Mouritsen, Roman elite, Boni and Nobiles
A major new rethink of Roman elite politics and social ranking..
[MH: This is a very good book, almost certainly a very important one too. Though I am not qualified to judge two central arguments about the boni and Cicero, the data here compels me to rethink my prior impressions about Roman rankings. Selfishly I only excerpt sections relevant to my current reading on conceptual origins of ‘rank over status society’ in periods/territories after ‘participatory differentiation society’ for whose conceptualisation I relied on Henrik Mouritsen’s earlier book. Forgive me for not italicising the Latin words. Italics were lost in transference. No book cover either, in order to free up email space for more great paragraphs.]
The Source:
Henrik Mouritsen, The Roman elite and the end of the Republic: The Boni, the Nobles and Cicero, Cambridge University Press, 2023
[Publisher’s book description]
The boni – the wealthy, but largely non-political, section of the Roman elite – have hitherto escaped scholarly attention. This book draws a detailed and rounded picture of the boni, their identity, values and interests, also tracing their – often tense – relationship to the political class, whose inner circle of noble families eventually lost their trust and support. Concerns about property played a central part in this process, and the book explores key Roman concepts associated with property, including frugality, luxury, patrimony, debt and the all-important otium that ensured the peaceful enjoyment of private possessions. Through close readings of Cicero and other republican writers, a new narrative of the ‘fall of the republic’ emerges. The shifting allegiances of the wider elite of boni viri played an important part in the events that brought an end to the republic and ushered in a new political system better attuned to their material interests.
Introduction
… The word bonus – ‘good’ – covers a range of semantic nuances, from capable, ethically sound to decent and respectable. However, the meaning of bonus that will mainly concern us here is that of ‘wealthy’; for as it will become clear, the boni to whom Cicero and other writers repeatedly referred were defined above all by their standing in society and the economic resources that made them a constituent part of the Roman elite. Their social position can in fact be pinpointed with some precision since they appear to have occupied a place between the two highest orders of senators and equites and the population at large.
This stratum has generally not been acknowledged as a social category in its own right. Part of the explanation lies in the particular approach to Roman politics that dominated among ancient historians until relatively recently. It assimilated the boni to one of two putative ‘parties’ in republican Rome, namely the ‘senatorial party’ of so-called optimates. This model was firmly rooted in nineteenth-century constructions of Roman politics which closely mirrored the parliamentary systems of the newly formed European nation states. Abandoning the anachronistic ‘party-model’ has unexpected implications since it leaves us with a group of Romans who were clearly central to the public and social life of the republic but have been largely overlooked by contemporary scholarship. …
… The starting point for this study is the contention that ‘boni’, rather than being a rhetorical cliché or a partisan epithet, represented a social category with well-defined characteristics and a membership to which the term was applied uncontroversially and as a matter of course. The main qualification of a vir bonus was wealth, and this fundamental aspect of their identity lends the whole study a distinctly socio-economic dimension … for ultimately it was property that determined the social position of the boni as well as their political outlook and priorities. It will therefore also provide the particular lens through which the political turbulence of the late republic is viewed. For that reason, the inquiry carries a more pronounced ‘materialist’ flavour than has usually been the case in modern narratives of the ‘fall’…
It is, however, worth bearing in mind that in Rome … the res publica … had as its core function the protection of private property along with the social hierarchies it embodied and sustained. …
… In the case of the late Roman republic, there are signs that the security of private property was becoming a real and growing concern for the elite. Sallust famously ascribed the ‘fall’ to material factors, above all excessive spending and indebtedness among the political class, but across the ancient record runs an undercurrent of anxiety about the safety of one’s possessions as well as the permanence of the social order. The question is how these fears shaped the political history of the period. The management of the res publica had historically been entrusted to a small group of families, who over time established themselves as an informal class of semi-hereditary office holders, the nobiles. But although they maintained a near-monopoly on the highest offices, they did not rule sovereign nor did they do so in isolation. The nobiles were firmly embedded within a much wider elite, for as Keith Hopkins observed almost forty years ago, the Roman senate is best understood as ‘the prestigious political arm of a broader class of Roman and Italian land-owners’. The implications of this structure have been little explored, probably because this extended class of property owners has seemed too elusive and lacking in definition to allow in-depth analysis. The identification of ‘boni’ as the standard designation for this group thus opens up important new avenues of inquiry …
… The interaction between boni and nobiles forms a central theme of this study. Their relationship was complicated by the ambiguous role played by the boni in Roman public life; for despite constituting the closest Rome came to a ‘public’ and largely controlling access to the highest offices, the boni took little active part in politics. As a result, the nobility became the ‘executive’ wing of the elite, while the majority embraced a quiet life, free of ambition and the pursuit of honores. Their non-political outlook left the boni reliant on others to manage their most vital interests on their behalf, and for many years the ‘social contract’ between nobles and boni seems to have worked to the satisfaction of both parties, the former safeguarding the affairs of the latter in return for power and distinctions. During the late republic their relationship appears to have undergone significant changes. Politics became far more turbulent, and we also encounter in this period a relentless anti-noble discourse, often spilling over into open hostility, which called into question the morals as well as the capability of the governing class. The nobles were regularly accused of failing to keep up the ancestral traditions that formed the basis for their claims to prominence. So, as the res publica became more unstable and a general sense of uncertainty spread among the boni, the blame was invariably laid at the door of the leading families.
