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Sallust's Catiline and Cato the Censor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. S. Levene
Affiliation:
University of Durham, D.S.Levene@durham.ac.uk

Extract

That Sallust owed a considerable debt to the writings of Cato the Censor was observed in antiquity, and the observation has often been discussed and expanded on by modern scholars. The ancient references to Sallust's employment of Cato are mainly in the context of his adoption of an archaic style, and specifically Catonian vocabulary. But the choice of Cato as a model had an obvious significance that went beyond the purely stylistic. Sallust's works articulate extreme pessimism at the moral state of late-Republican Rome, and do so partly by contrasting the modern age with a prelapsarian time of near-untrammelled virtue, brought to an end only by the fall of Carthage and the consequent dominance of Roman power, which in turn led to moral corruption. Similarly, Cato famously stood in his own day for moral rectitude—and specifically appealed to past virtue as the standard to which he wished to hold his contemporaries. Sallust, by writing in a Catonian style, aligns himself with that tradition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 References in this paper to the fragments of Cato's Orationes are according to the numbering of Malcovati, H., Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta Liberae Rei Publicae (Turin, 1953).Google Scholar References to the fragments of the Origines are according to the numbering of Peter, H., Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1914).Google Scholar Fragments of Cato's other works are cited from Jordan, H., M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica quae extant (Leipzig, 1860).Google Scholar Versions of the ideas developed in this paper have been tried out previously on audiences in Durham, Leeds, and Oxford, and I am grateful for the comments that I have received on those occasions. I should also like to thank for their help Christina Kraus, Damien Nelis, Clemence Schultze, and Tony Woodman.

2 Quintilian 8.3.29: ‘nee minus noto Sallustius epigrammate incessitur: et verba antiqui multum furate Catonis, / Crispe, Iugurthinae conditor historiae’ (‘Sallust is equally the object of attack from the famous epigram: “And you, the great thief of the words of ancient Cato, / Crispus, the creator of the Jugurthine history”’); Suetonius, Divus Augustus 86: ‘verbis, quae Crispus Sallustius excerpsit ex Originibus Catonis’ (‘words, which Sallustius Crispus extracted from Cato's Origines’); Suetonius, De Grammaticis 15: ‘Sallustium historicum … priscorum Catonisque verborum ineruditissimum furem’ (‘the historian Sallust … an utterly uneducated thief of ancient vocabulary (especially Cato)’); Fronto, Ad M. Caesarem 4.3.2: ‘M. Porcius eiusque frequens sectator Sallustius’ (‘M. Porcius and his constant disciple Sallust’).

3 For example Deltour, F., De Sallustio Catonis imitatore (dissertation, Paris, 1859)Google Scholar; Bruennert, G., De Sallustio imitatore Catonis, Sisennae aliorumque veterum historicorum Romanorum (dissertation, Jena, 1873)Google Scholar; Ernout, A., ‘Salluste et Caton’, Information Littèraire 1 (1949), 61–5Google Scholar; Skard, E., Sallust und seine Vorgänger (Oslo, 1956), 75107Google Scholar; Lebek, W., Verba Prisca (Göttingen, 1970), 291335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 See e.g. Deltour (n. 3), 43–7; Egermann, F., ‘Die Proomien zu den Werken des Sallust’, SAWW 214.3 (1932), 77–8Google Scholar; Ernout (n. 3), 61; Earl, D. C., The Political Thought of Sallust (Cambridge, 1961), 44–5.Google Scholar

5 For example, Cato, Orationes frs. 18, 58,144,200,221–2, Carmen de Moribus frs. 1–2; Cicero, De Divinatione 1.28; Plutarch, Cato Maior 20.5. see Astin, A. E., Cato the Censor (Oxford, 1978), 100.Google Scholar

6 Examples include Scanlon, T. F., Spes Frustrata (Heidelberg, 1987)Google Scholar; Batstone, W. W., ‘The antithesis of virtue: Sallust's Synkrisis and the crisis of the late Republic’, Classical Antiquity 7 (1988), 129CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilkins, A. T., Villain or Hero: Sallust's Portrayal of Catiline (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Kraus, C. S. and Woodman, A. J., Latin Historians (Oxford, 1997), 1050.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Earl, D. C., ‘Prologue-form in ancient historiography’, ANRW 1.2 (1972), 842–56.Google Scholar

8 Naturally, history is in fact covertly alluded to from the start, with, for example, the stress on the avoidance of ‘silence’ (1.1), and the importance allotted to ‘memory’ (1.3), but it is only in retrospect that their relevance to the genre of the work becomes apparent. On silentium in this passage, see Woodman, A. J., ‘A note on Sallust, Catilina 1.1’, CQ 23 (1973), 310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Cf. Leeman, A. D., ‘Sallusts Prologe und seine Auflassung von der Historiographie. I: Das Catilina-Proömien’, Mnemosyne 7 (1954), 323–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 325–8.

