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The Professiones of the Heraclean Table

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. G. Hardy
E. G. Hardy
Affiliation:
Jesus College, Oxford
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Extract

In an interesting article in the Journal of Roman Studies (Vol. V., Part I.) Prof. Jefferson Elmore reopens the vexed question as to the nature and object of the ‘declarations’ provided for in lines 1 to 19 of the Heraclean Table, and claims to have discovered a fresh clue more satisfactory than any so far propounded. As I have recently committed myself in opposition to the hypotheses of Hirschfeld, Legras and Nap, to what is at least a partial reaffirmation of Mommsen's explanation, and as I find Prof. Elmore's suggestions contrary to the evidence, and seriously wanting in cohesion and consistency, I shall venture to subject them to some examination and criticism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 1917 , pp. 27 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1917

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References

page 27 note 1 J.R.S., Vol. IV., Part I.

page 27 note 2 The words quem h. l. profiterei oportebit imply that the object of the professio has already been explained, and that it is legally incumbent on all concerned with that object. There is no indication that the professio was compulsory or, as Prof. Elmore suggests, enforced by penalty.

page 28 note 1 When in my translation I use the phrase ‘the aforesaid declaration, ’ I only mean what Prof. Elmore himself means when he declares that the nature of the professio must have been made clear in the lost part of the law.

page 28 note 2 I do not go into the question of the pupilli and pupillae, because Prof. Elmore does not press the point, and because he does not meet my suggestion that it may have been an innovation of Caesar to allow widows and orphans to receive corn, even if it was contrary to rule before and after his day. As a matter of fact, his own theory involves the exclusion of these wards from the frumentations.

page 28 note 3 Prof. Elmore infers that senators and knights received free corn from a passage of Dio (38, 13, 1), which he curiously misunderstands. Dio says that Clodius hoped to win over senate, knights and populace, and so proceeded to carry out free distribution of corn, the restoration of collegia, and to impose restrictions on the censors' power of removing senators and knights from their orders. Obviously the first two measures were for the populace, the third for senators and knights. There is the less excuse for the mistake, as Dio expressly describes the measure of Clodius as τò µεîσθαɩ (τòƲ σîτ??o??ν) τ??o??î??s?? ??a??πόροɩσ. Strangely enough, in another place Prof. Elmore finds implicit in the Clodian law the principle of excluding the well-to-do.

page 29 note 1 Prof, Elmore cites Wilcken, , Ostraka, 435–456Google Scholar.

page 30 note 1 The word recensus is, I believe, only used three times—in the two passages of Suetonius and in the epit. 115 of Livy. In each, by a curious coincidence, which perhaps Prof. Elmore can explain, it occurs in the same sentence with the corn distributions, or with the figures of the recipients. As for recensio, a comparison of pro Mil. 27, 73, with pro Cael. 32, 78 shows that it was used of the periodical revision of the census lists.

page 30 note 2 When Prof. Elmore declares that Appian virtually translates recensus by άπογραΦή, he forgets that ά??r??αγραψáμενοσ implies revision as well as enumeration.

page 31 note 1 Mommsen apparently supposes that Caesar's recensus had fallen into abeyance, and that Augustus revived it with a somewhat larger list of recensi. To me it seems more likely that he started with Caesar's list, but enlarged it, and in doing so no doubt got other totals.

page 32 note 1 If June 1 or any other date was specified for the commencement of the professiones on the Table, there would certainly have been some indication of it in the extant clauses, intended, as they were, to give all necessary directions to profitentes.

32 note 2 It lies outside my purpose to discuss Prof. Elmore's views on Caesar's financial aims and policy, but he seems to me to build on a slender foundation. Apparently the only return which Cicero had to make in 44 was in reference to property which, in his opinion, need not have been registered. He only had it declared because Balbus was too busy to give him an authoritative opinion. This hardly looks like a general return of property for purposes of taxation.

32 note 3 At any rate, Caesar is no longer criticized for putting mere administrative details into a formal law.

33 note 1 In Liv. 35, 7 professiones are declarations of debt; in the lex. agr. colonists in Africa have to make professio of land (lex. agr. V. 90), while in Sicily professio is coupled with subscriptio also in connexion with land (in Verr. 2, 3, 47, 113). Whether in any of these cases the professio could be made in absence is not stated, but we know that in exceptional cases even the application of a candidate for office might be a professio absentis.

33 note 2 Prof. Elmore finds the declaration made by a tutor in behalf of pupillus or pupilla more intelligible if it was a return of property. The point is far from conclusive, as a tutor would represent his ward in all matters, public or private, where the latter could not appear for himself. It would have been well worth while for orphans and widows to apply for a tutor under the lex Atilia for the sake of the frumentations alone (conf. lex Salpens. C. 29).

page 34 note 1 If in January 45, the date of the letter to Lepta, the law had already been in operation for three months, it is inconceivable that Seleucus, Lepta and Cicero would have been in the dark about a point in which the two former were evidently personally interested. Why again should Cicero have troubled Balbus about a matter which any clerk at the aerarium could have cleared up in a moment?

page 34 note 2 No doubt Prof. Elmore limits the recensus to the citizen population, but his language is sometimes vague, and he overlooks the fact that the elimination of aliens would in itself involve something of an ??e??ξ??e??τασ??i????s??.

page 34 note 3 The assertion does not strike me as very convincing that the new plan, by which the maintenance of streets was made a charge upon abutting properties, would have been unworkable without accurate property records. The only essential point in this case was the ownership of the particular house property in question.

page 34 note 4 Prof. Elmore is not the first to regard the professiones as returns of property. The late Prof. Shuckburgh, in his note to Suet. Aug. 40, says: ‘The lex lulia municipalis imposed a penalty on the giving of corn to any whose names were on the property returns lists.’

page 35 note 1 In my opinion Legras completely fails to make it probable that the receipt of corn, either at reduced price or free of charge, was a quisite involved in the citizenship.

page 36 note 1 If it was really the case that 170,000 families owned property at Rome, and only 150,000 did not, the social and economic conditions must have been extraordinarily favourable. I do not of course suggest that the 320,000 persons, who received corn till 46 B.C., were all without property, or that the profitentes, belonging to the excluded 170,000, did not include in their declaration some statement of means. But, whatever view of the professiones is adopted, it is necessary to assume that the details were set forth in the lost portion of the law.

page 36 note 2 This is proved by the time when, and the place where the list was to be posted; cum frumentum populo dabitur, ibei ubei frumentum populo dabitur.

page 36 note 3 Even on Prof. Elmore's own showing, it was a clumsy superfluity to include all profitentes in the Forum list, since in his view the pupilli and pupillae were not eligible for receiving corn. These unfortunates seem destined to be a thorn in the side of every hypothesis.

page 37 note 1 I am a little suspicious of these supposed transplantations of perfectly obvious institutions from outside. A similar attempt was made by Legras to show that the second section of the Table owed much to a βασɩλɩkòs νóμοσ of Pergamum. In that case it was possible to apply the test of a close comparison between the two documents, not, I think, to the advantage of Legras' view. In the present instance we have very scanty details as to the recensus and none as to the professiones with which to compare the two Egyptian ??a??π??o??γραΦαƖ.