BMCR 2009.02.33, J. R. W. Prag, Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae

J. R. W. Prag (ed.), Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae: Rhetoric, Law, and
Taxation in Cicero's Verrines. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical
Studies. Supplement 97.  London:  Institute of Classical Studies,
University of London, 2007.  Pp. ix, 189.  ISBN 9781905670116.  L28.00.


Reviewed by Ayelet Haimson Lushkov, Yale University and Dartmouth
College ([email protected])
Word count:  1922 words
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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of this review.]

Cicero's Verrines generate some impressive statistics. At 400 pages of
Oxford Classical Text, they constitute almost a quarter of surviving
Ciceronian oratory. They are the only surviving example of a Republican
prosecution speech, and, since only the first actio was ever delivered,
have the distinction of being staggeringly successful even without full
performance in court. They are besides, as Jonathan Prag, the editor of
Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae, points out, "remarkably understudied"
(1). This volume, which collects the papers given at a colloquium held
at the Institute of Classical Studies in London in February 2004, sets
out to help correct this imbalance.[[1]]

The challenge the authors were set is explicitly stated on the first
page: "how to read these speeches and to use them as evidence for
matters of law, taxation, or provincial government" (1). This question
already reveals the perspective which this volume takes on the
Verrines, one which reads the speeches through a historical, not to say
functionalist, lens. Happily, however, the scope of this volume, as
intimated by its title, also leaves considerable room for matters of
rhetoric, presentation, and the difficulties and obstacles these issues
pose to the historian of Republican Sicily. This volume is thus not
only of significant interest to students of Ciceronian rhetoric or the
Roman provinces, but also a sound lesson in how the discipline of
Classics can embody productive dialogues between scholars of text,
culture and history.

Conference volumes are often taken to task for a certain scholarly
diffusion; Sicilia Nutrix, however, passes this particular test with
flying colors. Cross-references abound, and the papers are remarkably
uniform in their message. The Verrines, they all agree, tell us more
about Cicero and his practice, than they reliably do about the
situation in Sicily.[[2]] The problem is compounded by the fact that
the Verrines are often the primary, fullest, or even solitary source
for some issues regarding the Republican province: taxation, the
governor's conduct and jurisdiction, the grain-tithe, the right of the
provincials to a fair hearing, indeed any hearing at all. Nor does this
volume have magic solutions for the scholar navigating these shoals:
the rhetoric of the Verrines is always self-serving, obfuscating and
shuffling facts for the professed purpose of the speech, the
condemnation of Verres.

Following the editor's introductory comments, Andrew Lintott ('The
Citadel of the Allies') considers the Verrines in their most immediate
context, the prosecution itself. Lintott considers the complicated
procedures and efforts undertaken by Cicero in order to facilitate his
primary strategy: the amassing and skillful production of eye-witness
testimonies. In so doing, Lintott also supplies a glimpse into the
background of a Roman trial, the behind-the-scenes work which shores up
Cicero's performance. The issue of evidence and its manipulation rears
its head here for the first, but far from last, time in the volume, as
does the equally important matter of the speeches' professed purpose.
Most importantly, however, Lintott reminds us that the Verrines fall
within a very particular type of prosecution, res repetundae, with
their inherent contradiction between the welfare of the allies and the
welfare of Rome.

Kathryn Tempest's offering ('Saints and Sinners: some thoughts on the
presentation of character in Attic oratory and Cicero's Verrines')
tackles the interesting question of the influence exerted by the Attic
orators on Cicero's rhetorical practice through an examination of
intertextual characterization. The continuity of a rhetorical tradition
stretching from Athens to Rome is doubtlessly a worthwhile object of
study, and Tempest succeeds at least partially in "alerting the reader
of Cicero's Verrines as to how the character of Verres, as Cicero
presents him, ultimately derives from a range of topoi  that are
originally Greek." (35) Unfortunately, her argument occludes the
influence of earlier and contemporary Roman oratory, our lack of which
should not prompt a wholesale recourse to Greek models.

