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DET KONGELIGE BIBL!OTEK

KCIJBENHAVN

ELIZABETII RAWSON t it affixed to the doors of their own homes. As Pliny says, describing the
The Antiquarian Tradition
Spoils and Representations of Foreign Armour*
The Roman tradition about the Early and Middle Republic is extremely
complex. There is the role of oral tradition; the limitations of which we
begin better to understand. I am not myself a great believer in the
tabulae dealbatae kept by the pontifices, at least as a major component
of the accounts we have. 1 As soon as histories began to be written. an
awareness of what was expected of this Greek genre must have had a
deforming effect; and in some hands, of course, historiography came to
resort to extremes of artifical elaboration and even invention. But
vestiges of the past survived all round the Romans, in institutions and
customs, in works of art and other objects, to some extent in documents.
If the Romans wanted to try to reconstruct their past, the material lay to
hand, and Greek scholars had shown ways of exploiting it. I want to take
a single example that may suggest what was, or could have been done.
The ancients were, understandably given the large part played in
their lives, and their ideology by war, deeply interested in arms and
weapons. Historians of their own time, like ethnographers, desCribe the
methods of · fighting of peoples with whom they deal - peoples
sometimes that their readers might find themselves facing. (The most
notable example of a historian is of course Polybius).2 The visual arts
were often concerned with scenes of contemporary warfare, and it is
accepted that they frequently go to trouble to get details of arms and
Frau Dr. Rawson verstarb wenige Monate spliter in Peking nacb dem AbscbluB
eines Universitatskurses in China. Die Teilnehmer des Symposiums beklagen
zutiefst den Verlust dieser herausragenden Gelebrten, die sie als menschlich wie
wissenschaftlich vorbildliche Kollegin in Erinnerung bebal_ten werden.
The basic information about spoils is collected by F. Lammert, RE 3A 2, 1929,
1843, s.v. Spolia, and J. Marquardt, R~mische Staatsverwaltung II (3.Aufl.),
Darmstadt 1957 (=2nd ed., Leipzig 1884), 560f. I am grateful to members of the
symposium for their helpful discussion of the preliminary version of this
paper.
I E. Rawson, Prodigy Lists and the Use of the Annales Maximi, CQ 21, 1971, 158.
2 Pol. 6,22ff.; for an early Roman example, note Cato Orig. frg. 123 Peter - Greek
shields are round (though all his readers must have known that).
The Antiquarian Tradition 159
armour correct;3 this is even true of coins. And it was apparently, in
Rome, even possible to collect fine, presumably contemporary weapons
as a connoisseur - or at least so Cethegus claimed in 63 B.C., according to
Cicero, when a cache of weapons was found ·in his house. 4
What of the armour of the past? How much interest was there in
that? In fact the Romans were surrounded by it. Many of them even had
houses of great men of old, 'outside the door and by the threshold there
were other presentations of these mighty spirits, for enemy spoils ":'ere
fastened to them, which even a new buyer of the house was not allowed
to unfix, and the houses eternally celebrated a triumph even though
they changed their masters'. It may be that generals were only allowed
to affix spoils to their houses if they were granted .,i. triumph; piles of
captured arms were a normal feature of the celebration, and. the
triumphator could do what he liked with his booty. 5 At all events,
reading this passage, and the rest of Pliny's description, of the wax
masks in the atrium and the stemmata with lines running to painted
portraits, on~ understands very well how, during the Republic, a
damnatio memoriae involved the destructions of the criminal's
mansions.6
But it was not only the houses of the magistrates, both patrician and
plebeian, which were made conspicuous among the rest, as Livy makes a
speaker note during the Struggle of the Orders, by the spoils of Rome's
enemies fastened to the walls.7 (I see little reason to suppose that
plebeian magistrates laid more weight than patrician ones on the right
to have their houses. so adorned). He also shows how during the
Hannibalic War the Senate was replenished from those who had spoils
fixed to their houses.8 And Polybius is plainly referring to ordinary
3 For example, from the second century B.C. and Italy, the frieze of battles
between Roman (or Latin) and Macedonian soldiers recently found by F.
Coarelli at Fregellae; and cf. H. Kahler, Der Fries vom Reiterdenkmal' des
Aemilius Paullus in Delphi, Berlin 1965.
4 Cic. Cat. 3,10
5 Plin. N.H. 35,7. See T.P. Wiseman, Conspicuae pastes tectaque digna deo: The
Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses in the Late Republic and
Early Empire, in: L'Urbs: Espace Urbain et Histoire, (Coll. de l'Ecole franc. de
Rome 98), Rome 1987, 393. He notes that Prop. 1,16,1~4 suggests that the
triumphal procession, laden with spoils, in fact ended at the triumphator's
house.
6 Sp. Cassius, Sp. Maelius and M. Manlius, but also apparently M. Fulvius Flaccus
and Satuminus, not to mention a Mancinus of whom nothing is known. See
esp. Val. Max. 6,3,lc; Paul. Fest. 117 Lindsay, s.v. Mancina tifata. Also the house
in Rome of Vitruvius Vaccus of Fundi, Liv. 8,19,4. 20,8.
7 Liv. 10,7,9. Later, 38,43,10 - a speech - envisages Fulvius Nobilior in 187 fixing
the spoils of Ambracia postibus suis; and Plut. C. Gracchus 15,1 shows Fulvius'
followers arm themselves with the Gallic spoils in his house (from his victory
in his consulship, after which he triumphed).
