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Auctoritas, Dignitas, Otium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. P. V. D. Balsdon
J. P. V. D. Balsdon
Affiliation:
Exeter College, Oxford
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Extract

‘Auctoritas’ was naturally one of Cicero's favourite concepts. In the ideal republic power lay with the people, auctoritas with the Senate (‘Cum potestas in populo, auctoritas in senatu sit’, De leg. 3. 28). Alternatively, in a balanced state, potestas would lie with the magistrates, libertas with the people, but still auctoritas would be the property of the Senate, ‘in principum consitio’ [De rep. 2. 57).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1-2 , May 1960 , pp. 43 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1960

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References

page 43 note 1 There is a nice municipal parallel for this meaning of ‘auctoritas’ from Veii in A.D. 26, Dessau, I.L.S. 6579.

page 44 note 1 Plutarch, Cic. 21.4. The roll call of consulares in Ad Alt. 12.21. 1 is a roll call, no more.

page 44 note 2 De dom. 5 ff.; 8, ‘Primum dico senatorisesse boni semper in senatum venire nee cum his sentio qui statuunt minus bonis temporibus in senatum ipsum non venire.’

page 45 note 1 Pliny states (Pan. 19. 1 f.; 61. 2) that magistrates and administrators lost nothing of their cuctoritas in Trajan's presence, that it was in dignitas that he overshadowed them.

page 45 note 2 The phrase ccrurs three times in his speech against the lex Aufeic, O.R.F.2, 187 f. Aul. Gell. 11. 10).

page 45 note 3 B.C. 8. 6. 2 and 24. 4 on Caesar's care or his own dignitas in Gaul; 50. 4; 52. 4; 53. I on his dignitas in Rome in and after 51.

page 45 note 4 Cf. B.C. 1. 7. 7; 1. 8. 3.

page 46 note 1 For the latest discussion of this concept, with a survey of the differing views of earlier scholars, sec Ch. Wirszubski, ‘Cicero's Cum Dignitate Otium: a reconsideration’, J.R.S. xliv (1954), 1–13.Google Scholar

page 47 note 1 Ad font. 4. 4. 4; 7. 33. 2; Acad. 1. 11; De offic. 2. 4; 3. 3. In Ad fem. 5. 21. 2 the use of ‘honestum otium’ is different and, in fact, in Cicero's writing, unique. See Wirszubski, , op. cit. 8.Google Scholar

page 47 note 2 See Wirszubski, , op. cit. 4–6 for further references to the use of ‘otium’.Google Scholar

page 47 note 3 Schol. Bob. ad Pro Sest. 132 139 St. says that the phrase ‘natio Oplimatium" was vatinius’ invention.

page 48 note 1 What today might be called ‘the Munich spirit’.

page 49 note 1 See Wirszubski, , op. cit. 9.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 In Pro Sest. 98, ‘Neque rerum gerendarum dignitate homines ecferri ita convenit ut otio non prospiciant’, ‘rerum gerendarum’ is an intrusion. The meaning must be that no one should pursue careerism (as Caesar was to do in 49) to the detriment of the country's peace. On this, Wirszubski, , op. cit. 9 f.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 Vide supra, p. 46.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 This paper was read to the Oxford branch of the Classical Association in January 1959, and I have been helped both by discussion which followed the paper then and by comments by Mr. J. R. Hawthorn of Bradfieid College, who read it in typescript.