scipio aemilianus and a prophecy from clunia

Scipio Aemilianus and a Prophecy from CluniaAuthor(s): Tom W. HillardSource: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 54, H. 3 (2005), pp. 344-348Published by: Franz Steiner VerlagStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4436780 .

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SCIPIO AEMILIANUS AND A PROPHECY FROM CLUNIA*

When Galba was being encouraged to move against Nero in AD 68, he was heartened, it is said, by favourable omens and a prophecy by a certain young woman of good birth to the effect that someday a princeps et dominus rerum would issue from Spain. The value of that prediction was underwritten by a priest of Jupiter at Clunia who, alerted by a dream, had uncovered in the inner part of his shrine the very same oracular utterance which had been made by an inspired girl two hundred years earlier:

... confirmabatur cum secundissimis auspiciis et ominibus virginis honestae vaticinatione, tanto magis quod eadem illa carmina sacerdos lovis Cluniae ex penetrali somnio monitus eruerat ante ducentos annos similiter afatidica puella pronuntiata. Quorum carminum sententia erat oriturum quandoque ex Hispania principem dominumque rerum (Suet. Galb. 9.2).1

Many will doubt that the earlier prophecy has any historicity. It will be thought to be the product of Galban propaganda.2 Perhaps it was; perhaps it was not. Its use as such does not confirm its creation as such.3 Ante ducentos annos might seem too well-rounded to underpin confidence - yet it need not be. In itself, the resuscitation of an ancient prophecy ought not to undermine credulity (see below).4 If such a prediction emanated from Spain circa 132, it would have had a disquietening contemporary resonance. If it was circulated in or after 134, the year in which Scipio Aemilianus took up his command against Numantia, the oracle had an inescapable and immediate implication;5 if after the eruption of the Gracchan crisis in 133 or especially after the bloody resolution of that crisis (and Scipio's return to Rome in 132), the suggestion was explosive. With each of those successive stages, the more tense the situation. Scipio's appointment to a Spanish command had been controversial.6 His primacy in the state was an issue - and so was his political opportunism; hence the uneasiness in 134. The political situation deteriorated seriously in 133. It was later said that had Scipio been in Rome, the Gracchan crisis might have been averted (Plut. TG 7.4) - and, although Plutarch specifically offers this as his own opinion, it was probably being said at the time.7 After that crisis, the Roman community, and even the Senate, were

* This note is a by-product of research for the Macquarie Dictionary of Roman Biography Project, generously funded by Dr Colleen McCullough-Robinson. I offer my thanks here to my colleague J. L. Beness for reading an earlier draft and for advice. A version of the paper was read to the Classics & Ancient History Research Seminar, the University of Sydney (28/4/03). My thanks go to my colleagues there for a spirited discussion and many suggestions.

l On Suetonius' independent research into the portents in the Galba (and his uncertain sources), Jacques Gascou, Suetone historien (BEFAR 255, Rome 1984), 447-450; cf. D. Thomas Benedikt- son, "Structure and Fate in Suetonius' Life of Galba", CJ 92.2 (1996) 167ff. (and nn. 1-2, for a bibliography of previous discussions).

2 On the adversarial propaganda of AD 68/69, cf. Gascou, Suetone (as in n. 1) 450. Clunia, which served as something of a base for Galba after his initial notice of insurrection (Plut. Galb. 6.4), was rewarded. Probably a municipium before Galba's principate, it was elevated to the status of a colony, Clunia Sulpicia. For references, see Ph. Smith, "Clunia", in W. Smith (ed.), Dict. Gr. and Rom. Geogr. (London 1856) I 636; H. HUbner, "Clunia" RE 4 (1901) 113-14; L. A. Churchin, Roman Spain. Conquest and Assimilation (London 1991) 118-19; cf. CIL 2.2339 (Galba as patron); Rom. Imp. Coinage 12 (Galba) 469.

3 The circumstantial detail (afatidica puella pronuntiata), suggestive of the earlier item's individual history, may be observed - but ought not to be pressed.

