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THE BELLVM CIVILE POMPEIANVM: THE WAR OF WORDS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2020

Pedro López Barja de Quiroga
Pedro López Barja de Quiroga*
Affiliation:
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
*
pedro.barjadequiroga@usc.es
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Extract

The irrelevance of ideology is perhaps one of the most strongly held views shared by the historians of the Late Republic. As indicated by Matthias Gelzer in 1912, in those final years of the Roman Republic, ‘political struggles were fought out by the nobiles at the head of their dependents’. In his opinion, this was nothing more than a power struggle, in which slogans or ideas were merely propaganda, without any real value. In 1931, analysing the political proposals of Cicero, Gelzer's disciple Hermann Strasburger rejected the existence of political parties, as, in his opinion, terms such as optimates or populares were merely propagandistic mottos and pure wordplay. As a result, it became widely believed that the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was nothing more than a struggle between dignitates, that is, a confrontation for leadership between ambitious politicians who were not prepared to compromise. More recently, in 1994, Luigi Loreto considered the conflict between Caesar and Pompey to be aimed at seizing power, unlike ‘ideological’ wars, where the aim was to maintain or instate a specific type of social or political order.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 700 - 714
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

The irrelevance of ideology is perhaps one of the most strongly held views shared by the historians of the Late Republic. As indicated by Matthias Gelzer in 1912, in those final years of the Roman Republic, ‘political struggles were fought out by the nobiles at the head of their dependents’.Footnote 1 In his opinion, this was nothing more than a power struggle, in which slogans or ideas were merely propaganda, without any real value. In 1931, analysing the political proposals of Cicero, Gelzer's disciple Hermann Strasburger rejected the existence of political parties, as, in his opinion, terms such as optimates or populares were merely propagandistic mottos and pure wordplay.Footnote 2 As a result, it became widely believed that the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was nothing more than a struggle between dignitates, that is, a confrontation for leadership between ambitious politicians who were not prepared to compromise.Footnote 3 More recently, in 1994, Luigi Loreto considered the conflict between Caesar and Pompey to be aimed at seizing power, unlike ‘ideological’ wars, where the aim was to maintain or instate a specific type of social or political order.Footnote 4

Ronald Syme expressed this more bluntly. In reference to the death of Caesar, and the motivations of the Liberators, his view was unforgiving: ‘Liberty and the laws are high-sounding words. They will often be rendered, on a cool estimate, as privilege and vested interests.’ He made a similar statement with regard to individuals who were much less encumbered, such as the average voter, who also had no interest in lofty ideals: ‘the Roman voter, free citizen of a free community, might elect whom he would: his suffrage went to ancestry and personality, not to alluring programmes of solid merit.’Footnote 5 Christian Meier drew a series of pertinent conclusions from this perspective, in which ideas were nothing more than hot air. As politics did not exist beyond the oligarchy, and this shared a common ideology, then a different, alternative, constitution was not even imaginable. It was a Krise ohne Alternative during the Late Republic, and the system finally collapsed without anyone suggesting what might replace it, until it had already been destroyed.Footnote 6 Meier's ideas were enormously influential, starting with the work of his former professor. In his biography of Cicero, Gelzer insists that the existence of ‘political parties’ is a fantasy that was created in the nineteenth century, by Theodor Mommsen in particular, as there was never a democratic ideology or party in Rome. The actions of the populares were initiatives by a number of politicians who had been excluded from the competition by the optimates, and who had been denied any real political influence.Footnote 7 There were no ideological rifts in the dominant oligarchy, only different strategies in the struggle for power. Similarly, Margaret Robb considers that there was no popularis ideology, because everyone in Rome defended the sovereignty of the people, which was the key to keeping the aristocratic system in place: those who opposed it were not populares but instead seditiosi. Footnote 8

Some years ago, these quiet waters were disturbed by the proposal of Fergus Millar, who considered the Late Republican political system as a democracy. One of the central arguments of Millar's proposal regarded the importance of rhetoric, that is, of political discourse and debate, which led to a series of studies on the contiones by other scholars, highlighting their importance, while denying that they served as a means for a genuine political debate. Eventually, Robert Morstein-Marx turned Millar's argument on its head: control of information by the elite led to a hierarchized communication, in which the figure of the orator stood out as above the rest. It was not so important what they said—they all shared the same rhetoric, which sought to praise the people, presenting themselves as a ‘true’ friend—but instead who said it (auctoritas). There was no popularis ideology but instead pure ‘contional’ rhetoric. For this reason, following in the same line as Meier, new initiatives could not even be proposed; the contiones served to underpin the discourse of the elite, and not to propose alternatives to their authority. There were none.Footnote 9 Morstein-Marx himself has recognized that an authentic autonomous voice of the plebs existed, but he locates this voice outside the contiones, in political graffiti, even if these are very rarely mentioned in our sources.Footnote 10 Even though we can see that the Roman plebs in the Late Republic was a real power, capable of pushing past senatorial opposition in order to have around thirty-five laws passed between 139 and 52 b.c., the truth is, according to Morstein-Marx, that it did not provide a decisive impulse toward the creation of a democratic ‘Alternative’.Footnote 11

It is not my intention to offer a detailed historiographic analysis of the role of ideology in the politics of the Late Republic, although it should be noted that not all historians have followed this same line of denial. Some have highlighted the importance of the ideological confrontation between populares and optimates. Footnote 12 In general terms, the criticism levelled against those who consider that ideology is nothing more than simple wordplay, and therefore irrelevant, was already made by Quentin Skinner: ‘even if your professed principles never operate as your motives, but only as rationalisations of your behaviour, they will nevertheless help to shape and limit what lines of action you can successfully pursue.’Footnote 13

Over the following pages, the aim is to show that there was a popularis or democratic ‘Alternative’, even if it is difficult for us to reconstruct it fully, owing to the scarcity of our sources. We have neither a dialogue on political philosophy written by a popularis (if such a book was indeed ever written) nor a narrative of the Civil War by some leader of the optimates, so we have to look elsewhere, for example at the linguistic choices in our sources, as this is where we can find a number of interesting clues. The Civil War in Rome—the bellum ciuile Pompeianum—drew a dividing line between two sides that defended opposite ideas, in an ideological confrontation.Footnote 14 This means that the slogans of each side were not interchangeable, and were not mere wordplay, suitable for any given situation. I intend to follow in the footsteps of Skinner, attributing to the political ideas the importance they had, studying them in their linguistic context, and demonstrating the savagery of the ideological debate at the moment of greatest tension, during the war between Caesar and Pompey in 49–48 b.c. More specifically, it will first be shown that Caesar never claimed to be fighting for the res publica, and then, second, our attention will be drawn to a very politically charged slogan asserting the freedom of either the people or the res publica: populum/rem publicam in libertatem uindicare. As far as we can gather from the few sources we have, popularis politicians used the first option, while the optimates preferred the second.

