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Political Conversations in
Late Republican Rome
 Political Conversations
in Late Republican Rome
CRISTINA ROSILLO-LÓPEZ

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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© Cristina Rosillo-López 2022
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First Edition published in 2022
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contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Para Nora
 Acknowledgements

Whereas I began work on this book in a normal and hectic academic world filled
of travel and conferences, I ended it under a strict lockdown at home. At a time
when millions of people are secluded and isolated at home, we are reminded of the
importance and joy of face-to-face interaction, something that cannot be replaced
by our increasingly sophisticated modern means of communication. These are
unusual, yet somehow fitting, circumstances to complete a book that examines
how Roman senators and their entourage preferred to meet in person to engage in
conversation. Now more than ever, we can see that they were right.
This book was conceived, researched, and partially written thanks to a
Humboldt Research Fellowship, which allowed me to spend many months in
Germany and have the luxury of dedicating long periods of time exclusively to
research. I was a guest at the Lehrstuhl für alte Geschichte at the Technische
Universität Dresden, and I immensely enjoyed the city, countryside, library and
my new colleagues, who went the extra mile to make me feel at home; vielen Dank.
This research was also financed by the project ‘El sector inmobiliario en el
mundo romano’ (HAR2016-76882-P, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Ministerio
de Ciencia e Innovación, Gobierno de España).
I am very grateful to the university libraries and librarians at Dresden, Oxford,
and Paris. At the library of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, David Fernández
Lora has managed to track down rare items and almost inaccessible books and
journals for me; muchísimas gracias, a él y a todo el equipo de la biblioteca. I also
thank Ben Jerue for making my English more readable.
Parts of this book were presented at seminars and conferences in Turin,
Durham, Buenos Aires, Bielefeld, Dresden, Grenoble, Paris, and in the Libera
Res Publica Network meetings of Seville and Palma. I would like to thank the
audiences for engaging with the topic and for their questions and suggestions.
Whether at a conference, during a quick coffee break, or over a long and
leisurely meal and drink(s), many colleagues and friends have offered suggestions
and comments throughout the research and writing of this book: Henriette van
der Blom, Clément Bur, Juan Manuel Cortés Copete, Cyril Courrier, Jean-Michel
David, Antonio Duplá Ansuategui, María García Magán, Marta García Morcillo,
Enrique García Riaza, Karl-Joachim Hölkeskamp, Frédéric Hurlet, Fabian Knopf,
Christoph Lundgreen, Gesine Manuwald, Pascal Montlahuc, Rosario Moreno
Soldevila, Elena Muñiz Grijalvo, Mike Peachin, Francesca Rohr Vio, Amy
Russell, Catherine Steel, Kathryn Tempest, and Uwe Walter. Thank you very
much! Martin Jehne was essential for the structure and perspective of this book;
viii 

his comments and advice on early drafts always made me reflect deeper on the
subject. I would like to extend a special thanks to my colleague and friend
Francisco Pina Polo, who has followed this book from its birth to completion,
reading the whole manuscript (and several partial drafts); as always, I have learned
much from his incisive comments, insightful questions, and intellectual generos-
ity. Although some of the above-mentioned people have not always agreed with all
the arguments made over the following pages, engaging with them in conversation
and debate has been (and still is) a real pleasure.
I was extremely fortunate to be in strict lockdown in the company of my two
favourite people in the world. Igor, the best partner I could ever hope for, has
made everything possible. While currently Nora can just say a limited (but
growing) number of words, her eyes and smile do speak volumes. This book is
for her.
 Contents

List of Figures and Tables xiii

Introduction 1
Why are conversations important? 2
Senatorial relationships and Roman politics 5
Outline of the book 8
1. A wider definition of politics and political participation 11
1.1 Extra-institutional politics 11
1.2 What is politics and political participation? 18
2. Sources for political conversations in Late Republican Rome 23
2.1 Why the letters of Cicero? 24
2.2 Why do later sources display a different perspective? 30
3. Face-to-face meetings 36
3.1 Le métier du sénateur romain: the importance of being
present in Rome (or nearby) 37
3.2 The importance of meeting in person 41
3.2.1 The ‘circulatory system’ 41
3.2.2 The limitations of letters 47
3.2.3 Face-to-face meetings as problem-solving: the encounters of 49 51
3.2.4 Physical presence and negotiation 55
3.2.5 Caesar as ruler and face-to-face meetings 59
3.3 The myth of senatorial meetings: the ‘Conference of Luca’ 62
3.3.1 The ‘standard version’ of the ‘Conference of Luca’ 62
3.3.2 The logistics of senatorial ‘conferences’ 65
3.3.3 Caesar’s face-to-face politics during his proconsulship in Gaul 70
3.3.4 The ‘Conference of Luca’ as a litmus test for being
connected or disconnected 76
3.4 Conclusion 79
Appendix: Informal meetings January–May 49 81
4. How to have conversations 83
4.1 The early socialization of the Roman elite 84
4.2 The social expectations governing conversation 94
4.2.1 Learning how to have a conversation 95
4.2.2 Social expectations: dynamics of conversations 98
4.2.3 Conversations and disagreement 101
4.2.4 Conversations and placating anger 102
x 

4.3 Occasions for conversation 108

4.3.1 Dinners 108
4.3.2 Senaculum 115
4.3.3 Consilia and meetings 118
4.4 Conclusions 125
5. Dynamics of conversations 127
5.1 Methodological issues 128
5.2 Conversations, insider information, speculations,
and predictions 132
5.3 Non-verbal information: gestures, feelings, and impressions 136
5.4 Conversations transmitted in direct speech: case studies 139
5.4.1 Cicero and Caesar (28 March 49) 141
5.4.2 Curio and Cicero (14 April 49) 143
5.4.3 The so-called consilium of June 44 (group conversation) 147
5.5 A non-Ciceronian perspective on conversation 150
5.6 Conclusions 153
6. Oral circulation of information 155
6.1 Circulation of information 156
6.1.1 What kind of information was sought? 156
6.1.2 Requesting and fishing for information 160
6.1.3 The connection and disconnection of the flow of information 167
6.2 Control of information 170
6.2.1 Could the circulation of information be restricted? 170
6.2.2 When things got out of control: leaked conversations 174
6.3 Conclusions 177
7. The role of non-senatorial actors in conversations and meetings 179
7.1 How to identify and refer to these actors? 179
7.2 Non-senatorial actors: analysis 183
7.2.1 Freedmen 183
7.2.2 Elite women 187
7.2.3 Non-elite women 191
7.3 The role of mandata 194
7.3.1 Mandata in private law and on official missions 195
7.3.2 Mandata in extra-institutional politics 197
7.4 Conclusions 202
8. The Senate from an extra-institutional point of view 204
8.1 Preparatory conversations 205
8.2 How to draft and negotiate a law proposal 208
8.3 Was there an agenda in the Roman Senate? 216
8.4 Looking for political support 220
8.4.1 A specific issue: Cicero’s supplicatio 221
8.4.2 Bringing someone over from the other side: Hirtius in 44 224
8.4.3 The Buthrotum affair 226
  xi

