Pliny's celebration of Cicero's consular achievements contains a striking anomaly, namely the assertion that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius (HN 7.117). That statement turns Cicero, the victim of Antonius’ murderous vendetta, into the one who wielded the executioner's axe, and it abruptly shifts the focus of the passage from 63 to 43 b.c. Two slight corrections to the Latin text can eliminate the intrusion of the proscriptions by substituting a reference to the control Cicero exercised in 63 over Gaius Antonius, his consular colleague and an old ally of Catiline. In his In Pisonem (§5), Cicero takes credit for combatting the threat posed by his colleague, and it is highly probable that HN 7.117 mentioned Gaius (not Marcus) Antonius as well, since Pliny's summary of Cicero's consular deeds and honours is nearly identical to the one found in Pis. 4–6. The beauty of the emended text is that it restores both historical fact and a logical progression to the overall structure of Pliny's encomium.

At HN 7.116, Pliny states that he will celebrate Cicero's outstanding genius by singling out solely the deeds of his consulship:

In keeping with that announced intention, Pliny goes on in the next sentence (§117) to describe three of Cicero's oratorical triumphs during his consulship:

The speeches delivered on those three occasions are listed in the same order in Cic. Att. 2.1(21).3, a letter written in June 60 that singles out twelve of Cicero's consular speeches that he was forming into a corpus:Footnote ¹De lege agraria 1–4 (January), which successfully opposed the bill of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus, who proposed the distribution of public land in allotments to discharged veterans and the poor (Cic. Att. 2.1[21].3; Pis. 4; Plut. Cic. 12.2–6); De Othone (July),Footnote ² which persuaded an unruly theatre-crowd to cheer instead of heckle L. Roscius Otho (pr. 63), whose law of 67 b.c. had set aside for knights the fourteen rows of seats immediately behind the senatorial seats in the orchestra (Cic. Att. 2.1[21].3; Plut. Cic. 13.2–4); and De proscriptorum filiis (August/September),Footnote ³ in which Cicero, as the magistrate presiding over the elections, justified his decision to uphold the disqualification from holding public office that Sulla had imposed on the sons and grandsons of his enemies whom he had proscribed in 82–81 (Cic. Att. 2.1[21].3; Pis. 4; Plut. Cic. 12.2; Quint. Inst. 11.1.85). Next, while continuing to maintain the chronological sequence observed by the letter, Pliny alludes to Cicero's First Catilinarian (November) but then departs radically from his announced intention, as well as from historical reality, by claiming that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius:

Reference to the proscriptions in 43 takes the reader by surprise and seems wholly out of place, especially since in the very next sentence, Pliny resumes his chronological enumeration of Cicero's achievements as consul in 63. Specifically, he describes two honours conferred on Cicero in December: the title parens patriae and a civilian ‘triumph’.

Apart from ‘you proscribed Marcus Antonius’, every one of the achievements and accolades catalogued by Pliny in §117 belongs to the year 63. Marcus Antonius and the proscriptions are utterly out of place in Pliny's encomium of Cicero's consular achievements.Footnote ⁷ Indeed, the claim that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius is so contrary to historical fact that it ended up being corrected to ‘Ciceronem proscripsit’ in Ludwig von Ian's index of Pliny, s.v. ‘Antonius, M.’Footnote ⁸

At first blush, it may be tempting to interpret ‘you proscribed Marcus Antonius’ as a clever paradox, treating proscribo as metaphorical, a tribute to Cicero's Philippics.Footnote ⁹ Cicero boasted in the Philippics (13.40) that he would blacken Antonius’ reputation for all time,Footnote ¹⁰ and one could conceivably argue that the destruction of Antonius’ good name amounted to ‘proscription’. Cicero's words in the Thirteenth Philippic clearly lie behind Velleius Paterculus’ statement that Cicero ‘branded Antonius’ reputation with marks of everlasting infamy’ (2.64.3),Footnote ¹¹ which makes it possible to speculate that Pliny could have been thinking along the same lines in describing Antonius as ‘proscribed’ by Cicero. The trouble is, not only does the jarring departure from Pliny's announced intention to limit himself to the achievements of Cicero's consulship shatter the connection with all that has preceded it, but the very next sentence transports us instantly back to the year 63 with the mention of Cicero's title parens patriae and civilian ‘triumph’ (December 63).

What the passage should ideally describe is some person, other than M. Antonius, and some event, other than the proscriptions, that will contribute to the chronological enumeration of Cicero's consular achievements. Two slight emendations of the text will produce that desired outcome.

