180 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
The custom of distributing large bequests to valued friends helps us to
understand why forensic oratory continued to be an avenue to success, as in
the Republic. The impact of the new political regime can be judged by a
comparison of Cicero with the imperial orator M. Aper, as portrayed in
Tacitus’ Dialogue on the Orators more than a century later. Forensic oratory
could no longer be the path to electoral success for Aper as it had been for
Cicero. Nevertheless, because effective oratory was still needed to win civil
and criminal cases, the successful orator could win valuable friends,
especially the infl uential and the wealthy childless, to promote his career or
to enrich himself. All of this has to be understood in the context of reciprocity
in friendships, since, in contrast to the lower- class advocate who made his
living through fees, the gentleman orator relied on his friends’ generosity in
returning his favours (Quintilian, Inst. 12.7.12).
The benefi ts exchanged in friendship resemble those given between
patrons and protégés, but the tone of friendship on an equal footing is
different. Pliny’s relationships with men like Priscus were characterized
by courteous cooperation. Behind the facade of cooperation lay competition:
if a friend failed to make a return of the same order, he risked slipping
into the position of a ‘lesser friend’ and losing honour in the process.
In contrast, Pliny’s relationship with Corellius was not competitive,
because genuine equality was not possible. Corellius was the backer, and
the roles were not reversible. Pliny eventually surpassed his supporter,
but his success as a new man was not a foregone conclusion, and he
needed whatever help he could get from senior senators like Corellius and
Verginius Rufus.
The personal exchange relationships described above effectively mitigated
cross- order confl ict and tension, the importance of which has often been
exaggerated. Specifi cally, the old view that emperors preferred as administrators
equestrians, who were directly dependent on them for offi ces and honours,
rather than senators, who were potential competitors for power, is no longer
tenable. Many senators were as dependent on imperial favour as equestrians,
many equestrians were more directly tied to the senatorial mediators who
won them offi ces and honours than to the emperor, and senators and
equestrians were generally integrated through kinship, friendship and
patronage into a single social network. Consequently, equestrians as a group
were not noticeably more loyal than senators.
The plebs: patronage, self- help and coercion
Patrons did not enter into relationships with their social inferiors
indiscriminately. In his division of the ordinary people of the city of Rome
into the good and the bad ( Hist. 1.4.), Tacitus characterizes the former by
their attachment to the great houses – an implicit commitment to the social
order as it was.^18 The latter were not caught up in patronal relationships