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C. SERGIUS ORATA AND THE RHETORIC OF FISHPONDS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2014

Cynthia Bannon
Cynthia Bannon*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
*
cbannon@indiana.edu
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Extract

C. Sergius Orata was famous for the oysters that he raised on the Lucrine lake, where he also bought and renovated villas, reselling them at a profit. His oysters changed the market for gourmet seafood by creating a new standard in taste around 100 b.c., and he grew rich enough from this trade to enjoy the luxuries that he purveyed. He was a path-breaking entrepreneur in luxury goods, ‘the first Campanian speculator to cater to the leisure of the great grandees’, as D'Arms described him. Instructive as this interpretation is, it does not address the way Orata is presented in the sources. While the ‘facts’ may be reliable enough to establish a biographical sketch, their presentation has another story to tell because Orata is known from rhetorically coloured portraits that reveal less about him as an individual than about elite identity generally. Fish and fishponds were a favourite target of Roman moralizers concerned with elite behaviour and attitudes. Oysters in particular have a long history as a signal luxury. Orata is a prime example in this tradition, and his name became nearly a trope: ‘Orata’, as I will write when I mean this reputation and not the man himself. A cognomen was a sign of family identity, but it also could be used as an indicator of character. Although Kajanto rejects this interpretation of Orata's name because of its association with fish, it is the very association with fish that made his name powerful as a literary example, whether or not it reflects anything about his actual personality. No more can be said about the Orata family reputation because he is the only man with this cognomen in our sources. For Roman moralizers, ‘Orata’ represented the contested relationship between wealth, commerce and status, because his oyster ponds were both a symbolic luxury and a commercial success.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , May 2014 , pp. 166 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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Footnotes

*

For helpful criticism, warm thanks to Jane Chaplin, Sander Goldberg and David Potter, and also to the editor and readers for CQ.

References

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17 There is some ambiguity because Cicero reports Crassus' argument in indirect discourse where the pluperfect subjunctive could represent either a contrary to fact or an open condition: defendebamus, quicquid fuisset incommodi in mancipio, id si venditor scisset neque declarasset, praestare debere (De or. 1.178). Contrary to fact would imply that Crassus knew that Gratidianus did not know about the servitude and that Crassus was manipulating the fact. An open condition is more likely because there was no doubt that Gratidianus did not declare the servitude.

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22 Crassus married Mucius' sister (Cic. De or. 1.24, 2.22), opposed him in the causa Curiana (Cic. Brut. 145–9); cf. Wikander (n. 1), 181 on Orata's social ties.

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27 Cic. Hort. fr. 42 = Non. 216.12 M.

28 Cic. Hort. fr. 43 = Prisc. in G.L. II 1, 506 (Inst. 10.2.13). Three other fragments may possibly be part of Cicero's description of Orata: Cic. Hort. fr. 41 (Crassus), 44, 45 (pleasure).

29 Cic. Hort. fr. 39 = Non. 401.31 M.

30 Aug. Beat. Vit. 4.26. As is often the case with fragments, there are some disagreements about the boundaries between Cicero and Augustine. Straume-Zimmermann et al. (n. 25) quote all of Aug. Beat. Vit. 4.25–9 as fr. 40 IV. A. Grilli, M. Tulli Ciceronis. Hortensius (Milan, 1962), 37–9 and 141–3, identifies quotations from Cicero throughout Aug. Beat. Vit. 4.26. For a middle ground, see Lucarini, C.M., ‘Contributi all riconstruzione dell' Hortensius di Cicerone’, Res Publica Literarum 5 (2002), 66–76, at 72–4Google Scholar, and Doignon, J., ‘L'enseignement de l'Hortensius de Cicéron sur les richesses devant la conscience d'Augustin jusqu'aux Confessions’, AC 51 (1982), 193–206, at 198–9Google Scholar. Minimally, Wikander (n. 1), 178, takes everything from fingamus to consecuta est in Aug. Beat. Vit. 4.26 as describing Orata.

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32 Castner (n. 24), 143.

33 Straume-Zimmermann, et al. (n. 25), 359.

34 Lucarini (n. 30), 66 and 72; Grilli (n. 30), 9–11.

35 Purcell (n. 4 [1995]), 145.

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43 Adams (n. 10), 149 and 158–9.

44 Classen (n. 4), 341 and 345–8.

45 Castner (n. 24), 143–6; and Packer, M.N.P., Cicero's Presentation of Epicurean Ethics: A Study Based Primarily on De finibus I and II (New York, 1938), 88–95Google Scholar; Edwards (n. 3), 186–90, 198–200.