8 Liv. 23,23,6.
160 Elizabeth Rawson
soldiers when he speaks of Roman military rewards in general. one of
which is the right to hang up spoils in the most conspicuous position of a
house. 9 Clearly anyone who killed an enemy in single combat after a
challenge - a custom that Dr. S. Oakley has shown in an excellent article
was much commoner than usually believecttO - had this right; these are
A. Gellius' spolia provocatoria.11 But there were others as well. L. Siccius,
the 'Roman Achilles', according to Valerius Maximus, took 36 spoils, only
eight of which were from formal duels ex provocatione. (Miinzer is
probably right that the information about Siccius comes ultimately from
some sort of monument, presumably inscribed aitd probably dated far
too early by Roman antiquarians and annalists.)12 Promachoi were often,
perhaps most often, members of the elite; but not necessarily always.
The custom of fixing spoils to one's house was not extinct in the late
Republic, at least where triumphators were concerned. Pompey's house
was adorned with the rostra of pirate ships.13 Later, Propertius envisa-
ges Maecenas, and Tibullus Messana, as adorning their doors with spoils.
Ovid refers only to the doors of the Princeps;14 and there seem to be no
later references. It seems probable that this was one of the distinctions,
like a triumph· itself and the right to build grand buildings in Rome from
one's booty, that was no longer open to generals after the early
Augustan period.1 5 Perhaps it was no longer open to ordinary soldiers
either; certainly duels had become rare to say the least. But Suetonius
bears out Pliny's remark that the spoils attached in early days to private
houses survived many masters; in the Great Fire of Rome under Nero, he
notes that the domus priscorum ducum arserunt, hostilibus adhuc spoliis
adornatae; few of the families of prisci duces still survived in 59 A.D.
Such mansions according to Suetonius were part of quidquid visendum
atque memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat until this date.16 Visendum;
we can accept that the Romans looked carefully at these things. Of
course, there could be fraud; the Elder Cato, perhaps as censor, wrote a
speech entitled ne spolia figerentur nisi de hoste capta , 17 and we may
possibly assume that what he objected to was that people were buying
arms for the purpose of adorning their houses; but perhaps this was
9 Pol. 6,39,10
!i S. Oakley, Single Combat in the Roman Republic, CQ 35, 1985, 392.
Gell. N.A. 2,11,3
12 Val. Max. 3,2,24; F. Mtinzer, RE 2A.2, 1923, 2189f., s.v. Siccius 3.
13 Cic. Phil. 2,68
14 Prop. 3,9,26; Tibull 1,1,54; Ovid. Trist.3,1,33
l5 W. Eck, Senatorial Self-Representation: Developments in the Augustan Period,
in: Caesar Augustus. Seven Aspects, ed. F. Millar and E. Segal, Oxford 1984, 129
does not mention the possibility. Augustus' touchiness about spolia opima, a
special case, is of course notorious; he seems to have been given the right to
dedicate these even though he had not personally taken them from the
opposing general, Cass.Dio 44,4,3.
l6 Suet. Nero 38,2
17 Cato orat. frg. 97 Malcovati
The Antiquarian Tradition 161
done for the purchaser's immediate personal glory, and the arms were
thus contemporary ones, rather than in an attempt to provide ancestors
with res gestae, in which case anachronisms might well occur. Cato's was
of course a period in which claims to· triumphs and other symbols of
military glory proliferated.1 8
When the custom of fixing spoils to one's house began we do not
know; possibly only in the period around 300 B.C. in which Roman
aristocrats are often now seen as developing various new and more
sophisticated ways of celebrating their own and their family's
achievements in visible fashion, as Holscher convincingly showed (he
does not however refer to spoils on the houses either of generals or
private soldiers).19 This date is the more likely if Latte is right in seeing
spoils as having in very early times to be destroyed, because thought of
as still an actively dangerous part of the enemy .20 In accordance with an
old custom they were sometimes burnt on the field of battle by Roman
generals even at quite a late period. HOischer notes, on the assumption
that spoils had originally to be destroyed, that the first Beutedenkmii.ler
of generals date from the period shortly before 300 B .C. Perhaps then
from about this time come the rules, believed by the Romans to be very
old, concerning the sacrifices and payments due from captors of various
kinds of spoils; 21 and the habit of hanging them at a door, whether that
of a temple or a house, has been seen as still having a religious meaning;
they had to be left outside a peaceful building, and perhaps also
magically defended it.22 It is thus tempting to suppose that spoils were
not in Rome fixed to private houses at least before the later fourth
century; but in Greece they were certainly dedicated in temples much
earlier, and the habit of single combat was surely older in Roman
campaigns too. Of course, the real date of the spolia opima attributed to
Cornelius Cossus (in the mid fifth century), let alone those attributed to
Romulus, which were at least preserved to be dedicated in a temple, is
uncertain.23
18 There were often two or three, once (in 175) four triumphs in a year.
19 T. HOischer, Die Anfil.nge rfimischer Reprlisentationskunst, MDAl(R) 85, 1978,
3!5ff.
20 K. Latte, Rflmische Religionsgeschichte, Munich 1960, 129, cf. 204-5. Cf. Herod.
8,37,1 - od1e 8'owv for anyone to touch arms in the temple at Delphi (but they
appear miraculously outside it).
21 Fest. 202 Lindsay, s. v. Opima spolia
22 G.Ch. Picard, Les Trophees Remains, Paris 1957, 122.
23 See the well-known account in Liv. 4,20,2, with R.M. Ogilvie, A Commentary on
Livy. Books 1-5, Oxford (1965) 1978, ad loc. and on 1,10. (The fresco from
Pompeii showing Romulus with the spoils - helmet with three feathers and
modelled cuirass, apparently small round shh,~ld - is probably fanciful: V.
