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87-408: Although this period of Roman history is marked by the extreme violence and cruelty practiced by partisans on each side, Gratidianus suffered a particularly vicious death during Sulla's proscription ; in the most sensational accounts, he was tortured and dismembered by Catiline at the tomb of Quintus Lutatius Catulus , in a manner that evoked human sacrifice , and his severed head was carried through

174-470: A compitum within which its guardian spirits , or Lares , were thought to reside. During the Compitalia , a new year festival , the cult images were displayed in procession. Festus and Macrobius thought that the "dolls" were ritual replacements for human sacrifices to the spirits of the dead. The sources express no surprise or disapproval toward tending cult for a living man, which may have been

261-502: A 85% discount on the proscribed's properties, François Hinard inferred that the overall change of wealth that followed the proscription amounted to 2.3 billion sesterces. With a different calculation, Israel Shatzman reaches the sum of 1.88 billion sesterces. C. F. Konrad considers that the wealth transfers that followed the proscription were "the most radical redistribution of property in Roman history – to that point". Many victims of

348-402: A common weight unit), and semuncia ( 1 ⁄ 24 ), as well as multiples of the as , the dupondius (2), sestertius (2 1 ⁄ 2 ), and tressis (3). After the as had been issued as a cast coin for about seventy years, and its weight had been reduced in several stages, a sextantal as was introduced (meaning that it weighed one-sixth of a pound). At about

435-540: A deal with him. Aufidius was nevertheless not rehabilitated and died in misery in a Spanish town. Other proscribed fled to Mithridates, which explains the contacts between the king and Sertorius. Many of them died at the battle of Lemnos in 73, even though only Marcus Varius is mentioned in ancient sources. Only six proscribed still alive after 72 are known: Scipio, Aufidius, Aulus Trebonius, Gnaeus Decidius, Lucius Fidustius, and Lucius Cornelius Cinna (the son of Cinna). The latter two were notably proscribed again during

522-442: A kind of "missing link" in the narrative tradition. The Commentariolum says that Catiline killed a man who was most beloved to the Roman people; with the Roman people looking on, he scourged M. Marius with vine-staffs through the whole city, drove him to the tomb, and there mutilated him with every torture. While he was alive and in an upright position, Catiline took a sword in his own right hand and severed his neck, holding on to

609-412: A more secure date, with the second term in 84, 83, or 82. During the closing violence of the civil war , Gratidianus was tortured and killed. A death, if Sulla were victorious, was likely never in doubt. Details vary and proliferate in their brutality over time. Cicero and Sallust offer the earliest accounts, but the works in which these survive are fragmentary. Cicero described his cousin's murder in

696-473: A most gentle man, shed his blood drop by measured drop. Marius was worthy of the things that he suffered, Sulla was worthy of what he had ordered, and Catilina was worthy of what he did, but the republic did not deserve to take the sword-blades from both enemies and avengers into her very core. Lucan , Seneca's nephew and like him writing under the Imperial terror of Nero , who drove them both to suicide, has

783-572: A popular assembly, which approved the proscription. A first list of proscribed was immediately published under the form of an edict . It comprised 80 names, made of the most important of Sulla's enemies sorted by rank. The four remaining Marians of consular rank were listed first, including the consuls for 82. The first name on the list was Gnaeus Papirius Carbo , then Marius the Younger (consuls for 82), Gaius Norbanus , and Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiagenus (consuls for 83). The following names were

870-429: A positive vote from a popular assembly , he published two lists with the names of his enemies among senators and equites , the two tiers of the Roman aristocracy. The lists contained 520 names, of which 75 are known. Those on the lists had their lives and property forfeit; rewards were given to those who assassinated the victims. Several henchmen, as well prominent politicians who supported Sulla, massively profited from

957-404: A precedent for so-called " emperor worship " in the Imperial era . Seneca , following Cicero's lead, criticizes Gratidianus for compromising his integrity in claiming credit for the legislation, by which he had hoped to garner support for his candidacy as consul . In the event, his party failed to support his bid, and the honor paid to him by the people probably contributed to the viciousness of

