I. INTRODUCTION
We are told that when news of Caracalla's death reached Rome a group of senators denounced their former emperor, likening him to all the tyrants of the past who had ruled over them.Footnote 1 The senator who recorded these actions, the historian Cassius Dio, does not say which tyrants were listed, but it is likely that such a comprehensive list included the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, and his son Sextus. The senators' actions were doubtless more an act of group catharsis than a private show of loyalty to their new emperor, Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Yet what the scene reveals perhaps most clearly is the Roman exempla tradition in practice.
By the time that Dio came to write his Roman History in the early third century a.d., exemplary narratives had long been foundational to the Romans' conception of their past, and served as cultural reference points in their broader political and moralizing discourses.Footnote 2 Dio's relationship with the Roman exempla tradition is one that has only just begun to be explored. In a recent study, Gowing has suggested that Dio was more interested in presenting his readers with exempla drawn from his later imperial books, rather than his earlier narratives.Footnote 3 Moreover, he maintains that Dio was less interested in figures from Rome's early history on account of their being less relevant for his third-century audience. Whatever the strengths of Gowing's assertion for the republican period, such a view does not, however, seem to hold for the regal period. Indeed, throughout the early books of his history, Dio may be regarded as an active receiver, editor, and transmitter of this Roman historiographical tradition. The story of the rape and suicide of the Roman matron Lucretia and the subsequent expulsion of the Tarquinii from Rome is illustrative of this point. Like the historians who preceded him, Dio saw this act of sexual violence as a trigger for political change at Rome, and, like Livy and Valerius Maximus, he used Lucretia's fate as an opportunity to engage with the story on an ethical level, contrasting Lucretia's virtue with Sextus Tarquinius' vice.Footnote 4 Yet the manner in which Dio did this was unique, and he shaped his retelling of the rape of Lucretia so as to feed into the themes of his Roman History.
The corresponding narrative in Livy provides a suitable control for Dio's treatment of the Lucretia narrative. The relationship between Dio and Livy is a complicated one, and some prefatory comments on this relationship are desirable at this point. A passing reference to Livy in the course of an anecdote concerning the unfortunate Flavian senator Mettius Pompusianus confirms that Dio knew the content of Livy's early history (67.12.4), and certainly there are clear traces of Livy, or at least the Latin Livian tradition, in evidence throughout Dio's history of the regal period.Footnote 5 The scant remains of Dio's early history may have distorted the degree to which he is seen to have been dependent on Livy – particularly in the wake of the studies of Zecchini and Manuwald, which have suggested that Dio's dependence on Livy, at least for the period of the Late Republic (where Dio's history survives in full), was far less than had been postulated by Schwartz.Footnote 6
Yet in the absence of evidence to the contrary, when we consider the fragments of Dio's narrative of the regal period, it is far closer to Livy than it is to the other extant accounts of the period, and Livy must remain a strong candidate as Dio's main source for these books. Certainly, Dio's account of Tarquinius Superbus contains such non-Livian material as the story of the Sibylline books,Footnote 7 Tarquinius' invention of novel modes of public punishment (F 11.6), and the suicide of Tarquinius' wife Tullia (Zonar. 7.11 [Dindorf 2.119.2–3]). Thus, we may best see Dio as choosing freely from the various traditions available to him, without being a slave to any one particular source. Nevertheless, questions persist as to how exactly he went about composing his history from his source material.Footnote 8 Dio's account of Lucretia's rape and suicide in particular shows at least his fidelity to what we may assume to be a Livian formulation of the Lucretia story,Footnote 9 which may reveal something of Dio's method of composition for these early books of his history.
However, whatever the precise relationship between Dio and Livy, Dio's version of the Lucretia story reveals an important feature of Dio's work, namely how his use of the Greek language could change the meaning of traditional Roman exempla (as found in Livy) to suit the ethical and political components of his own narrative programme.
II. EXEMPLIFYING LUCRETIA
The loss of Dio's complete text of the regal period does not preclude discussion of individual episodes within these early books. Indeed, the manner in which many of the fragments of his early narrative are preserved recommends such an approach. Dio's Lucretia narrative is contained in a single near-verbatim extract preserved in a tenth-century collection of edifying political and ethical anecdotes pertaining to virtue and vice (De virtutibus et vitiis).Footnote 10 In a sense, the compilers of the Excerpta Constantiniana, with their eyes for a pertinent maxim, anecdote, or significant self-contained narrative, were the tenth-century heirs to the same exemplary tradition as Livy in the first century, Dio in the third, and indeed Macaulay in the nineteenth. The excerptors (again like Macaulay in his Lays of Ancient Rome) operated with the tacit assumption that their excerpts would be relevant and intelligible without the establishment of the excerpts' historical settings or narrative contexts.
