In Catilinam 1.21-22

Latin Learning Latin
1

This was a tough one but I gave it a good effort and I think I’m at least close on most of it. I hope.

At si hoc idem huic adulescenti optimo P. Sestio, si fortissimo viro M. Marcello dixissem, iam mihi consuli hoc ipso in templo senatus iure optimo vim et manus intulisset.

(“But if I had said this same thing to that excellent young man P. Sestius, if to that bravest of men, M. Marcellus, in this very temple with the best judgment the Senate would have taken up violent hands against me, even as I am a consul.”)

The chief trouble here was disentangling the different datives, as dicere and inferre both often take one. Also iit’s difficult to put this one in clean context: the passage before is talking about how by remaining silent, the Senate is rendering judgment; the next sentence contrasts the supposed reaction against Cicero with the reaction against Catiline. Still I don’t totally get it.

A mob has formed outside the temple where the Senate is meeting:

Quorum ego vix abs te iam diu manus ac tela contineo, eosdem facile adducam ut te haec quae vastare iam pridem studes relinquentem usque ad portas prosequantur.

(“I (can?) scarcely keep their hands and weapons from you for so long; I shall easily adduce them to accompany you all the way to the gates, with you leaving these parts, which for so long you have been enthusiastic about destroying.”)

Utinam tibi istam mentem di immortales duint!

(The translation of this sentence hangs on the verb “duint”, which is not a regular form. I don’t know. “That the immortal gods duint that mind of yours to you!”)

Tametsi video, si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiae nobis, si minus in praesens tempus recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem impendeat.

(“However I see, if by my voice you, terrified, induced your spirit to go into exile, (I see) for what a long time you have envied us, if not in the present time, with fresh memory of your crimes, then in posterity it (your jealousy?) hovers over.” Ed: “what a long time your envy has hovered over us, if not etc…”)

I’m least sure about this one. The grammar doesn’t quite work.

2

in this very temple with the best judgment the Senate would have taken up violent hands against me, even as I am a consul

You got the datives right.

“in this very temple of the Senate [hoc ipso in templo senatus], with perfect justice [iure optimo] he would have raised violent hands against me.”

Quorum ego vix abs te iam diu manus ac tela contineo, eosdem facile adducam ut te haec quae vastare iam pridem studes relinquentem usque ad portas prosequantur.

“For a long time now [iam diu] I have scarcely been able to restrain their hands and weapons; I will easily get the same men to pursue you all the way to the city gates, as you leave these parts which for so long now you have been eager to destroy.”

Lat. pres. contineo = Eng. pres. perf. here; yes, English needs “can” or “be able” where Latin doesn’t.

Duint – archaic subj. of do, dare. Lewis & Short:

Subj.: duim = dem, Plaut. Aul. 4, 6, 6; Ter. Heaut. 1, 1, 38: duis, Plaut. Capt. 2, 2, 81; id. Men. 2, 1, 42: duas = des, id. Merc. 2, 3, 67; id. Rud. 5, 3, 12; an old formula in Liv. 10, 19: duit, Plaut. As. 2, 4, 54; id. Aul. 1, 1, 23; an old formula in Liv. 22, 10 init.: duint, Plaut. Most. 3, 1, 126; id. Ps. 4, 1, 25; id. Trin. 2, 4, 35; Ter. And. 4, 1, 43; id. Phorm. 3, 2, 34 al.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.3:2356.lewisandshort

Tametsi video, si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiae nobis, si minus in praesens tempus recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem impendeat.

“However, if terrified by my voice you will have induced your mind to go into exile, I see how great a storm of ill-will will hang over us [i.e., Cicero], if less for the present with the recent memory of your crimes, then in later times.”

induxeris is future perfect, not perfect subj. here. Edit: I’ve changed my mind on this.

“induced your mind” – there’s a better English equivalent but I can’t think of it off-hand.

tempestas invidiae is the subject of impendeat. “tempest of ill-will” (better than “envy”).

Cicero made reference earlier to the persecution he would face if he acted too severely. Catiline had his supporters. In fact, Cicero was later forced into exile for a while, so this appears to be prophetic. One suspects that the speech was published, with a few embellishments, after he returned from exile.