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1044-406: A speech during his candidacy for the consulship in 64 BC, nearly two decades after the fact. He had been a young man in his twenties at the time of the killing, and possibly an eyewitness. What is known of this speech, and thus Cicero's version of the events, depends on notes provided by the first-century grammarian Asconius . By chance, the surviving quotations from Cicero name neither the victim nor

1131-414: A tomb implies that the killing amounted to a sacrifice, in appeasement for an ancestor's Manes . Human sacrifices at Rome were rare, but documented in historical times — "their savagery was closely connected with religion" — and had been banned by law only fifteen years before the death of Gratidianus. The relative "lateness" of specifying the tomb of Catulus as the site also depends on the dating of one of

1218-516: A tradition otherwise little evidenced; the theological basis of the homage paid to Gratidianus is unclear. In historical times, the Compitalia included a purification ( lustratio ) and the sacrifice of a pig who was first paraded around the city. Street theater , including farces that satirized current political events, was a feature. Because it encouraged the people to assemble and possibly foment insurrection , there were sporadic efforts among

1305-728: A very successful career; he joined the three-way alliance later called the First Triumvirate in 59. Although ancient sources are mostly silent on wealth transfers during the proscription, one of the wealthiest men of the Republic like Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus must have benefited from it. Other men such as Publius Cornelius Cethegus , Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella and his homonymous cousin, Pompey, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius , Quintus Lutatius Catulus , Gaius Scribonius Curio , Gaius Antonius , Gaius Verres , Marcus Aemilius Lepidus , and Quintus Titinius probably profited from

1392-503: Is said to have been a result of financing the Punic Wars . During the Republic, the as featured the bust of Janus on the obverse, and the prow of a galley on the reverse. The as was originally produced on the libral and then the reduced libral weight standard. As the weight decreased, the bronze coinage of the Republic switched from being cast to being struck. During certain periods, no as ses were produced at all. Following

1479-502: The aes rude . The system thus named as was introduced in ca. 280 BC as a large cast bronze coin during the Roman Republic. The following fractions of the as were also produced: the bes ( 2 ⁄ 3 ), semis ( 1 ⁄ 2 ), quincunx ( 5 ⁄ 12 ), triens ( 1 ⁄ 3 ), quadrans ( 1 ⁄ 4 ), sextans ( 1 ⁄ 6 ), uncia ( 1 ⁄ 12 , also

1566-442: The sacer Mamurio in which an old man was driven through the city while beaten with sticks in what has been interpreted as a pharmakos or scapegoat ritual; beatings, such as the semi-ritualized fustuarium , were also a disciplinary and punitive measure in the military. Accounts emphasize that Gratidianus was dismembered methodically, another feature of sacrifice. Finally, his severed head, described as still oozing with life,

1653-402: The coinage reform of Augustus in 23 BC, the as was struck in reddish pure copper (instead of bronze), and the sestertius or 'two-and-a-halfer' (originally 2.5 as ses, but now four as ses) and the dupondius (2 as ses) were produced in a golden-colored alloy of bronze known by numismatists as orichalcum . The as continued to be produced until the 3rd century AD. It was

1740-421: The gens Lutatia , because his prosecution had prompted the suicide of Quintus Lutatius Catulus. Despite the strength and persistence of the tradition that Catiline took the lead role in the execution, the more logical instigator would have been Catulus' son , exhibiting pietas towards his father by seeking revenge as an alternative to justice. But the dutiful son may not have wanted to bloody his own hands with

1827-418: The praetors , starting with the most recent ones, then the tribunes of the plebs and active Marians. Almost every magistrate elected since Sulla's departure from Italy in 88 was targeted. A second list counting 440 names was published in two equal parts on 5 and 6 November. The lists were personally composed by Sulla and definitive. Nobody could be struck off the lists. The proscribed were exclusively from

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1914-718: The quaestor with funds taken from the public treasury to those who brought proscribed heads, called percussores . Proscribed men were usually beheaded, because rewards were only given for severed heads. The head of the most prominent of Sulla's enemies were paraded in the streets, then displayed on the rostra —the platform on the forum where orators spoke. Some victims were also brought alive to Sulla and beheaded in an official manner with an axe, as with captured barbarians. Sulla had himself performed such executions in Asia against Ephesians that had revolted; likewise, Pompey personally killed several Marian leaders at Asculum and even