If we are to recover something of the narrative context for Dio's Lucretia narrative, we are compelled to turn to another Byzantine work, the Epitome of Histories complied by the twelfth-century court functionary (and later monk) Zonaras. Zonaras, although not as faithful to Dio's text as the tenth-century excerptors, preserves a highly abridged version of Dio's narrative of the regal period, which is not without value. His interaction with his source material was subtler than the comparatively crude cut-and-paste method of the tenth-century excerptors, and for this reason is more problematic as a source for reconstructing Dio.Footnote 11 However, as Zonaras follows Dio's narrative closely in his account of the early history of Rome, his Epitome provides a generally reliable impression (rather than replication) of the material originally presented in the early books of Dio's history.Footnote 12
The excerpt of Dio's Lucretia narrative commences in the customary manner for a fragment from the Excerpta Constantiniana, with a simple statement introducing the topic of the excerpt (F 11.13): ὅτι ὁ Βροῦτος τοὺς Ταρκυνίους ἐκ τοιᾶσδε αἰτίας κατέλυσε (‘That Brutus overthrew the Tarquinii from some such cause’).Footnote 13 From here the excerptor proceeds to narrate the dinner party of the sons of Tarquinius, Brutus, and Collatinus during the siege of Ardea and the so-called ‘contest of the wives’. The parallel with Livy's narrative is clear, as both historians seemingly chose to begin the story of Lucretia in the same fashion. However, a key passage seems to have been omitted by the excerptor.Footnote 14 Consider Zonaras' (7.11 [Dindorf 2.117.20–6]) introduction to the story:
Οὗτος ὁ Βροῦτος τοὺς Ταρκυνίους κατέλυσεν, αἰτίαν τὸ περὶ τὴν Λουκρητίαν συμβεβηκὸς προστησάμενος, καὶ ἄλλως μισουμένους παρὰ πάντων διὰ τὸ τυραννικόν τε καὶ βίαιον. ἡ δὲ Λουκρητία θυγάτηρ μὲν ἦν Λουκρητίου Σπουρίου, ἀνδρὸς τῶν τῆς συνκλήτου ἑνός, γαμετὴ δὲ Κολλατίνου Ταρκυνίου τῶν ἐπιϕανῶν …
This man Brutus deposed the Tarquinii, using the fate of Lucretia as reason for his action, though the Tarquinii were already hated by everyone, on account of their tyrannical and violent ways. Indeed, Lucretia was the daughter of Spurius Lucretius, a man of the senatorial order, and the wife of the renowned Tarquinius Collatinus …
The passage provides a clear glimpse of Zonaras' method in action. The opening sentence may well be regarded as his own summary, compressing what Dio had once said about the general feeling towards the Tarquinii. However, the inclusion of the additional material concerning Spurius Lucretius' senatorial status can scarcely be an interpolation and must have derived from Dio. It is unlikely that Zonaras would have troubled to locate another source for a particular detail of the rank of Lucretia's father, if indeed such a source existed in twelfth-century Byzantium, and it is even more unlikely that it was an invention on his part. Interestingly, of the extant authors who retold the Lucretia story, Zonaras alone explicitly records her father's senatorial status.
The identification of Lucretia's family and political status is consonant with one of the central themes of the last phase of Book 2, namely the maltreatment of the senatorial order by Tarquinius Superbus. It is the key to establishing the political aspect of Dio's narrative agenda. As he would do elsewhere when describing similarly tyrannical rulers or regimes, Dio framed his narrative of the reign of Tarquinius Superbus in terms of the persecution of the senatorial elite.Footnote 15 It seems that this pattern of judging rulers by their interaction with the elite began in the first book of Dio's history with his description of Romulus (F 5.11).
