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enriching himself at his province’s expense. Caesar, by con-

trast, is a highly successful military commander, whose cam-

paigns in Gaul are solving a long-standing security problem by

pacifying those who had hitherto been Rome’s implacable

enemies and thus ending the traditional threat from the North.

‘We have always put up resistance when provoked: but now

we have made the end of our empire and the end of their terri-

tory the same point.’

And there is no advantage to Caesar

personally in staying on in Gaul: quite the reverse. His

province is deeply unattractive, remote and uncivilized.

They

also face diﬀerent fates when they return to Rome. Cicero

implies strongly that Piso will face a prosecution under the

repetundae laws: this is surely what he means when he says,

while explaining why he is not dwelling on Piso’s assaults on

young women (6), ‘I don’t skate over these matters because

they’re not serious, but because at this moment I am speaking

without witnesses’.

It is inconceivable that Cicero would

admit that he had no evidence for this charge; sine teste must be

taken as a reference to the Senate’s not being a legal court, as

well as suggesting that there will be an occasion when he will be

able to call upon witnesses.

No such fate will greet Caesar,

since he is already in a position to return to celebrate a triumph

(35).

Among the other reasons why Caesar might desire to return

home is his wish to see his ‘darling child’ and ‘distinguished

son-in-law’.

This description of Caesar’s family ignores

186 Portrait of the orator as a great man

Cicero to say much more about Piso than Gabinius (who had no such link) in

this speech: the failure to help in 58 was much more galling from Piso, a man

from whom good could have been expected and to whom Cicero appealed in

person, than from the obviously partisan Gabinius.

33: ‘restitimus semper lacessiti: nunc denique est perfectum ut imperi

nostri terrarumque illarum idem esset extremum.’

See Sect. 3.3.

‘nec haec idcirco omitto quod non grauissima sint, sed quia nunc sine

teste dico’.

Cicero did not, of course, prosecute Piso for extortion (and neither did

anyone else). Part of Piso’s attack on Cicero after he returned from Macedonia

was to ask why Cicero didn’t prosecute him: so one can deduce from the in

Pisonem (82, 94), where Cicero is reduced to saying that he hasn’t instituted a

prosecution because he doesn’t want to cause Caesar any worries.

‘si ad iucundissimos liberos, si ad clarissimum generum redire

properaret’. H. E. Butler and M. Cary, De prouinciis consularibus (Oxford:

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 186

completely his links with Piso. Where is the mention of

Caesar’s dear wife and distinguished father-in-law? One would

never guess, from the prou. cons., that Caesar was married to

Piso’s daughter.

This silence enables Cicero to maintain an unblemished

surface of praise for Caesar: there is nothing in the speech that

Caesar, or Pompeius, could ﬁnd fault with. However, it is

tempting to see Cicero’s silence also as part of a wider pro-

gramme of giving Caesar advice on his political behaviour

which is drawn from Cicero’s habits and behaviour. A recur-

rent theme in the speech is Cicero’s own relationship with

Caesar. Cicero has apparently been criticized for attacking

Gabinius and not Caesar, when he has just as strong grounds

for complaint against the latter as the former (18): ‘an excellent

man says that I should not be more hostile towards Gabinius

than towards Caesar: that the whole of that storm to which

I gave way was stirred up at Caesar’s instigation and with his

help’.

In 18–28 he admits that he has in the past been at odds

with Caesar (25), but has now been reconciled with him, as his

recent actions show. He justiﬁes his change of attitude by citing

a large number of instances from the past century at Rome

where notorious enemies have allowed themselves to abandon

their enmities when this has been in the interests of the state

(18–22). It is Cicero’s patriotism which has led to the recon-

ciliation (23), and he sums up with the words, ‘I am not able not

to be a friend of anyone who has deserved well of the state.’

Cicero, then, is someone who moderates his personal

Portrait of the orator as a great man 187

Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), 68, suggest that the plural liberos is a ‘rhetorical

exaggeration’, Caesar having only one child. But there seems to be no singular

form of liberi in use at this period, and the plural is used regardless of numbers

of children. See Gellius, NA 2. 13; J. D. Denniston, Orationes Philippicae

prima et secunda (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1926), 65–6.

