This unit has four main aims:

1. To extend your ability to read, understand and translate accurately and fluently into idiomatic English significant works of Latin literature;
2. To extend your ability to understand and apply key elements of orthodox Latin grammar and syntax through a study of a major speech of Cicero;
3. To foster an appreciation of the literary and forensic techniques of a pre-eminent Roman barrister whose influence endures to the present day;
4. To promote an empathetic insight into the history and politics of the late Roman Republic, a turning point in ancient history.

It is very important that you do everything you can through your own efforts with a particular portion of the text before reading the relevant notes and translation: try it as a piece of unseen translation, write up unknown vocabulary, study the editor's commentary. These notes are not intended to provide a solution to problems of which you are as yet unaware and which you yourself have not yet tackled. They are intended rather to guide, confirm, correct and supplement your own enterprise. You may ignore all references by Austin to clausulae, i.e. prose rhythms.

We shall read the whole of the set text in the original Latin except for the following sections:

46-47, 59-60 (to audiente senatu dixerit?), 71.
The gist of these sections will be supplied in summary form.

1. the Introduction to Austin's edition of Pro Caelio;
2. the article on Cicero in the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (Oxford, 2nd revised edition, 1997, henceforth referred to as OCCL), pp. 128-134;
3. the article on Caelius Rufus, Marcus, OCCL pp. 105-106;
4. the article on Oratory, OCCL pp. 396-397.

Most students seem to find Cicero more difficult than Vergil to turn into satisfactory English. This may be partly due to the length of his sentences, but there are other difficulties.

In order to illustrate some of the points that I wish to discuss, let me quote a short passage of Cicero, together with two very different translations that have appeared in print:

at in illa querella .... quid est dictum a me
cum contumelia? quid non moderate? quid non
amice?
(Philippic II, Section 6)

1. "But in that complaint what did I say that was insulting? that was otherwise than moderate? that was otherwise than friendly?" (Brodie's Interleaved Classical Translations)

2. "In my complaints, my words were restrained and friendly, never insulting." (Michael Grant)

• It is clear and accurate and expressed in idiomatic English.
• It expresses what is in the original Latin, with no addition or omission of ideas.
• It keeps, as nearly as possible, the form and tone of the original.
• It is authentic, that is, it is the result of your own efforts, NOT a reproduction of someone else's work.

Clear, idiomatic English:

Leave behind the stilted, over-literal type of English that you use in construing.

Proper names: If there is a recognised English equivalent, use it:

e.g.

Horace rather than Horatius
Vergil rather than Vergilius
Pompey rather than Pompeius, and so on.

All other names should be kept in the Latin form.

Place names: If you are absolutely sure of the modern equivalent, you are at liberty to use it, though sometimes you may lose some of the effect by doing so:

e.g.

Neapolis - Naples
Cades - Cadiz
Patauium - Padua
(But Capua rather than its modern name Santa Maria del Grazie!)

Dates: Use the modern calendar style (except perhaps for such a well-known date as the Ides of March):

e.g.

31st March, rather than "the day before the Kalends of April".

In practice this can be difficult. There are some Latin words which do not permit a simple translation into English:

e.g.

humanitas (NOT "humanity")
pietas, grauitas, ciuiliter (NOT "civilly")
res publica (rarely "republic")

Sometimes the author is vague and that presents a problem too. Should we strip away Cicero's rhetoric as Michael Grant has done in the translation given above? If we throw rhetoric overboard, are we justified in inserting a word or phrase here and there to help out the sequence of ideas? - e.g. "Now to another matter", "Let me make this clear". Some translators think this quite justifiable.

L.P. Wilkinson, who has published a translation of some of Cicero's letters, says in his Introduction: "Where I have been free, I hope I have not been unfaithful." This is a sensible outlook.

Keep the form and tone of the original:

Can you then justify what Michael Grant has done in the translation quoted? Is rhetoric really not acceptable to modern readers?

Grant states in his Introduction that he considers a series of rhetorical questions is scarcely acceptable nowadays to the English reader. His view is that the translator of Cicero is faced with a dilemma which he cannot possibly solve. Since the translation must be readable, he must not use rhetorical language. Cicero's rhetoric is part and parcel of his style, yet it prevents the use of readable English. Thus translation is a task which cannot succeed; there is no solution to the dilemma. So Grant says.

Alexander Pope writes of "that easy Ciceronian style, so Latin yet so English all the while". But perhaps his words do not apply to contemporary English prose.

My own view is that it is better to retain the rhetorical questions in the passage under discussion. Something vital is lost if you cut out the rhetoric. A good translation should give the reader the same impression that the original speech would have given a contemporary Roman. Drop Cicero's style and you reveal less than you should of his highly complex mind and give only a general idea of the speech. Without the rhetoric there is no difference between his speeches and his philosophical works or his letters. The translator has a definite responsibility to his author.

I suggest that rhetoric is acceptable nowadays and is found in surprising places. We all use "rhetoric". It is simply the means by which a speaker or a writer presents his thoughts as effectively and persuasively as possible.

Winston Churchill produced some highly effective rhetorical prose. Here is part of a speech he delivered in the House of Commons in 1940:

We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.

I'm clear enough in the head, he thought. Too clear. I am as clear as the stars that are my brothers. Still I must sleep. They sleep and the moon and the sun sleep and even the ocean sleeps sometimes on certain days when there is no current and a flat calm.

But remember to sleep, he thought. Make yourself do it and devise some simple and sure way about the lines. Now go back and prepare the dolphin. It is too dangerous to rig the oars as a drag if you must sleep.

I could go without sleeping, he told himself. But it would be dangerous.

For essential background to the subject, click here.

In the notes for this subject, reference will be made to the following by the abbreviations:

Barrow: Barrow, R.H., The Romans (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1949)
Geffcken: Geffcken, Katherine A., Comedy in the Pro Caelio (Brill, Leiden, 1973)
GL: Gildersleeve, B.L. & Lodge, G., Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (Macmillan, London, 3rd edn, 1943)
KMP: Kennedy, B.H., rev. Mountford, J., The Revised Latin Primer (Longmans Green, London, 1958)
MBA: Mountford, J.F., ed., 'Bradley's Arnold' Latin Prose Composition (Longmans Green, London, 1938)
MEU: Fowler, H.W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford University Press, London, 1937)
OCD3: Hornblower, Simon & Spawforth, Anthony, eds, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford University Press, London, 3rd edn, 1996).

MOST OF THE GRAMMAR NOTES IN THIS COMMENTARY ARE GIVEN SOLELY TO HELP YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEXT. REMEMBER THAT THOSE WHICH APPEAR IN RED, HOWEVER, ARE SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO BE REGARDED AS FAIR GAME FOR AN EXAMINATION QUESTION.

You can call up a Latin text translation and morphological help for this text and many more Latin and Greek texts on the Internet from the Perseus Project, at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts.html. Click on 'Latin texts' then 'Cicero', then 'Pro Caelio'.