Chapter 11
The aristocratic craze for things Greek accelerated during the period of overseas expansion. Wars on the Greek mainland and in Hellenistic kingdoms exposed the Romans to both the classicizing idealism of Attica and the emotional realism of the Hellenistic Greeks. Plundered paintings, statues, reliefs, and architectural pieces poured into Rome. Skilled Greek craftsmen and artists came to Italy as slaves or hired craftsmen. Many educated Greek slaves ended up as secretaries and tutors in elite Roman households. Enterprising Greek philosophers, poets, and publicists sought the patronage of rich and powerful Romans. Together, they combined Greek and native Italian influences to create a Greco-Roman classical culture that spread throughout the Mediterranean world.
Architecture and art
Beginning around 264 b.c.e. with the construction of the comitium—a tiered, circular, stone place of public assembly in the Forum—the Romans began the process of remodeling under classical Greek influence. The design of the comitium probably came from Greeks in Sicily. In 263, it was adorned with a sundial pillaged (but never recalibrated) from a Sicilian city. In 221/220, Gaius Flaminius celebrated his Gallic triumph by opening up the Campus Martius (Mars’ Field) to development. It was then outside the walls of the city along the great westward bend of the Tiber. There he built a new space for chariot racing and public meetings. Soon, other triumphant generals were adding temples modeled on Greek originals. They also constructed Hellenistic-style complexes to display the spoils of their victories over Hellenistic kings. Cato the Elder may have been the first to bring another type of Greek building to Rome. As censor in 184 b.c.e., he issued the contract to build in the Forum a small version of the type of Greek building known as a basilica. It was a rectangular covered building with interior supporting columns. People could use it for private or public business.
At first, the new Greek-style buildings were still constructed of wood on stone foundations. Expensive all-stone construction became more common after 150 b.c.e. One of Rome’s earliest stone structures is a Greek-style round temple (tholos) built of plundered Greek marble. It still stands in the Forum Boarium. In 142, the first stone bridge across the Tiber appeared, the Pons Aemilius, part of which still remains.
Domestic architecture
Between 200 and 150, Greek influence had also modified domestic architecture. The simple atrium house now received additional amenities such as baths and gardens flanked by colonnaded walkways off the back. Greek-style fountains, pools, and statuary completed this pleasant setting where the members of well-to-do families could relax.
Innovations in construction
In 196, the first triumphal arch marked the blending of a distinctively Roman form with the Greek style of decoration. Even more important was the development of new construction techniques that allowed the Romans to combine massiveness of form with Greek elegance. The first was the development of molded concrete (opus caementicium): a mixture of mortar and small stones was packed into wooden forms that were stripped away once the mixture had set. Buildings could be made more quickly and with less skilled labor than by using dressed stone blocks. This type of construction was also more versatile because it made arches and vaults relatively simple to build. Thus, it was easy to provide strong but open supporting walls and vaulted ceilings that required no other support. The same advantages were available with baked bricks, which were fast coming into significant use. Soon the Romans were building to heights and expanses that the Greeks never imagined.
Sculpture and decoration
The tradition of Roman bronze sculpture and terracotta relief continued in the second century. By the second half of the century, however, Greek sculptors began to produce many neo-Attic marble statues and reliefs for Roman patrons. Greek artisans also produced frescoes and mosaics in the Hellenistic style to decorate both private and public buildings. By 133 b.c.e., therefore, the efforts of aristocratic Roman leaders had graced Rome with the best works of art that could be plundered or copied from the Greek world.
Literature
Roman aristocrats used Greek art to proclaim their triumphs over the older culture that they were appropriating as a mark of social prestige. They also sought to harness the language, literature, and thought of the Greeks to their own patriotic and self-serving causes. Even Cato the Elder, who publicly scorned the “weak Greeklings” whom Rome had conquered, took the trouble to learn Greek.
First of all, Greek was the international language throughout the wider world of which Rome had become an important part. In order to deal with the leaders of Greece and the Hellenistic kingdoms as equals, it was necessary for Roman senators to understand and speak Greek. Second, there was a certain curiosity and a practical need on the part of the Romans. They wanted to find out more about the Greeks, whom they increasingly conquered and had to control. Third, despite their feelings of moral and military superiority, many Romans felt a certain amount of admiration for the accomplishments of an older, more refined culture. Wanting to imitate it is understandable. Still, they demonstrated a creative capacity to adapt existing forms to new cultural values.
