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THE FAMILY TRADITIONS OF THE GENS MARCIA BETWEEN THE FOURTH AND THIRD CENTURIES b.c.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2021

Davide Morelli
Davide Morelli*
Affiliation:
‘Sapienza’—Università di Roma
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

In the mid fourth century b.c. some Roman gentes drew on a Pythagorean tradition. In this tradition, Numa's role of Pythagoras’ disciple connected Rome (and the gentes) with Greek elites and culture. The Marcii, between 304 and 300 b.c., used Numa's figure, recently reshaped by the Aemilii and the Pinarii for their propaganda, to promote the need for a plebeian pontificate. After the approval of the Ogulnium plebiscite (300 b.c.), the needs for this kind of propaganda fell away. When Marcius Censorinus became censor, Numa's pontificate was no longer relevant for promoting the gens. For this reason, the Marcii used another genealogy for similar propagandistic effect: the figure of Marsyas, a symbol of plebeian ideals.

Keywords

gens MarciaMarsyassymbolic capitalRoman propagandaRoman politicsRoman tradition
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 189 - 199
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

It is my pleasure to express gratitude to Prof. Daniele Miano and Prof. John Thornton, who read a draft of this paper and provided me with their invaluable suggestions. Every mistake remains obviously mine. I also deeply thank Dr Valentina Arena for having provided me with her article about Marsyas and the concept of libertas (see n. 34 below) that is, while I write, still forthcoming.

References

1 For Roman Republican propaganda, see in general de Rose Evans, J., The Art of Persuasion. Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus (Ann Arbor, 1992)Google Scholar, especially 1–16.

2 See again de Rose Evans (n. 1), 17–34. Many scholars studied Roman coins as vectors of propaganda: see, for example, Alföldi, A., ‘The main aspects of political propaganda on the coinage of the Roman Republic’, in Carson, R.A.G. and Sutherland, C.H.V. (edd.), Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly (Oxford, 1956), 63–95Google Scholar; and Belloni, G.G., ‘Monete romane e propaganda. Impostazione di una problematica complessa’, in Sordi, M. (ed.), I canali della propaganda nel mondo antico (Milan, 1976), 131–59Google Scholar.

3 Hölkeskamp, K.-J., Reconstructing the Roman Republic. An Ancient Political Culture and Modern Research (Princeton, 2010; original ed. Munich, 2004), 107–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Hölkeskamp (n. 3), 118–19 for the representative case of the Caecilii Metelli.

5 The fundamental witness for the first four gentes is Plut. Num. 21.2–3. For the Marcii, Livy traces the family lineage back to the marriage between a Marcius and Pompilia, Numa's daughter (Livy 1.32.1); the same tradition can be found e.g. in Plut. Num. 4–6.

6 Many studies address the problem, including Marino, A. Storchi, Numa e Pitagora. Sapientia constituendae civitatis (Naples, 1999)Google Scholar. See also, among others, Verdière, R., ‘Calpus, fils de Numa, et la tripartition fonctionnelle dans la société indo-éuropéenne’, AC 34 (1965), 425–31Google Scholar; Fabbricotti, E., ‘Numa Pompilio e tre monetieri di età repubblicana’, AIIN 15 (1968), 31–8Google Scholar; Buraselis, K., ‘Numa und die gens Pomponia’, Historia 25 (1976), 378–80Google Scholar; Marino, A. Storchi, ‘C. Marcio Censorino, la lotta politica intorno al pontificato e la formazione della tradizione liviana su Numa’, AION(archeol) 14 (1992), 105–47Google Scholar; Humm, M., ‘Numa et Pythagore: vie et mort d'un mythe’, in Deproost, P.-A. and Meurant, A. (edd.), Images d'origines. Origines d'une image. Hommages à Jacques Poucet (Louvain-la-Neuve, 2004), 125–37Google Scholar; Russo, F., ‘Genealogie numaiche e tradizioni pitagoriche’, RCCM 47 (2005), 265–90Google Scholar; id., ‘I carmina Marciana e le tradizioni sui Marcii’, PP 60 (2005), 5–32; L. Ferrero, Storia del pitagorismo nel mondo romano. Dalle origini alla fine della Repubblica (Forlì, 20082; 1st edn: Turin, 1955), 140–8; Russo, F., ‘Le statue di Alcibiade e Pitagora nel Comitium’, ASNP 3 (2012), 105–34Google Scholar, at 117–19.

