Table Of ContentReading Ciceroʼs Final Years
CICERO
Studies on Roman Thought
and Its Reception
Publications of the Foundation
Patrum Lumen Sustine (Basel)
and of the Société Internationale
des Amis de Cicéron (Paris)
Edited by
Ermanno Malaspina
Advisory Board
Mireille Armisen-Marchetti, Carmen Codoñer,
Perrine Galand, Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer,
Robert Kaster, David Konstan, Carlos Lévy,
Rita Pierini, Jula Wildberger
Volume 3
Reading Ciceroʼs
Final Years
Receptions of the Post-Caesarian Works
up to the Sixteenth Century
With two Epilogues
Edited by
Christoph Pieper and Bram van der Velden
The publication of this volume was made possible through the financial support of the Patrum
Lumen Sustine foundation in Basel and the scholarly direction of the Société Internationale des
Amis de Cicéron (SIAC, Paris).
www.patrumlumensustine.com www.tulliana.eu
ISBN 978-3-11-071506-4
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ISSN 2567-0158
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Acknowledgments
ThisvolumeoriginatesfromapanelattheCelticConferenceofClassicsinStAn-
drewsin 2018.Wearegratefultothe organizersfor havingmade the event pos-
sible.The volumeispartofthe VIDIresearchproject“MediatedCicero”(Princi-
ple Investigator: Christoph Pieper), generously funded by the Dutch Research
Council(NWO),fundingno.276–30–013.Theeditorsaregratefultoallauthors
for their quick cooperation.Cornelis van Tilburg has kindly helped us with the
bibliography and has produced the indices, and Jikke Koning has read the
whole manuscript and saved us from several errors. A special word of thanks
isduetotheboardofDeGruyter’sCicero-seriesandtwoanonymouspeerreview-
ers for their valuable suggestions and most of all to executive editor Ermanno
Malaspina for his kind interest in this book, his generous Mitdenken with this
volume’s content ever since we submitted our book proposal, and his sharp
eyes that have saved us from manyerrors.
OpenAccess.©2020,publishedbyDeGruyter. ThisworkislicensedundertheCreative
CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0License.https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110716313-001
Table of Contents
Summary of the Chapters IX
Christoph Pieper and Bram van der Velden
Introduction 1
Thomas J. Keeline
Were Cicero’s Philippics the Cause of his Death? 15
Caroline Bishop
The Thrill of Defeat
Classicism and the Ancient Reception of Cicero’s and Demosthenes’
Philippics 37
Andrew James Sillett
Ille regit dictis animos
Virgil’s Perspective on Cicero’s Final Years 57
Giuseppe La Bua
Man of Peace?
Cicero’s Last Fight for the Republic in Greek and Roman Historical
‘Fictions’ 79
Lex Paulson
Libera uoluntas
The Political Origins of the Free Will Argument in Cicero’s De fato and
Augustine’s Confessions 97
Bram van der Velden
Ciceronian Reception in the Epistula ad Octauianum 121
Carole Mabboux
Can it Ever be Wise to Kill the Tyrant?
Insights from Cicero in the Debate on Rightful Government during the
Middle Ages (Especially in the 13th–14th Centuries) 137
VIII TableofContents
Leanne Jansen
Bruni, Cicero, and their Manifesto for Republicanism 155
Christoph Pieper
Multilayered Appropriation(s)
Josse Bade’s Edition of Cicero’s Philippicae tribus commentariis
illustratae 175
Barbara Del Giovane
Marc-Antoine Muret and his Lectures on Cicero’s De officiis 197
Gesine Manuwald
First Epilogue
Dramatic Representations of the Final Years of Cicero’s Life 221
Christoph Pieper and Bram van der Velden
Second Epilogue
Scholarly Appraisals of Cicero’s Final Years 239
Bibliography 255
Index Locorum 281
Index Nominum 295
Summary of the Chapters
This volume brings together papers dealing with the reception of the last 21
months of Cicero’s life.When on 15 March 44 bce Julius Caesar was murdered
inRome,Cicero,afteraperiodofindetermination,finallyreturnedtoactivepol-
itics.Onelasttime,hecasthimselfintheroleofdefenderoftheRepublicancon-
stitution and its correspondingvirtues of liberty, freedom of expression and re-
spect for the traditions of the forefathers. Famously, his fight was unsuccessful
andledtohisdefinitivefallfromgraceandtohisdeathinthecourseofthepro-
scriptions of the Second Triumvirate.These final months of his life seem to en-
largethemesthathadbeenrelevantforCiceroduringhiscareeruptothatpoint;
inacertainsensetheycouldbedescribed asadistillationofit.Itisnowonder
thattheyhavealsoshapedhislaterreceptioninaconsiderableway.Thecontri-
butions gathered here analyse important steps of this reception.
