by Cicero
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).
PRO MARCELLO
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the speed of Caesar’s conquests is famously illustrated by his remark veni, vidi, vici (‘I came, I saw, I conquered’), originally made in a letter to a friend after his victory over Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, at Zela in 47 (Plut.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.
PHILIPPIC II
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 … mo
st 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.
you admitted that … in your own interest: the reference is to the passage on 2 or 3 June of the law which extended his and Dolabella’s governorships of Macedonia and Syria respectively from two to five years. It was illegal for the proposer of a law, or his colleagues or relatives, to receive any commission or power from the law which he had proposed.
you were going around with an armed escort: he did this from the time of his return to Rome from Campania on c. 18 May. It was illegal to bear arms within the city boundary.
Marcus Crassus: Cicero always disliked Marcus Licinius Crassus (the consul of 70 and 55 and member of the ‘first triumvirate’), and had a stormy relationship with him. Crassus had suspected that Cicero was behind the attempt to incriminate him in the Catilinarian conspiracy (Sal. Cat. 48.8–9).
a letter: Antony had written to Cicero in April to ask him to agree to the recall from exile of Sextus Cloelius (in the 50s the leader of Clodius’ gang, convicted in 52 for his part in the violent disturbances following Clodius’ death); Cicero had readily agreed. Both letters survive (Att. 14.13A, 14.13B). Antony’s is respectful but menacing, Cicero’s fulsome and insincere.
Mustela Seius and Tiro Numisius: the commanders of Antony’s guard. Their names were actually Seius Mustela and Numisius Tiro; the inversion is a sign of contempt.
your knowledge of which has been so lucrative: see second note on § 6 above.
your teacher: the rhetorician Sextus Clodius, from Sicily. Cicero will reveal the fee he was paid at § 43 (‘two thousand iugera of arable land at Leontini’).
Of course … to be mine: ironic.
in the manner of his appointment: he was appointed by Caesar rather than elected by the Roman people in the normal way.
For what decision … vote of this order?: Cicero had held a debate and vote in the senate before executing the captured Catilinarian conspirators on 5 December 63.
the thing which did for both of them: i.e. Fulvia, the wife in turn of Clodius, Curio, and Antony (see fourth note on § 3 above). She hated Cicero, not without reason, and is said to have insulted and mutilated his head and tongue after his murder (Dio 47.8.4). On Clodius’ death, see first note on § 21 below.
Publius Servilius: Publius Servilius Vatia Isauricus, the consul of 79, who had died earlier in the year. Cicero will now go on to name the other consulars of 63, now dead, who expressed their approval of his consulship by voting a thanksgiving in his honour on 3 December (that this is the meeting which Cicero refers to is shown by § 13 below, ‘Lucius Cotta proposed a thanksgiving …, and the consulars I have just named … accepted the proposal’; it cannot be the meeting of 5 December because Crassus was absent from that (Cat. 4.10) but is named here). The consulars named are: Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul in 78), Lucius Licinius Lucullus (consul in 74), his brother Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus (consul in 73), Marcus Licinius Crassus (consul in 70), Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (consul in 69), Gaius Scribonius Curio (consul in 76—his name is out of order), Gaius Calpurnius Piso and Manius Acilius Glabrio (consuls in 67), Manius Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Volcacius Tullus (consuls in 66), and Gaius Marcius Figulus (consul in 64). The meeting referred to took place, of course, two days prior to the executions—but it would have been the executions, not the arrest of the conspirators, for which Antony had criticized Cicero. This passage, therefore, impressive as it is, fails to answer Antony’s charge.
Decimus Silanus and Lucius Murena: Decimus Junius Silanus and Lucius Licinius Murena, the consuls of 62 (the latter of whom owed his consulship to Cicero’s Pro Murena).
Marcus Cato: Marcus Porcius Cato, the tribune-elect whose speech on 5 December persuaded the senate to vote for execution. A committed Stoic, he committed suicide after Thapsus (46) rather than submit to Caesar, thereby winning undying fame as a republican martyr.
