Cicero's De Research Articles

Recent Books

Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200. Ed. by Eric Kwakkel. Leiden: Leiden University Press. 2015. 224 pp. €39.50. isbn 978 90 8728 226 4. Another compact title in the series Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Book Culture from Leiden, this collection of essays explores the production and use of medieval manuscripts containing classical Latin texts. Includes: E. Kwakkel, ‘Manuscripts of the Latin Classics 800–1200: An Introduction’; M. Teeuwen, ‘Carolingian Scholarship on Classical Authors: Practices of Reading and Writing’; R. G. Babcock, ‘The Transmission of Tibullus in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’; I. O'Daly, ‘Diagrams of Knowledge and Rhetoric in Manuscripts of Cicero's De Inventione’; E. Kwakkel, ‘Classics on Scraps: Classical Manuscripts Made from Parchment Waste’; D. T. Gura, ‘Living with Ovid: The Founding of Arnulf of Orléans' Thebes’. Reading and the Victorians. Ed. by Matthew Bradley and Juliet John. Farnham: Ashgate. 2015. 180 pp. £60. isbn 978 1 4094 4080 2.

Republicanism and Responsible Government: The Shaping of Democracy in Australia and Canada, by Benjamin T. Jones

Republicanism and Responsible Government: The Shaping of Democracy in Australia and Canada, by Benjamin T. Jones. Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2014. x, 299 pp. $100.00 Cdn (cloth), $34.95 (paper). There is no such thing as society, Mrs Thatcher famously expostulated with distillation of the essence of the liberal creed, There are individual men and women, and there are families. It is the contention of this work that such liberal emphasis on the individual was much less influential in changing the political culture of the Victorian British world than is commonly believed. Rather, it contends, the creed that did most to shape the reforming energies which brought about responsible government was energized by strain of thought which it characterizes as republicanism. Where liberals focussed on the individual and freedom from interference, was communally-minded and was actuated by fear of domination. Its classical roots are well captured in quotation from Cicero's De re publica: a people is not any group of humans ... but multitude of people who ... agree to serve the common good of the (p. 217)--a very different view of society to the atomistic form of liberalism underlying Thatcher's pronouncement. Civic republicanism, it is argued here on the basis of Canadian and Australian case studies, provided creed which could prompt change without sparking revolution. Importantly for citizens of the British world, it allowed for the retention of the monarchy while at the same time accommodating responsible government at the local level. The great architect of such constitutional dexterity was Lord Durham who proposed forms of colonial government which allowed for multiple centres of power within the British Empire while retaining the monarchy as common core of sentiment and identity. It was formula which, if followed by George III, might have kept Canada's southern neighbour within the British Empire. Hence avoided the disruptive and centrifugal forces of the separatist associated with the American and French Revolution. It meant, however, that the advocates of that communal political ideology which the author terms civic republicanism were cautious about the r-word with all its connotations of regicide in the case of the French and English Revolutions and fratricidal strife in the American. This means that often the presence of has to be inferred by its goals rather than by an explicit appeal to the term itself. The classical origins of mean, too, some difficulties in charting its transmission to the nineteenth century debates on constitutional government. …

Cicero'sDe Fatoin Deleuze's Logic of Sense

The arguments of the Stoic Chrysippus recorded in Cicero's De Fato are of great importance to Deleuze's conception of events in The Logic of Sense. The purpose of this paper is to explicate these arguments, to which Deleuze's allusions are extremely terse, and to situate them in the context of Deleuze's broader project in that book. Drawing on contemporary scholarship on the Stoics, I show the extent to which Chrysippus' views on compatibilism, hypothetical inference and astrology support Deleuze's claim that the Stoics developed a theory of compatibilities and incompatibilities of events independent of corporeal states of affairs.