Catherine Steel ('The Rhetoric of the de Frumento') focuses on the
third and longest speech of the Verrines, and specifically on Cicero's
rhetorical strategies in creating a facade of lucidity. Steel begins by
exploring how Cicero goes about making the corn supply an "appealing
and persuasive" (37) instance of Verres' provincial abuses. The
question is well worth answering, since the de Frumento, which is the
focus not only of Steel's paper but of much of the volume as well, is a
singularly complicated, and, on Cicero's own admission, tedious mass of
data.[[3]] Focusing on sections 67-117, Steel shows how Cicero
carefully regulates his rhetorical structures to give the audience the
impression of mastery over a complicated mass of data. Steel then goes
on to expose the conflicting evidence that lies behind Cicero's smooth
presentation, and which makes it nigh impossible to know what actually
transpired in Sicily. This obfuscation of fact quickly emerges as one
of the themes of the volume, as well as Steel's suggestion that
Cicero's intent is the defamation of an act which would have appeared
legitimate to most Romans--the safeguarding of Rome's food supply.

Sylvie Pittia ('Les Donne/es Chiffre/es dans le De Frumento de
Cice/ron') continues the exploration of the de Frumento's misleading
data. She focuses on the abundant numerical figures in the speech, and
offers a nuanced typology of numbers and their rhetorical
deployment.[[4]] The paper is methodically conceived and presented, and
is one of the highlights of this volume. The stakes here are especially
high, for Pittia's conclusions explicitly and consciously form a
significant obstacle for the old tendency to use the Verrines as a
source for reconstructing the economy of republican Sicily. The
numbers, Pittia argues, are in effect an anthology--they do not come
together to form an image of Roman Sicily or of the Roman fiscal
system, at least not without significant problems. In order to evaluate
their reliability and utility, Pittia cautions, one must establish
their purpose in the economy of the speech itself (78-9).

The parsing of Cicero's exploitations of physical evidence continues
with Jean Andreau ('Registers, Account-Books, and Written Documents in
the De Frumento'). This time the emphasis is on documentary evidence, a
subject which has enjoyed recent scholarly attention.[[5]] The message
continues that heralded by Steel and Pittia: "In the de frumento, and
in the Verrines in general, the vocabulary of registers and documents
is so fuzzy that, sometimes, it is not easy to understand which
document is concerned, and whether it is public or private." (85) The
paper itself sets out to, in Prag's phrase, "put flesh upon the bare
bones of Cicero's allusions to the falsification of documents," (3) and
demonstrates Cicero's disinterest in sorting out the appropriate
technical vocabulary for each category of document.

Julien Dubouloz's contribution ('La juridiction du governeur
provincial. Re/flexions sur les Verrines comme sources pour l'histoire
du droit') throws the spotlight onto Verres himself, in particular his
behavior in the legal administration of Sicily, especially in
assembling the judiciary personnel which decided court cases (iudices
and recuperatores). After a careful analysis, he concludes that the
legalistic material in the Verrines teaches us more about the
importance of such material in a prosecutorial speech than it does
about provincial government, much less Verres' own conduct. Instead of
dispassionate legalistic detail, we instead find scenes heavily colored
by moral judgment: violence, intimidation, and relentless
corruption--all of which preclude and obfuscate the question of the
legality of Verres' exercise of his imperium.

Malcolm Bell's piece ('Apronius in the Agora: Siclian Civil
Architecture and the Lex Hieronica') contributes an archaeologist's
perspective on life in Sicily under Verres. Bell looks for physical
evidence for the procedures of the lex Hieronica, a law regulating the
grain taxation in Sicily, issued first by King Hiero, and then adopted
by the Romans in 240 B.C. The paper focuses on the public buildings of
the agora in Morgantina, a town which offers a remarkable continuity of
habitation across the transition from independence to Roman occupation.
Bell admits that while Cicero "makes no reference to tax collection at
Morgantina, he nonetheless provides useful information for interpreting
buildings in and around the city's agora, which has been extensively
excavated during the past half-century" (118). Combining what is
available on the ground with what the text tells us, Bell analyses the
surviving buildings in the agora to suggest how they may have been
implicated in applying the lex Hieronica.

