Ocean

In Cicero's prosecution of Verres, the corrupt former governor of Sicily, he imagines that Verres' lawyers will try to argue that he should be spared because of his great service to the Republic in keeping Sicily free from rebel slaves. It's a tactic that worked in the case of Manius Aquilius, but to Cicero the idea of Verres as a heroic general is laughable and he thoroughly demolishes any claim he may have to be so (perhaps a little disingenuously). Part of his argument is that the rebel slaves (led by Spartacus) running around Italy at the time didn't have boats (something which Marcus Crassus had taken care to ensure), and so there was no danger at all of war crossing from Italy to Sicily.

Quid dicis? an bello fugitivorum Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? ... "At cum esset in Italia bellum tam prope a Sicilia, tamen in Sicilia non fuit." Quid mirum? ... Aditus omnis hominibus sine ulla facultate navium non modo disiunctus sed etiam clausus est, ut illis quibus Siciliam propinquam fuisse dicis facilius fuerit ad Oceanum pervenire quam ad Peloridem accedere.

What are you saying? Perhaps that Sicily was kept safe by your courage? "Even though there was war in Italy, so short a distance from Sicily, yet it did not cross in Sicily." What's so amazing about that? Every approach to Sicily is not only cut off, but even completely closed to those without access to boats, so that it would have been easier for those whom you say were close to Sicily, to reach Ocean than to approach Pelorus.

Spartacus, Crassus and Pompey

Num igitur ex eo bello partem aliquam laudis appetere conaris? num tibi illius victoriae gloriam cum M. Crasso aut Cn. Pompeio communicatam putas?

Surely you're not trying to seek some part of the praise from that war with Spartacus? Surely you don't think that you should share in the glory of that victory, along with Crassus and Pompey?

(Cicero, In Verrem V.5)

Who were these guys?

In Verrem V Word Cloud

Here's another word cloud, based on the prescribed lines from In Verrem V:

mater Euryali et rex Antiochus

Here's a surprising statistic. Latin (with 185 candidates) is the ninth most popular foreign language at the HSC this year. Ninth most popular is not a lot to boast about, but here is a list of courses with fewer candidates than Latin Continuers this year*:

• Vietnamese Continuers (166 candidates)
• Chinese Continuers (131 candidates)
• Modern Greek Continuers (116 candidates)
• Indonesian Continuers (77 candidates)
• Turkish Continuers (56 candidates)

Armenian, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hindi, Hungarian, Macedonian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil and Ukrainian all had fewer than 50 candidates.

For the record Classical Greek and Classical Hebrew had 11 and 37 candidates respectively. Ancient History was the seventh most popular HSC course over all, with 12 127 candidates. You can find the full list here.

*These figures do not include Background Speakers or Beginners courses, which are in some cases(especially for Chinese) substantial.

Anyway, those 185 Latin Continuers students sat their HSC exam yesterday, and the 11 I spoke to afterwards seemed pretty happy with it. No real surprises, but enough interesting questions to allow them to shine. Here's my translation of the unseen passages, in case anyone is interested:

O Clementiam

O clementiam populi Romani seu potius patientiam miram ac singularem! Civem Romanum securi esse percussum M. Annius, eques Romanus, dicit, taces: archipiratam negat, fateris. Fit gemitus omnium et clamor, cum tamen a praesenti supplicio tuo continuit populus Romanus se et repressit et salutis suae rationem iudicum severitati reservavit. Quid? sciebas tibi crimini datum iri? quam ob rem sciebas, quam ob rem etiam suspicabare? Inimicum habebas neminem; si haberes, tamen non ita vixeras ut metum iudici propositum habere deberes.

(In Verrem V.74)

Explain the irony present in the final sentence of this extract (Inimicum habebas… habere deberes).

Carol Manners Essays

Each year the CLTA holds an essay competition "for Year 12 students of Latin and Greek who may write an essay from a range of topics related to the HSC and IB Latin and Greek prescribed texts."

The winning essays for 2009 have been published online:

• Vice and Virtue in Cicero’s In Verrem V
• Cicero’s Rhetorical Method in In Verrem V
• Two major differences between the lyric verse of Horace and Catullus

The standard is of course exceptional, and all three essays are well-worth reading. Here is part of the introduction to the second essay, as a brief taste:

Cicero’s rhetorical method in Verrine V fulfils various functions, diverting from structured reasoning (probare), and becoming a “self expression of the orator”. It influences emotionally (flectere), entertains (delectare), and makes Verres a “human object of contempt”. The need to persuade a jury and audience had already been ccomplished in the Actio Prima, where the weight of evidence incriminated Verres. Considering the Actio Secunda was published but never delivered in court, the focus will be particularly on dispositio (arrangement of material), elocutio (style and power of words) and the context of the Verrines in Cicero’s career.

quo bello?

