All Things to All Men: Ethos in Cicero’s Post-Ides Correspondence

Meg Galloway

doi:10.26686/wgtn.15028299.v1

Abstract

In the wake of Caesar’s assassination, Cicero was without the necessary magisterial and martial authority to direct affairs and his influence over the fractious Senate was fragile at best. So, too, did he face the challenge of physical distance. With influential statesmen scattered across the Roman world, the reliance on correspondence for political manoeuvring and the performance of self was more pronounced than ever before. Cicero’s letters, then, played an essential role in his self-fashioning of authority after the Ides of March. This thesis illuminates the nuanced, critical, and underappreciated role that Cicero’s correspondence played in his cultivation of fresh influence after Caesar’s death by assessing the post-Ides corpus through the lens of ethos. In particular, Aristotle’s conception of ethos as comprising phronesis (‘practical wisdom’ or ‘prudence’), eunoia (‘goodwill’ or ‘benevolence’), and aretē excellence’ or ‘moral virtue’) provides a valuable framework. When applied to the letters, three distinct instances of epistolary persona creation are revealed: Cicero as Nestor, Cicero as amicus, and Cicero as saviour. Each of these personae, it is demonstrated, are ultimately employed by the statesman to establish authority as the res publica’s helmsman.

Highlights

Caesar’s murder on the Ides of March 44 BC triggered a power vacuum that no one man was in a position to fill
Though he had perhaps established some semblance of control on March 17, the elderly Cicero lacked the necessary magisterial authority to direct affairs and his influence over the fractious Senate was fragile
Too did he face the challenge of physical distance

Summary

Introduction

When the Liberators assassinated Caesar on the Ides of March 44 BC, they had hoped their act would restore libertas to the decaying res publica. 76 Informed by sociolinguistic theories of politeness, the author closely examines how Cicero and his various correspondents employed rhetorical strategies, goodwill and affection within the letters to fulfil aristocratic obligations of etiquette.77 These incredibly deliberate strategies of politeness, he reveals, were essential to the success of elite negotiations—as we will see, in times of political crisis such as the aftermath of the Ides of March.. Too old for active involvement and lacking the senate as his “right hand”, Cicero’s only chance at steering the res publica after Caesar’s death rested almost solely on his ability to stand as a sagacious and exemplary advisor to the younger generals of the state (Fam. 11.14.1).103 Rather than base his authority on political or martial prestige, it was upon his wisdom, intellect, and practical experience that the statesman had to rely.104. He heroizes his departure from the public eye by characterising otium and philosophical inquiry as a substitute for active political engagement.211 The result is an ethos of authority even in absence

Summary

A Heroic Return

Conclusion