POLITY ACROSS THE POND: DEMOCRACY, REPUBLIC AND EMPIRE IN PHAEDRUS <em>FABLES</em> 1.2

Throughout his allegedly biographical prologues and epilogues, Phaedrus represents his work as developing gradually from submissive translation of Aesop to independent literary creation. While scholars usually take this progression at face value, closer scrutiny reveals that Phaedrus modifies Aesopic material to serve his own ends long before he overtly asserts his poetic autonomy. In poem 1.2, Phaedrus adapts a fable about Athenian democracy for uniquely Roman audiences, engaging allusively with Cicero's De Re Publica. At the same time, he adjusts Cicero's ideas about political change in the Republic to fit realities of life in the Empire. Poem 1.2 also functions programmatically by establishing Cynic-Stoic resignation as a major theme for the rest of the fable collection.

Deconstructing dignity: a critique of the right-to-die debate

The right-to-die debate has gone on for centuries, playing out most recently as a spectacle of protest surrounding figures such as Terry Schiavo. In Deconstructing Dignity, Scott Cutler Shershow offers a powerful new way of thinking about it philosophically. Focusing on the concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life, he employs Derridean deconstruction to uncover self-contradictory and damaging assumptions that underlie both sides of the debate. Shershow examines texts from Cicero's De Officiis to Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals to court decisions and religious declarations. Through them he reveals how arguments both supporting and denying the right to die undermine their own unconditional concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life with a hidden conditional logic, one often tied to practical economic concerns and the scarcity or unequal distribution of medical resources. He goes on to examine the exceptional case of self-sacrifice, closing with a vision of a society - one whose conditions we are far from meeting-in which the debate can finally be resolved. A sophisticated analysis of a heated topic, Deconstructing Dignity is also a masterful example of deconstructionist methods at work.

Beneficium, iustitia e imperium tra passato, presente e futuro

The section of Cicero’s De Officiis on the circulation of benefits according to justice implies a redefinition of traditional customs ( mores ) through the identification of an unbridgeable distance between past and present. Indeed, in the second book of the treatise ( 2.26-30), the author seems to outline a of Roman power sub specie beneficii , a history in which the relinquishment of the practice of benefiting allies ( beneficium in socios ) is connected with the rise of a cruelty towards citizens ( crudelitas in cives ) embodied by Sulla. In Cicero's view, this is the crucial historical moment in which iniuriae replaced beneficia . The contrast between beneficium and iniuria reflects the opposition between bellum iustum and bellum iniustum , and these two antithetical conceptual poles correspond to a temporal dialectic between distant past and recent past/present. As concerns Cicero's connection between the preservation of Roman power and the practice of beneficentia , a major point of comparison is offered by Sallust's overview of the history of Roman customs and institutions in Cat . 6-13. In fact, b eneficium , iustitia and imperium are three pivotal elements which lay the foundations of Cicero's and Sallust's reflection on cultural history. In spite of their different intellectual perspectives and goals , both authors connect beneficence and offence, beneficium and iniuria , with two opposite temporal dimensions – past and present, respectively – and point out the relationship of these two notions to iustitia and imperium . Interesting evidence about the roots of the practice of beneficium and its application to conquered peoples is also provided by Virgil's Aeneid . In his epic poem dealing with the very origins of Rome, just a few moments before the final duel between Aeneas and Turnus, Virgil offers a typical example of leniency towards the defeated enemies ( beneficium in victos ). In Book 12 (175-194 ), Aeneas proposes to Latinus a pact which presents Rome as a paradigmatically merciful power. Further c onspicuous evidence on the concession of political benefits to foreign peoples comes from Caesar's Commentaries , which show the fundamental importance of beneficentia to Rome's domestic and foreign policy . U nder the dictatorship of Caesar, however, such a traditional practice was significantly undermined . After his victory in the Civil War, in fact, the dictator put special emphasis on his concession of the benefit of life as a gift for t he vanquished , thus intentionally assimilating beneficium in cives and beneificium in victos. A similar anomaly was fully perceived by Cicero , who alludes to the dangers of Caesar's leniency in several letters written to Atticus in 49. In light of such long-term developments , the prescriptive section on beneficentia in Cicero's De Officiis seems to play a truly critical role, for, on the one hand, this section recalls the paradigmatic value of the past as an ideal age of benefit-exchanges, and, on the other hand, it puts forth a new model of beneficium for the sake of future generations.

