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The Career of Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Anthony A. Barrett
Anthony A. Barrett
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
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Extract

By the time that the Romans had become involved in the affairs of Britain the use of client-kings as an instrument of foreign policy and military strategy was well-established. It is hardly surprising, then, that the employment of local chieftains, often against other local chieftains, should have been an important aspect of Caesar's policy. It was also a policy maintained by Claudius nearly a century later when he undertook the final conquest of Britain. The names of some of the rulers who threw in their lots with the Romans, such as Bodvoc(us), Cartimandua, Prasutagus, are of course, familiar, but none is more celebrated than the man generally considered the perfect exemplum of the British client-king, Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus. We have grown accustomed to thinking of Cogidubnus as a ruler who unreservedly embraced Roman authority and the Roman way of life, and who throughout his career epitomizes the benefits that Roman civilization can bestow on other nations. So prominent a place is he given in general accounts of the conquest, and so vivid a personality has he acquired, that it comes almost as a suprise to realize that there are only two ancient references to Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 10 , November 1979 , pp. 227 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © Anthony A. Barrett 1979. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 For example, Caesar (BG, v, 20) took the Trinovantes, under their young king Mandubracius, into his ‘protection’ and their acquiescence persuaded the other tribes, the Cennimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci and Cassi to follow suit. Mandubracius had fled to Gaul from Britain on the death of his father and was brought back by Caesar in the second invasion.

2 A fragmentary inscription from Mediolanum Santonum in Gallia Aquitania (CIL, xiii, 1040) contains part of a single word, the final letters of the name … gidubnus. Even if the name is Cogidubnus, there are no grounds for associating him with the British Cogidubnus.

3 No trace of the temple has been found: see Rule, M., in Down, A., Chichester Excavations (Oxford 1971), 50–52.Google Scholar

4 Gale, R., Transactions of the Philosophical Society (1723), no. 379, 391–401Google ScholarGoogle Scholar; Stukeley, W., Itinerarium Curiosum (1776), 188.

5 The name [Co]gidubnus has been restored on the basis of the name Cogidumnus in Tacitus (where the mn is a natural Latin assimilation of the Celtic bn). Murgia, C. E., CP lxxii (1977), 339Google Scholar, notes a variant reading Togidumno in the MSS of the Agricola and argues that this is the correct form of the name. He observes that in Celtic names Cogi- is quite rare, while Togi- is quite common, and points out that while Holder, A., Alt-Celtischer Sprachschatz (Leipzig 1896)Google Scholar, cites 13 personal names beginning Togi-, Whatmough, J., Dialects of Ancient Gaul (Cambridge 1950–1951 and 1970)Google Scholar, cites only Cogitatus and Cogitatinius as examples of names beginning Cogi-. Murgia may be correct and my continued use of the name Cogidubnus should be considered an adherence to convention rather than a commitment to any particular school of thought.

6 CIL xiii, 4635. On the date, see Charlesworth, M. P., HTR, xxix (1936) 122 n. 14.Google Scholar

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10 Cunliffe, 11–12. It must be pointed out, of course, that very few of these hill-forts have been excavated.

11 White, G. M., Ant. Journ. xiv (1934), 49Google Scholar, fig. 5, no. 14, illustrates a heavy ‘quoit-shaped’ form of pedestal base (see Boon, Silchester, 42).

12 Appian, BC, v, 7; Dio, xlix, 32.

13 Dio, lx, 8, 1. Gaius had restored Commagene to Antiochus and then almost immediately removed it from him.

14 On this practice during the Republic, see Badian, E., Foreign Clientelae (Oxford 1958), passim.Google Scholar

15 SIG 3 798 (IGRR iv, 145): συντρόφōυς καὶ ἑταίρōυς ἑαυτῶι γεγōνότας

16 Römische Herrschaft in Westeuropa (Berlin 1890), 16–20.Google Scholar

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19 Excavations, 43. In Silchester, 43, Boon modifies this view: ‘additional civitates, if indeed they were additional.’

20 Excavations, 37.

21 Military Situations, 182.

22 See also Tacitus, , Ann., xv, 26, Hist., v, 1,4.Google Scholar

23 Nero made use of Agrippa II, Antiochus IV of Commagene, Aristobulus, son of Herod, and Sohaemus of Emesa (see Tacitus, Ann., xiii, 17).

