Chapter One Introduction
GENDERED BAAKISIMBA DRUMMING AND DANCING
Whenever my music teachers at Makerere College School (1981-1987) announced that baakisimba was the next item on the rehearsal list, the boys ran for the drums, while the girls struggled for the best dance skirts and skins. Roles in performance of baakisimba-a set of drums, a music genre, and dance type accompanied by this music-were clearly distinguished; boys were restricted to drumming and the girls controlled the dancing arena. Whenever I tried to "beat" the drums, my teachers outwardly told me "women do not beat the drums, they are the dancers."l This distinction of roles was not only in baakisimba performed in schools, but also in Catholic churches, at wedding ceremonies, and other village festivities.
In this book, I examine how baakisimba connects with gender of the Baganda people of southern Uganda. I stress that there is a historically reciprocal relationship between baakisimba and gender of the Baganda. The shapes of the drums, drum sounds, dance movements, costumes, and the interaction of drummers, dancers, and the audience during baakisimba performances participate in the construction, crystallization, and challenge of constructed gender identities, roles, and relations among the Baganda. 2 And yet, the constructed gender is a basis for assigning roles of beating drums and dancing in baakisimba performance, as well as defining, to some extent, the baakisimba dance and music structure. While drum sounds and dance motifs cannot in themselves produce gender, the meanings the Baganda assign them construct views about gender. However, baakisimba performance practice is historically contingent on cultural, social, and political structures that have shaped Buganda, a context in which gender has been continually resignified.
The historical construction of gender in Buganda presents a concurrent dual definition dependent on the existence of two domains: the lubiri (palace), the "private" domain, reserved only for the royalty; and the bweru w'olubiri (outside the palace), the village, "public" domain, for the bakopi (commoners). The established myth among the Baganda defines one's belonging to either domain as supernaturally prescribed. Outside the palace, gender refers to the differences and values assigned to males and females and, the man and woman genders are assigned, respectively. However, failure in any of the prescribed roles as a man or a woman, one is branded kikazikazi, womanly-male (diminutive of a woman) and nakawanga (a she-cock), manly-female, respectively. With the introduction of Catholic celibacy in the early twentieth century, the foaza (reverend father) gender, bulaaza (reverend brother) gender, and siisita (reverend sister) genders were added to the Baganda's construction of gender. Within the palace context, the Baganda construct gender based on one's social class, which is determined by whether one belongs to the royal or commoner's class. The biological differentiation is only important in hierarchical structuring. Gender socialization within the palace assigns both the balangira (princes) and bambejja (princesses) a man gender, and the bakopi (both male and female) a woman gender. However, the woman gender assigned to the male bakopi is only situational; they may acquire a man, father, brother, and womanly-male gender outside the palace contexts. The female bakopi may maintain a woman or acquire manlyfemale or sister genders. The construction of gender among the Baganda's crystallizes the view that: "social identities are themselves complex fields of multiple and even contradictory struggles; they are the product of the articulations of particular social positions into chains of equivalences, between experiences, interests, political struggles and cultural forms, and between different social positions" (Hall as quoted in Grossberg 1996a: 156-157). It should be noted, therefore, that the gender definitions are not stable and absolute; they are in continuous contradictory struggles.
