BMCR 2009.07.37: Luke on Lobur, Consensus, Concordia, and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology. Studies in Classics

John Alexander Lobur, Consensus, Concordia, and the Formation of Roman
Imperial Ideology. Studies in Classics.  New York/London:  Routledge,
2008.  Pp. xiii, 322.  ISBN 978-0-415-97788-3.  $100.00.

Reviewed by Trevor Stacy Luke, Florida State University ([email protected])
Word count:  1818 words
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John Lobur's book appears in the Routledge series Studies in Classics,
edited by Dirk Obbink and Andrew Dyck, "which aims to bring
high-quality work by emerging scholars to the attention of a wider
audience."[[1]] Like other books in the series, it is a revised version
of the author's dissertation. Lobur's discussion of the early formation
of the imperial ideology of consensus at Rome complements Ando's
earlier work on ideology and the ritual and communicative acts through
which empire-wide consensus for Roman rule emerged.[[2]] Lobur's work
seeks to demonstrate how a Roman imperial ideology of consensus emerged
organically and as a community project through the struggles of the end
of the Republic and to illustrate through the works of several imperial
authors how ongoing dialogues on the nature of Roman virtue and the
history of the Late Republic continued to shape and legitimize the
Principate.

Lobur begins his examination of early imperial ideology with a welcome
discussion of the concept of ideology and its applicability to the
interpretation of ancient societies.[[3]] Lobur improves on Eich's view
of Augustan ideology wherein the emperor ultimately controls the
fashioning and production of his image to overwhelm viewers by its
sheer preponderance.[[4]] Following a suggestion by Syme and calling
upon recent research in cognitive psychology, Lobur argues that
Augustan ideology emerged in a continual negotiation of beliefs as they
were inflected by "a large number of personal experiences and
discourses."[[5]] Lobur argues that Augustus out of necessity responded
to this complex, ongoing evaluation of Roman beliefs and helped to tune
his ideology as a participant in the broader discussion.

The first three chapters lay out the process by which Republican ideals
concerning consensus were performed, memorialized, and shaped into a
working ideology for the new Principate. Chapter 1 initiates the
daunting task of interweaving an account of the transformation of the
Republic from the Triumviral Period through the early years of
Augustus' reign using texts, such as the Res Gestae, that
simultaneously interpret and memorialize that history. Lobur argues
effectively that consensus is the central concept that undergirds the
princeps' position. Augustus' assertion of that position on both an
informal and formal basis could not have worked so well had he not
repeatedly performed consensus and thereby demonstrated the legitimacy
that justified his supremacy. Lobur shows how this consensus was
anchored in the past through exhibiting its role in early Latin
epigraphy (Scipio sarcophagus, Calatinus epitaph; 32-33) and then how
it was beautifully explicated as the tie that bound the many to the
unus vir in Livy's historiography (33-35). While persuasive on the
whole, the chapter is sometimes quite dense in ways that reflect the
complexity of the problems Lobur has set out to tackle.

In Chapter 2, Lobur employs Sallust and Cicero to illustrate how both
populares and optimates appealed to the concept of concordia in the
shared belief that it was vital to the health and proper functioning of
the state. Such an overlap in values provided suitable conditions for
the emergence of consensus. Lobur's discussion of Sallust focuses
primarily on how a popular clamor for power over the various organs of
the state that was both comprehensive in scope and conservative in its
emphasis on tradition prefigured Augustus (45-47). Lobur then argues at
greater length that Cicero, representing the optimate perspective,
fashioned a notion of consensus as authorizing a leader (in this case,
Cicero in 63) in such a way that he might legitimately act outside the
formal law and constitution (50-55). Cicero also used one-off
spectacles to perform consensus and thus to evoke such authorization.
Augustus was indebted to these Ciceronian precedents. Somewhat
distracting is the appearance of material on the third Sibylline oracle
and the Greek concept of homonoia in this and the next chapter (56,
63). This material is relevant to the argument, but it deserves a
fuller treatment in its own section.

