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The Father of Claudius Etruscus: Statius, Silvae 3. 3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. R. C. Weaver
P. R. C. Weaver
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

The career of the father of Claudius Etruscus is of special importance in the history of the Imperial administration in the first century A.D. In the course of a long life he rose from slave status under Tiberius to be head of the Imperial financial administration and to equestrian status under Vespasian. He was one of the most important, wealthy, and influential of the Imperial freedmen in the first century when their influence was at its peak; he is one of the best documented of their number outside the pages of Tacitus; yet we do not know his personal name—he has to remain simply ‘the father of Claudius Etruscus’ —and even his nomen gentilicium and the date of his appointment to be the secretary a rationibus are subject to disput.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , May 1965 , pp. 145 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1965

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References

page 145 note 1 The sources are: Statius, Silvae IGoogle Scholar. 5. 65; 3. 3; Martial, , 6Google Scholar. 83; 7. 40. See P.I.R. 2, C 763Google Scholar; P.I.R. 1, C 691Google Scholar; R.-E. iii. 2670Google Scholar (Claudius, 31). For Claudius Etruscus, see: Statius, Silvae 1Google Scholar pr.; 3 pr.; P.I.R. 2, C 860Google Scholar; R.-E. iii. 2719 (Claudius, 143).Google Scholar

page 145 note 2 For Olympias = lustrum in Martial, cf. Friedländer ad Martial, , 4. 45. 4.Google Scholar

page 145 note 3 Cf. Martial, , 8Google Scholar. 2; 9. 31; C.A.H. xi. 177.Google Scholar

page 145 note 4 On the dates, cf. Vollmer's, F. edition of the Silvae (Leipzig, 1898), p. 408.Google Scholar

page 146 note 1 C.I.L. vi. 8450aGoogle Scholar, 8451. Cf. Hirschfeld, , Verwaltungsbeamten, p. 109Google Scholar n. 1; Jones, A. H. M., J.R.S. xxxix (1949), 43 f.Google Scholar

page 146 note 2 For prosopographical purposes he is always (wrongly) entered as ‘Claudius’; e.g. P.I.R. 2, C 763Google Scholar (Ti. Claudius); R.-E. iii. 2670 (Claudius, 31)Google Scholar; O.C.D., p. 198Google Scholar (Claudius, 13). Duff, A. M., Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (reprint, 1958), p. 184Google Scholar, is overcautious in stating that he was manumitted either by Tiberius or by Claudius. There is no evidence that his nomen was ever ‘Claudius’ (see below p. 151). In the Familia Caesaris the nomen of a freedman father cannot be inferred from that of a son; in this case there is evidence to the contrary (cf. Proc. Comb. Phil. Soc. N.S. 10 [1964], 86Google Scholarf.). The conjecture of Hirschfeld, (Kleine Schriften [1913], p. 840Google Scholar = Wien. Stud. iii [1881], 273Google Scholar f.) that Tiberius' freedmen may sometimes have taken his original nomen ‘Claudius’ after his adoption into the Julian gens by Augustus in A.D. 4 is very unlikely. Tiberius’ freedmen who had been manumitted before his adoption and change of nomen may possibly have changed their nomen to accord with that of their patron (i.e. Iulius instead of Claudius). Cf. L. Aurelius (Aug. lib.) Nicomedes, qui et Ceionius et Aelius vocitatus est (C.I.L. vi. 1598Google Scholar), and Aelius, L. Aug. lib. Aurelius Apolaustus (C.I.L. vi. 10117; ix. 344), the pantomimus who later called himself L. Aurelius Augg. lib. Apolaustus Memphius. But in any case such changes of nomen by freedmen, following the adoption of their patron into a different gens, were very unusual in the Familia Caesaris, as is shown by the examples of T. Aurelii Aug. lib., who were manumitted by Antoninus Pius before his adoption by Hadrian in A.D. 138, and L. Aelii Aug. lib. manumitted either by L. Verus between 138 and 161, or by Commodus between 177 and 180.Google Scholar The other suggestion mentioned by Hirschfeld (loc. cit.) and others (e.g. Gsell, Mél. d'Arch, et d'Hist, viii [1888], 78Google Scholar n. 1) that Imperial freedmen sometimes took the nomen of the successor of their manumittor when they survived their original patron is as unlikely as the suggestion that they could also take the status-indication ‘Augg. lib.’ under the same circumstances (see Historia xiii [1964], 188Google Scholar ff.). The instance which is quoted (C.I.L. vi. 8432, ‘Ulpia sive Aelia Aug. lib. Apate’), where no change of nomen on the part of the patron is in question, is almost unique in the Familia Caesaris before the third century, when the system of nomen clature of the first and second centuries began to break down and nomina gentilicia were used as personal names.Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 See below, pp. 148 f.

