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Cicero, one of the greatest orators of all time and an important politician at the time of the downfall of the Roman Republic, has left in his writings a first-hand view of the age of Caesar and Pompey. However, readers need to learn how to interpret these writings and, as with any politician or orator, not to believe too easily what he says. This book is a guide to reading Cicero and a companion to anyone who is prepared to take the long but rewarding journey through his works. It is not in itself a biography, but may help readers to construct their own biographies of Cicero or histories of his age.
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Cicero as Evidence: A Historian’s Companion
ANDREW LINTOTT
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
C I C E RO A S E V I D E N C E
For my grandchildren
CICERO AS EVIDENCE A HISTORIAN’S COMPANION
A N D R EW L I N TOT T
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Andrew Lintott 2008 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–921644–4 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Preface The aim of this book is to assist those who study late-Republican history to read Cicero, to introduce them to the variety of evidence available in the whole range of his writings and to suggest the kind of critical approach that is necessary if this evidence is to be given its proper value. It is this second aim that guides the first two parts of the book in particular. Here I seek to show how the historian must handle evidence that at first sight may seem both attractively immediate and transparent, but on further inspection proves to be far otherwise. The surviving texts of Cicero’s speeches present special difficulties. Chapter 2 is unashamedly technical and will be best appreciated by those who are already grappling with the problem of the speeches as historical evidence. Chapters 4 to 6 are equally technical about matters of private law, but that is inevitable, if one is to do justice to this aspect of Cicero’s writing and work. It is often neglected by philologists and historians, but one cannot judge Cicero as an orator or as a member of Roman society without taking it into account. Parts 3 and 4 follow a general path well trodden in Ciceronian biography, but will b