Roma Victa Romes Way of Dealing With Defeat Simon Lentzsch All Chapter

Roma Victa: Rome's way of dealing with
defeat Simon Lentzsch

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/roma-victa-romes-way-of-dealing-with-defeat-simon-l
entzsch/
Roma Victa
Rome’s way of dealing with defeat
Simon Lentzsch
Roma Victa
Simon Lentzsch
Roma Victa
Rome’s way of dealing with defeat
Simon Lentzsch
Institut des Sciences de l’Antiquité
Université de Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland
Einbandgestaltung: Finken & Bumiller, Stuttgart.

ISBN 978-3-476-05941-3 ISBN 978-3-476-05942-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH,
DE, part of Springer Nature 2023
The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service
DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE,
part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Preface
This book represents the revised and abridged version of my dissertation, which was
accepted by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cologne under the title
“Militärische Niederlagen in der römischen Erinnerungskultur” in the winter semes-
ter 2016/2017. I completed the manuscript in the fall of 2018, making every effort
to incorporate literature that has appeared since I completed the Defensio in
December 2016.
Now that this work is done, I very gladly take the opportunity to thank teachers,
colleagues and friends without whom this book could not have been written.
First and foremost, my doctoral supervisor, Professor Dr. Karl-Joachim
Hölkeskamp, who has been an academic teacher and supporter in the broadest sense
of the term since my studies. I thank him very much for his inexhaustible advice and
encouragement as well as for his great patience when it came to completing
my thesis.
I would also like to thank Professor Dr. Peter Franz Mittag and Professor Dr. Jan
Felix Gaertner (both Cologne), who were kind enough to take the trouble of review-
ing my dissertation as members of the doctoral committee, and who gave me impor-
tant advice that saved me from many an error. The oral examination was chaired by
Professor Dr. Sabine von Heusinger (also Cologne), for which I would also like to
thank her warmly.
Since the time of my studies, I have considered myself very fortunate to have
found a university home in the Department of Ancient History at the Cologne
Historical Institute, to which, in addition to the aforementioned professors Karl-
Joachim Hölkeskamp and Peter Franz Mittag, their colleagues Professor Dr. Walter
Ameling and Professor Dr. Werner Tietz have contributed with their friendly advice
and support. This also applies to my colleagues in Cologne, with whom I have had
the pleasure of working in an extremely pleasant atmosphere over the past few
years, for which I would like to express my sincere thanks to each and every one
of them.
I would especially like to thank Dr. Frank Bücher, who once awakened my inter-
est in the history of the Roman Republic in his introductory seminar, has since
helped me in many ways, and has always been available with advice and guidance.
I would like to thank my colleagues and office mates Dr. Julia Hoffmann-Salz,
Sema Karataş and Katharina Kostopoulos for the always extremely pleasant coop-
eration, the many conversations we have been able to have over the past years and
v
vi Preface
their friendly support, which have helped me a great deal along the way. I am all the
more pleased that our respective works are now all nearing completion or publica-
tion. As a friend and colleague equally helpful and with an open ear for an inex-
haustible range of topics and problems, Dr. Michael Kleu also showed himself to be
so kind as to read and comment on parts of the text. To my colleague and friend
Marian Helm (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), who took the trouble to read parts of the
text, I thank for hints on different topics around Rome’s wars of the Middle Republic
and, above all, for the opportunity to discuss questions concerning our common
field of interest.
In the first year of working on my project, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Karl Galinsky
(University of Texas, Austin) offered me the opportunity to work in his Max Planck
Research Award project Memoria Romana. Memory in Roman Culture through a
generous grant, for which I owe him a great debt of gratitude.
During my stay in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, Dr.
John Patterson and Professor Dr. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill in particular offered me
all the help I needed, which helped to keep my studies focused and successful dur-
ing this time. I would also like to thank Professor Wallace-Hadrill for the opportu-
nity to present my ideas in his PhD seminar. The advice I received here helped
me a lot.
This also applies to the very different suggestions, questions and constructive
criticism that I received in the context of colloquia and conferences in Bielefeld,
Bochum, Darmstadt, Essen, Fribourg, Innsbruck, Münster, Passau and Rome. I
would like to thank my respective hosts and the other discussants very much for the
opportunity to present my thoughts on Rome’s handling of defeats in their respec-
tive events and to rethink them again and again in the process.
In the arduous burden of proofreading, I had an attentive and competent sup-
porter at my side in my father Günter Lentzsch. It goes without saying that any
errors and inconsistencies that may still be present in the text are my sole
responsibility.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to Metzler-Verlag, especially to Dr. Oliver Schütze,
for their willingness to include my work in their programme. I would also like to
thank Dr. Ferdinand Pöhlmann and Ms. Britta Rao for their helpful advice on tech-
nical issues, and for their support during the preparation of the manuscript.
Professor Dr. Jürgen Malitz was kind to provide me with the images of coins
from the Eichstätt Numismatic Image Database for publication in my work, for
which I thank him sincerely.
Not only my professional environment, but above all my family provided the
actual prerequisite for being able to begin and complete my studies. I would there-
fore like to thank my parents, Ute and Günter Lentzsch, for the constant encourage-
ment and support they have given me since my childhood and, above all, for the
interest they have shown in everything I did ever since. My parents-in-law, Marion
Teubner and Ralf Haven-Teubner, have contributed to the success of my work
through many kinds of help, not least through great support with childcare.
I owe the greatest thanks, however, to a special colleague, without whom I would
probably neither have begun nor successfully completed my study – my wife Melina
Preface vii
Teubner, who not only supported me with good advice and great encouragement but
also allowed me to share in her own research projects. For our children, Emilia, Klio
and Paul, my involvement with “the Romans” was and is a constant part of their
childhood.
This work is therefore dedicated to them and my wife.
Cologne, Germany Simon Lentzsch

December 2018
Preface to the English Edition
The German edition of this book was published in 2019 under the title Roma Victa.
Von Roms Umgang mit Niederlagen. I am very pleased that it is now also available
in English.
I would like to extend my gratitude to the publisher for giving me the opportunity
to make my book accessible to a larger anglophone audience. In particular, I would
like to thank Oliver Schütze as well as Nandhini Rajadhanam and Snehal Surwade
for their friendly and professional cooperation.
This translation is, in a way, an experiment, as it was created with the help of
artificial intelligence. I then personally revised the entire text and made some stylis-
tic corrections. During this process, I was supported by my colleagues, Dr. Roman
Roth (Cape Town) and James Alexander Macksound (Stanford), both of whom read
large parts of the text and helped improve it with their constructive suggestions. My
heartfelt thanks go to both of them. All remaining errors are, of course, my own
responsibility.
Since the publication of the German edition, a number of further studies have
appeared which I have not been able to consider. I would, however, like to take the
opportunity to mention at least some of these works. In 2019, Oliver Stoll published
an instructive book on reactions to defeats in the Roman imperial period, which
offers numerous suggestions for further research (Stoll 2019). The publication of a
volume comparing the interpretation of defeats in Greco-Roman antiquity and the
European Middle Ages is in preparation (Manuel Kamenzin, Simon Lentzsch,
Geschichte wird von den Besiegten geschrieben. Darstellung und Deutung mil-
itärischer Niederlagen in Antike und Mittelalter, Frankfurt am Main 2023).
Important recent works on Roman historical culture that appeared too late for the
work on the German edition and were therefore not listed there are Jacobs 2020 (on
Silius Italicus), Langlands 2018 and Roller 2018 (both on the use of exempla), and
the volume by Murray/Wardle (eds.) 2022 (on Valerius Maximus).
I would be delighted if the present book could contribute to the ongoing and
stimulating scholarly discourse on Roman commemorative culture and Roman his-
tory in the Republic and early imperial period.
Bern, Switzerland Simon Lentzsch

August 2022
ix
Contents
1 Introduction�� 1
1.1 Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure
of the Work�� 1
1.2 Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research
on Defeats�� 8
2 Methodological Preliminary Remarks �� 17
2.1 Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures,
Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts�� 17
2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period �� 33
3 The Greatest Danger to Our Empire: Rome’s Celtic Wars�� 63
3.1 The ‘Gallic Catastrophe’: The Defeat at the Allia and the
Gallic Conquest of Rome�� 65
3.1.1 Remembrance in the Calendar: The Dies Alliensis�� 67
3.1.2 Messages from the Distant Past: Early Literary
Evidence �� 70
3.1.3 The Storming of the Capitol: From the Third to the Second
Century �� 74
3.1.4 New Foundation of the City and New Ways to the
Capitol: The Late Republic�� 83
3.1.5 Fall and Rise Again: The Augustan Period�� 90
3.1.6 The Catastrophe as Origin: The ‘Gallic Disaster’ in
Antiquarian Research�� 116
3.1.7 The Capitol in Flames: Early to Middle Imperial Period �� 125
3.1.8 Later Perspectives: The Further Memory of the ‘Gallic
Disaster’�� 129
3.2 Self-Sacrifice for the Res Publica and Heroes of the Barbarians:
Defeats in the Third and Second Century Celtic Wars�� 131
3.3 Summary�� 144
4 Under the Yoke: The Samnite Wars�� 149
4.1 Memory in Pictures: Numismatic Evidence for the Defeat of
Caudium? �� 153
xi
xii Contents
4.2 The Form of Defeat: Testimonies of the Late Republic �� 155
4.3 Disgraceful Lessons: The Augustan period �� 157
4.4 Forgotten Battles? The Early and Middle Imperial Period�� 180
4.5 Outlook: Rome‘s Samnite Wars in Late Antiquity�� 181
4.6 Summary�� 182
5 The Darkest Hour: The Roman-Carthaginian Wars�� 185
5.1 A Noble Prisoner and Chickens That Will Not Eat: The First War�� 186
5.1.1 Bellum Punicum: Testimonies of Contemporary Authors�� 187
5.1.2 The Example of the Tribune: Testimonies of the Second
Century �� 192
5.1.3 Continued Torture: The First Century to the End of the
Republic�� 197
5.1.4 Literature of the Augustan Period�� 201
5.1.5 The Examples of the Consuls: Evidence of the Early
Imperial Period �� 206
5.1.6 The Example of the Father: Silius Italicus, Punica�� 211
5.2 The Enemy at the Gates: The Second War�� 220
5.2.1 Contemporary Reflections�� 220
5.2.2 The War of the Senate: The Second and Early First
Centuries �� 241
5.2.3 The First Century Until the End of the Republic�� 253
5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: The Defeats of the Second
Roman-Carthaginian War in the Historical Culture
of the Republic�� 267
5.2.5 The Augustan Period�� 269
5.2.6 Memorable Defeats: Testimonies of the Early Imperial
Period�� 331
5.2.7 Worthy of My Heaven: Silius Italicus, Punica�� 344
5.2.8 Old and New Wars: Outlook on the Following Centuries�� 378
6 Conclusion�� 381
List of Sources and Literature�� 391

Literature�� 393
Introduction
1
1.1
Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure
of the Work
Wars and armed conflicts were virtually “fundamental phenomena” of life for most
people in the ancient world.1 For the Romans, war perhaps played a particularly
important role. Through successful wars, Rome rose to rule the Mediterranean
world. The direct and indirect spoils from wars fundamentally changed the eco-
nomic situation of Rome and the Italic peninsula within a few generations, while at
the same time the wars waged by Rome dominated Roman ‘state finances’.2 The
events of these wars inspired the beginnings of Latin literature in almost all its
manifestations.3 The experience of war also had a considerable influence on the
1
Schulz 2012, 7: War as a “Fundamentalphänomen” of ancient everyday life. On the importance of
war for the societies (not only) of Greco-Roman antiquity, See among others Maier 1987; Lendon
2005, 197; Sidebottom 2008, 7; Schulz 2013, 727 f.; Rüpke 1990, 17–28; Rosenstein 2007, 132 f.;
Zimmermann 2009, 43 f. (who, ibid., 55–58, however, rightly argues for greater differentiation,
especially with regard to subsections of the imperial period); Howarth 2013, 29; Mann 2013, 1;
Millett 2013, 59; Tritle 2013, 281, 291 f.; Raaflaub 2014, 15; Stoll/Meier 2016, 3; Stoll 2016, 93.
Unless otherwise specified, all dates refer to years BC. All references appear in the notes as short
titles, which are resolved in the bibliography. The abbreviations of ancient authors and titles of
works follow those from the New Pauly (DNP, vol. 1, XXXIX–XVII).
2
See the fundamental work of Tenney Frank, according to whose calculations at the beginning of
the second century 77% of the state revenues of the republic were needed to cover the expenses for
the military (Frank 1933, 146). While it is certainly questionable whether the rather sparse source
material allows for such a precise calculation, it is probably fair to agree with Kay that Frank’s
figures are a metaphor for “a very high percentage of revenue” (Kay 2014, 25). Kay’s own conser-
vative estimates lead to a sum of 8.1 million denarii or 1350 talents of silver that the Republic had
to raise on average annually in the first third of the second century to maintain its legions and fleets
during this period of particularly intense warfare (the 2nd and 3rd Macedonian Wars, the war
against Antiochus III, and warfare in Spain and northern Italy). See most recently Rosenstein 2016.
3
See the comments below in Sect. 2.2. The great importance of war as a theme can be seen in the
historiography of Greco-Roman antiquity as a whole (See on this, among others, Maier 1987, 7;
Stoll/Meier 2016, 3 and again the corresponding sections below in Sect. 2.2).
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of 1

Springer Nature 2023
S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_1
2 1 Introduction
religious ideas of the Romans.4 The architecture not only of Rome, but of many
Roman and Italic cities, showed and still shows the influences of war in the form of
dedications of booty, historical reliefs, or sculptures of armed gods, generals, and
emperors.5 A high proportion of citizens served in the army themselves well into the
first century B.C.-perhaps at a higher rate than in any other state entity of the pre-
modern period.6 Not coincidentally, personal participation in wars remained one of
the sources on which the social status of Romans of different social classes could be
based. For members of the nobility this spectacularly occurred in the form of trium-
phal processions, while other groups of the population also reaped their tangible
rewards directly or indirectly through sharing in the spoils of war.7 Therefore, the
history of the Roman Republic has often been narrated in terms of a military success
story. This perspective has been and continues to be embraced by modern scholars,
and also beyond the specialist circles, with the military expansion of the Roman
Empire likely to be known as one of the best-known phenomena of the ancient
world.8 The foundations of this empire were laid in the time of the Republic, at the
end of which the Mediterranean as well as parts of the bordering regions were
already controlled by the armies of Rome. The speed and extent of Roman expan-
sion were already perceived as impressive by ancient observers, such as the Greek
historian Polybios.9 By conquering their Etruscan rival Veii at the beginning of the
fourth century, the Romans managed to double their territory. A century later, a
large part of the Italic peninsula was already under Rome’s direct or indirect control.
4
Rüpke 1990; Rich 2013b.
5
See, for example, Hölscher 1978; 1980 and 2003; Gruen 1992, 86–90; Zimmermann 2009;
Davies 2017, 3–5 (each with further references). See also Phang 2011, 114 f. for an overview of
more recent work.
6
Thus an often quoted assessment by Hopkins 1978, 11 (“The Romans conquered the whole of the
Mediterranean basin in two centuries of almost continuous fighting. During these two centuries of
conquest, a higher proportion of Roman citizens was under arms for longer than I have found in
any other pre-industrial state.”). On this, however, see also the more recent contributions by, among
others, Rich 1993, 39; Lendon 2007, 510 f., and most recently Walter 2017a, 21 f., 146 f. See Kay
2014, 25 (“warrior state”).
7
On the possibility of increasing one’s own social prestige through deployment in war, see, for
example, Schulz 2012, 181–183. On the ritual of the triumphal procession, see, among others,
Itgenshorst 2005; Hölkeskamp 2006b; 2008; Schulz 2012, 182 f.; Walter 2017a, 73, 215 (each with
further evidence). The importance of war booty for soldiers and commanders is discussed by
Harris 1979/1985; Bleckmann 2016; Rosenstein 2016 (again with further references).
8
See only most recently Woolf 2015, 11: “Every Roman history written is the history of a world
empire.” The very notion and concept of empire date back to the expansion of the Roman Republic,
and given the influence of the Imperium Romanum in the reception of the idea and concept of
empire-building in the post-antique periods, this can be said to be a “paradigmatic” example of the
idea of empire. This is the case, for instance, in the title of the chapter that Kai Ruffing has contrib-
uted to the anthology on “Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte” edited by M. Gehler and
R. Rollinger (Ruffing 2014): “Rom – das paradigmatische Imperium”. For an up-to-date and
pointed overview of research on the “Ursachen der Ausdehnung und Dauerhaftigkeit der römischen
Republik” see most recently Walter 2017a, 100 f.
9
See only the famous passage at the beginning of the first book, in which Polybius justifies his
choice of subject and the structure of the work. Pol. 1,1–4.
1.1 Not Just a Success Story: On the Subject and Structure of the Work 3
From the protracted but ultimately successful First Punic War (264–241) onwards,
Rome’s dominion spread at an increasingly rapid pace, first across the western and
then the eastern Mediterranean, and by the time of Augustus, the first princeps, the
Roman poet Virgil could have his Iuppiter speak of an imperium sine fine.10 So it is
quite natural to emphasize the victoriousness of Rome. The search for the causes of
Roman success, the social position of victorious commanders, the significance of
the social capital that could be gained through victories and that could in part be
accumulated over generations, as well as the various representations of victors and
victories in Roman historical culture, have understandably become the starting
point for many extensive and instructive works of research.11
However, the Roman success story was not without its setbacks. Thus, on their
way to world domination, the Roman armies left behind “a bloody trail of fallen
soldiers – especially from their own ranks” (Schulz).12 The specific forms of battle
tactics that the Romans chose for their campaigns already seem to have led to num-
bers of casualties that were significantly higher on average than had been the case,
for example, in land battles between Greek hoplite armies.13 In addition, the Roman
armies were by no means victorious in every one of the numerous campaigns to
which they were sent by the Senate and the People’s Assembly over the centuries.
Our sources do not permit an exact tally of Roman defeats and casualties.14 However,
the fact that the Roman Republic was regularly confronted with military defeats of
10
Verg. Aen. 1279.
11
See, among others, Afzelius 1942; Hölscher 1978; 1980; 2003; Hopkins 1978; Harris 1979/1985;
Eckstein 1987; 2006; 2007; Hölkeskamp 1987/2011 (see there, ibid., 316 f., the titles collected in
the addenda to the second edition); 1993/2004; 2010, 98–124; Rich 1993; 2013b, esp. 551–559;
Cornell 1995, 345–368; Rüpke 1995b; Heftner 1997; Beck 2005a; Forsythe 2005, 324–368;
Itgenshorst 2005; Cowan 2009; Schulz 2012, 204–226; Walther 2016, 103 f.; Linke 2017. See also
the contributions in Rich/Shipley (eds.) 1993. See also the references below in Sect. 2.2 on the
different media of Roman historical culture.
12
Schulz 2012, 180 (citation). Rosenstein 2004, 107–140 tries to estimate the number of fallen
Roman soldiers from the end of the third to the middle of the second century (see there (140)
among others: “Scholars undoubtedly have long been aware in a general way of the terrible toll
Rome’s wars took upon its soldiers, but their full extent has for too long not been adequately
gauged. To win the republic its empire in the second century, tens of thousands of young Roman
and Italian men paid the ultimate price: they were killed in combat, died of complications to their
wounds, or perished from the diseases prevalent in military camps.”). See most recently Clark
2018, 191.
13
This conclusion was suggested by Sabin 2000, 5 f. in an extensive comparison of the transferred
numbers of casualties. Sabin links this, among other things, to the use of Roman maniple tactics.
See Zimmermann 2009, 53 f.; Schulz 2012, 180–194 (with further references); Walter 2014, 102 f.
14
Sometimes campaigns and battles, victories as well as defeats of Rome, are only handed down in
one source, so that if it had been lost – like most of the once existing writings of antiquity – we
would have no knowledge of the respective events (See Clark 2018, 192, note 4). In principle, this
source situation does not change with regard to the transmission of military operations in the impe-
rial period. See Turner 2018, 279 (“If an important victory is known solely from the chance find of
an inscription, how many failures were covered up, ignored, or forgotten?”).
4 1 Introduction
considerable magnitude is shown even by a cursory glance at the data that is avail-
able on this subject.15
If their wars and the victories they won in them were of great importance to the
Romans of the Republic, the question arises as to how the experience of military
defeat was dealt with in this society – precisely because it was not a rare phenom-
enon. Especially for the Nobility – the Republican ruling class – defeats could be
seen as a challenge to their own claim to leadership, since they ran counter to the
ideals of competence and success in the core areas of military leadership and politi-
cal advancement.16 In addition, military failures potentially raised doubts about the
legitimacy of the nobility’s institutionally and habitually enshrined privileges.
The observations outlined so far, the great importance of war and the military for
Roman society and culture, the emphasis on its own victories, but also the real
occurrence of numerous military defeats form the starting point for the present
study. The aim is to determine what traces Rome’s defeats left behind in Roman
historical culture, or, to be more precise, in the network of the changing and some-
times very heterogeneous historical cultures of the Roman Republic and the early
Roman imperial period, even within a single time period.
Thus, the present work can be assigned to several recent approaches to research
on this period. First, it is a contribution to the study of Roman historical culture,
especially that of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period, and specifi-
cally to a complex of topics that – as explained in the preceding pages – occupied a
central place in the image which Romans of later generations had of their past.17
The historical culture of the Roman Republic was also an important component
of the political culture of Rome as a whole – for which war, and military victories
in particular, were of great importance.18 Questions about how defeats were dealt
with draw attention to very different areas of this political culture, such as reactions
in the Senate and the People’s Assembly, which range from dealing with defeated
generals and the practice of filling generals’ posts to the instigation of special
15
An impression is given by the compilations of Roman defeats in Rosenstein 1990a, 179–204;
Clark 2014b, XI–XIII (especially for the third and second centuries); Engerbeaud 2017, 473–501
(for the period 753–264).
16
See on this, among others (each with further evidence) Hölkeskamp 1993/2004, esp. 38 f.;
1987/2011, 236–240; Zimmermann 2009, 47 f.; Stein-Hölkeskamp/Hölkeskamp 2018, 62–64; as
well as most recently Linke 2017, esp. 385: “Die Aura des Erfolges und der Aufstieg zur Großmacht
sicherten ganz wesentlich den politischen Dominanzanspruch der Oberschicht insgesamt.” In this
contribution, however, Linke rightly emphasizes the ambivalence of military victories for the
nobility as a group. For their stability, great military successes of individual commanders always
posed a certain potential threat.
17
In order to clarify the context of research on Roman historical cultures and to define the aims of
the study more precisely in terms of their possibilities and limitations, an overview of the complex
of research on memory and historical cultures will be subject of the following chapter.
18
On Roman cultural memory in its significance for the political culture of republican Rome as a
whole, see the synthesis in Walter 2004a and the detailed considerations below in Sect. 2.2.
religious measures or recruitment procedures. However, this also includes the rep-
resentation and interpretation of less successful chapters of one’s own past.19
Last but not least, the present study also forms a contribution to an expanded
military history of the ancient world. Rather than being absorbed by reconstructions
of individual battles and the fine-tuned strategies of famous campaigns, this now
endeavours to reconstruct the military events, actors and institutions, which for so
many people of Roman antiquity represented an elementary component of their
lives and of the culture in which they lived, and as part of their connection to other
areas of human thought and action. Such a more widely conceived military history
does not only form part of cultural history generally speaking: to the present study
in fact aims to contribute to a “cultural history of war”. This specifically endeavours
to find out more about the “entire complex of communication about war, the actual
as well as the imagined or remembered”.20 This approach has a bearing on the pres-
ent work which sets out to study Rome’s defeats on the battlefield with a view that
is less concerned with details of weapons technology or the course of operations and
more interested in the close connection with Rome’s political culture. In this con-
nexion, warfare emerges as a repeatedly reconstructed and reinterpreted part of the
memories of its own past.21 In this way, an approach is chosen that Nathan
Rosenstein, whose book on the imperatores victi of the Roman Republic has
19
On the concept of political culture, especially with regard to the Roman Republic, see, with
extensive evidence, Hölkeskamp 2004; 2010 and most recently 2017.
20
Programmatically on this, most recently Meier/Stoll 2016, esp. 4–6; Stoll 2019, 32–36. See also
Lipp 2000, esp. 214 (“Nimmt man den Krieg mit all seinen Weiterungen in den kulturgeschichtli-
chen Blick und betrachtet nicht nur das Ereignis und seine militärisch definierten Akteure, eröffnet
sich ein Forschungsfeld, das den Rahmen einer Militärgeschichte im engeren Sinne deutlich über-
schreitet. Eine solche Erweiterung weist zumindest in zwei Richtungen. Zum einen betrifft sie das
Veränderungspotenzial von Kriegen für kulturelle Strukturen, wie beispielsweise
Nationsvorstellungen und die damit verbundenen Selbst- und Fremdbilder. Zum zweiten umfaßt
sie den gesamten Komplex der Kommunikation über den Krieg, den aktuell stattfindenden, ebenso
wie den gedachten oder erinnerten. Diese Themen umreißen ein Forschungsfeld, das sich tref-
fender als Kulturgeschichte des Krieges denn als kulturgeschichtlich erweiterte Militärgeschichte
etikettieren läßt.”); Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/Lenger 2004, 4. See Zimmermann 2009 (et al.
ibid., 45: “For the historian, moreover, it is of particular interest into which interpretive horizons
these elementary and immediate experiences are and must be placed.”) and the research overviews
in Schulz 2012, 8–12 (who, ibid., 8, considers the “Bereich der Erinnerungs- und
Mentalitätsgeschichte des Krieges” in this account only insofar as “er für das Verständnis der poli-
tischen und militärischen Entwicklungszusammenhänge unabdingbar ist”); Howarth 2013, 41–44;
Mann 2013, 60–63. On such an expanded military history in general, see, among others, Kühne/
Ziemann 2000 (albeit with a substantive focus on topics that primarily concern the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries).
21
With regard to the ancient world, a number of works have approached this complex of topics,
especially in recent years. See, for example, Hölscher 2003; Lendon 2005; Harris 2006; Hornblower
2007; Zimmermann 2009; Arrington 2011; 2015; Cooley 2012, as well as the contributions in
Dillon/Welch (eds.) 2006; Meier/Stoll (eds.) 2016; Clark/Turner (eds.) 2018; Stoll 2019. See,
moreover, the references to the state of research below in Sect. 1.2.
6 1 Introduction
stimulated research on the question of the consequences of Roman defeats like no

