Appius and Verginia

Appius Claudius, presiding, in the centre; his stooge Marcus Claudius on the left; Verginius slaying Verginia on the right

[Image source: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/libertatis-virginia-killed-by-her-father-to-protect-her-from-appius-claudius-221779. An early sixteenth-century painting in Campion Hall, University of Oxford. It has been ascribed to the circle of Bramantino or Defendente Ferrari.]




The early books of Livy tell the thrilling tale of the early history of Rome: the most formative account, perhaps aside from the Old Testament, of how a nation starts.


It is an overwhelmingly male-dominated picture, but there are three early stories in which women are prominent, always as valuable objects in a man's world. Two I've touched on before, the rape of the Sabine women and the rape of Lucretia.


The third is the story of Appius and Verginia. In later European literature this became detached, e.g. in Jean de Meung and in Chaucer's Physician's Tale (one of those minor Canterbury Tales you tend to forget).  Shakespeare refers to the story, e.g. when Titus Andronicus regetfully slays his daughter or when Desdemona asks for a little time before being strangled. In these later renderings, Verginius' slaying of his innocent daughter has become a type of honour-killing, not indeed to be imitated but to be admired.


But Livy's original story is more complex because it places the whole episode within the political story of the second Decemvirate; ultimately, it's about what happens to a society that doesn't have a right of appeal. The wider context makes a difference. Livy and his readers couldn't forget that Appius, more than anyone, had been responsible for the ten tables, the foundation of Roman law. But now power had gone to his head. The centurion Verginius and ex-tribune Icilius (Verginia's betrothed) are grossly wronged by Appius' despicable abuse of judicial power, but they are also, in Livy's eyes, plebeian  firebrands who are dangerous to the body politic. When Appius refers to typical tribune-like troublemaking, we know he's abusing this argument to serve his own ends, but we've learnt to know the kind of thing he means.  Livy, let's face it,  doesn't often find himself on the popular side.  And in a political context, if our first reaction to a terrible event is about deciding who's blameless and who's most to blame, the deeper question comes to be about how society can recover from the evil. So when with profound irony Appius himself resorts to saying "I appeal!", and is rejected by the new tribunes (Verginius and Icilius among them), the story registers disquiet about the tribunes themselves becoming tyrants: will justified revenge turn out to be as bad as the original crime, or will Rome manage to negotiate the rocky road back to the rule of law?




Amid all this male debate the figure of Verginia herself is only fleetingly seen, but here are a few sentences:




*




...There was a girl of humble birth that Appius wished to debauch; her father Lucius Verginius, who was serving with distinction on Algidus as a centurion, was a man with an excellent record in both military and civilian life, and his wife and children had been trained in the same high principles as himself. He had betrothed his daughter to an ex-tribune named Lucius Icilius, a keen and proven champion of the popular cause. This, then, was the girl -- at that time a beautiful young woman -- who was the object of Appius' passion. His attempts to seduce her with money and promises failed, so when he found her modesty proof against every kind of assault, he had recourse to a method of compulsion such as only a heartless tyrant could devise. Taking advantage of her father's absence on service, he instructed a dependant of his own, named Marcus Claudius, to claim the girl as his slave and to maintain the claim against any demands which might be made for her liberty. One morning, therefore, when she was entering the Forum to attend the school, Claudius -- the decemvir's pimp -- laid hands on her, and, asserting that she, like her mother before her, was his slave, told her to follow him, and threatened to take her by force if she refused. The poor girl was dumb with fright, but her nurse shouted for help and a crowd quickly gathered.... (pp. 215-16)


[Appius ruled that]... Anyone was entitled to bring an action, and in other cases in which people were claimed as free, the demand was legal; but in the present case, where the girl was subject to her father, there was nobody else to whom the master could surrender custody, and for that reason he gave judgment that the father should be sent for and that meanwhile the claimant -- Claudius -- should not relinquish his right but should take charge of the girl and promise to produce her in court when the person said to be her father arrived in Rome. The judgement was patently unjust, but though there was plenty of muttering and indignation nobody ventured to speak openly against it... (pp. 216 -17)


At dawn next day the excitement in the city reached a new height. Verginius entered the Forum leading his daughter by the hand -- he in mourning, she in rags. ... (pp.218-9)


