1965-01

Political Morality and the Friends of ScipioAuthor(s): F. W. WalbankSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), pp. 1-16Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/297426Accessed: 05/01/2010 17:46

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sprs.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of Roman Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/stable/297426?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sprs

POLITICAL MORALITY AND THE FRIENDS OF SCIPIO

By F. W. WALBANK

I

The dramatic date is the Feriae Latinae of 129 B.C., the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, the scene the gardens of Scipio Aemilianus, the theme for discussion the Roman state. Who could expound the subject better than Aemilianus himself for, says Laelius,1 ' not only is it proper that an eminent statesman rather than anyone else should discuss the State, but also I recollect that you used to converse very frequently with Panaetius on this subject in company with Polybius-two Greeks who were perhaps the best versed of them all in politics-and that you assembled many arguments to prove that the form of government handed down to us by our ancestors is by far the best of all.' Here is Cicero's assurance that sometime before I29 Panaetius, Scipio and Polybius used to discuss the Roman State together-though he does not tell us when or where. According to Velleius 2 Scipio kept Polybius and Panaetius, praecellentis ingenio uiros, beside him domi militiaeque, so many opportunities for such conversations offered themselves. Was Panaetius perhaps present, like Polybius, at the siege of Carthage ? Possibly, though there is no proof.3 For it is now generally agreed that Panaetius' voyage with Telephus' fleet 4 and the two years devoted to general education (rrpos piAoia&nrlCtv)-or was it research ?-before he went to Athens (which we learn of from a fragmentary passage in the Index Stoicorum discovered at Herculaneum) 5 have nothing to do with any ships the Rhodians may have sent to help Rome during the siege of Carthage (as Cichorius thought), but belong to Panaetius' early years.6

In fact we have no idea when Panaetius first made Scipio's acquaintance nor where; but they must have been in contact for some time before the eastern embassy of I40 7 when Scipio invited the Greek to accompany him on his visit to Cyprus, Syria, Pergamum and Athens.8 There is good evidence for their presence together at Rome, where Panaetius enjoyed the friendship of many members of Scipio's circle-C. Laelius,9 who had studied under him at Athens, Q. Mucius Scaevola,10 who was later to become Cicero's mentor, C. Fannius,11 who, like Scaevola, was Laelius' son-in-law, and Q. Aelius Tubero,12 the son of Scipio's sister, and the man to whom Panaetius dedicated several works. Since Panaetius ventured in a published letter to Tubero to express an opinion on the merits of a poem by Appius Claudius the censor,13 it seems only reasonable to assume that he had an adequate knowledge of Latin; and this too probably implies residence at Rome. Finally, according to the Herculaneum papyrus,14 he lived alternately at Rome and Athens, probably during the decade following the eastern journey of I40; but evidently Cicero did not believe him to be at Rome in I29,15 the dramatic date of the de re publica, and after Scipio's death the same year, if not before, he appears to have settled permanently at Athens, where he became head of the Stoa, and there published his book on Duty (YTEpi TOU Kc0OiaKOvTOs), on which Cicero drew for so much of the de officiis.16

So much is clear; but it is not known when Panaetius first came to Rome, nor whether he was there before I40 (though on the whole it seems likely). And unfortunately we are equally in the dark about Polybius' later movements. If Panaetius and Polybius were

1 Cic., rep. I, 34. 7 On the date of this see Astin, CPh 1959, 221 ff.; 2 Vell. Pat. I, 13, 3. Scullard, JRS I960, 69, n. 43. 3 cf. Cichorius, Rh. Mus. I908, 220. 8 Plut., 2Mor. 777A = FGH 87, F 30; cf. 87, F 6 4 Perhaps the Rhodian mentioned in xxix, 10, 4 with app. crit.

[where no author is named, the references are to 9 Cic.,fin. II, 23 and 24. Polybius]. Cf. Pohlenz, RE, 'Panaitios,' col. 440; 10 Cic., de or. I, 75. von Gaertringen, RE, Suppl. v, ' Rhodos,' col. 8oo. 11 Cic., Brut. ioi.

5 Stoicorum Index Herculanensis, col. 55-77, con- 12 Cic., fin. IV, 23; cf. rep. I, I4. veniently consulted in M. van Straaten, Panaetii 13 Cic., Tusc. disp. IV, 4; cf. Pohlenz, RE, Rhodii Fragmenta (Leiden, 1952), fg. i. See for this ' Panaitios,' col. 423. incident ? 56. 14 ?63.

6 cf. Pohlenz, Antikes Fiihrertum (Berlin, 1934), 15 Cic., rep. I, 5. 130-I, n. 3 ; Tatakis, Panet&ius de Rhodes (Paris, 16 See especially Pohlenz, Antikes Fiihrertum, I931), 26 (against Cichorius, loc. cit.). 125-6, who argues convincingly that it was published

after Scipio's death.

present with Scipio militiae, as Velleius says, this must have been either in Spain in 151 (which seems very early for Panaetius), at Carthage in 148-6 (when Polybius was certainly present) or at Numantia in 133 (when Scipio was at great pains to call up his friends and clients as a counter-blast against the obstruction of the Senate, and when Polybius may for that reason have been present-though his Bellum Numantinum is the only piece of evidence that this old man of nearly seventy made the journey from Greece to Spain on this occasion). Carthage or Numantia-either is possible, or even both; and there, I think, one has to leave it. Somewhere, at some unspecified date or dates, Scipio and the Greeks used to hold political discussions.17

II

There is no direct account of the form these discussions took; but it is possible to draw some conclusions from what the two Greeks wrote about the Roman state and about the Roman Empire. As Greeks they were bound to be especially concerned with the relationship between Rome and their own world, for both Achaea and Rhodes had learnt from experience the price of Roman displeasure. Polybius' central theme is the growth of the Roman empire and in particular the qualities of the Roman state which had enabled the rulers of Rome to make themselves masters of the known world between Cannae and Pydna. Imperial achievement is never far away from his mind. Discussing the Spartan constitution, for instance, he observes that 'for the purpose of maintaining security and freedom the legislation of Lycurgus is amply sufficient, and to those who admit this to be the object of political constitutions we must grant that there is not and never was any system or constitution superior to that of Lycurgus '. ' But,' he continues, 'if anyone aims at greater things and regards it as finer and more glorious to be the leader of many men and to rule and lord it over many and have the eyes of all the world turned to him, then it must be conceded that from this point of view the Laconian constitution is defective, while that of Rome is superior and better framed for the attainment of power.'18 Does this second point of view represent that of Polybius himself ? Although in one passage,19 where he perhaps speaks primarily as an Achaean, he gives the impression that it would have been better had Lycurgus made the Spartans contented and moderate (ac'raupKS ... Kcai cCo5ppov) in their foreign policy instead of ambitious, domineering and aggressive, clearly his real complaint against Lycurgus was that he neither rendered his people contented and willing to forgo expansion nor on the other hand provided them with adequate means to implement an aggressive policy.20 That the Romans successfully conquered the world is a mark in favour of their constitution, which facilitated this operation; Polybius in fact admires and approves of imperial ambition, and it is the story of Rome's successful career in that field that forms the central theme of his work.

For his account of Roman history down to Pydna Polybius had a single purpose-to explain how and thanks to what kind of constitution Rome had achieved her imperial success.21 But what happened after Pydna was another story. In Book inI, therefore, Polybius explains why he proposes to extend his History to cover the next two decades, down to the fall of Carthage and Corinth and their immediate aftermath. ' If from their success or failure alone,' he writes,22 'we could form an adequate judgement of how far states and individuals are worthy of praise or blame, I could here lay down my pen, bringing my narrative to a close with the last-mentioned events '-that is the Third Macedonian War and Antiochus Epiphanes' attack on Egypt-' in accordance with the plan originally set out.... But since judgements regarding either victors or vanquished based purely on the actual struggle (crrTcov TOv a&ycov-taicarcov) are by no means final... I must append ... an account of the subsequent policy of the conquerors and their method of universal rule, as well as of the various opinions and appreciations of their rulers entertained by the rest, and

17 For various views concerning the date of Polybius' refusal to discuss Cleomenes' reforms and Panaetius' arrival in Rome see Brink and Walbank, his treatment of the king as a tyrant. CQ 1954, 103, n. 3. 19 vI, 48, 7-8.