2001-480: The 50s thanks to his adoption by Quintus Servilius Caepio in 59, because he was technically no longer the son of a proscribed. Likewise, the father of the consul of 43 Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus might have benefited from a similar tactical adoption. The proscription of Sulla served as model for the proscription of the Second Triumvirate in 43 BC. Hinard has recovered the names of 75 out of

2088-519: The Colline Gate on 1 November 82. While Sulla did not bear grudge against men who had served under Cinna but joined him when he returned, he would be merciless against his unrepentant enemies. Initially, Sulla wanted to obtain a vote from the senate on his proscription, but during the session that took place on 2 November 82 in the Temple of Bellona , the senate rejected his proposal. This temple

2175-477: The Marians. Apparently, Sulla was easily persuaded by his supporters to add new names on his lists. Romans of lower rank and foreigners were also prosecuted in many show trials throughout Italy and the provinces, often over futile charges, but they were not part of Sulla's proscription. Nevertheless, the proscription limited the repression, because the names of Sulla's enemies were clearly listed, which avoided

2262-456: The Republic was the lost portions of Livy's history, provides the peculiar detail that Gratidianus was held in a goat-pen before he was bound and exhibited. Like the sacrificial pig at the Compitalia, he was paraded through the streets, past the very shrines at which his image had received honors, while he was whipped. Various forms of flogging or striking were ritual acts in Roman religion , such as

2349-417: The Republic. The failure of the amnesty law closed any hope of rehabilitation for the proscribed and their descendants. It explains why some of them were involved in the conspiracy of Catilina , even though he had been one of the most violent agents of the proscription. Afterwards, some liberi proscriptorum (descendants of proscribed) were present in the circle of Julius Caesar, such as the younger Cinna,

2436-653: The Roman aristocracy; equites were more numerous than senators, even though more names of the latter group have survived. Proscription lists were copied and sent to the rest of Italy to purge municipal administrations from the equites that opposed Sulla. Cicero, in his speech Pro Cluentio , tells that a certain Oppianicus was sent by Sulla to the city of Larinum , where he murdered four proscribed municipal councillors. The councillors were also Oppianicus' personal enemies, whose names he likely suggested to Sulla, who agreed to their proscription as they had been elected under

2523-485: The actions taken against him later by the supporters of Sulla. Gratidianus had an unusual second praetorship, possibly as a "consolation prize" granted him when the Cinnans decided to back the younger Marius and Gnaeus Papirius Carbo for the consulship of 82. Although his ambitions were known and his qualifications far exceeded those of his cousin, Gratidianus probably never made a formal announcement of his candidacy for

2610-402: The bronze as , which had been allowed to fluctuate and destabilize. Gratidianus seized the opportunity to attach his name to the edict and claim credit for publishing it first. The currency measure pleased the equites , or business class, more than did the debt reform legislation of Lucius Valerius Flaccus , which had permitted the repayment of loans at one-quarter of the amount owed, and it

2697-428: The civil war challengeable later. Instead, Caesar gave the liberi proscriptorum the properties he had seized from his Pompeian enemies. Some liberi proscriptorum might have recovered their full citizen status before 49, such as the famous Marcus Junius Brutus . Although his homonymous father had been proscribed like two other members of his family, Brutus was able to start his political career without hindrance in

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2784-454: The consulship, and is assumed to have stepped aside for the sake of the Cinnans' unity. The more likely candidates from their party would have been Gratidianus and Quintus Sertorius ; the political snub evidently contributed to the latter's secession in Spain . The dates for Gratidianus' praetorships are arguable; T.R.S. Broughton gives 86 and 84, but the timing of the currency reform makes 85

2871-462: The courts. In 64, Marcus Porcius Cato and Julius Caesar launched prosecutions against several percussores , but their action appears limited. Only minor figures such as L. Luscius and L. Bellienus were condemned. Although accused, Catilina was acquitted, probably because he was ranked too high among former supporters of Sulla. The following year, the tribune of the plebs Servilius Rullus put forward several ambitious bills, including one to restore

