PART II
CHAPTER 4
As discussed in the previous chapter, the Sullan approach to political theology was quite different from the Ciceronian approach. The Sullan approach was rooted deeply in the ancient aristocratic traditions of the Cornelian gens as refracted through the historical and spiritual developments of the crisis of the late Hellenistic period. Although subject to the same historical forces, the novus homo Cicero was not equipped to employ convincingly some of the rhetorical and performative tools available to a patrician or nobilis. Of necessity and also in accordance with his personality and training, Cicero constructed a personal theology that was more literary and tied to recent history. In doing so, he drew on Hellenic epic and the careers of close predecessors; and he was given to conceptualizing the Republic in more philosophical and symbolic terms. One cannot conceive of Sulla describing Res Publica bearing him back to the city; one cannot imagine Cicero doing anything else. A crucial difference between the mind-sets of Sulla and Cicero that shaped their respective approaches to constructing theologies of arrival might be succinctly expressed as follows: for Sulla, the Republic was something that could be entirely contingent on him, if only temporarily; for Cicero, the Republic represented something larger than him, which he nevertheless saved. Caesar's way of relating to the Republic was perhaps a more extreme form of the Sullan perspective.
This is not to say that men like Sulla and Caesar were incapable of viewing the Republic in abstract terms or of attempting to address its problems through systematic reforms. Sulla's constitution represented the first real attempt in Rome's historical period to remake the Republic as a system that might be called rational. At the same time, however, Sulla and Caesar operated in a highly localized and particularized system of personal prestige that conflicted with the practical and rational nature, such that it was, of their reforms. Militating against the possibility of a satisfactory discussion is the conceptual predominance of the individual actor as the force of change in the Late Republic, on the one hand, and a lack of evidence of philosophical or abstract discussion of the Republic between Polybius and Cicero, on the other.1 To cite an example that illustrates the combined impact of these problems, there is no detailed account of the relationship between the Gracchi and men like Blossius of Cumae and Diophanes of Mitylene and, thus, of the influence of such a relationship on their reforms.2 The scholarly discussion therefore tends to focus on the Gracchi themselves. By contrast, one is fortunate to have in the writings of Cicero abundant evidence of the philosophical discussion of the Republic. Furthermore, the extant evidence shows that Cicero and Caesar engaged intellectually on the subject of the Republic. The exchange between Cicero and Caesar on Cato the Younger is one example of their engagement on the subject.3 From this evidence it is clear that the two had very different approaches to the problems of their time.
This chapter concerns how that clash found expression in a proposed dialectical exchange between Cicero and Caesar as realized through arrival rhetoric and performance. The proposed dialectical exchange is as follows: in his Pro Marcello, Cicero presented to Caesar his vision of the Republic as the collegial gathering of the Senate and charged Caesar to restore that Republic; Caesar, in his turn, performed his vision of the Republic in the Feriae Latinae and subsequent ovation of January 44 BCE. In the process, this chapter seeks to shed greater light on the unusual ovatio of January 26, 44 BCE.
Caesar the King?
The ovatio of January 44 is one of the most tantalizing problems of Caesar's self-representation. In the course of engaging in ceremonies of a securely traditional Republican pedigree, Caesar appears to be hailed as king.
nam cum in sacrificio Latinarum reuertente eo inter immodicas ac nouas populi acclamationes quidam e turba statuae eius coronam lauream candida fascia praeligata imposuisset et tribuni plebis Epidius Marullus Caesetiusque Flauus coronae fasciam detrahi hominemque duci in uincula iussissent, dolens seu parum prospere motam regni mentionem siue, ut ferebat, ereptam sibi gloriam recusandi, tribunos grauiter increpitos potestate priuauit. neque ex eo infamiam affectati etiam regii nominis discutere ualuit, quamquam et plebei regem se salutanti Caesarem se, non regem esse responderit.4
[For at the Latin Festival, as he was returning to the city, amid the extravagant and unprecedented acclamations of the people, someone from the crowd placed a laurel crown with a white fillet tied to it on his statue; and when Epidius Marullus and Caesetius Flavius, tribunes of the plebs, ordered that the band be removed from the crown and the man led off in bonds, Caesar smarting either because the suggestion of kingship had gone over poorly or, as he claimed, he had been robbed of the glory of refusing it, rebuked the tribunes harshly and then removed them from office. And from that time on he could not dispel the charge of aspiring to the title of king, although he responded to the plebs, when they hailed him as king, “I am Caesar, not king.”]
Caesar is here shown returning from the Feriae Latinae (which consuls traditionally celebrated before heading out on campaign) and being received during his reditus to the city, with two unusual demonstrations suggesting a royal, rather than magisterial, status: first, the addition of a diadem, a symbol of Hellenistic kingship, to the victor's laurel crown on his statue and, second, the acclamation of rex. Not only did unusual gestures take place during the procession, but the event had also been unique in its conception, in that the Senate had voted to allow Caesar to ride into Rome on horseback in his return procession after the Latin Festival.5 Perhaps partly because Suetonius grouped this event with other items that he interpreted as indicating Caesar's royal pretensions, the discussion of this event has been dominated by the question of whether Caesar had in fact desired to establish himself as king.6 The modern discussion of Caesar's aims extends a debate that began in Caesar's lifetime. It is useful to gather together the various evidences from the ancient sources that are generally invoked in the modern discussion:
1. Caesar failed to rise to greet the senators who brought him a list of the honors voted him.7
2. Wreaths with white fillets were placed on statues of Caesar, probably during the same reception in which Caesar was hailed as rex.8
3. During the Lupercalia, Antony thrice placed on Caesar a diadem, which Caesar removed and dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.9
4. As Caesar prepared to leave for his Parthian campaign, a circulating Sibylline Oracle claimed that only a king could defeat the Parthians.10
On the basis of these anecdotes, Stefan Weinstock built his frequently cited case that Caesar was attempting to establish himself as king of Rome;11 the case was strengthened by Bruce Lincoln, who placed most emphasis on the fourth-listed anecdote.12
In the course of making the case for the proposed interaction between Cicero and Caesar through the construction of arrivals at Rome in a restored Republic, this chapter works to reassess critically the evidence for Caesar's supposed aspirations to kingship. Some general considerations will precede an examination of the historical context and circumstances of these anecdotes. This chapter shall argue that Caesar's ovatio in particular, if correctly understood, controverts the view of Weinstock and Lincoln and also points the way to an interpretation of the other incidents that confirms that Caesar's aims were more complex than has generally been realized. The five anecdotes (including the ovation itself) are transmitted by sources that are mostly in agreement. But the events themselves are highly ambiguous in nature. This makes it all the more important to scrutinize the interpretations the sources impose on them, especially since the overall tradition of these narratives seems to have been and probably was deliberately directed toward justifying the assassination of Caesar and depicting Augustus as being more politically adept than his adoptive father.13 This makes it very difficult to deduce confidently from these incidents what Caesar really intended, although, as the present argument contends, not one single incident, when stripped of the source materials' interpretive glosses, factually indicates that Caesar personally intended to establish himself as king.