In 7, Cicero does refer to Piso’s actions as having been committed in

breach of the law of his son-in-law (contra legem generi tui), but does not

include Caesar’s name and thus preserves the illusion that there are no links

between the two. The use of gener alerts his audience to the fact of this silence,

as well as showing that Piso’s illegalities are particulary heinous because they

breach family connections as well.

‘negat me uir optimus inimiciorem Gabinio debere esse quam Caesari:

omnem illam tempestatem cui cesserim Caesare impulsore atque adiutore esse

excitatam’.

24: ‘nemini ego possum esse bene merenti de re publica non amicus.’

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 187

relationships in accordance with the good of the state. Is this

true also of Caesar? It seems not. He is married to the daughter

of a man who is causing havoc to Rome’s empire. His own

advantage in securing a consular supporter has led to disaster,

by putting Piso in a position of authority.

In a metaphorical

sense, Cicero is setting up a choice for Caesar: does he follow

Cicero’s salutary example and put country above family and

friendship, a path indicated by Cicero’s silence over his links

with Piso, or does he persist in his connection with this

dangerous monster? I do not mean to imply that there is a real

choice here or that Caesar would be moved to act once he

received his presentation copy of the speech. The point is to

show Pompeius, Caesar, and indeed the whole of Rome, that

Cicero is still a brilliantly clever orator who can pose embar-

rassing questions and assert his own independence even while

being forced to comply with distasteful orders.

Cicero’s concern with his own position in this speech makes

it much less eﬀective as an argument in favour of retaining

Caesar in the Gauls and designating Syria and Macedonia as

consular. His decision to support Caesar and the ﬁrst trium-

virate was itself a U-turn, and as such the result of Cicero’s

calculations about his own position, rather than a decision as to

what might in general terms be advantageous to the state; and

the abuse of Piso and Gabinius would already be familiar to the

Senate. A reasonable response from anyone listening to the

debate would be to think that Cicero would make this kind of

argument: as a result Cicero’s eﬀectiveness as an advocate of a

particular line of action would be undermined. In eﬀect, Cicero

has subordinated the task placed on him by Pompey and Caesar

to his continuing campaign of post-exile recovery, very much

to the former’s disadvantage. He was giving his apparent

superiors an elegant and skilful lesson in the problems of hired

eloquence.

188 Portrait of the orator as a great man

Some listeners and readers may have recalled Caesar’s earlier opportu-

nistic marriage history with his divorce of Pompeia in the aftermath of the

Bona Dea scandal.

On the strength of Cicero’s political position in the spring of 56, see D. L.

Stockton, ‘Cicero and the Ager Campanus’, TAPhA 93 (1962), 471–89, esp.

487–8; though I would not agree entirely with his statement (488) that ‘[t]he

dynasts were very anxious to have him [sc. Cicero] defend men like Gabinius

or deliver speeches like the De provinciis consularibus’.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 188

It is of course in no way surprising that we can relate

Cicero’s speeches and his own career: since he was a politician,

and the speeches I have been considering political, that is a

truism. More interesting is the scale of Cicero’s dependence on

oratory and the consequent limits on the advice he, as an orator,

can oﬀer. We are so used to the image of Cicero as the pre-

eminent orator of the Roman world, if not antiquity, whose

phenomenal skill enabled him to pull oﬀ miracles of eloquence,

that it is startling to realize that in some respects Cicero is a

slave to his skill. One might want to argue that he relied too

heavily on oratory to take risks with it, and that, as a result,

there were strict limits on the issues he discusses. In the de imp.

he is trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible in the

run-up to his attempt on the consulship; in the prou. cons. he

is concerned to assert his authority in an extremely diﬃcult

personal situation. In both cases, the demands of his own

persona forced him away from uncomfortable issues and

towards the simpler demands of personalities.