other, has recently named as an important object of further study.22
The diverse ways in which Roman historical culture dealt with its own defeats
will thus be examined in the following chapters. First of all, it will be examined how
defeats were explained in Roman cultural memory and to what extent these expla-
nations were connected with more far-reaching narratives and interpretations of the
past. In addition, the study examines the extent to which protagonists, political or
military measures, and other historical factors could be credited with the diminution
of defeats and their consequences in Roman historical culture. An essentially chron-
ological structure of the investigation will help to render changes in historical expla-
nation and interpretation visible. In addition to the question of how Rome’s defeats
were explained in later periods of Roman history and how they were interpreted
along with their consequences, the focus will also be on the extent to which a gen-
eral knowledge among (more or less) educated Romans of past events can be recon-
structed. This knowledge of history need by no means always have been limited to
the mode of explaining and interpreting defeats and overcoming them, and traces of
this knowledge are found not only in the historiographical accounts of Rome’s wars,
but in a variety of very different sources.23 This should help to reveal what signifi-
cance these events had in the historical image of the members of later generations,
or what they knew about them at all.
The chronological framework which should provide information about the han-
dling of Rome’s defeats in the historical culture of the respective period, was delib-
erately chosen to be broad. The individual chapters begin with the earliest available
sources on reactions to and explanations of the respective defeat. Sources which
were written until the transition from the early to the middle imperial period, i.e.,
roughly the turn from the first to the second century A.D., are systematically
included. Sources from later centuries will be discussed only in the form of an out-
look. This limitation was made, on the one hand, in order not to make the scope of
the work too large, and, on the other hand, because the publication of the Punica of
Silius Italicus can be placed in this period – a work which, also with a view to the
following centuries, represents the most comprehensive examination of the Second
22
Rosenstein 2018, 371: “[...] how historians, poets, and other writers used defeat to illustrate and
instruct their audiences provides a wealth of material for further study, yet one should not overlook
the ways which the commemoration of the fallen in epitaphs and funeral monuments sought to
accomplish the same goals.” On the latter point, see Hope 2003a; 2003b; Cooley 2012 (on Rome,
especially in the imperial period) and Arrington 2011; 2015 (on Athens in the fifth and fourth
centuries). Rosenstein’s classic study: Rosenstein 1990a (see Sect. 1.2 below).
23
See Clark 2018, 192, note 4 (“other types of references have much to offer further
examination”).
Punic War, one of the most important conflicts for the present work, which offers
the opportunity to pause here and take a look at the results achieved.24
Roman armies regularly suffered defeats throughout the duration of the Republic
and even afterwards. However, since not all of Republican battles can be examined
in detail here, certain principles of selection had to apply. First, there is a chrono-
logical framework. The defeat at the Allia and the subsequent capture of Rome by
the Gauls (the so-called ‘Gallic Catastrophe’) form the starting point. This seems to
have occurred around the year 386.25At the lower end of the spectrum, another limi-
tation was drawn towards the end of the second century B.C. Thus, Roman defeats
that occurred after the conquest of Numantia (133) are not consistently included in
this discussion. The reason for this was not that Rome’s armies had to accept no
more defeats after Numantia – on the contrary, defeats against foreign enemies,
against defecting allies and rebellious slaves were recorded rather frequently for the
late Republic too. Yet despite all reservations concerning the periodization between
the Middle and Late Republics, the political and social conditions of the Roman
world in the Late Republic markedly differed from those of the preceding centuries.
Since this applied especially with regard to the role and power of the Senate, but
also to the relationship between generals and soldiers, an earlier chronological hori-
zon would seem to be justified in the context of this study.26
Rather than focusing on a set of case studies, the structure of this study follows
those groups of opponents who inflicted particularly frequent and serious defeats on
Rome’s armies. This structure is furthermore favoured by the observation that both
Greek and Latin authors tended to portray Rome’s adversaries as homogeneous
groups, with which, for example, e.g. certain stereotypes were associated.
24
No claim to completeness is made with regard to the now delimited time span, which after all
extends from the third century B.C. to the beginning of the second century A.D., but efforts have
been made to gain as comprehensive a picture as possible. The examination of Rome’s defeats in
the Republic, however, does not end in this period, nor does it end after the end of antiquity. For
example, studies of post-ancient interpretations and depictions of defeats such as that of M. Atilius
Regulus (255) or the battle of Cannae (216) promise further potential for research into the history
of Classical reception.
25
By excluding the earlier centuries, such interesting events as the presumed capture of Rome by
the Etruscan Porsenna or the desaster of the Fabians at the Cremera fall out of the investigation.
See on this Engerbeaud 2017.
26
For similar reasons, Clark 2014b, 14 has also justified the end of the second century as the
chronological endpoint of her study, while still including the defeats against Cimbri and Teutons
in her investigation. Meanwhile, as the defeats of the late republic deserve a separate treatment, the
author intends to devote a separate article to this topic in the future. With regard to the defeats of
the early and middle imperial period, reference should also be made to a number of recent contri-
butions as well as to a study that will systematically treat this period. See Stoll 2016; 2019 and
Turner 2018, both of whom deal with defeats of the imperial period. Under the direction of Oliver
Stoll, the treatment of defeats in the Roman imperial period is now being examined as part of a
research project at the University of Passau, in the context of which Lena Hoisl is preparing a dis-
sertation, the publication of which I look forward to with great interest (“Die Darstellung von
Feldherren und Niederlagen in der historiographischen Literatur der römischen Kaiserzeit,” see
Meier/Stoll 2016, 2).
8 1 Introduction
The Roman defeats in wars against the Celts, the Samnites and the Carthaginians
were selected for the study within the framework of separate chapters.27 This selec-
tion was made because, on the one hand, these groups of opponents can be clearly
distinguished from one another, while, on the other hand, they are representative of
other opponents of Rome who could not systematically be included in the study.
Within this framework, the Celts offer an example of so-called ‘barbarian’ enemies
outside the Roman order, the Samnites appear representative of the multi-generational
struggles against Italic communities and tribes over the course of Roman expansion
across the peninsula, whereas the Carthaginians exemplify the states of the extended
Hellenistic world.28 In this way, it is possible to cover as broad a scope as possible of
defeats against sometimes very different opponents, which, moreover, provoked a
wide range of representations and interpretations in Roman historical culture.29
Exploring the way defeats are dealt with touches on research of Roman cultural
memory. Research on cultural memory has formed and continues to form a fruitful
field of research. In order to benefit from work that has emerged in this field, a criti-
cal review of the research field of “memory culture” will be given. This will be
preceded by a discussion of existing studies on how defeats were dealt with in
Rome. Subsequently, the defeats of Rome against the selected groups of opponents
are examined.
1.2
Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research
on Defeats
In more than one way, the study of military defeats has proven to be a fruitful object
of investigation. Recently, several important studies of military defeats that occurred
across different historical periods has been published that demonstrate the wide
27
For the definition of the term ‘Celtic’, see below Chap. 3. In the further course of the study, indi-
vidual conflicts each operate under different names (Second Punic War, Second Roman-
Carthaginian War, Hannibalic War), which is primarily done in the service of variation.
28
A convincing case for the classification of Carthage as part of the Hellenistic world has been
made by Ameling 1993, who has succeeded in revising a number of older views on the structure of
the Carthaginian social order (see, moreover, Roth 2007, 368, who highlights the influence of
Carthaginian warfare on the Greek world). While the cultural memory of Rome’s defeats at the
hands of the Epirote king Pyrrhus would probably also be a worthwhile object of study, the choice
fell on the Carthaginians, as the Romans suffered significantly more defeats against this opponent
and also engaged in hostilities with the latter over a significantly longer period of time. On Rome’s
defeats in the Pyrrhic War, see now also Engerbeaud 2017, 339–362.
29
See Lipp 2000, 224 (“Die kulturelle Hinterlassenschaft von Kriegen ist auch in innergesell-
schaftlichen Abgrenzungsdiskursen zu sehen, d. h. in den Selbst- und Fremdzuschreibungen, die
Kriege, ebenso aber Siege und mehr noch Niederlagen auch innerhalb nationaler Einheiten nach
sich ziehen oder verstärken”). This approach has been taken up by Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/
Lenger 2004, 4 with reference to Lipp 2000.
1.2 Defeated Generals and “Traumatic” Memory: Research on Defeats 9
range of possible reactions on military defeats.30 Therefore, a comprehensive study

