INTRODUCTION
This article deals with one particular aspect of Livy's narrative of the Gallic Sack of Rome, told in Book 5, and traditionally placed in 390 b.c.Footnote 1—namely the issue over the validity of the ransom agreement struck by the Romans with the Gauls. The broader context is well known—and needs only brief reiteration here.Footnote 2 When the Gauls march on Rome, the Romans give battle at the river Allia, leading to a resounding Gallic victory. Most of the Romans flee the battlefield and then the city, except for a small group of both old and young, male and female, who hold out on the Capitoline Hill. That hill is subsequently put under siege by the Gauls. Following several months of beleaguerment, both sides are depicted as severely worn out by hunger and fighting. It is important for present purposes to stress that, when the Gauls stood at the gates and besieged the city, one of Rome's greatest heroes, Marcus Furius Camillus, was noticeably absent.Footnote 3 Camillus was in neighbouring Ardea, some fifty miles south of Rome, training an army of Roman soldiers to challenge the Gallic invaders after his recent recall from exile and appointment to the dictatorship. But before Camillus’ return to Rome, the besieged Romans surrendered and agreed a ransom with the Gauls in order to liberate their city. The continuation of the story as given in Livy is equally well known. Camillus arrives in the middle of the ransom exchange, asking for the exchange to be stopped. Unsurprisingly, the Gauls are not keen on following Camillus’ orders, and insist on the ransom. Consequently, Camillus challenges the agreement between Romans and Gauls on a constitutional basis; the agreement was reached with a lesser magistrate after Camillus’ appointment to the dictatorship (5.49.2):
cum illi renitentes pactos dicerent sese, negat eam pactionem ratam esse quae postquam ipse dictator creatus esset iniussu suo ab inferioris iuris magistratu facta esset, denuntiatque Gallis ut se ad proelium expediant.
When they, resisting, said that they had come to an agreement, he [Camillus] denied that an agreement was valid which, after he himself had been made dictator, had been concluded by a magistrate of lower status without his instructions, and he announced to the Gauls that they should prepare themselves for battle.
The constitutional argument has often been repeated by modern scholars. Ogilvie comments that ‘(t)he dictatorship was held to put all other magistracies into suspension.’Footnote 4 Feldherr notes similarly that, ‘(o)nce Camillus has been appointed dictator, his imperium supersedes that of the lesser magistrates who negotiated the surrender.’Footnote 5 And to explain why the Gauls nevertheless entered into negotiations in Camillus’ absence, Ross observes that ‘the Gauls, of course, could hardly have known either of Camillus’ appointment as dictator or of the fact that the dictatorship superseded all other magistracies.’Footnote 6
In purely technical terms, Camillus’ argument can be upheld. Going by the evidence for later centuries, for which we have reasonably good evidence for the role and powers of the dictator (otherwise than for the fourth century b.c.), the dictator enjoyed political supremacy, even if in practice the magistrates in office at the point of the dictator's appointment continued with their term of office.Footnote 7 In Livy's own days, moreover, the dictatorship was revived in what Lintott has termed ‘a stronger and more authoritarian form’, no doubt influencing Livy's take on Camillus’ powers:Footnote 8 elsewhere—in Book 6—Livy preserves a tradition that emphasizes the (supreme) powers of the dictator vis-à-vis other magistrates (6.16.3 and 6.38.13). Regarding Camillus’ remit as dictator, we are at the same time in a similar situation to that assumed by Ross for the Gauls: we do not have knowledge of the formal dictatorial realm for what is envisaged to have been Camillus’ second appointment to the dictatorship (of five in total): Livy merely comments that, for the Romans who assembled in ever larger numbers in Veii, ‘the time was now ripe to return to their native city and snatch it from the hands of the enemy’, but that ‘a strong body lacked a head’; for these reasons, they ‘resolved to send for Camillus from Ardea, but not till the Senate at Rome had been consulted’ (5.46.5–7). Whatever the narratological inconsistencies and the procedural irregularities, the overall context of Camillus’ appointment to the dictatorship is that of a state emergency, which fits the military remit that drove many appointments to this office—rei gerundae causa.Footnote 9 Viewed with all this in mind, it is entirely possible to conceive of Camillus’ powers as including the powers of decision over Rome's surrender and ransom, once he was appointed to the dictatorship. It is also important to emphasize that the thrust of the story is to foreground Camillus’ imperium, through his powers as dictator, and by extension Livy's historiographic authority to rewrite Rome's history. Feldherr has consequently argued that ‘(t)he authority of Livy's representation of the past, his emphatic denial that the Romans were ever ransomed, rests on the imperium of Camillus itself.’Footnote 10 But there is also another way of looking at the episode, which opens up a fresh perspective not only on the actual constitutional claim made by Camillus but also on Livy's historiographical method. For this, the focus needs to be shifted from Camillus to those under siege at Rome. Before doing so, however, two disclaimers are in order.