The works of Livius Andronicus
Lucius Livius Andronicus was a Greek who had been enslaved at the fall of Tarentum in 272 b.c.e. (pp. 109–11). By the end of the First Punic War in 241, he had acquired his freedom and a reputation as a teacher and translator of Greek for eager Roman aristocrats. His life underscores how Roman culture was enriched by the incorporation of conquered and allied peoples into the Roman state. Just as with modern New York, London, or Paris, few of the great literary figures associated with ancient Rome were natives of the city itself.
One of Andronicus’ earliest works was a Latin adaptation of a Greek epic poem, the Odyssey. Its meter is called Saturnian, an ancient native meter that the Romans later gave up in favor of forms used by the Greeks. Like English meter, Saturnian, is accentual, based on the stress and lack of stress on syllables within a word. The meter of ancient Greek poetry is quantitative, based on how long or how short a time it takes to say the syllables.
The Odyssey was a very good choice to adapt for Roman readers. Its description of travel in exotic lands appealed to Romans, whose horizons were just then extending beyond the narrow confines of Italy. Also, unlike the Iliad, it did not dwell on the Greek defeat of the Trojans, whom the Romans by now were claiming as their ancestors. Odysseus’ wanderings and hardships even provided the models for those of Aeneas, who supposedly had led the Trojan refugees to Italy. Therefore, if not the first piece of Greek literature adapted to Latin, Andronicus’ Odyssey was the first to attain wide popularity at Rome. It continued to be used as a school text for centuries. In the late first century b.c.e., the poet Horace once recalled having to memorize passages from it when he was a boy.
In 240 b.c.e., the aediles were planning the annual festival of the Roman Games, Ludi Romani. They wanted something special with which to celebrate the recent end of the First Punic War. They asked Livius Andronicus to adapt a Greek tragedy and a Greek comedy for the Roman stage. He not only wrote the texts but also performed as the chief actor. His efforts aroused great enthusiasm and set the trend for Roman drama ever after.
The creativity of Roman literature
The fact that all subsequent Roman authors freely borrowed from the Greeks has often led people to charge that Roman literature is wholly derivative and not worthy of respect. That is not a legitimate view. The ancient Greek and Roman concept of creativity is different from the modern. For an ancient artist, the supreme challenge was to work within a given tradition in order to refine it and improve it, not to create something startlingly new. What the best Roman authors did was to adapt Greek literary forms to the expression of distinctively Roman themes and ideas. Much of Roman literature was intensely patriotic, even nationalistic, portraying the glories of Roman history and the values that distinguished Romans from other people.
Naevius (ca. 270 to 199 b.c.e.)
The first freeborn Roman citizen to achieve success as an author was Livius Andronicus’ slightly younger contemporary Gnaeus Naevius. He grew up surrounded by Greek culture in Campania. He was proficient in tragedy, comedy, and epic. He continued to use the native Saturnian meter and was Rome’s first nationalistic poet. He wrote the first important plays that dealt with events of Roman history rather than Greek mythology. He also wrote the first patriotic Roman epic. Appropriately enough, Naevius’ subject was the First Punic War, in which he had served. Unfortunately, only a handful of fragments survive. From these, however, we can see that he wove in legends of Rome’s founding by descendants of Aeneas. Thus, he provided Vergil (70–19 b.c.e.) with useful material for the Aeneid. In his plays, Naevius often made critical comments about contemporary political figures. His freedom of speech incurred the wrath of the powerful. He died, perhaps in exile, at Utica in North Africa. His difficulties with the powerful made later writers cautious about the use of personal invective on the Roman stage. That contrasts with the license of Greek Old Comedy, epitomized by the plays of Aristophanes (d. 386 b.c.e.).
Ennius (239 to 169 b.c.e.)
The heir of Naevius as a master of tragic, comic, and epic poetry was Quintus Ennius. The fortuitous circumstance of being a native Italian living near the Greek cities of southern Italy and under Roman domination made him trilingual, knowing Oscan, Greek, and Latin. His talent was equally diverse. He had a thorough understanding of Greek thought, a real ear and feeling for language, and a genuine admiration for Rome. That admiration impressed Cato the Elder. He brought Ennius to Rome in 204 b.c.e., after service together in the Roman army. At Rome, Ennius quickly became acquainted with other leading Romans, such as the elder Scipio Africanus, who acted as his patrons.
