At Rome access to political office, and thus to the Senate, was the principal criterion of social differentiation. The wealthiest men and those who had the good fortune to belong to a family that had already supplied magistrates to the state enjoyed advantages, in particular that of supporting numerous inherited clients who could be mobilized at election time. A ‘‘new man’’ without famous ancestors who pursued a high magistracy could hope that by exploiting cliental connections acquired by his patron he would receive indispensable support. This possibility is demonstrated by the story of C. Cicereius, which was passed on as a model of exemplary behavior. Cicereius was praetor in 173, a member of a Campanian family that was in the clientele of the Scipios. In 175, as a candidate for praetor at the same time as L. Scipio, he had stepped aside to allow Scipio to be elected when he saw that he was ahead in the balloting. However, he was elected praetor the following year, in recognition of this gesture and thanks to the support of his patrons’ family.34 On the other hand, the election to the consulship of C. Marius, legate in Africa in the war against Jugurtha, seemed revolutionary. He was hastening to canvass in Rome for the consulship when Q. Caecilius Metellus, who was both his commander in chief and his patron, advised him to wait to pursue his candidacy together with Metellus’ own son, who was at that time only 20 years old. Perhaps this was in effect an offer of his own clients’ aid in the election, but if so Marius rejected this promise of support, left Africa precipitately, and was elected consul for 107 (see also Chapter 8). The circumstances were exceptional. Other forms of association had come into play. His officers, Roman knights (equites), had written from Africa to their families that the war against Jugurtha could not be won unless Marius were elected consul and chosen as commander-in-chief. Marius’ friends ‘‘in the end inflamed the plebs to the point that all the laborers and peasants, who had no property or credit but what was in their hands, dropped their work and escorted Marius about, sacrificing their own needs in favor of his election.’’35 True, the introduction of the secret ballot in elections by a law of 139 made voting less dependant on traditional clienteles by weakening the dominance of patronal obligations (see also Chapter 18). 6 The voters’ decision now seemed more dependent on a man’s personality, on the strong advocacy of his friends, and on the choice of good intermediaries to serve as relays in the large undertaking that a political campaign inevitably constituted, particularly once all the Italians had become eligible to participate in Roman political life. Having become citizens on account of the Social War, the Italians had to wait a generation to be placed on the voting rolls and be counted in the census in Rome. Sulla had in fact suppressed the census, which was resumed in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus in 70. Undoubtedly numerous Italians participated in the election of Cicero in 64 to the consulship of 63. Being of Italian origin and not belonging to the Roman senatorial aristocracy, the orator made a reputation for himself in the Forum through trials such as the prosecution ofVerres. He had had to develop for his use alternative networks among the Roman aristocracy, the Roman People, and also throughout the Italian peninsula. The advice given to him by his brother Quintus, who wrote for him the Handbook of Electioneering, called for dividing all Italy into sectors, searching for supporters in all the cities as well as power-brokers who could intervene on his behalf with the citizens of their tribes.37 We can indeed trace the groups of clients attached to Cicero across the Italian peninsula, just as we can those of other leading politicians. His birthplace Arpinum and the neighboring towns were in his clientele, but also important cities and towns in Campania, like Capua,38 Atella, Cales, and cities in the south of Italy (all the towns from Vibo to Brundisium),39 Etruscan cities like Arretium (Arezzo) and especially Volaterrae, and finally the town of Reate in the Sabine country.40
At Rome, crowds of attendants marked the rhythms of citizens’ official life. Linked by the obligations of private clientship and of communal appreciation, friends and clients accompanied politicians to whom they wished to show their attachment, particularly at the time of the elections. Escorting processions invaded the streets of the city just as crowds who wished to greet powerful men besieged the doors of their houses. The retinue that surrounded a candidate before an election was a sign in a kind of parallel language that allowed observers to appreciate a politician’s popularity and made it possible to assess the strength of his patronage as well as his capacity to mobilize all the elements of the electorate.41 While the size of the retinue was important, it had to show great diversity in order to convey an impression of the breadth of the candidate’s social connections. This service was requested from friends and clients as well as from all those who had received a benefit from him and thus owed him gratitude. Quintus Cicero refers to the practice in the Handbook on Electioneering, advising his brother to ‘‘see to it that both the number of your friends and their social diversity are made visible; for you have,’’ adds Quintus,
What few ‘‘new men’’ have had: all the state contractors (publicani), nearly the entire order of knights (equites), many towns that are wholly in your camp, many men of every order whom you have defended, a number of associations (collegia), and also that large group of young men whom the study of oratory has brought over to you, a daily crowd of friends in constant attendance. (Cic. Comment. Pet. 3)
Gratitude for services rendered was made manifest in a sort of collective ritual that united all those who had received even a rather modest favor from the candidate. ‘‘Men of small resources have no other opportunity to put us in their debt or to pay back a favor than by performing this service of attending us in our campaigns’’ (Cic. Mur. 70). This mark of respect consecrated by ancient custom was evidently demanded to some extent from other social groups as well, but ‘‘constant attendance of this kind is only for friends of humble status who are otherwise unoccupied’’ (Cic. Mur. 70). Regular presence in the entourage could not be expected of anyone but such lower-class ‘‘friends,’’ ‘‘since to attend candidates connected to them for whole days continuously is a service that cannot be performed or even requested from senators or from Roman knights (equites); if men like that frequent our house, if sometimes they accompany us down to the Forum... this passes for a mark of great respect and attention’’ (Cic. Mur. 70). It was moreover customary for friends to perform a type of public solicitation in favor of the future magistrate at the same time that he himself solicited votes from his fellow-citizens. Those thus publicly endorsing the candidate, called suffragatores, explained to future voters the reasons for their support.42 The extraordinary breadth of Cicero’s organization and his mobilization of a large clientele created by himself made it possible in 64 for a ‘‘new man,’’ exceptionally, to be elected to the consulship for 63.