First, while the present study has repeated recourse to (later) historical events and knowledge, it is not as such concerned with Rome's history. In other words, this article does not deal with what happened in 390 b.c.: in my view, the Livian text is poorly equipped to function as a reliable guide to that period. Instead, my exploration of other relevant historical contexts serves to tease out what a Late Republican reader might have made of Livy's narrative: I therefore discuss evidence and knowledge that that Late Republican reader might have had. ‘At best’, this article deals with historical issues in so far as it deals with the Roman historiography of the Late Republic, but not beyond. Second, this article concentrates, as stated, on the particular issue of the validity of the ransom agreement struck by the Romans with the Gauls that Livy features in his account of the event. For reasons of analytical clarity, I do not deal here with other related issues that press forward when reading Livy's narrative—such as, for instance, the ambiguous manner in which Livy phrases the Roman surrender that leads to the ransom agreement, which—if superficially read—can be understood to suggest (wrongly) that the Romans chose between surrender and ransom.Footnote 11 Nor do I deal with the broader issue of the underlying question as to whether the Romans bought their freedom with gold rather than iron, including the numerous modern opinions as to whether the Romans did indeed lose their city, surrendered and/or ransomed themselves.Footnote 12 The present argument focusses, plainly, on the few words in which Livy narrates Camillus’ challenge to the ransom agreement, and the specific constitutional case made by Camillus in doing so. Put differently, the title says it all. In sum, the point of this article is to ask a simple and direct question: was Camillus right? It is time to join the Romans in their wait for the dictator.
WAITING FOR CAMILLUS …
In his description of the situation at Rome, Livy notes that the army on the Capitol was waiting for Camillus; worn out by hunger, they looked out day after day to see if any relief from the dictator was forthcoming—but it was not. Eventually, therefore, they decided that they could not hold out any longer, but had to look into surrender and ransom. Livy tells us that the Senate consequently met and instructed the tribunes of the soldiers to arrange terms with the Gauls. Thereafter, Quintus Sulpicius met with the Gallic leader, Brennus, to settle the matter. Then follows the narrative of the actual ransom exchange. Livy sketches the despair and ensuing decisions in the following manner (5.48.6–8):Footnote 13
… interim Capitolinus exercitus, stationibus uigiliisque fessus, superatis tamen humanis omnibus malis cum famem unam natura uinci non sineret, diem de die prospectans ecquod auxilium ab dictatore appareret, postremo spe quoque iam non solum cibo deficiente et cum stationes procederent prope obruentibus infirmum corpus armis, uel dedi uel redimi se quacumque pactione possent iussit, iactantibus non obscure Gallis haud magna mercede se adduci posse ut obsidionem relinquant. tum senatus habitus tribunisque militum negotium datum ut paciscerentur. inde inter Q. Sulpicium tribunum militum et Brennum regulum Gallorum conloquio transacta res est, et mille pondo auri pretium populi gentibus mox imperaturi factum.
Meanwhile, the army on the Capitol was worn out with sentry duty and mounting guard; and though they had overcome all human ills, yet there was one, hunger, which nature would not suffer to be overcome. Day after day they looked out to see if any relief from the dictator was at hand; but at last when even hope, as well as food, began to fail them, and their weapons almost overwhelmed their weak bodies as they set out on sentry duty, they declared that they must either surrender or ransom themselves, on whatever terms they could make; for the Gauls were indicating very plainly that they could be persuaded to abandon the siege in return for a quite small sum. Then the Senate met, and gave the tribunes of the soldiers the job of agreeing the terms. Then, at a meeting between Quintus Sulpicius a tribune of the soldiers and the Gallic chief Brennus, the matter was settled, and a thousand pounds of gold was agreed as the price of a people that was destined presently to rule the nations.
Notwithstanding the many complexities of the short passage, the emphasis on the desperate and prolonged wait of those holding out in Rome highlights the absence of the magistrate in charge—that is, Camillus the dictator—day after day, diem de die. But the hoped-for intervention was not forthcoming. It is notable in this context that amid total desperation and panic the Romans on the Capitoline Hill were mindful of due procedure. Thus, despite finding themselves in a situation of despair, the Romans are depicted by Livy as acting in an entirely methodical fashion in their ensuing deliberations with the Gauls. First, following the army's declaration, the chief authority—that is, the Senate at Rome—is mobilized to authorize negotiations with the Gauls. Then, the military tribunes are given the task of coming to terms with the Gauls—that is, of negotiating. Finally, Quintus Sulpicius meets with Brennus to agree the deal and the subsequent ransom. This highly disciplined demeanour of those on the Capitoline Hill comes, as stated, on the back of the Romans’ active waiting for Camillus: it is only when the situation gets so bad that further waiting for Camillus can no longer be endured and justified that the request is made to initiate negotiations with the Gauls.Footnote 14 However odd the Romans’ behaviour from a practical perspective, it is Camillus’ absence that allows the Romans on the Capitoline Hill to engage in deliberations with the Gauls that entail in addition to their own surrender also the surrender of their commonwealth—that is, Rome.