Portrait of the orator as a great man 189

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Imperial contexts

C’ speeches on imperial matters have, despite their

range and ﬂexibility, two unifying features. One is that they

are adapted, where possible or necessary, to the demands of

Cicero’s own activities as a politician; and the second is that

they share a model of Rome’s relationship to the areas under its

control. In his speeches, Cicero sees Roman imperialism in

terms of individual magistrates: what is at issue is what speciﬁc

men have done or will do, and when things go wrong they go

wrong because of individual misbehaviour and immorality.

As an analysis of the Roman empire during the Republic,

this is not as absurd as at ﬁrst sight might appear, because it

does ﬁt in with the peculiarities of imperial government.

Roman provincial administration did involve an astonishingly

small number of people, whose relationship to the governor

was central to their employment, whether through direct

patronage, as was the case for his cohors, or because custom

decreed that there should be a close relationship, as in the case

of the quaestor.

These links were reinforced by the informal

but none the less considerable inﬂuence a governor could wield

over his staﬀ’s ﬁnancial opportunities in the province and

subsequent careers.

Nor was a governor constrained by any

general rules coming from the centre or by the conduct of his

predecessor. A prouincia, was, in its original sense, a magis-

trate’s sphere of operations, and the only check on his freedom

C. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge:

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), argues that a moralizing view of politics was

a feature of Roman culture more generally (4): ‘It was the weakness or perver-

sity of individuals, their lack of self-control . . . which caused undesirable

events. Problems can be solved only if individuals embraced virtue.’

See in general J. S. Richardson, ‘The Administration of the Empire’,

CAH 9, 2nd edn. (1994), 564–98.

As Catullus found to his rage: see poems 10 and 28, and cf. the intriguing

interpretation in Braund, ‘The Politics of Catullus’.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 190

of action within his province was the possibility of punishment

on his return to Rome.

The Roman governor was, in his

province, a ﬁgure of virtually unlimited power, standing out

from a very small oﬃcial community: as a result, the character

and behaviour of individual governors were the most important

factors in determining how a province was governed during his

period in oﬃce; and personal relations between provincials and

governors did matter. Moreover, the repetundae speeches are all

forensic speeches, and so it is unsurprising that they focus on

personal behaviour.

None the less, the limitations of Cicero’s analysis are pro-

found, as becomes apparent if his oratorical view of empire is

considered in relation to any attempt to explain the collapse of

republican government. It is generally agreed that the posses-

sion of an empire was an essential factor in this transformation:

competition for its resources fatally destabilized the ruling oli-

garchy and concentrated uncontrollable power in the hands

of a few super-oligarchs, while the reluctance of the elite to

distribute wealth more widely also created the discontented

manpower which made up the armies of the civil wars. The

repetundae speeches and those concerning provincial commands

deal with crucial aspects of the imperial problem: on the one

hand, exploitation of the provinces in order to guarantee elec-

toral success, and on the other, the emergence of warlords as a

result of special commands designed to deal with imperial

emergencies. But, as I have shown, Cicero does not deal with

the broader context in these speeches.

The remainder of this study is an attempt to explain why

Cicero’s imperial analysis in the speeches is so unsatisfactory

and unilluminating. I shall suggest that it is much more helpful

to see the problem in terms of the functions of oratory rather

than the limitations of Cicero’s intellect: there are things which

it is not useful to say. But before turning to the limits of

Cicero’s oratory, it may be valuable to set the speeches against

contemporary analyses of Rome and its empire. Cicero’s politi-

cal philosophy and letters are one important source; so too are

Imperial contexts 191

Richardson, ‘Administration of Empire’, 575. In Polybius’ analysis, the

consuls’ powers made them the regal element in the mixed constitution

(6.12.5–9): see F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 1

(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1957), 675–8.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 191

the actions of other major political ﬁgures at the time. This

chapter is not intended as a comprehensive treatment of

imperialism in the late Republic, and I consider as alternatives

only Cato the Younger, Caesar, and Pompeius; but even a brief

and selective survey will indicate the extent to which the proper

running of empire was a contentious issue during the last

twenty years of the Republic, and give an indication of the

intellectual context within which Cicero was operating when he

spoke on imperial issues.