18 vi, 50, 2-5. B. Shimron, Historia I964, 147-55, 20 vi, 49, 8. argues that in reality the Lycurgan regime, as applied 21 cf. I, I, 5. by Cleomenes III, was adapted to expansion ; hence 22 Ill, 4, I f.

2 F. W. WALBANK


finally I must describe what were the prevailing and dominant tendencies and ambitions of the various peoples in their public and private lives.... Contemporaries will thus be able to see clearly whether Roman rule is acceptable or the reverse and future generations whether their government should be considered to have been worthy of praise and admiration or rather of blame.'

I have quoted this passage at length because of its importance for an understanding of the later books of Polybius. The rise of Rome to world-empire reflected a transcendental plan, the work of Tyche. But that did not absolve the Romans from submitting their subsequent rule to the judgement of present and future generations. How does Polybius intend that judgement to go ? Is he in fact for or against Rome in the final decision ? The answer is not easy; but one thing is clear. In defining his object in these later books Polybius is replying to expressed criticism of Rome. From the time of the Hannibalic War onwards there had been plenty of people in Greece ready to accuse the Romans not only of having aggressive intentions towards other states, and the desire to subjugate them, but also of exploiting the supposed grievances of their allies in the interest of their imperial ambitions. A Rhodian ambassador to Aetolia in 207 is reported to have alleged that ' if the Romans get the war in Italy off their hands, they will next throw themselves with their whole strength on Greek lands on the pretext that they are helping the Aetolians against Philip, but in reality with the intention of conquering the whole country.' 23 In i99 Macedonian envoys to the Aetolian council make the same charge and quote past incidents to support it: ' it was to help Messana that they first crossed into Sicily; the second time was in order to liberate Syracuse oppressed by the Carthaginians. Both Messana and Syracuse together with the whole of Sicily are now in their hands and they have reduced it to a tax-paying province subject to their rods and axes.' 24 The words are Livy's, the source is Polybius.

A yet clearer case arises at the time of the Third Punic War. In accordance with his undertaking to recount ' the opinions and appreciations of their rulers entertained by the rest' Polybius records four points of view prevalent in Greece concerning the rights and wrongs of Roman policy towards Carthage. This passage is discussed in more detail below. For the present we may note that the two hostile views given there are those accusing the Romans on the one hand of sharp practice, of using awrrrrl KcaI 86'os, deceit and fraud, to break down the defences of Carthage step by step, and on the other hand of pursuing a new policy of terrorism-of not being content merely to subjugate their enemies, but of setting out rather to annihilate them; and this policy, it was alleged, had been initiated with the Roman treatment of Perseus of Macedon, and had now been completely revealed in the decision concerning Carthage.25 Polybius attributes these criticisms to the Greeks ; but according to a passage in Livy which is almost certainly Polybian 26 the sharp practice directed against Perseus by Q. Marcius Philippus and by A. Atilius Serranus on the eve of the Third Macedonian War encountered similar criticism among some of the senators at Rome. ' It was not by ambushes and night affrays,' they are reported to have said, ' by pretended flight followed by sudden attacks upon an enemy who was off his guard, nor with a pride in trickery rather than true glory that our ancestors had waged war.' These phrases are almost a direct translation of the arguments which Polybius attributes to the hostile Greeks in I46. And these senators conclude disapprovingly that this is a new sort of cleverness, nova sapientia.

III

Polybius reports these views faithfully, even if, as the repetition may lead us to suspect, a little schematically.27 But where, in this dispute, does he stand personally ? Before an attempt can be made to answer this, we must examine his general attitude towards the Romans throughout the later books covering the period after 168-7. ' The final end achieved by my history,' he tells us, ' will be to gain knowledge of what was the condition of each

23 xi, 6, i f. 430; Walbank, JRS 1941, 82-93; J. Briscoe, JRS 24 Livy xxxI, 29, 6. I964, 66-77. 25 xxxvI, 9, 5-8; 9-i i. 27 On the repetition of words and phrases in his 26 Livy XLII, 47; see Kahrstedt, Klio 1911, 415- work see xxix, 12, O0.

3

people after the struggle for supremacy was over and all had fallen under the dominion of Rome, down to the disturbed and troubled time that afterwards ensued, Ecos TrS p[ETa TaOcarc TIraWv EntyEvovEvnsr TrcapacX KXi KilvICrECOS. About this latter... I was induced to write as if starting on a new work.' 28 Now there are two reasons why he treats this period of TapcaXcl Kca Kivrc7is as a new work, first because of the magnitude of the actions and the unexpected character (-r6 rrapabSoov) of the event contained in it, and secondly because he himself not only witnessed most of these, but also took part and was even the main agent in some. Thus the fresh start applies, not to the period after I68-7, as some scholars have thought,29 but only to these later years of' confusion and disturbance '. Just where Polybius regarded these years as beginning is not made quite clear. In the chapter following the phrases I have quoted 30 he claims to summarize the events of the disturbed years; but he includes the expulsion of Ariarathes from Cappadocia which occurred as early as I58. In fact, it is hard to distinguish any rigid line of demarcation, and it looks as if Polybius regarded the period from i68 onwards, which is the aftermath of the fifty-three years of Rome's rise to power, as gradually shading off into one of confusion and disturbance as the year I50 approached and as warfare culminated in the disasters which enveloped Carthage, Macedonia and Greece. If one can draw a line, it probably was envisaged as falling about I52-I. For after then, as Polybius says, events became Trapac5o~ov. No longer, in his view, did policy now obey the rules of reason. In Macedon, for example,31 the story of the false Philip appeared at first sight to be quite inadmissible (ovi' dvEKT-6S). This Philip fallen from heaven into Macedonia (aspoTrETis C(iAaTrrros) had no good reason for his campaign, yet quite unbelievably he won victory after victory; and the Macedonians, after being well-treated at the hands of Rome, which had brought them, as all confessed, freedom instead of slavery and put an end to internal struggles, rushed to fight for this imposter who exiled, tortured and murdered them in large numbers. In such a situation one can speak only of a heaven-sent infatuation (5aipovo3Xp?3Eia).32

The same is true of the disaster that befell the Greeks. For this was a catastrophe which was both universal and discreditable and without any of those redeeming features which in earlier misfortunes of Greece had given grounds for feelings of consolation and pride; such unmitigated disaster was almost unprecedented, and indeed ' the whole country was visited by an unparalleled attack of mental disturbance, people throwing themselves into wells and down precipices.' 33 Behaviour at that time was of such a kind, and everyone was so much the victim of madness and demoralization-a-vota Kail aKpicria-such as it would be hard to discover even among barbarians, that one can only attribute the fact that Greece did ultimately emerge to the success of some kind of resourceful and ingenious good fortune (TUxrl TI.S . . . voupyoS Kai TrEXVIKt1) in countering the aivota and Ipavica of the statesmen in charge.

That is how Polybius saw it; and it is not far to the conclusion that in these cases SawtNiovoP3Aapeia and pacvia describe policies which he could neither accept nor understand; for he was, as he has said, an active and interested party in the politics of those times. The years I50 to I46, it is true, do not reveal the complete and abrupt change in Roman policy which, from the first century B.C. onwards, has frequently been attributed to them.34 But they do represent the climax of a new trend, and they also represent a significant and welcome change in Polybius' personal situation. From I67 to 151 he had been an exile at Rome, comfortably off no doubt, mixing in agreeable and influential company, but none the less deprived of full freedom of movement and personal initiative. He was the victim of Roman policy, unfair but beyond challenge. It was during those years that he planned and wrote a good many books of his Histories. At Rome he had every chance to meet people, to discuss, to assess. But he was essentially the onlooker, considering Roman policy objectively and, we might well expect, critically. Indeed, books III to xxxIII furnish an almost unbroken run of remarks hostile to Rome. I will mention briefly some of the more striking.

