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The Consular Elections held in 65 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

E. W. Gray
E. W. Gray*
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
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Extract

In 66 B.C. P. Cornelius Sulla and P. Autronius Paetus, consuls designate for the following year, were convicted of ambitus under the Lex Calpurnia and their accusers, L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus, were elected to fill their place and entered office as consuls on 1 January, 65.

It has often been noted that the Chronographer of A.D. 354 differs from all other sources, literary and epigraphical, in recording not Cotta and Torquatus but Sulla and Paetus as consuls for 65. Anyone familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Chronographer and aware of the close connexion between his list of consuls of the Republic and that of the Fasti Capitolini will be unlikely to contest the validity of the inference that for the year 65 the Fasti Capitolini recorded first the names of the two men originally designated, then the fact of their condemnation (before entering office) and their replacement by Cotta and Torquatus, who entered office on 1 January 65 strictly speaking as consules suffecti, not ordinarii.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 13 , 1979 , pp. 56 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1979

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References

1 The facts are too well known to need documentation here beyond a reference to Broughton, MRR 2. 157. On the consuls of 65 B.C. see Appendix below.

2 Cf. Mommsen, Staatsr.3 1. 590 and his note 6 ; Münzer, RE 14. 1202.

3 Cf. Degrassi, Inscr. Ital. 13. 1, p. 490–1 for the lesser fasti and a selection of the literary evidence. Add Cicero,Pro Sulla 56 (62 B.C.): ‘L. Julio C. Figulo consulibus’ — apart from the suspect consular date in Cicero ad Att. 1. 2. 1 (on which, see below) the earliest extant mention in a literary source of the names of the consuls of 64.

4 Cicero, ad Att. 1. 1. 2 (see below).

5 For a brief discussion of persons with whom Thermus might be identified see Bailey, Shackleton, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus 1 (Cambridge 1965), 292.Google Scholar If the Thermus of the election in 65 had been successfully prosecuted he could hardly be identified with A. Thermus, the paragon twice defended by Cicero in 59, unless Cicero was protesting too much when he described him as ‘innocens et bonus vir et omnibus rebus oinatus’ (Pro Fiacco 98).

6 Drumann-Groebe, Geschichte Roms2 5. 431: ‘Minucius Thermus, dessen Adoption durch Marcius Figulus zwar nicht urkündlich erwiesen aber dennoch kaum bezweifelt werden kann’. His note 4 ad loc., referring simply to ad Att. 1. 1 and 2. 1, was incorporated into an additional paragraph by Groebe, who cited the evidence of the Chronographer. The revised note runs as follows: ‘(Hierbei ist vorausgesetzt dass der) ad Att.I 1,2 (als Konsularkandidat genannte Thermus mit dem Konsul des J. 64 C. Marcius Figulus eine Person sein müsse. Cicero schreibt im Juli 65, von den Bewebern für das J.64 hätten nach Caesar, dessen Wahl als gesichert gelte (Caesar certus putatur), Thermus und Silanus die meiste Aussicht; letzterer wurde im J.63 gewählt, folglich, so schliesst Drumann, Thermus in J.64. Eine Stütze findet diese Aussicht, die von Borghesi IV 364 (1865) geteilt wird, in der Angabe des Chronogr. 354, der als Konsulpaar des J.64 Caesar und Turmus nennt (CIL I2 p. 156). Das der Anfang des Briefes) ad Att. I 2 (zu streichen ist (IV 600) hat mit der vorliegenden Frage nichts zu tun.)’ Shackleton Bailey, loc.cit. argues against the scepticism of Münzer, who found Drumann’s view ‘wenig überzeugend’ (RE 15. 1965 s.v. ‘Minucius’ Nr. 60). For Sigonius (1550) cf. ‘Caroli Sigonii Mutinensis Fasti Consulares etc.’ ap. Historiae Romanae Scriptores Latini etc., ed. Fr. Sylburgius (Frankfurt 1588), 275. Sigonius relied on the argument that Thermus could have retained, after his adoption into the gens Marcia, his original cognomen as an additional cognomen, explaining in this way the Chronographer’s ‘Caesare et Turmo’. This point has not been made by more recent advocates of the adoption hypothesis, although it would do away with some of the difficulties raised by ad Att. 1. 2. 1 (see below). Thermus could be supposed to have been adopted at any time before the consular elections of 65. Just as Varrò Murena could be called simply ‘Murena’, for example, by Horace, but normally ‘Varrò Murena’, without anyone fretting about the variation in nomenclature. But this is not a true parallel. Against the thesis of an earlier adoption there is a serious objection, the unlikelihood that Cicero would call the same man (after his presumed adoption) at one time ‘Thermus’, at other times ‘C. Figulus’. C. Figulus occurs in three very different Ciceronian contexts (Pro Sulla 56, De Legib. 2. 62 and ad Att. 12. 21. 1).