Overseeing res publica

This article examines a simile preserved in the fragmentary book 5 of Cicero's De Re Publica, which figures the ideal statesman (rector rei publicae) in terms of a farm bailiff (vilicus) and a household steward (dispensator). Through a philological, philosophical, and socio-cultural explication of these similes and their context within De Re Publica, this article argues that Cicero draws upon Greek philosophical treatments of household and political relations and reworks traditional Roman political ideology so as to refigure the conceptual relationship between the statesman and the state: from the farmer of res publica to its subservient, yet still overseeing, bailiff. By casting the ideal statesman in the decidedly servile role of a public bailiff, Cicero subordinates his statesman to res publica, yet also empowers him to act as its jurisprudential overseer, and this change marks a significant and perhaps strikingly original contribution to Roman political thought.

Latin Literature

Among this latest batch of books to review are a number whose endeavour, very much to my own taste, is intellectual and cultural history through the study of Latin literature. Cream of the crop is Craig Williams’ study of Roman friendship. Admirers of Williams’ excellent Roman Homosexuality, recently reissued in second edition, will recognize the approach; this is a theoretically informed and meticulously argued work of cultural history that also shows fine appreciation of philological, linguistic, and literary issues. In Chapter 1 (Men and Women), Williams has a simple and compelling point to make: basing their idealization of friendship on our male-authored ancient literary texts (Cicero's De amicitia, Seneca's Letters), the great thinkers of Western civilization have asserted that ideal friendship is a man's game, and even that women are by and large incapable of real friendship, at the very least being excluded from the most interesting parts of friendship's history. As Williams shows, the epigraphic evidence tells a different story; here we can gain a new appreciation of friendships between women, and indeed between men and women. In its divergence from the well-trodden literary tradition, the epigraphic material opens up new ways of understanding the ancient world, but it can also be used to bring a fresh perspective to familiar literary texts, especially when one is as open-minded and attentive to linguistic nuance as Williams. Chapter 2 explores some of the key conceptual issues and themes related to the (vexed) distinction between amor and amicitia, and then in Chapter 3 Williams turns to the close reading of particular Latin texts, bringing his new interpretative framework to Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Propertius, Petronius’ Satyricon, and the letters of Cicero and of Fronto. The fourth and final chapter, ‘Friendship and the Grave’, turns again to the epigraphic evidence, and funerary inscriptions in particular, where friends are shown to play an important role in the commemoration of the dead, usually associated in the Western tradition with close family. Williams’ work showcases Classics as a vitally and productively interdisciplinary academic subject, where significant new readings can be achieved with the right methodologies and approach. He has some big claims to make about Roman society, of which ancient historians will certainly want to take note, but his fresh analysis of familiar literary texts is also highly illuminating and the book has many smaller-scale insights to offer as well.

The State of Speech

The State of Speech

The Discussion as Joust: Parrhesia and Friendly Antagonism in Plutarch and Montaigne