46 Wikander (n. 1), 181 (political ambitions); D'Arms (n. 2), 19–20 (ties to Crassus).

47 M. Kajava (n. 41), 255–7.

48 Siani-Davies (n. 42), 228–31.

49 Brinton, A., ‘Cicero's use of historical examples in moral argument’, Philosophy & Rhetoric 21 (1988), 169–84Google Scholar, esp. 180 (implied argument from examples).

50 D'Arms (n. 3), 20–30, 62–71 (senatorial ideology). Farney, G., Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome (Cambridge, 2010), 192–3Google Scholar (Campanian stereotypes).

51 Cic. Off. 1.151, with D'Arms (n. 3), 23, 30, and Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), 151–2Google Scholar; cf. Gruen, E.S., The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley, 1974), 190–9.Google Scholar

52 Varro, Rust. 3.3.9: In tertia parti quis ha<b>ebat piscinam nisi dulcem et in ea dumtaxat squalos ac mugiles pisces? Quis contra nunc mi<n>thon non dicit sua nihil interesse, utrum iis piscibus stagnum habeat plenum an ranis? Non Philippus, cum ad Vmmidium hospitem Casini devertisset et ei e tuo flumine lupum piscem formosum apposuisset atque ille gustasset et expuisset, dixit, ‘Peream, ni piscem putavi esse’? There is some disruption to the text in Rust. 3.3.10 (quoted below), but the gist is clear. The quotation follows Heurgon, J. and Guiraud, C. (edd.), Varron, Économie Rurale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1978–97)Google Scholar, 3.66, who print Keil's emendation of leporaria to match usage of leporarium (neuter, second declension) in De re rustica.

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54 Kajava (n. 41), 259.

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56 Pliny, HN 9.170–1 with Kajava (n. 41), 257.

57 Heurgon and Guiraud (n. 52), 3.68; Arkenberg, J.S., ‘Licinii Murenae, Terentii Varones, and Varones Murenae: I. A Prosopographical study of three Roman families’, Historia 42 (1993), 326–52Google Scholar, at 337–8.

58 Kajava (n. 41), 259–60.

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60 Kajava (n. 41), 259 (rejecting the etymology); Heurgon and Guiraud (n. 52), 3.67 (citing this etymology). An echo of Varro's joke may be found in Mart. 13.90, where an aurata (fish? man?) is praised for shellfish from the Lucrine lake. Varro signals attention to names at the start of De re rustica, e.g. introducing the characters Stolo and Scrofa (Rust. 1.2.9–10).

61 Maiuri (n. 2), 57. Similar symbolism of gold rings in Pliny, HN 33.25, 39–41 (display), 26–8 (loans and fraud), 29 (equestrian status), with R. Hawley, ‘Ring wearing, status, and identity’, in Bispham, E. and Rowe, G. (edd.), Vita Vigilia Est: Essays in Honour of Barbara Levick (London, 2007), 103–12Google Scholar, at 107–9.

62 Kajava (n. 41), 258.

63 This point in fish rhetoric generally: Purcell (n. 4 [1995]), 140–4.

64 Levi, M.A., ‘Nobilis and nobilitas’, REA 100 (1998), 555–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar (emphasizing notoriety); cf. Hölkeskamp (n. 7), 75–8 with references to earlier scholarship.

65 Heurgon and Guiraud (n. 52), 3.68.

66 Shackleton Bailey (n. 53), 2.179 on Att. 4.3.4 (SB 75).

67 Kronenberg, L., Allegories of Farming in Greece and Rome (Cambridge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 114, 117 (puns on names).

68 Heurgon and Guiraud (n. 52), 4.66–7; cf. similar wordplay on mintho in Rust. 3.3.9.

69 Thanks to Sander Goldberg for this observation.

70 Siani-Davies (n. 42), 229; Potter, D., ‘Holding court in Republican Rome (105–44)’, AJPh 132 (2011), 59–80Google Scholar, at 69–75; Gruen (n. 51), 162–76, 190–9.

71 Kronenberg (n. 67), 87–9, cf. 31, 108, 125–8; cf. Purcell (n. 4 [1995]), 345–6.

72 Nicolet (n. 11), 2.849 n. 2; Wikander (n. 1), 181–2.

73 Val. Max. 9.1.1: C. Sergius Orata pensilia balnea primus facere instituit. quae impensa <a> levibus initiis coepta ad suspensa caldae aquae tantum non aequora penetravit. idem, videlicet ne gulam Neptuni arbitrio subiectam haberet, peculiaria sibi maria excogitavit, aestuariis intercipiendo fluctus pisciumque diversos greges separatim molibus includendo, ut nulla tam saeva tempestas inciderit, qua non Oratae mensae varietate ferculorum abundarent. aedificiis etiam spatiosis et excelsis deserta ad id tempus ora Lucrini lacus pressit, quo recentiore usu conchyliorum frueretur: ubi dum se publicae aquae cupidius immergit, cum Considio publicano iudicium nanctus est. in quo L. Crassus, adversus illum causam agens, errare amicum suum Considium dixit, quod putaret Oratam remotum a lacu cariturum ostreis: namque ea, si inde petere non licuisset, in tegulis reperturum.

