SPO´LIA
SPO´LIA Four words are commonly employed to denote
booty taken in war,--
praeda, manubiae, exuviae,
spolia. Of these,
praeda bears the
most comprehensive meaning, being used for plunder of every description
[
PRAEDA]
Manubiae was the money which the quaestor realised from the
sale of those objects which constituted
praeda
(
Gel. 13.24;
Cic.
de Leg. Agr. 2.2. 2, 59). The term
exuviae indicates any thing stripped from the person
of a foe, while
spolia, properly speaking,
ought to be confined to armour and weapons, although both words are applied
loosely to trophies such as chariots, standards, beaks of ships, and the
like, which might be preserved and displayed. (See Doederlein,
Lat.
Syn. vol. iv. p. 337; Ramshorn,
Lat. Syn. p. 869;
Habicht,
Syn. Handwörterbuch, n. 758.)
In the Heroic ages no victory was considered complete unless the conquerors
could succeed in stripping the bodies of the slain, the spoils thus obtained
being viewed (like scalps among the North American Indians) as the only
unquestionable evidence of successful valour; and we find in Homer that when
two champions came forward to contend in single combat, the manner in which
the body and arms of the vanquished were to be disposed of formed the
subject of a regular compact between the parties (
Hom. Il. 7.77, &c.; 22.258, &c.). Among the
Romans, spoils taken in battle were considered the most honourable of all
distinctions; to have twice stripped an enemy, in ancient times, entitled
the soldier to promotion (
V. Max. 2.7.14);
and during the Second Punic War, Fabius, when filling up the numerous
vacancies in the senate caused by the slaughter at Cannae and by other
disastrous defeats, after having selected such as had borne some of the
great offices of state, named those next “qui spolia ex hoste fixa
domi haberent, aut civicam coronam accepissent” (
Liv. 23.23). Spoils collected on the battle-field
after an engagement, or found in a captured town, were employed to decorate
the temples of the gods, triumphal arches, porticoes, and other places of
public resort, and sometimes in the hour of extreme need served to arm the
people (
Liv. 22.57,
24.21;
V. Max. 8.6.1;
Sil. Ital. 10.599), but those which were
gained by individual prowess were considered the undoubted property of the
successful combatant, and were exhibited in the most conspicuous part of his
dwelling (
Plb. 6.39), being hung up in the
atrium, suspended from the door-posts, or arranged in the vestibulum, with
appropriate inscriptions (
Liv. 10.7,
38.43;
Cic.
Philipp. 2.28, 68;
Suet. Nero 38;
Verg. A. 2.504,
3.286;
Tib. 1.1.
54; Propert. 3.9, 26; Ovid,
Ar. Am. 2.743;
Sil. Ital. 6.446). They were regarded as
peculiarly sacred, so that even if the house was sold the new possessor was
not permitted to remove them (
Plin. Nat.
35.7). A remarkable instance of this occurred in the “rostrata
domus” of Pompey, which was decorated with the beaks of ships
captured in his war against the pirates; this house passed into the hands of
Antonius the triumvir (
Cic. Philipp.
1 c.), and was eventually inherited by the Emperor Gordian, in
whose time it appears to have still retained its ancient ornaments
(Capitolin.
Gordian. 3). But, while on the one
hand it was unlawful to remove spoils, so it was forbidden to replace or
repair them when they had fallen down or become decayed through age (Plut.
Quaest. Rom. 37), the object being
doubtless to guard against the frauds of false pretenders.
Spolia Opima.--This term applied only to spoils
which were won in the field of battle by a Roman soldier from the leader of
the opposing army. It is usually (though, as will be seen, not invariably)
further limited by the condition that the Roman who thus slays and strips
the chief opposing general must himself be the actual commander-in-chief of
the Roman army (having the
auspicia). These
conditions were only fulfilled on three occasions (
Plut. Marc. 8; Propert. 5.11): first, when Romulus took the
spolia opima from Acro, king of the Caeninenses; secondly, when A. Cornelius
Cossus won them from Lar Tolumnius, king of the Veientes; and thirdly, when
Marcellus won them from Viridomarus (or
Βριτόμαρτος, as he is called by Plutarch), king of the
Insubrians (
Liv. 1.10,
4.20,
Epit. xx.; Propert.
l.c.;
Plut. Rom. 16,
Marcell. 8;
Sil. Ital. 1.133,
3.587;
C. I. L. 10.809). We
have to notice, however, that Festus, s.v. while he confirms the above
limitation, as generally recognised in the use of the term, quotes Varro as
saying, “Opima spolia esse etiam, si manipularis miles detraxerit,
dummodo duci hostium [sed prima esse utique, quae dux duci. Vetari enim
quae a duce recepta] non sint, ad aedem Jovis Feretrii poni.”
(The reading of Hertzberg,
De Spoliis Opimis in
Philologus, 1.331, is here followed.) The
quotation from Varro goes on to distinguish the offerings made by the
winners of
prima, secunda, and
tertia spolia opima respectively: and we gather
that, though the spolia opima when spoken of without qualification meant
rightly the
prima, i.e. those won by general
from general,
[p. 2.692]yet there were also the
secunda, when they were won by a Roman officer
slaying the hostile commander-in-chief, and the
tertia, when a common soldier performed the same exploit. In the
first case
alone could they be dedicated in the
temple of Jupiter Feretrius: in the other two cases, though dignified by the
special name, they were no doubt preserved only in the same way as other
spolia. This view obtains further support
from a comparison of Florus,
1.33,
11, with
V. Max. 3.2,
6; and the probable meaning of
D. C. 51.24 is, that when Crassus slew Deldo,
king of the Bastarnae, not being
αὐτοκράτωρ
στρατηγός, he could not dedicate the spoils to Jupiter
Feretrius, though they
were opima (
ὡς καὶ ὄπιμα). It should be observed in
conclusion that the term was also used loosely in voting the “spolia
opima” to Julius Caesar (
D. C. 44.4),
and by Livy in speaking of the
spolia provocatoria
won in single combat with a subordinate in the hostile army as though they
were
spolia opima, but in this latter case it
is probably adopted as the expression of a braggart. The question of
spolia opima is discussed by Perizonius,
Animad. Hist. 100.7, and more recently by Hertzberg, in
Philolog. 1.331: see Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 2.579.
[
W.R] [
G.E.M]