28 II 4, 12-13. 31 XXXVI, I0.

29 cf. Thommen, Hermes I885, I99; Susemihl, 32 xxxVI, 17, 12-I5.

Geschichte der griechischen Literatur in der Alexandri- 33 xxxvIII, i6, 7. nerzeit ii, io8, n. 104. 34 See the just comments of W. Hoffmann,

30 III, 5. Historia I960, 309-44.

4 F. W. WALBANK


A number of eminent but unnamed Romans attempted to incite Attalus to acts of treachery against King Eumenes, his brother, while at Rome; 35 when they were thwarted in this, thanks to the advice of the physician Stratius, the Senate broke its promise to hand over Aenus and Maronea to Pergamum and instead liberated the two Thracian towns. Prusias II of Bithynia came to Rome and behaved in an utterly contemptible manner; 36

for this very reason he received a kindly answer--XacpE 61' caUrr6 ro TTO tla&vepcowrov, thus demonstrating that servility towards Rome paid dividends. When shortly afterwards Eumenes arrived in Italy, the Senate, feeling embarrassed, passed a decree forbidding the city to all kings, thereby humiliating him and ensuring that the Galatians, learning of his humiliation, would attack him.37 Polybius may be wrong in detecting such far-sighted cunning in the Senate's decision; but he evidently retails a belief current at Rome, and he does so without comment. The Athenians sent an embassy to ask for the possession of Delos, Lemnos and Haliartus. Polybius goes out of his way to expose the injustice of the claim to Haliartus as being quite unworthy of Athens; he records the Senate's decision to accede to their request, merely remarking that the whole transaction proved less profitable to Athens than the Athenians had anticipated.38 Obviously Polybius disapproves of the Roman decision; but as he does not mention the motives of the Senate, we cannot tell in this case whether he believed them to have some Machiavellian purpose or merely regarded them as the victims of Athenian persuasiveness.

There are several other passages similar to this. Thus, the enemies of Ariarathes of Cappadocia, Diogenes and Miltiades, made great headway against him when his affairs came before the Senate-since falsehood had no difficulty in gaining the day.39 Here the suggestion is that the Senate were hoodwinked, just as on another occasion they were hoodwinked by Heracleides, who persuaded them to pass a senatus consultum favourable to Laodice and Alexander, seduced by his charlatanry (Trcas yorT-rcaiS),40 and as Ti. Sempro- nius Gracchus and his colleagues were deceived when they were sent to investigate the situation in the Seleucid kingdom.41 But sometimes the Senate just do not care about what is right, as when the Prienians appealed to Rome about the demand of Ariarathes that they hand over to him the money deposited with them by Orophernes, and the Romans ov TrpoacEXov TroTs AsyopEvots,42 or of course as on the numerous occasions when they refused to allow the Achaean and other exiles to return,43 persuaded by men like Charops and Callicrates. In these instances a combination of blindness and negligence leads to bad decisions: frequently, however, as in the expulsion of Eumenes, Machiavellian motives are explicitly attributed to the Senate.

IV

When the Senate rejected Demetrius' appeal to be restored to the Seleucid throne- this was the Demetrius whom Polybius himself later helped to escape from Rome-they acted thus, cos Epoi SOKmEv, says Polybius, because they were suspicious of a young man of twenty-three and thought that they would be better served by the youth and incapacity of Antiochus IV's son.44 When the younger of the two Ptolemy brothers came to Rome asking for the agreement between himself and his elder brother to be revised, the Senate acceded to his request, which coincided with their interests. Here, exceptionally, Polybius adds a general observation: ' Many Roman decisions are now of this kind: profiting by others' mistakes they effectively (TrpayplcxTiKcns) increase and build up their own power, simultaneously doing a favour and appearing to confer a benefit on the party at fault.' And in this case they sent legati to ensure that their decision was implemented and that Egypt remained weak and divided.45 Self-interest was now usual in Roman decisions. In the many appeals which reached the Senate from Carthage and Masinissa, the Carthaginians always came off second best, ' not because they had not right on their side, but because the judges were convinced that it was in their own interest to decide against them.' 46

35 xxx, I-3. 41 xx, 27 ; 30, 7-8. 36 xxx, i8, 7. 42 xxxiii, 6, 8. 37 xxx, 19, 12-I3.

43 e.g. xxx, 32. 38 XXX, 20. 44 xxxI, 2. 39 xxxII, IO. 45 xxxI, 10. 40 XXXxxIII, 8, IO. 46 XXXI, 21.

5

Sometimes, as in the case of Eumenes' expulsion, one may feel that Polybius goes too far in attributing a sinister purpose to the Senate. For instance, when Leptines, the murderer of Cn. Octavius, was sent by Demetrius to Rome and admitted his crime quite openly, attempting to justify it, the Senate almost ignored the embassy, and kept the grievance open because, 'js Euoi sOKEIV, they took the view that once the guilty party was punished, the Roman people would regard the incident as closed, and they preferred to keep the grievance open for future exploitation.47

The same Machiavellian attitude, the nova sapientia, as some Senators had styled it,48 appears in Roman declarations of war at this time. In the case of the Dalmatians, in 157-6, they had, it is true, good grounds. A series of outrageous actions had led to protests, but the Dalmatians had contested the right of Rome to interest itself in the matter, and had treated the envoys with discourtesy and even violence. But the real motive behind the Senate's decision to declare war on them, according to Polybius, was that they judged it a suitable time for making war on Dalmatia, suitable both because the army was growing slack after twelve years peace since the Third Macedonian War, and also because they thought it high time for them to resume activity in Illyria. And so by fighting the Dalmatians they hoped to inspire terror in the Illyrians (Korrca7rTArlcEvot) and cause them to obey.49 ' But to the world at large they said it was because of the insult to their ambassadors.'

The case of Carthage is not dissimilar. There the Romans, we are told,50 had long ago decided upon their policy-our text says merely TroVrTO KEKvUpCIEov,O but there can be little doubt that war is meant; however, they were looking for a suitable occasion and a pretext that would appeal to foreign nations (Kaipov .. . eTrtT5?EtOV K(d i rpo6paccv E?vXiJova wrpos TOJS EKTOS).

' For the Romans,' Polybius adds, ' paid great attention to this matter, KaMrs ppovo0vTrES-and rightly '; and he quotes a saying of Demetrius of Phalerum, that ' when a war seems to be just (6tKaic ... Eivacn BoKocrac) it increases the profits of victory and reduces the bad results of failure, while if it is thought to be unjust, this has the opposite effect '. So strongly were the Romans convinced of this that their disputes with each other about the effect on foreign opinion very nearly made them desist from going to war.

The only debates Polybius here mentions on the eve of the Third Punic War concern the question whether the pretext to hand was sufficiently convincing to make a reasonable impression on foreign peoples. However, his account is only fragmentary and can be reasonably supplemented from Appian, Plutarch and Diodorus,51 who are agreed that Scipio Nasica opposed the policy of annihilating Carthage with the argument that fear of an outside enemy was a salutary check on internal disputes and the growth of elements hostile to the continued domination of the Senate. It has recently been argued by Hoffmann 52 that these debates are apocryphal and irrelevant to the real issues raised at Rome in the years immediately before I50. His two strongest arguments are, first that according to Polybius the Senate had long ago made up its mind and was merely awaiting a convenient pretext to declare war on Carthage, and secondly that the theme of a metus hostilis as a salutary curb on civil strife was a well-worn rhetorical cliche.

To take the last point first, it is certainly true that the theme that a threat from abroad cements unity and concord at home appears frequently in both Greek and Latin literature, and that on many occasions when it was almost certainly not employed. For example, Hoffmann has shown convincingly that it was never used as an argument by the elder Scipio after Zama, and that Cato never said it was.53 But in 202 such an argument is clearly stamped as anachronistic. This is not true of the situation around I50. As Professor Lily Ross Taylor has shown in her paper on some 'forerunners of the Gracchi ',54 the Third Punic War was preceded in 151 by tribunician activity concerning the military draft, which carried revolutionary implications, and (if the Lex Aelia and Lex Fufia belong to I50, as she has plausibly argued) by attempts to counter tribunician legislation by arming magistrates with new powers of obstruction. Against this background of political unrest Scipio Nasica's appeal to the salutary bond of an external threat makes reasonably good sense.

