by Cicero
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Cicero, Marcus Tullius.
[Speeches. Selections. English]
Political speeches/Cicero; translated with introductions and notes by D. H. Berry.
p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Cicero, Marcus Tullius—Translations into English. 2. Speeches,
addresses, etc., Latin—Translations into English. 3. Rome—Politics
and government—265–30 B.C.—Sources. I. Berry, D. H. II. Title.
III. Series: Oxford world’s classics (Oxford University Press)
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1
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
CICERO
Political Speeches
Translated with Introductions and Notes by
D. H. BERRY
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
POLITICAL SPEECHES
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO (106–43 BC) was the son of a Roman eques from Arpinum, some 70 miles south-east of Rome. He rose to prominence through his skill in speaking and his exceptional success in the criminal courts, where he usually spoke for the defence. Although from a family that had never produced a Roman senator, he secured election to all the major political offices at the earliest age permitted by law. His consulship fell in a year (63) in which a dangerous insurrection occurred, the Catilinarian conspiracy; by his persuasive oratory and his controversial execution of five confessed conspirators, he prevented the conspiracy from breaking out at Rome and was hailed as the father of his country. Exiled for the executions by his enemy Clodius in 58 but recalled the following year, he lost his political independence as a result of the domination of politics by the military dynasts Pompey and Caesar. His governorship of Cilicia (51–50) was exemplary in its honesty and fairness. Always a firm republican, he reluctantly supported Pompey in the Civil War, but was pardoned by Caesar. He was not let into the plot against Caesar, but was in a sense its inspiration, being seen by now as a symbol of the republic. After Caesar’s assassination (44), he supported the young Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) and led the senate in its operations against Mark Antony. When Octavian and Antony formed the ‘second triumvirate’ with Lepidus in 43, Cicero was their most prominent victim; he met his end with great courage.
Cicero’s speeches are models of eloquence and persuasion; and together with his letters they form the chief source for the history of the late republic. His philosophical treatises, written in periods when he was deprived of his political freedom, are the main vehicle by which Hellenistic philosophy was transmitted to the west. His prose style raised the Latin language to an elegance and beauty that was never surpassed.
D. H. BERRY is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds. He has published an edition of and commentary on Cicero’s Pro Sulla (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 1996) and a translation Cicero: Defence Speeches (Oxford World’s Classics, 2000), to which this book is a companion volume. He lives in Leeds and the Scottish Borders.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Note on the Translation
Note on the Latin Text
Select Bibliography
Chronology
Maps
POLITICAL SPEECHES
In Verrem (‘Against Verres’) I
In Verrem (‘Against Verres’) II.5
De imperio Cn. Pompei (‘On the command of Gnaeus Pompeius’)
In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) I
In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) II
In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) III
In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) IV
Pro Marcello (‘For Marcellus’)
Philippic II
Explanatory Notes
Glossary
To my father
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THIS book has long been overdue to my patient publisher. That I have finally had time to write it, and with the care that it required, is due entirely to the generosity of two bodies: the University of Leeds, which granted me a University Study Leave Award in the Humanities from September 2003 to January 2004, and the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which granted me a Research Leave Award from February to May 2004. I am deeply grateful to both of them for effectively giving me the year I needed to bring this project to completion.
I am also grateful to Professor Andrew R. Dyck for letting me see his list of textual readings and his appendix on the date of In Catilinam I from his forthcoming Cambridge edition of the Catilinarian
s. It should perhaps be pointed out that I have not seen his edition and he has not seen this book; readers who use both works together will no doubt discover important differences of opinion between us. On the subject of editions, I should mention that I have profited enormously from those of W. K. Lacey, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, and, especially, J. T. Ramsey on the Second Philippic. If works of this quality were available for Cicero’s other speeches, my task would have been much easier—though also perhaps less necessary.
I have often thought while writing this book how lucky I am to be able to read Cicero in Latin, and to have studied Latin continuously since the age of 9. It was my father who paid for my education, and it is therefore fitting that I dedicate this book to him, with love.
