Tricolon or anaphora? A commentary on Cicero's first Catilinarian
A candidate writing a 20-minute commentary on Cicero, In Catilinam 1.1, describes the sentence 'nihilne te nocturnum praesidium Palati, nihil urbis vigiliae, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatus locus, nihil horum ora voltusque moverunt?' as 'a tricolon crescendo with asyndeton'. The teacher marks the comment 'partly right, partly imprecise' and asks the candidate to revise it before the mock exam. The candidate's notes define tricolon as 'any list of three or more items' and asyndeton as 'omission of conjunctions'. She has 15 minutes to produce a corrected paragraph of 100 words. The passage is printed without punctuation beyond the question mark, and the candidate must also explain how the six 'nihil' phrases are grouped syntactically.
1. Correct the candidate's terminology. How many items are there, what figure is produced by the repeated 'nihil', and is 'tricolon' defensible?
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There are six 'nihil' phrases, not three. The repeated 'nihil' at the start of each phrase is anaphora, not a tricolon. A tricolon is a group of three; a sixfold series is an anaphora or accumulatio. 'Asyndeton' is defensible: the phrases are juxtaposed without connectives. 'Crescendo' is arguable if the items move from place to persons, but the candidate must show the order. So the corrected description is 'sixfold anaphora with asyndeton', not 'tricolon crescendo'.
2. Explain the syntax of the six phrases: what case is 'nihil', what is the subject of 'moverunt', and how does 'te' function?
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'Nihil' is an adverbial accusative of respect or extent: 'in no respect'. It is not the subject, because 'moverunt' is plural and the listed nominatives ('praesidium', 'vigiliae', 'timor', 'concursus', 'locus', 'ora voltusque') form the subject. 'Te' is the accusative object: 'did they not move you?' The sentence is a single rhetorical question with six parallel subjects. Recognizing this prevents a mistranslation such as 'nothing moved you'.
3. Write the corrected 100-word paragraph.
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Cicero does not write a tricolon but a sixfold anaphora: 'nihil' opens six successive phrases, piling up the guards, the city's watches, the people's fear, the gathering of loyal citizens, the senate-house itself, and the faces of the senators. The asyndeton, with no connectives between them, makes the list feel breathless and accusatory. The effect is accumulation rather than a neat three-part crescendo. The plural verb 'moverunt' takes the whole series as its subject, while 'te' is the object and 'nihil' is adverbial. The question is therefore not 'did nothing move you?' but 'did none of these things move you at all?'