M. Tullius Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta, ed. Albert Curtis Clark, 25

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[25] itaque, credo, si civis Romanus Archias legibus non esset, ut ab aliquo imperatore civitate donaretur perficere non potuit. Sulla cum Hispanos et Gallos donaret¹, credo, hunc petentem repudiasset; quem nos² vidimus, cum ei libellum malus poeta de populo subiecisset, quod epigramma in eum fecisset tantum modo alternis versibus longiusculis, statim ex eis³ rebus quas tum⁴ vendebat iubere⁵ ei praemium tribui, sed⁶ ea condicione ne quid postea scriberet. qui sedulitatem mali poetae duxerit⁷ aliquo tamen praemio dignam, huius⁸ ingenium et virtutem in scribendo et copiam non⁹ expetisset?

Pro Archia Poeta. M. Tullius Cicero. ed. Albert Curtis Clark. Oxford. 1911.

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

Current edition Perseus

Pro Archia Poeta (Latin) (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Volume 6. Clark, Albert Curtis, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911.)

Translations (1)

For A.L. Archias Perseus (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 2. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1856.) — 25 focus

[25] And those brave men, our countrymen, soldiers and country bred men as they were, still being moved by the sweetness of glory, as if they were to some extent partakers of the same renown, showed their approbation of that action with a great shout. Therefore, I suppose, if Archias were not a Roman citizen according to the laws, he could not have contrived to get presented with the freedom of the city by some general! Sulla, when he was giving it to the Spaniards and Gauls, would, I suppose, have refused him if he had asked for it! a man whom we ourselves saw in the public assembly, when a bad poet of the common people had put a book in his hand, because he had made an epigram on him with every other verse too long, immediately ordered some of the things which he was selling at the moment to be given him as a reward, on condition of not writing anything more about him for the future. Would not he who thought the industry of a bad poet still worthy of some reward, have sought out the genius, and excellence, and copiousness in writing of this man?

Notes on the current edition

Pro Archia Poeta

1. donaret et Gallos E

2. nos in contione add. codd. e v. 18 ( malo numero): ego delevi videmus GEea

3. iis Manutius: his codd., Schol.

4. tum GEe: tamen a: tunc cett.: om. Schol.

5. iubere iussit a, Schol.

6. sed Schol.: sub codd.

7. deduxerit GEe

8. huius ς: cuius cett.

9. non tamen non Ee

Commentary

Commentary on Oration For Archias (Select Orations of Cicero (Allen and Greenough's Edition). Greenough, James Bradstreet; Kittredge, George Lyman, editors. Boston, London: Ginn & Company, 1897.) focus

esset : § 517 ,0 (308,a); B. 304, 2 G. 597, R.1; H. 579, I (510, N.2); H.-B. 581.

civitate donaretur : § 364 (225, d); B.187, i, a; G. 348; H. 426, 6 (384, ii, 2); H.-B. 365, b.

donaret , sc. civitate.

repudiasset : the protasis is implied in petentem.

quem , subject of

jubere , below.

de populo , of the people, i.e. of low birth.

quod . . . fecisset , which he had made as an epigram (poetical address) to him; for gender, see § 296 , a (195, d); B. 250, 3; cf. G. 211, R.5 H. 396, 2 (445, 4); H.-B. 326, I.

tantummodo . . . longiusculis , merely with the alternate verses a little longer, i.e. it was written in some metre in which (as in elegiac verse) long and short lines alternated;

tantummodo implies that this was its only merit.

eis rebus , i.e. confiscated goods. Apparently a commander could take out from the booty anything he desired to bestow upon a soldier as a reward; and here the confiscated goods are treated in the same manner.

M. Tullius Cicero Pro Archia Poeta 25

ed. Albert Curtis Clark

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