SpinazzOla, Pompeii alla luce degli scavi nuovi di Via dell'Abbondanza, Rome
1953, pl.184, but Plut. Rom, 16 describes statues of Romulus with his spoils in
Rome, and the type may conceivably have been based on what remained in the
temple of Jupiter Feretrius.) The belief that the Pila Horatia had originally
162 Elizabeth Rawson
Whether from the later fourth century or earlier, spoils were
certainly dedicated in Rome in temples and public buildings; one need
only mention, for example, the rostra which gave their name to the
speakers' platform in the Forum.24 There is far more evidence of various
kinds, literary (for Rome) and archaeological (for much of Italy as for
Greece) than we can attempt to collect here. Where Rome is concerned,
w.e will for example, when prodigies involve arms in a temple, think of
dedications (e.g. Livy 33,26,8 [196 B.C.] ad Monetam duarum hastarum
spicula arserunt.) The temple had been vowed by M. Furius Camillus in
the war with the Aurunci, and dedicated in 344. More precisely,
Obsequens says that in 124 B.C. a shield was struck in the temple of
Iuno Regina; it is significant for the interest taken in these matters that
the shield is described as Ligusticum.25 Doubtless correctly; this must be
the temple of Juno Regina near the Circus Flaminius vowed by M.
Aemilius Lepidus cos. I 87 in his battle with the Ligurians and dedicated
in I 79 - not the great Camillus' temple on the A ventine.26 Perhaps all
temples in Rome which had been vowed in war and dedicated after a
victory - especially after a triumph, in which piles of captured arms
were a regular feature of the procession - had their spolia.
U_nfortunately, we cannot take seriously Silius Italicus' description of
the Curia before the Hannibalic War; here, he says, in foribus sacris
primoque in limine templi there hung captive chariots, the armour of
hostile generals, .battleaxes, perforated shields and other arms, weapons
still stained with blood, and the bars of city gates; also rostra from the
First Punic War, helmets of the Senones, Brennus' sword, Gallic arms
from Camillus' triumph, Pyrrhus' standards, bristling Ligurian coni
(helmets or caps), ~ude Spanish parmae and Alpine g a es a.
Unfortunately the first lines are closely based on Virgil's description of
the palace of King Latinus in the Aeneid - hence the chariots, battleaxes
and· bars of city gates all come; and one does not suppose that the
objects more specifically tied by Silius to particular wars are more
genuine; 27 there is no other evidence for spoils in or on the Curia
(though Messalla's painting of his victory in Sicily was on the outer
waII, 28 and may give us to think), and Silius may possibly have been
been adorned with the spolia won by Horatius from the Curiatii suggests that
the Romans did believe the exposure of private spoils to be a very old custom.
24 F. Coarelli, 11 Foro Romano I, Rome 1983, 145f.
25 Obseq. 27.
26 For the basic references see S.B. Platner, T.S. Ashby, A Topographical Dictio-
nary of Ancient Rome, London 1929, s.v. Iuno Regina.
27 Sil. Ital. 1,621ff.; Verg. Aen. 7,183ff. for which cf. T. Wiseman (above, n.5) -
meant to evoke Augustus' house? (Virgil imagines arms decorating temples
elsewhere in the Aeneid: 3,286ff.; 5,359ff.; 11,778. And now Gallus, for Caesarian
or triumviral Rome: R.D. Anderson, P.J. Parsons, R.G.M. Nisbet, Elegiacs by
Gallus from Qasr !brim, JRS 69, 1979, 125-55, esp. 138.)
28 Plin. N.H. 35,22; cf. F. Coarelli, II Foro Romano II, Rome 1985, 53.
The Antiquarian Tradition I 63
influenced· by the introduction of the cult of Victoria to it in 29 B.C. But
the passage does perhaps bear out that Romans might look at the spoils
in · their temples with a historically or ethnographically interested eye;
and one Suspects that the chariots for example might reflect Gallic
examples hung up somewhere in Rome. 29
Greek temples or other public buildings of course were also full of
arms dedicated by victors; some striking examples have been turned up
by . the archaeologists. above all the great sanctuaries (notably Olympia),
and Greek antiquarian sources sometimes note others.3° (Pausanias
mentions the bronze shield of Pyrrhus in the temple of Demeter at
Argos, where he died - something travelling Romans would surely have
been interested to see.)31 By the Hellenistic perio_d at least people also
sometimes dedicated their Own armour - a practice I think only attested
in Rome by the poets, unless in the case of a gladiator.3 2 As the
examples from Olympia. in particular, remind us, it was easy to inscribe
the names of victor and vanquished on the objects concerned - though
dates, alas, are not found on them.33 Occasionally Greek dedications,
frustratingly, only mention the deity concerned and say vaguely 'from
the enemies'34 - this no doubt in sanctuaries where 'the dedicators at
least were obvious enough. Names of generals or rulers are found, but
the Greek cities usually claim victory in the name of their citizens. One
doubts if Roman generals were often so modest, It is worth observing
that Fabius Pictor, around 200 B.C., thought it natural that a Roman
general should wish to inscribe his name on spoils.35 For a later period,
Eck has an excellent discussion of the importance laid in Rome on
honorary inscriptions on buildings and elsewhere,36 and this importance
might go back to a considerable degree at least even to a period in other
respects not fully literate, or at least not very document-minded. For the
assumption that spoils would be labelled in some way, one can also turn
to Ennius, writing in his praetexta, Sabinae (and thus in a Roman
context),
cum spolia generis detraxeritis
29 Dion.Hal. 51,22,1-2
30 A convenient collection of exampleS in A.M. Snodgrass, Arms and Armour of
the Greeks, London 1967, 100, with 141 n.16.
31 Paus. 2,21,4. Compare a nice example from Gaul, Plut. Caes. 26,4: t~e Arvemi
show a sword in a temple as taken from Caesar; his friends urged him to
remOve it but he smiled and refused, saying it was sacred.