Baakisimba is an on-going sociocultural process through which Buganda's gender constructions are continually structured and negotiated. I explore how the performance practice of baakisimba, designs of the drums and their sounds, dance choreography' and costumes, and the interaction of drummers, trainers, adjudicators, dance students, dancers, and the audience duting baakisimba performance crystallize the ongoing process of gender construction. In Buganda, like in many African cultures, roles in music and dance performance have long been assigned based on the performers' being "men" or "women." Until the mid-nineteenth century, the female-women within the palace and women outside the palace, in most cases, were the dancers. However, during the mid-nineteenth century, the male-women also
began to dance within the palace. Yet, until the 1940s, it was unheard-of for a man to dance formalized baakisimba outside the palace (Lwewunzika, interview).4 On the other hand, until the 1960s the males-male-women in the palace and men outside the palace-were assigned to beat the drums in baakisimba performances. However, female-women beat the drums only during rituals that empowered the king and the kingdom. Although the ngoma (drum),) the basic instrument in baakisimba, is also central to the self-identification of the Baganda-every clan has a specific drum rhythm that identifies it-women outside the palace were not allowed to beat it or even touch it. However, women occupied the dancing space until the midtwentieth century when they started encroaching on the "forbidden fruit," the drum. 6 Since the 1960s, men lost control over women's access to the drum when manly-women and sisters began beating the drum outside the palace, especially in churches and schools. While baakisimba has evolved through time and location, change was especially noteworthy in 1967 after the Buganda kingdom was abolished, because of the radical social upheaval of the time. Drastic changes in the music, dance choreography, costumes, and the context of performance became especially evident. Baakisimba began to be performed in theatrical contexts, schools, and churches. Further, more womanly-males joined the dancing arena, while manly-females, although still with limitations, began to beat the drums. With changed political, cultural, social, and economic structures of the Baganda, baakisimba took on new meanings and helped to negotiate new gender identities, roles, and relations in significant ways.
Why have male-women and men traditionally been the drummers and female-women and women the dancers in baakisimba performance? What accounts for the shifts in these gendered performance roles and how do they articulate with the shifts in gender construction among the Baganda? The book reveals that baakisimba is a site for struggles over power. In Buganda, the drum is symbolic of power and, therefore men must control; and yet, women's dancing is associated with their sexual objectification. However, men dance either for economic reasons or as a way to negotiate their homosexual identities. Baakisimba is a "stage" where gendered relations, identities, and roles are performed. As such, baakisimba is a space where this fluid complex of ideas, associations, attitudes, and beliefs about the nature of man, woman, womanly-male, manly-female, father, brother, and sister genders are formed and transformed. Since baakisimba, the culturally constructed sequence of body movements is highly integrated with its accompanying music; I emphasize the integration of dance and music in my pursuit to examine baakisimba as a site for constructing gender in Buganda.
Since the Baganda created and have continually recreated baakisimba within a specific social and historical setting, it is to these settings that we must turn in order to understand the ways in which baakisimba and gender are connected. Buganda is one of the oldest and most dominant kingdoms in Uganda whose origin is still subject to speculation among scholars. For instance, M. S. M. Ssemakula Kiwanuka suggested that the waves of clans that constitute Buganda settled in the region between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries (1972: 31). However, four broad historical periods are important in Buganda's gender construction: 1) the pre-Kintu era (from time immemorial until ca. 1300); 2) the period before the abolition of the Buganda kingdom (pre-abolition period), which is subdivided into pre-colonial (ca. 1300 to 1894), colonial times (1894-1962), and transition to abolition (1962-1967); 3) post-abolition (1967 to 1993); and 4) post-restoration (1993 to the present).
Buganda's kingship has strongly defined gender in Buganda. From Kintu the first king, to Muwenda Mutebi II, the present king, there have been thirtysix kings (see appendix 2 for list of Buganda Kings). Until 1966, Buganda was under t~e rule of the Kabaka (king) whose power established a royal family of balangira and bambejja as rulers of the bakopi. The coming of Christianity and British colonialism in the late nineteenth century and its accompanying European education and culture redefined social relations in Buganda. Moreover, after independence in 1962, Buganda lost its autonomy as a kingdom and became a region of the Republic of Uganda, which further redefined the Baganda's gender. And yet, the political changes after 1966 that led to the abolition of kingship in 1967 produced new gender constructions. Although President Yoweri Museveni restored the Buganda kingdom in 1993, he "agreed only to reinstate the kabaka in ceremonial roles. The kabakas are prohibited from holding political office" (Africa Report 1993: 11). Because of the existing conditions, gender constructions, in the Buganda of the twenty-first century, are less dependent on inherited tradition. As such, the restoration did not recapture gender constructions of the pre-abolition period. Instead, the struggles to define gender, which have roots from the European education and Christianity, were promoted.
