Benario (1973) Cicero. Reipublicae Amantissimus

Cicero.
Reipublicae amantissimus
Author(s): Herbert W. Benario
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov., 1973), pp. 12-20
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3295720
Accessed: 10-08-2017 19:14 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS) is collaborating
with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Journal
This content downloaded from 200.45.170.1 on Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:14:21 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
CICERO - REIPUBLICAE AMANTISSIMUS
Text of a paper read at the APA session of the annual meeting of ACTFL, November 24, 1972,
Atlanta.
MY SUBJECT is Cicero;
his literary output, yet(atCicero
so important least in hisconfounds
own view) his rolethe
in thescholar.
last So vast is the bulk of
thirty years of the republic before the advent of the Second Triumvirate, so varied the
judgments on his career and character since the days of the Renaissance, that one
hesitates to treat the man whole. The last enormous biography of Cicero in English
that concerned itself with the entire man was Torsten Petersson's, which appeared in
1920; G. C. Richards' (1935) was on a much more modest scale. More recently
attention has been focussed particularly upon the political aspects in such works as R.
E. Smith's Cicero the statesman (1966) and David Stockton's Cicero, a political
biography (1970); these books, by excellent English scholars, are so different in their
judgment of their subject, although allied in general approbation, that a reader may
wearily inquire, "What is truth?" Views strongly critical of Cicero in public life still
appear to carry the day; perhaps typical, although more astringent than most because
of his own powerful style, is the judgment of Sir Ronald Syme in The Roman revolu-
tion, published in 1939 and still, I think, the most penetrating book of our time on the
late republic and the transition toward empire (Syme is here referring to Cicero's
vendetta against Antony):
Fanatic intensity seems foreign to the character of Cicero, absent from his
earlier career: there precisely lies the explanation. Cicero was spurred to
desperate action by the memory of all the humiliations of the past - exile, a
fatal miscalculation in politics under the predominance of Pompeius and the
compulsory speeches in defence of the tools of despotism, Balbus, Vatinius
and Gabinius, by the Dictatorship of Caesar and the guilty knowledge of his
own inadequacy. He knew how little he had achieved for the Republic despite
his talent and his professions, how shamefully he had deserted his post after
March 17th when concord and ordered government might still have been
achieved....
It might fairly be claimed that Cicero made ample atonement
failures and earlier desertions, if that were the question at issue
natural and indeed laudable partiality for Cicero, and for the 'be
may cover the intrusion of special and irrelevant pleading. The pri
of Cicero, his rank in the literature of Rome, and his place in the
civilization tempt and excuse the apologist, when he passes from
ter of the orator to defend his policy. It is presumptuous to hold
over the dead at all, improper to adduce any standards other than
man's time, class and station. Yet it was precisely in the eyes of
raries that Cicero was found wanting, incompetent to emulate the
virtues of Caesar and of Cato, whom Sallustius, an honest man and no de-
tractor of Cicero, reckoned as the greatest Romans of his time. Eager to
maintain his dignitas as a consular, to pursue gloria as an orator and a states-
man, Cicero did not exhibit the measure of loyalty and constancy, of Roman
CICERO - REIPUBLICAE AMANTISSIMUS 13
virtus and aristocratic magnitudo a