8.5 The presence of non-senatorial actors: the special case of Atticus 229
8.6 Conclusion: What happened when senators could not meet
and talk beforehand? 230
9. Conclusions 235

Appendix: Prosopography of non-senatorial actors 239

A.1 Young men 239
A.2 Equites 241
A.3 Freedmen 245
A.4 Women 248
A.5 People of unknown status 251

Bibliography 255
Index of People 283
Subject Index 288
 List of Figures and Tables

Figures
0.1. Cesare Maccari, Cicerone denuncia Catilina (Palazzo Madama, Roma, 1880). 2
3.1. Discussion networks between January and May 49 in Italy. 53

Tables
3.1. Distance from Rome to Caesar’s winter camps for which visits made
by senators are attested. 71
3.2. Distance from Rome to Caesar’s other winter camps (hiberna), with no
attested visits by senators. 72
3.3. Distances from Rome to the nearest important city of a province. 75
 Introduction

One wonders whether in 1880 Cesare Maccari could have imagined how his fresco
Cicerone denuncia Catilina would become one of the most famous representations
of the Roman Republic, appearing on the cover of countless academic books and
influencing depictions of the Roman Senate in films and popular culture.¹ No
doubt, the painter painstakingly laboured over the fresco’s protagonist: his Cicero
exudes power and eloquence, standing off to the left with arms outstretched and
hair the same colour as his toga. We can almost hear the legendary words quo
usque tandem on his lips. On the opposite side of the fresco, Maccari also
masterfully rendered Cicero’s opponent, Catiline, swarthy and dark-haired,
hunched over and brooding with his strong arms bent. Is he deciding on the
next step to take? Does he regret his actions? He is conspicuously surrounded by
only empty seats; all senators have abandoned him and are squeezed together on
the other side of the room.
But let’s forget about Cicero and Catiline, who have always attracted the
greatest amount of attention. Instead, let’s focus on the senators. Maccari depicted
many of them listening to Cicero with rapt attention; four senators look intensely
at Catiline, perhaps trying to guess the effect of the consul’s words on him; other
senators look as if they are enjoying the fight, while others give the impression that
they have better things to do. There are also two clusters of senators that display a
very specific dynamic: in the middle of the picture, two senators seated in the front
row turn their backs to speak with two of their peers, one of whom leans forward
to hear better. Just behind Cicero’s arm, another senator, with a hand over his
mouth, whispers an aside to his neighbour, who flashes a knowing half-
smile, while a third senator leans forward so that he does not miss a word. Are
they talking about the actions of the consul or his rhetorical prowess? Are they
speculating about what Catilina’s political future would look like after the meet-
ing? Are they commenting on the rumours of the possible involvement of many
other senators in this alleged coup? Are they discussing their own possible courses
of action?

¹ E.g. the disposition of the Senate and the design of the chairs in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960)
are an exact reproduction of Maccari’s fresco (the design of the floor is the only difference).

Political Conversations in Late Republican Rome. Cristina Rosillo-López, Oxford University Press.
© Cristina Rosillo-López 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856265.003.0001
2      

Fig. 0.1. Cesare Maccari, Cicerone denuncia Catilina (Palazzo Madama, Roma, 1880).

We are familiar with the notion that the Roman political world of the Late
Republic included lofty speeches and sessions of the Senate, but also need to
remember that another important aspect of Late Republican politics revolved
around senators, their sons, equites, trusted freedmen, and women of the elite
talking among themselves, chatting in the corner or at dinner. The present book
aims to analyse senatorial political conversations and illuminate the oral aspects of
Roman politics. It argues that Roman senators and their entourages met in person
to have conversations in which they discussed politics, circulated political informa-
tion, and negotiated strategies; and that all this had a relevant impact both on
politics and institutions as well as determined how the Roman Republic functioned.

Why are conversations important?

As a concept, ‘conversation’ has defied any widely accepted definition among

the specialists who study it. Nevertheless, conversations undoubtedly constitute
the key element that makes us human beings: the Turing test, devised to
assess whether a machine could display intelligent behaviour equal to a human’s,
judges the capacity of a machine to engage in human-like conversations
without being identified as a machine.² For the sake of this book, I will consider

² Turing (1950); the Loebner Prize is an annual competition that judges whether computer
programs pass the Turing test. Regarding the study of conversation, the Ebert test goes far beyond:
  3

conversation to be any speech that occurs between at least two people, in which
people predominantly speak in turns, with the purpose of establishing or main-
taining social ties and/or exchanging information.³ This study will focus exclu-
sively on political conversations.
There are conversational constraints that limit the agency of the speaker and/or
listener: physical location (e.g. seating/standing), a person’s availability, the pres-
ence or absence of shared background knowledge, the ability to get a word in
edgeways when engaging with a dominating speaker (one-speaker rule), turn-
taking, the suitability of subjects of conversation, opportunity, subjects that may
be broached safely, among others.⁴ Some of these constraints can occasionally be
violated without a breakdown in conversation, but others cannot. All these
constraints show how socially and culturally rich and complicated conversations
are, even though they often strike us as the most natural things in the world.
Lately pessimists have lamented the decline of the art of conversation; some of
them have almost published its obituary.⁵ It is a common talking point that people
do not meet and talk any more; that, when they do, they only stare at their screens.
Scholars recall the golden ages of conversation, such as the 17th- and 18th-century
French salons, where gallant and spirited conversation became a model for social
and intellectual life.⁶ Habermas linked the dynamics of the salon with the emer-
gence of a public sphere and public opinion.⁷ The unexpected dimensions of the
COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting confinements of billions of people around
the world in 2020–2021 have thrown into relief the importance—or the sheer
necessity—of meeting people face-to-face to converse. The use of videoconfer-
ences, telephone calls, and instant messages has soared. People have resorted to
having dinners together over the internet and have got used to planting them-
selves in front of their computers with a coffee or cocktail in hand; friends,
families, and lovers have followed these rituals while confined. However, all
these can only be an ersatz version of the real thing: meeting in person and talking
face to face.
While it is a truism that Roman senators talked to each other, the present study
intends to fill in a gap within the scholarship: those conversations and meetings

