DISCOVHUY 



261 



New Light on Old 

 Authors 



III. The Proscription of 43 B.C. 

 By R. S. Conway, Litt.D., F.B.A. 



Iliilnie fr.i/cs.vor ()/ I.tilin in lite Universilij of Maiiclicsler 



Most of us have, at some time or other, read 

 Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar. But one scene in it, 

 which is grim enough when its meaning comes home to 

 us, is apt to pass away quickly from the memory, 

 because it is rather isolated where it stands in the play. 

 I mean the few lines in Act IV in which Antony, 

 Octavius, and Lepidus confer as to the " Proscription." 



Ant. These many, then, shall die ; their names are 



pricked. 

 Od. Your brother too must die ; consent you, 



I.rpidus ? 

 Lcp. I do consent — 

 Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 

 Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live, 



\\Tio is your sister's son, Mark Antony. 

 Ant. He shall not live ; look, with a spot I damn 



him. 



The object of this paper is to sketch some aspects 

 of life in Italy during that reign of terror, partly by the 

 help of an inscription which was anciently engraved on 

 marble at Rome, and of which an important part has 

 been recently discovered. 



Several large fragments of marble containing what 

 appears to be the eulogy of a husband upon his wife 

 had long been known ' in Rome, although unluckily 

 only two of the fragments themselves are preserved, 

 the rest being known to us only from copies made after 

 their first discovery. But in iSg8 another fragment 

 was found, the contents of which clearly showed that 

 they belonged to the same monument. The inscription 

 is an authentic piece of Roman literature unique in its 

 kind. The style of the writing and the contents alike 

 make it certain that it was set up in the time of 

 Augustus ; but the whole offered a kind of historical 

 missing-word puzzle, because the first few lines, which 

 no doubt contained the names of the people whom it 

 concerned, were broken away and lost, so that the 

 inscription was (and is) like a' dog that has eaten his 

 label ; we could not tell to whom it was to be ascribed. 

 No part of the surviving fragments gives us either the 

 name of the husband or the name of the wife he mourns, 

 though they tell us a great deal else about them. Now, 

 the historian Appian, who wrote in Greek in the second 

 century a.d., included in Book IV of his History of the 



' Corp. Inscc. Lai., vi. 1527 and 31670. 



Civil Wars ° some details of the Proscription in 43 B.C., 

 and scholars have been able to pick out from these 

 a particular Roman noble called Ouintus Lucretius 

 Vispullo, whose story tallies with that of the monument. 

 The same story is recorded more briefly by Valerius 

 Maximus,' who gives the wife's name as Turia. 



Vispullo, then, it was who engraved on marble, at 

 what must have been great cost, a biography of the 

 wife with whom he had lived, as he tells us, for forty- 

 one years, and thanks to whom he had escaped the 

 deadly peril of having been put upon the list of the 

 proscribed. But before we turn to Turia herself, we 

 must try to form some conception of what the Pro- 

 scription actually was. 



After the murder of Julius Ca;sar on the " Ides of 

 March " 44 B.C., Mark Antony seized on all his papers 

 and property ; and by his eloquent speech to the people 

 drove Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators 

 to what amounted to exile in Asia Minor, while he de- 

 parted to govern (and tax) the provinces of Gaul. The 

 Senate hesitated, but at length, roused by Cicero and 

 supported by Octavian, Ciesar's heir, a youth of nine- 

 teen who as yet held no political office, decided that they 

 must resist Antony's pretensions. Accordingly the 

 two Consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, with Octavian, raised 

 an army and defeated Antony at Mutina (now Modena), 

 in April 43 B.C. ; but Hirtius and Pansa fell in the battle, 

 and Antony and C)ctavian at once made terms with one 

 another and with Lepidus, another general with an 

 army in the North. One of the conditions on which 

 their compact was formed, a compact which we 

 generally call the Second Triumvirate, was the 

 " Proscription," by which each secured the death, and 

 the confiscation of all the property, of his particular 

 enemies. This list was agreed upon by Antony, 

 Lepidus, and Octavian, at two long sittings, Octavian 

 having at first resisted Antony's demand for the death 

 of Cicero, with whom he, Octavian, had been in most 

 friendly relations since C?esar's death. However, 

 Octavian gave way, and the Triumvirs marched to 

 Rome at the head of their armies and proclaimed 

 peace ; but the first act of the peace was to set up a 

 list of persons — ver\' few of whom had taken part in 

 the Civil Wars or in politics, but all of whom were 

 ^^■ealthy — who were to be hunted to death like beasts. 

 The actual words of this document have been 

 preserved by Appian, and are worth translating here : 



" We, Marcus Lepidus, Marcus .\ntonius, and Octavius 

 Csesar, having been elected to bring into harmony and order 

 the affairs of the Republic, make tlie following proclama- 

 tion. But for the treachery with which disloyal citizens, 

 who had obtained mercy when they prayed for it. never- 



- This book is now included in the Loeb series of translations. 



' In Book VI. 72 of his collection of " Memorable Deeds and 

 Words," dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius (a.d. 14-37). 



