¹ Insc. Ital. 13.3.79 (of Augustan date): ‘Appius Claudius C. f. censor. cos. bis. dict., interrex III. pr. II, aed. cur. II, q., tr. mil. III. complura oppida de Samnitibus cepit. Sabinorum et Tuscorum exercitum fudit, pacem fierei cum Pyrrho rege prohibuit, in censura viam Appiam stravit et aquam in urbem adduxit, aedem Bellonae fecit.’ Appius' securely datable offices are: censor, 312; cos. I, 307; interrex, 298; cos. II, 296; pr. II, 295 (cf. Broughton, MRR I, sub ann.)

² Diodorus 20.36; Cic. Brut. 55; Sen. 37. For convenience, the relevant passages in Livy's scattered account are summarized here: 312 (censorship) 9.29.5–11; 311 (ignoring the lectio) 9.30.1–2, 5–10; 310 (opposition of Sempronius) 9.33.3–34.26; 308 (opposition of Furius) 9.42.3–4; 307 (cos. I) 9.42.1, 4; 304 (aedileship of Flavius) 9.46.10–11; 300 (lex Ogulnia) 10.7.1–9.2; 298 (interrex) 10.11.10; 297 (contested consular election) 10.15.7–12; 296 (cos. II) 10.18.1–22.9; 295 (praetor) 10.22.9; 24.18–26; 31.3–7.

³ Appius as popular demagogue:

a. spending money without senatorial permission (Diod. 20.36).

b. senatus lectio (Livy 9.29.46; Diod. 20.36).

c. forensic factio, humiles (Livy 9.46; Diod. 20.36).

d. excessive tenure of censorship (Livy 9.33).

Appius as reactionary patrician:

a. opposition to lex Ogulnia (Livy 10.7 ff.)

b. interregnum—refusal to accept plebeians (Cic. Brut. 55; Auct. Vir. Illus. 34.3; Livy 10.11.10).

c. attempt to have two patrician consuls elected (Livy 10.15).

⁴ Niebuhr, RC 3², pp. 344 ff.

⁵ Niebuhr has been followed by Amatucci, A. G., ‘Appio Claudio Cieco’, Riv. di Fil., 22 (1894), 227–58,Google Scholar and by Bloch, G., La Republique romaine (Paris, 1913), pp. 111 ff. Even so recent a scholar as Lily Ross Taylor seems to incline to this view in her pages dealing with Appius (The Voting Districts of the Roman Republic, Papers and Monographs of the American Academy at Rome, vol. 20 (1960), pp. 132 ff.). Fortunately, this does not impair the value of her many other useful suggestions (see below, p. 364).Google Scholar

⁶ Mommsen, , Rem. Forsch., I (1864), pp. 301 ff.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., pp. 151, 305.

⁸ Mommsen, StR II. 1, 394Google Scholarff. and 111.2, 856. The plebiscitum Ovinium (mentioned only by Festus, p. 290 L) laid down that ‘censures ex omni ordine optimum quemque curiatim in senatum legerent’. Mommsen was the first to suggest that this law, apparently transferring control over senate membership from consuls to censors, should be associated with the censorship of Appius in which the first recorded censorial lectio occurs. Interpretations and assessments of this difficult text have varied widely see, for example, Willems, P., Le Sinat de la ripublique romaine (Louvain, 1885), I, 153 ff.;Google ScholarMoore, O'Brien, ‘Senatus’, RE VI, 686Google Scholar ff.; Suolahti, J., The Roman Censors (Helsinki, 1963), pp. 53Google Scholar ff.; Ferenczy, E., ‘The Censorship of Appius Claudius Caecus’, Acta Ant. Acad. Scient. Hung. v (1967), pp. 41Google Scholarff.; Palmer, R.E.A., The Archaic Community of the Romans (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 254 ff.Google Scholar

⁹ Mommsen, , Reim. Forsch. I, pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 309 ff. Mommsen was torn between simply rejecting the evidence (e.g. of Appius' opposition to the lex Ogulnia) or supposing that Appius had abandoned his revolutionary principles in later life.

