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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in His Public PersonaAuthor(s):
Christopher S. MackaySource: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte
Geschichte, Bd. 49, H. 2 (2nd Qtr., 2000), pp. 161-210Published by:
Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436575
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SULLA AND THE MONUMENTS: STUDIES IN HIS PUBLIC PERSONA
It is a commonplace in contemporary historiography that Sulla is
the pivotal figure in the fall of the Roman Republic.* One
historiographical tradition in antiquity, it is true, began the
story of the demise of the Republic with the bloodshed introduced
into Roman politics with the murder of Ti. Gracchus in 133.1 While
it is true that this event set a bad precedent, it did not have
fatal consequences. The career of L. Sulla, on the other hand,
directly set the stage for the events that would necessitate the
replacement of the oligarchical govern- ment of the Republic with
the autocracy of the Empire. The violence directed against the
Gracchi and Saturninus and Glaucia merely represented the suppres-
sion of troublesome political factions by other, opposed factions.
Sulla, on the other hand, used the power of his army to further his
own position, first by quashing the laws of P. Sulpicius Rufus and
then by returning victorious from the east to install himself in
unrestricted power in the years 83-82. The prece- dent, as is well
known, proved irresistible.2 In 49, Pompey thought he would return
from the east like Sulla, and Caesar ultimately installed himself
in a similar position to Sulla's, paying the price when he did not
follow Sulla's precedent in laying down his power.3 It was left to
Caesar's heir to put back in the bottle the genie released by
Sulla, taking into his own hands all military power and at the same
time retaining the form of the Republic while gutting it of its
meaning. Sulla is thus the man who was to unleash the forces that
would result in the fall of the Roman Republic. This paper concerns
several interrelat- ed aspects of Sulla's public persona.
Specifically, the issues discussed here revolve around his public
celebration of his victory over Mithridates's general Archelaus at
Chaeronea in 86. The recent discovery of a monument there and a
discussion of the coinage he issued upon his return have raised
questions about how he wished this victory to be viewed and how he
portrayed himself before and after his return. The paper falls into
four sections. First, as background I
* In addition to the standard abbreviations, RRC signifies M.
Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage (1974).
1 App. BC 1.4, Plut. Ti. Grac. 20.1, Velleius Paterculus 2.3.3.
2 P. Cornelius Lentulus Sura thought that he would be another Sulla
(Cic. in Cat. 3.9, Sall.
BC 47.2, Plut. Cic. 17.4, App. BC 2.4). Syme of course famously
noted that Sulla "could not abolish his own example" (Roman
Revolution [19601 17).
3 See n. 132 for Pompey emulating Sulla. The anecdote that
Caesar considered that Sulla did not know his ABCs because he laid
down his power, whether true or not, is indicative of the ultimate
logic of Sulla's example.
Historia, Band XLIX/2 (2000) ? Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden
GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart
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162 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
examine the controversy surrounding a monument erected in Rome
on Sulla's behalf in the late 90s. This illustrates how important
the physical commemora- tion of victory was for a Roman politician
and also the role played by such commemoration in Sulla's rivalry
with Marius. Second, the newly found in- scription from Chaeronea,
which has been thought to be a victory trophy of Sulla himself, but
on closer inspection turns out to be a private commemoration of two
Greek participants in that battle. Third comes a controversial coin
issued at the time of Sulla's return, which proclaims his second
acclamation as imper- ator. There has been much dispute as to the
date of the coin's issuance and the significance of the coin type.
I argue that the coin was issued soon after his victory at the
Porta Collina, and that the mention of the acclamation refers to
the battle at Chaeronea and not to the battle outside the Porta
Collina. Finally, I discuss Sulla's choice of signet ring in his
final years, which seems to refer symbolically to the three major
campaigns of his lifetime. Examination of these issues will not
only add to our knowledge of the monuments and coinage in question
but will also heighten our understanding of the contemporary
signifi- cation of his victory. Thus we may gain a better
understanding of the position of the 'forerunner' of the
Caesars.
I) Bocchus's Monument
Sulla seems to have entered into a kind of monumental rivalry
with Marius about trophies. The Romans had only recently adopted
the Greek custom of erecting trophies to commemorate military
victories. The first time Roman generals raised such a monument was
when Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus
defeated numerous tribes in Gaul in 121.4 As we shall soon see,
Marius raised two such monuments in Rome, one commemorat- ing his
victory over Jugurtha, the other commemorating that over the Cimbri
and Teutoni. It is in connection with the former that Sulla began
his competition with Marius. In fact, Plutarch, who is our source
for this anecdote, connects it directly with the rivalry between
the two which was to have such dire conse- quences for the Roman
state.
i1 .ikv-ot lpo; Maptov av-r@ orakt; a&veppi4ero icatvv f
n0env Xaloi3a Tilv B6KXo1 4tkotongtiav, o; t6v T? 68j.ov 'a'a
Oepane'iwv ?v WPg 1Ca
iAkXq Xapt46jievo; avciOpcc Niica; ?v Kantvokico tponatooopou;
Kai nap' ac-akl; Xpaolv 'loyopOav v6' Cautoi 1i3kXa
napa&t6Bu>vov. ')
4 Florus 1.37.6. There is some uncertainty as to the exact
significance of this claim, since there is attestation of Roman use
of the iconography of the trophy from the period before the
erection of the monument in 121; see G.C. Picard, Les trophies
romains (1957) 101- 36 for the debate about Florus's claim that the
first trophy was erected in 121, and 137-47 for earlier attestation
of Roman trophies.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 163
toi Mapiou PappOgoxgEvou ica Kaatpiv ?7rt%etpoiv-Toq, ETEpov 8E
agivV TCV T vat KTi; no6XEo ocov ov5itw 8taiceKa4t vT1(m' a4xtv, o
utgaXtuco6; itX?io ... 'Mv aatv ?1c?xev. (Plut. Sulla 6.1-2)
?1T? icait BO6cxo; ... ?atriFv ?-v KacxicoXiq NiKa; tpo1fo4opou;
icat nap' ac'rcai; ?v e?iicot xpUaait 'IouyoU`pOav ?yXeFtpto6evov
(nro awtoi Xx)XXa, TOUTO eE4?atflaeV Opy13 icat tXovetKi' Map.ov,
xS EvXXa 7tEpSLmO)VtO Eti F-au)OV Tta Spya, Kat napeacrioczvEtEo
piq3 ta 6va0i jtara icatapadEtv. avte4ntXoveiKet 6? DvXXa;, Ka't ti
v atdatv 6oov o0Vo1 4Epo-
9viiv Eri; ?aov a'iteaXev 6 cauRgatKic; n6?Ego; ... (Plut. Mar.
32.2-3) King Bocchus of Mauritania erected as a dedication on the
Capitol a
monument which portrayed Jugurtha being handed over to Sulla by
Bocchus beside a golden trophy - bearing images of Victory. Such a
representation clearly legitimized Sulla's contention that even if
Marius was technically in control, it was Sulla himself who ended
the war against Jugurtha when he received Jugurtha from Bocchus.5
The monument was all the more provocative in that Marius's own
monument to his defeat of Jugurtha was likewise on the
Capitol.6
According to Plutarch, the dedication was a gift both to the
Roman People and to Sulla. This obscures the technical reality. The
dedication was no doubt made directly on behalf of the Roman
People, permission to make it having been granted by the senate.7
It was in reality a compliment to Sulla. Plutarch indicates that
the dispute over the monument must have taken place in late 91 or
even early 90, since it was overshadowed by the outbreak of the
Social War following the assassination of M. Livius Drusus in the
fall of 91. Whatever the date of his propraetorship, Sulla was
looking forward to running for the consul- ship after his success
in Cilicia, and Bocchus would have been quite willing to help the
political career of a man who stood a good chance of being returned
as consul.8 As for offending the aged Marius, that would not have
been a very weighty counterconsideration. At this time Marius was
clearly a man of yester- day. Who could have foreseen his
remarkable and unfortunate return to the political stage? According
to Plutarch the dispute took place between Marius, who tried to
have the dedication removed, and an unspecified group of
ETcpOI,
5 The event was significant enough in Sulla's sense of himself
that he had the scene en- graved on his signet ring (see n.
155).
6 Plut. Caes. 6.1 quoted below p. 165. 7 E. Badian, Lucius
Sulla. The Deadly Reformer (1970) 12 n. 33. 8 T. Corey Brennan
("Sulla's Career in the Nineties: Some Reconsiderations," Klio
22
[1992] 103-158) 137 refutes the argument of P.F. Cagniart ("L.
Cornelius Sulla in the Nineties: a Reassessment," Latomus 50 [1991]
285-303) 293-95 that Sulla was a political nonentity in the late
90s and only became a plausible candidate for the consulship after
his successes during the Social War. Brennan 156 demonstrates that
the erection of the monument in 91 was part of Sulla's early
campaign for the consulship; so also Badian (see preceding note)
11-12.
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164 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
who tried to protect Sulla. The phrasing seems to indicate that
Sulla did not directly take part in the dispute. It seems
reasonable to assume that those who opposed the removal were those
in the senate who had approved the erection in the first place.
Plutarch does not tell us what became of the dispute. If it was
interrupted by the outbreak of the Social War, then presumably the
monument remained on the Capitol. If so, it is hard to believe that
it was not removed once Marius regained control of the city after
Sulla's seizure of it and departure for the East.9 At any rate,
such an act would explain Sulla's vindictiveness in connection with
Marius' own trophies.
For, as has already been mentioned, Marius had two trophies in
the city.10 We know from Plutarch that one was on the Capitol and
commemorated the victory over the Cimbri and Teutoni."1 Hence the
one not on the Capitol commemorated the war in Africa. This
monument was near the domus Aelio- rum and in the area of it was a
templum Febris.'2 It was also next to Marius's temple of Honos and
Virtus.13 We know in some detail of the Capitoline
9 Note Plutarch's statement (Mar. 32.3) that Marius was ready to
use force to pull down the offending monument.
10 That there were two is directly attested by Valerius Maximus
6.9.14: cuius (sc. Marii) bina tropaea in urbe spectantur; cf.
