Catiline and the "Concordia Ordinum" - Historia Antigua

CATILINE AND THE CONCORDIA ORDINUM 17
common end? And further, was there no real content to the terms
populares and optimates?
It has been mentioned above that, according to Miinzer, cliques
formed among the nobiles from time to time, and that often one clique,
whose members were usually related by marriage or birth, would dominate
the others for a considerable period. Factio is the Latin term for
such a clique and among the Romans it had a derogatory connotation.8
Syme calls it a "gang," but a very convenient term might be borrowed
from Canadian history and applied with more accuracy to the Roman
scene than to the Canadian-"the Family Compact."' Sulla, in his
reconstruction of Roman life, placed such a group in control, basing it
on the Caecilii Metelli.o0 This Family Compact was mainly concerned
with getting its relations and friends elected to the consulship. That
office gave great power at the time, a dominant place in the senate
afterwards, and, in addition, the governorship of a province, by which
the ex-consul could recoup his own fortunes and hand out patronage
to his friends and relatives." The office of pontifex maximus, however,
and the position of princeps senatus were also coveted for the prestige
and important political influence connected with them. The Family
Compact was naturally reactionary because it could keep its supremacy
only by maintaining the status quo. In consequence it opposed all change;
it vigorously and with much success contested every consular election;
it fought the granting of extraordinary power to anyone; and it was
content to exploit the Roman Empire as it was. But, although kinship,
friendship, and other ties gave it cohesion, underlying these was self-
interest. The dominant members, moreover, were of one social and
economic class-land-owning aristocracy-that regarded rule and the
rewards of rule as its birthright. Those of inferior status who were
linked with the dominant members by ties of obligation also had their
own interest at heart in defending the interest of their patrons. That
is to say, the membership consisted of interest groups, one of which
8Cicero applies the term factio to a group of people, called optimates, who control
the commonwealth by reason of wealth, birth, or some kind of power (De Re Publica,
in. 13, 23; cf. I. 45, 69). Both Julius Caesar and Augustus used the term to describe
their enemies (De Bello Civili, I. 22, 5 and Monumentum Ancyranum, I. 2).
9This term was applied to the local oligarchy that joined the lieutenant-governor
in ruling Upper Canada in the period 1800-41. Though not actually linked by ties
of blood or marriage, it formed a close-knit clique that managed political and economic
life to its own best advantage. See W. S. Wallace, The Family Compact (Toronto and
Glasgow, 1920), 1-7.
s0Syme, The Roman Revolution, 20-2 and genealogical tables at end. Q. Metellus
Pius was consul in 80 B.c. and pontifex maximus down to 63 B.c. The other consul in
80 B.c., the dictator Sulla, was married to a Metella, as were the consuls of 79 B.c.,
P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. Catulus, consul in 78 B.c.,
Hortensius, consul in 69 B.c., the Licinii Luculli and Cato likewise, were connected by
kinship with each other and with the Metelli. In 69 B.c. one Metellus was consul, one
praetor, and one governor in Sicily. That the Metelli, like the Republican party of
the United States, had the elephant for their heraldic badge is pure.coincidence.
"For a complete account of the possibilities for graft see R. O. Jolliffe, Phases of
Corruption in Roman Administration in the Last Half-Century of the Roman Republic
(Menasha, 1919).