A historically minded reader—then as now—might well be tempted to regard the Roman military tribunes charged with the negotiations as tribuni militum consulari potestate, that is, as vested with consular powers.Footnote 15 One theory about the rationale behind the consular tribunate suggests that this office was created as a result of an ever more complex military situation towards the end of the fifth century b.c.—at least this is what Livy reports in Book 4 (4.7.2).Footnote 16 In short, these consular tribunes could be understood as dealing with military emergencies. Seen this way, the Senate's choice of such office-holders to undertake the negotiations with the Gauls makes good sense. However, even leaving aside that Livy distances himself from this theory by merely reporting in Book 4 what others hold to be the truth—sunt qui …, Livy's narrative has in any case Marcus Furius Camillus appointed to the dictatorship prior to this point, as already stated in the Introduction above. Whatever type of military tribunes we assume the chosen men to have been, that is, with or without consular powers, by the time Quintus Sulpicius and colleagues enter the Livian stage, Camillus was vested with dictatorial powers: he, not the tribuni militum, was in charge. But why, then, does this great Roman hero need to challenge explicitly the constitutional basis for what has been agreed between Romans and Gauls? Why is there a seeming need to argue? The idea that the Gauls were ignorant of Camillus’ appointment and powers, entertained for instance by Ross and cited earlier, does not solve the riddle: Livy's readers are Romans, not Gauls. The problem is on the Roman side. It is time to contextualize the army's waiting through other episodes in which a decision was made in the absence of the magistrate with the appropriate authority.
A suitable starting point for such a discussion is the issue over the appointment of a dictator in 217 b.c., during the Hannibalic War, and in an emergency situation that is in broad terms comparable to that described by Livy for the events in 390 b.c. In 217 b.c., the Romans were under massive duress, with defeat and disaster following one after another. When, finally, 4,000 cavalry under the pro-praetor Gaius Centenius had diverted their path after hearing news of the Battle at Lake Trasimene, they fell into the hands of Hannibal in Umbria. The response to this in Rome was to have recourse to the institution of the dictatorship. In his account of the matter, Livy explicitly reports that the due process for the appointment of the dictator was ignored (22.8.5–6):
itaque ad remedium iam diu neque desideratum nec adhibitum, dictatorem dicendum, ciuitas confugit; et quia et consul aberat, a quo uno dici posse uidebatur, nec per occupatam armis Punicis Italiam facile erat aut nuntium aut litteras mitti, quod nunquam ante eam diem factum erat, dictatorem populus creauit Q. Fabium Maximum et magistrum equitum M. Minucium Rufum.
And so the community took refuge in a remedy that had now long been neither needed nor used—the nomination of a dictator. And both because the consul, by whom alone it seemed one could be nominated, was absent, and because it was not easy when Italy was controlled by Punic arms to send a courier or a letter to him, the people made Q. Fabius Maximus dictator, and M. Minucius Rufus master of the horse, which had never been done before that day.
The situation in 217 b.c. is at once similar to and different from the particular matter under discussion here for 390 b.c. The constitutional aberration in 217 b.c. affected the actual appointment of the dictator, while the issue over the Roman surrender and ransom agreement in 390 b.c. that are the focus of the present enquiry concerns the powers of the dictator once in office.Footnote 17 But structurally there are important parallels between Quintus Fabius Maximus’ appointment to the dictatorship in 217 b.c. and the agreement reached between Romans and Gauls in 390 b.c. that deserve teasing out.
Thus Livy reports for 217 b.c. that the standard process was ignored because the consul, who had the required authority to nominate the dictator, was absent from Rome. Consequently, the dictator was elected by the People (dictatorem populus creauit). The legal aberration of the decision-making in 217 b.c. as well as the constitutional room for manoeuvre in practice have been highlighted by Pina Polo:Footnote 18
What happened in 217 demonstrates the general constitutional flexibility of Republican Rome and also represents an absolutely exceptional case. The appointment of a dictator had to be made by a consul—this is unquestionable—but circumstances forced a change in this process, and the dictator was simply elected directly by the people.
