Christie McGuire Villarreal (Bryn Mawr College)
Livy’s depiction of Philip V contains several episodes that may be read as exempla. Philip is used by Livy’s historical personae as an exemplum of a ruler attempting to maintain control, both successfully and disastrously. Antiochus III uses Philip as an example of a king who lost power to Rome (37.25.6), whereas Scipio Africanus uses Philip in the same scenario to show the benefits of an alliance with Rome (37.25.11). Philip himself uses exempla to teach his sons about successful fraternal relations (40.8.7-16). This final scenario will be the focus of this paper. Polybius (23.11) was clearly Livy’s source for the encounter, but only a fragment is extant. Walbank (1971) and Burton (2017) argue for using Livy as a translation of Polybius; Dreyer (2013) adds that Polybius used a pro-Macedonian source for the court drama. However feasible, I see this as an argument from silence, and instead follow the suggestions of Levene (2010, 2015) and Sklenář (2004) that Livy embellished Polybian material. I believe that the addition of Roman exempla to Philip’s speech served a political purpose.
Chaplan (2000 p. 78-81) sees Philip as “a foreign warner” in a situation of failed exemplary knowledge, since Philip’s immediate audience disregards his advice, yet the Roman reader should take heed. If we consider the political mood in Rome while Livy was compiling his vast work up to this point (roughly 14-9 BCE for bk. 39-40; see Levick 2015 p. 26; Scheidel 2009 p. 657), both the use of exempla and the trope of fraternal piety against discord were popular in current rhetoric. Therefore, when Livy’s Philip mentions Roman brothers who collaborate successfully during the period of Roman expansion, the scenario must have been particularly powerful for the author’s contemporary audience. Philip’s Roman exempla show the potential good of brothers, possibly in response to the political pressure placed on fraternal relations in Augustus’ household.
Chaplin (2000 p. 170) asserts that exempla held particular significance for Romans in the period after the civil wars as they tried to find meaning in the past, and that Augustus was as active as Livy in his exploitation of exempla. Suetonius reports that Augustus collected them to give to family and leaders as forms of advice (Aug. 89.2); this anecdote makes it clear that Livy’s literary technique would not be lost on Augustus. This paper does not go as far as Mineo (2015) who suggests that Livy may have become disillusioned with the newly established principate and the esteem given to the principes iuventutis; instead, it proposes that Livy’s use of Philip, especially in terms of the king’s interactions with his sons, can be seen as a cautionary tale for Augustus about the pitfalls of empire and hereditary rule. Livy offers an allegorical warning to the princeps as his new regime and machinations for an heir could lead to the decline of Rome, which has grown so large that it labors from its size (creverit ut iam magnitudine laboret sua, Praef. 5).