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Wronging Sempronia*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

J. Lea Beness  and
Tom Hillard
J. Lea Beness
Affiliation:
Macquarie [email protected]
Tom Hillard
Affiliation:
[email protected]
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Abstract

In 133 BC, when Scipio Aemilianus heard of the violent death of his cousin and brother-in-law, Ti. Gracchus, he uttered a line from Homer: ‘Thus perish all who attempt such.’ In effect, this endorsed the lynching of Gracchus. At a deeper level, it cast Gracchus (in the Homeric context of that quotation) as the tyrant Aegisthus. It may also have suggested an image of moral turpitude, Aegisthus having debauched his cousin Agamemnon’s wife. By analogy (if intended), that would have suggested an adulterous union between Gracchus and his sister Sempronia. It is further suggested that gossip arising from this extraordinary insinuation might have prompted a special reading of the claims circa 102 BC of L. Equitius to be the bastard son of Gracchus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 50 , November 2016 , pp. 80 - 106
Copyright
© The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2017 

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Footnotes

*

This paper arose as part of the Macquarie Dictionary of Roman Biography Project, generously funded in its initial phases by Dr Colleen McCullough-Robinson. It was first delivered at the 34th Conference of ASCS. We thank Professor Ron Ridley and Dr Sarah Lawrence for their probing comments on that occasion; Dr Patrick Tansey and Assoc. Prof. Kathryn Welch (after delivery at Macquarie University); and lastly, the participants in the University of Queensland Classics and Ancient History Research Seminar (April 2016), at which the paper received its most rigorous and animated reception. We are also grateful to the journal’s two anonymous readers who engaged in such detailed and constructive fashion with both the content and structure of the argument; they are responsible for a considerably trimmer version of the hypothesis. Any current reader, seeking a fuller apparatus in support of any particular element of the speculation offered herein, should contact the authors.

References

1 And temerity would often outstrip taste: see the general comments of Ronald Syme, supported by examples, ‘Bastards in the Roman Aristocracy’, PAPhS 104 (1960) 323-7, at 324.

2 A selection can be found in Plutarch’s Romaion Apophthegmata ‘Cato the Elder’ 1-20 [= Mor. 198D-199B]; cf. Cat. Mai. 8. For more targeted barbs, see id. ‘Cato’ 21 [199B] and 29 [199E-F]. On Cato’s castigation of fellow-citizens as election winning, Plut. Cat. Mai. 16.5-6.

3 Connors, Cf. C., ‘Epic allusion in Roman satire’, in Kirk Freudenburg (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge 2005) 123-145 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 128-129 (not suggesting that Lucilius ought to be seen as having a narrow political agenda). See also F. Muecke, ‘Rome’s first ‘satirists’: themes and genre in Ennius and Lucilius’, in id., 33-47, at 42-3.

4 On Scipio’s friendship with Lucilius, see Hor. Sat. 2.1.71-74; Pseudacron. ad Sat. 2.1.72; cf. E.S. Gruen, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (Ithaca NY 1992) 280-283. For Scipio’s acerbic tongue, Cic. de Orat. 2.267 (on Caprarius); Plut. Apophth. Scip. Min. 9, 13, 17, 22 (= Mor. 200C-D, 200E-201A, 201C-D, 201E-F). He was a master of irony: Cic. de Orat. 2.270.

5 P. Veyne, ‘The Roman Empire’, in P. Ariès and G. Duby (eds), A History of Private Life I From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge 1987) 172; cf. Corbeill, A., Controlling Laughter: Political Humor in the Late Roman Republic (Princeton 1996) 19 Google Scholar.

6 We know that such ‘sayings’ were collected in the second century: Cicero’s reference to Cato’s collection (Off. 1.104) seems to suggest that there were others; cf. A.E. Astin, Cato the Censor (Oxford 1978) 186-7.

7 It is not inappropriate to speak of a culture of public abuse. See, e.g., J. Ingleheart, ‘Play on the Proper Names of Individuals in the Catullan Corpus: Wordplay, the Iambic Tradition, and the Late Republican Culture of Public Abuse’, JRS 104 (2014) 51-72, see esp. 54-55 (and nn. 27-28 for further references); cf. the comments of Paul Veyne (n. 5).

8 However, see the argument of G-Ph. Schietinger, ‘Die letzte Schlacht des Scipio Aemilianus. Überlegungen zu seinen innenpolitischen Absichten im Jahr 129 v.Chr’, Tyche 29 (2014) 165-182, at 169-170 (cautioning against the too ready assumption that [i] Laelius’ proposed reform closely paralleled the lex Sempronia agraria as later promulgated by Gracchus and [ii] that Scipio stood behind his friend Laelius in this cause).

9 Cic. Mil. 8; cf. de Orat. 2.106 (somewhat qualified – iure caesum videri). On the date, see Beness, J.L., ‘Carbo’s Tribunate of 129 and the Associated Dicta Scipionis ’, Phoenix 63 (2009) 60-72 Google Scholar. This was a judgement that seems to have found its way into Livy, and thence the ‘Livian tradition’ ([Liv.] Per. 59 (iure caesum videri); Flor. 2.2 (3.14).7: quasi iure oppressus est).

10 Vell. 2.4.4.

11 That moderated language did not serve the purpose of softening reception. The People remembered all too well an earlier utterance (with which we shall deal immediately below). On the tensions aroused, see recently Schietinger (n. 8) 165-6 (and the scholarship cited therein).

12 Plutarch (TG 21.4) reports that it was this declaration that partly lost Scipio the goodwill of the people. Its wide dissemination, then, is a given.

