vol. III p.2698-2702
Although there are a lot of sources for the history of this man, it’s only the latest reports we have to hand. When people have tried to get at the actual historical truth through these sources, nothing more than the following conclusion has been reached: <10> Appius was consul I 283 = 471, consul II 303 = 451, and after he stepped down from his second consulship in the same and the following year, he was decemvir consulari imperio legibus scribendis. In Liv. II 56, 5 and Dionys. VIII 90. IX 42, the consul of 283 = 471 was the son of Appius nr. 321, and like him he bore the cognomen Inregillensis in the Chronogr., in Dionys. Idat. and Chron. pasch. he had the name Sabinus; <20> his consulship is attested by Chronogr. Idat. Chron. pasch. Liv. II 56, 5. Cassiod. Diod. XI 67, 1. Dionys. IX 42. 43. The earlier mentions in Dionys. VIII 90 on the year 272 = 482 (the patricians’ plan to get Claudius elected consul, thwarted by the plebs) and IX 1 are without value, cf. X 30 on the year 273 = 481 (told by Liv. II 44, 2, cf. IV 48, 6 on the year 274 = 480: Claudius’ idea to make a tribune harmless through his colleagues interceding), as well as the reports about his consulship. <30> Since the year 283 = 471 was incredibly important, even monumental, for the development of the tribunate of the plebs (cf. Mommsen St.-R. II 276. III 152. Ed. Meyer Rh. Mus. XXXVII 616; Herm. XXX 5ff. 17 note), the annalists’ invention, insofar as it relates to Claudius, could come here. Liv. II 56, 5-58, 1 and Dionys. IX 43-49, who only contain small differences with each other, place the lex Publilia here, according to which the officials of the plebs should be elected in special popular assemblies, <40> describe the battles on both sides which came from this, and rather predictably they describe the consul Appius as the most bitter enemy of the plebs, whereas his colleague T. Quinctius is given the role of mediator. This is where the accounts of the campaign against the Volscii fit - which agree with each other - where the army chases the general Appius in flight out of hatred for him without a battle, <50> and then Appius has the officials and every tenth man of those that chased him executed as punishment (Liv. II 58, 3-59, 11. Val. Max. IV 3, 5. Frontin. strat. IV 1, 34. Flor. I 22, 2. Dionys. IX 50. Appian. Ital. 7. Zonar. VII 17), as well as the accounts about Appius’ disaster (Liv. II 61, 1-9. Dionys. IX 52-54): in the years that followed, he also supposedly gained the hatred of the tribunes because he opposed their agrarian law, was put on trial by them, boldly rejected any means of winning over the plebs to his side (cf. Suet. Tib. 2), <60> and died suddenly before he was sentenced, according to Dionys. and Zonarch. he died by --------------- and according to Livy (and the story from his relatives in Dionys.) it was because of illness. This whole story is a consistent and coherent invention; the only bit that doesn’t fit is that the plebs gave their worst enemy an honourable burial, even against the wishes of the tribunes. <page break 2698/2699> The fact that the whole story was made up is given away by the simple fact that the consul of 283 = 471 was consul again in 303 = 451, and after the decemviri were instated he swapped his duty with their title. The idea of these being the same person is clearly ruled out by the Fasti Cap. on the year 303 = 451: <10> Ap. Claudius Ap. f. M. n. Crassinr[i]gill. Sabin. II. T. Genu[cius L. f. L. n.] Au[gu]rinus abdicarunt ut de[c]emviri consular[i imperio fier]ent. decemviri consular[i imp]erio legibus s[cribundis fact]i eod. anno Ap. Claudius Ap. f. M. n. Crassin[rigill. Sab]in. qui cos. fue[rat]. T. Genucius L. f. L. n. Augurin[us q]ui cos. fuerat (cf. Chronogr. to the year 303: Sabino II; on 304: Sabino III); however, this can be seen even more clearly in multiple other places in Livy (III 33, 7. 35, 3. IV 48, 5f.; cf. Niebuhr R. G. II 377, 54. Schwegler R. G. II 568ff.). <20> Following what is generally assumed, Ap. f. was consul of 283 as well as decemvir; people just made him the father of the decemvir. His cognomina, which were of course a late addition themselves, are not different to those of the consul. Diod. XII 23, 1 (Πόπλιος Κλώδιος Ῥηγιλλανός; before Πόπλιος a fitting family name [Curiatius according to Liv., Horatius according to Dionys.] and the praenomen belonging to the following man [Ἄππιος, cf. Diod. XII 24, 1] must have been dropped) and Suet. Tib. 2 give the form Regillanus; because of this, Mommsen (CIL I2 p.32 on the year 392) suggests that the Fasti Cap. for the years 303. 