While a man convicted of defiling a Vestal virgin was beaten to death (Fest. 277 L), it is notable that Vestal virgins were occasionally convicted of unchastity without the identification of a male accomplice (Parker 581, cf. Livy 4.44 and Livy 28.6). This calls into question whether a trial for unchastity was centred on the genuine establishment of fact and has led some scholars – particularly René Girard in Violence and the Sacred – to argue that the persecution of a Vestal virgin may have served a ritual function for the Roman people, providing expiatory relief in times of crisis.
February 2016
immensae altitudinis (3.3)
While its exact location is still a mystery, Lucan’s cursory mention of the Tarpeian rock along with his description of the Temple of Saturn (Phars. III,154) has led some to identify it with the cliff that overlooks the modern-day Piazza della Consolazione at the south-west corner of the Capitoline. The height of the cliff is 60 feet, although it may have been greater in ancient times, when the rock face would have continued down past the current level of the road. A Google Maps view of the site can be found here.
de iudicibus (3.2)
Because the unchastity of a Vestal virgin was a crime against the gods, her case was judged by the pontifical college rather than the Comitia Curiata, which usually presided over criminal trials (Cic. Leg. 2, 9, 22). The collegium pontificum consisted of a rex sacrorum, multiple flamines, multiple pontifices minores, and a single governing pontifex maximus. A body of great power and prestige, the college exercised ultimate jurisdiction over all matters of religion. By performing public rituals, establishing rules for private worship, and administering religious law, it acted as an intermediary between the Romans and their gods.
Vibius Gallus
Vibius Gallus
He was born in Perugia; Seneca made fun of him for almost singing cues that he was about to begin describing something. He says that he would sing out “I want to describe love” as if he were saying “I want to have an orgy.” (Contr 2.1.26). He says that he cultivated insania deliberately as he thought it helped him declaim.
Pompeius Silo
Pompeius Silo
Although he is frequently cited by Seneca we know little about him. His name suggests he is not from Italy and he may come from Narbo or Spain (in the latter country the cognomen Silo is attested in a number of inscriptions). The family were clearly originally clients of Pompey the Great; the consul M. Larcius Magnus Pompeius Silo, who held the office under Domitian, may have been one of his descendants.
Cornelius Romanus Hispo
Cornelius Romanus Hispo
He was a notorious prosecutor , who is mentioned by Tacitus (Annals 1.74.1-5) as an aide to Caepio Crispinus, who prosecuted Granius Marcellus, governor of Bithynia for treason under Tiberius (Tiberius ultimately dismissed the charger). Hispo went on to be an influential minister under Tiberius.
Cornelius Hispanus
Cornelius Hispanus
We only know of this orator via Seneca, who cites him extensively but does not give any details of his background; however, given his name he is clearly a Spaniard. Although a good speaker and precise in points of law, he was often obscure and too subtle an arguer, hence Seneca places him in the second rank of declaimers.
Argentarius
Argentarius
A Greek rhetor and native Greek speaker, he declaimed in Latin when at Rome. He should perhaps be identified with the Greek poet Marcus Argentarius who is represented in the Palatine Anthology by 37 epigrams. Seneca’s nephew the poet Lucan married a woman named Argentaria Polla, who may be his granddaughter: she was very learned. Despite the fact that he was Cestius Pius’ pupil, he and Cestius hated each other: he used to swear by the manes of Cestius while Cestius was still very much living and Cestius called him his monkey (Contr. 9.3.12).
Iulus Bassus
Iulius Bassus
An Augustan declaimer, who also declaimed under Tiberius. He was a rival of Fulvius Sparsus (Contr 10 Praef 10). Seneca did not approve of some of his expressions, and called them sordidus. It is possible that he is the iambic poet Bassus addressed by Propertius in Elegies 1.4; this poet was also a friend of Ovid.
Albucius Silus
Albucius Silus
Augustan rhetorician from Novaria in Cisalpine Gaul. Seneca the Elder considered him one of the top four declaimers he had seen, and describes him in the preface to Controversia 7. He studied as an older man in the school of Gaius Papirius Fabianus, under whom Seneca’s son Seneca the Younger also studied. Suetonius in his On Grammarians and Rhetoricians 6 has this biographical sketch:
Gaius Albucius Silus of Novaria, while he was holding the office of aedile in his native town and chanced to be sitting in judgment, was dragged by the feet from the tribunal by those against whom he was rendering a decision. Indignant at this, he at once made for the gate and went off to Rome. There he was admitted to the house of the orator Plancus, who had the habit, when he was going to declaim, of calling upon someone to speak before him. Albucius undertook that rôle, and filled it so effectively that he reduced Plancus to silence, since he did not venture to enter into competition. But when Albucius had thus become famous, he opened a lecture room of his own, where it was his habit after proposing a subject for a debate, to begin to speak from his seat, and then as he warmed up, to rise and make his peroration on his feet. He declaimed, too, in various manners, now in a brilliant and ornate style, and at another time, not to be thought invariably academic, speaking briefly, in everyday language and all but that of the streets. He also pleaded causes, but rather seldom, taking part only in those of greatest importance, and even then confining himself to summing them up. Later he withdrew from the Forum, partly through shame and partly through fear. For in a case before the Hundred [an ancient tribunal] he had offered his opponent, whom he was inveighing against as undutiful towards his parents, the privilege of taking oath but merely as a figure of speech, using the following language: "Swear by the ashes of your father and mother, who lie unburied"; and made other remarks in the same vein. His opponent accepted the challenge; and since the judges made no objection, Albucius lost his case to his great humiliation. Again, when he was defending a client in a murder trial at Mediolanum before the proconsul Lucius Piso, and the lictors tried to suppress the immoderate applause, he grew so angry, that lamenting the condition of Italy and saying that "it was being reduced once more to the form of a province," he called besides upon Marcus Brutus whose statue was in sight, as "the founder and defender of our laws and liberties"; and for that he narrowly escaped punishment. When already well on in years, he returned to Novara because he was suffering from a tumour, called the people together and explained in a long set speech the reasons which led him to take his life, and then starved himself to death.