Although changes in gender construction in Buganda can be traced earlier, it is after 1986-when Yoweri Museveni became president of Uganda-that the changed position of women in Buganda and Uganda in general began to be vividly noted. Anne Marie Goetz, for instance, records that "Uganda . . . ranks above many developing countries in terms of women's numerical representation in the national legislature" (1998: 241).7
Moreover, it is now possible, although with some constraints, for women to negotiate for "equality and justice in marriage-and divorce-after ironing out differences over the issue of polygamy" (Fiedler 1999: 21), a position Baganda women have long struggled to achieve (Obbo 1974). While I do not mean to say that the women's position in relation to men is not contested, some changes are evident as will be discussed in this book.
THEBAGANDAPEOPLE
The Baganda people (sing. Muganda), who belong to the Bantu family, constitute the largest group among more than forty different ethnic groups in Uganda. 8 About five million Baganda are located in Buganda region, in the south-central region of Uganda, north of Lake Victoria and south of Lake Kyoga. Buganda lies on the equator and thus enjoys a tropical climate, which enables the growth of food, especially matooke (bananas) throughout the year (see figure 1).9 Buganda is hilly with a mixture of grassy lands and with forests, are slowly disappearing because of the increased populations. The trees are not only used for building houses, firewood, and furniture, but also for making musical instruments, especially the drums. Informants told me that it was a taboo for a Muganda not to have a drum in his house. IO
Buganda has seventeen counties, but this study was focused in Kyaddondo (1), Busiro (2), Mawokota (3), Butambala (4), Buddu (5), Kyaggwe (6), and Busujju (7) counties. However, a great part of this research was concentrated in Kyaddondo, Busiro, and Mawokota counties. Since Kyaddondo, Busiro, and Mawokota were among the initial counties of Buganda (Richards 1960:43), these counties are symbolic to the Buganda kingdom. For example, Kyaddondo County houses the headquarters of the Buganda kingdom and the kabaka's main palace at Mengo and "for many years, too, the capitals of the kings have been established in [the county]" (Roscoe 1911: 248). On the other hand, most of the masiro ("burial grounds for the kings") are found in Busiro County. Further, more than any other areas in Buganda, these counties have a number of important cultural sites that provide contexts for baakisimba performance. Kyaddondo, which includes Kampala, the national capital of Uganda, houses a number of educational centers and churches, which provide numerous contexts for performing baakisimba. These areas are accessible in terms of transport, contacts, and because they are famous for talented musicians, dancers, and performing groups, I knew a number of them, prior to the study.
Figure 1. Buganda and its location on the map of Uganda.
The Baganda speak a language referred to as Luganda and the term "Kiganda" denotes what belongs to the Baganda. Therefore, one can speak of Kiganda music, Kiganda culture, Kiganda gender, and so on. Sometimes the generic term "Ganda" is used to refer to the region, the people, their language, culture, music, and so on. However, scholars and people who are not Baganda mainly
use the term Ganda; the Baganda never refer to themselves as the Ganda or refer to their language as Ganda. One is considered to be a Muganda if his or her father belongs to a Kiganda dan. In fact, the Baganda have a proverb that: "Nnyoko abanga omunyolo: n'akuzaala mu kika." Your mother may be a Munyoro: as long as you are born in the dan (of the father). [Meaning that] the child follows the dan of the fathers. It is better that you are born of a non-Muganda mother and a Muganda father than vice versa" (Walser 1982: 298, no.3316). As such, the Baganda consider the man to be the core of the Baganda's identity. In the next section, I discuss the contradictory struggles of whether the man, from time immemorial, has been the center of Baganda's identity.
