THE NUMBERS IN THE MARGINS AND THE STRUCTURE OF CICERO'S PRO MURENA

Extract

The numbers in the margins of Cicero's speeches are generally treated as a convenient referencing system and no more. The fact that there are two apparently independent sets of numbers, the shorter usually referred to as ‘sections’ (§§), and the longer as ‘chapters’ (cc.), can lead to confusion, and fashions have changed over the years as to which of the sets to use in references, without apparent discussion. Modern editors feel no obligation to follow them when deciding where to put their own paragraph-breaks. One scholar, Glucker, traced their origin out of curiosity, but then dismissed them as having no value other than as a referencing system, claiming that they often ‘ignore the beginning of proper new sections’. This article will test his claim by examining the placement of the numbers at various points in Cicero's Pro Murena.