32 Porph. ad Hor. Ep. 1,1,4, the gladiator; Prop. 4,3,71-72 possibly attests dedication
by or for returned warriors of their aims at the Porta Capena (with, n.b., a
subscription). Ovid. Her. 13,50 and 144 does not refer to Rome.
33 See.. n.30.
34 J,-L. Zimmermann, La. Fin de Falerii Veteres: Un t6moignage archeologique, in:
The J. Pa:ul Getty Museum, Journal 14, 1986, 37 (I owe the reference to Professor
A. Giovannini), on an unpublished corselet from a Greek shrine in South Italy.
35 Fab-.Pict. frg. 18 Peter
36 See n.15.

164 Elizabeth Rawson
quam inscriptionem dabitis?31
and of course. whatever their real date, the spoils supposedly taken by
Cornelius Cossus were inscribed; perhaps even those supposedly faken
by Romulus (had a reference to the Romans been misread to apply to
Romulus?). Armour was often also inscribed when in use to identify the
owner, normally unobtrusively or at the back; in an amusing tale,
Pythagoras had to get a shield from in the . spoils of Troy taken . down
from a wall in Argos to show that it was marked on the back m the
name of Euphorbus (whom Pythagoras claimed to have been). 38
Are references to the setting up of spoils by the Roman historians
generally trustworthy, or are they si~ply top~i b~sed on _the frequen~y
of the practice? An interesting case 1s found m Livy. As 1t stands, Liv.
9,40,16, on the gilded Samnite shields he has just described being
divided between the domini of the argentariae (or accordmg to the MSS
argentarii) for use in adorning the Forum after a victory of the elder
Papirius Cursor in 309, does not inspire great trust. There is an
aetiological story involved - this was the origin of the aediles: custom of
adorning the Forum at festivals of the gods - and there 1s no clear
suggestion that these particular arms are still used f~r this purpose. ~nd
there may be an anachronism in talking of argentariae (or argentarzz) -
bankers or money-changers' shops at a date when Rome had apparently
not yet begun to use coinage. Andreau rather tentatively supposes that
there were argentarii who bought the foreign silver coinage that was not
yet current in Rome,39 but it seems doubtful ~f a _who_le row o~ shops was
needed for this purpose. However, some deahng m stlver bulhon, and of
course in bronze (there was already a monetary unit in the form of a
bronze weight, the as) must have gone on, though the word argentarius
may not yet have been in use. But Crawford is right to stress that Roman
. 40
literary sources are extremely confused about ear1y monetary htstory,
and a complete mistake is as possible as a mild anachronism. Coarel_li
notes that Varro in De vita populi Romani 2 (which covered the Repubhc
down to the Pyrrhic War) referred to an increase in the dignitas forensis
when the tabernae lanienae, butcher's shops or stalls gave way to
37 o. Ribbeck, Tragicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (2.Aufl.), Leipzig 1871 (Reprint
Hildesheim 1962), v. 279. ·
38 See n.23 above. Owner's names: note lLLRP 1254, 1255 (helmets). For a later
period R. MacMullen Inscriptions on Arms and the Supply of Arms in the
Rom~ Empire, AJA 64, 1960, 23. Pythagoras: Died. 10,6,2. A tempting avenue is
opened by Zon. 7,21 who says (as do oth~r, very late,. sou~ces) th~t gold crowns,
apparently alone among military decorations, were . mscnbed with the. na~es
of those who won them. Could this suggest that Livy depends on .ant1quanan
evidence in stories of gold crowns won in the fourth century? It would be rash
to suppose so (e.g. 7,37,1: P. Decius' achievement as military tribune, in an
unpromising context) and it is not clear what happened to a gold crown after
the death of its winner.
39 L Andreau, La Vie FinanciCre dans le Monde Romain, Rome 1957, 340ff.; earlier
works (there referred to) were often more sceptical.
40 M. Crawford, Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic, London 1985, 17ff.
The Antiquarian Tradition 165
argentariae, and he links this with the reconstruction of the tabernae,
with projecting balconies, or maeniana attributed to C. Maenius, censor
in 318; he thinks the shields might have been attached as the shops
were finished (actually Livy seems to think they were only brought out
at festivals).41 This is attractive, but typically bold, and cannot be
regarded as certain. That there were shops in the Forum at this period is
however not to be doubted.
But Livy is surely telling the precise truth when he says, v,ery
circumstantially, that the spoils of King Cleonymus of Sparta, or a~ least
what were believed to be such - and we have seen that the evidence
could have been good - were visible within living memory in the old
temple of Juno at Patavium (his own birthplace).42 He also specifi~ally
notes that little remains of -the dedications made by Marcellus the victor
of Syracuse in Rome (largely or wholly works of art, not arms), and this
looks like his own addition to Polybius' account. 43 It is extremely
significant that Livy talks of Samnite arms being placed in the temple of
Quirinus, in the Forum, and in the temples and public places of socii and
coloniae finitimae after the battle of Aquilonia, won in 293 by the
younger Papirius Cursor. 44 The temple of Quirinus was -rebuilt by
Augustus, after a fire in 49 B.C. mentioned by Dio, 45 but this gives
plenty of time for a mention of objects there to get into the antiquarian
and annalistic tradition. In fact it seems likely that the story of the
dedicaiion of arms by his father is a doublet; father and son could easily
be confused, especially as the son is supposed to have dedicated the
temple vowed by his father, and the Forum is mentioned in relation to
both men.
Did something survive saying (e.g.) L. Papirius de Samnitibus, in the
temple of Quirinus - and also at the back of a shop in the Forum?
Continual shifting about of the shields used for the tabernae on the
occasion of festivals would not be good for them. But perhaps there
survived traces of gilt; indeed, is this where the obviously exaggerated
tradition about the Samnites' gilt and silvered arms in Livy comes from?
