external text
De Consulatu Suo
also: tertium poema, a third poem, poem on his consulship
Cicero's lost Latin epic poem in three books on his own consulship, the "third poem" promised to Atticus in 60 BC; the source of the much-mocked line cedant arma togae. Distinct from the prose commentarius and from the later De Temporibus Suis.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 1.19 §10 Expect a third poem also
Cicero's Latin epic De Consulatu Suo, the third in his run of self-celebrating works on his consulship; it contained the line cedant arma togae ("let arms yield to the toga") that critics never let him forget.
- Ad Atticum 2.3 §4 my own concluding sentence in book three
The closing lines of book 3 of Cicero's verse epic De Consulatu Suo, in which the Muse Calliope counsels him to hold to the path of virtue and "the praises of the good."
- On Divination §1.17 your poem on your consulship
Cicero's own verse epic De Consulatu Suo, celebrating the year (63 BC) in which he crushed the Catilinarian conspiracy. Quintus quotes long stretches of it through these sections as his brother's own testimony to divination.
- On Duties §1.77 Let arms yield to the toga; the laurel give way to praise
A line from Cicero's own poem on his consulship (De Consulatu Suo), boasting that his suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy by civilian means outdid military glory. The toga symbolizes peaceful civil authority, the laurel a general's triumph; the verse was much mocked by his enemies.