Pro Plancio

The , sometimes named as the , or the , was a speech given by the Roman lawyer and statesman Cicero in September 54 BCE. In the speech, delivered in the Roman Forum, Cicero defended , who had been elected as aedile (a junior civic official) the previous year, against a charge of electoral malpractice () levelled by , one of his defeated opponents. The outcome of the trial is not known, though it is often suggested that Cicero won.

Plancius was prosecuted under the , which criminalised the improper use of electoral associations (); the prosecution, conducted by Laterensis with the assistance of Lucius Cassius Longinus, appears to have offered little evidence that Plancius had specifically committed this crime, rather than more general electoral infractions. In the , Cicero defends Plancius's character and asserts the legitimacy of his election, claiming that Laterensis had made his prosecution under the in order to benefit from its unusual process of jury selection, which advantaged the prosecution. Throughout the speech, Cicero emphasises his twofold friendship with Laterensis and Plancius, who had both assisted him during a period of exile in 58–57 BCE. The bulk of the speech deals not with the charges against Plancius, but with asserting his personal merits and those of Cicero himself.

The speech was described by James Smith Reid as "a thoroughly artistic handling of a somewhat ordinary theme". Cicero makes reference to works of early Latin literature, such as the poetry of Ennius, and to the philosopher Plato's ''Crito'', and makes extensive use of the rhetorical technique of . Cicero edited and published the speech; it is known from sporadic references in classical literature and surviving papyrus manuscripts, but was relatively neglected by ancient rhetoricians in comparison to the rest of Cicero's speeches. However, it was widely copied in manuscripts from the early modern period, and was known to the fourteenth-century humanist Petrarch.

Background

The was delivered in September 54 BCE, in the Roman Forum. In the speech, Cicero attempted to defend against a charge of electoral malpractice () levelled by , whom Plancius had defeated in elections for the post of curule aedile, a junior magistracy with responsibility for public buildings and festivals. Plancius was defended by Cicero, probably in addition to Quintus Hortensius. Laterensis was, in turn, assisted by Lucius Cassius Longinus.

Protagonists

Cicero

As consul in 63 BCE, Cicero had revealed the conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), a failed consular candidate who had attempted to seize power in a coup. On 5 December of that year, Cicero had Catiline's supporters in Rome executed without trial, a decision which was widely condemned. Cicero's political enemy, Publius Clodius Pulcher, passed a law as tribune in February 58 BCE condemning anyone who had executed Roman citizens without a trial. The law was seen as an attack on Cicero, who fled Rome into exile shortly after its passage; Clodius in turn secured a formal proclamation of exile () against him in early April. Cicero's exile proved an enduring source of reputational damage to him, and he referred to it frequently in his subsequent speeches.

After his return from exile in 57 BCE, Cicero's legal work largely consisted of defending allies of the ruling and his own personal friends and allies; although he had opposed the triumvirate before his exile, he reversed his stance after Pompey and Caesar reconciled at the Luca Conference in 56. In that year, he defended his former pupil Marcus Caelius Rufus against a charge of murder. He subsequently defended, under the influence of the triumvirs, his former enemies Publius Vatinius (in August 54 BCE) and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus (between July and September), which weakened his prestige and sparked attacks on his integrity. Luca Grillo has suggested these cases as the source of the poet Catullus's double-edged comment that Cicero was "the best defender of anybody".

Gnaeus Plancius

Gnaeus Plancius was a member of the equestrian class, the son of a tax collector () from the Lucanian town of Atina. In 61–60 BCE, Cicero had represented an association () of tax-collectors, including Plancius's father, in their attempt to reduce their financial obligations to the Roman state. The younger Plancius was a supporter of Pompey the Great, and in turn a protégé of Marcus Licinius Crassus: these two men, along with Julius Caesar, formed the triumvirate.

