Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? (‘Just how much longer, really, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?’). The famous incipit—‘And what are you reading, Master Buddenbrook? Ah, Cicero! A difficult text, the work of a great Roman orator. Quousque tandem, Catilina. Huh-uh-hmm, yes, I've not entirely forgotten my Latin, either’—Footnote ¹ already impressed contemporaries, including some ordinarily not so readily impressed. It rings through Sallust's version of Catiline's shadowy address to his followers, when he asks regarding the injustices they suffer (Cat. 20.9): quae quousque tandem patiemini, o fortissumi uiri? (‘Just how much longer, really, will you put up with these, o bravest men?’).Footnote ² More playfully, and less well-known, Sallust employed the expression again in a speech by Philippus (Hist. 1.77.17 M./67 R.): uos autem, patres conscripti, quo usque cunctando rem publicam intutam patiemini et uerbis arma temptabitis? (‘But you, members of the Senate, just how much longer will you suffer our Republic to be unsafe by your hesitation and make an attempt on arms with words?’).Footnote ³ Soon afterwards it served Cicero's son, who, as governor of Asia, put down Hybreas fils for having dared to quote from his father's work in his presence (Sen. Suas. 7.14): ‘age’, inquit [sc. Marcus Tullius], ‘non putas me didicisse patris mei: “quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra”?’ (‘“Come now”, he said, “do you think that I do not know by heart my father's ‘Just how much longer, really, Catiline, will you abuse our patience’?”’).Footnote ⁴ Just about the same time, Livy recalled it in order to colour Manlius’ exhortation of his followers (6.18.5): quousque tandem ignorabitis uires uestras, quas natura ne beluas quidem ignorare uoluit? … audendum est aliquid uniuersis aut omnia singulis patienda. quousque me circumspectabitis? (‘Just how much longer, really, will you remain ignorant of your own strength, which nature has willed even brutes to know? … We must dare all together, or else, separately, suffer all. Just how much longer will you keep looking round for me?’).Footnote ⁵ Thereafter Quintilian would refer to it twice, when discussing apostrophe and rhetorical questions (Inst. 4.1.68, 9.2.7), just a couple of years before Tacitus has the maladroit Q. Haterius encourage Tiberius to seize the reins—quo usque patieris, Caesar, non adesse caput rei publicae? (‘Just how much longer, Caesar, will you suffer the absence of the head of state?’, Ann. 1.13.4);Footnote ⁶ a few decades later still, Apuleius puts it into the mouth of the slave who chastises his master, now in asinine form (Met. 3.27): ‘quo usque tandem’, inquit, ‘cantherium patiemur istum paulo ante cibariis iumentorum, nunc etiam simulacris deorum infestum?’ (‘“Just how much longer, really,” he said, “will we suffer this old gelding to attack the animals’ food just a little while ago and now even the gods’ statues?”’). He trusted, no doubt, that the famous question would alert his readers more than anything to the many ‘similarities between Catiline and Lucius’, in order to have them appreciate this ‘ludicrous copy of Cicero's arch-enemy’.Footnote ⁷ Some time after, and in a different corner of the Empire altogether, a teacher's bronze statue would carry the inscription:

The number and the variety of allusions and references—most of them well known—testify to the popularity of Cicero's incipit (who may have fallen victim to its fame at least once himself);Footnote ⁹ they beg the question what it was that rendered it so eminently memorable. By way of an answer, I shall suggest that (i) it is the double collusion between rhetorical form and content, of which (ii) all later allusions acknowledge one.

The opening tria uerba are unparalleled outside of the instances quoted above,Footnote ¹⁰ quite possibly because they constitute, in sum, a highly situational congeries, that is, ‘the accumulation of words … that share the same meaning’ and serve amplification (potest adscribi amplificationi congeries quoque uerborum ac sententiarum idem significantium; Quint. Inst. 8.4.26). Both usque and tandem change the tone rather than the meaning. The former is ‘ein die ununterbrochene Fortdauer bezeichnendes Adv[erb], das sekundär … auch steigernde Bedeutung = ‘vollauf’, ‘gänzlich’ annahm’ (‘[it is] an adverb signifying uninterrupted continuity, which secondarily took on an intensifying effect, in the sense of “fully”, “thoroughly”’).Footnote ¹¹ It emphasizes spatial and temporal extent, as in, for example, Cic. Quinct. 12 tollitur ab atriis Liciniis atque a praeconum consessu in Galliam Naeuius et trans Alpes usque transfertur (‘Naevius is taken from the Licinian auction-halls, more particularly the company of auctioneers, and brought all the way across the Alps to Gaul’), or Pis. 67 bibitur usque eo, dum de dolio ministretur (‘the drinking went on and on until the wine was served straight from the jar’). The second adverb tandem, meanwhile, adds a distinct note of impatience, as another instance in Cicero's earliest surviving speech exemplifies beautifully (Quinct. 10): cum tot tantisque difficultatibus adfectus atque adflictus in tuam, C. Aquili fidem, ueritatem, misericordiam P. Quinctius confugerit, cum adhuc ei propter uim aduersariorum non ius par, non agendi potestas eadem, non magistratus aequus reperiri potuerit, cum ei summam per iniuriam omnia inimica atque infesta fuerint, te, C. Aquili, uosque qui in consilio adestis, orat atque obsecrat ut multis iniuriis iactatam atque agitatam aequitatem in hoc tandem loco consistere et confirmari patiamini (‘Since, affected and afflicted by so many great difficulties, P. Quinctius sought refuge in your integrity, C. Aquilius, in your truthfulness and compassion; since until now he has been prevented by his powerful opponents from enjoying equal legal rights, the same conditions of pleading, an impartial magistrate; and since, by the single greatest injustice, everything is adverse and hostile to him––he now begs and entreats you, Aquilius, and you who sit in on his jury, that you allow fairness, cast about and persecuted by many injustices, to find rest and support at long last in this tribunal’).Footnote ¹²