...Appius gave judgement for the plaintiff and declared Verginia to be his slave. This monstrous decision was received with stupefaction, and for several minutes no-one uttered a word. Presently Claudius began to push his way through the group of women to where Verginia was standing -- to claim his property. The women burst into tears, and suddenly Verginius shook his fist at Appius and called out: "I betrothed my daughter to Icilius, not to you -- I meant her for a marriage-bed, not for a brothel..." (p. 219)


Verginius looked around for help, but there was none. In a moment his mind was made up: "Appius," he cried, "if I spoke too harshly, a father's heart was to blame, and I ask your pardon. This whole business bewilders me -- let me question the nurse here, in my child's presence; then, if I find I am not her father, I shall understand and be able to go more calmly." Permission was granted, and he took Verginia and her nurse over to the shops by the shrine of Cloacina -- the new shops, as they are called today.  Then he snatched a knife from a butcher, and crying: "There is only one way, my child, to make you free," he stabbed her to the heart. Then, looking behind him at the tribunal, "Appius," he said, "may the curse of this blood rest on your head forever!" .. (p. 220)


Verginius caused a greater upheaval in the army even than he had done in Rome. His arrival was immensely impressive: long before he reached the camp he could be seen because of the crowd of some four hundred citizens who accompanied him out of sympathy for his lacerated feelings; his naked weapon was still in his hand, and his clothes were covered with blood. ... (p. 221)


Of the two appeals for pity, that of Verginius was felt to be more just. It was the end of all hope for Appius: he refused to face his trial, and killed himself.   ... (p. 232)


Marcus Claudius, the man who had claimed Verginia, was prosecuted and condemned, but was spared the extreme penalty at the request of Verginius himself and went into exile at Tibur. Thus not a single man who had any share in the guilt of Verginia's death remained, and her ghost, which so long had wandered from house to house in search of satisfaction, found rest at last.  (p. 233)




Livy, 3.44 - 3.59, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (The Early History of Rome)






*


And whan this worthy knyght Virginius
Thurgh sentence of this justice Apius
Moste by force his deere doghter yiven
Unto the juge, in lecherie to lyven,
He gooth hym hoom, and sette him in his halle,
And leet anon his deere doghter calle,
And with a face deed as asshen colde
Upon his humble face he gan biholde,
With fadres pitee stikynge thurgh his herte,
Al wolde he from his purpos nat converte.


"Doghter," quod he, "Virginia, by thy name,
Ther been two weyes, outher deeth or shame,
That thou most suffre; allas, that I was bore!
For nevere thou deservedest wherfore
To dyen with a swerd or with a knyf...."


(Chaucer, Physician's Tale, ll. 203 - 217)








*


There are two surviving Appius and Virginia plays from around Shakespeare's time, an early one (1576) by "RB" and a late one probably mostly by John Webster (date disputed, perhaps late 1620s). There's an interesting PDF article by Dena Goldberg about both plays (I'm having difficulty giving the link, but if you do a Google search you'll find it).  The text of the Webster play is also available on-line and it looks well worth a read. In it he returns the well-worn story to the detail of Livy, though in one respect he changes it: his Appius is conceived as an upstart commoner on whom great power has been bestowed (somewhat in the Duke of Buckingham mould...); whereas Livy's Appius was an uncompromising aristocrat, a leading light of the senatorial families.












Appius.      See, see, how evidently Truth appears.
                  Receive her Clodius.
Virginius. Thus I surrender her into the Court
Kills her.
                 of all the Gods. And see proud Appius see,
                 although not justly, I have made her free,
                 And if thy Lust with this Act be not fed,
                 bury her in thy bowels, now she's dead.
Omnes.     O horrid act!

towards Collatia

Castello di Lunghezza

[Image source: https://www.matrimonio.com/castelli-matrimoni/castello-di-lunghezza--e34941/fotos/13 . You can have your wedding reception there!]

The medieval Castello di Lunghezza, on a hill just south of the river Aniene (Latin Anio), is generally thought to occupy the site of the ancient town of Collatia, though no traces have been found.


Shakespeare called it Collatium.






FROM the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
And girdle with embracing flames the waist
Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.


(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece Stanza 1)


Shakespeare's sources were Livy Ab Urbe Condita Bk I (which he may have encountered at school) and Ovid's Fasti Book II (February). His poem (written c. 1593) pre-dated the first complete English translation of Livy (by Philemon Holland in 1600). Thomas Heywood's tragedy The Rape of Lucrece dates from 1608.