Suet. Div. lul. 11: tropaea Gai Mari de lugurtha deque Cimbris
atque Teutonis where the repetition of the preposition indicates a
second monument. Velleius Paterculus 2.43.4 vaguely mentions
restituta in aedilitate adversante quidem nobilitate monumenta C.
Marii.
I I This monument is also mentioned in Prop. 3.1 1.45-46. 12
Valerius Maximus informs us that there were two temples of Febris,
quorum ... alterum in
area Marianorum monumentorum ... extat ... (2.5.6) and he tells
us that there were at one particular moment sixteen Aelii, quibus
una domuncula erat eodem loci quo nunc sunt Mariana monumenta
(4.4.8).
13 The terminology used by the Romans to describe the temple and
the nearby monument is somewhat confusing and has caused
difficulties for scholarly interpretation. On numer- ous occasions
Cicero refers to the temple, in which the senate passed its decree
in 57 proposing his recall from exile, as the monumentum Marii (de
div. 1.59, 2.136, 140, Sest. 116, Planc. 78. The Schol. Bob. on the
pro Plancio passage (166 St.) explains the monumentum Marii as his
temple to Honos and Virtus (in templo scilicet Honoris et Virtutis)
(Valerius Maximus 1.7.5 garbles this as the aedes lovis [sic!]
Mariana). Vitruvi- us mentions (3.2.5) a certain kind of temple
quemadmodum est ... ad Mariana Honoris et Virtutis sine postico a
Muciofacta. Herefacta modifies an understood aedes (as shown in
3.2.7), upon which depends the genitive Honoris et Virtutis. Hence
the temple is ad Mariana (cf. in porticu Metelli earlier in the
same clause). The neuter plural noun understood here with Mariana
can hardly be anything other than monumenta, the same plural having
been used of one monument by Valerius Maximus (see preceding note).
Note that his use [n. 101 of the distributive ordinal bina with
tropaea in place of the normal ordinal demonstrates that he
considered that word to be among the pluralia tantum. Presumably
the same applies to the monumenta Mariana, which must have been a
complicated monument erected near his temple. Since the monument on
the Capitol
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 165
dedication from an incident in the early career of C. Julius
Caesar.14 In his aedileship, Caesar restored the monument, which
had suffered at the hands of Sulla, as Plutarch informs us.
8u6tv 6 oua&v ev Ti noXket artaeov, ti; ev a&nco XXka
pya 8uvagvi;, ti; 86e Maptavii;, ii t're Kcta1t?t ate'ainacro,
icogt8i taratvaz
npadtTouaa, TavQiTv avappcoat icai KpoayayeaOat PoVuX6p.?vo;, ?v
rad; cyopavogticai; 4tXo'rtiat; aiiqqv Exotvaat; e'uc6va;
?not'iaaro Mapiou xcpt6a Kcai NiKca; rpoirat0o6pou;, &a O?pv
vUK-ir; ei; TO Katr(OAtov tav MaEv. aga 8' lgEpq roi OF-eacagvou;
gapagaivov'a davEa Xp-5aq
icat rpX?vij Co;lcs-oaaJlEva iept'T(65 (St6i5xov 5s ypa cn
r& Kipt- Kca catopO(oJata) O6po; ?CXe S%? ; o'6Xgin 'rovi;
dvatv'ro; (oiu y'ap ijv ad&Xo;) raXUs & iepttuOV O X6yo;
"Opot4? invra; &vOp6noui; inp; 'rj v 0irtv. aXX' oi p_iv
EOP6cov npavvi&a noXtret'eaOat Kaitapa, vogot; cat
oygaczai Kcaropwopuygva; cnavtoardvra -tga;, Kat zoviro npav nt'
rov 8fiiov elvat npo[taXarr6gevov, si F-xrtOdaevrac rcti;
OoXtrtgTiat; 6nr' auxrou Kcat 6i(ot nai4Etv totauta KaCt
1catvo-ogLtv. oi 5e Maptavot napaOappivvavrs; auto6;, iuV S?tTE
Oavugaa-rol x aoit &Se4t valoav ?Eai4- v1l Kca Kppt(k) KatetXoV
T'o KantsXov t oXoI; 6? Kcait 5acpua 'iv Mapiov 0eoJteVOt; 6Onv 954
#jboviq; ?6opev Kai gya; ilv o Katoap eycogtLot; atp6pevo;, co;
dvrt avrvrow I'ito; il 6 a6vinp -n; Mapiou auyyF-vcia; (Caes.
6.1-5) First, we should note the events of the past. Sulla had torn
apart and buried
the monument.15 Why such treatment? Trophies were dedications to
the gods,
commemorated the victory over the northern tribesmen, the
monumenta Mariana near his temple of Honos and Virtus commemorated
his defeat of Jugurtha. Many years ago, L. Richardson, Jr.,
"Honoris et Virtutis and the Sacra Via," AJA 82 (1978) 240-46
argued (243) that "In the precinct [of the temple of Honos and
Virtus] apparently were ranged trophies of the arms taken from
Jugurtha, the Teutones and the Cimbri, for these were dismantled by
Sulla, but seemingly without damage to the building and were
reerected by Julius Caesar on the Capitoline." In his New
Topographical Dictionary of Rome (1992) 402, Richardson apparently
maintains this interpretation, overtly rejecting Valerius Max-
imus's attestation of two monuments as a mistake. Presumably the
plural monumenta has led to this peculiar notion that monuments to
both campaigns had stood in the vicinity of the temple of Honos and
Virtus and then been re-erected by Caesar on the Capitol.
Richardson also associates the monumenta near the temple with the
famous Gaul painted on the scutum Marianum (Cic. de orat. 2.266,
Pliny NH 32.25, Quint. inst. 6.3.38), but that is a completely
different matter.
14 In the standard work on the subject of Roman trophies, Picard
(n. 4) 161 bizarrely says "nous ignorons en quoi consistaient ces
monuments."
15 We know of Sulla's taking apart of the monument from
Suetonius's terse notice: tropaea Gai Mari de lugurtha deque
Cimbris atque Teutonis olim a Sulla disiecta restituit ... (Suet.
Div. Jul. 11). This is presumably what is meant by Dio's
attributing to the opponents of Caesar's deed the expression v6iotq
Kcai 86-ypaat catopa)puygEvac rqtai.
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166 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
and as such any attempt to destroy them would be sacrilegious.
16 When after the battle of Zela Caesar came across an offensive
trophy set up by Mithridates Eupator in memory of his victory in 67
over C. Valerius Triarius, he did not throw the monument down, but
set up his own as a kind of counterbalance.'7 Sulla, being at least
as pious a soul as Caesar, likewise respected the sanctity of
Marius's monument, though in a less magnanimous spirit. Destroying
it was excluded as an option, but he could preserve the monument as
a dedication while removing it as a reminder in the human world of
Marius's glory by literally burying it. Such an act is fully in
accord with what we know of Sulla's character: superstition toward
the gods and spite toward his enemies.
Therefore, in his bold attempt to gain favor by restoring the
monument of his kinsman, a man who had perhaps tarnished his
reputation by his behavior in the early 80s but whose failings
could be forgotten when compared to the bloodshed of Sulla's
return, Caesar could not have restored the original, which was
presumably buried on the Capitol where it had been dedicated.
Instead he had a replica made. Since the original dedication had
been made about thirty- five years before, the original artists
involved were most likely dead, but their apprentices may well have
been still alive, and in any case many must have remembered its
appearance. Hence, Caesar's monument must have been a reasonable
reflection of the original. It sounds remarkably like Bocchus's
monument for Sulla. We have images of Marius instead of the tableau
of Bocchus presenting Jugurtha to Sulla. If any faith can be put in
Dio's plural (EtKovaq ... Mapiou), perhaps there were separate
portrayals of his victories over the Cimbri and Teutoni.18 On both
monuments we also have golden trophy-bearing Victories. In the
absence of any further indication of the nature of the monuments,
it may be that these are simply superficial, generic similari-
ties. Furthermore, we should also remember that Dio is describing
the more prominent monument and not Marius's trophy over Jugurtha.
However, Caesar did restore the latter monument as well, and if it
resembled the Capitoline monument, it seems quite likely that
Bocchus's was meant as a physical
16 It would appear from Cic. de domo 127, 130, 136-37 that
express authorization by the people was needed to dedicate a statue
(see T. Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht3 [1887- 88] 2.61, 456, 620,
3.339-40). Since the very fact that the monuments were buried shows
that the authorizing law (if there was one) was not repealed, Dio's
vague reference to v6ootq cat 6yiacot icaropopuyg6vat tiai is
inexact. Presumably, a decree of the senate authorized the burial
(cf. the SC in Cic. de domo 137), though one cannot be too sure,
given our meager evidence, of the procedure used under such unusual
circumstanc- es.
17 Dio 42.48.2 18 Admittedly Dio ascribes the monument only to
the Cimbri, but Suetonius (see n. 15) calls
it a trophy de ... Cimbris atque Teutonis. Certainly, Marius had
been offered a triumph for his defeat of the Teutoni and Ambrones
in 102, though he postponed it until he had also defeated the
Cimbri and celebrated only one (Livy per. 68).
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 167
refutation of Marius's claim to have ended the war against
Jugurtha.19 Hence, it is easy to see why Marius would have been
enraged by Bocchus's monument, and also why after all the
bitterness of the 80s Sulla wreaked posthumous vengeance on Marius
by burying his trophies.
It is easy to depreciate the significance of long-gone monuments
to men whose greatness no longer means much to us. But if anything,
Plutarch's presentation errs on the side of toning down the effect
that the restoration must have had. When men awoke to discover
restored once more to its position on the Capitol (and presumably
at the other site) the trophy of Marius's great victory, in all its
golden splendor, the effect must have astounding. Not simply was
the act daring in itself. The memory of Marius, the novus homo who,
whatever his faults, held the consulship seven times and saved the
Roman state from the northern threat which no one else seemed
capable of quelling - the memory of this man's glory was rescued
from the vindictive spite of bloody Sulla. The consternation on the
part of the supporters of Sulla's reconstitution of the state is
easy to imagine.
