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LIFE OF CICERO 

VOLUME II. 



THE 



LIFE OF CICERO 



BY 



ANTHONY TROLLOPE 



IN TWO VOLUMES 
Vol. II. 



/ 









y 
â–  



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1881 



VG 

C 



CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 



CHAPTER I. 
His Return from Exile 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Cicero, .etat. 52, 53, 54 




38 



CHAPTER III. 
Milo * 59 

CHAPTER IV. 
Cilicia 76 

CHAPTER V. 
The War between Cesar axd Pompey (.110 



CHAPTER VI. 
After the Battle 129 

CHAPTER VII. 
Marcellus, Ligarius, and Deiotarus 147 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Cesar's Death 172 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Philippics i. 195 



6 CONTEXT? OF VOLUME II. 



CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

Cicero's Death 231 



CHAPTER XL 
Cicero's Rhetoric 249 

CHAPTER XII. 
Cicero's Philosophy 277 



CHAPTER XIII. 






c^ficQiOtoR Ml EggAYs T 304 ) 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Cicero's Religion 321 



APPENDIX 333 

INDEX 337 






THE 

LIFE OF CICERO 



Chapter I. 
HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 



Cicero's life for the next two years was made conspicuous 
by a series of speeches which were produced by his exile and 
his return. These are remarkable for the praise lavished on 
himself, and by the violence with which he attacked his ene- 
mies. It must be owned that never was abuse more abusive, 
or self-praise uttered in language more laudatory. 1 Cicero had 
now done all that was useful in his public life. The great 
monuments of his literature are to come. None of these had 
as yet been written except a small portion of his letters — about 
a tenth — and of these he thought no more in regard to the 
public than do any ordinary letter- writers of to-day. Some 
poems had been produced, and a history of his own Consul- 
ship in Greek ; but these are unknown to us. He had already 
become the greatest orator, perhaps, of all time — and we have 
many of the speeches spoken by him. Some we have — those 
five, namely, telling the story of Verres — not intended to be 
spoken, but written for the occasion of the day rather than 

1 As I shall explain a few pages farther on, four of these speeches are 
supposed by late critics to be spurious. 



8 LIFE OF CICERO. 

with a view to permanent literature. He Lad been Quaestor, 
^Edile, Praetor, and Consul, with singular and undeviating suc- 
cess. He had been honest in the exercise of public functions 
when to be honest was to be singular. He had bought golden 
opinions from all sorts of people. He had been true to his 
country, and useful also — a combination which it was given to 
no other public man of those days to achieve. Having been 
Praetor and Consul, he had refused the accustomed rewards, 
and had abstained from the provinces. His speeches, with 
but few exceptions, had hitherto been made in favor of honesty. 
They are declamations against injustice, against bribery, against 
cruelty, and all on behalf of decent civilized life. Had he died 
then, he would not have become the hero of literature, the 
marvel among men of letters whom the reading world admires ; 
but he would have been a great man, and would have saved 
himself from the bitterness of Caesarean tongues. 

His public work was in truth done. His further service 
consisted of the government of Cilicia for a year — an employ- 
ment that was odious to him, though his performance of it 
was a blessing to the province. After that there came the 
vain struggle with Caesar, the attempt to make the best of 
Caesar victorious, the last loud shriek on behalf of the Repub- 
lic, and then all was over. The fourteen years of life which 
yet remained to him sufficed for erecting that literary monu- 
ment of which I have spoken, but his public usefulness was 
done. To the reader of his biography it will seem that these 
coming fourteen years will lack much of the grace which 
adorned the last twenty. The biographer will be driven to 
make excuses, which he will not do without believing in the 
truth of them, but doubting much whether he may beget belief 
in others. He thinks that he can see the man passing from 
one form to another — his doubting devotion to Pompey, his 
enforced adherence to Caesar, his passionate opposition to An- 
tony ; but he can still see him true to his country, and ever on 
the alert against tyranny and on behalf of pure patriotism. 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 9 

At the present we have to deal with Cicero in no vacillating 
spirit, but loudly exultant and loudly censorious. Within the 
two years following his return he made a series of speeches, in 
all of which we find the altered tone of his mind. There is no 
longer that belief in the ultimate success of justice, and ultimate 
triumph of the Republic, which glowed in his Verrine and Cati- 
line orations. He is forced to descend in his aspirations. It 
is not whether Rome shall be free, or the bench of justice pure, 
but whether Cicero shall be avenged and Gabinius punished. 
It may have been right — it was right — that Cicero should be 
avenged and Gabinius punished ; but it must be admitted that 
the subjects are less alluring. 

His first oration, as generally received, was made to the Sen- 
ate in honor of his return. The second was addressed to the 
people on the same subject. The third was spoken to the col- 
lege of priests, with the view of recovering the ground on which 
his house had stood, and which Clodius had attempted to alien- 
ate forever by dedicating it to a pretended religious purpose. 
The next, as coming on our list, though not so in time, was ad- 
dressed again to the Senate concerning official reports made by 
the public soothsayers as interpreters of occult signs, as to wheth- 
er certain portents had been sent by the gods to show that Cic- 
ero ought not to have back his house. Before this was made 
he had defended Sextius, who as Tribune had been peculiarly 
serviceable in assisting his return. This was before a bench of 
judges ; and separated from this, though made apparently at 
the same time, is a violent attack upon Vatinius, one of Caesar's 
creatures, who was a witness against Sextius. Then there is a 
seventh, regarding the disposition of the provinces among the 
Propraetors and Proconsuls, the object of which was to enforce 
the recall of Piso from Macedonia and Gabinius from Syria, 
and to win Caesar's favor by showing that Caesar should be al- 
lowed to keep the two Gauls and Illyrieum. To these must be 
added two others, made within the same period, for Caelius and 
Balbus. The close friendship between Cicero and the young 

1* 



10 LIFE OF CICERO. 

man Cselius was one of the singular details of the orator's life. 
Balbus was a Spaniard, attached to Csesar, and remarkable as 
having been the first man not an Italian who achieved the hon- 
or of the Consulship. 

It has been disputed whether the first four of these orations 
were really the work of Cicero, certain German critics and Eng- 
lish scholars having declared them to be " parum Ciceronias" 
— too little like Cicero. That is the phrase used by Nobbe, 
who published a valuable edition of all Cicero's works, after 
the text of Ernesti, in a single volume. Mr. Long, in his intro- 
duction to these orations, denounces them in language so strong 
as to rob them of all chance of absolute acceptance from those 
who know the accuracy of Mr. Long's scholarship. 1 There may 
probably have been subsequent interpolations. The first of the 
four, however, is so closely referred to by Cicero himself in the 
speech made by him two years subsequently in the defence of 
Plancius, that the fact of an address to the Senate in the praise 
of those who had assisted him in his return cannot be doubt- 
ed ; and we are expressly told by the orator that, because of the 
importance of the occasion, he had written it out before he 
spoke it. 2 As to the Latinity, it is not within my scope, nor 
indeed «within my power, to express a confident opinion ; but 
as to the matter of the speech, I think that Cicero, in his 
then frame of mind, might have uttered what is attributed to 
him. Having said so much, I shall best continue my nar- 
rative by dealing with the four speeches as though they were 
genuine. 

1 See Mr. Long's introduction to these orations. " All this I admit," 
says Mr. Long, speaking of some possible disputant ; " but he will never 
convince any man of sense that the first of Roman writers, a man of good 
understanding, and a master of eloquence, put together such tasteless, fee- 
ble, and extravagant compositions." 

2 Pro Cn. Plancio, ca. xxx. : " Xonne etiam ilia testis est oratio quae est 
a me prima habita in Senatu * * * Recitetur oratio, qua? propter rei mag- 
nitudinem dicta de scripto est." 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 11 

Cicero landed at Brundisium on the 5th of August, the day 
on which his recall from exile had been enacted by the 
setat.50 P eo pl e > anc ^ there met his daughter Tullia, who had come 
to welcome him back to Italy on that her birthday. 
But she had come as a widow, having just lost her first hus- 
band, Piso Frugi. At this time she was not more than nine- 
teen years old. Of Tullia's feelings we know nothing from her 
own expressions, as they have not reached us ; but from the 
warmth of her father's love for her, and by the closeness of 
their friendship, we are led to imagine that the joy of her life 
depended more on him than on any of her three husbands. 
She did not live long with either of them, and died soon after 
the birth of a child, having been divorced from the third. I 
take it, there was much of triumph in the meeting, though Piso 
Frngi had died so lately. 

The return of Cicero to Rome was altogether triumphant. 
It must be remembered that the contemporary accounts we have 
had of it are altogether from his own pen. They are taken 
chiefly from the orations I have named above, though subse- 
quent allusions to the glory of his return to Rome are not un- 
common in his works. But had his boasting not been true, 
the contradictions to them would have been made in- such a 
way as to have reached our ears. Plutarch, indeed, declares 
that Cicero's account of the glory of his return fell short of 
the truth. 

It may be taken for granted that with that feeble monster, 
the citizen populace of Rome, Cicero had again risen to a pop- 
ularity equal to that which had been bestowed upon him when 
he had just driven Catiline out of Rome. Of what nature 
were the crowds who were thus loud in the praise of their 
great Consul, and as loud afterward in their rejoicings at the 
return of the great exile, we must form our own opinion from 
circumstantial evidence. There was a mass of people, with 
keen ears, taking artistic delight in eloquence and in personal 
graces, but determined to be idle, and to be fed as well as 



12 LIFE OF CICERO. 

amused in their idleness; and there were also vast bands of 
men ready to fight — bands of gladiators they have been called, 
though it is probable that but few of them had ever been train- 
ed to the arena — whose business it was to shout as well as to 
fight on behalf of their patrons. We shall not be justified in 
supposing that those who on the two occasions named gave 
their sweet voices for Cicero were only the well-ordered, though 
idle, proportion of the people, whereas they who had voted 
against him in favor of Clodius had all been assassins, bullies, 
and swordsmen. We shall probably be nearer the mark if we 
imagine that the citizens generally were actuated by tbe pre- 
vailing feelings of their leaders at the moment, but were carried 
into enthusiasm when enabled, without detriment to their in- 
terests, to express their feelings for one who was in truth popu- 
lar with them. When Cicero, after the death of the five con- 
spirators, declared that the men " had lived " — " vixerunt " — 
his own power was sufficient to insure the people that they 
would be safe in praising him. When he came back to Rome, 
Pompey had been urgent for his return, and Caesar had acceded 
to it. When the bill was passed for banishing him, the Tri- 
umvirate had been against him, and Clodius had been able to 
hound on his crew. But Milo also had a crew, and Milo was 
Cicero's friend. As the Clodian crew helped to drive Cicero 
from Rome, so did Milo's crew help to bring him back again. 

Cicero, on reaching Rome, went at once to the Capitol, to the 
temple of Jupiter, and there returned thanks for the great 
thing that had been done for him. He was accompanied by a 
vast procession who from the temple went with him to his 
brother's house, where he met his wife, and where he resided 
for a time. His own house in the close neighborhood had 
been destroyed. He reached Rome on the 4th of September, 
and on the 5th an opportunity was given to the then hero of 
the day for expressing his thanks to the Senate for what they 
had done for him. His intellect had not grown rusty in Mac- 
edonia, though he had been idle. On the 5th, Cicero spoke 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 13 

to the Senate ; on the 6th, to the people. Before the end of 
the month he made a much longer speech to the priests in de- 
fence of his own property. Out of the full heart the mouth 
speaks, and his heart was very full of the subject. 

His first object was to thank the Senate and the leading 
members of it for their goodness to him. The glowing lan- 
guage in which this is done goes against the grain with us 
when we read continuously the events of his life as told by 
himself. His last grievous words had been expressions of 
despair addressed to Atticus ; now he breaks out into a paean 
of triumph. We have to remember that eight months had in- 
tervened, and that the time had sufficed to turn darkness into 
light. " If I cannot thank you as I ought, O Conscript Fathers, 
for the undying favors which you have conferred on me, on 
my brother, and my children, ascribe it, I beseech you, to the 
greatness of the things you have done for me, and not to the 
defect of my virtue." Then he praises the two Consuls, naming 
them, Lentulus and Metellus — Metellus, as the reader will re- 
member, having till lately been his enemy. He lauds the 
Praetors and the Tribunes, two of the latter members having 
opposed his return ; but he is loudest in praise of Pompey 
— that " Sampsiceramus," that " Hierosolymarius," that "Ara- 
barches" into whose character he had seen so clearly when 
writing from Macedonia to Atticus — that " Cn. Pompey who, 
by his valor, his glory, his achievements, stands conspicuous- 
ly the first of all nations, of all ages, of all history." We 
cannot but be angry when we read the words, though we may 
understand how well he understood that he was impotent to 
do anything for the Republic unless he could bring such a 
man as Pompey to act with him. We must remember, too, 
how impossible it was that one Roman should rise above the 
falsehood common to Romans. We cannot ourselves always 
escape even yet from the atmosphere of duplicity in which 
policy delights. He describes the state of Rome in his ab- 
sence. " When I was gone, you" — you, the Senate — "could 



14 LIFE OF CICERO. 

decree nothing for your citizens, or for your allies, or for the 
dependent kings. The judges could give no judgment ; the 
people could not record their votes ; the Senate availed noth- 
ing by its authority. You saw only a silent Forum, a speech- 
less Senate-house, a city dumb and deserted." We may sup- 
pose that Rome was what Cicero described it to be when he 
was in exile, and Caesar had gone to his provinces ; but its 
condition had been the result of the crushing tyranny of the 
Triumvirate rather than of Cicero's absence. 

Lentulus, the present Consul, had been, he says, a second 
father, almost a god, to him. But he would not have needed 
the hand of a Consul to raise him from the ground, had he 
not been wounded by consular hands. Catulus, one of Rome's 
best citizens, had told him that though Rome had now and 
again suffered from a bad Consul, she had never before been 
afflicted by two together. While there was one Consul wor- 
thy of the name, Catulus had declared that Cicero would be 
safe. But there had come two, two together, whose spirits 
had been so narrow, so low, so depraved, so burdened with 
greed and ignorance, " that they had been unable to compre- 
hend, much less to sustain the splendor of the name of Con- 
sul. Not Consuls were they, but buyers and sellers of prov- 
inces." These were Piso and Gabinius, of whom the former 
was now governor of Macedonia, and the latter of Syria. 
Cicero's scorn against these men, who as Consuls had per- 
mitted his exile, became a passion with him. His subsequent 
hatred of Antony was not as bitter. He had come there to 
thank the assembled Senators for their care of him, but he is 
carried off so violently by his anger that he devotes a consid- 
erable portion of his speech to these indignant utterances. 
The reader does not regret it. Abuse makes better reading 
than praise, has a stronger vitality, and seems, alas, to come 
more thoroughly from the heart ! Those who think that gen- 
uine invective has its charms would ill spare Piso and Gabinius. 

He goes back to his eulogy, and names various Praetors and 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 1 5 

officers who have worked on his behalf. Then he declares 
that by the voice of the present Consul, Lentulus, a decree 
has been passed in his favor more glorious than has been 
awarded to any other single Roman citizen — namely, that 
from all Italy those who wished well to their country should 
be collected together for the purpose of bringing him back 
from his banishment — him, Cicero. There is much in this in 
praise of Lentulus, but more in praise of Cicero. Through- 
out these orations we feel that Cicero is put forward as the 
hero, whereas Piso and Gabinius are the demons of the piece. 
" What could I leave as a richer legacy to my posterity," he 
goes on to say, opening another clause of his speech, " than 
that the Senate should have decreed that the citizen who had 
not come forward in my defence was one regardless of the 
Republic." By these boastings, though he was at the moment 
at the top of the ladder of popularity, he was offending the 
self-importance of all around him. He was offending espe- 
cially Pompey, with whom it was his fate to have to act. 1 
But that was little to the offence he was giving to those who 
were to come many centuries after him, who would not look 
into the matter with sufficient accuracy to find that his van- 
ity deserved forgiveness because of his humanity and desire 
for progress. " O Lentulus," he says, at the end of the ora- 
tion, " since I am restored to the Republic, as with me the 
Republic is itself restored, I will slacken nothing in my ef- 
forts at liberty ; but, if it may be possible, will add some- 
thing to my energy." In translating a word here and there 
as I have done, I feel at every expression my incapacity. There 
is no such thing as good translation. If you wish to drink 
the water, with its life and vigor in it, you must go to the 
fountain and drink it there. 

1 Quintilian, lib. xi., ca. 1, who as a critic worshipped Cicero, has 
nevertheless told us very plainly what had been up to his time the feel- 
ing of the Roman world as to Cicero's self-praise : " Reprehensus est 
in hac parte non mediocriter Cicero." 



16 LIFE OF CICEIiO. 

On the clay following he made a similar speech to the peo- 
ple — if, indeed, the speech we have was from his mouth or his 
pen — as to which it has been remarked that in it he made no 
allusion to Clodius, though he was as bitter as ever against the 
late Consuls. From this we may gather that, though his au- 
dience was delighted to hear him, even in his self-praise, there 
might have been dispute had he spoken ill of one who had 
been popular as Tribune. His praise of Pompey was almost 
more fulsome than that of the day before, and the same may 
be said of his self-glorification. Of his brother's devotion to 
him he speaks in touching words, but in words which make us 
remember how untrue to him afterward was that very brother. 
There are phrases so magnificent throughout this short piece 
that they obtain from us, as they are read, foigiveness for the 
writer's faults. " Sic ulciscar facinorum singula." Let the 
reader of Latin turn to chapter ix. of the oration and see how 
the speaker declares that he will avenge himself against the 
evil-doers whom he has denounced. 

Cicero, though he had returned triumphant, had come back 
ruined in purse, except so far as he could depend on the Sen- 
ate and the people for reimbursing to him the losses to which 
he had been subjected. The decree of the Senate had de- 
clared that his goods should be returned to him, but the va- 
lidity of such a promise w T ould depend on the value which 
might be put upon the goods in question. His house on the 
Palatine Hill had been razed to the ground ; his Tusculan and 
Formian villas had been destroyed ; his books, his pictures, his 
marble columns, his very trees, had been stolen ; but, worst of 
all, an attempt had been made to deprive him forever of the 
choicest spot of ground in all the city, the Park Lane of Rome, 
by devoting the space which had belonged to him to the ser- 
vice of one of the gods. Clodius had caused something of a 
temple to Liberty to be built there, because ground so conse- 
crated was deemed at Rome, as with us, to be devoted by con- 
secration to the perpetual service of religion. It was with 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 17 

the view of contesting this point that Cicero made his next 
speech, Pro Domo Sua, for the recovery of his house, before 
the Bench of Priests in Rome. It was for the priests to de- 
cide this question. The Senate could decree the restitution 
of property generally, but it was necessary that that spot of 
ground should be liberated from the thraldom of sacerdotal 
tenure by sacerdotal interference. These priests were all men 
of high birth and distinction in the Republic. Nineteen among 
them were " Consulares," or past-Consuls. Superstitious awe 
affects more lightly the consciences of priests than the hearts 
of those who trust the priests for their guidance. Familiarity 
does breed contempt. Cicero, in making this speech, probably 
felt that, if he could carry the people with him, the College of 
Priests would not hold the prey with grasping hands. The 
nineteen Consulares would care little for the sanctity of the 
ground if they could be brought to wish well to Cicero. He 
did his best. He wrote to Atticus concerning it a few days 
after the speech was made, and declared that if he had ever 
spoken well on any occasion he had done so then, so deep had 
been his grief, and so great the importance of the occasion ; l 
and he at once informs his friend of the decision of the Bench, 
and of the ground on which it was based. " If he who de- 
clares that he dedicated the ground had not been appointed 
to that business by the people, nor had been expressly com- 
manded by the people to do it, then that spot of ground can 
be restored without any breach of religion." Cicero asserts 
that he was at once congratulated on having gained his cause, 
the world knowing very well that no such authority had been 
conferred on Clodius. In the present mood of Rome, all the 
priests, with the nineteen Consulares, were no doubt willing 
that Cicero should have back his ground. The Senate had to 

1 Ad Att., lib. iv., 2. He recommends that the speech should be put 
into the hands of all young men, and thus gives further proof that we 
still here have his own words. When so much has come to us, we cannot 
but think that an oration so prepared would remain extant. 



18 LIFE OF CICERO. 

interpret the decision, and on the discussion of the question 
anions; them Clodius endeavored to talk against time. When, 
however, he had spoken for three hours, he allowed himself to 
be coughed down. It may be seen that in some respects even 
Roman fortitude has been excelled in our days. 

In the first portion of this speech, Pro Domo Sua, Cicero 
devotes himself to a matter which has no bearing on his house. 
Concomitant with Cicero's return there had come a famine in 
Rome. Such a calamity was of frequent occurrence, though I 
doubt whether their famines ever led to mortality so frightful 
as that which desolated Ireland just before the repeal of the 
Corn Laws. No records, as far as I am aware, have reached 
us of men perishing in the streets ; but scarcity was not un- 
common, and on such occasions complaints would become very 
loud. The feeding of the people was a matter of great diffi- 
culty, and subject to various chances. We do not at all know 
what was the number to be fed, including the free and the 
slaves, but have been led by surmises to suppose that it was under 
a million even in the time of Augustus. But even though the 
number was no more than five hundred thousand at this time, 
the procuring of food must have been a complicated and diffi- 
cult matter. It was not produced in the country. It was im- 
ported chiefly from Sicily and Africa, and was plentiful or the 
reverse, not only in accordance with the seasons but as certain 
officers of state were diligent and honest, or fraudulent and 
rapacious. We know from one of the Verrine orations the 
nature of the laws on the subject, but cannot but marvel that, 
even with the assistance of such laws, the supply could be 
maintained with any fair proportion to the demand. The 
people looked to the government for the supply, and when it 
fell short would make their troubles known with seditious 
grumblings, which would occasionally assume the guise of in- 
surrection. At this period of Cicero's return food had become 
scarce and dear ; and Clodius, who was now in arms against 
Pompey as well as against Cicero, caused it to be believed that 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 19 

the strangers flocking into Rome to welcome Cicero had eaten 
up the food which should have filled the bellies of the people. 
An idea farther from truth could hardly have been entertained : 
no chance influx of visitors on such a population could have 
had the supposed effect. But the idea was spread abroad, and 
it was necessary that something should be done to quiet the 
minds of the populace. Pompey had hitherto been the re- 
source in State difficulties. Pompey had scattered the pirates, 
who seem, however, at this period to have been gathering 
head again. Pompey had conquered Mithridates. Let Pom- 
pey have a commission to find food for Rome. Pompey him- 
self entertained the idea of a commission which should for a 
time give him almost unlimited power. Caesar was increasing 
his legions and becoming dominant in the West. Pompey, 
who still thought himself the bigger man of the two, felt the 
necessity of some great step in rivalry of Caesar. The pro- 
posal made on his behalf was that all the treasure belonging 
to the State should be placed at his disposal ; that he should 
have an army and a fleet, and should be for five years superior 
in authority to every Proconsul in his own province. This 
was the first great struggle made by Pompey to strangle the 
growing power of Caesar. It failed altogether. 1 The fear of 
Caesar had already become too great in the bosoms of Roman 
Senators to permit them to attempt to crush him in his ab- 
sence. But a mitigated law was passed, enjoining Pompey to 
provide the food required, and conferring upon him certain 
powers. Cicero was nominated as his first lieutenant, and ac- 
cepted the position. He never acted, however, giving it up to 
his brother Quintus. A speech which he made to the people 
on the passing of the law is not extant ; but as there was hot 
blood about it in Rome, he took the opportunity of justifying 
the appointment of Pompey in the earlier portion of this ora- 



1 I had better, perhaps, refer my readers to book v., chap, viii., of Moinm- 
sen's History. 



20 LIFE OF CICERO. 

tion to the priests. It inust be understood that he did not 
lend his aid toward giving- those greater powers which Pom- 
pey was anxious to obtain. His trust in Pompey had never 
been a perfect trust since the first days of the Triumvirate. 
To Cicero's thinking, both Pompey and Caesar were conspira- 
tors against the Republic. Caesar was the bolder, and there- 
fore the more dangerous. It might probably come to pass 
that the services of Pompey would be needed for restraining 
Caesar. Pompey naturally belonged to the " optimates," while 
Caesar was as naturally a conspirator. But there never again 
could come a time in which Cicero would willingly intrust 
Pompey with such power as was given to him nine years be- 
fore by the Lex Manilia. Nevertheless, he could still say grand 
things in praise of Pompey. "To Pompey have been in- 
trusted wars without number, wars most dangerous to the 
State, wars by sea and wars by land, wars extraordinary in their 
nature. If there be a man who regrets that this has been 
done, that man must regret the victories which Rome has 
won." But his abuse of Clodius is infinitely stronger than 
his praise of Pompey. For the passages in which he alludes 
to the sister of Clodius I must refer the reader to the speech 
itself. It is impossible here to translate them or to describe 
them. And these words were spoken before the College of 
Priests, of whom nineteen were Consulares ! And they were 
prepared with such care that Cicero specially boasted of them 
to Atticus, and declares that they should be put into the hands 
of all young orators. Montesquieu says that the Roman legis- 
lators, in establishing their religion, had no view of using it 
for the improvement of manners or of morals. 1 The nature 
of their rites and ceremonies gives us evidence enough that it 
was so. If further testimony were wanting, it might be found 



1 " Politique des Romains dans la religion ;" a treatise which was read 
by its author to certain students at Bordeaux. It was intended as a pref- 
ace to a longer work. 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 21 

in this address, Ad Pontifices. Cicero himself was a man 
of singularly clean life as a Roman nobleman, but, in abusing 
his enemy, he was restrained by no sense of what we consider 
the decency of language. 

He argues the question as to his house very well, as he did 
all questions. He tells the priests that the whole joy of his 
restoration must depend on their decision. Citizens who had 
hitherto been made subject to such penalties had been male- 
factors ; whereas, it was acknowledged of him that he had 
been a benefactor to the city. Clodius had set up on the spot, 
not a statue of Liberty, but, as was well known to all men, the 
figure of a Greek prostitute. The priests had not been con- 
sulted. The people had not ratified the proposed consecra- 
tion. Of the necessity of such authority he gives various ex- 
amples. " And this has been done," he says, " by an impure 
and impious enemy of all religions — by this man among wom- 
en, and woman among men — who has gone through the cere- 
mony so hurriedly, so violently, that his mind and his tongue 
and his voice have been equally inconsistent with each other." 
" My fortune," he says, as he ends his speech, " all moderate 
as it is, will suffice for me. The memory of my name will be 
a patrimony sufficient for my children;" but if his house be 
so taken from him, so stolen, so falsely dedicated to religion, 
he cannot live without disgrace. Of course he got back his 
house; and with his house about £16,000 for its re-erection, 
and £4000 for the damage done to the Tusculan villa, with 
£2000 for the Formian villa. With these sums he was not 
contented ; and indeed they could hardly have represented 
fairly the immense injury done to him. 

So ended the work of the year of his return. From the 

following year, besides the speeches, we have twenty- 
jEtat 51 s ^ letters, of which nine were written to Lentulus, the 

late Consul, who had now gone to Cilicia as Proconsul. 
Lentulus had befriended him, and he found it necessary to 
show his gratitude by a continued correspondence, and by a 



22 LIFE OF CICERO. 

close attendance to the interests of the absent officer. These 
letters are full of details of Roman politics, too intricate for 
such a work as this — perhaps I might almost say too uninter- 
esting, as they refer specially to Lentulus himself. In one of 
them he tells his friend that he has at last been able to secure 
the friendship of Pompey for him. It was, after all, but a 
show of friendship. He has supped with Pompey, and says 
that when he talks to Pompey everything seems to go well : 
no one can be more gracious than Pompey. But when he 
sees the friends by whom Pompey is surrounded he knows, as 
all others know, that the affair is in truth going just as he 
would not have it. 1 We feel as we read these letters, in which 
Pompey's name is continually before us, how much Pompey 
prevailed by his personal appearance, by his power of saying 
gracious things, and then again by his power of holding his 
tongue. "You know the slowness of the man," he says to 
Lentulus, "and his silence." 2 A slow, cautious, hypocritical 
man, who knew well how to use the allurements of personal 
manners ! These letters to Lentulus are full of flattery. 

There are five letters to his brother Quintus, dealing with the 
politics of the time, especially with the then King of Egypt, 
who was to be, or was not to be, restored. From all these 
things, however, I endeavor to abstain as much as possible, 
as matters not peculiarly affecting the character of Cicero. 
He gives his brother an account of the doings in the Senate, 
which is interesting as showing us how that august assembly 
conducted itself. While Pompey was speaking with much 
dignity, Clodius and his supporters in vain struggled with 
shouts and cries to put him down. At noon Pompey sat 
down, and Clodius got possession of the rostra, and in the mid- 
dle of a violent tumult remained on his feet for two hours. 
Then, on Pompey's side, the "optimates" sung indecent songs 

1 Ad Div., lib. i., 2. 

2 Ad Div., lib. i., 5 : " Nosti hominis tarditatem, et tacitumitateui." 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 23 

— "versus obscenissimi " — in reference to Clodius and his 
sister Clodia. Clodius, rising in his anger, demanded, " Who 
had brought the famine ?" " Pompey," shouted the Clodians. 
" Who wanted to go to Egypt ?" demanded Clodius. " Pom- 
pey," again shouted his followers. After that, at three o'clock, 
at a given signal, they began to spit upon their opponents. 
Then there was a fight, in which each party tried to drive the 
others out. The "optimates" were getting the best of it, 
when Cicero thought it as well to run off lest he should be 
hurt in the tumult. 1 What hope could there be for an oli- 
garchy when such things occurred in the Senate ? Cicero in 
this letter speaks complacently of resisting force by force in 
the city. Even Cato, the law-abiding, precise Cato, thought it 
necessary to fall into the fashion and go about Rome with 
an armed following. He bought a company of gladiators 
and circus-men ; but was obliged to sell them, as Cicero tells 
his brother with glee, because he could not afford to feed 
them. 2 

There are seven letters also to Atticus — always more inter- 
esting than any of the others. There is in these the most per- 
fect good-feeling, so that we may know that the complaints 
made by him in his exile had had no effect of estranging his 
friend ; and we learn from them his real, innermost thoughts, 
as they are not given even to his brother — as thoughts have 
surely seldom been confided by one man of action to another. 
Atticus had complained that he had not been allowed to see a 
certain letter which Cicero had written to Caesar. This he had 
called a -n-aXivwlia, or recantation, and it had been addressed to 
Csesar with the view of professing a withdrawal to some extent 
of his opposition to the Triumvirate. Tt had been of sufficient 
moment to be talked about. Atticus had heard of it, and had 
complained that it had not been sent to him. Cicero puts for- 
ward his excuses, and then bursts out with the real truth : 



1 Ad Quintum Fratrem, lib. ii., 3. 2 Ibid., lib. ii., 6. 



24 LIFE OF CICERO. 

" Why should I nibble round the unpalatable morsel which has 
to be swallowed ?" The recantation had seemed to himself to 
be almost base, and he had been ashamed of it. " But," says 
he, " farewell to all true, upright, honest policy. You could 
hardly believe what treachery there is in those who ought to 
be our leading men, and who would be so if there was any 
truth in them." 1 He does not rely upon those who, if they 
were true to their party, would enable the party to stand firmly 
even against Caesar. Therefore it becomes necessary for him 
to truckle to Caesar, not for himself but for his party. Un- 
supported he cannot stand in open hostility to Caesar. He 
truckles. He writes to Caesar, singing Caesar's praises. It is 
for the party rather than for himself, but yet he is ashamed 
of it. 

There is a letter to Lucceius, an historian of the day then 
much thought of, of whom however our later world has heard 
nothing. Lucceius is writing chronicles of the time, and 
Cicero boldly demands to be praised. " lit ornes mea postu- 
] em " 2 — " I ask you to praise me." But he becomes much bolder 
than that. " Again and again I beseech you, without any beat- 
ing about the bush, to speak more highly of me than you per- 
haps think that I deserve, even though in doing so you aban- 
don all the laws of history." Then he uses beautiful flattery 
to his correspondent. Alexander had wished to be painted 
only by Apelles. He desires to be praised by none but Luc- 
ceius. Lucceius, we are told, did as lie was asked. 

I will return to the speeches of the period to which this 
chapter is devoted, taking that first which he made to 
ffitatM tlie Senate as to the re P ort of tae soothsayers respect- 
ing certain prodigies. Readers familiar with Livy will 
remember how frequently, in time of disaster, the anger of 
Heaven was supposed to have been shown by signs and mira- 
cles, indications that the gods were displeased, and that expia- 



1 Ad Att., lib. iv., 5. 2 Ad Div., lib. v., 12. 



HIS-KETUEN FROM EXILE. 25 

tions were necessary. 1 The superstition, as is the fate of all 
superstitions, had frequently been used for most ungodlike 
purposes. If a man had a political enemy, what could do him 
better service than to make the populace believe that a house 
had been crushed by a thunder-bolt, or that a woman had given 
birth to a pig instead of a child, because Jupiter had been of- 
fended by that enemy's devices? By using such a plea the 
Grecians got into Troy, together with the wooden horse, many 
years ago. The Scotch worshippers of the Sabbath declared the 
other day, when the bridge over the Tay was blown away, that 
the Lord had interposed to prevent travelling on Sunday ! 

Cicero had not been long back from his exile when the gods 
beo-an to show their anger. A statue of Juno twisted itself 
half round ; a wolf had been seen in the city ; three citizens 
were struck with lightning ; arms were heard to clang, and 
then wide subterranean noises. Nothing was easier than the 
preparation and continuing of such portents. For many years 

1 Very early in the history of Rome it was found expedient to steal an 
Etruscan soothsayer for the reading of these riddles, which was gallantly 
done by a young soldier, who ran off with an old prophet in his arms 
(Livy, v., 15). We are naively told by the historian that the more the 
prodigies came the more they were believed. On a certain occasion a 
crowd of them was brought together: Crows built in the temple of Juno. 
A green tree took fire. The waters of Mantua became bloody. In one 
place it rained chalk, in another fire. Lightning was very destructive, 
striking the temple of a god or a nut-tree by the roadside indifferently. 
An ox spoke in Sicily. A precocious baby cried out " Io triumphe " be- 
fore it was born. At Spoletum a woman became a man. An altar was 
seen in the heavens. A ghostly band of armed men appeared in the 
Janiculum (Livy, xxiv., 10). On such occasions the " aruspices " always 
ordered a vast slaughter of victims, and no doubt feasted as did the wicked 
sons of Eli. 

Even Horace wrote as though he believed in the anger of the gods — 
certainly as though he thought that public morals would be improved by 
renewed attention to them : 

Delicta majorum immeritus lues, 

Romane, donee ternpla refeceris. — Od., lib. iii., 6. 

II.— 2 



26 LIFE OF CICERO. 

past the heavens ahove and the earth beneath had been put 
into requisition for prodigies. 1 The soothsayers were always 
well pleased to declare that there had been some neglect of the 
gods. It is in the nature of things that the superstitious ten- 
dencies of mankind shall fall a prey to priestcraft. The quar- 
rels between Cicero and Clodius were as full of life as ever. In 
this year, Clodius being iEdile, there had come on debates as 
to a law passed by Csesar as Consul, in opposition to Bibulus, 
for the distribution of lands among the citizens. There was 
a question as to a certain tax which was to be levied on these 
lands. The tax-gatherers were supported by Cicero, and de- 
nounced by Clodius. Then Clodius and his friends found out 
that the gods were showering their anger down upon the city 
because the ground on which Cicero's house had once stood 
was being desecrated by its re-erection. An appeal was made 
to the soothsayers. They reported, and Cicero rejoined. The 
soothsayers had of course been mysterious and doubtful. 
Cicero first shows that the devotion of his ground to sacred 
purposes had been an absurdity, and then he declares that the 
gods are angry, not with him but with Clodius. To say that 
the gods were not angry at all was more than Cicero dared. 
The piece, taken as a morsel of declamatory art, is full of vig- 
or, is powerful in invective, and carries us along in full agree- 
ment with the orator; but at the conclusion we are led to 
wish that Cicero could have employed his intellect on higher 
matters. 

There are, however, one or two passages which draw the 
reader into deep mental inquiry as to the religious feelings of 
the time. In one, which might have been written by Paley, 
Cicero declares his belief in the creative power of some god — 
or gods, as he calls them. 2 And we see also the perverse deal- 

1 See the Preface by M. Guerault to his translation of this oration, De 
Aruspium Responsis. 

2 Ca. ix. : " Who is there so mad that when he looks up to the heavens he 
does not acknowledge that there are gods, or dares to think that the things 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 27 

ings of the Romans with these gods, dealings which were very 
troublesome — not to be got over except by stratagem. The 
gods were made use of by' one party and the other for dishon- 
est state purposes. When Cicero tells his hearers what the 
gods intended to signify by making noises in the sky, and oth- 
er divine voices, we feel sure that he was either hoaxing them 
who heard him or saying what he knew they would not believe. 
Previous to the speech as to the " aruspices," he had de- 
fended Sextius — or Sestius, as he is frequently called — 
stat 51 on a CDar g e brought against him by Clodius in respect 
of violence. We at once think of the commonplace 
from Juvenal : 

" Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes." 

But Rome, without remonstrating, put up with any absurdity 
of that kind. Sextius and Milo and others had been joined 
together in opposing the election of Clodius as iEdile, and had 
probably met violence with violence. As surely as an English 
master of hounds has grooms and whips ready at his command, 
Milo had a band of bullies prepared for violence. Clodius 
himself had brought an action against Milo, who was defended 
by Pompey in person. The case against Sextius was intrusted 
to Albinovanus, and Hortensius undertook the defence. Sextius 
before had been one of the most forward in obtaining the re- 
turn of Cicero, and had travelled into Gaul to see Caesar and 
to procure Caesar's assent. Caesar had not then assented ; but 
not the less great had been the favor conferred by Sextius on 
Cicero. Cicero had been grateful, but it seems that Sextius 
had thought not sufficiently grateful ; hence there had grown 
up something of a quarrel. But Cicero, when he heard of the 
proceeding against his old friend, at once offered his assistance. 
For a Roman to have more than one counsel to plead for him 

which he sees have sprung from chance — things so wonderful that the 
most intelligent among us do not understand their motions ?" 



28 LIFE OF CICERO. 

was as common as for an Englishman. Cicero was therefore 
added to Hortensius, and the two great advocates of the day 
spoke on the same side. We are told that Hortensius man- 
aged the evidence, showing, probably, that Clodius struck the 
first blow. Cicero then addressed the judges with the object 
of gaining their favor for the accused. In this he was success- 
ful, and Sextius was acquitted. As regards Sextius and his 
quarrel with Clodius, the oration has but little interest for us. 
There is not, indeed, much about Sextius in it. It is a con- 
tinuation of the paean which Cicero was still singing as to his 
own return, but it is distinguished from his former utterances 
by finer thought and finer language. The description of public 
virtue as displayed by Cato has perhaps, in regard to melody 
of words and grandeur of sentiment, never been beaten. I give 
the orator's words below in his own language, because in no 
other way can any idea of the sound be conveyed. 1 There is, 
too, a definition made very cleverly to suit his own point of 
view between the conservatives and the liberals of the day. 
"Optimates" is the name by which the former are known; 
the latter are called " Populares." 2 

Attached to this speech for Sextius is a declamation against 
Vatinius, who was one of the witnesses employed by the prose- 
cutor. Instead of examining this witness regularly, he talked 



1 Ca. xxviii. : " Quae in tempestate sseva quieta est, et lucet in tenebris, 
ct pulsa loco manet tamen, atque hseret in patria, splendetque per se sem- 
per, neque alienis unquam sordibus obsolescit." I regard this as a per- 
fect allocution of words in regard to the arrangement both for the ear and 
for the intellect. 

2 Ca. xliv. : " There have always been two kinds of men who have busied 
themselves in the State, and have struggled to be each the most prominent. 
Of these, one set have endeavored to be regarded as ' populares,' friends 
of the people ; the other to be and to be considered as ' optimates,' the 
most trustworthy. They who did and said what could please the people 
were ' populares,' but they who so carried themselves as to satisfy every 
best citizen, they were ' optimates.' " Cicero, in his definition, no doubt 
begs the question ; but to do so was his object. 



HIS BETUttN FRO 21 EXILE. 29 

him down by a separate oration. We have no other instance 
of such a forensic manoeuvre either in Cicero's practice or in 
our accounts of the doings of other Roman advocates. This 
has reached us as a separate oration. It is a coarse tirade of 
abuse against a man whom we believe to have been bad, but as 
to whom we feel that wc are not justified in supposing that we 
can get his true character here. He was a creature of Caesar's, 
and Cicero was able to say words as to Yatinius which he was 
unwilling to speak as to Caesar and his doings. It must be 
added here that two years later Cicero pleaded for this very 
Yatinius, at the joint request of Caesar and Pompey, when 
Yatinius on leaving the Praetorship was accused of corruption. 
The nature of the reward to which the aspiring oligarch of 
Rome always turned his eyes has been sufficiently explained. 
He looked to be the governor of a province. At this period 
of which we are speaking there was no reticence in the matter. 
Syria, or Macedonia, or Hispania had been the prize, or Sicily, 
or Sardinia. It was quite understood that an aspiring oligarch 
went through the dust and danger and expense of political life 
in order that at last he might fill his coffers with provincial 
plunder. There were various laws as to which these govern- 
ments were allotted to the plunderers. Of these we need only 
allude to the Leges Semproniae, or laws proposed b.c. 123, by 
Caius Sempronius Gracchus for the distribution of those prov- 
inces which were to be enjoyed by Proconsuls. There were 
pra3torian provinces and consular provinces, though there was 
no law making it sure that any province should be either con- 
sular or praetorian. But the Senate, without the interference 
of the people and free from the Tribunes' veto, had the selec- 
tion of provinces for the Consuls ; whereas, for those intended 
for the Praetors, the people had the right of voting, and the 

Tribunes of the people had a right of putting a veto on 
Kta't. 5 j the propositions made. Now, in this year there came 

before the Senate a discussion as to the fate of three 
Proconsuls — not as to the primary allocation of provinces to 



30 LIFE OF CICERO. 

them, but on the question whether they should be continued 
in the government which they held. Piso was in Macedonia, 
where he was supposed to have disgraced himself and the Em- 
pire which lie served. Gabinius was in Syria, where it was 
acknowledged that he had done good service, though his own 
personal character stood very low. Caesar was lord in the two 
Gauls— that is, on both sides of the Alps, in Northern Italy, 
and in that portion of modern France along the Mediterranean 
which had been already colonized — and was also governor of 
Illyricum. lie had already made it manifest to all men that 
the subjugation of a new empire was his object rather than 
provincial plunder. Whether we love the memory of Caesar 
as of a great man who showed himself fit to rule the world, or 
turn away from him as from one who set his iron heel on the 
necks of men, and by doing so retarded for centuries the liber- 
ties of mankind, we have to admit that he rose by the light of 
his own genius altogether above the ambition of his contem- 
poraries. If we prefer, as I do, the humanity of Cicero, we 
must confess to ourselves the supremacy of Caesar, and ac- 
knowledge ourselves to belong to the beaten cause. " Victrix 
causa Deis placuit ; sed victa Catoni." In discussing the fate 
of these proconsular officials we feel now the absurdity of 
mixing together in the same debate the name of Piso and Ga- 
binius with that of Caesar. Yet such was the subject in dis- 
pute when Cicero made his speech, De Provinciis Consulari- 
bus, as to the adjudication of the consular provinces. 

There was a strong opinion among many Senators that 
Caesar should be stopped in his career. I need not here in- 
vestigate the motives, either great or little, on which this opin- 
ion was founded. There was hardly a Senator among them 
who would not have wished Caesar to be put down, though 
there were many who did not dare declare their wishes. There 
were reasons for peculiar jealousy on the part of the Senate. 
Cisalpine Gaul had been voted for him by the intervention of 
the people, and especially by that of the Tribune Vatinius — to 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 31 

Caesar, who was Consularis, whose reward should have been an 
affair solely for the Senate. Then there had arisen a demand, [/ 
a most unusual demand, for the other Gaul also. The giving 
of two provinces to one governor was altogether contrary to 
the practice of the State ; but so was the permanent and ac- 
knowledged continuance of a conspiracy such as the Trium- 
virate unusual. Cassar himself was very unusual. Then the 
Senate, feeling that the second province would certainly be ob- 
tained, and anxious to preserve some shred of their prerogative, 
themselves voted the Farther Gaul. As it must be done, let it 
at any rate be said that they had done it. But as they had 
sent Caesar over the Alps so they could recall him, or try to 
recall him. Therefore, with the question as to Piso and Ga- 
binius, which really meant nothing, came up this also as to 
Cossar, which meant a great deal. 

But Caesar had already done great things in Gaul. He had 
defeated the Helvetians and driven Ariovistus out of the coun- 
try. He had carried eight legions among the distant Belgae, 
and had conquered the Nervii. In this very year he had built 
a huge fleet, and had destroyed the Veneti, a seafaring people 
on the coast of the present Brittany. The more powerful he 
showed himself to be, the more difficult it was to recall him ; 
but also the more desirable in the eyes of many. In the first 
portion of his speech Cicero handles Piso and Gabinius with 
his usual invective. There was no considerable party desirous 
of renewing to them their governments, but Cicero always rev- 
elled in the pleasure of abusing them. He devotes by far the 
longer part of his oration to the merit of Caesar. 1 As for re- 
calling him, it would be irrational. Who had counted more 
enemies in Rome than Marius ? but did they recall Marius 

1 Mommsen, lib. v., chap, viii., in one of his notes, says that this oration 
a"s to the provinces was the very " palinodia " respecting which Cicero 
wrote to Atticus. The subject discussed was no doubt the same. What 
authority the historian has found for his statement I do not know ; but no 
writer is generally more correct. 



32 LIFE OF CICERO. 

when he was fighting for the Republic f Hitherto the Re- 
public had been forced to "fear the Gauls. Rome had always 
been on the defence against them. Now it had been brought 
about by Caesar that the limits of the world were the limits 
of the Roman Empire. 2 The conquest was not yet finished, 
but surely it should be left to him who had begun it so well. 
Even though Caesar were to demand to return himself, think- 
ing that he had done enough for his own glory, it would be 
for the Senators to restrain him — for the Senate to bid him 
finish the work that he had in hand. 3 As for himself, con- 
tinued Cicero, if Caesar had been his enemy, what of that? 
Caesar was not his enemy now. He had told the Senate what 
offers of employment Caesar had made him. If he could not 
forget, yet he would forgive, former injuries. 4 

It is important for the reading of Cicero's character that we 
should trace the meaning of his utterances about Caesar from 
this time up to the day on which Caesar .was killed — his utter- 
ances in public, and those which are found in his letters to At- 
ticus and his brother. That there was much of pretence — 
of falsehood, if a hard word be necessary to suit the severity 
of those who judge the man hardly — is admitted. How he 
praised Pompey in public, dispraising him in private, at one 
and the same moment, has been declared. How he applied 
for praise, whether deserved or not, has been shown. In ex- 
cuse, not in defence, of this I allege that the Romans of the 
day were habitually false after this fashion. The application 
to Lucceius proves the habitual falseness not of Cicero only, 
but of Lucceius also ; and the private words written to Atticus, 
in opposition to the public words with which Atticus was well 
acquainted, prove the falseness also of Atticus. It was Roman ; 
it was Italian ; it was cosmopolitan ; it was human. I only 
wish that it were possible to declare that it is no longer 
Italian, no longer cosmopolitan, no longer human. To this 

1 De Prov. Cons., ca. viii. 2 Ca. xiii. 3 Ca. xiv. 4 Ca. xviii. 



HIS EETUEN FROM EXILE. 33 

day it is very difficult even for an honorable man to tell the 
whole truth in the varying circumstances of public life. The 
establishment of even a theory of truth, with all the advan- 
tages which have come to us from Christianity, has been so 
difficult, hitherto so imperfect, that we ought, {I think, to con- 
sider well the circumstances before we stigmatize Cicero as 
specially false. To my reading he seems to have been spe- 
cially true. When Caesar won his way up to power, Cicero 
was courteous to him, flattered him, and, though never subser- 
vient, yet was anxious to comply when compliance was pos- 
sible. Nevertheless, we know well that the whole scheme of 
Caesar's political flife was opposed to the scheme entertained 
by Cicero. It was Cicero's desire to maintain as much as he 
could of the old form of oligarchical rule under which, as a 
constitution, the Roman Empire had been created. It was 
Caesar's intention to sweep it all away^*We can see that now ; 
but Cicero could only see it in partj To his outlook the man 
had some sense of order, and had all the elements of greatness. 
He was better, at any rate, than a Verres, a Catiline, a Clodius," 
a Piso, or a Gabinius. If he thought that by flattery he could 
bring Caesar somewhat round, there might be conceit in his so 
thinking, but there could be no treachery. In doing so he did 
not abandon his political beau ideal. If_be tter times came, or 
a bett er man, he would u se_them. In the mean time he could 
do more by managing Caesar than by opposing him. He was 
far enough from succeeding in the management of Caesar, but 
he did do much in keeping his party together. It was in this 
spirit that he advocated before the Senate the maintenance of 
Caesar's authority in the two Gauls. The Senate decreed the 
withdrawal of Piso and Gabinius, but decided to leave Caesar 
where he was. Mommsen deals very hardly with Cicero as 
to this period of his life. " They used him accordingly as — 
what he was good for — an advocate." " Cicero himself had 
to thank his literary reputation for the respectful treatment 
which he experienced from Caesar." The question we have 

2* 



34 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to ask ourselves is whether he did his best to forward that 
scheme of politics which he thought to be good for the Re- 
public. To me it seems that he did do so. He certainly did 
nothing with the object of filling his own pockets. I doubt 
whether as much can be said with perfect truth as to any other 
Roman of the period, unless it be Cato. 

Balbus, for whom Cicero also spoke in this year, was a Span- 
iard of Cadiz, to whom Pompey had given the citizenship of 
Rome, who had become one of Caesar's servants and friends, 
and whose citizenship was now disputed. Cicero pleaded in 
favor of the claim, and gained his cause. There were, no 
doubt, certain laws in accordance with which Balbus was or 
was not a citizen ; but Cicero here says that because Balbus 
was a good man, therefore there should be no question as to 
his citizenship. 1 This could hardly be a good legal argument. 
But we are glad to have the main principles of Roman citizen- 
ship laid down for us in this oration. A man cannot belong 
to more than one State at a time. A man cannot be turned 
out of his State against his will. A man cannot be forced to 
remain in his State against his will. 2 This Balbus was ac- 
knowledged as a Roman, rose to be one of Caesar's leading min- 
isters, and was elected Consul of the Empire b.c. 40. * Thirty- 
four years afterward his nephew became Consul. Nearly three 
centuries after that, a.d. 237, a descendant of Balbus was chosen 
as Emperor, under the name of Balbinus, and is spoken of by 
Gibbon with eulogy. 3 

I know no work on Cicero written more pleasantly, or in- 
spired by a higher spirit of justice, than that of Gaston Bois- 
sier, of the French Academy, called Ciceron et ses Amis. 
Among his chapters one is devoted to Cicero's remarkable in- 
timacy with Caelius, which should be read by all who wish to 
study Cicero. We have now come to the speech which he 



1 Pro C. Balbo, ca. vii. 2 Ibid., ca. xiii. 

3 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ca. vii. 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 35 

made in this year in defence of Coelins. Cselius had entered 
public life very early, as the son of a rich citizen who was 
anxious, that his heir should be enabled to shine as well by 
his father's wealth as by his own intellect. When he was still 
a boy, according to our ideas of boyhood, he was apprenticed 
to Cicero, 1 as was customary, in order that he might pick up 
the crumbs which fell from the great man's table. It was 
thus that a young man would hear what was best worth hear- 
ing; thus he would become acquainted with those who were 
best worth knowing; thus that he would learn in public life 
all that was best worth learning. Caelius heard all, and knew 
many, and learned much ; but he perhaps learned too much at 
too early an age. He became bright and clever, but unruly 
and dissipated. Cicero, however, loved him well. He always 
liked the society of bright young men, and could forgive their 
morals if their wit were good. Clodius — even Clodius, young 
Curio, Cselius, and afterward Dolabella, were companions with 
whom he loved to associate. When he was in Cilicia, as Pro- 
consul, this Crelius became almost a second Atticus to him, in 
the writing of news from Rome. 

But Cselius had become one of Clodia's many lovers, and 
seems for a time to have been the first favorite, to the detri- 
ment of poor Catullus. The rich father had, it seems, quar- 
relled with his son, and Cmlius was in want of money. He 
borrowed it from Clodia, and then, without paying his debt, 
treated Clodia as she had treated Catullus. The lady tried to 
get her money back, and when she failed she accused her 
former lover of an attempt to poison her. This she did so 
that Caelius was tried for the offence. There were no less 
than four accusers, or advocates, on her behalf, of whom her 
brother was one. Caelius was defended by Crassus as well as 



1 There was no covenant, no bond of service, no master's authority, 
probably no discipline ; but the eager pupil was taught to look upon the 
anxious tutor with love, respect, and faith. 



36 LIFE OF CICERO. 

by Cicero, and was acquitted. All these cases combined po- 
litical views with criminal charges. Cselius was declared to 
have been a Catilinian conspirator. He was also accused of 
being in debt, of having quarrelled with Lis father, of having 
insulted women, of having beaten a Senator, of having prac- 
tised bribery, of having committed various murders, and of 
having perpetrated all social and political excesses to which his 
enemies could give a name. It was probable that his life had 
been very irregular, but it was not probably true that he had 
attempted to poison Clodia. 

The speech is very well worth the trouble of reading. It is 
lively, bright, picturesque, and argumentative ; and it tells the 
reader very much of the manners of Rome at the time. It 
has been condemned for a passage which, to my taste, is the 
best in the whole piece. Cicero takes upon himself to palliate 
the pleasures of youth, and we are told that a man so grave, 
so pure, so excellent in his own life, should not have conde- 
scended to utter sentiments so lax in defence of so immoral a 
young friend. I will endeavor to translate a portion of the 
passage, and I think that any ladies who may read these pages 
will agree with me in liking Cicero the better for what he 
said upon the occasion. He has been speaking of the changes 
which the manners of the world had undergone, not only in 
Rome but in Greece, since pleasure had been acknowledged 
even by philosophers to be necessary to life. " They who ad- 
vocate one constant course of continual labor as the road to 
fame are left alone in their schools, deserted by their scholars. 
Nature herself has begotten for us allurements, seduced by 
which Virtue herself will occasionally become drowsy. Nature 
herself leads the young into slippery paths, in which not to 
stumble now and again is hardly possible. Nature has pro- 
duced for us a variety of pleasures, to which not only youth, 
but even middle -age, occasionally yields itself. If, therefore, 
you shall find one who can avert his eyes from all that is beau- 
tiful — who is charmed by no sweet smell, by no soft touch, 



HIS RETURN FROM EXILE. 37 

by no rich flavor — who can turn a deaf car to coaxing words 
— I, indeed, and perhaps a few others, may think that the gods 
have been good to such a one ; but I doubt whether the world 
at large will not think that the gods have made him a sorry 
fellow." There is very much more of it, delightfully said, and 
in the same spirit ; but I have given enough to show the nat- 
ure of the excuse for Cselius which has brought down on Cic- 
ero the wrath of the moralists. 



38 LIFE OF CICERO. 



Chapter II. 

CICERO, jETAT. 52, 53, 54. 

I can best continue my record of Cicero's life for this and 
the two subsequent years by following his speeches and 

setat 52 ms l etters - Jt was at tuis P eriocl tue mam object of llis 
political life to reconcile the existence of a Caesar with 
that of a Republic — two poles which could not by any means 
be brought together. Outside of his political life he carried on 
his profession as an advocate with all his former energy, with 
all his former bitterness, with all his old friendly zeal, but nev- 
er, I think, with his former utility. His life with his friends 
and his family was prosperous ; but that ambition to do some 
great thing for his country which might make his name more 
famous than that of other Romans was gradually fading, and, 
as it went, was leaving regrets and remorse behind which would 
not allow him to be a happy man. But it was now, when he 
had reached his fifty-second year, that he in truth began that 
career in literature which has made him second to no Roman in 
reputation. There are some early rhetorical essays, which were 
taken from the Greek, of doubtful authenticity ; there are the 
few lines which are preserved of his poetry; there are the 
speeches which he wrote as well as spoke for the Rome of the 
day ; and there are his letters, which up to this time had been 
intended only for his correspondents. All that we have from 
his pen up to this time has been preserved for us by the light 
of those great works which he now commenced. In this year, 
b.c. 55, there appeared the dialogue De Oratore, aud in the 
next the treatise De Republica. It was his failure as a pol- 



CICERO, JET AT. 52, 53, 54. 39 

itician winch in truth drove Cicero to the career of literature. 
As I intend to add to this second volume a few chapters as to 
his literary productions, I will only mention the dates on which 
these dialogues and treatises were given to the world as I go on 
with my work. 

In the year b.c. 55, the two of the Triumvirate who had been 
left in Rome, Pompey and Crassus, were elected Consuls, and 
provinces were decreed to each of them for five years — to Pom- 
pey the two Spains, and to Crassus that Syria which was to be 
so fatal to him. All this had been arranged at Lucca, in the 
north of Italy, whither Caesar was able to come as being within 
the bounds of his province, to meet his friends from Rome — or 
his enemies. All aristocratic Rome went ont in crowds to Luc- 
ca, so that two hundred Senators might be seen together in the 
streets of that provincial town. It was nevertheless near enough 
to Rome to permit the conqueror from Gaul to look closely 
into the politics of the city. By his permission, if not at his 
instigation, Pompey and Crassus had been chosen Consuls, and 
to himself was conceded the government of his own province 
for five further years — that is, down to year b.c. 49 inclusive. 
It must now at least have become evident to Cicero that Caesar 
intended to rule the Empire. 

Though we already have Cicero's letters arranged for us in 
a chronological sequence which may be held to be fairly cor- 
rect for biographical purposes, still there is much doubt remain- 
ing as to the exact periods at which many of them were writ- 
ten. Abeken, the German biographer, says that this year, b.c. 
55, produced twelve letters. In the French edition of Cicero's 
works published by Panckoucke thirty-five are allotted to it. 
Mr. Watson, in his selected letters, has not taken one from the 
year in question. Mr. Tyrrell, who has been my Mentor hith- 
erto in regard to the correspondence, has not, unfortunately, 
published the result of his labors beyond the year 53 b.c. at 
the time of my present writing. Some of those who have 
dealt with Cicero's life and works, and have illustrated them by 



40 LIFE OF VICERO. 

his letters, have added something to the existing confusion by 
assuming an accuracy of knowledge in this respect which has 
not existed. We have no right to quarrel with them for hav- 
ing done so; certainly not with Middleton, as in his time such 
accuracy was less valued by readers than it is now ; and we 
have the advantage of much light which, though still imper- 
fect, is very bright in comparison with that enjoyed by him. 
A study of the letters, however, in the sequence now given to 
them affords an accurate picture of Cicero's mind during the 
years between the period of his return from exile b.c. 57 and 
Milo's trial b.c. 52, although the reader may occasionally be mis- 
led as to the date of this or the other letter. 

With the dates of his speeches, at any rate with the year in 
which they were made, we are better acquainted. They are of 
course much fewer in number, and are easily traced by the 
known historical circumstances of the time. b. c. 55, he made 
that attack upon his old enemy, the late Consul Piso, which is 
perhaps the most egregious piece of abuse extant in a7iy lan- 
guage. Even of this we do not know the precise date, but we 
may be sure that it was spoken early in the year, because Cice- 
ro alludes in it to Pompey's great games which were in prepa- 
ration, and which were exhibited when Pompey's new theatre 
was opened in May. 1 Plutarch tells us that they did not take 
place till the beginning of the following year. 2 Piso on his re- 
turn from Macedonia attacked Cicero in the Senate in answer 



1 In Pisonem, xxvii. Even in Cieero's words as used here there is a 
touch of irony, though we cannot but imagine that at this time he was 
anxious to stand well with Pompey. " There are coming on the games, 
the most costly and the most magnificent ever known in the memory of 
man ; such as there never were before, and, as far as I can see, never will 
be again." " Show yourself there if you dare !" — he goes on to say, ad- 
dressing the wretched Piso. 

2 Plutarch's Life of Pompey : " Crassus upon the expiration of his Con- 
sulship repaired to his province. Pompey, remaining in Rome, opened his 
theatre." But Plutarch, no doubt, was wrong. 



CICERO, JIT AT. 52, 53, 54. 41 

to all the hard things that had already been said of him, and 
Cicero, as Middleton says, " made a reply to him on the spot in 
an invective speech, the severest, perhaps, that ever was spoken 
by any man, on the person, the parts, the whole life and conduct 
of Piso, which as long as the Roman name subsists must deliver 
down a most detestable character of him to all posterity." 

We are here asked to imagine that this attack was delivered 
on the spur of the moment in answer to Piso's attack. I can- 
not believe that it should have been so, however great may 
have been the orator's power over thoughts and words. "We 
have had in our own days wonderful instances of ready and in- 
dignant reply made instantaneously, but none in which the an- 
gry eloquence has risen to such a power as is here displayed. 
We cannot but suppose that had human intellect ever been per- 
fect enough for such an exertion, it would have soared high 
enough also to have abstained from it. It may have been that 
Cicero knew well enough beforehand what the day was about to 
produce, so as to have prepared his reply. It may well have been 
that he himself undertook the polishing of his speech before it 
was given to the public in the words which we now read. We 
may, I think, take it for granted that Piso did make an attack 
upon him, and that Cicero answered him at once with words 
which crushed him, and which are not unfairly represented by 
those which have come down to us. 

The imaginative reader will lose himself in wonder as he 
pictures to himself the figure of the pretentious Proconsul, with 
his assumption of confidence, as he was undergoing the casti- 
gation which this great master of obloquy was inflicting upon 
him, and the figure of the tall, lean orator, with his long neck 
and keen eyes, with his arms trained to assist his voice, man- 
aging his purple-bordered toga with a perfect grace, throwing 
all his heart into his impassioned words as they fell into the 
ears of the Senators around him without the loss of a syllable. 
This Lucius Calpurnius Piso Csesoronius had come from one of 
the highest families in Rome, and had possessed interest enough 



42 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to be elected Consul for the year in which Cicero was sent into 
banishment. 1 He was closely connected with that Piso Frugi 
to whom Cicero's daughter had been married ; and Cicero, 
when he was threatened by the faction of Clodius — a faction 
which he did not then believe to be supported by the Trium- 
virate — had thought that he was made safe, at any rate, from 
cruel results by consular friendship and consular protection. 
Piso Caesoronius had failed him altogether, saying, in answer to 
Cicero's appeal, that the times were of such a nature that every 
one must look to himself. The nature of Cicero's rage may 
be easily conceived. An attempt to describe it has already 
been made. It was not till after his Consulate that he was 
ever waked to real anger, and the one object whom he most 
entirely hated with his whole soul was Lucius Piso. 

By the strength of Cicero's eloquence this man has occupied 
an immortality of meanness. We cannot but believe that he 
must have in some sort deserved it, or the justice of the world 
would have vindicated his character. It should, however, be 
told of him that three years afterward he was chosen Censor, 
together with Appius Claudius. But it must also be told that, 
as far as we can judge, both these men were unworthy of the 
honor. They were the last two Censors elected in Rome before 
the days of the Empire. It is impossible not to believe that 
Piso was vile, but impossible also to believe that he was as vile 
as Cicero represented him. Coesar was at this time his son-in- 
law, as he was father to Calphurnia, with whom Shakspeare has 
made us familiar. I do not know that Caesar took in bad part 
the hard things that were said of his father-in-law. 

The first part of the speech is lost. The first words we 
know because they have been quoted by Quintilian, " Oh ye 
gods immortal, what day is this which has shone upon me at 

1 We may imagine what was the standing of the family from the address 
which Horace made to certain members of it in the time of Augustus. 
" Credite Pisones," De Arte Poetica. The Pisones so addressed were the 
grandsons of Cicero's victim. 



CICERO, yETAT. 52, 53, 54. 43 

last ?'" We may imagine from this that Cicero intended it to 
be understood that he exulted in the coming of his revenge. 
The following is a fair translation of the opening passage of 
what remains to us: "Beast that you are, do you not see, do 
you not perceive, how odious to the men around you is that 
face of yours ?" Then with rapid words he heaps upon the 
unfortunate man accusations of personal incompetencies. No- 
body complains, says Cicero, that that fellow of yesterday, Ga- 
binius, should have been made Consul : we have not been de- 
ceived in him. " But your eyes and eyebrows, your forehead, 
that face of yours, which should be the dumb index of the 
mind within, have deceived those who have not known you. 
Few of us only have been aware of your infamous vices, the 
sloth of your intellect, your dulness, your inability to speak. 
"When was your voice heard in the Forum? when has your 
counsel been put to the proof ? when did you do any service 
either in peace or war ? You have crept into your high place 
by the mistakes of men, by the regard to the dirty images of 
your ancestors, to whom you have no resemblance except in 
their present grimy color. And shall he boast to me," says 
the orator, turning from Piso to the audience around, " that he 
has gone on without a check from one step in the magistracy 
to another ? That is a boast for me to make, for me — " homini 
novo " — a man without ancestors, on whom the Roman people 
has showered all its honors. You were made iEdiie, you say ; 
the Roman people choose a Piso for their ^Edile — not this man 
from any regard for himself, but because he is a Piso. The 
Prsetorship was conferred not on you but on your ancestors, 
who were known and who were dead ! Of you, who are alive, 
no one has known anything. But me — !" Then he continues 

1 Quin.,ix.,4: "Pro dii immortales, quis hie illuxit dies!" The critic 
quotes it as being vicious in sound, and running into metre, which was con- 
sidered a great fault in Roman prose, as it is also in English. Our ears, 
however, are hardly fine enough to catch the iambic twang of which Quia- 
tilian complains. 



44 LIFE OF VIVERO. 

the contrast between himself and Piso ; for the speech is as full 
of his own merits as of the other man's abominations. 

So the oration goes on to the end. He asserts, addressing 
himself to Piso, that if he saw him and Gabinius crucified to- 
gether, he did not know whether he would be most delighted 
by the punishment inflicted on their bodies or by the ruin of 
their reputation. He declares that he has prayed for all evil 
on Piso and Gabinius, and that the gods have heard him ; but 
it has not been for death, or sickness, or for torment, that he 
had prayed ; but for such evils as have in truth come upon 
them. Two Consuls sent with large armies into two of the 
grandest provinces have returned with disgrace. That one — 
meaning Piso — has not dared even to send home an account of 
his doings ; and the other — Gabinius — has not had his words 
credited by the Senate, nor any of his requests granted! He, 
Cicero, had hardly dared to hope for all this, but the gods had 
done it for him ! The most absurd passage is that in which he 
tells Piso that, having lost his army — which he had done — he 
had brought back nothing in safety but that " old impudent 
face of his." 1 Altogether it is a tirade of abuse very inferior 
to Cicero's dignity. Le Clerc, the French critic and editor, 
speaks the truth when he says, " II faut avouer qu'il manque 
surtout de moderation, et que la gravite d'un orateur consulaire 
y fait trop souvent place a, l'emportement d'un ennemi." It is, 
however, full of life, and amusing as an expression of honest 
hatred. The reader when reading it will of course remember 
that Roman manners allowed a mode of expression among the 
upper classes which is altogether denied to those among us who 
hope to be regarded as gentlemen. 

The games in Pompey's theatre, to the preparation of which 
Cicero alludes in his speech against Piso, are described by him 
with his usual vivacity and humor in a letter written immedi- 
ately after them to his friend Marius. Pompey's games, with 



1 Ca. xviii.j xx., xxii. 



CICERO, JET AT. 52, 53, 54. 45 

which he celebrated his second Consulship, seem to have been 
divided between the magnificent theatre which he had just 
built — fragments of which still remain to us — and the "circus 
maximus." This letter from Cicero is very interesting, as show- 
ing the estimation in which these games were held, or were sup- 
posed to be held, by a Roman man of letters, and as giving us 
some description of what was done on the occasion. Marius 
had not come to Rome to see them, and Cicero writes as though 
his friend had despised them. Cicero himself, having been in 
Rome, had of course witnessed them. To have been in Rome 
and not to have seen them would have been quite out of the 
question. Not to come to Rome from a distance was an ec- 
centricity. He congratulated Marius for not having come, 
whether it was that he was ill, or that the whole thing was too 
despicable : " You in the early morning have been looking out 
upon your view over the bay while we have been staring at 
puppets half asleep. Most costly games, but I should say — 
judging of you by myself — that they would have been quite 
revolting to you. Poor ^Esopus was there acting, but so un- 
fitted by age that all his friends could not but wish that he 
had desisted. Why should I tell you of it all ? The very 
costliness of the affair took away all the pleasure. Six hun- 
dred mules on the stage in the acting of Clytemnestra, or 
three thousand golden goblets in The Trojan Horse — what 
delight could they give you ? If your slave Protogenes was 
reading to you something — so that it were not one of my 
speeches — you were better off at any rate than we. There 
were two marvellous slaughterings of beasts which lasted for 
five days. Nobody denies but that they were very grand. 
But what pleasure can there be to a man of letters 1 when some 



1 "Quae potest homini esse polito delectatio," Ad Div., vii., 1. These 
words have in subsequent years been employed as an argument against 
all out-of-door sports, with disregard of the fact that they were used by 
Cicero as to an amusement in which the spectators were merely looking on, 



46 LIFE OF CICERO. 

weak human creature is destroyed by a sturdy beast, or when 
some lonely animal is pierced through by a hunting-spear. The 
last day was the day of elephants, in which there could be no 
delight except to the vulgar crowd. You could not but pity 
them, feeling that the poor brutes had something in common 
with humanity." In these combats were killed twenty ele- 
phants and two hundred lions. The bad taste and systemat- 
ical corruption of Rome had reached its acme when this thea- 
(/ tre was opened and these games displayed by Pompey. 

lie tells Atticus, 1 in a letter written about this time, that he 
is obliged to write to him by the hand of a secretary ; from 
which we gather that such had not been, at any rate, his prac- 
tice. He is every day in the Forum, making speeches ; and he 
had already composed the dialogues De Oratore, and had sent 
them to Lentulus. Though he was no longer in office, his time 
seems to have been as fully occupied as when he was Praetor 
or Consul. 

We have records of at least a dozen speeches, made b.c. 55 
and b.c. 54, between that against Piso and the next that is ex- 
tant, which was delivered in defence of Plancius. He defend- 
ed Cispius, but Cispius was convicted. He defended Caninius 
Gallus, of whom we may presume that he was condemned and 
exiled, because Cicero found him at Athens on his way to Cili- 
cia, Athens being the place to which exiled Pioman oligarchs 
generally betook themselves. 2 In this letter to his young- 
friend Caelius he speaks of the pleasure he had in meeting 
with Caninius at Athens; but in the letter to Marius which I 
have quoted he complains of the necessity which has befallen 
him of defending the man. The heat of the summer of this 
year he passed in the country, but on his return to the city in 
November he found Crassus" defending his old enemy Gabinius. 



taking no active part in deeds either of danger or of skill. — Fortnightly 
Review, October, 1869, The Morality of Field Sports. 

1 Ad Att., lib. iv., 16. 2 Ad Div., ii.,8. 



CICERO, ^ETAT. 52, 53, 54. 47 

Gabinius had crept back from his province into the city, and 
had been received with universal scorn and a shower of accu- 
sations. Cicero at first neither accused nor defended him, but, 
having been called on as a witness, seems to have been unable 
to refrain from something of the severity with which he had 
treated Piso. There was at any rate a passage of arms in 
which Gabinius called him a banished criminal. 1 The Senate 
then rose as one body to do honor to their late exile. He 
was, however, afterward driven by the expostulations of Pom- 
pey to defend the man. At his first trial Gabinius was acquit- 
ted, but was convicted and banished when Cicero defended 
him. Cicero suffered very greatly in the constraint thus put 
upon him by Pompey, and refused Pompey till Caesar's re- 
quest was added. We can imagine that nothing was more 
bitter to him than the obligation thus forced upon him. We 
have nothing of the speech left, but can hardly believe that it 
was eloquent. From this, however, there rose a reconciliation 
between Crassus and Cicero, both Cfesar and Pompey having 
found it to their interest to interfere. As a result of this, ear- 
ly in the next year Cicero defended Crassus in the Senate, when 
an attempt was made to rob the late Consul of his 
stat^3 covete( i mission to Syria. Of what he did in tins re- 
spect he boasts in a letter to Crassus, 2 which, regarded 
from our point of view, would no doubt be looked upon as 
base. He despised Crassus, and here takes credit for all the 
fine things he had said of him ; but we have no right to think 
that Cicero could have been altogether unlike a Roman. He 
speaks also in the Senate on behalf of the people of Tenedos, 
who had brought their immunities and privileges into question 
by some supposed want of faith. All we know of this speech 
is that it was spoken in vain. He pleaded against an Asiatic 



1 See the letter, Ad Quin. Frat., lib. iii., 2 : " Homo undique actus, et quara 
a me maxime vulneraretur, non tulit, et me trementi voce exulem appella- 
vit." The whole scene is described. * Ad Fam., v., 8. 



48 LIFE OF CICERO. 

king, Antiochus of Comagene, who was befriended by Pompey, 
but Cicero seems to have laughed him out of some of his petty 
possessions. 1 He spoke for the inhabitants of Reate on some 
question of water-privilege against the Interamnates. Inter- 
amna we now know as Terne, where a modern Pope made a 
lovely water-fall, and at the same time rectified the water-priv- 
ileges of the surrounding district. Cicero went down to its 
pleasant Tempe, as he calls it, and stayed there awhile with 
one Axius. 8 He returned thence to Rome to undertake some 
case for Fonteius, and attended the games which Milo was giv- 
ing, Milo having been elected ^Edile. Here we have a morsel 
of dramatic criticism on Antiphon the actor and Arbuscula the 
actress, which reminds one of Pepys. Then he defended Mes- 
sius, then Drusus, then Scaurus. He mentions all these cases 
in the same letter, but so slightly that we cannot trouble our- 
selves with their details. We only feel that he was kept as 
busy as a London barrister in full practice. He also defended 
Vatinius — that Vatinius with whose iniquities he had been so 
indignant at the trial of Sextius. He defended him twice at 
the instigation of Caesar; and he does not seem to have suffer- 
/ /ed in doing so, as he had certainly done when called upon to 
stand up and plead for his late consular enemy, Gabinius. 
Valerius Maxirnus, a dull author, often quoted but seldom read, 
whose task it was to give instances of all the virtues and vices 
produced by mankind, refers to these pleadings for Gabinius 
and Vatinius as instances of an almost divine forgiveness of 
injury. 3 I think we must seek for the good, if good is to be 
discovered in the proceeding, in the presumed strength which 
might be added to the Republic by friendly relations between 
himself and Caesar. 

In the spring of the year we find Cicero writing to Caesar 
in apparently great intimacy. He recommends to Caesar his 

1 Ad Quin. Fi-at., ii., 12. 2 Ad Att., iv., 15. 

3 Val. Max., lib. iv., ca. ii., 4. 



CICERO, jETAT. 53, 53, 54. 49 

young friend Trebatius, a lawyer, who was going to Gaul in 
search of his fortune, and in doing so he refers to a joking 
promise from Caesar that he would make another friend, whom 
he had recommended, King of Gaul ; or, if not that, foreman 
at least to Lepta, his head of the mechanics. Lepta was an 
officer in trust under Caesar, with whose name we become fa- 
miliar in Cicero's correspondence, though I do not remember 
that Caesar ever mentions him. " Send me some one else that 
I may show my friendship," Caesar had said, knowing well that 
Cicero was worth any price of the kind. Cicero declares to 
Caesar that on hearing this he held up his hands in grateful 
surprise, and on this account he had sent Trebatius. " Mi 
Caesar," he says, writing with all affection ; and then he praises 
Trebatius, assuring Caesar that he does not recommend the 
young man loosely, as he had some other young men who were 
worthless — such as Milo, for instance. This results in much 
good done to Trebatius, though the young man at first does 
not like the service with the army. He is a lawyer, and finds 
the work in Gaul very rough. Cicero, who is anxious on his 
behalf, laughs at him and bids him take the good things that 
come in his way. In subsequent years Trebatius was made 
known to the world as the legal pundit whom Horace pretends 
to consult as to the libellous nature of his satires. 1 

In September of this year Cicero pleaded in court for his 
friend Cn. Plancius, against whom there was brought an accu- 
sation that, in canvassing and obtaining the office of JEdile, he 
had been guilty of bribery. In all these accusations, which 
come before us as having been either promoted or opposed 

1 Horace, Sat., lib. ii., 1 : 

Hor. " Trebati, 
Quid faciam prescribe." — Treb. " Quiescas." — Hor. " Ne faciam, inquis, 
Omnino versus?" — Treb. "Aio." — Hor. " Peream male si non 
Optimum erat." 

Trebatius became a noted jurisconsult in the time of Augustus, and 
wrote treatises. 

II.— 3 



50 LIFE OF CICERO. 

by Cicero, there is not one in which the reader sympathizes 
more strongly with the person accused than in this. Plancius 
had shown Cicero during his banishment the affection of a 
brother, or almost of a son. Plancius had taken him in and 
provided for him in Macedonia, when to do so was illegal. 
Cicero now took great delight in returning the favor. The 
reader of this oration cannot learn from it that Plancius had 
in truth done anything illegal. The complaint really made 
against him was that he, filling the comparatively humble posi- 
tion of a knight, had ventured to become the opposing candi- 
date of such a gallant young aristocrat as M. Juventius Later- 
ensis, who was beaten at this election, and now brought this 
action in revenge. There is no tearing of any enemy to tat- 
ters in this oration, but there is much pathos, and, as was usual 
with Cicero at this period of his life, an inordinate amount of 
self-praise. There are many details as to the way in which the 
tribes voted at elections/which the patient and curious student 
will find instructive, but which will probably be caviare to all 
who are not patient and curious students. There are a few 
passages of peculiar force. Addressing himself to the rival of 
Plancius, he tells Laterensis that, even though the people might 
have judged badly in selecting Plancius, it was not the less his 
duty to accept the judgment of the people. 1 Say that the peo- 
ple ought not to have done so ; but it should have been suffi- 
cient for him that they had done so. Then he laughs with a 
beautiful irony at the pretensions of the accuser. " Let us 
suppose that it was so," he says. 2 " Let no one whose family 
has not soared above praetorian honors contest any place with 
one of consular family. Let no mere knight stand against one 
with prastorian relations." In such a case there would be no 



1 Ca. iv. : " Male judicavit populus. At judicavit. Non debuit, at 
potuit." 

2 Ca. vi. : "Scrvare necesse est gradus. Cedat consulari generi praeto- 
rium,nec contendat cum prastorio equester locus." 



CICERO, ^ETAT. 52, 53, 54. 51 

need of the people to vote at all. Farther on he gives his own 
views as to the honors of the State in language that is very 
grand. " It has," he says, " been my first endeavor to deserve 
the high rank of the State ; my second, to have been thought 
to deserve it. The rank itself has been but the third object 
of my desires." 1 Plancius was acquitted — it seems to us quite 
as a matter of course. 

