Cicero and the Rise of Deification at Rome 9781107032507, 2013021439

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 The cultural work of metaphor
Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily
Divine assimilation in the early speeches
Pro lege Manilia: presenting the divine savior at Rome
Speculations and metaphorical frames: the consular year speeches
Chapter 2 Experiments and invented traditions
Cross-domain mapping in the post-exilic speeches
Pro Sestio: the Herculean statesmen of Rome
Authorizing apotheosis in the De re publica and De legibus
Chapter 3 Charting the posthumous path
Deferring deification in the Caesarian speeches
Excavation and innovation: Tusculan Disputations
Chapter 4 Revisions and Rome's new god
De natura deorum and the question of elite skepticism
De senectute and De amicitia: Cato, Laelius, and the parallel world of Cicero's dialogues
The Philippics: exit Caesar, enter Octavian
Conclusions
References
Index

Citation preview

CICERO AND THE RISE OF DEIFICATION AT ROME

One of the major innovations brought to Roman politics by Caesar and his imperial successors was the cult of the deified ruler. This had Hellenistic precedents, and it has long been known that some of the Roman generals such as Pompey had accepted divine favors when campaigning in the Eastern Mediterranean. This book takes a very innovative approach by considering the various ways in which Cicero, one of the most important political and cultural figures of the late Republic, tentatively explores connections between humans and the divine and immortality in his speeches and political and philosophical works. In particular, it examines Cicero’s explorations of apotheosis and immortality in the De re publica and Tusculan Disputations as well as his attempts to deify his daughter Tullia. The results provide a fascinating and hitherto unacknowledged context for considering the later innovations of the Caesars. sp enc e r c ole is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. His publications include articles on Roman religion in both the Republican and imperial periods, Augustan poetry, and Greek drama. He is also a contributor to The Routledge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions.

CICERO AND THE RISE OF DEIFICATION AT ROME SPENCER COLE

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107032507 © Spencer Cole 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2013 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cole, Spencer. Cicero and the rise of deification at Rome / Spencer Cole. pages cm isbn 978-1-107-03250-7 (Hardback) 1. Apotheosis–Rome. 2. Emperor worship–Rome. 3. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. I. Title. dg124.c65 2013 292.07–dc23 2013021439 isbn 978-1-107-03250-7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgments

page vi

Introduction

1

1 The cultural work of metaphor

18

2 Experiments and invented traditions

63

3 Charting the posthumous path

111

4 Revisions and Rome’s new god

149

Conclusions

185

References Index

199 206

v

Acknowledgments

Any merits in this book are due in large part to the incredibly talented and generous scholars with whom I have had the fortune to study. I came upon a Washington Classics department in my home state that offered unsurpassed intellectual opportunities and an especially vibrant community of faculty and students. I count myself among the ranks of Washington graduates who have been drawn to the field by Alain Gowing’s learning, sense of humor, and the shared sense of scholarly purpose he gives his students. My first project on literature and religion was done in a Stephen Hinds seminar and this present study, which aims to offer a defamiliarized Cicero, takes impetus from a recent piece in his invariably innovative and enjoyable body of work. Thanks are also due to Ruby Blondell who, among other things, made me attuned to how seemingly innocuous adverbs such as “only” and “just” tend to serve as facile dismissals of interpretive challenges posed by ancient texts: e.g. “just ironic”; “only hyperbolic”; “just a metaphor.” Some Ciceronian language and concepts not readily settling into a conventional range of expectations have traditionally been swept aside in such summary fashion. Parts of this book explore seemingly strange and distinctly un-modern aspects of Cicero that have been glossed over in this way. At Columbia, a rich and rewarding seminar on Cicero’s De oratore taught by Jim Zetzel presented Cicero as a cultural force every bit as creative as his contemporaries Catullus and Lucretius; here I started to learn to read Cicero as such. Working with William Harris and John D’Arms at Columbia also enlarged my scholarly horizons. This book is based on a Columbia dissertation advised by Jim Zetzel with readers who have continued to be generous with their advice, support, and friendship: Joy Connolly, Katharina Volk, and Gareth Williams. One is of course grateful to the person who gave them their first job in the field. I thank Denis Feeney for this, but more importantly, for his seminal work on literature and religion. As the following pages will reveal, the conception of vi

Acknowledgments

vii

Roman religion as a dynamic set of cultural processes is much indebted to Feeney’s formative studies. My colleagues Betty Belfiore, Chris Nappa, and George Sheets have been especially supportive in my time at Minnesota. My colleague Andy Gallia along with the Cambridge University Press readers offered countless insightful suggestions and criticisms that have helped refine and reframe arguments set out in this book. Good friends in the field have made life in the profession quite satisfying: misadventures in and out of academia with Ethan Adams, Francisco Barrenechea, John Chesley, Chris Chinn, and Richard Graff are unforgettable. Above all, thanks to my wife Daisy Terrazas for being the brilliantly funny, beautiful person that she is.

Introduction

Cicero’s daughter Tullia died in the middle of February 45 bce, thirteen months before the assassination of Julius Caesar. Cicero tried to assuage his grief at the loss of his daughter by steeping himself in the consolation literature that he found in his friend Atticus’ library at Astura. Cicero then turns to what he claims to be an innovative project: writing his own consolation (Att. 12.14, 8 March 45 bce). In the literary composition he speaks of, the Consolatio, Cicero initiates another project that departs from convention: he proposes to turn his deceased daughter into a god. Although the Consolatio is mostly lost, Lactantius preserves a crucial portion of the text (Inst. Div. 1.15.19–20): cum vero, inquit, et mares et feminas complures ex hominibus in deorum numero esse videamus et eorum in urbibus atque agris augustissima delubra veneremur, adsentiamur eorum sapientiae quorum ingeniis et inventis omnem vitam legibus et institutis excultam constitutamque habemus. quod si ullum umquam animal consecrandum fuit, illud profecto fuit. si Cadmi progenies aut Amphitryonis aut Tyndari in caelum tollenda fama fuit, huic idem honos certe dicandus est. quod quidem faciam, teque omnium optimam, doctissimam, approbantibus diis immortalibus ipsis in eorum coetu locatam ad opinionem omnium mortalium consecrabo. “Since we indeed see,” he says, “that there are many people, both men and women, from the human race who are now among the number of the gods and since we revere their most venerable shrines in cities and fields, let us assent to the wisdom of those people whose talents and discoveries we consider to have adorned our entire life and established it by laws and institutions. But if ever any living creature ought to have been consecrated, surely it was she; if the offspring of Cadmus or Amphitryon or Tyndareus deserved to be raised to heaven by fame, for her the same honor ought certainly be declared. And this I will indeed do, and I shall consecrate you, the best, the most learned of women, placed with the approval of the immortal gods themselves among their company, in the estimation of all mortals.” 1

2

Introduction

Cicero’s plans to introduce this new divinity at Rome have been characterized as an unforeseeable whim of the grief-stricken father: “What put this idea into Cicero’s head there is no telling.”1 But as Lactantius himself points out in his comments on this passage, the idea that deserving mortals could become gods had been in Cicero’s head for some time.2 Cicero put the prospect of divinity for Republican elites on the agenda at Rome in speeches he made during his consulship3 and began to examine the possibility in depth with the Pro Sestio, De re publica, and De legibus in the fifties. The really surprising – and of course necessary – development with the Consolatio is the explicit inclusion of women (et mares et feminas complures ex hominibus in deorum numero esse videamus).4 Cicero’s catalogue of precedents for divinization in the Consolatio consists of faces familiar from the Pro Sestio, De re publica, and De legibus such as Hercules (progenies. . .Amphitryonis) and the Dioscuri, but has Ino (Cadmi progenies), a woman, at its head. Ino reappears soon in the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero’s first overtly philosophical discussion of individual immortality and divinity to include women (1.27). Cicero also embeds the Consolatio into the arguments for the divinity of the soul in the Tusculan Disputations, a further sign that his ideas for Tullia are no isolated cul-desac in his thought. Such connections point toward productive relationships between Cicero’s more conceptual speculations and his innovative plans to enact an apotheosis for his daughter. Since deifying Tullia was an innovative venture, Cicero has to improvise his own steps in this process. He is quite forthright about his primary role in initiating this deification (faciam; consecrabo), which must next be 1

2

3 4

Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 404. Scheid 2003: 166 cites a parallel in Rome for Tullia’s deification, but it comes from a second-century ce funerary inscription (CIL 6.7581): Deae sanctae meae Primillae medicae L. Vibi Melitonis f(iliae) vixit annis xxxxiiii ex eis cum L. Cocceio Apthoro xxx sine querela fecit Apthorus coniug(i) optimae castae et sibi (To my holy goddess, Primilla the physician, daughter of L. Vibius Melito; she lived forty-four years, of them thirty with L. Cocceius Apthorus, without complaint. Apthorus made this for his outstanding and chaste wife, and for himself). See Flory 1995 on the deification of women in the early imperial period. He gives De legibus 2.19 (divos et eos qui caelestes semper habiti sunt colunto et ollos quos endo caelo merita locaverint, Herculem, Liberum, Aesculapium, Castorem, Pollucem, Quirinum [They shall worship as gods those who have always been considered heavenly and those whose deeds have placed them in heaven: Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus]) as a relevant Ciceronian precedent. Agr. 2.95; Rab. Perd. 29. This may account for his use of a most inclusive term for mortals (animal consecrandum). Cicero similarly broke new ground when he praised Tullia’s virtus (courage/virtue) while she was still alive (Fam. 14.11.2; Att. 10.8.9). In surviving Republican Latin, virtus is rarely attributed to a woman. After an early example from comedy (Plautus Amph. 925), Cicero in 80 bce speaks of a woman’s virtus (Caecilia Metella at S. Rosc. 27). See McDonnell 2006: 161–65 for discussion.

Introduction

3

recognized by the assent of gods (approbantibus diis immortalibus) and perhaps even more crucially, public opinion (ad opinionem omnium mortalium). To win the requisite public exposure for this new divinity, Cicero decides to erect a shrine to her.5 When he first brings this project to Atticus’ attention, he tells him that his idea for the shrine comes from the consolatory literature that he has been reading (12.18.1, 11 March 45 bce): dum recordationes fugio quae quasi morsu quodam dolorem efficiunt, refugio a[d] te admonendum; quod velim mihi ignoscas, cuicuimodi est. etenim habeo non nullos ex iis quos nunc lectito auctores qui dicant fieri id oportere quod saepe tecum egi et quod a te approbari volo: de fano illo dico, de quo tantum quantum me amas velim cogites. equidem neque de genere dubito (placet enim mihi Cluati) neque de re (statutum est enim), de loco non numquam. velim igitur cogites. ego, quantum his temporibus tam eruditis fieri potuerit, profecto illam consecrabo omni genere monimentorum ab omnium ingeniis sumptorum et Graecorum et Latinorum. quae res fortisan sit refricatura vulnus meum. sed iam quasi voto quodam et promisso me teneri puto. So long as I flee the memories that produce sadness as if by a kind of bite, I take recourse to sending you a reminder. So please forgive me, whatever you think of my project. For indeed I have some of those as authorities whom I am now reading over and over again, who declare that very thing ought to be done which I have often brought up with you and wish you to approve: I am talking about that shrine, concerning which I should like you to think as much as you love me. For my part, I hesitate neither about the form of the shrine (for Cluatius’ design pleases me) nor the idea itself (for the matter is decided), I do sometimes debate about the place. Therefore I should like you to think it over. I, as much as can happen in these times that are so learned, will actually consecrate her with every sort of monument, taken from the talents of all, both Greek and Latin. And this matter might, perhaps, rub open my wound again. But I think myself to be held already as if by a sort of vow and promise.

The texts that prescribe this remedy for Cicero remain a mystery. He does not refer to any Roman precedent for his plans, and his recurrent pleas for Atticus’ indulgence imply that Cicero was pioneering unfamiliar territory 5

Cicero shows his concern for public reception by searching for a site with ample celebritas (publicity) (Att. 12.37.2, 4 May 45 bce). Cf. Att. 12.19.1, 14 March 45 bce; Att. 12.27.1, 23 March 45 bce. His desire for maximum exposure stems from the central role that the hominum fama (public opinion) has in perpetuating divinizations (Off. 3.25; Tusc. 1.28; Catil. 3.2). For a detailed discussion of the various locations considered by Cicero see Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 404–13 (¼Appendix III, Tullia’s Fane).

4

Introduction

outside the traditional Manes rites for the departed.6 He expects Atticus to discourage this novel shrine (velim mihi ignoscas) and also hints at the skepticism that his radical plan could run up against (quantum his temporibus tam eruditis fieri potuerit).7 Even in spite of this resistance, Cicero intends to make use of the finest Greek and Roman artists available to work on this project (profecto illam consecrabo omni genere monimentorum ab omnium ingeniis sumptorum et Graecorum et Latinorum).8 He also places himself under an obligation to Tullia much like that one would enter upon with a god (sed iam quasi voto quodam et promisso me teneri puto), and yet evades a claim of full-fledged divinity.9 His vow is analogous to and modeled on a vow to an established god, but not exactly identical to such a vow (quasi). Cicero’s desire for both Greek and Roman elements in Tullia’s consecration fits in with the Greek precedents he named in the Consolatio. His use of the Greek word ἀποθέωσις also signals that cultural fusion is underway. Because there was no prepackaged Roman ritual procedure at hand for deifying his daughter, he uses a Greek term to describe the phenomenon.10 This rare Greek noun itself seems to be a novelty; Cicero’s letters transmit intriguingly early attestations of it.11 Cicero also opts for a Greek monument type for Tullia, an ἀφίδρυμα (Att. 13.29.1, 27 May 45 bce), which is usually a statue of a god or goddess or a copy of

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A Hellenistic precursor can be found in the shrine set up in Babylon by Alexander’s minister Harpalus for his mistress Pythionice: Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 404. Cicero later refers to an unusually jarring rebuke from Atticus prompted by his fixation on this fanum (Att. 12.41.3, 11 May 45 bce). On the following day Cicero again registers Atticus’ disapproval of the project, but makes another appeal for his help (Att. 12.43.2, 12 May 45 bce). Cornelius Nepos notes that Atticus’ honesty had its bite (Att. 15.1). Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 312 understands this to refer primarily to literary inscriptions for the shrine, citing the epigrams honoring Cicero on Atticus’ shrine to the nymph Amalthea (Att. 1.16.15, July 61 bce). He notes, however, that genere may point to other media as well. Cf. the binding religious language used for his “vow” to Tullia at Att. 12.43.3 (12 May 45 bce): ego me maiore religione quam quisquam fuit ullius voti obstrictum puto (I think that I am bound by a greater obligation than anyone ever was by the obligation of any vow). E.g. (Att. 12.12.1, 16 March 45 bce): insula Arpinas habere potest germanam ἀποθέωσιν, sed vereor ne minorem τιμὴν habere videatur ἐκτοπι[σ]μός. est igitur animus in hortis; quos tamen inspiciam cum venero (The Arpinian island is able to have a genuine apotheosis, but I fear that the distance may seem to have less honor. My attention is therefore on the gardens, which I will nevertheless inspect when I come). Cicero’s first usage is Att. 1.16.13 (July 61 bce), referring to Curio calling Cicero’s consulship an ἀποθέωσις. A very early attestation of the word comes from the Canopus decree of 238 bce (OGIS 56, A). This trilingual inscription (Greek, Egyptian Demotic, Egyptian hieroglyphs) announces a set of resolutions passed by Egyptian priests in a meeting northeast of Alexandria. Among the resolutions are the ἀποθέωσις and divine honors of the deceased Princess Berenice (daughter of Ptolemy III and Queen Berenice).

Introduction

5

a statue or shrine.12 This studied cultural synthesis that Tullia’s death sets in motion can trace its roots back to her father’s earliest orations, which, we shall see, position Cicero as a channel for the Roman reception of Hellenistic religious developments.13 The letters to Atticus offer one of the least filtered records surviving of an ancient author’s private deliberations. While they do not simply telegraph Cicero’s “real” thoughts on the divinization of humans or any other urgent late Republican question, they still provide an effective control that we can use together with more public testimonies to assess the motives of this protean writer.14 A letter dated 3 May 45 bce gives an especially frank account of his intentions for Tullia to his increasingly impatient friend (Att. 12.36.1): fanum fieri volo, neque hoc mihi [dis]suaderi potest. sepulcri similitudinem effugere non tam propter poenam legis studeo quam ut maxime adsequar ἀποθέωσιν. quod poteram, si in ipsa villa facerem; sed, ut saepe locuti sumus, commutationes dominorum reformido. in agro ubicumque fecero, mihi videor adsequi posse ut posteritas habeat religionem. hae meae tibi ineptiae (fateor enim) ferendae sunt; nam habeo ne me quidem ipsum quicum tam audacter communicem quam te. I want a shrine to be made, nor is it possible to dissuade me from this. I am zealous to avoid the likeness of a tomb, not so much because of the threat of legal punishment but so that I might most greatly achieve apotheosis. And this aim I would be able to achieve, if I constructed the shrine in the villa itself; but, as we have often discussed, I am afraid of future changes of ownership. If I construct it anywhere in the field, it seems to me that I will be able to assure that future generations might have religious duty to the shrine. You must endure these (confessedly) silly fancies of mine; for I have no one – not even my own self – with whom I can communicate so boldly as with you.

He asks for Atticus’ forbearance and claims that their intimacy allows him to write with unparalleled candor about his bold plan that surpasses 12

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Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 346. What is most likely, as Shackleton Bailey proposes, is that Cicero’s architect Cluatius used a larger original as a model for Tullia’s shrine. Just as Cicero appealed to precedent to make the case for Tullia’s passage to divinity, so Cluatius could perhaps allude to a shrine of Hercules or Ino. Cluatius did draw up a design (Att. 12.18.1, 11 March 45 bce) and Cicero sought out Greek pillars (Att. 12.19.1, 14 March 45 bce) but the shrine was perhaps never built. This is not to say that debates surrounding deification in the late Republic were largely about “Hellenization.” But as the Tullia case shows with Cicero’s use of Hercules and Greek language and iconography, Roman presentations of deification do get patterned by Greek models. See Beard and Henderson 1998: 195 on how the “construction of Romanity” in representations of deification processes Greek models while self-consciously playing off against them. The letters are generally more candid yet not necessarily more consistent in opinion than the speeches and dialogues. As Petrarch observes, waffling abounds in Cicero’s epistles (Fam. 24.3.1).

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traditional elite commemoration (hae meae tibi ineptiae (fateor enim) ferendae sunt; nam habeo ne me quidem ipsum quicum tam audacter communicem quam te).15 Cicero tells his confidant that his insistence on a fanum has nothing to do with legal loopholes, but stems from his desire to turn his daughter into a god.16 His understandable uncertainty about his ability to achieve complete identification with an immortal god for Tullia (ut maxime adsequar ἀποθέωσιν) coincides with the intricate qualifications that often temper his soundings on the divinization of mortals to a wider audience. Cicero manifests not only his own lingering uncertainties about the immediate prospect of Tullia’s divinity, he also inscribes the currents of doubt and anxiety in a society ushering in profound religious change. Not long after this letter, a human (Julius Caesar) was made a god by official decree for the first time at Rome.17 Cicero’s focus on apotheosis for Tullia represents a distinctly Roman contribution to divinization. The relative scarcity of ἀποθέωσις and its verbal forms in Hellenistic Greek sources does not seem to be due only to the vagaries of transmission. There is ample Greek evidence for mortals receiving divine honors, but this evidence shows little concern for the actual process of making a god.18 Posthumous deification with the status transition of apotheosis – as opposed to earthly divine honors – becomes a characteristically Roman phenomenon.19 15 16

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See Carroll 2006: 1–58 for an overview of Roman traditions of funerary commemoration. The lex that Cicero refers to may be the recent lex Iulia sumptuaria (Julian sumptuary law) or Sulla’s earlier restrictions on outlays for funerals: Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 329. While there is an ongoing debate as to whether Julius Caesar was officially deified in his lifetime or posthumously, in all likelihood he was granted a flamen (priest) and other traditional elements of cult before his assassination (see below pp. 111, 173 for analysis). See Fishwick 1987: 56–72 for a succinct survey of the principal points of view on this problem and Wardle 2009: 105–7 for an overview of honors offered to Caesar in this period of religious experimentation. Fishwick 1987: 39–41 notes that Greek divinization tended to be “declarative not constitutive” in that it recognized an individual’s divinity with honors but did not focus on making that individual into a god. Diodorus Siculus book 6 seems to exemplify this Greek tendency: this account of divinized mortals has them attaining immortal honors and glory, but makes no mention of an astral posthumous existence (6.25). Marking a transformation through apotheosis, the process of deification, and the concept of crossing the line to divinity seem to be Roman preoccupations. Cicero’s focus in the Consolatio on consecration and placing Tullia among the gods betrays a Roman concern for enacting a change in status also evident in the state deification of Caesar. Cicero’s attempts to deify Tullia are of course different from the senate’s formal process of deification with Caesar, but slotting them into inelastic “official”/“unofficial” categories may be anachronistic. Wallace-Hadrill 1990: 165 questions the applicability of imperial “official”/“unofficial” labels to commemoration in the decentralized Republic: “Under the Republic the emphasis is the reverse. Independent assertions of glory, in the tradition of monumenta, were the norm, and in no sense ‘unofficial.’” See Bickerman 1972: 9–12 on posthumous deification as the characteristically Roman concept that becomes prevalent after Augustus.

Introduction

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A subsequent letter about Cicero’s venture for Tullia can also be read in relation to a larger cultural process (Att. 12.37a, 5 May 45 bce): quod me a maestitia [a]vocas, multum levaris si locum fano dederis. multa mihi εἰς ἀποθέωσιν in mentem veniunt, sed loco valde opus est (As to the fact that you call me away from sadness, you will lift a great burden from me if you give a location for the shrine. Many things come to mind regarding apotheosis, but there is great need for a location). His words multa mihi εἰς ἀποθέωσιν in mentem veniunt of course refer to the improvisatory mindset that the Tullia project has put him in, but they also fairly characterize the myriad approaches to the divinization of humans that Cicero explores in his speeches and dialogues. These words also aptly describe the inventive process at Rome in the late Republic in which a whole range of maneuvers approximated figures such as Pompey and Caesar to gods. The young Pompey, for example, tried to ride into Rome on a chariot drawn by four elephants, a vehicle associated with the divine conquerors Hercules and Dionysus.20 Cicero later presents Pompey as a divine savior in the Pro lege Manilia, a Roman rehearsal of Hellenistic religious concepts. In 63 bce, Caesar advocates extending Pompey’s privilege of assimilation with Jupiter Optimus Maximus beyond the customary bounds of the triumphal ceremony.21 Pompey later has Hercules coins minted in his honor22 and builds a theater complex with shrines of Hercules Invictus and also Felicitas, the superhuman quality that Cicero imbued Pompey with in the Pro lege Manilia. This brief montage of overtures that brought Pompey into the range of divinity illustrates two points fundamental to this study: (a) that the divinization of late Republican dynasts drew formative components from both Hellenistic Greek practice and native traditions such as triumphal ritual; and (b) that Cicero was both responding to the theological brinkmanship of others in this period of religious ferment and independently pushing existing parameters. This study of the divinization of humans takes impetus from major reappraisals of Roman religion that have been undertaken over the past several decades. As recently as 1998, Feeney could rightly claim that we are “inheritors of a patronizing attitude to Roman religion,”23 an attitude that, among other things, saw Roman religion as an empty (if effective) political 20 21

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Plut. Pomp. 14.1–4; Weinstock 1971: 37. Beard 2007: 233–38 stresses that triumphal ceremony in the late Republic increasingly became an arena for advancing contested ideas about deification, observing that “the divine general we can still glimpse is essentially a late Republican creation.” 23 Crawford 1974: 449–50 (426.4). Feeney 1998: 2.

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charade. In many forms this orthodoxy included the notion that Roman elites even shared this patronizing attitude toward their own religion with us. The traditional dismissal of Roman religion as a formalistic political tool as distinct from “real religion” has been justly criticized for judging Roman religious practices with criteria drawn from traditional conceptions of Christianity: placing a major emphasis on “belief” and “faith” and also assuming an especially stark categorical division between politics and religion.24 While what we call “religion” and “politics” were not completely homologous at Rome, major aspects of Roman religion can be fairly characterized as “political.”25 But it is no longer clear how such a characterization of Roman religion diminishes its validity and vitality. All religions have political dimensions insofar as they create social institutions and thus impact balances of power. As Price astutely observes, interpretive frameworks that set a firewall between religion and politics overlook how much these spheres of cultural activity converge: “the imposition of the conventional distinction between religion and politics obscures the basic similarity between politics and religion: both are ways of systematically constructing power.”26 If conventional, inherited attitudes toward Roman religion in general could be patronizing then prevailing attitudes toward the divinization of humans since the days of the Christian apologists have been downright derisive.27 Here too reassessments of traditional orthodoxies have proved a productive way forward in the study of this subject. And again the 24

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Price 1984: 10–15 argues that the concept of “belief” and the use of individual feelings and emotional states as the gauge of authenticity for religious experience are Christian presuppositions that have traditionally misled scholars toward dismissive, purely political interpretations of the divinization of humans in Greece and Rome. It does not follow for Price that polytheistic ritualism is devoid of thought, but rather that much of this thought is embodied in ritual. Cf. Feeney 1998: 12–14. See King 2003 for an argument that finds “belief” a term “useful for describing some aspects of the Roman religious experience, particularly in regard to Roman prayer” (277). Bendlin 2000: 131 also finds the concept of “individual belief systems” applicable to Roman religious behavior but stresses that these are by nature difficult to reconstruct. Bendlin 2000 challenges scholarly models that ascertain an almost complete integration of religion and civic life at Rome by calling attention to ways in which religious and civic life operate independently in public. Price 1984: 247. As Feeney 1998: 76 notes, “majority opinion for a long time regarded with something close to scorn a category of divinity which was prominent in the late Republic and the Empire – namely, divinised humanity.” See also Bendlin 2004: 181: “To early Christian apologists and the early modern period, deification was an indicator of the absurdity of the ‘pagan’ concept of divinity and proof of the superiority of Judeo-Christian monotheism. For a long time even modern research considered the Roman emperor cult to be no more than a purely politically motivated ‘religion of loyalty’ without deeper religious content . . . Only recent research has attempted to redefine its religious character and, thus, also the problem of deification.”

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question of appropriate interpretive frameworks has prompted discussion about the degree to which Judeo-Christian concepts of divinity have misguided scholarly analysis of the highly complex polytheistic Mediterranean cultures that developed concepts of deification and practiced them. Eschewing monotheistic concepts of divinity has advanced our understanding of the cultural phenomenon of deification and prompted scholars to take seriously the religious quality of ideas and practices that had long been dismissed as wholly political in conception.28 One overarching aim of this study is to show that the divinization of humans was a substantial issue of contemporary concern in late Republican Rome, an issue with dimensions that were not solely political. The myriad, inventive ways that late Republican Romans grappled with the conceptual problems of deification are an index of the complexity and currency of this question. A driving force of much recent work in Roman studies has been a renewed effort to make the familiar seem properly strange by resisting the tendency to find ourselves so at home in a culture removed by millennia.29 Tracking late Republican representations of deification ought to have a defamiliarizing effect, especially with Cicero, a figure long seen as an avatar of the modern west.30 Just as there have been recent revaluations of Roman religion and the divinization of humans in antiquity, there have also been salutary reassessments of the relationship between literature and religion at Rome. The relationship between literary discourses and other discourses that constitute Roman religion is no longer seen as a case of literature autonomously reflecting on and representing the more essentially religious cultural forms that comprise the core of “real religion.”31 This study takes methodological cues from seminal work by Feeney and Beard, North, and Price that examines the dynamic ways in which literary texts engage other religious 28

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Bendlin 2004: 181 stresses how productive this shift in focus has been for a culturally appropriate analysis of deification in Greece and Rome: “Decisive – and advancing the scientific debate – was the insight that the categorical dichotomy between humans and (apostasized) deity characteristic of Judeo-Christian dogma, as formulated by early Christian literature (cf. Acts 14,8–18), is not applicable in this form to the Graeco-Roman concept of god.” This is especially the case with formative work on religion such as Price 1984, who critiques interpretation premised on Romans being “so like ourselves” (17) and Feeney 1998, a study that aptly closes with a quote magnifying our many removes from ancient Rome (143): “In the end, as usual, Dr Johnson was right: ‘Why, sir, we know very little about the Romans.’” See Hinds 2005 and Fox 2007 on how Cicero has been particularly susceptible to constructions of close familiarity over the years, making him a figure especially ready for defamiliarizing assessments. Feeney 1998: 25 argues against the primacy of a “real religion”: “In sum, there is no given ‘real religion’ which art is then varying or departing from, for what we label ‘real religion’ is itself a mobile set of discourses with varying degrees of overlap and competition.”

10

Introduction

discourses at Rome. In his Literature and Religion at Rome, Feeney shows how what we define as “literature” generates meaning through “ubiquitous dialogic activity” with other forms of religious expression at Rome such as coinage, statuary, and sacrifice.32 To apply this observation to the example of Pompey: the mediations and representations of Cicero’s Pro lege Manilia, Pompey’s shrines, and contemporary coinage all variously contribute to articulate his divine status. Cicero’s works had their distinctive literary qualities but were also enmeshed in contemporary cultural dialogues. A guiding principle of this study is that Cicero’s speeches and writings had a normative function in these late Republican cultural and religious dialogues that could legitimize incipient ideas. Beard, North, and Price place Cicero at the vanguard of religious speculation in this phase of accelerated religious change by deeming him “the leading philosopher, theologian and theorist of his generation.”33 They also give Cicero’s texts an active role in late Republican religious decision making. As they note on his De domo sua: “It does not reflect or record the discourse of religion; it is that discourse.”34 A major religious transformation emerging from the tumult of the late Republic, and a religious change arguably among the most important at Rome before the spread of Christianity, was the deification of human beings.35 This book tells a part of the back-story to this significant development. It proceeds chronologically, considering the dynamic interplay of Cicero’s approximations of mortals and immortals with a gamut of artifacts and activities that were collectively closing the divide between humans and gods in the innovative religious atmosphere of late Republican Rome. Due attention is therefore given to examining the vital relationship between Cicero’s works and the religious initiatives focused

32

33 35

Feeney 1998: 21. Cf. 2004: 4 where Feeney observes that it was “primarily what we call literature” that did the job of exploring divinity at Rome. See Feeney 1998: 1–14 on the cultural contingency of concepts such as “literature” and “religion.” The present study holds that the importance of orthopraxis in Roman religion does not necessarily entail that religion was something that Romans just did but never really thought or wrote about. Accordingly, Gradel 2002: 3 seems to be carrying a customary caveat about literary sources to excess when contending that Ciceronian texts such as De natura deorum and De divinatione “are best left out of account altogether” in our attempts to interpret Roman religion. Smith 1987: 197–98 criticizes the modern tendency to privilege ritual and espouse “the notion that ritual – and therefore religion – is somehow grounded in ‘brute fact’ rather than in the work and imagination and intellection of culture.” 34 Beard, North, and Price 1998: 116. Ibid.: 114. See Beard 2007: 233–38 on deification as a contested concept “high on the cultural and political agenda of the late Republic” that was “constantly debated, recalibrated, negotiated, and ridiculed” and Beard, North, and Price 1998: 140–49 on the earlier Republican background to these distinctive religious developments of the first century bce.

Introduction

11

on figures such as Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian. The analyses are a series of close readings that cover the innuendo-laden, divinizing encomia of late Republican dynasts as well as Cicero’s explorations of apotheosis and immortality in his theoretical works. This book charts significant continuities and changes in Cicero’s experiments with divinization and presents a synoptic study of the strategies and priorities configuring Cicero’s texts. The principal aim is not to pin down a particular position advocated in his texts. The aim is to present a case study on the dynamics of religious change at Rome by exploring vestiges of an inventive process that variously formulated, cross-examined, and naturalized a contested concept. Multiple sites for reception of Cicero’s public output provided him an exceptional diffusive power,36 but these cultural interventions were made in sprawling networks of competing literary and non-literary discourses.37 Since this milieu is irrecoverable for the most part, any contextualization of Cicero’s ventures is unavoidably incomplete.38 It is of course important to be wary of how we let the works of this prolific theorist and celebrated public speaker focus our attention, but also important to remain mindful of how fundamental this large, varied body of evidence is for our reconstructions of this crucial period. Beard, North, and Price note that this is the earliest period in Roman religious history with substantial surviving evidence.39 A considerable share of this evidence comes from Cicero. Chapter 1 examines the Hellenistic Greek backgrounds to Roman deification and shows how Cicero functioned as a point of reception for these practices. The core of this chapter is an in-depth analysis of the 36

37

38

39

Habinek 1998: 10–11 offers Cicero – with his speeches, dialogues, and poetry – as the “supreme exemplar” of literature’s ability to make cultural interventions at Rome. It is useful to note that our delimiting term “literature” rests much more easily on the works of Ovid or Livy (authors often treated in discussions of literature and religion at Rome) than it does on ostensibly political performances such as Pro lege Manilia or De domo sua. Morstein-Marx 2004: 9 argues that the contiones – the non-voting public assemblies that Cicero addressed – were the public venues at Rome “perhaps the most important for the purposes of self-advertisement, communication, and ritualized communal action.” Beard, North, and Price underscore the overall significance of public speech in the late Republican religious environment and note that the growing tendency to circulate copies of speeches at this time makes this mode of dissemination “a characteristically late republican phenomenon” (1998: 120 n.17). Bendlin 2000: 129 has an insightful discussion of the constellations of competing discourses in late Republican Rome and warns against assuming “a high degree of congruity of communication” in such a kinetic, heterogeneous atmosphere. See Feeney 2004: 19 on the inevitable deficiency of any contextualization and the “holistic trap” sprung when “context” is conceived as a recoverable external referent upon which texts depend. Beard, North, and Price 1998: 116–17, where they make the following observation about late Republican texts: “It is in all this writing that we can glimpse for the first (and arguably the only) time in Roman history something of the complexity of religion and its representations, the different perspectives, interests, practices and discourses that constitute the religion of Rome.”

12

Introduction

Pro lege Manilia of 66 bce that considers how Cicero’s divinizing tactics join with Pompey’s ritual innovations and contemporary coinage to frame Pompey as semi-divine. My reading of the Pro lege Manilia shows Cicero taking initial steps toward introducing the divine honors that Pompey already enjoyed in the Greek east onto Italian soil. Here I argue for a crucial reorientation in Cicero’s approach: these tentative steps toward earthly divinity for Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia come to represent a road not taken as Cicero turns to experiment with the prospect of meritbased posthumous divinity. I also discuss how Cicero sets the possibility of divinity achieved through earthly excellence on the agenda in the speeches of his consular year (63 bce) and initiates strategies that he pursues in the years to come: divinizing savior figures who intervene in political crises (like himself) and using Romulus as a proxy figure to explore the prospect of divinity for contemporary Romans. The concept of the divine savior figure will get a prominent series of Roman formulations and reconfigurations in both Cicero’s public speeches and his theoretical works. Cicero conceives of his return from exile in 57 bce as an apotheosis (De domo sua 75), and his post-exilic speeches are rife with language comparing people to gods and presenting political redemption as apotheosis. The first part of the second chapter analyzes these speeches and argues that his pervasive and unparalleled use of these metaphors has a suggestive potency. Along with Kennedy, I see language as “the principal medium through which meaning acts to develop, enact, and sustain relationships of power.”40 As Cicero sounds out Roman schemes for divinization, he also continues to develop idioms for praise that mesh with these religious developments.41 While notions of men as gods were gaining momentum at Rome (hastened, in part, by his Pro lege Manilia), Cicero was increasingly framing human achievement in terms of this analogy. He was careful to qualify even overtly metaphorical associations of humans with gods, which suggests that his words were not simply received as stale tropes by their original audiences. Approximations of humans and gods familiar from literary contexts took on new significance in late Republican Rome as Cicero brought such divinizing metaphors into political oratory. 40 41

Kennedy 1992: 29. Wallace-Hadrill (1990: 149) stresses Cicero’s role in the development of new languages of praise and power at Rome: “The Romans consciously borrowed a foreign language of power to describe and make possible novel relationships of power. This was quite literally a process of translation, and it is no coincidence that Cicero, that master of linguistic innovation, played a leading role in it. Octavian was Cicero’s pupil; the rhetoric of power he learnt from him dictates the expression of imperial power.”

Introduction

13

Cicero’s original use of this rhetoric of divinization exemplifies the “dialectic between language as social mirror and language as social agent”42 in late Republican Rome in that it is at once a refraction of emerging ideas and also instrumental in naturalizing such ideas in this hot phase of religious change. This study makes use of new methodological approaches to metaphor pioneered by Lakoff and Reddy, scholars who have productively challenged the classical theory that treats metaphor as simply an inert, figurative use of language. The focus of contemporary metaphor research is instead on the cognitive ordering and “cross-domain mapping” that metaphors perform in a culture’s conceptual frameworks – that is, the way metaphor serves to set cultural priorities and shape perspectives.43 I employ this new conception of metaphor as I consider the cultural work performed by Cicero’s divinizing language. If we acknowledge that metaphor possesses cognitive agency, we can entertain the possibility that Cicero’s metaphorical expressions are capable of subtly affecting conceptual distinctions between mortals and immortals at Rome.44 In addition to naturalizing such new ideas through metaphorical expressions in his post-exilic speeches, Cicero speculates directly about deification in an important post-exilic speech that I focus on: the Pro Sestio of 56 bce. I unpack its religious propositions, then discuss the marked generic interpenetration evident when Cicero’s public proposals for deification reemerge and are treated in depth in his philosophical dialogues from this period, the De re publica and the De legibus. In these dialogues Cicero begins to formulate estimable Republican genealogies for his religious speculations by using Romulus’ apotheosis to establish a Roman precedent 42

43

44

Smith-Rosenberg 1985: 45; she studies Victorian America but the dialectic she describes provides a useful way to think about the works of a figure like Cicero. I use the plural “frameworks” to emphasize that a given society does not have one holistic, homogeneous thought-world but rather a range of knowledge systems: see Feeney 2004: 3. Lakoff 1993: 202 offers a concise summary of the new orientation in metaphor research: “The word metaphor has come to mean a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system. The term metaphorical expression refers to a linguistic expression (a word, phrase, or sentence) that is the surface realization of such a cross-domain mapping (this is what the word metaphor referred to in the old theory).” See Schön 1993: 137 on how metaphors help new ideas gain a foothold: “Much of the interest in metaphor on the part of linguists and philosophers of language has had to do with metaphor as a species of figurative language which needs explaining, or explaining away. Metaphor, in this tradition, is a kind of anomaly of language, one which must be dispelled in order to clear the path for a general theory of reference or meaning. There is a very different tradition associated with the notion of metaphor, however – one which treats metaphor as central to the task of accounting for our perspectives on the world: how we think about things, make sense of reality, and set the problems we later try to solve. In this second sense, ‘metaphor’ refers both to a certain kind of product – a perspective or frame, a way of looking at things – and a certain kind of process – a process by which new perspectives on the world come into existence.”

14

Introduction

for the divinization of statesmen. Cicero inherited disparate traditions about the fate of Romulus, but in the De re publica (54 bce) he has the Republican icon Scipio canonize a version of the Romulus legend with merit-based apotheosis, and in doing so embeds this prototype for apotheosis in Roman tradition.45 The venerable lineage for Romulus’ deification in the De re publica, I argue in the second part of chapter 2, is established through appeal to the cultural authority of the poet Ennius. I discuss how Scipio builds upon his precedents and “invents tradition” as he gives Romulus’ deification a particularly Ciceronian slant. The De re publica treats the apotheosis of Romulus – perhaps recently invented by Ennius – as a reward embraced by the maiores (ancestors) because of the ruler’s extraordinary virtus (valor/goodness). With the Somnium Scipionis, I argue, Cicero opens up the path that Romulus traveled to latter-day culture heroes such as the Scipios. The companion piece to the De re publica, the De legibus, forges links between human virtus and divinity with Stoic strategies and also integrates merit-based apotheosis into the archaizing religious code that the character “Cicero” presents. The third chapter starts with an analysis of the radical religious ventures in the forties bce that divinized Julius Caesar. I set Cicero’s speeches addressed to Caesar in this period (46–45 bce) in opposition to the efforts of Caesar and his partisans, and argue that he tries to blunt the thrust of initiatives for Caesar’s earthly divinity by pushing for a deferred posthumous deification. Cicero postpones Caesar’s divinity and makes it contingent upon a willingness to work within Republican institutions. The second section of this chapter treats Cicero’s philosophical outpouring during these same years. I look at how the Tusculan Disputations draws directly on the De re publica and the Consolatio to continue to piece together Cicero’s conceptual architecture for a posthumous celestial divinization that represents a decided departure from Roman traditions of an earthly afterlife. To work out the logic of this religious scheme, Cicero modifies Greek concepts of the immortal soul and elides them with the deification of Romulus and Hercules. Earlier literary treatments of divinization are pressed into service again as the interlocutors of the Tusculan Disputations use Ennius’ Annales as well as his Euhemerus to Romanize deification. The overall focus of this section, much like the rest of this study, is very much an analysis of the methods and maneuvers operative in Cicero’s texts rather than an attempt to isolate any of his sources. 45

Jocelyn 1989: 40–41 notes how the scattered traditions and lack of public cult gave writers considerable freedom for invention with Romulus.

Introduction

15

In the forties bce Cicero’s work on developing critical religious discourses at Rome intensified. A key part of this project was his De natura deorum, which, like the works of the antiquarian Varro, takes a rigorous, analytical approach to concepts of divinity. The bulk of chapter 4 centers on the De natura deorum and Cicero’s late dialogues De senectute and De amicitia. I consider how the De natura deorum interrogates the concept of deification from different angles and also compare Cicero’s treatment of divinized humans to Varro’s. My approach to De senectute and De amicitia is to show how they engage Cicero’s earlier dialogues. Much like Scipio in the De re publica, Cicero has Cato in the De senectute map out Roman paths to divinity. And Cicero puts Laelius in Cato’s audience just as he was in Scipio’s in the De re publica. I show how Cicero’s reuse of the character Laelius in multiple dialogues allows Laelius to learn and develop within the fictional scope of these works. The ways in which Cicero has Laelius “stay in character” and pointedly carry over ideas from one dialogue to another cues us to read these recurring deliberations about immortality as a conversation being held at multiple levels. Within the frame of each of these dialogues (De re publica, De senectute, and De amicitia) there are selfcontained ruminations on the possibility of divinity for individual Romans. In the larger frame that Cicero creates when characters and ideas resurface, he orchestrates a multi-year exploratory exchange in which the dialogues themselves operate as interlocutors collectively developing Roman discourses of apotheosis and immortality. The final part of chapter 4 considers both Cicero’s reaction in the Philippics to Caesar’s divinity and the ways in which his divinizing efforts shift to Brutus and Octavian in the final months of his life. While I attempt to remain sensitive to the varying protocols of genre and the constraints and liberties of context throughout these four chapters, part of my approach is to trace the continuities in Cicero’s texts that cross through these protocols. As the Tullia case reveals, there is marked generic cross-fertilization in evidence with this issue. Political and philosophical works such as the Pro Sestio and De legibus are echoed in a more intimate venue such as the Consolatio, which is in turn directly quoted in the Tusculan Disputations. I use a chronological framework rather than a genre-segregated one to accentuate this dialogic interplay. Aside from the discernible drift away from earthly divinity after the Pro lege Manilia, I do not plot texts as stages in a teleological trajectory that unfolds steadily over time. Since Cicero did not inherit a handbook on how to proceed with divinization, he experiments with a variety of approaches. This heterogeneity includes, for example, recasting Platonic theories of the general

16

Introduction

immortality of the soul to emphasize merit-based individual immortality and divinity, privileging variants of the Romulus and Hercules legends that involve apotheosis, pushing Pompey to the threshold of immanent divinity, and elsewhere stepping back by resorting to a more conventional “immortal glory.” This repertoire of strategies also includes using Stoic schemes that have exceptional humans achieving a divine essence. At times Cicero integrates apotheosis and immortality of the soul with eternal renown, which gives a sense of witnessing an uncertain process of theological negotiation in real time when such concepts were not so rigidly defined. Cicero’s experimental modality makes for a lack of doctrinal precision that leaves room for the ongoing adaptation of his ideas. There is, however, one critical constant running through Cicero’s manifold experimentation: he invariably premises divinization on moral responsibility and civic accomplishment. This concept was not commonplace at Rome when Cicero arrived on the scene, but it started to become more prevalent after he left. Cicero’s texts present a rich set of evidence for analysis in our attempts to understand how this innovation took hold. A useful way to think about Cicero’s initiatives is Bendlin’s “market model” that envisions Republican Rome as a deregulated, polycentric landscape in which a diverse array of cults and gods both new and old vie for attention and relevance.46 Bendlin convincingly argues that the “public” and “private” dualism often rigidly applied to Roman religion is too reductive for the pluralistic religious culture of Republican Rome.47 He analyzes “religious hybrids” that confound this traditional binary with their “instrumentalisation of the public domain by private concerns.”48 With an unparalleled range of contexts for the reception of both his written and spoken words, Cicero had a privileged position to introduce new ideas in this dynamic marketplace.49 The enterprising mode that the 46

47

48 49

Bendlin 2000: 134: “The market model allows us to conceptualise both the competition between different religious choices, cults and gods and the disappearance of some of these choices as natural processes in a self-regulating system. Elite laments about the demise of traditional gods and their cults in the late republic must be seen in this context of the religious system’s constant optimisation in times of changing fashions.” Feeney 1998: 6 observes that “the boundary between private and state religion is looking increasingly permeable.” Bendlin 2000: 132. Bendlin (2000: 130) underscores the efficacy of both oral and literary productions (Cicero’s main media) in the deregulated Roman scene: “As a matter of fact, from the late third century the city of Rome provided a backdrop to a plethora of different communicative signs, both religious and secular, whose over-abundance in the urban space, which lacked efficient control mechanisms for scrutinising the truthfulness of oral or literary propositions, precluded the emergence of unchangeable orthodoxies.” He also places the public assembly (contio) at the core of this market

Introduction

17

Tullia project put Cicero in (promoting her divinity in the Consolatio; negotiating to raise a shrine with high public profile) provides a glimpse into one of his small ventures in this competitive religious atmosphere. The fact that deities were added to the divine constellation at Rome by a process of public embrace is a fundamental aspect of Roman religion that makes Bendlin’s model an especially attractive interpretive framework.50 A major player in the late Republican religious marketplace such as Cicero could easily have chosen to circulate dialogues among the elite in which the Republican hero Scipio transmits a version of the Romulus legend without merit-based apotheosis. Likewise, Cicero could have mobilized Cato the Elder as a spokesman against novel ideas about humans crossing the line to a divine assembly in the sky. Cicero also had other encomiastic language at his disposal with which to praise Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian amply in his speeches that were delivered publicly and subsequently put into circulation. And conventional ritual was ready at hand when Tullia died. Instead, Cicero produced experimental works that grappled with the conceptual challenges posed by deification and diminished the distance between mortals and immortals. He was a creative force in formulating Roman ideologies that connect civic benefaction to posthumous deification. In this pivotal period when concepts of divinity were becoming more consciously theorized at Rome, Cicero gave the sanctity of Roman tradition to apotheosis. His manifold interventions helped create the conditions that gave rise to deification at Rome.

50

(ibid.: 127). The “consumers” in this marketplace were probably as unfettered as its “producers”; see King 2003: 282–92 on the diversity and disunity of Roman religious attitudes. As Scheid 2003: 148 states it, “the deities owed their place not to any epiphany – not, that is, to any personal manifestation on their part – but above all to human decision, the will of the people, the senate, a magistrate or a mythical king.” Cf. Bickerman 1972: 15: “The Romans were pagans. That means that they did not believe that they already knew all the divine forces in the universe.”

chapter 1

The cultural work of metaphor

ἐφ’ ὅσον ὢν ἄνθρωπος οἶδας, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον εἶ θεός Inasmuch as you know you are a man, you are a god Inscription addressed to Pompey at Athens1

Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily The dualities of Sicily (Greek/Roman; periphery/center) make it an ideal borderland laboratory for Cicero’s early encounters with divinized humans. It was here – not Greece – that a Roman first received divine honors. The Syracusans established a festival for Marcus Marcellus (the Marcellia) after the city was taken from the Carthaginians,2 a divine honor that, according to Cicero, was violated by the sacrilegious maniac Verres. Cicero was well equipped to explain divine honors to his Roman audience: his recent travels from 79 to 77 bce in Greece, Rhodes, and Asia Minor gave him an enhanced awareness of the isotheoi timai (god-equaling honors) that Greeks were awarding to humans. In the Greek east and west he could read dedications and even witness the celebrations that were treating men as gods, useful preparation for his quaestorship in Sicily in 75 bce.3 We also know that very early in his career Cicero became intimately familiar with the problems of categorization that such divine honors pose. As a low-ranking senator in 73 bce, Cicero advised the consuls on a dispute over the divine status of an erstwhile mortal, 1 2

3

Plut. Pomp. 27.3. See Fishwick 1987: 46 with Rives 1993: 32–33. The original festival was established for Marcus Marcellus and later celebrated in honor of Gaius Marcellus, the proconsul of 79 bce: Rives 1993. Price 1984: 42 suggests that the Syracusans probably began observing such honors for Marcellus after his death in 208 bce. In the Pro Milone of 52 bce Cicero claims that he was an eyewitness to such divine honors in Greece (80).

18

Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily

19

Amphiaraus, in Oropus on the border between Attica and Boeotia. The Roman general Sulla granted tax-exempt land to Amphiaraus in fulfillment of a vow he had made to the prophetic god, but Roman tax-collectors (publicani) wanted to tax land controlled by the temple and precinct of Amphiaraus, arguing that he was only a one-time human, not a tax-exempt immortal god. Cicero and the senate investigated and sided with the representatives from Oropus by affirming Amphiaraus’ divine status.4 Cicero had early on gained a particular degree of insight into the Greek divinization of humans. His Roman audience for the Verrine Orations (70 bce), however, is assumed to need interpretive commentary on Greek divinizing practices. A concrete sign of Sicilian outrage on which Cicero chooses to linger is the mutilation and destruction of statues of Verres that had been erected on the island. The main thrust of Cicero’s strategy is to render vividly the depth of hatred that the Sicilians felt for the cruel governor. The fact that statues of Verres were to be found in the Roman province was not in itself an egregious transgression. As Cicero duly explains to his audience, such statuary honoring leaders was customary among the Greeks (2.2.158): de quo homine auditum est umquam, quod tibi accidit, ut eius in provincia statuae, in locis publicis positae, partim etiam in aedibus sacris, per vim et per universam multitudinem deicerentur?. . .non crederem hoc de statuis nisi iacentes revulsasque vidissem, propterea quod apud omnes Graecos hic mos est, ut honorem hominibus habitum in monumentis eius modi nonnulla religione deorum consecrari arbitrentur. About what man has the report ever been heard, as in your case, that the statues placed in public places in his province, some even in sacred structures, were violently cast down by the whole multitude? . . . I would not have believed this concerning the statues, unless I had seen them torn up and cast down, since this is the custom among all the Greeks, that they judge the honor had by men in monuments of that sort to be consecrated with a certain amount of obligation toward the gods.

The practice of offering honors associated with divinity to a living person could indeed be properly presented by Cicero as a Greek phenomenon, although not a very old one. Besides a few noteworthy early exceptions, one being in Syracuse where Verres’ statues were eventually erected, the custom took hold during the life of Alexander and its aftermath.5 4 5

SIG 747. Cicero would recall this episode almost thirty years later in the De natura deorum (3.49). See Habicht 1970 and Fishwick 1987: 3–45 on divine honors in the Hellenistic world. Fishwick underscores the diversity of such practices, which ranged from the spontaneous cults of cities to the dynastic cults of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. Divine honors were in some cases offered to

20

The cultural work of metaphor

Prominent Romans had been given lavish honors in Greece modeled on those enjoyed by Alexander and his successors. In the 190s, after Flamininus’ “liberation” of Greece, the Chalcidians dedicated a gymnasium to “Titus and Hercules” and a Delphinium to “Titus and Apollo.” They performed sacrifices and libations, established a priesthood (still extant in Plutarch’s day), and sang a hymn.6 The nature of the honors given to Flamininus by the Chalcidians is revealing. He shares a structure with previously recognized gods, Hercules and Apollo. The specific type of sacrifice is left open by Plutarch’s Greek dative: do they sacrifice to Titus or for Titus?7 The co-presence of Hercules comes as no surprise, since his category-crossing precedent could be quite useful in dealing with the conceptual challenges posed by these new cults. As Price observes, ruler cults were novel practices aiming to come to terms with new types of political and social arrangements that initially met with some circumspection.8 This hesitation is evident in a court debate over Alexander’s honors in Arrian, Anabasis 4.11.2–8, where the man/hero/god

6 7

8

living rulers, in others they were only given posthumously. Price 1984: 26 gives a brief back-story: “The first known case of a divine cult of a living human falls at the end of the fifth century bc. Out of the confused situation at the end of the Peloponnesian War emerged Lysander, the Spartan general, who was for a time the most powerful figure in the eastern Aegean, and who received cult on Samos. Also, in the first part of the fourth century we hear of Dion being greeted as a god on his return to Syracuse as a ruler, but these are scattered cases. A new phase of political relations began with the extension of the power of Macedon, in what is now northern Greece, by Philip and Alexander over the old cities of Greece from the mid fourth century bc. While the evidence for cults of Philip is tenuous, contemporary sources show that divine cult was offered to Alexander in his lifetime.” Bendlin 2004 offers a succinct survey of divinizing honors in Greece and Rome along with an overview of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern practices. Plut. Flam. 16, where a portion of the hymn survives. Such ambiguities in language and ritual practice are used pointedly later in imperial cult, Price 1984: 207–48 argues, to avoid a full assimilation of the emperor to the gods. Sacrifices were made to Roman emperors in the Greek east, but far less frequently than sacrifices on behalf of an emperor (ibid.: 210–20). The inability to come to scholarly consensus on the nature of tributes to the genius (generative power) and numen (divine will) of Augustus (see Gradel 2002: 234–50 for discussion) also suggests an intrinsic polyvalence. Nock 1930: 220, discussing Pergamum, notes the sometimes equivocal quality of datives in inscriptions: “These datives, τῷ Βασιλεῖ, may be construed ‘for the king’ not ‘to the king’, but in view of the priesthood assigned to Attalus the dative is at least ambiguous: clarity would have demanded ὑπέρ with the genitive, the regular formula in dedications or offerings to a god on behalf of a king (even when called θεός) or other person.” Price 1984: 29, where he notes how mythic precedents such as the Dioscuri and Hercules helped justify the divinity of great humans. Price’s theory about the impetus for Hellenistic ruler cult also has some explanatory value for late Republican Rome (ibid.): “Unlike the earlier leaders and kings the Hellenistic rulers were both kings and Greek, and some solution had to be found to the problem this posed. There was no legal answer and the cities needed to represent this new power to themselves. The cults of the gods were the one model that was available to them for the representation of a power on whom the city was dependent which was external and still Greek. By borrowing and adapting this preexisting model of classification it proved to be possible to accommodate the new kings.”

Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily

21

Hercules was invoked to urge restraint since even he was not worshiped until after his death, and then only at the bidding of the Delphic oracle.9 Hercules proved a productive tool for negotiating a human–divine status transition in the days of Alexander, and became a vital precedent and proxy figure at Rome. More explicit theorizing about humans becoming gods came in the generation after Alexander in the work of Euhemerus.10 His Sacred Record rationalized the growing trend of deification by revealing that even Zeus himself was a great ruler divinized for his imperial conquests and civic benefactions. The ideas in Euhemerus’ novel were adapted in Latin prose and disseminated at Rome by the leading literary figure Ennius.11 The development of deification needed justification, and a range of inventive solutions sought to accommodate new ideas and practices. So this Greek practice (apud omnes Graecos hic mos est) that Cicero finds in Sicily that in some sense associates a ruler with the gods (ut honorem hominibus habitum in monumentis eius modi nonnulla religione deorum consecrari arbitrentur) was contested from its inception and riddled with qualifications and ambiguities in practice. Cicero’s explanation of these statues of Verres is itself rather evasive on their exact connection to divinity. He first of all marks off his statement as a detached report of Greek consensus about their purpose: hic mos est . . . habitum . . . arbitrentur. Within this brief cultural side-note the actual religious significance of this Greek custom is left quite unanswered. The relationship constructed between Verres and divinity is one in which his statues are judged to be endowed with nonnulla religione deorum. Is the tantalizingly vague nonnulla (a certain amount of/no small amount of) due to real uncertainty on Cicero’s part? Is he feigning uncertainty? Or is this a reflection of inherent hesitations and uncertainties in the Sicilian Greek custom? More cultural annotation is in order when Cicero tries to describe an inscription he saw at Syracuse (2.2.154): eum non solum PATRONUM istius insulae sed etiam SOTERA inscriptum vidi Syracusis. hoc quantum est? ita magnum ut Latine uno verbo exprimi non possit. is est nimirum SOTER qui salutem dedit (I saw him inscribed at Syracuse not only as PATRON of that

9

10

11

See Bosworth 1995: 180–81, 213–19 on Alexander’s use of Hercules as a role model. Comparison of Alexander and Hercules accordingly appears in Alexander praise rhetoric (e.g. Sen. Suas 1.1–2, where matching the deeds of Hercules justifies apotheosis for Alexander). See Zumschlinge 1976 on the historical context of Euhemerus and the political dimensions of his work. For the surviving fragments of Euhemerus see Winiarczyk 1991. Bosworth 1999: 10–12 stresses the popularity of Ennius’ Euhemerus and argues that its record of Jupiter’s worldly achievements inspired Augustus to make the case for his own posthumous divinity with his Res Gestae, the monumental account of his conquests and civic benefactions.

22

The cultural work of metaphor

island but even as SAVIOR. How great is this? So great that it cannot be expressed in Latin with a single word. He is, of course, SAVIOR who gives safety). Cicero again underscores the Greekness of Sicilian cultic practice. Verres is said to be represented in traditional Roman nomenclature (PATRONUM) as well as that created by Greeks for Greek audiences. The incongruities of soter with related Roman words are stressed rather than papered over: ita magnum ut Latine uno verbo exprimi non possit. Cicero did have some roughly equivalent Latin terms: servator12 and salus (which he uses in his explanation). Cicero would expand this repertoire of terms in the coming years by ascribing a religious vitality to the designation conservator13 and its cognates. Salus would be familiar to his audience from cult at Rome and Plautine comedy.14 The hyperbolic displays of gratitude in comedy are indeed akin to the supplication that Cicero receives from the mother of one of Verres’ victims (2.5.129): me suam salutem appellans . . . mihi ad pedes misera iacuit (naming me her salvation . . . she lay, wretched, at my feet). The implicit criticism of Verres as soter comes not from the title’s provenance or import, but from the assumption of this Greek title by a governor singularly ill suited for it. The designation could rest easily on the right Roman: Flamininus was hailed as soter in a hymn by Greeks

12

13

14

E.g. his usage at Pis. 34: [me] ut senatus illo ipso tempore appellavit, civem servatoremque rei publicae commendavit (The senate designated me “citizen and savior of the republic,” as it called me at that very time). Translating the concept soter into Roman political parlance becomes a preoccupation of Cicero’s consulship. See Wallace-Hadrill 1990 on the leading role played by Cicero in introducing the Greek language of power to Rome. See Sest. 53: pro dei immortales custodes et conservatores huius urbis atque imperii (By the immortal gods, the guardians and saviors of this city and empire); and also Flac. 61: Mithridatem dominum, illum patrem, illum conservatorem Asiae, illum Euhium, Nysium, Bacchum, Liberum nominabant (They used to call Mithridates “Lord,” “Father,” “Savior of Asia,” “Euhius,” “Nysian One,” “Bacchus,” “Liber”). If there is any reality behind this, presumably the Greeks would be using soter for Cicero’s conservator. Bendlin 2000: 132 stresses that we should consider these different manifestations of salus (in cult and literary references) as part of a conceptual continuum. For an in-depth analysis of the cult of Salus at Rome see Marwood 1988 and also Winkler 1995. C. Iunius Bubulcus built a temple of Salus at the end of the fourth century bce (Livy 9.43.25). For coins with the head of Salus (ca. 91 bce) related to this temple see Crawford 1974: 337–39. In Plautine comedy, the public god Salus was found: Char. qui me revocat? Eut. Spes, Salus, Victoria (“Who is calling me back?” Eut. “Hope, Health, and Victory”) (Mer. 867), here grouped with two other Roman divinities with their own cults in Plautus’ Rome: Fraenkel 1960: 216. Salus as a personal savior also appears: Nic. ah, salus j mea, servavisti me (“ah, my salvation, you have saved me!”) (Bac. 879); si quidem mihi statuam et aram statuis jatque ut deo mi hic immolas bovem: nam ego tibi Salus sum (if indeed you set up for me a statue and an altar and sacrifice an ox here to me as to a god: for I am your Salus) (As. 712–13); cf. Cist. 644, Ps. 709; Poen. 360. Nock 1951: 723 n.18 finds these invocations of Salus in Plautus as equivalent to the Greek soter. Marwood 1988: 6 notes that these Plautine characters posing as Salus would have divine connotations. See Feeney 1998: 87–92 and Clark 2007 on the Roman divinization of qualities.

Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily

23

(Plut. Flam. 16).15 Cicero’s representation of his encounter in Sicily with the divinized savior figure is an early foray into what would become a major, ongoing project: formulating a distinctively Roman equation for this concept. Some of the statues of Verres that were destroyed were located in temples with those of other gods (2.2.160; cf. 2.2.158): quanta illuc multitudo, quanta vis hominum convenisse dicebatur tum cum statuae sunt illius deiectae et eversae! at quo loco! celeberrimo ac religiosissimo, ante ipsum Serapim, in primo aditu vestibuloque templi (How great a multitude, how great a force of people was said to have gathered there at the time when his statues were cast down and overturned! But in what a place! One most frequented and laden with religious scruple, before Serapis himself, in the foremost entrance and vestibule of the temple). Although honors to Roman governors were relatively restrained compared to those of Hellenistic kings, statues of Romans too were situated in close architectural proximity to the traditional gods.16 As Flamininus’ structure-sharing with Hercules and Apollo suggests, Verres’ occupation of Serapis’ space would not be a disturbing anomaly, probably not for Greeks and perhaps not even for Romans.17 Marcellus shared space with Athena at Lindos and at Rome M’. Acilius Glabrio placed a gilded statue of his father, the first of its kind in Rome, in the temple of Pietas that his father had himself vowed.18 Romans could even find a statue of Cato the Elder in the temple of Salus.19 In fact, the liminal position of Verres’ statue (in primo aditu vestibuloque templi) seems to anticipate the protocols of imperial cult where the emperor was subtly subordinated to the gods in traditional temples.20 Again, the point of Cicero’s attack is not the blasphemy of a Roman ruler receiving divine tribute in Greek provinces. What is so appalling is that a thief like Verres would readily usurp honors normally due a worthy Roman.21

15

16

17

18 21

Price 1984: 46–47 interprets soter in this hymn as a deliberately ambiguous term that “straddles the divide between human and divine.” As Price (ibid.: 47) argues, the differences between the cults of Roman and Greek rulers does not necessarily mean that the honors extended to Roman governors were curtailed versions of those given to Greeks: “There is no need to see the relatively restrained cults of Roman governors as debased. There was a continuing process of flexible adaptation of the traditional cults in response to the changing circumstances, as the Greeks attempted to represent to themselves first the Hellenistic kings and then the power of Rome.” See Nock 1930 on rulers sharing temple space with the gods and Wallace-Hadrill 1990: 163–66 for an overview of honorific statuary in Republican Rome. 19 20 Glabrio¼Livy 40.34.5–6. Plut. Cat. Ma. 19.4. Price 1984: 169. As Rives 1993: 32 observes, “Marcellus was one of the great heroes of Rome, and Cicero’s attack on Verres’ arrogance in replacing the Marcellia with a festival in honor of himself would have been an effective tactic.” Cicero himself proudly refuses divine honors such as statues and shrines during his governorship in Cilicia but allows verbal honors to be decreed (Att. 5.21.7, 50 bce): nullos honores

24

The cultural work of metaphor

Cicero’s juxtapositions of Verres with Marcellus confirm that the primary objection raised by these passages on the statues of Verres was to the outrageously unworthy recipient Verres and not to the nature of the honors themselves. The festival established in Sicily to honor Marcellus is presented as an inviolable honor of a sort that not even Mithridates would dare to despoil (2.2.51–52): istius imperio Syracusis Marcellia tolluntur, maximo gemitu luctuque civitatis; quem illi diem festum cum recentibus beneficiis C. Marcelli debitum reddebant, tum generi, nomini, familiae Marcellorum maxima voluntate tribuebant. Mithridates in Asia, cum eam provinciam totam occupasset, Mucia non sustulit; hostis, et hostis in ceteris rebus nimis ferus et immanis, tamen honorem hominis deorum religione consecratum violare noluit. tu Syracusanos unum diem festum Marcellis impertire noluisti, per quos illi adepti sunt ut ceteros dies festos agitare possent. at vero praeclarum diem illis reposuisti Verria. The Marcellia were, at his command, removed from Syracuse, with the greatest groaning and lamentation of the citizenry; those people used to reckon that day a festival owed to the recent benefits of Gaius Marcellus and also bestowed it with the greatest good will on the race, the name, the family of the Marcelli. Mithridates, when he had taken over the entire province of Asia, did not remove the Mucia there; an enemy, even an enemy exceedingly savage and cruel in all other matters, nevertheless was unwilling to violate a man’s honor when it had been consecrated by religious obligation owed to the gods. You were unwilling that the Syracusans grant a single feast-day to the Marcelli, by whose agency they secured the ability to conduct the rest of their festivals. But in truth you re-imposed the illustrious day upon them as the Verria.