This solution is both elegantly simple and easy to justify, because it is well known that Cicero had to combat a grave threat to public safety posed by his consular colleague C. Antonius (Hybrida), Marcus Antonius’ uncle. C. Antonius and Catiline had formed a pact to run jointly for the consulship in 64 and block Cicero's election.Footnote ¹² Although from the early days of his consulship Cicero had apparently been able to count upon some measure of cooperation from Antonius by agreeing to exchange Macedonia, the more lucrative of the proconsular provinces, for Cisalpine Gaul,Footnote ¹³ Cicero had to remain vigilant throughout his year in office to keep Antonius from being drawn back into Catiline's orbit. Cicero credits P. Sestius, who served as quaestor under Antonius in 63, with keeping a watchful eye on him to forestall any disloyalty (Sest. 8). Antonius posed a potential threat because of his willingness to back, or appear to back, Catiline's bid for the consulship in 63 (Cic. Mur. 49), and his complicity in Catiline's plot is taken for granted by several later sources (for example Dio Cass. 37.30.3; Schol. Bob. 126St on Sest. 8). Cicero (Cael. 74) goes so far as to claim that a lingering suspicion (opinio) of Antonius’ involvement in the conspiracy helped contribute to his condemnation for extortion in 59 (cf. Schol. Bob. p. 94St on Flacc. 5; Dio Cass. 38.10.3). As is well known, on the occasion of the final battle near Pistoia in January 62, Antonius turned over the command of his army to his legate M. Petreius so as to avoid coming face to face with his former political confederate Catiline (Dio Cass. 37.39.4; Schol. Bob. 127St on Sest. 12; cf. Sall. Cat. 59.4; Cic. Sest. 12).

In §5 of his In Pisonem, Cicero explicitly lists among his consular achievements his success in overcoming the threat posed by the political sympathies of his colleague Antonius. And Cicero does so after covering just above, in §4, two of the three accomplishments singled out by Pliny in HN 7.117. He puts first, as Pliny does, his opposition to the agrarian bill. Third, as in Pliny, is his act of blocking the sons of the proscribed from standing for public office. The one notable discrepancy is that, in place of De Othone, Cicero reminds his senatorial audience of his defence of Gaius Rabirius (Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo). After recounting those three patriotic services to the state, Cicero takes credit for winning Antonius’ cooperation by exchanging provinces with him and later giving up the province of Cisalpine Gaul:

Cicero next summarizes what he accomplished by means of his First and Third Catilinarians, after which he goes on in Pis. 6 to describe the accolade of being named parens patriae. That honour, as we have seen, comes immediately after the statement in Pliny that Cicero proscribed M. Antonius. Then, just as Pliny places Cicero's civilian ‘triumph’ after mentioning the title parens patriae, Cicero does likewise in the In Pisonem, reminding his audience of the supplicatio that was decreed uniquely to him as a civilian. The parallels between In Pisonem 4–6 and Plin. HN 7.117 are too striking and numerous, both in content and in language, to be ignored. Items not shared are marked with {} in the list below.

• In Pisonem 4–6 Naturalis historia 7.117

• §4 De lege agraria De lege agraria

• {Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo} {De Othone}

• De proscriptorum filiis De proscriptorum filiis

• §5 ‘Antonium mitigaui’

• {Cum prouinciam in contione deposuit}

• In Catilinam I In Catilinam I

• ‘[M.] Antonium <circum>scripsisti’

• {In Catilinam III}

• §6 Title parens patriae Title parens patriae

• Unique civilian honour: supplicatio Unique civilian honour: ‘triumphus’

There are, admittedly, a few slight discrepancies between the two lists, but they are easily explained. To begin with, as noted above, Pliny selected as his second example Cicero's De Othone, whereas Cicero singled out his Pro Rabirio. The choice on Pliny's part is logical, because his aim was to illustrate the persuasiveness of Cicero's oratory, a quality that was undeniably present in the De Othone and arguably in the De lege agraria and De proscriptorum filiis as well, at least as the latter two speeches are portrayed by Pliny. What those three speeches had in common, according to Pliny, was the power to charm the birds out of the trees by influencing people to renounce something that they previously believed to be in their interest (free land, front-row seats in the theatre, and public office).Footnote ¹⁵ By contrast, Cicero in the In Pisonem selected his Pro Rabirio as his second example of a consular achievement because he wanted to remind his senatorial audience of how that speech had served to defend the Senate's right to declare martial law by passing the so-called senatus consultum ultimum.Footnote ¹⁶

A second notable difference is that Pliny places the First Catilinarian ahead of mentioning Antonius, whereas in Pis. 5 Cicero put his ‘taming’ of Antonius ahead of his First Catilinarian, because he alludes to his dealings with Antonius in the context of relinquishing his province of Cisalpine Gaul (in October).Footnote ¹⁷ The latter detail and speech (cum prouinciam in contione deposuit) found no place in Pliny's survey. Nor did Pliny say anything about Cicero's Third Catilinarian, although Cicero touched upon it in the In Pisonem. Understandably Pliny refrained from including those two consular speeches because his survey of Cicero's consulship was more telegraphic, and his emphasis was on the persuasiveness of Cicero's oratory. It is also rhetorically effective in Pliny's terse account to have Catiline's name precede Antonius’, since that is the order in which they are usually named whenever they are mentioned in the same breath. As will be pointed out below, the presence of Catilina in the preceding clause should have ensured that Pliny's readers would have no difficulty in recognizing the identity of Antonius, even without being given his praenomen.

