The Solonian Constitution and a Consul of A.D. 149 Oliver, James H Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1972; 13, 1; ProQuest pg. 99 The Solonian Constitution and a Consul of A.D. 149 James H. Oliver W ITH APOLOGY for the bizarre title the writer presents two studies which need not have any connection and then again may be more significant when read together. There may be a close connection. The fact that the Areopagus and the Demos of the Athenians honored in a rather unusual manner their distinguished Roman friend indicates that this and the boon of initia­ tion for his sons were expressions of gratitude for services rendered. That is to say, he came to Athens for a public rather than a private and selfish purpose, or he worked somewhere for Athens and his sons came without him. Military and Political Units Called Gene in Archaic and Roman Athens In (Etruscan, pre-Servian) Rome the creation of thirty curiael marked the introduction of a new military system to produce a total levy of 3,000 men from a larger number of adsidui. In Athens a reform of the YEvy], as the writer once argued, or the creation of a new system of YEvy], as he would now argue alternatively, occurred in the archaic period in order to provide a total levy of 10,800 men from the families of modest (or more) wealth. The Lexicon Demosthenicum Patmium, s.v. y€vvfjTat, offers fragment 3 of Aristotle's Constitution of Athens. This fragment, which, I think, implies that the military companies called YEVY] were, like the curiae of Etruscan (and later) Rome, thirty in number, not three-hundred and sixty, reads as follows: CPVACtc O€ aVTWV CVVV€v€f-tfjc8at 0' s:- - TOJI JLTJJlct. TO OE 'YEJlOC ELJlctt TPtctKOJITct ctJlOPWJI. Adapting the translation by von Fritz and Kapp,2 I should render Aristotle's indirect discourse as follows: "that they were distributed into four tribes in imitation of the seasons of the year, and that each of the tribes was divided into three parts so that there would be alto­ gether twelve parts like the months in the year, and that they were called 'trittyes' or 'phratries', and that levies for thirty clans were im­ posed on the phratry like the days in the month, and that the clan quota (of the phratry) consisted of thirty men." As von Fritz and Kapp note, "Aristotle was not concerned with the 'YEwfjTctt, but with the alleged analogy of the numbers of tribes, trittyes and clans with the numbers of seasons, months and days respectively ... and ... was probably quoting other people." The inventor, like Cleisthenes, used an old word for something new. The' clans' cut across the old division into tribes and phratries, as later the tribes of Cleisthenes cut across the regions of Attica. The phratries were equalized for the levy by adding or, at a later date, shifting 0PYEWJlEC (Philochorus, FGrHist 328 F 35a Jacoby). Plutarch, Pericles 12.5, quotes Pericles as contrasting TaJl aCVJlTctKTOJl Kctt fJaJlctvco JlOXAOJl with the men who served in the army and navy. The scholia which cite Aristotle, Ath.Pol. fr.3, say that TOVC Elc Ta 'YEJIT} TETct'Y/LEJlOVC (men) call 'YE~TctC. There was a distinction between 'YEwfjTctt (roughly those eligible or once eligible for military service as hoplites before Cleisthenes) and the aCVJlTaKTOC 0XAOC, which must not be confused with a distinction between nobles and commoners. It might better be described as the difference between the descendants of those with and without visible property of a certain value. The systems of thirty curiae at Rome and of thirty 'YEJIT} at Athens began as military organizations and served as political organizations. There was also a religious aspect, inseparable in the archaic city. Was the organization of the levy at Sparta so very different? A need for two armies, one for service abroad, came with the conquest of Messenia. Was the levy based on three kinship groups called c/>vAat 2 K. v. FritZ/E. Kapp,Aristctle's Constitution of Athens and Related Texts (The Hafner Library of Classics 13, New York 1950) zosf. JAMES H. OLIVER 101 and five territorial groups called wf3a{ to form two armies of fifteen units each? And did not the thirty trittyes of Cleisthenes make the superseding of the thirty clans seem less drastic in a military re­ organization of Attica? Cleisthenes did not touch the phratries, but he admitted the acvvra/(TOC OXIl.OC of native Athenians to ten new tribes by enrolling them in demes. The political and military organization of Athens was altered to fit the ten tribes. In later periods other tribes were added to the Cleisthenean tribes so that there were twelve or thirteen of them. The number of these Cleisthenean and post-Cleisthenean tribes was not as sacred as the basic Solonian constitution itself, which reflected a compromise between rich and poor, noble and commoner. The essential elements were two anchors3 (namely an elite council and a