"_Non enim Cæsarem ... sum secutus, sed amicum_."
Gaius Matius, the subject of this sketch, was neither a great warrior, nor
statesman, nor writer. If his claim to remembrance rested on what he did
in the one or the other of these rôles, he would long ago have been
forgotten. It is his genius for friendship which has kept his memory
green, and that is what he himself would have wished. Of his early life we
know little, but it does not matter much, because the interest which he
has for us centres about his relations to Cæsar in early manhood. Being of
good birth, and a man of studious tastes, he probably attended the
University at Athens, and heard lectures there as young Cicero and Messala
did at a later period. He must have been a man of fine tastes and
cultivation, for Cicero, in writing to a friend, bestows on Matius the
title "doctissimus," the highest literary compliment which one Roman could
pay another, and Apollodorus of Pergamum dedicated to him his treatise on
rhetoric. Since he was born about 84 B.C., he returned from his years of
study at Athens about the time when Cæsar was setting out on his brilliant
campaign in Gaul. Matius joined him, attracted perhaps by the personal
charms of the young proconsul, perhaps by the love of adventure, perhaps,
like his friend Trebatius, by the hope of making a reputation.
At all events he was already with Cæsar somewhere in Gaul in 53 B.C., and
it is hard to think of an experience better suited to lay bare the good
and the bad qualities in Cæsar's character than the years of camp life
which Matius spent with him in the wilds of Gaul and Britain. As
aide-de-camp, or orderly, for such a position he probably held, his place
was by Cæsar's side. They forded the rivers together, walked or rode
through woodland or open side by side, shared the same meagre rations, and
lay in the same tent at the end of the day's march, ready to spring from
the ground at a moment's warning to defend each other against attack from
the savage foe. Cæsar's narrative of his campaigns in Gaul is a soldier's
story of military movements, and perhaps from our school-boy remembrance
of it we may have as little a liking for it as Horace had for the poem of
Livius Andronicus, which he studied under "Orbilius of the rods," but even
the obscurities of the Latin subjunctive and ablative cannot have blinded
us entirely to the romance of the desperate siege of Alesia and the final
struggle which the Gauls made to drive back the invader. Matius shared
with Cæsar all the hardships and perils of that campaign, and with Cæsar
he witnessed the final scene of the tragedy when Vercingetorix, the heroic
Gallic chieftain, gave up his sword, and the conquest of Gaul was
finished. It is little wonder that Matius and the other young men who
followed Cæsar were filled with admiration of the man who had brought all
this to pass.
It was a notable group, including Trebatius, Hirtius, Pansa, Oppius, and
Matius in its number. All of them were of the new Rome. Perhaps they were
dimly conscious that the mantle of Tiberius Gracchus had fallen upon their
leader, that the great political struggle which had been going on for
nearly a century was nearing its end, and that they were on the eve of a
greater victory than that at Alesia. It would seem that only two of them,
Matius and Trebatius, lived to see the dawning of the new day. But it was
not simply nor mainly the brilliancy of Cæsar as a leader in war or in
politics which attracted Matius to him. As he himself puts it in his
letter to Cicero: "I did not follow a Cæsar, but a friend." Lucullus and
Pompey had made as distinguished a record in the East as Cæsar had in the
West, but we hear of no such group of able young men following their
fortunes as attached themselves to Cæsar. We must find a reason for the
difference in the personal qualities of Cæsar, and there is nothing that
more clearly proves the charm of his character than the devotion to him of
this group of men. In the group Matius is the best representative of the
man and the friend. When Cæsar came into his own, Matius neither asked for
nor accepted the political offices which Cæsar would gladly have given
him. One needs only to recall the names of Antony, Labienus, or Decimus
Brutus to realize the fact that Cæsar remembered and rewarded the faithful
services of his followers. But Matius was Cæsar's friend and nothing more,
not his master of the horse, as Antony was, nor his political and
financial heir, as Octavius was. In his loyalty to Cæsar he sought for no
other reward than Cæsar's friendship, and his services to him brought with
them their own return. Indeed, through his friend he suffered loss, for
one of Cæsar's laws robbed him of a part of his estate, as he tells us,
but this experience did not lessen his affection. How different his
attitude was from that of others who professed a friendship for Cæsar!
