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Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the
Roman Republic
Restraint, Conflict, and
the Fall of the Roman
Republic
PAU L B E L O N IC K
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Belonick, Paul, author.
Title: Restraint, conflict, and the fall of the Roman Republic /
Paul Belonick.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022027476 (print) | LCCN 2022027477 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197662663 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197662687 (epub) |
ISBN 9780197662694
Subjects: LCSH: Rome—Politics and government—265-30 B.C. |
Social values—Rome. | Political culture—Rome. | Moderation. | Self-control.
Classification: LCC DG254 .B45 2023 (print) | LCC DG254 (ebook) |
DDC 937/.02—dc23/eng/20220701
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022027476
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022027477
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197662663.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
PA RT I : VA LU E S , T E R M S , A N D PAT T E R N S
1. Shame, Respect, and Deference 15

2. Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia 37
3. Setting Norms 51
PA RT I I : R E ST R A I N T, C O N F L IC T, A N D C O L L A P SE
4. Tiberius Gracchus 83
5. Uncertainty 102
6. Cataclysm 121
7. The Lost Generation of the Republic 137
8. Restraint as Accelerator 168
Epilogue 187
Bibliography 197
Index 221
Acknowledgments
This book is based on the PhD dissertation I completed under E.A. Meyer at the
University of Virginia, to whom I owe an incalculable debt. The project began
in 2011 at a lunch where we thought about possible topics. “We know that com-
petition makes the Roman Republic go, like a car,” I recall her saying, “but what
makes the car brake, or at least stay on the road so long?” I hope this book helps
us find an answer. I cannot adequately express my appreciation for her guidance
and pedagogy over these many years.
Special thanks go to Prof. J.E. Lendon, whose wonderful support and advice
have also spanned these many years, and who formed and shaped early drafts of
this work in the proverbial refiner’s fire. I am particularly grateful to Prof. A.J.
Woodman, who shared his renowned expertise on Roman rhetoric and histor-
ical sourcing, and whose incisive comments and suggestions for improvement
sharpened the book’s arguments immeasurably. Gratitude is also due to the rest
of my dissertation committee, Profs. J. Crawford, J. Dillery, and C. McCurdy,
whose assistance I treasure. All errors remain, of course, my own.
None of this would be possible without my undergraduate professors, Profs.
C. Rubino and B. Gold at Hamilton College, who first taught me Latin and Greek
and the love of the classics. I am forever indebted to them. I am also grateful for
the support of my family and many friends, who have understood and endured
the time and work that this study has taken.
Finally, and most deeply, to my wife, who made this book possible. She will-
ingly took on extra time to look after our small boys or to finish tasks while
I raced to the library or typed late into the night, all while handling an enor-
mously busy schedule of her own. In return, she gave me only ever more encour-
agement. I cannot have done this without her patience and love.
Introduction
In June 43 BC, an anxious Cicero wrote to his friend Brutus. Julius Caesar was
dead at Brutus’ hand, but civil war continued, while an “internal disease” in
the Republic “grew more severe daily.” Young Octavian—the future Emperor
Augustus, by now styling himself “Caesar” after his assassinated great-uncle—
seemed prey to a frightening desire for power, and the city was restive. And so
Cicero feared for the Republic: it should have been immortal, he lamented, but
was not, because nothing inhibited insolent would-be despots from demanding
as much as they had the power to take:
Neither reason (ratio), nor moderation (modus), nor law (lex), nor custom
(mos), nor duty has any strength, nor do the judgment and esteem of the citi-
zenry (existimatio civium), nor shame (verecundia) at what posterity will think.
To Cicero, these forces of restraint normally prevented ambitious men from

disrupting the state. In his eyes, they were failing, and res publica with them.1
Some decades later, Livy portrayed the abuses of the last Roman king, Tarquin
the Proud. According to the legend, Tarquin had his predecessor, King Servius
Tullius, assassinated, while mocking him as the son of a slave then denying him
proper burial. Tarquin put to death eminent senators who grew too popular, and
refused to appoint replacements so that, as Livy put it, the Senate “might be-
come more contemptible for its very smallness, and then less indignant at being
ignored.” He broke the tradition of taking the advice of the Senate and made
treaties without collaborating with either the Senate or the People. He tried all
legal cases without advice and judged as he pleased so he could steal the accused’s
goods. His own children could not tolerate his superbia—his arrogance toward
others. Resistance to him ignited into revolution.2
The extent to which Livy related any history here or just pure folktale is hotly
debated, but at all events the portrait demonstrated that a good republican
Roman must be what the Tarquin of fable was not—and Tarquin’s traits were the
1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.1: ingravescit enim in dies intestinum malum, 1.10.3: non ratio non modus non
lex non mos non officium valet non iudicium non existimatio civium non posteritatis verecundia,
1.10.5.
2 Livy 1.48, 1.49.5, 1.49.6: quo contemptior paucitate ipsa ordo esset, minusque per se nihil agi
indignarentur, 1.49.7, 1.54.1. Cf. Cic. de Rep. 2.45; Dio 2.10.1 (Zon. 7.9).
Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press
2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197662663.003.0001
2 Introduction
precise inverse of Cicero’s list to Brutus. Tarquin displayed no respect for custom,
no moderation, no shame. His contempt for Senate and citizenry lacked care for
the opinion of others or respect for his office. His refusal to show deference to
senators and commons alike was intemperate. He lacked any self-control and
dripped avarice. His own posterity hated his arrogance. His sobriquet said it all.3
One hundred and sixty years after Livy, the Alexandrian historian Appian
wrote of Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s bloody march on Rome against his coun-
trymen in 88 BC to “free her,” in Sulla’s reasoning, “from tyrants.” Although
rivalries had long been common in the Republic, there had never been such
widespread and sickening violence as that which followed. Why this time?
Appian answered: “There was no longer restraint on violence either from a sense
of shame, or from the laws, or from civil institutions, or from love of country.”
Elsewhere he added “reputation,” and “respect for office-holding status” to the
list of absent values that led to discord and murder—items parallel to Cicero’s
“opinion of the citizenry” and to deference.4
The commonality of these opinions is not surprising to anyone familiar with
the ancient sources on the Roman Republic, both Greek and Roman, contem-
porary and late, and particularly those writing in or about its well-documented
last century. The sources are filled with endless worry about failing “morals” and
lost self-control, moderation, modesty, temperance, and shame. Separated by
decades or centuries, and describing times even more diverse, myriad authors
shared a common theory: a functional Republic required citizens who displayed
vigilant personal self-control, moderation, and deference to others.
This ubiquitous commonality, however, calls for explanation, particularly be-
cause self-restraint is the seeming opposite of another fundamental cultural fea-
ture of the Roman Republic: keen self-advancement. Historians now generally
accept that Roman ascendance was attributable to the uncommonly ravenous
competitiveness of the Roman aristocracy—those few members of Roman so-
ciety whose families achieved high offices and military commands—with their
enemies, ancestors, and among themselves. From early youth a Roman noble
boy was taught to be the best of all his peers and better than his forbears. The
walls of his home displayed the wax funeral masks of his relatives and the spoils
of their victories, labeled with their magnificent deeds, while he was exhorted at
funerals to surpass the dead man’s achievements. The climax of the competition
for self-promotion was the triumph, in which a victorious commander dressed
as Jupiter—a god for a day. Empire flowed from this competition as Roman elites
3
Cf. Dunkel (1971) 19; Hammar (2013) 166.
4
App. B.C. 1.4.33: οὐδένα ἔτι ὠφελούσης οὔτε ἐλευθερίας οὔτε δημοκρατίας οὔτε νόμων οὔτε
ἀξιώσεως οὔτε ἀρχῆς, 1.7.57: ἐλευθερώσων αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τυραννούντων, 1.7.60: οὐδενὸς ἔτι ἐς
αἰδῶ τοῖς βιαζομένοις ἐμποδὼν ὄντος, ἢ νόμων ἢ πολιτείας ἢ πατρίδος.
Introduction 3
sought to win dignitas (“standing” or “esteem”) and high electoral offices through
successful conquests in Italy, then the Mediterranean, then beyond.5
Modern historians, particularly in the last few decades, have modeled this
competition’s interplay with Roman culture and politics. Power in ancient Rome,
as scholars now realize, was not so much a matter of “institutions” or “structures”
as it was a more fluid, semiformal social arrangement, a kind of “performative-
competitive politics” mediated through acts of public display, ceremonies, and
spectacles that placed rulers and ruled into a framework of reciprocal relations
through shared symbolic practices and public exchanges of praise and votes.
Aristocrats held power and influence because they competed to win public
symbolic capital— victories, reputation, offices, family histories— possession
of which gave them the traditional right to control the government, which
gave them further symbolic capital. The formal structures and offices of the
Republic, too, were shored up by performative-competitive, symbolic cultural
features: aristocrats contending for office in public speeches, canvassing about
with visibly large crowds of clients in their wake, and so on. Competition also
helps explain the Republic’s governing structures (e.g., its hierarchies of offices),
its rigid social stratifications, and even the aristocracy’s interactions with the
common People, who participated in the performative-competitive Roman po-
litical system by judging the competition among the elite with their votes, cheers,
or hisses.6
What role could that ubiquitous commonality of self-restraint play in such a
competitive framework? Unfortunately, modern analyses are still lacking, largely
because modern historians have been (correctly) chary of swallowing whole the
Romans’ own thesis that their society collapsed because of lost “morals.” That
concern long made it unfashionable (at best) to suggest that Roman politics and
Roman plaints over “morality” had much to do with each other. Accordingly,
scholars of Rome saw those ubiquitous references to self-restraint as a mere lit-
erary trope, rhetorical platitude, or philosophical nicety, “a tedious common-
place, whose literary history may be traced by the zealous but whose frequent
5 Polyb. 6.53; Sall. B.J. 1.4.5–6; Pliny, N.H. 35.6; Flaig (1993) 199–200; Wiseman (1994) 98–102;
Flower (1996); Beard (2003); Hölkeskamp (2010) 112–115; Covino (2011) 74; Mouritsen (2017) 96–
104; Beck (2018).
6 The literature on performative politics has ballooned since the mid-1990s, and now generally
analyzes the People’s key role in it as well: e.g., Bernstein (1978) 195; Millar (1984) 10–14; Develin
(1985) 55, (2005); Rosenstein (1990) 154, (2006); Flaig (1993), (1995); Lintott (1994) 10–15, 45–
46; Meier (1995) 12; Hölkeskamp (1993), (2006) 364, (2009) 8–9, (2010) 1–5, 16, 56–60, 109–124,
(2011a) 162, (2011b) 26–30, (2013); David (2000) 29–30; Martin (2002) 167–171; Sumi (2005); Jehne
(2005); Patterson (2006) 346–350; McDonnell (2006) 185–195; Pittinger (2008); Wiseman (2009);
Lundgreen (2011) 260; Morstein-Marx (2011) 272; Steel (2013) 42–46, 51–53; Hammar (2013) 87–
92; Flower (2014); Harris (2016) 37–40; Gruen (2017) 559; Yakobson (2006), (2017), (2018); Rosillo-
López (2017); Tiersch (2018) 39. On the theory of social capital see Bourdieu (1991) 192, (1993b)
162–163.
4 Introduction
recurrence requires no real explanation.”7 The unhappy effect has been largely to
jettison “morals” from comprehensive analyses of Roman culture, history, and
politics.
Nearly thirty years ago, Catherine Edwards rightly challenged that view,
arguing that aristocratic attacks on the perceived immorality or prodigality of
other aristocrats were a social marker, “implicated in defining what it meant
to be a member of the Roman elite, in excluding outsiders from this powerful
and privileged group and in controlling insiders,” with perhaps some small ad-
ditional practical benefits of enforcing hierarchy and discouraging elites from
losing their status by frittering away their means.8 Some historians have since
taken the thought further, arguing that moralizing was an “arbitrary” way for the
elite to justify its privileged social position and to seem grave and “responsible.”9
In time, aspects of Roman self-control have come under expanded inquiry, in-
cluding fine semantic and single-word lexicographical studies on concepts such
as shame, virtus, and frugalitas. And, in a refreshing trend, scholars have also
recently begun investigating how social values were expected to exercise real
power in Rome, especially through oratory.10
Still, despite much good work, the advances since Edwards’ efforts that scholars
have made in modeling the performative-competitive system invite us to com-
bine these trends and to update and rethink holistically what work the range of
concepts relating to self-control did in Roman society, why the Romans seemed
so paradoxically obsessed with self-restraint within a competitive schema, how
self-control interlocked with aristocratic competition and with other aspects of
Roman performative politics, and what difference it made to their history. This
book aims to make three contributions on these lines.
First, to show how Rome’s political structures and its performative politics
were deeply shaped by values of self-restraint. Performative competition alone
cannot fully describe the Republic’s operation. The society would have collapsed
into fratricidal chaos almost immediately if everything were nothing but con-
stant war of all against all. The development of the republican system of lim-
ited, iterative, and collegial elective office-holding was a partial salve to chaos.
Indeed, we can conceive of the Republic as a system that organized the com-
petition for the distribution of honors, allocating competitive offices and other
7 Edwards (1993) 176, citing numerous scholarly examples. Cf. Henry (1937) 27– 28; Pelling
(1995) 206; Wallace-Hadrill (2008) 319.
8 Edwards (1993) 11–12, 138, 175–180.
9 David (2000) 23; Hölkeskamp (2006), (2017); Reay (2005) 352; Hammar (2013) 109. On the
cultural “arbitrary,” an intrinsically valueless thing that acts as a valued social marker, see Bourdieu
and Passeron (1977) 8; Edwards (1993) 4, 26.
10 E.g., Burck (1951) 167–174; Hellegouarc’h (1963); Dieter (1967); d’Agostino (1969); Viparelli
Santangelo (1976); Militerni Della Morte (1980); Moore (1989); Scheidle (1993); Lintott (1994) 49;
Perruchio (2005); Kaster (1999), (2005); Thomas (2007); Tatum (2011); Hammar (2013); Balmaceda
(2017); Vervaet (2017); David (2017); Roller (2018); Gildenhard and Viglietti (2020).
Introduction 5
prizes according to an electoral process based on generally acknowledged merit,

which was usually determined by an admixture of military success, wealth hon-
estly gained, family history, and speaking ability. The system also gave the People
a consistent stake in its operation, which lent it stability, as did the shared perfor-
mative and symbolic cultural features just mentioned.
Even so, the republican system was no cure-all: it was ad hoc, unwritten, sub-
ject to formalized legislative rules only astoundingly late in its progression, and
riddled with unpredictable accretions and exceptions, while its connection to
performative power placed it in constant danger from the Roman competitive-
ness entangled with it. The Romans were habitually anxious that a single man
might—even by genuinely exceptional merit—raise himself so far above his
fellows as to deprive everyone else of their chances at glory. Naturally, too, ambi-
tious individuals might “cheat” to win, while excessive rivalry and personal feuds
could disrupt the system as well. And in the end, of course, the system and its
structures failed utterly to contain the competition as the Republic devolved into
civil wars.11
Nevertheless, in the face of these omnipresent dangers, the Romans man-
aged to run a Republic for more than four hundred and fifty years. What kept the
system cohesive, and for so long? Why, at last, did this finely tuned social struc-
ture collapse, and why did that collapse come when it did? Even as our modeling
of the performative-competitive system has improved, these questions remain
stubbornly unanswered. Something is still missing from the performative-
competitive analytical models.12
This book argues that a set of Roman values of self-control provides vital
missing pieces to those questions, and, by bringing those missing pieces into
the analytical fold, bolsters the modern models. A vast array of ancient Roman
authors used words such as pudor, verecundia, existimatio, modus, moderatio,
modestia, and temperantia (and many adjacent concepts) with uncanny fre-
quency to express moderating values of self-control. Greek historians noticed
these values at work in Roman society as well, and used words such as αἰδώς,
δόξα, μετριότης, ἐπιείκεια, εὐταξία, and σωφροσύνη to approximate the Roman
concepts.13 Most important, even when the ancient authors did not overtly
use the words themselves, the mindsets and actions that the words expressed
appeared regularly in the authors’ descriptions of historical events and of their
subjects’ patterns of behavior.
I will call these concepts and patterns of behavior collectively “restraint
values” or “restraint norms,” which made up a restraint-permeated habitus, in
11 Cf. Beck (2016).