popular council) and an assembly of the Demos. The clans never re­ covered their military significance, but their religious significance always remained, and their old political potential, lost for generations, was not forgotten. During reactions against failures of an extreme democracy citizens below a certain census requirement were occasionally stricken from the rolls, but the old clans are never mentioned in connection with these reductions in the number of first-class citizens. The oligarchic ideal, at least in the fourth century, found its most meaningful cri­ terion in a property qualification. After Sulla's capture of Athens an oligarchical constitution was established in a version which doubtless placed power in the hands of the Areopagus and included certain property requirements, but an openly oligarchical constitution could not have lasted very long, once the reaction against the Sullan reforms occurred at Rome. In 70 B.C. with the humiliation of the Senate and re­ establishment of the tribunes' importance things happened at Rome which would have frightened the oligarchs of Athens and disposed them to conciliate the common people of Athens by a display of de­ mocracy. I think that the Areopagus had to take action and restore the old democratic institutions, at least in a selective or superficial man­ ner, and that they did so in a decree now carefully published by D. J. Geagan, Hesperia 40 (1971) 101-08, under the heading, "A Law Code of 3 The author's views on the historicity of the Council of the Four Hundred and on the place of Solon and Cleisthenes in the history of the Athenian constitution have been pre­ sented in Marcus Aurelius, Aspects of Civic and Cultural Policy in the East (= Hesperia Suppl. 13 [1970]) 63. On the number of clans, however, he has altered his view. 102 SOLONIAN CONSTITUTION AND CONSUL OF A.D. 149 the First Century B.C." It returns to sortition and looks to the totality of Athenians. In other words, it is democratic. My date for that code is 70/69 B.C. (with a prytany secretary from Antiochis). A generation later we find a new interest in the old clans with con­ sultation of the oracle at Delphi lending religious support.~ Then around 23 B.C. the archon of the clan of the Amynandridae put up a list of members in a way to prove that the Amynandridae were drawn equally from all the twelve Cleisthenean and post-Cleisthen­ ean tribes5 as the military clans of the sixth century were drawn (according to my interpretation) from all the twelve phratries. The phratries and the four old Ionian tribes are not attested in Roman Athens. In the second century after Christ the community of the Athenians enrolled in tribes and clans seems to have been a smaller community than that of the Athenians enrolled in tribes and demes. On religious occasions the tribes and clans came into their own. At least Phil os­ tratus, VS 2.1.3 (p.57 Kayser), reports that Claudius Atticus frequently sacrificed a hecatomb to Athena and entertained the demos by tribes and clans, while Aelius Aristides in the Panathenaic 261 speaks of the demos as being divided by Apollo into tribes and clans. In IG II2 1077 for Geta's elevation the Athenians were to lh~[€,]v 1Ta[v]y€v€t. The constitution of Athens was overhauled and the laws of Draco and Solon, as it was called, were redrafted professionally in the Hadrianic period, though the publication of some sections may have occurred under Antoninus Pius. It probably took a long while, and certain areas may have been under study during the reigns of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius6 and even Marcus Aurelius. 4 An inscription of ca. 37/6 B.C., published by B. D. Meritt, Hesperia 9 (1940) 86-96, no.17, attests the consultation. See also Inscriptions de Delos 251~2518 and 1624 bis. S IG II' 2338. See also]. H. Oliver, The Civilizing Power: A Study of the Panathenaic Discourse of Aeiius Aristides ... with Text (= TransAmPhilosSoc 58 [1968] 1) 22f. The fragmentary catalogue originally listed about a hundred names. If there were thirty clans, the total of all thirty came to about 3,000, a likely number of first-class citizens. 6 For the interest of Antoninus Pius in Athens see P. Graindor, "Antonin Ie Pieux et Athenes," Revue beige de philologie et d'histoire 6 (1927) 753-56, IG III 3390-3397, CIL III 549, and L. Moretti, Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae I (Rome 1968) no.27=IG XIV 1053. See also the edition of IG II' 1104 by Edward W. Bodnar, S.]