2958-440: The death: Gratidianus "had his life drained out of him piece by piece, in effect: his legs and arms were first broken, and his eyes gouged out". A more telling omission is that the execution of Gratidianus is not among Sallust's allegations against Catiline in his Bellum Catilinae ("The War of Catiline"). Sallust's description of the death, however, influenced those of Livy , Valerius Maximus , Seneca , Lucan , and Florus , with

3045-455: The decapitation and mutilations was to further humiliate the victims beyond death, as Romans believed that physical integrity was necessary for afterlife. Burial was forbidden for the same reason; the proscription edict may have contained a clause denying burial for the victims. Sulla systematically confiscated the properties of his enemies, even before the beginning of the proscription. People hit by this punishment, even though they were not on

3132-467: The deed: "One would not expect the polished Catulus actually to preside over the torture, and carry the head to Sulla", observes Elizabeth Rawson , noting that Catulus was later known as the friend and protector of Catiline. The site of the family tomb, otherwise unknown, is mentioned only in connection with this incident and identified vaguely as "across the Tiber ", which accords with Cicero's statement that

3219-400: The elite to regulate or suppress the Compitalia. The political aspect suggests why the display of Gratidianus' image would be viewed as dangerous in the rivalry between the populares and the optimates , the faction of Sulla. Cicero uses his cousin's subsequent fall as a cautionary tale about relying on popular support. This form of devotion toward a living man has also been pointed to as

3306-463: The end of 87, Gratidianus had returned to Rome with Cinna and Gaius Marius. He took on the prosecution of Quintus Lutatius Catulus, a move that was later to prove fateful. Catulus had been the colleague of Marius during his consulship in 102 BC, and had shared his triumph over the Cimbri , but had later broken with him. Rather than face the inevitable guilty verdict, Catulus committed suicide. The charge

3393-541: The executioner; these are supplied by Asconius. One of Cicero's purposes in the speech was to smear his rivals, among them Catiline , whose participation in the crime Cicero asserted repeatedly throughout. The orator claimed that Catiline cut off Gratidianus' head, and carried it through the city from the Janiculum to the Temple of Apollo , where he delivered it to Sulla "full of soul and breath". A fragment from Sallust's Histories omits mention of Catiline in describing

3480-567: The eyeballs from their sockets — he dug out the eyes last, after they bore witness for the other body parts". Rawson pointed out that the piling up of atrocities in accounts of the Roman civil wars should not be discounted too quickly as literary invention: "Sceptical modern historians sometimes suffer from a happy failure of imagination in refusing to envisage the horrors which we all ought to know occur too often in civil war ". Such gruesome catalogues are characteristic of Roman historians rather than their Greek models , she noted, and Sallust

3567-477: The first century BC, human sacrifice survived perhaps only as travesty or accusation. Julius Caesar was accused — rather vaguely — of sacrificing two mutinous soldiers in the Campus Martius . On the anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia , the future Augustus executed 300 senators and knights who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius . Lucius

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3654-420: The first half of the 14th century. It was a low-quality flat copper coin, weighing ca. 3–4 grams and forming the lowest denomination of contemporary Byzantine coinage , being exchanged at 1:768 to the gold hyperpyron . It appears that the designs on the assarion changed annually, hence they display great variations. The assarion was replaced in 1367 by two other copper denominations, the tournesion and

3741-511: The forum and possibly read by a herald. Full immunity was granted to anybody killing someone on the list. In addition, people who assisted proscribed ones were also put to death, but they were not in turn inscribed on the proscription list. A large reward of 48,000 sesterces (or 12,000 denarii ) was offered for the head of a proscribed man, while informants also received compensation. Slaves who murdered their proscribed master were likewise rewarded with manumission. Rewards were given publicly by

3828-483: The future consuls Gaius Carrinas , Lucius Marcius Censorinus , Gaius Norbanus Flaccus , and Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus . Once he took control of Rome in 49, Caesar asked Mark Antony to pass a law—the lex Antonia de proscriptorum liberis —to restore the political rights of the proscribed's sons, especially their right to run for magistracies. The lex Antonia nevertheless did not restore their properties, because it would have made Caesar's own acquisitions during

