This chapter looks at the role of music in the political contests of the late Republic. Taking Cicero’s discussion of music in the De Legibus as a point of departure, the chapter argues that Cicero’s comments need to be seen against the background of major changes in the culture of Roman spectacle in the 50s BCE – most notably, the construction of Pompey’s stone theatre. Furthermore, the chapter identifies points of overlap in the critical discourse focused on musical entertainment and the hostile characterisations of the so-called populares (especially Gaius Gracchus and Publius Clodius). This collapsing of the boundaries between popular music and popular politics provides an important new angle on the political conflicts of the late Republic.

In this chapter, we see how Cicero, as a rising Roman politician, uncovers hidden lines of influence, pinpoints shades of political support, and frames partisan divides in the Roman Republic. Here, Cicero uses voluntas both to analyze politics as he finds it and to argue for its rational improvement. Descriptively, Cicero uses voluntate and summa voluntate to identify subtler shades of opposition or support and to trace lines of unseen influence among Rome’s leading men like Pompey and Caesar. Through his gifted pen, will becomes a measurable force as it had seemingly not been before. To measure will is to rationalize it, and Cicero builds new philosophical arguments for the primacy of voluntas over violence and for a vision of politics that transacts power rationally by the intersecting wills of magistrates and people. I use powermapping, a tool of modern advocacy, as a lens to examine Cicero’s political strategy and use of language. This vision, at once old and new, is upended by the ascent of Caesar, whose sole voluntas undoes Cicero’s rational framework, exerting will by brute force and eliminating the old pluralist order.

De bello civili may be an anti-Aeneid, but the contrast depends on a deeper accord. Both poems look back: to the mythic backstory of Rome’s foundation and to the history of the Republic’s fall. Both comment on the present. The inscription of civil war tropes into Rome’s foundation asks whether internal violence is endemic, or if the Augustan refoundation can put Rome on a more secure footing. The Republic’s death at the hands of Pompey and Caesar founds the Empire on perennial discord. The civil war tropes undergirding Vergil’s integrative story become the literal plot of Lucan’s. Foundation and defoundation share tropes: fratricide and rape. In Vergil, these tell an alternative story to the golden age the poem proclaims. In Lucan, the Augustan settlement disappears. As in the Aeneid, discord subtly defines the present: The panegyric to Nero defers peace to an uncertain future as effectively as the Aeneid’s defers the Augustan peace. Alternative cities – Troy, Carthage – reveal Rome’s perverse nature in Vergil. Caesar, embroiled with Cleopatra, founds an oriental empire in Lucan. Turmoil within the soul, between lovers, within peoples, and in the cosmos belies both poems’ promise.

The crossing of the Rubicon was not the decisive moment it is typically held to be. The Senate had already issued what was in effect a declaration of war, yet Caesar paused after his entry into Italy and initiated discussion of a settlement which even Cicero thought would take effect. Even after Caesar resumed his march it remained unclear until Pompey’s actual embarkation at Brundisium whether there really was a war on. Despite a long scholarly tradition accepting the tendentious claims of Pompey’s side to represent "the Republic," prosopographical analysis shows that the Senate and the Roman nobility who held such authority therein were both deeply divided, while our sources are unanimous that the ordinary citizens of Rome and Italy, including many equites and local officials, were favorable to Caesar, or at least not disposed to cooperate with the Senate's Final Decree. Cicero himself had not tried very hard to join Pompey in his dash to Brundisium, misled (he said) by his belief that a settlement would come about. Even after Pompey's departure from Italy he was far from resolved upon taking his side, not because of innate indecision but the deep ambiguities of the political situation.

Caesar’s tumultuous first consulship in 59 is often regarded as the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic. Yet scholars have been too impressed with Bibulus’s and Cato’s obstructionist tactics, and too ready to concede that they were "correct" from a traditional republican perspective. A common modern perception of the year 59 is that by rejecting Bibulus’s attempted obstruction, Caesar demolished the constitutional constraints on executive and popular power that defined the Republic. But far from representing an established republican constitutional tradition, Bibulus, Cato, and those who followed their lead had pushed the obstructive devices available to them far beyond their customary limits. The notion that Caesar simply imposed his will in the assemblies through violence is also overly simplistic. Nor was the Senate reduced to a "rump" of Caesarian or Pompeian partisans. Caesar’s acta of 59 remained formally valid even while some senators, such as Bibulus himself, continued to try to cast doubt on their legitimacy.