Quite irrespective of whether Catiline's presence surprised Cicero that day in the temple to Iuppiter Stator, and whether these were the actual words with which Cicero began his address (as would seem likely),Footnote ¹³ the rhetorical figure of amplificatio as realized by congeries beautifully broadens the expression and combines with the connotations of the two adverbs to perform the very patientia that is stated emphatically at the end of this first question (and pointedly introduces one of the overarching themes of the speech).Footnote ¹⁴ Cicero's not-so-subtle point is, of course, that there was no more patientia left to abuse, that Catiline should be done already, which, as Quintilian was quick to observe, is exactly the point of this rhetorical question (Inst. 9.2.7): simplex est sic rogare: ‘sed uos qui tandem? quibus aut uenistis ab oris?’. figuratum autem quotiens non sciscitandi gratia adsumitur, sed instandi: ‘quid enim tuus ille, Tubero, destrictus in acie Pharsalica gladius agebat?’ et ‘quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?’ et ‘patere tua consilia non sentis?’ (‘A straightforward question sounds like this: “But you, tell me, who are you? Or rather, from what shores do you hail?” A rhetorical question, on the other hand, occurs whenever we ask not to gather information but to make a point: “For what was that sword of yours doing there, Tubero, drawn on the field of Pharsalus?”, or “‘Just how much longer, really, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?”, or “Do you realize that your plans are out in the open?”’).Footnote ¹⁵ In sum, the rhetorical form of these tria uerba along with the rhetorical question communicates the question's content. The following overly long string of equally rhetorical questions, amounting to another, grander instance of amplificatio, manifests the same collusion between form and content and thus reiterates the rhetorical point of the initial question in a more expansive fashion.

It will, then, not come as a surprise, that all allusions listed above acknowledge the interplay between the rhetorical form and the explicit mention of patientia in so far as they all find occasion to use the verb pati in their respective contexts (as highlighted in bold above); no one, on the other hand, includes a reference to abuti.Footnote ¹⁶ Furthermore, when Sallust re-employs the famous question for the second time, one should not wonder whether he is punning smartly on the rhetorical effect of Cicero's tria uerba when he writes: quo usque cunctando rem publicam intutam patiemini, wherein Cicero's impatient tandem can be heard and cunctari, with its association of inordinate extent of time, is too fitting not to invite a ‘meta-reading’.Footnote ¹⁷ Lastly, Cicero fils, in quoting the opening question in full (and perhaps drawn out) to express his own impatience with anyone quoting from his father's work in his presence, showed himself to be as witty as Seneca would have him be (Suas. 7.13): homo qui nihil ex paterno ingenio habuit praeter urbanitatem (‘a man who possessed none of his father's talents except wit’).

There would have been another reason for them to remember patientia nostra, aside from the typical Ciceronian clausula (a cretic followed by a spondee), that is. In his discussion of apostrophe (Inst. 4.1.63–4), Quintilian first addresses those critics who wish to ban the rhetorical figure altogether from the exordium, as, they said, the speaker should never lose sight of those ‘whom we strive to win over’ (quos conciliare nobis studemus). These critics, Quintilian counters, fail to realize that ‘on occasion the proem actually requires that a given thought be expressed more sharply and forcefully by directing it to a person other than the judge’ (interim tamen et est prohoemio necessarius sensus aliquis et hic acrior fit atque uehementior ad personam derectus alterius). Listing successful realizations, he then writes (4.1.68): sicut Cicero fecerat in Catilinam: ‘quo usque tandem abutere?’ (‘Cicero had done just so in his speech against Catiline …’). He does not elaborate; but I agree very much with Claude Loutsch's fine observation that this apostrophe, at its original delivery perhaps accompanied ‘[par] un geste en direction de Catilina’ (‘by a gesture in Catiline's direction’), regroups the Senate around Cicero ‘face à un Catiline isolé’ (‘facing an isolated Catiline’).Footnote ¹⁸ This formal expression of isolation is enhanced by the emphatic derogatory vocative as well as by the first-person plural possessive in patientia nostra and by the directional connotation of abuti (in the words of Donat. Ter. Phorm. 413 utimur cum honore, abutimur cum iniuria [‘we “use” honourably, but we “abuse” unjustly’]);Footnote ¹⁹ and it is then confirmed later on, when Cicero claims (Cat. 1.16): quid, quod aduentu tuo ista subsellia uacuefacta sunt, quod omnes consulares, qui tibi persaepe ad caedem constituti fuerunt, simul atque adsedisti, partem istam subselliorum nudam atque inanem reliquerunt, quo tandem animo tibi ferundum putas? (‘What? Were the seats next to you not emptied when you arrived? Did not all ex-consuls, whom you had marked out for death more than once, leave the section of seats next to you empty and unoccupied the moment you sat down? Just how do you think should you feel about [all of] this?’).Footnote ²⁰ Given that the senators normally expressed their support of a political measure by siding physically with the sponsor (and declaring eo in sententiam), it would appear as if Catiline had already been voted against.Footnote ²¹

It was this moment that Cesare Maccari captured when he painted Catiline into the corner of his famous Cicerone denuncia Catilina (1880). But, in fact, Cicero himself had, in his opening apostrophe, already ‘painted’ his adversary thus: for all rhetorically astute readers from Sallust to Apuleius, the form itself renders Catiline's isolation just as starkly as its later explicit description.Footnote ²²