3915-552: The grounds for the suit are unknown. Gratidianus was probably tribune of the plebs in 87 BC; if so, then he was among the six tribunes who left the city to take up arms when Lucius Cornelius Cinna , one of his uncle's allies, was banished. He was a legate that same year, probably the commander named Marius who was sent north by Cinna with the objective of seizing Ariminum and cutting off any reinforcements that might be sent to Sulla from Cisalpine Gaul . This Marius defeated Publius Servilius Vatia and took control of his army. By

4002-608: The hair at the top of his head with his left hand. He carried the head by hand while streams of blood flowed between his fingers. The tomb is not specified as that of the Lutatii, but the Commentariolum places an emphasis on the Roman people as witness that is present also in Cicero's speech and Asconius' notes, as well as Sallust's "Speech of Lepidus". Seneca , though closely echoing Sallust's wording, names Catiline, adds to

4089-528: The head was carried from the Janiculum to the Temple of Apollo. Sallust himself may indirectly site the killing at the tomb in a speech in which Marcus Aemilius Lepidus , the consular colleague of Catulus in 78 BC who eventually confronted him on the battlefield, addressed those Romans in opposition to Sulla: "In just this way have you seen human sacrifices and tombs stained with citizens' blood". Blood shed at

4176-681: The king of Pontus , Mithridates VI . His enemies Marius and Cinna seized power in his absence after fighting a short war against the Senate and then controlled politics of the Republic for several years. Meanwhile, Sulla won several victories in Greece against Mithridates and rapidly concluded a peace treaty under favourable terms for Pontus. In 83, he came back to Italy to fight the Cinna-Marian faction (Marius and Cinna had died in 86 and 84, respectively), whom he decisively defeated at battle of

4263-586: The known proscribed survived by escaping Italy and joining Quintus Sertorius , a prominent Marian general who had continued the resistance against Sulla in Spain. The length of the Sertorian War (80–72) can partially be explained by the impossibility for its proscribed leaders to recover their former status at Rome. Sertorius was finally murdered in 72/73 BC by his fellow proscribed, who were later all executed by Pompey, except Aufidius, who had likely made

4350-505: The list and unrepentant, the consul for 83, Scipio Asiagenus, was allowed to go into exile to Massalia , where he was still alive in 57. He owed his life to his illustrious lineage, as Sulla did not want to kill such a prestigious name. The difference is striking with Scipio's former consular colleague Gaius Norbanus, who had fled to Rhodes , but committed suicide when Sulla forced the Rhodians to surrender him. One quarter (18 of 75) of

4437-484: The list of mutilations the cutting out of Gratidianus' tongue, and places the killing at the tomb of Catulus, explicitly linking the favor of the people to the extreme measures taken at his death: The people had dedicated statues to Marcus Marius throughout the neighborhoods and offered devotions with frankincense and wine; Lucius Sulla gave the order for his legs to be broken, his eyes gouged out, his tongue and his hands cut off and — as if he could die as many times as he

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4524-624: The lowest valued coin regularly issued during the Roman Empire, with semis and quadrans being produced infrequently, and then not at all sometime after the reign of Marcus Aurelius . The last as seems to have been produced by Aurelian between 270 and 275 and at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian. The as , under its Greek name assarion , was re-established by the Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328) and minted in great quantities in

4611-427: The minds of observers and those to whom it would be reported. Moreover, these two incidents took place within parameters of victory and punishment in a military setting, outside the civil and religious realm of Rome. The intentions of those who carried out these acts may be unrecoverable; surviving sources only indicate which elements were worth noting and might be construed as sacral. Orosius , whose primary source for

4698-414: The most extensive list of tortures in his epic poem on the civil war of the 40s . The historicity of Lucan's epic should be treated with care; its aims are more like those of Shakespeare's history plays or the modern historical novel , in that factuality is subordinate to character and theme. Lucan places his account in the mouth of an old man who had lived through Sulla's civil war four decades before