Tarquinius' maltreatment of the Senate may be a common feature of the accounts of Dio, Livy, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus but, of the three, Dio is the most detailed.Footnote 16 It is not surprising that this should be the case. Dio was a member of the political elite, who possessed a keen sense of the intolerable when it came to the perceived mistreatment of the senatorial order by an autocratic figure, and he took care to elaborate on such acts of cruelty or irreverence.Footnote 17 Hence he elaborated (F 11.2–3) on how Tarquinius arrested, murdered, or banished members of Senate and populace who were conspicuous for their influence, birth, wealth, innate intelligence, martial bravery, and wisdom. For Dio, this particular characterization of the ‘virtuous oppressed’ was something of a recurring theme in his work, and so too was the motivation of the oppressor – tyrants were always prone to harbour jealousies and suspicions towards those who possessed some conspicuous quality.Footnote 18 Dio also says (F 11.4) that Tarquinius desired to abolish the Senate entirely, and that he treated the Senate in a manner that was intended to cause its members embarrassment. This last point, coupled with the fact that Dio says that Tarquinius remained hard to approach (δυσπρόσοδος) for those who wanted to petition him, is also typical of Dio, and anticipates his description of his own treatment at the hands of Caracalla at Nicomedia during the winter of 214/15.Footnote 19
Like Livy, Dio commenced his narrative proper with the story of the dispute between the sons of Tarquinius Superbus and their kinsmen, Brutus and Collatinus, over which of their respective wives excelled the others in sophrosyne (F 11.13). To resolve the contest the men decided to return to their wives, who were absent from the camp, in order to settle the argument. Upon returning to their spouses, all the men found them in conversation (ἐν λόγῳ), or if we are to accept Reiske's emendation, carousing (ἐν πότῳ).Footnote 20 Lucretia was the exception, the men finding her working (presumably in silence) at her wool.Footnote 21
This opening scene of the anecdote establishes its ethical context with Lucretia's sophrosyne at its foundation. Lucretia is shown to be the very manifestation of sophrosyne by the juxtaposition of her actions with those of the other wives. Working with her wool, she embodies domestic duty, and is thus associated with the traditional image of the ideal wife as established by convention and reiterated by Dio elsewhere in the Roman History.Footnote 22 The exemplarity of Lucretia's activity is made all the more sharp by the contrast provided by the actions of the other women. Whether we consider the other women to be drinking or in conversation, the contrast with Lucretia remains the same. The abstention from excessive wine-drinking is a mark of sophrosyne in the classical (and non-gender-specific) understanding of the term,Footnote 23 but it is worth recalling that in the traditional Roman mindset the drinking of wine by women was particularly abhorred.Footnote 24 Alternatively, if we accept the manuscript reading ἐν λόγῳ, Lucretia's implied silence (Dio does not mention anyone with her as she works with her wool) is contrasted with the chattering of the other wives, and is again an indication of her sophrosyne.Footnote 25 Lucretia's sophrosyne is cognate with her conventionally ideal domestic feminine behaviour, and her singularity as the only one of the women conforming to this ideal establishes her exemplary status as an ethical exemplum for sophrosyne.
With Lucretia's sophrosyne thus established, Dio reintroduces Sextus into the narrative. Dio (F 11.15) says:
περιβόητον οὖν ἐπὶ τούτῳ γενομένην ὁ Σέξτος αἰσχῦναι ἐπεθύμησεν. τάχα μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἔρωτα αὐτῆς ἔσχε ὑπερκαλλοῦς οὔσης, ἐπὶ πλέον δὲ ὅμως τὴν δόξαν μᾶλλον ἤ τὸ σῶμα διαϕθεῖραι ἠθέλησε.
So when this [i.e. Lucretia's reputation] became well reported, Sextus was seized with a desire to dishonour her. Perhaps indeed he even lusted for her, as she was exceedingly beautiful; but it was more so her reputation that he wanted to ruin, rather than her body.