4 Prophecies resurfaced as situations seemed to demand. I believe I have discerned a potent revival of the Potter's Oracle in the 30s BC: "The Agathos Daimon Abandons Alexandria. The Potter's Oracle and Possible Roman Allusions" in T. W. Hillard et al. (eds.), Ancient History in a Modern

University (Grand Rapids, MI./Cambridge 1998) 160-172. 5 It is clear that it was open to a Roman, at least in the first century AD, to interpret such a prophecy

as pertinent to himself; G. W. Mooney, C. Suetoni Tranquilli de Vita Caesarum libri VII-VIII (London 1930/New York 1979) 216-217; D. Shotter, Suetonius. The Lives of Galba, Otho and Vitellius (Warminster 1993) 115. Neither of these commentators discusses the earlier prophecy.

6 See A. E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford 1967) 135-136; cf. H. H. Scullard, "Scipio Aemilianus and Roman Politics", JRS 50 (1960) 59-74, at 72.

7 Appian's surprise (at bell.civ. 1.67) that a dictatorship had not been considered in 133 may

Historia, Band 54/3 (2005)

? Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Sitz Stuttgart



Scipio Aemilianus and a Prophecy from Clunia 345

alarmingly divided (Cic. Rep. 1.31). The tensions and anxieties remained, worsening if anything, until Scipio's unexpected death in 129. The r6le that Scipio might play in that year was, indeed, one of the issues.8 According to his enemies, he intended to instigate a massacre.9 In what capacity? It seems probable that the dictatorship or some other extraordinary grant of power was being discussed.10 Charges of tyranny were in the air. I I Dire omens were observed: parhelia (two suns) or, more probably, an anthelion (an alternative sun) (Cic. de Div. 1.97; Nat. Deor. 2.14; Rep. 1.15; 31), two black snakes entering the shrine of Minerva (Obseq. 28a), a rain of stones and a weeping statue of Apollo (Dio 24, frg. 84.2) - though the last seems to have been dated by Livy to 130.12 These omens are likely to have been read as having distinctly political significance. John the Lydian records multiple suns (and moons) as signifying political upheaval, invasion or the coming into power of kings.13 Obsequens is explicit with regard to the two black snakes; they portended the slaughter of citizens (civilem caedem).14 A weeping statue, according to Lydus, might portend imminent civil discord (though, in this case, it

represent nothing more than his own ignorance of such a debate. Andrew Lintott (The Constitution of the Roman Republic [Oxford 19991 112) draws attention to the role of Mucius Scaevola in that year, a role that is especially interesting given the fact that Scaevola became such a prominent opponent of Scipio on the latter's return to Rome: "In 133, the consul Scaevola refused to take any public action, which thus excluded the nomination of a dictator ...". The crisis-debate of 133 may have given voice to a greater range of options than are preserved in the sources or were known to Appian.

8 J.L. Beness, "Scipio Aemilianus and the Crisis of 129", Historia 54 (2005) 37-48; see especially Beness' reading of Cic. Rep. 1.31.

9 Appian bell.civ. 1.19. 10 The dictatorship is mentioned at Cic. Rep. 6.12 and, in a muddled way, by Firmicus Maternus at

Math. 1.7.39. Only the dictatorship (and what would have been at that time an unprecedented use of the office) or something more extraordinary would have given Scipio the opportunities which his enemies claimed he desired; cf. Cl. Nicolet, "Le de republica (VI, 12) et la dictature de Scipion", REL 42 (1964) 212-230, at 224-225. Yet the possibility that such a position was contemplated for Scipio is often dismissed in modern scholarship. For references to previous discussions, see Beness (as in n. 8), n. 26, to which add E. Gabba, Dionysius and The History of Archaic Rome (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1991) 142-43, 145. (I owe this reference to Beness.) Gabba has no doubt that the idea of a revived dictatorship (but a dictatorship in a new form) was gaining ground towards the end of the second century. Beness is also inclined to believe that some special post for Scipio was mooted.

11 Plut. Apophth. Scip. min. 23 [= Mor. 201F]. 12 On the solar phenomenon, see the excellent discussion in N. Rudd and J. Powell (eds.), Cicero. The

Republic and the Laws (Oxford 1998) 177-78. Dio couples the rain of stones, the expiation for which is known to have occurred in 129 (see below, n. 13), with the weeping statue and clearly dates them to 129, associating them with the death of Scipio. Obsequens (28) dates the prodigy explicitly to 130; cf. August. CD 3.11. Both the latter sources record that the statue wept for four days, Dio for three; but there seems no doubt the reference is to the same omen, despite the patent confusions in Augustine; cf. B. MacBain, Prodigy and Expiation: a Study in Religion and Politics in Republican Rome (Coll. Lat. 177, Bruxelles 1982) 96.

