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POLITICIANS AND PRETENDERS AS LATRONES
reflects a cliché drawn from the repertoire of the literary conception of the
bandit.
In the same period in Cilicia, similar conditions brought forth an enigmatic
local dynast called Lysias. 46 Unlike Zeniketes and his rural stronghold,
Lysias created an urban power base for himself, at Tarsus. Our source for
Lysias, who is otherwise unknown, is Athenaeus, a very wide-ranging writer
under the Principate. The context is a reckoning up of philosophers who
exercised political power. 47 It transpires that Lysias was an Epicurean and
was very well regarded in his home city of Tarsus. This gained him the
position of ‘Priest of Hercules’, apparently a senior religious and political
office in his community. He caused a great sensation when, following the
expiry of the period for which he had been elected, he proved reluctant to
lay down his post. Finally, and totally contrary to Epicurean teaching, which
was against the undertaking of political office, he contrived to become a
tyrant. Unfortunately, Athenaeus (or his source) was not interested in the
precise conditions or the general background of Lysias’ seizure of power. On
the other hand, he says much about the costume in which Lysias presented
himself to the public as tyrant – an expensive military cloak over a purple
tunic decorated with white stripes, white Laconian shoes and, for a headdress,
a laurel crown made out of gold. This costly and extravagant outfit
was, without doubt, a symbol of authority, its function being to afford this
self-made despot the proper appearance of a legitimate ruler. This, at least,
is the explanation of the same phenomenon in the case of the Sicilian
slave kings. 48 Anyway, it appears that Lysias’ rich attire struck Athenaeus as
unsuitable, and particularly so given the revolutionary social policy which
he devised and which he attempted to bring in by radical means: ‘He then
distributed the goods of the rich among the poor, murdering many who did
not offer them of their own accord.’ 49 As it stands I find this story which
makes Lysias out to be an ancient Robin Hood, frankly unhistorical; in any
event, it defies proof. The socio-politically motivated notion of a redistribution
of wealth is unusual but not impossible. Athenaeus’ report may contain
a kernel of historical truth, going back to Lysias’ desire to mitigate social
distress by a re-allocation of property in the form of, say, a Gracchan-style
allotment of land. That such thinking is not inconceivable may be seen in
the unconventional policy of Pompey the Great in respect of Cilicia. Following
the pirate war of 67 bc, an attempt was made to reintegrate former
pirates into society by means of land-allotments and resettlement. 50 In this,
confiscation could scarcely have been avoided. Even supposing that Pompey’s
motive was purely selfish, i.e., an increase in the number of his dependants
and in his prestige, his resettlement policy remains a remarkable attempt
to pacify the region. It managed to avoid something which was otherwise a
feature of this period and, in particular, this area, namely the wholesale
enslavement of prisoners-of-war. 51 It may therefore be taken as demonstrating
that the Romans recognised the need for a reconciliatory social policy in
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