3

Thanks. I did pretty well I guess. “Tempest” was my first guess but I sometimes lack imagination and “tempestas invidiae” didn’t occur to me.

I’ll have to study the future perfect more. Usually I just assume that it’s perfect subjunctive because the future perfect is so rare but that’s no excuse (although the perfect subjunctive itself isn’t very common either: in this case it seemed it might be subjunctive because it was in the protasis of what seemed to be hypothetical action). Every beginner probably has this problem.

Why the present and subjunctive “impendeant”? I guess it’s subjunctive because it’s a hypothetical action, but “if you will have induced your mind … a storm of ill-will will hang over us”? Is this just the Latin tenses being relative, that is, that the storm hanging over is at the same time as Catiline inducing his mind? I’ll have to brush up on conditions as well.

4

quanta tempestas . . . impendeat – impendeat is subjunctive because this is an indirect question, introduced by the question-word quanta.

I’ll have to study the future perfect more. Usually I just assume that it’s perfect subjunctive because the future perfect is so rare but that’s no excuse (although the perfect subjunctive itself isn’t very common either

In this sentence, induxeris could actually be perfect subjunctive. It could be viewed as part of the indirect question, in which case it would be subjunctive, and maybe that’s the better interpretation.

The future perfect isn’t that uncommon in Latin. You have to use it in Latin when the protasis of a future condition occurs before the apodosis. In English we would normally use the present tense. The perfect subjunctive is not as infrequent as you might think, either. It most often occurs in subordinate clauses in indirect speech.

5

23-24 was short but a bit difficult. 25-26 is very short but looks to be tough as well.

Vix feram sermones hominum, si id feceris, vix molem istius invidiae, si in exsilium iussu consulis iveris, sustinebo.

(“I will hardly bear the rumors of men (that you were persecuted by the consul?), if you will have done this (gone into exile); I shall hardly sustain the great mass of that ill-will of yours, if you will have gone into exile by order of the consul.”)

The next two sentences are literally the whole of section 24, for which I apologize. I can make it out for the most part but I have trouble with the part beginning “a quo etiam”; I’m not sure whether “a quo” refers to Manlius or to the Forum Aurelium.

Quamquam quid ego te invitem, a quo iam sciam esse praemissos qui tibi ad Forum Aurelium praestolarentur armati, cui sciam pactam et constitutam cum Manlio diem, a quo etiam aquilam illam argenteam quam tibi ac tuis omnibus confido perniciosam ac funestam futuram, cui domi tuae sacrarium sceleratum constitutum fuit, sciam esse praemissam?

(“…from whom/which also that silver standard which to you and all your followers I trust will be deadly and destructive, to which in your house the shrine of your crimes was set up, I know to be sent ahead.” Why the subjunctive “sciam”? My commentary calls it a characteristic subjunctive but I can’t find anything about that on the internet. Sent ahead from the Forum Aurelium? Isn’t it like a museum piece?)

Tu ut illa carere diutius possis quam venerari ad caedam proficiscens solebas, a cuius altaribus saepe istam impiam dexteram ad necem civium transtulisti?

(“You are accustomed to setting out to murder, so you can lack the standard longer than worship it; from which/whose altar you often directed your ungodly right hand to the slaughter of citizens?” I can understand that “tu ad caedam proficiscens solebas” and “ut illa carere diutius possis quam venerari” are the two sections of the first part but I can’t figure out how they go together. “Are you, setting out for murder, accustomed to lacking the standard longer than venerating it, from whose altar you often directed your ungodly right hand to the slaughter of citizens?” This would make more sense and be more grammatical but I can’t find anywhere for “possis”.)

I’m definitely going to take a short break after finishing the first oration. I’m starting to wear out.

6

“I will hardly bear the rumors of men (that you were persecuted by the consul?), if you will have done this (gone into exile); I shall hardly sustain the great mass of that ill-will of yours, if you will have gone into exile by order of the consul.”

“if you will have done/gone” – in English we would use the present tense where Latin would use the future perfect: “if you do/go”. In Latin, the future perfect–and these are future perfects, not perfect subjunctives–is used in future conditionals where the action of the protasis occurs before the action of the apodosis.

