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M. Porcius Cato

The Plot To Kill Pompey

The Plot to Kill Pompey  

9 members have voted

  1. 1. Under whose orders was Vettius acting?

    • Caesar
      1
    • Vatinius
      1
    • Pompey
      0
    • Adherents of Pompey
      0
    • Vettius acted alone, just like Lee Harvey Oswald
      3
    • Clodius
      0
    • Cicero
      1
    • Lucullus
      3


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I like Dio Cassus's theory that PP posted which points the finger at Cicero and Lucullus.

Cicero as we all know was a very intelligent and at times clandestine man, the plot against Pompey would certainly have done his own political ambitions no harm at all.

 

I think you're misunderstanding the events completely. There was no plot to kill Pompey. The "plot" was a complete (and laughably absurd) fabrication. For example, Vettius claimed that to kill Pompey, he was given a dagger by Bibulus, as if Vettius couldn't have found one on his own without the consul's supplying him one! Moreover, Bibulus had earlier saved Pompey from an attack by assassins, for which Pompey had thanked him.

 

The outstanding questions are: who invented this fabrication? who could have benefitted from it? and why was the fabrication put forward when it was?

 

For what it's worth, there have been two scholarly articles on this topic:

McDermott, W. C. (1949). Vettius Ille, Illne Noster Index. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 80, 351-367.

Allen, W. (1950). The "Vettius Affair" once more. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 81, 153-163.

 

(If you PM me, I'd be happy to send you a copy of each.)

 

You can judge the evidence for yourself, but both articles take Caesar to be complicit in the affair, either as an accessory after the fact (e.g., by twisting Vettius' arm to drop the charge against young Brutus) or as the author of the witch hunt itself. The authors also take Cicero's chronology to be the most reliable of the ancient sources (which is unsurprising, since it was the only one that provided contemporary testimonia).

 

Dio's account of the affair, by the way, suffers from a confused chronology on many points, including when the consulur comitia took place and when Cicero defended Gaius Antonius.

 

Thanks for the copy of the "Vettius Affair" , it's a very interesting read and i now see the whole episode in a different light.

 

The way i now see it is that Caesar was fearful that Pompey was growing dis-illusioned with the triumvirate and swaying back towards the optimates, and by creating the plot on Pompeys' life Caesar hoped that Pompey would realise he was safer and better of sticking within the triumvirate.

 

There seems to be too many threats against Pompey to be coincidental, i see no reason why, given the Roman habit for political violence in those years, the great general might not have been capable of being influenced by fear of assassins. And Caesar was just the man to understand and to work on another mans weakness.At this time in 59 Caesar, if my suggestion is correct, did not make Pompey fearful of Cicero personally. The passage in Cicero's letters after the Vettius affair shows that Pompey met with Cicero, obviously did not fear him, and was even carefiul to proclaim his regard for Cicero. What Caesar had accomplished by this exceedingly devious maneuver and among various other purposes was to warn Pompey away from the Optimates in general and to show Pompey, even though he was physically ill because he was so sick of the cabal that he could not leave it.

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