film critic Robert Ebert proposed the challenge of developing a computerized voice which could master
the delivery, intentions, and timing of a human voice and be able to make people laugh (TED 2011
lecture: https://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice/transcript?language=en).
³ Sacks (1995); Gibson (2000). ⁴ Gibson (2000).
⁵ ‘Conversation is dying’, in D. Lowe, ‘The Lost Art of Conversation (and How to Seduce Your
Customers’, Medium, 5 May 2018 (https://medium.com/d-lowe-playbook/the-lost-art-of-conversation-
and-how-emojis-are-slowly-killing-us-44364ee4859). Turtle (2015) has differentiated between talk (also
conducted through texts, emails, social media) and conversation.
⁶ Craveri (2001); Blanc (2006) on the political cercles and salons at the beginning of the French
Revolution, although there is no consensus on how far politics were discussed on salons previous to
1789. Pérez Samper (2002) on tertulias in Spain in the 18th century.
⁷ Habermas (1989); Rosillo-López (2017) on the public sphere and public opinion in the Late
Roman Republic; Gottesman (2014) on the public sphere in Athens.
4      

have been widely written off as unimportant. There has been no previous study of
conversations and meetings as a working mechanism of Roman politics; previous
works have approached the subject from a micro-perspective (e.g. Syme’s recon-
struction of who attended dinner with Caesar on the night before the Ides of
March)⁸ or have ignored it completely. While dinners have indeed been studied
thoroughly, they have not been integrated into a wider conception of politics.⁹
Alföldi paid attention to who met with whom and who talked with whom after
Octavian’s arrival in Italy in the aftermath of Caesar’s murder, in order to
understand how the young man and Balbus went about building up support for
his cause.¹⁰ A recent study on senatorial procedure has included conversations,
but still from a marginal point of view.¹¹ With the exception of the so-called
conference at Luca, modern accounts of the period have only approached
conversations and meetings sporadically or mentioned them occasionally as
anecdotes.¹² However, I urge the reader to open Cicero’s letters and to choose
one at random: the orator surely mentions having a conversation with someone,
filling in his correspondent on what he had been told; or he would be planning to
meet someone in order to talk politics; or he would be requesting information
from his correspondent. Clearly, it was an important issue for him and, by
extension, for any Roman senator. Regardless of the time of year or the political
context, conversations and meetings were pervasive in first-century Roman
politics. The aim of this book is to provide a satisfactory answer to how politics
worked in practice by focusing on the role of conversation and oral interaction.
This oral component has been studied in depth for formal politics—that is, for
discussions in the Senate and speeches before the people—but not for conversa-
tions. Face-to-face conversations allowed their participants to articulate their
points of view, share them with others, circulate information about them, learn
about others’ opinions and takes, deploy dynamics of persuasion (sometimes
direct, more subtle and tentative at other times), and, finally, to take in all the
information relayed through verbal and non-verbal means as well as through
feelings and impressions, so as to decide on a course of action. A letter could in no
way contain the richness and possibilities of an oral communicative moment in
politics.
The birth of Classics and Ancient History as a discipline was tightly linked with
Roman Law. The constitutional study of politics, in the tradition of Mommsen’s
Staatsrecht, has long eschewed aspects of politics that were not legislated.
Nevertheless, we should be careful not to look at Roman politics through an
overly legalistic lens. The Mommsenian focus on institutions and laws (i.e. the
formal aspects of Roman politics) has cast aside many aspects and phenomena
that do not neatly fit those boxes. In recent decades, breaking free of those

⁸ Mentioned in Pelling (2011: 471). Cf. Syme (2016: 12). ⁹ See pp. 108–115.
¹⁰ Alföldi (1976). ¹¹ Timmer (2020). ¹² On Luca, see pp. 62–79.
  5

over-legalized constraints, the multifaceted work on the study of the magistracies

and assemblies, the interaction of the senatorial elite with the equites and plebs,
senatorial behaviour, rituals, the role of the people, collective identity, cultural
memory, among others, have constituted a quantum leap in our understanding of
the Roman Republic. This book intends to adopt a new perspective, analysing how
Roman senators and non-senatorial actors interacted with each other outside a
strictly institutional setting. In light of this, I posit that politics were not solely
restricted to institutions. The real point is that by ignoring the role of conversa-
tions and meetings (i.e. the extra-institutional sphere), Roman politics is reduced
exclusively to institutions: the Senate, assemblies, and magistracies. As a result, we
are missing half the picture. As historians, this is something that we simply cannot
afford.

Senatorial relationships and Roman politics

Taking into account the importance of senators in the political system of the
(Late) Roman Republic, it is understandable that scholars have focused most of
their attention for more than a century on understanding the dynamics of the
relationships between senators. Those studies sought to clarify how the Senate
and, more definitively, the entire political system functioned. In 1912, Matthias
Gelzer published his Die Nobilität der römischen Republik in which he posited that
personal relations constituted the central characteristic of Roman politics, that is,
the primacy of personal relationships and fides over politics.¹³ In his view, these
relationships were socially structured, multiple, and overlapping, the most
important being the system of clientelae (at the level both of individuals and of
communities), patrocinium in the courts, political friendship (amicitia), and
financial obligations. In short, fides was at the heart of Roman society and politics
from top to bottom, from amicitia to clientela. ‘These relationships determined
the distribution of political power.’¹⁴ To this picture, Gelzer added the importance
of factions, based on the cooperation between those of equal status when assist-
ance was needed.¹⁵ In 1958 Badian added weight to these arguments by demon-
strating how members of the elite constructed networks of provincial clientelae
that reached communities over the entire expanse of the Roman Empire.¹⁶
Developing these ideas in relationship to kinship, and through an exceptional
command of the proposographical method, Münzer proposed in 1920 that
family ‘parties’ controlled Roman politics, with alliances being reoriented

¹³ Gelzer (1912 translated in English as The Roman Nobility, Oxford, 1969). See Hölkeskamp (2004)
(or the English translation/version of Hölkeskamp 2010) for a critical appraisal of Gelzer’s views of
Roman politics.
¹⁴ Gelzer (1969: 139). ¹⁵ Gelzer (1969: 123–36). ¹⁶ Badian (1958).
6      

through marriages.¹⁷ Such a conception, in his view, explained how politics

worked: politics consisted in a struggle for power and the domination of the
state, which centred on holding the consulship.¹⁸
Roman society was then customarily understood in terms of social relation-
ships: amicitia defined the connections between members of the upper classes,
and clientela the relationship between the top and the rest of the citizens. This
concept has also been applied traditionally to Roman politics. Political clientelae
were unified and disciplined groups of citizens who went to the ballot box and
voted for their patron or for their patron’s preferred candidate. In international
affairs, foreign clientelae also structured the relationship between communities
and Roman politicians. Within the elite, political deals and intra-elite relation-
ships were framed in the concept of amicitia, which allowed such individuals to
relate to each other in political terms.¹⁹ This conceptual framework has permeated
our understanding of political elite interrelationships for decades. Taylor has
summed it up well: ‘Friendship was the chief basis of support for candidates for
office, and amicitia was the good old word for party relationships.’²⁰
These views have evolved over time. Challenging Münzer’s prosopographical
work, already in 1950 Gelzer expressed his doubts regarding the concept of stable
aristocratic ‘political parties’, factions, or any kind of family groups being the
keystones of Roman politics; thus, he jettisoned factions and parties, and stressed
instead personal affinities and friendships between individuals.²¹ Münzer himself
had called attention to the fact that alliances could shift quickly.²² The definitive
attack against the concept of factions, though, came from Brunt and Meier, who
demonstrated that there were no stable factions and, hence, that such a concept,
because of its historical weight, did not accurately define what happened in the
Roman Republic. Thus, they definitively abandoned the model of factions or even
political parties, influenced by conceptions from the 19th century.²³ The paradigm
shifted to a view of politics formed by quickly changing alliances and short-lived
coalitions. Nevertheless, personal connections were not a thing of the past; having
discarded stable factions, Meier pointed out that, to the contrary, personal con-
nections were multiple, frequently overlapped, and made efforts to be mobilized,