Ennius’ tragedies were more admired than his comedies. They reveal the influence of Euripides (480s–407[?] b.c.e.) in their subjects, rational spirit, and critical liberalism. Ennius also wrote some philosophical books and a compendium of shorter poems. Its title, Satura, is the Latin root of the English satire. It indicated a miscellany containing personal comments on a variety of subjects in a variety of meters and contributed to the creation of the uniquely Roman genre of satire. Ennius’ greatest achievement, however, was his patriotic epic poem entitled Annales. In eighteen books, it dealt with the tales of Rome’s past and the history of the Second Punic War. Thus, Ennius carried on the process of integrating the legends of Rome’s founding with real history. The poem’s major innovation was the use of quantitative Greek-style meter instead of native Saturnian meter. In both respects, therefore, Ennius served as another of Vergil’s major models.
Specialization in genres
As Roman authors became more skilled and experienced with various literary genres, it became more difficult for any one person to master them all. Some began to evidence special talents in particular fields. Even authors contemporary with Ennius started to specialize in one genre or another.
Pacuvius (ca. 220 to 130 b.c.e.) and Accius (170 to ca. 85 b.c.e.)
Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius worked in all major poetic genres, but they concentrated their greatest efforts on tragedy. Pacuvius came from Brundisium. He was Ennius’ nephew and shared Scipionic connections. Extensive fragments of his plays survive. They reveal good intellectual content, impressive characterization, and powerful language. Accius was born to freedmen parents at Pisaurum on the Adriatic north of Ancona. He had connections with the Junii Bruti. He seems to have shared Pacuvius’ literary characteristics. Later, Horace and Quintilian counted him among Rome’s greatest writers.
Lucilius (ca. 180 to 102 b.c.e.)
Gaius Lucilius was an Equestrian from Campania. In contrast to Pacuvius and Accius, he concentrated his attention on satire. That is Rome’s most important contribution to the genres of Western literature. It grew out of a strong native tradition of poking fun at the faults of famous people during such events as triumphal celebrations and funeral processions. Lucilius really created the genre of satire in its modern sense: sharp, biting, witty commentary on the social and political life of various people and the times in general. As a close friend of the younger Scipio Africanus, Lucilius had access to many of the important men who looked to Scipio for leadership. As could be expected, he was particularly critical of Scipio’s opponents. Although his Latin was not elegant, Lucilius had a natural, vigorous sense of humor. It was highly appreciated by the later satirists Horace and Martial and the critic Quintilian.
Plautus (ca. 254 to 184 b.c.e.) and Terence (ca. 195 to 159 b.c.e.)
Tragedy and comedy were the first literary genres to reach their highest stage of development at Rome. Unfortunately, the tragedians mentioned above are known only through fragmentary quotations and comments in later works. Roman comedy, however, is represented by a body of twenty-seven complete plays, twenty-one assigned to Titus Maccius Plautus and six belonging to Publius Terentius Afer. Few facts are known about the life of Plautus. Even his real name was unknown until 1815, when the oldest manuscript of his plays was discovered. He was an Umbrian from the Italian town of Sarsina.
A little more is known about Plautus’ younger contemporary Terence, but the issue of his origin is a matter of dispute. According to the second-century c.e. biographer Suetonius, Terence had been born at Carthage and was a slave at Rome to a senator named Terentius Lucanus. Suetonius or his source may have inferred Terence’s Carthaginian birth from his cognomen, Afer (“African”), which, however, was not usually applied to Carthaginians or even to Egyptians, but to people from other ethnic groups in North Africa. Terence is also called fuscus, “dark” or “swarthy,” a descriptive word that Romans applied to individuals from all over the ancient world, from India, the Levant, and Asia Minor to even Gaul and Spain, but not to Black Africans. They were called Ethiopians (Aethiopes). It is likely, therefore, that Terence was not born a slave at Carthage but had been captured or bought as a child from one of Carthage’s North African neighbors and brought to Rome, perhaps by a Carthaginian merchant.
Whatever the case, Terentius is said to have recognized the young man’s intellectual gifts and set him free after giving him a good education. Terence’s talents brought him to the attention of Scipio Aemilianus, the younger Africanus, who helped launch his career. Unfortunately, his talent was soon extinguished when he died during a trip to Greece in 159 b.c.e.
Both Plautus and Terence freely borrowed their plots, situations, and characters from writers of Greek New Comedy. They particularly favored Menander, Diphilus, and Philemon. Plautus, however, infused his plays more with the native comic traditions of Italy. Romans had not yet learned to despise those traditions, as they did when the influence of older Greek culture became even stronger in the latter two-thirds of the second century b.c.e. Despite the external trappings of urbane Greek New Comedy, Plautine comedy is basically farce inspired by native Italian farces and ribald poetry found in Etruria. It is rich in slapstick, fast-paced wordplay, and overtly satirical comment on matters of public concern. Those elements are lacking in the surviving examples of New Comedy, which was much more understated and philosophical in nature.
