In Catilinam 1.3-6

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swtwentyman
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In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by swtwentyman »

First, in section 4. Cicero is bringing up historical examples of Roman statesmen who took quick and decisive action against dangerous people. Here, the consul has been given power to defend the republic by any means necessary:

Interfectus est propter quasdam seditionum suspiciones C. Gracchus, clarissimo patre, avo, maioribus, occisus est cum liberis M. Fulvius consularis.

("C. Gracchus was killed for certain suspicions of sedition; he" -- here I get into some trouble. My best guess is "he had a most distinguished father, grandfather, and ancestors." That wouldn't go with the grammar, though. To continue: "The former consul M. Fulvius was killed with his children." Why is this part of the same sentence?)

Simili senatus consulto C. Mario et L. Valerio consulibus est permissa res publica.

(Uh... "the Senate of the republic gave permission to the consuls C. Marius and L. Valerius with a similar decree". But the grammar is eluding me, though the meaning seems right; I know my translation is off because "res publica" is in the nominative, and "permissa" is in the wrong form, which would yield something like "the republic was permitted" though that doesn't make much sense to me. Ed: I'll give it another shot: "The republic was permitted by a similar decree of the Senate in the year of the consuls C. Marius and L. Valerius.")

Now, Cicero has said that he fears he will be judged to have acted cruelly rather than too late.

Verum ego hoc quod iam pridem factum esse oportuit certa de causa nondum adducor ut faciam.

(I really have no idea. The best I can get is "Truly it would have been right for me to have been made long ago..." I can't get anywhere. This is probably one of those things that will seem obvious once it's been pointed out. Ed: It makes a bit more sense if you break it down. "Verum ego ... nondum adducor ut faciam" with "hoc quod iam pridem factum ease oportuit" and "certa de causa" added there. "Truly, I ... this which ought to have been done long ago ... for a certain reason ... not yet adducor ut faciam". "Truly, for a certain reason I have not yet been compelled to do that which ought to have been done long ago." That makes a lot more sense. Ed2: "for a certain reason" = "for this reason"? As in the fear of seeming harsh in the preceding sentence?)

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by Qimmik »

clarissimo patre, avo, maioribus,

This is what Allen & Greenough calls a "descriptive ablative" or "ablative of quality."

A&G sec. 415: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 99.04.0001

". . . C. Gracchus, [a man of] a very distinguished father, grandfather, ancestors . . . "

"Why is this part of the same sentence?" Could be separated by a semi-colon. The comma emphasizes the parallelism -- interfectus est . . . occisus est. But the punctuation is of course due to a modern editor, not to Cicero.

Simili senatus consulto C. Mario et L. Valerio consulibus est permissa res publica.

Permissa est here means "was entrusted to", "By a similar senatus consultum ultimum, the republic was entrusted to the consuls C. Marius and L. Valerius."

Lewis and Short, permitto:
To give up, leave, intrust, surrender, commit (class.; syn.: committo, commendo)
http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/phi ... isandshort

A senatus consultum ultimum was a supposedly advisory procedure of the Senate endorsing drastic and otherwise unconstitutional action by the consuls (such as the summary murder of a Roman citizen). In practice it was taken as an authorization.

C. Mario et L. Valerio consulibus -- At first I asked myself whether this was just a date, "in the consulship of C. Marius and L. Valerius". but the normal way of expressing the year would be C. Mario L. Valerio consulibus, i.e., not joined by et. These are datives, indirect objects of permissa.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

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si te iam, Catilina, comprehendi, si interfici iussero, credo, erit verendum mihi ne non hoc potius omnes boni serius a me quam quisquam crudelius factum esse dicat.

"If I order you to be arrested, Catilina, if I order you to be killed, I think I will have to fear that all good men [will say] that this was done by me too late, rather than that anyone will say it was done by me too cruelly." (This is the opposite of how you understood it.)

verum ego hoc quod iam pridem factum esse oportuit certa de causa nondum adducor ut faciam.

Loosely: "But there's a reason why I haven't yet been led [literally, "I am not led"; again, English requires present perfect] to do what should already have been done long ago." Verum is adversative here: "but", "however".

L&S verus:
verum . . . In gen., as a strongly corroborative adversative particle, but in truth, but not with standing, but yet; . . .


http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/phi ... isandshort

Cicero goes on to explain:

tum denique interficiere, cum iam nemo tam improbus, tam perditus, tam tui similis inveniri poterit qui id non iure factum esse fateatur. quam diu quisquam erit qui te defendere audeat, vives, et vives ita ut nunc vivis, multis meis et firmis praesidiis obsessus ne commovere te contra rem publicam possis. multorum te etiam oculi et aures non sentientem, sicut adhuc fecerunt, speculabuntur atque custodient.

It will finally be time to kill you when there is no one so evil as to claim that this wasn't done legally.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by swtwentyman »

Thank you enormously.

As you may have surmised I have a tendency to try to make the words fit together when I can't make sense of a sentence rather than to be cool and rational about it.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

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Regarding Cicero's fear, from the commentary I'm using:

"erit verendum, etc., I shall have to fear, I suppose (ironical), that all good citizens will fail to say (lit. will not say) that I have acted too late rather than that anybody will say that I have acted too cruelly, i.e. I shall have to fear that I shall be accused of cruelty rather than slackness"

This is where I got the fear being for being judged too harsh. I misread this. The note is awfully involved and hard to follow: it probably could have been written better (however I also made the mistake of glossing over it because it had already been translated). Oh well. Thanks for the help again.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by Qimmik »

Actually, I now see that your interpretation was correct--I skipped over non in reading the sentence.