The gold could possibly have been applied in 309 (or if one takes the
41 F. Coarelli, 11 Poro Romano II, Rome 1985, 142ff. There was a fire in 210, Liv.
26,27,2, which destroyed some of the shops. In the firs_t centu~ B.C. there. were
scuta Cimbrica on the tabernae novae (at least one pamted wtth a Gaul, C1c. de
or. 2,266).
42 Liv. 10,2,14: rostra navium spoliaque Laconum. G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani
II, Florence 1960, 330 n.7, thinks spoils from an earlier defeat of a Greek force,
e.g. that of Dionysios I., might be in question, but accepts that Cleonymus is
more probably concerned.
43 Liv. 25,40,3: quorum perexigua pars comparet.
44 Liv. J0,46,8; E.T. Salmon, Samnium and the Samnites, Cambridge 1967, 272 n.4,
doubts this, thinking all the booty was used for the colossal statue of Jupiter,
Plin. N.H. 34,4'3; but Papirius would not necessarily use all the spoils,
particularly the items not of bronze, for this.
45 Aug. R.G. 19,2; Cass.Dia 54,19,4; 41,14,3 (but it can hardly have been as disastrous
as Dio says, since Caesar's statue was placed there in 45).
166 Elizabeth Rawson,
later and probably better date 293); some Romans would have seen the
gilt shields set up on the temple of Delphi by the Athenians in 340/39;4 6
but it may date from a later and richer period.
The account of the younger Papirius' battle and triumph has been
much elaborated by Livy's sources; but the doublet suggests that there
really was a foundation for the dedication of arms, which is not an
automatic annalistic motif.
There are of course very specific notices in Livy for this period of
dedications in temples and elsewhere which may come from the early,
antiquarianly minded annalists, and which are generally accepted; for
example, the inscription set up in the Capitoline Temple by the dictator
T. Quinctius, claiming to have taken nine towns in as many days, and
Praeneste as the tenth - this was also carefully interpreted by the late
Republican or early Augustan antiquarian L. Cincius in his Mystagogica,
a guidebook (as its name shows) to that and perhaps other temples in
Rome.47 The Samriite spoils, in spite of their over-literary context,
should be accepted along with such notices.
Temples fell into decay, or became overcrowded. Unwanted
dedications were frequently buried. But Plutarch tells us in his Rom an
Questions that spoils (crtc'U~a.) were allowed to disintegrate with the
passage of time, and that it was not proper to move or restore them.4 8
He is perhaps talking of spoils on both private and· public buildings
(though we do hear of clipei being taken down from the columns of the
Capitol in the early second century and military stand3.rds removed). 4 9
Disintegrate of course they would, especially iron weapons if exposed to
the weather, or shields made of wood and covered with leather, as
Polybius says those of the Romans were; but from the antiquarian's
point of view this bari on restoration had its advantages. However, it is
not clear that all spoils, especially those on private houses, were labelled
with the name of the victor and/or the vanquished. We should also
recall Pliny's stress on the houses' changes of master, remembering that
Roman inheritance customs made the survival of individual pieces of
property in the hands of a single family for many generations unusual,
in the late Republic at least;SO this might lead to the origin of spoils (and
the interpretation of paintings, etc.) becoming confused. Roman habits of
nomenclature, with the same name and filiation from generation to
46 T. HOischer, Anfiinge (above, n.19), 350, from W. Gauer, Weihgeschenke aus den
Perserkriegen, MDAI(I), Beih.2, 1968, 261.
47 Liv. 6,29,9; L. Cincius, frg. 11 Funaioli (p. 375)
48 Plut. Quaest. Rom. 37
49 Liv. 40,51,3 (179 B.C.). Verres carried off loricas and galeas caelatas opere
Corinthio (and hydriae of the same material) that Scipio Aemilianus bad
dedicated in a temple in Sicily. Cic. Verr. 2,4,97-98; Cicero is shocked at violata
religio, but also at the removal of spolia hostium and monumenta ducum. (The
inscription remained.)
SO E. Rawson, The Ciceronian Aristocracy and its Properties, in: Studies in Roman
Property, ed. M.I. Finley, Cambridge 1976, 85.
The Antiquarian Tradition 167
generation, would not help. And one might also think of the frequency of
fires and floods. Anyone attempting to reconstruct military history from
spoils would not find the task an easy one.
Nonetheless, here was a mass of evidence about the warfare of the
past, some of it probably going back to quite distant periods. It was, of
course, evidence for the warfare of Rome's enemies rather than that of
Rome itself; and also, of course, the great limitation of arms as a source
of information, as modern historians know too well, is that they do not
give more than minimal guidance on tactics.
The late Roman annalists who are the main sources of Livy and
Dionysius are notoriously cavalier about the early warfare. They assume
that the Roman manipular army of the later second century B.C. was in
operation from the regal period on, and that not only the Romans but
their Italian enemies all fought with the long shield or scutum, the
throwing pilum and the sword. 51 There are the three ranks of hastati,
principes, and triarii; there are cohorts (hardly mentioned even by
Polybius), including a cohors praetoria; there are even legati, certainly
not an early office.
The antiquarian tradition is a different matter. As I have argued
elsewhere, some of the second century historians, notably Cassius
Hemjna and L. Piso, drew on antiquarian techniques - topography and
etymology in particular - though with no great sophistication, and
perhaps sometimes used inscriptions, as Cato seems to have done (and
as we know Timaeus, whom they must all have read, did).52 It was only
at the end of the second century that the annalistic and antiquarian
tradition split, which the antiquarians developing the scholarly treatise
for their discussions, and the annalists on the whole becoming more
interested ill rhetoric and, sometimes, political Tendenz, than learned
discussion. I tried, in PBSR 1971, to work out what the antiquarians had
to say about Roman arms and armour, and how accurate or inaccurate
they were.