The various components of Dio's statement are significant in different ways, but particularly so is his juxtaposition of Sextus' motivating ἔρως and Lucretia's reputation (δόξα). Such juxtaposition may be noted in Livy's narrative, but to a different effect. At the corresponding point in Livy's version, he says (1.57.10): Tarquinium mala libido Lucretiae per vim stuprandae capit; cum forma tum spectata castitas incitat. So, whereas Livy has Lucretia's spectata castitas as the target of Sextus' mala libido, Dio has her reputation as the target of his lust.Footnote 26 Certainly, Lucretia's reputation rests on her sophrosyne, but it is interesting that Dio, as preserved in the excerpt, is not explicit. Indeed, Dio's point that Sextus was motivated to destroy her good reputation once it had become well reported follows the historian's understanding of psychology, whereby tyrants were typically regarded as being hostile to, or jealous of, the good reputations of others.Footnote 27
As a rule, Dio was concerned with presenting his material so as to conform to familiar patterns of behaviour, and his portrayal of women in particular had an important secondary role to play in this narrative technique.Footnote 28 He often depicted women as the victims of individuals whom he wanted to portray as abusing their political power. Certainly this technique had long been a staple of Greek and Roman historiography and rhetoric, but it is important to note the consistency with which Dio used this model to portray (pejoratively) not only the ‘tyrants’ from the past but also those from his own age. Hence we find all of the usual suspects from the reign of Commodus onwards accused of having persecuted or molested women or girls.Footnote 29 Dio (76[75].15.6) accuses the much hated Praetorian prefect Plautianus not only of persecuting the then empress Julia Domna but also of having well-born women tortured. Moreover, Dio (76[75].15.7) says that Plautianus engaged in shameful (sexual) acts with young boys and girls. Similarly, both Caracalla and Elagabalus are accused of having violated or put to death Vestal Virgins,Footnote 30 and, in the case of Elagabalus, of having the senator Pomponius Bassus executed so as to allow him to marry Bassus' widow – a woman, Dio adds, of noble birth (80[79].5.4).
Dio's presentation of the scene of Lucretia's rape, the crux of the story, is noteworthy for the subtle innovations that he introduces to the narrative, which are not found in the other accounts. He begins conventionally enough (F 11.15), narrating how Sextus waited for a time when Collatinus was engaged in fighting the Rutuli, before coming to Lucretia's house under the pretext of kinship and to obtain both food and lodging. At this point Dio eschews the more melodramatic version of events whereby Sextus, armed, burst into Lucretia's chamber.Footnote 31 Instead, he speaks of how Sextus attempted to seduce Lucretia with favours, and only attempted violence at the failure of this strategy.Footnote 32 Dio (F 11.16) goes on to say that Sextus καινὸν δὴ τινα τρόπον ἐξεῦρεν, ὑϕ᾽ οὗ τὸ παραδοξότατον ἠγάγκασεν αὐτὴν ἑκοῦσαν ὑβρισθῆναι (‘hit upon a most novel plan, by which, against all expectations, he compelled her to be outraged’). Once again, the choice of verb (ὑβρισθῆναι) is important. Dio draws upon the contrast between the virtue represented by Lucretia and its antithesis (in this case hubris) represented by Sextus. Sextus' plan, which would entail her death and that of her reputation, ostensibly compelled Lucretia to yield.
It is at this point that Dio introduces a key element into the story. In his version, Lucretia makes her decision to kill herself before submitting to Sextus. She resolves to delay her suicide only so long as to be able to tell her story to her family, and, by doing so, keeps her reputation intact (F 11.17). Lucretia's mental resolve remains unwavering – she was, after all, the embodiment of sophrosyne for Dio, with all of its implications of soundness of mind. This is an important deviation from the other traditions, where there is no indication of Lucretia's resolve to commit suicide prior to being raped by Sextus. Indeed, in both Dionysius and Livy it is her sense of shame at the act having been committed that compels her to suicide.Footnote 33 Nor is there any suggestion in Dio, as there is with Livy, that Lucretia's sophrosyne (pudicitia in Livy's case) was in any way conquered by Sextus' mala libido.Footnote 34
III. UNDERSTANDING LUCRETIA'S SOPHROSYNE
Dio was not unique among the Greek writers of the Lucretia story to portray her as exemplifying sophrosyne.Footnote 35 It was the concept that most clearly encapsulated the virtues which Lucretia exemplified in the Latin tradition, castitas and pudicitia.Footnote 36 Certainly, such a rendering is consistent with the traditional Greek understanding of sophrosyne as the virtue most readily possessed by women, as pudicitia was in Roman (Latin) thought.Footnote 37 Yet we must not be tempted into considering it to be merely a ‘bland’ substitute for the uniquely Latin concept of pudicitia and thus resulting in an equally ‘bland’ rendering of Lucretia, as held by Ogilvie.Footnote 38 Rather, sophrosyne was a dynamic, flexible concept, and one that held an important place in Dio's political thought.Footnote 39
