Marcus Tullius Cicero

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 2.24 §3 an eloquent consular, the consul's neighbour

  Vettius's veiled accusation points unmistakably at Cicero himself: an eloquent ex-consul whose house on the Palatine adjoined that of the consul Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer. Cicero notes that Vettius pointedly did not name him outright.

• Ad Atticum 9.5 §2 Tell us, Marcus Tullius

  Cicero quotes the formula by which the presiding magistrate called on a senator by name to give his opinion (sententia); here he addresses the demand to himself. The device dramatises his being forced, as a leading consular, to declare which side he is on.

• Ad Atticum 9.10 §3 the preserver of this city, whom they have called its parent

  Cicero alludes to the honours voted him for crushing the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 BC, when he was hailed as "saviour" and "father of his country" (parens patriae). The titles deepen his horror at the idea of now warring on the city he saved.

• Ad Atticum 11.9 §3 I have written this to you on my birthday

  Cicero was born on 3 January 106 BC; this letter is dated to his fifty-ninth birthday, 3 January 47 BC. The despairing wish that follows --- that he had never been born --- marks the depth of his Brundisium misery.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.4 §3 too much trust in your own hope

  Brutus is gently rebuking Cicero for his enthusiastic trust in Octavian ("Caesar the younger"), whom Cicero had championed in the Senate; Brutus doubted that the young heir could remain loyal to Republican principles once Antony was defeated.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.7 §1 That nomination we ask of you

  Roman electoral procedure required that a magistrate formally announce (nominare) a candidate's name in the comitia; Cicero, as the most senior statesman in Rome, had the political standing to nominate Bibulus effectively.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.13 §2 a consular of such standing

  "Consularis" (consular) was the rank held by any former consul; Cicero had held the consulship in 63 BC, and the title carried lifelong prestige and a formal role in Senate deliberations.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.17 §1 the Nones of December always on his tongue

  5 December 63 BC, the day Cicero as consul ordered the execution of the arrested Catilinarian conspirators without trial; Cicero was famous for alluding to this act throughout his career, and Brutus here accuses him of the same self-congratulatory repetition he charges against others.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.17 §2 civilian and in the toga, he has held off Antony's war

  Cicero's boast in his Philippics that he, a civilian ex-magistrate (togatus), masterminded the senatorial coalition against Antony — raising Octavian's army, rallying the consuls, and passing the decrees — without himself commanding troops; Brutus retorts that the fruits of this strategy are catastrophically wrong.

• Ad M. Brutum 2.1 §1 on the day I delivered my motion

  A reference to one of Cicero's Philippic speeches in the Senate, in which he urged a specific decree (such as declaring Antony a public enemy or authorising emergency measures); the complaint is that whatever was voted was then delayed in execution until the moment had passed.

• Ad Familiares 2.10 §2 Is this the man who saved the city? whom the Senate

  Cicero quotes the awed provincial reaction to his arrival: he is famous in the East as the man who suppressed the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC (hence 'saved the city') and was then honoured by the Senate. He trails off — 'You know the rest' — because his exile and recall are too painful to finish the sentence.

• Ad Familiares 4.3 §4 have turned all my care and labor to philosophy

  With public life closed off under Caesar's autocracy, Cicero withdrew to write the great philosophical works of 46--44 BC. Here he commends the same consolation to Servius, who as a famous jurist was a fellow man of learning.

• Ad Familiares 4.10 §1 Only let me know, please, by what date we are to expect you

  The closing request for a firm date of arrival signals that the matter is now settled in principle and only the timing remains; Marcellus's own reply, Fam. 4.11, confirms that Cicero's letters were decisive in persuading him to accept the recall.

• Ad Familiares 4.13 §2 we lately flourished in influence, in standing, in glory

  Writing under Caesar's dictatorship in 46 BC after the defeat of the Pompeians at Pharsalus and Thapsus, Cicero laments his own political impotence; though personally spared by Caesar, he counts mere survival a kind of fault.