13 Const. Exc. 4, p. 387, no. 412.

14 And, further suggestive of broad circulation, see n. 12.

15 See, again, Appendix 1.

16 The fullest discussion of which we are aware is that of Paula Botteri, Les Fragments de l’histoire des Gracques dans la Bibliothèque de Diodore de Sicile (Genève 1992) 61.

17 Two examples alone perhaps do not permit us to say that Scipio was accustomed to quoting Homer at significant moments, but it will be remembered that, upon watching Carthage consumed by flames, Scipio recited Hector’s lines at Iliad 6.448-449; Diod. Sic. 32.24; Appian, Lib. 132. (Does this have the imprimatur of Polybius? Probably. See F.W. Walbank, Polybius. A Historical Commentary on Polybius III [Oxford 1979] 722-3 – and the item is usually taken as a fragment of Polybius’ work [Polyb. 38.22]. Polybius is certainly known to have covered the incident; cf. Polyb. 38.21.)

18 This is as far as Botteri ([n. 16] 61) would go, reflecting that ‘it is difficult to think of a synkrisis between Aegisthus and Tiberius Gracchus’, but adding that ‘one cannot fail to be struck . . . by the allusion to the legitimacy of certain assassinations.’ See, however, the remarks to follow.

The sacral aspects of the slaying of Tiberius Gracchus should not be overlooked: see esp. Linderski, J., ‘The Pontiff and the Tribune: The Death of Tiberius Gracchus’, Athenaeum 90 (2002) 339-366 Google Scholar [= Roman Questions II. Selected Papers (Stuttgart 2007) 88-114]; E. Badian, ‘The Pig and the Priest’, in H. Heftner and K. Tomaschitz (eds), Ad Fontes! Festschrift für Gerhard Dobesch zum fünfundsechzigsten Geburtstag am 15. September 2004 (Wien 2004) 263-72.

19 For Aemilianus’ culture, Vell. Pat. 1.13.3; cf. A.E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford 1967) 15-16 (and in particular here we might note, as relevant to the discussion which follows, the friendship with Lucilius [see n. 4]).

20 Carelessness in this regard was considered the height of incompetence: cf. the example of ineptitude at Plut. Quaest. conviv. 9.1.3.2 [= Mor. 737B]. Cf. E. Champlin, ‘Agamemnon at Rome. Roman Dynasts and Greek Heroes’, in D. Braund and C. Gill (eds), Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome. Studies in Honour of T.P. Wiseman (Exeter 2003) 295-319, at 299 n. 12.

By way of relevant parallel, see Cic. Cael. 18, where Cicero picks up a tag from Ennius’ Medea exsul: ‘Would the timber had ne’er been felled on Pelion’s slopes’ – a quotation already used (in the same case by Crassus, pro Caelio frag. 12 Malc.). At the most superficial level this was an argumentum remotum, a chain of causation that had ideally never happened. (On the popularity of this particular trope, see Beness, J.L. and Hillard, T., ‘Insulting Cornelia’, Antichthon 47 [2013] 61-79 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 61-2.) But in the hands of a master it took on a double potency; for Cicero, it led the way to the advent of a witch, a dangerous sorceress with murderous intent: the introduction to Clodia as the Palatina Medea (loc. cit.).

21 Botteri (n. 16) 61.

22 On the familiarity of the Roman audience with the Atreus cycle, see Champlin (n. 20) 295-319, esp. 296-7, 315-8.

Aegisthus was a villain who, in the retelling (at least, as we move from Aeschylus to Sophocles), grew in stature – if stature is to be measured by menacing threat (cf. G. Gellie, Sophocles: A Reading [Melbourne 1972] 127-8).

23 See Livius Andronicus’ Aegisthus, particularly frags 12-13 Warmington [= Non. 23, 20]; cf. the discussion of this play by A.J. Boyle, Roman Tragedy (London and New York 2006) 30-3.

24 For the claims of regnum, well enough known, see e.g. Cic. Amic. 41; Sall. Iug. 31.7. Perhaps also tyranny. If we can trust Plutarch (TG 19.3), Scipio Nasica on that fateful summer day in 133 called in the Senate for the consul Mucius Scaevola to save the state and ‘put down’ the tyrant: ὁ δὲ Νασικᾶς ἠξίου τὸν ὕπατον τῇ πόλει βοηθεῖν καὶ καταλύειν τὸν τύραννον. In later Roman rhetoric, the label would be close to synonymous with rex, yet both less specific and more perjorative: J. Hellegouarc’h, Le vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la République (Paris 1972) 561-2 (see also n. 34, below). The accusation with regard to Gracchus is not registered by Hellegouarc’h, presumably because it is not vouchsafed in Latin. (That does not rule out Plutarch having picked up the report of such a charge from a Latin source.)

25 Nonius 90, 5 = Pacuvius Dulorestes 142-3 (Warmington).

26 Readers familiar with the fragments of Pacuvius may have concerns that this play is often regarded as one of Pacuvius’ last, and that two lines often assigned to the Dulorestes are reported in Cicero’s de Amicitia, set in 129, as having been performed for the first time ‘recently’. They may, in consequence, suspect that the play was first performed after Scipio left for Numantia in early 134. These concerns are countered in Appendix 2, wherein – for those who hold to a traditional but unlikely chronology of Pacuvian tragedies – alternative options are proposed.

27 Another line preserved by Nonius (179, 11) is tentatively ascribed to the Dulorestes and, it has been suggested, belongs to Aegisthus threatening an individual (Electra?) with imprisonment, privation and torture (nam te in tenebrica saepe lacerabo fame / clausam et fatigans artus torto distraham: Pacuvius 131-2 [Warmington], with Nonius explaining that torto is used for tormento).