Success in a career was first and foremost a product of election, but it also drew upon a complex network of patronage before a man pursued his first political offices. This is how a man aspiring to undertake a career could make himself known. An apprenticeship in politics owed much to the methods of instruction used by teachers of oratory and of law, in particular to the practice of participating in debates among a circle of disciples (see also Chapter 20). Military service was also an essential prerequisite for the right to canvass for political office. The state authorized the Roman magistrate who commanded an army or who governed a province to choose his staff; he was free to recruit his subordinates, from the legates to the prefects, and to choose a certain number of the military tribunes (those that were not elected by the assemblies). By resorting to his friends and clients to carry out these duties the commander could widen the pool of candidates, be confident of the loyalty of those who would accompany him, and strengthen his ties with those who had recommended men to him. The texts that give evidence of governors’ entourages only rarely attest to specific names of the intermediaries who had facilitated their selection. The persons who were recruited into the personal advisory councils (con-silia) of Quintus and Marcus Cicero, however, yield useful information about the presence of local families from Arpinum. Cicero’s letters of recommendation also sometimes make reference to patronal requests for military posts in the army of Gaul, especially during 54; they were addressed to Caesar, one of whose legates was Quintus, Cicero’s brother. Among these was also C. Trebatius Testa, mentioned above. It is possible that at this time service in the military tribunate or prefectures gave these officers entry into the order of knights ( equites). Indeed, the procedures of the census by which equites were recruited were carried out very irregularly toward the end of the Republic. Among the wealthy local leaders of the Italian cities, there was a very strong desire to enter the equestrian order, a necessary step for advancement in Roman society.
Officers hoped for their commander’s continuing support in their subsequent career. ‘‘New men’’ obtained magistracies after having served Scipio Africanus well. At the end of the Republic, the prestige of the great generals contributed greatly to their officers’ careers. L. Afranius, Pompey’s legate in Spain and the East, became praetor in 71; his election to the consulship in 60 was notorious for the bribery and machinations employed by Pompey to ensure his old subordinate’s victory at the polls. A. Hirtius, L. Munatius Plancus, and C. Asinius Pollio began their military careers with Caesar and, after his death, reached the higher magistracies. At the time of the Civil Wars, however, officers of high social rank had to make choices with dramatic consequences, since their preexisting cliental obligations drew them to one or the other side of the conflict. So, for example, T. Labienus, one of Caesar’s great generals, who was originally from Picenum, where the family of Pompey had a large clientele, had to abandon Caesar in order to stay loyal to Pompey, who earlier, while he was still on friendly terms with Caesar, had arranged for Labienus’ appointment to Caesar’s army.43 We also know that the centurions who had been appointed to Caesar’s army on Pompey’s recommendation were left free, when the two old allies took up arms against each other, to pass over to the army of their old patron, Pompey (Suet. lul. 75.1).
A grant of Roman citizenship, which gave a person a privileged status in the empire and eventually to undertake a career in Roman service, could also be the subject of patronal intervention. Local aristocrats of Italy, and after the Social War, those of Cisalpine Gaul, Sicily, and other provinces aspired to be integrated into the Roman community. The game of patronage that made individual access to this privileged status possible under the Republic can sometimes be reconstructed based on the name a new citizen received. This was testimony to a person’s appreciation of the one who had intervened in his behalf, and it was passed on to his descendants as a permanent sign of gratitude toward the patron responsible for conferring this benefit ( beneficium). Pompey gave his name to many foreigners, in Gaul as well as in Sicily and the East. The Augustan historian Trogus was a Gaul of the Vocontii named Cn. Pompeius Trogus; Theophanes of Mitylene, Pompey’s officer and historian of his deeds, became Cn. Pompeius Theophanes after having received the citizenship in a military assembly during his patron’s eastern campaigns (Cic. Arch. 24). Caesar’s grants of Roman citizenship were certainly much more numerous and more complex than those of other commanders. To secure this benefit, men who enjoyed a close relationship with Caesar could be used as intermediaries. So, in 45, we see Cicero appealing to P. Cornelius Dolabella, then probably one of Caesar’s legates, to request citizenship in his own name for one of Cicero’s Sicilian guest-friends. Upon receiving the grant his protege took the name P. Cornelius Megas in memory of Dolabella’s request before Caesar (Cic. Fam. 13.36.1).
Cicero’s patronage of guest-friends in the years 47-45 manifested itself as well in another way. Their social rank alone could not protect them from entanglement in Roman power struggles. Very important people, sometimes described as the ‘‘leading men’’ (principes) of their cities, were forced to take sides in the civil wars. Maintenance of their freedom, their rights, and their preeminence in their city after they had chosen Pompey’s side depended on the attitude of the governor whom Caesar had sent to govern their province. The patronage of Cicero, one who could approach the Caesarian governor to recommend them as to a friend, served to protect them.44 Caesar had treated Cicero magnanimously after his victory over Pompey at Pharsalus. Cicero’s power of mediation, which was linked to his personal credit with the dictator, was made possible also by Caesar’s own friends. Many of Caesar’s closest associates belonged to families tied to Cicero in a long-standing relationship reinforced by reciprocal exchanges of services. Some had been his students in rhetoric and responded to his requests with a benevolence that attested to their gratitude. Cicero’s patronage went into operation again as soon as the conflicts became sharply personal and there was a corresponding intensification of the search for individual and collective protection. But Caesar alone exercised the power of decision and his will was dominant.
World History