Examination of this incident has highlighted the importance
which both Sulla and Marius placed on the commemoration of their
deeds in public monu- ments. Sallust succinctly formulated the
ethos of the pagan aristocracy of the late Republic: quoniam vita
ipsa qua fruimus brevis est, memoriam nostri quam maxume longam
efficere (BC 1.4).20 But naturally while long-term fame may have
been a pleasing notion, there was much more immediate gloria to be
won from the admiration and acclaim of one's contemporaries.
Clearly, the erection of a public monument in commemoration of
oneself during one's lifetime was a very high form of gloria and
played a major role in acquiring a permanent mystique for oneself.
While public opinion may shift like the winds, a monu- ment in
stone is a permanent memorial of the acclaim of the moment.21 Such
was the nature of Marius's monumenta. Sulla's had a rather
different purpose. Instead of recording the acclaim he had won at
the time for securing the handing over of Jugurtha, it was intended
to assert a retroactive claim on the past: while 19 For whatever
reason, Dio restricts himself to the Capitoline monument. Suetonius
direct-
ly attests the restoration of both monuments, and of course both
existed in Valerius Maximus's day. Caesar took a rather more
charitable attitude toward Sulla's famous equestrian statue in the
Forum. It had been removed at the time that Caesar's victory at
Pharsalus became known in Rome (Dio 42.18.2), but Caesar restored
it when he made improvements to the rostra in 44 (Dio 43.49.1,
Suet. Div. Jul. 75.4; cf. for Pompey's statues Plut. Caes. 57.6,
Cic. 40.5). This act was presumably another element in Caesar's
contrast of his own clementia with Sulla's vindictiveness.
20 That Sallust had a rather different form of monumentum in
mind does not affect the relevance of his formulation to the
attitudes of Sulla and his contemporaries. See also the similar
sentiments expressed in Cic. Phil. 9.10.
21 The political significance of the monuments explains why they
were erected in Rome rather than on the actual site of the victory.
The point was not merely to make an offering to the gods but to do
so where Roman citizens would see it on a regular basis.
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168 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
Marius may have celebrated the triumph over Jugurtha, it was
Sulla who really concluded the war. There is little wonder that
Marius was so opposed to the monument, and this quarrel may have
contributed to Sulla's bitterness to those who supported Marius. No
doubt Marius's attempt to secure the command against Jugurtha
through the rogatio Sulpicia played a large part in Sulla's
hostility, but his later act of throwing down Marius's monuments
shows how deeply Sulla felt about their 'monumental' conflict.
Now that we have seen the great importance of public monuments
in a Roman general's public persona, let us turn to the monuments
erected by Sulla at Chaeronea in commemoration of his victory there
in 86.
II. "Discovery" of a Monument of Sulla's at Chaeronea
In 1989 a group of people associated with the American School of
Classical Studies in Athens went on a Saturday morning hike in
Boeotia and had the good fortune to come across a heretofore
unknown inscription near the site of ancient Chaeronea.22 It was
written on the base of a monument commemorating two Chaeroneans,
Homoloichus and Anaxidamus, who had greatly aided Sulla in his
defeat of Archelaus's army there in 86 B.c.23 Indeed, Plutarch
actually mentioned the monument in his account of Sulla's victory.
In their publication of their find, the discoverers assert that
this base formed part of a victory monument of Sulla himself (for
convenience's sake, I will henceforth refer to the authors as the
"Authors"). This is not so. Reliance on an erroneous interpre-
tation of Plutarch has led to a misunderstanding of the nature of
the inscription and the monument on which it was engraved.
Let us begin with the inscription itself. It appears on the base
of some form of statuary and reads as follows: 'O,oktXo;
Fava[4]ixago; ap[tkcit;. The nominative can be taken in one of two
ways. It indicates either the name of what stands on the pedestal
or that of the dedicator of the monument. In no way could Sulla be
understood to have put up such a monument.24 Since the two
names
22 John Camp, Michael Ierardi, Jeremy Mclnerny, Kathryn Morgan,
and Gretchen Umholtz, "A Trophy from the Battle of Chaeroneia of 86
B.C.," AJA 96 (1992) 443-455.
23 The two men tell Sulla of a path unknown to the enemy by
which a small number of troops could reach high ground to the
enemy's rear and dislodge him. Sulla gives them a detachment, which
performs as planned (Plut. Sulla 17.6-18. 1).
24 The Authors (n. 22) 448 with n. 17 suggest that Sulla's
dedication may have appeared on a lower block now missing. What
could this inscription have said when the names of Homoloichus and
Anaxidamus stood above in the nominative case? In Greek, when a
person is being honored, the practice is to put the dedicatee's
name first in the accusative followed by the dedicator's in the
nominative, with a verb meaning "honored" under- stood. For a
similar discussion of the syntax of a dedication on Delos, see p.
182-183. The Authors 448 with n. 17 suggest that "the larger names
of Sulla and his patron deities" may
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 169
appear below the single round base for what appears to be a
trophy, then the nominatives must mean that the two Greeks
themselves dedicated the monu- ment.
What then does it represent? The Authors translate the word
dptatis as "heroes". This will not do. Even if we ignore the
possible confusion with the divine word thus translated into
English, "hero" does not accurately convey the sense of the Greek.
The word obviously derives from the superlative adjective dptroro,
and signifies someone marked out as the best. More specifically, it
refers to the person elected by the victors after a battle as the
person who performed best in battle. The ancient Greeks would thus
mark out not only the bravest individual but also the bravest
contingent in an army of allies.25 In the present context, one
might consider this to be a representation of the Roman praemia
virtutis, since the army was commanded by Sulla.26 First, it would
seem that Roman military decorations were given only to Roman
citizens.27
have appeared on the missing back of the discovered stone, on
another block below it, or on the actual victory trophy itself.
They themselves admit to the implausibility of the first and third
suggestions, and say of the second: "It may seem surprising to
place the Chaeroneans' names above Sulla's, but this arrangement
would have the advantage of using the larger (lower) block for the
longer names of Sulla and his patron deities" (n. 17). First, one
may be allowed to wonder how we know the size of the missing block.
In any case, as we have seen, there is no way that Sulla's name
could appear in connection with the nominatives preserved. Sulla's
own dedication at Sicyon (L. Cornelius L.f Sulla imper. Martei
[ILLRP 2241) and Octavian's at Actium ([Imp. Caesajr Diu[i lulil f
uic[toriam consecutus bellJo quod pro [rle p[ulblic[al ges[silt in
hac region[e conslul [quintum imiperatfor selptimum pace parta
terra [marique Nepltuno [et Malrt[i clastra [ex] quibuts ad hostem
in]seq[endum egriessu[s est naualibus spolilis [exornalta
c[onsecrauitl [AE 1992 1534]) have the name of the dedicating
general in the nominative and the god in the dative, the standard
practice in Latin.
25 See the treatment by W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War
Part 11(1974) 276-90. 26 In 6.37.10. 8.37.5 and 10.11.6, Polybius
uses dpvcneia for such awards by Roman
generals; the word does not appear in 6.39, his discussion of
Roman praemia, but there he uses avbpayaOia. which is a
synonym.
27 On the topic in general, see Valerie Maxfield, The Military
Decorations of the Roman Army (1981). (The book is mainly concerned
with the Imperial period, when there is much epigraphical
information; it is rather more cursory about the Republic, and she
does not even mention the Greek inscription discussed below.) On
pp. 121-26 she demon- strates that under the Empire virtually no
foreign troops received the standard awards given to citizen
troops, but then claims (126-27) that this was not so for the
Republic. Yet, in no instance can she cite evidence for an a award
to foreign troops apart from a vague reference in Pliny NH 33.37.
While the troops of the ala Salluitana did receive such awards,
they were also granted Roman citizenship (ILS 8888), and in BH 26
while the peregrine turma Cassiana is granted only a sum of money
by Caesar, the Roman praefectus does receive standard awards.
Interestingly enough, we have a damaged inscription in which the
Aetolians honor a Greek who had apparently been "honored"
(teq4[aftvTa]) by Sulla [es' dc]vpaya6i, (IG 92.1.139=SIG3 744).
Unfortunately, the man's actual awards are lost (the restoration of
86pari in ll. 3-4 is groundless, and makes
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170 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
Furthermore, in the directly following section Plutarch notes
that at the victory games held at Thebes all the Greeks selected
the recipients of the communal honor since Sulla was ill-disposed
toward the Thebans.28 If, then, the Greeks determined the victors
of the Greek epinician games, it is likely that they also
determined the recipients of the ap?CrTEta.29 Plutarch informs us
that one of the privileges of winning the aptTta as best contingent
was the right to raise a tpo6alov.30 While various awards are
attested, it would seem that the Atheni- ans gave a crown and a
panoply to the man chosen as best in their own army, and this
practice may well have established itself in the Hellenistic
period.3 Since the base of the Chaeronea monument is topped by what
seems to be a torus moulding for a panoply, the monument could well
have supported a
no sense with the restoration [crpartcoricot; 66pto;I made in
11. 5-6 on the basis of an Imperial inscription [BCH 4 (1880) 507,
miscited in SEG as BCH 6]). The recipient seems to have been a high
commander of the Aetolian league; at any rate, a man who is likely
to have been his father was strategos of the league [see IG
92.1.36.1 l=SIG3 444.11]). It is noteworthy that the term used for
the award is czv8paya0ia. This suggests that Sulla did not award
the synonymous xptalTaE-a, which would be the natural term in
connection with anyone named as dptar-u;. Thus, there is no reason
to think that papiacrt; here means "recipients of Roman military
awards". The simple Greek word should convey its normal Greek
meaning.
28 oi S? wpiVoVTr; "jaav 'EXXqvc; ?K XTCXV dXXo.V avaKEKXqrnVoI
n0xeov (Sulla 19.6). Appian records that Sulla distributed the
6puoar6a on the day after the battle of Or- chomenos (o 6e k XAa;
TS; tx7to161; r6v Te tcaiapXov TctCqQvou tai Ttot; dxXot; dpta(t1Ea
e6i6Vo [Mith. 203]), but he seems to be speaking of the Roman
military praemia. At any rate, the xa&,iapXo; is the Roman (L.