In addition, the very concept of “king” is highly problematic in relation to Caesar.14 The claim that Caesar sought to be king immediately raises the question of what sort of king he might have conceived of becoming. It cannot be assumed that he wanted to institute a Successor-style Hellenistic monarchy at Rome any more than that he wanted to be the next Tarquin.15 Rome eventually embraced a form of monarchy in Augustus' Principate. That arrangement did not emerge fully formed but came about through trial and error in response to the vicissitudes of relations between Augustus and the Senate.16 In a situation where the abiding preeminence of one man seemed almost inevitable, it was necessary to work out the mechanics of the system, while ensuring that it would be sustainable and would not lead inexorably to an outcome similar to Caesar's assassination. It seems attractive to assume that, from Caesar's return to Rome in October 46 to the Ides of March of 44, Caesar was trying to carve out a position of permanent supremacy in the state and that these “royal” episodes represented, at least in part, the struggle between Caesar and the Roman aristocracy as they tried to come to terms with a new order. A specific, assumed definition of the word rex should not be read back into the historical events. Like Augustus, Caesar probably did not initially have a clear vision of how his position would ultimately be defined.
Caesar's Unusual Ovation
Concerning the issue of the ovation of late January 44, it is again essential to avoid rash assumptions about what the ovation was meant to convey.17 To understand this event, its concomitant acclamations of Caesar as rex at the gates of Rome, and his demurral at that term, one must go back to Caesar's earlier return to Rome in 46 and his subsequent triumphs. The reason for doing so is that, by 44, Caesar must have been conscious of the importance of framing his arrival at the city correctly. The returns of Sulla to Rome in 88 and 82 would have cast a long shadow: they reverberated in the subsequent threats of Lepidus and Catiline and in the anxiety over Pompey's return from the East.18 Like Sulla's return in 82, Caesar's arrival in Rome in 46 took place after a victory in a civil war, and it had considerably less cover from accusations of fratricide than did Sulla's victory at the Porta Collina over the Samnites—longtime, bitter enemies of Rome. Caesar had made the mistake of parading depictions of the deaths of Pompeians in his triumph of 46: M. Petreius, M. Porcius Cato, and Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica were all represented in scenes of suicide on floats in the pompa triumphalis.19 This gave deep offense not only to surviving Pompeians but also to those of Caesar's own senatorial supporters whose sense of propriety extended beyond partisanship.
Caesar would again be criticized for celebrating a triumph after Munda in 45, since that victory, too, was patently over fellow citizens.20 Caesar's lapses of judgment in appearing to triumph over Romans in 46 and 45 should not be downplayed. A man's performance in public ceremonies was both the expression and the construction of his place and power in the political and social orders.21 Triumphs were traditionally regarded as celebrations of victory over non-Roman foes for the protection of Rome. To enter Rome in a celebration of the defeat of Romans might be interpreted as celebrating the conquest of Rome. Rome was foremost not an aggregate of buildings but, rather, a gathering of people, with special importance given to the most prominent members of the gathering, Rome's senators. As a group, the senators identified with the men who had founded the Republic by ejecting and defeating kings. This attitude was at the root of the problem that Caesar had, probably unwittingly, created for himself. Any Roman who defeated senators could not help but appear to be taking on a royal role, thus reversing the progression of the city's development from monarchy to the res publica.
Cicero's Pro Marcello
At roughly this same time and perhaps to make atonement for his astounding gaffe of parading images of defeated Romans,22 Caesar extended amnesty to his bitter foe Marcellus. The act was in keeping with his clementia, but it was particularly striking in this case because of the bad blood between the two men.23 Marcellus had led the effort to terminate Caesar's Gallic command and had opposed allowing Caesar to stand for consul in absentia.24 Marcellus had also whipped a citizen of Novum Comum and returned him to Caesar to show his contempt for Caesar's grant of citizenship to the colonists.25 Cicero, a longtime friend and ally of Marcellus, was ostensibly overcome by Caesar's gesture and felt prompted to deliver a spontaneous actio gratiarum, which would later be published as the Pro Marcello.
In this speech, Cicero opens by identifying as the reason for Cicero's own return from a self-imposed exile Caesar's unexpected act of clemency in allowing Marcellus to return: this speech, Cicero said, marked his resumption of public life and the end of his silence.26 These sentiments were intended to recall Cicero's earlier triumphant return from involuntary exile in 57. The linking of Marcellus' absence with the silence of Cicero is reminiscent of imagery used by Cicero to powerful effect in the Post Reditum speeches, in which he associated his own absence with the absence of the Republic itself and thus identified himself with the state.27 In returning from exile, Marcellus would rejoin Cicero, another returned exile, in the happy yoke they had earlier shared.28 Such images powerfully evoked a vision of the Republic before the chaos and dislocation of civil war—as it might have been remembered nostalgically in the mid-forties. The images also continued Cicero's self-identification with the state and, this time, equated the reuniting of Marcellus and Cicero with the return of the Republic.
An equally important theme of the Pro Marcello is that Marcellus would also return to the seat of his ancestors and the bosom of his family.29 The interests of the Senate and of the families of Rome are closely connected in Cicero's language at this point. He continued shortly thereafter, omnium Marcellorum meum pectus memoria offudit, quibus tu etiam mortuis M. Marcello conservato dignitatem suam reddisti, nobilissimamque familiam iam ad paucos redactam paene ab interitu vindicasti (“My breast overflows with the memory of all the Marcelli, to whose members, even those who are dead, you have returned their dignity by saving Marcus, and you have rescued a most noble family, which had been reduced to a few members, from near destruction”).30 Cicero here expanded on the boon that Marcellus' anticipated return was to his family, simultaneously raising the memory of his illustrious ancestors and commenting on how the great line was near extinction. In short, Cicero looked to Marcellus' return as a token of the restoration of Rome as a Republic, implicitly stressing that all of these elements—Senate, family, tradition, and Republic—naturally flowed together.