The Marcellia festival is represented as a cherished local tradition that is the cornerstone of the Syracusan religious calendar. Cicero views the rites not as sycophantic or superstitious, but as tribute rightfully due to Marcellus mihi nisi verborum decerni sino; statuas, fana, τέθριππα prohibeo (I allow no honors to be decreed for me except verbal ones; I prohibit statues, shrines, four-horse chariots). Rawson 1975a: 181 suggests that his refusal was motivated by fiscal prudence. See Fam. 3.8.8 (51 bce) on Cicero’s tight purse strings in Cilicia. Although the nature of the verbal honors he did allow is left unspecified, Cicero revels in the public resolutions at Salamis that extolled him in caelum (Att. 6.2.9, 50 bce): Salamini nos in caelum decretis suis sustulerunt (the Salaminians have raised us to heaven by their proclamations). His brother seems to have accepted more than verbal honors: Q. fr. 1.1.31 (60/59 bce): tuas virtutes consecratas et in deorum numero collocatas vides . . . id autem erit eius modi ut consulas omnibus, ut medeare incommodis hominum, provideas saluti, ut te parentem Asiae et dici et haberi velis (you see your virtues consecrated and placed in the number of the gods . . . see to it that you consult the interests of all, that you remedy men’s misfortunes, that you look out for their well-being, that you wish to be both called and considered the parent of Asia). Note that providing salus is a key part of Quintus’ charge (provideas saluti).

Backgrounds: Greek divinization in Sicily

25

(debitum reddebant). This festival is also said to celebrate Marcellus in a way that gives him some sort of divine sanction (honorem hominis deorum religione consecratum). This description formulates the nature of his honor in an eminently acceptable way that may even carefully downplay the degree of divinity ascribed to Marcellus himself. Here Marcellus can be understood as a mortal treated with honors endorsed by the gods. Cicero designates him as a homo, but juxtaposes this distinction with potent sacralizing language (deorum religione consecratum). In a later discussion of the Verria and the Marcellia, Cicero describes the relationship between recipients of such rites and the gods in a far more direct manner (2.4.151). Once more it is the Verria festival that is at issue – there is no implication of the general impropriety of such a festival. Cicero even says that the Syracusans would be justly rebuked if they failed to observe the Marcellia, since it was their most hallowed festival: diem festum . . . celeberrimum et sanctissimum (the most heavily attended and sacred festival). The Syracusans, according to Cicero, abolished the Verria for a simple reason: Verres, a man who defiled their gods, should not be celebrated along with them: etenim minime conveniebat ei deorum honores haberi qui simulacra deorum abstulisset (Indeed it was hardly fitting for the man who had removed the images of the gods to have divine honors). In this instance Verres’ honors are portrayed as precisely the sort offered to gods (ei deorum honores haberi). Cicero is of course eager for his audiences to have sympathy for the Sicilian Greeks plundered by Verres. His passages concerning their religious customs characterize them as distinctly Greek, but his carefully measured descriptions bring them within the pale of Roman understanding and play up their sanctity in order to help alienate the wayward Verres from his Roman peers. Elsewhere in the Verrine Orations, Cicero speaks of the intermingling of Greek and Roman religious customs. When he details Verres’ abuse of Ceres, Cicero reminds Romans that it is not only acceptable but even traditional at Rome to adapt and venerate foreign, especially Greek, religious practices (2.4.114–15, 2.5.187). While there is no overt speculation in the Verrine Orations about the possibilities of divine honors at Rome, Cicero helps bring into his audience’s purview religious concepts and practices that would become far more familiar at Rome in the coming years.22 The circulation of Ennius’ Euhemerus was airing Hellenistic theories about the deification of civic benefactors. Cicero would develop these discourses connecting civic benefactors to divinity and fashion characteristically 22

From a later perspective at least, that of Propertius (3.18.31–34), the divine honors of Marcellus on Sicily anticipate those eventually given to Caesar at Rome.

26

The cultural work of metaphor

Roman ideologies of deification. By means of both his speeches and theoretical works, he became an innovative cultural force in the late Republican process of elevating the Roman savior to divinity.

Divine assimilation in the early speeches Marcellus and Flamininus were prominent examples of Romans receiving divinizing rites in the Greek world, but the practice did not become widespread until the first century bce.23 At Athens cult was offered to Sulla in the form of festival games and sacrifice in 86 bce.24 To the Greeks Sulla represented himself in official documents as Epaphroditus (favorite of Aphrodite).25 In Rome Sulla was praised with a term that Plutarch renders as soter, probably salus.26 He seems to have been especially sensitive to the constitutive force of language. He is said to have been the first to call Pompey Magnus at Rome and to have ordered others to follow his cue.27 In a speech after his triumph, he enumerated his accomplishments as justification for the new cognomen Felix that he had selected. The title Felix evoked felicitas, a quality possessed by those enjoying divine favor.28 Felicitas was understood as instrumental in Roman military victories, which led to the creation of the new goddess Felicitas, whose first temple at Rome was built after 146 bce.29 In 80 bce, not long after Sulla assumed his new name, Cicero delivered the Pro Roscio Amerino. Cicero is taking on Chrysogonus, Sulla’s freedman, and wants to deflect his attack from Sulla – or at least seem as if he is trying to do so. He alludes to Sulla’s new title Felix and connects it to felicitas (22). At the close of the oration Cicero revisits Sulla’s felicitas, giving it a privileged role in Sulla’s preeminence (136). Just prior to this, he drew a comparison with Jupiter to explore the nature of Sulla’s power (131): placet igitur in his rebus aliquid imprudentia praeteriri? non placet, iudices, sed necesse est. etenim si Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, cuius nutu et arbitrio caelum, terra mariaque reguntur, saepe ventis vehementioribus aut immoderatis tempestatibus aut nimio calore aut intolerabili frigore hominibus nocuit, urbes delevit, fruges perdidit, quorum nihil pernicii causa divino

23 25 27

28 29

24 Price 1984: 42. Fishwick 1987: 47. 26 Plut. Sull. 34.2. Weinstock 1971: 168. Plut. Pomp. 13.4–5. Plutarch reports that either Sulla first used the title for Pompey or Pompey’s soldiers had used it and Sulla in effect ratified it when he first used it at Rome. See Balsdon 1951 on the divine associations conjured by Sulla’s Felix. Weinstock 1971: 113.

Divine assimilation in the early speeches

27

consilio, sed vi ipsa et magnitudine rerum factum putamus, at contra commoda, quibus utimur, lucemque qua fruimur, spiritumque, quem ducimus, ab eo nobis dari atque impertiri videmus, quid miramur, iudices, L. Sullam, cum solus rem publicam regeret orbemque terrarum gubernaret imperiique maiestatem, quam armis receperat, legibus confirmaret, aliqua animadvertere non potuisse? nisi hoc mirum est, quod vis divina adsequi non possit, si id mens humana adepta non sit. Is it pleasing, therefore, that in these matters something is passed over out of lack of foresight? It is not pleasing, judges, but it is necessary. For indeed, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, by whose nod and judgment the sky, the land, and the seas are ruled, has often, with very forceful winds or immoderate storms or by over-great heat or intolerable cold, harmed humans, destroyed cities, and laid waste crops, none of which we think to have happened by divine counsel simply for the sake of destruction but instead because of the very vigor and greatness of the universe; but, on the other hand, the advantages that we use, the light that we enjoy, the breath that we draw, we see to have been given and bestowed upon us by him. Why then should we be astonished, judges, that Lucius Sulla, when he alone ruled the commonwealth and governed the world and confirmed by means of laws the majesty of the empire, which he had received by force of arms, was not able to give heed to some things? Unless it is astonishing if the human mind has not attained what divine power is not able to reach.

The comparison of rulers to Zeus had Greek precedents even before Alexander was claimed as a son of Zeus.30 At Rome, the symbolic action of triumphal ritual gave this analogy temporary mimetic realization. The triumphant general reddened his face to look like Jupiter’s statue in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and wore Jupiter’s purple cloak and a golden crown while carrying a scepter.31 The anthropomorphic Jupiter was in one sense a projection of the Roman elite patriarch (paterfamilias), a mirroring that could facilitate a dynast temporarily stepping into the divinity’s role. The more pronounced, closer assimilation to Jupiter by the triumphing general is, as Beard argues, essentially a manifestation of late Republican experiments with divinization.32 Late Republican generals innovated within a traditional medium to test cultural possibilities, and 30 31

32

See ibid.: 300–02. Livy 10.7.10; Serv. Ecl. 10.27. This costume also perhaps evoked archaic kings, which could downplay divine overtones in the ritual. Versnel 1970 challenges Wissowa’s 1912 interpretation of the triumphator as Jupiter, arguing that regal associations ultimately prevailed in the Roman ceremony. Qualifying gestures in the triumphal ritual, such as the admonition respice post te, hominem te esse memento (look behind you; remember that you are human) supposedly given to the triumphator by a slave, betray Roman anxieties about divine approximations. Beard 2007: 233–38.

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The cultural work of metaphor

their closer approximation to divinity finds a rhetorical parallel in Cicero’s treatment of Sulla. On the literary plane at Rome, Plautine comedy provides a relevant precedent for the assumption of Jupiter’s identity.33 “Savior” characters can play the part of a personal Jupiter.34 The practice of identifying mortals with a god was widespread in Greece. Nock’s fundamental analysis of this phenomenon still warrants quotation at length as an incisive explication of the problems and paradoxes inherent in Greek practice and as essential background to related developments at Rome (1928: 144–45): What is the meaning of these identifications of man and god? . . . When one comes to inquire into the meaning of language of this sort, one finds it vague and susceptible of different meanings to different people who used it. From Homeric times onwards the Greeks regarded certain individuals as more than human, as θεῖοι with more or less qualification. Such an individual might be called a god, either unreservedly or with reference to yourself, a god to you. If you recognized in him the essential characteristics of a particular god, you might call him that god, again either unreservedly or with reference to yourself. To the ancients the line of demarcation between god and man was not as constant and sharp, or the interval as wide, as we naturally think. πάντα θεῶν μεστά: the gods ranged from Zeus to οἱ παρὰ μικρὸν καλούμενοι θεοί. θεός does not necessarily imply more than a being possessed of greater power than humanity has and immune from death. An Alexander fits this as well as a Dionysus; an Epicurus fits it too. This tendency in ancient thought meets opposition. The Delphic γνῶθι σεαυτόν meant ‘know yourself as a man and not a god’, and Pindar and the tragedians repeat the lesson. This is the normal tone of Greek moralizing, and it is reinforced by stories of the evil fate of those who rivalled the gods in music or other arts, or claimed worship.

Especially noteworthy are the elusive qualities of divine identifications and associations in language and iconography,35 which are due in part to the 33

34

35

See ibid.: 253–56 on how Plautus’ Amphitruo cleverly reverses triumphal ritual by having Jupiter masquerade as a victorious general. E.g. Capt. 862–65: cur? Erg. ut sacrufices. j H. cui deorum? E. mi Hercule, nam ego nunc tibi sum summus Iuppiter, j idem ego sum Salus, Fortuna, Lux, Laetitia, Gaudium. j proin tu deum hunc saturitate facias tranquillum tibi (“Why?” Erg. “That you might sacrifice.” H. “To which of the gods?” E. “To me, by Hercules, for now I am most high Jupiter to you: I, the same one, am Health, Fortune, Light, Happiness, Joy. May you therefore make this god peaceful toward you by making him full”). As Fraenkel 1960: 216 n.2 notes, this intermingling of Roman and Greek deities is characteristically Plautine. Other gods were personalized in this way as well: (Cur. 192) Phaed. Tun meam Venerem vituperas? (Why do you insult my Venus?). For instances of ambiguities in iconography see Nock 1928: 146 on Hercules/Maussollus coins from Cos. Price 1984 includes extended discussions of the intricate nuances in temple layout (ch. 6), statuary (ch. 7), and sacrifices (ch. 8) that qualified divine honors offered humans.

Divine assimilation in the early speeches

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perils of neat categorization in a religious world where gradations more than an impassable gulf separate the human and the divine.36 Yet such indeterminacy was also a product of abiding anxieties about human transgression: even though the boundaries between gods and humans were often porous, such interpenetration was at times in tension with the conception of divinity as intrinsically “other.”37 Such tension is evident even in poetic representations. Cicero’s contemporary Catullus can liken his beloved to a god but then renounce this comparison in the very same poem by questioning the propriety of comparing humans to gods.38 The relatively novel possibility of a Roman approaching divine status along with the sometimes problematic quality of such efforts called for a range of suggestive transitional steps. Fishwick follows up on Nock with an analysis of the sorts of divinizing strategies such as identification, assimilation, and association that could gingerly or boldly elide distinctions between gods and humans in a range of media.39

36

37

38

39

Nock’s observations on the fluidity of the Greek human–divine hierarchy are of relevance to Roman attitudes as well. As Beard, North, and Price 1998: 141 remark: “There was no sharp polarity, but a spectrum between the human and the divine,” and so Hopkins 1978: 200: “In metaphors, myths and sacred rites, Romans frequently bridged the great divide which in puritan Christianity separates man from God.” Cf. Clauss 1999: 30–31; Feeney 1998: 108; Toynbee 1948: 160–61. Plautus makes a good joke based on the simultaneity of these countervailing tendencies (Cas. 330– 34): Lys. quid id refert tua?j unus tibi hic dum propitius sit Iuppiter, j tu istos minutos cave deos flocci feceris. j Ol. nugae sunt istae magnae, quasi tu nescias, j repente ut emoriantur humani Ioves (Lys. “What difference does it make to you? Until this one Jupiter be propitious to you, beware lest you rate those tiny gods at a hair.” Ol. “Those are great trifles, as if you were unaware, that human Joves die suddenly”). Beard 2007: 234 stresses that this tension informs human approximations to divinity: “Emperors drew back from claiming the role and privileges of gods as enthusiastically as they basked in divine worship. The dividing line between mortality and immortality could be as carefully respected as it was triumphantly crossed. Nonetheless, divine power and status were a measure against which to judge its human equivalents, and a potential goal and ambition for the super-successful.” This study – like Beard’s – does not embrace Gradel’s 2002 hypothesis that Romans had no sense of ontological distinctions between humans and gods/mortals and immortals. As noted above, the categories human and god were not mutually exclusive, but these permeable categories are often represented as differing in kind. For example, the common address di immortales conveys an ontological distinction (immortality, which is largely left out of Gradel’s discussion) and the iconography of imperial apotheosis often aims to represent “an (ontological) change in status” (so Beard and Henderson 1998: 202). Wheeler 2003, Wardle 2004, and Scheid 2004 appreciate the many strengths of Gradel 2002 while remaining skeptical about its central premise. The central thrust of Levene 2012 is a critique of Gradel’s thesis. Poem 68; see Feeney 1998: 107 for discussion. Cf. the comparison with a note of caution (si fas est) in poem 51.1–2: ille mi par esse deo videtur j ille, si fas est, superare divos (he seems equal to a god to me j if it is not taboo, he even seems to surpass the gods). Nock 1928: 146 observes that it is often difficult to tell if a human is being compared to or identified with a divinity. Fishwick 1987: 29 offers a helpful clarification of modern scholarly terminology that nonetheless highlights the blurry line between “comparison” and “identification.” He notes that formal recognition of a ruler as a preexisting divinity such as Jupiter is “the practice commonly

30

The cultural work of metaphor

So Cicero’s comparison of Sulla and Jupiter in Pro Roscio Amerino, while potent in its original context, was not a complete departure. His description of Jupiter (Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, cuius nutu et arbitrio caelum, terra mariaque reguntur) also has its own specific literary precedents.40 Here the analogy is quite double edged. Since Sulla was an active promoter of divine associations this comparison could be read as high tribute, along the lines of the triumph, to enlarge upon associations of a great general with Jupiter Optimus Maximus. At the same time, suggesting that Sulla has encroached upon Jupiter’s prerogatives (L. Sullam, cum solus . . . orbemque terrarum gubernaret) could also mobilize suspicions of impious overreach and tyranny among a Roman audience.41 After lingering on the kindred powers of Jupiter and Sulla, Cicero closes off his analogy with a reestablishment of their proper categorizations: nisi hoc mirum est, quod vis divina adsequi non possit, si id mens humana adepta non sit.42 In spite of Cicero’s qualifying conclusion, this comparison, as Weinstock argues, may have generated a desired embarrassment in Sulla: “Sulla did not go any further but resigned: he clearly did not want to become another Iuppiter. The theme must have been very much alive at Rome at that time, though not in a complimentary sense.”43 The idea was indeed alive at Rome, even in a complimentary sense. In the Pro Fonteio of (circa) 69 bce, Cicero again references Homer’s Zeus in a description of Scaurus’ powers (24): ecquem hominem vidimus, ecquem vere commemorare possumus parem consilio, gravitate, constantia, ceteris virtutis, honoris, ingenii, rerum gestarum ornamentis M. Aemilio Scauro fuisse? tamen huius, cuius iniurati nutu prope terrarum orbis regebatur, iurati testimonio neque in C. Fimbriam neque in C. Memmium creditum est (Have we seen any man, are we truly able to recollect that there has been anyone

40

41

42

43

called identification. The term is acceptable provided it is realized that identification of this kind is still a form of comparison – strong, open comparison in contrast to the restrained innuendo of assimilation.” Cf. the discussion of divine “identification” and “association” in Beard, North, and Price 1998: 142–44. See Pollini 1990 on how conceptual overlaps in divine identification, comparison, and assimilation are exploited in late Republican and early imperial coinage. The famous nod of Zeus at Il. 1.528. See also Ennius, scen. 380 V, qui templa caeli summa sonitu concutit (he who shakes the highest spaces of heaven by his sounding). Cf. Catullus 64.205–6, annuit invicto caelestum numine rector j quo motu tellus atque horrida contremuerunt j aequora (the ruler of the gods gave the nod with his unconquered power, and with this movement earth and the savage seas trembled). Cicero seems eager to underscore Sulla’s anomalous monopoly of power in this speech (22), a situation that Cicero was clearly uncomfortable with (Ver. 2.3.81). We should note Cicero’s word use here: the adjective divina is set in contrast to humana and it clearly means “divine.” Cf. Sallust Cat. 12 and Caesar Civ. 1.6. Weinstock 1971: 302.

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equal in counsel, in gravity, in constancy, in the rest of the ornaments of virtue, office, talent, and deeds accomplished to Marcus Aemilius Scaurus? Nevertheless, his sworn testimony was not believed against either Gaius Fimbria nor Gaius Memmius, Scaurus, though he had sworn no oath, used to rule almost the entire world with his nod). What is most striking in this laudatory passage is the transfer of Homeric resonance. Before, it was in Cicero’s description of Jupiter’s hegemony (S. Rosc. 131): Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, cuius nutu et arbitrio caelum, terra mariaque reguntur, which was then in turn compared to Sulla’s. Now Scaurus’ powers directly evoke those of the Homeric Zeus: cuius iniurati nutu prope terrarum orbis regebatur.44 Perhaps what might have been a liability for a Sulla was less incendiary in the case of Scaurus since he was no longer alive. Divine approximations are not reserved solely for Scaurus in the Pro Fonteio. Cicero praises the generous wisdom of previous juries with language that he will soon develop to articulate Pompey’s superhuman capacities (25): fuit, fuit illis iudicibus divinum ac singulare, iudices, consilium, qui se non solum de reo, sed etiam de accusatore, de teste iudicare arbitrabantur, quid fictum, quid fortuna ac tempore adlatum, quid pretio corruptum, quid spe aut metu depravatum, quid a cupiditate aliqua aut inimicitiis profectum videretur (Those judges had, they had, judges, a divine and singular counsel, who deemed that they were judging, not only concerning the accused, but also concerning accuser and witnesses, what seemed made up, what seemed to have happened by luck or timing, what seemed to have been corrupted by a bribe, what seemed distorted by hope or fear, what seemed to proceed from any covetousness or enmities). The imputation of divinity to a jury is a clever tactic for the advocate. They are by implication urged to enlarge the scope of their deliberations (as here) and to bear in mind the powers they have over those involved in the case. It also perhaps plays on the literary “council of the gods,” effectively reversing the formula whereby gods are found deliberating like empanelled humans. In this case, jurors are asked to rise to the standard set by past juries who displayed divinum consilium. The relationship created between mortals and immortals is quite tenuous in this instance. A specific quality (consilium) that they possessed is deemed divinum retrospectively, and this divine quality is safely spread over anonymous groups. In the years following the Pro Fonteio, Cicero continues to revisit the resemblance of juries’ power to divinity. The Pro Cluentio (66 bce) takes 44

Cf. the nutu Iovis Optimi Maximi “nod/will of Jupiter Optimus Maximus” at Catil. 3.21. See also Catil. 3.18, where the immortals rule by nutu (nod).

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a more direct approach by comparing the present jury to gods (195): vos iudices, quos huic A. Cluentio quasi aliquos deos ad omne vitae tempus fortuna esse voluit, huius importunitatem matris a filii capite depellite (You judges, whom fortune desired to be like some gods to this Aulus Cluentius for the whole span of his life, drive away the insolence of this mother from her son’s head). Cicero is clearly after a vivid reminder of the jury’s absolute power over his client. The association of the jurors with divinity is overtly metaphorical, qualified by a quasi. The details of the metaphor, however, are not coldly conventional45 and make Cicero’s point quite effectively: chance has willed (fortuna esse voluit) that they temporarily play the part of gods (quasi aliquos deos). The jury is not likened to an existing god or gods, but their assumed divine identity is independent and left unspecified (aliquos deos). The degree of removal inherent to the metaphorical association in the Pro Fonteio is eliminated in the Pro Murena (63 bce). Cicero is again anxious for those sitting in judgment to have full awareness of the high stakes of their decisions (2): quae cum ita sint, iudices, et cum omnis deorum immortalium potestas aut translata sit ad vos aut certe communicata vobiscum (since these things are so, judges, and since all the power of the immortal gods is either transferred to you or certainly shared with you). We find no quasi here, but a certain, singular formulation of the connection to divinity is still avoided. Either the gods are transferring all of their powers to the jury on this occasion or they are certainly at least sharing them. In the same year (63 bce) Cicero again tries this tactic on his client’s behalf in the Pro Rabirio (5): deinde vos, Quirites, quorum potestas proxime ad deorum immortalium numen accedit, oro atque obsecro, quoniam uno tempore vita C. Rabiri hominis miserrimi atque innocentissimi, salus rei publicae vestris manibus suffragiisque permittitur, adhibeatis in hominis fortunis misericordiam, in rei publicae salute sapientiam quam soletis. Then, citizens, you whose power approaches closest to the sway of the immortal gods, I beg and implore you, seeing that at the same time the life of Gaius Rabirius, a man most wretched and most innocent, and the wellbeing of the commonwealth are entrusted to your hands and votes, that you 45

It is important, Nock (1930: 235) argues, to recognize the peculiar force these metaphors had in antiquity: “The personalities of the divine world and the language of religion did in antiquity constitute a storehouse of metaphor on which men drew continually: and they not merely drew, as we do; but they allowed such ἔπεα πτερόεντα to crystallize. We speak of ‘an angel’ or ‘a Daniel come to judgment’, but we should not add these epithets to a man’s name on a tombstone. They could.”

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exercise pity regarding the man’s fortunes and, regarding the well-being of the commonwealth, the wisdom which you are accustomed to exercise.

The same analogy lies behind this correlation of the gods and these Romans, but the relationship is figured differently. They are not said to have divine aspects (Pro Fonteio), they are not said to be serving as if gods (Pro Cluentio), and they are not receiving all or part of the gods’ powers (Pro Murena). Here they are clearly subordinated to the gods, but their powers come quite close to those of the immortals (deinde vos, Quirites, quorum potestas proxime ad deorum immortalium numen accedit). These metaphors draw an analogy that serves an immediate purpose in their respective cases, but they are also signs of a late Republican discursive trend driven in part by Cicero. This assimilation via metaphor served to lessen the conceptual distance between gods and humans at a time when humans (such as Pompey and Caesar) were being brought into closer relationship with divinity. Scholars have traditionally explained away these metaphors as just metaphors, simply language being used figuratively in a sense different from its normal usage.46 Linguists and cognitive scientists, most notably Lakoff, have displaced this traditional approach to metaphor. Lakoff argues that “the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another.”47 Contemporary metaphor research focuses primarily on the ways in which metaphors form our knowledge systems and bring new possibilities and perspectives into them.48 When we consider Cicero’s divinizing metaphors 46

47

48

E.g. Kaster’s 2006: 233 claim that Cicero applies the adjective divinus to humans “only metaphorically.” Cf. Levene 1997: 69 n.20 on his analysis of Cicero’s Caesarian Orations: “I shall be assuming that attributions and implications of divinity in speeches are in some sense intended literally: that they are not simply metaphors or hyperbolic comparisons.” This study aims to regard divinizing metaphors not as inert tropes but rather as mental mappings that can shape both thought and action. Lakoff 1993: 202. It may be useful here to cite Lakoff’s definition of metaphor (ibid.: 202–03): “The general theory of metaphor is given by characterizing such cross-domain mappings. And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change, causation, and purpose all turn out to be metaphorical. The result is that metaphor (that is, cross-domain mapping) is absolutely central to ordinary natural language semantics, and that the study of literary metaphor is an extension of the study of everyday metaphor. Everyday metaphor is characterized by a huge system of thousands of crossdomain mappings, and this system is made use of in novel metaphor. Because of these empirical results, the word metaphor has come to be used differently in contemporary metaphor research. The word metaphor has come to mean a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system. The term metaphorical expression refers to a linguistic expression (a word, phrase, or sentence) that is the surface realization of such a cross-domain mapping (this is what the word metaphor referred to in the old theory).” E.g. Schön 1993. See Sapolsky 2010 for a complementary discussion of the ways in which metaphors structure our thinking. He surveys recent experiments on metaphor and cognition that suggest that “the brain has trouble distinguishing between being a dirty scoundrel and being in need of a bath.” See Madrigal 2011 and Naughton 2011 on how analysis of metaphor as a cognitive tool is a new focal point in espionage.

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along with the late Republican experiments with divinization being conducted on many fronts, the limitations of the traditional, narrow construal of metaphor become apparent. These expressions are doing cultural work: a conceptual mapping between domains that creates and consolidates connections between humans and gods. Such prevalent, public crossdomain mappings can work together with a range of emerging divinizing practices and iconographic experiments in mutually reinforcing ways.

Pro lege Manilia: presenting the divine savior at Rome If presenting a group as godlike could prompt such qualifications and hesitations, focusing on an individual would require an orator to walk a tightrope. Pompey, like Sulla before him, was actively collecting divine honors in the Greek east49 and cultivating divine associations at Rome. He patterned himself after Alexander, hence the title Magnus that he took, a self-aggrandizing move indicative of the highly competitive elite culture of late Republican Rome. Pompey also triumphed in 79 bce without the proper prerequisites, a praetorship or consulship, when he was just twenty-six. In the triumphal procession, he tried to outshine all previous triumphators by entering Rome on a chariot drawn by four elephants and designed to be reminiscent of those of the divine conquerors Alexander, Hercules, and Dionysus.50 The elephants evoked the eastern conquests of Dionysus, a Hellenistic mythological pattern invented for Alexander to emulate and surpass.51 In 71 bce as proconsul, Pompey advertised his special affiliations with Alexander and divinity on coins with the legend MAGNUS on the obverse and a depiction of Victoria hovering with a wreath over Pompey in a triumphal quadriga on the reverse.52

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A Cilician city, for example, took the name Pompeiopolis and started its calendar on the day he restored it. It also issued coins with his portrait: Taylor 1931: 39–40. Cf. Fishwick 1987: 47. Plut. Pomp. 14.1–4; Weinstock 1971: 37. The year of this triumph is disputed; see Seager 2002: 29 for discussion. Unfortunately, Pompey had to alter his grandiose plans when the elephants would not fit through the gate. The Alexander analogy was explored, among other media, in portraiture: Zanker 1988: 10, fig. 6. In 56 bce Faustus Cornelius Sulla issued a denarius with the head of Hercules on the obverse and three small wreaths and one large wreath surrounding a globe on the reverse. The small wreaths represent Pompey’s three triumphs (cf. Cic. Balb. 9, 16; Sest. 129), the large wreath represents the corona aurea (gold crown) offered to Pompey in 63 bce, and the globe references the oikoumene proclaiming world mastery carried in Pompey’s triumph of 61 bce: Crawford 1974: 449–50 (426.4). There was also a shrine to Hercules Invictus in Pompey’s theater complex: Weinstock 1971: 39. See Bosworth 1999: 2–3 on the Hellenistic creation of Dionysus’ eastern triumphs and the ways in which these legends served as a basis for Alexander’s divinity and also Ptolemaic imperial ideology. Crawford 1974: 412 (402.1).

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The most direct and literal claim of Pompey’s divinity in these years was Cicero’s Pro lege Manilia (66 bce). Cicero, recently elected praetor, argues for the extension of Pompey’s unprecedented honors. The concentration of power that the lex Manilia would authorize is licensed by Pompey’s already anomalous rise through the ranks since the state has reaped benefits from the earlier exceptions made for Pompey (61–63). Cicero even suggests that the appeals to precedent being made by Catulus and Hortensius, who had approved prior accommodations for Pompey, do not apply to a Pompey (52). Pompey’s singular status at Rome also places novel demands on the orator who wishes to unveil, and simultaneously create, his particular preeminence for the Roman people. As noted above, it is especially difficult to make categorical distinctions between the comparison of humans with gods as opposed to the identification of the two in ancient religious discourses. Cicero takes full advantage of this conceptual quandary in the Pro lege Manilia. It is also difficult to draw a clear divide between hyperbolic praise and worship. Nock warns us against artificial, anachronistic distinctions between honorific praise and worship (1930: 241): “Our distinction between worship and homage, Kultus and Ehrung, did not exist with anything like comparable sharpness in antiquity.” At the start of his address to the assembled crowd, the praetor stresses that he is ascending for the first time to a political stage that enjoys a vast audience and also unparalleled influence. Although Cicero is advocating a popular cause in this consequential venue, he claims that speaking in support of Pompey poses a particular challenge (3): dicendum est enim de Cn. Pompei singulari eximiaque virtute; huius autem orationis difficilius est exitum quam principium invenire. ita mihi non tam copia quam modus in dicendo quaerendus est (For one must speak concerning the singular and outstanding courage of Gnaeus Pompeius; it is more difficult, however, to find an end than a beginning for a speech on this topic. Thus I must, in speaking, seek not so much an abundance of praise but rather a limit). This dramatization of his dilemma itself obviously commences the praise of Pompey, but that does not exhaust its significance. Considered retrospectively from the conclusion of the speech, the problem of modulation is crucial. Since this speech says things about a living man that had never been said before at Rome, the task of finding the proper exitus and due modus were vital challenges that Cicero faced as he devised his presentation of Pompey. The possibilities had been ramped up by Caesar, who had recently touted his descent from Venus in his funeral speech for his aunt Julia (68 bce). Cicero had conventional, superlative

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language of praise at his disposal, which he uses for Sulla and Murena in the Pro lege Manilia (8): duo fortissimi viri et summi imperatores (two of the bravest men and greatest commanders).53 His special awareness of registers in this speech is again in evidence when he speaks of giving Lucullus high, but properly calibrated, praise (20): atque ut omnes intellegant me L. Lucullo tantum impertire laudis, quantum forti viro et sapienti homini et magno imperatori debeatur (and, so that all may understand that I bestow upon Lucius Lucullus such a measure of praise as is owed to a brave man, a wise human being, and a great general). This conventional, familiar Roman language, which could fully capture the merits of a Lucullus, fell short of Pompey’s grandeur, however. Cicero acknowledges this inadequacy and the need to find new language for Pompey (29): iam vero virtuti Cn. Pompei quae potest oratio par inveniri? quid est, quod quisquam aut illo dignum aut vobis novum aut cuiquam inauditum possit adferre? (Now, in truth, what speech equal to the courage of Gnaeus Pompeius can be found? What is there that anyone can advance that is worthy of him or new to you or yet unheard by anyone?). The whole of the Pro lege Manilia is in effect the answer to this second question, where Cicero adapts elements of Hellenistic panegyric54 and pushes Roman concepts of divine favor and immanent divinity to unprecedented levels as he begins to articulate a novel symbolic vocabulary.55 No surviving source indicates that this is a derivative speech. And any concepts or language that are appropriated generate their primary meaning not from their origins but from the new work they perform. Here and elsewhere with Cicero’s innovative

53

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55

See also his lofty but customary praise of Catulus and Hortensius (51). Also worth comparison is the superlative, yet largely conventional, praise of Pompey at Ver. 2.5.153. Fears 1981: 799. The Alexander praise rhetoric connecting conquest and deification (e.g. The Elder Seneca Suas. 1.1, 1.2) has general patterns of thought related to Cicero’s representations of Pompey’s feats. See Braund 1998: 53–57 for a succinct overview of the Classical and Hellenistic Greek backgrounds to Roman praise rhetoric. A sign of Cicero’s inventiveness is the near silence in Roman theoretical works (e.g. Rhetorica ad Herennium) about divine assimilation and intimations of divine favor for panegyric. The sole – and significant – exception is Cicero’s own Partitiones oratoriae (ca. 54 bce), which offers up strategies for assigning divine favor much like those used for Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia (Part. 73: adhibendaque frequentius etiam illa ornamenta rerum, sive admirabilia sive nec opinata sive significata monstris prodigiis et oraculis sive quae videbuntur ei de quo agemus cecidisse divina atque fatalia [Those things that adorn the course of events ought also to be brought up more frequently, whether they are admirable or unexpected or signified by wondrous portents and oracles or will seem to have happened as things divine or fated to him about whom we are speaking]; Part. 82: si quid cui magnum ac incredibile acciderit maximeque si id divinitus accidisse potuerit videri [if anything great and incredible has happened to anyone and especially if it is able to seem to have happened divinely]).

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reworkings of received language and concepts, we should avoid the “genetic fallacy” that lets origin overdetermine present meaning.56 Cicero’s primary strategy in this speech is to argue that exceptional powers are due to Pompey since Romans have ample evidence of his extraordinary nature. He first proceeds by a process of differentiation that will leave Pompey in his own class (10): sed tamen alterius partis periculum, Sertorianae atque Hispaniensis, quae multo plus firmamenti ac roboris habebat, Cn. Pompei divino consilio ac singulari virtute depulsum est; in altera parte ita res a L. Lucullo, summo viro, est administrata, ut initia illa rerum gestarum magna atque praeclara non felicitati eius, sed virtuti, haec autem extrema, quae nuper acciderunt, non culpae, sed fortunae tribuenda esse videantur. sed de Lucullo dicam alio loco, et ita dicam, Quirites, ut neque vera laus ei detracta oratione mea neque falsa adficta esse videatur. The danger from the one quarter, that of Sertorius and Hispania, which had much more support and strength, was repelled by the divine counsel and outstanding courage of Gnaeus Pompeius; in the other quarter the matter was so handled by Lucius Lucullus, an outstanding man, that the great and eminent beginning of the deeds he accomplished seemed to be owed not to his good fortune but his courage, and their end, however, which came recently, not to his fault but to chance. But I will speak about Lucullus in another place, and in such a fashion, citizens, that I will not seem to take true praise from him nor bestow false.

In close comparison with Lucullus, Pompey’s successes are described as different in kind. His victory comes from auspicious personal gifts: Cn. Pompei divino consilio ac singulari virtute depulsum est. The claim of divinum consilium, offered as a collective compliment at Pro Fonteio 25, is now attributed to a single man in the Pro lege Manilia. The quality of felicitas is one that Lucullus, however capable, simply does not possess. This leaves Lucullus wanting in Cicero’s list of a general’s cardinal qualities (27):57

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Feeney 1998: 115–16, drawing on the insight of Versnel 1993: 242 that “origin is not to be identified with meaning,” argues that “the idea that the power or meaning of a rite is necessarily linked causally to its origin is, after all, as misplaced as the idea that the power or meaning of a myth or a word is linked causally to their origin.” Fears 1981: 797 notes the connection of Cicero’s list to Greek theories: “The consummate general requires four qualities: scientia rei militaris, virtus, auctoritas, and felicitas. The first three are an intrinsic part of the man himself; the fourth is a gift of the gods. The two-fold division of the characteristics of the great general, into arete and eutychia, which we find in Polybius and later in Plutarch, is thus quite clear in Cicero.” Two of Cicero’s four cardinal qualities (virtus and felicitas) would receive shrines in Pompey’s theater: Weinstock 1971: 39.

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Pompey’s courage, we are told, lifts him above not only his contemporaries but even his predecessors. The reason for this superiority is soon to be revealed. The virtus of Pompey, previously said to be singularis (10), is now ratcheted up to a superhuman level (33): pro di immortales! tantamne unius hominis incredibilis ac divina virtus tam brevi tempore lucem adferre rei publicae potuit, ut vos, qui modo ante ostium Tiberinum classem hostium videbatis, nunc nullam intra Oceani ostium praedonum navem esse audiatis? (By the immortal gods! Was the incredible and divine courage of one man able in so short a time to bring such great light to the commonwealth that you, who saw the enemies’ fleet almost before the mouth of the Tiber, now hear that there is not a single pirate ship left this side of the Ocean’s mouth?). The rhetorical gambit here is quite involved. The traditional gods are invoked, and the incredibilis ac divina virtus is the agent of metaphorical action that has the cosmic consequence of bearing light: tam brevi tempore lucem adferre rei publicae potuit.58 This incredibilis ac divina virtus belongs solely to Pompey, who is referred to as a man (homo). Cicero returns to expand upon and justify this bold formulation of Pompey’s power (36): est haec divina atque incredibilis virtus imperatoris. quid? ceterae, quas paulo ante commemorare coeperam, quantae atque quam multae sunt! 58

See Lucretius on the light-bearing powers of Epicurus (5.8–12): deus ille fuit, deus, inclute Memmi, j qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam quae j nunc appellatur sapientia, quique per artem j fluctibus e tantis vitam tantisque tenebris j in tam tranquillo et tam clara luce locavit (He was a god, a god, illustrious Memmius, who first discovered that rational account of life that is now called wisdom and who, by his skill, moved life out of such great waves and such great shadows and placed it in such calm and such clear light). Venus also brings light (and peace, like Pompey) in the poem (1.8–9): tibi . . . j placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum (for you . . . the sky, pacified, shines, its light scattered abroad). The Athenians compared Demetrius Poliorcetes’ radiance to the sun and stars in a hymn welcoming Demetrius as a manifest god (Athenaeus 6.253 d–f); cf. Apollo’s brilliant approach in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo 440–44.

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non enim bellandi virtus solum in summo ac perfecto imperatore quaerenda est, sed multae sunt artes eximiae huius administrae comitesque virtutis. ac primum quanta innocentia debent esse imperatores! quanta deinde in omnibus rebus temperantia! quanta fide, quanta facilitate, quanto ingenio, quanta humanitate! This is the general’s divine and incredible courage. What? How great and how numerous the other things are, which I began a little earlier to recount! For not only excellence at fighting is to be sought in the highest and perfect general, but many skills are the aides and companions of this outstanding courage. First, how great a blamelessness ought to be characteristic of generals! Next, how great a temperance in all things! What great fidelity, what great readiness, what great talent, what great humanity!

The claim is reiterated (est haec divina atque incredibilis virtus imperatoris) with the substitution of imperator. The term imperator in this context refers to the acclamation of a general by his troops and becomes a title especially coveted by Caesar, Pompey, and Pompey’s sons.59 With this substitution, Cicero takes his audience back to the list of cardinal qualities at 28, which is emended and elaborated upon in some detail. Pompey is given divine favor in these passages (felicitas) and also divine powers (bringing light). In this context, the adjective divinus seems to convey its primary meaning: “divine.” The fact that Cicero uses divinus for Pompey’s qualities in this speech – but never directly for Pompey himself – reveals the adjective’s potent connotations. As Price notes on the even much later usage of the Greek adjective theios (divine) for living leaders, the adjective has a “semantic motivation” gravitating toward its noun form.60 In extant Latin, Cicero introduces divinus into political oratory and is easily the chief protagonist in the history of this word at Rome.61 Cicero is also the first to apply divinus directly to a human when he awards the younger Scipio this 59

60 61

Weinstock 1971: 103–07 argues, using Suetonius and Dio, that in 45 bce the senate gave Caesar and his descendents this title. Pompey’s sons put the title on coins referring to their father and themselves (Weinstock 1971: 104). Cicero’s use of the term in this speech for Pompey seems to anticipate its role in later Republican propaganda (44). Price 1984: 246. In late Republican prose, Caesar uses the adjective four times and Sallust uses it eight times. In both authors it always appears in a non-metaphorical reference to the gods except for Sallust’s report of non-Romans’ perception of Marius (see below p. 52 n. 82). The eulogistic Nepos has it just twice, once for sacrifice but another as a tentative appraisal of Atticus’ foresight and composure (Att. 9). Lucretius uses it fourteen times and Catullus has it twice. There are 359 instances in Cicero, 4 of which are found in the Pro lege Manilia. The only pre-Christian rivals are Seneca (90) and Livy (71). Classen 1963 briefly but usefully connects Cicero’s use of the adjective to contemporary movements toward divinization. See Leschhorn 1985 for a catalogue of Cicero’s use of divinus for humans. The presence of Leschhorn’s appendix in Alföldi’s study of Caesar and the year 44 bce recognizes a connection between Cicero’s language and experiments with divinization at Rome.

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novel distinction in the coming years.62 Although Cicero seems to have been highly innovative with his use of this language, any precedents should not govern our appraisal of meaning in this charged new context. Cicero the praetor is presenting the divine qualities of a man who is showered with divine honors in the larger Roman world, and this language carries its own particular force in this situation. The approach of singling out a specific quality of Pompey’s as divine (virtus) is complemented by other strategies for divine association in this speech, both covert and overt. Cicero continually urges his audience to set Pompey in comparison with other Romans. Pompey’s arrival in a province is one such point of contrast that Cicero draws (13): vident et sentiunt hoc idem quod vos, unum virum esse in quo summa sint omnia et eum propter esse, quo etiam carent aegrius; cuius adventu ipso atque nomine, tametsi ille ad maritimum bellum venerit, tamen impetus hostium repressos esse intellegunt ac retardatos, hi vos, quoniam libere loqui non licet, taciti rogant ut se quoque sicut ceterarum provinciarum socios dignos existimetis quorum salutem tali viro commendetis atque hoc etiam magis, quod ceteros in provincias eius modi homines cum imperio mittimus, ut, etiamsi ab hoste defendant, tamen ipsorum adventus in urbis sociorum non multum ab hostili expugnatione differant, hunc audiebant antea, nunc praesentem vident tanta temperantia, tanta mansuetudine, tanta humanitate, ut ii beatissimi esse videantur, apud quos ille diutissime commoretur. They see and feel the same thing that you do, that there is one man in whom the loftiest things exist and that he is nearby, for which reason they go even more unwillingly without him; and by his very arrival and the mention of his name, even if he has come for naval war, they nevertheless understand that the enemies’ attacks are slowed down and pushed back, these men who silently ask you, since they are not permitted to speak freely, 62

Mur. 75 (63 bce): non divini hominis Africani mors honestaretur (as if the death of the divine man, Africanus, was not being honored). Cf. Arch. 16 (62 bce): ex hoc esse hunc numero, quem patres nostri viderunt, divinum hominem Africanum, ex hoc Laelium (he was of this number, whom our fathers saw, the divine man, Africanus, Laelius was of this number as well). An early, and snide, usage for Scipio Aemilianus’ vox survives from Porcius Licinus, who imagines Terence listening to Scipio (Court. fr. 2.2): dum Africani vocem divinam inhiat avidis auribus (while he gaped at the divine voice of Africanus with greedy ears). Cf. Cicero’s usage at De oratore 1.40: Galbam . . . divinum hominem in dicendo (Galba, a man divine in speaking). Almost all the Republican examples we have for the use of divinus in a way similar to this De oratore passage (TLL s.v. divinus 1624.11–33 translate praeclarus, eximius) outside of poetry are Ciceronian, so it probably was not yet a “commonplace” even if it became one after the late Republic. TLL cites Ennius Ann. 16 Sk. (the divinum pectus [divine understanding] granted to Anchises by Venus) first in this category (1624.11), but it arguably belongs in 1623.76ff. as meaning ad divinationem pertinens; praesciens futuri (pertaining to divination; knowledge of the future).

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to judge them worthy of his protection as well, just like the allies from the rest of the provinces, whose well-being you commend to such a man, and all the more because the other men whom we send with power of command into provinces are of such a sort that, even if they defend them from the enemy, nevertheless their own arrivals in the allies’ cities do not differ greatly from enemy assaults. They heard of this man Pompey before; now they see him present with such self-restraint, such gentleness, such humanity that those people seem to them to be most blessed, among whom he remains as long as possible.

The basic point is clear enough and largely accurate: Pompey is not a rapacious criminal. The way the point is made subtly suggests something more. Pompey is sought out to provide for a people’s salus (salutem tali viro commendetis). An adventus of another Roman might provoke the dread normally reserved for enemies, while the adventus of Pompey is greeted with the expectation (cuius adventu ipso atque nomine) reserved for a divine epiphany.63 Cicero’s language likens Pompey’s presence to that of a praesens deus: hunc audiebant antea, nunc praesentem vident tanta temperantia, tanta mansuetudine, tanta humanitate, ut ii beatissimi esse videantur, apud quos ille diutissime commoretur.64 Cicero’s audience at Rome gets an imaginative representation of Pompey’s reception suggestive of contemporary ritual practices in the Roman world: around this time Pompey is received in Athens with divine honors.65 Later in the speech Cicero returns to the reception of Pompey in the Greek east. His formulation of Pompey’s divine status is more direct (40–42): postremo signa et tabulas ceteraque ornamenta Graecorum oppidorum, quae ceteri tollenda esse arbitrantur, ea sibi ille ne visenda quidem existimavit. itaque omnes nunc in iis locis Cn. Pompeium sicut aliquem non ex hac urbe missum, sed de caelo delapsum intuentur; nunc denique incipiunt credere fuisse homines Romanos hac quondam continentia, quod iam nationibus exteris incredibile ac falso memoriae proditum videbatur . . . et quisquam dubitabit, quin huic hoc tantum bellum

63

64

65

Cf. Lucretius’ Venus (1.6–7): te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli j adventumque tuum (you, goddess, you the winds do flee, you the clouds of heaven – you and your coming). The multiple connotations of adventus, which is also used in more mundane contexts for humans, bring a charged ambivalence that is ideally suited for Cicero’s purposes. See TLL s.v. praesens 839.22–54 on the use of praesens with divinities. Cf. the praesens deus patron at Terence Ph. 345: ea qui praebet, non tu hunc habeas plane praesentem deum? (he who provides these things, should you not consider him a present god?), which “goes further than anything in Plautus”: Fantham 1972: 64. Weinstock 1971: 290.

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The cultural work of metaphor transmittendum sit, qui ad omnia nostrae memoriae bella conficienda divino quodam consilio natus esse videatur? Finally, the statues and paintings and other adornments of the Greek towns, which the rest judged should be removed, he deemed that he ought not even see. Therefore all those now in those places look upon Gnaeus Pompeius not as one sent from this city but fallen from heaven; now, at last, they begin to believe that there were once Roman men with this level of self-control, which seemed to foreign nations unbelievable and to have been erroneously transmitted to memory . . . And will anyone doubt that this war, which is so great, should be handed over to him, who seems to have been born by some divine counsel in order to complete all the wars in our memory?

The evocative language that pointed towards the divine adventus builds to the presentation of Pompey as a heaven-sent savior. Much like the divine rites he described in the Verrines (2.2.158), Cicero reports this more direct perception of divinity as a particularly Greek phenomenon. In fact, much of the very language that Cicero uses for the celebration of Pompey among Greek provincials reappears in a letter to his brother Quintus (Q. fr. 1.1.7, 60/59 bce): nam Graeci quidem sic te ita viventem intuebuntur ut quendam ex annalium memoria aut etiam de caelo divinum hominem esse in provinciam delapsum putent (for the Greeks will see you living in such a way and think a certain divine man out of the history of their annals or even from heaven has come down into their province).66 Differences of context might help explain the omissions and emphases in these similar statements. Cicero, as praetor in 66 bce in a major public speech, betrays a concern to qualify that is less evident in the later letter to his brother. Cicero gives a rather direct assessment of (perceived) divinity in Quintus’ case (divinum hominem). The status of Pompey in Greece is left open to metaphorical interpretation (sicut) by Cicero’s audience. Although Cicero locates such high reverence in Greece, he claims that it is offered as tribute to Pompey’s display of traditional Roman virtues. Cicero’s allusion to earlier Romans held in such high esteem suggests the likes of Flamininus, whose hymns were still sung in Greece centuries after his death. The merging of Greek and Roman ideas continues in the culmination of this 66

TLL s.v. divinus 1619.75–76 (B.2) cites Cicero’s early combination of divinus and homo in this passage as ad deum, divinitatem pertinens (pertaining to a god, divinity). It is instructive to compare these strikingly similar passages: Cicero uses divinus in his letter to Quintus but does not apply this adjective directly to Pompey in his speech. Quintus’ virtutes are here also abstracted for divinization (1.1.31): tuas virtutes consecratas et in deorum numero collocatas vides (you see your virtues consecrated and placed in the number of the gods).

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passage where the notion of a god-sent savior Pompey, first presented as a Greek attitude held in Greece, now shifts to Rome: et quisquam dubitabit, quin huic hoc tantum bellum transmittendum sit, qui ad omnia nostrae memoriae bella conficienda divino quodam consilio natus esse videatur? After introducing Pompey’s stature among Greeks, Cicero proposes quite a similar belief at Rome, framing it as a question. Cicero’s formulation of Pompey’s relationship to the divine again shuns definitive claims. Pompey seems to have been born (natus esse videatur) to put an end to all wars. The syntax of divinum consilium here might be purposefully ambiguous. Was Pompey born by some divine plan? Or are the wars to be brought to a successful conclusion by his divine strategy, much like earlier in the speech (10): Cn. Pompei divino consilio ac singulari virtute depulsum est? The resurfacing of the phrase divinum consilium is useful as we attempt to gauge the force of divinus in an oratorical venue. In this second example (divino quodam consilio natus esse videatur) the scales drop decisively toward “divine,” with Cicero’s quodam diluting its potency.67 There is an improvisational quality to Cicero’s handling of Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia, as might be expected in what was the first extended public display of its type in Rome. A Roman general’s relation to the divine had never been so painstakingly parsed out in a speech. There was no routinized pattern of divinization at Rome ready for Cicero to follow. This experimental nature of the speech as well as Cicero’s strategic reluctance to jar Roman religious sensibilities called for a variety of approaches. The different tactics that Cicero uses to negotiate Pompey’s superhuman status in the Pro lege Manilia tend toward different, sometimes contrary, results. Before his full exploration of Pompey’s felicitas, Cicero subordinates the great general to his audience by attributing his prior success to the fortuna populi Romani (45):68 amisissetis Asiam, Quirites, nisi ad ipsum discrimen eius temporis divinitus Cn. Pompeium ad eas regiones Fortuna populi Romani attulisset (You would have lost Asia, citizens, if the Fortune of the Roman people had not, at the most crucial moment of that time, divinely brought Gnaeus Pompeius to those regions). The reference to a divine role in Pompey’s campaign is now a largely

67

68

Nisbet notes in his commentary on De domo sua 1939: 138 how quidam sometimes “softens or tones down an expression which is felt to be inadequate as being too strong”; he adds that “quasi, tamquam, occasionally sicut or velut, can be used to assist the same process.” See Champeaux 1982–87 on the history of Fortuna at Rome and her many manifestations. See Crawford 1974: 460 (440) for a denarius with the head of Fortuna populi Romani issued at the start of the Civil War (49 bce) by the Republican side.

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external one: it is the Fortuna populi Romani that performs divine acts (divinitus)69 by deploying Pompey. Cicero turns to a more thorough account of Pompey’s relationship to fortuna and felicitas in the most celebrated passage of the speech.70 Cicero had already singled out felicitas in prefatory fashion as a crucial attribute of a successful general (28). The need for such special favor in matters of state at Rome is in general a traditional one, as indicated in the De divinatione (1.102): neque solum deorum voces Pythagorei observitaverunt, sed etiam hominum, quae vocant omina. quae maiores nostri quia valere censebant, idcirco omnibus rebus agendis “quod bonum, faustum, felix fortunatumque esset” praefabantur (The Pythagoreans have not only paid attention to the voices of the gods, but also those of men, which they call “omens.” And our ancestors, because they judged these omens to have validity, therefore spoke the phrase, “And may this be good, auspicious, prosperous, and fortunate,” before conducting any matter). Cicero’s reformulation of this old idea for Pompey is a bold maneuver at Rome in 66 bce, but he tempers its novelty with meticulous care (47): reliquum est, ut de felicitate, quam praestare de se ipso nemo potest, meminisse et commemorare de altero possumus, sicut aequum est homines de potestate deorum, timide et pauca dicamus. ego enim sic existimo, Maximo, Marcello, Scipioni, Mario et ceteris magnis imperatoribus non solum propter virtutem, sed etiam propter fortunam saepius imperia mandata atque exercitus esse commissos. fuit enim profecto quibusdam summis viris quaedam ad amplitudinem et ad gloriam et ad res magnas bene gerendas divinitus adiuncta fortuna. de huius autem hominis felicitate, de 69

70

Cicero’s early use of this adverb is heavily weighted toward divine action (e.g. Ver. 1.1, cf. 1.43): quod erat optandum maxime, iudices, et quod unum ad invidiam vestri ordinis infamiamque iudiciorum sedandam maxime pertinebat, id non humano consilio sed prope divinitus datum atque oblatum vobis summo rei publicae tempore videtur (The thing that was most greatly to be hoped, judges, and the one thing that pertained most greatly to calming the envy shown your order and the infamy of the courts seems to have been given and offered to you at the critical moment for the commonwealth not by human counsel but in an almost divine way). His qualifying prope intimates the adverb’s potent connotations. Divinitus is also used for divine agency at Ver. 2.4.69: illa flamma divinitus exstitisse videatur, non quae deleret Iovis Optimi Maximi templum, sed quae praeclarius magnificentiusque deposceret (The flame may seem to have appeared by divine agency, not in order to destroy the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus but render it more illustrious and magnificent). See also similar Lucretian usage (1.149–50): principium cuius hinc nobis exordia sumet, j nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus umquam (And the beginning will, in our case, commence from this point: that no thing is ever divinely generated out of nothing). Cf. also 5.52–54 on Epicurus. Fears (1981: 798) asserts that the primary difference between fortuna and felicitas is one of degree: “In the ‘De lege Manilia,’ felicitas and fortuna are not mere synonyms; felicitas conveys a more profound and concrete sense of divinely granted success.” So too Weinstock 1971: 113: “The favours of Fortuna led to felicitas.” See Erkell 1952: 43–54 for further discussion of the use of felicitas in political contexts and the connection of felicitas to fortuna.

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quo nunc agimus, hac utar moderatione dicendi, non ut in illius potestate fortunam positam esse dicam, sed ut praeterita meminisse, reliqua sperare videamur, ne aut invisa dis immortalibus oratio nostra aut ingrata esse videatur. It remains for us to speak timidly and briefly concerning “good fortune,” which no one can provide from his own resources but which we are able to remember and recount concerning another person, just as it is just for men to do concerning the power of the gods. For I judge in this way that commands were allotted and armies committed to Maximus, Marcellus, Scipio, Marius, and the rest of the great generals not only because of their courage but also quite often because of their fortune. For certain outstanding men really had a certain fortune divinely joined to them that helped toward their grandeur, their glory, and accomplishing great deeds well. About the good fortune of this man, however, concerning whom we are now dealing, let me use such moderation in speaking, not that I might say that good fortune is placed in his power, but that we might seem to remember things past and hope for the things that remain, lest our speech seem either offensive or ungrateful to the immortal gods.

From the outset of this exposition, Cicero underscores the concern for proper measure. He places felicitas in the domain of the gods (de potestate deorum), a domain that humans can enter upon only with deep respect for proprietary restrictions (timide et pauca dicamus). Cicero, a man much occupied with rhetorical taxonomies and registers, is in the process of calibrating the standards for an emerging discourse at Rome. One of his guidelines is operative throughout much of late Republican literature: praestare de se ipso nemo potest, meminisse et commemorare de altero possumus.71 Cicero follows his own injunctions to appraise Pompey by juxtaposing him with other Roman generals (27, 36). As with the earlier comparison with Lucullus (27), it is Pompey’s felicitas and its consequences that set him apart from other Romans, closer in proximity to the gods. The illustrious Romans here are situated above a Lucullus by a divine association similar to the one just used for Pompey (45): a manifestation of Fortuna has divinely guided them. After this demarcation, Cicero turns to address Pompey’s felicitas. He is again self-referential about his careful selection of language (hac utar moderatione dicendi), much as in his earlier programmatic declaration of seeking due measure for the extraordinary Pompey (3).

71

Although Cicero himself flagrantly disregards this taboo when he finds spokesmen for his own accomplishments lacking.

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To avoid irking the gods (ne aut invisa dis immortalibus oratio nostra aut ingrata esse videatur), Cicero brackets Pompey’s many accomplishments in a praeteritio (48): itaque non sum praedicaturus, quantas ille res domi militiae, terra marique, quantaque felicitate gesserit, ut eius semper voluntatibus non modo cives adsenserint, socii obtemperarint, hostes oboedierint, sed etiam venti tempestatesque obsecundarint; hoc brevissime dicam, neminem umquam tam impudentem fuisse, qui ab dis immortalibus tot et tantas res tacitus auderet optare, quot et quantas di immortales ad Cn. Pompeium detulerunt. Therefore, I am not going to proclaim how many things that man successfully accomplished at home and on campaign, by land and sea, and with what great good fortune, so that it was not merely the case that citizens always assented to his wishes, allies complied with them, and enemies obeyed them, but that even the winds and the storms followed them; let me say this as briefly as possible: no one was ever so impudent that he should dare silently to desire so many and such great things from the immortal gods as the immortal gods have conferred upon Gnaeus Pompeius.

At first this presentation of Pompey’s conquests and benefactions seems to be in tension with the surrounding claims of sensitivity to divine prerogatives. Among the marvels Cicero is not going to talk about is his control of weather, a power normally attributed to gods, as it is for Venus in Lucretius (1.6–7) and Jupiter in Catullus (64.205–06).72 We then hear that the gods themselves have shared this exceptional power with Pompey. What follows is the most direct formulation of Pompey’s felicitas: a constant, exclusive flow of divine favor that amounts to a prized public asset.73 This presentation of Pompey as a savior sent from the gods reverberates at the end of this passage (49): quare cum et bellum sit ita necessarium, ut neglegi non possit, ita magnum, ut accuratissime sit administrandum, et cum ei imperatorem praeficere possitis, in quo sit eximia belli scientia, singularis virtus, clarissima

72

73

See MacCormack 1981: 24–26 on how control of the natural order becomes a commonplace in late imperial panegyric celebrating the adventus (advent) of the emperor as a praesens divus (present god). Fears 1981: 799 stresses the connection of this particular passage to Hellenistic panegyric and Cicero’s role in adapting these conventions at Rome: “This last theme, that the safety of the state is dependent upon well-being of the charismatic leader, was a well established motif in Hellenistic royal panegyrics. It is a monarchical concept, expressing the very quintessence of theocratic authority. Its appearance here in the ‘De lege Manilia’ is its first extant statement in a Roman source; and it points to the fundamental importance of this speech as a document in the evolution at Rome of charismatic monarchy, based upon the image of the leader as the divinely chosen guardian of the commonwealth. Furthermore, the ‘De lege Manilia’ reveals the crucial role of Cicero in shaping those currents of thought which made theocratic monarchy acceptable at Rome.”

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auctoritas, egregia fortuna, dubitatis, Quirites, quin hoc tantum boni, quod vobis a dis immortalibus oblatum et datum est, in rem publicam conservandam atque amplificandam conferatis? Why, since the war is so necessary that it cannot be neglected, so great that it must be directed as accurately as possible, and since you are able to put a general over it in whom there is the foremost knowledge of war, singular courage, the most illustrious authority, and outstanding good fortune, why, citizens, do you hesitate to confer this great good, which has been offered and given you by the immortal gods, for the preservation and enlargement of the commonwealth?

After being described as divina atque incredibilis (33, 36), Pompey’s virtus is once again singularis, as it was at the beginning of the speech (10). He is endowed with egregia fortuna, which is synonymous with felicitas since Cicero is here reiterating the four cardinal attributes of the superior general that he had previously set forth. Cicero vivifies the idea of the saving gift by turning Pompey into an abstraction: Quirites, quin hoc tantum boni, quod vobis a dis immortalibus oblatum et datum est, in rem publicam conservandam atque amplificandam conferatis? The divinely ordained savior figure, the Hellenistic idea that Cicero would readapt soon, is what he arrives at in the final segment of his inquiry into the nature of Pompey’s felicitas (50): aut cur non ducibus dis immortalibus eidem, cui cetera summa cum salute rei publicae commissa sunt, hoc quoque bellum regium committamus? (Or why should we not, under the leadership of the immortal gods, also commit this royal war to the same man to whom everything else has been committed along with the highest welfare of the commonwealth?). Pompey is offered as Rome’s new savior to Cicero’s audience, a role much like the soter distinction that divinizing honors at Mytilene give to Pompey.74 The manifold approaches to Pompey’s divinity in the Pro lege Manilia do not coalesce to form a single, distinct profile. He is said to possess divine qualities independently, he is invested with exceptional divine favor, and he is figured as an agent of the gods. The immanent hesitations and variations are indeed functions of the orator’s need to modulate scrupulously language that could accommodate and establish new ideas about divinity that were emerging at Rome. The final assessment of Pompey’s status in this speech contains an adroit balance of exaltation and qualification that Cicero sought in his presentation of Pompey (59): quo minus certa est hominum ac minus diuturna vita, hoc magis res publica, dum per deos immortales licet, frui debet summi viri vita atque virtute (To the 74

See Fishwick 1987: 47 on this and other divinizing honors offered to Pompey in the Greek east.

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same degree as the life of human beings is less certain and less long-lasting, to that same degree the commonwealth, so long as it is permitted by the immortal gods, ought to enjoy the life and courage of the most outstanding man). Pompey’s presence is courtesy of the immortals but time-bound by the constraints of mortality.

Speculations and metaphorical frames: the consular year speeches At the very outset of his consulship in 63 bce Cicero leads the resistance to the agrarian law proposed by the new tribune Rullus, who may have been serving as Caesar’s front-man. Cicero aims to wrest the word popularis (populist) from the law’s sponsors by fashioning himself as the popularis consul.75 Eager to establish his own democratic credentials, Cicero reminds the citizens of the stand he took as praetor for the popular Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia (De lege agraria 2.49). Cicero’s recollection refers to his preoccupation with maintaining Pompey’s reputation, but passes over the lengths to which he went to elevate and divinize Pompey. Cicero does, however, note and embrace Pompey’s unique supremacy by imagining a letter to Pompey from Rullus, who would fail to use Pompey’s proper, Alexander-evoking title (2.53).76 This first series of consular speeches (De lege agraria 1–3) also picks up divinizing words and concepts from the Pro lege Manilia and redistributes them. Felicitas is not reserved solely for Pompey but is granted to Lucius Mummius as well in Cicero’s speech on the law to the senate (1.5).77 Cicero also imputes divinum consilium (Font. 25; Man. 10) to the Roman ancestors who had the foresight to leave Capua in a weakened condition (2.90): neque vero ea res fefellit homines divina mente et consilio praeditos (nor in truth did that matter deceive men endowed with divine understanding and counsel). In this particular context, it is tempting to take divinus not as a facet of any new tendencies toward the divinization of humans at Rome but simply as an adjective that Romans would naturally associate with special predictive acumen. However, a question posed in the ensuing discussion suggests that Cicero could have something more in mind (2.95): haec qui prospexerint, maiores nostros dico, Quirites, non eos in deorum immortalium numero venerandos a nobis et colendos putatis? (Do you not think that we should venerate and worship those who foresaw these things – I mean our ancestors, citizens – in the 75 76 77

His interrogation of this term anticipates similar treatments in Rep. and Sest. Cicero, on the other hand, duly stresses the title and its provenance at Arch. 24. Cf. Murena’s felicitas in 63 bce (Mur. 38).

