450 Gary D. Farney
“Sabellus” five of the first times it appears in extant literature, all in very positive ways,
and once calling men who are clearly Sabines “Sabelli.” Not only was Horace uncertain
of his own ethnic identification, but he wrote in the Triumviral and Augustan periods,
when men outside of central Italy were now finally holding citizenship in large numbers,
and (one could argue) were finally being regarded as fully Roman. Rather than refer to
themselves by old ethnic labels, such as “Osci,” which some traced to the wordobscenus
(Festus 204–205L), men such as Horace could now call themselves “Sabelli,” virtual
Sabines, and thereby link themselves by blood with thepopulus Romanus.Infact,it
seems clear that some central Apennine individuals were self-identifying with thecog-
nomen“Sabellus” for some time before Varro and Horace, just as some Romans were
using thecognomen“Sabinus” (Farney 2007: 208–10). Again, the Apennine people par-
ticipated in the manipulation of ethnic associations for their group. They were not passive
recipients of Greek or Roman notions.
In fact, I would argue that “Sabellus” was a term of empowerment among the central
Apennine people in the late Republic, and that they began to use itbeforeit was picked up
by Roman authors. In ways analogous to the adoption of the term “African American” in
the Twentieth Century, the “Sabelli” refused to use ethnic names that had become tainted
with stereotypes and prejudice. Rather, they utilized one that emphasized their newly
constructed connection to the Sabines and Rome without abandoning the perceived
positive qualities of their group that the Romans so admired. It is too great a coincidence
that the term is first found in the writings of the Sabine Varro and the “Sabellus” Horace.
This instance of “auto-ethnography” would have been empowering, in that it linked
them to the Sabines, but also allowed them to keep the image of outsiders that were
uncorrupted by Roman vice. Thus, by the late Republic, their barbarism transformed
itself into the kind of virtuous rusticism, theprisca virtus, that the Romans believed their
ancestors had possessed once.
Certainly, by the early Empire, according to Tacitus, no one represented this idea better
than the Sabine emperor Vespasian:
New men from themunicipiaand colonies—and even from the provinces—steadily entered
the Senate and brought with them an innate austerity. Although most had come to a wealthy
old age through fortune or industry, yet they retained their old mind-set. But the most
conspicuous promoter of these mores was Vespasian, himself of pristine habit and manner.
At that point, obedience to the emperor and a desire to emulate him was stronger than
punishment of the law and fear.(Annales3.55; sc.Annales16.5)The image of the austerenovus, uncorrupted by the vices of the dissipated nobility, still
clung to the municipal men of Italy in Tacitus’ time. Moreover, Tacitus notes that it
had moved to the provincials—just as we have seen it move from the Sabines to the
other Italians, and mythically, from the Spartans to the Sabines. Men from the “Latin”
provinces, those settled by Italian colonists, continued to make much of this morally
laden “outsider” image. Emperors after Nerva all originated from the provinces, but
well into the third centuryCEthey still went to some lengths to demonstrate ancestral
ties back to Italy, too (Farney 2007: 177, 236–8). Certainly, the dispute in Claudius’
senate about the “long-haired Gauls,” mentioned in the preceding text, reveals that, by
his time, Italian was equated with Roman without question.