Hide
Show all
Email this article 
Contra spem spero? Cicero's Last Political Struggle
Abstract
The aim of this article is to show how Marcus Tullius Cicero's hope for the restoration of the republic after Caesar's assassination changed in the last years of his life. The author analyses the information contained in Cicero's surviving letters and philosophical writings from that period. Their message is not unambiguous, which means that they can be interpreted in different ways today. Cicero was not a supporter of Caesar's dictatorship, but after his assassination, he was aware that tyranny continued and that the chances of rebuilding the republic were slim. Nevertheless, he undertook a final struggle, in which his weapons were speeches against Antony and philosophical writings, the content of which shows many similarities to Cicero's thoughts expressed in the Philippics. The orator did all this to prove that he deserved to be remembered by posterity.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDF (Język Polski)References
Appianus z Aleksandrii, Historia Rzymska, tłum. L. Piotrowicz, Wrocław 2004.
Cassius Dio, Historia Romana, red. L. Dindorf, Lipsiae 1890.
Kasjusz Dio Kokcejan, Historia rzymska, tłum. i oprac. W. Madyda, wstęp historyczny I. Bieżuńska-Małowist, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków 1967.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, De officiis, w: M. Tulii Ciceronis Scripta quae manserunt omnia, wyd. C. Atzert, Leipzig (Teubner) 1932.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, t. 1, ks. 1–2, red. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge 1965.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, De re publica, De legibus, Cato Maior de senectute, wyd. J.G.F. Powell, Oxford 2006.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, Epistulae ad Familiares, wyd. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge 1988.
Cycero Marek Tuliusz, O Państwie, O prawach, spolszczyła I. Żóltowska, Kęty 1999.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum, wyd. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Cambridge 1980.
Cicero Marcus Tullius, Philippics, wyd. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Chapel Hill 1985.
Cycero, Filipiki, mowy przeciwko Antoniuszowi, tłum. K. Ekes, Warszawa 2002.
Cycero Marek Tulliusz, Wybór listów, tłum. G. Pianko, oprac. M. Plezia, Wrocław 1962.
Cycero Marek Tulliusz, Listy do Attyka, t. 1 (ks. 1–2), tłum. K. Różycka-Tomaszuk, wstępem i przypisami opatrzyła K. Stebnicka, Wrocław 2016.
Cyceron, Rozmowy tuskulańskie i inne pisma, tłum. W. Kornatowski, Warszawa 2010.
Listów Marka Tulliusza Cycerona ksiąg ośmioro, t. 2, tłum. E. Rykaczewski, Poznań 1873.
Marci Tulli Ciceronis Pro M. Marcello Oratio, w: H. Gotoff, Cicero’s Caesarian Speeches. A Stylistic Commentary, Chapel Hill 1993.
Plutarch z Cheronei, Cyceron, w: Cztery Żywoty, tłum. i komentarze M. Brożek, wyd. 2, Warszawa 2003.
Gajusz Swetoniusz Trankwillus, Żywoty Cezarów, tłum., wstęp i komentarze, J. Niemirska-Pliszczyńska, przedm. J. Wolski, Wrocław 1972.
Appel H., Ite in suffragium. O wyborach w republikańskim Rzymie, Toruń 2019.
Arena V., Invocation to Liberty and the Invective of “Dominatus” at the end of the Roman Republic, „Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies” 2007, 50, 1.
Banach T., Juliusz Cezar – tyran czy nadzieja rzeczpospolitej? Analiza mowy pro Marcello Marka Tulliusza Cycerona, „Studia Prawno-Ekonomiczne” 2021, 121.
Bellen H., Cicero und Aufstieg Oktavians, „Gymnasium” 1985, 92.
Bishop C., The trill of Defeat. Classsicism and the Ancient Reception of Cicero’s and Demosthenes’ Philippics, w: Reading Cicero’s Final Years, Studies on Roman Thought and Its Reception, red. C. Pieper, B. van der Velden, Berlin–Boston 2020.
Botermann H., Die Generalabrechnung mit dem Tyrannen. Ciceros Rede für den König Deiotarus, „Gymnasium” 1992, 99.
Breunesse M., van Gils L., Cicero and Political Agency in Late-Republican Rome, w: Agents of Change in the Graeco-Roman and Early Modern Periods, red. S. Castelli, I. Sluiter, Leiden 2023.
Gelzer M., Cicero. Ein Biografischer Versuch, Wiesbaden 1969.
Gotoff H.C., Cicero’s Caesarian Orations, w: Brill’s Companion to Cicero, red. J.M. May, Leiden 2002.
Gotter U., Der Diktator ist tot! Politik im Rom zwischen den Iden des März und der Begruundung des Zweiten Triumvirats, Stuttgart 1966.
Gowin A.M., The Triumviral Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio, Ann Arbor 1992.