Our main contemporary sources, which are the starting point for reconstructing the ideological debate that took place at that time, are the corpus of Caesar and the letters of Cicero. The dates of Cicero's letters can generally be established with a high degree of precision, but in the case of Caesar's Bellum Ciuile, in particular, it is difficult to reach a definitive conclusion. The generally accepted hypothesis, with which I concur, is that, although it was published posthumously, it was written at an earlier date, probably in the year 48 b.c. while Caesar was in Alexandria, where he had been forced to remain longer than he would have liked. His clear concern to situate his actions within the framework of traditional legality would not have made sense at any subsequent moment, when the honours and privileges he received could no longer be justified within this legal framework.Footnote 15 In any event, it must have been written before the winter of 46 b.c., when Caesar took on his third consulate, in breach of the same legality he had boasted about respecting up until that point.Footnote 16

1. RES PVBLICA

1.1 The optimates: a fight for the res publica

In Cicero's letters and Caesar's corpus, political positions are very clearly formulated: Pompey stood firmly behind the Republican flag, while Caesar defended liberty, not in a generic form but the very specific liberty of the people, which was associated with the popularis tradition or ideological ‘family’.Footnote 17 We have extensive evidence of the mottos of the side of the optimates, including the words of Pompey himself, who repeatedly attempted to identify his cause with the Republic.Footnote 18 Cicero, as we know, spent several agonizing months deciding which side he should support, and whether he should join those who had abandoned Italy or not. When he finally chose Pompey, after a feverish night of sleeplessness and vomiting, he sent a short note to his wife, stating that he had committed himself to defending the Republic together with those men he considered closest to him in political matters.Footnote 19 Of course, and as we know, his decision was affected by many other factors, but at the moment of truth the keyword was ‘Republic’, and this meant fighting for it against the man who had invaded Italy in order to destroy it. It has to be said that the propaganda was successful, as the writers who, years later, looked back on the early stages of the war considered that those who had fought for Pompey were fighting for the Republic.Footnote 20 In 45 b.c., defending Ligarius in front of Caesar himself, Cicero would state that many would have preferred to remain at home, but they could not refuse to follow Pompey faced with so many earnest men who repeatedly invoked the ‘holy name of the Republic’.Footnote 21

On Pompey's side, numerous efforts were made to present Caesar as a sworn enemy of the Republic. Marcus Cato is credited with the sarcastic comment that Caesar was the only person who had attempted to bring down the Republic without being drunk. Suetonius, who refers to the comment (Suet. Iul. 53.1), includes it as proof of how moderate Caesar was towards drinking, although it is more interesting to note that an important leader of the optimates ironically accuses Caesar of wishing to obliterate the Republic. Other members on the same side supported this idea, especially Titus Ampius, a devoted supporter of Pompey, who published statements attributed to Caesar that clearly demonstrated his tyrannical intentions: ‘The Sulla who renounced the dictatorship was illiterate’ and, above all, ‘the Republic is nothing but a name, without substance or reality’ (Suet. Iul. 77.1). Ampius possibly manipulated the phrases or took them out of context, or otherwise directly invented them. However, this matter is not relevant in our case, but instead we should focus on the date when Ampius decided to publish such a select series of bon mots that described Caesar as a threat to the Republic. We do have one clue: Caesar's supporters referred to Ampius as ‘the trumpet of Civil War’ (Cic. Fam. 6.1.32 = 226 SB: tubam belli ciuilis). As the tuba was the instrument used to mark the start of a battle, it is tempting to consider that he earned this nickname as a result of this collection of Caesar's disreputable statements that he published, which presented Caesar as a threat, and which were a war cry against the aspiring tyrant.Footnote 22 Caelius seems to have stated something similar in August (?) 51 b.c.: he had no doubts that Caesar would put his own interests before those of the Republic (Cic. Fam. 8.5.3 = 83 SB). Again, what is notable is that Caelius presented Caesar as someone who was incapable of making the sacrifice expected from all citizens, who put the common good before his personal interests. For his enemies, the message was clear: they were fighting for the Republic, against someone who wanted to destroy it. Naturally, this heinous image of Caesar came to a head on 7 January 49 b.c., when the Roman Senate solemnly declared that the Republic was faced with a serious threat (Caes. BCiu. 1.5.3). From this moment on, there could be no doubts as to which of the two sides was Republican.

1.2 Caesar and the res publica

That said, Caesar also referred to the sacrosanct nature of the Republic, although he did so on relatively few occasions, as we will go on to see. Amongst the specialists who have studied the Bellum Ciuile, many have highlighted his desire for power: special mention is made of Caesar's references to the defence of his own dignitas, considering that these were proof of the Civil War being not an ideological conflict but instead a brutal struggle for power. Gelzer is somewhat reticent in this regard. In his review of Caesar's biography, Syme complains that ‘not enough is reproduced of Caesar's own assertion of Caesar's dignitas’.Footnote 23 For Gelzer (in the same way as for Mommsen), Caesar was not merely ambitious and without scruples but instead a veritable Staatsman, with a wider, more generous perspective than that of the narrow-minded Roman oligarchy, as it included all of Italy and the Empire.Footnote 24 The main support for this statement lies in a passage from Caesar's letter to Scipio with proposals for peace, which include: … quietem Italiae, pacem prouinciarum, salutem imperii … (Caes. BCiu. 3.57.4). Although the sentence is framed against the backdrop of a very specific situation, Gelzer considers it to be a ‘political programme’, in which the absence of Rome is especially noteworthy, indicating in his opinion that Caesar was thinking not in terms of the city-state but instead in wholly imperial terms.Footnote 25 Both Syme and Meier emphasize the importance of the dignitas in the outbreak of the Civil War.Footnote 26 Similarly, according to Raaflaub, personal grievances were one of the main factors, while the other motives were simply an alibi, aimed at presenting Caesar as nothing less than the defender of the majority of the Senate, supporting libertas (in the sense given to this word by the optimates), and confronting the oligarchic faction who had unjustly acquired a dominant position.Footnote 27 We can consider this insistence on dignitas, seen as an expression of Caesar's personal ambition, as the dominant explanation of the outbreak of the Civil War.Footnote 28

