of the Populus …’: Vell. 2.79.6. Cicero, reported (Q. Fr. 3.1.24Google Scholar) upon Gabinius' reception before a large crowd the day after his sneaky return from his province at night, when he suffered the odium of the universus populus. Ridicule could also have consequences in military operations: Livy 41.10.10.

¹⁰⁵ Leg. ag. 2.13–14.

¹⁰⁶ op. cit. (n. 63).

¹⁰⁷ North, op. cit. (n. 84), 13 n. 35.

¹⁰⁸ E. S. Gruen treats (‘The “fall” of the Scipios’, in Malkin and Rubinsohn, op. cit. (n. 44), 59–90) the evidence lucidly, arguing for this date and that only L. Scipio was accused. The messiness in details of the testimony suggests how only the central event of the drama was truly memorable.

¹⁰⁹ Livy 38.51.12. It is difficult to tell how much of Livy's reporting of such popular receptions is anachronistic.

¹¹⁰ Gruen, E. S., ‘The exercise of power in the Roman Republic’, in Molho, A., Raaflaub, K. and Emlen, J. (eds), City-States in Classical and Medieval Italy (1991), 264–5.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Val. Max. 8.15.7, Plut., Mar. 27. Survival: esp. Cic., , Acad. 2.13Google Scholar; in general, Carney, T. F., ‘Cicero's picture of Marius’, WS 73 (1960), 83–122Google Scholar. Caesar's restoration of the monuments (e.g. Suet., DJ 11) made them conspicuous in the fabric of the Forum: Cic., , De or. 2.266Google Scholar, Val. Max. 6. 9.14.

¹¹² Imagine, urged Velleius Paterculus (2.48.2), if Pompeius Magnus had died in his theatre at the height of felicitas when his dedicatory celebrations were taking place. Plutarch thinks much the same (Pomp. 46) had he died after his third triumph and also tells (ibid., 68; cf. Caes. 42) of Pompeius' dream before Pharsalus that he entered the theatre for its dedication and the people were clapping; cf. Millar, op. cit. (n. 44), 106. Caesar famously desired simply to be first in his community: e.g. Suet., , DJ 29.1Google Scholar.

¹¹³ De imp. Pomp. 44.

¹¹⁴ Vat. 6. The crowd of spectators for forensic proceedings might be much the same as at contiones: e.g. Flacc. 66, Cluent. 93. There were some in the crowd who had the means to attend trials frequently and so escape historical anonymity, e.g. L. Valerius Heptachordo who positively loved trials: Val. Max. 7.8.7.

¹¹⁵ Leg. ag. 2.4; also 7 and 17 (twice).

¹¹⁶ Lesser magistrates too: e.g. Cic., Planc. 49 (an aedileship).

¹¹⁷ Dom. 15. His return from exile was, of course, an event willed by the entire state, even though the bill for his recall was able to risk a vote only in the Comitia Centuriata: Red. Sen. 29; Pompeius' support for his recall was supposedly given in person before ‘the entire people’.

¹¹⁸ Cat. 4.19; Fam. 10.12.4, 12.5.3.

¹¹⁹ cf. Vanderbroeck, P. J. J., Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late Roman Republic (ca. 80–50 BC) (1987), 163.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ This is effectively shown by Pliny, the Elder's horror (HN 36.118–20Google Scholar) in visualizing Romans dangerously seated in revolving, temporary theatres to watch Curio's games in honour of his late father: an entire free nation was exposed to the danger.

¹²¹ Cic., Sest. 106. A similar insistence that popular sentiment is palpably valid recurs in Cicero's attacks on Antonius in the Philippics: e.g. 1.36. Moreover, the weight that Cicero put upon demonstrations of feeling, especially at the theatre, is corroborated by the sort of news he wanted from his correspondents: e.g. Fam. 8.2.1, Att. 2.19.3, 14.3.2, Q. Fr. 2.158.2. Cicero also supplies information about the significationes of popular feeling that he demanded of others: e.g. Fam. 10.5.3, 11.8.1, Q.Fr. 3.1.24.

¹²² This pomposity (‘imperita multitudo’) is that of Valerius Maximus (3.8.6), describing the reception of Equitius, the attractive pseudo-Marius.

¹²³ Sest. 115.

¹²⁴ ‘contio, quae ex imperitissimis constat, tamen iudicare solet, quid intersit popularem, id est assentatorem et levem civem, et inter constantem et verum et gravem’. Laelius had spoken against C. Papirius' bill to make tribunes eligible for re-election but now stresses instead, as the generous friend he is, Scipio's contribution to the downfall of the legislation (96): it was certainly as though he were their leader rather than their comrade! (‘Quanta illi, di immortales, fuit gravitas, quanta in oratione maiestas! ut facile ducem populi Romani, non comitem diceres’). The train of thought continues into a directly stated and important correspondence between the political and the dramatic stage (97): ‘Now if on the stage, I mean in a contio, where there is more than ample opportunity for deceptions and deceits’ (‘Quod si in scaena, id est in contione, in qua rebus fictis et adumbratis loci plurimum est’). Here too falls (96) mention of Crassus as the first man to begin the practice of facing towards the Forum in addressing the people (which Plutarch (C. Grac. 5) interestingly associates with C. Gracchus).

