Ad Atticum 1.14
Ad Atticum 1.14
Headnote
Cicero to Atticus, written at Rome on the Ides of February (13 February) 61 BC. The second long Bona Dea letter and the most vivid surviving narrative of a senate day in Cicero’s hand. The contest is over the special bill against Clodius’s sacrilege, which Piso the consul (its sponsor by senatorial decree) is now sabotaging. The letter walks through the day in order: Pompey’s first public meeting, said to have fallen flat (“not pleasing to the wretched, empty to the wicked, not welcome to the rich, not weighty to the good”); the contio in the Circus Flaminius where Piso pushed Pompey into approving the trial procedure under the praetor; the senate session where Pompey replied vaguely about the senate’s authority, and Crassus then rose and made a great speech of praise for Cicero’s consulship — “that he was a senator, a citizen, free, alive, he counted up to me; as often as he saw his wife, his house, his country, so often did he see my service.” Cicero, sitting next to Pompey, registers that Pompey was moved (whether by Crassus’s gallantry or by the obvious popularity of Cicero’s consulship in the house). Cicero himself then took the floor and “showed off” before his new auditor with a performance of his favourite consular set-piece — “the gravity of the order, the concord of the equestrians, the consensus of Italy, the dying remnants of the conspiracy, cheap grain, peace.”
The fifth paragraph is the famous account of the contio at which the bill was withdrawn: Clodius’s gangs holding the bridges, the voting tablets distributed without “As you propose,” Cato vaulting onto the Rostra to upbraid Piso (“a voice full of gravity, full of authority, full at last of safety”), Hortensius and Favonius coming up beside him. The senate was then summoned and voted four hundred to fifteen against the bill in its sabotaged form. Clodius retreated to public meetings of insult, where he attacked Lucullus, Hortensius, Gaius Piso, the consul Messalla; Cicero only “with having ascertained everything,” the running joke of the comperi verb that haunts the corpus through these years. Greek tags, mostly drawn from rhetorical theory, sprinkle the body — Cicero’s stylish bilingualism with the friend who had just lived a decade in Athens; the self-mocking eneperpereusam\=en (“how I showed off”) is the letter’s affectionate signature.
I fear it is tedious to write to you how busy I am, but I am so distracted that I have scarcely had time for this little a letter, and that snatched out of the height of my occupations. What Pompey’s first speech in public was like, I wrote to you before — not pleasing to the wretched, empty to the wicked, not welcome to the rich, not weighty to the good; and so it fell flat. Then, on the consul Piso’s prompting, the most frivolous tribune of the plebs Fufius brought Pompey forward to a public meeting. The matter was being held in the Circus Flaminius, and there was on that very spot, that day, the panegyric panēgyris of the market. He asked of him whether it pleased him that the judges should be selected by the praetor, the same praetor presiding. That, however, had been settled by the senate, regarding the Clodian sacrilege.
vereor ne putidum sit scribere ad te quam sim occupatus, sed tamen ita distinebar ut huic vix tantulae epistulae tempus habuerim atque id ereptum e summis occupationibus. prima contio Pompei qualis fuisset scripsi ad te antea, non iucunda miseris, inanis improbis, beatis non grata, bonis non gravis; itaque frigebat. tum Pisonis consulis impulsu levissimus tribunus pl. Fufius in contionem producit Pompeium. res agebatur in circo Flaminio et erat in eo ipso loco illo die nundinarum πανήγυρισ. quaesivit ex eo placeretne ei iudices a praetore legi, quo consilio idem praetor uteretur. id autem erat de Clodiana religione ab senatu constitutum.
Then Pompey spoke very aristocratically mal’ aristokratikōs, and answered that the senate’s authority had always seemed to him, in all things, the greatest, and seemed so still — and that with many words. After this Messalla the consul asked Pompey in the senate what he thought about the religion and about the bill that had been promulgated. He so spoke in the senate as to praise generally genikōs all that order’s decrees, and as he sat down said to me that he thought enough had been replied by him on those matters too.
tum Pompeius μάλ’ ἀριστοκρατικῶσ locutus est senatusque auctoritatem sibi omnibus in rebus maximam videri semperque visam esse respondit et id multis verbis. postea Messalla consul in senatu de Pompeio quaesivit quid de religione et de promulgata rogatione sentiret. locutus ita est in senatu ut omnia illius ordinis consulta γενικῶσ laudaret mihique, ut adsedit, dixit se putare satis ab se etiam de istis rebus esse responsum.
