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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 February 2020
Pliny's celebration of Cicero's consular achievements contains a striking anomaly, namely the assertion that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius (HN 7.117). That statement turns Cicero, the victim of Antonius’ murderous vendetta, into the one who wielded the executioner's axe, and it abruptly shifts the focus of the passage from 63 to 43 b.c. Two slight corrections to the Latin text can eliminate the intrusion of the proscriptions by substituting a reference to the control Cicero exercised in 63 over Gaius Antonius, his consular colleague and an old ally of Catiline. In his In Pisonem (§5), Cicero takes credit for combatting the threat posed by his colleague, and it is highly probable that HN 7.117 mentioned Gaius (not Marcus) Antonius as well, since Pliny's summary of Cicero's consular deeds and honours is nearly identical to the one found in Pis. 4–6. The beauty of the emended text is that it restores both historical fact and a logical progression to the overall structure of Pliny's encomium.
I thank Bob Kaster, Christopher Pelling, Kathryn Welch and Michael Winterbottom for reading and commenting on earlier drafts. I thank John Briscoe for help with textual matters and Gesine Manuwald for an insightful discussion of the topic covered in n. 13. All English translations are my own.
1 Rouse, R. and Reeve, M. in Reynolds, L.D., Texts and Transmission (Oxford, 1983), 55Google Scholar, citing HN 7.116–17, speculate that Pliny may have drawn upon that collected edition. McDermott, W., ‘Cicero's publication of his consular orations’, Philologus 116 (1972), 277–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who argued that the planned corpus was never produced, concluded at 284 n. 25 that the polymath Pliny had only a general knowledge of Cicero's opera omnia.
2 For the correct date, 9 July, not 4 April as commonly assumed, see Ramsey, J.T., ‘The date of the consular elections in 63 b.c. and the inception of Catiline's conspiracy’, HSPh 110 (2018) (forthcoming in 2020)Google Scholar.
3 For the date, see Ramsey (n. 2).
4 In recognition of his preserving the state from destruction at the hands of the Catilinarians, Cicero was hailed parens patriae by the senior consular Q. Catulus (Cic. Pis. 6; Sest. 121, named pater patriae by Catulus and multi alii; cf. Phil. 2.12; Att. 9.10[177].3). Pliny may have understood ‘Father of the Fatherland’ to be a formal title conferred by a vote of the Senate, as was done later for Julius Caesar and the emperors, and he claims that Cicero was the first to be so honoured, a boast that Cicero himself never makes: see Kaster, R., Cicero, Speech on behalf of Publius Sestius (Oxford, 2006), 353–4Google Scholar. The context of Catulus’ salutation is commonly said to have been the meeting of the Senate on 3 December 63 (so Stein, P., Die Senatssitzungen der Ciceronischen Zeit (68–43) [Münster, 1930]Google Scholar, 14 n. 64), but Ryan, F.X., Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate (Stuttgart, 1998)Google Scholar, 15 n. 23 makes a convincing argument for putting the honour somewhat later in the month, not before 5 December.
5 The description of Cicero's unique and superior ‘laurel crown’ recalls the often-quoted line from Cicero's poem on his consulship (Consulatus suus fr. 11 Büchner = 16 Morel = 12 Courtney): cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi (‘let arms yield to the toga, let the laurel crown [of a military victor] take second place to honour [conferred on a statesman]’). The signal honour awarded to Cicero on 3 December 63 was, of course, not a triumph but a Thanksgiving (supplicatio), unique in that Cicero was the first and only civilian to receive that recognition (Cic. Cat. 3.15 quod mihi primum post hanc urbem conditam togato contigit; cf. Cat. 4.5; Phil. 2.13).
6 Garcea, A., Caesar's De Analogia (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar, 94–7 has recently defended the traditional assignment of Caesar's praise of Cicero to his Anticato (so Kübler, B. and Klotz, A. [edd.] Caesar, Commentarii et fragmenta, vol. 3.1 [Leipzig, 1897]Google Scholar, 146 and vol. 3 [Leipzig, 1927], 188 respectively). The rival view of Hendrickson, G.L., ‘The De Analogia of Julius Caesar; its occasion, nature, and date, with additional fragments’, CPh 1 (1906), 97–120Google Scholar, at 118–19 attributes Caesar's remarks to his De Analogia of 54 b.c., a work dedicated to Cicero. In support, Hendrickson adduces a possible allusion to Caesar's praise of Cicero at Brut. 255, which predates Caesar's Anticato by roughly a year.