10 Cato, Orationes frs. 78, 132, 139, 142, 144, 146, Carmen de Moribus frs. 2–3; Plutarch, Cato Maior 7.1,9.5, Apophthegms 198D; cf. Cato, Orationes fr. 111. See Astin (n. 5), 91–2.

11 Cato, Orationes frs. 58, 173, 177,224. See Astin (n. 5), 90, 95–6.

12 This interpretation of bene dicere has been questioned, but see Leeman (n. 9), 329.

13 More common are related phrases of the form beneficium in rem publicam: see Hellegouarc'h, J., Le Vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la république (Paris, 1963), 168Google Scholar, n. 11.

14 Cato, Orationes fr. 173; cf. Skard (n. 3), 82; Vretska, K., C. Sallustius Crispus: De Catilinae Coniuratione (Heidelberg, 1976), 86.Google Scholar

15 This is the usual interpretation of the passage. See however Kraus and Woodman (n. 6), 15, for the alternative suggestion that the ‘return’ is to be interpreted not as Sallust resuming a prior literary activity, but as a return to politics via the medium of historiography: cf. my discussion below.

16 Note the examples at Herkommer, E., Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke (dissertation, Tübingen, 1968), 66–7.Google Scholar

17 Sallust later used similar phrasing to describe Cato as he had of himself here in the Catiline: ‘Romani generis disertissimus paucis absolvit’ (Histories 1.4); see Herkommer (n.16), 155. Nepos describes Cato as recounting wars capitulatim (Cato 3.4): the precise significance of this is controversial, but it too probably indicates the brevity with which Cato summarized his narrative: see Astin (n. 5), 218; Chassignet, M., Cato: Les Origines (Paris, 1986), xv–xvi.Google Scholar Chassignet (xvi) further suggests that capitulatim points to Cato's selectivity in deciding what to write; if so, it may be that carptim in Sallust likewise suggests a Catonian mode of writing.

18 Cf. BJ 4.4, and see Marincola, J., Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge, 1997), 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Leeman (n. 9), 329.

20 Leeman (n. 9), p. 329. Some MSS do in fact read actorem rerum, avoiding the ambiguity, and this reading is accepted by a minority of scholars (most notably Vretska [n. 14], 88–9). However, most editors have accepted auctorem, which has good MS authority and is supported by the quotations in Gellius 4.15.2 (in two of the three major MSS) and Charisius 1.215.28 (Keil): the corruption of auctorem to actorem in this context seems more likely than the contrary.

21 This is the usual interpretation of the sentence. Delz, J., ‘Verachtete Sallust die Beschäftigung mit der Landwirtschaft?’, MH 42 (1985), 168–73Google Scholar argues that it should be translated ‘nor even by agriculture or hunting to spend my life concentrating on the duties of slaves’. On this interpretation, Sallust is not directly referring to a landowner's engagement in agriculture as ‘slave's work’, but is simply saying that one who does engage in it spends an excessive amount of time supervising slaves. However, even on Delz's interpretation Sallust's rejection of the Catonian lifestyle, while couched in less directly dismissive language, is still sufficiently remarkable to require comment.

22 Cato, Origines fr. 2 (from Cicero, Pro Plancio 66): ‘etenim M. Catonis illud, quod in principio scripsit originum suarum, semper magnificum et praeclarum putavi, clarorum hominum atque magnorum non minus otii quam negotii rationem exstare oportere’ (‘for I always thought that point of Marcus Cato, that he wrote at the opening of his Origines, is a splendid and distinguished one: that famous and great men ought to have available an account of their leisure [otium] no less than of their business [negotium]’).