7 Plut. Aem. 2.2: ὅτι δ’ ὁ πρῶτος αὐτῶν καὶ τῷ γένει τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ἀπολιπὼν Μά‹με›ρκος ἦν, Πυθαγόρου παῖς τοῦ σοφοῦ, δι’ αἱμυλίαν λόγου καὶ χάριν Αἰμίλιος προσαγορευθείς, εἰρήκασιν ἔνιοι τῶν Πυθαγόρᾳ τὴν Νομᾶ τοῦ βασιλέως παίδευσιν ἀναθέντων.

8 Schwarze, W., Quibus fontibus Plutarchus in uita L. Aemilii Paulli usus sit (Leipzig, 1891), 12–14Google Scholar.

9 Paulus ex Festo, page 22 Lindsay: Aemiliam gentem appellatam dicunt a Mamerco, Pythagorae philosophi filio, cui propter unicam humanitatem cognomen fuerit Aemylos.

10 Schwarze (n. 8), 13 traces Flaccus’ sources back to Varro, but the issue is much debated. See e.g. Glinister, F., ‘Constructing the past’, in Glinister, F., Woods, C., North, J.A. and Crawford, M.H. (edd.), Verrius, Festus & Paul (London, 2007), 11–32Google Scholar, with related bibliography.

11 On the Pinarii Mamercini, see O. Stein, ‘Pinarius 11–13’, RE 20.2, cols. 1400–1; for the Aemilii, E. Klebs, ‘Aemilius 93–101’, RE 1.1, cols. 568–72. Moreover, Mamercus was a praenomen often used by these Aemilii. Both gentes still existed after the fourth century b.c. but with other family branches. See also Loreto, L., ‘Osservazioni sulla politica estera degli Emili Mamercini e di Publilio Filone’, Prometheus 19 (1992), 58–68Google Scholar.

12 Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1999]), 24–31. It is hard to think that some Roman gentes already linked their name to Pythagoras during the fifth century b.c., when the cognomen of Mamercus/Mamercinus first appeared. Their onomastics must have developed independently for other reasons. This cognomen has also other meanings: for some of them, see F. Münzer, ‘Mamercus 2’, RE 14.1, col. 950. Cf. Derois, L., ‘Les noms latins du marteau et la racine étrusque «mar-»’, AC 28 (1959), 5–31Google Scholar, who connects the cognomen to artisanal activities (at 17–31). These gentes might have fabricated a connection between their existing cognomen and Pythagoras’ son only in the mid fourth century b.c., with the first official institutional contacts between Rome and Magna Graecia.

13 Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1999]), 24 n. 20 and 154 n. 155, with related bibliography, thinks that the origin of this tradition has to be located around the second or first century b.c. Contra, Coarelli, F., Il Foro romano. 2: Periodo repubblicano e augusteo (Rome, 1985), 115Google Scholar dates the same tradition between the fourth and third centuries. Almost certainly, Storchi Marino's hypothesis is much preferable for the Calpurnii. The benefit of the doubt must be given in relation to the Pinarii.

14 Plut. Num. 21.2–3.

15 But see Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1999]), 144 on the relationship between the Marcii and the Pythagorean use of Apollo.

16 Cf. Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1999]), 139; ead. (n. 6 [1992]), 121–6.

17 Remember e.g. Gell. NA 3.3, who tells how the comedies of a Plautius (gen. Plauti) were thought to be written by Plautus (genitive Plauti again).

18 Marci filius: Enn. Ann. 9.306 Skutsch; Cic. Brut. 109; Cic. Lael. 1.3; Livy 2.18.6.

19 Who, in this case, could have formed his nomen from his father's praenomen, following a common practice among Latin-speaking peoples: see H. Rix, ‘Zum Ursprung des römisch-mittelitalischen Gentilnamensystems’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 700–58, at 717–18; Salway, B., ‘What's in a name? A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c.700 b.c. to a.d. 700’, JRS 84 (1994), 124–45Google Scholar, at 125 n. 13.

20 Plut. Num. 21.5.

21 Livy 1.20.5. Contra, see Russo (n. 6 [2005 ‘I carmina Marciana’]), 13–14, who identifies the son (not the father) as the pontifex maximus co-opted by Numa.

22 Plut. Num. 21.4: πάντες δ’ οὖν ὁμολογοῦσι τὴν Πομπιλίαν Μαρκίῳ γαμηθῆναι, ‘all are agreed that Pompilia was married to Marcius’ (transl. B. Perrin). This is, presumably, because Ancus’ ancestry was part of the tradition well before the birth of the Republic.