Minucius) Basillus (Mith. 201).
29 The word dpuartia is of course the abstract idea of
"excellence." The actual award is often called T6 dptarelov. For
the method of election, which was determined by the commanders of
the various contingents, see Pritchett (n. 25) 288-89.
30 The fullest evidence for this is from Plutarch's Life of
Aristides 20. There he tells of the recriminations that followed
the battle of Plataea. The Athenians would not grant T0 dputireov
to the Spartans or allow them to erect a tp6nacov (T6rv 'AOvaiWv 16
apieiXclov ToY; lxiaprtrTat; o0) napa&t6vtov ou& 'p6iraiov
icrTivatvn oyXo)poi6vx(Ov [20.11). Eventually the matter is turned
over to the arbitration of the Greeks, and is settled when it is
decided to compromise by rendering the honor to the Plataeans. At
the same time the Spartans and Athenians raised their own tponatov
separately (gaTrlcav & rp6iratov i6ia piv Aaiceatp6viot X%opi;
6' 'AOTvcxiot [20.31). Plutarch elsewhere refers to this as a
quarrel Jt?pi rov3 tpotaiov. t; dvaatdaco, (Mor. 873D). Doubts have
been cast on the authenticity of this event, which is not mentioned
by Herodotus. For our purposes, the historical truth does not
matter (see the discussion in Pritchett [n. 251 283-86). Plutarch
associated the right to erect the tp6ratov with the winning of E6
apar-Elov. That being so, there is no reason to disbelieve the
possibility of a corresponding right on the part of individuals who
won the personal apimreov to make a similar dedication. Even if
there is no evidence for such a right in the Classical era, such a
right may have been invented later by analogy.
3 1 See Pritchett (n. 25) for a discussion of the reward; the
panoply appears in Isoc. 16.29 and Plut. Alc. 7.3.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 171
representation of such an award to Homoloichus and Anaxidamus.32
Accord- ingly, it is permissible to think that this monument is a
personal dedication made by Homoloichus and Anaxidamus to
commemorate their having won the award of &ptoteia for the
battle.33
This conclusion is supported by reflections on the nature of the
monument itself. To judge by the published pictures and drawings,
it is a decidedly cheap affair.34 The inscription is very crudely
inscribed and compares badly with the dedication made by Sulla in
Sicyon.35 Surely, the conqueror of Mithridates could have done
better. Furthermore, even if we could believe that Sulla erected
such a monument to Greeks serving under him, it is impossible to
believe that a magistrate of the Roman People would have inscribed
it in the uncouth dialect of Boeotia.36
These grounds alone would strongly suggest that the inscription
was not put up by Sulla. Let us now turn to the texts of Plutarch
which have been interpreted as indicating that he did do so. First,
we have Plutarch's reference to victory
32 For the torus, see the Authors (n. 22) 444; 448 for the
suggestion that the torus served as the base for a representation
of a panoply.
33 The Authors (n. 22) do not clarify the exact nature of the
inscription. On 443 n. 2, they cite Pritchett's suggestion that the
award of aristeion may have conferred the right to erect a trophy
and conclude "In the present passage [Plut. Sulla 19.9] we should
perhaps understand the term dp10TEi in a technical sense and
consider the honor of being prominently named on the trophy a part
of the aristeia received by the two Chaironeians." It is hard to
conceive of apioax6 as anything but a technical term, and in any
case there is no evidence that this award, whomever it was granted
by, conveyed the right to have one's name on someone else's
monument. This hesitant suggestion is merely an attempt to paper
over the obvious incongruity of the names of the two Boeotians
appearing on the victory trophy of the Roman imperator.
34 The Authors say "Three lines of text are preserved, the top
two neatly carved ... The third line is less carefully inscribed.
The width of the letter spaces varies not only from line to line,
but also within each line ... This inequality indicates that the
layout of the text was not carefully planned before the inscription
was cut" (n. 22) 445. Clearly the arrangement of letters is
slovenly, and even the claim of the neatness of the first two lines
is belied by the clumsily formed and engraved letters. A cursory
examination of the photograph suffices to indicate the inferior
craftsmanship of the engraver.
35 A photograph of this inscription (ILLRP 224) is available in
HpaQKUcKQ 1938 p. 121. 36 As far as I know, no official
correspondence of a Roman magistrate appears in anything
but koine. Plutarch could not bring himself to record this form
and tacitly changed it into the koine. There is every reason to
believe that a Roman magistrate would have had the same
sensibilities (that the Romans were aware of such things is shown
by the anecdote about P. Crassus Mucianus knowing all five
dialects, i.e., Aeolic, Doric, Arcadian, Attic and koine [Valerius
Maximus 8.7.61). The story of Sulla and the fishermen from Halae
(Plut. Sulla 26) indicates that Sulla could converse in Greek (it
is hard to imagine an interpreter translating the question eTt yap
ri t; AXaiov;), as does his quotation of Aristophanes when shown
the head of Marius the younger (App. BC 1.435) and perhaps his
acquisition of Aristotle's and Theophrastus's works following the
capture of Athens (Plut. Sulla 26.1).
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172 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
monuments at the end of his description of the battle. He
mentions Sulla's statement that in the battle he lost fourteen men,
and two of these showed up at dusk. Plutarch continues:
6to Kati c6ts poiaiot; Ceiypaxgev "App xcat Niicrv icat
'A0po8itrlv, 6; O%U i1jTov eiUT.Uitq icatopO6aa; S Sstv6nvrt Kcat
8uvd[e t 6ov n6X?0ov. adXXsa oito ?v t6 tp6onatov Ecn'rpCE Ti;
X8t?odSO; ga1Xn; niXpCTOV Vev- cKXtvav oi nr-pi 'ApXeXaov (pi p]37
1apa t6 M6Aou p?iOpov, ?tepov &? CEa tot) Ooupiou icata
KcopU4Tv iccXK( ?i t KU1COXt t aV apfap- ov, ypcggai stv
'EXXrjvtoi; ?iwiatccivov 'OgoX6tXov cat 'AvaEt8agov apRT?t;. (Sulla
19.5)
37 The Authors (n. 22) accept N.G.L. Hammond's defense ("The Two
Battles of Chaeronea [338 B.c. and 86 B.c.]," Klio 31 [1938]
186-218 at 195 n. 2) of the MS. reading, which is dubious. His
interpretation is based on his understanding of the verb ryKxcivc,
which he takes to be a synonym of 4c5yco. In fact, tyKXivCO refers
to the action of giving way before an enemy's attack, and while
this action is very often the preliminary to flight (Plut. Fab.
12.3, Polyb. 1.23.10, 1.74.7, 1.76.7, 3.65.7, 3.69.11, 3.116.7,
4.12.7, 5.14.5, 5.23.5.), it is possible to yickivev without
fleeing (Polyb. 5.84.10, 11.21.5-6). Ham- mond's interpretation of
?vgicKtvav as a verb of motion leads to his understanding of napc,
which he takes as indicating the goal of the flight, with geXpt
emphasizing this sense. It is certainly true that nap6 plus the
accusative can indicate motion ("towards"). However, it can also
indicate the more static sense of "along," and Plutarch's usage in
this passage shows that that is what he means here: a river with
water "along the very root (of a mountain)" (nap6t rmv OiCav
[16.1]), a path leading "along the Museum" (tapa t6 Moueitov
[17.61), Sulla sacrificing "along the Cephisus river" (nap& rov
Ki4to6v [17.4]). The last example is directly comparable to the
sentence about the position of the trophy. On the other hand, when
Plutarch directly reports the collapse of Archelaus's left, he uses
a different preposition, saying that they fled np6q te t6v orasg6v
icai t6 'AK6v,rov 6pos (19.3). Thus, napd indicates the static
situation of the barbarians giving way "beside" the channel of the
Molus. Hammond in fact conflates the two uses of the preposition
when he translates pexpt irapd "as far as beside" (his citation of
g6Xpt gni [Xen. Anab. 5.1.1] is inapposite, as there it means "all
the way to"). He also says that "the phrase pgXpt napd must be
taken to govern (sic) oi nepi' ApXeXaov rather than gve- xKtvav."
Such a use of two attributive prepositional phrases, one modified
by an adverb, is stylistically doubtful, and the second
prepositional phrase is to be understood rather as an adverbial
modifier of the verb. (Hammond explains his interpretation as "the
wing under Archelaus extending so far as to the stream Molos [irapd
with the accusative implying extent]," which seems to contradict
his interpretation of iapa as meaning "beside" in the text above.)
In fact, in Plutarch g.Xpt is used only in conjunction with 6eipo
(Pomp. 24.5) and with xrp6 (Sol. 27.2, Alex. 11.3, Ant. 61.3), that
is, with elements indicating actual motion. As for tXpi. itself, it
can be explained as an intrusive gloss to make clear the sense of
napi (getting it wrong in the process). Accordingly, then, nap&
r6 MoXov pCeOpov indicates apo koinou both the site where
Archelaus's troops first gave way as a preliminary to their flight
and the site where Sulla's victory monument stood in commemoration
of the event.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 173
First, Plutarch notes Sulla's habit of inscribing certain
deities' names on his monuments. Prima facie, since the inscription
in question does not bear these names, it is not one of his
trophies.38 Furthermore, the first of the two trophies mentioned by
Plutarch does fit into this category. It is Sulla's trophy for his
victory, and is placed below in the plain. Such is the sense of
Toi3-ro in Plutarch's phrase toi-ro jev To Tpo6iatov. The
demonstrative adjective ol'to; marks out that which is determined
by context, and what Plutarch means is that this (namely the one
dedicated to Mars, Victory and Venus) is the monument commemorating
the victory on the plain.39 Plutarch then shifts, and mentions a
second trophy (etspov).40 The Authors automatically assume that the
second Tpo6atov was set up by Sulla, but this is not necessarily
so. Who dedicated it is not indicated by Plutarch. As we have seen,
Homoloichus and Anaxidamus did so, using the right bestowed on them
by virtue of the award of aeptaEtea. Accordingly, when Plutarch
here mentions two rpo6iata, he does not actually mean that both
were set up by Sulla himself as dedications commemorating his
victory.41 The monument discovered in 1989 was not technically
Sulla's
38 For the impossibility of restoring Sulla's name on the
monument, see n. 24. 39 In their translation, the Authors (n. 22)
443 ignore the adjective and begin the sentence
"Now the trophy of the battle of the plain stands ..." It is not
possible that in this phrase we have the common idiom roiro ev ...
toiTo Ue with the roi3ro & replaced, as some times happens, by
simple Se. Plutarch is fond of roxro gEv, but a check of the TLG
reveals that he always has roi3'ro Se for the second element (Them.