No poet of Shakespeare's time was interested in pace. Chaucer had been such a master of it, but now the object of narrative verse was quite changed. Shakespeare's poem, after that thrill of an opening stanza, switches almost immediately to the static elaborate musical figuration of Tarquin's thoughts (pre-rape) and Lucrece's thoughts (post-rape).


*

The story can be given in Shakespeare's own words. This is The Argument to his poem. It always gives me a funny feeling when I read it.  I find myself thinking that here, almost uniquely, is Shakespeare writing merely  as himself,  not in the role of another character, nor as part of an elaborate social ritual (as, very obviously, in the preceding dedication to Henry Wriothesley). I might well be mistaken. Maybe these long Latinate sentences with their suspended clauses are just another mask: Shakespeare in the role of historian. Maybe the switching between past tense and historic present tense isn't unreflecting and spontaneous, but is part of the assumed garb of a storyteller. Maybe "writing as oneself" did not even exist in those days. Whatever, it's intriguing to see Shakespeare so far off his usual patch.




*


THE ARGUMENT



Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus, after he had caused his own father-in-law Servius Tullius to be cruelly murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to besiege Ardea. During which siege the principal men of the army meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after supper every one commended the virtues of his own wife: among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they posted to Rome; and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several disports. Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and his wife the fame. At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece' beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and was, according to his estate, royally entertained and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium. The same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily dispatcheth messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp for Collatine. They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow. She, first taking an oath of them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself. Which done, with one consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter invective against the tyranny of the king: wherewith the people were so moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to consuls.


(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece)


*



"...Give me your solemn promise that the adulterer shall be punished -- he is Sextus Tarquinius. He it is who last night came as my enemy disguised as my guest, and took his pleasure of me. That pleasure shall be my death -- and his too, if you are men."

The promise was given. One after another they tried to comfort her. They told her she was helpless, and therefore innocent; that he alone was guilty. It was the mind, they said, that sinned, not the body: without intention there could never be guilt.

"What is due to him," Lucretia said, "is for you to decide. As for me I am innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment. Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve." With these words she drew a knife from under her robe, drove it into her heart, and fell forward, dead.

Her father and husband were overwhelmed with grief. While they stood weeping helplessly, Brutus drew the bloody knife from Lucretia's body, and holding it before him cried: "By this girl's blood -- none more chaste till a tyrant wronged her -- and by the gods, I swear that with sword and fire, and whatever else can lend strength to my arm, I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius the Proud, his wicked wife, and all his children, and never again will I let them or any other man be King in Rome."

(Livy, translated by Aubrey de Selincourt)


*


She called her aged father and her loyal husband
    From the camp, and both came without delay.
Seeing her condition, they asked why she mourned,
    Whose rites she prepared, what ill had befallen her?
She was silent for a long time, and hid her face in her robe
    Out of shame: her tears flowed in a running stream.
Her father here, her husband there comforted her tears
    And begged her to tell, wept, and trembled in blind fear.
Three times she tried to speak, three times desisted,
    And a fourth time, gaining courage, still couldn’t raise her eyes.
She said: ‘Must I owe this to a Tarquin too? Must I speak,
    Speak, poor wretch, my shame from my own mouth?’
What she could, she told. The end she suppressed:
    She wept, and a blush spread over a wife’s cheeks.
Her husband and her father forgave her being forced:
    She said: ‘I deny myself the forgiveness that you grant.’
Then she stabbed herself with a blade she had hidden,
    And, all bloodied, fell at her father’s feet.
Even then she took care in dying so that she fell
    With decency, that was her care even in falling.
See, the husband and father throw themselves on her body,
    Regardless of appearances, grieve for their mutual loss.
Brutus approached, and at last, with spirit, belied his name,
    Snatching the weapon from the dying body,
Holding the blade dripping with noble blood,
     Fearlessly he uttered these menacing words:
‘I swear by this chaste blood, so courageous,
    And by your spirit that will be a divinity to me,
I will be revenged on Tarquin the Proud and his lost brood.
    I have concealed my virtue for too long.’
At these words, lying there, she moved her sightless eyes,
    And seemed to witness the speech by a stirring of her hair.
They carried her to her funeral, a woman with a man’s courage,
    And tears and indignation followed after her.


(Ovid Fasti II, about February 24, day of  the Regifugium.)