GENDERED-MYTHOWGICAL ORIGIN OF BUGANDA
Since Buganda kingdom and its changing nature form the basis for gender construction, there is need to examine the origins of the Buganda kingdom and how its changing nature has shaped ideologies about gender roles, identities, and relations of the Baganda, Contexts which have defined baakisimba. Many scholars have constructed different histories relating to the origin of Buganda. 11 Nonetheless, based on the analysis of oral tradition, these scholars have argued that Kintu is the founder of the Buganda kingdom. For instance, M. B. Nsimbi, a Muganda linguist, has noted, "Kintu was the first [person] to bring together the people he found in Buganda and to rule them as one nation" (1996: 149). However, Kiwanuka argues that all the histories "contain much that is myth and legend" (1972: 95). Two kinds of narratives constitute the oral traditions about Kintu: lugero (PL ngero), story or legend and byafaayo (both pL and sing.), histoty. The Baganda use Kintu's story or legend to tell how Kintu "became the progenitor of the Baganda and the guarantor of their life on earth ... how [Kintu] entered Buganda, established the kingship and organized the dans" 12 (Ray 1991: 54). In my discussion, I use both the ngero and the byafoayo to analyze the origins of Buganda as a basis for gender structuring among the Baganda. I note, however, as other authors have pointed out, that the byafoayo and the ngero do not provide historical facts about Buganda. Similarly, Lois Pirouet has noted that Oral traditions are "concerned with explaining and legitimizing the present, not with providing precise chronologies ... " (1995: 7). Moreover, these narratives are recounted in various versions and most of them are full of contradictions. Nonetheless, my study considers them as important sources of information to understand gender structuring in Buganda, since these narratives participate in shaping the Baganda's worldview about gender. Analyzing the discourse of myths in Central Africa, V. Y.
Mudimbe contended that legendary and historical narratives are "embued with the sacred mission of cultural representation and being" (1991: 99). Likewise, in her discussion of gender in Buganda, Hellen Nabasuta Mugambi emphasized that these mythical legends "are embued with unquestionable [her emphasis] power in the construction of collective cultural, political and gender identities" (1994: 108). My research revealed that the Baganda use both byafoayo and ngero to establish opinions and authority for their beliefs and attitudes about gender identities, roles, and relations. In this case, I am not establishing historical facts; instead, these narratives are sites through which the Baganda explain who they were, who they are, and who they will become.
In order to situate my discussion, I present a summary of Kintu's legend as my late grandmother Vikitoria Nannyonga narrated it to me when I was a child. She said:
Once upon a time, there was a man called Kintu. He lived alone with his cow and fed on its blood, dung, and urine. One day, a woman called Nnambi came from the Sky and found Kintu very lonely, only with his cow. When Nnambi saw Kintu, she admired him and proposed marriage to him. However, N nambi had to first introduce Kintu to her father, Ggulu. Mter Kintu had gone through a number of tests, Nnambi was given to him, but the two were warned never to return to the sky because Nnambi's brother Walumbe (Mr. Death) would follow them and kill all their children. Unfortunately, Nnambi forgot the millet of her chickens and despite Kintu's refusal for Nnambi's return to the sky, Nnambi adamantly returned to the sky. When Walumbe saw her, he said 'oh my sister, you wanted to run away from me?' Nnambi could not refuse his request to follow her. For some time, Walumbe lived happily with Nnambi and Kintu, until when he started killing their children. This is how death came to the earth. 13
As Nancy Bonvillian has argued, "Myths of creation and the identity and actions of creators reveal and reinforce a people's accepted notions of the proper place of women and men in society" (1998: 246). Similarly, based on the Kintu and Nambi myth, men have constructed, justified, and viewed women as weak beings that need the supervision of men. This construction relates to the perception that women are emotional and physically weak. From childhood, Baganda women are socialized to be weak while the men are trained to be strong and protective of the women. In fact, Apollo Kaggwa l4 attributes the Baganda women's historical suffering and subordinate
position to this myth (1934:161). The constructed weakness of women explains a number of superstitions about Baganda women. For instance, a "traditional" 15Muganda man, and ironically a woman too, "setting out for a journey would return if he or [she] met a woman first; as it is believed to be a bad omen" (ibid.). In addition, Kaggwa has mentioned that when men were leaving for war, their friends would say to them, "kill them like women" (1934: 104). This myth about women's weakness forms one of the justifications for assigning drumming roles to men and dancing roles to women.