Crassus, after he saw that Pompey had taken praise from the fact that men suspected my consulship pleased him, rose and spoke most splendidly of my consulship — so as to say that, that he was a senator, that a citizen, that free, that he lived, he counted up to me. As often as he saw his wife, as often as his house, as often as his country, so often did he see my service. What more? That whole topic which I, in my speeches (of which you are the Aristarchus), am wont to paint with various colours — of the flame, of the iron (you know those rouge-pots lēkythoi) — he wove with great gravity. Next to Pompey I sat. I saw the man was moved — whether because Crassus had taken up the favour which he himself had passed by, or because my deeds were so great that they should be praised in so willing a senate, and especially by the man who owed me that praise the less because he had been pinched in all my writings by the praise of Pompey.
Crassus, postea quam vidit illum excepisse laudem ex eo quod †hi† suspicarentur homines ei consulatum meum placere, surrexit ornatissimeque de meo consulatu locutus est, ut ita diceret, se quod esset senator, quod civis, quod liber, quod viveret, mihi acceptum referre; quotiens coniugem, quotiens domum, quotiens patriam videret, totiens se beneficium meum videre. quid multa? totum hunc locum quem ego varie meis orationibus, quarum tu Aristarchus es, soleo pingere, de flamma, de ferro (nosti illas ληκύθουσ ), valde graviter pertexuit. proximus Pompeium sedebam. intellexi hominem moveri verum Crassum inire eam gratiam quam ipse praetermisisset, an esse tantas res nostras quae tam libenti senatu laudarentur, ab eo praesertim qui mihi laudem illam eo minus deberet quod meis omnibus litteris in Pompeiana laude perstrictus esset.
This day greatly joined me to Crassus, and yet whatever was given me by him, openly or covertly, I have gladly received. As for myself, good gods, how I showed off, eneperpereusamēn, to a new auditor, Pompey! If ever periods, periodoi, if turns, kampai, enthymemes, enthymēmata, sentence-frames, kataskeuai, supplied themselves to me, it was at that time. What more? Cheers. For this was the theme hypothesis: of the gravity of the order, of the concord of the equestrians, of the consensus of Italy, of the dying remnants of the conspiracy, of cheap grain, of peace. You know now my drumming on this material. They were so loud that I shall be the briefer because I think they have been heard right where you are.
hic dies me valde Crasso adiunxit, et tamen ab illo aperte tecte quicquid est datum, libenter accepi. ego autem ipse, di boni! quo modo ἐνεπερπερευσάμην novo auditori Pompeio! si umquam mihi περίοδοι, si καμπαὶ, ἐνθυμήματα, si κατασκευαὶ suppeditaverunt, illo tempore. quid multa? clamores. etenim haec erat ὑπόθεσισ, de gravitate ordinis, de equestri concordia, de consensione Italiae, de intermortuis reliquiis coniurationis, de vilitate, de otio. nosti iam in hac materia sonitus nostros. tanti fuerunt ut ego eo brevior sim quod eos usque istinc exauditos putem.
As for Roman matters, they stand thus. The senate is the Areopagus Areios pagos: nothing more steadfast, nothing more severe, nothing braver. For when the day had come for the bill to be brought forward by senate’s decree, the bearded young men, that whole flock of Catiline’s, with little daughter Curio as their leader, kept running to and fro, and asked the people to reject the bill. Piso, the consul, the proposer of the bill, was at the same time its dissuader. Clodius’s gangs had occupied the bridges; the voting tablets were being distributed in such a way that none “As you propose” was given. Here Cato flew to you on the Rostra and made a wonderful tongue-lashing of Piso the consul — if that can be called a tongue-lashing which is a voice full of gravity, full of authority, full at last of safety. There came up too our own Hortensius, and many other good men; but the work of Favonius was outstanding. By this gathering of the best men the assembly was dismissed, the senate was summoned. When, in a full senate, with Piso fighting on the contrary side, with Clodius falling at every man’s feet one by one, it was being decreed that the consuls should exhort the people to accept the bill, about fifteen men assented to Curio when he made no senate’s decree; on the other side there were easily four hundred. The thing was done. Fufius the tribune then gave way. Clodius held wretched public meetings, in which he insulted Lucullus, Hortensius, Gaius Piso, Messalla the consul; me, he charged only with having “ascertained” everything. The senate decreed about the praetors’ provinces and about embassies and about everything else, that nothing be done before the bill should have been brought forward.
