Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (62 page)

Lentulus’ illustrious grandfather
: the man depicted on Lentulus’ seal; see second note on
Cat
. 3.10 above.

of all people
: the family from which Cicero came was equestrian, not senatorial, and rather than trying to conceal this, he frequently goes out of his way to draw attention to his special status as the senior senator with the closest ties to the equestrian order. See further D. H. Berry,
CQ
,
NS
53 (2003), 222–34.

Now … harmony with this order
: the long-standing conflict between the senators and the
equites
had in fact been substantially put to rest in 70 by the
lex Aurelia
, which resolved the question of who should control the courts by making juries effectively two-thirds equestrian and one-third senatorial. Mindful of his own special status and connections, Cicero was anxious to promote ‘harmony between the orders’ (
concordia ordinum
), and he viewed the unanimity between the senate (most of it),
equites
, and people over the Catilinarian question as evidence that this was being achieved. Conflict was to break out again in 60, however, when a company of
equites
demanded renegotiation of their contract for tax-farming in Asia.

the entire body of scribes
: a body (technically an ‘order’) of officials attached to the various magistracies; those attached to the quaestors dealt with financial matters and enjoyed the highest status (the poet Horace was one for a time). The scribes had come to the treasury (adjacent to the temple of Concord) because this was the day on which they drew lots for their posts for the year ahead (as did the new quaestors, who assumed office on 5 December). According to the Scholiasta Gronovianus (290 Stangl), when they saw the conspirators being taken to the senate, they left off what they were doing and offered themselves as guards.

that is how the matter stands
: it is likely that this paragraph was the ending of the original speech, and that §§ 19–24 were added on publication in 60
BC
: see H. Fuchs,
Hermes
, 87 (1959), 463–9. Fuchs draws attention to the verbal repetitions between §18 and §§19+24, and suggests that when §§19–24 were added in 60
BC
the copyists failed to suppress §18, with the result that we now have both of the alternative endings of the speech. See further second note on §21 below.

yonder eternal fire of Vesta
: see third note on
Cat
. 3.9 above. Cicero gestures in the direction of the temple, at the other end of the forum.

a single night
: that of 2–3 December.

Let Scipio have his fame
: on the generals mentioned in this paragraph, see second note on
Ver
. 2.5.25 (the elder Scipio), note on
Ver
. 2.5.14 (the
younger Scipio, Aemilius Paullus, Marius), and second note on
Cat
. 3.26 (Pompey), above.

unless perhaps … return in triumph
: Cicero compares Pompey’s achievement unfavourably with his own, arguing that Pompey merely extended the empire, whereas he saved Rome (the argument is rhetorically neat but faulty in logic, since he has just said that Pompey’s achievement was greater than that of Marius, who saved Rome twice). On the face of it, Cicero’s remarks would seem needlessly and inappropriately insulting to Pompey. But
Off
. 1.78 shows that he is in fact paraphrasing (and reminding his readership of) a gracious compliment that Pompey had paid him: ‘Gnaeus Pompeius, in many people’s hearing, paid me this compliment: he said that he would have brought home his third triumph in vain were it not for the fact that my service to the state had ensured that there was a home to which he could bring it.’ This compliment cannot of course have been paid by Pompey in the east and reported at Rome in time to be included in the original
Fourth Catilinarian
: news could not travel from Rome to Pontus (where Pompey was spending the winter) and back again between 3 and 5 December. The compliment will obviously have been made on or after Pompey’s return to Italy at the end of 62 (he paid Cicero a similar compliment immediately on his return: see
Phil
. 2.12). Our passage cannot therefore have been included in the original speech, and so must date from its publication in 60—a point which gives powerful support to Fuchs’s thesis (first note on §18 above). This conclusion is supported by the letter which provides our evidence for the publication of the
Catilinarians
. In that letter (
Att
. 2.1), after discussing the publication of his consular corpus, Cicero goes on to say (§ 6) that Pompey has been eulogizing his achievements, and has declared that whereas he had merely given the state good service, Cicero had saved it. Cicero was clearly flattered by these compliments, and it would seem that when he published his speech he could not resist slipping an allusion to one of them into his new ending—taking care, however, not to attribute it directly to Pompey, in order to avoid an anachronism.