Some of them turned upon their leader and plotted against his life, when
disappointed in the favors which they had received at his hands, and
others, when he was murdered, used his name and his friendship for them to
advance their own ambitious designs. Antony and Octavius struggle with
each other to catch the reins of power which have fallen from his hands;
Dolabella, who seems to regard himself as an understudy of Cæsar, plays a
serio-comic part in Rome in his efforts to fill the place of the dead
dictator; while Decimus Brutus hurries to the North to make sure of the
province which Cæsar had given him.
From these men, animated by selfishness, by jealousy, by greed for gain,
by sentimentalism, or by hypocritical patriotism, Matius stands aloof,
and stands perhaps alone. For him the death of Cæsar means the loss of a
friend, of a man in whom he believed. He can find no common point of
sympathy either with those who rejoice in the death of the tyrant, as
Cicero does, for he had not thought Cæsar a tyrant, nor with those who use
the name of Cæsar to conjure with. We have said that he accepted no
political office. He did accept an office, that of procurator, or
superintendent, of the public games which Cæsar had vowed on the field of
Pharsalus, but which death had stepped in to prevent him from giving, and
it was in the pious fulfilment of this duty which he took upon himself
that he brought upon his head the anger of the "auctores libertatis," as
he ironically calls them. He had grieved, too, at the death of Cæsar,
although "a man ought to rate the fatherland above a friend," as the
liberators said. Matius took little heed of this talk. He had known of it
from the outset, but it had not troubled him. Yet when it came to his ears
that his friend Cicero, to whom he had been attached from boyhood, to whom
he had proved his fidelity at critical moments, was among his accusers, he
could not but complain bitterly of the injustice. Through a common
friend, Trebatius, whose acquaintance he had made in Gaul, he expresses to
Cicero the sorrow which he feels at his unkindness. What Cicero has to say
in explanation of his position and in defence of himself, we can do no
better than to give in his own words:
"_Cicero to Matins, greeting:_[145]
"I am not yet quite clear in my own mind whether our friend Trebatius,
who is as loyal as he is devoted to both of us, has brought me more
sorrow or pleasure: for I reached my Tusculan villa in the evening, and
the next day, early in the morning, he came to see me, though he had
not yet recovered his strength. When I reproved him for giving too
little heed to his health, he said that nothing was nearer his heart
than seeing me. 'There's nothing new,' say I? He told me of your
grievance against me, yet before I make any reply in regard to it, let
me state a few facts.
"As far back as I can recall the past I have no friend of longer
standing than you are; but long duration is a thing characteristic of
many friendships, while love is not. I loved you on the day I met you,
and I believed myself loved by you. Your subsequent departure, and that
too for a long time, my electoral canvass, and our different modes of
life did not allow our inclination toward one another to be
strengthened by intimacy; still I saw your feeling toward me many years
before the Civil War, while Cæsar was in Gaul; for the result which you
thought would be of great advantage to me and not of disadvantage to
Cæsar himself you accomplished: I mean in bringing him to love me, to
honor me, to regard me as one of his friends. Of the many confidential
communications which passed between us in those days, by word of mouth,
by letter, by message, I say nothing, for sterner times followed. At
the breaking out of the Civil War, when you were on your way toward
Brundisium to join Cæsar, you came to me to my Formian villa. In the
first place, how much did that very fact mean, especially at those
times! Furthermore, do you think I have forgotten your counsel, your
words, the kindness you showed? I remember that Trebatius was there.
Nor indeed have I forgotten the letter which you sent to me after
meeting Cæsar, in the district near Trebula, as I remember it. Next
came that ill-fated moment when either my regard for public opinion, or
my sense of duty, or chance, call it what you will, compelled me to go
to Pompey. What act of kindness or thoughtfulness either toward me in
my absence or toward my dear ones in Rome did you neglect? In fact,
whom have all my friends thought more devoted to me and to themselves
than you are? I came to Brundisium. Do you think I have forgotten in
what haste, as soon as you heard of it, you came hurrying to me from
Tarentum? How much your presence meant to me, your words of cheer to a
courage broken by the fear of universal disaster! Finally, our life at
Rome began. What element did our friendship lack? In most important
matters I followed your advice with reference to my relations toward
Cæsar; in other matters I followed my own sense of duty. With whom but
myself, if Cæsar be excepted, have you gone so far as to visit his
house again and again, and to spend there many hours, oftentimes in the
most delightful discourse? It was then too, if you remember, that you
persuaded me to write those philosophical essays of mine. After his
return, what purpose was more in your thoughts than to have me as good
a friend of Cæsar as possible? This you accomplished at once.