Cicero went on to compare Caesar's fortune favorably with that of Sulla: there is an implicit comparison with Sulla in the discussion of Fortuna, in which Caesar's superiority over Sulla Felix is apparent in that Caesar, unlike Sulla, was not dependent on luck.31 Cicero ultimately urged Caesar to take up the restoration of the Republic as the duty to which his success called him.32 In issuing this call to Caesar, Cicero once again theomorphized the Republic, as he had in the past. Cicero defined that restoration in terms of the twin returns of himself and Marcellus as brought about by Caesar's clementia; this, according to Cicero, was Caesar's true success, a triumph that conquered victory itself: ipsam victoriam vicisse videris.33
The intent of Cicero's Pro Marcello has remained a point of contention. On the one hand, it has been seen as a reflection of Cicero's genuine gratitude to Caesar in the first blush of a rekindled hope that the Republic might return through Caesar's agency.34 At the other extreme, one scholar has gone so far as to argue that Cicero was subtly enjoining tyrannicide upon the senators in the audience.35 It is not necessary to conclude that Cicero disingenuously sought to criticize Caesar by praising him in a way that suggested the fundamental incompatibility of a living Caesar and the restored Republic; that would have forced Caesar into an untenable position. Rather, contrasting images of collegiality, as expressed in the symbolic yoking of Marcellus and Cicero, and of fratricidal competition, as made apparent in Cicero's resurrection of Sulla's memory and the contemporary circumstances of the ongoing civil war, presented Caesar with a conundrum for which he was forced to seek a solution: how can the murderous competition of civil war that leads to the preeminence of a single man bring about the return to a Republic as traditionally expressed in the collegial sharing of power by the magistrates and the Senate? Cicero himself suggested that Caesar's role could build on the wise application of clementia, through which he brought not only liberty but also a transformation of status to the beneficiaries of his mercy.36 In this, Caesar is assimilated to the gods: non ego eum cum summis viris comparo, sed simillimum deo iudico.37 What was to follow Caesar's restoration of the Republic, however, was less clear.
A Caesarian Solution to the Crisis?
Caesar's assassination reveals Caesar's ultimate failure to find a solution that would allow his coexistence with a restored Republic. The assumption that he was seeking a solution has to stand up to the contrary view that Caesar was trapped in a state of aporia, which could be resolved temporarily by his Parthian campaign or permanently by his death. C. Matius was to write, “If he [Caesar], with his genius, could find no solution, who is to find one now?”38 Matius' words imply that Caesar was seriously seeking a solution, presumably one that would establish Caesar's own lasting preeminence in a Roman order that was at the same time a Republic. Matius was an intimate and fervent partisan of Caesar, whose continued devotion to his dead friend was evident in his role in putting on the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris after the assassination.39 Matius' testimony should therefore be respected, although Caesar's behavior in early 44 could easily seem to be that of a man who had no intention of restoring the Republic in a form acceptable to the senatorial aristocracy. In the Pro Marcello, Cicero imagined Caesar as a godlike figure with specific regard to his use of clementia to restore the Republic. Not long thereafter, however, Caesar rapidly scaled the heights of prestige and approached the vicinity of deity and monarchy. Caesar was indeed dangerously close to becoming a Roman Alexander. Once Caesar had been elevated to the position of dictator perpetuo in early February, the assassins saw an urgent need to rid themselves of the tyrant before he could elude their grasp and again place himself at the head of a large army.
Caesar's lofty position in 44 BCE does not, however, preclude the possibility that he did attempt to formulate a vision of the Republic that could accommodate his own surpassing preeminence and power. Caesar's ovatio of late January 44 actually provides a powerful argument that he was seeking a solution to the problem of how to achieve the coexistence of a man with honors such as his and a restored Republic. Indeed, it suggests in outline what that solution might have been. The ovation was the final stage of Caesar's celebration of the Feriae Latinae. These were feriae conceptivae, celebrated in honor of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount. In the period of the Republic, the festival fell under the authority of the consuls. At the beginning of each year, the consuls appointed a date for the feast and then held it on that date, which had to precede the consuls' departure on campaign. It was one of those religious observances that Rome maintained in continuation of the practices of its conquered neighbors.40 According to tradition, Tullus Hostilius, third king of Rome, conquered Alba Longa, and a number of that defeated city's aristocratic families then migrated to Rome and were welcomed into the patriciate.41 As the old patrician families vanished, new families from the senatorial aristocracy participated in the Feriae Latinae at Alba Longa in lieu of the absent patrician families.42 After the celebration of the festival, the participants would return to Rome from Alba Longa in procession, thus commemorating Alba Longa's fall to Hostilius and the families' migration to Rome.
As the conqueror of Alba Longa, Tullus Hostilius was credited with bringing this large influx of patrician families into the Roman Senate, and he was also given credit for the construction of Rome's first Senate house, the Curia Hostilia, which bore his name.43 This same king was slain by Jupiter's thunderbolt when he improperly performed rites to the god, as set out in Numa's commentarii, but he nevertheless made crucial contributions to the expansion and institutionalization of the Senate.44 Furthermore, with the benefit of Augustan hindsight, the migration of Alban families to Rome can be seen as a return of descendants of Venus, the Julii, to the city that their cousin Romulus had founded. The Julii, who considered themselves a Trojan family, had framed their legendary entry into the Roman aristocracy in these self-servingly flattering terms long before Julius Caesar;45 and in January of 44 BCE, Julius Caesar had been granted the privilege of building a new Senate house to replace the Curia Cornelia, which had been restored by Faustus Sulla, son of the dictator, only to be destroyed.46 This grant provided Caesar a unique opportunity to exploit the annual Feriae Latinae, such that the festival could be connected symbolically to the anticipated construction of the new Curia Julia through the procession back to Rome at its conclusion.47
The symbolic significance of the Feriae Latinae thus offered Caesar a means of articulating in ceremony the power relationships of the new regime:48 not only Roman-Italian unity and internal senatorial unity, but also hierarchy justified on the basis of observed relative merits. The last factor was inherent in the ritual of the Feriae: each city brought to the feast a contribution of food measured according to ability to contribute, and each received a commensurate portion of meat from the bulls sacrificed to Jupiter Latiaris. A city that had declined to the point of political insignificance could be denied a portion altogether.49 The historical symbolism of the Feriae Latinae will thus have communicated Caesar's status as a preeminent peer in the Republic. Moreover, since the Feriae Latinae commemorated a king, Tullus, bringing to Rome Caesar's conquered royal ancestors (along with those of other senatorial patricians) from Alba Longa, the Feriae also brought to mind the Julian family's transition from royalty to the patriciate. This, then, was not the event one would choose to signal a bid for monarchy but, rather, one that reaffirmed Caesar's collegiality with other senators. At the same time, it is clear that Caesar's role in the proceedings as consul and dictator, as well as his place as the lone horseman on the return procession to Rome, will have served to underline his place at the top of Rome's political order.
