M. Caelius Rufus 35

vol. III p. 1266-1272

35) M. Caelius Rufus

The son of nr. 34. Both the time and the place of his birth are uncertain. Plin. n. h. VII 165 says: C. Mario Cn. Carbone III cos. a. d. V. kal. Iunias (28th May 672=82) <50> M. Caelius [Ms. Caecilius] Rufus et C. Licinius Calvus eadem die geniti sunt, oratores quidem ambo, sed tam dispari eventu This has been shown to be false by Nipperdey (Rh. Mus. XIX 289ff. = Opusc. 298ff.; cf. Mommsen St.-R. I 570, 3), primarily because it contradicts Caelius’s career. Caelius must have been older, but it is difficult to determine how this mistake arose, <60> and whether the year of his birth was L. Cinna III Cn. Carbone cos. 669=85 (Nipperdey. Wieschhölter 5f.) or an earlier one (666=88 according to Wegehaupt 5). Theories about Caelius's home are based on the restoration of the corrupted word in Cic. Cael. 5: nam quod est obiectum municipibus esse adolescentem non probatum suis, nemini umquam praesenti ✝ praetoriani maiores honores habuerunt, quam absenti M. Caelio, <page break 1266/1267> but it is difficult to tell if the name of the municipium is actually revealed by praetoriani at all (cf. Harnecker Wochenschr. f. klass. Philol. III 1099). Regardless, to support Baiter’s conjecture (Cicero ed. Orelli² II 1415) which lines up with the evidence, according to which Caelius would come from Tusculum, we can bring up the fact that in Tusculum the Caelii belonged to a very esteemed family (CIL XIV 2626. 2627) and that under Augustus a Caelius Rufus held an honorary position in a municipium (Num. 33), <10> whereas elsewhere a Caelius Rufus only comes from a suspect and in any case late inscription from Aeclanum (CIL IX 1238). Caelius's father raised him strictly, and shortly after he received the toga virilis he was brought to M. Crassus and Cicero, in order to bring him up under their guidance especially in rhetoric (Cic. Cael. 9. 12. 39, following that Quintil. inst. or. XII 11, 6). In the year 688=66 he had already been in a relationship with Cicero for some time <20> and stayed in contact with him (Cic. 10), until he became close to Catilina in 691=63 (Cic. 10-14). It seems to be the case that he didn’t put himself in any serious danger in that regard (Cic. 15), but nevertheless he probably deemed it appropriate to disappear from Rome for some time, and therefore in 692=62 he accompanied the proconsul Q. Pompeius to Africa, where his father also had estates (Cic. 73; cf. Schwabe Quaest. Catull. 65. Wieschhölter 13). <30> After his return, at the beginning of 695=59, he acted as a prosecutor against C. Antonius alongside two others (Cic. 18. 47. 74. 78. Schol. Bob. Flacc. p. 299; Vatin. p. 321 Or.; fragments of his prosecution speech in Quintil. inst. or. IV 2, 123f. IX 3, 58; cf. vol. 1 p. 2580ff.). At that time, he acquired an apartment for himself on the Palatine, in a house owned by P. Clodius, because he had got into a relationship with his sister (Cic. 17f.), <40> and he ruined his reputation through his exuberant and wild life (Cic. 19. 20. 25. 27-30). Clodia was tired of her previous lover Catullus, when she turned her favour to Caelius (Cic. 36f), and after his rejection Catullus attacked him viciously. There is no doubt that our Caelius is the Rufus whom the poet (c. 77) attacked, saying that he had betrayed their old friendship and stolen the heart of his lover from him, and the very same Rufus, who was pursued with poisonous mockery in c. 69, <50> whereas his connection to other poems like c. 59 and 71 remains uncertain. On the other hand, (eg. by Wegehaupt 9, 3. Wieschhölter 17f.) the Caelius named in c. 58 and 100 is usually thought to be a different one from him, and where it is taken to be him (especially by F. Schöll Jahrb. f. Phil. CXXI 483ff.; only for the Caelius in c. 58 recently by Fenner Quaest. Catull. [Barmen 1896] 21), the reasons for doing so usually remain unsatisfactory. <60> The Caelius in c. 100 could have appeared in Verona, where later Caelii do come from (CIL V 3441, 2. 