Livy reports that only seven years later, in 210 b.c., the People once again elected a dictator (for the purpose of holding the elections), this time because of the refusal of the consul Marcus Valerius Laevinus to comply with the orders of the Senate (27.5.14–19). Laevinus proposed Marcus Valerius Messalla for the role, but the Senate refused his proposal because Messalla was outside the ager Romanus, in Sicily, where he was in charge of the fleet. The Senate therefore requested that Laevinus should put the matter to a vote for the People to decide. Irrespective of the many complexities of the matter, it is clear that the Senate's request for the decision to be made by the People was motivated by the impossibility of adhering to the standard procedure. Pina Polo consequently concludes that ‘(b)oth episodes make it plain that the appointment of a dictator was an exclusive prerogative of one of the consuls unless a situation of absolute emergency arose’ (my emphasis).Footnote 19
The two episodes are of course distinctly removed in time from both the Gallic Sack and Livy's lifetime; but our source material is not brimming with other suitable examples of issues that arose when a magistrate in charge was absent. That said, we can be reasonably certain that these developments in the 210s b.c. were generally known in Late Republican Rome. Moreover, Livy's narrative of the Hannibalic War in Book 22 makes an explicit connection between the men appointed in 217 b.c. and the Gallic Sack of Rome. Thus, in a speech put into the mouth of Marcus Minucius Rufus that heavily criticizes the military strategy of Quintus Fabius Maximus, the latter is counterpositioned with Camillus: adopting a focus that directs the readers’ attention away from the great shame that the Gallic Sack brought upon Rome, Fabius’ passivity is directly contrasted with Camillus’ forceful resolve and action (22.14.11). In addition to this direct mention of Camillus in Minucius’ speech, Chaplin has pointed out broader similarities between the two narratives arising from the speech: the Fabius–Minucius pairing effectively recalls that of Camillus with the other great Roman hero involved in saving the Romans from the Gauls in 390 b.c.—Marcus Manlius Capitolinus; Chaplin concluded that, in his critique of Fabius, Minucius ‘resembles his villainous predecessors, Romans such as Manlius Capitolinus who arrogantly mis-apply the past’.Footnote 20 In sum, there exists a clear link between the two events in Livy's text that his contemporary audience would not have missed.
If, then, the actions of army and Senate on the Capitoline Hill in 390 b.c. are seen against the backdrop of events in the 210s b.c., they appear in a different light: the emergency that caused procedural irregularities in 390 b.c. has a (later) historical parallel. More specifically, seen through the lens of the situation in 217 b.c., the emphasis on the army's desperate looking out for Camillus to appear in Rome provides a new context in which to read the subsequent surrender and ransom agreement: the Romans on the Capitoline Hill are not just waiting for military help; the Romans on the Capitoline Hill are also mindful of due procedure. In 217 b.c. the magistrate who alone possessed the necessary powers for the nomination of the dictator was absent, and it was not possible to communicate easily by letter either. It was precisely his absence that necessitated and justified at the same time the diversion from the standard process. Similarly, in 390 b.c., having sent news to Camillus via a courier of his appointment to the dictatorship,Footnote 21 the Romans on the Capitoline Hill looked out for the dictator on a daily basis before they eventually decided to surrender and agree a ransom. If one understands Camillus’ remit as dictator to include the powers of decision over Rome's surrender and ransom price—as has been elaborated in the Introduction above—the narrative's emphasis on the long wait contextualizes the subsequent actions taken by the army and the Senate as a constitutional emergency measure in the absence of the appropriate authority. But when viewed from this angle, Senate and populus Romanus can be perceived as having struck a valid ransom agreement with the Gauls after all. Hence arises the need for Camillus’ (counter-)argument.
… AND READING LIVY
The idea that the Romans on the Capitoline Hill struck a valid ransom agreement with the Gauls is, obviously, not the view adopted by Camillus. But the episode in 210 b.c. also helps to contextualize Camillus’ subsequent insistence on his greater powers: in 210 b.c., Laevinus attempted to reassert his powers vis-à-vis the Senate thrice. First, he refused to put the matter before the People; then he prevented the urban praetor from taking his place in the process; and finally, after the election of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus to the dictatorship, Laevinus refused to appoint Flaccus to the office. It was therefore necessary for the Senate to instruct the other consul to undertake the task of appointing the dictator.Footnote 22 Laevinus’ effort at reasserting his consular powers—without success—provides a parallel for Camillus’ insistence on his dictatorial powers. But there is more here than just a (later) historical context that helps to flesh out the kind of action ascribed to Camillus in 390 b.c.
It is important at this point to call attention to the fact that Livy does not actually answer the question as to which version is correct—that of Camillus or that of the Gauls. Instead, Livy merely narrates Camillus’ constitutional challenge to the agreement with the Gauls (and the subsequent ‘solution’ to the problem, on the battlefield—which has, however, nothing to do with the constitutional argument as such); in essence, Livy puts both interpretations of the matter on show, beside one another, a technique known in ancient historiography from Herodotus onwards.Footnote 23 In his detailed study of the episode, Feldherr wrote that the Gallic contention that the agreement is binding ‘is rendered doubly invalid by Camillus’ imperium’, and that Camillus ‘is also “rewriting history” by invalidating in his own voice rival versions of the liberation of Rome’.Footnote 24 But we do not actually hear Camillus’ voice, because Camillus does not speak here; the view ascribed to him (quoted fully in the Introduction above) is narrated in the third person, not in direct speech, much like the view ascribed to the Gauls. In short, the two perspectives are narrated by the extradiegetic narrator and not by any of the actors in the narrative themselves. Moreover, the two contradictory positions on the constitutional validity of the agreement, and by implication on Camillus’ powers, are expounded without comment or verdict.