of the handling of defeats in the early and middle republic seems promising.31
In the Roman Republic or the early imperial period itself, studies on defeats did
not exist. Although some defeats appear to a considerable extent in various sources,
no known ancient work dealt specifically with defeats.32 Apparently, there were no
institutions in Rome that systematically collected data on defeats on the battlefield.33
In modern research, however, the topic has certainly received attention.34 Studies on
Roman warfare, on religious reaction patterns, and on the procedure for occupying
high-ranking positions of command (consulate, praetorship, dictatorship) in Rome,
for example, have been able to identify a whole range of reactions to defeat.35
30
This can already be stated, although overarching, comparative presentations or collections of
contributions are comparatively rare. See, however, Meier/Stoll (eds.) 2016; Clark/Turner (eds.)
2018, both of which, with few exceptions, remain limited to antiquity. See Carl/Kortüm/
Langewiesche/Lenger 2004, 2 (“Das Spektrum [of dealing with defeats, author’s note] reicht dabei
vom uneingeschränkten Eingeständnis der Niederlage bis hin zur konzessionslosen Bestreitung:
‚Es liegt keine Niederlage vor!‘, ja bis zum ‚Vergessen‘der Niederlage, die überhaupt nicht mehr
als solche erkannt, sondern nur noch als Sieg erinnert wird. Zwischen diesen beiden Polen existiert
ein weites Feld von Möglichkeiten, Niederlagen in eingeschränkter Form einzugestehen bzw. sie
in eingeschränkter Form zu bestreiten”). Perspectives on different forms of representations and
interpretations of defeats, which can range from almost complete negation or concealment to
ostentatious emphasis on a suffered ignominy, can be found, among others, in Wilkcke 2000 (on
Sumerian lament songs; for the reference to this source I thank Dr. Sebastian Fink (Helsinki));
Schivelbusch 2001 (on the experience of defeat in the American South after 1865, in France after
1871, and in Germany after 1918); Wolpert 2002 (Athens after the Peloponnesian War); Clauss
2010; 2016 (on dealing with defeat in the European Middle Ages); Afflerbach 2013, as well as in
Carl/Kortüm/Langewiesche/Lenger (eds.) 2004.
31
Many of the battles and wars in the course of which defeats discussed in this work occurred have
been the subject of repeated study since the beginning of modern classical studies in the nineteenth
century. Especially the research literature on the wars between Rome and Carthage has long been so
extensive that it seems reasonable to discuss them only in the respective chapter. In the following,
therefore, mainly those studies will be listed that either deal with Roman reactions to defeats in gen-
eral – i.e. not limited to a single event – or with the representation, interpretation, processing and deal-
ing with or the memory of defeats in Rome that Roman armies suffered at the time of the Republic.
32
A detailed overview of the relevant sources can be found at the beginning of the chapters on the
individual case studies.
33
Rüpke 1995a, 569 f.; 2006, 565; Walter 2004a, 205 (with note 43).
34
See in the following the references to research in Schulz 2012, 193 f.; Clark 2014b, 1–15; Meier/
Stoll 2016; Stoll 2016 (who, ibid., 109–120, also offers an extensive “bibliography on the topic”);
2019, 13–36; Engerbeaud 2017, 14–26; Walter 2017a, 146; Clark/Turner 2018, 8–12.
35
See, for example, Eadie 1967; Rawson 1991; McCall 2002; Saal 2012 (on changes in the arma-
ment of Roman cavalry); Simon 1962; Gundel 1970 (on Rome’s wars in the Iberian Peninsula in
the second century); Lippold 1963; Kloft 1977; Beck 2005a (on the connection of iterations of the
military high office and rogations with military crises; on the Roman high command, see also most
recently Vervaet 2014; Drogula 2015); Cornell 1996; Shean 1996; Erdkamp 1998; Goldsworthy
2000; 2001; Zimmermann 2005; 2008; 2011; Fronda 2007; 2010; 2011 (on the Second Punic War,
especially on the consequences of Rome’s defeats on Italy); Hölkeskamp 1990/2004; Bleckmann
2002; Gehrke 2002 (on the First Punic War); Linke 2000 (on reactions on the religious level); Daly
2002; Speidel 2004 (on the Battle of Cannae); Engels 2007 (collecting accounts of Roman portents
and reactions thereto); Hölkeskamp 1987/2011; Grossmann 2009 (on Rome’s Samnite Wars; the
older account by Salmon 1967 remains valuable, however); Linke 2017.
10 1 Introduction
Summarizing the results of these works, the picture that emerges is of a society, or
at least of a social, political, and religious elite which was quite capable of reacting
pragmatically to military failures. For example, such reactions could take the form
of temporarily suspending the accepted norms for the selection of commanders in
order to deploy particularly experienced generals, sometimes continuously over a
period of years, to important theatres of war.36 From the perspective of contempo-
raries, measures on a religious level could also be regarded as pragmatic reactions,
such as the initiation of special atonement measures, the introduction of new cults,
or the vowing and building of temples.37 In addition, innovations in army organiza-
tion, each of which can be linked to previous defeats, directly affected the military
field of action.38
Several other studies deal explicitly with the treatment of defeats, with one group
of works being primarily concerned with the literary-stylistic representation of vari-
ous defeats or individual elements therein. For example, Heinz Bruckmann’s dis-
sertation, published in 1936, examined the representation of Roman defeats in the
work of Titus Livius.39 Bruckmann’s main interest is in philological observations,
such as the means of literary composition of the accounts. While he offers a number
of instructive observations, other conclusions – such as the division of the defeats
into three types: Allia, Cannae, Caudium – seem a little too schematic.40 Due to the
numerous accurate interpretations of individual passages, Bruckmann’s work is still
extremely helpful for the analysis of the depiction of Roman defeats in Livy. In view
of the methodologically as well thematically limited approach, it is in turn clear that
the work cannot offer a truly comprehensive picture of the handling of defeats in
Roman historical culture.
In 1975, Karl-Heinz Niemann presented a work that is quite similar to
Bruckmann’s study in terms of both topic and approach, in which he examined the
depiction of defeats in the Punica of Silius Italicus and concludes that Silius pres-
ents defeats as a divine test for the Romans and as a means of the moral probation
and renewal of Rome.41 Cannae, the greatest defeat, appears in this conception as a
36
See, among others, Kloft 1977 and, most importantly, with a thorough statistical analysis of the
material, Beck 2005a.
37
Tsiolkovsky 1992; Orlin 1997; Weigel 1998 (all three on the temples of the Middle Republic and
the respective contexts of their construction; on this, see also most recently Davies 2017); Linke
2000; Engels 2007.
38
This probably also includes the switch to maniple tactics and the expansion of the regular annual
deployment to four legions in the Samnite wars. See Grossmann 2009 with further references.
39
Bruckmann 1936. Excerpts also in Bruckmann 1977.
40
So also Seel 1938, 260, who rightly points out that the value of Bruckmann’s investigation is to
be seen less in this classification than in the numerous individual observations. But see also
Hellmann 1937, 661: “Die von Br. vorgenommene Verteilung der Niederlagenberichte auf 2 bzw.
3 als typisch erkannte Darstellungsformen ist berechtigt und klärend.” Bruckmann himself
addresses this problem, but sees an advantage in the grouping of accounts of defeats, which would
mainly consist in the clarity thus gained and outweigh “gewisse einzelne Unzulänglichkeiten”
(Bruckmann 1936, 2).
41
Niemann 1975.
turning point not only of the course of the war, but also as the starting point of the
renewal of the virtus Romana.
In a short contribution in 1983, Wolfgang Will dealt more closely with a single
aspect of the representation of Roman defeats, namely with the image of the defeated
commanders (imperatores victi) in Livy and specifically in the books that contain
the first phase of the Hannibalic War.42 Will points out that the portrayal of the
imperatores victi partly served to explain the respective defeat. The defeated general
is portrayed as reckless and unrestrained, which in turn prevents him from seeing
through Hannibal’s tactics, so that the Roman soldiers had no chance of victory in
the battle. The populus Romanus as a whole had thus been exonerated, even though
the discordia ordinum had previously given the unsuitable commander in question
the opportunity for military leadership in the first place.43
Will’s approach was later taken up by Sandra Geist, who, however, placed her
investigation on a broader source basis and endeavoured to include the accounts of
the individual defeats preserved in the literary sources as comprehensively as pos-
sible.44 Moreover, beginning with the Battle of the Allia and ending with the defeat
of Varus she sets the chronological framework much wider than had been done in
previous works.45 Thus, it is possible for her to place her results in a larger context
and to draw comparisons between the individual case studies, but the examination
of the individual source passages is by far not as detailed as it had been the case, for
example, in the works of Bruckmann or Niemann.46
Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg (2000) and Hans Beck (2006) each pursued a simi-
lar question in a short contribution.47 Both examine parts of the various layers of the
tradition of a specific defeat in order to gain insights into the emergence and change
of this tradition, with the aim of revealing strategies of processing military setbacks
in the literary tradition. With regard to the reconstruction of the ‘real events’ on
42
Will 1983a.
43
Will 1983a, 179 f.
44
Geist 2009.
45
The defeats treated by Geist are the battles at the Allia, at Drepana, at the Trebia, at the Ticinus
(which are thus treated in reverse chronological order), at Lake Trasimene, at Cannae, the “ersten
drei Niederlagen gegen Kimbern und Teutonen” as well as the battles at Arausio, at Carrhae, the
defeat of M. Lollius (16 BC) and the defeat of Varus.
46
Moreover, Geist’s interpretation of her results is more seriously affected by the fact that she has
not sufficiently taken into account recent studies in Ancient History on individual commanders,
such as C. Flaminius (cos. 217), and thus ventures many a hasty interpretation with regard to the
political constellations that would presumably have existed around the individual commanders.
Geist 2009, 61 with note 94, for example, assumes without convincing justification a fundamental
hostility of C. Flaminius to the rest of the Senate and especially to Q. Fabius Maximus, taking up
the position of Bleicken 21968, 28–30. The assumption of an early enmity of Flaminius to the rest
of the senate, however, has already been questioned with good reasons by Meißner 2000 and sub-
sequently also by Beck 2005a, 244–268, esp. 244.
47
Ungern-Sternberg 2000; Beck 2006.
12 1 Introduction
which the respective tradition is based, both are decidedly reticent.48 Rather, the
focus of their investigations is the question of the development, tendencies and pos-
sible causes of those traditions. However, numerous individual motifs that played a
significant role in the tradition surrounding the respective defeat are mentioned by
both, at least in a concise form. Ungern-Sternberg (Gallic disaster) concentrates
primarily on various aitiologies that could be connected with this event, while Beck
(Cannae) places his emphasis on the explanations that are offered for this defeat,
especially in the historiographical sources.
In her 2004 dissertation, Roxana Kath took a different approach to the topic of
Roman defeats.49 Starting from the consideration that the Romans derived their ori-
gins from the Trojans, Kath states that “the historical background of the Roman
founding myth can certainly be described as traumatic”.50 This “founding trauma”
had, in turn, led the Romans to always negate their defeats or to transform them into
victories through “assertions of validity”.51 Apart from this rather freehand approach
both to the Roman reception of the Trojan tradition52 and to the concept of cultural
trauma,53 the thesis of a general negation of defeats cannot be upheld either.
However, one can agree with the general assessment that in the Roman tradition
several peace treaties, which the Romans actually had to conclude under unfavour-
able conditions after a defeat, were obviously concealed or the tradition was changed
to the effect that it appeared that an agreement had been cancelled again immedi-
ately after the conclusion of the treaty.54 Kath’s further considerations, for example
on the details of the tradition, are also worthy of consideration and will be taken up
in the further course of this work.
48
Ungern-Sternberg 2000, 207: “Dabei interessiert uns nicht der historische Hintergrund und der
‚wirkliche‘ Hergang des Geschehens; auch nicht die Frage, wie sehr Rom tatsächlich zerstört wor-
den ist. Wir stellen einfach fest, daß das kollektive Gedächtnis der Römer eine Katastrophe in
Erinnerung behalten hat und deshalb Wege finden mußte, sie in ihren Ursachen wie in ihren
Konsequenzen zu verstehen und zu verarbeiten”.
49
Kath 2006.
50
Kath 2006, 173.
51
Kath 2006, 44, 49–55, 175 and passim.
52
This was far too complex to be reduced to such a simple conclusion. Above all, such a ‘trauma’
would have been downright contrary to the intention of the Roman adoption of the Troian genealo-
gies from the Greek world. On this, see generally, among others, Förstemann 1894, 36–96;
Galinsky 1969; Wiseman 1974/1987; Gruen 1992, 6–51; Hölkeskamp 1999/2004, esp. 203–210;
Blösel 2003, 56; Walter 2006; and Pausch 2011, 24 f. It should also be noted that, at least until the
end of the Republic, descent from the Troians was never without competition (see only the brief
enumeration of various genealogies in Wiseman 1974/1987, 207–214). On the contrary, genuinely
Roman or Italic derivations were preferred and the ancestral galleries of the magistrates always
counted more than the genealogies borrowed from myth (Galinsky 1969, 164; Hölkeskamp
1999/2004, 212; Walter 2003, 256; 2006, 94 f., 97 f.).
53
For a not unjustified criticism of this concept, see Weilnböck 2007 and Weilnböck/Kansteiner 2008.
54
Perhaps the most famous example is the treaty that the Romans had to conclude with the Samnites
in 321 after the defeat of Caudium. See on this (with further evidence) most recently Grossmann
2009, 72–80.
From a different, more prosopographical perspective, Nathan Rosenstein has

dealt with Roman defeats in a series of publications. In these works, Rosenstein is
less interested in the explanation and interpretation of military failures in Roman
memory culture, but rather in what consequences these events had for the careers of
those commanders who were defeated on the battlefield (the imperatores victi).55 On
the basis of a statistical analysis of the careers of “all” Roman magistrates, promag-
istrates, and legates who suffered defeat at the hands of foreign enemies between
390 and 49, survived this defeat, and returned to Rome without a subsequent
victory,56 Rosenstein posits that defeats by and large had no negative effects on the
subsequent career of the respective magistrate.57 Rosenstein’s thesis was not with-
out opposition.58 Among other things, this was ignited by Rosenstein’s method-
ological approach. Criticism was levelled at the statistical basis, i.e., the compilation
of the list of defeated commanders and the subsequent evaluation of the collected
data.59 The criteria for success and failure established in Rosenstein’s work were
also questioned.60 Furthermore, the insufficient embedding of the considerations in
55
Rosenstein 1986; 1990a; 1990b. Rosenstein 1990c is a reply to the criticism of William Harris
(Harris 1990). See Cheung 1998, who approvingly takes up Rosenstein’s approach and results and
compares them with the political consequences of military defeats for commanders at the time of
the early Principate.
56
Rosenstein 1990a, 179.
57
Rosenstein 1990a, 6, 18, 37, 46–48.
58
See esp. Harris 1990; Erskine 1992; Rich 1991; Tatum 1991; 1992; Hölkeskamp 1994; Bleicken
2004, 179.
59
Thus, it has been rightly noted that a complete list would be impossible to compile at all, if only
in view of the sources (Erskine 1992, 239; Tatum 1991, 149; 1992, 639 et seq. See most recently
also Waller 2011, 21; Rich 2012, 86–88. See also above Sect. 1.1). Even the clear distinction made
by Rosenstein, who separates between heavy and light defeats, must often be very freehand given
our often meagre information. The problems that the patchy material poses for Rosenstein’s evalu-
ation can be illustrated, for example, by the fact that the praetorian fasti, as is well know, have been
completely preserved at all only for the period from 218 to 167 – that is, “gerade einmal 50 Jahre
aus einer untersuchten Zeitspanne von über drei Jahrhunderten und ein Abschnitt, der wegen der
Kriege gegen Karthago in Italien, Spanien und Africa und dann im Osten wohl kaum als repräsen-
tativ gelten kann” (thus the criticism by Hölkeskamp 1994, 335. See Erskine 1992, 239. The gaps
in the praetorian fasti are already partly acknowledged by Rosenstein 1990a, 26). Moreover,
Rosenstein presupposes for the entire period of the Republic already a great competition among
the praetors with regard to their candidacy for the consulship, disregarding the fact that their num-
ber had only become large enough for this competition to develop by the end of the third century.
On this question see Beck 2005a.
60
Thus, for example, it is quite questionable whether the office of censor was indeed, as Rosenstein
assumes (Rosenstein 1990a, 13), consistently regarded as the highest office in the course of the
Republic and thus can be seen as a yardstick for the success of the further career paths of the
defeated generals (Tatum 1991, 150; Hölkeskamp 1994, 334). In addition, it must be considered
that the censor was not assigned any military tasks, so that a proven track record as a general or the
opposite of this must not have played a decisive role in the election to this office (Rich 1991, 404).
Against this background, precisely those consuls whose year in office as consul had not resulted in
a triumph may have sought the office of censor in order to crown their career with it, instead of the
missed triumph (Tatum 1991, 150; Hölkeskamp 1994, 334 f.).
14 1 Introduction
the socio-cultural context of the Roman Republic61 and the lack of consideration of
the fact that the literary sources used by Rosenstein represent texts that are perme-
ated by “stereotypes, topoi and literary strategies of historiographical coping” were
criticized.62
The great merit of Rosenstein’s work, however, is that he has succeeded in show-
ing that defeat on the battlefield did not automatically end a general’s career as a
senator or future magistrate. Defeated generals seem to have been treated more leni-
ently by their peers and other fellow citizens in Rome than was customary in other
ancient Mediterranean communities.63
A few years ago, the aspect of dealing with imperatores victi in the Roman
Republic was again examined in a series of special studies presented by Martin
Waller, John Rich and Jessica Clark.64 On the basis of a revision of Rosenstein’s
statistical survey, Waller comes to the conclusion that defeats did not automatically
mean the end of the careers of the generals involved. However, it cannot be assumed
that there was a general equality of opportunity.65 According to Waller, the fact that
defeated generals in Rome rarely had to answer for their actions in court, as empha-
sized by Rosenstein, can be explained by the fact that for the individuals concerned
the poorer career prospects were already regarded as a sufficient ‘punishment’.66
Following Rosenstein’s findings and Waller’s revision, with which he agrees, John
Rich has examined in an essay, among other things, the conditions under which an
indictment of a defeated general could occur in Rome after all.67 For the period from
the fourth to the second century, however, such cases were extremely rare and could
be explained by the specific context in each case.68 Jessica Clark has recently taken
up the topic of dealing with defeats in Rome in a monograph.69 She concentrates on
the period from the beginning of the Second Punic War to the end of the second
century. Clark is particularly interested in the reactions to defeats that the Romans
61
Hölkeskamp 1994, 340 f. See already Harris 1990, 294.
62
Hölkeskamp 1994, 333 (citation). In fact, Rosenstein does not take into account Bruckmann’s
work, though he does take into account the study by Will 1983a.
63
Erskine 1992, 239; Tatum 1992, 638 (“It will no longer be possible to explain a candidate’s fail-
ure merely by simplemindedly invoking a lackluster or even disastrous military career.”);
Hölkeskamp 1994, 336: “Zwar ist die behauptete grundsätzliche und geradezu selbstverständliche
Chancengleichheit der imperatores victi nicht überzeugend nachzuweisen – […]. Umgekehrt
macht die von R. präsentierte erhebliche Zahl individueller Fälle aber immerhin deutlich, daß eine
Niederlage die Karriere des verantwortlichen Feldherrn als Senator und (potentiellem) Magistrat
zumindest nicht automatisch beendete”. Agreeing on this point also Lundgreen 2011, 282 f., note
802; Waller 2011, 24; Rich 2012, 88; Schulz 2012, 194, 505; Walter 2017b, 373.
64
Waller 2011, Rich 2012, Clark 2014b.
65
Waller 2011, 24 f.
66
Waller 2011, 24 f.
67
Rich 2012.
68
Rich 2012, 102.
69
Clark 2014b.
had shown during the respective wars, and here she places an emphasis on the treat-
ment of the defeated commanders. One of the main theses of the work is that the
Roman Senate had striven to gain and maintain interpretation over the narratives in
which wars, with their victories and their defeats, were perceived in Rome. This was
largely successful until about the middle of the second century. For the later period,
however, changes could be detected. Among other things, Clark succeeds in show-
ing that in the last third of the second century imperatores victi were prosecuted
much more frequently on the basis of their defeat than had been the case two to
three generations earlier.70 Clark sees the reason for this primarily in the fact that
established representatives of the nobility then had increasing difficulties in bring-
ing the campaigns in North Africa and the battles against the Cimbri and Teutons to
a victorious end. This had led to discontent among the Roman population in general
and the army in particular. One result, he argues, was ultimately the rising influence
of individual commanders who were able to exploit the declining confidence of the
population in the military abilities of the nobility.71 Clark succeeds above all in
showing in detail that and how the treatment of defeated generals in Rome changed
and by no means remained static for centuries. It is regrettable in this context that
Clark concentrates only on a ‘long second century’ from 218 to 101 and thus almost
completely excludes not only the late but also the early and large parts of the middle
Republic.72 Clark also addresses the complex of the explanation and interpretation
of defeats in Roman historical culture, for instance by rightly pointing out that in
Roman historiography there is a tendency to always end the depiction of campaigns
with a victory for the Romans – even if fighting still took place later in the corre-
sponding area of operations.73
Ida Östenberg has recently examined aspects of cultural representations of
defeats in Roman historical culture, especially in historiography, in two brief but
substantial contributions, focusing in particular on some defeats of the middle
Republic and the early Principate.74 A similar, but in terms of the form of treatment
clearly different approach is represented by some recent studies that deal with the
phenomena of ‘crises’ and how they were overcome in Roman culture, whereby
military defeats can then also be considered from this perspective. Even though the
70
Clark 2014b. See Walter 2017a, 146 (“Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts gab es sogar eine kleine
Prozesswelle.”).
71
Clark 2014b, 172–207.
72
Sometimes, moreover, even greater caution would have been possible in the interpretation of the
source material. This applies, for example, to the evaluation of the statistics on the awarding of
triumphs in the wars on the Iberian Peninsula in the fourth chapter, which is based on a very frag-
mentary source material. Clark’s conclusion that defeats not only did not have to entail a disadvan-
tage for the career prospects of the respective generals, as already noted by Rosenstein, but could
even function as an advantage, is also based on a rather narrow statistical foundation.
73
See Clark 2014b, 94–133.
74
Östenberg 2014; 2018.
16 1 Introduction
approach to the topic is different here, and the studies in question have clearly dif-
ferent emphases, the results obtained here can certainly be linked to some of the
approaches of the present work.75
A chronologically comprehensive work, in which explanations and interpreta-
tions of the military failures of the Republic in Roman historical culture would have
been examined, is not yet available.76 Building on the previous contributions dis-
cussed here, such a comprehensive investigation of the handling of defeats in Rome
forms the subject of the present work that aims to examine the history of the Roman
Republic not once more along the lines of its successes, but by following its defeats.
75
On this approach, see for instance Golden 2013, who (ibid., 11–22, 26–41) is particularly inter-
ested in dictatorship as a reaction to external military threats, which he discusses using, among
others, the examples of the ‘Gallic Disaster’ and the Roman defeats at the hands of Hannibal’s
army at the beginning of the Second Punic War. Toner 2013, 131–143 has subsumed defeats such
as the Battle of Cannae under the phenomenon of crisis, placing them alongside natural disasters
or epidemics, which distinguishes his approach from that adopted in this study.
76
See Meier/Stoll 2016, 2 (“Für die Epoche der Antike jedenfalls fehlen entsprechende umfassende
Versuche der Bearbeitung des Themas ‚Niederlagen‘gänzlich.”); Stoll 2016, 93. Paul Chrystal’s
compilation (Chrystal 2015) offers more of a chronological overview, aimed at a broader audience
and offering no new insights into the topic.
Methodological Preliminary Remarks
2
2.1
Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures,
Historical Cultures: Terms and Concepts
In order to understand the place that defeats occupied in the thinking of the Romans
during the Republic and the early imperial period, it is helpful to first ask how the
memory of these events was transmitted in Roman culture.1 This question refers to
a complex of research that have been dealing with the topics of memory culture(s),
collective, cultural, communicative and/or social memories, historical cultures and
places of remembrance for about three decades. The concepts mentioned differ in
terms of their theoretical approach. Nevertheless, they can be grouped into a com-
plex of research with similar interests and models of thought.2
1
The term ‘culture’ is understood in a broad sense here, as most recently defined by Jan Assmann
and Neville Morley, among others. See Morley 2004, 106 (“The phrase is intended to encompass
all the different aspects of how the Greeks and Romans thought, and thought about their world:
covering not just the highest products of their intelligence and creativity (the history of ideas, of
science, of philosophy, and so forth) but the conceptions and assumptions that shaped the lives of
the mass of the population, including such topics as religion and myth and the thought processes
that underlie those conceptions.”).
2
Research overviews are provided by, among others, Oexle 1995, 16–29; Zelizer 1995, 215–218;
Olick/Robbins 1998; Cornelißen 2003; Kansteiner 2004; comprehensively Erll 2005 and pointedly
Beck/Wiemer 2009, 10–16 as well as Galinsky 2016, 1–17. An overview of relevant approaches is
also provided by encyclopedias and handbooks on the topic. See, for instance: Pethes/Ruchatz
2001; Erll/Nünning/Young (eds.) 2008; Boyer/Wertsch (eds.) 2009 and Olick/Vinitzky-Seroussi/
Levy 2011.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of 17

