Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero

205 Pages·2013·1.313 MB·English

by  Andrew Lintott

Title Pages
Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
Andrew Lintott
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780199699711
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) Clarendon Ancient History Series
(p.iii) Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
General Editors
BRIAN BOSWORTH MIRIAM GRIFFIN
DAVID WHITEHEAD SUSAN TREGGIARI
JOHN MARINCOLA
(p.ii) The aim of the CLARENDON ANCIENT HISTORY SERIES is to provide
authoritative translations, introductions, and commentaries to a wide range of
Greek and Latin texts studied by ancient historians. The books will be of interest
to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates.
(p.iv)
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and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade
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Title Pages
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© Andrew Lintott 2013
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First Edition published 2013
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Page 2 of 2
For my former pupils
Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
Andrew Lintott
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780199699711
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.001.0001
(p.v) For my former pupils
Page 1 of 1
Preface
Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
Andrew Lintott
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780199699711
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.001.0001
(p.vi) (p.vii) Preface
The origin of this edition will be evident to those who know my previous work. In
Cicero as Evidence I studied Cicero largely in the light of his own writings and
those of his contemporaries. It was appropriate to move on to the later tradition
about him and here Plutarch’s biography was central. However, it rapidly
became clear to me that I could not do justice to Plutarch without consideration
of the parallel Life of Demosthenes: Plutarch’s views about the great Greek
orator helped to form his approach to Cicero and are helpful to us in
understanding the ethical values which he applied to his subjects generally.
Moreover, Plutarch himself was struck by the resemblance of the careers of
these two unmilitary men, who found themselves leaders in fights for political
freedom, and did his best to enhance this. My study of the Demosthenes owes
much to the great work of Douglas MacDowell, sadly no longer with us. I have
also benefitted from the work of another editor of the Cicero, John Moles, and
from the forthcoming edition of the Caesar by Christopher Pelling, who has
kindly allowed me to see it before publication. Unfortunately, I did not know of
the forthcoming new biography of Demosthenes by Ian Worthington before this
book was delivered to the publishers. I am exceedingly grateful to the Oxford
University Press for accepting this work in their Clarendon Ancient History
series and for the help which I have received from my editors, Miriam Griffin
and Susan Treggiari, from David Whitehead, and from members of the Press,
especially Hilary O’Shea and Taryn Campbell.
Andrew Lintott
January 2012
Page 1 of 1
Abbreviations
Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
Andrew Lintott
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780199699711
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.001.0001
(p.x) (p.xi) Abbreviations
In references to ancient texts I follow in principle the system of the Oxford
Classical Dictionary. I omit the author, where this is clear, in references to works
by Demosthenes and Cicero and in references to works by Plutarch. So, e.g.,
‘Dem. 21. 6’ refers to a passage in Plutarch’s biography, whereas ‘Dem. 21. 6’ is
to the orator’s speech against Meidias.
Abbreviations of periodicals in general follow the system of L’Année Philologique.
ANRW
Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Festschrift J. Vogt, ed.
H. Temporini and W. Haase (Berlin and New York, 1972– )
APF
J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600–300 B.C. (Oxford,
1971)
CAF
T. Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1880–8)
CAH
Cambridge Ancient History
CE
A. Lintott, Cicero as Evidence: A Historian’s Companion (Oxford,
2008)
CIL
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CRR
A. Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford, 1999)
FD
Fouilles de Delphes
FGH
Page 1 of 3
Abbreviations
F. Jacoby et al., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 4 parts
(Berlin and Leiden, 1923– )
FHG
Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum
Harding
P. Harding, From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of
Ipsus (Translated Documents of Greece and Rome 2; Cambridge,
1985)
HRR
H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae, 2nd edn, 2 vols (repr.
Stuttgart, 1993)
IG
Inscriptiones Graecae
ILLRP
A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae, 2nd edn, 2
vols (Florence, 1965)
ILS
H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1954)
Inscr.Ital.