¹⁷ Münzer (1920; English translation: Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, London, 1999).
¹⁸ See Hölkeskamp (2001) for a review of the English translation, which is a critical reflection on
Münzer’s work, his method and the work of his followers. Syme (1939) followed Münzer’s method-
ology and conception of Roman politics, describing the adherents and partisans of Augustus, i.e. the
new oligarchy of government, as ‘the Caesarian party’.
¹⁹ E.g. Spielvogel (1933: 6ff.). ²⁰ Taylor (1949: 7–8). ²¹ Cf. Hölkeskamp (2010: 8).
²² Münzer (1920: 311); this was certainly the case in the 60s and 50s, when parties could shift within
the span of a few months, especially as a result of marriage.
²³ Meier (1980: 174–90); Brunt (1988: 36–45). Differences between Gelzer-Meier and their critics in
Winterling (2009: 37, n. 6), considering furthermore that both Gelzer and Meier overemphasized the
instrumental role of close interpersonal relationships ‘compared to their symbolic and performative
importance’. See Jehne (2006) and Hurlet (2012) for critical historiographical surveys on this debate.
  7

especially at crucial moments like elections.²⁴ The centrality of clientelism was also
discarded: patronage existed in Roman society and was an instrument for the
allocation of resources, but that did not imply, Brunt argued, that individual
political decisions were completely subordinate to patronal relationships.²⁵
Recent historiography has enriched—and occasionally overturned—that vision
of Roman politics. The debate has moved forward by including other issues, such
as the assemblies, contiones, speeches, communication, consensus, and the people,
and has stopped focusing exclusively on senators as the only working mechanisms
in Roman politics.²⁶ The perspective of elections determined by immutable and
always reliable crowds of clientes who voted as a block has been abandoned.²⁷ The
importance of foreign clientelae has been recently called into question, and its
importance has been diminished, if not completely refuted, as a working mech-
anism in the Roman Republic.²⁸ Several studies have reviewed amicitia and its role
in politics.²⁹ Hellegouarc’h, for instance, conducted a careful review of the
vocabulary related to friendship and to the political arena.³⁰ Other scholars have
tried to gauge and understand the degree of friendship between different politi-
cians of the Late Republic, such as Cicero, Caesar, Pompey, or other senators of
lesser calibre.³¹ Burton has proposed a model of friendship interaction based on
anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies, which establishes an
analogy between interpersonal amicitia and the international amicitia that was
used to mediate foreign relations.³² Rollinger has carried out a network analysis of
friendship between Roman senators.³³ Hall has analysed the conventional lan-
guage of political courtship, what he calls ‘strategies of politeness’, where the
pretence of close familiarity, even intimacy, was entirely acceptable.³⁴ Several
studies have tried to reconcile such instrumental views with the more idealized
and exclusive view of amicitia that Cicero refers to in De amicitia and some letters
to Atticus.³⁵ Circles of friends have also been studied, with different degrees of
controversy (e.g. the debated existence of the so-called ‘Scipionic circle’).³⁶
Therefore, it is necessary to re-examine the political, interpersonal relationships
among the elite.

²⁴ Meier (1980: 174–90). ²⁵ Brunt (1988: 382–442).

²⁶ The bibliography is abundant and multifaceted: Millar (1989; 1998); North (1990); Pina Polo
(1989; 1996); Yakobson (1999); Jehne (2000); Mouritsen (2001); Flaig (2003); Hölkeskamp (2010);
Courrier (2014); Rosillo-López (2017); Angius (2018).
²⁷ Brunt (1988); Yakobson (1999).
²⁸ Badian’s hypothesis has been recently called into question as a whole; see Burton (2000); the
critical comments of Pina Polo and the collective volume edited by Pina Polo and Jehne (2015).
²⁹ Brunt (1965); Winterling (2009). ³⁰ Hellegouarc’h (1972).
³¹ On Cicero and Pompey, Holliday (1969); Rawson (1978); Williams (2013). On Pompey, Haley
(1977). On Cicero and Caesar, Lossman (1962). On Cicero and Appius Claudius, Constans (1921);
Schuricht (1994); Bernard (2008). On Cicero and Brutus, Schwaiger (1979). Brunt (1965: 8–11) covers
Cicero and Antony, Crassus, Q. Fufius Calenus, Caesar, and many others; so does Schneider (1998).
³² Burton (2000; 2011). ³³ Rollinger (2014). ³⁴ Hall (2009).
³⁵ Brunt (1965); Fiore (1997). ³⁶ Grimal (1953); Astin (1967: 294–6); Zetzel (1972).
8      

This book aims to re-evaluate these problems, by offering a new way of

understanding elite relationships, based upon face-to-face communication and
the circulation of information through personal oral contact between members of
the elite and their entourage. Political support was secured through personal
relationships, but these changed quickly and had to be carefully maintained
through sociability, face-to-face meetings and conversations, which formed the
means through which information circulated in Late Republican Rome. To
describe this book’s approach as a recipe, it has a sauté of Gelzer (although looking
at a wider spectrum of personal relationships) and a good broth made of Meier, all
of which is seasoned with generous amounts of communication and information
studies.