¹¹ Lejay, P., ‘Appius Claudius Caecus’, Rio. de Phil., 44 (1920), 92–141;Google ScholarFraccaro, P., ‘Tribules ed Aerarii’, Athen. N.S. 11 (1933), 150–72.Google Scholar

¹² Garzetti, A., ‘Appio Claudio Cieco nella storia politica del suo tempo’, Athen. N.S. 25 (1947), 175–224.Google Scholar Garzetti's view was, in fact, foreshadowed in Miinzer, F., Rom. Adels., pp. 54Google Scholarff. and in Altheim, Fr., Appius Claudius, Rom. and der Hellenismus, pp. 96 ff., though Garzetti refers to neither work.Google Scholar

¹³ Garzetti, p. 197: ‘…la storia della statua a cui piu nessuno crede…’

¹⁴ Ibid., pp. 198 ff. and 202 ff.

¹⁵ Ibid., pp. 210 ff. and above, n. 3.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 223–4.

¹⁷ As had already been seen by Altheim (Röm. Gesch., 80–2 and above, n. 12.).

¹⁸ Staveley, E. S., ‘The Political Aims of Appius Claudius Caecus’, Historia 8 (1959), 410–33.Google Scholar

¹⁹ To note only the most crucial points in his argument: (1) The now generally accepted low chronology for the beginning of Roman coinage c.280 BC makes it increasingly likely (against Staveley) that Roman commercial interest in Campania is a product of the Pyrrhic much more than of the Samnite war (cf. Thomsen, Rudi, Early Roman Coinage, III (Copenhagen, 1961), pp. 1Google Scholarff. and Crawford, M. H., Roman Republican Coinage, I (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 39 ff.); (2) the series of fourth-century debt laws given by Livy (all but one of which fall prior to even the earlier high dating for the introduction of the aes signatum) were far more likely intended for the relief of endemic distress among the Roman peasantry than for rescuing some unattested group of feckless urban mercatores; (3) the so-called Philinus treaty between Rome and Carthage, whose very existence is problematic, can, at most, only be made to show that the Roman government thought so little of commercial contact with Sicily that it was perfectly willing to have it abrogated (cf. Thiel, Roman Seapower, pp. 14 ff. and Walbank, Comm. on Polyb. I, p. 354).Google Scholar

²⁰ Staveley, pp. 429. The suggestion had been made previously by Garzetti. The circumstance in question is the hopelessly obscure affair of the ‘Capuan conspiracy’ of 314 (Livy 9.26.5–22)—an episode which has been made to ‘explain’ nearly every conceivable theory of Roman–Campanian relations.

²¹ Ibid., 423. Staveley's thesis is not improved by the suggestion of Cassola, (I gruppi politici romani nel III secolo A.C. (Trieste, 1962), pp. 146 ff.) who attempts to put Fabius and Decius at the head of a countervailing interest group-the rustic plebs, who (he argues) hungered for the land of the Etruscans. Though such a ‘northern strategy’ may be detectable in the third century, it cannot be retrojected to the generation of Fabius by a strained interpretation of Livy's rhetorical narrative of the famed march through the Ciminian forest. It is, on the contrary, precisely during these years that tens of thousands of Roman and Latin farmers were being settled in new colonies to the south (see E. T. Salmon, Roman Colonization, Ch. 3 for known numbers of colonists). It is hard to believe that there were still more thousands who coveted the fields of Etruria, while it is, at the same time, obvious that it was Campania's fertile fields, more than her workshops and warehouses, that attracted Roman interest in the fourth century. (See also, E. Badian, Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, Ch. 2 for the persuasive view that Roman businessmen carried small weight in dictating foreign policy even at a much later period than the one we are considering.)Google Scholar

²² A misguided attempt to revive the Mommsenian Appius is to be found in three long articles by Ferenczy, E. (Acta Antigua Acad. Scient. Hung. 13 (1965), 379–404; 15 (1967), 27–61; 18 (1970), 71–103.) Ferenczy is heavily indebted to Mommsen for his view of the senatorial and tribal measures as sweeping constitutional reforms whose aim was no less than the establishment of full-blown Athenian democracy on Roman soil. He goes further in ascribing to Appius (on the basis of no evidence) responsibility for the lex Valeria de provocatione, the lex Aquilia de damno, the lex Hortensia, and treaties with Carthage in 306 and 279.Google Scholar

²³ Above, p. 357 for the important statement of Suetonius quoted there. We should note in addition the general assertions of Valerius Maximus (8.13.5): plurimas clientelas, and Cicero (Sen. 37): tantas clientelas Appius regebat (both referring to Appius in his old age.) Although this paper concerns itself with Appius' clientela, it is, of course, not intended to suggest that no other factors played a part in the rise of his fortunes. Cicero, in the passage noted above, lays equal stress on Appius' four strapping sons and five daughters who were, of course, indispensable to his oligarchic aspirations.