are admitted
: i.e. to friendship and alliance with the Roman people.

instead of the province I have given up
: Macedonia. This sacrifice was also alluded to in § 2.

my little son
: also mentioned at § 3. Cicero is already thinking of the absolute necessity, for the maintenance of his own reputation and standing, of his 2-year-old son attaining the consulship (as did indeed happen, in 30
BC
).

out of a mixture of grief and diffidence
: cf.
Fam
. 4.4.4, where Cicero tells Sulpicius that he had made his decision to refrain from speaking because he no longer enjoyed the standing that had formerly been his.

in my work
: i.e. at the bar.

to raise a standard
: the military metaphor is chosen as a compliment to the addressee. For similar care taken in the choice of a metaphor relating to Caesar, cf. ‘laid the foundations’ at §25 below (where see note).

after reminding us … had wronged you
: Caesar had complained of Marcellus’ ‘bitterness’ (
acerbitas
) towards him when Marcellus was consul (
Fam
. 4.4.3).

but even to record them
: of course, Caesar wrote his
Gallic War
and
Civil War
, which were greatly admired for their purity of style. Those who consider Cicero’s flattery excessive may like to reflect on the fact that Caesar told Cicero around this time that it was a greater achievement to have advanced the frontiers of the Roman genius than to have advanced those of the Roman empire (Plin.
Nat
. 7.117).

the speed … your conquests
: the speed of Caesar’s conquests is famously illustrated by his remark
veni, vidi, vici
(‘I came, I saw, I conquered’), originally made in a letter to a friend after his victory over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, at Zela in 47 (Plut.
Caes
. 50.3).

that great personage
: Marcellus.

the excellent Gaius Marcellus
: the consul of 50 and cousin of Marcus Marcellus (not to be confused with Marcus’ brother Gaius, who by this time was dead).

the countless major thanks givings
: these were decreed in 57 for successes in Gaul, in 55 for the success in Britain, in 52 for successes in Gaul, and earlier in 46 for the victory at Thapsus.

the toga
: the toga, the formal garment of a Roman civilian, was a symbol of peace (cf. second note on
Phil
. 2.20 below).

a particular individual
: Pompey.

How often … in victory!
: cf. two letters of Cicero to Marcellus from this same time,
Fam
. 4.7.2 ‘I also saw your dissatisfaction, the utter lack of confidence you always felt in the way the civil war was conducted, in Gnaeus Pompeius’ forces, in the type of army he led. I think you remember that I held the same views. Accordingly, you took little part in the conduct of operations, and I was always careful to take none’; 4.9.3 ‘Did you not see as I did how cruel that other victory would have proved?’ (It is coincidences like this of the speech with Cicero’s private correspondence which lead us to conclude that the speech is likely to be sincere and not ironic.)

his physical location
: cf.
Att
. 11.6.6 (27 November 48) ‘Everyone who had stayed in Italy was counted as an enemy.’

that awful suspicion that you have expressed
: i.e. that there are people who are plotting to assassinate him. Cicero does not mention this complaint of Caesar’s in his letter to Sulpicius (
Fam
. 4.4). The fact that he feels free to refer to such a delicate and personal matter in his speech should be
seen as a compliment to Caesar, not a threat. (It is easy for us, with our knowledge that Caesar would indeed be assassinated, to make too much of this passage.)

have either … through their own stubbornness
: Cato springs to mind.

Courts must be established … the birth-rate raised
: in 46 Caesar altered juries from being effectively one-third senatorial and two-thirds equestrian to being half senatorial and half equestrian; in 47 he had carried measures to stabilize the economy; earlier in 46 he had carried a sumptuary law and granted himself a three-year ‘prefecture of morals’; and in 46 or later he legislated to provide payments for large families. To this programme Cicero here ‘promises his support with woolly generalizations’ (R. G. M. Nisbet in T. A. Dorey (ed.),
Cicero
(London, 1964), 74).

ornaments of its prestige
: including revenues and public buildings.

