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Marius And Fortuna1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. D. Gilbert
C. D. Gilbert
Affiliation:
The Royal Liberty School, Romford
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Extract

In his treatment of Marius in the Bellum Jugurthinum Sallust lays considerable stress on fortune2 and Marius' belief in divine assistance. I shall offer an analysis of these concepts in two sections: (I) their use by Sallust himself in relation to Marius; (2) their use in the earlier tradition about Marius.

I. Though he is frequently mentioned in the earlier chapters of the B.J., our first formal introduction to Marius is in chapter 63. This chapter is of crucial importance. For it is the response given by the haruspex to Marius when he chances (forte) to be making a sacrifice at Utica that prompts him to ask for leave to go and stand for the consulship, an office for which he has an ingens cupido. Because of the aristocratic superbia of his commander Metellus he is ‘snubbed’ by him and thenceforth ‘cupidine atque ira grassari; neque facto ullo neque dicto abstinere quod modo ambitiosum foret' (64. 5).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , May 1973 , pp. 104 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 104 note 2 Sallust speaks both of fortuna (luck or good fortune) and of fors(chance). For the different meanings which fortuna- can bear see esp. Walbank, F. W., A Historical Comm. on Polybius 1. I6 f. Sallust's use of fortuna in general is outside the scope of the present treatment, but most of his references to it (e.g. B.C. 8. I, 51. 25, and B.J. 102. 9, 104. 2) are of a conventional, ‘Hellenistic’ kind. I feel that in his treatment of Marius he tried to allot it a more exact role.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 See Leeman, A. D., Aufbau and Absicht von Sallusts ‘Bellum Jugurthinum’, p. 17, esp. n. 4 (on the use of credo). However, most commentators see criticism of Marius here.Google Scholar

page 105 note 1 The Muluccha incident seems to owe something to the similarly ‘fortuitous’ Pylos affair in Thucydides. The part played by the Ligurian resembles that of the Messenian in Thuc. 4. 36. See also Avery, H. C., Hermes xcv (1967), 324 f. and T. Mantero in … Paoli (1956), 204 f.Google Scholar

page 105 note 2 Temeritas, which is not found in the B.C., occurs three times in the B.J. The third occurrence is in the speech of Marius (85. 46). There is an interesting use in Hist. 2. 15, ‘... fortunam in temeritatem declinando corrumpebant’. The nexus ‘temeritas—consilium—fortuna’ does not originate with Sallust. Cf. e.g. Cic. Lael. 6. 20 and pro Marc. 2. 7. Nor is such a conjunction surprising when we remember that temeritas originally refers to what occurs temere i.e. ‘by chance’ and ‘without calculation or planning’. Thence it was extended to an unthinking and uncalculating state of mind.

page 105 note 3 Audacia is the quality shown by the proelio strenuos and is here used in its good sense (cf. B.C. 9. 3). The passage deals with soldiers as a whole, not just generals. However, Sallust certainly regarded providentia as a quality needed by a good general (see n. 7 below). Temeritas is a defect of soldiers (see e.g. Caes. B.G. 7. 52) or of generals. Marius, by a piece of deliberate irony, is made to attack the recklessness of previous commanders in Numidia (85. 46).

page 105 note 4 On this see Earl, D. C., The Political Thought of Sallust, p. 29. Sallust's verdict on Metellus as a general is ‘magnus et sapiens vir’ (45. I); his conduct at Zama (61. 1) is deliberately contrasted with that of Marius at the Muluccha fort (esp. 93. 1). The combination of audacia and consilium was characteristic of the early Romans (B.C. 51. 37).Google Scholar

page 105 note 5 See esp. 88. 2 and 100.

page 105 note 6 Prudenter (88. 2), providere and providenter (90. I), omnia providere (100. 3).

page 105 note 7 B.C. 60. 4; B.J. 28. 5, 49. 2.

page 106 note 1 Cf. the relation of in Thucydides to contrast here between and (cf. 2. 40. 3: it is , the absence of ,).

page 106 note 2 Marius is in the same state of mind as the Athenians after Pylos: see Thuc. 4. 65. 4. For the belief in mistakes being corrected by outside intervention cf. Aristoph. Nub. 587–9. The effects of belief in are described in Thuc. 3. 45. 6.

page 106 note 3 For Sallust's views on virtus see Earl, op. cit., ch. 3. In the political sphere as well Marius owed a great deal to chance. He was fortunate in the time and circumstances of his candidature. See B.J. 65. 5 and 73. 4.

page 106 note 4 A third version of these events, in which Marius did not begin his attack on Metellus until he arrived in Rome, appears to be presented by Cic. De Off. 3. 20. 79 and Dio fr. 87. 3.

page 106 note 5 I do not think it possible to ascertain who was Sallust's direct source for the parts of the B.J.between 63. I and 94. 7 which concern Marius. The lack of circumstantial detail compared with the part after 94. 7 shows, I believe, that it was not Sulfa. Rutilius Rufus, suggested by Badian, E. in Latin Historians (ed. Dorey, T. A.), p. 24, is also unlikely.Google Scholar

page 106 note 6 See Carney, T. F., Wiener Studien lxiii (1960), 83 ff.Google Scholar

page 107 note 1 ibid., p. 97: ‘Legends... speedily grew round the person of Marius and Cicero's poem seems to have been responsible for some’. It appears to have been modelled on Ennius' poem Scipio (see R.E. VIIA 1253 f.) which may have attempted to ‘heroine’ its subject. The date of the Marius is uncertain. See the discussion by Townend, G. B. in Cicero (ed. Dorey, T. A.), pp. 120f.Google Scholar

page 107 note 2 In De Imp. Cu. Pomp. 16. 47 Marius is included in a list of generals who have ‘divinitus adiuncta fortuna’.

page 107 note 3 Diodorus, who wrote his history c. 60–30B.C., is here dependent on a late Republican source, though presumably not Posidonius, who gave a different version of Marius' death (Plut. 45. 4).

page 107 note 4 e.g. Sallust says of Sulla in B.J.95. 4‘…multique dubitavere fortior an felicioresst’. Here there is perhaps an implied contrast with Marius, as at other points in B.J. 95. See Earl, op. cit. p. 79. See also Avery, art. cit. p. 329, who, however, is mistaken about the nature of the contrast.

page 107 note 5 Cf. Plut. Sert. II and 20 for a similar legend about Sertorius.

page 107 note 6 One of Varro's ‘logistorici’ was called Marius de Fortuna. Caesar's friend Oppius, who wrote a rather romanticized biography of Scipio, may have written one of Marius. See Peter, , HRR ii. 64.Google Scholar

page 107 note 7 It may be that, as A. La Penna (Sallustio e la ‘rivoluzione’ romana, p. 243) suggests, Sallust's obvious distaste for Taureola mistica' of Marius in 92. 1–2 was influenced by his reaction to the ‘charisma’ of Caesar in his last years.