Caesar: an exemplum under erasure (S. 134-135)

The Brutus and the De officiis occupy the two ends of Cicero’s productive philosophical period from 46–43 BCE9, and by the time he reaches the latter work, he has become aware that he uses his philosophical writing as therapy10. He articulates that philosophy substitutes for politics in the De divinatione 2.711. This cuts both ways: Cicero presents the equivalent of public speeches in his writings, but, depending on whether we emphasize the success of the equivalence or the displacement it entails, we will come up with a view of philosophy as either a ful.lling public endeavor for Cicero or a pass-time for when he cannot engage in ›the real thing‹.

At the beginning of De of.ciis 3, however, the extended comparison he makes between his own use of leisure to that of Scipio Africanus reveals that, at least in his own self-presentation, he writes out of weakness. This is the rhetoric of inability. Scipio is offered as a contrast to Cicero: the former was able to engage in contemplation without leaving behind »monuments of his genius entrusted to letters« (nulla enim eius ingenii monumenta mandata litteris, Off . 3.4), because his dialogue with his mind meant that »he was never less at leisure than when at leisure, never less alone than when alone«, according to the maxim Cicero cites Cato as recording (numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum otiosus, nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset, Off . 3.1).

Two things useful for the Brutus emerge from this passage. First, writing offers a kind of dialogue solitary contemplation cannot. It is directed outward, and though Cicero may be separated from his audience, whether contemporary or of posterity, writing still affords him away of connecting with others.He cannot keep his self whole without some sort of audience. The second is related and will occupy the rest of this paper, namely that Cicero de.nes himself not on his own, but in comparison to others.

The exemplum is an overdetermined device for constituting the self. Scipio offers a model that Cicero can only partially imitate, much as he would like to. Cicero says that he does not have Scipio’s strength of mind (nos autem, qui non tantum roboris habemus, Off . 3.4). Furthermore, their external circumstances are different. Cicero’s otium has been imposed by the extinction of the senate and destruction of the law courts (extincto … senatu deletisque iudiciis, Off . 3.2), and is not, like Scipio’s, the result of choice.

In the Brutus, Cicero likewise de.nes himself in relation to exempla, but these are contemporary: Marcellus and Caesar. The time that has elapsed between the De of.ciis and the Brutus means that Caesar has been murdered in the interval. His death does not make him any easier to talk about, and reference to Caesar simmers under the surface of the De oficiis throughout – the difference is that both overt and covert references to Caesar in the De of.ciis provide a political critique12, but in the Brutus, the threat Caesar poses to Cicero is more personal and raw. Cicero’s assessment of Caesar’s style is a politically charged moment in the Brutus.