Cicero, Against Verres, 2.1.53–86

Ingo Gildenhard

Description

Looting, despoiling temples, attempted rape and judicial murder: these are just some of the themes of this classic piece of writing by one of the world’s greatest orators. This particular passage is from the second book of Cicero’s Speeches against Verres, who was a former Roman magistrate on trial for serious misconduct. Cicero presents the lurid details of Verres’ alleged crimes in exquisite and sophisticated prose. This volume provides a portion of the original text of Cicero’s speech in Latin, a detailed commentary, study aids, and a translation. As a literary artefact, the speech gives us insight into how the supreme master of Latin eloquence developed what we would now call rhetorical "spin”. As an historical document, it provides a window into the dark underbelly of Rome’s imperial expansion and exploitation of the Near East. Ingo Gildenhard’s illuminating commentary on this A-Level set text will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both high school and undergraduate level. It will also be a valuable resource to Latin teachers and to anyone interested in Cicero, language and rhetoric, and the legal culture of Ancient Rome.

Sujets

• Latín
• Ancient Rome
• Legal history
• Ancient history
• Roman law
• Rhetoric
• Language
• Cicero
• Cicéron (homonymie)
• Translation
• Latin

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 18 décembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781906924638
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

CICERO, AGAINST VERRES, 2.1.53–86
Cicero, Against Verres , 2.1.53–86:
Latin Text with Introduction, Study Questions, Commentary and English Translation
Ingo Gildenhard
Open Book Publishers CIC Ltd., 40 Devonshire Road, Cambridge, CB1 2BL, United Kingdom http://www.openbookpublishers.com

© 2011 Ingo Gildenhard
Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. Details of allowances and restrictions are available at:
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As with all Open Book Publishers titles, digital material and resources associated with this volume are available from our website:
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ISBN Hardback: 978-1-906924-54-6 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-906924-53-9 ISBN Digital (pdf): 978-1-906924-55-3 ISBN e-book (epub): 978-1-906924-63-8 ISBN e-book (mobi): 978-1-906924-64-5
Cover Image: Statue of Cicero at the Palace of Justice in Brussels, photo: Stuart Bell. Typesetting by www.bookgenie.in
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Contents
 
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
Latin Text and Study Questions
Commentary
List of Abbreviations
List of Rhetorical Terms
Translation
Appendix: Issues for Further Discussion
Map of Italy and the Greek East
 
 
Acknowledgements
 
I am very grateful to the friends and colleagues who provided comments and feedback during my work on this volume, notably Benjamin Biesinger, Wolfgang Havener, Ted Kaizer, Myles Lavan, who also generously shared forthcoming work of his own, Mathew Owen, and Rik Van Wijlick. Closer to home, I would like to acknowledge the help of Norbert Gildenhard who read through an early draft, offering comments and corrections page by page, and Paola Ceccarelli who volunteered to design the map. I had hoped to include a reprint of Catherine Steel’s superb analysis of the Lampsacus episode (‘Being Economical with the Truth: What Really Happened at Lampsacus?’, in J. Powell and J. Paterson (eds.), Cicero the Advocate , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 233–51) in this volume; unfortunately, problems to do with copyright interfered, but I am nevertheless very grateful for her personal agreement and support. Alessandra Tosi and Corin Throsby at Open Book Publishers have simply been wonderful in accommodating this rather unusual project as well as its urgent time frame. I also benefited much from the speedy endorsement and feedback offered by the two anonymous referees. As previous work, this volume profited considerably from the library resources of the Philologische Seminar of Tübingen University, and I am once again extremely grateful to Professor Maennlein-Robert for offering hospitality. My most significant debt is to three PhD students in the Department of Classics & Ancient History at Durham University. Zara Chadha, Louise Hodgson, and Lauren Knifton generously volunteered to read through the penultimate draft, provided invaluable annotations, and agreed to join in a series of workshops (‘having fun with Cicero’) devoted to discussing issues to do with the volume large and small. Their eagle eyes spotted more embarrassing mistakes than I care to remember; and their good sense and sensibility vastly improved the final product. Their critical engagement with the commentary and ability to improve upon my own reading of Cicero exemplify my notion of this volume’s ideal reader. It is thus a particular pleasure to dedicate this book to them and their spirit of intellectual camaraderie.
Preface
 
