Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth

Proceedings of the Symposium Grumentinum Grumento Nova (Potenza) 5-7 June 2013

Edited by

Patricia A. Johnston, Attilio Mastrocinque and Sophia Papaioannou

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth Edited by Patricia A. Johnston, Attilio Mastrocinque and Sophia Papaioannou This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Patricia A. Johnston, Attilio Mastrocinque, Sophia Papaioannou and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9487-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9487-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .............................................................................. ix EDITORS’ PREFACE ................................................................................... xiii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ......................................................................... xv INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 Sophia Papaioannou PART I: ANIMALS AND COMMUNICATION WITH THE DIVINE CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................ 19 Sacrificial Animals in Roman Religion: Rules and Exceptions Dimitrios Mantzilas CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................... 39 Men and Animals in Lucretius’ De rerum natura Giampiero Scafoglio CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................ 51 Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic Fabio Tutrone CHAPTER FOUR .......................................................................................... 85 Numero avium regnum trahebant: Birds, Divination, and Power amongst Romans and Etruscans Daniele F. Maras CHAPTER FIVE .......................................................................................... 115 Constructing Humans, Symbolising the Gods: The Cultural Value of the Goat in Greek Religion Giuseppina Paola Viscardi

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vi

CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................ 141 How to Understand the Voices of Animals Thomas Galoppin PART II: THE RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIVIDUAL ANIMALS IN GREECE AND ROME CHAPTER SEVEN ...................................................................................... 171 Ὁ περσικὸς ὄρνις: The Symbology of the Rooster in the Cult of the Kabiroi Emiliano Cruccas CHAPTER EIGHT ....................................................................................... 189 Persephone’s Cockerel Augusto Cosentino CHAPTER NINE ......................................................................................... 213 Birds and Love in Greek and Roman Religion Attilio Mastrocinque CHAPTER TEN .......................................................................................... 227 Flying Geese, Wandering Cows: How Animal Movement Orients Human Space in Greek Myth Claudia Zatta CHAPTER ELEVEN .................................................................................... 237 The Dolphin in Classical Mythology and Religion Marie-Claire Beaulieu CHAPTER TWELVE .................................................................................... 255 Unusual Sacrificial Victims: Fish and Their Value in the Context of Sacrifices Romina Carboni CHAPTER THIRTEEN ................................................................................. 281 The Importance of Cattle in the Myths of Hercules and Mithras Patricia A. Johnston CHAPTER FOURTEEN ................................................................................ 299 Lament on the Sacrificed Bull in Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.120-42 Gérard Freyburger

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth vii

CHAPTER FIFTEEN .................................................................................... 309 Horse Riders and Chariot Drivers Henry John Walker CHAPTER SIXTEEN ................................................................................... 335 The Horse, the Theology of Victory, and the Roman Emperors of the 4th century CE Tiphaine Moreau CHAPTER SEVENTEEN .............................................................................. 361 Fierce Felines in the Cult and Imagery of Dionysus: Bacchic Mania and What Else? Maja Miziur CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ................................................................................. 393 Through Impurity: A Few Remarks on the Role of the Dog in Purification Rituals of the Greek World Alessio Sassù CHAPTER NINETEEN ................................................................................. 419 Acting the She-Bear: Animal Symbolism and Ritual in Ancient Athens Diana Guarisco CHAPTER TWENTY ................................................................................... 431 The Symbolism of the Hornet in the Greek and Roman World Marianna Scapini PART III: ANIMALS IN GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE ........................................................................... 449 Inventing the Phoenix: A Myth in the Making through Words and Images Françoise Lecocq CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO .......................................................................... 479 The Language of Animal Metamorphosis in Greek Mythology Kenneth S. Rothwell, Jr. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ....................................................................... 495 Animals and Mythology in Vandalic Africa’s Latin Poetry Étienne Wolff

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GENERAL INDEX ....................................................................................... 507 INDEX LOCORUM ...................................................................................... 509

CHAPTER THREE

VOX NATURAE:

THE MYTH OF ANIMAL NATURE

IN THE LATE ROMAN REPUBLIC

FABIO TUTRONE

1. Signifying mirrors. Animals, sources, and conceptual transformations

In a famous passage of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul

describes the imperfect and obscure character of human knowledge, while

envisaging the admirable clarity of divine eschatological realities. As Paul

puts it, ‘now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face

to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully’.1 Of course, the

Christian author’s mystic discourse is intended to oppose present and

future, material world and metaphysical truths, in a peculiarly spiritual

sense which has nothing in common with the discussions of Classical

scholars. Nevertheless, such a resolute incitement to a bipartite consideration

of things, interpreting the evidence at our disposal as a puzzling, second-

rate reflection of the real world, should not sound unfamiliar to

philologists. As a typically post-Romantic (and post-positivist) discipline,

Classical Philology has tended to construct its own mystic view of

history.2 In this view, Latin authors and the whole heritage of Roman

philosophical texts have frequently figured as a sort of deforming mirrors,

that is to say, as inaccurate and partial reproductions of Greek thought.

While Greece has traditionally been considered the lost heaven of ancient

1 1 Corinthians 13.12. 2 For a critical discussion of the idealist-positivist tradition of Classical Studies and

its ideological mysticism see Romano (1997), and Cozzo (2011). Cozzo (2006)

interestingly highlights the enduring influence of positivist methodological

approaches on present-day scholarship.

Chapter Three

52

philosophy, the original dimension one should always try to rescue, the

works of Roman thinkers have basically been used as sources–Quellen, in

the meaningful vocabulary of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Altertumswissenschaft.3 As Carlos Lévy pointed out, even in our day “the suspicion remains

that the Roman philosopher was a philosophizing Roman, namely someone

who saw philosophy as an object and did not define it as a subject. The

Roman philosopher may well maintain that there is nothing more

important in his life than philosophy, but the fact that he was a consul, the

advisor of a prince, or an emperor himself, seems to belie such a

statement”.4 Like other contemporary scholars of ancient philosophy, Lévy

has subjected Hermann Diels’ “phylogenetic” view of the doxographic

tradition (and its on-going influence on academic research) to harsh

criticism. 5 He rightly remarked that the transmission of philosophical

tenets, like that of rhetorical doctrines, undergoes a complex and, so to

speak, multifocal elaboration.6 Thus, instead of going in search of one (irremediably lost) original source, one should strive to see the progressive

manipulation of beliefs as “a continuous and plural process of creation”

(“un processus de création continu et pluriel”).7

Remarkably, an analogous methodological perspective has been

3 Moatti (1997) 20, has compared the proclivity of modern scholars to assume

“systematic filiations” (as unrelated to the dynamics of acculturation) with the so-

called “illusion of origins” perceptively described by Marc Bloch. Cf. Bloch

(1952) 5-9: “le problème subsistera toujours de savoir pourquoi la transmission

s’opéra à la date indiquée: ni plus tôt, ni plus tard. Une contagion suppose deux

choses: des générations de microbes et, à l’instant où le mal prend, un “terrain”.

Jamais, en un mot, un phénomène historique ne s’explique pleinement en dehors

de l’étude de son moment”. 4 Lévy (1996a) 15. 5 I refer, of course, to the famous collection of Diels (1879). A fundamental

revision of Diels’ approach—or, as they put it, “a partial farewell” to his method

(106-9)—has been carried out by Mansfeld and Runia (1997), who call for a more

careful consideration of contexts, genres, and individual authors in the analysis of

doxographic accounts. 6 Lévy (1996b) 117 sharply observes that while scholars are not keen to imagine a

continuous and linear tradition between Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Cicero’s De inventione, they are in the habit of applying a much more rigid paradigm to the

field of philosophical knowledge. However, expressions of discontent concerning

the canonical method of source-criticism are more and more common among

Classical scholars. Not without a certain amount of regret, Mansfeld (1999) 14,

notices that “Quellenforschung (or Quellenanalyse, Quellenkritik) enjoys a bad

reputation today, especially among students of ancient philosophy”. 7 Lévy (1996b) 121-2.

