Cicero's Scythians

In 70 BCE, Cicero prosecuted Gaius Verres, the former Roman governor of Sicily, for corruption and abuses of power. Describing Verres's brutal treatment of Roman citizens, Cicero told his audience that even the Scythians, whom Romans imagined as exceptionally pitiless barbarians, would be moved to sympathy by such suffering.

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The comparison was deliberately insulting. Cicero was addressing a Roman audience that considered itself more civilized and merciful than distant nomadic peoples. If even the supposedly cruel Scythians would pity Verres's victims, how could respectable Romans fail to condemn him? Cicero used the audience's prejudice against outsiders to make a fellow Roman appear morally worse.

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In another speech, Cicero employed a similar strategy against the former consul Piso, asking what tyrant anywhere in Scythia had ever behaved as disgracefully. Once again, the Scythians served as an extreme standard of cruelty against which a Roman politician could be judged.

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Yet Cicero could also portray a Scythian in a remarkably positive light. In his Tusculan Disputations, he discusses Anacharsis, a legendary Scythian philosopher who supposedly rejected expensive gifts and lived simply, wearing modest clothing and eating milk, cheese, and meat. Cicero asks why Roman philosophers cannot disregard wealth when even Anacharsis could do so.

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The contrast is revealing. In his political speeches, Cicero invokes Scythian cruelty to shame Romans who behave badly. In his philosophical writing, he praises Scythian frugality to shame Romans who have become too attached to luxury. The portrayals seem contradictory, but they serve essentially the same purpose.

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In both cases, Cicero relies on his audience's assumption of Roman superiority. The comparison works because Romans are expected to behave better than Scythians, whether in showing mercy or resisting the temptations of wealth. By presenting a supposedly inferior outsider as morally superior in a particular respect, Cicero turns Roman prejudice into a tool for criticizing Rome itself.