13 De ostentis 4; cf. F. B. Krauss, An Interpretation of the Omens, Portents, and Prodigies Recorded by Livy, Tacitus and Suetonius (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1930) 68.

14 Since the temple concerned will have been the aedes Minervae on the Aventine (rather than the more obscure delubra Minervae captae, or Minervium, on the Caelian), the attachment to the goddess of craftsmen and artisans and the plebeian associations of the locality prompt an interpretation of the omen suggesting danger to the less privileged. The snake, as a symbol of male procreation, might portend the rise of a new power in the state (see Krauss' reading [as in n. 13] Il 1 of the omen at Liv. 1.56); cf. Krauss, 1 2: "When these creatures entered the sanctuary of any of the deities of the old religion, the incident occasioned nothing short of terror, as, for example, when two glided into the temple of Jupiter at Satricum [in 2061." (For that episode, see Liv. 28.11.2.) The temple of Minerva on the Aventine was a sanctuary of great importance; it was part of a threesome (together with love Libertas and luno Regina) which replicated, or in some way reflected, the Capitoline triad (L. Vendittelli, "Minerva, Aedes [Aventinus]" in E.M. Steinby [ed.], Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 3 [Rome 19961 254; cf. Aug. RG 19.2).



346 TOM W. HILLARD

seems to have been happily reinterpreted).'5 The Roman community was shaken; a nine-day period of expiation was decreed early in 129 to restore the pax deorum and avert destiny.'6 If a prophecy concerning a dominus ex Hispania had reached Rome at or by this time, the anxieties it would have produced are not difficult to appreciate.17

The formula princeps dominusque rerum (found in Suetonius' report of the AD 68 prophecy and its second-century precursor) does not have a republican ring. The word princeps would not have been exceptional in the second century. Cicero has Laelius refer to Scipio as princeps rei publicae at de re publica 1. 34 in what was not intended as a controversial manner.18 Yet its use in such a context would have been striking (and unlikely) and its conjunction with dominus would only have arisen in hostile polemic.'9 The tenor of the Clunian oracle does not seem to have been negative. The words as reported are more likely to have fallen from the lips of a virgo honesta living within the local conventus in AD 68 than they were from those of a "girl" of unspecified origins in the second century BC.20 Yet the phraseology could be a Galban (or Suetonian) gloss on the gist of the prophecy, without that excluding

15 De Ostentis 8; cf. Krauss (as in n. 13) 176. A report that the statue of Juno Sospita at Lanuvium had shed tears in 181 B.C. was registered amongst the prodigia multafoeda of that year (Liv. 40.19.2), religiosity sharpened by a severe pestilence. In 169, a rain of stones at Reate was recorded alongside the fact that the statue of Apollo at Cumae had wept for three days and nights (Liv. 43.13.4). In 129, the initial reaction was extraordinary; it was decreed that the statue be hewn to pieces and thrown into the sea. The prodigy was subsequently interpreted, if the 'Livian tradition' is correct, as portending the ill-fortune of Greece (Obsequens and Augustine, as in n. 12). The initial response of the haruspices bespeaks the prevalent tensions, whether in 130 or 129.

16 The Novendialia will have been called to expiate the shower of stones; cf. Krauss (as in n. 13) 55- 57. How the haruspices might have interpreted that omen is uncertain - unless it portended an abandonment of ancestral custom (cf. Liv. 1.31.1-4; 23.31.15; 30.38.9).

17 The trade in prophecy flourished in republican Rome; cf. T. P. Wiseman, "Lucretius, Catiline and the Survival of Prophecy", in Historiography and Imagination. Eight Essays on Roman Culture (Exeter 1994) 49-67, respectfully challenging J. A. North's assertion (CAH2 7. 2 [Cambridge 19891 578) that there was no room for prophets in Rome during that epoch. The expulsion of the Chaldaei from the city and from Italy less than a decade before the putative prophecy from Clunia (Liv. Oxy. Per. 54; Val. Max. 1.3.3 [139 BCI) indicates a desire to control such communications. The activities of soothsayers and astrologers had become problematic. More to the point, prophecies might originate in the provinces - and be noted in Rome; cf. Wiseman on Eunus in the 130s and Salvius in 104. Further on Eunus, C. Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and its Hellenistic Environment (Tubingen 1995) 141-43; and K. R. Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World, 140 B.C.-70 B.C. (Bloomington/ Indianapolis 1989) 113-16.