In Chapter 3, Lobur convincingly argues for the centrality of the role
of the proscriptions and their memorialization in literature in molding
the ideology of the Principate. The turmoil of proscriptions and the
Triumviral Period also facilitated a convergence of popular and elite
interests to bring about a return to order. Lobur's analysis of
passages in Appian and Dio highlights the role that the proscriptions'
onlookers came to play in defining the behavior that would win fides.
Augustan propaganda depicts Octavian securing that trust and Antonius
violating it through his cruelty (74). Augustan propaganda also
appropriates the heroism of women and slaves whose exceeding loyalty
won them clemency and casts Octavian as the champion of such
down-trodden persons. In the latter part of the chapter, Lobur turns to
another figure whom he argues Octavian used as a model: Atticus. Nepos'
biography of Atticus illustrates how he bridged the chasm between
opposing sides through the principle of active neutrality (i.e.,
support for friends on both sides of a conflict) and won respect
through generous benefactions (81-89). Augustus alluded to Atticus'
example in his autobiography, as can be demonstrated through its
influence on Nicolaus of Damascus' biography of the princeps.

In the second half of the book (chapters 4-6), Lobur examines Velleius
Paterculus, Seneca, and Valerius Maximus to elucidate the role of
historiography, oratory, and exempla in participating in and shaping a
cultural discussion in which the Principate seemed to answer the
questions the emerging imperial ideology had helped to frame. In
chapter 4, Lobur opens with a discussion of the generic characteristics
of Velleius Paterculus' history, which exhibits both brevitas and
festinatio to evince the historian's mastery of his material (97).
Through his particular choice of material from a vast possibility of
alternatives, Velleius makes a strong statement concerning what is
worthy, reframes it according to imperial values, and in doing so
participates in what Lobur calls the empire's new "unified political
culture." This activity builds upon the precedent of Augustus'
presentation of the summi viri in the Forum of Augustus. Lobur then
shows how Velleius deftly depicts the rise of Tiberius as being natural
and necessary for the continuation of the felicity experienced in
Augustan Rome and for precluding the possibility of a return to civil
war. Velleius highlights Tiberian values (moderatio, concern for the
lives of the soldiers) both by demonstrating them in the person of
Tiberius (102-11) and in foils from the Republican past, most notably
Antonius. Republican history is thus recast in a way that serves the
ideological concerns of the present.

Chapter 5 explores the practice of oratory as a means of working out
and performing imperial consensus. Lobur starts his discussion by
explaining the significance of oratory in the Late Republic. He then
sets out Seneca's contribution to the imperial understanding of
oratory's past and the values of different genres. Although less
prestigious than the political dictio that typified oratorical mastery
in the Late Republic, declamatio allowed a new generation of imperial
orators to reimagine episodes from the past, such as the proscriptions,
and thus to play their part in constructing imperial ideology. Cicero,
on account of his superior style and historical relationship with
Augustus and Antonius, became not only the founder of imperial
eloquence, but also a useful locus for articulating the values of the
new order. Lobur then demonstrates how different depictions of Cicero's
death reflected a divergence of opinions that nevertheless overlapped
on the issue of his surpassing significance. This phenomenon allowed a
unified, but not homogeneous and hence sterile, cultural dialogue to
occur.

Chapter 6 is perhaps the most effective in the book. Lobur provides a
nice overview of the concept of the exemplum, pointing out its
distinction from Greek moral discourse and tracing the implications of
Valerius' arrangement of exempla by categories of virtue instead of
according to historical or cultural context. Romans preferred the
practical and intuitive value of anecdotes highlighting virtues to the
abstract and analytical approach of the Greeks. Exemplarity allowed
Romans to bring their values to life, or "embody" them, by imitation of
the deeds of their ancestors. Valerius Maximus' strategy in the
selection and arrangement of these exempla promotes Roman values in a
jingoistic fashion, but at the same time opens them to imitation by
all, regardless of gender, culture, or status (albeit in an expression
that maintains and reinforces the Roman concept of societal order).
Furthermore, the bricolage of Valerius' exempla also allows for
creativity and adaptation under a mask of traditionalism, while
fostering a broad consensus. In short, Valerius' project both reflects
and informs first-century Rome's unique brand of imperialism in its own
mechanics.

