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M. Calidius and the Atticists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. E. Douglas
A. E. Douglas
Affiliation:
Universtiy of Southampton
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Extract

The object of this paper is to question the established view that the orator M. Calidius was an Atticist. I propose to argue (i) that the term ‘Atticist’ should be reserved for the coterie centring on Calvus, which attacked Cicero, and was attacked by him in Brutus and Orator, and (ii) that our evidence for the oratory of Calidius does not warrant the inference that he was in any way associated with, or a forerunner of, that coterie.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 5 , Issue 3-4 , December 1955 , pp. 241 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1955

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References

page 241 note 1 Without qualification in, for example, Schanz-Hosius, i. 391; Heck, , Zur Entstehung des rhetorischen Attizismus (Diss. Munich, 1917), 26, 32Google Scholar; Oxf. Class. Diet., art. ‘Calidius’; Atkins, , Literary Criticism in Antiquity, ii. 16Google Scholar. With varying degrees of hesitancy in R.-E. iii. 1353–4 (Münzer); Frank, T., Life and Literature in the Roman Republic, 166Google Scholar; Hendrickson, G. L., A. J. Phil, xlvii (1926), 237–8Google Scholar; Kroll (R.-E. Supp.-Bd. vii. 1106); D'Alton, , Roman Literary Theory and Criticism, 217Google Scholar—in fact in almost any writer who mentions Calidius: the last sceptic appears to have been Rohde, E. (Rh. Mus. xli (1886), 176 n.Google Scholar).

page 241 note 2 Hermes, xxxv (1900), 1–50; see also Ammon in Bursian, cv. 203 ff.; Groot, A. W. de, Der antike Prosarhythmus, 101 ff.Google Scholar; and now Desmouliez, (R.É.L. XXX (1952), 168–85, esp. 168–73Google Scholar).

page 242 note 1 Philo revived the formal study of rhetoric in the Academy, but Cic.'s account in Brut. 306, 315 shows that his studies at the Academy were philosophical. Kroll's, view of Philo's rhetorical influence (Neue Jahrb. xi (1903), 681 ff.Google Scholar) runs counter to this. He builds on Cic.'s remark (Or. 12): ‘fateor me oratorem … non ex rhetorum officinis sed ex Academiae spatiis exstitisse’—but the context shows that Cic.'s precise point is his indebtedness to a purely philosophical training as a source of ideas and material: as a training in rhetorical technique, he expressly says it was inadequate. Similarly Brutus was trained philosophically in the Academy, rhetorically by Pammenes.

page 242 note 2 As Rohde, I.e., and Hendrickson (Intr. to Loeb Brutus) suppose.

page 242 note 3 Op. cit. Cf. Schlittenbauer, , Jahrb.f. CI. Phil., Suppl. xxviii (1903), 190Google Scholar. This view is perhaps supported by Dion. Hal. Ant. Orat. 3.

page 242 note 4 Cf. Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome, 80Google Scholar: ‘the only two whom we can with certainty reckon as Atticists were Brutus and Calvus’. (But Calidius turns up as usual in a note (ad loc.)!) See also Part B of this paper.

page 243 note 1 Cf. drickson, Hen, A. J. Phil. xlvii (1926), 243–5.Google Scholar

page 244 note 1 Op. cit. 219, n. 8. (Elsewhere he confidently treats Calidius as Atticist.) Cf. also with Cicero's description of Calidius ancient views on the Middle and Plain Styles as set forth tabularly in Bonner, S. F., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 20.Google Scholar

page 245 note 2 A well-known instance is Cicero's wide range of equivalents for a single Greek term of well-defined meaning, wcpioSos (cf. Bornecque, , Mélanges Paul Thomas, 66–68Google Scholar; Stegemann, , B. phil. Woch. (1932), 1083–90Google Scholar). Tac. Dial. 23. 3 shows how sanus came to be treated as the perquisite of a single school of oratory. But it is too frequently overlooked that with Cicero we must always be on guard (as Heck, op. cit. passim was not). Two immediately relevant instances must suffice: (i) Brut. 148. Cic. describes an orator as ‘elegantium parcissimus’, not as one might suppose from other occurrences of these terms an extreme Atticist, but L. Crassus, whom Cicero admired above all his forerunners (Brut. 143): Crassus, however, was no tiresome theoretical extremist, but ‘sine molestia diligens’. (ii) Cic. applies a favourite quotation (Lucilius' comparison of an elaborate style to a tessellated pavement) in compliment to Calidius. In Or. 49 it is used as Lucilius used it, to censure too self-conscious rhythmical structure. Calidius escapes censure because his structure did not hinder his fluency: his numeri were ‘varie dissimulanter-que conclusi’, thus complying with Or. 149: ‘nolo haec tarn minuta constructio appareat’.

page 245 note 3 For the evidence and some suggestions cf. D'Alton, 262–3.

page 245 note 1 R.-E., I.e.: ‘Er [Calidius] wird von Veil. Pat. zu den Attikern gestellt; er war mehr ein Vorlaufer und Bahnbrecher der neuen attischen Richtung.’

page 246 note 2 Cf. D'Alton, 254; Hendrickson, 237; Schlittenbauer, 195–6.

page 246 note 3 As Norden, , Die antike Kunstprosa, ii. 939Google Scholar: contrast de Groot, op. cit. 101.

page 246 note 4 CI. Phil. i (1906), 97 ff.Google Scholar; A. J. Phil, xlvii (1926), 234 ff.Google Scholar

page 246 note 5 Cf. Laurand, , Études sur le style des discours de Cicéron, livre i, passim.Google Scholar

page 246 note 6 Cf. Radermacher, , Rh. Mus. liv (1899), 353Google Scholar: see Rhet. ad Her. 4. 12. 17.

page 247 note 1 Though Norden, op. cit. i. 184, maintained that it is, and is followed by Schlittenbauer (p. 199). Hendrickson, (CI. Phil. i (1906), 101, n. 2Google Scholar) recognizes that the contrary is the truth.

page 247 note 2 But see Barwick, K., Brutus (Heidelberg, 1949). 15Google Scholar

page 247 note 3 A view once held by Wilamowitz, (Hermes, xii (1877), 333, 367Google Scholar) but later drastically modified by him (ibid., xxxv (1900), 46–47).

page 247 note 4 R.-E. ‘Apollodorus’, No. 64, col. 2889.

page 247 note 1 He was thus more successful in defence than attack, as is shown by Caelius (Cic. Fam. 8. 9. 5).

page 247 note 2 Selected Prose (Penguin Books), 31.

page 247 note 3 I am greatly indebted to Prof. R. G. Austin, for help in the preparation of this paper.