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Lucius Crassus and Cicero: The Formation of a Statesman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

Elizabeth Rawson
Elizabeth Rawson*
Affiliation:
New Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

If we remember anything about Cicero's political ideas, it is that he believed in the right and duty of the senate to exercise supremacy in Rome, but that he also advocated a concordia ordinmi, an alliance between and recognition of the common interests of senators and equites, to whom property and the status quo were sacred. Closely connected with this is the idea of a consensus omnium bonorum, a wider alliance to include most of the plebs, and Italy. In the service of this ideal of unity he believed that the conservative statesman should be concordiae causa sapienter popularis, though he should consult the true interests of the people even more than their wishes; and that all government should be mild and conciliatory. These are the views by which we distinguish him from his more obstinate optimate contemporaries, above all Cato, who are less flexible, more rigidly reactionary. Although, since Strasburger's famous study of Concordia Ordinum, students of Cicero ought to have been prepared to pursue some of these beliefs of his back into the Roman past, too many historians and biographers still give the impression that they were Cicero's own invention (and an unhappy and unrealistic one too, it is often implied). But this is rash. Cicero, pace some of his detractors, was an intelligent man; but he was not a man of deeply original mind, as would be generally admitted. His greatness lay not in originality, but in the life and form that he could give to the Roman tradition, enriching or illuminating it, sometimes even criticising it, from his knowledge of Greek history and thought.

We should be chary therefore of supposing that Cicero's political programme was wholly his own; and, where a programme on a practical level is concerned, we should probably look more closely for Roman than for Greek sources. The first place to search is of course in a man's immediate family background, its position, traditions and contacts. This is true of all ages and places; but it is especially true of Rome. In the recent and justified reaction against the idea of fixed family parties, allied to or warring with certain other families from generation to generation, we are in danger of forgetting that family tradition in a broad sense was often very important. Cicero explains in the de officiis how one should imitate not only the maiores in general, but one's own maiores in particular – thus successive Scaevolae have become legal experts, and Scipio Aemilianus emulated the military glory of the first Africanus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 17: New Series , 1971 , pp. 75 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 75 note 1 Strasburger, H., Concordia Ordinum (1931, reprinted 1956)Google Scholar. Chapter 1 shows that concordia had long been a catch-word in Roman politics.

page 75 note 2 This is true even of Gelzer, in his great Pauly article and the biography based on it (1969). Otherwise some recent English discussions may be specifically mentioned, by Cary, M., CAH IX (1932), 506 Google Scholar; Scullard, H.H., ‘The Political Career of a Novus Homo ’ in Cicero, chapters edited by Dorey, T. A. (1965)Google Scholar; J. P. V. D. Balsdon, ‘Cicero the Man’, ibid.; Smith, R. E., Cicero the Statesman (1966)Google Scholar; Stockton, D., Cicero: A Political Biography (1971)Google Scholar.

page 75 note 3 de off. I. 116.

page 76 note 1 See Heinze, R., Vom Geist des Römertums (1938), p. 59 Google Scholar; originally of 1909.

page 76 note 2 Valerius Maximus VI. 9. 14 on Marius' vainly standing for office there; de leg. III. 36 for Cicero's grandfather's opposition to Gratidius' lex tabellaria. Badian, E., ‘Marius and the nobles’, Durham Univ. Journal (1964), p. 141 Google Scholar suggests that at first Marius was not on a level with, or connected to, the other two families.

page 76 note 3 Op. cit. p. 14.

page 76 note 4 Op. cit. p. 11.

page 77 note 1 de off. I. 76.

page 77 note 2 The strongest argument for the early date seems to be that it was admired by a Scaevola who is probably the Augur (de leg. I. 1). But a date after the return from exile remains possible.

page 77 note 3 See, for the passages in which Cicero mentions Marius, Gnauk, R., Die Bedeutung des Marius und Cato Maior für Cicero (Diss. 1936)Google Scholar and Carney, T. F., ‘Cicero's Picture of Marius’, Wiener Studien (1960), p. 83 Google Scholar.

