Cicero: Ad Atticum 2. 24

Extract

In a recent article on the Vettius affair (Historia, i. 45–51) Professor Lily Ross Taylor has tried to show that this letter should be dated to mid-July 59, and that it is therefore antecedent to 2. 20, 21, and 22. According to the hitherto accepted view the letters 2. According to the hitherto accepted view the letters 2. 18–25 are given by the manuscripts in the right chronological order, and since 21 is certainly later than Pompey's contio on 25 July (21. 3), 23 and 24 must fall later in the year; a terminus ante quem for the description of the Vettius affair in 24 is to be found in in Vat. 25, which shows that L. Lentulus, one of the persons Vettius implicated, was then a candidate for the consulship and that the letter is therefore antecedent to the consular elections, postponed by Bibulus' edict to 18 October (cf. ad Att. 2.20. 6). The purpose of this note is to defend this view and show that Professor Taylor's new dating is wrong.