[Translation by A.S. Kline. The whole of this translation is available online:  https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Fastihome.php . I had never read any of the Fasti before:  it turns out to be a rather wonderful poem. ]


*


The words of Lucretia are still incandescent. But this is a myth cultivated by men. In the story the men-folk themselves are specifically exculpated from having approved or wished for Lucretia's self-sacrifice. Yet the myth itself does exactly that. It promotes Lucretia as a woman hero (exemplifying the key womanly virtue,i.e. chastitiy). And it sees her as an inspiring and unsparing exemplum of zero tolerance for (female) unchastity.


 *


Shakespeare, to his credit I think, can't quite bear to stick with this myth. His Brutus points out that Lucrece's suicide, far from being a noble exemplum, is after all a dreadful mistake.


'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth be, 'arise:
Let my unsounded self, supposed a fool,
Now set thy long-experienced wit to school.
'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds:
Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.

But no, that isn't the total judgment of the poem: in fact Shakespeare was not in the business of judging, but of imagining how the Lucrece he had read about must have felt.


'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:
But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife:
So am I now: O no, that cannot be;
Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

----

'Few words,' quoth she, 'Shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending:

-----

'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!
Or at the least this refuge let me find;
Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
That was not forced; that never was inclined
To accessary yieldings, but still pure
Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'

----

But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
The protestation stops. 'O, speak, ' quoth she,
'How may this forced stain be wiped from me?

'What is the quality of mine offence,
Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
My low-declined honour to advance?
May any terms acquit me from this chance?
The poison'd fountain clears itself again;
And why not I from this compelled stain?'

With this, they all at once began to say,
Her body's stain her mind untainted clears;
While with a joyless smile she turns away
The face, that map which deep impression bears
Of hard misfortune, carved in it with tears.
'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,
By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.'


So the poem turns over and over Lucrece's feeling of violation and shame, a feeling of something as irrevocable as Lady Macbeth's guilt, although Lucrece is not guilty.

Brilliant as this psychological poetry is, the object of violation is still seen, predominantly, as chastity, the role of a wife. So reading it is a bit too comfortable. When all's said it's still a man's poem, its rape is distanced in time, distanced too in the high social status of criminal and victim. Stating the obvious, it's an idealized picture, and after a time that makes me feel a bit uneasy, so this post ends with a corrective of sorts.    

These notes on Shakespeare: full list

schoolboy reading

This piece of social history came from a damp cardboard box that someone had "donated" by leaving beside the already overflowing book bank in Sainsbury's car-park in Frome. As the world switches to smartphones, books are becoming a drug on the market. The charities' hearts must sink, I realize that.

Nevertheless, the appearance of this de facto rubbish tip at the end of the car-park doesn't exactly send out a positive message. The clothes bank, likewise untended, was surrounded by damp plastic bags of garments. The shoe bank.... well, you get the idea.. At least DVDs are waterproof. More rain was on the way.


So we felt not only justified, but almost obliged, to rescue some of the more re-sellable books, with the plan of dropping them off at a charity shop in a few days, after rewarding ourselves with a quick peak at our treasures. The chief one, for me, was an informative booklet containing portraits of Scott and his circle. But now my attention has moved on to this one.


It was at one time in the library of Trinity School Croydon, an independent boys school (founded in 1882 as Whitgift Middle School) . I hope you can make out the sturdy transparent plastic that protects the cover. Because of the publishing industry's switch to paperback format and the school library's submission to altered circumstances in the form of Latin classics in translation,  every teacher who ran such a library in the 1960s/1970s must have spent an immense number of laborious hours making protective covers for their new purchases. Perhaps the teacher who bound this one, in 1965, might like to to know that it was borrowed four times in the next fifteen years, and is still in good condition (and semi-rainproof) in 2018.


*


As a child I took Roman history and legend rather for granted. It's more arresting to take a look at the early days of Rome now. Within just a few pages, we come to the rape of the Sabine women.


ojcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Rape-of-Sabines.doc

Then the great moment came; the show began, and nobody had eyes or thoughts for anything else. This was the Romans' opportunity at a given signal all the able-bodied men burst through the crowd and seized the young women. Most of the girls were the prize of whoever got hold of them first, but a few conspicuously handsome ones had been previously marked down for leading senators, and these were brought to their houses by special gangs ....




By this act of violence the fun of the festival broke up in panic. The girls' unfortunate parents made good their escape, not without bitter comments on the treachery of their hosts and heartfelt prayers to the God to whose festival they had come in all good faith in the solemnity of the occasion, only to be grossly deceived. The young women were no less indignant and as full of foreboding for the future.


