Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 December 2020
Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? (‘Just how much longer, really, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?’). The famous incipit—‘And what are you reading, Master Buddenbrook? Ah, Cicero! A difficult text, the work of a great Roman orator. Quousque tandem, Catilina. Huh-uh-hmm, yes, I've not entirely forgotten my Latin, either’— already impressed contemporaries, including some ordinarily not so readily impressed. It rings through Sallust's version of Catiline's shadowy address to his followers, when he asks regarding the injustices they suffer (Cat. 20.9): quae quousque tandem patiemini, o fortissumi uiri? (‘Just how much longer, really, will you put up with these, o bravest men?’). More playfully, and less well-known, Sallust employed the expression again in a speech by Philippus (Hist. 1.77.17 M./67 R.): uos autem, patres conscripti, quo usque cunctando rem publicam intutam patiemini et uerbis arma temptabitis? (‘But you, members of the Senate, just how much longer will you suffer our Republic to be unsafe by your hesitation and make an attempt on arms with words?’). Soon afterwards it served Cicero's son, who, as governor of Asia, put down Hybreas fils for having dared to quote from his father's work in his presence (Sen. Suas. 7.14): ‘age’, inquit [sc. Marcus Tullius], ‘non putas me didicisse patris mei: “quousque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra”?’ (‘“Come now”, he said, “do you think that I do not know by heart my father's ‘Just how much longer, really, Catiline, will you abuse our patience’?”’). Just about the same time, Livy recalled it in order to colour Manlius’ exhortation of his followers (6.18.5): quousque tandem ignorabitis uires uestras, quas natura ne beluas quidem ignorare uoluit? … audendum est aliquid uniuersis aut omnia singulis patienda. quousque me circumspectabitis? (‘Just how much longer, really, will you remain ignorant of your own strength, which nature has willed even brutes to know? … We must dare all together, or else, separately, suffer all. Just how much longer will you keep looking round for me?’). Thereafter Quintilian would refer to it twice, when discussing apostrophe and rhetorical questions (Inst. 4.1.68, 9.2.7), just a couple of years before Tacitus has the maladroit Q. Haterius encourage Tiberius to seize the reins—quo usque patieris, Caesar, non adesse caput rei publicae? (‘Just how much longer, Caesar, will you suffer the absence of the head of state?’, Ann. 1.13.4); a few decades later still, Apuleius puts it into the mouth of the slave who chastises his master, now in asinine form (Met. 3.27): ‘quo usque tandem’, inquit, ‘cantherium patiemur istum paulo ante cibariis iumentorum, nunc etiam simulacris deorum infestum?’ (‘“Just how much longer, really,” he said, “will we suffer this old gelding to attack the animals’ food just a little while ago and now even the gods’ statues?”’). He trusted, no doubt, that the famous question would alert his readers more than anything to the many ‘similarities between Catiline and Lucius’, in order to have them appreciate this ‘ludicrous copy of Cicero's arch-enemy’. Some time after, and in a different corner of the Empire altogether, a teacher's bronze statue would carry the inscription:
1 ‘Und Sie lesen, Herr Buddenbrook? Ah, Cicero! Eine schwierige Lektüre, die Werke dieses großen römischen Redners. Quousque tandem, Catilina … hä-ä-hm, ja, ich habe mein Latein gleichfalls noch nicht völlig vergessen!’ T. Mann, Buddenbrooks. The Decline of a Family, transl. J.E. Woods (New York, 1994), 95. For a stimulating overview of dramatizations of the First Catilinarian (and other Ciceronian works), see Manuwald, G., Reviving Cicero in Drama: From the Ancient World to the Modern Stage (London, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 D.A. Malcolm's ingenious suggestion (‘Quo usque tandem …?’, CQ 29 [1979], 219–20) that the phrase was, in fact, Catiline's has rightly met with scepticism (Dyck, A.R., Cicero Catilinarians [Cambridge, 2008], 63Google Scholar). He had, in fact, been anticipated by Jan, L. von, ‘Zu der ersten Catilinarischen Rede Ciceros’, Philologus 11 (1856), 656CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who had suggested that by quoting Catiline Cicero let him know ‘es seien sogar die von ihm gesprochenen Worte bekannt’. The question will not matter much to my argument. Oakley, S.P., A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar, 1.546 offers further bibliography.