Outline of the book

This book begins with the study of politics in Rome beyond institutions. If
conversations are a necessary element of politics, political participation should
also be considered outside of institutions. The chapter reviews who participated in
politics, going beyond the classic model of the adult male citizen with full political
and legal rights, and including many other groups that were active in politics
through their participation in the network of meetings and conversations, espe-
cially freedmen and women of the elite.
The second chapter focuses on Cicero’s letters, which are its main, but not its
only, source. These letters are exceptional since they were largely written shortly
after conversations took place and, although they underwent several processes of
selection throughout their transmission, they were not rewritten. Thus, they
provide us with an insider’s perspective on conversations and politics, transmit-
ting the political uncertainty of the period. This contrasts with how later histor-
ians, from Nicolaus of Damascus onwards, depicted political conversations during
the Roman Republic, paying attention to other elements and markers, such as
non-verbal gestures, instead of (as Cicero did) focusing on the impressions from
conversations, feelings and speculations about the future. However, the book is
not an analysis of conversations by or around Cicero; letters from his correspond-
ents and other sources are consistent with his picture of how senators and non-
senatorial actors behaved regarding conversations. The present study would not
have been able to analyse extra-institutional politics in depth if Cicero’s letters had
not reached us; other sources, both Republican and Imperial, do mention political
conversations during the Republic, but they are not always very descriptive.
Cicero’s letters allow us to frame those references within a wider mechanism of
politics, and the letters of other correspondents allow us occasionally to add other
perspectives. The book is a study of how Roman politics worked outside institu-
tions in the Late Roman Republic.
  9

Chapter 3 questions how necessary it was for a senator to be present in Rome if

he wanted to be an active player in this world of conversation and meetings
(spoiler: very necessary). Senators had to work hard to stay well-informed about
the senatorial agenda, the issues that were current, and the opinions of their most
influential peers. All this demanded lots of time: visiting people was crucial, a
social protocol that had its own rules. They reproduced such patterns when they
stayed in their villae. Despite all the letters that have reached us, the chapter
argues, that it were possible, senators and their entourages preferred to meet face
to face rather than establishing contact through writing. This chapter also analyses
the so-called ‘conference of Luca’ within this wider perspective. I argue that the
notion that hundreds of senators travelled to the city while Pompey, Caesar, and
Crassus met is a historiographical myth.
Chapter 4 addresses the question of the social aspects of conversation. It studies
how young Romans learned the dynamics and workings of conversation and
personal meetings during their tirocinium fori, and by entering later into a
network of conversation. It tackles the question of how this path could be different
for young men from Italian towns and for the scions from the political aristocracy,
offering a non-Ciceronian perspective. The Roman practice of political conversa-
tion and meeting had customs and social expectations that had to be met and
mastered—otherwise one would run the risk of social condemnation and political
failure. Conversations, as we will see, were thus anchored in sociability: they could
take place anywhere, but dinners constituted a habitual setting. This section will
also study two other settings that could be related to political conversations: the
senaculum and the consilia, although the latter should rather be considered
routine group conversations.
Chapter 5 analyses the political conversations that Cicero transmitted in direct
style from the point of view of conversational analysis, dissecting their dynamics and
revealing how they constructed relationships and provided an outlet for self-
representation during power struggles. Such conversations, as we shall see, allowed
the deployment of persuasiveness, tentative questions, sous-entendres, and the cir-
culation of information that written communication could not provide. The chapter
argues that such conversations should be considered a constituent part of political
speaking.
In chapter 6, I turn to the circulation of information, and how senators sought
out certain types of it: insider knowledge, reliable information, and speculation
about what could happen. As they could not reach everybody, senators and their
entourages attempted to fish for information (expiscor in Latin). All these practices
tried to avoid the risks of not being connected, which were high and could have
political consequences. At the same time, information travelled so quickly that
controlling it was a very difficult feat; leaks took place and they were not innocuous.
Chapter 7 posits an important hypothesis for this book: senators could not
reach everybody for many reasons, so they were surrounded by a wide spectrum of
10      

people, non-senatorial actors who intervened in conversations with several

degrees of agency and thus played an important role in the transmission of
information and, therefore, in politics. The chapter focuses mainly on two groups:
freedmen and elite women; finally, it questions the role of courtesans within this
system. In the Appendix, a prosopography illuminates the number and variety of
non-senatorial actors who participated in the extra-institutional side of politics. It
should be highlighted that the numbers of equites, women of the elite, and
freedmen present in these conversations are similar.
Finally, chapter 8 studies how these conversations and meetings impacted
political deliberation and deal-making in the Senate, thus fusing extra-
institutional and institutional politics. How did senators look for support and
sound each other out regarding specific issues? How did preparatory conversa-
tions work? It is a fact of life, in ancient Rome as nowadays, that the written text of
a decision does not fully reflect the previous groundwork, negotiations, and
discussions that led to it. The study of Atticus allows us to consider the role and
influence of non-senatorial actors. The aim of this chapter is not to claim that a
certain measure was enacted because A and B had a conversation during a dinner
or someone secured the support of C and D during a quick chat in the Forum or in
a corner of the Senate house (although such actions are described). Going beyond
the micro-scale and specific instances, the interest of this study is to analyse how
these actions illuminate our understanding of how the Roman political system of
the Late Republic worked in practice. L’histoire événementielle is fused with the
study of structures to attempt to shed light on both.³⁷ I argue that the role of
conversations and meetings did not mean that everything was decided before-
hand; a senator could gather support for a law or a policy through previous
conversations and assisted by non-senatorial actors, but he still had to defend it
and fight for it in public institutions (the Senate, contiones, and assemblies),
without always being able to guarantee success beforehand.
In conclusion, Roman politics, based upon ever-changing and short-lived
alliances established over a particular issue, were constructed through the constant
transmission and circulation of political information. For the proper functioning
of the system, Roman senators had to be constantly informed about their peers’
opinions and intentions. Thus, institutional and extra-institutional politics were
absolutely interdependent.

³⁷ On the opposition between both kinds of history and the use of political culture to build a bridge
between them, see Hölkeskamp (2010: ch. 5, n. 1).
 1
A wider definition of politics and
political participation

1.1 Extra-institutional politics

While the circumstances into which something is born do not inevitably deter-
mine its future, those circumstances very often set a path that requires a good deal
of time and effort to change. This has proven to be the case with the discipline of
Classics and the history of the Roman Republic in particular, which was initially
conceived of as a modern discipline inextricably linked to Roman Law. Theodor
Mommsen’s monumental corpus, especially his Römisches Staatsrecht (1871–88),
put forth a methodology and set a specific course for the study of the Roman
Republic. This approach was fundamentally focused on institutions and rigid legal
categories, sweeping aside all other manifestations of the political that were not
legislated. This influential approach was certainly not limited to Roman history: it
has also guided scholarly approaches to ancient Greece, as can be clearly seen in
the thorough studies produced by the Copenhagen Polis Center under the direc-
tion of Mogens H. Hansen.¹
If Mommsen laid down the initial rules for the modern study of the Roman
Republic, the publication of Claude Nicolet’s Le métier du citoyen dans la Rome
républicaine in 1976 marked a second important step in the evolution of the
historiography of the Roman Republic.² He demonstrated the importance of new
perspectives for the study of the Roman political system: not only did he turn his
gaze to institutions such as the assemblies, but he also homed in on the centrality
of civic rituals (e.g. the census or levies) in Roman political life. Furthermore, he
was able to see beyond the perspective of the elite and came to focus on the
common citizen, hence providing a novel vision of what it meant to be a Roman
citizen. While no one can doubt that Nicolet’s book has had a tremendous and
enriching impact on the study of the Roman Republic, he nevertheless maintained

¹ Azoulay and Ismard (2007: 273) consider that the ‘Mommsenian’ approach has also been applied
to Greek history; cf. also Azoulay and Ismard (2010: 1162–3).
² 1st edn in 1976; 2nd edn in 1988. Translated into English as The World of the Citizen in Republican
Rome (London, 1980).