Terence, the younger author, reveals the greater impact of Hellenism on the younger generation of Romans in the second century b.c.e. He was patronized by aristocrats like Scipio Aemilianus, who had received a more thoroughly Greek education than their predecessors. Terence’s plays are much more intellectual and refined and less farcical than the plays of Plautus. Terence’s Latin reflects the speech of the educated upper class rather than the less polished, racier talk of the man in the street. His plays try to teach the psychological lessons of New Comedy. They make good literature but not such entertaining stage productions as those of Plautus. That is why Terence sometimes had trouble holding the attention of his audiences, as he sometimes complained. Moreover, it is significant that after Terence there are no more important writers of Roman comedy. The growing Hellenism of the educated elite prejudiced them against writing in a manner that would appeal to a mass audience. They turned to other forms of writing, while the average Roman enjoyed revivals of Plautus’ and, occasionally, Terence’s old plays. Their comedies have continued to inspire comic playwrights down to the present, as in the case of the 1962 musical-turned-film. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
The plays of Plautus and Terence are important not only as major contributions to Western comic drama. They are also historical reflections of the great cultural, social, and economic changes that affected Rome with the acquisition of an empire. Obviously, the influence of Greek New Comedy on Roman authors mirrors the influence of Greek culture in general. Moreover, New Comedy appealed to the Romans precisely because of the parallels that they saw with their own times. The prominence of slave characters corresponds to the large presence of slavery in Roman society. Conflicts between fathers and sons often provide the plots. They are similar to the conflict between the more cosmopolitan younger generation of Romans like Scipio Aemilianus and Romans of the old school like Cato the Elder. Conflicts between husbands and wives emphasize the growing independence of upper-class women. The prominence of merchants, high-living young men, and gold-digging mistresses mirror the great influx of wealth that Rome was experiencing. The plays may have been set in Greece, but the topics were as much Roman as Greek.
Prose literature
Roman prose took much longer to reach its highest development than did comedy. In fact, the first significant Roman prose authors were historians who wrote in Greek after the Second Punic War. Many of the early Roman historians are called annalists. Like the official records of the pontiffs, their works were organized on a year-by-year basis. The two earliest known historians, Quintus Fabius Pictor and Lucius Cincius Alimentus, were both Roman senators who had served in the Second Punic War. Fabius came from one of the most famous gentes in Roman history. He took special interest in the deeds of the Fabii and other great families. Alimentus was from one of the newer, plebeian aristocratic families. As is true of all the early annalists, their works are lost except for quotations and borrowings by later authors. The loss of Alimentus is particularly regrettable because he was captured by Hannibal’s army and may have known Hannibal personally. His experience with the Carthaginians seems to be reflected in his reputation for being fair to both sides in the Punic wars. Fabius, on the other hand, was notoriously anti-Carthaginian and blamed the Second Punic War on the Barcids’ hatred of Rome.
Two other senatorial annalists, Gaius Acilius and Aulus Postumius Albinus, appeared around 150 b.c.e. Acilius’ intellectual interests are reflected in his role as interpreter for three Greek philosophers who represented Athens before the senate in 155 (pp. 202–3). Postumius had fought under Aemilius Paullus against Perseus and had extensive experience in the Greek East. They and their two predecessors all devoted much space to the period of the Monarchy and foundation of the Republic in order to construct a glorious past worthy of Rome’s glorious present. They then emphasized Rome’s recent greatness with lengthy treatments of the first two Punic wars.
Greek was the logical choice of language for Roman historians. First, the only models for writing prose history were Greek. It would have been easier to use existing Greek vocabulary and concepts than to create new ones in Latin. Second, the use of Greek made their works available to both Rome’s educated elite and, more importantly, the Greeks. While Greeks were becoming more interested in Rome as Roman power grew, they seldom bothered to learn Latin. They considered it too crude and beneath their dignity. Also, Roman writers wanted to counteract the favorable view of Carthage that Greek audiences received from Greek accounts of the Punic wars.
Polybius (ca. 200 to ca. 118 b.c.e.)
The historian Polybius came to Rome as an Achaean Greek hostage after Pydna (p. 163). In many ways, he represents a continuation of the tradition of Roman historians writing in Greek for a Greek audience. Having obtained the friendship and patronage of Scipio Aemilianus, son of L. Aemilius Paullus, the victor at Pydna, he accompanied Scipio on military and diplomatic missions, including the Third Punic War. In this way, he developed intimate, firsthand knowledge of how Rome’s aristocrats thought and acted. Similarly, he personally traveled over much of the Mediterranean world. He even retraced Hannibal’s march over the Alps and undertook a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules down the West African coast.
