Risk vs Hagiography - Research Paper Example

Risk vs. Hagiography The ancient Roman writer known to his time as Appianus, and most familiar today as Appian, is one of the many classical writers whose work survives only partially. The lack of archivism in the medieval era lost a great many classical texts, and Appian was no exception. What is still known of his work suggests that he was primarily a historian, and his surviving texts are all histories. They have served as invaluable primary documents for generations of researchers attempting to piece together just what happened to poor old Rome. An instructive example of Appian’s style is his history of the Third Servile War, the slave uprising that began with a revolt in a gladiatorial school and ended in one of the largest mass crucifixions in history. Usefully, the equally well-regarded contemporary writer Plutarch wrote a similar history of the same uprising. A close examination of both texts provides useful insights into the differences between two contemporary views of what was, at that time, recent history. Appian’s recounting of the Third Servile War is in his Civil Wars, a larger historical work concerning some of the many civil wars that plagued the Roman Republic. His chief aim is placing it in the context of the development of the Republic, and its gradual slide toward becoming the Empire. Plutarch’s account of the “War of Spartacus” as it was also called is contained within his Life of Crassus, a biography of the noted Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus. Crassus was the one primarily responsible for the defeat of Spartacus’s uprising, and Plutarch’s account is primarily concerned with fitting the episode into the context of Crassus’s life and career. There are some minor differences on matters of fact between the two accounts, but on the whole they represent two very different readings of the same events. Appian’s account begins with an impartiality that might well be taken as sympathy for Spartacus and his cause. He speaks of the desire for freedom that initially motivated Spartacus and seventy fellow slaves to rebel against the gladiatorial school at which they were kept, and adds that Spartacus’s habit of dividing plunder equally among his followers led to him having a great many followers (Appian 217). Much of the focus is on the official response, which Appian criticizes. He states that the government of Rome did not consider this a war in any real sense, but something more akin to robbery or public disruption (Appian 218). The implication seems to be that this was a short-sighted and ill-considered attitude. Plutarch also offers something resembling sympathy to Spartacus, placing the blame for the uprising on Lentulus Batiatus, the owner of the gladiatorial school, implying that his inhumane management of the school and poor treatment of the gladiators was responsible for the uprising (Plutarch 337). Plutarch’s account, being specifically a military biography, concerns itself with the weapons and tactics employed by the slaves, and how the initial Roman forays against them, led by Clodius and Publius Varinus, were emphatically repulsed (Plutarch 340). Both accounts agree that Spartacus was attempting to reach and cross the Alps, so that he and the other foreign slaves could disperse to their countries of origin, escaping the Roman yoke. The fear, however, was that he might change his mind and march on Rome with an army that, at its peak, numbered 70,000. Plutarch’s account focuses much more on Crassus’s maneuvering and decisions regarding the war, including his decimation of a legion that had, in his estimation, shown cowardice (Plutarch 343). Appian deals in broader strokes during this middle portion of the war, and keeps more of the focus on Spartacus’s army and their defensive positioning. The two authors also differ in which parts of Spartacus’s campaign they emphasize. Appian mentions the town of Thurii, which Spartacus took and held (Appian 220), but Plutarch glosses over that part, focusing more on the incident when Spartacus sought to escape Italy by sea and take Sicily, but was betrayed by the pirate ships he sought to use and left stranded on a peninsula (Plutarch 344). Possibly Plutarch puts more weight on this part of the campaign because it provides an opportunity to praise Crassus’s strategic abilities; Plutarch lovingly details the massive effort involved in building a wall to bottle up Spartacus’s army (Plutarch 345). Overall, the primary distinction between the two accounts of the same war is one of emphasis and moral tone. Both are prone to describing historical events in terms of personalities, the “great man” theory of history that prevailed in classical times and became such an influence on Western culture with the post-Renaissance rediscovery of classical values. In histories of this type, events of history are depicted like a game of Risk, with only a few actual players who move the pieces around the board. The actual populations and armies that these men controlled are rendered, as on the game board, as little Roman numerals. Plutarch’s account is part of one of the near-hagiographies that constituted so much of his work, and as such is concerned primarily with impressing the reader with what a clever and hardheaded fellow Marcus Crassus was. The decimation of his own troops, killing one out of every ten men by a random draw, is presented with the admiring tone one usually hears on Fox News when torture is the subject. Hard men doing hard things are the architects of history, Plutarch tells us. The interesting thing about Appian’s account of the Third Servile War is that, given the limitations of the great-man view, it still fits the larger narrative Appian’s histories create. Over his histories of the civil wars, one theme becomes clear: the gradual erosion of the ideals of the Republic by the rising tide of militarism that would characterize the Empire. History is still presented in terms of personalities and decisive actions, but the greater sweep creates a sense that, over time, those personalities change, and not for the better. The reduction of history to personality is, without question, a limiting and blinkered view, but even within that narrow construction, two clearly different styles emerge. From the titles down to the details, Plutarch’s work is fundamentally about Marcus Crassus, and Appian’s is fundamentally about a civil war. A similar tension can be seen in the relationship of Appian’s work to another contemporary historian, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, known to us as Suetonius. His De Vita Caesarum has long stood as one of the great classical examples of mythmaking around the Caesars, particularly the “divine” Julius and Augustus. The image