By capping off the celebration of the Feriae Latinae with an ovatio at Rome, Caesar could present himself as the master of ceremonies of an event that invoked the memory of a gathering of Roman families; the event was akin more to Cicero's image of Cicero's and Marcellus' return to the fold of senators in Rome as depicted in the Pro Marcello (previously discussed) than to the picture of fratricidal competition displayed in Caesar's Munda triumph. The ovatio thus, so it has been suggested,50 addressed the issues raised by that criticized triumph, particularly since the ovatio was associated with bloodless victory.51 Romans who gathered to celebrate the god Jupiter Latiaris in January 44 would have included Caesarians and Pompeians, members of ancient patrician and recently elevated families alike.52 Newly minted patricians would have had special cause to celebrate, since this was an opportunity to show off their new status in a ritual that purportedly predated Rome. Caesar may well have hoped that the participants would see in this festival a vision of the restored, peaceful, and concordant Republic, headed by a dictator who was not a militaristic tyrant but an officiator in traditional rituals—a perfectly valid way of viewing the dictatorship.53 Cicero should have been attuned to Caesar's use of the Feriae Latinae as a context in which one could explore and perform alternative visions of the Republic. In transforming citizens into patricians, Caesar was, after all, performing the very kind of status elevation that Cicero had praised as near divine. Furthermore, Cicero could not have missed the possible allusion to his own De Republica, where a theoretical discussion of the form of the Republic was set on the estate of Scipio Aemilianus during the Feriae Latinae.54
Much uncertainty has surrounded the pretext for Caesar's ovatio. What did it celebrate? If it was a victory celebration, which victory did it honor?55 One suggestion, close to the truth but still vague, is that Caesar was celebrating victory in a general sense.56 But what prompted such a gesture at that time? Caesar had already celebrated a quadruple triumph in 46 and a further triumph in 45, and he was soon to depart for future conquests that would probably result in yet more triumphs. A victory celebration in the midst of these past and anticipated accomplishments and honors would seem rather like overkill.57 Was Caesar so insatiable of honors that he could not pass up even the most insignificant opportunity for an addition to them?58 The solution is to be found partly in the later ovations of Antony and Octavian, which were also unconnected to any military victory but, rather, celebrated the pact of Brundisium.59 These ovations celebrated pax between the members of the Triumvirate, as is attested in the Fasti.60 The two triumvirs seem to have been harking back to Caesar's non-military ovatio when celebrating their reconciliation. However, it is one thing to establish Antony and Octavian's use of Caesar's precedent in their own ovations, but it is a more difficult task to arrive at a precise understanding of Caesar's original purpose in 44 through the later ovations.
Two factors already discussed provide the best solution. On the one hand, Cicero's Pro Marcello raised the necessity of a reconciliation of Caesar's victory and a restored Republic in which Caesar could stake out a tenable position as its leading figure. In the year between the delivery of Cicero's speech and Caesar's ovation, the speech would have been published, allowing it to continue to shape opinions about Caesar. Further, the Pro Deiotaro, which Cicero delivered at Caesar's home in 45, picked up themes in the Pro Marcello and would have brought the contents of the earlier speech to Caesar's mind.61 Indeed, the Pro Deiotaro moved more specifically in the direction of warning Caesar of the problematic nature of his position: in it, Cicero enumerated grievances against Caesar that raised the specter of a Caesarian tyranny. This warning was timely, considering the misstep of the Munda triumph. While Caesar had taken a promising step toward reconciliation by recalling Marcellus, the procession from the Alban Mount provided Caesar with another opportunity to gain goodwill by commemorating the expansion of the Senate and the arrival of the Julian family at Rome under Tullus Hostilius. It also harked back to the participation of returning exiles in the triumph of Sulla.62 Had Marcellus not been murdered in 45, he might have participated in the Feriae Latinae of 44. Caesar's ovatio was thus intended to underline Caesar's preeminence, but in a peaceful, concordant, and religious context.
On the other hand, these suggestions might, at first blush, seem controverted by the shouts of “Rex” that attended the ovatio and that look like powerful evidence that Caesar did desire to be king.63 In fact, Caesar's response to these shouts provides insight into what he had intended all along. When Caesar heard the shouts, he responded that he was not Rex but Caesar. The interpretation of Caesar's quip has a long and varied history.64 Sihler interpreted it as containing a political message: Caesar wanted to proclaim that he viewed the word rex as an inaccurate characterization of his new collection of powers and honors.65 Caspari saw that the statement played on the fact that both Rex and Caesar were cognomens;66 the suggestion may have been anticipated less directly by Drumann.67 Deutsch improved on it by noting that Rex not only was a cognomen but was the cognomen of Caesar's own ancestors, whom Caesar referenced at his aunt's funeral.68 Deutsch also demonstrated the popularity of this particular pun on rex.69 Building on Deutsch, this argument suggests that the pun is effective because it references both the kingship and Caesar's ancestors in a way that modifies the statement he had made at Julia's funeral. There, Caesar spoke of how he had sprung from the royal Marcii Reges and the divinely descended Julii. Having already drawn this rhetorical distinction between the different sides of his potent double inheritance, his statement at his ovatio—that he was not Rex but Caesar—should be taken as a more pointed rejection of such royal associations. In making this correction, Caesar was providing an interpretive key to his ovatio as he wanted others to see it. He was reminding onlookers that he was arriving at Rome not as a king or as a descendant of the Marcii Reges but as one of the Julii, a family that had sought refuge in Rome after a king had destroyed their home in Alba Longa. As a Julius, Caesar was of royal and divine ancestry and thus certainly fit for monarchy; but his role in the procession showed him acting out his family's immigration and integration into the city of Rome as a patrician gens that took its place alongside other patrician families in the Senate. Admittedly, the fact that Caesar held the dictatorship and was in control of the event cannot be overlooked—but many other prominent Roman senators had held similar, albeit not identical, positions over the course of Rome's history as a Republic.
The historical background to Caesar's ovatio might be another obstacle to the interpretation offered here. It is described by the sources in terms reminiscent of Hellenistic royal parousia rituals.70 Roman welcoming practices could certainly appear strikingly similar to their Hellenistic counterparts, but, as when Roman triumphs are compared with Hellenistic victory celebrations, the similarities should not occlude the overwhelmingly Roman character of the events. The ovatio of 44 indeed unfolded in an atmosphere heavily influenced by Hellenistic modes of representation: there was a marked Roman tendency to appropriate such modes, but they were directed at making uniquely Roman statements.71 The celebration of Caesar's ovatio took place in the context of a particular Roman festival; that fact is far more salient than any Hellenistic parallels when it comes to interpreting its meaning. Nevertheless, “Rex” was shouted at Caesar's ovatio, and this demands explanation. Hellenistic kingship was a powerful rhetorical tool in the political conflicts of the Late Republic,72 and it was inevitable that, whatever Caesar's motives, some would present his ovation in that light. But the practice of casting political opponents as Hellenistic kings in order to marginalize them reveals more about the charged nature of the contemporary political environment than about the hopes of the citizens of Rome or of Caesar himself. Could Caesar seriously have entertained the prospect of a monarchy substantially identical with Hellenistic kingship, even if such a thing had appeared possible?