24 In Silchester, 43, Boon concludes that the extra civitates were ruled by Cogidubnus as king, not legatus.

25 Rivet, A. L. F., Britannia i (1970), 50.Google Scholar Since elsewhere the Itinerary lists only place names, Regno will more than likely refer to Chichester.

26 Richmond, I. A. and Crawford, O. G. S., Archaeologia xciii (1949), 17.Google Scholar

27 In the 1915 edition of RE.

28 See, for example, Boon, Excavations, 37: ‘[the Chichester inscription] as well as the persistence of the name Regnum in the Antonine Itinerary, makes it clear that it [sc. the kingdom] was in the south of the former autonomous kingdom – the portion which had been governed by Verica after about A.D. 25.’

29 JRS xxxviii (1948), 54–8Google Scholar and in Rivet, (n. 25). One should of course be careful not to read too much into a variant reading in the MSS of Ptolemy's Geography. Jackson's variant is found in the fourteenth-century MS L; Müller, C., ‘Rapports sur les Manuscrits de la Géographie de Ptolemée,’ Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Litéraires iv (1867), 288Google Scholar, puts L in the Byzantine family, which he considers as a whole ‘la plus jeune et la moins authentique.’

30 See Kühner, R. and Stegmann, C., Ausführliche Grammatik der Lateinischen Sprache (Hannover 19122, reprinted 1966), II. 246.Google Scholar

31 Coins of the Hadrianic period have the legend, Rex Quadis Datus; see Göbl, R., RM civ (1961), 70–80.Google Scholar

32 Boon, Silchester 43, for instance, considers that the reference is to be dated t o about A.D. 50–1.

33 For example, Suetonius, Ner., vi, writing of a signum infelicitatis that attended Nero's dies lustricus states: nam C. Caesar, rogante sorore ut infanti quod vellet nomen daret, intuens Claudium patruum suum, a quo mox [i.e. eleven years later] principe Nero adoptatus est, eius se dixit dare.

34 This is a very curious anomaly, since the right to mint coinage was jealously preserved by client-kings. Hawkes, 64, has suggested that Cogidubnus did not mint coins because he was a legatus Augusti (he would, in this case, have had to hold the office from the beginning of his reign). Kent, J. P. C., Cercle d'Etudes Nusmismatiques: Bulletin Trimestriel x (1973), 10Google Scholar, makes the brief suggestion that the occurrence of hoards containing mixed Roman and Celtic coins may help to define the kingdom of Cogidubnus.

35 Allen, , in Richmond, , Hod Hill Vol. II (London 1968), 53–4.Google Scholar

36 It is possible, of course, that Tacitus is using the word in the sense of ‘tribe’ and that the reference is to groupings of which no record now survives. I shall pursue elsewhere the possibility that the civitates might not have been contiguous.

37 Boon, Silchester 44, notes that as early as 1821 an association between Cogidubnus and Silchester was suggested by the Rev. John Skinner.

38 Cited by Hawkes, 65 Eutropius’ actual words are: bellum Britanniae intulit, quam nullus Romanorum post Gaium Caesarem attigerat, eaque devicta per Gnaeum Sentium et Aulum Plautium inlustres ac nobiles viros triumfum celebrem egit.

39 The tenure of a legatio normally involved admission to the Roman senate, and Webster, Military Situations, 182, objects that the office, if bestowed by Claudius (as Stevens and Boon suggest), would surely have been mentioned in the satirical Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii. The main difficulty is that whenever the appointment was made (if, indeed, it ever was), the literary sources are silent; also, while the Apocolocyntosis makes disparaging remarks about Claudius’ general policy of promoting the interests of provincials (constituerat enim omnes Graecos Gallos Hispanos Britannos togatos videre), it does not pick out any individual provincial by name.

40 See Webster, Military Situations, 183; Cunliffe, 14.

41 It is outlined in Wacher, 260; see now Britannia ix (1978), 244 f.Google Scholar

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44 Fishwick, ‘Domus Divina,’ forthcoming in The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, II (Leiden), argues that the sense of domus divina shifted eventually to come to mean ‘divine house’ (I am grateful to Professor Fishwick for allowing me to see his typescript).

45 The theory of a personal cult of Claudius at Colchester should not be used as a parallel for a cult of Vespasian at Chichester. The evidence for the worship of Claudius during his lifetime is far from certain (see Fishwick, , Britannia iii [1972], 164–81).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 A second (undated) inscription with a reference to the domus divina is known from Chichester (RIB 89).