28 Hellegouarc’h (n. 24) 560, with nn. 8-18, and 561, with nn. 11-16.

29 We borrow, above, the gloss by Wiseman, T.P., Remembering the Roman People. Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford 2009) 195 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. How anachronistic – or, alternatively, how historistic – were the utterances of Cicero’s Scipio? (Recall that Sempronius Asellio reported that Gracchus travelled about with between four to five thousand men: Histories 5, frag. 6 Peter, 7 Chassignet and Cornell [= Gell. NA 2.13.4], cited above). It was the terrorising bodyguard that characterised the tyrant: Dunkle, J.R., ‘The Greek Tyrant and Roman Political Invective of the Late Republic’, TAPhA 98 (1967) 151-171 Google Scholar, at 164. This is discussed in many places, but cf. Seaforth, R., ‘Tragic Tyranny’, in K. Morgan (ed.), Popular Tyranny. Sovereignty and its Discontents in Ancient Greece (Austin 2003) 95-115 Google Scholar, at 100-1 and 113 n. 35 (where Seaforth adjusts the reading of Aeschylus’ Choephori 1650 accordingly).

30 Pompey filched the association along with the victories: Champlin (n. 20) esp. 297-303.

31 Aeschylus: Eumenides (London 2009) 20.

32 On Gracchan claims, Gaius Gracchus, de legibus promulgatis frag. 47 Malc. [= Schol. Bob. p. 81, 18-24 Stangl]; cf. [Auct.] ad Herenn. 4.22; 42. The competition lies behind Cornelia’s famous complaint at Plut. TG 8.

For the suspected innuendo, Judge, ‘The Mind of Tiberius Gracchus’ (unpublished paper, 1966) 30. These suggestions were offered by Judge in lectures delivered at the University of Sydney and at Macquarie University 1967-1980. A part of that paper and this particular insight can now be found in Edwin Judge, Engaging Rome and Jerusalem. Historical Essays for Our Time, selected and edited by Stuart Piggin (Melbourne 2014) 11-33, at 32-3.

33 From this point, the speculation becomes more adventurous. Readers may wish to rest content with the possibility that Scipio was equating Gracchus with Aegisthus as a populist tyrant (an observation not to our knowledge previously made) and follow us no further – without us taking personal offence.

34 His name resonated with depravity – even within a particularly dysfunctional family. He was, inter alia, the product of an incestuous union between his father Thyestes and Thyestes’ daughter Pelopia. He came to premature maturity at the age of seven when, after an inept attempt at inadvertent parricide (inadvertent in the sense that he was ignorant of his intended victim’s identity), he became the willing agent of his father’s fratricide by commission (Hyg. Fab. 87-88; Apollod., Epit. 2.14). His seduction of Clytemnestra was not opportunistic, but planned with murderous forethought (Ath. 1.14b).

In Ciceronian usage, the charge of being a tyrannus, more wide-ranging than the accusation of adpetitio regni and at the same time more clearly pejorative, carried within its purview a lack of restraint in terms of one’s libido (Hellegouarc’h, Le vocabulaire latin [n. 24] 561-2, esp. 562 n. 3, citing Cic. 2 Verr. 1. 82). On Antony as the epitome of the lustful tyrant, see T. Stevenson, ‘Tyrants, Kings and Fathers in the Philippics’, in Stevenson and M. Wilson (eds), Cicero’s Philippics. History, Rhetoric and Ideology (Auckland 2008) 95-113, at 100 n. 17.

35 Zeus’ complaint at Od. 1.32-34 has been taken on board! The gods are not to blame for human evil.

36 Suet. Div. Iul. 50.1.

37 loc. cit. The same tract, or something similar (an oratio of Curio the Elder) is cited at Div. Iul. 9.2. It is possible that this material came to Suetonius at second hand (B. Baldwin, Suetonius [Amsterdam 1983] 113-14), though this is not necessary (A. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius [London 1983] 63-4).

38 Plut. Pomp. 42.7. And even M. Aemilius Scaurus, Pompey’s erstwhile associate, missed the cue in taking up the option of marrying the divorced Mucia (Ascon. Scaur. 19-20C).

39 The association arises again in Ovid’s Rem. Amor. 161-2. An adulterer with too much time on his hands, Aegisthus is a (military) slaggard: desidiosus erat. The association hardly fits the mural-crown-winning Gracchus, unless we speculate that there was here some obscure allusion to the Numantine debacle, a case of military engagement avoided at scandalous cost (with Gracchus back in Rome, while Aemilianus attended to its aggressive remedy – a prolonged siege, no less, to continue the Homeric parallel). The allusion would have been extended and obscure, indeed.

40 Dunkle (n. 29) 164.

41 Phalarismós was, Cicero reports, the phenomenon feared by Atticus (Cic. Att. 7.12.2), though here, it must be said, an allusion to the eradication of political enemies lies at its core (Cic. Off. 2.25; cf. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus 6[Cambridge 1968] 302).

42 Gildenhard, I., ‘Greek Auxiliaries: Tragedy and Philosophy in Ciceronian Invective’, in J. Booth (ed.), Cicero on the Attack. Invective and Subversion in the Orations and Beyond (Swansea 2007) 149-182 Google Scholar, at 171.