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number of the immortal gods?).78 This can be read as a rhetorical question, referring to the cultivation of the ancestral Manes rites. But this propositional frame can also suggest that he is referring to a type of ancestral veneration different from the familiar Manes rites that were focused on spirits of the dead. In the coming months and years Cicero would present innovative ideas about a divine posthumous status for Romans. These speculations explore an astral immortality conceptually distinct from the undifferentiated, underworld Manes spirits.79 And unlike gestures that assimilate a living Roman to Jupiter (Pro Roscio Amerino; masquerading as Jupiter in triumphal ritual) or those that assert divine capacities or favor (Pro lege Manilia), Cicero increasingly explores forms of apotheosis. Viewed retrospectively, this brief tantalizing remark can signal a departure in Cicero’s religious experimentation. As Cicero’s own religious speculations focus increasingly on a merit-based posthumous divinity, his prominent public portrayal of Pompey as Hellenistic man–god comes to represent an early experiment with earthly divinity abandoned by Cicero but later realized with the deification of the living Julius Caesar. Cicero’s other consular speeches begin to consider the type of posthumous immortality and divinity that prominent Romans might obtain through their benefactions. In the Pro Rabirio, Cicero again takes up cause against the popular party in his defense of Gaius Rabirius. The elderly Rabirius was charged with the murder of the tribune Saturninus, a scourge of the senatorial oligarchy who was killed some thirty-seven years earlier after the senate had issued the senatus consultum ultimum (emergency decree of the senate) urging the consuls to protect the Republic. Cicero argues that every good man obeyed the consuls and took up arms against 78

79

Cf. Cicero’s use of the phrase “in deorum numero” at Q. fr. 1.1.31 (60/59 bce): tuas virtutes consecratas et in deorum numero collocatas vides (you see your virtues consecrated and placed in the number of the gods). Also, Lucretius on the deification of Epicurus (5.49–51): haec igitur qui cuncta subegerit ex animoque j expulerit dictis, non armis, nonne decebit j hunc hominem numero divom dignarier esse? (He, therefore, who overcame all these things and drove them out of mind by his words, not his weapons, will it not be fitting to esteem this man to be in the number of the gods?). Caesar, like Lucretius, has the phrase without a preposition (Gal. 6.21.1–2): Germani multum ab hac consuetudine differunt. nam neque druides habent, qui rebus divinis praesint, neque sacrificiis student. deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt et quorum aperte opibus iuvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lunam, reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt (The Germans differ greatly from this custom, for they neither have Druids to be in charge of divine affairs, nor are they zealous for sacrifices. They consider only those to be in the number of the gods, whom they perceive and by whose resources they are plainly helped: the Sun, Vulcan, and the Moon; the rest they do not accept even from tradition). Similar usage at Catil. 4.15 points to a meaning of “considered to be” or “classified as.” As part of the underworld the Manes are connected to the di inferi (e.g. CIL 10.2936, 6.13388) as opposed to the gods above (di superi). See Scheid 1993 and Hopkins 1983: 227 on the chthonic orientation of the Manes.

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Saturninus. Foremost among them was Cicero’s fellow Arpinate, Marius. Cicero deftly uses Marius to defend senatorial authority, but his treatment of Marius goes beyond the needs of the moment (27): C. Marium, quem vere patrem patriae, parentem, inquam, vestrae libertatis atque huiusce rei publicae possumus dicere, sceleris ac parricidi nefarii mortuum condemnabimus? (Shall we condemn Gaius Marius, whom we are truly able to call father of the fatherland, the parent, I say, of your freedom and of that of this commonwealth, to death for wickedness and nefarious parricide?). The title pater patriae appears here for the first time in the extant Latin corpus; a similar title (parens patriae) would eventually become part of Caesar’s cult. It is possibly a fresh Roman variation of a familiar analogy, one that Cicero soon takes for himself, coveting and cultivating its network of associations.80 Foremost among these associations would be the notion of the founder of a city, as Ennius’ Romulus (Ann. 106–108 Sk.): o Romule, Romule die, j qualem te patriae custodem di genuerunt! j o pater o genitor o sanguen dis oriundum! (“O Romulus, divine Romulus, what a guardian for the fatherland the gods have begotten in you! O father, O begetter, O blood arisen from the gods!”). Cicero indirectly displaces Romulus with his praise of Marius (parentem, inquam, . . . huiusce rei publicae possumus dicere) (cf. Div. 1.3: huius urbis parens Romulus [Romulus, parent of this city]), or at least presents him as an epigonal savior who merits public gratitude like that showered upon Romulus. This association of Marius and Romulus was supposedly made by the Romans after his victory over the Cimbri at Vercellae when they hailed Marius as Rome’s third founder (the second was Camillus). Plutarch writes that in addition to this title he was given food offering and libations along with the gods, making him an early example of a living Roman receiving divine honors (Mar. 27.9). Cicero pushes the Romulus analogy further in the Pro Rabirio when he considers the possibility of Marius crossing the line to divinity (29): “quid iam ista C. Mario” inquit “nocere possunt? quoniam sensu et vita caret?” itane vero? tantis in laboribus C. Marius periculisque vixisset, si nihil longius quam vitae termini postulabant spe atque animo de se et gloria sua cogitasset? at, credo, cum innumerabilis hostium copias in Italia fudisset atque obsidione rem publicam liberasset, omnia sua secum una moritura arbitrabatur. non est ita, Quirites, neque quisquam 80

See Stevenson 1992 for a history of the father/ruler analogy in Greece and Rome and Alföldi 1978 on relationships between this language and Roman concepts such as conditor (founder) and servator (savior). Weinstock 1971: 200–05 discusses how Cicero’s use of parens/pater patriae (parent/father of the fatherland) anticipates uses of these terms with ob cives servatos (for citizens saved) on early imperial coinage.

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nostrum in rei publicae periculis cum laude ac virtute versatur, quin spe posteritatis fructuque ducatur. “What harm,” he says, “can those things now do to Gaius Marius? – seeing that he lacks sensation and life.” Is this so in truth? Would Gaius Marius have lived in such great labors and dangers, if he had thought in hope and soul, concerning himself and his glory, of nothing longer than what the bounds of life demanded? So I suppose when he had routed the countless hosts of the enemy in Italy and freed the commonwealth from siege, he deemed that everything of his was going to perish along with him. This is not so, citizens, nor does any one of us spend his time in the dangers of the commonwealth with praise and valor, unless led by the hope and enjoyment of posterity.

Cicero does much more in this passage than simply pay conventional homage to Marius. He gradually leaves behind the particulars of Marius’ career and proceeds to unfold a theory of immortality that applies to other Romans, including himself and his audience members. Marius’ own intentions are surmised first, and then Cicero ascribes similar ambitions about surviving into posterity to himself and other political players at Rome. The concepts of gloria and posteritas suggest a conventional “afterlife” akin to the Homeric kleos. Indeed, Cicero’s Pro Archia of 62 bce on the immortalizing powers of poetry lifts precise phrasing from this passage.81 Although the desire for an eternally abiding reputation will motivate Roman statesmen, Cicero claims in the Pro Rabirio that more than just their names and deeds might live on after their death. He connects service to the state and its concomitant prestige to a transition to immortality and divinity (29–30): itaque cum multis aliis de causis virorum bonorum mentes divinae mihi atque aeternae videntur esse, tum maxime quod optimi et sapientissimi cuiusque animus ita praesentit in posterum, ut nihil nisi sempiternum spectare videatur. quapropter equidem et C. Mari et ceterorum virorum sapientissimorum ac fortissimorum civium mentis, quae mihi videntur ex hominum vita ad deorum religionem et sanctimoniam demigrasse, testor 81

At Arch. 29. As we might expect in this speech for a poet, Cicero goes on to privilege immortalization by poetry over more concrete media (30), much like Virgil G. 3.1–46 and Horace Carm. 3.30. Ennius’ poetry had an immortalizing effect for Cato (Arch. 22): in caelum huius proavus Cato tollitur (his ancestor Cato is lifted to the sky), which is perhaps what Cicero had in mind with his poem on Marius. Cicero claims, much like Ennius, Virgil, and Horace, that these poetic powers give the poet a type of immortality (Arch. 18, 31). At Arch. 31 poets are said to be worthy of divine commendation (non modo humana, verum etiam divina in tantis ingeniis commendatio debet esse) and are also said to be sanctified by all (qui semper apud omnis sancti sunt habiti).

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Earlier in the year Cicero presented the idea of worshiping worthy Romans as gods (Agr. 2.95). More details are now provided here: the mentes of the boni – not everyone – are divine and immortal (virorum bonorum mentes divinae mihi atque aeternae videntur esse)82 because they have migrated to a divine status after bodily death (quae mihi videntur ex hominum vita ad deorum religionem et sanctimoniam demigrasse). A mens divina carries lofty connotations; it is attributed to none other than Jupiter in Cicero’s poetry from this period.83 The phrase has Stoic facets but in this public speech it is put to new purpose. Cicero presents his novel theory about Marius as such (mihi . . . videntur) in the Pro Rabirio because this is indeed a truly speculative and provocative proposal to hear from the consul at this point in time at Rome. Cicero concludes this discussion with an appeal to self-interest (30): etenim, Quirites, exiguum nobis vitae curriculum natura circumscripsit, immensum gloriae. quare si eos, qui iam de vita decesserunt, ornabimus, iustiorem nobis mortis condicionem relinquemus (For indeed,

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Sallust reports that Marius won repute among allies and enemies (i.e. non-Romans) for a mens divina and superhuman stature after his success at Capsa (Jug. 92): postquam tantam rem Marius sine ullo suorum incommodo peregit, magnus et clarus antea, maior atque clarior haberi coepit. omnia non bene consulta in virtutem trahebantur: milites, modesto imperio habiti simul et locupletes, ad caelum ferre; Numidae magis quam mortalem timere; postremo omnes, socii atque hostes, credere illi aut mentem divinam esse aut deorum nutu cuncta portendi (After Marius had accomplished so great a thing without any discomfiture to his own men, he, who was held great and illustrious before, began to be considered greater and more illustrious. For all things not well thought-out were ascribed to his courage: the soldiers, at the same time restrained by his mild command and made wealthy under it, raised him to the skies; the Numidians feared him as more than mortal; finally all, allies and enemies alike, believed that he either had a divine mind or that he predicted everything by the will of the gods). At Div. 1.120 divina mens is used for divine will or purpose. Cons. fr. 10.3 Courtney, where the muse Urania presents a Stoicized Jupiter.

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citizens, nature has limited the course of our life to narrow bounds, but that of glory to vast ones. And therefore, if we adorn those who have already departed life, we will leave behind more just terms of death for ourselves). He is candid about the experimental quality of his ideas that will involve a change from current practice, and the fact that he and his audience members may someday benefit from the adoption of such innovative ideas. Cicero’s suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy and the subsequent avalanche of honors prompted him to disregard his own admonitions in the Pro lege Manilia (47) against attributing divine favor and features to oneself. As with his careful handling of Pompey, Cicero’s language is daringly suggestive but not prescriptive. Cicero works with a range of strategies that construct different sorts of approximations to the divine and entail various types and degrees of divinity. The consul works off contemporary discursive strategies that are increasingly being used to elevate late Republican leaders toward the divine. He self-assimilates with Jupiter and also compares himself to the deified Romulus. These tactics are instrumental to a larger effort in the speeches: Cicero framing himself as a savior figure to Rome. The concept of divinum consilium returns not as Cicero’s own possession, as it was Pompey’s (Man. 10), but as direction and protection from the gods during this crisis of his consulship (Mur. 82): qui locus est, iudices, quod tempus, qui dies, quae nox cum ego non ex istorum insidiis ac mucronibus non solum meo sed multo etiam magis divino consilio eripiar atque evolem? (What place is there, judges, what time, what day, what night, when I have not been snatched and have not flown away from the ambushes and daggers of those men not only by my own counsel but much more yet by divine counsel?).84 The divine guidance that directed Pompey’s campaigns in the east (Man. 50) now oversees Cicero’s actions in Rome (Catil. 2.29): quae quidem ego neque mea prudentia neque humanis consiliis fretus polliceor vobis, Quirites, sed multis et non dubiis deorum immortalium significationibus, quibus ego ducibus in hanc spem sententiamque sum ingressus; qui iam non procul, ut quondam solebant, ab externo hoste atque longinquo, sed hic praesentes suo numine atque auxilio sua templa atque urbis tecta defendunt. And I promise these things to you, citizens, relying neither on my own prudence nor on human counsels, but on the many and distinct signs from 84

A letter to Atticus in 61 bce suggests that there is conviction in Cicero’s claims of divine favor in his consulship (Att. 1.16.6).

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the immortal gods, under their leadership I have entered into this hope and opinion; they now defend their temples and the buildings of this city not from afar against a foreign and distant enemy, as they customarily do, but they are present here with their power and aid.

A specific divinity that Cicero had represented as in charge of Pompey, Fortuna Populi Romani (Man. 45), is also arrayed against Catiline (Catil. 1.15): cum scias . . . sceleri ac furori tuo non mentem aliquam aut timorem tuum sed Fortunam populi Romani obstitisse? (though you know that it is not some intention or your fear that has stood against your wickedness and madness, but the Fortune of the Roman people?). This both elevates Cicero’s actions and underpins the more explicit alignment of the civic benefactions of Cicero and Pompey in the speeches. The Catilinarian Orations pick up strands from other consular year speeches like Pro Rabirio and weave them into a larger nexus of propaganda that Cicero disseminates about his consulship. A prominent part of this self-aggrandizement is Cicero’s fashioning of himself, as he had done with Marius at Pro Rabirio 27, as a successor to Romulus. Cicero delivered the first Catilinarian Oration to the senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator. The temple had been vowed by Romulus during Rome’s first great military struggle: the battle with the Sabines after the rape of the Sabine women. Cicero activates these historical associations of this temple in his speech to liken his “war” with Catiline to Romulus’ war with the Sabines.85 At the close of the first Catilinarian, Cicero connects crises past and present in a direct appeal for the aid of Jupiter Stator. He implores the god to help eradicate Catiline and his followers and recalls archaic battles as he makes reference to Romulus’ establishment of the temple and his foundation of the city (33). A shift from implicit to explicit comparison is made from the first Catilinarian to the third as Cicero’s audience changes from senators to the people. Latent connections to Romulus are made for the senators, but in front of the people Cicero’s evocation of Romulus is direct and highly provocative. He opens the third oration by declaring that Rome and all its inhabitants have been saved from annihilation (1): rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum immortalium summo erga vos amore, laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis e

85

Vasaly 1993: 40–87.

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flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibis fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis. The commonwealth, citizens, and all your lives, property, and fortunes, your wives and children, and this abode of the most illustrious rule, the most fortunate and most beautiful city – today you see that highest love that the immortal gods have for you and my labors, plans, and risks have snatched these blessings from the fire and sword, even the very jaws of death, and rescued and restored them for you.

Cicero presents this rescue as due to the conjoined efforts of the gods (deorum immortalium summo erga vos amore) and the consul (laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis), with a decided tilt toward the latter. What follows is provocative speculation on the relative value of Cicero’s service to the state (2): et si non minus nobis iucundi atque inlustres sunt ii dies quibus conservamur quam illi quibus nascimur, quod salutis certa laetitia est, nascendi incerta condicio et quod sine sensu nascimur, cum voluptate servamur, profecto, quoniam illum qui hanc urbem condidit ad deos immortalis benevolentia famaque sustulimus, esse apud vos posterosque vestros in honore debebit is qui eandem hanc urbem conditam amplificatamque servavit. And if those days on which we are saved are no less pleasant and illustrious to us than those on which we are born, because the happiness of our safety is certain but the situation of birth uncertain and because we are born without perception while are preserved with pleasure, surely, since we have, through good-will and and tradition, exalted him who founded this city to the immortal gods, he who preserved this same city when it had been established and enlarged ought to be held in honor among you and your descendants.

The structure of this passage is quite syllogistic: being saved is actually more significant than being born, you deified the leader who gave birth to the city – what can you do to honor properly the leader who saved the city?86 Cicero’s sights here are not only on the present but also on posterity (apud vos posterosque vestros), as they were in the recent discussion of Marius’ immortality at Pro Rabirio 29. These lines are also laden with language of civic salvation that becomes central to Cicero’s elevation (and justification) of his consulship (conservatam . . . conservamur . . . servamur . . . 86

See also Buchheit 1973: 491–93 for analysis of this passage. Lucretius uses logic similar to Cicero’s to make the case for the divinity of Epicurus at 5.27–54: since Hercules, whose feats pale in comparison to those of Epicurus, is considered a god, surely Epicurus ought to be considered a god.

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is qui eandem hanc urbem conditam amplificatamque servavit). Cicero not only likens himself to the deified Romulus, he activates the divine connotations of the savior figure that was celebrated in cities throughout the Mediterranean. Cicero had used this terminology for Pompey – the soter at Mytilene – in the Pro lege Manilia (49), and would apply it to the gods themselves in the Pro Sestio (53). When a person saves or founds a city, as Cicero states in the De re publica, their actions bring them into closest proximity to divinity (1.12). Here in the third Catilinarian Cicero tells his audience that he not only saved the state, but did so with what he deems the greatest war in Rome’s history (25). For his godlike actions of saving the state, Cicero was granted an unprecedented honor, a supplicatio. This public thanksgiving to the gods was normally decreed by the senate for a general in the wake of a crisis.87 As consul Cicero was a prime mover of innovations in this ritual. Before receiving his own unique supplicatio in 63 bce, he had broken with tradition and proposed an extended ten-day supplication for Pompey’s defeat of Mithridates. In doing so, Cicero helped drive a late Republican trend of extended, inflationary supplications that placed greater focus on men rather than gods.88 In the third Catilinarian, Cicero dwells on the novelty of the supplicatio he won (15): atque etiam supplicatio dis immortalibus pro singulari eorum merito meo nomine decreta est, quod mihi primum post hanc urbem conditam togato contigit, et his decreta verbis est: quod urbem incendiis, caede civis, Italiam bello liberassem. quae supplicatio si cum ceteris supplicationibus conferatur, hoc interest quod ceterae bene gesta, haec una conservata re publica constituta est. And a thanksgiving to the immortal gods for their singular favor has even been decreed in my name, which I have been the first civilian to obtain since the foundation of this city, and has been decreed in these words: because I had freed the city from fires, citizens from slaughter, Italy from war. And this thanksgiving, if it were to be compared to other thanksgivings, has this difference, that the rest were established because of services to the commonwealth, but this one alone was resolved because the commonwealth itself has been preserved.

Since this honor was traditionally reserved for victory over external enemies, Cicero was the first civilian to be honored for stemming internal 87 88

On Roman supplicationes see Halkin 1953 and Weinstock 1971. See Wallace-Hadrill 1990 and Hickson-Hahn 2000 on this late Republican shift of emphasis in the public thanksgiving ritual. Cicero’s Prov. 26–27, discussed below on p. 74, is important evidence for this development.

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threats. The previous comparison of Cicero and Romulus resurfaces in this passage as Cicero once again refers to the founding of the city (post hanc urbem conditam) and his rescue of it (haec una conservata re publica constituta est). Cicero takes care in the fourth Catilinarian Oration to share with the senators what he had told the people in his third speech. He makes due mention of his unprecedented supplicatio (4.5) and again looks back to the foundation of the city (4.14). The senators also hear among Cicero’s introductory comments how he was fated to save them and their city (4.1–2),89 a point that merits reiteration towards the close of the speech (18). Cicero also brings Jupiter into play in his different speeches to the senate and to the people. As with his evocation of Romulus, his comparison of himself to Jupiter in the first oration to the senate is oblique. There is faint assimilation as Cicero asks Jupiter to sacrifice (mactabis, 33) just as Cicero presumably did at the start of the meeting of the senate.90 The third Catilinarian Oration, delivered to the people, embarks upon an extended exploration of the roles of Jupiter and Cicero in Rome’s salvation with much less restraint and reservation. Cicero argues that divine involvement cannot be inferred only by the auspicious train of events; it is also almost visible to the naked eye (18). He recollects a prodigy of 65 bce when a statue of Romulus was struck by lightning (19),91 and then notes how the new statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus was being set up just as the conspirators were being led through the forum, ample evidence of the god’s intervention (21).92 Jupiter, who had no share of the credit for saving Rome at the beginning of the speech, can now at least temporarily claim all of it (22): quibus ego si me restitisse dicam, nimium mihi sumam et non sim ferendus: ille, ille Iuppiter restitit; ille Capitolium, ille haec templa, ille cunctam urbem, ille vos omnis salvos esse voluit (And if I were to say that I stood against these men, I would take too much credit for myself and ought not be tolerated: he, Jupiter, stood against them; he wanted the 89

90 91

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meis laboribus vobis populoque Romano dignitas salusque pariatur. . .cur ego non laeter meum consulatum ad salutem populi Romani prope fatalem exstitisse? (so long as dignity and well-being may be produced for you and for the Roman people by my labors . . . why, therefore, should I not rejoice that my consulship has shown itself to be almost ordained by fate for the well-being of the Roman people?). Habinek 1998: 83. Havas 2000: 76–77 argues that Cicero’s mention of this portent is part of a broader effort to connect himself to Romulus by presenting 63 bce as a fatalis annus (fated year) slated for Rome’s second foundation. Cicero’s description of this statue as a solitary Romulus being suckled by the wolf may be tailored to avoid the issue of fratricide. The muse Urania will recall this miraculous timing in Cicero’s Consulatus suus (Court. fr. 10.60ff.).

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Capitoline, these temples, the whole city, and all of you to be safe). After this avowal, Cicero immediately reinsinuates himself into the reckoning (22): dis ego immortalibus ducibus (I, under the guidance of the immortal gods). Jupiter’s role is recalculated in what immediately follows. Cicero cites his supplication vowed on his behalf to the immortals, but then usurps the role of dux (23): me uno togato duce et imperatore vicistis (you conquered with me alone, a civilian, as leader and commander). Jupiter is soon completely supplanted by the consul as Cicero again does what he just previously said would be insufferable: he takes sole credit for saving Rome (25): ita me gessi, Quirites, ut salvi omnes conservaremini . . . et urbem et civis integros incolumisque servavi (For I conducted myself in such a way, citizens, that you all have been preserved safe and sound . . . I have preserved both city and citizens intact and unharmed). Cicero changes tack once again at the close of the speech.93 He claims to accumulate exclusive glory for saving the state (29). The roles of Jupiter and the consul, however, intertwine. Cicero hails Jupiter as Rome’s guardian (29),94 but the emphatic final word of the speech puts Rome’s safety squarely in Cicero’s hands (29): ut in perpetua pace esse possitis providebo (I will look out, that you may be able to be in perpetual peace). Responsibility for Rome’s salvation oscillates between the consul and Jupiter, associating and assimilating them. This cagey role-switching brings to mind the general-asJupiter gestures becoming more willful in contemporary ritual. In a sense, moments of a “virtual triumph” are enacted in the Catilinarians. Since Cicero’s supplicatio aligned his civic benefactions with the conquests of great Roman generals, he expects to abide alongside Pompey in the hearts and minds of people both present and future. Cicero and Pompey are presented as two towering figures, one an Alexander-like empire builder, the other the savior of the seat of empire (26): in animis ego vestris omnis triumphos meos, omnia ornamenta honoris, monumenta gloriae, laudis insignia condi et conlocari volo. nihil me mutum potest delectare, nihil tacitum, nihil denique eius modi quod etiam minus digni adsequi possint. memoria vestra, Quirites, nostrae res alentur, sermonibus crescent, litterarum monumentis inveterascent et conroborabuntur; eandemque diem intellego, quam spero aeternam fore, propagatam 93

94

Quintilian notices Cicero’s studied inconsistency but overlooks the credit he takes for himself (Inst. 11.1.23). Cicero is not Jupiter’s only rival in Catil. 3: Jupiter and Marius share the title of Rome’s guardian (custodem huius urbis, 24, 29). Marius had himself pushed this association when he entered the senate in triumphal costume, offending the senators and necessitating a quick change of clothes (Plut. Mar. 12.5).

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esse et ad salutem urbis et ad memoriam consulatus mei, unoque tempore in hac re publica duos civis exstitisse quorum alter finis vestri imperi non terrae sed caeli regionibus terminaret, alter huius imperi domicilium sedisque servaret. I want all of my triumphs, all the adornments of my honor, all the memorials to my glory, all the emblems of my praise to be established and located in your minds. For nothing silent, nothing quiet is able to delight me, nothing, finally, of that sort which even the less worthy are able to obtain. By your remembrance, citizens, our deeds are nourished, by your talk about them they grow, by literary memorials they wax old and are strengthened; I understand that the same day that I hope is going to be eternal was handed down to posterity both for the well-being of the city and for the memory of my consulship, and that at the same time there arose in this commonwealth two citizens one of whom made the boundaries of your power end not at the regions of earth but at those of heaven and the other saved the home and seat of this power.

Cicero envisions an active process of commemoration and propagation for his consulship, just as he had enshrined Pompey’s victories in the Pro lege Manilia. As praetor, Cicero exalted Pompey with praise yet unheard (as far as we know) in the public sphere at Rome. As consul, he similarly moved beyond traditional tribute and proposed the ten-day supplicatio for Pompey. Cicero stayed in step with Pompey with his novel supplicatio, the first civil supplicatio, and was therefore also deserving of lofty panegyric much like that he had devised for Pompey.95 Cicero’s grandiose language describing Pompey’s world conquest to the people connects to Pompey’s own divinizing propaganda. In Asia Pompey dedicated an inscription claiming that he had extended the boundaries of empire to the ends of the earth.96 A later dedicatory inscription in the temple of Minerva at Rome also celebrated Pompey’s world conquest.97 The inscription at 95

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In a letter to Pompey (Fam. 5.7.3, 62 bce), Cicero mentions hearing of Pompey’s exploits in Asia through Pompey’s dispatch to the senate and magistrates and also wonders why Pompey has not offered congratulations to him for saving Rome, a feat that Cicero claims has won him universal esteem (sed scito ea quae nos pro salute patriae gessimus orbis terrae iudicio ac testimonio comprobari [know well that what we did for the well-being of the fatherland is approved by the judgment and pronouncement of the whole world]). Cicero later tells Atticus that Pompey was returning the favors of public praise in kind by claiming that Cicero had saved the world (Att. 1.19.7, 60 bce) and eulogizing him as Rome’s conservator (savior) (Att. 2.1.6, 60 bce). Diodorus 40.4 quotes the Asia inscription. Cf. the praise of Alexander at Elder Seneca Suas 1.2: idem sunt termini et regni tui et mundi . . . tempus est Alexandrum cum orbe et sole desinere (your kingdom and the world share the same limits . . . it is time for Alexander to stop where the world and sun stop). After Pompey’s triumph in which he supposedly wore Alexander’s cloak (Dio 37.21.3), Pompey set up the inscription at Rome that is recorded by the Elder Pliny (NH 7.95–97). The nude,

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Rome tied Pompey’s global domination to apotheosis by drawing parallels with Alexander, Hercules, and Dionysus. Pompey’s inscription and Cicero’s Third Catilinarian situate the conquests and benefactions of these Roman elites in the ideological framework for apotheosis propagated at Rome by Ennius’ Euhemerus.98 Although Cicero shows faith in the Fourth Catilinarian that his act of salvation will win him due acclaim throughout the Mediterranean (25), he takes the initiative to assure a literary afterlife for his consulship.99 He canvasses for a writer to sing his praises, most notably Posidonius of Rhodes, and sends a draft of his accomplishments in Greek to Atticus, who also draws one up.100 At Rome Cicero produced the controversial Consulatus suus, which likely included a poetic version of the Second Catilinarian Oration (Court. fr. 6–8). Surviving fragments of the poem build on key themes from the Catilinarian Orations: the unprecedented honor of the civil supplicatio and the eclipse of previous military crises (cedant arma togae, concedat laurea linguae [let arms give way to the toga, let the laurel yield to the tongue], Court. fr. 12), and the notion of supplanting or surpassing Romulus (o fortunatam natam me consule Romam! [O fortunate Rome, born under my consulship!], Court. fr. 8).101 The poem also developed the consul’s exceptional relationship with the gods to a degree that provoked censure.102 The strategies of self-aggrandizement in the Catilinarian Orations and the Consulatus suus soon become tools for self-justification and even selfdefense. In the Pro Sulla of 62 bce, spoken in defense of a man accused of being involved with the Catilinarian conspiracy, Cicero insistently returns

98

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larger-than-life statue set up in Pompey’s theater similarly emphasized dominion and conquest by holding an orb in its hand: see Dyson 2010: 103 on the statue and its probable placement in the theater complex. See Bosworth 1999 on Euhemerus, Ennius, and Hellenistic theories that developed connections between conquest, benefaction, and deification. The conception of posterity that Cicero confides to Atticus in 59 bce is quite expansive: he mentions wondering what his fate will be a millennium into the future (Att. 2.5.1). Att. 2.1.1–2, 60 bce. Archias, who had written a poem about Marius (Arch. 19), also supposedly had intentions to start one on Cicero’s consulship (Arch. 28), although as of 61 bce he had made no headway (Att. 1.16.15). Skutsch (1985: 258–59) notes that Ennius’ verses about Romulus (106–09 Sk.: “O Romule, Romule die . . .”) “will not have been far from [Cicero’s] mind” when he composed the line o fortunatam natam me consule Romam. et Iovem illum a quo in concilium deorum advocatur, et Minervam quae artes eum edocuit: quae ille sibi secutus quaedam Graecorum exempla permiserat (both “that Jupiter by whom he is called into the council of the gods” and “Minerva who taught him the arts”: these things he had ventured, having followed certain Greek examples): Quintil. Inst. 11.1.24¼Court. fr. 5a, with commentary on the backlash triggered by the council of the gods passage in the poem. Cicero’s lack of restraint in this poem makes Quintilian wince (Inst. 11.1.24).

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to the language that had positioned him as Rome’s savior in the Catilinarians. Torquatus’ charge that Cicero was a “foreign tyrant” becomes an occasion to recall the salvation (salus) Marius and Cicero each brought to Rome, both city and empire (23).103 He again refers to the signal honor of the togate supplicatio that he earned for Rome’s rescue (85).104 The credit for saving Rome during his consulship is also allocated with calculated inconsistency. Cicero subordinates himself to the gods who, while not directly involved, inspired his actions (40, 43). Elsewhere he privileges the part he played in saving Rome (83): res publica meis laboribus et periculis conservata (the commonwealth saved by my labors and risks).105 His deeds are presented to the audience as immortal ones (de rebus tam claris, tam immortalibus, 27) that were his benefactions to all mortals (ex hoc tanto in omnis mortalis beneficio, 27). Even as his consulship becomes a liability, he continues to employ the primary tactics of 63 bce. In the Pro Flacco of 59 bce,106 Cicero speaks of universal praise exalting his consulship to the heavens,107 a loaded figure of speech similar to one supposedly expressed earlier by Curio (Att. 1.16.13, 61 bce): sed heus tu, videsne consulatum illum nostrum, quem Curio antea ἀποθέωσιν vocabat (but alas, do you see that consulship of ours, which Curio used to call an apotheosis?).108 Cicero also remains brazen enough to press the comparison with Romulus that he had offered for consideration in the introduction to the Third Catilinarian. He, while Clodius was plotting his exile, even pushes past comparison by provisionally staking claim to being Rome’s sole founder 103 104 105 106

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See also Cicero’s conceptually related and similarly grandiose use of salus at 83. Something he would do throughout his career e.g. Pis. 6; Phil. 2.13. As he also does at 26. Cicero revisits Pompey’s divine qualities (gloria divina Pompei) in this speech as well, when Pompey is back in Rome (Flac. 30). In the same year, at Att. 2.21.4, Cicero describes a dejected Pompey who had “fallen from the stars” (deciderat ex astris), previously embellished by Cicero’s arts and now faded (sic ego hunc omnibus a me pictum et politum artis coloribus subito deformatum non sine magno dolore vidi [So I see, not without great pain, him deformed, who was painted and polished by me with all the colors of my art]). (103) sed quid ea commemoro quae tum cum agebantur uno consensu omnium, una voce populi Romani, uno orbis terrae testimonio in caelum laudibus efferebantur (But why do I commemorate those things which were carried into heaven by praises at the time that they were done by one great agreement of all, by one voice of the Roman people, by one testimony of the world?). Sallust at Cat. 48.1 might be accepting Cicero’s assessment: interea plebs coniuratione patefacta, quae primo cupida rerum novarum nimis bello favebat, mutata mente Catilinae consilia execrari, Ciceronem ad caelum tollere (Meanwhile, the plebs, when the conspiracy had been made known, who at first greatly favored the war, being desirous of revolution, now that it had changed its mind cursed Catiline’s plans and raised Cicero to the sky). Cicero frequently uses the phrase in caelo in his contemporary letters to Atticus to mean something like “on top of the world” (Att. 2.1.7, 2.9.1, 2.19.2, 2.20.4). This is among the earliest surviving literary attestations of this Greek word in the ancient corpus.

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(Flac. 102): o Nonae illae Decembres, quae me consule fuistis! quem ego diem vere natalem huius urbis aut certe salutarem appellare possum! (O those Nones of December, you who occurred when I was consul! The day that I can truly call the birthday of this city or certainly the day of its salvation!).109 Although displaced here by the savior of 63 bce, in the coming years Romulus is instrumental in Cicero’s speculations about divine rewards for Roman civic benefactors. And Cicero becomes an even more engaged participant in the process of constituting Roman ideologies of deification. In addition to his continued articulation of this nexus of ideas in his speeches, Cicero begins to produce theoretical explorations of the ways in which Roman savior figures and civic benefactors might achieve divinity and immortality. 109

Cicero tells Atticus in 60 bce that the Nones of December of his consulship, the day the Catilinarian conspirators were executed, was both a pinnacle of “immortal glory” and a source of enmity (Att. 1.19.6).

chapter 2

Experiments and invented traditions

When national guardsmen asked, “Are you of the Nation?” they were not trying merely to identify their friends in troubled times; they were actually helping to create a sense of national community – and, at the same time, they were establishing new ways to oppose that sense of community. Words did not just reflect social and political reality; they were instruments for transforming reality. Lynn Hunt on the French Revolution1

Cross-domain mapping in the post-exilic speeches If Cicero’s consulship could be compared to an apotheosis, his recall in 57 bce from an anguished exile in Thessalonica and Dyrrhachium was yet another moment of triumph to be presented as a sort of transformation. When safely back in Rome in September, Cicero tells Atticus that it is as if he is starting a second life (Att. 4.1.8).2 This metaphor might have had special resonance for Atticus, who was privy to Cicero’s earlier thoughts of suicide (Att. 3.3, 3.7). In his first series of speeches upon his return to Rome, Cicero develops this notion of rebirth and connects it to immortalization through perpetual memory and also the immortality enjoyed by divinity. In the ensuing speeches of the fifties, Cicero continues to erode the distinctions between mortals and gods subtly through metaphorical expression and more directly by disseminating ideas about a divine status for exceptional Romans. Furthermore, the concepts of apotheosis and immortalization that Cicero had first mentioned at De lege agraria 2.95 and Pro Rabirio 29, which are abiding concerns in the

1 2

Hunt 1989: 17. Cicero still represents his restoration as such to Atticus in 50 bce (Att. 6.6.4), writing that a triumph upon his return from Cilicia is especially appropriate because of his recent “rebirth.”

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post-exilic speeches, are explored in greater depth in the fifties in the De re publica and the De legibus. Cicero also conceptualizes his return as a “second life” for a much wider audience than Atticus. In his first speech after his return to Rome, Post reditum in Senatu, Cicero thanks the consul Lentulus for giving him and his family a new life (27). The gratitude expressed is not only for present restoration, but also for the acclaim that will carry well on into the future. Lentulus shares credit for this rebirth with the Roman people. Two days after offering such thanks to Lentulus, Cicero hails the Roman people in Post reditum ad Quirites as the givers of this second life. He first begs inadequacy to the tall order of rendering due thanks, arguing that no one has yet lived who was endowed with the superhuman (divinus) faculties of speech needed for the task (5). He then puts himself under obligation to the people by calling them the agents of his rebirth (5). Cicero of course starts perpetuating the memory of this “rebirth” himself: in the Pro Sestio of 56 bce, he refers to the natalis (birthday) of his return and connects it to the natalis of the temple of Salus at Rome (131).3 At Post reditum in Senatu 27 Cicero suggests that his rebirth will survive in the memory of posterity. In the beginning of this same speech, he associates this enduring memory with a type of immortality (3): itaque, patres conscripti, quod ne optandum quidem est homini, immortalitatem quandam per vos esse adepti videmur (Therefore, conscript fathers, we seem to have obtained a sort of immortality through you, something that mortals ought not aspire to). The report of the senate’s favors will, he claims, last and become a vehicle for immortality. Cicero advances this claim with two degrees of qualification. This transformation seems (videmur) like immortality, and the immortality that it seems like is itself a qualified sort (quandam). The fact that Cicero readily returns to this metaphorical expression at this juncture reflects the headway that ideas about immortalization were gaining at Rome. Cicero is also discreetly naturalizing such ideas with his systematic deployment of this metaphoric frame for human exaltation. The dialectic at work in Cicero’s speeches resembles the charged speech acts of the French national guardsmen: the ex-consul’s words “did not just reflect social and political reality; they were instruments for transforming reality.” These metaphorical expressions are not calculated religious propositions, but the quickened proliferation of such language in Cicero’s speeches at this time is an indication of shifting 3

The temple was dedicated on the Quirinal on 5 August 302 bce. He also makes this connection for Atticus (Att. 4.1.4).

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cultural perspectives. These metaphorical expressions performed the cultural work of correlating humans with gods, divinity, and immortality in Roman conceptual systems. This particular instance from Post reditum in Senatu 3 intimates that comparing a human achievement or event to immortalization was far from a stale, fossilized conceit at this moment. Even within this metaphorical context, Cicero is careful to display to the senate his awareness of the audacity of human claims to divine privilege (quod ne optandum quidem est homini). In spite of Cicero’s stated hesitations, he even describes his recall as an apotheosis. Along with the speeches to the senate and people upon his return, Cicero uses his speech to the college of pontiffs, De domo sua, as an opportunity to create a tendentious version of the events surrounding his exile and return. Clodius had the site of Cicero’s house consecrated as a temple while Cicero was in exile, and the college of pontiffs was empowered to declare this consecration void. In his words to the pontiffs at De domo sua 75, Cicero represents the motions for his recall as divine and immortal and then proceeds to present his return as a skyward ascent: nam quid ego illa divina atque immortalia municipiorum et coloniarum et totius Italiae decreta commemorem, quibus tamquam gradibus mihi videor in caelum ascendisse, non solum in patriam revertisse? (Why should I recollect the divine and immortal decrees of the municipalities and colonies, and of the whole of Italy, the steps by which I seem to have not only returned to the fatherland, but ascended into the sky?). As in the Post reditum in Senatu, Cicero’s language (tamquam; videor) clearly marks itself as metaphorical. When he reworks this idea yet again in 55 bce at In Pisonem 51–52, it is more elaborate and less circumspect: quid eos dies qui quasi deorum immortalium festi atque sollemnes apud omnis sunt adventu meo redituque celebrati? unus ille dies mihi quidem immortalitatis instar fuit cum in patriam redii, cum senatum egressum vidi populumque universum, cum mihi ipsa Roma prope convolsa sedibus suis ad complectendum conservatorem suum progredi visa est. What about those days upon my approach and return that were celebrated by all like festivals and rites of the immortal gods? This one day was in effect immortality for me when I returned to the fatherland, when I saw the senate and all the people coming to meet me, when Rome herself, almost torn from her foundations seemed to come forth to embrace her savior.

Cicero describes the days of his return as akin (quasi) to festivals established for the gods. The hendiadys he uses for his approach (adventu meo redituque) is not marked as metaphor, and the use of adventus in this

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specific context can evoke the manifestation of divinity among mortals. Furthermore, Cicero’s choice of words here pushes the immortality comparison beyond a sicut or quasi. The word instar can mean “equivalent in effect, condition, moral worth,”4 thus making this an analogy that implies actual consequences. Moreover, Cicero’s familiar self-presentation as Rome’s savior is given what is perhaps its most vivid rendering as Rome is said to have risen to meet and embrace her conservator. As saviors such as Flamininus and Pompey were received with divinizing honors in the larger Roman world, Cicero imagines his return to Rome as an occasion of similar ritual celebration. Cicero persists in using this immortality metaphor as he integrates his exile into the narrative of his career that he is continually revising in his works. The exile becomes the necessary dark hour that precedes the bright dawn of rebirth and superhuman exaltation. In Post reditum ad Quirites, Cicero makes the equation simple: banishment was a prerequisite for the near-divine (paene divina) pleasure he can now enjoy (2). There are again signs that this metaphor had to be used with care and qualifications (paene). Here too we sense the potency and “semantic motivation”5 of the adjective divinus – if it is not weighted with its divine implications why does Cicero need to tone it down with his paene?6 Cicero makes a similar point about his banishment in the De domo sua, where he tells the college of pontiffs that his suffering will ultimately help secure the immortality of his reputation as it did for Roman worthies such as Ahala and Camillus (86). Cicero extends this idea in what follows and claims that he endured exile in order to save Rome for a second time (98): haec omnia subire conservandorum civium causa . . . ea laus praeclara atque divina est (to endure all these things for the sake of saving citizens . . . this is a magnificent and even divine achievement).7 A key phrase from the consulship conspicuously reappears (conservandorum civium causa), and this act of saving a state is again tied to a type of divine honor, much as it will be in the De re publica. Cicero adds this latest achievement to the tally and puts it on par with his consulship, using a variation on language from his Consulatus suus (cedant arma togae)(99): bis servavi rem publicam, qui consul togatus armatos vicerim,

4 5 6

7

OLD 2b, where this passage is cited in support. See above p. 39 on Price’s observations on the “semantic motivation” of divinizing language. Cf. Rep. 1.45: in gubernanda re publica moderantem cursum atque in sua potestate retinentem, magni cuiusdam civis et divini paene est viri (holding course and keeping it under his power while governing the commonwealth is characteristic of a great citizen and nearly divine man). Cf. Vat. 8 where Cicero links his own personal salvation and that of the Republic.

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privatus consulibus armatis cesserim (twice I have saved the commonwealth, as consul and a civilian I vanquished men in arms, as a private citizen I gave ground to armed consuls). Cicero’s new claims to public gratitude and exceptional honors are supplemented with incessant reminders of his consulship and its concomitant rewards. Having been effectively silenced for months, he weaves themes and phrases from the late sixties bce into his rhetoric and continues to conceptualize his consulship as an apex of human history that merited superhuman honors. In the De domo sua (64, 72), Cicero takes sole credit for saving the Republic in 63 bce, an event that he describes later in the same speech as the most glorious deed in human history (95). Both gods and men, he asserts in the De domo sua, deemed him worthy of honorific nomenclature for his deeds (26): civis, quem ad modum omnes iam di atque homines iudicarunt, conservatoris rei publicae (the citizen whom both gods and men had unanimously declared the savior of the state).8 Cicero returns the favor to the gods in the following year in the Pro Sestio, invoking them as Rome’s custodes et conservatores (guardians and saviors, 53) while recalling his own ovation as pater patriae (father of the fatherland, 121).9 In the companion speech to the Pro Sestio, Cicero in turn takes on these very titles he had just previously given to the gods (In Vatinium 7). Cicero does not rely solely upon such titles to trigger the associations with divinity that would help sanctify his consulship. He argues that even Clodius acknowledges that he saved Rome and contends that his services were deemed immortal by a consensus at Rome (De domo sua, 76): cum id feci quod omnes non negent immortalitati, si fieri potest, mandandum (when I did that which all agreed must be consigned, if it is possible, to immortality). Although Cicero is here referring to the immortality of his actions, his phrasing points to more than just commonplace remembrance: he injects some doubt as to whether consigning this deed to immortality is even possible (si fieri potest). Concerns about merging mortal and immortal spheres are manifest elsewhere in the De domo sua. Clodius, it seems, had accused Cicero of moving beyond the title pater to take the name Jupiter (92).

8

9

Cf. the slight variation at Pis. 23: civis is quem hic ordo adsentiente Italia cunctisque gentibus conservatorem patriae iudicarat (the citizen whom this order with Italy and all peoples assenting declared the savior of the fatherland). This title lingers in the background at Dom. 94, where Cicero presents himself as a lenient parent to the Romans.

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Clodius also supposedly claimed that Cicero called Minerva his sister (92),10 which suggests that he was publicly criticizing Cicero’s Consulatus suus.11 Clodius also could have fairly accused Cicero of usurping credit that he had elsewhere assigned to Jupiter, which he does once again at In Pisonem 6–7. Here Cicero recollects the improvisatory oath he pronounced on the final day of his consulship. Forbidden by the tribune Nepos from giving the customary address to the people at the end of his term in office, Cicero is ordered simply to deliver the required oath that he had obeyed the laws. Cicero takes this occasion to swear that he was Rome’s sole savior: sine ulla dubitatione iuravi rem publicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam, ac mihi populus Romanus universus illa in contione non unius diei gratulationem, sed aeternitatem immortalitatemque donavit, cum meum ius iurandum tale atque tantum iuratus ipse una voce et consensu approbavit. I swore without hesitation that the commonwealth had been saved by the work of me alone, and at that assembly all the Roman people bestowed upon me not the congratulation of one day, but eternity and immortality, when, themselves under oath, with one voice and concord they acclaimed my extraordinary oath.

In the Catilinarian Orations, Cicero had ultimately shared some of the credit for rescuing Rome with Jupiter. On the last day of his consulship he seems to have unhesitatingly and emphatically left Jupiter out of the picture. In this version of the events we might expect Cicero to magnify his role. Piso, the man who had refused to help Cicero against Clodius as consul in 58 bce, had returned to Rome and clashed with Cicero in the senate. The fiery invective he aims at Piso revisits the events of 63 bce and 58 bce. Here in 55 bce he claims that his reward for shouldering the immense task of saving Rome is immortality (aeternitatem immortalitatemque donavit); the precise sort of immortality is left unspecified.12 Cicero does not hesitate to rework the key strategies of selfcongratulation from his pre-exilic speeches. He is also, however, generous in his praise for the agents of his recall and generous to those who 10

11 12

Cicero expresses a special relationship with the goddess in this speech at 144: et te, custos urbis, Minerva, quae semper adiutrix consiliorum meorum (and you, guardian of the city, Minerva who has always been the helper of my plans), probably in reference to the statue of Minerva custos urbis that he dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus as he left for exile (Fam. 12.25.1; Plut. Cic. 31). The title that Cicero gave to this Minerva was also extended to Cicero himself by the senate (102): quem patres conscripti custodem patriae iudicassent (he whom the conscript fathers deemed the guardian of the fatherland). Courtney 1993: 158. Cf. the more clearly defined type of immortality mentioned later in the speech (63): ut mihi illa omnia immortalem gloriam dederint (so that all these deeds have given me immortal glory).

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celebrated his return. Here again, Cicero insistently produces language that represents mortal deeds as immortal and also makes conceptual correlations that assimilate the roles of humans and gods. His very first public words to the senate when back in Rome underscore the immortality of their services on behalf of Cicero and his family (Post reditum in Senatu 1).13 To do justice to these deathless deeds, Cicero says he will need brilliant, superhuman powers of speech (1).14 This speech does indeed reach exceptional heights. Cicero transforms the senators’ understanding of his first words when he tells them that he should worship them as gods (30): ego vos universos, patres conscripti, deorum numero colere debeo. sed ut in ipsis dis immortalibus non semper eosdem atque alias alios solemus et venerari et precari, sic in hominibus de me divinitus meritis (I ought to worship you, conscript fathers, as collectively in the ranks of gods. But as with the immortal gods themselves we are not accustomed to venerate and pray always to the same gods, but rather different gods at different times, so shall I for men serving me divinely). The idea of a collective, envy-deflecting worship is proposed, but, since the gods are not customarily venerated as a group, Cicero says he will accordingly single out particular senators for praise. Thanks were also due to the Roman people who flocked to greet Cicero as he entered Rome.15 The expressions of gratitude in Post reditum ad Quirites are formulated much like those offered the senate. Cicero tells the Roman people that he revels in the divine service they have rendered him (1).16 He goes on to say that he will always revere them with the piety customarily reserved for the gods (18): tantum vobis, quantum facere possum, Quirites, pollicebor: primum, qua sanctissimi homines pietate erga deos immortalis soleant, eadem me erga populum Romanum semper fore numenque vestrum aeque mihi grave et sanctum ac deorum immortalium in omni vita futurum. I shall promise to you as much as I am able, citizens, first, with the sort of piety that the holiest people customarily have for the immortal gods, in this same way I will always for my entire life regard your power as formidable and sacred as that of the immortal gods. 13

14 15 16

si, patres conscripti, pro vestris immortalibus in me fratremque meum liberosque nostros meritis parum vobis cumulate gratias egero (if, conscript fathers, my thanks for your immortal deeds for me, my brother, and our children should lack in abundance). At Sest. 129, Cicero recollects the senate’s involvement in a similar fashion: nam quid ego illa de me divina senatus consulta commemorem? (why recall those divine decrees of the senate about me?). divinum atque incredibile genus orationis (a divine and incredible type of speech). Att. 4.1.5. beneficio divino immortalique vestro maxime laetor (I especially rejoice in your divine and immortal favor).

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This proposition is not backed away from later in the speech; indeed, it is restated and reaffirmed in the closing moments (25): vobis, qui apud me deorum immortalium vim et numen tenetis (you who in my reckoning possess the force and power of immortal gods). That Cicero would actually hold the same esteem for the Roman gods and the Roman people is of course preposterous.17 One can imagine how sickened Cicero would have been if Caesar or Clodius had said such a thing.18 However, the fact that Cicero chooses to express his gratitude to both the senate and people in such bold terms at this specific point in time is striking. In such analogies conceptual domains of humans and gods intermingle, developing cognitive equipment attuned to making such associations. One senator whom Cicero singles out for special veneration is Lentulus Spinther, the consul of 57 bce who was instrumental in securing his recall. Cicero reckons his debt to Lentulus as that due to a god (Post reditum in Senatu 8): princeps P. Lentulus, parens ac deus nostrae vitae, fortunae, memoriae, nominis (first and foremost Publius Lentulus, parent and god of my life, fortune, memory, and name). The title parens is particularly apt since Cicero credits his “new life” to Lentulus (27).19 This position of extreme gratitude, found in Roman comedy,20 is also emphasized in the Post reditum ad Quirites, with the addition of salus (11).21 And Cicero seizes the chance to shower Lentulus with this same divinizing praise a year later in the Pro Sestio (144). Although Cicero adapts an expression of gratitude perhaps familiar to his audience from dramatic contexts, surviving evidence has him introducing the concept into political oratory at Rome, 17

18

19

20

21

The Genius populi Romani may be of some relevance here. A Genius (customarily a person’s “generative power” and “divine protector”) was represented at Rome in powerful collective form as the Genius populi Romani (Weinstock 1971: 205). This Genius populi Romani had a rising profile in the late Republic as it appeared on coins and was offered a shrine in the Forum (ibid.: 206). Cf. Har. 47 where Cicero alleges that Clodius’ demagoguery involves praising his followers in caelum (to the sky). Cicero tells Lentulus in a letter from 54 bce that even pietas (dutiful respect) cannot fully express his gratitude (Fam. 1.9.1). E.g. Plaut. Capt. 863: ego nunc tibi sum summus Iuppiter, | idem ego sum Salus, Fortuna, Lux, Laetitia, Gaudium (now I am the highest Jupiter to you, likewise I am Safety, Fortune, Light, Joy, Delight); Ter. Ad. 535: facio te apud illum deum (I make you a god in his eyes). Cf. Lucr. 5.8: deus ille fuit, deus (he was a god, a god) and Virg. Ecl. 1.7: namque erit ille mihi semper deus (for he will always be a god to me). Weinstock 1971: 293, finding the background to this phenomenon as “essentially Roman,” connects it to the relationships of dependency that structured Roman society: “There was the old bond between the saviour and benefactor and his protégé, the patron and his client, the pater familias and his household, which was governed by a sense of pietas like that between father and son.” Stevenson 1992 traces the concept back to Homer and examines the father/god analogy evident in the worship of the supreme god as a father. P. Lentulus consul, parens, deus, salus nostrae vitae, fortunae, memoriae, nominis (Publius Lentulus consul, parent, god, savior of my life, fortune, memory, name).

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where it takes on new life. Cicero also stretches the expression and specifically describes Lentulus’ favors to him as god-like actions (Post reditum in Senatu 28): itaque P. Lentuli beneficio excellenti atque divino non reducti sumus in patriam ita, ut non nulli clarissimi cives, sed equis insignibus et curru aurato reportati (So because of the outstanding and divine service of Publius Lentulus, we were not brought back to the fatherland as many of the most illustrious citizens, we were instead carried in a golden chariot with eminent steeds). With his divine favors Lentulus is able to engineer a return for Cicero that would have a powerful iconic impact. Cicero’s vehicle (curru aurato) is that of gods and archaic kings, the gilded chariot used, as Livy relates, by the Roman triumphator adorned in the garb of Jupiter (10.7.10).22 Other individuals besides Lentulus are offered thanks with such evocative language. In his first speech to the senators, in which he had called Lentulus parens ac deus, Cicero speaks of Publius Servilius in related terms (Post reditum in Senatu 25). The connection to divinity is loose: Servilius simply has exceptional gravitas (weightiness), and even this is qualified (divina quadam gravitate). Cicero nonetheless builds upon this notion shortly by assigning the role of savior to Servilius as well (26): itaque divinitus exstitit non modo salutis defensor (and so he divinely appeared not only as the defender of my safety). Cicero’s great ally in the struggle against Clodius also receives his due. In the De haruspicum responsis of 56 bce, Cicero makes use of a tactic from the Pro lege Manilia and presents Milo as a gift sent from the gods to cure Rome’s ills (6): sic T. Annius ad illam pestem comprimendam, exstinguendam, funditus delendam natus esse videtur et quasi divino munere donatus rei publicae (So Titus Annius seems to have been born and given as if a divine gift for the commonwealth to stop, eradicate, and utterly destroy this pestilence).23 Senators in the audience of this speech who were wary of the movement toward divinizing humans at Rome perhaps appreciated the qualifying quasi that Cicero sets

22

23

Weinstock 1971: 54 notes: “The use of the chariot was always restricted: gods and kings had it, warriors in battle, and athletes at races.” It was only used in Republican Rome by special permission: see also ibid. 273–74. See Versnel 1970: 56–67 for interpretations of the chariot’s symbolism in the triumphal procession. Other tributes to Milo from this period are also reminiscent of earlier treatments of Pompey: Cicero compliments Milo’s divina et incredibilis fides (divine and incredible faith) at Mil. 91. Gaius Piso, Cicero’s son-in-law, is eulogized in Post reditum ad Quirites in a way that recalls Pompey (7): C. Pisonis, generi mei, divina quaedam et inaudita auctoritas atque virtus (the kind of divine and unheard of authority and virtue of my son-in-law Gaius Piso). Here it is possible to detect a trace of equivocation (divina quaedam).

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before divinus.24 Cicero’s summoning of this language and its variants is prolific, and even if it had antecedents it had multiply distanced relationships with them. Instead of the traditional practice of locating meaning in the sources of Cicero’s language, we would do well to consider how his language is instrumental in constituting new ideologies. Cicero’s divinizing language has conceptual implications particular to time and place, so we should resist the scholarly tendency to “screen out the more bizarre aspects”25 of these expressions. In a culture that will start to deify its leaders, divinizing expressions can have a normative function. These metaphors could overlap and interact with a range of divinizing experiments, helping to make sense of such religious innovations. Cicero’s defense of Gnaeus Plancius in 54 bce is itself a gesture of gratitude to a man who had aided and even lodged him in exile. He puts himself in a position of obligation that is a slightly scaled-down version of that he had proposed in Lentulus’ case. Plancius’ services, Cicero claims, made him like a parent and a savior to Cicero (25): sed ut quasi parenti, et custodi salutis meae (but as if a parent and guardian of my safety).26 Although Cicero reserves deus for Lentulus, the collocation of terms for Plancius is a significant one – they are the very roles Cicero had urged Quintus to embrace as a divinus homo (divine man) in Asia (Q. fr. 1.1.31).27 Soon after Cicero makes mention of this figurative subordination to Plancius, he offers passing commentary on the dynamics of the parent– child relationship. Plancius is said to venerate his father like a god (veretur ut deum), and appropriately so since this relationship is represented as having a similar asymmetry (29). The prosecutor of Plancius, Laterensis, 24

25

26 27

Cf. Arch. 18 where Cicero connects divinus to the gods and sees the need weaken the adjective with a quasi: poetam natura ipsa valere et mentis viribus excitari et quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari. quare suo iure noster Ennius sanctos appellat poetas, quod quasi deorum aliquo dono atque munere commendati nobis esse videantur (Poetry depends on nature herself and is quickened by mental powers and inspired as if by a sort of divine spirit, so rightly did our Ennius call poets sacred, because they seem to be bestowed to us as if by a gift and favor of the immortal gods). I quote Price 1984: 245, who argues against traditional assumptions about the banality of divinizing praise language and maintains that “we must not disguise the divergence of the Greek conceptual system from our own.” The same could be said of the Roman conceptual system. The comments of James S. Reid printed in Holden 1903 intimate the lengths some modern scholars have gone to in their efforts to normalize – and even alter – divinizing language (256–57): “I cannot believe that Cic. would call such a man as Lentulus deum or that he would use the phrase ‘God and parent of our fortune.’ Creator is a modern rather than ancient equivalent for ‘God.’ Cic. seems to me to have written patrem eundem parentem. The letters eun were so like the final letters em of patrem that they dropped out, dem was turned into deum and ac was naturally inserted.” Cf. 78. 60/59 bce: provideas saluti, ut te parentem Asiae et dici et haberi velis (provide for safety so you wish to be considered and called parent of Asia).

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seems to have found Plancius wholly undeserving of the type of praise that Cicero was delivering. Towards the end of the speech, Cicero refers to an objection raised by Laterensis: that the cumulative result of Cicero’s praise was to make a mountain out of a molehill and offer divine honors to a mere sepulchral stone (95): nunc venio ad illud extremum, quod dixisti, dum Plancii in me meritum verbis extollerem, me arcum facere ex cloaca, lapidemque e sepulchro venerari pro deo (Now I come to the closing of your speech, where you said that, while praising Plancius’ services to myself, I was making an arch out of a sewer and venerating a tombstone in the same way one venerates a god). If these are the real objections of Laterensis, they offer a clue about the effect that Cicero’s inventive rhetoric might have had on audience members. Perhaps for Laterensis at least, Cicero’s divinizing language was brimming with risqué metaphorical expressions suffusing Plancius with an unmerited air of divinity. If this is Cicero’s colorful restatement of a more generalized objection, it sheds light on how Cicero conceptualized his own strategy in these speeches. Cicero had Pompey in part to thank for his restoration and Caesar probably in part to blame for his banishment in the first place. From his return to Rome until the outbreak of civil war in 49 bce, Cicero’s letters minutely document the ongoing fluctuations in his relationship with each of these men and their own reconciliations and alienation. The first new reality that Cicero had to come to terms with was the renewed cooperation between Caesar and Pompey. Cicero’s grudging acquiescence to this alliance brought tasks such as the defense of Balbus, a Spanish associate of Caesar’s.28 The bitter pill of accepting the alignment of Caesar and Pompey was made more palatable by the frustration that Cicero’s support of this alliance could provoke in those optimates who had at the very least been indifferent to Cicero’s exile. Cicero nevertheless makes his reservations clear to Atticus in 56 bce (Att. 4.5.1). He speaks of his “palinode,” perhaps the De provinciis consularibus of 56 bce,29 but maintains that this does not amount to a complete betrayal of his principles. The satisfaction Cicero found in irritating the optimates is made explicit in this letter as 28

29

In this speech he gives Pompey signal praise that might be tailored to disturb his perceived political enemies more than to gratify Pompey. Cicero sets Pompey in friendly competition with Fortuna and judges Pompey the victor (9). When Pompey (and Cicero) drift apart from Caesar in the late fifties, Cicero still makes Pompey the focus of his magniloquence. He refers to the divina mens (divine mind) of Pompey, claiming that Pompey tried to arrange a fair trial for Milo in the turbulent wake of Clodius’ death (Mil. 21). Although the presence of troops was unsettling for Cicero, he states his gratitude for them at Fam. 3.10.10; cf. Att. 9.7b.2. Balsdon 1962: 137–39 challenges the standard equation of this “palinode” with De provinciis consularibus, but Shackleton Bailey 1971: 84–85 makes the identification, as does Habicht 1990: 55.

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well (Att. 4.5.2). What might they find so offensive in this speech? Besides Cicero’s general validation of the dynasts’ cause, his encomium of Caesar probably kindled flames of anger in those trying to contain his power. Cicero displays a high degree of self-awareness about his handling of Caesar in this speech. He describes it to Atticus as a carefully planned “apotheosis” (Att. 4.5.2): sed tamen modici fuimus ἀποθεώσει, ut scrips. erimus uberiores, si et ille libenter accipiet (but nevertheless, we were temperate with this apotheosis, as I had written, we will become more expansive, if he willingly accepts). His elevation of Caesar was only partial in accord with the aims he had shared previously with Atticus. Cicero claims that he will unleash his fuller rhetorical arsenal on Caesar’s behalf if their relationship warrants it.30 This is a promise he keeps. The praise of Caesar in De provinciis consularibus is indeed moderate, at least by the standards Cicero had set for praising a living Roman statesman in the Pro lege Manilia. One reason adduced for Caesar’s continuing command in Gaul is his felicitas (good fortune) along with the lavish gifts he enjoys from Fortuna (35). Caesar uses this privilege to advance the interests of the commonwealth, Cicero claims, and thus reminds his immediate audience and Caesar himself of the framework within which his ambitions must be pursued. Cicero’s praise of Caesar makes a similar gesture to elite cohesion when he tells the senators that strengthening their ties to Caesar by bestowing exceptional honors is a mark of their farsighted, divine wisdom (38).31 Cicero recalls the inflationary ten-day supplication he secured for Pompey in 63 bce and then presents Caesar’s fifteen-day supplication of 57 bce in a revealing fashion (27): ergo in illa supplicatione, quam ego decrevi, res ipsa tributa dis immortalibus et maiorum institutis et utilitati rei publicae, sed dignitas verborum, honos et novitas et numerus dierum Caesaris ipsius laudi gloriaeque concessus est. Therefore in that thanksgiving that I voted, the matter itself was offered to the immortal gods, the customs of our ancestors, and the advantage of the commonwealth, but the distinction of the language, honor, novelty, and number of days were conceded to the praise and glory of Caesar himself.

Wallace-Hadrill observes an important shift here: the transformation of a religious thanksgiving into a personal honor. The thanksgiving to the gods, traditionally the formal purpose of the supplication, is now explicitly 30

31

Atticus later urges Cicero to make his letters to Caesar uberiores (more expansive) (Att. 13.50.1, 45 bce). Here divinus seems to mean praesciens futuri (foretelling the future) (TLL IIB).

