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Flaviana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

M. P. Charlesworth
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Extract

‘Ceteris in rebus statim ab initio principatus usque ad exitum civilis et clemens, mediocritatem pristinam neque dissimulavit umquam ac frequenter etiam prae se tulit. quin et conantis quosdam originem Flavii generis ad conditores Reatinos comitemque Herculis … referre irrisit ultro’ (Suet. Div. Vesp. 12).

Vespasian came of peasant stock; he succeeded to a position which had been occupied by men of the noblest birth. For the Julio Claudians no proofs need be produced; of their successors Galba boasted descent from Jupiter and (strangely) Pasiphae, and Otho from Etruscan princes; even Vitellius had a pedigree going back to Faunus and a local goddess, Vitellia. Vespasian was far too shrewd to make similar claims; he deliberately rejected the attempts of flatterers to find him a noble ancestor. Much of the Life of Suetonius is evidence for the statement ‘mediocritatem pristinam neque dissimulavit umquam ac frequenter etiam prae se tulit.’ His reign marked a return to simpler ways of living, and emphasised a contrast with the pomp and extravagance of a Nero, wealthy and degenerate (see infra, p. 55). It was a realistic and sensible policy, and likely to win support from the lower classes of population in Italy, whether peasants or city proletariate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1: Papers Presented to Sir Henry Stuart Jones , 1937 , pp. 54 - 62
Copyright
Copyright ©M. P. Charlesworth 1937. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

Note.—I acknowledge gratefully the criticism and help of Professor Last, Professor Nock and Mr. C. T. Seltman in writing this article.

1 Suet. Galba, 2; Otho, 1; Vitellius, 1. For similar pretentious genealogies see Friedländer, Sittengeschichte 10 i, 120.

2 I give the text of the speech as reported in the Corriere della Sera, 27th October, 1935, and acknowledge my debt to Professor A. J. Toynbee for sending me a copy.

3 Suet. Nero, 39.

4 Suet. Otho, 7.

5 Pliny, NH xxxiv, 45Google Scholar; 84; Platner-Ashby, , A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, 6 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Martial i, 2.

7 ILS 986.

8 CIL vi, 1257 (ILS 218) and 931.

9 The stock passage is Tac. Ann. iii, 55Google Scholar.

10 See CIL vi, 933 and x, 1018, and Ann. ép., 1919, nos. 91–93.

11 Pliny, NH vii, 45Google Scholar; ii, 92; xxxvi, 124; xvii, 5; vii, 46.

12 See Ciaceri, , Processi politici … (Rome, 1918), 387–434Google Scholar; it may be remarked that Quintilian's attitude towards Seneca would be politically, as well as educationally, sound.

13 BJ ii, 250–251, and cf. a similar passage in iv, 492–496.

14 Silvae, ii, 7, 116–119.

15 De sera numinis vindicta, 32 (Mor. 567 f.).

16 Martial vii, 34, 4.

17 Dio Chrysostom (ed. von Arnim), xxxi (Rhodiaca), 150. I do not mean to say that Nero never gets a kind word, but the general verdict in literature is pretty unanimous.

18 See CAH xi, 11 f.

19 Mattingly, H., ‘Britannicus and Titus,’ Num. Chron. 1930, 330Google Scholar.

20 Op. cit. 412.

21 Suet. Nero 33, and cf. Nutting, H. C. in Class. Weekly 26, 151Google Scholar.

22 Mattingly, H., BMC Emp. i, 1923Google Scholar, clxxii and clxxxv.

23 ILS 229.

24 CIL vii, 43 and ILS 233.

25 OG1S 669 and ILS 241.

26 Similarly Domitian prohibited Circus Games on Titus' birthday; Cassius Dio lxvii, 2, 6. But Domitian's veto would not outlast his death, and a papyrus at Oslo (datable after A.D. 169) shows that Titus' birthday was still celebrated in Egypt then; S. Eitrem, ‘Religious Calendar concerning the imperial cult,’ Atti del IV Congresso … di Papirologia, Milan, 1936, p. 85. Septimius Severus, if we can trust SHA Pert. 15, 5, instituted the celebration of Pertinax' accession-day and birthday, but subsequently cancelled that of the accession; that of the birthday remained, and this is borne out by the Philocalian Calendar (see infra, p. 58).

27 ILS 244.

28 Tac. Hist. iv, e.g., 3–10, 39–45.

29 The aqueducts; CIL vi, 1257 (A.D. 71) and 1258 (A.D. 80–81). For Salpensa and Malaca see ILS 6098 (XXV, xxvi) and 6089 (lix).

30 ILS 5285.

31 Henzen, Acta Fratr. Arval. 148 f.

32 Though the argument is a subjective one, it seems to me likely that, had Claudius I still been divus and remembered in the third century, Claudius II would have ventured some claim to relationship or descent.

33 For this list see Mattingly, H. and Salisbury, F. S., ‘A Find of Roman Coins from Plevna,’ Num. Chron., 1924, 211 (esp. 235 f.)Google Scholar.

34 Similar instances of the decay of cults will be found collected by Nock, A. D. in CR xxxix, 1925, 60Google Scholar.

35 Divus Claudius does appear in Agric. 13, 5.

36 Vespasian is divus once in the Agricola (9, 1), but three times without the prefix, 7, 3; 13, 5; and 17, 1; and once in Germania, 8, 3. In the Dialogus Augustus, mentioned eight times, is on occasions called ‘divus,’ and on the others left plain; Claudius is mentioned once and not as divus.

37 Claudius, SHA, Sev. Alex. 65, 5, where the text is badly mutilated; for Nerva see Sev. Alex. 28, 6.

38 SHA, Hadr. 7; M. Ant. Phil. 17; Tac. 9, but once ‘forum Traiani.’

39 SHA, Aurel. 42. This list, it will be noticed, comes very close to that of the ‘Consecratio’ issue attributed to Trajan Decius (supra, p. 59), the only differences being the omission of Commodus and the addition of Divus Claudius (II) and Divus Aurelianus (who came after A.D. 250). But the tacking-on of the prefix ‘divus’ seems curiously haphazard.

40 SHA, Sev. Alex. 29, if this statement can be trusted.

41 SHA, Tac. 9. It looks as though it was the selective work of Severus Alexander and Tacitus that helped to produce the list that we find in ‘Vopiscus.’

42 An interesting comparison and contrast is the treatment of King Charles I, and what we may call the ‘cult’ of him, by successive generations. In the year 1661 a service in commemoration of King Charles ‘the Martyr’ was by order of the Crown annexed to the Book of Common Prayer. Just under two hundred years later, that is, on 17th January, 1859, this service was discontinued by Royal Warrant, upon the petition of both Houses of Parliament. But it may be remarked that churches dedicated in his name, e.g., the churches of King Charles the Martyr at Tunbridge Wells, have not changed their dedication.

43 In Petronius, Satyricon 60, it appears as a proper name.

44 Suet. Nero 49, 3Google Scholar; Domit. 14, 4.

45 Cassius Dio lxvii, 14, 4.

46 Lesquier, J., L'armée romaine d'Égypte (Cairo, 1918), 509 ffGoogle Scholar.