43 Watson, L., ‘Catullus and the Poetics of Incest’, in M. Johnson (ed.), Catullus in Contemporary Perspective [a special edition of Antichthon 40 (2006)] 35-49 Google Scholar; Moreau, P., ‘Rome: The Invisible Children of Incest’, in V. Dasen and T. Späth (eds), Children, Memory, and Family Identity in Roman Culture (Oxford and New York 2010) 311-329 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Mowbray, ‘Captive Audience? The Aesthetics of Nefas in Senecan Drama’, in I. Sluiter and R.M. Rosen (eds), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity, Mnem. Suppl. Monographs on Greek and Latin Language and Literature 350 (Leiden and Boston 2012) 393-420. For the gravity of the allegation, see F. Hickson-Hahn, ‘What’s So Funny? Laughter and Incest in Invective Humor’, Syllecta Classica 9 (1998) 1-36, at 1-3, esp. 1 n. 2 (for previous scholarship), a study which finds, not surprisingly, that there was nothing ‘funny’ in the way that Roman authors used allegations of incest within the humour of invective to castigate a target of polemical diminution. By doing so, they underlined what was considered unacceptable behaviour (see esp. 34-6).

44 E.g. Cic. Cael. 69 (an allusion to an obscenissima fabula was sufficient to kindle a remembrance in the minds of jurors – effective, even if Quintilian [6.3.25] judged such a tactic unworthy of a man of gravity); cf. Cael. 62 (an allusion to ‘that quadrans deal’).

45 Cic. Mil. 73.

46 S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage. Iusti Coniuges From the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford 1991) 311-12. Not for the Roman husband, it would seem, the painful anguish of unmanning felt by Shakespeare’s Othello (III.iii.353); cf. the reading of J. Dusinberre, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (Houndmills, Basingstoke 1975/2003) 302-3.

This is slightly complicated by the stories (as told) of Pompey, gemens, accusing Caesar of having debauched his (sc. Pompey’s) wife. We have, however, addressed that earlier (in the text above n. 38), suggesting that the characterisation of a groaning Pompey is to be explained by the identity of the probable source (see n. 37). The item was not intended sympathetically, but was part of an attack on both Caesar and Pompey; we might also note that the Romans were certainly concerned with the accidental product of adultery (a point which Treggiari would also underline); on the Roman stage, we have Atreus’ apparent obsession with the pollution of his bed. And note Catullus’ concern that a son look like his father and should be easily recognised as such by all (61. 217-221; cf., for the same concept, Hor. Odes 4.5.23; Mart. 6.27.3 [the latter recognised by commentators as possibly a reminiscence of the Catullan passage – see e.g. C.J. Fordyce, Catullus (Oxford 1961) 253]; it was already an ancient convention [see e.g. P. Green, The Poems of Catullus (Berkeley 2005) 235]), to which we might add the joke of ‘Julia’ at Macrob. Sat. 2.5.9. Treggiari’s argument is largely based on inference, but her point is well worth taking. Lucullus’ readiness to ‘go public’ in the way that he did is very apropos to this article.

47 The latter observation (i.e., that the rumour found no purchase in the historical tradition) is evidence neither one way nor the other. We draw attention to the aenigmata referred to above.

Plutarch can be seen to have preserved detailed items for which he did not have a full appreciation, lacking the background. For example, his statement at TG 8.6 that Gracchus was spurred on by rivalry with a certain Spurius Postumius. The nub of Gracchus’ anxiety was Postumius’ genealogy: see Judge (n. 32) 32 [33]; L. Hayne, ‘The Condemnation of Sp. Postumius Albinus’, AClass 24 (1981) 61-70.

48 App. BC 1.20.83.

49 On the dating of the outcry, see Beness, J.L., ‘Scipio Aemilianus and the Crisis of 129 B.C.’, Historia. Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 54.1 (2005) 37-48 Google Scholar, at 39. This chronology is accepted by Schietinger (n. 8) who builds upon it with the interesting hypothesis that Scipio was aiming at a third consulship (that would have given him, in the new circumstances [App. BC 1.19.79-80], judicial powers to thwart the Gracchan land commission).

50 See LSJ, s.v. περί, C.2.

51 Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (n. 19) 240. The Loeb translation by F.C. Babbitt (‘the men about Gracchus’) heads in the same direction.

52 Radt, S.L., ‘Noch einmal Aischylos, Niobe Fr. 162 N.2 (278 M.)’, ZPE 38 (1980) 47-58 Google Scholar. We take the opportunity here of correcting an error of transmission in Beness’s earlier article ([n. 49] 40, n. 16).

53 On Gaius’ service under Scipio at Numantia, see Plut. TG 13.1. (Against this must be set the evidence also provided by Plutarch [TG 20.2], indicating by way of reference to Gaius’ appeal for his brother’s body, that he was in Rome – at the least shortly after the massacre, if not before).

With regard to the outcry in 129, Plutarch may be designating Gaius and his partisans (as M. Renard [‘L’assassinat de Scipion Emilien’, RUB 37 (1932) 483-98, at 485] and C. Nicolet [‘Le de republica [VI, 12] et la dictature de Scipion’, REL 42 [1964] 212-30, at 224], have interpreted it) or may be referring simply to Gaius (as F. Münzer, RE Cornelius 335, col. 1457, and J. Carcopino, Autour des Gracques [Paris 1928/1967] 88-9; cf. 98, believed). What is certain, however, is the involvement of Gaius (in Plutarch’s mind). It is probable, as Beness suggested earlier (loc. cit. above), that Gaius was throwing back into the faces of his enemies the charges of regnum that had been levelled against his brother, with whose cause he now clearly identified. The charge of aiming at regnum, as remarked above (n. 28), had been more readily levelled at those of popularis inclination; the latter were now repaying in kind (the charge being of tyranny rather than regnum). If Macrobius’ commentary on the ‘Dream of Scipio’ accurately captures (or even reflects) the language and sentiments of the time, namely of 129 bc, Gaius Gracchus (and those about him) might have been angrily taking up the language of those like Scipio’s intimate friend Laelius, who bemoaned the absence in Rome of honorific statues commemorating Scipio Nasica – who merited such celebration ‘on account of his having killed the tyrant’ (in interfecti tyranni remunerationem): In Somn. 1.4.2. According to Plut. TG 21.3, the demos had already applied the label of tyrant to Nasica.

