M. Tullius Cicero, Philippicae, ed. Albert Curtis Clark, 31

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[31] quorum de honore utinam mihi plura in mentem venirent! duo certe non praeteribo quae maxime occurrunt: quorum alterum pertinet ad virorum fortissimorum gloriam sempiternam, alterum ad leniendum maerorem et luctum proximorum. 12 placet igitur mihi, patres conscripti, legionis Martiae militibus et eis qui una pugnantes occiderint¹ monumentum fieri quam amplissimum. Magna atque incredibilia sunt in rem publicam huius merita legionis. haec se prima latrocinio abrupit Antoni; haec tenuit Albam; haec se ad Caesarem contulit; hanc imitata quarta legio parem virtutis gloriam consecuta est. quarta victrix desiderat neminem: ex Martia non nulli in ipsa victoria conciderunt. O fortunata mors quae naturae debita² pro patria est³ potissimum reddita⁴!

Philippicae. M. Tullius Cicero. ed. Albert Curtis Clark. Oxford. 1918.

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Current edition Perseus

Philippicae (Latin) (Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes, Vol. 6. Clark, Albert Curtis, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918.)

Translations (1)

Philippics Perseus (Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Vol. 4. Yonge, Charles Duke, translator. London: Bell, 1856.) — 31 focus

But mark now the trifling character of the fellow. When about the tenth hour of the day he had arrived at Red Rocks, he skulked into a little petty wine-shop, and, hidden there, kept on drinking till evening. And from thence getting into a gig and being driven rapidly to the city, he came to his own house with his head veiled. “Who are you?” says the porter. “An express from Marcus.” He is at once taken to the woman for whose sake he had come; and he delivered the letter to her. And when she had read it with tears (for it was written in a very amorous style, but the main subject of the letter was that he would have nothing to do with that actress for the future; that he had discarded all his love for her, and transferred it to his correspondent), when she, I say, wept plentifully, this soft-hearted man could bear it no longer; he uncovered his head and threw himself on her neck. Oh the worthless man (for what else can I call him? there is no more suitable expression for me to use)! was it for this that you disturbed the city by nocturnal alarms, and Italy with fears of many days' duration, in order that you might show yourself unexpectedly, and that a woman might see you before she hoped to do so? 78 And he had at home a pretense of love; but out of doors a cause more discreditable still, namely, lest Lucius Plancus should sell up his sureties, But after you had been produced in the assembly by one of the tribunes of the people, and had replied that you had come on your own private business, you made even the people full of jokes against you. But, however, we have said too much about trifles. Let us come to more important subjects.

Notes on the current edition

Philippicae

1. occiderunt (-erZZZ) s

2. qua... debita vita Vassis

3. est sit coni. Halm

4. reddita oppetita Schmidt

Commentary

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

an si quis , etc., equiv. to or, when, if any one had, etc., the Senate would have called hint imperator, shall we take away, etc.? The Latin expresses the thought by two coordinate interrogative sentences:

appellaret senatus (with its protasis si quis occidisset) and adimemus (with its modifiers). In English it is more natural to make the first of these sentences subordinate. Cf. a similar construction in Manil. Law, sect. 58 . 246.11

quae increbuit : in the later days of the republic the title of imperator and the honor of a triumph were granted on much slighter grounds than in earlier times.

appellaret , would have styled (imperf. because of repeated action). 246.13

isti hostes domestici , i.e. the partisans of Antony remaining in Rome. 246.18

ovantem : evidently some informal demonstration of joy on the part of the citizens is referred to, in which Cicero, as a well-known champion of the Senate, was escorted to the Capitol to give thanks to the gods. Strictly the ovatio was an inferior triumph, sometimes granted by the Senate in cases when the proportions or circumstances of the victory, or the rank of the commander, did not warrant the supreme honor of a triumph (see note on p. 70, l. 17 ). The general did not wear the purple embroidered robe or the laurel crown, but the ordinary toga praetexta and a wreath of myrtle. Moreover, he walked, or (in later times) rode on horseback, instead of riding in a chariot.

M. Tullius Cicero Philippicae 31

ed. Albert Curtis Clark

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