Virtus Romana: Politics and Morality in the Roman Historians by Catalina Balmaceda (review)

This book sets out to examine the changing meanings of virtus in early imperial and late republican Latin historians—Sallust, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, and Tacitus. After a short introduction and a chapter on “The Concept of Virtus,” it devotes one chapter to the work of each author and ends with a short “Conclusion.” The book has a number of good ideas that are, however, marred by serious problems and misconceptions.

The first problem is the manner in which Balmaceda uses modern scholarship. In the too few references to Werner Eisenhut’s fundamental Virtus Romana pagination is not always provided (33, n. 91; 132, n. 16), or is inaccurate (102, n. 123). Claiming that the meaning of virtus in early Latin is “quite general” (19), an idea that originated with Eisenhut, rather than citing his work, Balmaceda quotes W. V. Harris (War and Imperialism), who was himself referring to Eisenhut. Referring to Eisenhut (126), along with T. J. Moore’s Artistry and Ideology (5), Balmaceda states that according to Eisenhut, Livy “used virtus in a non-Roman way, following instead a more Greek meaning of it, aretē” (92 and n. 40); not quite what Eisenhut wrote or Moore reported. More importantly it does not represent Eisenhut’s full position. He had also written that when coupled with fortuna, virtus, Damit greift Livius etwas Ungriechisches, typisch Römisches auf (124). Nor is Eisenhut the only author treated this way. When discussing nobiles and novi, Balmaceda refers to Gelzer, Dondin-Payre, Brunt, and Shackleton-Bailey (70 n. 103, all without page numbers), but judging from her misunderstanding of the terms (see below), she does not seem to have read them. An otherwise inexplicable comment about Augustus’ moral legislation, “if there was such a thing at all” (87), seems to derive from the title of a cited article by Ernst Badian, “A Phantom Marriage Law,” apparently not read. More troubling is Balmaceda’s appeal to Nathan Rosenstein (N. Rosenstein, R. Morstein-Marx, eds., A Companion to the Roman Republic, 366) to support her idea about the Elogia Scipionum, “its (sic) clear message of virtus with its double meaning of courage and moral excellence” (25). But Rosenstein wrote no such thing, and what he did, “the primary sense [of virtus] in the middle Republic is martial,” contradicts Balmaceda. Ideas and some phrasing (23–4) are taken from M. McDonnell, Roman Manliness (82–3) without attribution. A note (43) refers to J. N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language, but the pages given (760–2) contain little or nothing about the issues being discussed. More examples could be given. Together they indicate more than carelessness.

There are also issues concerning terminology that pertain to my book. Contrary to Balmaceda (2), Roman Manliness did not start from the premise “that native Roman virtus was not an ethical quality,” but rather with the contradiction posed by virtus being employed both with a clearly ethical meaning, and a clearly non-ethical one. Balmaceda decides to use the terms “ethics” and “morality” indistinctively (7, n. 20). I, however, made a distinction, which I think is crucial, in adopting the word “ethical” for values that denote absolute standards of right and wrong, and “moral” to indicate a socially sanctioned value, which is not necessarily an absolute standard. Accordingly, an individual can exhibit a socially sanctioned “moral” value, such as courage, and still be a bad person, as Ennius wrote, Melius est virtute ius: nam saepe virtutem mali / Nanciscuntur: ius atque aecum se a malis spernit procul (Hectoris Lytra 155–6 J). Balmaceda’s own classification—virilitas-virtus, courage, and humanitas-virtus, virtue (11 and 17–18)—results in ambiguity, not only in criticisms of my book (e.g., “his [Marius’] insistence on his morally upright behavior . . . makes his virtus hardly unethical” [66–7]), but also more generally, as with the puzzling “morality as something distinct from politics did not yet exist” (46), or the statement that...