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 53

adopted in the cultural-anthropological study of animal figures on the basis

of Dan Sperber’s path-breaking contributions. In particular, Sperber’s

book La contagion des idées 8 has inspired a series of stimulating

investigations on the ancient representation of animals and its symbolic

background.9 The focal point of such investigations, of course, is not the

identification of a supposedly linear tradition. On the contrary, a kind of

conceptual epidemiology enables detection of permanent and varying

features of each animal type, for it is precisely the adjustment of certain

elements that denotes the peculiarity of writers, ages, and social milieus.10

I believe that it is worth applying this original perspective to the

comprehensive framework of Roman philosophy, accepting the fact that

Cicero’s or Lucretius’ presentations are not mere simplifications (or

distortions) of Greek sources, but highly relevant stages of a centuries-

long transformation. Indeed, it seems that, once again, animals (and their

critics) can offer a thought-provoking pattern for intellectual analysis.11

Curiously, in the ancient tradition animals experience a similar

condition to that of Latin philosophical texts, since they are frequently

depicted as mirrors or voices of an underlying reality which is difficult to

capture elsewhere. Such a reality, of course, can be either positive or

negative, desirable or execrable, and hence animals appear at the same

time as idealised and disgusting mirrors. By and large, the interpretation of

such living reflections is controversial, for different writers and lines of

thought tend to evoke the model of animal behaviour for different

8 Sperber (1996). 9 See e.g. Bettini (1998), Franco (2003a), and Li Causi (2003), (2008). 10 Sperber (1985) 74-5 sees “causal explanations of cultural facts as necessarily

embedded in a kind of epidemiology of representations”. When discussing

differences and similarities between epidemiology sensu proprio and its analogical

application to the field of human culture, Sperber purposely points to the

prevalence of transformation processes in the dynamics of knowledge

transmission: “epidemiology of diseases occasionally has to explain why some

diseases are transformed in the process of transmission. Epidemiology of

representations, on the contrary, has to explain why some representations remain

relatively stable, i.e. why some representations become properly cultural”. Cf. also

the wide-ranging treatment of Sperber (1996) 79-135. 11 As is well-known, in his influential study of primitive totemism, Lévi-Strauss

(1962) claimed that animals are “good to think with” (“bons à penser”), opening

the way to further researches on the symbolic construction of animals and its

general theoretical significance (see, for instance, the reappraisal of Sperber

[1975]). With regard to Classical scholarship, the heuristic potential of similar

researches has been highlighted by Bettini (1998) 219-48, and Franco (2003b).

Chapter Three

54

purposes.12 As a rule, however, when animals are raised to the rank of

positive mirrors, they are presented as embodiments of Nature. The

identification between animal life and natural values, zoological data and

allegedly cosmic principles, has been rightly recognised by cultural

anthropologists as a characteristic feature of the Western mentality. In

particular, the traditional binary opposition between nature and culture (which, far from being “universal”, is embedded in the culture of the West)

runs parallel with the argumentative contrast between man and animal,

presuming a biological—if not ontological—gap between human and non-

human beings.13 The history of Western thought has been shaped by the

combination of primitivist and progressive views, alternately praising or

denigrating animals as the quintessence of a “state of nature”.14

From the long-term perspective of conceptual history, the period I shall

be focusing on in the present paper—the so-called Late Republic—seems

to be of special interest, since it is in these years that some of the most

influential writings dealing with the problem of humanity and beastliness,

anthropocentrism and animal nature, come out.15 The frequent recurrence

of themes relating to the animal condition in different authors of this

time—themes such as bestialisation, human identity, and sociability—can

easily be connected to a shared cultural milieu. It is certainly no accident

12 See Dierauer (1977) 194: “die Tiere als vox naturae—mit dieser Metapher liesse

sich nicht bloss die Position der Epikureer, sondern ebensosehr die gewisser

Sophisten sowie der Stoiker und vor allem der Kyniker wiedergeben.

Unterschiedlich war nur die Art, wie man diese Stimme der Natur interpretierte,

welchen Ausruf man daraus heraushörte”. 13 See Rivera (1999) and Descola (2005), though in this case, too, the work of

Claude Lévi-Strauss has proven inspiring and groundbreaking (cf. e.g. Lévi-

Strauss [1967] XVI). As Descola (2005) points out, even if the heritage of the

Graeco-Roman world made a fundamental contribution to the development of the

nature/culture dichotomy—it may suffice to mention the Roman opposition

between ager and silva, cultivated land and wild space—the establishment of our

current dichotomy is strongly indebted to modern age naturalism. 14 See the classical treatment of Lovejoy and Boas (1935). 15 Indeed, one should not forget that in the Middle Ages and the modern era Latin

texts were among the main sources of philosophical knowledge. When Thomas

Aquinas and Francis Bacon reshaped the Stoic concept of natural law, for instance,

they basically drew on authors such as Cicero and Seneca. Here and elsewhere, I

employ the term conceptual history with explicit reference to the interpretive

approach primarily known as Begriffsgeschichte. For the purposes of Classical

scholarship, special attention should be paid to Reinhart Koselleck’s view of

historical temporality as a meta-physiological dimension inherently involving the

presence and transformation of concepts: see now Koselleck (2002).

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 55

that in the age of civil wars, when traditional moral values and social

models began to crumble, Roman writers felt the need to investigate the

origins of human community, its salient features, and, by contrast, the

notion of animality. Therefore, instead of dissecting the Latin texts at our

disposal in search of their sources, we should rather adopt a systemic perspective allowing us to detect the intellectual exchanges occurring

across the Greek and Roman worlds. Cicero and Philodemus are not self-

conscious doxographers requiring ‘comparatist’ surveys after the style of

Diels’ tables.16 They are part of a wide-ranging process of reception and

conceptual rearrangement which gives new meaning to previous

ideological traditions. Interestingly, one of the focal points of this process

concerns the moral and cognitive status of animals as well as their role as

mirrors of cosmic truths. To all appearances, the cultural and epistemological

myth of animal nature—i.e. the typically Western idea that animals

embody a perennial state of nature, as opposed to human society—

receives important inputs from the first century BCE discussion on ethics

and natural philosophy.

An exhaustive review of all the extant texts of the late Republic

focusing on such matters is beyond the scope of this paper. It will suffice

to take into account a series of representative passages from the words of

Sallust, Cicero, and Lucretius to get a sense of the ideological relevance of

zooanthropological issues17 to the cultural debate of this period.

2. Sallust on cattle. A dualistic ethics for the crisis of the mos maiorum

Since most of the remarks made so far evidently concern the field of

philosophy and theoretical constructs, it may be useful to start our quick

survey with an author who is not renowned for his philosophical interests:

the purportedly “pragmatic” historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus.

16 See Diels (1879) 529-50. However, the fact that in our day Diels’ cladistic

approach frequently draws methodological criticism should not obscure its evident

merits as an epoch-making reappraisal of largely neglected (or misunderstood)

traditions. Diels’ contribution to the development of the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries Altertumswissenchaft is properly highlighted in Calder and Mansfeld

(1999). 17 In its proper scholarly meaning, zooanthropology is the study of man-animal

relationships and their many-sided cultural significance. See the presentation

provided by Marchesini and Tonutti (2007) 11-13, who include the stereotypic

representation of animals as pre-cultural beings among the main concerns of

zooanthropological inquiry.

Chapter Three

56

At the beginning of his De coniuratione Catilinae, Sallust justifies the

choice of literary otium—which he famously presents as an alternative

form of civic engagement—on the basis of a morally compelling

cosmological picture:

Omnes homines, qui sese student praestare ceteris animalibus, summa ope niti decet, ne vitam silentio transeant veluti pecora, quae natura prona atque ventri oboedientia finxit. Sed nostra omnis vis in animo et corpore sita est: animi imperio, corporis servitio magis utimur; alterum nobis cum dis, alterum cum beluis commune est. Quo mihi rectius videtur ingeni quam virium opibus gloriam quaerere et, quoniam vita ipsa qua fruimur brevis est, memoriam nostri quam maxume longam efficere. (Cat. 1.1-3).

It becomes all men, who desire to excel other animals, to strive, to the

utmost of their power, not to pass through life in obscurity, like the beasts

of the field, which nature has formed groveling and subservient to appetite.

All our power is situated in the mind and in the body. Of the mind we

rather employ the government; of the body, the service. The one is

common to us with the gods; the other with the brutes. It appears to me,

therefore, more reasonable to pursue glory by means of the intellect than of

bodily strength, and, since the life which we enjoy is short, to make the

remembrance of us as lasting as possible. (trnsl. Watson [1896]).