When the exiled Cicero arrived at Dyrrachium in western Greece late in April 58 BCE, Plancius was serving as a quaestor (a junior financial official) on the staff of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, the governor of Macedonia. Plancius travelled to meet Cicero, and took him to stay in his official residence () in Thessalonica, where Cicero remained until the following November, at which point Plancius was soon to return to Rome following the appointment of a new governor, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. As Cicero later recounted their meeting in the , Plancius took off his official insignia, put on mourning garb, and embraced Cicero, too overcome by tears to speak.

Plancius was subsequently elected as a plebeian tribune in 56 BCE. He then successfully ran for curule aedile in 55 BCE, with Crassus's support, in an election that Lily Ross Taylor has described as "a travesty of Roman free institutions". The election results were declared void, following corruption and violence during the campaign, and the election repeated in 54: Plancius was again elected, alongside Aulus Plautius. His election as aedile made Plancius the first in his family to enter the senate. It is debated whether Plancius served as aedile in 55, or was due to begin his year of office when prosecuted in 54.

Marcus Iuventius Laterensis

Marcus Iuventius Laterensis was from an ancient noble family of Rome. He had served as a quaestor and proquaestor in Cyrene, where Michael Alexander judges that he was "more than usually upright" in his dealings. Christopher Craig has written that Laterensis's more elevated social background would have favoured his case, as trials customarily involved comparing the social standing () of the respective parties.

During Cicero's exile, Laterensis had protected his relatives who remained in Italy, and made petitions for Cicero to be recalled. Like Cicero, Laterensis had been an early opponent of the triumvirs – he had withdrawn his candidacy for tribune in 59 BCE, because those elected were obliged to swear to uphold the laws of Caesar. However, unlike Cicero, Laterensis had maintained this opposition: he used Cicero's change of sides to attack the latter's integrity during Plancius's case.

Prosecution

Laterensis made the prosecution a few weeks after the election of 54 BCE: the trial was held around the time of the , which took place in late August or early September. The prosecution was made under the , a law put forward by Crassus in 55. As neither the prosecution speech against Plancius nor the text of the relevant law survive, the precise accusations made against Plancius are uncertain: Laterensis may have accused Plancius of forming an illicit coalition to secure his election, of giving or receiving bribes, or of several of these offences. The is itself the main source of evidence for the terms of the .

The specifically criminalised organised bribery through the use of associations () of supporters, categorising such conduct as ('aggravated '). It also specified that the jury would be selected in a manner advantageous to the prosecution: while most trials allowed both the prosecutor and defender to veto any juror they considered unsuitable, trials under the required the prosecutor to nominate four voting tribes from which the jurors would be chosen, from which the defence could eliminate one. Laterensis's arguments appear to have generally been more appropriate to a trial for conventional than one ('concerning '), and Cicero argued that he had only made his prosecution under the to benefit from its distinctive jury-selection procedure.

Plancius's case was the fourth that Cicero had defended on a charge , after those of Gaius Messius and Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus in 54 BCE and of Marcus Cispius early in 56. Taylor has characterised the prosecution as politically motivated revenge: Laterensis was an ally of Cato the Younger, who had been elected as praetor for 54 and whose ally, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, had been elected consul. Catonian candidates had been defeated in the voided elections of 55, partly due to manoeuvring from the triumvirs Pompey and Caesar.

Aspects of the prosecution's speeches can be reconstructed through Cicero's responses to them in the ''Pro Plancio''. He rebuts allegations made by Laterensis that Plancius had taken a male companion with him to Macedonia "in order to satisfy his lust", and that he had raped a female dancer. It can be inferred from Cicero's speech that Laterensis accused him of dishonesty, and of taking Plancius's case for self-interested reasons rather than out of genuine conviction. Cicero directly responds to this charge at length, and throughout the speech uses language intended to highlight his own straightforwardness and honesty, frequently contrasting the supposed urbanity and polish of the prosecutors (Laterensis was a native of the distinguished city of Tusculum), with the honest simplicity and rural unsophistication of Plancius's native Atina. Cicero also rebukes Laterensis for accusing him of faking tears to generate sympathy for Plancius. Kathryn Tempest has written that Laterensis and Cassius made a key strategy out of portraying Cicero as mendacious, and arousing the jury's anger against him; Laterensis seems to have portrayed himself, in contrast, as an honest and credible speaker able to reveal Cicero's tricks to the jury.

