The fragmentary state in which Cicero's treatise De Republica has come down to us has given rise to considerable speculation as to the exact nature of the political ideal contained in it. Very varying conjectures have been advanced as to the significance and status of the rector or moderator rei publicae, and very different answers given to the question: Is the ideal a revised and improved form of the πάτριος πολιτεία or is it some kind of enlightened monarchy? The assumption on which this paper rests is, however, that the issue has not yet grown so academic but that a further examination of it may serve either to reveal some new, or to stress some neglected, feature of the traditional problem.

It is first necessary to say something about the use of the word ‘ideal’ in reference to the Republic. It is customary to talk of the ‘ideal’ which Cicero propounds in that work, yet there is patently something unsatisfactory in the term, since historians are unable to agree as to what that ideal is. It may be suggested that the reason for this is in part an ambiguity of the word ‘ideal’ corresponding to a distinction in Cicero's intention in writing the Republic. What this might be is most easily seen from comparison with Aristotle's Politics, which similarly is said to contain its author's political ideal, and similarly has given rise to dispute as to what exactly that ideal is. In this case, however, there need be no doubt as to what is intended, since Aristotle explicitly distinguishes two senses of ‘ideal’ as applied to constitutions, namely that which is best a priori (ή κατ εὺχήν) and that which is the best that can be expected relative to circumstances (ή ἐκ τν ύποκειμένων).

It was not until the time of Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus that the Greeks took the initiative in studying botany from a scientific point of view, but naturally earlier Greek writers were interested in varying degrees and for various reasons in the plants which they saw around them, and therefore mention them in their works.

The present is the third of a series of articles, the first two of which have appeared in the Classical Review, ‘Trees and Plants in Homer’ (C.R., vol. 1, July 1936, pp. 97 ff.) and ‘Trees and Plants in Herodotus’ (ib., vol. lvi, July 1942, pp. 57 ff.). The present article deals with the references to trees and plants in the thirty-five extant plays and fragments of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is proposed first to tabulate the references to trees, shrubs, and plants in these authors and indicate the contexts in which they occur, and then to try to draw some conclusions as to the interest which these writers display in plant life and the attitude which they adopt towards it. Forty-three botanical names occur in the plays of the three dramatists, whereas in Homer there are fifty and in Herodotus fifty-seven. It will be clear, I think, that the dramatists took much less interest in plant-life than either Homer or Herodotus.

To take trees and shrubs first, the oak, ρῠς (Quercus robor)—a word which, like the Sanskrit root dru, was originally a general term for ‘tree’ or ‘wood’, and hence is used for the ‘king of trees’—occurs frequently in the Greek tragedians, especially in Euripides.

I

Utility lies at the root of much prose: in Cato it is only implicit, though indubitable, but here is the note in Varro: ‘Quare quoniam emisti fundum quem bene colendo fructuosum cum facere velis, meque ut id mihi habeam curare roges, experiar: et non solum ut ipse, quoad vivam, quid fieri oporteat ut te moneam, sed etiam post mortem’ (R.R. i. 1), and the prefatory remarks to books ii and iii reveal essentially the same motive: fructus is the aim of estate management and Varro is setting out to serve that end by compiling good advice. That such advice will survive etiam post mortem is one of the practical benefits of committing it to writing, but there is no suggestion of a larger immortality though the dialogue form is of course very much the expression of ars. Here is the note again in another of the earlier extant prose works, the rhetorical treatise ad Herennium whose recipient realizes ‘non… in se parum fructus habet copia dicendi’ (cf. III. 1 ad hanc utilitatem progredi): here fructus recalls Varro's fructuosum, but the difference between the literal and the metaphorical fructus is significant to the student of social history. From a social as well as a literary standpoint too there is interest in the explicit rejection by the auctor ad Herennium of certain possible motives for writing: Profit and Reputation—‘non enim spe quaestus aut gloria commoti venimus ad scribendum quemadmodum ceteri’, and in particular Reputation derived from a bogus erudition. ‘Illa quae Graeci scriptores inanis adrogantiae causa sibi adsumpserunt reliquimus: nam illi, ne parum multa scisse viderentur, ea conquisiverunt quae nihil attinebant ut ars difficilior cognitu putaretur.’