In this perhaps the most difficult period of his existence, 
when the organized conspiracy of the day had not as yet over- 
turned the landmarks of the constitution, he wrote a long let- 
ter to his friend Lentulus, 2 him who had been prominent as 
Consul in rescuing him from his exile, and who was now Pro- 
consul in Cilicia. Lentulus had probably taxed him, after some 
friendly fashion, with going over from the " optimates " or 
Senatorial party to that of the conspirators Pompey, Caesar, 
and Crassus. He had been called a deserter for having passed 
in his earlier years from the popular party to that of the 
Senate, and now the leading optimates were doubtful of him 
— whether he was not showing himself too well inclined to do 
the bidding of the democratic leaders. The one accusation has 
been as unfair as the other. In this letter he reminds Lentulus 
that a captain in making a port cannot always sail thither in a 
straight line, but must tack and haul and use a slant of wind 
as he can get it. Cicero was always struggling to make way 
against a head-wind, and was running hither and thither in his 
attempt, in a manner most perplexing to those who were look- 
ing on without knowing the nature of the winds ; but his port 
was always there, clearly visible to him, if he could only reach 
it. That port was the Old Republic, with its well-worn and 
once successful institutions. It was not to be " fetched." The 
winds had become too perverse, and the entrance had become 
choked with sand. But he did his best to fetch it ; and, though 
he was driven hither and thither in his endeavors, it should be 

1 Ca. xix. 2 Ad Fam., i., 9. 



5-2 LIFE OF CICERO. 

remembered that to lookers-on such must ever be the appear- 
ance of those who are forced to tack about in search of their 
port. 

I have before me Mr. Forsyth's elaborate and very accurate 
account of this letter. " Now, however," says the biographer, 
" the future lay dark before him ; and not the most sagacious 
politician at Rome could have divined the series of events — 
blundering weakness on the one side and unscrupulous ambi- 
tion on the other — which led to the Dictatorship of Caesar and 
the overthrow of the constitution." Nothing can be more true. 
Cicero was probably the most sagacious politician in Rome ; 
and he, though he did understand much of the weakness — and, 
it should be added, of the greed — of his own party, did not 
foresee the point which Caesar was destined to reach, and which 
was now probably fixed before Caesar's own eyes. But I cannot 
agree with Mr. Forsyth in the result at which he had arrived 
when he quoted a passage from one of the notes affixed by 
Melmoth to his translation of this letter : " It was fear alone 
that determined his resolution ; and having once already suf- 
fered in the cause of liberty, he did not find himself to be dis- 
posed to be twice its martyr." I should not have thought 
these words worthy of refutation had they not been backed by 
Mr. Forsyth. How did Cicero show his fear ? Had he feared 
— as indeed there was cause enough, when it was difficult for 
a leading man to keep his throat uncut amid the violence of 
the times, or a house over his head — might he not have made 
himself safe by accepting Caesar's offers? A Proconsul out 
of Rome was safe enough, but he would not be a Proconsul 
out of Rome till he could avoid it no longer. When the day 
of danger came, he joined Pompey's army against Caesar, doubt- 
ing, not for his life but for his character, as to what might be 
the best for the Republic. He did not fear when Caesar was 
dead and only Antony remained. When the hour came in 
which his throat had to be cut, he did not fear. When a man 
has shown such a power of action in the face of danger as 



CICERO, jETAT. 52, 53, 54. 53 

Cicero displayed at forty-four in bis Consulship, and again at 
sixty -four in his prolonged struggle with Antony, it is con- 
trary to nature that he should have been a coward at fifty-four. 

And all the evidence of the period is opposed to this theory 
of cowardice. There was nothing special for him to fear when 
Caesar was in Gaul, and Crassus about to start for Syria, and 
Pompey for his provinces. Such was the condition of Rome, 
social and political, that all was uncertain and all was danger- 
ous. But men had become used to danger, and were anxious 
only, in the general scramble, to get what plunder might be 
going. Unlimited plunder was at Cicero's command — prov- 
inces, magistracies, abnormal lieutenancies — but he took noth- 
ing. He even told his friend in joke that he would have liked 
to be an augur, and the critics have thereupon concluded that 
he was ready to sell his country for a trifle. But he took 
nothing when all others were helping themselves. 

The letter to Lentulus is well worth studying, if only as evi- 
dence of the thoughtfulness with which he weighed every point 
affectino- his own character. He did wish to stand well with 
the " optimates," of whom Lentulus was one. He did wish to 
stand well with Caesar, and with Pompey, who at this time 
was Caesar's jackal. He did find the difficulty of running with 
the hare and hunting with the hounds. He must have surely 
learned at last to hate all compromise. But he had fallen on 
hard times, and the task before him was impossible. If, how- 
ever, his hands were clean when those of others were dirty, and 
his motives patriotic while those of others were selfish, so much 
ought to be said for him. 

In the same year he defended Rabirius Postumus, and in 
doing so carried on the purpose which he had been instigated 
to undertake by Caesar in defending Gabinius. This Rabirius 
was the nephew of him whom ten years before Cicero had de- 
fended when accused of having killed Saturninus. He was a 
knight, and, as was customary with the Equites, had long been 
engaged in the pursuit of trade, making money by lending 



w 



54 LIFE OF CICERO. 

money, and such like. He had, it seems, been a successful 
man, but, in an evil time for himself, had come across King 
Ptolemy Auletes when there was a question of restoring that 
wretched sovereign to the throne of Egypt. As Cicero was 
not himself much exercised in this matter, I have not referred 
to the king and his affairs, wishing as far as possible to avoid 
questions which concern the history of Rome rather than the 
life of Cicero ; but the affairs of this banished kino- continu- 
ally come up in the records of this time. Pompey had be- 
friended Auletes, and Gabinius, when Proconsul in Syria, had 
succeeded in restoring the king to his throne — no doubt in 
obedience to Pompey, though not in obedience to the Senate. 
Auletes, when in Rome, had required large sums of money — 
suppliant kings when in the city needed money to buy venal 
Senators — and Rabirius had supplied him. The profits to be 
made from suppliant kings when in want of money were gen- 
erally very great ; but this king seems so have got hold of all 
the money which Rabirius possessed, so that the knight-bank- 
er found himself obliged to become one of the king's suite 
when the king went back to take possession of his kingdom. 
In no other way could he hang on to the vast debt that was 
owing to him. In Egypt he found himself compelled to un- 
dergo various indignities. He became no better than a head- 
servant among the king's servants. One of the charges brought 
against him was that he, a Roman knight, had allowed himself 
to be clothed in the half-feminine garb of an Oriental attend- 
ant upon a king. It was also brought against him as part of 
the accusation that he had bribed, or had endeavored to bribe, 
a certain Senator. The crime nominally laid to the charge of 
Rabirius w T as " de repetundis" — for extorting money in the 
position of a magistrate. The money alluded to had been, in 
truth, extorted by Gabinius from Ptolemy Auletes as the price 
paid for his restoration, and had come in great part probably 
from out of the pocket of Rabirius himself. Gabinius had 
been condemned, and ordered to repay the money. He had 



CICERO, JETAT. 52, 53, 54. 55 

none to repay, and the claim, by some clause in the law to that 
effect, was transferred to Rabirius as his agent. Rabirius was 
accused as though he had extorted the money — which he had 
in fact lost ; but the spirit of the accusation lay in the idea 
that he, a Roman knight, had basely subjected himself to an 
Egyptian king. That Rabirius had been base and sordid there 
can be no doubt. That he was ruined by his transaction with 
Auletes is equally certain. It is supposed that he was con- 
victed. He was afterward employed by Caesar, who, when in 
power, may have recalled him from banishment. There are 
many passages in the oration to which I would fain refer the 
reader had I space to do so. I will name only one in which 
Cicero endeavors to ingratiate himself with his audience by re- 
ferring to the old established Roman hatred of kings : " Who 
is there among us who, though he may not have tried them 
himself, does not know the ways of kings? 'Listen to me 
here !' ' Obey my word at once !' ' Speak a word more 
than you are told, and you'll see what you'll get !' ' Do that 
a second time, and you die !' We should read of such things 
and look at them from a distance, not only for our pleasure, 
but that we may know of what we have to be aware, and what 
we ought to avoid." 1 

There is a letter written in this year to Curio, another 
young friend such as Cselius, of whom I have spoken. Curio 
also was clever, dissipated, extravagant, and unscrupulous. But 
at this period of his life he was attached to Cicero, who was 
not indifferent to the services which might accrue to him from 
friends who might be violent and unscrupulous on the right side. 

This letter was written to secure Curio's services for anoth- 
er friend not quite so young, but equally attached, and 
teiat 54. P errj aps of all the Romans of the time the most un- 
scrupulous and the most violent. This friend was 
Milo, who was about to stand for the Consulship of the fol- 



Ca. xi. 



56 LIFE OF CICERO. 

lowing year. Curio was on his road from Asia Minor, where 
he had been Quaestor, and is invited by Cicero in language pe- 
culiarly pressing to be the leader of Milo's party on the occa- 
sion. 1 We cannot but imagine that the winds which Curio 
was called upon to govern were the tornadoes and squalls which 
were to be made to rage in the streets of Rome to the great 
discomfiture of Milo's enemies during his canvass. To such a 
state had Rome come, that for the first six months of this 
year there were no Consuls, an election being found to be im- 
possible. Milo had been the great opponent of Clodius in the 
city rows which had taken place previous to the exile of Cic- 
ero. The two men are called by Mommsen the Achilles and 
the Hector of the streets. 2 Cicero was of course on Milo's 
side, as Milo was an enemy to Clodius. In this matter his feel- 
ing was so strong that he declares to Curio that he does not 
think that the welfare and fortunes of one man were ever so 
dear to another as now were those of Milo to him. Milo's 
success is the only object of interest he has in the world. 
This is interesting to us now as a prelude to the great trial 
which was to take place in the next year, when Milo, instead 
of being elected Consul, was convicted of murder. 

In the two previous years Caesar had made two invasions 
into Britain, in the latter of which Quintus Cicero had accom- 
panied him. Cicero in various letters alludes to this under- 
taking, but barely gives it the importance which we, as Brit- 
ons, think should have been attached to so tremendous an enter- 
prise. There might perhaps be some danger, he thought, in 
crossing the seas, and encountering the rocky shores of the 
island, but there was nothing to be got worth the getting. He 
tells Atticus that he can hardly expect any slaves skilled either 



1 Ad Fam., lib. ii., 6 : " Dux nobis et auctor opus est et eorum ventorura 
quos proposui moderator quidem et quasi gubernator." 

2 Mommsen, book v., chap. viii. According to the historian, Clodius was 
the Achilles, and Milo the Hector. In this quarrel Hector killed Achilles. 



CICERO, ^ETAT. 53, 53, 54. 57 

in music or letters, 1 and he suggests to Trebatius that, as he 
will certainly find neither gold nor slaves, he had better put 
himself into a British chariot and come back in it as soon as 
possible. 2 In this year Caesar reduced the remaining tribes of 
Gaul, and crossed the Rhine a second time. It was his sixth 
year in Gaul, and men had learned to know what was his nat- 
ure. Cicero had discovered his greatness, as also Pompey 
must have done, to his great dismay ; and he had himself 
discovered what he was himself; but two accidents occurred 
in this year which were perhaps as important in Roman his- 
tory as the continuance of Caesar's success. Julia, Caesar's 
daughter and Pompey's wife, died in childbed. She seems to 
have been loved by all, and had been idolized from the time 
of the marriage by her uxorious husband, who was more than 
twenty-four years her senior. She certainly had been a strong- 
bond of union between Caesar and Pompey ; so much so that 
we are surprised that such a feeling should have been so 
powerful among the Romans of the time. " Concordiae pig- 
nus," a " pledge of friendship," she is called by Paterculus, 
who tells us in the same sentence that the Triumvirate had 
no other bond to hold it together. 3 Whether the friendship 
might have remained valid had Julia lived we cannot say ; but 
she died, and the two friends became enemies. From the mo- 
ment of Julia's death there was no Triumvirate. 

The other accident was equally fatal to the bond of union 
which had bound the three men together. Late in the year, 
after his Consulship, B.C. 54, Crassus had gone to his Syrian 
government with the double intention of increasing his wealth 
and rivalling the military glories of Caesar and Pompey. In 
the following year he became an easy victim to Eastern deceit, 
and was destroyed by the Parthians, with his son and the 
greater part of the Roman army which had been intrusted to 

1 Ad Att., lib. iv., 16. 2 Ad Fam., lib. vii., V. 

3 Veil. Pat., ii., 47. 

3* 



58 LIFE OF CICERO. 

him. 1 We are told that Crassus at last destroyed himself. I 
doubt, however, whether there was enough of patriotism alive 
among Romans at the time to create the feeling which so great 
a loss and so great a shame should have occasioned. As far 
as we can learn, the destruction of Crassus and his leo;ions did 
not occasion so much thought in Rome as the breaking up of 
the Triumvirate. 

Cicero's daughter Tullia was now a second time without a 
husband. She was the widow of her first husband Piso ; had 
then, b.c. 56, married Crassipes, and had been divorced. Of 
him we have heard nothing, except that he was divorced. A 
doubt has been thrown on the fact whether she was in truth 
ever married to Crassipes. We learn from letters, both to his 
brother and to Atticus, that Cicero was contented with the 
match when it was made, and did his best to give the lady a 
rich dowry. 2 

In this year Cicero was elected into the College of Auffiirs. 
to fill the vacancy made by the death of young Crassus, who 
had been killed with his father in Parthia. The reader will 
remember that he had in a joking manner expressed a desire 
for the office. He now obtained it without any difficulty, and 
certainly without any sacrifice of his principle. It had former- 
ly been the privilege of the augurs to fill up the vacancies in 
their own college, but the right had been transferred to the 
people. It was now conferred upon Cicero without serious 
opposition. 



1 We remember the scorn with which Horace has treated the Roman 
soldier whom he supposes to have consented to accept both his life and a 
spouse from the Parthian conqueror : 

Milesne Crassi conjuge barbara 
Turpis maritus vixit ? — Ode iii., 5. 
It has been calculated that of 40,000 legionaries half. were killed, 10,000 

returned to Syria, and that 10,000 settled themselves in the country we 

now know as Merv. 

2 Ad Quin. Frat., lib. ii., 4, and Ad Att., lib. iv., 5. 



MILU. 59 



Chapter III. 

MILO. 

The preceding year came to an end without any consular 
election. It was for the election expected to have taken 

Vt'w P lace tnat tlie sery i ces °f Curio had been so ardently 
bespoken by Cicero on behalf of Milo. In order to 
impede the election Clodius accused Milo of being in debt, 
and Cicero defended him. What was the nature of the ac- 
cusation we do not exactly know. "An inquiry into Milo's 
debts !" Such was the name given to the pleadings as found 
with the fragments which have come to us. 1 In these, which 
are short and not specially interesting, there is hardly a word 
as to Milo's debts ; but much abuse of Clodius, with some 
praise of Cicero himself, and some praise also of Pompey, who 
was so soon to take up arms against Cicero, not metaphorically, 
but in grim reality of sword and buckler, in this matter of his 
further defence of Milo. We cannot believe that Milo's debts 
stood in the way of his election, but we know that at last he 
was not elected. Early in the year Clodius was killed, and 
then, at the suggestion of Bibulus — whom the reader will re- 
member as the colleague of Caesar in the Consulship when 
Caesar reduced his colleague to ridiculous impotence by his 
violence — Pompey was elected as sole Consul, an honor which 
befell no other Roman. 2 The condition of Ptome must have 



1 " Interrogatio de sere alieno Milonis." 

2 Livy, Epitome, 107 : " Absens et solus quod nulli alii umquam con- 



tigit." 



60 LIFE OF CICERO. 

been very low when such a one as Bibulus thought that no 
order was possible except by putting absolute power into the 
hands of him who had so lately been the partner of Csesar in 
the conspiracy which had not even yet been altogether brought 
to an end. That Bibulus acted under constraint is no doubt 
true. It would be of little matter now from what cause he 
acted, were it not that his having taken a part in this utter 
disruption of the Roman form of government is one proof the 
more that there was no longer any hope for the Republic. 

But the story of the killing of Clodius must be told at some 
length, because it affords the best-drawn picture that we can 
get of the sort of violence with which Roman affairs had to be 
managed ; and also because it gave rise to one of the choicest 
morsels of forensic eloquence that have ever been prepared by 
the intellect and skill of an .advocate. It is well known that 
the speech to which I refer was not spoken, and could not 
have been spoken, in the form in which it has reached us. 
We do not know what part of it was spoken and what was 
omitted ; but we do know that the Pro Milone exists for us, 
and that it lives among the glories of language as a published 
oration. I find, on looking through the Institutio Oratoria 
of Quintilian, that in his estimation the Pro Milone was the 
first in favor of all our author's orations — " facile princeps," if 
we may collect the critic's ideas on the subject from the num- 
ber of references made and examples taken. Quintilian's work 
consists of lessons on oratory, which he supports by quotations 
from the great orators, both Greek and Latin, with whose 
speeches he has made himself familiar. Cicero Avas to him 
the chief of orators ; so much so that we may almost say that 
Quintilian's Institutio is rather a lecture in honor of Cicero 
than a general lesson. With the Roman school-master's meth- 
od of teaching for the benefit of the Roman youth of the day 
we have no concern at present, but we can gather from the ref- 
erences made by him the estimation in which various orations 
wore held by others, as well as by him, in his day. The 



MILO. 61 

« 

Pro Cluentio, which is twice as long as the Pro Milone, and 
which has never, I think, been a favorite with modern readers, 
is quoted very frequently by Quintilian. It is the second in 
the list. Quintilian makes eighteen references to it ; but the 
Pro Milone is brought to the reader's notice thirty -seven 
times. Quintilian was certainly a good critic ; and he under- 
stood how to recommend himself to his own followers by 
quoting excellences which had already been acknowledged as 
the best which Roman literature had afforded. 

Those who have gone before me in writing the life of Cicero 
have, in telling their story as to Milo, very properly gone to 
Asconius for their details. As I must do so too, I shall proba- 
bly not diverge far from them. Asconius wrote as early as in 
the reign of Claudius, and had in his possession the annals of 
the time which have not come to us. Among other writings 
he could refer to those books of Livy which have since been 
lost. He seems to have done his work as commentator with 
no glow of affection and with no touch of animosity, either on 
one side or on the other. There can be no reason for doubt- 
ing the impartiality of Asconius as to Milo's trial, and every 
reason for trusting his knowledge of the facts. 

When the year began, no Consuls had been chosen, and an 
interrex became necessary — one interrex after another 
states — to make the election of Consuls possible in accord- 
ance with the forms of the constitution. These men 
remained in office each for five days, and it was customary 
that an election which had been delayed should be completed 
within the days of the second or third interrex. There were 
three candidates, Milo, Hypsseus, and Q. Metellus Scipio, by all 
of whom bribery and violence were used with open and un- 
blushing profligacy. Cicero was wedded to Milo's cause, as 
we have seen from his letter to Curio, but it does not appear 
that he himself took any active part in the canvass. The 
duties to be done required rather the services of a Curio. 
Pompey, on the other hand, was nearly as warmly engaged 



62 LIFE OF CICERO. 

in favor of Hypsseus and Scipio, though in the turn which 
affairs toot he seems to have been willing enough to accept 
the office himself when it came in his way. Milo and Clodius 
had often fought in the streets of Rome, each ruffian attended 
by a band of armed combatants, so that in audacity, as Asco- 
nius says, they were equal. 

On the 20th of January Milo was returning to Rome from 
Lanuviura, where he had been engaged, as chief magistrate of 
the town, in nominating a friend for the municipality. He 
was in a carriage with his wife Fausta, and with a friend, and 
was followed, as was his wont, by a large band of armed men, 
among whom were two noted gladiators, Eudamus and Birria. 
At Bovillae, near the temple of the Bona Dea, his cortege was 
met by Clodius on horseback, who had with him some friends, 
and thirty slaves armed with swords. Milo's attendants were 
nearly ten times as numerous. It is not supposed by Asconius 
that either of the two men expected the meeting, which may 
be presumed to have been fortuitous. Milo and Clodius passed 
each other without words or blows — scowling, no doubt; but 
the two gladiators who were at the end of the file of Milo's 
men beo-an to quarrel with certain of the followers of Clodius. 
Clodius interfered, and was stabbed in the shoulder by Bir- 
ria ; then he was carried to a neighboring tavern while the 
fight was in progress. Milo, having heard that his enemy was 
there concealed — thinking that he would be greatly relieved 
in his career by the death of such a foe, and that the risk 
should be run though the consequences might be grave — caused 
Clodius to be dragged out from the tavern and slaughtered. On 
what grounds Asconius has attributed these probable thoughts 
to Milo we do not know. That the order was given the jury 
believed, or at any rate affected to believe. 

Up to this moment Milo was no more guilty than Clodius, 
and neither of them, probably, guilty of more than their usual 
violence. Partisans on the two sides endeavored to show that 
each had prepared an ambush for the other, but there is no 



M1L0. G3 

evidence that it was so. There is no evidence existing now as 
to this dragging out of Clodius that he might be murdered ; 
but we know what was the general opinion of Rome at the 
time, and we may conclude that it was right. The order prob- 
ably was given by Milo — as it would have been given by 
Clodius in similar circumstances — at the spur of the moment, 
when Milo allowed his passion to get the better of his judg- 
ment. 

The thirty servants of Clodius were either killed or had run 
away and hidden themselves, when a certain Senator, S. Tedius, 
coming that way, found the dead body on the road, and carry- 
ing it into the city on a litter deposited it in the dead man's 
house. Before nightfall the death of Clodius was known 
through the city, and the body was surrounded by a crowd 
of citizens of the lower order and of slaves. With them was 
Fulvia, the widow, exposing the dead man's wounds and ex- 
citing the people to sympathy. On the morrow there was an 
increased crowd, among whom were Senators and Tribunes, 
and the body was carried out into the Forum, and the people 
were harangued by the Tribunes as to the horror of the deed 
that had been done. From thence the body was borne into 
the neighboring Senate-house 1 by the crowd, under the leading 
of Sextus Clodius, a cousin of the dead man. Here it was 
burnt with a great fire fed with the desks and benches, and 
even with the books and archives which were stored there. 
Not only was the Senate-house destroyed by the flames, but a 
temple also that was close to it. Milo's house was attacked, 
and was defended by arms. We are made to understand that 
all Rome was in a state of violence and anarchy. The Consuls' 
fasces had been put away in one of the temples — that of Venus 
Libitina: these the people seized and carried to the house of 
Pompey, declaring that he should be Dictator, and he alone 



1 The Curia Hostilia, in which the Senate sat frequently, though by no 
means always. 



64 LIFE OF VHJERO. 

Consul, mingling anarchy with a marvellous reverence for legal 
forms. 

But there arose in the city a feeling of great anger at the 
burning of the Senate-house, which for a while seemed to ex- 
tinguish the sympathy for Clodius, so that Milo, who was sup- 
posed to have taken himself off, came back to Rome and re- 
newed his canvass, distributing bribes to all the citizens — " millia 
assuum " — perhaps something over ten pounds to every man. 
Both he and Caelius harangued the people, and declared that 
Clodius had begun the fray. But no Consuls could be elected 
while the city was in such a state, and Pompey, having been 
desired to protect the Republic in the usual form, collected troops 
from all Italy. Preparations were made for trying Milo, and 
the friends of each party demanded that the slaves of the other 
party should be put to the torture and examined as witnesses ; 
but every possible impediment and legal quibble was used by 
the advocates on either side. Hortensius, who was engaged 
for Milo, declared that Milo's slaves had all been made free 
men and could not be touched. Stories were told backward 
and forward of the cruelty and violence on each side. Milo 
made an offer to Pompey to abandon his canvass in favor of 
Hyps«3us, if Pompey would accept this as a compromise. 
Pompey answered, with the assumed dignity that was common 
to him, that he was not the Roman people, and that it was not 
for him to interfere. 

It was then that Pompey was created sole Consul at the 
instigation of Bibulus. He immediately caused a new law to 
be passed for the management of the trial which was coming 
on, and when he was opposed in this by Cselius, declared that 
if necessary he would carry his purpose by force of arms. 
Pretending to be afraid of Milo's violence, he remained at 
home, and on one occasion dismissed the Senate. Afterward, 
when Milo entered the Senate, he was accused by a Senator 
present of having come thither with arms hidden beneath his 
toga ; whereupon he lifted his toga and showed that there were 



MILO. 65 

none. Asconius tells us that upon this Cicero declared that 
all the other charges made against the accused were equally- 
false. This is the first word of Cicero's known to us in the 
matter. 

Two or three men declared that because they had been pres- 
ent at the death of Clodius they had been kidnapped and kept 
close prisoners by Milo ; and the story, whether true or false, 
did Milo much harm. It seems that Milo became again very 
odious to the people, and that their hatred was for the time 
extended to Cicero as Milo's friend and proposed advocate. 
Pompey seems to have shared the feeling, and to have declared 
that violence was contemplated against himself. "But such 
was Cicero's constancy," says Asconius, " that neither the aliena- 
tion of the people nor the suspicions of Pompey, no fear of 
what might befall himself at the trial, no dread of the arms 
which were used openly against Milo, could hinder him from 
going on with the defence, although it was within his power 
to avoid the quarrel with the people and to renew his friend- 
ship for Pompey by abstaining from it." Domitius iEnobar- 
bus was chosen as President, and the others elected as judges 
were, we are told, equally good men. Milo was accused both 
of violence and bribery, but was able to arrange that the former 
case should be tried first. The method of the trial is explained. 
Fifty-one judges or jurymen were at last chosen. Schola was 
the first witness examined, and he exaggerated as best he could 
the horror of the murder. When Marcellus, as advocate for 
Milo, began to examine Schola, the people were so violent that 
the President was forced to protect Marcellus by taking him 
within the barrier of the judges' seats. Milo also was obliged 
to demand protection within the court. Pompey, then sitting 
at the Treasury, and frightened by the clamor, declared that he 
himself would come down with troops on the next day. After 
the hearing of the evidence the Tribune Munatius Plancus 
harangued the people, and begged them to come in great num- 
bers on the morrow so that Milo might not be allowed to es- 



66 LIFE OF CICERO. 

cape. On the following clay, which was the 11th of April, all 
the taverns were shut. Pompey filled the Forum and every 
approach to it with his soldiers. He himself remained seated 
at the Treasury as before, surrounded by a picked body of 
men. At the trial on this day, when three of the advocates 
against Milo had spoken — Appius, Marc Antony, and Valerius 
Nepos — Cicero stood up to defend the criminal. Brutus had 
prepared an oration declaring that the killing of Clodius was 
in itself a good deed, and praiseworthy on behalf of the Re- 
public ; but to this speech Cicero refused his consent, arguing 
that a man could not legally be killed simply because his death 
was to be desired, and Brutus's speech was not spoken. Wit- 
nesses had declared that Milo had lain in wait for Clodius. 
This Cicero alleged to be false, contending that Clodius had 
lain in wait for Milo, and he endeavored to make this point 
and no other. " But it is proved," says Asconius, " that neither 
of the men had any design of violence on that day ; that they 
met by chance, and that the killing of Clodius had come from 
the quarrelling of the slaves. It was well known that each 
had often threatened the death of the other. Milo's slaves 
had no doubt been much more numerous than those of Clodius 
when the meeting took place ; but those of Clodius had been 
very much better prepared for fighting. When Cicero began 
to address the judges, the partisans of Clodius could not be 
induced to abstain from riot even by fear of the soldiery ; so 
that he was unable to speak with his accustomed firmness." 

Such is the account as given by Asconius, who goes on to 
tell us that out of the fifty-one judges thirty-eight condemned 
Milo and only thirteen were for acquitting him. Milo, there- 
fore, was condemned, and had to retire at once into exile at 
Marseilles. 

It seems to have been acknowledged by the judges that 
Clodius had not been wounded at first by any connivance on 
the part of Milo ; but they thought that Milo did direct that 
Clodius should be killed during the fight which the slaves had 



311 LO. 67 

commenced among themselves. As far as we can take any in- 
terest in the matter we must suppose that it was so ; but we 
are forced to agree with Brutus that the killing of Clodius was 
in itself a good deed done — and we have to acknowledge at the 
same time that the killing of Milo would have been as good. 
Though we may doubt as to the manner in which Clodius was 
killed, there are points in the matter as to which we may be 
quite assured. Milo was condemned, not for killing Clodius, 
but because he was opposed at the moment to the line of poli- 
tics which Pompey thought would be most conducive to his 
own interests. Milo was condemned, and the death of the 
wretched Clodius avenged, because Pompey had desired Hyp- 
sseus to be Consul and Milo had dared to stand in his way. 
An audience was refused to Cicero, not from any sympathy 
with Clodius, but because it suited Pompey that Milo should 
be condemned. Could Cicero have spoken the words which 
afterward were published, the jury might have hesitated and 
the criminal might have been acquitted. Csesar was absent, 
and Pompey found himself again lifted into supreme power — 
for a moment. Though no one in Rome had insulted Pompey 
as Clodius had done, though no one had so fought for Pompey 
as Cicero had done, still it suited Pompey to avenge Clodius 
and to punish Cicero for having taken Milo's part in regard to 
the Consulship. Milo, after his condemnation for the death of 
Clodius, was condemned in three subsequent trials, one follow- 
ing the other almost instantly, for bribery, for secret conspiracy, 
and again for violence in the city. He was absent, but there 
was no difficulty in obtaining his conviction. When he was 
gone one Saufeius, a friend of his, who had been with him dur- 
ing the tumult, was put upon his trial for his share in the death 
of Clodius. He at any rate was known to have been guilty in 
the matter. He had been leader of the party who attacked the 
tavern, had killed the tavern-keeper, and had dragged out Clo- 
dius to execution. But Saufeius was twice acquitted. Had there 
been any hope of law-abiding tranquillity in Rome, it might have 



68 LIFE OF CICERO. 

been well that Clodius should be killed and Milo banished. As 
it was, neither the death of the one nor the banishment of the 
other could avail anything. The pity of it was — the pity — that 
such a one as Cicero, a man with such intellect, such ambition, 
such sympathies, and such patriotism, should have been brought 
to fight on such an arena. 

We have in this story a graphic and most astounding picture 

of the Rome of the day. No Consuls had been or could 
setat 55 ^ e e l ec ted, and the system by which "interrcges" had 

been enabled to superintend the election of their suc- 
cessors in lieu of the Consuls of the expiring year had broken 
down. Pompey had been made sole Consul in an informal 
manner, and had taken upon himself all the authority of a 
Dictator in levying troops. Power in Rome seems at the mo- 
ment to have been shared between him and bands of gladia- 
tors ; but he too had succeeded in arming himself, and as the 
Clodian faction was on his side, he was for a while supreme. 
For law by this time he could have but little reverence, having 
been partner with Csesar in the so-called Triumvirate for the 
last eight years. But yet he had no aptitude for throwing the 
law altogether on one side, and making such a coup-de-main as 
was now and again within his power. Beyond Pompey there 
was at this time no power in Rome, except that of the gladia- 
tors, and the owners of the gladiators, who were each intent on 
making plunder out of the Empire. There were certain men, 
such as were Bibulus and Cato, who considered themselves to 
be " optimates " — leading citizens who believed in the Repub- 
lic, and were no doubt anxious to maintain the established or- 
der of things — as we may imagine the dukes and earls are anx- 
ious in these days of ours. But they were impotent and bad 
men of business, and as a body were too closely wedded to their 
"fish-ponds" — by which Cicero means their general luxuries 
and extravagances. In the bosoms of these men there was no 
doubt an eager desire to perpetuate a Republic which had done 
so much for them, and a courage sufficient for the doing of 



MILO. 69 

some great deed, if the great deed would come in their way. 
They went to Pharsalia, and Cato marched across the deserts of 
Libya. They slew Caesar, and did some gallant fighting after- 
ward ; but they were like a rope of sand, and had among them 
no fitting leader and no high purpose. 

Outside of these was Cicero, who certainly was not a fitting 
leader when fighting was necessary, and who as to politics in 
general was fitted rather by noble aspirations than supported 
by fixed purposes. We are driven to wonder that there should 
have been, at such a period and among such a people, aspi- 
rations so noble joined with so much vanity of expression. 
Among Romans he stands the highest, because of all Romans 
he was the least Roman. He had begun with high resolves, 
and had acted up to them. Among all the Quaestors, ^Ediles, 
Praitors, and Consuls Rome had known, none had been better, 
none honester, none more patriotic. There had come up sud- 
denly in those days a man imbued with the unwonted idea that 
it behooved him to do his duty to the State according to the best 
of his lights — no Cincinnatns, no Decius, no Camillus, no Scipio, 
no pretentious follower of those half-mythic heroes, no demigod 
struggling to walk across the stage of life enveloped in his toga 
and resolved to impose on all eyes by the assumption of a di- 
vine dignity, but one who at every turn was. conscious of his 
human duty, and anxious to do it to the best of his human 
ability. He did it ; and we have to acknowledge that the con- 
ceit of doing it overpowered him. He mistook the feeling of 
people around him, thinking that they too would be carried 
away by their admiration of his conduct. Up to the day on 
which he descended from his Consul's seat duty was paramount 
with him. Then gradually there came upon him the convic- 
tion that duty, though it had been paramount with him, did not 
weigh so very much with others. He had been lavish in his 
worship of Pompey, thinking that Pompey, whom he had be- 
lieved in his youth to be the best of citizens, would of all men 
be the truest to the Republic. Pompey had deceived him, but 



70 LIFE OF CICERO. 

he could not suddenly give up his idol. Gradually we see that 
there fell upon him a dread that the great Eoman Republic was 
not the perfect institution which he had fancied. In his early 
days Chrysogonus had been base, and Verres, and Oppianicus, 
and Catiline ; but still, to his idea, the body of the Roman Re- 
public had been sound. But when he had gone out from his 
Consulship, with resolves strung too high that he would remain 
at Rome, despising provinces and plunder, and be as it were a 
special providence to the Republic, gradually he fell from his high 
purpose, finding that there were no Romans such as he had con- 
ceived them to be. Then he fell away and became the man 
who could condescend to waste his unequalled intellect in at- 
tacking Piso, in praising himself, and in defending Milo. The 
glory of his active life was over when his Consulship was done 
— the glory was over, with the exception of that to come from . 
his final struggle with Antony — but the work by which his 
immortality was to be achieved was yet before him. I think 
that after defending Milo he must have acknowledged to him- 
self that all partisan fighting in Rome was mean, ignoble, and 
hollow. With the Senate-house and its archives burnt as a 
funeral pile for Clodius, and the Forum in which he had to plead 
lined with soldiers who stopped him by their clang of arms in- 
stead of protecting him in his speech, it must have been ac- 
knowledged by Cicero that the old Republic was dead, past 
all hope of resurrection. He had said so often to Atticus; but 
men say words in the despondency of the moment which they 
do not wish to have accepted as their established conviction. 
In such humor Cicero had written to his friend ; but now it 
must have occurred to him that his petulant expressions were 
becoming only too true. When instigating Curio to canvass 
for Milo, and defending Milo as though it had been a good 
thing for a Roman nobleman to travel in the neighborhood of 
the city with an army at his heels, he must have ceased to be- 
lieve even in himself as a Roman statesman. 

In the oration which we possess — which we must teach our- 



MILO. 71 

selves to regard as altogether different from that which Cicero 
had been able to pronounce among Pompey's soldiers and the 
Clodian rabble — the reader is astonished by the magnificence 
of the language in which a case so bad in itself could be en- 
veloped, and is made to feel that had he been on the jury, and 
had such an address been made to him, he would certainly have 
voted for an acquittal. The guilt or innocence of Milo as to the 
murder really turned on the point whether he did or did not 
direct that Clodius should be dragged out of the tavern and 
slain ; but here in this oration three points are put forward, in 
each of which it was within the scope of the orator to make 
the jury believe that Clodius had in truth prepared an ambus- 
cade, that Clodius was of all Romans the worst, and that Milo 
was loyal and true, and, in spite of a certain fierceness of dis- 
position, a good citizen at heart. We agree with Milo, who de- 
clared, when banished, that he would never have been able to 
enjoy the fish of Marseilles had Cicero spoken in the Forum the 
speech which he afterward composed. 

"I would not remind you," he says, "of Milo's Tribuneship, 
nor of all his service to the State, unless I could make plain to 
you as daylight the ambush which on that day was laid for 
him by his enemy. I will not pray you to forgive a crime 
simply because Milo has been a good citizen ; nor, because the 
death of Clodius has been a blessing to us all, will I therefore 
ask you to regard it as a deed worthy of praise. But if the 
fact of the ambush be absolutely made evident, then I beseech 
you at any rate to grant that a man may lawfully defend him- 
self from the arrogance and from the arms of his enemies." 1 
From this may be seen the nature of the arguments used. For 
the language the reader must turn to the original. That it 
will be worth his while to do so he has the evidence of all crit- 
ics — especially that of Milo when he was eating sardines in his 
exile, and of Quintilian when he was preparing his lessons on 

1 Ca. ii. 



72 LIFE OF CICERO. 

rhetoric. It seems that Cicero had been twitted with usino* 
something of a dominating tyranny in the Senate — which 
would hardly have been true, as the prevailing influence of the 
moment was that of Pompey — but he throws aside the in- 
sinuation very grandly. " Call it tyranny if you please — if 
you think it that, rather than some little authority which has 
grown from my services to the State, or some favor among 
good men because of my rank. Call it what you will, while I 
am able to use it for the defence of the good against the vio- 
lence of the evil-minded." 1 Then he describes the fashion in 
which these two men travelled on the occasion — the fashion 
of travelling as it suited him to describe it. " If you did not 
hear the details of the story, but could see simply a picture 
of all that occurred, would it not appear which of them had 
planned the attack, which of them was ignorant of all evil? 
One of them was seated in his carriage, clad in his cloak, 
and with his wife beside him. His garments, his clients, his 
companions all show how little prepared he was for fighting. 
Then, as to the other, why was he leaving his country-house so 
suddenly? Why should he do this so late in the evening? 
Why did he travel so slowly at this time of the year ? He 
was going, he says, to Pompey's villa. Not that he might see 
Pompey, because he knew that Pompey was at Alsium. Did 
he want to see the villa ? He had been there a thousand times. 
Why all this delay, and turning backward and forward ? Be- 
cause he would not leave the spot till Milo had come up. And 
now compare this ruffian's mode of travelling with that of 
Milo. It has been the constant custom with Clodius to have 
his wife with him, but now she was not there. He has always 
been in a carriage, but now he was on horseback. His young 
Greek sybarites have ever been with him, even when he went 
as far as Tuscany ; on this occasion there were no such trifles 
in his company. Milo, with whom such companions were not 

1 Ca.v. 



MILO. 73 

usual, had his wife's singing-boys with him and a bevy of fe- 
male slaves. Clodius, who usually never moved without a 
crowd of prostitutes at his heels, now had no one with him 
but men picked for this work in hand." 1 What a picture we 
have here of the manner in which noble Romans were wont 
to move about the city and the suburbs ! We may imagine 
that the singing-boys of Milo's wife were quite as bad as the 
Greek attendants in whom Clodius usually rejoiced. Then he 
asks a question as to Pompey full of beautiful irony. If Pom- 
pey could bring back Clodius from the dead — Pompey, who is 
so fond of him ; Pompey, who is so powerful, so fortunate, so 
capable of all things : Pompey, who would be so glad to do it 
because of his love for the man — do you not know that on 
behalf of the Republic he would leave him down among the 
ghosts where he is f There is a delightful touch of satire in 
this when we remember how odious Clodius had been to Pom- 
pey in days not long gone by, and how insolent. 

The oration is ended by histrionic effects in language which 
would have been marvellous had they ever been spoken, but 
which seem to be incredible to us when we know that they 
were arranged for publication when the affair was over. " 
me wretched ! O me unhappy !" 3 But these attempts at 
translation are all vain. The student who wishes to under- 
stand what may be the effect of Latin words thrown into this 
choicest form should read the Milo. 

We have very few letters from Cicero in this year — four 
only, I think, and they are of no special moment. In one of 
them he recommends Avianus to Titus Titius, a lieutenant 
then serving under Pompey. 4 In this he is very anxious to 

1 Ca. xx., xxi. 2 Ca. xxix. 

3 Ca. xxxvii. : " me miserum ! me infelicem ! revocare tu me in 
patriam, Milo, potuisti per hos. Ego te in patria per eosdem retinere non 
potero !" " By the aid of such citizens as these," he says, pointing to the 
judges' bench, " you were able to restore me to my country. Shall I not by 
the same aid restore you to yours?" 4 Ad Fam., lib. xiii., 75. 

II.— 4 



Y4 LIFE OF CICERO. 

induce Titius to let Avianus know all the good things that 
Cicero had said of him. In our times we sometimes send our 
letters of introduction open by the hands of the person intro- 
duced, so that he may himself read his own praise ; but the 
Romans did not scruple to ask that this favor might be done 
for them. " Do me this favor, Titius, of being kind to Avianus ; 
but do me also the greater favor of letting Avianus know that 
I have asked you." What Cicero did to Titius other noble 
Romans did in their communications with their friends in the 
provinces. In another letter to Marius he expresses his great 
joy at the condemnation of that Munatius Plancus who had 
been Tribune when Clodius was killed. Plancus had ha- 
rangued the people, exciting them against Milo and against 
Cicero, and had led to the burning of the Senate-house and of 
the temple next door. For this Plancus could not be accused 
during his year of office, but he had been put upon his trial 
when that year was over. Pompey had done his best to save 
him, but in vain ; and Cicero rejoices not only that the Trib- 
une who had opposed him should be punished, but that Pom- 
pey should have been beaten, which he attributes altogether to 
the favor shown toward himself by the jury. 1 He is aroused to 
true exultation that there should have been men on the bench 
who, having been chosen by Pompey in order that they might 
acquit this man, had dared to condemn him. Cicero had him- 
self spoken against Plancus on the occasion. Sextus Clodius, 
who bad been foremost among the rioters, was also condemned. 
This was the year in which Caesar was so nearly conquered 
by the Gauls at Gergovia, and in which Vercingetorix, 
B ;°' f 5 « having shut himself up in Alesia, was overcome at last 

aetat. 55. f ' 

by the cruel strategy of the Romans. The brave Gaul, 
who had done his best to defend his country and had carried 

1 Ad Fam., lib. vii., 2 : "In primisque me delectavit tantum studium 
bonoruin in me exstitisse contra incredibilem contentionem clarissimi et 
potentissimi viri." 



MILO. 75 

himself to the last with a fine gallantry, was kept by his con- 
queror six years in chains and then strangled amid the glories 
of that conqueror's triumph, a signal instance of the mercy 
which has been attributed to Caesar as his special virtue. In 
this year, too, Cicero's dialogues with Atticus, De Legibus, 
were written. He seems to have disturbed his labors in the 
Forum with no other work. 



76 LIFE OF CICERO. 



Chapter IV. 

CILICIA. 

We cannot but think that at this time the return of Caesar 
was greatly feared at Rome by the party in the State 
atat.56. to which Cicero belonged; and this party must now 
be understood as including Pompey. Pompey had 
been nominally Proconsul in Spain since the year of his second 
Consulship, conjointly with Crassus, B.C. 55, but had remained 
in Rome and had taken upon himself the management of 
Roman affairs, considering himself to be the master of the 
irregular powers which the Triumvirate had created; and of 
this party was also Cicero, with Cato, Bibulus, Brutus, and all 
those who were proud to call themselves " optimates." They 
Avere now presumed to be desirous to maintain the old repub- 
lican form of government, and were anxious with more or less 
sincerity according to the character of the men. Cato and 
Brutus were thoroughly in earnest, not seeing, however, that 
the old form might be utterly devoid of the old spirit. Pom- 
pey was disposed to take the same direction, thinking that all 
must be well in Rome as long as he was possessed of high of- 
fice, grand names, and the appanages of Dictatorship. Cicero, 
too, was anxious, loyally anxious, but anxious without confi- 
dence. Something might perhaps be saved if these optimates 
could be aroused to some idea of their duty by the exercise of 
eloquence such as his own. 

I will quote a few words from Mr. Froude's Caesar : " If 
Caesar came to Rome as Consul, the Senate knew too well what 
it might expect;" and then he adds, "Cicero had for some 



VILICIA. 17 

time seen what was coming." 1 As to these assertions I quite 
agree with Mr. Froude ; but I think that he has read wrongly 
both the history of the time and the character of the man when 
he goes on to state that " Cicero preferred characteristically to 
be out of the way at the moment when he expected that the 
storm should break, and had accepted the government of Cilicia 
and Cyprus." All the known details of Cicero's life up to the 
period of his government of Cilicia, during his government, 
and after his return from that province, prove that he was 
characteristically wedded to a life in Rome. This he declared 
by his distaste to that employment and his impatience of re- 
turn while he was absent. Nothing, I should say, could be 
more certain than that he went to Cilicia in obedience to new 
legal enactments which he could not avoid, but which, as they 
acted upon himself, were odious to him. Mr. Froude tells us 
that he held the government but for two years. 2 The period 
of these provincial governments had of late much varied. The 
acknowledged legal duration was for one year. They had been 
stretched by the governing party to three, as in the case of 
Verres in Sicily ; to five, as with Pompey for his Spanish gov- 
ernment ; to ten for Csesar in Gaul. This had been done with 
the view of increasing the opportunities for plunder and power, 
but had been efficacious of good in enabling governors to carry 
out work for which one year would not have sufficed. It may 
be a question whether Cicero as Proconsul in Cilicia deserved 
blame for curtailing the period of his services to the Empire, or 
praise for abstaining from plunder and power ; but the fact is 
that he remained in his province not two years but exactly 
one ; 3 and that he escaped from it with all the alacrity which 
we may presume to be expected by a prisoner when the bars 

1 Cajsar, a Sketch, p. 336. " Ibid., p. 341. 

3 He reached Laodicea, an inland town, on July 31st, B.C. 51, and embark- 
ed, as far as we can tell, at Sida on August 3d, B.C. 50. It may be doubted 
whether any Roman governor got to the end of his year's government with 
greater despatch. 



78 LIFE OF CICERO. 

of his jail have been opened for him. Whether we blame him 
or praise him, we can hardly refrain from feeling that his 
impatience was grotesque. There certainly was no desire on 
Cicero's part either to go to Cilicia or to remain there, and of 
all his feelings that which prompted him never to be far absent 
from Rome was the most characteristic of the man. 

Among various laws which Pompey had caused to be passed 
in the previous year, B.C. 52, and which had been enacted with 
views personal to himself and his own political views, had been 
one " de jure magistratuum " — as to the way in which the mag- 
istrates of the Empire should be selected. Among other clauses 
it contained one which declared that no Praetor and no Consul 
should succeed to a province till he had been five years out of 
office. It would be useless here to point out how absolutely 
subversive of the old system of the Republic this new law 
would have been, had the new law and the old system attempt- 
ed to live together. The Proprsetor would have been forced to 
abandon his aspirations either for the province or for the Con- 
sulship, and no consular governor would have been eligible for 
a province till after his fiftieth year. But at this time Pom- 
pey was both consul and governor, and Caesar was governor 
for ten years with special exemption from another clause in 
the war which would otherwise have forbidden him to stand 
again for the Consulship during his absence. 1 The law was 
wanted probably only for the moment ; but it had the effect 
of forcing Cicero out of Rome. As there would naturally 
come from it a dearth of candidates for the provinces it was 
further decreed by the Senate that the ex-Praetors and ex-Con- 
suls who had not yet served as governors should now go forth 
and undertake the duties of government. In compliance with 

1 No exemption was made for Caesar in Pompey's law as it originally 
stood ; and after the law had been inscribed as usual on a bronze tablet 
it was altered at Pompey's order, so as to give Caesar the privilege. Pom- 
pey pleaded forgetfulness, but the change was probably forced upon him 
by Caesar's influence. — Suetonius, J. Caesar, xxviii. 



CILICIA. 79 

this order, and probably as a specially intended consequence of 
it, Cicero was compelled to go to Cilicia. Mr. Fronde has said 
that " he preferred characteristically to be out of the way." I 
have here given what I think to be the more probable cause of 
his .undertaking the government of Cilicia. 

In April of this year Cicero before he started wrote the first 
of a series of letters which he addressed to Appius 
Stat 56 Claudius, who was his predecessor in the province. 
This Appins was the brother of the Publius Clodius 
whom we have known for the last two or three years as Cic- 
ero's pest and persecutor ; but he addresses Appius as though 
they were dear friends : " Since it has come to pass, in oppo- 
sition to all my wishes and to my expectations, that I must 
take in hand the government of a province, I have this one 
consolation in my various troubles — that no better friend to 
yourself than I am could follow you, and that I could take 
up the government from the hands of none more disposed to 
make the business pleasant to me than you will be." 1 And 
then he goes on : " You perceive that, in accordance with the 
decree of the Senate, the province has to be occupied." His 
next letter on the subject was written to Atticus while he was 
still in Italy, but when he had started on his journey. " In 
your farewell to me," he says, " I have seen the nature of your 
love to me. I know well what is my own for you. It must, 
then, be your peculiar care to see lest by any new arrange- 
ment this parting of ours should be prolonged beyond one 
year." 2 Then he goes on to tell the story of a scene that had 
occurred at Arcanum, a house belonging to his brother Quin- 
tus, at which he had stopped on the road for a family farewell. 
Pomponia was there, the wife of Quintus and the sister to 
Atticus. There were a few words between the husband and 
the wife as to the giving of the invitation for the occasion, 
in which the lady behaved with much Christian perversity of 

1 Ad Div., lib. iii., 2. » Ad Att, lib. v., 1. 



80 LIFE OF CICERO. 

temper. " Alas," says Quintus to his brother, " you see what 
it is that I have to suffer every day !" Knowing as we all do 
how great were the powers of the Roman paterfamilias, and 
how little woman's rights had been ventilated in those days, 
we should have thought that an ex-Prsetor micrht have man- 
aged his home more comfortably ; but ladies, no doubt, have 
had the capacity to make themselves disagreeable in all ages. 

I doubt whether we have any testimony whatever as to Cice- 
ro's provincial government, except that which comes from him- 
self and which is confined to the letters written by him at the 
time. 1 Nevertheless, we have a clear record of his doings, so 
full and satisfactory are the letters which he then wrote. The 
truth of his account of himself has never been questioned. He 
draws a picture of his own integrity, his own humanity, and 
his own power of administration which is the more astonish- 
ing, because we cannot but compare it with the pictures which 
we have from the same hand of the rapacity, the cruelty, and 
the tyranny of other governors. We have gone on learning 
from his speeches and his letters that these were habitual 
plunderers, tyrants, and malefactors, till we are taught to ac- 
knowledge that, in the low condition to which Roman nature 
had fallen, it was useless to expect any other conduct from a 
Roman governor; and then he gives us the account of how a 
man did govern, when, as by a miracle, a governor had been 
found honest, clear-headed, sympathetic, and benevolent. That 
man was himself; and he gives this account of himself, as it 
were, without a blush ! He tells the story of himself, not as 
though it was remarkable ! That other governors should grind 
the bones of their subjects to make bread of them, and draw 

1 Abeken points out to us, in dealing with the year in which Cicero's 
government came to an end, b.c. 50, that Cato's letters to Cicero (Ad Fam., 
lib. xv., 5) bear irrefutable testimony as to the real greatness of Cicero. 
See the translation edited by Merivale, p. 235. This applies to his con- 
duct in Cilicia, and may thus be taken as evidence outside his own, though 
addressed to himself. 



CILIUIA. 81 

the blood from their veins for drink; but that Cicero should 
not condescend to take even the normal tribute when willingly 
offered, seems to Cicero to have been only what the world had 
a right to expect from him ! A wonderful testimony is this 
as to the man's character; but surely the universal belief in 
his own account of his own governorship is more wonderful. 
"The conduct of Cicero in his command was meritorious," 
says De Quincey. " His short career as Proconsul in Cilicia 
had procured for him well-merited honor," says Dean Meri- 
vale. 1 " He had managed his province well ; no one ever 
suspected Cicero of being corrupt or unjust," says Mr. Froude, 
who had, however, said (some pages before) that Cicero was 
" thinking as usual of himself first, and his duty afterward." 3 
Dio Cassius, who is never tired of telling disagreeable stories 
of Cicero's life, says not a word of his Cilician government, 
from which we may, at any rate, argue that no stories detri- 
mental to Cicero as a Proconsul had come in the way of Dio 
Cassius. I have confirmed what I have said as to this episode 
in Cicero's life by the corroborating testimony of writers who 
have not been generally favorable in their views of his charac- 
ter. Nevertheless, we have no testimony but his own as to 
what Cicero did in Cilicia. 3 

It has never occurred to any reader of Cicero's letters to 
doubt a line in which he has spoken directly of his own con- 
duct. His letters have often been used against himself, but 
in a different manner. He has been judged to give true testi- 
mony against himself, but not false testimony in his own fa- 
vor. His own record has been taken sometimes as meaning 
what it has not meant — and sometimes as implying much 
more that the writer intended. A word which has required 
for its elucidation an insight into the humor of the man has 
been read amiss, or some trembling admissions to a friend of 



1 The Roman Triumvirate, p. 107. s Caesar, a Sketch, pp. 170, 341. 

3 Professor Mommsen says no word of Cicero's government in Cilicia. 

4* 



82 LIFE OF CICERO. 

shortcoming in the purpose of the moment has been presumed 
to refer to a continuity of weakness. He has been injured, 
not by having his own words as to himself discredited, but by 
having them too well credited where they have been misunder- 
stood. It is at any rate the fact that his own account of his 
own proconsular doings has been accepted in full, and that the 
present reader may be encouraged to believe what extracts I 
may give to him by the fact that all other readers before him 
have believed them. 

From his villa at Cumas on his journey he wrote to Atticus 
in high spirits. Hortensius had been to see him — his old rival, 
his old predecessor in the glory of the Forum — Hortensius, 
whom he was fated never to see again. His only request to 
Hortensius had been that he should assist in taking care that 
he, Cicero, should not be required to stay above one year in 
his province. Atticus is to help him also ; and another friend, 
Furnius, who may probably be the Tribune for the next year, 
has been canvassed for the same object. In a further letter 
from Beneventum he alludes to a third marriage for his daugh- 
ter Tullia, but seems to be aware that, as he is leaving Italy, he 
cannot interfere in that matter himself. He writes again from 
Venusia, saying that he purports to see Pompey at Tarentum 
before he starts, and gives special instructions to Atticus as to 
the payment of a debt which is due by him to Csesar. He 
has borrowed money of Caesar, and is specially anxious that 
the debt should be settled. In another letter from Tarentum 
he presses the same matter. He is anxious to be relieved from 
the obligation. 1 

1 I cannot but refer to Mommsen's account of this transaction, book 
v., chap. viii. : " Golden fetters were also laid upon him," Cicero. " Amid 
the serious embarrassments of his finances the loans of Caesar free of in- 
terest * * * were in a high degree welcome to him ; and many an immor- 
tal oration for the Senate was nipped in the bud by the thought that the 
agent of Caesar might present a bill to him after the close of the sitting." 
There are many assertions here for which I have looked in vain for the 



CILIGIA. 83 

From Athens lie wrote again to his friend a letter which 
is chiefly remarkable as telling us something of the quarrel 
between Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who was one of the Con- 
suls for the year, and Caesar, who was still absent in Gaul. 
This Marcellus, and others of his family who succeeded him 
in his office, were hotly opposed to Caesar, belonging to that 
party of the State to which Cicero was attached, and to which 
Pompey was returning. 1 It seems to have been the desire of 
the Consul not only to injure but to insult Caesar. He had 
endeavored to get a decree of the Senate for recalling Caesar 
at once, but had succeeded only in having his proposition post- 
poned for consideration in the following year — when Caesar 
would naturally return. But to show how little was his re- 
gard to Caesar, he caused to be flogged in Rome a citizen from 

authority. I do not know that Cicero's finances were seriously embarrass- 
ed at the time. The evidence goes rather to show that they were not so. 
Had he ever taken more than one loan from Caesar? I find nothing as 
to any question of interest ; but I imagine that Caesar treated Cicero as 
Cicero afterward treated Pompey when he lent him money. We do not 
know whether even Crassus charged Caesar interest. We may presume 
that a loan is always made welcome, or the money would not be borrowed, 
but the " high degree of welcome," as applied to this especial loan, ought 
to have some special justification. As to Cicero's anxiety in borrowing 
the money I know nothing, but he was very anxious to pay it. The bor- 
rowing and the lending of money between Roman noblemen was very com- 
mon. No one had ever borrowed so freely as Cffisar had done. Cicero 
was a lender and a borrower, but I think that he was never seriously em- 
barrassed. What oration was nipped in the bud by fear of his creditor ? 
He had lately spoken twice for Saufeius, once against S. Clodius, and against 
Plancus — in each case opposing the view of Caesar, as far as Caesar had 
views on the matter. The sum borrowed on this occasion was 800,000 
sesterces — between £6000 and £7000. A small additional sum of £100 
is mentioned in one of the letters to Atticus, lib. v., 5., which is, however, 
spoken of by Cicero as forming one whole with the other. I can hardly 
think that Mommsen had this in view when he spoke of loans in the plu- 
ral number. 

1 M. C. Marcellus was Consul B.C. 51 ; his brother, C. Claudius Marcellus, 
was Consul B.C. 50 ; another C. Claudius Marcellus, a cousin, in b.c. 49. 



84 LIFE OF CICERO. 

one of those towns of Cisalpine Gaul to which Caesar had as- 
sumed to give the privilege of Roman citizenship. The man 
was present as a delegate from his town, Novocomum 1 — the 
present Como — in furtherance of the colony's claims, and the 
Consul had the man flogged to show thereby that he was not 
a Roman. Marcellus was punished for his insolence by ban- 
ishment, inflicted by Caesar when Csesar was powerful. We 
shall learn before long how Cicero made an oration in his fa- 
vor ; but, in the letter written from Athens, he blames Marcel- 
lus much for flogging the man. 2 "Fight in my behalf," he 
says, in the course of this letter; "for if my government be 
prolonged, I shall fail and become mean." The idea of ab- 
sence from Rome is intolerable to him. From Athens also he 
wrote to his young friend Cselius, from whom he had requested 
information as to what was going on in Rome. But Caelius 
has to be again instructed as to the nature of the subjects 
which are to be regarded as interesting. " What ! — do you 
think that I have asked you to send me stories of gladiators, 
law-court adjournments, and the pilferings of Christus — trash 
that no one would think of mentioning to me if I were in 
Rome?" 3 But he does not finish his letter to Caelius without 
begging Caelius to assist in bringing about his speedy recall. 
Cselius troubles him much afterward by renewed requests for 
Cilician panthers wanted for ^Edilian shows. Cicero becomes 
very sea-sick on his journey, and then reaches Ephesus, in Asia 
Minor, dating his arrival there on the five hundred and sixtieth 

1 Mommsen calls him a " respected Senator." M. De Guerle, in his pref- 
ace to the oration Pro Marcello, claims for him the position of a delegate. 
He was probably both — though we may doubt whether he was " respect- 
ed " after his flogging. 

2 Ad Att.,lib. v., 11 : "Marcellus foede in Comensi ;" and he goes on to 
say that even if the man had been no magistrate, and therefore not en- 
titled to full Roman treatment, yet he was a Transalpine, and therefore not 
subject to the scourge. See Mr. Watson's note in his Select Letters. 

3 Ad Div., lib. ii., 8. 



CILICIA. 85 

day from the battle of Bovilla, showing how much the contest 
as to Milo still clung to his thoughts. 1 Ephesus was not in his 
province, but at Ephesus all the magistrates came out to do him 
honor, as though he had come among them as their governor. 
" Now has arrived," he says, " the time to justify all those dec- 
larations which I have made as to my own conduct ; but I 
trust I can practise the lessons which I have learned from you." 
Atticus, in his full admiration of his friend's character, had 
doubtless said much to encourage and to instigate the virtue 
which it was Cicero's purpose to employ. We have none of 
the words ever written by Atticus to Cicero, but we have light 
enough to show us that the one friend was keenly alive to the 
honor of the other, and thoroughly appreciated its beauty. " Do 
not let me be more than a year away," he exclaims ; " do not 
let even another month be added." 2 Then there is a letter 
from Crelius praying for panthers. 3 In passing through the 
province of Asia to his own province, he declares that the peo- 
ple everywhere receive him well. " My coming," he says, " has 
cost no man a shilling." 4 His whole staff has now joined him 
except one Tullius, whom he speaks of as a friend of Atticus, 
but afterward tells us he had come to him from Titinius. Then 
he again enjoins Atticus to have that money paid to Caesar. 
From Tralles, still in the province of Asia, he writes to Appius, 
the outgoing governor, a letter full of courtesies, and expressing 
an anxious desire for a meeting. He had offered before to go 
by any route which might suit Appius, but Appius, as appears 
afterward, was anxious for anything rather than to encounter 
the new governor within the province he was leaving. 5 

On 31st July he reached Laodicea, within his own bound- 
aries, having started on his journey on 10th May, and found all 

1 Ad Att., lib. v., 13. 

2 Ibid.: " Quaeso ut simus annui ; ne intercaletur quidem." It might be 
that an intercalary month should be added, and cause delay. 

3 Ad Div., lib. viii., 2 : " Ut tibi curse sit quod ad pantheras attiuet." 

4 Ad Att., lib. v., 14. 6 Ad Div., lib. hi., 5. 



86 LIFE OF CICERO. 

people glad to see him ; but the little details of his office harass 
him sadly. " The action of my mind, which you know so well, 
cannot find space enough. All work worthy of my industry is 
at an end. I have to preside at Laodicea while some Plotius 
is giving -judgment at Rome. * * * And then am I not regretting 
at every moment the life of Rome — the Forum, the city itself, 
my own house? Am I not always regretting you? I will en- 
deavor to bear it for a year; but if it be prolonged, then it 
will be all over with me. * * * You ask me how I am getting on. 
I am spending a fortune in carrying out this grand advice of 
yours. I like it hugely ; but when the time comes for paying 
you your debts I shall have to renew the bill. * * * To make me 
do such work as this is putting a saddle upon a cow " — cutting 
a block with a razor, as we should say — " clearly I am not made 
for it; but I will bear it, so that it be only for one year." 1 

From Laodicea, a town in Phrygia, he went west to Synnada. 
His province, known as Cilicia, contained the districts named 
on the map of Asia Minor as Phrygia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, part 
of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the island of Cyprus. He soon 
found that his predecessors had ruined the people. " Know 
that I have come into a province utterly and forever destroyed," 
he says to Atticus. 2 " We hear only of taxes that cannot be 
paid, of men's chattels sold on all sides, of the groans from the 
cities, of lamentations, of horrors such as some wild beast might 
have produced rather than a human being. There is no room 
for question. Every man is tired of his life ; and yet some 
relief is given now, because of me, and by my officers, and by 
my lieutenants. No expense is imposed on any one. We do 
not take even the hay which is allowed by the Julian law — not 
even the wood. Four beds to lie on is all we accept, and a roof 
over our heads. In many places not even that, for we live in 
our tents. Enormous crowds therefore come to us, and return, 
as it were, to life through the justice and moderation of your 

1 Ad Att.,lib.v., 15. 2 Ibid., 16. 



CIL1CIA. 87 

Cicero. Appius, when he knew that I was come, ran away to 
Tarsus, the farthest point of the province." What a picture 
we have here of the state of a Roman dependency under a nor- 
mal Roman governor, and of the good which a man could do 
who was able to abstain from plunder ! In his next letter his 
pride expresses itself so loudly that we have to remember that 
this man, after all, is writing only his own secret thoughts to his 
bosom friend. " If I can get away from this quickly, the hon- 
ors which will accrue to me from my justice will be all the 
greater, as happened to Sca3vola, who was governor in Asia 
only for nine months." 1 Then again he declares how Appius 
had escaped into the farthest corner of the province — to Tar- 
sus — when he knew that Cicero was coming. 

He writes again to Appius, complaining. " When I com- 
pare my conduct to yours," he says, " I own that I much pre- 
fer my own." 2 He had taken every pains to meet Appius in 
a manner convenient to him, but had been deceived on every 
side. Appius had, in a way unusual among Roman governors, 
carried on his authority in remote parts of the province, al- 
though he had known of his successor's arrival. Cicero assures 
him that he is quite indifferent to this. If Appius will relieve 
him of one month's labor out of the twelve he will be delight- 
ed. But why has Appius taken away three of the fullest co- 
horts, seeing that in the entire province the number of soldiers 
left has been so small ? But he assures Appius that, as he 
makes his journey, neither good nor bad shall hear evil spoken 
by him of his predecessor. " But as for you, you seem to 
have given to the dishonest reasons for thinking badly of me." 
Then he describes the exact course he means to take in his 
further journey, thus giving Appius full facility for avoiding 
him. 

From Cybistra, in Cappadocia, he writes official letters to 
Caius Marcellus, who had been just chosen Consul, the broth- 

1 Ad Att., lib. v., 11. s Ad Div., lib. iii., 6. 



88 LIFE OF CICERO. 

er of Marcus the existing Consul ; to an older Cains Marcellus, 
who was their father, a colleague of his own in the College of 
Augurs, and to Marcus the existing Consul, with his congratu- 
lations ; also to ^Erailius Paulus, who had also been elected 
Consul for the next year. He writes, also, a despatch to the 
Consuls, to the Praetors, to the Tribunes, and to the Senate, 
giving them a statement as to affairs in the province. These 
are interesting, rather as showing the way in which these things 
were done, than by their own details. When he reaches Cili- 
cia proper he writes them another despatch, telling them that 
the Parthians had come across the Euphrates. He writes as 
Wellington may have done from Torres Vedras. He bids them 
look after the safety of their Eastern dominions. Though 
they are too late in doing this, yet better now than never. 1 
"You know," he says, "with what sort of an army you have 
supported me here ; and you know also that I have undertaken 
this duty not in blind folly, but because in respect for the Re- 
public I have not liked to refuse. * * * As for our allies here 
in the province, because our rule here has been so severe and 
injurious, they are either too weak to help us, or so embittered 
against us that we dare not trust them." 

Then there is a long letter to Appius, 2 respecting the em- 
bassy which was to be sent from the province to Rome, to 
carry the praises of the departing governor and declare his 
excellence as a Proconsul ! This was quite the usual thing 
to do ! The worse the governor the more necessary the em- 
bassy ; and such was the terror inspired even by a departing 
Roman, and such the servility of the allies — even of those who 
were about to escape from him — that these embassies were a 
matter of course. There had been a Sicilian embassy to praise 
Verres. Appius had complained as though Cicero had impeded 
this legation by restricting the amount to be allowed for its ex- 
penses. He rebukes Appius for bringing the charge against him. 

1 Ad Div., lib. xv., 1. s Ibid., Hi., 8. 



CILICIA. 89 

The series of letters written this year by Caelius to Cicero is 
very interesting as giving us a specimen of continued corre- 
spondence other than Ciceronian. We have among the eight 
hundred and eighty-five letters ten or twelve from Brutus, if 
those attributed to him were really written by him ; ten or 
twelve from Decimus Brutus, and an equal number from Plan- 
cus; but these were written in the stirring moments of the last 
struggle, and are official or military rather than familiar. We 
have a few from Quintus, but not of special interest unless we 
are to consider that treatise on the duties of a candidate as a 
letter. But these from Caelius to his older friend are genuine 
and natural as those from Cicero himself. There are seventeen. 
They are scattered oyer three or four years, but most of them 
refer to the period of Cicero's provincial government. 

The marvel to me is that Caelius should have adopted a style 
so near akin to that of his master in literature. Scholars who 
have studied the words can probably tell us of deficiencies in 
language ; but the easy, graphic tone is to my ear Ciceronian. 
Tiro, who was slave, secretary, freedman, and then literary ex- 
ecutor, may have had the handling of these letters, and have 
done something toward producing their literary excellence. 
The subjects selected were not always good, and must occa- 
sionally have produced in Cicero's own mind a repetition of 
the reprimand which he once expressed as to the gladiatorial 
shows and law-court adjournments; but Caelius does com- 
municate much of the political news from Rome. In one let- 
ter, written in October of this year, he declares what the Senate 
has decreed as to the recall of Caesar from Gaul, and gives the 
words of the enactments made, with the names subscribed to 
them of the promoters — and also the names of the Tribunes 
who had endeavored to oppose them. 1 The purport of these 
decrees I have mentioned before. The object was to recall 
Caesar, and the effect was to postpone any such recall till it 

1 Ad Div., lib. viii., 8. 



90 LIFE OF CICERO. 

would mean nothing ; but Caelius specially declares that the 
intention of recalling Caesar was agreeable to Pompey, where- 
by we may know that the pact of the Triumvirate was already 
at an end. In another letter he speaks of the coming of the 
Parthians, and of Cicero's inability to fight with them because 
of the inadequate number of soldiers intrusted to him. Had 
there been a real Roman army, then Ccelius would have been 
afraid, he says, for his friend's life. As it is, he fears only for 
his reputation, lest men should speak ill of him for not fight- 
ing, when to fight was beyond his power. 1 The language 
here is so pretty that I am tempted to think that Tiro must 
have had a hand in it. At Rome, we must remember, the ti- 
dings as to Crassus were as yet uncertain. We cannot, however, 
doubt that Caelius was in truth attached to Cicero. 

But Cicero was forced to fight, not altogether unwillingly — 
not with the Parthians, but with tribes which were revolting 
from Roman authority because of the Parthian success. " It 
has turned out as you wished it," he says to Caelius — " a job 
just sufficient to give me a small coronet of laurel." Hearing 
that men had risen in the Taunus range of mountains, which di- 
vided his province from that of Syria, in which Bibulus was 
now governor, he had taken such an army as he was able to col- 
lect to the Amanus, a mountain belonging to that range, and 
was now writing from his camp at Pindenissum, a place beyond 
his own province. Joking at his own soldiering, he tells Cae- 
lius that he had astonished those around him by his prow- 
ess. " Is this he whom we used to know in the city ? Is this 
our talkative Senator? You can understand the things they 
said. 2 * * * When I got to the Amanus I was glad enough to 
find our friend Cassius had beaten back the real Parthians from 
Antioch." But Cicero claims to have done some gallant things : 
" I have harassed those men of Amanus who are always trou- 
bling us. Many I have killed ; some I have taken ; the rest are 

1 Ad Div., lib. viii., 10. 2 Ibid., ii., 10. 



C1L1CIA. 91 

j dispersed. I came suddenly upon their strongholds, and have 
! got possession of thera. I was called ' Imperator ' at the river 
i Issus." It is hardly necessary to explain, yet once again, that 
this title belonged properly to no commander till it had been 
accorded to him by his own soldiers on the field of battle. 1 
He reminds Caelius that it was on the Issus that Alexander had 
conquered Darius. Then he had sat down before Pindenissum 
with all the machinery of a siege — with the turrets, covered- 
ways, and ramparts. He had not as yet quite taken the town. 
When he had done so, he would send home his official account 
of it all ; but the Parthians may yet come, and there may be 
danger. " Therefore, O my Rufus " — he was Cselius Rufus — 
"see that I am not left here, lest, as you suspect, things should 
go badly with me." There is a mixture in all this of earnest- 
ness and of drollery, of boasting and of laughing at what he 
was doing, which is inimitable in its reality. His next letter 
is to his other young friend, Curio, who has just been elected 
Tribune. He gives much advice to Curio, who certainly al- 
ways needed it. 2 He carries on the joke when he tells Atticus 
that the " people of Pindenissum have surrendered." " Who 
the mischief are these Pindenissians? you will say. I have ^ 
not even heard the name before. What would you have? I 
cannot make an ^Etolia out of Cilicia. With such an army as 
this do you expect me to do things like a Macedonicusf * * * I 
had my camp on the Issus, where Alexander had his — a better 
soldier no doubt than you or I. I really have made a name 
for myself in Syria. Then up comes Bibulus, determined to 

1 This mode of greeting a victorious general had no doubt become absurd 
in the time of Cicero, when any body of soldiers would be only too willing 
to curry favor with the officer over them by this acclamation. Cicero 
ridicules this ; but is at the same time open to the seduction — as a man 
with us will laugh at the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases who are seated around 
him, but still, when his time comes, will be pleased that his wife shall be 
called " My Lady" like the rest of them. 

2 Ad Div., lib. ii., 1. 3 Ad Att., lib. v., 2. 



92 LIFE OF CICERO. 

be as good as I am ; but he loses bis whole cohort." The fail- 
ure made by Bibulus at soldiering is quite as much to him as 
his own success. Then he goes back to Laodicea, leaving the 
army in winter- quarters, under the command of his brother 
Quintus. 

But his heart is truly in other matters, and he bursts out, in 
the same letter, with enthusiastic praise of the line of conduct 
which Atticus has laid down for him: '"But that which is 
more to me than anything is that I should live so that even 
that fellow Cato cannot find fault with me. May I die, if it 
could be done better. Nor do T take praise for it as though I 
was doing something distasteful ; I never was so happy as in 
practising this moderation. The thing itself is better to me 
even than the reputation of it. What would you have me say ? 
It was worth my while to be enabled thus to try myself, so 
that I might know myself as to what I could do." 

Then there is a long letter to Cato in which he repeats the 
story of his grand doings at Pindenissum. The reader will be 
sure that a letter to Cato cannot be sincere and pleasant as are 
those to Atticus and Cajlius. " If there be one man far re- 
moved from the vulgar love of praise, it is I," he says to 
Cato. 1 He tells Cato that they two are alike in all things. 
They two only have succeeded in carrying the true ancient 
philosophy into the practice of the Forum. Never surely were 
two men more unlike than the stiff-necked Cato and the ver- 
satile Cicero. 

Lucius JEmilius Paullus and C. Clodius Marcellus were Con- 
suls for the next year. Cicero writes to both of them 
£etat. 5 57. w * ta tenders of friendship ; but from both of them he 
asks that they should take care to have a decree of the 
Senate passed praising his doings in Cilicia. 2 With us, too, a 

1 Ad Div., lib. xv., 4. 

2 Ibid., xv., 10, and lib. xv., 13 : " Ut quam honorificentissimum senatus 
consultum de meis rebus gestis faciendum cures." 



CILICIA. 93 

returning governor is anxious enough for a good word from 
the Prime-minister; but he does not ask for it so openly. The 
next letter from Crelius tells him that Appius has been accused 
as to malpractices in his government, and that Pompey is in 
favor of Appius. Curio has gone over to Caesar. But the im- 
portant subject is the last handled : " It will be mean in you if 
I should have no Greek panthers." 1 The next refers to the 
marriages and divorces of certain ladies, and ends with an an- 
ecdote told as to a gentleman with just such ill-natured wit as 
is common in London. No one could have suspected Ocella 
of looking after his neighbor's wife unless he had been detect- 
ed thrice in the fact. 2 

From Laodicea he answers a querulous letter which his 
predecessor had written, complaining, among other things, that 
Cicero had failed to show him personal respect. He proves 
that he had not done so, and then rises to a strain of indigna- 
tion. "Do you think that your grand old names will affect 
me who, even before I had become great in the service of my 
country, knew how to distinguish between titles and the men 
who bore them ?" 3 

The next letter to Appius is full of flattery, and asking for 
favors, but it begins with a sharp reproof. " Now at last I 
have received an epistle worthy of Appius Claudius. The sight 
of Rome has restored you to your good-humor. Those I got 
from you in your journey were such that I could not read them 
without displeasure." 4 

In February Cicero wrote a letter to Atticus which is, I 
think, more expressive in describing the mind of the man than 
any other which we have from him. In it is commenced the 
telling of a story respecting Brutus — the Brutus we all know 
so well — and one Scaptius, of whom, no one would have heard 
but for this story, which, as it deeply affects the character of 
Cicero, must occupy a page or two in our narrative ; but I 

1 Ad Div., lib. viii., 6. 2 Ibid., 7. 3 Ibid., iii., 1. 4 Ibid., 9. 



94 LIFE OF CICERO. 

must first refer to his own account of his own government as 
again given here. Nothing was ever so wonderful to the in- 
habitants of a province as that they should not have been put 
to a shilling of expense since he had entered it. Not a penny 
had been taken on his own behalf or on that of the Republic 
by any belonging to him, except on one day by one Tullius, 
and by him indeed under cover of the law. This dirty fel- 
low was a follower with whom Titinius had furnished him. 
When he was passing from Tarsus back into the centre of his 
province wondering crowds came out to him, the people not 
understanding how it had been that no letters had been sent 
to them exacting money, and that none of his staff had been 
quartered on them. In former years during the winter months 
they had groaned under exactions. Municipalities with money 
at their command had paid large sums to save themselves from 
the quartering of soldiers on them. The island of Cyprus, 
which on a former occasion had been made to pay nearly 
£50,000 on this head, 1 had been asked for nothing by him. 
He had refused to have any honors paid to him in return for 
this conduct. He had prohibited the erection of statues, 
shrines, and bronze chariots in his name — compliments to Ro- 
man generals which had become common. The harvest that 
year was bad ; but so fully convinced were the people of his 
honest dealing, that they who had saved up corn — the regist- 
ers — brought it freely into market at his coming. As some 
scourge from hell must have been the presence of such govern- 
ors as Appius and his predecessors among a people timid but 
industrious like these Asiatic Greeks. Like an unknown, un- 
expected blessing, direct from heaven, must have been the com- 
ing of a Cicero. 

Now I will tell the story of Brutus and Scaptius and their 

1 The amount seems so incredible that I cannot but suspect an error in 
the MS. The sum named is two hundred Attic talents. The Attic talent, 
according to Smith's dictionary, was worth £243 13s. It may be that this 
large amount had been collected over a series of years. 



CILICIA. 95 

money — premising that it has been told by Mr. Forsyth with 
great accuracy and studied fairness. Indeed, there is not a line 
in Mr. Forsyth's volume which is not governed by a spirit of 
justice. He, having thought that Cicero had been too highly 
praised by Middleton, and too harshly handled by subsequent 
critics, has apparently written his book with the object of set- 
ting right these exaggerations. But in his comments on this 
matter of Brutus and Scaptius he seems to me not to have con- 
sidered the difference in that standard of honor and honesty 
which governs himself, and that which prevailed in the time of 
Cicero. Not seeing, as I think, how impossible it was for a 
Roman governor to have achieved that impartiality of justice 
with which a long course of fortunate training has imbued an 
English judge, he accuses Cicero of " trifling with equity." 
The marvel to me is that one man such as Cicero — a man sin- 
gle in his purpose — should have been able to raise his own ideas 
of justice so high above the level prevailing with the best of 
those around him. It had become the nature of a Roman aris- 
tocrat to pillage an ally till hardly the skin should be left to 
cover the man's bones. Out of this nature Cicero elevated him- 
self completely. In his own conduct he was free altogether 
from stain. The question here arose how far he could dare to 
go on offending the instincts, the habits, the nature, of other 
noble Romans, in protecting from their rapacity the poor sub- 
jects who were temporarily beneath his charge. It is easy for 
a judge to stand indifferent between a great man and a little 
when the feelings of the world around him are in favor of such 
impartiality ; but it must have been hard enough to do so when 
such conduct seemed to the noblest Romans of the day to be 
monstrous, fanatical, and pretentious. 

