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RUIN OR RENEWAL ?

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Places and the Transformation
of Memory in the City of Rome
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Cover: e r
James Mérigot, A Select Collection of Views and Ruins in Rome and its Vicinity,
London 1819. Courtesy of the Roderic Bowen Library and Archives,
University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

© Roma 2016 – Edizioni Quasar di Severino Tognon s.r.l.

via Ajaccio 41-43, 00198 Roma
tel. 0685358444, fax 0685833591
email: qn@edizioniquasar.it
for further informations: www.edizioniquasar.it

ISBN 978-88-7140-698-5
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RUIN OR RENEWAL ?

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Places and the Transformation
of Memory in the City of Rome
Edited by
Marta García Morcillo, James H. Richardson
and Federico Santangelo

edizioni quasar
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Placing the hasta in the Forum:

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Cicero and the Topographic Symbolism
of Patrimonial Sales1
Marta García Morcillo

1. Introduction1
In 1795 the philosopher and priest Guillaume-Thomas Raynal (1713-1796),
an inspirational figure for French Revolutionaries, denounced the crimes of the
Reign of Terror in a treatise called Des assassinats et des vols politiques.2 The text,
influenced by Rousseau and Montesquieu, compares the political proscriptions
instigated by Robespierre and ordered by the Revolutionary Tribunals with those
undertaken by Sulla and the Triumvirs. While Sulla certainly did not invent the
proscriptions, Raynal argues, he was the first who regulated these procedures and
gave them visibility, as is best exemplified by the posting in public of a list of
the condemned citizens.3 Raynal’s treatise opens with a passage from the second
book of Cicero’s De officiis. Here the orator presents the terror of the proscrip-
tions as the most dreadful offence caused by civil war. The quotation from Cicero
anticipates the treatise’s central point: civil wars – ancient and modern – will
never cease, as long as those who provoke them remember and expect to see
the hasta cruenta.4 The expression hasta cruenta refers specifically to the blood-
stained spear that was placed in conquered territory, and that, according to the
ius belli, authorised the sale of the booty and the subiectio of any prisoners to the
authority of Rome.5

1
  I would like to thank my fellow editors, James Richardson and Federico Santangelo, for their valuable
help and useful input during the writing of this contribution.
2
  Raynal 1795.
3
  While the lex Valeria of 82 BC legalised Sulla’s acts of violence against citizens, the lex Cornelia de
proscriptione (81 BC) provided legitimacy to the proscription lists and the confiscation and sale of
patrimony. On the Sullan proscriptions see Hinard 1985, 17-223; Santangelo 2007, 78-99; Thein 2013.
4
 Cic. Off. 2.29: nec uero umquam bellorum ciuilium semen et causa deerit, dum homines perditi hastam
illam cruentam et meminerint et sperabunt.
5
  On military auctions see Leugerans 1987, 191-206; Tarpin 2000, 365-376; Welwei 2000.
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Literary recollections of key episodes of the conquest of Italy evoke the pres-

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ence of the hasta also in the Roman Forum.6 According to Pliny the Elder, the cen-
tre of the city was the spectacular backdrop of auctions that celebrated the power
of Rome across the Mediterranean, but that publicly exhibited and amplified its
negative consequences too: luxuria and opulentia. Famous public auctions, such
as the sale of the booty plundered from Corinth by Lucius Mummius in 146 BC
and of the inheritance of King Attalus of Pergamum in 133 BC, contributed to the
recognition of these mechanisms by an audience that was not only a witness, but
eventually also became an active participant in these acts.7 The symbols of military
auctions were also employed in civil sales, as is attested by numismatic iconogra-
phy.8 Both state and private auctions were conducted by a praeco and announced in
advance by different means, including banners that were posted in the Forum and
other frequented places.9 Visibility created interest and expectations, contributed
to the marketing of the sale, and ultimately helped to regulate and control the pro-
cess. Yet, on the other hand, the transparency of this mechanism could also impact
negatively on the public’s response to these sales, especially when the goods that
were to be auctioned were the patrimony of debtors and condemned citizens.10
The submission of citizens to the hasta was particularly exploited by Sulla after his
victory in 82 BC. During the last decades of the Republic auctions became effec-
tive mechanisms for the oppression of political enemies and for the obtaining of
easy cash and short term benefits from the sale of devalued property.11
Cicero himself reminds us in an earlier passage in the De officiis – one not men-
tioned by Raynal – of how Sulla turned a honesta causa – his victory over the Mar-

6
  The military sale of booty and enemies was evoked by a ritual that took place during the ludi Capitolini
and that celebrated the conquest of Veii. On that occasion, an old man dressed in purple with a bulla
around his neck was symbolically sold by a praeco: Plut. Rom. 25.6-7; QR 277 C-D; Fest. 322L. A
passage of Livy claims that, after the victory of M. Furius Camillus over the Etruscans in 388 BC, the
prisoners were sent to Rome and sold sub hasta, 6.4.1-2.
7
 Plin. HN 7.126; 33.148-150; 35.24.
8
  See e.g. a first century BC denarius that evokes the naval victory of Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus
over Philip V of Macedonia in 209 BC. The reverse shows the hasta, as a symbol of Rome’s authority,
flanked by naked prisoners, who are depicted wearing the pilei of the slaves (Babelon 1886, II.454).
Several imperial coins include the hasta among the symbols of the quaestor (sella, fiscus) (e.g. RPC
I.5409 [Augustus]). During the Republic the quaestores urbani were in charge of the aerarium populi
Romani, which, besides the praeda, also benefited from revenue made through the sale of confiscated
goods.
9
 The tabula Heracleensis states explicitly that the announcements of locationes operum should be
posted well in advance in the Forum (Roman Statutes I [1996], Tab. Her. 34-35). On the importance
of the clarity and wide distribution of banners, see also Livy 39.44.7. On the regulation of public
adjudications, see the case of the lex portorii prouinciae Asiae, Cottier et al. 2008. On publicity in
public locationes see Corbier 2006, 26-36.
10
 The proscriptio or publicatio bonorum specifically described the process for the written announcement
of the sales, but was often identified with the whole procedure that led to the condemnation of citizens
and to the confiscation and sale of their property, cf. Hinard 1985, 21.
11
  Plutarch notes Sulla’s particular interest in proscribing rich families, Comp. Lys. Sull. 3, and Florus refers
to his immense avidity by claiming that even municipia Italiae splendidissima sub hasta uenierunt, 2.9.
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ians – into a non honesta uictoria. In Cicero’s view, the dictator perverted the ritual