3570. 3689; ibidem the very rare name Auffilenus 3506. 3507, cf. 4008. 4129), for a multitude of reasons (cf. Schöll loc. cit. Bährens’ commentary Catull. 587), and the whole poem is full of malicious irony against the false friend who enjoyed unnatural vices, which all fits very well with M. Caelius Rufus. <page break 1267/1268> In c. 58 Catullus then joins his side, because in the end, both have had the same experiences with their lover, and now, despite leaving their old friendship broken, they can still be happy together as the faithless Clodia sinks further and further. Although Cicero maintains that the town gossip indulged itself in the depiction of the affairs between Caelius and Clodia, <10> who was only a corruptible street-prostitute (30. 48-50. 75), he still leaves room for at least some amount of suspicion when he says (35): accusatores quidem libidines, amores, adulteria, Baias, actas, convivia, comissationes, cantus, symphonias, navigia iactant, and although he claims that Caelius had recently freed himself from her chains (75), the relationships still must have lasted about two years (cf. Schwabe loc. cit. 66f.). At the end of 697=57, Caelius brought a charge de ambitu against L. Sempronius Atratinus, <20> and following his acquittal, he prepared a new charge when the son of Atratinus brought him before the courts (Cic. 1. 76. 78, cf. 16. 45). C. Herennius Balbus and P. Clodius appeared as prosecutors alongside Atratinus, but behind them stood Clodia, who fiercely hated Caelius after he was most likely the one to break up with her. The trial took place in the first days of April 698=56 (Schwabe a. O. 63 Anm. Wegehaupt 10. Wieschhölter 26f.). <30> It appears that even meddling with the election formed part of the prosecution's charges: meddling, in fact, for the benefit of L. Calpurnius Bestia, who at the time was standing in court on those same charges (Cic. 16, cf. 26. 30). Caelius defended himself (Cic. 45. Quintil. inst. or. VIII 6, 53 cf. I 5, 61. XI 1, 51. Suet. rhet. 2), and as a second man M. Crassus spoke for him de seditionibus Neapolitanis, de Alexandrinorum pulsatione Puteolana, de bonis Pallae (Cic. 23) and as a third man Cicero spoke in the surviving speech. <40> He made a particular point of refuting his opponents' allegation that Caelius had arranged the murder of the Alexandrian envoy Dio and had provided money for this purpose through Clodia (23-25. 30. 51-55), and then, after he and Clodia had broken up, he had sought to kill her with poison (30. 56-69), but his speech gained much more interest with its attacks and descriptions of their habits than with any factual defense <50> (cf. Quintil. inst. or. IV 2, 27). Caelius continued to be an enemy of P. Clodius and Clodia after his acquittal, because in the year 700=54 they were once again threatening to charge him, but this charge doesn't seem to have been followed through (Cic. ad Q. fr. II 13, 2). For this reason, it was understandable that as a tribune of the plebs in the year 702=52 - nothing is known about his quaestorship - he sought to support Milo in the murder of Clodius in every single way, <60> by giving him the opportunity to defend himself in a popular assembly, where he even spoke for him himself (Cic. Mil. 91; Brut. 273. Ascon. Milon. p. 29. App. b. c. II 22), by suggesting changes in the judicial process in Milo’s favour (Ascon. Milon. p. 30. 