presented of Julius Caesar as a towering and indomitable heroic figure squares interestingly with Appian’s less personal, more careful account of the actual actions taken by Caesar in his move from praetor to emperor. Suetonius, even more than Plutarch, has no interest in painting with subtle strokes or shades of gray in his worshipful portrait of his subject. His Julius Caesar manages to combine the conquests of Alexander with the mercy of Christ and the personal competence of Batman. Indeed, one of the first things Suetonius tells us about Caesar is that he was personally inspired by seeing a statue of Alexander in Spain, and realizing that he had not yet matched Alexander’s military conquests, despite having already not matched his feat of dying at thirty. This is followed by the first of numerous prophecies, dreams, and omens about Caesar’s inevitable rise to glory (Suetonius 11). Appian, by contrast, notes that Caesar did not initially deploy to Spain as he was supposed to, as he was unable to first meet his creditors before departing Rome. His account of Caesar’s time in Spain focus on his harsh military conquest of the natives and his complete neglect of the business of government (Appian 245). His portrait of Caesar is at every turn presented less as brilliant than as scheming, less as principled than as pragmatic, and less as an ideal than as the betrayer of Rome’s ideals. On Caesar’s effective coup d’etat, particularly the legendary crossing of the Rubicon, the two authors take very differing views. On the simple facts of the matter, they are in agreement: Caesar was forbidden by Roman law to lead his troops within the borders of Italy. On reaching the Rubicon river, marking that border, he considered whether to take the next step that could only end in armed conflict with the nation he had always served, and then went ahead and took it. Suetonius spends quite a while on the reasons Caesar had for this move. He cites plots against Caesar that were believed to exist in the Senate, and quotes Asinius Pollo as evidence that Caesar believed he would be put on trial for his life if he were to return to Rome in any other mode than as a monarch. In fairness, Suetonius also acknowledges the viewpoint that Caesar was simply power-hungry, but this seems an afterthought to the list of reasons why he had no choice but to start a civil war (Suetonius 43). It is hard not to read in this list of justifications an echo of every invader in history that had lots of reasons why all they could do was invade. Appian, on the other hand, goes straight to the despotism reading. He cites Caesar saying, at the crucial moment of crossing, "My friends, to leave this stream uncrossed will breed manifold distress for me; to cross it, for all mankind" (Appian 295). The interpretation is more than clear: Caesar didn’t care for all mankind, only for himself and his own ambition. Fundamentally, Appian’s Civil Wars is a military history, and that is fully apparent in his account of Caesar’s taking of Rome. He depicts Pompey and the other “great men” in the story frantically shuffling large numbers of troops around, trying to find some combination that might offer credible opposition to Caesar’s forces. This is entirely similar to his account of the Third Servile War, more concerned with the actions taken than the motivations that might have lain behind them. Appian is also more concerned than Suetonius with the legitimate objections to Caesar’s seizure of power. He talks about the fear that greeted Caesar’s entry into the city, and how Caesar initially placated these fears, but still took harsh and unjust measures to secure his power (Appian 305). One contemporary example of the harsh criticism Caesar drew is the notorious Neoteric poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, who in his Poem 57 described Caesar and his political ally Mamurra as “abominable sodomites” in one rather discreet translation, with the less-than-subtle suggestion that Caesar’s influence on Rome was heinous (Catullus). Suetonius addresses this specific incident, in the middle of a list of examples of how kind, forgiving, sociable, and nice Caesar was (Suetonius 95). One of the clearest contrasts in the two accounts comes in their discussion of Caesar’s assumption of dictatorial powers. Suetonius brings it up when he finally gets around to listing Caesar’s faults, which in Suetonius’s version consisted mainly of “allowing” people to give him even more honor than his intrinsically wonderful nature warranted (Suetonius 100). The tone of the section implies quite clearly that Caesar didn’t ask anyone to make him a god or build him a golden throne, these things just kind of happened and he was too polite to say no. By contrast, Appian speaks of Caesar being made dictator by “the trembling people,” and cites how there was no Senatorial or legal support for this, implying equally clearly that this was a case of a strongman taking power from people too frightened to object (Appian 318). The laudatory tone of Suetonius is entirely missing, replaced with more acknowledgement of the common people of Rome than is commonly seen in classical histories. As with the Plutarch comparison, we see again that Appian was engaged in history rather than biography. Likewise as with Plutarch, Suetonius makes at best a token attempt at evenhandedness, preferring to write a breathlessly enthusiastic hagiography that reads like it was written by Julius Caesar’s publicist. This essential difference is greater than just history contrasted with biography, though. It speaks to a deeper, more essential divide regarding the nature of history and those who shape it that borders on the ideological. Throughout his work, Appian continues to focus on the movements of troops, maintaining the gameboard analogy discussed earlier. The nature of the great-man model of understanding history means that he cannot avoid dealing with personalities and personal conflicts to some extent, but always in a secondary way. His primary concern is always the events themselves, and the narrative that gradually unfolds from a dispassionate observation of them. In this respect, he resembles more modern historians in certain respects, with the implied view that what happened is what is important, not who did it. Appian was born too early to be able to say that great events create great men, not the other way around, but one suspects that he might have sympathized with that view. Works Cited Appian. Appian: The Civil Wars. 24 August 2006. 30 April 2011 . Catullus, Gaius. Catullus Poem 57. 11 February 2000. 1 May 2011 . Plutarch. Plutarch: Life of Crassus. 21 November 2007. 30 April 2011 . Suetonius. Suetonius, the Lives of the Caesars: The Life of Julius Caesar. 10 June 2010. 1 May 2011 . Read More