²⁴ For these and the following dates, see Broughton, MRR sub ann.

²⁵ RE Claudii, No. 122. The authenticity of his dictatorship was doubted by Beloch (Röm. Gesch., pp. 69, 198 ff.). For the questionable authenticity of his consulship, see Werner, Der Beginn der Röm. Rep., pp. 82 ff.

²⁶ RE Claudii, No. 183.

²⁷ The tabulations of Cram, R. V. (‘The Roman Censors’, H.S.C.P. 51 (1940), 103 ff.) show dramatically the effect of Appius' career on the later fortunes of his family: between 443 and 367 the Claudii held two consulships and no censorship; between 366 and 287 they held three consulships (two of them Appius') and one censorship (Appius); between 286 and 133 they held thirteen consulships (by twelve different men) and four censorships. Appius' situation is strikingly similar to the great Aemilius Scaurus two hundred years later, of whom Asconius tells us that his family had been in decline for three generations and consequently ‘Scauro segue ac novo homini laborandum fuit.’ (Scaurus, p. 20 K.)Google Scholar

²⁸ Neither aedileship can be dated. It is not certain, therefore, though more than likely, that both were held before the censorship.

²⁹ On the censorship and its incumbents see the prosopographical works of Cram (art. cit., n. 27) and of Suolahti, J., The Roman Censors: A Study of Social Structure (Helsinki 1963). Censorial building activity appears to begin only with the censorship of C. Maenius in 318; control of the senatorial list (whether or not this is to be associated with the lex Ovinia) does not appear to antedate the censorship of Appius. Out of 188 known censors, eighteen at most appear not to have held the consulship first (Suolahti, pp. 543 ff.), and most of these occur before 300 BC. This can, in part, be ascribed to the general fluidity of the early cursus honorum, but Cram is right in arguing that the office was not a major one before the third century as evidenced by the large number of early prominent families who did not bother to hold it.Google Scholar

³⁰ Though at the same time, we are assured, he refrains from expelling already seated members (Diod. 20.36).

³¹ I adopt here the interpretation of this reform offered by Taylor (Voting Districts, pp. 132 ff.) which has a number of distinct advantages over that of Staveley by substituting for his urban businessmen the numerous and well-documented class of freedmen, living, for the most part, in the country in the vicinity of their former masters' estates. Taylor's interpretation of this reform is not impaired by her misapprehension of Appius' motives for it (see above, p. 357 and n. 5).

³² On Flavius and the ius civile Flavianum, see below, p. 371 and n. 86. Appius' legal expertise is attested by Pomponius in Digest 12.2.36.

³³ Livy (8.17.11–12) probably mis-states himself in saying that the censors Philo and Postumius ‘added’ the tribes Maecia and Scaptia—a vote of the populus being required for this; but censors still had considerable latitude in constituting the tribe as a new voting unit (Taylor, op. cit., pp. 17 ff.).

³⁴ Livy 7.15.9–11. No censors are recorded for this year. Plautius, however, won a victory over the Hemici and probably assisted in organizing the tribus Poblilia in Hernicis. Since Fabius had been defeated in Etruria, it is possible that Plautius also took charge of the organization of the not too distant Pomptina on Voiscian land.

³⁵ Livy 10.21.9.

³⁶ Below, p. 367 and n. 59.

³⁷ Badian, E., Foreign Clientelae (Oxford, 1958), pp. 1 ff.Google Scholar

³⁸ Let it be plainly stated that this is, of course, a series of assumptions which, in the nature of our evidence, can never aspire to the status of certainties. It is hoped that these assumptions will take on a high degree of probability as the ensuing argument unfolds.