23 Plut. Num. 5.4.

24 Tac. Ann. 6.10.3–11.1. In this case, Numa Marcius fils cannot be mistaken for his homonymous father: Plutarch tells us (Num. 21.3) that Numa Marcius père let himself die at the beginning of Tullus’ reign, realizing that he would not become king himself. The passage in Tacitus, therefore, is the only passage that reveals the name of Pompilia's husband with certainty, together with a tradition about his permanence in Rome. Livy (1.59.12) confirms that a praefectus Vrbi existed in the Regal period despite many uncertainties on the duties of this magistracy: Sp. Lucretius Tricipitinus, Lucretia's father, was a praefectus, as reported by Tacitus in the same passage quoted above. According to Livy 1.60.4, this magistracy was created by King Servius. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.71.6, on the other hand, asserts that also the ἄρχων κελερίων (‘commander of the Celeres’: this was Brutus) exercised some powers in the absence of the king.

25 Dictator in 356 b.c. (Livy 7.17.6); censor in 351 (Livy 7.22.6). See MRR 1.123 and 1.126–7, and Poma, G., ‘Su Livio, VII, 17, 6: dictator primus e plebe’, RSA 25 (1995), 71–90Google Scholar.

26 In addition to the Marcii Philippi, Rutili and Censorini: Cn. Marcius in 389 (Livy 6.1.6); Q. Marcius Ralla in 196 (Livy 32.25.6); Q. Marcius Scilla and M. Marcius Sermo in 172 (Livy 42.21–2).

27 An uncommon condition that can also be found, for example, among the Claudii, both the plebeian (Marcelli) and the patrician (Pulchri): Asc. Scaur. 25–6 Clark.

28 This is clearly what the Romans believed at the end of the fourth century. Cornell, T.J., The Beginnings of Rome. Italy from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (London and New York, 1995), 242–71Google Scholar convincingly showed (at 244) that ‘there was no “Conflict of the Orders” (properly so called) until the fourth century, when the battle over the Licinio-Sextian Rogations began.’

29 Livy calls Numa Marcius simply pontifex, chosen among the patres, but the significant attribution of sacra omnia exscripta exsignataque (Livy 1.20.5) makes him a likely pontifex maximus. Ogilvie, R.M., A Commentary on Livy. Books I–V (Oxford, 1965), 101Google Scholar noted the archaic phrasing (used elsewhere only in Plaut. Trin. 655); Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1992]), 111 thinks that Livy directly recalls an annalistic source, albeit impossible to identify. According to Eutr. 1.5.1 and Zonar. 7.6 (from Cassius Dio), Ancus was the son of Numa's daughter, without specifying his paternal lineage. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.76.6 tells us that he read this same information in Cn. Gellius (FRHist F 22 Cornell), who thus becomes one of the most ancient witnesses on the Numan tradition, perhaps the most ancient witness. On Cn. Gellius’ role in the Marcian tradition, see again Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1992]), 133–8; ead. (n. 6 [1999]), 153–5 with bibliography; Cornell, T.J. (ed.), The Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford, 2013), 3.238Google Scholar, F 22 and related cross-references. On the sacra given to the pontifex maximus, see also Peruzzi, E., ‘Livio I, 20, 5’, RFIC 99 (1971), 264–70Google Scholar.

30 RRC 363/1; see also Hor. Sat. 1.6.120 and Sen. Ben. 6.32.1. For modern analysis, see M. Torelli, Typology and Structure of Roman Historical Reliefs (Ann Arbor, 1982), 99–106; Coarelli (n. 13), 91–110; Miano, D., Monimenta. Aspetti storico-culturali della memoria nella Roma medio-repubblicana (Rome, 2011), 109–26Google Scholar; F. Santangelo, ‘The statue of Marsyas’, in M. Garcia Morcillo, J.H. Richardson and F. Santangelo (edd.), Ruin or Renewal? Places and the Transformation of Memory in the City of Rome (Rome, 2016), 49–71 with further bibliography.

31 RRC 346/1, 3 and 4 (88 b.c., coined by C. Marcius Censorinus).

32 See Coarelli (n. 13), 95–100; Miano (n. 30), 117–19 with further bibliography; A. Mastrocinque, ‘Marsia e la civitas Romana’, in M. Chiabà (ed.), Hoc quoque laboris praemium. Scritti in onore di Gino Bandelli (Trieste, 2014), 331–41.

33 For the link between Marsyas and libertas, besides Miano (n. 30), see also Basso, P. and Buonopane, A., ‘Marsia nelle città del mondo romano’, MediterrAnt 11 (2008), 139–59Google Scholar and Mastrocinque (n. 32), 334.

34 V. Arena, ‘The status of Marsyas, Liber, and Servius: an instance of an ancient semantic battle?’, in M. Nebelin and C. Tiersch (edd.), Semantische Kämpfe zwischen Republik und Prinzipat (forthcoming); de Quiroga, P. López Barja, ‘The Quinquatrus of June, Marsyas and libertas in the Late Roman Republic’, CQ 68 (2018), 143–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 RRC 1.378, followed by Coarelli (n. 13), 116–18.

