Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (58 page)

our disaster
: Triarius’ defeat at Zela (67
BC
). This was Mithridates’ greatest success against the Romans: 7,000 Romans were killed and their camp was taken.

to his father’s army … against formidable enemies
: Pompey (born 106
BC
) served in the Social War under his father the consul Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo at Asculum in 89.

at the end of his childhood … of a great commander
: he continued to serve under his father during the civil war of 87.

at the beginning of his youth … of a great army
: during 83–81, when he fought for Sulla in Italy, Sicily, and Africa. His father had died in 87.

Civil, African, Transalpine, Spanish … slave, and naval wars
: Pompey fought civil wars against the Marian consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo in Sicily (82) and against the anti-Sullan rebel Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in Etruria (77); he fought against Cinna’s son-in-law the Marian Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and King Iarbas in Africa (81); against Gallic tribes while on his way to Spain (77–76); against the Marian rebel Sertorius in Spain (76–72); against the remnants of Spartacus’ slave revolt (71); and against the pirates (67).

you
: the Roman people.

how many cities of your allies … captured by the pirates?
: Plutarch (at
Pomp
. 24, a fascinating account of the extent of piracy before 67
BC
and the Romans’ utter powerlessness in the face of it) says that the pirates captured 400 cities.

the crossing from Brundisium
: to Greece.

twelve axes
: i.e. two praetors, with their twelve lictors (‘axes’ refers to the
fasces
: see Glossary). Plutarch (
Pomp
. 24) gives the praetors’ names as Sextilius and Bellienus; we do not know their year of office.

Can you be unaware … by pirates at Misenum?
: nothing is known about the incident at Caieta (a port in Latium close to Campania); the praetor was certainly not Marcus Antonius Creticus, as is sometimes suggested. The general whose child was kidnapped at Misenum (at the tip of the northern headland of the Bay of Naples) is known from Plut. Pomp. 24 to have been Marcus Antonius, the orator (see second note on
Ver
. 2.5.3 above). Antonius was praetor in 102 and fought a war against the Cilician pirates, triumphing at the end of 100; he was then consul in 99. Plutarch says that it was Antonius’ daughter that was kidnapped (‘as she was taking a trip into the countryside’), whereas Cicero says ‘the children’; but in Latin ‘children’ was sometimes written for ‘child’, as at
S. Rosc
. 96
(cf. Aulus Gellius 2.13). Plutarch adds that the daughter ‘fetched a very rich ransom’.

that setback at Ostia
: Dio also mentions this (36.22.2), but gives no date and says nothing about a consul (Dio’s account of the problem of piracy, less informative than Plutarch’s but still useful, is at36.20–3). Ostia, the port of Rome, was ‘virtually under your very eyes’ because it was only 15 miles from Rome, at the mouth of the Tiber.

within the mouth of Ocean
: i.e. in the Mediterranean, the mouth of Ocean being the Strait of Gibraltar.

people from as far away as Crete
: Quintus Caecilius Metellus (afterwards ‘Creticus’), the consul of 69, had been engaged in conquering Crete, with great cruelty, since 68, and the Cretans were anxious to surrender to Pompey so as to secure better terms than they would obtain from Metellus. Metellus and Pompey fell out over the incident. Metellus organized Crete as a Roman province in 66.

completed by midsummer
: 67
BC
. Pompey cleared the western Mediterranean in forty days and then the eastern Mediterranean in forty-nine days.

more from a comparison with others
: the passage which follows contains strong criticism of other, unnamed contemporary generals. Cicero must mean his audience to think first of Lucullus: had he not intended this, he would have excluded him explicitly.

statues, paintings, and other works of art … theirs for the taking
: Lucullus was a great art collector (Plut.
Luc
. 39); this reference of Cicero’s is an indication that he is thinking of Lucullus throughout this passage.

in a war that affected all peoples
: the war against the pirates. Cicero is referring to the day on which the
lex Gabinia
was passed.

after the catastrophic defeat … a short while ago
: at Zela, referred to at §25.

the province
: Asia.

the enemies of the Roman people
: the pirates.

and when envoys … wished to surrender!
: on this incident, see first note on §35 above. Pompey was in Pamphylia at the time (§35); Cicero greatly exaggerates the distance involved, which was only about 400 miles. It is also misleading of him to suggest that the Cretans offered their surrender to Pompey rather than to Metellus because his authority was greater: they were hoping for more favourable terms.