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subordinate to the supplication’s honorific function.32 Cicero’s phrasing for the supplication he devised for Pompey (supplicatio decreta Cn. Pompeio [the thanksgiving decreed for Gnaeus Pompeius], 27) reflects this shift of emphasis. Here, as elsewhere when he discusses supplications, Cicero mentions the mortal recipient and uses a dative construction which marks this mortal as the recipient of ritual thanksgiving.33 As the roles of mortals and gods were increasingly being transposed in political discourse, a related reordering is practiced in ritual by giving mortals a greater share of honors traditionally offered to the gods. Two years after the De provinciis consularibus in 54 bce, Cicero’s praises of Caesar do become more expansive.34 Cicero itemizes Caesar’s incredible accomplishments in an extended panegyric and rounds off his list by uncovering Caesar’s ultimate goal: immortality (Pro Rabirio Postumo 42): sunt ea quidem magna; quis negat? sed magnis excitata sunt praemiis ac memoria hominum sempiterna. quo minus admirandum est eum facere illa qui immortalitatem concupiverit (These are indeed great achievements; who could deny? But they are motivated by great rewards and the eternal memory of humankind, so it is less astonishing for he who aspired to immortality to do such deeds). Caesar’s tremendous exploits are done for the sake of eternal memory (memoria hominum sempiterna), which is tied to immortality in a broader sense (qui immortalitatem concupiverit). If this was Caesar’s intention, his exertions were not in vain. Amidst the repeated recourse in these post-exilic speeches to metaphors associating people and their actions with divinity, Cicero continues to discuss an immortality for Romans contingent upon their services to the Republic. The logic of this possibility is very much like that attributed to Caesar at Pro Rabirio Postumo 42. In a sense, Cicero is proposing a final rung on the cursus honorum, the ultimate reward in a reconstructed meritocracy for Rome that he explores with heightened interest in the fifties. In the Pro Plancio of 54 bce, Cicero clearly connects the gift of immortality with service to the Republic. Outside of this context, he argues, it is not desirable (90):

32 33

34

Wallace-Hadrill 1990: 160. Hickson-Hahn 2000: 253 compares Cicero’s representation of supplications with Livy’s to demonstrate Cicero’s emphasis on the mortal recipient of the supplicatio: Livy regularly leaves out the name of a general in a thanksgiving decree and never uses the dative construction. In a letter to Caesar from this same year, Cicero likens the receipt of a dispatch from Caesar to divine intervention (Fam. 7.5.2): sustulimus manus et ego et Balbus. tanta fuit opportunitas ut illud nescio quid non fortuitum sed divinum videretur (Balbus and I both raised our hands up, the timing was such that it seemed not like something accidental but rather divine).

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In this public forum Cicero sorts out what would be a condition for immortality: the end does not justify the means. In a private forum Cicero is at this time thinking through these same issues as he starts work on the De re publica. Accumulation of personal prestige at the commonwealth’s cost is not part of the system of rewards in Cicero’s scheme. This passage also suggests that Cicero is not simply rehashing ideas that were a familiar part of his audience members’ religious frameworks. He acknowledges that some might even find his ideas about immortality for self-sacrifice absurd (licet me desipere dicatis) but insists that he himself has independently cultivated such thoughts for a while (putavi). This concept was indeed on Cicero’s mind before 54 bce. In addition to the pre-exilic soundings at De lege agraria 2.95 and Pro Rabirio 29, Cicero had started in 56 bce to approach the posthumous immortality and divinity of Roman elites from a variety of angles. In the Pro Balbo of 56 bce, Cicero uses Marius, as he had in the Pro Rabirio, to think about the immortality that a life of illustrious achievements can provide (49): quod si vultus C. Mari, si vox, si ille imperatorius ardor oculorum, si recentes triumphi, si praesens valuit aspectus, valeat auctoritas, valeant res gestae, valeat memoria, valeat fortissimi et clarissimi viri nomen aeternum. sit hoc discrimen inter gratiosos civis atque fortis, ut illi vivi fruantur opibus suis, horum etiam mortuorum, si quisquam huius imperi defensor mori potest, vivat auctoritas immortalis. But if the face of Gaius Marius, if his voice, if the commanding blaze of his eyes, if his recent triumphs, if his bodily presence had such power, let his authority, his achievements, and his memory have power, let the name of this bravest and most illustrious man be eternal, let there be this distinction made between popular and brave citizens, that the former enjoy their bounty while alive while the prestige of the latter will be immortal even in death, if any defender of this empire can ever die.

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This favorite Arpinate exemplar from the Pro Rabirio is celebrated in Cicero’s Marius, a poem probably circulated in the fifties. Here in the Pro Balbo Cicero urges the audience to resurrect Marius in their minds (exsistat ergo ille vir parumper cogitatione vestra, 47) and appeals to his enduring authority.35 A basic distinction is made between the fates of the worthy and unworthy citizens (inter gratiosos civis atque fortis). The primary stress here is on eternity of name and deed, but he connects this to the possibility of immortality in a literal sense (si quisquam huius imperi defensor mori potest). This more radical notion is, however, introduced tentatively as potentiality, not actuality. The orations of the subsequent years also judiciously probe a superhuman status for Roman statesmen. Quintus Metellus earns such veneration from Cicero in 55 bce for preferring exile in 100 bce to having to uphold Saturninus’ agrarian law (In Pisonem 20): Q. Metelli, fuit, quem ego civem meo iudicio cum deorum immortalium laude coniungo (Quintus Metellus, the citizen who in my estimation I associate with the honor due to the immortal gods). Cicero gives Metellus the honor and lasting remembrance (laude) traditionally due to the gods and ascribes this exceptional homage to his own personal convictions (meo iudicio). In the following year Cicero summons up Marcus Scaurus to aid in his son’s defense and sets a more conventional, philosophical type of immortality on the agenda. In a tactic akin to the crowd-pleasing prosopopoeia, Cicero speaks to the elder Scaurus as if he were alive. This scenario provides an opportunity for a passing but nonetheless significant observation about the immortality and divinity of the soul (Pro Scauro 50): quo te nunc modo appellem? ut hominem? at non es inter nos. ut mortuum? at vivis et viges, at in omnium animis atque ore versaris, atque divinus animus mortale nihil habuit, neque tuorum quicquam potuit emori praeter corpus (In what way should I address you? As a man? But you are not among us. As a dead man? Yet you live and thrive, you dwell in the minds and eyes of all; and your divine spirit had nothing mortal in it, nor is anything of yours able to die besides your body). Cicero again publicly floats religious ideas that will receive fuller articulation in a dialogue he is writing: the De re publica. 35

Cicero alludes to the superhuman qualities of Marius again in 56 bce at Prov. 32: ipse ille C. Marius, cuius divina atque eximia virtus magnis populi Romani luctibus funeribusque subvenit (this Gaius Marius himself, whose divine and outstanding valor relieved the great grief and destruction of the Roman people). Cicero’s use of the adjective divinus shortly after the Marius passage has clear religious overtones (34): alpibus Italiam munierat antea natura non sine aliquo divino numine (nature once fortified Italy with the Alps not without some divine power). Cf. Cicero’s use of divinus in Marius: conspexit Marius, divini numinis augur (Marius observed, the augur of divine power) (Court. fr. 17.10).

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The Pro Milone, Cicero’s revised version of his defense of Milo in the wake of Clodius’ murder, shows still more engagement with the novel religious concepts that he had been experimenting with in previous speeches. Cicero laments the untimely and unnatural death of Scipio Aemilianus, the first Roman to earn the appellation divinus and a sure candidate for immortality in any Ciceronian reckoning (16). Scipio’s high prestige licenses the assertion that everyone would assent to his immortality (quem immortalem, si fieri posset, omnes esse cuperent [whom all would wish to be immortal, if this is in fact possible]). But in spite of this overwhelming consensus, there is still the cautious parenthesis of doubt about even the best of mortals obtaining immortality (si fieri posset). Cicero’s main strategy in the Pro Milone is to fashion Milo as the man who took extreme measures to defend himself from the tyrannical monster Clodius. If this had all transpired in Greece, Cicero argues, the tyrannicide Milo would not be on trial but would instead be treated with divine honors (80):36 Graeci homines deorum honores tribuunt eis viris qui tyrannos necaverunt – quae ego vidi Athenis, quae aliis in urbibus Graeciae! quas res divinas talibus institutas viris, quos cantus, quae carmina! prope ad immortalitatis et religionem et memoriam consecrantur – vos tanti conservatorem populi, tanti sceleris ultorem non modo honoribus nullis adficietis sed etiam ad supplicium rapi patiemini? Greeks grant divine honors to those men who kill tyrants – what sights I have seen at Athens and other Greek cities! What sort of religious rites established for such men, what melodies and songs! They are consecrated with commemoration and worship almost reaching that of the immortals – will you not only bestow no honors on the savior of so great a people and the avenger of such a crime, but even endure that he be seized for punishment?

Cicero makes special mention of Athens, the hub of high civilization, as the site where he witnessed these honors. Like the reference to Greek divine honors in the Pro lege Manilia (41), their example is a positive one: 36

If Cicero is referring to the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton here, he may be intentionally or unknowingly confusing divine and heroic honors. Demosthenes 19.280 says that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were given a share of libations in every shrine and hymns, honors described as “equal to those of gods and heroes.” It is plausible that Cicero relies on Demosthenes more than actual eyewitness and that the god-or-hero ambiguity comes from this source. Cicero’s prope in this passage may reflect this ambivalence. See Parker 1997: 122–36 for discussion of the tyrannicides, where he notes that they never received the actual title “hero.” On the distinctions between divine honors and heroic honors, see Price 1984: 32–36 and Fishwick 1987: 3–5. As Liou-Gille 1980: 8–13 points out, heroic cult on the Greek model never really took hold at Rome.

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the Greeks exalt their saviors; the Romans are prosecuting their conservator. For now, Milo can take consolation in the hope that ridding Rome of Clodius will increase his personal gloria, an abundance of which can generate an afterlife which is likened to (viderentur) an apotheosis (97): sed tamen ex omnibus praemiis virtutis, si esset habenda ratio praemiorum, amplissimum esse praemium gloriam; esse hanc unam quae brevitatem vitae posteritatis memoria consolaretur, quae efficeret ut absentes adessemus, mortui viveremus; hanc denique esse cuius gradibus etiam in caelum homines viderentur ascendere.37 But nevertheless, out of all the rewards of virtue, if there must be a reckoning of rewards, the most ample reward is glory; which consoles the brevity of life with the remembrance of posterity, which makes us present in absence and alive in death; on the steps of which people seem even to ascend into heaven.

The religious landscape at Rome was changing in the fifties as an array of communicative signs connecting humans and gods were permeating public space to a greater degree. A Roman who had listened to Cicero’s tentative trial run of Pompey’s divinity in the sixties in the Pro lege Manilia could now see the shrines to Felicitas and Hercules Invictus in the great general’s new theater complex. A statue in this same complex of Pompey holding a globe touted this new Alexander’s mastery of the world, a charged claim Cicero publicized for Pompey in the Catilinarians (3.26) as well as in the Pro Balbo (13). A new coin in circulation similarly celebrated Pompey’s conquests and benefactions with a globe on one side and the head of Hercules on the other. Pompey himself may have been spotted at the circus in the conspicuous Jupiter dress normally reserved for the triumph, an extraordinary privilege that Caesar had secured for him.38 This ritual innovation perhaps anticipates the insertion of Caesar’s image in the procession of divinities staged before festival games. The concept of the savior figure, which Cicero had parsed out for a Roman audience in the Verrine Orations, takes on new prominence at Rome as the ex-consul continues to frame himself publicly as the city’s ultimate savior. Those listening to Cicero’s post-exilic speeches might encounter new ways of thinking that did not map directly onto their prior notions about humans and gods. Society was becoming more accustomed to conceptualizing 37

38

Cf. the language at Dom. 75: gradibus mihi videor in caelum ascendisse (the steps by which I seem to have ascended into the sky). In 63 bce, Pompey had been granted the right to mingle with Romans at the circus in triumphal garb (Dio 37.21.4).

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humans as gods and thinking of the highest human achievement in terms of an apotheosis. These changing horizons could help accommodate related religious innovations in the coming years.

Pro Sestio: the Herculean statesmen of Rome One speech from the fifties warrants independent consideration: the Pro Sestio. This speech, delivered in 56 bce, contains one of the fullest explications of Cicero’s political agenda and also an expanded, provocative presentation of his religious ideas that would be subjected to deeper scrutiny in the De re publica. At a time when Cicero was supporting unprecedented honors such as Caesar’s fifteen-day supplicatio,39 he was also testing honors for deceased Republican heroes that pushed existing parameters. Cicero’s portion of Sestius’ defense against the charge of public violence largely eschews the particulars of the case and instead offers a broader manifesto that seeks to define Rome’s sources of prosperity and stability both past and present. Cicero’s bifurcation of contemporary Roman elites into the patriotic and the parasitic is complemented by the appeal for divine standing that he makes for those Romans who lived their lives in accord with the political principles set out in the Pro Sestio. Cicero first approaches the possibility of a sort of afterlife for prominent Romans in the Pro Sestio in a rather conventional, innocuous fashion. He tells his audience that distinguished Romans who have died still have influence at Rome (21). A privileged posthumous fate due to a life of esteemed achievements is mentioned again when Cicero defends his decision to endure exile (and thus again save the state) rather than fight his Clodian foes to the death (48–50). He compares his ability to face a dignified death with that of Erechtheus’ daughters in Athens (48) and his will to live with that of the divine40 Arpinate Marius (50): divinum illum virum atque ex isdem quibus nos radicibus natum ad salutem huius imperi, C. Marium (this divine man sprung from the same roots as I for the salvation of our dominion). Cicero had previously divinized Marius and 39 40

Prov. 27; Balb. 61; Fam. 1.9.7, 14. Kaster 2006: 233 translates divinus as “godlike” and cites Ciceronian parallels without taking account of their qualifiers (e.g. quasi) or whether divinus is applied to a person directly or deflected onto something like their virtus or studium. He uses a traditional approach to metaphor to interpret Cicero’s use of divinus. He states that Cicero uses the term “only metaphorically” and does not connect the proliferation of this term in Cicero’s texts to contemporary cultural developments, although he helpfully points out that Cicero mostly applies divinus in his own voice to those who have benefited the Republic.

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used him to speculate about immortality, but calls him divinus here for the first time. The Pro Sestio also has an even more significant first: for the first time in surviving Latin, a living Roman is deemed divinus. When Cicero calls Milo divinus at Sest. 85, the explanatory parenthesis he adds for his audience intimates that his use of this word was a venturesome one at this point in time: alterius tribuni plebis divini hominis – dicam enim quod sentio et quod mecum sentiunt omnes – divini (another tribune of the plebs – a divine man, yes, I shall say what I think and what everyone thinks along with me, divine).41 We can also sense Cicero’s attempts to normalize his inventive use of language (et quod mecum sentiunt omnes). Another reason Cicero would willingly face death, he claims, was the comfort he could find in philosophical theories about the afterlife. He expresses no strong degree of certainty here about an afterlife, but he gives the possibility of intellectual and military heroes eternally thriving apart from the rest of humanity (mentes sapientium ac fortium virorum, cum ex corpore excessissent, sentire ac vigere [the minds of of wise and brave men, when they have passed from the body, have perception and come alive], 47) a particular endorsement. In spite of these contingencies, Cicero decided to stay alive, he claims, in order to offer an abiding example of sacrifice for the Republic (50): nunc me restituto vivit mecum simul exemplum fidei publicae. quod si immortale retinetur, quis non intellegit immortalem hanc civitatem futuram? (now with me restored, the example of civic loyalty lives along with me; if this is maintained, immortal, who does not think that our civil community will be immortal too?). He elides his own life and the life of the Republic, and hinges the state’s hopes for immortality on the immortality of his own deeds.42 The defense of Sestius provides a platform for Cicero to dilate on his hopes for political harmony amongst propertied Romans who were loyal to existing political arrangements. Cicero advances a redefinition of the term optimates (best citizens) that wrests it away from a narrow hereditary sense to include businessmen, freedmen, and just about anyone not inimical to the interests of the state (97). The goal Cicero sets forth for his optimates is otium cum dignitate. He unpacks this phrase – roughly a stability reached 41 42

Cicero goes on to tout Milo’s immortal virtus (86). Shackleton Bailey 1971: 75 notes how Cicero plays with this identification during this period: “To Cicero his own experiences were the hub of the political wheel. If he never got so far as to say respublica sum ego (for to him the Republic, the body politic, was really a high and holy thing), he sometimes came near to implying a de facto identification.” This Cicero/Republic analogy is not surprising since Cicero often conceives of the Republic as a living being, e.g. Rep. 2.3, where Scipio employs the stages of a human life to mark consecutive phases of the Republic.

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without compromising law and custom (98–100) – and then proceeds to list exemplary political maneuvers that illustrate these ideals. Quintus Metellus’ intransigence in the face of Saturninus’ agrarian bill is applauded, and the recently deceased anti-populist conservative Quintus Catulus is also marched forth as another advocate of Cicero’s political stances. Cicero urges his audience members to follow the patterns set by such men, as their examples are divine and will be handed down to posterity (102): haec imitamini, per deos immortalis, qui dignitatem, qui laudem, qui gloriam quaeritis! haec ampla sunt, haec divina, haec immortalia; haec fama celebrantur, monumentis annalium mandantur, posteritati propagantur (By the immortal gods, those of you who seek dignity, honor, and glory must imitate these grand, divine, and immortal examples; they have celebrated reputations, they are preserved in the memory of our annals, they are passed down from generation to generation). At this point in the speech, the audience hears of an immortality for a Catulus and Metellus that might settle into the range of their expectations: divinity and immortality secured through legend and literature. But since Cicero is here setting the stage for his innovative proposal of divine status for great Romans, construing divinus here as “godlike” may unduly diminish its force in the larger economy of the speech.43 Cicero returns to the use of divine or quasi-divine role models as guides for the living when he demonstrates this process by proxy by referring to Publius Servilius’ conjuring of famous Metelli from beyond the grave to win the consul Quintus Metellus’ support for Cicero (130–31). Cicero reports that Servilius lingered on Quintus Metellus Numidicus, the man listed earlier among Cicero’s own divine paradigms in the Pro Sestio (101–02) and soon to be assigned divine honors by Cicero in the following year.44 Here Numidicus is said to possess divine qualities that overwhelm his contemporary kin (nec illam divinam gravitatem plenam antiquitatis diutius homo eiusdem sanguinis potuit sustinere [this man of the same blood could no longer withstand the divine gravity laden with the weight of antiquity], 130). The possibility of a sensate afterlife for select, exceptional Romans is also approached once more, but the gesture at this point is again marked as speculative (si est aliqui sensus in morte praeclarorum virorum [if distinguished men have any awareness in death], 131). 43

44

Kaster 2006 uses “godlike” but TLL s.v. divinus 1619.50 cites Sest. 102 as divinus used ad deum, divinitatem pertinens (pertaining to a god, divinity). Kaster’s “godlike” for Milo (85) and Marius (50) is a viable translation, but “divine” is preferable in this particular context. At Pis. 20: Q. Metelli . . . quem ego civem meo iudicio cum deorum immortalium laude coniungo (Quintus Metellus . . . a citizen by my own judgement I unite in praise with the immortal gods).

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The close of the Pro Sestio revisits and refines ideas developed throughout the speech. Cicero adds some final touches to his redefinition of optimates (132–38), and broadens the scope of his praise for those who have resisted demagoguery and conserved traditional order. Members of the vanguard that bears the brunt of public duty are, he says, universally considered the leaders of these real optimates and are called the conservatores civitatis (preservers of the civil community, 138). He hails Themistocles as a conservator patriae (preserver of the fatherland) and extols the superlative justice of Aristides, but notes how all prior human achievements are nevertheless eclipsed by the glory won by Romans (141). In the climax to this seminal speech, right before the closing miseratio, Cicero boldly extends the ramifications of the posthumous privileges to which he had previously alluded (143): qua re imitemur nostros Brutos, Camillos, Ahalas, Decios, Curios, Fabricios, Maximos, Scipiones, Lentulos, Aemilios, innumerabiles alios qui hanc rem publicam stabiliverunt. quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono. amemus patriam, pareamus senatui, consulamus bonis; praesentis fructus neglegamus, posteritatis gloriae serviamus, id esse optimum putemus quod erit rectissimum, speremus quae volumus, sed quod acciderit feramus, cogitemus denique corpus virorum fortium magnorumque hominum esse mortale, animi vero motus et virtutis gloriam sempiternam, neque hanc opinionem si in illo sanctissimo Hercule consecratam videmus, cuius corpore ambusto vitam eius et virtutem immortalitas excepisse dicatur, minus existimemus eos qui hanc tantam rem publicam suis consiliis aut laboribus aut auxerint aut defenderint aut servarint esse immortalem gloriam consecutos. So let us imitate Romans like Brutus, Camillus, Ahala, the Decii, Curius, Fabricius, Maximus, the Scipios, Lentulus, Aemilius, and countless others who have secured this commonwealth, whom I at any rate place among the number and company of the immortal gods. Let us love the fatherland, defer to the senate, and keep the interests of patriots in mind; let us neglect present gain and serve a glory abiding in future generations, let us consider what is most right the best, let us hope for what we want but bear whatever happens, and finally, we should ponder the fact that although the body of brave and great men is mortal, the movements of their mind and the glory of their virtue is everlasting; and if we see this idea hallowed in the most sanctified Hercules, whose life and virtue is said to have attained immortality after his body had been cremated, then we should also reckon that those who have enlarged, defended, or preserved this great commonwealth by their decisions and actions have attained immortal glory.

The collective exhortations lead the audience from patterning themselves after these exemplary Romans (imitemur) to regarding their souls as

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immortal (cogitemus) and granting them honors like those given to Hercules (existimemus). The audience that Cicero was leading through these exhortations was supposedly one of the largest ever assembled for a trial at Rome.45 The most radical statement in this passage – one that presents these religious ideas as present reality – is restricted to Cicero himself in the first person singular (quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono). Cicero’s equidem (“I at any rate”) here flags the originality of Cicero’s declaration. As Kaster notes, Cicero’s equidem “acknowledges that his view stands outside the mainstream.”46 We witness Cicero as he brings these ideas into the mainstream with his telling choice of language for Hercules, who is deemed “most sanctified” (hanc opinionem si in illo sanctissimo Hercule consecratam videmus). This is the only place in classical Latin where the verb consecrare is used with the noun opinio,47 which spotlights Cicero’s efforts to lend sanctity to apotheosis. His choice of language here is also calculated to legitimize the public’s role in apportioning divinity (opinio).48 The underlying logic of Hellenistic theories of deification, with an emphasis on divinity hard won by conquest and civic benefaction, is broadcast with a Roman spin. Three ways of thinking about immortality and divinity converge in Pro Sestio 143. Cicero’s proposal melds conventional concepts of diachronic renown (gloria sempiterna; immortalis gloria), philosophical theories about the immortality of the soul, and the Herculean paradigm49 of apotheosis earned by heroic feats. Gloria might therefore be given a more serious religious import here or it may conversely be a compromise inserted to moderate the whole proposal.50 The experimental activity in Cicero’s texts is readily discernible through the prism of Pro Sestio 143. He assembles and 45 46 48

49

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Sest. 36 notes an audience unprecedented in size. 47 Kaster 2006: 388. Ibid.: 389. Note how language here (consecrare; opinio), like the Hercules example, resurfaces in the Consolatio (Lact. Inst. Div. 1.15.20): quod quidem faciam, teque omnium optimam, doctissimam, approbantibus diis immortalibus ipsis in eorum coetu locatam ad opinionem omnium mortalium consecrabo (and this I will indeed do, and I shall consecrate you, the best, the most learned of women, placed with the approval of the immortal gods themselves among their company, in the estimation of all mortals). Cf. Tusc. 1.30 for opinio describing one’s comprehension of divinities: nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam est immanis, cuius mentem non imbuerit deorum opinio (There is no people so savage, no one so unnatural, whose mind has no estimation of the gods). During this same year (56 bce) in which Cicero was proposing Hercules as a model for Roman statesmen and publicly connecting the expansion and preservation of empire to divinity, Faustus Cornelius Sulla issued coins with the head of Hercules on the obverse and a globe surrounded by three wreaths on the reverse evoking Pompey’s three triumphs (those extolled at Sest. 129). See Crawford 1974: 449–50 (426.4) on this coinage. Sullivan 1943: 17 notes how the tangible nature of gloria made it especially attractive to practically minded Romans.

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pieces together the formative components for a Roman species of divinization (immortality of the soul; Herculean apotheosis; gloria sempiterna) but does not fuse them into a seamless new whole. This flexible adaptation suggests that these concepts were not so rigidly defined at this point. The flourish at the end of the Pro Sestio is clearly hyperbolic. However, the fact that this passage is echoed in the De re publica, where the concept of immortality for Roman statesmen is given a fuller anatomization, reveals that it is not just hyperbolic.

Authorizing apotheosis in the De re publica and De legibus The De re publica is at once a response to Plato and an act of Roman selfdefinition prompted by social crisis.51 Cicero’s introduction to the dialogue (1.1–13) positions the work as a response to the disintegration of political order in the fifties and represents it as “a protreptic to political action.”52 Scipio, Laelius, and the other interlocutors therefore share preoccupations with Cicero and his late Republican audience while also taking their bearings from Plato, Polybius, and Dicaearchus.53 Cicero’s attempt to redefine the term “optimate” in the Pro Sestio is, for example, taken up by his characters in the dialogue. Scipio criticizes the entitlements of mere birth and untutored wealth in the first book with language that accords with Cicero’s discussions in the Pro Sestio.54 Cicero’s self-presentation in the preface also draws heavily upon the core concepts of his post-exilic (and consular) speeches. Positing objections to public engagement gives Cicero a chance to reiterate the fact that he was a conservator (preserver). He notes that even Epicureans preserved by his 51

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See Gotter 1996a on how Cicero adapts and transforms Platonic modes of thought in response to cultural crisis at Rome. Zetzel 2001: 86. Cf. Zetzel 1998: 237–38. Rawson 1972: 62 sees the De re publica, Atticus’ chronological researches, and Varro’s Antiquitates as clear reactions to “the breakdown of Republican order in the fifties.” So too Powell 2001: 38: “In the end, the main issue of the De Re Publica appears to me to have been: how can we improve matters now?” and Gildenhard 2007: 48: “The dialogue is not just about, it quite simply is, politics.” As Beard 1986: 39 notes, “the second-century characters are principally convenient vehicles for essentially first-century debate.” Coleman 1964: 10 singles out Cicero’s examination of the rector rei publicae (leader of the commonwealth) as having immediate relevance to late Republican readers: “It is impossible to dissociate this concept of the rector from the events of Cicero’s own time, when Pompey was steadily being forced into an apparently similar role as the defender of constitutional government against the threat of Caesar’s ambitions.” He notes (n.3) that in 52 bce, the year before Rep. appeared, Pompey was made sole consul. Powell 2001: 27–28 argues that Cicero has Scipio give admonishments about such arrangements by saying that monarchy tends to devolve into tyranny. 1.51. Cf. Scipio’s similar interrogation of the term optimates at 3.47. Cicero also has Philus unmask the morally bankrupt reality that can lurk behind the title optimates at Rome (3.23).

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actions and policies might cite his subsequent persecution as a deterrent to public service (1.6). He also reminds his readers of the oath that he had sworn in an assembly on the last day of his consulship, claiming that he had saved the city with his sole efforts (1.7).55 This he builds upon with grandiose language reminiscent of the final moments of the Pro Sestio56 (1.7): non dubitaverim me gravissimis tempestatibus ac paene fulminibus ipsis obvium ferre conservandorum civium causa, meisque propriis periculis parere commune reliquis otium (I did not hesitate to face head on the greatest tempests and even thunderbolts for the sake of saving citizens and creating a common peace for all through my own dangers).57 With Cicero’s claims of being a conservator rei publicae fresh in mind, readers encounter a superlative assessment of what this can entail (1.12): neque enim est ulla res in qua propius ad deorum numen virtus accedat humana, quam civitatis aut condere novas aut conservare iam conditas (For there is nothing in which human virtue approaches divine power more closely than in founding new states and preserving those already founded).58 There is a programmatic quality to this statement as well: making connections between Rome’s supreme statesmen, civic benefaction, and divinity is central to the De re publica both in the elaborate presentation of Romulus’ apotheosis and Scipio’s visionary dream of astral immortality in the coda to the dialogue. The preface to book 3 follows up on that of book 1 with further discussion of what can make human virtus (valor/virtue) approach the divine (3.4), a discussion that enlarges traditional Roman concepts of virtus.59 With a striking expansion of priorities for a Roman audience,60 Cicero describes the serious study of political theory (ratio civilis et disciplina populorum) with the lofty language (incredibilis quaedam et divina virtus [a certain incredible and divine virtue]) that he had previously used to praise the military giant Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia (incredibilis ac 55 56

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A climactic moment that Cicero also recalls at Pis. 6–7. Zetzel 1995: 106 notes the affinities of this passage with Sest. 138–39. The description at 139 of the real optimates culminates in the exhortation that they be placed among the gods by posterity (143). Cicero’s metaphorical use of tempestatibus here connects to “a larger complex of metaphors, including the ship of state and the voyage of life (or of public policy), all of which C. employs frequently, particularly with reference to his consulate and exile”: Zetzel 1995: 97. With fulminibus, Cicero may mythologize his deeds by making allusion to the end of Prometheus Bound, a text he translates in the Tusculan Disputations: Zetzel 1995: 106. Cf. how Cicero had aligned saving the city with founding the city and associated both with divinity at Catil. 3.2. See McDonnell 2006: 320–84 for an examination of how Cicero (in Rep. and elsewhere) helps redefine virtus by expanding its political and ethical dimensions. Buchheit 1973 argues that Cicero’s pivotal efforts to redefine the exemplary Roman statesman start in earnest with the Catilinarian Orations and culminate in the De re publica.

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divina virtus, 33; divina atque incredibilis virtus, 36).61 Cicero goes on to put forward a blend of substantial theoretical knowledge with practical experience in politics as a Roman ideal.62 His exemplars of this critical balance are his primary interlocutors in the De re publica, Scipio and Laelius (3.5).63 Representing their productive adaptation of Greek modes of thought to Roman customs as a major cultural achievement establishes these men as important precursors to Cicero, since this is the very task underway in the De re publica. Scipio was a particularly apt choice to present an account of the religious and political cultures of early Rome. He, along with Laelius, likely played a prominent role in the rise of Republican religious antiquarianism.64 When Cicero has Laelius designate Scipio at 1.71 as the Roman ideally qualified to explain ancestral institutions and advance provisions for posterity, he signals that the presentation of Rome’s past in the De re publica is also a meditation on its future. How Cicero shaped his account of Romulus in the De re publica was pivotal for legitimizing or discrediting deification as Roman custom at this watershed moment when Roman rulers such as Pompey and Caesar were 61

62

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Cicero calls the political philosopher par excellence Plato a “god among philosophers” (4.5a¼Lact. ept. 33[38], 1–5). See also the designation deus ille noster Plato (this our god Plato) that he uses in a discussion of Rep. and de Orat. (Att. 4.16.3) and similarly Opt. Gen. 17: divinus auctor Plato (the divine author Plato) and N.D. 2.32: audiamus enim Platonem quasi quendam deum philosophorum (let us listen to Plato, as if a sort of god among philosophers). See Leschhorn 1985: 387–88 for a collection of the philosophers treated with such language by Cicero, and Wardle 2006: 239 who notes that Cicero uses it “without qualification” for Plato. Cf. Lucretius’ roughly contemporary divinization of Epicurus (e.g. 1.731–33; 3.1042–44; 5.8–9; 5.49–51) and also the claims of Empedocles (Inwood 1.4–5): ἐγὼ δ’ ὑμῖν θεὸς ἄμβροτος οὐκέτι θνητός / πωλεῦμαι μετὰ πᾶσι τετιμένος (immortal and no longer mortal I wander among you honored by all). This is much like the integration of learning and experience prescribed in de Orat., where its primary embodiment, Crassus, is deemed a divinus homo (divine man) (3.6) and illud immortalitate dignum ingenium (this talent worthy of immortality) (3.1) by the narrator Cicero. Cicero creates a worthy precedent for his contemporary usage of such terminology by having Crassus compare the preeminent orator to a deus (3.53): in quo igitur homines exhorrescunt? quem stupefacti dicentem intuentur? in quo exclamant? quem deum, ut ita dicam, inter homines putant? (at whom then do men marvel, whom do they stare at amazed when he speaks, who gets applauded, who is considered, so to say, a god among humans?), cf. 1.202. Crassus takes care as well to note that he is speaking figuratively (ut ita dicam). Cicero’s suggestion via Crassus that the great orator is like a god is of course not totally disinterested. Astin 1967: 7 notes how Cicero prized Scipio as a “great man of public affairs, the political giant, who combined with success in action that enjoyment of learning which Cicero valued so highly.” Scipio himself emphasizes at 1.36 that practical Roman wisdom moderates all his Greek theoretical training, so he fittingly claims to use a real Republic for his exposition instead of a fully fictional construct like that of Socrates in Plato’s Republic (2.3). So Rawson 1973b: 101: “it remains very probable that with Scipio, Laelius, and Furius – and, we should doubtless not forget, Fabius Servilianus – we are in touch with an important stage in the development of religious antiquarianism: which, like most Roman antiquarianism, had a strong practical side to it.” See also Beard, North, and Price 1998: 109–11 on the religious activities of Scipio and Laelius.

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making public overtures to divinity. The De re publica is a text preoccupied with producing a distinctly Roman past,65 and a native template for apotheosis could be assembled from the array of Romulus legends in currency during the late Republic.66 Cicero crucially decides to canonize a variant of this legend that involves the apotheosis of Rome’s first ruler. Since no Roman had been deified since Romulus (if ever), Cicero creates an august Republican genealogy for contemporary religious speculations by drawing on the authority of a Republican poet well known to Cicero’s elite audience: Ennius.67 Ennius was not only the peerless singer of the mos maiorum (customs of the elders) whose maxim moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque (the Roman state stands on the customs and men of old) the narrator Cicero elevates to a mantic register at De re publica 5.1;68 he had also translated Euhemerus’ work on the apotheosis of early kings and benefactors for a Roman audience. It is indeed possible that Ennius, who had presented their Jupiter to Romans as a deified hero in his Euhemerus,69

65

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Cicero passes over Rome’s Trojan background: Cornell 2001: 48. Etruscan influence is largely overlooked (see Zetzel 1995: 188), and Roman institutions are usually represented as uniquely Roman and superior to those of Greek cities (e.g. 2.2). The sections on Romulus (2.4–20) also insistently vindicate him over Lycurgus: Zetzel 1995: 161. Philus at 1.37 says that he expects Scipio’s discussion to surpass all things written by the Greeks. At 2.29, Scipio’s fellow interlocutor Manilius is quite happy to hear that Numa was not a follower of Pythagoras. Scipio replies that even what was borrowed has been improved upon by Romans (2.30). Jocelyn 1989: 40–41 notes that an apotheosis story is inherently malleable material which would have been especially pliant in the case of Romulus, whose lack of a public cult gave poets and historians freedom to reshape the various legends circulating in the late Republic. The identification of the deified Romulus with Quirinus is first attested at Rep. 2.20 and may itself represent late Republican invention. Cicero’s later hesitation about this identification at N.D. 2.62 and Off. 3.41 suggests its shaky standing. Classen 1962: 192–99 makes the case for late Republican novelty; see Skutsch 1968: 130–37 and Jocelyn 1989: 39–46 for discussion of the divergent theories about this relationship. As Cornell 1986b: 244 notes, Ennius was a vital part of late Republican education: “What did the Romans of Cicero’s day know about their own history? Those who had any sort of education probably obtained their first and most lasting impressions from Ennius’ Annals.” Cicero’s contemporaries might expect Scipio to know his Ennius as well since the poet may have been represented in marble on the Scipios’ tomb off the Via Appia, although Cicero’s mention of this at Arch. 22 leaves the identification as Ennius open to some doubt. See Prinzen 1998: 168–71 on Ennius as oracle. fr. XI Vahlen; Courtney 1999: 36–37 argues that Ennius’ ad deos abiit (he departed to the gods) in this fragment, along with Cicero’s corroboration (post mortem ad deos pervenisse [after death he went to the gods], N.D. 1.119), suggests that Euhemerus not only rationalized gods as early culture heroes but also thought that these benefactors continued to exist among the gods after their mortal demise. Although another important source for Euhemerus’ theology, Diodorus Siculus Book 6, says that culture bringers received only immortal honors at their death, Euhemerism as represented by Ennius and Cicero seems to involve apotheosis. This perhaps reflects a Roman interest in a constitutive status change to divinity. See Bosworth 1999: 10–11 on the popularity and accessibility of Ennius’ Roman rendering of Euhemerus.

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even invented the apotheosis of Romulus in his Annales.70 Cicero’s use of the past in his presentation of apotheosis has an important legitimizing function. As Wallace-Hadrill observes about late Republican appeals to the ancestral past: “To invoke the ancestors is to invoke a stable model of legitimacy: they are most invoked when legitimacy is most at issue.”71 Cicero’s creative intervention with the Romulus legend is manifest in the markedly expansive presentation of his apotheosis and its rationale. In a relatively compressed account of early Rome that dispenses with a commonly prominent episode such as Romulus’ taking of the auspices with one word (auspicato 2.5), Cicero devotes hundreds of words to building a substantial, civically centered ideological basis for this seminal Roman deification. In the first book of the De re publica in the midst of a discussion about cycles of constitutions, Scipio makes incidental mention of a subject that he will have much to say about in the course of the dialogue: the divinity of the supreme statesman. To foresee civic upheaval and successfully govern through such inexorable crisis and change, Scipio claims, shows such superhuman capacities (1.45): in gubernanda re publica moderantem cursum atque in sua potestate retinentem, magni cuiusdam civis et divini paene est viri (holding course and keeping it under his power while governing the commonwealth is characteristic of a great citizen and nearly divine man). He tones down his claim (paene) in this particular context but nonetheless begins to build the case for the divinity of Rome’s first ruler, Romulus. Cicero has Scipio anchor his arguments deep in the past with appeals to venerable Republican sources such as Cato (1.27, 2.1–3), the augural books (1.63), and the Twelve Tables (2.54). Cicero uses Ennius’ Annales to give Romulus’ apotheosis a similar Republican patina. Ennian verses underwrite Scipio’s presentation of Romulus’ apotheosis and naturalize the prospect of divine rewards for Roman statesmen.72

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Skutsch 1985: 205 thinks that Ennius probably was the first to make Romulus a god, and ties this invention to his translation of Euhemerus. Jocelyn 1989: 55 concurs on the likelihood of Ennian innovation, but emphasizes its Pythagorean aspects. Bremmer 1987: 46 thinks that the evidence points to the apotheosis appearing late in the tradition but is too scant to support conclusions about its inventor. Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 217. Cicero’s strategies resemble those that Habinek 1998: 48 finds at work in Cato’s De agricultura, a text that attempts to mask the novelty of recent economic shifts (latifundia [large estates]) by interspersing traditional prayers and formulas “to ascribe what Gellius calls in another context the color vetustatis, or appearance of antiquity, to what is in fact a revolutionary enterprise.” Habinek (ibid.: 13) sees the “manufacture of a past that would authorize arrangements in its [the traditional aristocracy’s] present interest” as a “chief social function of Ciceronian ‘philosophy.’”

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Scipio establishes Ennius’ Annales early in book 1 as a reservoir of Republican archival information. In a discussion of astronomy and eclipses, Scipio cites Ennius’ Annales alongside the Annales Maximi as authoritative in his own time (dramatic date 129 bce) and thus continues to consolidate the poet’s cultural sovereignty (1.25). Scipio gives Ennius credentials that would impress Cicero’s late Republican audience: he connects Ennius’ Annales not only to official religious discourses at Rome (the Annales Maximi)73 but also to currents of superstition-fighting Greek rationalism. Like Thales, Ennius knew that the sun’s light was blocked in an eclipse by the interposition of the moon. The precise astronomical information mined from Ennius’ Annales and the Annales Maximi enabled a secure dating of Romulus’ apotheosis, an event framed by Scipio in a way that sets the stage for its fuller treatment in book 2 (1.25): quibus quidem Romulum tenebris etiamsi natura ad humanum exitum abripuit, virtus tamen in caelum dicitur sustulisse (During the darkness of this eclipse, even if nature took Romulus to a human departure, his virtue is said to have carried him up to the heavens). Scipio also self-annotates his use of tradition (dicitur) as he will in book 2, and also establishes an all-important connection between the workings of the cosmos and the apotheosis of Rome’s founder. Cicero also underpins the version of Romulus’ apotheosis in book 2 by having Scipio and Laelius show their belief in the relative chronological proximity and sophistication of the Romulean Romans. Their exchange compares Romulean Romans to their Greek contemporaries and ascertains that Romulus governed a populace both intelligent and fairly recent (prudentes homines et non veteres, 1.58). In what follows, Scipio quotes Ennius as evidence for the esteem that these enlightened early Romans had for their just king Romulus (1.64): sicut ait Ennius, post optimi regis obitum:

simul inter sese sic memorant: “o Romule. Romule die, qualem te patriae custodem di genuerunt! o pater, o genitor, o sanguen dis oriundum!”

73

Since Ennius was probably instrumental in the development of “official” Roman religious discourses, Scipio’s linking of the Annales and the Annales Maximi is fitting. As Rüpke 1995 argues, Ennius and M. Fulvius Nobilior added a list of censors and consuls to a calendar in the temple of Hercules Musarum and thus brought fasti to Rome that were more examples of annalistic historiography, with its aggrandizing distortions, than straightforward chronological records. Formal affinities between the Annales and the Annales Maximi also recommend Scipio’s combination of sources. Rüpke 2006 observes that the Annales are the first non-documentary text in which pairs of consuls and iterations of offices are found.

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non eros nec dominos appellabant eos quibus iuste paruerunt, denique ne reges quidem, sed patriae custodes, sed patres, sed deos, nec sine causa. As Ennius said after the death of the greatest king: “and at the same time they speak this way to one another: ‘Romulus, divine Romulus, what a guardian of the fatherland the gods brought forth in you! Oh father, Oh life-giver, Oh blood sprung from the gods.’” They did not call those whom they duly obeyed “lords” or “masters” and not even “kings,” but “guardians of the fatherland,” “fathers,” “gods” – and not without reason.

Cicero adds a poetic and archaic nuance (eros) to Scipio’s own language in his annotation of Ennius.74 And his sed patres may very well be an oblique reference to Cicero’s own coveted pater patriae (father of the fatherland).75 According to some later commentators, Cicero has Scipio wring too much out of these verses. Scipio reads this lament as proof that early Romans addressed Romulus as a god, while both Jocelyn and Skutsch argue that Ennius’ words do not support Scipio’s claims.76 Whatever Ennius’ intentions may have been, it is important in the context of the De re publica that Cicero has the revered Republican hero Scipio advance an interpretation of Ennius that emphasizes Romulus’ divinity. The combination of Ennius and Scipio that Cicero devises for the De re publica provides an unassailable source of traditional authority for the divinity of Romulus.77 The Ennian precedent for the divinity of Romulus that Scipio sets out in book 1 of the De re publica lends formidable support to the account of Romulus’ deification at the beginning of book 2. Scipio makes a remarkable departure right from the start of his narrative of early Rome in book 2 by beginning with Romulus and the foundation of the city. Other known pre-Ciceronian versions, with the possible exception of the first-century 74

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Zetzel 1995: 151. Skutsch 1985: 256 notes that Scipio’s post optimi regis obitum may also blur the distinctions between his language and that of Ennius: “The phrase post obitum, though in plain prose, may conceivably have been chosen because Ennius used it in one of the preceding lines.” Zetzel 1995: 151. Skutsch 1985: 258–59 suggests that Cicero’s o fortunatam natam me consule Romam (O fortunate Rome, born in my consulship) mostly alludes to the pater patriae title, although these Ennian verses “will not have been far from his mind.” Skutsch 1985: 256: “Romulus, in spite of Cicero’s deos (appellabant) is very clearly not addressed as a god here.” Jocelyn 1989: 45: “A difference of substance, however, well noted by Skutsch himself, has more importance than the verbal similarity. Ennius does not have Romulus addressed as any sort of deus, even in the hyperbolic manner familiar from the comic scripts of the time. There is indeed no exact semantic equivalence between Livy’s deum deo natum and te patriae custodem di genuerunt! . . . o sanguen dis oriundum! The Plautine di immortales . . . te adiutorem genuerunt mihi tam doctum hominem atque astutum [Pseud. 905–7] is a better aid to the interpretation of Ennius. Cicero himself got things wrong with non eros nec dominos appellabant eos . . . denique ne reges quidem; sed patriae custodes, sed patres et deos.” Gildenhard 2007: 22 rightly notes that the “social prestige” of a protagonist such as Scipio “was meant to lend his text and ideas historical weight and dignity.”

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historian Licinius Macer, all gave Rome expansive prehistories.78 At the introduction to his account of Romulean Rome, Scipio appeals to a Roman tradition that acknowledges the divinity of outstanding servants of state (2.4): concedamus enim famae hominum, praesertim non inveteratae solum sed etiam sapienter a maioribus proditae, bene meriti de rebus communibus ut genere etiam putarentur, non solum ingenio esse divino (We should follow tradition, especially since it is not only ancient but wisely passed down by our ancestors that men who deserved well of the community should be considered to be divine by birth as well as talent). Scipio deftly handles the question of Romulus’ descent from Mars here by asserting that such repute was a distinction won by Romulus for his service to Rome. He fashions the Roman ancestors as reflective pragmatists who propagated this “tradition” as an incentive for work on behalf of the community.79 The specific phrasing acknowledges the importance of both hoary precedent (inveteratae) and social utility (sapienter a maioribus proditae) for religious customs. Scipio again stresses that he is not inventing but relying on what has been handed down from the earlier Republic (concedamus enim famae hominum). Cicero gives Scipio a word (fama) that Cicero elsewhere represents as a reliable source for the Romulus tradition.80 Claims of divine descent – like those made by Caesar’s family – are converted from a prerogative of birth to a civic reward by Scipio’s rationale. Scipio admits that Romulus’ earliest years are obscured by legend (and so helps dodge the Remus problem) but claims that the greater part of his account is historically grounded (2.4): quorum copiis cum se ducem praebuisset, ut [et]iam a fabulis ad facta veniamus, oppressisse Longam Albam, validam urbem et potentem temporibus illis, Amuliumque regem interemisse fertur (He made himself leader of their forces and [turning from fable to fact] is said to have defeated Alba Longa, a strong city powerful for those times, and killed King Amulius). By having Scipio place Romulus’ life in the realm of “fact” instead of “fable” (a fabulis ad facta veniamus), Cicero 78 79

80

Cornell 2001: 48. Cf. the claim in Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum about the utility of ascribing divine ancestry to leaders (fr. 20 Cardauns): utile esse civitatibus . . . ut se viri fortes, etiamsi falsum sit, diis genitos esse credant, ut eo modo animus humanus velut divinae stirpis fiduciam gerens res magnas adgrediendas praesumat audacius (It is useful for communities for brave men to think, even if it is false, that they are descended from gods, so that the human spirit taking faith in its divine seed undertakes great challenges more readily). His usage at Tusc. 1.28 gives fama credibility in the context of the Romulus tradition: ex hoc et nostrorum opinione “Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum,” ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius (hence, in the belief of our countrymen, “Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the gods,” as Ennius wrote in accordance with tradition). See also Catil. 3.2 and the similar use of fama for the Hercules apotheosis tradition in the Consol. (Lact. Inst. Div. 1.15.20).

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gives Scipio’s narrative added credibility by distancing it from the sort of contrivances (fabulas fictas) that are said to be accepted by primitive, credulous populaces.81 Scipio notes that Roman tradition supports his version of events (fertur), in this case his information about Romulus’ military exploits. Scipio then describes Romulus’ political wisdom in selecting the site of Rome with language that forecasts his impending apotheosis (2.10): qui potuit igitur divinius et utilitates complecti maritimas Romulus et vitia vitare, quam quod urbem perennis amnis et aequabilis et in mare late influentis posuit in ripa? (Could anything show divine ability more than Romulus’ embrace of the advantages of the coast while avoiding its vices by placing his city on the bank of a large river that broadly flows into the sea throughout the year?). The pointed language that immediately follows (ut mihi iam tum divinasse ille videatur [so already then he seems to me to have divined], 2.10) touts Romulus’ augural abilities and also alludes back to the divine aspects of Romulus already enumerated by Scipio.82 The historicity of Romulus’ apotheosis is established by a rather detailed synchronization of Greek and Roman culture. Scipio puts the sophistication of early Romans on par with their Greek contemporaries who were already aware of the distinctions between myth and history (2.18–19). He argues that Romulean Romans, long disabused of any primitive naiveté, embraced his transformation into the newly made god Quirinus because of Romulus’ outstanding virtus (2.17):83 ac Romulus, cum septem et triginta regnavisset annos, et haec egregia duo firmamenta rei publicae peperisset, auspicia et senatum, tantum est consecutus, ut cum subito sole obscurato non comparuisset, deorum in numero collocatus putaretur; quam opinionem nemo umquam mortalis assequi potuit sine eximia virtutis gloria. When Romulus had ruled for thirty-seven years and had created these two outstanding foundations for the commonwealth, the auspices and the senate, he achieved so much that when he did not reappear after a sudden 81

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(2.19): ex quo intellegi potest permultis annis ante Homerum fuisse quam Romulum, ut iam doctis hominibus ac temporibus ipsis eruditis ad fingendum vix quicquam esset loci. antiquitas enim recepit fabulas fictas etiam non numquam incondite, haec aetas autem iam exculta praesertim eludens omne quod fieri non potest respuit (One can therefore understand that Homer lived many years before Romulus, so that with the people and the times already educated there would be scarcely a chance to make stuff up. Ancient times often accepted confused made-up fables, but the age now so cultivated rejects what is not possible). Zetzel 1995: 167. As Zetzel (ibid.: 174–75) duly notes: “the acceptance of Romulus’ deification indicates a remarkable level of virtus on his part rather than an equivalent level of credulity on that of the Romans.” This is also made clear at 1.25 and 2.20.

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Scipio emphasizes that Romulus was a mortal (nemo umquam mortalis) whose brilliant statecraft secured him a place among the gods (deorum in numero collocatus putaretur).84 Scipio highlights the early Romans’ agency in initiating and perpetuating the deification (putaretur; opinionem) in a way that recalls Cicero’s religious elevation of opinio in the Pro Sestio.85 Scipio’s focus on virtus here connects to the narrator Cicero’s associations of virtus and divinity at 1.12 and 3.4 and provides them with a validating mechanism. More importantly, this continued focus on benefaction betrays the ideological orientation of this formative mediation in the Romulean apotheosis tradition. Scipio again mentions the eclipse at Romulus’ apotheosis to which he referred at 1.25. And as Scipio in book 1 had presented an Ennius who was a source of both Roman religious and Greek scientific lore, so here he suggests that acceptance of apotheosis is perfectly compatible with an educated, skeptical temperament (2.18): atque hoc eo magis est in Romulo admirandum, quod ceteri qui dii ex hominibus facti esse dicuntur, minus eruditis hominum saeculis fuerunt, ut fingendi proclivis esset ratio, cum imperiti facile ad credendum impellerentur, Romuli autem aetatem minus his sescentis annis iam inveteratis litteris atque doctrinis omnique illo antiquo ex inculta hominum vita errore sublato fuisse cernimus. In the case of Romulus that is even more remarkable: all other gods who are said to have originally been human were from less sophisticated eras in history, when there would be an inclination for fabricating fiction, given that the uneducated are easily led to belief. But we know that Romulus lived less than six hundred years ago when literacy and

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Cf. the similar language used for the later Republican heroes at Sest. 143: quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono (whom I at any rate place among the number and company of the immortal gods). Cf. Sest. 143: hanc opinionem si in illo sanctissimo Hercule consecratam videmus (we see this idea hallowed in the most sanctified Hercules). See Kaster 2006: 389 on Cicero’s sanctification of opinio in this passage and the “extraordinary emphasis” in this invocation of Hercules. Also see the role of opinio at Tusc. 1.28: ex hoc et nostrorum opinione “Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum,” ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius (hence, in the belief of our countrymen, “Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the gods,” as Ennius wrote in accordance with tradition) and in the attempted deification of Tullia (Consol.¼Lact. Inst. Div. 1.15.20): teque omnium optimam, doctissimam, approbantibus diis immortalibus ipsis in eorum coetu locatam ad opinionem omnium mortalium consecrabo (and I shall consecrate you the best and most learned of all, placed in the gathering of immortal gods with their approval in the estimation of all people).

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learning were well established, and all antiquated ignorance of men’s primitive state had been eliminated.

This enlarges upon Scipio’s earlier suggestion at 1.58 that the Romulean Romans lived in a relatively advanced society. The mourning of Ennius’ early Romans, presented by Scipio at 1.64, becomes all the more powerful and their invocation of him as a god (in Scipio’s reading) becomes even more significant in light of their sophistication.86 Scipio’s line of reasoning narrows the gap between archaic and late Republican Romans by situating both Romulean Romans and Cicero’s original audience in a post-primitive stage of Roman history. Some readers are bound to find Scipio’s reconstruction of archaic Rome implausible. Even his fellow interlocutor Laelius challenges how Scipio attributes the selection of the site of the city to the foresight of Romulus rather than to chance or necessity (2.22).87 Laelius does not, however, dispute the enlightened mindset that Scipio claims for archaic Romans nor does he express any doubts about the deification of Romulus. In the ensuing discussion of Numa, Cicero offers a demonstration of Scipio’s critical approach to archaic material. Cicero has Scipio debunk the popular legend that Numa was a Pythagorean and insist on setting the chronology straight (2.28–29).88 Here, and presumably elsewhere in the De re publica, Scipio applies a relative methodological rigor to prevalent fictions. As Cornell observes, Scipio gives a version of early Roman history that is “purged of its romantic, supernatural and salacious elements.”89 It is also important to remember that the historical consciousness that informed this rendering of archaic Rome was especially prone to retroject present concerns into the past.90 86

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Cf. Cornell 2001: 55: “Scipio therefore sees the Roman people at the time of Romulus’ death not only as a cultured and civilised community but also (in biological terms) as a fully developed organism.” See Görler 1995: 111 on the presence but relative insignificance of such “sceptical insertions” in the dialogues of the fifties. Rawson 1972: 63 rightly points out that Scipio’s critical stance also serves the larger purposes of Rep.: “None the less, Cicero at times allows the scholarly to override the patriotic considerations, and at others reconciles them with some subtlety. His justified refusal to believe that Numa was a Pythagorean is turned ad maiorem gloriam Romae to show that her culture was not borrowed.” Scipio also ignores Numa’s relationship with Egeria: Zetzel 1995: 181. See Gruen 1996 for an indepth discussion of Numa and Pythagoreanism. Cornell 2001: 46. Zetzel 1995: 188 notes how Scipio’s account of Tarquinius Priscus (2.34–36) proceeds “as usual by concentrating on the establishment of institutions and eschewing the fabulous and miraculous.” He leaves out the story of the augur Attus Navius cutting a whetstone (Zetzel 1999: 43) and in what follows at 2.37 he rationalizes Servius Tullius’ halo of fire: Zetzel 1995: 192. See Cornell 1986a: 73–75 for illuminating observations on the late Republican use of the archaic period as a medium for self-definition. Recent archeological work suggests that Scipio’s

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Cicero’s emphases in his account of Numa’s religious innovations leave a trace of such anachronism. Scipio’s grouping of religious colleges reflects their status in late Republican rather than regal Rome (2.26).91 Scipio does not present Numa’s religious innovations in the De re publica as numinous revelations from Egeria; instead, they are eminently human constructions. The fact that they are introduced with social utility in mind is noted approvingly (2.26), much like the early Romans’ propagation of the divinity of exceptional statesmen (2.4). The ultimately man-made provenance and social purpose of religion was not a great source of anxiety for Romans such as Cicero and Varro.92 This is why Cicero can unabashedly fashion himself as a latter-day Numa and write religion in the De legibus. The analysis of the role of the statesman and the delineation of his profile in book 5 of the De re publica leads into the culminating Somnium Scipionis of book 6. After the statesman’s characteristics have been set forth, Scipio goes on to reveal his rewards (6.8):93 SCIPIO “sed quamquam sapientibus conscientia ipsa factorum egregiorum amplissimum virtutis est praemium, tamen illa divina virtus non statuas plumbo inhaerentes nec triumphos arescentibus laureis, sed stabiliora quaedam et viridiora praemiorum genera desiderat.” “quae tandem ista sunt?” inquit LAELIUS. tum SCIPIO: “patimini me” inquit, “quoniam tertium diem iam feriati sumus.” Scipio: “Although for wise men knowledge of outstanding deeds is the richest reward for virtue, it is also true that virtue, which is divine, does not desire statues set on lead or triumphs with fading laurels, it seeks rewards more lasting and vigorous.” Laelius: “And what are these?” Scipio: “Allow me to go on,” he said. “Since this is the third day of our holiday.”

Scipio’s reference to illa divina virtus most immediately picks up the recent enumeration of the statesman’s virtutes in book 5. It also, however, fits with the complex of associations that Cicero has developed between virtus, divinity, and statecraft and the study of its intellectual foundations. The

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reconstruction might not be so far-fetched after all: Wiseman 1989: 132 argues that archaic Romans were “in more or less contact with people whose minds were full of Homer and Hesiod.” Zetzel 1995: 182: “Five religious colleges are named, grouped by their importance in C.’s day rather than in the regal period: the augurs come first – the college of which C. himself was a member – with the pontifices, after a sentence on religious legislation come the three colleges of flamines, Salii, and Vestals, and a generalizing conclusion.” See how Varro in the Antiquitates rerum divinarum compares a state’s creation of institutions to a painter creating a painting: fr. 5 Cardauns. In the introduction to Dom., Cicero speaks approvingly of the tight integration of politics and religion “divinely” devised by the ancestors (1). As Coleman 1964: 3 observes: “What links the Somnium most closely to the preceding discussion is the deification of the Statesman (VI, 13 and 29).”

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narrator’s linkage of saving a state to a near-divine virtus at 1.12, the virtus that justified Romulus’ divinity (1.25, 2.17, 2.20), and the divina virtus of serious students of political theory such as Scipio at 3.4–5 all serve as preparation for the Somnium. Before narrating his dream, Scipio offers an anticipatory defense that is intended to quell the criticisms of Cicero’s readers as much as those of his guests for the Feriae Latinae (6.3): haec quae de animae immortalitate dicerentur caeloque, [nec] somniantium philosophorum esse conmenta, nec fabulas incredibiles quas Epicurei derident, sed prudentium coniecturas (Things said about the immortality of the soul and heaven are neither the inventions of dreaming philosophers nor the unbelievable tales that the Epicureans laugh at, they are the reasoned speculations of men of judgment). This begins the distancing from Cicero’s fabulous Platonic source, the Myth of Er. Plato certainly does, however, merit inclusion in this group of prudentes since Africanus will borrow from his Phaedrus to prove the immortality of the soul in the Somnium.94 Cicero also belongs in this group since the prognostications (coniecturas) of the Somnium, while based on an array of sources,95 have an indelibly Roman coloring and are ultimately his own. Describing the narration of the Somnium as advancing coniecturae sets a religious yet rational tone. In Roman divination, coniectura is the interpretation of a set of data (such as an omen or a dream) through a process of rational extrapolation.96 Working with a rich mixture of formative components, Cicero creates a highly innovative, paradigmatic scheme of immortal transfiguration for civic benefactors. Cicero takes great pains to give the ideas elaborated in Scipio’s dream credibility.97 As Scipio had rationalized the fantastic throughout his 94

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Rep. 6.27–28¼Phaedrus 245c5–246a2. See Zetzel 1995: 251–52 for a close analysis of Cicero’s translation. These sources include Plato, Aristotle, Heraclides of Pontus, and the Stoics, as well as Eratosthenes and Alexander of Ephesus: Zetzel 1995: 224. Coleman 1964 examines the Pythagorean cast of the Somnium and argues for pervasive influence of Pythagoreanism throughout Rep. See Div. 1.24 and Wardle 2006: 165. This task of making this dream-apparition believable for a Roman audience was probably not an arduous one. Hopkins 1983: 234 stresses that a Roman audience would be more inclined to accept a dream vision than a modern one: “In our world, the dead are safely locked away in cemeteries, or in photograph albums. Occasionally, they make excursions into ghost stories or horror movies, but we all know that these are fictions. Except in occasional nightmares, only the psychotic or recently bereaved allow the dead to intrude effectively into consciousness. In the sleeping world of the Romans also, ghosts appeared in dreams and foretold the future. Pliny the younger, litterateur and consul, wrote that he was himself inclined to believe in spirits and ghosts; and he then told a classic ghost story. It is worth citing because it illustrates how even educated, politically powerful Romans believed in the supernatural. It may therefore not be sensible to try to explain their actions by attributing motives which follow our canons of rationality.” Cicero himself supposedly had a

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account of early Rome in book 2, so here he attributes the genesis of his dream to the somnolent reprise of his daytime reminiscences about Africanus with their friend King Masinissa (6.10). He also appeals to Ennius again at this point and places his dream within a venerable Roman framework by likening it to Ennius’ famous vision of Homer. His comparison is particularly apt here since both his dream and Ennius’ concern the soul and the afterlife.98 Scipio’s dream, full of exact astronomical information provided by his own ancestor, achieves a degree of realism that leaves the reader “knowing that the dream incorporates a great statesman’s deepest beliefs.”99 These beliefs relayed in Scipio’s dream show marked continuity with ideas about the immortality of Roman benefactors presented in Cicero’s speeches. Africanus’ exposition of the heavenly rewards that await the loyal statesman adapts and transforms the nexus of ideas that Cicero had been articulating since his consulship (6.13): sed quo sis, Africane, alacrior ad tutandam rem publicam, sic habeto: omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint auxerint certum esse in caelo definitum locum, ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur; nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui omnem mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat acceptius, quam concilia coetusque hominum iure sociati, quae civitates appellantur; harum rectores et conservatores hinc profecti huc revertuntur. But so you, Africanus, will be all the more eager to protect the commonwealth, know this: for all who have preserved, helped, and enlarged the commonwealth, there is a certain place set off in the sky where they, blessed, can enjoy eternity. Nothing happening on earth is more agreeable to the leading god who rules the whole world than these councils and gatherings of people associated by law, which are called states; the leaders and preservers of these set out from here and return here.

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nocturnal visit from Marius that foretold his recall from exile (Div. 1.59). John North, in a paper delivered at Columbia University in Fall 2003, discussed how the predicative veracity of this dream was not, like that of many of the divinations in book 1 of Div., rebutted in book 2. Harris 2003: 27 aims to chart diachronic change as well as synchronic diversity in Roman attitudes toward dreams. He argues against North and also Beard (1986) that the Marcus of Div. 2 is the author’s mouthpiece, and concludes that regarding dreams Cicero was “beyond any reasonable doubt a sceptic, at least by the time he wrote De divinatione (45–44 b.c.).” Harris’ qualification (“at least”) is perhaps due to his not having any discussion of Rep., a text that presents problems for those drawing conclusions about Cicero’s skepticism toward dreams. It should be noted that the status of the Marcus of Div. 2 is still very much in doubt: Fox 2007 follows Beard in his reading of Div. and also offers a forceful critique of the mouthpiece approach to Cicero’s dialogues. Zetzel 1998: 234. Zetzel 1995: 224. Zetzel 1998: 236 stresses the special credibility Scipio gives the vision of the afterlife presented in book 6.

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The rectores et conservatores are the exemplary statesmen of book 5, but their reward is also applicable to Scipio who was just previously predicted to become the sole savior of the state (6.12): tu eris unus in quo nitatur civitatis salus (you will be the one on whom the safety of the state depends).100 The conservator introduced at the beginning of the dialogue (1.6, 1.7), Cicero, is also presumably eligible for a favorable judgment according to Africanus’ formula. Africanus’ criteria here (qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint auxerint), a solemn tricolon with asyndeton,101 are basically a restatement of those stipulated by Cicero at Pro Sestio 143 (qui hanc tantam rem publicam suis consiliis aut laboribus aut auxerint aut defenderint aut servarint) for the Republican heroes whom he lodges amongst the gods. The pride of place that Africanus gives to poets and philosophers (quod docti homines nervis imitati atque cantibus, aperuerunt sibi reditum in hunc locum, sicut alii qui praestantibus ingeniis in vita humana divina studia coluerunt [learned men imitating this with stringed instruments and songs opened for themselves return to this place, as did others with outstanding talents who cultivated divine studies in their human life], 6.18) seconds Cicero’s comments in the preface to book 3 about the divina virtus that results from the study of political theory (3.4).102 Africanus’ lofty assessment of culture heroes is loosely parallel to Cicero’s praise of Plato (deus ille noster Plato [this our god Plato], Att. 4.16.3) and his praise of poets in the Pro Archia (si qua non modo humana verum etiam divina in tantis ingeniis commendatio debet esse [if there ought to be some not only human but even divine commendation for such talents], 31). Africanus diverges sharply, however, from texts such as the Pro Sestio and the Pro Archia in his devaluation of sublunar gloria sempiterna (eternal glory, 6.23) that sets it at a far remove from true immortality.103 Cicero has Scipio undermine traditional elite conceptions of gloria with a revolutionary

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Cf. Africanus’ final exhortation at 6.29: hanc tu exerce in optimis rebus! sunt autem optimae curae de salute patriae, quibus agitatus et exercitatus animus velocius in hanc sedem et domum suam pervolabit (Concern yourself with the best activities, the best involve the safety of the fatherland; the soul stirred up and aroused by them will fly all the more swiftly to this seat, its home). Zetzel 1995: 230. Zetzel (ibid.) notes how Cicero adjusts his Platonic sources (Phaedrus 82a; Symposium 209a) that placed philosophers on a higher pedestal than statesmen in the afterlife “to reflect both the importance of the active life and the centrality of just government in Rep.” His words recall Scipio’s own dismissal of earthly preoccupations at the beginning of the dialogue (1.26) and those perhaps spoken by Laelius in book 3 (3.40a3): huic tu viro quas divitias obicies? quae imperia? quae regna? qui ista putat humana, sua bona divina iudicat (What riches will you put before this man? What commands? What kingdoms? He thinks these things are merely human, while his own goods are divine).

