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‘A FADED REFLECTION OF THE GRACCHI’:1 ETHICS, ELOQUENCE AND THE PROBLEM OF SULPICIUS IN CICERO'S DE ORATORE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2017

Louise Hodgson
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Extract

This paper is as much about a particular depiction of the tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus as it is about Cicero's De Oratore, a dialogue regularly called upon by historians to give evidence on the 90s b.c. and the characters who take part in the conversation it depicts. My main focus is literary: I will argue that, given what we know about the historical Sulpicius, Cicero's choice of Sulpicius for a prominent minor role in De Oratore drives the tragic historical framework that undercuts the optimism expressed within the dialogue by the main protagonist L. Licinius Crassus for the civic value of oratory. The Rhetorica ad Herennium illustrates a certain type of allegory with the statement ‘as if one should call Drusus a “faded reflection of the Gracchi”’. In De Oratore, Drusus’ friend and successor Sulpicius functions as a reflection of the Gracchi and his eloquence reinforces the problem posed by such orators as the notoriously eloquent Gaius Gracchus for any such grand claims about the civic value of oratory. By examining Cicero's use of relatively recent history, we therefore discover that De Oratore is significantly more pessimistic than it may at first seem. This pessimism, however, has important implications for historians, since expanding our understanding of De Oratore as a literary construct should encourage historians to be significantly more cautious about using the text as a historical source. As Görler points out with regard to Crassus’ swansong at De or. 3.4–5, although ‘a naive reader of Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta could be left with the impression that some sentences are quite well attested’, most of the fragments of Crassus’ speech can actually be traced back to De Oratore. Likewise, a significant proportion of the standard elements in Sulpicius’ backstory go back to De Oratore and become a great deal less convincing once we accept De Oratore as a sustained fictional account featuring people who were neither as politically ‘safe’ nor as intellectually united as Cicero would have them be. My secondary focus in this paper is therefore on the broader lessons to be drawn from Sulpicius’ role in De Oratore. I will begin by outlining the historical context of the dialogue, which was written in the mid 50s but is set in 91, a few weeks before the natural death of Crassus, one of its two protagonists. Next, I will discuss the dialogue's literary context, specifically the Platonic allusions Cicero embeds within the text. These allusions encourage us to treat De Oratore’s historical framework carefully, if not sceptically, and I will outline the ‘off notes’ struck by references to the Gracchi and by the presentation of Crassus and Antonius before examining the problem Sulpicius poses for a straightforwardly optimistic reading of De Oratore. I will conclude by considering first the literary implications for De Oratore of accepting that Sulpicius is a deliberately problematic character and then the historical implications of taking a sceptical approach towards De Oratore as an historical source for our picture of Sulpicius.

Type
Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , May 2017 , pp. 163 - 181
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

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Footnotes

1

Rhet. Her. 4.46. Except where otherwise indicated, the translations cited are those of the Loeb editions, slightly amended. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ingo Gildenhard, Catherine Steel, Bruce Gibson and all of my anonymous readers for their invaluable comments.

References

2 Rhet. Her. 4.46, ut si quis Drusum Graccum nitorem obsoletum dicat. von Ungern-Sternberg, J., ‘Die popularen Beispiele in der Schrift des Auctors ad Herennium’, Chiron 3 (1973), 143–62Google Scholar, at 157 points out the ambiguity of this remark: the insult might lie either in likening Drusus to the Gracchi or in accusing Drusus of not being enough like the Gracchi.

3 Görler, W., ‘From Athens to Tusculum: gleaning the background of Cicero's De Oratore ’, Rhetorica 6 (1988), 215–35Google Scholar, at 232–3.

4 See Leeman, A.D., Pinkster, H. and Wisse, J., M. Tullius Cicero. De Oratore Libri III. Kommentar 4. Band: Buch II, 291—367; Buch III, 1—95 (Heidelberg, 1996), 304–6Google Scholar; Dugan, J., Making a New Man (Oxford, 2005), 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Badian, E., ‘Caepio and Norbanus’, in id., Studies in Greek and Roman History (Oxford, 1964), 34–70 Google Scholar, at 34–6; and Gruen, E.S., ‘Political prosecutions in the 90s b.c. ’, Historia 15 (1966), 32–64 Google Scholar, at 43–7 for contrasting views on these two trials. The date of Norbanus’ trial is less certain than the date of Caepio the Younger's trial, but Badian argues convincingly that it too took place in 95.

