In M. Tullium invectiva

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In M. Tullium invectiva ( German  "Invective against Marcus Tullius [Cicero]" , also Invectiva in Ciceronem ) is an invective , an artistically designed diatribe directed against the Roman lawyer, politician and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero . The invective was traditionally attributed to the historian Sallust . Today, however, the author is referred to as a pseudo-Sallust, as the author's question is controversial. It is probably a declamation speech given by a Roman school of rhetoricians .

Historical situation and context of the text

The rhetoric school as the place of origin of the invective In Ciceronem

Based on two references from Quintilian and the Virgil commentator Servius , the authorship of the invective In Ciceronem was traditionally attributed to the Roman historiographer Sallust. According to Anna Novokhatko , however, most researchers today claim that the speech is not about Sallust, but the product of a Roman school of rhetoric. Wealthy Roman parents sent their young children there so that they could train their speaking skills by imitating great styles such as Sallust or Cicero, and thus prepare for their later careers.

The supreme discipline of rhetoric lessons was holding declamations : the teacher selected a topic and gave a sample speech before the students worked out and delivered their speeches. The invective speech In Ciceronem is now regarded as such a declamation speech . More precisely, it is the declamation type of a controversia (as opposed to a suasoria ), i.e. a simulated court speech before the Senate, which, probably also to increase the entertainment value for the student body as an audience, could often contain a lot of "sex and violence". Furthermore, the invective example of a prosopopoiia (from Greek προσωποποιία prosōpopoiía): The student puts himself in a person, here Sallust, and often addresses another person in the 2nd person, here Cicero. Furthermore, there are indications in both Seneca the Elder and Cicero that the invective was written in Augustan times. According to them, the form of the controversiae , as it is in the case of this invective, did not appear until the end of the republic or the beginning of the imperial era ; In addition, it was only then that they began to perform the declamations in front of a larger audience, mostly of the same age, which is one reason for the many hyperbolas that entertain young people and that this invective also has. In summary, one can say about the invective In Ciceronem : The speech is probably a “prosopoietic” declamation speech in the type of a controversia from the Augustan era, a product of a teacher or student at a Roman rhetoric school.

“Historical-fictional” context and scenery of the invective

In the invective a situation is drawn that the political situation in autumn 54 BC. Reflects. She plays in the Roman Senate . Three years earlier, in 57 BC BC, Cicero, supported by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Titus Annius Milo , returned to Rome from his exile in Macedonia and was solemnly received by the Romans. In the following year, in 56 BC BC, Pompey, Gaius Iulius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus renewed their Triple Alliance in the Conference of Lucca . From now on Cicero felt compelled to give speeches in favor of Caesar, for example in his speech De provinciis consularibus . In 54 BC BC he even defended former personal enemies who were now among the supporters of the triumvirs; Publius Vatinius , the praetor of the year 55 BC, was also weighed in this regard . Was. The invective against Cicero feigns the political situation exactly after that defense of Vatinius in the autumn of 54 BC. Chr.

Contents overview

In the exordium of the speech, Pseudo-Sallust identifies the following speech as a replica of a (fictional) diatribe that Cicero had previously made against him. He sees the origin of his abuse not in a deliberate judgment (iudicio) , but rather in an illness of the soul (morbo animi) . Like a homeopath , he now uses insult against insult in order to treat Cicero with apparently good intentions. At the same time he presents his plan to revile and defame the senators as a noble, even aristocratic intention. Now Pseudo-Sallust is lamenting the miserable condition of the Roman Republic, its people and its Senate, because they have become the plaything (ludibrio) of people like Cicero. Its origin is now diminished at the end of the exordium according to a widespread topos of the invective ( reperticius , accitus , paulo ante insitus huic urbi civis ), while it presents itself as a descendant of the great general Scipio Africanus himself .

