Cicero

10/11/20 • 44 min

We are not born for ourselves alone; a part of us is claimed by our nation, another part by our friends. De Officiis, I.22

Parallel - Demosthenes

Cicero lived and died as a political failure. In what ways, then, is his failure worth studying. In what ways did he succeed? In many ways, he and Vergil become the teachers of Western Europe all the way down to the present day. Can we declare Cicero a victor in the long-run, or should we study only his failures as a warning?

Outline

Cicero's Early Political Rise
- Military tribune under Sulla in Italy
- Pro Rosciō – defends a political enemy of Sulla’s
- Flees to Greece
  - Delphic advice
  - Fluent in Greek, studying Greek philosophy
- Quaestor in Sicily
  - Fights corruption
  - Breadbasket of Italy (before the Romans conquered Egypt)
- Praetor in Rome
Consulship – height of Cicero's powers
- Conspiracy of Catiline
  - Catiline not elected consul
  - Turns to force and fire to overthrow the Senate and the city of Rome
- Trial before the Senate?
- Death Penalty?
  - Caesar’s speech - clementia
  - Cato’s speech – treason deserves death, always has.
- Vixerunt – they have lived! (i.e. they’re dead)
- Cato declares Cicero pater patriae “father of the fatherland”
- Cicero later reminisces about the event as “arma togae cedunt” (De Officiis I.77)
  - Arms yield to the toga (On duties I.77)
Bona Dea Scandal and Exile
- Publius Clodius Pulcher changes from friend to enemy
- Cicero flees, then Clodius officially banishes him
  - Depressed in Greece (cf. Demosthenes depressed in Troezen)
Return from Exile and First Round of Civil War
- Returns like a hero
- Forgiven by Caesar (cf. Demosthenes forgiven by Alexander)
- Not included in Brutus and Cassius’ conspiracy
  - see Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Act II, scene i
  - Brutus says “He will never follow any thing / That other men begin”
Second Round of Civil War
- The Philippics – consciously comparing the tyranny of Philip with the tyranny of Antony
  - Attacks Mark Antony explicitly
  - Antony retaliates with proscription (etym.)
- Octavian not strong enough to save Cicero
  - Act IV, scene I of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
History written by the victors?
- Augustus later sees his nephew reading a book of Cicero... how does he react?
- Octavian eventually removes statues and honors of Mark Antony, but Cicero’s writing is preserved.
  - One of the best-preserved authors from pagan antiquity
    - Thanks to Tiro and Atticus
  - Influenced:
    - St. Jerome
    - St. Augustine
    - Erasmus
    - Luther
    - Locke
    - Hume
    - Jefferson
    - Adams
  - Strongest influence in bringing together Latin and Greek thought
    - Much like Plutarch
    - Wanted to "teach philosophy to speak Latin" (Tusc. 2.5)
      - philosophia nascatur Latinis quidem litteris ex his temp

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We are not born for ourselves alone; a part of us is claimed by our nation, another part by our friends. De Officiis, I.22

Outline

Cicero's Early Political Rise
- Military tribune under Sulla in Italy
- Pro Rosciō – defends a political enemy of Sulla’s
- Flees to Greece
  - Delphic advice
  - Fluent in Greek, studying Greek philosophy
- Quaestor in Sicily
  - Fights corruption
  - Breadbasket of Italy (before the Romans conquered Egypt)
- Praetor in Rome
Consulship – height of Cicero's powers
- Conspiracy of Catiline
  - Catiline not elected consul
  - Turns to force and fire to overthrow the Senate and the city of Rome
- Trial before the Senate?
- Death Penalty?
  - Caesar’s speech - clementia
  - Cato’s speech – treason deserves death, always has.
- Vixerunt – they have lived! (i.e. they’re dead)
- Cato declares Cicero pater patriae “father of the fatherland”
- Cicero later reminisces about the event as “arma togae cedunt” (De Officiis I.77)
  - Arms yield to the toga (On duties I.77)
Bona Dea Scandal and Exile
- Publius Clodius Pulcher changes from friend to enemy
- Cicero flees, then Clodius officially banishes him
  - Depressed in Greece (cf. Demosthenes depressed in Troezen)
Return from Exile and First Round of Civil War
- Returns like a hero
- Forgiven by Caesar (cf. Demosthenes forgiven by Alexander)
- Not included in Brutus and Cassius’ conspiracy
  - see Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Act II, scene i
  - Brutus says “He will never follow any thing / That other men begin”
Second Round of Civil War
- The Philippics – consciously comparing the tyranny of Philip with the tyranny of Antony
  - Attacks Mark Antony explicitly
  - Antony retaliates with proscription (etym.)
- Octavian not strong enough to save Cicero
  - Act IV, scene I of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
History written by the victors?
- Augustus later sees his nephew reading a book of Cicero... how does he react?
- Octavian eventually removes statues and honors of Mark Antony, but Cicero’s writing is preserved.
  - One of the best-preserved authors from pagan antiquity
    - Thanks to Tiro and Atticus
  - Influenced:
    - St. Jerome
    - St. Augustine
    - Erasmus
    - Luther
    - Locke
    - Hume
    - Jefferson
    - Adams
  - Strongest influence in bringing together Latin and Greek thought
    - Much like Plutarch
    - Wanted to "teach philosophy to speak Latin" (Tusc. 2.5)
      - philosophia nascatur Latinis quidem litteris ex his temp