In this case Brutus, our old friend whom all English readers 
have so much admired because he dared to tell his brother-in- 
law Cassius that he was 

" Much condemned to have an itching palm," 



96 LIFE OF CICERO. 

appears before us in the guise of an usurious money-lender. It 
would be hard in the history of usury to come across the well- 
ascertained details of a more grasping, griping usurer. His 
practice had been of the kind which we may have been accus- I 
tomed to hear rebuked with the scathing indignation of our 
just judges. But yet Brutus was accounted one of the noblest 
Romans of the day, only second, if second, to Cato in general 
virtue and philosophy. In this trade of money-lending the 
Roman nobleman had found no more lucrative business than 
that of dealing with the municipalities of the allies. The cit- i 
ies were peopled by a money-making, commercial race, but they 
were subjected to the grinding impositions of their governors. 
Under this affliction they were constantly driven to borrow mon- 
ey, and found the capitalists who supplied it among the class 
by whom they were persecuted and pillaged. A Brutus lent 
the money which an Appius exacted — and did not scruple to 
do so at forty-eight per cent., although twelve per cent, per an- 
num, or one per cent, per month, was the rate of interest per- 
mitted by law. 

But a noble Roman such as Brutus did not carry on his busi- 
ness of this nature altogether in his own name. Brutus dealt 
with the municipality of Salamis in the island of Cyprus, and 
there had two agents, named Scaptius and Matinius, whom he 
specially recommended to Cicero as creditors of the city of Sal- 
amis, praying Cicero, as governor of the province, to assist these 
men in obtaining the payment of their debts. 1 This was quite 
usual, but it was only late in the transaction that Cicero became 
aware that the man really looking for his money was the noble 
Roman who gave the recommendation. Cicero's letter tells us 
that Scaptius came to him, and that he promised that for Bru- 
tus's sake he would take care that the people of Salamis should 
pay their debt. 2 Scaptius thanked him, and asked for an offi- 

1 Ad Att.,lib.v., 21. 

2 Ibid., vi., 1. This is the second letter to Atticus on the transaction, 



CILICIA. 97 

cial position in Salamis which would have given him the pow- 
j er of compelling the payment hy force. Cicero refused, ex- 
\ plaining that he had determined to give no such offices in his 
province to persons engaged in trade. lie had refused such 
' requests already — even to Pompey and to Torquatus. Appius 
had given the same man a military command in Salamis — no 
doubt also at the instance of Brutus — and the people of Sala- 
mis had been grievously harassed. Cicero had heard of this, 
and had recalled the man from Cyprus. Of this Scaptius had 
complained bitterly, and at last he and delegates from Salamis 
who were willing to pay their debt, if they could only do it 
without too great extortion, went together to Cicero who was 
then at Tarsus, in the most remote part of his province. Here 
he was called upon to adjudicate in the matter, Scaptius trust- 
ing to the influence which Brutus would naturally have with 
his friend the governor, and the men of Salamis to the reputa- 
tion for justice which Cicero had already created for himself 
in Cilicia. The reader must also be made to understand that 
Cicero had been entreated by Atticus to oblige Brutus, who was 
specially the friend of Atticus. He must remember also that 
this narrative is sent by Cicero to Atticus, who exhorted his 
correspondent, even with tears in his eyes, to be true to his hon- 
or in the government of his province. 1 He is appealing from 
Atticus to Atticus. I am bound to oblige you — but how can 
I do so in opposition to your own lessons ? That is his argu- 
ment to Atticus. 

Then there arises a question as to the amount of money due. 
The principal is not in dispute, but the interest. The money 
has been manifestly lent on an understanding that four per cent. 

and in this he asserts, as though apologizing for his conduct to Brutus, 
that he had not before known that the money belonged to Brutus himself : 
"Nunquam enim ex illo audivi illam pecuniam esse suam." 

1 In the letter last quoted, " Flens mihi meam famam commendasti. 
" Believe," he says, " that I cling to the doctrines which you yourself have 
taught me. They are fixed in my very heartstrings." 

II.— 5 



98 LIFE OF CICERO. 

per month, or forty-eight per cent, per annum, should be charged 
on it. But there has been a law passed that higher interest than 
one per cent, per month, or twelve per cent, per annum, shall not 
be legal. There has, however, been a counter decree made in re- 
gard to these very Salaminians, and made apparently at the in- 
stigation of Brutus, saying that any contract with them shall 
be held in force, notwithstanding the law. But Cicero again 
has made a decree that he will authorize no exaction above twelve 
per cent, in his province. The exact condition of the legal 
claim is less clear to me than to Mr. Forsyth, who has the ad- 
vantage of being a lawyer. Be that as it may, Cicero decides 
that twelve per cent, shall be exacted, and orders the Salaminians 
to pay the amount. To his request they demur, but at last 
agree to obey, alleging that they are enabled to do so by Cice- 
ro's own forbearance to them, Cicero having declined to accept 
the presents which had been offered to him from the island. 1 
They will therefore pay this money in some sort, as they say, 
out of the governor's own pocket. 

But when the sum is fixed, Scaptius, finding that he cannot 
get it over-reckoned after some fraudulent scheme of his own, 
declines to receive it. If with the assistance of a friendly gov- 
ernor he cannot do better than that for himself and his em- 
ployer, things must be going badly with Roman noblemen. 
But the delegates are now very anxious to pay this money, 
and offer to deposit it. Scaptius begs that the affair shall go 
no farther at present, no doubt thinking that he may drive a 
better bargain with some less rigid future governor. The del- 
egates request to be allowed to place their money as paid in 
some temple, by doing which they would acquit themselves of 
all responsibility ; but Cicero begs them to abstain. " Impe- 
travi ab Salaminiis ut silerent," he says. "I shall be grieved, 



1 See the former of the two letters, Ad Att., lib. v., 21 : " Quod enim 
praetori dare consuessent, quoniam ego non acceperam, se a me quodarn 
modo dare." 



CILICIA. 99 

indeed, that Brutus should be angry with me," he writes ; " but 
much more grieved that Brutus should have proved himself to 
be such as I shall have found him." 

Then comes the passage in his letter on the strength of 
which Mr. Forsyth has condemned Cicero, not without abstract 
truth in his condemnation : " They, indeed, have consented " 
— that is the Salaminians — " but what will befall them if some 
such governor as Paul us should come here ? And all this I 
have done for the sake of Brutus !" ^Emilius Paulus was the 
Consul, and might probably have Cilicia as a province, and 
would no doubt give over the Salaminians to Brutus and his 
myrmidons without any compunction. In strictness — with that 
assurance in the power of law by means of which our judges 
are enabled to see that their righteous decisions shall be car- 
ried out without detriment to themselves — Cicero should have 
caused the delegates from Salamis instantly to have deposited 
their money in the temple. Instead of doing so, he had only 
declared the amount due according to his idea of justice — in 
opposition to all Romans, even to Atticus — and had then con- 
sented to leave the matter, as for some further appeal. Do we 
not know how impossible it is for a man to abide strictly by 
the right, when the strict right is so much in advance of all 
around him as to appear to other eyes than his own as 
straitlaced, unpractical, fantastic, and almost inhuman ? Bru- 
tus wanted his money sorely, and Brutus was becoming a great 
political power on the same side with Pompey, and Cato, and 
the other " optimates." Even Atticus was interfering for Bru- 
tus. What other Roman governor of whom we have heard 
would have made a question on the subject ? Appius had lent 
a guard of horse-soldiers to this Scaptius with which he had 
outraged all humanity in Cyprus — had caused the councillors 
of the city to be shut up till they would come to obedience, in 
doing which he had starved five of them to death ! Nothing 
had come of this, such being the way with the Romans in 
their provinces. Yet Cicero, who had come among these poor 



100 LIFE OF CICERO. 

wretches as an unheard-of blessing from heaven, is held up to 
scorn because he " trifled with equity !" Equity with us runs 
glibly on all fours. With Appius in Cilicia it was utterly un- 
known. What are we to say of the man who, by the strength 
of his own conscience and by the splendor of his own intellect, 
could advance so far out of the darkness of his own age, and 
bring himself so near to the light of ours ! 

Let us think for a moment of our own Francis Bacon, a 
man more like to Cicero than any other that I can remember 
in history. They were both great lawyers, both statesmen, 
both men affecting the omne scibi/e, and coming nearer to it 
than perhaps any other whom we can name; both patriots, 
true to their conceived idea of government, each having risen 
from obscure position to great power, to wealth, and to rank ; ' 
each from his own education and his nature prone to com- 
promise, intimate with human nature, not over-scrupulous ei- 
ther as to others or as to himself. They were men intellectu- 
ally above those around them, to a height of which neither of 
them was himself aware. To flattery, to admiration, to friend- 
ship, and to love each of them was peculiarly susceptible. But 
one failed to see that it behooved him, because of his greatness, 
to abstain from taking what smaller men were grasping ; while 
the other swore to himself from his very outset that he would 
abstain — and kept the oath which he had sworn. I am one 
who would fain forgive Bacon for doing what I believe thaf 
others did around him ; but if I can find a man who never 
robbed, though all others around him did — in whose heart the 
"auri sacra fames 1 ' had been absolutely quenched, while the 
men with whom he had to live were sickening and dying with 
an unnatural craving — then I seem to have recognized a hero. 

Another complaint is made against Cicero as to Ariobar- 
zanes, the King of Cappadocia, and is founded, as are all com- 
plaints against Cicero, on Cicero's own telling of the story in 
question. Why there should have been complaint in this 
matter I have not been able to discover. Ariobarzanes was 



OLIVIA. 101 

one of those Eastern kings who became milch cows to the 
Roman nobles, and who, in their efforts to satisfy the Roman 
nobles, could only fleece tbeir own subjects. The power of 
this king to raise money seems to have been limited to about 
£8000 a month. 1 Out of this he offered a part to Cicero as 
the Proconsul who was immediately over him. This Cicero 
declined, but pressed the king to pay the money to the extor- 
tionate Brutus, who was a creditor, and who endeavored to get 
this money through Cicero. But Pompey also was a creditor, 
and Pompey's name was more dreadful to the king than that 
of Brutus. Pompey, therefore, got it all, though we are told 
that it was not enough to pay him his interest ; but Pompey, 
getting it all, was graciously pleased to be satisfied : " Cnteus 
noster clementer id fert." " Our Cicero puts up with that, and 
asks no questions about the capital," says Cicero, ironically. 
Pompey was too wise to kill the goose that laid such golden 
eggs. Nevertheless, we are told that Cicero, in this case, 
abused his proconsular authority in favor of Brutus. Cicero 
effected nothing for Brutus ; but, when there was a certain 

1 Ad Att., vi., 1 : " Tricesimo quoque die talenta Attica xxxiii., et hoc ex 
tributis." On every thirteenth day he gets thirty-three talents from the 
taxes, the talent being about j£243. Of the poverty of Ariobarzanes we 
have heard much, and of the number of slaves which reached Rome from 
his country. It was thus, probably, that the king paid Pompey his in- 
terest. 

Mancipiis locuples eget seris Cappadonum rex. — Hor. Epis., lib. i., vi. 

Persius tells us how the Roman slave-dealer was wont to slap the fat 
Cappadocian on the thigh to show how sound he was as he was selling 
him, Sat. vi., 77. "Cappadocis eques catastis" is a phrase used by Mar- 
tial, lib. x.,76, to describe from how low an origin a Roman knight might 
descend, telling us also that there were platforms erected for the express 
purpose of selling slaves from Cappadocia. Juvenal speaks also of 
"Equites Cappadoces" in the same strain, Sat. vii., 15. The descendant 
even of a slave from Cappadocia might rise to be a knight. From all this 
we may learn what was the source of the £8000 a month which Pompey 
condescended to take, and which Cicero describes as being " ex tributis." 



102 LIFE OF CICERO. 

amount of plunder to be divided among the Romans, refused 
any share for himself. Potnpey got it all, but not by Cicero's 
aid. 

There is another lono- letter, in which Cicero again, for the 
third time, tells the story of Brutus and Scaptius. 1 I mention 
it, as he continues to describe his own mode of doing his work. 
He has been at Laodicea from February to May, deciding ques- 
tions that had been there brought before him from all parts of 
his province except Cilicia proper. The cities which had been 
ground down by debt have been enabled to free themselves, 
and then to live under their own laws. This he has done by 
taking nothing from them for his own expenses — not a farthing. 
It is marvellous to see how the municipalities have sprung 
again into life under this treatment. " He has been enabled 
by this to carry on justice without obstruction and without 
severity. Everybody has been allowed approach to him — a 
custom which has been unknown in the provinces. There has 
been no back-stairs influence. He has walked openly in his 
own courts, as he used to do when a candidate at home. All 
this has been grateful to the people, and much esteemed ; nor 
has it been too laborious to himself, as he had learned the way 
of it in his former life." It was thus that Cicero governed 
Cilicia. 

There are further letters to Appius and Cselius, written from 
various parts of the province, which cannot fail to displease us 
because we feel that Cicero is endeavoring to curry favor. He 
wishes to stand well with those who mio;ht otherwise turn against 
him on his reappearance in Rome. He is afraid lest Appius 
should be his enemy and lest Pompey should not be his friend. 
The practice of justice and of virtue would, he knew, have much 
less effect in Rome than the friendship and enmity of such 
men. But to Atticus he bursts out into honest passion against 
Brutus. Brutus had recommended to him one Gavius, whom, 

1 Ad Att, lib. vi., 2. 



CILIC1A. 103 

to oblige Brutus, lie appointed to some office. Gavins was 
greedy, and insolent when his greed was not satisfied. "You 
have made me a prefect," said Gavius ; " where am I to go for 
my rations?" Cicero tells him that as he has done no work 
he will get no pay ; whereupon Gavius, quite unaccustomed to 
such treatment, goes off in a huff. " If Brutus can be stirred 
by the anger of such a knave as this," he says to Atticus, 
" you may love him, if you will, yourself ; you will not find me 
a rival for his friendship." 1 Brutus, however, became a favor- 
ite with Cicero, because he had devoted himself to literature. 
In judging these two men we should not lean too heavily on 
Brutus, because he did no worse than his neighbors. But 
then, how are we to judge of Cicero ? 

(in the latter months of his government there began a new 
trouble, in which it is difficult to sympathize with him, because 
we are unable to produce in our own minds a Roman's estima- 
tion of Roman things. With true spirit he had laughed at his 
own military doings at Pindenissum ; but not the less on that 
account was he anxious to enjoy the glories of a triumph, and 
to be dragged through the city on a chariot, with military 
trophies around him, as from time immemorial the Roman 
conquerors had been dragged when they returned from their 
victories. 

[For the old barbaric conquerors this had been fine enough. 
A display of armor — of helmets, of shields, and of swords — 
a concourse of chariots, of trumpets, and of slaves, of victims 
kept for the Tarpcian rock, the spoils and rapine of battle, the 
self-asserting glory of the big fighting hero, the pride of blood- 
shed, and the boasting over fallen cities, had been fit for men 
who had in their hearts conceived nothing greater than mili- 
tary renowiO Our sympathies go along with a Camillus or a 
Scipio steeped in the blood of Rome's enemies. A Marius, a 
Pompey, and again a few years afterward a Caesar, .were in 

1 Ad Att., lib. vi., 3. 



104 LIFE OF CICERO. 

their places as they were dragged along the Via Sacra up to 
the Capitol amid the plaudits of the city, in commemoration 
of their achievements in arms ; but it could not be so with 
Cicero. " Concedat laurea linguae" had been the watchword 
of his life. " Let the ready tongue and the fertile brain be 
held in higher honor than the strong right arm." That had 
been the doctrine which he had practised successfully. To 
him it had been given to know that the lawyer's gown was 
raiment worthier of a man than the soldier's breastplate. 
How, then, could it be that he should ask for so small a thing 
as a triumph in reward for so small a deed as that done at 
Pindenissum ? But it had become the way with all Proconsuls 
who of late years had been sent forth from Rome into the 
provinces. /Men to whose provincial government a few cohorts 
were attached aspired to be called "Imperator" by their sol- 
diers after mock battles, and thought that, as others had follow- 
ed up their sham victories with sham triumphs, it should be 
given to them to do the same. If Bibulus triumphed it would 
be a disgrace to Cicero not to triumph. We measure our ex- 
pected rewards not by our own merits but by the good things 
which have been conceded to others. To have returned from 
Pindenissum and not to be allowed the glory of trumpets would 
be a disgrace, in accordance with the theory then prevailing in 
Rome on such matters; therefore Cicero demanded a triumph. 
In such a matter it was in accordance with custom that the 
General should send an immediate account of his victorious 
doings, demand a " supplication," and have the triumph to be 
decreed to him or not after his return home. A supplication 
was in form a thanksgiving to the gods for the great favor 
shown by them to the State, but in fact took the guise of pub- 
lic praise bestowed upon the man by whose hands the good 
had been done. It was usually a reward for military success, 
but in the affair of Catiline a supplication had been decreed 
to Cicero for saving the city, though the service rendered 
had been of a civil nature. Cicero now applied for a sup- 



CILICIA. 105 

plication, and obtained it. Cato opposed it, and wrote a let- 
ter to Cicero explaining his motives — upon high republican 
principles. Cicero might have endured this more easily had 
not Cato voted for a supplication in honor of Bibulus, whose 
military achievements had, as Cicero thought, been less than 
his own. One Hirrus opposed it also, but in silence, having 
intended to allege that the numbers slain by Cicero in his 
battles were not sufficient to justify a supplication. We learn 
that, according to strict rule, two thousand dead men should 
have been left on the field. Cicero's victims had probably 
been much fewer ; nevertheless the supplication was granted, 
and Cicero presumed that the triumph would follow as a mat- 
ter of course. Alas, there came grievous causes to interfere 
with the triumph ! 

Of all that went on at Rome Caelius continued to send Cicero 
accounts. The Triumvirate was now over. Caelius says that 
Pompey will not attack Caesar openly, but that he does all he 
can to prevent Caesar from being elected Consul before he 
shall have given up his province and his army. 1 For details 
Caelius refers him to a Commentarium — a word which has 
been translated as meaning " newspaper " in this passage — by 
Melmoth. I think that there is no authority for this idea, and 
that the commentary was simply the compilation of Caelius, 
as were the commentaries we so well know the compilation 
of Caesar. The Acta Diurna were published by authority, and 
formed an official gazette. These no doubt reached Cicero, but 
were very different in their nature from the private record of 
things which he obtained from his friend. 

There are passages in Greek, in two letters 2 written about 
this time to Atticus, which refer to the matter from which 
probably arose his quarrel with his wife, and her divorce. He 
makes no direct allusion to his wife, but only to a freedman 
of hers, Philotomus. When Milo was convicted, his goods 

1 Ad Div., lib. viii., 11. 2 Ad Att.,lib. vi., 4, 5. 

5* 



106 LIFE OF CICERO. 

were confiscated and sold as a part of his punishment. Philo- 
tomus is supposed to have been a purchaser, aud to have made 
money out of the transaction — taking advantage of his position 
to acquire cheap bargains — as should not have been done by 
any one connected with Cicero, who had been Milo's friend. 
The cause of Cicero's quarrel with his wife has never been 
absolutely known, but it is supposed to have arisen from her 
want of loyalty to him in regard to money. She probably 
employed this freedman in filling her pockets at the expense 
of her husband's character. 

In his own letters he tells of preparations made for his re- 
turn, and allusions are made as to his expected triumph, 
cetat. 57 He is grateful to Caelius as to what has been done as 
to the supplication, and expresses his confidence that 
all the rest will follow. 1 He is so determined to hurry away 
that he will not wait for the nomination of a successor, and 
resolves to put the government into the hands of any one of 
his officers who may be least unfit to hold it. His brother 
Quintus was his lieutenant, but if he left Quintus people would 
say of him that in doing so he was still keeping the emolu- 
ments in his own hands. At last he determines to intrust it 
to a young Quaestor named C. Caelius — no close connection of 
his friend Cselius, as Cicero finds himself obliged to apologize 
for the selection to his friend. " Young, you will s&y. No 
doubt ; but he had been elected Quaestor, and is of noble 
birth." 2 So he gives over the province to the young man, 
having no one else fitter. 

Cicero tells us afterward, when at Athens on his way home, 
that he had considerable trouble with his own people on with- 
holding certain plunder which was regarded by them as their 
perquisite. He had boasted much of their conduct — having 
taken exception to one Tullius, who had demanded only a little 



1 Ad Div., lib. ii., 15 : " Scito me sperare ea quae sequuntur." 

2 Ibid. 



CILICIA. 107 

hay and a little wood. But now there came to be pickings — 
savings out of bis own proconsular expenses — to part with 
which at the last moment was too hard upon them. " How 
difficult is virtue," he exclaims; "how doubly difficult to pre- 
tend to act up to it when it is not felt I" 1 There bad been a 
certain sum saved which he had been proud to think that he 
would return to the treasury. But the satellites were all in 
arms : " Ingemuit nostra cohors." Nevertheless, he disregard- 
ed the "cohort," and paid the money into the treasury. 

As to the sum thus saved, there has been a dispute which 
has given rise to some most amusing literary vituperation. 
The care with which MSS. have been read now enables us to 
suppose that it was ten hundred thousand sesterces — thus ex- 
pressed, " H. S. X." — amounting to something over £8000. We 
bear elsewhere, as will be mentioned again, that Cicero real- 
ized out of his own legitimate allowance in Cilicia a profit of 
about £18,000 ; and we may imagine that the " cohort " should 
think itself aggrieved in losing £8000 which they expected to 
have divided among them. Middleton has made a mistake, 
having supposed the X to be CIq or M — a thousand instead of 
ten — and quotes the sum saved as having amounted to eight 
hundred thousand instead of eight thousand pounds. We 
who have had so much done for us by intervening research, 
and are but ill entitled to those excuses for error which may 
fairly be put forward on Middleton's behalf, should be slow 
indeed in blaming him for an occasional mistake, seeing how 
he has relieved our labors by infinite toil on his part ; but De 
Quincey, who has been very rancorous against Cicero, has risen 
to a fury of wrath in his denunciation of Cicero's great biog- 
rapher. " Conycrs Middleton," he says, " is a name that can- 
not be mentioned without an expression of disgust." The 
cause of this was that Middleton, a beneficed clergyman of the 
Church of England, and a Cambridge man, differed from other 

1 Ad Att., lib. vii.,1. 



108 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Cambridge clergymen on controversial points and church ques- 
tions. Bentley was his great opponent — and as Bentley was a 
stout fighter, so was Middleton. Middleton, on the whole, got 
the worst of it, because Bentley was the stronger combatant ; 
but he seems to have stood in good repute all his life, and 
when advanced in years was appointed Professor of Natural 
History. He is known to us, however, only as the biographer 
of Cicero. Of this book, Monk, the biographer of Middleton's 
great opponent, Bentley, declares that, " for elegance, purity, 
and ease, Middleton's style yields to none in the English lan- 
guage." De Quincey says of it that, by " weeding away from 
it whatever is colloquial, you would strip it of all that is char- 
acteristic " — meaning, I suppose, that the work altogether wants 
dignity of composition. This charge is, to my thinking, so ab- 
solutely contrary to the fact, that it needs only to be named 
to be confuted by the opinion of all who have read the work. 
De Quincey pounces upon the above-named error with pro- 
foundest satisfaction, and tells us a pleasant little story about 
an old woman who thought that four million people had been 
once collected at Caernarvon. Middleton had found the figure 
wrongly deciphered and wrongly copied for him, and had trans- 
lated it as he found it, without much thought. De Quincey 
thinks that the error is sufficient to throw over all faith in the 
book : " It is in the light of an evidence against Middleton's 
good -sense and thoughtfulness that I regard it as capital." 
That is De Quincey's estimate of Middleton as a biographer. 
I regard him as a laborer who spared himself no trouble, who 
was enabled by his nature to throw himself with enthusiasm 
into his subject, who knew his work as a writer of English, 
and who, by a combination of erudition, intelligence, and in- 
dustry, has left us one of those books of which it may truly 
be said that no English library should be without it. 

The last letter written by Cicero in Asia was sent to Atticus 
from Ephesus the day before he started — on the last day, name- 
ly, of September. He had been delayed by winds and by want 



CILICIA. 109 

of vessels large enough to carry him and his suite. News here 
reached him from Rome — news which was not true in its de- 
tails, but true enough in its spirit. In a letter to Atticus he 
speaks of " miros terrores Csesarianos " l — " dreadful reports as 
to outrages by Ca3sar ;" that he would by no means dismiss 
his army ; that he had with him the Praetors elect, one of the 
Tribunes, and even one of the Consuls ; and that Pompey had 
resolved to leave the city. Such were the first tidings pre- 
saging Pharsalia. Then he adds a word about his triumph. 
" Tell me what you think about this triumph, which my friends 
desire me to seek. I should not care about it if Bibulus were 
not also asking for a triumph — Bibulus, who never put a foot 
outside his own doors as long as there was an enemy in Syria !" 
Thus Cicero had to suffer untold misery because Bibulus was 
asking for a triumph ! 

1 Ad. Att., lib. vi., 8. 



110 LIFE OF CICERO. 



Chapter V. 
THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 

"What official arrangements were made for Proconsuls in 
regard to money, when in command of a province, we do not 
know. The amounts allowed were no doubt splendid, but it 
was not to them that the Roman governor looked as the source 
of that fortune which he expected to amass. The means of 
plunder were infinite, but of plunder always subject to the 
danger of an accusation. We remember how Verres calcu- 
lated that he could divide his spoil into three sufficient parts 
— one for the lawyers, one for the judges, so as to insure his 
acquittal, and then one for himself. This plundering was 
common — so common as to have become almost a matter of 
course ; but it was illegal, and subjected some unfortunate cul- 
prits to exile, and to the disgorging of a part of what they 
had taken. No accusation was made against Cicero. As to 
others there were constantly threats, if no more than threats. 
Cicero was not even threatened. But he had saved out of his 
legitimate expenses a sum equal to £18,000 of our money — 
from which we may learn how noble were the appanages of a 
Roman governor. The expenses of all his staff passed through 
his own hands, and many of those of his army. Any saving 
effected would therefore be to his own personal advantage. 
On this monev he counted much when his affairs were in 
trouble, as he was going to join Pompey at Pharsalia in the 
following year. He then beo;o;ed Atticus to arrange his mat- 
ters for him, telling him that the sum was at his call in Asia, 1 

1 Ad Att.Jib. xi., 1. 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. Ill 

but he never saw it again : Pompey borrowed it — or took it ; 
and when Pompey had been killed the money was of course 
gone. 

His brother Quintus was with him in Cilicia, but of his broth- 
er's doings there he says little or nothing. We have no letters 
from him during the period to his wife or daughter. The lat- 
ter was married to her third husband, Dolabella, during his ab- 
sence, with no opposition from Cicero, but not in accordance 
with his advice. He had purposed to accept a proposition for 
her hand made to him by Tiberius Nero, the young Roman no- 
bleman who afterward married that Livia whom Augustus took 
away from him even when she was pregnant, in order that he 
might marry her himself, and who thus became the father of 
the Emperor Tiberius. It is worthy of remark at the same time 
that the Emperor Tiberius married the granddaughter of At- 
ticus. Cicero when in Cilicia had wished that Nero should be 
chosen ; but the family at home was taken by the fashion and 
manners of Dolabella, and gave the young widow to him as her 
third husband when she was yet only twenty-five. This mar- 
riage, like the others, was unfortunate. Dolabella, though fash- 
ionable, nobly born, agreeable, and probably handsome, was 
thoroughly worthless. He was a Roman nobleman of the type 
then common — heartless, extravagant, and greedy. His coun- 
try, his party, his politics wpre subservient, not to ambition or 
love of power, but simply to a desire for plunder. Cicero tried 
hard to love him, partly for his daughter's sake, more perhaps 
from the necessity which he felt for supporting himself by the 
power and strength of the aristocratic party to which Dolabella 
belonged. 

I cannot bring him back to Rome, and all that he suffered 
there, without declaring that much of his correspondence during 
his government, especially during the latter months of it, and 
the period of his journey home, is very distressing. I have told 
the story of his own doings, I think, honestly, and how he him- 
self abstained, and compelled those belonging to him to do so ; 



112 LIFE OF CICERO. 

how he strove to ameliorate the condition of those under his 
rule ; how he fully appreciated the duty of doing well by oth- 
ers, so soon to he recognized by all Christians. Such humanity 
on the part of a Roman at such a period is to me marvellous, 
beautiful, almost divine ; but, in eschewing Roman greed and 
Roman cruelty, he was unable to eschew Roman insincerity. I 
have sometimes thought that to have done so it must have been 
necessary for him altogether to leave public life. Why not? 
my readers will say. But in our days, when a man has mixed 
himself for many years with all that is doing in public, how 
hard it is for him to withdraw, even though in withdrawing he 
fears no violence, no punishment, no exile, no confiscation. The 
arguments, the prayers, the reproaches of those around him 
draw him back ; and the arguments, the reproaches from within 
are more powerful even than those from his friends. To be 
added to these is the scorn, perhaps the ridicule, of his oppo- 
nents. Such are the difficulties in the way of the modern poli- 
tician who thinks that he has resolved to retire ; but the Ro- 
man ex -Consul, ex -Praetor, ex -Governor had entered upon a 
mode of warfare in which his all, his life, his property, his choice 
of country, his wife, his children, were open to the ready attacks 
of his easier enemies. To have deserved well would be noth- 
ing, unless he could keep a party round him bound by mutual 
interests to declare that he had deserved well. A rich man, 
who desired to live comfortably beyond the struggle of public 
life, had to abstain, as Atticus had done, from increasing the 
sores, from hurting the ambition, from crushing the hopes of 
aspirants. Such a man might be safe, but he could not be use- 
ful ; such, at any rate, had not been Cicero's life. In his earlier 
days, till he was Consul, he had kept himself free from political 
interference in doing the work of his life ; but since that time 
he had necessarily put himself into competition with many 
men, and had made many enemies by the courage of his opin- 
ions. He had found even those he had most trusted opposed 
to him. He had aroused the jealousy not only of the Caesars 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 113 

and the Crassuses and the Pisos, but also of the Pompeys and 
Catos and Brutuses. Whom was he not compelled to fear? 
And yet he could not escape to his books ; nor, in truth, did 
he wish it. He had made for himself a nature which he could 
not now control. 

He had not been long in Cilicia before he knew well how 
cruel, how dishonest, how greedy, how thoroughly Roman had 
been the conduct of his predecessor Appius. His letters to At- 
ticus are full of the truths which he had to tell on that mat- 
ter. His conduct, too, with regard to Appius was mainly right. 
As far as in him lay he endeavored to remedy the evils which 
the unjust Proconsul had done, and to stop what further evil 
was still being done. He did not hesitate to offend Appius 
when it was necessary to do so by his interference. But Ap- 
pius was a great nobleman, one of the " optimates," a man with 
a strong party at his back in Rome. Appius knew well that 
Cicero's good word was absolutely necessary to save him from 
the ruin of a successful accusation. Cicero knew also that the 
support of Appius would be of infinite service to him in his 
Roman politics. Knowing this, he wrote to Appius letters full 
of flattery — full of falsehood, if the plain word can serve our 
purpose better. Dolabella, the new son-in-law, had taken upon 
himself, for some reason as to which it can hardly be worth 
our while to inquire, to accuse Appius of malversation in his 
province. That Appius deserved condemnation there can be no 
doubt ; but in these accusations the contests generally took 
place not as to the proof of the guilt, but as to the prestige 
and power of the accuser and the accused. Appius was tried 
twice on different charges, and was twice acquitted ; but the 
fact that his son-in-law should be the accuser was fraught 
with danger to Cicero. He thought it necessary for the hopes 
which he then entertained to make Apoius understand that his 
son-in-law was not acting in concert with him, and that he was 
desirous that Appius should receive all the praise which Avould 
have been due to a good governor. So great was the influ- 



114 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ence of Appius at Rome that lie was not only acquitted, but 
shortly afterward elected Censor. The office of Censor was in 
some respects the highest in Rome. The Censors were elect- 
ed only once in four years, remaining in office for eighteen 
months. The idea was that powers so arbitrary as these should 
be in existence only for a year and a half out of each four 
years. Questions of morals were considered by them. Should 
a Senator be held to have lived as did not befit a Senator, a 
Censor could depose him. As Appius was elected Censor im- 
mediately after his acquittal, together with that Piso whom 
Cicero had so hated, it may be understood that his influence 
was very great. 1 It was great enough to produce from Cicero 
letters which were flattering and false. The man who had 
been able to live with a humanity, a moderation, and an hon- 
esty befitting a Christian, had not risen to that appreciation of 
the beauty of truth which an exercise of Christianity is sup- 
posed to exact. 

"Sed quid agas? Sic vivitur!" 2 — "What would you have 
me do ? It is thus we live now !" This he exclaims in a let- 
ter to Cselius, written a short time before he left the province. 
" What would you say if you read my last letter to Appius ?" 
You would open your eyes if you knew how I have flatter- 
ed Appius— that was his meaning. "Sic vivitur!" — "It is 
so we live now." When I read this I feel compelled to ask 
whether there was an opportunity for any other way of living. 
Had he seen the baseness of lying as an English Christian gen- 
tleman is expected to see it, and had adhered to truth at the 
cost of being a martyr, his conduct would have been high 
though we might have known less of it ; but, looking at all 
the circumstances of the period, have we a right to think that 
he could have done so ? 

From Athens on his way home Cicero w-rote to his wife, 

• ' 

1 Appius and Piso were the last two Censors elected by the Republic. 

2 Ad Div., lib. ii., 15. 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 115 

joining Tullia's name with hers. " Lux nostra," he calls his 
daughter; "the very apple of my eye!" He had already 
heard from various friends that civil war was expected. He 
will have to declare himself on his arrival — that is, to take one 
side or the other — and the sooner he does so the better. There 
is some money to be looked for — a legacy which had been 
left to him. He gives express directions as to the persons to 
be employed respecting this, omitting the name of that Philo- 
tomus as to whose honesty he is afraid. He calls his wife 
" suavissima et optatissima Terentia," but he does not write 
to her with the true love which was expressed by his letters 
when in exile. From Athens, also, where he seema to have 

. r 

stayed nearly two months, he wrote in December. (He is easy, 
he says, about his triumph unless Caesar should interfere — but 
he does not care much about his triumph now. He is begin- 
ning to feel the wearisomeness of the triumph ; and indeed 
it was a time in which the utter hollowness of triumphal pre- 
tensions must have made the idea odious to him. But to have 
withdrawn would have been to have declared his own fears, his 
own doubts, his own inferiority to the two men who wei*e be- 
coming declared as the rival candidates for Roman power. We 
may imagine that at such a time he would gladly have gone 
in quiet to his Roman mansion or to one of his villas, ridding 
himself forever of the trouble of his lictors, his fasces, and 
all the paraphernalia of imperatorial dignity ; but a man can- 
not rid himself of such appanages without showing that he 
has found it necessary to do so. It was the theory of a tri- 
umph that the victorious Imperator should come home hot 
(as it were) from the battle-field, with all his martial satellites 
around him, and have himself carried at once through Rome. 
It was barbaric and grand, as I have said before, but it required 
the martial satellites. Tradition had become law, and the Im- 
perator intending to triumph could not dismiss his military 
followers till the ceremony was over. In this way Cicero was 
sadly hampered by his lictors when, on his landing at Brundi- 



116 LIFE OF VICERO. 

sium, he found that Italy was already preparing for her great 
civil war. 

Early in this year it had been again proposed in the Senate 

that Caesar should give up his command. At this time 
ffitat. 5 5T. the two Consuls, L. ^Emilius Paulus and C. Claudius 

Marcellus, were opposed to Caesar, as was also Curio, 
who had been one of Cicero's young friends, and was now 
Tribune. But two of these Caesar managed to buy by the 
payment of enormous bribes. Curio was the more important 
of the two, and required the larger bribe. The story comes to 
us from Appian, 1 but the modern reader will find it efficiently 
told by Mommsen. 2 The Consul had fifteen hundred talents, or 
about £500,000 ! The sum named as that given by Caesar to 
Curio was something greater, because he was so deeply in debt ! 
Bribes to the amount of above a million of money, such as 
money is to us now, bestowed upon two men for their support 
in the Senate ! It was worth a man's while to be a Consul or 
a Tribune in those days. But the money was well earned — 
plunder, no doubt, extracted from Gaul. The Senate decided 
that both Pompey and Caesar should be required to abandon 
their commands — or rather they adopted a proposal to that 
effect without any absolute decree. But this sufficed for Cae- 
sar, who was only anxious to be relieved from the necessity of 
obeying any order from the Senate by the knowledge that 
Pompey also was ordered, and also was disobedient. Then it 
was — in the summer of this year — that the two commanders 
were desired by the Senate to surrender each of them a leo-ion, 
or about three thousand men, under the pretence that the forces 
were wanted for the Parthian war. The historians tell us that 
Pompey had lent a legion to Caesar, thus giving us an indica- 
tion of the singular terms on which legions were held by the 

1 Appian, De Bell. Civ., lib. ii., 26. The historian tell us that the Con- 
sul built a temple with the money, but that Curio had paid his debts. 

2 Mommsen, book v., ea. ix. 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPET. 117 

proconsular officers who commanded them. Caesar nobly sends 

i up to Rome two legions, the one as having been ordered to be 

,restored by himself, and the other as belonging to Pompey. He 

-felt, no doubt, that a show of nobleness in this respect would 

' do him better service than the withholding of the soldiers. 

The men were stationed at Capua, instead of being sent to 

the East, and no doubt drifted back into Caesar's hands. The 

men who had served under Caesar would not willingly find 

themselves transferred to Pompey. 

Caesar in the summer came across the Alps into Cisalpine 
Gaul, which as yet had not been legally taken from him, and 
in the autumn sat himself down at Ravenna, which was still 
within his province. It was there that he had to meditate the 
crossing of the Rubicon and the manifestation of absolute re- 
bellion. Matters were in this condition when Cicero returned 
to Italy, and heard the corroboration of the news as to the civil 
war which had reached him at Athens. 

In a letter written from Athens, earlier than the one last 
quoted, Cicero declared to Atticus that it would become him 
better to be conquered with Pompey than to conquer with 
Caesar. 1 The opinion here given may be taken as his guiding 
principle in politics till Pompey was no more. Through all 
the doubts and vacillations which encumbered him, this was 
the rule not only of his mind but of his heart. To him there 
was no Triumvirate : the word had never been mentioned to 
his ears. Had Pompey remained free from Caesar it would 
have been better. The two men had come together, and Cras- 
sus had joined them. It was better for him to remain with 
them and keep them right, than to stand away, angry and 
astray, as Cato had done. The question how far Caesar was 
justified in the position which he had taken up by certain al- 
leged injuries, affected Cicero less than it has done subsequent 



1 Ad Att., lib. vii., 1 : " Video cum altero viuci satius esse quam cum 
altera vincere." 



118 LIFE OF CICERO. 

inquirers. Had an attempt been made to recall Caesar illegal- 
ly ? Was he subjected to wrong by baving his command 
taken away from him before the period had passed for which 
the people had given it ? Was he refused indulgences to which 
the greatness of his services entitled him — such as permission 
to sue for the Consulship while absent from Rome — while 
that, and more than that, had been granted to Pompey? All 
these questions were no doubt hot in debate at the time, but 
could hardly have affected much the judgment of Cicero, and 
did not at all affect his conduct. Nor, I think, should they 
influence the opinions of those who now attempt to judge the 
conduct of Caesar. Things had gone beyond the domain of 
law, and had fallen altogether into that of potentialities. De- 
crees of the Senate or votes of the people were alike used as 
excuses. Caesar, from the beginning of his career, had shown 
his determination to sweep away as cobwebs the obligations 
which the law imposed upon him. It is surely vain to look 
for excuses for a man's conduct to the practice of that injus- 
tice against him which he has long practised against others. 
Shall we forgive a house-breaker because the tools which he 
has himself invented are used at last upon his own door? The 
modern lovers of Caesar and of Caesarism generally do not seek 
to wash their hero white after that fashion. To them it is 
enough that the man has been able to trample upon the laws 
with impunity, and to be a law not only to himself but to all 
the world around him. There are some of us who think that 
such a man, let him be ever so great — let him be ever so just, 
if the infirmities of human nature permit justice to dwell in 
the breast of such a man — will in the end do more harm than 
good. But they who sit at the feet of the great commanders 
admire them as having been law -breaking, not law-abiding. 

To say that Caesar was justified in the armed position 
tetat.57. which ue took m Northern Italy in the autumn of this 

year, is to rob him of his praise. I do not suppose 
that he had meditated any special line of policy during the 



THE WAR BETWEEN CJESAR AND POM PET. 119 

years of hard work in Gaul, but I think that he was deter- 
mined not to relinquish his power, and that he was ready for 
any violence by which he might preserve it. 

If such was Cicero's idea of this man — if such the troubled 
outlook which he took into the circumstances of the Empire — 
he thought probably but little of the legality of Caesar's recall. 
What would the Consuls do, what would Curio do, what would 
Pompey do, and what Caesar? It was of this that he thought. 
Had law-abiding then been possible, he would have been de- 
sirous to abide by the law. Some nearest approach to the 
law would be the best. Caesar had ignored all laws, except so 
far as he could use them for his own purposes. Pompey, in 
conspiring with Caesar, had followed Caesar's lead ; but was de- 
sirous of using the law against Caesar when Caesar outstripped 
him in lawlessness. But to Cicero there was still some hope 
of restraining Pompey. Pompey, too, had been a conspirator, 
but not so notorious a conspirator as Caesar. With Pompey 
there would be some bond to the Republic ; with Caesar there 
could be none ; therefore it was better for him to fall with 
Pompey than to rise with Caesar. That was his conviction 
till Pompey had altogether fallen. 

His journey homeward is made remarkable by letters to 
Tiro, his slave and secretary. Tiro was taken ill, and Cicero 
was obliged to leave him at Patrae, in Greece. Wnence he 
had come to Cicero we do not know, or when ; but he had not 
probably fallen under his master's peculiar notice before the 
days of the Cilician government, as we find that on his arrival 
at Brundisium he writes to Atticus respecting him as a person 
whom Atticus had not much known. 1 But his affection for 
Tiro is very warm, and his little solicitudes for the man whom 
he leaves are charming. He is to be careful as to what boat 
he takes, arid under what captain he sails. He is not to hurry. 

1 Ad Att., lib. vii., 2 : "Adolescentem, ut nosti, et adde, si quid vis, 
probum." 



120 LIFE OF CICERO. 

The doctor is to be consulted and well paid. Cicero himself 
writes various letters to various persons, in order to secure that 
attention \\hich Tiro could not have insured unless so assisted. 

Early in January Cicero reached the city, but could not enter 
it because of his still unsettled triumph, and Caesar crossed the 
little river which divided his province from the Roman terri- 
tory. The 4th of January is the date given for the former 
small event. / For the latter I have seen no precise day named. 
I presume that it was after the 6th, as on that day the Senate 
appointed Domitian as his successor in his province. On this 
being done, the two Tribunes, Antony and Cassius, hurried off 
to Caesar, and Caesar then probably crossed the stream. Cic- 
ero was appointed to a command in Campania — that of rais- 
ing levies, the duties of which were not officially repugnant to 
his triumph. 

His doings during the whole of this time were but little to 
his credit ; but who is there whose doings were to his credit at 
that period ? The effect had been to take all power out of his 
hand. Caesar had given him up. Pompey could not do so, 
but we can imagine how willing Pompey would have been that 
he should have remained in Cilicia. He had been sent there, 
out of the way, but bad hurried home again. If he would 
only have remained and plundered ! If he would only have 
remained there and have been honest — so that he would be 
out of the way ! But here he was — back in Italy, an honest, 
upright man ! No one so utterly unlike the usual Roman, so 
lost amid the self-seekers of Rome, so unnecessarily clean- 
handed, could be found ! Cato was honest, foolishly honest 
for his time ; but with Cato it was not so difficult to deal as 
with Cicero. We can imagine Cato wrapping himself up in 
his robe and being savagely unreasonable. Cicero was all alive 
to what was going on in the world, but still was honest ! In 
the mean time he remained in the neighborhood of Naples, 
writing to his wife and daughter, writing to Tiro, writing to 
Atticus, and telling us all those details which we now seem to 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 121 

know so well — because he has told us. In one of his letters 
to Atticus at this time he is sadly in earnest. He will die 
with Pompey in Italy, but what can he do by leaving it? He 
has his " lictors " with him still. Oh, those dreadful lictors! 
His friendship for Cnseus ! His fear of having to join himself 
with the coming tyrant! "Oh that you would assist me with 
your counsel !'" He writes again, and describes the condition 
of Pompey — of Pompey who had been Magnus. " See how 
prostrate he is. He has neither courage, counsel, men, nor in- 
dustry ! Put aside those things ; look at his flight from the 
city, his cowardly harangues in the towns, his ignorance of 
his own strength and that of his enemy ! * * * Caesar in pursuit 
of Pompey ! ' Oh, sad! * * * Will he kill him?" he exclaims. 
Then, still to Atticus, he defends himself. He will die for 
Pompey, but he does not believe that he can do any good ei- 
ther to Pompey or to the Republic by a base flight. Then 
there is another cause for staying in Italy as to which he can- 
not write. This was Terentia's conduct. At the end of one 
of his letters he tells Atticus that with the same lamp by 
which he had written would he burn that which Atticus had 
sent to him. In another he speaks of a Greek tutor who has 
deserted him, a certain Dionysius, and he boils over with an- 
ger. His letters to Atticus about the Greek tutor are amusing 
at this distance of time, because they show his eagerness. " I 
never knew anything more ungrateful ; and there is nothing 
worse than ingratitude." 2 

He heaps his scorn upon Pompey : " It is true, indeed, that I 
said that it was better to be conquered with him than to con- 
quer with those others. I would indeed. But of what Pom- 
pey was it that I so spoke ? Was it of this one who flies he 
knows not what, nor whom, nor whither he will fly ?" 3 He 
writes again the same day : " Pompey had fostered Caesar, and 
then had feared him. He had left the city ; he had lost Pice- 

1 Ad Att., lib. vii., 20-23. 2 Ibid., lib. viii., 4. 3 Ibid., lib. viii., 7. 
II.— G 



122 LIFE OF CICEMO. 

mini by his own fault; be bad betaken himself to Apulia! 
Then he went into Greece, leaving us in tbe dark as to bis 
plans!" He excuses a letter of his own to Caesar. He had 
written to Csesar in terms which might be pleasing to tbe great 
man. He had told Caesar of Caesar's admirable wisdom. Was 
it not better so ? He was willing that his letter should be read 
aloud to all tbe people, if only those of Pompey might also be 
read aloud. Then follow copies of a correspondence between 
him and Pompey. In tbe last he declares 1 that " when he had 
written from Canusium he had not dreamed that Pompey was 
about to cross the sea. He had known that Pompey bad in- 
tended to treat for peace — for peace even under unjust condi- 
tions — but he had never thought that Pompey was meditating 
a retreat out of Italy." He argues well and stoutly, and does 
take us along with him. Pompey had been beaten back from 
point to point, never once rallying himself against Caesar. He 
had failed, and had slipped away, leaving a man here and there 
to stand up for the Republic. Pompey was willing to risk 
nothing for Rome. It had come to pass at last that he was 
being taught Caesarism by Caesar, and when he died was more 
imperial than bis master. 

At this time Cicero's eyes were bad. " Mihi molestior lippi- 
tudo erat etiam quam ante fuerat." And again, " Lippitudinis 
meae signum tibi sit librarii manus." But we may doubt 
whether any great men have lived so long with so little to 
tease them as to their health. And yet the amount of work 
he got through was great. He must have so arranged his af- 
fairs as to have made the most he could of his hours, and have 
carried in his memory information on all subjects. When we 
remember the size of the books which he read, their unwieldy 
shapes, their unfitness for such work as that of ours, there 
seems to have been a continuation of study such as we cannot 
endure. Throughout his- life his hours were early, but they 

1 Copy of letter D, enclosed in letter to Atticus, lib. viii., 11. 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND J'OMPET. 123 

must also have been late. Of his letters we have not a half, 
of his speeches not a half, of his treatises not more than a half. 
"When he was abroad daring his exile, or in Cilicia during his 
government, he could not have had his books with him. That 
Caesar should have been Caesar, or Pompey Pompey, does not 
seem to me a matter so difficult as that Cicero should have 
been Cicero. Then comes that letter of which I spoke in my 
first chapter, in which he recapitulates the Getae, the Armenians, 
and the men of Colchis. " Shall I, the savior of the city, as- 
sist to bring down upon that city those hordes of foreign men ? 
Shall I deliver it up to famine and to destruction for the sake 
of one man who is no more than mortal ?"' It was Pompey as 
to whom he then asked the question. For Pompey's sake am 
I to let in these crowds ? We have been told, indeed, by Mr. 
Fronde that the man was Caesar, and that Cicero wrote thus 
anxiously with the special object of arranging his death ! 

"Now, if ever, think what we shall do," he says. "A Ro- 
man army sits round Pompey and makes him a prisoner with- 
in valley and rampart — and shall we live ? The city stands ; 
the Praetors give the law, the ^Ediles keep up the games, good 
men look to their principal and their interest. Shall I remain 
sitting here? Shall I rush hither and thither madly, and im- 
plore the credit of the towns ? Men of substance will not fol- 
low me. The revolutionists will arrest me. Is there any end 
to this misery ? People will point at me and say, ' How wise 
he was not to go with him.' I was not wise. Of his victory 
I never wished to be the comrade — yet now I do of his sor- 
row." 2 

Pompey had crossed the sea from Brundisium, and Caesar 

had retreated across Italy to Capua. As he was jour- 

iietat 5S ne yi n » Ge saw Cicero, and asked him to go to Rome. 

This Cicero refused, and Caesar passed on. " I must 

then use other counsels," said Caesar, thus leaving him for the 

1 Ad Att., lib. ix., 10. 2 Ibid., lib. ix., 12. 



124 LIFE OF CICERO. 

last time before the coming battle. Cicero went on to Arpi- 
num, and there heard the nightingales. From that moment 
he resolved. He had not thought it possible that when the 
moment came he should have been able to prevail against 
Caesar's advice ; but he had done so. He had feared that 
Caesar would overcome him ; but when the moment came he 
was strong against even Caesar. He gave his boy his toga, or, 
as we should say, made a man of him. He was going after 
Pompey, not for the sake of Pompey, not for the sake of the 
Republic, but for loyalty. He was going because Atticus had 
told him to go. But as he is going there came fresh ground 
for grief. He writes to Atticus about the two boys, his son 
and nephew. The one is good by nature, and has not yet 
gone astray. The other, the elder and his nephew, has been 
encouraged by this uncle's indulgence, and has openly adopted 
evil ways. In other words, he has become Caesarian — for a re- 
ward. 1 The young Quintus has shown himself to be very 
false. Cicero is so bound together with his family in their 
public life that this falling off of one of them makes him un- 
happy. Then Curio comes the way, and there is a most inter- 
esting conversation. It seems that Curio, who is fond of Cic- 
ero, tells him everything ; but Cicero, who doubts him, lets 
him pass on. Then Caelius writes to him. Caelius implores 
him, for the sake of his children, to bear in mind what he is 
doing. He tells him much of Caesar's anger, and asks him if 
he cannot become Caesarian ; at any rate to betake himself to 
some retreat till the storm shall pass by and quieter days should 
come. But Coelius, though it had suited Cicero to know him 
intimately, had not read the greatness of the man's mind. He 
did not understand in the least the difficulty which pervaded 
Cicero. To Caelius it was play — play in which a man might 
be beaten, or banished, or slaughtered ; but it w'as a game in 
which men were fighting each for himself. That there 

1 Ad Alt, lib. x., 4. 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 125 

should be a duty in the matter, beyond that, was inexplicable 
to Caelius. And his children, too — his anger against young 
Quintus and his forgiveness of Marcus ! He thinks that Quin- 
tus had been purchased by a large bribe on Caesar's side, and 
is thankful that it is no worse with him. What can have 
been worse to a young man than to have been open to such 
payment ? Antony is frequently on the scene, and already 
disgusts us by the vain frivolity and impudence of his life. 
And then Cicero's eyes afflict him, and he cannot see. Servius 
Sulpicius comes to him weeping. For Servius, who is timid 
and lachrymose, everything has gone astray. And then there 
is that Dionysius who had plainly told him that he desired to 
follow some richer or some readier master. At the last comes 
the news of his Tullia's child's birth. She is brought to bed 
of a son. He cannot, however, wait to see how the son thrives. 
From the midst of enemies, and with spies around him, he 
starts. There is one last letter written to his wife and daugh- 
ter from on board the ship at Caieta, sending them many loves 
and many careful messages, and then he is off. 

It was now the 11th of June, the third day before the ides, 
B.C. 49, and we hear nothing special of the events of his jour- 
ney. When he reached the camp, which he did in safety, he 
was not well received there. He had given his all to place 
himself along with Pompey in the republican quarters, and 
when there the republicans were unwilling to welcome him. 
Pompey would have preferred that he should have remained 
away, so as to be able to say hereafter that he had not come. 

Of what occurred to Cicero during the great battle which 
led to the solution of the Roman question we know little or 
nothing. We hear that Cicero was absent, sick at Dyrrachium, 
but there are none of those tirades of abuse with which such 
an absence might have been greeted. We hear, indeed, from 
other sources, very full accounts of the fighting — how Caesar 
was nearly conquered, how Pompey might have prevailed had 
he had the sense to take the good which came in his way, how 



126 LIFE OF CICERO. 

he failed to take it, how lie was beaten, and liow, in the very 
presence of his wife, he was murdered at last at the mouth of 
the Nile by the combined energies of a Roman and a Greek. 

We can imagine how the fate of the world was decided on 
the Pharsalus where the two armies met, and the victory re- 
mained with Caesar. Then there were weepings and gnashings 
of teeth, and there were the congratulations and self-applause 
of the victors. In all Cicero's letters there is not a word of it. 
There Avas terrible suffering before it began, and there is the 
sense of injured innocence on his return, but nowhere do we 
find any record of what took place. There is no mourning for 
Pompey, no turning to Csesar as the conqueror. Petra has 
been lost, and Pharsalia has been won, but there is no sign. 
Cicero, we know, spent the time at Dyrrachium close to 

which the battle of Petra was fought, and went from 
setat 4 59 thence to Corcyra. There invitation was made to him, 

as the senior consular officer present, to take the com- 
mand of the beaten army, but that he declined. We are in- 
formed that he was nearly killed in the scuffle which took 
place. We can imagine that it was so — that in the confusion 
and turmoil which followed he should have been somewhat 
roughly told that it behooved him to take the lead and to come 
forth as the new commander; that there should be a time at 
last in which no moment should be allowed him for doubt, 
but that he should doubt, and, after more or less of reticence, 
pass on. Young Pompey would have it so. What name 
would be so good to bind together the opponents of Caesar as 
that of Cicero ? But Cicero would not be led. It seems that 
he was petulant and out of sorts at the time ; that he had been 
led into the difficulty of the situation by his desire to be true 
to Pompey, and that he was only able to escape from it now 
that Pompey was gone. We can well imagine that there 
should be no man less able to fight against Caesar, though 
there was none whose name might be so serviceable to use as 
that of Cicero. At any rate, as far as we are concerned, there 



THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND F03IPEY. 127 

was silence on the subject on his part. He wrote not a word to 
any of the friends whom Pompey had left behind him, but re- 
turned to Italy dispirited, silent, and unhappy. He had indeed 
met many men since the battle of the Pharsalus, but to none 
of whom we are conversant had he expressed his thoughts re- 
garding that great campaign. 

Here we part from Pompey, who ran from the fighting- 
ground of Macedonia to meet his doom in the roads of Alex- 
andria. Never had man risen so high in his youth to be ex- 
tinguished so ingloriously in his age. He was born in the 
same year with Cicero, but had come up quicker into the man- 
agement of the world's affairs, so as to have received something 
from his equals of that which was due to age. Habit had 
given him that ease of manners which enabled him to take 
from those who should have been his compeers the deference 
which was due not to his age but to his experience. When 
Cicero was entering the world, taking up the cudgels to fight 
against Sulla, Pompey had already won his spurs, in spite of 
Sulla but by means of Sulla. Men in these modern days learn, 
as they grow old in public life, to carry themselves with indif- 
ference anions: the backslidings of the world. In reading the 
life of Cicero, we see that it was so then. "When defending 
Amerinus, we find the same character of man as was he who 
afterward took Milo's part. There is the same readiness, the 
same ingenuity, and the same high indignation ; but there is 
not the same indifference as to results. With Amerinus it is 
as though all the world depended on it ; with Milo he felt it 
to be sufficient to make the outside world believe it. When 
Pompey triumphed, 70 B.C., and was made Consul for the sec- 
ond time, he was already old in glory — when Cicero had not 
as yet spoken those two orations against Verres which had 
made the speaking of another impossible. Pompey, we may 
say, had never been young. Cicero was never old. There was 
no moment in his life in which Cicero was not able to laugh 
with the Curios and the Ca^iuses behind the back of the great 



123 LIFE OF CICERO. 

man. There was no moment in which Pompey could have 
done so. He who has stepped from his cradle on to the 
world's high places has lost the view of those things which are 
only to be seen by idle and luxurious young men of the day. 
Cicero did not live for many years beyond Pompey, but I doubt 
whether he did not know infinitely more of men. To Pompey 
it had been given to rule them ; but to Cicero to live with 
them. 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 129 



Chapter VI. 

AFTER THE BATTLE. 

In the autumn of this year Cicero had himself landed at 
Brundisium. He remained nearly a year at Brundisi- 
Eetat. 59 um J anc ^ ^ * s melancholy to think how sad and how 
long must have been the days with him. He had no 
country when he reached the nearest Italian port ; it was all 
Caesar's, and Caesar was his enemy. There had been a strug- 
gle for the masterdom between two men, and of the two the 
one had beaten with whom Cicero had not ranged himself. He 
had known how it would be. All the Getae, and the men of 
Colchis, and the Armenians, all the lovers of the fish-ponds and 
those who preferred the delicacies of Baiae to the work of the 
Forum, all who had been taught to think that there were prov- 
inces in order that they might plunder, men who never dreamed 
of a country but to sell it, all those whom Caesar was deter- 
mined either to drive out of Italy or keep there in obedience 
to himself, had been brought together in vain. We already 
know, when we begin to read the story, how it will be with 
them and with Caesar. On Caesar's side there is an ecstasy 
of hope carried to the very brink of certainty ; on the other 
is that fainting spirit of despair which no battalions can as- 
suage. We hear of no Scaeva and of no Crastinus on Pompey's 
side. Men change their nature under such leading as was that 
of Caesar. The inferior men become heroic by contact with 
the hero ; but such heroes when they come are like great gouts 
of blood dabbled down upon a fair cloth. Who that has eyes 
to see can look back upon the career of such a one and not 

6* 



/ 



130 LIFE OF CICERO. 

feel an agony of pain as the stern man passes on without a 
ruffled face, after ordering the right hands of those who had 
fought at Uxellodunum to be chopped off at the wrist, in order 
that men might know what was the penalty of fighting for 
their country ? 

There are men — or have been, from time to time, in all ages 
of the world — let loose, as it were, by the hand of God to stop 
the iniquities of the people, but in truth the natural product 
of those iniquities. They have come and done their work, and 
have died, leaving behind them the foul smell of destruction. 
An Augustus followed Caesar, and him Tiberius, and so on to 
a Nero. It was necessary that men should suffer much before 
they were brought back to own their condition. But they 
who can see a Cicero struggling to avoid the evil that was com- 
ing — not for himself but for the world around him — and can 
lend their tongues, their pens, their ready wits to ridicule his 
efforts, can hardly have been touched by the supremacy of hu- 
man suffering. Ls 

It must have been a sorry time with him at Brundisium. 
He had to stay there waiting till Caesar's pleasure had been 
made known to him, and Caesar was thinking of other things. 
Caesar was away in Egypt and the East, encountering perils at 
Alexandria which, if all be true that we have heard, imply that 
he had lived to be past fear. Grant that a man has to live as 
Caesar did, and it will be well that he should be past fear. At 
any rate he did not think of Cicero, or thinking of him felt that 
he was one who must be left to brood in silence over the choice 
he had made. Cicero did brood — not exactly in silence — over 
the things that fate had done for him and for his country. 
For himself, he was living in Italy, and yet could not venture 
to betake himself to one of the eighteen villas which, as Mid- 
dleton tells us, he had studded about the country for his pas- 
time. There were those at Tusculum, Antium, Astura, Arpinum 
— at Formiae, at Cumae, at Puteoli, and at Pompeii. Those who 
tell us of Cicero's poverty are surely wandering, carried away 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 131 

by their erroneous notions of what were a Roman nobleman's 
ideas as to money. At no period of his life do we find Cicero 
not doing what he was minded to do for want of money, and 
at no period is there a hint that he had allowed himself in any 
respect to break the law. It has been argued that he must have 
been driven to take fees and bribes and indirect payments, be- 
cause he says that he wanted money. It was natural that he 
should occasionally want money, and yet be in the main indif- 
ferent. The incoming of a regular revenue was not understood 
as it is with us. A man here and there might attend to his 
money, as did Atticus. Cicero did not ; and therefore, when 
in want of it, he had to apply to a friend for relief. But he 
always applies as one who knows well that the trouble is not 
enduring. Is it credible that a man so circumstanced should 
have remained with those various sources of extravagance which 
it would have been easy for him to have avoided or lessened ? 
We are led to the conviction that at no time was it expedient 
to him to abandon his villas, though in the hurry-scurry of Ro- 
man affairs it did now and again become necessary for him to 
apply to Atticus for accommodation. Let us think what must 
have been Csesar's demands for money. Of these we hear 
nothing, because he was too wise to have an Atticus to whom 
he wrote everything, or too wary to write letters upon business 
which should be treasured for the curiosity of after-ages. 

To be hopeful and then tremulous ; to be eager after success 
and then desponding ; to have believed readily every good and 
then, as readily, evil ; to have relied implicitly on a man's faith, 
and then to have turned round and declared how he had been 
deceived ; to have been very angry and then to have forgiven — ■ 
this seems to have been Cicero's nature. Verres, Catiline, Clo- 
dius, Piso, and Vatinius seem to have caused his wrath ; but 
was there one of them against whom, though he did not for- 
give him, his anger did not die out? Then, at last, he was 
moved to an internecine fight with Antony. Is there any one 
who has read the story which we are going to tell who will not 



132 LIFE OF CICERO. 

agree with us that, if after Mutina Octavius had thought fit to 
repudiate Antony and to follow Cicero's counsels, Antony would 
not have been spared ? 

Nothing angers me so much in describing Cicero as the as- 
sertion that he was a coward. It has sprung from a wrong idea 
of what constitutes cowardice. He did not care to fight ; but 
are all men cowards who do not care to fight when work can 
be so much better done by talking ? He saw that fighting was 
the work fit for men of common clay, or felt it if he did not 
see it. When men rise to such a pitch as that which he filled, 
and Caesar and Pompey, and some few others around them, their 
greatest danger does not consist in fighting. A man's tongue 
makes enemies more bitter than his sword. But Cicero, when 
the time came, never shirked his foe. Whether it was Verres 
or Catiline, or Clodius or Antony, he was always there, ready to 
take that foe by the throat, and ready to offer his own in return. 
At moments such as that there was none of the fear which 
stands aghast at the wrath of the injured one, and makes the 
man who is a coward quail before the eyes of him who is brave. 

His friendship for Pompey is perhaps, of all the strong feel- 
ings of his life, the one most requiring excuse, and the most 
difficult to excuse. For myself I can see why it was so ; but 
I cannot do that without acknowledging in it something which 
derogated from his greatness. Had he risen above Pompey, he 
would have been great indeed ; for I look upon it as certain 
that he did see that Pompey was as untrue to the Republic as 
Caesar. He saw it occasionally, but it was not borne in upon 
him at all times that Pompey was false. Caesar was not false. 
Caesar was an open foe. I doubt whether Pompey ever saw 
enough to be open. He never realized to himself more than 
men. He never rose to measures — much less to the reason for 
them. When Caesar had talked him over, and had induced 
him to form the Triumvirate, Pompey's politics were gone. 
Cicero never blanched. Whether, full of new hopes, he attack- 
ed Chrysogonus with all the energy of one to whom his injured 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 133 

countrymen were dear, or, with the settled purpose of his life, 
he accused Verres in the teeth of the coining Consul Horten- 
sius ; whether in driving out Catiline, or in defending Milo ; 
whether, even, in standing up before Caesar for Marcellus, or in 
his final onslaught upon Antony, his purpose was still the same. 
As time passed on he took to himself coarser weapons, and went 
down into the arena and fought the beasts at Ephesus. Alas, 
it is so with mankind ! Who can strive to do good and not fight 
beasts ? And who can fight them but after some fashion of their 
own ? He was fighting beasts at Ephesus when he was defend- 
ing Milo. He was an oligarch, but he wanted the oligarchy 
round him to be true and honest ! It was impossible. These 
men would not be just, and yet he must use them. Milo and 
Cselius and Curio were his friends. He knew them to be bad, 
but he could not throw off from him all that were bad men. 
If by these means he could win his way to something that 
might be good, he would pardon their evil. As we make our 
way on to the end of his life we find that his character becomes 
tarnished, and that his high feelings are blunted by the party 
which he takes and the men with whom he associates. 

He did not, indeed, fall away altogether. The magistracy of- 
fered to him, the lieutenancy offered to him, the "free lega- 
tion " offered to him, the last appeal made to him that he would 
go to Rome and speak a few words — or that he would stay 
away and remain neutral — did not move him. He did not turn 
conspirator and then fight for the prize, as Pompey had done. 
But he had, for so many years, clung to Pompey as the leader 
of a party ; had had it so dinned into his ears that all must de- 
pend on Pompey ; had found himself so bound up with the man 
who, when appealed to as to his banishment, had sullenly told 
him he could only do as Ctesar would have him ; whom he had 
felt to be mean enough to be stigmatized as Sampsiceramus, 
him of Jerusalem, the hero of Arabia ; whom he knew to be de- 
sirous of doino; with his enemies as Sulla had done with his — 
that, in spite of it all, he clung to him still ! 



134 LIFE OF CICERO. 

I cannot but blame Cicero for this, but yet I can excuse it. 
It is bard to bave to change your leader after middle life, and 
Cicero could only bave changed his by becoming a leader him- 
self. We can see how hopeless it was. Would it not bave 
been mean bad he allowed those men to ffo and fiffht in Mace- 
donia without him ? Who would have believed in him had he 
seemed to be so false ? Not Cato, not Brutus, not Bibulus, 
not Scipio, not Marcellus. Such men were the leaders of the 
party of which he had been one. Would they not say that be 
had remained away because he was Caesar's man ? He must 
follow either Caesar or Pompey. He knew that Poinpey was 
beaten. There are things which a man knows, but he cannot 
bring himself to say so even to himself. He went out to fight 
on the side already conquered ; and when the thing was done 
be came home with his heart sad, and lived at Brundisium, 
mourning his lot. 

From thence he wrote to Atticus, saying that he hardly saw 
the advantage of complying with advice which had been given 
to him that be should travel incognito to Rome. But it is the 
special reason given which strikes us as being so unlike the 
arguments which would prevail to-day : " Nor have I resting- 
places on the way sufficiently convenient for me to pass the 
entire daytime within them." 1 The " diversorium " was a 
place by the roadside which was always ready should the 
owner desire to come that way. It must be understood that 
he travelled with attendants, and carried his food with him, 
or sent it on before. We see at every turn how much money 
could do ; but we see also how little money had done for the 
general comfort of the people. Brundisium is above three 
hundred miles from Rome, and the journey is the same which 
Horace took afterward, going from the city. 2 Much had then 
been done to make travelling comfortable, or at any rate cheap- 
er than it had been four-and-twenty years before. But now 



1 Ad Att., lib. xi., 5. 2 Horace, Sat., lib. i., sat. 5. 



AFTER TEE BATTLE. 135 

the journey was not made. He reminds Atticus in the letter 
that if be had not written through so long an interval it was 
not because there had been a dearth of subjects. It had been 
no doubt prudent for a man to be silent when so many eyes 
and so many ears were on the watch. He writes again some 
days later, and assures Atticus that Caesar thinks well of his 
"lictors!" Oh those eternal lictors ! "But what have I to 
do with lictors," he says, " who am almost ordered to leave the 
shores of Italy ?'" And then Caesar had sent angry messages. 
Cato and Metellus had been said to have come home. Caesar 
did not choose that this should be so, and had ordered them 
away. It was clearly manifest to every man alive now that 
Caesar was the actual master of Italy. 

During the whole of this winter he is on terms with Teren- 
tia, but he writes to her in the coldest strain. There are many 
letters to Terentia, more in number tban we have ever known 
before, but they are all of the same order. I translate one here 
to show the nature of his correspondence : " If you are well, 
I am so also. The times are such that I expect to hear nothing 
from yourself, and on my part have nothing to write. Never- 
theless, I look for your letters, and I write to you when a mes- 
senger is going to start. Voluminia ought to have understood 
her duty to you, and should have done what she did do better. 
There are other things, however, which I care for more, and 
grieve for more bitterly — as those have wished who have driven 
me from my own opinion." 2 Again he writes to Atticus, de- 
ploring that he should have been born — so great are his trou- 
bles — or, at any rate, that one should have been born after him 
from the same mother. His brother has addressed him in 
anger — his brother, who has desired to make his own affairs 
straight with Caesar, and to swim down the stream pleasantly 
with other noble Romans of the time. I can imagine that 
with Quintus Cicero there was nothing much higher than the 

. » Ad Att., lib. xi., 7. 2 Ad Div., xiv., 16. 



13G LIFE OF CICERO. 

wealth which the day produced. I can fancy that he was pos- 
sessed of intellect, and that when it was fair sailing with our 
Consul it was all well with Quintus Cicero ; but I can see also 
that, when Caesar prevailed, it was occasionally a matter of 
doubt with Quintus whether his brother should not be aban- 
doned among other things which were obtrusive and vain. He 
could not quite do it. His brother compelled him into pro- 
priety, and carried him along within the lines of the oligarchy. 
Then Caesar fell, and Quintus saw that the matter was right ; 
but Csesar, though he fell, did not altogether fall, and therefore 
Quintus after all turned out to be in the wrong. I fancy that 
I can see how things went ill with Quintus. 

Caesar, after the battle of the Pharsalia, had followed Pom- 

pey, but had failed to catch him. When he came upon 
setat. go. tue scenc m the roadstead at Alexandria, the murder 

had been effected. He then disembarked, and there, as 
circumstances turned out, was doomed to fight another cam- 
paign in which he nearly lost his life. It is not a part of my 
plan to write the life of Caesar, nor to meddle with it further 
than I am driven to do in seeking after the sources of Cicero's 
troubles and aspiration ; but the story must be told in a few 
words. Caesar went from Alexandria into Asia, and, flashing 
across Syria, beat Pharnaces, and then wrote his famous " Veni, 
vidi, vici," if those words were ever written. Surely he could 
not have written them and sent them home ! Even the sub- 
servience of the age would not have endured words so boast- 
ful, nor would the glory of Caesar have so tarnished itself. He 
hurried back to Italy, and quelled the mutiny of his men by a 
masterpiece of stage-acting. Simply by addressing them as 
" Quirites," instead of " Milites," he appalled them into obedi- 
ence. On this journey into Italy he came across Cicero. If 
he could be cruel without a pang — to the arranging the starva- 
tion of a townful of women, because they as well as the men 
must eat — he could be magnificent in his treatment of a Cicero. 
He had hunted to the death his late colleague in the Trium- 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 137 

virate, and had felt no remorse ; though there seems to have 
heen a moment when in Egypt the countenance of him "who 
had so long been his superior had touched him. He had not 
ordered Pompey's death. On no occasion had he wilfully put 
to death a Roman whose name was great enough to leave a 
mark behind. He had followed the convictions of his country- 
men, who had ever spared themselves. To him a thousand 
Gauls, or men of Eastern origin, were as nothing to a single 
Roman nobleman. Whether tbere can be said to have been 
clemency in such a course it is useless now to dispute. To 
Caesar it was at any rate policy as well. If by clemency he 
meant that state of mind in which it is an evil to sacrifice the 
life of men to a spirit of revenge, Caesar was clement. He had 
moreover that feeling which induces him who wins to make 
common cause — in little things — with those who lose. We 
can see Caesar ffettino- down from his chariot when Cicero came 
to meet him, and, throwing his arms round his neck, walking 
off with him in pleasant conversation ; and we can fancy him 
talking to Cicero pleasantly of the greatness which, in times 
yet to come, pursuits such as his would show in comparison 
with those of Caesar's. " Cedant arma togae ; concedat laurea 
linguae," we can hear Caesar say, with an irony expressed in no 
tone of his voice, but still vibrating to the core of his heart, as 
he thought so much of his own undoubted military supremacy, 
and absolutely nothing of his now undoubted literary excellence. 
But to go back a little ; we shall find Cicero still waiting 

at Brundisium during August and September. In the 
set at go f° rmer or " these months he reminds Atticus that "he 

cannot at present sell anything, but that he can put by 
something so that it may be in safety when the ruin shall fall 
upon him." 1 From this may be deduced a state of things very 
different to- that above described, but not contradicting it. I 
gather from this unintelligible letter, written, as he tells us, for 



1 Ad Att., lib. xi.,24. 



138 LIFE OF CICERO. 

the most part in his own handwriting, that he was at the pres- 
ent moment under some forfeiture of the law to Caesar. It 
may well be that, as one adjudged to be a rebel to his coun- 
try, his property should not be salable. If that were so, 
Caesar in some of these bland moments must have revoked the 
sentence — and at such a time all sentences were within Cesar's 
control — because we know that on his return Cicero's villas 
were again within his own power. But he is in sad trouble 
now about his wife. He has written to her to send him 
twelve thousand sesterces, which he had as it were in a bag, 
and she sends him ten, saying that no more is left. If she 
would deduct something from so small a sum, what would she 
do if it were larger? 1 Then follow two letters for his wife — 
a mere word in each — not a sign of affection nor of complaint 
in either of them. In the first he tells her she shall be in- 
formed when Caesar is coming — in the latter, that he is coming. 
When he has resolved whether to go and meet him or to re- 
main where he is till Csesar shall have come upon him, he will 
again write. Then there are three to Atticus, and two more 
to Terentia. In the first he tells him that Caesar is expected. 
Some ten or twelve days afterward he is still full of grief as to 
his brother Quintus, whose conduct has been shameful. Caesar 
he knows is near at hand, but he almost hopes that he will not 
come to Brundisium. In the third, as indeed he has in various 
others, he complains bitterly of the heat : it is of such a nat- 
ure that it adds to his grief. Shall he send word to Caesar 
that he will wait upon him nearer to Rome f He is evidently 
in a sad condition. Quintus, it must be remembered, had been 
in Gaul with Caesar, and had seen the rising sun. On his return 
to Italy he had not force enough to declare a political convic- 
tion, and to go over to Caesar boldly. He had indeed become 
lieutenant to his brother when in Cilicia, having left Caesar for 
the purpose. He afterward went with his brother to the Phar- 



1 Ad Att., lib. xi., 24. 2 Ibid., lib. xi., 20-22. 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 139 

salus, assuring the elder Cicero that they two would still be of 
the same party. Then the great catastrophe had come, when 
Cicero returned from that wretched campaign to Brundisium, 
and remained there in despair as at some penal settlement. 
Quintus followed Caesar into Asia with his son, and there plead- 
ed his own cause with him at the expense of his brother. Of 
Caesar we must all admit that, though indifferent to the shed- 
ding of blood, arrogant, without principle in money and with- 
out heart in love, he was magnificent," and that he injured none 
from vindictive motives. He passed on, leaving Quintus Cicero, 
who as a soldier had been true to him, without, as we can fancy, 
many words. Cicero afterward interceded for his brother who 
had reviled him, and Quintus will ever after have to bear the 
stain of his treachery. Then came the two letters for his wife, 
with just a line in each. If her messenger should arrive, he 
will send her word back as to what she is to do. After an 
interval of nearly a month, there is the other — ordering, in per- 
fectly restored good-humor, that the baths shall be ready at 
the Tusculan villa : " Let the baths be all ready, and everything 
fit for the use of guests ; there will probably be many of 
them." 1 It is evident that Caesar has passed on in a good-hu- 
mor, and has left behind him glad tidings, such as should ever 
brighten the feet of the conqueror. 

It is singular that, with a correspondence such as that of 
Cicero's, of which, at least through the latter two or three years 
of his life, every letter of his to his chief friend has been pre- 
served, there should have been nothing left to us from that 
friend himself. It must have been the case, as Middleton sug- 
gests, that Atticas, when Cicero was dead, had the handling of 
the entire MS., and had withdrawn his own ; either that, or else 
Cicero and Atticus mutually agreed to the destruction of their 
joint labors, and Atticus had been untrue to his agreement, 

1 Ad Div., xiv., 22, 20. The numbers going the wrong way is only an 
indication that the letters were wrongly placed by Grsevius. 



140 LIFE OF CICERO. 

knowing well the value of the documents he preserved. That 
there is no letter from a woman — not even a line to Cicero 
from his dear daughter — is much to he regretted. And yet 
there are letters — many from Caelius, who is thus brought for- 
ward as almost a second and a younger Atticus — and from 
various Romans of the day. When we come to the latter days 
of his life, in which he had taken upon himself the task of 
writing to Plancus and others as to their supposed duty to the 
State, they become numerous. There are ten such from Plan- 
cus, and nine from Decimus Brutus ; and there is a whole 
mass of correspondence with Marcus Brutus — to be taken for 
what it is worth. AVith a view to history, they are doubtless 
worth much ; but as throwing light on Cicero's character, ex- 
cept as to the vigor that was in the man to the last, they are 
not of great value. How is it that a correspondence, which is 
for its main purpose so full, should have fallen so short in many 
of its details? There is no word, no allusion derogatory to At- 
ticus in these letters, which have come to us from Caelius and 
others. We have Atticus left to us for our judgment, free 
from the confession of his own faults, and free also from the 
insinuations of others. Of whom would we wish that the fa- 
miliar letters of another about ourselves should be published? 
W 7 ould those objectionable epithets as to Pompey have been 
allowed to hold their ground had Pompey lived and had they 
been in his possession ? 