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of the spear when he brought it into the Roman Forum along with goods (hasta
posita cum bona in foro) that belonged to Roman citizens, and when he announced
that he was selling nothing but his own spoils of war (praedam se suam uendere).12
The end of the passage refers implicitly to Caesar, whose victory was, according
to the orator, even more infamous, for not only did he confiscate the goods of
individual citizens, but he also captured whole provinces and regions thanks to a
calamitous law.13
Raynal saw the republican proscriptions as symptoms of the decline of Roman
virtues that culminated in the tyrannical power of the emperors, in a similar way
that the Terror wore down the spirit of the Revolution. After conquering and plun-
dering the world and the provinces, Rome eventually became an infamous market
place, an ‘arêne sanglante… un marché public, un encan de toutes les fortunes du
monde, pillées et revendues’.14 This very idea again finds a precedent in Cicero’s
late writings.15 In the fourth Philippic, the orator describes how the hasta cruenta
has become a hasta infinita, an endless spear that, like a symptom of an endemic
disease, has taken root in political life.16
The discourse on the misuse of the Forum through the performance of a ritual
that applied military praxis and military symbols to humiliate Roman citizens in
public is at the heart of this paper. This contribution will look at Cicero’s con-
cerns about the ways in which the patrimony of citizens was advertised and sold
in the Forum, both as a consequence of political persecution and as the result of
financial difficulties. More specifically, I will concentrate on several case studies
that show an evolution of the orator’s views on these practices, from his early
speeches, the Pro Quinctio and Pro Sextio Roscio Amerino, with their clear echoes
of the Sullan proscriptions, to the later works, the Philippics and De officiis, in
which Julius Caesar’s and Antony’s political use of the sale of patrimony come to
the fore. Particular attention will be devoted to Cicero’s description of the auction

12
 Cic. Off. 2.27: desitum est enim uideri quicquam in socios iniquum, cum exstitisset in ciues tanta
crudelitas. ergo in illo secuta est honestam causam non honesta uictoria; est enim ausus dicere, hasta posita
cum bona in foro uenderet et bonorum uirorum et locupletium et certe ciuium, ‘praedam se suam uendere’.
Dyck (1996, 403-404) notes that Cicero had employed almost the same words when he evoked this
story in Verr. 2.3.81.
13
 Cic. Off. 2.27: secutus est, qui in causa impia, uictoria etiam foediore non singulorum ciuium bona
publicaret, sed uniuersas prouincias regionesque uno calamitatis iure comprehenderet.
14
  Raynal 1795, 16.
15
 Cic. Leg. agr. 1.4; 2.48; Phil. 2.92; 3.15.
16
 Cic. Phil. 4.9: sed spes rapiendi atque praedandi obcaecat animos eorum, quos non bonorum donatio,
non agrorum adsignatio, non illa infinita hasta satiauit. As Manuwald states, the phrase infinita hasta
refers to the ‘limitless auctioning’, which is, along with the bonorum donatio and agrorum adsignatio
mentioned in the same sentence, the third form of redistribution of property from which the Caesarians
benefited (2007, 514-515). By placing the unpopular sale of confiscated goods last, Cicero emphasises
the reprehensible nature of the patrimonial initiatives that followed the defeat of the Pompeians.
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of Pompey’s goods in the Forum, as well as to the rhetorical discourse on the sale

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of public land found in the De lege agraria. The speeches that make up De lege
agraria, which were delivered by Cicero at the very start of his consulship in 63
BC, were an elaborate response to the controversial land reform proposed by the
tribune P. Servilius Rullus. As we shall see, certain differences between the ver-
sions delivered to the Senate and to the popular assembly reveal some interesting
details about the setting of these sales. They also show the orator’s understanding
of the impact that the staging of the ritual of the spear had on the political and
economic centre of the city. Such an event not only had irreversible effects on the
reputation and lives of Roman citizens, but also triggered changes in the ways in
which specific areas and buildings attached to these episodes were viewed and
remembered. To what extent did the hasta really violate the public and sacred
spaces of the Forum?

2. Hastam in foro ponere: the De officiis

To return to Raynal: the final pages of Des assassinats et des vols politiques repro-
duce another well-known passage from the De officiis (2.83). Here Cicero comments
negatively that the Romans (including himself) have twice seen the spear being set
up in the Forum (hastam in foro ponere) and the goods of citizens being submitted to
the voice of the auctioneer (bona ciuium uoci subicere praeconis).17 Cicero’s De officiis
is a moral work imbued with the ideas of the philosopher Panaetius, but also influ-
enced by contemporary concerns (the treatise was written at the end of 44 BC). The
work provides guidance on conduct for the uir bonus in his search for a harmonious
balance between duties (officia) and benefits (beneficia).18 The passage mentioned
earlier (2.83) is preceded by the exemplary story of the honourable third-century
statesman, Aratus of Sicyon, who found a fair solution to the serious problem of the
transfer of property that had been secured by the dispossession of the previous own-
ers.19 The anecdote helps to provide a context for the lamentation and specifically
mirrors Cicero’s concerns about the reform of the res agraria proposed by the popu-
lares at the expense of the legitimate possessores, as well as about the cancellation of
debts undertaken by Caesar. The orator saw both as real threats to concordia and to
the fundamental principles of the Republic.20 Cicero’s discourse brings together the

17 
Cic. Off. 2.83: o uirum magnum dignumque, qui in re publica nostra natus esset! sic par est, agere cum
ciuibus non, ut bis iam uidimus, hastam in foro ponere et bona ciuium uoci subicere praeconis.
18
  On the economic and ethical models for the De officiis see Gabba 1979, 117-141; Lotito 1981, 79-126;
Feuvrier-Prévolat 1985, 257-290.
19
 Cic. Off. 2.81-83. See also Plut. Ar. 9.2-3; 14.1. Aratus distributed the money of the tyrants among
the Sicyonians and searched for reconciliation between the citizens and the dispossessed exiles who
sought the return of their property.
20
 Cic. Off. 2.78.
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reform of public land and the issue of debt as causes of concern.21 As such, Caesar’s

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reforms and confiscations that followed his victory at Pharsalus and Sulla’s proscrip-
tions are seen by Cicero as subversive acts against the right to own property, a view
that is best illustrated by the horrors of the hasta.
Cicero’s considerations about the uses of the hasta seem thus to anticipate the
negative outcomes of the French Revolution that had led to Raynal’s own exile.
However, while in Raynal’s view the Romans had conceived of the confiscations
as theft legitimised by politics, Revolutionary France redefined them as proper
juridical actions. The French intellectual saw in the Roman confiscations the roots
and the inspiration for the transgressions and the violence of the Terror, the instru-
ment of ambitious politicians who ultimately ruined the greatness of Rome, and
provoked the seismic convulsions that led to the end of the Republic.
The confusion between proscriptions and confiscations that pervades Des assas-
sinats et des vols politiques also finds its origins in the De officiis. Yet, unlike Raynal,
Cicero, as François Hinard has shown, never explicitly contested the legality of the
political proscriptions.22 The debate that runs through his work is rather centred on
the misuse of proscription as a political instrument against the dignity of citizens,
an instrument that enabled the unjustified appropriation and restitution of prop-
erty, ultimately threatening the natural transmission of patrimony.
The second book of De officiis focuses its criticism on Caesar’s controversial
measures that, according to Cicero, affected private patrimonies. These initiatives
are best exemplified by the ritualised and propagandistic display and auctioning of
the confiscated goods of Pompey that were undertaken by Caesar in 47 BC.23 As
we shall see below, the dramatic and detailed account of this event in the Second
Philippic, a text almost contemporary with the De officiis, is a valuable testimony of
Cicero’s understanding of the political use and the symbolism of these sales.