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vision of cosmic superelevation for Roman benefactors that diminishes the competitive quest for earthly commemoration. Africanus brings Romulus back into the equation with a third mention of the eclipse at his apotheosis, the eclipse so precisely dated in book 1 by the Annales and the Annales Maximi (6.24): namque ut olim deficere sol hominibus exstinguique visus est, cum Romuli animus haec ipsa in templa penetravit, quandoque ab eadem parte sol eodemque tempore iterum defecerit, tum signis omnibus ad idem principium stellisque revocatis expletum annum habeto; cuius quidem anni nondum vicesimam partem scito esse conversam. For just as the sun seemed to people to fail and be put out when the soul of Romulus entered these precincts, when the sun fails again at the same point at the same time, know then that all stars and constellations have been recalled to the same beginning and a year has been completed, and know that a twentieth part of this year has not yet been completed.

Scipio has earlier called Romulus’ death a departure (2.52): post obitum vel potius excessum Romuli (after the death, or rather the departure of Romulus). Here we learn of his destination. Scipio marks the beginning of the “great year” with Romulus’ apotheosis and puts Roman and cosmic affairs in harmony with the apotheosis of Rome’s first ruler.104 This reiteration of the portent at Romulus’ departure amidst revelations of Scipio’s own near future (6.11–12) recalls the double sun mentioned at 1.15 that is perhaps intended as an omen of Scipio’s own impending demise.105 Although Africanus unfolds a general Platonic theory of the immortality of the soul (6.27–28), he leaves out the process of metempyschosis, a strategic omission that allows for individual immortality. The deified Romulus therefore abides in Africanus’ heavenly precincts, a detail that follows logically upon the provisions of 6.13, in which the divine greats are set apart in an exclusive astral quarter. Scipio seems to have the privileged circle of 6.13 in mind in a response to Africanus toward the end of his dream (6.26): quae cum dixisset, “ego vero” inquam “Africane, siquidem bene meritis de patria quasi limes ad caeli aditum patet, quamquam a pueritia vestigiis ingressus patris et tuis decori vestro non defui, nunc tamen tanto praemio exposito enitar multo vigilantius.” et ille: “tu vero enitere et sic habeto, non esse te mortalem sed corpus hoc; nec enim tu is es quem forma ista declarat, 104

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Zetzel 1995: 247. Cicero also uses the apotheosis of Romulus to mark the start of a great year in the lost Hortensius (fr. 54 Mueller). Coleman 1964: 5 argues that in book 1 “Cicero is establishing in the minds of his readers a connection between the portent of the death and deification of Romulus and the portent of the death of Scipio.”

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sed mens cuiusque is est quisque, non ea figura quae digito demonstrari potest. deum te igitur scito esse, siquidem est deus qui viget, qui sentit, qui meminit, qui providet, qui tam regit et moderatur et movet id corpus cui praepositus est, quam hunc mundum ille princeps deus; et ut mundum ex quadam parte mortalem ipse deus aeternus, sic fragile corpus animus sempiternus movet.” After he said this I replied “Africanus, if in fact there is a sort of path to the entrance of heaven for those who have served the fatherland well, although following in your footsteps and my father’s from childhood, I have not fallen short of your honor, but now, when I see so great a reward set out before me I will struggle even harder.” He replied: “Keep striving, and know this: your body is mortal but you are not, for you are not what your physical shape reveals, not this figure that a finger can point at. Know that you are a god, since indeed a god is one who thrives, is alert, and remembers, who looks ahead, who rules, leads, and moves the body that he commands just as the leading god does for the universe; and as the eternal god moves the universe, which itself is partially mortal, so too the eternal soul moves the fragile body.”

The statesman Scipio does not simply rely on an inevitable, universal immortality of the soul. He adapts Platonic and Stoic elements but concentrates on the immortality earned through tireless dedication to the Roman cause (siquidem bene meritis de patria quasi limes ad caeli aditum patet). His language here resembles that previously used to describe the services that won Romulus’ reputation for divinity (bene meriti de rebus communibus, 2.4), which reiterates the civic virtus that is the crux of Cicero’s scheme. Elements of Euhemerism have been detected in Cicero’s innovative composition.106 Cicero does work off key concepts from Ennius’ Euhemerus but sets new structural parameters. Ennius’ Jupiter is a great civilizer and benefactor who offers himself as an example to imitate. Upon his death on Crete, he departs to join the gods. Cicero enlarges upon this basic pattern from a wholly different perspective: an elaborate, unworldly vision from the celestial realm of Romulus and Africanus. These great Romans are exemplars of immortality attainable through benefaction who substantiate the Roman civic ideologies developed in the De re publica. Scipio’s dream is not a fully formed blueprint for the apotheosis of Roman statesmen. The vision of the afterlife elaborated does, however, offer a certum . . . in caelo definitum locum where just statesmen enjoy 106

Gale 1994: 77, for example, thinks Africanus’ lines at 6.13 are the most notable allusion to Euhemerism in Cicero’s texts.

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eternity as beati (6.13), which tends toward a distinction between immortality and divinity. The divine Romulus presumably entered this locus upon his apotheosis. A previous account of the actual mechanics of apotheosis seems tailored to fit the basic logic of the Somnium (3.40b¼Aug. civ. 22.4, ital. Aug.): Herculem et Romulum ex hominibus deos esse factos . . . quorum non corpora sunt in caelum elata (neque enim natura pateretur ut id quod esset e terra nisi in terra maneret) (Hercules and Romulus were made gods from humans . . . their bodies were not carried into heaven [for nature would not permit what is derived from earth to remain anywhere but on earth]). The consigning of Romulus’ and Hercules’ bodies to the terrestrial realm corresponds to Africanus’ separation of the corpus from the animus and his assertion of the divinity of the animus. The presence of this sort of information in the De re publica suggests that apotheosis was not an entirely familiar phenomenon: it had to be explained, and this particular explanation seems designed to satisfy a skeptically minded audience. This passage also points up the Roman interest in the workings of an ontological status-shift to divinity. Actual apotheosis as opposed to earthly divine honors is explored here. And this departure of individuals from earth into an exclusive celestial realm represents a conceptual shift from the earth-bound existence of the Manes spirits. Scipio’s dream is also an inventive formulation of emerging Roman notions of individual identity persisting in an afterlife. Bracketing Romulus with Hercules follows the penchant for continual comparison of Greek and Roman cultures in the De re publica. Hercules, like Romulus, is an especially useful test case for Cicero in his enquiries into a divine status for Romans. At Pro Sestio 143, Cicero had used Hercules to justify his declarations about the divinity of Republican heroes, also emphasizing the demise of Hercules’ body (corpore ambusto) and the survival of his soul. It is curiously the Hercules, not the Romulus, analogy in the De re publica that supports Africanus’ own case for apotheosis.107 Ennius’ epigram proposing Africanus’ skyward ascent is pressed into service to voice his own claims to divinity (incer. 6): si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est, | mi soli caeli maxima porta patet (If it is right for anyone to ascend to the precincts of the gods, for me alone the greatest gate of heaven remains open).108 And a response that sets him on 107

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Pompey’s dedication of a shrine to Hercules Invictus in his new theater complex was contemporaneous with the composition of Rep. He also enshrined Virtus: Weinstock 1971: 39. Epigrams 3–4 Warmington. Gale 1994: 77 thinks that these lines “tend to confirm” that Ennius was not only a translator but also a follower of Euhemerus. Courtney 1999: 37 notes that Ennius’ esteem for the elder Scipio may have originally piqued his interest in Euhemerus, and cites this epigram in

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the same trajectory as Hercules is made directly to the words that Ennius had put in Africanus’ mouth (incer. 6): “est vero,” inquit, “Africane; nam et Herculi eadem ista porta patuit” (“it is true, Africanus,” he said; “for this same gate was open to Hercules as well”). The innovative nature of Cicero and Ennius’ presentations of celestial apotheosis is evident in the rarity of this “gate of heaven” concept in surviving Latin. This expression only appears in Ennius and his offshoots, the other instances are in the Latin Vulgate Bible.109 Ennius’ epigram also serves as scaffolding for Cicero’s religious speculations in the De re publica’s companion-piece, the De legibus. Cicero most likely composed the De legibus in the late fifties along with the De re publica, and departed to Cilicia in 51 bce with the work unfinished.110 The text of the De legibus, much like the De re publica, advertises its engagement with the Greek traditions it draws upon as well as the concerns of contemporary Rome.111 The De legibus also joins in the post-exilic effort to vindicate Cicero’s consulship.112 The most vital contemporary points of contact for the De legibus are however with the De re publica itself, which is referred to on numerous occasions (1.15, 1.20, 2.23, 3.4, 3.12). At the outset, the interlocutor Marcus positions this current discussion as complementary to that led by Scipio in the De re publica (1.20). He insists that the laws introduced in the De legibus will correspond to the type of mixed political system sketched in the De re publica as well as similarly structured governments.113 His stated assumption that law support of his claim. Ennius’ Scipio, a poem about his friend’s African campaigns, may also have helped create Scipio’s exceptional relationship with the divine: Ennius predicted a great inscription of Scipio’s benefactions (Scipio 2.1 Vahlen) akin to the account of Zeus’ deeds found in Euhemerus. For a discussion of the divine associations surrounding Scipio Africanus, see Weinstock 1971: 294– 95 and Beard, North, and Price 1998: 84–86. See Gruen 1996: 108–23 on Ennius’ connections with Scipio and other powerful contemporaries. 109 Bosworth 1999: 5 n. 32. 110 See Dyck 2004: 5–7 and Rawson 1973a: 125–29 for discussions about the dating of Leg. 111 E.g. Quintus’ attack on the tribunate at 3.19–22, with its jab at Clodius (3.21), is also an obvious reaction to recent abuses. See Dyck 2004: 14–15 for an introductory summary of innovations in Leg. that seem to be responses to contemporary politics. 112 Dyck 2004: 17 stresses the interpenetration of Leg. and the post-exilic speeches: “Above all Cicero makes in Leg. of Clodius’ life and death and of his own exile and return a moral tale of crime punished and virtue rewarded, just as he does in the post reditum speeches (2.41–42); cf. Red. Sen. 23; Mil. 83–91). Thus, though one might have expected Leg. to show greater philosophical detachment, in fact, the political commentary of Leg. is surprisingly similar in tone and content to that of the post reditum speeches.” Marcus’ edict at 3.11 (intercessor rei malae salutaris civis esto [let the citizen intervening in evil deeds be regarded as the savior of the community]) looks back to 63 bce, and Atticus’ reference (2.6) to Pompey’s (Magnus ille noster) praise of the two Arpinate saviors (conservatores) recalls Cicero’s own words at Sul. 23. 113 Cf. the interpretation of Powell 2001: 35: “the law-code of the De Legibus is partly a universal code for well-run states insofar as they conform to the type of the mixed constitution; and partly a set of suggestions as to how things might be improved at Rome.”

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engenders morality puts Marcus’ present project in De legibus in the tradition of Numa from book 2 of the De re publica. Marcus will for the most part reaffirm key elements of Roman state religion, but his prescription for apotheosis earned through civic benefactions is a new addition. There is a tantalizing hint in the De re publica that the laws inherited from Numa can be evaluated and augmented in light of later Republican issues (Tubero, 2.64). In a sense, Marcus in the De legibus takes up Tubero’s request, and does so with an approach and priorities akin to those attributed to Numa in the De re publica. According to Scipio in the De re publica, Numa’s major legacy was the use of religion to mollify the unruly Romans (2.27; cf. 5.3). Marcus in the De legibus seems to have acknowledged Numa’s insight on the seminal role of religion in making and maintaining a commonwealth. His first set of pronouncements is of religious laws, which he affirms as singularly crucial for a commonwealth (2.69). The utilitarian rationale behind Numa’s religious innovations that provided for civic order in the De re publica also informs the religious edicts of Marcus (2.16). It is therefore fitting that Cicero has Atticus align Marcus’ religious laws with Numa’s immediately after he has delivered them (2.23). Marcus’ pragmatic stance is evident not only in his laws proper. At the very beginning of the dialogue, he revisits the circumstances of Romulus’ deification in a discussion about poetic and historical truths (1.1–5). Atticus raises the subject with his question about an oak tree at Arpinum commemorated in Cicero’s Marius.114 Marcus puts this oak tree along with Romulus’ appearance to Proculus Iulius as Quirinus (narrated by Scipio at De re publica 2.20) in a category with two fantastic tales that Scipio had passed over: Numa’s relationship with Egeria and the eagle’s setting of the priest’s cap on the head of Tarquin (1.4). Legends such as these, Marcus tells Atticus and Quintus, have their own type of truth criteria (1.4): Tite noster, faciunt imperite, qui in isto periculo non ut a poeta sed ut a teste veritatem exigant (my Titus, those people are acting ignorantly in such a situation when demanding truth not as from a poet but from a witness). Marcus’ plea for the existence of a poetic truth is especially emphatic here: he uses Atticus’ praenomen, and his imperite is “as harsh a characterization of opponents and their procedures as Cicero usually allows himself.”115 The unfolding discussion solidifies Marcus’ convictions on this matter: the worship of Quirinus among deified mortals is duly stipulated in the religious laws of book 2. 114

Court. fr. 15–16.

115

Dyck 2004: 66.

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In the prefatory remarks to his laws, Marcus is candid about his efforts to usher in his ideas under the mantle of tradition. He will deliver his own laws in a pseudo-archaic idiom to enhance their auctoritas (authority, 2.18). It is not only the language that supplements the authority of these laws; Marcus himself also brings an exceptional portfolio to this task. The ideal fusion of theoretical knowledge and practical training touted by the narrator Cicero at De re publica 3.5 and attributed to the interlocutors Scipio and Laelius is here attributed by Marcus to Demetrius of Phalerum. Cicero then has Atticus hint that this rare combination is also found in Marcus himself (3.14). So presumably these laws, whatever their extra-textual connotations may be, are shaped in accord with Marcus’ practical wisdom. Marcus’ final remark before shifting into his archaizing mode also invests his laws with added weight. His religious provisions will not be exhaustive; they will include only the most important ideas (2.18). Although Marcus pronounces his laws in standardized legal language, his religious frameworks have a dynamic, accommodative character. His second proposal (2.19) gives directives for the introduction of new and foreign gods – they must be publicly acknowledged. Shortly thereafter, Marcus enumerates the proper objects of worship (2.19): divos et eos qui caelestes semper habiti sunt colunto et ollos quos endo caelo merita locaverint, Herculem, Liberum, Aesculapium, Castorem, Pollucem, Quirinum, ast olla propter quae datur homini ascensus in caelum, Mentem, Virtutem, Pietatem, Fidem, earumque laudum delubra sunto nec ulla vitiorum. Let them worship both those who have always been considered heavenly gods and also those whose merits have placed them in heaven: Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, Pollux, Quirinus, and for those qualities on account of which ascent to heaven is granted to humans – Intelligence, Virtue, Piety, Faith – let there be shrines for them but none for vices.

Marcus’ words here have some intriguing resonances. Boyancé notes that his divos et eos qui caelestes semper habiti sunt colunto et ollos quos endo caelo merita locaverint is reminiscent of Ennius’ si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est on the apotheosis of Africanus.116 And his distinction between the gods who have existed from time immemorial and those who

116

Boyancé 1955: 64 n.2. Ennius¼Epigrams 3 Warmington. See above, p. 102.

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were later added to the ranks resembles Varro’s in his Antiquitates rerum divinarum (fr. 32 Cardauns):117 deos alios esse, qui ab initio certi et sempiterni sunt, alios qui immortales ex hominibus facti sunt; et de his ipsis alios esse privatos, alios communes; privatos, quos unaquaeque gens colit, ut nos Faunum, Thebani Amphiaraum, Lacedaemonii Tyndareum, communes, quos universi, ut Castorem Pollucem Liberum Herculem. Some gods have been settled and everlasting from the beginning, others are humans that have been made immortal; and from this group some are localized and some are more communal; the localized are those that a certain people worship like our Faunus or Amphiaraus among the Thebans or Tyndareus among the Spartans; the communal are those that are universal like Castor, Pollux, Liber, and Hercules.

Despite the similar schematizations of Cicero and Varro, their differing emphases are instructive. Marcus’ formulation of the “primary” gods (qui caelestes semper habiti sunt) is rather more tentative than Varro’s (qui ab initio certi et sempiterni sunt). Marcus uses the same archaic term (divus) for both eternal gods and deified mortals without any theological discrimination.118 Marcus is also careful to underscore the earthly deeds (merita) that won divinity for the erstwhile humans, a linchpin for the civically oriented theology of the De legibus and De re publica. There is a noteworthy omission in Varro’s extant list of this “secondary” group: Romulus/Quirinus. The De legibus passage also pointedly leaves this class open (hence the use of datur) by prescribing the worship of virtues that themselves can enable a mortal to achieve divinization (olla propter quae datur homini ascensus in caelum). The consecration of virtus as a prerequisite for divinity in Marcus’ laws fits in well with the role assigned in the De re publica to virtus in the apotheosis of Romulus (1.25, 2.17, 2.20). The connections between virtus 117

118

Rawson 1973a: 140 underscores the similarity of Cicero’s project to Varro’s: “Cicero’s programme of religious reform and reaction for Rome should be compared with Varro’s fuller programme in the Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum.” The discussion of Wardle 2002: 182–85 is important here. He notes that Servius reports a distinction made by Varro between divus (perpetual divinity) and deus (deified human being). As Wardle observes, Cicero makes no such distinction at Leg. 2.19: “Crucially, however, his passage shows beyond doubt that for Cicero there is no theological distinction between ‘eternal gods’ and those who became gods through deification for their merita; both could be called divi. At any rate Cicero offers no support to the distinction claimed by Varro, but provides strong grounds for believing that divus was, or at least was believed to be, the term appropriate for a law modelled on an ancient exemplar.” It is Cicero’s terminology in Leg. that is followed in the law deifying Caesar as Divus Iulius (ibid.).

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and divinity here are also anticipated in book 1 of the De legibus (1.22–25) by Marcus’ Stoic analysis of the relationship between humans and gods. At 1.23 Marcus establishes a bond between mortals and immortals through reason (ratio), right reason (recta ratio), and law (lex). He goes on to include virtus as the common property of humanity and divinity (1.25): iam vero virtus eadem in homine ac deo est, neque alio ullo in genere praeterea. est autem virtus nihil aliud nisi perfecta et ad summum perducta natura: est igitur homini cum deo similitudo (So indeed virtue is the same in human and god, it is not found in any other species besides; and virtue is simply nature perfected to its highest level: so there is a similarity between human and god). The definition of virtus as perfecta et ad summum perducta natura is later modified in a way that in turn elides natura and ratio (1.45): Est enim virtus perfecta ratio (for virtue is reason perfected).119 Marcus’ remarks stress tenets that could find resistance even from within the Stoa. The early Stoics would perhaps object that only the sage achieves the elusive perfection of nature/reason that groups him with the gods.120 Some later Stoics were also hesitant about bridging the gap between mortals and immortals. One of Cicero’s Stoic teachers, the Pontifex Q. Mucius Scaevola (d. 82 bce), was allegedly worried that the mortal origin of certain gods might be exploited by some of his more ambitious contemporaries and therefore denied the divinity of Hercules.121 The final provision in Marcus’ religious laws calls for the general sanctity of departed spirits and the posthumous divinity of deserving good mortals (2.22): deorum Manium iura sancta sunto. [bo]-nos leto datos divos habento (let the rights of the spirits of the dead be sacred, let them consider good men who have died gods). The Di Manes refer to the community’s dead as a whole, but this traditional notion was undergoing transformation in the late Republic as concepts of individual existence after death gained currency.122 It is in fact Cicero at In Pisonem 16 who provides the earliest instance of Manes which differentiates individual spirits out of the traditionally undivided whole.123 119 120

121 122

123

As Dyck 2004: 135–36 observes, “natura is virtually a synonym for ratio” at 1.25. Vander Waerdt 1994: 272–76. Edelstein 1966: 13 notes the revolutionary religious environment that the early Stoa developed in: “the new consciousness of man’s power that arose in the fourth century, the belief in the deification of the human being. A few years after Zeno came to Athens in 307 he could hear the Athenians welcoming Demetrius Poliorcetes, one of the successors of Alexander the Great.” Boyancé 1955: 64. Cf. Dyck 2004: 296 and Rawson 1973a: 137. See Weinstock 1971: 291–92 and Hopkins 1983: 226–34 on this late Republican trend toward individuation amongst Manes. Nisbet 1961: 77. It is applied to the conspirators’ spirits, and so is presumably without divine connotations: a me quidem etiam poenas expetistis quibus coniuratorum manes mortuorum expiaretis (you even tried to exact a penalty from me so that you could appease the spirits of the dead

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Likewise, funereal dedications to the Di Manes of an individual begin to appear at the end of the Republic.124 The introduction of moral distinctions in the next clause ([bo]-nos leto datos divos habento) would be quite in tune with the logic of the De legibus (and the De re publica), thus lending credence to Ulrichs’ [bo]nos.125 After Marcus delivers this last portion of his law, Atticus places his codification squarely within the parameters of Roman tradition (2.23). Atticus notes the similarities of Marcus’ laws to Numa’s and to Roman customs,126 but Marcus takes this appeal to precedent even further by claiming that what might seem innovative in his ordinances is actually a rehabilitation of mores maiorum (customs of the ancestors, 2.23). As Powell remarks on these strategies in the De legibus, “the appeal to mos maiorum is in fact used to justify possible innovation.”127 This methodology is familiar from the De re publica, where religious innovations are also cloaked in the mantle of tradition. Furthermore, the figure of Numa and his laws make innovation for social welfare itself an important tradition at Rome. When Marcus returns to annotate his law on the worship of deified benefactors such as Hercules and Quirinus (2.19), he sharpens a critical distinction that had been left slightly vague in the De re publica (2.27–28): quod autem ex hominum genere consecratos, sicut Herculem et ceteros, coli lex iubet, indicat omnium quidem animos immortalis esse, sed fortium

124

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conspirators). Toynbee 1971: 35 takes this passage to be among the earliest evidence at Rome for an emerging sense of the survival of individual identity after death and notes that Cicero’s peculiar use of Manes for the souls of individuals soon shows up in Virgil and Livy. Cicero, if not the inventor of this new usage, was at least an early adopter. Toynbee (ibid.) also interprets the Somnium Scipionis, with its extraordinary representation of the "starry being" Africanus in "recognizable shape," as evidence of novel concepts of posthumous individual existence. Nisbet 1961: 77. Cf. Carroll 2006: 126. An early surviving dedication to the Di Manes of an individual is found on the laudatio Turiae (ILS 8393). Weinstock 1971: 291 notes how Di Manes was awkwardly used for individuals “because the singular ‘Deus Manes’ did not exist.” Hopkins 1983: 227 offers epitaphs as a gauge for the diffusion of emergent religious and philosophical ideas: “For all their short-comings, these epitaphs provide the best available evidence for the penetration of philosophical and religious ideas about immortality beyond the narrow set of philosophers, theologians and litterateurs, whose writings survive.” The nos of the manuscripts does not work, so Ulrichs proposed bonos, while Powell’s new OCT adopts Davies’ suos. Ulrichs’ reading seems preferable for two reasons: (a) At 2.19 Cicero uses the archaic term divus for both gods and those deified because of merita (merits) (see Wardle 2002: 184– 85). Davies’ reading admits every dead Roman to this exclusive category. Ulrichs’ reading admits only the boni (the good), an important distinction Cicero makes for divinization. (b) This provision concerns ancestor worship, which was undergoing transformation in this period as the collective Manes were starting to be conceived of as individuals. The distinction Cicero would be making with bonos seems in step with this trend. Atticus’ remarks might actually serve to familiarize the foreign since there was no such general code of public law in Cicero’s time: Powell 2001: 33. Ibid.

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bonorumque divinos. bene vero quod Mens, Pietas, Virtus, Fides consecratur {manu}, quarum omnium Romae dedicata publice templa sunt, ut illa qui habeant (habent autem omnes boni) deos ipsos in animis suis collocatos putent. That the law orders the worship of those from the human race who have been consecrated, like Hercules and the rest, shows that the souls of all people are immortal but souls of the brave and good are divine. It is also good that Intelligence, Piety, Virtue, and Faith be consecrated, all of whom have temples publicly dedicated at Rome, so that people who have those qualities (and all good people have them) should think that they have actual gods in their minds.

This clarification succinctly carves out an exclusive space for divinity within a larger scheme of universal immortality of the soul.128 The meritbased posthumous discrimination implied at De re publica 6.13 and gestured to in the post-exilic speeches (Pro Sestio 21, 47, 130, 143; Pro Balbo 49; Pro Plancio 90) is here made explicit, with divinity, not simply immortality, reserved for the brave and good. He is also explicit about the human role in religion at Rome: collective decisions can be made about which human qualities to enshrine (bene vero quod Mens, Pietas, Virtus, Fides consecratur fmanug, quarum omnium Romae dedicata publice templa sunt).129 An ensuing remark about protocols for the invention of names for gods (2.28) also illustrates the plasticity of religious frameworks at Rome that are always subject to the very sort of modifications that Cicero is having Marcus make. So what sort of application (if any) were Marcus’ laws designed for? Marcus himself gives a provocative answer within the context of the dialogue at 3.29: non enim de hoc senatu nec his de hominibus qui nunc sunt, sed de futuris, si qui forte his legibus parere voluerint, haec habetur oratio (This discourse does not apply to the present senate and men now, but to the future, should they wish to obey these laws).130 It is unlikely that the

128

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Wardle 2002: 184–85 notes that divinus serves here in Marcus’ commentary as the adjectival form of the divus from 2.19. Pompey’s shrine to Virtus in his theater complex may have been dedicated by the time these words were written. Dyck 2004: 19 notes that 1.37 (ad respublicas firmandas . . . omnis nostra pergit oratio [my entire discourse aims at strengthening commonwealths]) has been used to argue that Cicero was “aiming for a fairly immediate political effect.” Goar 1972: 111 thinks that the reformist spirit of Leg. in part anticipates the coming Augustan “restorations.” North 1986: 254 describes the Augustan program as putting “archaism and modernizing hand in hand,” which is also a fair characterization of Cicero’s tactics in Leg.

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De legibus was ever finished, let alone published.131 Cicero departed in 51 bce for his stint in Cilicia and returned to an Italy torn by civil war. These changed circumstances perhaps influenced the fate of the De legibus.132 Pharsalus certainly dashed hopes that Cicero still held out in the fifties for Pompey and Caesar. One wonders if the abuses of Rome’s current elite gave Cicero pause about some of the proposals in the De legibus. Did he, like his teacher Scaevola the Pontifex, become worried about what precedents for deification might be used to justify? If so, such reservations seem to dissipate with the changing horizons at Rome. Cicero’s robust, final phase of theoretical output in the forties circles back and continues the process of developing variants of merit-based posthumous deification. The De re publica and its vision of stellar immortality for civic benefactors are studiously incorporated into these later speculations. 131

132

It is famously absent from the conspectus of Cicero’s philosophical works in the preface to Div. 2. See Dyck 2004: 10–12 and Rawson 1973a: 125–31 on the unfinished and unpublished state of Leg. Dyck 2004: 11 maintains that Cicero found a Republic damaged beyond repair and so gave up on Leg.: “After the hiatus of the civil war and the establishment of Caesar’s dictatorship, the political situation was so changed that Leg., taking the traditional respublica as its premise, must have seemed impossible to update in any meaningful fashion, quite apart from the fact that his relation to Quintus dissolved into quarrels for some time in the aftermath of Pharsalia.” Cicero did, however, show some sincere hope for the Republic after Pharsalus, and he also later writes Quintus into Div.

chapter 3

Charting the posthumous path

The utopian images that accompany the emergence of the new always concurrently reach back to the ur-past Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project1

Deferring deification in the Caesarian speeches Cicero failed to work out a compromise in the conflict between Pompey and Caesar, and reluctantly left Italy in 49 bce to join Pompey and his followers in Greece. He returned to Italy after Caesar’s defeat of Pompey in the battle of Pharsalus, rejecting Cato’s proposal that he (Cicero) now command the remaining opposition to Caesar. Cicero landed at Brindisi where he spent almost a year in limbo until Caesar returned to Italy and pardoned him in 47 bce. Caesar then went on to Africa, where he defeated the forces allied against him in the battle of Thapsus. It was in the aftermath of his decisive victory at Thapsus that Caesar was awarded the first in a series of unprecedented honors at Rome that most likely culminated in deification during his own lifetime.2 Among these honors was a forty-day supplicatio voted for Caesar by the senate that topped by a wide margin the inflationary ten-day thanksgiving that Cicero had devised for Pompey in 63 bce.3 Even more grandiose were the statuary pieces placed conspicuously on the Capitol. 1 2

3

As quoted by Buck-Morss 1991: 16. See Cassius Dio 43.14 for the post-Thapsus honors decreed by the senate for Caesar. Dio lists, he claims, the honors accepted by Caesar but not those that he declined. See Weinstock 1971 passim (with North 1975), Fishwick 1987: 57, and Wardle 2009: 105–07 for discussion of these divinizing honors. These honors seem to have been complemented shortly before Caesar’s death by a law (most likely the lex Rufrena) that made Caesar a god, giving him a temple to himself and his Clementia (Clemency), a pulvinar (sacred couch) for his image, and his own flamen (priest). Phil. 2.110 (discussed below, p. 172) indicates that his cult title was Divus Iulius and his flamen was Marc Antony. North 1975: 175 finds Phil. 2.110 to be conclusive evidence of a cult for Caesar in his lifetime: “The conclusion cannot be further avoided, that Caesar was to become a god in his lifetime.” See Hickson-Hahn 2000: 245–46, Wallace-Hadrill 1990: 160, and above, p. 74 on how humans were increasingly displacing the traditional gods as the recipients of supplicatio rituals in the late Republic.

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A chariot that was accompanied by a bronze statue of Caesar and a globe was set near a statue of Jupiter. The exact position of the globe in relation to Caesar – alongside or underfoot – is debated, as is the wording of the epigraph on this statue. Dio’s report of the inscription for Caesar (ὅτι ἡμίθεός ἐστι [that he is a demigod], 43.14.6) is perhaps a gloss on a Latin dedication along the lines of Deo Caesari or Caesari Romulo.4 The globe has been interpreted as an allusion to a painting at Athens depicting the praesens deus (present god) Demetrius Poliorcetes seated on a globe.5 If so, the bold iconography of the Hellenistic man–god is installed in the very heart of Rome in 46 bce. Caesar reportedly had the inscription on this new statue erased,6 an indication that it made provocative claims about a living man’s divinity. The preeminence of Caesar at this point was not in doubt, but what he would do with his unchecked power was yet unclear. Cicero’s assessment of the new realities in Rome fluctuates. The preface to the Brutus of 46 bce laments the death of the orator Hortensius and the demise of the free state in which his eloquence had flourished (1–10). In spite of the claim in the Brutus that eloquence has been effectively silenced (22), during this same year Cicero gives his first speech since the Pro Milone of 52 bce. Cicero’s Pro Marcello is delivered in response to Caesar’s pardon of M. Claudius Marcellus. The pardon of Marcellus was an encouraging sign for Cicero and others holding out hopes for a quasi-Republican reconciliation between Caesar and the senate. As consul in 51 bce, Marcellus had tried to terminate Caesar’s command in Gaul and also displayed his contempt for Caesar’s enfranchisement of Novum Comum in Transpadane Gaul by having a townsman publicly whipped.7 Pardoning a notorious antagonist like Marcellus was a generous gesture. Shortly after the Pro Marcello, Cicero, writing to Sulpicius, maintains that the magnanimity of the victorious Caesar was a key factor in bringing an end to his own selfimposed silence in the senate (Fam. 4.4.4). In this same letter, Cicero also exculpates Caesar by attributing Rome’s woes to the general evils that come with civil wars (Fam. 4.4.2). He also shares hopes in this letter that

4

5

6 7

Weinstock 1971: 53 offers Deo Caesari as a possibility while Fishwick 1987: 57 proposes Caesari Romulo. Wardle 2009: 106 notes that the testimony of Servius Auctus (Ecl. 9.46) may point to the senate’s use of the Greek term. Fishwick 1987: 57. Weinstock 1971: 155–62 details how many of Caesar’s honors were intentionally modeled on those offered to Demetrius. Dio 43.21.2. Cicero (Att. 5.11.2, July 51 bce) expressed his disgust at the whipping ordered by Marcellus and alleged that it would annoy Pompey as well as Caesar.

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run contrary to the gloomy resignation of the Brutus and indeed the immediately preceding letter to Sulpicius (Fam. 4.3). Cicero tells Sulpicius that Caesar’s pardon of Marcellus holds out the promise that Caesar may restore a semblance of order to the commonwealth (Fam. 4.4.3). Although Cicero’s hopes at this point are quite provisional, the rhetorical strategies in the Pro Marcello show him working to steer Caesar toward Republican restoration in this early, nebulous phase of his rule.8 The Pro Marcello and the subsequent Pro Ligario labor together to construct a pathway that could lead to the rehabilitation of the Republic as well as the eventual divinization of Caesar. In an overview of Caesar’s divine honors, Wardle observes that the run-up to Caesar’s deification was “a tentative, uncertain groping by the Senate for appropriate forms of honors by which to celebrate the achievements of Caesar, rather than a carefully planned or thought-out progression towards a politically inspired deification, skillfully orchestrated by Caesar himself.”9 The Pro Marcello can be read as an instrumental part of this uncertain process of determining fitting honors for Caesar. The speech participates in this ongoing contestation by proposing in a meeting of the senate that Caesar’s greatest achievements and their due honors lie in the future. Cicero rewards Caesar amply in the Pro Marcello with praise that climbs through registers that he had articulated for Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia. Here, however, Cicero’s rhetorical brinkmanship, which takes Caesar to the verge of divinity, insistently connects this status to his clemency and his placing of the interests of the Republic before his own. Caesar’s preeminence is construed within a system of reciprocity that rewards the statesman who strengthens the commonwealth. In the very first words of the Pro Marcello, Cicero refers to his long silence and then gives credit to Caesar for reviving his public voice at Rome (1): diuturni silenti, patres conscripti, quo eram his temporibus usus, non timore aliquo, sed partim dolore, partim verecundia finem hodiernus dies 8

9

Shackleton Bailey 1971: 199 notes how this first Caesarian effort was not simply reflexive adulation but rather an attempt to gratify Caesar’s best instincts at a time when there was still a glimmer of hope for a Republican post-war settlement: “When Cicero set out to eulogize or flatter he did not do it by halves. The speech (extant) is fulsome, like some of the less candid of his private letters; but his appreciation of Caesar’s generosity can be considered genuine, and when he urged Caesar to his crowning task as healer and rebuilder of the commonwealth he was not simply playing the courtier . . . But within three months or so between the pardon of Marcellus and Caesar’s departure for Spain (where Pompey’s sons had rekindled the war) it became plain that nothing was to be hoped in this direction. The Dictator did not even see fit to have the normal offices filled for the coming year.” Wardle 2009: 107.

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attulit, idemque initium quae vellem quaeque sentirem meo pristino more dicendi: tantam enim mansuetudinem, tam inusitatam inauditamque clementiam, tantum in summa potestate rerum omnium modum, tam denique incredibilem sapientiam ac paene divinam tacitus praeterire nullo modo possum. M. enim Marcello vobis, patres conscripti, reique publicae reddito, non illius solum, sed etiam meam vocem et auctoritatem et vobis et rei publicae conservatam ac restitutam puto. Today, conscript fathers, brings an end to the long silence which I held during the recent struggles due not to fear but mixed feelings of grief and shame, likewise today I resume my old custom of freely saying what I think and feel. For such mildness, such unexampled and even unheard-of clemency, such moderation in one with supreme power over everything, and finally such incredible and almost divine wisdom, in no way am I able to pass over in silence. For in the restoration of Marcus Marcellus, conscript fathers, to you and the commonwealth, I feel that not only he but even my voice and authority has been restored and preserved.

Cicero adapts his familiar tactics to the latest power dynamics: Caesar is now presented as the conservator (preserver) not only of Marcellus, but also of the voice and authority of Cicero himself. And just as Cicero had raised the conservator of Rome in 63 bce up towards a divine stature,10 now Caesar’s claim to divinity hinges on his acts of civic restoration. The initial steps in the sacralization of Caesar are measured. Caesar has displayed exceptional wisdom that merits the lofty gradation divinus, although Cicero tones down (paene) this claim, perhaps with parts of the senatorial audience in mind. Cicero also adds a conspicuous new term (clementia) to the constellation of political/religious concepts that he has been developing over the past decades. He may indeed be cleverly signaling the novelty of this word with the adjectives modifying it (inusitatam inauditamque clementiam). Cicero first uses the term clementia in relation to Caesar in a letter to Atticus in March 49 bce (Att. 8.16). Cicero compares the standing of Pompey (ille) and Caesar (hic) and observes how Caesar’s mercy is winning favor throughout Italy (Att. 8.16.1–2): municipia vero deum, nec simulant, ut cum de illo aegroto vota faciebant. sed plane quicquid mali hic Pisistratus non fec[er]it tam gratum est quam si alium facere prohibuerit. [hunc] propitium sperant, illum iratum putant. quas fieri censes ἀπαντήσεις ex oppidis, quos honores? “metuunt” inquies. credo, sed mehercule illum magis; huius insidiosa clementia delectantur, illius iracundiam formidant.

10

See above, p. 55.

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The towns make a god of him, not as a pretence, as when they made vows for Pompey when he was ill. But clearly whatever evil this Pisistratus has not done earns him no less gratitude than if he were stopping someone else from doing it. In him they hope for a favorable power, but they think that Pompey is an angry one. Can you imagine the deputations coming from the cities and the honors? They are afraid, you say. Yes, I agree, but more afraid of Pompey, by god; they are delighted by Caesar’s treacherous clemency and fear Pompey’s wrath.

After Caesar’s release of prisoners at Corfinium, he was treated like an approaching god by provincials. Or rather, he was being made into a god with a degree of sincerity absent from their prior treatment of Pompey.11 The people, he says, anticipate the advent of a well-disposed power instead of the vengeful one they found in Pompey ([hunc] propitium sperant, illum iratum putant). Elsewhere, Cicero combines these terms to refer to the temperament of gods; his usage of propitius is almost always restricted to divinities.12 Although in the Caesarian speeches Cicero becomes perhaps the first and certainly one of the most powerful propagandists of Caesar’s clementia, here in private he finds Caesar’s acts of mercy deceitful (insidiosa clementia).13 Clementia surfaced as a political buzzword at Rome in the early to midforties. It gained special prominence and its divine status, according to Weinstock’s argument, primarily because of Cicero’s initiatives in the Caesarian orations.14 The canonization of clementia as a political virtue at Rome during this time was a brilliant maneuver; even if Cicero’s voice was part of a larger campaign to tie this concept to Caesar, he used it adroitly to define Caesar in ways that could ultimately constrain him. As Clark suggests in her discussion of clementia in the Caesarian Orations, Cicero is “creating a need for him to ‘live up to’ his association with the divine quality.”15 The Pro Marcello glorifies Caesar, but all this praise is 11

12

13

14

15

Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 357 notes that faciunt must be understood for deum, and cites the similar Ter. Ad. 535: facio te apud illum deum (I make you a god in his view). Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 358 cites Cael. 42, huic homini ego fortasse et pauci deos propitios, plerique autem iratos putabant (such a man I myself and a few others would consider a favorite of the gods, but most would consider him a victim of their wrath), and Pis. 59, neque propitii cuiquam esse solent (sc. di) neque irati (nor are they accustomed to be favorable to or angry at someone). According to Att. 10.4.8 (April 49 bce), Curio told Cicero that Caesar’s mercy was a mere ploy to win popularity. Weinstock 1971: 235–43, citing the thirteen times Cicero uses this previously uncommon word in the Caesarian orations as well as its newfound frequency in Cicero’s contemporary letters. Morton Braund 1998: 71 prefers “to see Cicero as one of several organs of Caesar’s political selfrepresentation, which can be seen in part at least as an attempt at self-definition through antithesis with the cruelty of Sulla.” Clark 2007: 248.

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specifically for the pardon of his prior enemies and the subordination of his own interests to those of the Republic. After Cicero’s exuberant introduction he tells Caesar in front of the senators that his greatness lies in his willingness to respect the Republic and its institutions (3). This may not be the rationale that Caesar would offer for his clementia, but this is the profile of a Caesar who would, by Cicero’s reckoning, perhaps one day earn immortality. In any case, the definition of Caesar in the Pro Marcello is a forward-looking one: at this point he can use his victory well and, as Cicero goes on to show, become godlike indeed, if he meets the challenges implicit in Cicero’s praise.16 Cicero also performs a careful balancing act in this speech that tries to accommodate the new, singular status of Caesar within a system that maintains some prestige and power for the senate.17 His phrasing of the “cooperation” in the pardon of Marcellus gives the senate its due role while acknowledging the superlative strength of Caesar (3): cum summo consensu senatus tum iudicio tuo gravissimo et maximo (with both the highest degree of consent from the senate and your most weighty and supreme judgement).18 Having made this preliminary gesture to a new sort of equilibrium, Cicero trains his focus on Caesar. Although he first pleads his inadequacy for the task of duly praising Caesar, his prior rehearsals on Pompey prove to have been quite productive. His approach is loaded with evocative language but falls short, in the final calculation, of claiming that Caesar is or will become a god. The studied ambiguities in Cicero’s treatment leave room for multiple interpretations. Those who consider Caesar’s amazing feats truly superhuman may find that Cicero’s detailed panegyric 16

17

18

The author of the first Pseudo-Sallustian Speech to Caesar (dramatic date 46 bce) seems to borrow the logic of the Caesarian Orations by making Caesar’s divinity similarly contingent upon his virtuous use of power (7.5): neque aliter quisquam extollere sese et divina mortalis attingere potest, nisi omissis pecuniae et corporis gaudiis, animo indulgens non adsentando neque concupita praebendo, pervorsam gratiam gratificans, sed in labore, patientia, bonisque praeceptis et factis fortibus exercitando (Nor can any mortal extol themselves and attain divine things without shunning the joys of money and the body and encouraging the soul not in flattery, indulging desires, and perverse gratifications, but by exercising it in labor, patience, virtuous precepts and brave deeds). The reading of the first two Caesarian Orations offered here considers the speeches as nuanced interventions attempting to negotiate a workable way forward in unprecedented political circumstances. As such, it tries to look beyond the binary “wince-inducing sincerity vs. subversive irony” interpretive frame that has been applied to these speeches. For a similar orientation, see Connolly 2011. Connolly’s perceptive analysis “seeks to shut the door decisively on the reductive bipolar choice in favor of exploring what Ciceronian panegyric teaches us about the complex role of praise in shaping the political imagination at moments of massive systematic stress.” Gotoff 1993: 22–23 notes how Cicero’s cum . . . tum construction here puts emphasis on the second item (Caesar). This emphasis, he points out, is strengthened by the placement of gravissimo et maximo which also form a double cretic clausula.

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does them justice, celebrating them much like the divinizing new globe statue recently decreed by the very senate Cicero addresses in this speech. Romans acknowledging Caesar’s supremacy but hesitant about elevating humans to divine status can note the care with which Cicero contrives his qualifying nuances. Senators hostile to Caesar’s aims might even find a satisfying touch of irony in Cicero’s hyperbole intended to embarrass Caesar, just as some saw certain extravagant honors voted for Caesar as designed to advertise his overreach.19 Cicero’s initial rendering of Caesar’s accomplishments is emblematic of his delicately modulated handling of Caesar in this speech (5): soleo saepe ante oculos ponere idque libenter crebris usurpare sermonibus, omnis nostrorum imperatorum, omnis exterarum gentium potentissimorumque populorum, omnis clarissimorum regum res gestas cum tuis nec contentionum magnitudine nec numero proeliorum nec varietate regionum nec celeritate conficiendi nec dissimilitudine bellorum posse conferri, nec vero disiunctissimas terras citius passibus cuiusquam potuisse peragrari, quam tuis non dicam cursibus, sed victoriis lustratae sunt. I am accustomed to set before the eyes and freely take up in frequent discussions that all the achievements of our generals, all those of foreign nations, the most powerful people, and the most illustrious kings can not measure up to your achievements: not in the importance of the struggles or the number of battles and their geographical diversity; and not in the swiftness of execution or the various types of warfare, and indeed the most distant lands could not have been crossed more swiftly than they were traversed I will not say by your marches but rather victories.

The conceptual frame of unmatched global conquest, previously used for Pompey, is an element central to discourses of deification developed in the time of Alexander and its aftermath. And Cicero’s representation of Caesar’s conquests as completely unparalleled in scope and success in execution connects to the totalizing claims made by the new globe 19

Cicero’s multivalence is akin to what Hinds 1987: 26 calls the “hermeneutic alibi” that Ovid creates in his own treatment of Caesar’s divinity at Met. 15.750–58. Gagliardi 1997: 26 sees different layers of meaning (duplicità) in the Caesarian speeches that offer satisfying readings to both Caesarians and anti-Caesarians. Dio 44.7.2 says that some extravagant honors were proposed in a spirit of ridicule. North 1975: 172 doubts Dio’s interpretation, observing that “it is difficult to believe that Caesar was not more or less in control of what the senate voted for him.” Dyer 1990 argues that the fulsome tributes to Caesar’s clementia would be perceived by some audience members as hinting at Caesar’s dynastic status since such charitable gestures of pardon are only granted from a position of superiority. Levene 1997: 68 rightly questions Dyer’s premise by showing that clementia usually has positive connotations in Republican texts; Konstan’s analysis of clementia concurs (2005: 344): “no passage in the writings of Cicero, Caesar, or their contemporaries indicates that clementia was anything but a welcome and approved quality of character.”

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statuary. The verb Cicero selects to represent Caesar’s actions (lustrare) has an unmistakable religious resonance: it can refer to ritual cleansing, and he uses it elsewhere for Jupiter,20 Hercules,21 and heavenly bodies.22 Although the intimations of Caesar’s divinity elsewhere in the Pro Marcello activate the religious and celestial associations of this verb, its wider semantic sphere also encompasses the travels of exceptional mortals such as great philosophers23 and the more mundane activities of the interlocutors in the De finibus (2.115). Within the economy of the speech it can conjure up religious connections, but weaker connotations from its full field of signification can subtly hedge against objections to the divinization of Caesar. The new beneficiary of Cicero’s rhetorical largesse in this speech makes evident the vagaries of power at Rome. Felicitas, the trait that created Pompey’s divine aura in the Pro lege Manilia and was subsequently consecrated with a shrine in Pompey’s theater, is now Caesar’s (19). In addition to underscoring Pompey’s demise by using language for Caesar that was instrumental in his public exaltation of Pompey, Cicero’s reference to felicitas might make nods to contemporary architectural projects and the latest war stories as well. A temple to Felicitas was part of Caesar’s construction program in the forties, joining the earlier Republican temple of Felicitas and the shrine recently built for Felicitas in Pompey’s theater. Felicitas had also been Caesar’s battle-cry at Thapsus a few months earlier.24 Perhaps such a reference is hardly surprising since, as Momigliano observes, in this time-period “Victoria, Fortuna, and Felicitas were much broadcast in obvious connection with Caesar.”25 Felicitas is combined with Victoria on Caesarian coins in 45 bce, and the ludi Victoriae Caesaris,

20

21

22 24

pater ipse | Iuppiter auctiferas lustravit lumine terras (father Jupiter himself traversed the bounty-bring lands with light), Hom. fr. 9.1–2. Cf. the use of conlustrare for Jupiter in book 2 of Consulatus suus followed closely by lustrare for the consul (Div. 1.17): principio aetherio flammatus Iuppiter igni | vertitur et totum conlustrat lumine mundum | menteque divina caelum terrasque petessit . . . (1.18): nam primum astrorum volucris te consule motus | concursusque gravis stellarum ardore micantis | tu quoque, cum tumulos Albano in monte nivalis | lustrasti et laeto mactasti lacte Latinas (First Jupiter, flaming with the fire of ether turns and bathes the entire world in light, he searches heaven and earth with his divine mind . . . for during your consulship you too surveyed the winged motions of heavenly bodies and the solemn assemblage of stars with glowing heat, when you performed sacrifices for purification on the snowy Alban mount and celebrated the Latin festival with grateful milk). Cf. how Caesar’s connection to Jupiter was expressed visually in the forum at this point with his chariot set on the Capitol near the statue of Jupiter (above, p. 112). Tusc. 2.22 in a translation of Sophocles’ Trachiniae: multa alia victrix nostra lustravit manus (many other things our victorious hand has traversed). 23 Tim. 30. Cf. Arat. 442. Tusc. 4.44. 25 B. Afr. 83.1. Momigliano 1987: 71.

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which combine a personification with Caesar’s name, are instituted in the same year.26 Cicero’s series of calculated invocations in the Pro Marcello give these sorts of honorific associations an unconventional spin. Fortuna is brought into play, the goddess whose favors were coveted by the likes of Marius and Sulla and sought and gained by Caesar before Pharsalus.27 In Cicero’s recollection of the civil war, this goddess who had guided Pompey in the past now gives way to Caesar (7): quin etiam illa ipsa rerum humanarum domina, Fortuna, in istius societatem gloriae se non offert: tibi cedit, tuam esse totam et propriam fatetur (Why even Fortune herself, the master of all human things, does not offer herself as a partner in your glory, she yields it to you and claims it is completely yours alone).28 She holds sway over human affairs (ipsa rerum humanarum domina), but Caesar does not need her help. Fortuna, part of Caesarian propaganda since Pharsalus, now cedes to Caesar, Cicero claims, not because of his singular military successes, but because she can take no credit for the unexampled wisdom of his mercy (7–8).29 Cicero goes on to say that another goddess, Victoria, has had to yield to Caesar as well (12): ipsam Victoriam vicisse videris, cum ea, quae illa erat adepta, victis remisisti, nam cum ipsius Victoriae condicione omnes victi occidissemus, clementiae tuae iudicio conservati sumus. recte igitur unus invictus es, a quo etiam ipsius Victoriae condicio visque devicta est (You seem to have conquered Victory herself, since you have surrendered to the conquered everything that had been gained, for we all who fell conquered under the rule of Victory herself have been preserved by your power to grant clemency; so you alone are truly undefeated, since by you the rule and force of Victory herself is vanquished).30 Caesar did, in one possible 26

27

28 29

30

For the Caesarian coins in 45 bce, see Crawford 1974: 482–86. See Weinstock 1971: 91–111 on the religious history of Victoria at Rome and the efforts of Pompey and Caesar to appropriate her. On the ludi Victoriae Caesaris see Fam. 11.28.6. See Weinstock 1971: 112–16 on the importance of Fortuna for Sulla, Marius, and other Republican generals. Weinstock (ibid.: 116), following Dio 41.39.2, thinks that Caesar sacrificed to Fortuna before he left Rome in Dec. 49 bce. Caesar mentions the help of Fortuna in the civil war at Att. 10.8B.1 and Civ. 3.26. North 1975: 174 has a useful assessment of Weinstock’s argument for a Fortuna Caesaris and a Victoria Caesaris which concludes that our evidence for the latter is far stronger. See above, p. 44 for the role of Fortuna in Man. Cf. how Fortuna is likewise diminished at 19. See Wardle 2009: 110 on Caesar’s propagandistic connection to Fortuna that was celebrated in coinage. See the famous account of Victoria’s symbolic role in the war: an image of Victoria at Elis turns in synchronicity with Caesar’s victory and a palm springs up through the pavement at the temple of Victoria in Tralles where they had dedicated a statue of Caesar (Civ. 3.105). Reggi 2002 argues that the incongruous language and content of this passage point to interpolation, but either way an association of Caesar with Victoria is clear. See Crawford 1974: 475–78 for Caesarian Victoria coins minted in 46 bce.

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sense, conquer Victoria, seeing that there was a shrine to Victoria in Pompey’s theater – conceivably an immediate association for Cicero’s audience.31 Here again Cicero makes use of the goddess in a way that foils expectations. By making the benefaction of clemency eclipse the significance of Caesar’s victories, civic salvation is assessed as an achievement greater than global conquest. Caesar vanquishes the goddess Victoria not in a traditional sphere of competition such as war, he outdoes her because his clemency defies the very logic of military victory (ipsius victoriae condicio visque devicta est). Cicero frames this extraordinary feat as the work of the community’s conservator and duly offers thanks on behalf of the collective (clementiae tuae iudicio conservati sumus), as he will do again (qui a te conservati sumus [we who have been preserved by you], 21).32 This concept that Cicero has been infusing with divine connotations since his consulship is now connected to clementia, the quality that he helps make Caesar’s own. A goddess conspicuously absent is Venus. Caesar’s singular connection to Venus – a relationship much publicized in coinage of the forties – gains monumental prominence with the temple of Venus Genetrix, dedicated in Caesar’s new forum the same month that Caesar pardoned Marcellus. Cicero’s silence here is remarkable. Cicero’s original audience would be versed in the cultural codes that established a relationship between the ability to provide salus and divinity.33 Consolidating and updating this correlation that Cicero had been making throughout his career is a primary concern of the Pro Marcello. Cicero accordingly puts Caesar in the role of delivering salus (18): ut mihi quidem videantur di immortales, etiam si poenas a populo Romano ob aliquod delictum expetiverunt, qui civile bellum tantum et tam luctuosum excitaverunt, vel placati iam vel satiati aliquando omnem spem salutis ad clementiam victoris et sapientiam contulisse.

31

32

33

The possibility of allusion here to Pompey’s project is strengthened by Cicero’s unus invictus es, which seems to be a sidelong reference to another structure in the complex: the shrine to Hercules Invictus (cf. the deo invicto statue in the temple of Quirinus granted by the senate upon Caesar’s return from Spain: Dio 43.45.3). Cicero may also be wryly recycling the slogans from Pharsalus where Caesar supposedly invoked Venus Victrix and Pompey appealed to Hercules Invictus (Appian, BC 2.76). Cicero also uses this charged language to refer to Caesar’s pardon of Marcellus (13): nam cum M. Marcellum deprecantibus vobis rei publicae conservavit (for when he preserved Marcus Marcellus for the commonwealth with you pleading). He also says that Caesar would recall and pardon (conservare) those killed in the war if he could (17). The senators may have also seen the coins bearing the laureate head of Salus that had been in circulation since 49 bce; Crawford 1974: 461 suggests that the coins might allude to the benefits of a Caesarian victory.

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So it seems to me at least that the immortal gods, even if they have exacted retribution from the Roman people for some transgression, in that they stirred up a civil war so great and full of grief, either placated or at last satiated they have transferred all hope of safety to the clemency and wisdom of the victor.

The recent civil strife is construed as a punishment visited upon Rome by the gods for communal transgression, and hopes of salvation now rest with Caesar. Salus, the term personified as a goddess at Rome since at least the fourth century bce,34 helps spell out the meaning of the new concept clementia. So far Caesar is true to his charge of providing salus for Romans; he is credited with the personal safety of Marcellus as well as that of the entire community (33). Cicero cites this as a deterrent to plots on Caesar’s life, arguing that Caesar is now the key to the salus of the Republic (22). He makes this same point abundantly clear toward the close of his oration (32): nisi te, C. Caesar, salvo et in ista sententia, qua cum antea tum hodie vel maxime usus es, manente salvi esse non possumus. qua re omnes te, qui haec salva esse volumus, et hortamur et obsecramus, ut vitae tuae et saluti consulas (Only with you staying safe, Gaius Caesar, and with this policy which you have used before but especially today, are we able to be safe, so all who want everything to remain safe exhort and beg you to look after your life and safety). The interdependence of personal and public safety is made manifest by the references to Caesar’s safety (te, C. Caesar, salvo; vitae tuae et saluti) that enclose those to the general prosperity (salvi esse non possumus . . . qui haec salva esse volumus). The singular position that Cicero envisions for Caesar has a noteworthy precedent in the Somnium Scipionis. In an earlier Republican crisis, Cicero has the Elder Scipio place a similar burden on Scipio Aemilianus (Rep. 6.12): tu eris unus in quo nitatur civitatis salus (you will be the one on whom the safety of the community rests). In the immediately following section, the Elder Scipio unveils the celestial immortality that awaits the saviors and stewards of the Republic (6.13). Caesar’s association with salus may have been manifest in cult practice: Dio claims that oaths modeled on those sworn by a god were sworn by Caesar’s salus.35 Cicero had compared the Roman salus to the Greek title soter early in his career (Ver. 2.154).36 The Pro Marcello also works against the background of the advent of savior figures such as Demetrius Poliorcetes and Flamininus in

34 35

See Marwood 1988 on the history of the Roman cult of Salus. 36 See Wardle 2009: 106 for discussion. See above, p. 21.

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the Greek east. A more immediate, and ironic, precedent is Pompey, who was hailed as a soter in Greece37 and represented much like a praesens deus in the Pro lege Manilia.38 Two decades later it is now Caesar who is praesens much like a god,39 and the site is no longer safely off Italian soil (10): te vero, quem praesentem intuemur, cuius mentem sensusque et os cernimus, ut quicquid belli fortuna reliquum rei publicae fecerit, id esse salvum velis, quibus laudibus efferemus? quibus studiis prosequemur? qua benevolentia complectemur? (But you, whom we behold in our presence, in whose mind and emotions and face we see that whatever remnant of the commonwealth the fortune of war has left us, you want this to be preserved – what sort of honors will we carry out? With what zeal will we attend to them? With what favor will you be embraced?). Cicero begins with a faithful translation of a verse from the famous ithyphallic hymn sung by the Athenians upon the advent of the man–god Demetrius Poliorcetes (σὲ δὲ παρόνθ’ ὁρῶμεν (18) ¼ te vero, quem praesentem intuemur).40 The Athenians hailed Demetrius as their soter and offered their hymn and other divinizing honors after his brutal capture of their city, a possibly disconcerting resonance.41 A particular parallel can be drawn between Demetrius’ surprising mercy after the fierce siege of Athens in 294 bce and Caesar’s current treatment of his defeated Roman foes. This tantalizing allusion to Demetrius, like the evocative globe with the new statue on the Capitol, above all directs the audience’s attention to a man divinized by the Athenians while he was living among them. After this charged evocation, Cicero sets forth a challenge for Caesar (ut quicquid belli fortuna reliquum rei publicae fecerit, id esse salvum velis) and poses a loaded question about pending honors for Caesar (quibus laudibus efferemus? quibus studiis prosequemur? qua benevolentia complectemur?).42 Here and throughout the first two Caesarian Orations, two possibilities for deification are set in tension. The evocation of Demetrius asks audience members, including Caesar, to consider the major ramifications of the living-man-as-god pattern that was presently 37

38 39 40

41 42

See Fishwick 1987: 47 on the title soter and other divinizing honors offered to Pompey in the eastern Mediterranean. See above, p. 40. Cf. Catil. 2.19, Tusc. 1.28 for praesens referring to manifest deities. Hymn, Athenaeus 6.253 d–f. Chaniotis 2011: 174 singles out presence as the crux of the hymn: "No other subject is as prominent as this in this poem. The need for the physical presence of the divinity is a significant feature of Hellenistic religion." Ephesus, like other cities of the eastern Mediterranean, declared Caesar a manifest god and savior, “the god manifest descended from Ares and Aphrodite, universal savior of all human life” (SIG 760). Cicero similarly frames Caesar as a savior but shuns celebration of his claims of divine genealogy. See Parker 1997: 258–63 on Demetrius’ divine honors and their historical contexts. Cf. the role that Cicero gives the Romans’ benevolentia in the deification of Romulus (Catil. 3.2).

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being experimented with at Rome. The other route is that which Cicero had been tentatively proposing parameters for over the past decade: posthumous divinization contingent upon an illustrious career of civic benefaction. This emphasis on ongoing benefactions for the city is similar to the logic of divinizing honors offered to latter-day Demetrius figures in the east. As Price observes, first-century bce figures such as Diodorus Pasparos of Pergamum were given divinizing honors explicitly connected to immortality that were “designed to encourage him to even greater efforts on behalf of the city.”43 Cicero gives due recognition to Caesar’s military might, but insists that it is the general’s mercy and restraint that make him like a god (8): domuisti gentis immanitate barbaras, multitudine innumerabilis, locis infinitas, omni copiarum genere abundantis: sed tamen ea vicisti, quae et naturam et condicionem ut vinci possent habebant; nulla est enim tanta vis quae non ferro et viribus debilitari frangique possit: animum vincere, iracundiam cohibere, victoriam temperare, adversarium nobilitate, ingenio, virtute praestantem non modo extollere iacentem, sed etiam amplificare eius pristinam dignitatem, haec qui facit, non ego eum cum summis viris comparo, sed simillimum deo iudico. You have subdued nations barbarous in their cruelty, countless in number, infinite in space, abounding in every type of resource: but nevertheless you conquered powers whose nature and circumstance made open to defeat; for there is no power which is not able to be weakened and broken by sword and strength: to conquer the will, to curb anger, to show restraint in victory, to not only uplift the downed enemy who is preeminent in rank, talent, and virtue, but even enhance his previous standing, he who does these things I do not compare with the best of men, I rather judge him most like a god.

Cicero creates a portrait of Caesar that has an intentionally exaggerated amount of magnanimity and tolerance. He also sets out a pattern for divinization that pointedly devalues global conquest, subtly undercutting the ideology informing Caesar’s prominent new globe statue. He cites Caesar’s conquests but points out that the targets he hit were easy ones (sed tamen ea vicisti, quae et naturam et condicionem ut vinci possent habebant). After diminishing the significance of Caesar’s campaigns, he turns to praise the virtues of those who opposed Caesar in the civil war (adversarium nobilitate, ingenio, virtute praestantem). These people, however, are now at

43

Price 1984: 48, cf. the similar logic for divine honors offered to Caesar’s friend Artemidorus of Cnidus: ibid.: 49 and the protreptic "persuasion strategy" Chaniotis 2011: 181–82 finds at work in the hymn to Demetrius.

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the mercy of Caesar, and his sway over them puts him in a position of enormous power. Cicero makes his assessment of this power in the first person and his appraisal rises to a new extreme (simillimum deo iudico). This superlative adjective elevates Caesar well above the common lot of mortals, but it still falls short of imputing divinity to him outright: this man is most like a god, with the simillimum serving as an intensified quasi or sicut. Cicero also does not apply this adjective directly to Caesar, but deflects it onto the type of person who exercises such mercy over the vanquished (haec qui facit, non ego eum cum summis viris comparo, sed simillimum deo iudico). In restoring Marcellus Caesar has shown himself to be such a person, but there are of course others to be pardoned and Cicero’s formulation is devised with the encouragement of future acts of clemency in mind. Caesar’s responsibilities to the Republic are described more fully later on in the speech, where Cicero assigns him a role normally filled by a divinity (23). The limits of mortality are said to bind Caesar, and Rome is said to be in dire need of divine aid. After Cicero’s diagnosis of the need for divine intervention, Cicero burdens Caesar alone with this task of restoring the now shattered state. In what follows, Cicero starts to draw up the mission for Rome’s savior. Cicero claims that the war-weary Caesar has a new refrain, hinting that all of his great accomplishments lie behind him (25). This resignation ill-suits the man who is said to have larger purposes to fulfill at Rome since Caesar was born as a savior figure for the Romans, much like the Pompey of the Pro lege Manilia.44 He tells Caesar and the senators that Caesar has yet to complete his greatest labor, the salvation of the Republic, and that his thirst for gloria will compel him to do so. The type of glory that Caesar might attain is discussed as the speech proceeds. Cicero urges Caesar to press forward with reconstruction and warns him that the glory he covets depends upon his success (26): quicquid est enim, quamvis amplum sit, id est parum tum, cum est aliquid amplius. quod si rerum tuarum immortalium, C. Caesar, hic exitus futurus fuit, ut devictis adversariis rem publicam in eo statu relinqueres, in quo nunc est, vide, quaeso, ne tua divina virtus admirationis plus sit habitura

44

(25) id audirem, si tibi soli viveres aut si tibi etiam soli natus esses: omnium salutem civium cunctamque rem publicam res tuae gestae complexae sunt (I would listen to this if you lived for yourself alone, if you were born for yourself alone: it is the safety of all citizens and the commonwealth that your accomplishments have embraced). Cf. Man. 42; the differences in these passages are instructive as well: Pompey is presented chiefly as a man of war, while Caesar’s role is to extend outside the military sphere.

