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Two Roman Non-Entites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. Badian
E. Badian
Affiliation:
The University of Leeds
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Extract

M. Duronius, tribune of the plebs in 97 or perhaps 96 B.C., was expelled from the Senate by the censors of those years, M. Antonius and L. Crassus, for having abrogated a lex sumptuaria. No doubt Antonius was chiefly responsible, for it was him that Duronius chose to prosecute for ambitus while he was still censor. Nothing else is known about Duronius, who quite obviously played no major part in Roman politics or at the Roman bar.

Valerius Maximus tells the story of his expulsion, with the reason for it. The passage must be quoted in full (2. 9. 5):

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , May 1969 , pp. 198 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1969

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References

page 198 note 1 See MRR ii. 7Google Scholar and 8, n. 3. Since he prosecuted M. Antonius in the latter's censorship (Cic. de or. 2. 274), he must have been a tribune at the time. (See Mommsen, , Staatsr. ii 3. 357.Google Scholar) He must therefore have either proposed his law in this tribunate or held another tribunate at an earlier time when he did so. Since iteration of the tribunate is not at all common and, even though by this time apparently legal, appears to be attempted only by major political figures like Saturninus and perhaps Glaucia, the latter alternative should be discarded. And since the drawing up of the album senatorium was traditionally one of the censors' first duties, Duronius' tribunate should probably be put in 97. But we cannot be quite certain that the censors always succeeded in finishing the album before the end of the calendar year in which they were elected, and 96 must remain open.

page 198 note 2 He is not mentioned in any other connection (not even by Cicero in the Brutus, where the populate genus dicendi is well represented—see below); indeed, apart from this anecdote he appears only once in the surviving record, in an incidental mention by Cicero (de or. 2. 274).

page 198 note 3 See my review of Malcovati, ORF2, reprinted in my Studies in Greek and Roman History, 244 f. ORF3, which has now appeared, makes no essential changes except for the admission of Glaucia.

page 198 note 4 L. Crassus himself, whom Cicero constantly praises for his style and language, seems to like a heavy dispondaic ending; see ORF3 66, fragments 14 (dissedisti); 19 (cola, : propulsare, commiscebis, confirmabis); 24Google Scholar (the magistra oratio; cola end potest expleri, quoiquam seruire, uobis uniuersis, cadence possumus et debemus).

page 200 note 1 Nor in the de oratore for this speech or any other: he is merely brought in as providing an occasion (apparently the first in M. Antonius' maturity) when the orator had to suam rem agere.

page 200 note 2 Cf. also Br. 176 (Cicero lists dicentes, not oratores; Atticus, wants eloquentes, non sedulos); 269Google Scholar (omnis…qui ausi aliquando sunt stantes loqui); 297 (congessisti operarios omnes, ut mihi uideantur mori uoluisse nonnulli ut a te in oratorum numerum referrentur). It is a large part of the function of ‘Atticus’ in the dialogue to draw attention to the comprehensiveness of Cicero's survey at various stages in his chronological progress. We ought to take his word for it.

page 200 note 3 Of course, as I pointed out in my review of ORF2 (p. 198, n. 3), anyone who held office was, in a sense, an orator, in that he had to speak in public. In that sense Duronius, who must have spoken on his law, was an orator too. I am merely concerned to delete him from the history of Roman oratory in the sense that Cicero and Atticus gave to it.

page 200 note 4 i.e., he solemnly crossed the pomoerium. It is known that he stayed ad urbem for some weeks (Plut. Caes. 14,fin.; Dio 38. 17; Cicero, passim) and only reached Gaul near the end of March (Caes. B.G. 1. 7–8).

page 200 note 5 MRR 2. 195Google Scholar; Gelzer, , Caesar 687Google Scholar; Niccolini, , FTP 285 f.Google Scholar There is no discussion, even in the edition of the Divus Julius by Butler and Cary (70 f.). Klebs (R.E., ‘Antistius’ 13) is properly non-committal about the date. Some of the difficulties caused by taking Antistius for a tribune of 58 are illustrated by the complications thus introduced into E. J. Weinrib's careful and otherwise valid analysis of the attempts to prosecute Caesar, (Phoenix xxii [1968], 45 f.Google Scholar). Weinrib also erroneously takes the ‘quaestor’ of this passage for a quaestor of 58, again causing himself unnecessary difficulty (44 f.). The quaestor is clearly Caesar's ex-quaestor of 59 (a common use of such titles): whether he by then still held (prorogued) office, we do not know; but we have no reason to assume it. This not only removes Weinrib's difficulty over the prosecution (there is none, if the man was priuatus), but also gives the most satisfactory meaning for ‘praeiudicium’ (not here a preliminary kind of action—rightly Weinrib, against Butler and Cary). The conviction of Caesar's quaestor of 59 for carrying out Caesar's instructions would indeed create a grave praeiudicium (in the most usual sense of the term) for any future prosecution of Caesar himself on charges arising out of his consulate.