12 Cf. Morstein-Marx and Rosenstein (2006) 634–635; Mouritsen (2017) 105.
13 TLL 8 1205, 1220–1221; V,2 Fasc. X 1512; X,2 Fasc. XVI 2492. On the Greek terms see North
(1966); Cairns (1993); Rademaker (2005).

6 Introduction
the sense of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu: an immersive social context, presumed

to be self-evidently correct and that becomes unconscious second nature, that
deeply valued self-control, and that affected how Roman men thought and acted.
Together, I argue, these restraint values and their habitus were moderating social
factors that acted as meta-rules for running the republican competition, permit-
ting the system to continue along intelligible lines, and legitimizing competitive
self-assertion and claims to power.14
As such, Roman restraint values were more than just “arbitrary” social markers
of the elite in-group and were not mere personal ethical values or empty rhetoric.
Rather, one of this book’s central contentions is that restraint values had posi-
tive political content that the Romans believed requisite to res publica’s health.
Such values were prized because they undergirded and regulated the peculiar,
unwritten republican system and its semiformal structures. Without restraint,
dignitas (whence came power and influence) was considered overbearing and
unjust, even if given by law or election. Restraint therefore validated power in
the fluid republican framework. Moreover, the values encouraged respect for the
competition’s validity and helped to inform everyone how to compete and act,
and to whom to defer and whom to obey. The values aided Roman aristocrats’
understanding of the system’s rules, and created a sense of cohesion among the
aristocracy and People when acknowledging the “winners” in the competition,
which also legitimized the competitive “game.” And because the republican
system was so interlaced with performative symbolism, Roman men were ex-
pected to display the values publicly, and did so—sometimes spectacularly—
even competing in exhibiting them, for which they were duly rewarded by both
peers and the common People (who also expected their rulers to display these
values) with praise and electoral success. Hence, the symbolic capital that men
gained in the competition by display of the values advanced the kind of men
willing and able to maintain the system.15
Accordingly, the values did not curb competition entirely, but regulated it: if
everyone understood and followed constraining rules, the ruling elite could the-
oretically keep competing among themselves and passing around honors and
offices indefinitely with reasonable assurance that relative merit—and not vio-
lence, bribery, or other undesirable methods—would determine to whom the
prizes would be acceptably distributed. The competition would therefore have
meaning; in that sense, restraint complemented competition, and thus legiti-
mized the exercise of republican power.
14 Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) 8; Bourdieu (1993b) 5; Lundgreen (2011) 34. For norms as un-
written behavioral expectations, see Bruhns (2017); Humm (2017) 301–302; Lundgreen (2017) 18;
Roller (2018) 8 n.10.
15 Cf. Millar (1986) 4; Hölkeskamp (2006), (2014b) 44, (2017); Morstein-Marx (2011) 272; van
Wees (2011) 3; Hurlet (2012) 27–32, 38.

Introduction 7
To be clear: this is not to say that there was ever some golden age of “moral”
self-control. Romans, being human, always had disagreements, sometimes
strident, throughout the Republic’s history. Behavioral norms were constantly
contested, as we will see. But that process of contestation does not mean that nor-
mative behavior was nonexistent, or not respected. Rather, contestation could
strengthen norms as disputes over proper behavior were resolved, the actors
praised or punished, and the contested incident commemorated for consump-
tion by the peer group and their descendants. Thus, for much of the republican
period, and particularly after the aristocracy formed in the late 300s into what
has been called the “new nobility,” the norms congealed through contestation,
waxing rather than (as later Romans supposed) ever-waning, until by the third
and into the second century BC the habitus settled reasonably well into place,
and a critical mass of aristocrats was generally capable of managing by consensus
and norms the tension between self-advancement and self-restraint, and of
containing would-be miscreants nonviolently through restraint mechanisms.16
In sum, norms of personal self-restraint were a sine qua non of the perfor-
mative Roman political system–cum–aristocratic competition. That—and not
the values’ role in elite self-definition alone or as literary niceties or oratorical
commonplaces—explains why the Romans were so preoccupied with them. In
this way this study unifies analytical models of performative competition for
personal self-advancement with the Republic’s endless harping on personal
self-restraint.
The book’s second contribution is to apply restraint to the arc of Roman his-
tory through several focused analyses and sustained historical narratives. This
method reveals how restraint influenced specific social contexts and long trends
within which individuals made their decisions, and brings new insights to
much-examined cases. Most important, it follows the primary (if not sole) so-
cial perspective—“Is this actor properly restrained or not?”—through which the
Romans themselves judged action, and thus sensitizes us to their own decision-
making and reactions to events in real time (what Karl-Joachin Hölkeskamp has
invited as a study of historical “microprocesses”). Hence, the values will take
their proper place as historical causal forces in their own right.17
The third contribution is to combine these observations into the book’s main
thesis: that restraint norms were central to the Republic’s disintegration—but
not in some crude linear deterioration from good mores to evil, as so many late,
moralizing Roman authors imagined. Rather, because restraint norms were
16 Cf. Morstein-Marx and Rosenstein (2006) 634–635; Lundgreen (2011) 14, 23–24, 118, 279,
282–284, 302; Passet (2020) 192.

17 Cf. Earl (1967) 17; Corbeill (1996) 24; Wallace-Hadrill (1997) 9: the “main, indeed the only,
Roman theory of the fall of the Republic is, in our terms, a cultural one: of the corruption of mores”;
Jehne (2009) 12–15; Hammar (2013) 180; Hölkeskamp (2014b) 43–44.
8 Introduction
principles integral to the competitive system, they became corrosive flashpoints

of conflict when, in time and in shifting contexts, they came up for hot debate.
The process was fourfold: (1) Just as noble Roman boys had “be the best”
drummed into their heads from birth, so too countless exempla, speeches,
poems, plays, and other lessons also conditioned into them the principle that
self-restraint, deference, and consensus were self-evidently correct behavior
indispensable to the prime directive of maintaining legitimate republican gov-
ernance. The restraint values, though, were behavioral norms, and could never
be more than outlined, passed down more through general exempla and such
than through systematic definition.18 (2) Because the restraints were nor-
matively forceful but unavoidably subject to dispute, serious conflicts arose
about their practice in novel circumstances as the Republic moved through
time. The Romans attempted to use restraint norms to determine winners in
these conflicts and to delineate legitimate exercises of power. (3) Such conflicts
about normative behavior required judges to mediate them, judges who—self-
referentially—needed to be seen by the disputants as normatively acceptable for
their judgments to merit deference. The very judges of normative behavior, how-
ever, became in time normatively questionable figures amid the conflicts. (4) At
which point, as a series of factors converged (described in Chapters 4 and 5),
the conflicts became unjudgable and intractable. But because the Romans had
tightly linked “proper” restraint with legitimate participation in the republican
competition, the unresolved turmoil in restraint led to turmoil in political legit-
imacy, while the nobility’s conditioning kindled ever hotter emotion at intrac-
table perceived deviance. That turmoil and emotion led to increasing mistrust
that “regular” republican institutions were sufficient to contain illegitimate
“deviants,” compromise with “deviants” being imagined as treason to the prime
directive, dehumanization, and then violence, until the normally restrained re-
publican competition turned into unrestrained conflict.
In short, the Roman aristocratic consensus was formed and then cracked
along axes of personal self-restraint. Not because the norms were objectively
forsaken (as a forlorn Cicero or Sallust or Livy might interpret events), or be-
cause aristocrats collectively defied their conditioning, but ironically because the
values remained to the very end of the Republic normatively desirable, essential
to the competition, and emotionally gripping. We will see not a neat dichotomy
of restrained and unrestrained persons—the former looking on aghast as the
latter destroyed the Republic—but rather a tangle of arguments, with a surfeit
18 Cf. Lundgreen (2017) 20, 27; Badel (2017) 551–552. On aristocratic education and the forma-
tion of a habitus, see Eyre (1963) 47–48; Bonner (1977); Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) 8; Wiseman
(1989), (2000); Harker et al. (1990) 16; Bourdieu (1993b) 5; Habinek (1998); Corbeill (2001) 263-266,
(2007); Flaig (2003); Forsythe (2005) 294–295; Billows (2009) 35; Gildenhard (2010); Lundgreen
(2011) 33–34; Scholz (2011); Roller (2018) 9.
Introduction 9
of emotion. Opponents all claimed themselves as restrained (which explains

the values’ omnipresence in the sources) even as divided audiences became ever
more unable to form a normatively acceptable critical mass able to adjudicate
contested behavior conclusively or to cow “bad” actors into submission (which
explains the sources’ persistent, if always one-sided, lamenting that “morals” had
become lost). As restraint came into impassioned dispute, it weakened determin-
ations of republican legitimacy tied to it and also the guiding meta-rules within
the performative-competitive system, and begat violence against competitors
perceived as desecrating normative principles believed indispensable to the
Republic’s well-being—competitors who thus became mortal enemies to be
eradicated.19
The book is divided into two parts. Part I, “Values, Terms, and Patterns,”
sets the baseline, exploring the restraint values in three chapters. Chapter 1,
“Shame, Respect, and Deference,” describes the norm of deference, not merely
to superiors, but to peers, colleagues, and groups of peers; a deference under-
girded by social conventions of shame and care for one’s reputation that could
act more strongly on an aristocrat even than military necessity or threat of force.
Chapter 2, “Moderatio, Modestia, and Temperantia,” examines “moderation” and
“temperance.” A principal argument is that the same values meant to restrain a
man against luxury and lust were also meant to restrain him in relations with
peers and in government, with no alteration in social operation. That point helps
to explain the ancient sources’ constant carping about the evils of “luxury.” The
first two chapters together conclude that this cluster of restraint values was gen-
erally agreed upon and followed, that Roman aristocrats competed in their prac-
tice, and that the values supported the republican system. Both of these chapters
primarily use the works of later ancient historians (filled out with contemporary
sources where available), for the simple reason that such writers provide the ful-
lest picture of how these restraint values were ideally to operate.
Chapter 3, “Setting Norms,” addresses the objection that restraint in the late
historians—almost none of whom wrote during the Republic’s lifetime—was
little more than literary license, retrojection, regurgitated Greek philosophy, or
pure nostalgia. The chapter serves three functions: first, to attempt (given the
paucity of contemporary evidence from early times) to place the restraint values
into Rome’s republican past by using exclusively sources and fragments contem-
porary with the action; second, to postulate the restraint norms’ provenance
and path until the last half of the second century BC; and third, to situate the
observations of the first two chapters into modern scholarly models of how the
Republic functioned.
19 Cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1997) 11; Hölkeskamp (2006) 383, (2014b) 45.

10 Introduction
Part II then follows the values through “Restraint, Conflict, and Collapse.”
Chapter 4 re-examines the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus in the light of the re-
straint norms, showing how Gracchus’ quarrel with his colleague and Gracchus’
murder were, paradoxically, products of the restraint values and set in motion
long-term changes to the values’ operation. Chapter 5, “Uncertainty,” shows how
the restraint values became highly disputed in the following decades, particularly
with respect to the Senate’s and People’s traditional roles as judges of normative
behavior, and how the contests ushered in hitherto unknown levels of violence.
Chapter 6, “Cataclysm,” locates within that unstable long trend the clash between
Marius and Sulla, which deeply sapped normative behavior’s ability ever after-
wards to set reliable expectations for peaceable inter-peer relations.
Chapter 7, “The Lost Generation of the Republic,”20 follows the actors of the
60s to the 40s bc, who inherited a veneer of structural integrity that concealed
highly confused understandings of normative behavior, expressed in a vast array
of approaches to restraint. This volatile social context shaped the generation’s
decision-making and emotions and heightened their conflicts, rendering them
helpless to resolve peaceably amongst themselves what shame, moderation, and
consensus should mean, even as they clung to the profound conviction that these
values must somehow be upheld for the sake of the Republic. Finally, Chapter 8,
“Restraint as Accelerator,” assesses in a close reading how in the final crisis of
50–49 BC all the major players were driven by irreconcilable visions of restraint-
based legitimacy, for which no body of peers or the People themselves could pro-
vide a definitive, acceptable verdict. The violence that followed at last snuffed
out the republican system. A short epilogue touches on restraint in Augustus’
“restored” polity, and concludes.
Two last points before we begin. First, because this book argues that the habitus
of restraint had causal power, we will encounter the age-old problem of reading
motivations from ancient sources. Of course, we cannot peer into the mind of
any given ancient individual to see what he “really” believed about restraint or
the extent to which it was driving his actions. It may be tempting, too, to see re-
straint values as “just” rhetoric or propaganda glossing over the Republic’s “real”
social or economic issues.
But the constant repetition of restraint values should suggest that they had
a general behavioral effect on Roman society—as though the Romans collec-
tively and constantly talked about restraint without anyone ever believing a
single word of it or acting on it. Rather, the way people speak and think about
a problem can, in fact, drive decision-making, and can be studied. Rhetoric
and propaganda are themselves historical and cultural forces that shape human
reactions to circumstances—often, for instance, sharpening generalized social or
20 The title, of course, points to and challenges Erich Gruen’s famous (1974).
Introduction 11
economic discontent into violent anger at specific human targets. They are also
historical and cultural data that tell us what a particular culture cares enough
about to get enraged over.
More so, the magnitude, consistency, and timing of shifts in norms relative
to social and political changes, as well as much primary evidence that directly
connects norms to decisions, will strongly suggest that restraint norms repeat-
edly prompted action. We will see material and economic developments es-
pecially shaped through the habitus of restraint. We will also see quick, vivid
physical actions and reactions in line with restraint, which also imply true inter-
nalization. Some Romans, too, surely fell into the cognitive bias of believing in
restraint when it was personally useful; the human mind, after all, is exquisitely
adept at holding fervent beliefs that happen to support what it wants. But the
use of restraint as a viable strategy to support one’s desires only shows that even
if some people enacted restraint while secretly completely disbelieving in it or
having some other motives, they evidently expected that their audience believed
in it and would justify them on that basis—which also shows a baseline power
of the norms and, simultaneously, contestation over them. So even if we cannot
perfectly know what motivated a given person in a given instant, we still can,
taking the evidence as a whole, trace restraint’s path through group cohesion and
then crackup, and reveal restraint as a causal force. The direction of causation
between changes to restraint norms and social, economic, and political forces
will be multivariate, of course, and I will expressly argue that restraint and social
change acted as feedback loops on each other.
Finally, it has been wisely said that “most of us can only follow one or two
threads of the web; which is reasonable and useful, provided we do not claim
that we have found the answer” or suggest that our thread is the “only one that
matters.”21 This study aims to follow a particular thread of some critical social
restraints on aristocratic competition through the Romans’ history, not to create
an exhaustive list of every possible restraining impulse that the Roman aristoc-
racy used. Some restraints, like law, require their own comprehensive studies and
can be touched on only lightly here. Nor will I pretend that the Republic’s opera-
tion and dissolution hinged on one monocausal factor alone. Rather, I will show
how the habitus of restraint intersected with numerous other historical trends,
forces, and even accidents that shaped Republican history. All the same, I will
intentionally keep a tight focus on the thread of restraint to illuminate primarily
this long-inadequately understood factor in Roman politics and culture. To the
extent that the inquiry adds something to other threads and questions, though,
I hope it is in a “reasonable and useful” way.
21 Badian (1972b) 55.