However, not all historians agree on this point. Some suggest that the Bellum Ciuile was instead a defence of the legitimacy of the Republic; the work is interpreted as the expression of a ‘Republican’ Caesar, who presents himself as the living embodiment of the law, emphasizing all of the illegal acts committed by the supporters of Pompey.Footnote 29 Luca Grillo states: ‘throughout the BC, Caesar projects a constitutional and republican façade’.Footnote 30 This different approach has also affected the interpretation of the term dignitas, which Morstein-Marx considers to be an invocation to the Republic: the people had granted Caesar the possibility of presenting himself in absentia to the consulate, something the Senate had now taken away from him. Therefore, in defending his dignitas, Caesar was defending values that were an essential component of Roman legality.Footnote 31 Very much in the same vein, Richard Westall claims that ‘the text of Caesar's Civil War is manifestly informed by Republican sentiment. There can be no denying that the proconsul was particularly attached to his dignitas.’Footnote 32

Now, we should first notice that it is not only Caesar's dignitas that is at stake in the Bellum Ciuile: that of the plebeian tribunes was in a similar position; second, Caesar did want to present himself as the defender of law and order but not as a defender of the res publica, because this term was inevitably associated with the proclamations of the optimates. As regards the dignitas of the plebeian tribunes, Caesar states that he abandoned his province, and invaded Italy in order to return it to them: tribunos plebis in ea re ex ciuitate expulsos in suam dignitatem restitueret (Caes. BCiu. 1.22.5). This directly refers to the Senatus Consultum ultimum (SCV) of 7 January, whose interpretation is more difficult than at first appears, as it is not merely a reference to the fact that the plebeian tribunes had been expelled from Rome; here, much more compellingly, Caesar was stating that they had been deprived of their Roman citizenship.Footnote 33 Caesar refers to ciuitas not to urbs;Footnote 34 the tribunes had not been expelled from Rome but instead from the entire community of citizens, and now they had to be reintegrated within it, in a similar way as Lepidus would, when the moment arrived, with Sextus Pompey.Footnote 35 It is very likely that the SCV was accompanied by a formal declaration from the Senate, which condemned the tribunes, Caesar and his troops, as enemies of the Roman People.Footnote 36 Even if we do not grant any legal value to a Hostis-Erklärung, the tribunes would have had great difficulties in defending their condition as citizens.Footnote 37 If, as Scipio Aemilianus said, dignitas was born from innocentia, then what was now being asserted was precisely the innocence of Caesar's supporters.Footnote 38 If we consider both Caesar's and the tribunes’ dignitas together, they did not express a desire for power, but instead were calling for a return to the position which Caesar and the tribunes had legally occupied in the Republic before 7 January: a full restitutio which returned to them their citizenship, their prerogatives and their magistracies.Footnote 39 Cicero, after returning from exile, referred to himself as in meam pristinam dignitatem restitutus (Cic. Dom. 9).

In fact, Caesar did not state at any time that he was fighting for the Republic, in order to defend it: instead, he said he was defending his dignitas, the position of the plebeian tribunes, and the libertas of the Roman People. We will now analyse the number of times Caesar as a ‘character’ refers to the res publica in the Bellum Ciuile:

  • – 1.7.7: Caesar's speech to the soldiers of the XIII Legion, exhorting them to defend the existimatio dignitasque of the general with whom they loyally served the res publica for nine years.

  • – 1.9.3: in reply to a letter from Pompey, Caesar indicates the iniuriae he has suffered (he was stripped of six months’ governance of the province, and was not allowed to present his candidature in absentia despite having been authorized to do so by the Roman People): tamen hanc iacturam honoris sui rei publicae causa aequo animo tulisse, that is, he had accepted this snub against his honour with grace, for the good of the res publica. He then states (1.9.5) that he is prepared to put up with anything for the good of the Republic (rei publicae causa), and suggests that the People and the Senate should be allowed to administer the res publica. Caesar clearly indicates that, at this moment in time, neither the Senate nor the People are free, and the Republic cannot exist under these conditions.

  • – 1.24.5: this is a neutral reference; Caesar states that it is of interest to the common good and to the res publica that he and Pompey meet and talk.

  • – 1.32.7: meeting of the Senate held on 1 April. Caesar asks the senators to govern the res publica together with him (ut rem publicam suscipiant atque una secum administrent), but declares that, if they refuse out of fear, he will take charge and govern (se rem publicam administraturum).

  • – 3.10.6 and 3.10.9: Caesar's proposal for peace, which is convenient for both sides and for the Republic.

  • – 3.53.5: he rewards Scaeva ut erat de se meritus et de re publica, for his services to Caesar and the res publica.

  • – 3.90.2: speech by Caesar before Pharsalus: he never wanted to squander the soldiers’ blood, or to deprive the Republic of either army (neque rem publicam alterutro exercitu priuare uoluisse).

The expression res publica is ambiguous: on the one hand, it has a neutral meaning, referring to the institutional apparatus, which was something that subsisted as long as Rome continued to be a political community.Footnote 40 For this reason, Caesar was able to use it, for example, in reference to ciuitates in Gallia (Caes. BGall. 6.20), or it could also be said that he took over the governance of the Republic or rewarded Scaeva for his notable services to the Republic. However, on the other hand, the expression has a much more specific meaning, derived from the fact that Pompey and his followers had taken over the ‘Republican cause’: as a result, res publica could also be understood as referring to the res publica defended by Pompey, that is, the real, specific version which existed in Rome in 50 b.c., and which Caesar utterly rejected. In a letter he sent to Oppius and Cornelius in the early March of 49 b.c., Caesar accused Pompey and his supporters of being responsible for the fact that the res publica was in such a condition (quorum artificiis effectum est ut res publica in hunc statum perueniret, Cic. Att. 9.7C.3 [174C SB]). Clearly, Caesar used this to make the other side responsible for the outbreak of the war, although at the same time he insisted that the reason for the war had been the destruction of the res publica. When Caesar, according to Ampius, stated that the Republic was no more than a name, he was not referring to the Republic in an abstract manner but instead to the very concrete form that existed in Rome in 50–49 b.c. According to Caesar, Pompey and his followers were calling for a Republic and a legality that they themselves had destroyed. For this same reason, Caesar could not defend it, as it no longer existed.Footnote 41

There are other references to the res publica in the Bellum Ciuile, although they are made by Pompey's supporters. In the first chapters, while describing the debates between the senators that led to the SCV of 7 January, there are already several references to the res publica, including the agreement by the Senate—which nevertheless was vetoed by the plebeian tribunes—whereby, if Caesar did not disband his army before a given date, he would be acting contra rem publicam. Footnote 42 Shortly afterwards, in the letter Pompey sent to Caesar, which he received in Ariminum, the res publica is mentioned four times in as many lines (Caes. BCiu. 1.8.3). Pompey claimed that, considering his high-ranking position (pro sua dignitate), Caesar had to put his anger to one side for the good of the Republic (studium et iracundiam suam rei publicae dimittere).Footnote 43 In turn, the governor of Hispania Ulterior, Varus, punished Caesar's supporters in his province for having acted aduersus rem publicam (Caes. BCiu. 2.18.5).