It seems much more likely that Caesar was exploring possible formulations of a secure, enduring, and supreme place for himself within the Republic, while concomitantly engaging in recusatio regni.73 The outcome of the ovatio revealed, much to Caesar's chagrin, the inability of others to make such fine distinctions.74 When some of his partisans (or enemies) shouted acclamations of “Rex” and decorated his statues with royal headgear, he turned the difficult situation into an opportunity to deny the royal identification. The tribunes L. Caesetius Flavius and C. Epidius Marullus then took action against those who had crowned the statues, and Caesar had the tribunes deposed.75 What Caesar could not abide was the suggestion that the tribunes needed to intercede because Caesar could not be trusted to refuse the kingship. The tribunes had further robbed him of the glory of the recusatio. Unfortunately, his move against the tribunes did nothing to allay and probably only deepened suspicions that he desired to be king.76 These events thus compelled Caesar to stage a more dramatic and explicit recusatio to make his position clearer, one over which he could maintain tighter control: the coronation at the Lupercalia.77 On that occasion, he publicly rejected the diadem offered to him and dedicated it to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The diadem scene has plausibly been explained as pre-arranged between Caesar and Antony.78 That Caesar was privy to these antics can hardly be doubted: Antony could not have set a diadem on Caesar's head if Caesar had not sat still for it.79 If the ancient sources are to be trusted about public reaction to the placing of the diadem on Caesar at the Lupercalia, this image of Hellenistic royalty was not a welcome sight.
Ultimately, Caesar's efforts at staging these recusationes regni were a failure. The textual tradition has left open the possibility that he was seeking kingship, and it is even perhaps slightly tilted in favor of that view. Although the questions surrounding Caesar's failure and the bias of the ancient tradition are complex and ultimately insoluble matters, a hypothesis will be ventured here. The specter of a virtual Caesarian monarchy may have arisen in the retrospective consideration of this combination of the Feriae Latinae and ovation after Caesar became dictator perpetuo. If one views the combination of the Feriae Latinae and the ovatio as a concomitant constitution of a Caesarian Republic and celebration of that event, Caesar's ascent to the position of dictator perpetuo solidified, on a more enduring basis, the comprehensive control he exercised in establishing and maintaining Rome's social and political hierarchy, which those ceremonies had dramatized in a grand spectacle. Perhaps more salient in the moment was the fact that Caesar failed to see how his protestations that he did not want to be king engendered public perception that Caesar believed the decision to be entirely within his discretion; that is, Caesar's peers could not have helped but realize that a man who is able to determine unilaterally whether or not he is to be a considered king is functionally as good as a monarch, no matter what he says or does to deny it. One of the supreme ironies of this state of affairs is that Cicero arguably contributed to the problem through his depiction of Caesar's position in the Pro Marcello, where Cicero seemed to place the power to restore the Republic entirely in Caesar's hands. Caesar might have believed that, in following Cicero's cues, he was working within boundaries defined as acceptable by one of the Republic's greatest champions.
Rumors of Oracles
Something remains to be said about the rumored Sibylline Oracle warning that only a king could defeat the Parthians, since that issue also bears on perceptions of Caesar's intentions in the ovatio episode. In view of the fact that the Feriae Latinae was a stage in the consuls' preparations for the campaigning season, the ovation must be considered alongside the oracle in any hypothesis regarding Caesar's further plans in the upcoming campaign.80 Supposedly, Caesar's relative L. Cotta, who had been appointed by Caesar as a quindecemvir sacris faciundis, was to present this oracle to the Senate during their meeting on the Ides of March—the same meeting at which Caesar was assassinated.81 Surely, if Caesar had intended to press hard for the monarchy at that point, one could not argue that he had gone out of his way to reject it just weeks earlier. Lincoln constructs an apparently appealing case in support of the view that Caesar had been repeatedly, albeit unsuccessfully, testing the waters about a possible monarchy.82 As a last resort, Caesar promulgated a persuasive rumor about monarchy before his departure for Parthia: if the Romans wanted to erase the shame of Crassus' defeat at the hands of the Parthians, it was necessary to make Caesar a king so as to overcome them; this plan was anticipated by the assassins' daggers. In the aftermath of Caesar's murder, Cotta retired from public life, depressed over the assassination of Caesar and presumably fearful that his former support for Caesar in the bid for the monarchy could cost him his life; and Cicero conveniently offered his advice that the Sibylline Oracles should be guarded by the Senate lest anyone use them to manipulate the Roman people into accepting a king.83
This is the essence of Lincoln's argument, which obviously cannot be repeated in toto here. However, Lincoln's interpretation of Cicero's recommendation to the Senate runs up against Cicero's own testimony about Cotta: Cicero denied that Cotta had intended to present the oracle to the Senate.84 Lincoln implicitly argues the contrary. His argument not only contradicts Cicero, where he might claim support from Cicero's well-documented habit of speaking out of both sides of his mouth; it also fails to consider further problems about the process of presenting an oracle to the Senate.85 Sibylline Oracles were not normally introduced into senatorial discussion without certain preliminaries. Ordinarily, a prodigy occasioned a deliberation in the Senate over whether the quindecemviri should consult the oracles. Presumably, they did so by meeting as a college, having brought forth the oracles from their repository in the Capitoline Temple, with some ceremony. What, then, is one supposed to think Cotta was going to do? Would he suddenly produce a Sibylline Oracle from nowhere and without the support of his quindecemviral colleagues, who would undoubtedly have denounced him for this breach of procedure? Or was he to follow procedure, in which case all Cotta could have achieved at the Ides Senate meeting (if he were so minded) would have been to report a prodigy in the hope of triggering a consultation of the Sibylline Oracles? How could he have guaranteed that an oracle regarding kingship would have been the result? Moreover, to judge by the trouble suffered by Caesar over speculations about kingship, generated with or without his collusion, before the Ides of March, it is difficult to imagine that having Caesar's quindecemviral appointee and relative, Cotta, foist on the Senate an oracle intended to prod them into declaring Caesar king would have benefited Caesar in any way. The sources imply that no one besides Caesar's most besotted admirers would have been moved by the idea, and the events at the Lupercalia suggest that the notion of a Caesarian monarchy was odious to the Roman people at large.86 Lincoln speculates that the rumor came from Caesarian sources, since, as Lincoln correctly points out, Caesar was an unscrupulous manipulator of religion and rumor for his own purposes. But Caesar would not have been so inept as to spread such a self-defeating rumor. Rather, an enemy of Caesar designed and promulgated the rumor to excite Caesar's most committed opponents to do away with him.
As already noted, C. Matius later lamented that even a genius like Caesar had been unable to solve the problems of the Republic. The present interpretation of the ovation of January 26 has hopefully illustrated something of Caesar's creativity in the use of public ceremonial to move in the direction of a solution. The staging point of the procession not only raised memories of Rome's origins and of Julian origins; it also recalled the setting of Cicero's philosophical dialogue on the Republic. Caesar's ovatio was thus not simply the usual spectacle; it was a rhetorical presentation in the form of a spectacle. It may not have been a systematic proposal addressing the mechanics of the issues regarding the future of the Republic, but it did offer a model image of the Republic with Caesar at its head—as a first man who, although fully worthy of kingship by ancestry and personal accomplishment, would nevertheless forgo for the Republic's sake what he felt he could rightly claim. But the presentation was flawed: Caesar's display of kingly authority in claiming the power to make such a decision contributed to the effectiveness of the charge that he desired kingship, and his assassination left as an open question whether he had aimed at kingship. The career of Augustus serves as a useful counterpoint. Augustus would enjoy the good fortune of having significantly more time than Caesar had to arrive at a solution. Rome's first emperor judged the culmination of the process of cementing his position in the Roman political and social orders to be the point at which he was voted the title pater patriae, by universal consensus and under circumstances that were reasonably secure.87 This occurred nearly three decades after Augustus' victory over the forces of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, a victory that marked the termination of more than a decade of civil war, including proscriptions, in the aftermath of Caesar's death. Caesar can hardly be faulted for failing to have achieved similar success in the few months separating his triumphs and his assassination on the Ides of March.