PART I
VALUE S, T E R MS, A N D PAT T E R NS
Part I explores how the Romans conceived of, used, and passed on restraint
values such as deference, moderation, and temperance, and shows how the
values were political norms that supported and legitimized the Romans’ pecu-
liar semiformal performative system of governance. Part I also addresses the ob-
jection that the values were nothing but rhetorical tropes or idealized nostalgia,
showing instead in Chapter 3 using evidence contemporary with the action how
the restraint values settled into behavioral norms over time until they became
by the end of the second century bc part of the Romans’ unconscious habitus,
which also explains the values’ omnipresence in the historical sources. The Part
concludes by placing the values into modern historical models of the Republic’s
functions, illustrating the values’ integral role in the Romans’ social dynamics
and republican structures and institutions.
1
Shame, Respect, and Deference
Cicero and Appian believed that “the judgment and opinion of the citizenry,” re-
spect for “office-holding status,” “shame,” and “reputation” should have restrained
men from committing evil against the commonwealth—but were failing.1 How
did these values constrain the Roman aristocratic competition?
First, office-holding status and reputation created social hierarchy, and the
Romans expected everyone to defer to their betters. That is an unoriginal obser-
vation, of course. Far more important, the Roman nobility also expected peers,
and especially colleagues in office, to cede to each other in an exercise of mu-
tual deference—even though peers and colleagues were also natural rivals in
competition.
The significance of this restraint value of deference to peer and colleague can
scarcely be overstated. Roman aristocrats are repeatedly portrayed in the ancient
sources exhibiting a conviction that mutual accord—and not antagonistic checks
and balances—defined the ideal collegial or interpeer relationship.2 A willful
aristocrat could especially be overborne by a display of solidarity of a group of
peers or colleagues, and particularly when the Senate, the greatest conglomerate
of dignified men, acted in concert. Indeed, a collection of peers could pressure
a Roman aristocrat even more than fear of enemies, physical force, or threat of
death. This norm of deference was closely tied to inhibitory emotions to which
the Romans gave the names pudor and verecundia, a “sense of shame,” whence
came “respect” for others, which were in turn related to the concern a Roman
had for his existimatio, his “sense of worth” in the eyes of others. Additionally, the
rewards or punishments respectively associated with proper deference or with
shameless disregard for the “judgment and opinion” of one’s fellows cemented
the values’ symbolic capital.
Of course, these restraint values might occasionally become contested and
fraught. Navigating the tension between expected self-restraint and expected
self-advancement was inherently difficult. It could be painful for an ambitious
Roman aristocrat to submit to others. But Roman aristocrats in our sources regu-
larly appealed to these deferential values as the primary means to settle disputes,
1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3; App. B.C. 1.4.33.

2 Cf. Eckstein (1987) 324, contra are Levick (1982a) 57 and Lowrie (2010) 178 who saw only check
and balance.
Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. Paul Belonick, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press
2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197662663.003.0002
16 Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the Roman Republic
which shows both the values’ significance and the Romans’ deeply held assump-
tion that the values would work.
And to what end? Ultimately, the restraint of deference underlay the cohe-
sive functioning of republican power. The aristocracy gave influence to those
who judiciously combined restraint and self- assertion. Pure advancement
without restraint could not be a fully justified or legitimate “win,” but would
be superbia, which would lessen dignitas and influence. The aristocracy conse-
quently assumed that the Republic was in danger unless its members individ-
ually and collectively abided by norms of deference and were receptive to the
weight of shame and the reputation, judgment, and opinion of their peers. That
is why Cicero and Appian placed these qualities in their list of failing fail-safes.
And that is also why Romans are described in the sources as fixated on the values.
A three-episode account from Livy will begin to illustrate how the restraint value
of deference informed ideal aristocratic interactions.3
***
Young Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus was no mean soldier. He had distinguished
himself against the mountain-dwelling Samnites, and his bravery led to advance-
ment. When in 325 BC the Samnites once again threatened, the general L. Papirius
Cursor was chosen dictator and selected Fabius for his Master of Horse. Along
the march to Samnium the dictator returned to Rome to take fresh auspices, and
sternly charged his subordinate Fabius to seek no battle until his return. Fabius,
however, like any ambitious young Roman, was keen for fame. When he discov-
ered that the Samnite pickets were lax, he eagerly attacked. The fight could not
have gone better, and the exultant Romans gathered up the enemy’s armor and
weapons in a great pile in front of Fabius, who put it to the torch. This was either
to fulfill a vow to the gods or to ensure that Papirius could not claim the spoils,
which was his right as the technical commander-in-chief. In a final insult, Fabius
sent a dispatch of his victory directly to the Senate—and nothing to his superior.4
Papirius was furious and rushed back to the camp, faced down the angry
soldiers who supported Fabius, and then ordered his lictors to bind Fabius for
summary execution. Fabius escaped their grasp and hid among the men, who
pleaded with Papirius to forgive; it would not do to punish a young man of such
merit so harshly. They clamored to the verge of mutiny, but Papirius shouted
back. The din went on until dark, when Fabius slipped out of camp and fled to
Rome to appeal to the senators.5
3 On the general historicity of the following episodes see Cornell (1986) 82; Forsythe (2005) 76,
295; Oakley (2007) II 696; Cornell et al. (2013) II 93. Contra is Chaplin (2000) 111.
4 Livy 8.29.8–8.30.11; Val. Max. 2.7.8.
5 Livy 8.32.14; Val. Max. 2.7.8.
Shame, Respect, and Deference 17
Rivalry for glory first embroiled the army and now perturbed the Senate.
Fabius had barely begun to make his defense in front of the fathers when
Papirius followed in. As a group, the senators, including Fabius’ father M. Fabius
Ambustus, entreated the dictator to put aside his anger. Ambustus, once dictator
himself, decried that “neither the authority of the Senate nor my old age . . . nor
the virtus and nobility of your Master of Horse”—what evidently seemed to him
(or at least to the narrator Livy) to be restraints on the desires even of dictators—
had any weight with Papirius. Stymied, Ambustus led the senators outside to a
growing throng.6
Ambustus and Papirius then faced each other at the speaker’s platform. On the
one side was the authority of the Senate and of the multitude, along with a gath-
ering of leading men; on the other the authority of the dictator, accompanied by
only a few attendants. Custom, precedent, and law supported both. Ambustus,
after having submissively stepped down from the platform at Papirius’ in-
sistence, asked Papirius to defer to the majesty of the Senate, the favor of the
People, the help of the tribunes, and the memory of the absent army. Where,
Papirius retorted, was respect for the Roman People who had given him dictato-
rial powers, or for discipline? Let Fabius off, Papirius argued, and soldier would
not obey commander, and no one would have respect for men or gods. The entire
Republic might then be destroyed for the young man’s licentia.7
At this, the crowd began to beg, falling to the pavement. Fabius and Ambustus
too bowed in front of Papirius and pleaded for forgiveness. Moved, Papirius
declared that discipline was restored: Fabius had learned in war and peace to
“submit to legitimate authority.” The People might therefore have Fabius’ life
restored to them as a gift, the dictator deferring to their wishes in exchange for
the show of deference to himself. The quarrel subsided—and without violence.8
Fifteen years passed. Fabius had since been consul and dictator himself, and
was now consul again, and again in the field against the Samnites. Exaggerated
reports had fanned rumors in Rome that the legions under Fabius’ consular col-
league C. Marcius had been wiped out. The Senate, in dismay, called for a dictator
to lead the counter-attack. By custom, a consul must appoint him. Marcius was
feared lost, and only Fabius remained to perform the rituals to invest the man
who would take from him the credit of his campaign. The Senate chose as dic-
tator none other than L. Papirius Cursor.9
The senators were not foolish in this choice. Papirius was the foremost gen
eral of the day. But Fabius’ private enmity with Papirius caused worry. This
6 Livy 8.33.7: quando quidem . . . apud te nec auctoritas senatus nec aetas mea . . . nec virtus
nobilitasque magistri equitum.

7 Livy 8.33.9-23, 8.34.1-4, although see Oakley (1997–2008) II 729.
8 Livy 8.35.7: pati legitima imperia.
9 Livy 9.38.4-9; Pina Polo (2011) 188–191 on the requirement.
appointment would not be without friction. To ensure that Fabius’ anger “would
not obstruct the public good,”10 wrote Livy, the Senate decided to send an honor-
able “deputation of former consuls,” because, the Senate judged, they “could add
their own personal auctoritas to that of the nation, and thereby convince Fabius
to put aside the memory of his quarrels for the sake of the country.” The party—
all Fabius’ peers and (perhaps) sometime colleagues—met with Fabius in camp
and urged him to defer to their wishes.11
Silence. Fabius fixed unmoving eyes on the ground—then got up and left
without a word.12 He likely pondered his choices. As consul, he might refuse to
perform the rituals that would let Papirius overtake him. But the Senate had sent
men of the greatest worth to plead that he cede to their and the Senate’s wishes.
These particular men, moreover, had been sent precisely because the Senate ex-
pected that Fabius would weigh their opinions heavily in light of their immense
dignity. And so, as was custom, in the middle of the night he prepared the sac-
rifice and appointed Papirius over himself as dictator. The next day the depu-
tation learned of it and hurried into Fabius’ tent to thank him for “admirably
conquering his feelings.” Silence again. Fabius bade them leave without reply.
That, wrote Livy, was a “clear sign of how his singular sorrow was crushed by his
great spirit.” For this act, wrote the historian Cassius Dio, he “gained the greatest
glory.”13
A further fifteen years passed. There was no doubt that the now-aged Fabius
would be selected to his fifth consulship, for the year 295 BC. He tried to beg
off because of weakness, but “overcome by the consensus” of all he agreed, on
the condition that the other consul be P. Decius Mus, his colleague in two pre-
vious consulships and censorship. Through his experiences, Livy had Fabius say,
he had learned that “nothing protected the Republic more firmly than concord
among colleagues.”14
***
These three (perhaps idealized) episodes exemplify the temptations a Roman
aristocrat faced to engage in self-glorifying behavior that might interfere with
the desires of his fellows, but also amply demonstrate the assumed value of defer-
ence and its emotional valences.
10 Livy 9.38.11: quae ne ira obstaret bono publico.

11 Livy 9.38.9-13: legatos ex consularium numero mittendos ad eum senatus censuit, qui sua
quoque eum, non publica solum, auctoritate moverent ut memoriam simultatium patriae remitteret.
Cf. Dio 8.26.
12 Livy 9.38.13-14.
13 Livy 9.38.13-14: cui cum ob animum egregie victum legati gratias agerent . . . ut appareret
insignem dolorem ingenti comprimi animo. Dio 8.36.26: εὔκλειαν ἐκ τούτου μεγίστην ἔλαβεν.
14 Livy 10.22.2: vincebatur consensu, 10.22.3: expertum se nihil concordi collegio firmius ad rem
publicam tuendam esse.

