A Framework of Negotiation and Reconciliation in the Triumviral period

In this paper, I offer an overview of the tensions inherent in the
Triumvirate’s formation and maintenance in terms of a rhetoric of peace and
reconciliation. I first examine the initial formation in late October/early
November 43 BCE drawing out some social structures and political ideologies
used to construct a space of negotiation and reconciliation between the main
political players. Within this discussion, I examine pre-Triumviral models
for conflict resolution, particularly the arrangement and ‘friendship’ of
Crassus, Pompey and Caesar. Following on from such a framework, I
consider to what extent these structures facilitated conflict resolution and yet
also offered a means of articulating control through the language of unity and
agreement, in contrast to contestations and competition of ownership of
ideals in the 40s BCE. Specific themes that this paper will further draw out
are not only the reiteration of concordia within this period, but also the focus
on the concordia of individuals rather than of the community as a whole. The
‘privatisation’ of political concordia will be explored through the sites of
negotiation situated outside the political sphere, through personal and kinship
diplomacy at the potential expense of constitutional structures and spaces.
The ‘promise’ of reconciliation and peace was, in effect, the Triumviral ‘brand’,
which was heavily promoted and advertised through media of mass
communication, such as the coinage, at points of political tension and
potential conflict. Nevertheless, while the contemporary Triumviral framework
was one of reconciliation through negotiation, historical accounts produce
different narratives, wherein the φιλία and negotiation of the Triumvirs is a
rejection of reconciliation with their opponents and indeed the cause of
discordia.