The tensions within the elite were deeply rooted and reflected long- standing differences in lifestyle and priorities that became more pronounced during this period.
The boni traditionally embraced the civilian ideal of otium, a state of internal peace and stability where law and order were enforced and private property protected.
Their values were therefore those of moderation, prudence and caution, which, as we shall see, in many respects made the Roman vir bonus a close cognate of the later European ‘gentleman’. At the same time, escalating competition for public office left the political class structurally destabilised; as the cost of careers rose to unsustainable levels, the result was mounting problems of indebtedness, risk-taking and norm breaking.
This study places the political and military upheavals of the late republic within a context of growing alienation of the nobiles from their traditional hinterland of the boni. The shift in allegiances explains why the boni appear to have been relatively sanguine about the collapse of the traditional political order, which in their eyes probably had run its natural course. The rule of the nobles no longer seemed capable of protecting the collective interests of the elite; so, when the nobility faced a military challenge in 49 (from within its own ranks, it should be noted) the boni chose to remain neutral. That also helps us understand better what happened next; for eventually they found a relatively easy accommodation with the new regime that emerged out of the civil wars and promised to safeguard their interests more efficiently than the old system had done. As it turned out, the pax Augusta would represent the near-perfect embodiment of the private state of otium which the boni had always treasured. …
… The ‘fall’ of the republic has traditionally been interpreted as the result of military and political changes that undermined the internal cohesion of the political class, hampered its ability to contain its leading generals and, above all, weakened its control over the armed forces. These factors were undoubtedly crucial to the unravelling of the centuries-old system of aristocratic government; still, this study seeks to add another facet to this picture by drawing attention to the internal rifts that had appeared within the elite itself. The fault lines were to a surprising degree focused on basic concerns about material possessions, which may have played an important part in the process that ushered in a new and more secure property-regime under the Principate.
Chapter 3
Who Were the Boni?
The elite in the Roman world was defined largely by financial criteria. It therefore comes as no surprise that ‘boni’ could be employed generically to describe the upper classes that held power by virtue of their superior wealth and resources. In this sense it was not confined to Roman contexts (let alone to its domestic politics) but could, as a purely social descriptor, be applied to the elites of any community past and present, whether in Italy, the provinces or further beyond. …
… [In Cicero’s writings, various examples given] … The distinction between boni and those of lesser social standing is unsurprising, while the separation of nobiles and boni is intriguing since it suggests an internal differentiation, in which the boni represent a particular tier within the elite rather than the upper classes as a whole.
In the context of the Roman republic, this would imply that they [the boni] ranked below the optimates, as indeed suggested by the underlying linguistic hierarchy, optimates being derived from the superlative of bonus … ’optimates’ has long been recognised as a standard term for the senate and its leaders, and it might therefore be tempting to interpret the boni as those on the next rung down on the status ladder, the equites… While this might seem a logical inference, the evidence suggests a more complex picture. It is, in fact, possible to identify two distinct usages of ‘boni’ in Roman discourse, one describing the entire elite and the other a section within it, none of which suggests that it was ever used as an alternative name for the equites.
The Boni as the Roman Elite
On numerous occasions Cicero and other republican writers use the term ‘boni’ to describe the elite in general, a point often made explicit by contrasting the boni with the populus, plebs, multitudo or in some cases the vulgus. When Cicero sketches the social landscape of Rome, the two standard constituencies with which he typically operates are the boni and the rest of the population. In his public oratory this distinction is relatively common. …
… Cicero’s distinction between boni and populus suggests the former was used in a neutral, descriptive sense, since populus (and in some contexts also plebs) were unambiguously positive concepts in Roman discourse, unlike the more pejorative terms multitudo and vulgus. It shows that ‘boni’ was more than a vague reference to ‘right-thinking people’ but described a discrete social segment. …
… The equation of elite and boni continued beyond the republic. …
… Cicero proclaims that ‘all we boni have always supported the nobiles’, thus including himself and the jurors in this category, while later he describes the unanimous support of the boni for his recall, including those in the senate and those outside it. Sallust made similar allusions to the senators as boni …
… In short, ‘boni’ could be employed as a collective term for the entire Roman elite, comprising a continuum of wealthy Romans ranging from senators down to businessmen and landowners.
These people otherwise lacked a single denominator, and because the label focused on economic standing and resources rather than formal rank, there were no strict boundaries. In that sense, it matched the modern term ‘elite’, which can also be applied flexibly and adapted to context and circumstances. However, the term ‘boni’ also carried a more specific meaning, describing a particular stratum of the Roman elite.