On the positive side, it is to be observed that Pliny and Cicero provide a similar characterization of what was achieved by the First Catilinarian: it put Catiline to flight (Pliny); in it Cicero ordered Catiline to leave Rome (egredi ex urbe iussi, Pis. 5).Footnote ¹⁸ As described by Pliny, the First Catilinarian aptly illustrates his theme of how Cicero's orations influenced the actions of his audience, in this case the villain Catiline. It is also to be noted that in reporting Cicero's honorary title Pliny adopts the less common expression parens patriae, which is found as well at Pis. 6, as opposed to pater patriae at Sest. 121.Footnote ¹⁹ And although Pliny exaggerates by making it seem that the orator received the honour of a triumph, both Cicero (in describing his supplicatio) and Pliny (in describing the ‘triumph’) emphasize that Cicero was the first civilian to be so honoured (mihi togato … singulari genere supplicationis, Pis. 6).Footnote ²⁰ Indeed, the extent to which Plin. HN 7.117 adheres to the same, or nearly the same, outline found in Cic. Pis. 4–6 makes it probable that Pliny drew upon that passage either directly or indirectly when he composed his list of Cicero's consular accomplishments. And if that is so, then the presence of Gaius (not Marcus) Antonius in Pliny's list is precisely what is expected and virtually assured as a correction.

Given what Cicero says about ‘taming’ (mitigaui) his colleague Antonius at Pis. 5, the verb circumscribo meaning to ‘curtail’ or ‘curb’ is ideally suited to describing at HN 7.117 Cicero's success in guarding against the threat posed by his colleague.Footnote ²¹ If we examine Pliny's use of circumscribo, we find that it occurs sixteen times, mostly in the literal sense of drawing a line around (TLL 3.1160.55–1161.12; OLD s.v. 1), but in at least one instance it is used in the figurative sense ‘place restrictions on’ (TLL 3.1161.74–1162.19; OLD s.v. 2b), the meaning that suits the text as emended at 7.117. At 22.4 Pliny speaks of ‘curbing’ luxury:

In Cicero's Philippics, as chance would have it, there are two sterling examples of circumscribo used in two slightly different but related senses to describe restrictions or curbs placed upon none other than the nephew of Antonius Hybrida, Marcus Antonius: (1) Phil. 2.53, the Senate's curtailment of Antonius’ powers as tribune of the plebs in 49 (TLL 3.1162.22; OLD s.v. 5); and (2) Phil. 6.5, a physical barrier in the form of the Rubicon river and a two-hundred-mile limit set by the Senate in 43 (TLL 3.1160.56–7; OLD s.v. 2a).

The proposed emendation [M.] Antonium is ideally suited to balance Catilina unaccompanied by the praenomen Lucius in the preceding clause (tuum Catilina fugit ingenium), and Cicero similarly pairs the two names without praenomina in fr. 1 of In toga candida: dico … domum Catilinam et Antonium cum sequestribus suis conuenisse (in Asc. 83C).Footnote ²² Also, Cicero refers to Hybrida twice in the quotation above from Pis. 5 solely by his nomen Antonius.Footnote ²³ A further, strong indicator that Pliny is likely to have written Antonium without a praenomen at 7.117 is the fact that Pliny shows a decided preference for omitting even M. Antonius’ praenomen when there can be no doubt as to which Antonius he means.Footnote ²⁴ Presumably the well-known fact that Antonius was Cicero's consular colleague (for example Plin. Nat. 8.213) made it unnecessary to write C. Antonium in a passage describing events exclusively in 63. The presence of the names Catilina and Antonius in short, successive clauses should have guaranteed perfect clarity in Pliny, just as it did in fr. 1 of Cicero's In toga candida quoted above.

What we need to bear in mind is that the presence of the word proscriptorum in Pliny, separated as it is by a mere ten words from the cognate circumscripsisti, could easily have influenced the scribe to alter that verb to proscripsisti through perseveration. The two words containing the common element –scrip– would have been no more that one line apart in a Carolingian MS and no more than three lines apart in an uncial. In addition, the juxtaposition of Antonium and the compound verb is likely to have fostered the perseveration by putting the scribe in mind of the proscriptions. The alteration of circumscripsisti to proscripsisti under the influence of proscriptorum just above was almost inevitable, if the scribe had already jumped to the false conclusion that Antonius was Marcus Antonius, who was notorious for bringing about Cicero's brutal murder in the proscriptions. That train of thought can explain the insertion of M. to supply the unexpressed praenomen of Antonium, without any thought being given to how contradictory it makes the statement. A more radical reversal of historical roles is hard to imagine. One might almost say that it rises to the level of crediting Caesar with the murder of Marcus Brutus.

The assertion that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius, given its context in the midst of deeds performed by Cicero as consul in 63, is surely a red herring. It is a monstrosity resulting from a scribal error owed to perseveration, compounded by a misguided supplement (M.). The proscription of M. Antonius by Cicero deserves no place in Pliny or in any other text. Rather, it is long overdue to restore to Pliny's survey of Cicero's consular deeds the wholly appropriate and expected reference to Cicero's success in preventing his colleague Gaius Antonius from tipping the balance in Catiline's favour.