4785-610: The other sources on the killing, the Commentariolum petitionis , an epistolary pamphlet traditionally attributed to Cicero's brother, Quintus , but suspected of being an exercise in prosopopoeia by another writer in Imperial times. The epistle presents itself as having been written in 64 BC by Quintus for his brother during his candidacy for the consulship; if authentically the work of Quintus, it would be contemporary with Cicero's own account of Gratidianus' death, and provide

4872-505: The over 520 men who were proscribed, including 51 senators and 24 knights. As (Roman coin) The as ( pl. : assēs ), occasionally assarius ( pl. : assarii , rendered into Greek as ἀσσάριον , assárion ), was a bronze , and later copper , coin used during the Roman Republic and Roman Empire . The Romans replaced the usage of Greek coins, first by bronze ingots, then by disks known as

4959-539: The period leading up to the edict. Since the measures taken by Gratidianus cannot be shown to address a problem of counterfeit money, the edict is best understood as part of the Cinnan government's efforts to restore and create a perception of stability in the wake of the civil war . Cicero says the people expressed their gratitude by offering wine and incense before images of Gratidianus at street-corner shrines ( compita , singular compitum ). Each neighborhood ( vicus ) had

5046-482: The political rights of proscribed's sons and another on an agrarian reform. Cicero, one of the consuls for 63, decisively fought the bills by focusing on the agrarian reform, which was the easiest to attack. Its abandon led to the withdrawal of the other bills. Cicero's main argument against an amnesty law, which he had already developed against the lex Plautia of 70, was that the former proscribed would take their revenge against their enemies and that would cause chaos in

5133-479: The proscribed and their descendants, especially by Julius Caesar , but were mostly unsuccessful. Their full rehabilitation only took place in 49 BC, after Caesar took control of Rome during his civil war . In 88, Sulla was consul and marched on Rome, deposing and killing one of the tribunes of the plebs and outlawing about ten of his political enemies, including Gaius Marius . The next year, after his consulship, Sulla left Italy for Greece in order to fight against

5220-528: The proscribed ex-consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo. The place of execution was near the Servilius Lacus, a fountain on the Forum, where some heads were also displayed. Headless corpses were sometimes mutilated, then dragged by a hook and thrown in the river Tiber . One of the most active executants of the proscription, Catiline , notoriously inflicted gruesome mutilations on Gratidianus . The main goal of

5307-440: The proscribed, while the main disposition of the lex Cornelia remained in place. The law also allowed descendants of proscribed to return to Rome, but it deprived them from most of their political rights: they could not run for offices or even launch a judicial accusation. Therefore, the purpose of the law was to alleviate the living conditions of the proscribed and their family, but also to prevent them from taking their revenge in

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5394-459: The proscription because of their influence in the 70s. Sulla's relatives likewise took a large share of the proscribed's properties, which were sold well under their real value, or sometimes offered by Sulla. His daughter Cornelia bought the former villa of Marius in Miseno at the discount price of 300,000 sesterces and sold it soon after to Lucullus for 2,000,800 sesterces. From this figure of

5481-530: The proscription list, were simply labelled adversarii . The main percussores were freedmen, because when Sulla captured his enemies' slaves, he often granted manumission to the ablest ones, who became his loyal henchmen. Appian writes that he had the outstanding number of 10,000 freedmen. The most well known was Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus . Another one named Cornelius Phagita commanded forces in Sabine territory to catch Sulla's enemies; he may have arrested

5568-491: The proscription of the Second Triumvirate in 43. Possibly in 70, a lex Plautia was passed by a tribune of the plebs named Plautius with the support of Julius Caesar, who was the brother-in-law of the younger Cinna. It probably contained an amnesty for the supporters of the rebellions of Aemilius Lepidus in 78 and Sertorius, in which many proscribed are found. The lex Plautia granted asylum in some cities to

5655-549: The proscription were caught because of their wealth rather than their political background, as Sulla expected rich men to produce swift and demonstrative proofs of allegiance. When failing to do so, their wealth made them easy targets for Sulla. Marius had done the same in 87 when he returned to Rome after Sulla's departure to the East. Several men survived the proscription, thanks to bribes or help from Sulla's lieutenants, sometimes from Sulla himself. For instance, although fourth on