Caesar decamped to Gaul to fulfill his high military ambition, but he was far from immune from senatorial interference. A swift series of successes protected his precarious position down to the renewal of his command in 55; thereafter down to his decisive victory at Alesia in 52 he strove despite some memorable disasters to realize his repeated exaggerated claims to have "pacified the whole of Gaul." Final victory at Alesia brought the sustained applause not only of the People but also of the Senate. Caesar had a vital interest in making sure that Roman senators and the Roman People received a flow of positive news about his campaigns in Gaul, but his control over this multifocal network of communication is often greatly overstated. The chief media for this communication were not the Gallic War Commentaries but a dense network of "letters, rumor, reports" bringing a steady flow of news from various sources in the war zone to numerous recipients in Rome. Just as Caesar could not control the flow of information between the Army of Gaul and Italy, he also could not control political events in Rome, as the development of the crisis over his return shows.

Caesar is usually supposed to have sought to exploit his legal immunity as proconsul to escape judgment for his "crimes," and when he was prevented from doing so, to have plunged Rome into the first of the civil wars that would destroy the Republic. This is based on the ill-founded hypothesis that he was bound to face prosecution on his return to Rome with a predetermined verdict engineered by his enemies. In fact, what Caesar demanded was an honorific return from his victory in Gaul that was consistent with republican norms and traditions, while his inveterate enemies, now joined in increasing anxiety by Pompey, rejected his demands, fearing that if they did not do so he would escape the reckoning that they hoped for. To quash Caesar’s plans his enemies were "forced" to jettison various core principles of the Roman republican tradition, but most Roman citizens likely saw Caesar not as a rebel against "the Republic" but as its defender against a faction bent on vengeance. Neither Caesar nor Pompey appears to have sought this war; ultimately Cato and his faction forced this confrontation.

The chapter analyses a series of puns throughout Lucan’s Bellum Civile on the insubstantiality and ephemerality of the reputation of Pompey the Great, showing how his former military glory is a thing of the past, and arguing that Pompey only achieves true and lasting fame in his death.

This chapter looks at cases where those subject to Roman hegemony attempted to throw off Roman control and also where the power of individuals within the state became so contested that it threatened the constitutional integrity of the republic. In the first half coin evidence is used to look at South Italian communities that sided with Hannibal during the Second Punic War, uprisings of enslaved peoples and Roman responses, and the failed attempt by Rome’s former Italian allies to set up a rival federal state. The second half examines what numismatic evidence can tell us about the autocratic ambitions of Marius, Sulla, and Pompey and ends with a close look at how Sulla’s memory was used during the period of Pompey’s ascendency.

This chapter looks at cases where those subject to Roman hegemony attempted to throw off Roman control and also where the power of individuals within the state became so contested that it threatened the constitutional integrity of the republic. In the first half coin evidence is used to look at South Italian communities that sided with Hannibal during the Second Punic War, uprisings of enslaved peoples and Roman responses, and the failed attempt by Rome’s former Italian allies to set up a rival federal state. The second half examines what numismatic evidence can tell us about the autocratic ambitions of Marius, Sulla, and Pompey and ends with a close look at how Sulla’s memory was used during the period of Pompey’s ascendency.

This chapter explores the diverse ways in which coins serve as ‘monuments in miniature’, commemorating a wide variety of aspects of Roman public life. The first section uses two case studies to exemplify the different types of interactions of individuals, families, and the state seen through the coins. The first looks at the coinage produced over three generations by the Marcii Philippi; the second looks at the diversity of commemorative strategies used within the divisive years 56-55 BCE. The second section looks at how the Romans conceived of their empire as proof of divine favor. This type of ideology is evident in their foundation legends, how Rome is personified, the importance of priesthoods to individual and family status, and how military victories are themselves the subject of religious thanksgiving.

This chapter explores the diverse ways in which coins serve as ‘monuments in miniature’, commemorating a wide variety of aspects of Roman public life. The first section uses two case studies to exemplify the different types of interactions of individuals, families, and the state seen through the coins. The first looks at the coinage produced over three generations by the Marcii Philippi; the second looks at the diversity of commemorative strategies used within the divisive years 56-55 BCE. The second section looks at how the Romans conceived of their empire as proof of divine favor. This type of ideology is evident in their foundation legends, how Rome is personified, the importance of priesthoods to individual and family status, and how military victories are themselves the subject of religious thanksgiving.

Effusive and earnest gratitude was a trait Cicero identified as foundational in his character, particularly when playing the role of a friend. He expressed this particularly through enthusiastic and even hyperbolic praise of his friends, especially after his return from exile. When he applied this treatment to Pompey in Pro Balbo and to Caesar in De Provinciis Consularibus and Pro Marcello, the result was extravagant panegyric. He frames his praise of Pompey and Caesar as a show of gratitude in return for their support and friendship, an act of reciprocity rather than sycophancy. The persona of friend is also used to justify his surrendering of previously held positions in favor of compromise and reconciliation. He also sought to exert pressure through “friendly” advice combined with praise, to Caesar in Pro Rabirio Postumo and Pro Marcello, and to Dolabella and other young men in his letters and the First Philippic.

