Livy has some interesting comments on how the Romans dealt with their budget deficit in 214 BCE. Rather than saying that because the treasury was empty and therefore a number officials pretty much had nothing to do, Livy instead writes “Because of the insolvency of the treasury, the censors were freed from the contracting out of public works, and they turned their attention to regulating morality and chastening the vices that had arisen from that war” (24.18). One of the other interesting tales that he tells is that the censors were approached by “the owners of the slaves whom Tiberius Sempronius had freed at Beneventum. These said that they had been summoned by the three directors of the exchequer to be compensated for the slaves, but that they would not take the compensation until the war was over” (24.18). This is a pretty curious affair as Livy had pointed out earlier that the state had bought these slaves from their owners at rather a large expense. Had the state merely rented these slaves? Is Livy attempting to combine two different accounts of the volones?
I haven’t looked into Livy’s sources on the volones yet, but he does make one of his sources explicitly clear: a painting commissioned by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus after his success at Beneventum:
“The people of Beneventum all came streaming out in a crowd to meet them at the gates. They hugged the soldiers, congratulated them, and offered them hospitality. Dinners had been made ready in the forecourts of their houses by all the citizens; and to these they invited soldiers, begging Gracchus to give his men permission, but on condition that everyone eat in public, all the hosts before their own doors. Everything was then brought out. The slave volunteers dined wearing caps, or had fillets of white wool on their heads. Some were reclining and others standing, the latter serving food and eating at the same time. The event seemed worthy of a picture, and so on his return to Rome Gracchus had a painting of that festive day made in the temple of Liberty which his father had had constructed and had dedicated on the Aventine.” (24.16)
In this passage Livy’s method proceeds in pretty much the opposite direction of a modern history: whereas a modern history would state his or her source first, and then build a description upon that source, Livy instead gives his elaborate and very visual description of the Beneventum feast and only indirectly hints that he is basing this description on a painting that he himself has seen. It seems almost certain that Livy’s account of the slaves’ dress, how some of them are standing and others are lounging, are from this painting. Other aspects of his description are likely interpretations of this painting, either his own, a local expert, or possibly an inscription, such as the detail of how Gracchus had required them all to eat in public. More doubtful readers/viewers such as modern audiences would see that as an extraneous reason for a painter to justify painting a feasting army outdoors rather than indoors.
It seems possible to me that Livy used this painting to justify other details about the volones. I mentioned in post 67 how Gracchus eventually decides to punish the cowardly slaves by making them eat the rest of their meals in the war standing up. Such a story sounds like an explanation for why some of the slaves in this painting are standing and others are sitting.
I haven’t looked into Livy’s sources on the volones yet, but he does make one of his sources explicitly clear: a painting commissioned by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus after his success at Beneventum:
“The people of Beneventum all came streaming out in a crowd to meet them at the gates. They hugged the soldiers, congratulated them, and offered them hospitality. Dinners had been made ready in the forecourts of their houses by all the citizens; and to these they invited soldiers, begging Gracchus to give his men permission, but on condition that everyone eat in public, all the hosts before their own doors. Everything was then brought out. The slave volunteers dined wearing caps, or had fillets of white wool on their heads. Some were reclining and others standing, the latter serving food and eating at the same time. The event seemed worthy of a picture, and so on his return to Rome Gracchus had a painting of that festive day made in the temple of Liberty which his father had had constructed and had dedicated on the Aventine.” (24.16)
In this passage Livy’s method proceeds in pretty much the opposite direction of a modern history: whereas a modern history would state his or her source first, and then build a description upon that source, Livy instead gives his elaborate and very visual description of the Beneventum feast and only indirectly hints that he is basing this description on a painting that he himself has seen. It seems almost certain that Livy’s account of the slaves’ dress, how some of them are standing and others are lounging, are from this painting. Other aspects of his description are likely interpretations of this painting, either his own, a local expert, or possibly an inscription, such as the detail of how Gracchus had required them all to eat in public. More doubtful readers/viewers such as modern audiences would see that as an extraneous reason for a painter to justify painting a feasting army outdoors rather than indoors.
It seems possible to me that Livy used this painting to justify other details about the volones. I mentioned in post 67 how Gracchus eventually decides to punish the cowardly slaves by making them eat the rest of their meals in the war standing up. Such a story sounds like an explanation for why some of the slaves in this painting are standing and others are sitting.