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| Lucano |
III lezione
pp. 10-14
Condemnations of roman imperialism
On the
other hand there are some character in historiographic books who condemn roman
imperialism and sometimes give voice to the author of the book. I can give some
examples.
In the Historiae of Sallustio (80-35 b.C.) we
may read a letter of Mithridates king of Ponto (132– 63 b.C.) irreducible enemy of Rome, to Arsace king of Partia, another likely
antagonist, at least intermittent. Mitridate fought against many roman leaders:
Silla, Lucullo and Pompeo. He died suicīde.
The letter
must be written in 68 a. C.
So this
deadly enemy of Romans, writes to Arsace: “Romanis
cum nationibus populis regibus cunctis una et ea causa bellandi est: cupido
profunda imperi et divitiarum”, the Romans have only one and well known reason
for fighting against States, people, kings: i.e. the deep craving, longing, of
rule and wealth.
And
continues: callidi et repertores
perfidiae, they (i.e. Romans) are astuts, cunnings, and inventors of
perfidies, treacheries.
And, recalling the famous rape of Sabinas the first wives of roman men,
stolen, kidnapped a little time after the foundation of Roma: “neque
quicquam a principio nisi raptum habuere, domum coniuges, agros, imperium ", from the very beginning
nothing they had but stolen; house, wives, fields, empire.
They are pestis terrarum, the plague of lands,
they waste the lands.
Lucano (39-65), in neronian age, writes a poem (approximately
62-65 a. C.) Pharsalia that tells
about bella plus quam civilia (I, 1) wars
more than civils, between Caesar and Pompeo, socer generque[1],
father in law and son in law, war that finished with the defeat of Pompeo in
Pharsalo (48 b. C.).
Well, Lucano condemn not only this war between
Romans and Romans, and relatives in addition, but he throws also an anathema,
curses against all the politic of Rome after the death of Cato minor (46 b. C.) and the end of res publica (44 b. C.):
Bella per Emathios plus
quam civilia campos,/ iusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem/ in sua
victrici conversum viscera, dextrā/cognatasque acies… (Pharsalia,
I, 1-4) we are singing wars more than civils in fields of Tessaglia and the
right given to the crime and the powerful, mighty, people turned against his
viscera, guts, with his conquering right hand, and the war among soldier
relatives. Et ducibus tantum de funere
pugna (VI, 811) and the leaders fight only for a grave that is the end for
both, Pompeo killed in Aegypt (48), Caesar in Rome (44 b. C.).
Another
book probably of neronian age is Satyricon
ascribed to Petronio.
It includes
a poem of 295 hexameters always about civil wars between Caesar and Pompeo.
These are the first lines: orbem iam
totum victor Romanus habebat,/qua mare, qua terrae, qua sidus currit
utrumque./nec satiatus erat"
(119, vv. 1-3), the Roman conquering had already in his hand all the world, how
far runs the sea, arrive the lands, and both the directions of sun, but was not
satiate.
And a little ahead: “…si quis sinus ultra,/si qua foret tellus ,
quae fulvum mitteret aurum, hostis erat, fatisque in tristia bella
paratis/querebantur opes…(4-7) if there was a farther gulf , if a some land
that could send yellow gold, it was enemy, and the fates were ready, prepared,
for sad wars, they look for richness.
Seneca who was tutor, preceptor, of Nero emperor,
followed the Stoic philosophy and died suicide in 65 a. C. He thinks that power
is a nucleus of evil. He writes: "reges saeviunt rapiuntque
et civitates longo saeculorum labore constructas evertunt ut aurum argentumque
in cinere urbium scrutentur " (De
ira, III, 33, 1), the kings committ cruelties, sack, and destroy nations
built with long hard work of centuries, to look for gold and silver in the
ashes of the ruins of towns. The causes of crimes are always ambition and
avidity.
According to Seneca, in particular Seneca author of tragedies, the
quintessence of power is the evil: the kingdom coincides with fraud, crime and furor madness, and the only escape is obscura quies (Fedra, 1127), obscure quiet, to keep apart in the serenity of one’s
own corner.
As in the tragedies by Shakespeare (f. e. Macbeth) in those by Seneca, the mechanism of power is a staircaise
whose steps to trample on are lives of men and women. Arrived on the top, the
killer king is killed by next king. Always so ends the macabre climb to the
power. After the last step always the jump into the void.
The kingdom, regnum, is a fallax bonum, a deceptive good that
under a seductive façade, front, hides many evils. Nobody can be glad of
kingdom: “Quisquamne regno gaudet? O fallax bonum/quantum malorum fronte quam blanda tegis” (Seneca, Oedipus, 7-8). These are words of king of Thebe Oedipus who describes the plague of the
town. He will discover that the mivasma, the contamination derives from himself.