Cicero was an expert at playing with the two meanings of res publica. He often uses it in a restrictive way, whereby the term res publica only applies when the body politic is based on justice. Therefore, if it is based on injustice, regardless of how well appearances are maintained, and even though there are magistracies, assemblies and judges, this is not a true res publica. Footnote 44 When he returned from exile, this argument was of great use to him, because it allowed him to say that the Rome that had condemned him, dominated by Clodius and two unworthy consuls, was not a true res publica. Footnote 45 Caesar in the Bellum Ciuile made use of this same ambiguity: the Republic which appealed so strongly to the supporters of Pompey no longer existed, because it was in the hands of a clique that was prepared to ride roughshod over any law; it needed to be reconstructed.Footnote 46 This is the picture Caesar is describing to us: the Bellum Ciuile begins with a Rome that is subjected to all types of abuses: the senators, pressurized and threatened by Pompey; the plebeian tribunes, fleeing for their lives; the provinces, divided up arbitrarily and not according to tradition, so that private individuals had lictores under their control, flying in the face of all traditional testimonies (1.1–6). Compared to this image of violence and chaos, Book 3 opens with quite a different image, that of a Rome governed by law and tradition: with Caesar as its dictator, elections are held, choosing him and P. Servilius as consuls. Caesar takes great care to note that this was the year in which the magistracies could be legally repeated, as ten years had passed since his consulate in 59 b.c. (Caes. BCiu. 3.1.1). Through laws introduced by praetors and plebeian tribunes (that is, not by Caesar himself), he pardoned those who had been condemned by Pompey, ‘in the days when Pompey had the legions garrisoned in the city’ (Caes. BCiu. 3.1.4, that is, inside the pomerium). Once the elections and the feriae Latinae had been held, Caesar abdicated from his dictatorship, in order to take over the consulship. Now he could justifiably present himself as the legitimate representative of Rome, as he held its highest magistracy.

2. POPVLVM / REM PVBLICAM IN LIBERTATEM VINDICARE

While Pompey's cause is quite easy to identify, Caesar's is less obvious, although I believe that we have enough arguments to serve as the basis for a suggestion. Caesar's motto was libertas, and more specifically libertas populi, the liberty of the people. In the Bellum Ciuile, at the climax of the narrative, when both sides are about to meet in the final battle, Caesar stops the account for a moment to introduce his favourite character, a centurion who is blindly loyal to him and his cause. His name is Crastinus, and Caesar specifically makes note of the battle cry he calls out to his comrades: ‘only this battle remains: once it is over, he [Caesar] will recover his dignitas and we our libertas’ (Caes. BCiu. 3.91.2).Footnote 47 Here, at the decisive moment of the war, we find the liberty of the People (as in Caesar's writings, the army sometimes represents the Roman People as a whole)Footnote 48 together with the dignitas of its commander. So much attention has been focussed on this latter point, considered as a key element in interpreting the work, that little attention has been paid on its counterpoint: the liberty of the People. Caesar fought for both, even though some historians have made great efforts to conceal one, and only see the other. Now we can go back to the start of this war, which ended with the words of Crastinus in Pharsalus. When Caesar captured Corfinium, and revealed his clemency towards his vanquished enemies, he stated that ‘he had not quitted his province with any evil intent, but to defend himself from the insults of his foes, to restore to their position the tribunes of the People who at that conjuncture had been expelled from the state, to assert the freedom of himself and the Roman People, who had been oppressed by a small faction’ (… ut se et populum Romanum factione paucorum oppressum in libertatem uindicaret, Caes. BCiu. 1.22.5, transl. A.G. Peskett, Loeb Classical Library).Footnote 49 This was the mission that justified the Civil War, and which was about to be fulfilled in the eloquent words of the centurion Crastinus on the battlefield of Pharsalus.

I believe that the phrase populum in libertatem uindicare is of paramount importance, although it has generally been misinterpreted, because it has been considered as equivalent to rem publicam in libertatem uindicare, considering that populus = res publica, which is not correct, at least in this case.Footnote 50 They are not interchangeable terms. The expression can also be used in very different contexts, to refer to freeing the Gauls, for example, or the Gaditani. Footnote 51 Also, Catiline, haranguing the conspirators, revealed to them how miserable their lives would become ‘unless we are capable of asserting our own liberty’ (Sall. Cat. 20.6). This may well be a touch of irony on the part of Sallust, with the noble slogan corrupted by Catiline for his own advantage. However, the phrase populum in libertatem uindicare had a precise meaning: it was a war cry of the populares, as we know thanks to Cicero. In his dialogue De re publica, when Scipio Aemilianus presents the arguments of the supporters of each type of government, he sums up those of the defenders of democracy in the following way: ‘They think that this commonwealth [that is, the concern of the People: res populi] is the only one properly so named; and so it is usual for the “concern of the People” to be liberated from the domination of kings and aristocrats (itaque et a regum et a patrum dominatione solere in libertatem rem populi uindicari …) and not for kings or the power and wealth of an aristocracy to be sought by a free people’ (Cic. Rep. 1.48; transl. ZetzelFootnote 52). I believe that Cicero slightly altered the popularis slogan (rem populi instead of populum in libertatem uindicari) in order to maintain its correspondence with the definition he has given of res publica as res populi (1.39). In any event, the coincidence with Caesar's phrase is remarkable. It is even more so if we consider that, according to Sallust, the Gracchi were the first to ‘assert the liberty of the plebs’ (Sall. Iug. 42.1): this slogan belonged to, or characterized, those who wanted to transform the Republic in a more democratic sense. This libertas, specifically, the libertas populi, was what Caesar asserted in writing in the Bellum Ciuile, and graphically in the denarius minted by C. Vibius Pansa (cos. 43 b.c.) in 48 b.c., the reverse of which showed the head of Libertas with the motto: LIBERTATIS. Footnote 53 It is no coincidence that in the Bellum Gallicum the word ‘Senate’ appears only sixteen times, while ‘the People’ (populus) appears eighty times;Footnote 54 in the anonymous works of the corpus Caesarianum it acquires at times an intensely popularis connotation, as in Bellum Africum (97.1), where it states that Pompey's supporters had risen up in arms against the Roman people.

The expression uindicare in libertatem was originally a legal term. It refers to the process whereby the liberty of man who was improperly treated as a slave is asserted.Footnote 55 The process consisted of a legis actio sacramento in rem in which, owing to the fact that the slaves could not defend themselves, a third party (the uindex/adsertor libertatis) did so for them. In the way in which Caesar uses it, it was also a denunciation of the factio that kept the Roman people illegally enslaved (Caes. BCiu. 1.22.5). It was a proclamation which, far from being inoffensive or irrelevant, was actually aggressive, as he formally declared that the Roman People had been unjustly enslaved by a minority, which had also sequestered the will of the Senate.