³⁹ Diod. 20.36.1–2. The fiscal allegations are obviously meant to be taken as true for the road as well as for the aqueduct.

⁴⁰ See pp. 368, 370 below for the attacks the tribunes Sempronius and Furius. It is, to be sure, a modern view (beginning with Mommsen, St R II, p. 353, n. 2) that the prolongation of Appius' term was legal so that opposition to it can be viewed as politically (as opposed to constitutionally) motivated. On this question see the discussion of Garzetti, art. cit., pp. 193 ff.

⁴¹ Livy 23.2.

⁴² Above, p. 357.

⁴³ Lejay, art. cit., pp. 100 f.

⁴⁴ Taylor, op. cit., p. 137.

⁴⁵ Hermes 36 (1901), 303. Cf. Broughton (MRR I, p. 200); he tentatively accepts Ihm's emendation and suggests that, ‘perhaps (Russus') death in office has more significance than appears’.

⁴⁶ The market town was located between Setia and Tarracina along that stretch of the road which crosses the Pomp tine marshes.

⁴⁷ Even as early as Appius' day Romans will presumably have known what a diadem represented.

⁴⁸ Taylor, p. 137. She also points out (p. 14) that the earliest known lex de ambitu of 358 was passed to stop the campaigning of plebeian candidates at market places and rural centres (cf. Livy 7.15.12). Taylor did not pursue this insight to explicate Appius' political rivalries.

⁴⁹ Taylor, pp. 132 ff. and see above, n. 31.

⁵⁰ For these and the following references, see nn. 2 and 3 above.

⁵¹ Cic. Sen. 16; Brut. 55; Plutarch Pyrrhus 18–19.

⁵² Ferenczy, ‘The Career of Appius Claudius Caecus After the Censorship’, Acta Ant. 18, 76–7; Palmer, Archaic Community, pp. 269–70 and n. 4.

⁵³ This is also argued by Staveley, (‘The Conduct of Elections during an Interregnum’ Historia 3 (1954), 201) who wishes to separate this episode from Appius and date it to soon after 367. But the story is firmly attached to two names and, though an earlier Claudius might be substituted for one, there is no earlier Dentatus.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ See the useful remarks of Broughton in ANRW 1.1 (1972), 254–5; cf.Google ScholarPatterson, M. L., ‘Rome's Choke of Magistrates during the Hannibalic War’, TAPA 73 (1942), 319.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Münzer, RE III, 2681 ff.; Alföldi, A., Emotion and Hass bei Fabius Pictor; Antidoron E. Salin (Tubingen, 1962), pp. 117 ff.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Cic. Sen. 16; after quoting two verses of Ennius' poetic treatment of the speech, Cicero adds, ‘et tamen ipsius Appi extat oratio’.

⁵⁷ Münzer, Röm. Adel., p. 324.

⁵⁸ Livy 8.3.5.

⁵⁹ As is well known, a Campanian provenance for the Decii was first suggested by Münzer and argued at length by Heurgon (Rom. Adel., p. 45; Capoue pré-romaine, pp. 260 ff.). The question revolves in part around technical problems of Oscan nomenclature where non-specialists should fear to tread, but either of two suggestions seems permissible: that an Oscan gentilicium Dekiis (= Decius) is linguistically possible, though unattested (cf. Salmon, , Samnium and the Samnites, p. 54 and Heurgon, op. cit., p. 275), or that the well-attested Oscan praenomen, Dekis, was quickly converted into a proper sounding Roman nomen, Decius, as soon as the family was established at Rome. Apart from linguistics, general historical considerations still favour a Campanian origin for the Decii despite the doubts expressed by Beloch (Röm. Gesch., pp. 338 ff.) and Cassola (op. cit., pp. 152 ff.). We need not follow Heurgon in every detail of his romanticized reconstruction of events surrounding the début of the first Decius Mus in 341. Livy's notice (7.21.5–8) placing him at Rome as early as 352 should be accepted. It is only necessary to assume that Decius, or his parents, were fairly recent arrivals who still retained knowledge of and contact with their former patria which Decius could put at the service of Rome. The general question of wide-spread Fabian clientela in the South involves, of course, other families besides the Decii. If the Atilii remain an arguable case (see Münzer, pp. 56 ff. and Heurgon, p. 285; contra, Beloch, p. 338), surely there is no doubt about the Samnite Otacilii who appear as notable Fabian clients in the third century (Münzer, pp. 63 ff., 92).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Livy (9.29.3) is forced to suppose that Decius was ill.

