Andrew GALLIA
Greek Tyrants and Roman Anxieties in Dionysius of
Halicarnassus
In a famous digression in his Roman Antiquities
(7.2-11), Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells the story
of Aristodemus Malacus, tyrant of Cumae in the late Sixth
and early Fifth Centuries BC. Scholars have tended to
focus on the possible sources of this passage, in hopes
of establishing its value as evidence for the history of
pre-Roman Italy. This paper seeks to provide a new
perspective to this typically sterile discussion of
Dionysian Quellenforschung. It begins by
considering two questions that previous scholarship has
failed to take seriously: the role of the Cumaean
digression within the broader context of the early Roman
history that Dionysius is relating, and the ways in which
he (or his source) may have adapted the Aristodemus
anecdote to suit that purpose.
I argue that Dionysius's portrait of Cumaean politics
stands in deliberate contrast to the unique stasis
between patricians and plebeians that is playing out at
Rome. Dionysius explicitly states that the Romans'
ability to resolve this conflict peacefully through
political compromise was what made their city great, and
that their success in this regard sets them apart from
the experience of other Greek poleis, such as
Corcyra (7.66). As Dionysius presents events, this Roman
exceptionalism depended upon the moral character of the
individual actors involved. The moderation of senators
like Menenius Agrippa and M'. Valerius kept the state
together in the face of the divisive arrogance of Appius
Claudius and Coriolanus. Meanwhile, the tyranny at Cumae
was brought about by the unchecked hostility of the local
aristocracy, coupled with Aristodemus's own ambitious
nature. In its context within the Roman
Antiquities, this digression on Cumaean political
developments serves to underscore what is at stake in the
elaborate debates about concordia presented in the
main narrative.
Once this connection has been established, we can
return to the question of sources. The history of
Aristodemus's tyranny was not entirely unfamiliar to
other writers on Rome's early history. It is possible
that the lessons of what happened at Cumae were already
part of the wider historical tradition about the conflict
of the orders before Dionysius. That this was the case is
suggested by the presence of what seem to be uniquely
Roman ideas about tyranny in Dionysius's description of
Aristodemus's rise to power. While it was not uncommon
for Greek tyrants to be associated with the interests of
the dispossessed, Aristodemus's demagoguery has a
distinctively Gracchan flavor. Similarly, the manner in
which he seizes sole power is reminiscent of late
Republican anxieties about those who desired
regnum
If
this analysis holds, then Dionysius's account of the life
of Aristodemus Malacus should not be regarded as a
straightforward retelling of local ( i.e., non-Roman)
tradition, mediated by a Third-century Greek historian,
as argued by Alföldi, et al. As with the rest
of his presentation of the first conflict of the orders,
the author's portrait of Aristodemus overlays his own
Greek aristocratic viewpoint onto distinctively Roman
political concerns already inherent to the tradition.
Abstracts
Index