Deference to Superiors
Observe first the esteem for rightful grounds of Roman self-assertion. Military
heroes were due respect from all, elders were due respect from youth, and men
were supposed to yield to a superior in an official position. Papirius as dictator
simply expected obedience and was livid when he did not receive it. The higher
one climbed in the competition, the more claim one had to power and dignitas.
That was a main point of the game. But the exercise of power was not a matter of
naked force or official position alone. Although the threat of force could influ-
ence conflicts—Papirius had rods and axes handy—it was not here the resolving
factor. The senators did not physically threaten Papirius to get their way, nor did
Fabius fifteen years later face any physical hazard from the senators who visited
him, nor any threat of some official “constitutional” sanction. Yet both officials
gave ground in the end.
Deference to Social Equals and Colleagues
A second and more important observation helps explain why. Deference to

one’s dignified peers was a powerful norm, something Christoph Lundgreen has
called a “disposition of yielding.”15 Fabius ran to his consular father and to the
Senate to protect him—but not for their physical strength. The aged Ambustus
is portrayed as assuming instinctively that even though Papirius was within his
legal rights as dictator, he might be swayed by the opinion of social peers. The
Senate instinctively assumed the same of the deputation of Fabius’ peers sent to
convince Fabius to appoint his hated rival dictator.
There is ample evidence that the Romans imagined that peers, and particu-
larly colleagues in office, should show mutual deference to one another. Stories
of the oldest times—which we should take at least as legends contrived to illus-
trate exemplary behavior—assume the ideal explicitly. When, for instance, the
illustrious Camillus, the “second founder of Rome,” was voted one of six mili-
tary tribunes with consular powers in 386 BC, his colleagues reportedly agreed
to defer command of all pressing military affairs to him, believing that there was
“no detraction from their own majesty in doing so.” The Senate enthusiastically
approved, and Camillus replied that the greatest responsibility he felt came from
the “deference shown him by such honored colleagues.” Then he immediately
delegated powers back to them. The senators again shouted their approval: the
state would never need a dictator with men in such “concord,” Livy has them
say, “equally ready to command and obey,” and “adding to common praise rather
15 Lundgreen (2011) 23.

than detracting from the common good for their own purposes.”16 Similarly, in
381 BC Camillus was colleague as military tribune with consular power with his
brother’s son, L. Furius Medullinus. Camillus reportedly said that “he had a col-
league of equal right and authority,” and he could not “impede the command
of his colleague”—his own nephew, and he the (traditionally stern) paternal
uncle.17
Concord followed deference. Livy’s books covering the years between 296 and
173 BC repeatedly inform us that consular or censorial pairs acted among them-
selves “with the greatest concord” (or some close variant) with such insouciance
that one suspects that Livy was relating some traditional formula of approval.18
A lucky find of an inscribed bronze fish dating from the Middle Republic also
hints at such a formula: “[Consc]riptes cose.”—the “conscript fathers in con-
sensus.”19 Obstinacy and intercollegial strife were, consequently, consistently
frowned upon, both in legend and in later, more historical, episodes. In 418 BC,
for instance, the several military tribunes with consular power were said to argue
among themselves about who would get the glory of a campaign and who would
have to stay behind to govern Rome. Livy wrote that the senators looked on with
“astonishment” at this contest, which had become parum decorum (“scarcely
honorable”). Quintus Servilius, a former dictator, ended the matter with a
tongue-lashing. Because, he seethed, the tribunes had no sense of verecundia for
Senate or Republic, he would order his tribune son to stay in Rome. As for the
tribunes who went out to fight, he warned, they had better conduct the cam-
paign with “more harmony and concord than they sought it.” And when two of
the tribunes continued to bicker, their lieutenants scolded them and forced them
16 Livy 6.6.7: nec quicquam de maiestate sua detractum credere, 6.6.8: ingens inde ait onus . . . max-
imum tam honoratorum collegarum obsequio iniungi, 6.6.18: si tales viros in magistratu habeat, tam
concordibus iunctos animis, parere atque imperare iuxta paratos laudemque conferentes potius in
medium quam ex communi ad se trahentes. Cf. Oakley (1997–2008) I 446, 455. On the college, see
Adcock (1971); Forsythe (2005) 234; Drogula (2015).
17 Livy 6.23.9-10: nunc scire se collegam habere iure imperioque parem . . . collegae imperium se
non posse impedire; MRR I 104. Plutarch Cam. 37.3 holds that Camillus permitted Medullinus to
take command only out of fear that he would be thought stealing his nephew/colleague’s opportuni-
ties for glory. Cf. Klotz (1941) 307; Oakley (1997–2008) I 580. In both versions, however, Camillus
assumes that he should cede to a colleague, and that depriving his young colleague of just opportuni-
ties would be shameful. On the stern patruus see Martin (2002) 160–161.
18 E.g., Livy 10.24.2 (concordia inter se), 22.32.1 (summa inter se concordia), 27.38.10 (omnia cum
summa concordia consulum acta), 32.7.2-3 (censores . . . magna inter se concordia et senatum sine
ullius nota legerunt), 40.40.14 (cum summa concordia), 40.51.1 (censores fideli concordia senatum
legerunt), 42.10.4 (concors et e re publica censura fuit). Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 123; Levick (1978);
Akar (2013) 98.
19 Warmington (1935-2006) IV 208, dating the fish to 222–153 BC. The fish was found at Fundi,
and so if the reference is not directly to the Roman Senate, then likely the Fundian aristocracy were
mimicking Roman mores in a gift to a “Ti. Claudius.”
to compromise by exchanging days of command—apparently a second-best

solution.20
In 187 BC a well- documented case of strife arose between the consul
M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior, cos. 189. Lepidus blamed Fulvius
for blocking him from becoming consul sooner, and brought charges against him
of cruelty on campaign. Lepidus also enlisted the tribune of the plebs M. Aburius
to thwart Fulvius’ request for a triumph. Aburius’ colleague in the tribunate Ti.
Sempronius Gracchus (father of the famous tribune brothers), however, staved
him off. Livy’s stock speech for Gracchus assumed that it was indignum to the
college for its members to carry on personal battles for others, and was terrible
precedent: Gracchus was no friend of Fulvius, but he had “put aside enmities
for the sake of the state,” while Aburius put forward another’s enmities. Should
two tribunes, Gracchus asked, two colleagues, be at odds with each other? What
would posterity think of that? At this, Aburius dropped his claim and left the
Senate meeting, victus castigationibus (“defeated by the castigations”) of his fellow
tribune—a curious construction to which we will return. Fulvius triumphed.21
The enmity between the disputants Lepidus and Fulvius, however, did not dis-
sipate. The two were chosen to be censors together in 179 BC. By now, their vi-
cious arguments had erupted on more than one occasion in public, and there
was anxiety about how they would behave as colleagues. The new censors took
their seats after their election, and Q. Caecilius Metellus, the aged consul of
206, approached them with a crowd of principes senatorum (“principal men of
the senators”). It was usual, Livy reported Metellus as saying, for censors to ad-
monish others in their manners, not vice-versa. But he must point out “what
there is in you two that offends all good men, or at least what they should like
to see changed.” For years the two had harbored a feud, a “grave and atrocious”
thing by itself, but all the more “dangerous now to us and to the state.” The
Republic would suffer because the two so disliked each other. Metellus, together
with the dignified men around him, now begged them to make the customary
censorial prayer—“that this matter may turn out well and happily for myself and
my colleague”—a reality. His speech done, the crowd cheered.22
20 Livy 4.45.8, 4.46.8: consideratius concordiusque quam cupiunt. A system of rotating command
would be a practical way to apply the fiction of perfect collegial equality. Cf. Drogula (2015) 151, al-
though see Ogilvie (1965) 604.
21 Livy 37.47.6, 38.43.1–13, 39.5.1–5: ne hoc quidem cernere eum, fore ut memoriae ac posteritati
mandetur eiusdem conlegii alterum e duobus tribunis plebis suas inimicitias remisisse rei publicae,
alterum alienas et mandatas exercuisse. Cf. ORF3 57 fr. 148 (=Gell. 5.6.24); Develin (1985) 193–194;
Epstein (1987) 13, 15, 25, 59, 73; Gruen (1990) 132; Chaplin (2000) 154; Briscoe (2008) 179; Flaig
(2017) 402–407.
22 Livy 40.45.7, 40.46.2–3: indicandum tamen est quid omnes bonos in vobis aut offendat aut certe
mutandum malint, 40.46.5–6: graves et atroces . . . periculum est ne ex hac die nobis et rei publicam
quam vobis graviores fiant, 40.46.9: ut ea res mihi collegaeque meo bene et feliciter eveniat. Pittenger
(2008) 210 n.35 comments that the Romans valued concordia in the censorship because it helped
them to work together practically and set a decorous example.
It is risky, of course, to rely on set speeches in ancient sources, though given

the Romans’ religious scrupulousness the text of that remarkable prayer may be
at least partly a direct quotation.23 And Livy’s sentiment in any event captured
the outcome: Lepidus and Fulvius, rivals as they were, at first resisted. But as the
censors looked on their dignified petitioners, the valued deference to colleague
and peer took hold. Both stated that, if the other wished, they would put them-
selves in the power of such an impressive group of leading men of the state. At the
urging of all present, they shook hands and ended their feud. Applause again: the
crowd accompanied them to the Senate, where the fathers praised both further.
Importantly, it is certain that this public reconciliation in fact occurred, and very
likely as Livy described it; the contemporary Ennius celebrated it in verse.24
Note what did not solve the feud: a suggestion that one colleague cede to the
other as junior or inferior, or that one would for any reason automatically out-
rank a colleague. Nor did it apparently occur to anyone simply not to elect the
two rivals together.25 In fact, electing rivals to serve as colleagues would have
been normal and inevitable. Given the step-by-step progression of Roman
office-holding, age-peers would contest against each other at every stage of ad-
vancement, and any pair of potential colleagues would be lifelong competitors.
That fact makes it all the more remarkable that everyone apparently assumed
that even bitter opponents, once in office, should value deference to a colleague’s
wishes. Indeed, the inherent structure of colleges implied some means of allo-
cating equal honor and power. The ideal solution, it seems, was for one colleague
to be prepared to cede to another, which would redound to praise for both.
In all these examples we find common themes, and can now state the ideal-
ized norm as presented through the exempla. An individual was engaged in self-
advancing behavior, but that presented some perceived danger to the republican
system: either a man would gain too much influence alone, someone else would
be deprived of a merited chance for glory and honor, an action would foment dis-
sension among the nobility or set a bad precedent, or a feud would threaten the
orderly administration of an office. In response, mindfulness of a colleague’s or
peer’s equal worth or an appeal to concord among colleagues were normatively
expected responses to such impulses. Praise—symbolic capital in a competitive
field—from peers and from the public, in front of whom the performance was
conducted, followed deference, to the point of formula; blame followed con-
tinued obstreperousness.26
23 Cf. Cat. Mai. re Rust. 141.3; Hickock (1993) 70–71, 141 n.2; Briscoe (2008) 531.
24 Livy 40.46.14–16; Val. Max. 4.2.1; Gell. 12.8.5–6; Cic. Prov. Cons. 20–21; Develin (1985) 194;
Briscoe (2008) 528.
25 There seem to have been many candidates. Evans and Kleijwegt (1992) 186.
26 Cf. Dominik and Smith (2011) 3; Steel (2011) 35, 38, and references.
Groups of Peers
If the normal pressure on a Roman aristocrat to defer to peer or colleague was

strong, the pressure was far more intense when groups of great men helped to
enforce it. The patres repeatedly considered that, not a simple order or message,
but a deputation of grandees was the best way to influence men on the verge of
succumbing to temptations that would endanger the Republic. We have already
seen this concept at work twice: the deputation that the Senate sent to Fabius
in Samnium and the crowd of principes senatorum led by Metellus to reconcile
Fulvius and Lepidus. So too in 167 BC when L. Aemilius Paullus and the praetor
L. Anicius were to settle Macedonia and Illyria after the battle of Pydna, the
Senate sent tales viri (former consuls, including a former colleague of Paullus,
and censors) to the commanders in “hope that by their advice the generals would
establish nothing unworthy of the clemency or dignity of the Roman People”—as
apparently the senators worried the generals might do if left alone.27
If a deputation of great men could restrain, the opinion of the full Senate was
thought to be weightier still. Consider Livy’s repetitive use of the phrase “victus
consensu omnium” (“defeated by the consensus of all”) and similar expressions.
According to Livy, the senators knew that one consul for 207 BC would be the
preeminent C. Claudius Nero. But they were concerned: Hannibal was still in
Italy, and Nero was known to be impetuous. He needed a colleague of “modera-
tion and prudence” who could “temper” him (a theory that assumed, of course,
that colleagues would defer to each other). M. Livius, later given the cognomen
Salinator, might be the man. But this choice was worrying too: in 219 Livius had
been convicted for taking too much spoil from a campaign, and Nero had been
a witness against him. Livius had accordingly withdrawn from the city for many
years, and at first refused to consider running. The Senate, however, together
strongly rebuked him, and through the “united efforts of all” of the senators
(adnisi omnes) he was elected with Nero.28
Because the upcoming year would be hazardous the Senate wanted the
consuls-elect to reconcile immediately. Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator took the
lead and asked the pair on behalf of the Senate to put aside their quarrel. Yet in
spite of the obvious military perils of having a pair of backbiting commanders,
27 Livy 45.17.7: tales viri mitterentur, quorum de consilio sperari posset imperatores nihil indignum
nec clementia nec gravitate populi Romani decreturos esse. This reminder of proper behavior might
have inspired Paullus to his acts of generosity described in Chapter 2.
28 Livy 27.34.3: temperandum . . . moderato et prudenti viro adiuncto conlega, 29.38.11; Frontinus
4.1.45; Suet. Tib. 3; Epstein (1987) 13, 17–18, 70, 94; Gruen (1990) 85–87; Yakobson (2017) 507–
508. Rosenstein (1995) 327 notes the oddity of these candidates: Nero had lately been outwitted by
Hannibal, and Salinator had no experience against the Carthaginians. But Rosenstein points out that
the choice of general came down, not to military skill, but to the man most capable of embodying
virtus and thus inspiring his troops, which perhaps explains the choice of Livius to temper any parts
of Nero that detracted from his virtus, which included self-control.
the two at first refused. Livius, still brooding on Nero’s insult to him, argued that
there was no need for reconciliation because enmity would keep each alert to
avoiding errors that the other might exploit. The Senate, however, would have
none of this line of reasoning. Concord, not check-and-balance—that was the
ideal. Instead, “the Senate’s auctoritas overcame them to make them administer
the Republic with a common mind and counsel, putting aside their hatred.”29
The two quickly had opportunity to show it. They prepared for battle cum
summa concordia and fought bravely at the Metaurus River, winning a tremen-
dous victory over Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother. The victorious pair then courte-
ously decided not to enter Rome separately; they had fought the war in common,
and agreed that because the battle had been fought in the territory assigned to
Livius, and the auspices on that day happened to be Livius’ (they alternated days
of command), Livius would ride the triumphal four-horse chariot while Nero
followed on horseback. This sharing of the triumph, commented Livy, added to
the glory of both, but even more so for Nero, who, although he achieved more in
the actual fighting, “ceded the greater honor to his colleague.” Thus the force of
deference to colleague and to collective senatorial consensus was thought to re-
solve dangerous rivalry, even when urgent military need could not.30
The value of deference could also play another role that Livy related with the
phrase victus consensu: to help the nobility decide to whom to distribute dignitas,
a critical function of the republican system. Debates over triumphs exemplify
this dynamic in action. In 200 BC, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus the proconsul
came back from a successful campaign in Spain. After giving an account of his
successes to the Senate, he asked for a triumph. Because his had been an emer-
gency appointment, however, he was technically not qualified for the honor; the
auspices had not been in his own name. When the Senate suggested an ovation
instead, the tribune Ti. Sempronius Longus objected to this as also against prece-
dent. Yet, victus consensu patrum (“defeated by the consensus of the fathers”), he
withdrew his veto and Lentulus got his ovation.31 In 167 BC, Ser. Sulpicius Galba
opposed a law granting L. Aemilius Paullus a triumph for his victory at Pydna,
accusing Paullus of not given enough of the booty to the soldiers out of the mas-
sive haul given the treasury. The first tribes, surrounded by sullen soldiers, started
the vote against Paullus, and an uproar ensued among the senators. M. Servilius,
who had been consul and Master of Horse, requested that the tribunes start the
vote over again. No doubt the tribunes would have enjoyed the goodwill of the
29 Livy 27.35.8, 11: vicit tamen auctoritas senatus ut positis simultantibus communi animo con
silioque administrarent rem publicam. Cf. Val. Max. 4.2.2; 7.2.6a; Epstein (1987) 13.
30 Livy 27.38.11, 28.9.9– 11: tantum honore collegae cesserat. Note that the Senate decreed an
equal triumph for both and Nero’s deference was therefore an example of praecipua moderatio (“ex-
ceptional moderation”), Val. Max. 4.1.9.
31 Livy 31.20.6; Sage (1933–2000) ix 59 n.2.
voting soldiers, but, victi auctoritatibus principum (“defeated by the authority of