304 kept the ancient abbreviation Crassinrigill., ie Crassinus Regillanus, which however also offered the incorrect interpretation Crassus Inregillensis. The most famous account of the story of the decemvirate is found in Livy III 33-58: <40> Appius had understood how to gain the favour of the plebs so well that he became the head of the government; after the first collegium hadn’t yet completed its legislation entirely and the repeated election of the decemviri had been concluded, supported by the plebs, he went to a great effort to get himself and his colleagues, whom he could rely on, elected again, and then he suddenly changed his tact. <50> This was when he first showed his true colours, and he began a reign of terror with his colleagues which oppressed the plebs more and more, while the patrician youth remained on the side of the tyrants. The decemviri illegally continued their time in office into the next year 305 = 449, and continued to rule in the same violent manner. When Rome was threatened by the Aequi and Sabini, it forced them to call the senate, but since the most pressing matter seemed to be facing the outside threat, <60> they obtained supreme command and the right to conscript people. Eight of them moved into the field, Appius and Sp. Oppius remained in Rome to manage inner matters. Then, the story goes into the miserable wars and the criminal murder of L. Siccius by the decemviri, and finally reaches its climax at the end in the famous story of Verginia, <page break 2699/2700> which Livy himself already describes as a complement to the story of Lucretia (III 44, 1). The uprising of the community and the fall of the decemviri seem to be the result of this crime, and Appius left the public stage, only appearing again after the restoration of the old order as a defendant before the people; still before the charge raised by L. Verginius had had its final hearing, he ---------------- in prison. <10> As Mommsen has rightly recognised (Röm. Forsch. I 298; in agreement Ihne R. G.2 I 182ff.), a two-fold view of Appius becomes clear in this account: an older one, which saw him as a supporter of the interests of the plebs, and a more recent one, in which he was the stereotype of an anti-pleb Claudius. The second one did not manage to get rid of all traces of the first; <20> indeed, the words which Liv. III 33, 7 uses when Appius first appears in 303 = 451 show that the same tradition depicted the decemvir as both the same as the consul of 283 = 471, and also as plebicola. The less ancient view turns up in the story from the beginning of the year 304, very clearly eg. III 36, 7. 37, 6. 38, 13. 49, 8. Compared with Livy’s account, the account of Dionys. (X 54-XI 44), which hasn’t been preserved in full, <30> seems to be him trying to balance out or mitigate the most striking contradictions. Of course, the first decemvirate is praised because it was managed generally very well and in a way that benefitted the plebs (X 57), but Dionys. seems to be neither aware that Appius owed his reelection to the plebs (X 58), or that he turned against the plebs later on (only a very cursory note at the end of XI 22), <40> and depended entirely on the young patricians (cf. especially the completely opposite description of the attitude of the iuniores patrum and the νέον τῆς βουλῆς μέρος in the meeting of the senate in Liv. III 41, 1 and Dionys. XI 21). When Dionys. XI 1 introduces his account: ποιήσομαι δὲ τὸν περὶ αὐτῶν λόγον οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν τελευταίων ἀρξάμενος ἃ δοκεῖ τοῖς πολλοῖς αἴτια γενέσθαι μόνα τῆς ἐλευθερίας, λέγω δὲ τῶν περὶ τὴν παρθένον ἁμαρτηθέντων Ἀππίῳ διὰ τὸν ἔρωτα, he had accounts in mind which were still foreign to the whole depiction of the rule of terror, the episode with Siccius, etc., but which were familiar with the story of Verginia. Even older than the accounts mentioned thus far is that of Diodorus. First, it contains a badly preserved list of the decemviri (XII 24, 1), then a story whose genuinely popular tone is already shown by its opening (ibid. 