18 See J. Hellegouarc'h, Le Vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la republique (Paris 1963) 327-337, 441-42 for discussion of the term and further references. Any attempt, however, to define what would or would not be appropriate to (the Latin translation of) a prophecy circa 132 B.C. is complicated by the fact that the usage in Cicero's de re publica, meant to reflect a second-century conversation, could be Ciceronian. But it seems clear to me that Cicero did not intend the vocabulary of principatus to sound revolutionary in a second-century discussion - and could assume that his readers would not so interpret it. For a discussion of the terminology used in the de re publica, J.G.F. Powell, "The rector rei publicae of Cicero's De Republica", Scripta Classica Israelica 13 (1994) 19-29, especially at 20 and 22; cf. J.-L. Ferrary (trans. M. Crawford), "The Statesman and the Law in the Political Philosophy of Cicero", in A. Laks and M. Schofield (eds.), Justice and Generosity. Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy. Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium Hellenisticum (Cambridge 1995) 48-73. The use of principes or delecti et principes cives regularly describes the aristocracy. The singular use of princeps civitatis or rei publicae is more rare, but signifies "a statesman of the highest calibre" (Ferrary 51-53). The prophecy, on the other hand (if authentic), whatever the precise language, was implying something far more irregular.

19 Cf. Hellegouarc'h, Vocabulaire (as in n. 18) 559-565. 20 Vespasia Polla, mother of Vespasian, was honesta (Suet.Vesp. 1.3: Nursiae honesto genere orta);

cf. the parallel usages at Aug. 43.4 and Calig. 27.3.



Scipio Aemilianus and a Prophecy from Clunia 347

the possibility that an original circulated with slightly different wording but same purport. The length of time for which a temple of Jupiter had existed on the site is not known. A city existed here before the establishment of Roman control, though the archaeological record reveals no settlement earlier than the first century AD.21 The very abnormality of a temple of Roman Jupiter functioning as the site of an oracle suggests in its turn that an older Celtic god had once held sway at Clunia before being assimilated with the Latin form of the great god. That the archives of the older native deity were preserved in the new temple need cause no surprise.22

The Arevaci in whose territory both Clunia and Numantia fell and who, with the notable exception of the Numantines, had been at peace with the Romans since 152 will have been familiar with Scipio from the following year when he served as a junior officer of L. Licinius Lucullus and the latter initiated a campaign against the neighbouring Vaccaei.23 At that time, the young Scipio was known to the Spaniards and especially respected, so it was reported, for his outstanding bravery (in single combat) and high moral reputation.24 Scipio's return to Spain and his determined investment of Numantia in 134 brought the conqueror and destroyer of Carthage back into the Celtiberian world.25 Despite fervent

21 William E. Mierse, Temples and Towns in Roman Iberia. The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Sanctuary Designs from the Third Century B.C. to the Third Century A.D. (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1999) 175-176. A temple adjoining the Forum at Clunia is usually (though of necessity tentatively) identified with that of Jupiter. It is imperial (X. Dupre i Ravent6s, "II Foro nelle province ispaniche", in J. Arce et al. [eds.], Hispania romana da terra di conquista a provincia dell'impero [Milan 1997] 156-160, 157, citing P. de Palol, Elforo romano de Clunia, in Losforos romanos de las provincias occidentales. Actas de la mesa redonda Valencia, 27-31 enero 1986 [Madrid 19871 153-163).

22 Mierse, Temples (as in n. 21) 184-185; 196-97: "If the story has any validity, then the cult predates the Roman domination of the region and must have been an earlier native cult ... BlAzquez has stressed that Jupiter was the great Indo-European god, and as such was honoured in the Celtic areas of the peninsula. Other local high gods were renamed Jupiter, but their cult practices may have retained an element of the pre-Roman divine force" (197; cf. 185-86. The reference is to J. M. Blazquez, "El sincretismo en la Hispania romana entre las religiones indigenas, griegas, romanas, fenicas, y mistericas", in La religidn romana en Hispania [Madrid 1981] 179-221, at 197). With regard to the present argument, it must be acknowledged that the validity of "the story" remains unconfirmed. The general plausibility remains.

