Cicero's devotio: the rôles of dux and scape-goat in his post reditum rhetoric

Abstract

FOR all that Cicero frequently praises constantia and deprecates levitas,' Roman society made allowance for change of policy. It was assumed, for instance, that holding the office of tribune entailed a certain adherence to broadly popularis positions that might be abandoned in later life.2 Similarly in one's personal behavior, if Cicero's word can be taken, some "sowing of wild oats" was no disqualification to later respectability (Cael. 43). A striking example is the remarkable transformation of the ruthless powerbroker Octavian into the glorified emperor Augustus. The particular life to be considered here is the best documented one known to us from pagan antiquity, namely, that of M. Tullius Cicero. The beginning was admittedly spectacular-the rare rise of an eques from a municipium to preeminence at the Roman bar and ultimately to the top prize, the consulate, which he held in the first year of his eligibility (63). Add to that the masterly ferreting out and squashing of the Catilinarian conspiracy, or at least its urban manifestation, and even a very hard-nosed politician (which Cicero was not) might be tempted to linger over the memory of such successes. Cicero's position in Rome was precarious, however: just how precarious he discovered only through exile in March, 58,3 of which the blow