36 Miano (n. 30), 132.

37 See MRR 1.172–3.

38 Livy 10.6.11. See Hölkeskamp, K.-J., ‘Das plebiscitum Ogulnium de sacerdotibus. Überlegungen zu Authentizität und Interpretation der livianischen Überlieferung’, RhM 131 (1988), 51–67Google Scholar; J.H. Valgaeren, ‘The jurisdiction of the pontiffs at the end of the fourth century b.c.’, in O. Tellegen-Couperus (ed.), Law and Religion in the Roman Republic (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 107–18, at 115–18 with further bibliography.

39 Miano (n. 30), 131.

40 Torelli (n. 30), 103 and Coarelli (n. 13), 91–110. Miano (n. 30) substantially agrees with Torelli and Coarelli. See again Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1992]) on Censorinus.

41 See also Coarelli (n. 13), 106–7, who sees a connection with the liberation of the nexi (slaves by debt).

42 This would be an approximate date, without even engaging with the chronological problems of the fourth century. Even the Capuan deditio is much doubted. See, among others, Burton, P.J., Friendship and Empire. Roman Diplomacy and Imperialism in the Middle Republic (353–146 b.c.) (Cambridge, 2011), 122–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for recent considerations about the deditio and bibliographical discussion on the topic.

43 The matter of Roman Republican political groupings is still very complex and debated. I use these terms for the sake of simplicity. Some of the most important historiographical discussions can be found in M. Gelzer, Die Nobilität der römischen Republik (Stuttgart, 1912); F. Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Stuttgart, 1920); F. Cassola, I gruppi politici romani nel III sec. a.C. (Trieste, 1962); K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Die Entstehung der Nobilität: Studien zur sozialen und politischen Geschichte der römischen Republik im 4. Jhdt. v.Chr. (Wiesbaden, 1987); Millar, F., The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hölkeskamp (n. 3).

44 Thus Cornell (n. 28), 343, referring to the first years after the Licinian-Sextian laws and to the modifications with the leges Genuciae: ‘An important result of the new situation was that the two groups forming the patricio-plebeian nobility were not locked in conflict, but on the contrary were bound together by the peculiar rules of the power-sharing system.’

45 See Livy 9.46; Plin. HN 33.17–19; Val. Max. 2.5.2. For Flavius’ aedileship in 304 b.c., see MRR 1.168. These events were thought to be remarkable: the aedile's deeds fill a whole chapter in Livy. On Flavius’ deeds and their connection with Ap. Claudius, see also Humm, M., Appius Claudius Caecus. La République accomplie (Rome, 2005), 441–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Livy 9.46.6: uerba praeire, cum more maiorum negaret nisi consulem aut imperatorem posse templum dedicare.

47 The year 304 b.c. is very eventful: many Italian peoples signed agreements after the defeat at Bouianum (Livy 9.45.18; Diod. Sic. 20.101.5); the censor Q. Fabius Rullianus annulled Ap. Claudius Caecus’ reform of the tribes (thus assuming the cognomen ‘Maximus’: Livy 9.46.13–15); see e.g. Cassola (n. 43), 108–9. The intervention of Cn. Flavius took place in an extremely dynamic political, religious and cultural context, with Roman ‘political groups’ starting to differentiate themselves more decisively.

48 Plin. HN 34.26; Plut. Num. 8.20. Cf. Russo (n. 6 [2012]); see also Storchi Marino (n. 6 [1999]), 146–52 and Coarelli (n. 13), 119–23.

49 See also Anselmo, G. Aricò, ‘Numa Pompilio e la propaganda augustea’, ASGP 57 (2014), 27–62Google Scholar: propagandistic uses of Numa continued in the Augustan period, reflecting the persistent influence of this figure.

50 It remains true that in the 80s of the first century b.c. the gens Marcia struck coins at the same time with, respectively, Marsyas’ iconography and Numa with Ancus (see above). Between these periods, however, passed almost two centuries, more than sufficient to crystalize a ‘double tradition’.

51 Livy 10.23.12; see Holleman, A.W.J., ‘The Ogulnii monument at Rome’, Mnemosyne 40 (1987), 427–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Miano (n. 30), 143–72. Coarelli (n. 13), 102 believes that the statue of the she-wolf and the statue of Marsyas are connected, presenting other good reasons related to the commission of the two works and to the political climate of the period.

52 See Russo (n. 6 [2005 ‘I carmina Marciana’]). The fragments are in FPL 4 14–16 Blänsdorf.

53 Respectively, RRC 415/1 and 419/1.