. Cyriacus of Ancona and Athens (Collec­ tion Latomus XLIII [Brussels 1960]) 145-50, no.50. For the affection that Antoninus Pius felt toward Herodes Atticus, who more or less dominated Athens in this period, see IG XIV 1392=SlG3 858. JAMES H. OLIVER 103 Above all the prytany system worked badly with its annually shift­ ing Council of the Five Hundred chosen in the demes of the thirteen tribes. It was harder to find rich men who would bear the burdens, especially in the third century. After the capture of Athens by the Herulians in 267 the whole superstructure, which went back in some sense to Cleisthenes, was abandoned once and for all. 7 The Solonian constitution with its two anchors and assembly survived, but we never hear of the Cleisthenean tribes again. The popular council was no longer the Council of the Five Hundred but a council divisible by thirty, at first a Council of Seven Hundred and Fifty (IG II2 3669, A.D. 269/70), then a Council of Three Hundred (IG 112 3716 and 4222, fin. saee. IV).8 The clans had probably become the basis of Athenian political life. Clan quotas rather than tribal quotas determined the size and character of the Council. Clan lists may have been connected with taxable real estate ever since the reform of the first century B.C. L. Sergius Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus, a New Curio Maximus IG 112 4213 at Eleusis has just been reedited with new fragments by Kevin Clinton, ArchEph 1971, 133-34, as the inscription across the curved wall or large base supporting three statues. It has, he points out, the kind of lettering which occurs on a securely dated inscription, also at Eleusis, from the period A.D. 145-161. Prosopographical prob­ lems arise that concern three old patrician families and invalidate part of the stemma offered by Groag, PIR2 2, table opposite p.54. In fact, it raises doubt about the article on a Scipio Orfitus in PIR2 C 1447, wherein two men are perhaps conflated, L. Sergius Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus and Ser(vius) Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus. L. Sergius Scipio Orfitus, consul of A.D. 149, known from IG XII 3, 325= SIG3 852 at Thera (A. £epyl<[J £KeL1rlwvL 'Opcpl-r<[J, K. £ocd<[J llpe{cK<[J V1TeX-rOLC) appears also in CIL VI 644= ILS 3537 and in IGR 111705 at Cyanae in Lycia Pamphylia: €1Tt tJ1TeX-rwv £a>..f3L8TJvov £Kt1T{WVOC 'Opcpt-rov Kat Eocdov npetcKov. His name, therefore, was L. Sergius 7 H. A. Thompson, "Athenian Twilight," jRS 49 (1959) 61-72. 8 D. J. Geagan, The Athenian Constitution after Sulla (Hesperia Supp!. 12 [1967]), has col­ lected and sifted the abundant epigraphical evidence. On the prytany system see S. Dow, Prytaneis (Hesperia Supp!. 1 [1937]). 104 SOLONIAN CONSTITUTION AND CONSUL OF A.D. 149 Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus, but whether the elements L. Sergius came into his name through an adoption or from his natural father and whether the elements Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus came into his name from his mother's family or from that of his natural father are unknown. Some connection with the Cornelii surely existed, and his son, to judge from the names of his freedmen (as we shall see), received the praenomen Ser(vius) of the Cornelii Scipiones Orfiti. Since L. Sergius Salvidienus Scipio Orfitus belongs to the gens of the Sergii, he cannot be identified with the proconsul of Africa of A.D. 163/4, Ser. Cornelius Scipio Salvidienus Orfitus (Cagnat-Merlin, Inscr. d' Afr. 80 and ITR 232),9 whose praenomen was Ser(vius) like that of the proconsul of Africa under Nero, Ser. Cornelius Ser. f. Lem(onia tribu) Orfitus in ITR 341 at Lepcis. The Sergii were an old patrician family, and L. Sergius Plautus was a salius Palatinus in the time of Augustus. The fact deserves attention, because in priestly colleges like the saW Palatini the same families tend to be represented from generation to generation. They were still important. L. Sergius Paullus for instance became consul for the second time in 168. The new edition of IG II2 4213 by Kevin Clinton shows a first line in large letters across the inscribed surface: 'H 'c ['A' , {1 \ \ \. '" ~ • 'AB '] E~ ptEtOV 7Tayov OVI\Tj Kat 0 OTjl-'OC 0 TjvaLW v Below line 1 come three citations side by side. The first, A, reads as follows: EEpytOV [EaA{1L8LTjVOV EKEL] 3 ~[l]wva "Op[c/JL'TOV tma'Tov, KOV] [pl]wva fLEY[ tC'TOV • PWfLalwv ], [&]pE'T7JC K~[~ Evvolac €VEKa] In lines 2-3 Clinton restored [Ko:A7TOVPVLOV EKEt]I7T[t]wva "Op[c/>L'TOV, and the last two names are, though not obvious, quite certain. For 4-5 he suggested something like fLEy[aAOIfvxLac Kat I &]pE'T7JC Kart EvvoLac EVEKEV, but did not put it into the text. Titles seem to follow the 9 The identification of the consul of 149 with the proconsul of 163/4 received the support of E. Groag, PIR2 C 1447. It was not challenged by R. Syme, "Proconsuls d'Afrique sous Antonin Ie Pieux," REA 61 (1959) 31B, H.-G. Pflaum, MemAcInscr 15.2 (1967) 153, B. E. Thomasson, "Praesides provinciarum Africae," Skrifter utgivruz av $venska Institutet i Rom, 4° 30 (1969) 172, or apparently by anyone else. See also Annie epigraphique 1966, no.1B. JAMES H. OLIVER 105 name, first v1TaTov, which often means consularis (there is not enough room for (maTtI