• Ad Familiares 4.15 §2 which on your side I can hope for, and on mine I can guarantee

  Cicero closes by pledging that his own constancy of friendship is something he can personally guarantee, while he can only hope the same of Plancius; the antithesis sperare / praestare is a polished epistolary flourish affirming the bond between the two exiles.

• Ad Familiares 5.9 §1 the man under whose defence I learned how to win

  Vatinius recalls that Cicero, after savaging him as a hostile witness in 56 BC (In Vatinium), later defended him in court in 54 BC. The whole letter plays on the patron-client relationship that defence created.

• Ad Familiares 5.10a §1 CICERO

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (106--43 BC), the orator and statesman, addressed here as Vatinius's patron; the patron-client tie dates from Cicero's defence of Vatinius in 54 BC, which the whole exchange presupposes.

• Ad Familiares 5.10b §1 CICERO

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), the orator and statesman who is the recipient of this letter; Vatinius, his former courtroom adversary, now solicits his patronage with Caesar.

• Ad Familiares 6.13 §4 the same cause that broke my own resources brought your safety to its crisis

  Cicero acknowledges that his own political influence was destroyed by the civil war — he had sided with Pompey then capitulated to Caesar — leaving him unable to press Ligarius's case from a position of strength.

• Ad Familiares 6.22 §1 I could find nothing to promise --- I myself being in want of everything

  Cicero acknowledges his own political impotence under Caesar's rule: as a pardoned Pompeian with no office and no influence at court, he cannot intercede effectively, which makes his letter of consolation necessarily empty of practical comfort.

• Ad Familiares 7.27 §2 the man on account of whom the rest are free

  Cicero casts himself as the savior of the Republic for his suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy in 63 BC, the deed for which he claims the Roman People remain in his debt.

• Ad Familiares 9.1 §2 I have made my peace with my old friends --- that is, with our books

  Excluded from public life under Caesar, Cicero turned in these years to writing the great philosophical and rhetorical works of 46--44 BC; the 'old friends' are his books and studies, which he had neglected while embroiled in the civil war.

• Ad Familiares 9.8 §2 now, what reason have we to wish to live, if not for these?

  Written in 45 BC, in the depths of Cicero's grief after the death of his daughter Tullia and his political eclipse under Caesar's dictatorship, the sentence expresses the consolation he found in philosophy and shared scholarship --- the personal motive behind his great output of philosophical works in these years.

• Ad Familiares 9.9 §1 to come over to Caesar and to us, or at any rate to retire into quiet

  In June 48 BC Cicero was in Pompey's camp in Greece, having reluctantly joined the republican side. Dolabella, serving with Caesar, presses him either to defect or at least to withdraw from the war; Cicero stayed until after the defeat at Pharsalus (August 48), then returned to Italy and was pardoned by Caesar.

• Ad Familiares 9.14 §3 the one man whom, since your consulship, we can truly call a consul

  A compliment that doubles back on Cicero himself: L. Caesar ranks Dolabella's consular conduct second only to Cicero's own famous consulship of 63 BC, when he crushed the Catilinarian conspiracy. The flattery binds Cicero's celebrated past to Dolabella's present action.

• Ad Familiares 9.15 §3 for then we sat on the stern and held the helm. Now there is barely room in the bilge

  A ship-of-state metaphor: in the Catilinarian days Cicero steered the commonwealth from the stern (the helmsman's place of command); under Caesar's dictatorship there is scarcely standing-room even in the bilge (the foul bottom of the hold), a vivid figure for his political marginalization.

• Ad Familiares 9.18 §1 with the courts taken away and my kingdom of the Forum lost, have started to keep a kind of school myself

  With Caesar in sole power the regular courts had largely ceased to function, ending Cicero's career as the Forum's leading advocate. He jokes that he has opened a 'school' instead --- in fact giving rhetorical declamation lessons to young Caesarians such as Hirtius and Dolabella over dinner.