Unfortunately, his account of that voyage is lost, but part of his forty-volume Histories survives, to the enormous benefit of today’s historians. All of the first five books and a good part of Book 6 are extant. Later authors also preserve numerous excerpts from other books, but five are completely lost. Although he is not without bias, Polybius tries to provide the Greeks with a sophisticated and rigorously analytical explanation of how Rome came to dominate the Mediterranean world from ca. 220 to 167 b.c.e. He includes, however, a background discussion of the First Punic War and its aftermath. He also analyzes the effects of Rome’s conquests on itself and others between 167 and the destruction of Carthage in 146 b.c.e. Although a rigorous intellectual, Polybius was no mere armchair historian. He practiced what he called pragmatic history: the careful analysis of documents, the interrogation of eyewitnesses, and the acquisition of firsthand geographical knowledge.
Cato the Elder (234 to 149 b.c.e.)
Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder was an older contemporary of Polybius. As in his architecture, so in his oratory and written works, he was willing to adopt what he found useful in Greek culture, while he was critical of what he saw as its dangers. He was the first Roman to compose an important history in Latin. It was entitled Origines (The Origins). It covered the early history of Italy and Rome as well as their recent past. For the recent period, he left out famous names and included parts of his own speeches. Thus, Cato deflated other prominent men and glorified himself. In one well-known episode, he underscored the omission of famous names by giving only the name of Surus, one of Hannibal’s elephants. Cato made many important prose contributions other than his history of Rome. He wrote major works on law, medicine, and agriculture, the last of which, the De Agricultura, survives as the earliest extant work of Latin prose. It is a valuable source of information on Roman life and economic history in the second century b.c.e. Cato also published a book on rhetoric and was the first Roman to publish his own speeches.
Rhetoric
The publication of Cato’s speeches and his work on rhetoric emphasize the growing importance of the art of rhetoric and rhetorical training. With the growth of Rome as a world power, the state needed officials and leaders capable of clearly expounding problems and policies in public meetings, in senatorial debates, and in dealings with foreign governments. The increased complexity of Roman life also meant more lawsuits. Therefore, a need arose for more trained advocates to plead them. Naturally, great Greek masters of oratory and rhetoric like Demosthenes, Isocrates, and Thucydides served as models for the formal practice of those arts at Rome.
Two of the most accomplished orators of the day were two of the most eager Hellenizers, Scipio Aemilianus and his Stoic friend Gaius Laelius. According to Cicero, Scipio had a reputation for solemnity, as befitted a great aristocrat. Laelius was a little softer and smoother but tended to be austere overall. Unfortunately, all of their works and those of their contemporaries are lost except for a few scraps quoted by later authors.
Philosophy
Hand in hand with history and oratory at Rome grew an interest in philosophy, which meant Greek philosophy. Philosophical systems were useful to the practical-minded Romans. They could provide the conceptual and logical structures for developing ideas in speech, could sharpen skill in debate, or could clothe personal and partisan purposes with high-sounding phrases. The formal study of philosophy at Rome also received a big boost in 155 b.c.e. Athens sent an embassy made up of the heads of three major philosophical schools: Critolaus the Peripatetic, Diogenes the Stoic, and Carneades, a Skeptic from the Platonic Academy. While waiting for an opportunity to address the senate, they gave a series of public lectures that aroused much interest.
Carneades made the greatest impression. As a Skeptic, he had no absolute dogmas or guides on ethical and intellectual questions. He substituted a system of probability and an eclectic spirit. He strove to combine the best aspects of all philosophical schools in order to improve the human condition. To show the weakness of absolute dogmas, he argued one side of a question one day and convinced the audience that he was right. Then, just as convincingly, he argued the other side on the following day. Cato the Elder was scandalized and expressed fear that this skeptical approach would undermine traditional Roman morals.
More compatible with traditional Roman values was the philosophy of Stoicism. The Stoics employed rigorously logical dialectical arguments. They believed in a divinely created world brotherhood and hierarchical order. They stressed duty, the upholding of established authority, and the natural rule of the wise. These ideas attracted Romans seeking to justify their growing empire to themselves and others. Panaetius of Rhodes popularized Stoic ideas at Rome. He lived for some time as a guest of Scipio Aemilianus and his famous friend Gaius Laelius. Famous for Stoic learning, Laelius came to be called Sapiens, “The Wise.” Another Stoic, Blossius of Cumae, was the tutor of the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. He may have had some influence on the arguments used to justify their reforms to aid the poor in 133 and 123 b.c.e.