Romanae autem se res sic habent. senatus Ἄρειοσ πάγοσ; nihil constantius, nihil severius, nihil fortius. nam cum dies venisset rogationi ex senatus consulto ferendae, concursabant barbatuli iuvenes, totus ille grex Catilinae, duce filiola Curionis, et populum ut antiquaret rogabant. Piso autem consul lator rogationis idem erat dissuasor. operae Clodianae pontis occuparant, tabellae ministrabantur ita ut nulla daretur uti rogas. hic tibi in rostra Cato advolat, convicium Pisoni consuli mirificum facit, si id est convicium, vox plena gravitatis, plena auctoritatis, plena denique salutis. accedit eodem etiam noster Hortensius, multi praeterea boni; insignis vero opera Favoni fuit. hoc concursu optimatium comitia dimittuntur, senatus vocatur. cum decerneretur frequenti senatu, contra pugnante Pisone, ad pedes omnium singillatim accidente Clodio, ut consules populum cohortarentur ad rogationem accipiendam, homines ad quindecim Curioni nullum senatus consultum facienti adsenserunt; ex altera parte facile cccc fuerunt. acta res est. Fufius tribunus tum concessit. Clodius contiones miseras habebat, in quibus Lucullum, Hortensium, C. Pisonem, Messallam consulem contumeliose laedebat; me tantum comperisse omnia criminabatur. senatus et de provinciis praetorum et de legationibus et de ceteris rebus decernebat ut ante quam rogatio lata esset ne quid ageretur.
You have Roman matters. But hear also that which I had not been hoping for. Messalla is an outstanding consul — brave, steady, diligent, my praiser, my lover, my imitator. The other one is the less vicious by one vice: he is sluggish, full of sleep, unskilled, most ineffective apraktotatos; but in disposition so out of sorts kachektēs that, after that public meeting in which the senate was praised by him, he has begun to hate Pompey. So in a wonderful way he has alienated all good men from himself. Nor has he done this rather drawn by Clodius’s friendship than by zeal for ruined matters and parties. But of the magistrates he has no one like himself except Fufius. We have good tribunes of the plebs, but Cornutus is a pseudo-Cato. What more do you ask?
habes res Romanas. sed tamen etiam illud quod non speraram audi. Messalla consul est egregius, fortis, constans, diligens, nostri laudator, amator, imitator. ille alter uno vitio minus vitiosus quod iners, quod somni plenus, quod imperitus, quod ἀπρακτότατοσ sed voluntate ita καχέκτησ ut Pompeium post illam contionem in qua ab eo senatus laudatus est odisse coeperit. itaque mirum in modum omnis a se bonos alienavit. neque id magis amicitia Clodi adductus fecit quam studio perditarum rerum atque partium. sed habet sui similem in magistratibus praeter Fufium neminem. bonis utimur tribunis pl., Cornuto vero Pseudocatone. quid quaeris?
Now to come back to private matters: Teucris has performed her promises. You, see to the commissions you accepted. My brother Quintus, who has bought the remaining three-fourths of the building in the Argiletum for HS 725,000, is selling the Tusculan property, that he may, if he can, buy the Pacilian house. With Lucceius I have come back into favour. I see that the man is greatly desiring to canvass. I shall give him my pains. As for you — what you are doing, where you are, of what kind those matters of yours are — inform me as fully as you can. Ides of February.
nunc ut ad privata redeam, Τεῦκρισ promissa patravit. tu mandata effice quae recepisti. Quintus frater, qui Argiletani aedifici reliquum dodrantem emit HS d_c_c_x_x_v_, Tusculanum venditat, ut, si possit, emat Pacilianam domum. cum Lucceio in gratiam redii. video hominem valde petiturire. navabo operam. tu quid agas, ubi sis, cuius modi istae res sint, fac me quam diligentissime certiorem. Idibus Febr.