3. Bonorum emptores ut carnifices: the Pro Quinctio

The complex juridical affair meticulously narrated in the Pro Quinctio (81 BC)
– despite the gaps in the text – is key for understanding the differences, but also the
confluences, between the public and private sale of patrimony in Cicero’s work.24

21
 Cic. Off. 2.79. On Caesar’s reform see also 2.84-85, where Cicero also recalls the similar situation
he faced in 63 BC during his consulship (see below on the De lege agraria). On the abuses committed
by Sulla and Caesar against lawful owners see Off. 1.42-44. On the problem of debt at the end of the
Republic, see Rollinger 2009.
22
  Hinard 1985, 190-192; 2011, 70-72.
23
 Cic. Off. 2.64. Cicero himself refers to the participation of Caesar’s men in the sale of confiscated
property, Cic. Att. 12.3.2; 13.37.4. Suetonius attests to Caesar’s manipulation of sale-procedures
during the Civil Wars and recalls the case of Servilia, who, as purchaser, benefited from the sale of
under-priced property (Suet. Iul. 50.2).
24
  A valuable insight into the work’s political context is provided by Hinard 1975 (= 2011, 179-202).
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At the centre of the discussion is the use and misuse of the Forum and of places, in-

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struments and symbols that were associated with auctions and conferred upon them
a recognisable, visual presence. The speech deals with the dispute between P. Quinc-
tius and S. Naevius for the management of certain goods belonging to a common
society. The conflict escalated when Quinctius tried to settle some private debts.25
In his absence, Naevius initiated a legal process alleging that Quinctius did not ap-
pear at a uadimonium (a unilateral obligation to attend a legal process at a given date
and place).26 Cicero provides details of how Naevius then assembled his friends and
acquaintances from the Atria Licinia or auctionaria and from the area surrounding
the Macellum to use as witnesses, attended the tabula – possibly an administrative
office – of an unknown Sextius, and made an appearance before the praetor Bur-
rienus. The praetor then authorised the missio in bona of Quinctius’ goods and their
proscriptio for thirty days, according to what was stipulated by the praetorian edict.27
While the function and location of Sextius’ tabula are unknown to us, it is
reasonable to suspect that it was located not far from the seat of the praetor and
the area of the Atria and Macellum, both of which were on the northern side of
the Sacra Via.28 The mention of these commercial buildings in the Forum alludes
to the previous profession and rather obscure activities of Naevius as a praeco who
sold off patrimonial goods in the Atria.29 The proscriptio refers in this case to a pro-
cess attached to the uenditio bonorum, the sale of the private goods of an insolvent
debtor by a creditor that had been authorised by the praetor.30 The missio in bona
implied that a valuation of the debtor’s property had been made by the creditor(s)
and the goods had been displayed in public (proscriptio) for a fixed period, in this
case, thirty days. This proscriptio was not in itself an announcement of the auction,
but an earlier stage of the whole process, which was conducted by an administrator,
or magister bonorum, who had previously been nominated by the creditors. Dur-
ing this period, the debtor still had the opportunity to pay off his debts. Once the
deadline had passed and if no repayment had been made, the sale could be legiti-
mately advertised.31 Cicero explains that the missio of Quinctius’ goods was inter-
rupted by his procurator, Sextus Alfenus, who refused to pay the deposit required

25
  With this purpose in mind, Quinctius had left Rome in order to sell some properties which he had
inherited in Gallia Narbonensis, Quinct. 15-20.
26
  Quinct. 21-25. On uadimonium and this particular case see further Platschek 2005 and Lintott 2008,
43-59.
27
  Quinct. 25; 56; cf. Lintott 2008, 50.
28
 Cic. Quinct. 25. See also Quinct. 13. On the tabula Sextia as a place linked with legal proceedings see
Andreau 1987, 180-181, 481-482; Lintott 2008, 50. On the location of the Atria Licinia or auctionaria
see Varro Ling. 5.147 and 152, and Tortorici 1993, 132.
29
  On the presence of praecones in the atria see also Juv. 7.1-16, cf. Tortorici 1993, 132.
30
  On the uenditio bonorum see Giuffrè 1993, 317-364.
31
  The jurist Gaius confirms the testimony of Cicero and the prevalence of this practice during the
Principate: see Gai. 3.79.
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by the praetor and instead removed all the libelli, or placards, that advertised the

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proscriptio.32 Through this action, Alfenus sought to claim that the missio in bona
was illegal, despite the praetor’s authorisation, by alleging that the supposed debt
of Quinctius to the society did not exist.33 The process was finally suspended dur-
ing Sulla’s dictatorship, in 81 BC, when a new praetor (Cn. Cornelius Dolabella)
decided to investigate the legality of the missio.34
Cicero thus intended to discredit Naevius by connecting the missio and the
uenditio bonorum with the ex-praeco’s sordid past, as someone who used to lend
his voice to the profitable business of the auctioning of patrimony in the Atria
Licinia.35 The degrading activity of the praeconium familiar to Naevius included
the unpopular proscriptio.36 Such announcements, Cicero insists, not only involved
properties but also the livelihood (uictus) and even clothing (uestitus) of those af-
fected by this practice. The proscriptio was, in Cicero’s view, a personal humiliation
worse than death.37 In the next paragraph of his speech, the orator pays particular
attention to the public infamia that the distribution of libelli in celeberrimis locis
represented, while magistri and domini decided about one’s life, and the praeco
fixed and announced a price. Cicero compares the auction of patrimonial goods
to a funeral in life, with the difference being that, instead of friends to honour the
dead, the ceremony was attended by bonorum emptores who, like butchers (carni-
fices), slashed and pulled apart the remains of a life.38
Cicero’s powerful visual language suggests an assimilation between the uenditio
bonorum of debtors and the sectio bonorum, the auctioning of confiscated goods.
The identification of the sector as a carnifex or executioner of patrimony, and the
condemnation of the attack on one’s personal dignity that the exhibition of per-
sonal goods entailed were certainly intended to have an emotional effect on his
audience. The message is clear: Quinctius’ fate was equivalent to that of those
citizens condemned by the state whose patrimony was confiscated and sold under
the hasta and by the voice of praecones such as Naevius. The proscriptio, as part of
the uenditio bonorum, had in the end effects similar to the posting of the names of
the condemned. In this regard, we should also consider that the seizure of property
was conceived of in Roman law as a pragmatic substitution for the actual execu-
tion of the debtor (the manus iniectio) which had originally been the outcome of