Similar to many myths of creation, people have reinvented and reconstructed the meaning of Kincu's lugero as the narrative passed on from one person to another and from one generation to another. They have recreated this narrative to produce meanings relevant to particular situations and times. For example, after the introduction of Christianity in the late nineteenth-century, prominent Baganda, including Apollo Kaggwa, began reinterpreting the lugero of Kintu to suit the Christian ideology. For instance, Kaggwa noted that Kintu's story "is very similar to the works of the Holy Bible of God where we read about Adam and Eve" (1951: 115 as translated and quoted in Ray 1991: 60). Explaining the connection between the two stories of Kintu and the Bible, Kaggwa noted that: "We see how Eve, the wife of Adam, brought death, and in the same way Nnambi, the wife of Kintu brought death. As the words of Adam begin with the creation of the earth, so the story of Kintu also begins with the creation of the country of Buganda" (ibid.). Kaggwa appropriates the myth to reaffirm that the women's subordinate position, as inherited from her disobedience, is a given position since it existed even in Biblical times, a context that was outside Buganda.
On the other hand, according to the Baganda's byafoayo (history), Kintu allegedly founded the Buganda kingdom. 16 As in the case of Kintu's legends, people have reconstructed the narratives of Kintu's history. My own research presents, in some cases, versions of already published histories of Kintu, while in other cases, informants gave me just fragments of these published stories. On the one hand, some stories, especially those told by Sulaiti Kalungi and David Mukasa, relate to Kintu as a foreigner who came from eastern Uganda in search of greener pastures for his cow (interview). These stories revealed that when he reached Muwawa (which later became the core of Buganda), he heard about a powerful King Bemba who mistreated his people. With the help of his immigrant army, Kintu fought Bemba and defeated him. 17 On the other hand, the story narrated to me by Blazio Kalyango only differs in details with that of Charles Kabuga (1963). Like Kabuga, Kalyango emphasized that Kabaka Kintu was born in Buganda and
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also aid a pure conception of the Highest by studying the myths and institutions which foreign peoples have discovered and created as intermediaries betwixt themselves and the Highest.
But in spite of the important part thus assigned to Reason in settling disputed matters of faith, and arbitrating on points of national and individual ethics, Plutarch makes it clear that Piety and Patriotism have claims in this matter which are actually enforced by Reason in her selecting and purifying rôle. If he had seen, as his age could not see, and as we can see, that Reason can only be the Mystagogue to Religion in a very limited degree, he would probably have been patriot first and philosopher afterwards, or would, perhaps, have accepted the compromise of Cotta, and played each part in turn as public or private necessities dictated. But the crux does not arise, and Plutarch’s position never really has the inconsistency which, carelessly considered, it appears to have, because he is honestly convinced that what Reason rejects in the national faith, it is good for the national faith that it should be deprived of. Hence it is possible to give examples of Plutarch’s views in this direction without assuming that he forgot what prospect lay in exactly the opposite direction. Hence he can quote Ammonius as beautifully tender in his expressions towards those who are bound up in the literal realisms of the Hellenic faith. “Yet must we extend gratitude and love to those who believe that Apollo and the Sun are the same, because they attach their idea of God to that which they most honour and desire of anything they know. They now see the God as in a most beautiful dream: let us awaken them and summon them to take an upward flight, so that they may behold his real vision and his essence, though still they may revere his type, the Sun, and worship the life-giving principle in that type; which, so far as can be done by a perceptible object on behalf of an invisible essence, by a transient image on behalf of an eternal original, scatters with mysterious splendour through the universe some radiance of the grace and glory that abide in His presence.”[148] Not only through the dramatic medium of another personality, but also when speaking his own thought directly, Plutarch alludes with a