The philosophy of Epicureanism was less popular at Rome than the other schools. Epicureanism advocated for its followers to withdraw from public life, which the school’s founder, Epicurus, had identified as a source of stress and anxiety. This, of course, clashed with a central Roman aristocratic value, and Epicurus’ belief in gods that did not actually interfere in the human realm was contrary to traditional Roman thinking about the divine. Even so, by about 100 b.c.e., the philosophy had gained prominent followers among Rome’s aristocrats, including some senators.
The Romans themselves made no notable original contributions to philosophy in this period. They had little patience with the intricacies and hairsplitting of philosophical controversies. They mostly received the established systems of the Greek schools, chose what suited their purposes, and applied it to their lives. For example, those who were concerned with law adopted the rigorous dialectic of the Stoics in order to give structure and order to Roman law.
Law
The publication of Cn. Flavius’ handbook on the wording of lawsuits and legal formulae in 304 (p. 96) had broken the pontiffs’ monopoly on interpreting the civil law (ius civile). Afterward, a number of aristocrats became private students of the law. They obtained public recognition and gratitude as lawyers and legal interpreters known as “jurisconsults” (iurisconsulti). In 204 b.c.e., the jurisconsult Sextus Aelius Paetus Catus published a valuable, systematic legal work in three parts: the text of the Twelve Tables, various interpretations that had clarified and expanded the application of those laws over the years, and a detailed presentation of the various forms of lawsuits and their appropriate formulae. It became a classic that influenced Roman jurisprudence for centuries. The systematized exposition and interpretation of Roman law by aristocratic jurisconsults clearly reflected the influence of the Greek philosophy and rhetoric that were part of every Roman aristocrat’s education. The spirit of Roman law, however, was always rooted in practical experience. Nowhere was that more visible than in the practical changes resulting in more efficient legal procedures as Roman society became more complex.
Civil procedure
The earliest procedure in civil cases was known as the legis actio because it was based on very specific statements of actionable deeds or occurrences called legis actiones. Under this procedure, both the plaintiff and the defendant had to appear before a pontiff or, after 367, a praetor. First, the plaintiff stated his case orally according to the precise wording of the appropriate legis actio. The defendant, whom the plaintiff could compel to appear, had to reply in the same way, as did the pontiff or praetor conducting the hearing. If the latter decided that there was a basis for a suit, he and the contending parties would appoint a mutually agreed-upon fellow citizen as judge. The judge would then hear the evidence and arguments in a separate proceeding and render a verdict. If the plaintiff won, he was responsible for enforcing compliance with the judgment. For example, he could handcuff his opponent for up to sixty days to compel him or his representative to pay a fine.
Because there were only five legis actiones, it became harder to find one that would fit a given complaint as life became more complex. Moreover, the prescribed oral statements were so cumbersome as to produce verbal slips that would cause cases to be rejected. The praetors began to create formulary procedures conducted in writing according to formulae published in their annual edicts. Like the legis actio, the formulary procedure involved an initial hearing and then a trial before a judge or panel of judges. Using a written formula, however, became much more popular during the third and second centuries. It was less subject to disqualifying slips. Also, praetors could modify the formulae or create new ones as new situations arose.
Criminal procedure
What the Romans called public law (ius publicum) dealt with criminal matters. The earliest ways of dealing with crimes continued to be widely used in the second century b.c.e. and beyond: personal revenge, raising a hue and cry among friends and neighbors to obtain rough and ready justice on the spot, or an informal “trial” before the accused’s paterfamilias. A paterfamilias had the right to judge anyone who was legally subject to his patria potestas. He usually relied on ancestral custom (mos maiorum) and the advice of an informal council of friends to determine guilt and punishment.
In the more impersonal world of a large city, however, the private methods of dealing with crime were not always satisfactory. Sometime during the years 290 to 288, special minor magistrates called triumviri capitales were first appointed to deal with serious crimes like murder. They generally exercised jurisdiction over slaves and lower-class citizens. For members of the upper classes, who had power, money, and influence, there could be a trial before one of the higher magistrates with appeal to a popular assembly in capital cases. Cases prosecuted on appeal were usually handled by tribunes and sometimes by quaestors and aediles. In special cases of great interest to the governing class, the senate could set up special commissions to conduct trials.
