The prosecution, seeking a precedent, has referred to the case in which Marcus Camurtius and Gaius Caesernius were unjustly condemned. Clodia was involved in this case also. The details are unknown. |
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| 14 | M. Caelius: emphasised by position. See the translation. |
| 16-17 | quod sit a lege seiunctum, cum uestra seueritate seiunctum: a relative clause of characteristic enlivened by antithesis. |
| 17 | prima aetas: Here is the beginning of Caelius's curriculum vitae, which Cicero proceeds to describe in great detail. The whole account is a whitewash par excellence. |
| 20-21 | quorum .... uellet: a relative clause of characteristic. |
| 20-22 | amicitiis, studiis: ablatives of quality.
natu: basically an ablative of respect. (MBA 274) |
| 25-1 | castissimo homini atque omnis offici diligentissimo: Cicero is at pains to show Caelius had an admirable role model.
offici: objective genitive, dependent on diligentissimus. |
| 1-2 | cum .... tum: used correlatively, "not only .... but also". |
| 2-3 | usus .... tributus: lit. "a-certain provincial experience assigned not without reason by (our) forebears to-this age". |
| 3 | non sine causa: litotes. |
| 5-6 | instituto .... exemplo: ablatives of accordance. |
| 8-9 | uellem. .... detulisset: parataxis. The note on 7.2-3 is wholly relevant. |
| 10 | conlegam meum: Cicero and Antonius were both consuls in 63BC. |
| 11 | Further to Austin, Antonius hardly distinguished himself at the battle of Pistoria either. Having supposedly been stricken by gout, he delegated the conduct of the battle to his lieutenant Marcus Petreius, who rose to the occasion superbly. (Sallust, Catilinae coniuratio 59) On the other hand, Cassius Dio claims Antonius simply feigned illness in order to avoid the approaches of his former crony Catiline should they meet. (Roman History 37.39.4) |
| 11-12 | benefici memoria .... profuit, nocuit opinio malefici: striking antithesis and double chiasmus.
Quintilian cites Caelius's account of Antonius's disgraceful behaviour prior to battle:
They discovered him lying stretched out in a drunken sleep, snoring with all the power in his lungs and belching repeatedly, while the leading lights among his female associates sprawled over every couch, and the rest of the harem lay about on all sides. But they realised the enemy were approaching and, half-dead with fright, tried to wake Antonius, called him by name and dragged his head up, but all to no effect. One whispered sweet nothings in his ear while another slapped him fairly forcefully. At length he recognised each one=s voice and touch and tried to embrace whichever one happened to be closest. Once he was awake, he could not sleep. He was, however, too drunk to remain conscious. Accordingly he was pushed this way and that, sometimes asleep, sometimes awake, in the hands of his centurions and his girlfriends. It is tempting to say Antonius deserved to have gout: "To think that a bottle of wine or a truffled pâté, or even a glass of beer, instead of being absorbed and eliminated by the system in the usual manner, should mine its way through the thighs, knees, calves, ankles and instep, to explode at last in a fiery volcano in one=s great toe, seems a mirth-provoking phenomenon to all but him who is immediately concerned." (George Herman Ellwanger, Meditations on Gout, "The Malady") See also OCD 116, s.v. "Antonius >Hybrida=, Gaius". Austin=s Appendix VII may be read for interest only. |
| 12-15 | postea .... gratia: lit. "Afterwards he-granted to-no-one of-(his)-peers ever that he-should-be- busy more in the-forum, more in court-cases, and-(in)-the-causes of-(his)-friends, (or) that he-should-prevail more in-popularity among his-own." |
| 13-15 | plus ut x 3, nisi x 3: epanaphora. |
| 15 | quae: The antecedent is omnia (16). |
| 17 | quasi may be omitted in translation: English is freer with metaphors than Latin. |
| 18 | fretus .... uestra: The jurors should have been hardened to this kind of flattery by now.