23 On the peace, through deditio, App. Iber. 50. That peace had been on terms very favourable to the Arevaci; the deditio may have been almost nominal (J.S. Richardson, Hispaniae. Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism 218-82 BC [Cambridge 1986] 141-144; cf. H. Simon, Roms Kriege in Spanien 154-133 v. Chr. [Frankfurt am Main 1962] 44-46). On the campaigns of Lucullus, App. Iber. 51-55. For references to the service of Scipio under Lucullus, MRR I 455- 456. On Clunia and Numantia within the lands of the Arevaci, Ptol. 2.6.56. The Vaccaei were again Scipio's victims in 134 (Liv. Per. 57; App. Iber. 87).

24 App. Iber. 53-54; cf. (especially on the matter of single combat) J. S. Richardson, Appian. Wars of the Romans in Iberia (Warminster, 2000) 149. It was Scipio who negotiated the end to hostilities with the inhabitants of Intercatia: ... Kai nttoT06ei; Ka&a Kkgo; dpetf; 8tikXioe TOrv i6XI ov (54).

25 There was also, not to be discounted, a dynastic element. The Cornelii Scipiones had been a strong presence in Spain since 218. The brothers Cn. and P. Scipio (coss. 222 and 218 respectively) had, during their long period of command (218-211), established themselves in local favor (Liv. 22.20.1 1 - obviously a reference only to the Roman allies north of the Ebro). Then came the clades Cornelia; but from 210 to 206, P. Scipio (cos. 205, later Africanus) very successfully put his mark on the area, re-establishing the Scipionic presence. (The Celtiberians were only intermittently involved, but clearly in the picture. Celtiberians, sometimes in large numbers, served as the mercenary auxiliaries of whichever side could buy and hold them.) A number of Spanish chieftains had been ready to hail this Scipio as king (Polyb. 10.38.3; 40.2-3; Livy 27.19.2-6; Zon. 9.8); cf. A. Aymard, "Polybe, Scipion l'Africain et le titre de roi", Rev. du Nord 36 (1954) 121-28; A. M. Eckstein, Senate and General. Individual Decision Making and Roman Foreign Relations, 264- 194 B.C. (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1987) 215. There is more. Aemilianus' own advent in Spain in 134 was unusual. His large personal following (4000 volunteers and 500 friends and clients) was likely to prompt recollections of a royal



348 TOM W. HILLARD

pleas from Numantia, other Arevaci refused to be drawn into conflict and, in one dramatic instance, even collaborated.26 The oracle, if authentic, might represent defiant (and rather optimistic) native resistance to Rome - if the Spaniards were meant to envisage the rise of a Celtiberian leader - or striking identification with the conqueror. If it circulated as far as Rome, agitation would have outweighed any enthusiastic reception.27

Macquarie University, Sydney Tom W. Hillard

entourage - as it has encouraged modem speculation. Scullard (Scipio [as in n. 61 72-73) is right to dampen such thoughts, but in the light of the present observations, it is interesting to look back on A. Schulten's reflections in the CAHi VIII, 313: "if he had been bolder or less scrupulous the monarchy might have come from Spain in 133 instead of from Gaul in 49 for, when Scipio returned to Rome as her deliverer, no element was lacking but his own resolve to be monarch." Schulten might well have been listening to a Spanish prophecy. On Aemilianus and the Numantine campaign, see Simon, Roms Kriege (as in n. 23) 171-191.

26 Some young bloods in Lutia wanted to join cause with the Numantines. Their elders communicat- ed this to Scipio - and four hundred young men lost their hands (App. Iber. 94).

27 Cic. Rep. 1.31 illuminates both those who would have embraced the suggestion with enthusiasm and their counterparts; Plut. Mor. 201 F = Apophth. Scip. min. 23, the latter. The reception of such an oracle would have been complicated by the fact that Gaius Gracchus was or had been in Spain at the same time - and the Gracchan presence was strong in the province, see, e.g., E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (264-70 B.C.) (Oxford 1958) 12 1-124. The loss of the relevant books of Livy, Plutarch's Life of Scipio and any other detailed political narrative of this period is sufficient explanation of the fact that the datum (if the oracle was historical) surfaces nowhere else.



scipio aemilianus and a prophecy from clunia

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