• Ad Familiares 9.23 §1 a guest at once least greedy and no friend to extravagant dinners

  A running theme of the Paetus correspondence of 46 BC: Cicero presents himself as a modest, frugal dinner-guest, partly as gallant reassurance to an ailing host and partly in keeping with the sumptuary restraint of the Caesarian moment.

• Ad Familiares 9.24 §4 day and night I do nothing else, care for nothing else, except that my fellow citizens should be safe and free

  Writing in early 43 BC, Cicero is at the height of his campaign against Mark Antony; the Philippics (speeches to the Senate) and his intense correspondence with provincial governors are the practical expression of this stated purpose.

• Ad Familiares 9.25 §1 Your letter has made a supreme commander of me

  The whole opening is mock-military banter. The header 'CICERO IMP.' styles Cicero imperator, the title acclaimed by his troops after his minor campaign on Mt. Amanus during his Cilician governorship (51-50 BC); the letter is written from Laodicea in that period, and Cicero plays at being the great general Paetus's reading has made him.

• Ad Familiares 9.26 §2 I take my pleasure in the dinner-party; there I say whatever first falls on the floor

  Writing in 46 BC under Caesar's dictatorship, with public life closed to him, Cicero presents convivial wit as a refuge -- a way to 'transmute groaning into laughter.' The pose of cheerful detachment runs through the whole Paetus correspondence of this year.

• Ad Familiares 10.1 §1 I was away on my journey to Greece

  In July 44 BC Cicero set sail for Greece intending to wait out the political crisis near his son, then studying at Athens; contrary winds and news that conditions might improve drove him back to Italy, where he plunged into the campaign against Antony.

• Ad Familiares 10.7 §2 the rewards whose prospect you used to spur me to glory

  Plancus acknowledges Cicero's sustained lobbying campaign in which the orator had urged provincial commanders to declare for the Senate, dangling the prospect of public honours, triumphs, and posthumous gloria.

• Ad Familiares 10.10 §1 CICERO PLANCO.

  Cicero writes to Plancus; the salutation reverses the usual form (sender named first) since Cicero, the more distinguished man, names himself before the recipient by convention.

• Ad Familiares 10.11 §1 Had it been your own son's standing that was at issue

  Plancus refers to Cicero's son Marcus, studying in Athens at this time; the comparison flatters Cicero by equating his advocacy for Plancus with a father's partiality.

• Ad Familiares 12.13 §1 the greatest consular has surpassed his own greatest consulship

  A compliment to Cicero: as a consularis (ex-consul) leading the resistance to Antony in 43 BC he has now outdone even his celebrated consulship of 63 BC, when he crushed the Catilinarian conspiracy.

• Ad Familiares 12.13 §1 your toga has been more fortunate than all men's arms

  An echo of Cicero's own boast cedant arma togae ("let arms yield to the toga"): his civilian statesmanship has achieved more than any general's campaign.

• Ad Familiares 12.24 §2 professed myself the leading man for the Senate and the Roman people

  Cicero claims the role of princeps, taking the lead in the senatorial resistance to Antony in early 43 BC, the cause of libertas to which his Philippics were devoted.

• Ad Familiares 13.25 §1 distinguished by great benefits at my hand during my consulship

  Cicero's consulship of 63 BC (during which he suppressed the Catilinarian conspiracy) was the high point of his political career and the moment he first cultivated friendships with Greek notables across the Mediterranean world. The exact benefits he conferred on Hagesaretus are unknown, but Cicero clearly rendered him some political or legal service.

• Ad Familiares 16.3 §1 me, your master

  Tiro was Cicero's slave before being freed (probably in 53 BC); Cicero playfully styles himself "magister," the affectionate patron-tutor relation that survived the manumission.

• Ad Familiares 16.26 §1 Marcus must be brought in

  The sender is Cicero's brother Quintus; 'Marcus' is the orator himself, jokingly cast as the advocate Tiro will need to defend his failure to write.

• On Duties §2.50 as I acted for the Sicilians

  Cicero's prosecution of Verres in 70 BC on behalf of the province of Sicily, undertaken (he says) as a binding obligation rather than for gain. It launched his oratorical pre-eminence.