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A house of notoriety: an episode in the campaign for the consulate in 64 b.c.1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Near the beginning of In Toga Candida, Cicero informed his audience of a private meeting between his two most serious competitors for the consulate and the managers of their campaigning funds. This meeting took place at the house of a nobleman whom Cicero did not name but to whom he attributed a signal notoriety in the practice of electoral corruption. Asconius offers a solution without hesitation: it was at the house of either Caesar or Crassus. He explains his choice: these two men were Cicero's most committed and influential opponents in his campaign for the consulate, and he has excellent evidence for their opposition: Cicero's own Expositio consiliorum suorum, no longer extant. The credibility or otherwise of this controversial work must be dismissed from any enquiry into the identity of the mysterious figure, however. Asconius, in naming the two alternative possibilities, discloses himself to be without authoritative evidence on the point. Nothing can have been said in De consiliis suis to identify the house, the meeting, or the notorious nobleman. Asconius' words reveal that his attempt at an identification is based on Cicero's assertion therein of an overt hostility to him on the part of both Crassus and Caesar during the campaign. His attribution of a covert ‘dirty tricks’ operation to one of them is no more than speculation.
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References
2 Asconius, p. 83 Clark: ‘Dico, p.c, superiore nocte cuiusdam hominis nobilis et ualde in hoc largitionis quaestu noti et cogniti domum Catilinam et Antonium cum sequestribus suis conuenisse.’ It is the first passage in the speech quoted for comment by Asconius. The use of ‘hoc’ shows that the practice of electoral bribery is already under discussion: Cicero may have opened with a denunciation of this proliferating evil. ‘Quaestu’ is, of course, in the case of a nobleman not strictly a profession, but signifies a regular activity. This may be no more than a generalization from the case at n. 10 below.
3 Ibid.: ‘Aut C. Caesaris aut M. Crassi domum significat. Ei enim acerrimi ac potentissimi fuerunt Ciceronis refragatores cum petiit consulatum, quod eius in dies ciuilem crescere dignitatem animaduertebant: et hoc ipse Cicero in expositione consiliorum suorum significat.’
4 Plutarch, Crassus 13.3: Cicero attributed blame for the Catilinarian conspiracy to Crassus and Caesar; Dio 39.10.1–3: Cicero launched many charges against Caesar, Crassus, and others out of resentment for his banishment; Asconius 83C: Cicero held Crassus—Caesar is not mentioned—responsible for the conspiracy of Catiline and Cn. Piso in 65. Cicero is, therefore, not likely to have held back if either Crassus or Caesar had lent his house for the purpose of systematic corruption.
5 Brunt, P. A.,‘Three passages from Asconius’ CR 7(1957),193–195;Google ScholarGruen, E. S.,The Last Generation of the Roman Republic(Berkeley,1974),138;Google ScholarMitchell, T. N., Cicero—The Ascending Years(New Haven,1979),167,Google Scholar are all strongly dismissive. Ward, A. M. in Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic (Columbia,1977),146–147Google Scholardefends the credibility of De consiliis suis, as ‘a work in which Cicero thought it safe to be more specific with his charge than he was in his speech’. Ward assumes there was more detail pointing to Crassus and Caesar, against which I have argued above. Ward';;;s own disbelief in the ‘first Catilinarian conspiracy’ (p. 145) is at odds with his confidence in De consiliis suis, which is Asconius‘ warrant for mentioning Crassus in connection with that affair (83C). Excellent and, one would hope, final in claiming De consiliis suis for historiography, not invective, isRawson, E.,‘History, historiography, and Cicero';;;s expositio consiliorum suorutri’, LCM 7.8 (1982),121–124.Google Scholar
6 The support is attested by Sallust (Cat. 23.5–6) and is to be believed whatever may be thought of the reason he gives for it. Both Gruen (Last Generation, pp. 138–40) and Mitchell (Cicero, pp. 170–5) show that Cicero';;;s aristocratic support had been built up over a period of time and was an accumulation of individual relationships, not merely a last minute manoeuvre by a group.Google Scholar
7 Asconius 83–4C: ‘is qui tot ciuis trucidauif is identified by Asconius as Catiline; ‘qui in sua ciuitate cum peregrino negauit se iudicio aequo certare posse’ is C. Antonius; 87C: ‘hominis maxime popularis’ is M. Marius Gratidianus; ‘in suo familiarissimo’ refers to C. Verres; ‘alter pecore omni uendito’ is C. Antonius; 88C: ‘eum quem potuit’ is identified tentatively as Q. Gallius (cf. n. 13 below); ‘duos consules designates’ refers to P. Autronius Paetus and P. Cornelius Sulla; ‘istum... in exercitu Sullano praedonem’ is C. Antonius again; 91C: ‘non esset locus tarn sanctus’ alludes delicately to the Vestal Virgin Fabia; 93C: ‘Hispaniensi pugiunculo’ is Cn. Piso; ‘duas... sicas’ are Catiline and Antonius once more. The method is patent
