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Roman History, 58–56 B.C.: Three Ciceronian Problems1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

J. P. V. D. Balsdon
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Est postridie decretum in curia, populi ipsius Romani, et eorum qui ex municipiis convenerant admonitu, ne quis de caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret. Pro Sestio, 129.

Time and again Cicero abused Clodius for having, in his tribunate, both rescinded the lex Aelia Fufia of 153 B.C. and also destroyed the censorship. The ‘destruction of the censorship’ was, in fact, a seemingly just and reasonable bill to the effect that for the future no senator might be expelled from the Senate unless, after he had been given the opportunity of answering the charges against him, both censors were in agreement over his expulsion. It would, therefore, be reasonable to suppose that the ‘rescinding of the lex Aelia Fufia’, too, was far less drastic a measure than Cicero's vituperative language implies, even if there was not, as there is, abundant evidence in the years following Clodius' tribunate that the lex Aelia Fufia remained on the statute book.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1-2 , November 1957 , pp. 15 - 20
Copyright
Copyright ©J. P. V. D. Balsdon 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

In paying, however inadequately, my tribute of gratitude and respect to Dr. Last, I have chosen to write on Cicero, and in particular on Cicero's Letters, for it is to Dr. Last that I owe my earliest interest in Cicero's Letters; in particular, the second of these notes not only relies in part on what he has written but also derives from an enjoyable conversation about Messius some time ago, in which he persuaded me to change my mind.

References

2 Post red. in sen. 11; Pro Sest. 33 and 56; In Vat. 18; De har. resp. 58; De prov. cons. 46; In Pis. 9 f.; Phil. 2, 81; cf. Asc., In Pison. 8C; Cass. Dio 38, 13, 4.

3 De har. resp. 58; De prov. cons. 46; In Pis. 9 f.

4 Asc., In Pison. 8C; Dio 38, 13, 2.

5 ‘The Repeal of the lex Aelia Fufia,’ CR VII (1893), 158–161Google Scholar; and R.P.L. 172 f.

6 Obnuntiatio by tribunes after 58: Pro Sest. 79; Ad Att. 4, 3, 3 f. (Tyrrell and Purser 2, 92); Ad Att. 4, 9, 1 (T.P. 2, 122); Ad Q.F. 3, 3, 2 (T.P. 2, 151); Ad Att. 4, 16, 5 (T.P. 2, 144); Phil. 2, 99. Obnuntiatio by augurs, Plut., Cato mi. 42, 4; Phil. 2, 80 f.

7 ‘Clodius and the lex Aelia Fufia,’ JRS XIX (1929), 164–179Google Scholar.

8 Phil. 2, 81–3; on which see Macdonald l.c., 168 ff.

9 Macdonald l.c., 174 f., recognizes the difficulty and thinks that either the text is wrong, the praetor was bluffing, or Cicero, through error or prejudice, is inaccurate. The text is convincingly defended by Weinstock (n. 10 below), 219.

10 Weinstock, S., ‘Clodius and the lex Aelia Fufia,’ JRS XXVII (1937), 215–22Google Scholar (with, on pp. 215 ff., a very good account of the origin and history of obnuntiatio in the Republic). He thinks (p. 221) that the lex Clodia was reintroduced by Julius Caesar later.

11 Weinstock l.c., though his view differs from mine, has himself made the point (p. 220) that ‘Cicero owed his restoration, inter alia, to a senatus consultum which, word for word, agreed with the lex Clodia’.

12 Ad Att. 4, 1, 6 (T.P. 2, 90).

13 It was a ‘senatus frequens’; whether summoned as such, we cannot say. See, on this, p. 19 below.

14 Ad Att. 4, 1, 7 (T.P. 2, 90).

15 Plut., Pomp. 25, 6; Appian Mith. 94.

16 Dio 39, 9, 3, says he was made proconsul for five years ‘καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰταλίᾳ καὶ ἔξω’, Plutarch Pomp. 49, 6, vaguely, that he became ‘τρόπῳ τινὶ πάλιν γῆς καὶ θαλάττης ὅσην ἐκέκτηντο Ῥωμαῖοι κύριος’. Appian, BC 2, 18, 67, says that he was elected ‘τῆς ἀγορᾶς αὐτοκράτωρ’. To write of this command, ‘Pompey regarded it as an opportunity to acquire once more the military imperium,’ as A. E. R. Boak did (‘The extraordinary commands from 80 to 48 B.C.: a study of the origins of the Principate’, Am. Hist. Rev. XXIV (1918–1919), 19 f.Google Scholar) is to go some way beyond what the evidence warrants.

17 Dio 39, 24, I, as interpreted by Van Berchem, D., Les distributions de blé et d'argent à la plèbe romaine sous l'empire (Geneva, 1939), 20 fGoogle Scholar.

18 See How, W. W., Cicero Select Letters (Oxford, 1926) II, 194Google Scholar (note on Ad Q.F. 2, 3, 3).

19 Plut., Pomp. 40, 1. These were ‘haec tria frumentaria subsidia rei publicae’, Cic., De imp. Cn. Pomp. 34.

20 Ad Fam. 1, 9, 9 (T.P. 2, 153).

21 Plut., Pomp. 50, I: πολλογοῦ ἀπέστειλε πρεσβευτὰς καὶ φίλους.

22 P-W VIIA, 1294; Ad Q.F. 2, 1–6. If only Cicero had had the smallest interest in provincial administration, we might have learnt something from these letters of what Quintus was doing.