In order to revise (or, more precisely, to widen) the traditional Roman

view of a free man’s political duties, the writer appeals to a long-lived

anthropocentric conception of the cosmos. An active spiritual life, based

on a virtuous use of reason and memory, is said to constitute the original

vocation of man, whereas animals are depicted as irrational and greedy

beings par excellence. Sallust’s intellectual purpose is to extend the

Roman model of a worthy human life by moving the focus of such a

model from the collective ideal of direct engagement to the more radical

(and universal) notion of animus or rationality. In anthropological terms,

one might say that our text proposes a shift to a different paradigm of

anthropopoiesis18: what makes men human and worthy of their status is

not only the assumption of political responsibilities, but, more basically, a

18 The problem of anthropopoiesis is at the core of the present-day anthropological

debate. By this term, scholars refer to the symbolic devices employed by human

cultures in order to construct a standard pattern of humanness. See e.g. Affergan at

al. (2003): “‘Renaissance’ de l’homme comme être social et fabrication de modèles

et de fictions d’humanité, l’anthropopoiésis se saisit des figures de l’humain qui,

constitutives du fait de civilisation, traversent les cultures et informent les

démarches de l’anthropologie”. Cf. also Allovio and Favole (1996), and Calame

and Kilani (1999).

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 57

correct use of those rational faculties which mankind shares with the gods.

Commentators usually recall the vaguely Platonic character of Sallust’s

proemial statements. 19 And there is no doubt that Plato’s ethically

significant portrayal of prone animals in the Republic exerted a profound

influence on this and other classical descriptions.20 However, one should

not undervalue the impact of Stoic models, since, as the case of Cicero

will show, Stoic anthropocentrism played a very important role in the late

Republican discussion on animal and human paradigms (as well as in the

development of Roman philosophical anthropology as a whole). In

particular, the idea that, unlike beasts, men and gods share the gift of

reason—so that the animus/ ς functions as a hierachic cosmological

criterion—seems to reflect a crucial Stoic tenet. 21 In the conceptual

repertory of first-century Roman writers, however, long-lived Platonic

stereotypes and widespread Stoic principles tended to merge. Above all, as

mentioned earlier, our main efforts should not be directed at the

identification of single sources, but at a careful recognition of the author’s

ideological aims, seen in their broader cultural context. Indeed, Sallust’s

reception of previous theoretical patterns is also shaped by traditional

common-sense beliefs. The writer was perfectly aware that in his readers’

imagery—even in the imagery of those who had not read Plato, but simply

19 See, most recently, Ramsey (2007) 55-6. 20 Cf. Plato, Rep. 586a-b. On the enduring influence of Plato’s ethical-

cosmological representation see Lanata (1994) 20-2, and Pinotti (1994). 21 On the Stoics’ reason-based cosmology and its anthropocentric structure see

now Wildberger (2006), esp. I.205-75. As is well-known, the pre-eminence of

animus and intellectual activities over the corporeal dimension is stressed in the

proem of the Bellum Iugurthinum (1-2) as well. In the past, several scholars indeed

suggested that Sallust’s historiographic ideology was influenced by Stoicism, or

even by Posidonius (cf. e.g. Pantzerhielm and Thomas [1936] and Altheim

[1956]), thus engaging in controversy with the supporters of a Platonising

interpretation (see the overview provided by Colish [1985] 292-8). Similar

conflictual reconstructions clearly reflect the above-mentioned approach of

Quellenforschung, and La Penna (1968) 36, is certainly right in claiming that

“quando si tratta di concetti così generici e diffusi, la ricerca di fonti precise

diventa impossibile ed inutile”—though La Penna himself does not refrain from

making his own suggestions concerning Sallust’s sources. Besides the considerable

impact of the Roman milieu (to which I shall now refer), one should also bear in

mind the ascendancy of protreptic treatises and their largely shared arguments,

since, independently of specific philosophical orientations, such treatises often

resorted to a rhetorical contrast between man’s rational vocation and animal

bodiliness: see La Penna (1968) 21-3, while Wagner (1910) and Bignone (1950)

221-3, go too far in seeing, respectively, Posidonius and Aristotle (qua authors of a

Protrepticus) as the main sources of Sallust’s proems.

Chapter Three

58

lived in an agro-pastoral society like Rome—animals appeared as morally

and cognitively inferior beings. He deliberately exploited such a common-

sense association in order to support his dualistic and moralistic

conception of life: a conception of primary importance to Sallust’s

discourse on the late Republican crisis and its fundamental causes.22

In more general terms, the symbolic opposition between animal and

human status (that is to say, between animal and human nature, for man’s

physiological vocation is said to be culture, culminating in the practice of

ethical virtues) underpins all of Sallust’s works. The moral and political

crisis of Rome is depicted by the Latin historian as a form of collective

bestialisation, a general repudiation of the use of reason for the sake of

eagerness and violence. In the famous picture of chapter 5, Catilina’s

animus is openly said to be ferox (‘savage’ or ‘untamed’).23 Likewise, the

corrupted citizens betraying the values of the mos maiorum are typically

described as committed to ‘beastly’ vices such as lubido, avaritia, and

socordia.24 In Sallust’s eyes, a similar process of moral degeneration may

have appeared as a paradoxical and improper return to primitive savagery,

since in the so-called archaeology of the Bellum Catilinae the native

inhabitants of Latium, the Aborigines who mingle with the Trojans, are

labelled as a genus hominum agreste, a ‘wild kind of men’, unaware of

laws, government, and non-migratory life.25 An analogous description is

22 Cf. Momigliano (1992) 504-11, and Paul (1984) 9-11. 23 Cf. Cat. 5.7-8. Throughout the work, Catiline’s impetuous behaviour is variously

assimilated to the vehemence of wild animals. In 52.35, for instance, Catiline and

his army are said to threaten Rome ‘with their jaws’ (faucibus). And at the very

beginning of his First Catilinarian Oration (1.1), Cicero himself had presented the

conspiracy as a relentless chained beast. On such disparaging depictions and their

folk background see Tutrone (2010a) 220-4. 24 In light of its easily discernible etymological origin, the recurrent term socordia/

secordia (which is frequently taken in the more common meaning of ‘laziness’ by

Sallust’s interpreters) implies a polemic reference to the degradation of inner

faculties: see e.g. Cat. 4.1; 52.29; Iug. 1.4; 2.4; 31.2; 85.22. 25 Cf. Cat. 6.1-3. On Sallust’s reconstruction of the origins of Rome and its

intellectual peculiarities see Briquel (2006), who regards Ateius Philologus as the

historian’s fundamental source. Much more interesting, however, is Briquel’s

comparison between the Sallustian account and such well-known treatments of

Roman primitive history as Cato’s Origines, Vergil’s Aeneid, and the late antique

Origo Gentis Romanae. On the basis of this comparison, Briquel connects Sallust’s

emphasis on inter-ethnic fusion and rejection of other common versions with the

purpose of calling for civic harmony–an extremely urgent purpose in the age of

civil wars. Moreover, Briquel (pp. 96-7) points to the possible Catonian origin of

the description of the Aborigines as a savage people (cf. also Richard [1983] 411,

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 59

applied to the first inhabitants of Africa, the Gaetulians and Libyans, in the

ethnographic digression of the Bellum Iugurthinum:

Africam initio habuere Gaetuli et Libyes, asperi incultique, quis cibus erat caro ferina atque humi pabulum uti pecoribus. Ii neque moribus neque lege aut imperio quoiusquam regebantur: vagi palantes quas nox coegerat sedes habebant. (Iug. 18.1-2).

In the beginning Africa was inhabited by the Gaetulians and Libyans, rude

and uncivilized folk, who fed like beasts on the flesh of wild animals and

the fruits of the earth. They were governed neither by institutions nor law,

nor were they subject to anyone’s rule. A restless, roving people, they had

their abodes wherever night compelled a halt. (trnsl. Rolfe [1931]).