sincere and touching sympathy to the duties and practices of the ancient faith. The first hint of consolation conveyed to his friend Apollonius on the death of his son is given in words which feelingly depict the youth as embodying the ancient Hellenic ideals in his attitude towards the gods, and his conduct towards his parents and friends.[149] The converse of this attitude is indicated in many passages where he deprecates a too inquisitive bearing in the face of questions naturally involved in the doubt clouding many ancient traditions of a religious character. The great discussion on “The Cessation of the Oracles” commences with a reproof directed at those who “would test an ancient religious tradition like a painting, by the touch” and in the “Amatorius” full play is allowed to the exposition of a similar view, a view, indeed, which dominates the whole of this fascinating dialogue. Pemptides, one of the speakers, who rails lightly at love as a disease, is willing to learn what was in the minds of those who first proclaimed that passion as a god. He is answered by the most important speaker in the conversation, a speaker whose name is not given in the report, which is represented as furnished by one of this speaker’s sons from their father’s account. “Our father, addressing Pemptides by name, said, ‘You are, in my opinion, commencing with great rashness to discuss matters which ought not to be discussed at all, when you ask a reason for every detail of our belief in the gods. Ourancienthereditaryfaithis sufficient, and a better argument than this could not be discovered or described. But if this foundation and support of all piety be shaken, and its stability and the honoured beliefs that cling to it be disturbed, it will be undermined and no one will regard it as secure. And if you demand proofs about every one of the gods, laying a profane hand on every temple, and bringing sophistical smartness to bear on every shrine, nothing will be safe from your peering eyes and prying fingers. What an abyss of Atheism opens beneath us, if we resolve every deity into a passion, a power, or a virtuous activity!’”[150] This is, of course, an extreme conventional view, but the fact, that it is put so fully, at least argues Plutarch’s sympathy with it, though he would not, in his own person, have pinned himself
down to so unqualified an expression of it. It will be noted that in this part of the dialogue the gods only are under discussion, whereas in regard to tradition on other elements in the ancient faith the same speaker subsequently represents himself as neither altogether a believer nor a disbeliever, and he proceeds to search, in Plutarch’s own special way, for “faint and dim emanations of truth dispersed about among the mythologies of the Egyptians.”[151] Plutarch’s lofty idea of the passion of Love may have induced him in this, as his strenuous moral aim did in so many other instances, to emphasize for the moment any particular aspect of the ancient faith which appeared likely to furnish inspiration to the realization of noble ethical ideals. He is anxious, at all events, that his purely rational arguments shall not carry him too far, as, on one occasion, after a long disquisition, the undoubted purport of which is to refer oracular inspiration to subterraneous fumes and exhalations, or, as one of the speakers says, “to accident and natural means,” Plutarch (“Lamprias” here is clearly a thin disguise of Plutarch himself) is disturbed and confused that he should be thought desirous of refuting any “true and religious” opinions recognized with respect to the Deity; and he forthwith proceeds to prove that it is quite possible to investigate natural phenomena for secondary causes, while recognizing a final cause in the creative Deity.[152] Not only does Plutarch sympathize with those who accept with pious simplicity the tenets of the “ancient and hereditary Faith;” not only does he deprecate too severe a handling of religious questions; but he is also eager to support his view of a subject by showing that it is not out of harmony with the traditions or prescriptions of the national belief. Concluding that consolatory letter to his wife upon the death of their little daughter, which is the most humane and natural expression of sympathy left us by antiquity, he tries to show that those who die young will earlier feel at home in the other world than those whose long life on earth has habituated their souls to a condition so different from that which exists “beyond the gates of Hades,” and he says that this is a truth which becomes clearer in the light of the ancient and hereditary customs.[153] No libations are poured for the
young that are dead. They have no share in earth, nor in the things of earth. The laws do not allow mourning for children of such tender years, “because they have gone to dwell in a better land, and to share a diviner lot.” And he adds, “I know that these questions are involved in great uncertainty; but since to disbelieve is more difficult than to believe, in external matters let us act as the laws enjoin, while within we become more chaste, and holy, and undefiled.”[154] It must not be overlooked that Plutarch was long a priest of the Delphian Apollo, and that the duties of this position responded to some internal need of his soul, and were not regarded by him as a merely official dignity, is proved by the manner in which he alludes to the subject. He is speaking on one occasion of the many indications which the shrine gives of resuming its former “wealth, and splendour, and honour,” and he congratulates himself on the zealous and useful part he has taken in aiding the work of this revival.[155] He mentions two friends as co-workers in the sacred task, and appears also to felicitate a certain Roman Governor of Achaia on similar grounds. But he reverently proceeds to make it quite clear that it is the god himself who is the ultimate cause of these returning blessings. “But it is not possible that so great a transformation should have taken place in so short a time through human activity, unless the god were present and continuing to inspire his oracle,” and he concludes by censuring those who, in their inability to discern the motive actuating the divine methods with mankind, “depart condemning the god, instead of blaming us or themselves, that they cannot, by reason, discover the intention of the god.”[156]