The Boni as a Section of the Roman Elite
While ‘boni’ could be used as shorthand for the Roman upper classes, more often it applied to a sub-section within the elite, one that was distinct not just from the senate but also in many instances from the equites. The separation of the boni from the senate is encountered throughout the ancient record …
… The important point emerging [instances just discussed but omitted here] is that the boni formed a discrete section of the elite, routinely juxtaposed with other defined categories of people, usually the members of the two highest ordines but in some cases also with the inhabitants of Italy. This in itself makes it highly unlikely that we are dealing with generalising references to ‘good men’. The boni appear as a distinct stratum within the elite, located between the equites and the multitudo/populus, and thus representing a class of people who otherwise had no formal identity or official recognition. …
… The specific nature of the term is evident from the consistent place of the boni in the summaries of the social hierarchy presented by Cicero and other authors. Their position between the top elite and the population at large is reflected in numerous passages …
… This conceptualisation of the social structure was expressed also in private communications between Roman leaders, indicating it was neither the preserve of public oratory nor an empty rhetorical flourish. … [Cicero] observed … with regard to the boni … that, though not wholly inactive, they were not very keen. The multitudo and the infimi, on the other hand, were as always eager for revolution …
… In this case we are presented with a hierarchical view of Roman society divided into the two leading ordines, followed by the boni, who in turn rank above the multitudo, with the infimi – logically – occupying the lowest position. …
… To summarise, ‘boni’ appears to have been the standard label used to describe the social stratum located between the senate/council level and ‘the masses’. Membership in this group was not clearly defined, ‘boni’ being a broad term for people of a certain standing and economic means who did not belong to the two highest orders. The blurry edges of the concept may explain the almost formulaic addition of ‘omnes’ [everyone] when referring to them in public discourse. … The question is whether the social groups covered by this term might be defined more precisely. The basic criterion for inclusion was clearly personal wealth, the essential quality of a vir bonus. The common association with locuples also hints at ownership of land, which is unsurprising given the importance of real estate as a source of income, status and financial security. …
… The [further] inclusion of those active in business among the boni should come as no surprise… The key qualifications of a vir bonus were financial and pursuing a quaestus or engaging in money-making was not in itself considered dishonourable. Cicero could, for example, refer to ‘those who seek wealth in an honourable manner, by mercantile enterprises or by under- taking contracts or farming taxes’, or to a gentleman who ‘in his native place enjoyed an eminently honourable reputation and at Rome had a considerable business as a banker’. …
… It is now possible to lay to rest the widespread misconception that phrases such as ‘omnes boni’ were little more than rhetorical flourishes, vaguely invoking ‘all good people’. … A significant new element has thus been added to the social landscape of the Roman republic …
Rethinking Roman Social Structure
The identification of the boni as a distinct social group located between the two highest orders and the populus at large calls into question the conventional models used to analyse Roman society. It reminds us that the formal categories commonly applied may not adequately reflect the socio- economic reality.
[FOOTNOTE: The simplest descriptions of Roman society have traditionally operated with a basic dichotomy between ‘aristocracy’ and ‘people’. This conception of the social landscape is still widely applied …]
The pitfalls involved in using official ranks and classifications as a guide to the social structure are well illustrated by Geza Alföldy’s much-reproduced diagram [of 1985] of the Roman world under the empire. His model represents a heterogeneous mix of different criteria, but the key building blocks are the formal categories into which the inhabitants of the Empire were divided. At the top of the social pyramid, right below the imperial house, he placed the senators, followed by the two ordines of equites and decuriones. These dignitaries were sharply separated from the rest of the population, which in turn was subdivided vertically according to personal status – freeborn, freed or slave – and by location – town or country.
The [Alföldy] model is problematic on a number of levels, not least because the large majority of the population was not officially ranked in relation to each other. The reliance on these criteria therefore leads to an oversimplified image of the Roman world.
It should also be borne in mind that the perspective informing Alföldy’s model is that of the imperial age, which does not apply directly to the republic. Thus, the two highest orders of the senators and equites did not form a clear hierarchy during this period; not only were they closely entwined on a personal and familial level, but financially none of them was unequivocally superior to the other. During the republic it was essentially a distinction reflecting their degree of involvement in public affairs. …
… Formal criteria offer only a very limited perspective on Roman society, and the notion of the republican elite consisting solely of the two highest ordines was never plausible; simple logic would suggest that there must have been a layer of financially comfortable citizens between the super-rich and the working population. This stratum has, unlike the later curial classes of the empire, received little scholarly attention, presumably because it appeared to be invisible in the ancient record.
The identification of ‘boni’ as the common term describing a social layer with precisely these characteristics therefore has important implications. It shows that the Romans operated with a consistent terminology when referring to this social group, despite its informal nature and lack of official recognition. Adding this group to the social landscape allows us to formulate a [model] … based on the actual terms and categories employed by the Romans themselves.
At the very top of the social hierarchy, we find the principes, the leading men of the state, who held the highest offices and dominated government. They were almost invariably nobiles, a unique sub-category within the political class …
They were followed by the remainder of the senators, sometimes called optimates, who were themselves merely a sub-section of the wider elite and, as noted above, not necessarily its pinnacle in terms of wealth. Alongside them we find the equites, a vital element of the established social order, representing a broader elite segment which in terms of resources overlapped with the senatorial class, and whose inner circle wielded considerable influence on public affairs, especially the powerful publicani. The non-hereditary nature of senatorial status meant that the boundaries between the two highest orders tended to be fluid and permeable, with individuals moving between them and most families being represented in both at any given moment.