‘I have lived long enough for nature, or for glory’
: Caesar had recently turned 54. Cicero makes the same remark with reference to himself (aged 62) at
Phil
. 1.38.

laid the foundations
: the building metaphor is especially appropriate in view of Caesar’s many proposed construction projects (cf. the metaphor ‘to raise a standard’, used of Caesar, at §2 above). The most important of these projects, the Forum Iulium and the temple of Venus Genetrix, had been dedicated earlier in 46, but were not completed until after Caesar’s death.

the Rhine, the Ocean, the Nile
: Caesar reached the Rhine in 57 and bridged it in 55 and again in 53; he crossed the Ocean and invaded Britain in 55 and 54; and he won the Alexandrine War against Ptolemy XIII of Egypt in 47.

Among those yet to be born … find something missing
: an extraordinarily accurate prediction of the conclusions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship on Caesar.

as some mistakenly believe
: i.e. the Epicureans. Cicero was always hostile to their teachings. Cf.
Arch
. 30 ‘And whether I shall have no awareness, after I have died, of the world’s memory of me, or whether, as the wisest men have maintained, that recollection will indeed touch some part of my being, I do at least derive pleasure at this moment from the thought and hope that my achievements will be remembered.’

Ungrateful and unjust … is better
: i.e. those who have accepted Caesar’s pardon but remain secretly hostile to him are worse even than those who continued to resist him after Pharsalus, and fell at Thapsus.

his excellent and devoted cousin Gaius Marcellus
: see second note on §10 above.

over the past twenty years
: i.e. since his suppression of Catiline in 631 (according to the Roman system of inclusive reckoning, 63 to 44
BC
gives twenty years).

but in my case alone that I saved it
: the decree was passed on 3 December 63; cf.
Cat
. 3.15, 4.20.

in opposition to … an extremely close friend
: the details of the case, a civil hearing, are obscure. The stranger may have been Fadius, mentioned below, and the friend someone named Sicca, who appears in Cicero’s letters (
Att
. 16.11.1).

he
: Antony.

Quintus Fadius
: Cicero claims that Antony had fathered children from this man’s daughter; but if ‘son-in-law’ is not meant literally, as seems likely (cf. first note on §20 below), he does not actually claim that he had been married to her.

Gaius Curio
: Cicero is referring to the 60s when, he claims (§§44–6), Gaius Scribonius Curio was Antony’s lover. Curio was a friend of Clodius’, and after his death married his widow Fulvia. As tribune in 50, he transferred his allegiance from Pompey and the senate to Caesar in return for a massive bribe. He was killed in Africa in 49; Fulvia then (in 47 or 46) married Antony.

to stand for the augurate
: Cicero was elected to the augurate in 53 (or 52), filling the vacancy created by the death at Carrhae of Crassus’ son Publius. Antony was then elected in 50, in succession to the orator Hortensius (on whom see note on
Imp
. 51 above).

That you did not kill me at Brundisium?
: when Cicero gave up the republican cause after Pharsalus (48), Caesar (referred to below as ‘the victor himself’) asked Dolabella, Cicero’s son-in-law (later consul with Antony in 44), to write to Cicero ordering him to return to Italy; Cicero therefore crossed over to Brundisium. But afterwards Caesar instructed Antony (whom he had made ‘the chief of his band of brigands’, i.e. his Master of the Horse) to expel all the ex-Pompeians from Italy on pain of outlawry. Antony therefore asked Cicero to leave; but when Cicero showed him Dolabella’s letter, he publicly exempted him by name from the expulsion order.

the man who had saved them
: i.e. Caesar. Many of Caesar’s assassins, such as Brutus and Cassius, were ex-Pompeians whom he had pardoned.

that complaint
: the
First Philippic
, delivered in the senate on 2 September.

at your house … most disgraceful of markets
: on 17 March the senate had voted to ratify all Caesar’s acts, including those that had not yet been made public. Antony, who had already taken custody of Caesar’s private papers, soon began producing forged documents in Caesar’s name, often in return for massive bribes.