In the main part of the invective, the narratio , the volleys begin in all directions of the various topoi of the invective. Pseudo-Sallust attacks the pederastic relationship between the youthful Cicero and his former rhetoric teacher Marcus Piso . Furthermore, Pseudo-Sallust goes into the splendor of his house in Rome, which is now inhabited by Cicero, a shameful man (homo flagitiosissime) , but previously by the honorable Crassus (viri clarissimi) . The domestic sphere also includes Cicero's wife Terentia and his daughter Tullia ; one is accused of blasphemy, the other of revealing incest with their father. Then the speaker attacks Cicero's consulate . He was not the gods sent protector of the republic from the Catilinaries , as he gloriously claims, but rather the butcher (carnificis) and blackmailer of the Catilinaries. With their protection money he bought and blackmailed his villas in Tusculum and Pompeii . After that, the speaker uses alternate ironic praise and indignation twice. In the first part, Cicero is portrayed as a virtuous descendant of the other famous Arpinaten, Marius, who loves nothing more than the republic; this image is now destroyed by a list of negative descriptions (for example levissimus senator , mercennarius patronus ); This is followed by a denigration of the physical characteristics, according to which all parts of Cicero's body are stained with shame (nulla pars corporis a turpitudine vacat) . In the second part, Cicero's righteousness is exposed by ironically prefixing a quote from his poem De consulatu suo : “O fortunatam natam me consule Romam!” ; This laudatio (eulogy) also leads immediately to an indignatio (“humiliation / indignation”): “Te consule fortunatam, Cicero?” In the following, the Roman Republic is described as the victim of a single arbitrary ruler. Finally, he is even compared with the founder of the proscriptions Sulla : Pseudo-Sallust claims that he did not just pursue togatus , in toga, politics - as claimed in the cedant arma togae by Cicero, but - armatus , in arms.

The last section forms the peroratio . Here, too, an ironic eulogy is repeated at the beginning : Cicero had been instructed in the arts by Minerva himself, called by Jupiter to the assembly of the gods, and carried back from exile by Italy on his shoulders. The parody culminates in a quasi-religious invocation of Cicero as Romulus from Arpinum (Romule Arpinas) . The facade is now dropped. Boring, rhetorical questions are supposed to harass Cicero; Pseudo-Sallust asks what position he actually has in Rome, what position he likes, who is his friend and who is his enemy. These questions should aim at Cicero's weather necessity. The following are the answers to these questions, in which the diatribe continues to exacerbate this fickleness.

literature

Text output, translations and comments

  • C. Sallustius Crispus: Catilina, Iugurtha, Historiarum Fragmenta Selecta; Appendix Sallustiana ( Oxford Classical Texts ) . Edited by Leighton Durham Reynolds . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 978-0-19-814667-4 .
  • Sallust: works. Latin-German. Translated and edited by Wilhelm Schöne and Werner Eisenhut. Heimeran, Munich 1965 (several reprints, most recently in Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 3-05-005402-6 ).
  • Sallust: Invective and Epistula. Ed., Trans. and come by Karl Vretska . 2 volumes, C. Winter, Heidelberg 1961.
  • Sallust: works. Latin and German. Ed., Trans. and ext. by Werner Eisenhut and Josef Lindauer . 3rd edition, Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2006.
  • Anna Novokhatko: The Invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (= Sozomena. Volume 6). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-021326-3 .

Secondary literature

  • Gino Funaioli : Sallustius (10): Controversial Sallustiana. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 2, Stuttgart 1920, Sp. 1932-1938.
  • Unto Paananen: The authenticity of the “pseudosallustic” scripts . In: Historiallinen Arkisto , Volume 68, 1975, pp. 22-68.
  • Severin Koster : The invective in Greek and Roman literature. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1980.
  • Walter Schmid: The composition of the invective against Cicero . In: Hermes , Volume 91, Issue 2, 1963, pp. 159-178.
  • Walter Schmid: Sallust's early writings in the horizon of the complete works . Ph. CW Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 1993.
  • Otto Seel : The invective against Cicero. Dieterich, Leipzig 1943.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Quint. 4,1,68, quint. 9,3,89 and Serv. In Aen. VI, 623.
  2. ↑ Anna Novokhatko: The invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 3.
  3. ↑ Anna Novokhatko: The invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 6.
  4. ↑ Anna Novokhatko: The invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 9.
  5. ↑ See, for example, Cicero's fornication with his own daughter: 2: 19-20.
  6. ↑ See the entire section Anna Novokhatko: The Invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, p. 17.
  7. ↑ For the table of contents, in addition to the text itself, cf. Anna Novokhatko: The Invectives of Sallust and Cicero. Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, pp. 18-21; Severin Koster : The invective in Greek and Roman literature. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1980, pp. 177-200.
  8. ^ Severin Koster: The invective in Greek and Roman literature. Hain, Meisenheim am Glan 1980, p. 177.