What of the armour of Rome's enemies? What was known about that,
and where did the information come from? Well, much of it probably
came through Varro, who has been seen as, for example, the source for
the exotic weapons which Virgil gives his Italians in the Aeneid;53
though I do not think that all this material can come from the digression
in the De gente Populi Romani, dealing with quid a quaque traxerint
Romani gente per imitationem, as has been supposed - the Romans
surely never, for example, borrowed the Teutonic cateia, probably a
boomerang, referred to in Aeneid 7,741:
Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateias.
5l E. Raws<fn, .The Literary Sources for the pre-Marian Army, PBSR 39, 1971, 13.
52 E. Rawson, The First Latin Annalists, Latornus 35, 1976, 689; ead., Intellectual
Life in the Late Roman Republic, London 1985, 215ff.
53 E. Wendling, Zu Posidonius und Varro, Herntes 28, 1893, 335. Cf. N.M. Horsfall,
Aclys and Cateia, C & M 30, 1969, 297.
168 Elizabeth Rawson
The name probably occurred in some historian of Marius' wars; A .
Gellius lists it among various names for weapons found in old
historians.54 But it is far from certain that Varro or another could have
seen an actual cateia fastened somewhere on a Roman wall - in or
outside Marius' temple of Virtus, or the Porticus of Catulus, which we
know was adorned by his Cimbric spoils;55 or even on their houses or
those of some of their men.
The cateia is not important ..But Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1,21 tells
us that at Falerii and Fescennium Argolic shields and spears, in other
words hoplite armour, survived for a long time. (This, for Dionysius, is
an argument for the surely substantially correct theory that the Romans
too once fought in a phalanx). He does not say what his evidence was,
and one can think of different possibilities; Fescennium was conquered
by the Romans too early for Dionysius or his source to have had much
chance of seeing surviving spoils from it in Rome; but Falerii was finally
reduced only in 241, and armour from this victory may well have been
visible in Rome. Zonaras says that the arms, cavalry, gods and slaves of
the city were carried off,56 and there was a theory, recorded by Ovid in
the Fasti, that the temple of Minerva Capta contained a statue of thC?
goddess taken from Falerii (possibly but not certainly the theory was
based on an inscription),57 Where there other mementos of the same
victory here?
In fact, the front part of a splendid corselet, of late fourth century
Greek manufacture, has now turned up, inscribed
Q LVTATIO CF A MANLIO CF
CONSOLIBVS FALERIES CAPTO
Zimmermann suggests58 that it could come from a trophy set up on the
field of battle (but in fact it seems unlikely that the Romans had yet
taken over this Greek custom),59 in a temple or a tomb, but that the last
is likeliest as it is so well preserved. It is probably from outside Rome,
but while the Romans might give spoils to allied or other communities, a
non-Roman with their army might also have his privately won spoils.
Though we might prefer to have a shield, Zimmermann notes that the
use of a Greek corselet fits what Dionysius says about the style of
fighting at Faleri{ well enough. He also suggests that, rather than a
proper consul date, we have in the reference to the consuls a description
54 Gell. N.A. 10,25, 2
55 Val.Max. 6,3,lc.
56 Zon. 8,18.
57 Ovid. Fast. 3,844-5; n.b. littera prisca docet - but this could be a literary source
(or even an invention).
58 See above, n.34.
59 G.Ch. Picard, Trophc!es (above, n.22), 103ff. Flor. 4,12 says the Romans first set
up throphies (towers with trophies on top) in 121 B.C. One may perhaps accept
that it was not an old habit; trophies appear on late second century victoriati
I
(see E.A. Sydenham, The Coinage of the Roman Republic (RRC), London 1952,
44ff.), but they copy Greek types.
II,,
{
'
The Antiquarian Tradition 169
of the campaign (both were involved60); but in fact, of course, the
reference serves as the sort of precise date there· is little parallel for in
Greek inscriptions on armour at least.
As important, I think, is the matter of the Samnites. Here even Livy
makes an effort, laying stress on the nature and splendour of Samnite
weaponry. In 9,40 we learn that the Samnites had long shields, broader
at the top, and covered with gold or silver, spongia pectori tegumentum,
whatever that may be (a padded corselet?) and a single greave on the
left- leg. Their helmets were crested, and they wore white or striped
linen tunics. Mme. C. Saulnier, in her recent book 'L'Armee et la Guerre
chez les Peuples Samnites' 6 1 regards most of this as simply wrong,
though of course helmets with crests of upright feathers are well
attested in South -Italian paintings. She believes that the archaeological
evidence, both from weapons in tombs and representations, especially in
painted tombs, shows that at the time of the Samnitei;' wars with Rome
the former were very hellcnized, using round hoplite-type shields and
thrusting spears, though fighting in a more open order than the phalanx
proper. Certainly Livy explicitly connects his account with the weaponry
of the class of gladiators developed in Campania and known as
'Samnites'. This might have diverged from that used by real Samnites at
a considerably earlier period - though the name does suggest that the
certainly very hellenized Campanians thought that the Samnites wore
different armour from themselves.
But the Roman antiquarian tradition that the Samnites had long
shields and throwing weapons - and indeed that the Romans took over
this way of fighting from them - is very strong. It is seen for instance in
the attempt to derive the very name Samnite from am5viov; Virgil refers
to the veru Sabellum, and even his Campanians are armed with the
aclys, a throwing weapon, sometimes at least fitted with a casting
strap.62 Indeed the Romans thought that their own pilum was of
Samnite origin, though this cannot be precisely right, since nothing at all
like a: pilum survives, it seems, in the tombs. But Mme. C. Saulnier
admits that some of the spears found in tombs may be throwing
weapons, and that the representations of shields sometimes show them
as oval (no actual shields survive); and even that sometimes a tomb
seems to contain only a single greave. I think it remains very possible
that some of the tribes in the interior, less- hellenized than the
Campanians, had armour different from theirs and fought in a manner
more suited to their rugged terrain. Of course, the literary sources will
have exaggerated the splendour of the accoutrements, or generalized to
the whole army what only the leaders wore - it was often only the best
60 See T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (MRR) I, New
York 1951, 219.
