UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
DISSERTATION

 THE TRADITION OF SELF-PORTRAYAL IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

This study aims at telling what and why something occurred. The “something” of this study is the practice of writing autobiographies during the era of the Roman republic. This will be a history, therefore, that demonstrates the involvement and attitude of Romans in considering and making know their achievements.

The investigator of Rome’s Republican era, and especially Roman affairs during the first century B.C., will recognize the relevance of the subject. An understanding of the dynamic, independent individuals of this period is a most sought after prize.

The astute investigator will recognize that there is a certain unreality about studying any practice or custom without considering the conditions in which it grew. Thus this study will attempt a balance of information. Material about the form and style of literature will be presented along with material about the personalities and events of the Roman Republic. Also the particular moment at which something can be said to have started in the Roman Republic will usually remain unspecified. Exact dates and first causes cannot be given. It is usually better to adopt the philosophy that most Roman practices grew up organically, almost imperceptibly, and that by the time people became aware of their significance they had already been in existence for a long time.

PROCEDURE: The Roman attitudes on virtue and the expression of res gestae should become the center of investigation for those who would wish to know the autobiographers and autobiographies of the Republican era. This is so because the direct investigation of the autobiographies is blocked by their having been lost almost completely. Thus one must go to sources related to autobiography which can reflect to our age what the general form and content of the Republican autobiographies comprised.

In searching for such related sources one finds that the principal of these is the private monumenta of the Roman gens. These private records of noble Roman families have been traced as the source of numerous Roman art forms and institutions. It is significant the biography and history writing, two literary forms closely related to autobiography, have some roots in the private monuments. Also state document such as the commentarii magistratuum are related to the efforts of the Roman noble families to keep records. This study makes an attempt to reconstruct the scattered history of Roman autobiography with the aid of such material.

FINDINGS: There was always time for recounting, remembering and preserving legends and histories as long as Roman citizens performed noble deeds. The written autobiographies of the Roman Republic are a part of this tradition and an important record of the accomplishments and character of notable soldiers, statesmen and scholars. L. Cornelius Sulla, C. Julius Caesar and M. Tullius Cicero are but a few of the distinguished Romans who wrote of their own deeds. These men composed works which are roughly what we should call autobiographies because their efforts were more that the autobiographical asides many ancient writers composed for use in their works. A Republican autobiography could boast of the role of luck in the author’s life, diligently rationalize the military accomplishments of the author or in the form of poetry celebrate the author’s deeds in an elected office. These are the topics of the autobiographies of Sulla, Caesar and Cicero respectively. Others who wrote autobiographies during the Republican era were M. Aemilius Scaurus, P. Rutilius Rufus, Q. Lutatius Catulus and M. Terentius Varro.