Ciceros Rede cum senatui gratias egit. Ein Kommentar by Tobias Boll (review)

This book comprises a new scholarly commentary on a neglected Ciceronian speech. The material is divided into two main parts: (A) an introduction handling historical background, comparing the “twin” speech delivered before the people, and discussing Cicero’s strategy and the textual transmission, and (B) the commentary proper. Boll does not print a continuous Latin text but intersperses it in the commentary. This is unfortunate, since his is now the best text for this speech. Boll’s restoration of omnibus bonis at §25 (197) is particularly acute. I would differ in only a couple instances: at §12, I would prefer <impedire> diceret (Boll after Peterson) over plain diceret in view of the quo minus construction; and at §21 Boll’s conjecture statim is an improvement over separatim and should be adopted.

The treatment of historical matters yields mixed results. Boll weighs, for instance, Cicero’s decision to testify against Clodius judiciously, considering the five explanations previously offered and deciding in favor of a combination of motives (7–12). He also raises the possibility that Clodius’ attack on Caesar’s acta (attested at Cic. Dom. 40) was done in consultation with Caesar and aimed to keep Pompey under control, since the latter had an enormous interest in their retention (16). But this is hard to credit, since Caesar, too, had a strong interest in the survival of his legislation. Here and elsewhere Boll is perhaps still too much influenced by the older view that Clodius acted basically as a puppet of one or more of the “triumvirs.” Though he cites W. J. Tatum’s The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (Chapel Hill 1999) on occasion, he has evidently not taken on board the more independent role that Tatum ascribes to Clodius (and is now widely accepted). Boll seems not to know the Anglophone literature on Cicero’s self-fashioning, but guided in part by S. Kurczyk, Cicero und die Inszenierung der eigenen Vergangenheit (Cologne 2006), he comes to similar conclusions. Boll’s account is not free of factual errors, however, as when he claims that Vatinius prosecuted Sestius (36); see M. Alexander, Trials of the Late Roman Republic, 149 bcto 50 bc (Toronto 1990), nos. 270–271, a work surprisingly not cited by Boll.

Boll’s comparison of the “twin” speeches makes some good points, e.g., about the greater pathos and more numerous references to the gods before the people. The discussion could have been enriched by reference to Cicero’s practice in other contiones. Thus the strong divine element in Red. pop. is comparable to Catil. 3; and the accumulation of second person plural pronouns/pronominal adjectives at Red. pop. 5–6 is paralleled at Agr. 2.1–2: it is Cicero’s way of engaging and ingratiating himself with the people. On such matters in general more use could have been made of R. Morstein-Marx, Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge 2004), sparsely cited by Boll in the commentary proper.

The commentary is to be recommended on subject matter, style, rhetoric, and text. Inevitably, I have a few quibbles. Apropos of the designation parens/pater patriae (§2; 100), the reservations of R. A. Kaster, Cicero: Speech on Behalf of Publius Sestius (Oxford 2006), 353–354, should be noted. In §3 sub alieno scelere delituit (sc. Clodius) surely refers not to Clodius’ alliance with the “triumviri” (105, 106) but to the fact that discussion of Cicero’s recall was hindered by his colleague Aelius Ligus (cf. Tatum as cited above, 171 and 304 n. 116). The discussion of Clodius’ reform of the lex Aelia et Fufia (§11; 138–139) would likewise have profited from attention to Tatum’s detailed reconstruction (126–133). It is hard to see how, if M. Cispius was convicted of bribery (as is suggested at Planc. 75, cited by Boll), he could have served as praetor after 54, as Boll allows (180). Apropos...