The pre-cultural condition of such primitive peoples is characterised

not only by nomadism and absence of laws, but also by pasturing and the

consumption of raw flesh.26 Given that the author later explains how these

savage tribes, mingling with more civilised peoples of foreign origin,

created a powerful and extended kingdom, the analogy with the Roman

archaeology of the Catiline is even more striking.27 As Robert Morstein-

and Martinez-Pinna [2002] 55-6). What is certain is that Vergil, Aen. 9.603-13,

took up the same anthropological pattern when characterising the Latins as a

durum a stirpe genus, alien to the refinements of civilisation. And annotating

Vergil’s text, Servius, ad Verg. Aen. 9.600, refers indeed to Cato’s and Varro’s

similar presentations, thus confirming the long-standing relevance of such

culturally embedded representations. 26 On Sallust’s interest in ethnography and his relationship to a long tradition of

ethnocentric patterns see Oniga (1995), who devotes special attention to this

African excursus (Iug. 17-19). Oniga (esp. 23-50) offers a perceptive

reconstruction of the ancient discussion on cultural norms, climatic determinism,

and social evolution—a discussion ranging from Homer and Herodotus to

Aristotle, Posidonius, and beyond. In the Aristotelian tradition, in particular,

peripheral peoples tend to be assimilated to a state of anti-cultural animality, both

in a positive and a negative sense; cf. also Sassi (1988), and Bettini (1992). Oniga

(78-9) rightly parallels Sallust’s account of African prehistory with the

reconstructions of primitive Italy in Cato, Vergil, and Sallust’s own Catiline.

While Thomas (1982) 96 had suggested that Vergil’s description in Aen. 8.314-36

represents “a conscious reminiscence of Sallust’s Libyan ethnography”, the

extensive material gathered by Oniga supports the view that all these texts rely on

widespread cultural beliefs. 27 Cf. 18.3-12. Remarkably, in the history of the Numidians, too, a prominent role

is played by the move of a mythological hero (Hercules, who strongly evokes

Aeneas) and his wandering companions. See Moatti (1997) 264, and Morstein-

Marx (2001) 192-3.

Chapter Three

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Marx pointed out, a careful comparison between the two passages “reveals

that the Numidians are represented as archetypal ‘anti-Romans’, like the

Romans an imperial people but occupying the opposite cultural pole”.28

But it is clear that in Sallust’s view a degrading regression to the

animalistic stage of human life is always possible as a consequence of

moral degeneration. From the writer’s critical standpoint, the first-century

Roman Republic is very close to a similar involution—an involution

which, in light of Sallust’s proems, looms over mankind as a whole. The

opposition between nature and culture, brutishness and civilisation—or, in

Lévi-Strauss’ terms, raw and cooked29—operates on both a synchronic and

a diachronic level in Sallust’s historiography. It is no accident that the

“materialistic” men of the proem of the Bellum Catilinae are explicitly

likened to cattle (veluti pecora) in the same way as the early inhabitants of

Africa (uti pecoribus).

The writer’s representation of cultural and pre-cultural life, as well as

his emphasis on omophagy, nomadism, and the lack of a political

dimension, reflect a structured system of socio-anthropological patterns,

magisterially investigated in the studies of the so-called École de Paris.30

What is worth noting here is that in late Republican literature the

representation of man’s “animal” origins—the rearrangement of the topos

of ρι ς ς, which dates back at least to the sophistic age31—plays

an impressive and intellectually significant role. Sallust is not the only

writer of his age interested in exploring the first stages of human society,

the distinctive features of human beings, and their relationship to a

destabilising animality. Behind both the Bellum Catilinae and the Bellum Iugurthinum there is an intense intellectual debate, variously reworking the

lines of previous literary and philosophical traditions.32

28 Morstein-Marx (2001) 195. The radical cultural otherness of Numidians is

stressed by the fact that even when they grow into a more orderly and complex

society, they maintain a series of peculiar ethical features which are antithetical to

the Roman model of civilisation—first of all, their unjustified bellicosity and

nomadic instability. Broadly speaking, the war against Jugurtha appears as “a war

between Roman civilization and the mobile, treacherous, seminomadic ‘Other’”

(180). 29 Cf. Lévi-Strauss (1964). 30 See esp. Vernant (1972), (1978), Vidal Naquet (1975), Detienne and Vernant

(1979). Such works, which focus on the Greek world, are admittedly influenced by

Lévi-Strauss’ view of nature, culture, and binary oppositions. 31 See Dierauer (1977) 25-39. 32 A stimulating survey into the breadth of this debate, with special regard to the

Roman attitude towards human progress, has been carried out by Novara (1982).

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 61

3. Cicero on what man is not. Anthropocentrism and Roman humanitas

One of the most famous and influential discussions of man’s primitive

life is recorded in the first chapters of Cicero’s De inventione, a work

probably dating to 91-88 BCE.33 Starting from the observation that in

human (and Roman) history the power of speech (eloquentia) has been

perniciously separated from the ideal of wisdom (sapientia), Cicero

endeavours to show that in its original form the eloquentia characterising

mankind was a fruitful and even salvific faculty, for the earliest “animal”

phases of human history were overstepped precisely through the use of

reason and language.34 In Cicero’s view, it was the later unnatural divorce

of wisdom and eloquence—i.e., in more philosophical terms, of language

and virtuous rationality—which disrupted man’s progressive development.35

But in the beginning human beings ceased to live bestiarum modo thanks

to the fact that linguistic communication spread moral knowledge across

the community.36

As regards the philosophical background to the opening of the De inventione, attention has recently been drawn to the impact of Philo of

Larissa and Academic thought. The fact that Cicero’s early work is

influenced by teachings in the Platonic tradition, should not, however, lead

us to overlook the concomitant influence of Stoic doctrines, especially in

light of the author’s long philosophical training under the Stoic

Diodotus.37 Indeed, not only does Cicero argue that eloquence and wisdom

33 See Kennedy (1972) 106-10. 34 Cf. Cicero, Inv. 1.1-3. Although scholars are often keen to dismiss Cicero’s

historical reconstruction in his early treatise as a philosophically insignificant piece

(echoing Cicero’s own modest self-assessment of the De inventione: De or. 1.5),

such a detailed theoretical introduction brings together relevant notions of the

ancient anthropological debate—notions which had clearly been central to the

author’s Bildung. What is more, the passage’s great influence on European thought

makes it worthy of careful consideration. As Beckman (1993) 6, remarked, “this

particular version of the origins of civilization appealed so much to the concerns of

the humanists that it became a commonplace in Renaissance thought”. 35 See Cicero, Inv. 1.4-5. 36 Cicero, Inv. 1.2-3. In Cicero’s account, a kind of original civilising hero (quidam magnus vir et sapiens) is said to have understood the great potential of the human

mind and brought the people together through his sensible speeches. 37 On Cicero’s house philosopher Diodotus see Brut. 309; Luc. 115; Fam. 9.4; Att. 2.20.6. The lack of references to specific philosophical orientations has led some to

see the praise of language in the De inventione as a merely rhetorical topos; see

Solmsen (1932) 153, and Barwick (1963) 21-4, whose Quellenforschungen point

Chapter Three

62

freed mankind from primitive beastliness, but he also expressly remarks

that it is language that distinguishes man from other animals.38 Generally

speaking, the twofold character of the Stoic concept of ς, which

covers both the field of “external” language ( ς πρ ρικ ς) and that

of inner rationality ( ς ν ι ε ς), 39 seems to underlie the first

chapters of the treatise—for wisdom or sapientia embodies the perfection

of reason, ideally directing linguistic expression. In accordance with his

own rhetorical interests, Cicero emphasises the importance of speech to

the process described, since, as he says, ‘no wisdom which was silent and

destitute of skill in speaking could have had such power as to turn men on

a sudden from their previous customs, and to lead them to the adoption of

a different system of life’.40 Even if, as in Sallust’s depiction, the animal

to the Isocratean tradition. By contrast, Lévy (1992) 98-101, and (1995) 155-64,

has thoroughly explored the theoretical implications of the passage, placing special

emphasis on Cicero’s debt to his teacher Philo. But, the profound influence of

Academic tenets seems in this case to have become inextricably intermingled with

widespread Stoic beliefs. After all, a representative text cited by Lévy himself

(Nat. Deor. 2.148) attests to Cicero’s awareness that Stoic and Neoacademic

thinkers agreed on the cosmological centrality of ς. And, as indicated during

our analysis of Sallust’s proems, in the late Republican debate the wide acceptance

of certain core principles made school barriers less rigid—not to mention the fact

that, as Lévy (1992) 104-9, notes, the traditional connection between Platonism

and Stoicism became even closer in this period, so that Cicero, Fam. 15.4.16,

could confidently claim to spread the same ‘true and old philosophy’ (philosophia vera illa et antiqua) as Cato the Younger. Also see Bonazzi (2007) 121-4. 38 Inv. 1.5.23-8. Cicero also notes that, in respect to many other qualities, humans

are ‘lower and weaker’ (humiliores et infirmiores) than the beasts—a point which

clearly connects his reconstruction to the tradition of sophistic anthropology

exemplified by Plato’s Protagoras (320c-322d). In the Platonic myth, however, it

is not ς that releases mankind from its original weakness, but ‘technical

knowledge’ ( ν ε ν ς σ ) and the use of fire, which in turn lead to the

development of language (322a). On the importance of Plato’s Protagoras to both

Academic and Stoic philosophy see Alesse (2007). 39 On this foundational Stoic division (presumably drawing on Plato, Theaet. 189e-

190a), and the controversy with the Academy it aroused, see Labarrière (2005) 65-

81. 40 Inv. 1.3: (trnsl. Yonge [1888]). Though Cicero’s emphasis on the power of

rhetoric–namely, on the linguistic side of ς–is indisputable, Kastely (2002)

241, goes too far in claiming that “Cicero’s myth separates reason and eloquence”.