Lobur contends that by removing historical anecdotes from their
context, exempla are thereby de-politicized (182). It may have also
been the case that exempla, gathered in a single work and encompassing
as they sometimes did conflicting political positions, demonstrated how
consensus was expressed in an accord with the value of certain virtues
and the importance of their imitation regardless of the political
orientation of the persons depicted therein. The politics of exempla
were not stripped so much as transcended, and people with diverging
views could all find reflections of themselves in the past as it was
(re)presented to them, even in the actions of those with whom they
otherwise disagreed. In his conclusion, Lobur provides an excellent
example of the fruits of this inclusiveness in Livy, who "provided
models for consensus-based autocracy in the early history of Rome, but
in his narrative of the late republic, his perspective was [Pompeian]"
(211). This reviewer suggests that the inclusive, in addition to the
a-contextual, nature of exempla, sustained the possibility of such
contributions.

Lobur draws his argument to a close by advocating for the integrative
approach that he has ably demonstrated in his use of a wide variety of
evidences and theoretical approaches (209-10). His method was
particularly effective in pursuing a thesis that sought to illustrate
the manner in which diverse voices and views contributed to the
emergence of an imperial ideology of consensus that Augustus was able
in myriad ways to participate in as first citizen of Rome and ruler of
the Roman Empire. Lobur has successfully built on the foundation laid
by Ando in showing how "Romans of all ranks are allowed to be
enthusiastic about the [Principate] without being cast as mere
flatterers" (210) and, since the thesis carries the reader into the
reign of Tiberius, it raises new questions about the first-century
empire as seen through the lenses of Suetonius and Tacitus. On the
whole, the thesis is argued persuasively, but this reviewer would have
liked to see the overall arc of the book's argument traced more
explicitly in the individual chapters. Occasionally this reader felt
slightly adrift. The first three chapters, addressing the complex
historical issues of the emergence of consensus ideology, were somewhat
less linear, clear, and focused than the final three chapters.[[6]]
This should in no way dissuade any serious student or scholar of the
Roman Empire from a profitable reading of Lobur's enlightening
discussion.


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Notes:


1.   Moralee, J.  "For Salvation's Sake." Provincial Loyalty, Personal
Religion, and Epigraphic Production in the Roman and Late Antique Near
East. New York and London, 2004: xv.

2.   Ando, C. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman
Empire. Berkeley, 1999.

3.   Lobur discusses the influence of Marxist and anthropological
scholarship (Geertz) on his views concerning ideology as a constructive
and positive force of cultural production (2). Lobur acknowledges his
particular debt to Syme, who previously suggested that ideology was not
a fiction of the Principate imposed on others, but that it "reflected
irrepressible elite attitudes" (3).

4.   Eich, A. "Die Idealtypen 'Propaganda' und 'Repraesentation' als
heuristische Mittel bei der Bestimmung gesellschaftlicher Konvergenzen
und Divergenzen von Moderne und roemischer Kaiserzeit." In: Weber, G.
and M. Zimmermann, eds. Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung, Repraesentation
im roemischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n. Chr. Historia Einzelschrift,
2003: 64, 68ff.

5.   Van Dijk, T. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London, 1998:
97-8 as quoted by Lobur on p. 5. Syme, R. The Augustan Aristocracy.
Oxford, 1986: 441. Jowett, G. and V. O'Donnel. Propaganda and
Persuasion. Thousand Oaks, 1999: 33-34.

6.   A few typographical errors appear, and the reviewer here provides
a sample: virtues is misspelled as "virutes" on p. 23. A translated
quote from Sallust Cat. 13.1 on p. 46 is missing the final quotation
mark. The coin pictured on p. 71, which should follow the colon at the
end of the paragraph at the top of the page, has fallen to the bottom.
Its description, "Figures 1," should read "Figure 1." The coin pictured
on the following page also belongs on p. 71, following the appropriate
reference and colon. Here the description "Figure 2 and 3" should read
"Figures 2 and 3." On p. 76, Gaius Octavius is incorrectly identified
as Octavian beneath the text of ILS 47 in which the former appears,
although he is correctly identified as Octavian's father earlier on the
same page.