Trial Examination, Question 3 (a)

Quid dicis? an bello fugitivorum Siciliam virtute tua liberatam? Magna laus et honesta oratio; sed tamen quo bello? Nos enim, post illud bellum quod M'. Aquilius confecit, sic accepimus, nullum in Sicilia fugitivorum bellum fuisse. 'At in Italia fuit.' Fateor, et magnum quidem ac vehemens. Num igitur ex eo bello partem aliquam laudis appetere conaris? num tibi illius victoriae gloriam cum M. Crasso aut Cn. Pompeio communicatam putas? Non arbitror hoc etiam tuae deesse impudentiae, ut quicquam eius modi dicere audeas. Obstitisti videlicet ne ex Italia transire in Siciliam fugitivorum copiae possent. Ubi, quando, qua ex parte? cum aut ratibus aut navibus conarentur accedere? Nos enim nihil umquam prorsus audivimus, sed illud audivimus, M. Crassi, fortissimi viri, virtute consilioque factum ne ratibus coniunctis freto fugitivi ad Messanam transire possent, a quo illi conatu non tanto opere prohibendi fuissent, si ulla in Sicilia praesidia ad illorum adventum opposita putarentur.


Why is it important for Cicero to discredit Verres’ military career?

Myoparones

Translating Cicero’s In Verrem V with my year 12 class recently, we came across an unusual Latin word. Verres had been accused (among many other things) of accepting a bribe to release a pirate, and keeping the plunder for himself and his cronies, and Cicero, in summing up his behaviour, writes:

Haec igitur est gesta res, haec victoria praeclara: myoparone piratico capto dux liberatus, symphoniaci Romam missi, formosi homines et adulescentes et artifices domum abducti, in eorum locum et ad eorum numerum cives Romani hostilem in modum cruciati et necati...

And so this is what he accomplished, this outstanding victory: having captured a pirate myoparo, the leader was set free, the musicians who had been on board were sent to Rome, as for the pirates’ captives, the good-looking ones, the young ones those with any kind of skill were taken away to his home, and in place of the pirates whom he had set free, and to make up their number, Roman citizens were tortured and killed as if they were enemies…

The unusual word here is myoparo, in the first line; it seems to refer to some kind of pirate ship, but what kind of ship exactly? Levens has this to say:

myoparone: this word, which is used later in the speech (§§89, 97, 100), to describe other pirate ships, was a grammarians’ puzzle until the discovery in Tunisia [i.e. the Ancient city of Carthage] of a mosaic depicting various types of a ship with their names attached… There a myoparo is shown between a vessel called mydion or musculus (Gr. and Lat. diminutives of mus, which in both languages, means a rat or mouse) and another called paro, so we suppose it to be a portmanteau word denoting a ship combining the characteristics of these two types. The first half of the compound suggests that the myoparo was small (cf. §§89; 97) and fast-moving (in the mosaic it has both mast and oars), as pirate ships would need to be…

R. G. C. Levens, Cicero; The Fifth Verrine Oration

I tried to locate a picture of the mosaic referred to by Levens, but the best I could find was at this site. Here are two other discussions of what kind of ship this actually was:

As a rule we do not find that the pirates made use of any particular rig or build. Probably, in most cases the would-be pirate was content with the first boat that came to hand by theft or purchase… The two vessels which in Hellenistic and Roman times are most closely associated with the pirates, the hemiolia and the myoparo, were [also] widely used by others… The myoparo, according to Mr Torr was broader than the regular warship in proportion to its length, and, we may assume, more suitable for stowing loot. Both vessels were sea-going ships, the myoparo, at any rate, possessing a mast and sails, as well as oars.

H. A. Ormerod, Piracy in the Ancient World

[Myoparones] were fighting ships of no great size. They were in use throughout the Mediterranean in the First Century B.C. for warfare and for piracy. Apparently they were broader than the regular war-ships in proportion to their length, and therefore better able to keep the sea. [The evidence of Appian and Plutarch] would naturally define the myoparones as vessels of a hybrid species between the long ships and the round ships… vessels termed parones and parunculi are mentioned in verses that are ascribed to Cicero…. The myoparones therefore bore a compound name: and a compound name would naturally be given to a ship of an intermediate type.

