GENERAL INTRODUCTION
contains a derogatory remark about Caecilius, the gentile name of Cicero’s target.40 The fragment is, however, marked with double asterisk as dubious, since it is not clear how this information could have reached the author and it is not attributed to Cicero, let alone to the specific work. It is not excluded that the example was simply invented by the schoolmaster.41
But perhaps the most interesting fragments are quoted by two authors who can be described as neither rhetoricians nor grammarians. One is a maxim about statesmanship quoted appreciatively by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus (ca. AD 330–395) in criticizing the cruelty and rapaciousness of the emperor Valentinian in the aftermath of his failed Parthian campaign. He not only aptly quotes and applies Cicero’s words but traces them back to their Greek source (see on 3 F 5).42 If Cicero was a major
- 40On this type of literature, cf. Olsen 2013; Wheeler 2015, 1–5 and 14–16 for strictures on Huygens’ edition, from which this passage derives (the accessus edited by Wheeler, in Codex latinus monacensis 19475 of the twelfth century, includes only the first sentence: §20.58).
- 41Further grounds for doubt: the phrase altera vice does not occur in Classical Latin, and Cicero might have been expected to express the matter more specifically, e.g., “by the same Greek” or the like, rather than simply “by a Greek.”
- 42Amm Marc. 19.12.18 is sometimes also claimed as a fragment of an unknown speech (Orelli-Baiter-Halm 6:1055 no. 3): Imitandus sit Tullius cum parcere vel laedere potuisset, ut ipse adfirmat, ignoscendi quaerens causas, non puniendi occasiones, quod iudicis lenti et considerati est proprium (Tullius should be imitated in seeking reasons to pardon, not opportunities to pun-ish, when, as he asserts, he could either have spared or harmed another, and this is the proper role of the mild and thoughtful judge). But perhaps this is a paraphrase of a plea such as that at Sul. 92–93; cf. fr. ex inc. scriptis no. 40 Garbarino with note.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
literary influence on the pagan Ammianus, so he was also on his younger Christian contemporary, Jerome (ca. AD 347–420), who once dreamed of being accused at the Last Judgment of being not a Christian but a Ciceronian (Ep. 22.30). Jerome offers a lengthy quotation, aptly cited in a letter on a clergyman’s duties addressed in 394 to Nepotian, Bishop of Altinum, to illustrate the hollowness of applause bestowed on empty words (Ep. 52.8 = 10 F 2). One wishes there were more examples of such thoughtful reading and deployment of Cicero’s ideas.
PROBLEMATIC CASES
In his Orthography (s.v. clamo), Bede attributes to Cicero, De Prasio (sic), the words “the innocent man was punished by shouts alone” (solis innocens acclamationibus punitus est). Piacente 1986–1987 wants to insert this text into Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo 18, but it is unclear how it could be accommodated (there is no apparent lacuna in the text). If this is a genuine Ciceronian fragment, perhaps it might rather come from the speech De (rege) Ptolemaeo (On King Ptolemy), a speech in which Cicero argued that Ptolemy XII Auletes was unjustly deprived of his throne by a mob at Alexandria; see further on no. 7 below. If that is so, the words solis . . . acclamationibus will be