32
  Quinct. 27; 73.
33
  Quinct. 36; 38; 54.
34
  Quinct. 76.
35
  Quinct. 12. He also made promises on behalf of the dominus: 19.
36
  Quinct. 95 and 97. On Naevius’ bad reputation as the basis of Cicero’s accusation, see also Hinard
1975, 88-107; Harries 2011, 133-137.
37
  Quinct. 49.
38
  Quinct. 50: praeconis uox praedicat et pretium conficit, huic acerbissimum uiuo uidentique funus ducitur,
si funus id habendum est, quo non amici conuenient ad exequias cohonestandas, sed bonorum emptores ut
carnifices ad reliquias uitae lacerandas et distrahendas.
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such procedures. The debtor in this way saved his life in exchange for his goods,

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although he could not avoid the infamia of the symbolic death.39
The very common phrase celeberrimus locus embodies a key principle of adver-
tising that was deeply integrated into everyday Roman praxis, both in the private
and the public spheres.40 Despite their ephemeral character, Cicero insists on the
importance of libelli as effective – and thus fatal – advertising media. While the libelli
would have covered the walls and columns of crowded and public places in Rome
and specific areas of the Forum, such as the Macellum and the Atria Licinia, where
the auction would have taken place, a notice might equally have been posted on the
Columna Maenia. The column stood to the west of the Comitium-Rostra and the
Curia Hostilia and to the south of the Carcer. As we learn from a passage of Cicero’s
Pro Sestio and from other sources, this column was commonly used by creditors
for the proscriptio of properties belonging to debtors.41 The location of the column
ensured the highest visibility of any announcement posted on it. It is interesting to
note how this case exemplifies the importance of topographic details in Cicero’s
court and forensic oratory. The imagery of the funeral in life expresses, on the one
hand, the tragedy that the loss of patrimony and dignity entailed, not to mention the
break in the ‘natural’ line of succession that would otherwise have been maintained,
had normal practices of inheritance been followed. On the other hand, this analogy
also evokes the proximity of the place where the lists of debtors were posted, the
Columna Maenia, to the Rostra, the place from which the laudatio funebris was de-
livered, usually by the heir of the deceased.42
The use of visible and busy areas of the Forum for the advertising of the uenditio
bonorum finds a valuable parallel in the wax tablets of the Sulpicii from Puteoli,

39
  On the link between the proscriptions and the ancient institution of the manus iniectio, see Gai.
4.21 and Gell. NA 20.1.46-52; cf. also Giuffrè 1993, 320-321. The manus iniectio is still present in
late juridical texts, such as the lex Ursonensis 61 (44 BC to 17 BC). The fourth century BC lex Poetelia
Papiria already contemplated the possibility that the debtor could avoid the manus iniectio by handing
his patrimony over to the creditor (see Purpura 2007, 4541-4555).
40
  The expression is well attested in public announcements preserved in the epigraphic record, see for
instance the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre (AE 2008, 651) and the lex Irnitana (AE 2008, 63).
For further examples, see: AE 1984, 250; 2003, 359; 2008, 417; CIL 10.4643 and CIL 12.4393. See
Corbier 1987, 42-43; 2013, 25; Rosillo 2003, 63-65. Specific recommendations to increase the visibility
and clarity of announcements posted in public are mentioned by Ulpian (Dig. 14.3.11.3). The jurist
insists that any announcement should be clearly posted in a place easily accessible, ante taberna or in
which negotiatio takes place: non in loco remoto, sed in euidenti. One such written notice being read by
passersby in the porticus of the Forum of Pompeii is represented on one of the frescoes from the praedia
of Julia Felix, see Sartori 2005, esp. 90-91; Newsome 2013, 70-71. On ephemeral announcements in
Pompeii see further Hannah 2001, 139-159 and Corbier 2006, 10, 36, 64.
41
 Cic. Sest. 18 and Schol. Bob. ad Sest. 18. See also Cic. Clu. 39, Caecil. 50, Hor. Sat. 1.3.21, Plin. HN
7.60; 34.20. According to Ps. Asconius (Diu. in Caec. 50 [Stangl p. 120-121]) the column was also
the place where minor criminals were punished. Cf. Coarelli 1983, 141-150; 1985, 26, 29, 34, 39-53;
Hinard 1985, 25; Torelli 1993, 301; Cascione 1996, 444-455; Kardos 1997, 228-229 and, in this volume,
F. Santangelo’s discussion of the relationship between this monument and the statue of Marsyas.
42
  See Polyb. 6.53-54, cf. Purpura 2007, 4541-4555.
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which provide precise details of the posting of tabulae and libelli in specific loca-

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tions of the Forum of that city.43 These strategies were inevitably further associated
with the dreaded posting of the tabula proscriptionis by Sulla,44 and certainly also
with the scenes of spectacular violence attested at the Rostra and the Lacus Servil-
ius.45 Cicero’s audience would have equally linked the negative portrayal of Nae-
vius as a praeco at the atria auctionaria with the obscure activities of the sectores
bonorum who, as is shown in the contemporary speech Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino
(80 BC), made enormous profits through the purchase en bloc and the subsequent
resale of devalued properties that had been confiscated by the state.46
Overall, these early speeches contribute to the shaping and fixing of a specific
visual imagery of patrimonial auctions in the Forum that Cicero loaded with trouble-
some and negative connotations. Such topographical associations and their use as ef-
fective rhetorical instruments were developed in the speeches of the De lege agraria.

4. Auctiones in ultimis terris: the De lege agraria

While the first speech of the De lege agraria was delivered by Cicero during a
meeting of the Senate on January 1st, 63 BC, that is, on the very first day of his con-
sulship, the other speeches were given at contiones before the people. The speeches
denounce the agrarian bill proposed by the tribune of the plebs, P. Servilius Rullus,
which, if passed, would have allowed a commission of decemuiri to sell public land

43
  The archive dates to the mid-first century AD and includes several documents relating to the auctio
of pledged goods (fiducia or pignus): TPSulp. 83-93, cf. Camodeca 1999, 185-204. The documents show
that the proscription of the sale had to be posted thirty days before the auction in a specific part of the
Forum of Puteoli, on a wall or parastatica of the Porticus Augusti Sextiana (83-86; 88; 90-92). The sale
took place in an area of the Forum (ante chalcidicum Caesonianum) (85; 87; 90-92). Two tablets indicate
that the auction should take place on the market day of the town (in nundinas proximas: TPSulp. 87
and 89), which no doubt favoured the profitability of these activities. The chalcidicum was a columned
porticus and, according to Torelli (2004, 63-109), these were multifunctional buildings, as in the case of
the chalcidicum next to the Curia Julia in the Roman Forum – also identified as the Atrium Minervae –
that during the Principate hosted the ceremony of the congiarium.
44
 Plut. Sull. 31.11-12; see Hinard 1985, 334-335.
45
  See for instance Fest. 370L; Sen. Prou. 3.7. Cf. Hinard 1985, 44. On the link between the Rostra and
the violence of the proscriptions see also Vasaly 1993, 73.
46
 Cic. Rosc. Am. 21; 124-126. Cicero’s criticism in this work is aimed specifically at Sulla’s affluent
and wealthy libertus, Chrysogonus, and at his agents, whom he charges with plotting to get possession
of the patrimony of Sextus Roscius of Ameria by falsely accusing him of assassinating his own father.
Despite the closeness of Chrysogonus and Sulla, Cicero was prudent enough to leave the dictator out
of this plot and to avoid any general condemnation of the proscriptions (see Santangelo 2007, 83, 89;
Hinard 2008, 95-106; Lintott 2008, 425-427). A passage of the work equates the sectores to butchers
(sectores fuisse collorum et bonorum), Rosc. Am. 80 (see also 88; 94; 103; 149-152). In his Institutes, Gaius
defines the sector as a purchaser of public goods, 4.146 and a passage in Tacitus’ Annales mentions a
sector who worked for the public Aerarium in Claudius’ times, Ann. 13.23.2. Cicero himself describes
the function of the sector in association with the confiscations of patrimony undertaken by the quaestor
in the trial of Verres, Verr. 2.52; 2.61, and also Ps. Asc. Verr. p. 172 and 177 (Stangl). See further Inu.
1.84-85; Clu. 162; Varro Rust. 2.10.4; Gai. 4.146; 4.154. On the sectio bonorum see Scherillo 1953, 197-
205; Talamanca 1954, 158-175; García Morcillo 2005, 48-54.
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and uectigalia, both in Italy and in the provinces.47 At the beginning of the first speech,