23 This is not merely a modern association owing to the chance that Cato's De Agricultura is the only one of his works that survives complete: it is also referred to in the fragments of his other writings (esp. Ad Marcum filium fr. 6: ‘vir bonus … colendi peritus’; Orationes fr. 128: ‘ego iam a principio in parsimonia atque in duritia atque industria omnem adulescentiam meam abstinui agro colendo, saxis Sabinis, silicibus repastinandis atque conserendis’), and, most importantly, is singled out as one of his major qualities by the ancient testimonies of his life—e.g. Nepos, Cato 3.1, Livy 39.40.4, Quintilian 12.11.23, Plutarch, Cato Maior 25.1; cf. Cicero, De Senectute 51–60.

24 Various explanations have been canvassed: for example, Egermann (n. 4), 78 sees it as an example of Sallust drawing on Plato (but that in itself seems to be something that requires explanation in the light of the apparent contradiction with the ethos established elsewhere in the section). Syme, R., Sallust (Berkeley, 1964), 45–6Google Scholar suggested that it was only modern agriculture to which Sallust objected, and hypothesized that there might be a response to the praise of agriculture put by Cicero into the mouth of Cato in De Senectute 51–60. (But how could a reader tell from the words ‘agrum colundo’ that it was this sort of agriculture, and not the agriculture praised by the real Cato, that was the object of Sallust's attack?) Vretska (n. 14), 108–9 has several suggestions: one (from Earl, D. C., JRS 55 [1965], 234Google Scholar ) is that it was only an exclusive occupation on farming that was being objected to (but that hardly fits the blanket comment servilibus officüs); another is that it is manual labour that is being referred to in this way (but here too agrum colundo hardly has such a narrow connotation).

25 See Astin (n. 5), 96–7, 184–5; also Cato, Orationes frs. 148, 186, and Plutarch, Cato Maior 20.4,20.7–8. On the high military reputation of Cato among later Roman writers, see Astin (n. 5), 49.

26 For example, Cato, Orationes frs. 94, 136, 154, 173, 177,224. See Astin (n. 5), 63–4.

27 It is central to Plutarch's Life; see also Cato, Orationes frs. 110, 128, 141, 174, 185, 213; cf. Polybius 31.25.5; Nepos, Cato 2.3; Livy 39.2–4. See Astin (n. 5), 91–104.

28 Cf. Leeman, A. D., ‘Formen sallustianischer Geschichtsschreibung’, Gymnasium 74 (1967), 108–15Google Scholar, at 111–13.

29 Cf. Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext (Cambridge, 1998), 3447Google Scholar for a discussion of how even standard topoi may in particular contexts shade into and incorporate very specific allusions to earlier texts that employed them.

30 Nepos, Cato 3.4; Pliny, Natural History 8.11.

31 Cf. La Penna, A., Sallustio e la ‘rivoluzione’ romana (Milan, 1968), 118.Google Scholar

32 See Cato, Origines fr. 83 for an extended example of Cato's practice in this area, along with the discussion by Astin (n. 5), 232–3.

33 Commentators (e.g. McGushin, P., C. Sallustius Crispus Bellum Catilinae: A Commentary [Leiden, 1977]Google Scholar, 85) sometimes refer it also to the son of the dictator Postumius, who (allegedly) was similarly executed by his father: see Diodorus Siculus 12.64.3; Livy 4.29.5; Valerius Maximus 2.7.6; Aulus Gellius 1.13.10, 17.21.17. However, the association with Manlius was far more common (e.g. Cicero, Pro Sulla 32, De Finibus 1.23, 1.35; Valerius Maximus 2.7.6, 6.9.1, 9.3.4; Virgil, Aeneid 6.824–5; Seneca, Controversiae 9.2.19, 10.3.8; Aulus Gellius 9.13.20) and indeed proverbial, even to the point that Livy uses the fame of that version to deny the historicity of the Postumius story (4.29.6). That Sallust's readers would have linked the reference here to Manlius in particular is suggested by the pointed phrase contra imperium (on the use of the word imperium as a covert reference to Manlius, see Nisbet, R. G. M., ‘Notes on Horace, Epistles 1’, CQ 9 [1959], 73–7Google Scholar, at 73–4 = Collected Papers on Latin Literature [Oxford, 1996], 1–3), and above all by Sallust's own later reference to Manlius in almost identical language at 52.30 (see further, pp. 184–5 below).

