Commentariolum Petitionis

Commentariolum Petitionis ("little handbook on electioneering"), also known as De petitione consulatus ("on running for the Consulship"), is an essay supposedly written by Quintus Tullius Cicero, c. 65-64 BC as a guide for his brother Marcus Tullius Cicero in his campaign in 64 to be elected consul of the Roman Republic. The essay does not provide any information that a man of politics such as Cicero would not already know, and is written in a highly rhetorical fashion. As such, its authenticity has been questioned. Many scholars believe that it was not in fact written by Quintus for the purposes proposed, but in fact by a Roman in the Early Roman Empire, between the periods of Augustus and Trajan, as a rhetorical exercise. Such exercises were not uncommon in that time period. Others claim that it was in fact written by Quintus, but with the view to be published, perhaps as a piece of carefully distributed propaganda. The degree to which it can be used as evidence for the electoral process and the politics of the Late Roman Republic is therefore contested. Manuscript tradition The text of the Commentariolum Petitionis is not found in the Codex Mediceus, the best source for M. Cicero's Epistulae ad Familiares (Letters to his Friends). It does appear at the end of the Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem (Letters to Quintus) in the codices Berolinensis and Harleianus, although Harleianus only includes sections 1-8 of the 58 sections given in the other manuscripts.