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Cicero establishes a parallel between the proposals in the bill and the proscriptio of an
auctio populi Romani.48 Thus the orator implies that the reform would only benefit
the private interests of the decemuiri at the expense of those of the people.49 The
misuse of public authority and the importance of visibility in the management of
public affairs are at the heart of Cicero’s argument. He laments that the territories of
Paphlagonia, Pontus and Cappadocia had already seen the hasta praeconis, although
Pompey was still fighting there.50 Cicero claims that, instead of making use of the
usual mechanisms, the decemuiri were planning to make irregular transactions out
of the sight of the people. If the censors had to assign uectigalia before the people of
Rome, why should the decemuiri be allowed to sell in ultimis terris? Cicero reinforces
his argument about the vagueness of the law by evoking another well-known loca-
tion in the Forum that would have been familiar to his audience. The orator asks if
even those miserable men who had lost their patrimony had seen it sold at crossroads
or bifurcations, rather than in the atria auctionaria, for Rullus’ bill would allow the
decemuiri to sell the goods of the people of Rome in whatever dark or isolated place
they happened to choose.51 Transparency and visibility are thus crucial to the ora-
tor’s definition of good practice both in public and in private affairs. If in the Pro
Quinctio Cicero refers to the apparatus of the uenditio bonorum in order to denounce
a marketing practice that damages reputations, in this speech the same argument is
turned on its head and the very same procedures are presented as necessary, given the
opacity of Rullus’ bill. Accordingly, despite the moral criticism directed towards the
atria auctionaria in the Pro Quinctio, the visibility of the procedures of sale and the
well-known location of the venue in the Forum legitimated its use as a ‘patrimonial
market-place’.
Cicero’s newly acquired role as consul was particularly tested in the speech
delivered to the assembly, which subjected to scrutiny both his rhetorical persua-
siveness and the acceptance of his political legitimacy by the crowd. As the stage of

47
  See Jonkers 1963, 14-15. Cicero states that the decemuiri also intended to sell private property from
Italy, Cic. Leg. agr. 1.2-4; 1.9; 2.4; 2.62-65. On the theme of transparency in public sales discussed in the
De lege agraria, see García Morcillo 2014, 194-196.
48
  Leg. agr. 1.4: audistis auctionem populi Romani proscriptam a tribuno plebis. See also 1.2; 2.48; 3.15.
49
  Leg. agr. 1.2-3. On the personal economic interests of the decemuiri, see 1.11-14; on their supposed
intention to acquire properties that had been confiscated by Sulla in Italy and were now in private
hands for the purpose of benefiting themselves, see 1.14-16; 2.68-71.
50
  Leg. agr. 1.6. The orator maintained that those territories were still under ius belli, Leg. agr. 2.53-
54.
51
  Leg. agr. 1.7: hoc uero cuius modi est, quod eius auctionis, quam constituent, locum sibi nullum definiunt?
nam decemuiris, quibus in locis ipsis uideatur, uendendi potestas lege permittitur. censoribus uectigalia
locare nisi in conspectus populi Romani non licet; his uendere uel in ultimis terris licebit? at hoc etiam
nequissimi homines consumptis patrimoniis faciunt, ut in atriis auctionariis potius quam in triuiis aut in
compitis auctionentur; hic permittit sua lege decemuiris, ut, in quibus commodum sit tenebris, ut, in qua uelint
solitudine, bona populi Romani possint diuendere.
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the contio, the Rostra provided Cicero with the ideal platform for communication

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but also for acquiring distinction and status.52
In the contio Cicero nuanced his discourse in order to adapt it, on the one hand,
to the sensibilities of the audience, which was generally in favour of the reform.53
On the other hand, the orator also took into consideration the importance of the
symbolism of the Rostra and the memories that his audience associated with them.
The second oratio retains the same essential argument against the bill, namely that
it lacked transparency, but changes the form and, interestingly, also adds very spe-
cific references to the turbulent past of the place from which Cicero delivered the
speech, in order to make the argument more persuasive.54 The orator now uses
more aggressive language against Rullus and his rogatio. He qualifies as perturbata
ratio and libido ecfrenata the freedom given to the decemuiri to choose the place
of the intended sales and reminds his audience that it is from the very same place
from which he is speaking – the Rostra – that the uectigalia should be auctioned.55
Cicero insists on the irregularity of transactions that could just be carried out in
the darkness of Paphlagonia or in the deserts of Cappadocia. In order to strengthen
the links between the Rostra and his audience, Cicero evokes Sulla’s feared pro-
scriptions and reminds them of those days in which the dictator personally sold
from that place (ex hoc loco uendidit), and before the very eyes of those who were
offended by him, the goods of citizens who had not even been condemned, as if
those goods were his own war-booty: ‘should the decemuiri sell your uectigalia in
this way, not only without you present but even without the presence of a public
praeco as witness?’.56
Both speeches propose a comparison between the adjudications of public land
envisaged by the law and the auctioning of patrimony that was usually carried out
in the Forum. Cicero’s arguments about the irregularities and the lack of visibility
of the sales to be overseen by the decemuiri strongly recall the accusations made
against Verres’ no less opaque adjudication of locationes.57 They also anticipate the

