Noah Segal, University of Minnesota
Plutarch twice (Pomp. §22 & Mor. 204A) mentions Pompey’s participation in the recognitio equitum (review of cavalry) in 70 BCE; he calls it the “most pleasing” spectacle of Pompey’s first consulship. His vivid account has been important for scholars interested in Pompey’s career and self-presentation, and – since Plutarch’s mention is one of only a few references to the recognitio in our surviving sources – it has been influential for understandings of the ritual and its functioning more broadly (e.g., Seager 2002[1979]; Scullard 1981; Luke 2014). For Plutarch, the recognitio was for those equites who had “served the term required by law,” a status that was confirmed by an interview with the censors during ceremony. This gloss of the recognitio (included in both passages) has led scholars to see it as a “discharge ritual,” which has in turn appeared to confirm some other assumptions about military service in the Republic (esp. the co-called decem stipendia mentioned in Polybius 6.19.1-4). There are, however, immense problems associated with this usage of Pompey’s recognitio. Most obviously, the iteration of the ritual in 70 BCE was highly irregular: the ceremony had been held infrequently in the period prior to 70, and Pompey participated in it as a sitting consul. More importantly, Plutarch’s understanding of the recognitio’s purpose is unique among our other ancient sources, which make no mention of the completion prescribed terms of service and focus instead on the censors’ use of the ritual to police morality (regimen morum) among the equites. Therefore, I argue that Plutarch’s characterization of the recognitio is flawed, and that a new consideration of the ritual changes how we understand Pompey’s participation, public spectacles, and military service in the Late Republic. The censors’ question to Pompey has major implications for many of our own.
Perhaps the most confusing aspect of Plutarch’s association of the recognitio with the fulfillment of military service terms is the fact that very few other equites of the first century would have been able to positively answer the censors’ questioning of their status. Likewise, the recognitio in 70 occurred at a time when the ritual had significant, but difficult, implications for how the community (and modern scholars) have defined the “equestrian order” (Hill 1952; Nicolet 1966; Wiseman 1970). There are also glaring logistical issues with Plutarch’s vision for the recognitio’s purpose. Unlike the transvectio equitum (with which it is often confused), the recognitio was not an annual ceremony, but occurred only during the censors’ completion of the lustrum. This made it a poor option for the confirmation of military service terms that would be completed by different age groups annually, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the lustrum was completed infrequently after the dictatorship of Sulla. Therefore, I argue that Plutarch misunderstood the purpose of the recognitio, which is better understood as a morality-concerned review of the equites. We, in turn, can appreciate that the censors’ question makes little sense, but that Pompey’s answer does.