Plutarch’s attitude of more than tolerance to the “ancient and hereditary Faith,” an attitude which is, of course, not inconsistent with his desire to place that Faith on a rational basis, is partly explicable in the light of his emphatic gratitude to the existing political constitution of the Græco-Roman world. He would have been an admirable co-worker with Mæcenas—πρόθυμος
[157]—in carrying out the religious reforms of Augustus. He
regarded the welfare of Society and the State, of the family and the individual citizen, as bound up with a belief in the gods whose agency was so clearly visible in bringing the world to that state of perfection which it now enjoyed, and which promised to be eternal. No one now even dreamed of doubting the identity of the gods of Rome with those of Greece, and Plutarch carries the identification to the extent of including the gods of almost every people constituting the Roman Empire.[158] These universal powers had the world in their providential care, and Rome was the divinely chosen instrument of their beneficent purposes. The Emperor is the depository of the sacred governing power of the world.[159] When Tiberius shut himself up in Capreæ, this divine potency never left him. And though expressions of this kind may be interpreted as a merely formal recognition of the official dignity of the Head of the World, Plutarch’s many eloquent descriptions of the blessings of the Pax Romana leave us in no doubt respecting the character of his views on this subject. “I welcome and approve,” says Theon, “the present position of affairs, and the subjects about which we now consult the oracle. For there now reigns among us a great peace and calm. War has ceased. Expulsions, seditions, tyrannies, are no more, and many other diseases and disasters which tormented Greece, and demanded powerful remedies, are now healed. Hence the oracle is no longer consulted on matters difficult, secret, and mysterious, but on common questions of everyday life. Even the most important oracles addressed to cities are concerned with crops and herds, and matters affecting the public health.”[160] In the “Præcepta Gerendæ Reipublicæ” he is still more outspoken in his praise of the Roman administration, and in his recognition of the opportunities which it gives for the culture of the individual character within the limits of a greatly generous sway. Plutarch, as is well known, was gifted with a patriotic regard for the old achievements of the Hellenic name, but he recognizes with so keen an insight the great work being accomplished by Rome in the fostering of municipal institutions, and the establishment of a peace which meant the undisturbed happiness of millions of obscure families,[161] that, in the sphere of
practical politics, he deliberately turns away from the group of inspiring ideas connected with ancient Hellenic patriotism. He alludes coldly, perhaps even sneeringly, to such of his contemporaries as fancied they could apply the ancient traditions of glory to those late and unseasonable times, like little children who would try to wear their father’s sandals;[162] counsels a complete submission to the duly appointed Roman authorities; fully persuaded that within the limits of their supremacy there is as much freedom as a reasonable man could desire to enjoy; and honestly claims to find scope, in a little Bœotian township, for such political ambition as could be safely and wisely indulged.[163] It is not difficult to sneer at the prudential limitation of patriotism to such petty, insignificant, and meagre efforts as the superintendence of bricks and mortar and the carting of municipal rubbish; but the wiser thing is to note that Plutarch’s opposition to vain fancies of the revival of the ancient Hellenic splendour, except perhaps in such a form as a Hadrian might be inclined to revive it in an artificial Panhellenium, is based on the conviction that happiness depends upon the free development of individual character, the unrestricted enjoyment of domestic peace, the undisturbed intercourse of social life; and he knew that the Roman sway made it possible, for Greeks at any rate, to enjoy these blessings to a degree never previously known in their chequered history.[164] With a clear recognition of the historical causes of the political decadence of Hellenism, he regards civic discord as the evil which most demands the attention of those who still seek opportunities for public action, and he is particularly grateful to the strong hand of Rome for controlling the internecine animosities of Greek cities. “Consider,” says he, “our position with regard to those blessings which are counted as the greatest that a city can enjoy: Peace, Freedom, Fertility of Soil, Increase of Population, Domestic Concord. As regards Peace, our peoples have no present need of politicians. Every Greek war, every Barbarian war, has vanished from among us. For Freedom, our peoples enjoy as much as their rulers allow them, andagreatersharewouldperhapsnotbeanybetterfor them. For fine seasons and plentiful harvests, for families of ‘children