52
  On Cicero’s discursive strategies in the De lege agraria and on the links between power and spectacle
in the contio see Bell 1997, 1-22. On the second speech as a piece of partisan oratory, see Hopwood
2007.
53
  On the different rhetoric of both speeches see Fontanella 2005, 149-191. On the importance of the
contio speeches in Cicero’s consular year, see Manuwald 2012, 153-175.
54
  On the strategies adopted in popular speeches, see Jehne 2011, 111-125, where Cicero’s depiction
of Rullus as an enemy of the populus receives close analysis.
55
  Leg. agr. 2.55: uectigalia locare nusquam licet nisi in hac urbe hoc ex loco hac uestrum frequentia.
56
  Leg. agr. 2.56: L. Sulla cum bona indemnatorum ciuium funesta illa auctione sua uenderet et se praedam
suam diceret uendere, tamen ex hoc loco uendidit nec, quorum oculos offendebat, eorum ipsorum conspectum fugere
ausus est; decemuiri uestra uectigalia non modo non uobis, Quirites, arbitris, sed ne praecone quidem publico teste
uendent? For Sulla’s attending the sales of confiscated goods in person, see further Plut. Comp. Lys. Sull. 3.
57
  In order to benefit his own agents, Verres, as urban praetor, decided to fix the date of the locatio,
which took place in the Forum, on a day unfavourable on account of a public celebration, and decided
not to publish the proscriptio that was required in such procedures, Verr. 1.140-141.
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denouncing of Antony’s misappropriation of Pompey’s patrimony that we shall

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discuss below. Cicero’s senatorial and popular audiences are implicitly encouraged
to see that the decemuiri and Rullus should now occupy an even lower moral sta-
tus in the collective memory than that of those unscrupulous dealers, such as the
ex-praeco Naevius and the sectores Chrysogonus and his agents, who made consid-
erable profits from the sale of the goods of dispossessed and proscribed citizens.
While the first speech alludes to the uenditio bonorum that was regularly held in
the Atria Licinia, the second adds political connotations and a powerful staging
effect by explicitly linking the multifunctional platform of the Rostra with Sulla’s
proscriptions.58
Cicero tried thus to engage the audience of the contio in a speech that was
intended to confirm both his own arguments and, in the end, also the legitimacy
– despite their unpopularity – of the feared sectiones by Sulla. Rullus and his law
thus seemed to disregard a very important factor that even Sulla had taken into ac-
count: the necessary publicity that made these sales recognisable and legally valid.
Cicero creates in this way a dichotomy between transparency and visibility, on the
one hand, and opacity and obscurity, on the other.59 The legitimacy of sales, public
or private, depended on the careful adherence to a procedure that made use of
recognisable places, actors and distinctive symbols of authority, namely the hasta
and the praeco. Despite the unpopularity of the publicatio bonorum and the clear
disapproval of the selling of the goods of citizens by Sulla, as if they were military
praeda, Cicero seems to concede that the dictator at least used the correct mecha-
nisms and the right place (the Rostra) to undertake these sales. The orator’s goal
was not just to persuade the public at the contio of the unacceptable irregularities
of Rullus’ proposal, but more specifically of the need to confirm at this time the
ownership of the possessions assigned to Sulla’s veterans against the anticipated
lodging of claims to ownership by the heirs of those who had been proscribed by
him.60 Cicero’s opposition to the restoration of property was rooted in his firm con-
viction that such measures would cause even greater instability.61 The privileged
stage of the Rostra thus served three important purposes for Cicero’s argument.
Firstly, they reinforced the idea of the importance of visibility in public activity.
Secondly, they provided a powerful mnemonic tool that invited the public to link

58
  On Sulla’s selling of proscribed goods from the Rostra, see further Livy Per. 80; Vell. 2.19.1; Plut. Sull.
33; App. BCiu. 1.8; 1.10; Flor. 2.9.14; Oros. 5.19.23. The platform of the Rostra not only hosted public
speeches, but also trials. Laws and public announcements used to be posted there too.
59
  The vagueness of the law, according to Cicero, made it possible for the sale of potentially almost
anything by the decemuiri: Leg. agr. 2.35-37; 2.40-41. In order to illustrate the lack of precise information
about the pieces of land that were being offered for sale, Cicero compares the bill with the hypothetical
example of a tabula for the auctioning of an estate which only provided confusing information about
the productivity of that property: Leg. agr. 2.67.
60
 Cic. Leg. agr. 3.15. See also Att. 1.19.4.
61
  Quintilian also refers to Cicero’s opinion on this matter: 11.1.85.
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the past with the present. Finally, they secured and enhanced the successful recep-

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tion of his speech.

5. Auctionis uero miserabilis aspectus: the Philippicae

The Pro Quinctio and the De lege agraria reveal the confluences of procedures,
symbols, and the use of public space that shaped the auctioning of patrimonial
goods. Both the uenditio and the sectio bonorum made use of similar mechanisms to
ensure visibility as well as of specific buildings in the Forum that were familiar to
the orator and his audience. At the same time, they also contributed to that fatal
publicity of the dispossession that irreparably damaged the reputation of so many
Roman citizens.
This imagery appears again in the auction of Pompey’s goods that is alluded to
in the De officiis, as we saw above, and described in full in the senatorial speech
of the Second Philippic, which only ever circulated in written form. The narrative
begins, not by chance, with a phrase loaded with dramatic emotion that makes
the same use of the hasta and the praeco as in De officiis 2.83: hasta posita pro aede
Iouis Statoris bona Cn. Pompei – miserum me! consumptis enim lacrimis tamen infixus
animo haeret dolor – bona, inquam, Cn. Pompei Magni uoci acerbissimae subiecta
praeconis.62 As in the contemporary philosophical work, Pompey embodies the de-
feated party in the Civil War and all those Roman citizens whose reputation had
been destroyed and who had been humiliated through the disgrace of the spear and
the praeco’s voice.63
Cicero insists here in particular on the indignity of Antony’s impious initiative
of becoming the sole bidder at the disgraceful auction, an initiative which pro-
voked disapproval among those who attended the sale (essent circum hastam).64 As
a purchaser of confiscated goods, Antony thus reduced himself to the odious role
of the sector bonorum, the liquidator of confiscated properties.65 Cicero provides
detailed accounts of Antony’s reprehensible activities as the squander of Pompey’s
patrimony, and of the unworthy fate of some of Pompey’s goods. The picture of
Antony’s transgression is completed with the description of the outrageous occu-

62
 Cic. Phil. 2.64.
63
  On Roman auctions as instruments and performances of power, see García Morcillo 2008, 185-213.
64
 Cic. Phil. 2.64: expectantibus omnibus quisnam esset tam impius, tam demens, tam dis hominibusque
hostis qui ad illud scelus sectionis auderet accedere, inuentus est nemo praeter Antonium, praesertim cum tot
essent circum hastam illam qui alia omnia auderent: unus inuentus est qui id auderet quod omnium fugisset
et reformidasset audacia. This is confirmed by Plut. Ant. 10.3; 21.2-3.
65
 Cic. Phil. 2.65: tantus igitur te stupor oppressit uel, ut uerius dicam, tantus furor ut primum, cum sector
sis isto loco natus, deinde cum Pompei sector, non te exsecratum populo Romano, non detestabilem, non omnis
tibi deos, non omnis homines et esse inimicos et futuros scias? On Antony’s role as sector of Pompey’s goods,
see also Phil. 2.39; 62; 75; 13.10; Sen. Contr. 6.3; 7.5; Plut. Ant. 21.32; App. BCiu. 3.50; 5.336; Cass.
Dio 48.38.3; Flor. 2.18.5: sed inportunitates Antonii, et Pompeianorum bonorum, quorum sector ille fuerat,
praeda deuorata.
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pation of Pompey’s house and of how rooms and personal items were dishonoured