Synopsis

Cicero edited his speeches, including the , before publication, and they were subsequently affected by losses of text in the transmitted manuscripts. Andrew Lintott has suggested, following an argument presented by Jules Humbert in 1925, that the transmitted text of the speech may combine parts of multiple orations given by Cicero at different points in the trial.

Structurally, the speech divides into three unequal parts: an introductory (sections 1–6a), a development of the speech's argumentation (; sections 6b–100) and a concluding (sections 101–104). The speech largely focuses on Cicero, rather than Plancius or the charges against him. Only around a fifth deals with the charge of directly. In respect of this, Cicero makes a twofold argument that Laterensis cannot prove the allegations of misconduct against Plancius, and that Laterensis's defeat can be easily explained without any suggestion of electoral irregularity. Cicero accepts that Plancius had made use of (political associations), but argued that they were merely groups of friends, aimed at mutual support rather than to improperly influence the election.

In the , Cicero expresses his grief that Plancius has been accused, claiming that the latter's support for him during his exile brought the case about by influencing patriotic Romans to vote for him, and bemoans the conflicting obligations he feels towards Plancius and Laterensis on account of each party's good qualities and previous support for him. The first part of the forms a (a comparison of the two candidates' merits). Cicero contrasts Plancius and Laterensis, highlighting Plancius's relative social disadvantage by comparison with his prosecutor, but breaks the usual rhetorical convention of attacking his opponent's character, instead proclaiming his respect for and gratitude towards Laterensis, despite the insults that he says the latter deployed against him in his own speech. In sections 58–71, he contrasts the characters of Plancius, Laterensis and Cassius, Laterensis's junior partner (), claiming that Cassius lacks both Plancius's moral uprightness and Laterensis's rhetorical skill. From section 86 onwards, Cicero reminds the jury of Plancius's service to him, and argues that to attack Plancius is therefore to attack him, and justifies his own political and personal actions to assert his own good character. As May puts it, Cicero's argument is that "support for Plancius is support for Cicero; tears shed for Plancius are tears for Cicero ... acquittal for Plancius is acquittal for Cicero".

Analysis

On the charges of , Taylor judges that "the arguments are specious and the case is obviously weak". Andrew Riggsby has characterised Cicero's primary strategy as attempting to establish, separate from the precise legal matters at hand, that Plancius's conduct fitted the norms of Roman society: in Riggsby's formulation, that he was "one of us". He characterises Cicero's narrative of Plancius's life and career, as emphasising the latter's , particularly towards Cicero himself. Cicero also claimed that Plancius was popular among and supported by citizens of his native Atina, which he used as evidence of Plancius's good character and upstanding status. James M. May sees the as similar to the , delivered by Cicero in 56 BCE, in that both speeches aim to persuade by establishing the good character () of Cicero, and by extension of his client. Cicero consistently draws parallels between himself and Plancius, and between their respective political careers, in what May calls "patron–client identification".

Craig has described Cicero's approach as a "strategy of embarrassment", similar to that which he employed in the of 63 BCE. Cicero claims to be embarrassed at having to oppose Laterensis, given the latter's previous friendship and support towards him. As such, he refuses to reciprocate the attacks on his integrity that Laterensis had made in his own speech. Throughout the speech, Cicero emphasises the bonds of friendship and obligation () between himself and the prosecutor, Laterensis. Cicero had previously used this tactic extensively in three speeches, and would do so again in the of 46 BCE, but it is not attested elsewhere in Roman oratory or in Greek rhetorical manuals. Craig suggests that it was an invention of Roman orators, perhaps of Cicero himself. Craig has called Cicero's response to Laterensis's attacks on his character "both ingenious and unique".

