CICERO
16 PRO MILONE (excepta oratio)
This is the speech that was delivered at Milo’s trial for the murder of P. Clodius on January 18, 52, on the Appian Way near Bovillae. The trial took place on April 4–8, 52, in a shortened format imposed by Pompey’s recent legislation; see LPPR 410; TLRR 309. As sole speaker for the defense, Cicero delivered his speech on the last day of the trial; cf. Keeline 2021, 15n70 and 336. According to Asconius, the speech was taken down (excepta) in performance and circulated (T 1).1 Quintilian’s use of the diminutive oratiuncula (little speech) with reference to it (T 2) suggests that it was short. Dio claimed that Cicero, “having uttered with difficulty a brief speech that all but died on his lips, was glad to retire” (T 3; similarly 50.54.3 and T 4). But Cicero is unlikely to have cited the situation of this speech as demanding an impassioned style (Opt. gen. 10), if he had utterly failed to fulfill the requirements.2 It seems
16 ON BEHALF OF MILO
16 ON BEHALF OF MILO (speech taken down, april 8, 52)
likely that the accounts of Cicero’s total breakdown in performance were invented in order to explain Milo’s conviction in spite of the excellence of Cicero’s published speech. Even if that is so, however, it may not be necessary to conclude that the “delivered speech” was fabricated by Cicero’s enemies.3 The roughness, choppiness, and lack of polish (T 4, F 1) are just what one might expect from a speech taken down in performance.4 The one fragment is quoted by two authors, one offering a bit more at the beginning, the other a bit more at the end.5
- 3As argued by Settle 1963, revived by Fotheringham 2013, 6n4. Cf. La Bua 2014, and 2019, 51–54; Morrell 2018: 170n41.
- 4So Keeline 2021, 40.
- 5Cf. Loposzko 1978–1979, 160; 1980, 93. The Bobbio scholiast cites that fragment as “from the speech that was delivered on Milo’s behalf and <taken down by scribes>” (the bracketed words supplied by Rau after T 1); Quintilian quotes the fragment without attribution (F 1).