Conclusion
Caesar's returns to Rome served as a locus in which Cicero, Caesar, and other contemporaries contended over and sought to define the future of the Republic and Caesar's place in it. At first, Caesar conceived of his returns through the models of Sulla and Pompey. His primary interest in his triumphs was to portray himself as a world conqueror and civil war victor in order to accrue maximal glory and prestige. His misstep in parading in triumph depictions of the suicides of senators demonstrates that, in celebrating his victories, Caesar did not always have the long view of the future of the Republic that one would expect from a savvy statesman. In his triumph, Sulla had paraded those men who had been forced into exile by the Cinnan regime. While this was still clearly a partisan statement, this image of restoration from exile sent a positive message. Paintings of the deaths of fellow senators were not amenable to such a positive reading. The backlash from this terrible misstep, it has been argued here, may have prompted conciliatory measures in the recall of Pompeian exiles, a gesture that exceeded Sulla's partisan display and was in line with Caesar's characteristic clementia.
In response to the recall of Marcellus, one of Caesar's bitterest enemies, Cicero engaged Caesar on the subject of return to Rome in a way that impressed on Caesar not only the opportunity but also the wisdom of putting careful thought into the mode of Caesar's return to the city. Cicero deftly contrasted his vision of the return of the Republic as the gathering of all senators back to Rome, the home of their ancestors and seat of their ancestor gods, with the internecine competition of fratricidal warfare represented by the return of the Caesar as a civil war victor who surpassed the felicitas of Sulla. Cicero's argument was inherently theological in that Cicero defined Caesar's act of recalling the exile as an act that conquered the Roman goddess Victoria herself. If conquest proved that one's gods had prevailed, one might say that the divine Clementia of Caesar had prevailed over Victoria, but this is not what Caesar chose to emphasize. In Cicero's view, if Caesar continued to live for any purpose, that purpose was to bring about the return of the Republic through acts like his clemency to Marcellus. The return of the Republic constituted the most important of all returns. If the return of the Republic were to follow the same trajectory it had taken in the days of Sulla, the restitutor, after the return was accomplished, would leave the city as his final act to preserve the Republic, perhaps following the exemplum of Genucius Cipus.88
This chapter has argued that the ovatio of January 44 was, at least in part, an attempt to meet the rhetorical challenge that the Pro Marcello had presented to Caesar on Caesar's terms instead of Cicero's. Caesar's response to Cicero was to return to a gentilician theology rooted in the regal period and to assert that Cicero's vision of the Republic as a gathering of senators, while compelling, had a history that allowed him to propose for himself a continuing role in that senatorial gathering, as an officiator in Rome, with the city being conceived in ritual terms, rather than the abstract, philosophical terms of a Cicero. To that end Caesar reenacted the migration of the Julii to Rome through his celebration of the Feriae Latinae and subsequent ovation. Alluding to that historical event affirmed the importance of the institution of the Senate and articulated Caesar's conception of himself as a senator among senators, yet one who had a special role based on his ancestral background and personal merits. As fortune would have it, Cicero survived Caesar and participated in the effort to recast the meaning of Caesar's final aims. As one who still hoped for the restoration of a Republic, Cicero was able to add something to the interpretation of Caesar's ovation and imminent departure for the Parthian campaign by “revealing” Caesar's intention to use that string of events to catapult himself into a new Roman monarchy. Cicero did so to achieve his own purposes, which were to discourage the threat of monarchy as represented by future men in the mold of Caesar. This post-assassination vision of Caesar's final procession into the city has permeated and perhaps distorted the historiography of Caesar ever after.
1. Philodemus' On the Good King, which was perhaps written in 58 BCE for his patron L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus to celebrate the latter's consulship, does relate Roman nobles to Homeric kings, but it is not a treatise on the Republic as a system of government. See Murray 1965; Gigante 2002, 75–78. On Caesoninus as the patron of the work, see ibid., 1–13.
2. Cic. Lael. 37; V. Max. 4.7.1; Plu. TG 8.4–5, 17.4, 20.3–4. Plutarch (TG 8.4–5) claims that Blossius and Diophanes of Mitylene incited Tiberius to undertake his land legislation. Blossius also allegedly advised Tiberius to ignore a negative bird omen. See Plu. TG 17.4. Dudley (1941, 96–97) argued against the intellectual significance of Blossius' influence, preferring to see the relationship as political. Brown (1947, 472–73) and others are more positive about the influence. Some point to a strain of thought in Stoicism that allowed for a more democratic ideology (Smuts 1958, 106–16; Hadot 1970, 133–79). See also Africa 1961, 110–24.
3. See Pelling 2011, 407–8. Cicero wrote a laudatio of Cato Uticensis, and Caesar wrote his anti-Cato in response in 45. Cicero's Cato may have been written in dialogue form. See Jones 1970, 194–96. For a discussion of the contents of Caesar's anti-Cato, see Tschiedel 1981.
4. Suet. Jul. 79. Cf. App. BC 2.108–9; Plu. Caes. 60.2; D.C. 44.4.3, 10.1. A brief composite description is offered by Meier 1995, 476.
5. D.C. 44.4.3.
6. Interpretations of Caesar's position on the kingship generally fall into one of three groups: (1) that Caesar aspired to a Hellenistic-style kingship (Meyer 1978; Taylor 1931; Dobesch 1966; Weinstock 1971); (2) that he sought, instead, a Roman-style kingship (Alföldi 1953); and (3) that he was not aiming to be king (Fishwick 1987, 70–71).
7. Plu. Caes. 60.3; Suet. Jul. 78.1; App. BC 2.107; D.C. 44.8.1–4.
8. Nic. Dam. Vit. Caes. 20; App. BC 2.108; Plu. Caes. 61.4; D.C. 44.9.2–3. Cf. Weinstock 1971, 319–20.
9. Nic. Dam. Vit. Caes. 21; Vell. 2.56.4; App. BC 2.109; Suet. Jul. 79.2–3; Plu. Caes. 61.3–4; D.C. 44.11.2–3.
10. Suet. Jul. 79.3; Plu. Caes. 60.1; D.C. 44.15.3.
11. Weinstock 1971, 318–41 = chapter XV (“Investiture”).
12. Lincoln 1990, 59–73.
13. The influence of Augustan propaganda on post-Augustan sources is to be expected. Of Augustus' handling of Caesar's image, Ramage (1985, 223) says that “the emperor from the beginning of his rise to power carried out a subtle program of propaganda designed to suppress Caesar and to put a distance between himself and his father.” Ramage (n. 4) sees the roots of this in the tendency to denigrate one's predecessor, which is also observable in the rhetoric of the Early Empire. Such rhetorical maneuvers were usually nuanced, however, and did not allow for overt criticism. In this case, Caesar comes off worse because the possibility that he sought monarchy is left open.