5.4, Cam. 19.2-3, Tim. 15.2-4, Flam. 3.1, 15.4, Mar. 9.3, Sulla
12.3, 12.6, 14.5, Caes. 5.9, Cic. 5.4, 12.2, 36.7, Demet. 53.2,
Brut. 12.2, Arat. 24.2, 50.5, Mor. 260E, 317C, 325B, 417E, 588F,
687C, 963C). Furthermore, &kXX indicates that the sentence
introduced by it must in some way contrast with what precedes (see
J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles2 ([19541 1-21), and so far as I
can tell there is no usage that corresponds to the Authors' "now,"
which is presumably resumptive or concessive. Plutarch in fact
often uses a woro .6v ... &e construction intro- duced by aXXd
to show a contradiction with what precedes: the ?v clause
summarizes or illustrates what precedes and the &e clause then
represents some kind of contrast: Rom. 21.2, Alex. 60.7, Mor. 380D,
566C, 1078D, 1093B. (When the roi)o Pev ... S? construc- tion is
used to elaborate rather than contradict what precedes, it is
introduced by Kcai: Rom. 13.5, Mor. 30B.) In these examples, rofi3o
is always a pronoun. This suggests that in Sulla 19.5 co6ro is the
subject of the pseudo-copulative verb 9CFTTKE and r6T p6iraov is
predicative (for a similar construction, see Rom. 13.5). In the
Sulla passage the singular refers to the one example from Chaeronea
of the trophies whose inscriptions Plutarch mentioned in the
preceding sentence.
40 For a similar contrast of roiiro g6v with 9TEpOV Ue see Rom.
13.5. 41 The ease with which the two monuments can be associated
with one another since they
derive from the same battle is illustrated by the reference to
these monuments in Pausani- as, who says: XacpwvEvik SU Hio oarlv
?v Xij x& pop6Irwa a 'Pwpalot Kai ?6Xa; tcrn,av Ta4iXov Keai
crpariav Mt0ptS6,ro-o Kpanscavxe (9.40). The reference to the
Romans shows that he is speaking only in generalities, since the
dedication on the plain was made by Sulla in person, and the Romans
had nothing to do with it.
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174 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
-rp6oatov, but it did attest to Sulla's victory there and thus
could be character- ized as a ?poKatov in the general sense. In
accordance with their interpretation of what the monument ought to
have been, the Authors compare a statue of a panoply, which was
found at Orchomenos and may derive from a Sullan pTp6iatov erected
to commemorate his later victory there, and they suggest that a
similar panoply may have been supported by the base on which was
engraved the dpiacrs text.42 As we have seen, this is a likely form
for the monument of the Boeotians to have taken, and this may
explain why Plutarch could so easily associate two different
monuments, though it remains possible that the monu- ment took some
other form.
Before proceeding to the two passages taken to support the
interpretation of the new monument as one of Sulla's, it must be
emphasized that the dedication of the monument in the plain was
written in Latin. There is no other explanation for Plutarch's
notice that the inscription to Homoloichus and Anaxidamus was
written in Greek letters. Since Plutarch was transmitting a Greek
inscription with Greek letters, this statement makes sense only as
a contrast to something not written in Greek letters and this can
only be the inscription on the monu- ment to the battle on the
plain. This fits in well both with the practice of most other
Romans and with Sulla's own practice. It is true that L. Mummius
made a dedication at Olympia in Greek (Olympia 5 #278). Subsequent
Romans do not appear to have followed this example. When making a
dedication at Delphi following the defeat of Perseus king of
Macedon, L. Aemilius Paullus used Latin: L. Aimilius L.f imperator
de rege Perse Macedonibusque (ILLRP 323). M. Minucius Thermus,
legatus to his brother in 110-106, likewise made a dedication in
Latin at Delphi (ILLRP 52). Octavian used Latin in his trophy
monument at Actium.43 Indeed, in making a dedication to Ares in
Sicyon, Sulla himself used Latin: L. Cornelius L.f Sulla
imper(ator) Martei (ILLRP 224). The Authors note that this
inscription was apparently on a "statue base ... and cannot
therefore be adduced as a comparandum".4 By not actually quoting
the inscription and by characterizing the monument as merely a
statue base, they can lend credence to their dubious conclusion.
But why should a dedication to the god Mars in a Greek sanctuary
not be a valid comparandum? Is Sulla likely to have thought that he
should speak to the gods in Latin in Sicyon but use Greek on a
victory monument (which was, after all, a dedication to the
gods)?
Yet Plutarch makes statements that suggest that the monuments in
Chaero- nea bore the Greek title Etacp66vxo;. The Authors assume
that this must mean that the monuments were both set up by Sulla
and both had Greek dedications.45
42 Authors (n. 22) 449. 43 See note 24. 44 Authors (n. 22) 448
n. 16. 45 Even including the names of the gods, who are rendered as
"Ares, Nike and Aphrodite" in
the Authors' (n. 22) translation on 443. Here one is directly
confronted with the contrast with Sulla's dedication to Mars in
Sicyon.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 175
As we have seen, this interpretation is contradicted by the
sense of the newly discovered inscription. Also, how then can these
passages in Plutarch be recon- ciled with his implication that the
monument in the plain was dedicated in Latin?
First, we should consider the title 'Enarpo6'tvo; itself. This
is a Greek translation of the Latin title Felix, which Sulla
assumed after the death of the younger C. Marius in late 82 at the
time of the fall of Praeneste.46 In order to explain Plutarch's
statements which apparently ascribe the title to the dedica- tion
of the Chaeronea monuments, Balsdon suggested that Sulla used the
Greek title before receiving the Latin one.47 For this there is no
other evidence, and much to contradict it. In no preserved
inscription from the period before 82 does he receive the title
'Eica4po68to;. Indeed, in the senatus consultum settling the
dispute between the publicans and the shrine of Amphiarus at Oropus
(Sherk RDGE 23) Sulla is given the name 'Enapp6&tov when he is
mentioned in his consulship in 80 (1. 52) but is called
accitoKpdrwp for the decision he made on behalf of Amphiarus in
Achaea before his return (1. 39). This of course is simply a
reflection in Greek translation of the fact that Sulla used the
title imperator after the victory of Chaeronea and received the
title Felix after his return to Italy. But it is surely
inconceivable that Sulla would have adopted a distinct titulature
for himself in Greek.
Let us now examine the passages from Plutarch. First, we have a
passage from Plutarch's discussion of the good fortune of the
Romans, where he discusses Sulla's felicity:
Kai PCi'RoatYTi ?v 4iXtt dVOgd6Eto, tot; 8e "EXXrlat o"To
`ypaoE- Aol5Ktoq KopviXto; Zi5XXa; 'Ena4p68Voq. Kait xra nap' hpliv
?v Xatpo- v?iQt tp6ina icatax t6v MtOpt&atlKv ov rwo; i ypwrta.
(Mor. 318D) There is no mistaking that Plutarch seems to be
speaking of both monu-
ments as bearing this inscription. Since we have seen that the
monument discovered cannot have borne this inscription, it is
reasonable to conclude that
46 So Velleius Paterculus 2.27.5 (J.V.P.D. Balsdon ["Sulla
Felix," JRS 41 (1951) 1-101 10 n. 105 oddly ascribes this fact to
Diodorus 38/39.15, which says nothing of the kind); see also de
viris illustribus 75.9. Plut. Sulla 34.2 discusses the title after
the triumph over Mithridates (celebrated on the 28th and 29th of
January 81 [fast. Cap.]) but this has no chronological validity.
App. BC 1.452 records the opinion of two sources about the title.
One indicated that it derived from sycophants' flattery of him as
being successful over his personal enemies (81EVUXo0i)Va cir roT;
iXfP1it;). This fits well with the death of Marius (eXOpoi
obviously represents the Latin inimici and refers to his political
oppo- nents in Rome and not to Mithridates, a hostis of the Roman
People). The other associated the title with the law voting him
immunity for his actions (see n. 112). This again is an event that
follows his victory at the Porta Collina, dating the title to the
period of his return to Italy.
47 Balsdon (n. 46) 9-10.
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176 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
Plutarch has erroneously ascribed to both monuments the
inscription of the one in the plain. Since Plutarch himself in the
description of the monuments given in the Life of Sulla mentions
verbatim the inscription preserved on the hill monument, it would
seem that he knew better. Mentioning the two monuments of his home
town while making a passing reference to Sulla's titulature,
Plutarch carelessly conflated two similar monuments.
