Talk:Catualda

Kingship

s:en:Ab_excessu_divi_Augusti_(Annales)/Liber_II#LXII s:en:The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_2#62

Tacitus repeatedly identifies Maroboduus as a "king":

• 26: regemque Maroboduum/king Maroboduus
• 44: set Maroboduum regis nomen invisum apud popularis/But the title of king rendered Maroboduus hated among his countrymen
• 45: e regno etiam Marobodui/(even) from the kingdom of Maroboduus.

Tacitus does not explicitly identify Catualda as a "king", but it is clear that he temporarily took Maroboduus' place on the Marcomanni throne. Translators Church & Brodribb 1876 add the word 'king' and 'kings' in two places not found in the original Latin, however.

• 62: Catualda, profugus olim vi Marobodui et tunc dubiis rebus (lit. 'when in doubtful circumstances') eius ultionem ausus./Catualda [had] formerly been driven into exile by the might of Maroboduus, and who now, when the king's fortunes were declining, ventured on revenge. He (...) burst into the palace and into an adjacent fortress. This is Catualda displacing Maroboduus from his seat of power, driving him into exile in Italy.
• 63 (...) Maroboduus, now utterly deserted, had no resource but in the mercy of Caesar. (...) as a most famous king in former days [clarissimum quondam regem] (...) Maroboduus was kept at Ravenna. Catualda had a like downfall and no better refuge. Driven out soon afterwards (...) he was received and sent to Forum Julii, a colony of Narbonensian Gaul. The barbarians who followed the two kings... [barbari utrumque comirati...].

So while Tacitus never explicitly calls him a rex (as the translators do), he treats Catualda and Maroboduus the same, as men who came into power within the Marcomanni kingdom, then had a downfall and had to go in exile in the Roman Empire. Scholars:

• Gowing (1990) p. 325-326 analysed how Tacitus' goal was to show the Roman client king system didn't work, that Maroboduus was simply another failed client king, and that Tacitus notes that Catualda soon suffered the same fate as his predecessor and was later settled together with his followers across the Danube.
• Tejral (2018) similarly writes: ...antique written reports on retinues of the deposed barbarian rulers Maroboduus and soon after him Catualda, who were settled by the Romans on the barbarian shore of the Danube....
• András Mócsy (2014), p. 14: Tiberius had Maroboduus overthrown by Drusus. The German king fled to the empire, where he was granted asylum and interned in Ravenna. Shortly afterwards the new king, Catualda, who had been installed by Drusus, was also overthrown, and he, too,, was given asylum in the empire. Gowing points out that Tacitus omitted to mention that Drusus (Drusus Julius Caesar, son of Tiberius) was the one behind the resettlement arrangement of emperor Tiberius' ally Maroboduus (which he does mention about Vannius, Claudius' ally), and Mócsy concludes that Catualda was Drusus' ally, that Drusus was behind Catualda's overthrow of Maroboduus (Tiberius' former ally), and Catualda thus became the new Marcomanni king as a client of Drusus (Seager 2005 drew the same conclusion). Gowing observed that in each of these three cases, a Roman general failed to assist the client king that was their ally, and after the expulsion of each client king, he sought refuge with this Roman general who was supposed to have protected him.

(This is copypasted from a CfR, but it's probably more useful here.) Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:30, 3 June 2023 (UTC)