Livy’s Papirius Cursor
and the manipulation of the Ennian past

Jackie Elliott

University of Colorado at Boulder

It has long been recognized that Livy’s focus on the character of L. Papirius Cursor at AUC 9.16 concludes with an echo of the famous Ennian line, moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque (Ann. 156 Sk.). Editors since Merula in the sixteenth century have believed that this Ennian line belonged to a speech by the elder Manlius Torquatus Imperiosus, as he delivered his own son to the lictor to be executed for fighting in single combat against his express orders – even though his son was successful thereby in killing an enemy commander (cf. AUC 8.7). Scholars have tended to assume that the echo, voluntary or involuntary, was the result of Livy’s perception of a similarity between Torquatus’ and Papirius’ extreme, old-fashioned sense of discipline – and there an end of it. This paper offers a reading that suggests that Livy casts Papirius himself, distinguished in the AUC as a wit as well as a disciplinarian, as consciously manipulating the well-known story of Torquatus in a rough-and-tumble army charade designed to scare the daylights out of his victim here (a praetor who had failed to show suitable alacrity in battle): Papirius was in fact deliberately and ironically “pulling a Torquatus”, and his actions and words assume a keen awareness ofthe details of the Torquatus episode in both his internal audience (the praetor) and in Livy’s external audience. This reading integrates Papirius’ theatrical display of mordant wit here with Livy’s other stories about him, for his acerbic sense of humour is his key characteristic throughout. It also explains the larger function of the verbal recall of Ennius in the summation of Papirius’ character at the end of 9.16. This paper thus draws to attention another example of the motivated patterning and literary design and sophistication that has now for some time been emerging in modern readings as a distinguishing characteristic of the AUC.