Quamquam quid ego te invitem, a quo iam sciam esse praemissos qui tibi ad Forum Aurelium praestolarentur armati, cui sciam pactam et constitutam cum Manlio diem, a quo etiam aquilam illam argenteam quam tibi ac tuis omnibus confido perniciosam ac funestam futuram, cui domi tuae sacrarium sceleratum constitutum fuit, sciam esse praemissam?

The three instances of sciam are subjunctive in relative clauses of “characteristic.”

Allen & Greenough secs. 534-4:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+534&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001%3Asmythp%3D535

In particular, see 535e:

e. A Relative Clause of Characteristic may express cause or concession:—

However, why should I invite you [to leave], since I already know that armed men have been sent by you to stand ready at the Aurelian Forum, since I know the day is set and marked by you with Manlius, since I know that that silver eagle, which I’m confident will be pernicious and deadly for you and all your men [and] for which a secret criminal shrine was set up in your home, has been sent ahead by you?

Tu ut illa carere diutius possis quam venerari ad caedem proficiscens solebas, a cuius altaribus saepe istam impiam dexteram ad necem civium transtulisti?

I think that tu belongs inside the ut clause, which depends on an understood repetition of invitem:

Very crudely: “[Shall I invite you to leave] so that you can be absent from it [i.e., in exile] for a longer time than you used to worship it as you left for murder, [that silver eagle] from the altar of which you often transferred your impious right hand to the murder of your fellow-citizens?” (Edited.)

7

Thanks. I guess I didn’t get it that well earlier.

(In this space I expressed my bafflement at treating the subjunctive “sciam” as a relative clause of characteristic, when it seems to be an ordinary relative clause. I decided I would stop worrying about it at four o’clock and I did, until I was dozing off while ago when I abstractly felt how the clauses could be considered relative clauses of characteristic. Then I deleted my post since I thought I then understood it, necessitating this note to anyone reading this thread. And then Qimmik made a great post below.)

8

I share your discomfort with explaining the subjunctive sciam as a relative clause of characteristic. After thinking about this, I think a better explanation might be what Allen & Greenough refer to as “subjunctive by attraction.”

A&G 593:

  1. A clause depending upon a Subjunctive clause or an equivalent Infinitive will itself take the Subjunctive if regarded as an integral part of that clause:—

“imperat, dum rēs iūdicētur, hominem adservent: cum iūdicāta sit, ad sē ut addūcant ” (Verr. 3.55) , he orders them, till the affair should be decided, to keep the man; when it is judged, to bring him to him.

“etenim quis tam dissolūtō animō est, quī haec cum videat, tacēre ac neglegere possit ” (Rosc. Am. 32) , for who is so reckless of spirit that, when he sees these things, he can keep silent and pass them by ?

mōs est Athēnīs laudārī in cōntiōne eōs quī sint in proeliīs interfectī; (Or. 151), it is the custom at Athens for those to be publicly eulogized who have been slain in battle. [Here laudārī is equivalent to ut laudentur .]

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+593&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

In this footnote they note:

The subjunctive in this use is of the same nature as the subjunctive in the main clause.

They go on to write:

A dependent clause in a clause of purpose is really a part of the purpose, as is seen from the use of should and other auxiliaries in English. In a result clause this is less clear, but the result construction is a branch of the characteristic (§ 534), to which category the dependent clause in this case evidently belongs when it takes the subjunctive.

However, invitem here is not a subjunctive in a result clause–it’s a deliberative subjunctive, so the comment that “the result construction is a branch of the characteristic” doesn’t apply here.

In the “attraction” analysis, the subjunctive invitem “attracts” sciam into the subjunctive. The sciam clauses are part and parcel of the deliberative subjunctive idea in invitem; they continue the deliberative thought inherent in invitem, somewhat like a subordinate clause in indirect speech. This seems much more satisfying than treating the sciam clauses as “characteristic relative clauses.”

This is difficult to convey–it gets into Cicero’s psychology, what was going through his mind when he chose to use the subjunctive rather than the indicative, how he mentally connected the sciam clauses with invitem–but maybe it helps a little. In any case, I don’t think the meaning is unclear.