page 201 note 1 To confine ourselves to the Julius, the word appears 1. 1; 9. 1; 20. a; aa. 1; 33. 1 (our passage); 28. 3; 44. 3; 71; 73; 81. 1 and 4. In only one case (81. 4) is the actual reference to an event following ‘soon’. Here also, this cannot be the actual meaning: as elsewhere, ‘later on’, without scrutiny of the interval, is basically intended. In 44. 3 it means ‘next’ (in a series: a fairly common meaning; cf. Aug. 19. 1). In some instances the interval is demonstrably long, varying from months to years. Some of these have also commonly been misunderstood, no doubt for the same reason. Thus in 1. 1, the date of Julia's birth (on which see Gelzer, , Caesar 619Google Scholar: ‘about 76 B.C.’—perhaps still too early) is often put straight after Caesar's marriage to Cornelia, even though Pompey seems to have been Julia's first husband. In 71, mox has again misled scholars, who appear unanimously to put Caesar's defence of Masintha against the claims of Juba (i.e. Hiempsal) in his praetorship in 62 (see, e.g., MRR ii. 173Google Scholar), presumably because we are told that Caesar mox took his protégé with him to Spain. It might be noted that a man who is praetor is not usually called iuuenis (though technically even a consul, at 43 or so, might be—it is simply not done). Moreover, we happen to know that Juba was in Rome when Cicero delivered his second speech against the bill of Rullus (l. agr. 2. 59), early in January 63. It is surely most unlikely that he stayed in Rome for a year or more, for no reason we know of. (The length of Masintha's stay was due to the fact that he had to hide in Caesar's house until he could be smuggled out in the way related by Suetonius.) The incident should be put not too far from Juba's attested presence, in late 64 or early 63. For the lengthy stay of Masintha, in need of protection, compare that of Ptolemy Auletes in Pompey's house (Dio 39. 14. 3; 16. 3). For mox denoting other long intervals, see 9. 1 (from Caesar's return from his Spanish quaestorship, probably late 68 or early 67, to ‘a few days before his aedileship’ of 65); 29. 2 (the couplet on the ‘consulship of Caesar, not of Bibulus’, shown by internal evidence to have been written after 59); and 73.

page 202 note 1 Val. Max. 4. 7. 3.

page 202 note 2 Cic. Balb. 48 (‘L. Antistius’: for the suggested identification, see my Studies, 48 f.).

page 202 note 3 MRR ii. 231.Google Scholar

page 202 note 4 PIR2 A 775–6: note that each appears to be the second son of a Gaius: obviously, ‘Lucius’ was the traditional praenomen for a second son.

page 202 note 5 That seems to be the implication of Plutarch's story (Caes. 5.3). The intricacies of the Antistii Veteres cannot be discussed here: we must hope that Dr. Cadoux will before long give us the results of his researches on these and other prosopographical puzzles. But the identification of the son of Caesar's commander with the commander against Caecilius Bassus (see text) seems possible Dnly if we put the occasion on which Caesar paid his debt considerably earlier.

page 203 note 1 MRR ii. 308, 327, 342, 352.Google Scholar

page 203 note 2 Cic. Q.fr. 2. 1.

page 203 note 3 See Cic. fam. 1. 9. 8. On the importance of this step, I see no reason to depart from the traditional interpretation (e.g. CAH ix. 533Google Scholar).

page 203 note 4 See, again, the standard works, e.g. CAH, loc. cit., Drumann-Groebe, iii. 239 f.Google Scholar Note, in particular, Domitius' renewed threats (Suet. Jul. 24. 1).

page 203 note 5 Cic, Q.fr. 2. 1. 3: ‘iudiciorum causam suscepit antiquissimamque se habiturum dixit.’

page 203 note 6 Ibid.: ‘de tribunis pi. longe optimum Racilium habemus; uidetur etiam Antistius amicus nobis fore; nam Plancius totus noster est.’

page 203 note 7 Cic. Plane. 77.

page 204 note 1 In January 56 (see MRR ii. 208Google Scholar). For the palinode, see Balsdon, , JRS lii (1962), 137.Google Scholar

page 204 note 2 For the aims of Clodius see Gruen, , Phoenix xx (1966), 120f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (not denying alliance at this point).

page 204 note 3 Cic., fam. 1. 9. 8.

page 204 note 4 R.E., ‘Racilius’ 1; MRR Supplement 53 (where, for ‘L. Cassius Longinus (65)’, read ‘Q. Cassius Longinus (70)’).

page 204 note 5 I should like to thank Professor G. V. Sumner for criticizing a first draft of this article.