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Blossius of Cumae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

D. R. Dudley
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Extract

Ancient authorities agree that C. Blossius of Cumae played an important part in Tiberius Gracchus's plans for reform. But the evidence they afford is only fragmentary, and it is no easy matter to arrive at a fair estimate of Blossius. In Cicero, Valerius Maximus, and Plutarch he is the adviser, almost the evil genius, of Tiberius—no doubt one of those ‘learned men who stirred up Tiberius against Scipio’. Last regards him as one of the teachers from whom the Gracchi ‘received the undoubtedly Hellenic ideas which appear in their public life at Rome’, and who can thus claim their place in history.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1-2 , November 1941 , pp. 94 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © D. R. Dudley 1941. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Cic. Laelius 37.

2 Val. Max. 4, 7, 1; Plut. Tib. Gracchus 8, 17.

3 CAH ix, 21.

4 E.g. Taeger, F.: Tiberius Gracchus (Stuttgart, 1928) 16 ffGoogle Scholar. Fisch, M. H. : ‘Alexander and the Stoics’ AJP lviii, 1937, 73Google Scholar.

5 Surely not at Tarsus, as Last (l.c.) suggests: Plutarch says of Blossius “Aντιπάτρον τοũ Tαρσἐωσ γεγονὠσ ἐν ᾰστει συνἠθησ where ἐν ᾰστει would mean ‘in Athens’. We know that Antipater ‘thanked the wind that brought him to Athens’ (Plut. Marius, 46; De. Tranq. An. 9).

6 Cic. Laelius 37.

7 Livy xxiii, 7: 8, 9.

8 Id. xxvii, 3 : 4, 5.

9 Plut. l.c.; Cic. Laelius 37.

10 de lege agr. ii, 93.

11 Livy xxiii, 7 : 1, 2.

12 Livy xxiii, 31 : 10–12.

13 Livy xxiii, 7 : 1, 2.

14 The Roman Citizenship (Oxford, 1939) 43 ffGoogle Scholar.

15 ‘Die Demokratie und Rom.’ Philologus 82 (1926–1927, 319)Google Scholar. In any case Demetrius of Phaleron will hardly do as the exponent of democracy. Ensslin connects him with the political views of Tiberius Gracchus by means of the conception of προστάτησ τοũ δήμον. But Ferguson, (Hellenistic Athens (London, 1911) 47Google Scholar, n. 3) has shown that this is a wide and vague description: Demetrius formally described himself as ἐπιμελητήσ. His dread of ‘mob-rule’— όχλοκρατíα—aligns him rather with Panaetius, Polybius, and the Roman opponents of the Gracchi.

16 Tiberius Gracchus 17 ff.

17 Cic. Laelius 37; Val. Max. 4, 7, 1; Plut. Ti. Gracchus 20.

18 Heitland, (Roman Republic, Cambridge, 1909, ii, 279Google Scholar) suggests that Laenas and Rupilius sat as consules designati late in 133, since Rupilius was in Sicily in the summer of 132. But they are not referred to as designati, and they could have sat on the Commission in the early months of 132.

19 Heitland (l.c.) says that Blossius was a friend of Laelius. It is true that Valerius Maximus says that when he came to Laelius ‘familiaritatis excusatione uteretur’. But the passage makes it clear that the ‘familiaritas’ was with Tiberius Gracchus.

20 Plut. Ti. Gracchus 9, 20, 6: πολλάκισ δέ καì πολλῶν τὸ αὐτὸ πυνθανομἐνων. Val. Max. 4, 7, 1: ‘compressus perseveranti interrogatione Laelii’.

21 Plutarch's language “ἐκείνου γε προστάσσοντος … οὐ γαρ ἄν Τιβέριος τοῦτο προσέταξεν, εἰ μὴ τῷ δήμῳ συνέφερεν suggests that conception of Tiberius as προστάτησ τοũ ‘Pωμάíων δήμον which so outraged the Senate. Is his source the anti-Gracchan tradition represented in Fannius?

22 See Broughton, T. R. S. in Economic Survey of Rome (Baltimore, 1938), iv, 505 ff.Google Scholar

23 Cf. Mommsen, , The History of Rome (London, 1894) iii, 278, n. 2.Google Scholar

24 Die Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter (Frankfurt, 1874), 106 ff.Google Scholar

25 Goodenough, E. R., ‘Hellenistic Kingship,’ Yale Classical Studies, ii, 80, 84 ff.Google Scholar, has shown how widespread and ancient are the connections between the Sun-cult and the conceptions of Kingship.