Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian

448 Pages·2005·3.1 MB·English

by  Emma Dench

Frontispiece: ‘Sacrariumpraebeat securitatem: Romulus’ Asylum’fromthe Romulus cyclepaintedbythe
Carracci,PalazzoMagnani,Bologna,latesixteenthcentury.PhotographbyMarcoBaldassari,reproduced
courtesyofUnicreditBanca,Bologna.
Romulus’ Asylum
Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the
Age of Hadrian
EMMA DENCH
1
3
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CONTENTS
Abbreviations x
Introduction 1
1. RomanEthnographies 37
2. Romulus’Asylum:TheCharacteroftheRoman
Citizenship 93
3. TheIdeaofItaly 152
4. FleshandBlood 222
5. LanguagesandLiteratures 298
Epilogue:Closure? 362
Bibliography 369
GeneralIndex 415
ABBREVIATIONS
AC L’Antiquite´classique
AJP AmericanJournalofPhilology
ALMArv AnnalesLatiniMontiumArvernorum
ANRW AufstiegundNiedergangderro¨mischenWelt
BCH Bulletindecorrespondancehelle´nique
BICS BulletinoftheInstituteofClassicalStudies,
London
CA ClassicalAntiquity
CAH26 Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6, The Fourth
Centurybc,2ndedn.(Cambridge,1994)
CAH27,2 CambridgeAncient History, vol. 7, 2, The Riseof
Rometo220bc,2ndedn.(Cambridge,1989)
CAH29 Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, The Last Age
of the Roman Republic, 2nd edn. (Cambridge,
1994)
CAH210 Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 10, The Au-
gustan Empire 43 bc–ad 69, 2nd edn. (Cam-
bridge,1996)
Chass. M. Chassignet (ed.), Cato Les Origines (Frag-
ments)(Paris,1986)
CIL CorpusInscriptionumLatinarum(1863– )
CM ClassicaetMedievalia
CP ClassicalPhilology
CQ ClassicalQuarterly
DdA Dialoghidiarcheologia
FGH F. Jacoby (ed.), Die Fragmente der griechischen
Historiker(Berlin,1923–58)
FIRA S.Riccobono,FontesIurisRomaniAnteIustiniani
(1941)
G&R GreeceandRome
HSCP HarvardStudiesinClassicalPhilology
H&T HistoryandTheory
ILLRP InscriptionesLatinae Liberae Rei Republicae, ed.
A.Degrassi,vol.12(1965),vol.2(1963)
Abbreviations xi
ILS H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (1892–
1916)
JHS JournalofHellenicStudies
JRA JournalofRomanArchaeology
JRS JournalofRomanStudies
LCM LiverpoolClassicalMonthly
MD Materialiediscussioniperl’analisideitesticlassici
MEFRA E´cole franc¸aise de Rome: Me´langes: section anti-
quite´
NC TheNumismaticChronicle
NSc Notiziedegliscavidiantichita`
4
ORF E. Malcovati (ed.), Oratorum Romanorum Frag-
menta,4thedn.(Turin,1976)
PBSR PapersoftheBritishSchoolatRome
PCPS ProceedingsoftheCambridgePhilologicalSociety
Peter H.Peter(ed.),HistoricumRomanorumFragmenta
(Leipzig,1883)
RBPh Revuebelgedephilologieetd’histoire
REA Revuedese´tudesanciennes
Riv.Fil. Rivistadifilologiaediistruzioneclassica
Riv.Stor.It. Rivistastoricaitaliana
SCI ScriptaclassicaIsraelica
SEG SupplementumepigraphicumGraecum(1923– )
Sk. O. Skutsch, The Annals of Q. Ennius Edited with
IntroductionandCommentary(Oxford,1985)
SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta
(1903– )
3
Syll. W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Grae-
carum,3rdedn.(1915–24)
ZPE Zeitschriftfu¨rPapyrologieundEpigraphik
Introduction
1. ON MYTHS REMEMBERED AND
FORGOTTEN
In one of the rare post-classical artistic representations of the
myth of Romulus’ asylum, the asylum is a small but resplen-
dent,whitestone‘classical’templeatthecentreofthepainting.
It is set well back and framed by a rugged natural landscape,
wildgrasses,rocks,mountainsandtrees,thedistantfocalpoint
of the two groups of fugitives represented as hurrying towards
it: two Wgures at the edge, their legs hidden by the frame, and,
standingontherockattheothersideofthepaintingamanwith
a small boy who points at the asylum. Beneath the painting, in
the centre of the frame, the magniWcently inscribed motto ad-
dresses the viewer: ‘Sacrarium praebeat securitatem’, ‘Let the
sanctuaryoVersafety’.ThepaintingformspartoftheRomulus
cycle from the walls of the salon of the late sixteenth-century
Palazzo Magnani in Bologna, the combined work of the three
Carracci,Ludovicoandhisbetter-knowncousinsAgostinoand
Annibale.1 The order of the asylum, the Wfth painting within
the cycle, disturbed the seventeenth-century biographer of the
Carracci, Carlo Cesare Malvasia, enough for him to check his
Livy, Plutarch, and Florus to conWrm his suspicion that it
2
belongednotbeforethefoundationofthecity,butafterit.
Theorderinwhichthescenesappearislikelytobeamatter
of deliberate choice, just like the selection of scenes depicted,
and the label inscribed below each of them. It is, for example,
no surprise that Romulus’ fratricide, with its unfortunate im-
plications of civil war, is omitted from this cycle. As for the
1 ThepaintingoftheasylumwasattributedtoAgostinointhe1678biog-
raphy of the Carracci written by Malvasia, and has not been seriously dis-
cussed since then. I am very grateful to David Stone for discussing the