Even if our sources are scant, and very little of this popularis tradition has been preserved, some conclusions may be gathered from the discussion about the different constitutions in Book 1 of Cicero's De re publica. As Valentina Arena has shown, the supporters of the ciuitas popularis (democracy) defined it as a constitution where the People are in control of everything (including the law, courts and international agreements) and there is equality among citizens.Footnote 56 The initiatives and laws put forward by popularis politicians (especially Tiberius and Caius Gracchus) followed the same lines. We can be sure that, when Caesar proclaimed his will to assert the liberty of the People, he was comfortably situated within this tradition, and that his readership could easily understand the meaning and purpose of the catchword.

The optimates had an equivalent of this popularis slogan: rem publicam in libertatem uindicare, where the liberty being asserted is that of the Republic. There are plenty of examples. Cicero uses it several times, most significantly when he states that Scipio Nasica had asserted the liberty of the Republic against the tyranny of Tiberius Gracchus. The phrase is complementary to the phrase of Sallust we previously saw: both Nasica and Gracchus asserted liberty, only the former was thinking about the Republic, while the latter was thinking about the People.Footnote 57 Brutus, Asinius Pollio and Munatius Plancus use it in letters addressed to Cicero, where it is not always easy to decide if they use the slogan because it formed part of their political language or because they knew that Cicero would appreciate the gesture.Footnote 58 It also appears, quite revealingly, in the Bellum Africum, a text that is clearly in line with Caesar's ideas, although here the context is relevant: it is said by Cato himself, spurring the young Pompey into action, remembering the moment when his father stood at Sulla's side. There can be no doubt that the anonymous author knew which words would fit well into the fierce discourse of the optimates,Footnote 59 as we can see in another passage (BAfr. 44.3), when Scipio, in a speech addressed to the soldiers of Caesar who had been captured, does not refer to the people but instead to the res publica. As is well known, this is also the expression that Augustus used at the start of his Res Gestae (1.1), although, as indicated by Louise Hodgson, ‘[b]y liberating not the populus Romanus but the res publica Augustus exploits his superior political position to appeal to a broader audience than Caesar had done.’Footnote 60

So here we have two strictly complementary expressions: the populares spoke of asserting the liberty of the People (or the plebs) but without mentioning the Republic; the opposite occurs with the optimates: the liberty they defend is always that of the Republic and never that of the People. Although there were certainly different tendencies among the optimates, it is clear that for them the liberty of the Republic meant the preservation of Rome's mixed constitution, ruled by the aristocratic element, namely the Senate.Footnote 61 The populares, on the other hand, contested this view, claiming that the government should be in the hands of the People.

This assertion of the liberty of the People, against the oppression of an aristocratic faction, repeatedly appears in Caesar's text, skilfully manifested in the opposition between the many (who supported Caesar) and the few (who supported Pompey). This is not merely a proclamation, but instead the narrator makes it a reality in reporting events. The population of Sulmo is on his side, but comes up against the opposition of two supporters of Pompey (Caes. BCiu. 1.18); the inhabitants of Brundisium are also in his favour, although they cannot demonstrate this openly until Pompey leaves the city (1.28); in Hispania, all of the blame is levelled against the commanders Afranius and Petreius, while their soldiers had declared their wish for peace (1.85.2).Footnote 62 There are even more examples, but one especially interesting case is that of Iguvium, where, after Caesar indicated that the entire population was on his side, this led to Pompey's commander having to flee, and the district passing into the hands of Curio and his three cohorts (BCiu. 1.12). However, we know from Cicero that some of the inhabitants of Iguvium fled together with Pompey's commander, taking refuge in Corfinium (Cic. Att. 7.31.1 [147 SB]). Not all of the people in the municipia were on his side, but this is precisely what Caesar wanted us to believe: that his enemies were only a small group of oligarchs who had sequestered the will of the Roman People, whose liberty he and Crastinus were ready to assert.

Cicero did not use the phrase libertas populi Romani too frequently, but when he did he usually stuck to the basic principle that the libertas populi Romani only existed if the senatus auctoritas were respected.Footnote 63 Above all, this can be seen in the Philippics, where the chiasmus senatus auctoritas libertasque populi Romani is used very frequently.Footnote 64

3. CONCLUSIONS

In the bellum ciuile Pompeianum, two opposing political ideas clashed head-to-head: optimates such as Pompey or Cicero fought for the Republic, while Caesar's cause was the liberty of the People. He never claimed to be fighting for the Republic, while his enemies did their best to picture him as a sworn enemy of the Republic, intent on destroying it. From Caesar's point of view, on the other hand, both he and the tribunes of the plebs, who had forfeited their citizenship as a result of the SCV and become public enemies of Rome, should have been reinstated in their previous position, and this is probably the meaning of dignitas in the crucial passage of the Bellum Ciuile (1.22.5). Cicero in his De re publica shows in a very convincing way that the catchword populum in libertatem uindicare was characteristic of those who were supporters of the ciuitas popularis, a phrase that translates the Greek dēmokratia.

The libertas of the Republic is set against the libertas of the populus. Meier's conception of a ‘crisis without an alternative’ is based on a fallacy: that a revolution only begins when there is a viable alternative to the existing situation. The Cahiers de Doléances prior to the calling of the États géneraux in France in 1789 do not contain a single reference against the king or in favour of a Republic; however, a few years later, with Louis XVI on the scaffold, the monarchy and the Ancien Régime came to an end in France.Footnote 65 Despite everything, in the Rome of the Late Republic, there were alternatives, and the aristocracy was perfectly aware of them: the different types of democracy from Greek history. When Cicero defined the different constitutions or political regimes (formae rei publicae), he did not want to use Greek terms, but used instead Latin terms. Instead of ‘monarchy’ he used regnum; for aristocracy, he chose optimates; his translation of democracy was precisely ciuitas popularis (Cic. Rep. 1.42–3). Within this context of popularis ideas, we have to situate the demand for the freedom of the people on which Caesar placed so much emphasis in his account of the Civil War, a popularis manifesto in which he staunchly defended the libertas populi. It is true, as has been noted by Arena, that the populares and the optimates shared the same concept of libertas: both understood it as ‘non-domination’.Footnote 66 The difference lies in which part of the body politic each side in the Civil War wished to liberate: either the ‘Republic’, as a political construct, or otherwise ‘the People’, that is, the comitia, the only ones who had the right to pass laws.

