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CICERO'S PRO MILONE AND THE ‘DEMOSTHENIC’ STYLE: DE OPTIMO GENERE ORATORUM 10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2014

Giuseppe La Bua
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Extract

In a passage from the late rhetorical treatise generally known as De optimo genere oratorum, Cicero defends his past forensic competence in the face of Atticist critique by praising his Pro Milone as an example of grand style (9–10):

quod qui ita faciet, ut, si cupiat uberior esse, non possit, habeatur sane orator, sed de minoribus; magno autem oratori etiam illo modo saepe dicendum est in tali genere causarum. (10) ita fit ut Demosthenes certe possit summisse dicere, elate Lysias fortasse non possit. sed si eodem modo putant, exercitu in foro et in omnibus templis, quae circum forum sunt, conlocato, dici pro Milone decuisse, ut si de re privata ad unum iudicem diceremus, vim eloquentiae sua facultate, non rei natura metiuntur.

If anyone speaks in this manner without being able to use a fuller style if he wishes, he should be regarded as an orator, but a minor one. The great orator must often speak in that way in dealing with cases of such a kind. (10) In other words, Demosthenes could certainly speak calmly, but Lysias perhaps not with passion. But if they think that at the trial of Milo, when the army was stationed in the Forum and in all the temples round about, it was fitting to defend him in the same style that we would use in pleading a private case before a single judge, they measure the power of eloquence by their own limited ability, not by the nature of the art.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 29 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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References

1 Latin text and English translation of De optimo genere oratorum from Hubbell, H. M., Cicero. De inventione. De optimo genere oratorum. Topica (Cambridge, MA, 1969)Google Scholar.

2 For the chronology of the speech, see Clark, A. C. (ed.) M. Tulli Ciceronis. Pro T. Annio Milone ad Iudices Oratio (Oxford, 1895), 127–9Google Scholar; Ruebel, J., ‘The Trial of Milo in 52 b.c.: A Chronological Study’, TAPhA 109 (1979), 231–49Google Scholar. On Cicero's strategy in the trial, see Riggsby, A. M., Crime and Community in Ciceronian Rome (Austin, TX, 1999), 105–12Google Scholar.

3 Asconius Pedianus informs us (41.24–42.2C) that Cicero cum inciperet dicere, exceptus est acclamatione Clodianorum, qui se continere ne metu quidem circumstantium militum potuerunt. itaque non ea qua solitus erat constantia dixit (‘When Cicero began to speak, he was greeted by barracking from the Clodians, who could not contain themselves despite their fear of the surrounding soldiery. And so Cicero spoke with less than his usual steadiness’; English translation of Asconius from R.G. Lewis, Asconius. Commentaries on Speeches of Cicero, rev. J. Harries, J. Richardson, C. Smith, and C. Steel [Oxford, 2006]). In contrast, Plutarch (Vit. Cic. 35) claims that Cicero was frightened by the view of the Forum cordoned off by Pompey's troops.

4 manet autem illa quoque excepta eius oratio (‘What he actually said was taken down and also survives’; Asc. 42.2C). For the delivery of the ‘first’ Pro Milone, see also Quint. 4.2.25; Plut. Vit. Cic. 35; Cass. Dio 40.54.1–4; Schol. Bob. 111.24–112.17 St.; a fragment from the first speech is preserved in Quint. 9.2.54 and Schol. Bob. 173 St. On the ‘taken down’ version of the speech, see Marshall, B. A., ‘Excepta Oratio, the Other Pro Milone and the Question of Shorthand’, Latomus 46 (1987), 730–6Google Scholar; Dyck, A. R., ‘The Other Pro Milone Reconsidered’, Philologus 146 (2002), 182–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Settle, J. N., ‘The Trial of Milo and the other Pro Milone’, TAPhA 94 (1963), 268–80Google Scholar, is sceptical about the diffusion of court stenography in the late Republic, and claims that the first Pro Milone was a forgery or rather a later rhetorical exercise.

