§71
quod idem [sc. the invalidity of Clodius’ legislation] tu, Lentule, uidisti in ea lege quam de me tulisti. nam non est ita latum ut mihi Romam uenire liceret, sed ut uenirem; non enim uoluisti id quod licebat ferre ut liceret, sed me ita esse in re publica magis ut arcessitus imperio populi Romani uiderer quam <ad> administrandam ciuitatem restitutus.
Maslowski's text.Footnote 1 In pleading before the pontifices for full restoration of his house, Cicero describes his recall as decreed by the Senate on the initiative of the consul Lentulus Spinther, who is said to have been careful to avoid recognizing the legitimacy of Clodius’ legislation outlawing Cicero. So he legislated not that it was permitted for Cicero to come to Rome but rather for him to come. This is further explained as meant to give the appearance that Cicero had been ‘summoned’ rather than ‘restored’. According to the text printed above, the false alternative is that he was restored ‘for administering the state’ (ad administrandam ciuitatem). But this can hardly be right, since administrare ciuitatem or the like refers to the work of a magistrate, which at this time Cicero, of course, was not.Footnote 2 Hence the despair of editors and the deletion of the phrase.Footnote 3 The false alternative should, as in the prior case, be something supposed by Clodius and his followers (in that case, that Cicero required permission to return), but that does not in fact apply. Now the ad printed by Maslowski within angular brackets is the reading of P3 alone and must count as a conjecture. I suspect that the original text was in amissam ciuitatem (‘to the citizenship that had been lost’).Footnote 4 Cicero thus anticipates the point he will argue at length at §§77–92, viz. that a Roman cannot lose his citizenship involuntarily. The in could easily have dropped out by saltation following the m of quam. In this speech, which is much occupied with questions of public policy and administration, an inattentive scribe, seeing a word beginning with a and terminating in am with ciuitatem following will have fallen unthinkingly into the phrase administrandam ciuitatem.Footnote 5
§80
tum igitur maiores nostri populares non fuerunt, qui de ciuitate et libertate ea iura sanxerunt quae nec uis temporum nec potentia magistratuum nec †res tum iudicata† nec denique uniuersi populi Romani potestas, quae ceteris in rebus est maxima, labefactare possit.
As part of his argument about the rights that Roman citizens could not lose, Cicero vindicates, as usual, the wisdom of the Roman ancestors, the ironic denial strongly affirming that the maiores were the true populares (and not, it is implied, Clodius and his ilk). In the list of factors that, it is said, could not erode such rights, editors have struggled with the words printed above in cruces. Wuilleumier follows H in omitting tum, which is unclear in its reference;Footnote 6 Maslowski adopts Halm's iam for tum.Footnote 7 But it is odd for res iudicata, whether qualified or not, to stand on the same level as uis temporum, potentia magistratuum and populi Romani potestas. Peterson's praetorum decreta is a desperate conjecture;Footnote 8 it ignores that the praetors, too, are magistrates.
Might the transmitted text conceal an original sententiae iudicum? In addition to the violence of the times, which he emphasizes,Footnote 9 under the constitution, the jurors’ votes would be, besides the action of the magistratesFootnote 10 or the popular assembly,Footnote 11 the third factor that could be held to compromise a Roman's rights as a citizen.Footnote 12 Since r and n are easily confused, an interchange of res- and sen- would not be difficult; ten and tum can be hard to distinguish; t(i)a could have been added in such a way as to suggest to subsequent copyists that it duplicated the beginning of iudic~. Once res had appeared in the text, the ‘correction’ of iudicum to iudicata would have been virtually automatic.
§118
hanc tu igitur dedicationem appellas, ad quam non conlegium, non honoribus populi Romani ornatum pontificem, non denique †adulescentem quemquam†, cum haberes in conlegio familiarissimos, adhibere potuisti?
In addition to claims about the intent of the Senate's decree and his own undiminished status, Cicero also sought to discredit Clodius’ dedication of the temple of Libertas on the site of his house on formal grounds, with the claim in this passage that the priest who took part in the ceremony, L. Pinarius Natta, had insufficient standing and that senior members of the collegium had been passed over. None of the previous attempts to restore the corrupt text (listed in Maslowski's apparatus) is convincing. I suspect that Cicero wrote something along these lines: non denique quemquam alium quam adulescentem adfinem.Footnote 13 This would capture both of Cicero's points of criticism, the youth and inexperience of the priest on the one hand and his connection by marriage to Clodius on the other.Footnote 14 The corruption could have arisen this way: quemquam alium quam reduced to quemquam by saltation; and likewise adfinem lost by saltation after adulescentem; then in further copying a scribe omits quemquam after denique; the error is noticed, the missing word added, perhaps in the margin, but then falsely reinserted, perhaps in subsequent copying, after adulescentem. Footnote 15
