CICERO
7 DE REGE PTOLEMAEO1
Delivered in 65, this is Cicero’s first attested speech before the senate.2 It is cited as both On King Ptolemy (F 7) and On the Alexandrian King (T 2–4), with the more generic title found in the later tradition. It was delivered during a senate debate in the year 65 on M. Crassus’ proposal that Rome invade and take control of Egypt.3 Crassus’ arguments, insofar as we can reconstruct them, were that
- 1Ptolemaeo F 7: Alexandrino auctores inferioris aetatis (T 2, 3, 4).
- 2Cicero also spoke twice in the senate on January 1–2, 56, on a plan to restore Ptolemy XII Auletes to the Egyptian throne (Fam. 1.2[13].1). At that time, Cicero was not opposed to the expedition per se but was backing the claim of P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther (cos. 57) to lead it, whereas in our speech he apparently opposes taking up the legacy of Ptolemy X Alexander I and thus any expedition; hence, these testimonia and fragments are attributed to the earlier debate, which is dated to 65 at Cic. Leg. agr. 2.44 (for a possible exception, see on *T 1); cf. Strasburger 1938, 112–13; Crawford 1984, 150–51, and 1994, 43–46. In the Bobbio Scholia, however, this speech is oddly placed between Against Clodius and Curio (no. 14 below) and On Behalf of Flaccus, which dates from the year 59 (cf. pp. 91–93St). On oratory before the senate, see Ramsey 2007.
- 3The sources: Cic. Leg. agr. 1.1 and 2.41–44; Plut. Vit. Crass. 13.2; Suet. Iul. 11. For the political background, see Rawson 1978, 83–84. Suetonius’ claim that Julius Caesar was angling to get a special command for Egypt at this time (Iul. 11) should be treated with reserve; cf. Strasburger 1938, 113–14; Gruen 1974, 75 and n. 117.
7 ON KING PTOLEMY
7 ON KING PTOLEMY (65 bc)
Egypt rightfully belonged to Rome since it had been bequeathed under the will of Ptolemy X Alexander I (ca. 140–88) and that the current monarch, Ptolemy XII Auletes, bore responsibility for the murder of his predecessor, Ptolemy XI Alexander II, in ca. 80 and had no right to rule.4 In reply, Cicero casts doubt on the claim that the Romans had accepted the legacy of Ptolemy X (F 3 and 5) and seeks to rehabilitate the character of Ptolemy XII by absolving him of the murder of his predecessor, which is explained as a mob action triggered by outrage at Ptolemy XI’s murder of his popular sister/consort Cleopatra Berenice (F 9–10). He also attacks the policy advocated by Crassus as greedy and immoral (F 1–2, 8); he thus takes up from Leg. Man. 38–39 his critique of Roman greed in