Political Conversations in Late Republican Rome. Cristina Rosillo-López, Oxford University Press.
© Cristina Rosillo-López 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192856265.003.0002
12      

an institutional approach to Roman politics focused on adult male citizens with

full political rights.³
The institutional approach to Republican politics has found a second wind in
recent years. Christopher Smith has categorized this trend as the ‘new constitu-
tional’ approach to Roman history, which not only takes Mommsenian categories
into account, but also ‘recognis[es] the complex interplay of change over time,
pragmatism and competing priorities’.⁴ Scholars have come to appreciate the
flexibility of the Roman legal and political systems, and no longer try to make
each and every idiosyncrasy or exception found in the sources into a new, ironclad
rule; at the same time, they do not conceive of the legal system as an immutable
rock, but instead highlight its evolution over time. Recent studies on all the main
Roman magistracies have employed this perspective, which combines history and
law while wielding a more flexible approach to legislation that allows for legal
innovation.⁵
So how can we move beyond an institutional perspective for understanding
Roman politics? This has been an undeniable challenge for the discipline and has
been a long time in the making. Nicolet laid the groundwork with his study of the
civic rituals that permeated the life of Roman citizens, even if by and large his
perspective remained essentially institutional. Later scholars have incorporated
the communicative turn into the study of Roman politics in order to draw
attention to other aspects, such as political culture and communication among
the elite and—even more interesting and challenging—between the elite and the
citizenry at large.⁶ Continuing in this vein, the present book is a call for a study of
Roman political history that uses an extra-institutional perspective; in this specific
case, and in contrast with some of the previous publications, this study mainly
looks at the elite. The present chapter examines current interpretive models that
can be used to understand Roman Republican politics, most notably the concepts
le politique, political culture, and the role of consensus. Since this study of political
conversations and meetings between senators and non-senatorial actors does not

³ See the discussion of Nicolet’s impact in the 2019 issue from Cahiers du Centre Gernet-Glotz,
which is dedicated to Nicolet’s book.
⁴ Smith (2015).
⁵ Apart from very specialized studies, these are the most recent monographs on the magistracies
during the Roman Republic: consulship: Pina Polo (2011); Beck, Duplá, Jehne, and Pina Polo (2011).
Praetorship: Brennan (2000). Tribunate: Thommen (1989); Kondratieff (2003); Lanfranchi (2015).
Aedileship: Daguet-Gagey (2015); Becker (2017). Quaestorship: Pina Polo and Díaz Fernández (2019).
Censorship: Welbourn (2017). Dictatorship: Wilson (2021). Provincial commands: Vervaet (2014);
Díaz Fernández (2015); Drogula (2015); Rafferty (2019); Díaz Fernández (2021). The renewed interest
and growing body of research in this area are evident.
⁶ Communicative turn: Hölkeskamp (2004b; 2017b; 2020, collecting previous articles); Courrier
(2014); Rosillo-López (2017); Angius (2018); Montlahuc (2019). Political communication: Flaig (1994);
Pina Polo (1996); Rosillo-López (2017e). See David (2017) for a historiographical survey of French
studies on Roman political culture.
    13

neatly fit into any of these conceptual boxes, I would offer an extra-institutional

approach as a heuristic for analysing it.
The distinction between le politique and la politique has provided a fruitful
methodological tool for the study of politics in antiquity. A concept originally
developed in political science, it has been used prominently by French scholars of
ancient Greek history in recent years and has provided an alternative perspective
to traditional notions and assumptions of what constitutes politics in the first
place. In particular, Azoulay has challenged and criticised more traditional
approaches that assimilated politics to the functioning of civic institutions.⁷ The
problem becomes not reducing Greek political experience to a mere institutional
expression without completely dissolving it in the broader field of social
interactions.⁸ To illustrate these different approaches to politics, he points out to
the conceptual shift between Pericles and Plato: while the philosopher conceived
of politics as a kind of knowledge (episteme) and not a set of specific practices, the
politician defined politics in terms of the participative practices of the citizens.⁹ In
order to resolve this tension, Azoulay employs the notion of le politique to define
community practices and social relationships, such as political rituals and social
practices linked to political inclusion and a sense of belonging to a community:
distributions, processions, banquets, theatre performances, among others. In
contrast, la politique refers to political institutions in a strictly formal sense, that
is a process of formal decision-making.¹⁰ The French language allows for this
conceptual difference through the use of different gendered articles; in English, in
contrast, ‘politics’ may refer to both political theory and/or the political life.¹¹
Recourse to a conceptual distinction such as le/la politique allows us to bridge the
gap between a previously-held conception of politics that was absolutely centred
on institutions and a new perspective that is more accepting of other modes of
political experience.¹² These parts should not be taken as mutually exclusive, and,
as Azoulay suggests, they can be seen as being either in tension or harmony with
one another.¹³ According to this view, stasis and all kinds of internal political
conflict (i.e., of both high and low intensity) should be identified as part of the
usual mechanisms of politics à la Loraux and her desire to ‘repolitiser la cité.’¹⁴
In recent historiographical reflections, Montlahuc has pointed out just how few
scholars of the Roman Republic have wadded into this conceptual debate.¹⁵

⁷ Azoulay (2014a). Loraux (1997) had already criticized what she identified as an excessive focus on
the institutional history of Greek cities. Azoulay (2014b) and Azoulay and Ismard (2007) provide a
historiographical review of the leading trends currently applied to the study of Greek poleis.
⁸ Azoulay (2014a: 691). ⁹ Azoulay (2014a: 692–3). Pl. Plt, 310E–311C; Th. 2.40.2.
¹⁰ Azoulay (2014a; 2014b: 619–20). ¹¹ Sebillotte Cuchet (2018: 5).
¹² See criticism from a sociological point of view; e.g. Pébarthe (2015: 205) has claimed that the
distinction between le/la politique is not necessary, since la politique and its institutions are necessarily
found within a social sphere and broader community.
¹³ Azoulay (2014a: 703). ¹⁴ Loraux (1997).
¹⁵ Montlahuc (2019b; 2020) offer a historiographical review and an analysis of the use of le politique
in Roman history.
14      