But, in reading histories and biographies, we always accept 
with a bias in favor of the person described the anecdotes of 
those who talk of them. We know that the ready wit of the 
surrounding world has taken up these affairs of the moment 
and turned them into ridicule — then as they do now. We dis- 
count the " Hierosolymarius." We do not quite believe that 
Bibulus never left the house while an enemy was to be seen ; 
but we think that a man may be expected to tell the truth of 
himself ; at any rate, to tell no untruth against himself. We 
think that Cicero of all men may be left to do so — Cicero, who 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 141 

so well understood the use of words, and could use them in his 
own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been that very 
deftness which has done him all the harm. Not one of those 
letters of the last years would have been written as it is now 
had Cicero thought, when writing it, that from it would his con- 
duct have been judged after two thousand years. " No," will 
say my readers, " that is their value ; they would not have oth- 
erwise been true, as they are. We should not then have learned 
his secrets." I reply, " It is a hard bargain to make : others 
do not make such bargains on the same terms. But be sure, at 
any rate, that you read them aright : be certain that you make 
the necessary allowances. Do not accuse him of falsehood be- 
cause he unsays on a Tuesday the words he said on the Mon- 
day. Bear in mind on his behalf all the temporary ill that hu- 
manity is heir to. Could you, living at Brundisium during the 
summer months, ' when you were scarcely able to endure the 
weight of the sun,' 1 have had all your intellects about you, and 
have been able always to choose your words ?" No, indeed ! 
These letters, if truth is to be expected from them, have to be 
read with all the subtle distinctions necessary for understand- 
ing the frame of mind in which they were written. His anger 
boils over here, and he is hot. Here tenderness has mastered 
him, and the love of old days. He is weak in body just now, 
and worn out in spirit ; he is hopeless, almost to the brink of 
despair ; he is bright with wit, he is full of irony, he is purposely 
enigmatic — all of which require an Atticus who knew him and 
the people among whom he had lived, and the times in which 
the events took place, for their special reading. Who is there 
can read them now so as accurately to decipher every intended 
detail ? Then comes some critic who will not even attempt to 
read them — who rushes through them by the light of some 
foregone conclusion, and missing the point at which the writer 
subtly aims, tells us of some purpose of which he was alto- 

1 Ad Att., lib. xi., 22. 



142 LIFE OF CICERO. 

gether innocent ! Because he jokes about the augurship, we 
are told bow miserably base he was, and how ready to sell bis 
country ! 

During the wbole of the last year he must have been tort- 
ured by various turns of mind. Had he done well in joining 
himself to Pompey ? and having done so, had he done well in 
severing himself, immediately on Pompey's death, from the Pom- 
peians ? Looking at the matter as from a stand-point quite re- 
moved from it, we are inclined to say that he had done well in 
both. He could not without treachery have gone over to Caesar 
when Caesar had come to the gate of Italy, and, as it were with 
a blast of his trumpet, had demanded the Consulship, a tri- 
umph, the use of his legions, and the continuance of his milita- 
ry power. " Let Pompey put down his, and I will put down 
mine," he had said. Had Pompey put down his, Pompey and 
Cicero, Cato and Brutus, and Bibulus would all have had to 
walk at the heels of Cassar. When Pompey declared that he 
would contest the point, he declared for them all. Cicero was 
bound to go to Pharsalia. But when, by Pompey's incom- 
petence, Cassar was the victor ; when Pompey had fallen at the 
Nile, and all the lovers of the fish-ponds, and the intractable 
oligarchs, and the cutthroats of the Empire, such as young Pom- 
pey had become, had scattered themselves far and wide, some 
to Asia, some to Illyricum, some to Spain, and more to Africa 
— as a herd of deer shall be seen to do when a vast hound has 
appeared among them, with his jaws already dripping with 
blood — was Cicero then to take his part with any of them ? I 
hold that he did what dignity required, and courage also. He 
went back to Italy, and there he waited till the conqueror 
should come. 

It must have been very bitter. Never to have become great 
has nothing in it of bitterness for a noble spirit. What matters 
it to the unknown man whether a Csesar or a Pompey is at the 
top of all things ? Or if it does matter — as indeed that ques- 
tion of his governance does matter to every man who has a soul 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 143 

within him to be turned this way or that — which way he is 
turned, though there may be inner regrets that Caesar should 
become the tyrant, perhaps keener regrets, if the truth were all 
seen, that Pompey's hands should be untrammelled, who sees 
them ? I can walk down to my club with my brow uncloud- 
ed, or, unless I be stirred to foolish wrath by the pride of some 
one equally vain, can enjoy myself amid the festivities of the 
hour. It is but a little affair to me. If it come in my way to 
do a thing, I will do my best, and there is an end of it. The 
sense of responsibility is not there, nor the grievous weight of 
having tried but failed to govern mankind. But to have- clung 
to high places ; to have sat in the highest seat of all with infinite 
honor; to have been called by others, and, worse still, to have 
called myself, the savior of my country ; to have believed in 
myself that I was sufficient, that I alone could do it, that I 
could bring back, by my own justice and integrity, my erring 
countrymen to their former simplicity — and then to have found 
myself fixed in a little town, just in Italy, waiting for the great 
conqueror, who though my friend in things social was opposed 
to me body and soul as to rules of life — that, I say, must have 
been beyond the bitterness of death. 

During this year he had made himself acquainted with the 
details of that affair, whatever it might be, which led to his 
divorce soon after his return to Rome. He had lived about 
thirty years with his wife, and the matter could not but have 
been to him the cause of great unhappiness. Terentia was not 
only the mother of his children, but she had been to him also 
the witness of his rise in life and the companion of his fall. 
He was one who would naturally learn to love those with 
whom he was conversant. He seems to have projected him- 
self out of his own time into those modes of thought which 
have come to us with Christianity, and such a separation from 
this woman after an intercourse of so many years must have 
been very grievous to him. All married Romans underwent 
divorce quite as a matter of course. There were many reasons. 



144 LIFE OF CICERO. 

A young wife is more agreeable to the man's taste than one 
who is old. A rich wife is moi'e serviceable than a poor. A 
new wife is a novelty. A strange Avife is an excitement. A 
little wife is a relief to one overburdened with the flesh ; a 
buxom wife to him who has become tired of the pure spirit. 
Xanthippe asks too much, while Griselda is too tranquil. And 
then, as a man came up in the world, causes for divorce grew 
without even the trouble of having to search for faults. Cae- 
sar required that his wife should not be ill spoken of, and 
therefore divorced her. Pompey cemented the Triumvirate 
with a divorce. We cannot but imagine that, when men had 
so much the best of it in the affairs of life, a woman had al- 
ways the worst of it in these enforced separations. But as the 
wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, so were divorces made 
acceptable to Roman ladies. No woman was disgraced by a 
divorce, and they who gave over their husbands at the caprice 
of a moment to other embraces would usually find consolation. 
Terentia when divorced from Cicero was at least fifty, and we 
are told she had the extreme honor of having married Sallust 
after her break with Cicero. They say that she married twice 
again after Sallust's death, and that having lived nearly through 
the reign of Augustus, she 'died at length at the age of a hun- 
dred and three. Divorce at any rate did not kill her. But we 
cannot conceive but that so sudden a disruption of all the ties 
of life must have been grievous to Cicero. We shall find him 
in the next chapter marrying a young ward, and then, too, di- 
vorcing her ; but here we have only to deal with the torments 
Terentia inflicted on him. What those torments were we do 
not know, and shall never learn unless by chance the lost letters 
of Atticus should come to light. But the general idea has 
been that the lady had, in league with a freedman and steward 
in her service, been guilty of fraud against her husband. I do 
not know that we have much cause to lament the means of as- 
certaining the truth. It is sad to find that the great men 
with whose name we are occupied have been made subject to 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 145 

those " whips and scorns of time " which we thought to be pe- 
culiar to ourselves, because they have stung us. Terentia, Cic- 
ero's wife two thousand years ago, sent him word that he had 
but £100 left in his box at home, when he himself knew well 
that there must be something more. That would have gone 
for nothing had there not been other things before that, many 
other things. So, in spite of his ordering at her hands the baths 
and various matters to be got ready for his Mends at his Tuscu- 
lnm, a very short time after his return there he had divorced her. 

During this last year he had been engaged on what has 
since been found to be the real work of his life. He had al- 
ready written much, but had written as one who had been anx- 
ious to fill up vacant spaces of time as they came in his way. 
From this time forth he wrote as does one who has reconciled 
himself to the fact that there are no more days to be lost if 
he intends, before the sun be set, to accomplish an appointed 
task. He had already compiled the De Oratore, the De Re- 
publica, and the De Legibus. Out of the many treatises 
which we have from Cicero's hands, these are they which are 
known as the works of his earlier years. He commenced the 
year with an inquiry, De Optimo Genere Oratorum, which 
he intended as a preface to the translations Avhich he made of 
the great speeches of ^Eschines and Demosthenes, De Corona. 
These translations are lost, though the preface remains. He- 
then translated, or rather paraphrased the Timseus of Plato, 
of which a large proportion has come down to us, and the 
Protagoras, of which we have lost all but a sentence or two. 
We have his Oratorise Partitiones, in which, in a dialogue be- 
tween himself and his son, he repeats the lessons on oratory 
which he has given to the young man. It is a recapitulation, 
in short, of all that had been said on a subject which has since 
been made common, and which owed its origin to the work of 
much earlier years. It is but dull reading, but I can imagine 
that even in these days it may be useful to a young lawyer. 
There is a cynical morsel among these precepts which is worth 

II.— 7 



146 LIFE OF CICERO. 

observing, " Cito enim arescit lachryma praesertim in alienis 
malis;" 1 and another grandly simple, "Nihil enim est aliud 
eloquentia nisi copiose loquens sapientia." Can we fancy any- 
thing more biting than the idea that the tears caused by the 
ills of another soon grow dry on the orator's cheek, or more 
wise than that which tells us that eloquence is no more than 
wisdom speaking eloquently ? Then he wrote the six Para- 
doxes addressed to Brutus — or rather he then gave them to the 
world, for they were surely written at an earlier date. They 
are short treatises on trite subjects, put into beautiful language, 
so as to arrest the attention of all readers by the unreasonable- 
ness of their reasoning. The most remarkable is the third, in 
which he endeavored to show that a man cannot be wise un- 
less he be all-wise, a doctrine which he altogether overturns 
in his De Amicitia, written but four years afterward. Cicero 
knew well what was true, and wrote his paradox in order to 
give a zest to the subject. In the fourth and the sixth are 
attacks upon Clodius and Crassus, and are here republished 
in what would have been the very worst taste amid the polite- 
ness of our modern times. A man now may hate and say so 
while his foe is still alive and strong; but with the Romans he 
might continue to hate, and might republish the words which 
he had written, eight years after the death of his victim. 

I know nothing of Cicero's which so much puts us in mind 
of the struggles of the modern authors to make the most of 
every word that has come from them, as do these paradoxes. 
They remind us of some writer of leading articles who gets 
together a small bundle of essays and then gives them to the 
world. Each of them has done well at its time, but that has 
not sufficed for his ambition ; therefore they are dragged out 
into the light and put forward with a separate claim for attention, 
as though they could stand well on their own legs. But they can- 
not stand alone, and they fall from having been put into a posi- 
tion other than that for which they were intended when written. 

1 Oratorise Partitiones, xvii., xxiii. 



HARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 147 



Chapter VII. 

MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 

The battle of Thapsus, in Africa, took place in the spring 
of this year, and Cato destroyed himself with true 
retat.6l. ^oical tranquillity, determined not to live under Cae- 
sar's rule. If we may believe the story which, proba- 
bly, Hirtius has given us, in his account of the civil war in 
Africa, and which has come down to us together with Csesar's 
Commentaries, Cato left his last instructions to some of his 
officers, and then took his sword into his bed with him and 
stabbed himself. Cicero, who, in his dream of Scipio, has 
given his readers such excellent advice in regard to suicide, 
has understood that Cato must be allowed the praise of acting 
up to his own principles. He would die rather than behold 
the face of the tyrant who had enslaved him. 1 To Cato it was 
nothing that he should leave to others the burden of living 
under Caesar ; but to himself the idea of a superior caused an 
unendurable affront. The " Catonis nobile letum " has recon- 
ciled itself to the poets of all ages. Men, indeed, have refused 
to see that he fled from a danger which he felt to be too much 
for him, and that in doing so he had lacked something of the 
courage of a man. Many other Romans of the time did the 
same thing, but to none has been given all the honor which 
has been allowed to Cato. 

1 De Officiis, lib. i., ca. xxxi. : " Catoni cum incredibilem tribuisset natura 
gravitatem, eamque ipse perpetua constantia roborasset, semperque in pro- 
posito susceptoque consilio permansisset, moriendum potius quam tyranni 
vultum aspiciendum fuit." 



148 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Cicero felt as others have done, and allowed all his little 
jealousies to die away. It was but a short time before that 
Cato had voted against the decree of the Senate giving Cicero 
his " supplication." Cicero had then been much annoyed ; 
but now Cato had died righting for the Republic, and was 
to be forgiven all personal offences. Cicero wrote a eulogy of 
Cato which was known by the name of Cato, and was much 
discussed at Rome at the time. It has now been lost. He 
sent it to Caesar, having been bold enough to say in it what- 
ever occurred to him should be said in Cato's praise. We 
may imagine that, had it not pleased him to be generous — had 
he not been governed by that feeling of " De mortuis nil nisi 
bonum," which is now common to us all — he might have said 
much that w T as not good. Cato had endeavored to live up to 
the austerest rules of the Stoics — a mode of living altogether 
antagonistic to Cicero's views. But we know that he praised 
Cato to the full — and we know also that Caesar nobly took the 
praise in good part, as coining from Cicero, and answered it in 
an Anti-Cato, in which he stated his reasons for differing from 
Cicero. "VYe can understand how Caesar should have shown 
that the rigid Stoic was not a man likely to be of service to 
his country. 

There came up at this period a question which made itself 
popular among the " optimates " of Rome, as to the return of 
Marcellus. The man of Como, whom Marcellus had flogged, 
will be remembered — the Roman citizen who had first been 
made a citizen by Caesar. This is mentioned now not as the 
cause of Caesar's enmity, who did not care much probably 
for his citizen, but as showing the spirit of the man. He, 
Marcellus, had been Consul four years since, b.c. 51, and had 
then endeavored to procure Caesar's recall from his province. 
He was one of the " optimates," an oligarch altogether op- 
posed to Caesar, a Roman nobleman of fairly good repute, who 
had never bent to Caesar, but had believed thoroughly in his 
order, and had thought, till the day of Pharsalia came, that the 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 149 

Consuls and the Senate would rule forever. The day of Phar- 
salia did come, and Marcellus went into voluntary banishment, 
in Mitylene. After Pharsalia, Caesar's clemency began to make 
itself known. There was a pardon for almost every Roman 
who had fought against him, and would accept it. No spark 
of anger burnt in Caesar's bosom, except against one or two, 
of whom Marcellus was one. He was too wise to be angry 
with men whose services he might require. It was Caesar's 
wish not to drive out the good men but to induce them to re- 
main in Rome, living by the grace of his favor. Marcellus had 
many friends, and it seems that a public effort was made to 
obtain for him permission to come back to Rome. We must 
imagine that Caesar had hitherto refused, probably with the 
idea of making his final concession the more valuable. At 
last the united Senators determined to implore his grace, and 
the Consulates rose one after another in their places, and all, 
•with one exception, 1 asked that Marcellus might be allowed 
to return. Cicero, however, had remained silent to the last. 
There must have been, I think, some plot to get Cicero on to 
his legs. He had gone to meet Caesar at Brundisium when 
he came back from the East, had returned to Rome under his 
auspices, and had lived in pleasant friendship with Caesar's 
friends. Pardon seems to have been accorded to Cicero with- 
out an effort. As far as he was concerned, that hostile jour- 
ney to Dyrrachium — for he did not travel farther toward the 
camp — counted for nothing with Caesar. He was allowed to 
live in peace, at Rome or at his villas, as he might please, so 
long as Caesar might rule. The idea seems to have been that 
he should gradually become absorbed among Caesar's follow- 
ers. But hitherto he had remained silent. It was now six 
years since his voice had been heard in Rome. He had spoken 
for Milo — or had intended to speak — and, in the same affair, 
for Munatius Plancus, and for Saufeius, b.c. 52. He had then 



This was Lucius Volcatius Tullus. 



150 LIFE OF CKJERO. 

been in Lis fifty-fifth year, and it might well be that six years 
of silence at such a period of bis life would not be broken. 
It was manifestly his intention not to speak again, at any rate 
in the Senate ; though the threats made by him as to his total 
retirement should not be taken as meaning much. Such threats 
from statesmen depend generally on the wishes of other men. 
But he held his place in the Senate, and occasionally attended 
the debates. When this affair of Marcellus came on, and all 
the Senators of consular rank — excepting only Volcatius and 
Cicero — had risen, and had implored Caesar in a few words to 
condescend to be generous; when Claudius Marcellns had knelt 
at Csesar's feet to ask for his brother's liberty, and Caesar him- 
self, after reminding them of the bitterness of the man, had 
still declared that he could not refuse the prayers of the Sen- 
ate, then Cicero, as though driven by the magnanimity of the 
conqueror, rose from his place, and poured forth his thanks in 
the speech which is still extant. 

That used to be the story till there came the German critic 
Wolf, who at the beginning of this century told us that Cicero 
did not utter the words attributed to him, and could not have 
uttered them. According to Wolf, it would be doing Cicero 
an egregious wrong to suppose him capable of having used 
such words, which are not Latin, and which were probably 
written by some ignoramus in the time of Tiberius. Such a 
verdict might have been taken as fatal — for Wolf's scholarship 
and powers of criticism are acknowledged — in spite of La 
Harpe, the French scholar and critic, who has named the Marcel- 
lus as a thing of excellence, comparing it with the eulogistic 
speeches of Isocrates. The praise of La Harpe was previous 
to the condemnation of Wolf, and we might have been will- 
ing to accede to the German as being the later and probably 
the more accurate. Mr. Long, the British editor of the Ora- 
tions — Mr. Long, who has so loudly condemned the four 
speeches supposed to have been made after Cicero's return 
from exile — gives us no certain guidance. Mr. Long, at any 



MARCMLLUS, LIGASIUS, AXD DEIOTARUS. 151 

rate, has not been so disgusted by the Tibcrian Latin as to feel 
himself bound to repudiate it. If he can read the Pro Mar- 
cello, so can I, and so, my reader, might you do probably with- 
out detriment. But these differences among the great philo- 
logic critics tend to make us, who are so infinitely less learned, 
better contented with our own lot. I, who had read the Pro 
Marcello without stumbling over its halting Latinity, should 
have felt myself crushed when I afterward came across Wolf's 
denunciations, had I not been somewhat comforted by La 
Harpe. But when I found that Mr. Long, in his introduction 
to the piece, though he discusses Wolf's doctrine, still gives to 
the orator the advantage, as it may be, of his " imprimatur," I 
felt that I might go on, and not be ashamed of myself. 1 

This is the story that has now to be told of the speech Pro 
Marcello. At the time the matter ended very tragically. As 
soon as Caesar had yielded, Cicero wrote to Marcellus giving 
him strong reasons for coming home. Marcellus answered him, 
saying that it was impossible. He thanks Cicero shortly ; but, 
with kindly dignity, he declines. " With the comforts of the 
city I can well dispense," he says. 2 Then Cicero urges him 
again and again, using excellent arguments for his return — 
which at length prevail. In the spring of the next year Mar- 
cellus, on his way back to Rome, is at Athens. There Servius 
Sulpicius spends a day with him ; but, just as Sulpicius is 
about to pass on, there comes a slave to him who tells him that 
Marcellus has been murdered. His friend Magius Chilo had 
stabbed him overnight, and had then destroyed himself. It 
was said that Chilo had asked Marcellus to pay his debts for 
him, and that Marcellus had refused. It seems to be more 

1 But it is now, I believe, the opinion of scholars that Wolf has been 
proved to be wrong, and the words to have been the very words of Cice- 
ro, by the publication of certain fragments of ancient scholia on the Pro 
Marcello which have been discovered by Cardinal Mai since the time of 
the dispute. 

2 Ad Div., iv.,11. 



1-52 LIFE OF CICERO. 

probable that Cbilo bad bis own reasons for not choosing tbat 
bis friend sbould return to Rome. 

Looking back at my own notes on the speecb — it would 
make with us but a ten minutes' after-dinner speech — I see 
tbat it is said " that it is chiefly remarkable for the beauty of 
the language, and tbe abjectness of tbe praise of Caesar." This 
was before I bad beard of Wolf. As to tbe praise, I doubt 
whether it sbould be called abject, regard being bad to the 
feelings of the moment in which it was delivered. Cicero had 
risen to thank Caesar — on whose breath tbe recall of Marcel- 
lus depended — for his unexpected courtesy. In England we 
should not have thanked Caesar as Cicero did : " Caesar, 
there is no flood of eloquence, no power of the tongue or of 
the pen, no richness of words, which may emblazon, or even 
dimly tell the story of your great deeds." 1 Such language is 
unusual with us — as it would also be unusual to abuse our 
Pisos and our Vatiniuses, as did Cicero. It was tbe Southerner 
and the Roman who spoke to Southerners and to Romans. 
But, undoubtedly, there was present to the mind of Cicero the 
idea of saying words which Csesar might receive with pleasure. 
He was dictator, emperor, lord of all things — king. Cicero 
should have remained away, as Marcellus had done, were he not 
prepared to speak after this fashion. He had long held aloof 
from speech. At length the time had come when he was, as 
it were, caught in a trap, and compelled to be eloquent. 

The silence had been broken, and in the course of the au- 
tumn he spoke on behalf of Ligarius, beseeching the 
iBtat. 61. conqueror to be again merciful. This case was by no 
means similar to that of Marcellus, who was exiled by 
no direct forfeiture of his right to live in Italy, but who had 
expatriated himself. In this case Ligarius had been banished 
with others ; but it seems that the punishment had been in- 
flicted on him, not from the special ill-will of Caesar, but from 

1 Fro Marcello, ii. 



M1RCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 153 

the malice of certain enemies who, together with Ligarius, had 
found themselves among Pompey's followers when Caesar cross- 
ed the Rubicon. Ligarius had at this time been left as acting 
governor in Africa. In the confusion of the times an unfort- 
unate Pompeian named Varus had arrived in Africa, and to 
him, as being superior in rank, Ligarius had given up the gov- 
ernment. Varus had then gone, leaving Ligarius still acting, 
and one Tubero had come with his son, and had demanded the 
office. Ligarius had refused to give it up, and the two Tuberos 
had departed, leaving the province in anger, and had fought at 
the Pharsalus. After the battle they made their peace with 
Caesar, and in the scramble that ensued Ligarius was banished. 
Now the case was brought into the courts, in which Caesar sat 
as judge. The younger Tubero accused Ligarius, and Cicero 
defended him. It seems that, having been enticed to open his 
mouth on behalf of Marcellus, he found himself launched again 
into public life. But how great was the difference from his 
old life ! It is not to the Judices, or Patres Conscripti, or to 
the Quirites that he now addresses himself, determined by the 
strength of his eloquence to overcome the opposition of stub- 
born minds, but to Caesar, whom he has to vanquish simply by 
praise. Once again he does the same thing when pleading for 
Deiotarus, the King of Galatia, and it is impossible to deny, as 
we read the phrases, that the orator sinks in our esteem. It is 
not so much that we judge him to be small, as that he has 
ceased to be great. He begins his speech for Ligarius by say- 
ing, " My kinsman Tubero has brought before you, O Caesar, a 
new crime, and one not heard of up to this day — that Ligarius 
has been in Africa." 1 The commencement would have been 
happy enough if it had not been addressed to Caesar ; for he 
was addressing a judge not appointed by any form, but self- 
assumed— a judge by military conquest. We cannot imagine 
how Caesar found time to sit there, with his legions round him 

1 Pro Ligario, i. 



154 LIFE OF CICERO. 

still under arms, and Spain not wholly conquered. But lie did 
do so, and allowed himself to be persuaded to the side of mercy. 
Ligarius came back to Rome, and was one of those who plunged 
their daggers into him. But I cannot think that he should 
have been hindered by this trial and by Caesar's mercy from 
taking such a step, if by nothing else. Brutus and Cassius 
also stabbed him. The question to be decided is whether, on 
public grounds, these men were justified in killing him — a 
question as to which I should be premature in expressing an 
opinion here. 

There are some beautiful passages in this oration. "Who 
is there, I ask," he says, " who alleges Ligarius to have been in 
fault because he was in Africa ? He does so who himself was 
most anxious to be there, and now complains that he was re- 
fused admittance by Ligarius, he who was in arms against Cae- 
sar. What was your sword doing, Tubero, in that Pharsalian 
army? Whom did you seek to kill then? What was the 
meaning of your weapon ? What was it that you desired so 
eagerly, with those eyes and hands, with that passion in your 
heart ? I press him too much ; the young man seems to be 
disturbed. I will speak of myself, then, for I also was in that 
army." 1 This was in Cesar's presence, and no doubt told with 
Caesar. We were all together in the same cause — you, and I, 
and Ligarius. Why should you and I be pardoned and not 
Ligarius? The oration is for the most part simply eulogistic. 
At any rate it was successful, and became at Rome, for the 
time, extremely popular. He writes about it early in the fol- 
lowing year to Atticus, who has urged him to put something 
into it, before it was published, to mitigate the feeling against 
Tubero. Cicero says in his reply to Atticus that the copies 
have already been given to the public, and that, indeed, he is 
not anxious on Tubero's behalf. 

Early in this year he had divorced Terentia, and seems at 

1 Pro Ligario, iii. 



3IARCELLUS, LIG ARIL'S, AND DEIOTARUS. 155 

ouce to have married Publilia. Publilia had been his ward, 
and is supposed to have had a fortune of her own. He ex- 
plains his own motives very clearly in a letter to his friend 
Plaucius. In these wretched times he would have formed no 
new engagement, unless his own affairs had been as sad for 
him as were those of the Republic; but when he found that 
they to whom his prosperity should have been of the greatest 
concern were plotting against him within bis own walls, he was 
forced to strengthen himself against the perfidy of his old in- 
mates by placing his trust in new. 1 It must have been very 
bad with him when he had recourse to such a step as this. 
Shortly after this letter just quoted had been written, he di- 
vorced Publilia also — we are told because Publilia had treated 
Tullia with disrespect. We have no details on the subject, but 
we can well understand the pride of the young woman who 
declined to hear the constant praise of her step-daughter, and 
thought herself to be quite as good as Tullia. At any rate, 
she was sent away quickly from her new home, having i'e- 
maiued there only long enough to have made not the most 
creditable episode in Cicero's life. 

At this time Dolabella, who assumed the Consulship upon 
Caesar's death, and Hirtius, who became Consul during the 
next year, used to attend upon Cicero and take lessons in elo- 
cution. So at least the story has been told, from a letter writ- 
ten in this year to his friend Poetus ; but I should imagine 
that the lessons were not much in earnest. "Why do you 
talk to me of your tunny-fish, your pilot-fish, and your cheese 
and sardines ? Hirtius and Dolabella preside over my banquets, 
and I teach them in return to make speeches." 2 From this we 
may learn that Caesar's friends were most anxious to be also 
Cicero's friends. It may be said that Dolabella was his son-in- 
law ; but Dolabella was at this moment on the eve of being di- 
vorced. It was in spite of his marriage that Dolabella still 

1 Ad Fam., lib. iv., 14. 2 Ad Div., lib. ix., 16. 



156 LIFE OF CICERO. 

clung to Cicero. All Caesar's friends in Rome did the same ; 
so that I am disposed to think that for this year, just till Tul- 
lia's death, he was falling, not into a happy state, but to the 
passive contentment of those who submit themselves to be ruled 
over by a single master. He had strugged all his life, and now 
finding that he must yield, he thought that he might as well 
do so gracefully. It was so much easier to listen to the State 
secrets of Balbus, and hear from Oppius how the money was 
spent, and then to dine with Hirtius or Dolabella, than to sit 
ever scowling at home, as Cato would have done had Cato lived. 
But with his feelings about the Republic at heart, how sad it 
must have been ! Cato was gone, and Pompey, and Bibulus ; 
and Marcellus was either gone or just about to go. Old age was 
creeping on. It was better to write philosophy, in friendship 
with Caesar's friends, than to be banished again whither he 
could not write it at all. Much, no doubt, he did in preparation 
for all those treatises which the next eighteen months were to 
bring forth. 

Caesar, just at the end of the year, had been again called to 
Spain, B.C. 46, to quell the last throbbings of the Pompeians, 
and then to fight the final battle of Munda. It would seem 
odd to us that so little should have been said about such an 
event by Cicero, and that the little should depend on the edu- 
cation of his son, were it not that if we look at our own pri- 
vate letters, written to-day to our friends, we find the same 
omission of great things. To Cicero the doings of his son 
were of more immediate moment than the doings of Caesar. 
The boy had been anxious to enlist for the Spanish war. 
Quintus, his cousin, had gone, and young Marcus was anxious 
to flutter his feathers beneath the eyes of royalty. At his age 
it was nothing to him that he had been taken to Pharsalia and 
made to bear arms on the opposite side. Caesar had become 
Caesar since he had learned to form his opinion on politics, and 
on Caesar's side all things seemed to be bright and prosperous. 
The lad was anxious to get away from his new step-mother, and 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 157 

asked his father for the means to go with the army to Spain. 
It appears by Cicero's letter to Atticus on the subject 1 that, in 
discussing the matter with his son, he did yield. These Roman 
fathers, in whose hands we are told were the very lives of their 
sons, seem to have been much like Christian fathers of modern 
days in their indulgences. The lad was now nineteen years old, 
and does not appear to have been willing, at the first parental 
attempt, to give up his military appanages and that swagger 
of the young officer which is so dear to the would-be military 
mind. Cicero tells him that if he joined the army he would 
find his cousin treated with greater favor than himself. Young 
Quintus was older, and had been already able to do something 
to push himself with Caesar's friends. " Sed tamen permisi " — 
" Nevertheless, I told him he might go," said Cicero, sadly. But 
he did not go. He was allured, probably, by the promise of a 
separate establishment at Athens, whither he was sent to study 
with Cratippus. We find another proof of Cicero's wealth in 
the costliness of his son's household at Athens, as premeditated 
by the father. He is to live as do the sons of other great no- 
blemen. He even names the young noblemen with whom he 
is to live. Bibulus was of the Calpurnian "gens," Acidinus 
of the Manlian, and Messala of the Valerian, and these are the 
men whom Cicero, the " novus homo " from Arpinum, selects 
as those who shall not live at a greater cost than his son. 2 " He 
will not, however, at Athens want a horse." Why not ? Why 
should not a young man so furnished want a horse at Athens ? 
" There are plenty here at home for the road," says Cicero. So 
young Cicero is furnished, and sent forth to learn philosophy 
and Greek. But no one has essayed to tell us why he should 
not want the horse. Young Cicero when at Athens did not do 
well. He writes home in the coming year, to Tiro, two letters 
which have been preserved for us, and which seem to give us 
but a bad account, at any rate, of his sincerity. " The errors 



1 Ad Att.,lib.xii.,V. 2 Ibid., 32. 



158 LIFE OF CICERO. 

of his youth," he says, " have afflicted him grievously." Not 
only is his mind shocked, but his ears cannot bear to hear of 
his own iniquity. 1 "And now," he says, "I will give you a 
double joy, to compensate all the anxiety I have occasioned 
you. Know that I live with Cratippus, my master, more like 
a son than a pupil. I spend all my clays with him, and 
very often part of the night." But he seems to have had some 
wit. Tiro has been made a freedman, and has bought a farm 
for himself. Young- Marcus — from whom Tiro has asked for 
some assistance which Marcus cannot give him — jokes with 
him as to his country life, telling him that he sees him saving 
the apple-pips at dessert. Of the subsequent facts of the life 
of young Marcus we do not know much. lie did not suffer 
in the proscriptions of Antony and Augustus, as did his fa- 
ther and uncle and his cousin. He did live to be chosen as 
Consul with Augustus, and had the reputation of a great 
drinker. For this latter assertion we have only the authority 
of Pliny the elder, who tells us an absurd story, among the 
wonders of drinking which he adduces. 2 Middleton says a 
word or two on behalf of the young Cicero, which are as well 
worthy of credit as anything else that has been told. One last 
glance at him which we can credit is given in that letter to 
Tiro, and that we admit seems to us to be hypocritical. 

In the spring of the year Cicero lost his daughter Tullia. 

We have first a letter of his to Lepta, a man with whom 
jetat 4 62 ne ^^ become intimate, saying that he had been kept 

in Rome by Tullia's confinement, and that now he is 
still detained, though her health is sufficiently confirmed, by 
the expectation of obtaining from Dolahella's agents the first 
repayment of her dowry. The repayment of the divorced 
lady's marriage portion was a thing of every-day occurrence in 
Rome, when she was allowed to take away as much as she had 
brought with her. Cicero, however, failed to get back Tullia's 

1 Ad Div., lib. xvi., 21. 2 Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xiv., 28. 



MARCELLUS, L1QAPJUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 159 

dowry. But he writes in good spirits. He does not think 
that he cares to travel any more. He has a house at Rome 
better than any of his villas in the country, and greater rest 
than in the most desert region. His studies are now never in- 
terrupted. He thinks it probable that Lepta will have to come 
to him before he can be induced to go to Lepta. In the mean 
time let the young Lepta take care and read his Hesiod. 1 

Then he writes in the spring to Atticus a letter from Antium, 
and we first hear that Tullia is dead. She had seemed to re- 
cover from childbirth ; but her strength did not suffice, and she 
was no more. 2 A boy had been born, and was left alive. In 
subsequent letters we find that Cicero gives instructions con- 
cerning him, and speaks of providing for him in his will. 3 
But of the child we hear nothing more, and must surmise 
that he also died. Of Tullia's death we have no further par- 
ticulars; but we may well imagine that the troubles of the 
world had been very heavy on her. The little stranger was 
being born at the moment of her divorce from her third hus- 
band. She was about thirty-two years of age, and it seems 
that Cicero had taken consolation in her misfortunes from the 
expected pleasure of her companionship. She was now dead, 
and he was left alone. 

She had died in February, and we know nothing of the first 
outbreak of his sorrow. It appears that he at first buried him- 
self for a while in a villa belonging to Atticus, near Rome, and 
that he then retreated to his own at Astura. From thence, and 
afterward from Antium, there are a large number of letters, all 
dealing with the same subject. He declares himself to be in- 
consolable ; but he does take consolation from two matters — 
from his books on philosophy, and from an idea which occurs 
to him that he will perpetuate the name of Tullia forever by 
the erection of a monument that shall be as nearly immortal 
as stones and bricks can make it. 



1 Ad Div., lib. vi., 18. ! Ad Att., lib. xii., 12. z Ibid., 18, 28. 



160 LIFE OF CICERO. 

His letters to Atticus at this time are tedious to the general 
reader, because he reiterates so often his instructions as to the 
purchase of the garden near Rome in which the monument is 
to be built ; but they are at the same time touching and nat- 
ural. " Nothing has been written," he says, " for the lessening 
of grief which I have not read at your house ; but my sorrow 
breaks through it all." 1 Then he tells Atticus that he too has 
endeavored to console himself by writing a treatise on Con- 
solation. " Whole days I write ; not that it does any good." 
In that he was wrong. He could find no cure for his grief ; 
but he did know that continued occupation would relieve him, 
and therefore he occupied himself continually. " Totos dies 
scribo." By doing so, he did contrive not to break his heart. 
In a subsequent letter he says, " Reading and writing do not 
soften it, but they deaden it." 2 

On the Appian Way, a short distance out of Rome, the trav- 
eller is shown a picturesque ancient building, of enormous 
strength, called the Mole of Ca3cilia Metella. It is a castle in 
size, but is believed to have been the tomb erected to the 
memory of Caecilia, the daughter of Metellus Creticus, and 
the wife of Crassus the rich. History knows of her nothing 
more, and authentic history hardly knows so much of the 
stupendous monument. There it stands, however, and is sup- 
posed to be proof of what might be done for a Roman lady in 
the way of perpetuating her memory. She was, at any rate, 
older than Tullia, having been the wife of a man older than 
Tullia's father. If it be the case that this monument be of the 
date named, it proves to us, at least, that the notion of erecting 
such monuments was then prevalent. Some idea of a similar 
kind — of a monument equally stupendous, and that should last 
as long — seems to have taken a firm hold of Cicero's mind. 
He has read all the authors he could find on the subject, and 
they agree that it shall be done in the fashion he points out. 

1 Ad Att., lib. xii., 14. 2 Ibid., 18, 28. 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND DEIOTARUS. 1G1 

He does not, lie says, consult Atticus on that matter, nor on 
the architecture, for he has already settled on the design of 
one Cluatius. What he wants Atticus to do for him now is 
to assist him in buying the spot on which it shall be built. 
Many gardens near Rome are named. If Drusus makes a dif- 
ficulty, Atticus must see Damasippus. Then there are those 
which belong; to Sica and to Silius ! But at last the matter 
dies away, and even the gardens are not bought. We are led 
to imagine that Atticus has been opposed to the monument 
from first to last, and that the immense cost of constructing 
such a temple as Cicero had contemplated is proved to him to 
be injudicious. There is a charming letter written to him at 
this time by his friend Sulpicius, showing the great feeling en- 
tertained for him. But, as I have said before, I doubt whether 
that or any other phrases of consolation were of service to him. 
It was necessary for him to wait and bear it, and the more 
work that he did when he was bearing it, the easier it was 
borne. Lucceius and Torquatus wrote to him on the same 
subject, and we have his answers. 

In September Caesar returned from Spain, having at last 

conquered the Republic. All hope for liberty was now 
a»tat 4 62 g one - Atticus had instigated Cicero to write something 

to Csesar as to his victories — something that should be 
complimentary, and at the same time friendly and familiar; 
but Cicero had replied that it was impossible. " When I 
feel," he said, " that to draw the breath of life is in itself base, 
how base would be my assent to what has been done I 1 But 
it is not only that. There are not words in which such a let- 
ter ever can be written. Do you not know that Aristotle, when 
he addressed himself to Alexander, wrote to a youth who had 
been modest; but then, when he had once heard himself called 
king, he became proud, cruel, and unrestrained ? How 7 , then, 
shall I now write in terms which shall suffice for his pride to 

1 Ad Att., lib. xiii., 28. 



162 LIFE OF CICERO. 

the man who has been equalled to Romulus?" It was true; 
Caesar had now returned inflated with such pride that Brutus, 
and Cassius, and Casca could no longer endure him. He came 
back, and triumphed over the five lands in which he had con- 
quered not the enemies of Rome, but Rome itself. He tri- 
umphed nominally over the Gauls, the Egyptians, the Asiatics 
of Pontus, over the Africans, and the Spaniards; but his tri- 
umph was, in truth, over the Republic. There appears from 
Suetonius to have been five separate triumphal processions, 
each at the interval of a few days. 1 Amid the glory of the 
first Vercingetorix was strangled. To the glory of the third 
was added — as Suetonius tells us — these words, "Veni, vidi, 
vici, 1 ' displayed on a banner. This I think more likely than 
that he had written them on an official despatch. We are told 
that the people of Rome refused to show any pleasure, and 
that even his own soldiers had enough in them of the Roman 
spirit to feel resentment at his assumption of the attributes of 
a king. Cicero makes but little mention of these gala doings 
in his letters. He did not see them, but wrote back word to 
Atticus, who had described it all. "An absurd pomp," he 
says, alluding to the carriage of the image of Caesar together 
with that of the gods ; and he applauds the people who would 
not clap their hands, even in approval of the Goddess of Vic- 
tory, because she had shown herself in such bad company. 2 
There are, however, but three lines on the subject, showing 
how little there is in that statement of Cornelius Nepos that 
he who had read Cicero's letters carefully wanted but little 
more to be well informed of the history of the day. 

Caesar was not a man likely to be turned away from his pur- 
pose of ruling well by personal pride— less likely, we should 
say, than any self-made despot dealt with in history. He did 
make efforts to be as he was before. He endeavored to live 
on terms of friendship with his old friends ; but the spirit of 

1 Suetonius, Julius Ceesar, ca. xxxvii. 2 Ad Att., lib. xiii., 44. 



MARCELLUS, LIGAR1US, AND DEIOTAIiUS. 163 

pride which had taken hold of him was too much for him. 
Power had got possession of him, and he could not stand 
against it. It was sad to see the way in which it compelled 
him to make" himself a prey to the conspirators, were it not 
that we learn from history how impossible it is that a man 
should raise himself above the control of his fellow-men with- 
out suffering. 

During these days Cicero kept himself in the country, giv- 
ing himself up to his philosophical writings, and indulging in 
grief for Tullia. Efforts were repeatedly made to bring him 
to Rome, and he tells Atticus in irony that if he is wanted 
there simply as an augur, the augurs have nothing to do with 
the opening of temples. In the same letter he speaks of an 
interview he has just had with his nephew Qnintus, who had 
come to him in his disgrace. He wants to go to the Parthian 
war, but he has not money to support him. Then Cicero uses, 
as he says, the eloquence of Atticus, and holds his tongue. 1 
We can imagine how very unpleasant the interview must have 
been. Cicero, however, decides that he will go up to 

B '°' f 4 fA the city, so that he may. have Atticus with him on his 

setae. 62. J ' •> 

birthday. This letter was written toward the close of 
the year, and Cicero's birthday was the 3d of January. 

He then goes to Rome, and undertakes to plead the cause 
of Deiotarus, the King of Galatia, before Csesar. This very 
old man had years ago become allied with Pompey, and, as 
far as we can judge, been singularly true to his idea of Roman 
power. He had seen Pompey in all his glory when Pompey 
had come to fight Mithridates. The Tetrarchs in Asia Minor, 
of whom this Deiotarus was one, had a hard part to play when 
the Romans came among them. They were forced to comply, 
either with their natural tendency to resist their oppressors, 
or else were obliged to fleece their subjects in order to satisfy 
the cupidity of the invaders. We remember Ariobarzanes, who 

1 Ad Att., "lib. xiii., 42. 



164 LIFE OF CICERO. 

sent his subjects in gangs to Rome to be sold as slaves in order 
to pay Pompey the interest on his debt. Deiotarus bad simi- j 
larly found his best protection in being loyal to Pompey, and 
bad in return been made King of Armenia by a decree of the 
Roman Senate. He joined Pompey at the Pharsalus, and, 
when the battle was over, returned to his own country to look 
for further forces wherewith to aid the Republic. Unfortu- 
nately for him, Caesar was the conqueror, and Deiotarus found 
himself obliged to assist the conqueror with his troops. Cae- 
sar seems never to have forgiven him his friendship for Pom- 
pey. He was not a Roman, and was unworthy of forgiveness. 
Caesar took away from him - the kingdom of Armenia, but left 
him still titular King of Galatia. But this enmity was known 
in the king's own court, and among his own family. His own 
daughter's son, one Castor, became desirous of ruining his 
grandfather, and brought a charge against the king. Caesar 
had been the king's compelled guest in his journey in quest of 
Pharnaces, and had passed quickly on. Now, wdien the war 
was over and Caesar had returned from his five conquered na- 
tions, Castor came forward with his accusation. Deiotarus, 
according to his grandson, had endeavored to murder Caesar 
while Caesar was staying with him. At this distance of time 
and place we cannot presume to know accurately what the cir- 
cumstances were ; but it appears to have been below the dig- 
nity of Caesar to listen to such a charge. He did do so, how- 
ever, and heard more than one speech on the subject delivered 
in favor of the accused. Brutus spoke on behalf of the aged 
king, and spoke in vain. Cicero did not speak in vain, for 
Caesar decided that he would pronounce no verdict till he had 
himself been again in the East, and had there made further 
inquiries. He never returned to the East ; but the old king 
lived to fight once more, and again on the losing side. He 
was true to the party he had taken, and ranged himself with 
Brutus and Cassius at the field of Philippi. 

The case was tried, if tried it can be called, in Caesar's pri- 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIVS, AND DEIOTARUS. 1G5 

vate house, in which the audience cannot have been numerous. 
Caesar seems to have admitted Cicero to say what could be 
! said for his friend, rather than as an advocate to plead for his 
1 client, so that no one should accuse him, Caesar, of cruelty in 
; condemning the criminal. The speech must have occupied 
twenty minutes in the delivery, and we are again at a loss to 
conceive how Caesar should have found the time to listen to it. 
Cicero declares that he feels the difficulty of pleading in so 
unusual a place — within the domestic walls of a man's private 
house, and without any of those accustomed supports to ora- 
tory which are to be found in a crowded law court. " But," 
he says, " I rest in peace when I look into your eyes and be- 
hold your countenance." The speech is full of flattery, but it 
is turned so adroitly that we almost forgive it. 1 

There is a passage in which Cicero compliments the victor 
on his well-known mercy in his victories — from which we 
may see how much Caesar thought of the character he had 
achieved for himself in this particular. " Of you alone, O 
Caesar, is it boasted that no one has fallen under your hands 
but they who have died with arms in their hands."' 2 All who 
had been taken had been pardoned. No man had been put 
to death when the absolute fighting was brought to an end. 
Caesar had given quarter to all. It is the modern, generous 
way of fighting. When our country is invaded, and we drive 
back the invaders, we do not, if victorious, slaughter their chief 
men. Much less, when we invade a country, do we kill or 
mutilate all those who have endeavored to protect their own 
homes. Caesar has evidently much to boast, and among the 
Italians he has caused it to be believed. It suited Cicero to 
assert it in Caesar's ears. Caesar wished to be told of his own 
clemency among the men of his own country. But because 



1 Pro Rege Deiotaro, ii. 

2 Ibid., ca. xii. : " Solus, inquain, es, C. Csesar, cujus in victoria cecidei it 
nemo nisi armatus." 



166 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Caesar boasted, and Cicero was complaisant, posterity is not to 
run away with the boast, and call it true. For all that is great 
in Caesar's character I am willing to give him credit; but not 
for mercy ; not for any of those divine gifts the loveliness of 
which was only beginning to be perceived iu those days by 
some few who were in advance of their time. It was still 
the maxim of Rome that a " supplicatio" should be granted 
only when two thousand of the enemy should have been left 
on the field. We have something still left of the pagan cruel- 
ty about us when we send triumphant words of the numbers 
slain on the field of battle. We cannot but remember that 
Caesar had killed the whole Senate of the Veneti, a nation 
dwelling on the coast of Brittany, and had sold all the people 
as slaves, because they had detained the messengers he had 
sent to them during his wars in Gaul. "Gravius vindicandum 
statuit" 1 — " He had thought it necessary to punish them some- 
what severely." Therefore he had killed the entire Senate, 
and enslaved the entire people. This is only one of the in- 
stances of wholesale horrible cruelty which he committed 
throughout his war in Gaul — of cruelty so frightful that we 
shudder as we think of the sufferings of past ages. The ages 
have gone their way, and the sufferings are lessened by in- 
creased humanity. But we cannot allow Cicero's compliment 
to pass idly by. The "nemo nisi armatus" referred to Ital- 
ians, and to Italians, we may take it, of the upper rank — among 
whom, for the sake of dramatic effect, Deiotarus was placed for 
the occasion. 

This was the last of Cicero's casual speeches. It was now 
near the end of the year, and on the ides of March following 
it was fated that Caesar should die. After which there was a 
lull in the storm for a while, and then Cicero broke out into 

1 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, lib. iii., 16 : " Itaque, omni Senatu necato, reli- 
quos sub corona vendidit," he says, and passes on in his serene, majestic 
manner. 



MABCELLUS, LlQARIUS, AXD DEIOTARUS. 167 

that which I have called his final scream of liberty. There 
came the Philippics — and then the end. This speech of which 
I have given record as spoken Pro Rege Deiotaro was the last 
delivered by him for a private purpose. Forty-two he has 
spoken hitherto, of which something of the story has been 
told; the Philippics of which I have got to speak are four- 
teen in number, making the total number of speeches which 
we possess to be fifty-six. But of those spoken by him we 
have not a half, and of those which we possess some have been 
declared by the great critics to be absolutely spurious. The 
great critics have perhaps been too hard upon them : they 
have all been polished. Cicero himself was so anxious for his 
future fame that he led the way in preparing them for the 
press. Quintilian tells us that Tiro adapted them. 1 Others 
again have come after him and have retouched them, some- 
times, no doubt, making them smoother, and striking out mor- 
sels which would naturally become unintelligible to later read- 
ers. We know what he himself did to the Milo. Others sub- 
sequently may have received rougher usage, but still from lov- 
ing hands. Bits have been lost, and other bits interpolated, 
and in this way have come to us the speeches which we pos- 
sess. But we know enough of the history of the times, and 
are sufficient judges of the language, to accept them as upon 
the whole authentic. The great critic, when he comes upon a 
passage against which his very soul recoils, on the score of its 
halting Latinity, rises up in his wrath and tears the oration to 
tatters, till he will have none of it. One set of objectionable 
words he encounters after another, till the whole seems to him 
to be damnable, and the oration is condemned. It has been 
well to allude to this, because in dealing with these orations it 
is necessary to point out that every word cannot be accepted 
as having been spoken as we find it printed. Taken collective- 

1 Quint., lib. x., vii. : " Nam Ciceronis ad prsesens modo tempus aptatos 
libertus Tiro contraxit." 



168 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ly, we may accept them as a stupendous monument of human 
eloquence and human perseverance. 

Late in the year, on the 12th before the calends of January, 

or the 21st of December, there took place a little party 

B ; c l C o at Puteoli, the account of which interests us. Cicero 

aecat. 62. 

entertained Csesar at supper. Though the date is given 
as above, and though December had originally been intended 
to signify, as it does with us, a winter month, the year, from 
want of proper knowledge, had run itself out of order, and the 
period was now that of October. The amendment of the cal- 
endar, which was made under Caesar's auspices, had not as yet 
been brought into use, and we must understand that October, 
the most delightful month of the year, was the period in ques- 
tion. Cicero was staying at his Puteolan villa, not far from 
Baia3, close upon the sea-shore — the corner of the world most 
loved by all the great Romans of the day for their retreat in 
autumn.' Puteoli, we may imagine, was as pleasant as Baias, 
but less fashionable, and, if all that we hear be true, less im- 
moral. Here Cicero had one of his villas, and here, a few 
months before his death, Caesar came to visit him. He gives, 
in a very few lines to Atticus, a graphic account of the enter- 
tainment. Caesar had sent on word to say that he was coming, 
so that Cicero was prepared for him. But the lord of all the 
world had already made himself so evidently the lord, that 
Cicero could not entertain him without certain of those in- 
ner quakings of the heart which are common to us now when 
some great magnate may come across our path and demand 
hospitality for a moment. Cicero jokes at his own solicitude, 
but nevertheless we know that he has felt it when, on the next 
morning, he sent Atticus an account of it. His guest has been 
a burden to him indeed, but still he does not regret it, for the 
guest behaved himself so pleasantly ! We must remark that 
Cicero did not ostensibly shake in his shoes before him. Cic- 

1 Horace, Epis., lib. i., 1 : "Kullus in orbe sinus Baiis praslucet amtenis." 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AXD BEIOTARUS. 169 

ero had been Consul, and has had to lead the Senate when 
Caesar was probably anxious to escape himself as an undetect- 
ed conspirator. Caesar has grown since, but only by degrees. 
He has not become, as Augustus did, " facile princeps." He is 
aware of his own power, but aware also that it becomes him to 
ignore his own knowledge. And Cicero is also aware of it, 
but conscious at the same time of a nominal equality. Caesar 
is now Dictator, has been Consul four times, and will be Con- 
sul again when the new year comes on. But other Romans 
have been Dictator and Consul. All of which Caesar feels on 
the occasion, and shows that he feels it. Cicero feels it also, 
and endeavors, not quite successfully, to hide it. 

Caesar has come accompanied by troops. Cicero names two 
thousand men — probably at random. When Cicero hears that 
they have come into the neighborhood, he is terribly put about 
till one Barba Cassius, a lieutenant in Caesar's employment, 
comes and reassures him. A camp is made for the men out- 
side in the fields, and a guard is put on to protect the villa. 
On the following day, about one o'clock, Caesar comes. He is 
shut up at the house of one Philippus, and will admit no one. 
He is supposed to be transacting accounts with Balbus. We 
can imagine how Cicero's cooks were boiling and stewing at 
the time. Then the great man walked down upon the sea- 
shore. Rome was the only recognized nation in the world. 
The others were provinces of Rome, and the rest were outly- 
ing barbaric people, hardly as yet fit to be Roman provinces. 
And he was now lord of Rome. Did he think of this as he 
walked on the shore of Puteoli — or of the ceremony he was 
about to encounter before he ate his dinner? He did not 
walk long, for at two o'clock he bathed, and heard " that story 
about Mamurra " without moving a muscle. Turn to your 
Catullus, the 57th Epigram, and read what Caesar had read to 
him on this occasion, without showing by his face the slight- 
est feeling. It is short enough, but I cannot quote it even in 
a note, even in Latin. Who told Caesar of the foul words, and 
II.— S 



170 LIFE OF L'lVERO. 

why were they read to him on this occasion ? He thought 
but little about them, for he forgave the author and asked him 
afterward to supper. This was at the bath, we may suppose. 
He then took his siesta, and after that "efxeTiicrjv agebat." 
How the Romans went through the daily process and lived, 
is to us a marvel. I think we may say that Cicero did not 
practise it. Caesar, on this occasion, ate and drank plenteously 
and with pleasure. It was all well arranged, and the conversa- 
tion was good of its kind, witty and pleasant. Caesar's couch 
seems to have been in the midst, and around him lay supping, 
at other tables, his freedmen, and the rest of his suite. It was 
all very well ; but still, says Cicero, he was not such a guest as 
you would welcome back — not one to whom you would say, 
" Come again, I beg, when you return this way." Once is 
enough. There were no politics talked — nothing of serious 
matters. Caesar had begun to find now that no use could be 
made of Cicero for politics. He had tried that, and had given 
it up. Philology was the subject — the science of literature and 
languages. Caesar could talk literature as well as Cicero, and 
turned the conversation in that direction. Cicero was apt, and 
took the desired part, and so the afternoon passed pleasantly, 
but still with a little feeling that he was glad when his guest 
was gone. 1 

Caesar declared, as he went, that he would spend one day 
at Puteoli and another at Baiae. Dolabella had a villa down 
in those parts, and Cicero knows that Caesar, as he passed by 
Dolabella's house, rode in the midst of soldiers — in state, as we 
should say — but that he had not done this anywhere else. He 
had already promised Dolabella the Consulship. 

Was Cicero mean in his conduct toward Caesar? Up to 
this moment there had been nothing mean, except that Roman 
flattery which was simply Roman good manners. He had op- 
posed him at Pharsalia — or rather in Macedonia. He had 

1 Ad Att., lib. xiii., 52. 



MARCELLUS, LIGARIUS, AND BEIOTARUS. 171 

gone across the water — not to fight, for he was no fighting 
man — but to show on which side he had placed himself. He 
had done this,.not believing in Pompey, but still convinced that 
it was his duty to let all men know that he was against Caesar. 
He had resisted every attempt which Caesar had made to pur- 
chase his services. Neither with Pompey nor with Caesar did 
he agree. But with the former — though he feared that a sec- 
ond Sulla would arise should he be victorious — there was some 
touch of the old Republic. Something might have been done 
then to carry on the government upon the old lines. Caesar 
had shown his intention to be lord of all, and with that Cicero 
could hold no sympathy. Caesar had seen his position, and 
had respected it. He would have nothing done to drive such 
a man from Rome. Under these circumstances Cicero con- 
sented to live at Rome, or in the neighborhood, and became a 
man of letters. It must be remembered that up to the ides of 
March he had heard of no conspiracy. The two men, Caesar 
and Cicero, had agreed to differ, and had talked of philology 
when they met. There has been, I think, as yet, nothing mean 
in his conduct. 



172 LIFE OF CICERO. 



Chapter VIII. 

CAESAR'S DEATH. 

After the dinner-party at Puteoli, described in the last 
chapter, Cicero came up to Rome, and was engaged in 
ifitat 63 literary pursuits. Caesar was now master and lord of 
everything. In January Cicero wrote to his friend Cu- 
rio, and told him with disgust of the tomfooleries which were 
being carried on at the election of Quaestors. An empty chair 
had been put down, and was declared to be the Consul's chair. 
Then it was taken away, and another chair was placed, and 
another Consul was declared. It wanted then but a few hours 
to the end of the consular year — but not the less was Caninius, 
the new Consul, appointed, " who would not sleep during his 
Consulship," which lasted but from mid-day to the evening. 
" If you saw all this you would not fail to weep," says Cicero I 1 
After this he seems to have recovered from his sorrow. We 
have a correspondence with Poetus which always typifies hilar- 
ity of spirits. There is a discussion, of which we have but 
the one side, on " double entendre " and plain speaking. Poe- 
tus had advocated the propriety of calling a spade a spade, and 
Cicero shows him the inexpediency. Then we come suddenly 
upon his letter to Atticus, written on the 7th of April, three 
weeks after the fall of Caesar. 

Mommsen endeavors to explain the intention of Caesar in 
the adoption of the names by which he chose to be called, and 
in his acceptance of those which, without his choosing, were im- 

1 Ad Div., lib. vii., 30. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 173 

posed upon him. 1 He has done it perhaps with too great pre- 
cision, but he leaves upon our minds a correct idea of the res- 
olution which Caesar had made to be King, Emperor, Dictator, 
or what not, before he started for Macedonia, b.c. 49, 2 and the 
disinclination which moved him at once to proclaim himself a 
tyrant. Dictator was the title which he first assumed, as be- 
ing temporary, Roman, and in a certain degree usual. He was 
Dictator for an indefinite period, annually, for ten years, and, 
when he died, had been designated Dictator for life. He had 
already been, for the last two years, named "Imperator" for 
life ; but that title — which I think to have had a military sound 
in men's ears, though it may, as Mommsen says, imply also 
civil rule — was not enough to convey to men all that it was 
necessary that they should understand. Till the moment of 
his triumph had come, and that " Veni, vidi, vici" had been 
flaunted in the eyes of Rome — till Ca?sar, though he had been 
ashamed to call himself a king, had consented to be associated 
with the gods — Brutus, Cassius, and those others, sixty in num- 
ber we are told, who became the conspirators, had hardly real- 
ized the fact that the Republic was altogether at an end. A 
bitter time had come upon them ; but it was softened by the 
personal urbanity of the victor. But now, gradually, the truth 
was declaring itself, and the conspiracy was formed. I am in- 
clined to think that Shaksp<^are has been right in his concep- 
tion of the plot. " I do fear the people choose Caesar for their 
king," says Brutus. "I had as lief not be, as live to be in awe 
of such a thing as I myself," says Cassius. 3 It had come home 
to them at length that Cassar was to be king, and therefore 
they conspired. 

It would be a difficult task in the present era to recommend 
to my readers the murderers of Caasar as honest, loyal politi- 

1 Mommsen, book v., xi. 

2 He left Brundisiura on the last day of the year. 

3 Shakspeare, Julius Caesar, act i., sc. 2. 



174 LIFE OF CICERO. 

cians, who did for their country, in its emergency, the best 
that the circumstances would allow. The feeling of the world 
in regard to murder has so changed during the last two thou- 
sand years, that men, hindered by their sense of what is at 
present odious, refuse to throw themselves back into the con- 
dition of things a knowledge of which can have come to them 
only from books. They measure events individually by the 
present scale, and refuse to see that Brutus should be judged 
by us now in reference to the judgment that was formed of it 
then. In an age in which it was considered wise and fitting 
to destroy the nobles of a barbarous community which had 
defended itself, and to sell all others as slaves, so that the per- 
petrator simply recorded the act he had done as though nec- 
essary, can it have been a base thing to kill a tyrant ? Was it 
considered base by other Romans of the day ? Was that plea 
ever made even by Caesar's friends, or was it not acknowledged 
by them all that " Brutus was an honorable man," even when 
they had collected themselves sufficiently to look upon him as 
an enemy ? It appears abundantly in Cicero's letters that no 
one dreamed of regarding them as we regard assassins now, or 
spoke of Caesar's death as we look upon assassination. " Shall 
we defend the deeds of him at whose death we are rejoiced ?" 
he says : and again, he deplores the feeling of regret which 
was growing in Rome on account of Caesar's death, " lest it 
should be dangerous to those who have slain the tyrant for 
us." 1 We find that Quintilian, among his stock lessons in or- 
atory, constantly refers to the old established rule that a man 
did a good deed who had killed a tyrant — a lesson which he 
had taken from the Greek teachers. 2 We are, therefore, bound 
to accept this murder as a thing praiseworthy according to the 
light of the age in which it was done, and to recognize the 
fact that it was so regarded by the men of the day. 

We are told now that Cicero " hated " Caesar. There was 

1 Ad Att., lib. xiv., 9, 15. 2 Quintilian, lib. vii., 4. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 175 

no such hatred as the word implies. And we are told of " as- 
sassins," with an intention to bring down on the perpetrators 
of the deed the odium they would have deserved had the deed 
been done to-day ; but the word has, I think, been misused. 
A king was abominable to Roman ears, and was especially dis- 
tasteful to men like Cicero, Brutus, and the other "optimates" 
who claimed to be peers. To be "primus inter pares" had been 
Cicero's ambition — to be the leading oligarch of the day. Cae- 
sar had gradually mounted higher and still higher, but always 
leaving some hope — infinitesimally small at last — that he might 
be induced to submit himself to the Republic. Sulla had sub- 
mitted. Personally there was no hatred; but that hope had 
almost vanished, and therefore, judging as a Roman, when the 
deed was done, Cicero believed it to have been a glorious deed. 
There can be no doubt on that subject. The passages in which 
he praises it are too numerous for direct quotation; but there 
they are, interspersed through the letters and the Philippics. 
There was no doubt of his approval. The " assassination " of 
Caesar, if that is to be the word used, was to his idea a glori- 
ous act done on behalf of humanity. The all-powerful tyrant 
who had usurped dominion over his country had been made 
away with, and again they might fall back upon the law. He 
had filched the army. He had run through various provinces, 
and had enriched himself with their wealth. He was above all 
law ; he was worse than a Marius or a Sulla, who confessed 
themselves, by their open violence, to be temporary evils. Cae- 
sar was creating himself king for all time. No law had estab- 
lished him. No plebiscite of the nation had endowed him 
with kingly power. With his life in his hands, he had dared 
to do it, and was almost successful. It is of no purpose to say 
that he was right and Cicero was wrong in their views as to 
the government of so mean a people as the Romans had be- 
come. Cicero's form of government, under men who were 
not Ciceros, had been wrong, and had led to a state of things 
in which a tyrant might for the time be the lesser evil ; but 



176 LIFE OF CICERO. 

not on that account was Cicero wrong to applaud the deed 
which removed Caesar. Middleton in his life (vol. ii., p. 435) 
gives us the opinion of Suetonius on this subject, and tells us 
that the best and wisest men in Rome supposed Caesar to have 
been justly killed. Mr. Forsyth generously abstains from blam- 
ing the deed, as to which he leaves his readers to form their 
own opinion. Abeken expresses no opinion concerning its mo- 
rality, nor does Morabin. It is the critics of Cicero's works 
who have condemned him without thinking much, perhaps, of 
the judgment they have given. 

But Cicero was not in the conspiracy, nor had he even con- 
templated Caesar's death. Assertions to the contrary have 
been made both lately and in former years, but without foun- 
dation. I have already alluded to some of these, and have 
shown that phrases in his letters have been misinterpreted. A 
passage was quoted by M. Du Rozoir — Ad Att., lib. x., 8 — " I 
don't think that he can endure longer than six months. He 
must fall, even if we do nothing." How often might it be 
said that the murder of an English minister had been intended 
if the utterings of such words be taken as a testimony ! He 
quotes again — Ad Att., lib. xiii., 40 — " What good news could 
Brutus hear of Caesar, unless that he hung himself ?" This is 
to be taken as meditating Caesar's death, and is quoted by a 
French critic, after two thousand years, in proof of Cicero's fa- 
tal ill-will I 1 The whole tenor of Cicero's letters proves that 
he had never entertained the idea of Caesar's destruction. 

How long before the time the conspiracy may have been 
in existence we have no means of knowing ; but we feel that 
Cicero was not a man likely to be taken into the plot. He 
would have dissuaded Brutus and Cassius. Judging from what 
we know of his character, we think that he would have dis- 
trusted its success. Though he rejoiced in it after it was done, 

1 These words will be found in M. Du Rozoir's summary to the Philip- 
pics. 






CjESAR'S DEATH. 17V 

be would have been wretched while burdened with the secret. 
At any rate, we have the fact that be was not so burdened. 
The sight of Caesar's slaughter, when he saw it, must have 
struck him with infinite surprise, but we have no knowledge of 
what his feelings may have been when the crowd had gathered 
round the doomed man. Cicero has left us no description of 
the moment in which Caesar is supposed to have gathered his 
toga over his face so that he might fall with dignity. It cer- 
tainly is the case that when you take your facts from the 
chance correspondence of a man you lose something of the 
most touching episodes of the day. The writer passes these 
things by, as having been surely handled elsewhere. It is al- 
ways so with Cicero. The trial of Milo, the passing of the 
Rubicon, the battle of the Pharsalus, and the murder of Pom- 
pey are, with the death of Caesar, alike unnoticed. "I have 
paid him a visit as to whom we spoke this morning. Nothing 
could be more forlorn." 1 It is thus the next letter begins, 
after Caesar's death, and the person he refers to is Matius, 
Caesar's friend; but in three weeks the world had become 
used to Caesar's death. The scene had passed away, and the 
inhabitants of Rome were already becoming accustomed to his 
absence. But there can be no doubt as to Cicero's presence at 
Caesar's fall. He says so clearly to Atticus. 2 Morabin throws 
a doubt upon it. The story goes that Brutus, descending from 
the platform on which Caesar had been seated, and brandish- 
ing the bloody dagger in his hand, appealed to Cicero. Mora- 
bin says that there is no proof of this, and alleges that Brutus 
did it for stage effect. But he cannot have seen the letter 
above quoted, or seeing it, must have misunderstood it. 3 

It soon became evident to the conspirators that they had 
scotched the snake, and not killed it. Cassius and others had 



1 Ad Att.,lib.xiv.,l. 

2 Ibid., 14: " Quam oculi* cepi justo interitu tyranni." 

3 Morabin, liv. vi., chap, ill., sec. 6. 

8* 



178 LIFE OF CICERO. 

desired that Antony also should he killed, and with him 
Lepidus. That Antony would be dangerous they were sure. 
But Marcus Brutus and Deeimus overruled their counsels. 
Marcus had declared that the " blood of the tyrant was all that 
the people required." 1 The people required nothing of the 
kind. They were desirous only of ease and quiet, and were 
anxious to follow either side which might be able to lead them 
and had something to give away. But Antony" had been 
spared ; and though cowed at the moment by the death of 
< !sesar, and by the assumption of a certain dignified forbearance 
on the part of the conspirators, was soon ready again to fight 
the battle for the Cesareans. It is singular to see how com- 
pletely he was cowed, and how quickly he recovered himself. 

Mommsen finishes his history with a loud paean in praise of 
Caesar, but does not tell us of his death. His readers, had they 
nothing else to inform them, might be led to suppose that he 
had gone direct to heaven, or at any rate had vanished from 
the world, as soon as he had made the Empire perfect. He 
seems to have thought that had he described the work of the 
daggers in the Senate-house he would have acknowledged the 
mortality of his godlike hero. We have no right to complain 
of his omissions. For research, for labor, and for accuracy he 
has produced a work almost without parallel. That he should 
have seen how great was Caesar because he accomplished so 
much, and that he should have thought Cicero to be small be- 
cause, burdened with scruples of justice, he did so little, is in 
the idiosyncrasy of the man. A Caesar was wanted, impervious 
to clemency, to justice, to moderation — a man who could work 
with any tools. "Men had forgotten what honesty was. A 
person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright 
man but as a personal foe." 2 Caesar took money, and gave 
bribes, when he had the money to pay them, without a scruple. 
It would be absurd to talk about him as dishonest. He was 

1 Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., ca. lviii. ? Mommsen, book v., xi. 



C&SAR'ti DEATH. 179 

above honesty. He was " supra grammaticam." It is well 
that some one should have arisen to sing the praises of sucli 
a man — some two or three in these latter clays. To me the 
character of the man is unpleasant to contemplate, unimpres- 
sionable, very far from divine. There is none of the human 
softness necessary for love ; none of the human weakness need- 
ed for sympathy. 

On the 15th of March Caesar fell. When the murder had 
been effected, Brutus and the others concerned in it went out 
among the people expecting to be greeted as saviors of their 
country. Brutus did address the populace, and was well re- 
ceived ; but some bad feeling seems to have been aroused by 
hard expressions as to Caesar's memory coming from one of 
the Praetors. For the people, though they regarded Caesar as 
a tyrant, and expressed themselves as gratified when told that 
the would-be king had been slaughtered, still did not endure 
to hear ill spoken of him. He had understood that it behooved 
a tyrant to be generous, and appeared among them always 
with full hands — not having been scrupulous as to his mode of 
filling them. Then the conspirators, frightened at menacing- 
words from the crowd, betook themselves to the Capitol. Why 
they should have gone to the Capitol as to a sanctuary I do 
not think that we know. The Capitol is that hill to a portion 
of which access is now had by the steps of the church of the 
Ara Coeli in front, and from the Forum in the rear. On one 
side was the fall from the Tarpeian rock down which male- 
factors were flung. On the top of it was the temple to Jupi- 
ter, standing on the site of the present church. And it was 
here that Brutus and Cassius and the other conspirators sought 
for safety on the evening of the day on which Caesar had been 
killed. Here they remained for the two following days, till 
on the 18th they ventured down into the city. On the 17th 
Dolabella claimed to be Consul, in compliance with Caesar's 
promise, and on the same day the Senate, moved by Antony, 
decreed a public funeral to Caesar. We may imagine that the 



180 LIFE OF CICERO. 

decree was made by them with fainting hearts. There were 
many fainting hearts in Rome during those days, for it became 
very soon apparent that the conspirators had carried their plot 
no farther than the death of Caesar. 

Brutus, as far as the public service was concerned, was an 
unpractical, useless man. We know nothing of public work 
done by him to much purpose. He was filled with high ideas 
as to his own position among the oligarchs, and with especial 
notions as to what was due by Rome to men of his name. He 
had a fierce conception of his own rights — among which to be 
Praetor, and Consul, and Governor of a province were among 
the number. But he had taken early in life to literature and 
philosophy, and eschewed the crowd of " Fish-ponders," such 
as were Antony and Dolabella, men prone 4,0 indulge the lux- 
ury of their own senses. His idea of liberty seems to have 
been much the same as Cicero's — the liberty to live as one of 
the first men in Rome ; but it was not accompanied, as it was 
with Cicero, by an innate desire to do good to those around 
him. To maintain the Praetors, Consuls, and Governors so 
that each man high in position should win his way to them as 
he might be able to obtain the voices of the people, and not 
to leave them to be bestowed at the call of one man who had 
thrust himself hio-her than all — that seems to have been his 
beau ideal of Roman government. It was Cicero's also — with 
the addition that when he had achieved his high place he 
should serve the people honestly. Brutus had killed Caesar, 
but had spared Antony, thinking that all things would fall 
into their accustomed places when the tyrant should be no 
more. But he found that Caesar had been tyrant long enough 
to create a lust for tyranny ; and that though he might suffice 
to hill a king, he had no aptitude for ruling a people. 

It was now that those scenes took place which Shakspeare 
has described with such accuracy — the public funeral, Antony's 
oration, and the rising of the people against the conspirators. 
Antony, when he found that no plan had been devised for car- 



CJSSAR'S DEATH. 181 

rying on the government, and that the men were struct by 
amazement at the deed they bad themselves done, collected 
his thoughts and did his best to put himself in Caesar's place. 
Cicero bad pleaded in the Senate for a general amnesty, and 
had carried it as far as the voice of the Senate could do so. 
But the amnesty only intended that men should pretend to 
think that all should be forgotten and forgiven. There was 
no forgiving, as there could be no forgetting. Then Caesar's 
will was brought forth. They could not surely dispute his 
will or destroy it. In this way Antony got hold of the dead 
man's papers, and with the aid of the dead man's private secre- 
tary or amanuensis, one Fabricius, began a series of most un- 
blushing forgeries. He procured, or said that he procured, a 
decree to be passed continuing by law all Caesar's written pur- 
poses. Such a decree he could use to any extent to which he 
could carry with him the sympathies of the people. He did 
use it to a great extent, and seems at this period to have con- 
templated the assumption of dictatorial power in his own hands. 
Antony was nearly being one of the greatest rascals the world 
has known. The desire was there, and so was the intellect, had 
it not been weighted by personal luxury and indulgence. 

Now young Octavius came upon the scene. He was the 
great -nephew of Caesar, whose sister Julia had married one 
Marcus Atius. Their daughter Atia had married Caius Octa- 
vius, and of that marriage Augustus was the child. When 
Octavius, the father, died, Atia, the widow, married Marcius 
Philippus, who was Consul b.c. 56. Caesar, having no nearer 
heir, took charge of the boy, and had, for the last years of his 
life, treated him as his son, though he had not adopted him. 
At this period the youth had been sent to Apollonia, on the 
other side of the Adriatic, in Macedonia, to study with Apollo- 
dorus, a Greek tutor, and was there when he heard of Caesar's 
death. He was informed that Caesar had made him his heir, 
and at once crossed over into Italy with his friend Agrippa. 
On the way up to Rome he met Cicero at one of his southern 



182 LIFE OF CICERO. 

villas, and in the presence of the great orator behaved himself 
with becoming respect. He was then not twenty years old, 
but in the present difficulty of his position conducted himself 
with a caution most unlike a boy; He had only come, he said, 
for what his great-uncle had left him ; and when he found 
that Antony had spent the money, does not appear to have ex- 
pressed himself immediately in anger. He went on to Rome, 
where he found that Antony and Dolabella and Marcus Brutus 
and Decimus Brutus and Cassius were scrambling for the prov- 
inces and the legions. Some of the soldiers came to him, ask- 
ing him to avenge his uncle's death ; but he was too prudent 
as yet to declare any purpose of revenge. 

Not long after Caesar's death Cicero left Rome, and spent 
the ensuing month travelling about among his different villas. 
On the 14th of April he writes to Atticus, declaring that what- 
ever evil might befall him he would find comfort in the ides 
of March. In the same letter he calls Brutus and the others 
" our heroes," and begs his friend to send him news — or if not 
news, then a letter without news. 1 In the next he again calls 
them his heroes, but adds that he can take no pleasure in any- 
thing but in the deed that had been done. Men are still prais- 
ing the work of Caesar, and he laments that they should be 
so inconsistent. " Though they laud those who had destroyed 
Caesar, at the same time they praise his deeds." 2 In the same 
letter he tells Atticus that the people in nil the villages are full 
of joy. " It cannot be told how eager they are — how they run 
out to meet me, and to hear my accounts of what was done. 
But the Senate passes no decree !" 3 He speaks of going into 
Greece to see his son — whom he never lived to see again — tell- 
ing him of letters from the lad from Athens, which he thinks, 
however, may be hypocritical, though he is comforted by find- 
ing their language to be clear. He has recovered his good- 
humor, and can be jocose. One Cluvius has left him a prop- 

1 Ad Att, lib. xiv., 4. 2 Ibid., lib. xiv., 6. 3 Ibid., lib. xiv., 1. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 183 

erty at Puteoli, and the house has tumhled down ; but he has 
sent for Chrysippus, an architect. But what are houses falling 
to him ? He can thank Socrates and all his followers that they 
have taught him to disregard such worldly things. Neverthe- 
less, he has deemed it expedient to take the advice of a certain 
friend as to turning the tumble -down house into profitable 
shape. 1 A little later he expresses his great disgust that Cae- 
sar, in the public speeches in Rome, should be spoken of as 
that " great and most excellent man." 2 And yet he had said, 
but a few months since, in his oration for King Deiotarus, in 
the presence of Caesar, "that he looked only into his eyes, only 
into his face — that he regarded only him." The flattery and 
the indignant reprobation do, in truth, come very near upon each 
other, and induce us to ask whether the fact of having to live 
in the presence of royalty be not injurious to the moral man. 
Could any of us have refused to speak to Caesar with adulation 
— any of us whom circumstances compelled to speak to him \ 
Power had made Caesar desirous of a mode of address hardly 
becoming a man to give or a man to receive. Does not the 
etiquette of to-day require from us certain courtesies of conver- 
sation, which I would call abject were it not that etiquette re- 
quires them ? Nevertheless, making the best allowance that T 
can for Cicero, the difference of his language within a month 
or two is very painful. In the letter above quoted Octavius 
comes to him, and we can see how willing was the young aspir- 
ant to flatter him. 

He sees already that, in spite of the promised amnesty, there 
must be internecine feud. " I shall have to go into the camp 
with young Sextus " — Sextus Pompeius — " or perhaps with 
Brutus, a prospect at my years most odious." Then he quotes 
two lines of Homer, altering a word : " To you, my child, is not 
given the glory of war ; eloquence, charming eloquence, must 
be the weapon with which you will fight." We hear of his 



1 Ad Att., lib. xiv., 9. 2 Ibid., lib. xiv., 11. 



IS i LIFE OF CICERO. 

contemplated journey into Greece, under the protection of a free 
legation. He was going for the sake of his son ; hut would 
not people say that he went to avoid the present danger? and 
might it not be the case that he should be of service if he re- 
mained? 1 We see that the old state of doubt is again falling 
upon him. AiBiofiat Tpu>ag. Otherwise he could go and make 
himself safe in Athens. There is a correspondence between 
him and Antony, of which he sends copies to Atticus. Antony 
writes to him, beo'o-ino- him to allow Sextus Clodius to return 
from his banishment. This Sextus had been condemned be- 
cause of the riot on the death of his uncle in Milo's affair, and 
Antony wishes to have him back. Cicero replies that he will 
certainly accede to Antony's views. It had always been a law 
with him, he says, not to maintain a feeling of hatred against 
his humbler enemies. But in both these letters we see the sub- 
tilty and caution of the writers. Antony could have brought 
back Sextus without Cicero, and Cicero knew that he could 
do so. Cicero had no power over the law. But it suited 
Antony to write courteously a letter which might elicit an 
uncivil reply. Cicero, however, knew better, and answered it 
civilly. 

He writes to Tiro telling him that he has not the slightest 
intention of quarrelling with his old friend Antony, and will 
write to Antony, but not till he shall have seen him, Tiro ; 
showing on what terms of friendship he stands with his for- 
mer slave, for Tiro had by this time been manumitted. 2 He 
writes to Tiro quite as he might have written to a younger 
Atticus, and speaks to him of Atticus with all the familiarity of 
confirmed friendship. There must have been something very 
sweet in the nature of the intercourse which bound such a man 
as Cicero to such another as Tiro. 

Atticus applies to him, desiring him to use his influence 
respecting a certain question of importance as to Buthrotum. 

1 Ad Att., lib. xiv., 13. 2 Ad Div., lib. xvi, 23. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 185 

Buthrotum was a town in Epirus opposite to the island of 
Corey ra, in which Atticus had an important interest. The 
lands about the place were to be divided, and to be distributed 
to Roman soldiers — much, as we may suppose, to the injury 
of Atticus. He has earnestly begged the interference of Cic- 
ero for the protection of the Buthrotians, and Cicero tells him 
that he wishes he could have seen Antony on the subject, but 
thj,t Antony is too much busied looking after the soldiers in 
the Campagna. Cicero fails to have the wishes of Atticus car- 
ried out, and shortly the subject becomes lost in the general 
confusion. But the discussion shows of how much impor- 
tance at the present moment Cicero's interference with An- 
tony is considered. It shows also that up to this period, a 
few months previous to the envenomed hatred of the second 
Philippic, Antony and Cicero were presumed to be on terms 
of intimate friendship. 