Springer Nature 2023
S. Lentzsch, Roma Victa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05942-0_2
18 2 Methodological Preliminary Remarks
With regard to this research complex, there has been repeated talk of a “boom”
or a scholarly “conjuncture”.3 Both may already have begun to subside, but this does
not necessarily represent a disadvantage for a balanced assessment or a fruitful take-
up of these considerations since it does not necessarily alter the fact that many,
though not all of the ideas put forward as a result of this ‘boom’ offer considerable
explanatory potential when dealing with present and past societies. As has been
pointed out repeatedly, despite (or rather because of) the “explosive expansion of
studies on memory”, no truly comprehensive “super-theory” has yet been formu-
lated that can bring the various approaches and insights into a coherent model.4 In
view of this, it will hardly come as a surprise that such a model will not be presented
here either. Perhaps this would not even be desirable. After all, this very openness
can also be understood as a possibility to establish numerous connections and to
take a look at the manifold representations and manifestations of collective memo-
ries and cultures of memory, without theoretically blinkering this view.5
In this study, approaches of different theories and concepts on the topics of
‘memory’ and ‘recollection’ will be considered. In existing studies, some of these
3
This is already the case with J. Assmann 62007, 11, who would like to explain this boom by three
factors in particular: the digital revolution of the media (“and thus: of artificial memory”), a feeling
of “post-culture” in which old traditions and ties exist only in the form of memory, and finally the
fact that – at the time when Assmann wrote his study – the generation of “contemporary witnesses
of the most serious crimes and catastrophes in the annals of human history […] is now beginning
to die out”. Erll 2005, 2–4 also emphasizes this incision and change in the memory of the Holocaust
and World War II and adds further “historical transformation processes” such as the end of the
Cold War and the thus more clearly emerging diverse national and ethnic memories or the “increas-
ing multi(memory)-culturality of Western societies”, which is a consequence of complex processes
of decolonization and migration movements. The change in media technologies has also been
stimulating for this field of research. Both the unimagined increase in the possibilities for storing
knowledge about the past and the question of the effects of new (and ‘old’!) media on people’s
ideas about the past have played an important role here. In addition, there is a “dimension of intel-
lectual and scientific history”, since the topic of memory allows and requires entering into an
interdisciplinary “dialogue”. The latter point is also emphasized by Walter 2004a, 25, with note 50,
who, however, seems to be critical of the construct of “an all competent interdisciplinary super-
cultural science.” See also Olick/Robbins 1998, 107 f.; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 13. In addition to the
“Holocaust problematic” (ibid.), both contributions refer to various scholarly and intellectual cur-
rents that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, for whose representatives the ideological critique and
deconstruction of common narratives were or are central concerns, and which thus contributed to
asking about the social construction of the past. See also Kühr 2006, 47; Galinsky 2016, 1 f.
4
Thus, for example, A. Assmann 1999, 16; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 14; Cornelißen 2003, 550.
Kansteiner 2004, 121, 124 also points out that already “some of the key terms of memory research”
(124) are hardly adequately defined. Erll 2005, 90 also notes the lack of a comprehensive model,
but is optimistic about further developments. See also ibid., 95, where she notes that the “memory
theory integrating all approaches has not yet been conceived.” See also Zelizer 1995, 218, 234 f.;
Diefenbach 2007, 4.
5
See Kansteiner 2004, 124: “Dieses Arbeitsfeld gedeiht auf dem Boden konzeptioneller
Unbestimmtheit, die auf einem Mangel theoretischer Präzision und einer heilsamen Dosis method-
ologischer Toleranz beruht.” See also the opinion of Ruchatz/Pethes 2001, 8, who have left the
articles on ‘memory’ and ‘recollection’ respectively blank in their lexicon. See Erll 2005, 95, who
agrees at least in part, and see also Galinsky 2016, 9 f.
2.1 Collective Memory, Social Memory, Memory Cultures, Historical Cultures: Terms… 19
approaches have already proven to be particularly viable, and at the same time,
some weaknesses have been pointed out. Some of these considerations will be pre-
sented in more detail in what follows, in order to work out previous guidelines and
questions of research and thus also to formulate the objective of this book more
precisely. But also some of the – partly justified – critiques of this research will be
addressed. Subsequently, these considerations will systematically be transferred to
the historical culture of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period.
Hardly any study in the extensive field of humanities and cultural studies that
deals with the phenomena of collective or social memory, even in the broadest
sense, can do without a reference to the work of the French sociologist Maurice
Halbwachs.6 In a certain sense, it is significant that Halbwachs’ theoretical concept
was ultimately considered “insufficiently conceptually differentiated and consistent
[...] to serve as the basis of a theoretical concept in cultural studies”.7 Yet this does
not diminish the fact that his central ideas are still seen as a starting point for theo-
retical considerations and individual studies.8 Halbwachs’ probably most influential
contribution to the debate on memory and remembrance is his concept of collective
memory. He showed himself convinced that individual memories could arise only in
social frames of reference (cadres sociaux).9 These frames, he argued, are constitu-
tive for the general perception of external influences as a whole, since they provide
thought patterns that shape perception and memory. The memory of the individual
is thus collectively shaped. Furthermore, the memories and modes of perception of
a group of individuals form, through interaction and communication in various
forms, a common reference to the past and an intersection of shared knowledge
about it. Both vary from group to group, from one social frame of reference to
another. However, individuals generally belong to more than one social group, such
6
Three works by Halbwachs play an important role here: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, 1925
La Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre Sainte, 1941 (English translation of both works:
On Collective Memory, 1992), La mémoire collective, 1950. On Halbwachs’s studies and their
impact see, among others, Oexle 1995, 23 f.; Olick/Robbins 1998, 109–111; J. Assmann 62007,
34–48; Hutton 1993, 73–90; J. Assmann 2002; Echterhoff/Saar 2002; Egger 2003; Kansteiner
2004, 120 f.; Erll 2005, 14–18; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 10–12; Hartmann 2010, 35–37 with note 21;
Eckert 2016, 9–13; Galinsky 2016, 7–10. Early discussions of his work, for example, in Bloch
1925/2000; Bartlett 1932/1967, 294–296.
7
See Gedi/Elam 1996, 35, 37; J. Assmann 62007, 45 f.; Welzer 32,011, 13 or Jung 2006, 16 with
note 11. However, it should be borne in mind that Maurice Halbwachs himself was unable to com-
plete his work following his deportation to Buchenwald by the National Socialists in August 1944,
where he subsequently died in March 1945; cf. also Hutton 1993, 74.
8
Niethammer 2005, 123: “Er hat uns als ein einsamer Innovator gelehrt, auf den sozialen
Konstruktivismus nicht nur des kollektiven Gedächtnisses, sondern auch auf dessen Mitwirkung
an der individuellen Erinnerung zu achten”. After “decades of complete silence” (Egger 2003,
219), these ideas experienced a renaissance in the course of the cultural studies turn to the thematic
complex of memory and recollection, which was particularly triggered in the German-speaking
world by the influential work of Aleida and Jan Assmann on cultural memory. On the reception of
Halbwachs’ work, see also Hutton 1993, 74; Niethammer 2005, 105 f.; Beck/Wiemer 2009, 11–13.
9
Halbwachs 1950/1967, 26, 45 and passim; 1925/1985, 21 f., 121, 124, 195–201 and passim. See
Burke 1991, 289; Oexle 1995, 23; A. Assmann 1999, 252–255; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 25 f.; Erll
2005, 15 f.
as a family, a religious community, a village community, an army unit, a state, etc.:

therefore, they share more than on social frame of reference. Individually different
is “the combination of group affiliations and resulting memory forms and contents”.10
Without explicitly stating this himself, Halbwachs ultimately deals with two differ-
ent concepts of a collective memory.11 One is ‘collective memory’ as the organic
memory of the individual, shaped by social frames of reference. The other relates to
‘collective memory’, aptly described by Astrid Erll as a shared “reference to the
past” that is created within social groups and cultural communities “through inter-
action, communication, media and institutions”.12 The latter is not a superior entity,
for it is ultimately only constituted in the individual memories of its participants and
moreover becomes visible only through concrete acts of memory. For its part, how-
ever, it creates the preconditions for the memory of the individual. Both are there-
fore mutually dependent on each other.13
From all this follows – as one of Halbwachs’ most important results – that every
memory of the past is not simply found “naturally”, but rather represents a social
construction14 Since this construction takes place from the respective present, it is
also subject to the conditions and needs within the respective social frames of refer-
ence in this present.15 It is evident that these considerations have a decisive bearing
on the work of the historian in particular, for memories are ultimately “the elemen-
tary level of historical processing and thus the precondition for the emergence of all
kinds of reflective sources.”16 Halbwachs was also concerned with the question of
how collective memory could be constituted apart from the interaction between
10
For instance Halbwachs 1950/1967, 31, 64–66; See Confino 1997, 1399; Kansteiner 2004, 127;
Erll 2005, 16 (citation). See also Popitz 1961/2006, 67 f., who emphasizes that the “diversity of
affiliations” is “by no means a specifically modern phenomenon” (as the “Zeitkritiker likes to
claim for himself and his contemporaries”), but rather that it can be found in all cultures. See – in
more detail – Popitz 1980/2006, 107–111.
11
As correctly observed by Bloch 1925/2000, 241 f. and Erll 2005, 14 f.
12
See Bartlett 1932/1967, 296: “memory in the group, and not [...] memory of the group”. See also
Walter 2004a, 20 with note 39.
13
Halbwachs 1950/1967, 31, 35; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 21.
14
Halbwachs 1925/1985, 57–68, 125–143, 390; 1950/1967, 45, 55 f. See e.g. J. Assmann 62007, 48
(“The past does not come naturally, it is a cultural creation.”); Ferrarotti 1990, 30–33; Hutton 1993,
78 f.; Keppler 2001, 137; Echterhoff/Saar 2002, 18; Echterhoff 2005; Welzer 32,011, 12 f., passim;
Gehrke 2003, 64; Erll 2004, 4; Kansteiner 2004, 124. See also already the considerations of
Bartlett 1932/1967, 294–300, with whom Halbwachs agrees on this point. Cf. also Heuß 1959,
19–23, who, without referring to Halbwachs, offers instructive considerations on “collective mem-
ory”. While these considerations may readily be accepted today, they are by no means self-evi-
dent: – see J. Assmann 1988, 9, who critiques biologistic attempts to conceptualize “collective
memory as … hereditary”, for instance as a “racial memory”, “of which there was no lack at the
turn of the century”. But cf. Klein 2000, 130, for the problematic view that the socially constructed
nature of memory is a ‘truism’.
15
Halbwachs 1925/1985, 200 f., 368, 390 (in agreement with Bartlett 1932/1967, 295 f).
16
Walter 2004a, 24. See also Burke 1991, 291; Walter 2002 as well as Fried 2001; 2004; Rüsen
2008, 13; Singer 2010; for an earlier statement, cf. Heuß 1959, 14.
individuals within a present, such as when it is mediated by objects and, especially,

by places and landscapes.17 Nevertheless, many phenomena of collective memory
that are described by Halbwachs are rather ephemeral and always at risk of being
forgotten, since they are based on the everyday communication of individuals within
social frames of reference.18
This forms one important point of departure in Aleida and Jan Assmann’s work
on “cultural memory”, since they address the question of how the contents of col-
lective memory can be permanently secured.19 In order to accentuate cultural mem-
ory more strongly, these two scholars first distinguish it from so-called
“communicative memory”.20 This refers to knowledge of the past that arises through
everyday communication between contemporaries. The consequence of this is that
communicative memory can only ever relate to a changing time horizon, moving
with the times, so to speak, and that its contents are therefore highly variable.
Following on from the research of the ethnologist Jan Vansina, J. Assmann assumes
a range of 80–100 years for this time horizon.21 The contents of cultural memory, on
the other hand, comprise events of a more distant past.22 No less important than the
distinction with regard to the time structure seems to be that with regard to the form
or shape of the media of communication and the carriers, each of which is pointedly
and exaggeratedly contrasted.23 According to this, communicative memory is char-
acterized by a diffuse participatory structure in which, in principle, every individual
is regarded as equally competent with regard to his or her knowledge of the past,
even if Assmann does not deny that “some know more, others less” and that “the
memory of the old [...] goes back further” “than that of the young”. What is decisive
with regard to the bearers of communicative memory, however, is that there are “no
specialists and experts of such informal tradition”.24 In contrast, cultural memory is
fundamentally mediated by just such specialized bearers of tradition. This
17
Especially in Halbwachs 1941/2003. On this dimension of Halbwachs’ work, see Galinsky
2016, 8 f.
18
Bloch 1925/2000, 247 and 249–251 therefore also sees an omission on Halbwachs’ part in the
fact that he did not pay enough attention to the question of the transmission of collective memories
and also did not take enough account of the change in the contents of collective memories, which
is often unnoticed by the participants. So also Connerton 1989, 38 f. This criticism is not unjusti-
fied, but it should be mentioned that Halbwachs was well aware of these aspects. See, for example,
Halbwachs 1925/1985, 368J. Assmann 62007, 36 sees here not simply an omission in Halbwachs’
thought, but rather a fruitful connecting point, namely that this theory was able to explain forget-
ting at the same time as it explains memory.
19
See especially J. Assmann 1988; 62007; A. Assmann 1999; J. Assmann 2000; 2008.
20
On communicative memory, see especially J. Assmann 62007, 50–56.
21
J. Assmann 62007, 48 f. See Vansina 1985, 23 f. Halbwachs also recognized that the period cov-
ered by collective memory was limited. How far back this horizon extends, however, varies from
group to group: Halbwachs 1950/1967, 100.
22
J. Assmann 62007, 52.
23
See the table in J. Assmann 62007, 56.
24
Ibid, 53.
difference is also reflected in the distinctions regarding the media and the respective
form. While communicative memory is based on the living memory in the organic
memories of its bearers and is conveyed through oral everyday communication, the
media of cultural memory are incomparably more strongly formed and include, for
example, “fixed objectivations” such as buildings, symbolic stagings or festivals
and, above all, writing.25 In contrast to the informal form of communicative mem-
ory, which is always in a state of flux, the form of cultural memory is thus also more
strongly fixed, endowed, and in part also integrated into forms of ceremonial com-
munication.26 The functions of cultural memory also correspond to this stronger
fixation in form, the strong binding to media, the mastery, use and decoding of
which often requires a considerable amount of special knowledge, which only pro-
duces a group of experts in tradition. In Assmann’s model, these lie essentially in
the foundation and transmission of a collective identity and the legitimation of the
very group that ultimately also produces the specialists and experts in the mainte-
nance of tradition.27 The contents of cultural memory are thus always subject to a
more or less strong control by this knowledgeable elite.28
As commendable as the conception of these two areas of collective memory is
for understanding the “connection between cultural memory, collective identity for-
mation and political legitimation”, the scholarly discussion of Assmann’s concept
has nevertheless revealed a number of gaps, limitations and also inconsistencies.29
First of all, there is the distinction with regard to time structure, which should deter-
mine the allocation of the contents of communicative and cultural memory. However,
this can hardly be drawn based on the temporal distance to the remembered event
alone. On the contrary it is possible for memories of recent events to be strongly
shaped by how they are conveyed. Thus, their interpretation can, for example, be
determined by a social elite with the result that the memory of recent events assumes
a culturally foundational character while straddling the categories of
25
Ibid, 56.
26
See ibid., 53 with the albeit cautious consideration: “Man könnte also die Polarität zwischen dem
kommunikativen und kulturellen Gedächtnis der Polarität zwischen Alltag und Fest gleichsetzen
und gerade von Alltags- und Festgedächtnis sprechen”. See on this already J. Assmann 1991, 17–20.
27
Ibid, 54 f.
28
Ibid, 55: “Der Polarität der kollektiven Erinnerung entspricht also in der Zeitdimension die
Polarität zwischen Fest und Alltag, und in der Sozialdimension die Polarität zwischen einer wis-
senssoziologischen Elite, den Spezialisten des kulturellen Gedächtnisses, und der Allgemeinheit
der Gruppe.”
29
See for example Erll 2005, 27, 112–122; Diefenbach 2007, 8–12. See also Walter 2004a, 24 f.;
Beck/Wiemer 2009, 16; Behrwald 2009, 24 f.; Eckert 2016, 18–30.
communicative and cultural memory.30 On closer examination, the other distin-

