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CICERO'S SILVA (A NOTE ON AD ATTICUM 12.15)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2013

Brian Walters
Brian Walters*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In mid-February 45 b.c.e., in a tragedy that was to plunge the orator into seemingly irreparable despair, Cicero's beloved daughter Tullia died. She had given birth nearly a month before and at first seemed to be doing well. Soon, however, her health gave out and Cicero took her to his Tusculan villa to recover. In the end, there was little that could be done. After her funeral, Cicero stayed for about three weeks with Atticus in Rome, but the constant stream of visitors offering condolences became too much to bear, and on the sixth of March the heartbroken father retired to a villa he owned on the coast at Astura, some 45 miles south of Rome. Three days later he dispatched the following anguished epistle (Att. 12.15):

Apud Appuleium, quoniam in perpetuum non placet, in dies ut excuser videbis. in hac solitudine careo omnium colloquio, cumque mane me in silvam abstrusi densam et asperam, non exeo inde ante vesperum. secundum te nihil est mihi amicius solitudine. in ea mihi omnis sermo est cum litteris. eum tamen interpellat fletus; cui repugno quoad possum, sed adhuc pares non sumus. Bruto, ut suades, rescribam. eas litteras cras habebis. cum erit cui des, dabis.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , May 2013 , pp. 426 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Tony Corbeill, Craig Russell, Bruce Gibson and the anonymous reader from CQ for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Gratitude is also owed to the audience and participants in the panel on Cicero at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (Baton Rouge, 2012) for comments and stimulating questions.

References

1 Att. 12.13 makes explicit Cicero's desire to leave behind the celebritas of Rome (cf. 12.16 on the unsuitability of Atticus’ house). Citations to Cicero's letters refer to the text and commentary of Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Cicero's Letters to Atticus, 7 vols. (Cambridge, 1965–70), with most of the letters found in vol. 5Google Scholar.

2 This is especially true of anthologies intended for the schoolroom, e.g. Kirtland, J.C. Jr., Selections from the Correspondence of Cicero (New York and Chicago, 1898), 69Google Scholar; Poteat, H., Selected Letters of Cicero (New York and Chicago, 1931 2), 58Google Scholar; Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Cicero: Select Letters (Cambridge, 1980), 90Google Scholar.

3 Shackleton Bailey (n. 1), ad loc.

4 Cf. Att. 10.17.2: crebro refricat lippitudo.

5 In addition to its distance from the city, which would make unwanted visitors less likely to appear, another reason why Cicero seems to have chosen Astura is because of the lack of memories associated with Tullia, cf. Att. 12.46.1. The villa is not mentioned in earlier letters and, as suggested long ago by Petersson, T., Cicero: A Biography (New York, 1963), 525Google Scholar, was perhaps acquired by Cicero after his daughter's death for exactly this reason. D’Arms, J., Romans on the Bay of Naples and Other Essays on Roman Campania (Bari, 2003), 49–78Google Scholar and passim offers much by way of context regarding the physical settings of villae maritimae, though he mentions Cicero's villa at Astura only in passing. As for exactly how alone Cicero was at Astura, there were, of course, servants (e.g. Att. 12.14.3 mentions librarii and 13.26.2 makes mention of those qui mecum sunt, claiming that they were eager to return to Rome); but they hardly would have given Cicero cause to hide in the woods. Potential disturbances came only with the arrival of Philippus, who popped by briefly and left (Att. 12.16, 12.18.1), and from a dreaded visit by Cicero's newly acquired in-laws (mentioned in Att. 12.32.1, 12.34.1), which sent the grieving orator into hiding at another villa for a day.

6 In addition to its two occurrences in this letter, solitudo is also found at Att. 12.13.1, 12.14.3, 12.16, 12.18.1, 12.23.1, 12.26.2. For criticisms by some of Cicero's friends (including Atticus and Brutus) that he was grieving excessively, and his response that his prodigious literary output (on which more below) proved otherwise, see Att. 12.20.1, 12.38a.1, 12.40.2–3, 12.41.3.

7 That Cicero seems to gloss the content of his metaphor here should not be taken to imply any lack of intelligibility in his earlier silva. Rather, in ea [sc. solitudine] mihi omnis sermo est cum litteris stands as a corrective to the parallel yet contradictory claim made above: in hac solitudine careo omnium colloquio. At first, Cicero claims to talk with no one, but then (perhaps spurred by his statement about hiding away in the woods?) corrects himself: he converses with no one, that is, but literature.

8 See e.g. the discussions in Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Studies in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Cambridge, 1998), 12–13Google Scholar; Wray, D., ‘Wood: Statius’ Silvae and the poetics of genius’, in Augoustakis, A. and Newlands, C. (edd.), Statius's Silvae and the Poetics of Intimacy, Arethusa 40 (2007), 127–43, at 128Google Scholar; Butler, S., The Matter of the Page: Essays in Search of Ancient and Medieval Authors (Madison, 2010), 17–18Google Scholar; cf. Ernout, A. and Meillet, A., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Histoire des mots (Paris, 1967 4), s.v. silva, 626Google Scholar.