The worship of Caesar had been commenced in Rome, and 
an altar had been set up to him in the Forum as to a god. 
Had Caesar, when he perished, been said to have usurped the 
sovereign authority, his body would have been thrown out as 
unworthy of noble treatment. Such treatment the custom of 
the Republic required. It had been allowed to be buried, and 
had been honored, not disgraced. Now, on the spot where 
the funeral pile had been made, the altar was erected, and 
crowds of men clamored round it, worshipping. That this 
was the work of Antony we cannot doubt. But Dolabella, 
Cicero's repudiated son-in-law, who in furtherance of a prom- 
ise from Csesar had seized the Consulship, w T as jealous of An- 
tony and caused the altar to be thrown down and the worship- 
pers to be dispersed. Many were killed in the struggle — for, 
though the Republic was so jealous of the lives of the citizens 
as not to allow a criminal to be executed without an expres- 
sion of the voice of the entire people, any number might fall 
in a street tumult, and but little would be thought about it. 
Dolabella destroyed the altar, and Cicero was profuse in his 



186 LIFE OF CICERO. 

thanks. 1 For though Tullia had been divorced, and had since 
died, there was no cause for a quarrel. Divorces were so com- 
mon that no family odium was necessarily created. Cicero 
was at this moment most anxious to get back from Dolabella 
his daughter's dowry. It was never repaid. Indeed, a time 
was quickly coming in which such payments were out of the 
question, and Dolabella soon took a side altogether opposed to 
the Republic — for which he cared nothing. He was bought 
by Antony, having been ready to be bought by any one. He 
went to Syria as governor before the end of the year, and 
at Smyrna, on his road, he committed one of those acts of hor- 
ror on Trebonius, an adverse governor, in which the Romans 
of the day would revel when liberated from control. Cassius 
came to avenge his friend Trebonius, and Dolabella, finding 
himself worsted, destroyed himself. He had not progressed 
so far in corruption as Verres, because time had not permitted 
it — but that was the direction in which he was travelling. At 
the present moment, however, no praise was too fervid to be 
bestowed upon him by Cicero's pen. That turning of Caesar 
into a god was opposed to every feeling of his heart, both as 
to men and as to gods. 

A little farther on 2 we find him complaining of the state 
of things very grievously : " That we should have feared this 
thing, and not have feared the other !" — meaning Caesar and 
Antony. He declares that he must often read, for his own 
consolation, his treatise on old age, then just written and ad- 
dressed to Atticus. " Old age is making me bitter," he says ; 
" I am annoyed at everything. But my life has been lived. 
Let the young look to the future." We here meet the name 
of Caerellia in a letter to his friend. She had probably been 
sent to make up the quarrel between him and his young wife 
Publilia. Nothing came of it, and it is mentioned only be- 
cause Cserellia's name has been joined so often with that of 



1 Ad Div., lib. ix., 11. 2 Ad Att., lib. xiv., 21. 



CJBSAR'S DEATH. 187 

Cicero by subsequent writers. In the whole course of his cor- 
respondence with Atticus I do not remember it to occur, ex- 
cept in one or two letters at this period. I imagine that some 
story respecting the lady was handed down, and was published 
by Dio Cassius when the Greek historian found that it served 
his purpose to abuse Cicero. 

On June 22d he sent news to Atticus of his nephew. 
Young Quintus had written home to his father to declare his 
repentance. He had been in receipt of money from Antony, 
and had done Antony's dirty work. He had been " Antoni dex- 
tella" — "Antony's right hand" — according to Cicero, and had 
quarrelled absolutely with his father and his uncle. He now 
expresses his sorrow, and declares that he would come himself 
at once, but that there might be danger to his father. And 
there is money to be expected if he will only wait. "Did 
you ever hear of a worse knave ?" Cicero adds. Probably 
not ; but yet he was able to convince his father and his uncle, 
and some time afterward absolutely offered to prosecute An- 
tony for stealing the public money out of the treasury. He 
thought, as did some others, that the course of things was go- 
ing against Antony. As a consequence of this he was named 
in the proscriptions, and killed, with his father. In the same 
letter Cicero consults Atticus as to the best mode of going to 
Greece. Brundisium is the usual way, but he has been told 
by Tiro that there are soldiers in the town. 1 He is now at 
Arpinum, on his journey, and receives a letter from Brutus in- 
viting him back to Rome, to see the games given by Brutus. 
He is annoyed to think that Brutus should expect this. " These 
shows are now only honorable to him who is bound to give 
them," he says; " I am not bound to see them, and to be pres- 
ent would be dishonorable." 2 Then comes his parting with 
Atticus, showing a demonstrative tenderness foreign to the 
sternness of our northern nature. "That you should have 

1 Ad Att., lib. xv., 21. 2 Ibid., lib. xv., 26. 



(/ 



188 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Avept when you had parted from me, has grieved me greatly. 
Had you done it in my presence, I should not have gone at 
all." 1 " Nonis Juliis !" 2 he exclaims. The name of July had 
already come into use — the name which has been in use ever 
since — the name of the man who had now been destroyed ! 
The idea distresses him. "Shall Brutus talk of July?" It 
seems that some advertisement had been published as to his 
games in which the month was so called. 

Writing from one of his villas in the south, he tells Atticus 
that his nephew has again been with him, and has repented him 
of all his sins. I think that Cicero never wrote anything vain- 
er than this : " He has been so changed," he says, " by reading 
some of my writings which I happened to have by me, and by 
my words and precepts, that he is just such a citizen as I would 
have him." 3 Could it be that he should suppose that one 
whom he had a few days since described as the biggest knave 
he knew should be so changed by a few words well written and 
well pronounced? Young Quintus must in truth have been a 
clever knave. In the same letter Cicero tells us that Tiro had 
collected about seventy of his letters with a view to publication. 
"We have at present over seven hundred written before that day. 

Just as he is starting he gives his friend a very wide com- 
mission : " By your love for me, do manage my matters for 
me. I have left enough to pay everything that I owe. But 
it will happen, as it often does, that they who owe me will not 
be punctual. If anything of that kind should happen, only 
think of my character. Put me right before the world by bor- 
rowing, or even by selling, if it be necessary." 4 This is not the 
language of a man in distress, but of one anxious that none 
should lose a shilling by him. He again thinks of starting 
from Brundisium, aud promises, when he has arrived there, 
instantly to begin a new work. He has sent his De Gloria to 

1 Ad Att., lib. xv., 27. 2 Ibid., lib. xvi., 1. 

3 Ibid., lib. xvi., 5. 4 Ibid., lib. xvi., 2. 



, 



CAESAR'S DEATH. 189 

Atticus ; a treatise which we have lost. We should be glad to 
know how he treated this most difficult subject. We are as- 
tonished at his fecundity and readiness. He was now nearly 
sixty-three, and, as he travels about the country, he takes with 
him all the adjuncts necessary for the writing of treatises such 
as he composed at this period of his life ! His Topica, con- 
taining Aristotelian instructions as to a lawyer's work, he put 
together on board ship, immediately after this, for the benefit 
of Trebatius, to whom it had been promised. 

July had come, and at last he resolved to sail from Pompeii 
and to coast round to Sicily. He lands for a night at Velia, 
where he finds Brutus, with whom he has an interview. Then 
he writes a letter to Trebatius, who had there a charming villa, 
bought no doubt with Gallic spoils. He is reminded of his 
promise, and going on to Rhegium writes his Topica, which he 
sends to Trebatius from that place. Thence he went across to 
Syracuse, but was afraid to stay there, fearing that his motions 
might be watched, and that Antony would think that he had 
objects of State in his journey. He had already been told that 
some attributed his going to a desire to be present at the 
Olympian games ; but the first notion seems to have been that 
he had given the Republic up as lost, and was seeking safety 
elsewhere. From this we are made to perceive how closely his 
motions were watched, and how much men thought of them. 
From Syracuse he started for Athens — which place, however, 
he was doomed never to see again. He was carried back to 
Leucopetra on the continent; and though he made another 
effort, he was, he says, again brought back. There, at the villa 
of his friend Valerius, he learned tidings which induced him 
to change his purpose, and hurry off to Rome. Brutus and 
Cassius had published a decree of the Senate, calling all the 
Senators, and especially the Consulares, to Rome. There was 
reason to suppose that Antony was willing to relax his preten- 
sions. They had strenuously demanded his attendance, and 
whispers were heard that he had fled from the difficulties of 



190 LIFE OF CICERO. 

the times. " When I heard this, I at once abandoned my 
journey, with which, indeed, I had never been well pleased. 1 " 
Then he enters into a Ions; disquisition with Atticus as to the 
advice which had been given to him, both by Atticus and 
by Brutus, and he says some hard words to Atticus. But he 
leaves an impression on the reader's mind that Brutus had so 
disturbed him by what had passed between them at Velia, that 
from that moment his doubts as to going, which had been al- 
ways strong, had overmastered him. It was not the winds at 
Leucopetra that hindered his journey, but the taunting words 
which Brutus had spoken. It was suggested to him that he 
was deserting his country. The reproach had been felt by him 
to be heavy, for he had promised to Atticus that he would re- 
turn by the first of January ; yet he could not but feel that 
there was something in it of truth. The very months during 
which he would be absent would be the months of danger. 
Indeed, looking out upon the political horizon then, it seemed 
as though the nearest months, those they were then passing, 
would be the most dangerous. If Antony could be got rid of, 
be made to leave Italy, there might be something for an honest 
Senator to do — a man with consular authority — a something 
which might not jeopardize his life. When men now call a 
politician of those days a coward for wishing to avoid the heat 
of the battle, they hardly think what it is for an old man to 
leave his retreat and rush into the Forum, and there encounter 
such a one as Antony, and such soldiers as were his soldiers. 
Cicero, who had been brave enough in the emergencies of his 
career, and had gone about his work sometimes regardless of 
his life, no doubt thought of all this. It would be pleasant 
to him again to see his son, and to look upon the rough do- 
ings of Rome from amid the safety of Athens ; but when his 
countrymen told him that he had not as yet done enough — 
when Brutus, with his cold, bitter words, rebuked him for go- 

1 AdAtt.,lib. xvi., 7. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 191 

i„o- — then his thoughts turned round on the quiclc pivot on 
which they were balanced, and he hurried back to the fight. 

He travelled at once up to Home, which he reached on the 
last of August, and there received a message from Antony de- 
manding his presence in the Senate on the next day. He had 
been greeted on his journey once again by the enthusiastic wel- 
come of his countrymen, who looked to receive some especial 
advantage from his honesty and patriotism. Once again he 
was made proud by the clamors of a trusting people. But 
he had not come to Rome to be Antony's puppet. Antony 
had some measure to bring before the Senate in honor of 
Caesar which it would not suit Cicero to support or to oppose. 
He sent to say that he was tired after his journey and would 
not come. Upon this the critics deal hardly with him, and 
call him a coward. " With an incredible pusillanimity," says 
M. Du Rozoir, " Cicero excused himself, alleging his health 
and the fatigue of his voyage." " He pretended that he was 
too tired to be present," says Mr. Long. It appears to me that 
they who have read Cicero's works with the greatest care have 
become so enveloped by the power of his words as to expect 
from them an unnatural weight. If a politician of to-day, find- 
ing that it did not suit him to appear in the House of Com- 
mons on a certain evening, and that it would best become him 
to allow a debate to pass without his presence, were to make 
such an excuse, would he be treated after the same fashion? 
Pusillanimity, and pretence, in regard to those Philippics in 
which he seems to have courted death by every harsh word 
that he uttered ! The reader who has begun to think so must 
change his mind, and be prepared, as he progresses, to find 
quite another fault with Cicero. Impetuous, self-confident, 
rash ; throwing down the gage with internecine fury ; striving 
to crush with his words the man who had the command of the 
legions of Rome ; sticking at nothing which could inflict a blow ; 
forcing men by his descriptions to such contempt of Antony 
that they should be induced to leave the stronger party, lest 

m 



192 LIFE OF CICERO. 

they too should incur something of the wrath of the orator — 
that they will find to be the line which Cicero adopted, and the 
demeanor he put on during the next twelve months ! He thun- 
dered with his Philippics through Rome, addressing now the 
Senate and now the people with a hardihood which you may 
condemn as being unbecoming one so old, who should have 
been taught equanimity by experience ; but pusillanimity and 
pretence will not be the offences you will hring against him. 

Antony, not finding that Cicero had come at his call, de- 
clared in the Senate that he would send his workmen to dig 
him out from his house. Cicero alludes to this on the next 
day without passion. 1 Antony was not present, and in this 
speech he expresses no bitterness of anger. It should hardly 
have been named one of the Philippics, which title might well 
have been commenced with the second. The name, it should 
be understood, has been adopted from a jocular allusion by 
Cicero to the Philippics of Demosthenes, made in a letter to 
Brutus. We have at least the reply of Brutus, if indeed the 
letter be genuine, which is much to be doubted. 2 But he had 
no purpose of affixing his name to them. For many years af- 
terward they were called Antonianae, and the first general use 
of the term by which we know them has probably been com- 
paratively modern. The one name does as well as another, 
but it is odd that speeches from Demosthenes should have 
given a name to others so well known as these made by Cicero 
against Antony. Plutarch, however, mentions the name, say- 
ing that it had been given to the speeches by Cicero himself. 



1 Phil., i., 5 : " Nimis iracunde hoc quidem, et valde intemperanter." 
"Who," he goes on to say, "has sinned so heavily against the Republic 
that here, in the Senate, they shall dare to threaten his house by sending 
the State workmen ?" 

2 Brutus, Ciceroni, lib. ii., 5 : "Jam concedo ut vel Philippici vocentur, 
quod tu quadam epistola jocans scripsisti." I fear, however, that we must 
acknowledge that this letter cannot be taken as an authority for the early 
use of the name. 



CESAR'S DEATH. 193 

In tins, the first, he is ironically reticent as to Antony's vio- 
lence and unpatriotic conduct. Antony was not present, and 
Cicero tells his hearers with a pleasant joke that to Antony it 
may he allowed to he absent on the score of ill-health, though 
the indulgence had been refused to him. Antony is his friend, 
and why had Antony treated him so roughly ? Was it unusual 
for Senators to be absent ? Was Hannibal at the 2;ate, or were 
they dealing for peace with Pyrrhus, as was the case when they 
brought the old blind Appius down to the House ? Then he 
comes to the question of the hour, which was, nominally, the 
sanctioning as law those acts of Csesar's which he had decreed 
by his own will before his death. When a tyrant usurps power 
for a while and is then deposed, no more difficult question can 
be debated. Is it not better to take the law as he leaves it, 
even though the law has become a law illegally, than encounter 
all the confusion of retrograde action? Nothing could have 
been more iniquitous than some of Sulla's laws, but Cicero had 
opposed their abrogation. But here the question was one not 
of Caesar's laws, but of decrees subsequently made by Antony 
and palmed off upon the people as having been found among 
Csesar's papers. Soon after Csesar's death a decision had been 
obtained by Antony in favor of Caesar's laws or acts, and hence 
had come these impudent forgeries under the guise of which 
Antony could cause what writings he chose to be made pub- 
lic. " I think that Csesar's acts should be maintained," says 
Cicero, " not as being in themselves good, for that no one can 
assert. I wish that Antony were present here without his usual 
friends," he adds, alluding to his armed satellites. " He would 
tell us after what manner he would maintain those acts of 
Caesar's. Are they to be found in notes and scraps and small 
documents brought forward by one witness, or not brought for- 
ward at all but only told to us ? And shall those which he en- 
graved in bronze, and which he wished to be known as the will 
of the people and as perpetual laws — shall they go for noth- 

II.— 9 



194 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ing?" 1 Here was the point in dispute. The decree had been 
voted soon after Caesar's death, giving the sanction of the Senate 
to his laws. For peace this had been done, as the best way out 
of the difficulty which oppressed the State. But it was intoler- 
able that, under this sanction, Antony should have the power 
of bringing forth new edicts day after day, while the very 'laws 
which Caesar had passed were not maintained. " What better 
law was there, or more often demanded in the best days of the 
Republic, than that law," passed by Ca?sar, "under which the 
provinces were to be held by the Praetors only for one year, 
and by the Consuls for not more than two ? But this law is 
abolished. So it is thus that Caesar's acts are to be main- 
tained ?" 2 Antony, no doubt, and his friends, having an eye to 
the fruition of the provinces, had found among Caesar's papers 
— or said they had found — some writing to suit their purpose. 
All things to be desired were to be found among Caesar's pa- 
pers. " The banished are brought back from banishment, the 
right of citizenship is given not only to individuals but to whole 
nations and provinces, exceptions from taxations are granted, 
by the dead man's voice." 3 Antony had begun, probably, with 
some one or two more modest forgeries, and had gone on, 
strengthened in impudence by his own success, till Caesar dead 
was like to be worse to them than Caesar living. The whole 
speech is dignified, patriotic, and bold, asserting with truth that 
which he believed to be right, but never carried into invective 
or dealing with expressions of anger. It is very short, but I 
know no speech of his more closely to its purpose. I can see 
him now, with his toga round him, as he utters the final words: 
" I have lived perhaps long enough — both as to length of years 
and the glory I have won. What little may be added, shall 
be, not for myself, but for you and for the Republic." The 
words thus spoken became absolutely true. 

1 Phil., i., ca. vii. 2 Ibid., i., ca. viii. 3 Ibid., i., ca. x. 



THE miLlFPICS. 195 



Chapter IX. 

THE PHILIPPICS. 

Cicero was soon driven by the violence of Antony's conduct 
to relinquish the idea of moderate language, and was 
tetat 63 rea( ty enough to pick up the gauntlet thrown down for 
him. From this moment to the last scene of his life it 
was all the fury of battle and the shout of victory, and then 
the scream of despair. Antony, when he read Cicero's speech, 
the first Philippic, the language of which was no doubt instant- 
ly sent to him, seems to have understood at once that he must 
either vanquish Cicero or be vanquished by him. He appre- 
ciated to the letter the ironically cautious language in which 
his conduct was exposed. He had not chosen to listen to Cic- 
ero, but was most anxious to get Cicero to listen to him. Those 
" advocates" of whom Cicero had spoken would be around him, 
and at a nod, or perhaps without a nod, would do to Cicero 
as Brutus and Cassius had done to Caesar. The last meeting 
of the Senate had been on the 2d of September. When it was 
over, Antony, we are told, went down to his villa at Tivoli, and 
there devoted himself for above a fortnight to the getting up 
of a speech by which he might silence, or at any rate answer 
Cicero. Nor did he leave himself to his own devices, but took 
to himself a master of eloquence who might teach him when 
to make use of his arms, where to stamp his feet, and in what 
way to throw his toga about with a graceful passion. He was 
about forty at this time, 1 and in the full flower of his manhood, 



1 The year of his birth is uncertain. He had been Consul three years 
back, and must have spoken often. 



196 LIFE OF CICERO. 

yet, for such a purpose, be did not suppose himself to know 
all that lessons would teach him in the art of invective. There 
he remained, mouthing out his phrases in the presence of his 
preceptor, till he had learned by heart all that the preceptor 
knew. Then he summoned Cicero to meet him in the Senate 
on the 19th. This Cicero was desirous of doing, but was pre- 
vented by bis friends, who were afraid of the " advocates." 
There is extant a letter from Cicero to Cassius in which he 
states it to be well known in Rome that Antonv had declared 
that he, Cicero, had been the author of Caesar's death, in order 
that Caesar's old soldiers might slay him. 1 There were other 
Senators, he says, who did not dare to show themselves in the 
Senate-house — Piso, and Servilius, and Cotta. Antony came 
down and made his practised oration against Cicero. The 
words of his speech have not been preserved, but Cicero has 
told us the manner of it, and some of the phrases which he 
used. The authority is not very good, but we may imagine 
from the results that his story is not far from the truth. From 
first to last it was one violent tirade of abuse which he seemed 
to vomit forth from his jaws, rather than to " speak after the 
manner of a Roman Consular. 1 ' Such is Cicero's description. 

It has been said of Antony that we hear of him only from 
his enemies. lie left behind him no friend to speak for him, 
and we have heard of him certainly from one enemy ; but the 
tidings are of a nature to force upon us belief in the evil which 
Cicero spoke of him. Had he been a man of decent habits of 
life, and of an honest purpose, would Cicero have dared to say 
to the Romans respecting him the words which he produced, 
not only in the second Philippic, which was unspoken, but also 
in the twelve which followed ? The record of him, as far as it 
goes, is altogether bad. Plutarch tells us that he was handsome, 
and a good soldier, but altogether vicious. Plutarch is not a 
biographer whose word is to be taken as to details, but he is 

1 Ad Div., lib. xii., 2. 



THE PHILIPPICS. 197 

generally correct in his estimate of character. Tacitus tells us 
but little about him as direct history, but mentions him ever in 
tbe same tone. Tacitus knew the feeling of Rome regarding 
him. Paterculus speaks specially of his fraud, and breaks out 
into strong repudiation of the murder of Cicero. 1 Valerius 
Maximus, in his anecdotes, mentions him slightingly, as an evil 
man is spoken of who has forced himself into notice. Virgil 
has stamped his name with everlasting ignominy. " Sequiturque 
nefas Egyptia conjux." I can think of no Roman writer who 
has named him with honor. He was a Roman of the day — 
what Rome had made him — brave, greedy, treacherous, and 
unpatriotic. 

Cicero as;ain was absent from the Senate, but was in Rome 
when Antony attacked him. We learn from a letter to Corni- 
ficius that Antony left the city shortly afterward, and went 
down to Brundisium to look after the legions which had come 
across from Macedonia, with which Cicero asserts that he in- 
tends to tyrannize over them all in Rome. 2 He then tells his 
correspondent that young Octavius has just been discovered in 



1 It may here be worth our while to quote the impassioned language 
which Yelleius Paterculus uses when he chronicles the death of Cicero, 
lib. ii., 66 : "Nihil tamen egisti, M. Antoni (cogit enim excedere propositi 
f ormam operis, erumpens animo ac peetore indignatio), nihil, inquam, egisti, 
mercedem caelestissimi oris et clarissimi capitis abscissi numerando, aucto- 
ramentoque funebri ad conservatoris quondam reipublicas tantique consu- 
lis irritando necem. Rapuisti tu M. Ciceroni lucem solicitam, et aetatem 
senilem, et vitam miseriorem, te principe, quam sub te triumviro mortem. 
Famam vero gloriamque factorum atque dictorum adeo non abstulisti, ut 
auxeris. Vivit, vivetque per omnium sseculorum memoriara ; dumque hoc 
vel forte, vel providentia, vel utcumque constitutum, rerum naturae corpus, 
quod ille paene solus Romanorum animo vidit, ingenio complexus est, elo- 
quentia illuminavit, manebit incolume, comitem aevi sui laudem Ciceronis 
trahet, omnisque posteritas illius in te scripta mirabitur, tuum in eum fac- 
tum execrabitur ; citiusque in mundo genus hominum, quam ea, cadet." 
This was the popular idea of Cicero in the time of Tiberius. 

2 Ad Div., lib. xii., 23. 



198 LIFE OF CICERO. 

an attempt to Lave Antony murdered, but that Antony, having 
found the murderer in his house, had not dared to complain. 
He seems to think that Octavius had been right ! The state 
of things was such that men were used to murder ; but this 
story was probably not true. He passes on to declare in the 
next sentence that he receives such consolation from philoso- 
phy as to be able to bear all the ills of fortune. lie himself 
goes to Puteoli, and there he writes the second Philippic. It 
is supposed to be the most violent piece of invective ever pro- 
duced by human ingenuity and human anger. The readers of 
it must, however, remember that it was not made to be spoken 
— was not even written, as far as we are aware, to be shown to 
Antony, or to be published to the world. We do not even 
know that Antony ever saw it. There has been an idea preva- 
lent that Antony's anger was caused by it, and that Cicero 
owed to it his death ; but the surmise is based on probability 
— not at all on evidence. Cicero, when he heard what Antony 
had said of him, appears to have written all the evil he could 
say of his enemy, in order that he might send it to Atticus. 
It contained rather what he could have published than what 
he did intend to publish. He does, indeed, suggest, in the 
letter which accompanied the treatise when sent to Atticus, in 
some only half-intelligible words, that he hopes the time may 
come when the speech " shall find its way freely even into 
Sica's house;" 1 but we gather even from that his intention 
that it should have no absolutely public circulation. He had 
struo-o-led to be as severe as he knew how, but had done it, as 
it were, with a halter round his neck ; and for Antony's anger 
— the anger which afterward produced the proscription — there 
came to be cause enough beyond this. Before that day he had 
endeavored to stir up the whole Empire against Antony, and 
had all but succeeded. 

It has been alleged that Cicero again shows his cowardice 



1 Ad Att., lib. xvi., 11. 



tee niiLirrics. 199 

by writing and not speaking his oration, and also by writing 
it only for private distribution. If lie were a coward, why did 
he write it at all ? If he were a coward, why did he hurry into 
this contest with Antony? If he be blamed because his Phi- 
lippic was anonymous, how do the anonymous writers of to-day 
escape ? If because he wrote it, and did not speak it, what 
shall be said of the party writers of to-day ? He Avas a cow- 
ard, say his accusers, because he avoided a danger. Have they 
thought of the danger which he did run when they bring those 
charo-es affainst him ? of what was the nature of the fight ? Do 
they remember how many Romans in public life had been mur- 
dered during the last dozen years? We are well aware how far 
custom £oes, and that men became used to the fear of violent 
death. Cicero was now habituated to that fear, and was will- 
ing to face it. But not on that account are we to imagine 
that, with his eyes open, he was to be supposed always ready 
to rush into immediate destruction. To write a scurrilous at- 
tack, such as the second Philippic, is a bad exercise for the in- 
genuity of a great man; but so is any anonymous satire. It 
is so in regard to our own times, which have received the ben- 
efit of all antecedent civilization. Cicero, being in the midst 
of those heartless Romans, is expected to have the polished 
manners and high feelings of a modern politician ! I have 
hardly a right to be angry with his critics because by his life 
he went so near to justify the expectation. 

He begins by asking his supposed hearers how it has come 
to pass that during the last twenty years the Republic had had 
no enemy who was not also his enemy. "And you, Antony, 
whom I have never injured by a word, why is it that, more 
brazen-faced than Catiline, more fierce than Clodius, you should 
attack me with your maledictions? Will your enmity against 
me be a recommendation for you to every evil citizen in Rome ? 
* * * Why does not Antony come down among us to-day?" 
he says, as though he were in the Senate and Antony were away. 
"He gives a birthday fete iu his garden : to whom, I wonder? 



200 LIFE OF CICERO. 

I will name no one. To Phormio, perhaps, or Gnatho, or Bal- 
lion ? Ob, incredible baseness ; Inst and impudence not to be 
borne !" These were the vile knaves of the Roman comedy — 
the Nyms, Pistols, and Bobadils. " Your Consulship no doubt 
will be salutary ; but mine did only evil ! You talk of my 
verses," he says — Antony having twitted him with the " cedant 
anna togae." " I will only say that you do not understand 
them or any other. Clodius was killed by my counsels — was 
he? What would men have said had they seen him running 
from you through the Forum — you with your drawn sword, and 
him escaping up the stairs of the bookseller's shop f * * * It 
was by my advice that Caesar was killed ! I fear, conscript 
fathers, lest I should seem to have employed some false witness 
to flatter me with praises which do not belong to me. Who 
has ever heard me mentioned as having been conversant with 
that glorious affair ? Among those who did do the deed, whose 
name has been hidden — or, indeed, is not most widely known ? 
Some had been inclined to boast that they were there, though 
they were absent; but not one who was present has ever en- 
deavored to conceal his name." 

"You deny that I have had legacies ? I wish it were true 
for then my friends might still be living. But where have 
you learned that, seeing that I have inherited twenty million 
sesterces? 2 I am happier in this than you. No one but a 
friend has made me his heir. Lucius Rubrius Cassinas, whom 
you never even saw, has named you." He here refers to a man 
over whose property Antony was supposed to have obtained con- 
trol fraudulently. "Did he know of you whether you were a 
white man or a negro ? * * * Would you mind telling me what 
height Turselius stood?" Here he names another of whose 

1 On referring to the Milo, ca. xv., the reader will see the very different 
tone in which Cicero spoke of this incident when Antony was in favor 
with him. 

2 It was a sign of an excellent character in Rome to have been chosen 
often as heir in part to a man's property. 



THE PHILIPPICS. 201 

property Antony is supposed to have obtained possession ille- 
gally. " I believe all you know of him is what farms he had. 
* * * Do you bear in mind," he says, " that you were a bank- 
rupt as soon as you had become a man ? Do you remember 
your early friendship with Curio, and the injuries you did his 
father?" Here it is impossible to translate literally, but, after 
speaking as he had done very openly, he goes on : " But I 
must omit the iniquities of your private life. There are things 
I cannot repeat here. You are safe, because the deeds you 
have done are too bad to be mentioned. But let us look at 
the affairs of your public life. I will just go through them ;" 
which he does, laying bare, as he well knew how to do, every 
past act. " When you had been made Quaestor you flew at 
once to Caesar. You knew that he was the only refuge for 
poverty, debt, wickedness, and vice. Then, when you had 
gorged upon his generosity and your plunderings — which in- 
deed you spent faster than you got it — you betook yourself 
instantly to the Tribunate. * * * It is you, Antony, you who 
supplied Caesar with an excuse for invading his country." Cae- 
sar had declared at the Rubicon that the Tribunate had been 
violated in the person of Antony. " I will say nothing here 
against Caesar, though nothing can excuse a man for taking up 
arms against his country. But of you it has to be confessed 
that you were the cause. * * * He has been a very Helen to us 
Trojans. * * * He has brought back many a wretched exile, but 
has forgotten altogether his own uncle " — Cicero's colleague in 
the Consulship, who had been banished for plundering his prov- 
ince. " We have seen this Tribune of the people carried through 
the town on a British war-chariot. His lictors with their laurels 
went before him. In the midst, on an open litter, was carried 
an actress. W T hen you come back from Thessaly with your 
legions to Brundisium you did not kill me ! Oh, what a kind- 
ness ! * * * You with those jaws of yours, with that huge chest, 
with that body like a gladiator, drank so much wine at Hip- 
pea's marriage that in the sight of all Rome you were forced 

9* 



202 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to vomit. * * * When he had seized Pompey's property he re- 
joiced like some stage-actor who in a play is as poor as Pov- 
erty, and then suddenly hecomes rich. All his wine, the great 
weight of silver, the costly furniture and rich dresses, in a few 
days where were they all? A Charybdis do I call him? He 
swallowed them all like an entire ocean !" Then he accuses 
him of cowardice and cruelty in the Pharsalian wars, and com- 
pares him most injuriously with Dolahella. . " Do you remem- 
ber how Dolahella fought for you in Spain, when you were 
getting drunk at Narbo ? And how did you get back from 
Narbo? lie has asked as to my return to the city. I have 
explained to you, O conscript fathers, how I had intended to 
be here in January, so as to be of some service to the Republic. 
You inquire how I got back. In daylight — not in the dark, as 
you did ; with Roman shoes on and a Roman toga — not in bar- 
baric boots and an old cloak. * * * When Caesar returned from 
Spain you again pushed yourself into his intimacy — not a brave 
man, we should say, but still strong enough for his purposes. 
Caesar did always this — that if there were a man ruined, steeped 
in debt, up to his ears in poverty — a base, needy, bold man — 
that was the man whom he could receive into his friendship." 
This as to Caesar was undoubtedly true. " Recommended in 
this way, you were told to declare yourself Consul." Then he 
describes the way in which he endeavored to prevent the nom- 
ination of Dolahella to the same office. Caesar had said that 
Dolahella should be Consul, but when Caesar was dead this did 
not suit Antony. When the tribes had been called in their 
centuries to vote, Antony, not understanding what form of 
words he ought to have used as augur to stop the ceremony, 
had blundered. "Would you not call him a very Laelius?" 
says Cicero. Laelius had made for himself a name among 
augurs for excellence. 

" Miserable that you are, you throw yourself at Caesar's feet 
asking only permission to be his slave. You sought for your- 
self that state of slavery which it has ever been easy for you 



THE PHILIPPICS. 203 

to endure. Had you any command from the Roman peo- 
ple to ask the same for them ? Oh, that eloquence of yours ; 
when naked you stood up to harangue the people ! Who ever 
saw a fouler deed than that, or one more worthy scourges ?" 
" Has Tarquin suffered for this ; have Spurius Cassius, Meli- 
us, and Marcus Manlius suffered, that after many ages a king 
should be set up in Rome by Marc Antony ?" With abuse 
of a similar kind he goes on to the end of his declamation, 
when he again professes himself ready to die at his post in 
defence of the Republic. That he now made up his mind so 
to die, should it become necessary, we may take for granted, 
but we cannot bring ourselves to approve of the storm of abuse 
under which he attempted to drown the memory and name of 
his antagonist. So virulent a torrent of words, all seeming, as 
we read them, to have been poured out in rapid utterances by 
the keen energy of the moment, astonish us, when we reflect 
that it was the work of his quiet moments. That he should 
have prepared such a task in the seclusion of his closet is mar- 
vellous. It has about it the very ring of sudden passion ; but 
it must be acknowledged that it is not palatable. It is more 
Roman and less English than anvthino; we have from Cicero — 
except his abuse of Piso, with whom he was again now half 
reconciled. 

But it Avas solely on behalf of his country that he did it. 
He had grieved when Caesar had usurped the functions of the 
government ; but in his grief he had respected Ca3sar, and had 
felt that he might best carry on the contest by submission. 
But, when Caesar was dead, and Antony was playing tyrant, 
his very soul rebelled. Then he sat down to prepare his first 
instalment of keen personal abuse, adding word to word and 
phrase to phrase till he had built up this unsavory monument 
of vituperation. It is by this that Antony is now known to 
the world. Plutarch makes no special mention of the second 
Philippic. . In his life of Antony he does not allude to these 
orations at all, but in that of Cicero he tells us how Antony 



204 LIFE OF CICERO. 

bad ordered that right hand to be brought to him with which 
Cicero had written his Philippics. 

The " young Octavius " of Shakspeare had now taken the 
name of Octavianus — Cains Julius Caesar Octavianus — and had 
quarrelled to the knife with Antony. He had assumed that 
he had been adopted by Caesar, and now demanded all the 
treasures his uncle had collected as his own. Antony, who 
had already stolen them, declared that they belonged to the 
State. At any rate there was cause enough for quarrelling 
among them, and they were enemies. Each seems to have 
brought charges of murder against the other, and each was 
anxious to obtain possession of the soldiery. Seen as we see 
now the period in Rome of which we are writing — every safe- 
guard of the Republic gone, all law trampled under foot, Con- 
suls, Praetors, and Tribunes not elected but forced upon the 
State, all things in disorder, the provinces becoming the open 
prey of the greediest plunderer — it is apparent enough that 
there could be no longer any hope for a Cicero. The marvel 
is that the every-day affairs of life should have been carried on 
with any reference to the law. When we are told that An- 
tony stole Caesar's treasures and paid his debts with them, we 
are inclined to ask why he had paid his debts at all. But 
Cicero did hope. In his whole life there is nothing more re- 
markable than the final vitality with which he endeavored to 
withstand the coming deluge of military despotism. Nor in 
all history is there anything more wonderful than the capacity 
of power to re-establish itself, as is shown by the orderly Em- 
pire of Augustus growing out of the disorder left by Caesar. 
One is reminded by it of the impotency of a reckless heir to 
bring to absolute ruin the princely property of a great noble- 
man brought together by the skill of many careful progeni- 
tors. A thing will grow to be so big as to be all but inde- 
structible. It is like that tower of Caecilia Metella against 
which the storms of twenty centuries have beaten in vain. 
Looking at the state of the Roman Empire when Cicero died, 



THE FHILirriCS. 205 

â– who would not declare its doom ? Bat it did " retrick its 
beams," not so much by the band of one man, Augustus, as 
by the force of the concrete power collected within it — " Quod 
non imber edax non aquilo impotens Possit diruerc." 1 Cicero 
with patriotic gallantry thought that even yet there might be 
a chance for the old Republic — thought that by his eloquence, 
bv his vehemence of words, he could turn men from fraud to 
truth, and from the lust of plundering a province to a desire to 
preserve their country. Of Antony now he despaired, but he 
still hoped that his words might act upon this young Caesar's 
heart. The youth was as callous as though he had already 
ruled a province for three years. No Roman was ever more 
cautious, more wise, more heartless, more able to pick his way 
through blood to a throne, than the young Augustus. Cicero 
fears Octavian — as we must now call him — and knows that 
he can only be restrained by the keeping of power out of his 
hands. "Writing to Atticus from Arpinum, he says, " I agree 
altogether with you. If Octavian gets power into his hands 
he will insist upon the tyrant's decrees much more thoroughly 
than he did when the Senate sat in the temple of Tellus. Ev- 
erything then will be done in opposition to Brutus. But if he 
be conquered, then see how intolerable would be the dominion 
of Antony. 2 In the same letter he speaks of the De Officiis, 
which he has just written. In his next and last epistle to his 
old friend he cono-ratuiates himself on having been able at last 
to quarrel with Dolabella. Dolabella had turned upon him in 
the end, bought by Antony's money. He then returns to the 
subject of Octavian, and his doubts as to his loyalty. He has 
been asked to pledge himself to Octavian, but has declined till 
he shall see how the young man will behave when Casea be- 
comes candidate for the Tribunate. If he show himself to be 
Casea's enemy, Casea having been one of the conspirators, 
Cicero will know that he is not to be trusted. Then he falls 

1 Horace, Odes, lib. iii., 30. 2 Ad Att., lib. xvi., 14. 



206 LIFE OF CICERO. 

into a despairing mood, and declares that there is no hope. 
"Even Hippocrates was unwilling to bestow medicine on those 
to whom it could avail nothing." But he will go to Rome, 
into the very jaws of the danger. " It is less base for such as 
I. am to fall publicly than privately." With these words, al- 
most the last written by him to Atticus, this correspondence 
is brought to an end : the most affectionate, the most trusting, 
and the most open ever published to the world as having come 
from one man to another. No letters more useful to the elu- 
cidation of character were ever written; but when read for 
that purpose they should be read with care, and should hardly 
be quoted till they have been understood. 

The struggles for the provinces were open and acknowl- 
edged. Under Cassar, Decimus Brutus had been nominated 
for Cisalpine Gaul, Marcus Brutus for Macedonia, and Cassius 
for Syria. It will be observed that these three men were the 
most prominent among the conspirators. Since that time 
Antony and Dolabella had obtained votes of the people to 
alter the arrangement. Antony was to go to Macedonia, and 
Dolabella to Syria. This was again changed when Antony 
found that Decimus had left Rome to take up his command. 
He sent his brother Cains to Macedonia, and himself claimed 
to be Governor of Cisalpine Gaul. Hence there were two 
Roman governors for each province ; and in each case each 

governor was determined to fight for the possession. 
setat.63. Antony hurried out of Rome before the end of the 

year with the purpose of hindering Decimus from the 
occupation of the north of Italy, and Cicero went up to Rome, 
determined to take a part in the struggle which was imminent. 
The Senate had been summoned for the 19th of December, 
and attended in great numbers. Then it was that he spoke 
the third Philippic, and in the evening of the same day he 
spoke the fourth to the people. It should be understood that 
none of these speeches were heard by Antony. Cicero had at 
this time become the acknowledged chief of the Republican 



TEE PEILIPHCS. 207 

party, having drifted into the position which Pompey had so 
long filled. Many of Caesar's friends, frightened by his death, 
or rather cowed by the absence of his genius, had found it 
safer to retreat from the Cesarean party, of which the An- 
tonys, with Dolabella, the cutthroats and gladiators of the em- 
pire, had the command. Hirtius and Pansa, with Balbus and 
Oppius, were among them. They, at this moment, w r ere pow- 
erful in Rome. The legions w T ere divided — some with Antony, 
some with Octavian, and some with Decimus Brutus. The 
greater number were with Antony, whom they hated for his 
cruelty ; but were with him because the mantle of Caesar's 
power had fallen on to his shoulders. It was felt by Cicero 
that if he could induce Octavian to act with him the Republic 
might be again established. He would surely have influence 
enough to keep the lad from hankering after his great uncle's 
pernicious power. lie was aware that the dominion did in 
fact belong to the owner of the soldiers, but he thought that 
he could control this boy-officer, and thus have his legions at 
the command of the Republic. 

The Senate had been called together, nominally for the pur- 
pose of desiring the Consuls of the year to provide a guard 
for its own safety. Cicero makes it an occasion for perpetu- 
ating the feeling against Antony, which had already become 
strong in Rome. lie breaks out into praise of Octavian, whom 
he calls "this young Caesar — almost a boy;" tells them what 
divine things the boy had already done, and how he had drawn 
away from the rebels those two indomitable legions, the Ma'rtia 
and the Fourth. Then he proceeds to abuse Antony. Tar- 
quinius, the man whose name was most odious to Romans, had 
been unendurable as a tyrant, though himself not a bad man ; 
but Antony's only object is to sell the Empire, and to spend 
the price. Antony had convoked the Senate for November, 
threatening the Senators with awful punishments should they 
absent themselves ; but, when the day came, Antony, the Con- 
sul, had himself fled. He not only pours out the vials of his 



208 LIFE OF CICERO. 

wrath but of his ridicule upon Antony's head, and quotes his 
bungling words. lie gives instances of his imprudence, and 
his impotence, and of his greed. Then he again praises the 
young Caesar, and the two Consuls for the next year, and the 
two legions, and Decimus Brutus, who is about to fight the 
battle of the Republic for them in the north of Italy, and 
votes that the necessary guard be supplied. In the same even- 
ing he addresses the people in his fourth Philippic. He again 
praises the lad and the two legions, and again abuses Antony. 
No one can say after this day that he hid his anger, or was 
silent from fear. He congratulates the Romans on their pa- 
triotism — vain congratulations — and encourages them to make 
new efforts. He bids them rejoice that they have a hero such 
as Decimus Brutus to protect their liberties, and, almost, that 
they have such an enemy as Antony to conquer. It seems 
that his words, few as they were — perhaps because they were 
so few — took hold of the people's imaginations ; so that they 
shouted to him that he had on that day a second time saved 
his country, as he reminds them afterward. 1 

From this time forward we are without those intimate and 
friendly letters which we have had with us as our guide through 
the last twenty-one years of Cicero's life. For though we have 
a large body of correspondence written during the last year 
of his life, which are genuine, they are written in altogether a 
different style from those which have gone before. They are 
for the most part urgent appeals to those of his political friends 
to whom he can look for support in his views — often to those 
to whom he looked in vain. They are passionate prayers for 
the performance of a public duty, and as such are altogether 
to the writer's credit. His letters to Plancus are beautiful in 
their patriotism, as are also those to Decimus Brutus. When 
we think of his age, of his zeal, of his earnestness, and of the 
dangers which he ran, we hardly know how sufficient^ to ad- 

1 Philippics, lib. vi., 1. 



THE PHILIPPICS. 209 

mire the public spirit with which at such a crisis he had taken 
upon himself to lead the party. But our guide to his inner 
feelings is gone. There are no farther letters to tell us of ev- 
ery doubt at his heart. We think of him as of some stalwart 
commander left at home to arrange the affairs of the war, while 
the less experienced men were sent to the van. 

There is also a book of letters published as having passed 
between Cicero and Junius Brutus. The critics have generally 
united in condemning them as spurious. They are at, any rate, 
if genuine, cold and formal in their Iangnaffe. 

O ' O CO 

Antony had proceeded into Cisalpine Gaul to drive out of 
the province the Consul named by the people to gov- 
Ktat.64. em **• ^he nomination of Decimus had in truth been 
Caesar's nomination ; but the right of Decimus to rule 
was at any rate better than that of any other claimant. He 
had been appointed in accordance with the power then in ex- 
istence, and his appointment had been confirmed by the decree 
of the Senate sanctioning all Caesar's acts. It was, after all, a 
question of simple power, for Caesar had overridden every legal 
form. It became necessary, however, that they who were in 
power in Rome should decide. The Consuls Hirtius and Pansa 
had been Caesar's friends, and had also been the friends of 
Antony. They had not the trust in Antony which Caesar had 
inspired ; but they were anxious to befriend him — or rather 
not to break with him. When the Senate met, they called on 
one Fufius Calenus — who was Antony's friend and Pansa's fa- 
ther-in-law — first to offer his opinion. He had been one of 
Caesar's Consuls, appointed for a month or two, and was now 
chosen for the honorable part of first spokesman, as being a 
Consular Senator. He was for making terms with Antony, 
and suggested that a deputation of three Senators should be 
sent to him with a message calling upon him to retire. The 
object probably was to give Antony time, or rather to give 
Octavian time, to join with Antony if it suited him. Others 
spoke in the same sense, and then Cicero was desired to give 



210 LIFE OF CICERO. 

his opinion. This was the fifth Philippic. He is all for war 
with Antony — or rather he will not call it war, but a public 
breach of the peace which Antony has made. He begins 
mildly enough, but warms with his subject as he goes on : 
" Should they send ambassadors to a traitor to his country ? 
* * * Let him return from Mutina." I keep the old Latin 
name, which is preserved for us in that of Modena. " Let him 
cease to contend with Decimus. Let him depart out of Gaul. 
It is not fit that we should send to implore him to do so. We 
should by force compel him. * * * We are not sending mes- 
sengers to Hannibal, who, if Hannibal would not obey, might 
be desired to go on to Carthage. Whither shall the men go 
if Antony refuses to obey them ?" But it is of no use. With 
eloquent words he praises Octavian and the two legions and 
Decimus. He praises even the coward Lepidus, who w r as in 
command of legions, and was now Governor of Gaul beyond 
the Alps and of Northern Spain, and proposes that the people 
should put up to him a gilt statue on horseback — so important 
was it to obtain, if possible, his services. Alas ! it was impos- 
sible that such a man should be moved by patriotic motives. 
Lepidus was soon to go with the winning side, and became one 
of the second triumvirate with Antony and Octavian. 

Cicero's eloquence was on this occasion futile. At this 
sitting the Senate came to no decision, but on the third day 
l/ afterward they decreed that the Senators, Servius Sulpicius, 
Lucius Piso, and Lucius Philippus, should be sent to Anton)'. 
The honors which he had demanded for Lepidus and the 
others were granted, but he was outvoted in regard to the am- 
bassadors. On the 4th of January Cicero again addressed the 
people in the Forum. His task was very difficult. He wished 
to give no offence to the Senate, and yet was anxious to stir 
the citizens and to excite them to a desire for immediate war. 
The Senate, he told them, had not behaved disgracefully, but 
had — temporized. The war, unfortunately, must be delayed for 
those twenty days necessary for the going and coming of the 



THE PHILIPPICS. 211 



ambassadors. The ambassadors could do nothing. But still 
they must wait. In the mean time he will not be idle. For 
them, the Roman people, he will work and watch with all his 
experience, with diligence almost above his strength, to repay 
them for their faith in him. When Caesar was with them 
they had had no choice but obedience — so much the times 
were out of joint. If they submit themselves to be slaves now, 
it will be their own fault. Then in general language he pro- 
nounces an opinion — which was the general Roman feeling of 
the day : " It is not permitted to the Roman people to become 
slaves — that people whom the immortal gods have willed to 
rule all nations of the earth." 1 So he ended the sixth Philip- ^/ 
pic, which, like the fourth, was addressed to the people." All 
the others were spoken in the Senate. 

He writes to Decimus at Mutina about this time a letter full 
of hope — of hope which we can see to be genuine. " Recruits 
are being raised in all Italy — if that can be called recruiting 
which is in truth a spontaneous rushing into arms of the 
entire population."' 2 He expects letters telling him what " our 
Hirtius " is doing, and what " my young Caesar." Hirtius and 
Pansa, the Consuls of the year, though they had been Caesar's 
party, and made Consuls by Caesar, were forced to fight for the 
Republic. They had been on friendly terms with Cicero, and 
they doubted Anton}'. Hirtius had now followed the army, 
and Pansa was about to do so. They both fell in the battle 
that was fought at Mutina, and no one can now accuse them 
of want of loyalty. But " my Caesar," on whose behalf Cicero 
made so many sweet speeches, for whose glory he was so care- 
ful, whose early republican principles he was so anxious to 
direct, made his terms with Antony on the first occasion. At 
that time Cicero wrote to Plancus, Consul elect for the next 
year, and places before his eyes a picture of all that he can do 

1 " Populum Romanian servire fas non est, quern dii immortales omnibus 
gentibus imperare voluerunt," 8 Ad Div., lib. xi., 8. 



212 LIFE OF CICERO. 

for the Republic. " Lay yourself out — yes, I pray you, by the 
immortal gods — for that which will bring you to the height 
of glory and renown." 1 

At the end of January or beginning of February he again 
addressed the Senate on the subject of the embassy — a matter 
altogether foreign from that which it had been convoked to dis- 
cuss. To Cicero's mind there was no other subject at the pres- 
ent moment fit to occupy the thoughts of a Roman Senator. 
" We have met together to settle something about the Appian 
Way, and something about the coinage. The mind revolts 
from such little cares, torn by greater matters." The ambas- 
sadors are expected back — two of them at least, for Sulpicius 
had died on his road. He cautions the Senate against receiv- 
ing with quiet composure such an answer as Antony will prob- 
ably send them. " Why do I — I who am a man of peace — re- 
fuse peace ? Because it is base, because it is full of danger — 
because peace is impossible." Then he proceeds to explain 
that it is so. " What a disgrace would it be that Antony, af- 
ter so many robberies, after bringing back banished comrades, 
after selling the taxes of the State, putting up kingdoms to auc- 
tion, shall rise up on the consular bench and address a free Sen- 
ate ! * * * Can you have an assured peace while there is an An- 
tony in the State — or many Antonys ? Or how can you be at 
peace with one who hates you as does he ; or how can he be at 
peace with those who hate him as do you ? * * * You have such 
an opportunity," he says at last, " as never fell to the lot of any. 
You are able, with all senatorial dignity, with all the zeal of the 
knights, with all the favor of the Roman people, now to make 
the Republic free from fear and danger, once and forever." 
Then he thus ends his speech, " About those things which have 
been brought before us, I agree with Servilius." That is the 
seventh Philippic. 

In February the ambassadors returned, but returned laden 



1 AdDiv., lib. x.,3. 



THE PHILIPPICS. 213 

with bad tidings. Servius Sulpicius, who was to have been 
their chief spokesman, died just as they reached Antony. The 
other two immediately began to treat with him, so as to be- 
come the bearers back to Rome of conditions proposed by him. 
This was exactly what they had been told not to do. They 
had carried the orders of the Senate to their rebellious officer, 
and then admitted the authority of that rebel by bringing back 
his propositions. They were not even allowed to go into Muti- 
na so as to see Decimus ; but they were, in truth, only too well 
in accord with the majority of the Senate, whose hearts were with 
Antony. Anything to those lovers of their fish-ponds was more 
desirable than a return to the loyalty of the Republic. The 
Deputies were received by the Senate, who discussed their em- 
bassy, and on the next day they met again, when Cicero pro- 
nounced his eighth Philippic. Why he did not speak on the 
previous day I do not know, Middleton is somewhat confused 
in his account. Morabin says that Cicero was not able to ob- 
tain a hearing when the Deputies were received. The Senate 
did on that occasion come to a decision ; against which act of 
pusillanimity Cicero on the following day expressed himself 
very vehemently. They had decided that this was not to be / 
called a war, but rather a tumult, and seem to have hesitated 
in denouncing Antony as a public enemy. The Senate was 
convoked on the next day to decide the terms of the amnesty 
to be accorded to the soldiers who had followed Antony, when 
Cicero, again throwing aside the minor matter, burst upon them 
in his wrath. He had hitherto inveighed against Antony ; 
now his anger is addressed to the Senate. " Lucius Cyesar," he 
said, " has told us that he is Antony's uncle, and must vote as 
such. Are you all uncles to Antony ?" Then he goes on to 
show that war is the only name by which this rebellion can be 
described. Has not Hirtius, who has gone away, sick as he is, 
called it a war ? Has not young Caesar, young as he is, prompt- 
ed to it by no one, undertaken it as a war?" He repeats the 
words of a letter from Hirtius which could only have been used 



214 LIFE OF CICERO. 

in war : " I have taken Claterna. Their cavalry has been put 
to flight. A battle has been fought. So many men have been 
killed. This is what you call peace !" Then he speaks of oth- 
er civil wars, which he says have grown from difference of opin- 
ion — " except that last between Tompey and Caesar, as to which 
I will not speak. I have been ignorant of its cause, and have 
hated its ending." But in this war all men are of one opinion 
who are worthy of the name of Romans. " We are fighting for 
the temples of our gods, for our walls, our homes, for the abode 
of the Roman people, for their Penates, their altars, their hearths, 
for the graves of ancestors — and we are fighting only against 
Antony. * * * Fufius Calenus tells us of peace — as though 
I of all men did not know that peace was a blessing. But tell 
me, Calenus, is slavery peace ?" He is very angry with Calenus. 
Although he has called him his friend, he was in great wrath 
against him. " I am fighting for Decimus and you for Antony. 
I wish to preserve a Roman city ; you wish to see it battered 
to the ground. Can you deny this, you who are creating all 
means of delays by which Decimus may be weakened and An- 
tony made strong?'' 

" I had consoled myself with this," he says, " that when these 
ambassadors had been sent and had returned despised, and had 
told the Senate that not only had Antony refused to leave Gaul 
but was besieging Mutina, and would not let them even see Dec- 
imus — that then, in our passion and our rage, we should have 
gone forth with our arms, and our horses, and our men, and at 
once have rescued our General. But we — since we have seen 
the audacity, the insolence, and the pride of Antony — we have 
become only more cowardly than before." Then he gives his 
opinion about the amnesty-: "Let any of those who are now 
with Antony, but shall leave him before the ides of March and 
pass to the armies of the Consuls, or of Decimus, or of young 
Caesar, be held to be free from reproach. If one should quit 
their ranks through their own will, let them be rewarded and 
honored as Hirtius and Pansa, our Consuls, may think proper." 



THE PHILIPPICS. 215 

This was the eighth Philippic, and is perhaps the finest of them 
all. It does not contain the bitter invective of the second, but 
there is in it a true feeling of patriotic earnestness. The ninth 
also is very eloquent, though it is rather a paean sung on behalf 
of his friend Sulpicius, who in bad health had encountered the 
danger of the journey, and had died in the effort, than one of 
these Philippics which are supposed to have been written and 
spoken with the view of demolishing Antony. It is a specimen 
of those funereal orations delivered on behalf of a citizen who 
had died in the service of his country which used to be com- 
mon among the Romans. 

The tenth is in praise of Marcus Junius Brutus. Were 
I to attempt to explain the situation of Brutus in Macedonia, 
and to say how he had come to fill it, I should be carried 
away from my purpose as to Cicero's life, and should be en- 
deavoring to write the history of the time. My object is sim- 
ply to illustrate the life of Cicero by such facts as we know. 
In the confusion which existed at the time, Brutus had ob- 
tained some advantages in Macedonia, and had recovered for 
himself the legions of which Caius Antonius bad been in pos- 
session, and who was now a prisoner in his hands. At this 
time young Marcus Cicero was his lieutenant, and it is told us 
how one of those legions had put themselves under his com- 
mand. Brutus bad at any rate written home letters to the 
Senate early in March, and Pansa had called the Senate togeth- 
er to receive them. 

Again he attacks Fufius Calenus, Pansa's father-in-law, who 
was the only man in the Senate bold enough to stand up 
against him ; though there were doubtless many of those foot 
Senators — men who traversed the house backward and for- 
ward to give their votes — who were anxious to oppose him. 
He thanks Pansa for calling them so quickly, seeing that when 
they had parted yesterday they had not expected to be again 
so soon convoked. We may gather from this the existence of 
a practice of sending messengers round to the Senators' houses 



216 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to call them together. He praises Brutus for his courage and 
his patience. It is his object to convince his hearers, and ' 
through them the Romans of the day, that the cause of An- 
tony is hopeless. Let us rise up and crush him. Let us all 
rise, and we shall certainly crush him. There is nothing so 
likely to attain success as a belief that the success has been 
already attained. " From all sides men are running together 
to put out the flames which he has lighted. Our veterans, 
following the example of young Caesar, have repudiated An- 
tony and his attempts. The ' Legio Martia' has blunted the 
edge of his rage, and the ' Legio Quarta ? has attacked him. 
Deserted by his own troops, he has broken through into Gaul, 
which he has found to be hostile to him with its arms and op- 
posed to him in spirit. The armies of Ilirtius and of young 
Caesar are upon his trail ; and now Pansa's levies have raised 
the heart of the city and of all Italy. He alone is our enemy, 
although he has along with him his brother Lucius, whom we 
all regret so dearly, whose loss we have hardly been able to 
endure ! What wild beast do you know more abominable 
than that, or more monstrous — who seems to have been created 
lest Marc Antony himself should be of all things the most 
vile?" He concludes by proposing the thanks of the Senate 
to Brutus, and a resolution that Quintns Hortensius, who had 
held the province of Macedonia against Caius Antonius, should 
be left there in command. The two propositions were carried. 
As we read this, all appears to be prospering on behalf of 
the Republic ; but if we turn to the suspected correspond- 
ence between Brutus and Cicero, we find a different state of 
things. And these letters, though we altogether doubt their 
authenticity — for their language is cold, formal, and un-Cicero- 
nian — still were probably written by one who had access to 
those which Cicero had himself penned: "As to what you 
write about wanting men and money, it is very difficult to 
give you advice. I do not see how you are to raise any except 
by borrowing it from the municipalities" — in Macedonia — 



the rnnirrics. 217 

"according to the decree of the Senate. As to men, I do not 
know what to propose. Pansa is so far from sparing men 
from bis army, that he begrudges those who go to you as 
volunteers. Some think that he wishes you to be less strong 
than you are — which, however, I do not suspect myself." 1 A 
letter might fall into the hands of persons not intended to 
read it, and Cicero was forced to be on his guard in commu- 
nicating his suspicions — Cicero or the pseudo- Cicero. In 
the next Brutus is rebuked for having left Antony live when 
Cresar was slain. " Had not some god inspired Octavian," he 
says, " we should have been altogether in the power of Antony, 
that base and abominable man. And you see how terrible is 
our contest with him." And he tries to awaken him to the 
necessity of severity. " I see how much you delight in clem- 
ency. That is very well. But there is another place, another 
time, for clemency. The question for us is whether we shall 
any longer exist or be put out of the world." These, which 
are intended to represent his private fears, deal with the affairs 
of the day in a tone altogether different from that of his pub- 
lic speeches. Doubt, anxiety, occasionally almost despair, are 
expressed in them. But not the less does he thunder on in 
the Senate, aware that to attain success he must appear to have 
obtained it. 

The eleventh Philippic was occasioned by the news which 
had arrived in Rome of the death of Trebonius. Trebonius 
had been surprised in Smyrna by a stratagem as to which 
alone no disgrace would have fallen on Dolabella, had he 
not followed up his success by killing Trebonius. How far 
the bloody cruelty, of which we have the account in Cicero's 
words, was in truth executed, it is now impossible to say. The 
Greek historian Appian gives us none of these horrors, but 
simply intimates that Trebonius, having been taken in the 
snare, had his head cut off. 2 That Cicero believed the story 

1 Ad Brutura, lib. ii., 6. 2 Appian, De Bell. Civ., lib. iii., ca. 26. 

II.— 10 



218 LIFE OF CICERO. 

is probal>le. It is told against his son-in-law, of whom he 
had hitherto spoken favorably. He would not have spoken 
against the man except on conviction. Dolabella was imme- 
diately declared an enemy to the Republic. Cicero inveighs 
against him with all his force, and says that such as Dolabella 
is, he had been made by the cruelty of Antony. But he goes 
on to philosophize, and declare how much more miserable than 
Trebonius was Dolabella himself, who is so base that from his 
childhood those things had been a delight to him which have 
been held as disgraceful by other children. Then he turns to 
the question which is in dispute, whether Brutus should be left 
in command of Macedonia, and Cassius of Syria — Cassius was 
now on his way to avenge the death of Trebonius — or wheth- 
er other noble Romans, Publius Servilius, for instance, or that 
Hirtius and Pansa, the two Consuls, when they can be spared 
from Italy, shall be sent there. It is necessary here to read 
between the lines. The going of the Consuls would mean the 
withdrawing of the troops from Italy, and would leave Rome 
open to the Caesarean faction. At present Decimus and Cice- 
ro, and whoever else there might be loyal to the Republic, had 
to fight by the assistance of other forces than their own. Hir- 
tius and Pansa were constrained to take the part of the Repub- 
lic by Cicero's eloquence, and by the action of those Senators 
who felt themselves compelled to obey Cicero. But they did 
not object to send the Consuls away, and the Consular legions, 
under the plea of saving the provinces. This they were willing 
enough to do — with the real object of delivering Italy over to 
those who were Cicero's enemies but were not theirs. All this 
Cicero understood, and, in conducting the contest, had to be on 
his guard, not only against the soldiers of Antony but against 
the Senators also, who were supposed to be his own friends, 
but whose hearts were intent on having back some Caesar to 
preserve for them their privileges. 

Cicero in this matter talked some nonsense. " By what 
right, by what law," he asks, "shall Cassius go to Syria? By 



THE PHILIPPICS. 219 

that law which Jupiter sanctioned when he ordained that all 
things good for the Republic should he just and legal." For 
neither had Brutus a right to establish himself in Macedonia as 
Proconsul nor Cassius in Syria. This reference to Jupiter was 
a begging of the question with a vengeance. But it was per- 
haps necessary, in a time of such confusion, to assume some 
pretext of legality, let it be ever so poor. Nothing could now 
be done in true obedience to the laws. The Triumvirate, with 
Caesar at its head, had finally trodden down all law ; and yet 
every one was clamoring for legal rights ! Then he sings the 
praises of Cassius, but declares that he does not dare to give 
him credit in that place for the greatest deed he had done. 
He means, of course, the murder of Caesar. 

Paterculus tells us that all these things were decreed by the 
Senate. 1 But he is wrong. The decree of the Senate went 
against Cicero, and on the next day, amid much tumult, he 
addressed himself to the people on the subject. This he did 
in opposition to Pansa, who endeavored to hinder him from 
speaking in the Forum, and to Servilia, the mother-in-law of 
Cassius, who was afraid lest her son-in-law should encounter 
the anger of the Consuls. He went so far as to tell the people 
that Cassius would not obey the Senate, but would take upon 
himself, on such an emergency, to act as best he could for the 
Republic. 2 There was no moment in this stirring year, none, I 
think, during Cicero's life, in which he behaved with greater 
courage than now in appealing from the Senate to the people, 
and in the hardihood with which he declared that the Senate's 
decree should be held as going for nothing. Before the time 
came in which it could be carried out both Hirtius and Pansa 
were dead. They had fallen in relieving Decimus at Mutina. 



1 Yell. Pat., lib. ii., 62 : " Quae omnia senatus decretis comprensa et com- 
probata sunt." 

2 Ad Div., lib. xii., Y. This is in a letter to Cassius, in which he says, 
"Promisi enim et prope confirmavi, te non expectasse nee expectaturum 
decreta nostra, sed te ipsum tuo more rempublieam defensurum." 



220 LIFE OF CICERO. 

His address on this occasion to the people was not made pub- 
lic, and has not been preserved. 

Then there came up the question of a second embassy, to 
which Cicero at first acceded. He was induced to do so, as 
he says, bv news which had arrived of altered circumstances 
on Antony's part. Calenus and Piso had given the Senate to 
understand that Antony was desirous of peace. Cicero had 
therefore assented, and had agreed to be one of the deputation. 
The twelfth Philippic was spoken with the object of sbowing 
that no such embassy should be sent. Cicero's condition at 
this period was most peculiar and most perilous. The Senate 
would not altogether oppose his efforts, but they hated them. 
They feared that, if Antony should succeed, they who had 
opposed Antony would be ruined. Those among them who 
were the boldest openly reproached Cicero with the clanger 
which they were made to incur in fighting his battles. 1 To be 
rid of Cicero was their desire and their difficulty. He had 
agreed to go on this embassy — who can say for what motives? 
To him it would be a mission of especial peril. It was one 
from which he could hardly hope ever to come back alive. It 
may be that he had agreed to go with his life in his hand, and 
to let them know that he at any rate had been willing to die 
for the Republic. It may be that he had heard of some alter- 
ed circumstances. But he changed his mind and resolved that 
he would not go, unless driven forth by the Senate. There 
seems to have been a manifest attempt to get him out of Rome 
and send him where he might have his throat cut. But he 
declined; and this is the speech in which he did so. "It is 
impossible," says the French critic, speaking of the twelfth 
Philippic, "to surround the word 'I fear' with more imposing 
oratorical arguments." It has not occurred to him that Cicero 

1 Appian, lib. iii., ca. 50. The historian of the civil wars declares that 
Piso spoke up for Antony, saying that he should not be damnified by loose 
statements, but should be openly accused. Feelings ran very high, but 
Cicero seems to have held his own. 



THE PHILIPPICS. 221 

may have thought that he might even yet do something hetter 
with the lees and dregs of his life than throw them away by 
thus falling into a trap. Nothing is so common to men as to 
fear to die — and nothing more necessary, or men would soon 
cease to live. To fear death more than ignominy is the dis- 
grace — a truth which the French critic does not seem to have 
recognized when he twits the memory of Cicero with his scorn- 
ful sneer, " J'ai peur." Did it occur to the French critic to 
ask himself for what purpose should Cicero go to Antony's 
camp, where he would probably be murdered, and by so do- 
ing favor the views of his own enemies in Rome ? The depu- 
tation was not sent ; but in lieu of the deputation Pansa, the 
remaining Consul, led his legions out of Rome at the beginning 
of April. 

Lepidus, who was Proconsul in Gaul and Northern Spain, 
wrote a letter at this time to the Senate recommending 
setat 64 them to make peace with Antony. Cicero in his thir- 
teenth Philippic shows how futile such a peace would 
be. That Lepidus was a vain, inconstant man, looking simply 
to his own advantage in the side which he might choose, is 
now understood ; but when this letter was received he was 
supposed to have much weight in Rome. He had, however, 
given some offence to the Senate, not having acknowledged all 
the honors which had been paid to him. The advice had been 
rejected, and Cicero shows how unfit the man was to give it. 
This, however, he still does with complimentary phrases, though 
from a letter 'written by him to Lepidus about this time the 
nature of his feeling toward the man is declared : " You 
would have done better, in my judgment, if you had left alone 
this attempt at making peace, which approves itself neither to 
the Senate nor to the people, nor to any good man." 1 When 
we remember the ordinary terms of Roman letter-writing, we 
must acknowledge that this was a plain and not very civil at- 

1 Ad Div., lib. x., 27. 



222 LIFE OF CICERO. 

tempt to silence Lepidus. He then goes on in the Philippic 
to read a letter which Antony had sent to Hirtius and to 
young Csesar, and whjch they had sent on to the Senate. The 
letter is sufficiently bold and abusive — throwing it in their 
teeth that they would rather punish the murderer of Trebonius 
than those of Caesar. Cicero does this with some wit, but we 
feel compelled to observe that as much is to be said on the 
one side as on the other. Brutus, Cassius, with Trebonius 
and others, had killed Cresar. Dolabella, perhaps with circum- 
stances of great cruelty, had killed Trebonius. Cicero had 
again and again expressed his sorrow that Antony had been 
spared when Caesar was killed. We have to go back before 
the first slaughter to resolve who was right and who was 
wrong, and even afterward can only take the doings of each 
in that direction as part of the internecine feud. Experience 
has since explained to us the results of introducing bloodshed 
into such quarrels. The laws which recognize war are and 
were acknowledged. But when A kills B because he thinks 
B to have done evil, A can no longer complain of murder. 
And Cicero's criticism is somewhat puerile. " And thou, 
boy," Antony had said in addressing Octavian — "Et te, puer!" 
" You shall find him to be a man by-and-by," says Cicero. An- 
tony's Latin is not Ciceronian. " Utrum sit elegantius," he 
asks, putting some further question about Caesar and Trebo- 
nius. " As if there could be anything elegant in this war," 
demands Cicero. He goes through the letter in the same 
way, turning Antony into ridicule in a manner which must 
have riveted in the heart of Fulvia, Antony's wife, who was in 
Rome, her desire to have that bitter-speaking tongue torn out 
of his mouth. Such was the thirteenth Philippic. 

On the 21st of April was spoken the fourteenth and the 
last. Pansa early in the month had left Rome, and marched 
toward Mutina with the intention of relieving Decimus. An- 
tony, who was then besieging Mutina after such a fashion as to 
prevent all egress or ingress, and had all but brought Decimus 



THE PHILIPPICS. 223 

to starvation, finding himself about to be besieged, put bis 
troops into motion, and attacked those who were attacking 
him. Then was fought the battle in which Antony was beat- 
en, and Pansa, one of the Consuls, so wounded that he perished 
soon afterward. Antony retreated to his camp, but was again 
attacked by Hirtius and Octavian, and by Decimus, who sallied 
out of the town. lie was routed, and fled, but Hirtius was 
killed in the battle. Suetonius tells us that in his time a 
rumor was abroad that Augustus, then Octavian, had himself 
killed Hirtius with his own hands in the fight — Hirtius having 
been his fellow-general, and fighting on the same side ; and that 
he had paid Glyco, Pansa's doctor, to poison him while dress- 
ing his wounds. 1 Tacitus had already made the story known.* 
It is worth repeating here only as showing the sort of conduct 
which a grave historian and a worthy biographer were not 
ashamed to attribute to the favorite Emperor of Rome. 

It was on the receipt of the news in Rome of the first battle, 
but before the second had been fought, that the last Philippic 
was spoken. Pansa was not known to have been mortally 
wounded, nor Hirtius killed, nor was it known that Decimus 
had been relieved ; but it was understood that Antony had 
received a check. Scrvilius had proposed a supplication, and 
had suggested that they should put away their saga and go 
back to their usual attire. The " sagum " was a common military 
cloak, which the early Romans wore instead of the toga when 
they went out to war. In later days, when the definition be- 
tween a soldier and a civilian became more complete, they who 
were left at home wore the sagum, in token of their military 
feelings, when the Republic was fighting its battles near Rome. 
I do not suppose that when Crassus was in Parthia, or Caesar 
in Gaul, the sagum was worn. It was not exactly known when 

1 Suetonius, Augustus, lib. xi. 

2 Tacitus, Ann., lib. i., x. : "Cassis Hirtio et Pansa, sive hostis illos, seu 
Pansara venenum vulneri affusuni, sui milites Hirtiurn et, machinator doli, 
Caesar abstulerat." 



224 LIFE OF CICERO. 

the distant battles were being fought. But Cicero had taken 
care that the sagum should be properly worn, and had even put 
it on himself — to do which as a Consular was not required of 
him. Servilius now proposed that they should leave off their 
cloaks, having obtained a victory ; but Cicero would not per- 
mit it. Decimus, he says, has not been relieved, and they had 
taken to their cloaks as showing their determination to succor 
their General in his distress. And he is discontented with 
the language used : " You have not even yet called Antony a 
' public enemy.' " Then he again lashes out against the horror 
of Antony's proceedings: "He is waging war, a war too dread- 
ful to be spoken of, against four Roman Consuls" — he means 
Hirtius and Pansa, who were already Consuls, and in truth 
already dead, and Decimus and Plancus, who were designated 
as Consuls for the next year. Plancus, however, joined his 
legions afterward with those of Antony, and insisted in estab- 
lishing the Second Triumvirate. " Rushing from one scene of 
slaughter to another, he causes wherever he goes misery, desola- 
tion, bloodshed, and agony." The language is so fine that it 
is worth our while to see the words. 1 " Is he not responsible 
for the horrors of Dolabella? What he would do in Rome, 
were it not for the protection of Jupiter, may be seen from the 
miseries which his brother has inflicted on those poor men of 
Parma — that Lucius, whom all men hate, and the gods too 
would hate, if they hated as they ought. In what city was 
Hannibal as cruel as Antony at Parma; and shall we not call 
him an enemy ?" Servilius had asked for a supplication, but 
had only asked for one of moderate length. And Servilius 
had not called the generals Imperatores. Who should be so 
called but they who have been valiant, and lucky, and success- 
ful ? Cicero forgets the meaning of the title, and that even 
Bibulus had been called Imperator in Syria. Here he runs off 

1 Philip, xiv., 3 : " Omnibus, quanquam ruit ipse suis cladibus, pestem, 
vastitatern, cruciatum, tormenta demuntiat." 



THE PHILIPPICS. 225 

from his subject, and at some length praises himself. It seems 
that Rome was in a tumult at the time, and that Antony's 
enemies did all they could to support him, and also to turn his 
head. He had been carried into the Senate-house in triumph, 
and had been thanked by the whole city. After lauding the 
different generals, and calling them all Imperatores, he de- 
sires the Senate to decree them a supplication for fifty days. 
Fifty days are to be devoted to thanksgiving to the gods, 
though it had already been declared how very little they have 
done for which to be thankful, as Decimus had not yet been 
liberated. 

Fifty days are granted for the battle of Mutina, which as yet 
was supposed to have been but half fought. When we hear 
the term "supplicatio" first mentioned in Livy one day was 
granted. It had grown to twenty when the gods were thanked 
for the victory over Vercingetorix. Now for this half-finished 
affair fifty was hardly enough. When the time was over, An- 
tony and Lepidus had joined their forces triumphantly. Pansa 
and Hirtius were dead, and Decimus Brutus had fled, and had 
probably been murdered. Nothing increases so out of propor- 
tion to the occasion as the granting of honors. Stars, when 
they fall in showers, pale their brilliancy, and turn at last to 
no more than a cloud of dust. Honors are soon robbed of all 
their honor when once the first step downward has been taken. 
The decree was passed, and Cicero finished his last speech on 
so poor an occasion. But though the thing itself then done 
be small and trivial to us now, it was completed in magnificent 
language. 1 The passage of which I give the first words below 
is very fine in the original, though it does not well bear transla- 
tion. Thus he ended his fourteenth Philippic, and the silver 
tongue which had charmed Rome so often was silent forever. 

We at least have no record of any further speech ; nor, as 

1 Philip., xi v., 12: "0 fortunata mors, quec natura debita, pro patria 
est potissimum reddita." 

10* 



226 LIFE OF CICERO. 

I think, did lie again take the labor of putting into words which 
should thrill through all who heard them, not the thoughts but 
the passionate feelings of the moment. 

I will venture to quote from a contemporary his praise of 
the Philippics. Mr. Forsyth says : " Nothing can exceed the 
beauty of the language, the rhythmical flow of the periods, and 
the harmony of the style. The structure of the Latin language, 
which enables the speaker or writer to collocate his words, not, 
as in English, merely according to the order of thought, but in 
the manner best calculated to produce effect, too often baffles 
the powers of the translator who seeks to give the force of the 
passage without altering the arrangement. Often again, as is 
the case with all attempts to present the thoughts of the ancient 
in a modern dress, a periphrasis must be used to explain the 
meaning of an idea which was instantly caught by the Greek 
or Roman ear. Many allusions which flashed like lightning 
upon the minds of the Senators must be explained in a paren- 
thesis, and many a home-thrust and caustic sarcasm are now 
deprived of their sting, which pierced sharply at the moment 
of their utterance some twenty centuries ago. 

" But with all such disadvantages I hope that even the Eng- 
lish reader will be able to recognize in these speeches some- 
thing of the grandeur of the old Roman eloquence. The noble 
passages in which Cicero strove to force his countrymen for 
very shame to emulate the heroic virtues of their forefathers, 
and urged them to brave every danger and welcome death rath- 
er than slavery in the last struggle for freedom, are radiant 
with a glory which not even a translation can destroy. And 
it is impossible not to admire the genius of the orator whose 
words did more than armies toward recovering the lost liberty 
of Rome." 

His words did more than armies, but neither could do any- 
thing lasting for the Republic. What was one honest man 
among so many ? We remember Mommsen's verdict : " On 
the Roman oligarchy of this period no judgment can be pass- 



THE PHILIPPICS. 227 

ed save one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation." 
The farther we see into the facts of Roman history in our en- 
deavors to read the life of Cicero, the more apparent becomes 
its truth. But Cicero, though he saw far toward it, never al- 
together acknowledged it. In this consists the charm of his 
character, though at the same time the weakness of his politi- 
cal aspirations; his weakness — because he was vain enough 
to imagine that he could talk men back from their fish- 
ponds ; its charm — because he was able through it all to be- 
lieve in honesty. The more hopeless became the cause, the 
sweeter, the more impassioned, the more divine, became his 
language. He tuned his notes to still higher pitches of melo- 
dy, and thought that thus he could bring back public virtue. 
Often in these Philippics the matter is small enough. The 
men he has to praise are so little ; and Antony does not loom 
large enough in history to have merited from Cicero so great a 
meed of vituperation ! Nor is the abuse all true, in attribut- 
ing; to him motives so low. But Cicero was true through it 
all, anxious, all on fire with anxiety to induce those who heard 
him to send men to fight the battles to which he knew them, 
in their hearts, to be opposed. 

The courage, the persisteney, and the skill shown in the at- 
tempt were marvellous. They could not have succeeded, but 
they seem almost to have done so. I have said that he was 
one honest man among many. Brutus was honest in his pa- 
triotism, and Cassius, and all the conspirators. I do not doubt 
that Caesar was killed from a true desire to i"estore the Roman 
Republic. They desired to restore a thing that was in itself evil 
— the evils of which had induced Caesar to see that he might 
make himself its master. But Cicero had conceived a Repub- 
lic in his own mind — not Utopian, altogether human and ra- 
tional — a Republic which he believed to have been that of 
Scipio, of Marccllus, and LaBlius : a Republic which should do 
nothing for him but require his assistance, in which the people 
should vote, and the oligarchs rule in accordance with the es- 



228 LIFE OF CICERO. 

tablished laws. Peace and ease, prosperity and protection, it 
would be for the Kome of his dream to bestow upon the prov- 
inces. Law and order, education and intelligence, it would be 
for her rulers to bestow upon Rome. In desiring this, he was 
the one honest man among many. In accordance with that 
theory he had lived, and I claim for him that he had never de- 
parted from it. In his latter days, when the final struggle came, 
when there had arisen for him the chance of Caesar's death, 
â– when Antony was his chief enemy, when he found himself in 
Rome with authority sufficient to control legions, when the 
young Cassar had not shown — probably had not made — his 
plans, when Lepidus and Plancus and Pollio might still prove 
themselves at last true men, he was once again alive with his 
dream. There might yet be again a Scipio, or a Cicero as 
good as Scipio, in the Republic ; one who might have lived as 
gloriously, and die — not amid the jealousies but with the love 
of his countrymen. 

It was not to be. Looking back at it now, we wonder that 
he should have dared to hope for it. But it is to the presence 
within gallant bosoms of hope still springing, though almost 
forlorn, of hope which has in its existence been marvellous, 
that the world is indebted for the most beneficial enterprises. 
It was not given to Cicero to stem the tide and to prevent the 
evil coming of the Caesars ; but still the nature of the life he 
had led, the dreams of a pure Republic, those aspirations after 
liberty have not altogether perished. We have at any rate the 
record of the great endeavors which he made. 

