ABSTRACT
In AD375, soon after an earthquake had devastated part of Campania, the rich pagan senator, Q. Aurelius Symmachus, visited Beneventum. There he found the local optimates ‘working night and day’ to restore their city (Symm. Epist. 1.3). The noble visitor was greeted by public plaudits, ‘civium cultus’ and ‘honor’, all of which he reported with pride, because they enhanced his status. However, such public honours were not altruistic. Symmachus was uneasily aware that he was expected to do something in return for these attentions, commenting that flattery without a return was a nuisance: ‘sedulitas enim, quae non compensatur, onerosa est’. Fearful (he wrote), of being an encumbrance at a difficult time, he withdrew tactfully to Baiae, thus, apparently, evading the obligation to provide assistance to the hard-pressed Beneventines.
