Floating Corpses, Shifting Signs:
Disposal of Enemies in the Tiber

Nicholas Gresens (Indiana University)

The Tiber was no stranger to corpses.  The river was a convenient means of disposing of some of Rome’s least savory elements, including victims of the arena and parricides (Kyle, 1994). Bodies also found their way into the Tiber at the hands of their enemies.  The dead body was a powerful symbol and denying it burial was an effective final insult, serving as a sort of damnatio memoriae since the deceased would have been left insepultus (Kyle, 1994; Hope, 2000).  This sort of abuse reached its acme during the civil wars with Sulla as its chief proponent (App. BC 1.88; Luc. 2.209-222; V. Max. 9.2.1).

As a cultural reality then, being dumped in the Tiber after death would have been a horrifying prospect. As Hope points out, however, such mistreatment of a corpse was often an ambiguous sign (126).  This paper examines various literary accounts of three famous cases of corpses being thrown in the Tiber in order to highlight this ambiguity: the case of Tiberius Gracchus, that of his brother Gaius, and that of the innumerable victims of Sulla.  Although there certainly were cases in which such corpse abuse was acceptable, these accounts emphasize the excessive cruelty of the people committing the act.  Tiberius Gracchus was treated paranomos hubristheis (Plu. TG 19), the treatment of both brothers was done mira crudelitate (Vell. 2.6.7), and every act of Sulla, let alone this one, seems to have exceeded the natural bounds of decency (V. Max. 9.2.1; Luc 2.209-222; Fantham, 1992).  This is even the case in accounts where the victim himself is not free from guilt.  The Gracchi are often accused of having dishonorable motivations (Vell. 2.3, 6; App. BC 1.16), but nevertheless the fate of their corpses is seen as excessive. This paper concludes by suggesting that if a symbol as powerful as the human corpse can turn a potential hero like Publius Scipio Nasica into a villain, then it also has the power to turn a potential villain into a hero by its mistreatment after death.

By looking at one way a powerful symbol like the corpse can be used (or abused) in Roman society, this paper hopes to demonstrate why we should never take a single act at face value.  Symbolic acts have, by their nature, no fixed meaning, and as contexts change, so can the meaning of the act, often with unintended consequences for the actor.

Works Cited:

Fantham, Elaine, ed. Lucan: De Bello Civili II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Hope, Valerie. Death and Disease in the Ancient City. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Kyle, Donald. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. New York: Routledge, 1998.