47 xxxII, 3, II-I 3. Phil. 193I, 284-5 = KI. Schr. II, 39-72 ; Strasburger, 48 Livy XLII, 47, 9. below, 42, n. 23. 49 XXXII, I3. 52 Historia i960, 340. 50 xxxvI, 2. 3 ib., 319-22. 51 Plut., Cato mai. 27, 3; App., Lib. 69; Diod. 54 L. Ross Taylor, JRS I962, 19-27, especially

XXXIV, 33, 4-6 (based on Poseidonius). See Gelzer, 21 ff.

6 F. W. WALBANK


As regards the argument that the Romans had, according to Polybius, already made up their minds, this does not seem to exclude the other discussion and indeed Appian gives both. The Senate, he says,55 had decided to make war, but delayed for the moment the actual resolution for war through lack of a prophasis-which is of course precisely Polybius' argument. This gave a breathing space during which the rival arguments of Cato and Nasica could be thrashed out; and it is specifically with the question of keeping a salutary threat, and not with the question of having a plausible excuse for war, that Scipio Nasica's name is linked. In fact, however, both Polybius and Appian may well be exaggerating the firmness of the Senate's decision in the late 5o's to make war, for there is an earlier occasion in the history of Rome and Carthage where Polybius oversimplifies the Senate's position. I refer to the outbreak of the war with Hannibal. ' The Romans,' says Polybius,56 ' when the news of the fall of Saguntum reached them, most certainly did not hold a debate on the question of war, as some authors allege .... For how could the Romans, who a year ago had announced to the Carthaginians that their entering the territory of Saguntum would be regarded as a casus belli, now when the city itself had been taken by assault, assemble to debate whether they should go to war or not ?' On this occasion the annalistic tradition (less jealous than Polybius for the reputation of Rome) records considerable opposition to the war before and after the fall of Saguntum; 57 and Hoffmann has himself demonstrated 58 that the embassy to Carthage will not have left Rome before i5th March 218, though Saguntum fell in late autumn or early winter, 219. But such delay did not fit Polybius' picture of Roman policy at the time (probably derived from Fabius), hence he discounted it. Similarly, his picture of Roman motivation in I5o-clearly a much-debated and contro- versial question, as his outline of the Greek views about Roman policy makes clear-may well have been tailored to fit a general theory of Roman action at this time. Nasica's views were almost certainly not those of Aemilianus, nor were they those of his friend Polybius. Nasica had argued that Carthage must be maintained so as to ensure internal harmony at Rome. Polybius, on the contrary, in the course of his discussion of the Roman constitution, which was probably published all about the same time, asserted that ' when the Romans are freed from fears from abroad (TrCv EKTOS p63cov) and reap the consequent prosperity, any tendency to excess and disproportion is countered by the checks of the mixed constitution, which automatically restores the equilibrium.'59 Thus, in his opinion, the Roman mixed constitution itself contained sufficient built-in guarantees to preserve internal harmony so long as it was maintained intact. And so he let his account of the outbreak of the Third Punic War follow the pattern already outlined for the Dalmatian war-a united Senate clear on the desirability of fighting and concerned primarily to find a pretext that would look most convincing to foreigners who might judge Roman policy. Whether, like Appian, he also mentioned Nasica's arguments, we cannot tell; 59a but he is unlikely to have given them much prominence, for the reason I have just suggested.

V Concerning the attitude he attributed to the Senate, Polybius carefully refrains from

expressing his own approval or disapproval; for even if we assume the words nova et nimis callida sapientia in Livy to be adapted from Polybius-and this seems reasonably certain- they are given only as the view of the older patres, veteres et moris antiqui memores, who hark back with regret to those days of high principle, when the Senate would turn over a potential poisoner to Pyrrhus, and always declared war before waging it; 60 they do not necessarily represent the view of Polybius. Clearly he believed that Roman practice had changed; this is admitted both by the more conservative section of the Senate and by the Greeks who criticize Roman actions in the Third Punic War; and it is at first sight tempting to link this change with the moral loosening which Polybius also detects in Rome after she has begun to fight and win her overseas wars in Greece.

This moral change had of course been detected earlier: Polybius did not need lynx- eyes to reveal it. As early as i84 Cato's censorship had been celebrated by the erection of

55 App., Lib. 69. Gnomon 1957, 409 (= Ki. Schr. in, 21I), who argues 56

III, 20, i ff. that the names of the legates are invented. 57 Livy xxi, 6, 7; i6, 2; Dio, fg. 55 ; Zon. viii, 59 vi, 8, 5-8.

22 ; Otto, Hist. Zeit. 145 (1932), 5I3. 59a xxxvi, i, i is perhaps against it. 58 Hoffmann, Rh. Mus. 1951, 77 ff.: contra Gelzer, 60 Livy XLII, 47, 9 if.

7

a statue in the temple of Salus with an inscription stating that ' when the Roman state was tottering to its fall, he was made censor and by helpful guidance, wise restraints and sound teachings restored it again '.61 Restored it, yes, but not permanently. Nearly twenty years later, when Aemilianus was a young man, his virtue was already exceptional. Most youths, Polybius tells us,62 no doubt with some exaggeration in the interest of Scipio, had at this time abandoned themselves to love affairs with boys or taken to frequenting the company of prostitutes; they spent their time at concerts and dinner-parties and generally led extravagant lives, paying a talent for a boy-favourite and 300 drachmas for a jar of caviare. At this point Polybius sententiously quotes a saying of Cato deducing the likely ruin of the republic from such goings-on. Obviously these were all danger-signals and Polybius with his strong moral purpose is quick to point them out and to contrast them with the kind of behaviour he admires : in the individual this means the qualities possessed by Aemilianus- moderation (cppoo6uvr ), generosity and integrity in money matters (iTEpi TOc XpeCrc

EyeyacovuXfc Kcxic KCi c KaapoTl) and courage (v58pEia) ;63 and in a nation political stability 64 in the face of inside or outside threats, and a capacity for building an empire.65 Naturally these qualities in the state derive from the right qualities in its citizens; indeed Polybius is disposed to assess these personal qualities on a utilitarian standard, just as for example the possession by Rome of a well-established state-religion is judged on the basis of its social usefulness.66 A man who is open to bribes (as most Greeks were 67) is an unreliable guardian of his country's interests ; and without a strong religion, the people get out of hand and no one displays any financial integrity.68 These things were important TOO TAr100'ou XapV, for the sake of the people. There is no evidence that Polybius regarded their absence from an individual or a state as laying them open to condemnation on purely ethical grounds, or was indeed in the least interested in that aspect.

In fact, in judging any action of a government, the criterion Polybius adopts is generally utilitarian : was it conducive to the stability or power to expand of the state in question ? And since that is so, there is no reason to suppose that he regarded what may look to us, and certainly looked to some contemporaries, as Machiavellian decisions on the part of Rome, as indicative of moral decline. With this in mind, let us now examine in more detail the arguments which he quotes as having been brought forward by the Greeks in their assessment of Roman policy towards Carthage.69

VI

Four arguments are reported. The first view is sympathetic to the Roman action in destroying Carthage. The Romans, it was urged, had acted in a wise and statesmanlike manner in defence of their empire (ppovi,cos Kcai TrpayaorirtKos uovuEcaaaOal TrEpi TTp S buvcaorcEia). Carthage had frequently disputed the supremacy with them (rplicrP3rT1-nKvicav . V.T. 1iJrp Tr iyEIovica) and might do so again. To secure the dominion of their own country (TrIv &pxi2v) was the act of far-sighted men. This is not a question of security : it is not the safety of Rome that is at stake-that is nowhere the view to which Polybius subscribes-but her empire. The reply to this, which Polybius quotes next, is that the destruction of Carthage is a departure from the principles (wTpoaipEcyts) which had previously governed Roman policy. Hitherto they had been satisfied to fight only until their opponents had submitted and agreed to obey (avyXcopacyai ... O'r 5&ET TrEiOEOeci cqici). The new policy, first adumbrated in their elimination of the kingdom of Macedonia, was to annihilate their opponents-in this case despite the fact that Carthage had accepted all the conditions put to them. In adopting these methods Rome was giving herself up to a lust for domination like Athens and Sparta and would end like them-presumably, Polybius means, as a tyrannical city, for I do not think, with Hoffmann,70 that Polybius is here attributing to his spokesmen a forecast of the ultimate fall of Rome.