Nothing can have been worse managed than the victory at 
Mutina. The two Consuls were both killed ; but that, it may 
be said, was the chance of war. Antony with all his cavalry 
was allowed to escape eastward toward the Cottian Alps. De- 
cimus Brutus seems to have shown himself deficient in all the 
qualities of a General, except that power of endurance which 
can hold a town with little or no provision. He wrote to Cic- 
ero saying that he would follow Antony. He makes a promise 



THE PHILIPPICS. 229 

that Antony shall not be allowed to remain in Italy. He be- 
seeches Cicero to write to that " windy fellow Lepidus," to pre- 
vent him from joining the enemy. Lepidus will never do what 
is right unless made to do so by Cicero. As to Plancus, Deci- 
mus has his doubts, but he thinks that Plancus will be true to 
the Republic now that Antony is beaten. 1 In his next let- 
ter he speaks of the great confusion which has come among 
them from the death of the two Consuls. He declares also 
how great has been Antony's energy in already recruiting his 
army. He has opened all the prisons and workhouses, and 
taken the men he found there. Ventidius has joined him with 
his army, and he still fears Lepidus. And young Ca3sar, who 
is supposed to be on their side, will obey no one, and can make 
none obey him. He, Decimus, cannot feed his men. He has 
spent all his own money and his friends'. How is he to sup- 
port seven legions V On the next day he writes again, and is 
still afraid of Plancus and of Lepidus and of Pollio. And he 
bids Cicero look after his good name : " Stop the evil tongues 
of men if you can." 3 A few days afterward Cicero writes him 
a letter which he can hardly have liked to receive. "What busi- 
ness had Brutus to think the senate cowardly t Who can 
be afraid of Antony conquered who did not fear him in his 
strength ? How should Lepidus doubt now when victory had 
declared for the Republic ? Though Antony may have col- 
lected together the scrapings of the jails, Decimus is not to for- 
get that he, Decimus, has the whole Roman people at his back. 
Cicero was probably right to encourage the General, and to 
endeavor to fill him with hope. To make a man victorious 
you should teach him to believe in victory. But Decimus 
knew the nature of the troops around him, and was aware that 
every soldier was so imbued with an idea of the power of 
Caesar that, though Caesar was dead, they could fight with only 

1 Ad Div., lib. xi., 9. - Ibid., lib. xi., 10. 

3 Ibid., lib. xi., 11. 4 Ibid., lib. xi., 18. 



230 LIFE OF CICERO. 

half a heart against soldiers who had been in his armies. The 
name and authority and high office of the two Consuls had 
done something with them, and young Caesar had been with 
the Consuls. But both the Consuls had been killed — which 
was in itself ominous — and Antony was still full of hope, and 
young Csesar was not there, and Decimus was unpopular with 
the men. It was of no use that Cicero should write with lof- 
ty ideas and speak of the spirit of the Senate. Antony had 
received a severe check, but the feeling of military rule which 
Caesar had engendered was still there, and soldiers who would 
obey their officers were not going to submit themselves to 
" votes of the people." Cicero in the mean time had his let- 
ters passing daily between himself and the camps, thinking 
to make up by the energy of his pen for the weakness of his 
party. Lepidus sends him an account of his movements on the 
Rhone, declaring how he was anxious to surround Antony. Lepi- 
dus was already meditating his surrender. " I ask from you, my 
Cicero, that if you have seen with what zeal I have in former 
times served the Republic, you should look for conduct equal 
to it, or surpassing it for the future ; and, that you should 
think me the more worthy of your protection, the higher are 
my deserts." 1 lie was already, when writing that letter, in 
treaty with Antony. Plancus writes to him at the same time 
apologizing for his conduct in joining Lepidus. It was a ser- 
vice of great danger for him, Plancus, but it was necessary for 
Lepidus that this should be done. We are inclined to doubt 
them all, knowing whither they were tending. Lepidus was 
false from the beginning. Plancus doubled for a while, and 
then yielded himself. 

The reader, I think, will have had no hope for Cicero and 
the Republic since the two Consuls were killed ; but as he 
comes upon the letters which passed between Cicero and the 
armies he will have been altogether disheartened. 

1 Ad Div., lib. x., 34. 



CICERO'S DEATH. 231 



Chapter X. 

CICERO'S DEATH. 

What other letters from Cicero we possess Avere written 
almost exclusively with the view of keeping the army 
ffitiit. ci together, and continuing the contest against Antony. 
There are among them a few introductory letters of lit- 
tle or no interest. And these military despatches, though of im- 
portance as showing the eager nature of the man, seem, as we 
read them, to be foreign to his nature. He does not under- 
stand war, and devotes himself to instigating men to defend the 
Republic, of whom we suspect that they were not in the least 
affected by the words they received from him. The corre- 
spondence as to this period of his life consists of his letters to 
the Generals, and of theirs to him. There are nearly as many 
of the one as of the other, and the reader is often inclined to 
doubt whether Cicero be writing to Plancus or Plancus to Cic- 
ero. He remained at Rome, and we can only imagine him as 
busy among the official workshops of the State, writing letters, 
scraping together money for the troops, struggling in vain to 
raise levies, amid a crowd of hopeless, doubting, disheartened 
Senators, whom he still kept together by his eloquence as Re- 
publicans, though each was eager to escape. 

But who can be made Consuls in the place of Pansa and 
Hirtius? Octavian, who had not left Italy after the battle of 
Mutina, was determined to be one ; but the Senate, probably 
under the guidance of Cicero, for a time would not have him. 
There was a rumor that Cicero had been elected — or is said to 
have been such a rumor. Our authority for it comes from 



232 LIFE OF CICERO. 

that correspondence with Marcus Brutus on the authenticity 
of which we do not trust, and the date of which we do not 
know. 1 " When I had already written my letter, I heard that 
you had heen made Consul. When that is done I shall believe 
that we shall have a true Republic, and one supported by its 
own strength." But probably neither was the rumor true, 
nor the fact that there was such a rumor. It was not thus 
that Octavian meant to play his part. He had been passed 
over by Cicero when a General against Antony was needed. 
Decimus had been used, and Hirtius and Pansa had been em- 
ployed as though they had been themselves strong as were the 
Consuls of old. So they were to Cicero — in whose ears the 
very name of Consul had in it a resonance of the magnificence 
of Rome. Octavian thought that Pansa and Hirtius were but 
Caesar's creatures, who at Caesar's death had turned against 
him. But even they had been preferred to him. In those 
days he was very quick to learn. He had been with the 
army, and with Caesar's soldiers, and was soon instructed in 
the steps which it was wise that he should take. Be put 
aside, as with a sweep of his hand, all the legal impediments 
to his holding the Consulship. Talk to him of age ! He had 
already heard that word " boy " too often. He would show 
them what a boy would do. Be would let them understand 
that there need be no necessity for him to canvass, to sue for 
the Consulship cap in hand, to have morning levees and to 
know men's names — as had been done by Cicero. His uncle 
had not gone through those forms when he had wanted the 
Consulship. Octavian sent a military order by a band of 
officers, who, marching into the Senate, demanded the office. 
When the old men hesitated, one Cornelius, a centurion, show- 
ed them his sword, and declared that by means of that should 
his General be elected Consul. The Greek biographers and 
historians, Plutarch, Dio, and Appian, say that he was minded 

1 Ad Brutum, lib. i., 4. 



CICERO'S DEATH. 233 

to mate Cicero his fellow-Consul, promising to be guided by 
him in everything ; but it could hardly have been so, with the 
*feelino's which were then hot against Cicero in Octavian's bo- 
som. Dio Cassius is worthy of little credit as to this period, 
and Appian less so, unless when supported by Latin authority. 
And we find that Plutarch inserts stories with that freedom 
which writers use who do not suppose that others coming after 
them will have wider sources of information than their own. 
Octavian marched into Rome with his legions, and had himself 
chosen Consul in conjunction with Quintius Pedius, who had 
also been one of the coheirs to Caesar's will. This happened 
in September. Previous to this Cicero had sent to Africa for 
troops ; but the troops when they came all took part with the 
young Caesar. 

A story is told which appears to have been true, and to have 
assisted in creating that enmity which at last induced Octavian 
to assent to Cicero's death. He was told that Cicero had said 
that " the young man was to be praised, and rewarded, and 
elevated I" 1 The last word, " tollendum," has a double mean- 
ing; might be elevated to the skies — or to the "gallows." In 
English, if meaning the latter, we should say that such a man 
must be " put out of the way." Decimus Brutus told this to 
Cicero as having been repeated by Sigulius, and Cicero answers 
him, heaping all maledictions upon Sigulius. But he does not 
deny the words, or their intention — and though he is angry, he 
is angry half in joke. He had probably allowed himself to use 
the witticism, meaning little or nothing — choosing the phrase 
without a moment's thought, because it contained a double 
meaning. No one can conceive that he meant to imply that 
young Csesar should be murdered. " Let us reward him, but 
for the moment let us be rid of him." And then, too, he had 
in the same sentence called him a boy. As far as evidence 

1 Ad Div., lib. xi., 20 : "Ipsura Caesarem nihil sane de te questum, nisi 
quod diceret, tc dixisse, laudandutn adolescentem, ornandum, tollendum." 



234 LIFE OF CICERO. 

goes, we know that the words were spoken. We can trust the 
letter from Decimus to Cicero, and the answer from Cicero to 
Decimus. And we know that, a short time afterward, Octa-* 
vian, sitting in the island near Bologna with Antony, consented 
that Cicero's name should be inserted in the fatal list as one 
of those doomed to be murdered. 

In the mean time Lepidus had taken his troops over to An- 
ton} 7 , and Pollio joined them soon afterward with his from 
Spain. After that it was hardly to be expected that Plancus 
should hesitate. There lias always been a doubt whether 
Plancus should or should not be regarded as a traitor. lie held 
out longer than the others, and is supposed to have been true 
in those assurances which he made to Cicero of Republican 
fervor. Why was he bound to obey Cicero, who was then 
at Rome, sending out his orders without official authority ? 
While the Consuls had been alive he could obey the Consuls ; 
and at the Consuls' death he could for a while follow the 
spirit of their instructions. But as that spirit died away he 
found himself without orders other than Cicero's. In this con- 
dition was it not better for liim to go with the other Generals 
of the Empire rather than to perish with a falling party ? In 
addition to this it will happen at such a time that the soldiers 
themselves have a will of their own. With them the name of 
Caesar was still powerful, and to their thinking Antony was 
fighting on dead Caesar's side. When we read the history of 
this year, the fact becomes clear that out of Rome Caesar's 
name was more powerful than Cicero's eloquence. Governed 
by such circumstances, driven by events which he could not 
control, Plancus has the merit of having been the last among 
the doubtful Generals to desert the cause which Cicero had at 
heart. Cassius and Brutus in the East were still collectino; 
legions for the battle of Philippi. With that we shall have 
no trouble here. In the West, Plancus found himself bound 
to follow the others, and to join Antony and Lepidus in spite 
of the protestations he had made. To those who read Cicero's 



CICERO'S DEATH. 235 

letters of tins year the question must often arise whether Plan- 
cus "was a true man. I have made his excuse to the reader 
with all that I can say in his favor. The memory of the man 
is, however, unpleasant to me. 

Decimus, when he found himself thus alone, endeavored to 
force his way with his army along the northern shore of the 
Adriatic, so as to join Marcus Brutus in Macedonia. To him, 
as one of those who had slain Caesar, no power was left of de- 
serting. He was doomed unless he was victorious. He was 
deserted by his soldiers, who left him in batches, and at last 
was taken alive, when wandering through the country, and sent 
(dead) to Antony. Marcus Brutus and Cassius seem to have 
turned a deaf ear to all Cicero's entreaties that they should 
come to his rescue. Cicero in his last known letter — which 
however was written as far back as in July — is very eager with 
Cassius : " Only attempts are heard of your army, very great 
in themselves, but we expect to hear of deeds. * * * Nothing 
can be grander or more noble than yourself, and therefore it is 
that we are longing for you here in Rome. * * * Believe me 
that everything depends on you and Brutus — that we are wait- 
ing for both of you. For Brutus we are waiting constantly." 1 
This was after Lepidus had gone, but while Plancus was sup- 
posed to be as yet true — or rather, not yet false. He did, no 
doubt, write letters to Brutus urging him in the same way. 
Alas, alas ! it was his final effort made for the Republic. 

In September Octavian marched into Rome as a conqueror, 
at the head of those troops from Africa which had been sent 
as a last resource to help the Republicans. Then we may im- 
agine that Cicero recognized the fact that there was left noth- 
ing further for which to struggle. The Republic was done, 
his dream was over, and he could only die. Brutus and Cas- 
sius might still carry on the contest ; but Rome had now fallen 
a second time, in spite of his efforts, and all hope must have 

1 Ad Div., lib. xii., 10. 



236 LIFE OF CICERO. 

fled from him. "When Caesar had conquered at Pharsalia, 
and on his return from the East had graciously met him at 
Brundisium, and had generously accorded to him permission 
to live under the shadow of his throne, the time for him must 
have been full of bitterness. But he had not then quite real- 
ized the meaning of a tyrant's throne. lie had not seen how 
willingly 'the people would submit themselves, how little they 
cared about their liberty ; nor had he as yet learned the nature 
of military despotism. Rome had lived through Sulla's time, 
and the Republic had been again established. It might live 
through Caesar's period of command. "When Caesar had come 
to him and supped with him, as a prince with one of his sub- 
jects, his misery had been great. Still there was a hope, though 
he knew not from whence. Those other younger men had felt 
as he had felt — and Caesar had fallen. To his eyes it was as 
though some god had interfered to restore to him, a Roman, 
his ancient form of government. Caesar was now dead, and 
all would be right — only that Antony was left alive. There 
was need for another struggle before Consuls, Praetors, and 
^Ediles could be elected in due order ; and when he found that 
the struggle was to be made under his auspices, he girded up 
his loins and was again happy. No man can be unhappy who 
is pouring out his indignation in torrents, and is drinking in 
the applause of his audience. Every hard word hurled at An- 
tony, and every note of praise heard in return, was evidence to 
him of his own power. He did believe, while the Philippics 
were going on, that he was stirring up a mighty power to 
arouse itself and claim its proper dominion over the world. 
There were moments between in which he may have been 
faint-hearted — in which he may have doubted as to young 
Caesar — in which he feared that Pansa might escape from him, 
or that Decimus would fall before relief could reach him ; but 
action lent a pleasantness and a grace to it all. It is sweet to 
fight with the hope of victory. But now, when young Caesar 
had marched into Rome with his legions, and was doubtless 



CICERO'S DEATH. 237 

prepared to join himself to Antony, there was no longer any- 
thing for Cicero to do in this world. 

It is said, but not as I think on good authority, that Cicero 
went out to meet Caesar — and if to meet him, then also to con- 
gratulate him. Appian tells us that in the Senate Cicero has- 
tened to congratulate Caesar, assuring him how anxious he had 
been to secure the Consulship for him, and how active. Caesar 
smiled, and said that Cicero had perhaps been a little late in his 
friendship. 1 Dio Cassius only remarks that Caesar was created 
Consul by the people in the regular way, two Consuls having 
been chosen ; and adds that the matter was one of great glory 
to Caesar, seeing that he had obtained the Consulship at an un- 
usually early age. 2 But, as I have said above, their testimony 
for many reasons is to be doubted. Each wrote in the interest 
of the Caesars, and, in dealing with the period before the Em- 
pire, seems only to have been anxious to make out some con- 
nected story which should suit the Emperor's views. Young 
Caesar left Rome still with the avowed purpose of proceeding 
against Antony as against one declared by the Senate to be an 
enemy; but the purpose was only avowed. Messengers fol- 
lowed him on the road, informing him that the ban had been 
removed, and he was then at liberty to meet his friend on 
friendly terms. Antony had sent word to him that it was not 
so much his duty as young Caesar's to avenge the death of his 
uncle, and that unless he would assist him, he, Antony, would 
take his legions and join Brutus and Cassius. 3 I prefer to be- 
lieve with Mr. Forsyth that Cicero had retired with his brother 
Quintus to one of his villas. Plutarch tells us that he went 
to his Tusculan retreat, and that on receiving news of the pro- 
scriptions he determined to remove to Astura, on the sea-side, 
in order that he might be ready to escape into Macedonia. 
Octavian, in the mean time, having caused a law to be passed 

1 Appiah, lib. iii., 92. 2 Dio Cassius, lib. xlvi., 46. 

3 Yell. Paterculus, lib. ii., 65. 



238 LIFE OF CICERO. 

by Pedius condemning all the conspirators to death, went 
northward to meet Antony and Lepidus at Bononia, the Bo- 
logna of to-day. Here it was necessary that the terms of the 
compact should be settled by which the spoils of the world 
should be divided among them ; and here they met, these 
three men, on a small river island, remote from the world — 
where, as it is supposed, each might think himself secure from 
the other. Antony and Lepidus were men old in craft — An- 
tony in middle life, and Lepidus somewhat older. Caesar 
was just twenty-one ; but from all that we have been able to 
gather as to that meeting, he was fully able to hold his own 
with his elders. What each claimed as his share in the Em- 
pire is not so much matter of history as the blood which each 
demanded. Paterculus says that the death - warrants which 
were then signed were all arranged in opposition to Caesar. 1 
But Paterculus wrote as the servant of Tiberius, and had been 
the servant of Augustus. It was his object to tell the story 
as much in favor of Augustus as it could be told. It is said 
that, debating among themselves the murders which each de- 
sired for his own security, young Caesar, on the third day only, 
gave up Cicero to the vengeance of Antony. It may have 
been so. It is impossible that Ave should have a record of 
what took place from day to day on that island. But we do 
know that there Cicero's death was pronounced, and to that 
doom young Caesar assented. It did not occur to them, as it 
would have done to Julius Caesar at such a time, that it would 
be better that they should show their mercy than their hatred. 
This proscription was made by hatred and not by fear. It was 
not Brutus and Cassius against whom it was directed — the 
common enemies of the three Triumviri. Sulla had attempted 
to stamp out a whole faction, and so far succeeded as to strike 
dumb with awe the remainder. But here the bargain of death 

1 Veil. Paterculus, lib. ii., 66 : " Repugnante Casare, sed frustra adversus 
duos, instauratum Sullani exempli malum, proscriptio. 1 ' 



CICERO'S DEATH. 239 

was made by each against the other's friends. " Your brother 
shall go," said Antony to Lepidus. " If so, your uncle also," 
said Lepidus to Antony. So the one gave np his brother and 
the other his uncle, to indulge the private spleen of his part- 
ner; and Cicero must go to appease both. As it happened, 
though Cicero's fate was spoken, the two others escaped their 
doom. " Nothing so bad was done in those days," says Pa- 
terculus, " that Caesar should have been compelled to doom any 
one to death, or that such a one as Cicero should have been 
doomed by any." 1 Middleton thinks, and perhaps with fair 
reason, that Caesar's objection was feigned, and that his delay 
was made for show. A slight change in quoting the above 
passage, unintentionally made, favors his view ; " Or that Cicero 
should have been proscribed by him," he says, turning "ullo" 
into "illo." The meaning of the passage seems to be, that it 
was sad that Caesar should have been forced to yield, or that 
any one should have been there to force him. As far as Caesar 
is concerned, it is palliative rather than condemnatory. Sueto- 
nius, indeed, declares that though Augustus for a time resisted 
the proscription, having once taken it in hand he pursued it more 
bloodily than the others. 2 It is said that the list when com- 
pleted contained the names of three hundred Senators and two 
thousand Knights ; but their fate was for a time postponed, 
and most of them ultimately escaped. We have no word of 
their deaths, as would have been the case had they all fallen. 
Seventeen were named for instant execution, and against these 
their doom went forth. We can understand that Cicero's name 
should have been the first on the list. 

We are told that when the news reached Rome the whole 
city was struck with horror. During the speaking of the Phil- 

1 Veil. Paterculus, lib. ii., 66 : " Nihil tarn indignum illo tempore fuit, 
quam quod aut Caesar aliquem proscribere coactus est, aut ab ullo Cicero 
proscriptus est." 

2 Suetonius, Augustus, 27: " In quo restitit quidem aliquamdiu collegis, 
ne qua fieret proscriptio, sed inceptam utroque acerbius exercuit." 



240 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ippics the Republican party had been strong and Cicero had 
been held in favor. The soldiers had still clung to the mem- 
ory of Caesar ; but the men of mark in the city, those who were 
indolent and rich and luxurious, the "fish-ponders" generally, 
had thought that, now Csesar was dead, and especially as Antony 
had left Rome, their safest course would be to join the Repub- 
lic. They had done so, and had found their mistake. Young 
Ca3sar had first come to Rome and they had been willing enough 
to receive him, but now he had met Antony and Lepidus, and 
the bloody days of Sulla Avere to come bach upon them. All 
Rome was in such a tumult of horror and dismay that Pedius,. 
the new Consul, was frightened out of his life by the clamor. 
The story goes that he ran about the town trying to give com- 
fort, assuring one and another that he had not been included in 
the lists, till, as the result of it all, he himself, when the morning 
came, died from the exertion and excitement. 

There is extant a letter addressed to Octavian — supposed to 
have been written by Cicero, and sometimes printed among his 
works — which, if written by him, must have been composed 
about this time. It no doubt was a forgery, and probably of a 
much later date ; but it serves to show what were the feelings 
presumed to have been in Cicero's bosom at the time. It is 
full of abuse of Antony, and of young Csesar. I can well im- 
agine that such might have been Cicero's thoughts as he re- 
membered the praise with which he had laden the young man's 
name; how he had decreed to him most unusual honors and 
voted statues for him. It had all been done in order that the 
Republic might be preserved, but had all been done in vain. It 
mast have distressed him sorely at this time as he reflected how 
much eulogy he had wasted. To be sneered at by the boy 
when he came back to Rome to assume the Consulship, and to 
be told, with a laugh, that he had been a little late in his wel- 
come ! And to hear that the boy had decreed his death in con- 
junction with Antony and Lepidus! This was all that Rome 
could do for him at the end — for him who had so loved her, 



CICERO'S DEATH. 241 

suffered so much for her, and been so valiant on her behalf! 
Are you not a little late to welcome me as one of my friends? 
the boy had said when Cicero had bowed and smiled to him. 
Then the next tidings that reached him contained news that he 
was condemned ! Was this the youth of whom he had declared, 
since the year began, that " he knew well all the boy's senti- 
ments ; that nothing was dearer to the lad than the Republic, 
nothing more reverent than the dignity of the Senate ?" Was it 
for this that he had bade the Senate "fear nothing" as to young 
Octavian, "but always still look for better and greater things ?" 
Was it for this that he had pledged his faith for him with such 

) confident words — " I promise for him, I become his surety, I 
engage myself, conscript fathers, that Caius Caesar will always 
be such a citizen as he has shown himself to-day ? m And thus 
the young man had redeemed his tutor's pledges on his behalf! 
"A little late to welcome me, eh?" his pupil had said to him, 
and had agreed that he should be murdered. But, as I have 

i said, the story of that speech rests on doubtful authority. 

Had not Cicero too rejoiced at the uncle's murder? And 
having done so, was he not bound to endure the enmity he had 
provoked ? He had not indeed killed Caesar, or been aware that 
he was to bb, killed ; but still it must be ?aid of him that, hav- 
ing expressed" his satisfaction at what had been done, he had 
identified himself with those who had killed him, and must 
share their fate. The slaying of a tyrant was almost by law 
enjoined upon Romans — was at any rate regarded as a virtue 
rather than a crime. There of course arises the question, who 
is to decide whether a man be a tyrant ? and the idea being rad- 
ically wrong, becomes enveloped in difficulty out of which there 
is no escape. But there remains as a fact the existence of the 
feeling which was at the time held to have justified Brutus — 
and also Cicero. A man has to inquire of his own heart with 
what amount of criminality he can accuse the Cicero of the day, 

1 Phil, iv., ca. xviii. 
II.— 11 



242 LIFE OF CICERO. 

or the young Augustus. Can any one say that Cicero was base 
to have rejoiced that Caesar had been killed ? Can any one not 
regard with horror the young Consul, as he sat there in the 
privacy of the island, with Antony on one side and Lepidus on 
the other, and then in the first days of his youth, with the down 
just coming on his cheeks, sending forth his edict for slaughter- 
ing the old friend of the Republic? 

It is supposed that Cicero left Rome in company with his 

brother Quintus, and that at first they went to Tusculum. 
set at 6-i There was no bar to their escaping from Italy had they 

so chosen, and probably such was their intention as soon 
as tidings reached them of the proscription. It is pleasant to 
think that they should again have become friends before they 
died. In truth, Marcus the elder was responsible for his broth- 
er's fate. Quintus had foreseen the sun rising in the political 
horizon, and had made his adorations accordingly. He, with 
others of his class, had shown himself ready to bow down be- 
fore Caesar. With his brother's assent he had become Caesar's 
lieutenant in Gaul, such employment being in conformity with 
the practice of the Republic. When Caesar had returned, and 
the question as to power arose at once between Caesar and 
Pompey, Quintus, who had then been with his brother in Cilicia, 
was restrained by the influence of Marcus; but after Pharsalia 
the influence of Marcus was on the wane. We remember how 
young Quintus had broken away and had joined Caesar's party. 
He had sunk so low that he had become "Antony's right 
hand." In that direction lay money, luxury, and all those 
good things which the government of the day had to offer. 
Cicero was so much in Caesar's eyes, that Caesar despised the 
elder and the younger Quintus for deserting their great rela- 
tive, and would hardly have them. The influence of the brother 
and the uncle sat heavily on them. The shame of being Caesa- 
rean while he was Pompeian, the shame of siding with Antony 
while he sided with the Republic, had been too great for them. 
While he was speaking his Philippics they could not but be 



CICERO'S DEATH. 243 

enthusiastic on the same side. And now, when he was pro- 
scribed, they were both proscribed with him. As the story 
goes, Quintus returned from Tusculum to Rome to seek provi- 
sion for their journey to Macedonia, there met his son, and 
they both died gallantly. Antony's hirelings came upon the 
two together, or nearly together, and, finding the son first, put 
him to the torture, so to learn from him the place of his fa- 
ther's concealment ; then the father, hearing his son's screams, 
rushed out to his aid, and the two perished together. But this 
story also comes to us from Greek sources, and must be taken 
for what it is worth. 

Marcus, alone in his litter, travelled through the country to 
his sea-side villa at Astura. Then he went on to Formia?, sick 
with doubt, not knowing whether to stay and die, or encounter 
the winter sea in such boat as was provided for him. Should 
he seek the uncomfortable refuge of Brutus's army? We can 
remember his bitter exclamations as to the miseries of camp 
life. He did go on board ; but was brought back by the 
winds, and his servants could not persuade him to make an- 
other attempt. Plutarch tells us that he was minded to go to 
Rome, to force his way into young Caesar's house and there to 
stab himself, but that he was deterred from this melodramatic 
death by the fear of torture. The story only shows how great 
had been the attention given to every detail of his last mo- 
ments, and what the people in Rome had learned to say of 
them. The same remark applies to Plutarch's tale as to the 
presuming crows who pecked at the cordage of his sails when 
his boat was turned to go back to the land, and afterward with 
their beaks strove to drag the bedclothes from off him when 
he lay waiting his fate the night before the murderers came 
to him. 

He was being carried down from his villa at Formise to the 
sea-side when Antony's emissaries came upon him in his litter. 
There seem to have been two of them — both soldiers and officers 
in the pay of Antony — Popilius Laenas and Herennius. They 



244 LIFE OF CICERO. 

overtook hirn in the wood through which paths ran from the 
villa down to the sea-shore. On arriving at the house they had 
not found Cicero, but were put upon his track by a freedman 
who had belonged to Quintus, named Philologus. lie could 
hardly have done a kinder act than to show the men the way 
how they might quickly release Cicero from his agony. They 
went down to the end of the wood, and there met the slaves 
bearirjor the litter. The men were willincr to ftVht for their 

CD ~ O 

master ; but Cicero, bidding them put down the chair, stretch- 
ed out his neck and received his death-blow. Antony had 
given special orders to his servants. They were to bring Cice- 
ro's head and his hands — the hands which had written the 
Philippics, and the tongue which had spoken them — and his 
order was obeyed to the letter. Cicero was nearly sixty -four 
when he died, his birthday being on the 3d of January follow- 
ing. It would be hardly worth our while to delay ourselves 
for a moment with the horrors of Antony's conduct, and those 
of his wife Fulvia — Fulvia, the widow of Clodius and the wife 
of Antony — were it not that we may see what were the man- 
ners to which a great Roman lady had descended in those days 
in which the Republic was brought to an end. On the rostra 
was stuck up the head and the hands as a spectacle to the 
people, while Fulvia specially avenged herself by piercing the 
tongue Avith her bodkin. That is the story of Cicero's death 
as it has been generally told. 

"We are told also that Rome heard the news and saw the 
sight with ill-suppressed lamentation. We can easily believe 
that it should have been so. I have endeavored, as I have gone 
on with my work, to compare him to an Englishman of the 
present day ; but there is no comparing English eloquence to 
his, or the ravished ears of a Roman audience to the pleasure 
taken in listening to our great orators. The world has become 
too impatient for oratory, and then our Northern senses cannot 
appreciate the melody of sounds as did the finer organs of the 
Roman people. We require truth, and justice, and common- 



CICERO'S DEATH. 245 

sense from those who address us, and get much more out of 
our public speeches than did the old Italians. We have taught 
ourselves to speak so that we may be believed — or have come 
near to it. A Roman audience did not much care, I fancy, 
whether the words spoken were true. But it was indispensa- 
ble that they should be sweet — and sweet they always were. 
Sweet words were spoken to them, with their cadences all 
measured, with their rhythm all perfect; but no words had 
ever been so sweet as those of Cicero. I even, with my obtuse 
ears, can fiud myself sometimes lifted by them into a world of 
melody, little as I know of their pronunciation and their tone. 
And with the upper classes — those who read — his literature had 
become almost as divine as his speech. He had come to be 
the one man who could express himself in perfect language. 
As in the next age the Eclogues of Virgil and the Odes of 
Horace became dear to all the educated classes because of the 
charm of their expression, so in their time, I fancy, had be- 
come the language of Cicero. It is not surprising that men 
should have wept when they saw that ghastly face staring at 
them from the rostra, and the protruding tongue and the out- 
stretched hands. The marvel is that, seeing it, they should still 
have borne with Antony. 

That which Cicero has produced in literature is, as a rule, 
admitted to be excellent ; but his character as a man has been 
held to be tarnished by three faults — dishonesty, cowardice, 
and insincerity. As to the first, I have denied it altogether, 
and my denial is now submitted to the reader for his judg- 
ment. It seems to have been brought against him not in or- 
der to make him appear guilty, but because it has appeared to 
be impossible that, when others were so deeply in fault, he 
should have been innocent. That he should have asked for 
nothing, that he should have taken no illicit rewards, that he 
should not have submitted to be feed, but that he should have 
kept his hands clean while all around him were grasping at 
everything — taking money, selling their aid for stipulated pay- 



246 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ments, grinding miserable creditors — has been too much for 
men to believe. I will not take my readers back over the 
cases brought against him, but will ask them to ask themselves 
whether there is one supported by evidence fit to go before a 
jury. The accusations have been made by men clean-handed 
themselves ; but to them it has appeared unreasonable to be- 
lieve that a Roman oligarch of those days should be an honest 
gentleman. 

As to his cowardice, I feel more doubt as to my power of 
carrying my readers with me, though no doubt as to Cicero's 
courage. Cowardice in a man is abominable. But what is 
cowardice? and what courage? It is a matter in which so 
many errors are made ! Tinsel is so apt to shine like gold and 
dazzle the sight ! In one of the earlier chapters of this book, 
when speaking of Catiline, I have referred to the remarks of 
a contemporary writer: "The world has generally a generous 
word for the memory of a brave man dying for his cause !" 
"All wounded in front," is quoted by this author from Sal- 
lust. "Not a man taken alive ! Catiline himself gasping out 
his life ringed around with corpses of his friends." That is 
given as a picture of a brave man dying for his cause, who 
should excite our admiration even though his cause were bad. 
In the previous lines we have an intended portrait of Cicero, 
who, " thinking, no doubt, that he had done a good day's work 
for his patrons, declined to run himself into more danger." 
Here is one story told of courage, and another of fear. Let us 
pause for a moment and regard the facts. Catiline, when hunt- 
ed to the last gasp, faced his enemy and died fighting like a 
man — or a bull. Who is there cannot do so much as that? 
For a shilling or eighteen-pence a day we can get an army of 
brave men who will face an enemy — and die, if death should 
come. It is not a great thing, nor a rare, for a man in battle 
not to run away. With regard to Cicero the allegation is that 
he would not be allowed to be bribed to accuse Caesar, and thus 
incur danger. The accusation which is thus brought against 



CICERO'S DEATH. 247 

him is borrowed from Sallnst, and is no doubt false ; but I take 
it in the spirit in which it is made. Cicero feared to accuse 
Caesar, lest he should find himself enveloped, through Caesar's 
means, in fresh danger. Grant that he did so. Was he wrong 
at such a moment to save his life for the Republic — and for 
himself ? His object was to banish Catiline, and not to catch 
in his net every existing conspirator. He could stop the con- 
spiracy by securing a few, and might drive many into arms by 
endeavoring to encircle all. Was this cowardice ? During all 
those days he had to live with his life in his hands, passing 
about among conspirators who he knew were sworn to kill 
him, and in the midst of his danger he could walk and talk 
and think like a man. It was the same when he went down 
into the court to plead for Milo, with the gladiators of Clodius 
and the soldiery of Pompey equally adverse to him. It was 
the same when he uttered Philippic after Philippic in the pres- 
ence of Antony's friends. True courage, to my thinking, con- 
sists not in facing an unavoidable danger. Any man worthy 
of the name can do that. The felon that will be hung to-mor- 
row shall walk up to the scaffold and seem ready to surrender 
the life he cannot save. But he who, with the blood running 
hot through his veins, with a full desire of life at his heart, 
with high aspirations as to the future, with everything around 
him to make him happy — love and friendship and pleasant 
•work — when he can willingly imperil all because duty requires 
it, he is brave. Of such a nature was Cicero's courage. 

As to the third charge — that of insincerity — I would ask of 
my readers to bethink themselves how few men are sincere 
now ? How near have we approached to the beauty of truth, 
with all Christ's teaching to guide us? Not hy any means 
close, though we are nearer to it than the Romans were in 
Cicero's days. At any rate we have learned to love it dearly, 
though we may not practise it entirely. He also had learned 
to love it, but not yet to practice it quite so well as we do. 
When it shall be said of men truly that they are thoroughly 



248 LIFE OF CICERO. 

sincere, then the millennium will have come. We flatter, and 
love to be flattered. Cicero flattered men, and loved it better. 
We are fond of praise, and all but ask for it. Cicero was 
fond of it, and did ask for it. But when truth was demanded 
from him, truth was there. 

Was Cicero sincere to his party, was he sincere to his friends, 
was he sincere to his family, was he sincere to his dependents ? 
Did he offer to help and not help? Did he ever desert his 
ship, when he had engaged himself to serve? I think not. 
He would ask one man to praise him to another — and that is 
not sincere. He would apply for eulogy to the historian of 
his day — and that is not sincere. He would speak ill or well 
of a man before the judge, according as he was his client or 
his adversary — and that perhaps is not sincere. But I know 
few in history on whose positive sincerity in a cause his adhe- 
rents could rest with greater security. Look at his whole life 
with Pompey — as to which we see his little insincerities of the 
moment because Ave have his letters to Atticus ; but he was 
true to his political idea of a Pompey long after that Pompey 
had faded from his dreams. For twenty years we have every 
thought of his heart ; and because the feelings of one moment 
vary from those of another, we call him insincere. What if 
we had Fompey's thoughts and Caesar's, would they be less 
so? Could Caesar have told us all his feelings? Cicero was 
insincere : I cannot say otherwise. But he was so much more 
sincere than other Romans as to make me feel that, when writ- 
ing his life, I have been dealing with the character of one who 
might have been a modern gentleman. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 249 



Chapter XL 

CICERO'S RHETORIC. 

It is well known that Cicero's works are divided into four 
main parts. There are the Rhetoric, the Orations, the Epistles, 
and the Philosophy. There is a fifth part, indeed — the Poetry ; 
but of that there is not much, and of the little we have but lit- 
tle is esteemed. There are not many, I fear, who think that 
Cicero has deserved well of his country by his poetry. His 
prose works have been divided as I have stated them. Of these, 
two portions have been dealt with already — as far as I am able 
to deal with them. Of the Orations and Epistles I have spoken 
as I have gone on with my task, because the matter there treat- 
ed has been available for the purposes of biography : the other 
two, the Rhetoric and the Philosophy, have been distinct from 
the author's life. 1 They might have been good or bad, and 
his life would have been still the same ; therefore it is neces- 
sary to divide them from his life, and to speak of them sepa- 
rately. They are the work of his silent chamber, as the others 
were the enthusiastic outpourings of his daily spirit, or the elab- 
orated arguments of his public career. Who has left behind 
him so widely spread a breadth of literature ? Who has made 
so many efforts, and has so well succeeded in them all ? I do 
not know that it has ever been given to any one man to run 
up and down the strings of knowledge, and touch them all as 
though each had been his peculiar study, as Cicero has done. 



1 In the following list I have divided the latter, making the Moral Es- 
says separate from the Philosophy. 

11* 



250 LIFE OF CICERO. 

His rhetoric has been always made to come first, because, 
upon the whole, it was first written. It may be as well here to 
give a list of his main works, with their dates— premising, how- 
ever, that we by no means in that way get over the difficulty as 
to time, even in cases as to which we are sure of our facts. A 
treatise may have been commenced and then put by, or may 
have been written some time previously to publication. Or it 
may be, as were those which are called the Academica, that it 
was remodelled, and altered in its shape and form. The Aca- 
demica were written at the instance of Atticus. We now have 
the altered edition of a fragment of the first book, and the orig- 
inal of the second book. In this manner there have come dis- 
crepancies which nearly break the heart of him who would fain 
make his list clear. But here, on the whole, is presented to the 
reader with fair accuracy a list of the works of Cicero, indepen- 
dent of that continual but ever-changing current of his thought 
which came welling out from him daily in his speeches and his 
letters. Again, however, we must remember that here are omit- 
ted all those which are either wholly lost or have come to us 
only in fragments too abruptly broken for the purposes of con- 
tinuous study. Of these I will not even attempt to give the 
names, though when we remember some of the subjects — the 
De Gloria, the De Re Militari — he could not go into the army 
for a month or two without writing a book about it — the De 
Auguriis, the De Philosophia, the De Suis Temporibus, the De 
Suis Consiliis, the De Jure Civili, and the De Universo, we may 
well ask ourselves what were the subjects on which he did not 
write. In addition to these, much that has come to us has 
been extracted, as it were unwillingly, from palimpsests, and is, 
from that and from other causes, fragmentary. We have in- 
deed only fragments of the essays De Republica, De Legibus, 
De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, and De Fato, in addition 
to the Academica. 

The list of the works of which it is my purpose to give some 
shortest possible account in the following chapters is as follows: 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 



251 



Titles of the 
Wokks. 



Rheticorum 
ad C. Heren 

liiuni. 



â– { 
â– { 



De 
Inveutione, 



De Oratore. 



r 

De Republica. <j 
I 



De Legibus. 



De Optimo 

Geuere 
Oratorum. 

DePartitione 
Oratoria. 



The 
Academica. 



De Finibus | 
Bonorum et -i 



Malorura. 

Brutus; or, 

De Claris 

Oratoribus. 

Orator. 



Tnscnlanse 
Disputa- 
tion es. 



L 



Nature of the Wouk, 
Those as to Rhetoric are marked * 
" " Philosophy " t 
The Moral Essays *' % 



Four books, giving; lessons in Rhetoric; supposed 
to have been written, not by Cicero, but by one 
Corniticius.* 1 

Four books, giving lessons in Rhetoric, supposed to 
have been translated from the Greek. Two out of 
four have come to us.* 

Three dialogues, in three books — supposed to have 
been held'uuder a plane-tree, in the garden at Tus- 
culum belonging to Crassus, forty years before — in 
which are laid down instructions for the making of 
an orator.* 

Six political discussions— supposed to have been held 
seventy -five years before the date at which they 
were written — on the best mode of governance. 
We have but a fragment of them.t 

Three out of six books as to the best laws for gov- 
erning the Republic. They are carried on between 
Atticus, Quintus, and Marcus. They are supposed 
to have been written b.o. 52 (aetat. 55), but were not 
published till after his death.*. 

\ preface to the translation of the speeches of M<- 
chines and of Demosthenes for and against Ctesi- 
phou— in the matter of the Golden Crown.* 

Instructions by questions and answers, supposed to 
have been previously given to his son in Greek, on 
the art of speaking in public* 

Treatises, in which he deals with the various phase? 
of Philosophy taught by the Academy. It has been 
altered, and we have only a part of the first book of 
ttie altered portion and the second part of the trea- 
tise before it was altered. In its altered form it is 
addressed to Varro.t 

A treatise in five books, in the form of dialogues, 
as to the results to be looked for in inquiries as to 
what is good and what is evil. It is addressed to 
Brutus, t 

A treatise on the most perfect orators of past times. 
It is addressed to Brutus, and has, in a peculiar 
manner, been always called by his name.* 

A treatise, addressed to Brutus, to show what the per- 
fect orator should be.* 

Or the Tusculan Inquiries, supposed to have been 
held with certain friends in his Tusculan villa, as to 
contempt of Death and Pain and Sorrow, as to con- 
quering the Passions, and the happiness to be de- 
rived from Virtue. They are addressed to Brutus. t 



The Date 

OF 

Publication. 



B.O. 

87, 86. 
iEtat. 

20, 21. 



b. o. 55. 

<*,Etat.52. 



"1 



bo. 53. 
'.<Etat. 54. 



b.o. 52. 
^Etat. 55. 



b.o. 52. 
'^Etat.55. 



b.o. 46. 

'Mtat. 01. 



b.o. 45. 

'MUxt. 02. 



b.o. 45. 
'^Etat.62. 



b.o. 45. 

'jEtat. 02. 



b.o. 45. 

.Etat. 02. 



I B.C. 45. 
( .<Etat. 02. 



1 I have given here those treatises which are always printed among the works 
of Cicero. 



252 



LIFE OF CICERO. 



Titles of the 
Wokks, 



De Natura J 
Deorum. i 



De Divina- 
tione. 



De Fato. 
The Topica. j 
De Senectute. -J 
De Amicitia. â– ! 

r 
i 

DeOfficiis. < 



I 



•Nature of the Wokk. 
Those as to Rhetoric are marked * 
" " Philosophy ** t 
The Moral Essays " t 



Three books addressed to Brutus. Velleiu 
and Cotta discuss the relative a, 
lean, Stoic, and Academic Schools.t 



The Date 

of 

Publication. 



, Balbns, ) ' 
!ind Cotta discuss the relative merits of the Epicu- > J5 



He discusses with his brother Quintus the property 
of the gods to " divine," or rather to enable men to 
read prophecies. It is a continuation of a former 
work.t 



The part only of a book on Destiny, t 

A so-called translation from Aristotle. It is address- 
ed to Trebatius.* 

A treatise on Old Age, addressed to Atticus, aud call- 
ed Cato Major.} 

A treatise on Friendship, addressed also to Atticus, 
and called Loelius.t 

To his son. Treating of the Moral Duties of Life. 
Containing three books — 
I. On Honesty. 
II. On Expediency. 
III. Comparing Honesty and Expediency. 



0.44. 
1 M tat. 63. 



b.o. 44. 

' M tat. 03. 



1 b.o. 44. 
J .lEtat. G3. 

) it. o. 44. 
j MiaX. 03. 

) b.o. 44. 
) iEtat. 03. 

) b.o. 44. 
t JStat. 03. 



b.o. 44. 
^Etat. 03. 



It is to be observed from tbis list that for thirty years of his 
life Cicero was silent in regard to literature — for those thirty 
years in which the best fruits of a man's exertion are expected 
from him. Indeed, we may say that for the first fifty-two 
years of his life he wrote nothing but letters and speeches. 
Of the two treatises with which the list is headed, the first, in 
all probability, did not come from his pen, and the second is 
no more than a lad's translation from a Greek author. As to 
the work of translation, it must be understood that the Greek 
and Latin languages did not stand in reference to each other 
as they do now to modern readers. We translate in order that 
the pearls hidden under a foreign language may be conveyed 
to those who do not read it, and admit, when we are so con- 
cerned, that none can truly drink the fresh water from a foun- 
tain so handled. The Romans, in translating from the Greek, 
thinking nothing of literary excellence, felt that they were 
brinsnnp- Greek thourjdit into a form of language in which it 



CICERO'S BEET UIC. 253 

could be thus made useful. There was no value for the words, 
but only for the thing to be found in it. Thence it has come 
that no acknowledgment is made. We moderns confess that 
we are translating, and hardly assume for ourselves a third-rate 
literary place. "When, on the other hand, we find the unex- 
pressed thought floating about the world, we take it, and we 
make it our own when we put it into a book. The originality 
is regarded as being in the language, not in the thought. But 
to the Roman, when he found the thought floating about the 
world in the Greek character, it was free for him to adopt it 
and to make it his own. Cicero, had he done in these days 
with this treatise as I have suggested, would have been guilty 
of gross plagiarism, but there was nothing of the kind known 
then. This must be continually remembered in reading his 
essays. You will find large portions of them taken from the 
Greek without acknowledgment. Often it shall be so, because 
it suits him to contradict an assertion or to show that it has 
been allowed to lead to false conclusions. This general liberty 
of translation has been so frequently taken by the Latin poets 
— by Virgil and Horace, let us say, as being those best known 
— that they have been regarded by some as no more than 
translations. To them to have been translators of Homer, or of 
Pindar and Stesichorus, and to have put into Latin language 
ideas which were noble, was a work as worthy of praise as that 
of inventing. And it must be added that the forms they have 
used have been perfect in their kind. There has been no need 
to them for close translation. They have found the idea, and 
their object has been to present it to their readers in the best 
possible language. He who has worked amid the bonds of 
modern translation well knows how different it has been with 
him. There is not much in the treatise De Inventione to ar- 
rest us. We should say, from reading it, that the matter it 
contains is too good for the production of a youth of twenty- 
one, but that the language in which it is written is not pecul- 
iarly fine. The writer intended to continue it — or wrote as 



254 LIFE OF CICERO. 

though ho did — and therefore we may imagine that it lias 
come to us from some larger source. It is full of standing 
cases, or examples of the law courts, which are brought up to 
show the way in which these things are handled. We can 
imagine that a Roman youth should be practised in such mat- 
ters, but we cannot imagine that the same youth should have 
thought of them all, and remembered them all, and should have 
been able to describe them. 

The following is an example : "A certain man on his journey 
encountered a traveller going to make a purchase, having with 
him a sum of money. They chatted along the road together, 
and, as happens on such occasions, they became intimate. They 
went to the same inn, where they supped, and said that they 
would sleep together. Having supped they went to bed; 
when the landlord — for this was told after it had all been 
found out, and he had been taken for another offence — having 
perceived that one man had money, in the middle of the night, 
knowing how sound they would sleep from fatigue, crept up 
to them, and having taken out of its scabbard the sword of him 
that was without the money as it lay by his side, he killed the 
other man, put back the sword, and then went to his bed. 
But he whose sword had been used rose lon<r before davlio-ht 
and called loudly to his companion. Finding that the man 
slumbered too heavily to be stirred, he took himself and his 
sword and the other things he had brought away with him and 
started alone. But the landlord soon raised the hue-and-cry, 
' A man has been killed !' and, with some of the guests, follow- 
ed him who had gone off. They took the man on the road, 
and dragged his sword out of its sheath, which they found 
all blood}^. They carried him back to the city, and he was 
accused." In this cause there is the declaration of the crime 
alleged, " You killed the man." There is the defence, " I did 
not kill him." Thence arises the issue. The question to be 
judged is one of conjecture. "Did he kill him?" 1 We may 

1 De Inventione, lib. ii., 4. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 255 

judge from the story that the. case was not one which had oc- 
curred in life, but had been made np. The truculent landlord 
creeping in and finding that everything was as he wished it ; 
and the moneyless man going off in the dark, leaving his dead 
bedfellow behind him — as the landlord had intended that he 
should — form all the incidents of a stock piece for rehearsal 
rather than the occurrence of a true murder. The same may 
be said of other examples adduced, here as afterward, by Quin- 
tilian. They are well-known cases, and had probably been 
handed down from one student to another. They tell us more 
of the manners of the people than of the rudiments of their law. 
From this may be seen the nature of the work. From 
thence we skip over thirty years and come at once to b.c. 55. 
The days of the Triumvirate had come, and the quarrel with 
Clodius — of Cicero's exile and his return, together with the 
speeches which he had made, in the agony of his anger, against 
his enemies. And all this had taken place since those halcyon 
days in which he had risen, on the voices of his countrymen, 
to be Quaestor, ^Edile, Praetor, and Consul. He had first suc- 
ceeded as a public man, and then, having been found too hon- 
est, he had failed. There can be no doubt that he had failed 
because he had been too honest. I must have told the story 
of his political life badly if I have not shown that Caesar had 
retired from the assault because Cicero was Consul, but had re- 
tired only as a man does who steps back in order that his next 
spring forward may be made with more avail. He chose well 
the time for his. next attack, and Cicero was driven to decide 
between three things — he must be Caesarean, or must be quiet, 
or he must go. He would not be Caesarean, he certainly 
could not be quiet, and he went. The immediate effect of his 
banishment was on him so great that he could not employ 
himself. But he returned to Rome, and, with too evident a 
reliance on a short-lived popularity, he endeavored to replace 
himself in men's eyes; but it must have been clear to him 
that he had struggled in vain. Then he looked back upon his 



256 LIFE OF CICERO. 

art, his oratory, and told himself that, as the life of a man of 
action was no longer open to him, he could make for himself a 
greater career as a man of letters. He could do so. He has 
done so. But I doubt whether he had ever a confirmed pur- 
pose as to the future. Had some grand Consular career been 
open to him — had it been given to him to do by means of the 
law what Ca3sar did by ignoring the law — this life of him would 
not have been written. There would, at any rate, have been 
no need of these last chapters to show how indomitable was 
the energy and how excellent the skill of him who could write 
such books, because — he had nothing else to do. 

The De Oratore is a work in three divisions, addressed to 
his brother Quintus, in which it has undoubtedly been Cicero's 
object to convince the world that an orator's employment is 
the highest of all those given to a man to follow ; and this he 
does by showing that, in all the matters which an orator is call- 
ed upon to touch, there is nothing which he cannot adorn by 
the possession of some virtue or some knowledge. To us, in 
these days, he seems to put the cart before the horse, and to 
fail from the very beginning, by reason of the fact that the ora- 
tor, in his eloquence, need never tell the truth. It is in the 
power of man so to praise — constancy, let us say — as to make 
it appear of all things the best. But he who sings the praise 
of it may be the most inconstant of mankind, and may know 
that he is deceiving his hearers as to his own opinions — at any 
rate, as to his own practice. The virtue should come first, and 
then the speech respecting it. Cicero seems to imply that, if 
the speech be there, the virtue may be assumed. 

But it has to be acknowledged, in this and in all his dis- 
courses as to the perfect orator, that it is here as it has been 
in all the inquirers after the to koXov} We must recognize the 

1 Quintilian, in his Proaemium or Preface : " Oratorem autem institui- 
mus ilium perfectum, qui esse nisi vir bonus non potest." It seems as 
though there had almost been the question whether the perfect orator 
could exist, although there was no question he had never done so as yet. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 2o7 

fact that the Romans have adopted a form of inquiry from the 
Greeks, and, having described a more than human perfection, 
have instigated men to work up toward it by letting it be 
known how high will be the excellence, should it ever be at- 
tained. It is so in the De Oratore, as to which we must begin 
by believing that the speech-maker wanted is a man not to be 
found in any House of Commons. No Conservative and no 
Liberal need fear that he will be put out of court by the com- 
ing of this perfectly eloquent man. But this Cicero of whom 
we are speaking has been he who has been most often quoted 
for his perfections. 1 The running after an impossible hero 
throws a damp over the whole search. When no one can ex- 
pect to find the thing sought for, who can seek diligently? 
Bv decrees the ambitious student becomes aware that- it is im- 
possible, and is then carried on by a desire to see how he is to 
win a second or a third place, if so much may be accorded to 
him. In his inquiries he w T ill find that the Cicero, if he look 
to Quintilian or Tacitus — or the Crassus, if he look to Cicero — 
is so set before him as the true model ; and with that he may 
be content. 

The De Oratore is by far the longest of his works on rheto- 
ric, and, as I think, the pleasantest to read. It was followed, 
after, ten years, by the Brutus, or De Claris Oratoribus, and 
then by the Orator. But in all of them he charms us rather 
by his example than instructs us by his precepts. He will nev- 



1 Quint., lib. iii., 1 : "Prtecipuum vero lumen sicut eloquentiae, ita prse- 
ceptis quoque ejus, dedit unieum apud nos specimen orandi, docendique 
oratorias artes, M. Tullius." And in Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx. : " Ita 
ex multa eruditione, ex pluribus artibus," he says, speaking of Cicero, " et 
omnium rerum scientia exundat, et exuberat ilia admirabilis eloquentia ; 
neque oratoris vis et facultas, sicut ceterarum rerum, angustis et brevibus 
terminis cluditur ; sed is est orator, qui de omni quaestione pulchre, et or- 
nate, et ad persuadendum apte dicere, pro dignitate rerum, ad utilitatem 
temporum, cum voluptate audientium possit." This has not the ring of 
Tacitus, but it shows equally well the opinion of the day. 



258 LIFE OF CICERO. 

er make us believe, for instance, that a man who talks well will 
on that account be better than a man who thinks well ; but he 
does make us believe that a man who talks as Cicero knew 
how to do must have been well worth hearing, and also that to 
read his words, when listening to them is no longer possible, is 
a <rreat delight. Having done that, he has no doubt carried 
his object. He was too much a man of the world to have an 
impracticable theory on which to expend himself. Oratory 
had come uppermost with him, and had indeed made itself, 
with the Romans, the only pursuit to be held in rivalry with 
that of fighting. Literature had not as yet assumed its place. 
It needed Cicero himself to do that for her. It required the 
writing of such an essay as this to show, by the fact of its ex- 
istence, that Cicero the writer stood quite as high as Cicero the 
orator. And then the written words remain when the sounds 
have died away. We believe that Cicero spoke divinely. We 
can form for ourselves some idea of the rhythm of bis periods. 
Of the words in which Cicero spoke of himself as a speaker 
we have the entire charm. 

Boccaccio, when he takes his queen into a grassy meadow 
and seats her in the midst of her ladies, and makes her and 
them and their admirers tell their stories, seems to have given 
rise to the ideas which Cicero has used when introducing his 
Roman orators lying under a plane-tree in the garden of Tus- 
culum, and there discussing rhetoric; so much nearer to us ap- 
pear the times of Cicero, with all the light that has been thrown 
upon them by their own importance, than does the middle of 
the fourteenth century in the same country. But the practice 
in this as in all matters of social life was borrowed from the 
Greeks, or perhaps rather the pretence of the practice. We 
can hardly believe that Romans of an advanced age would so 
have arranged themselves for the sake of conversation. It was 
a manner of bringing men together which had its attraction 
for the mind's eye ; and Cicero, whose keen imagination rep- 
resented to him the pleasantness of the picture, has used the 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 259 

form of narrative 'with great effect. He causes Crassus and 
Antony to meet in the garden of Crassus at Tusculum, and 
thither he brings, on the first day, old Mucius Scsevola the 
augur, and Sulpicius and Cotta, two rising orators of the 
period. On the second day Scaevola is supposed to be too 
fatigued to renew the intellectual contest, and he retires ; but 
one Caesar comes in with Quintus Lutatius Catulus, and the 
conversation is renewed. Crassus and Antony carry it on in 
chief, but Crassus has the leading voice. Ca?sar, who must 
have been the wag among barristers of his day, undertakes to 
give examples of that Attic salt by which the profundity of 
the law courts is supposed to have been relieved. The third 
conversation takes place on the afternoon of the second day, 
when they had refreshed themselves with sleep ; though Cras- 
sus, we are specially told, had given himself up to the charms 
of no mid-day siesta. His mind had been full of the greatness 
of the task before him, but he will show neither fatigue nor 
anxiety. The art, the apparent ease with which it is all done, 
the grace without languor, the energy without exertion, are ad- 
mirable. It is as though they were sitting by running water, 
or listening to the music of some grand organ. They remove 
themselves to a wood a little farther from the house, and there 
they listen to the eloquence of Crassus. Cotta and Sulpicius 
only hear and assent, or imply a modified dissent in doubting 
words. 

It is Crassus who insists that the orator shall be omniscient, 
and Antony who is supposed to contest the point with him. 
But they differ in the sweetest language ; and each, though he 
holds his own, does it with a deference that is more convincing 
than any assertion. It may be as well, perhaps, to let it be 
understood that Crassus and Caesar are only related by distant 
family ties — or perhaps only by ties of adoption — to the two 
of the First Triumvirate whose names they bear; whereas An- 
tony was the grandfather of that Cleopatra's lover against 
whom the Philippics were hurled. 



260' LIFE OF CICERO. 

No one, as I have said before, will read these conversations 
for the sake of the argument they contain ; but they are, and 
will be, studied as containing, in the most appropriate language, 
a thousand sayings respecting the art of speech. " No power 
of speaking well can belong to any but to him who knows the 
subjects on which he has to speak ;'" a fact which seems so 
clear that no one need be troubled with stating it, were it not 
that men sin against it every day. " How great the under- 
taking to put yourself forward among a crowd of men as be- 
ing the fittest of all there to be heard on some great subject !" 2 
" Though all men shall gnash their teeth, I will declare that 
the little book of the twelve tables surpasses in authority and 
usefulness all the treatises of all the philosophers." 3 Here 
speaks the Cicero of the Forum, and not that Cicero who 
amused himself among the philosophers. " Let him keep his 
books of philosophy for some Tusculum idleness such as is 
this of ours, lest, when he shall have to speak of justice, he 
must go to Plato and borrow from him, who, when he had to 
express him in these things, created in his books some new 
Utopia." 4 For in truth, though Cicero deals much, as we 
shall see by - and - by, with the philosophers, and has written 
whole treatises for the sake of bringing Greek modes of 
thought among the Romans, he loved the affairs of the world 
too well to trust them to philosophy. There has been some 
talk of old age, and Antony, before the evening has come, de- 
clares his view. " So far do I differ from you," he says, " that 
not only do I not think that any relief in age is to be found in 
the crowd of them who may come to me for advice, but I look 
to its solitude as a harbor. You indeed may fear it, but to 
me it will be most welcome." 5 

Then Cicero begins the second book with a renewal of the 
assertion as to oratory generally, not putting the words into 

1 De Oratore, lib. i., ca. xi. 2 Ibid., lib. i., ca. xxv. 

3 Ibid., lib. i., ca. xliv. 4 Ibid., lib. i., ca. lii. b Ibid., lib. i., ca. lx. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 261 

the mouth of any of his party, bait declaring- it as his own be- 
lief : "This is the purpose of this present treatise, and of the 
present time, to declare that no one has been able to excel in 
eloquence, not merely without capacity for speaking, but also 
â– without acquired knowledge of all kinds." 1 But Antony pro- 
fesses himself of another opinion : " How can that be when 
Crassus and I often plead opposite causes, and when one of us 
can only say the truth ? Or how can it be possible, when each 
of us must take the cause as it comes to him ?" 2 Then, again, 
he bursts into praise of the historian, as though in opposition 
to Crassus : " How worthy of an orator's eulogy is the writing 
of history, whether greatest in the flood of its narrative or in 
its variety ! I do not know that we have ever treated it sep- 
arately, but it is there always before our eyes. For who does 
not know that the first law of the historian is that he must not 
dare to say what is false : the next, that he must not dare to 
suppress what is true." 3 We wonder, when Cicero was writ- 
ing this, whether he remembered his request to Lucceius, made 
now two years ago. He gives a piece of advice to young ad- 
vocates, apologizing, indeed, for thinking it necessary ; but he 
has found it to be necessary, and he gives it : " Let me teach 
this to them all ; when they intend to plead, let them first study 
their causes." 4 It is not only here that we find that the advice 
which is useful now was wanted then. "Read your cases!" 
The admonition was wanted in Rome as it has been since in 
London. 

But the great mistake of the whole doctrine creeps out at 
every page as we go on, and disproves the idea on which the 
De Oratore is founded. All Cicero's treatises on the subject, 
and Quintilian's, and those of the pseudo-Tacitus, and of the 
first Greek from which they have come, fall to the ground 
as soon as Ave are told that it must be the purport of the ora- 



1 De Oratore, lib. ii., ca. i. 2 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. vii. 

3 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xv. 4 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xxiv. 



262 LIFE OF CICERO, 

tor to turn the mind of those who hear him either to the right 
or to the left, in accordance with the drift of the cause. 1 The 
mind rejects the idea that it can be the part of a perfect man 
to make another believe that which he believes to be false. 
If it be necessary that an orator should do so, then must the 
orator be imperfect. We have the same lesson taught through- 
out. It is the great gift of the orator, says Antony, to turn the 
judge's mind so that he shall hate or love, shall fear or hope, 
shall rejoice or grieve, or desire to pity or desire to punish. 2 
No doubt it is a great power. All that is said as to eloquence 
is true. It may be necessary that to obtain the use of it you 
shall educate yourself with more precision than for any other 
purpose. But there will be the danger that they who have 
fitted the dagger to the hand will use it. It cannot be right 
to make another man believe that which you think to be false. 
In the use of raillery in eloquence the Roman seems to have 
been very backward ; so much so that it is only by the exam- 
ples given of it by themselves as examples that we learn that 
it existed. They can appall us by the cruelty which they de- 
nounce. They can melt us by their appeals to our pity. They 
can terrify ; they can horrify ; they can fill us with fear or 
hope, with anger, with despair, or with rage ; but they cannot 
cause us to laugh. Their attempts at a joke amuse us because 
we recognize the attempt. Here Caesar is put forward to give 
us the benefit of his wit. We are lost in surprise when we 
find how miserable are his jokes, and take a pride in finding 
that in one line we are the masters of the Romans. I will 
give an instance, and I pick it out as the best among those 
selected by Cicero. Nasica goes to call upon Ennius, and is 
informed by the maid-servant that her master is not at home. 
Ennius returns the visit, and Nasica halloos out from the win- 

1 De Oratore, lib. ii., ca. xxvii. : " At probemus vera esse ea, quaj defendi- 
mus ; ut coneiliemus nobis eos, qui audient ; ut animos eorura, ad quem- 
cuiuque causa postulabit rnotum, vocemus." 

- Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xliv. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 263 

dow that he is not within. " Not within !" says Ennius ; " don't 
I know your voice ?" Upon which Nasica replies, " You are 
an impudent fellow ! I had the grace to believe your maid, 
and now you will not believe me myself." 1 How this got into 
a law-case we do not know ; it is told, however, just as I have 
told it. But there are enough of them here to make a small 
Joe Miller ; and yet, in the midst of language that is almost 
divine in its expressions, they are given as having been worthy 
of all attention. 

The third book is commenced by the finest passage in the 
whole treatise. Cicero remembers that Crassus is dead, and 
then tells the story of his death. And Antony is dead, and 
the Caesars. The last three had fallen in the Marian mas- 
sacres. There is but little now in the circumstances of their 
death to excite our tears. Who knows aught of that Crassus, 
or of that Antony, or of those Caesars ? But Cicero so tells it 
in his pretended narrative as almost to make us weep. The 
day was coming when a greater than either of them was to 
die the same death as Antony, by the order of another An- 
tony — to have his tongue pierced, and his bloody head thrust 
aloft upon the rostra. But no Roman has dared to tell us 
of it as Cicero has told the story of those others. Augustus 
had done his work too well, and it was much during his. reis;n 
that Romans who could make themselves heard should dare to 
hold their tongues. 

It would be useless in me here to attempt to give any no- 
tion of the laws as to speech which Cicero lays down. For 
myself I do not take them as laws, feeling that the interval of 
time has been too great to permit laws to remain as such. No 
orator could, I feel sure, form himself on Cicero's ideas. But 
the sweetness of the language is so great as to convince us 
that he, at any rate, knew how to use language as no one has 
done since : " But there is a building up of words, and a turn- 

1 De Oratore, lib. ii., ca. lxviii. 



204 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ing of them round, and a nice rendering. There is the oppos- 
ing and the loosening. There is the avoiding, the holding 
back, the sadden exclamation, and the dropping of the voice ; 
and the taking an argument from the case at large and bring- 
ing it to bear on a single point ; and the proof and the propo- 
sitions together. And there is the leave given ; and then a 
doubting, and an expression of surprise. There is the count- 
ing up, the setting right ; the utter destruction, the continua- 
tion, the breaking off, the pretence, the answer made to one's 
self, the change of names, the disjoining and rejoining of 
things — the relation, the retreat, and the curtailing." 1 Who 
can translate all these things when Quintilian himself has been 
fain to acknowledge that he has attempted and has failed to 
handle them in fitting language ? 

And then at last there comes that most lovely end to these 
most charming discourses : " His autem de rebus sol me ille 
admonuit, ut brevior essem, qui ipse jam prajcipitans, me quo- 
que hac praecipitem pame evolvere coegit." 2 These words are 
so charming in their rhythm that I will not rob them of their 
beauty by a translation. The setting sun requires me also to 
go to rest : that is their simple meaning. At the end of the 
book he introduces a compliment to Hortensius, wdio during 
his lifa had been his great rival, and who was still living when 
the De Oratore was written. 

The next on the list is the De Optimo Genere Oratorum — a 
preliminary treatise written as a preface to a translation 
tet^Ks made by himself on the speeches of ^Eschines and De- 
mosthenes against Ctesiphon in the matter of the Gold- 
en Crown. We have not the translations ; but vfe have his 
reasons for translating them — namely, that he might enable 
readers only of Latin to judge how far ^Eschines and Demos- 
thenes had deserved, either of them, the title of " Optimus ora- 
tor." For they had spoken against each other with the most 

1 De Oratore, lib. iii., ca. liv. s Ibid., lib. iii., ca. lv. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 265 

bitter abuse, and each spokesman was struggling for the sup- 
pression of the other. Each was speaking with the knowledge 
that, if vanquished, he would have to pay heavily in his person 
and his pocket. He gives the palm to neither ; but he tells 
his readers that the Attic mode of speaking is gone — of which, 
indeed, the glory is known, but the nature unknown. But he 
explains that he has not translated the two pieces verbatim, as 
an interpreter, but in the spirit, as an orator, using the same 
figures, the same forms, the same strength of ideas. We have 
to acknowledge that we do not see how in this way he can 
have done aught toward answering the question De Optimo 
Genere Oratorum ; but he may perhaps have done something 
to prove that he himself, in his oratory, had preserved the best 
known Grecian forms. 

The De Partitione Oratoria Dialogus follows, of which we 
have already spoken, written when he was an old man, and was 
in the sixty-first year of his life. It was the year in which he 
had divorced Terentia, and had been made thoroughly wretch- 
ed in private and in public affairs. But he was not on that 
account disabled from preparing for his son these instructions, 
in the form of questions and answers, on the art of speaking. 

We next come to the Brutus; or, De Claris Oratoribus, a dia- 
logue supposed to have been held between Brutus, Atticus, and 
Cicero himself. It is a continuation of the three books De 
Oratore. He there describes what is essential to the character 
of the optimus orator. He here looks after the special man, 
going back over the results of past ages, and bringing before 
the reader's eyes all Greek and Roman orators, till he comes 
down to Cicero. I cannot but say that the feeling is left with 
the reader that the orator optimus has been reached at last in 
Cicero's mind. 

We must remark, in the first place, that he has chosen for his 
friend, to whom to address his piece, one whom he has only 
known late in life. It was when he went to Cilicia as gov- 
ernor, when he was fifty-six years old, that he was thrown by 

II.— 12 



2G6 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Atticus into close relations with Brutus. Now he has, next to 
Atticus, become Lis most chosen friend. His three next trea- 
tises, the Orator, the Tusculan Disquisitions, and the De Natura 
Deorum, have all been graced, or intended to be graced, by the 
name of Brutus. And yet, from what we know, we can hard- 
ly imagine two men less likely to be brought together by their 
political ambition. The one compromising, putting up with 
the bad rather than with a worse, knowing that things were 
evil, and contented to accept those that were the least so ; the 
other strict, uncompromising, and one who had learned lessons 
which had taught him that there was no choice among things 
that were bad ! And Brutus, too, had told Cicero that his les- 
sons in oratory were not to his taste. There was a something 
about Cicero which enabled him to endure such rebukes while 
there was aught worthy of praise in the man who rebuked him ; 
and it was to this something that his devotion was paid. We 
know that Brutus was rapacious after money with all the greed 
of a Roman nobleman, and we know also that Cicero was not. 
Cicero could keep his hands clean with thousands around him, 
and with thousands going into the pockets of other men. 
He could see the vice of Brutus, but he did not hate it. He 
must have borne, too, with something from Atticus of the same 
kind. The truth seems to me that to Cicero there was no hor- 
ror as to greediness, except to greed in himself. He could 
hate it for himself and yet tolerate it in others, as a man may 
card-playing, or rackets, or the turf. But he must have knoAvn 
that Brutus had made himself the owner of all good gifts in 
learning, and took him to his heart in consequence. In no 
other way can I explain to myself the feeling of subservience 
to Brutus which Cicero so generally expresses : it exists in 
none other of his relations of life. Political subservience there 
is to Pompey ; but he can laugh at Pompey, and did not dedi- 
cate to him his treatises De Republica, or De Legibus. To 
Appius Claudius he was very courteous. He thought badly of 
Appius, but hardly worse than be ought to have done of Bru- 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 267 

tus. Of Caelius he was fond, of Curio, of Trebatius. To Psetus 
he was attached, to Sulpicius and Marcellus. But to none of 
them did he ever show that deference which he did to Brutus. 
I could have understood this feeling as evinced in the political 
letters at the end of his life, and have explained it to myself 
by saying that the " ipsissima verba" have not probably come 
to us. But I cannot say that the name of Brutus does not 
stand there, written in imperishable letters on the title-pages 
of his most chosen pieces. If this be so, Brutus has owed more 
to his learning than the respect of Cicero. All ages since have 
felt it, and Shakspeare has told us that " Brutus is an honor- 
able man." 

There is a dispute as to the period of the authorship of this 
treatise. Cicero in it tells us of Cato and of Marcellus, and 
therefore we must suppose that it was written when they were 
alive. Indeed, he so compares Caesar and Marcellus as he could 
not have done had they not both been alive. But Cato and 
Marcellus died B.C. 46, and how then could the treatise have 
been written in b.c. 45 ? It should, however, be remembered 
that a written paper may be altered and rewritten, and that the 
date of authorship and that of publication cannot be exactly 
the same. But the time is of but little matter to those who 
can take delight in the discourse. He begins by telling us how 
he had grieved when, on his return from Cilicia, he had heard 
that Hortensius was dead. Hortensius had brought him into 
the College of Augurs, and had there stood to him in the place 
of a parent. And he had lamented Hortensius also on behalf 
of Rome. Hortensius had gone. Then he goes on to say that, 
as he was thinking of these things while walking in his portico, 
Brutus had come to him and Pomponius Atticus. He says 
how pleasantly they greeted each other ; and then gradually 
they go on, till Atticus asks him to renew the story he had be- 
fore been telling. " In truth, Pomponius," he says, " I remem- 
ber it right well, for then it was that I heard Deiotarus, that 
truest and best of kings, defended by our Brutus here." Deio- 



268 LIFE OF CICERO. 

tarus was that Eastern king whose defence by Cicero himself I 
have mentioned when speaking of his pleadings before Caesar. 
Then he rushes off into his subject, and discusses at length his 
favorite idea. It must still be remembered that neither here 
are to be traced any positive line of lessons in oratory. There 
is no beginning, no middle, and no end to this treatise. Cicero 
runs on, charming us rather by his language than by his les- 
sons. He says of Eloquence that " she is the companion of 
peace, and the associate of ease." 1 He tells us of Cato, that he 
had read a hundred and fifty of his speeches, and had "found 
them all replete with bright words and with great matter; 
* * * and yet no one in his days read Cato's speeches !" 2 This, 
of course, was Cato the elder. Then we hear how Demosthe- 
nes said that in oratory action was everything : it was the first 
thing, the second, and the third. " For there is nothing like it 
to penetrate into the minds of the audience — to teach them, to 
turn them, and to form them, till the orator shall be made to 
appear exactly that which he wishes to be thought. 3 * * * 
The man who listens to one who is an orator believes what he 
hears ; he thinks everything to be true, he approves of all." 4 
No doubt! In his power of describing the orator and his 
work Cicero is perfect ; but he does not describe the man do- 
ing that which he is bound to do by his duty. 

He tells us that nothing is worse than half a dozen advocates 
— which certainly is true. 5 Further on he comes to Caesar, and 
praises him very highly. But here Brutus is made to speak, 
and tells us how he has read the Commentaries, and found 
them to be " bare in their beauty, perfect in symmetry, but 
unadorned, and deprived of all outside garniture." 6 They are 
all that he has told us, nor could they have been described in 
truer words. Then he names Hortensius, and speaks of him 
in language which is graceful and graphic ; but he reserves his 

1 Brutus, ca. xii. 2 Ibid., ca. xvii. 3 Ibid., ca. xxxviii. 

4 Ibid., ca. 1. 6 Ibid.,ca. lvii. 6 Ibid., ca. lxxv. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 2G9 

greatest strength for himself, and at last, declaring that he will 
say nothing in his own praise, bursts out into a string of eulogy, 
which he is able to conceal beneath dubious phrases, so as to 
show that he himself has acquired such a mastery over his art 
as to have made himself, in truth, the best orator of them all. 1 
Perhaps the chief charm of this essay is to be found in the 
lightness of the touch. It is never heavy, never severe, rarely 
melancholic. If read without reference to other works, it 
would leave on the reader's mind the impression that though 
now and again there had come upon him the memory of a 
friend who had gone, and some remembrance of changes in the 
State to which, as an old man, he could not give his assent ; 
nevertheless, it was written by a happy man, by one who was 
contented among his books, and was pleased to be reminded 
that things had gone well with him. lie writes throughout as 
one who had no great sorrow at his heart. No one would have 
thought that in this very year he was perplexed in his private 
affairs, even to the putting away of his wife ; that Caesar had 
made good his ground, and, having been Dictator last year, had 
for the third time become Consul ; that he knew himself to be 
living, as a favor, by Caesar's pleasure. Cicero seems to have 
written his Brutus as one might write who was well at ease. 
Let a man have taught himself aught, and have acquired the 
love of letters, it is easy for him then, we might say, to carry 
on his work. What is it to him that politicians are cutting 
each other's throats around him ? He has not gone into that 
arena and fought and bled there, nor need he do so. Though 
things may have gone contrary to his views, he has no cause 
for anger, none for personal disappointment, none for personal 
shame ; but with Cicero, on every morning as he rose he must 
have remembered Pompey and have thought of Caesar. And 
though Caesar was courteous to him, the courtesy of a ruler is 
hard to be borne by him who himself has ruled. Caesar was 

1 Brutus, ca. sciii. 



270 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Consul ; and Cicero, who remembered how majestically he had 
walked when a few years since he was Consul by the real votes 
of the people, how he had been applauded for doing his duty 
to the people, how he had been punished for stretching the 
laws on the people's behalf, how he had refused everything for 
the people, must have had bitter feelings in his heart when he 
sat down to write this conversation with Brutus and with At- 
ticus. Yet it has all the cheerfulness which might have been 
expected from a happy mind. But we must remark that at 
its close — in its very final words — he does allude with sad 
melancholv to the state of affairs, and that then it breaks off 
abruptly. Even in the middle of a sentence it is brought to a 
close, and the reader is left to imagine that something has been 
lost, or that more might have been added. 

The last of these works is the Orator. We have passed in 
review the De Oratore, and the Brutus ; or, De Claris Oratoribus. 
We have now to consider that which is commonly believed to 
be the most finished piece of the three. Such seems to have 
become the general idea of those scholars who have spoken 
and written on the subject. He himself says that there are in 
all five books. There are the three De Oratore ; the fourth 
is called the Brutus, and the fifth the Orator. 1 In some MSS. 
this work has a second title, De Optimo Genere Dicendi — as 
though the five books should run on in a sequence, the first 
three being on oratory in general, the fourth as to famous ora- 
tors, while the last concluding work is on the best mode of 
oratory. Readers who may wish to carry these in their minds 
must exclude for the moment from their memory the few pages 
which he wrote as a perface to the translations from ^Eschines 
and Demosthenes. The purport is to show how that hitherto 
unknown hero of romance may be produced — the perfect orator. 

Here as elsewhere we shall find the greatest interest lies in 
a certain discursive treatment of his subject, which enables 

1 De Divinatione, lib. ii., 1. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 27l 

him to run hither and thither, while he always pleases us, 
whatever attitude he may assume, whatever he may say, and 
in whatever guise he may speak to us. But here, in the last 
hook, there does seem to be some kiud of method in his dis- 
course. He distinguishes three styles of eloquence — the sim-~ 
pie, the moderate, and the sublime, and explains that the orator 
has three duties to perform. He must learn what on any sub- 
ject he has to say ; he must place his arguments in order, and 
he must know how to express them. He explains what action 
should achieve for the orator, and teaches that eloquence de- 
pends wholly on elocution. He tells us that the philosophers, 
the historians, and the poets have never risen to his ideas of 
eloquence ; but that he alone does so who can, amid the heat 
and work of the Forum, turn men's minds as he wishes. Then 
he teaches us how each of the three styles should be treat- 
ed — the simple, the moderate, and the sublime — and shows us 
how to vary them. He informs us what laws we should pre- 
serve in each, what ornaments, what form, and what metaphors. 
He then considers the words we should use, and makes us un- 
derstand how necessary it is to attend to the minutest variety of 
sound. In this matter we have to acknowledge that he, as a 
Roman, had to deal with instruments for listening infinitely 
finer than are our British ears ; and I am not sure that we can 
follow him with rapture into all the mysteries of the Poeon, the 
Dochmius, and the Dichoreus. What he says of rhythm we 
are willing to take to be true, and we wonder at the elaborate 
study given to it ; but I doubt whether we here do not read of 
it as a thing beyond us, by descending into which we should be 
removing ourselves farther from the more wholesome pursuits 
of our lives. 

There are, again, delightful morsels here. He tells us, for 
instance, that he who has created a beautiful thing must have 
beauty in his soul, 1 — a charming idea, as to which we do not stop 

1 Orator, ca. ii. 



272 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to inquire whether it be true or not. He gives us a most ex- 
cellent caution against storing up good sayings, and using them 
from the storehouse of our memory : " Let him avoid these 
studied things, not made of the moment, but brought from the 
closet." 1 Then he rises into a grand description of the perfect 
orator : " But that third man is he, rich, abundant, dignified, 
and instructed, in whom there is a divine strength. This is he 
whose fulness and culture of speech the nations have admired, 
and whose eloquence has been allowed to prevail over the peo- 
ple. 2 * * * Then will the orator make himself felt more abun- 
dantly. Then will he rule their minds and turn their hearts. 
Then will he do with them as he would wish." 3 

But in the teeth of all this it did not please Brutus himself. 
" When I wrote to him," he said to Atticus, " in obedience to 
his wishes, ' De Optimo Genere Dicendi,' he sent word, both to 
you and me, that that which pleased me did not satisfy him." 4 
" Let every man kiss his own wife," says Cicero in his letter in 
the next words to those we have quoted; and we cannot but 
love the man for being able to joke when he is telling of the re- 
buff he has received. It must have been an additional pang to 
him, that he for whom he had written his book should receive 
it with stern rebuke. 