The second passage comes from a mention of Sulla's use of the
title Felix:
acio56; & toY; "EXUlat ypadOCv Kat Xpil,artt4v, Eavr&v
'Eiawp66ttov mvfyopEiE, Kcai nap iliYv ?V roto tponatot; oirwS
avayeypanrat AE?-
'cto; Kopvi'ktoo; 1XXa; 'Ela4po6&to;. (Sulla 34.2) First, we
should note that Plutarch claims to be speaking of Sulla's usage of
the title 'Ena0po68to; in "writing to and dealing with" the Greeks,
and then cites this usage for the trophies. But is writing an
inscription on a trophy a manner of writing to or dealing with the
Greeks? No, it is a matter of a Roman magistrate dedicating the
spoils of victory to the gods. As we have seen, Plutarch himself
clearly implied when directly discussing the Chaeronean trophies
that the trophy on the plain was inscribed in Latin. How then can
we reconcile the fact that Plutarch does assert that the monument
had the Greek title 'Ena0op68to; on it with his implication that
monument had a Latin inscription, especially when this implication
seems to be confirmed by Sulla's practice in Sicyon and by the
practice of other Romans? The Authors take it as the "most
economical" solution to take the meaning of Moralia 318 and Sulla
34.4 as self-evident and to assume that the monument in Chaeronea
is in Greek, but they do not explain why he specifies the
inscription on the hill as being in Greek.48 One might assume with
Balsdon that Sulla used the title in Greek before he received the
Latin version, but there is no evidence for this.49 One might argue
that the Chaeronea monument was not erected until after Sulla's
return to Italy, but here there are chronological difficulties. The
inscription in Sicyon was put up before Sulla returned to Italy, as
is indicated by the use of the title imperator and the absence of
Felix. It is hard to believe that Sulla could have made such a
dedication but not erected the trophy at the site of his signal
victory over the army of Archelaus until at least five years later
following his return to Italy. Balsdon suggests that the title was
added later to the original inscription.50 It is
48 Authors (n. 22) 48 n. 16. There they reject Keaveney's
suggestion that Plutarch's Latin was "shaky" by pointing to his
ruminations about the appropriate way to translate Felix in Sulla
34.2. Consideration of a single word hardly points to fluency. In
fact, in Demos. 2.2-3 Plutarch makes his ineptitude in Latin quite
clear. Like many an undergraduate, he did not come to the meaning
of the Latin from the words, but instead understood the Latin
because he already knew what it was saying. Imagine if it did not
say what he expected!
49 See p. 175, esp. n. 46. 50 Balsdon (n. 46) 10.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 177
hard to see what the point of this would be, and no other
inscriptions erected during the proconsulship are 'updated' in this
way.
The solution may lie in a certain lack of specificity on
Plutarch's part. He seems to say that the title 'Ena0p68tro;
appears on both monuments in Chaer- oneia. As we have seen, this
cannot be true of the monument on the hill, but presumably was true
of the monument on the plain. While Plutarch does show himself to
be familiar with the inscription on the former, one might wonder
how often he actually saw it. In ascribing the title to both, he
may have erroneously generalized from the plains monument to that
on the hill. Unless we are to claim that Plutarch is simply wrong,
the title 'Eica4p66vro; must have appeared on the former. But
Plutarch nowhere states that the dedication of the monuments in
Chaeronea bore the title. In both passages where he associates the
title with those monuments, he states that Sulla used the title
when writing to the Greeks (rot; ? "EXXk-ot ou`o) F'ypa4e [Mor. 31
8D],toY; "EXXal(t ypdclov Kai XpT,ua- tiuov [Sulla 34.4]). As a
solution I would propose that the monument on the plain had written
on its base a later inscription which preserved the text of a
letter written by Sulla after he received the title in late 82.
Such a letter was most likely, though not necessarily, addressed to
the Chaeroneans. Sulla's victory monument may at first seem to be
an odd place to preserve such a letter. If. however, the letter was
in some way connected with Sulla's treatment of the city as a
result of its role in the battle, this would not be an
inappropriate place for its preservation.51
Thus, the new discovery demonstrates that there were not two
Sullan victory monuments to the battle of Chaeronea. Instead, while
he himself erected a monument which had a Latin inscription on it
and may also have preserved on it a later letter of his, perhaps to
the Chaeroneans, the new discovery turns out to be a private
commemoration of the fact that two Chaeroneans, Homoloichus and
Anaxidamus, were awarded the dptarrEta for their services in
assisting Sulla's victory.
III. When Did Sulla Receive his Second Acclamation as
imperator?
RRC #359 is a controversial coin that alludes to Sulla's second
acclamation as imperator, bearing the legend IMPER(ator) ITERV(m)
and portraying two victory monuments. It used to be thought that
the coin was issued before Sulla's
51 Apart from the services of Homoloichus and Anaxidamus,
Chaeronea is twice attested as having helped Sulla: a Chaeronean
guided the passage of Sulla's legate Hortensius across Parnassus
when he returned with troops from Thessaly (Plut. Sulla 15.3), and
a detach- ment of Chaeroneans served with Sulla at the battle of
Chaeronea (16.8). In a forthcoming article in Klio ("Damon of
Chaeronea: the Loyalties of a Boeotian Town during the First
Mithridatic War"), I discuss the reasons why the pro-Roman
Chaeroneans may have had particular cause to demonstrate their
goodwill to Sulla.
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178 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
return to Italy, and thus the inscription had to signify that
when, as we know, Sulla was hailed imperator following the battle
of Chaeronea in 86, this was the second occasion for this honor and
presumably he had received an earlier, unrecorded acclamation in
Cilicia in the 90s. Crawford showed that the coin was minted in
Italy, though he confused matters by arguing on hoard evidence that
the coin was issued early in the campaign in Italy before the
battle of the Porta Collina. In a more recent article, Thomas R.
Martin has demonstrated that Crawford's criterion for dating the
coin is invalid, and has argued that Sulla received his second
imperatorial acclamation after the battle of the Porta Collina,
which took place on November 1, 82.52 This article is well argued,
but it can nonetheless be shown with a reasonable degree of
certainty that its thesis is not correct. Sulla won his first
acclamation in Cilicia and the second followed the battle of
Chaeronea. Since Martin's is the only account which is based on a
correct interpretation of the coin's place of minting and of the
hoard evidence, I will review Martin's arguments and show they do
not necessarily lead to his conclusion and that the alternative
view is preferable. I discuss the evidence under four rubrics
(these generally correspond to Martin's main arguments, though not
to the order in which he presents them).
1) Multiple Imperatorial Acclamations Martin begins with the
premise that only one acclamation was permissible per "campaign"
and argues that Sulla must have been acclaimed after the battle of
Chaeronea, and hence that the other acclamation must either have
preceded or followed. The contention about Chaeronea is certainly
correct. Sulla referred to himself as imperator while rallying his
troops at the battle of Orchomenos, which followed that of
Chaeronea. Accordingly, he must have been hailed imperator at
Chaeronea, his first victory in battle during the Mithridatic
war.53
The contention about "campaigns" is not so obvious. The evidence
for this comes from Dio Cassius's notice that contrary to
traditional procedure Claudius was hailed imperator several times
during the conquest of Britain, even though the normal procedure
was one acclamation per war.54 This may well represent procedure
under the Empire, when no one but the emperor himself was allowed
to be hailed imperator. The reason for Claudius's "greedy" attitude
is obvious. The whole purpose of the invasion of Britain was to
create a martial reputation
52 T.R. Martin, "Sulla Imperator Iterum, the Samnites and Roman
Republican Coin Propa- ganda," SNR 68 (1989) 19-44.
53 The direct evidence for this is Front. strat. 2.8.12 and Amm.
Marc. 16.21.41; Plut. Sulla 21.2, App. Mith. 49, 195 and Polyaenus
strat. 8.9.2 also report the anecdote without specifying the title.
For discussion of this and other implicit evidence, see Martin (n.
52) 26.
54 ainoKcpdrOp tokkdKa; itwcovoji6aO napa 'r& iardpta (ov6
yap cartv Evi oV&vt nxZov i datia ?1C tOV aivtofv noXigou Tnv
eix6cXqcrv avUx,Tjv Xaotv) (60.21.4-5).
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 179
for this new emperor, who had neither military prestige in his
own right nor the blood of Augustus in his veins. The situation
under the Republic is not at all so clear. No one before Sulla is
recorded as a "multiple" imperator. Indeed, the very fact of a
single man being able to celebrate triumphs over many different
foes defeated over the course of a promagistracy (or in Marius's
case repeated consulships) that extended over several years was a
comparative new situation. Marius was offered to triumph over the
Teutoni and Ambrones in 102 but waited until he had defeated the
Cimbri as well in the following year to celebrate a single
triumph.55 Perhaps this course set precedent. Certainly, Pompey is
only recorded as imperator ter, presumably to match his three
triumphs: one in 80 (or 81?) commemorating his victory in Africa,
one in 71 commemorating his victory in Spain and finally one in 61
commemorating his victories in the East.56 This suggests that the
number of acclamations was limited not by the number of wars but by
the number of magistracies. This feeling is confirmed when we look
at the actual substance of Pompey's third triumph. Pliny preserves
for us the very praefatio to that triumph:
cum oram maritimam praedonibus liberasset et imperium maris
populo Romano restituisset, ex Asia Ponto Armenia Paphlagonia
Cappodocia Cilicia Syria Scythis ludaeis Albanis Hiberia insula
Creta Basternis et super haec de rege Mithridate atque Tigrane
triumphavit. (NH 7.97)57 Clearly he could under these circumstances
have had more than one accla-
mation in the East if he had desired and if this had been normal
procedure.58 As promagistrate (or magistrate) a general operated
with his regular title until a major victory in the field, at which
point the troops hailed him as imperator, this acclamation serving
as a preliminary to the general claim to enter the city in triumph.
(After the triumph, of course, the title would lapse).59 The
tendency in
55 Seen. 18. 56 For the dating of the first triumph, see E.
Badian, "The Date of Pompey's First Triumph,"
Hermes 83 (1955) 107-18 and "Servilius and Pompey's Triumph,"
Hermes 89 (1961) 254-56.
57 Cf. the description of Valerius Maximus: de Mithridate et
Tigrane, de multis praeterea regibus plurimisque civitatibus et
praedonibus unum duxit triumphum (8.15.8).
58 Note that Pompey already claimed the honor from his defeat of
the pirates: when he met Lucullus to assume the war against
Mithridates, he already had laurel decorations on his fasces (Plut.
Pomp. 31.2, Lucull. 36.2). One might also compare Pompey's claim on
the trophy he erected in Spain that he had subdued 886 civitates
(Pompeius Magnus tropaeis suis quae statuebat in Pyrenaeo
DCCCLXXXVI oppida ab Alpibus ad fines Hispaniae Ulterioris in
dicionem a se redacta testatus sit [Pliny NH 3.4.3, cf. 7.27.61).