61 Plut., Cato mai. 19, 3 ; cf. Walbank, Commentary 67 XVIII, 34, 7. on Polybius I, 647-8. 68 vI, 56, 11-15.

62 XXXI, 25, 3 ff. 69 XXXVI, 9.

63 XXXI, 25, 2; 25, 9; 29, I. 70 Historia I960, 311 ; it is of course true that 64 cf. Book VI passim, and especially 56, I-5. neither Athens nor Sparta maintained her dominant 65 VI, 50, 3-6. position for long ; that of Sparta lasted only twelve 66 VI, 56, 6 if. years (i, 2, 3).

8 F. W. WALBANK


The policy which the second group advocate is one which the Romans themselves had in the past claimed to follow. In the conference following Cynoscephalae it was specifically advocated by Flamininus, who remarked 71 that the Romans never exterminated their adversaries after a single war, and that brave men ought to be hard on their enemies in battle, if conquered they should be yEvvacot KCti PEycaX6povES and if victorious moderate, gentle and humane, IUErplOi Kcai TrpcEiS KCXi qPliAvepcoiToi. At first sight this might appear to be Polybius' view too. For in a passage criticizing the behaviour of the Carthaginians in Spain after the death of the two Scipios 72 he remarks that they made the mistake of treating the natives in an overbearing manner-' for they imagined that there is one method by which power should be acquired and another by which it should be maintained; they had not learnt that those who preserve their supremacy best are those who adhere to the same principles by which they originally established it.' The reason of course is that ' with a change of character in the rulers the disposition of their subjects changes likewise ', and from being allies and friends they turn to enemies. This clearly commits Polybius to approval of a policy of mild rule-on utilitarian grounds: and it is because of these utilitarian grounds that one may not conclude that he was therefore opposed to Roman policy against Carthage in the Third Punic War. For obviously if you propose after defeating a people to make them your subjects and go on ruling them-as the Romans had done in Italy-a generous policy of parcere subiectis may yield the best results. But if instead of governing your defeated enemy you decide, on general grounds of policy, to exterminate him, as the Athenians had exterminated the Melians, that is quite another matter, and from a utilitarian point of view may prove equally effective and so praiseworthy. The reply of the second group of Greeks is in fact based ultimately on ethical grounds-exterminating your defeated enemy is to behave like a tyrant, and to behave like a tyrant is a bad thing. It does not begin to meet the arguments of the first group, which are based on self-interest, but attempts to shift the basis of the discussion. It is hard to believe that it represents Polybius' view.

The third argument put forward by the Greeks is again one critical of Rome, and is really only a variant on the second. It is almost word for word the criticism levelled by the older Roman senators against Q. Marcius Philippus on the eve of the Third Macedonian War-namely that the Romans had hitherto prided themselves on certain principles in the declaring and waging of war, excluding night attacks and ambushes and all kinds of deceit and sharp practice. But against Carthage they had used both, at once offering and concealing things simultaneously until they had forced their enemy into a false and disadvantageous position. ' This savoured more of the procedure of a tyrant than of a civilized state, and could only be described as impiety and treachery (&crEo3-rma Kaci Trapacr-Tr6ov81a.).' This accusation is an attempt to judge Rome in the light of her own professions and against the background of the iustum bellum and integrity of policy which had counted for so much in the Roman iTpoacipEcns and had enabled the Senate to make great capital of their charges of perfidia Punica. In Polybius' text it is developed at some length and takes up sixteen lines. The fact that the fourth group, who reply to it, are allowed just over thirty lines for their answer is an indication of its seriousness and perhaps even more of where Polybius' own sympathies lay.

The reply once more takes the well-known form of shifting the ground of the accusation. This was based fundamentally on moral issues-on a moral code and whether or not it had been kept. The answer of the supporters of Roman policy reduces the question to one of legality. The Carthaginians, it is pointed out, had handed themselves over in fidem populi Romani and in so doing had of course given away all their right to challenge the Roman orders; hence there was no question of impiety (a&c'3rlaE ) or treachery (Trapacirov- 8rina). Indeed some people argued that there was not even a question of injustice. The text then goes on to analyse the nature of adcrEpla-a sin against the gods, against parents or against the dead, of TrapacxcaT6v5lTla-a violation of sworn or written agreements, and of &diKrla- what is done contrary to law and custom. It was an easy matter to show that the Romans had not sinned against the gods, against their parents or against the dead (which ruled out impiety) and that they had not violated any sworn agreement or treaty (which ruled out treachery). Indeed it was the Carthaginians themselves who had broken the treaty when they attacked Masinissa! Nor, finally, did the Romans break any laws or

71 XVii, 37 , 2 f. ; 7-

9

72 x, 36, 2f.

customs or their word: they simply received an act of deditio and when the Carthaginians refused to obey their orders, they resorted to force. The whole weight of the moral issue is thus neatly thrust aside by an apparent resort to sweet reason and logical definition. The intangibles-the long series of unjust decisions, the Numidian provocation, the atmosphere in which Carthage was led into a false step and then buoyed up with the illusory hope of generous treatment-all these are left out. The Romans were in a morally impregnable position, so long as one kept to strict definitions, which seem almost designed to facilitate the dismissal of the charges made.

It must have been along these lines that the supporters of a ' firm ' policy towards Carthage attempted to counter the charges made by those opponents who argued, not like Nasica that the destruction of Carthage was contrary to Roman interest, but that the way it was being engineered was discreditable to Rome's reputation as a state founded on moral principles. The supporters of that policy included Scipio Aemilianus, who was the agent of its implementation, and Polybius, who followed the whole operation through from Scipio's headquarters, will certainly have sympathized with it. We saw earlier that in analysing the period following Pydna Polybius drew a distinction between the immediate aftermath and the period of TrcpoaX)i KOai KivrlcYt about which he wrote ' as if starting on a new work' ; and we saw that this later period coincided with his own release from his restrictions as a detainee in Italy and the opportunity which this brought to play a more active part in world politics at Carthage and in Greece. In his account of the first period his attitude towards Rome is cynical and detached; in the second, when he is emotionally committed, he sees the policy of Rome's opponents as irrational and insane. This has already been illustrated from what he has to say about the Macedonians and the Greeks. The Carthaginians come out of it hardly any better. Hasdrubal, their leader, is described as an empty-headed braggart lacking in statesmanlike or military capacity.73 His lack of realism in facing the certainty that Carthage was doomed strikes no chord of sympathy in Polybius, who thinks he is simply a fool, and goes out of his way to describe his unlovely personal appearance-pot-bellied and red in the face because he had continued his feasting amid his people's distress. The Greeks and Carthaginians were alike in their leaders at this time of crisis.

There can, therefore, be little doubt that Polybius accepts the Roman case over Carthage; and this creates a strong presumption that in general he accepted the ' new diplomacy ' as the legitimate instrument of an imperially-minded state, including the elimination of dangerous or intransigent opponents. Flamininus had outlined the older policy of parcere subiectis in his defence of Roman policy in Macedonia against Aetolian criticism. To Polybius its practicability was dubious, as another passage makes plain. At a difficult moment in the Third Macedonian War Perseus sent envoys offering terms. ' It was unanimously decided,' Polybius records,74 ' to give as severe a reply as possible, it being in all cases the traditional custom of the Romans to show themselves most imperious and severe in times of defeat and most lenient after success. That this is noble conduct (KcxAov),' he adds, ' everyone would admit, but perhaps it is open to doubt if it is possible under certain circumstances.' It is not quite clear whether it is the feasibility of toughness in time of trouble or of lenience in time of success-parcere subiectis-that Polybius finds dubious; perhaps both. For, besides the arguments I have already quoted, there is evidence which points to his having believed that in some circumstances an imperial state was justified in adopting a policy not of mildness but of frightfulness or terrorism.

