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I. Cicero and Roman Politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
Mommsen, as Warde Fowler wrote, ‘had a strange, passionate nature which never loved or hated men or things by halves, and was too apt to judge them from feeling and prejudice’; in his History of Rome ‘the force of his convictions was equalled by the strength of his language; the audacity of some of his judgements of men and institutions almost paralysed criticism, and we have only in recent years begun to shake ourselves free from the spell he laid upon us’. Nowhere of course is this truer than in his demolition of Cicero—like so many memorable and famous pieces of writing astonishingly brief when one goes back to look at it. But though still usually regarded as the villain (or the hero) of the anti-Ciceronian movement, he did not begin it all.
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References
page no 5 note 1 In a lecture delivered in 1909, and published in Roman Essays and Interpretations (Oxford, 1920), 250 ff.
page no 5 note 2 History of Rome, iii. 619-21 (v. 504 Eng. trans.).
page no 5 note 3 The full title is Geschichte Roms in seinem Übergange von der republikanischen nur monarchischen Verfassung.
page no 5 note 4 Groebe’s revision of Drumann vol. vi (1929), pp. ix-xi.
page no 6 note 1 On these changes in approach cf.Sherwin-White, A. N., JRS xlvi (1956), 1 fGoogle Scholar. On the prosopographical approach the locus classicus for English readers is Syme, chs. ii-vi. The foundations were laid in the nineteenth century, but the subject was transformed by the extraordinary combination of diligence and brilliance shown by Münzer, F. in Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Stuttgart, 1920)Google Scholar and his numerous biographies in Pauly-Wissowa’s RE.
page no 6 note 2 So Syme’s numerous prosopographical studies include articles with titles like ‘Who was Decidius Saxa?’ (JRS xxvii (1937), 127 ff.), ‘Who was Vedius pollio?’ (JRS li (1961), 23 ff.).
page no 6 note 3 Syme, p. 11. Cf.Earl, D. C., The Moral and Political Tradition of Rome (London, 1967), chs. i. and ii, who writes (p. 54)Google Scholar: ‘Nor had the terms Optimates and Populares very much to do with differences of political principle. Both were concerned only (sic) to win political power.’
page no 6 note 4 So Earl, D. C., Tiberius Gracchus (Brussels, 1963)Google Scholar. The ‘decline’ of the ‘demagogues’, except perhaps for Gaius Gracchus, in the eyes of historians is in its way as remarkable as the ‘decline’ of Cicero.
page no 6 note 5 Syme, p. 15.
page no 6 note 6 e.g. ‘supporting the grant of an extraordinary command to Pompeius, from honest persuasion or for political advancement’ (p. 137). The school of historical thought which I shall criticize could be summarily described as one that cannot conceive of that ‘or’ being replaced by ‘and’.
page no 7 note 1 Well-known examples of a more sympathetic approach are Boissier, G., Cicéron et ses amis (1st edn., Paris, 1865)Google Scholar, Zieliński, T., Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte (1st edn., Berlin, 1897)Google Scholar, Strachan-Davidson, J., Cicero (London, 1894)Google Scholar. Later but still unusually favourable for its date was Petersson, T., Cicero, a Biography, (Berkeley, 1920)Google Scholar, a very full account not confined to Cicero as politician.
page no 7 note 2 Heinze, R., Ciceros politische Anfänge, first published in 1909, and reprinted in Vom Geist des Römertums (Stuttgart, 1960)Google Scholar.
page no 7 note 3 Op. cit. 500 f.
page no 7 note 4 Büchner, K., Cicero: Bestand und Wandel seiner geistigen Welt (Heidelberg, 1964)Google Scholar, and in Studien zur römischen Literatur ii: Cicero (Wiesbaden, 1964), 1 ff.
page no 8 note 1 ‘Cicero the Man’ in Dorey, pp. 171 ff.; Julius Caesar and Rome (London, 1967).