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quam gloriae; si quidem gloria est inlustris ac pervagata magnorum vel in suos vel in patriam vel in omne genus hominum fama meritorum. For whatever it is, however magnificent, it is still too small when there is something greater still. Because if this was meant to be the outcome of your immortal deeds, that with your enemies subdued you should leave the commonwealth in the state that it is now in, see to it that your divine virtue does not have more admiration than glory – if indeed glory is the illustrious widespread fame for great services for your friends or fatherland or the entire human race.

He speaks of higher challenges (aliquid amplius) to be met that will reap higher rewards, describing Caesar’s accomplishments thus far as immortal (rerum tuarum immortalium) but still works in progress. Cicero credits Caesar with possession of divina virtus, an attribute with resonance from the Pro lege Manilia and the De re publica, which in this context comes with particular strings attached. If Caesar leaves the Republic in its current state of destruction, this divine quality may be seen as a gift that he failed to exploit fully. At this point, Cicero presents the glory that Caesar can achieve as a rather conventional variety of worldwide renown. When Cicero again allots Caesar the charge of restoring the Republic (27), he raises the stakes of this challenge for Caesar by discussing his quest for immortality (27–28): quamquam iste tuus animus numquam his angustiis, quas natura nobis ad vivendum dedit, contentus fuit, semper immortalitatis amore flagravit. nec vero haec tua vita ducenda est, quae corpore et spiritu continetur: illa, inquam, illa vita est tua, quae vigebit memoria saeculorum omnium, quam posteritas alet, quam ipsa aeternitas semper tuebitur. And yet this soul of yours has never been content with the narrow limits that nature allotted for life, it has always burned with a desire for immortality. Nor should what is confined to the body and breath be considered your life. This, I say, is your life, that which shall thrive in the memory of all ages, which posterity will sustain and which eternity itself will always preserve.

There is probably some truth in his assessment of Caesar’s intentions (semper immortalitatis amore flagravit). Eight years before in the Pro Rabirio Postumo, Cicero had described Caesar as a man intent on gaining immortality.45 The immortality that Cicero proposes is one that will commence after the expiration of the mortal body and only if Caesar proceeds to bring a suitable peace to Rome. It is a deferred immortality that cuts against the 45

See above, p. 75.

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notion of Caesar as a newly arrived praesens deus. This is also open to interpretation as a limited type of immortality associated with eternal memoria (memory), a more conventional concept probably acceptable to those senators wary of Caesar’s ultimate aims.46 Cicero even imagines how flawed this memoria could be if Caesar does not bring salus to Rome after his victory (29): cum alii laudibus ad caelum res tuas gestas efferent, alii fortasse aliquid requirent, idque vel maximum, nisi belli civilis incendium salute patriae restinxeris (Some will lift your achievements to heaven with praise, others perhaps will find something lacking – something most critical – if you do not quench the fire of civil war for the safety of the fatherland). He also drops a hint that Caesar might be sentient in his posthumous state, able to chart the progress of the veneration he receives (30). Having postponed Caesar’s immortality and scripted the conditions that will be the index of his performance, Cicero closes the Pro Marcello with an offer of thanks to Caesar on behalf of the Romans which makes mention of even greater, forthcoming rewards (33): maximas tibi omnes gratias agimus, C. Caesar, maiores etiam habemus; nam omnes idem sentiunt, quod ex omnium precibus et lacrimis sentire potuisti (We all give the greatest thanks to you, Gaius Caesar, and we have even greater, for we all feel the same way, which you are able to realize from the prayers and tears of all). Here again Cicero characterizes Caesar’s standing with loaded language. Are the Romans’ preces prayers offered to a divinity or simply entreaties presented to a man? If they are prayers to divinity are they offered to or for Caesar? The possibility of prayers being offered to Caesar temporarily brings his superhuman status back into the present, but the Pro Marcello as a whole leaves Caesar’s divinity as an unrealized possibility. This project can come to fruition, Cicero suggests, with the political legacy that he maps out for Caesar in the speech. Cicero closes with personal thanks to Caesar for being his savior (34): itaque, C. Caesar, sic tibi gratias ago, ut omnibus me rebus a te non conservato solum, sed etiam ornato (And so, Gaius Caesar, I give thanks to you, as I have been not only preserved but even extolled by you in all things). In not only saving but even honoring this particular ally of Pompey, Caesar continues to do precisely what makes him most like a god, according to Cicero’s recent words. Encouraged by Caesar’s forbearance with Marcellus, Cicero makes a similar appeal for mercy in his defense for Quintus Ligarius, a provincial legate who had been spared after Thapsus by Caesar but remained in exile 46

Cf. Levene 1997: 76 on how Cicero plays off the immortality of fame against a more literal immortality in this passage.

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in Africa. Cicero delivered his speech before Caesar in the forum roughly a month after the Pro Marcello, when hopes of a new Republican settlement were still alive. Although this speech is laced with ironic treatments of the prosecutor Quintus Tubero, Cicero avoids delving into the specifics of the charge Tubero made against Ligarius.47 A primary strategy is to place Ligarius at Caesar’s mercy and to present the power to grant such salvation as a manifestation of real godlike ability. This speech, like the Pro Marcello, is shot through with the terms Cicero has been using to link savior figures with the gods. Cicero first remarks that his defense for Ligarius is itself an act of salvation (1). However, he quickly shifts the focus to Caesar’s capacity for mercy (1): omnis oratio ad misericordiam tuam conferenda est, qua plurimi sunt conservati (The entire speech must be an appeal to your compassion by which so many have been saved). This mercy, Cicero asserts, is now Caesar’s signal trait (6): o clementiam admirabilem atque omnium laude, praedicatione, litteris monumentisque decorandam! cum M. Cicero apud te defendit alium in ea voluntate non fuisse, in qua se ipsum confitetur fuisse, nec tuas tacitas cogitationes extimescit nec quid tibi de alio audienti de se ipso occurrat reformidat. vide quam non reformidem; vide quanta lux liberalitatis et sapientiae tuae mihi apud te dicenti oboriatur. O clemency marvellous and worthy of celebration in the praise of and proclamations of all, in both literature and monuments. When Marcus Cicero claims in your presence that another was not involved in the cause that he himself confesses to have been involved with, he does not fear your tacit thoughts, nor does he fear what comes to your mind about him as you listen to him speak regarding another man. See how I am not afraid, see how the great light of your generosity and wisdom rises upon me speaking in your presence.

Cicero calls for the public commemoration of Caesar and his clementia, this new divine quality that he comes to represent at Rome. He is of course right in the midst of following his own cues, since the Pro Ligario is itself a seminal public celebration of Caesar’s clementia. In the coming year, the senate will decree a temple of Clementia Caesaris with a statue of Caesar holding the hands of the new goddess Clementia.48 Cicero here tells Caesar and those assembled in the forum that this praiseworthy virtue gives Pompeians the right to speak up in front of their former foe. In this 47

48

It is therefore difficult to determine what exactly these charges were. See Johnson 2004: 383 for a discussion of the possibilities. Weinstock 1971: 241. The temple, which does not seem to have been actually built, is depicted on a coin from 44 bce: Crawford 1974: 491 (480.21).

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Cicero seems to be more than a simple spokesman for Caesar’s new program of propaganda. He is isolating clementia as Caesar’s best means to immortality and again publicly defining this term in ways that could hem in Caesar. Cicero constructs an image of a Caesar who has attained and now sustains his peerless status by pardoning his suppliant political enemies.49 This ideal is presented in a fashion that would make it quite attractive to Caesar as well (vide quanta lux liberalitatis et sapientiae tuae mihi apud te dicenti oboriatur). The image of a human as a giver of light has an important lineage in Cicero’s texts: he used it for the succor brought to the Republic by both himself and Pompey.50 Cicero jokes that the former Pompeian Tubero’s claims against Ligarius strain Caesar’s liberalitas because they amount to asking Caesar to redress wrongs committed by one Pompeian against another during the war (23). He has a point here, but it is perhaps his own words in the forum that were testing Caesar’s tolerance. Cicero finds his own salvation especially satisfying not because he was previously in the wrong, but because Caesar supposedly realizes that both sides in the recent conflict were in the right. He gives equal dignity to Pompey and Caesar but observes that the gods were ultimately helping Caesar (18; 19). Now, however, with Caesar’s generous clementia, everyone shares in Caesar’s victory. Cicero is frank about his intentions in giving this speech. As he is winding down he tells Caesar that his words have all been about the victor’s clemency and compassion (29–30). It is fair to say that Cicero’s audience would not object to this synopsis. His speech is saturated with language related to clementia and salus: humanitas (humanity), misericordia (compassion), liberalitas (generosity), lenitas (mildness), and the kindred verb ignoscere (pardon), all of which join to celebrate Caesar’s clemency.51 One recent pardon for which Cicero shrewdly congratulates Caesar is that of his opponent Tubero. Cicero notes the salus enjoyed by the former 49

50

51

As Johnson 2004: 386 observes, the praise Cicero gives Caesar in this part of the speech is ample yet “very conditional.” For himself at Dom. 75: adventus meus atque introitus in urbem qui fuit? utrum me patria sic accepit, ut lucem salutemque redditam sibi ac restitutam accipere debuit (What was my arrival and entrance into the city like? Did the fatherland welcome me back as light and salvation returned and restored?); Pompey at Man. 33: tantamne unius hominis incredibilis ac divina virtus tam brevi tempore lucem adferre rei publicae potuit (The incredible and divine courage of one man brought so much light to the commonwealth in so little time). Add to this potential the associations with the light-bearing Jupiter in book 2 of the Consulatus suus (Div. 1.17) and the many luminescent celestial bodies in the Aratea. Cicero gives a less suggestive, if equally complimentary, account of Caesar’s liberalitas in a letter to Ligarius about a preliminary meeting with Caesar concerning the fate of Ligarius (Fam. 6.14.2). See esp. 14–16 for Cicero’s artful interweaving of these terms.

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Pompeian Tubero (28) and also censures him for trying to steer Caesar away from his honorable course of clementia (10). Caesar should be concerned with maintaining his connection to clementia more than gratifying Tubero, Cicero argues. Caesar will not only then benefit his supporters by saving Ligarius (in Q. Ligario conservando, 32), he will also substantiate his post-war slogans (33). Amidst all the appeals for clementia are repeated insinuations that Caesar’s acts of mercy are divine. Cicero pleads to Caesar as to a parent and seeks asylum for Ligarius in Caesar’s clementia (30): sed ego apud parentem loquor: “erravit, temere fecit, paenitet; ad clementiam tuam confugio, delicti veniam peto, ut ignoscatur oro” (But I speak in front of a parent, “he erred, acted rashly, he is sorry; I appeal to your clemency, I seek pardon for his fault, I beg for his pardon”). The appellation parens would not fall by chance from the lips of the man who as recently as 49 bce was recalling the evocative titles he had won in his consulship (Att. 9.10.3): me, quem non nulli conservatorem istius urbis parentemque esse dixerunt (me whom many called the preserver and parent of this city). As with Cicero’s own honors, this designation could easily stir up associations with Romulus in his role as Rome’s founder.52 The title parens patriae (parent of the fatherland) would soon be part of Caesar’s honorary nomenclature, and it seems to have had a role in cult offerings to him.53 These divine undertones in Cicero’s description of Caesar’s conciliatory measures carry through to the next section of the speech (31): itaque tribuis tu quidem tuis ita multa, ut mihi beatiores illi videantur interdum, qui tua liberalitate fruuntur, quam tu ipse, qui illis tam multa concedas; sed video tamen apud te causas, ut dixi, valere plus quam preces. And so you provide so much for your followers, that they sometimes seem more blessed, those who enjoy your generosity, than you yourself, who grants them so much; but nevertheless, as I said, I see that pleading has more weight with you than prayers.

52

53

See Div. 1.3: huius urbis parens Romulus (Romulus, parent of this city). Also relevant is Cicero’s tribute to his earlier savior Lentulus (Red. Pop. 11): parens, deus, salus nostrae vitae (parent, god, savior of our life). In 45 bce (Appian) or 44 bce (Dio) the title parens patriae becomes Caesar’s honorary cognomen: Weinstock 1971: 200. Weinstock (ibid.: 202–03) suggests that Cicero may have proposed the title, arguing that “His speeches Pro Marcello and Pro Ligario show him in a most co-operative spirit and must have inspired some of the new honors.” A denarius of 44 bce carries the title parens patriae and depicts the wreathed head of Caesar: Crawford 1974: 494 (480.19). Suetonius Jul. 85 claims that a column inscribed Parenti Patriae was set up in the forum after Caesar’s funeral and served as a place to make vows, sacrifice, and take oaths.

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The prosperity that Caesar can grant his suppliants in Rome is much like that Pompey brought to his eastern clients (Pro lege Manilia, 13): ut ei beatissimi esse videantur apud quos ille diutissime commoretur (so they seem most blessed, those amongst whom he lingers for the longest time). Cicero, however, tempers the implications of his language by assuring his audience that Caesar is playing the part of magistrate, not god. As Cicero formulates it, Caesar could be doing both, but his human role trumps any divine one (sed video tamen apud te causas, ut dixi, valere plus quam preces). As in the Pro Marcello, Cicero’s encounters with the divinity of Caesar call for a dexterous strategy that acknowledges Caesar’s unprecedented position while cleverly setting out preconditions that defer his divinization. He leaves the possibility of Caesar’s eventual divinization open while blunting the thrust of initiatives for a cult of the living man. When Cicero presented the quasi-divine savior Pompey in the Pro lege Manilia, he pushed that dynast’s divinity to a degree that Pompey himself never did at Rome. Caesar, on the other hand, was now accepting innovative honors (forty-day supplicatio; Demetrius-like Capitoline statuary) that took the concept of the praesens deus further than ever before at Rome. As Cicero’s Second Philippic shows, supporters of Caesar did not wait for posthumous divine honors. In the Pro Marcello and Pro Ligario Cicero marshals his persuasive powers in an ultimately failed attempt to ensure that they would.54 In the peroration of the Pro Ligario, Cicero finally lays bare what he has been insinuating in the earlier sections. He recalls those Caesar has saved so far (34), and then brings forth Titus Ligarius, now a suppliant for his brother’s salus (36). Cicero then tells Caesar and the assembled crowd that granting Titus’ petition would bring Caesar within the range of divinity (37–38): nihil est tam populare quam bonitas, nulla de virtutibus tuis plurimis nec admirabilior nec gratior misericordia est. homines enim ad deos nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando; nihil habet nec fortuna tua maius quam ut possis, nec natura melius quam ut velis servare quam plurimos. longiorem orationem causa forsitan postulet, tua certe natura breviorem. qua re cum utilius esse arbitrer te ipsum quam me aut quemquam loqui tecum, finem iam faciam: tantum te admonebo, si illi absenti salutem dederis, praesentibus his omnibus te daturum. Nothing is so popular as kindness, and none of your many virtues is more admirable and appreciated than your compassion. There is no way that 54

There is debate as to whether Caesar himself wanted the divine honors offered in his lifetime or if he rather preferred the pattern of posthumous deification; see Wardle 2009: 107 for discussion.

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people approach so nearly to the gods as they do when giving salvation to fellow-humans; your position has nothing greater, your nature nothing better than your will to save as many people as possible. Perhaps the case calls for a longer speech, as surely your character calls for a shorter one. Therefore judging it better for you to speak than for me or someone else to address you, I will now make an end: I only remind you that in giving salvation to this man in his absence, you will give it to all those present.

Caesar’s anticipated pardon of Ligarius is connected by the repetition of salus and dare (si illi absenti salutem dederis, praesentibus his omnibus te daturum) to an epigrammatic, generalizing phrase (homines enim ad deos nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando).55 Here in the Pro Ligario as in the Pro Marcello, the approach to divinity laid out by Cicero is not through a military success like Thapsus but through civil reconciliation and restoration. And this connection to divinity is not ancestral, it is achieved through action and merit.56 The early hopes of an acceptable political settlement manifest in the Pro Marcello and the Pro Ligario dissipate as Caesar heads off to Spain. At the end of 46 bce Cicero writes to A. Manlius Torquatus in Athens with a forecast for the Republic that is grim regardless of who wins the latest conflict.57 When word of Caesar’s victory at Munda reached Rome, the senate voted Caesar honors that made him simillimus deo, although not for the reasons Cicero had laid out. Among these were fifty days of thanksgiving, the right to dress as Jupiter in triumphal garb at all games, and a statue on the Capitoline among Rome’s former kings.58 The most daring of these honors were a statue inscribed Deo Invicto (“to the unconquered god,” also 55

56

57 58

Cf. the strikingly similar wording at Rep. 1.12: neque enim est ulla res in qua propius ad deorum numen virtus accedat humana, quam civitates aut condere novas aut conservare iam conditas (For there is nothing in which human virtue approaches divine power more closely than in founding new states and preserving those already founded). Beard and Henderson’s analysis of the Belvedere Altar (an early rendering of Caesar’s apotheosis) finds a clear emphasis on Caesar’s own valiant agency in his apotheosis: 1998: 211: “Here is the Man-God of Destiny, rising above his people, his family, woman and sons, the dynasty he founds . . . So Caesar is no one’s passenger.” Cf. how Cicero’s Romulus rises skyward alone in the Rep. as opposed to being conveyed in Mars’ chariot, which was likely the case in Ennius’ Annales (see Skutsch 1985: 205, 260 on evidence suggesting that Romulus’ apotheosis in the Annales involved a ride in Mars’ chariot). Fam. 6.1. Dio 43.42–45. The triumphal dress granted to Pompey in 63 bce provided a recent precedent for such an honor. Public anxiety about Caesar’s excessive honors is slyly inserted into the Pro rege Deiotaro as Cicero observes that the insertion of Caesar’s statue among the kings on the Capitol was met with no applause (33). Although Cicero dismisses these simmering resentments as mere gossip, he still acknowledges them as prevailing public attitudes. His thoughts on the reasons for unrest over the location of Caesar’s statue contain what seems to be a loaded intentional slip (34): nam si locus adfert invidiam, nullus locus est ad statuam quidem rostris clarior (for if the position of the statue provokes resentment, there is no place more splendid for a statue than the rostra). Caesar’s statue

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possibly inspired by Demetrius) in the temple of Quirinus on the Quirinal near Atticus’ house59 and the insertion of his image in the procession of the gods that preceded circus games. This association of Caesar with Quirinus was celebrated at the Parilia, which had already turned into the anniversary of Rome’s foundation by 45 bce. The senate attached games in honor of Caesar’s victory in Spain to the Parilia in this year and Caesar’s image joined Quirinus’ in the parade from the Capitol to the Circus before these games.60 Linking a contemporary Roman statesman to the deified Romulus, a tactic that Cicero had experimented with in 63 bce (Catil. 3.2), is now enacted in ritual. The incorporation of Caesar’s image in the pompa demonstrates the uncertain process of negotiating Caesar’s divinity at Rome. This characteristically Roman staging of the categories of divinity offered inventive opportunities but required strategic choices: where does Caesar get situated in this parade of gods?61 Emplacement alongside Quirinus as opposed to Jupiter suggests a degree of restraint in this otherwise bold appropriation of religious tradition. Cicero, who had aggressively promoted the identification of Caesar with Salus in the Pro Marcello and Pro Ligario, at this point quips in confidence that he would rather see Caesar with Quirinus than with Salus (Att. 12.45.2, 17 May 45 bce): eum σύνναον Quirino malo quam Saluti (I would rather he share a temple with Quirinus than Safety). Cicero has been understood to mean that he hopes that Caesar meets death at the hand of senators much like Quirinus did in some traditions, but his attitude to Caesar might not be so hostile at this point as to endorse such extreme measures even sottovoce.62 Weinstock suggests that initial plans to lodge

59

60

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62

was among the kings on the Capitoline, not with the generals on the rostra. Cicero’s “error” is perhaps calculated to expose the glaring anomaly of Caesar’s break with tradition. Dio 43.45.3. Nock 1930: 204 notes Demetrius Poliorcetes’ image in the Parthenon (304–303 bce) as a precedent for Caesar’s honor. Cf. Marc. 12: unus invictus es (you alone are unconquered). Att. 12.48.1 offers contemporary witness (17 May 45 bce): domum tuam pluris video futuram vicino Caesare (your house will go up in value with Caesar as neighbor). The processions: Dio 43.45.2; the new Parilia games: Dio 43.42.3. See North 2008 on how Caesar associated himself with Romulus at the Lupercalia of 44 bce. North (ibid.: 158) interprets Caesar’s placing of the diadem on a throne – the version of events preserved in an epitome of Livy – as an act representing deification, since such a throne (sella) would carry a symbol of a god or goddess to mark their attendance at a festival. See Long 1987: 239–42 and Latte 1960: 248–50 on the pompa circensis. Although we cannot be entirely certain, it is likely that the pageant presented gods by category with the twelve “Olympian” gods assembled together while the likes of Hercules and Quirinus (and Caesar) would form another grouping. Weinstock 1971: 171 says that an allusion to assassination here “cannot be proved, but is not impossible.” Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 338 doubts that Cicero was thinking of Romulus’ murder by the senators. Cicero had downplayed this version of Romulus’ demise at Rep. (2.20).

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Caesar with Salus were changed to Quirinus because the report of Munda was received on the eve of the Parilia.63 Perhaps Cicero felt that association with Quirinus/Romulus and with posthumous deification would tie Caesar to a precedent that implied full divinity only after death. Cicero might also be making an esoteric reference to the spirited but ultimately civil Cato and Anti-Cato clash currently underway (and mentioned in this letter), in which he and Caesar had written opposing tracts. Why should the author of a withering attack on the recent suicide Cato have the privilege of joining the statue of the Elder Cato in the temple of Salus? Atticus seems to have a more conciliatory stance towards Caesar, which suggests that he was the wrong audience for jokes about the dictator’s murder. He encourages Cicero to write a letter of advice for Caesar that would follow the lines of those addressed to Alexander and would probably be intended for publication in its finalized form.64 Cicero does write a letter, but the many changes proposed by Atticus’ screeners Balbus and Oppius prompt Cicero to drop the project. He tells Atticus that such protreptic efforts ultimately failed to steer Alexander clear of tyranny (13.28.3, 26 May 45 bce): tu non vides ipsum illum Aristoteli discipulum, summo ingenio, summa modestia, postea quam rex appellatus sit, superbum, crudelem, immoderatum fuisse? quid? tu hunc de pompa, Quirini contubernalem, his nostris moderatis epistulis laetaturum putas? Do you not remember that this pupil of Aristotle, having the greatest talent and discretion, after he was named king, was arrogant, cruel, and excessive? So do you think that this man in the procession of gods, this co-lodger with Quirinus, will be gratified by my sobering letters?

Caesar’s place in the pompa and his statue in the temple of Quirinus are signs for Cicero of Caesar’s increasing absolutism as well as his gradual but continual movement toward divinity in his lifetime. Cicero is therefore quite gratified to hear that Caesar’s image next to that of Victoria met with an icy reception in the procession before the ludi Victoriae Caesaris in July.65 Atticus did, however, select a text of Cicero’s to take the place of the scrapped letter of advice: the Pro Ligario. Cicero thanks Atticus on 23 June 45 bce for his current promotion of this work.66 Atticus also forwards the Pro Ligario to be vetted by Balbus and Oppius, who give the speech their 63 64

65

Weinstock 1971: 171. Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 344 notes that Caesar would probably read it, show it to his circle, and then let it be published if it was to his liking. 66 Att. 13.44.1, 14 July 45 bce. Att. 13.12.2.

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stamp of approval and send it along for Caesar’s inspection.67 At the beginning of July, the same month of the objectionable pompa, Cicero notes that the speech is now in wide circulation (pervulgata).68 In the Pro Ligario Cicero called for the public commemoration of Caesar’s clementia (6). He presents this legacy as already consecrated at Rome in the subsequent Pro rege Deiotaro, a speech for another Pompeian delivered to a scant audience in Caesar’s home (40): multa sunt monimenta clementiae tuae, sed maxima eorum incolumitates, quibus salutem dedisti (There are many monuments to your clemency, but none greater than the safety of those you have given salvation). Since no temple of Clementia Caesaris seems to have been built, Cicero could have his own circulating celebration of Caesar’s clementia in mind, the Pro Ligario. The fact that the word monumentum can refer to both physical structures and texts supports this notion, and language reminiscent (salutem dedisti) of the apothegm at the conclusion to the Pro Ligario that divinizes the gift of salus (homines enim ad deos nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando, 38) might activate the connection. Cicero does not retract the monumentum he crafted for Caesar presumably because he still stands by its lucid logic: continued clementia and Republican renewal are the preconditions for any divinization.

Excavation and innovation: Tusculan Disputations During the first half of 45 bce, as the momentum toward Caesar becoming a living god at Rome was increasing, Cicero was far more concerned with creating a different monumentum: the shrine to deify his daughter Tullia.69 Enacting this unconventional status-shift for Tullia sets an inventive process in motion (multa mihi εἰς ἀποθέωσιν in mentem veniunt [many things come to my mind for apotheosis], Att. 12.37a, 5 May 45 bce). Cicero searched for a site for her fanum, one with a prominent location that could ensure its sanctity (religio) well into the future.70 His efforts to build her divinizing shrine are given conceptual support and elaboration in 67 69

70

68 Att. 13.19.2, 29 June 45 bce. Att. 13.20.2. Cf. Cicero’s language in a discussion of his plans for the shrine (Att. 12.18.1, 11 March 45 bce): illam consecrabo omni genere monimentorum (I will consecrate her with every type of monument). See above, p. 3 n. 5 on Cicero’s focus on finding a site that would be frequented by the public. His concern with the future reception of Tullia’s shrine is evident in his hesitations about a site that could change ownership (Att. 12.36.1, 3 May 45 bce): sed, ut saepe locuti sumus, commutationes dominorum reformido. in agro ubicumque fecero, mihi videor adsequi posse ut posteritas habeat religionem (But, as we have often said, I fear change in ownership. Wherever I put it up in open land, I think I can make sure that it has sanctity in the future).

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the Consolatio, putting theoretical speculation and innovative ritual practice in coordination. After writing the Consolatio to justify his plans for her divinization and spending months plotting its implementation, Cicero makes what will be the last discussion of these plans in his letters on 9 July 45 bce (Att. 13.33a). His energies seem to be shifting to his literary output, which becomes truly prodigious in the spring of 45 bce. At the end of May, in a letter inquiring about the shrine property, Cicero had made a now famous reference to his outpouring of philosophical works (Att. 12.52.3, 21 May 45 bce). He envisions this latest cycle of literary production as an eminently public, political project. In his De divinatione, he will describe his efforts as a benefaction for the Republic (munus rei publicae, 2.4) that also served as a new podium for his political ideas (2.7). Much recent scholarship has productively focused on this political engagement of Cicero’s work in the forties. A prime example of this reorientation is Gildenhard’s Paideia Romana, which reads the Tusculan Disputations not as a retreat to philosophy but rather as “an effort of outreach” in which Cicero “engages in a project that holds out the promise of a better future.”71 The following discussions of Cicero’s later dialogues carry on the study of the speculative, future-oriented dimensions of these texts. Cicero’s representations of divinization and apotheosis present a particularly rich case study in the degrees to which these dialogues entered into contemporary cultural debates as they scrutinize social institutions and redefine what it means to be Roman. In this second major phase of literary production, Cicero’s aims are similar to his great ventures of the fifties (De oratore; De re publica; De legibus): to integrate Greek learning and Roman experience and produce forward-looking cultural models for Rome. His strategies for legitimizing cultural innovation are familiar as well. As in the De re publica and De legibus, later dialogues such as the Tusculan Disputations invoke ancestral practice to give emerging religious concepts the sanction of Roman tradition. While these later dialogues introduce an array of new topics to Roman audiences, in many cases they resume work on projects

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Gildenhard 2007: 69, 74. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill’s (2008: 3–37, 213–58) more macroscopic approach to the political implications of Cicero’s later dialogues. He convincingly argues that Cicero and Varro were key figures in a late Republican cultural reordering in which new knowledge systems articulating more specialized bodies of knowledge replaced traditional knowledge systems that had concentrated political, legal, military, and religious power in the hands of Republican nobility. Gotter 1996b also challenges ideas about a disillusioned Ciceronian withdrawal into a more “private” mode by arguing that the late De amicitia has political aims and implications very much like those in Cicero’s earlier works.

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initiated in the fifties. Cicero endeavors to consolidate the bond between human virtus and divinity, and also remains engaged with the idea of divinity for deserving Romans – an issue with heightened significance as the divinization of Caesar intensified in the forties. The profusion of Ciceronian texts that treat apotheosis, divinization, and individual immortality is itself an intriguing cultural indicator. In the span of two years, Cicero turns out no fewer than six works that include discussions of the immortality and divinity of erstwhile mortals.72 In addition to these more direct considerations of individual immortality and divinity, Cicero’s dialogues produced in the forties continue to present Romulus and Hercules as aspirational models for the Roman elite. Cicero’s first philosophical venture in the forties was the Paradoxa Stoicorum of 46 bce, most likely written between the Brutus and the Orator. In his prefatory dedication to Brutus (3), Cicero says he has set out the Stoic arguments in a polished-up, punchy style to engage a wider audience of non-specialists. For the first paradox, quod honestum sit, id solum bonum esse (only what is honorable is good), Cicero asks the reader to visualize Roman embodiments of this maxim. The first case in point that he suggests is Romulus (11): quibus tandem gradibus Romulus escendit in caelum, iisne quae isti bona appellant, an rebus gestis atque virtutibus? (By what steps did Romulus ascend into heaven, by these things your school calls goods, or rather by his achievements and virtues?). The signal episode of Romulus’ life that Cicero chooses to spotlight is his apotheosis, the event that Scipio had explained in great detail in the De re publica. And Romulus’ rise through virtus and earthly achievements here follows the ideological principles laid out in the De re publica. Later in the first paradox Cicero revisits the divinity of the animus (soul, 14), an idea, central to the De re publica, that he will revisit to explore in greater depth in the Consolatio and the Tusculan Disputations. After the Paradoxa Stoicorum of 46 bce and the Consolatio of early 45 bce, Cicero finishes one of his most comprehensive philosophical works in the summer of 45 bce, the De finibus bonorum et malorum. In this systematic examination of Epicurean, Stoic, and Academic ethics, Cicero assigns himself the criticism of Torquatus’ Epicurean views. He advances a fundamental objection to any ethical scheme that does not place a 72

45 to 44 bce sees the production of the Consolatio, Hortensius (which closes with a discussion of the immortality and divinity of the soul, fr. 101, 102 Straume-Zimmermann), Tusculan Disputations, De natura deorum, De senectute, and De amicitia. It is highly plausible that the lost De gloria of 44 bce joined in this discussion as well.

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premium on virtus. Such ethical models are flawed by design, he argues, because they run contrary to the semi-divine nature of humankind (2.40).73 In his discussion of humanity’s divine properties and the duty that these properties entail, the interlocutor Cicero cites the Hercules paradigm. Recently utilized in the Consolatio as a precedent for Tullia’s deification, Hercules here becomes the quintessential bringer of salus. Cicero asks Torquatus if he would rather languish amid incessant pleasures or provide salvation (salus) to humanity like the god Hercules (2.118). Cicero recently presented this concept in public as he told Caesar in the Pro Ligario that humans approach the divine when they deliver salvation to others (38). The implications are similar for Torquatus: use your abilities on behalf of others and follow the same calling that Hercules did.74 Cato, in his exposition of Stoic ethics in book 3, also makes use of Hercules. He contends that there is an innate will to safeguard the human race in especially capable individuals (3.66): ii qui valent opibus atque id facere possunt, ut de Hercule et de Libero accepimus, ad servandum genus hominum natura incitantur. atque etiam Iovem cum Optimum et Maximum dicimus cumque eundem Salutarem, Hospitalem, Statorem, hoc intellegi volumus, salutem hominum in eius esse tutela. Those who have exceptional resources and capabilities, like the Hercules and Liber of tradition, are roused by nature to protect the human race. And even when we call Jupiter the Best and Greatest, the Benefactor, the Host, or the Stayer, we mean that he is the guardian of humanity’s safety.

Cato adds Liber to the ranks of savior figures who, like Hercules, were commonly given mortal origins.75 For Cato, mortals who provide salus not only follow the divinized benefactors Hercules and Liber, but they are also in step with the foremost god of the Roman pantheon: Jupiter Optimus Maximus.76 73

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sic hominem ad duas res, ut ait Aristoteles, ad intellegendum et ad agendum esse natum, quasi mortalem deum (Humans, as Aristotle says, are born for two things, thought and action, as if a mortal god). Cf. the similar words of the interlocutor Cicero in the contemporary work Academica, 2.139. The Aristotle passage referred to was perhaps from his lost peri philosophias or the protreptikos, but deeming humans the “mortal gods” has been attributed to Heraclitus (Reid 1925: 153–54). Citing Aristotle to back an idea with deep Stoic coloring, humanity’s divine nature, perhaps subtly anticipates Antiochus’ theories about the continuities between the Peripatetics and the Stoics that are expounded in book 5. Torquatus had recently died fighting for Pompeians, which would perhaps give this passage a tragic irony. See Leg. 2.19. Cato concludes his outline of Stoicism in book 3 with a question that would be familiar to the readers of Rep. (3.76): quod si ita est, ut neque quisquam nisi bonus vir et omnes boni beati sint, quid philosophia magis colendum aut quid est virtute divinius? (If it is true that all the good and none but the

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While Cicero was producing the De finibus, he sent along a request to Atticus for a copy of Dicaearchus’ On the Soul (13.32.2, 29 May 45 bce). He may have asked for the work to aid his composition of the πολιτικὸν σύλλογον more Dicaearchi (a political assembly in the manner of Dicaearchus) that he mentioned on 28 May 45 bce (Att. 13.30.2) and then decided to write on this topic himself. It is also possible that he already had the Tusculan Disputations in mind at this point.77 If Cicero was in some way responding to Dicaearchus’ theories on the soul, it would most likely be to challenge the philosopher’s denial of the soul’s immortality.78 In book 1 of the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero shuns the Stoic idea of temporary survival of the soul and mines Platonic texts for his discussion.79 Although Plato provides much of the theoretical armature for the Tusculan Disputations,80 the format of this dialogue eschews Platonic models for a more centralized structure. Instead of the exposition/rebuttal form that he had recently used for the De finibus, Cicero opts for a dialogue “in which one speaker has things almost all his own way.”81 The interlocutor who directs the discussion in the Tusculan Disputations is marked as “M” in the manuscripts, presumably Marcus since he refers to the De re publica and the Consolatio as his own work. He presents his arguments to a character marked “A,” an adulescens, a designation purposefully vague, Gildenhard argues, since Cicero’s pedagogical project is “addressing Rome’s next generation in its entirety.”82 This ambitious cultural intervention actively

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good are blessed, what ought to be cultivated more than philosophy, what is more divine than virtue?). This Stoic principle was also a crucial component of Marcus’ discussion of natural law in Leg. (1.23, 25). Marcus Piso, who in book 5 of Fin. recollects the ethical positions of the Old Academy and the Peripatetics that he had heard from Antiochus, puts a similar value on virtus in the conclusion to his discussion (5.95): propter virtutis caelestem quandam et divinam tantamque praestantiam (on account of this certain celestial and divine excellence of virtue). Piso also posits a relationship between virtus and ratio that follows the reasoning of Marcus’ treatment in book 1 of Leg. The virtutes, according to Piso, spring from ratio, which is the most divine element in humankind (5.38). Piso illustrates the role of ratio (reason) in actualizing the innate divinity of mortals by describing it as a divine guide for humanity (5.43): ut eam quasi deum ducem subsequens (following it as if a god as leader). Shackleton Bailey 1965–70: 304. Dougan 1905: 16 thinks Tusc. had not yet been planned. Cicero criticizes Dicaearchus’ theories on the soul in Tusc. (1.24, 1.41, 1.51, 1.77) but otherwise admires his work (1.77). 1.77–79. As Douglas 1995: 209 notes: “The Stoic belief in temporary survival after death for the great and the good was not enough.” See Dougan 1905: 20–24 for a detailed review of Cicero’s possible sources for book 1 of Tusc. Plato is mentioned often, as is Posidonius, a Stoic who advocated the immortality of the soul. At 1.53–54, “M” uses, for example, the proofs for the immortality of the soul from the Phaedrus that he had already borrowed for the Rep. Douglas 1995: 198. See also Gildenhard 2007: 45–88 on the ways in which this format differs from Cicero’s other dialogues. Gildenhard 2007: 72.

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engages with the systematic explorations of immortality in Cicero’s texts by incorporating the De re publica and the Consolatio into this new configuration of celestial afterlife. As Marcus starts to deliver his proofs on the futility of fearing death in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, he claims, like a good Academic, that his discussion is necessarily a presentation of what is probable (1.17). However, later in his treatment of the topic he presses toward an uncharacteristic degree of certainty when discussing the divinity of the soul (si ulla alia de re obscura adfirmare possem, sive anima sive ignis sit animus, eum iurarem esse divinum [If I could make any other assertions on this difficult subject, I would swear that, whether the soul is breath or fire, in either case it is divine], 1.60).83 To back such a strong assertion, Marcus seeks confirmation both from philosophers and from the evidence found in Roman customs. He gives the latter clear priority in his investigation. Cicero has “A” pose the central question of book 1 on death and the possibility of afterlife, and then has Marcus begin his answer by establishing the preeminence of his historical proofs (1.26):84 auctoribus quidem ad istam sententiam, quam vis obtineri, uti optimis possumus, quod in omnibus causis et debet et solet valere plurimum, et primum quidem omni antiquitate, quae quo propius aberat ab ortu et divina progenie, hoc melius ea fortasse quae erant vera cernebat. As for authorities for that view which you wish to see established, we can employ the highest, a point which in all cases ought to have great weight and usually does so: and, to begin with, we can quote all antiquity which, it may be, had a clearer vision of the truth in proportion to its nearness to its origin and divine ancestry.

Marcus’ first proofs from religious tradition are Roman burial customs and pontifical law (1.27): itaque unum illud erat insitum priscis illis, quos cascos appellat Ennius, esse in morte sensum neque excessu vitae sic deleri hominem, ut funditus interiret: idque cum multis aliis rebus, tum e pontificio iure et e caerimoniis sepulcrorum intellegi licet, quas maxumis ingeniis praediti nec tanta cura coluissent nec violatas tam inexpiabili religione sanxissent, nisi haereret in

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After Marcus seems to have convinced “A,” he, remaining in an Academic mode, nevertheless still insists that this matter defies complete certainty (1.78). Cf. the similar status that the Marcus of Leg. gives ancestral custom (2.27): iam ritus familiae patrumque servare, id est, quoniam antiquitas proxume accedit ad deos, a dis quasi traditam religionem tueri (For the preservation of family and ancestral ritual is like preserving religion handed down by the gods since antiquity comes as close as possible to the gods).

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The concern for the departed discernible in these Roman religious rites and regulations is premised on the recognition of an afterlife. The details of this posthumous existence are at this point left vague (quandam quasi migrationem commutationemque vitae). One piece of crucial information is, however, made clear: only exceptional men and women (in claris viris et feminis) make the transmigration in caelum, while others linger confined in the ground. This trip in caelum taken by exceptional Romans – akin to the celestial transmigration in Scipio’s Dream – seems to be an innovative departure from traditional Roman funeral customs which conceived of the departed as existing as a collective under the earth.85 Another remarkable detail in this latest Ciceronian formulation of immortality is the specific inclusion of women in the equation. Coming as this does in the wake of the Consolatio and the fanum letters to Atticus, the recent death of Tullia seems to motivate this new addition to Cicero’s scheme. If so, this is a sign of creative interchange between Cicero’s planned ritual innovations and his theoretical ventures. Marcus’ methodology in the Tusculan Disputations resembles that of Scipio in the De re publica: appeals to ancestral practice lend legitimacy to what are actually innovative proposals. Ennius serves, as he had in the De re publica, as a conduit that relays vital aspects of earlier Republican culture. By digging into the distant past for evidence, Cicero employs a tactic tailored to give innovation the sanctity of Roman tradition. Wallace-Hadrill’s

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See Hopkins 1983: 233–55, Toynbee 1971: 37, and Carroll 2006: 4 on traditional Roman funereal rites that presuppose the departed abiding underground.

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insightful discussion in Rome’s Cultural Revolution of the methodologies of late Republican antiquarians observes that “by relocating the legitimising authority of the ancestors in a remote past, it gave the present a greater freedom to innovate.”86 Cicero makes precisely this sort of maneuver as he positions Ennius as a mediating link between the late Republic and earlier centuries by having Marcus use Ennius as a reference point from which to reach further into the past (priscis illis, quos cascos appellat Ennius).87 Marcus then goes on to cite Ennius as another source transmitting the views he finds implicit in pontifical law and burial custom (1.28): ex hoc et nostrorum opinione “Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum,” ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius (hence our belief “Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the gods,” as Ennius said in accordance with tradition).88 By using the Annales in conjunction with pontifical law and burial rites, Cicero assigns an exceptional role to Ennius.89 He does not narrowly construe the Annales as representing a peripheral “religion of the poets,” as might be typical in theological debates at Rome,90 but rather cites the work as reflecting Roman religious attitudes also evident in familial ritual practice and state protocols.91 Ennius, the path-breaking precursor to Cicero in the integration of Greek theory and Roman custom, again provides important support for Cicero’s treatment of apotheosis and immortality. Cicero’s use of the deification of Romulus as corroborating evidence for the immortality of the soul merges the divinization of statesmen with a more generalized immortality of the soul, much like the similar composites at Pro Sestio 143 and De re publica 6.24. Skutsch argues that Cicero might be tendentiously editing Marcus’ quote from the Annales (Romulus in caelo 86 87

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Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 232. Cf. (Ann. 22 Sk.): Quam prisci, casci populi, tenuere Latini (which the ancient Latin people of old held). See above, p. 84 on Cicero’s elevation of the status of opinio in his treatments of divinization. Cf. Cicero’s use of the Annales in Inv. In his explanation of narratio, he cites Pacuvius as an example of fabula (story) and Ennius as an example of historia (history, 1.27). See Wiseman 1994: 1–22 on the affinities of historical and “quasi-fictional” narratives at Rome. An appeal to a poet in this context was by no means an obvious choice for Cicero. As Feeney 1991: 103 points out, poets were traditionally disregarded in religious discussions at Rome: “In Rome, on the contrary, the productions of poets – Greek or native – were marginal not only for actual practice and belief but also for intellectual inquiry into religion.” See also Momigliano 1987: 202: “In the period of Caesar the men who discuss religion are concerned with the choice between the rational approach and the political approach to religion, not with any dubious relation between poetry and city-religion.” Cicero elsewhere bears witness to this attitude (e.g. N.D. 1.42, 2.70, 3.5, 3.60). Over half of Cicero’s quotes from the Annales (28/52) are found in his philosophical works: Skutsch 1985: 27. Cf. the citation of Ennius’ epitaph for Africanus at Leg. 2.57, where Ennius (Epigrams 5–6 Warmington) is said to give a faithful representation of customary burial language.

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cum dis genitalibus aevom | Degit [Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the birth-giving gods] 110–11 Sk.) to suit his immediate needs in this context. His omission of genitalibus downplays Romulus’ divine origin and therefore makes him stronger support for his contention that clari viri and clarae feminae of mortal lineage can achieve immortality through their earthly accomplishments.92 Similar motivations are discernible in the Consolatio, where Cicero identifies Hercules and Ino by their mortal lineage. This calculated framing emphasizes merit-based achievement of divine status instead of the divine descent claimed by the likes of Caesar.93 Marcus notes that his evidence from Ennius is in accord with prevailing traditions about Romulus’ posthumous status (ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius), a claim that may intentionally exaggerate not only the degree of consensus about Romulus’ apotheosis but also the antiquity of this part of the Romulus legend.94 Marcus supplements his Roman evidence with a catalogue of familiar precedents from the Greek world (1.28): et apud Graecos indeque perlapsus ad nos et usque ad Oceanum Hercules tantus et tam praesens habetur deus: hinc Liber Semela natus eademque famae celebritate Tyndaridae fratres, qui non modo adiutores in proeliis victoriae populi Romani, sed etiam nuntii fuisse perhibentur. quid? Ino Cadmi filia nonne Λευκοθέα nominata a Graecis Matuta habetur a nostris? quid? totum prope caelum, ne plures persequar, nonne humano genere completum est? And it passed from among the Greeks to us and to the ocean that Hercules is such a great and immanent god: similarly Liber was born from Semele, and the same widespread tradition goes for the brothers, the sons of 92

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Skutsch 1985: 262. Jocelyn 1989: 53 thinks that Skutsch misconstrues Cicero’s argument: “In fact the philosophising orator is making a case for the general immortality of the soul and adduces among other grounds the allegedly ancient belief in the divinity acquired by certain famous mortals, the Roman Romulus and the Greek Herakles, Dionysos, Kastor, Polydeukes and Ino. He has no need to obscure the semi-divine parentage of these personages and could not have done so even if he had wished. He does not raise explicitly, as he does elsewhere, the matters of the virtues and the achievements of those apotheosised.” Cicero does, however, suggest in this passage that only exceptional (presumably virtuous) people (clari viri and clarae feminae) can go up to the heavens (in caelum) where Romulus is said to reside, which is more exclusive than a general immortality of the soul. He also emphasizes the mortal parent of the divinized Greeks whom he mentions (1.28). Gildenhard 2007: 3 contends that Tusc. is “fueled by an intense hostility toward Caesar.” If so, this modification is hardly surprising. Skutsch 1985: 205 holds that it is “intrinsically probable” that Ennius invented Romulus’ deification, noting that Ennius’ Euhemerus probably preceded the Annales and may have influenced his rendition of Roman legendary material. Skutsch deems Ennius a “Euhemerist” (ibid.: 260) and thinks that his version of the Saturnus story in the Annales (23–25 Sk.) draws on Euhemerus. Cf. Feeney 1991: 122.

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Tyndareus, who have not only helped the Roman people to victory in battle, but are even thought to have brought news of the victory. What about Ino the daughter of Cadmus, called Leucothea by the Greeks and thought to be Matuta by us? Why – to avoid going on and on – is not the whole sky filled with humankind?

He presents Hercules as a Greek god who has become universal and especially dear to the Romans (tantus et tam praesens habetur deus). Hercules, Liber, and the Dioscuri also appear in Varro’s list of the immortales ex hominibus facti (immortals made from humans).95 These figures, along with the deified Romulus, are among those in the religious laws of the De legibus who achieved their divinity through merit (2.19). Since Marcus now makes women eligible for such immortal rewards, he expands the group to include the goddess Ino, who had recently helped justify Tullia’s case for consecration in the Consolatio (Lact. Inst. Div. 1.15.19–20). Marcus even goes so far as to abolish the distinctions made by Varro in the Antiquitates rerum divinarum and Cicero in the De legibus by suggesting that the original Olympian gods were also exceptional mortals who had been deified (1.29): si vero scrutari vetera et ex is ea, quae scriptores Graeciae prodiderunt eruere coner, ipsi illi maiorum gentium dii qui habentur hinc nobis profecti in caelum reperientur. quaere, quorum demonstrentur sepulcra in Graecia (If in fact I venture to seek out old accounts and search through what Greek writers passed down, we will discover that those we consider the gods of the highest rank set out from here into the sky. Ask whose tombs are pointed out in Greece).96 Foremost among the scriptores Graeciae propagating this theory was Euhemerus, whose ideas were adapted and disseminated at Rome by Ennius’ Euhemerus. In this text, Jupiter is an enterprising mortal culture-bringer who transmigrates to the gods at his death.97 Marcus’ mention of sepulcra is likely a nod to Ennius’ text in which the sepulchrum of Jupiter is discovered.98 95 96

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Antiquitates rerum divinarum (fr. 32 Cardauns). Cf. how Marcus will claim at 5.8 that Atlas was in origin a great astronomer. Dougan 1905: 207 notes: “The view that he was an astronomer, about whose personality myths were formed, is not put forth earlier than Cicero’s time . . . and is due to the combined influence of Euhemerus and the Stoic allegorizing doctrines.” (Vahlen XI): deinde Iuppiter postquam quinquies terras circuivit omnibusque amicis atque cognatis suis imperia divisit reliquitque hominibus leges mores frumentaque paravit multaque alia bona fecit, inmortali gloria memoriaque adfectus sempiterna monumenta suis reliquit. aetate pessum acta in Creta vitam commutavit et ad deos abiit (Then Jupiter after he crossed the world five times and divided powers amongst his friends and relatives, and gave laws and customs to people and provided grain and many other goods, he was honored with immortal glory and renown and left everlasting monuments for his people. Weighed down by old age, he parted his life at Crete and went to join the gods). (Vahlen XI): et sepulchrum eius est in Creta in oppido Gnosso, et dicitur Vesta hanc urbem creavisse; inque sepulchro eius est inscriptum antiquis litteris Graecis ZAN KPONOY is est Latine Iuppiter Saturni

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Marcus doubles back to Hercules for more evidence of the privileged afterlife for deserving mortals. He now portrays Hercules as a previous beneficiary of the system of service and rewards that he is exploring (1.32): quae est melior igitur in hominum genere natura quam eorum, qui se natos ad homines iuvandos tutandos conservandos arbitrantur? abiit ad deos Hercules: numquam abisset, nisi, cum inter homines esset, eam sibi viam munivisset. vetera iam ista et religione omnium consecrata. So what better nature is there in human beings than that of people regarding themselves as born to help, protect, and preserve other people? Hercules went to join the gods, but he never would have unless he had built this course for himself while human. Such examples are of long standing and consecrated by the religious scruple of all.

Marcus once again takes care to naturalize his Hercules and make him a universal, not Hellenic, divinity (vetera iam ista et religione omnium consecrata). The labors and apotheosis of Hercules are framed with language familiar from earlier Ciceronian discussions of the ways in which human benefactors move toward divine status (qui se natos ad homines iuvandos, tutandos, conservandos arbitrantur).99 Marcus’ Hercules is not a demigod born with divine entitlements, but rather a mortal who had to make his own case for divinization (abiit ad deos Hercules; numquam abisset, nisi, cum inter homines esset, eam sibi viam munivisset).100 Cicero’s specific word choice here (abiit ad deos) again looks back to the Jupiter passage from Ennius’ Euhemerus (ad deos abiit) to which he alluded just previously at 1.29.101

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(His tomb is in Crete in the town Cnossus, a city that Vesta is said to have founded, on his tomb ZAN KPONOY is written in archaic Greek letters, in Latin that is Jupiter son of Saturn). Cf. esp. Rep. 1.12 and Lig. 38. Cf. the focus on Hercules’ apotheosis and its merit-based nature in the later books of Tusc. In the second book, which treats the endurance of pain, the agony suffered by Hercules in his poisoned robe demonstrates the absurdity of some Epicurean dismissals of pain (2.17–19). To illustrate Hercules’ suffering, Marcus translates a passage from Sophocles’ Trachiniae (1046–1102¼2.20–22). In his introduction to this passage, Cicero has him represent the death of Hercules as a transition to immortality (2.20). This emphasis is a sharp and self-interested departure from the Sophoclean play, which portrays Hercules’ demise as a lamentable, bitter death. Hercules reappears in book 4, which tackles various disorders of the animus (soul). Marcus draws a distinction between iracundia (anger) and fortitudo (bravery) with examples from Scipio Africanus’ battlefield valor (4.50) and the labors of Hercules (4.50). Hercules’ apotheosis is based pointedly on his merits, and the quality for which he is praised, fortitudo, is expressly linked to ratio (reason), which binds humanity and divinity in Stoic thought. Vahlen XI.

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The divine aspirations that supposedly motivated the deeds of Hercules are also said to have incited more recent heroes who had hopes of immortality (1.32–33). Marcus offers two Greek parallels to Hercules, Themistocles and Epaminondas, and one Roman, himself. Marcus in the Tusculan Disputations is the author of the De re publica and the Consolatio, so he is also presumably the conservator who put his life on the line for Rome in 63 bce. From here Marcus’ argument takes another familiar turn. His proof of the immortality of the soul (1.27) that conflates the idea with the apotheosis of Romulus and Hercules (1.28) flows from his mention of a presentiment of posterity (1.33) into a consideration of the eternal glory coveted by poets, artists, and philosophers. He illustrates this type of immortality with Ennius’ epitaph (1.34): volito vivos per ora virum (I fly living on the lips of men). Marcus does not, however, limit Ennius’ survival to this literary afterlife. He suggests that the great poet will abide in some capacity, cognizant of his waxing reputation (1.35). Marcus contends that wide consensus on an afterlife points toward a natural truth, and uses language (veri simile est [probable] 1.35) amounting to approbation for an Academic.102 After Marcus’ invocations of Roman customs and common opinion, he expands his argument with a more abstract, theoretical investigation of the immortality of the soul. Marcus makes use of Plato’s proofs from the Phaedrus (245) on the self-moving and hence eternal nature of the soul. He credits Plato (1.53) and then quotes at length his own version of Plato from the Somnium Scipionis (Tusc. 1.54¼Rep. 6.27–28). He echoes the complaints leveled by Plato and Xenophanes about the human foibles attached to the Greek gods and states his own preference for transferring divine qualities to humans instead (1.65).103 Marcus supports this proposed shift of divine qualities to humans with a passage from the Consolatio, the text contemplating Tullia’s divinity (1.66): animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest; nihil enim est in animis mixtum atque concretum aut quod ex terra natum atque fictum esse 102

103

Cf. Marcus’ later mission statement for the Academy (4.47): digladientur illi per me licet, cui nihil est necesse nisi, ubi sit illud, quod veri simillimum videatur, anquirere (Let them cross swords, just give me nothing else than the ability to search after what is most probable). fingebat haec Homerus et humana ad deos transferebat: divina mallem ad nos. quae autem divina? vigere, sapere, invenire, meminisse (Homer imagined these things and transferred human qualities to gods, I prefer to give us divine qualities. Then what are divine qualities? To thrive, be wise, discover, remember). This also echoes the words of Africanus from the Somnium Scipionis (6.26): deum te igitur scito esse, siquidem est deus qui viget, qui sentit, qui meminit, qui providet (know that you are a god, since indeed a god is one who thrives, is alert, and remembers, who looks ahead).

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Charting the posthumous path videatur, nihil ne aut umidum quidem aut flabile aut igneum. his enim in naturis nihil inest, quod vim memoriae mentis cogitationis habeat, quod et praeterita teneat et futura provideat et complecti possit praesentia. quae sola divina sunt, nec invenietur umquam, unde ad hominem venire possint nisi a deo. singularis est igitur quaedam natura atque vis animi seiuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis. ita, quidquid est illud, quod sentit quod sapit quod vivit quod viget, caeleste et divinum ob eamque rem aeternum sit necesse est. No beginning of souls can be found on earth; because there is no mixture or combination in souls that seems to come from matter born or made on earth, nothing wet, airy, or fiery. For there is nothing in such elements that has the power of memory, thought, or reflection, nothing that can hold on to the past, nothing that can see the future or embrace the present. For such things are divine, and no source from which they come to people will ever be found except from god. The soul therefore has a unique nature and power apart from these common, well-known elements. Therefore, whatever it is that is alert, that is wise, that lives and thrives, it therefore follows that this is celestial and divine.

The methods of the Consolatio and Tusculans book 1 are strikingly similar: boundary-crossing mortals such as Hercules and Ino furnish established precedents for the divinization of mortals that are augmented by more abstract, syllogistic proofs. In both texts a Platonic immortality of the soul is fused with the rise from mortal to immortal status reported by the legendary deifications.104 The continuing convergence of the concepts of apotheosis, the immortal soul, and undying earthly renown indicates that these ideas had considerable interpenetration for Cicero.105 The lack of systematic integration that leaves their exact relationships unclear again betrays the experimental quality of Cicero’s deliberations. What is conspicuous, however, is the attempt to redirect Roman priorities – much like the Somnium Scipionis – away from a destructive competition for earthly gloria and toward posthumous rewards. Striking as well is Cicero’s decision

104

105

Although Cicero works off a range of Greek sources in Tusc., Gildenhard 2007: 179 underscores the innovative orientation of Cicero’s production: “there is no strict parallel in our surviving sources to Cicero’s assertion that a life lived according to the requirements of virtus will receive social acknowledgement.” Cf. the hybrid of immortal glory and apotheosis for Jupiter in Ennius’ Euhemerus (Vahlen XI): immortali gloria memoriaque adfectus sempiterna monumenta suis reliquit. aetate pessum acta in Creta vitam commutavit et ad deos abiit (He was honored with immortal glory and renown and left everlasting monuments for his people. Weighed down by old age, he parted his life at Crete and went to join the gods).

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to present these speculations front and center in the Tusculan Disputations, his “novel programme of national education.”106 Although a full-fledged design for divinization does not crystallize in Tusculans book 1, an overall picture that lodges deserving mortals with the gods after death can be seen to emerge. In the philosophical proofs of the soul’s immortality, Socrates is said to have resembled a man rising in caelum at his death (in caelum videretur escendere [he seemed to be ascending to the sky] 1.71).107 Socrates’ destination (in caelum) is the same as that of the clari viri and clarae feminae (in caelum, 1.27) and that of Romulus (Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum, 1.28). Cicero’s choice of verb for Socrates’ ascent may also underscore the fact that he won immortality through his earthly achievements. Instead of the more usual ascendere,108 he opts for escendere, which implies effort.109 This particular formulation was previously used for Romulus as well in the Paradoxa Stoicorum (11): Romulus escendit in caelum. Socrates’ own theories about virtue and posthumous reward inform part of Marcus’ argument. He attributes to Socrates a scenario in which the undeserving linger separated from the gods (devium quoddam iter esse, seclusum a concilio deorum [there is a certain road apart, removed from the gathering of gods], 1.72), one that is similar to his own earlier allocation of posthumous paths where some linger in the traditional earthly domain of the dead while earthly excellence earns celestial immortality for a Roman elite (1.27). As Marcus’ discussion begins to taper off, he moves from the past to the future by addressing the present company’s own prospects for a posthumous transmigration in caelum (1.82): video te alte spectare et velle in caelum migrare. spero fore ut contingat id nobis (I see that you have lofty aims and want to journey into the sky. I hope this is our lot). For Marcus, these hopes are left as such in Tusculans book 1. He does, however, express certainty that fears of death 106

107

108

109

As Gildenhard 2007: 75 convincingly defines Tusc. In a rewarding discussion of Cicero’s attempts to reinvent gloria, Glidenhard observes (ibid.: 180): “By insisting upon a (right) notion of gloria, rather than dismissing the concept in its entirety, Cicero sacrifices conceptual clarity in favour of advancing his political project: the redefinition of Rome’s pantheon of values.” Here, as elsewhere, videri (to seem) can add a degree of removal from actuality. Cf. what is said about the epistemology of videre in a discussion of sense perception in the contemporaneous Ac., where the verb is said to point to the fictitious nature of dreams (2.51). Later Marcus draws an analogy between Cato and Socrates which suggests that these philosophers enjoy an afterlife (1.74): vir sapiens laetus ex his tenebris in lucem illam excesserit (A wise man happily departs from this darkness into the light). Cf. Ennius’ epigram on Scipio, si fas endo plagas caelestum ascendere cuiquam est (“if it is right for anyone to ascend to the precincts of the gods”), Leg. (2.19): ascensus in caelum (ascent to the sky), and Mil. (97): in caelum homines viderentur ascendere (people seem to ascend into the sky). Dougan 1905: 91.

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are unfounded. He insists that good Romans such as the Scipios and the recent suicide Cato will either meet the highest good in death or at least no bad (110).110 Although Marcus sets out these possibilities at the close of Tusculans book 1, his student now remains convinced that immortality awaits worthy Romans (1.77, 119). 110

Cf. the two options – extinction or divinity of the soul – set out at the close of the Hortensius (fr. 102 Straume-Zimmermann): magna spes est, aut si hoc quod sentimus et sapimus mortale et caducum est, iucundum nobis perfunctis muneribus humanis occasum neque molestam exstinctionem et quasi quietem vitae fore; aut si ut antiquis philosophis hisque maximis longeque clarissimis placuit aeternos animos ac divinos habemus sic existimandum est, quo magis hi fuerint semper in suo cursu, id est in ratione et investigandi cupiditate, et quo minus se admiscuerint atque implicaverint hominum vitiis et erroribus, hoc his faciliorem ascensum et reditum in caelum fore (A great hope that, if, on the one hand, this consciousness and wisdom of ours is mortal and perishable, we shall still, when we have completed our human duties, have a pleasant demise, and a not painful extinction, and as it were a rest from life: or if, on the other, as ancient philosophers thought, those greatest and by far the most celebrated, we have souls eternal and divine, then we should think that the more these have always kept in their own proper course in reason and in the desire of inquiry, and the less they have mixed and become entangled in human vices and errors of men, the more easy ascent and return they will have to heaven).

chapter 4

Revisions and Rome’s new god

A ritual object or action becomes sacred by having attention focused on it in a highly marked way. From such a point of view, there is nothing inherently sacred or profane. These are not substantive categories, but rather situational ones. Sacrality is, above all, a category of emplacement. J. Z. Smith, To Take Place1

De natura deorum and the question of elite skepticism The De natura deorum orchestrates a religious debate that takes up some timely questions for its late Republican readers. It is also a formative project in the “new tradition of explicit self-reflection”2 initiated in the late Republic by religious thinkers such as Varro and Cicero. An issue given particular scrutiny in the dialogue is one that had been on Cicero’s agenda since the fifties: the possibility that immortality is achievable by deserving mortals. The wide-ranging theological discussion presents a strong case on each side of the question of whether humans can become gods. A considerable amount of time is devoted to piling every last challenge to this possibility on one side of the scale and then counterbalancing them with substantial justifications on the other side. The fact that Cicero treats this issue in such an exhaustive fashion intimates that this question remained open – and important – for him. This also indicates that thinking through concepts of apotheosis and immortality was an integral part of broader analytical attempts underway to define and categorize the divine. At this time Varro situates divinized humans in the rationalizing taxonomies of his Antiquitates rerum divinarum. This problem of trying to ascertain category distinctions for divinized humans gets considerable attention in the De natura deorum. Cicero sets the debate during the 1

Smith 1987: 104.

2

Beard, North, and Price 1998: 116.

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respite of the Feriae Latinae, the same holiday that had provided the backdrop for the De re publica. Prominent Romans from a prior generation also lend their authoritative voices to the discussions in the De natura deorum. The host and resident Academic C. Aurelius Cotta subjects the arguments of the Epicurean Velleius and the Stoic Balbus to incisive skeptical critiques. Although Cicero elsewhere embraces the epistemological tenets of the Academics, in his introduction he specifically steers his readers away from a search for his own personal spokesman in the dialogue (1.10). He even stresses that he is prepared to dissent from the Academic position on this topic if any semblance of truth emerges from elsewhere in the give and take of the debate (1.13). He does precisely this in the backing he gives to Balbus’ viewpoint at the close of the dialogue (3.95). In spite of the narrator’s vote for Balbus and his specific warning to the reader about finding his “real views” confined in the argument of just one participant in the De natura deorum (1.10), since the days of the Christian apologists scholars have promoted the notion that the true considered opinion of the author Cicero rests in the radically skeptical side of the interlocutor Cotta.3 This conventional tendency continues to lose its hold as the search for Cicero’s sole “mouthpiece” is increasingly displaced by the analysis of the expository, pluralistic properties of dialogues such as the De natura deorum. Beard, in a seminal reading of the De natura deorum and De divinatione, examined how these dialogues are exploratory in nature rather than being polemical works that set up interlocutors as straw men to be duly humbled by a skeptical Ciceronian “mouthpiece” figure.4 3

4

This interpretation goes back to Augustine and Lactantius and has been followed more recently by Linderski 1982 and Momigliano 1987. Momigliano 1984: 68 disregards the narrator Cicero’s admonition at 1.10 and his vote at 3.95, declaring “Since Cotta as an Academic and as the final speaker represented Cicero” without further justification of this far-reaching claim. Schofield 1986: 57, 57n20 points out that Momigliano does not explicitly discuss 3.95 or explain why we should dismiss the narrator’s pro-Balbus position. See Tarán 1987 for a crisp and careful refutation of the Cotta-as-Cicero argument and an overview of the unsatisfying ways in which the narrator’s words at 1.10 and 3.95 have been handled over the years by those advancing this interpretation. Beard 1986 (cf. Beard, North, and Price 1998: 150–51), which along with Schofield 1986 has stirred vigorous debate on Div. and the question of whether the character Marcus Cicero of book 2 conveys the “real views” of the author of the whole work or if the skeptical critique of divination is an instrumental part of a balanced, analytical interrogation that presents a strong case on each side of the titular issue. See Scheid 1987–89: 127–28 for an approach aligned with Beard’s, and Leonhardt 1999: 66–73 for an even-handed assessment of the issue that ultimately endorses Beard’s reading of Div. See Harris 2003: 27 and Wardle 2006: 8–28 for more recent critiques of Beard’s approach to Div., the latter with a particularly nuanced assessment of the different approaches to the text. Fox 2007 follows up on Beard with an analysis of the speculative, polycentric properties of Cicero’s dialogues and an incisive critical assessment of a reductive “mouthpiece” approach to them.