In chapters 2 and 4 of book xxxii, Diodorus has some interesting remarks on Roman policy, for which Gelzer has convincingly argued 75 that Polybius was the original source. According to this passage, which probably belongs to the introduction to the book, Diodorus states that ' those whose object is to gain hegemony over others use courage and intelligence (&V5pEica Kicxi ovvcET) to acquire it, moderation and consideration for others (-rrtEKEi Ki<ca piAcavepcowTfi) to extend it widely, and paralysing terror (qp63oS Kaci KacrrtnTAirts) to secure it against attack'. Two chapters further on Diodorus gives as examples in support of this

73 xxxvIII, , 7 ; see further on Hasdrubal 290 ff. = Kl. Schr. II, 64 iff.; Adcock, Camb. Hist. XXXVIII, 20. Journ. I946, 127-8; Bilz, Die Politik des P. Cornelius

74xxvii, 8, 8. Scipio Aemilianus (Wiirzburg, 1935), 3I ; Astin, 75 Diod. xxxII, 2 and 4; cf. Gelzer, Phil. I931, Latomus 1956, i8o; Strasburger, below, 46, n. 58.

IO F. W. WALBANK


doctrine the careers of Philip II and Alexander of Macedon, and the Romans; and though it is clear from the instances quoted from Philip and Alexander that the three stages- acquisition, extension and securing of empire-are not necessarily envisaged as always following that chronological order, in the case of Rome the use of paralysing terror coincides with the third stage when they razed Corinth to the ground, rooted out the Macedonians (Perseus is meant), destroyed Carthage and the Celtiberian city of Numantia, and cowed many by terror.

Book xxxII of Diodorus covers the Third Punic, Fourth Macedonian and Achaean Wars, for which Polybius is his source; it seems virtually certain that these general remarks are also from him. As Adcock plausibly observes,76 ' Polybius probably yielded to the tempta- tion to defend Roman frightfulness by treating it as though it followed some kind of natural law'. He had a strong incentive to do so. The elimination of Perseus was the direct result of the victory of Aemilius Paulus, who subsequently carried out a more direct programme of terrorism in Epirus; Carthage and Numantia were destroyed by Polybius' friend and pupil, Scipio Aemilianus, the latter on his own initiative without waiting for the decision of the Senate; and if the fall of Corinth had no direct connection with Polybius' friends, it was the outcome of a policy in Achaea for which he expresses his unmitigated condemnation, and the prelude to a period of reconstruction in which he was to play a most effective and flattering role.

I think, then, we may take it as established that Polybius saw Roman policy from the time of the Third Punic War onwards as intelligently organized to maintain the empire which a happy combination of Tyche and Roman merit had successfully acquired; very properly it did not pay too much regard to sentiment where political interests were concerned, and took account of such traditional concepts as the bellum iustum and proper fetial procedure in the declaration of wars only in so far as these had their practical repercussions on public opinion. It is a pretty ruthless approach; but Polybius was ruthless, and success was apt to be his main criterion. This can be seen from his lack of sympathy for failure in peoples or individuals. Politics is a risky game and if, like those Greeks who had made the mistake of backing Perseus of Macedon and carrying their cities with them, you lost, then the right course was to face the situation and perish bravely; 77 no one, he says, could approve men like the brothers Hippocritus and Diomedon at Cos, or Deinon and Polyaratus at Rhodes, who were known to have done all they could to further Perseus' cause, yet could not bring themselves to commit suicide. They did not leave to posterity the slightest ground for pitying or pardoning them. Similarly generals who have staked all on success and failed and then cannot resolve to perish on the field add disgrace and shame to their disaster: Hasdrubal earns praise for avoiding this fate at the Metaurus.78 The same ruthlessness in demanding consistency of action can be illustrated from Polybius' account of what happened when Philip was attacking Abydus and the citizens had sworn that if fortune went against them they would slaughter all the women and children and die fighting; after the most horrible scenes of carnage in battle Glaucides and Theognetus called together a few of the elder citizens and, Polybius says, ' sacrificed in the hopes of personal advantage all that was splendid and admirable in the resolution of the citizens by deciding to save the women and children alive and to send out . . . the priests and priestesses to Philip to beg for mercy and surrender the city to him '.79 It is interesting to observe that when he tells this story from Polybius Livy cuts out all praise of the Abydene resolve; to his Augustan sensibility the whole affair was one of unrelieved horror.80

VII

So much for Polybius' moral criteria. We can now return to his programme. As we saw, he had appended his account of Roman policy after Pydna with the express purpose of enabling readers, both now and in the future, to judge Roman rule, and to estimate not merely how successful it was from the point of view of Roman security and the preservation of empire but, to repeat his own words, so that ' contemporaries will be able to see clearly

76 1.c. (n. 75). 79 XVI, 3 I-3. 77 xxx, 7, 2-4. 80 Livy xxxi, I7. 78 XI, 2, I-I I .

II

whether Roman rule is acceptable or the reverse and future generations whether their government should be considered worthy of praise and admiration or rather of blame'. Acceptable or the reverse, q)EUcriv q r ToIavriov aipE?Tnlv: acceptable to whom ? The implication of these words is that the Roman empire is to be judged from the point of view of the subject peoples-to which Polybius himself belongs; and his somewhat cynical and detached attitude towards the evidence for Roman policy which he quotes for the years between I68 (or earlier) and about 15 1 might seem to give some basis for such a judgement. From the point of view of the vanquished this would hardly have been favourable to Rome, for throughout these years, as we saw, Rome pursued her own ends by the most Machiavel- lian means, wars were entered into (as in Dalmatia) at the time Rome chose and to further Roman ends; and Roman decisions were given to suit her own private interests rather than the course of justice. But with the time of TcapoXpc( KOa KivracYi there is a subtle but unmistak- able change in Polybius' judgement. From this point onwards he becomes more and more identified with Roman policy of the most ruthless kind. All discussions concerning the rights and wrongs of this policy, for example the Greek views on the Third Punic War, approach the question from the point of view of Rome. Despite Polybius' concern with whether the Roman empire was TEpvKT1r a . . . opET-r, the presentation remains obstinately centred on the ruling power, and one is nowhere given the grounds on which one can draw a conclusion concerning the acceptability of the Roman empire to the people living under it. ' Neither rulers themselves ' says Polybius,81 ' nor their critics should regard the end of action as being merely conquest and the subjection of all to their rule; since no man with any intelligence goes to war with his neighbours simply for the sake of crushing an adversary.' What then in Polybius' opinion is the end of imperial action ? What is the further criterion other than the subjection of other states and the maintenance of one's empire in safety ? The question is posed: but nowhere in the Histories will you find the answer. For that the Romans had to wait for Panaetius.

But before considering Panaetius' contribution it is legitimate first to enquire what view the Romans themselves had taken of this problem. Strictly speaking, they had taken no view of it at all, since the idea of justifying their growing empire was not one that had at first occurred to them. Why should it ? Certain things were understood. The aristocratic traditions of the early republic assumed that Rome never went to war without good reason; all Roman wars conformed to the definition of the 'just war ', provoked by offences committed against either Rome or her allies, whose defence was an obligation due to fides, and aggravated by refusal to make due reparation; such a war was declared with due formalities by the fetiales and the Romans entered it sustained by a useful conviction of self-righteous- ness. This was an ancient conception, as simple and Roman in its way as Polybius' picture of almost automatic expansion from one position of strength to another was simple and Greek; and Gelzer has demonstrated 82 that it was part and parcel of the Roman propa- ganda presented in the pages of Fabius Pictor and the other early senatorial historians. But the rather different issues involved in the possession of an empire hardly reached the consciousness of the Romans until the middle of the second century.