page 77 note 4 Büchner, R., Cicero (1964), p. 28 Google Scholar.

page 77 note 5 post red. ad Quir. 19–20.

page 77 note 6 Suetonius, de gramm. 26.

page 78 note 1 Nepos, Atticus I; cf. de leg. I. 13.

page 78 note 2 de leg. III. 36.

page 78 note 3 de orat. II. 2.

page 78 note 4 Brutus 168.

page 78 note 5 de orat. II. 3.

page 78 note 6 Valerius Maximus IX. 2. 2.

page 78 note 7 Cf. de off. III. 67.

page 78 note 8 de orat. II. 262.

page 79 note 1 See for all these de oratore III. 9–11; Brutus 307. For Caesar also Valerius Maximus V. 3. 3.

page 79 note 2 Valerius Maximus IX. 12. 4; Appian, , Civil Wars I. 74 Google Scholar.

page 79 note 3 Valerius Maximus IX. 11. 2.

page 79 note 4 Appian, , Civil Wars 1. 88 Google Scholar.

page 79 note 5 ad Att. VIII. 3. 6.

page 79 note 6 JRS (1962), p. 47 = Studies in Greek and Roman History (1964), p. 206; contra, Balsdon, J. P. V. D., JRS (1965), p. 230 Google Scholar. Bulst, C., ‘Cinnanum Tempus’, Historia (1964), p. 307 Google Scholar, to some extent agrees with Badian.

page 79 note 7 Brutus 227 sine iure fuit et sine ulla dignitate res publica… erat ab oratoribus quaedam in foro solitudo.

page 79 note 8 On Scaurus see Bloch, R., ‘M. Aemilius Scaurus’, Univ. de Paris, Bibl. de la Fac. des Lettres (1909), 1 Google Scholar; Fraccaro, P., ‘Scauriana’, Rend. Acc. dei Lincei (1911), p. 169 Google Scholar = Opuscula II (1957), 125 Google Scholar.

page 80 note 1 pro Scauro (p. 25 St.). The stress Cicero lays in the peroration on the way he can actually see M. Scaurus perhaps shows that he had known him. He perhaps took the case from loyalty (ad Q.f. II. 16. 3).

page 80 note 2 de orat. I. 214.

page 80 note 3 pro Ponteio 24.

page 80 note 4 pro Murena 36.

page 80 note 5 Brutus 111–12.

page 80 note 6 Plutarch, , Cicero I. 5.Google Scholar

page 80 note 7 pro Sestio 101.

page 80 note 8 ad Att. IV. 16. 6 T.P. take rusticos to equal ‘the rustic tribes’; doubtful. It looks as if, at any rate, Scaurus had strong extra-urban clientelae.

page 81 note 1 Asconius, in Scaur, p. 24 St.

page 81 note 2 Sallust, Jug. 15. 4.

page 81 note 3 ‘Sallust and Dissimulatio ’, JRS (1959), p. 56 Google Scholar.

page 81 note 4 Syme, R., Sallust (1964), p. 165 Google Scholar.

page 81 note 5 Diss. Munich 1950.

page 81 note 6 Strasburger, H., ‘Der “Scipionenkreis”’, Hermes (1966), p. 60 Google Scholar. Cf. Astin, A. E., Scipio Aemilianus (1967), Appendix VIGoogle Scholar.

page 82 note 1 Plutarch, , Marius 35. 6–7 Google Scholar.

page 82 note 2 Valerius Maximus III. 8. 5.

page 82 note 3 Valerius Maximus VIII. 15. 6.

page 82 note 4 de off. II. 57; de nat. deor. III. 80.

page 82 note 5 ORF no. 66.

page 82 note 6 Stockton, op. cit. p. 6.

page 82 note 7 Gelzer, op. cit. pp. 4–5, and many others.

page 82 note 8 Smith, op. cit.

page 82 note 9 Op. cit. pp. 9–11.

page 83 note 1 Münzer, F., ‘Atticus als Geschichtsschreiber’, Hermes (1905), 50 Google Scholar.

