Showing papers in "Classical World in 1979"

The politics of friendship : Pompey and Cicero

Abstract: This is a volume in a series called 'Sources in Ancient History' designed to provide translations of substantial bodies of source material with accompanying discussion. In fact it is also much more. The discussion is a clear and closely argued analysis of the relationship between Pompey and Cicero, and is a valuable historical contribution in its own right. With a careful investigation of all the references to Pompey in Cicero's writing (handily tabulated in one of several useful appendixes), as well as the other documentary evidence, Rawson argues that the personal friendship between the two was never very close and that the spasmodic political cooperation, which began as late as 62, was only the result of temporary expediency. She argues that in the Pro lege Manilla (forty-eight sections of which are among the twenty-nine passages translated in extenso) Cicero was simply angling for the support of the Pompeians, and that in the speeches on the Rullan Land Bill he merely dragged in Pompey's name to suit his own purposes, without any knowledge of or even much interest in Pompey's actual desires. Certainly Cicero's attitude to Pompey in his letters is ambivalent and frequently coloured by emotion, and Rawson, who is more alert than many historians to nuances of tone both here and in the speeches, fails to detect any signs of genuine affection. Perhaps the most striking negative evidence is the absence of any correspondence from Pompey during Cicero's exile, and the way in which Cicero seemed to be largely unmoved by Pompey's death. It is also significant that such amicitia as there was did not survive to the next generation. Perhaps another notable absence from the letters, that of any references to Pompey's third triumph or to the building of his theatre, can help to explain the lack of personal rapport between the two men. Much of Pompey's outward show was repugnant to Cicero. As an example of its genre it is unfortunate that one of the best documented of the amicitiae of the Late Republic was also one of the least productive and in many ways quite atypical. Rawson is also rather less convincing on Pompey's own attitude towards Cicero and the uses to which he wanted to put their association, especially in the run-up to Luca, but both as an examination of a political institution in use and as an aid to the teaching of Roman History this book is to be welcomed and recommended.