According to Kastely, “it was not reason but eloquence that made the crucial

difference in the rise of the human species as a cultural animal, as an animal

governed, in part, by nomos”. As mentioned earlier, Cicero’s main concern is

precisely to call for a sound conjunction of sapientia (viz. virtus) and eloquentia, a

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 63

world incarnates the primacy of corporeal force and the savage essence of

human life, Cicero identifies the real source of man’s aberrance as a

perverse employment of reason for the mere sake of self-satisfaction, thus

embracing the Stoic idea of a ‘subversion of reason’ ( ι σ ρ

) peculiar to mankind. 41 In Cicero’s portrayal, language and

rationality are intimately connected, and when the human mind deviates

from the right path, such deviation results in a corrupted eloquence.

In the symbolic structure of Ciceronian thought, however, those men

who reject their rational and linguistic vocation are usually downgraded to

the same level as beasts—a polemic strategy deep-rooted in folk

imagery.42 A censorious passage from the late treatise De officiis shows

the relevance of Stoic anthropocentric rationalism to the construction of

Cicero’s humanism (and, more specifically, to his view of social ethics

and personal identity). While categorically separating man from the

instinctual realm of animals, Cicero equates sensualist humans with beasts,

for some people would be ‘men only in name, not in fact’ (non re sed nomine):

Sed pertinet ad omnem officii quaestionem semper in promptu habere, quantum natura hominis pecudibus reliquisque beluis antecedat; illae nihil sentiunt nisi voluptatem ad eamque feruntur omni impetu, hominis autem mens discendo alitur et cogitando, semper aliquid aut anquirit aut agit videndique et audiendi delectatione ducitur. Quin etiam, si quis est paulo ad voluptates propensior, modo ne sit ex pecudum genere, sunt enim

conjunction which becomes even more necessary in ages of moral corruption (cf.

1.5, with the compelling exempla of Cato, Laelius, Scipio, and the Gracchi).

Likewise, at the beginning of human history, the power of speech induced men to

accept the principles discovered by reason (ea quae ratione invenissent, 1.3), and

the original civiliser (he himself being a sapiens) gained the attention of other

humans thanks to his ability in reasoning and speaking (propter rationem atque orationem, 1.2). 41 Cf. Inv. 1.3, where the author describes the emergence of ‘a certain sort of

complaisance’ (commoditas quaedam), ‘a false copyist of virtue’ (prava virtutis imitatrix), ‘without any consideration for real duty’ (sine ratione officii)’. Cicero’s

reference to the malicious distortion of a good natural disposition, producing a

kind of “symmetrical” imitation of virtue, hints at the typically Stoic view that vice

is a rational deviation parallel and opposite to virtue: cf. SVF 3.228-36, and Grilli

(1963). The topic is variously debated in Cicero’s works (see esp. Leg. 1.31-2; 47),

and in the Roman philosophical debate more generally, as it directly concerns the

problem of the origin of evil and that of the end of pleasure (see e.g. Bellincioni

[1978] 33-6, and Berno [2003] 25-29, both focusing on Seneca). 42 It may be sufficient to recall that in Classical Latin words like bestia and belua are commonly used as terms of reproach.

Chapter Three

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quidam homines non re sed nomine, sed si quis est paulo erectior, quamvis voluptate capiatur, occultat et dissimulat appetitum voluptatis propter verecundiam. (Off. 1.105).

But it is essential to every inquiry about duty that we keep before our eyes

how far superior man is by nature to cattle and other beasts: they have no

thought except for sensual pleasure and this they are impelled by every

instinct to seek; but man’s mind is nurtured by study and meditation; he is

always either investigating or doing, and he is captivated by the pleasure of

seeing and hearing. Nay, even if a man is more than ordinarily inclined to

sensual pleasures, provided, of course, that he be not quite on a level with

the beasts of the field—for some people are men only in name, not in

fact—if, I say, he is a little too susceptible to the attractions of pleasure, he

hides the fact, however much he may be caught in its toils, and for very

shame conceals his appetite. (trnsl. Miller [1913]).

Under the lens of a properly anthropological analysis, Cicero’s

celebrated ideal of humanitas appears as a powerful anthropopoietic pattern. The echo of Plato’s ethics-based cosmology (which we have

already noticed in Sallust)43 becomes even stronger in this section of the

De officiis as a result of the author’s pervasive anti-Epicurean polemic.

Many years after the composition of his work on rhetorical invention,

Cicero regarded the animal side of human nature as an extremely

dangerous (and already overwhelming) ingredient of social life. In his

opinion, the escalation of struggles, murders, and political personalism

affecting Rome’s declining Republic can be traced back mostly to the loss

of a virtuous feeling of community. 44 Above all, Cicero blames the

primacy of sensory and individual experiences (tendentiously connected

with Epicurean philosophy) as a morally destabilising factor and compares

it to a self-degrading bestialisation.45

43 See above n. 20. 44 See Atkins (2005) 505-14, and Picone (2012), who both highlight the

constructive (and not merely nostalgic) character of the De officiis. As Atkins

observes, “in de Officiis, in short, we can see Cicero using the resources of his

philosophical education to articulate a conservative moral response to the

revolution through which he was living. The mos maiorum is given its most

intelligent restatement; and in the process, the language of honestas, dignitas,

officium, beneficia, and gloria is reshaped to meet present needs. The four virtues

of De officiis are borrowed from Greek philosophy; but they are analysed in

sharply contemporary terms” (513). 45 On Cicero’s (and Panaetius’) polemic against Epicurus’ “bestializing”

materialism see Narducci (1987) 20-1. However, it is now generally admitted that

Cicero’s relationship to Epicureanism was not restricted to criticism and

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 65

In order to invert the course of this general involution, Cicero’s late

philosophical works endeavour to define a standard paradigm of humanity

(which is meant to be universal in spite of its clear cultural embeddedness),

by readapting the most salient features of Stoic natural philosophy to the

needs of Roman culture. To such an ambitious project (as to almost all the

processes of anthropopoiesis), the characterisation of the symbolic role of

animals is of paramount importance.46 In a strikingly large number of

passages, Cicero points to the constitutive primacy of human beings as

well as to the providential view that animals have been created for the sake

of men. Additionally, it is made clear that men do not owe justice to other

animals, since, according to Stoic doctrine, justice originates from the

rational creation of bonds, and reason is the exclusive prerogative of men

and gods.47

The second book of the De natura deorum provides remarkable

evidence of Cicero’s re-use of Stoic anthropocentric cosmology, including

as it does Balbus’ enthusiastic presentation of Stoic theology (and

teleology). At the very end of the work, it is Balbus’ idea of a

providentially ordered cosmos, corresponding to the needs of men, which

is said to have convinced Cicero.48 In Balbus’ view, the body itself of

human beings, with its different organs and limbs, attests to nature’s

teleological plan. In accordance with a well-known commonplace of

Classical and Hellenistic philosophy, for instance, man’s upright posture is

interpreted as a natural privilege leading to the practice of contemplation.49

denigration (see Lévy [2001] and Maso [2008]). Moreover, the author’s depiction

of a radically individualistic—if not asocial—Epicurean ethics (a depiction largely

accepted and reinforced by the later Western tradition) has been validly questioned

by scholars, especially since the survey of Long (1985). 46 On the crucial role of animals in man’s self-definition see Shepard (1996) and

Rivera (1999). Rivera (67-9) further develops Marshall Sahlins’ critique of

sociobiology (Sahlins [1976]), showing how the “bestialization” of animals (i.e.

their conceptual degradation as deficient beings) is closely connected with the

“bestialization” of men, especially of rival social agents—a type of discourse

widely attested in Cicero and other Classical authors. 47 A comprehensive account of the Stoic anthropocentric view of animals and man-

animal relationships is offered by Dierauer (1977) 199-252, and Sorabji (1993)

122-57. Sorabji (136) interestingly remarks on the connection between hierarchic

cosmology, dualistic psychology, and political imperialism emerging from works

such as Cicero’s De re publica. 48 Nat. Deor. 3.95. 49 Ibid. 2.140. The long history of this cultural topos, from Diogenes of Apollonia

to Aristotle and the Stoics, is briefly recalled by Lanata (1994) 19-21, whose

discussion relies on Geoffrey Lloyd’s path-breaking studies of common-sense

Chapter Three

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At the same time, a wide-ranging section of Balbus’ speech is devoted to

praise the physical and intellectual qualities of animals. Even if these are

not endowed with reason and language, their instinctual behaviour is said

to reveal ‘a certain cunning and shrewdness’ (machinatio quaedam atque sollertia).50 The description of such faculties—effected via an assortment

of mirabilia dating back to the Peripatetic tradition 51 —is nonetheless

intended to confirm the existence of immanent divine providence.