7 Scholars have noted the intrusion without questioning the paradosis. E.g. Wolverton, R.E., ‘The encomium of Cicero in Pliny the Elder’, in Henderson, C. (ed.), Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of Berthold Ullman, 2 vols. (Rome, 1964), 1.159–64Google Scholar, at 161–2: ‘The real curiosity of his list, however, is the entry “you proscribed Mark Antony”.’; Schilling, R., Pline l'Ancien, Histoire naturelle, Livre 7 (Budé: Paris, 1977), 184–5Google Scholar: ‘Il déborde toutefois cette époque par l'allusion à la proscription d'Antoine.’; Winterbottom, M., ‘Cicero and the Silver Age’, in Vickers, B. (ed.), Rhetoric Revalued (Binghamton, NY, 1982), 237–64Google Scholar, at 238–9 n. 6: ‘Pliny, Nat. VII 116 thought Cicero's consulship enough to ensure his fame; but he mentions his dealings with Antony too (117).’; Darab, A., ‘Cicero bei Plinius den Ältere’, Acta Classica Univ. Scient. Debrecen. 31 (1995), 33– 41Google Scholar, at 39: ‘fügte er seiner Liste auch das tapfere Auftreten gegen Antonius hinzu, ohne dabei daran zu denken, daß es chronologische inconsequent ist.’; Beagon, M., The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal: Natural History, Book 7 (Oxford, 2005), 308Google Scholar: ‘P. here deviates from the consular speeches.’
8 Teubner, vol. 6 (Leipzig, 1865/1898), 37, citing HN 7.117, where, according to the paradosis, Cicero proscripsit Antonium, and 14.147, where Antonius is referred to as Cicero's interfector.
9 E.g. Beagon (n. 7), 308: ‘P. plays on the word proscribo … Cicero's condemnation and ultimate outlawing of Antony as a public enemy was [sic] immortalized in fourteen published speeches.’ Cf. Winterbottom (n. 7).
10 quem ego inustum uerissimis maledictorum notis tradam hominum memoriae sempiternae (‘But I shall brand him with the marks of insults of the truest sort that will always be remembered by future generations’).
11 aeternas Antonii memoriae inussit notas.
12 Asc. 83C. For a splendid analysis of the dynamics of that political alliance, see Stone, M., ‘Three men in a hurry: the consular elections of 64 b.c.’, Classicum 19 (1993), 2–4Google Scholar.
13 Sall. Cat. 26.4. The harmony that Cicero claims he established with his colleague by early January 63 (Leg. agr. 2.103, ex concordia quam mihi constitui cum collega) indicates that the exchange of provinces is likely to have taken place in late 64, while Cicero and Antonius were still consuls-designate. That timing of the pact between them makes the best sense since, even before the plebeian tribunes of 63 entered office on 10 December 64, Cicero became aware of their intention to sponsor an agrarian bill that he was likely to want to oppose as soon as he entered office on 1 January (Leg. agr. 2.11–14). To have embarked upon the opposition without first neutralizing a potential threat from C. Antonius would have been risky (cf. Plut. Cic. 12.3–4). Rafferty, D., ‘Cisalpine Gaul as a consular province in the Late Republic’, Historia 66 (2017), 147–72Google Scholar, at 162 n. 94 has challenged this reconstruction of events on the ground that the way in which Cicero describes his future governorship as going out to ‘a province’ (in provinciam, Leg. agr. 1.26), as opposed to a specific province, implies that Macedonia and Cisalpina were not yet assigned as of the date of that speech, 1 January. However, Cicero's failure to name a particular province need not mean that the sortitio of provinces, or the exchange with Antonius, had not yet taken place. Rather, Cicero may have spoken in general terms merely to contrast the role of a provincial governor with that of a magistrate in Rome. Or, he may have refrained from naming his proconsular province either because the deal with Antonius was still somewhat provisional or because he was not yet ready to make it public.