To appreciate the importance of sophrosyne to Dio's narrative, it is perhaps appropriate to say something on the understanding of sophrosyne in the second- and third-century literature. The broad semantic range which sophrosyne had acquired during the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. was carried down to the non-Christian Greek authors of the imperial period with little apparent development or modification.Footnote 40 It certainly retained its designation as the virtus feminarum, but there was also a growing acknowledgement of the importance of a sense of sophrosyne for men and women in the context of marital fidelity.Footnote 41 Underpinning these ideas was the common understanding of sophrosyne as the control of erotic passions, for men as well as for women. This was a theme explored with some frequency in the imperial period. Philostratus' hero, the neo-Pythagorean holy man Apollonius of Tyana, is presented as the personification of sophrosyne, and Philostratus at several key points in the Vita Apolonii explores the nature of the virtue, often (but not always) in the context of sexual behaviour.Footnote 42 Perhaps most indicative of this trend was Plutarch, whose Lives explored the various aspects of sophrosyne through the actions of his Greek and Roman heroes.Footnote 43
This general interest in the sex lives of the great men (and women) was indicative of the fact that sophrosyne was firmly entrenched in discourses of power by the second and third centuries a.d. As one of the cardinal virtues of mainstream philosophical thought, it had been absorbed into the rhetoric of kingship.Footnote 44 It communicated an ideal that a good king was one who was able to control his passions, and by extension his use of power, through his sophrosyne.Footnote 45 This representation of the ideal king was something of a commonplace for the rhetorically or philosophically minded literary men of the age.Footnote 46 However, it seems also to have permeated the official pronouncements of certain emperors. An edict by Alexander Severus issued in the 220s proclaims not only the emperor's sophrosyne, which would be an example for others to follow, but also his use of sophrosyne as a principle of government, which would rectify the financial abuses committed under the previous emperor.Footnote 47 Yet the ideal was not confined to emperors, and it could apply equally to the sovereign body within the state in general. Dio Chrysostom, in his oration to the Alexandrians, identifies the chronic civil disorder in Alexandria with the lack of sophrosyne in the state. This political view of sophrosyne is found throughout Dio's Roman History. When he discusses the concepts of democracy and monarchy at the outset of Book 44, he opts for monarchy, on account of his belief that it was impossible for its citizens in a state the size of Rome to act individually or collectively with sophrosyne.Footnote 48 Good government, whether under a monarchy or a democracy, was that which exercised sophrosyne.
As will become evident from the following analysis, Dio's version of the Lucretia story hinges on this broad understanding of sophrosyne as a personal and political virtue. As such, it is perhaps as much about the absence of sophrosyne in the Tarquinii as it is about the presence of sophrosyne in Lucretia. Indeed, Dio judged the legitimacy of a regime by the ethical quality of a ruler (which was often mediated by the ruler's interaction with the elite),Footnote 49 and the Lucretia narrative afforded him the opportunity to illustrate this very point. For Dio's overarching narrative programme, Tarquinius Superbus, together with his son Sextus, conveyed the basic characteristics of the tyrannical ruler. Lucretia's position within this programme is less clear-cut. Certainly she fulfils the role of the virtuous Roman matron, as dictated by tradition, and Dio's portrayal demonstrates her exemplary qualities as a woman, as outlined in the previous section. But Lucretia also serves as a foil to the tyrannical Tarquinii, representing more generally political (and ethical) opposition to the hubristic power of the ruling family.
IV. THE SPEECH OF LUCRETIA
The rape of Lucretia signals a shift in the exemplary focus of the anecdote from the ethical presentation of Lucretia and Sextus to the political ramifications of Sextus' sexual attack on Lucretia. In the final scene of Dio's Lucretia narrative (F 11.18–19), Lucretia sends for her husband and father. Upon their arrival, she recounts her plight to her father and kinsmen, although she addresses her father specifically, on account of it being more shameful to address her husband with what she is about to reveal.Footnote 50 She concludes with the following call to action in vivid oratio recta (F 11.19):
καὶ ἐγὼ μὲν (γυνὴ γάρ εἰμι) τὰ πρέποντα ἐμαυτῇ ποιήσω· ὑμεῖς δ᾽ εἴπερ ἄνδρες ἐστὲ καὶ τῶν γαμετῶν τῶν τε παίδων ὑμῶν προορᾶσθε, τιμωρήσατε μὲν ἐμοί, ἐλευθερώσατε δὲ ἑαυτούς, καὶ δείξατε τοῖς τυράννοις οἵων ἄρα ὑμῶν ὄντων οἵαν γυναῖκα ὕβρισαν.