It was in 156-5, more than a decade after Polybius had established himself in the family circle of Scipio Aemilianus, that a famous trio of Greek philosophers arrived in Rome to plead on behalf of Athens for the remission of a fine of 500 talents imposed by a court of arbitration for the plunder of Oropus. They were Carneades, the leader of the Academy, the Stoic Diogenes and Critolaus the Peripatetic; and they took the opportunity provided by their stay in Rome to lecture on philosophical topics.83 Carneades was a great master of eloquence-Lucilius in one of his poems made Neptune remark of a very knotty problem that it could not be solved even if Orcus were to send Carneades up again ! 84-and the Roman intelligentsia, the q)AoAoycOTrrroi TCOV vEavioricov, as Plutarch calls them,85 had never heard anything like his two lectures on Justice and its application to international affairs,

81 i, 4, 9-10. Gell. VI, I4, 8 f.; XVII, 21, 48 ; Pliny, Nat. hist. vii, 82 Gelzer, Hermes I933, 129-I66 == Kl. Schr. III, 30, 112.

5I-92. 84 Lucilius I, 31 Marx,' non Carneades si ipsum ... 83 Plut., Cato mai. 22 ; Cic., Acad. ii, 137; de Orcus remittat.'

orat. II, 155 ; Tusc. Disp. iv, 5 ; ad Att. xiI, 23 ; 85 Plut., Cato mai. 22.

12 F. W. WALBANK


delivered on two successive days, on the second of which the speaker refuted all the theories which he had put up as an Aunt Sally on the previous day.

Carneades' devastating attack on justice is known to us from L. Furius' reproduction of its arguments in Cicero's De re publica III 86 and from the sketch given in Lactantius' Divinae Institutiones v, entitled de iustitia; 87 Cicero made C. Laelius answer Carneades, but Lactantius exposes some of the weaknesses in Laelius' case. The demolition of justice as a guide to follow in international affairs was accomplished fairly straightforwardly by an appeal to the concept of self-interest, r6 onpypepov, as developed by the sophists and by Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic I. It was not therefore really new. But expounded in the brilliant rhetoric of Carneades, which was violenta et rapida,88 his arguments seemed devastating; and the cautious Cato, taking the view that speeches of this kind made it impossible to sift falsehood from truth,89 urged the Senate to settle the matter of the Athenians' fine with all speed ' so that these men may return to their schools and lecture to the sons of Greece, while the youth of Rome give ear to their laws and magistrates, as in the past '.90

Polybius was in the audience at these lectures; 91 but there is nothing in the Histories to suggest that he was shaken or worried by what Carneades had to say. To a Greek already preoccupied with the question of empire the idea of TO Ucrvoqppov as a criterion of conduct was of course familiar, and Polybius will have regarded much of Carneades' thesis as consisting of truisms. But for the Romans it was different. Cato's alarm was genuine and is likely to have been widely felt. Rome now possessed an empire. Was it indeed based on injustice, as Carneades said ? Suddenly the Romans found themselves desperately in need of a philosophy of empire. Polybius caught a glimpse of the problem but that was all. As we saw, he raised the question of judging the Roman achievement; and although he nowhere says that the interest of the subject peoples is to be part of the criterion in assessing Roman rule, on the other hand he does not say that he is merely concerned with the interest of Rome. And indeed, if it is only the interest of Rome that matters, why bother to consider the condition of the conquered peoples at all ? So Polybius did in fact come within measuring distance of formulating the problem; but he failed to do so because, when he did move beyond the somewhat cynical and objective position of the 6o's and 50's, it was to identify himself closely with Roman policy in its most ruthless phase; consequently both Roman frightfulness and Roman mansuetudo are judged by Polybius solely in terms of Roman self-interest.

As Capelle showed many years ago,92 Panaetius gave the Romans what they were looking for; and what immediately follows draws widely on his arguments. As a philosopher and especially as a Stoic Panaetius felt the need not merely to take account of the Roman world-empire, but also to explain it in moral terms. Both the Index Stoicorum 93 and Cicero in the de legibus94 inform us that Panaetius published a work on politics; and Cicero contrasts it with earlier Stoic writings on the subject as being designed ad usum popularem et ciuilem. It was probably this work which contained Panaetius' views on the Roman empire; and it is generally agreed that it was Panaetius' argument that Cicero attributed to C. Laelius in the De re publica,95 as a reply to Carneades' views (for which L. Furius had served as mouthpiece), and that St. Augustine discussed in the De civitate Dei.96 Empire, he claims, is just and in accordance with nature because for certain sorts of men servitude is useful and to their own advantage, in as much as it deprives the wicked of the power to do wrong, and makes them better by subduing them. The rule of an imperial power over its conquered subjects is comparable to the rule of god over man, of the mind over the body, and of reason over passion: it follows what is virtually a universal law-ueluti a natura sumptum nobile exemplum. Although he had raised the question of how the Roman empire was to be judged, Polybius had failed to lay down any other criterion than the self-interest of the imperial power; consequently he left the matter where Carneades left it. But Panaetius' answer

86 Cic., rep. III, 6 ff. 92 W. Capelle, Klio 1932, 86-113. 87 Lact., Div. inst. v, 14 f., especially 17 ad fin. 93 ? 62. 88 Gell. vi, 14, 8-io (quoting Polybius and Rutilius 94 Cic., leg. III, I4.

Rufus); cf. Macrob. I, 5. 95 Cic., rep. III, 33-4I, especially 36; cf. Schmekel, 89 Pliny, Nat. hist. vII, 30. Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa, 55 ff. For a 90 Plut., Cato mai. 22, 5. dissenting view, see Strasburger, below, 45, n. 50. 91 Gell. vi, 14, 10. 96 Aug., Civ. Dei. XIX, 21.

I3

rests, ostensibly, on justice, if we accept that definition of justice which is common to Plato and the Stoics,97 viz. the assigning to each party of what is appropriate to it and in accordance with its deserts.

This theory, as Capelle showed, goes back in essentials to the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle on slavery.98 Both these philosophers found a justification for slavery in the belief that some men are designed by nature to be slaves (piocrE1 5o0Uoi), while others are naturally fitted to be their masters. Stoicism had refused to recognize such distinctions as real; and therefore it represents a modification of Stoic doctrine when Panaetius employs this Aristo- telean ethic governing the relations between men as individuals as the basis of a theory justifying the domination of whole peoples by others. One need not necessarily accept Pohlenz's view 99 that Panaetius was acting as the mouthpiece of the Scipionic circle; but we may be sure that his views were welcome to the aristocratic Roman group in which he moved. His philosophical exposition coincided conveniently with the traditional pattern of caste distinctions and the mutual relations of patrons and clients which coloured so large an area of Roman thought and custom, and which, as Badian has shown,100 had already made its impression upon one field of foreign policy, that in which the amicitia which bound several small powers to Rome was conceived as the relationship of clients towards their patrons.