Gnaeus Pompeius: Pompey was away from Rome in 63, settling the east after concluding the Third Mithridatic War (73–63). He returned to Italy at the end of 62. See further second note on Cat. 4.21 above.
A packed senate approved my consulship: on 3 December.
Lucius Cotta: Lucius Aurelius Cotta, the consul of 65. It was he who in 70 had carried the lex Aurelia, which altered the composition of juries, making them effectively two-thirds equestrian and one-third senatorial (hence his description here as ‘judicious’). He was a relative of Caesar’s mother.
Lucius Caesar: Lucius Julius Caesar, the consul of 64 (and a distant relative of Caesar’s). In the debate of 5 December he spoke in favour of the execution of Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura; for his words, see first note on Cat. 4.13 above. His sister Julia, Lentulus’ wife, had previously been married to Marcus Antonius Creticus; Antony was their son.
Phormio … Gnatho … Ballio: low types from Roman comedy, representing Antony’s hangers-on. The first two are parasites from Terence’s Phormio and Eunuchus respectively, the third a pimp from Plautus’ Pseudolus.
in the very temple: the temple of Concord; see note on Cat. 3.21 above.
the Capitoline path: a path which wound its way from the forum up to the Capitol, starting outside the temple of Concord and then running alongside the temple of Saturn.
Did anyone fail to give in his name?: i.e. to volunteer for military service in defence of the city.
the sort of leader: i.e. Cicero himself.
For I arrested the guilty men, but the senate punished them: technically, Cicero as consul was solely responsible for the executions (the senate was merely an advisory body, and was not a court); but in practice, having consulted the senate, it would have been difficult or impossible for him not to carry out its wishes.
which at that time was united with the senate: on Cicero’s cherished ‘harmony between the orders’ (concordia ordinum) in 63, see second note on Cat. 4.15 above.
Ituraeans: Arabs troops from the territory south of Syria, famous as archers. Pompey had conquered the region in 63.
your actress wife: Volumnia Cytheris, a mime actress, Antony’s mistress. She was a freedwoman of Volumnius Eutrapelus, and is probably to be identified with ‘Lycoris’, the mistress of the poet Gallus. In referring to her as Antony’s wife, Cicero uses the same freedom that he used at § 3 when he claimed that Antony was the son-in-law of the freedman Quintus Fadius.
‘Let arms to the toga yield’: Antony had ridiculed a verse from the epic poem Cicero wrote in 60 on the subject of his consulship. The verse ran, ‘Let arms to the toga yield, and the laurel give way to praise’ (Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi, fr. 12 Courtney), i.e. ‘Let war yield to peace’ (uncontroversial enough) ‘and the laurel granted to a general give way to the praise granted to a civilian magistrate’ (more controversial, suggesting that Cicero’s civilian suppression of Catiline represented a greater achievement than the military victories of—most obviously—Pompey).
the killing of Publius Clodius: Clodius was murdered on the Appian Way by his enemy Titus Annius Milo in 52, apparently without any premeditation on either side. In response to that event and to the violent scenes which followed it, Pompey, who was sole consul, carried a new law, the lex Pompeia de vi (Pompeian law concerning violence), under which Milo was prosecuted (by Antony, among others), defended by Cicero, and convicted. Some time later (perhaps at the beginning of 51), Cicero revised the defence he had made and published it as Pro Milone, the rhetorical tour de force which, together with this speech, is traditionally regarded as his masterpiece.
Now what would people think … halted your attack: this incident, dating from the latter part of 53, is described more colourfully at Mil. 40: ‘And recently, when Marcus Antonius had given all loyal citizens the strongest grounds for confidence in our future salvation, when that young man of the highest ran
k had bravely taken on an important public duty and had netted the monster Clodius as he recoiled from the meshes of a trial, what a chance there was, immortal gods, what an opportunity! When Clodius had fled and taken refuge in a dark hidey-hole beneath the stairs, would it have been a difficult job for Milo just to finish off that pestilential villain, incurring no blame whatsoever for himself but bestowing the greatest glory on Marcus Antonius?’ See also § 49 below.