guishing features from Assmann’s scheme also do not seem suitable for clearly
assigning a past event to the realm of communicative or cultural memory.31 After his
initially pointed and unambiguous contrast, J. Assmann himself accordingly points
out that the two forms of collective memory he describes are also rather modi mem-
orandi, “two functions of memory and the past”.32 The decisive difference therefore
also lies in the “mode” of memory, namely in whether an event is attributed to “bio-
graphical” or “foundational” memory.33 Assmann also sees that these two functions
can often only be separated analytically.34 By concentrating primarily on cultural
memory, however, the transitions between the access of communicative and that of
cultural memory in the “reality of a historical culture” remain little illuminated, and
the model, moreover, actually appears on the whole, as Diefenbach, for example,
30
Erll 2005, 115–117. The examples of such rapid transformation are numerous and by no means
limited to modernity. Prominent cases include the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the
memory of the Second World War in various cultures of remembrance, and the German reunifica-
tion; or – to take an example from antiquity – the memory of various battles of the Persian Wars in
the Greek poleis. On the latter, see Jung 2006, esp. 225–295 on the beginnings of the memory of
Plataiai and 384: “The memory of the battles of Marathon and Plataiai began immediately after the
events themselves. Intensive efforts already by contemporaries show that the events were to be
interpreted and commemorated.” See Gehrke 1994, 248 f.; Jahn 2007, 12, note 71 and on Marathon
also Hölkeskamp 2009b, 29–36, esp. 29, noting that the origin of a (political) “myth” or a “found-
ing story” can apparently be “quite contemporary [...], even still within the horizon of ‘communi-
cative memory’”. In this sense, see also Beck 2009, 62–64 on Plataiai. On the American Civil War,
see Schivelbusch 2001, 52–121 and Osterhammel 2009, 27, who states with regard to the “histori-
cal memory” of the American Civil War in the USA: “As is always the case with historical memory,
it is not merely a matter of a natural formation of identity, but also of an instrumentalization for the
benefit of identifiable interests: Southern propagandists took great pains to cover up the fact that
the Civil War was centrally about slavery and emancipation, and pushed the defense of ‘state
rights’ to the fore. The opposing side rallied around the mythicization of Abraham Lincoln, the
Civil War president assassinated in 1865.” Conversely, even very long ago or entirely fictional
events can become part of communicative memory, for example, when “the Bible or the Odyssey
are read and understood not as foundational texts” and not in awareness of their “religious, national,
or cultural significance” but as representations of everyday life (Erll 2005, 118). See on this also
Jahn 2007, 6 f.
31
See Erll 2005, 115. Keppler 2001, 157–159, for example, questions whether in modern societies
a distinction between everyday and institutionalized extra-ordinary memory practice is (still) ten-
able, since, on the one hand, everyday communication is strongly influenced by mass media, and,
on the other hand, “medial events” can only become such if “they encounter a corresponding com-
municative resonance in local memory practice” (158). For “die frühen Hochkulturen” (ibid.),
however, Keppler still considers the division plausible. The examples, which have been treated in
more detail in various works on pre-modern periods as well, and certainly also on antiquity (See
the preceding note), suggest, however, that such a strict division is doubtful not only for modern
societies of the twentieth century.
32
J. Assmann 62007, 51 f.
33
J. Assmann 62007.
34
He therefore proposes (J. Assmann 62007, 55) to distinguish between societies in which “cultural
memory is sharply set off against communicative memory, so that one could virtually speak of a
‘biculturalism’”, and those in which the relationship between these two types of memory could be
“better described in the image of extreme poles on a scale”.
notes, “essentially static in design and little suited to taking into account historical
change and the potential for change in group-related memory”.35
Another point of criticism focuses on the identity-forming and legitimating func-
tion of cultural memory.36 In this context, it is important to note that Assmann devel-
oped the concept of a cultural memory against the background of the memory
cultures of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Israel. In these societies, conditions may
indeed have prevailed that favoured the formation of a rather more unified cultural
memory that could then serve as the basis of a collective identity.37 Although
Assmann himself also uses ‘ancient Greece’ as a case study and suggests that the
concept of cultural memory can be applied to a large number of pre-modern as well
as modern societies, it cannot be denied that this concept in the narrower sense can
only be applied to the Greek culture(s) of memory to a very limited extent. For a
cultural memory in the form of a canonically standardized knowledge of the past
that is binding for all Greek communities can hardly be expected here – the Greek
world appears too heterogeneous (also) in this respect.38 Despite a greater political
unity, these limitations also apply to Roman memory culture, both that of the
Republic and that of the imperial period. The culture of remembrance of the Roman
Republic, for example, appears too heterogeneous and in part contradictory, which,
despite the rather sparse source material compared to the situation for modern
epochs, often still reveals the strong competitive situation within the nobility on
which it was based.39
Aleida and Jan Assmann have also taken these vaguenesses and weaknesses into
account, so that they have modified the concept in various places. An essential
35
Diefenbach 2007, 9. See Modrow 2017, 47 f.
36
See also for the following, among others – and with further references – Walter 2004a, 24–26;
Diefenbach 2007, 9–12.
37
See Walter 2004a, 25; Diefenbach 2007, 10.
38
J. Assmann 62007, 160. See Walter 2001, 245; 2004a, 25; Jung 2006, 18 f.; Diefenbach 2007, 10;
Kühr 2006, 49 f. (with note 40: “Gerade für die polyzentrale griechische Poliswelt gilt, daß das
kulturelle Gedächtnis nicht als kanonisch normiertes, alle Griechen jederzeit bindendes
Vergangenheitswissen zu verstehen ist.”). See also Gehrke 2004, 471 f., 479; Beck 2009, 78; Beck/
Wiemer 2009, 16; Hartmann 2010, 27 f.; Hölkeskamp/Stein-Hölkeskamp 2011, 42 f.
39
Previous research on the culture of memory and history in the Roman Republic – but also in the
imperial period – has clearly and convincingly elaborated its heterogeneity, conditioned, among
other things, by the ongoing competition among the noble gentes. See, for example, Walter 2001,
249–260; 2002, 329; 2004a (comprehensive and fundamental); Gowing 2005; Gallia 2012 (the
latter both on the memory of the Republic in the early imperial period); See also Hölkeskamp
2004, 66 = 2010, 66 f.; Walter 2006, 98 (“anarchic historical culture of the Roman Republic”). This
competition, which shaped the historical tradition and probably also the collective memory, can be
clearly seen in the pompa funebris, which gave the relatives of the deceased, among other things,
the opportunity to emphasize the merits and importance not only of the deceased, but also of their
own family within the nobility. The locus classicus is Pol. 6,53,1–54,3. See, among others, Flaig
1995; Flower 1996, 91–127; Walter 2002, 331–334; 2004a, 89–108; Blösel 2003; Biesinger 2016,
31–40. See for detailed references below Sect. 2.2.
extension is the distinction between Funktionsgedächtnis and Speichergedächtnis.40

The former is to be understood as the “inhabited memory” in a society, which is
characterized by “group reference, selectivity, value commitment and future orien-
tation” and is used for functions of legitimation, delegitimation or distinction in a
particular present.41 This use is always preceded by a “process of selection, of link-
age, of the constitution of meaning”. In memory, on the other hand, such knowledge
stocks are “stored”, for example in archives, libraries or museums, which are not
currently part of functional memory, to a certain extent a “repertoire of missed
opportunities, alternative options and unused chances”.42 The Speichergedächtnis
forms a possible corrective to the currently used stock of the Funktionsgedächtnis
and thus also explains the possibilities of change in cultural memory.43 The prereq-
uisite for such a stock of alternative traditions is writing, since now, only in cultural
memory, stocks of knowledge can be accumulated that soon exceed the “horizon of
directly used past knowledge”, so that whole libraries are formed around normative
texts, the contents of which have “lost all reference to a collective identity, however
broadly conceived”, “and thus possess neither horizon nor conciseness”.44 At the
same time, cultural memory itself is “complex, pluralistic, labyrinthine” and encom-
passes “a multitude of binding memories and we-identities that differ in time and
space” and derives “its dynamics from these tensions and contradictions”.45
Through these extensions, the concept of cultural memory now appears less
static and better suited to explain change in the content and interpretation of collec-
tive memories, i.e., a diachronic plurality.46 These modifications also imply that
cultural memory, when Funktionsgedächtnis and Speichergedächtnis now coincide
in it, is greatly expanded in terms of its subject areas. However, it is precisely these
expansions that make the original concept appear – as before – vague, and the func-
tion originally attributed to ‘cultural memory’ as a whole, namely the foundation of
a binding, almost canon-like, collective identity, is undoubtedly relativized.47
However functional memory and memory relate to each other, they both form a
shaped access to the past, which always presupposes acts of reconstruction that start
from the respective present.48 The question of “the interfaces and the transitions”
between communicative and cultural memory, which Diefenbach rightly calls for, is
40
A. Assmann 1999, 130–142; J. Assmann 2000, 38 f. Although this distinction is already hinted
at in J. Assmann 1988, 13, the thoughts underlying it are not yet further elaborated there.
41
A. Assmann 1999, 134, 138 f.
42
A. Assmann 1999, 137.
43
A. Assmann 1999, 140 f.
44
A. Assmann 1999, 137; J. Assmann 2000, 43 (quotation).
45
A. Assmann 1999.
46
Erll 2005, 32 and esp. 119–121.
47
See the critique by Walter 2004a, 25 with note 54; Behrwald 2009, 24, who notes that because as
a result of these modifications “the proprium of the draft originally presented under the term ‘cul-
tural memory’, precisely its canonical bindingness, has been disposed of”.
48
See Erll 2005, 32 f.
admittedly hardly illuminated by these extensions.49And also the competition and

coexistence of different synchronous cultural memories remains little considered,
which seems unsatisfactory not only with regard to the memory culture(s) of the
Roman Republic.50
Against the background of these considerations, the ideas of Peter Burke, Chris
Wickham and James Fentress on “social memory” and of Jörn Rüsen on “historical
culture” as a whole seem more appropriate for analysing and describing the mem-
ory culture of the Roman Republic or the imperial period as well.51 Burke, too, takes
up Halbwachs’ insights and emphasizes as an important starting point that the ideas
about the past that an individual develops are always shaped by “categories and
schemata” influenced by social groups.52 These schemata, to which Frederick
Bartlett and Aby Warburg have already – and independently – drawn attention,
shape individual perceptions of the present and ideas about the past.53 They put
them into a form and thereby combine them into a narrative that corresponds to the
expectations provided by the respective schema in the first place. Thus, it finds its
confirmation and is recognized as accurate, which promotes its further dissemina-
tion and transmission. Historians can often identify these patterns or schemata if the
source situation is favourable, but in individual cases it is often not possible to
determine the extent to which this imprint was even consciously recognised by the
person remembering or his listeners or readers. These schemata are at work, for
example, when fragmentary accounts of grandfather’s war experiences are trans-
formed into a coherent story, when veterans recount episodes from the war under
the obvious influence of reports from past wars, historical novels or films, or when
formative encounters in one’s own biography are recounted according to literary
49
Diefenbach 2007, 9. See also Jung 2006, 19 with note 21; Eckert 2016, 29.
50
Nor is the significance of quite different forms and expressions within cultures of remembrance,
such as ritual, material or monumental, really taken into account comprehensively. See Erll 2005,
113 f.; Diefenbach 2007, 8.
51
Burke 1991; Wickham/Fentress 1992; Rüsen 1994; 2008. See on the preference for these more
open concepts, among others, Walter 2004a, 19–24; Kühr 2006, 49, note 40 and Behrwald 2009,
25. See also the approving remarks of Wolfgang Blösel in his review of Walter’s study (review of
Walter 2004a, in: sehepunkte 5 (2005), no. 11 [15.11.2005]; http://www.sehepunkte.
de/2005/11/7422.html. Last viewed on 06.09.2016).
52
Burke 1991, 290 f.
53
Burke 1991, 291, 294 f.; Bartlett 1932/1967, 197–214, 293–300, esp. 296; Warburg 1932. See on
this also Harald Welzer’s reflections on cultural frames and schemata, who is able to make the
existence and effect of such schemata plausible, among other things, through the results of his
work in eyewitness interviews on the thematic complex of National Socialism, the Holocaust and
the Second World War: Welzer 32011, 152–206. See also Singer 2010, 332 f., 338 f. and the reflec-
tions of Bloch 1921/2000 on the emergence of “falsehoods” in war. Incidentally, J. Assmann 1988,
16, note 1 draws attention to the fact that Warburg apparently had knowledge of Halbwachs’ work,
even if it must remain open to what extent he received it.
models.54 In many cases, these seem to be rather unconscious adoptions of such

schemes, so that even suspicions of a ‘falsification’ of the past with a conscious
intention can sometimes lead to the wrong track.55 Burke rightly emphasises that
these schemas are not only passed on through oral traditions, but are reflected in a
wide range of media, each of which affects individuals and their surrounding groups
in different ways. As examples, he mentions such diverse media as oral traditions,
“conventional historical documents”, images in the broadest sense, collective com-
memorative rituals, but also “geographical and social spaces”.56
Even if one accepts a probably often unconscious adoption of interpretations and
interpretations shaped by cultural schemata and their continued transmission in
various media – and there is indeed something to be said for this – it would again
certainly be “politically naïve” to exclude an intentional use of historical memories.
For instance this could take the form of a forgery, the creation of political hero fig-
ures or similar.57
Thus, social memory is shaped by the interplay and interaction of different
media, a complex interplay of intentional use of historical memory, unconscious
adoption of socio-culturally mediated schemata and other approaches to the past,
54
See the examples in Welzer 32011, 172–206; Burke 1991, 294 f.; Bloch 1921/2000, 202–205
with reflections on the emergence and consolidation of “false reports” and “legends” among
German soldiers in the First World War, where the influence of culturally mediated schemata is
also evident, even though Bloch does not use this term. See also already Whatley 1964, 121, 130.
55
See on this, among others, Fried 2001, 573–577; 2004, 46–56, 153–155, passim; Walter 2002,
326 f. with note 4: “Wenn also ein antiker oder mittelalterlicher Geschichtsschreiber Gehörtes und
Gelesenes mit eigenen Erklärungen und Akzentuierungen zu einem neuen, für ihn selbst orientie-
renden Text verschmolz, so ist dieser Vorgang mit Begriffen wie ‚Unselbstständigkeit‘, ‚Tendenz‘
oder gar ‚Fälschung‘ nicht angemessen zu beschreiben”. In a similar context, Kühr 2006, 28–30
argues for not interpreting the transmission of historical images in (founding) myths primarily as
a conscious legitimization strategy, but sees its effect precisely in the fact that contents and inter-
pretations of the past are precisely “often passed on unconsciously or without reflection” (29). In
agreement with this also Sommer 2013, 9, note 6. See Reinhardt 1996, 98 f.; Walter 2004a, 20;
Echterhoff 2005, 260 f.; Siegel 2006, 36, 42; Singer 2010, 331 and already Bloch 1914/2000, esp.
25 and 28 and 1921/2000. See further also Kansteiner 2004, 127 f.
56
Burke 1991, 292–295.
57
So also Burke 1991, 296–299; Zelizer 1995, 226–230. For some examples, see Gehrke 1994,
255–260 and cf. Olick/Robbins 1998, 117 f. Cf. also Fried 2004, 49–56, who proposes a distinc-
tion between “primary” (conditions of memories) and “secondary” (“will, discourse context, any
adaptation to a public sphere”, 54) deforming factors of memory, whereby with this only the “tem-
poral sequence of their effectiveness” and “no valence of the factors in question” should be estab-
lished. The boundaries between “primary” and “secondary factors” are “admittedly fluid” (54). If
one assumes the efficacy of cultural schemata in processes of perception and memory, then it
would indeed have to be assumed that Fried’s “primary” factors, too, have already been preformed
by “secondary” forces of deformation-precisely because an individual has already internalized a
certain interest, discourse, etc., in such a way that the individual’s “primary” factors have already
been preformed by “secondary” forces of deformation. Fried notes that when he places “die kon-
ditionierenden, von Handlungserwartungen gelenkten, unbewußten Wissensvorgaben einer jeden
Wahrnehmung” (50) among the conditions to which memories are subject. The transitions are thus
not only fluid, but both types of factors condition and influence each other, “both forces of defor-
mation have a reciprocal effect on each other” (334).
characterized by numerous overtones.58 From these considerations it is already

obvious to think “in pluralistic terms about the use of memories in different social
groups”, or – more clearly – to assume competing, in part fundamentally different
positions and interpretati.59
In this sense, the term ‘social memory’ is probably also preferable to that of a
‘collective memory’, since the latter “strictly speaking can at least suggest a holistic
implication” that seems to exclude particular or group memories.60 The consider-
ations on ‘social memory’ accord with the concept of “historical culture” which was
introduced into academic discourse by Jörn Rüsen. Rüsen understands this to mean,
in the first instance, the “articulation of historical consciousness
(Geschichtsbewusstsein)” in a certain group whereby those “dimensions and areas
of human mentality that do not merge into the goal-directedness and reflexivity of
consciousness” – an “individual and collective historical unconscious”, so to
speak – should not be ignored.61 The term “historical culture” thus ultimately
encompasses the entire range of historical memories in a society, both conscious
and unconscious, emotionally or cognitively motivated, which enable individuals
58
See Olick/Robbins 1998, 112: “In this review, we refer to ‘social memory studies’ as a general
rubric for inquiry into the varieties of forms through which we are shaped by the past, conscious
and unconscious, public and private, material and communicative, consensual and challenged”.
59
Burke 1991, 298 (quotation).
60
It should be mentioned, however, that Halbwachs precisely emphasized these different group
memories through his references to the different social frames of reference in his theory of a ‘col-
lective memory’, so that he was quite aware of the heterogeneity of collective memories despite
the, possibly unintentionally, suggestive naming of the phenomenon he described. This becomes
visible, among other things, in the often quoted “Walk through London”, in which Halbwachs
emphasizes precisely the shares of different frames of reference in the memory of the individual
(Halbwachs 1950/1967). See on this point Echterhoff 2005, 252 f. (“Thus individual memories can
be shaped by the most diverse social frames, depending on the currently relevant or salient group
affiliation. However, the degree to which potentially different social references also influence
memories also depends on the mental, especially cognitive, states and operations of the respective
individuals.”) See also Eckert 2016, 13. On the problem of a possible misunderstanding of the
term: Walter 2004a, 20: “‘Geschichtskultur’ encompasses the synchronic and diachronic social
memory of a collective. In the sense of ‘group-related’, the attribute ‘social’ is more appropriate
here than the attribute ‘collective’, which is predominantly used in the literature, because strictly
speaking a holistic implication lies in the latter and the possibility of segmentary or competing
group memories – something of the plebs or the popular respectively – is excluded”. In this sense,
already Zelizer 1995, 230–232. See also Confino 1997, 1399–1402; Hartmann 2010, 27 f. (“Ein
monolithisches kollektives Gedächtnis und strikte Uniformität der Erinnerungspraxis gab und gibt
es nicht, und dergleichen kann deshalb auch durch eine noch so umfassende Quellenerhebung
nicht nachgewiesen werden”, 27). However, see also Beck/Wiemer 2009, 16 f., who do not want
to attach too much weight to the differences in terminology, since fundamental agreement exists
among historians about the essential characteristics of collective memories – “group-related” and
“subject to a cultural imprint” (17) – regardless of the exact terminology.
61
Rüsen 1994, 5 and 11; (updated:) 2008, 235 f.
and collectives to attain “temporal orientation of life practice”.62 Through this open
approach, it may be possible to integrate into the analysis precisely those “modes of
memory” that received less attention in the original concept of an Assmannian “cul-
tural memory”, such as “learned curiosity or the need for edification”.63
In Rüsen’s model specific cultural patterns (compare Burke’s “schemata”) shape
the manifestations of historical memories and the medial forms of their transmis-
sion and reproduction.64 It is precisely these patterns and, somewhat more generally,
the frameworks of “what is fundamentally possible or conceivable within a specific
cultural system or society” that can also be reconstructed off a source base that,
unfortunately, tends not to be very rich.65
The cultural imprint of such patterns points to the importance of various media
for any form of historical culture or social memory.66 At the same time, the media of
past societies are our only sources also for the reconstruction of a specific historical
culture or for the reconstruction of what is “fundamentally possible or thinkable
62
Rüsen, 1994, 11. “Historical memory” is understood by Rüsen as a “mental process of self-ref-
erence, of the remembering subjects in the form of a visualization of their past”, which “goes back
beyond the limits of one’s own lifetime into the past” and thus also designs a future perspective for
one’s own life situation, which in turn “points beyond the limits of one’s own lifetime” (Ibid., 7).
Modes as diverse as “functions of instruction, entertainment, legitimation, criticism, distraction,
enlightenment, and other modes of memory play into the overarching unity of historical memory”
(Ibid., 4).
63
See Walter 2004a, 22, who emphasizes that “historical consciousness in Rome was certainly an
essential part of political culture”, but was not absorbed into it, “but [...] could also serve learned
curiosity or the need for edification”. See also Confino 1997, 1393–1395, esp. 1395: “We miss a
whole world of human activities that cannot be immediately recognized (and categorized) as politi-
cal, although they are decisive to the way people construct and contest images of the past. We can
think of the family, voluntary association and workplace but should also include practices such as
tourism and consumerism”.
64
Rüsen, 2008, 241.
65
See Gowing 2005, 9; Hartmann 2010, 28: “Against this background, the only thing that is pos-
sible is the identification of a framework of what is fundamentally possible or conceivable within
a specific cultural system or society. This designates a legitimate object of knowledge, so that the
impossibility of a complete presentation of material need not necessarily lead to a retreat to iso-
lated individual studies”.
66
See, among others, Burke 1991, 292; Zelizer 1995, 232–234; Hölkeskamp 1996/2004, 170;
2001/2004, 163–165; 2012b, 406 f.; Sonne 1999, 535; Esposito 2002, 9 f.; Gehrke 2003, 68; Erll
2004, 4 f. and passim; Kühr 2006, 29, 49 f.; Walter 2001; 2004a, 21 f.; Kansteiner 2004, 128–132;
J. Assmann 62007, 139. The influence of the media in the broadest sense on even the most personal
memories is overlooked by Gedi/Elam 1996, 46, who explain that Holocaust survivors, for exam-
ple, often concealed their experiences for a long time for understandable reasons, but nevertheless
had “their own memories” of these events. However, there is nothing to contradict the assumption
that the perception of these experiences was already shaped by cultural schemata, and that it is very
likely that the later memory of these events was also subject to media influences. Such influences
have been demonstrated especially in connection with contemporary witnesses of the Second
World War. Since such schemata and influences cannot be provided by the individual himself, it is
evident that even in the case of the most personal memories, which people do not communicate in
conversation over a long period of time, social factors influence the form and content of those
memories.
within a specific cultural system or society”.67 Given this importance, it cannot be