This activity again resulted in a single acclamation as imperator
and a single triumph. If multiple acciamations were permissible
leading up to a single triumph, one wonders why Pompey did not
receive more, when he was clearly interested in proclaiming the
number of his victories.
59 In the late Republic there was a tendency for this title to
become permanent: see ILLRP
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180 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
the later Republic was that once achieved the title imperator
would be used instead of the civil designation.60 In this context,
an additional acclamation served little function. Even if one
celebrated a multiple triumph as Caesar did in 46, one was not any
more of an imperator by virtue of a victory in a second war fought
during the course of the same promagistracy. If this is so, it
makes more sense to view Sulla's designation as imperator iterum as
referring to his acclamation at Chaeronea and the earlier one as
referring to Cilicia.
2) Evidence for Sulla's Acclamation in Cilicia Martin next
attempts to refute evidence for such a Cilician acclamation. We
have direct if dubious attestation in the late Antique miscellany
of various information written by Ampelius. In that work, we have
under the category of Parthian kings the listing
Arsaces, fonna et virtute praecipuus, cuius posteri Arsacidae
cognominati sunt; qui pacem cum Sulla imperatorefecit. (31.2)
Clearly there is garbling here. The first Arsaces is not the man
who made
peace with Sulla. In fact, Sulla made peace with Mithridates
king of Pontus and entered into a relationship of friendship with
an envoy of Arsaces king of Parthia.61 Festus refers to the same
incident and calls Sulla pro consule, Martin hastening to add that
he "has it right" (29). But there is no real choosing be- tween
these two very late sources. Martin simply prefers that Festus be
correct in using the title pro consule. But of course Festus's
title does not exclude the imperatorial acclamation, and from the
point of view of a late antique source, the Republican use of the
title would be confusing. After all Sulla was a proconsul, and a
late reference does not prove that he was not also an
imperator.
Martin banishes to a mere reference in a footnote clear
indication that Sulla's Cilician campaign did involve military
activity. Sulla was sent to restore to his throne Ariobarzanes,
whom the Romans had recently installed as king in
382, an inscription on the base of a statue raised in Pompey's
honor by the people of Auximum (quoted n. 122). This town was in
the clientela of Pompey (see Plut. Pomp. 6.3-4) and their use of
the title imperator so long after his triumph was a form of
flattery. Though there is some confusion, this is the context in
which to interpret Dio's (43.44.2) and Suetonius's (Div. Jul. 76.2)
claim that Caesar was granted the praenomen imperatoris. In fact,
in 45 after the battle of Munda the senate allowed Caesar to retain
permanently the regular title imperator even after his triumph; see
Mommsen (n. 16) 2.767.
60 See work cited by Martin (n. 52) 29 n. 38. 61 Martin (n. 52)
28 n. 33 notes that the Parthian king with whom Sulla entered into
an
arrangement of friendship bore the personal name of Mithridates
along with the title Arsaces and implies that Ampelius was
confusing him with the Pontic king of the same name with whom Sulla
did make peace. Yet both Plutarch (Sulla 5.4) and Festus (brevi-
arium 15) use only the name Arsaces, which suggests that Ampelius
would probably not have known of the personal name.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 181
Cappadocia at the request of the locals. Sulla succeeds in this
mission after defeating Armenian troops and their Parthian
commander Gordius, using most- ly local troops:
ui8av g.t-v oiuv )vagtv ov) noXX7-lv Ct'?yero, XpiadVevo; 8e
toY; aria- xot; tpo&Vt4iot;, Kcat okkoXXo; jiv a&rdv
Kanna8oixv i)iova; 8' avi0t; Apjieviov npoapoflOobvTa; dnoicteivaq,
r6p&tov p?v ?nIXaasv, Apto- Iap-advqv &? P&t1e aastkXa
(Sulla 5.3).
Clearly this campaign involved a fair amount of military
activity, and resulted not only in accomplishing its main aim, but
also in inducing the Parthian king to seek the friendship of the
Roman People for the first time.62 Once the campaign is viewed in
this light, the possibility of an imperatorial acclamation becomes
much less unlikely.
Martin cites several inscriptions from the east as indicating
that Sulla operated there in an official capacity in which he was
not called imperator. Two come from Delos, and both refer to L.
Cornelius L.f Sulla pro cos. (ILLRP 349, 350). A Rhodian
inscription lists a number of embassies undertaken by a man of that
island, including one (apparently) to Sulla atpaMyor; dvffijnato;
PwoiaiOv (ILS 8772=SIG3 745). Since Sulla seems to have used the
title imperator after his acclamation at Chaeronea, Martin wishes
to ascribe these inscriptions to a time before that battle, in
particular to the period directly following his procon- sulship in
Cilicia. Thus it could be taken as proven that Sulla did not
receive an imperatorial acclamation in Cilicia. A review of these
inscriptions shows that they can be explained as coming from the
early stages of the Mithridatic war, and are thus not contradictory
to the idea that Sulla received an imperatorial acclamation in
Cilicia.
Let us begin with the Delian inscriptions. One should consider
what exactly the inscriptions signify. Although there are various
discussions of the signifi- cance of these inscriptions, no one, as
far as I am aware, has attempted a direct exegesis of them. Both
contain Sulla's name in the nominative case with no verb. The
nominative without a verb can signify two things in Latin inscrip-
tions. First, it can commemorate the name of the person who
dedicated or erected the monument thus inscribed.63 Second, it can
be used as a rubric to indicate the person portrayed in the
monument. By the last days of the Republic and during the Empire,
this function was normally indicated by the dative case.64 The
62 For a discussion of the place of this fighting in the context
of putting Ariobarzanes on his throne, see Brennan (n. 8) 150-151.
For the friendship with Parthia, see Plut. Sulla 5.4, where it is
also emphasized that Sulla was the first Roman to whom a Parthian
king thus applied.
63 E.g., ILLRP 326-28, 330, 333. Note that apart from the last
example, all these instances contain an ablative absolute (e.g.,
Carthagine capta) or dative (e.g., vico) to make the sense of the
omitted verb obvious.
64 Examples are extremely numerous. Note in the present context
several dedications to
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182 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
situation is not so clear for the second and early first
centuries B.C. One can find instances of the Greek usage of the
accusative.65 There is also, however, attestation of use of the
"nominative of rubric," that is, of using a simple nomi- native as
indicating the subject of a work of art. This usage is attested for
the pre-Sullan period.66 LLRP 324 preserves the dedication on
fragments of what appears to have been a marble statue base: L.
Manlius L. Acidinus triu(m)vir Aquileiae coloniae deducundae. This
inscription was found at Aquileia, and Degrassi assumes in his
commentary in ILLRP that the base on which it was inscribed
supported a statue of the colony's founder. ILLRP 325 is an
inscrip- tion written on the abacus of a marble column: M. Claudius
M.f Marcelus consol iterum. Degrassi again assumes that the column
supported a statue of Marcellus. From the Sullan period we have two
highly relevant comparanda. ILLRP 361 is from a statue base found
on Delos: Q. Pompeius Q.f. Ruf(us) cos. This inscription
commemorates Sulla's colleague in the consulship. Since he was
killed in that year, the dedication dates from the time of Roman
recovery of the island after Sulla's defeat of Mithridates, which
shows that the nominative of rubric was in use on Delos at that
time.67 The other comparandum is provided by the equestrian statue
erected in Sulla's honor before the rostra in the Roman forum. The
inscription on the base of that statue is preserved by Appian as
Kopv-Xkiou FivXka 'yEg6vo; ExkuXoZi; (BC 1.451). The absence of the
praenom- en shows that Appian's version cannot be taken as
literally true; hence we can ignore the peculiar genitive. Gabba
follows Balsdon in translating this as L. Cornelio Sullae Felici
Imperatori.68 In this context, however, scholars have noted several
dedications to Sulla as L. Comnelio Ff Sullae Felici dictatori
(ILLRP 352-356). In all these inscriptions there follows after the
dative a nominative of the dedicator. Sulla' s title in these
inscriptions is clearly modeled on the inscription of Sulla's
equestrian statue in the forum. The basic correct- ness of the
forms in ILLRP 352-356 is demonstrated by RRC #381. This coin
Sulla as L. Cornelio F.f Sullae Felici imperatori (see
discussion p. 175-176); also ILLRP 351. In SEG 25.1267, 1268 Greek
accusatives are rendered in Latin with datives.
65 E.g., ILLRP 320, 337, 343, 359, 362-63, 369-370, 376. In all
these instances one has the nominative of the dedicator(s), which
makes the syntax clear.
66 I. Calabi Limentani, L'epigraphia latina (1968) 239 asserts
that "i resti epigrafici piui antichi di statue di viventi con il
nome del titolare della statua al nominativo non sono dediche" and
were not erected by the community but by man honored himself, who
received this right as a reward for services rendered. She cites no
evidence for this interpretation, and the phraseology she uses
("sembra cioV") indicates that it is merely a guess, presumably
motivated by the divergence of this earlier procedure from the
later use of the dative.
67 The word cos. was added by a different hand. As Degrassi
notes in ILLRP, this does not preclude the view that the
inscription was erected as a posthumous honor.
68 E. Gabba (Appiani bellorum civilium liber primus [1958]) ad
loc.; Balsdon (see n. 46) 4 with n. 50. Cf. ILLRP 351: L. Cornelio
L.f Sullae Feleici imperatori publice.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 183
portrays an equestrian statue on the reverse, and has two
variants for the accompanying inscription. RRC subvariety la has L.
SVLL FELI DIC, while lb has L. SVLLA FELIX DIC. The latter
demonstrates that the inscription on the base was not in the
genitive, as Appian indicates, but in the nominative, and that
Appian's 'yEJLcOv does in fact represent dictator. The datives of
ILLRP 352- 356 are to be explained as deriving from the syntactical
necessity of those inscriptions, which indicated not only the
subject of the work of art but also the identity of the dedicators.