And did not Mithridates … to Gnaeus Pompeius?
: we know about Mithridates’ negotiations with Sertorius in Spain (§9), but hear nothing anywhere else about any approach he may have made to Pompey at that time. Such an approach seems on the face of it highly improbable.

those who resented … expressly to Pompeius
: the reference will be to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius (first cousin once removed of Metellus
Creticus, the ‘commander of ours’ referred to above). Metellus Pius had been consul with Sulla in 80, and had then fought unsuccessfully against Sertorius in Spain until being joined by Pompey in 76. It would not have been unnatural if he felt resentment towards Pompey, who was not even yet a senator, but he did in fact co-operate fully with him in the campaign against Sertorius.

those kings
: Mithridates and Tigranes.

Maximus, Marcellus, Scipio, Marius
: see notes above on
Ver
. 2.5.25 (Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus), 2.5.84 (Marcellus), and 2.5.14 (Scipio Aemilianus and Marius). Sulla, though famed for his luck, is not mentioned, since Cicero is speaking before the people (who, generally speaking, had been well disposed to Marius and had hated Sulla; cf. second note on §8 above).

as indeed you do
: a reminder that in this speech Cicero is preaching to the converted.

Quintus Catulus … Quintus Hortensius
: Quintus Lutatius Catulus (the consul of 78) and Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (the consul of 69), the chief opponents of the bill. Both were prominent conservatives; Hortensius was married to Catulus’ sister. On Catulus, see second note on
Ver
. 44 above. Hortensius was Rome’s most foremost orator until defeated by Cicero in the Verres trial in 70; the complimentary reference to his ‘talent’, below, is to his oratorical ability. After Cicero attained the consulship, he and Hortensius worked together as partners in the courts; but they were never close friends. The people had a great respect for Catulus; Hortensius, by contrast, was not popular.

Aulus Gabinius
: the tribune of 67 who proposed the
lex Gabinia
giving Pompey his command against the pirates. He was later to become consul in the year that Cicero was exiled (58); declining to support him, he thereby earned his undying hatred and became a target of his invective. He was convicted of extortion in 54 or 53, after Pompey had forced Cicero to defend him—one case Cicero was happy to lose. See further second note on
Phil
. 2.48 below.

King Antiochus and King Perseus
: Rome fought the Antiochean War against Antiochus III of Syria in 192–189
BC
; there were naval victories at Corycus in 191 and at Myonnesus in 190. Perseus of Macedon was defeated in a land battle at Pydna in 168, in the Third Macedonian War (172–167). His fleet in fact defeated the Roman fleet in 170, and then surrendered to the Romans after Pydna without fighting; but Cicero’s audience would no doubt be unaware of this.

and defeated the Carthaginians
: in the First Punic War (264–241
BC
).

The island of Delos
: a great commercial centre, particularly after the destruction of Corinth in 146
BC
, and the centre of the slave trade in the eastern Mediterranean. It was sacked in 69 by the pirates, who enslaved the inhabitants; Mithridates had also sacked it in 88.

the Appian Way
: the road from Rome to Capua; it follows the coast, and so no doubt was vulnerable to pirates. If Cicero is referring to a specific incident, it is unknown.

this very platform
: the rostra. It was adorned with bronze prows taken from warships of Antium (in Latium) captured in 338
BC
.

you
: the Roman people. Latin has singular and plural forms of personal pronouns, so the ambiguity in the English is not present in the Latin.

opposition to the request … appointed as his legate
: sponsors of laws were not allowed to hold any o ffice created by their own law, and therefore Gabinius was unable to serve as a legate of Pompey’s in the campaign against the pirates; Cicero affects to consider this merely a technicality (cf. §58 below, ‘So are people going to insist on the letter of the law …?’). Once the
lex Manilia
was passed, however, Pompey’s command no longer derived from the
lex Gabinia
, and at this point Gabinius could, and did, take a position as one of his legates.