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by mime actors, drinkers and gamblers.66
The orator declares that, within only a few days, many of Pompey’s goods had
just disappeared, including a huge amount of stored wine, a vast collection of the fin-
est silver, precious clothing and magnificent furniture. They seemed to have simply
vanished without a trace, sucked up by uorax Charybdis: nihil erat clausum, nihil
obsignatum, nihil scriptum.67 The discourse thus draws attention to the lack of writ-
ten records that could demonstrate that a legitimate transaction had taken place and
that could shed light on the destination of such valuable objects.68 In fact, the ora-
tor claimed that Antony still owed Caesar the money for the purchase of Pompey’s
property, including his urban and suburban houses.69 This debt would explain why
Antony decided to resell the goods. The announcement of the second auction was
made by means of the public posting of a tabula that contained a long list of items.70
The dramatic account of the degradation of Pompey’s former possessions by Antony
continues with an insight into the miserabilis aspectus of the sale, in which personal
items of the defeated general were exhibited, including a stained dress, broken silver
vessels and soiled slaves.71 Such details emphasise the contrast in the personalities
and virtues of Antony and Pompey. They further underline – as in the Pro Quinctio –
the tragic twist and outrage implied by the public exhibition and loss of a patrimony,
also for the memory of the deceased. The popular rejection of this spectacle explains
why Caesar himself agreed to sign a decree that invalidated the sale,72 and why the
sons of Pompey attempted to recover the family’s patrimony.73
In the account of the first auction, the hasta and the praeco were not just symbols
of public authority; they also strongly recalled the ritual of submission that was con-
nected with the military sale of booty captured from the enemy. Accordingly, the
imagery of the auction made for a spectacular and tragic epilogue to the Civil Wars.
In the case of the second auction, the tabula posted publicly in the Forum containing
the catalogue of the goods makes evident not only the ignominy of the sale, but also

66
 Cic. Phil. 2.67-68. As an illustration of the unworthy fate of Pompey’s personal possessions, Cicero
mentions his purple tapestries, which were now covering the beds of simple slaves, 2.69.
67
 Cic. Phil. 2.66.
68
  This case evokes Cicero’s accusation against Verres, namely that he manipulated accounts to make
illegal appropriations of works of art look like they were actually legitimate purchases: Verr. 4.35-36.
69
 Cic. Off. 2.71.
70
 Cic. Phil. 2.73. Cicero emphasises that those who saw the tabula ironically noticed that almost none
of the articles put up for sale could be considered Antony’s.
71
 Cic. Phil. 2.73: qui risus hominum, tantam esse tabulam, tam uarias, tam multas possessiones, ex quibus
praeter partem Miseni nihil erat, quod, qui auctionaretur, posset suum dicere! auctionis uero miserabilis
aspectus: uestis Pompei non multa eaque maculosa; eiusdem quaedam argentea uasa conlisa, sordidata
mancipia, ut doleremus quicquam esse ex illis reliquiis quod uidere possemus.
72
 Cic. Phil. 2.74.
73
 Cic. Phil. 2.75. Cicero reveals that some of these goods were later purchased by Pompey’s followers
and by his son Sextus, Phil. 13.10-12. On this episode, see Welch 2002, 14-17.
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its irregularities, as well as Antony’s dubious financial situation. In both cases, the

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Forum is the stage on which the memory of Pompey is violated, but also on which
the actions of the liquidator of his goods are exposed to public judgement.
Particularly relevant in this regard is the specific topographical description of
the sale as taking place pro aede Iouis Statoris. The temple of Jupiter Stator was
built in 294 BC by M. Attilius Regulus after the defeat of the Samnites. It was
traditionally associated with the origins of Rome and with the battle between the
Sabines and the Romans, who were led by Romulus, that was resolved in favour
of the latter thanks to the intervention of Jupiter.74 The location of the temple is
the subject of an extensive, and still ongoing scholarly controversy. Key literary
accounts situate the temple at the foot of the Palatine Hill, south of the Sacra
Via, near the Porta Mugonia.75 This evidence also fits with traditional and recent
interpretations of archaeological vestiges found in the area of the Arch of Titus.
The location has also recently been reinforced by the discovery of an epigraphic
fragment of the Fasti of the city of Privernum, which dates to the Augustan age.
This inscription confirms that the temple was located in Palatio.76 While this loca-
tion is in accordance with the literary attribution of Jupiter Stator as the guardian
of the early city on the Palatine, the Fasti confirm the enduring recognition of the

74
  See in particular Livy 1.12.1-8; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.43.1-5 and Ov. Tr. 3.1.31-32. On the temple,
see also Briquel, this volume, 30.
75
  In addition to the passages of Dionysius and Ovid mentioned above, Plut. Rom. 18 and Cic. 16.3 also
provide crucial evidence for the location of the temple.
76
  On the Fasti Priuernates see Zevi 2014, who summarises the status quaestionis and supports the location
by the Arch of Titus that has been defended by Ziółkowski 2004, 12-17, 65-84. See also Cecamore 2002,
129-144. According to this interpretation, the vestiges of a large post-Neronian podium revealed by the
excavations carried out in the area between 1989 and 1992 could plausibly be identified as a reconstruction
of the earlier temple of Jupiter Stator after the fire of AD 64. The fact that earlier topographical levels
have not yet been excavated leaves this possibility open; see Arce-Sánchez Palencia-Mar 1990, 43-51; Mar
2005, 243-292. The area of the Arch of Titus as the probable location of the temple is also supported by
La Regina 1999 and Palombi 1997, 69, 77, 115-135, who base their interpretation on a relevant passage
of text that has so far been overlooked in this debate: a passage of Galen (De methodo medendi 13.22.10,
p. 942 Kühn) which confirms that, in the Severan period, the Sacra Via extended west as far as the temple
of Venus and Roma, just opposite to the area of the Arch of Titus. It is also worth noting the hypothesis
of Tomei 1993 who, following Pietro Rosa, proposed that the temple might have been located further up
on the Clivus Palatinus and, accordingly, that the Sacra Via would have equally progressed towards the
hill. A different location was proposed by Coarelli 1983, 26-35 and 1996, 155-157, who used as a basis
for his interpretation the late antique regionary catalogues (the Curiosum urbis Romae regionum XIII and
the Notitia urbis Romae), and who initially located the temple of Jupiter Stator north of the Sacra Via and
identified it with the so-called ‘temple of Romulus’. However, the discovery of the Fasti Priuernates has
shown that this hypothesis is most unlikely, as Coarelli himself has recognised in his recent book on the
Palatine (2012, 30-31, 34). Wiseman (2013, 245-247) suggests that the temple might have been removed
after the Neronian fire from its original location at the foot of the Palatine to the area north of the Sacra
Via. Following their excavations on the Velia, Carandini and his team also argue that the temple was
transferred from the Palatine to the Velia during the Principate: see Carafa-Carandini-Arvanitis 2013. The
identification as the temple of Jupiter Stator of the hexastyle temple depicted in the famous relief of the
tomb of the Haterii, which dates to the Flavian period, and which shows a statue with its legs sunk into a
base of stone, remains unconfirmed: see Coarelli 1996, 15.
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building as a place officially associated with collective rituals that celebrated the