Crudely: "I will have to fear more that someone will say I acted too cruelly rather than that all good men will say I acted too late." He's justifying his slowness to act. Then he goes on to say, "Indeed, there is a definite reason why I didn't order Catiline's immediate execution."

Sorry about this.

There is a contrast is between omnes boni and quisquam. "All good men" will say Cat. should have been killed long ago. But "someone" -- presumably a single individual or a very few individuals -- might say Cic. acted to harshly. As Cic. makes clear in what follows, the "someone" would have to be as depraved and iniquitous as Cicero depicts Cat. himself to assert Cicero was wrong in having Catiline killed.

Cicero is reluctant to take the step of ordering the killing of a Roman citizen. As consul. he doesn't have authority to do this. In fact, his concerns are well-founded. Several years later he will be forced into exile for having ordered the execution of citizens during the Catilinarian conspiracy.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by mwh »

Years ago I wrote some notes on the Catilinarians for an undergraduate class I was teaching. I'll paste those on 1 Cat. 4-5 below. I don't restore the formatting. If these are useful I could paste in more—but only if.

§4. quid ... detrimenti: "any harm". quid rather than aliquid is regular after ne and si. detrimenti partitive gen.; the separation from quid is normal.
ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet was apparently the actual formula of the senatusconsultum ultimum (see above). The rhythm of the clausula, with neither the penultimate nor the antepenultimate syllable long, is very unCiceronian.

simili senatusconsulto etc.: This is a more sensitive example than the last, for though it had happened nearly forty years earlier, an action had very recently been brought against a certain Rabirius over the killing of Saturninus; as it happened, Cicero himself had defended him (we have his published speech, Pro C. Rabirio perduellionis reo). Saturninus (like all the others—Tib. Gracchus, Sp. Maelius, C. Gracchus, M. Fulvius, and C. Servilius) had been executed without being brought to trial before the people (as distinct from the senate), arguably a violation of his citizen's rights. What makes this particularly pertinent is that the Catilinarian conspiracy ends with the execution of some of the conspirators, again without a trial before the people Catiline's own case was different, since he was killed in battle after being formally declared a hostis. Cicero inevitably found himself in hot water over the executions (at the end of his consular year in ?Jan/Feb. he was barred from making the customary speech on leaving office) and eventually had to go into exile. The First Catilinarian was probably not written up for publication until after the executions (though there is no reason to believe that they were not published until 60, as is sometimes thought), but there is no way of establishing how closely the published speech corresponds to what he actually said at the time. At all events, he is well aware that he is shaky ground when appealing to the s.c.u. as justifying death for Catiline.

unum diem: adverbial ("acc. of extent"), "for one day."

remorata est: death did not "keep them waiting" for a single day thereafter. Sing. because mors ac reipublicae poena is a single notion ("hendiadys" [Gk., "one through two"]), reipublicae poena as it were glossing mors.

vicesimum iam diem patimur: lit. "for the 20th day already we allow." English idiom is different: "for 20 days now we have allowed."

inclusum in tabulis: "shut up in the record books"

in vagina reconditum: continuing the image of a sword introduced in hebescere aciem.

te interfectum esse ... convenit: "it is arranged that you be done away with" {pres. or perf.?} The perfect interfectum esse is more vivid than the present would be (almost "be dead" rather than "be killed").

patres conscripti: the regular (though somewhat puzzling) collective term for senators.

cupio ... cupio ...: the asyndeton is here adversative: he wants to show clemency, without appearing irresponsible. But instead (sed), he goes on, he's guilty of a criminal lack of moral fiber.

ipse: "I myself": he is his own judge.

§5 in Etruriae faucibus:

molientem: agreeing with imperatorem ducemque (i.e. Catiline), governing intestinam aliquam perniciem. reipublicae dat. not gen.

comprehendi: pass. infin., like interfici. te iam and iussero are shared by both clauses; et instead of the second si would be rhetorically weaker (cf. si illustrantur si erumpunt omnia in §6 below).

credo parenthetical and sarcastic, resulting in a rather convoluted form of expression. Cicero's meaning is "what I'll have to fear is that all patriots will say I acted too late rather than that anyone will say I acted too harshly"; but he ironically inverts it: "what I'll have to fear, no doubt (credo), is not that ...".

verum: "but in fact" (OLD 2b).

quod ... factum esse oportuit: "what ought to have been done". Cf. §2 end.

certa de causa nondum adducor ut faciam: lit., "from a certain cause I am not yet induced to do" i.e. "I have a particular reason for not yet doing".

tum: correlative with cum. tum denique "then and only then"

tui similis: "like you" tui is gen. of the pronoun tu, and similis regularly takes genitive rather than dative in such expressions.

nemo tam ... qui ...: "no-one so [X, Y and Z] as not to admit that that was rightly done." qui rather than ut because of nemo preceding.

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Re: In Catilinam 1.3-6

Post by swtwentyman »

Wow! Thanks a lot. I'll get to rereading the sections when I get home.

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