Romulus, however, reassured them. Going from one to another he declared that their own parents were really to blame, in that they had been too proud to allow intermarriage with their neighbors; nevertheless, they need not fear; as married women they would share all the fortunes of Rome, all the privileges of the community, and they would be bound to their husbands by the dearest bond of all, their children. He urged them to forget their wrath and give their hearts to those to whom chance had given their bodies. Often, he said, a sense of injury yields in the end to affection, and their husbands would treat them all the more kindly in that they would try, each one of them, not only to fulfill their own part of the bargain but also to make up to their wives for the homes and parents they had lost. The men, too, played their part: they spoke honeyed words and vowed that it was passionate love which had prompted their offense. No plea can better touch a woman’s heart.


The women in course of time lost their resentment; but no sooner had they learned to accept their lot than their parents began to stir up trouble in earnest. To excite sympathy they went about dressed in mourning and pouring out their grief in tears and lamentations.

Not content with confining these demonstrations within the walls of their own towns, they marched in mass to the house of Titus Tatius the Sabine king, the greatest name in that part of the country. Official embassies, too, from various settlements, waited upon him. It seemed to the people of Caenina, Crustumium, and Antemnae, who had been involved in the trouble, that Tatius and the Sabines were unduly dilatory, so the three communities resolved to take action on their own.

Of the three, however, Crustumium and Antemnae proved too slow to satisfy the impatient wrath of their partner, with the result that the men of Caenina invaded Roman territory without any support. Scattered groups of them were doing what damage they could, when Romulus, at the head of his troops, appeared upon the scene. A few blows were enough and defeat soon taught them that angry men must also be strong, if they would achieve their purpose....


[Later the Sabines attack, and a more furious battle ensues]


This was the moment when the Sabine women, the original cause of the quarrel, played their decisive part. The dreadful situation in which they found themselves banished their natural timidity and gave them courage to intervene. With loosened hair and rent garments they braved the flying spears and thrust their way in a body between the embattled armies. They parted the angry combatants; they besought their fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, to spare themselves the curse of shedding kindred blood. 'We are mothers now,' they cried; ‘our children are your sons - your grandsons: do not put on them the stain of parricide. If our marriage - if the relationship between you - is hateful to you, turn your anger against us. We are the cause of strife; on our account our husbands and fathers lie wounded or dead, and we would rather die ourselves than live on either widowed or orphaned.'

The effect of the appeal was immediate and profound. Silence fell and not a man moved. A moment later the rival captains stepped forward to conclude a peace. indeed, they went further: the two states were united under a single government, with Rome as the seat of power. Thus the population of Rome was doubled, and the Romans, as a gesture to the Sabines, called themselves Quirites, after the Sabine town of Cures. ...



*

I remember that someone informed me (I suppose I was about twelve at the time) that the "rape" described in such stories as this was not at all the same vile thing that was sometimes referred to on the six o'clock news. I was given to understand (in what vocabulary I don't recall) that it meant seizing or abducting rather than gross sexual violation.*

 I accepted that at the time, but I'm not so sure now. It was true that the Romans wanted wives rather than momentary amusements, but they certainly wanted sex and I don't suppose they deferred it. As for consent on the women's part, history does not record... I'm afraid it was considered irrelevant, like a woman's consent to marriage.

The influence of such stories on a future officer class would be profound. In warfare one would come up against rape soon enough. (I've just been reading about the mass-rapes carried out by the Red Army when they entered Berlin in 1945.) The boys would be fortified by the example of Romulus in deprecating the victim's wrath and resentment, in urbane reflections on accommodating oneself to the chances of war, and in learning the response of power to those who seek justice,  that "angry men must also be strong, if they would achieve their purpose..."

The story does tell one true thing: resentments do pass away in time, in the inextricably mixed inheritance of future generations, containing within themselves the countless genes of both criminals and victims. In fact following the death of Romulus the next king of Rome was the revered Numa Pompilius, who was a Sabine.

Numa was a man of peace, creator of the twelve-month calendar and the vital apparatus of civil religion. The story also tells us that the next king after him was Tullus Hostilius, a warmonger who thought the Romans had gone soft. Oh well.

[* My informant was correct inasmuch as this sense of "rape" as bride-seizure or just seizure was current for a while e.g. in Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia and Pope's Rape of the Lock. Whereas, a century earlier, Marlowe and Shakespeare had meant something much closer to what we mean today.

But thou from loving England art so far,

That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king

Cut off the sequence of posterity,

Out-faced infant state and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.    (King John, II.1.388-392)

]