14 Since Cicero obtained Cisalpina by exchanging provinces with Antonius (commutaui), there must have been a drawing of lots. This rules out the possibility that the consuls decided by mutual agreement which province each was to govern, as was done, for instance, in 109 and 75 (Sall. Jug. 43.1, Hist. 2.86R.11, respectively). Lintott, A., Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 150 allows for Macedonia and Cisalpina to have been assigned by either method, but clearly Antonius must have opted for sortitio in the hope of obtaining Macedonia, if he could, without having to make a deal with Cicero.
15 Ironically, only the De Othone is likely to have caused Cicero's audience to change its outlook on the spot (if the account in Plut. Cic. 13.4 is to be believed). Pliny exaggerates the persuasive power of the other two speeches. It is doubtful that Rullus’ bill failed to become law because the people did not want to be given land (Michell, T.N., Cicero: The Ascending Years [New Haven, 1979]Google Scholar, 186 n. 19), and apart from the claim by Pliny there is no good evidence that the bill was put to a vote and was rejected by the Assembly (Lintott, A., Cicero as Evidence [Oxford, 2008]CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 142 citing in n. 37 Rab. perd. 32 and Sull. 65). For the likely fate of the bill, see Manuwald, G., Cicero, Agrarian Speeches (Oxford, 2018), xxivGoogle Scholar, and ibid., 106 for a fine discussion of how re<pudiauistis> at Rab. perd. 32 bears upon this question. It is also highly improbable that Cicero's speech justifying his decision not to allow the sons of the proscribed to stand for public office caused them to feel shame (puduit). We are told that Cicero himself openly admitted the harshness of the Sullan regulation he was upholding for the sake of the stability of the state (Quint. Inst. 11.1.85).
16 As Zetzel, J., Cicero, Ten Speeches (Indianapolis, 2009)Google Scholar, 236 n. 22 remarks, the De Othone, although included in the list of Cicero's consular orations at Att. 2.1(21).3, did not suit Cicero's purposes in the In Pisonem.
17 For the date, see Ramsey (n. 2). The exchange itself, as argued at n. 13 above, was almost certainly made in the latter half of 64.
18 Cf. the similar way in which Cat. 1 is described in Att. 2.1(21).3: septima qua Catilinam emisi (‘the seventh [speech in the collection] by means of which I sent Catiline forth). Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (Cicero's Letters to Atticus, vol. 1 [Cambridge, 1965]Google Scholar; Cicero: Letters to Atticus, vol. 1 [Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1999]) fails to capture the nuance of qua by translating ‘when I sent Catiline out of Rome’, as if Cicero had written cum instead. See F.X. Ryan, ‘Anent the Ciceronian speech title cum quaestor Lilybaeo decederet’, published online on 2016 at https://independent.academia.edu/FXRyan (consulted 30 November 2018), 1–5, at 5.
19 Cf. Juv. 8.243–4, sed Roma parentem, | Roma patrem patriae Ciceronem libera dixit. Pater patriae was the standard imperial title (Dig. 48.22.18.1).
20 Cf. n. 5 above.
21 In the context of HN 7.117, we can rule out the meaning ‘cheat’ or ‘defraud’ for circumscribo (TLL 3.1162.35–1163.31; OLD s.v. 6), since Pliny portrays all of Cicero's actions in a positive light.
22 ‘I state that Catiline and Antonius met with their bribery agents at the house …’.
23 ego Antonium conlegam and quam cum Antonio commutaui.
24 Leaving aside HN 7.117, out of the eighteen passages listed under M. Antonius in the Teubner index (see n. 8 above) that refer to the triumvir by name, twelve style him Antonius without praenomen (7.55, 7.147, 9.119, 10.110, 21.12, 32.3, 33.50, 33.82, 33.132, 34.6, 34.58, 37.81), against only half that number in which the praenomen is expressed (2.99, 8.55, 14.147, 19.22, 31.11, 35.200).