Another well-known Ciceronian work bearing witness to the Roman

reception of biological arguments is the De finibus bonorum et malorum.

In Book 3, Cato illustrates the principles of Stoic ethics, devoting special

attention to their physical and psychological basis: the so-called oikeiosis

theory. According to this theory, every living being has a natural instinct

of “social appropriation” (‘appropriation’ is indeed the basic meaning of

the Greek κε σις, derived from the adjective κε ς). The Stoics

argued that the creation of social bonds—following a first phase of self-

appropriation—is the primary teleological inclination of every animal and

proceeds in progressive stages. 52 Like the Epicureans (whose ethical

polarities (low/high, left/right etc.) and their scientific relevance (see Lloyd

[1966]). 50 Nat. Deor. 2.123. The Latin hendiadys seems to correspond to the Greek concept

of ρ ν σις, the “practical intelligence” perceived in writers from the time of

Aristotle onwards as typically characterising animals (see Labarrière [2005] 121-

47). Whether Cicero borrowed similar notions from Peripatetic sources or

embraced them through Stoic mediations (first of all through Posidonius and

Panaetius, as scholars usually suggest following Hirzel [1877] 191-244) is very

hard—if not impossible—to know. Cf. Dierauer (1977) 224-45. 51 Ibid. 2.121-31. As Rocca (2003) 49-57, pointed out, in spite of its adherence to

Stoic cosmology, Cicero’s extensive treatment of animal ethology is largely

indebted to Peripatetic thought. Several of the author’s exemplifications can be

traced back to the ninth book of the Historia Animalium, a text which underwent a

complex process of transmission before reaching its present form (Düring [1950],

Balme [1991] 1-13) and had a great impact on the ancient biological debate

(Dierauer [1977] 162-70, Vegetti [1996] 58-71). It is widely agreed that the

Historia was a kind of “open text” in the history of the Peripatetic school, and it

has been often surmised that its ninth and tenth books are distinctively post-

Aristotelian (cf. Sharples [1995] 32-5). To be sure, an enduring tradition of

zoological speculations arose from the works of Aristotle and his early followers

(Theophrastus in primis), heavily influencing the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

The breadth of such a multi-faceted heritage appears to justify dismissal of the

simplistic approach of Reinhardt (1926) 139-41, who overstated the influence of

Posidonius’ fusion of Stoic and Peripatetic materials. 52 On the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis and its various theoretical connections see

Engberg-Pedersen (1990), Pemproke (1996), Long (1996b), Radice (2000), and

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 67

theory is expounded by Torquatus in the first book of the De finibus), the

Stoics saw in animal behaviour an irrefutable proof of their views.

However, their overall analyses and conclusions differed widely from

those of Epicurus, for they pointed to the unbridgeable distance between

human and animal sociability and advocated man’s exclusive possession

of reason. Cato explicitly reasserts the exclusion of animals from a reason-

based cosmopolitan society as well as from the field of justice and

morality:

Et quo modo hominum inter homines iuris esse vincula putant, sic homini nihil iuris esse cum bestiis. Praeclare enim Chrysippus, cetera nata esse hominum causa et deorum, eos autem communitatis et societatis suae, ut bestiis homines uti ad utilitatem suam possint sine iniuria. (Fin. 3.67)

But just as they (scil. the Stoics) hold that man is united with man by the

bonds of right, so they consider that no right exists as between man and

beast. For Chrysippus well said, that all other things were created for the

sake of men and gods, but that these exist for their own mutual fellowship

and society, so that men can make use of beasts for their own purposes

without injustice. (trsnl. Rackham [1951]).

Animals nevertheless play a prominent role in Cato’s discourse and in

Stoic arguments generally. Despite their radical marginalisation as

irrational agents, they are continuously cited as evidence for pivotal ethical

principles. A few paragraphs before making the anthropocentric claim just

quoted, for instance, Cato mentions the caring attitude of non-human

beings towards their offspring as a proof of the naturalness of parental

love. Interestingly, he reports the Stoic belief that ‘when we observe the

labor that animals spend on bearing and rearing their young, we seem to be

listening to the actual voice of nature’ (naturae ipsius vocem, Fin. 3.62).

Although in the De finibus Cicero contradicts both the Stoic and the

Epicurean ideals of moral good, abstaining from making any explicit

statement on his own preference,53 his above-mentioned appreciation of

Bees (2004). On the role of animals in this theory see Sorabji (1993) 122-33. In

recent times, Algra (2003) has convincingly called for a comprehensive

contextualisation of the “mechanism of social appropriation” as a central issue of

ancient ethics, far beyond the specific problem of the Stoics’ debt to the

Aristotelian tradition—a problem famously raised in Book 5 of the De finibus: see

Magnaldi (1991), and Lévy (1992) 381-7. 53 Even Antiochus’ system, carefully illustrated by Piso in Book 5, is criticised by

Cicero in the second part of the same book. A perceptive discussion of Cicero’s

philosophical position at the time he wrote the De finibus is offered by Lévy

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Stoic cosmology predisposes us to take similar assumptions into proper

account.

On the one hand, Cicero seems to accept the tenets of Stoic rationalist

universalism, as this allows him to support a cosmopolitan idea of law,

justice, and political community, which is totally consistent with the

Roman experience.54 The severe denigration of animals discussed so far is

a necessary corollary to this fundamental proposition. On the other hand,

however, the inherent ambiguity of the Stoic appeal to natural law

reverberates through Cicero’s own philosophical arguments. 55 It is

noteworthy that when Cato illustrates the natural foundations of human

altruism—a point important for Cicero’s model of humanitas and

imperialist tutelage—the image of the bulls taking care of their offspring is

coupled with that of philanthropic heroes such as Hercules and Liber:

Ita non solum ad discendum propensi sumus, verum etiam ad docendum. Atque ut tauris natura datum est ut pro vitulis contra leones summa vi impetuque contendant, sic ii, qui valent opibus atque id facere possunt, ut de Hercule et de Libero accepimus, ad servandum genus hominum natura incitantur. (Fin. 3.66).

So strong is our propensity not only to learn but also to teach. And just as

bulls have a natural instinct to fight with all their strength and force in

defending their calves against lions, so men of exceptional gifts and

capacity for service, like Hercules and Liber in the legends, feel a natural

impulse to be the protectors of the human race. (trsnl. Rackham [1951]).

Once again, animals are said to mirror a physical truth of social and

political relevance. Their paradigmatic behaviour serves as an inspiring

myth, in an epistemological sense, along with the deeds of mythological

(1992) 377-444. According to Lévy, “c’est dans le refus de donner une adhésion

définitive à l’Ancienne Académie ou au Portique et dans la volonté de dépasser le

dilemme que se trouve le Cicéron de la Nouvelle Académie” (443). 54 Cicero’s efforts to rework the Stoic idea of natural law in view of Rome’s

international role have been sensibly highlighted by Watson (1996) 225-34. For a

penetrating survey of the evidence provided by the De legibus and De re publica

see Ferrary (1995) 68-70. 55 On the ambiguities of the Stoic ideal of a “reason that accords consistently with

Nature’” see Long (1996a) 150-1. As Holowchak (2008) 38, observed, the Stoics

“speak of ‘nature’ both normatively and descriptively. […] The ambiguity is

captured in two senses of Stoic naturalism in today’s literature—cosmological and

anthropological naturalism”.