Inscriptiones Italiae
JRLR
A. Lintott, Judicial Reform and Land Reform in the Roman Republic
(Cambridge, 1992)
(p.xii)
LGPN
P. M. Fraser, E. Matthews, and T. Corsten, A Lexicon of Greek
Personal Names (Oxford, 1987– )
LTUR
E. M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae, 6 vols
(Rome, 1993–9)
Moles
J. L. Moles, Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster, 1988)
MRR
T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, i and ii,
2nd edn (New York, 1960), iii (Atlanta, GA, 1986)
ORF
H. Malcovati, Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta, 4th edn, 2 vols
(Turin, 1976–9)
PAA
J. S. Traill, Persons of Ancient Athens (Toronto, 1994–)
Pelling, Caesar
C. Pelling, Plutarch: Caesar (Oxford, 2012)
PIR
Prosopographia Imperii Romani
Page 2 of 3
Abbreviations
Puccioni
G. Puccioni, M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationum Deperditarum Fragmenta
(Milan, 1963)
RDGE
R. K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus
Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus (Baltimore, 1969)
RE
Pauly–Wissowa, Real-Encyclopaedie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft
Rhodes–Osborne
P. J. Rhodes and Robin Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–
323 BC (Oxford, 2003)
RRC
M. H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols (Cambridge,
1974)
RS
M. H. Crawford (ed.), Roman Statutes, 2 vols (London, 1996)
Syll 3
W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd edn, 4 vols
(Leipzig, 1915–24; repr. Hildesheim, 1960)
TGF
A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 2nd edn (Leipzig,
1926)
VRR
A. W. Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1999)
Page 3 of 3
Introduction
Plutarch: Demosthenes and Cicero
Andrew Lintott
Print publication date: 2013
Print ISBN-13: 9780199699711
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2013
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.001.0001
Introduction
Andrew Lintott
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699711.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
This introductory chapter begins with an overview Plutarch's works, particularly
the one by which he is best known today, Parallel Lives. The Lives of
Demosthenes and Cicero are an unusual pair in being devoted to two unmilitary
men who were either absent from battlefields or inadequate on them, and whose
political lives ended in failure in face of the force majeure of armies. The chapter
then discusses the themes of these lives, the shape of the narratives, and
sources from which Plutarch drew.
Keywords:   Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Demosthenes, Cicero
The Context of the Work and its Audience
Plutarch (c. AD 45–120) was a member of the local elite of Chaironeia in Boeotia
and also of the aristocracy of Greece (then the Roman province of Achaea)
inasmuch as he held a priesthood at Delphi. Educated in the Platonic tradition at
Athens, he taught philosophy both at home and in Italy and combined this, as
many Greek intellectuals did during the period of Roman domination, with
representing the interests of his homeland with the imperial authorities [Dem. 2.
2], in the course of which he was granted Roman citizenship. Apart from the
works by which he is best known today, the Parallel Lives, he wrote a great
number of rhetorical pieces, essays, and dialogues, primarily on practical moral
philosophy and matters of antiquarian interest.
Biographical and autobiographical prose works had been written in Greek since
the fourth century BC, sometimes as a form of political apologia, and the
Romans began to follow this example from the late second century BC onwards.
Page 1 of 15
Introduction
What makes Plutarch’s Lives stand out are the ethical and aesthetic premises on
which they are constructed. Plutarch set out to evaluate his subjects according
to the moral principles he derived from philosophy. This involved doing justice to
a man’s faults but not so disproportionately as to overbalance the account and
distort the resulting image. He compared himself to a portrait-painter who
should neither ignore nor overemphasize the blemishes on his subjects’
appearance [Cim. 2. 3–4]. Similarly, he points out at the beginning of his Life of
Alexander [1. 1–3] that he is writing Lives, not Histories: this excused him from
giving exhaustive narratives of the well-known exploits of his subject; rather,
some minor action or remark might be more revealing of character than (p.2)
slaughters on the battlefield or sieges. Here he compared himself to an artist
once again, this time a sculptor, who concentrates on the face and the eyes,
because these are the most telling clues to personality.
