The Early Relationships between Cicero and Pompey until 80 B. C.

Abstract

THE TENDENCY HAS often been to ignore or discount the possibility of any personal contact between Cicero and Pompey in their early years.' Richard Johannemann vigorously maintained that Cicero first came into personal contact with Pompey only in 71.2 A re-examination of the evidence will show, however, that Cicero and Pompey probably did have contact with each other well before 71 and possibly from a very early date. Johannemann argued that if there had been any early association between the two, Cicero would not have failed to mention it, just as he did not fail to mention early friendship between himself and Caesar in the De Provinciis Consularibus of 56 (40) and in a letter of 54 to P. Lentulus (Famr. 1.9.12).1 This argument is not as decisive as Johannemann may have thought. First, much of the evidence for the period of Cicero's life before 67, the earliest year from which letters survive, is lost. Second, in 56 and 54 Cicero dredged up some early ties (however tenuous) with Caesar only because he was hard pressed to explain his sudden reversal from hostility to friendliness towards Caesar. During the period for which the most evidence survives, friendship between Cicero and Pompey, though strained from time to time, was already well established (Att. 1.1.2; Famn. 5.7.3). In fact, although he did not use the specific word amicitia, in the very letter cited by Johannemann, Cicero did argue that his continued support of Pompey was based on ties that stretched