74 Balneae: Cic. Hort. fr. 40 I = Non. p. 194.12; tegulis: fr. 42 = Non. p. 216, 14. In Straume-Zimmermann et al. (n. 25), Hort. fr. 40 II = Val. Max. 9.1.1.

75 Heurgon and Guiraud (n. 52), 3.113 (connecting the glasses from Baiae, Varro and Valerius Maximus). See also. Higginbotham, J., Piscinae: Artificial Fishponds in Roman Italy (Chapel Hill, 1997), 188–9Google Scholar (glasses from Baiae), and for examples of compartmentalized fishponds, 131–5, 143–50, 163–7. See Fagan (n. 26), 60–1 on the design of Orata's fishponds.

76 On this dynamic generally, see Purcell, N., ‘Rome and the management of water: environment, culture and power’, in Shipley, G. and Salmon, J. (edd.), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity (London, 1996), 197–9.Google Scholar

77 e.g. Sall. Iug. 89.7, Hor. Epist. 1.6.57 and Sat. 2.7.111, Sen. Suas. 7.5, Mart. 7.20.18, Juv. 1.140.

78 TLL 6.1 col. 490, lines 10–11, 28–9 and col. 491, lines 27–8 s.v. ferculum, with Gowers (n. 4), 39.

79 Cic. Hort. fr. 42, with Wikander (n. 1), 181 n. 27.

80 My thanks to the editor of CQ for pointing out this second pun.

81 Damon, C., The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage (Ann Arbor, 1997), 110–11Google Scholar, 130–2.

82 Personal attention raises the status of fish as food, according to Purcell (n. 4 [1995]), 140–1; Varro emphasizes devotion by repeating cura (Rust. 3.17.6, 8, 9), cf. incuria (Rust. 3.17.8).

83 Erdkamp, P., The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study (Cambridge, 2005), 147–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar on grain and 196–205; Morley, N., Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy 200 b.c. – a.d. 200 (Cambridge, 1996), 71–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 88 and 93.

84 Rawson (n. 15), 100–1.

85 e.g. Sen. Ben. 4.13.3 with Bosworth, A.B., ‘Vespasian and the slave trade’, CQ 52 (2002), 350–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 350–1, and Harris, W.V., ‘Towards a study of the Roman slave trade’, in D'Arms, J.H. and Kopff, E.C. (edd.), The Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome (Rome, 1980), 117–140Google Scholar, at 73; cf. Wyetzner (n. 4), 24–7.

86 See e.g. Juv. 4.140–2, with Coleman, K.M., ‘The Lucrine lake at Juvenal 4.141’, CQ 44 (1994), 554–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also D'Arms (n. 2), 136 and Andrews (n. 5), 300 with examples at 303 n. 42. The legal connotation of lis may point to the link between oysters and Orata's lawsuits as well.

87 For the epic flavour of nobilitare, see e.g. Pac. trag. 120 For reputation informed by aesthetic merits, see Cic. Tusc. 1.34 (poets), Plin. HN 35.2 (paintings) and 14.25 (wines); note the ambivalence in Cic. Off. 2.26 (Phalaris' cruelty) and Plin. HN 14.56 (correlating quality with price).

88 Nobilitare occurs only here in HN 9, but nobilis and nobilitas appear always meaning ‘aristocratic’ and also ‘famous’: 9.60 (the acipenser, possibly ‘sturgeon’), 9.64 (the noble class of fish), 9.141 (purple dye), 9.170 (senatorial fishpond owners), 9.173 (snails from Solitana), cf. 9.97 ignobiliora of less well known varieties of crab. Nobilis and its cognates are used by Pliny most frequently of Italy in HN 3 (twelve times), of art and artists in HN 34 (twenty times) and HN 35 (twenty-one times). Aside from these books, there are a few clusters of nobilis and cognates, like the digression on fishponds, where one use of the word seems to trigger its repetition.

89 Pliny's acquaintance with Varro is suggested when he reports that Murena provided a model for other fishpond owners, exemplum nobilitas secuta est (HN 9.170), namely Hortensius, Philippus and Lucullus.

90 See e.g. Dyck (n. 1), 579; Münzer (n. 3), p. 1713.

91 Hölkeskamp (n. 7), 111; Adams (n. 10), 149–50.