6 Gruen (n. 5), 53; Mackay, C.S., The Breakdown of the Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2009), 119–20Google Scholar; however, see Kallet-Marx, R., ‘The trial of Rutilius Rufus’, Phoenix 44 (1990), 122–39Google Scholar, who argues for the likelihood of a date as early as 94 and proposes a reconsideration of the political (in)significance of Rutilius’ trial.

7 See Mackay (n. 6), 106–33 for a succinct summary of the events between Saturninus’ first tribunate (103) and the end of the Social War (89).

8 The main ancient evidence for this account is: (1) Sulpicius’ political background: his characterization in De Oratore generally; Cic. Har. resp. 43, ‘And it was the breeze of popularity which carried Sulpicius further than he intended, after he had set out in a good cause, and had resisted Gaius Julius when seeking to obtain the consulship contrary to the laws’ (Sulpicium ab optima causa profectum Gaioque Iulio consulatum contra leges petenti resistentem longius quam uoluit popularis aura prouexit)—ab optima causa has frequently been read as ‘in the optimate cause’, e.g. Badian, E., ‘Quaestiones variae’, Historia 18 (1969), 447–91Google Scholar, at 481–2; Cic. Off. 2.49 (prosecution of Norbanus); (2) the break with old friends: Cic. De or. 3.11 (unnamed former friends, implying but not explicitly indicating the other speakers in the dialogue); Cic. Amic. 2 (specific reference to Q. Pompeius Rufus, consul of 88, who does not appear in the dialogue); (3) Sulpicius' turbulent tribunate: App. B Civ. 1.55-60; Plut. Sull. 8–10, Mar. 34–5; Vell. Pat. 2.18.5; Diod. Sic. 37.2.12; Cic. Brut. 226; Asc. In Scaurianam 22, p. 25 C.

9 Lintott, A.W., ‘The tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus’, CQ 21 (1971), 442–53Google Scholar, at 447.

10 Lintott (n. 9), 447–8; Powell, J.G.F., ‘The tribune Sulpicius’, Historia 39 (1990), 446–60Google Scholar, at 460.

11 Badian (n. 8), 485–6.

12 Mitchell, T.N., ‘The volte-face of P. Sulpicius Rufus in 88 b.c. ’, CPh 70 (1975), 197–204 Google Scholar.

13 Keaveney, A., ‘Sulla, Sulpicius and Caesar Strabo’, Latomus 38 (1979), 451–60Google Scholar.

14 Rhet. Her. 2.45. The Rhetorica ad Herennium is a rhetorical handbook of uncertain provenance written by an unknown author and addressed to the otherwise unknown Gaius Herennius, generally (but not always) dated to somewhere between 86 and 82 b.c. See Marx, F. (ed.), Incerti Auctoris De Ratione Dicendi ad C. Herennium Libri IV (Hildesheim, 1966 [1894]), 69–73 Google Scholar, 152; Clarke, M.L., Rhetoric at Rome (London, 1953), 14Google Scholar; Kennedy, G., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton, 1972), 192Google Scholar; Corbeill, A., ‘Rhetorical education in Cicero's youth’, in May, –J.M. (ed.), Brill's Companion to Cicero. Oratory and Rhetoric (Leiden, 2002), 23–48 Google Scholar, at 33; Fantham, E., The Roman World of Cicero's De Oratore (Oxford, 2004), 92Google Scholar; however, Douglas, A.E., ‘Clausulae in the Rhetorica ad Herennium as evidence of its date’, CQ 10 (1960), 65–78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues for the viability of a much later terminus ante quem. See also Winkel, L., ‘Some remarks on the date of the “Rhetorica ad Herennium”’, Mnemosyne 32 (1979), 327–32Google Scholar, at 332.

15 For a range of opinions on what this bill was and who these exules were, cf. Gruen, E.S., ‘The Lex Varia’, JRS 55 (1965), 59–73 Google Scholar, at 72–3; Badian (n. 8), 487–90; Lintott (n. 9), 453; Keaveney (n. 13), 455–7; Powell (n. 10), 456–7; Lewis, R.G., ‘P. Sulpicius’ law to recall exiles, 88 b.c.’, CQ 48 (1998), 195–9Google Scholar.

16 Lewis (n. 15), 199.

17 Badian (n. 8), 482–5; Katz, B.E., ‘Caesar Strabo's struggle for the consulship – and more’, RhM 120 (1977), 45–63 Google Scholar, at 60.

18 Luce, T.J., ‘Marius and the Mithridatic command’, Historia 19 (1970), 161–94Google Scholar, at 192–4; Lintott (n. 9), 451.