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 69

figures traditionally associated with the process of culturalisation.56

In the intellectual debate of the late Republic, the Stoic identification

of animals with the “voice of Nature”, in combination with a rationalist

and providential view of social life, must have sounded particularly

attractive. While arguing for the cosmological supremacy of mankind (as

well as for the humanist vocation of the most powerful human beings),

Cicero, engaged intellectual as he was, enlisted the aid of the legitimising

myth of Nature and its “zoological” basis. His strenuous efforts as a

political thinker were consistently supported by the folk view of animality

as a pre-cultural and archetypal condition. However, Cicero himself tells

us that the evidence provided by animals concerning natural truths was

highly controversial. In the second book of the De finibus, where the

Epicurean view of catastematic pleasure as the supreme good is confuted,

Epicurus is said to have regarded animals and children as ‘mirrors of

nature’ (specula naturae). 57 And we know that the use of zoological

arguments in support of ethical and scientific doctrines was a common

practice of Cicero’s pugnacious contemporaries, Lucretius and Philodemus.

They both seem to have put into effect Epicurus’ exhortation for careful

consideration of elementary beings.58

4. The importance of being animals. Lucretius the Epicurean against the mystique of logos

For the purposes of the present survey, it may suffice to discuss an

especially eloquent passage from Lucretius’ De rerum natura. Indeed,

while expounding the contents of Epicurean philosophy for the benefit of

Roman readers, Lucretius makes numerous references to the paradigmatic

value of animals, since he regards these as both analogical images of

physical truths and morally significant agents. As I have dealt elsewhere

56 On Hercules’ characterisation as a civiliser hero and its aftermath in the Roman

tradition see Galinsky (1972) 126-52. Sallust’s use of the Hercules myth in his

African excursus has already been mentioned (cf. above n. 27). And such a

politically significant myth becomes even more prominent from the Augustan age

onwards. 57 Fin. 2.32 58 On the Epicurean attitude towards animals and its original combination of

primitivist and rationalist ideas see Dierauer (1977) 194-8. Generally speaking,

though Epicurus’ philosophy calls attention to every living being’s tendencies and

emotional faculties, its understanding and practice require a proper use of reason.

See also Annas (1993) 61-2.

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with the ideological implications of the poet’s attitude to animals,59 I shall

not insist further on this point. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning here

that Lucretius’ use of animal figures was aimed at achieving a very

different goal from the demonstration of man’s superior position. Unlike

Cicero and Sallust, the Epicurean poet does not aim to remind human

beings of any cosmological privilege—for he simply believes that no

cosmological privilege exists.

As is well-known, Lucretius’ atomistic world relies on purely material

processes of transformation, excluding any providential or metaphysical

principle. Neither is man’s upright posture a sign of divine will, nor is

reason a gift reflecting a teleological plan. Of course, Lucretius glorifies

the role of ratio as a cognitive instrument allowing mankind to understand

Epicurus’ precepts (and thus to live ‘a life worthy of the gods’).60 But our

author considers rationality an inherited biological trait like the lions’

bravery or the deer’s timidity.61 In more general terms, Lucretius seems to

suggest a basic ontological continuity between human and non-human

beings, arguing that both emerged out of a process of spontaneous

generation.62 Differences of degree—not a physiological gap—are said to

separate men and animals.

Lucretius’ famous account of the origin of language can persuasively

illustrate the far-reaching repercussions of a similar view as well as its

notable originality in the context of late Republican thought. As mentioned

earlier, Cicero gives special prominence to the linguistic side of Greek

ς, thus reflecting the ideals of a society largely based on the political use of language. By contrast, Lucretius takes up the Epicurean view that

linguistic expression originated accidentally from spontaneous attempts to

communicate and developed by trial and error.63 According to the poet,

human language differs from animal expressivity because of its more

59 See Tutrone (2012) 27-154. Important remarks on the subject can also be found

in Saylor (1972), Segal (1986), Gale (1991), Shelton (1996), and Scafoglio (this

volume) 60 Cf. DRN 3.314-22. Lucretius’ enthusiastic assertion that Epicurean philosophy

can lead to a god-like life (digna dis vita) has inspired the title of Konstan’s

insightful research on Epicurus’ materialistic psychology: Konstan (2008). 61 Ibid. 3.741-53. On this passage and its ethological background see Schrijvers

(1999) 40-54. 62 See the scientific cosmogony at 5.783-825, and the perspicuous comments of

Waszink (1964), Schrijvers (1999) 1-15, and Campbell (2003) 41-90. On the

ancient doctrine of spontaneous generation see Sissa (1997). 63 On the Epicurean theory of the origin of language, with special regard to

Lucretius’ exposition, see Schrijvers (1999) 55-80, Verlinsky (2005), and

Reihnardt (2008).

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 71

sophisticated character, but both phenomena share the same natural root. It

is on the basis of such cogent analogy that Lucretius draws a strikingly

lively picture of animal behaviour:64

Postremo quid in hac mirabile tantoperest re,/ si genus humanum, cui vox et lingua vigeret,/ pro vario sensu varia res voce notaret?/ Cum pecudes mutae, cum denique saecla ferarum/ dissimilis soleant voces variasque ciere,/ cum metus aut dolor est et cum iam gaudia gliscunt./ Quippe et enim licet id rebus cognoscere apertis./ Inritata canum cum primum magna Molossum/ mollia ricta fremunt duros nudantia dentes,/ longe alio sonitu rabies restricta minatur,/ et cum iam latrant et vocibus omnia complent;/ at catulos blande cum lingua lambere temptant/ aut ubi eos lactant, pedibus morsuque potentes/ suspensis teneros imitantur dentibus haustus,/ longe alio pacto gannitu vocis adulant,/ et cum deserti baubantur in aedibus, aut cum/ plorantis fugiunt summisso corpore plagas./ Denique non hinnitus item differre videtur,/ inter equas ubi equus florenti aetate iuvencus/ pinnigeri saevit calcaribus ictus Amoris/ et fremitum patulis sub naribus edit ad arma,/ et cum sic alias concussis artibus hinnit?/ Postremo genus alituum variaeque volucres,/ accipitres atque ossifragae mergique marinis/ fluctibus in salso victum vitamque petentes,/ longe alias alio iaciunt in tempore voces,/ et quom de victu certant praedaque repugnant./ Et partim mutant cum tempestatibus una/ raucisonos cantus, cornicum ut saecla vetusta/ corvorumque gregis ubi aquam dicuntur et imbris/ poscere et inter dum ventos aurasque vocare./ Ergo si varii sensus animalia cogunt,/ muta tamen cum sint, varias emittere voces,/ quanto mortalis magis aequumst tum potuisse/ dissimilis alia atque alia res voce notare! (DRN 5.1056-90).

Lastly, what is so wonderful/ if the human race, with vigorous voice and

tongue/ endowed, should mark things out with voices/ differing according

to their different feelings? Dumb cattle and wild beasts of every kind/

make noises quite distinct and different/ when they are gripped by fear or

pain, or joy/ wells up within them. And the evidence/ for this lies in plain

facts well known to all./ Angry Molossian hounds, when first they draw

back/ their flabby jowls and bare their teeth and growl/ with rage

suppressed, make sounds quite different/ from when they bark and fill the

place with din./ And when they lick their pups with loving tongue/ and toss

them with paws and nibbling them/ pretend to make sweet tender

mouthfuls of them,/ far different then the playful yelps they make/ from

when they howl abandoned in the house/ or whimper cringing from the

master’s whip./ In neighing too, there is a difference/ when a young

64 To all appearances, Aymard (1951) 104, did not go too far in defining these lines

as “la description la plus vivante et la plus nuancée de l’animal que nous ait laissée

la littérature latine”.

Chapter Three

72

stallion in the prime of life/ pricked by the spurs of winged love runs wild/

among the mares, and from his flaring nostrils/ snorts out his challenge to

arms, and when he’s weak/ at other times and neighs with quaking limbs./

Lastly, among the different types of birds,/ ospreys, sea hawks, and gulls

amid waves/ seeking their life and living from the sea,/ at other times make

very different cries/ from when they are fishing and struggling with their

prey./ And some birds change their voices with the weather, as ancient

ravens do and flocks of rooks,/ or so they say, when they cry out for rain/

to bring them water, or summon wind and storm./ Therefore if animals are

caused by different feelings, dumb though they be, to utter different sounds,

so much the more and with compelling reason/ must we suppose that men

could in those days/ mark different things by different sounds of speech.