54 On his age, see Vell. Pat. 2.4.6.

55 No datum went unchallenged in this volatile situation. According to some, he died naturally, ‘being of sickly disposition’ (Plut. Rom. 27.4).

56 App. BC 1.20.83; [Liv.] Per. 59; Oros. 5.10.10; Schol. Bob. Mil. p. 118 St. [p. 72 Hildebrandt]; cf. Cic. Rep. 6.12 (one of the propinqui?) and 14.

57 App. BC loc. cit.; cf. Oros. loc. cit. (if we were to read the reference there to a plurality of ‘women of that seditious family’ literally – which is unnecessary).

58 Thus, the rather surprising (at first sight) observation of Marja-Leena Hänninen: ‘the picture of Sempronia is actually somewhat negative in the literature of the imperial period’ (‘Currus avorum: Roman Noble Women in Family Traditions’, in H. Whittaker [ed.], In Memoriam. Commemoration, Communal Memory and Gender Values in the Ancient Graeco-Roman World [Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2011] 42-59, at 45). She means other than in the anecdote preserved by Valerius Maximus to which she gives her attention – and which we discuss below. Hänninen does not offer references for this ‘negative picture’, but these have been supplied above (n. 56) and are discussed above in the text immediately following.

59 Plutarch seems not have countenanced the slander: CG 10.4-5; Rom. 27.4.

60 For further discussion of Sempronia’s role (or the roles in which she was cast), see A.-C. Harders, Suavissima Soror. Untersuchungen zu den Bruder-Schwester-Beziehungen in der römischen Republik (München 2008) 128-37, underlining the tension between Sempronia’s strong ties to her brothers and the expected roles of a wife. In no source does Sempronia appear, as might be expected of a wife, as an intermediary and/or mediator between the two contending parties. The sources that subscribe to her murder of her husband (see in particular the scholiast of Bobbio who actually seems to cast Gaius and Sempronia as partners-in-crime) underline the enormity of Sempronia’s choice of allegiance. She was a veritable Fury. Harders characterises her, according to this tradition (which stands in contradistinction to that retailed by Valerius Maximus which Harders proceeds to analyse), as a ‘frustrated Fury’ (eine frustriert Furie). We might rather think – in terms of the hypothesis advanced here – that contemporaries who inclined to that version of events but who were disposed to a more sympathetic reading of her role thought of her as an avenging Fury.

61 The parallel with the later case of Clodia (discussed above), another woman tagged Clytemnestra by those who wished her ill, is striking: Quint. 8.6.53. The allegation of murderer is developed in Clodia’s case by Cicero at Cael. 59-60; Skinner, cf. M.B., Clodia Metelli. The Tribune’s Sister (Oxford 2011) 6, 87-89 Google Scholar.

62 Cf. Appian’s reference to the multitude (τὸ πλῆθος) who acted, in 100, out of ‘longing’ for Gracchus (πόθῳ Γράκχου); BC 1.32.141.

63 For Metellus Numidicus’ pronouncement on the three sons of Tiberius Gracchus, see Val. Max. 9.7.2. Only one of those seems to have been alive by the end of 133: Gell. NA 2.13.4-5. One of them may have still been alive in the 120s, but he was, even by then, apart from the soon-to-die Gaius Gracchus, the last survivor of the extended household (C. Gracchus, frag. 47 Malc. [= Schol. Bob. Sull. p. 81 St.]). (Gracchus is talking, of course, of male issue. Our colleague Patrick Tansey believes that the child referred to by Gaius Gracchus was his own son. For a fuller discussion, see Tansey’s forthcoming register of Roman political marriages.)

64 Appian (cited above in n. 62) reports that the plethos supported Equitius because of their ‘yearning’ for Gracchus.

65 The image is repeated; Valerius seems fascinated by the pretender. At 3.8.6, Equitius is described as illum nescio quibus tenebris protactum portentum—a portent drawn from who knows what dark shadow.

66 If Florus is followed, Equitius either claimed (or was known by) the tria nomina C. [Sempronius] Gracchus (2[3.16].4.2, the only nomenclature that Florus offers for the individual – though he dismisses the claim, explicitly labelling the man sine tribu . . . sine nomine). Cicero (Rab. perd. 20) gives his origin as servile; Appian (BC 1.32.141) makes him a fugitive slave; the de viris illustribus (73.3) has him as a libertinus. Cf. F. Cavaggioni, L. Apuleio Saturnino. Tribunus plebis seditiosus (Venezia, Memorie, Classe di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti 79, 1998) 37-9.