A very crude translation designed to elucidate how the sentence fits together: "However, why should I invite you [to leave]–[you,] by whom I already know that armed men have been sent to stand ready at the Aurelian Forum, by whom I know the day is set and marked with Manlius, by whom I know that that silver eagle, which I’m confident will be pernicious and deadly for you and all your men, for which a secret criminal shrine was set up in your home, has been sent ahead?

sermones hominum – the “talk” of men

9

I don’t see this as a case of attraction from invitem, nor as a rel.clause of characteristic. Isn’t the subjunctive simply causal, no different from what you’d have after cum? For a quo iam sciam you could substitute cum a te iam sciam etc., only it’s more effective as a relative clause (of which of course there are 3, the last the longest and most complex).

10

25-26 were fairly simple with the exception of one sentence. I needed it after yesterday’s confidence-testing reading.

Cicero is telling Catiline what a “good” life awaits him if he goes and joins his followers:

Ad huius vitae studium meditati illi sunt qui feruntur labores tui, iacere humi non solum ad obsidendum stuprum verum etiam ad facinus obeundum, vigilare non solum insidiantem somno maritorum verum etiam bonis otiosorum.

(“In eagerness for this life those who talk about your labors/deeds are practiced; they lie on the ground not only to block your debauchery but also to go up against your deed of violence; they watch the plots not only against the sleep of husbands but also against the property of peaceful citizens.” – ed: I think the last bit should be “they watch, lying in wait, (with the accusative participle being the subject of an infinitive? But then it should be “insidiantes”?) not just for the sleep of husbands but against the property of peaceful citizens”. That would make more sense but that still leaves the middle clause.)

Why the infinitives? The middle clause is obviously wrong but the whole second part seems to run counter to the first (the henchmen guarding against the plots?), and I can’t come up with a reading consistent with it (or that even makes sense, of course).

This is an interesting discussion about “sciam”, by the way.

11

Thanks for jumping in with adult supervision, mwh. I had considered the possibility that the sciam clauses could be causal, but most of the time, causal subjunctive relative clauses can be classified as characteristic clauses. This one didn’t seem to readily fit that pattern. But in the end, I think you’re right about this.

Ad huius vitae studium meditati illi sunt qui feruntur labores tui, iacere humi non solum ad obsidendum stuprum verum etiam ad facinus obeundum, vigilare non solum insidiantem somno maritorum verum etiam bonis otiosorum.

meditati – even though this is a deponent, the past participle can have an active meaning – here, “practice”.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.11:943.lewisandshort

illi qui feruntur “labores” tui – punctuating to convey the irony: "what are called your ‘labors’, “what is called your ‘work’”. qui feruntur – equivalent to “so-called”.

This sentence doesn’t refer to Catiline’s associates; illi and tui modify labores. And so, the understood subjects of iacere and vigilare are singular because these are generalities describing what Catiline thinks of as “work.”

ad obsidendum stuprum – stuprum can mean a prostitute or whore. Here I think there is a joke: one meaning of obsideo is to “invest” or “besiege” a city; another is to “possess.” I think there is a sexually graphic play on these two meanings. However, maybe it’s more general, referring simply to engaging in sexual misconduct.

obeo can mean to “execute” or “undertake”. L&S obeo II B 4:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.13:56.lewisandshort

I think the idea of iacere humi . . . ad facinus obeundum is lying on the ground in hiding awaiting the right moment to commit a crime.

obsidendum . . . obeundum – these words may have been chosen more for sound than sense.

vigilare – this basically means “to stay up at night without sleeping.” Nighttime is associated with sex and crime, and elsewhere in the speech Cicero has made reference to Catiline’s nefarious nocturnal activities. Anyone who stays up through the night is up to no good.

insidiare is also a word with military connotations: to “ambush”.

“To cultivate this mode of life [ad studium huius vitae], that so-called “work” of yours is practiced: lying on the ground not just to possess a prostitute but also to execute a crime, staying up through the night laying traps not just for the sleep of husbands but also for the property of private citizens.”

stuprum obsidendum parallels insidiantem somno maritorum, and facinus obeundum parallels [insidiantem] . . . bonis otiosorum.

otiosorum – see L&S otiosus I C:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.13:1652.lewisandshort

I think Cicero is using military language ironically: instead of engaging in manly military labores, Catiline engages in sexual misconduct (considered unmanly and associated with effeminacy in Roman eyes) and crime.

