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IMPERIAL CHALLENGERS: BULLA FELIX AND MATERNUS
laughing-stock. But in this there is another parallel to the centurion who
was fooled by the Bukoloi dressed as women. One might think that Dio was
targeting Roman centurions. Anyway, the unsuspecting man was easily overpowered
and then forced to endure the second act of this grand piece of
theatre staged at his expense.
Before looking at this, let us first consider another of Dio’s variations on
the theme of a bandit making officialdom look stupid. In this case, the butt
of the joke was no less than Septimius Severus himself. We have already met
the instigator of this piece of villainy: Claudius, a bandit who made mischief
in Judaea and Syria during the first Parthian War. According to Cassius Dio,
Claudius had formally overrun both provinces. 39 Claudius, the bandit chief,
will therefore hardly have been the leader of a small common robber band.
That he hunted over so wide a territory is evidence for the clever way he
operated, and for the deficiencies of the provincial police services, even though,
as will be further emphasised below, they had increased their search for him
to an extraordinary degree. Claudius gave Severus a taste of his abilities and
of the failings of the emperor’s underlings, not to mention his keen sense of
humour and his courageous self-confidence. He sought out Severus in person,
to this end donning disguise. Accompanied by several horsemen, themselves
dressed up as troops, the scoundrel saluted the emperor, who had no
idea what was happening, kissed him, and then disappeared with no one
the wiser. On the basis of the material assembled, we can now list particular
themes such as audacity, lack of deference, disguise and even a hoodwinked
emperor, as hallmarks of Dio’s narrative.
We can now return to the story of Bulla Felix and the duped centurion.
Bulla took on a second acting role. Dressed as a magistrate, he mounted a
tribunal. Though the impersonation might well be an invention of Dio,
it should be seen as a representation of reality – namely that how people
appear is decisive in determining the acceptance by others of the position
they hold or are claiming for themselves. This is to be seen in monarchical
dress, the outward and visible sign of its wearers’ lofty status. 40 For someone
who is simply acting the part, the authentic attributes of the position claimed,
in particular its dress, are, of course, more important than they are for the
legitimate holder of the post. Eunous, the slave king, was certainly moved
by more than a whim when he placed a diadem on his brow, decked himself
out in royal finery, had his wife officially designated queen, made available
to himself a cook, a baker, a masseur and an entertainer, gave himself the
regal name Antiochus and called his followers ‘Syrians’. 41 The suggestive
force of this operatic set was certainly big enough to make Eunous’ entire
artificially created state apparatus appear real and therefore credible to insiders
and outsiders alike – as real and as credible as the supposed magistrate
before whom Bulla had the centurion led.
Bulla ordered the ‘accused’ to have part of his head shaved, and then
immediately dismissed him, commanding him to take a message to his
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