Jeeps and Hummers in Antiquity?
Crossover Vehicles and Conspicuous Consumption
Elizabeth Tylawsky, Norwich Free Academy, CT
Harnessing the Lions
Moreover, Cicero confirms that Antony was already considering a vehicular model upgrade. In a letter dated to May of 49, which puts it around the same time as the Second Philippic episode and as the seven litters of friends, Cicero advised Atticus: “write therefore and if you have any hopeful news, don’t leave it out. Don’t be afraid of Antony’s lions. Nothing is more full of jokes than that man.” (Note19) Now the reference might indeed be figurative. Lions would stand in nicely for Antony’s bravado, magnetism and sheer impressiveness. But perhaps these are real lions.
Dunbabin, K. Plate LXIX. # 175.
Pliny the Elder reports:
“Mark Antony was the first man at Rome to force lions under a yoke and the first to hitch them to a cart, and he did this during the civil war when there was the struggle in the Pharsalian plain not without some significance for the times, since that spectacle was signifying that noble free born spirits were going under the yoke.” (Note20)
Plutarch knew additional details of Antony’s lifestyle. He says in Life of Antony 9:
“Besides this, there was much else in Antony’s way of living which caused great outrage. People were scandalized, for example, at the sight of the golden drinking cups which were carried before him when he left the city, as if they were part of some religious procession; at the pavilions which were set up on his journeys; at the lavish meals which were spread in groves or on the banks of rivers; at his chariots drawn by lions and at his habit of billeting courtesans and sambuca-players in the homes of honest men and women.”
Where did Pliny and Plutarch hear about these lions? If Plutarch found lions in Cicero, then lions, rather than pimps, are more likely to be the original reading in the Second Philippic. Christopher Pelling carefully analyzed Plutarch’s method of work and his sources and concluded that “The last 30 chapters of the life of Antony show a resounding similarity to the Second Philippic, so close that we should assume a direct use of the speech.” (Note21) The association is intriguing, as Pelling notes: “Lions are oddly recurrent in Antony’s career.” (Note22)