In the tragedy Phoenissae (The
Phoenicians), Giocasta asks the son Polinice to give up the war, because the
prize of the winner is the kingdom, id est a punishment: “poenas, et quidem solvet graves: regnabit” (v, 645), he will pay a
punishment, and certainly heavy: he will reign.
The real royalty is the control of passions, fears and turbulences of
soul: “rex est qui posuit metus-et diri
mala pectoris”, king is who put down the fears and evils of cruel soul,
heart (Thyestes, 348)
And a bit further (380 ff.):” mens
regnum bona possidet” a balanced mind has a reign (…) nihil est opus urbes sternere, there is no need to raze to the
ground towns (..) rex est qui metuet
nihil,- rex est cupiet nihil.-Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat , king is who
will fear nothing, king is who will long for nothing. Everyone can give this
reign to himself .
In Epistula 24 Seneca writes:
“non hominibus tantum sed rebus persona
demenda est et reddenda facies sua”, not only from the men but also from
things we must take away the mask and to give back their real substance. Cfr.
Lucrezio (96-45) who wrote: “eripitur
persona, manet res" (De rerum natura III, 58), the mask
is tore, remains the substance.
Nerone
followed Seneca only along the first time of his reign. In that period he was
full of goodness and humanity: Svetonio (70-125) writes that when the laws
obliged him to sign a death sentence, the young emperor cried: how I would like
not to know to write “quam vellem, inquit, nescire litteras!” (Neronis
vita, 10). Svetonio writes the biographies of 12 Caesars, from Julius
Caesar to Domiziano, presenting them before in summary, then in details “neque per tempora sed per species” (Augusti Vita, 9), et not in chronological order but through topics,
arguments.
But already in 55 Nero made kill Britannico, in 59 his mother Agrippina;
in 62 his wife Octavia.
Then married Poppea, the wife of senator Otone.
In this same year 62 Seneca
retired from politic life and he took refuge in his cosmopolis stoic; in 65
killed himself.
Sallustio, in 40 b. C., had written:
"primo pecuniae, deinde imperi cupido crevit: ea
quasi materies omnium malorum fuere " (De
coniuratione Catilinae, 10), before grew up the craving of money, then of
empire, and those longings were, one can say, the bait of all evils. Sallustio thinks
that social and politic evils begin with the disappearence of metus hostilis, the fear of enemies with
the end of danger from Carhago destroyed in 146 b. C by Scipione Emiliano
(185-129).
Ante
Carthaginem deletam…metus hostilis in bonis artibus civitatem retinebat. Sed
ubi illa formido mentibus decessit, scilicet ea quae res secundae amant,
lascivia atque superbia, incessere " (Bellum Iugurthinum, 41), before the destruction
of Carthago, the fear of enemies kept good qualities in the town. But when that
fear disappeared, the things that the success loves (loved by success),
licentiousness, debauchery and arrogance, pride, came foreward.
Untill
Romans became latrones gentium
(Sallustio, Historiae, 4, 69, 22) robbers
of people, as wrote Mitridate to Arsace (supra).
A topic recurring: it comes back in Agricola (98 a. C) by Tacito):"raptores orbis, postquam ,cuncta
vastantibus, defuere terrae, mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si
pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit: soli omnium opes
atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre, trucidare, rapere falsis
nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."(30),
robbers of the world, since the earths are missing to there global devastations,
they search the sea: if the enemy is rich, avid, if poor insistent, they don’t
get full either with East or West: only they between all people desire with the
same passion wealth and poverty. To steal, to massacre, to rob, with false
names they call empire and where they make desert, they call it peace.
Is the
speech of Calgaco the leader of Caledonian rebels, before the battle of mount
Graupio (84 a. C.) won by romanian army led by Agricola, the faher in law of
Tacito. This leader with his victory caused the envy of emperor Domiziano
(81-96) according to Tacito.
Ugo Foscolo
(1778-1827) refers these words in epistolary novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The
last letters of Jacopo Ortis, 1798):
“Vi furon de’ popoli che per non obbedire a’ Romani ladroni del mondo, diedero
all’incendio le loro case” (28 ottobre 1797), there were some people that,
willing disobey to Romans, robbers of the world, set their house on fire.
CONTINUA
[1]
Catullo 29, 24. socer, father in law is Cesare. Pompeo, son in law, married the
daughter of Cesare, Giulia. Therefore bella
plus quam civilia, wars more than civils
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