5742-615: The proscription, collecting bounties and receiving seized properties at concessionary prices. The proscription was just one element of the repression organised by Sulla against his enemies. Sulla concurrently ordered many show trials, summary executions, confiscations of property, and even the massacre of the Samnites , but they were not part of the proscription, which only targeted the Roman elite. The sons of proscribed men were also targeted; they lost their civic rights and were forced into exile . Several attempts were made to rehabilitate

5829-535: The proscription. A former centurion named Lucius Luscius received 144,000 sesterces for three proscribed heads, which grew to a fortune of 10 million sesterces by 64 thanks to shrewd investments. Among major politicians, Marcus Licinius Crassus was the most famous profiteer; his greed in Bruttium was so outrageous that even Sulla refused to confer him political positions in Rome. Crassus' new wealth enabled him to have

5916-415: The risk of a general massacre. Ancient writers consider that this limitation was imposed on Sulla by some senators; Orosius gives the name of Catulus , Plutarch those of Gaius Caecilius Metellus and Fufidius. In 81, Sulla passed a law named lex Cornelia de hostibus rei publicae which retroactively legalised the proscription and made the dispositions of the edict permanent (in Roman law , an edict

6003-508: The same time a silver coin, the denarius , was also introduced. Earlier Roman silver coins had been struck on the Greek weight standards that facilitated their use in southern Italy and across the Adriatic, but all Roman coins were now on a Roman weight standard. The denarius , or 'tenner', was at first tariffed at ten assēs , but in about 140 BC it was retariffed at sixteen assēs . This

6090-426: The streets of Rome on a pike. Gratidianus was the son of Marcus Gratidius , of the gens Gratidia from Arpinum , and Maria, the sister of Gaius Marius. After his father's death, he was adopted by his uncle, Marcus Marius , whose name he then assumed according to Roman custom, becoming Marcus Marius Gratidianus. Gratidianus' aunt married Marcus Tullius Cicero, grandfather of the celebrated orator . Gratidianus

6177-464: The time narrated in the poem, and like the earlier sources emphasizes that the Roman people were witnesses to the act. "We saw", the anonymous old man asserts, stepping out of the crowd to speak like the leader of a tragic chorus in cataloguing the dismemberment. The killing is presented unambiguously as a human sacrifice: "What should I report about the blood that appeased the spirits of Catulus' dead ancestors ( manes ... Catuli )? We watched when Marius

6264-409: The torture and mutilation varied and amplified. Although B. A. Marshall argued that the versions of Cicero and Sallust constituted two different traditions, and that only Cicero implicated Catiline, other scholars have found no details in the two Late Republican accounts that are mutually exclusive or that exculpate Catiline. Later sources add the detail that Gratidianus was tortured at the tomb of

6351-437: The young Julius Caesar (who was not proscribed and only summoned for interrogation). According to Plutarch, Caesar escaped with a bribe of 48,000 sesterces, the reward for a proscribed person's head. Such bribes were a quick source of wealth for Sulla's freedmen. It seems that Caesar's propaganda later exaggerated his hardships during the proscription. Apart from Sulla's freedmen, many Roman citizens made fortunes thanks to

6438-429: Was a close friend of his cousin, the young Cicero. He may also have had a particularly pungent relationship with his brother-in-law; there is reason to believe that his sister, Gratidia, was the first wife of Lucius Sergius Catilina , or "Catiline", who was later accused by Cicero of Gratidianus' torture and murder. Gratidius, his natural father, was a close friend of Marcus Antonius the orator and consul of 99 BC. He

6525-407: Was a reprisal campaign by the Roman proconsul and later dictator , Lucius Cornelius Sulla , to eliminate his enemies in the aftermath of his victory in the civil war of 83–82 BC. Following his victory at the battle of the Colline Gate , Sulla wanted to take his revenge against the former supporters of Marius and Cinna , who had declared him a public enemy in 88 BC. After having obtained

6612-625: Was carried to the Temple of Apollo in the Campus Martius, a site associated with the ritual of the October Horse , whose head was displayed and whose tail was also carried through the city and delivered freshly bloodied to the Regia . "The sacrality of Gratidianus' execution", it has been noted, "was a symbolic negation of his semi-divine status as popular saviour and hero ". Sulla%27s proscription The proscription of Sulla

