Latin Prose Interaction

Although Livy admits that Lucius Anicius Gallus (cos. 160 BC) did not shine as brightly as Lucius Aemilius Paulus (45.43.2: similia omnia magis visa hominibus quam paria) and only acquired a moderate amount of glory compared to his fellow triumphator (Gallus’s triumph apparebat… nequaquam esse contemnendum), this paper argues that Livy presents Gallus as an exemplum to imitate and contrasts him specifically with Julius Caesar. Gallus is a model ‘not-Caesar’.

Statuary Analogies and Cicero’s Judgment of Caesar’s Style (Brutus 262)

This paper analyses what can be gleaned from Brutus 63–9 about the ancient transmission history of Cato’s speeches and his Origines, set in the context of the findings of a project that analyses that transmission history entire. Brutus 63–9 is remarkable for the claim, uttered by Cicero’s own avatar in the dialogue, to have found and read more than 150 of Cato’s speeches. It is therefore noteworthy that conspicuously absent from Cicero’s record of citation of earlier oratory (Inv. 1.80, Font. 38–9, Caecin. 53, Clu.

In discussing humor in De Oratore (2.284), Cicero reports that Appius Claudius (cos. 130 BCE) played on the word liber, “free,” to mock L. Licinius Lucullus while debating the lex Thoria, a law on public land. The joke often figures in discussions of public land, although it reveals little about the law itself (Badian 1965, 195; for the lex Thoria see Cic. Brut. 136; App. BC 27; Roselaar 2010, 268).