the leading men”), they allowed Servilius to address the assembly, and then re-
peated the proceedings. Paullus triumphed on the second vote.32
Livy’s recurring expression thus marked the outlines of another recurring
pattern of ideal normative behavior. An individual’s will could be “overcome”
or “defeated” (victus) by the authority or united judgment of others, particu-
larly the Senate or the leaders thereof. If an individual wished to advance himself
or pursue rivalry to an unacceptable degree, such men gathered together and
presented a united front, often publicly. The individual’s submission was then ex-
pected, and when granted, highly praised. Indeed, the value of deference worked
on the intransigent even when seemingly more obvious restraints, such as dire
martial necessity, did not. Equally important, this value of individual deference
to aristocratic group opinion helped the competitors to determine how merit
and honors would be acknowledged and allocated—the very heart of the repub-
lican system.33 Yielding was no arbitrary courtesy; it was a core political quality.
Pudor, Verecundia, and Existimatio
So far, we see (at least an idealized) value of deference helping to order the repub-
lican system’s honor-and-office distribution functions amid contests over self-
advancement, and to justify the results. But why was this restraint value so potent?
A clue comes from Cicero and Appian. Cicero, recall, lamented that verecundia
and existimatio had vanished. Appian cited the loss of ἀξίωσις, a sense of “being
thought worthy,” or “good reputation,” as well as of αἰδώς, a “sense of shame” (in
Latin, pudor).34 Robert Kaster and Jean-François Thomas have studied carefully
across the entire Roman literary record the emotions expressed with the words
verecundia, existimatio, and pudor, and have come to two conclusions pertinent
here. First, pudor and verecundia opposed to some degree the gloria and laus that
every man sought—but one could, paradoxically, nevertheless receive praise for
their exhibition. Second, the words connoted a sense of mutuality: each emotion
was related to the opinions of those who observed the man displaying them. Take
pudor, for example. As Kaster explains, a Roman’s experience of this emotion
was directly tied to the opinions that other Romans had of him: “All experiences
of pudor depend upon notions of personal worthiness (dignitas) and value
(existimatio), which in turn derive from seeing myself being seen in creditable
32 Livy 45.35-36.
33 Cf. Thomas (2007) 412; Brennan (2014) 31, 44–45.
34 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3; App. B.C. 1.4.33, 1.7.60. Cf. Ovid Fasti 1.251; Barton (2001) 19 n.5.
terms. I experience pudor when I see myself being seen as discredited, when the
value that I or others grant that self is not what I would have it be.”35
Verecundia was similarly mutual, although it differed slightly from pudor.36
While pudor was primarily an inward-facing, unpleasant feeling of being lowered
in the eyes of others, verecundia, Kaster writes, was an outward-facing emotion
that “animates the art of knowing your proper place in every social transaction
and basing your behavior on that knowledge; by guiding behavior in this way,
verecundia establishes or affirms the social bond between you and others, all of
whom (ideally) play complementary roles.”37 Critically, verecundia meant that
each Roman would constantly gauge his “standing relative to others” and would
present himself to them “in a way at least that will not give offense . . . and that
preferably will signal [his] full awareness of the others’ face, the character they
wear in the transaction and the respect that that character is due.” As a result, a
Roman possessed of verecundia would “stop short of overtly pressing [his] full
claims, yet not be excessively self-effacing.” Thus the “mutuality of verecundia,
the way that its wariness looks both to the self and to the other . . . is the essence
of the emotion as a force of social cohesion.” So too Thomas, who shows that
verecundia ensured “entente” and social peace.38
Finally, a proper showing of verecundia avoided jeopardizing one’s existimatio,
one’s “sense of worth” in the eyes of others, which completed the circle back to
pudor, the desire to avoid shame and “loss of face.” Existimatio also depended on
how well one considered the “face” of others. The “unimpeded liberty” that some
manifestations of pudor sought to control was, Kaster explains, “commonly, even
typically,” conceived as a “desire not just to satisfy myself at others’ expense but
also to distinguish and separate myself from others, whose claims on me I can
then ignore and—as important—whose equality with me I can deny,” or, more
bluntly, “doing what I damn well please.” Concern for one’s existimatio was too
a mutually felt emotion, and closely linked with a Roman man’s calculation of
parity with a peer. In short, if one failed to exhibit verecundia—the studied cal-
ibration of one’s actions with a view to one’s standing relative to others—one
could lose existimatio, which would lead to pudor, discredit in the eyes of others;
a loss of social capital to be avoided in a republican competition fueled by desire
for dignitas.39
35 Kaster (2005) 4, 29; Thomas (2007) 52, 325–330. Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1963) 283; TLL X,2 Fasc. 16
2491. On Roman shame see also Vervaet (2017).

36 Kaster (2005) 63; Thomas (2007) 446.
37 Kaster (2005) 15. Cf. Thomas (2007) 403.
38 Kaster (2005) 15, 19; Thomas (2007) 412. Cf. Barton (2001) 209.
39 Kaster (2005) 43, 55, 63–64; Thomas (2007) 400–401. Cf. TLL V.2 Fasc. X 1512; Hellegouarc’h
(1963) 362; Bourdieu (1966) 198; Barton (2001) 214; Hall (2005); Pittenger (2008) 133–134. See also
Cairns (1993) 432 on αἰδώς as an inhibitory emotion vis-à-vis others.
The connections among pudor, verecundia, and existimatio and the norm
of deference to peer and colleague now become clear. Kaster’s and Thomas’
descriptions show that these emotions operated as the emotional underpinnings
of the deference ideal. Even when the ancient historians did not use these words
when describing episodes of deference, the emotions are recognizable in the ac-
tors’ behavior. It explains why, when the senatorial deputation requested that
he appoint his rival Papirius dictator, Fabius Rullianus could not speak a word
or even remain in their presence. Instead he cast his eyes down on the ground
and left the tent. Kaster notes that pudor, the feeling of having one’s existimatio
lowered in others’ sight, not only restrained action, but might cause one to
“break . . . off contact with others: silence, downcast eyes, averted glance, a
turning away, or an actual withdrawal”—gestures we will see repeated several
times. That is, Fabius, even without Livy’s using the word, showed pudor relative
to a group of peers who sought to demote him.40
But that same pudor also explains why Fabius deferred. The fact that the Senate
repeatedly sent deputations—and not a mere message or order—to assert its will
presupposes how the Romans expected these emotions to operate. The genius
of sending a deputation was that it forced a man to calibrate then and there his
worth relative to that of multiple peers directly in front of him—that is, to exer-
cise verecundia. If he failed to defer to one peer, to consider that man’s “face,” the
loss of existimatio in the eyes of others would be bad enough. But if he failed to
defer to the wishes of many peers, to take no account of their combined “faces,”
the display of non-verecundia, and the resulting loss of existimatio and conse-
quent pudor, might even shame them, and would be far worse even, for instance,
than the sting of demotion that a mere dispatch telling a general to appoint a rival
as dictator could relay. And, of course, a deputation—as opposed to a mere pri-
vate message—fits perfectly into the observation that power in Rome was public
and performative. This fear of pudor, concern for existimatio, and calibration
of verecundia, moreover, are identical to the reports above of how an aristocrat
acted if he became victus consensu omnium. Thus the interplay of these emotions
constituted a social force so strong that it could outweigh Rome’s security or per-
sonal rivalry as an impetus to restrain or channel action.41
And that is not all. These emotions also help explain the very structure of the
republican office-holding colleges. As seen, colleagues in office were ideally to
consider each other equals in all respects and act accordingly, even if when out-
side the college they plainly were not equal in age, status, or even in intra-familial
rank.42 The fiction of perfect equality among colleagues interlaces elegantly
40 Livy 9.38.13; Kaster (2005) 32. Cf. Barton (2001) 208, 254.
41 Kaster (2005) 20–21. Cf. Dominik and Smith (2011) 2 on shame as a policing mechanism.
42 Vishnia (1996) 200.
with the emotions of verecundia and pudor and the restraint value of deference.
First, parity required colleagues automatically to practice verecundia, a con-
stant adjustment of one’s position in light of the needs and desires of a perfect
equal. A Roman man would thus all but automatically experience pudor if he
failed to take the “face” and wishes of his colleague into account—something
that he would not feel so harshly if he could consider his colleague an inferior.
Accordingly, the Roman college ensured instant pudor should an officeholder
become overly self-willed.43 That is no doubt why the great Camillus was mythol-
ogized as having pitch-perfect deference to colleagues, even to his nephew.
Second, and inversely, the collegial structure provided an aristocrat a tailor-
made opportunity to display verecundia, to his credit. An aristocrat elevated to
any office (save dictator) received immediately at least one collegial peer upon
whom he constantly could practice verecundia and the avoidance of pudor. Thus
the college created a glorious challenge: again, given the nature of the Roman
electoral system, any set of colleagues had been opponents for their entire lives,
but now could display deference. Exercise of restraint within the college there-
fore could lead the more to socially desirable praise and gloria, while protecting
the college itself.
All told, the emotions described by pudor, verecundia, and existimatio un-
derlay the deference to colleague, peer, and groups of peers that we have repeat-
edly observed. Moreover, the nature of the Roman college provided multiple men
with multiple opportunities for advancement and achievement—the competi-
tion that a Roman man craved—but also produced an arena in which a Roman
noble could practice and publicly display verecundia and care for his existimatio.
The aristocrat would feel pudor if he failed and gain gloria if he succeeded. The
norm of deference to colleague and peer was thus a stanchion of the orderly op-
eration of the Republic’s structural and performative institutions, its distribu-
tive functions, and its cohesion, and rested on these performative concepts and
emotions—emotions that Cicero and Appian would mourn as lost.
Contestation
To this point, we have the ideal. But (putting aside for the moment the question
whether Livy et al. outright invented all this evidence) the disputes we have al-
ready witnessed plainly reveal that there was no golden age of pure consensus
in which this normative system of behavior functioned seamlessly to restrain
43 Compare Sallust B.C. 6.7, who argued why there were two chief imperatores: eo modo minume
posse putabant per licentiam insolescere animum humanum (“They thought that by this means it
would be the least likely that men’s minds would become haughty through license”).
competition, or in which an abstract, Platonic ideal of each restraint value existed

to which all might definitively appeal. Rather, even though the Romans rarely
(if ever) directly questioned these values, throughout the Republic’s history re-
straint norms would be tested in tension with other values, put up for judgment
to the social group, and be shaped by events. That was especially true—as we will
repeatedly see—in moments when the Romans tried to apply normative restraint
behavior to some novel circumstance. Several instances of unclear application of
normative behavior in new contexts, however, show how the Roman aristocracy
considered pudor, verecundia, existimatio, and the system of deference that they
supported to be the normal and efficacious remedy for overawing a wrongdoer
into submission, and considered collections of peers to be the proper judges of
the situation, even when the restraint values ultimately (the Romans being only
human) failed to resolve a situation wholly. Most important, the disputes rou-
tinely centered on restraint, which show how the values pervaded the Romans’
interpretation of their social system and memory of their history.
The desire for high office, for example, created the quintessential tension be-
tween proper restraint and legitimate self-advancement. According to Livy, in
310 BC App. Claudius (later the Blind) insisted on remaining censor past the ex-
piration of his term and could be “compelled by no force” to abdicate, as his col-
league had willingly done. P. Sempronius, tribune of the People, attempted to
apply the deference norm: with the weight of the united citizenry and nobiles
reportedly behind him, he appealed to multiple precedents of dictators—a group
of peers, as it were—who had laid down their power after just days. But neither
the exempla, the “expiration of Appius’ term, nor his colleague’s resignation, nor
law, nor pudor could coerce” Appius; he mistook “the contempt of gods and men”
for virtue. Appius continued as sole censor—but not, at least in Livy’s telling,
without earning that very hatred that he scorned, invidia omnium ordinum (“the
hatred of all the orders”).44
In 185 BC, the consul App. Claudius Pulcher canvassed intemperately for his
brother, “flitting about the whole forum” after voters, and unattended by his
lictors. The “majority of the Senate” scolded him for forgetting his office—an at-
tempt by the mass of peers to instill pudor. But “he refused to be coerced from
this extravagant pursuit.”45 In 184 BC, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, aedile, wished to run
for a vacant praetorship while already in a curule office. When he began to can-
vass, the Senate voted that the consul should appeal to him personally not to
44 Livy 9.33.4: nulla vi conpelli, ut abdicaret, potuit, 9.34.22, 9.34.26: te nec quod dies exit censurae
nec quod collega magistratu abiit nec lex nec pudor coercet: virtutem in superbia, in audacia, in
contemptu deorum hominumque ponis. On the tricky historicity of this event, see Oakley (1997–
2008) III 361; Develin (1985) 215–224; Wiseman (1979) 57–139, esp. 86–87. Even if invented, the
story is an effective attack on a reputation only if failing to cede were considered wrong.
45 Livy 39.32.10: toto foro volitando, 39.32.11-12: maiore parte senatus . . . coerceri tamen ab
effuso studio nequit.