tant claims of his personal ambition
The enormity of Cicero as a subject

that the article dealing with him in th
Wissowa spans almost 450 columns, w
product of four authors, dealing inde
sophical works, his rhetorical writings
of my knowledge, has a committee bee
Gelzer, is concerned with the public c
book, Cicero, ein biographischer Vers
in 1969 and filled 426 pages. An Engli
book on Caesar as a political figure, h
In the time allotted me today, it wo
well-rounded portrait of today's Cicero
life and policy, and within these limit
help overcome the pejorative judgmen
Mommsen's bitter denunciation of a c
repeated statements, from the third c
who played to both sides.
One of the greatest advances in the st
workings of Roman politics. Thanks t
Syme, above all, it is now clear that th
coherent programs. Politics were based
adoption often crucial in the enlargem
one's position. The senate after Sulla c
conjecture that all were equal in impo
senate were normally controlled by t
bers of the great families that had
whose family had had at least one con
jealous of their prerogative. A man
prestige even though his talent migh
the almost exclusive possession of the
to attain the highest office was a poll
credebant, si eum quamvis egregius ho
Few new men consequently made the
often allied with families of distincti
were fautrix suorum regio and had nu
they remained outsiders in the capital
were not real Romans; the slur hur
inquilinus civis urbis Romae,3 must
achievement was indeed remarkable; h
homo elected to the consulate in a thir
intentionally ignored an undistinguish
always took pride in the fact that he w
1 P. 144, 146.
2 Cat. 23.6.
3 Cat. 31.7.
14 HERBERT W. BENARIO
earliest legal age. His

hindrance from offic
triumph in the prosec
Lily Ross Taylor, in
Cicero gained Verres'
aedile, whereas Verre
senate, he would still
the state. But he woul
where a strict rule of
motion, called first f
the men of praetorian
lower ranks in the sen
ence for the future w
count in thie senate.
would have the privil
instead of the men of
Rising in the senate
political advantage bu
But Cicero's demolitio
position among Roman
oratory, at the servic
mately brought him t
pride of family often
Cicero's consular year
form of a land bill pr
in persuading the Ro
much material advant
mental in having so
seemed to be fully a
considered defense of
not surprising, theref
ened war and destruc
gruntled noble and p
involvement in a con
recently has been to u
attempt on the part
prosecuted for illegal
whom they had defea
does not link Catiline
Gruen's words, "The
ing for the consulshi
dignitas.... There is
ground and 'straw me
tion."5
But all three did exist or were threatened in 63, and the danger was real. Cicero did
force Catiline to overplay his hand and did forestall his every action; the consul's
4 P. 113.
5 E. S. Gruen, p. 22. Full references are given in the Bibliography at the end of the article.
excessive use of the verb comperi was m

title of pater patriae which was voted h
done the commonwealth. Yet, the glori
Sallust related with Caesar and Cato as
the conspirators had mixed results for h
"his Nones"; as Seneca put it, non sin
nobility, now that the danger was past,
once he was struck, first in his pride, t
safety, in the turmoil that culminated in
Cicero, upon the customary occasion o
term of office, was prevented by th
Nepos, bearer of one of Rome's greatest
requisite oath that he had performed h
that no man who had put others to d
Cicero and Nepos continued their diffic
painful exchange of letters between Ci
husband of Catullus' Clodia/Lesbia), wh
accept a novus homo as a member of the
full citation; its arrogance is patent.
Si vales, benest. Existimaram pro m

ata gratia nec absentem me a te ludi
dictum capite ac fortunis per te opp
defendebat, debebat vel familiae nos
remque publicam satis sublevare
desertum, a quibus minime conveni
provinciae, qui exercitui praesum, qu
nec maiorum nostrorum clementia a
paenitebit. Te tam mobili in me
interea nec domesticus dolor nec cui
Cicero's reply was lengthy and conci

nothing. During the years between his
were the leaders of the Optimates, men
greater names. Cicero never, until his
civitatis.
But does that mean, in the last analysis, that his career was a failure? Were his
programs for the well-being of the commonwealth, concordia ordinum and consensus
omnium bonorum, merely idle slogans, or did they bear promise? And what of his own
political and public behavior? Did he adhere to the high precepts that he continually
expounded in letter and essay?
"If we remember anything about Cicero's political ideas," writes E. Rawson, "it is
that he believed in the right and duty of the senate to exercise supremacy in Rome,
but that he also advocated a concordia ordinum, an alliance between and recognition
of the common interests of senators and equites, to whom property and the status quo
were sacred. Closely connected with this is the idea of a consensus omnium bonorum,
a wider alliance to include most of the plebs, and Italy. In the service of this ideal of
6 Brev. Vit. 6.1.
unity he believed that th