page 147 note 2 Jos, . A.J. 18Google Scholar. 182. On Pallas, see Oost, A.J.P. Ixxix (1958), 113 ff.Google Scholar

page 147 note 3 Emendations have not won general acceptance. Gevartius proposed longum (= transmisit te Neroni diu secum habendum); but Gronovius, (Diatribe, pp. 192Google Scholar ff.) defended longo with the argument given above, quoting Sallust, , Cat. 1Google Scholar. 4 ‘virtus clara aeternaque habetur’; Virg, . Aen. 8Google Scholar. 465 ‘Aeneas se matutinus agebat’. I can find no example of longus used in this way, but cf. the predicative use of temporal adjectives, e.g. Juvenal, 10. 18 ‘rarus venit in cenacula miles’; Martial, , 5. 10Google Scholar. 9 ‘rara coronato plausere theatra Menandro’; Horace, , Ep. 1. 6Google Scholar. 20 ‘vespertinus pete tectum’. Vollmer, (op. cit., p. 413Google Scholar) took longo … nepoti to mean ‘longo nepotum ordini’ (‘die lange Reihe der Enkel d. h. der Nachfolger auf der Kaiserthron bis auf Domitian’); cf. Frère (Budé) who translates ‘en te laissant à la longue suite de ses descendants’. The supposed collective nepos = successores (viz. Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian) is surely unique and raises a further difficulty in the interpretation of the following passage (see p. 148 n. 2). Nepos (sing.) must refer to a particular individual (either Nero or, possibly, Domitian) and is scarcely comparable with avos (plur.) of Silvae 4Google Scholar. 1. 33, which may simply mean ‘men of old’ (especially Augustus). The references (66 ff.) to Tiberius, Gaius (not by name), and Claudius plausibly require a further one to Nero (cf. Markland, , ad v. 78Google Scholar, where he proposed, in fact, to read Neroni). That Nero is not named directly does not surprise, nor does the brevity of the reference, if his reign did not mark any change in the position of Etruscus’ father. The main difficulty here is to accept nepos (grandson, or nephew) as meaning fratris nepos (great-nephew), perhaps with the connotation ‘prodigal, spendthrift’ as in Cicero, , pro Quinct. 12Google Scholar. 40; Cat. 2. 4Google Scholar. 7; Leg. Agr. 1. 1. 2.Google Scholar

page 148 note 1 e.g. Stein, , P.I.R. 2, C 763Google Scholar; R.-E. iii. 2670Google Scholar; Klebs, , P.I.R. 1, C 691Google Scholar; Momigliano, , O.C.D., p. 198Google Scholar; Friedländer, , Sittengeschichte10. iv. 28Google Scholar; Vollmer, , op. cit., p. 413Google Scholar; Rostovtzeff, . Diz. Epig. iii. 133Google Scholar; Charlesworth, , C.A.H. xi. 30Google Scholar n. 2; Mozley, , Loeb ed., p. 167Google Scholar; Frère. Budé ed. i. 115 n. 4. Hirschfeld, , Kl. Schr., p. 839Google Scholar, hesitates. Gsell, , Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Domitien (1894), p. 70Google Scholar, even think; that he was already a rationibus under Claudius. Duff, , op. cit., pp. 153, 184, alone judiciously says that he was a rationibus under the Flavians, but without discussing the period 55–70.Google Scholar

page 148 note 2 Following his interpretation of line 78, Vollmer takes the passage 79–84 to be a ‘declamatory parenthesis’ referring to the father's career from Claudius to Domitian; 85 ff. then mark a return to the period Claudius-Nero. But the times of trouble (‘iuga rite tulisti integer; inque omni … profundo’) more naturally precede the happy success of ‘iamque piam lux alta domum praecelsaque … intravit Fortuna’ than follow it. The whole section 59–105 is in chronological sequence; line 84 marks the end of the first stage of the father's career—up to the end of the Civil War; the second stage, under the Flavians, opens with 85 ff.

page 149 note 1 Stein, , R.-E. iii. 2670, curiously says that he could not have been a rationibus under Domitian because he had already been given equestrian status by Vespasian.Google Scholar

page 149 note 2 C.I.L. vi. 8411.Google Scholar

page 149 note 3 C.I.L. vi. 8412.Google Scholar

page 149 note 4 C.I.L. vi. 8414Google Scholar; cf. Tac, . Hist. i. 76.Google Scholar

page 149 note 5 C.I.L. vi. 8415; cf. x. 3347.Google Scholar

page 149 note 6 C.I.L. iii. 14112Google Scholar. 2; cf. Suet, . Ner. 48. 1, 49. 2; Dio, 63. 27. 3.Google Scholar

page 149 note 7 See Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. N.S. 10 (1964), 90 f.Google Scholar

page 149 note 8 e.g. Mommsen, , Staatsr. ii. 1003Google Scholar n. 1; Rostovtzeff, , Diz. Epig. iii. 136Google Scholar; Hirschfeld, , Verwaltungsb., p. 30 n. 4.Google Scholar

page 150 note 1 Suet, . Titus 9Google Scholar; Domit. 2Google Scholar; cf. C.A.M. xi. 19Google Scholar f.; Garzetti, , L'Impero da Tiberio agli Antonini (1960), p. 269.Google Scholar

page 150 note 2 For examples in the Familia Caesaris from Augustus onwards, see Stein, A., Der romische Ritterstand, pp. 109 ff.Google Scholar

page 150 note 3 C.I.L. x. 6640Google Scholar; Atticus was almost certainly of senior freedman status as a former slave of his, Fructus Atticianus (vi. 8410), rose to become tabularius a rationibus under Domitian; cf. in the same inscription, ‘Fortunatus Attici Aug. lib. a rationib. lib. tabular(ius)’. (Gsell, , Domitien, p. 70Google Scholar n. 5, wrongly says that a ‘Fortunatus Atticus’ was a rationibus.) For another former slave of Atticus, cf. vi. 8451, ‘Epaphra Aug. 1. Atticianus’; and for one in the a rationibus, vi. 8408, ‘Abascantus Aug. (ser.) a rat(ionibus) Attic(ianus)’.Google Scholar

page 151 note 1 Cf. Mommsen, , Staaisr. iii. 496Google Scholar n. 2, Stein, , Ritterstand, p. 56 n. 4, where exceptional cases found in the inscriptions are quoted.Google Scholar

page 152 note 1 This much may be inferred from the phrases ‘ac iungere festa conubia’ (109–10), and ‘conubio gavisa domus’ (121); cf. ‘plenis venient conubia taedis’ (Silv. 3. 5. 62) of Statius’ stepdaughter.Google Scholar

page 152 note 2 Cf. the discussion of luxury and ‘domestica parsimonia’ in Tacitus, , Ann. 3. 52 ff., esp. 55.Google Scholar

page 152 note 3 As it is, indeed, in the Bude text of H. Frère, the Teubner text of Klotz, and the recent (1961) Teubner text of Marastoni.

page 153 note 1 Cf. Martial, , 7. 40. 5.Google Scholar

page 153 note 2 Mél. d'Arch. et d'Hist. viii (1888), 74Google Scholar ff. and Domitien, p. 219Google Scholar. For Tettius Iulianus, see P.I.R. 1, T 102; R.-E. vA. 1107 f. (Tettius, 10); cf. Syme, , J.R.S. lii (1962), 96.Google Scholar

page 153 note 3 Dig. 23. 2. 44.Google Scholar

page 153 note 4 Cf. Duff, , Freedmen, pp. 62 f.Google Scholar