No single word in English language fully reflects polysemy of Greek term agon, which denotes entire gamut of struggles from combat to athletic contests. Antagonism, then, is defined less by origin or nature of its conflict than by mutual resistance implied by its etymology and its prefix. The term may thus be used to describe opposition not only between enemies, but between friends. It is just such a friendly antagonism that Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) describes in eighth chapter of Book Three of his Essays, Of art of (De l'art de conferer), proposing a markedly agonistic conception of discussion as a heated and even violent struggle between two parties (Pesty 119). This chapter and vigorous, yet well-intentioned and introspective give-andtake it prescribes have typically been regarded as a rejection of scholastic disputation and as a model for conversation in classical era in keeping with Pascal's description of Montaigne in l'esprit geometrique (Of Geometrical Mind) as the incomparable author of art of (357; trans. mine). (1) A number of critics, especially Vivien Thweatt, Richard Regosin, and Jules Brody, have noted Montaigne's frequent use of martial vocabulary and related it to chapter's central metaphor of discussion as a joust as well as to essayist's philosophical skepticism (Thweatt 110-12; Regosin 113-15; Brody 82). Yet, when considered in context of its preceding chapter, Of disadvantage of greatness (De l'incommodite de la grandeur; bk. 3, ch. 7), Of art of reveals its preoccupation with both friendship and politics, a preoccupation Montaigne shares with one of his principal ancient sources, Plutarch (46-120 CE). Along with Seneca, Plutarch ranks first and foremost among authors from which Montaigne learns to renger [ses] humeurs et [ses] conditions (arrange [his] humors and [his] ways; 413a; bk. 2, ch. 32; Frame 300). (2) Montaigne, unable to read Greek, read Plutarch in French translation of Jacques Amyot, to whom he gives palm over all other French writers (363a; bk. 2, ch. 4; Frame 262). He had a particular predilection for Plutarch's Moralia, mining them time and time again for exempla: Pierre Villey counts some 258 references to them in Essays (LXVII, n. 1). Nowhere is Montaigne's dialogue with Plutarch more palpable than in chapters 7-8 of Book Three, which may be read as a response to one of Moralia, How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend. Aside from Montaigne, this treatise enjoyed quite a prominent readership in Renaissance. Erasmus, for example, makes Flattery and Self-Love into twin handmaidens of Folly (18). The treatise's political relevance was not lost on Dutch humanist, either, as he produced a Latin translation of it in 1514 that would be included in edition of his Education of a Christian Prince two years later. In all, How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend, while perhaps not as widely read as Cicero's De amicitia, constituted a locus classicus for friendship and flattery: in addition to Erasmus, both Bacon and Castiglione used it extensively (Achilleos 660). When considered as a source, Plutarch's treatise makes clear thematic unity of Montaigne's two chapters: Of disadvantage of greatness details how susceptible powerful men are to flattery and how rarely they benefit from sort of parrhesia (frankness/frank speech) prescribed in Of art of discussion. Parrhesia serves to define respective antagonisms of Plutarch and Montaigne, as well as to connect friendship with political discourse. By tracing parrhesia, antagonistic friendship, and metaphors used to convey them in Plutarch and Montaigne, present study will show how both authors arrive at what may be termed an ethics of antagonism with repercussions for both friendship and politics. It will also show how Montaigne translates Plutarch culturally in same way that Amyot translates him linguistically by adapting his friendly antagonism to political context of late sixteenth-century France. …

In Cicero's De Finibus, an Ars Vitae between Technê and Theôria

In Cicero's De Finibus, an Ars Vitae between Technê and Theôria

Cicero's ‘Response of the haruspices’ and the Voice of the Gods

AbstractThis article explores the religious importance of Cicero's De Haruspicum Responso against the background of prodigy-handling in Republican Rome. Comparing the prodigy in question to an ‘auditory epiphany’, it argues that key issues raised by the speech include the nature of the divine voice, the relationship of the prodigious ‘rumbling and clattering’ to the gods themselves, and the ambiguous temporalities implied by Roman practices of divination. The article also suggests that De Haruspicum Responso proposes a significant overlap between religious and political speech, and it questions the radical split often assumed between the religious ideology of Cicero's philosophical and his more ‘public’ works.

