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At Home with Cicero*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Shelley Hales
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Extract

This paper is concerned with reassessing the importance of the destruction of the house of Cicero in the light of recent investigations into housing in the Roman world. In recent years, the quantity and quality of such investigations have intensified but Cicero's house remains somewhat unpopular – despite excavations on the Palatine slopes which have revealed more details of the houses occupied by Cicero and his Late Republican neighbours.3 The saga of Cicero and his house had not been dealt with for several decades until the presidential address of Susan Treggiari in the 1998 Transactions of the American Philological Association. Her paper, however, is not so much concerned with the actual relationship between private and public in the house of Cicero as Cicero's private and public attempts to come to terms with his grief over the death of his daughter Tullia.

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Type
Research Article
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Greece & Rome , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , April 2000, pp. 44 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

Notes

1. For most recent attempts to explore the nature of the Roman house see Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1993), 137–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laurence, R. and Wallace-Hadrill, A. (edd.), Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, JRA Supp. Ser. 22 (Portsmouth, 1997)Google Scholar; Wallace-Hadrill, , Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton, 1994)Google Scholar. In terms of influencing this paper, however, the most important work is Wiseman, T., ‘Conspicui postes tectaque digna deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses in the Late Republic and Early Empire’ in L'Urbs: Espace urbain et histoire, Collection de l'Ecole française de Rome 98 (1987)Google Scholar.

2. The last article to focus on the house of Cicero was Allen, W., ‘Cicero's House and Libertas’, TAPhA 75 (1944), 1–9Google Scholar.

3. For a brief report see E. Papi in Steinby, E. M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (Rome, 1993), Vol. 2, 202–4Google Scholar.

4. ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPhA 128 (1998), 1–23Google Scholar.

5. Hello!551 March 13, 1999.

6. Cicero, , De Off. 39.139Google Scholar. See also Wood, N., Cicero's Social and Political Thought (Berkeley, 1988), 105–19Google Scholar.

7. Plut, . Cicero 31.1–33.5Google Scholar. One of the best modern biographies of Cicero is Rawson, E., Cicero: a Portrait (London, 1975, new ed. 1994)Google Scholar. For this period of his life see 106–21.

8. His speeches are preserved – the De Domo Sua was delivered to the Senate in late September 57 B.C., less than a month after his return to Rome. The house was eventually returned to Cicero but in 56 B.C. Clodius claimed that various prodigies which had been inspected by the soothsayers pointed at the anger of the gods over the return of the house and, more specifically, the temple of Liberty. The De Haruspicum Responsis is Cicero's response to these allegations.

9. Cicero, , De Domo Sua 37.100Google Scholar.

10. For Clodius’ renewed efforts against both Cicero's house and that of his brother see Cicero, , De Hams. Resp. 8.15Google Scholar and Ad Att. 4.3.

11. Cicero, , Ad Fam. 5.6.2Google Scholar.

12. Aulus Gellius 12.12.

13. Richardson, L., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, 1992), 123Google Scholar. For an economic assessment of Cicero's investment in both this domus and the villas he owned throughout Italy, see Shatzman, I., Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics (Brussels, 1975), 403–25Google Scholar.

14. Veil. Pat. 2.14.3.

15. For the atrium as centre of family death see Flower, H., Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford, 1996), 93–7Google Scholar.

16. See Balsdon, J. P. V. D., life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London, 1969), 115–29Google Scholar. For the decoration of the threshold at birth see Juv, . Sat. 5.77–81Google Scholar and at marriage see Pliny, , N.H. 28.142Google Scholar. Wedding rituals are further discussed in Treggiari, Roman Marriage (Oxford, 1991), 161–80Google Scholar.

17. For the funeral procession see Polybius 6.53–5. For the coming of age ritual see Ovid, , Fasti 3.771–88Google Scholar; Dio 55.10.2.

18. Plut, . Publ. 20.2Google Scholar; Pliny, , N.H. 36.24.112Google Scholar.

19. Plut, . Caes. 68.6Google Scholar.

20. Cicero, , De Domo Sua 101–2Google Scholar.

21. Dion Hal. 12.1.1–4.6; Cicero, , De Domo Sua 101Google Scholar. Richardson (n. 13), 3.

22. Livy 2.41.11; Cicero, , De Domo Sua 101Google Scholar. Richardson (n. 13), 123.

23. For examples of arguments initiated by views see Cicero, , De Or. 1.39.179Google Scholar and Seneca, , COM. 5.5Google Scholar.

