Commendo Unice:  Recommending the Father, the Son,
and the Recommender through Greek Quotations
in Cicero’s Ad familiares 13.15

Sarah L. Jacobson (University of Arizona)

Cicero’s Fam. 13.15 (March, 45 BCE), a recommendation letter from Cicero to Caesar concerning Precilius the younger, is a self-conscious literary creation.  A bilingual letter in a genre that generally eschewed graecisms, Fam. 13.15 immediately stands out.  Other aberrations from the prescribed generic norms of the recommendation letter further emphasize the extraordinary nature of both the letter and Cicero’s situation.  Moreover, Cicero self-reflexively draws attention to the uniqueness of the letter by highlighting its ring structure, ut redeam ad id unde coepi, and insists that the letter is non vulgarem commendationem.  This paper will look closely at how Cicero uses each Greek quotation to achieve his complex, particular aims.

The ubiquity of Roman recommendation letters made the recommender’s job difficult.  Moreover, a recommendation letter depended on gratia between recommender and recipient.  Cicero’s past anti-Caesarian actions understandably complicated this situation, for Fam. 13.15 was written just three years after Cicero and Caesar were reconciled.   Thus, Cicero attempted to write a truly singular recommendation letter, not just for Precilius, but also for himself.  The series of quotations from Greek literature at the heart of the letter at first glance serve to mediate Cicero’s past conflict with Caesar.  But they also, through their praise of Precilius’ father, recommend Precilius.  Yet, when they are read with their original contexts in mind, the letter takes on a different tone:  Cicero does not regret his anti-Caesarian stance, but continues to defend it. 

The first three quotations are from the Odyssey.  They attempt to both recommend Precilius by emphasizing that his father remained loyal to Caesar and to justify why Cicero did not join ranks with Caesar.  A fourth quotation from the Iliad, is designed to assure Caesar that Cicero is entirely loyal now.  The final three quotations move from epic to sententiae.  They assure Caesar of Precilius senior’s good judgment and imply that the son may be like, if not better than, his father.

The polyvalent function of each of these quotations is made evident through close consideration of its original context.  For instance, Odysseus’ identical response to both Circe (7.258) and Calyspo (9.33), “but never did she persuade the heart in my breast,” is Cicero’s response to Precilius senior (a notable Caesarian) urging him to side with Caesar.  This, by implication, defends the son’s position through its defense of his father.  Study of the line in its original contexts shows that Cicero (an Odysseus recidivus) was not mistaken in choosing his path.  In this interpretation Precilius senior, and Caesar by extension, were attempting to lead Cicero away from his fate.  The other quotes have similar subtexts, all strengthening Cicero’s claim to a Republican state.  In the end, the letter does not extol Caesar, but rather is a form of self-promotion.  The quotations never straightforwardly demonstrate the rightness or wrongness of either party, but through allusions to the Trojan War, they underscore the dire uncertainty looming over all aspects of politics as the Republic was crumbling.

With Caesar’s noted literary acumen (Fam. 9.16.4) is it possible that such intertextual clues would have escaped him?