C. Torr, Ancient Ships

40 000 000 sestertii

In the first part of Cicero’s In Verrem, he makes the following accusation against Verres, accusing him of stealing 40 000 000 sestertii during his time as governor of Sicily:

Dicimus C. Verrem, cum multa libidinose, multa crudeliter, in civis Romanos atque in socios, multa in deos hominesque nefarie fecerit tum praeterea quadrigentiens sestertium ex Sicilia contra leges abstulisse.

We say that Gaius Verres not only did many wanton things, many cruel things against Roman citizens and against their allies, as well as many criminal things against the gods and humankind, but that in addition he also stole from Sicily, against all laws, forty million sestertii.

(Cicero, In Verrem Actio Prima, 56)

That’s obviously a lot of money, but how much exactly? It’s always a bit tricky to try and convert Roman money into current figures- partly because the value of the currency changed over time (due to inflation etc) and partly because things in Roman times had different relative values from those of today. Here are a couple of comparisons though that might help you to get your head around the value of 40 000 000 sestertii.

Marcus Licinius Crassus lived about the same time as Cicero, and was one of the wealthiest Romans. Pliny tells us fortune was worth 200 000 000 sestertii, made through proscriptions, slave-trading, mining and property speculation. The amount embezzled by Verres, then, was approximately 20% of the fortune of the richest man of his time; the richest man alive at the moment is (apparently) Warren Buffet, worth about $US 70 billion. Twenty percent of that figure comes to $US 14 billion.

Cicero himself bought a house from Crassus for 3 500 000 sestertii. This house was located on the Palatine Hill, in a fashionable area of Rome where lots of other important and wealthy people lived (including the family of Catullus’ Lesbia), and Cicero himself described the house as ‘large and noble’. A similar house today might be found in Mosman, where the median house price for the six months to November 2008 was $1 785 000. 40 000 000 sestertii would get you approximately eleven of these houses, which comes to about $20 million.

A loaf of bread, in ancient Rome would set you back about 2 asses. There were 4 asses in a sestertius, so for 40 000 000 sestertii you could buy eighty million loaves of bread. These days a loaf of bread costs about $3.79 (the kind I usually buy, anyway) from the supermarket, making 40 000 000 sestertii worth about $150 million (you could probably get a discount for buying in bulk)

In Cicero’s time a soldier in the army would have earned 900 sestertii a year, taking about 45 000 years to earn 40 000 000 sestertii. A soldier in the Australian army these days earns about $31 719 a year, which makes 40 000 000 sestertii work out at about $1.4 billion.

Marcus Antonius and Manius Aquilius

At the beginning of Cicero's fifth Verrine oration, he mentions the case of Manius Aquilius, like Verres a former governor of Sicily, who was charged with (and apparently guilty of) corruption during his time in office. Cicero suspects that Verres' lawyer will try to use the same tactics used by Aquilius' lawyer (Marcus Antonius, the grandfather of the famous Mark Antony) to secure his acquittal. This is how he describes the scene:



causa prope perorata ipse arripuit M'. Aquilium constituitque in conspectu omnium tunicamque eius a pectore abscidit, ut cicatrices populus Romanus iudicesque aspicerent adverso corpore exceptas; simul et de illo vulnere quod ille in capite ab hostium duce acceperat multa dixit, eoque adduxit eos qui erant iudicaturi vehementer ut vererentur ne, quem virum fortuna ex hostium telis eripuisset, cum sibi ipse non pepercisset, hic non ad populi Romani laudem sed ad iudicum crudelitatem videretur esse servatus.



With the case almost concluded himself grabbed hold of Manius Aquilius and stood him up in the sight of everyone and tore the tunic from his breast, so that the Roman people and the judges could see the scars received on the front of his body; at the same time he said many things about that wound which he had received on his head from the leader of the enemies, and in this way persuaded those who were meant to judge the case to fear very much that the man whom fortune had snatched from the weapons of the enemies, when he had not spared his very person, that this man would seem to have been preserved not for the praise of the Roman people, but for the cruelty of the judges.

(Cicero, In Verrem V.3)

It's a dramatic, sensationalistic approach and Cicero here seems to regard it with cynicism- it was just a convenient trick to get Aquilius acquitted of his obvious guilt (something that Cicero himself would never stoop to doing, of course). But elsewhere Cicero describes the same event with more sympathy. In his De Oratore, he writes from the point of view of Antonius, giving him a chance to explain his actions:

Saepe enim audivi poetam bonum neminem sine inflammatione animorum exsistere posse et sine quodam adflatu quasi furoris. Qua re nolite existimare me ipsum, cum mihi M'. Aquilius in civitate retinendus esset, quae in illa causa peroranda fecerim, sine magno dolore fecisse. quem enim ego consulem fuisse, imperatorem ornatum a senatu, ovantem in Capitolium ascendisse meminissem, hunc cum adflictum, debilitatum, maerentem, in summum discrimen adductum viderem, non prius sum conatus misericordiam aliis commovere quam misericordia sum ipse captus, cum excitavi maestum ac sordidatum senem et cum ista feci, quae tu, Crasse, laudas, non arte, sed motu magno animi ac dolore, ut discinderem tunicam, ut cicatrices ostenderem.