act in this unprecedented way. Flaccus replied to the consul that he would “do
nothing unworthy of himself,” a “measured response by which he gave hope to
those who interpreted it as they wanted to that he would cede to the authority of
the fathers”—the expected and approved outcome. Flaccus’ enigmatic statement,
which is aphoristic enough to suggest it is preserved verbatim, shows that he hon-
ored deference, at least in an abstract way. But when election day came, Flaccus
continued as before. When the senators saw that their “authority could not move
him”—as they evidently first assumed it would—they appealed to the assembly.
Flaccus, “unmoved even then by opinion,” continued to seek the crowd’s vote.
Exasperated, the Senate finally decreed that the office would not be refilled; the
remaining praetor alone would handle all jurisdictions. Livy’s language may not
be contemporary with the action, but the pattern of behavior he described is
plain enough: the Senate’s first move was to attempt to instill shame in the way-
ward office-seeker through force of group opinion, and their befuddled response
to Flaccus’ intractability suggests that they struggled to imagine immediate re-
course to alternative solutions because their expected solution usually worked.46
Desire for a triumph and military glory also created a tension with restraint
principles. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, L. Postumius Megellus,
cos. 291, demanded command of the latest Samnite war. His colleague, C. Junius
Bubulcus Brutus, of a plebeian family in a time when the classes were still finding
common footing, “vexed” that he was being pushed aside from his “equal rights,”
“often pressed his rights” to the Senate, but at length followed the deference script
and “came to agreement” and “yielded to his colleague and conceded . . . com-
mand of the war.” The previous year’s consul Q. Fabius Gurges, however, was
still on campaign, and Postumius insisted that Gurges withdraw. The Senate’s
first response to the crisis was (here it is again) to send a deputation to persuade
Postumius to allow Gurges to continue as general. Postumius, however, scoffed
at them “arrogantly and tyrannically” saying that it was for him to command the
Senate, not the Senate to command him. (At least he shared the assumption that
someone should cede to someone). Indeed, Gurges “ceded” to this “madness.”
After the campaign, Postumius demanded a triumph. Instead, the People even-
tually fined him heavily—apparently a frustrated last resort.47
46 Livy 39.39.8: respondit Flaccus nihil quod se indignum esset facturum. medio responso ad
voluntatem interpretantibus fecerat spem cessurum patrum auctoritati esse, 39.39.10: auctoritas
patrum nihil movisset, 39.39.11: ne tum quidem de sententia motus. Livy erred: Flaccus was merely
aedilis designatus. Briscoe (2008) 348; MRR I 375.
47 Dion. Hal. 17.4.2–6: ἐφ᾽ οἷς ὁ συνύπατος αὐτοῦ καταρχὰς μὲν ὡς ἀπελαυνόμενος τῶν ἴσων
ἠγανάκτει καὶ πολλάκις ἐπὶ τῆς βουλῆς τὰ δίκαια πρὸς αὐτὸν ἔλεγεν . . . εἶξέ τε τῷ συνυπάτῳ καὶ
παρεχώρησε τοῦ . . . πολέμου τὴν ἡγεμονίαν . . . ὑπερηφάνους καὶ τυραννικὰς . . . εἴξας τῇ μανίᾳ,
17.5.4. Dionysius reported Bubulcus ceded because of his plebeian background and fewer friends.
Evidently the ideal of perfect equality among colleagues was not entirely set in this early time, al-
though Bubulcus clearly thought at first it might be when he pressed his rights to the Senate—another
moment of contestation. Cf. Bravo and Griffin (1988) 447–521; Palmer (1990); Gabrielli (2003).
Amid Rome’s wars of expansion a century later, opportunities for disputes

grew greater, but the restraint patterns still appear as the assumed protocol for
handling them. In 197 BC the consul Q. Minucius Rufus, jealous of his colleague
C. Cornelius Cethegus’ military exploits that year for which the Senate granted
a triumph consensu omnium (“by the consensus of all”), demanded a joint tri-
umph, despite having himself achieved only a few small and dubious victories. At
first Cornelius did not resist his colleague’s request, but the tribunes of the plebs
gathered together to object: a consul, they said, should not grant a colleague an
honor he did not deserve but which he “shamelessly sought.” Thus a contest over
an honor combined with a dispute over proper collegiality. When Minucius saw
that the “whole of the Senate” opposed his triumph, he declared he would tri-
umph on the Alban mount with leave of the People, to malicious gossip that the
procession was less honorable than Cornelius’ and involved pilfering from the
treasury.48 Apparently this “triumph,” even with the People’s imprimatur, was
considered so distasteful that there was no triumph on the Alban mount for
twenty-five years, when C. Cicereius, a former scribe of the Scipios who captured
200,000 pounds of beeswax from an enemy, demanded a triumph, was (unsur-
prisingly) denied, then triumphed on the Alban mount; the last such spectacle.49
And in 171 BC the consul C. Cassius Longinus sua sponte invaded Macedon, his
colleague’s provincia. The outraged Senate voted to have the praetor appoint (yet
once more) a delegation to persuade him to desist.50 Evidently, a simple order
from the Senate would not do.
A famous example of contested norms came in the aftermath of the Second
Punic War, amid the “trials of the Scipios.” A full discussion of the confusion sur-
rounding these incidents is beyond the scope of this work, as is a full discussion
of the social and demographic upheaval that followed in the war’s wake.51 But as
a whole the incidents show how contestants disputed proper aristocratic behav
ior in a background context of unique perplexity. P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus’
dazzling rise and defeat of Hannibal at a shockingly young age (amid the carnage
the war caused his generation) created an unprecedented tension between his
48 Livy 33.22.6: non tamen nec illum nec quemquam alium civem tantum gratia atque opibus
valuisse, ut, cum sibi meritum triumphum inpetrasset, collegae eundem honorem inmeritum
inpudenter petenti daret; 33.23.3-8: adversum omnem senatum.
49 Val. Max. 3.5.1. Cf. Gruen (1995) 59– 69; Brennan (1996), esp. 325–327; Sumi (2005) 31;
Pittenger (2008) 44–47.
50 Livy 43.1.70. Longinus was censor seventeen years later in 154 BC (MRR I 449), though per-
haps because by that time, and with Macedon defeated, Longinus had calmed; according to Cic. de
Dom. 130, 136, as censor Longinus carefully consulted the pontifices about dedicating a statue and the
senate house to Concordia. Cf. Levick (1978) 220.
51 As Erich Gruen has wisely put it, it is impossible to reconcile the sources anyway, and more prof-
itable to consider the “broader implications.” Gruen (1995) 59, 74–78. On the evidentiary problems
surrounding the trials see Scullard (1951) 290–303, (1970) 224, 234; Schlag (1968) 162–174; Richard,
(1972) 43–46; Luce (1977) 92–104; Astin (1978) 59–72; Bauman (1983) 192–212; Develin (1985)
245–248; Vishnia (1996) 129–132; Briscoe (2008) 170–179.
self-advancement and the expectations of the aristocratic group. Although un-

doubtedly great heroes, because of their respective successes against Carthage
and the Seleucid king Antiochus III, Africanus and his brother L. Scipio Asiaticus
were accused at various points of superbia, luxurious living, misappropriating
booty, and of regnum in senatu (“kingship in the Senate”)—points of attack, not
coincidently, firmly on the lines of restraint values.52
At first Africanus’ relationship with the Senate appeared to follow a normal
arc. He applied for a triumph in 206, for instance, was rejected on the technicality
that he was a private citizen, but deferred and did not press the issue. Around
the mid-180s, however, he was reportedly charged with having lived luxuriously
while on campaign, and responded simply by turning his back on this accusers
and ascending the Capitol with a massive crowd in tow to give thanks for his
great victories. Asiaticus was then subject to proceedings relating to charges of
peculation as well.
The actual charges in all these cases are extremely obscure—perhaps a re-
sidual clue that the legalities were afterthoughts. Rather, the thrust was a contest
between the principles that a successful commander was due respect and that a
commander should not advance himself too far (a norm we will also return to
in the next chapter). What is certain is that group opinion eventually won out
over the individuals: in response to his peers’ attacks Africanus—who no doubt
retained the loyalty of faithful veterans handy with swords—chose self-imposed
exile in shame at his country estate, where he wasted away and died. His sole re-
prisal was to deny his country his ashes, which Valerius Maximus described as an
attack not with arms but with “verecundia.”53
All of these vignettes show contestation in interpreting normative restraint
behavior, trying to find the proper balance in the tension between advancement
and deference. Triumphators on the Alban mount felt that the People’s judgment
was sufficient for honor; the bulk of the Senate obviously disagreed. Appius,
Postumius, Longinus, and the Scipios apparently operated under the (reason-
able) assumption that one who held high office or imperium or achieved great
victories should receive deference, and the greater the achievement, the more
deference was due. By contrast, their opponents obviously felt that that principle
could be overdone, and that such a man should still show deference to the “faces”
of others, as well as should live in a restrained manner.
The Romans, in other words, were attempting in these moments of conflict to
navigate clashing valuations of symbolic capital in determining what constituted
proper dignitas—which required a mix of advancement and restraint—and thus
52 Livy 38.50.8, 38.51.3-10, 38.52.4, 38.54.6, 38.59.7, 38.60.10; Val. Max. 8.1.damn.1.
53 Polyb. 23.14; Livy 28:38–2-4, 38.51-53, 38.56.1-8; Gell. 4.18, 6.19; Val. Max. 2.8.5, 5.2.3b; Dio
17.57.6.
who were the proper “winners” in the competition. Because this process was so
critical to the competition, it therefore should not surprise these conflicts over
normative behavior were contentious for the Romans, and accordingly left his-
torical traces of both shame and praise, and sometimes of split reputations from
competing traditions (as of Appius or the Scipios) for laudatory traditionalism
and greatness along with damnable, undeferential superbia—a social process to
which we will return in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 5.54
But, as Matthew Roller has established, such tensions should not signal weak-
ness in a system of normative behavior. Rather, deviance and contestation can
strengthen a norm as a group evaluates an action and doles out praise or punish-
ment that cements the norm into place as a future exemplum. Indeed, sometimes
an incident of breach is the first time a norm is consciously considered, and then
nailed down definitively. The trials of the Scipios, for instance, posed the ques-
tion of how properly to allot social and economic capital amid the unprecedent-
edly enormous wars of the late third and early second centuries bc with their
concomitantly unprecedented opportunities for singular advancement. The
Scipios lost. The patrician Postumius treated his plebeian colleague with con-
tempt while a new normative rule in favor of consensus between social classes
was forming under his feet. He lost too. But with defeats came some solidification
of the norm: the haughty behavior toward plebeian nobiles for which Postumius
was reproved is conspicuous for its general absence afterward, while plausible
allegations of regnum in senatu all but disappeared from the Roman mental map
for decades to come. Thus these cases show a double tension—advancement
versus deferential restraint within a backdrop of untried circumstances—with
resolutions that were reasonably clear, if simplified in commemoration.55
Consequences, Normativity, and the Republican System
At all events, these cases illustrate how the Romans thought they should resolve
such tensions: whether in a public trial or in a meeting of the curia, the peer
group’s main sanction was to appeal to the malfeasant’s verecundia and pudor,
and to threaten implicitly or explicitly his existimatio. And the method seemed
mostly to work. Actors gained invidia when they found themselves on the wrong
side of consensus about the norm, and we can gather that such behavior risked
lasting reputational consequences because incidents of total non-deference and
54 Cf. Cornell (2000) 84–85; Spielvogel (2004) 384; Oakley (2004) 21; Humm (2005) 643; Roller
(2018) 133. As Lundgreen (2011) 46 notes, disputes usually are between recognized legitimate prin-
ciples, because only such principles are worth fighting over.
55 Roller (2018) 9. Cf. Hölkeskamp (1993); Lundgreen (2011) 33– 37, 73, (2017) 28; Gabrielli
(2003) 254–255, 259.
protracted conflict appear extraordinary. Postumius’ ill-advised actions likely

ended his career, which consisted later only in being part of an ignominious em-
bassy to Tarentum (and that likely only because he was a rare Roman of the time
who could speak Greek).56 Livy explained that the fight between Fabius Rullianus
and Papirius was more famous than either’s achievements.57 In 204 BC, just
three years after their celebrated joint consulship and triumph over Hasdrubal,
C. Claudius Nero and M. Livius Salinator joined in the censorship. Their con-
cordia as consuls was quickly forgotten and their feud re-erupted into a notorious
dispute, in which each attempted to degrade the other’s citizen status. Of course,
because both censors had to be in concord for any of their acts to take effect,
their individual sniping had no force. But that only increased the grotesqueness
of it all: Livy called this contest “perverted” (pravum). Dio, who followed a dif-
ferent source from Livy here, wrote that their reputations became “scandalized”
(περιβόητοι). Evidently, several sources from the Middle Republic found such
quarreling, brought to such a dangerous head, unusual—and therefore worthy of
permanent record. Then such episodes of contestation and normative resolution
could be remembered as exempla of kinds of behavior to avoid.58
By contrast, deferential men gained laus: the senators legendarily loudly
approved when Camillus and his fellow military tribunes with consular powers
showed their willingness both to command and to obey.59 When Fabius
Rullianus’ noble peers prevailed on him to cede and appoint Papirius dictator
and he (albeit grudgingly) acquiesced to their wishes, he received gracious
praise in return. Crowds and poets cheered the (indubitably factual) concord of
M. Aemilius Lepidus and M. Fulvius Nobilior as censors. Cassius Dio reported
that on account of Scipio Africanus the Younger’s “moderation” (μετριότης) and
“yielding” (ἐπιείκεια), he “escaped the envy of his peers, for he chose to make him-
self equal to his inferiors, not better than his peers, and inferior to men of greater
renown, and so avoided jealousy.”60 For this he received praise and honores, and
“none of the other nobles expected serious trouble from him (even though he
was obviously an obstacle to them) because they admired his value to the state.”61
56 Dion. Hal. 19.5.1–6; Dio 9.40.7; Val. Max. 2.2.5; MRR II 608; Palmer (1990) 13–16; Oakley
(1997–2008) III 572.

57 Livy 8.29.10.
58 Livy 27.34.13, 29.37.13-16; Dio 17.71. Cf. Val. Max. 2.9.6a-6b; Schwartz PW 32 1684–1722;
Develin (1985) 32; Vishnia (1996) 81–82; Oakley (1997–2008) III 436–437; Akar (2013) 99.
59 Livy 6.6.11–16.
60 Dio 21.70.9: τοιγαροῦν μόνος ἀνθρώπων ἢ καὶ μάλιστα διά τε ταῦτα καὶ διὰ τὴν μετριότητα τήν
τε ἐπιείκειαν οὔτε ὑπὸ τῶν ὁμοτίμων οὔθ᾿ ὑπό τινος ἐφθονήθη. ἴσος μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ὑποδεεστέροις,
οὐκ ἀμείνων δὲ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἀσθενέστερος δὲ τῶν μειζόνων ἀξιῶν εἶναι, κρείττων καὶ τοῦ φθόνου
τοῦ μόνου τοὺς ἀρίστους ἄνδρας λυμαινομένου ἐγένετο. For the gloss of μετριότης as moderatio,
see TLL 8 1205.
61 Dio 24.84.1: οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ τῶν ἀντιστασιωτῶν τις αὐτῷ θανόντι ἐφήσθη, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκεῖνοι,
καίπερ βαρύτατον αὐτόν σφισι νομίζοντες εἶναι, ἐπόθησαν: χρήσιμόν τε γὰρ πρὸς τὰ κοινὰ ἑώρων,
καὶ δεινὸν οὐδὲν οὐδ᾽ ἂν σφεῖς παθεῖν ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ.
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CHAPTER I.
HEALTH.
[Contents]
A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
Nature has guarded the health of her creatures by a marvelous

