Some questions about the opening lines of Cicero’s Pro Archia:
Si quid est in me ingeni, iudices, quod sentio quam sit exiguum, aut si qua exercitatio dicendi, in qua me non infitior mediocriter esse versatum, aut si huiusce rei ratio aliqua ab optimarum artium studiis ac disciplina profecta, a qua ego nullum confiteor aetatis meae tempus abhorruisse, earum rerum omnium vel in primis hic A. Licinius fructum a me repetere prope suo iure debet.
-What does vel mean in this context? I gues it’s an adverb here (not a conjunction) and is meant to emphasize. So should it be translated as ‘indeed’ or ‘actually’?
-prope suo iure → why ‘prope’? After all Cicero’s wants to stress that Licinius is in his right to claim the fruit of his (Cicero’s) talents. Why then ‘almost in his right’? or should prope be read with repetere?
So, my translation of the second part of the sentence would be: ..of all these things this Licinus indeed is among the first who is entitled to claim the fruit from me as (almost?) his right.
A bit further is this sentence:
Quod si haec vox huius hortatu praeceptisque conformata non nullis aliquando saluti fuit, a quo id accepimus quo ceteris opitulari et alios servare possemus, huic profecto ipsi, quantum est situm in nobis, et opem et salutem ferre debemus.
Would there be a difference of meaning had the sentence been “..aliis opitulari…alios servare ..” instead of …“ceteris opitulari …alios servare…”. In other words are alius and ceterus mutually interchangeable or not?
About ‘ceteris…alios’: so you take these ‘alios’ as a subcategory of the ‘ceteris’ → …by which we can help others and keep safe some (of them)
The question remains: are ceterus and alius interchangeable? In other words: would ‘…aliis opitulari…ceteros servare possemus’ mean the same thing?
Prope because it’s not legally his right to be defended by C., but almost, propter eius merita erga C.
As attractive as this explanation might seem, as the whole thrust of Cicero’s speech is that Archia is in fact a Roman citizen it seems odd that Cicero would concede the opposite at the beginning of the speech.
There seems to be some doubt whether prope is to be taken with suo iure or repetere. See Bencke herehttps://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1XO94GT3v0EC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=prope+suo+iure+debet&source=bl&ots=OGgyYgj69O&sig=JCSq0EuZx0T4NHjAtrAsFYhGcLM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7-eGK1ITLAhXMORQKHazOAHUQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q=prope%20suo%20iure%20debet&f=false.
Reid suggests either “by an almost indefeasible right”. "As in the meo, tuo iure the possessive pronoun implies that the right is acknowledged ". In the addenda of his commentary he suggests that prope may be a corruption of pro.
As a lawyer, I can tell you that nobody has the strict right to be defended by me. I choose my clients. But my close friends almost (prope) have such a right. I think that’s what it means.
Cicero goes on to explain what he means when he says that Archias/Licinius has almost a legal claim to be defended by Cicero: Archias was his teacher and taught him how to speak publicly, and thus was responsible for Cicero’s skill as a public speaker. So Archias’ request for assistance from Cicero almost rises to the level of a claim for a legal right to which Archias is entitled.
There’s a play on fructum, which means both fruit–the fruit of Archias’ pedagogy–and interest in the financial sense–Archias must seek interest from Cicero “almost as a matter of right.”
. . . a quo id accepimus quo ceteris opitulari et alios servare possemus, huic profecto ipsi, . . . et opem et salutem ferre debemus
" . . . we owe it to bring both assistance and salvation (i.e., a successful defense of Archias) to the man from whom [a quo . . . huic] we obtained that with which we were able to assist everyone else (i.e., the rest of the population), and to save (i.e., successfully defend) other individuals than him." "that with which we were able . . . ", i.e., Cicero’s skill as a public speaker, which Cicero obtained from Archias’ teaching.
I wrote the following only to find that Hylander had also written. So you can probably ignore mine.
Just to reinforce what I think Nesrad is saying:
ius is a legal right, and Archias has no legal claim on Cic’s services. Hence prope.
a quo id accepimus quo ceteris opitulari et alios servare possemus, huic profecto ipsi, quantum est situm in nobis, et opem et salutem ferre debemus.
It’s thanks to Archias that Cic can help “the rest” i.e. everyone else (in addition to Archias) and save some (of them). So no, ceteri and alii are not interchangeable, and it would make nonsense if they were interchanged here, and yes, the alii are here a subset of the ceteri. His training puts him in a position to give opem to everyone and salutem to some. (He doesn’t win all his cases.) It’s an unusual pairing but makes sense in context, and it sets up the final statement of his obligation to bring both opem and salutem to Archias, i.e. not just to defend him but to win the case—if he can (quantum est situm in nobis): he doesn’t want to alienate the judges by sounding certain of victory.
I know there’s an edition in the Bochazy-Carducci series, though I haven’t seen it. The speech is an agreeable one, unlike most of Cic’s speeches.