Based on the ancient testimony cited above, some are prepared to see Equitius as a freedman – or son of one; cf. H. Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World (Cambridge 2011) 272 and n. 95 – though Cicero’s language is colourful, depicting the man as straight from the fetters and the slave shed (ille ex compedibus atque ergastulo Gracchus) and Appian’s description of the man as δραπέτης points to the same or a similar source of ‘information’ (and is quite distinct from his later more precise reference to P. Furius, another tribune of that time, as ‘not the son of a free man but a freedman’ [BC 1.33.147]). Perhaps allowance should be made here for rhetoric. Even in the latter case there is room for uncertainty; Dio (frag. 93.2) accords Furius prior equestrian standing (not, of course, ruling out a libertine ancestry). On this strain of rhetoric, see J.L. Beness and T. Hillard, ‘Another Voice Against the ‘Tyranny’ of Scipio Aemilianus in 129 B.C.?’, Historia 61.3 (2012) 270-81, at 278-81.

67 Suzanne Dixon (Cornelia. Mother of the Gracchi [London and New York 2007] 31) takes Sempronia’s appearance here, as extraordinary as it was, to be that of ‘the authoritative representative of her birth family’ in the wake of Cornelia’s probable demise by this point. (Giuseppe Corradi, Cornelia e Sempronia [Rome 1946] 34-5, had presumed something similar; Hänninen [n. 58] follows Dixon.) Simply that? The putative ‘letter of Cornelia’ (Nepos, de Latinis Historicis [frag. 59 Teubner] excerpt 2 [= P. Cugusi, Epistolographi Latini Minores (Turin 1970) I, 124.4]), whether authentic or not, insinuates that the married Sempronia was not considered as a member of her birth family: ‘Cornelia’ counts Gaius as the last remaining of her liberi. Nor did Gaius Gracchus in his public oratory (see the fragment cited above in n. 63) count Sempronia as part of the surviving familia of Scipio Africanus and Tiberius Gracchus the Elder. (Such legalism need not, of course, rule out Dixon’s understanding of what passed muster in the rough and tumble of politics at this point – her cue is provided by Valerius’ remark that Sempronia did nothing to diminish the grandeur of her family [3.8.6], but it does not strengthen it. Dixon has recourse here to the rather elaborative account of R.A. Bauman [Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (London 1992) 48-50, 231, with n. 25], which she regards as authoritative. Bauman sees Sempronia as drawn as a witness into a criminal trial [for which there is no evidence] – and, as the only surviving child of Cornelia, the custodian of the ‘family papers’ [which is, again, speculation, however assertively expressed].)

68 This was not an exact parallel of the ius osculi, which extended to cousins in the sixth degree (Athenaeus 440F; cf. M. Bettini, Anthropology and the Romans. Kinship, Time, Images of the Soul [Baltimore 1991] 252 n. 11), of which bibulous women were the antique targets, but it must be acknowledged, all the same, that nothing can be asserted of the precise nature of the alleged relationship on this piece of evidence.

69 Equitius is depicted as advancing on her with execrable temerity to claim a relationship not his to claim (exsecrabili audacia ad usurpandam alienam propinquitatem tendentem reppulisti: Val. Max. 3.8.6).

70 His supporters, in Valerius Maximus’ telling of the story at this point (3.8.6), are the imperita multitudo and the totum forum.

71 For the register of Equitius’ social poverty, Florus 2.4 (3.16).1. The formula sine notore meant that he was deemed without anyone to vouch for him. The date 101 is given by Valerius Maximus’ reference to Marius’ fifth consulship (and Valerius Maximus is the only source for the incident). Pighius suggested emending the text (or, rather, correcting the author) to read ‘sixth consulship’. Shackleton Bailey in his Loeb translation (2, 345, n. 1) implicitly rejects the option of altering the text, but follows in dating the episode to 100. This decision is doubtless based on Valerius’ indication that Equitius was, at that time, illegally taking a tilt at the tribunate (tribunatumque adversus leges <cum> L. Saturnino petebat). The solution must be that Equitius first sought the tribunate of 100, in conjunction with Saturninus’ candidature in 101, a bid thwarted by the ruckus following the rejection of his claims before the censors of 102/101.

72 See e.g. the evidence compiled by Valerius himself at 9.15 in his section De iis qui infimo loco nati mendacio se clarissimis familiis inserere conati sunt. Such intrusions were clearly regarded with horror, as an inversion of the natural order as well as politically seditious. It is interesting to note in passing that one of these ‘impostors’ passed himself off as the abandoned child of the ‘otherwise blameless’ (clarissima ac sanctissima) Octavia, a claim that would never have been known had it not been preserved by Valerius Maximus, equally outraged – as he is in the case of Equitius – by the foundling’s impudentia and the height of his audacity. In most of these cases retailed by Valerius, the reportage of popular acceptance is a common theme.

73 Val. Max. 9.7.1.

74 For this argument, see Beness, J.L. and Hillard, T.W., ‘The Death of L. Equitius on December 10th, 100 B.C.’, CQ 40.1 (1990) 269-272 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Cavaggioni (n. 66) 168.

75 Valerius Maximus reiterates the falsity of the claim in all but one of the instances in which he introduces an anecdote concerning Equitius (3.8.6 [falsum]; 9.7.1 [simulabat]; 9.7.2, offering an extended argument; 9.15.1 [evidens mendacium]); cf. Florus loc. cit. (subdito titulo).

76 Syme (n. 1) 323. He thus implicitly draws attention here to that paradox (leaving it, perhaps, to an educated audience to spot the contradiction in terms). He also concludes with an emphatic reference to the ‘paradoxical silence’ (327), but it was not a paradox Syme intended his audience to question (see what follows). (The case of Equitius receives only passing reference [324].)

77 Ibid. 326. This is an assertion that invites elaboration. See Appendix 3.

78 Quintil. 8.6.53.

79 It was, to indulge the extended hypothesis, a claim that the elite found outrageous (on multiple grounds) but that the ‘mob’ found strangely attractive. Was Sempronia collateral damage? (See n. 88.)