31), by protecting his slaves (ibid. 32), later, after the murder trial, by defending Milo's associate M. Saufeius (ibid. 48), and by looking after his estate (Cic. ad fam. VIII 3, 2). <page break 1268/1269> Cicero won him over, and got Caelius to promote of Caesar’s plans, who was supported by all of the tribunes in his efforts to be allowed to run for the consulship whilst away (Cic. ad Att. VII 1, 4). At the beginning of 703=51, after the tribunes stepped down from office, Caelius charged Q. Pompeius Rufus de vi, who was his colleague up until that point, because he had violently interrupted the popular assembly he'd held for Milo; <10> he was successful in his conviction, but when Pompeius fell into poverty through a combination of that conviction and his mother's greed, Caelius himself helped him get his justice (Val. Max. IV 2, 7. Cic. ad fam. VIII 1, 4). Pompeius lived in Baiae, and this is probably what brought Caelius there, since in spring he was in Cumae and Cicero spoke there once, while he was on his way to his province of Cilicia (ad fam. VIII 1, 2). <20> Cicero had asked him to update him, during his absence, on anything important that happened in Rome, and Caelius didn’t only collect and report the news through his slave or freedman Chrestus (ad fam. VIII 1, 1f. II 8, 1), but he also fulfilled his friend’s request himself. His letters make up book VIII of the ep. ad fam., Cicero’s replies ibid. II 8--16; some have been lost. The chronological order is readily apparent. <30> In the year 703=51, Caelius wrote from the end of May onwards in VIII 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 9. 8. 10 and Cicero II 8. 9. 10, in the year 704=50 up to roughly the end of September Caelius VIII 6. 11. 7. 13. 12. 14. and Cicero II 14. 11. 13. 12. 15 (cf. Wieschhölter 32--38. 40--45. O. E. Schmidt Briefwechsel des Cicero [Leipzig 1893] 74f. 79. 83. 86--88). Details about Caelius’s public life are relatively rare in these letters. He ran for aedile (VIII 2, 2. 3, 1. 4, 3) <40> and was elected along with M. Octavius at the end of August 703=51 (VIII 9, 1. II 9, 1 ff.; Brut. 273). He had already asked Cicero if he could find him some panthers in Cilicia for his games, and always circled round to this request (VIII 2, 2. 4, 5. 9, 3. 8, 10. 6, 4), even though his friend found it really annoying and dismissed it with a joke (II 11, 2, from that Plut. Cic. 36, 3. Cic. ad Att. V 21, 5). Another of Caelius's requests, concerning the debt of a certain Sittius, which was to be collected in Cicero's province, <50> was seemingly eventually fulfilled (VIII 11, 1) after Caelius urged him repetitively (VIII 2, 2. 4, 5. 9, 3. 8, 10), but he angrily refused the unreasonable demand of providing yet further resources for Caelius’s games (ad Att. VI 1, 21). From time to time, they would recommend each other friends (II 14. Val. Max. V 3, 4), and Caelius, who energetically took part in many trials (VIII 8, 1), was especially eager to step in for Cicero when it came to Ap. Claudius, Cicero's predecessor as governor of Cilicia, <60> who was charged at the beginning of 704=50 by Dolabella, who was engaged to Tullia and who was afraid of Cicero’s opposition (VIII 6, 1f. 6, 5. II 13, 2f. III 10, 5. VIII 12, 1). In terms of his official deeds as an aedile in this year, Caelius only reports that he intervened against misuse of the aqueducts he was in control over (at the end of February VIII 6, 4; cf. Frontin. de aqu. II 76), <page break 1269/1270> and in the senate he worked towards gaining approval for a public festival in Cicero’s honour (VIII 11, 1f. II 15, 1), but only his letter from 20th September, VIII 12, contains more personal news. This was when he gave his games, which Curio had provided wild animals for (VIII 9, 3. 8, 10), and also when he ended up badly falling out with Ap. Claudius. Caelius thought he deserved the highest thanks from Appius because of his support, <10> but Appius, who was a censor at the time along with L. Piso, didn’t just turn down his request for money, but even harrassed him in various ways with L. Domitius. When L. Piso defended Caelius against one of Appius's reproaches, Appius had Servius Pola charge Caelius for some sort of sexual vice, which wasn’t actually all that unreasonable of a charge. After that, Caelius threatened to bring Appius to court under the same lex Scantinia (cf. VIII 14, 4; <20> perhaps allusions to his