3 As McGushin, P. (Sallust: The Histories [Oxford, 1992], 143)Google Scholar observes, this is one of several parallels by which the ‘similarity of the two rebellions is implied’. In fact, the immediately preceding exhortation recalls the first Catilinarian as well (1.77.16 M.): qui quando talis es, maneas in sententia et retineas arma te hortor, neu prolatandis seditionibus, inquies ipse, nos in sollicitudine attineas; neque te prouinciae neque leges neque di penates ciuem patiuntur; perge qua coeptas, ut quam maturrume merita inuenias. Cf. Cic. Cat. 1.10 quae cum ita sint, Catilina, perge quo coepisti, egredere aliquando ex urbe. As the anonymous reviewer points out, if Steup's emendation perge qua coeptas<ti> is accepted, the echo becomes even more striking.
4 This incident, possibly in 29/8, may indicate the phrase's wider acclaim: Hutchinson, G.O., Greek to Latin: Frameworks and Contexts for Intertextuality (Oxford, 2013), 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 This is only the most conspicuous aspect of Livy's engagement with Sallust's Catiline; for others, see Krebs, C.B., ‘M. Manlius Capitolinus: the metaphorical plupast and metahistorical reflections’, in Grethlein, J. and Krebs, C.B. (edd.), The Historians’ Plupast (Cambridge, 2012), 139–55Google Scholar, 142–5 (with further references).
6 Lenchantin wanted to supply non adesse caput tandem, which won Syme's support but drew Goodyear's ire (Goodyear, F.R.D., The Annals of Tacitus: Volume 1, Annals 1.1–54 [Cambridge, 1972], 188Google Scholar). I should think the echo clear enough without tandem.
7 J. Tatum, ‘Marcus Tullius Cicero, author of the Metamorphoses’, in W.H. Keulen, R.R. Nauta, S. Panayotakis (edd.), Lectiones Scrupulosae: Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in Honour of Maike Zimmerman (Groningen, 2006), 4–14, at 12. G. La Bua, ‘Quo usque tandem cantherium patiemur istum (Apul. Met. 3.27): Lucius, Catiline, and the “immorality” of the human ass’, CQ 63 (2013), 854–9, at 855.
8 Passelac, M., ‘Le bronze d'applique de Fendeille’, Revue archéologique de Narbonnaise 5 (1972), 185–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 The exact meaning of this ‘exchange’ between Laterensis and Cicero is uncertain (Cic. Planc. 75; Schol. Bob. ad loc. is of no help): atque etiam clamitas, Laterensis: ‘quo usque ista dicis? nihil in Cispio profecisti; obsoletae iam sunt preces tuae.’ de Cispio mihi igitur obicies, quem ego de me bene meritum, quia te teste cognoram, te eodem auctore defendi? et ei dices ‘quo usque?’ quem negas, quod pro Cispio contenderim, impetrare potuisse? nam istius uerbi ‘quo usque’ haec poterat esse inuidia: ‘datus est tibi ille, condonatus est ille; non facis finem; ferre non possumus.’ ei quidem qui pro uno laborarit <et> id ipsum non obtinuerit dici ‘quo usque?’ inridentis magis est quam reprehendentis; nisi forte ego unus ita me gessi in iudiciis, ita et cum his et inter hos uixi, is in causis patronus, is in re publica ciuis et sum et semper fui, solus ut a te constituar qui nihil a iudicibus debeam umquam impetrare. Cic. Att. 16.1.1 is too uncertain to merit more than mention.
10 Malcolm (n. 2), 219.
11 Hofmann, J.-B., Szantyr, rev. A., Lateinische Grammatik. Vol. II: Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik (Munich, 1965), 253Google Scholar.