For fretus followed by the ablative, see MBA 285. |
| 19-20 | notitia, uicinitate, insolentia: ablatives of cause. |
| 20-22 | cum inclusae .... fuerunt: inclusae fuerunt is a present perfect, i.e. a primary tense. (MBA 177) It refers to a completed action from the standpoint of the present. Accordingly, Cicero here uses the indicative after cum, not the subjunctive. |
| 20-23 | W. S. Gilbert expressed a similar sentiment in The Mikado (1885): "But youth, of course, must have its fling, so pardon us." Compare Charles Kingsley:
When all the world is young, lad |
| 23 | Austin's note on the role of uel dicam is important.
universae: emphatic by position. |
| 25-26 | emersit, eiecit, extulit: three very colourful and powerful verbs. |
| 28 | deliciarum desidiaeque: The alliteration is reproduced in the translation. |
| 3 | uellem: unreal condition, past time, a si- clause being suppressed. |
| 4-5 | de x 3: epanaphora. |
| 8-9 | uirtutis maturitas .... fruges industriae: chiasmus. |
| 9 | ingenio: ablative of quality, qualifying adulescentes. |
| 10-11 | fuerunt: gnomic perfect. |
| 12-16 | si x 6: epanaphora. |
| 13 | uidetur: singular, agreeing with the nearest (least far?) of its three subjects, uis. |
| 16-17 | iam x 4: epanaphora. |
| 17 | mitigauerit: singular, agreeing with the nearest of the three subjects, dies. |
| 18-19 | bonarum artium .... bonarum partium .... bonorum uirorum: Epanaphora and assonance are striking. |
| 19-20 | promitto .... uobis .... rei publicae spondeo: chiasmus.
The two verbs are not simply an example of elegant variation: spondeo is a weightier term, "I promise solemnly, pledge". |
| 20-21 | nos and nostris are royal plurals. See again the note on 4.22. |
| 22 | cum .... tum: "not only .... but also". |
| 22-23 | The first quod is a connecting relative, referring to the promise in the foregoing sentence, numquam .... fore, and accusative governed by promitto; the second quod is the conjunction "because".
This section illustrates Cicero's fondness for taking things in groups of three:
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| 24-27 | qui .... uocarit .... qui .... patiatur: relative clauses of characteristic. |
| 26 | ambitu: ablative of separation. Austin's note on the case-usage is important. See also MBA 306. |
| 1 | Further to Austin, a largitor is a professional dispenser of bribes. |
| 4-16 | This very long periodic sentence needs breaking up in translation. |
| 4 | diebus: ablative of time within which. |
| 5-6 | sine x 5: epanaphora. |
| 6-7 | ore, lingua, manu, uita: ablatives of respect. |
| 7-10 | qui x 5: epanaphora. |
| 9 | Austin comments, "Cicero seems to attribute these disturbances to either Clodius indifferently." Distinguish the Sextus Clodius referred to here from Publius Clodius Pulcher, Clodia's brother, on whom see OCD 350-351. |
| 11 | seruitia: seruitium, best known as an abstract noun, can also have a concrete meaning: singular, "a body of slaves, the slave class"; plural (so here), "slaves" (usually in a collective, or generic sense). |
| 12-13 | Further to Austin, asyndeton (Greek "unconnected") is a rhetorical device in which conjunctions, articles and even pronouns are left out for the sake of speed and conciseness. Adversative asyndeton is the omission of contrasting words such as the conjunction "but". Such omission actually heightens the contrast, e.g. "To err is human; to forgive, divine." (MEU 600) |
| 14 | coniuge et fratre: Cicero cunningly makes the same "mistake" as in 32.16. See the note there. The et is definitely explanatory. |
| 16 | quod: accusative of respect. See again the note on 16.25.
Further to Austin, "Argumentum ad misericordiam is the use of appeal to pity to support one's conclusion. Such appeals are sometimes appropriate, but too often they are used as sophisticated tactics to evade a burden of proof by diverting the line of argument away from the real issue." (Douglas Walton, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995), s.v. "Arguments, types of", pp. 48-49) |
| 17 | constituitote: second, plural, future imperative. |
| 19-20 | misericordiae, potestatis: objective genitives. |
| 21-22 | recordatione parentum .... liberorum iucunditate: chiasmus. |
| 25 | Austin's note on prose rhythm may be read for interest only.
uolnere uestro .... suo fato: chiasmus and antithesis. |
| 26 | The metaphor of a plant or tree is an arresting one. |
| 28 | parenti filium, parentem filio: parallelism. Note that the cases are arranged chiastically (dative, accusative, accusative, dative). |
| 29-2 | contempsisse, aluisse, perculisse, adflixisse: The assonance of the endings of these four perfect infinitives is striking. Cf. addictum, deditum, obstrictum (3). |
| 2 | si x 3: epanaphora. |
| 2-3 | nobis, suis, rei publicae: a carefully structured climax. (MEU 602) |
| 3-4 | addictum .... habebitis: Sometimes, as here, the use of habere with a participle approaches our use in English of "have" as an auxiliary verb.
Austin's final additional note (pp. 173, bottom - 175) is interesting and important. |