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Caesar’s Pro Bithynis and the Sack ofHeraclea Pontica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

Federico Russo
Federico Russo*
Affiliation:
Universität [email protected]
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Abstract

Caesar’s speech Pro Bithynis is usually considered tobe an expression of the positive relationships between Caesar and the Kingdom ofBithynia. The context in which the speech was delivered is, however, unclear.

By means of a lexical analysis of the two extant fragments of the ProBithynis, this paper aims at providing a new interpretation of thespeech and its historical background. Caesar probably delivered the speech notimmediately after King Nicomedes’s death – as commonlyaccepted – but after the Roman siege of Heraclea Pontica, when theproconsul M. Aurelius Cotta, Caesar’s propinquus,was accused of having sacked the city.

As had already happened in Macedonia (thanks to Dolabella’sprosecution) and in Greece (Caesar represented some Greeks in a process againstC. Antonius around 79 BC), the Bithynian affair represented a further occasionfor Caesar to win over friends and allies among foreign communities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 49 , November 2015 , pp. 94 - 109
Copyright
© The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2015 

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