popularis, though he sho
their wishes; and that al
views by which we distin
above all Cato, who are le
It used to be thought th
own inventions. But th
Cicero's political thought
in Roman history and th
scorn these slogans as un
for reasonable alliances in
classes rather than upon
prevailed. Nor did Cicer
afterward, when the ef
moments of great stress
cordia embraced more th
equestrians and his desir
equites since the days o
realistically met the situ
ordinum before his cons
present from his early ca
of this concept; the idea
ened concordia.
The most detailed exposition of who the good men are, or should be, appears in an
extended discourse in the speech Pro Sestio, of 56 B.C., where the word boni
expanded to include even freedmen and slaves, all who are not revolutionaries and wh
cherish and protect the existing order. This part of the speech, covering sections 96 t
143, is not an irrelevant intrusion, for the entire speech may be interpreted as being
defense of lex and ius against vis. This defense will be successful only if all men of
good will join in it.
Although, in the last analysis, Cicero's harmony of the orders failed, since the time
were too violent, he continued to adhere to the Greek theory of the mixed an
well-balanced constitution exemplified by the heyday of the Roman republic. H
believed further that the purpose of government was a moral one, and the statesman
chief duty was to have regard for the moral welfare of those he governs. The theory
government was expounded further. in the De republica, which may have been less
theoretical and idealistic than many scholars think it to have been. Here he supports
reinvigorated form of the old republican constitution, with the addition of the conce
of a moderator, rector, or tutor rei publicae above and outside the constitution. Th
statesman will not hold any of the regular magistracies but will rather be an enlight
ened elder statesman, wielding influence through his auctoritas. Pompey the Great i
often considered the man whom Cicero had in mind for this role, yet Pompey
personality and career make it appear unlikely that he would have been content with
it. Whether the young Octavian, the later Augustus, was at all influenced by this
philosophical essay in the gradual evolution of his principate and his own position
the state is a question that can never be answered with absolute certainty. Sym
among others, argues strongly against this view: "Only a robust faith can discover
7 E. Rawson, p. 75.
authentic relics of Cicero in the Republ

totally idle to think that Augustus knew
Cicero's political essay proved to be the m
more so than Plato's Republic and Aristo
form of government that, in essence, surv
Consideration of Cicero's political actio
reveals pursuit of an ideal "with a rema
considering the chaotic political situatio
dictated primarily not by motives of pe
contemporaries, he was led on in all his
differed from them in judging the idea
togatus, whose influence prevailed in the
Cicero was not a hypocrite. It is now p
followed in practice a set of political
theoretical works." That may indeed be
reach a proper conclusion about Cicero t
the study of Caesar are efficiency and su
and humanity. That is what the whol
Cicero is that in an age when power polit
ly principled."10o
One of the most penetrating students o
government, E. Badian, finds Cicero's ac
often repelling narrative of Roman impe
of Cicero's scheme for a concordia ordin
upon Cicero's actions while governor of C
the concept of the empire as a patrocin
honorable behavior was unintelligible to
those exemplars of integrity, Cato and B
Cato chose to commit suicide rather th
came a legend almost in his own lifetim
and has consequently, beginning with S
of the late republic. Cicero's final strugg
for that with his life. He has consequen
(if indeed that designation is allowed) w
fairer to credit him with some of the glo
a victa causa? Cicero recognized, better
and did not hearken back to the simpler
was Cato, not Cicero, who spoke and acte
than among the dregs of Romulus.
Balsdon's judgment is grudging and ne
time a constructive political thinker, rea
creation of an effective machinery for t
Italy, the subordination of the armed fo
see in the provinces of the Empire a gr
more than a collection of large-scale pub
This failure does not rank him below his
8 p. 321.
9 S. E. Smethurst, p. 73.
10 A. E. Douglas, p. 7, 8, 10.
not Augustus's politi

