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On the interpretation of Cicero, De Republica1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Andrew R. Dyck
Andrew R. Dyck
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

Apropos congregatio Zetzel remarks ‘the metaphor is qualified by quasi…, as it more properly refers to animals rather than men’. It seems doubtful, however, that in general the -grego compounds were at this date felt as vividly metaphorical: segrego is used of human beings as early as Plautus and Terence (Mil. 1232; Heau. 386; other occurrences at OLD s.v., 1; Forcellini s.v., II); aggrego is commonly so used by Cicero (Zimmermann, TLL s.v., I). Moreover, our passage is the first attestation of congregatio. Cicero uses the word three times in De Finibus (2.109, 3.65, and 4.4), of which the latter two passages also refer to human beings but are without quasi. Hence the use of quasi in our passage is likely to be related above all to the newness of the term, albeit the etymology may be more strongly felt in a new coinage. Cf. TLL 4, 288.26ff.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , December 1998 , pp. 564 - 568
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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References

2 Fantham, E., ‘Aequabilitas in Cicero's political theory, and the Greek tradition of proportional justice’, CQ 23 (1973), 285–90, at 287.Google Scholar

3 1.43 contains a similar argument in more pointed form:... ipsa aequabilitas est iniqua. cum habeas nullos gradus dignitatis.Here aequabilitasevidently again means ‘even-handedness’ and, as the context suggests, refers to the distribution of honours; but there is still some difference between the ‘evenness’ (aequitas)of the honours distributed in the situation described in our passage and ‘evenhandedness’ (aequabilitas)in the distribution of honours in 1.43.

4 Zetzel ad loc referring toMeister, R., ‘Der Staatslenker in Ciceros De re publica’,WS57 (1939), 57–112, at 70, who in turn refers to Eduard Meyer, Caesars Monarchic und das Prinzipat des Pompejus2(Stuttgart and Berlin,1919), pp. 105 and 115ff., with full references to primary sources.Google Scholar

5 Cf.Gelzer, M., Caesar. Der Politiker und Staatsmann6(Wiesbaden,1960), pp. 108ff. = Caesar Politician and Statesman,trans. Peter Needham (Cambridge, MA,1968), pp. 119ff.Google Scholar

6 Cf.Heinrich, Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik3(Stuttgart,1990), §395.Google Scholar

7 Cf.Volkmann, M., RE8A1 (1955), 183.22ff.; Bleicken J., 23.2 (1959), 2446.1 Iff., citing earlier literature; Ogilvie R. M., A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5(Oxford, 1965), adl.%;Lintott Andrew W., ‘Provocatio. From the struggle of the orders to the principate,’ ANRW 2(1972), 226–67, at 231 (‘a probably anachronistic and invented fust provocatiolaw’); similar to Bleicken is Drummond A. in CAH72.2, 219–21 (the Lex Valeria of 300 alone authentic); somewhat differently Cornell T. J., 400, accepts that the ius provocationiswas enshrined in the Twelve Tables but admits that ‘the history of the institution of appeal... in the Roman Republic is very obscure’ and refers the reader back to Drummond.Google Scholar

8 For Cicero's probable use of the annalists in the archaeologia of Rep. 2cf.Elizabeth, Rawson, Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford, 1991), 64 and n. 1.Google Scholar

9 Democritus is played off against him at N.D.1.73 (see Pease ad be);similar use is made of Aristippus at Fin.1.23 and Off3.116.

10 Cf. Buchner K., M. Tullius Cicero,De Re Publica. Kommentar(Heidelberg, 1954), ad2.54.

11 PaceBleicken(n. 7 above), 2447.36–9 and 50–2.

12 Cf.Lintott(n. 7 above), 235 (‘may be an exaggerated deduction from his evidence’). Lintott accepts, however (too readily, I think), based only on Rep.2.54, that ‘the XII tables would have had to recognise provocatioas a fact of life’.

13 Cf.Bleicken(n. 7 above), 2447.48–50.

14 Cf. Coleman Norton P R., ‘Cicero's contribution to the text of the Twelve Tables’, CJ 46 (1950), 51–60 and 127–34, at 131; cf. also Bleicken(n. 7 above), 2447.15ff.

15 So Stavely E. S., ‘Provocatioduring the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.’, Historia3 (1955), 412–28, at 412–15, followed by Ogilvie, loc. cit., n. 7, and in turn by Zetzel ad Rep.2.54.1. It is difficult to see how the maximus comitiatusshould refer to the comitia conturiata,presided over by the consuls, rather than the concilium plebis,as Bleicken (n. 7 above), 2447.39ff., supposes; cf. also Crawford M. H.(ed.), Roman Statutes(London, 1996), 2.699.

16 He does, however, later (ad2.54.1) remark that the statement about the Twelve Tables can hardly stand at face value (see previous note).

17 Rawson (n. 8 above), 64.