Ancient sources and modern scholars alike seem to agree that Cicero was
killed on Mark Antony’s orders.The Philippics, it is alleged,were what caused
Antony’s intense hatred. In Chapter One of this volume, however,Thomas Kee-
line alleges that this long-standing and convenient story is unlikely to be true,
oratleastunlikelytobethewholetruth.WhateverAntonyknewofCicero’sPhil-
ippics,itwasnotthecanonicalcorpusthatwereadtoday.Moreover,Keelineas-
serts,the rhetoric of the Philippics was insufficient to motivate Cicero’s murder,
and Antony and Cicero could have patched up any breach in amicitia—people
often changed sides in the late Republic, not least Cicero. Finallyand most im-
portantly, the young Octavian must have played an important role in Cicero’s
proscription, a role which he was later at pains to cover up.The commonly ac-
ceptedstoryofCicero’sdeathhasmoretodowithearlyimperialpropagandaand
two millennia of reception than with historical reality.
In Chapter Two,CarolineBishopexamines the ancient reception of Cicero’s
Philippics alongside the reception of Demosthenes’ ‘Philippic’ speeches. Cicero
and Demosthenes alike were remembered as allegories for the failure of demo-
cratic free speech at the hands of autocracy, and each also represented both
thepinnacleandtheendofaclassicalperiod.Bishoparguesthatthepublished
collectionofCicero’sPhilippicsplantstheseedsforthissortofreceptionbyimi-
tatingoneofthemostsalientfeaturesofDemosthenes’speeches:theirvaloriza-
tionoffailureasanecessarypricetopaywhenasociety’sattempttomaintainits
classicalgloryexceededitsability.Byinvokingthepotentialforasimilarlynoble
defeatagainstAntony,Cicero’scollectionofPhilippicswasmeanttosecureaDe-
mosthenic reputation for himself should he also fail—a reputation with which
his ancient readers obliged him.
OpenAccess.©2020,publishedbyDeGruyter. ThisworkislicensedundertheCreative
CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110716313-002
X SummaryoftheChapters
Virgilwasabout25yearsoldwhentheeventsof44–43bceunfolded,andas
AndrewSillett argues in ChapterThree,theydid notgo unnoticedbyhim.With
thehelpofaclosereadingofthedescriptionofcharactersfromtheunderworld
in Aeneid 6 and the depiction of Latium’s orator Drances in Aeneid 11, Sillett
shows that Cicero, while not mentioned explicitly, was very much on Virgil’s
mindwhilsthecomposedtheAeneid.HearguesthatVirgil’sallusionstoCicero’s
roleinthefinalperiodoftheRepublicshouldbeseeninthecontextoftheearly
receptionofCiceroasawhole,soheavilyinfluencedbytheAntoniancamp.He
aversthatVirgilconsciouslyalludestothistraditionofanti-Ciceronianinvective
inordertoconjureupmemoriesofthebloodbathoftheprecedingdecadesinthe
minds of his readers, and to make a point to them regarding the failings of the
Roman Republic.
WhileCiceroisonlyimplicitlypresentinVirgil,heappearsasacharacterin
ancient historiography and historical epic. This is the theme of Giuseppe La
Bua’s contribution in Chapter Four. He analyses speeches by Cicero from
Lucan and Cassius Dio, which he treats as pseudepigrapha, in order to show
thatCicero’slifeduringthefinalyearsoftheRomanRepubliccouldleadtofierce
discussionsabouthisresponsibilityforthecivilwar andthecollapseoftheRe-
publicansystem.LaBuaarguesthatthedichotomyofCaesarandCiceroduring
theCivilWarof49–48 bceisofsimilar importanceasthedepiction ofCicero’s
deedsafterCaesar’sdeath.WhileLucanfamouslylabelsCiceroawarmongerand
letshimspeakinfavourofwar,wefindamorenuancedpictureinCassiusDio.
Ontheonehand,Cicero,whenspeakinghimself,conveystheimageofamanof
peace,whereastheaccusationofbeingadisturberoforderisputinthemouthof
a fellow senator, Calenus. La Bua concludes that such debates were meant to
question Cicero’s own attempts to draw a consistent image of himself,whereas
later authors were interested in the inconsistencies of Cicero as a historical fig-
ure.
Lex Paulson in Chapter Five reviews Cicero’s theory of free will in his late
philosophical writings,especially inDe fato. Havingsummarized the major po-
sitionCicerodefendsinthetreatiseandhavingclarifiedhowinnovativeCicero’s
concept was in comparison to his Greek predecessors, Paulson shows that the
notion of freewill,whichdependedonvirtuousbehaviour,was Cicero’sanswer
to the political challenges of his time. If politicalvirtue could no longer be put
into action due to the rupture Caesar’s dictatorship had caused, at least politi-
cians like Cicero could retreat to a kind of inner exile: if philosophy cannot
savethestate,itcanatleastsaveCicero’ssoulandreconcilehimtohisfailures.
Inthesecondpartofhiscontribution,PaulsonshowsthatAugustine’snotionof
freewilldepends heavilyonCicero’sconcepts,butthat hesubstitutesthepolit-
ical with a religious interpretation. If human societies prove to be imperfect by