As public life and politics became more complex, however, laws were passed to set up standing praetorian courts, quaestiones perpetuae (also called iudicia publica), to deal with major crimes. The first permanent quaestio was the extortion court (de rebus repetundis) established by L. Calpurnius Piso in 149 to hear cases against extortionate provincial governors (p. 192). During the first century, the permanent courts greatly increased in number. One of the major features of the courts was their use of juries made up of fifty senators chosen by lot. Later, the use of nonsenators on these juries would be a matter of great political controversy. As was the case in all courts, prosecution had to be initiated by the aggrieved party. There were no public prosecutors, and except for cases of capital punishment or a state fine, the winner of a criminal case also had to enforce the verdict himself.
Religion
While jurisprudence and legal procedure were becoming more systematic and efficient under the influence of Greek philosophy and practical experience, the role of Greek influence on the more spectacular events of the early second century b.c.e. is less clear. In 186 b.c.e., the senate passed a decree (a redaction of which is still extant) against the worship of the cult of Bacchus (the Greek god Dionysus, who was popular among the Etruscans to the north and the Greeks in southern Italy) and forbade, under penalty of death, more than five people to meet together for private worship in Rome or Italy without permission from a praetor. The text of the decree strongly implies that the Romans were concerned about the involvement of men—especially men of the political class—in the cult. A rather different picture emerges from Livy’s account in Book 39 of his history, which describes the senate’s panic about this foreign cult with its secret, orgiastic meetings where women and men, slave and free all worshiped together.
The senators also sought to restrain the overwrought emotionalism of the worship of Cybele, the Great Mother, which had been imported to Rome during the dark days of the Second Punic War (p. 187). The cult of the Great Mother centered on the death and resurrection of the god Attis, who was both her son and husband. The rites symbolized the annual death and rebirth of vegetation. Cybele’s gorgeously clad eunuch priests led wild celebrations in her honor. They included riotous outdoor parades, ecstatic dances to the beat of drums and cymbals, and self-mutilations, even self-castrations, performed at the climax of religious fervor. Roman leaders were horrified and, despite the state’s official sponsorship of the cult, denied Roman citizens the right to participate.
Expansion of traditional festivals and creation of the epulones
Traditional Roman religion was not immune to the desire for more intense religious activities in the exciting world of a great city. Therefore, partly in response to the needs of the people and partly as a result of increased wealth, the state greatly expanded the size and scope of religious festivals, ludi, at Rome. Circus races became a popular part of religious festivals. Gladiatorial combats arose in Etruria as funeral rites to supply departed spirits with blood and vitality. In 264 b.c.e., they were introduced at Rome. Dramatic performances, long associated with Greek religion, became part of Roman religious festivals when Livius Andronicus was hired to produce plays at the Ludi Romani, September games in honor of Jupiter, in 240 b.c.e. Other major festivals were the Ludi Plebeii, Plebeian Games, to honor Jupiter in November; the Ludi Apollinares, for Apollo, in July; and the Ludi Megalenses (in honor of the Great Mother), the Ludi Cereales (for Ceres), and the Ludi Florales (for Flora, the goddess of plants), all in April.
The increase in the size and number of religious festivals and games necessitated the creation of a new college of priests in 196 b.c.e. They were the epulones (sing. epulo), the banquet masters. They became responsible for holding the public religious banquets that accompanied many major festivals and events such as triumphs, state funerals, and special thanksgivings to the gods. The overall management of many major festivals was the responsibility of the aediles. As time went on, festivals brought them so much public recognition and popularity that they had an interest in expanding the number of days and events involved, often at their own expense.
New ideas and cults
The educated Roman elite did not abandon traditional religious practice. Nevertheless, they became more sophisticated in their religious views under the influence of Greek religion and philosophy. Many adopted the ideas of the Hellenistic thinker Euhemerus. He argued that the gods were simply extraordinary human beings who, like Hercules, had come to be worshiped for their great services to mankind. His work on the origin of the gods was so popular that Ennius translated it into Latin. It had a significant impact on the Roman aristocracy’s ambition for fame and glory. It is even the underlying assumption behind the deification of Roman emperors later on. At the same time, the Greek-influenced personification of abstract concepts like hope, honor, and virtue as deities continued with the dedication of new temples to them.
Education
Expanded cultural and intellectual life created a need for more formal education at Rome. In the early days, everyone’s education, such as it was, had centered on home and family. Slaves were not used as tutors. Mothers and other female relatives trained children at least until the age of seven. After that, girls remained under their mothers’ tutelage to learn about household management. Boys accompanied their fathers into the fields and Forum to learn how to make a living and be good citizens. Fathers considered it one of their gravest duties to furnish precepts and examples from which their sons could learn their roles as citizens.