The fact that the equites were formally recognised as an ordo has ensured them a prominent place in modern scholarship on the late republic. That is not the case with the boni who occupied a position somewhere between equites and the working population. They were people of relatively substantial means which relieved them of manual labour and allowed them a ‘respectable’ lifestyle, although they, like the equites, could be involved in a variety of money-making activities, including farming, trade, finance and urban property.
The closest we get to a formal definition of this group is probably the property qualifications of the comitia centuriata, since they would have been covered by the census range of the first class, holding property worth up to 400,000 sesterces. Whether all members of this class would have qualified as boni is a moot point, which may have depended on context and viewpoint. The key criterion was always financial autonomy and independent means. The distance from actual ‘work’ may therefore have determined whether a given person was accepted as a vir bonus or not, which in turn would have reflected the scale and nature of the enterprises and the degree of personal involvement in their day-to- day management. …
… Below the level of the boni, social distinctions become … blurred, presumably because, from the perspective of the elite, the internal layers and stratifications within the broader population were of little import, whether politically, socially or economically. For that reason, they tend to feature in our sources as an undifferentiated populus/plebs or, more pejoratively, as the multitudo or vulgus. Occasionally, we hear of the infimi [the lowest], although they are invoked predominantly to make a rhetorical point (e.g. as a metaphor for ‘top and bottom of society’) rather than to define a specific social stratum. ‘Tenues’ also occurs with some frequency, but this term had a surprisingly wide application, suggesting it was a relative rather than objective signifier of status, adaptable to context and viewpoint.
What is conspicuously missing from the Romans’ own descriptions of their social order is any hint of a ‘middle class’. The absence of a Latin terminology relating to such a category draws attention to the character of the boni, who seem to have occupied an intermediate place in the social hierarchy between the top elite and the working population. … The emergence of the modern middle classes was inextricably linked to a unique process of socio-economic differentiation that had no parallel in Rome. Unlike early-modern Europe, landed and urban/commercial wealth was never sharply separated, and the Roman elite generally relied on a mixed portfolio of financial interests; even the political class often engaged in profit-making activities such as moneylending and investment in real estate that went well beyond what their social code prescribed.
Given the broad economic homogeneity of the propertied classes, the distinction between boni and other sections of the elite was destined to be one of scale only. …
… [Regarding] the impact of slavery on the social structure of ancient Rome … to use Finley’s famous definition [Rome was] a ‘slave society’ in the sense that it did not simply use slaves but was thoroughly shaped by the institution of slavery. … The overall preference for unfree and personally tied labour for all but the most menial (and seasonal) tasks had a profound and in many respects polarising effect on the social landscape. Slavery would have affected every corner of society, including the distribution and flow of resources across the classes. Most likely, the result was a deep and growing divide between the slave-owning elite and the freeborn underclass that was left with fewer and fewer opportunities for economic advancement. The elite’s extensive, indeed almost exclusive, reliance on slave labour did not encourage the formation of a substantial, stable or independent ‘middle’ – or even ‘middling’ – class of freeborn citizens, certainly in the capital itself. It probably created a gap in the social ladder where modern historians have tried to locate a middling layer of ‘ordinary’ Romans. …
… The result of these combined processes [omitted here] was an artificial and, in many respects, extreme social environment which literally had no middle. Most likely, it split the population into a substantial wealthy elite, a ‘working class’ increasingly made up of unfree and personally tied labour, and a transient and precarious underclass, many of whom would have been recent arrivals to the city. …
… The unmistakable impression conveyed by our sources is that the boni formed an integral part of the elite – rather than an intermediate layer between elite and ‘people’. There are few signs of them displaying any ‘class’ characteristics that set them apart from the rest of the elite, which, with the possible exception of the nobiles, appears to have been remarkably homogeneous in terms of values, identity and lifestyle.
The boni may therefore be best understood as the lower echelons of a relatively unified elite. …
… The vir bonus … term signalled an upstanding citizen of independent means, free from want and its associated indignities. It placed him far above the working population, from whom he was separated by a fundamental barrier of personal honour. The fact that the term could be applied to the entire elite, including the highest orders, underscores the basic qualities they all shared, as does the canonical triad of senators, equites and boni that was used to describe the upper classes. Still, perhaps the most incontrovertible sign of their social importance is the sheer prominence and frequency with which the boni appear in political discourse. Our sources suggest the boni formed a permanent presence in Roman politics, where they feature as a central and widely courted constituency. …
[MH: re. the ‘sources’ — in order to focus this short exhibit on elite rankings I have bypassed the book’s extensive analyses of the writings of statesmen such as Cicero.]
