Rome Caesar to Claudius sources

That aren't Suetonius/Tacitus/Dio

Cicero Letters to friends

Cicero Letters to Atticus

Plutarch Life of Antony

• Antony admired by his soldiers for heroic persona and willingness to live and suffer with them, “but to everyone else he was odius”

• Crucial to Caesar’s senatorial machinations, but his bad behaviour went unpunished and thus tarred Caesar’s reputation

• his quick moves to preserve Caesar’s laws and initiate a ceasefire for the assassins “was thought to have put an end to civil war”

• Calpurnia gives Antony Caesar’s money and papers

• Cicero gets Antony declared a hostis, Octavian wins the battle of Mutina

• Triumvirate briefly reunite, to significant proscriptions, battle of Phillipi

• His love of Cleopatra a “crowning evil”

• endures huge hardship on Parthian campaign admirably

• Octavian sends Octavia to with aid Antony to make him look bad through Cleopatra

• Antony becomes increasingly hedonistic, on the verge of defeat

• prolonged death scenes for Antony and Cleopatra, which Octavian comes out of looking well

Appian Civil War

• 2nd century Greek historian, 3.86-94

• Soldiers demand that Octavian is made consul, scaring the Senators who are worried about another tyrant

• Escalates to the senate trying to raise legions against Octavian, who immedietely switch sides

• Octavian forgives the leading Senators, but later proscibes them

Virgil Eclogue 4

• Heralds a new age beginning in 40 bce

• Augustus inherits “the glories of heroes and your father’s deeds”

• Agrarian utopia, glory to outdo myth

• Prophecies the coming of Apollo

Horace Epodes 16

• “now another generation is crushed by Civil War”

• barbarians unable to defeat Romans, so “the city will be destroyed by us”

• encourages listener not to “wail” like women, but to work for better things, a return to Jove’s Golden age

Letter of Mark Antony to the koinon of Asia

• 42-41 or 33-32 bce, Sherk 85

• Titles himself ‘Marcus Antonius imperator, triumvir for the Republic’s constitution’

• writing on the priveleges of victorious athletes

Letter of Octavian to Plarasa-Aphrodisias

• 39/38 bce, Sherk 87

• styles ‘Imperator Caesar, son of the god Julius, consul designate for the second and third time, triumvir for the constitution of the Republic’

• seems to just be the introduction to a wider document on city status

• praises ‘your envoy’ Solon, whom Octavian claims to have held “among my acquaintances”

42 bce aureus set

• Three matching aureus mints (RRC 494) of 42 bce

• obverse shows a triumvir, reverse their mythic ancestor (Aemilia the Vestal; Hercules; Aeneas and Anchises)

Velleius Paterculus

• C1 historian, work dedicated to cos. of 30

• 2.89: Augustus returns to Rome in great spectacle and public celebration

  • “the request that Caesar should hold the consulship continuously was successful only up to the eleventh” ie. 23 bce

  • rejects dictatorship

• 2.91: Murena and Caepio rebel against “this happiest of states”

  • Executed legally, possible 22 ce

  • Egnatius’ establishment of a slave fire brigade gives him huge popularity, leading him to unsuccessfully conspire against Augustus

  • little detail on this, reassures the reader that he died a suitably ignoble death

Horace Odes 2.10

• Advises that the “golden mean” is the best way to live

• climbing to extreme heights leads to extreme falls

• the gods (Jupiter, Apollo) can bring both plenty and suffering

letter from Augustus and Agrippa to Kyme

• 28 bce Greek legal decision, later Latin letter from governor of Asia, then Greek translation - Sherk 4 95

• fashioned themselves “imp. Caesar divi filus, Augustus and Agrippa, son of Lucius, consuls”

  • exercising proconsular power whilst still in Rome

• bans the removal of public religious dedications and demands return of any taken

• letter from the procos. Vinicius, attempting to help Apdonides follow above orders and get Lysias to return a dedication

• Greek trans. uses local dating “in the prytany of Phanites”

Augustus’ funeral oration for Agrippa

• 21 bce, using Sherk 6 12 (Greek trans. papyrus)

• lists his magistracies and powers, stressing legitimacy, continuety, and senatorial consent

• elevated “by your own excellent qualities through the consent of all men”

Gaius Fabricus inscription

• Latin inscr. in Tuzla, Asia, 6 (using Sherk 6 21)

• Dedicated to C. Fabricus, prefect of the Aulian cohort

• lists his range of of offices under Augustus, including colony projects, tribune of census, prefect of cavalry, serving under Germanicus

• Dedicated by the ‘decurions’, local senators of Alexander Troas

Res Gestae Divi Augusti

• Inscr. found at least in Rome, Ancyra, Apollonia, Antioch

• stresses consensus, legality, generosity

• 34 for “after that time I excelled everyone in influence [auctoritas] but I did not have a degree more power [potestas] than the others whom I too had as magisterial colleagues”

Cicero De Legibus 3.47

• This legal treatise claims that there are not enough incentives for accountability

• adocates for the censor position to be always occupied, whom magistrates would be regularly answerable to

Cicero De Inventione 2.53

• maistas “is a lessening of the dignity or high estate or authority of the people or those whom the people have given authority”

• guides the beginner orator on when and how to use this definition to connect it to the accused

Cicero pro Rabirio 24

• Claims Rabirio is being unfairly punished for lamenting the death of Saturninus