At about fifteen, a young male became a man and put on the toga virilis, toga of manhood. Soon, the young man left his father’s personal care. A young aristocrat was often placed by his father in the hands of an old and distinguished friend for further training in public life. After a year or two, at about age seventeen, the young aristocrat entered military service. First, as a soldier in the ranks, he learned how to fight and obey orders. Then, he joined a general’s staff to learn the techniques of command. After that, the young man apprenticed himself to another older man at Rome to complete his training in political life.
The purpose of this system was not only to provide a basic education in practical matters, but also to inculcate the rigid system of Roman moral values and service to the state as passed on in the ancestral customs, mos maiorum. This ideal is seen, for example, in the Roman attitude toward athletic training. The Hellenistic Greeks fostered athletics for health, beauty, and personal satisfaction in excelling through competition as much as for military training. Roman physical education still centered primarily on training for war.
In the third and second centuries, however, with the increasing interest in Greek culture, Romans began to adopt features of Greek education. Wealthy Romans began to use learned Greek slaves to take care of children and supervise the instruction of the young in Greek language and literature. Greek freedmen set up grammar schools to teach the children of those who could not afford slave tutors. At first, only Greek was taught. As Latin literature became established, Latin grammar schools appeared, too. In the second century, professional Greek philosophers were even coming to Rome to offer instruction at a higher level.
Overview and prospect
In every way, therefore, Rome’s expansion into the wider Mediterranean world between 264 and 133 b.c.e. had intensified the interaction of Greek and Roman culture. Although Greek influence had been important since the arrival of the Greeks in Italy, it had never been so self-consciously cultivated as it was in this period. Roman leaders intentionally adorned their city with public buildings, monuments, and temples in the Greek style. They decorated public and private spaces with the best examples of Greek art taken as spoils of victory or copied for them by hired Greek craftsmen. The rich turned simple Italic atrium houses into complexes modeled on the houses of wealthy Hellenistic Greeks. At the same time, the Romans used new construction materials, particularly molded concrete and baked bricks, which allowed them to surpass the Greeks in the size and complexity of their structures with arches and vaults. By the last third of the second century b.c.e., Rome looked much more like a capitol city than it ever had before.
The Romans modeled their literature on that of the Greeks. The first known work of Latin literature was Livius Andronicus’ translation of Homer’s epic, the Odyssey. Later, Andronicus adapted Greek tragedies and comedies for performance at Roman religious festivals. Gnaeus Naevius used the Greek genres of epic, tragedy, and comedy to portray patriotic subjects in Latin literature. Quintus Ennius added to Naevius’ legacy by adopting Greek quantitative meter in place of the native accentual Saturnian meter. Other authors like the comic playwrights Plautus and Terence specialized in particular genres.
The first Roman prose authors were aristocrats like Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus. Writing in Greek, they produced annals, year-by-year accounts of Roman history, to advertise and justify Rome’s achievements to the wider Hellenistic world. Not long after them, the Romanized Greek hostage Polybius wrote the greatest surviving Greek account of Roman history. Even the very nationalistic elder Cato learned to read Greek and adapt Greek prose models for his various writings in Latin.
Although Cato was skeptical of Greek philosophy, others eagerly adopted what they found useful from the Peripatetic, Academic Skeptic, and Stoic schools of Greek philosophy. Romans found Stoicism particularly compatible with their values and outlook. Epicureanism meshed less easily with traditional Roman values and beliefs.
Roman law and legal procedure developed in their own particularly Roman way. Nevertheless, the formal systemization and interpretation of Roman law owe much to the influence of Greek logic and rhetoric. Greek oratory and rhetoric also provided valuable guides for pleading cases in the permanent courts created to try major criminal cases in Rome’s increasingly complex social and political life.
While Roman leaders curbed objectionable elements of Hellenistic cults like those of Dionysus (Bacchus) and Cybele (The Great Mother), they did not reject these deities. They also continued the deification of abstract concepts in the Greek manner. As early as Ennius, Romans were attracted to the Greek Euhemerus’ theory that the gods originated as extraordinary human beings. In 240 b.c.e., the Greek practice of performing dramas at religious festivals was adopted in Rome. So many new festivals were created that Rome needed a new board of priests, the epulones, in 196 b.c.e. to oversee ritual banquets.
In the third and second centuries b.c.e., well-to-do and upper-class Romans began to distinguish themselves through more formal education. They bought or hired educated Greek tutors in language, literature, and thought for their children. More advanced students studied with professional Greek philosophers who found it profitable to set up shop in Rome.
During the next century, the Greco-Roman cultural synthesis would progress still further as the Romans became even more closely involved with their Greek subjects.
Suggested reading
Feeney , D. Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2016.
Gruen , E. S. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.