Chapter 9
Otium and Tranquillitas: The Politics of the Boni
[Reminder from above: Otium = “a state of internal peace and stability where law and order were enforced and private property protected …”]
As a class the boni displayed two fundamental characteristics: their privileged position as property owners and their detachment from the world of public affairs, in which only a small sub-section took active part in their capacity of senators and office holders. Attempts at engaging the boni politically would therefore naturally focus on their social position and any threat they might be facing. The boni shared a vested interest in protecting a status quo that guaranteed their place in society; so, if any political creed can be associated with this class, it was the maintenance of stability – at almost any cost … Sallust made this point explicitly, noting that men were not called ‘good’ or ‘bad’ citizens on the basis of their services to the res publica; the rich were regarded as boni because they defended the ‘praesentia’ (i.e. the current conditions).
Calls to protect the status quo were expressed in a variety of ways, most frequently using slogans like otium, tranquillitas and quies, which all became fixtures of political discourse during the late republic. Of these terms otium would become the most prominent, and the evidence suggests that it was widely employed across the political spectrum. … Despite its apparent centrality to public discourse, otium has received relatively little scholarly attention …
… The keen interest of the boni in preserving their otium was, for example, flagged up in the Commentariolum, where Quintus reminds his brother that ‘your past life should demonstrate to the equites and the rich boni your devotion to otium and tranquillity’. …
… The threat to otium from civil disorder reminds us that the stability it described went beyond the mere absence of violence and armed conflict. While otium summed up a combination of private security, safety and peaceful existence, it also covered the underlying political conditions that facilitated this ideal state… Otium thus depended on a sound and functioning res publica, the rule of law and the fair dispensation of justice. As such, it was secured by respect for the mos maiorum, on which the leges and the courts, iudicia, rested. …
Chapter 10
Vita et Bona: Property and Security
Otium was more than a general sense of comfort; it carried an almost existential quality of ‘security’ that brought it semantically close to salus. The two concepts were, as we saw, often paired, hinting at the profound nature of the underlying concerns. Indeed, Roman public life could … be conceptualised as a perpetual fight ‘for the salus of the boni against the madness of desperate men’ [Cicero]. And an official senatorial decree … stated that any obstruction would be ‘contrary to the res publica, to the salus of the boni and to the concord of the citizens’. Salus represented personal security in the broadest sense of life, possessions and social standing, and while the boni may have taken little interest in day-to-day politics, they did of course care very much about their personal welfare and prosperity. Attempts at engaging them therefore focused on these concerns … Cicero stressed that: ‘you ought to preserve otium by all means’. …
Chapter 13
Boni and Nobiles
The concerns about private property explored in the previous chapters may help us understand better what we might call the ‘politics’ of the boni as well as their relationship with the small inner circle of families that filled the highest offices. Their misgivings about the conduct of the political class appear to have focused on one particular section within it, the so-called nobiles …
… Overall, the Roman elite was strikingly homogeneous, defined as it was almost exclusively by property and economic resources. No Roman could ever be considered ‘elite’ without substantial assets to his name that guaranteed a life free of work and material concerns. The sources of their wealth were relatively similar across the board, despite some variation in the extent to which different sections engaged in commerce, trade and state contracts. The scale of their wealth did, of course, also vary considerably, but that did not affect the fundamentally plutocratic character of the Roman elite. Their shared material interests may have been a contributing factor behind the broad uniformity of values and outlook that seems to have characterised the elite.
The most important structural differentiation evolved around public honores, which split the propertied classes into those who took active part in government and state affairs and the majority that did not. Although the former category never formally constituted themselves as a ‘ruling class’, always remaining dynamic, fluid and in principle open to outsiders, over time the position of some families became so entrenched that they set themselves apart while claiming the honorific epithet of ‘nobilis’.
This was an informal label, however, and noble status carried no public recognition, nor did it ever confer any official rank. The absence of inherited titles and distinctions – with the archaic patriciate as the notable exception – meant that these self-declared nobiles always occupied an anomalous position within the Roman elite, basing their claim to power and prominence on birth, family and ancestry rather than straightforward wealth.
It also meant that the Roman ‘nobles’ had little in common with later European nobilities, despite certain similarities in the public ethos they espoused and the somewhat misleading adoption of the term ‘nobility’. Unlike these hereditary aristocracies, the Roman nobilitas was never underpinned by state power or royal patronage, nor was it embedded in formal hierarchies of status and privilege.
The formation of the nobilitas was closely linked to the political settlement reached after the so-called Struggle of the orders, when a new elite emerged composed of both patricians and plebeians. These families would over time come to dominate public office holding, and, as K.-J. Hölkeskamp has shown, their position was consolidated during the crucial period of the middle republic when Rome expanded her power in Italy under the leadership of these families.
It was therefore, as the word nobilis implies, a distinction rooted in personal achievement and the fame and respect that generated. The Roman nobility was in that sense a ‘meritocratic’ aristocracy whose claim to power was justified on grounds of individual competence and devotion to the res publica. Their services to the populus Romanus were above all military, and it was as an elite ‘warrior’ class that these families established themselves as Rome’s natural leaders.