This little volume has its origins in a coincidence. I had just finished writing Creative Eloquence: The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches (Oxford, 2011), which involved some close analysis of Cicero’s orations against Verres, when I was asked to give a lecture on how best to teach a new set-text that the Examination Board of Oxford, Cambridge, and the Royal Society of Arts (OCR) has specified for their A-Level Latin examination for the years 2012–2014. The passage in question, in Verrem 2.1.53–69, consists of some paragraphs on Verres’ looting of artworks from Greek cities in Asia Minor during his legateship under Dolabella (§§ 53–62) and of about a third of the infamous episode at Lampsacus. Paragraphs 63–69 contain an account of what happened when Verres visited the Greek city. According to Cicero, he tried to abduct and rape the daughter of the local notable Philodamus, which resulted in the death of one of his lictors and brought the inhabitants of the town to the brink of rioting. Paragraphs 70–86 deal with the aftermath of the sordid affair, including the trial and public execution of Philodamus and his son in what Cicero portrays as a blatant miscarriage of justice designed to cover up Verres’ crimes.
Part of the brief was to talk about the resources available for teaching the text. These turned out to be rather less spectacular than the chosen passage. There is, of course, T. N. Mitchell’s superb Aris & Phillips edition with translation and commentary of Verrines II.1 (London, 1986), which remains an invaluable port of call for anyone working on, or teaching, (portions of) the speech. Yet one of the main purposes of the edition is to render the oration accessible to students without Latin, and thus the commentary, which is keyed to the translation, focuses on historical context rather than details of language and style (even though Mitchell’s explication of the rhetorical texture is uniformly excellent). And other than that, one pretty much draws a blank, at least in terms of commentaries. I therefore decided to write up my own set of notes, drawing on the work done for Creative Eloquence . Feedback from the Latin teachers to whom I had the chance to circulate a draft version in June was sufficiently encouraging to explore the possibility of making the material more generally available, not least since it seemed an excellent opportunity to link research and outreach.
For the commentary, it seemed inadvisable to follow OCR in their (understandable) decision to chop the Lampsacus episode in half. Hence the present volume includes Ver . 2.1.53–86 rather than just §§ 53–69. And while I have to agree with one of the anonymous referees that a full-scale linguistic commentary on the entire speech would have been very desirable, exigencies of timing militated against including more. For one thing, extending the coverage from the 33 paragraphs now covered to the full 158 that comprise the oration would have rendered the exercise useless for the current generation of Latin A-level students. There is only so much one can do in the course of a summer. At the same time, A-level students are not the only constituency I had in mind when designing this volume. The portion of Cicero explicated here would also seem to lend itself for study in other settings, such as Latin summer schools, undergraduate reading courses in American or British universities, or postgraduate Latin courses at MA-level. I have therefore added content meant to widen the appeal, even though not all of it will seem immediately relevant to all users. The edition now tries to cater to students as well as their teachers, to dedicated students of Latin as well as to language learners (such as ancient historians at postgraduate level) who study Latin perhaps not so much for its own sake but as a research tool.
All users, however, should be able to relate to the primary mission of the commentary: it is to render Cicero’s text intelligible and resonant with meaning and thereby to enhance appreciation and enjoyment of the chosen passage as a fascinating historical document and a superb specimen of rhetorical artistry. The commentary offers help in three areas in particular. First, while a basic grasp of Latin grammar and syntax is presupposed, the notes explicate more unusual grammatical phenomena as well as difficult syntax and sentence construction. Secondly, the commentary pays careful attention to the craftsmanship of Cicero’s text, not least in showing how his rhetorical design interacts with, and reinforces, his arguments and themes. And thirdly, the edition tries to situate Cicero’s prose within wider contextual and historical frames, such as the courtroom setting and Rome’s system of imperial exploitation. The principle that informs the commentary is simple: the more one sees in his text, the more enjoyable, indeed exciting, reading Cicero becomes. And he merits re-reading: it took some time, for instance, for the penny to drop that the eight connectives Cicero uses in the massive sentence in § 82 produce a pleasing symmetrical pattern. 1 The example is a good illustration of the care Cicero took over the most insignificant detail, easily overlooked: his verbal craftsmanship is simply extraordinary, and I am sure the text under discussion hides many more delights than I managed to spot: I encourage every student to ponder, discover, and enjoy.
In an attempt to render this edition as useful as possible to as many different end-users as possible, I have included the following features:
(a) Introduction : excellent accounts of the wider historical background and the legal circumstances of Cicero’s prosecution of Verres exist in abundance (and are cited in the intr