M. Tullius Cicero, De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites, ed. Albert Curtis Clark, 59

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[59] 20 reliquum est ut de Q. Quinti Catuli auctoritate et sententia dicendum esse videatur. qui cum ex vobis quaereret, si in uno Cn. Gnaeo Pompeio omnia poneretis, si quid eo¹ factum esset, in quo spem essetis habituri, cepit magnum suae virtutis fructum ac dignitatis, cum omnes una prope voce in eo ipso² vos spem habituros esse dixistis. etenim talis est vir ut nulla res tanta sit ac tam difficilis³ quam ille non et consilio regere et integritate tueri et virtute conficere possit. sed in hoc ipso ab eo vehementissime dissentio, quod quo minus certa est hominum ac minus diuturna vita, hoc magis res publica, dum per deos immortalis licet, frui debet summi viri vita atque virtute.

De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites. M. Tullius Cicero. ed. Albert Curtis Clark. Oxford. 1908.

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Funding provided by National Endowment For The Humanities (NEH).

Current edition Perseus

De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites (Latin) (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Volume 1. Clark, Albert Curtis, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.)

Translations (1)

In Defense of the Proposed Manilian Law Perseus (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 2. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1856.) — 59 focus

[59]
It remains for me to speak of the authority and opinion of Quintus Catulus; who, when he asked of you, if you thus placed all your dependence on Cnaeus Pompeius, in whom you would have any hope, if anything were to happen to him, received a splendid reward for his own virtue and worth, when you all, with almost one voice, cried out that you would, in that case, put your trust in him. In truth he is such a man, that no affair can be so important, or so difficult, that, he cannot manage it by his wisdom, or defend it by his integrity, or terminate it by his valour. But, in this case, I entirely differ from him; because, the less certain and the less lasting the life of man is, the more ought the republic to avail itself of the life and valour of any admirable man, as long as the immortal gods allow it to do so.

Notes on the current edition

De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites

1. eo de eo δ

2. eo ipso eo b1: ipso Lambinus

3. ac tam difficilis om. H

Commentary

Notes on The Manilian Law (Select Orations of Cicero (Allen and Greenough's Edition). Greenough, James Bradstreet; Kittredge, George Lyman, editors. Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1897.) focus

potest (emphatic position), etc., it may be said, i.e. in answer to the preceding arguments: of course, in order to justify the wisdom of so exceptional a measure as the Manilian Law, it was necessary to show that the war was of sufficient gravity to require the appointment of Pompey. Observe the skillful transition from the genus of the war to its magnitudo .

belli genus , i.e. the war, in its character.

elaborandum est : use the personal construction in translating.

M. Tullius Cicero De Imperio Cn. Pompei Ad Quirites 59

ed. Albert Curtis Clark

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