80 Note that Jane Gardner (Being a Roman Citizen [London and New York 1993] 105-6) offers a very different interpretation of this sentence.

81 Valerius Maximus was instinctively concerned with the issue of women in public. But this we know from another set of exempla (at 8.3, falling as it does, in the first part of Book 8, within a series of largely negative items). He is not here concerned with that particular issue. At 3.8, he is interested in those individuals who courageously exhibited constantia in untoward circumstances. It is within this framework that he is so embarrassed by the context within which he must place Sempronia’s act of courage – and it is with this context that this paper is concerned.

82 As Shackleton Bailey translates in the Loeb edition: ‘it will not be my aim to comprise you in a malicious narrative.’

83 An apparition from Firmum in relatively distant Picenum and from the shadows (a fusion of Val. Max. 3.8.6 and 9.15.1).

84 The strength of his feeling in this regard is apparent at 8.3.3, where he writes about Maesia of Sentinum, Carfania and Hortensia: ‘Nor shall I be silent about those women whose natural conditions and the modesty of the matron’s robe could not keep silent in the Forum and the courts of law’ (trans. Shackleton Bailey).

We would not want to underestimate in any way Valerius’ discomfort in treating this episode (discomfort, that is, from the point of view of conventional manners): the paradox of celebrating Sempronia’s courage and, at the same time, swallowing the sheer distastefulness of picturing a woman in such limelight. See here the interesting gloss by Jane Gardner (n. 80) 105-6 (even though she shows an incautious readiness to date the item with certitude [to 102] – and to make Sempronia’s tormentor, ‘the tribune Equitius’ [sic]).

All the same, the difference was manifest (the other three examples represented cases of voluntary intrusions onto the public stage) and Sempronia’s appearance, as we noted above, enabled her to demonstrate her reluctant courage to the world – and was worthy of celebration. (She did nothing unworthy of the amplitudo of her family [loc. cit.].)

We would cautiously suggest that there might be more to it.

85 Bloomer, M., Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (Chapel Hill and London 1992) 252-253 Google Scholar; cf. B. Sinclair, Valerius Maximus and the Evolution of Silver Latin (PhD Dissertation, University of Cincinnati 1980) 72-80; 88-9.

86 Bloomer (n. 85) 253.

87 Ibid. 249.

88 We refer back to n. 79. Ron Ridley raises the obvious challenge to this line of thought (not, we reiterate, reflecting any ‘reality’, but a conjectured line of popular gossip): Appian reports that Sempronia was childless (BC 1.20.83). That point is taken. Appian is referring, at this point, to her marriage to Scipio, but his observation is, as Ridley observes, categorical. As we said earlier, the rumour of Tiberius Gracchus’ and Sempronia’s serious moral delinquency (if it circulated at all) made no purchase on the historical tradition. Appian was ignorant of any such rumour.

89 We do not see a need to doubt the authenticity of this item, pace Harders (n. 60) 136.

90 The crowd chose not to follow her direction. Nothing daunted, Saturninus continued to push the claims of Equitius, who went on to an ill-fated tribunate.

91 For instances of Plutarch’s use of Poseidonius, see H. Peter, Die Quellen Plutarchs in den Biographieen der Römer (1865/Amsterdam 1965) 56, 75, 77, 103-5, 114, 141; Helmbold, W.C. and O’Neil, E.N., Plutarch’s Quotations (Baltimore and Oxford 1959) 64 Google Scholar.

92 Against this source attribution, however, must be set the observation that Asellio seems to have been little utilised before he ‘found favour with Gellius’ (M. Pobjoy, in T.J. Cornell [ed.], The Fragments of the Roman Historians [Oxford 2013] I, 277) – and, we might add, is never cited by Plutarch. That, of course, is an argument from silence. In any case, the apophthegm need not have reached Poseidonius, Diodorus or Plutarch from Asellio directly.

93 One example survives; Histories/Res Gestae Bk 4, frag. 5 Peter; 6 Chassignet and Cornell [= Gell. NA 13.3.6]. It is worth noting that this maxim extolling the virtues of cautious military leadership (which Scipio, according to Asellio, ascribed to his father, Aemilius Paullus, but which was sometimes attributed in the later tradition to Scipio as his own) was apparently delivered by Scipio during the Numantine campaign (and was thus probably heard by Asellio at first hand). See App. Hisp. 87.379 (for the context); cf. Val. Max. 7.2.2.

94 Cic. Leg. 1.6 indicates that Asellio was writing after L. Coelius Antipater (who, it is thought, was writing around 110 [J. Briscoe, in Cornell (n. 92) 257]) and an allusion to a shoemaker’s knife, conventionally taken to be a reference to the death of M. Livius Drusus (Histories 14, frag. 11 Peter; 13 Chassignet and 11 Cornell [= Gell. NA 13.22.8]), would indicate that Asellio’s work was published after 91; cf. J. Briscoe, in Cornell (n. 92) 1, 308.

The focussed monograph of Polybius, dealing with the Numantine campaign and registered only at Fam. 5.12.2, ought not to be ruled out as another possible source – although it probably focussed on Scipio’s military achievements, eschewing the distractions of ‘sordid’ internal politics. If, however, it did record the item (Polybius being another retailer of Scipionic apophthegms), we have another first-hand source.

95 Asellio 5, frag. 7 Peter; 8 Chassignet and Cornell [= Gell. 2.13.5] records Gracchus’ tearful appeal to the People on the eve of his death; cf. Pobjoy (n. 92) I, 275; III, 282.