8 The phenomenon has its sign in Cicero's notorious weakness for the verb comperio: e.g. Cat. 1.10, 3.3; Pro Sulla 86; Fam. 5.2.6; it was taken up by opponents and mercilessly exploited by P Clodius (Alt. 1.14.5), by C. Antonius, who was reproached for it by Cicero at Fam. 5.5.2, and in Pseudo-Sallust, Invect. in Cic. 2,4. That the term cannot yet have been a byword at the time of the publication of Pro Sulla, however, is acutely noted by Berry, D. H.(Cicero Pro P. Sulla Oratio [Cambridge, 1996], 156).Google Scholar
9 The distinction between cognitus and notus is not always demonstrable (though doubtless felt by native speakers), but there are many passages in which substitution of one for the other is manifestly impossible: e.g. Fam. 5.12.7 (to Lucceius): ‘sed etiam auctoritas clarissimi et spectatissimi uiri et in rei publicae maximis grauissimisque causis cogniti atque in primis probati’, i.e. ‘known, not by information given, but by experience and testing’; Verr. Act. Prim. 29: ‘M.Caesonius... homo in rebus iudicandis spectatus et cognitus’ (proven and approved because he exposed the corruption of the iudicium Iunianum); Sallust Cat. 35.1: ‘L. Catilina Q. Catulo. egregia tua fides, re cognita, grata mihi magnis in meis periculis’; Livy 5.26.10 (of Camillus): ‘cognitae rebus bellicis uirtutis specimen’; Livy 7.40.19 (of fides again); Livy 21.53.8: ‘ingenium, fama prius deinde re cognitum’, a usage which makes the conceptual distinction in verbally breaching it, and more boldly to the same effect, Sallust, Jug. 84.2: ‘plerosque militiae, paucos fama cognitos’. Note also Pollio ap. Fam. 10.31.3: ‘Caesarem uero, quod me in tanta fortuna modo cognitum uetustissimorum familiarium loco habuit, dilexi summa cum pietate et fide’. Here Pollio means ‘non re cognitum’
10 Cic. ap. Asc. 88C: ‘duos consules designates uno tempore damnari uidimus’. This was a matter of observation; in the case of men like Crassus or Caesar, it was merely rumour, however circumstantial. Cf. Cic. ap. Asc. 75C: ‘Ut spectaculum Mudretempore salubre ac necessarium, genere et exemplo miserum ac funestum uideremus.’ Thus in the Pro Cornelio of 65 the notion of witnessing the guilt of the consuls designate is even more obvious; there is, further, a sense of tragedy in which the audience can be said to be involved; indeed there is even a whiff of catharsis in the healthgiving necessity of it.
11 The fragment CILXIV 4192 cf. Berry, p. 213 cannot outweigh Cicero's clear distinction of Sulla from Autronius in terms of nobilitas {Pro Sulla 37) and the absence of Autronii from the consular fasti down to 65.
12 37.25.3–4; Cic. Leg. agr. 2.11 (without Antonius; cf. Leg. agr. 2.103).
13 Pro Sulla 62. Ramsey, J. T.(Historia 29[1980],420) tentatively replaces Asconius' tentative identification of Q. Gallius as Catiline';;;s unnamed confederate in the procurement of gladiators (88C) with the name of P. Sulla. This identification is pregnant in the light of the present discussion.Google Scholar
14 Cic. Off. 2.29; Dio 36.44.3.
15 Aulus Gellius, N.A. 12.12.2; cf. Pseudo-Sallust, Inv. in Cic. 3–4.
16 Cic. Leg. agr. 2.103; Plutarch, Cicero 12.3–4.
17 Cicero, Fam. 9.10.3; 15.17.2; 15.19.3. The last of these letters refers to Sulla';;;s surviving son, an assiduous buyer at the sales of proscribed estates. But whatever the date of publication of De consiliis suis, either Cicero or another was prepared to brave the wrath of more powerful Caesarians than P. Sulla junior.
18 Alt. 2.6.2; On Theopompus' severity, Nepos Alcibiades 11.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Epistle to Pompeius Geminus 6.7–8.
19 Sallust, Cat. 48.3–9; Plutarch, Crassus 13.2; Dio 37.35.1.
20 Sallust, Cat. 49; Plut. Cic 21.3; Caesar 8; Cato Minor 23.1–2; Appian, B.C. 2.6; Suetonius, Julius 14 and (for the abortive prosecution) 17.
21 That participation in the conspiracy was raised and was the real ground of condemnation appears from Cic. Cael. 74; Schol. Bob. Pro Flacco 5 (p. 94 St.); and (in garbled form) Dio 38.10.3.
22 Cic. Cael. 10–14; Austin, R.G.,Pro Caelio(Oxford, 3, 1960), 152–4.Google Scholar
23 On the context, Pro Sulla 6; on the charge, Schol. Bob. Pro P. Sylla92 (p. 84 St.).
24 Pro Sulla 14; expanded with weighty solemnity at 85–6.
25 Pro Sulla 10: This was done in blunt terms by the younger Torquatus prosecuting Sulla: ‘In Autronium testimonium dixisti’, inquit ‘Sullam defendis’. His purpose was to reveal Cicero as ’inconstans ac leuis.
26 Aulus Gellius, N.A. 12.12.2: ‘Nam cum emere uellet in Palatio domum et pecuniam in praesens non haberet, a P. Sulla, qui turn reus erat, mutua sestertium uiciens tacita accepit.’ This was not the only case in which Cicero's enemies alleged that, abetted by Terentia, he sold his goodwill to Catilinarian suspects. Pseudo-Sallust (Inv. in Cic. 3–4) reckons his rate at an estate apiece. It is interesting to note for its implications Sallust's assurance that Cicero was not to be moved by bribes and favours to denounce Caesar (Cat. 49.1). Cicero's actual conduct is, of course, not to be deduced from the odium attested in the hostile tradition. His integrity as advocate is affirmed by Plutarch (Cic 7.3) and defended by Berry in the present case (pp. 30–2, 39–42). But the reputations of even honest politicians are vulnerable and are vindicated by media skills. Cicero's silence about Sulla is almost as deafening as his denunciations of Catiline.