Gaius Falcidius, Quintus Metellus, Quintus Coelius Latiniensis, and Gnaeus Lentulus
: all were presumably still alive, since the phrase ‘whose names I mention with the greatest respect’ is only used by Cicero with reference to the living. T. P. Wiseman argues (
CQ
, NS 14 (1964), 122–3) that this list must be in order of seniority, and suggests that (i) Falcidius was tribune and legate in the 80s; (ii) Metellus is probably Metellus Creticus (see first note on
Ver
. 26 above), presumably tribune in 82 and legate in 81; (iii) Coelius was perhaps tribune and legate in the 70s (‘Latiniensis’ may be a geographical description, ‘of the
ager Latiniensis
’, not a
cognomen
); and (iv) Lentulus is Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, tribune in 69, legate in 68, and later consul in 56. R. Syme (
JRS
53 (1963), 55–60), on the other hand, takes Quintus Metellus as Celer (consul in 60), not Creticus, and makes all four tribune in 68 and legate in 67. This is surely ruled out by Cicero’s order, which places the obscure Falcidius first; but Marcellinus’ tribunate should probably be dated, with Syme, to 68.

two very serious wars … by the same man, Scipio
: Cicero here says the same thing twice over (while claiming not to be saying it at all), that one man, Scipio Aemilianus, ended the Third Punic War by destroying Carthage in 146, and then went on the end the war in Spain by destroying Numantia in 133. (Here ‘the Spanish war’ refers to the Numantine War; at §28 it referred to the war against Sertorius.)

against Jugurtha … against the Teutoni
: see note on
Ver
. 2.5.14 above.

for a mere youth … at a time of national crisis
: when, in 83 (aged 23), he raised three legions from his father’s veterans in Picenum and went to join Sulla on his return to Italy. After that he went on to fight Carbo in Sicily and Domitius and Iarbas in Africa (see fourth note on §28 above), before returning to Rome for a triumph in 81 (or possibly 80).

much too young to qualify for senatorial rank
: quaestors joined the senate at
the end of their year of office, and, under a law of Sulla’s of 81, no one could become a quaestor before the age of 30 (or praetor before 39 or consul before 42). Pompey omitted all the junior magistracies, and remained an
eques
until 70, when he became consul at the age of 35.

two illustrious and valiant consuls
: Decimus Junius Brutus and Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, consuls in 77 when Pompey was sent to fight Sertorius in Spain. The consuls had refused to go to Spain themselves, probably because they knew they were not capable of undertaking such a difficult war (which took even Pompey a full five years).

Lucius Philippus … but with that of both the consuls!
: Lucius Marcius Philippus was consul in 91 and censor in 86; he conquered Sardinia for Sulla in 82. The oldest consular still active in politics, he was a man of considerable influence in the post-Sullan era. He was noted for his witticisms, of which this one, which Cicero quotes again at
Phil
. 11.18, is the most famous. It is (naturally) snappier in Latin than in English,
non … pro consule sed pro consulibus
.

at an age … any curule office
: i.e. when he became consul in 70, he was not even old enough to hold the praetorship (see second note on §61 above). He could, however, have held the curule aedileship, to which Sulla seems not to have attached any age qualification. (
curulem
, ‘curule’, is the conjecture of D. R. Shackleton Bailey, and is absolutely necessary to the sense, since Pompey was of course old enough to hold the noncurule office of quaestor; see
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
, 83 (1979), 254.)

a second triumph by senatorial decree
: in 71, for his victory over Sertorius (see note on
Ver
. 45 above). The first triumph (in 81 or 80) was actually granted by Sulla, but was no doubt rubber-stamped by the senate.

with the full endorsement … of equal standing
: Catulus and the other senators had of course opposed Pompey’s appointment to the pirate command, which is why Cicero omits that departure from precedent from his list.

the greed and corruption … in recent years
: Cicero’s prosecution of Gaius Verres four years earlier allows him to speak on this subject with some authority.

they know well … their lamentations
: yet Hortensius had defended Verres.

as if we did not see that Gnaeus Pompeius is ‘great’
: a reference to Pompey’s
cognomen
Magnus (‘Great’), adopted in imitation of Alexander the Great in 81. (This is the only such reference in this speech: in this translation the English word ‘great’ is used to translate other Latin words besides
magnus
.)