96 Nonius is explaining that conciere here means cum perturbatione commovere. He also makes the attribution of the lines to the Dulorestes explicit, though he ascribes the play to Ennius (!). A play of Ennius bearing that title is nowhere else attested; hence the fragment is always assigned to Pacuvius.

97 Petra Schierl translates ‘immediately, publicly declaring loyalty to Aegisthus, they will incite the People (sogleich, die Treue zu Aigisthos öffentlich erklärend, werden sie das Volk aufhetzen)’; Die Tragödien des Pacuvius: ein Kommentar zu den Fragmenten mit Einleitung, Text und Übersetzung (Berlin and New York 2006) 260. Schierl usefully discusses the possible interpretations of the lines, and is rightly confident that fides Aegisthi must refer to an alliance between the citizens and Aegisthus (261).

98 On that celebrity, see, inter alia, G. Manuwald, Pacuvius. Summus tragicus poeta. Zum dramatischen Profil seiner Tragödien (München/Leipzig 2003) 16-19, and Boyle (n. 23), 87-100. On connections with the so-called ‘Scipionic circle’, see e.g. Schierl (n. 97) 3-4. Scipio, it might be imagined, would have appreciated the learned aspect of Pacuvius’ art, upon which, see e.g. Schierl (n. 97) 64-5 (for ancient appreciations of Pacuvius’ doctrina and elegantissima gravitas); cf. G. D’Anna, ‘La dottrina di Marco Pacuvio’, in D’Anna, Problemi di letteratura latina arcaica (Roma 1976) 173-97.

99 This is a datum which W. Beare (The Roman Stage [London 1950, 3rd edn rev. 1964] 79) would treat cautiously, lest it be ‘a touch of fiction’, but most do not. See, however, the caution of Gesine Manuwald (Roman Republican Theatre [Cambridge 2011] 210), wary of Cicero’s idealisation – whilst not rejecting the indication of Pacuvius being a part of the cultural milieu wherein was to be found Scipio, Laelius, Terence, and Lucilius.

100 See e.g. Boyle (n. 23) 88, 106-8. Debate still occurs as to whether the subject was L. Aemilius Paullus’ death at Cannae or his son’s victory at Pydna, and whether the play was performed on the occasion of the latter’s triumph in 167 or at his funeral games in 160 (the implication of the last item being that these will have been organised by Scipio Aemilianus and his brother). Cf. M. Valsa, Marcus Pacuvius. Poète tragique (Paris 1957) 50-1 (evaluating all possibilities, but preferring to envisage a play that celebrated Pydna and Scipio’s father, performed at the latter’s funeral games); G. Manuwald, Fabulae praetextae. Spuren einer literarischen Gattung der Römer (München 2001) 180-96, see esp. 185 (for a registration of relevant modern scholarship on the subject of the play); 186 n. 141 (ditto, for the occasion of the play’s performance); cf. Roman Republican Theatre (n. 99) 210. Our reading suggests that the greater number of scholars subscribe to that hypothesis – though Harriet Flower problematises any easy assumptions in this regard (‘Fabulae praetextae in Context: When were Plays on Contemporary Subjects Performed in Republican Rome?’, CQ 45 [1995] 170-90, at 179 and 186-7). Adherence to one or other of these theories does not affect the observation here (of a connection between Pacuvius and the Scipionic household).

101 Thus, R. Helm, ‘Pacuvius 6’, RE XVII, 2, see esp. col. 2165, 28-31. See also the speculation by Bronislaw Biliński (Accio ed i Gracchi. Contributo alla storia della plebe e della tragedia romana [Rome 1958] 26) that the Dulorestes was created with the Sicilian slave revolt of the mid-130s in mind; cf. Biliński, ‘Dulorestes de Pacuvius et les guerres serviles en Sicile’, in Hommages à Léon Herrmann (Coll. Lat. 44, Berchem-Bruxelles 1960) 160-70.

102 For the relevant calculations, Helm (n. 101) cols 2159-60. As regards the date of his death there is more or less consensus; e.g., ‘around 132’: Valsa (n. 100) 7; ‘130’: Manuwald (RR Theatre [n. 99]) 209.

103 For the lines, as tentatively placed by Warmington, see ROL, frags 163-6 W [= Cic. Fin. 5.63; cf. 2.79].

104 It is ‘inexact’, as Helm says (n. 101) loc. cit. The period covered by the term might refer to scores of years; Holford-Strevens, L., Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Scholar and his Achievement (Oxford 2003) 16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 26; cf. Beness (n. 9) 64 and nn.10-11. In the de Amicitia, most relevantly, the events of 133 are spoken of as ‘recent’, the penalty paid by Gracchus a recentem poenam (41).

105 As argued by Jahn, O., ‘Satura’, Hermes 2 (1867) 225-251 Google Scholar, at 233; cf. Powell, J.G.F., Cicero. On Friendship and The Dream of Scipio (Oxford 1990) 92 Google Scholar; Manuwald (n. 98) 50 and n. 13; Schierl (n. 97) 218-19.

106 On the status of an illegitimate child: this article was already in page proofs when Andrew Stiles drew our attention to a study by P. Floris (‘Lucius Equitius insitivus Gracchus’, AFLC, n.s. 26 [63] [2008] 5-17), which explores the question of Equitius’ social standing. It deserves more attention than can be offered here. Floris’ closing observation that Equitius could not claim social legitimacy other than through the status of his mother has potentially staggering ramifications for the argument presented in this article, in that it potentially gives a biting edge to what it was that Saturninus was cruelly asking of Sempronia.