At last we come to the Topica ; the last instructions which 
Cicero gives on the subject of oratory. The Romans seem to 
have esteemed much the lessons which are here conveyed, but 
for us it has but little attraction. He himself declares it to 
have been a translation from Aristotle, but declares also that the 
translation has been made from memory. He has been at sea, 
he says, in the first chapter, and has there performed his task, 
and has sent it as soon as it has been done. There is some- 
thing in this which is unintelligible to us. He has translated 



1 Orator, ca. xxvi. 2 Ibid., ca. xxviii. 

3 Ibid., ca. xxxvi. Here his language becomes very fine. 
* Ad. Att., lib. xiv., 20. 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 273 

a treatise of Aristotle from memory — that is, without having 
the original before him — and has done this at sea, on his intend- 
ed journey to Greece I 1 I do not believe that Cicero has been 
false in so writing. The work has been done for his younf 
friend Trebatius, who had often asked it, and was much too 
clever when he had received it not to recognize its worth. But 
Cicero has, in accordance with his memory, reduced to his own 
form Aristotle's idea as to " invention " in logic. Aristotle's 
work is, I am informed, in eight books : here is a bagatelle in 
twenty-five pages. There is an audacity in the performance — 
especially in the doing it on board ship ; but we must remem- 
ber that he had spent his life in achieving a knowledge of these 
things, and was able to write down with all the rapidity of a 
practised professor the doctrines on the matter which he wished 
to teach Trebatius. 

This later essay is a recapitulation of the different sources to 
which an orator, whether as lawyer, advocate, philosopher, or 
statesman, may look for his arguments. That they should have 
been of any great use to Trebatius, in the course of his long life 
as attorney-general about the court of Augustus, I cannot be- 
lieve. I do not know that he rose to special mark as an orator, 
though he was well known as a counsellor ; nor do I think that 
oratory, or the powers of persuasion, can be so brought to book 
as to be made to submit itself to formal rules. And here they 
are given to us in the form of a catalogue. It is for modern 
readers perhaps the least interesting of all Cicero's works. 

There is left upon us after reading these treatises a general 
idea of the immense amount of attention which, in the Roman 
educated world, was paid to the science of speaking. To bring 
his arguments to bear at the proper moment — to catch the ideas 
that are likely to be rising in the minds of men — to know when 
the sympathies may be expected and when demanded, when the 

1 Topica, ca. 1 : " Itaque haec quum mecum libros nou haberem, mem- 
oria repetita, in ipsa navigatione conscripsi, tibique ex itinere misi." 

12* 



271 LIFE OF CICEJRO. 

feelings may be trusted and when they have been too blunted to 
be of service — to perceive from an instinctive outlook into those 
before him when he may be soft, when hard, when obdurate and 
when melting — this was the business of a Roman orator. And 
this was to be achieved only by a careful study of the charac- 
ters of men. It depended in no wise on virtue, on morals, or on 
truth, though very much on education. How he might please 
the multitude — this was everything to him. It was all in all to 
him to do just that which here in our prosaic world in London 
Ave have been told that men ought not to attempt. They do at- 
tempt it, but they fail — through the innate honesty which there 
is in the hearts of men. In Italy, in Cicero's time, they attempt- 
ed it, and did not fail. But we can see what were the results. 
The attention which Roman orators paid to their voices 
was as serious, and demanded the same restraint, as the occu- 
pations of the present athlete. We are inclined to doubt 
whether too much of life is not devoted to the purpose. It 
could not be done but by a people so greedy of admiration 
as to feel that all other things should be abandoned by those 
who desire to excel. The actor of to-day will do it, but it is 
his business to act; and if he so applies himself to his profes- 
sion as to succeed, he has achieved his object. But oratory 
in the law court, as in Parliament, or in addressing the public, 
is only the means of imbuing the minds of others with the 
ideas which the speaker wishes to implant there. To have 
those ideas, and to have the desire to teach them to others, 
is more to him than the power of well expressing them. To 
know the law is better than to talk of knowing it. But with 
the Romans so great was the desire to shine that the reality 
was lost in its appearance ; and so prone were the people to 
indulge in the delight of their senses that they would sacrifice 
a thing for a sound, and preferred lies in perfect language to 
truth in halting syllables. This feeling had sunk deep into 
Cicero's heart when he was a youth, and has given to his char- 
acter the only stain which it has. He would be patriotic : to 



CICERO'S RHETORIC. 275 

love his country was the first duty of a Roman. He would be 
honest : so much was indispensable to his personal dignity. 
But he must so charm his countrymen with his voice as to 
make them feel while they listened to him that some god ad- 
dressed them. In this way he became permeated by the love 
of praise, till it was death to him not to be before the lamps. 

The " perfect orator " is, we may say, a person neither de- 
sired nor desirable. We, who are the multitude of the world, 
and have been born to hold our tongues and use our brains, 
would not put up with him were he to show himself. But it 
was not so in Cicero's time ; and this was the way he took 
to sing the praises of his own profession and to magnify his 
own glory. He speaks of that profession in language so ex- 
cellent as to make us who read his words believe that there 
was more in it than it did in truth hold. But there was much 
in it, and the more so as the performers reacted upon their 
audience. The delicacy of the powers of expression had be- 
come so great, that the powers of listening and distinguishing- 
had become great also. As the instruments became fine, so 
did the ears which were to receive their music. Cicero, and 
Quintilian after him, tell us this. The latter, in speaking of 
the nature of the voice, gives us a string of epithets which it 
would be hopeless to attempt to translate : " Nam est et Can- 
dida, et fusca, et plena, et exilis, et levis, et aspera, et contracta, 
et fusa, et dura, et flexibilis, et clara, et obtusa ; spiritus etiam 
longior, breviorque." 1 And the remarkable thing was, that 
every Roman who listened would understand what the orator 
intended, and would know too, and would tell him of it, if by 
error he had fallen into some cadence which was not exactly 
right. To the modes of raising the voice, which are usually 
divided into three — the high or treble, the low or bass, and that 
which is between the two, the contralto and tenor — many oth- 

1 Quint., lib. xi., 3. The translations of these epithets are " open, ob- 
scure, full, thin, light, rough, shortened, lengthened, harsh, pliable, clear, 
clouded. 



276 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ers are added. There are the easier and the soft, the higher 
and the lower notes, the quicker and the slower. It seems lit- 
tle to us, who know that we can speak or whisper, hammer our 
words together, or drawl them out. But then every listener 
was critically alive to the fact whether the speaker before him 
did or did not perform, his task as it should be done. No 
wonder that Cicero demanded who was the optimus orator. 
Then the strength of body had to be matured, lest the voice 
should fall to " a sick, womanly weakness, like that of an eu- 
nuch." This must be provided by exercise, by anointing, by 
continence, by the easy digestion of the food — which means 
moderation ; and the jaws must be free, so that the words 
must not strike each other. And as to the action of the ora- 
tor, Cicero tells us that it should speak as loudly and as plainly 
as do the words themselves. In all this we find that Quintil- 
ian only follows his master too closely. The hands, the shoul- 
ders, the sides, the stamping of the foot, the single step or 
many steps — every motion of the body, agreeing with the 
words from his mouth, are all described. 1 He attributes this 
to Antony — but only because, as he thinks of it, some move- 
ment of Antony's has recurred to his memory. 

To make the men who heard him believe in him was the 
one gift Avhich Cicero valued ; not to make them know him to 
be true, but to believe him to be so. This it was, in Cicero's 
time, to be the optimus orator. 

Since Cicero's time there has been some progress in the 
general conduct of men. They are less greedy, less cruel, less 
selfish — greedy, cruel, and selfish though they still are. The 
progress which the best among us have made Cicero in fact 
achieved ; but he had not acquired that theoretic aversion to 
a lie which is the first feeling in the bosom of a modern gen- 
tleman ; therefore it was that he still busied himself with 
finding the optimus orator. 

1 Brutus, ca. xxxviii. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 277 



Chapter XII. 
CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 

It will have been observed that in the list given in the pre- 
vious chapter the works commonly published as Cicero's Philos- 
ophy have been divided. Some are called his Philosophy and 
some his Moral Essays. It seems to be absurd to put forward 
to the world his Tusculan Inquiries, written with the declared 
object of showing that death and pain were not evils, together 
with a moral essay, such as that De Officiis, in which he tells us 
what it may become a man of the world to do. It is as though 
we bound up Lord Chesterfield's letters in a volume with Hume's 
essays, and called them the philosophy of the eighteenth century. 
It might be true, but it would certainly be absurd. There might 
be those who regard the letters as philosophical, and those who 
would so speak of the essays ; but their meaning would be dia- 
metrically opposite. It is so with Cicero, whose treatises have 
been lumped together under this name with the view of bring- 
ing them under one appellation. It had been found necessary 
to divide his works and to describe them. The happy man 
who first thought to put the De Natura Deorum and the De 
Amicitia into boards together, and to present them to the 
world under the name of his philosophy, perhaps found the 
only title that could unite the two. But he has done very 
much to mislead the world, and to teach readers to believe that 
Cicero was in truth one who endeavored to live in accordance 
with the doctrine of any special school of philosophy, 

He was too honest, too wise, too civilized, too modern for 
that. He knew, no one better, that the pleasure of the world 



278 LIFE OF CICERO. 

was pleasant, and that the ills are the reverse. When Lis wife 
betrayed him, lie grieved. When his daughter died, he sorrow- 
ed. When his foe was strong against him, he hated him. He 
avoided pain when it came near him, and did his best to have 
everything comfortable around him. He was so far an Epicu- 
rean, as we all are. He did not despise death, or pain, or grief. 
He was a modern-minded man — if I make myself understood — 
of robust tendencies, moral, healthy, and enduring; but he was 
anything but a philosopher in his life. Let us remember the 
way in which he laughs at the idea of bringing philosophy into 
real life in the De Oratore. He is speaking of the manner in 
which the lawyers would have had to behave themselves in the 
law courts if philosophy had been allowed to prevail : " No 
man could have grieved aloud. No patron would have wept. 
No one would have sorrowed. There would have been no call- 
ing of the Republic to witness ; not a man would have dared to 
stamp his foot, lest it should have been told to the Stoics." 1 
"You should keep the books of the philosophers for your Tus- 
culan ease," he had said in the preceding chapter; and he 
speaks, in the same page, of " Plato's fabulous State." 

Then why, it may be asked, did he write so many essays on 
philosophy — enough to have consumed the energies of many 
laborious years ? There can be no doubt that he did write the 
Philosophy, though we have ample reason to know that it was 
not his philosophy. All those treatises, beginning with the Ac- 
ademica — written when he was sixty-two, two years only before 
his death, and carried on during twelve months with indomi- 
table energy — the De Finibus, the Tusculan Disputations, the De 
Natura Deorum, the De Divinatione, and the De Fato — were 
composed during the time named. To those who have regard- 
ed Cicero as a philosopher — as one who has devoted his life to 
the pursuits of philosophy — does it not appear odd that he 
should have deferred his writing on the subject and postponed 

1 De Oratore, lib. i., ca. liii. 



CICERO'S FHILOSOFHY. 279 

his convictions till now ? At this special period of his life why 
should he have rushed into them at once, and should so have 
done it as to be able to leave them aside at another period? 
Why has all this been done within less than two years ? Let 
any man look to the last year of his life, when the Philippics 
were coming hot from his brain and eager from his mouth, 
and ask himself how much of Greek philosophy he finds in 
them. Out of all the sixty-four years of his life he devoted 
one to this philosophy, and that not the last, but the penulti- 
mate ; and so lived during all these years, even including that 
one, as to show how little hold philosophy had upon his con- 
duct. Aidtofiat Tpwag. Was that Greek philosophy ? or the 
eager exclamation of a human spirit, in its weakness and in its 
strength, fearing the breath of his fellow-men, and yet knowing 
that the truth would ultimately be expressed by it ? 

Nor is the reason for this far to seek, though the character 
which could avail itself of such a reason requires a deep insight. 
To him literature had been everything. We have seen with 
what attention he had studied oratory — rhetoric rather — so as 
to have at his fingers'-ends the names of those who had ever 
shone in it, and the doctrines they had taught. We know 
how well read he was in Homer and the Greek tragedians ; how 
he knew by heart his Ennius, his Nsevius, his Pacuvius, and 
the others who had written in his own tongue. As he was 
acquainted with the poets and rhetoricians, so also was he 
acquainted with those writers who have handled philosophy. 
His incredible versatility was never at fault. He knew them 
all from the beginning, and could interest himself in their doc- 
trines. He had been in the schools at Athens, and had learned 
it all. In one sense he believed in it. There was a great bat- 
tle of words carried on, and in regard to that battle he put his 
faith in this set or in the other. But had he ever been asked 
by what philosophical process he would rule the world, he 
would have smiled. Then he would have declared himself not 
to be an Academician, but a Republican. 



280 LIFE OF CICERO. 

It was with him a game of play, ornamented with all the 
learning of past ages. He had found the schools full of it at 
Athens, and had taken his part in their teaching. It had heen 
pleasant to him to call himself a disciple of Plato, and to hold 
himself aloof from the straitness of the Stoics, and from the 
mundane theories of the followers of Epicurus. It had been 
well for him also to take an interest in that play. But to 
suppose that Cicero, the modern Cicero, the Cicero of the 
world — Cicero the polished gentleman, Cicero the soft-hearted, 
Cicero the hater, Cicero the lover, Cicero the human — was a be- 
liever in Greek philosophy — that he had taken to himself and 
fed upon those shreds and tatters and dry sticks — that he had 
ever satisfied himself with such a mode of living as they could 
promise to him — is indeed to mistake the man. His soul was 
quiveringly alive to all those instincts which now govern us. 
Go among our politicians, and you shall find this man and the 
other, who, in after-dinner talk, shall call himself an Epicurean, 
or shall think himself to be an Academician. He has carried 
away something of the learning of his college days, and re- 
members enough of his school exercises for that ; but when 
he has to make a speech for or against Protection, then you 
will find out where lies his philosophy. 

And so it was with Cicero during this the penultimate year 
of his life. He poured forth during this period such an amount 
of learning on the subject, that when men took it up after the 
lapse of centuries they labelled it all as his philosophy. When 
he could no longer talk politics, nor act them — when the Fo- 
rum was no longer open to him, nor the meetings of the peo- 
ple or of the Senate — when he could no longer make himself 
heard on behalf of the State — then he took to discussions on 
Carneades. And his discussions are wonderful. How could 
he lay his mind to work when his daughter was dead, and 
write in beautiful lansniaore four such treatises as came from 
his pen while he was thinking of the temple which was to be 
built to her memory ? It is a marvel that at such a period, at 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 281 

such an age, lie should have been equal to the labor. But it 
was thus that he amused himself, consoled himself, distracted 
himself. It is hard to believe that, in the sad evening of his 
life, such a power should have remained with him; but easier, 
I think, than to imagine that in that year of his life he had 
suddenly become philosophical. 

In describing the Academica, the first of these works in point 
of time, it is necessary to explain that by reason of an altera- 
tion in his plan of publishing, made by Cicero after he had 
sent the first copy to Atticus, and by the accident that the 
second part has been preserved of the former copy and the 
first part of the second, a confusion has arisen. Cicero had 
felt that he might have done better by his friends than to bring 
Hortensius, Catulus, and Lucullus discussing Greek philosophy 
before the public. They were, none of them, men who when 
alive had interested themselves in the matter. He therefore 
rewrote the essays, or altered them, and again sent them forth 
to his friend Varro. Time has been so far kind to them as to 
have preserved portions of the first book as altered, and the 
second of the four which constituted the first edition. It is 
that which has been called Lucullus. The Catulus had come 
first, but has been lost. Hortensius and Cicero were the last 
two. We may perceive, therefore, into what a length of devel- 
opment he carried his purpose. It must be of course under- 
stood that he dictated these exercises, and assisted himself by 
the use of all mechanical means at his disposal. The men who 
worked for him were slaves, and these slaves were always will- 
ing to keep in their own hands the good things which came to 
them by the exercise of their own intelligence and adroitness. 
He could not multiply his own hands or brain, but he could 
multiply all that might assist them. He begins by telling 
Varro that he has long since desired to illustrate in Latin let- 
ters the philosophy which Socrates had commended, and he 
asks Varro why he, who was so much given to writing, had not 
as yet written about any of these things. As Varro boasted 



282 LIFE OF CICERO. 

afterward that he was the author of four hundred and ninety 
books, there seems to be a touch of irony in this. Be that as 
it may, Varro is made to take up the gauntlet and to rush 
away at once amid the philosophers. But here on the thresh- 
old, as it were, of his inquiries, we have Cicero's own reasons 
given in plain language : " But now, hit hard by the heavy 
blow of fortune, and freed as I am from looking after the 
L '' State, I seek from philosophy l'elicf from my pain." He thinks 
that he may in this way perhaps best serve the public, or even 
" if it be not so, what else is there that he may find to do V n 
As he goes on, however, we find that what he writes is about 
the philosophers rather than philosophy. 

Then we come to the Lucullus. It seems odd that the man 
whose name has come down to us as a by-word for luxury, and 
who is laden with the reproach of overeating, should be thus 
brought forward as a philosopher. It was perhaps the subse- 
quent feeling on Cicero's part that such might be the opinion 
of men which induced him to alter his form — in vain, as far as 
we are concerned. But Lucullus had lived with Antiochus, a 
Greek philosopher, who had certain views of his own, and he is 
made to defend them through this book. 

Here as elsewhere it is not the subject which delights us so 
much as the manner in which he handles certain points almost 
outside the subject : " How many things do those exercised 
in music know which escape us ! Ah, there is Antiope, they 
say; that is Andromache." 2 What can be truer, or less likely, 
Ave may suppose, to meet us in a treatise on philosophy, and, 
therefore, more welcome? He is speaking of evidence: "It 
is necessary that the mind shall yield to what is clear, whether 
it wish it or no, as the dish in a balance must give way when a 
weight is put upon it. 3 * * * You may snore, if you will, as well 
as sleep," says Carneades ; " what good will it do you ?" 4 And 

1 Academica, ii., lib. i., ca. iii. - Ibid., i., lib. ii., ca. vii. 

3 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xii. 4 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xxix. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 283 

then he gives the guesses of some of the old philosophers as 
to the infinite. Thales has said that water is the source of ev- 
erything. Anaximander would not agree to this, for he thought 
that all had come from space. Anaximenes had affirmed that 
it was air. Anaxagoras had remarked that matter was infinite. 
Xenophanes had declared that everything was one whole, and 
that it was a god, everlasting, eternal, never born and never 
dying, but round in his shape ! Parmenides thought that it 
was fire that moved the earth. Leucippus believed it to be 
" plenum et inane." What " full and empty " may mean I can- 
not tell ; but Democritus could, for he believed in it — though 
in other matters he went a little farther ! Empedocles sticks 
to the old four elements. Heraclitus is all for fire. Melissus 
imagines that whatever exists is infinite and immutable, and 
ever has been and ever will be. Plato thinks that the world 
lias always existed, while the Pythagoreans attribute everything 
to mathematics. 1 " Your wise man," continues Cicero, " will 
know one whom to choose out of all these. Let the others, who 
have been repudiated, retire." 

" They are all concealed, these things — hidden in thick dark- 
ness, so that no human eye can have power enough to look up 
into the heavens or down on to the earth. We do not know 
our own bodies, or the nature or strength of their component 
parts. The doctors themselves, who have opened them and 
looked at them, are ignorant. The Empirics declare that they 
know nothing ; because, as soon as looked at, they may change. 
* * * Hicetas, the Syracusan, as Theophrastus tells us, thinks that 
the heavens and the sun and the moon and the stars all stand 
still, and that nothing in all the world moves but the earth. 
Now what do you, followers of Epicurus, say to this ?" 2 I need 
not carry the conversation on any farther to show that Cicero 
is ridiculing the whole thing. This Hicetas, the Syracusan, 
seems to have been nearer the mark than the others, according 

1 Academica, i., lib. ii., ca. xxxvii. a Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xxxix. 



284 LIFE OF CICERO. 

to the existing lights, which had not shone out as yet in Cice- 
ro's davs. " But what was the meaning of it all ? Who knows 
anything about it ? How is a man to live by listening to such 
trash as this ?" It is thus that Cicero means to be understood. 
I will agree that Cicero does not often speak out so clearly as 
he does here, turning the whole thing into ridicule. He docs 
generally find it well to say something in praise of these phi- 
losophers. He does not quite declare the fact that nothing is 
to be made of them ; or, rather, there is existing in it all an 
under feeling that, were he to do so, he would destroy his char- 
acter and rob himself of his amusement. But we remember 
always his character of a philosopher, as attributed to Cato, 
in his speech during his Consulship for Murena. I have told 
the story when giving an account of the speech. " He who 
cuts the throat of an old cock when there is no need, has sinned 
as deeply as the parricide when breaking his father's neck," 1 
says Cicero, laughing at the Stoics. There he speaks out the 
feelings of his heart — there, and often elsewhere in his ora- 
tions. Here, in his Academica, he is eloquent on the same 
side. We cannot but rejoice at the plainness of his words ; 
but it has to be acknowledged that we do not often find him 
so loudly betraying himself when dealing with the old discus- 
sions of the Greek philosophers. 

Very quickly after his Academica, in b.c. 45, came the five 
books, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, written as though 
with the object of settling the whole controversy, and declar- 
ing whether the truth lay with the Epicureans, the Stoics, or 
the Academics. What, at last, is the good thing, and what 
the evil thing, and how shall we gain the one and avoid the 
other? If he will tell us this, he will have proved himself to 
be a philosopher to some purpose. But he does nothing of 
the kind. At the end of the fifth book we find Atticus, who 
was an Epicurean, declaring to Quintus Cicero that he held his 

J Pro Murena, ca. xxix. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 285 

own opinion jnst as firmly as ever, although he had been de- 
lighted to hear how well the Academician Piso had talked in 
Latin. lie had hitherto considered that these were things 
which would not sound well unless in the Greek language. 

It is again in the form of a dialogue, and, like all his writings 
at this time, is addressed to Brutus. It is in five books. The 
first two are supposed to have been held at Cumse, between 
Cicero, Torquatus, and Triarius. Here, after a prelude in fa- 
vor of philosophy and Latin together, Torquatus is allowed to 
make the best excuse he can for Epicurus. The prelude con- 
tains much good sense ; for, whether he be right or not in 
what he says, it is good for every man to hold his own lan- 
guage in respect. " I have always thought and said that the 
Latin language is not poor as it is supposed to be, but even 
richer than the Greek." 1 " Let us learn," says Torquatus, who 
has happened to call upon him at Cumse with Triarius, a grave 
and learned youth, as we are told, " since we have found you 
at your house, why it is that you do not approve of Epicurus 
— he who, alive, seems to have freed the minds of men from 
error, and to have taught them everything which could tend to 
make them happy." 2 Then Torquatus goes to work and de- 
livers a most amusing discourse on the wisdom of Deraocritus 
and his great disciple. The words fly about with delightful 
power, so as to leave upon our minds an idea that Torquatus 
is persuading his audience ; for it is Cicero's peculiar gift, in 
whosesoever mouth he puts his words, to make him argue as 
though he were the victor. We feel sure that, had he in his 
hand held a theory contrary to that of Torquatus, had he in 
truth cared about it, he could not have made Torquatus speak 
so well. But the speaker comes to an end, and assures his 
hearers that his only object had been to hear — as he had never 
heard before — what Cicero's own opinion might be on the 
matter. 

1 De Finibus, lib. i., ca. iii. 2 Ibid., lib. L, ca. v. 



286 LIFE OF CICERO. 

The second book is a continuation of the same meeting. 
The word is taken up by Cicero, and he refutes Torquatus. It 
seems to us, however, that poor Epicurus is but badly treated 
— as has been generally the case in the prose works which have 
come down to us. We have, indeed, the poem of Lucretius, 
and it is admitted that it contains fine passages. But I was 
always told when young that the writing of it had led him to 
commit suicide — a deed on his part which seems to have been 
painted in black colors, though Cato and Brutus, the Stoics, 
did the same thing very gloriously. The Epicureans are held 
to be sensualists, because they have used the word " pleasure " 
instead of " happiness," and Cicero is hard upon them. He 
tells a story of the dying moments of Epicurus, quoting a let- 
ter written on his death-bed. " While I am writing," he says, 
" I am living my last hour, and the happiest. I have so bad a 
pain in my stomach that nothing can be worse. But I am 
compensated for it all by the joy I feel as I think of my phil- 
osophical discourses." 1 Cicero then goes on to declare that, 
though the saying is very noble, it is unnecessary; he should 
not, in truth, have required compensation. But whenever an 
opinion is enunciated, the reader feels it to be unnecessary. 
He does not want opinion. He is satisfied with the language 
in which Cicero writes about the opinions of others, and with 
the amusing manner in which he deals with things of them- 
selves heavy and severe. 

In the third book he, some time afterward, discusses the 
Stoic doctrine with Cato at the Tusculan villa of Lucullus, near 
to his own. He had walked over, and finding Cato there by 
chance, had immediately gone to work to demolish Cato's phil- 
osophical doctrines. He tells us what a glutton Cato was over 
his books, taking them even into the Senate with him. Cicero 
asks for certain volumes of Aristotle, and Cato answers him 
that he would fain put into his hand those of Zeno's school. 

1 De Finibus, lib. ii., ca. xxx. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 287 

We can see how easily Cato falls into the trap. He takes up 
his parable, and preaches his sermon ; but he does it with a 
marvellous enthusiasm, so that we cannot understand that the 
man who wrote it intended to demolish it all in the next few 
pages. I will translate his last words of Cato's appeal to the 
world at large : " I have been carried farther than my inten- 
tion. But in truth the admirable order of the system, and the 
incredible symmetry of it, has led him on. By the gods, do 
you not wonder at it? In nature there is nothing so close 
packed, nor in art so well fitted. The latter always agrees with 
the former — that which follows with that which has gone be- 
fore. Not a stone in it all can be moved from its place. If 
you touch but one letter it falls to the ground. How severe, 
how magnificent, how dignified stands out the person of the 
wise man, who, when his reason shall have taught him that 
virtue is the only good, of a necessity must be happy ! He 
shall be more justly called king than Tarquin, who could rule 
neither himself nor others; more rightly Dictator than Sulla, 
the owner of the three vices, luxury, avarice, and cruelty; more 
rightly rich than Crassus, who, had he not in truth been poor, 
would never have crossed the Euphrates in quest of war. All 
things are justly his who knows how to use them justly. You 
may call him beautiful whose soul is more lovely than his body. 
He is free who is slave to no desire. He is unconquered for 
whose mind you can forge no chains ; you need not wait with 
him for the last day to pronounce him happy. If this be so, 
then the good man is also the happy man. What can be bet- 
ter worth our study than philosophy, or what more heavenly 
than virtue?" 1 All of this was written by Cicero in most 
elaborate language, with a finish of words polished down to the 
last syllable, because he had nothing else wherewith to satisfy 
the cravings of his intellect. 

The fourth book is a continuation of the argument. " Which 

1 Do Finibus, lib. iii., ca. xxii. 



288 LIFE OF CICERO. 

when he had said he (made) an end. — But I (began)." 1 "With 
no other introduction Cicero goes to work and demolishes every 
word that Cato had said. lie is very courteous, so that Cato 
cannot but admit that he is answered becomingly; but, to use 
a common phrase, he does not leave bim a leg to stand upon. 
Although during the previous book Cato has talked so well that 
the reader will think that there must be something in it, he soon 
is made to perceive that the Stoic budge is altogether shoddy. 
The fifth and last book, De Finibus, is supposed to recount 
a dialogue held at Athens, or, rather, gives the circumstances 
of a discourse pretended to have been delivered there by Pu- 
pius Piso to the two Ciceros, and to their cousin Lucius, on 
the merits of the old Academy and the Aristotelian Peripa- 
tetics ; for Plato's philosophy had got itself split into two. 
There was the old and the new, and we may perhaps doubt 
to which Cicero devoted himself. He certainly was not an 
Epicurean, and he certainly was not a Stoic. He delighted 
to speak of himself as a lover of Plato. But in some matters 
he seems to have followed Aristotle, who had diverged from 
Plato, and he seems also to have clung to Carneades, who had 
become master of the new Academy. But, in truth, to ascer- 
tain the special doctrine of such a man on such a subject is 
vain. As we read these works we lose ourselves in admiration 
of his memory ; we are astonished at the industry which he 
exhibits ; we are delighted by his perspicuity ; and feel our- 
selves relieved amid the crowd of names and theories by flashes 
of his wit ; but there comes home to us, a$ a result, the singular 
fact of a man playing with these theories as the most interest- 
ing sport the world had produced, but not believing the least 
in any of them. It was not that he disbelieved ; and perhaps 
among them all the tenets of the new Academy were those 
which reconciled themselves the best to his common -sense. 
But they were all nothing to him but an amusement. 

1 De Finibus, lib. iv., ca. 1. 



CICEKO'S FJ3IL0S0FIIY. 289 

In this book there are some exquisite bits. lie says, speak- 
ing of Athens, that, " Go where you will through the city, you 
place your footsteps on the vestiges of history." 1 He says of 
a certain Demetrius, whom he describes as writing books with- 
out readers in Egypt, "that this culture of his mind was to 
him, as it were, the food by which his humanity was kept 
alive." 2 And then he falls into the praise of our love for our 
neighbors, and introduces us to that true philosophy which 
was the real guide of his life. "Among things which are 
honest," he says, " there is nothing which shines so brightly 
and so widely as that brotherhood between men, that agree- 
ment as to what may be useful to all, and that general love for 
the human race. It comes from our orio-inal condition, in 
which children are loved by their parents ; and then binding- 
together the family, it spreads itself abroad among relations, 
connections, friends, and neighbors. Then it includes citizens 
and those who are our allies. At last it takes in the whole 
human race, and that feeling of the soul arises which, giving 
every man his own, and defending by equal laws the rights of 
each, is called justice." 3 It matters little how may have been 
introduced this great secret which Christ afterward taught, 
and for which we look in vain through the writings of all the 
philosophers. It comes here simply from Cicero himself in 
the midst of his remarks on the new Academy, but it gives 
the lesson which had governed his life : " I will do unto oth- 
ers as I would they should do unto me." In this is contained 
the rudiments of that religion which has served to soften the 
hearts of us all. It is of you I must think, and not of myself. 
Hitherto the schools had taught how a man should make him- 
self happy, whether by pleasure, whether by virtue, or whether 
by something between the two. It seems that it had never as 
yet occurred to a man to think of another except as a part of 

1 De Finibus, lib. v., ca. ii. 2 Ibid., lib. v., ca. xix. 

3 Ibid., lib. v., ca. xxiii. 
II.— 13 



290 LIFE OF CICERO. 

the world around him. Then there had come a teacher who, 
while fumbling among the old Greek lessons which had pro- 
fessed to tell mankind what each should do for himself, 
brings forth this, as it were, in preparation for the true doc- 
trine that was to come : " Ipsa caritas generis humani !" — 
" That love of the human race !" I trust I may be able to 
show, before I have finished my work, that this was Cicero's 
true philosophy. All the rest is merely with him a play of 
words. 

Our next work contains the five books of the Tusculan 
Disputations, addressed to Brutus : Tusculanarnm Disputati- 
onum, ad M. Brutum, libri i., ii., iii., iv., and v. That is the 
name that has at last been decided by the critics and anno- 
tators as having been probably given to them by Cicero. 
They are supposed to have been written to console himself in 
his grief for the death of Tullia. I have great doubt whether 
consolation in sorrow is to be found in philosophy, but I have 
none as to the finding it in writing philosophy. Here, I may 
add, that the poor generally suffer less in their sorrow than 
the rich, because they are called upon to work for their bread. 
The man who must make his pair of shoes between sunrise 
and the moment at which he can find relief from his weary 
stool, has not time to think that his wife has left him, and that 
he is desolate in the world. Pullino; those wearv threads, set- 
ting that leather into its proper shape, seeing that his stitches 
be all taut, so that he do not lose his place among the shoe- 
makers, so fills his time that he has not a moment for a tear. 
And it is the same if you go from the lowest occupation to 
the highest. Writing Greek philosophy does as well as the 
making of shoes. The nature of the occupation depends on 
the mind, but its utility on the disposition. It was Cicero's 
nature to write. Will any one believe that he might not as 
well have consoled himself with one of his treatises on ora- 
tory ? But philosophy was then to his hands. It seems to 
have cropped up in his latter years, after he had become inti- 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 291 

mate with Brutus. "When life was again one turmoil of politi- 
cal fever it was dropped. 

In the five of the Books of the Tusculan Disputations, still 
addressed to Brutus, lie contends: 1. That death is no evil; 
2. That pain is none ; 3. That sorrow may be abolished ; 4. 
That the passions may be conquered ; 5. That virtue will suf- 
fice to make a man happy. These are the doctrines of the 
Stoics ; but Cicero does not in these books defend any school 
especially. He leans heavily on Epicurus, and gives all praise 
to Socrates and to Plato ; but he is comparatively free : " Nul- 
lius adductus jurare in verba magistri," 1 as Horace afterward 
said, probably ridiculing Cicero. " I live for the day. "What- 
ever strikes my mind as probable, that I say. In this way I 
alone am free." 2 

Let us take his dogmas and go through them one by one, 
comparing each with his own life. This, it may be said, is a 
crucial test to which but few philosophers would be willing to 
accede ; but if it shall be found that he never even dreamed of 
squaring his conduct with his professions, then we may admit 
that he employed his time in writing these things because it 
did not suit him to make his pair of shoes. 

Was there ever a man who lived with a greater fear of death 
before his eyes — not with the fear of a coward, but with the 
assurance that it would withdraw him from his utility, and 
banish him from the scenes of a world in sympathy with 
which every pulse of his heart was beating ? Even after Tul- 
lia was dead the Republic had come again for him, and some- 
thing might be done to stir up these faineant nobles ! What 
could a dead man do for his country ? Look back at Cicero's 
life, and see how seldom he has put forward the plea of old age 
to save him from his share of the work of attack. Was this 
the man to console himself with the idea that death was no 
evil \ And did he despise pain, or make any attempt at show- 

1 Epis., lib. i., 1, 14. 2 Tus. Disp., lib. v., ca. si. 



292 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ing his disregard of it ? You can hardly answer this question 
by looking for a man's indifference when undergoing it. It 
would be to require too much from philosophy to suppose 
that it could console itself in agony by reasoning. It would 
not be fair to insist on arguing with Cato in the gout. The 
clemency of human nature refuses to deal with philosophy in 
the hard straits to which it may be brought by the malevolence 
of evil. But when you find a man peculiarly on the alert to 
avoid the recurrence of pain, when you find a man with a 
strong premeditated antipathy to a condition as to which he 
pretends an indifference, then you may fairly assert that his 
indifference is only a matter of argument. And this was al- 
ways Cicero's condition. He knew that he must at any rate 
lose the time passed by him under physical annoyance. His 
health was good, and by continued care remained so to the 
end; but he was always endeavoring to avoid sea -sickness. 
He was careful as to his baths, careful as to his eyes, very 
careful as to his diet. Was there ever a man of whom it 
might be said with less truth that he was indifferent as to 



,3 



pain 

The third position is that sorrow may he abolished. Read 
his letters to Atticus about his daughter Tullia, written at the 
very moment he was proving this. He was a heart-broken, 
sorrow-stricken man. It will not help us now to consider 
whether in this he showed strength or weakness. There will 
be doubt about it, whether he gained or lost more by that 
deep devotion to another creature which made his life a misery 
to him because that other one had gone ; whether, too, he might 
not have better hidden his sorrow than have shown it even to 
his friend. But with him, at any rate, it was there. He can 
talk over it, weep over it, almost laugh over it ; but if there be 
a thing that he cannot do, it is to treat it after the manner of 
a Stoic. 

His passions should be conquered. Look back at every 
period of his life, and see whether he has ever attempted it. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 293 

He has always been indignant, or triumphant, or miserable, 
or rejoicing. Remember the incidents of his life before and 
after his Consulship — the day of his election and the day of 
his banishment — and ask the philosophers why he had not con- 
trolled his passion. I shall be told, perhaps, that here was a 
Tnan over whom, in spite of his philosophy, his passion had 
the masterhood. But what attempt did he ever make? Has 
he shown himself to us to be a man with a leaning toward 
such attempts? Has he not revelled in his passions, feeling 
them to be just, righteous, honest, and becoming a man ? Has 
he regretted them ? Did they occasion him remorse ? Will 
any one tell me that such a one has lived with the conviction 
that he might conquer the evils of the world by controlling his 
passions? That virtue will make men happy he might proba- 
bly have granted, if asked ; but he would have conceded the 
point with a subterfuge. The commonest Christian of the day 
will say as much ; but he will say it in a different meaning 
from that intended by the philosophers, who had declared, as a 
rule of life, that virtue would suffice to make them happy. To 
be good to your neighbors will make you happy in the man- 
ner described by Cicero in the fifth book, De Finibus. Love 
those who come near you. Be good to your fellow-creatures. 
Think, when dealing with each of them, what his feelings may 
be. Melt to a woman in her sorrow. Lend a man the assist- 
ance of your shoulder. Be patient with age. Be tender with 
children. Let others drink of your cup and eat of your loaf. 
Where the wind cuts, there lend your cloak. That virtue will 
make you happy. But that is not the virtue of which he 
spoke when he laid down his doctrine. That was not the 
virtue with which Brutus was strong when he was skinning 
those poor wretches of Salamis. Such was the virtue with 
which the heart of Cicero glowed when he saw the tradesmen 
of the Cilician town come out into the market-place with their 
corn. 

Cicero begins the second book of the Tusculans by telling us 



294 LIFE OF CICERO. 

that Neoptolemus liked to do a little philosophy now and then, 
but never too much at a time. With himself the matter was 
different : " In what else is there that I can do better?" Then 
he takes the bit between his teeth and rushes away with it. 
The reader feels that he would not stop him if he could. lie 
does little, indeed, for philosophy ; but so much for literature 
that he would be a bold man who would want to have him 
otherwise employed. 
1/ He wrote three treatises, De Natura Deorum. Had he de- 
clared that he would write three treatises to show the ideas 
which different men had taken up about the gods he would 
be nearer to the truth. We have an idea of what was Cice- 
ro's real notion of that " dominans in nobis deus '" — that god 
which reigns within us — and which he declares in Scipio's 
dream to have forbidden us to commit suicide. Nothing can 
be farther removed from that idea than the ffods of which he 
tells us, either in the first book, in which the gods of Epicurus 
are set forth ; in the second, in which the Stoics are defended ; 
or the third, in which the gods, in accordance with the Acade- 
my, are maintained ; not but that, either for the one or for the 
other, the man who speaks up for that sect does not say the 
best that is to be said. Velleius is eloquent for the Epicu- 
reans, Balbus for the Stoics, and Cotta for the Academy. And 
in that which each says there is to be found a germ of truth — 
though indeed Cicero makes his Epicurean as absurd as he well 
can do. But he does not leave a trace behind of that belief in 
another man's belief which an energetic preacher is sure to cre- 
ate. The language is excellent, the stories are charming, the 
arguments as used against each other are courteous, clever, and 
such that on the spur of the moment a man cannot very well 
reply to them ; but they leave on the mind of the reader a sad 
feeling of the lack of reality. 

In the beginning he again repeats his reasons for writing on 



1 Tus. Disp., lib. i., ca. xxx. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 295 

such subjects so late in life. " Being sick with ease, and Lav- 
ing found the condition of the Republic to be such that it has 
to be ruled by one man, I have thought it good, for the sake of 
the Republic, to write about philosophy in a language that shall 
be understood by all our citizens, believing it to be a matter of 
great import to the glory of the State that things of such weight 
should be set forth in the Latin tongue ; m not that the phi- 
losophy should be set forth, but what the different teachers 
said about it. His definition of eternity — or rather the want 
of definition — is singular : " There has been from all time an 
eternity which no measurement of time can describe. Its du- 
ration cannot be understood — that there should have been a 
time before time existed." 2 Then there comes an idea of the 
Godhead, escaping from him in the midst of his philosophy, 
modern, human, and truly Ciceronian : " Lo, it comes to pass 
that this god, of whom we are sure in our minds, and of whom 
we hold the very footprints on our souls, can never appear to us." 3 
By-and-by we come to a passage in which we cannot but 
imagine that Cicero docs express something of the feeling of 
his heart, as for a moment he seems to lose his courtesy in abus- 
ing the Epicureans: "Therefore do not waste your salt, of 
which your people are much in want, in laughing at us. In- 
deed, if you will listen to me, you will not try to do so ; it 
does not become you ; it is not given to you ; you have not 
the power. I do not say this to you," he says, addressing 
Velleius, " for your manners have been polished, and you pos- 
sess the courtesy of our people ; but I am thinking of you all 
as a body, and chiefly of him who is the father of your rules — 
a man without science, without letters — one who insults all, 
without critical ability, without weight, without wit." 4 Cicero, 
I think, must have felt some genuine dislike for Epicurus when 
he spoke of him in such terms as these. 

1 De Natura Deo., lib. i., ca. iv. 2 Ibid., lib. i., ca. ix. 

8 Ibid., lib. i., ca. xiv, 4 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xxix. 



296 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Then, alas ! there is commenced a passage in which are in- 
serted many translated verses of the Greek poet Aratus. Cic- 
ero when a lad had taken in hand the Phenomena of Ara- 
tus, and here he finds a place in which can be introduced some 
of his lines. Aratus had devoted himself to the singing of 
the stars, and has produced for us many of the names with 
which we are still familiar : " The Twins ;" " The Bull ;" " The 
Great Bear;" "Cassiopeia;" "The Waterman;" "The Scor- 
pion ;" these and many others are made to come forward in 
hexameters — and by Cicero in Latin, as by Aratus in their 
Greek guise. We may suppose that the poem as translated had 
fallen dead — but here it is brought to life and is introduced into 
what is intended as at least a rationalistic account of the gods 
and their nature. Nothing less effective can be imagined than 
the repetition of uninteresting verses in such a place; for the 
reader, who has had Epicurus just handled for him, is driven to 
remember that their images are at any rate as false as the scheme 
of Epicurus, and is made to conclude that Balbus does not be- 
lieve in his own argument. It has been sometimes said of Cic- 
ero that he is too long. The lines have probably been placed 
here as a joke, though they are inserted at such a length as to 
carry the reader away altogether into another world. 

Farther on he devotes himself to anatomical research, which, 
for that as;e, shows an accurate knowledge. But what has it 
to do with the nature of the gods? "When the belly which 
is placed under the stomach becomes the receptacle of meat 
and drink, the lungs and the heart draw in the air for the 
stomach. The stomach, which is wonderfully arranged, con- 
sists chiefly of nerves. * * * The lungs are light and porous, and 
like a sponge — just fit for drawing in the breath. They blow 
themselves out and draw themselves in, so that thus may be 
easily received that sustenance most necessary to animal life." 1 

The third book is but a fragment, but it begins well with 

1 De Nat. Deo., lib. ii., ca. liv., lv. 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 297 

pleasant raillery against Epicurus. Cotta declares that he had 
felt no difficulty with Epicurus. Epicurus and his allies had 
found little to say as to the immortal gods. His gods had 
possessed arms and legs, but had not been able to move them. 
But from Balbus, the Stoic, they had heard much which, 
though not true, was nevertheless truthlike. In all these dis- 
courses it seems that the poor Epicureans are treated with but 
a moderate amount of mercy. But Cotta continues, and tells 
many stories of the gods. He is interrupted in his tale, for 
the sad hand of destruction has fallen upon the MS., and his 
arguments have come to us unfinished. " It is better," he says, 
"not to give wine to the sick at all, because you may injure 
them by the application. In the same way I do not know 
whether it would not be better to refuse that gift of reason, 
that sharpness and quickness of thought, to men in general, 
than to bestow it upon them so often to their own destruc- 
tion." 1 It is thus that is discussed the nature of the gods in 
this work of Cicero, which is indeed a discussion on the differ- 
ent schools of philosophy, each in the position which it had 
reached in his time. 

The De Natura Deorum is followed by two books, De Divi- 
natione, and by the fragment of one, De Fato. Divination is 
the science of predicting events. By " Fatum " Cicero means 
destiny, or that which has been fixed beforehand. The three 
books together may be taken as religious discourses, and his 
purport seems to have been to show that it might be the duty 
of the State to foster observances, and even to punish their 
non-observance — for the benefit of the whole — even though 
they might not be in themselves true. He is here together 
with his brother, or with those whom, like his brother, he 
may suppose to have emancipated themselves from superstition 
— and tells him or them that though they do not believe they 
should feign belief. If the augurs declare by the flight of 

1 De Nat. Deo., lib. iii., ca. xxvii. 
13* 



298 LIFE OF CICERO. 

birds that such a thing should he done, let it be done, al- 
though he who has to act in the matter has no belief in the birds. 
If they declare that a matter has been fixed by fate, let it be as 
though it were fixed, whether fixed or no. He repudiates the 
belief as unreasonable or childish, but recommends that men 
should live as though they believed. In such a theory as this, 
put thus before the reader, there will seem to be dissimulation. 
I cannot deny that it is so, though most anxious to assert the 
honesty of Cicero. I can only say that such dissimulation did 
prevail then, and that it does prevail now. If any be great 
enough to condemn the hierarchs of all the churches, he may 
do so, and may include Cicero with the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. I am not. It seems necessary to make allowance for 
the advancing intelligence of men, and unwise to place your- 
self so far ahead as to shut yourself out from that common 
pale of mankind. I distrust the self-confidence of him who 
thinks that he can deduce from one acknowledged error a 
whole scheme of falsehood. I will take our Protestant Church 
of England religion and will ask some thoughtful man his be- 
lief as to its changing doctrines, and will endeavor to do so 
without shocking the feelings of any. When did Sabbatarian 
observances begin to be required by the Word of God, and 
when again did they cease to be so? If it were worth the 
while of those who have thought about the subject to answer 
my question, the replies would be various. It has never be- 
gun ! It has never wavered ! And there would be the inter- 
mediate replies of those who acknowledge that the feeling of 
the country is altering and has altered. In the midst of this, 
how many a father of a family is there who goes to church 
for the sake of example ? Does not the Church admit prayers 
for change of weather ? Ask the clergyman on his way from 
church what he is doing with his own haystack, and his answer 
will let you know whether he believes in his own prayers. He 
has lent all the sanctity of his voice to the expression of words 
which had been written when the ignorance of men as to the 



CICERO'S PEILOSOrUY. 299 

works of nature was greater ; or written yesterday because the 
ignorance of man has demanded it. Or they who have de- 
manded it have not perhaps been ignorant themselves, but 
have thought it well to subserve the superstition of the multi- 
tude. I am not saying this as against the religious observ- 
ances of to-day, but as showing that such is still the condition 
of men as to require the defence which Cicero also required 
when he wrote as follows: "Former ages erred in much which 
we know to have been changed by practice, by doctrine, or by 
time. But the custom, the religion, the discipline, the laws 
of the augurs and the authority of the college, are retained, in 
obedience to the opinion of the people, and to the great good 
of the State. Our Consuls, Claudius and Junius, were worthy 
of all punishment when they put to sea in opposition to the 
auspices ; for men must obey religion, nor can the customs 
of our country be set aside so easily." 1 No stronger motive 
for adhering to religious observances can be put forward than 
the opinion of the people and the good of the State. There 
will be they who aver that truth is great and should be allow- 
ed to prevail. Though broken worlds should fall in disor- 
der round their heads, they would stand firm amid the ruins. 
But they who are likely to be made responsible will not cause 
worlds to be broken. 

Such, I think, was the reasoning within Cicero's mind when 
he wrote these treatises. In the first he encounters his brother 
Quintus at his Tusculan villa, and there listens to him discours- 
ing in favor of religion. Quintus is altogether on the side of 
the gods and the auspices. He is, as w r e may say, a gentleman 
of the old school, and is thoroughly conservative. In this way 
he has an opportunity given him of showing the antiquity of 
his belief. " Stare super vias antiquas," is the motto of Quin- 
tus Cicero. Then he proceeds to show the two kinds of divina- 
tion which have been in use. There is the one which he calls 

1 De Divinatione, lib. ii.,ca. xxxiii. 



300 LIFE OF CICERO. 

" Ars," and which we perhaps may call experience. The sooth- 
sayer predicts in accordance with his knowledge of what has 
gone before. He is asked to say, for instance, whether a ship 
shall put to sea on a Friday. He knows — or thinks that he 
knows, or in his ignorance declares that he thinks that he 
knows — that ships that have put to sea on Friday have gener- 
ally gone to the bottom. He therefore predicts against the 
going to sea. Although the ship should put forth on the in- 
tended day, and should make a prosperous voyage, the prophet 
has not been proved to be false. That can only be done by 
showing that ships that have gone to sea on Friday have gen- 
erally been subject to no greater danger than others — a process 
which requires the close observations of science to make good. 
That is Art. Then there is the prediction which comes from 
a mind disturbed — one who dreams, let us say, or prophesies 
when in a fit — as the Sibyl, or Epimenides of Crete, who lived 
one hundred and fifty-seven years, but slept during sixty-four 
of them. Quintus explains as to these that the god does not 
desire mankind to understand them, but only to use them. 1 

He tells us many amusing details as to prophetic dreams 
and the doings of soothsayers and wise men. The book so 
becomes chatty and full of anecdotes, and interspersed with 
many pieces of poetry — some by others and some by Cicero. 
Here are given those lines as to the battle of the eagle and the 
dragon which I have ventured to call the best amid the nine 
versions brought forward. 2 

We cannot but sympathize with him in the reason which 
he prefixes to the second book of this treatise : " I often ask 
myself and turn in my mind how best I may serve the largest 
number of my fellow-citizens, lest there should come a time 
in which I should seem to have ceased to be anxious for the 
State ; and nothing better has occurred to me than that I 
should make known the way of studying the best arts — which 

1 De Divinatione, lib. i., ca. xviii. 2 Ibid., lib. i., ca. dviL 



CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 301 

indeed I think I have now done in various books." 1 Then he 
recapitulates them. There is the opening work on philosophy 
which he had dedicated to Hortensius, now lost. Then in the 
four books of the Academics he had put forward his ideas as 
to that school which he believed to be the least arrogant and 
the truest — meaning the new Academy. After that, as he had 
felt all philosophy to be based on the search after good and 
evil, he had examined that matter. The Tusculan Inquiries 
had followed, in which he had set forth, in five books, the five 
great rules of living well. Having finished this, he had writ- 
ten his three books on the nature of the gods, and was now in 
the act of completing it, and would complete it, by his present 
inquiries. We cannot but sympathize with him because we 
know that, though he was not quite in earnest in all this, he 
was as near it as a man can be who teaches that which he does 
not quite believe himself. Brutus believed it, and Cato, and 
that Velleius, and that Balbus, and that Cotta. Or if per- 
chance any of them did not, they lived, and talked, and read, 
and were as erudite about it, as though they did. The exam- 
ple was good, and the precepts were the best to be had. 
Amid it all he chose the best doctrine, and he was undoubt- 
edly doing good to his countrymen in thus representing to 
them in their native language the learning by which they 
might best be softened. 

" Gracia capta ferum victorera cepit, et artes, 
Intulit agresti Latio." 2 

Here, too, he explains his own conduct, in a beautiful passage. 
" My fellow-citizens," says he, " will pardon me, or perhaps will 
rather thank me, for that when the Republic fell into the pow- 

1 De Divinationc, lib. ii., ca. i. 

2 Horace, Ep., lib. ii., ca. i. : 

"Greece, conquered Greece, her conqueror subdued, 
And Rome grew polished who till then was rude." 

Coxington's Translation. 



302 LIFE OF CICERO. 

er of one man I neither hid myself nor did I desert them ; nor 
did I idly weep, or carry myself as though angry with the man 
or with the times ; nor yet, forsooth, so flattering the good fort- 
une of another, that I should have to be ashamed of what I had 
done myself. For I had learned this lesson from the philoso- 
phy of Plato — that there are certain changes in public affairs. 
They will be governed now by the leaders of the State, then by 
the people, sometimes by a single man." 1 This is very wise, 
but he goes to work and altogether destroys his brother's argu- 
ment. He knows that he is preaching only to a few — in such 
a manner as to make his preaching safe. His language is very 
pleasing, always civil, always courteous ; but not the less does 
he turn the arguments of his brother into ridicule. And we feel 
that he is not so much laughing: at his brother as at the sods 
themselves — they are so clearly wooden gods — though he is 
aware how necessary it is for the good of the State that they 
shall be received. He declares that, in accordance with the the- 
ory of his brother — meaning thereby the Stoics — " it is neces- 
sary that they, the gods, should spy into every cottage along the 
road, so that they may look after the affairs of men. 2 It is play- 
ful, argumentative, and satirical. At last he proposes to leave 
the subject. Socrates would also do so, never asking for the 
adhesion of any one, but leaving the full purport of his words 
to sink into the minds of his audience. Quintus says that he 
quite agrees to this, and so the discourse De Divinatione is 
brought to an end. 

Of his book on fate we have only a fragment, or the middle 
part of it. It is the desire of Cicero to show that, in the se- 
quence of affairs which men call Life, it matters little whether 
there be a Destiny or not. Things will run on, and will be 
changed, or apparently be changed, by the action of men. What 
is it to us whether this or that event has been decreed while we 
live, and while each follows his own devices ? All this, however, 

1 De Divinatione, lib. ii., ca. ii. 2 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. li. 









CICERO'S PHILOSOPHY. 303 

is a little tedious, taken at the end of so long a course of phi- 
losophy ; and we rise at last from the perusal with a feeling of 
thankfulness that all these books of Chrysippus of which he 
tells us, are not still existent to be investigated. 

Such is the end of those works which I admit to have been 
philosophical, and of which it seems he understood that they 
were the work of about eighteen months. They were all writ- 
ten after Caesar's triumph — when it was no longer in the pow- 
er of any lioman to declare his opinion either in the Senate or 
in the Forum. Caesar had put down all opposition, and was 
made supreme over everything — till his death. The De Fato 
was written, indeed, after he had fallen, but before things had so 
far shaped themselves as to make it necessary that Cicero should 
return to public life. So, indeed, were the three last moral es- 
says, which I shall notice in the next chapter ; but in truth he 
had them always in his heart. It was only necessary that he 
should send them forth to scribes, leaving either to himself or 
to some faithful Tiro the subsequent duty of rearrangement. 
But what a head there was there to contain it all ! 



304 LIFE OF CICERO. 



Chapter XIII. 

CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 

We have now to deal with the moral essays of this almost 
inexhaustible contributor to the world's literature, and we shall 
then have named perhaps a quarter of all that he wrote. I 
have seen somewhere a calculation that only a tenth of his 
works remain to us, dug out, as it were, from the buried ruins 
of literature by the care of sedulous and eager scholars. I make 
a more modest estimate of his powers. Judging from what we 
know to have been lost, and from the absence of any effort to 
keep the greater portion of his letters, I think that I do not 
exaggerate his writing. Who can say but that as time goes on 
some future Petrarch or some future Mai may discover writings 
hitherto unknown, concealed in convent boxes, or more myste- 
riously hidden beneath the labors of Middle-Age monks? It 
was but in 1S22 that the De Republica was brought to light — so 
much of it at least as we still possess; and for more than thir- 
ty years afterward Cardinal Mai continued to reproduce, from 
time to time, collections of Greek and Latin writings hitherto 
unheard of by classical readers. Let us hope, however, that the 
zeal of the learned may stop short of that displayed by Simon 
Du Bos, or we may have whole treatises of Cicero of which he 
himself was guiltless. 1 

1 The story of Simon Du Bos and his MS. has been first told to me 
by Mr. Tyrell in his first volume of the Correspondence of Cicero, p. 88. 
That a man should have been such a scholar, and yet such a liar, and should 
have gone to his long account content with the feeling that he had cheated 
the world by a fictitious MS., when his erudition, if declared, would have given 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 305 

I can hardly content myself with classifying the De Repub- 
lica and the De Legibns under the same name with these essays 
of Cicero, which are undoubtedly moral in their nature. But 
it may pass, perhaps, without that distinct contradiction which 
had to be made as to the enveloping the De Officiis in the 
garb of philosophy. It has been the combining of the true 
and false in one set, and handing them down to the world as 
Cicero's philosophy, which has done the mischief. The works 
reviewed in the last chapter contained disputations on the 
Greek philosophy which Cicero thought might be well handled 
in the Latin language for the benefit of his countrymen. It 
would be well for them to know what Epicurus taught, or 
Zeno, and how they differed from Socrates and Plato, and this 
he told them. Now in these moral essays he gives them his 
own philosophy — if that may be called philosophy which is 
intended to teach men how to live well. There are six books 
on government, called the De Republica, and three on law ; and 
there are the three treatises on old age and friendship, each in 
one book, and that on the duty of man to man, in three. 

There is a common error in the world as to the meaning of 
the word republic. It has come to have a sweet savor in the 
nostrils of men, or a most evil scent, according to their politics. 
But there is, in truth, the Republic of Russia, as there is that 
of the United States, and that of England. Cicero, in usino* 
it as the name of his work, simply means "the government;" 
and the treatise under that head contains an account of the 
Roman Empire, and is historical rather than argumentative 
and scientific. He himself was an oligarch, and had been 
brought up amid a condition of things in which that most 
deleterious form of government recommended itself to him as 
containing all that had been good and magnificent in the Ro- 
man Empire. The great men of Rome, whom the empire had 

him a scholar's fame, is marvellous. Perhaps he intended to be discov- 
ered. I, for one, should not have heard of Bosius but for his lie. 



306 LIFE OF CICERO. 

demanded for its construction, had come up each for the work 
of a year ; and, when succeeding, had perhaps been elected 
for a second. By the expulsion of their kings, the class from 
whom these men had been chosen showed their personal de- 
sire for honor, and the marvel is that through so many centu- 
ries those oligarchs should have flourished. The reader, unless 
he be strongly impregnated with democratic feelings, when he 
begins to read Roman history finds himself wedded to the 
cause of these oligarchs. They have done the big deeds, and 
the opposition comes to them from vulgar hands. Let me ask 
any man who remembers the reading of his Livy whether it 
was not so with him. But it was in truth the democratic ele- 
ment opposed to these leaders, and the battles they won from 
time to time within the walls of the city, which produced the 
safety of Rome and enabled the government to go on. Then 
by degrees the people became enervated and the leaders be- 
came corrupt, and by masterhood over foreign people and ex- 
ternal subjects slaves were multiplied, and the work appertain- 
ing to every man could be done by another man's hand. Then 
the evils of oligarchy began. Plunder, rapine, and luxury took 
the place of duty performed. A Verres ruled where a Marcel- 
lus had conquered. Cicero, who saw the difference plainly 
enough in regard to the individuals, did not perceive that this 
evil had grown according to its nature. That state of affairs 
was produced which Mommsen has described to us as having 
been without remedy. But Cicero did not see it. He had 
his eyes on the greatness of the past — and on himself — and 
would not awake to the fact that the glory was gone from 
Rome. He was in this state of mind when he wrote his De 
Republica, nine years before the time in which he commenced 
his philosophical discussions. Then he still hoped. Caesar was 
away in Gaul, and Pompey maintained at Rome the ghost of the 
old Republic. He could still open his mouth and talk boldly 
of freedom. He had not been as yet driven to find consolation 
amid that play of words which constitutes the Greek philosophy. 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 307 

I must remind the readers again that the De Republics is a 
fragment : the first part is wanting. We find him telling us 
the story of the elder Cato, in order that we may understand 
how good it is that we should not relax in our public work as 
long as our health will sustain us. Then he gives instances 
to show that the truly good citizen will not be deterred by 
the example of men who have suffered for their country, and 
among the number he names himself. But he soon introduces 
the form of dialogue which he afterward continues, and brings 
especially the younger Scipio and Laelius upon the scene. The 
lessons which are given to us are supposed to come from the 
virtue of the titular grandson of the greater Scipio who out- 
manoeuvred Hannibal. He continues to tell story after story 
i out of the Roman chronicles, and at last assures us that that 
form of government is the best in which the monarchical ele- 
ment is tempered by the authority of the leading citizens, and 
kept alive by the voices of the people. Is it only because I 
am an Englishman that he seems to me to describe that form 
of government which was to come in England ? 

The second book also begins with the praises of Cato. 
Scipio then commences with Romulus, and tells the history 
of Rome's kings. Tarquin is banished, and the Consulate es- 
tablished. He tells lis, by no means with approbation, how 
the Tribunate was established, and then, alas ! there comes a 
break in the MS. 

In the third we have, as a beginning, a fragment handed 
down to us by Augustine, in which Cicero complains of the in- 
justice of Nature in having sent man into the world, as might 
a step -mother, naked, weak, infirm, with soul anxious, timid, 
and without force, but still having within it something of di- 
vine fire not wholly destroyed. Then, after a while, through 
many " lacunas," Scipio, Laslius, and one Philus fall into a dis- 
course as to justice. There is a remarkable passage, from 
which we learn that the Romans practised protection with a 
rigor exceeding that of modern nations. They would not even 



308 LIFE OF CICERO. 

permit their transalpine allies to plant their olives and vine- 
yards, lest their produce should make their way across Italy — 
whereby they raised the prices against themselves terribly of 
oil and wine. 1 " There is a kind of slavery which is unjust," 
says one, " when those men have to serve others who might 
' properly belong to themselves.' But when they only are 
made to be slaves who — " We may perceive that the speaker 
went on to say that they who were born slaves might properly 
be kept in that position. But it is evidently intended to be 
understood that there exists a class who are slaves by right. 
Carneades, the later master of the new Academy, has now 
joined them, and teaches a doctrine which would not make 
him popular in this country. " If you should know," he says, 
" that an adder lay hid just where one were about to sit down 
whose death would be a benefit to you, you would do wrong 
unless you were to tell him of it. But you would do it with 
impunity, as no one could prove that you knew it." From 
this may be seen the nature of the discourses on justice. 

The next two books are but broken fragments, treating of 
morals and manners. In the sixth we come to that dream of 
Scipio which has become so famous in the world of literature 
that I do not know whether I can do better than translate it, 
and add it on as an appendix to the end of my volume. It is 
in itself so beautiful in parts that I think that all readers will 
thank me. (See appendix to this chapter). At the same time 
it has to be admitted that it is in parts fantastic, and might al- 
most be called childish, were it not that we remember, when 
reading it, at what distance of time it was written, and with 
what difficulty Cicero strove to master subjects which science 
has made familiar to us. The music of the spheres must have 
been heard in his imagination before he could have told us of 

1 De Republica, lib. iii. It is useless to give the references here. It is 
all fragmentary, and has been divided differently as new information has 
been obtained. 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 309 

it, as lie has done in language which seems to he poetic now 
as it was then — and because poetic, therefore not absurd. The 
length of the year's period is an extravagance. You may call 
your space of time by what name you will ; it is long or short 
in proportion to man's life. He tells us that we may not hope 
that our fame shall be heard of on the other side of the 
Ganges, or that our voices shall come down through many 
years. I myself read this dream of Scipio in a volume found 
in Australia, and read it two thousand years after it was writ- 
ten. He could judge of this world's future only by the past. 
But when he tells us of the soul's immortality, and of the 
heaven to be won by a life of virtue, of the duty upon us to 
remain here where God has placed us, and of the insufficiency 
of fame to fill the cravings of the human heart, then we have 
to own that we have come very near to that divine teaching 
which he was not permitted to hear. 

Two years afterward, about the time that Milo was hilling 
Clodius, he wrote his treatise in three books, De Legibus. It 
is, we are told, a copy from Plato. As is the Topica a copy 
from Aristotle, written on board ship from memory, so may 
this be called a copy. The idea was given to him, and many 
of the thoughts which he has worked up in his own manner. 
It is a dialogue between him and Atticus and his brother 
Quintus, and treats rather of the nature and origin of law, and 
how law should be made to prevail, than of laws as they had 
been as yet constructed for the governance of man. All that 
is said in the first book may be found scattered through his 
philosophic treatises. There are some pretty morsels, as when 
Atticus tells us that he will for the nonce allow Cicero's argu- 
ments to pass, because the music of the birds and the waters 
will prevent his fellow-Epicureans from hearing and being led 
away by mistaken doctrine. 1 Now and again he enunciates a 
great doctrine, as when he declares that " there is nothing bet- 

1 De Legibus, lib. i., ca. vii. 



310 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ter than that men should understand that they are born to be 
just, and that justice is not a matter of opinion, but is inherent 
in nature." 1 He constantly opposes the idea of pleasure, re- 
curring to the doctrine of his Greek philosophy. It was not 
by them, however, that he had learned to feel that a man's final 
duty here on earth is his duty to other men. 

In the second book he inculcates the observance of religious 
ceremonies in direct opposition to that which he afterward tells 
us in his treatise De Divinatione. But in this, De Legibus, we 
may presume that he intends to give instructions for the guid- 
ance of the public, whereas in the other he is communicating 
to a few chosen friends those esoteric doctrines which it would 
be dangerous to give to the world at large. There is a charm- 
ing passage, in which we are told not to devote the rich things 
of the earth to the gods. Gold and silver will create impure 
desire. Ivory, taken from the body of an animal, is a gift not 
simple enough for a god. Metals, such as iron, are for war 
rather than for worship. An image, if it is to be used, let it 
be made of one bit of wood, or one block of stone. If cloth 
is given, let it not be more than a woman can make in a month. 
Let there be no bright colors. "White is best for the gods; 
and so on.' 2 Here we have the wisdom of Plato, or of those 
from whom Plato had borrowed it, teaching us a lesson against 
which subsequent ages have rebelled. It is not only that a 
god cannot want our gold and silver, but that a man does want 
them. That rule as to the woman's morsel of cloth was given 
in some old assembly, lest her husband or her brother should 
lose the advantage of her labor. It was seen what superstition 
would do in collecting the wealth of the world round the 
shrines of the gods. How many a man has since learned to 
regret the lost labor of his household ; and yet what god has 
been the better ? There may be a question of aesthetics, indeed, 
with which Cicero does not meddle. 

1 De Legibus, lib. i., ca. x. 2 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xviii. 



CICERO >S MORAL ESSA YS. 311 

In the third book he descends to practical and at the same 
time political questions. There had been no matter contested 
so vehemently among- Romans as that of the establishment and 
maintenance of the Tribunate. Cicero defends its utility, giving:, 
with considerable wit, the task of attacking it to his brother 
Quintus. Quintus, indeed, is very violent in his onslaught. 
"What can be more " pestiferous," or more prone to sedition ? 
Then Cicero puts him down. " O Quintus," he says, "you see 
clearly the vices of the Tribunate ! but can there be anything 
more unjust than, in discussing a matter, to remember all its 
evils and to forget all its merits ? You might say the same 
of the Consuls ; for the very possession of power is an evil in 
itself. But without that evil you cannot have the good which 
the institution contains. The power of the Tribunes is too 
great, you say. "Who denies it ? But the violence of the peo- 
ple, always cruel and immodest, is less so under their own lead- 
er than if no leader had been given them. The leader will 
measure his danger ; but the people itself know no such meas- 
urement." 1 lie afterward takes up the question of the ballot, 
and is against it on principle. " Let the people vote as they 
will," he says, " but let their votes be known to their betters." 2 
It is, alas, useless now to discuss the matter here in England ! 
We have been so impetuous in our wish to avoid the evil of 
bribery — which was quickly going — that we have rushed into 
that of dissimulation, which can only be made to go by revolu- 
tionary changes. When men vote by tens of thousands the 
ballot will be safe, but no man will then care for the ballot. 
It is, however, strange to see how familiar men were under the 
Roman Empire with matters which are perplexing us to-day. 

We now come to the three purely moral essays, the last 
written of his works, except the Philippics and certain of his 
letters, and the Topica. Indeed, when you reach the last year 
or two of his life, it becomes difficult to assign their exact 

1 De Legibus, lib. iii., ca. ix., x. 2 Ibid., lib. iii., xvii. 



312 LIFE OF CICERO. 

places to each. He mentions one as written, and then another ; 
but at last this latter appears before the former. They were 
all composed in the same year, the year before his death — the 
most active year of his life, as far as his written works are 
concerned — and I shall here treat De Senectute first, then De 
Amicitia, and the De Officiis last, believing them to have been 
published in that order. 

The De Senectute is an essay written in defence of old 
age, generally called Cato Major. It is supposed to have been 
spoken by the old Censor, 149 B.C., and to have been listened 
to by Scipio and Lailius. This was the same Scipio who had 
the dream — who, in truth, was not a Scipio at all, but a son of 
Paulus iEmilius, whom we remember in history as the younger 
Africanus. Cato rushes at once into his subject, and proves to 
us his point by insisting on all those commonplace arguments 
which were probably as well known before his time as they 
have been since. All men wish for old age, but none rejoice 
when it has come. The answer is that no man really wishes 
for old age, but simply wishes for a long life, of which old age 
is the necessary ending. It creeps on us so quickly ! But in 
truth it does not creep quicker on youth than does youth on 
infancy ; but the years seem to fly fast because not marked by 
distinct changes. It is the part of a wise man to see that each 
portion of his five-act poem shall be well performed. Cato 
goes on with his lesson, and tells us perhaps all that could be 
said on behalf of old age at that period of the world's history. 
It was written by an old man to an old man ; for it is address- 
ed to Atticus, who was now sixty-seven, and of course deals 
much in commonplaces. But it is full of noble thoughts, and 
is pleasant, and told in the easiest language ; and it leaves upon 
the reader a sweet savor of the dignity of age. Let the old 
man feel that it is not for him to attempt the pranks of youth, 
and he "will already have saved himself from much of the evil 
which Time can do to him. I am ready for you, and you can- 
not hurt me. " Let not the old man assume the strength of 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 313 

the young, as a young man does not that of the ball or the 
elephant. * * * But still there is something to be regretted by 
an orator, for to talk well requires not only intellect but all the 
powers of the body. The melodious voice, however, remains, 
which — and you see my years — I have not yet lost. The 
voice of an old man should always be tranquil and contained." 1 
He tells a story of Massinissa, who was then supposed to be 
ninety. He was stiff in his joints, and therefore when he 
went a journey had himself put upon a horse, and never left 
it, or started on foot and never mounted. 2 " We must resist 
old age, my Lselius. We must compensate our shortness by 
our diligence, my Scipio. As we fight against disease, so let us 
contend with old age. 3 * * * Why age should be avaricious I 
could never tell. Can there be anything more absurd than to 
demand so great a preparation for so small a journey ?" 4 He 
tells them that he knew their fathers, and that " he believes 
they are still alive — that, though they have gone from this 
earth, they are still leading that life which can only be con- 
sidered worthy of the name." 5 

The De Amicitia is called Lselius. It is put into the mouth 
of Loelius, and is supposed to be a discourse on friendship held 
by him in the presence of his two sons-in-law, Caius Fannius 
and Mutius Scaevola, a few days after the death of Scipio his 
friend. Not Damon and Pythias were more renowned for 
their friendship than Scipio and Lailius. He discusses what 
is friendship, and why it is contracted ; among whom friend- 
ship should exist; what should be its laws and duties; and, 
lastly, by what means it should be preserved. 

Cicero begins by telling the story of his own youth ; how 
he had been placed under the charge of Screvola the augur, 
and how, having changed his toga, he never left the old man's 
side till he died ; and he recalls how once, sitting with him in 

1 De Senectute, ca. ix. 2 Ibid., ca. x. 3 Ibid., ca. xi. 

4 Ibid., ca. xviii. 6 Ibid. ca. xxi. 

II— 14 



314 LIFE OF CICERO. 

a circle with, friends, Scsevola fell into that mode of conversa- 
tion which was usual with him, and told him how once Laelius 
had discoursed to them on friendship. It is from first to last 
fresh and green and cooling, as is the freshness of the early 
summer grass to men who live in cities. The reader feels, as 
he goes on with it, that he who had such thoughts and aspira- 
tions could never have been altogether unhappy. Coming at 
the end of his life, in the telling the stories of which we have 
had to depend so much on his letters to Atticus, it reminds 
me of the love that existed between them. lie has sometimes 
been querulous with his Atticus. He has complained of bad 
advice, of deficient care, of halting friendship — in reading 
which accusations we have, all of us, declared him to be wrong. 
But Atticus understood him. He knew that the privileges and 
the burden must go together, and told himself how much more 
than sufficient were the privileges to compensate the burden. 
"When we make our histories on the bases of such loving let- 
ters, we should surely open them with careful hands, and deal 
with them in sympathy with their spirit. In writing this 
treatise De Amicitia especially for the eyes of Atticus, how 
constantly the heart must have gone back to all that had pass- 
ed between them — how confident he must have been of the 
. truth of his friend ! He who, after nearly half a century of 
friendship, could thus write to his friend on friendship cannot 
have been an unhappy man. 

" Should a new friendship spring up," he tells us, " let it not 
be repressed. You shall still gather fruit from young trees; 
but do not let it take the place of the old. Age and custom 
i/ will have given the old fruit a flavor of its own. "Who is there 
that would ride a new horse in preference to one tried — one 
who knows your hand ?" 1 

I regard the De Officiis as one of the most perfect treatises 
on morals which the world possesses, whether for the truth of 

1 De Amicitia, ca. xix. 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 315 

the lessons given, for their universality, or for the beauty and 
lightness of the language. It is on a subject generally heavy, 
but is treated with so much art and grace as to make it a de- 
light to have read it, and an important part of education to 
know it. It is addressed to his son, and is as good now as 
when it was written. There is not a precept taught in it 
which is not modern as well as ancient, and which is not fit 
alike for Christians and Pagans. A system of morality, we 
might have said, should be one which would suit all men 
alike. We are bound to acknowledge that this will- suit only 
gentlemen, because he who shall live in accordance with it must 
be worthy of that name. The " honestum " means much more 
in Latin than it does in English. Neither " honor " nor " hon- 
esty " will give the rendering — not that honor or that honesty 
which we know. Modern honor flies so high that it leaves 
honesty sometimes too nearly out of sight; while honesty, 
though a sterling virtue, ignores those sentiments on which 
honor is based. " Honestum " includes it all ; and Cicero 
has raised his lessons to such a standard as to comprise it all. 
But he so teaches that listeners delight to hear. He never 
preaches. He does not fulminate his doctrine at you, biddino- 
you beware of backslidings and of punishments; but he leads 
you with him along the grassy path, till you seem to have 
found out for yourself what is good — you and he together, 
and together to have learned that which is manlv, graceful, 
honest, and decorous. 

In Cicero's essays is to be found always a perfect withdrawal 
of himself from the circumstances of the world around him ; so 
that the reader shall be made to suppose that, in the evening 
of his life, having reached at last, by means of work done for 
the State, a time of blessed rest, he gives forth the wisdom 
of his age, surrounded by all that a tranquil world can bestow 
upon him. Look back through the treatises written during 
the last two years, and each shall appear to have been pre- 
pared in some quiet and undisturbed period of his life; but 



316 LIFE OF CICERO. 

we know that the last polish given by his own hands to these 
three books De Officiis was added amid the heat and turmoils 
of the Philippics. It is so singular, this power of adapting 
his mind to whatever pursuit he will, that we are taught al- 
most to think that there must have been two Ciceros, and that 
the one was eager in personal conflict with Antony, while the 
other was seated in the garden of some Italian villa meditating 
words by obeying which all men might be ennobled. 

In the dialectical disputations of the Greek philosophers he 
had picked up a mode of dividing his subject into numbers 
which is hardly fitted for a discourse so free and open as is 
this. We are therefore somewhat offended when we are told 
that virtue is generally divided "into three headings." 1 If it 
be so, and if it be necessary that we should know it, it should, 
1 think, be conveyed to us without this attempt at logical com- 
pleteness. It is impossible to call this a fault. Accuracy must, 
indeed, be in all writers a virtue. But feeling myself to be oc- 
casionally wounded by this numbering, I mention it. In the 
De Officiis he divides the entire matter into three parts, and to 
each part he devotes a book. In the first he considers wheth- 
er a thing is fit to be done or left undone — that is, whether it 
be " honestum " or " turpe ;" in the second, whether it be ex- 
pedient, that is " utile," or the reverse ; and in the third he 
compares the " honestum " and the " utile," and tells us what 
to choose and what to avoid. 

The duty due by a citizen to his country takes with him a 
place somewhat higher than we accord to it. "Parents are 
dear, children are dear to us, so are relations and friends ; but 
our country embraces it all, for what good man would not 
die so that he might serve it? How detestable, then, is the 
barbarity of those who wound their country at every turn, and 
have been and are occupied in its destruction."' 2 He gives us 
some excellent advice as to our games, which might be read with 

1 De Officiis, lib. ii., ca. v. 2 Ibid., lib. i., ca. xvii. 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 317 

advantage, perhaps, by those who row in our university races. 
But at the end of it he tells us that the hunting-field affords 
an honest and fitting recreation. 1 I have said that he was mod- 
ern in his views — but not altogether modern. He defends the 
suicide of Cato. " To them," he says, speaking of Cato's com- 
panions in Africa, " it might not have been forgiven. Their 
life was softer and their manners easier. But to Cato nature 
had given an invincible gravity of manners which he had 
strengthened with all the severity of his will. lie had always 
remained steadfast in the purpose that he would never stand 
face to face with the tyrant of his country." 2 There was some- 
thing terribly grand in Cato's character, which loses nothing in 
coming to us from the lips of Cicero. So much Cicero allows to 
the stern nature of the man's character. Let us look back and 
we shall find that we make the same allowance. This is not, in 
truth, a lesson which he gives us, but an apology which he makes. 
Read his advice given in the following line for the outward 
demeanor of a gentleman: "There are two kinds of beaut}'. 
The one is loveliness, which is a woman's gift. But dignity 
belongs to the man. Let all ornament be removed from the per- 
son not worthy of a man to wear — and all fault in gesture and 
in motion which is like to it. The manners of the wrestlin<r- 
ground and of the stage are sometimes odious ; but let us see 
the actor or the wrestler walking simple and upright, and we 
praise him. Let him use a befitting neatness, not verging to- 
ward the effeminate, but just avoiding a rustic harshness. The 
same measure is to be taken with your clothes as with other 
matters in which a middle course is best." 3 

1 De Officiis, lib. i., ca. xxix : " Suppeditant autem et campus noster et stu- 
dia venandi, honesta exempla ludendi." The passage is quoted here as an 
antidote to that extracted some time since from one of his letters, which has 
been used to show that hunting was no occupation for a " polite man " — 
as he, Cicero, had disapproved of Pompey's slaughter of animals on his 
new stage. 2 Ibid., lib. i., ca. xxxi. 