34 It is possible that the archaism of the double -que is also relevant here, but note Lebek (n. 3), 307, n. 29.

35 It is even possible that the general sentiment was inspired by Cato, Origines fr. 82 (‘imperator noster, si quis extra ordinem depugnatum ivit, ei multam facit’, ‘our general, if anyone goes outside the line to fight, fines him’), as suggested by Steidle, W., Sallusts historische Monographien: Themenwahl und Geschichtsbild (Wiesbaden, 1958), 7Google Scholar, n. 6. However, the specific situation envisaged in that fragment appears to be different, and the loss of its context makes any connection no more than a tentative possibility.

36 see Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford, 1985), 317Google Scholar; Berry, D. H., Cicero: Pro Sulla (Cambridge, 1996), 201–2.Google ScholarFeldherr, A., Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (Berkeley, 1998), 105–11Google Scholar in a detailed study of Livy's treatment of the Manlius episode (8.7) argues that the narrative brings out a positive side as well as a negative one to Manlius’ actions. Even Feldherr's analysis, however, emphasizes the inherent ambivalence of the episode, and moreover assumes that a Roman audience would in the first instance identify with the victim, and would be repelled by the consul's actions even as they learned a lesson from them.

37 Also [Sallust], Epistulae 2.3.4: even though the author is highly unlikely to be Sallust, he regularly employs Sallustian phraseology. see Penna, A. La, ‘Rapere, trahere: uno slogan di Catone contra i ladri di stato?’, in Boldrini, S.et al. (eds), Filologia e forme letterarie: studi offerti a Francesco delta Corte, vol. 2 (Urbino, 1987), 103–10Google Scholar at 103–4.

38 La Penna (n. 37).

39 M Earl (n. 4), 42–6; McGushin (n. 33), 87–8.

40 BJ 41.2–3, Histories 1.11–12; the phrase metus hostilis appears in BJ 41.2, and metus Punicus in Histories 1.12.

41 So e.g. La Penna (n. 31), 39, 232–3; Bonamente, G., ‘II “metus Punicus” e la decadenza di Roma in Sallustio, Agostino ed Orosio’, GIF 27 (N.S. 6) (1975), 137–69Google Scholar at 144–9. See, however, Latta, B., ‘Der Wandel im Sallusts Geschichtsauffassung vom Bellum Catilinae zum Bellum Iugurthinum’, Maia 40 (1988), 271–88Google Scholar, who has a similar, but more nuanced position: he denies the relevance of metus hostilis (cf. also n. 43 below), but argues that fortuna does not represent an external irrational power, but the psychological irrationality which causes the Romans’ moral collapse at the moment of their imperial success. Latta's position is thus not far from Heldmann's (notes 42 and 43 below), in that he accepts that Sallust is presenting a close (albeit not inevitable) connection between unchallenged power and moral decline (esp. pp. 274–5), but his analysis of the role of fortuna, and hence of the general causal sequence, is somewhat different.

42 See especially the careful argument of Heldmann, K., Sallust über die römische Weltherrschaft (Stuttgart, 1993), 93117CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who relates the notion of fortuna in this passage to 2.5 ‘fortuna simul cum moribus immutatur’ (108–9), arguing that it represents only the turn of events resulting from a change in Rome's morals, not an independent irrational force.

43 Earl (n. 4), 47–8 and Vretska (n. 14), 203–6 set out the theme's earlier history: both refer this passage uncomplicatedly to metus hostilis. Heldmann (n. 42), 110–12 has certain reservations about this, arguing that Sallust deliberately avoids stating the concept so as not to attribute the earlier rise of Rome to external factors rather than to the Romans’ intrinsic virtue, as the earlier part of the Archaeology had indicated (cf. Latta [n. 41], 277, though his general analysis is different—see note 41 above). According to Heldmann, the reason that fortuna is introduced is in order to cover the lack of a precise description of how the causal connection between imperial success and moral disaster is operating. However, I cannot go along with Heldmann in his further suggestion (pp. 105–6) that Sallust's phrasing leaves it ambiguous whether the destruction of Carthage or some earlier date formed the real turning-point. The phrase aemula imperi Romani directly before cuncta maria terraeque patebant shows that it is Carthage that Sallust is identifying as the single barrier to Rome's unchallenged success, while the emphatic ab stirpe interüt points to its final destruction as the single key moment in the creation of that success.

