The volume under review aims to make Cicero’s Pro Archia accessible to post-beginner students. As Pisarello points out in the introduction, the focus of this reader is exclusively on language and vocabulary rather than on the historical context or interpretation (p. ix). This raises some questions from the beginning, as one inevitably wonders what students are supposed to make of a Ciceronian speech without providing them with some background information on forensic oratory and the historical context of the events that followed the Social Wars, the Mithridatic War, as well as Catiline’s conspiracy. The underlying assumption seems to be that the speech is a general defence of poetry and literature, rather than a calculated speech in which Cicero skilfully plays to the gallery to prevent the conviction of the Antioch-born poet Aulus Licinius Archias. He was a client of the Luculli, as his nomen also suggests, and stood accused of illegally claiming Roman citizenship under the Lex Papia de peregrinis in 62 BC. Given that Cicero mentions him as working on a poem for the Caecilii Metelli in 61 (Att. 1.16.15), we can assume that Cicero’s defence had been successful, or else it is difficult to see why the Metelli would turn to a disgraced poet to commemorate their family’s achievements or why Cicero would be disappointed by the fact that Archias did not complete the poem on Cicero’s consulship, mentioned in Arch. 28 and 31.
The introduction to the book is aimed at tutors and teachers rather than students, and it offers an overview of the methodological points and the scholarship underlying the three-tier system in which the Pro Archia is presented. Tier 1 is an abridged and simplified rewriting of the speech that is meant to be usable by students with a very basic knowledge of Latin. Tiers 2 and 3 give a text that is still adapted but is progressively more complex. This is followed by the Latin text as printed by Steven Cerutti in his 1998 commentary, aimed at students, for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers (3rd edition 2014), which is based on A. C. Clark’s OCT (1911). One difference compared with Cerutti’s text and other available editions of this speech is the introduction of macrons. Pisarello points out that this can enable students to engage with the rhythm of the Latin language (p. xviii). Considering how challenging explaining the basic principles of Ciceronian prose rhythm to students can be, a general overview of rhythmical prose and Cicero’s main clausulae would have been helpful.
The text follows the conventional division into sections and each section is preceded by a summary, followed by a list of vocabulary, the tiered text, and the full passages. A comprehensive glossary is also added at the end of the book. The information in the summaries is not always precise: for example, nowhere in Arch. 12 does Cicero profess to help others with oratory and poetry (p. 45). He is referring to his role as an advocate, cautiously claiming that no shame should come to him for devoting himself to the study of literature. In section 24, Cicero does not cite precedents for rewarding poets with citizenship. He mentions an anecdote of Alexander the Great visiting the tomb of Achilles and proclaiming him lucky for being immortalised by Homer; then he talks about Pompey’s enfranchisement of the historian Theophanes of Mytilene, who wrote a history of Pompey’s Eastern campaign.
The list of vocabulary appended to each section often provides some historical information about the figures mentioned in the speech. This is inevitable to enable students to make some sense of the passages, and the information is reported very succinctly. Since some figures, such as Marcus and Lucius Lucullus or the poet Ennius, are referred to more than once in the speech, cross-referencing the first occurrence would have allowed to save space and perhaps include some additional glosses. For instance, one explaining that Magnus in the unadapted version of Arch. 24 indicates Pompey the Great would have been useful, or one giving information about the optimates with whom Archias had an acquaintance listed by Cicero in Arch. 6, instead of referring to the appendix in Cerutti’s commentary.
One cannot fault the book for abiding by the criteria set out in its introduction, and Pisarello’s pedagogical concern with accessibility deserves praise. However, it is not helpful to deprive a forensic speech of its historical and socio-cultural context and expect students to purchase Cerutti’s commentary as well. Intermediate students in many UK universities will be expected to deal with the interpretation of a text as well as with translation and parsing. A brief contextualization and succinct notes on historical and legal matters are possible, and a good example is Dominic Berry’s 2000 translation of Cicero’s defence speeches (reissued with corrections in 2008) for the Oxford World’s Classics series. The book can, therefore, be used with profit in a classroom setting by a teacher prepared to explain the required contextual information. That being said, the three-tiered text in this reader will be useful to teachers aiming to help students with basic skills to gain an appreciation of Cicero’s Pro Archia through a simplified and accessible version of the speech.
I noticed a few inaccuracies: p. iii: etiam a ā forensi, instead of etiam ā forensi; p. iii: exordium (sections 1–7), instead of sections 1–4; p. 61: the Africanus mentioned by Cicero in Arch. 16 along with Gaius Laelius (consul in 140) and Lucius Furius Philus (consul in 136) is not Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the victor over Hannibal in 202, as indicated in the book. Cicero refers, instead, to the contemporary of Laelius and Philus, Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus, who destroyed Carthage in 146 and Numantia in 133.
Bibliography
Berry, Dominic H. (2008), Cicero: Defence Speeches, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cerutti, Steven M. (2014), Cicero: Pro Archia Oratio, 3rd edition. Mundelein: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
Clark, A. C. (1911), M. Tulli Ciceronis orationes: Pro Tullio, Pro Fonteio, Pro Sulla, Pro Archia, Pro Plancio, Pro Scauro. Oxford: Clarendon Press.