In 1882, James Smith Reid described the as "a thoroughly artistic handling of a somewhat ordinary theme". Cicero twice uses the device of , an imagined dialogue with an interlocutor, following the practice of contemporary rhetoricians in using it to add interest and persuasive power to his speech. In section 59, Cicero quotes the tragedy ''Atreus'' by the early Latin playwright Lucius Accius, describing his own fatherly mentorship of his son, Cicero the Younger. Elsewhere in the speech, he makes possible allusions to two other works of early Latin literature: the , a historical epic poem by Ennius, and the ''Satires'' of Gaius Lucilius. He also alludes to the ''Crito'', a philosophical dialogue by Plato, contrasting the philosopher Socrates's absolute submission to the rule of law in that dialogue with what he alleges to be Laterensis's refusal to accept the popular verdict against his election.

Outcome and reception

It is unknown for certain whether Plancius was acquitted or convicted, though it is often stated that Cicero's defence was successful. Cicero wrote two letters to Plancius in 46 BCE, when the latter was living on the Greek island of Corcyra; this would be consistent with a guilty verdict and the consequent punishment of exile, but Plancius may equally have been exiled for his support of Pompey by Julius Caesar after the latter's military defeat of Pompey. Cicero wrote to his brother, Quintus, on 28 September 54 BCE that he was sending him a copy of the , along with the , at Quintus's request. In December of the same year, Cicero drew on the arguments he had made in the in a letter to Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, defending his collaboration with the triumvirs.

Parts of the are preserved on a fifth-century parchment fragment from Hermopolis Magna in Egypt. The second-century author Aulus Gellius mentions it twice in his '' Attic Nights'', a miscellany of notes on various scholarly topics, to illustrate Cicero's use of rhetoric and grammar. Unlike most of the surviving speeches of Cicero, the was not used or quoted in the manuals of rhetoric published during the Roman period and late antiquity. Giuseppe La Bua suggests that it may have been seen as a school-level text, and that it may have been read out of biographical interest in Cicero as well as for its perceived rhetorical quality.

An ancient commentary () on the was preserved in the Bobbio palimpsest (), a late fifth-century manuscript overwritten in the seventh century with an account of the Council of Chalcedon. The commentary is generally believed to have been assembled in the third or fourth century CE, possibly by a scholiast named Volcacius, and to be a summary of a longer commentary dating to the second century, which may itself have drawn on a first-century work. The speech was known to the fourteenth-century humanist Petrarch, and frequently attested after his death.

Around forty manuscripts containing the were known by the end of the nineteenth century, though in 1897 H. W. Auden judged that all but two were "of little use in establishing the text". The older of the two manuscripts was written in the eleventh century, and is known by the siglum ''T'' after Tegernsee Abbey in Bavaria, where it was discovered. ''T'' was lost during the 1795 French invasion of Bavaria, but rediscovered in Paris by Johann Georg Baiter in 1853. The second, known as the (''E'') or (after its previous location in Erfurt and ownership by the Thuringian Peter Suffrid), dates to the twelfth century, and collates Ciceronian texts from various sources. Both ''T'' and ''E'' probably derive their texts of the from a single original, which in turn probably descends from an edition of Cicero's works made in the ninth or tenth century. ''T'' and ''E'' are generally considered the most authoritative manuscripts, though for her 1981 recension of the manuscripts of the , Elżbieta Olechowska identified a total corpus of 154 manuscripts; she followed the 1911 edition of Albert Clark in considering two additional manuscripts – ''F'', a fourteenth-century manuscript from Florence, and ''C¹'', a fifteenth-century manuscript held in Cambridge – among the most useful.

Modern editions and commentaries

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Footnotes

Explanatory notes

References

Bibliography

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{{italic title

1st century BC in law
54 BC
Orations of Cicero
Roman law