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IMPERIAL CHALLENGERS: BULLA FELIX AND MATERNUS
As already described, Bulla Felix’s game of cat and mouse brought home
to the emperor and his security forces the limits of their power. We are told
that in planning his robberies he had available to him such a wonderful
intelligence network that he knew precisely who had left Rome, or had put
into harbour at Brundisium – how many they were, and what they had
with them. 24 If this is true, Bulla must have had many well-wishers and supporters
among the population, perhaps even in public positions. 25 We may
gain an idea as to how he may have won a certain sympathy among ordinary
people from the following. Dio says that whenever Bulla captured anyone,
he robbed them of only a portion of their possessions, then immediately let
them go on their way, otherwise unharmed. This sounds very much like the
romanticisation of a proto-Robin Hood, who did not strip his victims of all
they had and, above all, spared their lives – Hobsbawm’s ‘noble bandit’. 26
The reality will have been rather different. Apart from the fact that not all
bandits need be bloodthirsty killers (one has only to think of the English
highwaymen, who famously plied their trade as ‘gentlemen of the road’),
their overwhelming preference (as, presumably, that of the historical Bulla)
is naturally for well-to-do victims: they are, after all, primarily interested in
booty. Seneca’s observation that the bandit lets through the destitute, 27 is
only a more elegant way of saying that a naked man has no pockets. Cold
calculation would become noble motive only when transformed by legend.
This had little to do with the real Bulla Felix.
It follows that if Bulla Felix, the noble bandit of legend, was projected
as mirror image and challenger of emperor and state, the emperor is to be
seen as the true bandit, who robbed his victims of all they possessed. His
‘victims’ were, in the widest sense, all those who, through taxation and
special exactions, were brought to the brink of ruin, 28 more narrowly, however,
the well-to-do who, because of their property, were hauled before the courts.
From the case of Commodus we know that an emperor could be directly
reproached for being a bandit. A contemporary document from Egypt calls
him a ‘robber chief ’ (leistarchos), 29 and according to his biographer, ‘He slew
whomsoever he wished to slay, plundered a great number, violated every
law, and put all the booty into his own pocket.’ 30 Though Bulla Felix was
not set up against Commodus, he was set up against the latter’s so-called
adoptive brother, Septimius Severus, criticised by senatorial historiography
for his anti-Senate policy, his execution of senators, his confiscation of property
and, generally, for his raising of cash by any possible means. 31 It therefore
seems acceptable to interpret the narrative concerning Bulla Felix, who
was merciful to his victims, as indirect criticism of imperial greed.
Similarly transformed by legend appears to be the notice that follows,
that Bulla temporarily detained technitai to make use of their skills, and then
let them go with a gift. 32 Modern translations of Dio render technitai as
‘craftsmen’. 33 There can be no doubt that, for example, weapon smiths and
wheelwrights could have rendered Bulla valuable service. On the other hand,
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