Nicolet referred to le politique as a kind of ‘contre-cité,’ as something outside the

normal workings of politics. In fact, as Montlahuc points out, Nicolet proposed
the study of a ‘nouvelle grammaire de la politique,’ (not ‘du politique’), thus
betraying how he maintained a firmly institutional perspective. In contrast with
Nicolet, Flaig did not consider places such contiones and the games as marginal or
alternative, but instead as constitutive parts of Roman politics. In addition to
larger and organized contexts, he also discussed individual undertakings, such as
quiritatio, provocatio, imploratio, flagitatio, throwing stones, etc.¹⁶ In these other
contexts, Flaig found the possibility for conflict to arise and a politically charged
space in which people could express their own opinions. He offered a definition of
politics that was not based on participation in the formal decision-making pro-
cess, but rather on groups with diverse and competing interests within the same
community. This view of politics allowed him to differentiate between the insti-
tutional and extra-institutional spheres. While Flaig briefly mentions the distinc-
tion between le/la politique, he has not done so in a coherent way, as Montlahuc
has rightly pointed out. While it seems that Flaig’s extra-institutional sphere
corresponds to le politique, this is never made explicit.¹⁷ In any case, for Flaig,
the distinction between the institutional and extra-institutional spheres corres-
ponds to a binary division of Roman politics between the elite and the people. This
methodological classification, however, is more schematic and rigid than the
complex web of political entanglements that we find in the ancient sources.
La politique is clearly synonymous with the institutional politics which, at first
glance, seem easier to define. Hölkeskamp has called attention to a state-oriented
definition of an institution, understood as ‘a regulative system that serves to
supply structures for the preparation, formulation, implementation, and enforce-
ment of decisions that affect the whole society’.¹⁸ Such normative practices are
continually ossified, becoming stable institutions. In the case of the Roman
Republic, I am referring to institutions such as the Senate, assemblies, and con-
tiones. On the other side of the spectrum, Montlahuc considers le politique to
contain both extra-institutional aspects of both elite and popular power, as well as
all participation in institutionalized civic rituals.¹⁹ Accordingly, this definition
would encapsulate the full gamut of political participation in Rome. While this is a
useful definition, it is nevertheless too broad, since le politique has come to include

¹⁶ Flaig (1994). Although audience reactions could be quite spontaneous and occasionally veer into
uncontrolled violence, a contio was a formal institution with a fixed set of rules, especially regarding
who could convene and speak at such meetings. Cf. Pina Polo (1989); Hiebel (2009). At the same time,
because of their politization, Flaig (1994) considers the games to form a part of the institutional sphere,
even though they were not formally legislated (with the exception of seating arrangements) as other
institutions were.
¹⁷ Montlahuc (2019b: 9–10).
¹⁸ See Hölkeskamp (2010: 68; cf. n. 51 for a full bibliography regarding the debate over the origin of
institutions).
¹⁹ Montlahuc (2020).
    15

la politique in its ritual and civic sense. At the same time, by considering the
extra-institutional aspects of the power of the populus, as an institution, it leaves
aside the political participation of inhabitants of the city who were not members of
the populus, because they were not Roman citizens; these people, however, also
played a crucial role in public opinion, since (for instance) they could be instru-
mental in the circulation of gossip and rumours.²⁰
Political culture, in contrast, is defined as the interaction between the rational
side of politics (platforms, content, policy, etc.) and the ceremonial, symbolic, and
affective side. Most scholarship has seen political culture as by and large belonging
to the aristocracy and being on display in the relationship between the aristocracy
and the people, on the grounds that hierarchical communication lies at the heart
of Roman Republican politics.²¹ Some scholars have recently argued that the plebs
had their own sort of political culture that was sometimes independent from that
of the elite.²² Political culture entails a vocabulary of images, rituals, and perform-
ances of political negotiations as well as a grammar or set of conventions through
which power is legitimated: think of the pompa triumphalis, the ‘language’ of
public monuments, created images as well as messages and meanings that came to
form that very political culture. In this sense, scholarly approaches have studied
the language of monuments and also the concepts linked to cultural memory.²³
The concept of political culture does not cover the kind of extra-institutional
practices (e.g. meetings and conversations) that form the core of this study, or
even public opinion for that matter. Rumours do not have a prescribed grammar
that can be deciphered, nor do conversations constitute a ritual performance of
political negotiations; they were how political negotiations were conducted.
Processes for reaching consensus (Konsenssystem) constitute one of the latest
interpretive models for analysing Roman politics. How does the present study of
conversations and meetings as extra-institutional politics engage with this schol-
arly approach? German scholars, especially Jehne, Hölkeskamp, and Flaig, have
been the main proponents of the importance of consensus for the Roman
Republic. Consensus has also proven to be an analytic category that is fruitful
for the study of the Principate and the princeps’ legitimacy, though this all
unfolded in a different political context and within different parameters.²⁴ For
the Roman Republic, these scholars have described a social consensus about

²⁰ For the participation of people who were not citizens in public opinion, see Rosillo-López (2017).
²¹ On the political culture in Rome, see esp. Hölkeskamp (2010; 2017a).
²² Political culture of the plebs: Courrier (2014); Rosillo-López (2018); Angius (2018); Montlahuc
(2019, focusing both on the plebs and the aristocracy). A critical review of the latest historiography can
be found in Hölkeskamp (2019).
²³ Hölkeskamp (2010) points out (p. 55) that this ‘grammar’ nicely connects with Meier’s concept of
a ‘grammar’ of Roman Republican politics (Meier 1980: 5). Montlahuc (2019b; 2020) consider political
culture in a much wider sense, as a set of rules and civic references.
²⁴ The bibliography on this subject has exponentially increased in recent decades. See e.g. Ando
(2000); Rowe (2002); Lobur (2008); Hurlet (2009).
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Title: Lauluja ja ballaadeja

Author: Aino Kallas

Release date: January 12, 2024 [eBook #72691]

Language: Finnish

Original publication: Porvoo: Werner Söderström, 1897

Credits: Tuula Temonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAULUJA JA

BALLAADEJA ***
LAULUJA JA BALLAADEJA

Kirj.

Aino Suonio [Aino Kallas]

Porvoossa, Werner Söderström 1897.

SISÄLLYS:

LAULUJA JA BALLAADEJA

Lauluni
Runotyttö
Juhannus-yön taika
Sadesäällä
Talven kukat
Sydän
Myrtin-oksa
Helminauha
Torpan tyttö kutoo kangasta
Nuor' Astri
Amor
Sydämeni haltia
Kevään lapset
Seitsentoistavuotias
Läpi verhojen
Elämä on ihana
Sinikello
Ilta tuntureilla
Lieden ääressä
Pikku Väinö
Linnoja laatiessa
Saaret
Laulajapoika
Kuutamolla
Kaunis Katri
Hyljätty
Onnea tavottaessa
Aune
Taivaan tie

EDVI JA ELGIIVA
Historiallinen ballaadi-sarja

1. Laulu: Edvi kuningas näkee Elgiivan 2. Laulu: Edvi Elgiivan

luona 3. Laulu: Dunstan 4. Laulu: Tuomitut 5. Laulu: Elgiivan
jäähyväiset ennen maanpakoa

BALLAADI-KÄÄNNÖKSIÄ:

Metsän haltia, W. Rydberg

Antinous, W. Rydberg
Taas tavataan, W. Rydberg
Tarina takkavalkealla, Z. Topelius
Toivioretki Kevlariin, H. Heine
LAULUNI

Iloton mull' on mieli,

Elämä murhetta,
Mut sävel kanteloni
Kajahtaa riemua.