2: εἶς δ’ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐρασθεὶς εὐγενοῦς παρθένου πενιχρᾶς), then accounts about the legislation which reconciled both groups (XII 25, 2). <60> If the last section raises doubts, the Greek compiler is to blame for this (cf. Mommsen Röm. Forsch. II 287f.); and in no way does this justify making conclusions against the second section which is completely unconnected to the first. Without question, this gives the oldest version of the story of the fall of the decemviri (cf. further Maschke Freiheitsprocess im classischen Altertum [Berlin 1888] 41ff.); <page break 2700/2701> in its original form, it was a folk tale which didn’t have any set names for its heroes, nor any clear set description of the character of the tyrant. As tradition developed further, this tyrant was depicted following Greek examples: a demagogue rises up through the ranks with the help of the lower classes, abuses his power to satisfy his personal desires, <10> and is therefore overthrown by the very people who had supported him. This expansion on the old story must have happened in the time of the Gracchi, when people had been through a similar thing, when eg. Tib. Gracchus had tried to extend his time in office into a second year against the constitution. At the time, an Appius Claudius, the step-father of this Ti. Gracchus, completely and utterly supported the democratic movement (cf. nr. 295), <20> and at the time, Piso - who was one of the strongest opponents of the movement - wrote his historical work. The final edit of the magistrate-tables, which the Capitoline fasti go back to, could also have taken place at the same time as when the pontifical annals were completed, and primarily reputable and esteemed men dedicated themselves to the study of ancient Roman history. It was their successors, the annalists at the time of Sulla, <30> who first separated the consul Appius from the decemvir and told the story with its unnatural ending with the unfinished legal proceeds twice, they painted Appius with new colours and filled out the broader background he was supposed to stand out against. Perhaps Livy essentially gives a depiction of Valerius Antias, and Dionysos a description of Licinius Macer. Among the extant reports, that of Cicero (rep. II 63) takes another independant viewpoint; <40> he comes inbetween the depictions of the oldest annalists and those from the time of Sulla, without basing it any further on Piso’s account (cf. the similar relationship with the history of Sp. Cassius above p.1749 nr. 91). On the other hand, the rest of the mentions of the story of Appius are lacking in any individual worth (Cic. fin. II 66. Liv. VI 20, 3. Val. Max. VI 1, 2. Ascon. Corn. p. 68. Suet. Tib. 2. Flor. I 24, 2. Eutrop. I 18. Ampel. 25, 2. Auct. de vir. ill. 21, 2. Pompon. Dig. I 2, 2, 24. Zonar. VII 18 etc.); <50> at most, it’s worth mentioning that there are two versions of his death, -------- or execution in prison at the order of the tribunes (cf. Dionys. XI 46. 49 [the relatives’ account]. Auct. de vir. ill. 21, 4). A critique of the various interpretations of the decemvirate doesn’t belong here (on Diodoros’, cf. F. Cauer Jahrb. f. Philol. CXXIX 171), where we are only dealing with Appius Claudius. <60> His name, which was at the forefront of the list of decemviri, and the ancient myth whose basic theme appears twice in Roman history (Lucretia and Verginia), and whose bias Mommsen (St.-R. II 717, cf. Ed. Meyer Rh. Mus. XXXVII 618, 1) has judged harshly and justifiably, were the basic elements which were connected to one another and which contrasted the later additions even in the most recent accounts. When myth (still in Cicero, about whom Ascon. Cornel. p. 68 explicitly highlights this, and Diodoros) didn’t have any specific characters, the historians couldn’t satisfy themselves with that; the virgin simply (virgo) became a Verginia, and the first man the list of decemviri listed could have easily been seen as their highest ranking member, and as the hero of the story. <10>
[Münzer.]
This article is referenced by: M. Claudius (24), Ap. Claudius Caecus (91), Ap. Claudius Crassus (121), Ap. Claudius Crassus Inregillensis (122)
This person is on the following family trees: The patrician branch of the Claudii
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