And, whereas I (for I am a woman) shall act in a manner which is fitting for me: you, if you are men, and if you care for your wives and children, exact vengeance on my behalf and free yourselves and show the tyrants what sort of woman they outraged, and what sort of men were her menfolk!
The paratactical arrangement of thought in the first two clauses is simple and effective. Dio employs a series of opposites: women and men, liberty (ἐλευθερία) and tyranny, sophrosyne and hubris. Here again we see Dio charting a course independently from the other traditions. Dionysius (Ant. Rom. 4.66.2–3) presents Lucretia simply as a victim of Sextus' passions and her speech is little more than a rather insipid call for her menfolk to avenge the wrong committed against her (and themselves). Moreover, he does little to develop or explore the sense of Lucretia's sophrosyne in his narrative, which appears there as not much more than chastity or honour. When Dionysius does use Lucretia as an exemplum, he seems interested in the manner of her death as an example of her courage, a point exploited by Brutus in his speech to the assembly of the plebeians (Ant. Rom. 4.82.3). In Livy's narrative, Lucretia makes two appeals to her kinsmen as to why they should avenge her. The first is because Sextus betrayed his host and so betrayed the conventions of hospitality,Footnote 51 and the second because Sextus acted in a manner more befitting an enemy combatant, violating her person in order to satisfy his own desires.Footnote 52 Livy and Diodorus, however, show a continuing interest in exploring the ethical nuances of Lucretia's feminine virtue. Livy's Lucretia makes a point of making her suicide almost an act of atonement for her lost pudicitia and her desire not to be an exemplum of impudicita for other women (1.58.10); and Diodorus (10.21.1–5) provides a lengthy authorial digression, discussing this very point.
In Dio's version of the speech, there is no articulation of the latter idea. In a significant way, the fact that Lucretia is a woman seems less important to him than the fact that she is an example of sophrosyne. The virtue she embodies is less specifically feminine than the pudicitia of Livy's Lucretia, and Dio's Lucretia displays no awareness or concern about being an exemplum, positive or not, for other women. The commanding Lucretia of his narrative does not raise the question of how she should act, but rather how her menfolk should act. She challenges them to proceed in a manner befitting virtuous men, as she is about to act in a manner befitting a virtuous woman.Footnote 53 In doing so, Lucretia outlines the qualities of a virtuous man – someone who in his personal life cares for his wife and children and in his public life is the enemy of the hubristic. Most importantly, from the perspective of this narrative fulfilling the exemplary function of the story, Dio once again returns to the familiar contrast between sophrosyne and hubris, reminding the reader that it was on account of the hubristic nature of Sextus' crime against Lucretia's sophrosyne that the tyrannical Tarquinii should be punished.Footnote 54
Dio thus frames Lucretia's appeal in terms of expected political behaviour. In her speech, he, like Livy, draws upon the rhetorical force of a simple appeal to the auditors' masculinity: ὑμεῖς δ᾽ εἴπερ ἄνδρες ἐστέ (‘if you are men’), which amounts to ‘act like men’.Footnote 55 However, unlike Livy, Dio uses the character of Lucretia, the traditional embodiment of feminine virtue, more explicitly as a mouthpiece for transmission of a particular masculine ideal.Footnote 56 The focus of Lucretia's speech in Dio is, therefore, not on how she should react to having been raped by Sextus, for there is no doubt that she would act in accordance with what was deemed proper for a woman, but rather on the imperative for men to remove tyrants who act in a hubristic manner.Footnote 57 Moreover, Lucretia seems to be the spur, prompting the men to political action – she is the one ordering them to free themselves (ἐλευθερώσατε) from the tyrants. In the other traditions it is Brutus who fulfils this function; indeed, in Livy (1.58.10) Lucretia discreetly stays out of the political sphere – saying to the men simply to do whatever is required to Sextus (vos … videritis, quid illi debeatur).
