Pompeii (38 page)

We have some evidence for this from the town itself. Surviving texts inscribed on tombstones, public buildings, or the bases of statues, but also Lucius Caecilius Jucundus’ wax tablets and other less formal documents, record or refer to the actions and decisions of the local officials and the council. We have already seen the
ordo
deciding to bring the Pompeian system of weights and measures into line with Roman standards, and aediles assigning or confirming traders’ sales pitches. We have also seen in the tablets of Jucundus that local taxes were raised, and that the town itself owned property which was rented out by the council and the elected officials, even if the day-to-day management was in the hands of a ‘public slave’. The titles of the two main Pompeian offices also give a clear indication of the nature of some of the duties involved. The ‘
duoviri
with judicial power’ presumably handled matters of law. The aediles, to judge at least from the duties of the aediles in the city of Rome itself, would have been particularly concerned with the fabric of the city, buildings and roads. In fact, they are occasionally referred to not as aediles, but as ‘
duoviri
in charge of streets and of sacred and public buildings’.

69. What went on in the Covered Theatre? This nineteenth-century fantasy of music and dance is a very bad guide to the kind of performances that were presented. But it does give some idea of how the now open-air theatre would have appeared when its roof was in place.

Other activities are revealed in other texts. It is clear that the town council had the authority to decree that statues be erected to local notables or members of the imperial family. In other cases it might grant the land for such marks of honour: a private citizen could take the initiative and pay for a statue himself, but he would still need the
ordo
’s permission to set it up in public. The council likewise could assign money to pay for a public funeral for prominent members of the community, as well as a prestigious burial place. In the case of public buildings, the council would set the budget, then the
duoviri
would find the contractors and be responsible for approving the job at the end. This is the procedure referred to in an inscription set up at the entrance to the Covered Theatre (or ‘Odeon’), which was built in the early years of the colony (Ill. 69): ‘Caius Quinctius Valgus, son of Caius, and Marcus Porcius, son of Marcus,
duoviri
, by decision of the councillors, awarded the contract for building the Covered Theatre and likewise approved the work’. This was a tradition which went back before the Roman takeover of the city. As we have seen, the Oscan inscription on the sundial in one of the main town baths records that one of the town officials in the second century BCE, Maras Atinius, son of Maras (a good Oscan name), had set it up ‘with the money raised from fines’.

The particular emphasis here on honorific statues, funerals and building work is perhaps misleading. It has a lot to do with the fact that much of the evidence we have comes from statue bases, tombstones and inscriptions on public buildings. But the underlying theme of donation, benefaction, and both public and private generosity is an important one. For it is clear that, whatever else they did, the elected officials were expected, even required, to give generously to the local community out of their own funds. The same pair of
duoviri
who saw to the construction of the Covered Theatre also built the Amphitheatre at their own expense ‘and gave it to the colonists in perpetuity’.

On a more modest scale, though still a very substantial series of benefactions, the gifts made to the city by Aulus Clodius Flaccus in the early first century CE on each of the three occasions he was
duumvir
were recorded in detail on his tomb. The first time, he presented the games in honour of Apollo in the Forum – with a procession, bulls and bullfighters, boxers, musical shows and cabaret, including a well-known performer, Pylades, who is singled out by name. (This is another striking use for the Forum and – given those bulls – another reason for making sure that its entrances and exits could be secured.) The second time he held the office, as quinquennial
duumvir
, he presented more games in the Forum with much the same line-up, minus the music; and on the next day he showed ‘athletes’, gladiators and wild beasts (boars and bears) in the Amphitheatre, some paid for by himself alone, some with his colleague. The third time was either a less lavish display, or it was described more reticently on the tomb: ‘with his colleague he gave games with a first-rate troupe and extra music’.

Games and spectacles, it seems, were the norm for this type of benefaction. Cnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius put on a large gladiatorial display when he was quinquennial
duumvir
in the 50s, ‘at no expense to the public purse’, as one of the painted advertisements underlines. But building work might be substituted. A series of inscriptions in the Amphitheatre record the fact that various magistrates built sections of stone seating (probably to replace the original wooden versions), ‘instead of games and lights, by decision of the councillors’. This implies that the
ordo
allowed them to spend the required money on upgrading the facilities, rather than on a show itself and on whatever ‘lights’ meant. Were some displays perhaps held at night, with the special lighting?

There was also a direct transfer of cash from
duumvir
or aedile to the public funds. Aulus Clodius Flaccus notes that ‘for his [first] duumvirate, he gave 10,000
sesterces
to the public account’. This was probably the fee that we know of elsewhere in the Roman empire usually paid by local officeholders and new members of the
ordo
. Taken altogether, these fees represented a significant part of any town’s budget. Flaccus’ heirs emphasised this particular payment no doubt, because they wanted to make clear that he had paid more than the going rate.

