Non sine causa sed sine fine: Cicero's compulsion to repeat his consulate

Freud's, theory of the compulsion to repeat in response to a traumatic experience can help explain Cicero's repeated attempts to praise, or have others praise, his consulate. This article argues that Cicero's humiliating exile, and his consequent loss of status, constituted a trauma that Cicero sought to work through by means of narratives that integrate his consulate, exile, and return into a unified story that encapsulates his banishment within an overarching narrative of triumph. Cicero's pitching of his story to the historian Lucceius (Fam. 5.12) demonstrates the psychological dimensions of Cicero's notorious self praise.