Livy's handling of the episode stands in contrast to how he deals with similar situations elsewhere in the Ab urbe condita—which helps to throw into relief what is different here. Thus, on other occasions, when reporting differing viewpoints, Livy may give the ‘answer’, that is, he may add a comment, often (but not always) in his own (first-person) voice—what Pausch has called ‘die zweite “Stimme”’ (following his identification of the narrator's voice as the ‘first voice’).Footnote 25 For instance, in his discussion of the so-called pax Caudina—the peace possibly agreed between Romans and Samnites in 321 b.c., following the spectacular entrapment of the Roman army at the Caudine Forks—Livy states unambiguously that the view expressed by Claudius Quadrigarius regarding the procedure through which the agreement was reached was wrong:Footnote 26 itaque non, ut uolgo credunt Claudiusque etiam scribit, foedere pax Caudina sed per sponsionem facta est (‘so the Caudine Peace was not made by means of a treaty, as people in general believe and as Claudius even states, but by a sponsio’, 9.5.2).Footnote 27 Similarly, in his account of the appointment of Camillus to the dictatorship, Livy first narrates that, once the messenger who brought news of Camillus’ nomination to the office to Veii had arrived, Camillus was fetched from Ardea; but he then immediately adds a different version of the developments, stating clearly that the latter version is preferable: … seu, quod magis credere libet … (‘… or rather, as is better to believe …’, 5.46.11). And we have also already seen Livy's distancing from what he reports on the occasion of his discussion of the reasons for the creation of the consular tribunate. In clear contradistinction, no such judgemental or ‘preferential’ comments are offered regarding the validity of the agreement between Gauls and Romans in 390 b.c.
Livy's narrator enjoys of course regularly the benefit of hindsight. But why, then, does the narrator—or Livy—not say which version is correct? One way of answering this question is to deny the narrator—or Livy—the kind of total knowledge that is characteristic, for instance, of the Homeric narrator, and that has also been attributed to historians, such as Herodotus.Footnote 28 In support of this view, Livy's admission, earlier in Book 5, of his own limited knowledge of matters of great antiquity could be adduced (5.21.9): viewed in this manner, Livy simply did not know which constitutional claim was valid. The fictional nature of much that is ascribed to the figure of Camillus—that is, Livy's evident lack of sound knowledge regarding the events in which Camillus plays a significant role in the Ab urbe condita—functions then more broadly to support this view.Footnote 29 But there is perhaps yet again a more meaningful way of addressing the issue, if further account is taken of recent advances in the historiographic and narratological study of the Ab urbe condita.
As Miles has emphasized in his work on Livy's early Rome, the Ab urbe condita offers a history that ‘perpetuates and interprets the collective memory on which the identity and character of the Roman people depend’.Footnote 30 And as Feldherr has highlighted in the passage quoted in the Introduction above, there is much at stake for Rome's collective memory in the way the Gallic Sack is ended. Moreover, while Camillus’ success on the battlefield against the Gauls clearly functions to liberate Rome from the Gallic invaders, the military achievement does not invalidate or undo the preceding Roman surrender.Footnote 31 If we return with all this in mind to the passage under scrutiny here, it becomes clear that, by leaving the issue over the constitutional validity of the Romans’ surrender and ransom agreement with the Gauls unresolved, Livy demands that his readers decide for themselves. This narratological tactic is clever; through it, Livy includes his readers in the ‘decision-making process’ of validating one or other version of events: if they adopt the viewpoint implicitly ascribed to the Gauls, they are forced to admit that Rome was surrendered and ransomed; if they opt for Camillus’ claim, they help liberate Rome from the Gallic invaders without damage to Rome's juridical being. In other words, it is not Camillus who ‘acts to ensure that the Romans will not “live by having been ransomed”’ (5.49.1),Footnote 32 but Livy's readers—if they choose the ‘correct’ answer regarding Camillus’ constitutional claim.Footnote 33
The role of the reader has attracted much intense discussion in recent scholarship on Livy. In his 2011 study of the narrative structures and techniques in the Ab urbe condita, Pausch has elaborated with great clarity what he calls ‘the involved reader’ (‘der involvierte Leser’) in a number of episodes.Footnote 34 In similar vein, Kraus, in her discussion of repetition and empire in the Ab urbe condita, roughly one decade earlier, had noted more broadly that, ‘(b)eyond perhaps all other genres, history needs its readers’; and, she continued:Footnote 35
Whether we regard Livy's monumentum as a treasury or a jumbled heap, it demands our attention, insists that we compare, contrast, interpret, and, above all, judge. Only the consensus of readers, following the historian's clues, can identify a given character or event as good or bad exemplum, a subject of imitation or avoidance; the sum total of such identifications establishes the narrative as an authoritative version of the past.