¹²⁵ Cicero was always greatly concerned for posterity's estimation of his service to the res publica in 63: e.g. Att. 2.5.1, fearing far more what history will say a thousand years hence than the ‘rumusculi’ of his contemporaries; there is particularly pointed contrast with the ambition of the men of the fish-ponds at 2.1.7. Throughout the rest of his life, Cicero believed he had established the res publica at its best in 63, in the potestas of the best men: the praise comes from ‘Atticus’ at Leg. 3.37.

¹²⁶ On nobles' pursuit of prestige as intrinsic to their conception of the res publica: esp. D. C. Earl, The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (1967), 16 and Wiseman, T. P., ‘Competition and co-operation’, in Wiseman, T. P. (ed.), Roman Political Life 90 B.C.-A.D. 69 (1985), 3–20Google Scholar, esp. 4, discussing the epitaphs of the Scipiones.

¹²⁷ Rep. 1.12.

¹²⁸ Cic., , Phil. 4.13Google Scholar. Likewise Milo suffers no exile wherever there is a place for virtus: Mil. 101.

¹²⁹ Cicero acknowledges the derivation at Tusc. 2.43; cf. Varro, , LL 5.75Google Scholar. The inherent virility in virtus can, however, also be ‘feminized’: Tusc. 1.95, 2.21. As far as I know, Cicero finds it in three women: a Caecilia (S. Rosc. 147), Terentia, (Fam. 14.1Google Scholar; cf. 14.3), and Tullia, (Fam. 14.11Google Scholar, Att. 10.8.9, 11.17.1, and 14.11).

¹³⁰ Cat. 3.26, Mil. 97, Brut. 281, Fam. 10.10.2.

¹³¹ Rep. 1.2; Off. 1.19, re praise for virtus; cf. Part. 76, re virtus manifest in oratory. The problem of a divergence in meanings between technical and popular usages is acknowledged at Off. 2.35.

¹³² The virtus of the exemplary Cato ‘shone forth as outstanding’: Mur. 32; cf. Mur. 54, Dom. 23. Lucullus easily appears before Cicero's eyes as an example of general excellence: Fin. 3.8. Sestius' virtus ‘shines in the darkness’: Sest. 60. Plancius' ‘memorable and divine virtus brings light to the res publica’: Phil. 13.44. Milo's: Sest. 92. ‘The light of virtus shines out’: Fam. 12.5.3; cf. Am. 28 and 48, Fin. 3.10.

¹³³ Balb. 16; cf. Pis. 2, Verr. 2.2.4. Virtus may also be ‘spectata’: Flacc. 63, Ad Brut. 24.10. Piso, claims Cicero, would not know by sight the remarkable virtus of a C. Caesar: Pis. 81. That of Lucullus possessed vis: ‘his vast power of virtus and talent was absent abroad, invisible to Forum and Senate, for longer than I might have wanted’ (‘diutius quam vellem tanta vis virtutis atque ingenii peregrinata afuit ab oculis et fori et curiae’) — Acad. 2.3. Virtus can also have beauty: Fam. 9.14.4. The phrase is also found at Att. 14.173.5; cf. Fin. 4.42. Virtus can also have splendor: Off. 1.20, Fin. 3.45 and 4.37, Hort. 46. Virtus can also be represented in an effigies, or a monumentum — Arch. 30, Tusc. 3.3, Phil. 9.12, Dom. 100.

¹³⁴ Phil. 13.24, Fam. 15.2.8, Am. 48; Pis. 63.

¹³⁵ Fam. 3.13.1. Imitation and simulation: Acad. 2.140, Inv. 1.3. Off. 1.46. Note too that imitatio virtutis is labelled aphoristically as aemulatio at Tusc. 4.17.

¹³⁶ Am. 86. Cicero was well aware (Off. 2.43) of the dictum attributed to Socrates (Xen., , Mem. 2.6.39Google Scholar) that the quickest way to glory was through careful counterfeiting. Note too the ‘species virtutis adsimulatae’ of Catilina, at Cael. 14.

¹³⁷ Sall., , BJ 85.5Google Scholar.

¹³⁸ ibid., 85.31: ‘Virtus shows itself well enough’ (‘ipsa se virtus satis ostendit’); Scars: ibid., 29–30; cf. Plut., Mar. 9.

¹³⁹ Marius' veins: Plut., Mar. 6. Cicero's: Macrob., , Sat. 2.3.5Google Scholar; Quint., , Inst. 11.3.143Google Scholar; Sidon., , Epist. 5.5Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ ‘laude populari atque honoris vestri luce caruerunt’. Regrettably, little is known about the novi homines who held consulships between Marius and Cicero. T. Didius (in 98) was responsible for a bill that required a period of three nundinae between promulgation and voting upon legislation (see Cic., Dom. 41, Sest. 135, Phil. 5.3, Schol. Bob. 140 (Stangl)). He too prided himself upon his scars and an empty eye-socket as well: Sall., , Hist. 1.88Google Scholar (M) = Gell. 2.72.2. Though not a consul, Q. Sertorius had similar disfigurements which he advertised in the Marian tradition: Plut., Sert. 4.