12 Cf. Cic. Cat. 2.1 tandem aliquando, Quirites, L. Catilinam furentem audacia … ex urbe uel eiecimus uel … ipsum egredientem uerbis prosecuti sumus. Cf. Berry, D.H., Cicero Pro P. Sulla Oratio (Cambridge, 2008)Google Scholar, on Sull. 21 quod tandem, Torquate, regnum?, R.G.M. Nisbet and N. Rudd, A Commentary on Horace, Odes, Book III (Oxford, 2004), on Carm. 3.15.2 tandem nequitiae fige modum.
13 On the question of both Cicero's expectation and the extent of his later revisions, Primmer, A., ‘Historisches und Oratorisches zur ersten Catilinaria’, Gymnasium 84 (1977), 18–38Google Scholar offers balanced discussions.
14 Of the several instances of pati(entia), the most forceful occurs in the sermocinatio of the patria (Cat. 1.27): M.Tulli, quid agis? tune eum, quem esse hostem comperisti, quem ducem belli futurum uides, quem expectari imperatorem in castris hostium sentis, auctorem sceleris, principem coniurationis, euocatorem seruorum et ciuium perditorum, exire patiere, ut abs te non emissus ex urbe, sed immissus in urbem esse uideatur? The various ways in which the exordium prepares for the body of the speech are convincingly illuminated by Loutsch, C., ‘L'exorde dit “ex abrupto” de la “Première Catilinaire” de Cicéron’, REL 68 (1999), 31–49Google Scholar.
15 Loutsch (n. 14), 38 adds that ‘par rapport à l'injonction, la forme interrogative traduit mieux l'indignation et la colère de l'orateur’.
16 But Sallust has Philippus say earlier in the speech (Hist. 1.77.11 M.): interim abutitur uostra socordia.
17 The additional allusion to Enn. Ann. 370 (unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem. | noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem), while contrastive (just as Q. Fabius Maximus’ delay helped the state, so their cunctatio now puts it at risk), highlights the term in question even further.
18 Loutsch (n. 14), 39. The highlighting is mine.
19 ‘In the speeches … unremitting denial of the praenomen to contemporaries—including, notably, initial single naming—is … an inimical belittlement stemming from antagonism directed at hated foes and their minions. This diminution is systematically applied throughout the First Catilinarian to the conspirator, denounced as straight “Catilina” in all twenty vocatives and four references’: Mamoojee, A.H., ‘Manipulation of names in the speeches of Cicero’, Scholia 18 (2009), 37–65Google Scholar, at 45. On abuti, cf. Kaster, R.A., ‘The taxonomy of patience, or when is “patientia” not a virtue?’, CPh 97 (2002), 133–44Google Scholar, at 144: ‘the question, with abutere, implies that there is a proper use, up to a point, of another's patientia, and of one's own.’
20 Cicero will mention it again in Cat. 2.12: quo [sc. in aedem Iouis Statoris] cum Catilina uenisset, quis eum senator appellauit, quis salutauit, quis denique ita aspexit ut perditum ciuem ac non potius ut inportunissimum hostem? quin etiam principes eius ordinis partem illam subselliorum, ad quam ille accesserat, nudam atque inanem reliquerunt.
21 Taylor, L.R. and Scott, R.T., ‘Seating space in the Roman Senate and the Senatores Pedarii’, TAPhA 100 (1969), 529–82Google Scholar, at 534.
22 For helpful suggestions on an earlier draft I should like to thank Andrew M. Riggsby (UT Austin), Luca Grillo (Notre Dame) and, especially, Tony Woodman (formerly University of Virginia). The final version benefitted from the reviewer's keen eye, Bruce Gibson's customary care, and Didier N. Baldi's (Stanford University) circumspect formatting. Lastly, and most importantly, I should like to thank my students in Stanford's Continuing Studies program as well as my class on ‘Great Books, Big Ideas from Antiquity’ for their curious attention to my savouring seven words of Latin: it is for them that I have translated all non-English parts in this note's body.