In the passage under discussion, precisely such ‘identification’ is encouraged and in fact demanded of the reader. But what makes our text particularly interesting for analysis of the role of the reader in our understanding of the Ab urbe condita is that Livy does not nudge the reader firmly one way or another, that is, Livy holds back on offering what Kraus calls ‘the historian's clues’, unlike on other occasions, as noted.Footnote 36 All the reader gets in the particular context of the constitutional argument is a subtle encouragement to take against the Gauls (also) on this occasion, and, by implication, to side with the view embodied by Camillus. Thus, to reiterate, at the very start of the passage under discussion, the Gauls are said to object vehemently to the request made by Camillus following his interference: cum illi renitentes … (quoted in full above).Footnote 37 The Gauls are thereby presented as the internal narratees of Camillus’ request to stop the ransom. At the same time, the external narratee, that is, Livy's Roman reader, is thus enticed to question their objection. The narratological emphasis is on the play with the negative identification, that is, Roman (external) reader vs Gallic (internal) narratee. The episode therefore constitutes a good example of the fact that narratees provide, as de Jong has put it, ‘the readers with figures to identify with or distance themselves from’.Footnote 38 But that is all. Importantly, Livy does not have recourse to the same or another narratological device (such as a comment provided by the narrator, as already shown) with regard to the actual constitutional argument that follows Camillus’ appearance and request to halt the ransom exchange.Footnote 39 Furthermore, it is in fact difficult to identify Camillus’ interference as a good exemplum,Footnote 40 as Livy's reader is reminded on a later occasion. Thus, in Book 9, Livy recalls the event, in his narrative of the above-mentioned Roman debacle at the Caudine Forks in 321 b.c., and in the voice of one of the deceived enemies of Rome, who puts Camillus’ action in line with other occasions on which Rome is depicted (by them) as having played foul (9.11.6–7):Footnote 41
nunquamne causa defiet cur uicti pacto non stetis? obsides Porsinnae dedistis; furto eos subduxistis. auro ciuitatem a Gallis redemistis; inter accipiendum aurum caesi sunt. pacem nobiscum pepigistis ut legiones uobis captas restitueremus; eam pacem inritam facitis. et semper aliquam fraudi speciem iuris imponitis.
Will there never be a reason, when you have been beaten, for you to stand by what you have agreed? You gave hostages to Porsinna—and withdrew them by a trick. You ransomed your community from the Gauls with gold—and they were cut down as they were receiving the gold. You pledged us peace, on condition that we gave you back your captured legions—and you nullify the peace. And always you give fraud some colour of legality.
As I have shown in the previous part, the decision to surrender and to agree a ransom with the Gauls on the part of those in Rome can be viewed as producing a valid outcome in an emergency situation. Here, in Book 9, the same view resurfaces more sharply by implicitly referring to Camillus’ constitutional argument even as fraud, thus raising the bar for the readers’ identification with Camillus: et semper aliquam fraudi speciem iuris imponitis. This is not the moment to elaborate on the relationship between the mentioned events.Footnote 42 But the comment in Book 9 serves to corroborate forcefully the constitutional reading of the actions by army and Senate on the Capitoline Hill in 390 b.c. put forward above. Yet, if we accept that the Roman surrender and subsequent ransom agreement with the Gauls can be understood as juridically valid actions, this means that the desire to privilege an interpretation of the text that denies the Roman surrender and ransom through Camillus’ intervention is imbued with some considerable tension.
It is of course widely agreed (as already mentioned with particular regard to Livy himself) that later historical knowledge of developments in the Early Republic was fragmentary at best, at Rome and beyond.Footnote 43 It is therefore unsurprising that the Gallic attack on Rome attracted numerous different treatments in antiquity; as Williams has put it, ‘(i)t is apparent from the extant versions that the tradition of the sack was constantly remade, and at any one time circulated in a number of different versions’.Footnote 44 Moreover, the third-century examples discussed above document plainly the fundamental difficulty over reaching clear answers to constitutional questions concerned with the powers associated with particular offices: there was regularly no easy solution to such problems. The struggle over the relationship between the executive and the judicative in reaching crucial decisions for the state that has characterized the political scene of the UK in the period in which this article has been written is a good, if painful, illustration of the kinds of challenges involved. But the tension that I have just argued for between the two viewpoints contained in the episode points towards a more particular aspect of the Late Republican reception and perception of the event: it is likely, in my view, that this tension is indicative of the fact that the issue over what happened to Rome in 390 b.c. was precisely that—an issue. In that view, the open manner in which Livy presents the constitutional disagreement to his readers in Book 5 (and of which he reminds them in Book 9) is to be understood as a reflection of the diverging views on the matter in his own day—that is, of the lack of an agreed answer.Footnote 45 The fact that Livy offers in this way ‘both’ versions to his readers regarding the constitutional fate of Rome in 390 b.c., in place of a single version in which Camillus, for instance, arrives with his army before a Roman surrender, to defeat the Gauls in battle, suggests then furthermore that the ‘rival’ version in which Rome formally—that is, legitimately—surrendered and subsequently ransomed itself was strong enough in Livy's own day that its outright suppression would not carry persuasion.Footnote 46 I show elsewhere that the constitutional argument as such was a late addition to the figure of Camillus, with a terminus post quem of 136 b.c.Footnote 47 But the particular involvement of his readers on the part of Livy in addressing the constitutional challenge only makes sense if the issue had not long been settled, for instance late in the second century b.c. or in the first half of the first century b.c., but constituted an acute and unresolved question in Livy's own days. The fact that Polybius’ narrative only featured the version in which Rome pulled the short straw and the Gauls agreed to lift the siege and to liberate Rome on conditions that were satisfactory to them means on the other hand that we can assume that the story of a Roman surrender and ransom payment gained a wide circulation in the mid to late second century, and on into the first century b.c.Footnote 48 But this means that Livy's reader was, consequently, not merely asked to wise up on their constitutional expertise, or to brush up on their historical knowledge, but, in effect, to take sides in a contemporary debate: Livy's reader was asked to judge, as Kraus has put it (quoted above)—that is, to commit to a view as to whether Camillus was right in an ongoing contemporary debate on Rome's fate in 390 b.c.