The underlying philosophy of local officeholding in the Roman world was quite different from our own. We expect local councillors to be compensated for the expenses they incur in the course of representing their community. The Romans expected men to pay for the privilege of being a member of the
ordo
or one of the elected officials: status came at a price. To put it another way, when the Pompeian voters were choosing between the different candidates for office, they were choosing between competing benefactors.

There is one document never found in the excavations that would have allowed us to fill in the details of the town’s government, the duties of its officials and the regulations for its council. As a Roman colony, Pompeii would have had a formal constitution or charter (in Latin,
lex
), most likely inscribed on bronze and publicly displayed in a temple or other civic building. This has never come to light – perhaps it was rescued (or stolen) by salvage parties just after the eruption. In its absence, scholars have tried to fill in the picture of Pompeii’s constitution from other such documents which have survived. The basic justification for doing this is that Roman legal provisions were for the most part applied even-handedly across the Roman world. What was laid down for a colony in, for example, Spain probably went for Pompeii too.

There is a good deal of truth in this argument (even though we tend to attribute far too much uniform consistency to the Romans in law as in much else). The surviving constitutions in some respects certainly match the practices we have seen in other sorts of evidence at Pompeii. One formal requirement in a Spanish charter is that the
duoviri
and aediles should present games, partly from their own money. In the legalese of the
lex
, it runs:

Whoever shall be
duoviri
, except for those who shall be first appointed after this statute, they during their term of office are to organise a show or dramatic spectacle for Jupiter, Juno, Minerva and the gods and goddesses, during four days, for the greater part of the day, as far as shall be possible according to the decision of the council, and each one of them is to spend on that spectacle and on that show not less than 2000
sesterces
from his own money, and it is to be lawful to take and spend out of public money up to 2000
sesterces
for each
duumvir
, and it is to be lawful for them to do so without personal liability ...

This is a typical piece of careful Roman drafting: note how they lay down explicitly that the shows should last ‘for the greater part of the day’ (there was to be no getting away with just a morning’s worth). It is almost certain, to judge from the tombstone of Aulus Clodius Flaccus, that some very similar clause was included in the Pompeian constitution too.

The surviving constitutions remind us also of the kinds of issues that the Pompeian version must have covered. These range from particular questions of legal practice and procedures (what cases could be heard locally, or under what circumstances might they be referred to courts in Rome itself?) to arrangements for the timetabling of meetings of the
ordo
or rules on where councillors should live (the same Spanish constitution specifies a five-year residence requirement in the town or within a mile of it). But it is much harder to know exactly how closely any of the details would be reflected in the lost Pompeian document.

Another clause from the Spanish version lays out precisely what attendants each of the officials should have, and how much they should be paid. It is in the same formal legal style:

Whoever shall be
duoviri
, there is to be the right and power for those
duoviri
, for each one of them, to have two lictors, one servant, two scribes, two messengers, a clerk, a crier, a
haruspex
, a flute-player ... And the fee for them, for each one of them, who shall serve the
duoviri
, is to be so much: for each scribe 1200
sesterces
, for each servant 700
sesterces
, for each lictor 600
sesterces
, for each messenger 400
sesterces
, for each clerk 300
sesterces
, for each
haruspex
500
sesterces
, for a crier 300
sesterces
.

This is not only carefully drafted. Note how the wording makes it absolutely clear that this is the staff which
each duumvir
will have (though, less carefully, the pay for the flute-player seems to have been omitted). It also offers a vivid glimpse into the role of a local official and how he might carry it out. The
haruspex
and flute-player hint at the religious duties of the
duumvir
(a
haruspex
would examine the entrails of sacrificed animals for signs from the gods (Chapter 9)). The scribes – by far the best paid – and the clerk imply that a good deal of writing was involved in the job, though the crier makes it clear that there were oral as well as written ways of transmitting information. The mention of lictors, attendants who in Rome itself carried the bundles of rods and an axe, the
fasces
, that were the symbol of official Roman authority, suggests that the
duoviri
were surrounded by a certain degree of pomp and ceremonial.

The question is, can we assume that the Pompeian
duoviri
enjoyed the services of the same or similar staff. They are certainly not prominent in the written evidence from the town – hardly extending beyond the single ‘public slave’ doing the city’s business in the Jucundus tablets, and a group of four ‘clerks’ who sign their names on an inn wall. This does not prove that they did not exist. As the old archaeological cliché goes, ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. All the same, it is hard not to suspect on the basis of what survives that the Pompeian
duoviri
worked with a more skeleton staff than some of their equivalents elsewhere. Certainly, if this was his entourage, the salary bill alone would have eaten up almost 75 per cent of what Aulus Clodius Flaccus paid when he entered office as
duumvir
.