14. Gradel (2002, 60) observes, “As there was no standard and authoritative definition of what a god was, so it was with a king. Many of Caesar's honours had clear connotations of kingship, both that of ancient Rome and the different version of the Eastern, Hellenistic world, but there was no standard recipe for what a king really was.”
15. Ehrenberg (1964, 149) writes, “Let me say at once that such labels as Hellenistic or Roman kingship, though they may be sometimes necessary, are not without danger. They may cover too much or too little; they can even distort the facts.” Ehrenberg goes on to argue that Caesar was fashioning a new kind of imperial monarchy. Rawson (1975, 148) makes the insightful observation that “he did not need the name of king, for he had the essence.” Sordi (2003, 192–98) argues that Caesar transformed the dictatorship in such a way that he was able to hold near-monarchical power in a diarchy shared with the people. At the same time, writes Sordi, the choice of the dictatorship was an assertive rejection of kingship.
16. For a succinct historical synopsis of the evolution of the Principate, see Lacey 1996b, 132–53.
17. For the nature of the ovation, see Beard 2007, 62–63; Brennan 1996. The ovatio, sometimes known as the lesser triumph, could be regarded as a lesser honor than the triumph: cf. Plin. Nat. 15.19; D.H. 5.47.2–4, 8.67.10. It was also associated with victory without bloodshed: see Gel. 5.6.20; Plu. Marc. 22.5.
18. Salmon 1935, 304–5.
19. Cf. App. BC 2.101; Suet. Jul. 37; Flor. Epit. 2.13.88–89; McDermott 1970, 318–19. For the timing of the triumphs and games, see Ramsey and Licht 1997, 183–84.
20. Plu. Caes. 56.7–9; D.C. 43.42.1.
21. Sumi 2005, 12.
22. For this view, see McDermott 1970, 319.
23. That Cicero (Fam. 4.4.3) truly saw Caesar's clemency on this occasion as both profound and surprising is evident in his words to Sulpicius on the matter: accusata acerbitate Marcelli (sic enim appellabat) laudataque honorificentissime et aequitate tua et prudentia.
24. Cf. Suet. Jul. 28.2.
25. Cf. Cic. Att. 5.11.2; Plu. Caes. 29.2; App. BC 2.98; Gotoff 1993, xxxi.
26. Cic. Marc. 1–2.
27. Cic. Red. Sen. 34. See pp. 103–5.
28. This friendship is evident in the Brutus (249–50), written in 46, where a flattering comparison of Caesar's and Marcellus' oratorical styles is made. Caesar's style is genuinely praised, but Marcellus' style is compared to Cicero's own, implying a greater bond between these two men through the likeness of their rhetorical styles. See Winterbottom 2002, 25–26.
29. Cic. Marc. 10: parietes, me dius fidius, ut mihi videtur, huius curiae tibi gratias agere gestiunt, quod brevi tempore futura sit illa auctoritas in his maiorum suorum et suis sedibus.
30. Ibid.
31. For comparison of Caesar and Sulla, see Cic. Marc. 6–7. Grillo (2012, 151–57) demonstrates the lengths that Caesar went to in the Bellum Civile to compare himself favorably with Sulla and the Sullan model of victory, including Sulla's famous felicitas. Cicero's decision to focus on a comparison with Sulla was well aimed.
32. Cic. Marc. 25–27.
33. Ibid. 12.
34. Both McDermott (1970, 319) and Tyrrell and Purser (1915, lviii–lx; 1918, ix–xiii) hold that the surprise and positive reaction were genuine. Winterbottom (2002, 30), who sees the possibility of foreknowledge on Cicero's part (“the scene in the Senate might have been stage-managed or at least foreseen: both Caesar and Cicero playing out the parts of sudden changes of mind”), still views its sentiments and praise as genuine.
35. Dyer 1990, 17–30.
36. Krostenko 2005, 279–83.
37. Cic. Marc. 8. Weinstock (1971, 322–43) suggested that it was Cicero who first connected Caesar and the divine quality of clementia. Várhelyi (2011, 118–19) sees this discussion of clementia as part of a larger discussion: “the interest in Clementia as a divine quality was produced in a wider context, including political discussions among the elite and, to some extent, even the wider public.”
38. Cic. Att. 14.1.1: etenim si ille tali ingenio exitum non reperiebat, quis nunc reperiet?
39. On the friendship between Matius and Caesar, see Cic. Fam. 11.28: neque enim Caesarem in dissensione civili sum secutus, sed amicum, quamquam re offendebar, tamen non deserui. Matius refers to his role in putting on the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris at 11.28.6. Cf. Kienast 1982, 16–17.
40. Wissowa 1912, 40, 125–26; Latte 1960, 144–46; Scullard 1981, 111–15; Lincoln 1985, 15–16; Orlin 2010, 44–49; Smith 2012, 267–88. I thank Prof. Christopher Smith for providing me an advance copy of his chapter on the Feriae Latinae.
41. Liv. 1.28–29.
42. Sumi 2005, 67.
43. Liv. 1.30.2.
44. Ibid. 1.31.8: the two events are connected, in that it was a sign of divine displeasure on the Alban Mount that led to the problems Tullus sought divine assistance to address.
45. For a recent discussion of the Julian family myth, see Badian 2009, 11–22.
46. Cic. Mil. 90; D.C. 40.50.2.
47. Weinstock (1971, 319–20) notes, “It is equally possible that acclamation and decoration (of the statues) took place the same day, during the ovatio.”
48. Sumi (2005, 65) brought together several elements crucial to the present argument. Chiefly, he recognized that the Feriae Latinae was of particular significance to Roman patrician families and that it would have allowed Caesar to gather with them in a show of unity. For his remarks on the ovatio, see ibid. 65–68.
49. Donahue (2003, 430) discusses the hierarchical significance of the apportionment strategy.
50. Sumi 2005, 65.
51. See Gel. 5.6.20; Plu. Marc. 22.5.
52. Sumi 2005, 66–67.
53. For a succinct discussion of religious dictatorships, see Kaplan 1973, 172–75. During the Hannibalic War, Q. Ogulnius Gallus was, due to the absence of the consuls, appointed dictator for the purpose of holding the Feriae Latinae. This happened after, stones having rained on the Alban Mount, the Senate ordered the Feriae to be repeated. See Liv. 17.28.