like their sires,’ and for gracious aid to the new-born child, the good man in his prayers will invoke the gods on behalf of his fellowcitizens.”[165] As for civic concord, that, he says, is in our own power, and those who desire a life of political activity could not do better than devote themselves to the task of spreading harmony and friendship among their fellow-citizens. The peace which the Romans have established in the world makes it possible to develop character on these social lines, and he recognizes, in a pregnant comparison, that the freedom which the Greeks enjoy is sufficient to allow the fullest play to the development of their own moral character. The drama is composed and staged: the prompter stands behind the scene ready with the cue: but the player can give his own interpretation of the character he represents, though remembering that a slip may meet with a worse fate than mere hissing in the audience.[166]
Plutarch is clearly of opinion that this state of things is best for his fellow-countrymen. He is as firmly convinced of the divine mission of Rome as ever was Virgil or any other patriotic Roman.[167] In his tract “De Fortuna Romanorum,” he discusses the question whether the greatness of Rome was due to Τύχη or Ἀρετή, or, as he expresses the antithesis in another place, to Τύχη or Πρόνοια—to Chance or to Providence, we may translate, if we recognize that here Chance is the divine element, and Providence the human.[168] In other words, is the grandeur of Rome the result of human virtue and forethought, or is it a direct gift of the Deity to mankind? He decides in the latter sense, though conceding much to the valour of individual Romans; and his incidental expressions of opinion bear as much evidence to the divinely inspired and divinely guided character of Roman administration as is borne by his definite conclusion. He says that, whichever way the question is decided, it can only redound to the glory of Rome to be the subject of a discussion which has hitherto been confined to the great natural phenomena of the universe—the earth, the sea, the heavens, and the stars. His very words are curiously reminiscent of Virgil’s rerum pulcherrima, Roma
[169] as he tells how Time, in concert with the Deity, laid the foundations of Rome, harmonizing to that end the influence of Fortune and Virtue alike, thus establishing for all the nations of mankind a sacred hearth, a harbour and a resting-place, “an anchorage from the wandering seas” of human stress and turmoil, a principle of eternity amid the evanescence and mutability of other things. He describes with great vigour of language the instability of the world under the domination of other Empires, until Rome acquired her full strength and splendour, and brought peace and security and permanence among these warring elements.[170]
Being so satisfied with the constitution of the world, it is natural that Plutarch should have nothing but reverent words for the eternal powers whose guidance had led to so happy a disposition of human affairs. However much Philosophy should endeavour to free the mind from the crude and vulgar elements in the “ancient and hereditary Faith,” she must never be tempted to profess other than the most pious belief in its fundamental truth and right; and the ultimate aim of Philosophy must be to strengthen and revive the ancient Religion by freeing it from inconsistencies and crudities which, so long as they appeared to be an essential part of the system, only existed to shock the pious and to encourage atheism.
Plutarch’s attitude towards the ancient Faith may thus be defined as one of patriotic acceptance modified by philosophic criticism; not that criticism which tries everything from the fixed standpoint of a set of rules logically irrefutable: but that which is really the spirit of rationalism pervading all philosophies alike. If Plutarch’s attitude is that of a Platonist, it is that of a Platonist whose experience of ordinary human affairs, and whose recognition of their importance in Philosophy, have compelled him to modify the genuine teaching of the Master into something like the spirit of compromise characterizing the later Academics. His teaching is not the philosophic despotism of Plato; it might easily be characterized as “plebeian,”[171] as Epicureanism was by Cicero, or “commonplace,”
as Aristotle has been described by Platonists. It breathes that free spirit of truth which bids every man, whether he is a practised philosopher or not, or even if he has not studied mathematics, to give a reason for the faith that is in him: to apply the touchstone of his own practical experience and native intelligence to the domain of Ethics and Religion as to the domain of every-day life, because, as a matter of fact, the domain of every-day life is the domain of Religion and Ethics. The dictum of Hesiod, enforced by Aristotle and applied in practice by the Epicureans, and by the Stoics, is the keynote of the teaching of Plutarch:—“He is most excellent of all, who judges of all things for himself.”