As stated, reaching a consensus is seen as the essential condition for the development of an authoritative version of the past. But the passage under discussion here, and the challenge that it poses to Livy's contemporary readers, goes beyond the past, and also beyond the question of memory and remembering per se, which have been central to Feldherr's argument about the authority behind Livy's presentation of the past, quoted earlier: an exclusive focus on the past, and on the Romans’ historical memory, fails to explain the manner in which Livy challenges his readers over Camillus’ constitutional argument. It is notable in this context that Livy's narrative of the above-discussed happenings in the Hannibalic War pertaining to Fabius and to Minucius also involves both internal and external narratees: Levene has shown that Minucius’ speech ‘strikes a chord in his listeners (22.14.15)’, concluding moreover that ‘the overlap with the Romans’ sense of their own traditional values suggests that he would strike one in Livy's readers as well.’Footnote 49 At the forefront of the Fabius–Minucius dispute is the question over the best military strategy—whether passive or aggressive: ‘the question is to determine the circumstances when it is appropriate to adopt each’; at root, the dispute is over what Levene has called ‘traditional and untraditional ways of Roman fighting’.Footnote 50 Livy's narrative thereby actively involves the reader in a matter to do with the proper Roman way of doing things. Both occasions, the Gallic Sack and the Hannibalic War, constitute watershed moments in Rome's history: they are of critical importance for the Late Republican Romans’ self-understanding, providing in turn occasion for dispute and disagreement. Leaving the Hannibalic War behind, the manner in which Livy presents the constitutional argument put forward by Camillus in 390 b.c. can, as proposed, best be explained if we see in it evidence for a contemporaneous, Late Republican discourse that attracted different opinions. This also implies, however, that any consensus on what happened in 390 b.c. could not have been based solely, or even primarily, on what Kraus has referred to as ‘the reader's recognition of familiar story patterns’.Footnote 51 Clearly, some story elements were more established than others, some more familiar to Livy's readers than others, but there were also some that lacked a sustained narrative pedigree altogether: Camillus’ constitutional argument falls into the latter group.Footnote 52 The consensus on this matter was, then, still to emerge. In historical terms, we end up with a refined chronological range for the debate on Rome's constitutional fate in 390 b.c. that generated the Camillan challenge of the mid to late first century b.c., including evidently the period of Livy's intense composition of the first few pentads of the Ab urbe condita.
CONCLUSION
To sum up. The matter under discussion here serves to illustrate how Livy has exploited a seeming technicality in order to actively involve his readers in his historiographic project: through the use of the extradiegetic narrator who does not provide concluding comment, the juridical stalemate between the Gauls and Camillus regarding the constitutional validity of the Roman surrender and ransom agreement must be addressed by the readers and irrespective of Camillus’ martial prowess that decides over the power relationship between Romans and Gauls thereafter. While Camillus orders his own men to liberate the city on the battlefield ‘with iron instead of gold’ (suos … ferroque non auro reciperare patriam iubet, 5.49.3; cf. Ennius, fr. 183–90 Skutsch), Livy challenges his readers to liberate Rome in the calm of their studies through involving them in the kind of juridical decision-making that the Senate dealt with for real for instance in 210 b.c.—a bit like a dry-run. Put differently, Livy's reader was asked to decide whether Rome was liberated in practice by brute force, on the battlefield, or whether Rome was to be seen instead as never having lost its juridical being at the hands of the Gauls in the first place. But by engaging his readers in a decision which falls into the realm of politics in its actual application—that is, the question over a magistrate's power and authority, as the example of Marcus Valerius Messalla illustrates—and which involved people in a real-life context in their political persona—that is, as the People—Livy has transformed a seemingly passive activity (that he himself deceptively claimed to help avert the gaze from contemporary politics: 1 praef. 5) into a prime tool for political socialization. Thus, by reading Livy's narrative of Camillus’ interference in the ransom exchange, and by subsequently taking sides in the debate on Camillus’ constitutional argument, Livy's readers not only take part in the making of Rome's history but also turn into participants in the actual civic discourse of the day. In brief, Livy offers ‘citizenship training’ through the study of history.