surprising that there is no lack of attempts to categorize these media.68 For all the
differences in terms of the respective characteristics of different media, it is never-
theless necessary to conceive of them collectively as “facets of a single phenome-
non of cultural appropriation of the world and self-reproduction.” Thus, in the case
of the historical culture of the Roman Republic that is of particular interest here, for
example, “education and antiquarian research, social rituals and artistically designed
texts, images and objects”, rhetorical-political power struggle and “imperial self-
representation” – as well as others – have to be seen as components of a ‘web’ in
which the individual elements both refer to each other and sometimes also mutually
condition each other.69
The relevance of different media for Roman historical culture will be the subject
of the next chapter. At this point, however, it should already be pointed out that the
respective media do not leave the contents they transmit untouched in different
ways, i.e. they by no means function only as carriers of “unchanging ‘messages’”.70
Thus, any specifications and ‘laws’ of a particular medium sometimes condition the
contents and interpretations or change them to a considerable extent. In order to
grasp such processes more precisely, it is necessary, therefore, to reconstruct and
network “the genre development of the most important memory media and their
specific grammar, as well as the possibilities and circumstances of their reception,
over the course of which those remains and interpretive needs first became ‘history’,
as concretely as possible”.71
67
Hartmann 2010, 28 (quotation).
68
Burke 1991, 292–294 names oral tradition, conventional historical documents, “painted or pho-
tographic, still or moving images”, collective commemorative rituals, and geographical and social
spaces. Gehrke 2003, 68 f. distinguishes “oral transmission,” “ritual repetition,” and various forms
of “reification” through monumentalization, pictorial representation, or writing. See also the dif-
ferentiated compilation in Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 10–30 (See also the other contri-
butions in Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014 (eds.)).
69
Siehe etwa Walter 2004a, 22 (Zitat) und vgl. u. a. Wickham/Fentress 1992, 47 (“Wie im Falle des
individuellen Gedächtnisses sind die im sozialen Gedächtnis gespeicherten Bilder also zusam-
mengesetzt: Sie setzen sich aus einer Mischung von bildhaften Bildern und Szenen, Slogans,
Witzen und Versfetzen, Abstraktionen, Handlungstypen und Diskursabschnitten und sogar falschen
Etymologien zusammen.”); Irwin-Zarecka 1994, xi; Beck 2003, 75 f., 89 f.; Erll 2004, 11;
Kansteiner 2004, 128; Gowing 2005, 9–14 sowie Pausch 2011, 18–24. Siehe außerdem, jeweils
mit weiteren Hinweisen, die Fallstudien für ein solches Geflecht bei Hölkeskamp 2001/2004, bes.
139, 163–165; 2006a, 481, 485–487; 2012, bes. 386 f., 394 f. und 406 f.; 2014a, 69 f.
70
Burke 1991, 292; Walter 2001, 256 f. and passim; 2003, 256; 2004a, 22, 32 and passim; Erll
2004, 5 (“Media are not neutral carriers of prior memory-relevant information. What they seem to
encode – existing versions of reality and the past, values and norms, identity concepts – they often
constitute in the first place.”); 2005, 123–125; Kansteiner 2004, 132; Münker 2008, 328–330. The
conception of a distinction between “functional” and “storage memory” also points to this charac-
teristic of the media, since it is only “now, in the medium of writing, that memory stocks quickly
burst the horizon of directly used past knowledge” (J. Assmann 2000, 43).On the importance and
peculiarities of writing as a storage medium, see also Timpe 1988, 273 f.; 2003, 288. See also
Esposito 2002, 34–36; Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 6.
71
Walter 2004a, 32. See Hölkeskamp, 2012b, esp. 406 f.; Dally/Hölscher/Muth/Schneider 2014, 3.
Before outlining the historical cultures of the Roman Republic and the early
imperial period, several objections that have been raised against some of the con-
cepts and models presented will be addressed. This seems to make sense, on the one
hand, in order to prevent possible misunderstandings, and, on the other hand,
because at least some of the considerations mentioned have by no means met with
undivided approval, but rather have provoked partly decisive opposition.72
For example, a too unbiased transfer of individual psychological terms to collec-
tives and the use of “anthropomorphic formulations” in relation to groups, media and
memory itself provoked criticism.73 “Anthropomorphic formulations” for groups or
objects are also entrenched in everyday language usage without necessarily being
misunderstood. However, when dealing with social or collective Erinnerungen or
Gedächtnissen, there is definitely a danger of a simplistically transferring individual
psychological terms to cultural formations. Therefore, cautioning against this is justi-
fied, since findings about the functioning of the human brain cannot be used to “draw
conclusions about the functioning of society” without further consideration.74 The
difficulties that have arisen in this respect have been particularly evident with regard
to the adaptation of psychoanalytic concepts – of particular note here is the metaphor
of cultural trauma, which has indeed “produced more misunderstandings than it has
opened up insights into memory-cultural processes”.75 However, this does not change
the fact that the socio-cultural – or rather collective – conditions for the individual’s
memory cannot be disputed. Moreover, it is indeed impossible to negotiate memory
72
Although he welcomed Halbwachs’ work on the whole, Bloch also expressed criticism as early
as 1925/2000. See Erll 2005, 14, esp. 95–99. Partly thought-provoking objections against some
inappropriate use of the concept of memory, with constructive-critical suggestions, are offered by
Confino 1997 and Klein 2000.
73
Thus already Bloch 1925/2000, 246 (quotation). See also Wickham/Fentress 1992, 25; Klein
2000, 132, 136 (“The new ‘materialization’ of memory thus grounds the elevation of memory to
the status of a historical agent, and we enter a new age in which archives remember and statues
forget.”) and See Confino 1997, 1397 and Kansteiner 2004, 125: “Da die Grenze zwischen
Individuum und Kollektiv oft ohne entsprechende methodologische Angleichung überschritten
wird, lesen wir dann, dass Kollektive sich erinnern, vergessen und die Vergangenheit verdrängen,
ohne dass wir gewahr werden, dass eine solche Sprache bestenfalls metaphorisch und schlimmsten-
falls irreführend ist.” See also Erll 2005, 98 f., who urges the “important distinction [...] between
productive and misleading metaphors” (98). Reinhardt 1996 undertakes a succinct but thoroughly
nuanced defense of conceptual transference.
74
Esposito 2002, 18.
75
Erll 2005, 99 (citation). See also Kansteiner 2004, 120, 125 f. as well as Weilnböck 2007 and
Weilnböck/Kansteiner 2008, who question the concept of cultural trauma with good arguments.
Morley 2004, 109–114, is also critical of the adoption of psychoanalytic approaches to the study
of ancient sources. See also Hoffmann 2000, 6, and Eckert 2016, 23 f., who considers a method-
ologically controlled model of “cultural trauma” (24) to be a fruitful starting point for research.
With regard to an alleged collective trauma of the Romans after the defeat of Cannae, see most
recently the clarifying remarks in Modrow 2017, 98–111.
without the use of metaphors.76 But do we need the metaphor of memory at all in order
to analyse the phenomena it describes, or are more orthodox concepts such as ‘tradi-
tion’, ‘knowledge appropriation’ or ‘myth’ in fact sufficient?77
Against this it should be hold in mind that the memory metaphor as a collective
term, like the related concept of historical culture, is suitable to “grasping distinct
phenomena in their functional context” and analyzing them.78 While the risk of blur-
ring the differences between various cultural phenomena cannot be dismissed out of
hand, the emotional dimension in the appropriation of the past, are easily lost from
view if the various phenomena are reduced to learning, reception or the cultivation
of customs.79 Here, the assumption of a social memory or a culture of history can
certainly reveal further facets, without claiming to make the previously established
concepts and research obsolete.80 The study of a historical culture or embodi-
ments of a social memory, moreover, should not be misunderstood as denying the
historicity of events of the past.81 However, precisely by emphasizing this historic-
ity, it makes perfect sense to consider the emergence and transmission of memories,
which ultimately form the basis for the sources that are still available to us from the
world of Roman antiquity.82
76
Weinrich 1976, 294; Gedi/Elam 1996, 35; A. Assmann 1999; J. Assmann 2000, 20; Walter
2004a, 20, note 39; Erll 2005, 96. In a consideration of the history of memory metaphors them-
selves, such as that undertaken by A. Assmann 1999, it becomes clear that the metaphors used
indeed “enable and constitute their object and do not merely illustrate existing knowledge” (Pethes,
in Pethes/Ruchatz 2001, 196, s. v. Gedächtnismetapher). See further Timpe 2003, 287, note 1.
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that even such metaphors, long established in historical
scholarship, are themselves also inherent with considerable suggestive-misleading potential. Most
prominent among historians in this context is the notion of ‘source’, about which, for instance,
Bloch 1914/1925, 19 is not happy. See also Morley 2004, 3.
77
For example, Cancik/Mohr 1990, 300 f., 308–311; Gedi/Elam 1996, 47: “Collective memory is
but a misleading new term for the old familiar ‘myth’ which can be identified, in its turn, with ‘col-
lective’ or ‘social’ stereotypes”. They obviously overlook, on the one hand, how indeterminate and
varied the concept of myth itself is (see, for instance, with further references, Kühr 2006, 15–19;
Hölkeskamp 2009b, 9–16; Sommer 2013, 6–12), and, on the other hand, that while the phenomena
described under ‘myth’ resemble those described by memory metaphors, they are by no means the
same thing. Myths (political and otherwise) are parts of the ‘web’ of a social memory or historical
culture, but stand alongside other elements which, for all the openness of the term, would certainly
not be adequately described as myth. See also Weinrich 1976, who notes that the various memory
metaphors are by no means mere “ornaments of speech” (291), but rather have “the value of (hypo-
thetical) models of thought” (294), which help to “ask questions”.
78
Erll 2005, 98.
79
Walter 2004a, 20 f. with notes 39 and 40.
80
See, among others, Walter 2002, 326; Fried 2004, 49–56; Hölkeskamp/Stein-Hölkeskamp 2011,
40 (who therefore also state a “supplementation and expansion of structural and social history” in
the history of ideas and culture). See also generally Hölkeskamp 2017, 460 on ‘turns’ in cultural
studies, which offer the potential to broaden perspectives, but are not “fundamentally new discov-
eries, inventions or revolutionary ‘paradigm shifts’”.
81
Walter 2002; 2004a, 19 with note 36. see also Pausch 2011, 8; Itgenshorst 2005, 41.
82
Fried 2004, 46–49; See Walter 2004a, 19 (“all sources of factual events are coagulated memories,
which is why it is legitimate to explore their modes and possibilities in advance”).
2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period 33
Even if in many cases uncertainty must remain with regard to details, dates and
figures, the fundamental historicity of the defeats that will be the focus of this work
will, as a rule, hardly be disputed. To reconstruct how some of the greatest military
defeats suffered by the Romans at the time of the Republic were now reflected in
this web of different memory media, with their respective different (genre) tradi-
tions, and other characteristics, as well as different modes of historical memory, is
the aim of this book. It is obvious that no complete picture can (any longer) be
drawn here. The loss of sources is generally too great, and the views and historical
ideas of the Roman lower classes, who have left relatively few traces in the sources,
are hardly comprehensible to us today. However, as Andreas Hartmann has rightly
pointed out, it is possible to ask about what is possible and conceivable – in the pres-
ent work in relation to the defeats of Roman armies on the battlefield.83 In order to
delineate these frameworks somewhat more precisely in advance, the next step is to
outline the Roman historical cultures of the period of the Republic and the early
imperial period. The focus here is on the question of the media that carried historical
memory and how military defeats in general could be represented.
2.2
Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early
Imperial Period
For some time now, ancient Rome can no longer be considered an unoccupied field
with regard to research on its historical culture and representations of a collective
memory.84 The following pages will outline some important features and peculiari-
ties as well as various areas of the heterogeneous and diversely mediated historical
culture of the Roman Republic and the early imperial period. Encyclopaedic com-
pleteness is not intended.85 Rather, it is intended to outline the significance that the
various media had for the representation, interpretation and transmission of defeats
in Roman historical culture, without wanting to anticipate the results of the indi-
vidual investigations.
83
See Hartmann 2010, 28.
84
Without claiming to be bibliographically exhaustive: Flaig 1995; 1999; 2003; Hölkeskamp
1996/2004; 2001/2004; 2006a; 2006 (2007); 2014a; Späth 1998; 2001; Ungern-Sternberg 2000;
Mutschler 2000; Beck 2003; 2005c; Blösel 2003; Pina Polo 2004; Walter 2001; 2002; 2003;
2004a; Flower 2003; 2006; Gowing 2005; Bücher 2006; Kath 2006; Diefenbach 2007; Rodríguez
Mayorgas 2007; Behrwald 2009; Hartmann 2010; Heusch 2011; Krasser 2011; Pausch 2011;
Gallia 2012; Eckert 2016; Modrow 2017. See also a number of contributions in Stein-Hölkeskamp/
Hölkeskamp (eds.) 2006; 2010; Beck/Wiemer (eds.) 2009 and Galinsky (eds.) 2014; (eds.) 2015;
(eds.) 2016. See also the research overviews in Beck/Wiemer 2009, 17 and the projects and bibli-
ographies on the homepage of the “Memoria Romana” project, which was led by Karl Galinsky
from 2009 to 2013 (http://www.utexas.edu/research/memoria. Last viewed 26th August 2021).
85
For comprehensive overviews, see: Walter 2001, 249–257; 2004a; Bücher 2006, 102–149;
Pausch 2011, 18–46.
Heterogeneity
It is of course an undue simplification to speak of ‘the’ Roman historical culture,
even if one wants to restrict it to the epoch of the Republic.86 For even if the source
base, especially for the area of the early and middle Republic, could certainly be
more favourable, it is clear that the ideas of one’s own past and the representations
of these ideas in historical culture were not static over the long period of about half
a millennium, but changed again and again, albeit in slow processes lasting for
decades. This also applies to a society in which, as in the Roman one, great value
was placed on traditions and the traditional. For even the construct of the mos maio-
rum or the citing of exempla as demonstrative links to past heroes and values were
subject to processes of change – in Cicero’s speeches, for example, the ‘fresher’
exempla take precedence over those from older times and are cited more often.87 In
view of the theories on the formation of collective memories since Halbwachs, the
observation that the form and content of Roman historical culture changed does not
come as a great surprise, since ideas about the past are determined by the respective
present. Contemporaries of the late Republic and the imperial era were undoubtedly
also aware of the fact that much was different in their present compared to the world
of their ancestors.88
86
In a different, but very related, context (the Roman “Gedankenwelt”), von Albrecht 1994, 32 also
warns against a too unifying view and – beyond that – against generalizing interpretations, if first
of all only the testimony of individuals stands: “Vieles hat sich im Laufe der Zeit gewandelt. Vieles
ist je nach dem Ort verschieden – ist doch Italien recht bunt. Vieles wechselt je nach der städtischen
oder ländlichen Umwelt, vieles wird selbst von ein und derselben Person in veränderter Situation
verschieden beurteilt. Vieles, was wir für allgemein gültig halten, ist durch das Urteil einzelner
großer Autoren geprägt.”
87
Flower 2011, 21. On the use of exempla in Cicero’s speeches, see Walter 2004a, 35–38 and espe-
cially Bücher 2006.
88
Wiseman 2008, 11: “To be fair to the Roman antiquarians, they did know that the distant past
might be very unfamiliar, and sometimes they succeeded in preserving evidence of a lost world”.
However, such a differentiated view of the past and the awareness of manifold changes were not
widespread (Wiseman 2008, 12). The beginnings of an antiquarian literature in Rome are probably
closely related to the awareness of changes, especially in the political sphere, which were under-
stood as a crisis, and which the early antiquarians at the time of the Gracchi wanted to counter with
a treatment of political, especially constitutional, conflicts by contributing to the clarification of the
issues with their research (see Rawson 1985, 234 f.; Sehlmeyer 2003, esp. 165–170; Walter 2004a,
210). An “awareness of temporality” (Walter 2004a, 208), however, might already have arisen
from the knowledge of texts of ancient times that were difficult or even impossible to understand
for the respective reader. Pol. 3,22,3 is only one significant example of this (even knowledgeable
Roman interpreters, whom Polybius had to consult in order to understand the first ‘Roman-
Carthaginian treaty’, had great difficulties in interpreting the ancient treaty texts). For the difficul-
ties already faced by second and first century BC authors in understanding ancient texts from the
early Republican or even Regal period, see Wiseman 2008, 8–15.The use and understanding of
exempla Romana, especially in speeches, seems at first diametrically opposed to the development
of a contemporary consciousness that could arise from viewing texts of distant times and research-
ing ancient institutions, but one must probably imagine the relationship of speaker and recipient to
such exempla as more complex (see Walter 2004a, 53 f., 61 f. and comprehensively Bücher 2006).
If it suited one’s own intentions, an otherwise ‘valid’ exemplum could also be discredited because
of its advanced age and thus questionable relevance to the present (See Walter 2004a, 56–61). The
use and understanding of exempla were situation – and also discourse-dependent. So also
Lundgreen 2011, 274 f.
2.2 Roman Historical Cultures: Republic and Early Imperial Period 35
Precisely because of this, Romans who lived in the late Republic or early Empire
projected ideas and wishes into a distant, partly idealized past, which often makes
them appear distorted.89 At the same time, both the extent of the difference to one’s
own time and the dynamics of changes within past generations seem to have been
underestimated at times. For even at the time of the early and middle (‘classical’)
Republic, the lifeworld and literally the horizon of many Romans changed again and
again in a comprehensive way. As is well known, this is accounted for by an internal
periodization of the history of the Roman Republic, which could perhaps be further
differentiated.90 In any case, these changes will also have had a great influence on the
historical culture of the respective period. Although this can no longer be traced even
approximately without gaps, where it seems possible, these changed presences and
the interpretations and patterns of interpretation with regard to defeats that may have
transformed as a result will be taken into account in the following chapters.
However, a historical culture is not only heterogeneous in diachronic terms, but
also within a respective present. With regard to Rome, too, it cannot be assumed that
a monolithic conception of the past prevailed here.91 The ‘memoria of the gentes’,
the ‘family memories’ of the influential families of Rome, which were based among
other things on archives in their houses, are still quite tangible for us indirectly in
their heterogeneity, if one accepts, for example, the assumption that some variants
in the historiographical tradition originated here.92 Noble families preserved archives
with documents that contained their own versions of the past, which could well have
89
Flower 2011, 19–21, See Beck 2005b, 690: “Was an dieser mittleren bzw. ‚klassischen‘ Republik
als klassisch erscheinen mag, ist ja großenteils aus späten idealisierenden Quellen bekannt, in
denen das vergiftete Klima der Gegenwart nicht selten mit einer (vermeintlich) besseren
Vergangenheit, vorbildlichen Helden und ihren exemplarischen virtutes kontrastiert wurde.” For
an early critique of the term, see Kienast 1957, 104, and Cf. also Lippold 1963, 69, 71; Hölkeskamp
2007, 51.
90
See Flower 2011, esp. 9–34, who proposes a more differentiated periodization (“At least six
republics, in addition to transitional periods of various kinds, appear to be easily recognizable in
the political patterns that the ancient evidence preserves.”, 23). Flower herself, however, deals
quite little with the earlier sections of her scheme – the centuries from the 5th to the 3rd with their
revolutionary changes are barely outlined, so that the differences in comparison to, say, the later
republic are also little contoured (so also Bernstein 2012, 125; Walter 2017a, 99). However, for all
the changes over time and all the differences between the various counterparts of the Republic, the
unifying elements between them should not be forgotten. So also McCall 2002, 139; Sommer
2013, XXIII f. (the Republic was “not a uniform epoch” (XXIII), but nevertheless also possessed
“a remarkable degree of continuity across all upheavals and centuries”).
91
With regard to the exempla Romana Walter 2004a, 60: “Differenzierungen sind in jedem Fall
nötig, um vor der Annahme eines allzu monolithischen Geschichtsbildes aus der Summe der fra-
glos gültigen Vorbilder zu warnen”. See in this sense also Späth 2001, 387.
92
Blösel 2003. On family archives and the transmission of past knowledge in the homes of aristo-
cratic families, see also Badian 1966, 1; Ungern-Sternberg 1988, 238 f.; Culham 1989a, esp.
104 f.; Cornell 1995, 9 f.; Flower 1996, 148 f., 203 f.; Wiseman 2008, 13.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Little Sunbeam
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at
no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the
terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are
located before using this eBook.
Title: Little Sunbeam
Author: Eleanora H. Stooke
Illustrator: Myra Kathleen Hughes
Release date: November 22, 2023 [eBook #72200]
Language: English
Original publication: London: National Society's Depository, 1905
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SUNBEAM ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
THE CORNISH FLOWER-FARM.
LITTLE SUNBEAM
BY
ELEANORA H. STOOKE
AUTHOR OF "GRANFER," ETC.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY MYRA K. HUGHES
LONDON
NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY
BROAD SANCTUARY, WESTMINSTER

NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE
[All rights reserved]
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
GRANFER, and ONE CHRISTMAS TIME.
Price 1s.
NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY,
Sanctuary, Westminster, S. W.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. KNOCKED DOWN
II. CONCERNING AUNT CAROLINE
III. THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION
IV. PEGGY'S FIRST DAY AT LOWER BRIMLEY
V. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
VI. MISS LEIGHTON'S DISCOVERY
VII. A GREAT SURPRISE
VIII. CONCERNING ELLEN BARNES
IX. TEA AT LOWER BRIMLEY

X. GOOD-BYES
XI. HOME AGAIN
XII. AUNT CAROLINE'S DISAPPOINTMENT
XIII. PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS
XIV. CONCLUSION
LITTLE SUNBEAM
CHAPTER I
KNOCKED DOWN
"COME along, Billy. Mother said we were not to be long; and I'm sure we've been more
than half an hour."
The speaker—a little girl of about nine years old, clad in a somewhat shabby blue serge
coat and skirt, with a Tam o' Shanter cap on her golden curls—tried to pull her brother
away from the toy shop window into which he was gazing longingly; but he resisted, and
still lingered.
"There's plenty of time, Peggy," he assured her. "You know we never have tea till five
o'clock, and you can't imagine what a heap of jolly things there are in this window. I wish
you could see them."
"I wish I could," she answered. "Never mind, you can tell me all about them by-and-by."
It was a cold, dull, February day; but it did not rain, and the street was thronged with
vehicles, whilst the pedestrians—mostly of the lower classes, for the district was a poor
one—hustled against each other on the pavements. No one took any notice of the two
children who had been standing before a toy shop window for the last ten minutes. And,
indeed, there was nothing about them to attract the observation of a casual observer,
although the countenance of the little girl, with its finely-cut features and sweet
expression, possessed a delicate beauty which was certainly out of the common. No one
looking at Peggy Pringle would have guessed that she was blind, for her eyes, in colour the
darkest blue, were as clear as crystal; but the sad fact was that the blessing of sight was
denied to her.
It had been a terrible trouble to the child's parents when, some months after her birth,
they had learnt the truth, that the happy baby, whose rosebud lips seemed formed only for
smiles, and whose eyes were "bits of Heaven's blue" as her young mother had used to
declare, would never see the light of day, and they had grieved deeply. But Peggy had
never appeared to realise how great was her affliction, and at the present time it would
have been difficult, if not impossible, to find a more contented little girl. "Little Sunbeam"
her father had nicknamed her years before, and a veritable sunbeam in the household she
continued to be.
Peggy and her brother, who was only thirteen months her junior, had been sent to buy
buns for tea, and she was holding the bag which contained them with one hand, whilst
with the other she kept a firm grip of Billy's coat. She was not exactly nervous in a crowd,
for she had been accustomed to London all her life, and her home was in a thickly
populated district. But she experienced a sense of bewilderment as she listened to the
hurrying footsteps on the pavement and the continual roll of carriage wheels, and she
wished Billy would tire of looking into shop windows and return home.
"Come, Billy," she urged again, "mother will wonder what is keeping us. Do come."
Accordingly, Billy took his sister by the hand with an air of protection, and they walked on.
At the corner of the street, they stood waiting for a favourable opportunity to cross.
"Is there a policeman near?" asked Peggy.
"There's one on the other side of the road," replied Billy, "but we don't want him. I can
manage all right. When I say 'Now,' mind you come right on."
A minute later Billy cried, "Now!"
So, hand in hand, the children went fearlessly forward. And they would have effected the
crossing in safety had not a private carriage, drawn by a pair of spirited horses, turned the
corner from a side street. Billy hurried his sister on; but the road was slippery, and, in her
haste, the little girl stumbled and let go her brother's hand. Some one flung Billy on one
side, whilst the coachman driving the pair of horses pulled them back on their haunches in
time to prevent a serious accident, but not before one of the animals had struck poor
Peggy on the shoulder with its hoof. She was borne to the pavement in the arms of the
policeman whose help Billy had disdained, and in a few minutes a small crowd had
congregated.
"What has happened?" inquired an imperious voice from the interior of the carriage. "Is
any one injured?"
"A little girl," answered the policeman. "I think she's more frightened than hurt, though,"
he added, as he set Peggy on the ground, and Billy, pale and frightened, rushed to her
side.
"Was my coachman at fault?" was the next question.
"No, ma'am. He was driving carefully, and had the horses under proper control; but—"
"That's all I want to know, thank you."
A head was thrust out of the carriage window, and the crowd saw the face—a haughty,
handsome face it was—of a white-haired old lady, who beckoned to the policeman to
approach, which he did.
"You had better take the little girl to a hospital, if she is hurt," the old lady said, in a tone
which expressed neither interest nor sympathy. "I suppose that would be your duty? Well,
you know your business; it is none of mine, as my servant, you assure me, is blameless.
However, here is my card should you require to communicate with me."
The handsome old face drew back from the window, and the carriage was driven away,
whilst the crowd dispersed, leaving only the policeman and one other—an elderly
clergyman, who had come upon the scene after the accident—with the frightened children.
"Where are you hurt, my dear little girl?"
Peggy's shocked face brightened at the sound of the kindly voice, which she recognised
immediately as belonging to Mr. Maloney, the Vicar of St. John's Church, where her father
was the organist.
"It's my shoulder," she answered. "Oh, Mr. Maloney, do please take me home!"
"Of course I will, my dear," he responded promptly, with a reassuring nod and smile at
Billy. "What happened?" he inquired of the policeman, who briefly explained, adding that
no one had been in fault.
"Billy couldn't have helped it," Peggy said hastily, fearful lest blame should be attached to
her brother.
"No, the little boy was not to blame," agreed the policeman. "Are you going to take charge
of the children, sir?" he asked of the clergyman.
"Yes. I know them well; their father is Mr. Pringle, the organist of St. John's Church. What
is this?" Mr. Maloney questioned as he took the card the policeman presented to him.
"The lady in the carriage gave it to me, sir. I have made a note of the name and the
address. Maybe the little girl's father will make some claim—"
"I imagine not," interposed the clergyman quickly; "but I will take the card and give it to
Mr. Pringle. Thank you,"—and he slipped the bit of pasteboard into his vest pocket.
"Oh, Billy, I dropped the buns!" exclaimed Peggy regretfully. They had no money to buy
more, and the buns had been purchased for a treat.
"The horses trod on them," Billy replied; "but, never mind, mother won't think anything
about them when she knows what's happened. I'm afraid she'll never trust you out alone
with me any more."
The little girl made no response. The pain in her shoulder was making her feel sick and
faint, and her legs trembled as she walked along by Mr. Maloney's side, her hand in his. He
saw she was suffering, and regarded her with compassionate eyes, whilst he exchanged
remarks with Billy. Soon she began to lose the drift of her companions' conversation, and
when at length, home—a small house, one of a terrace—was reached, the shock she had
received proved too much for her, and she fell insensible into her mother's arms.
When Peggy regained consciousness, she found herself undressed and in bed. Everything
was very quiet, but she was aware of some one's presence, and it was no surprise when
soft lips met hers in a loving kiss, and her mother's voice said, "You are better, Peggy
dear."
Then she was gently raised in bed, and, to her astonishment, she found her shoulder was
bandaged; but she was not in much pain now, so she took the bread and milk offered to
her, and lay down again, feeling strangely weak and tired, and disinclined to talk.
"Sleep if you can, darling," her mother said tenderly. "You will be much stronger to-
morrow. The doctor has attended to your poor shoulder. Thank God you are not more
seriously hurt!"
"What is the time mother?" Peggy asked. "Have you had tea? I was so sorry about the
buns. I dropped them, you know."
"Did you? As if that mattered! No, we have not had tea. We have been too anxious about
you to think of it. Now we shall have tea and supper together. It is nearly seven o'clock—
not quite your usual bedtime, but never mind that to-night. Rest will do you good. I want
you to sleep."
"I am very tired," Peggy murmured, "but I haven't said my prayers, and my head feels so
funny that I can't think. I will say my 'little prayer' to-night.' Then she repeated very slowly
and softly:
"Holy Father, cheer our way

With Thy love's perpetual ray:
Grant us every closing day
Light at evening time."
It was a pathetic prayer, coming as it did from the lips of one who lived in permanent
darkness. But it had been one of the first Peggy had learnt and she had always been very
fond of it, calling it her "little prayer." To-night her eyelids closed as she repeated the last
line, and a few minutes later she had fallen asleep.
Mrs. Pringle remained by the bedside some while longer, tears, which she had repressed till
now, running down her cheeks, though her heart was full of gratitude to Him Who had
spared her child's life. She was a most affectionate mother, devoted to both her children;
but her little daughter, doubtless by reason of her affliction, was always her first care. She
shuddered as she thought what might have been the result of the accident that afternoon,
and pictured her darling trampled beneath the horses' hoofs.
"God gave His angels charge over her," she murmured, as she bent her head once more,
and kissed the little sleeper. Then she stole softly away, and went downstairs to the sitting-
room where Billy his father were keeping each other company, both heavy-hearted, though
the doctor had assured them there was no cause for alarm.
"How is she now?" they asked, with one accord, as she entered the room.
"Sleeping peacefully," she told them, a smile lighting up her pale, tearful countenance.
"You may go and look at her; but please be very careful not to disturb her. I have every
hope that she will be better after a good rest. We have much to thank God for this night!"
CHAPTER II
CONCERNING AUNT CAROLINE
WHEN Mr. Pringle and Billy returned to the sitting-room after having been upstairs to look
at Peggy asleep so comfortably, they found that Mrs. Pringle, with the assistance of Sarah,
the maid-of-all-work of the establishment, had prepared the long-delayed tea. Whilst the
family sat down to the meal, Sarah, at her own suggestion, went to keep watch by the
little sleeper; and a few minutes later there was a knock at the front door.
"Go and see who's there, Billy," said Mr. Pringle. "I should not be surprised if it is Mr.
Maloney," he proceeded, turning to his wife, "for he was very concerned about Peggy and
said he hoped to look in by-and-by to hear the doctor's report."
And Mr. Maloney the visitor proved to be. He accepted Mrs. Pringle's offer of a cup of tea,
and took the chair Billy placed for him at the table.
"I am glad to know the doctor thinks your little girl is not much hurt," he said in his
pleasant voice. "Billy greeted me with the good news the moment he opened the door."
"The only injury she has sustained is to her shoulder," replied Mr. Pringle, "but of course
she has experienced a great shock. Her escape from a frightful death was quite
providential," he added with a slight break in his voice.
"Quite," Mr. Maloney agreed. "It was too bad of the owner of the carriage to drive on, as
she did, without ascertaining the extent of the poor child's injuries," he continued warmly.
"The least she could have done, under the circumstances, one would have thought, would
have been to have driven her home."
"She was a nasty old woman, I'm sure she was," declared Billy with flushing cheeks and
sparkling eyes. "She told the policeman, he had better take Peggy to a hospital if she was
hurt, and she said it was his business, not hers. She spoke in such a proud way—as
though she didn't care for anything or any one."
"Well, Peggy found a friend in need," Mr. Pringle remarked with a grateful glance at Mr.
Maloney, who smiled and said he was glad to have been of service.
The Vicar and the organist of St. John's were on terms of friendship, though the former
was elderly and the latter not middle-aged. Mr. Maloney had lived most of his life in
London. He was a hard worker, and much beloved by all who knew him. But some of his
acquaintances declared him lacking in ambition, for on several occasions he had declined
preferment, choosing to retain the living of St. John's, which he had held for more than
twenty years. He was an unmarried man, and consequently the living, though a poor one,
supplied his simple needs.
He was getting an old man now, but the bright, unquenchable light of that enthusiasm
which had made him a faithful labourer in Christ's vineyard all his days still shone in his
earnest, deep-set eyes, and earnestness was stamped indelibly upon his countenance. And
the truth was that his ambition soared far and away beyond the worldly meaning of the
term: he was working for the "Well done" of the Master for Whose sake he had elected to
live amongst those of little account in this world.
Mr. Pringle had been the organist of St. John's since his marriage ten years previously. He
was a tall, fair man with a thoughtful face and clear blue eyes. Peggy much resembled
him; whilst Billy took after his mother in appearance, being brown-haired and brown-eyed.
The Pringles were a very united family, and theirs was a happy home though it was a
rather poor one, and Mr. Pringle was glad to add to his salary by taking music pupils.
"I did not see the owner of the carriage," Mr. Maloney remarked by-and-by, after they had
discussed Peggy's accident at some length. "Why, dear me, how stupid of me!" he
exclaimed, a sudden recollection crossing his mind. "I have her card in my pocket here!
She gave it to the policeman, who, in his turn, gave it to me, thinking that you might be
inclined to seek redress from her for poor Peggy's injuries, I believe. Let us see who the
unsympathetic old lady is."
He had produced the card by this time, and now handed it to Mrs. Pringle, who glanced at
it, uttered a cry of astonishment, and grew very red.
"You know her?" Mr. Maloney inquired.
"Yes," she replied in a low tone, "I do. I can understand that she evinced no interest—
though she could not have known whose child Peggy was."
She passed the card to her husband as she spoke.
A brief silence followed, during which Billy, keenly observant, noticed that his mother was
trembling, and that his father's face had grown very stern.
"Who is the lady, father?" he ventured to ask at length.
"She is called Miss Leighton," was the answer. "You never heard of her, Billy; but I expect
you have?" he said, addressing Mr. Maloney.
"I think not," the Vicar responded. "Is she a person of importance?"
"She is a very rich woman. Her father was James Leighton, the great ironfounder who died
so immensely wealthy—"
"Ah, then I have heard of her," Mr. Maloney broke in. "But I thought she was quite a
philanthropist—hardly the sort of woman who would act as this Miss Leighton did to-day."
"That is exactly how she would act," Mrs. Pringle said decidedly. "We are speaking of the
same person. She gives away vast amounts of money yearly to charities, but she denies
herself nothing in order to do so, for she is very wealthy. She was never a woman who
showed kindness in little ways or to individuals. I know her well; in fact, she is my aunt."
"Really?" the Vicar said, looking intensely astonished. He knew the Pringles were not well
off—that they lived solely on Mr. Pringle's earnings, and it seemed odd that so rich and
charitable a lady as Miss Leighton should do so much for strangers and nothing for her
relations.
"The truth is, my wife offended her aunt by marrying me," Mr. Pringle explained, rightly
reading the expression of Mr. Maloney's countenance; "and Miss Leighton never forgives
any one who offends her."
"Then God help her!" the Vicar exclaimed solemnly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Pringle, sighing, "poor Aunt Caroline! She was very good to me years ago,
she had me educated when my parents died, and afterwards she allowed me to live with
her. She would have continued to provide for me, if I had not become engaged to John,"
glancing at her husband with a loving smile. "I had to choose between him and Aunt
Caroline, and since my marriage I have never seen my aunt. 'She washed her hands of
me,' she said, on my wedding day. She declared she would never willingly look on my face
again, and I know she will keep her word."
"You can realise now what sacrifices my wife has made for my sake," Mr. Pringle said,
rather sadly, as he met Mr. Maloney's interested glance.
"I have made no sacrifices," Mrs. Pringle returned quickly. "But, sometimes it grieves me
to think of the bitter feelings Aunt Caroline harbours against me. She considers me
ungrateful; I was never that. I do not want her money, but I should like to be on friendly
terms with her. It was ten years ago I saw her; she must be getting an old woman."
"She looked very old, mother," Billy said, and as he spoke, Mrs. Pringle started, for in the
excitement of talking of her aunt, whom she rarely mentioned now even to her husband,
she had forgotten the boy was present, listening to every word.
"Her hair was quite white," he continued, "as white as snow. I didn't like her eyes, they
were so very sharp. Oh, mother, how odd that she should be your aunt! And how surprised
she would have been, if she had found out that Peggy was your little girl, wouldn't she? I
expect she would have been sorry for her, then, don't you think so?"
"I—I—perhaps so," his mother replied, "but she did not find out, and it was best as it was."
She took up the card which her husband had laid on the table and tore it into little bits,
which, upon rising, she threw into the fire.
"There, we will talk no more of Aunt Caroline," she said. "Thinking of her always makes me
unhappy, and I don't want to be that to-night, when I ought to be feeling nothing but
thankfulness on Peggy's account."
A short while later, Mr. Maloney took his departure, and, after that, Billy said good-night to
his parents and went upstairs. He peeped into Peggy's room; but did not go in, for Sarah,
who was still watching by the bedside, raised a warning finger when she caught sight of
him in the doorway. She was to be relieved from her post very soon by her mistress,
whose intention it was to sit up all night.
Although Billy was really tired and was soon in bed, it was long before he could get to
sleep, for he felt strangely restless and excited; he continually pictured the pair of high-
stepping horses which had so nearly trodden his sister beneath their hoofs, and he was
haunted by the proud face of the old lady who had appeared so unconcerned.
"She must be very wicked," thought the little boy, "for father said she never forgives any
one who offends her. How dreadful that is! Doesn't she know it's wrong, I wonder! And,
oh, how strange that she should be mother's aunt! How surprised Peggy will be when she
knows!"
Then he forgot Miss Leighton in thinking of Peggy once more. He had not omitted to thank
his Father in Heaven, as he had knelt by his bedside before getting into bed, for having
spared his sister's life; but his full heart thanked Him again and again as he lay awake
mentally reviewing the events of the last few hours, and he fell asleep, at length, with the
fervent prayer upon his lips:
"Dear Jesus, please always take care of Peggy, and remember she is blind."
CHAPTER III
THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION
A MONTH had elapsed since Peggy's accident, and the little girl, though about again, had
not recovered her usual health and spirits. Her mother watched her with loving solicitude,
noting how shattered her nerves seemed to be, for she started at any sudden sound and
dreaded being left alone. The doctor pronounced her to be suffering from the effects of the
shock to her nervous system, prescribed a complete change of air, and said time would
work a cure.
"How can we send her away for a change?" Mrs. Pringle asked her husband despairingly.
"It is impossible."
"I wish you could take her to the seaside for a few weeks, Margaret," Mr. Pringle
responded, looking much troubled. "But I really do not see how it can be managed—where
the money is to come from, I mean."
"Never mind, father," Peggy said quickly, "I am sure I shall be well soon. I am a lot better,
really."
"Do you feel so, darling?" he questioned, as he drew her towards him, and anxiously
scrutinised her face.
Then, as she assured him she did, he kissed her gently, an expression of deep pain and
regret on his own countenance.
It grieved Mr. Pringle that he could not afford his little daughter the change of air which the
doctor had prescribed, and he went off to give a music lesson with a very heavy heart.
When he returned, an hour later, upon opening the front door the sound of a man's hearty
laugh fell upon his ears, and almost immediately Peggy, with a flush of excitement on her
cheeks, came out of the sitting-room, her sensitive ears having warned her of his arrival,
and whispered:
"Oh, father, we've a visitor! Guess who it is. But, no, you never will, so I may as well tell
you. It's Mr. Tiddy. You remember who he is, don't you? The Cornish gentleman who
married Miss Bates."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Pringle, suddenly enlightened. Miss Bates had been a school friend of
his wife's. The two had always corresponded regularly, though they had not met of late.
Miss Bates had earned her living as a governess until five years previously, when she had
married a well-to-do farmer in Cornwall.
"He is a very nice man, father," Peggy continued, "and he's brought us a hamper full of all
sorts of good things to eat—cream, and butter, and eggs, and a big cake, which his wife
made herself, with a sugary top, and a couple of chickens! Do come and see him at once."
Accordingly Mr. Pringle allowed his little daughter to lead him into the sitting-room, where
the visitor was being entertained by Mrs. Pringle and Billy, and after a few minutes'
conversation with him, he mentally agreed with Peggy that this new acquaintance was a
very nice man.
Ebenezer Tiddy was a thorough countryman in appearance, being clad in a tweed suit, and
boots which had evidently been made to keep out inches deep of mud. He was tall and
vigorous, with a ruddy, kindly countenance, and steady grey eyes which looked one
straight in the face. He had entered the house a complete stranger half an hour before, but
already the children were at their ease with him, and Mrs. Pringle was looking decidedly
more cheerful than when her husband had left her after their conversation about the
doctor's prescription. Mr. Pringle felt glad Mr. Tiddy had come, since his presence had
evidently proved exhilarating.
"I arrived in town last night," the visitor explained, "and the first thing this morning I said
to myself, 'I'd better execute my wife's business before I attend to my own.' And now
you're here, Mr. Pringle, I'll speak of the real object of my visit. Said my wife to me one
day last week, 'Ebenezer, how I should like to have little Peggy Pringle to stay with us for a
while! Her mother has written to me that she met with an accident and doesn't seem to
pick up after it as she ought. I believe a change of air would be the best medicine for her
now.'"
Here Mr. Tiddy paused, and looked at Peggy, who, sensitive like all blind people, was fully
conscious of his gaze.
"Oh, Mr. Tiddy!" she exclaimed. "And—what did you say?"
"That she'd better write and invite you to visit us at once, my dear, believing, as I do, that
Cornish breezes and Cornish living would make you strong in no time. 'But she can't travel
alone,' said my wife, who is quicker of thought than I am, 'and how are we to get her here,
Ebenezer?' 'That can be easily managed,' I replied; 'when I go to London next week to
interview the florist who is going to buy our flowers this spring, I'll ask her parents to trust
her to me.' And if they will," concluded Mr. Tiddy, looking smilingly first at Mrs. Pringle,
then at her husband, "I am sure I shall be very pleased and proud, and my wife and
myself will do our best to make her visit a happy one. The little maid won't have any
children for playmates, but I don't think she'll be dull, for there's always something or
other to interest folks at a farm, and I need hardly say we'll take good care of her."
"How kind you are!" Mrs. Pringle exclaimed, her face alight with pleasure, "Peggy does
indeed need a change very badly, and we have been bemoaning the fact that we could not
give her one. I am sure she would be quite happy with you and your wife."
"I remember Miss Bates," said Peggy. "She stayed with us once when I was a little girl."
"And what are you now, pray?" asked Mr. Tiddy, highly amused. "A big girl, eh?"
"I am nine years old," she answered, in a dignified tone. "But I am not very tall for my
age."
"Cornish air will make you grow. Will you make up your mind, then, to travel westwards
with me? Would your brother care to come too?"
"Billy goes to school, and it is the middle of the term," Mrs. Pringle explained; "being
Saturday, it is the weekly holiday: that is why you find him at home now. You are very kind
to give him an invitation, but he knows he must not neglect his work."
"He must pay us a visit in his summer holidays, then," said Mr. Tiddy, sympathising with
the disappointment he read in the little boy's face. "I shall not forget. And now, Mrs.
Pringle, do you think you can part with your little maid on Tuesday? I hope to return to
Cornwall as soon as that. I only require one clear day in town to transact my business."
"Peggy can be ready by Tuesday," Mrs. Pringle answered, after a few moments' reflection,
whilst Peggy herself felt quite bewildered by the suddenness with which everything was
being arranged.
"Come and spend to-morrow with us," suggested Mr. Pringle hospitably, "that is, if you
have made no previous engagement."
"I have not. Thank you, I shall be delighted to come," answered Mr. Tiddy, his countenance
beaming with pleasure. "I have heard so much of you all from my wife that I can't fancy
you were strangers to me till this last hour."
When at length he took his departure, which was after a little further conversation, he
seemed quite an old friend, and the children were pleased and excited at the prospect of
his visit on the morrow.
"It is as though a load has been lifted off my shoulders," Mr. Pringle confessed, as he
returned to the sitting-room after having said good-bye to Mr. Tiddy at the front door. He
sat down in an arm-chair as he spoke, and his little daughter took a stool at his feet and
rested her golden head against his knee. "It seems so marvellous this invitation should
have come for Peggy just at this very time," he proceeded earnestly, "when it seemed
utterly impossible to carry out the doctor's prescription. Surely God must have prompted
Mr. Tiddy to come to us to-day."
"Yes, and there's no one I would so gladly entrust Peggy to as my old friend," Mrs. Pringle
answered contentedly. "You're pleased you're going, are you not, Peggy?" she questioned,
noticing a faint shadow on her little daughter's face.
"Y-e-s," was the response, given a trifle doubtfully. The thought of a visit to Cornwall had
filled Peggy with a transport of delight at first; but now, she had had time to reflect that
she would have no mother and father and Billy with her, and she had never been parted
from them before. "I shall miss you all so much," she murmured with quivering lips, "and
Cornwall is so far away."
"We shall miss you, little Sunbeam," her father assured her as he softly stroked her curly
hair, "but we are glad you are going, because we want you to get well and strong. I believe
you will have a most enjoyable time, and, of one thing I am quite certain, that both Mr.
and Mrs. Tiddy will be kindness itself. I only hope they won't spoil you and want to keep
you altogether."
"I shouldn't stay, if they did," Peggy returned, half indignant at the suggestion. "And—and
I'm beginning to wish I wasn't going at all."
She lay awake a long while that night, crying at the thought of the coming separation from
her family, but she did not admit it the next morning.
Mr. Tiddy spent Sunday with his new friends as had been arranged, and in the evening he
accompanied them to St. John's. After the service, he waited with Mrs. Pringle and the
children to hear the voluntary. It was "The Heavens are telling," which Mr. Pringle played at
his visitor's request.
"Did you like it, Mr. Tiddy?" Peggy whispered at the conclusion of the piece as they passed
out of the church.
"Yes, I liked it," he answered earnestly. "Your father plays the organ beautifully. 'The
Heavens are telling the glory of God!' So they do, don't they?" They were in the street by
now, Peggy's hand in the firm clasp of her new friend. "I can't tell how folks can prefer to
live in town," he proceeded. "Give me the country and plenty of fresh air. Ah, my dear, I'll
show you some rare sights in Cornwall—"
"You forget," interposed Peggy, "I cannot see."
"Poor dear!" he said softly. "How thoughtless of me to forget!"
"Does it seem to you very dreadful to be blind?" she asked, catching the tone of tender
sympathy in his deep voice.
Then, as he hesitated what answer to make, she continued:
"You know, I shall never see as long as I live, but I think I shall get on very well. Mother
says I am very useful in the house. I am learning to do lots of things—to play the piano
and to knit, and father says, if he had more money—Oh, here are the others!" And she
suddenly broke off.
That was the first occasion on which Peggy had been to church since her accident. Her
mother had been doubtful about taking her to-night, and had wanted to leave her at home
with Sarah for her companion. But the little girl had begged to be allowed to go, and had
gained her own way, and the service had had a beneficial effect upon her, having soothed
her nerves instead of having excited them. She slept well that night, and the next day was
spent in making preparations for her visit, and passed so busily that when bedtime came
again, she was too weary to lie awake thinking of the parting from all those who made up
her little world, which was so near at hand.
She was called early on the following morning, and after breakfast—of which she partook
but little—and a somewhat tearful good-bye to Billy and Sarah, she drove off in a cab with
her parents to Paddington railway station, where she was consigned to the care of Mr.
Tiddy, who had already selected a comfortable carriage and procured a foot-warmer for his
little charge.
"Good-bye, Peggy, darling," whispered her mother, as the guard bustled by requesting
people to take their places. "God bless and protect you, dear."
"Good-bye, little Sunbeam," said her father cheerily, as he lifted her into the carriage and
wrapped her up in a rug. "We shall expect you to come back well and strong."
"Yes," murmured Peggy, bravely smiling. "Good-bye—oh, good-bye!"
CHAPTER IV
PEGGY'S FIRST DAY AT LOWER BRIMLEY
ON a certain bright March morning, Mrs. Tiddy stood beneath the creeper-covered porch at
the front door of Lower Brimley Farm, waiting for her husband, who had been up and out-
of-doors since daybreak, to return to breakfast. Mr. Tiddy had arrived home from London
on the previous evening, having brought Peggy Pringle with him. But the little girl, over-
tired as the result of the long journey, had been sleeping firmly when her hostess had
visited her bedroom half an hour before, and orders had been given that she was not to be
awakened.
The mistress of Lower Brimley was a small-sized woman with a trim figure and a pleasant
countenance, which wore a very contented expression at the present moment. The view
over which Mrs. Tiddy's blue eyes wandered admiringly was a most beautiful one, for
Lower Brimley was situated on the slope of a hill, not ten minutes' walk from the sea and
the small fishing village which straggled in one steep street from the beach to the old grey
church on the cliff.
The soft air was sweet with the scent of flowers on this sunny spring morning, for the land
close by was given up to the cultivation of daffodils and narcissi of nearly every species,
which flourished in the rich moist soil and were now in full bloom, and the garden in front
of the house was a fine show, too, with violets, hyacinths, and purple and scarlet
anemones, against a background of rhododendron bushes. In short, there was a wealth of
flowers everywhere; and as Mrs. Tiddy's contemplative gaze roamed over her own domain
to the distant sea, glimmering like silver in the bright sunshine, it was caught and held by
the golden furze on the cliffs, and she murmured admiringly:
"What a glorious sight! And to think that that dear child will never know how beautiful it all
is! How sad to be blind!"
An expression of deep regret crossed Mrs. Tiddy's face as she thought of her little visitor;
but it gave place to a bright smile as she caught sight of her husband approaching. And
she ran down the path to the garden gate to meet him, anxious to hear that he had found
everything on the farm in good order. She was soon satisfied upon that point, for he was in
high spirits, and complimented her upon her management during his absence. And then
they went into the house together, and sat down to breakfast in the parlour, a large
comfortably-furnished room, the windows of which commanded a view of the village and
the sea.
"And how is my fellow-traveller?" Mr. Tiddy inquired by-and-by.
"She was sleeping firmly half an hour ago and I have given orders that she is not to be
disturbed," his wife-responded. "She was so very tired last night, and I fancy she felt
home-sick—poor little soul! She has never been away from her own people before, you
see, and oh, Ebenezer, think how helpless one must feel to be always in darkness!"
"Yes," he agreed, "but though she has been denied sight, her other senses seem
preternaturally keen. It's always the way with blind people, I've heard. And—why, here she
comes!"
Mr. Tiddy rose as the door opened, and Peggy stood hesitating upon the threshold of the
room. Going to her side, he gave her a hearty kiss, inquired how she was this morning,
and, having been assured that she was quite well, led her to his wife.
"I thought you were still in bed and asleep, my dear child," said Mrs. Tiddy, her voice
expressing the surprise she felt.
"I woke up, and I was afraid I was late for breakfast, so I dressed as quickly as I could and
came down," Peggy explained, as she returned Mrs. Tiddy's kiss and took the chair by her
side.
"How clever of you to find your way alone!"