page no 8 note 2 Cf., e.g., the frustration at the end of 63 of ‘Cicero’s wish to address the populace in a bombastic speech’ (p. 46), attributed in Dorey, p. 179 to Metellus Nepos’ ‘gross ill manners’; ‘in . . . 59 even Cicero, who was so often Pompey’s poodle, wrote of him with unbridled malice’ (p. 62); ‘Milo’s chief counsel, Cicero, collapsed into near speechlessness’ (p. 112; but see below, p. 16). At their meeting in 45 ‘Cicero was irritated by Caesar’s refusal to talk politics’ (p. 166—but the overtones of the words σττουδαΐον ούδίν . . ., φιλόλογα multa (Att. xiii. 52. 2) are not obvious: a tinge of relief is as likely as anything. Caesar’s appointment of Caninius Rebilus as consul for half a day ‘provoked Cicero to near-hysteria’ (ibid.).
page no 8 note 3 Op. cit. 336 ff.
page no 9 note 1 ‘Honesty in Roman Politics’ in Dorey, pp. 27 ff.
page no 9 note 2 Cf. Balsdon in Dorey, pp. 196 ff.
page no 9 note 3 Cf. Dorey, pp. 38 ff., R. G. M. Nisbet’s edn. of De Domo sua (Oxford, 1939), pp. xv–xvi Google Scholar.
page no 9 note 4 Cf. Balsdon in Dorey, p. 206.
page no 9 note 5 Drumann, op. cit. 450; Cicero, Att. xi. 9. 2; Petersson, Cicero, 17.
page no 9 note 6 Cf.Mackenzie, W. J. M., Politics and Social Science (Harmondsworth, 1967), 287 ffGoogle Scholar. A number of his incidental remarks should be taken to heart by students of Cicero’s oratory. By ‘language’ I do not mean merely ‘vocabulary’, on which see p. 16, n. 2.
page no 10 note 1 And on other equally perplexed occasions, cf. Strachan-Davidson, Cicero, 427-9.
page no 10 note 2 On this see Sherwin-White, A. N., JRS xlvi (1956), 1 fGoogle Scholar.
page no 10 note 3 Cf.Finley, M. I., Past & Present xxi (1962), 19 Google Scholar: ‘Politicians regularly say that what they are advocating is in the best interests of the nation, and, what is much more important, they believe it. Often, too, they charge their opponents with sacrificing the national interest for special interests, and they believe that.’
page no 10 note 4 The late Lord Attlee was once reported as saying that the mere intriguers never got very far in politics.
page no 10 note 5 Syme, ch. xi (‘Political catchwords’) is brilliant.
page no 10 note 6 Syme, p. 144.
page no 10 note 7 Again the eternal politician; the optimism is, I think, more noticeable in the speeches than the letters, and politicians have various motives for not appearing gloomy in public.
page no 11 note 1 In his essay on Lord Bacon, ad init.
page no 11 note 2 Plut. Cic. 49. 3; Syme, pp. 318 ff.
page no 11 note 3 A young Roman historian once asked me: ‘How did you do Roman history without MRR?’ i.e. without the fund of prosopographical information in T. R. S. Broughton’s Magistrates of the Roman Republic (New York, 1952, and suppl. 1960).
page no 11 note 4 Cf.Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.
page no 12 note 1 Cf. on the rude Greek tutor Dionysius (Att. viii. 4. 2): quibus litteris ita respondit ut ego nemini cuius causant non reciperem . . . . numquam reo cuiquam tarn humili tam sordido tam nocenti tam alieno tam praecise negavi quam hic mihi.
page no 12 note 2 [Sall.] Invectiva in Ciceronem, 5.
page no 12 note 3 On the development in the literary sources of the meaning patronus = ‘defending counsel’ out of the original legal status see Neuhauser, W., Patronus und Orator (Innsbruck, 1958)Google Scholar.
page no 12 note 4 Cf., e.g., Ferguson, J., Moral Values in the Ancient World (London, 1958), 53 ffGoogle Scholar.
page no 12 note 5 Brunt, P. A., Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. N.S. xi (1965), 1 ffGoogle Scholar.