47 See, for instance, VCH, Sussex iii. 14; Boon, Silchester, 43; Webster, Conquest, 59.

48 An analagous institution was the ornamenta triumphalia, granted to successful generals under the principate of the triumphus. Juba II was awarded this honour.

49 West, A. B., Corinth (vii pt. 1) Latin Inscriptions (Cambridge, Mass. 1931)Google Scholar, no. 67. See also AJA xxx (1926), 390.Google Scholar

50 Tacitus, Ann., vi, 18; Strabo, viii, 366.

51 See Bowersock, op. cit. (note 54), 117.

52 See West, 68.

53 Έλληνικα i (1928), 12, 27.

54 JRS li (1961), 112–8.Google Scholar

55 It has been argued that the ὅλης of Josephus’ text is a corruption of κōίλης and that Herod was procurator of Coele-Syria.

66 See Boon, Silchester, 43.

57 Regni, 27.

58 Antiquity xlvi (1972), 77.Google Scholar

59 As Webster, Conquest, 59, notes, it would create an ‘awkward anomaly’. Only one instance of joint governorship is recorded; Philostratus, Vit. Soph., ii, 1, 11, states that Sextus Quintilius Condianus and Sextus Quintilius Maximus governed Greece jointly. Mommsen, Th., Römisches Staatsrecht2 (reprint, Graz 1952), ii. 875–8Google Scholar, argues that one of them was a legatus with special responsibility for the civitates liberae.

60 See Tacitus, , Ann., xv, 28Google Scholar; Dessau 2677, 2678. Both Boon, Silchester, 45, and Frere, op. cit. (n. 58) have speculated on the possibility that Cogidubnus held some sort of military authority. Although the temporary command of Roman troops in some emergency might be easier to explain than the administration of a territory as legatus, nevertheless, such a command by a client-king would be without parallel in Roman history and the silence of the literary authorities would still be surprising.

61 I shall show that the turbidae res that awaited Scapula in A.D. 47/48 refer to an internal uprising (AJP).

62 Boon, Silchester, 45. Boon has pointed out in correspondence that it would have taken quite a long time to erect the inner earthwork, which encloses a fair amount of ground and was of massive profile.

63 Boon, Silchester, 46. The early defences of Winchester pose special problems; they may belong to the period of Boudicca's revolt, but Biddle, M., Ant. Journ. xlv (1965), 236Google Scholar, believes that they date after A.D. 70.

64 Chichester Excavations Committee: Summary Report for 1966, 7.

65 Apart from the fourth consulship, the titles on the stone indicate a date of A.D. 58. Cos. IV may have been incorrectly copied.

66 Webster, Military Situations, 182, suggests that it belonged to the base of an equestrian statue, and connects it with the vote of statues and arches that followed the fall of Artaxata (Ann. xiii, 41). However, Tacitus' narrative suggests that Artaxata fell in A.D. 59, rather than 58, and that Corbulo reached Tigranocerta in the autumn of that same year.

67 JRS lvi (1966), 159–60.Google Scholar

68 Evidence of Nero's deferential treatment of the senate is provided by his coinage. On Neronian gold and silver coins we find the legend EX S(enatus) C(onsulto).

69 On the adlections to the senate made under Vespasian see Houston, G. W., AJP xcviii (1977), 35–63.Google Scholar

70 Roman Britain and the Roman Army (Kendal 1953), 48–57 (also in DUJ viii [1947], 58–63)Google Scholar.

71 Birley (cited by Cunliffe, 14) believes that Salvius did not arrive until A.D. 81.

72 A summary of Javolenus’ career appears in PIR IV, 3, 108–9.

73 See, for example, Sallust, Iug., cxiv, 2; Cicero, Phil., ix, 4, Inv., ii, 1; Livy, ii, 41. 3.

74 A second, less likely, possibility, is that Tacitus is referring to Domitian's campaign of A.D. 92.

75 Hope, W. H. St. John and Fox, G. E., Archaeologia lix (1905) 330–70Google Scholar, report on the discovery of the tile. The tile must, of course, be Neronian. If it was produced after the time of Cogidubnus this does not mean that the public baths are later than Cogidubnus; only one tile has been found, and it could be a later replacement.

76 Karslake's discovery is reported in Ant. Journ. vi (1926), 75Google Scholar (see Boon, Silchester, 278–9).

77 ‘Roman Britain,’ in Finberg, H. P. R., The Agrarian History of England and Wales (Cambridge 1967) Vol. I. pt. ii, 15 and 29.Google Scholar