(trnsl. Melville [1997]).

As Elisabeth de Fontenay remarked, in this passage “the constraints of

theory have given way to the pleasure of letting animals enter the poem”.65

In effect, our poet is frequently inclined to put forth similar “ethological”

arguments, for in the De rerum natura, too, animals appear as mirrors and

voices of natural truths, contributing substantially to the reader’s epistemic

advancement. When attacking and deconstructing, by means of a powerful

animal imagery, the widespread view of language as a providential

prerogative, Lucretius openly challenges the mystique of ς established

by other contemporary thinkers under the influence of Stoic and Platonic

tenets. 66 It would be unforgivably reductive to see the author’s vivid

demonstration of Epicurus’ doctrine as a piece of perfunctory (if not

doxographic) divulgation67—especially because Lucretius’ emphasis on

65 De Fontenay (1998) 129. 66 In the all-embracing interpretation of Moatti (1997), esp. 301-16, a

methodological appeal to reason and rationalistic systematisations underpins the

Roman intellectuals’ varied responses to the late Republican crisis. The increasing

interest in physical research, usually founded on an anthropocentric perspective,

would be one of the main signs of this cultural phenomenon. However, in contrast

with the mainstream, Lucretius—whose stand is recurrently labelled as “radical”

and “dogmatic” by Moatti (cf. 46; 169-74)—seems to intensify the anti-finalistic

polemics of Epicurean philosophy, promoting an alternative concept of nature and

rationality. See Tutrone (2012) 113-54. 67 While it is clear that Lucretius’ creative exposition of Epicurean views is far

removed from doxography sensu proprio, scholars have variously remarked on the

role of doxographic writings in the construction of the poet’s arguments; see e.g.

Rösler (1973), Mansfeld (1990) 3143-54, and Runia (1997). No doubt, compendia and résumés of various kinds were commonly used by Latin writers in Lucretius’

day, and it would be quite odd to suppose that our poet made no use of them.

Nevertheless, as Lévy (1996b) warned, their influence as a source of philosophical

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 73

animal communication and his neglect of mankind’s linguistic development

are a unicum in the Epicurean tradition.68

In De rerum natura Book 5, Lucretius deals with several problems of

socio-anthropological interest, and his careful treatment is inextricably

linked to the dynamics of the Roman debate. Like Sallust, Cicero, and

Varro,69 the Epicurean poet engages in a complex reconstruction of the

earliest phases of human history, paying special attention to the process of

culturalisation by which mankind overcame its original beastliness.70 The

discussion on the origin of language is a key section of this fascinating

reconstruction. Though it is clear that Lucretius rearranges the materialist

and casualist anthropology developed in classical thought since the fifth

century BCE, a wide-ranging scholarly discussion has arisen over the

sources and ideology of Lucretius’ account.71 If we enlarge the scope of

knowledge should not be overrated, nor is it safe to see all such works as belonging

to a linear and unitary heritage. Runia’s assumptions (99-102) concerning the role

of the Placita in Philo of Alexandria, Cicero, Lucretius, and even Catullus

eloquently exemplify the conceptual “reductionism” of a similar approach. It is

also significant that on the basis of his phylogenetic connections, Runia (98)

adheres to the thesis argued in Furley (1978) on the outdatedness of Lucretius’

arguments—a thesis further developed by Sedley (1998). 68 The comparison with Epicurus, Ep. Herod. 75-76, Diogenes of Oinoanda, fr.

12.col 2.11-col 5.14 Smith, and Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 1.8.3-4, is particularly

striking. Though a large part of the Epicurean literature dealing with linguistic

issues is now lost, Lucretius’ focus on the “animal” stage of language—in spite of

Epicurus’ notes on human peculiarities—can hardly be explained without referring

to the poet’s polemic with late Republican humanism. See Novara (1982) I 351-2,

and Lehmann (2004) 48-9. 69 The evidence provided by Varro concerning the late Republican attitude to

cultural history deserves much more careful attention than one can devote here.

The De re rustica shows that this erudite “archaeologist of memory and language”

(cf. Moatti [1997] 143) offered a stage-by-stage account of the origins of human

society, presumably indebted to the Peripatetic Dicaearchus of Messana (cf. Rust. 1.2.15-6; 2.1.3-10). Varro’s interest in historical and anthropological matters (also

emerging from the etymological explanations of De lingua latina) relies on his

epoch-making investigations of early Roman history. It is indeed regrettable that

only scattered fragments of Varro’s monumental Antiquitates survived. In all

likelihood, the author elaborated a sophisticated interpretation of the myth of

Saturn’s age and discussed the development of civilisation with special regard to

the evolution of technical knowledge. See Reischl (1976) 82-142, Novara (1982) I

445-70, and Van Nuffelen (2010) 167-8. 70 5.925-1457. 71 It may suffice to mention the thorough surveys by Furley (1978), Sasso (1979),

and Manuwald (1980).

Chapter Three

74

our inquiry, however, we can easily see that defining the intrinsic “degree

of animality” of human beings—as well as the reasons for a re-emergence

of man’s savage nature—was a common purpose of Roman intellectuals in

the age of civil wars. The infraction and implosion of standard cultural

rules, due to violent political changes, inevitably led to a rethinking of the

borders between humanity and naturality.

In the lines immediately preceding our passage, 5.925-1027, Lucretius

notably describes the life of early men (who, like other animals, are said to

have been born from the earth) and remarks that ‘they wandered in the

way of beasts’ (volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum, 5.932).

Compared to the men of the poet’s day, however, such beast-like humans

seem far less aggressive, for Lucretius sarcastically notes (cf. 5.999-1010)

that they had no experience of war, sailing, excessive wealth, and

malicious poisonings. Even if one might surmise that polemical comments

of this kind recurred in some of the author’s sources (as ethical-didactic

aims have been inherent in the reconstructions of primitive history since

the beginning of Greek literature),72 they must have sounded particularly

meaningful in first-century Rome.

Later on, at 5.1011-27, Lucretius maintains that the creation of parental

and social bonds softened the brutal nature of primitive mankind. 73

Nevertheless, it is clear that neither the creation of human society nor the

development of linguistic communication caused relevant discontinuities

in man’s intrinsically animal status. According to the poet, the human race

can wholly fulfil its vocation to reason (which is seen as a special, but not

providential condition) only by accepting and practising Epicurus’ word.

On the other hand, when irrational and destructive inclinations prevail,

men seem to degenerate into something worse than animals. Lucretius’

moralising reconstruction of primitive history includes a wild-eyed

72 By and large, moral and ideological principles (perceived as relevant to the

writer’s present) underpinned ancient histories of civilisation. This is true of both

the main forms of genealogical account discussed by Classical authors (forms, of

course, overlapping each other): the so-called golden age myth, which emphasised

mankind’s gradual decadence from its original happiness, and the theory of human

primitive animality, which pointed to the role of progress, knowledge, and material

circumstances (see Boys-Stones [2001] 3-27). While the former view was deep-

rooted in ancient religious thought and appeared as early as Hesiod (see Gatz

[1967], and now Currie [2012]), the latter was characteristic of the anti-teleological

tradition (to which Lucretius belongs) and originated from sophistic-presocratic

rationalism—perhaps from Democritus’ anthropology: cf. Cole (1967) and

Cartledge (1998) 20-5. 73 On this section and its relationship to Epicurean contractualism see Campbell

(2003) 252-83.

Vox naturae: The Myth of Animal Nature in the Late Roman Republic 75

depiction of the use of animals in early warfare which powerfully

corroborates this last assumption. In such an impressive passage, even

savage beasts like lions and boars become instruments and victims of

man’s senseless violence.74

Lucretius might well have agreed with Cicero on the dangers of moral

regression resulting from the repudiation of reason.75 But the Epicurean

poet rejected the idea that embracing an anthropocentric cosmology could

contribute to avoidance of such degeneration. Rather than this, he

preferred to put his trust in Epicurus’ irenic hedonism, arguing for an anti-

teleological and materialistic view of the cosmos. The inconstant and

vacillating image of animals he projected can be interpreted as supporting

both Cicero’s humanism and Lucretius’ physicalism, for in each of these

cases—as in most Western traditions—animals were cited as evidence of

underlying imperatives: the irresistible voice of a mythical Nature.

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