61 Paris 1983
62 Verg. Aen. 7,730f. cf. N.M. Horsfall, Aclys (above, n.53).
170 Elizabr.th Rawson
of the spoils that were dedicated to the gods. Or. indeed, as I have
already suggested, the gold shields derive from the subsequently gilded
shields - scuta, not clipei, though clipei were what the Romans came to
use for purely decorative purposes63 - put up in the Forum at least, if
not in the temple of Quirinus and elsewhere. In general, the
archaeologists seem happy to accept Livy's description; there will soon
be much new evidence.
Ii is even possible that the Romans were right in supposing that they
borrowed this method of warfare themselves - though if, as I still hold
we should, we ,are to take seriously Dionysius of Halikarnassus 20,11,
possibly from a good contemporary Greek source, which states that the
Roman principes at the battle of Beneventum used heavy thrusting
spears, then -perhaps only the front rank, the hastati, had changed their
weapon by Pyrrhus' time. It will be recalled that Polybius still described
the last of the three rows. the triarii, as armed with thrusting spears in
his own time, or just possibly a little before it. Dionysius 20,1,5,
incidentally. refers to 'tfi l;cxuvt'tii5v 0upecx<j)Opqi <j)IXA.cx'Y'fl at the battle of
Asclllum - reliable contemporary Greek corroboration for the Roman
antiquarian .belief, or late annalistic uncritical assimilation of Italian to
Roman?6 4
If the Romans knew the facts about Samnite armour, how did they
do so? Oral tradition is not inconceivable; Fabius Pictor might have
known the truth this way, and it is even possible that in his day the
Samnites, now allies of Rome, kept a somewhat difference appearance
from the Romans, though it is likely that by the second century the
weapons and methods of fighting of Rome and other Italian peoples had
become similar (as the late annalists usually supposed they had always
been). But if so, I feel sure that antiquarian evidence also came to be
adduced - surviving weapons in spoils very possibly. notably those at
the temple of Quirinus and perhaps at others of the numerous temples
to warlike deities vowed and dedicated in these wars; or indeed
elsewhere. (There is in fact a curious puzzle here; the De viris illustribus,
the sources of which are unknown but which often has interesting
material, has a completely isolated statement that Publius Decius Deci
Filius was the first to triumph over the Samnites; spolia ex his Cereri
consecravit. According to Livy he was ill in Rome in his first consulate
63 Note clipei dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus by aediles from
fines (Liv. 35,10,12); perhaps the gold clipeus of Marcius with the portrait of
Hasdrubal also there (Liv. 25,39,17); and of course the clipei with portraits of
his ancestors stuck up Martio exemplo (Plin. N.H. 35,13) by Lepidus cos. 78 on or
in. the Basilica Aemilia (and by an Ap. Claudius on the temple of Bellona,
probably shortly before: N.H. 35,12). Real clipei, of bronze, would last well.
6-:1, 8'Upcxaaq,o'prp. M.P. Leveque, Pyrrhus, Paris 1957, 280 for the rather confused
source position.
The Antiquarian Tradition 171
(312); did somebody see some spoils inscribed by a Decius in the temple
of Ceres and invent this version?65)
Surviving paintings or other representations were probably also
scrutinized. We know that •antiquarians did look at these. Varro, for
example, in De lingUa Latina, suggests that ferentarii, mentioned in early
sources as part of the Roman army, were light cavalry with missiles - on
the basis of an old painting in the temple of Aesculapius (an early third
century foundation).66 Festus knows that the toga picta worn by
triumphing generals was once just known as the toga purpurea and was
quite plain - sine pictura - because this was how it appeared on two old
paintings of triumphantes, one of M. Fulvius Flaccus (who triumphed
over Volsinii in 264) in the temple of Vertumnus, and one of L. Papirius
Cursor (probably for his triumph in 272) in that of Consus.67 The latter,
if it showed spoils being carried in Cursor's triumphal procession, would
no doubt have shown the armour as distinctively Samnite.- We also know
that Roman antiquarians (and probably the often antiquarianly minded
historian Dionysius) looked at the paintings by the first Fabius to be
called Pictor, in the temple of Salus.68 These almost certainly dated to
the late fourth century and very probably represented episodes in the
Samnite wars - for the temple was dedicated by a victorious general in
311 B.C. There were no doubt also paintings in the atria of houses once
owned by these generals - or even in their tombs, or in the houses or
tombs- of humbler men.
And in fact we may have one of these tomb-paintings - the famous
fresco from the Esquiline, not mentioned by Mme. Saulnier, which • is
probably not later than the middle of the third century B.C. and may
well show episodes from the Samnite wars. Filippo Coarelli reads the
name of what may be an enemy leader as -anio(s) St(ai) f., which could
well be Samnite, and argues that the painting bears out Livy strikingly,
not only on Samnite use of white (linen) tunics and helmets crested with
upright feathers, but even on gilt and silvered arms.69 The Samnite
leaders (or it may be one leader who -is shown twice) has two greaves,
but an ordinary soldier in · the painting perhaps does not; while one of
the chiefs definitely has a long shield. He seems to have an ordinary
corselet, not the so-called corazza italica made of three circles of metal,
let al0ne anything one could identify as a spongia, but a leader might
65 Vir.ill. 27. For all other sources see T.R.S. Broughton, MRR I (above, n.60), 159.
66 Varro 1.1. 7 ,57
67 Fest. 228 Lindsay.
68 Cic. ·Tusc. 1,4; cf. probably Dion.Hal. 16,3,2 (a fragment appreciative of some old
mural paintings). Dion.Hal. 15,1,4 also ·knows that Valerius Corvus (or Corvi-
nus) was always shown in representations with a bird on his helmet; the whole
story of the raven that assisted Valerius in his duel with the Gaul may go back
either to such a representation, or to a helmet (once owned by a Valerius?)
with a bird as a crest. I am grateful to Professor C. Ampolo for reminding me of
this case of Valerius.