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Although the narrator casts his own vote at 3.95, the dialogue is structured with a strategic parity that discourages the facile vindication of a particular perspective. Unlike the recent Tusculan Disputations with “Marcus” in a primary didactic role, Cicero chooses to set two men of equal stature, Balbus and Cotta, up against each other for the clash of their strong countervailing viewpoints.5 The result, as Tarán shows in his essential discussion of the expository function of the De natura deorum, is a series of charged juxtapositions that aim “to set forth the ideas of the main schools of philosophy as objectively as possible and thereby to help the reader decide for himself.”6 The reading offered here complements those of Beard and Tarán that counter the notion that the De natura deorum presses for epistemic closure by privileging one viewpoint.7 In particular, this analysis aims to expose additional problems with isolating Cotta’s deeply skeptical positions as Cicero’s own. The words of the narrator Cicero that clearly disassociate him from Cotta make the Cotta-as-Cicero equation problematic enough, as does the structural parity that promotes inquiry from multiple perspectives. A closer look at the substance of Cotta’s arguments shows that their evident flaws and limitations give us yet more reasons to read the De natura deorum as a balanced, probing debate rather than a skewed partisan showpiece. While the author Cicero arms Cotta with some powerful arguments, these also include self-undermining inconsistencies. Conscious contradictions with Cicero’s works – both older and quite recent – also serve to place Cotta’s claims at an ironic remove from the author. Perhaps most significantly, Cicero makes no attempt to whitewash the thoroughgoing anti-cultural implications of Cotta’s more extreme views. After prefacing the deliberations of the De natura deorum with a jab at those armed with smug certainties about such an elusive topic (1.1), Cicero introduces the headstrong Epicurean ideologue Velleius (1.18). Before his exposition of Epicurean theology, Velleius pours scorn on the theologies of competing philosophical traditions. He challenges Pythagorean theories about the divinity of the soul (1.28) and then moves on to ridicule Stoic 5

6

7

See Beard 1986: 44, where she rightly notes that the equilibrium in N.D. is more two-way (Balbus– Cotta) than three (Balbus–Cotta–Velleius). This is made clear at 3.95 when participants vote on the respective positions of Cotta and Balbus. Tarán 1987: 11. Cf. Schofield’s 1986: 63 similar take on the balanced, expository structure of N.D., a work designed “to present as forcefully and sympathetically as possible the views of different schools so that readers can make up their own minds.” These readings are at odds with Momigliano’s 1987: 69 contention that N.D. is designed to produce an “inescapable conclusion a reader was bound to draw.” Beard 1986; Tarán 1987.

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cosmology and theology. He criticizes Zeno’s views about an all-pervasive divine reason, ideas presented in a positive light by Marcus in the De legibus (1.18, 1.42, 2.8, 2.10). Persaeus – a student of Zeno and contemporary of Euhemerus – is criticized for proposing that benefactors and cultureheroes were and could be consecrated as gods (1.38), an idea also familiar from the De legibus (2.19) as well as the Tusculan Disputations (1.28–29). Velleius also associates the concept of deification of humans with Chrysippus, the central philosopher of the older Stoa (1.39). In the description of Chrysippus’ theories, Cicero has Velleius tie the concept of individual immortality to this key figure in Stoicism. The attribution is evidence for a crucial shift in Stoic thinking. In the early Stoic physics of Zeno, individual souls were thought to merge with the world-soul at death.8 In spite of Velleius’ partisan resistance to Stoic theories about the deification of humans, like other Epicureans he divinizes the founder of his philosophical school.9 Velleius takes the near-universal belief in the gods as sufficient proof of their existence and claims that Epicurus merits the same sort of reverence that they enjoy (1.43).10 This first, Epicurean, critique of the divinization of humans looks shaky by design. Velleius finds fault with the venerable Chrysippus for admitting immortalized humans to the ranks of the gods (1.39), and then shortly thereafter (1.43) reflexively follows the party line by suggesting Epicurus’ achievement of divine status. His conflicting attitudes about divinization in part foreshadow the larger, more symbolic schism present in Cotta. The Academic Cotta attacks Velleius’ arguments at great length and connects Epicurean theories to those that Velleius had criticized himself. Velleius had distanced himself from the Stoics who divinize departed humans (38–39), but Cotta nonetheless identifies them both as members

8

9

10

See Walsh 1998: 157, where he notes how this notion “appends Persaeus’ Euhemerism” and challenges the commonly held assumption that the immortality of individuals did not emerge in Stoicism until the first century ce. Dyck 2003: 110 uses Philodemus PHerc. 1428 to help unpack the theology of this passage. Cf. esp. Lucretius 5.49–51: haec igitur qui cuncta subegerit ex animoque | expulerit dictis, non armis, nonne decebit | hunc hominem numero divum dignarier esse? (He who subdued all these things and drove them from the mind with words not arms, doesn’t this man deserve to be numbered among the gods?). See Gale 1994: 191–207 on the divinization of Epicurus. The philosopher was honored with cult (Clay 1983) and was represented like a god in statuary: Frischer 1982: 246–61. In the proofs on the immortality of the soul in the first book of Tusc., Cicero stresses the seeming incongruity of deifying a man who proposed that death was utter annihilation (1.48). In Fin., the interlocutor Cicero suggests that the Epicureans might not even be that convinced by their own denial of posthumous existence. He wonders why Epicurus – a man who claims that death is utter disintegration that renders sensation impossible – would bother to stipulate in his will that his heirs celebrate his birthday as well as a monthly banquet in his honor (2.101–03).

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of an extended family of thinkers whose ideas can very well destroy religion. The first group targeted for attack under this broader rubric is those who think that wise rulers devised religion for its social utility (1.118). Cotta puts the sophist Prodicus of Ceos in this group of religious subversives since he, much like the Stoic Persaeus (38), had deified abstract benefits to human life. His next target is Euhemerus and the man who brought him to Rome, Ennius (1.119): quid? qui aut fortis aut claros aut potentis viros tradunt post mortem ad deos pervenisse, eosque esse ipsos quos nos colere, precari, venerarique soleamus, nonne expertes sunt religionum omnium? quae ratio maxime tractata ab Euhemero est, quem noster et interpretatus est et secutus praeter ceteros Ennius. ab Euhemero autem et mortes et sepulturae demonstrantur deorum; utrum igitur hic confirmasse videtur religionem an penitus totam sustulisse? What about those who claim that brave or illustrious or powerful men cross over to the gods after death, and that these are the very ones we customarily worship, pray to, and revere – are they not removed from all religious sense? This concept was especially promulgated by Euhemerus, but our Ennius translated and followed him more than most. And the deaths and tombs of the gods are shown by Euhemerus, so does he seem to consolidate religious sense or totally destroy it?

The phrasing of Cotta’s attack and the mention of Ennius in this context recall Cicero’s recent discussion in the Tusculan Disputations (1.27). He claims that Ennius not only translated Euhemerus but was also influenced by his teachings (et interpretatus est et secutus), an assessment that parts of the Annales support.11 Cotta seems to know Ennius’ translation well: he understands Euhemerus’ theory to be an aetiology for divinity that entails the passage of elect mortals into the company of the gods (post mortem ad deos pervenisse), an interpretation which closely follows Ennius’ representation of Euhemerism as a process of rationalization that involves actual apotheosis (ad deos abiit, Vahlen XI).12 Cotta’s reference to the tombs of the gods (ab Euhemero autem et mortes et sepulturae demonstrantur deorum) also signals his familiarity with the segment of Ennius’ text that treats Jupiter’s apotheosis.13 His reading of Ennius here is not an entirely 11

12

13

Skutsch (1985: 182–83, 205) thinks that Euhemerus’ influence can be detected in the deification of Romulus and also the story of Saturnus. Cf. Feeney 1991: 122. Although another important source for Euhemerus’ theology, Diodorus book 6, says that primeval kings and culture-bringers received immortal honors at their death, Euhemerism as represented by Ennius and Cicero seems to involve the process of apotheosis. See Courtney 1999: 36–37 for discussion. Cf. sepulchrum eius est in Creta (his tomb is in Crete, Vahlen XI).

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generous one: the Euhemerus can be seen as a product of Hellenistic efforts to galvanize traditional religion by giving it solid rational foundations.14 As Price notes, it was primarily later, Christian perspectives that saw Euhemerus’ ideas as disreputable.15 Ennius’ diffusion of ideas about deification won through benefaction was innovative but not necessarily subversive.16 The charge of impiety leveled by Cotta extends from Ennius and Euhemerism to include the Eleusinian Mysteries (1.119), which were touted by their initiate Marcus in the De legibus as the most divine rites that Athens has to share with others (Leg. 2.36). In this first book it becomes apparent that Cicero is not papering over the more radical elements of Cotta’s skepticism. He instead makes Cotta vilify some sacrosanct institutions and figures. Will Roman readers want to side with the man who views Ennius as an enemy of religion? Balbus, by contrast, shows himself to be in accord with both Ennius and also Marcus from the Tusculan Disputations and De legibus on the issue of divinization. In the prelude to Balbus’ argument proper, he asserts that religious falsehoods ultimately fail the tests of time and public consensus in Rome’s dynamic religious climate (2.5). He defends the divinization of benefits to human life by presenting the practice as a conjunction of Greek wisdom and Roman tradition that has proved resilient in this natural screening process (2.60). Instead of linking this practice solely to the Greek theorist Prodicus as Cotta had (1.38), Balbus reminds his audience that these abstractions have long been divinized at Rome on the initiative of leading Republican families (2.61): tum autem res ipsa, in qua vis inest maior aliqua, sic appellatur ut ea ipsa vis nominetur deus, ut Fides, ut Mens, quas in Capitolio dedicatas videmus proxume a M. Aemilio Scauro, ante autem ab [A.] Atilio Calatino erat Fides consecrata. vides Virtutis templum, vides Honoris a M. Marcello renovatum, quod multis ante annis erat bello Ligustico a Q. Maxumo dedicatum. quid Opis, quid Salutis, quid Concordiae, Libertatis, Victoriae; quarum omnium rerum quia vis erat tanta ut sine deo regi non posset, ipsa res deorum nomen optinuit. 14

15

16

Veyne 1988: 47 suggests that Euhemerus was giving his audience rational reasons to believe in myth, which is characteristically Hellenistic in the rationalist cast it gives the marvelous. The replacement of the she-wolf in the Romulus story with the prostitute Acca Larentia first appears in Ennius and may be his own rationalizing purification of the legend: Bremmer 1987: 32. Price 1984: 38: “Though Euhemerus was occasionally attacked in antiquity as an atheist, it was only with the rise of Christian apologetics that he achieved notoriety. It is the product of this Christian perspective to imagine that the origins of gods are crucially important for their authority.” As Bosworth 1999: 11 points out: “The humanized pantheon of Euhemerus carried no offence for Ennius, and he did not consider it harmful to broadcast the message that deification was the proper reward of conquest and benefaction.”

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And when there is a concept which embodies a greater force, then this very force is deemed a god, as Faith and Mind, which as we see have been recently enshrined on the Capitol by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Faith had already been consecrated by Aulus Atilius Calatinus. You see the temple of Virtue and Honor restored by Marcus Marcellus, which had been dedicated many years earlier by Quintus Maximus during the war with Liguria. And what about the temples of Wealth, Safety, Concord, Freedom, Victory? The force of each of these things was so great that it could only have been controlled by a god, and the concept itself took the title of a god.

Balbus drops some respected Roman names: Marcellus, Fabius Maximus, and also A. Atilius Calatinus, a man who is often mentioned with special reverence in Cicero’s texts.17 Most of the human-generated divinities to which he refers carry positive connotations from the religious prescriptions in the De legibus.18 Also reminiscent of the De legibus is Balbus’ emphasis on the pragmatic origins and functions of divinization (2.62): utilitatum igitur magnitudine constituti sunt ei di (they therefore owe their divine status to their great benefits). When he revisits these abstractions at 2.79, Balbus justifies them on grounds familiar from the first book of the De legibus: the mortal mens (mind) has divine properties.19 And here again Cicero has Balbus duly note that these consecrations are part of the ancestral religious legacy inherited from the earlier Republic. Balbus’ defense extends to the divinization of human benefactors. He declares that this practice has been ratified by the common consensus of humanity (suscepit autem vita hominum consuetudoque communis ut beneficiis excellentis viros in caelum fama ac voluntate tollerent [Human experience and widespread custom have it that men providing outstanding benefits were raised to the sky by their reputation and our gratitude], 2.62) and describes the procedure in terms comparable to those used by Cicero at in Catilinam 3.2 for the apotheosis of Romulus (illum qui hanc urbem 17 18

19

Cf. Tusc. 1.13, 1.110; Fin. 2.116. 2.19: ast olla propter quae datur hominibus ascensus in caelum, Mentem, Virtutem, Pietatem, Fidem, earumque laudum delubra sunto nec ulla vitiorum sacra sollemnia obeunto (For those laudable qualities for which ascent to the sky is granted to humans: Mind, Virtue, Piety, Faith – there should be shrines and sacred rites for them but none for vices); 2.28: bene vero quod Mens, Pietas, Virtus, Fides consecratur {manu}, quarum omnium Romae dedicata publice templa sunt, ut illas qui habeant (habent autem omnes boni) deos ipsos in animis suis conlocatos putent (It is also good that Intelligence, Piety, Virtue, and Faith be consecrated, all of whom have temples publicly dedicated at Rome, so that people who have those qualities (and all good people have them) should think that they have actual gods in their minds). Note that Calatinus is said in Leg. to have dedicated a shrine to Spes (2.28): recte etiam Spes a Calatino consecrata est (Hope was properly consecrated by Calatinus). Cf. Leg. 1.22–27, which also lies behind Balbus’ discussion of ratio at 2.133. The commonality of virtus in humans and divinity that Marcus argues for at Leg. 1.25 and Cicero himself embraces at Ac. 2.139 is challenged by the Academic Cotta at 3.38.

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condidit ad deos immortales benevolentia famaque sustulimus [we raised he who founded the city to the immortal gods in thanks and praise]). Balbus’ catalogue of precedents also has multiple points of contact with important Ciceronian discussions of divinization (2.62): hinc Hercules, hinc Castor et Pollux, hinc Aesculapius, hinc Liber etiam (hunc dico Liberum Semela natum, non eum quem nostri maiores auguste sancteque Liberum cum Cerere et Libera consecraverunt, quod quale sit ex mysteriis intellegi potest; sed quod ex nobis natos liberos appellamus, idcirco Cerere nati nominati sunt Liber et Libera, quod in Libera servant, in Libero non item). hinc etiam Romulum, quem quidam eundem esse Quirinum putant. quorum cum remanerent animi atque aeternitate fruerentur, rite di sunt habiti, cum et optimi essent et aeterni. Among those deified are Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Aesculapius, and Liber (the Liber I mean is the son of Semele, not the Liber solemnly and piously deified by our ancestors along with Ceres and Libera, whose nature can be understood through the Mysteries. Since we call our children “liberi” the children of Ceres were named Liber and Libera, the sense of “child” remains in Libera, but not in Liber). Also among the deified is Romulus, whom some identify as Quirinus. Since their souls survived and enjoyed eternity they were duly regarded as gods, for they were the best and also immortal.

His list is identical to that which Marcus uses at De legibus 2.19. Except for the substitution of Ino for Aesculapius, the same group is adduced in the Tusculan Disputations, where similar pains are taken to preempt confusion about Liber (Liber Semela natus, 1.28) and an appeal is also made to the Mysteries (quae tradantur mysteriis, 1.29). Balbus also borrows strategies from the De legibus and the Tusculan Disputations by summoning ancestral authority in this particular context. Marcus delivers his precepts on apotheosis in the De legibus in archaizing language, he tells Quintus, to enhance their auctoritas (authority, 2.18) and Quintus in turn contributes to the cause by comparing Cicero’s precepts to Numa’s (2.23). Ennius is deployed in the Tusculan Disputations (1.28), much as he was at De re publica 1.64, to embed apotheosis in Roman tradition. So too here Balbus undermines Cotta’s challenges by claiming that their ancestors had piously deified the Italic Liber. Balbus also follows the approach of the Tusculan Disputations and the De re publica by merging apotheosis with the immortality of the soul. His word choice here (quorum cum remanerent animi atque aeternitate fruerentur) aligns his thinking with book 6 of the De re publica (6.13): beati aevo sempiterno fruantur (blessed they enjoy eternal life). However, the identification of the deified Romulus as Quirinus,

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which was so secure in the De re publica, is in this context now cast in some doubt (hinc etiam Romulum, quem quidam eundem esse Quirinum putant).20 Cotta prefaces his response to Balbus with an important disclaimer. He tells those assembled that ancestral traditions lie beyond the reach of philosophical refutation. In what is perhaps the classic statement of how tradition can trump reason in Roman philosophical debates, he claims, as Pontifex, to privilege the same ancestral sources that Balbus was careful to cite in his proofs (3.5). Romulus’ foundation of the city with the auspices and the religious innovations of Numa, for instance, needs no further proof simply because Roman tradition has it as such (3.5). Cotta goes on to tell Balbus that ancestral precedent suffices to secure his assent (3.9), but he will, for the sake of argument, pretend that he is a stranger to Roman traditions (3.7). As Beard has astutely observed, Cicero could have easily avoided the contradictions that the Academic Pontifex embodies by simply selecting a different character.21 Instead, he chooses Cotta to dramatize the problems inherent in the process of integrating Roman religious practice and Hellenizing philosophy.22 His choice of the conflicted Cotta also leaves the De natura deorum without pure opposition to the divinization of humans: it is precisely on the question of divinization that Cicero makes Cotta waver and straddle both sides of the question. Cotta’s split personality of Pontifex and Academic becomes apparent soon after his preliminary remarks. He dismisses the possibility of the epiphany of the Dioscuri at Lake Regillus by claiming that they abide far off in the heavens, divine and immortal among the souls of other outstanding ex-mortals (3.12): nonne mavis illud credere, quod probari potest, animos praeclarorum hominum, quales isti Tyndaridae fuerunt, divinos esse et aeternos (Surely you would rather believe what is susceptible to proof, that the souls of exceptional men like the sons of Tyndareus are divine and eternal). Here Cotta the priest follows the “traditional” line on the apotheosis of Castor, Pollux, and the other early greats that Balbus had set out at 2.62.23 His theology and wording are strikingly similar to the Tusculan Disputations (claris viris et feminis, 1.27/ praeclarorum hominum) and Hortensius (aeternos animos ac divinos, fr. 102/ animos . . . divinos esse et aeternos). Cicero even has Cotta the Pontifex claim – in language anathema to any orthodox Academic – that their immortality is susceptible to proof (quod probari 20 22 23

21 See above, p. 93 on the RoQuirinus connecti/Quirinus connection. Beard 1986: 45. This is, as Beard 1986 argues, the very task that Cicero himself struggles with here and in Div. Walsh 1998: 195 thinks that Cotta endorses Balbus’ ideas because he is speaking in his priest persona.

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potest). Soon after this affirmation of religious ideas conveyed in Cicero’s recent writings and reiterated by Balbus in book 2, he shifts out of the priestly persona and launches a forceful attack on these very ideas (3.39): nec vero volgi atque imperitorum inscitiam despicere possum, cum ea considero quae dicuntur a Stoicis. sunt enim illa imperitorum: piscem Syri venerantur, omne fere genus bestiarum Aegyptii consecraverunt; iam vero in Graecia multos habent ex hominibus deos, Alabandum Alabandis, Tenedi Tenen, Leucotheam (quae fuit Ino) et eius Palaemonem filium cuncta Graecia, Herculem, Aesculapium, Tyndaridas, Romulum nostrum, aliosque compluris, quos quasi novos et adscripticios cives in caelum receptos putant. Nor am I able to despise the lack of knowledge of the masses and the ignorant when I consider the claims of the Stoics. Among the ignorant are the Syrians who worship a fish, and the Egyptians who have deified almost every type of animal. And even in Greece they have many gods who were once humans: Alabandus at Alabanda, Tenes at Tenedos, and throughout Greece Leucothea who was once Ino, and her son Palaemon, then there is Hercules, Aesculapius, the sons of Tyndareus, and our Romulus, who together with others they think were taken up into the sky just like newly naturalized citizens.

Having stepped into an Academic stance, Cotta rejects his own thinking on the divinity of Castor and Pollux that he had shared just moments ago. He compares Stoic ideas on the subject to the misguided piety of the unenlightened masses and Syrian and Egyptian deification of animals. Cotta had used a similar distinction between elite and mass beliefs in his criticisms of Velleius at 1.77. There he challenges the anthropomorphism of the gods and is clearly out of step with mainstream Roman tradition. Cotta displays the elasticity of the material he works with here by making Romulus the sole Roman example of a deified human Romulum nostrum.24 His crafty choice of metaphor (quasi novos et adscripticios cives) is perfectly suited to his presentation of this phenomenon as a foreign intrusion. Balbus had, of course, put the adoption of some Greek deifications in a positive light by showing it to be the practice of their Roman ancestors (2.62).25 Cotta’s stress on Hercules’ Greek origin jars with the pointed universalization of Hercules in the recent Tusculan Disputations (1.28) and 24 25

I follow Pease 1955–58: 1045 in construing nostrum with only Romulum. Cf. how Cicero in Ver. represents the naturalization of Ceres as an important episode in earlier Roman religious life (2.5.187): sacra populus Romanus a Graecis adscita et accepta tanta religione et publice et privatim tuetur (the Roman people observed the rites adopted from the Greeks and accepted with such reverence in both public and private).

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disregards the god’s deep roots at Rome. Cotta the Academic also seeks to discredit Ino who, along with the Dioscuri, was among the evidence offered for the immortality of the soul in the Tusculan Disputations.26 She had also just served alongside Hercules and the Dioscuri as precedent for the divinization of Tullia in Cicero’s Consolatio. The claim that Romulus’ deification could only be accepted by the credulous masses is precisely what Cicero has Scipio rebut at length in the second book of the De re publica.27 Cotta’s response to Balbus’ comparatively succinct discussion of apotheosis and immortality continues at length. Cicero raises some vital questions about apotheosis through this Academic character (3.41): nam quos ab hominibus pervenisse dicis ad deos, tu reddes rationem quem ad modum id fieri potuerit aut cur fieri desierit (For those who you say have gone from human to god, will you explain how this could have happened or why it stopped happening?). Cotta’s first question (quem ad modum id fieri potuerit) resembles hesitations about the ability of mortals to achieve immortality expressed publicly by Cicero (e.g. on Scipio at Mil. 16: quem immortalem, si fieri posset, omnes esse cuperent [who all wanted to be immortal, if this can happen]). Pease notes that Cotta’s second question (cur fieri desierit) is challenged by Cicero’s own efforts after Tullia’s death.28 Cotta returns to Hercules, one of Cicero’s favorite archetypes for apotheosis. He points out that antiquarians have unearthed many distinct manifestations of Hercules,29 making it difficult to know which one to worship (3.42). His similar assertion about multiple Jupiters (3.42) shows that this dilemma probably had little or no practical consequence for religious life at Rome. Cotta’s next line of attack is to use a sorites argument to show that the borders between mortals and immortals become increasingly blurry as one descends from the first rank of gods. Here he calls into question the divinity of figures deeply engrained in Roman ritual life: Hercules, Aesculapius, and the Dioscuri (3.45): quid? Apollinem, Volcanum, Mercurium, 26

27

28

29

Cotta’s mention of Ino again at 3.48 (dea ducetur et Λευκοθέα a Graecis a nobis Matuta dicetur, cum sit Cadmi filia [Is she who is called Leucothea by the Greeks and Matuta by us going to be considered a goddess because she is the daughter of Cadmus?]) could kindle recollections of her presence at Tusc. 1.28 (Ino Cadmi filia nonne Λευκοθέα nominata a Graecis Matuta habetur a nostris? [Is not Ino the daughter of Cadmus who is called Leucothea by the Greeks held to be Matuta by us?]). Cicero has Cotta note at 1.61 that their private discussion lacks the constraints that a contio (public assembly) would have. Scipio presumably had the same freedoms in the Rep. since the audience he was speaking to (in the dialogue as well as in terms of Cicero’s original readers) was an elite one. Pease 1955–58: 1048. Since, however, Cicero can dig up only ancient precedents in the Consolatio, Cotta’s question is an important one. Walsh 1998: 198 suggests that Cotta could be making an anachronistic nod to Varro, who supposedly found forty-three deities named Hercules (Serv. A. 8.564).

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ceteros deos esse dices, de Hercule, Aesculapio, Libero, Castore, Polluce dubitabis? (What? You are willing to assert that Apollo, Vulcan, Mercury, and the rest are gods, but have doubts about Hercules, Aesculapius, Liber, Castor and Pollux?). Since Balbus had expressed no such doubts (dubitabis) about these gods, Cotta is misrepresenting Balbus’ statements or Cicero has failed to adjust properly his source materials.30 Another poorly targeted shot by Cotta in what immediately follows supports the possibility that Cicero is intentionally having him play fast and loose with Balbus’ arguments (3.46): vide igitur ne virtutibus hominum isti honores habeantur, non immortalitatibus; quod tu quoque, Balbe, visus es dicere (there is a danger of divine honors being assigned to human virtues not to the possession of immortality, which is what you seem to be suggesting). This takes up Balbus’ point from 2.62, where he insisted that both immortality and human virtues were prerequisites for divinity: rite di sunt habiti, cum et optimi essent et aeterni (they were duly regarded as gods, for they were the best and also immortal).31 These misconstruals made by Cotta call his credibility into question. The likelihood of Cicero building in some irony at Cotta’s expense is heightened in what follows. Cotta’s eviction of gods from the lower tiers of the divine hierarchy includes an episode from Cicero’s own career.32 He points out that the tax collectors, in their effort to exploit fully their tax base, had denied the divinity of Amphiaraus in Oropus and assessed taxes on his shrine (3.49): an Amphiaraus erit deus et Trophonius? nostri quidem publicani, cum essent agri in Boeotia deorum immortalium excepti lege censoria, negabant immortalis esse ullos qui aliquando homines fuissent (So will Amphiaraus and Trophonius be considered gods? For our tax-collectors in Boeotia, when dealing with lands of the immortal gods exempted from tax by regulation of the censors, would deny the immortality of anyone who had once been mortal).33 Cicero’s first readers may have been aware that this dispute ultimately ended with the recognition of Amphiaraus’ divinity 30

31

32

33

Walsh 1998: 200 thinks that Cicero has probably neglected to retrofit the arguments of Carneades that he is using for Cotta to make them match up with those of Posidonius voiced by Balbus in book 2. Cf. Pease 1955–58: 1065. Walsh 1998: 201 and Pease 1955–58: 1068 both note this discrepancy but do not attribute it to Cicero’s medley of sources. Cf. how Cotta doubts the divinity of the Nymphs in the reductio ad absurdum of his sorites argument (3.43). These goddesses become especially dear to Cicero when Clodius burns down their temple in the Campus Martius (Har. 57). Cf. Quintus’ recognition of the divinity of Amphiaraus at Div. 1.88: Amphiaraum autem sic honoravit fama Graeciae deus ut haberetur (the reputation Amphiaraus has gained in Greece means that he is considered a god).

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by the Roman senate in 73 bce. According to an inscription from Oropus, their citizens sent representatives to Rome to protest the taxation of Amphiaraus. An advisory council which included the young Cicero evaluated their claims and recommended a restoration of Amphiaraus’ divine (and therefore exempt) status.34 Cotta again appears to be at cross-purposes with his author Cicero when he exposes the utilitarian rationale for deifications (3.50) that Cicero had been publicly promoting since 63 bce.35 The recent Tusculan Disputations also offered the prize of immortality as motivation for public service and sacrifice (1.32). Cicero sets Cotta at odds with ancestral traditions as well, the very traditions that he had granted an unassailable truth status at 3.5. In his “slippery slope” argument against deifications, Cotta opposes consecrations that he admits are a traditional part of Roman ritual life (3.51). And even though Cotta again gives inherited religion pride of place at 3.60, in what follows he takes issue with the time-honored divinization of abstractions (3.60–61): sed eo iam unde huc digressi sumus revertamur. num censes igitur subtiliore ratione opus esse ad haec refellenda? nam mentem, fidem, spem, virtutem, honorem, victoriam, salutem, concordiam, ceteraque huius modi rerum vim habere videmus non deorum. But now let us return to the point at which we digressed. Surely you do not think there is need of a more subtle argument to refute these things? For mind, faith, hope, virtue, honor, victory, safety, harmony, and other concepts of this type we should see as having the essence of benefits not of gods.

Cotta’s catalogue bears more than a passing resemblance to the consecrations in Marcus’ religious statutes in the De legibus (2.19): ast olla propter quae datur homini ascensus in caelum, Mentem, Virtutem, Pietatem, Fidem, earumque laudum delubra sunto nec ulla vitiorum (There should be shrines and sacred rites for those laudable qualities for which ascent to the sky is granted to humans: Mind, Virtue, Piety, Faith – but none for vices). 34

35

SIG 747. See Pease 1955–58: 1081 for a synopsis of the inscription. He notes that Cicero may be guilty of anachronism here since the decree is dated three years after the dramatic date of the dialogue, but observes that the imperfect used (negabant) might mean that the controversy had been brewing for a few years. At Rab. Perd. 29: see above, p. 50. Cf. also his approving mention at Mil. 80 of the divine honors offered to the tyrannicides in Athens and the motivations later put in Cato’s mouth at Sen. 82: quod quidem ni ita se haberet ut animi immortales essent, haud optimi cuiusque animus maxime ad immortalitatem et gloriam niteretur (If it were not the case that souls are considered to be immortal, the souls of the best would hardly strive for glory and immortality).

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Cotta is also challenging the religious authenticity of some hoary Roman shrines such as Salus, which dated from the late fourth century bce. It is therefore fitting when Balbus turns the refutation of Cotta into a battle on behalf of Rome’s religious monuments (3.94). Balbus emerges from the debate as an advocate of Stoic divinization of humans as well as the guardian of Roman religious traditions. Since Cotta’s critique of Balbus is studiously laced with contradictions of Cicero’s earlier writings and senatorial action, it should come as no real shock when the narrator Cicero opts to include his endorsement of Balbus’ arguments (3.95): haec cum essent dicta, ita discessimus, ut Velleio Cottae disputatio verior, mihi Balbi ad veritatis similitudinem videretur esse propensior (After the discussion we went our different ways. Cotta’s argument seemed to Velleius more truthful, but to me Balbus’ argument seemed to be closer to a semblance of the truth). This tentative nod is of course characteristically Academic but it also smacks of the systematic hesitations that have characterized Cicero’s discussions of the divinization of humans in both intimate and public venues. Further reflection on Cotta’s argument is offered in the De divinatione. Cicero has Quintus second Balbus’ worries about Cotta’s subversion of Roman tradition (Div. 1.9): studio contra Stoicos disserendi deos mihi videtur funditus tollere. eius rationi non sane desidero quid respondeam; satis enim defensa religio est in secundo libro a Lucilio, cuius disputatio tibi ipsi, ut in extremo tertio scribis, ad veritatem est visa propensior. With his zeal to argue against the Stoics I think he [Cotta] utterly rejects the gods. I am clearly not at a loss for an argument to rebut him, since religion received enough of a defense by Lucilius [Balbus] in the second book, and his argument seemed closer to the truth to you yourself, as you write at the end of the third book.

It is noteworthy that Cicero has his brother increase the degree of certainty from the ad veritatis similitudinem videretur esse propensior of the De natura deorum to a less diffident ad veritatem est visa propensior, but nonetheless important that Cicero has this new formula come from Quintus’ mouth, not his own.36 In an important study of Cicero’s Lucullus, Görler examines how Cicero the Academic is willing to abandon categorical abstention from opinion (ἐποχή) and grant provisional assent on topics of special 36

Wardle 2006: 121 notes the modified phrasing and rightly finds it to be strategic reiteration of support by the narrator Cicero for the argument of Balbus: “Although Cic. alters the expression, which in the De Natura Deorum was formulated in Academic terms, to suit Quintus, it still amounts to assent by the sceptic.”

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import to him.37 The strategic reiteration of De natura deorum 3.95 at De divinatione 1.9 suggests that this could be an instance of such proactivity on Cicero’s part.38 At the very least it provides another stumbling block for those who want to take Cotta’s extreme skepticism as Cicero’s own. Even though the narrator sides with Balbus at the end of the dialogue, the tie vote tallied up at 3.95 of the De natura deorum is an appropriate result for a debate so intentionally loaded down with checks and balances. Among these checks are the intertextual conflicts stirred up when Cotta takes on ideas that would be familiar from works such as Cicero’s recent Consolatio and Tusculan Disputations. This could be construed as a sustained self-rebuttal that Cicero undertakes after a sudden and decisive shift to deep skepticism39 if it were not for the cumulative ambiguity emerging from the dialogue as well as the structure and stance of Cicero’s forthcoming dialogues. In the De senectute and De amicitia, he employs the centralized structure he had used in the Tusculan Disputations which provides for the explication of the primary character’s point of view. Although Cato and Laelius are set to speak on, respectively, old age and friendship, both of their discussions revisit a project that has been underway in Cicero’s dialogues since the De re publica: tracing the outlines for a type of divinity achievable by civic benefactors. 37

38

39

Görler’s list (1997: 54) of issues that Cicero tends to form opinions about is especially relevant to the N.D.: “it is in positive terms that he conceives of his Academic ‘freedom’: he feels free to opine and to speculate on a grand scale about great schemes. Every reader of Cicero’s philosophical books knows what themes he has in mind: God, the immortality of the soul, freedom of action, the high rank of virtue, human perfection.” Cf. Schofield’s (1986: 55–56) complementary analysis of Ciceronian skepticism: “It is characteristic of the ancient sceptic to entertain a rational distrust of reason, and in consequence to practise suspension of judgement; and he sometimes copes with the problem of what to think and how to act by following tradition.” Tarán 1987: 10 observes that the narrator’s closing endorsement at N.D. 3.95 has no parallels in Cicero’s other dialogues. This singular intervention supports the notion that the author is weighing in at this point. Leonhardt 1999: 61–66 follows Tarán’s interpretation. Momigliano 1987: 69 takes the skeptical face of Cotta to be Cicero’s sole spokesman and offers it as evidence of Cicero’s sudden and final conversion to an extreme form of skepticism. And the skepticism Momigliano (ibid.: 65) ascribes to Cicero by taking Cotta as his spokesman would be extreme, especially by ancient Roman standards: “he changed his mind and expressed profound skepticism both about the existence of the gods and about the validity of Roman divination.” Schofield 1986: 47–48 differs, and makes an important distinction in arguing that an interest in Academic skepticism would not make Cicero “a sceptic in the modern sense of an unbeliever” but rather one who thinks that “whatever philosophical views a person holds had better be entertained not as firm convictions but simply as the best views that appear to him to be available after he has run through and compared the arguments on either side.” The notion that Cicero suddenly developed doubts about the gods must hinge on the faulty Cotta as Cicero equation. “Marcus” in Div. takes pains to stress that his critique of divination is conscribed to refuting Stoic explanations of divination. He makes it clear that he is not questioning the existence of divinity or validity of ancestral practice (2.41, 148). Schofield 1986: 58 n. 22 stresses Marcus’ insistence that a critique of divination is not a repudiation of the existence of gods.

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De senectute and De amicitia: Cato, Laelius, and the parallel world of Cicero’s dialogues In the world of Cicero’s dialogues, the relationship between Scipio Aemilianus and Cato the Elder was established in the De re publica (2.1). Scipio and another lead character from the De re publica, Laelius, are transported deeper into the past to form the audience for Cato in the De senectute. The discussion is set in 150 bce, which is the earliest dramatic date of any of Cicero’s dialogues. Cicero tells Atticus in his dedication that he has selected Cato for the work to bolster its auctoritas (authority); he also claims that the ideas relayed by Cato happen to be the author’s own (3). “Cato” does indeed share major concerns with Cicero: a substantial portion of his disquisition self-consciously engages with arguments on the immortality and divinity of the soul from the Tusculan Disputations and the De re publica. Powell notes that Cato’s discussions of immortality represent the most glaring anachronism in Cicero’s portrait of the Censor.40 Cicero seems to be aware that his Cato might not match his audience’s expectations, so he uses Ennius to enhance the plausibility of his rendering: Cato speaks of Ennius as an intimate (10) and appropriately gives his thoughts on immortality a southern Italian Pythagorean pedigree.41 Cato’s introductory remarks on immortality include a proposition familiar from Cicero’s earlier treatments of the subject: death is either annihilation or immortality.42 Cato, like his friend Ennius, expresses confidence in the likelihood of immortality. Just as Marcus had recently used Ennius’ epitaph in the Tusculan Disputations (117) to argue for the immortality of the soul, so here as well Ennius gives Cato’s ideas a native flavor (73): sed haud scio an melius Ennius “nemo me lacrumis decoret, neque funera fletu faxit . . .” non censet lugendam esse mortem, quam immortalitas consequatur. I think Ennius said it better: “do not honor me with tears, nor lament at my burial”; he does not think that death should be lamented because immortality follows upon it. 40 41 42

Powell 1988: 238. See Powell 1988: 21–24 on the details that show Cicero’s concern for “an overall Catonian effect.” (66) quae aut plane neglegenda est, si omnino exstinguit animum, aut etiam optanda, si aliquo eum deducit ubi sit futurus aeternus (Death is negligible if it entirely obliterates the soul, and something to wish for if it takes the soul somewhere to live forever). Cf. Tusc. 1.25, 82, 117–18; Amic. 14; Sest. 47; Fam. 5.16.4.

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A critical omission (volito vivos per ora virum [I fly living on the lips of men]) obscures the specific type of immortality that Ennius has in mind. Powell proposes that Cicero has confused poetic immortality with immortality of the soul,43 but Cicero’s inventive usage of both of these concepts suggests that this omission is one specifically calculated to keep the focus on the immortality of the soul and make the religious ideas presented through Cato seem like vintage Roman fare. Ennius, who is put on a par with an oracle in the De re publica (5.1) and the De divinatione (2.111–12), has his cultural sovereignty accentuated yet again by the Censor’s ready use of his verse in this context. Cato also throws the considerable weight of his authority behind Cicero’s earlier emendations of Platonic theories of immortality when he too alters theories of general immortality to make them vehicles for individual immortality and divinity. Soon after his citation of Ennius on immortality, Cato tells Scipio and Laelius that their fathers are still alive (77). Although Cato emphasizes that this is his own personal conviction, his justification for his claim is a jumping-off point for a more theoretical examination of immortalization that is thick with echoes of Cicero’s recent configurations of individual immortality (77):44 est enim animus caelestis, ex altissimo domicilio depressus et quasi demersus in terram, locum divinae naturae aeternitatique contrarium. sed credo deos immortalis sparsisse animos in corpora humana, ut essent qui terras tuerentur, quique caelestium ordinem contemplantes imitarentur eum vitae modo atque constantia. For the soul is celestial, brought down from its highest home and – if you will – buried on earth, a place contrary to its divine and immortal nature. But I believe that the immortal gods scattered souls in human bodies so that they would look after earth and by contemplating the celestial order they would imitate it in moderation and constancy of life.

Scipio hears much the same about the heavenly derivation of the soul in the Somnium Scipionis (esp. 6.14–15). Cicero had more recently used this approach when making the case for Tullia’s divinity in his Consolatio, a text that he quotes at length when expanding the case for personal immortality in the Tusculan Disputations (1.66). 43 44

Powell 1988: 249. See Powell 1988: 252–53 for a detailed account of the points of contact with Cicero’s earlier passages about the divinity and immortality of the soul.

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Cato’s belief in the survival of the soul rests in part on the theories of some philosophers whose eminence he endorses (77). The first school mentioned are the Pythagoreans, a sect he does his best to domesticate (78): audiebam Pythagoram Pythagoreosque, incolas paene nostros, qui essent Italici philosophi quondam nominati, numquam dubitasse quin ex universa mente divina delibatos animos haberemus (I used to hear that Pythagoras and his followers – who were almost our countrymen because they were called “Italian philosophers” – never doubted that we have souls derived from a universal divine mind). These “Italian philosophers” supposedly had their teachings on immortality in regular circulation in Cato’s Republican milieu (audiebam).45 Cato’s second source is Plato. His adaptation of Phaedrus 245c–d46 unlocks more associations with the De re publica (6.27) and the Tusculan Disputations (1.53–54). And much as Africanus in the Somnium Scipionis had spoken of an exclusive astral gathering in the afterlife (6.13), Cato’s modifications of these philosophical versions of immortality entail divinity for the Roman elite (84): o praeclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum animorum concilium coetumque proficiscar, cumque ex hac turba et colluvione discedam! proficiscar enim non ad eos solum viros de quibus ante dixi, verum etiam ad Catonem meum, quo nemo vir melior natus est, nemo pietate praestantior; cuius a me corpus est crematum.47 O glorious day, when I will set off to this divine council and assembly of souls, leaving behind this tumult and dregs. I will set off not only to those men I mentioned before, but also to my Cato, than whom no better man has been born, none more distinguished in filial respect; he whose body I cremated.

This provision for a restricted divine realm matches Marcus’ presentation of Socrates’ ideas at Tusculan Disputations 1.72, where unworthy souls are denied access to this celestial gathering (seclusum a concilio deorum [removed from the gathering of gods]).48 Concepts that have been systematically explored by Cicero in a range of contexts for years are here projected deeper into the ancestral past. 45

46

47

48

According to Pliny NH 34.12 Cato and his contemporaries could see a statue of Pythagoras in the comitium. Cf. Tusc. 4.2 for a favorable take on Pythagorean influence in Italy. (78) cumque semper agitetur animus, nec principium motus habeat quia se ipse moveat, ne finem quidem habiturum esse motus quia numquam se ipse sit relicturus (And since the soul is always active nor has any starting source of movement because it moves on its own, its motion will have no end and it will never leave itself). Powell 1988: 265 finds thoughts of Cicero’s own lost child Tullia lingering behind Cato’s cuius a me corpus est crematum. Cf. the exclusive gathering proposed in the Hortensius (fr. 101 Straume-Zimmermann): in beatorum insulis immortale aevum (immortal life in the isles of the blessed).

De senectute and De amicitia: Cato, Laelius, Cicero’s dialogues 167 Cicero’s Cato also turns to Xenophon’s Cyropaedia in order to give his claims about immortality added credibility. In this passage, Cicero studiously reconfigures a speech of the dying Cyrus to shift its focus to immortality, a concept subordinate in the original passage.49 Cicero’s general reorientation of Xenophon’s argument toward immortality is complemented by some detailed alterations that make Cyrus’ words coalesce with the Ciceronian scheme for merit-based divinization that was explored in the De re publica and De legibus and recently reconstituted in the Tusculan Disputations. The first of these two revealing modifications is in line with Cato’s reference to an exclusive divinum animorum concilium (84). Cicero transforms a passage that implies a general posthumous survival into one that places stress on a selective immortality (80): nec vero clarorum virorum post mortem honores permanerent, si nihil eorum ipsorum animi efficerent quo diutius memoriam sui teneremus (Nor indeed would the fame of illustrious men abide after death, if the souls of these very men did not cause us to hold them in memory longer). Xenophon’s τοῖς δὲ φθιμένοις (the perished, Cyrop. 8.7.18) is rendered as clarorum virorum (illustrious men), which adds a critical – and characteristically Ciceronian – value distinction (clarorum) absent in the original.50 This clarorum virorum twist subtly evokes the beginning of Cato’s own Origines,51 and is also reminiscent of the candidates for immortality in the Tusculan Disputations (claris viris et feminis, 1.27). The second – and more provocative – addendum that Cicero puts in Cato’s mouth ties the immortality of the soul under discussion to actual deification. He reports the words of the dying Cyrus as “quare si haec ita sunt, sic me colitote” inquit “ut deum” (“therefore if such is the case, worship me,” he said, “as a god,” 81). The ut deum is Cicero’s stipulation; it corresponds to nothing in Xenophon’s text.52

49

50 51

52

As Powell 1988: 257 notes, the idea of immortality was subsidiary in the original: “It must be admitted that the effect of the passage is considerably changed by Cicero, as he takes it out of its original context, and makes it serve the purpose of his own argument. In Xenophon, the point of Cyrus’ speech is to persuade his sons Cambyses and Tanaoxares to behave well after his death, his argument being that they cannot be certain that his soul will not survive them to keep them in order. The arguments for immortality are introduced only to support this idea, and immortality is presented throughout only as a possibility.” See Powell 1988: 256–61 for a close analysis of Cicero’s text alongside the original. Cited at Planc. 66 (fr. 1 Peter): clarorum virorum atque magnorum non minus otii quam negotii rationem exstare oportere (It is proper for great and eminent men to put as much thought into their leisure as their work). Cf. also Cicero’s references at Tusc. 4.3 and Brut. 75 to the clari viri celebrated in the banquet songs that Cato described in his Origines. Powell 1988: 261 connects Cicero’s addition to his recent plan to consecrate Tullia. Cicero may be adapting traditional Roman ancestral veneration (cf. Varro, Ant. Div. fr. 211 Cardauns; “Letter of Cornelia” d Court.) to incorporate the divinity of individual souls.

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Laelius moves from the audience of the De senectute onto center stage for the De amicitia. The dialogue is set in 129 bce, just days after the death of Scipio and therefore not long after the dramatic date of the De re publica. By selecting a veteran of both the De re publica and the De senectute to conduct this dialogue, Cicero is able to create a sequel to these previous discussions of immortality that self-consciously responds to them. The enigmatic death of Scipio provides the point of departure for Laelius’ contribution to this intertextual dialogue on divinization unfolding in Cicero’s philosophical works (12): illum diem clarissimum fuisse, cum senatu dimisso domum reductus ad vesperum est a patribus conscriptis, populo Romano, sociis et Latinis, pridie quam excessit e vita, ut ex tam alto dignitatis gradu ad superos videatur deos potius quam ad inferos pervenisse (Most brilliant was the day before he departed from this life, when after the senate adjourned he was led home toward evening by the senators, the Roman people, and the Latin allies, so that from such a lofty position he seems to have passed to the gods above rather than the shades below). Scipio’s departure is an innovative one: instead of joining the collective spirits of the dead in the ground in accord with Roman tradition, he has ascended skyward to the gods above, the posthumous path that Cicero has been charting. Laelius shows that he has been a keen listener in his prior appearances in Cicero’s fictional gatherings when he sets out the theoretical bases for his claims about Scipio’s posthumous journey (13): neque enim adsentior eis, qui nuper haec disserere coeperunt, cum corporibus simul animos interire atque omnia morte deleri. plus apud me antiquorum auctoritas valet, vel nostrorum maiorum, qui mortuis tam religiosa iura tribuerunt, quod non fecissent, profecto, si nihil ad eos pertinere arbitrarentur, vel eorum qui in hac terra fuerunt magnamque Graeciam, quae nunc quidem deleta est, tum florebat, institutis et praeceptis suis erudierunt, vel eius, qui Apollinis oraculo sapientissimus est iudicatus, qui non tum hoc tum illud, ut in plerisque, sed idem semper, animos hominum esse divinos eisque, cum ex corpore excessissent, reditum in caelum patere optimoque et iustissimo cuique expeditissimum. For I do not agree with those who recently have started to argue that the soul perishes along with the body and that everything is destroyed by death. The authority of the ancients carries more weight with me, whether it is the view of our ancestors, who offered such reverential rites to the dead, which they certainly would have not done if they thought it did not matter to the dead; or, whether it is the view of those who lived in this land and with their teaching and precepts brought culture to Great Greece, which is now gone but then it flourished; or, whether it is the view of the man who was judged

De senectute and De amicitia: Cato, Laelius, Cicero’s dialogues 169 the wisest by the oracle of Apollo, who although he would argue on both sides of many issues, he always maintained that human souls are divine and when they leave the body a return to the sky remains open to them, with the journey being the easiest for the best and most just.

He presents the idea that the soul perishes at death as a dicey, new-fangled assertion that flies in face of Roman traditions. Laelius then utters a phrase that fairly encapsulates Cicero’s methods of establishing credibility for novel ideas in the dialogues (plus apud me antiquorum auctoritas valet). His first piece of evidence is very much the same as that presented by Marcus in the Tusculan Disputations (1.26–27): Roman rituals for the deceased reveal the ancestors’ belief in an afterlife. In the next phase of the argument, Cicero equips Laelius with Cato’s teaching on immortality, which in effect has Laelius carry knowledge over into the De amicitia that he had acquired in the De senectute. De senectute 78 reverberates when Laelius uses the naturalized Pythagoreans along with Socrates to support his claims about the divinity of the soul. Laelius’ reference to Socrates (qui Apollinis oraculo sapientissimus est iudicatus) is an almost verbatim recollection of the words that he heard from Cato in the De senectute (qui esset omnium sapientissimus oraculo Apollinis iudicatus [he who was judged wisest of all by the oracle of Apollo], Sen. 78). After Laelius indirectly reifies the world of the De senectute by studiously exhibiting Cato’s influence on his thought, he shares his memory of a subsequent conversation about immortality in early 129 bce (the De re publica) in a more direct manner. Scipio too, he recalls, held forth on the immortality of the soul right before his death (14): quod idem Scipioni videbatur, qui quidem, quasi praesagiret, perpaucis ante mortem diebus, cum et Philus et Manilius adesset et alii plures, tuque etiam Scaevola, mecum venisses, triduum disseruit de re publica, cuius disputationis fuit extremum fere de immortalitate animorum, quae se in quiete per visum ex Africano audisse dicebat. id si ita est, ut optimi cuiusque animus in morte facillime evolet tanquam e custodia vinclisque corporis, cui censemus cursum ad deos faciliorem fuisse quam Scipioni? And so it seemed to Scipio, who as if in premonition just a few days before his death, with Philus, Manilius, and several others present (you were there too Scaevola, you came along with me) led a discussion on the commonwealth over three days and devoted almost the entire conclusion of the discussion to the immortality of the soul, sharing what he had heard from Africanus in a vision in his sleep. If the souls of the best men ascend most easily in death out of the prison and fetters of the body, who would have an easier journey to the gods than Scipio?

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The way in which Laelius stays in character and learns and develops within the fictional scope of these dialogues cues Cicero’s audience to read these recurring deliberations about immortality as a conversation being held at multiple levels. Within the frame of each of these three dialogues (De re publica, De senectute, and De amicitia) there are self-contained ruminations on the possibility of immortality and divinity for individual Romans. In the larger frame that Cicero creates when characters and ideas continually resurface, he orchestrates a multi-year speculative conversation in which the dialogues themselves operate as interlocutors. Laelius does not trigger the readers’ literary memory in this instance simply to make legitimating connections with the Somnium Scipionis and its discussions of immortality. Cicero has him offer brief but consequential follow-up commentary on the Somnium Scipionis. Laelius understands apotheosis to be part of the process of immortalization described in the Somnium (id si ita est, ut optimi cuiusque animus in morte facillime evolet tanquam e custodia vinclisque corporis, cui censemus cursum ad deos faciliorem fuisse quam Scipioni?). His update on the fate of his friend Scipio serves as a retrospective validation of Scipio’s dream: since the De re publica the great Republican statesman has crossed over to the gods. This reading fits in well with tendencies in Cicero’s recent Consolatio, Tusculan Disputations, and De senectute where generalizing theories of immortality (Platonic/Pythagorean) are recast to allow for individual immortality. This individual immortality is in turn conflated with the merit-based divinity won by the likes of Hercules and Romulus, as the focus invariably turns to the prospect of a privileged divine afterlife for the deserving few.

The Philippics: exit Caesar, enter Octavian Just weeks before he produced the De amicitia in which Laelius ranks Scipio among the gods, Cicero had offered vigorous public resistance in the First Philippic to honors that Antony had proposed for the dead Caesar. Following the late Republican trend – driven in part by Cicero – that increasingly set the focus of the supplicatio on Roman statesmen instead of the traditional gods, Antony successfully proposed to the senate that an extra day honoring Caesar be added to all future supplicationes. In the context of the partisan maneuvering after the Ides of March, Antony’s proposal was more moderating stop-gap measure than radical innovation. Shortly before his assassination, a law (probably the lex Rufrena, CIL 1.626) made Caesar a state divinity, granting him the cult name Divus Iulius with Antony as his flamen (priest), a pulvinar (sacred couch) for his image, and a

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temple to himself and his Clementia (clemency).53 How to proceed with the implementation of these divine honors and cult for the slain Caesar became a point of contention for Antony and Octavian in the struggle for Caesar’s succession. Octavian actively and immediately fostered elements of the cult of Caesar while Antony delayed putting into effect the divinization of Caesar as well as the adoption of Octavian.54 A tipping point in this contest had been reached just weeks before the First Philippic (delivered 2 Sept. 44 bce) when the daylight comet had appeared for seven days at Octavian’s ludi Victoriae Caesaris. According to Pliny NH 2.93–94 and Suetonius Div. Iul. 88, many Romans saw the comet as evidence of Caesar’s stellar immortality, which emboldened Octavian in his push to put into effect the divinizing honors voted to Caesar during his lifetime. Antony’s proposal in the senate for an honorific day dedicated to Caesar was most likely an expedient responding to the popular reaction after the ludi Victoriae Caesaris; nevertheless, it stopped well short of Octavian’s ultimate aims for Caesar’s cult. When Cicero voices his objections to adding an extra day for Caesar to all future supplicationes, his strategy is to frame his political resistance to Antony as a principled objection to mixing human and divine honors (Phil. 1.13): an me censetis, patres conscripti, quod vos inviti secuti estis, decreturum fuisse, ut parentalia cum supplicationibus miscerentur, ut inexpiabiles religiones in rem publicam inducerentur, ut decernerentur supplicationes mortuo? nihil dico cui. fuerit ille L. Brutus qui et ipse dominatu regio rem publicam liberavit et ad similem virtutem et simile factum stirpem iam prope in quingentesimum annum propagavit: adduci tamen non possem ut quemquam mortuum coniungerem cum deorum immortalium religione; ut, cuius sepulcrum nusquam exstet ubi parentetur, ei publice supplicetur. Or do you think, conscript fathers, that I would have voted for the proposal that you approved unwillingly, that the Parentalia festival be mixed up with thanksgivings, that inexpiable sacrileges be imposed in the commonwealth, that thanksgivings be decreed for a dead man? Never mind which one. For even if it was this Lucius Brutus who freed the commonwealth from regal tyranny and now almost five hundred years later has engendered similar courage and a similar deed in his offspring: still I could not be induced to connect any dead man with the worship of the immortal gods, to publicly offer thanksgiving to one whose tomb, where the offerings would be made, does not even exist. 53

54

See above, p. 111 n. 2. Wardle 2002 examines the cult title Divus and its connections to Ciceronian usage (discussed above, p. 106 n. 118). See Scheid 2005: 178–84, Fishwick 1987: 74, and Weinstock 1971: 367–70, 385–86 on Antony’s resistance to Octavian’s early efforts to promote Caesar’s cult.

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Since this passage is preceded and followed by Cicero’s own inventive initiatives that publicly blurred the distinctions between humans and gods, it is highly plausible that the demands of the moment – discrediting Antony and sabotaging his authority in the senate – prompt Cicero to play on Roman reservations about divine honors for humans. Behind this avowal (adduci tamen non possem ut quemquam mortuum coniungerem cum deorum immortalium religione) are not only his words at In Pisonem 20 (alia enim causa praestantissimi viri, Q. Metelli, fuit, quem ego civem meo iudicio cum deorum immortalium laude coniungo [for the cause was a different one of that most excellent man, Quintus Metellus, the citizen who in my estimation I associate with the honor due to the immortal gods]) but also the similar proposals to regard deceased Romans as gods at De lege agraria 2.95, Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo 29, and Pro Sestio 143. His approving references to the Marcellia at Syracuse (In Verrem 2.2.51–52) and the divine honors given to tyrannicides in Greece (Pro Milone 80) run contrary to this rationale for his objection to Caesar’s honorific day, as does Cicero’s break with tradition as consul when he orchestrated the unprecedented ten-day supplicatio for Pompey. A mention in the forthcoming De officiis of cult offerings to the praetor Gratidianus (3.80) criticizes the recipient instead of the pratice, much like Cicero had done with the rites celebrating Verres in Sicily. When assessing the motivation behind Cicero’s salvos at Antony, it is also important to remember that Cicero had previously scoffed at efforts to move a statue of Caesar into close quarters with divinity (lodging with Quirinus: Att. 12.45.2, 12.48.1) at a time when he was actively exploring ways to deify Tullia with her own shrine out in the public eye (Att. 12.37a). The Second Philippic offers more evidence of Antony stalling the full implementation of Caesar’s deification. Cicero tells us that the same Antony who was securing honorific days for Caesar was not even following through with celebrating them. More conspicuous is Antony’s neglect of the singular position allotted to him in Caesar’s cult. In a section enumerating the wrongs Antony has done to Caesar (such as dismantling Caesar’s laws and will), Cicero points out that Antony has failed to have himself inaugurated as the flamen of Divus Iulius (2.110–11): quem is honorem maiorem consecutus erat quam ut haberet pulvinar, simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem? est ergo flamen, ut Iovi, ut Marti, ut Quirino, sic divo Iulio M. Antonius. quid igitur cessas? cur non inauguraris? sume diem, vide qui te inauguret: collegae sumus; nemo negabit. o detestabilem hominem, sive quod tyrannni sacerdos es sive quod mortui! quaero deinceps num hodiernus dies qui sit ignores. nescis heri quartum in circo diem ludorum Romanorum fuisse, te autem ipsum ad populum

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tulisse ut quintus praetera dies Caesari tribueretur? cur non sumus praetextati? cur honorem Caesaris tua lege datum deseri patimur? an supplicationes addendo diem contaminari passus es, pulvinaria contaminari noluisti? aut undique religionem tolle aut usque quaque conserva. quaeris placeatne mihi pulvinar esse, fastigium, flaminem, mihi vero nihil istorum placet: sed tu, qui acta Caesaris defendis, quid potes dicere cur alia defendas, alia non cures? nisi forte vis fateri te omnia quaestu tuo, non illius dignitate metiri. What greater honor had Caesar attained than having a sacred couch, an effigy, a gable, a priest? So just as Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus have a flamen, so the god Caesar has Marcus Antonius. Why then do you delay? Why have you not been inaugurated? Pick a date, find someone to inaugurate you: we are colleagues; no one will refuse. O wicked man, be you priest of a tyrant or priest of a dead man! Then let me ask if you do not know what day it is. Do you not know that yesterday was the fourth day of the Roman Games in the circus, and do you not know that you yourself put a proposal to the people that a fifth day be added for Caesar? Why are we not in observant attire? Why do we allow the honor granted Caesar by your law to be neglected? You allowed the thanksgivings to be polluted by adding a day, but you do not want the sacred couches to be polluted? Either get rid of religious observance completely or preserve it in its entirety. You ask whether I approve of the sacred couch, the gable, the priest, none of it is has my approval: but you who defend the acts of Caesar, how do you explain defending some but ignoring others? Unless you are willing to admit that you measure everything by your own advantage rather than Caesar’s honor.

The tenses in this passage (quem is honorem maiorem consecutus erat quam ut haberet pulvinar, simulacrum, fastigium, flaminem?) make it clear that Cicero is speaking of honors granted in Caesar’s lifetime – honors not mentioned by Cicero until after Caesar’s death.55 Cicero’s previous silence on the most revolutionary of these measures – Caesar’s flamen – is puzzling and prompts questions.56 Why are there no comments on this development in letters to Atticus? Can this passage in the Second Philippic be isolated as Cicero’s principled, categorical objection to cult for Caesar? To what degree do the accelerated political vicissitudes in the wake of Caesar’s death factor into this particular representation of Caesar’s cult? Cicero seems willing to feign outrage about religious matters in the Second Philippic: he aggressively condemns Antony’s nakedness in the Lupercalia of 44 bce, which was traditional protocol for Antony’s role in 55

56

So Rawson 1975b: 171. North 1975: 175 and Fishwick 1987: 64 also find decisive evidence here for a cult of the living Caesar. Sallust, Nepos, and the Caesarian military writers are also silent about these seemingly epochmaking developments.

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the festival.57 Is Cicero’s condemnation of Caesar’s cult similarly disingenuous and opportunistic? In any case, these words that have been unpacked by so many scholars remained largely under wraps in Cicero’s lifetime – the Second Philippic was not delivered, but only circulated to a group of Cicero’s friends.58 Cicero’s representation of Antony’s role as flamen in the subsequent, publicly delivered Philippics provides additional evidence for consideration along with 2.110 in an assessment of Cicero’s approach to cult for Caesar. The strategy of shaming Antony for his neglect of Caesar’s cult becomes a way to alienate Antony from Octavian and a public already embracing Caesar’s divinity. Cicero’s handling of Caesar’s honors in the First Philippic could hardly have pleased the young Octavian, who was actively promoting Divus Iulius and his singular tie to him. But Octavian would have been encouraged by the new tack in following Philippics wherein Cicero promotes the legitimacy of Octavian’s yet-unratified adoption and also insistently connects Caesar’s heir with divinity. After the initial skirmishes of the first two Philippics, Cicero begins a programmatic push with Philippic Three that sets his policy for the coming months.59 In the subsequent speeches, he will claim that Philippic Three laid foundations for a restored Republic.60 Having judged Antony to be the bigger threat to the political system at this point, Cicero vigorously opposes Antony’s initiatives. At the same time, he at least temporarily ties his political hopes and fortunes to the formation of a senate-backed coalition against Antony that is to be led on the military front by Octavian and Caesar’s assassins. Accordingly, Cicero had to legitimize the private military actions of Octavian and D. Iunius Brutus while marginalizing the consul Antony. Cicero had justified giving Pompey exceptional powers in the Pro lege Manilia by associating him with divine intervention in the Republic, a strategy he employs systematically in the Philippics for his presentation of Octavian and the assassins. 57

58 59

60

North 2008: 147 calls attention to the dubious nature of Cicero’s attack on Antony’s nakedness: “Cicero repeatedly derides the nakedness as though it was to be seen as a shameful state, but we can be confident that in other contexts he, like any other Roman, might have taken quite a different view of this most traditional of Roman rituals.” If we use Philippic Two as proof that Cicero objected to Caesar’s cult, are we prepared, following the same logic, to use it as proof that Cicero objected to the Lupercalia? See Manuwald 2007: 20, 59 on the various theories about the publication of Philippic Two. See Stroh 2000: 89 on the programmatic nature of Philippic Three and Manuwald 2007: 65–90 on how Philippic Three serves as a starting point for the strategically and thematically coherent attack that Cicero launches after Antony leaves Rome for the rest of his consular year. 5.30, 6.2 (cf. Fam. 10.28).