⁶¹ Fabius may also really have objected to the reform in principle but we cannot know that and should not too readily assume it. In any case, rivalries among politicians can be founded on less heady stuff than principle.

⁶² Livy 10.21.11.

⁶³ Livy 10.21.15.

⁶⁴ Livy 10.21.7 ff.

⁶⁵ Livy 10.21.9; Vell. 1.14. On the identification of Sempronius the tribune, see Broughton, , MRR I, p. 162.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Above, n. 53.

⁶⁷ So, Phillips, E. J., ‘Roman Politics during the Second Samnite War’, Athen. N.S. 50 (1972), 352 and note. I am in agreement with Phillips's useful study in a number of points of detail. He, however, explains the conflict between Appius and Fabius as the inheritance by Appius from Publilius Philo of a feud with the faction of Fabius which had begun many years before; I find this unconvincing (see below, p. 371). He also accepts, without critical examination, Staveley's thesis of Appius' championship of the Roman ‘commercial class’ though he stops short of invoking it as a basis of factional dispute.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Staveley, art. cit., p. 430; cf. Livy 9.30.3.

⁶⁹ The tribune is named simply C. Marcius and the step from tribune in 311 to consul in 310 seems extraordinary, as Cassola (who wishes to separate them) points out. Broughton, however, equates them (MRR I, p. 161).

⁷⁰ Livy 7.38.8–39.7; 42.3.

⁷¹ Staveley, p. 413.

⁷² Cassola, op. cit., pp. 138 ff.

⁷³ So Phillips (art. cit., pp. 351, 355) who claims all these men for the Fabian side.

⁷⁴ Livy 9.42.4.

⁷⁵ See Broughton, MRR, sub ann. In his censorship in 307, he and his colleague Valerius are credited with building roads through the countryside at public expense (Livy 9.43.25–6). Clearly, they have borrowed a leaf from Appius' book; one would like to know where these roads were located.

⁷⁶ Corvinus' father had been consul in 343, the year of the Campanian alliance; in the following year the annalistic account assigns him a pre-eminent role in quelling the anti-Campanian mutiny in the Roman army, for whatever that tradition may be worth.

⁷⁷ Livy 9.42.3. Garzetti, art. cit., p. 195. Cf. Cassola, p. 162, n. 63.

⁷⁸ Livy 9.20.5.

⁷⁹ Broughton, , MRR I, p. 155.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Garzetti, p. 223; Staveley, p. 429; Cassola, p. 129; Phillips, p. 349. On Plautius Venox as a possible link between Appius and Philo's friends, see below.

⁸¹ Diod. 20.36.1; Frontinus, de Aqu. 1.5.

⁸² Cassola, p. 138; Staveley, , JRS 53 (1963), 182; Suolahti (op. cit., pp. 221, 223, 550) and Phillips (p. 349) also consider them allies.Google Scholar

⁸³ Münzer, pp. 36–45, 412.

⁸⁴ Our Plautius cannot be securely identified with any of the Plautian consuls of this period; the problem is discussed by Münzer (RE Plautius, 32–4) and Cassola (p. 138).

⁸⁵ Livy 10.18.1 ff.; Cassola, pp. 152, 202–3; Phillips, p. 353. The older view, that they were allies, is maintained by Garzetti (pp. 210–11) and Staveley (p. 430).

⁸⁶ On problems connected with the ius civile Flavianum see the standard handbooks of Roman law. Ancient opinion was divided as to whether the principal initiative came from Flavius or from Appius, using Flavius as a front man (see Cicero Mur. 11.25; ad Att. 6.1.8; Orat. 186; Livy 9.46.5; Macrobiu Sat. 1.15.9; Pliny N.H. 33.17; Val. Max. 2.5.2). It is not necessary for our purpose here to attempt to argue that vexed question.

⁸⁷ Livy 9.34.26.

⁸⁸ Broughton, , MRR I, p. 187.Google Scholar