69 In: Roma media reppublicana, Rome 1973, 200ff.
172 Elizabeth Rawson
well have a more developed cuirass. More recently, however, La Rocca
has argued for a possibly later date, and for. a scene involving only
Romans; 70 this does not explain why the shields vary in colour
(yellowish and bluish, which have been taken to represent gold and
silver), but I doubt anyway if it was yet believed in Rome that the
Samnites had gold and silver shields.
If the Romans knew about, and were interested in Samnite armour,
would they have regularly put their knowledge to use? We cannot say;
perhaps they would have. Michael Crawford has argued t~at the well-
known coin of Veturius (no. 234 in RRC, dated to 137 which shows the
killing of a pig on the occasion of some kind of treaty must refer to ~he
agreement made at the Caudine Forks in 321 by the consuls T. Vetur~us
Calvinus,71 presumably an ancestor of the moneyer, and Sp. Postum1us
Albinus. Crawford supposes that Veturius was alluding to the treaty
made by Hostilius Mancinus with the Numantines, similarly under
duress, and urging it be kept, by claiming that the Caudine agreement
was a real treaty, and was kept as such; he was, perhaps, a cousin of Ti.
Gracchus, whose honour was bound up with the ratification of the
Mancinus treaty.
The coin shows a figure in armour at the right, presumably a Roman,
and one in a sort of kilt on the left, whom Crawford assumes is non-
Roman and in fact a Samnite. But if the Romans, perhaps already (or
still), were aware of what Samnite armour had looked like, wou~d
Veturius not have shown it, and perhaps especially a crested helmet, m
a coin meant to refer to 321? Quite apart from the fact that the moneyer
would hardly wish to draw attention to a disgraceful episode in his
family history, and could hardly hope to get over quite so complicated a
message as Crawford supposes, there are other similar coins of
pigslayings, which certainly do not refer to the Caudine Forks .. There
have been numerous attempts at interpretations, most very fanciful. It
may be· best f:o suppose that in all the coins the unarmed fi?ure ~s the
fetial, the priest who presided, or was supposed to have presided m the
past, over the making of treaties; and . that the c~ins simpl_y evo~e
1
Rome's fides in the making and keepmg of treaties. Vetunus com
should then not be used in attempts to reconstruct the tradition on the
Caudine Forks.
I do not wish to claim too much credit for the Roman antiquarian
tradition on this or any subject. Among many other failings by modern
70 E La Rocca Fabio o Fannio. L'affresco medio-repubblicano del'Esquilino come
r~flesso dell:arte 'rappresentativa' e come espressione di mobilita s~ciale,
DArch 3a ser., 2, 1984, 31-53, following to some extent A. Alfaldt, Der
frUhrfimische Reiteradel und seine Ehrenabzeichen, Baden-Baden 1952 (repr.
Rome 1979): a ceremony of the distribution of dona miljtaria. E. La R:occa would
think St(ati) f. a possible filiation for a Roman, Fanmus, whose famdy was, as
the Fannii might be, of non-Roman origin. He has not persuaded all fellow-
archaeologists.
71 M.H. Crawford, Foedus and Sponsio, PBSR 41, 1973, 1.
The Antiquarian Tradition 173
scholarly standards, its attempts at dating objects or inscriptions were
usually pathetic; 'old' may mean vir_tually anything. (One wonders what
was the real date of the statue of Aeneas at Alba on which Varro based
his portrait of that hero in the Imagines, apparently thinking it gave
genuine information about his arms and general accoutrements 72 .) We
can rarely accept the statements of antiquarians unless they give their
evidence explicitly, and often not then; or unless we can bring our own
archaeological or other evidence to bear, as has been possible with the
armour of the Samnites. But they were sometimes correct, and can
sometimes help us to get back at least to the fourth and early third
centuries, to a period, that is, before the earliest literary evidence.
I fear this paper has been ·only indirectly relevant to the subject of Staat
und _Staatlichkeit. But anything 'that throws light on the military outlook
of late fourth century Rome must be of some importance. In particular,
if it "is right to connect with one of the Papirii at least the pro~ision of
shields to adorn the shops in the Forum, it is interesting to note that
symbols of Rome's military glory - or of the glory of the Papirii (a
patrician family) - are entrusted to persons who are not members of the
6Iite (or presumably clients of the Papirii either) but rather
representatives of the Populus Romanus as a whole.73 Even more
significant is it if, with increasing secularization, the display of personal
spoils was allowed to private soldiers as well as to great generals at
about the same time - without, apparently, the Senate having to
authorize it. In general, it will do us no harm to remember that from the
mid fourth century at latest, wherever one walked in Rome one's eyes
would have fallen on reminders of particular wars and victories.
72 Lyd. mag. 1,12
73 J. Andreau, La Vie (above, n.39), points out that there is no evidence that early
argentarii in Rome were Greeks, and some that they were Roman citi~ens; they
would be likely to be men of some substance. The same would be true if we take
thC MSS reading and think of domini argentariorum, implying that the men
actually active in the Forum were slaves. Their masters might then even
belong to the elite, though perhaps are not likely to be senators.