By the time we reach the late republic, the nobility exercised a near monopoly on the highest offices. Paradoxically, however, they seem to have held this dominant position in the face of widespread hostility; in fact, the ancient sources reveal a surprising level of animosity towards the nobles who are routinely accused of arrogance, entitlement and all-round incompetence. …
… Again, we are reminded of the peculiar place the nobilitas occupied within the social and political landscape of republican Rome. Unlike later aristocracies, the Roman nobility held no formal rank nor did it enjoy any official recognition or prerogatives; it was essentially a claim based on descent, which, as we saw, could be easily and openly challenged.
Functionally, these families acted as a ‘magistrate class’, a sub-section of the elite that specialised in office holding and which over time developed a distinct social identity around this role.
The values and ideals of this inner circle were not those of the elite as a whole, and what we are witnessing during the late republic appears to be a growing sense of alienation from the exclusive world of the nobiles. Most boni did not share the nobles’ appetite for gloria, honos and fama, but tended to have other, more mundane priorities, above all the preservation of otium and salus.
The fact that the ruling nobility could be presented as a threat to these values is itself testimony to their strained relations. The public discourse explored above suggests a shift in attitudes, which in turn raises intriguing questions about the location of power in Rome: for the nobiles ultimately owed their honores and powers to the favour and support of the boni.
This paradox reflected the structural differentiation of the Roman elite, which meant that the boni traditionally had stood apart from the world of politics, leaving this field to those with experience, talent and motivation. If forced to take side in current disputes, they usually sided with the majority view for the sake of continuity and stability; their most decisive input into public affairs therefore happened at the annual elections where their votes carried considerable weight.
[FOOTNOTE: The basic arithmetic of the centuriate assembly underscores the importance of the boni, since the first class and the equites controlled almost half of the voting units – and crucially voted first. The turnout of boni from rural tribes may have been substantial considering the weight of their votes, their likely contacts to the political class and their resources which enabled them to make the journey. …However, the logistical obstacles would have been insurmountable, including the limited capacity of the venue (which seems to be seriously overestimated) and the practical issues of travel, cost and time. The non-political nature of Roman elections makes it is inherently unlikely that substantial sections of the electorate would ever take part without strong personal incentives … (The) old clientela theory … has been presented in the modern guise of ‘personal networks’, although it remains doubtful whether they would have extended much beyond the boni. FOOTNOTE ENDS]
At the ballot box the boni generally acted independently and at the same time predictably; for while individual results often seemed random and arbitrary there was nevertheless a fundamental conformity to their electoral choices as each year members of the same small circle of families were appointed to the highest offices. … During the late republic the old nobility faced a number of challenges that went beyond the familiar threats posed by powerful generals and troublesome tribunes. What is perhaps less appreciated is the extent to which it had become separated from their traditional hinterland of the boni, reaching a point where their unconditional support, as Cicero had warned the senate already in 57, could no longer be taken for granted. …
Chapter 14
The Power of the Nobiles
Judging from contemporary public discourse, the nobles of the late republic were routinely denigrated and associated with incompetence, entitlement and other aristocratic vices. … [What] makes the resentment expressed towards the nobles so paradoxical is the crucial part played by the wider elite in maintaining them in their position.
The power of the nobles rested on annual elections in which the combined votes of equites and boni often decided the outcome; certainly, without strong support from these groups no political career would ever get off the ground.
To explain the curious disjuncture between the views and the actions of the boni, we may consider the position of the nobiles more broadly. Who were the nobles? How many were there – if they can be counted at all? What kind of power did they wield? And finally, how did they retain their position in the face of such apparent dissatisfaction with their rule? The answers may help us understand better not just the politics of the boni but also the nature of the ‘noble republic’ …
… Measuring the power of the Roman nobilitas is less straightforward than one might have expected. We have to identify not just who the nobiles were, but also define the nature of their power. For the purposes of this discussion the tenure of public office is taken as proxy for ‘power’, although the circumscribed and short-term nature of Roman magistracies make them imperfect measures of the political, social and economic influence exerted by these families.
In addition to this basic uncertainty, the task of finding and counting the nobles is complicated by the absence of objective criteria allowing us to determine who qualified as a nobilis and who did not. The search for clear and workable definitions has occupied generations of scholars and the fact that it is still ongoing may itself be telling.
As already noted, the nobility was not an aristocracy in the conventional sense, for although it was founded on ancestry, it was an informal claim based on the idea that descendants were somehow touched by the greatness of their maiores and continued to display some of their virtues.
It could be argued that the very vagueness of this status was a defining feature of the Roman nobility. It meant that the edges of this class were bound to be blurry and permeable, not just allowing outsiders to join but also making it difficult to pinpoint its precise membership at any given moment. While this may have been politically useful and helped ensure its long-term survival in a way a closed, formally constituted ruling class might not have managed, it also exposed the concept of nobilitas to challenges, be it on grounds of principle or with regard to individual nobles and their family lines. Thus, the social category of the nobilis – as well as its counterpart, the homo novus – turn out to be surprisingly unstable and open to questioning and manipulation, sometimes in unexpected, even counter-intuitive ways.