One can also guess on the basis of the derivative inscriptions that
the Roman inscription probably included Sulla's filiation but this
was omitted from the coin for reasons of space constraints. We can
thus reconstruct the inscription as L. Cornelius L.f. Sulla Felix
dictator. It would seem, then, that Sulla's statue was remarkable
in more ways than simply being the first equestrian image erected
in the rostra.69 The inscription on it indicated no dedicator at
all but instead merely indicated the identity of the horse's rider.
As we have seen, this form of inscription was by no means
unprecedented, and this less usual form was doubtless chosen
intentionally. The statue did not represent the act of someone else
in honoring Sulla: the dictator beloved of the gods stood there in
his own right in the nominative case, in no way subordinated
syntactically to a dedicator just as in the real world he was not
subject to anyone else's control.70
69 Cic. Phil. 9.13, Velleius Paterculus 2.61.3. Although H.
Gesche ("Die Reiterstatuen der Aemilier und Marcier," JMG 18 [19681
25-48 at 27 n. 6) is uncertain, it would seem, given the evidence
cited there, that the novelty of Sulla's statue was the placement
of an equestrian statue on the rostra.
70 It is interesting in this context to note the reverse of RRC
#291. This portrays three arches upon which rests an equestrian
statue with the rider wearing a cuirass and wreath and holding a
spear. Around the border is the legend MN. AEMILIO and between the
arches LEP. Crawford (RRC #305) argues that this is the name of the
moneyer on the grounds that "since most Republican coin legends are
of indeterminate case, the dative is hardly significant," and
rejects the notion that the legend indicates the name of the
horseman because "such a name should be in the nominative (see no.
381 for the only unequivocal example)". I am not sure what the
first argument means. If "indeterminate" means that the case
endings of the moneyers' names are regularly omitted, this is of
course true, but proves nothing about the case in which they
appear. Study of the moneyers' names from their first appearance
down to the 49 indicates much evidence for the nominative and some
for the genitive. Certain instances of the nominative: #233, #248,
#255, #259, #263, #269, #271, #286, #288, #293, #300, #316, #335/9
and 10, #337, #342, #344, #347, #354, #355, #356, #357, #362, #366,
#369, #388, #391, #398, #399, #400, #402, #404, #405, #409, #415,
#417, #419, #421, #422, #425, #426, #428, #429, #430, #431, #432,
#433, #436, #439, #440, #442. There are also a number of forms
which are almost certainly nominative. These consist of first and
third declension forms where it is not impossible that the ending
has been omitted (e.g., NATTA may represent Nattae and LABEO,
Labeonis). There is, however, no reason to think that such an
abbreviation was used, but for the sake of being conservative I
class these forms as likely nominatives: #185, #186, #205,
#207(?=FLAVVS), #208, #215, #216, #229, #237, #258, #268, #270,
#273, #274,
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184 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
Now let us return to the inscriptions from Delos. ILLRP 349 (L.
Cornelius L.f Sulla pro cos.) is apparently the base of an
equestrian statue.71 Hence there should be no doubt that the
inscription indicates that Sulla was the person portrayed. ILLRP
350 (L. Cornelius L.f Sulla pro cos. I de pequnia quam con- legia I
in commune conlatam) is not so obvious. It is engraved on a capital
of the Doric order. Martin follows Keaveney and earlier scholars in
suggesting that Sulla visited Delos after his defeat of
Mithridates's armies, and assumes that if Sulla was personally
involved in the erection of the Delian monuments after the battle
of Chaeronea, his title of imperator would have to have been used;
hence these inscriptions refer to an earlier activity on his part
in the east, at a time when he did not have the title. Martin
ascribes this period to Sulla's "leisurely" (30) return from
Cilicia. But there is no evidence for any such visit.72 Further-
more, Martin does not directly address the issue of the sense of
the phrase de pecunia quam collegia in commune conlatam. It is not
clear how he takes this, but he suggests that Sulla may have used
money provided by the collegia of Delos.73 Degrassi had a similar
explanation, suggesting that the verb obtulerunt is to be
understood in the relative clause.74 This will not do. Cicero's
extensive
#276, #279, #292, #296, #301, #302, #305, #310, #330, #334,
#340, #343, #348, #352, #390, #392, #395, #407, #408, #410, #416,
see #417, #418. There is also a much smaller number of genitives:
#243, #281, #306, #403, #412, #414, #424, #434. There is no way to
tell whether the many nomina ending only in -i (e.g., A. MANLI Q.F.
SER. [#309]) are to be taken as nominative or genitive. There is,
however, not one single instance of the moneyer's name appearing in
the dative case. (What in any case would such a usage mean?) It is
conceivable that the form MANLIO represents the archaic spelling as
in L. Cornelio(s) L.f Scipio (ILLRP 310). Such a dropping of final
S can be paralleled among moneyers' names only in L. MINVCIV
(#248), and even here the ending is -iu(s) (note also that that
form is anomalous, most dies having MINVCI). It is thus hard to
avoid concluding that #291 preserves the inscription of the statue
in the dative case. In this case, the coin does not directly name
the moneyer, who was presumably some Aemilius Lepidus (see n. 145
for another "implicit" naming of a moneyer).
71 So Degrassi in ILLRP. 72 For those supporting this
suggestion, see Degrassi in ILLRP. It must be emphasized that
the hypothesis of a personal visit is merely a way of explaining
the nominative of the inscription when it is taken as indicating
the dedicator. Once this assumption is removed, there is no need
for a personal visit by Sulla. Indeed, Plutarch informs us (Sulla
26. 1) that Sulla spent three days in crossing with his entire
fleet from Asia to the Piraeus in 84. One would expect that the
logistics of such an operation kept Sulla rather occupied.
73 Martin (n. 52) 29 mentions as possible dedicators "Sulla
himself," "one of Sulla's minions carrying out his wishes," and
"some Italian traders operating on Delos who hoped to anticipate
what would flatter Sulla to good effect." The offering of these
three alternatives indicates that Martin has no definite
interpretation of the meaning of the inscription.
74 Ad loc.: "Titulus integer est, unde in fine intellegas
obtulerunt. Sulla igitur in monumen- tum quoddam convertit pecuniam
a collegiis sibi oblatam." The editors of In-scriptions de Delos
(on their ##1849, 1850) suggestedfecit to go with Sulla's name and
dederunt to go with the relative.
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Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in his Public Persona 185
discussion of the money provided by the Sicilians to Verres for
the erection of statues in his honor (under duress as a form of
extortion according to Cicero) demonstrates that conferre itself is
the verb used to describe the act of contrib- uting money for this
purpose.75 Cicero accuses Verres of forcing the Sicilians to
contribute money toward the erection of statues which will never be
set up. Clearly the money is still in Verres's possession and it is
he who will erect the statues.76 Could he then have inscribed the
bases of these statues with the inscription c. VERRES EX PECUNIA
QUAM SICILIENSES CONTULERUNT? It would appear not. Cicero argues
that a limit has to be set on the number of statues to be erected,
and picks out Syracuse to illustrate what had happened. He first
notes that they erected statues to Verres, his son and his
father.
Verum quotiens et quot nominibus a Syracusanis statuas auferes?
Ut in foro statuerent, abstulisti, ut in curia, coegisti, ut
pecuniam conferrent in eas statuas quae Romae ponerentur imperasti;
ut idem darent homines aratorum nomine, dederunt, ut idem pro parte
in commune Siciliae confer- rent, etiam id contulerunt.
(2.2.145)
He later makes mention of these statues: huic etiam Romae
videmus in basi statuarum maximis litteris inscriptum a communi
Siciliae datas (154).77 These remarks are important for our
purposes for two reasons. First they provide a direct parallel for
in commune conferre meaning "contribute into a fund" for the
purposes of raising a statue. Second, the inscriptions on the
statues clearly indicated that the contributors themselves erected
the statues and not the dedi- catee. This is exactly what one would
expect from the inscriptions of monu-
75 See, for example, Verr. 2.2.141: ... pecunia quam tibi ad
statuam censores [sc. Sicilian magistrates] contulerunt; also ??
137, 145, 148, 151, 152, 154, 157.
76 In ? 142 Cicero grants that Verres was still within the five
years (legitimum illud quinquennium) allowed by the lex de pecuniis
repetundis for the erection of the statues, but argues that if
these sums are not included in the present accusation, no one will
ever accuse him because of them in future if he escapes conviction
now and that in any case no one could really believe that he was
not going to divert into his own pocket the large sums collected
ostensibly for the statues. In pro Flacco 55-59 Cicero had to
defend Flaccus against a similar charge that he had taken funds
left in Tralles for the purpose of cele- brating games in honor of
Flaccus's father, who had been propraetor in Asia in the 90s.
There, Cicero actually argues that since the games were never put
on, the money could have been taken by Flaccus pater and could have
been claimed by any heir (? 59, reading conlatam and ignoring
Clark's supplement of uti). This is not the place to discuss how
this passage can be brought into harmony with Cicero's argument in
the Verrines.
77 In Clark's OCT the words a ... datas are written in small
capitals as if they were a quotation of the actual inscription.
However, not only is it difficult to think of any epigraphic
parallels to a dedication in the passive voice, but the pronoun
huic at the front of the sentence must also be construed with
datas. Unless one imagines that Cicero spread his literal indirect
quotation throughout the sentence, it is easier to assume that he
is giving the sense of the dedications without trying to reproduce
the wording exactly.
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186 CHRISTOPHER S. MACKAY
ments erected by collegia under the Empire.78 Since there is
Republican attesta- tion for the phrase de pecunia conlata in the
sense of "from contributed money," it is easiest to explain the
garbling on ILLRP 350 as a confused con- flation of that phrase and
a fuller form with a relative clause in which the agent of the
conferre was to be expressed.79 That is, the composer intended to
expand de pecunia conlata as de pecunia quam collegia in commune
contulerunt but left the verb in the formulaic participial form.
The sense of the prepositional phrase would thus be "from money
contributed (for this purpose) to the com- mon fund by the
collegia." What then does the inscription mean? Presumably the
column supported an image of Sulla, and while the nominative in
th