Introduction

Introduction

"Cató por agüero": The Evolving Function of Augury in the Cidian Tradition

"Cató por agüero":The Evolving Function of Augury in the Cidian Tradition Alexander J. McNair "Why does an augur think it a favorable omen when a raven flies to the right, or a crow to the left?" Cicero, De divinatione1 The crow flew on their right coming out of Vivar,but now in Burgos flies on their left-hand side.My Cid shrugged off the omen and shook his head:"Cheers, Álvar Fáñez, we are banished today!" (Poem of the Cid, lines 11-14)2 Augury is a form of divination that, according to John of Salisbury, "consists in the observation of the conduct of birds, expressed in voice and flight."3 The epic poet Ennius, in a fragment recorded in Cicero's De divinatione, wrote of the crucial role that augury played in the founding of Rome, as Romulus and Remus vied for control of the new city: When each would rule they both at once appealedtheir claims, with anxious hearts, to augury.Then Remus took the auspices aloneand waited for the lucky bird; while onthe lofty Aventine fair Romulushis quest did keep to wait the soaring tribe:their contest would decide the city's nameas Rome or Remora. The multitudeexpectant looked to learn who would be king.. . . 'Twas then an augury, [End Page 69] the best of all, appeared on high—a birdthat on the left did fly. And as the sunits golden orb upraised, twelve sacred birdsflew down from heaven and betook themselvesto stations set apart for goodly signs.Then Romulus perceived that he had gaineda throne whose source and proper was augury. (339-41) In Rome of the regal and early republican periods augury was an important part of the state's decision-making process; a college of augurs was established, codifying criteria for reading auspices.4 The practice was probably introduced to the Roman province of Hispania around the time of the second Punic War (218-202 BC). By the late republican period, however, the practice in Rome had become more ceremonial than anything else. Though the Roman college of augurs continued to exist until Augustine's day, around 400 AD, he could point to its early decline in prestige: "Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for regulating the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jackdaws" (City of God, IV, 30).5 A millennium later Dante's diviners, soothsayers, astrologers, and augurs end up in the fourth bolgia of Inferno's circle 8, where the poet "must turn sad torments into verse," describing the twisted forms of their bodies in the afterlife.6 Augury was condemned by popes as well as church councils and synods in the late antique and medieval worlds—thus leaving the realm of official practice and entering that of folklore.7 As a folk practice, augury endured in Spain until at least the thirteenth century and was even associated with the epic hero Rodrigo Díaz, El Cid (d. 1099).8 Was the historical Cid an augur? The answer appears to be yes. But scholars have not fully explored this fact and its implications for the literary tradition developing in the wake of the Cid's death. Criticism of the epic Poem of the Cid—known in Spanish as the Cantar or Poema de mio Cid—(c. 1207), for example, when it considers the presence of an omen derived from augury (agüero < augurium), has focused almost exclusively on the question of whether or not an omen is favorable, without asking how this icon of Medieval Spanish Christianity could be associated with augury in the first place, especially at the same time that the church is actively preaching against it.9 This study will attempt to demonstrate how the Cidian literary tradition manages to reconcile the Medieval church's prohibitions with the augural practices of the Spanish church's favorite warrior. Evidence of the Cid as a folk practitioner of augury occurs in the Historia Roderici, a Latin biography of Rodrigo Díaz. Since this biography was written soon after the death of the Cid and appears to make use of...

Nature and the Good: An exploration of ancient ethical naturalism in Cicero's De finibus

This paper investigates the differences between ancient Greek and modern ethical naturalism, through the account of the whole classical tradition provided by Cicero in De finibus bonorum et malorum. Ever since Hume's remarks on the topic, it is usually held that derivations of normative claims from factual claims require some kind of proper justification. Its a the presence of such justifications in the Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic-Peripatetic ethical theories (as portrayed in De finibus), and, after a negative conclusion, I argue that we should conceive of this issue within a social-historical perspective: The radical difference between ancient and modern naturalistic ethics is due (in Weber's terms) to the rationalization processes that generated the modern outlook on nature.