5.1. CICERO ON EMPIRE: DE OFFICIIS

AND THE LETTERS FROM CILICIA

The point of turning to the treatises and letters is not to pull

the rabbit of sincerity out of the hat and to correct Cicero’s

unreliable rhetoric with his real beliefs. These works, just as

much as the speeches, were written with speciﬁc audiences in

mind, and the treatises, at least, were designed to be dissemi-

nated openly.

Neither genre gives us access to Cicero’s unself-

conscious musings. Their value lies in the contingent fact that

for this inquiry they contain discussions of imperial matters

which complement the speeches by indicating the extent of

Cicero’s knowledge and assessment of the problems of the day.

Cicero’s most extended survey of Roman imperialism, in

the de oﬃciis, was written in 44, when it was becoming clear

that republican government had not been revived by the

assassination of Caesar. One of Cicero’s concerns in this work

is to address the transformation in republican ideology and

behaviour which had made the pursuit of glory so dangerously

destabilizing to the political system.

The possession of empire

is presented as one of the factors which provoked the un-

restrained pursuit of glory; and despite the change in political

circumstances, the de oﬃciis is essential background for the

speeches I am looking at: Cicero naturally used his imperial

192 Imperial contexts

See G. O. Hutchinson, Cicero’s Correspondence: A Literary Study

(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), and the observations of Rose, ‘Rhetoric

of Imperialism’, 372–3.

A. A. Long, ‘Cicero’s Politics in De oﬃciis’, in A. Laks and M. Schoﬁeld

(eds.), Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Theory

(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), 213–40.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 192

experiences under the Republic to analyse the role of empire in

the recent political disasters.

The key passage comes from book 2, during the course of a

discussion on how one can encourage others to do what is

advantageous to us.

He considers various tyrants and then

turns reluctantly to the case of Rome. He divides the history of

Rome’s empire into two stages. The ﬁrst was when Rome held

its empire through the services it rendered, rather than through

the harm it did, and its magistrates acted in the best interests of

the provinces and the allies (2. 26). As a result, ‘that govern-

ment could more accurately be called a protectorate of the

world rather than an empire’.

However, these habits have been

lost; they had begun to deteriorate even before Sulla, and the

cruelty and greed which marked the actions of Sulla and his

followers at Rome removed what barriers there might have

been to this sort of behaviour in the provinces. Cicero links the

proscriptions in Rome to the outbreak of civil war: ‘when such

rewards are on oﬀer, it should be easy to understand that civil

war will always occur’.

He then brings the argument back to

his starting point: ‘we have fallen into this disaster (for I need

to return to the point) by preferring to be feared than held in

aﬀectionate regard’.

Dyck is surely right to state the importance of these remarks

within Cicero’s works.

But whereas he emphasizes the quality

of their theoretical analysis, I would want to stress how this

passage combines theoretical insight with an interest in

personal behaviour which recalls the speeches.

Cicero’s ideal

of government, the model that existed but has now been lost, is

Imperial contexts 193

de oﬀ. 2. 20: ‘hoc igitur cognito dicendum est quonam modo hominum

studia ad utilitates nostras adlicere atque excitare possimus.’

2. 27: ‘illud patrocinium orbis terrae uerius quam imperium poterat

nominari’.

2. 29: ‘ex quo debet intellegi talibus praemiis propositis numquam

defutura bella ciuilia’.

2. 29: ‘atque in has clades incidimus (redeundum est enim ad

propositum) dum metui quam cari esse et diligi malumus’.

A. R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De Oﬃciis (Ann Arbor: Univ. of

Michigan Press, 1996), 400: ‘The observations Cicero here oﬀers are the most

thoughtful reﬂections on imperialism that have come down to us from a

Roman pen; though written hastily rather than systematically, they challenge

comparison with Thucydides’ analysis of Athenian imperialism . . .’.

Cf. Perelli, Il pensiero politico di Cicerone, 168.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 193

patrocinium, which originally describes the relationship between

a patron and a client. And the concept that it is contrasted with,

imperium, is also, in its primary sense, something which an

individual possesses, that is the right, given by the people to a

magistrate whom it has elected, to be obeyed. The chief motor

for change has been greed: that is, the aspirations of individuals

have been the decisive factor. Cicero sums this up epigram-

matically: ‘only a few men have inherited Caesar’s possessions,

but to his desires many wicked men are heir’.

