Marcus Calidius

Marcus Calidius (fl. 64–47 BC) was a Roman politician and orator.

Jerome, in his Chronicon under the year 64 BC, notes that Calidius studied oratory under Apollodorus of Pergamum.[1] He was one of the earliest Atticists in Rome.[2] In 64, he prosecuted Quintus Gallius for ambitus, even accusing Gallius, who was defended by Cicero, of trying to poison him. Gallius was acquitted.[3] As a praetor in 57, he helped Cicero return from exile and recover his house.[1][4] This was probably the occasion on which he delivered his speech De domo Ciceronis, cited by Quintilian in his Institutio Oratoria.[4][5]

In 52, Calidius defended Titus Annius Milo for the murder of Clodius Pulcher.[1][4] He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship,[2] in 51–50[4] or 50–49.[1] After his first failed candidacy, he unsuccessfully prosecuted one of the winners, Gaius Claudius Marcellus.[1] He was himself prosecuted for ambitus in 51 by two Gallii, perhaps sons of Quintus Gallius.[3]

At the start of the civil war in 49, Calidius sided with Julius Caesar.[4] He spoke eloquently in favour of Caesar and against Pompey on the floor of the Senate, arguing that the latter should leave Rome with his troops for his own province.[6] In his Commentary on the Civil War, Caesar recounts how he appointed him governor of Cisalpine Gaul that same year.[4] He probably held the title of legate.[1] He died in Gaul at Placentia in 48 or 47.[4][2]

Calidius had a high reputation as an orator. Cicero, in a letter to Brutus, expresses dislike of him but admiration for his oratory skill.[1][4] In the Middle Ages, he received a one-sentence entry in the Lives and Manners of the Philosophers, describing him as an "orator [who] flourished in the time of Pompey".[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Simon Hornblower, "Calidius (RE 5), Marcus", Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012).
  2. ^ a b c Gesine Manuwald (ed.), Fragmentary Republican Latin, Volume V: Oratory, Part 3, Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 2019), pp. 108–109.
  3. ^ a b John T. Ramsey, "A Reconstruction of Q. Gallius' Trial for Ambitus: One Less Reason for Doubting the Authenticity of the Commentariolum Petitionis", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 29/4 (1980): 402–421, at 415–417. JSTOR 4435731.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Wolfgang Will, "Calidius, M. Praetor in 57 BC", Brill's New Pauly Online (Brill, 2006), doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e224800.
  5. ^ Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book X, Chapter 1, para. 23 (Loeb Classical Library edition, 1920).
  6. ^ Ayelet Peer, Julius Caesar's Bellum Civile and the Composition of a New Reality (Taylor & Francis, 2016), p. 21.
  7. ^ Francisco Crosas López (ed.), Vida y costumbres de los viejos filósofos: la traducción castellana cuatrocentista del De vita et moribus philosophorum atribuido a Walter Burley (Iberoamericana Editorial Vervuert, 2002), p. 128: "Marco Calidio, orador, floresçió en tiempo de Ponpeo."
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