9 The testimony of Gell. praef. 6 indicates the commonplace nature of silva as a title for hasty compositions; cf. Quint. Inst. 10.3.17 (discussed below) and Stat. Silv. 1 praef. 1–5, 13–14 and 2 praef. 7–12. Gibson, B., Statius. Silvae 5 (Oxford, 2006), xviii–xxviii urges that the latter be interpreted with some cautionGoogle Scholar; cf. Wray (n. 8), 129–33. Isid. Orig. 13.3.1 suggests that silva is a term especially favoured by poets. On the metaphorical implications of Silvae as a title for Statius, see van Dam, H.J., P. Papinius Statius. Silvae Book II: A Commentary (Leiden, 1984), 4Google Scholar; Newlands, C., Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Empire (Cambridge, 2002), 36–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wray (n. 8); Newlands, C., Statius. Silvae Book II (Cambridge, 2011), 6–7Google Scholar. The penetrating discussions of Hinds (n. 8), Butler, (n. 8) and Petrain, D., ‘Hylas and Silva: etymological wordplay in Propertius 1.20’, HSPh 100 (2000), 409–21 shed light on the extent to which this simple metaphor could be elaborated on in the works of Roman poetsGoogle Scholar.

10 Cic. De or. 3.165 discusses the common practice of softening metaphors by use of a qualifying word or phrase (as with quandam at Inv. rhet. 1.34 and quasi in the citations from Orat. 12 and 139 above).

11 An analysis of such features and an illuminating discussion of the different stylistic registers of Cicero's works can be found in von Albrecht, M., Cicero's Style: A Synopsis, Mnemosyne Supplementum 245 (Brill, 2003), especially 27–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where specific consideration is given to the treatises and letters. On reading the letters as literature, see Hutchinson, G.O., Cicero's Correspondence: A Literary Study (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar, with further distinctions and reservations voiced by White, P., Cicero in Letters: Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic (Oxford, 2010), 89–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Many letters from this period say exactly this, only without the metaphor: Att. 12.14.3 (totos dies scribo, non quo proficiam quid sed tantisper impedior) and 12.18.1 (quos nunc lectito auctores) mentions reading and writing as a source of distraction from grief; 12.20.1 (possumne magis quam quod totos dies consumo in litteris?) and 12.38.1 (at ego hic scribendo dies totos nihil equidem levor, sed tamen aberro) have Cicero spending all day in literary work to the same end.

13 I take densa to refer to the large mass of consolatory works Cicero has been reading, though it could theoretically also be a comment on the terse style of his particular models, cf. OLD s.v. 4. As to aspera, Cicero's distraught letters from this period make it abundantly clear that he found the process of coping with grief quite painful, and at Att. 12.21.5 he likens his reading of works on dealing with grief to taking unpleasant medicine (accipere medicinam), which we should no doubt imagine as bitter and hard to swallow (cf. Lucr. 2.404 amara atque aspera on medicinal absinth, with the famous honeyed rim simile at 1.936). See also e.g. Att. 12.16: me scriptio et litterae non leniunt, sed obturbant. Further examples of this medicinal metaphor occur e.g. at Cic. Acad. 1.11: doloris medicinam a philosophia peto and Tusc. 3.1, where philosophy is characterized as animi medicina. Rutherford, R.B., The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar, 19 provides a concise overview and a list of relevant bibliography (with further references in n. 54).

14 Cicero makes reference to this lost work at Tusc. 1.65, 1.76, 1.83, 3.70, 3.76, 4.63, and presumably preserves some of its substance in the surrounding discussion. Fragments are collected in De Marco, M. (ed.), La consolazione (Milan, 1967)Google Scholar and Vitelli, C. (ed.), Consolationis fragmenta (Milan, 1979)Google Scholar. Van Wageningen, T., De Ciceronis libro Consolationis (Groningen, 1916)Google Scholar briefly, and not without substantial problems, attempts to reconstruct the contents of this work from extant fragments. Kumaniecki, K., ‘Die verlorene Consolatio des Cicero’, Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 4 (1968), 27–47 offers a sensible discussionGoogle Scholar, as does Redonet, F. Lillo, Palabras contra el dolor: La consolación filosófica latina de Cicerón a Frontón (Madrid, 2001), 195–215Google Scholar, who analyses the fragments, situating them against the backdrop of a proposed consolatory genre. Scourfield, J.H.D., Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (Oxford, 1993), 19–20 also discusses the work brieflyGoogle Scholar, noting Jerome's debt to Cicero at p. 13 (with n. 50) and passim in the commentary proper. Letters from later weeks show Cicero, still at Astura, engaged in further literary pursuits besides Consol. to distract him from his loss, cf. Att. 12.20, 12.21.5, 12.38a, 12.40.1–2, 12.44.4, 13.26.2.

15 As Cicero says at Att. 12.14.3, such a dedication was entirely unprecedented; cf. Lillo Redonet (n. 14), 197–8.

16 Att. 12.23.3 seems to reveal that Atticus had received the promised copy and was questioning Cicero about certain details. Shackleton Bailey, ad loc. discusses the issue, also noting that ‘Cicero did not regard [the draft] as final’.

17 As is claimed by e.g. Newmyer, S.T., The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme (Brill, 1979), 5–6Google Scholar. On the metaphorical extension of Greek ὕλη, Wray (n. 8), 134–5, charts a brief itinerary from Aristotle to the late first century c.e. and goes some way toward mitigating the (potentially, from a modern perspective) derogatory overtones of a so-called rough composition.