24. Cicero, , De Domo Sua 115–16Google Scholar.

25. Pliny, , N.H. 34.9.17Google Scholar; Cicero, , Ad Alt. 12.23Google Scholar.

26. Cicero, , Phil. 2.28.68Google Scholar.

27. Plut, . G. Grace. 15.1Google Scholar.

28. Livy 44.16.10–11. Richardson (n. 13), 134.

29. Val. Max. 8.15.1. See also Walbank, F., ‘The Scipionic Legend’, PCPhS 193 (1967), 54–69Google Scholar.

30. Richardson (n. 13), 359–60.

31. Varro, , De Ling. Lat. 6.4Google Scholar; Pliny, , N.H. 7.215Google Scholar.

32. Dig. 1.2.37. Richardson (n. 13), 134.

33. For Circus Flaminius see Richardson (n. 13), 83; Porticus Metelli 315.

34. Livy 40.51.5.

35. Pliny, , N.H. 35.13Google Scholar.

36. Hannestad, N., Roman Art and Imperial Policy (Aarhus, 1988), 24Google Scholar.

37. Cicero, , Ad Att. 4.16.8Google Scholar.

38. The fact that the Basilicas Fulvia and Aemilia were one and the same is taken from Varro, , De Ling. Lat. 6.4Google Scholar where he refers to the Basilica Aemilia et Fulvia. However, both on grounds of new archaeological evidence suggesting a third basilica in the western section of the Forum and of analysis of the literary sources, Steinby has argued that they should be seen as two separate entities. This view does not have universal approval and, indeed, is not discussed at all in Richardson (n. 13), 54–6. The views of Steinby can be found in Steinby, , Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (Rome, 1993) Vol. 1, 167–8Google Scholar. See also in that volume H. Bauer, 173–5 and 183–7.

39. Dio 54.24.

40. Tacitus, , Ann. 3.72Google Scholar.

41. For the coin see Hannestad, N., Roman Art and Imperial Policy (Aarhus, 1988), 24Google Scholar. For the aqueduct see Richardson (n. 13), 17–18. Ancient comment: Pliny, , N.H. 31.41–2Google Scholar; Frontinus, , Aq. 1.7Google Scholar.

42. Livy 44.16.10–11.

43. Cicero, , De Off. 1.138Google Scholar.

44. Nepos, , Att. 13.2Google Scholar. Richardson (n. 13), 133.

45. During this time Rome became notorious for extravagant house building. See Pliny, , N.H. 36.110Google Scholar. Also Strabo, , Geog. 5.3.7Google Scholar.

46. That the two should be kept separate is implied by Cicero, , Pro Mur. 76Google Scholar. Private display is munificence, public display is munificence.

47. Pliny, , N.H. 34.36, 36.113–15Google Scholar. Richardson (n. 13), 385.

48. Pliny, , N.H. 36.24.115Google Scholar.

49. Plut, . Pomp. 5Google Scholar; 40.

50. Such a strategy is explored in the context of the emperors' reorienting of Rome, her landscape, and her history by Laurence, R., ‘Emperors, Nature and the City: Rome's Ritual Landscape’, Accordia Research Papers 4 (1993), 79–87Google Scholar.

51. Cicero, , Phil. 2.69Google Scholar. Treggiari (n. 4), 6.

52. Cicero's plans for the shrine appear in Ad Att. 12.12; 12.18; 12.19; 12.35; 12.36. Cicero's determination that the shrine should be in a most public situation is made clear at 12.19. It is worth noting that this was not Cicero's only attempt to take part in public building projects. Cicero, , Ad Att. 4.16.8Google Scholar sees Ciceroinvesting in Caesarian building projects. Such investment, of course, was of no benefit to the memoria of the Tullii Cicerones and as such, has not been dealt with in the main text.

53. Treggiari (n. 4), 16–21.

54. See Dixon, S., The Roman Family (Baltimore, 1992), 133–49Google Scholar for a general discussion of the function of ritual in coping with change within family life.

55. Veil. Pat. 2.14.3.

56. Philos, . Apoll. 7.11Google Scholar.

57. For a definition of the term templum, see Varro, , De Ling. Lat. 7.8Google Scholar. Gellius, Aulus, Noctae Atticae 15.7Google Scholar records the Senate's needs to meet in such a place.