Political Speeches (Oxford World's Classics) (63 page)

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 rank 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.

an inquiry
: i.e. the trial of Milo, held under the
lex Pompeia
. Cicero considered the
lex Pompeia
an unnecessary and vindictive law; he felt that the existing law, the
lex Plautia
(70
BC
?), under which he had successfully defended Publius Sulla (62), Sestius (56), Caelius (56), and others, would have been perfectly adequate.

the allegation … while the trial was taking place
: Cicero may not have been accused of having instigated the murder of Clodius while Milo was actually on trial, but he was in fact accused of it while the
lex Pompeia
was being proposed: see
Mil
. 47.

In the consulship of … Marcus Bibulus
: Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Caesar were consuls in 59 (Cicero pointedly omits Caesar’s name when designating the year). Bibulus opposed the ‘first triumvirate’ (a private arrangement between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus), and spent his year of office at his house watching for unfavourable omens, thus technically invalidating Caesar’s entire legislative programme.

The first was … to stand for office in absence
: i.e. (1) in 55, when Pompey and Crassus, as consuls, carried a law to extend Caesar’s command in Gaul until 1 March 50, and (2) in 52, when all ten tribunes carried a law giving Caesar the right to stand for the consulship in absence, thus enabling him to avoid prosecution for the illegalities of his consulship in 59. In reality, it is unlikely that Cicero attempted to dissuade Pompey from either of these courses of action.

But after Pompeius had handed over … to Caesar
: an exaggeration. Pompey had lent Caesar a legion during the winter of 54–53; but he took it back again in 50.

For who ever heard … that glorious deed?
: Cicero was not let into the plot against Caesar: he was thought too old and timorous. His innocence is proved by letters (
Fam
. 10.28 and 12.4, both of
c
. 2 February 43) that he later wrote to two of the conspirators, Trebonius and Cassius, in which he said that he wished they had invited him to the feast on the Ides of March, because then there would have been no leftovers (i.e. he would have insisted on Antony’s assassination as well).

the Bruti … that of Ahala
: two of the leading conspirators were called Brutus, Marcus Junius Brutus, a committed republican and ex-Pompeian (and the dedicatee of many of Cicero’s treatises, including the
Brutus
, 46), and his cousin Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, a disaffected Caesarian. Both claimed descent from Lucius Junius Brutus, who had expelled Tarquinius Superbus and become one of the first two consuls in 509
BC
; Marcus was in addition descended through his mother from Gaius Servilius Ahala, who had freed Rome from the threat of tyranny in 439 by killing Spurius Maelius. Wax portrait-masks (
imagines
) of ancestors who had held curule office were kept in cupboards within the
atria
of the houses of the leading families; they were a sign of high social status.

Gaius Cassius
: Gaius Cassius Longinus, an ex-Pompeian pardoned by Caesar in 47 and then promoted by him to a praetorship in 44; he and
Marcus Brutus (to whose half-sister he was married) were the leaders of the conspiracy. In the next sentence, Cicero probably alludes to Spurius Cassius Vicellinus (consul in 502, 496, and 486), who was said to have executed his son for aspiring, like Spurius Maelius, to tyranny.

he would have finished the job off in Cilicia
: we have no other evidence for this alleged assassination attempt, which would date from 47.

Gnaeus Domitius
: his father was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the former consul of 54 who was killed while trying to escape from Pharsalus, and his uncle was Cato, who committed suicide after Thapsus (see third note on § 12 above). After being pardoned by Caesar in 46, he declined to enter public life; later he became consul in 32. He was the great-grandfather of the emperor Nero.

Gaius Trebonius
: a ‘new man’ who owed his entire career to Caesar and rose to become suffect consul in 45; he was the most senior Caesarian to join the conspiracy. He drew Antony away from Caesar immediately before the assassination took place (cf. note on § 25 above).

Lucius Tillius Cimber
: another friend of Caesar. At the assassination, he approached Caesar on the pretext of petitioning him on behalf of his brother, and thereby allowed him to be surrounded. Afterwards he immediately departed for Bithynia-Pontus, where he had been appointed governor.

the two Servilii—Cascas … or Ahalas
: Publius Servilius Casca Longus struck the first blow, and called out to his brother to help him. Cicero again refers to the tyrannicide Gaius Servilius Ahala (see first note on § 26 above), playing on the fact that the Cascas and Ahala shared the same
nomen
(clan name).

what I myself had done
: i.e. in suppressing the Catilinarian conspiracy.

the parent of one’s country
: Caesar was given this title in 45 (or perhaps 44).

Why was Marcus Brutus … for more than ten days?
: Brutus was city praetor, and therefore prevented by law from being absent from Rome for more than ten days at a time (he was expected to be available to litigants). He left Rome on
c
. 12 April, never to return.