ABBREVIATIONS
Asc. Asconius
Cic. Arch. Cicero, Pro Archia
Att. Epistulae ad Atticum
Brut. Brutus
Cael. Pro Caelio
Cat. In Catilinam
Clu. Pro Cluentio
Div. Caec. Divinatio in Caecilium
Fam. Epistulae ad familiares
Flac. Pro Flacco
Imp. De imperio Cn. Pompei (Pro lege Manilia)
Marc. Pro Marcello
Mur. Pro Murena
Off De officiis
Orat. Orator
Phil. Orationes Philippicae (Philippics)
Pis. In Pisonem
Scaur. Pro Scauro
S. Rosc. Pro Roscio Amerino
Sul. Pro Sulla
Ver. In Verrem
Plin. Nat. Pliny the Elder, Natural History
Plut. Ant. Plutarch, Life of Antony
Caes. Life of Caesar
Cat. Mi. Life of Cat? the Younger
Cic. Life of Cicero
Luc. Life of Lucullus
Pomp. Life of Pompey
Quint. Inst. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria
Sal. Cat. Sallust, Catilina
Note: Ver. 56 denotes § 56 of In Verrem I (the first actio or ‘hearing’); Ver. 2.5.56 denotes § 56 of In Verrem II.5 (the fifth speech of the second actio).
AJP American journal of Philology
CJ Classical Journal
CP Classical Philology
CQ Classical Quarterly
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
TAPA Transactions of the American Philological Association
INTRODUCTION
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO was the greatest orator of the ancient world. His dates were 106–43 BC: so he lived through the fall of the Roman republic. This was a period of national instability and unprecedented political competition, and the power of persuading others through speech became as important as it has ever been. Cicero rose to prominence not because of his birth (his non-aristocratic, Italian origin was a severe handicap to him), but because of his ability. He could persuade the ordinary citizens of Rome to vote down proposals that were in their interest, and he could (it seems) persuade just about any jury that black was white. In a gesture of triumph he published his speeches for his contemporaries and posterity to admire and imitate. Fifty-eight of these still survive today in whole or part. They are in every sense classics—works which have been read, enjoyed, quoted from, studied, and imitated by people in western societies, off and on, for two millennia. And in a world in which mass communication becomes ever more important, they retain their interest, relevance, and vibrancy.
Cicero excelled in both of the two main types of oratory, ‘forensic’ (the oratory of the forum, i.e. of the law courts, also known as ‘judicial’) and ‘deliberative’ (the oratory of the political assemblies). A third type, ‘epideictic’ (the oratory of display, or of praise and blame—more technically, ‘panegyric’ and ‘invective’), was less important at the higher political level in Cicero’s time, though from the 40s BC it started to take the place vacated by deliberative oratory, as senators’ freedom of action and expression was progressively removed. Cicero’s Defence Speeches,1 to which this book is a companion, contains five forensic speeches, all speeches for the defence, and all except one to some degree (like virtually all of Cicero’s speeches, in fact) connected with politics. This volume, on the other hand, presents a more diverse collection: two further forensic speeches, both speeches for the prosecution, four deliberative ones, and three epideictic ones (counting In Catilinam I, which does not fit easily into any scheme of classification, as an epideictic speech, and In Catilinam II–IV as deliberative speeches). All these speeches are strongly political, and the volume has therefore been called Political Speeches. (Incidentally, the term ‘political’ is used by some scholars as a synonym for ‘deliberative’, and so it should be pointed out that though all the speeches in this volume are ‘political’ in the normal sense, only a minority would be classed as ‘political’ in the sense of ‘deliberative’.) In Verrem (‘Against Verres’) I and II.5 are a prosecution of a corrupt governor of Sicily, and are concerned with Roman provincial government, and with the question whether senators deserve the exclusive right to sit on juries. De imperio Cn. Pompei (‘On the command of Gnaeus Pompeius’) is a classic deliberative speech recommending the appointment of Pompey (as Pompeius is known in English) to an important military command in Asia Minor; it also is concerned with Roman government, while at the same time giving us a clear view of the way politics worked at Rome, and the way magistrates presented themselves to their electors. In Catilinam (‘Against Catiline’) I–IV are a set of speeches originally delivered at four separate moments during the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC, when Cicero was consul: the first is a denunciation of Catiline in the senate, the second and third are reports to the people on the situation and the action Cicero has taken, and the fourth is Cicero’s contribution to the famous debate in the senate on the punishment of the conspirators. Pro Marcello (‘For Marcellus’) is an epideictic speech from the period of Caesar’s dictatorship: Cicero offers Caesar effusive thanks for permitting the return to Rome of his most implacable republican enemy. Finally, Philippic II is another epideictic speech, but from the period following Caesar’s assassination: this famous invective is the devastating attack on Mark Antony which was ultimately to cost Cicero his life. All these nine speeches have been consistently viewed as masterpieces of oratory since they were first written. At the beginning of the second century AD, Tacitus (Dialogus 37.6) singled out for special praise the speeches in which Cicero defended Milo and attacked Catiline, Verres, and Antony—a selection which includes seven of our speeches. But all the speeches presented here rank among the most celebrated works of Latin literature; and together they occupy an important place in western intellectual culture.