References

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15 Collins, J.H., ‘On the date and interpretation of the Bellum Civile’, AJPh 80 (1959), 113–32Google Scholar, partly coinciding with the ideas of Klotz, A., ‘Zu Caesars Bellum Ciuile’, RhM 66 (1911), 81–93Google Scholar, in that Hirtius was responsible for its publication after the death of Caesar. On the contrary, Barwick, K., Caesars Bellum Ciuile. Tendenz, Abfassungszeit und Stil (Leipzig, 1951)Google Scholar states that the work had already been published, albeit in two parts, the first of which corresponded to Books 1–2 (as a single volume) at the end of 49 b.c. and Book 3 at the end of 48 b.c. or in early 47 b.c.; Peer, A., Julius Caesar's Bellum Civile and the Composition of a New Reality (Farnham, 2015), 167–81Google Scholar thinks that Books 1–2 were written and published separately in 49 b.c., while Book 3 was written in 48 b.c. but finalized and published in 46 b.c.; Penna, A. La, ‘Tendenze e arte del Bellum Ciuile di Cesare’, Maia 5 (1952), 191–233Google Scholar, at 209–10 and 224–33 thinks that almost the whole work (up to 3.99) was published in 46 b.c. The scholarly consensus is that, when Caesar was assassinated, the Bellum Ciuile was in an unfinished state (so briefly Damon, C., Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum Ciuile [Oxford, 2015], 10–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar). In this article, the recent Oxford Classical Text of the Bellum Ciuile by C. Damon (Oxford, 2015) will be used.

16 Boatwright, M.T., ‘Caesar's second consulship and the completion and date of the Bellum Civile’, CJ 84 (1988–9), 31–40Google Scholar. Other alternatives have been proposed: Macfarlane, R.T., ‘Ab inimicis incitatus: on dating the composition of Caesar's Bellum Civile’, SyllClass 7 (1996), 107–32Google Scholar states that Caesar uses inimici only to refer to his opponents in the first thirty-three chapters, as he then goes on to refer openly to the aduersarii/hostes; based on this, Macfarlane infers that Caesar wrote these thirty-three chapters prior to April 49 b.c., when there were still hopes of reconciliation. His argument has been convincingly criticized by Gaertner, J.F. and Hausburg, B.C., Caesar and the Bellum Alexandrinum: An Analysis of Style, Narrative Technique, and the Reception of Greek Historiography (Göttingen, 2013), 185–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. According to Jehne, M., ‘Caesar und die Krise von 47 v.Chr.’, in Urso, G. (ed.), L'ultimo Cesare. Scritti riforme progetti coniure (Cividale del Friuli, 1999), 151–73Google Scholar, the context fits the publication of the Bellum Ciuile in 47 b.c.

17 I have borrowed this concept from V. Arena, Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2012), 7, where she defines ideological ‘families’ as follows: ‘systems of thought, more or less coherent in themselves, that displayed distinct orientations on questions related to fundamental evaluative terms such as liberty, justice, and sovereignty’.

18 Cf. Pompey's letter to the consuls in Cic. Att. 8.6 (154 SB), 2 and especially the message Pompey sent to Caesar in Ariminium, in which he refers to the res publica no fewer than four times in just a few lines (Caes. BCiu. 1.8.3). See Hodgson, L., Publica, Resand the Roman Republic (Oxford, 2017), 166Google Scholar. Certainly, Caesar may have not reproduced Pompey's letter faithfully, but, if he edited it, it is telling that he chose to highlight precisely the importance of res publica as a catchword of the optimates.

19 Cic. Fam. 14.7 (155 SB), 2. Cf. Brunt, P.A., ‘Cicero's officium in the Civil War’, JRS 76 (1986), 12–32Google Scholar. On what Cicero meant by ‘Republic’, see p. 10 below with n. 44.

20 Vell. Pat. 2.48.4.

21 Cic. Lig. 21. Similarly, in 46 b.c. Cicero remembered that those who had taken up arms in 49 b.c. believed they were doing so pro re publica (Fam. 6.6.12). Welch, K., ‘Both sides of the coin: Sextus Pompeius and the so-called Pompeiani’, in Powell, A. and Welch, K. (edd.), Sextus Pompeius (London, 2012), 1–30Google Scholar, at 10 and Welch, K., Magnus Pius. Sextus Pompeius and the Transformation of the Roman Republic (Swansea, 2012), 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar have suggested that it was Mark Anthony who coined the expression partes Pompeianae (Cic. Phil. 5.32), which distorted reality, as those who fought against Caesar did not do so for Pompey but instead for the Republic.

22 Regarding tuba, cf. Caes. BCiu. 3.90.3 (battle of Pharsalus) and Sall. Cat. 60.1 (battle of Pistoria). In turn, Morgan, L., ‘Leui quidem de re … Julius Caesar as tyrant and pedant’, JRS 87 (1997), 23–40Google Scholar, at 38 dates both phrases to the final months of Caesar's life.

23 Syme (n. 3), 92 = 150.

24 The title of biography, M. Gelzer's, Caesar, der Politiker und Staatsman (Wiesbaden, 1960 6)Google Scholar, prompted the ironic comment of Schmitt, C., Un giurista davanti a se stesso. Saggi e intervista (Vicenza, 2012 2), 153Google Scholar: ‘Questo lo trovo ridicolo: come se dicessi Carlo Magno come automobilista’. According to Schmitt, the state was as much a fantasy in Caesar's times as cars were in Charlemagne's.

25 Caesar's sentence becomes almost a leitmotiv in Gelzer, M.'s biography Caesar. Politician and Statesman (Oxford, 1968, transl. Needham, P.)Google Scholar. It is often quoted or alluded to: for example at 217 n. 4, 232 n. 1, 273.

26 Syme (n. 5), 48; Meier (n. 6), 297–9.

27 Raaflaub (n. 3), 182–3. Raaflaub builds his case upon Caesar's proposal in BCiu. 1.9.5: omnis res publica senatui populo Romano permittatur, which he sees as encapsulating a very important political goal of the optimates: the abolition of extraordinary commands (at 166–7).

28 See n. 3 above and very recently Peer (n. 15), 45. Peer claims (at 54) that Caesar only in Book 1 mentioned libertas, even if recognizing (at n. 56) that libertas also appears in Book 3, when Crastinus makes his short speech. She appears not to have noticed that the same can be said of dignitas, only mentioned in Books 1 and 3 (among Crastinus’ words again), because at BCiu. 3.83.1 it is Domitius Ahenobarbus’ dignitas, not Caesar's, that is at stake.

29 The most influential paper in this sense probably has been the paper written by Collins (n. 15). La Penna (n. 15), 195–200 claims that Caesar's political platform was moderate and law-abiding.