system of protective intuitions. The sensitive membrane of the eye
resents the intrusion of every foreign substance. An intuitive sense of
discomfort announces every injurious extreme of temperature. To the
unperverted taste of animals in a state of nature wholesome food is
pleasant, injurious substances repulsive or insipid. Captain Kane
found that only the rage of famine will tempt the foxes of the Arctic
coastlands to touch spoiled meat. In times of scarcity the baboons of
the Abyssinian mountains greedily hunt for edible roots, which an
unerring faculty enables them to distinguish from the poisonous
varieties. The naturalist Tschudi mentions a troop of half-tamed
chamois forcing their way through a shingle roof, rather than pass a
night in the stifling atmosphere of a goat stable.
Man in his primitive state had his full share of those protective
instincts, which still manifest themselves in children and Nature-
guided savages. It is a mistake to suppose that the lowest of those
savages [19]are naturally fond of ardent spirits. The travelers Park,
Gerstaecker, Vambery, Kohl, De Tocqueville, and Brehm agree that
the first step on the road to ruin is always taken in deference to the
example of the admired superior race, if not in compliance with direct
persuasion. The negroes of the Senegal highlands shuddered at the
first taste of alcohol, but from a wish to conciliate the good will of
their visitors hesitated to decline their invitations, which
subsequently, indeed, became rather superfluous. The children of
the wilderness unhesitatingly prefer the hardships of a winter camp
to the atmospheric poisons of our tenement houses. Shamyl Ben
Haddin, the Circassian war chief, whose iron constitution had
endured the vicissitudes of thirty-four campaigns, pathetically
protested against the pest air of his Russian prison cell, and warned
his jailers that, unless his dormitory was changed, Heaven would
hold them responsible for the guilt of his suicide. I have known
country boys to step out into a shower of rain and sleet to escape
from the contaminated atmosphere of a city workshop, and after a
week’s work in a spinning mill return to the penury of their mountain
homes, rather than purchase dainties at the expense of their lungs.
The word frugality, in its original sense, referred literally to a diet of

tree fruits, in distinction to carnivorous fare, and nine out of ten
children still decidedly prefer ripe fruit and farinaceous dishes to the
richest meats. They as certainly prefer easy, home-made clothes to
the constraint of fashionable fripperies. The main tenets of our dress-
reformers are [20]anticipated in the sensible garments of many half-
civilized nations. Boys, within reach of a free bathing river, can
dispense with the advice of the hydropathic school. They delight in
exercise; they laugh at the imaginary danger of fresh-air draughts,
and the perils of barefoot rambles in wet and dry. They would cast
their vote in favor of the outdoor pursuit of hundreds of occupations
which custom, rather than necessity, now associates with the
disadvantages of indoor confinement. The hygienic influence of
arboreal vegetation has been recognized by the ablest pathologists
of modern times; avenues of shade trees have been found to
redeem the sanitary condition of many a grimy city, and the eminent
hygienist, Schrodt, holds that, as a remedial institution, a shady park
is worth a dozen drug stores. But all these lessons only confirm an
often manifested, and too often suppressed, instinct of our young
children: their passionate love of woodland sports, their love of tree
shade, of greenwood camps, of forest life in all its forms. Those who
hold that “nature” is but a synonym of “habit” should witness the
rapture of city children at first sight of forest glades and shady
meadow brooks, and compare it with the city dread of the Swiss
peasant lad or the American backwoods boy, sickened by the fumes
and the uproar of a large manufacturing town. A thousands years of
vice and abnormal habits have not yet silenced the voice of the
physical conscience that recalls our steps to the path of Nature, and
will not permit us to transgress her laws unwarned. [21]
[Contents]
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
The reward of nature-abiding habits is not confined to the negative

advantage of escaping the discomforts of disease. In the pursuit of
countless competitive avocations the Art of Survival is a chief secret
of success, but in this age of sanitary abuses our lives are mostly
half-told tales. Our season ends before the trees of hope have time
to ripen their fruit; before their day’s work is done our toilers are
overtaken by the shadows of approaching night. Sanitary reforms
would undoubtedly lengthen our average term of life, and an
increase of longevity alone would solve the most vexing riddles of
existence: the apparent injustice of fate, the disproportion of merit
and compensation, the aimlessness, the illusive promises and
baffled hopes of life. For millions of our fellow-men an increase of
health and longevity would suffice to make life decidedly worth living.
Health lessens the temptations to many vices. Perfect health blesses
its possessor with a spontaneous cheerfulness almost proof against
the frowns of fortune and the cares of poverty. With a meal of barley
cakes and milk, a straw couch, and scant clothing of homespun
linen, a shepherd-boy in the highlands of the Austrian Alps may
enjoy existence to a degree that exuberates in frolic and jubilant
shouts, while all the resources of wealth cannot recall the sunshine
which sickness has banished from the life of the dyspeptic glutton. If
happiness could be computed by measure and weight, it would be
found that her richest treasures are not stored in gilded walls, but
[22]in the homes of frugal thrift, of rustic vigor and nature-loving
independence. The sweetness of health reflects itself in grace of
form and deportment, and wins friends where the elegance of
studied manners gains only admirers. Health is also a primary
condition of that clearness of mind the absence of which can be only
partially compensated by the light of learning. Health is the basis of
mental as of bodily vigor; country-bred boys have again and again
carried off the prizes of academical honors from the pupils of refined
cities, and the foremost reformers of all ages and countries have
been men of the people; low-born, but not the less well-born, sons of
hardy rustics and mechanics, from Moses, Socrates, Epictetus,
Jesus Ben Josef, and Mohammed, to Luther, Rousseau, Thomas
Paine, and Abraham Lincoln.
[Contents]
C.—PERVERSION.
Habitual sin against the health-laws of Nature was originally chiefly a

consequence of untoward circumstances. Slaves, paupers,
immigrants to the inhospitable climes of the higher latitudes, were
forced to adopt abnormal modes of life which, in the course of time,
hardened into habits. Man, like all the varieties of his four-handed
relatives, is a native of the tropics, and the diet of our earliest
manlike ancestors was, in all probability, frugal: tree-fruits, berries,
nuts, roots, and edible herbs and gums. But the first colonists of the
winter lands were obliged to eke out an existence by eating the flesh
of their fellow-creatures, and a carnivorous diet thus became the
[23]habitual and, in many countries, almost the exclusive diet of the
nomadic inhabitants.
Alcohol is a product of fermentation, and the avarice of a cruel

master may have forced his slaves to quench their thirst with
fermented must or hydromel till habit begot a baneful second nature,
and the at first reluctant victims of intoxication learned to prefer
spoiled to fresh grape-juice. Sedentary occupations, however
distasteful at first, are apt to engender a sluggish aversion to
physical exercise, and even habitual confinement in a vitiated
atmosphere may at last become a second nature, characterized by a
morbid dread of fresh air. The slaves of the Roman landowners had
to pass their nights in prison-like dungeons, and may have
contracted the first germ of that mental disease known as the night-
air superstition, the idea, namely, that after dark the vitiated
atmosphere of a stifling dormitory is preferable to the balm of the
cooling night wind.
In modern times an unprecedented concurrence of circumstances

has stimulated a feverish haste in the pursuit of wealth, and thus
indirectly led to the neglect of personal hygiene. The abolition of the
public festivals by which the potentates of the pagan empires
compensated their subjects for the loss of political freedom, the
heartless egotism of our wealthy Pharisees, venal justice, and the
dire bondage of city life all help to stimulate a headlong race toward
the goal of the promised land of ease and independence—a goal
reached only by a favored few compared with the multitudes who
daily drop down wayworn and exhausted. [24]
But the deadliest blow to the cause of health was struck by the anti-
natural fanaticism of the Middle Ages, the world-hating infatuation of
the maniacs who depreciated every secular blessing as a curse in
disguise, and despised their own bodies as they despised nature,
life, and earth. The disciples of the world-renouncing messiah
actually welcomed disease as a sign of divine favor, they gloried in
decrepitude and deformity, and promoted the work of degeneration
with a persevering zeal never exceeded by the enlightened
benefactors of the human race. For a period of fifteen hundred years
the ecclesiastic history of Europe is the history of a systematic war
against the interests of the human body; the “mortification of the
flesh” was enjoined as a cardinal duty of a true believer; health-
giving recreations were suppressed, while health-destroying vices
were encouraged by the example of the clergy; domestic hygiene
was utterly neglected, and the founders of some twenty-four different
monastic orders vied in the invention of new penances and
systematic outrages upon the health of the poor convent-slaves.
Their diet was confined to the coarsest and often most loathsome
food; they were subjected to weekly bleedings, to profitless
hardships and deprivations; their sleep was broken night after night;
fasting was carried to a length which often avenged itself in
permanent insanity; and their only compensation for a daily repetition
of health-destroying afflictions was the permission to indulge in
spiritual vagaries and spirituous poisons: the same bigots who
grudged their followers a night of unbroken rest or a mouthful of
[25]digestible food indulged them in quantities of alcoholic beverages
that would have staggered the conscience of a modern beer-swiller.
The bodily health of a community was held so utterly below the

attention of a Christian magistrate that every large city became a
hotbed of contagious diseases; small-pox and scrofula became
pandemic disorders; the pestilence of the Black Death ravaged
Europe from end to end—nay, instead of trying to remove the cause
of the evil, the wretched victims were advised to seek relief in prayer
and self-torture, and a philosopher uttering a word of protest against
such illusions would have risked to have his tongue torn out by the
roots and his body consigned to the flames of the stake.
Mankind has never wholly recovered from that reign of insanity.

Indifference to many of the plainest health-laws of nature is still the
reproach of our so-called civilization. Our moralists rant about the
golden streets of the New Jerusalem, but find no time to expurgate
the slums of their own cities; our missionary societies spend millions
to acquaint the natives of distant islands with the ceremony of
baptism, but refuse to contribute a penny to the establishment of free
public baths for the benefit of their poor neighbors, whose children
are scourged or caged like wild beasts for trying to mitigate the
martyrdom of the midsummer season by a bath in the waters of the
next river. Temperance, indeed, is preached in the name of the
miracle-monger who turned water into alcohol; but millions of toilers
who seek to drown their misery in the Lethe of intoxication are
[26]deprived of every healthier pastime; the magistrates of our
wealthy cities rage with penal ordinances against the abettors of
public amusements on the day when nine-tenths of our laborers find
their only leisure for recreation. Poor factory children who would
spend the holidays in the paradise of the green hills are lured into
the baited trap of a Sabbath-school and bribed to memorize the stale
twaddle of Hebrew ghost-stories or the records of fictitious
genealogies; but the offer to enlarge the educational sphere of our
public schools by the introduction of a health primer would be
scornfully rejected as an attempt to divert the attention of the pupils
from more important topics.
[Contents]
D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.
But the laws of Nature cannot be outraged with impunity, and the aid
of supernatural agencies has never yet protected our ghost-mongers
from the consequences of their sins against the monitions of their
physical conscience. The neglect of cleanliness avenges itself in
diseases which no prayer can avert; during the most filthful and
prayerful period of the Middle Ages, seven out of ten city-dwellers
were subject to scrofula of that especially malignant form that attacks
the glands and the arteries as well as the skin. Medical nostrums
and clerical hocus-pocus of the ordinary sort were, indeed, so
notoriously unavailing against that virulent affection that thousands
of sufferers took long journeys to try the efficacy of a king’s touch, as
recorded by the unanimous testimony of contemporary writers, as
well as in the still [27]current term of a sovereign remedy. A long foot-
journey, with its opportunities for physical exercise, outdoor camps,
and changes of diet, often really effected the desired result; but, on
their return to their reeking hovels, the convalescents experienced a
speedy relapse, and had either to repeat the wearisome journey or
resign themselves to the “mysterious dispensation” of a Providence
which obstinately refused to let miracles interfere with the normal
operation of the physiological laws recorded in the protests of
instinct. Stench, nausea, and sick-headaches might, indeed, have
enforced those protests upon the attention of the sufferers; but the
disciples of Antinaturalism had been taught to mistrust the
promptings of their natural desires, and to accept discomforts as
signs of divine favor, or, in extreme cases, to trust their abatement to
the intercession of the saints, rather than to the profane interference
of secular science.
The dungeon-life of the monastic maniacs, and the abject
submission to the nuisance of atmospheric impurities, avenged
themselves in the ravages of pulmonary consumption; the votaries of
dungeon-smells were taught the value of fresh air by the tortures of
an affliction from which only the removal of the cause could deliver a
victim, and millions of orthodox citizens died scores of years before
the attainment of a life-term which a seemingly inscrutable
dispensation of Heaven grants to the unbelieving savages of the
wilderness. The cheapest of all remedies, fresh air, surrounded them
in immeasurable abundance, craving admission and offering them
the [28]aid which Nature grants even to the lowliest of her creatures,
but a son of a miracle-working church had no concern with such
things, and was enjoined to rely on the efficacy of mystic
ceremonies: “If any man is sick among you, let him call for the elders
of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in
the name of the Lord.” “And the prayer of faith shall cure the sick,
and the Lord shall raise him up.”
Thousands of the fatuous bigots who prayed for “meekness of spirit”

continued to gorge themselves with the food of carnivorous animals,
and thus inflamed their passions with the sanguinary, remorseless
propensities of those brutes. Luigi Cornaro, the Italian reformer,
assures us that it was no uncommon thing for a nobleman or prelate
of his century to swallow fourteen pounds of strong meats at a single
meal, and that, after invoking the blessing of Heaven upon such a
repast, the devourer of meat-pies would rise with his paunch
distended “like the hide of a drowned dog.” The “Love of Enemies,”
“forgiveness and meekness,” were on their lips; but those fourteen
pounds of meat-pie worked out their normal result; and among the
carnivorous saints of that age we accordingly find men whose
fiendish inhumanity would have appalled the roughest legionary of
pagan Rome. Cæsar Borgia, the son of a highest ecclesiastic
dignitary, a disciple of a priestly training-school, and himself a prince
of the church, seems to have combined the stealthy cunning of a
viper with the bloodthirst of a hyena. Four times he made and broke
the most solemn treaties, [29]in order to get an opportunity to invade
the territory of an unprepared neighbor. His campaigns were
conducted with a truculence denounced even by his own allies; with
his own hand he poisoned fourteen of his boon companions, in order
to possess himself of their property; twenty-three of his political and
clerical rivals were removed by the dagger of hired assassins or
executed upon the testimony of suborned perjurers. He tried to
poison his brother-in-law, Prince Alphonso of Aragon, in order to
facilitate his design of seducing his own sister; he made repeated,
and at last partly successful, attempts to poison the brother of his
mother and his own father, the pope.
The heartless neglect of sanitary provisions for the comfort of the

poor avenges itself in epidemics that visit the abodes of wealth as
well as the hovels of misery. A stall-fed preacher of our southern
seaport towns may circulate a petition for the suppression of Sunday
excursions, in order to prevent the recreation-needing toilers of his
community from leaving town on St. Collection Day; he may
advocate the arrest of bathing schoolboys, in order to suppress an
undue love of physical enjoyments, or to gratify a female tithe-payer
who seeks an opportunity of displaying her prudish virtue at the
expense of the helpless; he may vote to suppress outdoor sports in
the cool of the late evening, when the inhabitants of the tenement
streets are trying to enjoy an hour of extra Sabbatarian recreation—a
privilege to be reserved for the saints who can rest six days out of
seven, and on the seventh harvest the fruits of other men’s labor. But
epidemics refuse to recognize such distinctions, [30]and the vomit of
yellow fever will force the most reverend monopolist to disgorge the
proceeds of the tithes coined from the misery of consumptive factory
children. Nor can wealth purchase immunity from the natural
consequences of habitual vice. The dyspeptic glutton is a Tantalus
who starves in the midst of abundance. The worn-out tradesman,
whose restless toil in the mines of mammon has led to asthma or
consumption, would vainly offer to barter half his gold for half a year
of health. Thousands of families who deny themselves every
recreation, who linger out the summer in the sweltering city, and toil
and save “for the sake of our dear children,” have received Nature’s
verdict on the wisdom of their course in the premature death of those
children.
[Contents]
E.—REDEMPTION.
It has often been said that the physical regeneration of the human
race could be achieved without the aid of a miracle, if its systematic
pursuit were followed with half the zeal which our stock-breeders
bestow upon the rearing of their cows and horses. A general
observance of the most clearly recognized laws of health would,
indeed, abundantly suffice for that purpose. There is, for instance, no
doubt that the morbid tendency of our indoor modes of occupation
could be counteracted by gymnastics, and the trustees of our
education fund should build a gymnasium near every town school.
As a condition of health, pure air is as essential as pure water and
food, and no house-owner should be permitted to sow [31]the seeds
of deadly diseases by crowding his tenants into the back rooms of
unaired and unairable slum-prisons. New cities should be projected
on the plan of concentric rings of cottage suburbs (interspersed with
parks and gardens), instead of successive strata of tenement flats.
In every large town all friends of humanity should unite for the
enforcement of Sunday freedom, and spare no pains to brand the
Sabbath bigots as enemies of the human race. We should found
Sunday gardens, where our toil-worn fellow-citizens could enjoy their
holidays with outdoor sports and outdoor dances, free museums,
temperance drinks, healthy refreshments, collections of botanical
and zoölogical curiosities. Country excursions on the only leisure day
of the laboring classes should be as free as air and sunshine, and
every civilized community should have a Recreation League for the
promotion of that purpose.
In the second century of our chronological era the cities of the