54. Zetzel 1995, 6–8, 14–15, 111. De natura deorum, written in 45, is also set at the time of the Feriae Latinae.
55. Weinstock (1971, 326) notes, “There was no war and no victory, not even a ‘mild’ victory.”
56. Sumi 2005, 68.
57. Ibid., 65.
58. McDonnell (2006, 317–18) does raise the possible parallel of Caesar's grant to dedicate the spolia opima, which was supposedly extended although Caesar had not slain an enemy leader in battle. See D.C. 44.4.3; Gelzer 1968, 315; Weinstock 1971, 232–33. There is no record, however, that Caesar ever availed himself of the privilege of dedicating the spolia opima. McDonnell further points to suggestive parallels between Caesar's celebration of these honors with the career of M. Claudius Marcellus during the Hannibalic War. Marcellus celebrated a triumph on the Alban Mount followed by an ovation. See Liv. 26.21.6. Stewart (2013, 87 n. 98) adduces a coin of M. Claudius Marcellinus (RRC 439) as evidence of the topicality of the spolia opima in the early forties and relates the subject to Caesar's grant of amnesty to Marcellus. The precise nature of the connection, however, is left unclear. It is possible that both honors were a kind of recognition of Caesar's clemency to Marcellus and that the honor of the spolia opima was not celebrated because of the murder of Marcellus in 45. Unfortunately, the evidence is too tenuous to conclude anything with confidence.
59. For ancient testimony, see Tr. Cap. for 40 BCE; Suet. Aug. 22; App. BC 5.66, 130; Plu. Ant. 31; D.C. 48.31.3. See Sumi 2005, 196; Osgood 2006, 191.
60. Inscr. Ital. 1.87:…quod pacem cum M. Antonio fecit.
61. On the setting of the speech's delivery, see Gotoff 1993, xxxvii.
62. Plu. Sull. 34.1.
63. Weinstock (1971, 330–31) sees the ovation as a royal advent; Beacham (1999, 85–86) points out that the ovation allowed him to stay on horseback while remaining in the garb of the Alban kings. McDonnell (2006, 317–18) focuses on Caesar's effort to portray himself as the ideal man of virtus in a performance filled with martial and equestrian associations. His analysis is compelling.
64. Discussion of the early scholarship on the question follows Deutsch 1928, 394.
65. Sihler 1911, 255.
66. Caspari 1909, 189.
67. Drumann 1837, 689.
68. Deutsch 1928, 394–98.
69. Cf. Cic. Att. 1.16.10; Hor. S. 7.1.
70. Strootman 2007, 289–305.
71. An inverse parallel would be Antiochus IV Epiphanes' adoption of the trappings of Roman magistracy and the arming of his soldiers as legionaries (cf. Ath. 5.193e–194d). It could hardly be argued that Antiochus intended to turn his kingdom into a Republic.
72. Cf. Rossi 2000, 239–56. Grillo (2012, 106–30) discusses Caesar's “barbarianization” of the enemy in his Bellum Civile. This not infrequently takes the form of attributing negative stereotypes of Hellenistic kingship to Pompey's men. Grillo (160–67) proffers the attractive theory that Caesar ends the first two books with contrasting conflicts showing two possible futures for Rome. The second, a Caesarian defeat at Bagradas, shows the petty barbarian king Juba bossing around the Pompeian commander Varus. The point is to suggest that a Pompeian victory would spell the end for Roman libertas and respublica.
73. Suetonius (Jul. 79.1) claims that, with regard to kingship, Caesar sought gloriam recusandi. Cf. Rawson 1975, 149.
74. When the people cheered the tribunes Flavius and Marullus, calling them “Brutuses” for punishing those who crowned Caesar's statues with diadems, Caesar called the tribunes “Brutes and Cymaeans,” thereby impugning their intelligence and that of the people who praised them. According to Strabo (13.3.6), the people of Cyme were reputedly dull-witted. Plutarch (Publ. 3.4) connects the name Brutus with slow wits in the person of the famous Brutus who expelled the Tarquins. Cf. the observations of Weinstock (1971, 319) and Perrin (1919) on Plu. Caes. 61.5.
75. Suet. Jul. 79.1. On the deposition of the tribunes, see Kloft 1980, 315–44.
76. Plu. Caes. 62. Plutarch comments that after the deposition of the tribunes, the people turned their thoughts to M. Brutus and his descent from the Brutus who had abolished Rome's monarchy.
77. The argument that Caesar was looking for an opportunity to stage a public recusatio regni is strongly supported by the fact that he caused the Lupercalia refusal to be recorded. D.C. 44.11.3 reports that Caesar caused these events to be recorded as Caesar having refused the diadem that the people had offered him through the consul. Nicolaus of Damascus (Vit. Caes. 21) also calls the diadem the τήν τοῦ δήμου χάριν. See Zecchini 2001, 11–34.
78. Cf. Carson (1957, 51) for Caesar and Antony's pre-arranged cooperation in the recusatio. Welwei (1967, 68–69) preferred to see the diadem scene as a species of ruler cult, not a bid for kingship. Both Marius and Marius Gratidianus had been living recipients of cult in the city of Rome before this time, so the insertion of elements of Caesar cult into the Lupercalia is not unthinkable as a further step in the development of cult to prominent Romans. The use of a diadem in Roman ruler cult, however, seems somewhat unlikely. On divine honors for Marius, see Plu. Mar. 27.5–6. On the cult of Gratidianus, see Cic. Off. 3.80; Sen. Ira 3.18.1; Plin. Nat. 33.132, 34.27; Weinstock 1971, 295 n. 7.
79. Nic. Dam. Vit. Caes. 21.
80. On the significance of this campaign to the Senate and Caesar, respectively, see Zecchini 2001, 89–104. Zecchini does not interpret the campaign as Caesar's escape from the problems of the Republic.
81. Suet. Jul. 79.3.
82. See n. 12.
83. Cic. Div. 2.112.
84. Ibid. 2.110. To provide some context for unusual practices with regard to the oracles in the Late Republic, Pelling (2011, 446) raises the case of the tribune C. Cato's unauthorized announcement of an oracle regarding the king of Egypt. See Dio 39.15. The differences between this event and the rumor regarding Cotta are not insignificant. First, as Dio depicts the circumstances, lightning striking a statue of Jupiter on the Alban Mount precipitated Cato's bold act. Furthermore, he draggged the quindecemviri before the people to compel them to announce it in the Senate. In other words, although unusual, Cato acted through his authority as tribune, which he used to compel the college of quindecemviri to present the oracle to the Senate.
85. Santangelo (2013, 147–48) sees Cotta using his authority as quindecemvir to interpret a genuine Sibylline Oracle in the course of proposing the kingship for Caesar. He refers to Suetonius' report (Jul. 79.3) that Cotta's announcement was to be presented as the sententiam of the quindecemviri. Suetonius, however, presents this as one of several rumors of the time (varia fama), and he offers no indication of what prompted the putative consultation.
86. Nic. Dam. Vit. Caes. 21; Plu. Caes. 61.5–6; App. BC 2.109.
87. RG 35.
88. See pp. 22–24.