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Previous Episode

Cato the Elder

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Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.
—Plutarch “Cato the Elder” Para. 9.4

Parallel - Aristides

Sometimes called Cato the Censor or Cato the Elder because he is the great-grandfather of the more famous Cato the Younger who resisted Julius Caesar in the first century civil wars. This Cato (234-149 BC) sets the standard for the old Roman agricultural and military virtues. He may be the best of breed, but he also seems to be the last of them.

Outline

Roman History in a Nutshell:

Kings: 753-509 BC

The Republic: 509-31 BC

The Emperors:

31 BC – AD476 (in the West)
31 BC – AD 1453 (in the East)

Cursus Honorum

- Military Tribune
- Quaestor – Accountant
- Praetor – Judge/governor
- Consul – commander-in-chief of the army, leader of the Senate
- Censor – in charge of public morals

Militiae – on military duty with Cato

- Second Punic War
  - military tribune
- Sicily – quaestor
- Sardinia – praetor
- Hither Spain – consul
- Greece – as legate
  - Thermopylae 2!

Domī - At Home with Cato

In Rome
- Censor
- Anti-Greek
- Anti-Carthaginian
- Anti-luxury
At home
- Raises his own son
- Profit and gain
- Leave behind more than you receive
- Advice for the treatment of slaves sounds harsh even to Plutarch

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Next Episode

Theseus

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Although Theseus never actually existed, Plutarch, in documenting his life, wants to cull important lessons for Greeks and Romans. Just as Theseus wrestles with villains threatening civilization, Plutarch forces his readers to grapple with the role of virtue in politics, or, less abstractly, the role the virtuous man has to play in his polis: i.e. how to be a citizen rather than a subject. This becomes explicit at the end of Theseus's life when he ceases to be a good king and becomes a tyrant, stripping citizenship from the Athenians by returning them to subjugation under a king.

Historical Context - Emergence from the Dark Ages

Bronze-Age to Iron Age transition:
- Dark Ages:
  - What were they?
- Bronze Age civilizations:
  - Egypt
  - Hittites
  - Sumer/Akkad/Babylonians
  - Minoans and Myceneans (Aegean)
- Middle Period:
  - As most major civilizations in decline, the smaller civilizations seem to rise and fill in the gaps:
    - Phoenicians
    - Hebrews
    - Arameans
    - Philistines
  - For the Greeks, though, they lose writing and reading and see a mass exodus from the old urban centers of Mycenean Greece.
- Iron Age civilizations:
  - Neo-Assyrians
  - Neo-Babylonians
  - Persians
  - Greeks
  - Romans
  - Etc...

Outline

Parentage
Comes of age
- Delphi
- Theseus’s haircut
Sword and Sandals under a rock
- Sea = safe
- Land = dangerous
Theseus personally cleans up the land around the Saronic Gulf
- @ Epidaurus (wins his club)
- On the isthmus of Corinth
- Crommyonian Sow
- Wrestles near Eleusis
- Procrustes
  - Cf. Hercules and how he killed his monsters and fiends
Theseus receives first real hospitality at the Cephisus River, just outside of Athens
Arrival in Athens
- Medea!? Poison!?
- Recognition and Inheritance
- Revolt!
- First battle in Athens (neighborhoods named)
Bull of Marathon
Theseus and the Minotaur
- Plague and Expiation
- The most “likely” (common?) story
- Was Minos good/bad?
  - Why does Plutarch have to defend Minos?
- Alternative stories
  - Vary by geographic region
- Return: the sail!
- Philosophical Problems: The Ship of Theseus
Theseus unites Athens and Attica
- Centralizes authority
- Institutes common feasts
  - Oscophoria
  - Panathenaic Festival
- Establishes three classes of citizen:
  - Nobles
  - Craftsmen
  - Farmers
- Gives nobles most power over law and religion
- Opens Athens as a “commonwealth of all nations” (cf. Romulus welcoming refugees)
The many other adventures of Theseus
- The Amazons
  - Source for Shakespeare’s Hippolyta and Theseus in Midsummer Night’s Dream?
  - Second battle in Athens, more neighborhoods named
- False marriages
- False adventures
  - Theseus did NOT participate in
    - Jason and the Argonauts
    - Meleager and the Boar (cf. Iliad Book 9; Ovid Metamorphoses Bk. 7/8)
    - Seven Against Thebes
- His friendship with Perithous
  - Did involve him in the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs
- Seizure of Helen
  - Ends up in prison to the King of Molossus
  - Heracles frees him
Theseus returns to Athens
- Castor and Pollux
  - brothers of Helen and mythical Spartans
  - causing trouble in Athens