Pompey and Caesar often found young, ambitious politicians, especially tribunes, looking to boost their own careers by riding a dynast’s coattails, and the dynasts themselves were happy for the legislative and rhetorical support of their juniors. Cicero tried to find a middle ground between full-throated opposition to the dynasts and a role as their spokesman, as can be seen particularly in De Domo Sua, Pro Caelio, Pro Balbo, and later in Pro Marcello. Clodius sometimes portrayed himself as a spokesman or agent for the “first triumvirate,” although he also sometimes distanced himself from them or attacked Pompey in particular, as we see in De Domo Sua and De Haruspicum Responsis. Asconius’ commentary on Pro Milone and letters from Cicero and Caelius show that Curio and Antony gained prominence as Caesar’s spokesmen in the lead-up to the civil war in 50–49 BCE.

While auctoritas may seem to be a crucial prerequisite for the Roman orator, Cicero sometimes took on a nonauthoritative persona, especially in periods of domination by Pompey and Caesar: he made a show of fear, self-effacing humor, or stubborn silence. He performs fear especially in the introductions of Pro Milone and Pro Deiotaro in order to play down his own power to threaten Pompey and Caesar, and perhaps to provoke resentment of their power to threaten him. In Pro Milone and Pro Ligario, he makes a potentially comical statement that he will shout to be heard, acting foolishly to break political tension. In his letters and in the Brutusunder Caesar’s dictatorship, he proclaims his refusal to speak in public in order to show resistance to the new regime, using silence as an act of protest. I read this as rhetoric of withdrawal or disengagement rather than a transparent reflection of reality.

Cicero’s orations show versatility in adapting to new situations and contexts during the latter half of his career, particularly in his reshaping of these paradigmatic roles as a political orator. Studying these roles allows us to appreciate the complexity and flexibility of his self-fashioning over time, independently of chronological phases. He chooses his personae to suit the circumstances of each case and selects from a range of possibilities in confronting those circumstances, calculating for maximum advantage. Each persona requires balance and care to avoid extremes. Caesar, Pompey, Clodius, and Antony presented obstacles to politics as usual – or, at least, to norms for political processes as traditionally conceived – which could not be ignored, and which had to be negotiated carefully and creatively. Cicero was successful in doing so, up to a point.

Chapter 2 is a detailed examination of three scenes that target the most brutal form of epic mistreatment: decapitation and further abuses aimed at the severed head. The first section analyses the death and abuse of Pompey in Lucan’s BC 8. It turns next to abuses in the second half of Statius’ Thebaid: first Tydeus’ cannibalizing of Melanippus’ head in book 8, and second the Thebans’ abuse of Tydeus’ own corpse in book 9. The last section treats the decapitation of the Carthaginian general’s ally Asbyte by Theron in Silius’ Punica 2, and Hannibal’s subsequent abuse of Theron’s corpse in retaliation for Theron’s slaying of Asbyte. These scenes are all built explicitly upon model scenes in the Iliad and Aeneid which the later epicists have infused with post mortem abuse and grotesquery either ignored or only insinuated in the earlier poems. Through consideration of the ways in which Lucan, Statius, and Silius expand upon their models, this chapter offers a vivid glimpse into the evolution of the motif of corpse mistreatment from the ‘classic’ texts of Homer and Virgil, who had sought (in unique ways) to set a limit on the level of violence congruent with the world of epic.

Chapter 3 focuses on funeral denial and perversion in Lucan’s Bellum ciuile. The first section details the elderly survivor’s recollection of the civil war between Marius and Sulla in BC 2. This flashback is crucial for Lucan’s handling of the issues of funeral rites as it anticipates the horrors to come, particularly the warped funeral for Pompey in book 8. Lucan expands Pompey’s death, abuse, and funeral rites over the final three books. The disparate scenes create a patchwork of repeated but slightly altered funeral rites, none of which function as a legitimate ‘whole’. The next section considers Caesar’s position vis-à-vis funeral rites by exploring four scenes that demonstrate his rejection of or lack of interest in what happens to the human body after death (including his own body). The chapter ends with the witch Erichtho’s ‘zombie’ prophetic corpse-soldier, his quasi-prophecy predictive of further death, and Erichtho’s paradoxical, almost loving funeral for the corpse-soldier in book 6. The chapter argues briefly in closing that Lucan lingers on issues of death-in-life, and life-in-death, as a means of highlighting his perception of Neronian Rome as a slavish ‘death-world’.