Developing wisdom and moral duty in management

PurposeThe primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the writings of Aristotle and Cicero can be used to as a conceptual tool to promote an understanding of wisdom, moral duty, and related subjects in respect to contemporary business management practice.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology comprised a critical reading and analysis of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Cicero's De Officiis (On Duties). The approach combines both historical and philosophical research. An earlier version of the paper was presented to a group of early/middle managers, and then to a group of more senior/experienced managers.FindingsBoth groups supported the idea that the article was appropriate for highlighting moral issues in contemporary business management practice.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation was dealing with the amount of material that Aristotle and Cicero produced. A secondary limitation was translating the original Greek and Latin (notwithstanding the Loeb Classical Library) into understandable everyday English.Practical implicationsDeveloping understanding of concepts, such as wisdom, moral duty, and related subjects should be included in MBA programs.Originality/valueThe paper has value because: it relates concepts and ideas conceived in Aristotle's and Cicero's time to contemporary management practice, and it illustrates that these ideas are still relevant and applicable in the modern business environment.

The " Devotio " of Sallust's Cotta

This article considers the speech assigned by Sallust in his Historiae to C. Aurelius Cotta, cos. 75 B.C.E. and argues that our reading of the speech must proceed from a consideration of the devotio which is its logical and emotional climax. Sallust constructs this devotio as an incomplete and therefore inherently problematic act. Cotta's inconsistent and self-contradictory rhetoric draws the reader's attention to the problematic status of this non-act. Moreover, Sallust has seized an opportunity to comment upon Cicero's De Natura Deorum , in which the very same Cotta appears as interlocutor. In literary dialogue with Cicero, we find a Sallustian perspective on the role of civic religion, sincerity, and patriotism in the late Republic.

Painted for the ear: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's “Fraud” and political oratory

Painted for the ear: Ambrogio Lorenzetti's “Fraud” and political oratory

A (hi)story pour les analphabètes – of Larissa Sansour's video

This article, in the form of the literary fiction of the travel diary, is an investigation into the relationships between the concept of travel, the concept of history and the image of humankind beginning with some of the so-called ‘classical’ texts of European culture – in particular: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Aristotle's Poetics, Quintilianus’ Institutio oratoria, Cicero's De legibus, Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics, Sterne's A Sentimental Journey, Heidegger's Being and Time. A concept of (a form of) humankind and a concept of history that can be drawn by these texts are related to the analysis of a frame of a video, A Space Exodus, by the Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour. The ‘reaction’ that results from this approach interacts with an ethical vision of the history(ography) that keeps in mind the experience of writing by authors such as Antonio Artaud (une écriture pour les analphabètes) and Deleuze (a foreign language inside our own language).

Form and function in Roman oratory

Contributors Preface List of figures 1. Form and function D. H. Berry and Andrew Erskine Part I. The Orator and his Setting: 2. Court procedure and rhetorical strategy in Cicero J. G. F. Powell 3. Tribunician sacrosanctity and oratorical performance in the late republic Catherine Steel 4. Togate statues and petrified orators Glenys Davies Part II. Rhetorical Strategies: 5. Means and ends of Indignatio in Cicero's Pro Roscio Amerino Christopher Craig 6. Form as global strategy in Cicero's Second Catilinarian Andrew M. Riggsby 7. The form and function of narrative in panegyric Roger Rees 8. Unending praise: Pliny and ending panegyric Bruce Gibson Part III. Texts in Speeches: 9. The function of a divinely inspired text in Cicero's De harvspicvm responsis Anthony Corbeill 10. Debate at a distance: a unique rhetorical strategy in Cicero's Thirteenth Philippic John T. Ramsey 11. The function of verse quotations in Apuleius' speeches: making the case with Plato Regine May Part IV. Speeches in Philosophy: 12. Teaching philosophy, a form or function of Roman oratory: Velleius' speech in Cicero's De Natvra Deorvm Carl Joachim Classen 13. Form and function of speech in the prose work of the younger Seneca Harry Hine Part V. Speeches in Historiography: 14. Catiline's speeches in Sallust's Bellvm Catilinae William W. Batstone 15. Speech and silence in Caesar's Bellvm Gallicvm Christina Shuttleworth Kraus 16. Rhetorical history: the struggle of the orders in Livy Christopher Smith 17. Oratory in Tacitus' Annals Roland Mayer 18. Aliena Facvndia: Seneca in Tacitus A. J. Woodman Notes Abbreviations and bibliography Indexes.