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city’s origins and identity.77
The fact that the temple had been chosen as the venue in which the Senate
met on the occasion of Cicero’s first Catilinarian oration, in November 63 BC, no
doubt gave the later scene of the sale of Pompey’s goods a striking symbolism in the
orator’s eyes.78 On that occasion, Cicero drew explicit connections in his speech
between the expulsion of the Sabines by Romulus, thanks to the intervention of
the god, and his own role as consul and defender of the Republic against an internal
enemy.79 The appeals of both Romulus and Cicero to the ‘stayer’ Jupiter had thus
brought about the defeat of external and internal enemies of Rome. Caesar’s plant-
ing of the hasta in this very place might have been conceived of as a distinguishing
act that sought public recognition to legitimate his victory and his exceptional
power, it might have just been intended as a way of avoiding the negative connota-
tions of the Rostra, or it might have simply been motivated by financial strategies.
Whatever the reasons for this choice, Cicero considered it an immoral and unjusti-
fied appropriation of a sacred place that was deeply embedded in Rome’s public
memory. The spectacle of the humiliation of Pompey’s memory by the use of the
military ritual of the hasta, the outrageous treatment of his personal property, and
Antony’s audacity as sector were certainly regarded by Cicero as acts of profana-
tion, not only of the temple and the god, but ultimately of the city and the Repub-
lic. Antony, like Catiline, was thus a traitor and should be treated as an enemy of
Rome.80 But, unlike the events of 63 BC, Cicero could now only witness the scene
with indignation and nostalgia, and hope for an appropriate response to such defi-
ance by the People, the Senate and by the divine protector of the city.

77
 The significant status of the temple in Rome’s symbolic topographic imagery is mirrored in the
passage of Ovid’s Tristia (3.1) that was mentioned earlier. This elegy tells the story of the itinerary
followed by Ovid’s libellus in its search for a library that might host it, and involves an appeal for
Augustus to pardon its author. According to Zanoni 2014, the poem proposes a symbolic merging of
the house of Augustus with the temple of Jupiter Stator, and of the princeps with the god, both being
defenders and savers of the city.
78
 From the outset, Cicero refers to the temple and the atmosphere that marked the session, both
outdoors and in Cat. 1.1; 1.16; 1.20-21; cf. Vasaly 1993, 49-50. As Ver Eecke (2008, 248-251) states,
the fact that this important session of the Senate took place outside the Curia and in a place so very
relevant to the Roman people’s collective memory must certainly have had a political and psychological
impact on those who witnessed the session.
79
 Cic. Cat. 2.12; Plut. Cic. 16.3. For Jupiter as guardian of the city, see Cic. Cat. 1.11. At the end of
the first Catilinarian speech, Cicero appeals to Jupiter in the same way that Romulus had (Cat. 1.33);
Vasaly 1993, 41-59.
80
  The labelling of Antony as a hostis will be made more explicit in Cicero’s later contio speeches, even
though a vote of the Senate to that effect had not taken place: see Phil. 4.1-2, with Manuwald 2007
II.514 and 2012, 171; Allély 2012, 94-95.
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6. Conclusions

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Raynal’s reductive evocation of Rome as a bloody arena in which fortunes were
plundered and sold finds its most striking illustration in the hasta cruenta. The
planting of the spear in the Forum entails the violent appropriation of the political
centre of the city for a practice that originated on the battlefield and would be-
come the symbol of the political proscriptions. While the dark memories of Sulla’s
proscriptions certainly did form a negative leitmotiv throughout the Ciceronian
corpus, Cicero did not explicitly condemn the sectio bonorum. Instead he lamented
its use as a political instrument and denounced the injustices of those who person-
ally benefited from the disgrace of condemned citizens. Indeed Cicero’s criticism is
of a wider consequence, namely the infamia that resulted from the listing in public
of the names of citizens and the advertisement of their goods. The confluence of
two types of sale – sectio and uenditio bonorum – is emphasised by the use of the
Forum as the celeberrimus locus that provided high visibility and a venue for the
publicly-performed auction.
The case studies analysed above allow for the discerning of some interesting
connections in the way in which Cicero responded to patrimonial auctions and the
choice of venue for them. In 81 BC, the distribution of banners advertising sales that
were to be transacted at the Atria Licinia exposed to public judgement not only
the victims of both the uenditio and the sectio bonorum, but also the immorality of
those who were involved in making money from Sulla’s proscriptions. In 63 BC, in
contrast, these very same places were used to different ends. The clear protocol of
publicity that was attached to auctions was turned into a positive argument against
the lack of transparency in the transactions proposed in Rullus’ land reform bill. The
contio speech employs the tactic of linking the speaker’s platform, the Rostra, to the
infamous auctioning of the patrimony of citizens by Sulla, which was conducted
from the very same place. Again, the argument of visibility encouraged the audi-
ence to recognise that even those fearful proscriptions had been performed in public
places and in front of the people. For Cicero, the Rostra stood thus both for public
transparency and for the orator’s popular legitimacy. In that same year, 63, Cicero
delivered his famous orations against Catiline. The use of the temple of Jupiter Sta-
tor as the venue for the meeting of the Senate that saw Cicero’s political triumph
was exploited by the orator, who sought to evoke the memories associated with that
temple in order to identify himself with Romulus as the defender of the city. Years
later, Cicero’s touching lament about the misuse of the temple as the public stage for
the auctioning of Pompey’s patrimony by Caesar and above all by the sector Antony
included a poignant criticism of the latter’s immorality. The means by which this
auction was advertised certainly recalled Sulla’s proscriptions, as well as Cicero’s
analogy of the funeral in life developed in the early speech Pro Quinctio. Finally, the
irregularities in the tabula and the registers that cast a shadow over Antony evoke
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Cicero’s criticism of Rullus’ proposed sales in ultimis terris. As we have seen, visibility

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was the key concept that defined and distinguished auctions and that provided these
procedures with the necessary legitimacy and solemnity. Unlike Sulla, Caesar and
Antony chose the wrong place and used the wrong procedures to hold the highly
symbolic auction of Pompey’s goods. Cicero’s response was harsh and loaded with
emotional overtones. His description of this auction is ultimately also an exercise in
personal nostalgia. In Cicero’s eyes, this episode not only represented the victory of
the Caesarians and the humiliation of their defeated opponent through the exhibi-
tion, sale and misuse of his personal possessions, but also the end of an epoch. And
so the offence against Jupiter Stator and his temple brought about the defeat of the
city and its submission to the hasta cruenta.
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