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MEMMIUS, CICERO AND LUCRETIUS: A NOTE ON CIC. FAM. 13.1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2020
Extract
A recent piece in this journal by Morgan and Taylor made the case that C. Memmius is not to be seen as an active prosecutor of Epicureanism but rather as an Epicurean himself, who merely has disagreed with the grimly orthodox Epicurean sect in Athens. As such, Memmius’ building intentions for Epicurus’ home could have been to create an honorary monument or possibly even construct a grander locus for pilgrimage and the practice of Epicureanism. This note adds to their findings by considering allusions to De Rerum Natura found in Fam. 13.1 and the implications of Cicero speaking to Memmius in Lucretius’ striking language. Cicero expresses his judgement on De Rerum Natura, famously, at QFr. 2.10.3, Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum ueneris, uirum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris, hominem non putabo, and Memmius, of course, is the addressee of De Rerum Natura. This Lucretian language, unremarked on by previous scholars, points to the shared literary culture of Cicero and Memmius as well as Memmius’ own ability to recollect and contextualize the references. By echoing Lucretius in this letter, Cicero hints at Memmius’ sophistication and learning (Cic. Brut. 247), underscores Lucretius’ own fervent devotion to Epicurus’ strictures, and suggests the need for Memmius to achieve ataraxia, at the very least, in regards to his building plans and the furore it is causing in Athens.
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Footnotes
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I want to give heartful thanks to the reader of CQ and to Benjamin T. Lee for their comments and suggestions.
References
1 Morgan, L. and Taylor, B., ‘Memmius the Epicurean’, CQ 67 (2017), 528–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 As M. Griffin had suggested, ‘Nor do we know that Memmius was not planning to build a new building in honour of Epicurus on the site of his ruined house’, in ‘Philosophical badinage in Cicero's Letters’, in J.G.F. Powell (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve Papers (Oxford, 1995), 325–46, at 333 n. 36.
3 For discussion, see Sandbach, F.H., ‘Lucreti poemata and the poet's death’, CR 40 (1940), 72–7Google Scholar; Kenney, E.J., ‘Doctus Lucretius’, Mnemosyne 23 (1970), 366–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 366–8; and Bailey, F.R. Shackleton, Cicero: Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum (Cambridge, 1980)Google Scholar, ad loc. For Cicero's reception of Lucretius more generally, see Merrill, W.A., ‘Cicero's knowledge of Lucretius’ poem’, University of California Publications on Classical Philology 2 (1909), 35–42Google Scholar; Pucci, G.C., ‘Echi Lucreziani in Cicerone’, SIFC 38 (1966), 70–132Google Scholar; Hardie, P., ‘Lucretius and later Latin literature in antiquity’, in Gillespie, S. and Hardie, P. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius (Cambridge, 2007), 111–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 113; and Gatzemeier, S., Ut ait Lucretius: Die Lukrezrezeption in der lateinischen Prosa bis Laktanz (Göttingen, 2013), 27–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 It would also indicate that De Rerum Natura, in all likelihood, had been published by the date of Fam. 13.1 (June / July 51 b.c.e.), thus supporting the traditional dating of De Rerum Natura to the 50s b.c.e. I am unconvinced by G. Hutchinson's claim for re-dating and reconfiguring the addressee of Lucretius’ poem. See Hutchinson, G., ‘The date of De Rerum Natura’, CQ 51 (2001), 150–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the refutations by Volk, K., ‘Lucretius’ prayer for peace and the date of De Rerum Natura’, CQ 60 (2010), 127–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar and by Krebs, C., ‘Caesar, Lucretius and the dates of De Rerum Natura and the Commentarii’, CQ 63 (2013), 772–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Krebs's discussion of Lucretian language in Caesar would indicate that Lucretius was in vogue at this time and that men of letters would be attuned to such references.
5 See Morgan and Taylor (n. 1), 536 for this ‘parody of the kind of hedonic calculation with which Epicurus expected his followers to determine each and every course of action’. Voluptas seems particularly marked in that it appeared in the first line of Lucretius’ poem (1.1, hominum diuumque uoluptas) and to describe the hoped-for friendship with Memmius (1.140–1, sperata uoluptas | suauis amicitiae). See Griffin, M., ‘Philosophy, politics, and politicians’, in Griffin, M. and Barnes, J. (edd.), Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society (Oxford, 1989), 1–37Google Scholar, at 17: ‘Cicero's point is that neither Memmius nor Atticus were simple-minded dogmatic Epicureans who argued earnestly and without any taste or style’.
6 The opening lines hearken back to Lucr. 6.708 (forms of commendatus, traditus), Lucr. 2.424 (forms of constare and molestus / molestia) and, possibly, Lucr. 5.10 with sapientia (a rare word in Lucretius). These echoes are rather fleeting, but may establish a Lucretian ‘feel’ to the letter, especially as they are part of a general ‘hedonic calculation’.
7 This house of Epicurus in Melite was in shambles according to Cicero elsewhere (Fam. 13.1.3, Att. 5.19.3) and Memmius possessed the rights to this real estate; see Morgan and Taylor (n. 1), 529–30.
8 uestigia appears twice in this section, and Memmius is directly addressed at 1.411.
9 For the significance of uestigium, see Schiesaro, A., Simulacrum et Imago (Pisa, 1990), 101Google Scholar and passim, as well as D. Fowler, Roman Constructions (Oxford, 2000), 148.
10 I would not go so far as D. Fowler's suggestion: ‘One might even wonder whether it was the De Rerum Natura which Cicero refers to when he talks of the “offensiuncula” caused to Memmius by the “perversitas” of some Epicureans’ (‘Lucretius and politics’, in M. Griffin and J. Barnes [edd.], Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society [Oxford, 1989], 120–50, at 122). Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly support the idea that Cicero is employing De Rerum Natura to communicate with Memmius.
11 Wiseman, T.P., Cinna the Poet and other Roman Essays (Leicester, 1974), 27Google Scholar notes how Lucretius had more in common with Epicurean propagandists ‘than with Cicero's own friends, the upper-class dilettanti of Epicureanism who lounged in their country villas discussing the nature of pleasure’.
12 The phrasing (politus + doctrina) is rare: see Cic. De or. 3.81: nam neque sine forensibus neruis satis uehemens et grauis nec sine uarietate doctrinae satis politus et sapiens esse orator potest, and cf. Cic. Fin. 1.26.
13 Morgan and Taylor (n. 1) remark on the ability of a Roman intellectual ‘to sympathize with Epicureanism while simultaneously refusing to take seriously the centralized authoritarian strictures of its Athenian school’ (at 540).