12

Thanks as always. I learn a lot from your posts. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this right after mangling a sentence but I think I’ve gotten a bit better since I started, even if my mistakes seem to be on the increase. Maybe it’s just a case of getting used to an author’s style but I’m making sense of prose that’s a step up from Caesar a little bit easier (there’s some Cicero in the Wheelock’s Latin Reader but it’s heavily excerpted).

13

Caesar is straightforward–a plain and unembellished narrative (but that’s not to say he doesn’t have a very distinctive and elegant style). Cicero, of course, is rhetorical and uses rhetorical figures that are sometimes difficult to figure out. He has a greater variety of styles–from plain and unadorned narrative like Caesar or concise and elliptical, catchy phrases to elaborate, complex periods–as well as a greater variety of registers–from semi-colloquial to formal. Cicero is definitely more difficult than Caesar, but he’s by no means impossible at your level.

What are your aims in learning Latin?

14

Speaking of plain and unadorned, 27-28 were pretty simple but there’s one place I can’t find the verb:

Nunc, ut a me, patres conscripti, quandam prope iustam patriae querimoniam detester ac deprecer, percipite, quaeso, diligenter quae dicam, et ea penitus animis vestris mentibusque mandate.

(“Now, conscript fathers, that I may (remove) by me a certain almost-just complaint of the country by protest and plea, perceive, I ask, diligently what I shall say, and entrust it to your deepest spirits and minds.”)

My commentary says for “a me … detester ac deprecer” :

querimoniam, i.e. for not having suppressed the conspiracy more vigorously. detester ac deprecer (construed with a me, above), remove by protest and plea.

But I can’t find a verb anywhere to go with it. Is it just implied?

To be able to read it, basically. About a decade ago I took a life-changing class on Roman history and I decided that I would be a classics major. To that end I took a semester of Greek my sophomore year but I had to drop out for health reasons and I never had the chance to go back. Maybe 5 years ago I tried Pharr’s Homeric Greek but I found it horribly unsuited for the independent learner: the readings don’t necessarily have anything to do with the material and there are too few exercises in general, and especially to keep up with the constant stream of new grammar. For a change of pace I picked up Wheelock’s Latin a little over a year ago and did well with it. My short-term goal is to be able to read Livy without inordinate trouble (I tried him after finishing the Reader but I was hopelessly out of my league trying to read the preface and the first two sentences of the history proper, although I can make sense of a lot of Orberg’s adaptations) but I don’t really have any longer-term goals beyond being able to read well, in both Latin and Greek (I’m going to pick up Greek again in maybe a year or two). I’m still fairly young so I have a lot of time to do this in.

15

Detestari and deprecari are transitive deponents. Quaerimoniam is the direct object of detester ac deprecer.

16

I’m sorry. This is probably my dumbest blunder yet: I didn’t look too much into “detester” and “deprecer” since they were glossed by the commentary and I took them as adverbs (“by protest” and “by plea”) with a nonexistent verb (to remove). I should probably stop using that thing; it misleads me as often as it helps and it exacerbates my lazy tendencies. If there’s an excuse it’s that I had never come across subjunctive first-conjugation passive forms before.

17

Just to interject a note on the rhetoric of the speech, leaving the grammar aside. Cicero makes out that it’s a matter of his choosing between two alternatives, having Catiline executed or persuading him to self-deport. This is not to be taken at face value. By framing his speech as if he’d be subject to criticism for not acting with sufficient severity—as if he were not a hawk but a dove—he means in fact to counter just the opposite criticism. He knows he’ll land in very hot water indeed if he tries to have him executed (as if fact he subsequently did), and there’s no real question of his trying. He’s on very dodgy ground. He presents himself as culpably lenient, when in reality he’s being as harsh as he possibly can, if not more so. He’s out not only to create prejudice against Catiline but also to save himself from the consequences of of exceeding his consular authority. Spin control at its finest.

18

Two tough sentences in 29-30:

Ego, si hoc optimum factu iudicarem, patres conscripti, Catilinam morte multari, unius usuram horae gladiatori isti ad vivendum non dedissem.

(“I, if I judged that this is the right thing to do, conscript fathers, for Catiline to be punished with death, would not give to that thug (gladiator) of his one hour to live.” Not sure about “one hour”, and I don’t know where “usuram” fits in. The -am ending indicates gender, not declension, right?)

