Jeeps and Hummers in Antiquity?
Crossover Vehicles and Conspicuous Consumption
Elizabeth Tylawsky, Norwich Free Academy, CT
The Raeda According to Cicero
Thanks to Cicero we can pin down a couple of transitional moments when the raeda was beginning to enter the civilian market. In August of 51, while he was governor in Cilicia, Cicero made mention of a raeda. In a letter to Atticus Cicero had just complained that there was no news of the Parthians but that he had heard reports that the Roman cavalry had suffered some reversals. As a consequence he was hurrying back to camp, and he was traveling in a raeda. “I dictated this letter sitting in a raeda, when I was returning to camp which was two days away.” (Note4) The scene is military and Cicero’s purpose is haste. The fact that Cicero could dictate the letter while traveling in the raeda highlights the carriage’s advantages of speed, comfort and capacity. The fact that Cicero specifies the vehicle type by name suggests its novelty.
The next reference to a raeda comes in another of Cicero’s letters. It is half a year later and the military setting is similar. Cicero crossed paths with a vulgar character, Publius Vedius Pollio, a target of Sir Ronald Syme’s interest. Syme says “When Cilicia for a season was a province of consular rank, governed in secession by P. Lentulus Spinther, Ap. Claudius Pulcher and M. Tullius Cicero, what held it together was the high road from Laodicea to the Syrian gates. Those proconsuls never strayed very far from the road. Cicero, coming up from Tarsus early in February of 50 BC, encountered an unexpected welcome.” (Note5) Referring to some gossip about Caesar and Pompey, Cicero comments: “This news I heard from Publius Vedius, a great rascal, but nonetheless a crony of Pompey. This Vedius met me with two esseda and a raeda yoked with horses and a sedan chair and a huge group following, for which, if Curio gets his law passed, he has to pay 100,000 sesterces. There was also a baboon in the essedum and wild donkeys weren’t missing either. I never saw a worse man.” (Note6) So Cicero; Syme further describes this Vedius as: “opulent, cruel and luxurious, who fed slaves to the muraenae in his fishpond.” In this same letter Cicero also tells a very suggestive little story about how Vedius’ luggage was found to contain cameos of five noble Roman ladies, including Junia, sister of Brutus. Cicero seems to consider these as treasured mementos of intimate occasions. Vedius Pollio was a certain type of person, the sort who elected to drive about with an expensive entourage, with a baboon as a companion, with personal trophies, and with a raeda and essedum. Whatever else he may be, Vedius was a man who wished to be conspicuous. And therefore, like conspicuous consumers before and after, he sought out a showy ride.