There are such obvious flaws both in Panaetius' theory of empire and in the theory of slavery on which it was based that we experience some difficulty in regarding either as wholly sincere. But these should not blind us to the importance of his formulation. This gave the Roman aristocracy a justification of the Roman empire which satisfied their consciences and flattered their feelings of self-esteem, and it provided a doctrine which can be traced in later years. The precise relationship of Poseidonius' views to those of his teacher Panaetius is a well-known crux; 101 but Capelle seems to have established the fact that Poseidonius approved both Panaetius' general theory and its application to the Roman empire. In the first place he was able to support it with a concrete and relevant example of a people not only designed by nature to be subjected but-what is more unusual-itself aware of the fact.102 For the Mariandyni, Poseidonius related in the eleventh book of his Histories, recognizing their innate weakness of intellect (6ia T6 T-rs iacxvoiak acr0evEs) delivered themselves up voluntarily into servitude to more intelligent men and became the serfs of the people of Heraclea Pontica, on condition that their needs should be satisfied and they should not be sold outside the territory of the city. What the Heracleotes were able to do peaceably, thanks to the co-operation of the inferior people, the Romans had done in many parts of the world more violently, but equally to the mutual advantage of both parties-as Poseidonius was able to show in the case of several Spanish peoples now profiting from the pax Romana.103

In support of this interpretation of Poseidonius' thought Capelle also quotes one of Seneca's letters (90) in which Poseidonius is specifically quoted for the view that in the golden age power was in the hands of sapientes who protected the weak and rendered it unnecessary to have those laws which were instituted once corruption had set in and king- ship had changed into tyranny. In this letter Seneca asserts that' naturae . . . est, potioribus deteriora submittere ', and illustrates the point both from the world of nature where the tallest elephant leads the herd, and from the world of men where ' pro summo est optimum' and where early man entrusted himself to the best, commissi melioris arbitrio. There can, I think, be little doubt that Poseidonius is the source of all this and not only for the remark about the golden age.104 It is true that there is a difference between the rule of the stronger and the rule of the better, but it is a difference which can be bridged by such an evolutionary

97 Plato, rep. I, 33I f.; SVF III, fg. 262; it is also 101 cf. Seel, Ronisches Denken und r6mischer Staat known to Aristotle, Eth. Nic. v, 5, II3ob, 31; vi, (Berlin, 1937), 96; see, however, Strasburger, below, I I 3 a, 24 (but he regards it as only one form of justice). 44 if. Cf. Walbank, Commentary, on vi, 6, I I. 102 Athen. vi, 263C = FGH 87, F 8 ; cf. Capelle, 98 For Plato slavery is not a problem: cf. rep. v, op. cit. (n. 92), 99-100. 469 B-C; legg. 766B, 778A. For a defence of the 103 cf. Strabo III, 144; 154; I56 (cf. i63); institution see Arist., Pol. I, especially 3-7. Capelle, loc. cit.

99 Pohlenz, RE, ' Panaitios,' cols. 437-8. 104 cf. T. Cole, Historia I964, 451, who, however, 100 cf. Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, I958), I, f., draws a distinction between Poseidonius' view and

55 ff. that of Polybius.

I4 F. W. WALBANK


concept as we find in Polybius' account of political development in his sixth book.105 There the primitive monarchos shifts the basis of his power from sheer might to moral pre-eminence and thereby becomes a basileus: and the reference in this letter of Seneca to the perversion of regnum into tyrannis shows that Poseidonius was dealing with a similar range of ideas.

Seel has argued, in criticism of Capelle's view, first that only the reference to the golden age in this letter of Seneca belongs to Poseidonius, and secondly that Poseidonius saw the identity of might and right, which lies behind Panaetius' theory of imperialism, as a characteristic only of the golden age.106 Neither argument is, I think, cogent. I am not impressed by Seel's attempt to distinguish in Letter 90 Seneca's own views from those of Poseidonius. And the fact that Poseidonius saw this rule potioribus deteriora submittere exemplified in a particularly refined and Platonic form in the saeculum aureum need not exclude its existence in other forms at other times, for instance in the cases of the Spaniards and the Mariandyni.l106 Seel is I think right when he argues that if pushed to its logical extreme Panaetius' theory could become an argument against the legitimacy of Roman predominance. For the Greeks, whose culture and humanity were at least equal to if not greater than that of the Romans, would by that token be justified in claiming independence from Roman subjection; 107 and if indeed, as Capelle argued, Panaetius saw the ultimate end of the imperial relationship as one in which the subject peoples were raised to the moral level of their rulers, then it had within it the seeds of its own destruction.

This is ultimately true, as modern experience has shown. For where imperialism has been interpreted in this Panaetian sense, it has undoubtedly assisted the movement of colonial peoples to independence. It was also ultimately true for Rome, for, as I hope to indicate below, the Panaetian theory of empire was to be a factor in the changing relationship between Rome and the provinces which is so striking a characteristic of the Principate. But this is not an argument against the view that Panaetius' theory was welcomed by the Romans, for it fulfilled an immediate need and gave the answer to an instant and pressing problem. In such circumstances it is not in human nature to work out the ultimate implications of what one is accepting; and it is only, it seems, by a pure paradox that Panaetius' theory can be regarded as a threat to the security of the empire in the second century B.C. It was certainly widely accepted. Livy 108 describes how the loyalty of the Roman allies in Italy in the face of war and devastation at the hands of Hannibal was to be explained ' because they were ruled by a just and moderate imperium and, what constitutes the one bond of loyalty (fides), they did not refuse to obey their betters (melioribus parere) '.

Panaetius' doctrine of imperialism as a beneficial symbiosis of victors and vanquished carried far-reaching implications. It helped the Romans gradually to assume the obligations that empire imposes. The Roman principles enunciated by Flamininus to the Aetolians and recorded with personal reservations as to their practicability by Polybius-namely that you treated your enemy mildly once he was beaten-could now be developed with all the support of a formal philosophical doctrine; and if this was slow to find practical application under the republic, the setting up of the Principate brought its full expression as an imperial ideal, especially when the original notion of the mutual advantage of rulers and ruled was transmuted and vitalized by the specifically Roman notion of progressive Romanization, leading step by step to a proportionately greater share in privilege.

When Petillius Cerialis harangues the Gauls in A.D. 70 after their revolt, these are the arguments Tacitus puts into his mouth: 109 'All is common between us. You often command our legions. You govern these and other provinces. There is no privilege, no exclusion.... Therefore love and cherish peace and the city in which we enjoy an equal right, conquered and conquerors alike.' This is a long way from the Mariandyni surrendering themselves as serfs to the Heracleotes, or even from the Gauls' own experience of Caesar's wars. But common both to Poseidonius' story and to Cerialis' imperial programme is the concept of a relationship of mutual advantage, such as could never have developed out of the unilateral view of empire, which Carneades expounded and Polybius found himself unable

105 VI, 5, 9-7, 3. 107 So Seel, op. cit. 64 ff. 106 cf. Seel, op. cit. (n. ioi), 64 ff. 108 Livy xxii, 13, II ; cf. Capelle, op. cit. (n. 92), 106a Naturally it need not represent Poseidonius' 97.

total judgement on the role of Rome (see Strasburger, 109 Tac., Hist. IV, 74. below, 40 ff.).

I5


to transcend. From Panaetius, more directly, these ideas of empire and the moral duty of the ruler towards the ruled were passed down to Lactantius and Augustine and through them, as Capelle has observed, they exercised a by no means negligible influence on mediaeval thought; and, as I have suggested, it is perhaps not wholly naive to detect them lurking behind the theory of trusteeship towards less developed peoples, which has helped to transform imperialism and has played a part in its eradication in many parts of Africa.

VIII

Our conclusion, then, is somewhat ironical. Polybius, the student of practical politics and the observer of what men think and do, interpreted the Roman empire as an expression of men's natural behaviour, self-seeking and utilitarian; he tried on that basis to extract some sort of lesson from the years after Pydna. His attempt to find a criterion for judgement which went beyond mere conquest and domination proved sterile, because he was increasingly tied to the point of view of the imperial power, and it is symbolic that his history should end, like Xenophon's, in years of Taparl Kc Ki ivrlcr. Panaetius, on the other hand, produced a picture of the imperial relationship which was manifestly a piece of special pleading and was being openly disproved before men's eyes as evidence of Roman misgovernment multiplied and even the Senate was driven to set up a permanent quaestio de repetundis. Yet, because what men believe to be their motives may ultimately prove the decisive factor in shaping their conduct, the myth of Panaetius eventually became something like a blue- print for generations of trustworthy Roman civil servants, who lived laborious and strenuous lives in distant provinces, and whose achievements are preserved to posterity only by the chance survival of an inscription here and there. It was largely to them that the Roman empire owed its greatness; and pondering on what they did, one is made aware in a salutary way of the limitations of political realism.110

University of Liverpool.

110 A paper read at the Fourth International Congress of Classical Studies, Philadelphia, on 28th August, I964.

i6

1965-01

Documents