page 83 note 2 Idem, ‘Hortensius und Cicero’, Hermes (1914), 212 n.; cf. Gnomon (1931), p. 32 n.Google Scholar, and PW, M. Tullius Cicero (28).

page 83 note 3 Suetonius, de rhet. 26.

page 83 note 4 de orat. III. 93.

page 83 note 5 PW, Mucia (27).

page 84 note 1 frag. 14.

page 84 note 2 Brutus 160.

page 84 note 3 frags. 22–6.

page 84 note 4 frags. 20–1.

page 84 note 5 de orat. I. 24; pro Cluentio 153.

page 84 note 6 Brunt, P. A., ‘Italian Aims at the time of the Social War’, JRS (1965), p. 90 Google Scholar reminds us that the evidence for Marius' favour to Italy is thin; but it surely remains probable.

page 84 note 7 de orat. I. 154, III. 214.

page 84 note 8 Ibid. I. 225.

page 84 note 9 Ibid. I. 227.

page 84 note 10 Ibid. I. 112.

page 84 note 11 Brutus 165.

page 85 note 1 Obsequens 41; Cassiodorus, Chron.; Tacitus, , Ann. XII. 60 Google Scholar.

page 85 note 2 Gabba, E., ‘Osservazioni sulla legge giudiziaria di M. Livio Druso’, La Parola del Passato (1956), p. 363 Google Scholar. ‘M. Livio Druso e le riforme di Silla’, Annali della Se. Normale di Pisa (1964), p. 1 Google Scholar.

page 85 note 3 Martinelli, N., La rappresentazione dello stile di Crasso e di Antonio nel De oratore (1963)Google Scholar.

page 85 note 4 Op. cit. p. 203.

page 85 note 5 de orat. I. 34.

page 86 note 1 Two passages of the de legibus, II. 14 and 31, show that Cicero did not, in spite of his admiration for Crassus, regret the declaration that the Livian laws were invalid. In the first, where the point is being made that unjust laws are not laws at all, it is Cicero's more conservative brother Quintus who perhaps rather provocatively puts the Livian laws in this class: ego vero ne Livias quidem. Cicero politely agrees, but largely on the grounds that the senate had annulled them, as he believed it had a right to do. In the second passage he is discussing the powers of the augurs to declare legislation void, in which again he believed strongly. Drusus' laws were passed by force and in contravention of the Lex Caecilia Didia. Crassus himself may not have been wholly happy about his protégé's methods; according to an anecdote of Cicero's, Crassus' friend Granius certainly was not (immo vero quid tu agas, Druse?). Thus these passages of the de legibus do not prove that Cicero disagreed with Crassus over the contents of the legislation.

page 86 note 2 Including L. Lucullus, Ser. Sulpicius, Scipio Aemilianus; Laelius and the elder Cato are called sapientissimus and also sapiens, as they were in their own time almost as a cognomen.

page 86 note 3 Among the ideas in the de legibus that might be influenced by Crassus one could single out the defence of the tribunate, repudiated by ordinary optimates like Quintus and Atticus. Crassus and his friends held the office and clearly believed in making use of it for optimate ends.

page 87 note 1 Paradoxa Stoicorum V. 41: ilia eloquentissimi viri L. Crassi copiosa magis quam sapiens orado meets with disapproval. But Cicero is here expounding Stoic views, not speaking in his own person. Note however that the oration of 106 is called copiosa, perhaps evidence that the same speech is in question asm de off. II. 63.

page 87 note 2 Strasburger, op. cit. p. 9, mentions Licinius Macer; we should consider also Valerius Antias, noting all the early Valerii busily conciliating the plebs. Antias was probably a protégé of the patrician Valerii, who had recendy reconciled themselves to Sulla after an ambiguous past.

page 87 note 3 Carcopino, Esp. J. in Histoire Ancienne in: Histoire Romaine II (1935), p. 525 Google Scholar.

page 88 note 1 Suetonius, de gramm. 3.