Grice e Scevola

 Our concern is with the debate in the senate on the hostis declaration proposed by

Sulla, who presumably presided over the meeting in his capacity as consul and framed and put the relatio. Valerius Maximus gives a graphic description of

Q. Scaevola's part in the proceedings. Sulla coerced the senate into adjudging Marius a hostis. No one ventured to oppose him except Scaevola who, on being asked for his opinion, refused to say anything. When Sulla began pressing him ever more men-acingly he said, 'You can make a display of the troops whom you have thrown around the Curia, you can threaten me with death as often as you like, but you will never force me, old and weak as I am, to adjudge Marius, the saviour of Rome and

Italy, a hostis.' - Sulla ... senatum armatus coegerat ac summa cupiditate ferebatur ut C. Marius quam celerrime hostis iudicaretur. cuius voluntati nullo obviam ire audente solus Scaevola de hac re interrogatus sententiam dicere noluit. quin etiam truculentius sibi instanti Sullae 'licet' inquit 'mihi agmina militum, quibus curiam circumsedisti, ostentes, licet mortem identidem miniteris, numquam tamen efficies ut propter exiguum senilemque sanguinem meum Marium, a quo urbs et Italia conservata est, hostem iudicem.'261

Scaevola was making two points. The first, and more obvious, was a declaration of friendship for Marius and a reminder to his audience that they were dealing with the man who had saved Italy from the Cimbri. The statement that Scaevola stood alone against Sulla may be an exaggeration, but other names are hard to come by. 262 The one that we should most like to know about is Q. Scaevola (Pontifex), but that will be dealt with in its place. At this point we merely note the highly relevant fact that of the ten known names on Sulla's list, no less than five are of non-Roman origin, 263 thus confirming that the focal point of the crisis was the rights of new citizens. It can be inferred that the Augur stood with Marius on that issue; where the Pontifex stood remains to be seen. No one else comes into the reckoning: L. Crassus was dead; and M'. Acilius Glabrio, the Augur's grandson and future president of the

court which tried Verres, was too young. 264

The other point made by Scaevola was a point of law. It depends on the words, Scaevola de hac re interrogatus sententiam dicere noluit. The words mean exactly what they say - 'Scaevola, being asked about this matter, refused to express an opinion.' Valerius Maximus is telling us that Scaevola did not vote for or against themotion, he refused to vote at all. The reason was that as he saw it, the clause in

C. Gracchus' law ne de capite civium iniussu vestro (sc. populi) indicaretur meant that any capital adjudication on a citizen without the authority of the people was prohibited, irrespective of whether it was a vote for condemnation or for acquittal.

This may not have been the intention of the framers of the hostis declaration, for the theory behind that decree was that the hostis had forfeited his citizenship retroactively to the time of his treasonable act, but once there was talk of adjudication - hostis indicaretur, hostem iudicem - then in Scaevola's view there was a real danger of the lex Sempronia being contravened. He was not alone in this view, for Cicero observed that a number of Populares had stayed away from the Catilinarian debate for the same reason as that which prompted Scaevola to abstain from voting: video de istis qui se popularis haberi volunt abesse non neminem, ne de capite videlicet civium Romanorum sententiam ferat.265 Q. Scaevola was the first to detect this difficulty, and he did so extempore, the moment the very first hostis declaration was proposed. It is clear that he had this area of public law at his fingertips, and our confidence in his ability to have assisted Marius with the special wording of the s. c. ultimum of 100 is greatly increased.

Was there anything else that Scaevola could have done to block Sulla's relatio? In particular, could he have used his office as an augur for which he was so famous that it was almost a cognomen?266 The obvious way would have been by announcing auspices unfavourable to the convention of the senate, but the question is whether that body's sessions needed the taking of auspices. In Mommsen's opinion auspicatio was required, but in historical times it was carried out by haruspices and pullari and the augurs were only called in where there was some doubt. 267 There is no record of acts of signal bravery by haruspices or pullarii in 88, and it must be concluded that Scaevola was not able to function officially in the matter. There is, however, a broader issue, and that is whether his augural skills were ever enlisted on behalf of his friend Marius. The reason for raising this is that his grandson, the

Q. Scaevola who was tribune of the plebs in 54, was an augur, was consulted by Caesar in 49 on whether a praetor could conduct consular elections, and undoubtedly ruled that he could. 268 Caesar's uncle may have needed augural assistance in another matter connected with the consulship, namely his election for a second term and in absentia in 105,26 and the Augur could have done some research then whichnot only helped Marius but laid the foundation for a favourable ruling for Caesar.

For all we know, Caesar might have consulted the grandson on Bibulus' obstructive tactics in 59270; there will have been much material reflecting the Augur's views in the family archives.