19 Powell (n. 10), 457–8.

20 Lintott (n. 9), 452–4; Katz (n. 17), 55 n. 50; Powell (n. 10), 454–5.

21 Rhet. Her. 4.31; see von Ungern-Sternberg (n. 2), 152–7.

22 Fantham, E., ‘Imitation and evolution: the discussion of rhetorical imitation in Cicero, De Oratore 2. 87–97 and some related problems of Ciceronian theory’, CPh 73 (1978), 1–16 Google Scholar, at 4.

23 Cic. De or. 2.2–3, Brut. 205.

24 Strasburger, H., ‘Poseidonios on problems of the Roman Empire,’ JRS 55 (1965), 40–53 Google Scholar, at 41, and ‘Der Scipionenkreis,’ Hermes 94 (1966), 60–72 Google Scholar; Astin, A.E., Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford, 1967), 294–306 Google Scholar; Zetzel, J.E.G., ‘Cicero and the Scipionic Circle’, HSPh 76 (1972), 173–9Google Scholar; Raschke, W.J., ‘“Arma pro amico”: Lucilian satire at the crisis of the Roman Republic’, Hermes 115 (1987), 299–318 Google Scholar, at 302–7; Forsythe, G., ‘A philological note on the Scipionic Circle’, AJPh 112 (1991), 363–4Google Scholar. Although Wilson, J.P., ‘ Grex Scipionis in De Amicitia. A reply to Gary Forsythe’, AJPh 115 (1994), 269–71Google Scholar has made a strictly philological argument in favour of reading a particular phrase in Cicero's De Amicitia as referring to a ‘Scipionic Circle’, and Sommer, Michael has defended Aemilianus’ philhellenism in ‘Scipio Aemilianus, Polybius, and the quest for friendship in second-century Rome’, in Gibson, B. and Harrison, T. (edd.), Polybius and his World: Essays in Memory of F.W. Walbank (Oxford, 2013), 307–18Google Scholar, no one has yet attempted to rehabilitate the cultural and political powerhouse that was the nineteenth century ‘Scipionic Circle’.

25 Görler (n. 3), 233.

26 Görler (n. 3), 222–3.

27 Cf. Jones, R.E., ‘Cicero's accuracy of characterization in his dialogues’, AJPh 60 (1939), 307–25Google Scholar, at 317–20; Hall, J., ‘Persuasive design in Cicero's “De Oratore”’, Phoenix 48 (1994), 210–25Google Scholar, at 211–16; Richards, J., ‘Assumed simplicity and the critique of nobility: or, how Castiglione read Cicero’, RenQ 54 (2001), 460–86Google Scholar; Stull, W., ‘ Deus ille noster: Platonic precedent and the construction of the interlocutors in Cicero's “De Oratore”’, TAPhA 141 (2011), 247–63Google Scholar, at 254–5.

28 Jones (n. 27), 317–20.

29 Badian (n. 8), 454–5.

30 sic enim statuo, perfecti oratoris moderatione et sapientia non solum ipsius dignitatem, sed et priuatorum plurimorum, et uniuersae reipublicae salutem maxime contineri.

31 For a convenient summary of the literature on Platonic features, see Görler (n. 3), 215 n. 2 (and e.g. E. Schütrumpf, ‘Platonic elements in the structure of Cicero, De Oratore Book 1’, Rhetorica 6 [1988], 237–58; Fantham [n. 14], 49 ff.; Stull [n. 27]). Cf. also Solmsen, F., ‘Aristotle and Cicero on the orator's playing upon the feelings’, CPh 33 (1938), 390–404 Google Scholar, at 396–402; Fortenbaugh, W.W., ‘ Beneuolentiam conciliare and animos permouere: some remarks on Cicero's De Oratore 2.178–216’, Rhetorica 6 (1988), 259–73Google Scholar; Schütrumpf, E., ‘Cicero, De Oratore 1 and Greek philosophical tradition’, RhM 133 (1990), 310–21Google Scholar, at 318–21 for Aristotelian/Peripatetic correspondences (mostly to do with the rhetorical theory of manipulating emotions).