You might be surprised to hear that I agree. I am struck by how unrealistic his portrayals of the adversary are, and how virtuous and blameless his clients always are. I wish that the testimony of the witnesses had been preserved to cast a little light on the facts. I can’t say modern adversarial pleading is any better. On the other hand, I don’t have any problem believing that M. Antonius was indeed the monster he was made out to be in the Philippics, considering how history played out.
In all fairness, do we have any examples of ancient forensic rhetoric that are not dishonest and self-serving? Certainly not Demosthenes–although personally I have a great deal of admiration for him, and on occasion–even frequently–he rises to a higher level. If you read Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon, and then read On the Crown, for example, it’s clear that Demosthenes won by appealing to the jurors’ better natures, even though he did descend to scurrilous calumny at some points in the speech. The only speeches we have that aren’t dishonest and self-serving are those that Thucydides puts in the mouth of Pericles–but even these aren’t without a touch of hypocrisy even if not outright dishonesty.
Cicero’s dishonesty was really not that extraordinary in context. His pompous and apparently entirely unselfconscious self-adulation, however, really seems unparalleled, especially when he transparently cloaks it in false modesty, as in this passage.
I do have the two books by Steven Cerutti on Pro Archia Poeta Oratio (with Bolchazy-Carducci, as mwh said), and they are really quite excellent for a student tackling this oration on his own. The same publisher also has a student edition of Cicero’sPro Caelio by Stephen Ciraolo, composed in the same style. They have vocabulary, commentarial notes and notes on rhetorical figures and structures, but particularly valuable is the explanation of syntaxis.
Pro Archia Poeta Oratio is often read at an early stage in learning Latin because it has been regarded as educative, edifying a young soul. Which it in fairness is.
EDIT Here’s an example of an opening from Cerutti’s liber prior.
-Nactus est primum consules eos quorum alter res ad scribendum maximas, alter cum res gestas tum etiam studium atque auris adhibere posset.
From the first he found consuls of whom one could supply him with great deeds to write about, while the other could supply not only deeds but also give attention and ears (= attentive ears).
Why the subjunctive ‘posset’ in the relative clause? Is it because the clause is consecutive? He met those consuls so that they could furnish him with deeds & ears etc.
Statim Luculli, cum praetextatus etiam tum Archias esset, eum domum suam receperunt. Sed etiam hoc non solum ingeni ac litterarum, verum etiam naturae atque virtutis est, domum, quae hujus adulescentiae prima favit, eandem esse familiarissimam senectuti.
I wanted to ask how the a.c.i-construction “domum, quae hujus adulescentiae prima favit, eandem esse familiarissimam senectuti” fits into this sentence, since there’s no verb of saying, thinking etc in the main clause. But then I noted that Perseus gives this version of this passage:
Statim Luculli, cum praetextatus etiam tum Archias esset, eum domum suam receperunt. Dedit etiam hoc non solum lumen ingeni ac litterarum verum etiam naturae atque virtutis ut domus, quae huius adulescentiae prima favit, eadem esset familiarissima senectuti.
Which is really quite straightforward. Maybe just a misprint in Henle?
Why the subjunctive ‘posset’ in the relative clause? Is it because the clause is consecutive? He met those consuls so that they could furnish him with deeds & ears etc.
I would classify this as a relative clause of “characteristic,” with subjunctive, rather than “purpose/final.”
"He found consuls such that the one could supply him with . . . "
sed etiam hoc non solum ingeni ac litterarum, verum etiam naturae atque virtutis est, domum, quae hujus adulescentiae prima favit, eandem esse familiarissimam senectuti.
This is I think the reading of at least some of the mss. It may be a corrupt passage–various editors have found it necessary to emend. The Perseus version represents Clark’s attempt to make sense out of it in his Oxford Classical Text edition; other editors have proposed different conjectures.
You might make sense out of the Henle version this way:
“But this too is [a property or characteristic] of not only [his] intellect and erudition but also of [his] character and integrity: the fact that the same family that first fostered him in his youth [literally, fostered the youth of this man] is on very close terms with him in his old age [literally, was very familiar to his old age].”
ingeni ac litterarum and naturae atque virtutis are hendiadys–maybe: “literary brilliance” and “upright character.”
Clark’s version, apparently replacing sed by dedit before etiam and inserting lumen after solum (haplography), seems to me brilliant, whether or not it’s right. The acc.&inf. in the other version presents no grammatical difficulty (picking up hoc); won’t it be a conjecture itself?
The accussative with infinitive clause seems to be hanging in midair. I think I didn’t see this construction before; have to get used to it then. Thanks.
Bonum est me venisse, doesn’t give me trouble at all, just another a.c.i after after an impersonal construction. But for some reason ‘hoc est bonum me venisse’ seems strange; because of the demonstrative pronoun ‘hoc’ it’s no longer impersonal. Or so it seems. But isn’t. Oh, I’m utterly confused now. Please help!
Short version: because they’re dishonest and self-serving.