Unfortunately, the Constantinian fragment breaks off at the point of Lucretia's death, so it is impossible to reconstruct with any certainty how Dio used this to explain Brutus' subsequent actions. Nevertheless, there is something typically ‘Dionian’ about the political content which he inserted into his version of Lucretia's speech. Its tone and content invite comparison with those other great set-piece political speeches which Dio placed in the mouths of influential women: the speech of Hersilia and the Sabine women in Book 1 concerning concord, the speech of Livia on the political advantages of clemency in the Livia–Augustus dialogue in Book 55, and the speech of Boudicca in Book 62 on freedom and Roman hegemony.Footnote 58 In all these examples, Dio uses the device of women instructing men as to a particular course of political action. Each one provided him with the opportunity to explore what were familiar topics with a degree of novelty, but it is also possible that he was influenced, at least indirectly, by the fact that the world in which he lived was one where important women did offer advice to rulers.Footnote 59
V. CONCLUSION
The opening two books of Dio's History, which covered the period from Aeneas' arrival in Italy to the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, appear to have fulfilled something of a programmatic function within his writing. This worked on two levels. The material available to Dio allowed him to indulge in displays of antiquarian erudition, and, like those who preceded him, he sprinkled this early history with learned aetiological references for matters pertaining to the topography of the city and for the establishment of religious practices.Footnote 60 Yet more importantly, particularly for a historian who was interested in the mechanics of autocracy, the stories of the seven kings of Rome provided familiar models through which Dio could explore themes pertaining to monarchical authority. He did this through his characterization of the kings and their interaction with external enemies (Albans, Latins, Volsci), Roman sub-groups (Senate, δῆμος), and royal women (Hersilia, Tanaquil, Tullia). By doing so, Dio established basic paradigms that would characterize his later portrayals of powerful individuals.
Throughout this article the source question is one that has been largely avoided – at least directly. Certainly, there is little material from what survives of Dio's Lucretia narrative to challenge the view that most of Dio's material appears to be of Livian provenance. Yet, as has been demonstrated, Dio's version is distinct from that of Livy and from the other extant versions of Lucretia's rape and suicide in terms of specific details and moralizing focus. These points of departure, however, do not necessitate the invention of an intermediary Ignotus: for there is nothing in Dio's Lucretia narrative that cannot be explained simply as products of the author's imagination. Rather, his retelling of the rape of Lucretia is best understood as a product of his own authorial agenda. Indeed, even if this non-Livian material did derive from another source, then Dio's selection of this material was judicious and made on the basis of its coherence with the requirements of his overarching historiographical programme.
As I have argued throughout this article, Dio reinterpreted the traditional narrative of the rape of Lucretia so as to express themes and concepts that were specifically relevant to his wider narrative and moralizing aims. There is a simple sophistication to his Lucretia narrative, which reveals the extent of his understanding of the exemplary tradition of historiography. Dio's Lucretia narrative stands as a three-tiered construction: underpinning the exemplary function of the narrative are the antithetical concepts of sophrosyne and hubris.Footnote 61 The opposing characterizations of Lucretia and Sextus Tarquinius play out this conflict on a narrative level. In turn, the characters of Lucretia and Sextus stand as metaphors for the broader thematic conflict between Senate and king/tyrant, which Dio seems to have explored throughout Book 2.Footnote 62 Hence, Dio's Lucretia narrative weaves diverse themes into the one narrative: the persecution of the Senate, feminine exemplarity, and a discussion of sophrosyne and hubris.
It is solely for convenience and convention that the story contained in F 11.13–19 has been described throughout this article as ‘the Lucretia narrative’. Lucretia may be the focal point of the narrative, but she is not all that the narrative is about. Generally speaking, Dio was more interested in scrutinizing the behaviour of autocrats than he was in praising virtuous women: hence it was the political component to Lucretia's exemplary status that seems to have absorbed him most. The exemplary quality of his narrative is as dependent upon the character of Sextus as it is upon Lucretia: both may be read as ciphers in Dio's broader political and moralizing programmes. But the particular role of Lucretia in the transition from the tyranny of Tarquinius Superbus to the establishment of the Republic is apparently unique to Dio's account. Lucretia drives Dio's narrative of the political history of early Rome forward. Unlike the other accounts, where it is Brutus who provides the impetus for political change, in Dio's version it is Lucretia who fulfils this function. Her speech, with her calls for her menfolk to take direct political action, contributes to a portrayal which is closer to that of a political martyr than simply a victim of a tyrant's sexual impulses. In this way, Dio's Lucretia becomes the standard bearer of early republican ἐλευθερία in a way that she is not in other accounts. Moreover, perhaps we may read Dio's representation of Lucretia's signal virtue, sophrosyne, as an ideal for the male senatorial figures around her, who would usher in the period of the Republic and become its first leaders.