44 The earliest attestation of the story is in Diodorus 34.33.3–6; the original source is usually thought to have been Posidonius (e.g. Hackl, U., ‘Poseidonios und das Jahr 146 v. Chr. als Epochendatum in der antiken Historiographie’, Gymnasium 87 [1980], 151–66)Google Scholar, but it may go back to Rutilius Rufus (e.g. Gelzer, M., ‘Nasicas Widerspruch gegen die Zerstörung Karthagos’, Philologus 86 [1931], 261–99Google Scholar, at 270–2 = Kleine Schriften II [Wiesbaden, 1963], 39–72 at 47–9). Its historicity is defended by Gelzer and attacked by Hoffmann, W., ‘Die römische Politik des 2. Jahrhunderts und das Ende Karthagos’, Historia 9 (1960), 309–44Google Scholar; but, in either case, the story must have been firmly established in the historical tradition by Sallust's day.

45 According to Skard (n. 3), 81, the phrase ‘nationes ferae et populi ingentes’ (10.1), with which this passage is introduced, is an imitation of Cato, Orationes fr. 164.4: ‘multos populos et multas nationes’. If so, it would reinforce the idea that the reader is to see the passage with Cato in mind; but see contra Vretska (n. 14), 200.

46 This connection is seen by Shimron, B., ‘Caesar's place in Sallust's political theory’, Athenaeum 45 (1967), 335–45Google Scholar, at 331–2. However, he tries to convert it into a criticism of Caesar by suggesting that Sallust meant this as a virtue only in foreign affairs; but note 6.5 ‘domi militiaeque’.

47 Vretska (n. 14), 635–6. The phrase is, of course, also a direct imitation of Aeschylus, Septem 592: on the implications of the imitation see Renehan, R., ‘A traditional pattern of imitation in Sallust and his sources’, CPh 71 (1976), 97105Google Scholar at 97–9.

48 Cf. Leeman (n. 28), 113–14; McGushin (n. 33), 311. On the internal conflicts and contradictions in Sallust's presentation of virtus in the synkrisis, see above all Batstone (n. 6). My argument in these paragraphs may be seen as in some respects complementing Batstone's discussion.

49 On the relevance to the synkrisis of the descriptions of Cato the Censor in Pro Murena, see Batstone (n. 6), 18–19,22–3.

50 Plutarch, Cato Maior 10.4.

51 It is true that Caesar at 51.1–4 (in imitation of Diodotus at Thucydides 3.48.1) denies that in arguing for leniency he is swayed by misericordia, but the very stress on this quality in the synkrisis suggests that he is being disingenuous, as indeed does the fact that the phrase ‘mansuetudine et misericordia’ in 54.2 alludes to Cato's use of similar phrases at 52.11 and 52.27 to describe the claims of those opposing the conspirators’ execution.

52 On the centrality of aequitas and iustitia in Sallust's picture of Rome's rise to power, see Heldmann (n. 42), 55–7, 102–5.

53 See e.g. Steidle (n. 35), 24–5; Earl (n. 4), 97–8; Drummond, A., Law, Politics and Power Sallust and the Execution of the Catilinarian Conspirators (Stuttgart, 1995), 74.Google Scholar

54 See Vretska (n. 14), 568 for a close comparison of the Sallustian and the Lycurgan passages.

55 Skard (n. 3), 86–7.

56 Jordan (n. 1), 81.

57 On Cato and Vegetius, see Milner, N. P., Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool, 1993), xvii–xviii, 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 On this allusive technique in Latin literature, see McKeown, J. C., Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary, vol. 1 (Liverpool, 1987), 3745.Google Scholar

59 For example, Skard (n. 3), 87 sees the sentiments of 52.12 (‘sint sane, quoniam ita se mores habent, liberates ex sociorum fortunis, sint misericordes in furibus aerari’) as recalling Cato, Orationes fr. 224 (‘fures privatorum furtorum in nervo atque in compedibus aetatem agunt, fures publici in auro atque in purpura’), and in an intricate argument (pp. 87–9) suggests that 52.22 may likewise come from Cato. Both of these, however, are less certain.