Graff J., Ciceros Selbstauffasung, Heidelberg 1963.
Habicht C., Cicero der Politiker, München 1990.
Hall J., Saviour of the Republic and father of the fatherland: Cicero and political crisis”, w: The Cambridge Companion to Cicero, red. C. Steel, Cambridge 2013.
Jarecki J., Cicero’s Ideal Statement in Theory and Practice, Bloomsbury 2014.
Keeline T.J., Were Cicero’s Philippics the Cause of his Death?, w: Reading Cicero’s Final Years, Studies on Roman Thought and Its Reception, red. C. Pieper, B. van der Velden, Berlin–Boston 2020.
Kemezis A.M., Greek Narrative of the Roman Empire under the Severans, Cambridge 2014.
Kumaniecki K., Literatura Rzymska. Okres Cyceroński, Warszawa 1977.
La Bua G., Man of Peace? Cicero’s Last Fight for the Republic in Greek and Roman Historical “Fictions”, w: Reading Cicero’s Final Years, Studies on Roman Thought and Its Reception, red. C. Pieper, B. van der Velden, Berlin–Boston 2020.
Lintott A., Cicero as Evidence. A Historian’s Companion, Oxford 2008.
Manuwald G., Cicero, Philippics 3–9, t. 1, Introduction, Text and Translation, Berlin 2007 (Texte und Kommentare, t. 30, cz. 1–2).
Manuwald G., Eine Niederlage rhetorisch zum Erfolg machen: Ciceros Sechste Philippische Rede als paradigmatische Lektüre', „Forum Classicum” 2007, 50, 2.
Manuwald G., The Function of Praise and Blame in Cicero’s Philippics, w: Praise and Blame in Roman Republican Rhetoric, red. C. Smith, R. Covino, Swansea 2011.
Marchese R.R., Speech and Silence in Cicero’s Final Days, „The Classical Journal” 2014, 110, 1.
McCarthy J., Octavianus puer, „Classical Philology” 1931, 26.
Moore G.P., Master to Pawn: Cicero's Involvement in the Collapse of Republican Rome, „Tenor of Our Times” 2020, 9, Article 17, https://scholarworks.harding.edu/tenor/vol9/iss1/17 [dostęp: 21.08.2025].
Notari T., Staatsdenken und Rethorik in Ciceros Marcelliana, „Fundamina” 2010, 16, 2.
Parker V., Deiotarus: zur Karriere eines Römischen Klientelkönigs, „Electrum” 2018, 25.
Peer A., Cassius Dio, Cicero, and the Complexity of Civil War, w: Cassius Dio: The Impact of violence, War, and Civil War, red. C.H. Lange, A.G. Scott, Leiden–Boston 2020.
Peer A., Cicero’s Last Caesarian Speech: The Pro rege Deiotaro as a Final Warning before the Ides of March, w: Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, t. 14, red. C. Deroux, Bruxelles 2008.
Peirano I., The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake: Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context, Cambridge 2012.
Pina Polo F., Contra arma verbis: der Redner vor dem Volk in der späten römischen Republik, Stuttgart 1996.
Porod R., Dio and the Failed Politician Cicero, w: The intellectual Climate of Cassius Dio,Greek and Roman Pasts, red. A.M. Kemezis, C. Bailey, B. Poletti, Leiden 2002.
Rochlitz S., Das Bild Caesar’s in Cicero “Orationes Caesarianae”. Untersuchungen zur sapientia und clementia Caesaris, Frankfurt 1993.
Shackleton Bailey D.R., Cicero: Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et ad M. Brutum, Cambridge–London–New York 1980.
Sullivan F.A., Cicero and Gloria, „Transactions and Procedings of the American Philological Association” 1941, 72.
Syme R., Rewolucja rzymska, tłum. A.M. Baziór, Poznań 2009.
Tempest K., The Latin Letters of Pseudo-Brutus (Cic. Brut. 1.16 and 1.17), w: Res vera, res ficta: Fictionality in Ancient Epistolography, Trends in Classics, red. C.R. Jackson, J. Soldo, Berlin 2023.
Tempest K., An Ethos of Sincerity: Echoes of the “Republica” in Cicero’s “Pro Marcello”, „Greece & Rome” 2013, 60, 2.
Usher S., Cicero’s first Philippic and the Fall of the Republic, „Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies” 2010, 53, 1.
Van der Blom H., Officium and res publica: Cicero’s political Role after the Ides of March, „Classica& Mediaevalia” 2003, 54.
Van der Velden B., Ciceronian Reception in the Epistula ad Octavianum, w: Reading Cicero’s Final Years, Studies on Roman Thought and Its Reception, red. C. Pieper, B. van der Velden, Berlin–Boston 2020.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/rh.2025.59.237-254
Date of publication: 2025-10-31 08:36:00
Date of submission: 2024-06-20 17:02:51
Statistics
Indicators
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hanna Appel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.