Sicilia

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 10.12 §2 Sicily is the target

  Sicily, Rome's oldest province and a key grain source, was a strategic prize in the war; Cicero hoped to reach it as a stepping-stone toward Pompey before Caesar's man Curio secured the island.

• Ad Familiares 6.8 §2 sit tight in Sicily, or set out to what remains of your business affairs in Asia

  Caecina, exiled, was managing his financial interests partly from Sicily and had business in the province of Asia; the question whether to stay near Italy (and thus Caesar's returning attention) or retreat to the east was a genuine dilemma for exiled Pompeians calculating the timing of their appeal for pardon.

• Ad Familiares 13.30 §1 business of long standing in his old province of Sicily

  The phrase sua Sicilia (his old Sicily) implies prior residence or economic interest in the island; men of Catina with Neapolitan municipal ties often had landed or commercial interests in Sicily, and such claims could require the proconsul's adjudication.

• Ad Familiares 13.38 §1 as far as my quaestorship in Sicily

  Cicero served as quaestor at Lilybaeum in western Sicily in 75 BC, his first magistracy and the basis of many of his lasting Sicilian connections. The friendship with Bruttius's father dates from that posting.

• Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book II §5 storehouse of our commonwealth

  Cellam atque nutricem rei publicae nostrae: M. Cato the Censor's famous epithet for Sicily, the breadbasket and nurse of the Roman state. Cicero quotes it as the touchstone of the province's importance.

• Against Verres, First Hearing §2 Sicily

  Verres governed Sicily as praetor and pro-praetor 73--71 BC; the prosecution gathered evidence from across the island for nine months in 71/70 BC.