60 So Skard (n. 3), 81; also Vretska (n. 14), 609, who points out that the collocation is surprisingly uncommon.

61 Skard (n. 3), 90–1.

62 That Livy wrote Cato's speech in 34.2–4 in a style to resemble Cato is argued at great length by Paschkowski, I., Die Kunst der Reden in der 4. und 5. Dekade des Livius (Kiel, 1966), 107–25Google Scholar, 248–67; cf. Tränkle, H., Cato in der vierten und fünften Dekade des Livius (Mainz, 1971), 1116Google Scholar, who denies Paschowski's claim that the speech is stylistically Catonian, but argues that its arguments and themes are nevertheless derived from Cato's writings. Briscoe, J., A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV-XXXVII (Oxford, 1981), 40–2Google Scholar is sceptical of the overall argument, but accepts some of the individual references (cf. also his notes on 34.2.13–3.3, 34.3.9, 34.4.2, 34.4.3, 34.4.14).

63 It is true that Cicero, Pro Sulla 32, like Cato here, uses Torquatus as an example to justify the execution of the conspirators. However, the logic in Cicero is rather different. In the Pro Sulla the focus is less on the use of Torquatus as a precedent, but rather on the inappropriateness of Torquatus’ descendant (the prosecutor in the case) blaming Cicero for an action that was more justified than his ancestor's. Moreover, in Cicero the justification is in both cases prospective: Torquatus killed his son ‘to strengthen command over others’ (‘ut in ceteris firmaret imperium’), and similarly the state killed its enemies ‘in order not itself to be killed by them’ (‘ne ab eis ipsa necaretur’). In Sallust, on the other hand, the focus at this point in the speech is on the death penalty as a punishment (‘quod is contra imperium in hostem pugnaret’, ‘inmoderatae fortitudinis morte poenas dedit’), which thus appears to be trying to address directly—however inadequately—Caesar's claim that such a penalty was unprecedented.

64 There were in fact three leges Porciae on this subject from the early second century B.C: the precise details are unclear. Not all of the laws were passed by Cato the Censor, and it is possible that none was, but the evidence suggests that he was certainly associated with them in some way. See Astin(n. 5), 21–3.

65 See Livy 45.25.3; also Gellius 6.3.7.

66 Syme (n. 24), 112–13.

67 Gellius 6.3.52: ‘nunc mansuetudinis maiorum, nunc utilitatis publicae commonefacit’.

68 Lebek (n. 3), 305.

69 Cf. Bellen, H., Metus Gallicus—Metus Punicus; zum Furchtmotiv in der römischen Republik (Mainz, 1985), 31.Google Scholar

70 Hoffman (n. 44), 318–23; contra Bellen (n. 69), 28–9.

71 It is worth observing in this context that the phrase nefaria facinora that Caesar uses to describe the crimes of Carthage appears to be a Catonian one: see Orationes, fr. 59; cf. frs. 62,177.

72 Skard (n. 3), 80. Vretska (n. 14), 551 denies the Catonian allusion on the grounds that the phrase nec vas nec vestimentum appears also in Terence, Heautontimorumenos 141, suggesting that it is a general archaic formula. However Terence might well himself have been imitating Cato's phrase (as indeed is suggested by ancillas servos in his next line): the speech in question (the De sumptu suo) was probably delivered in 164 (Astin [n. 5], 107–8), while the Heautontimorumenos was first performed in 163. It should also be pointed out that word aedificatio immediately preceding in Cato makes the parallel with Sallust that much closer (note 51.33:domum aut villam).

73 For example Syme (n. 24), 121–3; Pöschl, V., ‘Die Reden Caesars und Cato in Sallusts “Catilina”’, in Poschl, V. (ed.), Sallust, Wege der Forschung 94 (Darmstadt, 1970), 368–97Google Scholar at 385; Vretska (n. 14), 552.

74 Drummond (n. 53), 33–6; also 79–81 for the argument that Sallust is not presenting the SCU as relevant to the Caesar-Cato debate.

75 Cf. Vretska (n. 14), 606–7: ‘Catos Antrag zwar einen Brutherd moralischen Verfalls fur den Augenblick vernichtete, aber ein böses exemplum für die Zukunft wurde, Caesars Antrag zwar dieses exemplum vermieden, vielleicht—so dürfen wir weiter denken—die späteren Ereignisse verhindert oder ihnen doch ein naheliegendes exemplum genommen hätte, für den Augenblick aber der Verschwörung hätte starken Auftrieb geben können’.