Roman empire vied in the establishment of free public baths. Antioch
alone had fourteen of them; Alexandria not less than twelve, and
Rome itself at least twenty, some of them of such magnificence and
extent that their foundations have withstood the ravages of sixteen
centuries. Many of those establishments were entirely free, and even
the Thermæ, or luxurious Warm Baths, of Caracalla admitted visitors
for a gate-fee which all but the poorest could afford. Our boasted
civilization will have to follow such examples before it can begin to
deserve its name; and even the free circus games [32](by no means
confined to the combats of armed prize-fighters) were preferable to
the fanatical suppression of all popular sports which made the age of
Puritanism the dreariest period of that dismal era known as the
Reign of the Cross.
The preservation of health is at least not less important than the

preservation of Hebrew mythology; and communities who force their
children to sacrifice a large portion of their time to the study of Asiatic
miracle legends might well permit them to devote an occasional hour
or two to the study of modern physiology. We should have health
primers and teachers of hygiene, and the most primitive district
school should find time for a few weekly lessons in the rudiments of
sanitary science, such as the importance of ventilation, the best
modes of exercise, the proper quality and quantity of our daily food,
the significance of the stimulant habit, the use and abuse of dress,
etc.
Such text-books would prepare the way for health lectures, for health
legislation and the reform of municipal hygiene. The untruth that “a
man can not be defiled by things entering him from without” has
been thoroughly exploded by the lessons of science, and should no
longer excuse the neglect of that frugality which in the times of the
pagan republics formed the best safeguard of national vigor. Milk,
bread, and fruit, instead of greasy viands, alcohol, and narcotic
drinks, would soon modify the mortality statistics of our large cities,
and we should not hesitate to recognize the truth that the remarkable
[33]longevity of the Jews and Mohammedans has a great deal to do
with their dread of impure food.
[Contents]
CHAPTER II.
STRENGTH.
[Contents]
A.—LESSONS OF INSTINCT.
Bodily vigor is the basis of mental and physical health. Strength is

power, and the instinctive love of invigorating exercise manifests
itself in the young of all but the lowest brutes. The bigot who
undermines the health of his children by stinting their outdoor sport
as “worldly vanity,” and “exercise that profiteth but little,” is shamed
by animals who lead their young in races and trials of strength. Thus
the female fox will train her cubs; the doe will race and romp with her
fawn, the mare with her colt. Monkeys (like the squirrels of our
northern forests) can be seen running up and down a tree and
leaping from branch to branch, without any conceivable purpose but
the enjoyment of the exercise itself; dogs run races, young lions
wrestle and paw each other in a playful trial of prowess; even birds
can be seen sporting in the air, and dolphins on the play-fields of the
ocean. In nearly all classes of the vertebrate animals the rivalry of
the males is decided by a trial of strength, and the female
unhesitatingly accepts the victor as the fittest representative of his
species.
Normal children are passionately fond of athletic sports. In western

Yucatan I saw Indian girls climb [34]trees with the agility of a spider-
monkey, and laughingly pelt each other with the fruits of the
Adansonia fig. The children of the South-sea Islanders vie in aquatic
gymnastics. Spartan girls joined in the foot-races of their brothers,
and by the laws of Lycurgus were not permitted to marry till they had
attained a prescribed degree of proficiency in a number of athletic
exercises. Race-running and wrestling were the favorite pastimes of
young Romans in the undegenerate age of the republic; and, in spite
of all restraints, similar propensities still manifest themselves in our
school-boys. They pass the intervals of their study-hours in
competitive athletics, rather than in listless inactivity, and brave frosts
and snowstorms to get the benefit of outdoor exercise even in
midwinter. They love health-giving sports for their own sake, as if
instinctively aware that bodily strength will further every victory in the
arena of life.
The enthusiasm that gathered about the heroic games of Olympia

made those festivals the brightest days in the springtime of the
human race. The million-voiced cheers that hailed the victor of the
pentathlon have never been heard again on earth since the manliest
and noblest of all recreations were suppressed by order of a
crowned bigot. The rapture of competitive athletics is a bond which
can obliterate the rancor of all baser rivalries, and still unites hostile
tribes in the arena of pure manhood: as in Algiers, where the
Bedouins joined in the gymnastic prize-games of their French
foemen: the same foemen whose banquets they would have refused
to share even at the bidding of starvation. In Buda-Pesth I once
[35]witnessed a performance of the German athlete Weitzel, and still
remember the irrepressible enthusiasm of two broad-shouldered
Turks who crowded to the edge of the platform, and, with waving
kerchiefs, joined in the cheers of the uncircumcised spectators.
[Contents]
B.—REWARDS OF CONFORMITY.
The “survival of the fittest” means, in many important respects, the
survival of the strongest. In a state of nature weakly animals yield to
their stronger rivals; the stoutest lion, the swiftest tiger, has a
superior chance of obtaining prey; the stouter bulls of the herd defy
the attack of the wolves who overcome the resistance of the weaker
individuals; the fleetest deer has the best chance to escape the
pursuit of the hunter.
A state of civilization does only apparently equalize such differences.

The invention of gunpowder has armed the weak with the power of a
giant; but the issue of international wars will always be biased by the
comparative strength of sinew and steadiness of nerve of the men
that handle those improved weapons. In the last Franco-Prussian
war the French were favored by an undoubted superiority of arms,
but they were utterly beaten by a nation whose sons had devoted
their youth to gymnastics. The arms of the Gothic giants were of the
rudest description: hunting-spears and clumsy battle-axes; but those
axes broke the ranks of the Roman legionaries, with their polished
swords and elaborate tactics. For the last two thousand years the
wars [36]that decided the international rivalries of Asia, Europe, and
North America nearly always ended with the victory of a northern
nation over its southern neighbors. The men of the north could not
always boast a superiority in science or arms, nor in number, nor in
the advantage of a popular cause; but the rigor of their climate
exacts a valiant effort in the struggle for existence, and steels the
nerves even of an otherwise inferior race. “Fortis Fortuna adjuvat,”
said a Roman proverb, which means literally that Fortune favors the
strong, and which has been well rendered in the paraphrase of a
modern translator: “Force begets fortitude and conquers fortune.”
Nor is that bias of fate confined to the battles of war. In the contests
of peace, too, other things being equal, the strong arm will prevail
against the weak, the stout heart against the faint. Bodily strength
begets self-reliance. “Blest are the strong, for they shall possess the
kingdom of the earth,” would be an improved variation of the gospel
text. The Germanic nations (including the Scandinavian and Anglo-
Saxon) who have most faithfully preserved the once universal love of
manly sports, have prevailed against their rivals in the arena of
industry and science, as well as of war.
An American manufacturer, who established a branch of his

business at Havre, France, hired American and British workmen at
double wages, maintaining that he found it the cheapest plan, since
one of his expensive laborers could do the work of three natives. In
the seaport towns, even of South America and Southern Europe, a
British sailor [37]is always at a premium. American industry is steadily
forcing its way further south, and may yet come to limit the fields of
its enterprise only by the boundaries of the American continent. From
the smallest beginnings, a nation of iron-fisted rustics has repeatedly
risen to supremacy in arms and arts. Two hundred years before the
era of Norman conquests in France, Italy, and Great Britain, the
natives of Norway were but a race of hardy hunters and fishermen. A
century after the battle of Xeres de la Frontera, the half-savage
followers of Musa and Tarik had founded high schools of science and
industry. And, as the fairest flower springs from the hardy thorn, the
brightest flowers of art and poetry have immortalized the lands of
heroic freemen, rather than of languid dreamers. The same nation
that carried the banners of freedom through the battle-storm of
Marathon and Salamis, adorned its temples with the sculptures of
Phidias and its literature with the masterpieces of Sophocles and
Simonides.
Physical vigor is also the best guarantee of longevity. Nature

exempts the children of the south from many cares; yet in the stern
climes of the higher latitudes Health seems to make her favorite
home; in spite of snowstorms and bitter frosts the robust
Scandinavian outlives the languid Italian. In spite of a rigorous
climate, I say, for that his length of life is the reward of hardy habits is
proved by the not less remarkable longevity of the hardy Arab and
the manful Circassian, in climes that differ from that of Norway as
Mexico and Virginia differ from Labrador. Men of steeled sinews
overcome disease [38]as they brave the perils of wars and the
hardships of the wilderness; hospital-surgeons know how readily the
semi-savages of a primitive borderland recover from injuries that
would send the effeminate city-dweller to the land of the shades.
Toil-hardened laborers, too, share such immunities. On the 25th of
March, 1887, Thomas McGuire, the foreman of a number of laborers
employed at the night-shift of the Croton Aqueduct, fell to the bottom
of the pit, a distance of ninety-five feet, and was drawn up in a
comatose condition, literally drenched in his own blood. At the
Bellevue Hospital (city of New York) the examining surgeon found
him still alive, but gave him up for lost when he ascertained the
extent of his injuries. Both his arms were broken near the shoulder,
both thighs were fractured, his skull was horribly shattered about the
left temple and frontal region, six of his ribs were broken and their
splinters driven into the lungs. There seemed no hope whatever for
him, and, after the administration of an anesthetic, he was put in a
cot and left alone to die. To the utter surprise of the attending
surgeon, the next morning found the mass of broken bones still
breathing. His fever subsided; he survived a series of desperate
operations, survived an apparently fatal hemorrhage, and continued
to improve from day to day, till about the middle of June he
recovered his complete consciousness, and was able to sit up and
answer the questions of the medical men who, in ever increasing
numbers, had visited his bedside for the last three weeks. As a
newspaper correspondent sums up his case: “His strong constitution
had [39]repulsed the assaults of death, till finally the grim monster
went away to seek a less obstinate victim.” And, moreover, the
exercise of athletic sports lessens the danger of such accidents: a

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Restraint, Conflict, and the Fall of the

Roman Republic Paul Belonick

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

1. Shame, Respect, and Deference  15

To Cicero, these forces of restraint normally prevented ambitious men from

prizes according to an electoral process based on generally acknowledged merit,

11 Cf. Beck (2016).

(1966); Cairns (1993); Rademaker (2005).

the sense of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu: an immersive social context, presumed

Wees (2011) 3; Hurlet (2012) 27–​32, 38.

282–​284, 302; Passet (2020) 192.

principles integral to the competitive system, they became corrosive flashpoints

of emotion. Opponents all claimed themselves as restrained (which explains

19 Cf. Wallace-​Hadrill (1997) 11; Hölkeskamp (2006) 383, (2014b) 45.

21 Badian (1972b) 55.

1 Cic. ad Brut. 1.10.3; App. B.C. 1.4.33.

nobilitasque magistri equitum.

10 Livy 9.38.11: quae ne ira obstaret bono publico.

publicam tuendam esse.

Deference to Social Equals and Colleagues

A second and more important observation helps explain why. Deference to

15 Lundgreen (2011) 23.

to compromise by exchanging days of command—​apparently a second-​best

It is risky, of course, to rely on set speeches in ancient sources, though given

If the normal pressure on a Roman aristocrat to defer to peer or colleague was

voting soldiers, but, victi auctoritatibus principum (“defeated by the authority of

Pudor, Verecundia, and Existimatio

2491. On Roman shame see also Vervaet (2017).

competition, or in which an abstract, Platonic ideal of each restraint value existed

effuso studio nequit.

Amid Rome’s wars of expansion a century later, opportunities for disputes

self-​advancement and the expectations of the aristocratic group. Although un-

Consequences, Normativity, and the Republican System

protracted conflict appear extraordinary. Postumius’ ill-​advised actions likely

(1997–​2008) III 572.

Nature has guarded the health of her creatures by a marvelous

The word frugality, in its original sense, referred literally to a diet of

The reward of nature-abiding habits is not confined to the negative

Habitual sin against the health-laws of Nature was originally chiefly a

Alcohol is a product of fermentation, and the avarice of a cruel

In modern times an unprecedented concurrence of circumstances

The bodily health of a community was held so utterly below the

Mankind has never wholly recovered from that reign of insanity.

Thousands of the fatuous bigots who prayed for “meekness of spirit”

The heartless neglect of sanitary provisions for the comfort of the

In the second century of our chronological era the cities of the

The preservation of health is at least not less important than the

Bodily vigor is the basis of mental and physical health. Strength is

Normal children are passionately fond of athletic sports. In western

The enthusiasm that gathered about the heroic games of Olympia

A state of civilization does only apparently equalize such differences.

An American manufacturer, who established a branch of his

Physical vigor is also the best guarantee of longevity. Nature

You might also like

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1. Shame, Respect, and Deference 15

Wees (2011) 3; Hurlet (2012) 27–32, 38.

282–284, 302; Passet (2020) 192.

19 Cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1997) 11; Hölkeskamp (2006) 383, (2014b) 45.

to compromise by exchanging days of command—apparently a second-best

self-advancement and the expectations of the aristocratic group. Although un-

protracted conflict appear extraordinary. Postumius’ ill-advised actions likely

(1997–2008) III 572.