7 Drumann-Groebe, 4. 600, citing Gurlitt, Berlin. Phil. Wochenschr. 1900,1179 f.

8 RE 7A. 859 s.v. ‘Tullius’ Nr. 29, reproduced verbatim in Cicero. Ein biographischer Versuch (Wiesbaden 1969), 62.

9 Brutus 90. The identification was suggested by Syme, , Rom.Rev. (Oxford 1939), 81;Google Scholar cf. id. CPh. 50 (1955), 134; Broughton, MRR Suppl. 22 on Q.Curius and Shackleton Bailey, loc. cit., where the case against Münzer’s different identification is argued. Douglas, , Commentary on Brutus, 175, is non-committal. Constane, Cicéron, Corresp. 1. 273 preferred to put Turius’s candidacy after 63.Google Scholar

10 Cicero, ad Att. 1. 1. 4: ‘Domitii, in quo uno maxime ambitio nostra nititur’.

11 On Atticus’ noble friends see Shackleton Bailey, 1. 5 ff.

12 Op.cit. 1 (1940), 79.

13 M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae II i (1965), 4.

14 Loc. cit. (n. 7 above).

15 M. Tulli Ciceronis ad Atticum epistularum libri sedecim 1 (1916), 6.

16 Cf. most recently, Shackleton Bailey, 1. 296.

17 Cf. Tacitus, Agric. 6. 2. Hence the ready use of it in Plautine comedy, ironically (Trucul. 384), in humorous parody (Pers. 484).

18 The Correspondence of Cicero 13. 152: ‘Julius Caesar and Marcius Figulus having been elected consuls, let me tell you that on the same day I was blessed with a son, and that Terentia is doing well’; cf. Stockton, D., Cicero. A Political Biography (Oxford 1971), 63: ‘The boy was born on the very day of the announcement of the result of the consular elections for 64.’Google Scholar

19 Ad Att. 1. 1. 1.

20 On the question of Fenestella’s statement that Cicero defended Catiline in 65 and Asconius’ arguments contra see Shackleton Bailey, 1. 66 ff., esp.67: ‘If, as Cicero plainly implies ... the reiectio iudicum had already taken place (cf. Asconius 87. 14) he must have undertaken the defence, as the first persons habemus and volumus suggest. Apparently he withdrew at the last moment, for what reason and on what pretext no one can say.’

21 E.g. by Ed. Meyer, , Caesars Monarchie 21.Google Scholar

22 Cf. ad Att. 1. 1. 2: ‘cum Romae a iudiciis forum refrixerit, excurremus mense Septembri legati ad Pisonem’. A date well on in August would be reasonable.

23 Cf. Mommsen, Staatsr.3 3. 376.

24 Mommsen, loc.cit. and ib. 1. 585, with his note 3, in which he sees as exceptional the fact that a suffect was in office by 6 February, 86, only 22 days after Marius’ death. Catiline’s tardy professio in 66 was for the by-election; cf. Sallust, Bell. Cat. 18. 2–3. He would have made his arrangements in time, if he had intended to be a candidate for the normal election. He attempted to make his professio shortly after the condemnation of Sulla and Paetus (‘post paulo’). Sallust gives the published pretext for its rejection; the real reason was the imminence of a prosecution.