It is moreover unlikely that this activity was confined to the scholar's closet. It is easy to imagine that Livy's peers engaged in debate on the question of the constitutional validity of Camillus’ action upon the publication of the relevant parts of Livy's Ab urbe condita. It is equally easy to imagine the debate to have continued also outside the small group of Rome's predominantly male adult elite that I have tacitly privileged in the above considerations, and the ‘correct’ answer to have been transmitted beyond a narrow literary circle. In his quest for the significance of the people in the political practice of Republican Rome, Wiseman has suggested that Camillus’ sudden interference in the ransom exchange points to the performance of this episode on the stage, thus substantially enlarging the potential audience of (at least this episode told in) the Ab urbe condita.Footnote 53 Public recitations offered another space for the wider dissemination of the latest literary endeavours, including the opportunity for exchange and debate, and are documented for Rome in the period of the gestation and publication of the Ab urbe condita, including by individuals who also wrote history: the public recital of the products of Greek historians are moreover clearly attested, which enticed Dalzell to comment more broadly that ‘history was a genre which lent itself to public recital’.Footnote 54
Similarly important for civic discourse must have been monumental displays, with or without inscriptional information: as Sandberg and colleagues have recently stressed, ‘sources of historical knowledge (or, better, notions about the past) exist in altogether other forms than in the guise of records and written accounts, and even outside the medium of writing itself.’Footnote 55 Most notable, perhaps, in the period of immediate interest here, is the display of the elogia of Rome's great heroes in both the Forum Romanum and the Forum Augustum, which included Camillus.Footnote 56 These monuments offered prime space for the broader dissemination of Camillus’ great deeds, for the lively exchange between viewers of different social pedigrees, and for the instruction of male children by their fathers in the course of one or other customary ambulatio—in the latter scenario also enhancing the continued future transmission of Camillus’ deeds.Footnote 57 That these men and their elogia did indeed attract comment is demonstrated not least through their inclusion in the poetry of one of Livy's contemporaries—Ovid: Ovid imagines Mars visiting ‘his’ new forum, describing in the process the location of the inscriptions below each statue (Fast. 5.566: claraque dispositis acta subesse uiris; and see generally 5.545–98, with Mars's visit at 5.545–69).
Moreover, not only its architecture but also the visual programme of the Forum Augustum was copied elsewhere: numerous towns within and outside of Italy, including Pompeii and Arezzo, Mérida in the west of the Empire, and Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, benefitted from the creation of images or structures which resembled the Roman Forum of Augustus, or which were at least in active dialogue with it, in some cases even displaying copies of the elogia, including word-for-word copies.Footnote 58 Zanker therefore stressed the empire-wide impact of the display.Footnote 59 In short, as the example of the elogia of Rome's great heroes, displayed in Rome and elsewhere, shows, we must assume that Livy's Camillan story fell on fertile ground for discussion, debate and argument in a multitude of fora, material and intellectual.Footnote 60 But by whatever means Livy's narrative of Camillus’ constitutional argument entered those fora, the participants in the debate about it not only took part in the making of Rome's history by playing their role in the establishment of a consensus on a past matter, but also contributed in the process to the actual civic discourse of the day. If this view is accepted, this means that the constitutional issue emerges as a living component of the then current civic debate.Footnote 61
What has been suggested above, and in this article throughout, means of course also that Camillus’ constitutional argument must in effect have functioned to polarize Livy's contemporary audience, with some preferring to stick to the version displayed, for instance, in Polybius’ history, which saw the Romans defeated without any last-minute rescue, and others accepting the newer variant that denied the surrender and ransom exchange on juridical grounds.Footnote 62 In consequence, the seemingly harmless ancient fairy-tale of Camillus’ heroic rescue of Rome would have given rise to active exchange and disagreement on what was in fact a critical political matter. In his comparative study of the Augustan elogia and Livy's text, Luce has long noted that there were noticeable discrepancies between the Livian Camillus and the Augustan one; and, he concludes:Footnote 63
The elogia […] pursue an independent course in the information they provide about the summi viri, disagreeing not only with Livy, but on some points with all other sources that survive. The disagreements with Livy, however, are curiously many, especially when we consider that the elogia for the most part select for mention the highlights of the careers of famous men: doubly curious given that most elogia are very fragmentary and given how brief the few are that survive complete, or nearly complete; triply so, given the fame that Livy's history enjoyed. The suspicion arises that on particular points the elogia may have deliberately been making correctives or ripostes to Livy's version of events […]
Whatever Augustus may have intended with the creation of his Forum, dispute among viewers of the elogia who knew their Livy was, plainly, predictable. But a similar potential for disagreement was, I have argued, already contained in Livy's own œuvre, by design, regarding Camillus’ argument about his powers as dictator. By so doing, Livy channelled—seemingly oddly—attention towards the constitutional dimension of the episode, despite the subsequent solution to the power struggle between the Gauls and Rome on the battlefield: why the constitutional fate of Rome in 390 b.c. mattered so much in the age of revolution that it gained centre-stage in Livy's text is, then, the real conundrum of the story, especially at a time when Rome had successfully subjected its most feared enemies, from the Gauls to the Carthaginians.Footnote 64 For now, suffice it to acknowledge that Livy's narrative of Camillus’ challenge to the Roman surrender and ransom agreement is a relic of a political culture of open public exchange and disagreement that was about to be lost forever at Rome—irrespective of whether Camillus was right or not.
