which I have so as to elicit the true reading, if possible, by comparing the two.”[1] He asks another correspondent to supply him with a copy of the Verrines or any other works for a similar purpose.
Brunetto Latini (d. ca. 1294), the master of Dante, translated the Caesarianae into Italian. Dante himself appears to be acquainted only with the Laelius, Cato Maior, de Officiis, de Finibus, de Inventione and Paradoxa. Petrarch says that among his countrymen Cicero was a great name, but was studied by few. Petrarch himself sought for MSS. of Cicero with peculiar ardour. He found the speech pro Archia at Liége in 1333, and in 1345 at Verona made his famous discovery of the letters to Atticus, which revealed to the world Cicero as a man in place of the “god of eloquence” whom they had worshipped. Petrarch was under the impression in his old age that he had once possessed Cicero’s lost work de Gloria, but it is probable that he was misled by one of the numerous passages in the extant writings dealing with this subject.[2] The letters ad Familiares were discovered towards the close of the 14th century at Vercelli. The largest addition to the sum of Ciceronian writings was made by Poggio (Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini) in the course of his celebrated mission to the Council of Constance (1414–1417). He brought back no less than ten speeches of Cicero previously unknown to the Italians, viz. pro Sexto Roscio, pro Murena, pro Cacina, de lege agraria i.-iii., pro Rabirio perduellionis reo, pro Rabirio Postumo, pro Roscio Comoedo, and in Pisonem. An important discovery was made at Lodi in 1422 of a MS. which, in addition to complete copies of the de Oratore and Orator, hitherto known from mutilated MSS., contained an entirely new work, the Brutus. The second book of Cicero’s letters to Brutus was first printed by Cratander of Basel in 1528 from a MS. obtained for him by Sichardus from the abbey of Lorsch.[3]
All these MSS. are now lost, except that containing the Epistolae ad Familiares, a MS. written in the 9th century and now at Florence (Laur. xlix. 9). A similar fate overtook three other MSS. containing the letters to Atticus, independent of the Veronensis, viz. a mutilated MS. of Books i.-vii. discovered by Cardinal Capra in 1409, a Lorsch MS. used by Cratander (C), and a French MS. (Z), generally termed Tornaesianus from its owner, Jean de Tournes, a printer of Lyons, probably identical with No. 492 in the old Cluny catalogue, used by Turnebus, Lambinus and Bosius. A strange mystification was practised by the last named, a scholar of singular brilliancy, who claimed to have a mutilated MS. which he called his Decurtatus, bought from a common soldier who had obtained it from a sacked monastery; also to have been furnished by a friend, Pierre de Crouzeil, a doctor of Limoges, with variants taken from an old MS. found at Noyon, and entered in the margin of a copy of the Lyons edition. The rough draft of his notes, however, upon Books x.-xvi., which afterwards came into the hands of Baluze, is preserved in the Paris library (Lat. 8538 A), in which he continually ascribes different readings to these MSS., the alteration corresponding with a change in his own conjecture. It is, therefore, obvious that he invented the readings in order to strengthen his own corrections. The book, which he termed his Crusellinus, may well be his copy of the Lyons edition of 1545 (number 8665 in the sale-catalogue of Baluze), which is described as cum notis et emendationibus MSS. manu ejusdem Bosii.[4]
The oldest evidence now existing for any works of Cicero is to be found in palimpsests written in the 4th or 5th century. The most interesting of these, now in the Vatican (Lat. 5757), discovered by Angelo Mai in 1822, contains the treatise de Republica, only known from this source. Fragments of the lost speeches pro Tullio and pro Scauro were discovered in two Milan and Turin palimpsests. The Vatican also possesses an important palimpsest of the Verrines (Reg. 2077). A palimpsest containing fragments of various orations was recently destroyed by the fire at the Turin library. The works de Oratore and Orator are well represented by ancient MSS., the two best known being one at Avranches (Abrincensis 238) and a Harleian MS. (2736), both written in the 9th century. The Brutus is only known from 15th-century transcripts of the lost cod. Lodensis.
The oldest MS. of any speeches, or indeed of any work of Cicero’s, apart from the palimpsests, belongs to the Chapter-house of St Peter’s in Rome (H. 25). It contains the speeches in Pisonem, pro Fonteio, pro Flacco and the Philippics. The earlier part of the MS. was written in the 8th century. The Paris library has two 9th-century MSS., viz. 7774 A. containing in Verrem (Act. ii.), iv. and v., and 7794, containing the post reditum speeches, together with those pro Sestio, in Vatinium, de provinciis consularibus, pro Balbo, pro Caelio. The only other 9th-century MS. of the speeches is now in Lord Leicester’s library at Holkham, No. 387.[5] It originally belonged to Cluny, being No. 498 in the old catalogue. It contains in a mutilated form the speeches in Catilinam, pro Ligario, pro rege Deiotaro and in Verrem (Act. ii.) ii.