• Compares Publius Furius, who lost citizenship for a portrait of a dead man who had been condemned for sedition

Seneca On Benefits 3.26

• Encourages clemency-by-default, eg. a tied jury results in an acquittal

• Should desire to do well by people even when not forced

  • eg. continuing to pay debts that have been legally cancelled

Strabo Geography 13.2.3

• Discussing famous people from Mytelene

• Theophanes, “a friend to Pompey the Great”, the father of Marcus Pompey

  • M. Pompey the procurator of Asia under Augustus, and “now counted amond the first friends of Tiberius”

Pliny Panegyrics 11.1

• praises addressee’s honouring of his father through contrast to Tiberius

  • who “deified Augustus; but his purpose was to introduce the charge of high treason”

• Writing under Trajan, and potentially informed by Domitian

SC de Pisone patre

• Tiberius refers the case of Cn. Piso, M. Piso, Plancina, and some of their staff to the Senate (19-20)

• “the remarkable restraint and forbearence of Germanicus Caesar were overborne by the savagery of the elder Cn. Piso’s character”

• Germanicus himself credited with blaming Piso for his death, an act likely to cause civil conflict

• Cn. Piso given damnatio memoriae, and half his property confiscated, that given to him by Augustus to be returned to Tiberius

• Property allocated to M. Piso and his sister Calpurnia as a mark of the senate’s clemency

• Plancina given full forgiveness on the intervention of Livia

Seneca On clemency 1.9

• written for Nero, highlights his family connection to Augustus’ clemency

• Livia suggests switching from a policy of retribution to clemency as the former has not stopped conspiracies

  • prompted by the ill-thought-out conspiracy of the “dull-witted” Lucius Cinna

  • “no one plotted against him further”

Pliny Natural History 7.147-150

• Augustus considered one of history’s great happy men, but actually illustrates that all lives have great changes of fortune

• Implicates Augustus and Livia in the deaths of Gaius and Lucius

• Family scandals and immorality, of the Julias and Agrippa P.

• “the intrigues of his wife and Tiberius that tormented his latest days”

• “departed from life leaving his enemy’s son as his heir”

Honours to Lucius Caesar

• 2-3 ce, colony of Obsequeus Julia Pisana (Pisa)

• lists the honours of Lucius Caesar, “patron of our colony”, and Augustus’ as his father

• Details the annual sacrifice of a bull and ram to his altar

• All in accordance with decrees of the Senate

• envorys to be sent to Augustus for approval

Postumous honours to Gaius Caesar

• 4, colony of Obsequeus Julia Pisana (Pisa)

• Mourning the death of Gaius Caesar, “guardian of the Roman Empire and protector of the whole world, grandson of a god”, before mourning for Lucius had subsided and during local government crisis

• arch erected celebrating him in triumphal context erected in “the most frequented place”, flanked by equestrian statues of Gaius and Lucius

• Titus Statulenus Juncus “flamen of Augustus” and “princeps of our day” to report on these honours to Augustus

Honours for Gaius Caesar

• 5-2 bce, Sardis

• Annual festical instituted celbrating Gaius assuming the toga virilis

• announcements of honours sent from Rome to Greek Asia & vice versa

Oath of allegiance to Tiberius

• Cypriot marble slap from temple of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos

• by other vows to deities and Augustus & Roma

• “to obey alike by land and sea, to regard with loyalty and to worship Tiberius Caesar Augustus”

• temple included pedestals to range of Tiberian relatives (Livia, Julia and Tiberius, Julia and Agrippa, Marcia, Gaius)

Velleius Paterculus on 12 bce

• eulogises Agrippa through his family connections

• disaster in Germany under M. Lollius forces Augustus, Tiberius, and Drusus to take on major military commands

Pomerium boundary markers

• Found throughout Rome, marking Claudius’ extension of the city’s boundaries in 49

• “having extended the territories of the Roman people, he increased and marked the boundaries of this town”

• Some use of Claudius’ special letters!

Claudian military diploma

• Commemorates Claudius granting trireme captains and oarsmen citizenship

• This citizenship also granted to their current and future wives and children

Tabula Lugdensis

• Massive inscriptions from Lyon

• stresses change in Roman civil history

  • Claudius as a historian’s emperor

• Claudius’ speech advocating for the expansion of the Senate into Gallia Comata

• Notes the safety they provided his father Drusus when he was fighting the Germans

Pliny To Montanus

• 7.29: “you will think it a joke - or an outrage” that he saw a statue to Pallas, marking the Senate granting him the insignia of a praetor, and 15 million sesterces (which he refused)

  • reassures himself that all of this will only bring Pallas “ridicule”

• 8.6: following up on above honours, Pliny condemns this flattery as damaging to the state

  • “a slave” wearing senatorial symbols part of the irony that the Senators were becoming “slaves themselves”

Frontinus Aqueducts of Rome

• 1.13-14: Claudius adds two new aqueducts (completed 50), the city’s existing seven “insufficient to meet both public needs and the luxurious private demands of the day”

  • Claudian and New Anio aqueducts

  • describes this rather impressive piece of infrastructure

• 2.104: consular report on the state of fountains in the city (pre-Claudian aqueducts), stable but limited

  • drawing water from aqueducts required Emperor’s permission, Claudius had a specific deputy for this

• 2.116: slave gang of c.260 men given by Augustus to the Senate, then Claudius adds his own of c.460