Ma kerron ystävästä,
Jot' tuskin tunnenkaan,
Keväästä, jost' en tiedä,
Tuleeko konsanaan.

Ihannemailma aukee
Minulle lauluissain,
Miks sinne päästäisinkään,
Suruja, murheitain?

Mut runohelmilöitä
Vain suru synnyttää,
Kun koittaa onnen päivä,
Kai kannel unhoon jää.

Elämä itse silloin

On täynnä laulua,
Ja mailma, murheen alho,
Ihannemailma.
RUNOTYTTÖ

»Ovi auki! Ken se kolkuttaa?»

Soma keijunen sisähän sipsuttaa,
Sinisilmät kirkkaina päilyy,
Pään ympäri suortuvat häilyy.

Hän luokseni käy siro askelin,

Mua hyväilee käsin pehmoisin.
»Sä minut tunnethan varmaan,
Runotyttösi herttaisen, armaan?

Voi, salli mun istua polvellen,

Sadut kauniit korvahas kuiskailen.
Ah, läksyjen antaos jäädä,
Työtuumat mielestä häädä!»

En estää häntä mä koitakkaan,

Käy keijunen polvelle istumaan
Ja kertoilee tarinoita,
Surunhelliä unelmoita.

En häiri häntä, vain kuuntelen,

Unohdan mailman ja huolet sen.
Ja keiju kun luona on milloin,
Työt, toimet ne jäävät silloin.
JUHANNUS-YÖN TAIKA

Hiljaa, tytöt, kuulkaa,

Kerron jotakin!
Taian aion tehdä
Yönä Juhanin.
Tulkaa, etsimähän
Lähtään kukkia,
Helmat täytyy nostaa;
Maass' on kastetta!

Taitan tuomen tertun,

Ruusun, apilan,
Uljaan kurjenmiekan,
Kielon valkean,
Kainon metsätähden,
Hellän vanamon,
Lemmikin ja liljan. —
No, nyt tarpeeks' on!

Yhdeksätä lajia
Mull' on kukkia.
Niistä sepel kaunis
Täytyy solmita.
Siin' on rakkautta,
Lemmen riemua,
Hiukan kateutta,
Enin onnea.

Se kun valmis ompi —

Niin, nyt kerron sen,
sepel pitää panna
Alle pieluksen.
Vielä yksi seikka
Tarkoin muistakaa,
Sitä solmitessa
Puhua ei saa!

Unissa jos sitten

Näen sulhoni,
Seuraavana — —. Vaiti,
Joku naurahti?
Tytöt, tytöt, juostaan
Joutuin pakohon!
Kuunnellut on meitä
Vilho vallaton!
SADESÄÄLLÄ

Sataa, sataa! Alla mielin

Kuljen katua,
Pilvet synkät, taivas harmaa,
Tiekin lo'assa.

Vaan ken tuolla? Näenkö oikein?

Elnahan se on!
Punaposki, vilkassilmä,
käynti vallaton.

Hameenhelmaa varovasti
Käsi kannattaa,
Siro jalka tanssitahdin
Mukaan tepsuttaa.

Rankkasateen, raju-ilman
Aivan unhotan,
Ihastuksissani riennän
Hälle vastahan.

»Terve, Elna neiti!» lausun,

Nostan lakkia.
»Minne matka? Kenties saanen
Teitä seurata.» —

»Vaikka niinkin! Sepä hauska!»

Virkat hymyillen.
Punastut ja minuun käännyt
Kättä tarjoten.

Sataa, sataa! Niinkö luulet?

Erhetystä vaan!
Minust on kuin päivän paiste
Tulvis yli maan!
TALVEN KUKAT

Kesäkö kukkain aika? —

Vai niinkö arvelet?
Erehdyt toki — löytyy
Myös talven kukkaset.

Ne sydämessä mulla
Jo kukkii parhaillaan,
Vast' ikään auenneina
Ne nauttii nuoruuttaan.

Säteenä päivän niillä

On hymys hellä tuo,
Ja suven sulo lämmön
Ne katseestasi juo.

Sydämen kukkasia
Ei taita talvisää,
Kun lempesi vain kestää,
Ne aina vihertää.
SYDÄN

»Kuule, sorja tyttöseni,

Mulle lahjoita
Sydämestäs puhtoisesta
Pikku sopukka!
Pyhäkköin se oisi,
Lemmen onnen loisi.» —

»Voi, sä poika vallaton,

Turha pyyntös on!
Sydäntäin en toki ryhdy
Sinun tähtes pirstomaan. —
Mut jos tahdot kokonaan,
Ota vaan!»
MYRTIN-OKSA

Kas tässä lemmen pantiksi

Tää myrtin-oksa, tyttöni!
Se laita multaan kasvamaan,
Viel' on se hento taimi vaan.

Jos kuihtuu myrtti, murehdi,

On aallon alla poikasi.
Jos kasvaa se, voit iloita,
Hän kulkee myötätuulessa.

Vaan kukkihin jos puhkeaa,

Niin tiedät: sulhos palajaa!
Ja kevään kauniin saapuen,
Saat siitä vihkiseppelen.
HELMINAUHA

Miks itket, impyeni?

Vai ilostako itket
Ja onnen suuruudesta? —
Ah, itke sitten, itke,
Niin joka kyyneleestä
Heleä helmi syntyy,
Ihana, hohtavainen.
Ne koota tarkoin tahdon,
Ja helminauhan niistä
Hääpäivän huomeneksi
Sun kaulahasi kiertää.
Nuo ilon ihmehelmet,
Suruista suojelevat.
Ja iki-onnen luovat.
TORPAN TYTTÖ KUTOO KANGASTA

On aatto-ilta
Ja askarilta
Jo äsken saapuivat äiti ja Tilta.
Mut työtä tätä
En vielä jätä,
En väsymyst' tunne, en ikävätä.

Niin komeoita
Teen kapioita,
Saan hursteja, valkolakanoita,
Ja kutoissani
Mun sormessani
On sormus, antama armahani.

Hän työss' on tuolla

Sajaniemen puolla
Mut siit ei tarvis mun surra, huolla,
Joka sunnuntaina
Hän saapuu aina
Mun viereen istuu ja suukon painaa.