32 See, for example, Dover, K.J., ‘Aristophanes’ speech in Plato's Symposium ’, JHS 86 (1966), 41–50 Google Scholar; Goggin, M.D. and Long, E., ‘A tincture of philosophy, a tincture of hope: the portrayal of Isocrates in Plato's Phaedrus ’, RhetR 11 (1993), 301–24Google Scholar; Morgan, K.A., ‘Socrates and Gorgias at Delphi and Olympia: Phaedrus 235d6–236b4’, CQ 44 (1994), 375–86Google Scholar; Adams, J.C., ‘The rhetorical significance of the conversion of the lover's soul in Plato's “Phaedrus”’, RSQ 26 (1996), 7–16 Google Scholar; Corlett, J.A., ‘Interpreting Plato's dialogues’, CQ 47 (1997), 423–37Google Scholar; Morgan, K.A., ‘Designer history: Plato's Atlantis story and fourth-century ideology’, JHS 118 (1998), 101–18Google Scholar; McAdon, B., ‘Plato's denunciation of rhetoric in the “Phaedrus”’, RhetR 23 (2004), 21–39;Google Scholar Nichols, M.P., ‘Socrates’ contest with the poets in Plato's Symposium’, Political Theory 32 (2004), 186–206 Google Scholar; Nichols, M.P., ‘Philosophy and empire: on Socrates and Alcibiades in Plato's “Symposium”’, Polity 39 (2007), 502–21Google Scholar.

33 Görler (n. 3), 235.

34 Dugan (n. 4), 81–103.

35 Görler (n. 3), 228–35; Stull (n. 27).

36 Fox, M., Cicero's Philosophy of History (Oxford, 2007), 2Google Scholar.

37 Fox (n. 36), 26.

38 On this, cf. Hall, J., ‘Social evasion and aristocratic manners in Cicero's “de Oratore”’, AJPh 117 (1996), 95–120 Google Scholar; Zerba, M., ‘Love, envy, and pantomimic morality in Cicero's “De Oratore”’, CPh 97 (2002), 299–321 Google Scholar.

39 Hall (n. 27), 216–21.

40 See Leeman, Pinkster and Wisse (n. 4), 304–6; Dugan (n. 4), 97.

41 Kastely, J.L., ‘The recalcitrance of aggression: an aporetic moment in Cicero's De inventione ’, Rhetorica 20 (2002), 235–62Google Scholar, at 254.

42 Wisse, J., ‘ De oratore: rhetoric, philosophy and the making of the ideal orator’, in May, J.M. (ed.), Brill's Companion to Cicero. Oratory and Rhetoric (Leiden, 2002), 375–400 Google Scholar, at 378; Dugan (n. 4), 75.

43 Kastely (n. 41), 236.

44 See also Cic. Brut. 103–4, 125–6.

45 Cic. De or. 1.30–4; see also Schütrumpf (n. 31 [1988]), 246–7 (who is tempted to see a ‘structural analogy’ in the way Crassus’ ‘oratorical show-piece’ provokes a response from non-rhetoricians, forcing Crassus to clarify his position); Leeman, Pinkster and Wisse (n. 4), 200–1; Fantham (n. 14), 62–3.

46 Cic. De or. 1.227, where Antonius also relates the severe criticisms of the self-consciously Stoic P. Rutilius Rufus. See also Fantham (n. 14), 220; Dugan (n. 4), 144.

47 Other citations apparently from Antonius’ speech on the same occasion: 2.164, ‘If sovereignty be the grandeur and glory of the civic community, it was violated by the man who delivered up to the enemy an army of the Roman people, not by him who delivered the man that did it into the power of the Roman people’ and 2.167, ‘If the magistracies ought to be under the control of the Roman people, why impeach Norbanus, whose conduct as tribune was subservient to the will of the community?’ See Leeman, A.D., Pinkster, H. and Rabbie, E., M. Tullius Cicero. De Oratore Libri III. Kommentar 3. Band: Buch II, 99—290 (Heidelberg, 1989), 106–8Google Scholar.

48 Compare Cicero's similar account of Roman history at Rep. 2.46, 2.52-63.

49 See Leeman, Pinkster and Rabbie (n. 47), 130–2 for a discussion of this section as an exemplary case-study in the use of pathos in oratory, and Zerba (n. 38), 308–9, and ‘The frauds of humanism: Cicero, Machiavelli, and the rhetoric of imposture’, Rhetorica 22 (2004), 215–40Google Scholar, at 230–2, for Antonius’ strategies for ameliorating possible inuidia in his audience.

50 Perhaps unsurprising: as Catherine Steel has put it (informally), ‘the most challenging—because morally questionable—political positions demand outstanding rhetoric—i.e. why would you devote yourself so intensively to rhetoric if you weren't trying to pull a fast one?’

51 Fantham (n. 14), 71.

52 Fantham (n. 14), 56–7.

53 Fantham (n. 14), 63; see generally Fantham (n. 14), 62–3; Schütrumpf (n. 31 [1988]).

54 Fantham (n. 14), 71.

55 Fantham (n. 14), 70.

56 Kennedy (n. 14), 205, 210; see also Leeman, A.D. and Pinkster, H., M.T. Cicero. De Oratore Libri III. Kommentar 1. Band: Buch I, 1–165 (Heidelberg, 1981), 81Google Scholar.