Carracciwithme.
2 Summerscale2000:153.
2 Introduction
order of paintings in the cycle, it is true that this follows the
sequenceofPlutarch,whoplacestheasyluminadigressionout
ofnarrativetimesothatreadersaretoldaboutitbeforetheyare
toldthestoryofthefoundationofthecityitself.Butplacingthe
asylumearlyinthesequencesurelyalsosuitedthedesiresofthe
CarracciandtheirpatronLorenzoMagnanitoemphasizeboth
theremarkablecharacterofBologna,basedontheopennessand
initiative of her citizens, like that of her model, ancient Rome,
andthecharacterofMagnani’spalazzoitself,aplaceofsecurity,
3
strengthandnobilitythatrecalleditsclassicalprototype.
Plutarch’s version of the myth of Romulus’ asylum is cer-
tainly one of the noblest that survives from classical antiquity,
with its emphasis on the most traditional sense of asylum as a
place of sanctuary. But the atmosphere of calm, elegance, and
monumentality conveyed by the painting of the asylum in the
PalazzoMagnaniisnotingeneralthatconveyedbythemultiple
ancient versions of the story that Romulus, needing to people
thenewcity,openedupanasylum‘betweenthetwogroves’for
(variously) all-comers, political refugees from oppressive re-
gimes, slaves, an immigrant assortment of Latins, Etruscans,
4
Phrygians,andArcadians. Thisisoneofthenumerousstories
associated with the beginnings of Rome that has potentially
very unfortunate overtones, that even in antiquity provoked
both scorn and apology,such as theidea that Rome’s founders
weresuckledbyawolf,thatthecityitselfwasfoundedonanact
of fratricide, and that both Roman marriage and the origins of
5
theRomanpeoplewerebasedonrape. Thus,whileRomulus’
3 Plut.Rom.9;Stanzani,‘Lestorie’,inEmiliani1989:177–85,180–1;cf.
Boschloo1974:1.25–8.
4 Florus1.9fortheethnicassortment.
5 Scornandapology:fortherapeoftheSabinewomen,seee.g.Cic.deRep.
2. 12; D.H. Ant. Rom. 2. 30. 5 for the rape as ‘an ancient Greek custom’;
Augustine clearly found the myth of Romulus’ Asylum very suggestive as a
metaphorforbaptismandredemption:intheverypositivecontextsofCD1.
34,theasylumisinterestinglycreditedtobothRomulusandRemus;butsee
ContraCresconium13.16fordistancingfromthesincityofRomulus’asylum
inthecontextofdebatewiththeDonatists(cf.MinuciusFelix25.2);onthe
treatmentoftheasylumstorybyAugustineandbyServiusthe‘pagan’com-
mentatoronVergil,seeBruggisser1987:163V.;forthethesisthatmuchof
Romanmythologyishostileinvention,seeStrasburger1968;formoreplaus-
iblealternatives,seee.g.Cornell1975,1986;BremmerandHorsfall1987.
Introduction 3
asylum could be made to stand for ‘traditional’ Roman ‘open-
ness’ to noble refugees, it was hard ever to write out entirely
overtones of ignobility, the implication that Rome and the
Roman citizen body were descended from slaves, sinners, a
deeply uncomfortable mixture of races and classes that upset a
socially and cosmically pleasing emphasis on distinction, the
‘crapofRomulus’asCicerosoeloquentlyputit.Furthermore,
unlikeevenotherpotentiallyignoblestoriesofRome’sorigins,
that of the asylum was, as we shall see, visually poor, desper-
atelyhardtorepresentinitslackofaction,distinctivecharacters
ormonuments.
The eVorts of the Carracci to ennoble, and indeed even to
picture,theasylumconstituteaninterestingBolognesechapter
in the Renaissance imaginative reconstruction of the monu-
ments that signiWed Rome’s Wnest hours.6 The appropriation
andtranslationoftheasylumintoaclassicalmonumentofcalm
andsecurityfarremovedfromthedoubtsandquestionsraised
by surviving classical textual versions highlights some of the
real oddness of what is in all probability a not very ancient
foundation myth of the Roman citizen-body, a myth that
loomedlargeinthelateRepublicandtheearlyimperialperiod.
Whilemodernscholarshaveatendencytoinsistonthe‘purely
juridical’—as opposed to ‘ethnic’ or ‘cultural’—nature of
Roman identity, with its basis in the citizenship, the myth of
the asylum is strikingly uninterested in the legal procedures
ofmanumission or enfranchisement, and withinaRoman con-
text an unusually impersonal, collective, and potentially even
popularistdescent-myththatengagescloselywithawell-known
6 FlavioBiondo,inhisRomaInstaurata(composed1444–6)II,57,fol.c r
iii
locatedtheasylumatthetempleofFortunaVirilis,followinghisreadingsof
LivyandOvid.ThefactthatthisareaaroundtheForumBoariumwasinhis
day frequented by loose women and runaways enhanced the likelihood that
thiswasthecorrectsite.Itis,ironically,perhapsthelinkwiththetempleof
Fortuna Virilis that encourages subsequent imagination of the asylum as a
temple:anEtruscanthree-cellaonelikethetempleofFortunaVirilisinFabio
Calvo’s 1527 Simulachrum of the Capitoline, and a simpler, more ‘classical’
versioninhisSimulachraofRomeatthetimeofPlinytheElder,andRoma
Quadrata, both also of 1527 (Jacks 1993: 198–9 with Wgs. 58–9); see, in
general,Barkan1999.