The moralizing

thrust of his argument also accounts for the strained logic of

this passage, inasmuch as ﬂeecing the provincials, although an

excellent example of personal depravity, could not be said to

have led directly to the fall of the Republic.

As I discussed above, there are good reasons for Cicero’s

inclination to concentrate on personal behaviour when using

the empire in historical explanation. When Cicero describes

earlier provincial government as a patrocinium orbis terrae he is

barely being metaphorical, since individual Romans had set

themselves up as patrons of provincial communities from the

beginning of Rome’s overseas expansion.

His stress on indi-

vidual behaviour in the de oﬃciis, and in the speeches on

empire, on one level merely represents the reality of republican

provincial administration: the political was the personal. What

Cicero is doing here in On duties is to transfer to the state the

relationship which really did exist between individuals and

provincial communities.

None the less, even if personalities were of particular impor-

tance in the Roman system, to concentrate on them to the

exclusion of other factors is to accept the inevitability of the

situation. The achievement of de oﬃciis is to establish a link

between the actions of individuals and the problems of empire

in a way that explains why personal behaviour had such poten-

tially devastating eﬀects on the state. We may wish to challenge

the moralizing thrust of his argument; but the key point here is

that he oﬀers an analysis of the role of the empire in leading to

Caesar’s dictatorship which ranges more widely than the faults

of individuals.

194 Imperial contexts

28: ‘a quo [sc. Caesare] quidem rei familiaris ad paucos, cupiditatum ad

multos improbos uenit hereditas’.

See Gruen, Coming of Rome, 162–72; Badian, Foreign Clientelae.

01_Steel chapters 19/12/2001 11:43 am Page 194

Cicero’s long letter to Quintus concerning his behaviour as

governor of Asia provides an interesting comparison with the

de oﬃciis (ad Q. fr. 1. 1). It is a highly self-conscious piece

of writing, which refers to Plato’s Republic and invites com-

parison between itself and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia.

It is also

extremely artiﬁcial, since it is diﬃcult to believe that Quintus,

during his third year as governor, would gain much from the

platitudes of one comparatively inexperienced in provincial

aﬀairs.

A much more plausible reason for writing is Cicero’s

desire to protect himself from any adverse consequences of

Quintus’ governorship. It is clear that Quintus’ political

successes depended heavily on his older brother’s achieve-

ments,

and as a result, any failure on his part would reﬂect

back very strongly on Cicero himself. If Quintus were to face a

prosecution and conviction on repetundae charges on his return,

the damage to Cicero would be considerable, particularly given

his rise to prominence as the prosecutor of Verres. By having a

letter of sage advice to the errant Quintus disseminated, Cicero

could at least argue that he had not connived in his brother’s

faults, and had tried to remedy them.

It is reasonable, then, to

expect this letter to contain Cicero’s considered reﬂections on

provincial government, or rather, what he felt it appropriate

that his considered responses should be for a wider audience.

Cicero gives a lucid statement of a governor’s duty: ‘To me,

at least, it seems that those who are in positions of authority

over others should direct their actions according to this

principle, namely, that those who will be in their power should

be as happy as possible’.

And he acknowledges the main

Imperial contexts 195

Plato: 29; Cyropaedia: 22–3.

Cicero acknowledges this potential criticism of his letter at 18. 5–7: ‘what

shall I be able to teach someone whom I know to be no inferior of mine in

good sense, particularly in this area, and who is much more experienced?’ Cf.

D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum

(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980), 147.

Wiseman, ‘The Ambitions of Quintus Cicero’.

This is most obvious in Cicero’s discussion of Quintus’ proneness to

anger (37–9); and his remarks on the need for caution in entrusting business to

slaves (17) can also be read as a veiled warning in the light of Quintus’

deplorable intimacy with his slave (and later freedman) Statius (on whom

see D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, vol. 1 (Cambridge:

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1965), 388).

24.11–13: ‘ac mihi quidem uidentur huc omnia esse referenda iis qui

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