opportunity."11
Stockton is consider
political principle; rat
main object was to pr
methods and pursue am
no obligation to share
we must try to under
of property, the rule
opposed to dominatio,
concerned with form
with the existing sta
alternative - absolute
But these opportuni
army, upon which dy
notorious line of po
linguae, but the orat
general's armed migh
the life of Scipio Aem
when senatorial author
not yet been overwhel
in the future.
These are modern jud

lowing Cicero's murder
the friend of Ovid, of
only to Vergil if he ha
And the heads of gr

on their own rostra
of Cicero in death,
minds of men the g
discovery of the gu
the punishment of
holy desires. What
honours, or his polis
glory, and, smitten
tongue. Once sole pr
leader of his countr
religion and of the
ever under the sava
sprinkled with blood
his countryman in h
nor regarded slippe
wash away this sta
Perses, nor with th
triumph over Jugur
11 J. P. V. D. Balsdon, "C
12 D. Stockton, p. 166.
fell to our wrath, yet carried his limbs invi
Velleius Paterculus, the historian who lived un

his responsibility in the terrible deed of Decemb
By the crime of Antony, when Cicero

people was severed, nor did anyone raise a
for so many years had protected the inter
private citizen. But you accomplished no
indignation that surges in my breast compe
set for my narrative - you accomplished no
for the sealing of those divine lips and the
and by encompassing with a death-fee the m
the man who once had saved the state. You took from Marcus Cicero a few
anxious days, a few senile years, a life which would have been more wretche
under your domination than was his death in your triumvirate; but you di
not rob him of his fame, the glory of his deeds and words, nay you bu
enhanced them. He lives and will continue to live in the memory of the ages
and so long as this universe shall endure - this universe which, whethe
created by chance, or by divine providence, or by whatever cause, he, almost
alone of all the Romans, saw with the eye of his mind, grasped with h
intellect, illumined with his eloquence - so long shall it be accompanie
throughout the ages by the fame of Cicero. All posterity will admire the
speeches that he wrote against you, while your deed to him will call forth
their execrations, and the race of man shall sooner pass from the world than
the name of Cicero be forgotten.14
About two score years later, the elder Pliny delivered himself of an encomium
Cicero, perhaps not unique in the literature of the first century A.D., when o
considers Velleius' eulogy, but nonetheless remarkable:
Hail, first recipient of the title of Father of the Country, first winner of a
civilian triumph and of a wreath of honour for oratory, and parent o
eloquence and of Latium's letters; and (as your former foe, the dictato
Caesar, wrote of you) winner of a greater laurel wreath than that of any
triumph, inasmuch as it is a greater thing to have advanced so far the frontiers
of the. Roman genius than the frontiers of Rome's empire.15
In general, tributes to Cicero in antiquity focus upon his literary genius and achiev
ments, about which there can be no realistic dispute, rather than upon his stature as
public figure. Hence all the more significant to me is the judgment of a man who wa
consummate statesman and politician, who succeeded in reforming and revitalizing t
13 The translation is that of W. A. Edward, The suasoriae of Seneca the Elder (Cambridg
1928), p. 74-75. Cf. W. Morel, Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum (Teubner 1927, reprinted 1963),
118-119.
14 2.66. The translation is F. W. Shipley's in the Loeb Library edition (London and New Yo
1924), p. 193.
15 H.N. 7.117. The translation is H. Rackham's in the Loeb Library edition (Cambridge, Ma
and London 1942) II, p. 583.
Roman world as non

Plutarch tells us tha
reading a book. The
appeared, but August
Augustus returned it
title for this paper),
my boy, an eloquent
than to agree with A
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. E. BADIAN, Roman imperialism in the late republic (Ithaca, N. Y. 1971).