5 Steel, C. E. W., Reading Cicero. Genre and Performance in Late Republican Rome (London, 2005), 118Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 120–1.

7 Crawford, J. W., M. Tullius Cicero. The Lost and Unpublished Orations, Hypomnemata 80 (Göttingen, 1984), 212CrossRefGoogle Scholar, observes that by writing up a separate speech for publication Cicero ‘wished to make clear his position and erase any doubts about his loyal support of Milo’. For a brief survey of scholarly arguments about the differences or similarities between the spoken and published versions of Pro Milone, see 211, n. 6.

8 For scepticism about an extensive ‘reworking’ of the delivered text, see Wisse, J., ‘The Riddle of the Pro Milone: The Rhetoric of Rational Argument’, in Powell, J. (ed.), Logos. Rational Argument in Classical Rhetoric, BICS Supplement 96 (London, 2007), 66–7Google Scholar; L. Fotheringham, ‘Having your Cake and Eating It: How Cicero Combines Arguments’, in Ibid. 69 f. A more balanced view can be found in Powell, J. and Paterson, J. (eds.), Cicero. The Advocate (Oxford, 2004), 55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who claim that Cicero's own version of Milo's case may have functioned as a ‘corrective’ of the circulating unauthorized transcript of the speech: this would have not implied a diversion from the line of defence adopted at the trial itself, as Cicero followed the line of argument he used in court but he rewrote his speech (in good part, I presume) in order to delete memory of an inglorious stylistic-political failure.

9 Asc. 42.3–4C; Quint. 4.2.25; Plin. Ep. 1.20.4; see also Schol. Bob. 112.12–13 St.

10 On the magnificent narrative of the extant version of the speech, see May, J. M., The Trials of Character. The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos (Chapel Hill, NC, 1988), 129–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 May, J. M., ‘The Ethica Digressio and Cicero's Pro Milone: A Progression of Intensity from Logos to Ethos to Pathos’, CJ 74 (1979), 240Google Scholar; Steel (n. 5), 130. See also Crawford (n. 7), 211, n. 5.

12 An indirect allusion to Mil. 40, in particular to Clodius’ escape from Antony's attack, is found in Phil. 2.21. See also Molyneux, J. H., ‘Clodius in Hiding?’, CQ 11 (1961), 250–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Hendrickson, G. L., ‘Cicero De optimo genere oratorum’, AJPh 47 (1926), 109–23Google Scholar; Kennedy, G. A., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World, 300 B.C.–A.D. 300 (Princeton, NJ, 1972), 258Google Scholar; Ochs, D., ‘Cicero's Rhetorical Theory: With Synopses of Cicero's Seven Rhetorical Works’, in Murphy, J. J. and Katula, R. A. (eds.), A Synoptic History of Classical Rhetoric (Davis, CA, 1995) 154, 179 fGoogle Scholar.

14 The question of the authenticity of De optimo was raised by Dihle, A., ‘Ein Spurium unter der rhetorischen Werken Ciceros’, Hermes 83 (1955), 303–14Google Scholar, who viewed Asconius’ expression libro…qui Ciceronis nomine inscribitur ‘de optimo genere oratorum’ (‘in the work attributed to Cicero entitled “On the best kinds of orators”’; 30.5–6C) as proof of the fact that the rhetorical treatise, felt to be a forgery by the commentator himself, circulated under Cicero's name in the first century ce; the absence of citations from the work in Quintilian and the roughness of style further validated the theory of the spuriousness of the work. See also Bringmann, K., Untersuchungen zum späten Cicero, Hypomnemata 29 (Göttingen, 1971), 256–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a survey of the scholarly debate on the genuineness of De optimo see Berry, D. H., ‘The Value of Prose Rhythm in Questions of Authenticiy: The Case of the De Optimo Genere Oratorum Attributed to Cicero’, Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 9 (1996), 62–3Google Scholar, who has successfully demonstrated how the use of prose rhythm in the treatise, matching that in Brutus and Orator, might be a strong argument in favour of its authenticity.

15 Berry (n. 14), 62. See also Ronconi, F., ‘De optimo genere oratorum: storia di un abbozzo’, Appunti Romani di Filologia 1 (1998), 43–68Google Scholar.

16 See Wisse, J., ‘Greeks, Romans, and the Rise of Atticism’, in Abbenes, J. G. J., Slings, S. R., and Sluiter, I. (eds.), Greek Literary Theory after Aristotle. A Collection of Papers in Honour of D. M. Schenkeveld (Amsterdam, 1995), 65–82Google Scholar.

17 Berry (n. 14), 62. See also Riggsby, A. M., ‘Self-fashioning in the Public Eye: Pliny on Cicero and Oratory’, AJPh 116 (1995), 128Google Scholar, n. 8.

18 See G. Manuwald (ed. and comm.), Cicero. Philippics 3–9 (Berlin, 2007), i.129–38, esp. 135; Usher, S., ‘Sententiae in Cicero Orator 137–9 and Demosthenes’ De corona’, Rhetorica 26.2 (2008), 99–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 As Berry (n. 14), 62, opportunely notes, in De optimo Cicero draws attention to the misuse of the term Atticism, which ‘ought more appropriately to be applied to those who follow Demosthenes’ example – by implication Cicero – rather than to Cicero's detractors’.

20 Cf. Cic. Brut. 289.

21 On the ethical and pathetical presentation of logical argumentation in the speech, see May (n. 11).

22 Holliday, V. L., Pompey in Cicero's Correspondence and Lucan's Civil War (The Hague, 1969), 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 On the exordium (preface) of the speech, permeated with gladiatorial metaphors, see Axer, J., ‘Tribunal–Stage–Arena: Modelling of the Communication Situation in M. Tullius Cicero's Judicial Speeches’, Rhetorica 7.4 (1989), 308–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tzounakas, S., ‘Stoic Implications in the Exordium of Cicero's Pro Milone’, Sileno 35.1–2 (2008), 179–90Google Scholar.

24 Rawson, B., The Politics of Friendship. Pompey and Cicero (Sydney, 1981)Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 139–41. See also van Ooteghem, J., Pompée le Grand. Bâtisseur d'empire (Bruxelles, 1954), 436–54Google Scholar; Greenhalgh, P., Pompey. The Republican Prince (London, 1981), 83–6Google Scholar; Seager, R., Pompey the Great. A Political Biography (2nd edn, Oxford, 2002), 133–7, 182–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Pompey's support of Milo's rivals, see also Dyck, A. R., ‘Narrative Obfuscation, Philosophical Topoi, and Tragic Patterning in Cicero's Pro Milone’, HSPh 98 (1998), 239–40Google Scholar (with further bibliography).

26 Berry, D. H., ‘Pompey's Legal Knowledge – Or Lack of It: Cic. Mil. 70 and the Date of Pro Milone’, Historia 42.4 (1993), 503Google Scholar.

27 Stone, A. M., ‘Pro Milone: Cicero's Second Thoughts’, Antichthon 14 (1980), 88–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berry (n. 26).

28 On an ironic reading of the praise of Pompey's virtues, see Hutchinson, G. O., Cicero's Correspondence. A Literary Study (Oxford, 1998), 150, n. 18Google Scholar, who assumes that ‘the whole published speech is intended to display Cicero's courteous but adroit handling of those in power’.

29 Fotheringham, L., ‘Cicero's Fear: Multiple Readings of Pro Milone 1–4’, MD 57 (2006), 82–3Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., 72.

31 For the revision of the speech at the time of publication, in view of Cicero's ambiguous attitude towards Pompey, see Stone (n. 27); Berry (n. 26); Alexander, M. C., The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era (Ann Arbor, MI, 2002), 20–2Google Scholar.

32 Gildenhard, I., Paideia Romana. Cicero's Tusculan Disputations (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar.

33 Dugan, J., Making a New Man. Ciceronian Self-fashioning in the Rhetorical Works (Oxford, 2005), 175CrossRefGoogle Scholar.