"Clever!" laughed Peggy. "You forget I had my supper in this room last night, and I heard
your voices as I came downstairs. What a lovely morning, isn't it? I smelt violets and
hyacinths when I opened my bedroom window, and I heard the sea."
"The sea is very calm to-day, almost as still as a mill-pond," remarked Mr. Tiddy somewhat
dubiously. "You must have very sharp ears, if you heard it."
"Oh, but I did," persisted Peggy. "The waves were whispering ever so softly, but I heard
them. I was never at the seaside but once before, when we all went to Bournemouth for a
week, nearly two years ago."
The little girl was looking very bright this morning, and she did full justice to the fried
bacon and chopped potatoes to which Mr. Tiddy helped her, remarking, as he did so, that
he hoped she could enjoy country fare. And at the conclusion of the meal, he suggested
that she should put on her hat and jacket and go for a stroll with him about the farm,
whilst his wife attended to her domestic duties in the house.
Accordingly, Peggy accompanied her host out into the brilliant spring sunshine, and asked
him numerous questions about his flowers. He explained all about their cultivation, and
watched her with keenly interested eyes as she felt the various blooms with her sensitive
fingers.
"I shall remember all you have told me," she declared. "This is a 'Princess Mary,' is it not?
And this is the daffodil you said the country people call 'butter and eggs'?"
"Yes!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "But how can you possibly tell?"
"I can feel the difference, Mr. Tiddy, and I can smell. It seems to me all these daffodils
have different scents."
"To me, they are alike," he admitted, "but I suppose they are not. Really, Peggy, you are a
very clever little girl."
When they returned to the house they went by the back way, where, in the yard, they
were met by a big, black-and-white smooth-haired sheep-dog, who sniffed at Peggy
suspiciously at first. But when she ventured to extend her hand to him, he licked it with his
great pink tongue, whilst a very soft expression crept into his amber eyes.
"He likes you, my dear," Mr. Tiddy said. "And he does not take to every one, let me tell
you. He evidently intends to regard you as a friend."
"What is his name?" Peggy inquired, as she passed her hand over the dog's sleek head.
"Wolf. We gave him the name when he was a puppy, because he was such a lean, fierce-
looking creature. He is a splendid house-dog; but he is not very sociable, as a rule. He
seems to have taken a fancy to you, however."
"He knows I like him," Peggy said, as she caressed her new acquaintance, who continued
to wag his tail amicably. "What a tall dog he is! Wolf—dear old Wolf!"
The animal gave a delighted cry, and Mr. Tiddy nodded his head approvingly.
"I'm glad he's taken to you," he said. "For you couldn't get a better protector than Wolf."
Peggy never forgot that first day at Lower Brimley. The afternoon she passed quietly in the
house with Mrs. Tiddy, who wrote a long letter to her old school fellow in which were many
messages from Peggy.
"Tell her how much I miss them all," said the little girl. "But please say, too, that I am sure
I shall be very happy here, because every one is so kind to me, and it is a lovely, lovely
place! And, please don't forget to send my dear love!" And for a few minutes, her blue
eyes were full of tears.
"Peggy," said Mrs. Tiddy by-and-by, "I have heard all the details in connection with your
accident from my husband, and I do not wonder it was a shock to your nerves. Is your
shoulder quite well now, dear?"
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Tiddy. It got well very quickly. Every one said it was a wonder I was not
killed; but I think myself God took especial care of me, because He knew I wasn't quite
like other people—not being able to see, you know. Mr. Maloney—that's the Vicar of St.
John's—thinks so too. Wasn't it strange that it should have been mother's aunt who was in
the carriage?"
"Very. Your mother never sees her Aunt Caroline, does she?"
"Never. Do you know her, Mrs. Tiddy?"
"No, though, of course, I have heard a good bit about her from your mother."
"Billy and I never heard of her at all till my accident. I don't think she can be nice; and
Billy said she looked very proud. I heard her speak, but I was too frightened then to take
much notice of her voice. I always tell what people are like by their voices."
"Do you, my dear?"
"Yes," Peggy nodded. "I knew Mr. Tiddy was good and kind, the moment I heard him
speak: I felt I could trust him. Do you know, I quite enjoyed the journey yesterday, after
we had properly started. Of course, I didn't like saying good-bye to mother and father. I
had never been in a corridor-train before, and we had dinner at a big table just as though
we were in a proper room, and there was a kitchen on the train, and cooks. Oh, how Billy
would have liked to have been there! What a lot I shall have to tell him when I go home!
Oh, Mrs. Tiddy, it was kind of you to think of inviting me to stay with you!"
"I am sure your visit will be a great pleasure to me, my dear," Mrs. Tiddy replied cordially.
"And I shall be well content, if I can send you home with roses in your cheeks. To-morrow
I will take you into the village and down to the beach; but I must not let you do too much
on your first day. There, I have finished my letter, and can now have an idle hour before
tea."
She put aside her writing materials as she spoke, and went to the window, where Peggy
was seated, listening to the sparrows twittering beneath the eaves of the roof and the
sound of children's voices wafted upwards from the village below.
"You and Mr. Tiddy are so very kind to take so much trouble to explain everything to me,"
the little girl said, with a grateful ring in her sweet, clear voice, "that I am already
beginning to know this place quite well—the house and the grounds, too."
"Shall I tell you what I see from this window?" asked Mrs. Tiddy.
"Oh, please!" Peggy answered delightedly. Then as her kind hostess did so, she listened
with attention, her face aglow with interest and pleasure. "How well you make me
understand!" she cried, as Mrs. Tiddy ceased speaking. She leaned her head out of the

Roma Victa Romes Way of Dealing With Defeat Simon Lentzsch All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Roma Victa Romes Way of Dealing With Defeat Simon Lentzsch All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Roma Victa: Rome's way of dealing with

defeat Simon Lentzsch

Einbandgestaltung: Finken & Bumiller, Stuttgart.

Cologne, Germany Simon Lentzsch

Bern, Switzerland Simon Lentzsch

List of Sources and Literature�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 391

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of 1

stimulated research on the question of the consequences of Roman defeats like no

range of possible reactions on military defeats.30 Therefore, a comprehensive study

From a different, more prosopographical perspective, Nathan Rosenstein has

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of 17

as a family, a religious community, a village community, an army unit, a state, etc.:

individuals within a present, such as when it is mediated by objects and, especially,

communicative and cultural memory.30 On closer examination, the other distin-

extension is the distinction between Funktionsgedächtnis and Speichergedächtnis.40

admittedly hardly illuminated by these extensions.49And also the competition and

models.54 In many cases, these seem to be rather unconscious adoptions of such

characterized by numerous overtones.58 From these considerations it is already

within a specific cultural system or society”.67 Given this importance, it cannot be

Title: Little Sunbeam

Author: Eleanora H. Stooke

Illustrator: Myra Kathleen Hughes

Release date: November 22, 2023 [eBook #72200]

Original publication: London: National Society's Depository, 1905

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SUNBEAM ***

THE CORNISH FLOWER-FARM.

AUTHOR OF "GRANFER," ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE BY MYRA K. HUGHES

BROAD SANCTUARY, WESTMINSTER

[All rights reserved]

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

GRANFER, and ONE CHRISTMAS TIME.

NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY,

II. CONCERNING AUNT CAROLINE

III. THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION

IV. PEGGY'S FIRST DAY AT LOWER BRIMLEY

VI. MISS LEIGHTON'S DISCOVERY

VII. A GREAT SURPRISE

VIII. CONCERNING ELLEN BARNES

IX. TEA AT LOWER BRIMLEY

XI. HOME AGAIN

XII. AUNT CAROLINE'S DISAPPOINTMENT

XIII. PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

"Is there a policeman near?" asked Peggy.

A minute later Billy cried, "Now!"

"Was my coachman at fault?" was the next question.

"That's all I want to know, thank you."

"Where are you hurt, my dear little girl?"

"Holy Father, cheer our way

"You know her?" Mr. Maloney inquired.

She passed the card to her husband as she spoke.

"Who is the lady, father?" he ventured to ask at length.

"Then God help her!" the Vicar exclaimed solemnly.

"Oh, Mr. Tiddy!" she exclaimed. "And—what did you say?"

"You forget," interposed Peggy, "I cannot see."

"Poor dear!" he said softly. "How thoughtless of me to forget!"

Then, as he hesitated what answer to make, she continued:

"Yes," murmured Peggy, bravely smiling. "Good-bye—oh, good-bye!"

"And how is my fellow-traveller?" Mr. Tiddy inquired by-and-by.

"How clever of you to find your way alone!"

"Yes!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "But how can you possibly tell?"

"Never. Do you know her, Mrs. Tiddy?"

"Do you, my dear?"

Cologne, Germany Simon Lentzsch

Bern, Switzerland Simon Lentzsch

List of Sources and Literature�� 391

* START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SUNBEAM *