Cicero’s Public Career
Thanks to his voluminous writings, particularly his letters, we know more about Cicero than about any other person in ancient history. He was the elder son of a wealthy eques from Arpinum, a town about 70 miles south-east of Rome that had possessed full Roman citizenship since as early as 188 BC; his younger brother Quintus was also to pursue a public career with distinction, and share his brother’s brutal end. Arpinum was notable for being the home town of Gaius Marius, the seven-times consul and in 102 and 101 the saviour of Rome from the northern invaders; Cicero’s paternal grandmother was in fact a relation of Marius by marriage. In c.95 the Ciceros bought a house in Rome so that the two boys should have the best education possible, and Cicero studied rhetoric under the two most famous orators of the day, Lucius Licinius Crassus (consul in 95) and Marcus Antonius (consul in 99); both men were later rewarded by being given parts in one of Cicero’s mature rhetorical works, De oratore (‘On the orator’, 55 BC). During the Social War, Cicero saw military service: in 89 he served under Pompey’s father Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, and in 88 he served under Sulla. In 87 Marius occupied Rome and murdered his opponents, including Antonius. During the Cinnan regime which followed, Cicero continued his studies at Rome, studying rhetoric and, less usually, philosophy. In 82 Sulla recaptured the city, had himself appointed dictator, and ‘proscribed’ his enemies by
posting in the forum lists of those to be killed. It was now (81), at the age of 25, that Cicero undertook his first court case, a civil case for Publius Quinctius afterwards published as Pro Quinctio (‘For Quinctius’). He lost; but he lost to the most distinguished advocate in Rome, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus.
The next year (80) he undertook his first criminal case, Pro Roscio Amerino (‘For Roscius of Ameria’). This was a defence of a man, Sextus Roscius, who had been charged with the murder of his father. The trial became sensational when Cicero boldly exposed the unscrupulous profiteering of one of Sulla’s cronies, the freedman Chrysogonus, who was behind the prosecution; he won his case and became famous overnight. Among the briefs which came to him as a result of this success was the politically sensitive defence of the freedom of a woman from Arretium (a town in Etruria). This time Cicero argued successfully that Sulla had not been justified in stripping Arretium of its citizen rights. Both these cases helped Cicero to win the support of the Italians on whom he relied throughout his political career.
From 79 to 77 he studied abroad. The many cases which he had taken on immediately after the Roscius case had damaged his health (oratory was physically very demanding), and his defence of the woman from Arretium may also have made his absence from Rome politically expedient. The two brothers travelled to Greece, Rhodes, and Asia Minor (to which Quintus, who was also to pursue a political career, would later return as governor). They studied philosophy in Athens, and Cicero studied rhetoric under Molon of Rhodes. Molon, he later maintained, helped him to make his oratory a little more restrained, less ‘Asianist’ (elaborate and florid) in style. This toning down of his oratorical style was in keeping with the direction in which taste at Rome was moving, and it was also sensible in view of the risk to his health.
In 76 he was elected quaestor at Rome, and he served his term of office in western Sicily the following year. Election to the quaestorship brought life membership of the senate, and Cicero was the first member of his family to attain this distinction; thus he became in Roman terms a ‘new man’ (novus homo, the first man of a family to reach the senate).