¹⁴¹ ‘virtutique in posterum patere voluistis’. The expression also occurs at Mur. 17 and Sest. 137.

¹⁴² De imp. Pomp. 29 and 36; cf. W. Eisenhut, Virtus romana: ihre Stellung im römischen Wertsystem (1973), 63.

¹⁴³ Rullus is proposing to sell assets acquired ‘by arms and virtus’ (4), including the royal territory in Macedonia conquered by T. Flamininus and L. Paullus and the Carthaginian lands in Spain acquired by the Scipiones — or rather by the virtus of these famous commanders (5).

¹⁴⁴ Leg. ag. 2.103.

¹⁴⁵ O. 3.2.17–24; cf. 3.5.29.

¹⁴⁶ Honores, one might say (Cic., Am. 22), existed ‘ut laudere.’

¹⁴⁷ For the voltus of a crowd see Sall., , BJ 34.1Google Scholar. There is clear expression of the distinctiveness of the equites from the populus at Cic., Rab. Perd. 38a (fr.1) = Servius, ad A. 1.13Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁸ e.g. Cic., , Q. Fr. 2.3.2Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁹ Any public doings of the prominent could attract an attention that then became a judgement upon their value in and to the state. The ceremony of Pompeius' military discharge before the censors, for instance, had its accompaniment of shouting: Plut., Pomp. 22. Marius took Saturninus' oath and reaped a reward of noisy popular favour: ibid., Mar. 29. The desire to avoid the physicality of unpopularity seemed at least to Plutarch a plausible motive for Marius' behaviour: ibid., 28. Applause at trials was registered and pridefully retailed in correspondence: e.g. Q. Fr. 2.4.1 (re the trial of Sestius). Somebody wrote to Caesar to inform him ‘about Milo's applause’: Q. Fr. 3.1.13. Cicero carefully notes the reaction to Senatorial votes: e.g. Q. Fr. 2.8.1 (re the denial of a supplicatio for Gabinius). He claimed that the decree for his restoration was approved by extraordinary shouting and applause at a packed theatre: Div. 1.59; cf. Pis. 15; Sest. 55,63, 69; Fam. 1.9; Red. Sen. 9. The extraordinary events of March 44 prompted all, not least Cicero, to read and use whatever signs of popular feeling could be discerned: Phil. 4.3; cf. the approval of Brutus though absent from the games, ibid., 1.36, 10.8. Caesar's rejection of the proferred diadem at the Lupercalia was, of course, part of a negotiated drama of power in which the applause of the crowd had its part to play: Plut., Caes. 61, cf. Ant. 12; the tribunes Flavius and Marullus were also applauded for arresting those responsible for putting diadems on the statues: Plut., Cic. 61.

¹⁵⁰ Livy 29.25.3–4; Plut., Flam. 10, Pomp. 25; Val. Max. 4.8.5; Dio 36.30.3.

¹⁵¹ Marcellinus told the people at a contio (on the subject of Pompeius): ‘shout, citizens, while you may’ (‘adclamate Quirites dum licet’): Val. Max. 6.2.6.

¹⁵² Cic., Dom. 108–11; Brunt, op. cit. (n. 15), 334.

¹⁵³ D. Stockton, Thirty-Five Letters of Cicero (1969), 22, provides the spectacular characterization; Q. Fr. 2.3.2; cf. Plut., Pomp. 48; Dio 39.19. On the leadership and orchestration of gangs see Vanderbroeck, op. cit. (n. 119). More complex styles of applause too were chiefly orchestrated variations upon the traditional staple of political communication. Cicero remarked upon the new style, presumably rhythmical, that greeted the Senate's passing of Cicero's motion that Pompeius be placed in charge of the corn supply in September of 57: Att. 4.1.7.

¹⁵⁴ Crassus memorably defeated Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus in 92: Cic., Brut. 162, De or. 2.227.

¹⁵⁵ An augurship was coveted, perhaps as both an honour and as a means to be seen at a solemn remove from other men: Att. 2.5.2, 8.3.1, Phil. 2.4.

¹⁵⁶ Stockton, D., Cicero: A Political Biography (1970) 334.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ Fam. 2.3.1–2 (in 53); cf. Pliny, , HN 36.119–20Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁸ Off. 2.55–6. Cicero sketches the recent history of aedilician games that were spectacularly successful, ending the list with Pompeius' games of 55 (not aedilician): these games are in themselves indeed one of the most important events of the late Republic.

¹⁵⁹ Evident even in Pliny, the Elder's record (HN 8.17Google Scholar) of ‘firsts’ in the arena. Others besides and before Pliny must have remembered the leopards, crocodiles, and hippopotamus.