Jero^me France concludes the volume with some reflections on the
history of classical scholarship. His paper ('La loi de Hie/ron et les
Romains de Je/ro^me Carcopino: Altertumswissenschaft et histoire
e/conomique en France au de/but du 20e sie\cle') explores the scholarly
and national circumstances which led Carcopino to write his 1919 La Loi
de Hie/ron et Les Romains, the first systematic study of the Verrines,
Sicily, and the Sicilian grain supply. Carcopino's work is touted in
the volume's introduction as one which "has so dominated study of
Republican Sicily and in particular the de Frumento in the last
century" (4). Though this is doubtlessly true, the authors in this
collection generally do not engage with the founding father of their
topic; La Loi de Hie/ron is mentioned in the index only in reference to
the introduction and France's own piece. The paper stands as a
fascinating homage to a great scholar; as a micro-history of the
development of economic history and the study of ancient economy in
France vis-a\-vis the rest of Europe; and as a peculiarly academic view
on Europe before the wars.

On the whole, the volume is ably edited, for which Prag is to be
commended. The index is useful, and typographical errors are few and
far between. The bibliography is thorough, and will likely serve as a
useful starting-point for students looking for purchase on the Verrines
or on republican Sicily. The volume also includes a clear (if
schematic) map of Sicily (ix), and a note by the editor on the possible
connection to the Verrines of the cover image, a denarius (RRC 401/1,
probably of 71 B.C.) with a reverse showing a Roman soldier lifting
Sicilia from the ground. One quibble remains: the volume vacillates
between naming the Verrines and numbering them. Thus the de Frumento is
mentioned both by name and by number, but the de Praetura Siciliensi is
mentioned only by name. One wonders if the references could have been
standardized.

Sicilia Nutrix Plebis Romanae is a welcome addition to Ciceronian
studies, refining and qualifying the use of the Verrines as a source
for rhetoric and history so that they may be better used by students
and scholars. As such, the volume will be of value to students of
Cicero himself and his rhetorical practice, and also to those
interested in the management of empire and the Romans' perception of
their own role in it. Finally, Sicilia Nutrix offers an exemplum to
those who wonder at the viability of interdisciplinarity in Classics.

Table of Contents:

Introduction / J.R.W. Prag

The Citadel of the Allies / A. Lintott

Saints and Sinners: some thoughts on the presentation of character in
Attic oratory and Cicero's Verrines / K. Tempest

The Rhetoric of the De Frumento / C. Steel

Les donne/es chiffre/es dans le De frumento de Cice/ron / S. Pittia

Registers, Account-books, and Written Documents in the De Frumento / J.
Andreau

La jurisdiction du gouverneur provincial: re/flexions sur les Verrines
comme sources pour l'histoire du droit / J. Dubouloz

Apronius in the Agora: Sicilian Civil Architecture and the Lex
Hieronica / M. Bell III

La loi de Hie/ron et les Romains de Je/ro^me Carcopino:
Altertumswissenschaft et histoire e/conomique en France au de/but du
20e sie\cle / J. France.


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Notes:


1.   The London colloquium was an off-shoot of a CNRS project to
produce a new edition and historical commentary of Cicero's Verrines.
Another volume has now been produced, which is a "larger companion
piece" (4) to the work under review: Pittia, S. and J. Dubouloz (edd.),
2006. La Sicilie de Cice/ron. Lectures de Verrines. Presses
Universitaires de Franche-Comte/. This second colloquium was held in
Paris, May 19-20 2006. Although later in date, the proceedings were
actually published before Sicilia Nutrix.

2.   Against this conclusion one might reasonably wonder why the
companion volume (see n.1) seems to use the speeches as a jumping block
for an investigation of Sicily under Verres, and further of Verres
himself. Methodologically, then, the two volumes together generate a
productive tension in our reading of the Verrines.

3.   Quae magnitudine, inuiriae et re criminibus ceteris antecellet,
iuncunditatis in agendo et varietatis minus habebit, Ver. 3.10.

4.   I have summarized it as follows: 1) conversions, where the second
figure is necessarily dependant on the first (e.g., medimnus to
modius); 2) hypothetical numbers (if I were to show that you took as
much for yourself as gave to the state); 3) figures within arithmetical
calculations (liable to harmonization by the copyist or editor); 4)
completely isolated figures.

5.   S. Butler, 2002, The Hand of Cicero, London; Prag highlights the
connection on p.3.