The very informality of the distinction complicates attempts at compiling firm statistics. Scholars have long debated which public honores qualified as ‘ennobling’, and the tenure of the consulship has, for good reasons, generally been seen as an essential prerequisite for noble status. Most of those described as nobiles appear to have had consular ancestors, and Cicero took it for granted that his son would enjoy the advantages of nobility, although he in the same breath distanced himself from these unearned privileges…
… Most importantly, it seems that the concept of nobilitas was relative rather than absolute, allowing the noble status of a family to wax and wane over time.
Unless properly sustained, a family’s nobilitas would decline and potentially wither away. Unlike later European aristocracies, the prestige of noble rank did not grow with age but had to be continually revived. Cicero, for example, mentions that Aemilius Scaurus had restored the almost extinct memory of his genus, while Sallust observed that ‘Sulla was a noble of patrician stock, of a family which had almost faded away to nothingness thanks to the inactivity of his ancestors’. …
… Exchanges [between persons of the highest ranks] highlight the element of subjectivity that appears to have been intrinsic to the Roman concept of nobilitas. In many instances it could be reduced to a matter of perception, whether positive or negative, and it therefore remained dependent on context and intent. …
… [The] concept of nobilitas – whether invested with positive or negative qualities – was more clearly defined than its actual membership. While everybody would have had a reasonable idea what nobilitas represented, pinpointing who counted as a nobilis would in many instances have been more difficult. Since they embodied an aristocratic ideal rather than a formally constituted social category, it follows that there was no easy or straightforward way of measuring the power and position of the nobiles, let alone counting their members.
The consulship may, as we saw, have become a widely accepted signifier of ‘nobility’, but even that might be queried, partly because the value of past family achievements faded over time.
Assigning individuals to specific categories is therefore not a mechanical exercise but requires each case to be considered on its own terms, taking into account also the context and biases of the relevant sources. Was nobilitas or novitas, for example, ascribed or denied in order to elevate or denigrate the person?
[FOOTNOTE from prior paragraph: The definition of novitas could be widened or narrowed according to the intentions of the speaker and on … occasions Cicero operated with a much stricter interpretation, especially when trying to emphasise the exceptional nature of his own achievement. Thus … he claims he was the first new man to reach the consulship for a very long time … The statement implies that a number of more recent consuls who also lacked consular ancestors …somehow did not count as proper homines novi.]
The patterns we find become more complex than expected if novitas could be claimed for some nobles and vice versa. In addition, identifying nobles often faces practical problems, since we often do not know the precise family background of an individual, which in turn raises the question whether individuals can be classified and assigned to either category solely on the basis of familial gentilicia.
There were homonymous but unrelated family lines in Rome … Also within the noble families themselves there seems to have been distinctions in rank [examples given] … We are therefore left wondering whether all [the families] were considered equally ‘noble’.
The Romans operated with a relative concept of nobility that seems to have been dependent on familial and temporal proximity to past office holders. But whether direct agnatic descent from consuls was a condition remains unclear. …
… Cicero … might have looked into his opponent’s background [but] it seems unlikely that many Romans, even among the educated classes, would have been acquainted with the intricate family trees of the nobility.
In the absence of formal criteria and an official system of rank and status, the concept of nobility was bound to cover a spectrum, ranging from indisputable claims backed by more or less unbroken lines of consular ancestors to tenuous claims based on distant, perhaps even mythical consuls. …
... While it might be applied to equestrians … as well as to members of long-standing praetorian families, even to sons of triumphators, the notion that all non-nobles belonged to a single monolithic category of ‘new men’ is of course implausible. The range and diversity of non-consular families render a binary division of the elite into nobiles and novi unworkable. …
… [A] survey of the composition of office holding families that aims to reflect the diversity of backgrounds, will have to operate with – at least – three categories, rather than the usual two: ‘new’, ‘senatorial’ and ‘noble’. …
It may be helpful briefly to outline the quantitative relationship between the different strata within the senate, which can be roughly calculated by combining the number of offices with an estimate of the life expectancy of new senators at their time of entry.
[MH: Unfortunately inclusion of the quantitative paragraphs would exceed our email length, so we make do with a little of the discussion in the remainder of chapter 14.]
… What emerges from this brief survey is thus a senatorial class that was internally structured along strictly hierarchical lines, with a small number of ‘noble’ families entirely dominating the higher echelons. They provided almost all consulars, well over half of the praetorii, while among the lower ranks of the tribunicii and quaestorii, who constituted the large majority of senators, less than a third may have claimed that distinction. It follows that at any given moment the nobles would have been substantially outnumbered by non-nobles, or put differently, they represented just a minority of the senatorial class, which was itself just a minority of the wider Roman elite of viri boni.
If we look at the office holding of individual families, no clear patterns emerge, which suggests that the selection process contained a distinct element of chance. Historians have long noted the unpredictable nature of Roman elections, which apparently defied accurate forecasting even by seasoned political observers. That was, as noted earlier, entirely intentional since the electoral system was deliberately designed to randomise the results as far as possible. Nevertheless, the elections consistently produced outcomes, especially for the higher offices, that conformed to expectations as each year members of the same few families would be appointed.