Quod si ea (i.e. invidia) mihi maxime impenderet, tamen hoc animo fui semper ut invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem.

(“Because if ill-will ever so much hangs over me, nevertheless in my spirit was always ill-will from courage – acquired glory – not ill-will as I reckon it.” This departs significantly from the text but it’s the only way I can make sense of it. Ed: “Nevertheless in my spirit I always reckoned that ill-will is acquired glory from courage, not from ill-will.”)

Interesting analysis, mwh. I had always thought of Cicero as a “good guy” but I’m finding out he was just as much a politician as any other.

19

Ego, si hoc optimum factu iudicarem, patres conscripti, Catilinam morte multari, unius usuram horae gladiatori isti ad vivendum non dedissem.

usura here is a noun, not a future participle: “use”, with perhaps a commercial connotation relating to the time value of money (“interest”). Lewis and Short:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.19:355.lewisandshort

Note dedissem – past perfect subj.: “would not have given”

“If I thought this was the right thing to do, Senators, that is, for Catiline to be punished with death, I wouldn’t have given this thug the use of a single hour to live.”

Quod si ea (i.e. invidia) mihi maxime impenderet, tamen hoc animo fui semper ut invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem.

quod si – sometimes written as one word, quodsi, means “but if”.

L&S quod III:

With other particles, as si, nisi, utinam, ubi, etc., always with reference to something which precedes (very freq.), but, though, now: quod si quis illorum legat facta, paria horum cognoscat, Nep. Eum. 8, 3: quod si te fors Afris praefecisset, tamen, Cic. Q. Fr. 1, 1, 9, § 27; 1, 1, 14, § 41: quod nisi domi civium suorum invidiā debilitatus esset, Romanos videtur superare potuisse, Nep. Hann. 1, 2: quod utinam minus vitae cupidi fuissemus! Cic. Fam. 14, 4, 1: quod ne longiore exordio legentem fatigemus, unum quasi exemplum subiciemus, Col. 5, 11, 13: quod ubi ille intellexit, id agi, ut, etc., Cic. Verr. 2, 1, 26, § 67: quod cum esset animadversum, conjunctam esse flumini, protinus, Caes. B. C. 3, 68: quod ut hanc quoque curam determinemus, etc., Plin. 18, 23, 53, § 194: peccasse se non anguntur, objurgari moleste ferunt: quod contra oportebat delicto dolere, correctione gaudere, instead of which, whereas, Cic. Lael. 24, 90: quod nunc, whereas now, Lucr. 1, 221.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.15:441.lewisandshort

impenderet – imperfect subjunctive, therefore contrafactual: "But if [ill-will] hung over me to the greatest extent . . . "

hoc animo – ablative of description: “I have always been of such a mind that . . .”

invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem – “I considered ill-will brought on by courage [to be] glory, not ill-will.”

“But even if ill-will hung over me to the greatest extent, I have always been of such character that I considered ill-will brought on by courage glory, not ill-will.”

mwh is not a fan of Cicero. Cicero certainly was a “good guy” if you read what he has to say about himself. But he was extraordinarily vain, pompous and sententious, sometimes outrageously hypocritical, sometimes if not cowardly, at least highly circumspect, often disingenuous. He was never so important as he makes himself out to be–he was really a minor figure who puffed himself up for posterity through his writings. He was very insecure about his precarious social status, as a man who rose to the highest office despite not being from the senatorial class. That said, he was probably one of the less dishonest (not necessarily honest, but less dishonest), less rapacious, personalities navigating the corrupt landscape of late Republican Rome. (That may be because his inferior social status gave him less scope on the playing field of late Republican power politics, but maybe he also had some scruples that others lacked.)

20

Thanks. It would appear that I need to add “animus” to my difficult-words list: it seems that whenever I translate it I translate it wrongly. That and “usura” were a good part of my troubles this time around (that and that the “invidiam virtute partam gloriam non invidiam putarem” is pretty dense and I didn’t unfurl it right).

Ablative of description: is this like “vir clarissimo patre”? If so it’s one of the less obvious uses of the ablative that I’ll have to keep in mind.

Interesting about Cicero. One of the good things about art is that it can be separated from the artist; this is probably less true of orations and political commentary but for a few pages at least we can imagine him as defender of the republic.