Valorizing the Barbarians: Enemy Speeches in Roman Historiography. by Eric Adler (review)

Eric Adler’s book discusses the following texts: Sallust Histories 4.69M (Epistula Mithridatis) and Justin 38.4–7 (speech of Mithridates); Polybius 3.63–64 and Livy 21.40–44 (speeches of P. Scipio and Hannibal); Polybius 15.6–8 and Livy 30.30–31 (speeches of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus); Tacitus Annals 14.35–36 and Cassius Dio 62.3–11 (speeches of Boudica and Suetonius Paulinus). Adler has sensible things to say about all of them; he is a good scholar, scrupulously thorough in citing ancient sources and modern bibliography; he writes well, with only rare lapses into modish phraseology; and yet the reader finishes the book wondering what it has all been about.

We are told in the concluding chapter that the authors “possessed the ability to present readers with portraits of Roman imperialism and colonialism that are at least partly negative in their tenor” (164), that “the inclusion of speeches at least partly critical of Rome’s imperialism was part of a historiographical tradition” (165), that “the appearance of speeches by foreign generals does not necessarily suggest that their authors sympathized with the sentiments they presented” (167), but that “we should not discount the notion that ancient historians of Rome were capable of and interested in portraying their society’s failures” (174). I fi nd it hard to imagine any reader of Polybius, Sallust, Livy, or Tacitus who does not already know this.

Part of the problem is that the question to be addressed is never properly formulated. What exactly counts as “valorizing” Mithridates, Hannibal, or Boudica? The verb is evidently not just a fancy title, since Adler also uses it in his introduction (2). I assume it means more than just “recognizing their virtues” (of course the enemy must be worthy of the conflict); but even if it means “accepting the validity of their case,” banal conclusions can hardly be avoided: “Polybius was capable of producing a semi-sympathetic portrayal of Rome’s quintessential enemy” (81); Livy, “though assuredly no maligner of Rome, was hardly an uncritical jingoist” (116); Tacitus’ speech for Boudica “is no dehumanizing portrait from the pen of an unreflective colonizing power” (139). Very true, but who thinks otherwise?

Perhaps some people do. Setting his scene in the first paragraph, Adler notes “the dominant view of Roman expansionism and colonialism among contemporary classical scholars,” and it is this: “Rome the reflective, self-conscious power is out; Rome the self-assured maligner of other cultures is in” (1). He has certainly knocked that straw man down, but one wonders whether it was worth the trouble. Such crude schematism is hardly consistent with serious historical inquiry.

The ancient authors were not writing for modern postcolonialists. But who were they writing for? Adler takes it for granted that his subject belongs to “the intellectual history of the Greco-Roman elite,” and is “naturally confined to wealthy, well-connected, and educated types” (163) handling “cumbersome copies” of the historians’ texts (79). Would it make a difference if the historians were writing also for public recitation to large audiences? Thucydides took it for granted that history was normally a matter of festival performance (1.22.4); Polybius regularly referred to listeners as well as readers (e.g., 1.13.6, 3.32.10, 9.1.2-5, 18.46.9); Lucian in his essay on how to write history (5, 10, 39) assumed that the writer would address a popular audience as well as a literate readership.

In his introductory section headed “Roman reader, modern reader,” Adler rightly draws attention to Livy’s famous eloquence (Quint. Inst. 10.1.101), but thinks it can only have been aimed at the “dramatic audience” within the narrative or “the actual audience of readers” (10). The possibility of history delivered in public performance is mentioned only once and then dismissed (9). ¹ Without argument...