3 De Officiis, lib. i., ca. xxxvi. It is impossible not to be reminded by 



318 LIFE OF CICERO. 

Then he tells his son what pursuits are to be regarded as 
sordid. " Those sources of gain are to be regarded as mean 
in the pursuit of which men are apt to be offended, as are the 
business of tax-gatherers and usurers. All those are to be re- 
garded as illiberal to which men bring their work but not their 
art." As for instance, the painter of a picture shall be held to 
follow a liberal occupation — but not so the picture-dealer. 
" They are sordid who buy from merchants that they may sell 
again : they have to lie like the mischief or they cannot make 
their living. All mere workmen are engaged in ignoble em- 
ployment : what of grandeur can the mere workshop produce ? 
Least of all can those trades be said to be good which admin- 
ister only to our pleasures — such as fish-mongers, butchers, 
cooks, and poulterers." 1 He adds at the end of his list that 
of all employment none is better than agriculture, or more 
worthy of the care of a freeman. In all of this it is necessary 
that we should receive what he says with some little allowance 
for the difference in time ; but there is nothing, if we look 
closely into it, in which we cannot see the source of noble ideas, 

this passage of Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, written with the same 
object : but we can see at once that the Roman desired in his son a much 
higher type of bearing than the Englishman. The following is the advice 
given by the Englishman : "A thousand little things, not separately to be 
defined, conspire to form these graces— this ' je ne sais quoi' that always 
pleases. A pretty person ; genteel motions ; a proper degree of dress ; an 
harmonious voice ; something open and cheerful in the countenance, but 
without laughing; a distinct and properly raised manner of speaking— all 
these things and many others are necessary ingredients in the composition 
of the pleasing 'je ne sais quoi' which everybody feels, though nobody 
can describe. Observe carefully, then, what displeases or pleases you in 
others, and be persuaded that, in general, the same thing will please or dis- 
please them in you. Having mentioned laughing, I must particularly warn 
you against it ; and I could wish that you may often be seen to smile, but 
never heard to laugh, while you live.' I feel sure that Cicero would laugh, 
and was heard to laugh, and yet that he was always true to the manners 
of a gentleman. 

1 De Officiis, lib. i., ca. xlii. 



CICERO'S MORAL ESSAYS. 319 

and the reason for many notions -which arc now departing from 
ns — whether for good or evil who shall say ? 

In the beginning of the second book he apologizes for his 
love of philosophy, as he calls it, saying that he knew how 
it had been misliked among those round him. " But when the 
Republic," he says, " had ceased to be — that Republic which 
had been all my care — my employment ceased both in the Fo- 
rum and the Senate. But when my mind absolutely refused 
to be inactive, I thought that I might best live down the misery 
of the time if I devoted myself to philosophy." 1 From tins we 
may see how his mind had worked when the old occupation of 
his life was gone. " Nihil agere autem quum animus non pos- 
set !" How piteous was his position, and yet how proud ! There 
was nothing; for him to do — but there was nothing because hith- 
erto there had been so much that he had always done. 

lie tells his son plainly how an honest man must live. To 
be ashamed of nothing, he must do nothing of which he will 
be ashamed. But for him there is this difficulty : " If any 
one on his entrance into the world has had laid upon him 
the greatness of a name won by his father, let us say — as, my 
Cicero, has perhaps happened to you — the eyes of all men will 
be cast upon him, and inquiry will be made as to his mode of 
life. He will be so placed under the meridian sun that no 
word spoken or deed done by him shall be hidden. 2 * * * 
lie must live up to the glory to which he has been born." He 
gives to his son much advice about the bar. " But the great- 
est praise," he says, " comes from defending a man accused ; 
and especially so when you shall assist one who is surrounded 
and ill-treated by the power of some great man. This hap- 
pened to me more than once in my youth, when, for instance, 
I defended Roscius Amerinus against Sulla's power. The 
speech is with us extant still." 3 He tells us much as to the 
possession of money, and the means of insuring it in a well- 

1 De Officiis, lib. ii., 1. 2 Ibid, lib. ii., ca. xiii. 3 Ibid., lib. ii., ca. xiv. 



320 LIFE OF CICERO. 

governed state. "Take care that you allow no debts to the 
injury of the Republic. You must guard against this at all 
hazards — but never by taking from the rich and giving it to 
the poor. Nothing is so requisite to the State as public cred- 
it — which cannot exist unless debtors be made to pay what 
they owe. There was nothing to which I looked more care- 
fully than this when I was Consul. Horse and foot, they tried 
their best ; but I opposed them, and freed the Republic from 
the threatened evil. Never were debts more easily or more 
quickly collected. When men knew that they could not ig- 
nore their creditors, then they paid. But he who was then 
the conquered is the conqueror now. He has effected what 
he contemplated — even though it be not now necessary for 
him." 1 From this passage it seems that these books must have 
been first written before Caesar's death. Coesar, at the time of 
Catiline's conspiracy, had endeavored to annul all debts — that 
is, to establish "new tables" according to the Roman idiom — 
but had failed by Cicero's efforts. He had since affected it, 
although he might have held his power without seeking for 
the assistance of such debtors. Who could that be but Coe- 
sar? In the beginning of the third book there is another pas- 
sage declaring the same thing: "I have not strength enough 
for silent solitude, and therefore give myself up to my pen. 
In the short time since the Republic has been overturned I 
have written more than in all my former years." 2 That, again, 
he could not have written after Coesar had fallen. We are left, 
indeed, to judge, from the whole nature of the discourse, that 
it was written at the period in which the wrongs done by Cne- 
sar to Rome — wrongs at any rate as they appeared to Cicero — 
were just culminating in that regal pride of action which led 
to his slaughter. It was written then, but was published a 
few months afterward. 

1 De Officiis lib. ii., ca. xxiv. 2 Ibid., lib. iii., ca. i. 



CICERO'S RELIGION. 321 



Chapter XIV. 
CICERO'S RELIGION. 

I should hardly have thought it necessary to devote a chap- 
ter of rny book to the religion of a pagan, had I not, while 
studying Cicero's life, found that I was not dealing with a pa- 
gan's mind. The mind of the Roman who so lived as to cause 
his life to be written in after-times was at this period, in most 
instances, nearly a blank as to any ideas of a God. Horace is 
one who in his writing speaks much of himself. Ovid does so 
still more constantly. They are both full of allusions to " the 
gods." They are both aware that it is a good thing to speak 
with respect of the national worship, and that the orders of the 
Emperor will be best obeyed by believers. "Dis te minorem 
quod geris, imperas," says Horace, when, in obedience probably 
to Augustus, he tells his fellow-citizens that they are forgetting 
their duties in their unwillingness to pay for the repairs of the 
temples. " Superi, quorum sumus omnia," says Ovid, thinking 
it well to show in one of his writings, which he sent home 
from his banishment, that he still entertained the fashionable 
creed. But they did not believe. It was at that time the 
fashion to pretend a light belief, in order that those below 
might live as though they believed, and might induce an abso- 
lute belief in the women and the children. It was not well 
that the temple of the gods should fall into ruins. It was 
not well that the augurs, who were gentlemen of high family, 
should go for nothing. Caesar himself was the high -priest, 
and thought much of the position, but he certainly was bound 
by no priestcraft. A religious belief was not expected from a 

14* 



322 LIFE OF CICERO. 

gentleman. Religious ceremonies bad gradually sunk so low 
in the world's esteem that the Roman nobility bad come to 
think of their gods as things to swear by, or things to amuse 
them, or things from which, if times were bad with them, some 
doubtful assistance might perchance come. In dealing Avith 
ordinary pagans of those days religion may be laid altogether 
on one side. I remember no passage in Livy or Tacitus indi- 
cating a religious belief. 

But with Cicero my mind is full of such ; and they are of 
a nature to mate me feel that had he lived a hundred years 
later I should have suspected him of some hidden knowledge 
of Christ's teachings. M. Renan has reminded us of Cicero's 
dislike to the Jews. He could not learn from the Jews — 
though the Jew, indeed, had much that he could teach him. 
The religion which he required was far from the selfishness of 
either Jew or Roman. He believed in eternity, in the immor- 
tality of the soul, iu virtue for the sake of its reward hereaf- 
ter, in the omnipotence of God, the performance of his duty to 
his neighbors, in conscience, and in honesty. " Certum esse 
in cselo defmitum locum, ubi beati sevo sempiterno fruantur." 1 
" There is certainly a place in heaven where the blessed shall 
enjoy eternal life." Can St. Paul have expressed with more 
clearness his belief as to a heaven ? Earlier in his career he 
expresses in language less definite, but still sufficiently clear, 
his ideas as to another world : " An vero tam parvi animi 
videamur esse omnes, qui in republica, atque in his vitae pe- 
riculis laboribusque versamur, ut, quum, usque ad extremum 
spatium, nullum tranquillum atque otiosum spiritum duxeri- 
mus, vobiscum simul moritura omnia arbitremur f " Are we 
all of us so poor in spirit as to think that after toiling for our 
country and ourselves — though we have not had one moment 



1 De Republica, lib. vi. It is useless to give the chapters, as the treat- 
ise, being fragmentary, is differently divided in different editions. 

2 Ad Archiara, ca. xii. 



CICERO'S RELIGION. 323 

of ease here upon earth — when we die all things shall die with 
us?" And when he did go it should be to that glory for 
which virtue shall have trained him. " Neque te sermonibus 
vulgi dederis, nee in prsemis humanis spem posueris rerum 
tuarum ; suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum 
decus." 1 " You shall put your hope neither in man's opinion 
nor in human rewards ; but Virtue itself by her own charms 
shall lead you the way to true glory." He thus tells us his 
idea of God's omnipotence : " Quam vim animum esse dicunt 
mundi, eamdemque esse mentem sapientiamque perfectam ; 
quem Deum appellant," 2 "This force they call the soul of 
the world, and, looking on it as perfect in intelligence and wis- 
dom, they name it their God." And again he says, speak- 
ing of God's care, " Quis enim potest — quam existimet a deo 
se curari — non et dies, et noctes divinum nuraen horrere?" 3 
" Who is there, when he thinks that a God is taking care of 
him, shall not live day and night in awe of his divine majesty?" 
As to man's duty to his neighbor, a subject as to which Pa- 
gans before and even after the time of Cicero seem to have 
had but vague ideas, the treatise De Officiis is full of it, as in- 
deed is the whole course of his life. " Omne officium, quod ad 
conjunctionem hominum et ad societatan tuendam valet, ante- 
ponendum est illi officio, quod cognitione et scientia contine- 
tur." 4 " All duty which tends to protect the society of man 
with men is to be preferred to that of which science is the 
simple object." His belief in a conscience is shown in the 
law he lays down against suicide: " Vetat enim dominans ille 
in nobis deus, injussu hinc nos suo demigrare." 5 "That God 
within us forbids us to depart hence without his permission." 
As to justice, I need give no quotation from his works as proof 
of that virtue which all his works have been written to uphold. 

1 De Republica, lib. vi. 2 Academica, 2, lib. i., ca. vii. 

3 Academica, 1, lib. ii., ca. xxxviii. * De Officiis, lib. i., ca. xliv. 

6 Tusc. Disputationes, lib. i., ca. xxx. 



321 LIFE OF CICERO. 

This pagan had his ideas of God's governance of men, and 
of man's required obedience to his God, so specially implanted 
in his heart, that he who undertakes to write his life should 
not pass it by unnoticed. To us our religion has come as a 
thing to believe, though taking too often the form of a stern 
duty. We have had it from our fathers and our mothers ; 
and though it has been given to us by perhaps indifferent 
hands, still it has been given. It has been there with all its 
written laws, a thing to live by — if we choose. Rich and 
poor, the majority of us know at any rate the Lord's Prayer, 
and most of us have repeated it regularly during our lives. 
There are not many of us who have not learned that they are 
deterred by something beyond the law from stealing, from 
murder, from committing adultery. All Rome and all Ro- 
mans knew nothing of any such obligation, unless it might 
be that some few, like Cicero, found it out from the recesses 
of their own souls. He found it out, certainly. " Suis te 
oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus." " Virtue 
itself by its own charms shall lead you the way to true glory." 
The words to us seem to be quite commonplace. There is 
not a curate who might not put them into a sermon. But in 
Cicero's time they were new, and hitherto untaught. There 
was the old Greek philosopher's idea that the to koXov — the 
thing of beauty — was to be found in virtue, and that it would 
make a man altogether happy if he got a hold of it. But 
there was no God connected with it, no future life, no prospect 
sufficient to redeem a man from the fear of death. It was 
leather and prunella, that, from first to last. The man had to 
die and go, melancholy, across the Styx.- But Cicero was the 
first to tell his brother Romans of an intelligible heaven. 
" Certum esse in ccelo definitum locum ubi beati aevo sempi- 
terno fruantur." " There is certainly a place in heaven where 
the blessed shall enjoy eternal life." And then how nearly he 
had realized that doctrine which tells us that we should do 
unto others as we would they should do unto us — the very 



CICERO'S RELIGION. 325 

pith and marrow and inside meaning of Christ's teaching, by 
adapting which Ave have become human, by neglecting which 
we revert to paganism. When we look back upon the world 
without this law, we see nothing good in it, in spite of indi- 
vidual greatness and national honor. But Cicero had found 
it — "That brotherhood between men, that agreement as to 
what may be useful to all, and that general love for the human 
race I" 1 It is all contained in these few words, but if anything 
be wanted to explain at length our duty to our neighbors it will 
be found there on reference to this passage. How different 
has been the world before that law was given to us and since ! 
Even the existence of that law, though it be not obeyed, has 
softened the hearts of men. 

If, as some think, it be the purport of Christ's religion to 
teach men to live after a godlike fashion rather than to worship 
God after a peculiar form, then may we be allowed to say that 
Cicero was almost a Christian, even before the coming of Christ. 
If, as some think, an eternity of improved existence for all is 
to be looked for by the disciples of Christ, rather than a heaven 
of glory for the few and for the many, a hell that never shall 
be mitigated, then had Cicero anticipated much of Christ's doc- 
trine. That he should have approached the mystical portion of 
our religion it would of course be absurd to suppose. But a 
belief in that mystical part is not essential for forming the con- 
duct of men. The divine birth, and the doctrine of the Trin- 
ity, and the Lord's Supper, are not necessary to teach a man to 
live with his brother men on terms of forbearance and brother- 
ly love. You shall live with a man from year's end to year's 
end, and shall not know his creed unless he tell you, or that you 
see him performing the acts of his worship ; but you cannot 
live with him, and not know whether he live in accordance with 
Christ's teaching. And so it was with Cicero. Read his works 
through from the beo-innino- to the end, and vou shall feel 

O OCT 'J 

1 De Finibus, lib. v., ca. xxiii. 



326 LIFE OF CICERO. 

that you are living with a man whom you might accompany 
across the village green to church, should he be kind enough to 
stay with you over the Sunday. The urbanity, the softness, the 
humanity, the sweetness are all there. But you shall not find 
it to be so with Csesar, or Lucretius, or with Virgil. When you 
read his philosophical treatises it is as though you were discus- 
sing with some latter-day scholar the theories of Plato or of 
Epicurus. He does not talk of them as though he believed in 
them for his soul's guidance, nor do you expect it. All the 
interest that you have in the conversation would be lost were 
you to find such faith as that. You would avoid the man, as 
a pagan. The Stoic doctrine would so shock you, when brought 
out for real wear, as to make you feel yourself in the company 
of some mad Atheist — with a man for whose welfare, early or 
late in life, church bells had never been rung. But with a man 
who has his Plato simply by heart you can spend the long sum- 
mer day in sweet conversation. So it is with Cicero. You lie 
down with him looking out upon the sea at Cumse, or sit with 
him beneath the plane-tree of Crassus, and listen while he tells 
you of this doctrine and the other. So Arcesilas may be sup- 
posed to have said, and so Carneades laid down the law. It 
was that and no more. But when he tells you of the place as- 
signed to you in heaven, and how you are to win it, then he is 
in earnest. 

We care in general but little for any teacher of religion who 
has not struggled to live up to his own teaching. Cicero has 
told us of his ideas of the Godhead, and has given us his theory 
as to those deeds by which a man may hope to achieve the 
heaven in which that God will reward with everlasting life those 
who have deserved such bliss. Love of country comes first with 
him. It behooves, at any rate, a man to be true to his country 
from first to last. And honesty and honor come next — that 
" honestum " which carries him to something beyond the mere 
integrity of the well-conducted tradesmen. Then family affec- 
tion ; then friendship ; and then that constant love for our fel- 



CICERO'S RELIGION. 327 

low-creatures -which teaches us to do unto others as we would 
they should do unto us. Running through these there are a 
dozen smaller virtues, but each so mingled with the other as to 
have failed in obtaining a separate place — dignity, manliness, 
truth, mercy, long-suffering, forgiveness, and humanity. 

Try him by these all round and see how he will come out of 
the fire. He so loved his country that we may say that he lived 
for it entirely ; that from the first moment in which he began 
to study as a boy in Rome the great profession of an advocate, 
to the last in which he gave his throat to his murderers, there 
was not a moment in which his heart did not throb for it. 

In the defence of Amerinus and in the prosecution of Verres, 
his object was to stop the proscriptions, to shame the bench, 
and to punish the plunderers of the provinces. In driving out 
Catiline the same strong feeling governed him. It was the same 
in Cilicia. The same patriotism drove him to follow Pompey 
to the seat of war. The same filled him with almost youthful 
energy when the final battle for the Republic came. It has been 
said of him that he began life as a Liberal in attacking Sulla, 
and that afterward he became a Conservative when he gained I / 
the Consulship ; that he opposed Caesar, and then flattered him, 
and then rejoiced at his death. I think that they who have 
so accused him have hardly striven to read his character amidst 
the changes of the time. A Conservative he was always ; but 
he wished to see that the things around him were worth con- 
serving. He was always opposed to Caesar, whose genius and 
whose spirit were opposed to his own. But in order that some- 
thing of the Republic might be preserved, it became necessary 
to bear with Caesar. For himself he would take nothing from 
Ca3sar, except permission to breathe Italian air. He flattered 
him, as was the Roman custom. He had to do that, or his pres- 
ence would have been impossible — and he could always do 
something by his presence. As far as love of country went, 
which among virtues stood the first with him, he was pure and 
great. There was not a moment in his career in which the feel- 



328 LIFE OF CICERO. 

ing was not in his heart — mixed indeed with personal ambition, 
as must be necessary, for how shall a man show his love for his 
country except by his desire to stand high in its counsels ? To 
be called " Pater Patriae " by Cato was to his ears the sweetest 
music he had ever heard. 

Let us compare his honesty with that of the times in which 
he lived. All the high rewards of the State were at his com- 
mand, and he might so have taken them as to have been safer, 
firmer, more powerful, by taking them ; but he took nothing. 
No gorgeous wealth from a Roman province stuck to his hands. 
"We think of our Cavendishes, our Howards, and our Stanleys, 
and feel that there is nothing in such honesty as this. But the 
Cavendishes, the Howards, and the Stanleys of those days rob- 
bed with unblushing pertinacity. Caesar robbed so much that 
he put himself above all question of honesty. "Where did he, 
who had been so greatly in deht before he went to Spain, get 
the million with which he bribed his adherents? Cicero nei- 
ther bought nor sold. Twenty little stories have been told of 
him, not one with a grain of enduring truth to justify one of 
them. He borrowed, and he always paid ; he lent, but was 
not always repaid. With such a voice to sell as his, a voice 
which carried Avith it the verdict of either guilt or innocence, 
what payments would it not have been worth the while of a 
Roman nobleman to make to him? No such payments, as far 
as we can tell, were ever made. He took a present of books 
from his friend Pcetus, and asked another friend what " Cinci- 
us" would say to it? Men struggling to find him out, and not 
understanding his little joke, have said, " Lo ! he has been paid 
for his work. He defended Pcetus, and Pcetus gave him books." 
" Did he defend Pcetus ?" you ask. " We surmise so, because 
he gave him books," they reply. I say that at any rate the 
fault should be brought home against him before it is implied 
from chance passages in his own letters. 

Cicero's affection for his family gives us an entirely unfamil- 
iar insight into Roman manners. There is a softness, a ten- 



CICERO'S RELIGION. 329 

derness, an eagerness about it, such as would give a grace to 
the life of some English nobleman who had his heart garner- 
ed up for him at home, though his spirit was at work for his 
country. But we do not expect this from the Pompeys and 
Ca3sars and Catos of Rome, perhaps because we do not know 
them as we know Cicero. It is odd, however, that we should 
have no word of love for his boys, as to Pompey ; no word of 
love for his daughter, as to Caesar. Bat Cicero's love for his 
wife, his brother, his son, his nephew, especially for his daugh- 
ter, was unbounded. All offences on their part he could for- 
give, till there came his wife's supposed dishonesty, which was 
not to be forgiven. The ribaldry of Dio Cassius has polluted 
the story of his regard for Tullia ; but in truth we know noth- 
ing sweeter in the records of great men, nothing which touch- 
es us more, than the profundity of his grief. His readiness to 
forgive his brother and to forgive his nephew, his anxiety to 
take them back to his affections, his inability to live without 
them, tell of his tenderness. 

His friendship for Atticus was of the same calibre. It was 
of that nature that it could not only bear hard words but could 
occasionally give them without fear of a breach. Can any 
man read the records of this long affection without wishing 
that he might be blessed with such a friendship ? As to that 
love of our fellow -creatures which comes not from personal 
liking for them, but from that kindness of heart toward all 
mankind which has been the fruit to us of Christ's teaching, 
that desire to do unto others as they should do unto us, his 
whole life is an example. When Quaestor in Sicily, his chief 
dutv was to send home corn. He did send it home, but so 
that he hurt none of those in Sicily by whom it was supplied. 
In his letter to his brother as to his government of Asia Minor, 
the lessons which he teaches are to the same effect. When he 
was in Cilicia, it was the same from first to last. He would 
not take a penny from the poor provincials — not even what 
he might have taken by law. " Non modo non faenuin, sed ne 



330 LIFE OF C1UFJ10. 

ligna quidem !" Where did he get the idea that it was a good 
thing not to torment the poor wretches that were subjected to 
his power ? Why was it that he took such an un-Pvoman pleas- 
ure in making the people happy ? 

Cicero, no doubt, was a pagan, and in accordance with the 
rules prevailing in such matters it would be necessary to de- 
scribe him of that religion, if his religion be brought under 
discussion. But he has not written as pagans wrote, nor did 
he act as they acted. The educated intelligence of the Roman 
world had come to repudiate their gods, and to create for it- 
self a belief — in nothing. It was easier for a thoughtful man, 
and pleasanter for a thoughtless, to believe in nothing, than 
in Jupiter and Juno, in Venus and in Mars. But when there 
came a man of intellect so excellent as to find, when rejecting 
the gods of his country, that there existed for him the neces- 
sity of a real God, and to recognize it as a fact that the inter- 
course of man with man demanded it, we must not, in record- 
ing the facts of his life, pass over his religion as though it were 
simple chance. Christ came to us, and we do not need anoth- 
er teacher. Christ came to us so perfected in manhood as to 
be free from blemish. Cicero did not come at all as a teacher. 
He never recognized the possibility of teaching men a religion, 
or probably the necessity. But he did see the way to so much 
of the truth as to perceive that there was a heaven ; that the 
way to it must be found in good deeds here on earth ; and that 
the good deeds required of him would be kindness to others. 
Therefore I have written this final chapter on his religion. 



APPENDIX TO VOLUME II. 



APPENDIX 



{See page 308, Vol. II.) 
SCIPIO'S DREAM. 

Scipio the younger had gone, when in Africa, to meet Massinissa, and 
had there discussed with the African king the character of his nominal 
grandfather, for he was in fact the son of Paulus ^Emilius and had been 
adopted by the son of the great conqueror at Zama. He had then retired 
to rest, and had dreamed a dream, and is thus made to tell it. Africanus 
the elder had shown himself to him greater than life, and had spoken to 
him in the following words: "Approach," said the ghost; "approach in 
spirit, and cease to fear, and write down on the tablets of your memory 
this that I shall tell you. 

" Look down upon that city. I compelled it to obey Rome. It now 
seeks to renew its former strife, and you, but yet new to arms, have come 
to conquer it." Then from his starry heights he points to the once illus- 
trious Carthage. " In twice twelve months that city you shall conquer, 
and shall have earned for yourself that name which by descent has be- 
come yours. Destroyer of Carthage, triumphant Censor, ambassador from 
Rome to Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you shall be chosen Consul a sec- 
ond time, though absent, and, having besieged Numantia, shall bring a great 
war to an end. * * * Then will the whole State turn to you and to your 
name. The Senate, the citizens, the allies will expect you. In one word, 
it will be to you as Dictator that the Republic will look to be saved from 
the crimes of your relatives. 

" But that you may be always alive to protect the Republic, know this. 
There is in heaven a special place of bliss for those who have served their 
country. To that God who looks down upon the earth there is nothing 
dearer than men bound to each other by reverence for the laws." 

" Then, frightened, I asked him whether he were still living, and my 
father Paulus, and others whom we believed to have departed. ' In truth,' 
he said, 'they live who have escaped from the bondage of the flesh. This 
which you call life is death. But behold Paulus your father.' Beholding 
him, I poured forth a world of tears, but he, embracing me, forbade me to 
weep. 



334 APPENDIX. 

" ' Since this of yours is life, as my grandsire tells me,' I said, as soon as 
my tears allowed me to speak, ' why, father most revered, do I delay 
here on earth, rather than haste to meet you ?' ' It cannot be so,' he an- 
swered. ' Unless that God whose temple is around you everywhere shall 
have liberated you from the chains of the body, you cannot come to us. 
Men are begotten subject to his law, and inhabit the globe which is called 
the earth ; and to them is given a soul from among the stars, perfect in 
their form and alive with heavenly instincts, which complete with won- 
drous speed their rapid courses. Wherefore, my son, by you and by all 
just men that soul must be retained within its body's confines, nor can it 
be allowed to flit without command of him by whom it has been given to 
you. You may not escape the duty which God has trusted to you. Live, 
my Scipio, and shine with piety and justice, as your grandfather did and I 
have done. It is your duty to your parents and to your relatives, but es- 
pecially your duty to your country. There lies the road to heaven. By 
following that course shall you find your way to those who crowd with 
disembodied spirits the realm beneath your eyes.' 

" Then did I behold that splendid circle of fire which you, after the 
Greeks, call the Milky- way, and looking out from thence could see that all 
things were beautiful and all wonderful. There were stars which we can- 
not see from hence, and others of tremendous, unsuspected size ; and then 
those smaller ones nearest to us, which shine with a reflected light. But 
every star among them all loomed larger than our earth. That seemed so 

mean, that I was sorry to belong to so small an empire. 

******** 

"As I gazed a sound struck my ears." 'What music is that,' said I, 
' swelling so loudly and yet so sweet ?' 

" ' It is that harmony of the stars,' he said, ' which the world creates by 
its own movement. Low and loud, base and treble, they clang together 
with unequal intervals, but each in time and tune. They could not work 
in silence, and nature demands that from one end of heaven to the other 
they shall be sonorous with a deep diapason. The far off give a loud 
treble twang. Those nearest to the moon sound low and base. The 
earth, the ninth in order, immovable upon its lowest seat, occupies the 
centre of the system. From the eight there come seven sounds, distinct 
among themselves, Venus and Mercury joining in one effort. In that 
number is the secret of all human affairs. Learned men have made their 
way to heaven by imitating this music ; as have others also by the excel- 
lence of their studies. Filled with this sound the sense of hearing has 
failed among men. What sense is duller ? It is as when the Nile falls 
down to her cataracts, and the nations around, astonished by the tumult, 

become deaf.' 

******** 



APPENDIX. 335 

" ' Then,' said Afrieanus, ' look and see how small are the habitations 
of men, how grand are those of the angels of light. What fame can you 
expect from men, or what glory ? You see how they live in mean places 
— in small spots, lonely amid vast solitudes, and that they who inhabit 
them dwell so isolated that nothing can pass between them. Can you 
expect glory from them ? 

" ' You behold this earth surrounded by zones. You see two of them, 
frozen from their poles, have been made solid with everlasting ice ; and 
how the centre realm between them has been scorched by the sun's rays. 
Two, however, are fit for life. They who inhabit the southern, whose foot- 
steps are opposed to ours, are a race of whom we know nothing. But 
see how small a part of this little earth is inhabited by us who are turned 
toward the north. For all the earth which you inhabit, wide and narrow, 
is but a small island surrounded by that sea which you call the great At- 
lantic Ocean — which, however large as you deem it, how small it is ! Has 
your name or has mine been able, over this small morsel of the earth's 
surface, to ascend Mount Caucasus or to cross the Ganges ? Who in the 
regions of the rising or setting sun has heard of our fame? Cut off these 
regions, distant but a hand's-breadth, and see within what narrow borders 
will your reputation be spread ! They who speak of you — for how short 
a time will their voices be heard ? 

" ' Grant that man, unenvious, shall wish to hand down your fame to fut- 
ure ages, still there will come those storms of nature. The earth will be 
immersed in water and scorched with fire ; a doom which in the course of 
ages must happen, and will deny to you any lasting glory. Will you be 
content that they who are to come only shall hear of you, when to those 
crowds of better men who have passed away your name shall be as 
nothing ? 

'"And remember too that no man's renown shall reach the duration of 
a yean Men call that space a year which they measure by the return of 
a single star to its old place. But when all the stars shall have come 
back, and shall have made their course across the heavens, then, then 
shall that truly be called a year. In this year how many are there of our 
ages contained. For as when Romulus died, and made his way here to 
these temples of the gods, the sun was seen by man to fade away, so will 
the sun again depart from the heavens, when the stars, having accom- 
plished their spaces, shall have returned to their old abodes. Of this, the 
true year, not a twentieth part has been as yet consumed. If, then, you 
despair of reaching this abode, which all of true excellence strive to ap- 
proach, what glory is there to be gained ? When gained, it will not last 
the space of one year. Look then aloft, my son, and fix your eyes upon 
this eternal home. Despise all- vulgar fame, nor place your hopes on hu- 
man rewards. Let Virtue by her own charms lead you on to true glory. 



336 



APPENDIX. 



Let men talk of you— for talk they will. Man's talk of man is small in 
its space, and short-lived in its time. It dies with a generation and is 
forgotten by posterity.' 

"When he had spoken I thus answered him: 'Africanus,' I said, 'I in- 
deed have hitherto endeavored to find a road to heaven, following your 
example and my father's ; but now, for so great a reward, will I struggle 
on more bravely.' ' Struggle on,' he replied, ' and know this— not that 
thou art mortal but only this thy body. This frail form is not thyself. 
It is the mind, invisible, and not a shape at which a man may point with 
his fingers. Know thyself to be a god. To be strong in purpose and in 
mind ; to remember to provide and to rule ; to restrain and to move the 
body it is placed over, as the great God does the world— that is to be a 
god. And as the God who moves this mortal world is eternal, so does an 
eternal soul govern this frail body.' " 



INDEX 



A. 

Abeken, German, biographer of Cicero, 

ii.,39. 
" Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit," i., 228. 
Academica, The, i., 33 ; ii., 251, 2S1. 
Actio Prima, contra Verrem, i., 139. 
Actio Secunda, contra Verreni, i., 13S. 
Acnleo, Cicero's uncle, i., 42. 
Adjournments, on account of games in 

the trial of Verres, i., 138. 
Advocate, duty in Rome, i., 85, 105; his 

duties, ii., 319. 
^Edile, Cicero as, i., 1C2. 
"^Estimatum," tax ou corn in Sicily, i., 

152. 
Agrarian law, two speeches, i., 190 ; two 

supplementary speeches, 191. 

Aidt-'ojucu Tpwuv, i.,2SS. 

Allobroges, their ambassadors, i., 230; 
alluded to by Horace, 231 ; rewarded, 
233. 

^Emilins, the Consul, bribed by Caesar, 
ii., 110. 

Amauus, Cicero's campaign at the moun- 
tain range, ii. , 90. 

Amicitia, Be, ii., 252 ; Laelius tells its 
praises, 313. 

Amnesty, granted after Caesar's death, 
ii., 181 ; Cicero's opinion respecting it, 
214. 

Anatomical researches, ii., 290. 

Antiochns of Comageue, Cicero pleads 
against, ii., 4S. 

Antiphon, an actor, criticism on, ii., 48. 

Antouins Cains, Cicero's colleague in 
the Consulship, i., 185; not trusted, 
ISO; was worth nothing, 229; Cicero 
expects money from, 251. 

Antonius Marcus, the orator, i., 43. 

Antony, abuse of, i., 151 ; silenced by 
Cicero, 204; Cassius had desired his 
death, ii., 178 ; forges Caasar's writing, 
1S1 ; writes to Cicero, 184 ; Cicero de- 
sires to make him leave Italy, 190 ; de- 
sires Cicero to assist in the Senate, 
191; desires that Cicero's house shall 
be attacked, 192; determines to an- 

II.— 15 



swer the first Philippic, 195; left no 
friend to speak for him, 190 ; his char- 
acter by Patercultis, 19T; the same 
from Virgil, ibid. ; how he sought favor 
with Caesar, 201 ; how he quarrelled 
with Dolabella, 202; his letter to Hir- 
tius, 222 ; wages war against four Con- 
suls, 224; one of the Triumvirate, 
238. 

Appius Claudius, letter to, ii., 79; runs 
away from Cicero, 87; takes away 
three cohorts, S7; sends ambassadors 
to Rome to praise him, 8S ; his dishon- 
esty, 113 ; twice tried, ibid. ; Censor, 
114. 

Apronius, who he was, and his charac- 
ter, i., 163. 

Arabarcb.es, nickname for Pompey, i., 

Aratus, the Phaenomena translated, i., 
40 ; the Prognostics translated, 277; ii., 
290. 

Arbuscnla, the actress, ii., 4S. 

Archias, Cicero's tutor, i., 47; Cicero*s 
speech, 252. 

Ariobarzanes, in debt to Pompey and 
Brutus, ii., 100. 

Army, Cicero joins it, i., 48. 

Arpinnm, Cicero's birthplace, i., 40. 

Asconius Pedianus, commentator of 
Cicero, i., ISO ; declares that Cicero 
had accused Crassus of joining Cati- 
line, 218 ; tells the story of Milo's trial, 
ii., 61. 

Asia, Cicero travels in, i., 56. 

Asians, the character given them by 
Cicero, i., 296. 

" Assectatores," who they were, i., 112. 

Athens, Cicero is afraid to live there, i., 
322 ; Cicero's description of, ii., 2S9. 

Atticus, letters, private, i., 10, 12, 13, 16 ; 
Cicero's faith in, 19; eeneral letters, 
5S; his character, 5S, 106, 182; Cicero 
informs him as to Clodius, 255; and 
of his speech in Pompey's favor, 258 ; 
did not quarrel with Cicero, 302 ; Cice- 
ro complains of his conduct, and then 
apologizes, 318; lends money to Cic- 



338 



IXDEX. 



ero, 323 ; no letter of his extant, ii., 
130 ; receives a commission to see Cice- 
ro's debts paid,lSS ; Cicero's last letter 
to, 206. 

Augurs, College of, ii., 58. 

Augustine has produced a fragment of 
the De Republics, ii., 307. 

Augustus, devoid of scruple, i., 77; born 
in the Consulship of Cicero, i., 239. 

Aulas Gellius, tells a story of Cicero's 
house, i., 24'.). 

Amelia, Via, Catiline had left the city 
by that route, i., 22S. 

Autronius, selected Consul, i., 214, 252. 

B. 

Bacon, compared to Cicero, ii., 100. 

Bulbus, messenger from Caesar to Cice- 
ro, i., 270; his citizenship defended, 
ii., 34; his descendant Emperor, 34. 

Battle of the eagle and the serpent, i., 
46. 

Beesley, Mr., as to Catiline, i., 205. 

Bibulus as Consul, i., 282. 

Birria stabs Clodius, ii., 62. 

Boasting, habit of the Romans, i., 151. 

Boissier, Gaston, his book on Cicero, ii., 
34. 

Bona Dea, her mysteries violated, i., 255. 

Bovilla, at, Milo meets Clodius, ii., 62. 

Brennus, when at Rome, i., 75. 

Brougham, Lord, as to "Memnou," a 
tale, i., 46. 

Brnndisium, Cicero lands at on his re- 
turn from exile, ii., 129 ; Cicero's mis- 
ery at, 142. 

Brums, proposes to make a speech in 
behalf of Milo, ii., 66; his usury, 96 ; 
the story of his debt in Cilicia, 97; 
Cicero's opinion, 103; letters from, 
140; how he should be judged for the 
murder of Caesar, 174; his character, 
ISO; no aptitude for ruling, ibid.; Cic- 
ero meets him at Velia, 1S9; his man- 
ners to Cicero, 190 ; praised, 216; cor- 
respondence with, doubted, 216; an 
honest patriot, 227; will not assist 
Cicero, 235; Cicero's respect for, 267. 

Brutus, The, ii., 251; Brutus, or De Claris 
Oratoribus, 2G5. 

Brutus, Decimus, letters from, ii., 140; 
preparing to light, 206 ; deficient as a 
general, 228 ; is slain, 235. 

Buthiotum, Atticus, writes to Cicero re- 
specting, ii., 1S5. 

C. 

Caecilia Metella, her tomb, ii., 1G0. 
Caecilins, put up to plead against Verres, 

i., 132 ; ridiculed as to his insufficiency, 

136. 
Caeciua, Cicero's speech for, i., 103. 
Caelius, one of the young bloods of Rome, 



i., 36 ; his character, ii., 35 ; one of 
Clodia's lovers, ibid. ; defended by 
Cicero, 36; haraugues the people for 
Milo, 64; scolded "for the folly of his 
letters, 84; asks for panthers, 85; 
style of his letters, S9; attached to 
Cicero, 90; letters from, 140. 

Caslius, C., left in charge of Cilicia, ii., 
106. 

Cseparins, one of Catiline's conspirators, 
i., 232. 

Cserellia, her name mentioned, ii., 186. 

Caesar, devoid of scruple, i., 77; his debts, 
103; his cruelty, 104 ; Cicero's treat- 
ment of, 152; passing the Rubicon, 
176; did he join the conspiracy of 
Catiline. 215; in debt, 216; his pros- 
pects, ibid.; no ground for accusing him 
as second conspiracy, 219 ; his opinion 
of Cicero, ibid. ; attempt to murder as 
he left the Senate, ibid. ; present at the 
first Catiline oration, 225; speech as 
toCatiline,236; his career commenced, 
241 ; did not think of overthrowing 
the Republic, 242 ; had not thought of 
ruling Rome, 260; money nothing to 
him, 266 ; his general character, ibid. ; 
his first Consulship, 2S2 ; illegality of 
his actions, 2S3; has the two Gauls al- 
lotted to him, 2S4 ; endeavors to screen 
Cicero, 292: naturally a conspirator, 
ii.,20 ; defence of his Proconsular pow- 
er, 29, 30, 31 ; his doings in Gaul, 31 ; 
Cicero's conduct in reference to, 32; 
why Cicero flattered him, 33 ; intends 
to rule the Empire, 39; crosses into 
Britain, 56 ; money due to him by Cic- 
ero, 82; returns the two legions, 116; 
sits down at the Rubicon, 117; tram- 
ples on all the laws, US; Cicero ex- 
cuses his letter to, 122; his clemency 
to Romans, 137; absence of revenge, 
ibid. ; does not allow Cicero to sell 
his property, 13S; is magnificent, 139; 
sits as judge, 153 ; returns to Spain, 
156 ; returns from Spain, 161 ; is liken- 
ed to Romulus, 162; his five triumphs, 
ibid.; is flattered by Cicero, 165; sups 
with Cicero, 168; his death, 172; his 
assassination esteemed a glorious 
deed, 175; Cicero present, 177; an al- 
tar put up to, 1S5; his laws to be 
sanctioned, 193. 

Calenus, talks of peace, ii., 214; attacked 
by Cicero, 215. 

Caninius, Consul for a few hours, ii., 
272. 

Capitol, description of, ii. , 179 ; Brutus 
retires to, ibid. 

Cappadocian slaves, ii., 101. 

Cassias; Cicero says that he would not 
obey the Senate, ii., 219; will not as- 
sistCicero, 235. 

Castor, the temple of, in the trial of Ver- 
res, i., 143. 



INDEX. 



339 



Castor, accuses his grandfather, Deiota- 
rns, ii., 104. 

Catiline, one of Sulla's murderers, i., 7S; 
Cicero opposed to for Consulship, 110, 
1S3; Cicero does not defend him, 1S3; 
the Catiline speeches described by Cic- 
ero, 191; a popular hero, 205; a step 
between the Gracchi and Caesar, 207 ; 
Mr. Beesley's opinion as to his high 
birth, 211; and courage, ibid.; his real 
character, 212 ; not elected Consul, 
214; second conspiracy, 21S; accused 
by Lepidus, 222 ; he leaves the city, 
228; third speech against, 230; fourth 
speech against, 235; he dies, 239. 

Cato, accuses Murena, i.,193; his stoi- 
cism laughed at, ibid. ; speech as to 
Catiline, 23S ; opposed Clodius, 256; 
keeping gladiators, ii., 23 ; opposes 
Cicero's request for a "supplication," 
105; his death, 147; Cicero praises 
him, 14S; a glutton with books, 2S7; 
his suicide defended, 317. 

Cato the elder, praise of, ii., 307. 

Catullus, his epigram on Caasar and Ma- 
mnrra, ii.,169. 

Cnudine Forks, i., 76. 

"Cedant arma tog;e," an impotent 
scream, i., 05. 

Cethegus, one of Catiline's conspirators, 
i.,232. 

Chesterfield, Lord, his advice to his son, 
ii., 31 S. 

Christian, Cicero almost one, ii., 325. 

Christina, Queen, on Cicero, i.,19. 

Chrysogouus, creature of Sulla's, i., S5, 
S6, 91, 92. 

Churches, rules complied with for the 
sake of example, ii.,298. 

Cicero, young Marcus, wishes to serve 
under Caesar, ii., 150; money allowed 
for living at Atheus, 157; does not do 
well, 15S. 

Cilicia, governed for a year, ii., 8; Cice- 
ro's mode of government, 77; why un- 
dertaken, ibid.; Cicero's government 
had cost no man a shilling, S5. 

"Cilicia Lex De Mnneribus,"i.,100. 

Cispius, defended, ii., 46. 

"Civis llomanus," his privileges, i., 
15S. 

Claterna, taken by Hirtins, ii., 214. 

Claudiau family, desecrated by Clodius, 
i., 275. 

Clodia, her character, i., 317. 

Clodius, Cicero's language to, i.,180; ac- 
cuses Catiline, 213; intrudes on the 
mysteries of the Bona Dea, 255; ac- 
quitted, 257; quarrels with Cicero, 
ibid. ; Cicero's speech against, 202 ; 
his Tribunate, 272; favored by Cassar 
and Pompey, ibid.; is made a Plebe- 
ian, 273 ; .prepares to attack Cicero, 
311; had put up a statue of a Greek 
prostitute as a figure of liberty, ii., 21 ; 



slaughtered, 62 ; his mode of travelling 
about, 72. 

Cluentius Auhis, speech on his behalf, i., 
179; work in defending immense, 189. 

Cluvius, leaves Cicero a property, ii.,lS2. 

"Conors," Cicero, in anger, so "calls his 
suite, ii., 107. 

College of priests, oration spoken before, 
ii., 20. 

Commentarium of Cselins, ii.,105. 

Conduct, Cicero's, as governor, ii., 22. 

Conservative, Cicero was one, i.,308. 

Consolation, Cicero complains that noth- 
ing is of use, ii.,160. 

Consular speeches, twelve, i.,190. 

Consulatu de suo, Cicero quotes his own 
poem, i., 271. 

Consulatus de Petitione, i., 108. 

Consuls and other officers reconformed 
by Sulla, i., 78; the manner in which 
they were selected, 1S4; their duties, 
3S7; never two bad Consuls together, 
ii.,14; Cicero asks them to praise 
him, 92; are they to be sent out of 
Italy? 218. 

Cornelius, a Knight employed to kill 
Cicero, i., 223. 

Cornelius Cains, speech on his behalf, i., 
ISO. 

Cornelius Nepos, on Cicero, i.,14; his 
sayings as to Cicero's letters, 100. 

Cotta, Lucius Aurelius, elected Consul, 
i., 214. 

Cotta, the orator, Cicero knew him in 
his youth, i., 43. 

Courage, as to the nature of, i., 299; 
shown in the Philippics, ii., 199. 

Cowardice, Cicero accused of, ii., 220 ; 
the charge repelled, 240. 

Crassus, noted for usury, i.,102; did he 
join Catiline? 215; like M. Poirier, 
217; present at first Catiline oration, 
225; belauds Cicero in the Senate, 
25S; one of the Triumvirate, 267; says 
a man cannot be rich unless he can 
keep an army in his pay, 315; destroy- 
ed in Parthia, ii., 57. 

Crassus, Lucius, the orator, i., 43 ; his 
death, ii., 263. 

Curio the elder, Cicero's lampoon, i., 
32S. 

Curio and Claudius, speech against, i., 
262. 

Curio bribed by Csesar, ii., 116 ; intimate 
with Antony, 201. 

Curius, betrays Catiline's conspiracy, i., 
222. 

Cybea, the ship built for Verres by the 
Mamertines, i.,155. 

D. 

Dates, as to those to be tised, i., 39. 
Death, endured bravely by Cicero, i., 
298. 



340 



INDEX, 



Decemviri, to be appointed midcr the 

law of Rullus, i.,198. 
"Decnmanum," tithe on corn in Sicily, 

i., 152. 

" Dednctores," who they were, i., 115. 
Deiotarus, Cicero pleads for, ii., 163. 
Democrat, Cicero wrongly called, i., 304. 
De Quiucey, his opinion of Cicero, i., 

20 ; his anger against Middleton, ii., 

107. 
Deserter, in politics, Cicero defended 

from the accusation, i., 305. 
Despotism, personal, ill effects of, i., 

300. 
Dio, persecuted in the trial of Verres, i., 

M5. 
Dio Caseins, as to Cicero, i., IS ; as to 

Cicero's oaih, 241. 
Diodotus, Cicero studies with, i., 50. 
Dionysius, the Greek tutor, ii., 121. 
Dishonesty, the charge repelled as to 

Cicero, ii., 245. 
Diversos, Ad, letters to, i., 16:>. 
" Divinatio, in Quiutuin Caecilium," i., 

132. 
Divinatione, De, ii., 252,207. 
Divorces, common with Romans, ii., 

144. 

Doctrine, Cicero does not live according 
to his own, ii., 291. 

Dotabella, Cicero's pupil in oratory, ii., 
155 ; his cruelty, ISO. 

Dorotheas, an enemy of Sthenius, i., 147 ; 
trial of Verres, ibid. 

Drusus, his gardens to he bought, ii., 
101. 

Du Bos, Simon, ii., 304. 

Duty to the state, ii., 310. 

Dyriachium, Cicero's protection of, i., 
101; sojourned there during his ex- 
ile, 325. 

E. 

Education, expense of, i., 61. 

Egypt, Cicero asked by Caesar to go 
there, i.,28S. 

E'eusinian mysteries, i., 50. 

Elizabeth, Queen, glory of her reign, i., 
77. 

"Emp'.nm," tax on corn, i., 152. 

Encyclopaedia Britaunica, character of 
Cicero, i., 11. 

Ephesus, how Cicero was received there, 
ii., 85. 

Epicureans, i., 58. 

Epicurus, dying, ii., 2SG; Cicero's pecul- 
iar dislike to, 205. 

Epistles, number written by and to Cic- 
ero, i., 5S ; the first we have, 1G6; do 
not ileal with history, 167 ; their truth, 
ibid.; Tiro had collected 70, ii., 188; 
his last official and military, 231. 

Eques, or knight, Cicero one, i., 40. 

Equites, i., lis ; their duties as tax-gath- 
erers, 280. 



Equitv, Cicero accused of trifling with, 

ii., 100. 
Erasmus, his opinion of Cicero, i., 123. 
Erucius, accuses Sextus Roscius, i., S4, 

87. 
Eryx, Mount, temple of Venus, i., 145. 
Exile, Cicero's, i., 125, 297 ; sentence 

against Cicero, 322; attempt to bring 

him back, 329 ; did not write during, 

330. 



Famine, in Rome, ii., IS. 

Falo, De, ii., 252, 297, 303. 

Pmibus, De, i.,33 ; ii., 251, 2S4. 

Fishponders, who they were, ii., 180. 

Flaceus, speech on behalf of, i., 295. 

Flavins, his goodness to Cicero when 
exiled, i., 323. 

Florus, as to Cicero, i., 16; as to Cati- 
line, 209. 

Fonteins, Cicero's speech for, i., 103; 
purchase of a house, 170. 

Form ise, Cicero killed sit, ii., 243. 

Fornianum, purchases for the villa, i., 
171. 

Forsyth, Mr.,i., 7,0; passage quoted, 20: 
defends the English bar, 214; as to 
Cicero's exile, 29S; as to the story of 
Brutus, ii., 99; quoted as to the Phi- 
lippics, 226. 

Fortitude, Roman, i., 326. 

Fronde, Air., accuses Cicero of a desire 
for Caesar's death, i., 9, 10 ; his sketch 
of Caesar, 63 ; hard things said of Cic- 
ero, 123 ; as to Cicero's exile, 298 ; 
gives his reason for Cicero's going to 
Cilicia, ii., 77. 

Frumentaria, De Re, third speech on 
the Actio Secunda in Verrem, i., 141. 

Fulvia betrays Catiline's conspiracy, i., 
222. 

Fnlvia, widow of Clodins, exposes the 
body of Clodins, ii., 63. 

G. 

Gabinius, A., abuse of, i., 151 ; proposes 
law in favor of Pompey, 172 ; Consul 
when Cicero was banished, 312 ; takes 
his shrubs, 325; whether he shall be 
punished, ii., 9; comes back to Rome 
and is defended by Cicero, 47. 

Gabinius, P., one of Catiline's conspir- 
ators, i., 232. 

Gain, the source of mean or noble, ii., 
31S. 

Gallns, Caninius, defended by Cicero, ii., 
46. 

Gavins, Cicero's treatment of, ii., 102. 

Gavins, P., a Roman citizen, i., 15S. 

Geography, Cicero thinks of writing 
about, i.,2S0. 

Getce, shall he bring them down on 
Rome, ii., 123. 



INDEX. 



341 



Gl:il>rio, Praetor at the trial of Verres, 
i., 138. 

Gloria, De, translated, ii., 1SS. 

Godhead, Cicero's belief in, ii., 26 ; Cic- 
ero's ideas of, 295, 3'-'6. 

Gracchi, the two, i., 76; latest disciple 
of, 203 ; what they attempted, 215. 

Graevius, arranged Cicero's letters, i., 
168. 

Greece, Cicero travels in, i., 56. 

Giieroult, M., his enthusiasm for Cicero, 
i., 252. 

H. 

Ileaven, Cicero's idea of, ii., 324. 

Hierosolymarius, nickname of Pompey, 
i.,2Si). 

Ileins, Marcus, his story in the trial of 
Verres, i., 155. 

Ilelvia, Cicero's mother's story respect- 
ing, i., 42. 

Heraclius, the story of, on the trial of 
Verres, i., 145. 

Ilerennius, killed Cicero, ii., 243. 

Hirtius, on Cicero's side, ii., 209 ; killed, 
223. 

Historians, what they would say of Cic- 
ero, i., 301. 

Homer's verses of the Eagle and the 
Serpent, L, 46. 

Honest man, how he ought to live, ii., 
319. 

"Honestum," what it means, ii., 315. 

Horace, his boasting, i., 151 ; his treat- 
ment of women, 317. 

Hortensius, on the trial of Verres, i., 130, 
13S, 161 ; comes to see Cicero as he 
leaves Rome, ii., 82. 

House, purchased on the Palatine Hill, 
i., 250; the spot consecrated by Clo- 
dius, ii.,16. 

Human race, Cicero's love for, ii., 200. 

Hvpsaeus, candidate for the Consulship, 
ii., CI. 



" Imperator," Cicero is named, ii., 91. 

Income, Cicero's amount of, i., 61, 99. 

Insincerity of Cicero, ii., 112; almost 
necessary, ibid. ; Cicero's defended, 
247. 

Invective, bitterness of Cicero's, i., 32. 

Iuventione, De, ]., 51 ; four books re- 
maining, ii., 251, 253. 



"Jews," gold of their temple saved, L, 

296. 
Jonson, Ben, his description of Catiline, 

i.,20S,222. 
Journey into Greece, Cicero intends a, 

ii., 1S4. • 
Judges, how they sat with a Praetor, i., 

93. 



Julia, Coesar's wife, dies, ii., 57. 

Jupiter Stator, Cicero's first speech 
against Catiline in the temple of, i., 
224; Cicero returns thanks for, in the 
temple, ii., 12. 

Jurisdictioue Siciliensi, He, i., 141. 

Juvenal, as to Cicero, i., 16; as to Cati- 
line, 209. 

K. 

Killing Roman citizens, Cicero to be 

charged with, i., 2<.»5. 
Kings, odious to Cicero as to all Romans, 

ii, 175. 



Labienus, an optimate, i., 293. 

La Harpe, his opinion of the Pro Mar- 
cello, ii., 151. 

Laelius in the dialogue De Republica, ii., 
307. 

Lanuvium, Milo returning from, ii., 62. 

Laodicea, Cicero as governor, ii., 86. 

Lawyers, Cicero ridicules them,i., 194. 

Legacies, a source of income, i., 103. 

Legions, the, are Caesarian, ii., 229. 

Legibus, De, ii., 251 ; taken from Plato, 
309. 

Legation offered to Cicero, i., 292. 

Lentulus, letters to, ii., 22; explaining 
his conduct, 51. 

Lentulus, Publius Cornelius, one of Cati- 
line's conspirators, i., 232; killed, 238; 
Cicero broke the law in regard to, 313. 

Lepidus, his character, ii., 210; recom- 
mended peace, 221 ; one of the Trium- 
virate, 240. 

Leueopetra, Cicero landed at, ii., 1S9. 

Lex Porcia forbidding death of Roman, 
i., 236. 

Liberty Roman idea of, i., 26. 

" Librarii," short-hand writers, i., 1S9. 

Ligarius, Cicero speaks for, ii., 152. 

Lilybasum, Cicero Quaestor at, i., 114. 

Literature, Cicero's reason for devoting 
himself to, ii., 256. 

Livy, as to Cicero, i., 15 ; his evidence as 
to Catiline's conspiracy, 217 ; his polit- 
ical tendencies, ii., 306. 

Long, Mr., his opinion of the Pro Mar- 
cello, ii., 151. 

Lucan, as to Cicero, i., 15 ; would have 
extolled him had lie killed himself, 303. 

Lucceius, Cicero applies to him for 
praise, ii., 24. 

Lucretius, the period at which he wrote, 
i.,24. 

Lucullns, absent in the East seven years, 
i., 176. 

Lucullus, The, ii., 2S2. 

M. 

Macanlay, Mr., his verdict as to Cicero's 
character, i., 8. 



342 



IXBEX. 



Mai, Cardinal, his opinion of the Pro 
Marcello, ii., 151. 

Mallins, lieutenant of Catiline, i.,222; 
declared a public enemy, 23(1. 

Mamertiues, people of Messaua, favorites 
of Verres, i., 155. 

Manilla, Pro Lege, i., 177 ; Appendix P. 

Manillas, his law in favor of Pompey, i., 
177. 

Marcellns, had conquered Syracuse, i., 
150. 

Marcellns, M. C, is Consul, ii., S3 : flogs 
a citizen of Novocomrim, ibid. ; his en- 
mity to Caesar, 14S : Cicero speaks for 
him, 150; is murdered, 151. 

Marcellns Cains, Cicero congratulates 
him on his Consulship, ii., SS. 

Marius, born at Arpinum, i., 40; origin 
of his quarrel with Sulla, 4'.). 

Marius, a poem by Cicero, i., 47. 

Martia, Legio, character of, ii., 207. 

Martial, as to Cicero, i., 15. 

Mendaciuncula, Cicero's use of, i., 104. 

Merivale, Dean, as to Cicero, i., 9; His- 
tory of Rome, 63 ; as to Catiline, 210 ; 
as to Cicero's exile, 297. 

Metellus, Quiutus, on the side of Verres, 
i., 129,138; the history of the family, 
24S; Celer, his complaint against Cic- 
ero, 240 ; Nepos, forbids Cicero to 
speak on vacating the Consulship, 210. 

Middleton, his biography a by-word for 
eulogy, i., 123 ; quoted as to Clodius, 
274; as to Cicero's exile, 297 ; censures 
Cicero for going into, 31S; nature of 
his biography, ii., 107. 

Milo, gives public games, ii.,4S ; Cicero 
wishes him to be Consul, 50 ; his trial, 
59; accused of bringing a dagger into 
the Senate, 04 ; demands protection, 
05; condemned, 07 ; his mode of trav- 
elling, 72. 

Milone, Pro, Cicero's oration, i., 53 ; spe- 
cially admired, ii., 00; not heard, 67. 

Mithridat.es, Sulla sent against, i., 50 ; 
Pompey has command against, 170. 

Molo, Cicero studies with, i., 50, 50. 

Mommsen, his history, i., 03 ; opinion of 
Rome, 72, 74 ; as to Caesar and Cras- 
sus, 218; as to Cicero's exile, 297; de- 
scription of Rome during Cicero's ex- 
ile, 32S; deals hardly with Cicero, ii., 
33; as to Cicero owing money to Cre- 
sar, 82; his interpretation of Caesar's 
names, 172; tells us nothing of Caesar's 
death, 17S ; his verdict as to Rome, 
300. 

Money, restored to Cicero for rebuilding 
his house, ii., 21. 

Montesquieu, as to Roman religion, ii., 
20. 

Morabin, as to Cicero's exile, i., 297; 
doubts Cicero's presence at Caesar's 
death, ii., 177. 

Moral Essays, ii., 304. 



Mourning, Cicero assumes prior to his 
exile, i., 316. 

Munda, final battle of, ii.,15G. 

Murena, Cicero defended, i., 191; accused 
of bribery, 192; and of dancing, 193 ; 
a soldier, 195. 

Musical charm of Cicero's language, ii., 
2S. 

Mutina, ambassadors sent to Antony be- 
fore, ii., 209 ; the battle, 223 ; badly 
managed, 228. 

N. 

Names, Roman, as to forms to be used, 
i.,38; usual with Romans to have 
three, 41. 

Nasica, his joke, ii., 262. 

Natura Deornm, De, ii., 252, 26G, 294. 

"Nomenclatio," the meaning, i., 113. 

Nonis Juliis, ii., 188. 

"Novus ante me nemo," i., 202. 

O. 

Octavius, comes to Rome, ii., 1S1 ; meets 
Cicero, ibid.-; quarrels with Antony, 
204; feared by Cicero, 205; would he 
be Consul, 232; marches into Rome, 
ibid.; his enmity to Cicero, 233 ; his in- 
solence, 237: is reconciled to Antony, 
ibid. ; the meeting in the island at Bo- 
logna, 23S ; his conduct, ibid. ; letter to 
him, supposed from Cicero, but a forg- 
ery, 240. 

Officii*, De, ii., 205, 252; perfect treatise 
on morals, 314. 

"O fortnnatnm natam,"i.,277. 

"Old Mortality," torture as there de- 
scribed, i.,S8." 

Oppianicus, his life,!., 179. 

Oppius Publitis, his trial, i., 126. 

Optimates, Pompey their leader, i., 175. 

Optimo Geneie Oratorum, De, ii., 251, 
204. 

Orations, how Cicero treated his own, 
ii., 107. 

Oratinncula, twelve consular speeches 
so called, L, 190. 

Orator, The, ii., 251 ; graced by the name 
of Brutus, 206. 

Oratore, De, Cicero's dialogues, ii., 3S; 
sent to Lentulns, 46, 251, 256, 270. 

Oratoriae Partitiones, ii., 145, 265. 

Oratory, Cicero's three modes of speak- 
ing, i., 94; his charms, 137; purposes 
of, ii., 274. 

Ornament, Greek taste for, i., 154. 

Otho's law, speech concerning, i. ( 190, 
204. 

P. 

Pagan, Cicero one, ii., 330. 
Palinodia.or recantation, by Cicero, ii., 
23. 



INDEX. 




Palatine Hill, Cicero's house destroyed, 
i , 325. 

Pausa, the Consul ou Cicero's side, ii. , 
209; slain, 223. 

Paradoxes, the six, ii., 146. 

Partitioned, Oratorios, ii., 251. 

Peel, Sir Robert, i., 3U3. 

Perfection, required in an orator, ii., 25T ; 
Cicero fails in describing it, 257, 25S, 
261. 

Perfect orator, not desirable, ii., 2T5. 

Philippics, origin of the name, ii., 102; 
the tirst, 193 ; the second not intended 
to be spoken or published, 19S; com- 
mences with satire against Antony, 
199; the third and fourth, 200; the 
fifth, 210; the sixth, 211; the seventh, 
212 ; the eighth, 215 ; the ninth, ibid. ; 
the tenth, ioid. ; the eleventh, 217 ; the 
twelfth, 220 ; the thirteenth, 222 ; the 
fourteenth, ibid. 

Philo, the academician, i., 43; Cicero 
studies with, 50, 51. 

Philodamus, and his daughter iu the 
trial of Verres, i., 142. 

Philology, discussed with Caesar, ii., 170. 

Philosophy, Cicero's nature of, i., 33, 5$, 
59 ; rumor that Cicero will devote him- 
self to it, 97 ; Cicero did not believe iu 
it, 194; devotes himself to it, ii., 103; 
the nature of Cicero's treatises, 277; 
the nature of his feeling, 278; Greek 
laughed at by Cicero, ioid. ; not real 
with him, 2S0 ; apologizes for, 319. 

Philotomus, freedmau of Terentia, ii., 
105. 

Phaenomcna, The, by Aratus, i., 46. 

Piudeuissum, Cicero besieges, ii., 91 ; his 
letter to Cato respecting, 92. 

Pirates, picked up by officers of Verres, 
i.,160; commission given to Pompey 
against, 171 ; their power, 172. 

Piso, abuse of, i., 151 ; Consul when Cic- 
ero was banished, 312 ; Cicero appeals 
to him, 320; robs Cicero, 324 ; Cicero's 
speech against, ii., 41 ; of higli family, 
ibid.; becomes Censor, 42; speaks for 
Antony in the Senate, 220. 

Piso, Calpurnius, Cicero defended, i., 
191. 

Plancius, very kind to Cicero, i., 325 ; Cic- 
ero pleads for, ii., 49. 

Plancus, Lucius, letters from, ii., 140; 
Cicero writes to him, 211; may have 
been true, 22S, 230, 234. 

Plancus, Munatius, Cicero's joy at his 
condemnation, ii., 74. 

Pliny, the elder, as to Cicero, i.,204. 

Plato, Cicero describes himself as a lov- 
er of, ii., 2S8. 

Plutarch, as to Cicero, i., 16 ; accuses 
him of running from Sulla's wrath, 
5T. 

Poetry, Cicero as a poet, i., 47. 

Pectus, gave some books to Cicero, i., 13; 



Cicero's correspondence with, ii., 172; 
Cicero took his books, 328. 

PoliticaL^i2lniou_s,__CJuiro's, i., 54, 55; 

~lTTTtTiitinii tnailn hy CitTni, n ; 8fi 

Pollio, may have? been true, ii., 228, 234. 

Pompeia, Csesar's wife divorced, i., 255. 

Pompeius, Strabo, father of Pompey the 
Great, i., 49. 

Pompey, the rising man, i., 55 ; devoid 
of scruple, 77 ; appointed to put down 
the pirates, 172; his character, 1T3 i 
how regarded by Caesar, 210; his in- 
tercourse with Cassar, 243; Cicero's 
letters to, 244; chosen by him as his 
leader, 240 ; called home to act against 
Catiline, 247; returns from the East, 
257; his jealousy, 259; Mommsen's 
opinion, ibid.; one of the Triumvirate, 
257 ; his marriage with Julia, 282 ; his 
ingratitude to Cicero, 2S7 ; his nick- 
names, 2S9, 291 ; promises to help Cic- 
ero against Clodius, 294; the story of 
Cicero kneeling to him, 321; Cicero 
forgives him, 327 ; offended by Cice- 
ro's praise of himself, ii., 15; commis- 
sioned to feed Pome, 19; Cicero to be 
his lieutenant, ibid. ; his games, Cice- 
ro's description of, 44, 45 ; sole Consul, 
59; Dictator,03; would be unwilling to 
bring back Clodius, 73; claims mon- 
ey from Ariobarzanes, 101 ; begins to 
attack Caesar, 105; borrowed Cicero's 
money, 111; Cicero clings to, 119 ; was 
murdered at the mouth of the Nile, 
120. 

Pomponia, her treatment of her bus-. 
baud Quintius, ii., 79. 

Pontius Glaucus, a poem, 5., 44. 

Popilius Lseuas, killed Cicero, ii., 243, 
244. 

Populace of Rome, condition of, ii., 11. 

Praetor, Cicero elected, i., 171, 170. 

Praetura Urbaua, De, first speech in the 
second action In Verrem.i., 141. 

Proconsul, his desire for provincial rob- 
bery, i., 99, 100. 

Property, redistribution of, i., 190. 

Provinces, the struggle for, ii., 206. 

Pseudo-Asconius, commentaries on the 
Verrine orations, i., ISO. 

Publicani, their duties, i., 280. 

Publilia, married to Cicero, ii., 155. 

Publius Quintius, speech ou his behalf, 
i., 80- 

Punic wars, the, i., 76. 

Puteoli, at, the story he tells of himself, 
i., 120. 

Q- 

Quaestor, Cicero elected, i., 107 ; his char- 
acter in regard to the Proconsul with 
whom he acted, 133. 

Quintilian, as to Cicero, i., 16, 182, 225 ; 
as to Cicero's education, 57 ; says that 
Cicero's speeches were arranged by 



344 



IXDEX. 



Tiro, 95; description of bar oratory, 
9G; accuses Cicero of running into 
iambics, ii., 43 ; his opinion of the Pro 
Miloue,60; ProClnentio, 61 ; cases giv- 
en by him, 255 : his description of an 
orator's voice, '275, 276. 

Qnintus Cicero (the elder), i., 42 ; service 
in Gaul, 02; his character, 109; sent 
out as Propraetor, 262 ; his brother's 
letter to him, 277, 27S ; affecting letter 
to, 320; speaks ill of his brother to 
Ctesar, ii., 139 ; and bis sou, are killed, 
243. 

Qnintus Cicero (the younger) wishes to 
go to the Parthian war, ii., 103; de- 
clares his repentance, 187 ; had been 
Antony's "right hand,"i6id. ; his fate, 
ibid. ; his hypocrisy and the vanity of 
Cicero, 1SS. 

Quirites, their mode of living, i., 111. 

R. 

Rabirius, Cicero defends, i., 190. 

Rabirius Postumus, Cicero defends, ii., 
53. 

Raillery, not good at the Roman bar, ii., 
202. 

Reate, Cicero speaks for the inhabitants, 
ii.,4S. 

Religion, Cicero's, ii., 321. 

Republic, Cicero swears that he has 
saved it, i., 241 ; Cicero's guiding prin- 
ciple, 309 ; held fast by the idea of pre- 
serving it, 310; as conceived by Cice- 
ro, ii., 227. 

Republica, De, Cicero's treatise, ii., 3S, 
251 ; six books, 305. 

Republican form of government, popu- 
lar, i., 201. 

Retail trade, base, i.,102. 

Rheticorum, four books addressed to 
Herennius, i., 51 ; ii., 251. 

"Rhetores," their mode of tuition, i., 
52. 

Rhythm, Cicero's lessons too fine for 
our ears, ii., 271. 

Roman citizens, their mode of life, L, 
315. 

Romans, the, had no religion, ii., 321. 

Rome, falling into anarchy, i., 50; how 
she recovered herself, ii.,2'14. 

Roscius, the actor, Cicero pleads on bis 
behalf, i.,105. 

Roscius, Titus Capito, i S5, 90. 

Roscius, Titus Magnus, i., S5, S9. 

Rosoir, Du, M.,his testimony as to Cic- 
ero, i., 127; his accusations against, 
17S; as to Cicero's exile, 297; his ac- 
cusations, ii., 170 ; accuses Cicero of 
cowardice, 191. 

Rubicon, the passage of, i.,125; ii.,1'20. 

Ruined man, Cicero returns from exile 
as, ii., 10. 

Rullus, brings in Agrarian laws, i.,190; 



his father-in-law had acquired prop- 
erty under Sulla, 19S ; ridiculed for 
being "sordidatus," 199; spoken of iu 
the Senate, 203. 



"Saga," when worn, ii., 223. 

Salainiuians, agree to be guided by Cic- 
ero, ii., 99. 

Sal lust, as to Cicero, i.,17; as to Cati- 
line, 1S7, 209,219; his story not con- 
flicting with Cicero's, 220, 227. 

"Salutatores," who they were, i.,112. 

Sampsiceramus, nickname for Pompey, 
i., 291. 

Sappho, the statue of, by Silauion, i., 
157. 

Sassia, her life, i.,179. 

Saufeius, twice acquitted, ii., 07. 

Scaevola, Quintus, instructed Cicero, i., 
43. 

Scaptius, the story of, ii., 93, 102 ; agent 
of Brutus iu getting his debts p~aid, 
90-99. 

Scipio the great, gives the idea of Ro- 
man power, i., 76. 

Scipio the younger, in the dialogue De 
Republica, ii., 307; his dream, 30S ; 
translated, 333. 

Scipio, Q., Metellus, candidate for the 
Consulship, ii., 01. 

Sempronia, accused by Sallust of dan- 
cing too well, i., 193; Catiline's plot 
carried on at her house, 230. 

Sempronia Lex, declares that a Roman 
should not be put to death, i.,237. 

Senate, their honors, i., 110; their dis- 
grace, 117; pass a vote that they will 
go into mourning for Cicero, 319 ; Cic- 
ero's presence demanded in, ii.,lS9. 

Senate-house, scene described in a letter 
to Quintus, ii., 22, 23 ; is burnt, 63 ; ar- 
chives destroyed, 70. 

Seiiectute, De, ii., 252 ; Cato tells its 
praises, ii., 312. 

Servilius, compliment paid to, at the 
trial of Verres, i.,140. 

Serving his fellow -creatures, Cicero's 
way of doing, ii., 300, 301. 

Sextius, letter to, as to borrowing mon- 
ey, i., 249; defence of, ii., 27 ; Cicero's 
gratitude to, ibid. 

Sextus Roscius Amerinus, i., SO. 

Shakspeare, his conception correct as to 
Cassar's death, ii., 173. 

Shelley, version of the Eagle and the 
Serpent, i.,40. 

Short-hand writing, the system of, i.,lS9. 

Sicilians invite Cicero to take their part 
against Verres, i., 118; their wishes for 
his assistance, 135. 

Sicily divided into two provinces, i., 114. 

Signis, De, fourth speech at the second 
action Iu Verrem, i., 141. 



INDEX. 



345 



Slaves, tortured to obtain evidence, 
i., 88. 

Solitude, he had not strength to exer- 
cise, ii., 320. 

Soothsayers, appeal made to them as to 
Cicero, ii., 20. 

Soothsaying, ii., 300. 

" Sordidatns," Cicero's dress before go- 
ing into exile, i., 301. 

Speeches made by Cicero on his return 
from exile, ii.,9; question whether 
they be gehuine, 10. 

States, Italian, jealousy of, leading to 
first civil war, i., 49. 

Statilius, one of Catiline's conspirators, 
i., 232. 

Statues, purchase of, i. ,170. 

Stenography, the Roman system, i., 1S9. 

Sthenius, his trial, i., 12T, 146. 

Suetonius, accuses Caesar of joining Cat- 
iline, i., 217 ; character of Caesar, 273. 

Sulla, Cicero served with, i., 40; declared 
Dictator, 54; Cicero on Sulla's side in 
politics, 55; goes to the East, 67; his 
massacres, 68 ; reorganizes the law, 
69 ; his resignation, 70 ; attacked by 
Cicero, 92. 

Sulla, P., elected Consul, i., 214 ; Cicero's 
speech for, 252. 

Sulpicius, Publius, the orator, i., 43. 

Sulpicius, Servius, laughed at as an ora- 
tor, i., 194; one of the amhassadurs 
dies on his journey, ii., 213. 

Superstitions of old Koine, ii., 25. 

' Supplicatio " decreed to Cicero, i., 2S2 ; 
nature of, ii.,104; granted for Mutiua 
for fifty days, 225. 

Suppliciis, De, fifth speech iu the second 
action In Verrem, i., 141. 

"Symphoniacos homines," i.,100. 

Syracuse, robberies of Verres, i., 156. 

T. 

Tablets of wax, used by judges, i., 93. 
Tacitus, as to Cicero, i., 16; De Oratori- 

bus,51. 
Teientia, Cicero's wife, i., 98; Cicero's 

affection for, 324; as to the divorce, 

ii., 105 ; his style to is changed, 115; 

Cicero in a sad condition as to, 13S ; 

divorced, 145, 154. 
Teucris, nickname for Antony, Cicero's 

colleague, i., 251. 
Thapsus, battle of, ii., 147. 
Thessalonica, Cicero's sojourn there dur- 
ing his exile, i., 325. 
Tiro, Cicero's slave and secretary, i., 42 ; 

Cicero's affectionate letters to, ii., 119; 

Cicero writes to, respecting Antony, 

1S4. 
Toga virilis, Cicero assumes it, i., 48. 
Topica, The, prepared for Trebatius, ii., 

189, 252; taken from Aristotle, 272, 



Torqnatus, elected Consul, i., 214. 

TorquatUS, young, attacks Cicero, i.,253. 

Translating, Koinan feeling iu doing it, 
ii.,252. 

Travels, gives his own reasons for go- 
ing to Greece and Asia, i.,58. 

Trebatius, confided to Caesar, i., 62; rec- 
ommends him to Caesar, ii.,48, 49. 

Trebonius, massacred by Dolabella, ii., 
217. 

Tribunate, Cicero's defence of, ii., 311. 

"Trienuium fere fuit, urbs sine amis," 
i., 67. 

Triumph, Cicero applies for, ii., 103; 
nature of, ibid. ; the cause of trouble 
to him, 115, 120. 

Triumvirate, the first, i., 264; not men- 
tioned by Mommsen, 265; description 
by Horace, ibid. ; noi so known, 269. 

Tubero, accuses Ligarius, ii.,153; Cicero 
refuses to alter his speech, 154. 

Tullia, Cicero's daughter, i., 106, 170; 
betrothed to Caius Piso, 171 ; meets 
Cicero at Brundisium, ii., 11 ; she is a 
widow, ibid. ; divorced from Cras- 
sipes, 5S; marries Dolabella for her 
third husband, 111 ; Cicero had de- 
sired that she should many Tiberius 
Nero, ibid. ; calls her the light of bis 
life, 115; dies, 158; her proposed mon- 
ument, 100. 

Tullius, Marcus Decnla, defended by Cic- 
ero, i., 123. 

Tusculauae Disputationes, i.,33; ii., 251, 
290; their five heads, 291. 

Tusculan Villa, gives commission for 
purchase of statues, i., 170. 

Tusculnm, Dialogue de Oratore held 
there, ii., 259. 

Twenty-six years old when Cicero plead- 
ed his first cause, i., 54. 

Tyranny, in the Senate, Cicero charged 
with, "ii., 72. 

Tyrrell, Mr., arrangement of Cicero's let- 
ters, i., 169 ; doubts thrown on a letter 
to Atticus, 191. 



TJ. 



273. 



15* 



Usury, base, i., 102. 



Valerius Maximns, as to Catiline, i., 209. 
Valerius, Cicero stays at his villa, ii., 1S9. 
Varenus, his trial, i., 127. 
Vargunteius. a knight employed to kill 

Cicero, i., 223. 
Varro, the period at which he wrote, i., 

24. 
Vatinius, speech against, ii., 2S; Cicero 

defends, 48. 
Velleins Paterculus, as to Cicero, i., 15; 

as to Catiline, 209. 
Veueti, Caesar's treatment of, ii., 1G6. 



34G 



1XDEX. 



Vercingetorix, conquered at Alesia, ii., 
74. 

Verrc?, his trial, i., 125 ; Governor for 
three years, 126 ; retires into exile, 141 ; 
standard-bearer to Hortensins, 143, 
tincd and sent into exile, 161. 

Vibo toVelia, Cicero's journey in a small 
boat from, i., 138. 

Vigintiviratus, oft'ered to Cicero, i., 12; 
Cicero repudiate.', 233. 

Vinderuiolaa, the way Cicero expends 
them, 17T. 

Virgil, Cicero intended by, i., It ; his ver- 
sion of th2 Eagle and the Serpent, 46; 



hi3 boasting, 151 ; his allusion to Cic- 
ero, 2(KJ ; description of Catiline, 209. 

Volcatius, does not speak for Marcellus, 
ii., 150. 

Voltaire, version of the Eagle and the 
Serpent, i., 46; description of Catiline, 
20S. 

W. 

Wolf, his criticism on the Pro Marcello, 

ii., 151. 
Work, the amount of, done by Cicero, 

ii., 122. 



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ern ; in which the Rise, Progress, and Variation of Church Row- 
er are considered in their Connection with the State of Learn- 
ing and Philosophy, and the Political History of Europe during 
that Period. Translated, with Notes, etc., by A. Maclaine, 
D.D. Continued to 182(5, by C. Coote, LL.D. 2 vols., 8 vo, 
Cloth, $4 00; Sheep, $5 00. 

HARPER'S NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY. Literal Transla- 
tions. 

The following volumes are now ready. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 
each. 

Caesar. — Virgil. — Sallust. — Horace. — Cicero's Ora- 
tions. — Cicero's Offices, etc. — Cicero on Oratory and 
Orators.— Tacitus (2 vols.). — Terence. — Sophocles. — Ju- 
venal. — Xenopiion. — Homer's Iliad. — Homer's Odyssey. — 
Herodotus. — Demosthenes (2 vols.). — Thucydides. — ..Es- 
chylus. — Euripides (2 vols.). — Livy (2 vols.). — Plato [Select 
Dialogues]. 

VINCENTS LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT. The 
Land of the White Elephant: Sights and Scenes in Southeastern 
Asia. A Personal Narrative of Travel and Adventure in Far- 
ther India, embracing the Countries of Burma, Siam, Cambodia, 
and Cochin-China (1871-2). By Frank Vincent, Jr. Illus- 
trated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, $3 50. 

GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 12 vols., 12mo, Cloth, 
$18 00 ; Sheep, $22 80 ; Half Calf, $39 00. 

RECLUS'S EARTH. The Earth: a Descriptive History of the 
Phenomena of the Life of the Globe. By Elisee Reclus. 
With 231 Maps and Illustrations, and 23 Page Maps printed in 
Colors. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00. 

RECLUS'S OCEAN. The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life. Being 
the Second Series of a Descriptive History of the Life of the 
Globe. By Elisee Reclus. Profusely Illustrated with 250 
Maps or Figures, and 27 Maps printed in Colors. 8vo, Cloth, 
$G 00. 

GRIFFIS'S JAPAN. The Mikado's Empire : Book I. History of 
Japan, from GC0 B.C. to 1872 A.D. Book II. Personal Expe- 
riences, Observations, and Studies in Japan, 1870-1874. By 
William Elliot Griffis, A.M., late of the Imperial University 
of Tokio, Japan. Copiously Illustrated. Svo, Cloth, $4 00 ; 
Half Calf, $6 25. 






I BINDING 



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â–  Mope, Anthor 
2b0 The life of • ro 



v. 2 



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