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Well before the Philippics, in letters to his confidant Atticus, Cicero had called Caesar’s assassins di futuri (future gods),61 and also added that their deeds have earned these divini viri (divine men) passage ad caelum (into the sky/heaven).62 In addition to putting the assassins as a collective on a posthumous skyward trajectory during this period, Cicero’s individual treatments of Marcus and Decimus Brutus in the Philippics represent a reprise of his systematic insinuations of superhuman status. Cicero starts this process by saying that Decimus Brutus was born for the Republic (o civem natum rei publicae, memorem sui nominis imitatoremque maiorum [O citizen born for the commonwealth, mindful of your name and imitator of your ancestors], 3.8).63 The following oration marks Decimus not only as born for the Republic (4.9) but fashions him as its savior as well (conservator rei publicae 4.8). This speech also puts a providential spin on the advent of this latest generation of Bruti, touting Decimus as the latest in this line of saviors who seem to be sent from the gods (4.7): est enim quasi deorum immortalium beneficio et munere datum rei publicae Brutorum genus et nomen ad libertatem populi Romani vel constituendam vel recuperandam (The family and name of the Bruti has been given like a gift and benefit from the immortal gods, for both the establishment and restoration of the freedom of the Roman people).64 On the same day that Cicero delivered the Third and Fourth Philippics (in the senate and to the people, 61

62

63

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Att. 14.11.1, 21 April 44 bce: sed memento, sic alitur consuetudo perditarum contionum, ut nostri illi non heroes sed di futuri quidem in gloria sempiterna sint non sine invidia, ne sine periculo quidem (But remember how the custom of pernicious harangues grows, so that those heroes, or rather future gods with eternal glory will not be without envy or danger). Cicero had called the assassins simply heroes a few days prior (Att. 14.6.1, 12 April 44 bce), but here ratchets them up to di futuri. Cf. ad Brut. 1.15.4 (July 43 bce) on the assassins’ divina gloria (divine glory). Att. 15.1.5 (17 May 44 bce) refers to Marcus Brutus’ pending immortalitas: quid enim illi adferre consili possum, cum ipse egeam consilio et cum ille suae immortalitati melius quam nostro otio consuluerit? (What advice can I give him when I myself need advice and he has taken more measures for his immortality than our peace?). Cf. the connection of the assassination to immortalitas at Phil. 2.114: factum per se praeclarum est atque divinum, tum expositum ad imitandum est, praesertim cum illi eam gloriam consecuti sint quae vix caelo capi posse videatur. etsi enim satis in ipsa conscientia pulcherrimi facti fructus erat, tamen mortali immortalitatem non arbitror esse contemnendam (A splendid and divine deed, and open to imitation, especially since the glory attained can scarcely be contained by heaven. Even if knowledge of the most beautiful deed was reward enough, still I do not think that a mortal man should slight immortality). Att. 14.14.3 (28/29 April 44 bce): quem ad modum tu praecipis, contenti Idibus Martiis simus; quae quidem nostris amicis, divinis viris, aditum ad caelum dederunt, libertatem populo Romano non dederunt (As you recommend, let us be content with the Ides of March, which gave entrance to heaven to our friends, divine men, but not freedom to the Roman people). Cf. Phil. 5.24: D. Brutum . . . civem non sibi, sed nobis et rei publicae natum (Decimus Brutus, a citizen born not for himself, but for us and the commonwealth). Cf. Cicero’s similar presentation of Pompey at Man. 49. Later in the Philippics the hand of fate is said to have given the Republic Marcus Brutus (10.14).

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respectively), he wrote to Decimus Brutus and gave the following rationale for his speeches (Fam. 11.6a.1, 20 Dec. 44 bce): nefas esse duxi aut ita haberi senatum ut de tuis divinis in rem publicam meritis sileretur, quod factum esset nisi ego venissem (I considered it unspeakable for the senate meeting to be held with your divine deeds for the commonwealth passed over in silence, which would have happened if I did not attend). The honors that Cicero will propose for Decimus after the liberation of Mutina have even richer symbolic possibilities. In a letter from July 43 bce, Cicero responds to Marcus Brutus, who had faulted him for initiating excessive honors in the senate (ad Brut. 1.15.3).65 The honor Cicero tried, and failed, to secure for Decimus, a man in possession of divina virtus (divine valor, ad Brut. 1.15.7),66 had no recent precedent (ad Brut. 1.15.8): ego enim D. Bruto liberato, cum laetissimus ille civitati dies illuxisset idemque casu Bruti natalis esset, decrevi ut in fastis ad eum diem Bruti nomen adscriberetur, in eoque sum maiorum exemplum secutus, qui hunc honorem mulieri Larentiae tribuerunt, cuius vos pontifices ad aram in Velabro sacrificium facere soletis. On this most joyful day for the community when Decimus was freed, which also happened to be his birthday, I proposed that Brutus’ name be entered in the calendar on that day, and in this I was following the precedent of our ancestors who gave this honor to Larentia, at whose altar on the Velabrum you priests customarily offer sacrifice.

Cicero digs deep into the archaic past and reintroduces an honor supposedly granted to Acca Larentia, the legendary nurse of Romulus to whom Brutus himself offered sacrifice. Cicero gives Marcus Brutus a divine aura as well. In his ultimately successful resistance to Fufius Calenus’ attempt to strip Marcus of his troops and provinces, Cicero lifts the tyrannicide to a rarified plane that he had reserved for an elite handful in the course of his career. He tells the senators in Philippic Ten that Fufius is attacking a man practically (paene) worthy of worship (4): quod est tibi cum Brutis bellum? cur eos quos omnes paene venerari debemus solus oppugnas? (What is this war you have with the Bruti? Why do you alone fight those we all should, I might almost say, worship?). Cicero adds that Brutus has already achieved an immortal glory 65

66

Note the touch of caution in the praise to Marcus Brutus at ad Brut. 2.5.2: res enim a te gesta memorabilis et paene caelestis repellit omnis reprehensiones (for that memorable and almost heavenly deed you did dispels all criticisms). Cf. the divine innuendo at 12.9: Gallia D. Bruti nutum ipsum, ne dicam imperium, secuta (Gaul, following Decimus Brutus’ very nod, I will not say his command).

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in private reckonings that awaits some sort of official public recognition (10.7): ac de hac quidem divina atque immortali laude Bruti silebo quae gratissima memoria omnium civium inclusa nondum publica auctoritate testata est (I pass over in silence the divine and immortal merit of Brutus, which is in the most grateful memory of all citizens but awaits recognition by public authority). Marcus Brutus is also said to possess divina virtus (divine valor, 10.11) and is designated Rome’s savior (cedere e patria servatorem eius [the fatherland’s savior leaving it], 10.8), the symbolic role rich with divine connotations in Ciceronian discourse that returns in a novel permutation in the subsequent speech (11.24): reddite prius nobis Brutum, lumen et decus civitatis; qui ita conservandus est ut id signum quod de caelo delapsum Vestae custodiis continetur; quo salvo salvi sumus futuri (First restore Brutus to us, the light and glory of the community, who must be preserved like the image that fell from the sky that is guarded in the temple of Vesta, whose safety will make us safe).67 In a truly powerful analogy for divine intervention, Cicero likens the savior Brutus to the Palladium, the miraculous guardian statue of Athena that fell from the sky. While such divinizing strategies may be patterned in part on Cicero’s earlier presentations of Pompey, the celestial statesman was a concept with powerful new resonances at Rome in 43 bce. In the wake of Caesar’s comet, with celebrations of his cult erupting in the forum,68 presenting Brutus as a divine savior from the sky would legitimize his actions and make competing claims of divine alignment. Far more provocative than his handling of the Bruti in the Philippics is Cicero’s presentation of the young Octavian. A letter (Att. 16.15.3) written to Atticus sometime between the second and third Philippics reveals that Cicero was well aware that Octavian’s ambitions were tied to Caesar’s honors. Cicero describes Octavian’s speech at a public assembly after his return to Rome from Illyricum : at quae contio! nam est missa mihi. iurat “ita sibi parentis honores consequi liceat” et simul dextram intendit ad statuam (What a public speech – it was sent to me. He swears “he hopes to attain his father’s honors” while extending his right hand to the statue). This proclamation about his father’s honors has been interpreted as Octavian’s bold plan to ascend to a position akin to that held by Caesar at the time of his assassination.69 This can also be interpreted as Octavian’s stated priority of fully implementing the honors voted for Caesar in his 67

68

Shackleton Bailey 1986: 287 notes the similarity of Ovid Fasti 6.427: aetheriam servate deam, servabitis urbem (save the heavenly goddess, and you will save Rome). 69 Suetonius Div. Iul. 85. Fishwick 1987: 73.

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lifetime.70 Just weeks after Octavian’s provocative declaration, Cicero would begin to present Octavian in ways that solidified his bond to Caesar and divinity. In Philippic Three, originally delivered to a crowded meeting of the senate,71 the debut of Octavian sets a highly suggestive tone for Cicero’s campaign in the subsequent Philippics (3.3): C. Caesar adulescens, paene potius puer, incredibili ac divina quadam mente atque virtute, cum maxime furor arderet Antoni cumque eius a Brundisio crudelis et pestifer reditus timeretur, nec postulantibus nec cogitantibus, ne[c] optantibus quidem nobis, quia non posse fieri videbatur, firmissimum exercitum ex invicto genere veteranorum militum comparavit patrimoniumque suum effudit: quamquam non sum usus eo verbo quo debui; non enim effudit: in salute rei publicae collocavit. Gaius Caesar the young man, rather almost a boy, with an incredible and a certain divine mind and valor, when the fury of Antony was raging and we feared his cruel and baneful return from Brundisium, with us neither asking nor thinking or even praying for such a thing because it seemed impossible, he gathered the strongest army of veteran, undefeated soldiers, and discharged his patrimony, though I use the wrong word, he did not discharge it but rather employed it for the salvation of the fatherland.

Cicero grants Octavian his claim to the disputed legacy of Caesar in name by pointedly acknowledging Octavian as Caesar (C. Caesar adulescens) well before the adoption was formalized.72 The emphatic placement of this name as the first words in Octavian’s first appearance in the Philippics is followed by words that would have fresh resonance for Cicero’s original audience. The divinizing rhetoric with which Cicero celebrates Octavian’s qualities (incredibili ac divina quadam mente atque virtute) would now have a potent new dimension.73 As Manuwald perceptively notes in her discussion of this passage, in addition to being an expression of praise, 70

71

72

73

So Gesche 1968: 40–53, where she argues that the divine honors voted in Caesar’s lifetime were initially designed to take effect after the dictator’s death. See Fishwick 1987: 65 on the problems with her hypothesis. Cf. 3.32; Fam. 11.6a. See Manuwald 2007: 60–62 on the possibility that this speech and the subsequent Philippics were circulated fairly widely soon after their delivery. Cicero had already used the title Caesar for Octavian in a letter on 10 Oct. (Fam. 12.23.2). Due to Antony’s obstruction, the adoption and use of the name Caesar were not made formal until August 43. See Manuwald 2007: 16 for discussion. Cf. the incredibilis ac divina virtus (incredible and divine valor) of Pompey (Man. 33, 36). Pompey is perhaps also evoked indirectly when Cicero cites his decree hailing Octavian’s felicitas (good fortune, 14.37). In addition to the affectionate ille singularis vir ac paene divinus (this singular and nearly divine man) at Phil. 2.39, at Phil. 5.43 the example of Pompey justifies Octavian’s early accumulation of honors. Other precedents that Cicero calls upon (Flamininus and Alexander, Phil. 5.48) put Octavian in the company of those who received divine honors.

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divinus in this context can also be understood as a reference to Octavian’s divine father.74 This passage also has Octavian delivering salus to the Republic (in salute rei publicae), a role underscored later in this speech (O C. Caesar – adulescentem appello – quam tu salutem rei publicae attulisti, quam improvisam, quam repentinam! [O Gaius Caesar – the young man I mean – the salvation you brought the commonwealth, how unexpected and sudden it is!], 27).75 Cicero’s calculated phrasing (O C. Caesar – adulescentem appello) lays bare his efforts to promote publicly Octavian’s connection to Caesar.76 The following speech, delivered to the people in a contio right after Cicero’s words to the senate, announces that the senate is devising divine and immortal honors to match the divine and immortal deeds77 of this new Caesarian savior figure (4.4): quod autem praesidium erat salutis libertatisque vestrae, si C. Caesaris fortissimorum sui patris militum exercitus non fuisset? cuius de laudibus et honoribus, qui ei pro divinis et immortalibus meritis divini immortalesque debentur, mihi senatus adsensus paulo ante decrevit ut primo quoque tempore referretur. What defence was there for your safety and freedom without the army of Gaius Caesar and his father’s bravest soldiers? Regarding whose commendations and honors, which should be divine and immortal to match his divine and immortal accomplishments, the senate agrees with me that this matter be taken up at the earliest possible time.

The huge crowd assembled for this speech (4.1), upon hearing Cicero call Octavian Caesar and refer to Caesar as Octavian’s pater, could no doubt sense the momentum Octavian was gaining. The mention of divine and 74 75

76 77

Manuwald 2007: 328. Cf. Phil. 11.20: at enim – nam id exaudio – C. Caesari adulescentulo imperium extraordinarium mea sententia dedi. ille enim mihi praesidium extraordinarium dederat: cum dico mihi, senatui dico populoque Romano. a quo praesidium res publica, ne cogitatum quidem, tantum haberet ut sine eo salva esse non posset, huic extraordinarium imperium non darem? (Yet I think I hear talk that I moved to give an extraordinary command to the young man Gaius Caesar, for he gave me extraordinary protection: when I say me I mean the senate and the Roman people. Should I not give an extraordinary command to him who was such a great, unforeseen defence for the commonwealth, without which it could not have been safe?). Cf. Phil. 5.49: C. Caesari, pa[t]ri dico (Gaius Caesar, I am speaking of his father). Cicero leads into 4.4 by first applauding the citizens’ appreciation of Octavian’s immortal deeds (4.3): laudo, laudo vos, Quirites, quod gratissimis animis prosequimini nomen clarissimi adulescentis vel pueri potius; sunt enim facta eius immortalitatis, nomen aetatis (I applaud, applaud you, citizens because you salute with most grateful spirits the name of this most illustrious young man or rather boy: for his deeds are immortal, his name a matter of age). Cf. the immortal deeds Cicero attributes to himself at Sul. 27 and to Caesar at Marc. 26. There are points of contact here with the language of Hellenistic euergetism: the Canopus decree of 238 bce (see above, p. 4 n. 11) hails the “immortal benefactions” of the “benefactor gods” Ptolemy III and Queen Berenice.

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immortal honors might also set off associations with honors – both implemented and still pending – for Caesar himself, the very honors that Octavian had spoken of in a contio just weeks prior to Cicero’s speech.78 The programmatic Philippic Three, which was delivered to the senate, also initiates a theme that persists through subsequent Philippics and beyond: that of Octavian as a savior sent by the gods (deorum immortalium beneficio [gift of the immortal gods], 3.32; di immortales nobis haec praesidia dederunt: urbi Caesarem, Brutum Galliae [the immortal gods have sent us two defences: Caesar for Rome, Brutus for Gaul], 3.34).79 In the sprawling contio (Philippic Four) following Philippic Three, Cicero cites recent portents as clear evidence of divine intervention in the present struggle between Octavian and Antony (4.10). Although these exact prodigies remain unspecified, it is highly plausible that Cicero is referring to the comet that had appeared at Octavian’s ludi Victoriae Caesaris and spurred on Octavian’s drive to enact Caesar’s cult fully.80 Cicero develops the concept of Octavian as a divine savior most explicitly in Philippic Five, a speech originally given to the senate in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline and distributed shortly after its delivery.81 Octavian was at the time moving north against Antony, who was besieging Decimus Brutus in Mutina. Cicero, arguing against a proposal to send an embassy to Antony, presents Antony as a dangerous public enemy whose hostile designs on the city of Rome were recently thwarted by the intervention of Caesar’s extraordinary heir (5.23): atque ille furens infesta iam patriae signa a Brundisio inferebat, cum C. Caesar deorum immortalium beneficio, divina animi, ingeni, consili magnitudine, quamquam sua sponte eximiaque virtute, tamen approbatione auctoritatis meae colonias patrias adiit, veteranos milites convocavit, paucis diebus exercitum fecit, incitatos latronum impetus retardavit. 78

79

80 81

A later letter from Cicero to Marcus Brutus indicates that his metaphors for Octavian (praesidium) and his support for his extravagant honors (when he was working against Antony) were not just confined to the public arenas (ad Brut. 1.15.7, July 43 BCE): ut enim primum libertatem revocare coepimus, cum se nondum ne Decimi quidem Bruti divina virtus ita commovisset ut iam id scire possemus atque omne praesidium esset in puero qui a cervicibus nostris avertisset Antonium, quis honos ei non fuit decernendus? (When we first began to call freedom back, before the divine valor of even Decimus Brutus came into action so we could know the truth, and our entire defense was in the boy who turned away Antonius from our necks, what honor should we not have voted for him?). Cf. Phil. 12.9: C. Caesarem, deorum beneficio natum ad haec tempora (Gaius Caesar, born as a favor from the gods for these times); Phil. 14.25: quid? Caesarem, deorum beneficio rei publicae procreatum, dubitemne appellare imperatorem? (What about Caesar, who was created for the commonwealth by a favor from the gods, should I hesitate to salute him as commander?). Manuwald 2007: 517. See Manuwald 2007: 543–46 on the original circulation of this speech.

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And he in a rage was bringing hostile standards against the fatherland from Brundisium, when Gaius Caesar, a gift of the immortal gods, with divine greatness of spirit, talent, and judgment, though by his own will and outstanding valor, but nevertheless with the approval of my authority, approached his father’s colonies, called the veteran solidiers together, formed an army in a few days, and slowed the rapid approach of bandits.

As in Philippic Three, Cicero promotes the yet-unofficial adoption by Caesar and connects Octavian to divinity by giving him divine attributes and presenting him as a gift of the gods. Cicero must have felt that such calculated invocations – which resemble those used for Caesar himself in the Pro Marcello – were a compelling way to legitimize Octavian’s position and justify the war against Antony. Later in Philippic Five, his tone and language escalate when he asks the senate which particular god it was that sent this young man to the Roman people (5.43):82 quis tum nobis, quis populo Romano obtulit hunc divinum adulescentem deus? qui, cum omnia ad perniciem nostram pestifero illi civi paterent, subito praeter spem omnium exortus prius confecit exercitum quem furori M. Antoni opponeret quam quisquam hoc eum cogitare suspicaretur. What god then gave to us and the Roman people this divine young man? Who, when every means for our destruction lay open to that baneful citizen, he suddenly to the surprise of all arose and sooner than anyone could realize his plans, gathered an army to oppose Marcus Antonius’ madness.

The adjective divinus does not apply to an abstract attribute of Caesar’s heir, but rather to the living Octavian himself. The conceptual vocabulary used in Cicero’s earlier mediations for statesmen and savior figures would, again, resonate on new frequencies in the months when disputes about Caesar’s divinity and Octavian’s promotion of his Caesarian lineage and Caesar’s cult were raging at Rome. Cicero has Octavian emerge (exortus) in a manner customary for a heavenly body, as befits one with celestial connections.83 Cicero formulates this question about Octavian’s divine provenance – an emphatic hyperbaton – to throw great emphasis on its 82

83

The dream attributed to Cicero at Suetonius Aug. 94.9 is in accord with the rhetoric of Philippics. Among the portents of Augustus’ rise recorded by Suetonius is Cicero’s vision of a young man sent from heaven. E.g. N.D. 1.79 (quoting Q. Catulus) constiteram exorientem Auroram forte salutans, | cum subito a laeva Roscius exoritur. | pace mihi liceat caelestes dicere vestra: | mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo (by chance I stood greeting the rising dawn | when Roscius suddenly arose on my left | with your consent, gods, let me declare | this mortal seemed more beautiful than a god). Div. 2.93: post solstitium Canicula exoritur (the Dog-star rises after the solstice). Ennius Ann. (Sk.) 87: simul aureus exoritur sol (as the golden sun rises).

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final word deus.84 The identity of the divinity who sent Octavian to Rome remains unspecified and open for speculation: Jupiter? Venus? Caesar?85 Here we see political and religious discourses implicated in each other as Cicero calls up imagery of celestial divinity to elevate Octavian’s stature and connect him to Caesar. Such imagery had new ideological dimensions that were being publicly cultivated by Octavian after the appearance of Caesar’s comet. Emboldened by this fortuitous cosmic spectacle, Octavian had placed a star on Caesar’s statue in the temple of Venus Genetrix to promote Caesar’s apotheosis and cult, a gesture in step with contemporary coins depicting Caesar with a star behind his head.86 Cicero’s strategies of championing Caesar’s adoption of Octavian and connecting the emergent young leader to divinity carry through from Philippic Three to the final speeches in the corpus. In what would be one of the final speeches of his career – Philippic Thirteen – Cicero continues to resist calls for reconciliation with Antony by framing Octavian as an agent of divinity sent to rid Rome of Antony (Phil. 13.18–19): quo tempore di ipsi immortales praesidium improvisum nec opinantibus nobis obtulerunt. Caesaris enim incredibilis ac divina virtus latronis impetus crudelis ac furibundos retardavit (At that time the immortal gods themselves sent this unforeseen protection to us without our imagining it. Caesar’s incredible and divine valor checked the cruel and raging attack of the bandit). As calls for peace with Antony began to grow,87 Cicero had to redouble his efforts to marginalize Antony and place Octavian in an unequaled position. The threat of a fissure opening up in the coalition against Antony increased when Antony addressed a letter directly to Octavian and the consul A. Hirtius. Cicero secured a copy of the letter from Hirtius and devoted

84 85

86

87

Manuwald 2007: 698. Cf. the special link to divinity that Cicero gives Octavian in a contemporary letter to Marcus Brutus (ad Brut. 2.5.2, ca. 14 April 43 bce): itaque res in eum locum venerat ut, nisi Caesari Octaviano deus quidam illam mentem dedisset, in potestatem perditissimi hominis et turpissimi M. Antoni veniendum fuit (And so the situation came to a point that if some god had not given this spirit to Caesar Octavian, we would have been at the mercy of this most desperate and wicked man Marcus Antonius). See Scheid 2005: 184 and Fishwick 1987: 74 on Octavian’s proactive measures after the comet to put Caesar’s cult into effect. Pliny NH 2.94 says Octavian interpreted the comet as a sign of his own rebirth. There is debate on the dating of the Caesar star coins, as to whether they are from the final months of Caesar’s life or after the comet. See Fishwick 1987: 64–65 and Weinstock 1971: 377–78 for discussion. Letters from the provincial governors M. Aemilius Lepidus (Hispania Citerior and Gallia Narbonensis) and L. Munatius Plancus (Gallia Ulterior) had arrived in Rome before Philippic Thirteen recommending peace with Antony.

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most of the latter part of Philippic Thirteen (13.22–48) to detailed criticism of it. Antony writes that Octavian has been taken in by Cicero’s praise (ornamenta 40), the same type of language with which Cicero had fooled Caesar. Cicero answers that Octavian deserves even more and greater praise. In response to the charge about deceiving Caesar, Cicero turns the table and puts forth two of Antony’s egregious crimes against Caesar. He first claims that Antony’s actions at the Lupercalia killed Caesar and then highlights the grave disrespect he has shown to Caesar’s memory by resisting inauguration as Caesar’s flamen (41): tu, tu, inquam, illum occidisti Lupercalibus: cuius, homo ingratissime, flamonium cur reliquisti? (You, yes you, killed him at the Lupercalia. Why, you most ungrateful man, have you abandoned his priesthood?). A proposal for reconciliation in Antony’s letter holds no appeal for Octavian, Cicero goes on to claim, because he understands his higher purpose of civic restoration (46): quo maior adulescens Caesar, maioreque deorum immortalium beneficio rei publicae natus est, qui nulla specie paterni nominis nec pietate abductus umquam est et intellegit maximam pietatem conservatione patriae contineri (So much greater is the young man Caesar, born as a greater gift for the commonwealth from the immortal gods, who has never been carried away by a show of his father’s name or by filial duty, and who understands that the highest filial duty is the preservation of the fatherland). Antony, on the other hand, is bent on dividing Italy and Rome (47) and anxiously awaits a peace embassy to broker a deal amenable to these aims. Antony will hold envoys willing to accommodate his designs, Cicero alleges, in higher regard than the consuls, Octavian, and even Rome itself. Cicero’s representation of Octavian here is telling (47): Caesar cuius patris flamen est (Caesar, of whose father he is a priest). As throughout the Philippics, Cicero promotes Octavian’s position as Caesar’s son and accordingly calls him “Caesar.” His presentation of Caesar’s flaminate here is in step with Octavian’s current efforts to put all of Caesar’s divine honors into effect. Cicero does not voice any objections in this meeting of the senate to the flaminate per se, he instead uses this point of ongoing contention between Antony and Octavian as a wedge issue to frustrate Antony’s conciliatory gestures. Cicero’s two mentions of Caesar’s cult at the end of Philippic Thirteen (41, 47) each represent Antony’s neglect of his role as a sign of his selfish indifference to Caesar and his young heir. These largely neutral public remarks about the flaminate of Caesar must be considered along with the more negative presentation at Philippic 2.110, a privately circulated speech composed before he had solidified his alignment with Octavian.

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Philippics Three through Fourteen aim to build Octavian’s public stature and stave off any alliance between Antony and Caesar’s young heir. While Cicero ultimately failed on the latter count, on the former he was successful, even if he would live to regret it as he grew increasingly skeptical of Octavian.88 At a time when Octavian was struggling to consolidate his claims to Caesar’s legacy by working to legitimize his adoption and pushing for the full implementation of Caesar’s cult, Cicero made critical public interventions on his behalf. Octavian conspicuously enters the Philippics as “Caesar” and sports this yet-unofficial name up through the final speeches of Cicero’s career. Cicero also connects Octavian to divinity throughout the Philippics, an especially evocative approach to use at a time when the “son” of Divus Iulius was leading efforts to make his father’s cult fully operative. While Cicero does not campaign on Octavian’s behalf for Caesar’s cult, his presentation of it to the senate in Philippic Thirteen, where he shames Antony for shirking his role as flamen (41), would surely satisfy Octavian. When an alliance was finally struck between Antony and Octavian, support for the formal ratification of the adoption and cult were in the bargain for Octavian; among Antony’s spoils was the proscription of Cicero. 88

See ad Brut. 1.18.3–4 (27 July 43 bce) on Cicero’s nascent doubts about Octavian.

Conclusions

When Cicero promoted Octavian’s divine attributes and advertised the upstart’s ties to divinity, he used expressions and strategies familiar from his representations of Pompey decades earlier. Cicero’s divinizing language in the Philippics summons up specific associations from the Pro lege Manilia, but religious developments at Rome from the sixties to the forties bce give his words new valence. In the time since Cicero publicly explored Pompey’s divine status, a living Roman statesman – Caesar – had been declared a state deity. Although Roman statesmen before Caesar and Pompey had cultivated associations with divinity, the identification of politicians with divinity was pushed to new extremes in the turbulent last decades of the Republic. Cicero’s handling of Pompey, Caesar, and Octavian in his speeches gives us a glimpse into the experiments and encoded gestures as well as the systematic ambiguities that worked out a closer identification of humans and gods as various approaches to deification were explored at Rome. In his very first speech before a public assembly at Rome, the Pro lege Manilia, Cicero very carefully but insistently represents Pompey as a divinely ordained savior figure whose divine attributes elevate him above the standard lot of statesmen. Cicero adapts elements of Hellenistic panegyric and presents the divine honors given to Pompey in the eastern Mediterranean in a positive light. Viewed with hindsight the Pro lege Manilia is a seminal intervention. It is the first extant speech in which a Roman statesman’s connections to divinity are publicly presented in such an expansive fashion. Twenty years later in the Pro Marcello, Cicero addresses a senate that had recently awarded Caesar a novel and provocative privilege: a statue on the Capitol surmounting the world with an inscription reading hemitheos.1 While this statue did not amount to a fully fledged claim of Caesar’s divinity, it did take bold new steps in that direction. Cicero’s treatment of 1

Or something similar in Latin: see above, p. 112.

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the man who would be declared a state deity while still alive is another critical intervention in the uncertain process of formulating a Roman pattern of deification. A key question as tentative steps toward deification were made was whether they were to take effect while the statesman was still alive or after death – the posthumous route of Romulus and Hercules. Caesar himself may have preferred posthumous deification, as is suggested by some seeming resistance to initiatives divinizing him in his lifetime.2 When Cicero confronts the question of Caesar’s divine status in his Caesarian orations (especially Pro Marcello and Pro Ligario), he frames Caesar as a superhuman savior figure but suggests – in opposition to current divinizing initiatives – that any achievement of divine stature lies in wait after future benefactions. In the charged post-Thapsus climate which saw the erection of the Caesar hemitheos statue on the Capitoline, Cicero lays out challenging prerequisites for divinity that Caesar has yet to complete: pardoning his former foes and Republican reconstruction. If publicly celebrating Octavian’s divina virtus (divine valor) was familiar from Cicero’s earlier treatments of Pompey and Caesar, the scarcity of precedents for such Ciceronian terms of praise in Roman oratory precludes the assumption that in their earliest iterations, e.g. Pro lege Manilia, Cicero was simply recycling the Roman orator’s stock-in-trade for an audience inured to such language. If such divinizing strategies and tropes were familiar commonplaces in public speech at Rome we might expect to find them in rhetorical handbooks, but we do not. Although Cicero adapts elements of Hellenistic panegyric (which may have been largely unfamiliar to many attending a Roman contio in 66 bce) in the Pro lege Manilia and perhaps also collocations of humans and gods found in poetry, the historical context of this profusion of divinizing language in Cicero’s oratory must be considered along with any of its putative genetic strands. Celebrating someone’s divina virtus, for example, is not calling them a god, but persistently using this and similar expressions in public to define men who are bringing themselves into the range of divinity through innuendo and association is more than conventional grandstanding. The care with which Cicero often qualifies a term like divinus when using it for a person or even their attributes (e.g. using a quasi, sicut, or paene [as if/almost]) points to potent semantic possibilities for such language in the late Republic.

2

E.g. having the hemitheos inscription removed from his Capitoline statue (Dio 43.14.6) and not having Antony inaugurated as flamen (priest) while he was alive. Wardle 2009: 107 and Zecchini 2001: 57–62 make a case against the view that Caesar himself orchestrated deification in his lifetime.

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Recent work on metaphor offers a useful way to think about such divinizing expressions in their historical contexts. A tendency among classical scholars has been to conceive of such expressions as “only/ simply/just” metaphors, relying – consciously or not – on traditional theories of metaphor that treat metaphor exclusively as a figurative use of language and overlook its cognitive dimensions. The traditional conception of metaphor would interpret a metaphorical expression of Cicero’s such as divinus adulescens (divine young man) as only a figurative use of language, while contemporary theory of metaphor – arguing that metaphor is as much a matter of thought as of language – would analyze it as a surface manifestation of how a person or collectivity is conceptualizing one mental domain in terms of another.3 Thinking of Cicero’s divinizing rhetoric in late Republican Rome in such terms, we can see how repeated metaphorical mappings between mental domains (divinus/adulescens) could help subtly transform Romans’ various conceptualizations of the relationship between humans and gods. And this language is part of a greater cluster of divinizing concepts. It often works instrumentally with related discursive strategies such as presenting a person as heaven-sent or giving them control over natural forces. So when Cicero represents peak human achievement as an apotheosis or represents dead or living Romans as divine, he is indeed climbing through the rhetorical registers, but he is also shaping and reinforcing patterns of thought and naturalizing new possibilities and perspectives. In addition to the normative effects that Cicero’s divinizing rhetoric could have, he used his public platform to explore the possibility of Romans joining the ranks of the gods. In his first speech to a public assembly as consul, De lege agraria 2, Cicero proposes that the political wisdom shown by earlier Romans may warrant regarding them among the immortal gods (2.95): haec qui prospexerint, maiores nostros dico, Quirites, non eos in deorum immortalium numero venerandos a nobis et colendos putatis? (Do you not think that we should venerate and worship those who foresaw these things – I mean our ancestors, citizens – in the number of the immortal gods?). The consul enlarges upon this concept publicly soon after in the Pro Rabirio. In his defense of Rabirius, Cicero appeals to the example of Marius, claiming that in his sacrifice for the Republic his fellow Arpinate had an eye on immortality (29). He then goes beyond 3

Here I use Lakoff and rephrase part of his programmatic sentence 1993: 202: “In short, the locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another.”

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Marius’ career and the demands of the moment in his speech to speculate on a type of immortality that could apply to outstanding Romans, including the consul himself and his audience members. After first citing a rather conventional sort of immortality – gloria – he claims that more than a great Roman’s name and deeds can abide immortal and divine after death. Illustrious service to the Republic, he submits, can win a much more actual type of immortality. He suggests that the mentes of great men are divine (virorum bonorum mentes divinae mihi atque aeternae videntur esse [the minds of good men seem to me to be divine and everlasting]) and migrate to a divine status after bodily demise (quapropter equidem et C. Mari et ceterorum virorum sapientissimorum ac fortissimorum civium mentis, quae mihi videntur ex hominum vita ad deorum religionem et sanctimoniam demigrasse testor [So I at any rate, make appeal to the minds of Gaius Marius and of the rest of the wisest and bravest citizens, which seem to me to have passed out of human life to the religion and sanctity of the gods], 29–30). What Cicero offers for his audience’s consideration is fittingly framed as his own hypothesis (equidem; mihi videntur) because it is indeed a speculative proposition at this point in time at Rome. As consul, Cicero presents inventive reflections on a sort of apotheosis, an idea he would expand upon in the coming years as he continued to develop a conceptual apparatus for Romans achieving posthumous divinity through excellence on earth. Cicero’s public experimentation continues when he speaks of a divine afterlife for Roman statesmen in the programmatic Pro Sestio of 56 bce. At the close of his speech, Cicero urges an audience that was supposedly one of the largest ever assembled for a trial at Rome to think of great Romans such as the Scipios as gods, citing the deified benefactor Hercules as their model (143). The boldest claim in this proposal – one that presents these religious ideas as present reality – is restricted to Cicero himself in the first person singular (quos equidem in deorum immortalium coetu ac numero repono [whom I at any rate place among the number and company of the immortal gods]). As in his similar speculations in the Pro Rabirio, Cicero’s equidem (I at any rate) underscores the originality of his declaration.4 The experimental quality of Cicero’s idea is evident in the conceptual sampling of Pro Sestio 143, where various ways of thinking about immortality and divinity converge. Cicero’s assemblage incorporates conventional concepts of diachronic renown, philosophical theories about the immortality of the 4

As Kaster 2006: 388 notes, Cicero’s equidem “acknowledges that his view stands outside the mainstream.”

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soul, and Hellenistic paradigms of deification earned by conquest and benefaction. These formative components for a Roman species of divinization are pieced together again in the De re publica, a text that pointedly echoes Cicero’s public speculations about the divinization of Roman statesmen at Pro Sestio 143. The preface to the De re publica presents the work as a political intervention prompted by the social and political problems roiling Rome. Although the work is set in the Rome of Scipio Aemilianus, it is preoccupied with searching out a viable roadmap for Rome’s future and accordingly retrofits history to suit this purpose. A key part of Cicero’s speculative plan is a reorientation of Roman priorities that sets as high a premium on statecraft as on martial prowess. In the preface, Cicero recalls how he saved Rome in his consulship and then closes off his remarks with a statement providing an underlying logic that will inform the apotheosis of Romulus in book 2 as well as the Dream of Scipio in book 6 (1.12): neque enim est ulla res in qua propius ad deorum numen virtus accedat humana, quam civitates aut condere novas aut conservare iam conditas (For there is nothing in which human virtue approaches divine power more closely than in founding new states and preserving those already founded). Deviating from convention, Cicero has Scipio skip over Rome’s Trojan past and start his account of early Rome in book 2 of the De re publica with Romulus’ foundation of the city. Scipio hails Romulus’ political foresight in selecting the site of the city (2.10–11) and singles out the foundation of the auspices and the senate as his crowning achievements (2.17). In Scipio’s version of the end of Romulus’ reign, because of the remarkable virtus (valor/virtue) Romulus displayed in founding Rome (2.17, 2.20), when he disappeared in an eclipse, he was considered to be the god Quirinus by the grateful Romans. Scipio learns more about the posthumous fate of Romulus and later Roman notables in his dream that concludes the De re publica. The innovative Roman vision that Cicero presents in Scipio’s dream proposes an exclusive immortality for Romans who have successfully pursued the public interest in their lifetimes (6.13): sed quo sis, Africane, alacrior ad tutandam rem publicam, sic habeto: omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint auxerint certum esse in caelo definitum locum, ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur (But so you, Africanus, will be all the more eager to protect the commonwealth, know this: for all who have preserved, helped, and enlarged the commonwealth, there is a certain place set off in the sky where they, blessed, can enjoy eternity). Although the celestial tableau of Scipio’s dream contains a mixture of Platonic and Stoic elements, the

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precise wording put into Africanus’ mouth creates a connecting thread with the Pro Sestio, the speech delivered to a crowded assembly in which Cicero had proposed the same criteria for ranking the Scipios and other Republican heroes among the gods (qui hanc tantam rem publicam suis consiliis aut laboribus aut auxerint aut defenderint aut servarint [those who have enlarged, defended, or preserved this great commonwealth by their decisions and actions], 143). Scipio’s dream appropriates philosophical ideas about the immortality of the soul and tailors them to fashion an individual immortality based on cultural achievements and good works for Rome. Africanus’ vision connects this immortality to divinity by revealing that Romulus entered these heavenly precincts upon his apotheosis. This originary Roman configuration of immortality departs from traditional Roman notions of posthumous existence underground as it depicts individual beings thriving after death in celestial domains. This innovative conception of an afterlife also greatly diminishes conventional aristocratic sublunar glory. The companion-piece to the De re publica – the De legibus – picks up on the former’s ideas about a merit-based apotheosis and furnishes more particulars. At the outset of the De legibus, the character Marcus says that he will be formulating laws to correspond to the political system sketched out by Scipio in the De re publica. The first set of laws that he stipulates are those most crucial for a commonwealth, religious laws. Marcus’ stated intention is to be selective, not comprehensive, with his legal code – his pronouncements are to be only those he finds most important (2.18). By and large Marcus reaffirms core components of Roman state religion, but his provision for apotheosis won by civic accomplishment is a new addition. Marcus calls for the worship of those such as Hercules and Quirinus whose merits earned them divinity as well the worship of qualities such as virtus which can provide mortals passage to the celestial realm as well (2.19). When Marcus returns to annotate this law on the worship of deified benefactors such as Hercules and Quirinus, he makes a crucial distinction between immortality and divinity (2.27–28): quod autem ex hominum genere consecratos, sicut Herculem et ceteros, coli lex iubet, indicat omnium quidem animos immortalis esse, sed fortium bonorumque divinos (That the law orders the worship of those from the human race who have been consecrated, like Hercules and the rest, shows that the souls of all people are immortal but souls of the brave and good are divine). This explanation provides an exclusive space for divinity within a larger scheme of universal immortality of the soul, drawing a bright line between divinity and immortality that is largely absent elsewhere in Cicero’s formulations.

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The merit-based posthumous discrimination implied at De re publica 6.13 and gestured to in the Pro Sestio and other post-exilic speeches5 is here made explicit, with divinity, not simply immortality, reserved for the best Romans. In his second major phase of literary production, Cicero dusts off and polishes ideas about merit-based immortality and divinity that he explored in the De re publica and De legibus. The death of his daughter Tullia in 45 bce prompts an unconventional response from her grieving father: he searches out ways to deify her (multa mihi εἰς ἀποθέωσιν in mentem veniunt [many things come to my mind for apotheosis], Att. 12.37a, 5 May 45 bce). A product of this inventive process is the Consolatio, which makes the case for Tullia’s divinity by appealing to Hercules and also introducing a female precedent for merit-based deification, Ino. Although Cicero’s other venture for Tullia – building a shrine – may have ultimately come to nothing, his arguments for her divinity in the Consolatio are incorporated into the Tusculan Disputations. The primary interlocutor in the Tusculan Disputations, Marcus, sets out to placate fears of death by proving the divinity of the soul. Using Roman burial customs and pontifical law as evidence, he argues that exceptional (clari) men and women make a transmigration in caelum (into the sky) at death while others linger confined to the ground (1.27). Marcus goes on to cite the apotheosis of Romulus as corroborating evidence as well as Hercules and the goddess Ino (1.28), two important precedents adduced in the Consolatio. And the arguments of the Consolatio and Tusculans book 1 are indeed similar, with erstwhile mortals such as Hercules and Ino providing precedents for the posthumous divinity of mortals. In both texts the testimony of the legendary deifications is complemented by more abstract, syllogistic proofs of the divinity of the soul. Marcus in fact cites his Consolatio at length in the Tusculan Disputations to establish the divinity and immortality of the soul (1.66). In two of his final dialogues, the De senectute and the De amicitia, Cicero returns to the mise en scène of the earlier Republic. The first of these, the De senectute, is set in 150 bce, with the young Scipio Aemilianus and Laelius (the main interlocutors of the De re publica) listening to Cato the Elder share his thoughts on old age. Cicero’s Cato steers the topic to immortality and speculations on the posthumous prospects for illustrious Romans such as the deceased fathers of Scipio and Laelius, contending that they are in fact alive (77). Cato cites teachings of Plato and Pythagoras on 5

I.e. Balb. 49; Planc. 90.

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the immortality of the soul, but evokes the words of the dying Cyrus from Xenophon’s Cyropaedia to offer a more detailed defense of his claim. Cicero’s appropriation of Xenophon’s passage makes significant, tell-tale modifications. Cyrus’ thoughts on a general immortality are pointedly emended by Cato to reserve immortality for the exceptional (clari), and this immortality is in turn tied to divinity (81), a notion nowhere to be found in Xenophon. Cato’s teachings from the De senectute are studiously carried over to the De amicitia by its main character Laelius. The De amicitia takes place in 129 bce, in the wake of Scipio’s death and the discussions Scipio led at his estate during the Feriae Latinae earlier in the year (the De re publica). By setting the De amicitia at this particular point in time and placing Laelius – a participant in both the De re publica and the De senectute – center-stage, Cicero is able to follow up on these previous discussions of immortality and self-consciously respond to them. Laelius’ remarks on the death of Scipio draw him into the discussion of immortality and divinity that has been unfolding in Cicero’s texts since the De re publica. He surmises that Scipio has ascended to join the gods (12) and then sets out to back his assertion. In his explanation, Cicero has Laelius apply Cato’s teachings from the De senectute on the divinity of the soul, unlocking this association when Laelius recollects Cato almost verbatim at De amicitia 13. After echoing Cato’s arguments, Laelius revisits a more recent conversation about immortality (the De re publica) to reinforce his claims. Cicero has him recall the three-day discussion on the Republic that culminated in Scipio sharing a vision of worthy Romans achieving immortality, the Somnium Scipionis (14). Laelius sums up the Somnium Scipionis to vouch for Scipio’s own immortality and in doing so submits an intriguing interpretation of the dream. As Laelius understands it, the religious transaction revealed in the Somnium involves apotheosis. While building his case for Scipio’s passage to divinity in the De amicitia, Laelius makes an observation that could very well serve as a methodological axiom for Cicero’s dialogues (13): plus apud me antiquorum auctoritas valet (the authority of the ancients carries more weight with me). Cicero is careful to cast revered Romans in his dialogues who will give his ideas the sanctity of Republican tradition. And while he takes pains to create a historical verisimilitude in his dialogues, their preoccupations are often distinctly late Republican. Such an incongruity is an upshot of a Roman tendency to seek out – or more often contrive – ancestral precedent to validate cultural innovation. As the possibility of posthumous deification gained momentum at Rome, so did the need for a Roman precedent. Hercules was an exemplary figure in such contexts, and he was

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used by Cicero in situations ranging from the Pro Sestio to the De natura deorum and even the Consolatio. Nothing, however, could legitimize and naturalize the posthumous deification of Roman statesmen like the Romulus precedent – a precedent that Cicero developed and modified in important ways. Cicero inherited a heterogeneous set of Romulus traditions with contradictory accounts of his death, but crucially chose to promulgate the idea that Romulus became a god. This particular element of the Romulus legend, which was likely a late addition to the tradition, is presented by the consul Cicero in a public assembly in 63 bce (Catil. 3.2) and then developed at length in the De re publica. In what is the oldest extant narrative account of early Rome, Cicero has the Republican stalwart Scipio devote considerable attention to providing a sound aetiology for the apotheosis of Romulus. Scipio, who himself radiates Republican ancestral authority, anchors his account of Romulean Rome more deeply in Republican tradition by appealing to Cato the Elder as well as Ennius. At the outset of his account of Romulus’ career, Scipio makes a critical statement about Romulus’ divinity. Noting that Roman ancestors wisely imputed divine lineage to those who had served Rome well, he stresses that Romulus’ divine status was not inherited but earned by his deeds for the Roman people (2.4). In a rationalizing version of Romulus’ career largely stripped of fantastic – and negative – elements, Cicero has Scipio embed merit-based, posthumous deification in Roman tradition. Scipio provides this concept with its naturalness by explaining how the virtus displayed by Romulus in his career as a statesman led the first Romans to recognize their departed leader as the new god Quirinus. Scipio’s identification of Romulus with Quirinus is the first connection of these two figures in extant Latin literature. And Scipio goes to great lengths to demonstrate that this deification was not foisted on a primitive, credulous populace, but rather duly embraced in gratitude by a comparatively sophisticated society (2.17–20). Quirinus is accordingly placed in the religious laws of the De legibus among those whose merits earned their divinity (2.19). Roughly a decade later, we can see the same legitimizing mechanisms as well as similar efforts to shape the Romulus precedent along Ciceronian lines in the Tusculan Disputations. Like Scipio in the De re publica, Marcus employs tactics tailored to give innovative concepts the sanctity of Roman tradition. Marcus notes the unparalleled significance of historical evidence drawn from the distant past (1.26), and then uses Ennius, much like Scipio in the De re publica, to make an authorizing connection with earlier Republican culture. Marcus argues that the religious attitudes evident in

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pontifical law and burial custom support his contention that exceptional Romans can earn passage in caelum (1.27) and then appeals to Ennius for further corroboration (1.28). His carefully redacted quote from the Annales disregards Romulus’ divine origin from Mars and therefore keeps the focus on merit-based achievement of divine status.6 As in the De re publica and De legibus, merit – not birth – is the determining factor in Ciceronian representations of Romulus’ apotheosis. Cicero’s Romulus does not rise to the heavens as a passenger in the chariot of Mars, as was likely the case in Ennius’ Annales. Choosing to make the divinity of Romulus a reward for his public utility as opposed to an inherited privilege had important implications. The ways in which ruler deification was integrated into the Roman past in the works of politically engaged authors such as Cicero and Varro was of consequence at a time when different types and terms of deification were under negotiation at Rome. Since Caesar had long been advertising his descent through Aeneas as well as cultivating associations with Romulus, representations of their divinity had a particular political relevance.7 As Lily Ross Taylor observed in an important article on Varro’s De gente populi Romani of 43 bce, Varro devotes considerable attention to ancient rulers, including Aeneas and Romulus, deified for the benefits they brought to society.8 Among Varro’s chief concerns, Taylor argues, is providing Roman precedents to strengthen the case for Caesar’s divinity.9 Horsfall follows Taylor, going so far as to suggest that Varro’s work may have been expressly composed “to explain and justify” the deification of Caesar.10 The remnants of Varro’s De gente populi Romani, along with the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, which was most likely dedicated to Caesar in 46 bce, provide an invaluable tool for assessing variables that would have been in play when Cicero decided to retroject ruler deification back into the early Rome presented in his De re publica. An immediately striking difference between Varro and Cicero is Aeneas, who is deified in Varro’s De gente populi Romani (fr. 30 Fraccaro) but wholly absent from the De re publica. Indeed, the occlusion of Rome’s Trojan origins in the 6

7 8 9

10

Marcus quotes Ennius’ Romulus in caelo cum dis genitalibus aevom | Degit (Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the birth-giving gods, 110–111 Sk.) as “Romulus in caelo cum diis agit aevum,” ut famae adsentiens dixit Ennius (“Romulus spends eternity in the sky with the gods,” as Ennius said in accordance with tradition), omitting Ennius’ genitalibus. See above, p. 141, for discussion. Cf. Burkert 1962 on Caesar’s use of the Romulus legend. Taylor 1934: 225 notes that Euhemerus was one of Varro’s models for the De gente populi Romani. Taylor 1934: 229, where she suggests that Varro’s support for Caesar’s divinity may have helped him survive the proscriptions. Horsfall 1972: 125.

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De re publica would likely be seen as a clear break from tradition by Cicero’s late Republican audience – perhaps an unwelcome break for those like Caesar who were publicly advertising their divine Trojan lineage. Any Trojan lineage that could be traced for Romulus himself is also dispensed with in the De re publica: there is no mention of Ilia and claims of his descent from Mars are said to have been passed down by early Romans in recognition of his service to Rome. Hereditary claims to divinity, particularly those traced back to Troy, never find validation in Cicero’s representations of Roman deification. The way Cicero disregards Aeneas and any Roman ties to Troy in his depiction of early Rome in the De re publica is in line with another significant distinction between Cicero and Varro’s accounts of the apotheosis of Romulus. There is nothing that survives from Varro’s De gente populi Romani on the specific circumstances or rationale of Romulus’ apotheosis, but his reference to Greek and Egyptian parallels for the apotheosis of Aeneas and Romulus has the effect of making it a universal or even, as Baier contends, an “un-Roman” phenomenon.11 We do hear a great amount of detail on the circumstances of Romulus’ apotheosis in the De re publica, where Scipio explains that extraordinary virtus elevated him to divinity in the eyes of the first Romans. The De re publica also goes to great lengths to distance the deification of Romulus from other deifications. By establishing an elaborate comparative chronology of Greece and Rome, Scipio argues that the deification of Romulus was adopted by enlightened, skeptically minded Romans, while all other deifications remain dubious since they happened in a more primitive past (2.18–19). Cicero and Varro both seem to see a possible social utility for apotheosis, but neither offers Caesarians a bespoke Roman precedent to justify their religious ambitions. In fact a desire to undercut Caesar’s divinity might explain a late, uniquely negative portrayal of Romulus/Quirinus at De officiis 3.41. The fratricide formerly elided in the De re publica is now exposed under klieg lights. Dyck thinks that Caesar’s late alignment with Romulus/Quirinus – Caesar’s statue in Quirinus’ temple; Caesar’s image with Quirinus in the circus procession – accounts for the new emphasis.12 Cicero does not, however, challenge (or explicitly mention) Romulus’ apotheosis, and Hercules is presented in the same text as a viable 11

12

Baier 1999: 358, 366. Baier agrees that the portrayal of deifications in Varro’s historical writings had important relevance for contemporary debates about deification, but argues that Varro’s representations do not amount to a tidy endorsement of Julian propaganda. Dyck 1996: 545.

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paradigm for saviors and benefactors crossing the line to divinity upon their death (3.25).13 If founders and culture heroes such as Romulus and Hercules could serve as useful proxy figures for exploring the prospects and preconditions for enrolling erstwhile mortals among the Roman state deities, they were also useful for thinking about religious developments with a similar rationale that offered a new sort of posthumous divinity for deserving Romans. The Romulus deified in the De re publica is worshiped along with Hercules as a state divinity in the De legibus because the good and the brave are divine (2.27–28). The Romulus of the Tusculan Disputations, while affirming as well that the good and brave are divine, is used to think through an exclusive celestial posthumous existence for distinguished Roman women and men. Marcus’ ideas in the Tusculan Disputations are picked up by Cato in the De senectute and Laelius in the De amicitia, who both advance arguments for the divinity of a Roman elect and in doing so present new ideas as time-honored tradition. Although Cicero presents his most detailed explorations of a posthumous fate tied to cultural attainments in literary/philosophical contexts, evidence suggests that these speculations were not simply hot-house flowers. As Hopkins notes, our best gauge for the diffusion of new religious and philosophical ideas is funeral monuments.14 Cicero provides the first attestation (Pis. 16) for individuation amongst the traditionally collective spirit Manes, and at the end of the Republic dedications to the Di Manes of individuals begin to appear on epitaphs.15 Less prominent Romans did not go as far as Cicero tried to with Tullia, but there is a discernible shift toward conceiving of dead loved ones as having reached an individuated immortality. A distinct facet of this religious development may have been given preliminary shape by the most prominent theorist and theologian of the 13

14 15

itemque magis est secundum naturam pro omnibus gentibus, si fieri possit, conservandis aut iuvandis maximos labores molestiasque suscipere, imitantem Herculem illum quem hominum fama beneficiorum memor in concilio caelestium conlocavit (It is likewise more in accord with nature, if it is possible, to take up the greatest labors and toils to save and aid all people, following Hercules, whom tradition, in gratitude for his benefactions, placed in the council of the heavenly gods). Hercules’ final destination (in concilio caelestium) resembles the heavenly domicile where Cato had recently put select Romans at Sen. 84 (divinum animorum concilium [council of divine spirits]). Hopkins 1983: 227. See above, p. 107 on emerging concepts of individual existence after death. See Carroll 2006: 126 on the D.M. inscription as a largely Imperial phenomenon and Scheid 1993 on the adaptation of the Di Manes rites to honor Lucius and Germanicus Caesar, rites largely distinct from those offered a divus (god) such as Caesar since the latter rites avoided chthonic funereal associations. Changing Imperial conceptions of the Manes seem to be evident in Apuleius’ De deo Socratis, where the Di Manes are differentiated from other categories of posthumous existence (15.152).

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late Republic. Toynbee cites Propertius 4.11 as evidence of nascent Roman ideas about an individual immortality dependent upon moral responsibility and cultural accomplishments.16 In Propertius’ poem, which is in part a dramatized funereal inscription, Cornelia’s soul lists her virtues to justify her passage in caelum (moribus et caelum patuit [for virtue the sky itself opens up], 101). Cicero had cited Tullia’s merits in the Consolatio and even offered Hercules as a precedent for her immortality, an apt analogy since Cicero put a heavy ethical spin on the apotheosis of this culture hero as well as that of Rome’s first ruler, Romulus. Hercules also warrants the immortality of the Republican heroes whose civic benefactions were underscored in the Pro Sestio. Propertius’ Cornelia is not angling to be another Hercules, but this concept emerging at Rome that through good works and civic productivity the self could achieve passage in caelum (into the sky) as opposed to the traditional, undifferentiated earthly afterlife was developed over a series of years and presented in a range of contexts at Rome by Cicero. Here again a cultural dialectic is evident in Cicero’s work: his discussions are symptomatic of religious changes at Rome and also instrumental in effecting and sustaining such changes. The religious transformations related to deification in the late Republic were momentous but amount to development more than departure. Roman rulers had long been celebrated as gods in the Greek east and Sicily. They had also been fitfully cultivating associations with divinities for years in Rome as well, but a decisive, unprecedented step was taken in the late Republic when a man was declared to be a state deity at Rome. Although Caesar was declared a god while still among the living, posthumous deification became the norm for Roman rulers thereafter. The conceptually cognate idea of a posthumous status-transition to immortality and divinity has roots in the Roman cult of the dead and ideas about the survival of souls, but this too took on important new dimensions in the late Republic. The surviving works of Cicero provide a kaleidoscopic perspective on the ways in which the divinization of humans was worked out and experimented with by a major actor in late Republican religious and political life: kaleidoscopic in that impressions emerge piecemeal, and patterns formed from these pieces shift and become variously reconstituted in new contexts. Collectively these manifold formulations give a distinct impression of a contested cultural process in which approaches to divinization are hazarded and redrafted as late Republican Romans devised 16

Toynbee 1971: 36, where she also cites the scenes from professional and intellectual life that start showing up on funereal art to visually catalogue worldly achievements.

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acceptable forms of divinization. The finesse and brinkmanship in Cicero’s representations and reformulations of Roman dynasts’ claims to divinity convey this sense of experimentalism in Rome’s religious marketplace, as do the improvisatory nature of his public soundings on posthumous divinity for distinguished Romans and the inventive steps he takes after Tullia’s death. At the outset of their discussion of the late Republic in their Religions of Rome, Beard, North, and Price call attention to how critical the texts of the “leading philosopher, theologian and theorist of his generation” are in our attempts to reconstruct the religious disputes and dialogues of late Republican Rome.17 The Ciceronian interventions examined in this study are vital intimations of a nexus of debates that explored concepts of deification and shaped the core architecture of related religious innovations. Cicero’s initiatives in these religious dialogues provide yet more evidence of his pioneering role in the cultural transformations of the late Republic. 17

Beard, North, and Price 1998: 116.

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Index

Academic skepticism, 139, 145, 150, 152, 157, 162 afterlife, individual existence in, 102, 196 Alexander the Great, 19–20, 27, 34, 60, 133 Amphiaraus, 19, 106, 160 Antony, Mark, 170–84 flamen of Caesar, 170, 172, 183 apotheosis (see deification) use of Greek word, 4n.10, 4, 6–7, 61, 74 Athens, divine honors at, 26, 41, 78, 122 Atticus (Titus Pomponius Atticus), 1, 63, 104–10, 132–33 Baier, Thomas, 195 Beard, Mary, 9, 27, 150–51, 157 Bendlin, Andreas, 8n.27, 16 Brutus, Decimus and Marcus, 175–77 as gifts from gods, 175 Caesar, Julius, 73, 111–34 and clementia, 114–15, 127, 134 and Felicitas, 118 and Fortuna, 118–19 and Venus, 35, 92, 120 and Victoria, 118–19, 133 as savior, 120 comet after the death of, 171 Commentaries, 39n.61 death of, 1, 170 divine honors and cult, 6, 111, 121, 129, 170, 173 demigod and globe statue, 112 image with Quirinus in the pompa circensis, 132 unconquered god statue in Quirinus temple, 131 his assassins as “future gods”, 175 supplicatio, 74 triumphal dress, 131 Cassius Dio, 112, 121 Cato the Elder, 17, 89, 164 works Origines, 167

Cato the Younger, 111, 148 Catullus, 29, 39n.61 Chrysippus, 152 Cicero and Caesar’s cult, 130, 133, 171, 173, 183 as savior, 55, 58, 61, 66, 68, 99 civil supplicatio, 56 consulship as apotheosis, 61 death of, 184 defamiliarization of, 9 downplaying divine genealogies, 92, 120, 142 exile, 63, 73 importance as theorist and theologian, 10 “mouthpiece” readings of his dialogues, 150 prevalent use of divinus, 39 rhetorical framing of Caesar as apotheosis, 74 use of divinizing metaphor, 31–34, 39, 64 wide range of audiences, 11 works Catilinarians, 53–60, 132 Consolatio, 1, 135–36, 140, 142–43, 145–46, 159, 163, 165, 191, 197 Consulatus suus, 57n.92, 60, 66–68 De amicitia, 168–70 De divinatione, 135, 162 De domo sua, 65–67 De finibus, 136 De haruspicum responsis, 71 De lege agraria 1–3, 48 De legibus, 2, 103–10, 143, 155, 161 De natura deorum, 149–64 De officiis, 172, 195 De provinciis consularibus, 73–74 De re publica, 2, 85–103, 141, 159, 164 De senectute, 164–68 In Pisonem, 65, 68, 77, 107, 172 In Vatinium, 67 Letters to Atticus, 1–7, 114, 129, 132, 135, 175 Letters to Brutus, 176 Letters to Friends, 175 Letters to Quintus, 42

206

Index Paradoxa Stoicorum, 136 Philippics, 170–84 Post reditum ad Quirites, 64, 66, 69–70 Post reditum in Senatu, 64–65, 69–71 Pro Balbo, 76–77, 79, 109 Pro Cluentio, 31 Pro Flacco, 61 Pro Fonteio, 30–31 Pro lege Manilia, 34–48 Pro Ligario, 126–31, 133 Pro Marcello, 112–26 Pro Milone, 78, 172 Pro Murena, 32 Pro Plancio, 72, 75, 109 Pro Rabirio, 32, 49, 51 Pro Rabirio Postumo, 75, 125 Pro rege Deiotaro, 134 Pro Roscio Amerino, 30 Pro Scauro, 77 Pro Sestio, 2, 64, 70, 80–85, 99, 109, 141, 190 Pro Sulla, 60 Tusculan Disputations, 2, 138–48, 153, 156, 159, 164, 169, 191 Verrine Orations, 19–26 Clodius (Publius Clodius Pulcher), 61, 65, 67–68, 70–71, 78–79 conservator, 22, 66, 79, 83, 85, 99, 114, 129, 175 contio, 16n.49, 177, 179–80, 186 as major venue for religious communication, 11n.36, 16n.49 Cornell, T. J., 95 deification as ontological status-shift, 88n.69, 102, 146, 153 divine honors, 6, 18, 50, 78 Hellenistic theories of, 21, 60, 84, 117, 152 posthumous, 6, 110, 123, 133, 197 traditional scholarly dismissal of, 8 Demetrius Poliorcetes, 112, 121–22 ithyphallic hymn to, 122 Dicaearchus, 85, 138 Diodorus Siculus, 88n.69 Dionysus, 7, 34, 60 Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), 2, 105, 143, 157 divinity categorization of, 18, 29, 132, 149, 161 human identification and assimilation with, 28 polytheistic concepts of, 9, 17, 29 Ennius, 88, 91, 105, 141, 153, 164 works Annales, 50, 89–90, 153, 194 Epigrams, 102 Euhemerus, 21, 25, 60, 88, 101, 143–44, 153 Scipio, 102n.108

207

Epicureanism, 85, 136, 150–51 Epicurus, divinization of, 152 Euhemerus, 21, 88n.69, 143, 153 Feeney, Denis, 7, 8n.27, 10 felicitas, 26, 44, 118 Fishwick, Duncan, 29 Flamininus (Titus Quinctius Flamininus), 20, 22 genetic fallacy, 37 Gildenhard, Ingo, 135 Gradel, Ittai, 10n.32, 29n.37 Hercules, 2, 7, 60, 79, 84, 102, 105–8, 118, 137, 142–46, 144n.100, 158–59, 188, 190, 195 Hopkins, Keith, 196 immortality immortal glory, 51, 75, 84, 99, 126, 145, 165 of the soul, 52, 81, 84, 98–101, 109, 138n.79, 138, 141, 145–46, 165, 190 Ino, 2, 142–43, 146, 156, 159, 191 intertextuality, 163, 169 Jocelyn, H. D., 91 Jupiter, 26, 57–58, 67, 112, 118, 137, 143 Kaster, Robert, 84 Kennedy, Duncan, 12 Lactantius, 1–2 Laelius (Gaius Laelius), 85, 87, 163, 168 Lakoff, George, 13, 33, 187n.3 Lentulus Spinther (Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther), 70 Levene, David, 29n.37, 126n.46 Livy, 71 Lucretius, 39n.61, 41n.63, 46, 49n.78, 55n.86, 87n.61, 152n.9 Lupercalia, 132n.60, 173, 183 Manes/Di Manes, 4, 49, 102, 107, 196 Manuwald, Gesine, 178 Marcellus, Marcus, 18, 24 Marcellia festival, 18 Marius (Gaius Marius), 50, 52n.82, 52, 61, 76–77, 77n.35, 80, 104, 119, 187 metaphor, cognitive approach to, 12–13, 187 Milo (Titus Annius Milo), 71, 78, 81 Mithridates, 24 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 118, 163n.39 Nepos, 39n.61 Nock, A. D., 28, 35

208

Index

North, John, 9, 98n.97, 132n.60, 174n.57 Numa, 95–96, 104, 108, 156–57

identification of, 88n.66, 156, 193 Ross Taylor, Lily, 194

Octavian (Augustus), 171–84 as gift from gods, 181 as savior, 177 promotion of Caesar’s cult, 177

Sallust, 39n.61, 61n.107 salus, 22, 99, 120–21, 137 Scaurus (Marcus Aemilius Scaurus), 30 Scheid, John, 17n.50, 29n.37, 49n.79, 150n.4, 196n.15 Scipio Aemilianus, 14, 78, 85, 87, 91–103, 121, 164 Scipio Africanus, 97–103 Scipio’s dream, 96–102, 121, 145, 165, 170, 189, 192 Sicily, divine honors at, 18 Skutsch, Otto, 91, 141 Smith, J. Z., 10n.32 Socrates, 147, 166 soter, 22, 47 Stoicism, 52, 101, 107, 136, 138, 150, 152, 158 Sulla (Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix), 19, 26, 30, 36, 119 supplicatio, 56, 111, 131, 170, 172 late Republican changes in, 75

Parilia, 132 pater/parens patriae, 50, 67, 91, 129 Plato, 85, 97, 99–100, 138n.79, 138, 145, 165–66, 191 Plautus, 2n.4, 22n.14, 28, 29n.37 Plutarch, 20 Polybius, 85 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus), 73, 114 and felicitas, 46 as gift from gods, 47 as savior, 42 divine honors, 34, 47 supplicatio, 74 theater complex Felicitas shrine, 79, 118 globe statue, 79 Hercules Invictus shrine, 79 triumphal dress, 79 triumphs, 7, 34 Posidonius, 138n.79 Price, Simon, 8n.24, 8, 39, 154 Propertius, 26n.23, 197 Pythagoreanism, 89n.70, 95, 151, 164, 166, 170 Quintus Cicero, 162 religion in Republican Rome literature and religion, 9 modern reappraisals of, 7, 16 politics and religion, 8 private and public interaction, 16 Roman burial customs, 139 Romulus/Quirinus, 12, 50, 54, 56, 87, 89–106, 108, 129, 133, 136, 141, 147, 155, 190, 193, 195

Tarán, Leonardo, 151 Terence, 41n.64 Toynbee, Jocelyn M. C., 197 triumphal ritual, 27, 71 Tullia, 140, 159 deification and shrine, 1–7, 134, 172 Varro, 15, 92n.79, 96n.92, 96, 106n.118, 106, 135n.71, 143, 149, 194–95 Verres, 18, 24 virtus, 86, 93, 96, 106, 136, 176–77, 189 Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 6n.18, 12n.41, 74, 89, 135n.71, 140 Wardle, David, 29n.37, 106n.118, 113 Weinstock, Stefan, 30 Xenophon, 167