30 Grillo, L., The Art of Caesar's Bellum Civile. Literature, Ideology and Community (Cambridge, 2012)Google Scholar, 58 n. 1. He quotes five passages from Caesar's Bellum Ciuile as proof of his thesis (BCiu. 1.7.1, 1.9.1–3, 1.22.5, 2.21, 3.1.1), but only in one of them (1.9.3) did Caesar mention the res publica. Lange, C.H., ‘Triumph and civil war in the Late Republic’, PBSR 81 (2013), 67–90Google Scholar, at 75 n. 32 thinks that Caesar's justification in the Civil War was rei publicae causa. As supporting evidence, he quotes Caes. BCiu. 1.9.5; cf. 1.8.3, 1.9.3; BGall. 6.1.2; however, none of these passages is decisive: in BCiu. 1.9.5 (and 1.9.3) Caesar is speaking about the tug-of-war after crossing the Rubicon, enumerates his grievances and declares to be willing to suffer everything ‘for the Republic's sake’. He does not say that what he did (crossing the Rubicon) was ‘for the Republic's sake’. In 1.8.3 it is not Caesar who is speaking but an emissary from Pompey. In BGall. 6.1.2 it is said only that Pompey (not Caesar) remains near the urbs and does not travel to his province cum imperio rei publicae causa. On this topic, Hodgson's ([n. 18], 180) view is preferable: ‘Caesar would have had to strain so hard to make res publica relevant to his action that he was better off saying as little as possible about it.’

31 Morstein-Marx, R., ‘Dignitas and res publica: Caesar and Republican legitimacy’, in Hölkeskamp, K.-J. (ed.), Eine politische Kultur (in) der Krise? Die ‘letzte Generation’ der römischen Republik (Munich, 2009), 115–40Google Scholar.

32 Westall, R.W., Caesar's Civil War. Historical Reality and Fabrication (Leiden, 2017), 275–6Google Scholar.

33 Dio Cass. 41.3.2 says that the names of the tribunes were erased from the senatorial register, although Caesar is much more direct: their citizenship was revoked.

34 Regarding the contrast between ciuitas and urbs, see Cic. Fam. 9.14.8 = 326 SB; Phil. 11.25; Rep. 1.58; Off. 2.78.

35 Cic. Phil. 5.39: [Lepidus] … Sex. Pompeium restituit ciuitati.

36 The sources are contradictory and the subject has been much debated. According to Duplá, A., Videant consules. Las medidas de excepción en la crisis de la República romana (Saragossa, 1990), 141Google Scholar, it was only a threat that did not become effective. Yet, Jal, P., ‘«Hostis publicus» dans la littérature latine de la fin de la République’, REA 65 (1963), 53–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar thinks that there was a senatorial declaration that they were hostes. Recently, Allély, B., La déclaration d'hostis sous la République romaine (Bordeaux, 2012), 82–4Google Scholar, after revising all the evidence (especially, App. B Ciu. 2.33 and 2.50; Flor. 2.13), concludes that in 49 b.c. the SCV and the senatorial declaration took place, affecting both Caesar and his soldiers. Most recently, Fezzi, L., Il dado è tratto. Cesare e la resa di Roma (Bari and Rome, 2017), 205Google Scholar remains non-committal.

37 Guarino, A., ‘«Nemico della patria» a Roma’, Labeo 18 (1972), 95–100Google Scholar considered that the ‘hostis declaration’ lacked any type of legal value, and that it was only of political relevance.

38 Scipio Aemilianus, fr. 32 ORF 3 Malcovati = Isid. Etym. 2.21.4: ut est illud Africani: ex innocentia nascitur dignitas, ex dignitate honor, ex honore imperium, ex imperio libertas. For the close connection between dignitas and salus, see Hellegouarc'h (n. 3), 411–12. Interestingly, Arena (n. 17), 142–3 notes that Scipio's notion of libertas is close to the notion of libertas expressed by the supporters of democracy in Cicero's De re publica. Perhaps the same can also be said of his notion of dignitas, which seems to coincide with Caesar's. Nevertheless, some caution is necessary, as we do not know whether the fragment is referring to the commonwealth or the individual.

39 Regarding the question of why Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the obvious answer is: because of the SCV of 7 January. However, the SCV does not appear amongst the various reasons indicated by Stanton, G.R., ‘Why did Caesar cross the Rubicon?’, Historia 52 (2003), 67–94Google Scholar, who points towards Caesar's fear of a likely accusation and conviction by the tribunals. Morstein-Marx, R., ‘Caesar's alleged fear of prosecution and his ratio absentis in the approach of the Civil War’, Historia 56 (2007), 159–78Google Scholar rejects the idea that an accusation was being prepared against Caesar.

40 On this sense of res publica as public institutions (magistrates, assemblies, etc.), see, for instance, Cic. Leg. 3.41 and Leg. agr. 1.19 with de Quiroga, P. López Barja, Imperio legítimo. El pensamiento político romano en tiempos de Cicerón (Madrid, 2007), 181Google Scholar and Moatti, C., Res publica. Histoire romaine de la chose publique (Paris, 2018), 43 n. 2Google Scholar. For the more specific meaning of res publica as ‘public treasure’, see Drexler, H., ‘Res publica’, Maia 9 (1957), 247–81Google Scholar, at 257–8.

41 After 49 b.c. Caesar's closest collaborators ‘nicht einmal … vermochten sich positiv über die alten Normen der res publica hinauszuheben’: Meier (n. 6), 299.

42 BCiu. 1.2.6; cf. 1.1.2 and 1.1.3, 1.4.3, 1.5.3.

43 On this very important letter, see n. 18 above and Carter, J.M., Julius Caesar. The Civil War, 2 vols. (Warminster, 1991–3)Google Scholar, ad loc.

44 Cic. Rep. 3.43–5. See further Schofield, M., ‘Cicero's definition of res publica’, in Powell, J.G.F. (ed.), Cicero the Philosopher (Oxford, 1995), 63–83Google Scholar.

45 Cic. Parad. Stoic. 4.27–8; Red. pop. 14.

46 In Spain in 1930, Ortega y Gasset used the word estado with similar ambiguity in his cry against the monarchy of Alfonso XIII: ‘Spaniards! Your state is no more! Reconstitute it! Delenda est monarchia!’: http://hemerotecadigital.bne.es/issue.vm?id=0000435614&page=1&search=berenguer&lang=es On the biographical context for this newspaper article, see Gracia, J., José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 2014), 449–51Google Scholar.

