Sir Ronald Syme, in Sallust (Sather Classical Lectures), in the chapter "From Politics to History," talks about Sallust and the monograph, and notes that "By good fortune a kind of disquisition on the monograph happens to be extant" in the letter of 56 from Cicero to L. Lucceius, "carefully stylised, and, in places, artful from informality." Lucceius by then had nearly finished a work on the Bellum Italicum and Cicero suggests a new subject, Cicero's life from the inception of Catilina's conspiracy to his return from exile. Syme then continues,
Cicero adduces Greek precedents for the monograph. He explains that concentration on one person and a single theme will make all things more rich and splendid, "uberiora atque ornatiora."
and
[Cicero's] fortunes are a kind of stage play, "quasi fabula." And finally, genre and subject are far from forbidding a favourable presentation. Such was the monograph, in Cicero's conception: drama, colour, concentration, and a theme of high politics.
Here is the letter in question at Perseus:
CVIII (F V, 12) TO L. LUCCEIUS
M. Tullius Cicero, Letters (ed. Evelyn Shuckburgh)
I have often tried to say to you personally what I am about to write, but was prevented by a kind of
almost clownish bashfulness. Now that I am not in your presence I shall
speak out more boldly: a letter does not blush. I am inflamed with an
inconceivably ardent desire, and one, as I think, of which I have no reason to be ashamed, that in a history written by you my name should be conspicuous and frequently mentioned with praise. And though you have often shewn me that you meant to do so, yet I hope you will pardon my impatience. For the style of your
composition, though I had always entertained the highest expectations
of it, has yet surpassed my hopes, and has taken such a hold upon me,
or rather has so fired my imagination, that I was eager to have my
achievements as quickly as possible put on record in your history. For
it is not only the thought of being spoken of by future ages that makes
me snatch at what seems a hope of immortality, but it is also the
desire of fully enjoying in my lifetime an authoritative expression of
your judgment, or a token of your kindness for me, or the charm of your
genius. Not, however, that while thus writing I am unaware under what
heavy burdens you are labouring in the portion of history you have
undertaken, and by this time have begun to write …
Truly the mere chronological record of the annals has very little charm
for us-little more than the entries in the fasti: but the doubtful and
varied fortunes of a man, frequently of eminent character, involve
feelings of wonder, suspense, joy, sorrow, hope, fear: if these
fortunes are crowned with a glorious death, the imagination is
satisfied with the most fascinating delight which reading can give.
'Therefore it will be more in accordance with my wishes if you come to
the resolution to separate from the main body of your narrative, in
which you embrace a continuous history of events, what I may call the
drama of my actions and fortunes: for it includes varied acts, and
shifting scenes both of policy and circumstance. continue reading
The letter embodies all of those traits of Cicero that I have problems with. Lucceius, BTW, promised, but never delivered; the following letters to Atticus are cited by Syme: Ad Att. Iv. 6.4; 9.2.; 11.2. As to the monograph issue, Syme footnotes:
Ad fam. V. 12. For the interpretation, R. Reitzenstein, (1906), 84 ff.; A.-M. Guillemin, Rev.ét.lat. XVI (1938), 96 ff.; B. L. Ullman, TAPA LXXIII (1942), 44 ff. It has been claimed that the notions stated or presupposed in this letter are not restricted in their validity to monographs, cf. N. Zegers, Wesen und Ursprung der tragischen Geschichtsschreibung (Diss. Köln, 1959), 82.
Lucius Lucceius. He stood for consul in 60 BCE in together with Caesar but lost out to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, Caesar's bête noire.
