Cicero and the pursuit of social-political promotion through his financial relationship with Atticus (I B.C.E.)

• Grant number: 23/03285-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Margarida Maria de Carvalho
• Grantee: Rafaela Manha da Costa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/11922-8 - Cicero and the search for political and social advancement through his financial relationship with Atticus (I B.C.E.), BE.EP.MS

Abstract

In the ancient world, those men who wished to ascend to the cursus honorum or have their status consolidated needed to cultivate interpersonal relationships. As a man-new, Cicero depended on his well-articulated and well-financed sociability to secure social prestige. Naturally, dependence on these bonds grew in times of crisis, and for Cicero his social and financial networks were indispensable after his exile. His main contact and financial advisor was the equestrian Atticus, who was also the senator's most recurrent epistolary correspondent and friend. Atticus had an extensive network of contacts and was seen as an influential man. Financial topics were always in these letters, but with a greater resonance when Cicero's social power was threatened. The letters of these periods are marked by requests for services services to Atticus. Thus, we ask, in the form of a hypothesis, how the financial bond between these two friends may have been guided by Cicero's interests of social-political promotion. Cicero. For this analysis, we adopted as our main documental cutout 53 letters sent to Atticus, the to Atticus, the De Amicitia and the Life of Atticus as materials to support the investigation - which considers the years 57 to 43 B.E.C., from the return from exile until the death of the arpinate.