6699-406: Was enormously popular with the plebs . An alternative view of the reform, based mainly on a "hopelessly confused" statement by Pliny , is that Gratidianus introduced a method for detecting counterfeit money . The two reforms are not incompatible, but historian and numismatist Michael Crawford finds no widespread evidence of silver-plated or counterfeit denarii in surviving coin hoards from

6786-569: Was killed circa 102 BC, while serving as a prefect under Antonius in Cilicia . In 92 BC, Antonius deployed his famed oratorical skills in defending his friend's son when Gratidianus was sued by the oyster-breeder and real-estate speculator Sergius Orata in a civil case involving the sale of a property on the Lucrine Lake . Orata was not without his own high-powered speaker, in the person of Lucius Licinius Crassus . Cicero says Orata

6873-454: Was located outside of the pomerium , the sacred boundary of Rome, so Sulla could retain his imperium (which he would have lost if he had entered the pomerium ). This meeting of the senate took place next to the slaughter of the Samnite prisoners captured after the battle of the Colline Gate in the nearby villa publica , and whose shouts could probably be heard by senators. Sulla's bill

6960-483: Was opposed by both moderate senators, such as the Julii Caesares , who were horrified by Sulla's ongoing massacre, and extremists like Marcus Licinius Crassus , who would have been limited by the scope of the proscription. Indeed, the victims would have been named in the law, preventing men like Crassus from launching indiscriminate purges. The following day, Sulla countered his failure in the senate by calling

7047-411: Was probably perduellio , submitted to the judgment of the people ( iudicium populi ), for which the punishment was death by scourging at the stake. As praetor in 85, Gratidianus was among those officials who attempted to address Rome's economic crisis. A number of praetors and tribunes drafted a currency reform measure to reassert the former official exchange rate of silver (the denarius ) and

7134-472: Was spared. Perceptions of the clemency of Augustus on this occasion vary wildly. Both Suetonius and Cassius Dio characterize the slaughter as a sacrifice, noting that it occurred on the Ides of March at the altar to the divus Julius , the victor's newly deified adoptive father. It can be difficult to discern whether such an act was intended to be a genuine sacrifice, or only to evoke a sacral aura of dread in

7221-404: Was strung up as a victim for the dreadful underworld rites, though the shades themselves may not have wanted it, a pious deed that should not be spoken of for a tomb that could not be filled". Lucan, however, diverts guilt from any individual by distributing specific mutilations among nameless multiple assailants: "This man slices off the ears, another the nostrils of the hooked nose; that man popped

7308-528: Was terminated at the end of the magistrate's mandate). The law listed again the names of the proscribed mentioned in the edict, but also covered all the people labelled enemies of the Republic, not just the proscribed, and organised the sale of their properties. The lex Cornelia furthermore dealt with the descendants of the proscribed ( liberi proscriptorum ), who were deprived of their properties, civic rights, and banished from Rome. The proscribed names were painted over whitened planks ( tabulae ) displayed on

7395-419: Was the first to provide lists of concrete and "horrific exempla ". Though documented, human sacrifice was rare in Rome during the historical period. Livy and Plutarch both considered it alien to Roman tradition . This aversion is asserted also in an aetiological myth about sacrifice in which Numa , second king of Rome , negotiates with Jupiter to replace the requested human victims with vegetables. In

7482-419: Was trying to force Gratidianus to buy back the property when Orata's business plan for farm-raised oysters fell through, perhaps because of unforeseen complications arising from water rights or fishing rights . Sometime before 91 BC, a claim, probably also a civil suit, was filed against Gratidianus by Gaius Visellius Aculeo , supported again by Crassus. A Lucius Aelius Lamia spoke on behalf of Gratidianus, but

7569-410: Was wounded — systematically carved up his body inch by inch. Who was the henchman on command? Who else but Catilina, even then training his hands at every misdeed? In front of the tomb of Quintus Catulus, he took hold of Marius — a man who had set a bad precedent, but a champion of the people nonetheless, loved not so much undeservedly as too well — and with great seriousness of purpose toward the ashes of

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