Caesar’s Pro Bithynis and the Sack of Heraclea Pontica

Caesar\u2019s speech Pro Bithynis is usually considered to be an expression of the positive relationships between Caesar and the Kingdom of Bithynia. The context in which the speech was delivered is, however, unclear. By means of a lexical analysis of the two extant fragments of the Pro Bithynis, this paper aims at providing a new interpretation of the speech and its historical background. Caesar probably delivered the speech not immediately after King Nicomedes\u2019s death \u2013 as commonly accepted \u2013 but after the Roman siege of Heraclea Pontica, when the proconsul M. Aurelius Cotta, Caesar\u2019s propinquus, was accused of having sacked the city. As had already happened in Macedonia (thanks to Dolabella\u2019s prosecution) and in Greece (Caesar represented some Greeks in a process against C. Antonius around 79 BC), the Bithynian affair represented a further occasion for Caesar to win over friends and allies among foreign communities