easy-going life at this time VIII 7, 2. II 15, 5 according to Boissier 185). More important events force these squabbles to be side-lined, but they are nevertheless linked with the development of those major parties. Since each of the two censors sided with a different power, and in the end Caelius decided to support Caesar completely (Cic. ad Att. VII 3, 6 from 9th December), <30> after he had already sussed out Pompeius’s character a long time ago (VIII 1, 3), and despite the fact that Cicero (II 8, 2) had advised him to side with Caesar and he was still going back and forth between them in September (VIII 14, 2). Both the way his mind worked as well as the prospect of material gains probably drove Caelius to make his decision, and these likewise later played a part when he separated himself from Caesar again (cf. Boissier 205--208). He came to meet Cicero in his estate at Cumae while he was on his way back, and didn’t just let him know about his change of mind, <40> but even wanted to get Cicero himself to ally with Caesar (II 16, 3; Brut. 273; cf. Schmidt 95). During the senate meeting on 1st January 705=49, he agreed with the proposals from the keenest Caesarian, M. Calidius, with some minor changes (Caes. b. c. I 2, 4. Dio XLI 2, 1), and after the senate’s decree on 7th January, which was a declaration of war, he hurried at once to Caesar in Ariminum with M. Antonius, Q. Cassius, and Curio (Dio 3, 2. Oros. VI 15, 2). <50> At night he was still secretly with Cicero (ad fam. VIII 17, 1), and kept up his relationship with the orator. He wrote to him on roughly 9th March, saying that Caesar wanted to summon him to Rome, but first that he had to send him to Intemelium in western Liguria to suppress an uprising there, and from there on 16th April, at the same time as Caesar himself and following Caesar's orders, <60> Cicero should maintain his neutrality which he had observed up until then under every circumstance, and that he should not go over to Pompeius (VIII 16 = ad Att. X 9 A, cf. X 9, 2; Cicero’s reply II 16). When it came to matters surrounding himself, Caelius only reported that Caesar had taken him with him to Spain. In the time that followed, Cicero’s letters to Atticus (X 12, 6 [= 12 b, 2]. 14, 3. 15, 2. 16, 4) once again talk about some Caelius and some Caelian plan, in obscure phrases; <page break 1270/1271> among the various interpretations of these mysterious insinuations (cf. Ziehen Ephemerides Tullianae [Budapest 1887] 24ff.), Schmidt's theory (loc. cit. 179) has the most going for it - that is, to interpret them as Cicero’s decision for Pompeius, which Caelius had trusted to him in a letter sent on to Atticus. After his return from the campaign in Spain, <10> Caesar assigned Caelius the praetorship for the year 706=48, but demoted him by granting the more prestigious praetorship urbanus to C. Trebonius. For a long time after his hopes were betrayed, ill will and bitterness against the new rule were gathering in Caelius’s heart, and he was intending to use his power against him when Caesar turned his back, though this was probably not for the benefit of the Pompeiani, but to overturn all order with nothing good in mind, as a second Catiline. <20> His final letter to Cicero was written at the end of January 706=48, when he was already well into carrying out his plans (cf. Ziehen loc. cit. 42ff. Schmidt loc. cit. 196). Cicero’s reports b. c. III 20, 1--22, 3 and Dio XLII 22, 1--25, 3 differ on many points about the details (cf. vol. 1 p. 2276); and alongside them are the shorter reports from Liv. ep. CXI. Vell. II 68, 1f. Oros. VI 15, 10 (imprecise, at any rate). <30> Hieron. on Euseb. II 136 r Schöne is of less importance. Caelius, who had presumably always struggled with financial difficulties which often influenced his decisions, first promised his protection to all people who owed debt, who weren't inclined to pay anything at all following the simplification of