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IMPERIAL CHALLENGERS: BULLA FELIX AND MATERNUS
explicitly adduces phthonos (‘ill-will’, ‘envy’, ‘jealousy’) as the motive for the
betrayal. In other words, the bandits begrudged their leader imperial status,
allowing tradition to attribute to this last act only a base, not a noble, motive.
Though it is possible to speculate about the historical kernel of Maternus’
rebellion in the first stage of its development, the communis opinio is that the
second, more extensive, part of Herodian’s account is no more than fictional. 174
Such an assessment may itself, however, be based on no more – or no less –
than modern scholarship’s basic distrust of the credibility of Herodian. We
will now see that though Maternus’ attempted coup may have been invented,
the invention may not have been Herodian’s.
8 Maternus and Bulla Felix: the ‘common’ and
the ‘noble’ bandit
We return to the observation that Herodian’s main source for his account of
Maternus was in all likelihood Cassius Dio’s ‘History’. However, it seems at
least possible that the basics of the story and the characterisation of Maternus
might stem from neither Dio nor Herodian. Since what Dio said about
Maternus has been lost the former idea cannot be tested directly. Moreover,
readers of both authors may consider it absurd to ascribe to Dio literary
traits which experts see as ‘Herodianic’. Deeply, perhaps too deeply, anchored
in scholarship is the picture of a pair of mighty opposites, made
up of ‘the high-ranking senator, Cassius Dio Cocceianus’ on the one side,
and on the other, ‘the subordinate writer, Herodian’. 175 In his closing assessment
of the Maternus story, G. Alföldy draws attention to a string of examples
of ‘truly Herodianic’ narrative technique. 176 His setting of the rebellion
within Herodian’s overall conception of a continuous series of attempts on
Commodus’ life is highly convincing. However, some details in the story of
Maternus may have been interpreted erroneously as deriving from Herodian,
details which Herodian very probably did not invent himself, but drew from
his source – Dio.
Our analysis of the reports concerning Bulla Felix and related bandits has
already shown that Dio the senator and historian was quite prepared fancifully
to deck out episodes when he wished to communicate a particular
‘emotional climate’ (Millar). We saw clearly that such episodes are expressions
of Dio’s perception of trouble that would lead to the third-century
‘Crisis’. However, the idea that it was Cassius Dio who originally sketched
out the picture of Maternus that has come down to us through Herodian can
be justified only if elements of Dio’s narrative technique can be identified in
Herodian.
Let us consider three examples. When Commodus discovered that Maternus
was still undefeated, he reacted angrily and remonstrated furiously with
the governors of the affected provinces. Commodus ordered them to pull
themselves together and take active steps against the bandits. 177 When
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