23 He made the arrangements for Luca (Ad Q.F. 2, 4, 6; T.P. 2, 105), and attended the conference there in April (Plut., Caesar 21, 5).

24 Piso, Dio 36, 37, 2; Metellus, Plut. Pomp. 29, 3 ff. See H. M. Last (n. 25 below), 161.

25 ‘Imperium Maius: a note,’ JRS XXXVII (1947), 157–164Google Scholar; esp. 158–162.

26 Imperium aequum infinitum: Mommsen, Staatsr. II, i3, 654 f., 672 f. Imperium Infinitum: Béranger, J., ‘A propos d'un Imperium Infinitum,’ Mélanges J. Marouzeau (Paris, 1948) 19–27Google Scholar. ‘Infinitum imperium’ is used in Verr. II, 2, 8, and 11, 3, 213 (Ps. Asconius ad loc.—259 Stangl—speaks of ‘curatio infinita totius orae maritimae’) and De dom. 55 (of Gabinius and Piso, consuls of 58, in Syria and Macedonia); ‘imperium infinitum’ appears only in De dom. 23 (of Gabinius and Piso).

26a Ad Fam. 3, 6, 4 (T.P. 3, 213), ‘Qui te forum Tarsi agere, statuere multa, decernere, iudicare dicerent, cum posses iam suspicari tibi esse successum.’ I am grateful to my pupil Fr. J. Igal for drawing my attention to this interesting point.

27 Suet., Divus Iulius 24, 1; Plut., Caesar 21; Pomp. 51; Crassus 14 f.; Cato mi. 41; Appian, BC 2, 17, 61–4.

28 39, 31, 1.

29 In particular in its references to Pompey. W. W. How (11, 221, o.c., n. 18 above, p. 17) must be right against Tyrrell that the violent reference in para. 2 to ‘ille perennis inimicus amicorum suorum qui tuis maximis beneficiis ornatus in te potissimum fractam illam et debilitatam vim suam contulit’ cannot be meant to be an outspoken and unmistakable reference to Pompey, but must refer to somebody else, probably the tribune C. Cato. But every contemporary reader must have paused, as every modern reader pauses, to ask whether the reference could possibly be to Pompey. The answer was to be found later, in para. 6; it could not. But then, as now, the doubt remained. Pompey was criticized obliquely at the beginning of para. 9 (‘Pompeius cum mihi nihil ostendisset se esse offensum’) and what (para. 13) of those who did not come to Cicero's aid in 58, not because they were afraid, but because ‘se timere simularunt’ ? What (para. 14) of the ‘homines fortiores in me restituendo quam fuerant idem in tenendo’ ? ‘Simulatio’ occurs again at the end of para. 17. Had Cicero not written from exile earlier to Quintus (Ad Q.F. 1, 3, 9; T.P. 1, 66), ‘Pompeium etiam simulatorem puto’ ?

30 Ad Fam. 1, 9, 9 (T.P. 2, 153).

31 Ad Q.F. 2, 5, 3 (T.P. 2, 106).

32 Ad Fam. 1, 9, 9 (T.P. 2, 153).

33 Ad Q.F. 2, 1, 1 (T.P. 2, 93).

34 Ad Q.F. 2, 5, 1 (T.P. 2, 106).

35 Ad Q.F. 2, 6 (T.P. 2, 117).

36 e.g. M. Cary in CAH IX, 533 f.

37 Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 592 ff.; Cic., Ad Fam. 8, 5, 3; 8, 13, 2 (T.P. 210; 271); 10, 12, 3 (T.P. 6, 838); Pro Murena 51; Sail., Cat. 50, 3; Hirtius, B.G. 8, 53, 1, etc.

38 Livy 28, 9, 5; cf. 26, 10, 2 (of 211 B.C.); 35, 7, 1 (of 193 B.C.), ‘ad frequentiores consultatio dilata est’ and Perioche 13. cf. Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 592 ff.

39 Ad Att. 16, 7, 1 (T.P. 5, 783); cf. Phil. 1, 11.

40 Phil. 3, 19.

41 cf. Phil. 1, 11 f.

42 By the lex Cornelia of 67: Asc. In Cornelian. 59C; Cassius Dio 36, 39, 4.

43 Cassius Dio 39, 30, 3.

44 Ad Fam. 8, 11, 2 (T.P. 3, 267); cf. Phil. 1, 12; 5, 19. Possibly also by the lex Pompeia de provinciis of 52, a quorum was required for discussion of provincial appointments: Ad Att. 5, 4, 2 (T.P. 3, 187); Ad Fam. 8, 5, 3; 8, 9. 2 (T.P. 3, 210, 211).

45 Staatsr. III, 23, 989 f. (D.p.r. VII, 179–81).

46 Le Sénat et la République romaine II, 165–171. On p. 169, n. 3, he used Ad Fam. 1, 9, 8, in favour of his view.

47 Ad Q.F. 2, 6, 1 (T.P. 2, 117).

48 cf. Asc., In Cornelian. 59C for the number.