Iuppiter Dolichenus is of interest as one of the group of oriental deities whose worship gained so wide a footing in the Roman world under the Empire. Second only in popularity to the Persian Mithras, Dolichenus extended his sway to the farthest limits of the Empire, and in some outlying provinces like Britain seems even to have challenged the primacy of Mithras himself.

Doliche, the original seat of Iuppiter Dolichenus, was a small town in the iron-bearing district of Commagene (ubi ferrum nascitur) in northern Syria, the meeting-place of several ancient military and trading routes. The earliest portrayals of the Dolichene god, dating from the mid-second and early first millennia B.C., identify him as in origin a Hittite thunder-god, with mixed Khurrite and Semitic attributes. He is shown as a bearded figure, with a pigtail, standing on a bull (symbolical of thunder and fertility), facing right, wearing a peaked and horned bonnet, fringed tunic, girdle, and sword, and brandishing a double axe in his right hand and a triple thunderbolt in his left; in the field above his head is the winged disk of the sun. The Hittite name of the god was Teshub, but by the later fully Semiticized Syrians he was identified with the Semitic god Hadad as the Ba'al (i.e. ‘Lord’) of the town of Doliche. In pre-Roman times, under the influence of Chaldean cosmology, there was a tendency to extend his supremacy to the heavens generally (‘Ba'alshamin’), and this extended status is reflected in later Roman dedications in the use of such epithets as aeternus, conservator totius mundi, exsuperantissimus, and the like.

Afoolish fondness for domestic pets, and a desire to have some kind of animal to share one's hearth and home, is usually regarded as a characteristically British trait, and it seems at first sight scarcely probable that the ancient Romans would have had any sympathy with such a sentimental weakness. Yet, if we turn to the literature of the notoriously practical Romans, we shall find plenty of evidence that they enjoyed the possession of those engaging companions no less than we do, and that they ranged over a wide field in choosing an object for their affections.

There can be no doubt that birds were first favourites with all classes of Roman society, and the first instance which springs to mind, no doubt, is that of Lesbia's sparrow, immortalized in the verses of Catullus. Two poems were written in its honour, one describing its happy lot as Lesbia's darling and delight, and one, the famous elegy, mourning the untimely death of the little bird, Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque. The custom of writing elegies on one's mistress's pets persisted, but with the general increase in wealth and luxury under the Empire, my lady's taste in birds became more sophisticated. The humble sparrow—or was it really a bullfinch?—which cheered Lesbia's heart would have been regarded with disdain by Ovid's Corinna. Her affections were centred on a psittacus, one of those jewel-bright parrots from the East, and especially from India, which are frequently mentioned in Imperial days, forming an elegant addition to the salons of society.

Horace puts in the mouth of Ofellus a sermon on plain living. Healthy hunger, says the honest yeoman, is content with ordinary fare; gluttons would like to see a big fish in a big dish,

porrectum magno magnum spectare catino,

but may the south wind turn their dainties bad, though the freshest turbot is already stale for a jaded appetite:

praesentes austri, coquite horum obsonia, quamquam putet aper rhombusque recens, mala copia quando aegrum sollicitat stomachum.

So Sat. ii. 2. 39–43: let us call the passage (a). He adds that he mentions turbots in particular because they happen to be more in fashion nowadays than sturgeons (46–48). Later in the same satire he talks (b) of the scandal and expense of big turbots and big dishes,

grandes rhombi patinaeque grande ferunt una cum damno dedecus. (95–96)

In another satire, an ironical lecture on cookery, we hear (c) that it is a gross fault to buy a big fish very dear and then serve it shabbily in too small a dish,

immane est vitium dare milia terna macello. angustoque vagos piscis urgere catino. (ii. 4. 76–77)

(The conventional translation of rhombus as a turbot has been retained, though it may well be some other fish.)

Juvenal, Satire iv, tells how a huge turbot was caught in the Adriatic off Ancona and hurried south to Alba as a gift to the Emperor. Fisherman and fish are promptly granted audience,

spectant admissa obsonia patres, (64)

and Domitian summons his Cabinet to discuss what is to be done with the treasure trove.