The speeches pro Sex. Roscio and pro Murena are only known from an ancient and illegible MS. discovered by Poggio at Cluny, No. 496 in the old catalogue, and now lost. The most faithful transcript was made in France (Paris, Lat. 14,749) before the MS. passed into Poggio’s hand by a writer who carefully reproduced the corruptions, sometimes in facsimile.[6] The speeches pro Roscio Comoedo, pro Rabirio perduellionis reo and pro Rabirio Postumo are only known from Italian copies of the transcript (now lost) made by Poggio from lost MSS. The de Officiis, Tusculan Disputations and Cato Maior are found in a number of 9th-century MSS. A collection, consisting of de Natura deorum, de Divinatione, Timaeus, de Fato, Paradoxa, Lucullus ( = Acad. Prior.) and de Legibus, is found in several MSS. of the same date. Only one MS. of the Laelius is as old as the 10th century.
The Academica Posteriora are said by editors to be found only in 15th-century MSS. A MS. in the Paris library (Lat. 6331) is, however, assigned by Chatelain to the 12th century.
For the letters ad Familiares our chief source of information is Laur. xlix. 9 (9th century), which contains all the sixteen books. There are independent MSS. written in France and Germany in the 11th and 12th centuries, containing i.-viii. and ix.-xvi. respectively. There is no extant MS. of the letters to Atticus older than the 14th century, apart from a few leaves from a 12th-century MS. discovered at or near Würzburg in the last century. Very great importance has been attached to a Florentine MS. (Laur. xlix. 18) M., which until recently was supposed to have been copied by Petrarch himself from the lost Veronensis. It is now known not to be in the hand of Petrarch, but it was still supposed to be the archetype of all Italian MSS., and possibly of all MSS., including the lost C and Z. It has, however, been shown by Lehmann that there is an independent group of Italian MSS., termed by him Σ, containing Books i.-vii. in a mutilated form, and probably connected with the MS. of Capra. These often agree with CZ against M, and the readings of CZΣ are generally superior.
Bibliography.—It is impossible to mention more than a few works as the literature is so vast. (1) Historical.—J. L. Strachan-Davidson, Life of Cicero (Heroes of the Nations); G. Boissier, Cicéron et ses amis; Suringar, Cicero de vita sua (Leiden, 1854); W. Warde Fowler, Social Life at Rome (1908); introductions to Tyrrell and Purser’s edition of the letters. (2) Palaeographical.—Facsimiles of the best-known MSS. are given by E. Chatelain in Paléographie des classiques latins, parts 2, 3 and 7. Information regarding various MSS. will be found in Halm, Zur Handschriftenkunde der ciceronischen Schriften (Munich, 1850); Deschamps, Essai bibliographique sur Cicéron (Paris, 1863) (an unscientific work); Lehmann, De Ciceronis ad Atticum epistulis recensendis (Berlin, 1892); Anecdota Oxoniensia, classical series, parts vii., ix., x. (3) Literary.—M. Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, i, 194-274 (München, 1890). (4) Linguistic.—Merguet, Lexicon to Oratorical and Philosophical Works; Le Breton, Études sur la langue et la grammaire de Cicéron (Paris, 1901); Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig, 1898); Th. Zielinski, Das Clauselgesetz in Ciceros Reden (Leipzig, 1904). Much information on points of Ciceronian idiom and language will be found in J. S. Reid’s Academica (London, 1885) and Landgraf’s Pro Sext. Roscio (Erlangen, 1884). (5) Legal.—A. H. J. Greenidge, The Legal Procedure of Cicero’s Time (Oxford, 1901). (6) Philosophical.—An excellent account of Cicero as a philosopher is given in the preface to Reid’s edition of the Academica. (7) Editions (critical) of the complete texts.—Baiter-Halm (1845–1861); C. F. W. Müller (1880–1896); Oxford Classical Texts. (A. C. C.)
2. Quintus Tullius Cicero, brother of the orator and brother-in-law of T. Pomponius Atticus, was born about 102 B.C. He was aedile in 67, praetor in 62, and for the three following years propraetor in Asia, where, though he seems to have abstained from personal aggrandizement, his profligacy and ill-temper gained him an evil notoriety. After his return to Rome, he heartily supported the attempt to secure his brother’s recall from exile, and was nearly murdered by gladiators in the pay of P. Clodius Pulcher. He distinguished himself as one of Julius Caesar’s legates in the Gallic campaigns, served in Britain, and afterwards under his brother in Cilicia. On the outbreak of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, Quintus, like Marcus, supported Pompey, but after Pharsalus he deserted and made peace with Caesar, largely owing to the intercession of Marcus. Both the brothers fell victims to the proscription which followed Caesar’s death, Quintus being put to death in 43, some time before Marcus. His marriage with Pomponia was very unhappy, and he was much under the influence of his slave Statius. Though trained on the same lines as Marcus he never spoke in public, and even said, “One orator in a family is enough, nay even in a city.” Though essentially a soldier, he took considerable interest in literature, wrote epic poems, tragedies and annals, and translated plays of Sophocles. There are extant
- ↑ Epist. 69 “Tullianas epistulas quas misisti cum nostris conferri faciam ut ex utrisque, si possit fieri, veritas exsculpatur.”
- ↑ Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’humanisme, pp. 216-223.
- ↑ Lehmann, De Ciceronis ad Atticum epp. recensendis, p. 128.
- ↑ Philologus, 1901, p. 216.
- ↑ Anecdota Oxoniensia, Classical Series, part ix. (W. Petersen).
- ↑ Anecdota Oxoniensia, Classical Series, part x. (A. C. Clark).