The almost mechanical regularity with which they succeeded each other into office takes us back to our opening question; for how did the nobles manage to maintain an effective monopoly on executive power when at the same time our sources indicate widespread unease about the leadership they provided? Or, put differently, why did the boni vote for a political class in which they appear to have had little confidence?
How the Roman nobility retained their position must ultimately remain a matter of conjecture; still, there is no indication these families collectively exercised any direct or controlling influence over the electoral process. Although they may appear as a single body in our sources … they never formed a unified or cohesive ‘power block’. Internally the nobiles were riven by longstanding rivalries which were regularly exposed and aggravated at ever more competitive annual elections. And their hold over the assemblies seems to have been shaky at best, often leaving them powerless to prevent unwanted results. Their inability to enforce their will, even when forming a united front … suggests the absence of any ‘controlling hand’ behind electoral outcomes.
Roman voters [the elite vote was structurally dominant: see footnote above] show few signs of being cowed or directed by the nobles, whose wishes were regularly ignored. For example, in the 60s they repeatedly granted Pompey his extraordinary commands in defiance of concerted opposition from leading senators whose warnings about his powers fell on deaf ears. The electorate’s freedom to vote as they pleased and choose whom they wanted … makes their habit of returning members of the same small circle at virtually every election so much more intriguing.
Over the years a number of theories have been advanced to solve this paradox. Traditionally the power of the nobles was explained by the so-called clientela model, which assumed that tight networks of social control and dependency extended across the citizen body and effectively reduced the elections to a contest between a few noble families each commanding veritable armies of personally tied voters. As it has since become clear, there is little evidence for permanent clientelistic structures of this kind, which would also be difficult to reconcile to the voting and campaigning patterns we can observe in this period. Patronage and personal bonds of obligation were undoubtedly fundamental to the functioning of Roman society, but they did not translate into stable political networks and neither did they necessarily encompass large sections of the population. Not only would these have been practically unenforceable, but there would also have been frequent clashes of interest as clients were faced with multiple, conflicting obligations.
Roman politics required deep pockets in the late republic as voter payment became increasingly common and the cost of public entertainment and other forms of largitio grew to unsustainable levels. However, the mounting cost of politics does not explain the dominance of the nobles, for while these families evidently enjoyed considerable wealth and often drew on profitable personal connections, many of them were not among the richest in Rome. The most prominent equites could easily challenge them for that position, especially the affluent publicani. So, while money may have tipped the scale at individual elections, it did not account for the collective ascendancy of the nobles. The rise in political spending during the late republic was a consequence of growing competition among the nobles themselves rather than a response to increased pressures from new men and other outsiders. …
… Even when voters were presented with a choice between ‘old’ and ‘new’ … they usually picked a familiar noble name. As Cicero notes in the Pro Sestio, the boni always favour the nobilitas. Again, their motives for doing so can only be conjectured, but the origins and historical character of the nobilitas undoubtedly played a part. The claims of the nobility were, like those of most other aristocracies, based on ancestry … Superficially this may resemble later forms of ennoblement through royal prerogative by which an individual and his descendants receive lasting titles and privileges that are ultimately rooted in the (divinely sanctioned) power of the monarch. In Rome it was the populus, bestowing public honores in the comitia, that played the role of the sovereign. But since the implied ‘ennoblement’ of descendants was informal, it depended on a particular interpretation of the election as an act that carried implications reaching beyond the individual in question and affecting the status of future generations. …
… The ideology underpinning the concept of nobilitas [as presented by Cicero] implies that great virtues and deeds confer a duty onto the next generation, which is invested with a higher calling than the rest of Rome’s citizens. Precisely how these values and ideals were supposed to be inculcated is left vague, probably deliberately so. …
… The concept of noble obligation also worked the other way around, since the populus in as sense became indebted towards the current nobility for past services rendered by their ancestors. …
… From a structural point of view, the Roman nobility acted as an ‘executive’ class of families which led the country into war – and reaped the rewards of their success. Still, that does not make them a ‘ruling class’ in a conventional sense. The nobility at any time occupied their elevated position on sufferance of the propertied classes, which distributed public honores and allocated formal powers amongst them.
Occasionally the consent and co-operation of the boni were suspended, and while such instances may have been rare, they reveal the basic nature of their relationship. Rome’s governing class, although small in numbers and relatively exclusive in its composition, thus remained firmly embedded within a much broader elite that retained control over access to much-coveted positions of authority; these in turn would be dispensed on the expectation that magistrates acted in the collective interest of the entire elite. As Cicero declared in the De re publica, the optimates are entrusted with the care of the common otium and it is their duty to protect it. …
… For Roman voters to turn their back on … tradition and abandon the shared past they embodied, would require a deliberate ‘unthinking’ of Rome’s political and historical identity. In addition, it would have meant embarking on a new and untried system of government, a proposition so radical that few would have considered it. So, whatever their misgivings about the current nobles, there are no signs that the boni ever explored alternative ways of organising political power. Each year the competition therefore followed a predictable pattern, by which the field of candidates would narrow down to a handful of nobiles among whom the new consuls would be found. … [almost the END of Chapter 14. The book consists of 17 chapters.]
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