He wrote this, the fifth of his Parallel Lives [Dem. 3. 1] in his old age [Dem. 2],
apparently not long after returning to his home town from one of his many visits
to Italy [Dem. 2. 2; 31. 1].1 It is dedicated to one of his Roman patrons, Q. Sosius
Senecio [Dem. 1. 1; 31. 7], consul in AD 99 and 107, a man from the core of the
aristocracy surrounding the emperor Trajan, to whom Plutarch also dedicated
his Table Talk (Quaestiones conviviales) [Mor. 612e, cf. 666d, 734e]. Senecio has
been plausibly argued to be the subject of a, now acephalous, career inscription,
previously ascribed to Licinius Sura [ILS 1022; Jones (1970)]. He was a
correspondent of the younger Pliny [Ep. 4. 4]; he married the daughter of Sextus
Iulius Frontinus, consul for the third time in AD 100, whose career had
prospered under the preceding Flavian dynasty and who wrote on aqueducts,
stratagems, and probably land-surveying. His daughter Sosia Polla married
Pompeius Falco, consul under Trajan and governor of a number of provinces
under Trajan and Hadrian, including Britain.2
Plutarch’s comparison of leading Greeks and Romans is clearly intended for a
readership which includes Romans and others educated in the Greek language
as well as native Greeks. As one would expect, Plutarch includes brief
explanations of technicalities of the Latin language and of Roman society for the
benefit of his Greek readers [e.g. Cic. 1. 4; 2. 1; 7. 6; 16. 3; 17. 4; 29. 5]. He
expects them, however, to understand basic features, such as the magistracies,
the equestrian order, and the law-courts, and obvious features of the topography
of Rome, such as the Capitol, Sacred Way, and Campus Martius. Similarly, he
assumes his Roman readers know enough about Athens not to require an
explanation of the Areopagus council and its relationship in 324 BC to the
dikasterion (the chief democratic panel of jurors sitting as a body) [Dem. 26. 1–
2], and to understand the general shape of Athenian and Macedonian history.
The dikasterion was by then a thing of the past, but many Romans were regular
visitors or residents in Athens and some were even Athenian citizens and
members of the Areopagus. When commenting on (p.3) Demosthenes’
achievement in securing the alliance with Thebes in 338, Plutarch does digress
Page 2 of 15
Introduction
briefly on the importance of Thebes in fourth-century-BC history and the
chequered story of its relations with Athens [Dem. 17. 5–6], but this may be
more to emphasize the scale of Demosthenes’ achievement in 338 BC than to
remedy any ignorance in his readers.
The Themes of these Lives
The work is unusual among the Parallel Lives in being devoted to two unmilitary
men, who were either absent from battlefields or inadequate on them, and
whose political lives ended in failure in face of the force majeure of armies. Their
importance lay in their excellence as orators. For both Cicero himself [e.g.
Orator 104] and Plutarch’s Roman contemporary, the younger Pliny [Ep. 9. 26.
8], Demosthenes was the supreme orator, while in Tacitus’ Dialogus de
Oratoribus [25. 3] Cicero holds the corresponding place to Demosthenes among
Roman orators, and for Quintilian he was simply the outstanding one [e.g. 3. 1.
20; 5. 11. 17]. There had been changes in fashion in rhetoric at Rome, however,
underlined by Tacitus [e.g. Dial. 15; 22–3; 36–41], which reflected the changes in
Roman political culture and society. Rhetoric had been adapted to speaking
before a small and cultivated audience—the emperor and his council, the senate,
or a jury-court—and to the time-limits placed on orations. Rotund phraseology
and the grandeur of long and complex periods had given way to epigrammatic
brevity and brilliance derived from striking vocabulary, often of poetic origin.
This was well-known to Plutarch [Cic. 2. 5]. Something similar had happened in
Greece [Tac. Dial. 15. 3], but here there was a difference. Plutarch himself refers
to those who claim to ‘Demosthenize’ [Cic. 24. 6] and we find in the oratory of
another contemporary, Dio of Prusa, the imitation of classical Greek oratory
which was to be a feature of the so-called Second Sophistic for more than a
hundred years from this time.3
Plutarch, nevertheless, rejects at the start any attempt to compare his subjects
technically as orators, citing as a deterring precedent a (p.4) work by Caecilius
of Kaleacte [Dem. 3. 1–2]. He has previously explained his limitations in
understanding Latin, arising from a lack of proper study: he learnt Latin by
knowing in advance what a text was likely to mean, on the basis of previous
knowledge of what it was describing, and hence could not appreciate the
elements that contributed to its beauty [Dem. 2. 3–4]. Accordingly, Plutarch
claims that his comparison will be based on the orators’ actions and policies
[Dem. 3. 1]. Nonetheless, he cannot leave out the technical elements entirely,
and here he pays more attention to Demosthenes than to Cicero. It is true that
we find discussions of the influence of actors on the oratorical delivery of both
the orators [Dem. 7; Cic. 5. 4–6] and their use of humour [Dem. 11. 5–7; Cic. 5. 6;
7. 6–8; 25–7; 50 (Comp. 1). 4]. On the other hand, while describing
Demosthenes’ education, Plutarch alludes to the way he eliminated excessive
complexity from his style [Dem. 6. 3–4; cf. 8. 4]—the sort of comment he could
not venture about Cicero.
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