47 While Raaflaub (n. 3), 172 n. 91 had refrained from analysing Crastinus’ words, Raaflaub, K., ‘Caesar the liberator? Factional politics, civil war and ideology’, in Cairns, F. and Fantham, E. (edd.), Caesar against Liberty? Perspectives on his Autocracy (Cambridge, 2003), 35–67Google Scholar, at 57 n. 72 (see also id., ‘Between tradition and innovation: shifts in Caesar's political propaganda’, in G. Urso [ed.], Cesare: precursore o visionario [Cividale del Friuli, 2009], 141–57, at 148 n. 29) interprets libertas here as ciuitas, but this is not likely, for libertas should be understood in the sense it has in the Bellum Ciuile, in particular as referring back to BCiu. 1.22.5. Against Raaflaub's proposal, see Hölkeskamp, K.J., ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen: addressing the Roman People and the rhetoric of inclusion’, in Steel, C. and Blom, H. van der (edd.), Community and Communication. Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome (Oxford, 2013), 11–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 15 n. 17.

48 As we can also see in Caes. BGall. 4.17.1.

49 This is a case of ‘ring-composition’, as it has been pointed out by Carter (n. 43), 2.213. See also Brown, R.D., ‘Two Caesarean battle descriptions: a study in contrast’, CJ 94 (1999), 329–57Google Scholar, at 351.

50 Weber, W., Princeps. Studien zur Geschichte des Augustus (Berlin, 1936), n. 557Google Scholar contains a detailed list of passages in which either of these expressions is included, i.e. rem publicam / populum in libertatem uindicare. Both expressions are usually dealt with as being equivalent, without any further discussion; see e.g. Hellegouarc'h (n. 3), 555; Wirszubski (n. 3), 103; Seager, R., ‘Cicero and the word popularis’, CQ 22 (1972), 328–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 337 n. 11 and 338 n. 2; Grillo (n. 30), 136; Moatti (n. 40), 235 n. 1. An exception is La Penna, A., Sallustio e la “rivoluzione” romana (Milan, 1968), 238Google Scholar n. 271: ‘È tuttavia notevole che la tradizione aristocratica ed Augusto parlino della patria o della repubblica, Cesare e Sallustio, di populus e plebs.’

51 Caes. BGall. 8.1.3; BCiu. 2.21.1.

52 Zetzel, J.E.G. (ed.). Cicero: De Re Publica: Selections (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

53 Crawford, M., Roman Republican Coinage (Cambridge, 1975), 449/4Google Scholar. Crawford states that ‘(it) is an almost visual equivalent of Caesar's claim to be freeing the Roman people from the oppression of a clique of oligarchs’ (at 736) and, very significantly, associates this coin of Pansa with Caes. BCiu. 1.22.5 (at 465).

54 Krebs, C.B., ‘More than words: the Commentaries in their propagandist context’, in Grillo, L. and Krebs, C.B. (edd.), The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar (Cambridge, 2018), 29–42Google Scholar, at 38–9.

55 Regarding the technical phrase uindico in libertatem, see Dig. 1.4.12 pr., 40.12.3 pr. In general, see Nicolau, M., Causa liberalis. Étude historique et comparative du procès de liberté dans les législations anciennes (Paris, 1933)Google Scholar and Franciosi, G., Il processo di libertà in diritto romano (Naples, 1961)Google Scholar.

56 Arena (n. 17), 116–68.

57 Cic. Brut. 212: … Scipione … qui ex dominatu Ti. Gracchi priuatus in libertatem rem publicam uindicauit … Cf. Cic. Fam. 2.5 (49 SB).2 (Cicero to Curio, 53 b.c.) : … rem publicam adflictam et oppressam … ueteram dignitatem et libertatem uindicaturus. Cicero to Octavius after 20 December 44 b.c. (fr. epistularum 7 Beaujeu = 14 Watt = Non. p. 419.11M): qui si nihil ad id beneficium adderes, quo per te me una cum re publica in libertatem uindicassem. Beaujeu has some doubts concerning its authenticity. The letter could be a fabrication responding to the letter in which Brutus complains that Cicero is being too generous to Octavius.

58 Cic. Ep. Brut. 1.16.1 (25 SB); Cic. Fam. 10.31.5 (368 SB, Asinius Pollio to Cicero, 16 March 43 b.c.); Cic. Fam. 10.21.6 (391 SB, Plancus to Cicero, 13 May 43 b.c.).

59 Both Koestermann, E., ‘L. Munatius Plancus und das Bellum Africum’, Historia 22 (1973), 48–63Google Scholar and Pallavisini, A., ‘Il capitolo 22 del Bellum Africum e la propaganda augustea’, Contributi dell'Istituto di Storia Antica, vol. 2 (Milan, 1974), 107–14Google Scholar find these words from BAfr. 22 to be out of touch with the popularis colour of the work. They therefore claim that it is the result of an interpolation. Yet, this sentence is attributed to Cato, a fact that makes interpolation unnecessary and shows the capacity of its unknown author to record the enemy's propaganda in its own terms. Caesar does exactly the same thing when he records every time Pompey used res publica in his letters.

60 Hodgson, L., ‘Appropriation and adaptation: Republican idiom in Res Gestae 1.1’, CQ 64 (2014), 254–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 268.

61 Cic. Rep. 1.41 with Arena (n. 17), 97.

62 See Raaflaub, K., ‘Creating a great coalition of true Roman citizens’, in Breed, B.W., Damon, C. and Rossi, A. (edd.), Citizens of Discord. Rome and its Civil Wars (Oxford, 2010), 159–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Cic. Dom. 130; cf. Fam. 10.6.2 (370 SB) and 11.7.2 (372 SB).

64 Cic. Phil. 3.8, 3.32, 3.33 (de libertate populi Romani et dignitate uestra), 3.37, 3.39, 4.8, 5.35, 5.53, 7.27 (libertas agitur populi Romani, quae est commendata uobis), 10.23, 13.33. On other occasions, libertas populi Romani is associated with the consuls (3.36) or with the res publica (5.46, 7.11, 12.29). It should also be noted that there is a close link between the army and the libertas populi (10.15, 14.36), which helps to explain the importance the latter has in Caesar's account.

65 Cf. Scott, J.C., Hidden Transcripts. Domination and the Art of Resistance (New Haven, 1990), 77Google Scholar.

66 Arena (n. 17), 9: ‘a commonly shared notion of liberty, understood as a status of non-subjection to the arbitrary will of either a foreign power or a domestic group or individual’. As she herself has indicated, however, in Cicero's De legibus liberty does not mean ‘non-domination’, because the participation by the people in the commonwealth ‘ought to take the form of a submission to the senatorial nobility’: see Arena, V., ‘Popular sovereignty in the Late Roman Republic: Cicero and the will of the People’, in Bourke, R. and Skinner, Q. (edd.), Popular Sovereignty in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, 2016), 73–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 90.