2. J. P. V. D. BALSDON, "Auctoritas, dignitas, otium," Classical quarterly 10 (1960) 4
3. I-. C. BOREN, "Cicero's concordia in historical perspective," Laudatores temporis a
in memory of Wallace Everett Caldwell, ed. M. F. Gyles and E. W. Davis, Chapel
1964) 51-62.
4. P. A. BRUNT, " 'Amicitia' in the late Roman republic," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philo-
logical Society 11 (1965) 1-20.
5. T. A. DOREY, ed., Cicero (Studies in Latin literature and its influence, London 1964).
6. A. E. DOUGLAS, Cicero (Greece & Rome, New surveys in the Classics No. 2, Oxford 1968).
7. E. S. GRUEN, "Notes on the 'First Catilinarian Conspiracy,' " Classical philology 64 (1969)
20-24.
8. W. K. LACEY, "Cicero, Pro Sestio 96-143," Classical quarterly 12 (1962) 67-71.

9. E. RAWSON, "Lucius Crassus and Cicero: the formation of a statesman," Proceedings of
Cambridge Philological Society 17 (1971) 75-88.
10. R. SEAGER, "The First Catilinarian Conspiracy," Historia 13 (1964) 338-347.
11. S. E. SMETHURST, "Cicero and Roman imperial policy," Transactions of the Ame
Philological Association 84 (1953) 216-226.
12. S. E. SMETHURST, "Politics and morality in Cicero," Phoenix 9 (1955) 111-121.
13. S. E. SMETHURST, "Cicero and the senate," Classical journal 54 (1958) 73-78.
14. R. E. SMITH, Cicero the statesman (Cambridge 1966).
15. D. STOCKTON, Cicero, a political biography (Oxford 1970).
16. R. SYME, The Roman revolution (Oxford 1939).
17. L. R. TAYLOR, Party politics in the age of Caesar (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1949).
18. M. WHEELER, "Cicero's political ideal," Greece & Rome 21 (1952) 49-56.
19. CH. WIRSZUBSKI, "Cicero's cum dignitate otium: a reconsideration," Journal of Ro
studies 44 (1954) 1-13.
20. T. P. WISEMAN, New men in the Roman senate 139 B.C.-A.D. 14 (Oxford 1971).
21. R. E. WOLVERTON, "The encomium of Cicero in Pliny the Elder," Classical mediaeval and
renaissance studies in honor of Berthold Louis Ullman, ed. C. Henderson, Jr., I (Rome
1964), 159-164.
22. Z. YAVETZ, "The failure of Catiline's conspiracy," Historia 12 (1963) 485-499.
Addendum: Since the above was written, D. R. SHACKLETON BAILEY's Cicero (New York
1972, c. 1971) has appeared. Written with the author's customary verve and drawing heavily
upon his masterful edition and translation of the Epistulae ad Atticum, the book does not paint
a favorable picture of the public Cicero.
HERBERT W. BENARIO
Emory University
16 Cic. 49.5.

Benario (1973) Cicero. Reipublicae Amantissimus

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Benario (1973) Cicero. Reipublicae Amantissimus

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Cicero.

virtus and aristocratic magnitudo a

The enormity of Cicero as a subject

earliest legal age. His

excessive use of the verb comperi was m

Si vales, benest. Existimaram pro m

Cicero's reply was lengthy and conci

6 Brev. Vit. 6.1.

unity he believed that th

authentic relics of Cicero in the Republ

not Augustus's politi

These are modern jud

And the heads of gr

fell to our wrath, yet carried his limbs invi

Velleius Paterculus, the historian who lived un

By the crime of Antony, when Cicero

Roman world as non

1. E. BADIAN, Roman imperialism in the late republic (Ithaca, N. Y. 1971).

8. W. K. LACEY, "Cicero, Pro Sestio 96-143," Classical quarterly 12 (1962) 67-71.

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen