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Cicero's first readers: epistolary evidence for the dissemination of his works*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

T. Murphy
T. Murphy
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, tmmurphy@uclink4.berkeley.edu
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Extract

The study of the circulation of literary texts in ancient Rome has taken on new significance lately. Recent work on Roman books and their readers has emphasized the difference between the dissemination of texts in the ancient world and publication as we moderns know it, and we have come to see that our understanding of Roman culture and their politics can benefit from a closer examination of how the Romans composed, recited, and released their books. Take, for example, Cicero and the readers of his philosophical works. In the Tusculans, the Academica, De Officiis, De Divinatione, and De Finibns Cicero promoted Latin, in terms very like those of modern linguistic nationalism, as a medium for intellectual discourse at the expense of Greek, and exhorted his readers to follow him in transferring philosophy from Greece to Rome. To choose to write philosophy at this time in Latin instead of Greek was, as Cicero put it, a practical means of increasing Rome's intellectual prestige, a campaign in which he invited his readers to enlist. But to whom was this appeal directed? Who, to Cicero's mind at least, would have been useful in achieving this political goal? From evidence in Cicero's letters to Atticus, we can largely retrace how he disseminated these philosophical books, reconstruct to some degree their original readers, and, most importantly, deduce the grounds on which Cicero selected them. Cicero's choice of audience, and the manner in which he assembled it, throws an interesting light both on his agenda in promoting Latin as a philosophical language as well as on the Roman culture of publication.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , December 1998 , pp. 492 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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References

1 Ground was broken on this question in the twentieth century by R. Sommer, in ‘T. Pomponius Atticus und die Verbreitung von Ciceros, Werken’, Hermes 61(1926),389–422, which is still very valuable. I have found the following later studies particularly helpful:Google ScholarKenney, E. J., ‘Books and readers in the Roman world’, in CHCLII(Cambridge, 1982), pp.3–32;Google ScholarZetzel, J. E. G., Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity (New York, 1984);Google ScholarStarr, R. J., ‘The circulation of literary texts in the Roman world’,CQ 37(1987),213–23;Google ScholarHabinek, T. N.,The Politics of Latin Literature(Princeton,1998), esp. ch. 5, ‘Writing as social performance’.Google Scholar

2 One can see Cicero at work on this in Att. 13.21 [Shackleton Bailey 351J.3, comparing the merits of inhibeo and sustineo as translations of - For the lasting effect of Cicero's project, see the comments on this letter of Palmer, L. R.,The Latin Language(London,1954), pp.128–9.Google Scholar

3 Naturalis Historia 7.117: ‘salve primus omnium parens patriae appellate, primus in toga triumphum linguaeque lauream merite et facundiae Latiarumque litterarum parens aeque (ut dictator Caesar, hostis quondam tuus, de te scripsit) omnium triumphorum laurea maiorem, quanto plus est ingenii Romani terminos in tantum promovisse quam imperii.

4 ’quam ob rem hortor omnis, qui facere id possunt, ut huius quoque generis laudem iam languenti Graeciae eripiant et transferant in hanc urbem, sicut reliquas omnis, quae quidem erant expetendae, studio atque industria sua maiores nostri transtulerunt. atque oratorum quidem laus ita ducta ab humili uenit ad summum, ut iam, quod natura fert in omnibus fere rebus, senescat breuique tempore ad nihilum uentura uideatur; philosophia nascatur Latinis quidem litteris ex his temporibus, eamque nos adiuuemus.... quod si haec studia traducta erunt ad nostros, ne bibliothecis quidem Graecis egebimus‘ (Tusc 2.5–6).

5 Tusc.2.7: ’est quidem quoddam genus eorum, qui se philosophos appellari volunt, quorum dicuntur esse Latini sane multi libri, quos non contemno equidem, quippe quos numquam legerim; sed quia profitentur ipsi illi, qui eos scribunt, se neque distincte neque distribute neque eleganter neque ornate scribere, lectionem sine ulla delectatione negligo.‘ See also Academica1.5, Tusc.1.6, Fam.15.2. It is interesting to note that Cicero never mentioned Lucretius in this connection. His silence only emphasizes the distance between the poet and the mainstream aristocratic culture of his time.

6 RE 4.67, Brzoska.

7 Seneca, Ep.98.13; Plutarch, De Prof, in Virt.77E.

8 Seneca, Ep. 59.7.

9 RE16.893–7, K. v. Fritz.

10 Kaimio, J.,The Romans and the Greek Language(Helsinki,1979), p245.Google Scholar

11 Anderson, B.,Imagined Communities(London, 1983). I paraphrase the argument of ch. 3, ‘The origins of national consciousness’.Google Scholar

12 Starr (n. 1), p. 221

13 Ibid.., p. 215.

14 See, for instance, Alt. 13.20 (SB 328), where the wide circulation of Pro Ligario prevents Cicero from revising it further. I shall discuss this letter further below.

15 On Atticus in general, see Shackieton Bailey, D. R., ‘Atticus and Cicero’, in Cicero's Letters to Atticus 1(Cambridge 1965), pp.3–58.Google Scholar

16 The letters themselves circulated with various degrees of publicity or privacy. SeeNicholson, J., ‘The delivery and confidentiality of Cicero's Letters’, CJ 90 (1994),33–63.Google Scholar

17 Rome had no public library before the one built by Caesar's friend Asinius Pollio at some time in the 30s. See Rawson, E.,Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic(Baltimore,1985), p. 39. But Caesar had formed plans, possibly as early as 46, to assemble a huge public library of Greek and Latin books, putting Varro in charge of assembling and collating them (Suetonius, Div. Jul. 44).Google Scholar See Horsfall, N., ‘Varro and Caesar: three chronological problems’, BICS 19 (1972), 120–5, at p. 122.Google Scholar

18 Q. Cornificius has been identified as the addressee of Catullus 38, and also as the poet Cornificius mentioned by Ovid (Tristia 2.436) and by Macrobius as the author of the epyllion Glaucus (Saturnalia 6.5.

19 Rawson (n. 17), pp. 19–20.

20 Ibid.., p. 27

21 Ibid.., pp. 23–5.

22 Ibid.., p. 25

23 Griffin, M., ‘Philosophical badinage in Cicero's letters’, in Powell, J. G. F. (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher(Oxford,1995), pp.325–16, at p. 328.Google Scholar

24 Kaimio(n. 10), p. 241.

25 Tarver, T., ‘Varro, Caesar, and the Republican calendar’,Nottingham Classical Literature Studies 3(1994),39–57. See also the response to this paper by J. G. F. Powell in the same volume, pp. 59–64.Google Scholar

26 In Att. 16.6 (SB 414).4 Cicero confesses that he has thoughtlessly stuck on to the beginning of the De Gloria a preface he had already used for Academica 3, having pulled it at random from his ‘volumen prohoemiorum. ex eo eligere soleo cum aliquod institui’. He encloses a new preface for the De Gloria, requesting of Atticus that ‘illud desecabis, hoc adglutinabis’.

27 Att. 4.13 (SB 87).fin.; 14 November, 55: ‘de libris oratoriis factum est a me diligenter. diu multumque in manibus fuerunt. describas licet.

28 Att. 13.48 (SB 345).2: ’laudationem Porciae tibi misi correctam. eo properavi ut, si foret aut Domitio filio aut Bruto mitteretur, haec mitteretur’.’

29 ‘Ligarianam, ut video, praeclare auctoritas tua commendavit’ (Att. 13.19 [SB 326]).

30 On lectoresin general, see Horsfall, N.,‘Rome without spectacles’,G&R 62(1995),49–56.Google Scholar

31 For another instance of publication at a dinner-party, seen from guest's point of view, see Catullus 44.8–15.

32 ‘Nepotis epistulam exspecto. Cupidus ille meorum? qui ea, quibus maxime , legenda non putet’ (Att. 16.5 [SB 410].fin.; 9 July, 44).

33 The only thing Balbus is known to have written is a memoir of Caesar. Of this, the only remnant is an account of a prophecy at Capua that foretold Caesar's death (HRR 11.46 = Suetonius, Caesar 81). Balbus was, however, a close friend of C. Oppius, another close connection of Caesars‘ who achieved more of a literary reputation, writing lives of Caesar, Cassius, and Scipio Africanus. Balbus and Oppius are frequently paired in Cicero's letters as the intermediaries of Caesar (see the quote from Att. 13.19 [SB 326] above), and it is probable that all three often shared what they read.

34 After Caesar's murder in 44 Balbus quickly attached himself to Octavianus, and was rewarded for his loyal service with a consulship in 40, the first naturalized Roman citizen to become consul (Pliny, N.H. 7.136).

35 See especially A tt. 12.1.3 (SB 248); 15.7(SB374); 10.1.1 (SB 190); 9.10.10 (SB 177).

36 Drumann, W. K. A.,Geschichte Roms, 2nd edn revised byGroebe, P.(Berlin,1899–1929), vol. l,pp. 195ff.Google Scholar