For I have often heard that no man can be a good poet without a burning heart or without some kind of insane inspiration. And so do not suppose that I myself, when I had to defend Manius Aquilius against the State, did the things I did in closing that case, without great emotion. For I remembered that he had been consul, a general decorated by the Senate, that he had climbed the Capitol in triumph, when I saw him him humbled, crippled, sorrowing, his fortunes completely reversed, I was myself overcome by compassion before I tried to excite that same compassion in others, when I called forth that unhappy old man, filthy as he was, and when I did those things which you praise, Crassus, not as a trick, but affected by great pain in my heart- that is I tore open his tunic and exposed his scars.

(Cicero, De Oratore 194-5)

Cicero in Sicily

Preparing to teach Cicero's In Verrem V for next year, I came across a passage where Cicero reflects upon the time he spent in Sicily as a quaestor. Cicero is deservedly known for his arrogance and high opinion of himself, but in this passage we get to glimpse a rare side of his character; a less serious, and more self deprecatory side.

non vereor ne mihi aliquid, iudices, videar adrogare, si de quaestura mea dixero... vere me hercule hoc dicam: sic tum existimabam, nihil homines aliud Romae nisi de quaestura mea loqui. frumenti in summa caritate maximum numerum miseram; negotiatoribus comis, mercatoribus iustus, mancipibus liberalis, sociis abstinens, omnibus eram visus in omni officio diligentissimus; excogitati quidam erant a Siculis honores in me inauditi. itaque hac spe decedebam ut mihi populum Romanum ultro omnia delaturum putarem.

I’m not of afraid of appearing to boast, gentlemen, if I speak about my quaestorship… Indeed, by Hercules, I will say this; at that time I imagined that people at Rome were talking about nothing else, apart from my quaestorship. I had sent a huge amount of grain when prices were high; I was friendly with the businessmen, fair to the merchants, generous to the contractors, honest with the allies, I appeared to be most diligent in every job for everyone; certain unheard of honours were devised for me by the Sicilians. And so I left Sicily with such hope that I thought that the Roman people would confer upon me everything of their own accord.

Cicero starts true to form- he's not afraid tell people about all the things he achieved in Sicily, and his high opinion of himself is clear from the reception he expected when he arrived home in Rome. But things weren't quite as he imagined, as an encounter in Puteoli proved:

at ego cum casu diebus eis itineris faciendi causa decedens e provincia Puteolos forte venissem, cum plurimi et lautissimi in eis locis solent esse, concidi paene, iudices, cum ex me quidam quaesisset quo die Roma exissem et num quidnam esset novi. cui cum respondissem me e provincia decedere: 'etiam me hercule,' inquit, 'ut opinor, ex Africa.' huic ego iam stomachans fastidiose: 'immo ex Sicilia,' inquam. tum quidam, quasi qui omnia sciret: 'quid? tu nescis,' inquit, 'hunc quaestorem Syracusis fuisse?' quid multa? destiti stomachari et me unum ex eis feci qui ad aquas venissent.

But in those days when, as I was leaving the province, I happened by chance to come to Puteoli for the sake of making a journey, when a lot of fashionable people were accustomed to be there, I almost died, gentlemen, when someone asked me on what day I had left Rome and whether there was any news. I replied to him that I had come from the provinces: ‘Of course, by Hercules!’ he said, ‘from Africa, if I remember rightly.’ Getting annoyed now, I said pedantically to him: ‘No, from Sicily.’ Then someone else, like some kind of know-it-all, said ‘What? Didn’t you know he’d been quaestor at Syracuse?’ What else could I do? I stopped getting annoyed, and pretended that I was one of those who’d come to enjoy the waters.

(Pro Plancio 64-5)

There were two quaestors assigned to the province of Sicily, one based at Syracuse, the other at Lilybaeum- Cicero had been at Lilybaeum. Despite what Cicero had imagined, people at Rome were oblivious to his achievements.

The word Cicero uses for 'getting annoyed' is a great one- stomachor. Obviously it's related to the word 'stomach' and reflects how Cicero felt physically as well as emotionally. I suppose we mean a similar thing when we say that we find something 'hard to stomach'.