debt-cancellation brought in by Caesar, but after those reforms were officially introduced, he found no popular appeal. After that, he requested a law stating that those who owed debt would be able to give the money back without interest within a six-year time period, <40> and he responded to the opposition of the rest of the magistrates with the publication of two further proposed laws, which aimed to lessen the rent for a year, and to set up new debt registers. With that, he managed to spark a revolt which put Trebonius into great danger, but then the consul Servilius took serious measures against him and suspended him from his office in accordance with the senate’s decree (cf. Quintil. inst. or. VI 3, 25. Mommsen St.-R. I 262, 4). <50> Only a rough summary of the following events can be made: Caelius professed that he wanted to personally go over to Caesar, but instead of this, he was plotting with Milo, who was intending to spark an uprising in Campania. He wasn’t able to join Milo: he was defeated and killed before he was able to; he was unsuccessful in his own endeavours to stir up trouble, <60> and in the end he was cut down in Thurii by Celtic and Spanish cavalrymen of Caesar’s, whom Caelius had wanted to bribe to get them on side (in March at the latest, according to Schmidt. loc. cit.).

Caelius was blessed with great physical advantages (Cic. Cael. 6. 36, as well as Gell. XVII 1, 4ff.), and just as he had trained his body to achieve this (Macrob. sat. III 14, 15), <page break 1271/1272> he had also trained his mind by studying diligently (Cic. Cael. 44f.; ad fam. II 10, 3) and he was seen as one of the best orators of this time (cf. eg colum. I praef. 30. Tac. dial. 17. Quintil. inst. or. XII 10, 11. Plin. ep. I 20, 4). But gross errors stood in the way of his glowing intellectual gifts, which Cicero makes very clear in his defence speeches, just as in occasional remarks (ad Att. VI 1, 21, amongst others), and especially in his obituary (Brut. 273), despite all his great affection for Caelius. <10> Also of interest are the opinions of later authors on Caelius, like Vell. II 68, 1f. Quintil. inst. or. X 1, 115, and small details about his character like Sen. de ira III 8, 6. In line with the character these accounts suggest to us, the fragments of his speeches (collected in Meyer Orat. Rom. frg.² 458--470) give us an on-the-spot joke and a sharp presence. The best of these speeches, which were even eagerly studied by Quintilian and Tacitus, <20> were the prosecuting speeches (Cic. Brut. 273. Quintil. inst. or. VI 3, 69); but it shouldn't be concluded from Cicero, according to Nipperdy (Opuscula 299, 1), that he only spoke three times as a prosecutor, but rather a comment from Plin. n. h. XXVII 4 can also be linked to him. His letters belong to the most interesting of the Ciceronian collection; his gift of fascinating and spicy narrative, of sharp and striking observations, of often malicious judgements, lend the letters a particular charm. <30> Drumann G. R. II 411--422 appreciates the life and personality of Caelius in detail, though ill-humouredly; Wegehaupt (M. Caelius Rufus, Breslau 1878) aims at a more favourable judgement, though his monograph doesn’t actually have much more individual worth than that of Wieschhölter (De M. Caelio Rufo oratore Leipzig 1885, with Recension by Harnecker Wochenschr. f. klass. Philol. III 1098--1103). Boissier (Cicéron et ses amis 167--219) is perhaps the most just towards Caelius, insofar as he understood and presented him as a typical representative of the youth in Rome at that time, although this image of Boissier’s sometimes gets carried away in itself. On the position and importance of Caelius in Roman literature, cf. Teuffel-Schwabe § 209, 6. 7, where more modern literature is listed.

[Münzer.]

This article is referenced by: M. Caelius Rufus (34), Ap. Claudius Pulcher (297), Clodia (66), C. Licinius Macer Calvus (113), M. Saufeius (6)