57 Cic. De or. 1.24, pro senatus auctoritate suspectus, infringi iam debilitarique uideretur.

58 Per inuidiam refers to the activities of the Varian commission at the start of the Social War. See Gruen (n. 15), 64; Badian (n. 8); Leeman, Pinkster and Wisse (n. 4), 120; Fantham (n. 14), 92.

59 Cic. De or. 3.225, saepe sum admiratus hominis cum diligentiam tum etiam doctrinam et scientiam; see Wisse, J., Winterbottom, M. and Fantham, E., M. Tullius Cicero. De Oratore Libri III. A Commentary on Book III, 96–230. Volume 5 (Heidelberg, 2008), 372Google Scholar for the strength of diligentia used here as a term of praise.

60 Cic. De or. 3.226, ut eorum ciuium, quos nostri patres non tulerunt, iam similis habere cupiamus.

61 See Fantham (n. 14), 248.

62 Fantham (n. 14), 307.

63 See Fantham (n. 22), on imitatio in De Oratore; she points out that Sulpicius is ‘an illustration of well-directed imitation’ (3).

64 See Leeman and Pinkster (n. 56), 89–90 on the exaggerated youthfulness of Sulpicius and Cotta in De Oratore.

65 Hall (n. 27), 219–20; see also Leeman, Pinkster and Wisse (n. 4), 87; May, J.M. and Wisse, J. (trans. intro. notes, appen. gloss.), Cicero. On the Ideal Orator (Oxford, 2001), 15Google Scholar; Wisse, Winterbottom and Fantham (n. 59), 165, 170–1.

66 Cic. De or. 3.55; see Fantham (n. 14), 248.

67 E.g. Rhet. Her. 4.22, 4.38, 4.42, 4.67.

68 Plut. Ti. Gracch. 19; App. B Civ. 1.16.

69 Badian (n. 5), 50; Luce (n. 18), 176–7.

70 Badian (n. 5), 50; Luce (n. 18), 176 n. 47. Luce follows Thompson, L.A., ‘The relationship between provincial quaestors and their commanders-in-chief’, Historia 11 (1962), 339–55Google Scholar, at 348, who argues convincingly that the relationship between quaestors and their commanders-in-chief was one of political etiquette rather than religious piety. Gruen (n. 15), 67–8 argues that the indignation aroused by Antonius’ defence of Norbanus tells against the idea that Antonius was a recognized associate of Marius in 95, but his reading of the trial depends on taking Antonius’ excuse seriously as a reason to defend Norbanus. The usual reason to take on the defence of politically dubious characters is amicitia; the fact that it was not accepted as an excuse in this case (and in fact does not seem to have been put forward; if Cicero is to be believed, Antonius resorted to the much weaker explanation of his duty to his former quaestor) suggests that Antonius’ decision upset people because he had no particular ties of amicitia with Norbanus and his claim to duty was obviously just an excuse. If so, we may presume that something else was going on, and the most likely thing is that Antonius was indeed doing Marius a favour.

71 Luce (n. 18), 170–2.

72 Kallet-Marx (n. 6), 137.

73 Luce (n. 18), 172, following Badian (n. 5), 43–4. Luce, however, seems to have confused Q. Mucius Scaevola the Pontifex (cos. 95, colleague of Crassus and governor of Asia) with Q. Mucius Scaevola the Augur (cos. 117, speaker in De Oratore and father of Crassus’ wife), which weakens his case somewhat; cf. Gruen (n. 5), 43 n. 67 on the date of the betrothal.

74 Cf. Görler (n. 3), 228–35; Leeman, Pinkster and Wisse (n. 4), 304–6; Dugan (n. 4), 97; Stull (n. 27), 257–8.

75 Kallett-Marx (n. 6), 132.

76 Kallett-Marx (n. 6), 136.

77 Kallet-Marx (n. 6), 135–7.

78 Powell (n. 10), 449.

79 Powell (n. 10), 447.

80 Badian (n. 8), 454; this did not, however, prevent him from describing in the same article (467) ‘the part played by L. Crassus in shaping the ideas of the circle of young aristocrats attested as his most eminent pupils—M. Drusus, C. Cotta, P. Sulpicius Rufus’ (evidence: De Or. 1.22, 1.25 ff.).

81 Mitchell (n. 12), 198 n. 1. See similarly Keaveney (n. 13), 454, on Caesar Strabo and the ‘Drusan group’; Gruen (n. 15), 67–8 on Antonius’ defence of Norbanus.