"What is the point, then, of this discourse, which is longer than I had
intended it should be? This is the point, that I have been surprised
that you, who ought to see these things, have believed that I have
taken any step which is out of harmony with our friendly relations, for
beside these facts which I have mentioned, which are undisputed and
self-evident facts, there are many more intimate ties of friendship
which I can scarcely put in words. Everything about you charms me, but
most of all, on the one hand, your perfect loyalty in matters of
friendship, your wisdom, dignity, steadfastness; on the other hand,
your wit, refinement, and literary tastes.
"Wherefore--now I come back to the grievance--in the first place, I did
not think that you had voted for that law; in the second place, if I
had thought so, I should never have thought that you had done it
without some sufficient reason. Your position makes whatever you do
noticeable; furthermore, envy puts some of your acts in a worse light
than the facts warrant. If you do not hear these rumors I do not know
what to say. So far as I am concerned, if I ever hear them I defend you
as I know that _I_ am always defended by _you_ against _my_ detractors.
And my defence follows two lines: there are some things which I always
deny _in toto_, as, for instance, the statement in regard to that very
vote; there are other acts of yours which I maintain were dictated by
considerations of affection and kindness, as, for instance, your action
with reference to the management of the games. But it does not escape
you, with all your wisdom, that, if Cæsar was a king--which seems to me
at any rate to have been the case--with respect of your duty two
positions may be maintained, either the one which I am in the habit of
taking, that your loyalty and friendship to Cæsar are to be praised, or
the one which some people take, that the freedom of one's fatherland is
to be esteemed more than the life of one's friend. I wish that my
discussions springing out of these conversations had been repeated to
you.
"Indeed, who mentions either more gladly or more frequently than I the
two following facts, which are especially to your honor? The fact that
you were the most influential opponent of the Civil War, and that you
were the most earnest advocate of temperance in the moment of victory,
and in this matter I have found no one to disagree with me. Wherefore I
am grateful to our friend Trebatius for giving me an opportunity to
write this letter, and if you are not convinced by it, you will think
me destitute of all sense of duty and kindness; and nothing more
serious to me than that or more foreign to your own nature can happen."
In all the correspondence of Cicero there is not a letter written with
more force and delicacy of feeling, none better suited to accomplish its
purpose than this letter to Matius. It is a work of art; but in that fact
lies its defect, and in that respect it is in contrast to the answer which
it called forth from Matius, The reply of Matius stands on a level with
another better-known non-Ciceronian epistle, the famous letter of
condolence which Servius wrote to Cicero after the death of Cicero's
daughter, Tullia; but it is finer, for, while Servius is stilted and full
of philosophical platitudes, Matius, like Shakespeare's Antony, "only
speaks right on," in telling Cicero of his grief at Cæsar's death, of his
indignation at the intolerant attitude of the assassins, and his
determination to treasure the memory of Cæsar at any cost. This is his
letter:
"_Matius to Cicero, greeting_[146]
"I derived great pleasure from your letter, because I saw that you held
such an opinion about me as I had hoped you would hold, and wished you
to hold; and although, in regard to that opinion, I had no misgivings,
still, inasmuch as I considered it a matter of the greatest importance,
I was anxious that it should continue unchanged. And then I was
conscious of having done nothing to offend any good citizen; therefore
I was the less inclined to believe that you, endowed as you are with so
many excellent qualities, could be influenced by any idle rumors,
especially as my friendship toward you had been and was sincere and
unbroken. Since I know that matters stand in this respect as I have
wished them to stand, I will reply to the charges, which you have often
refuted in my behalf in such a way as one would expect from that
kindness of heart characteristic of you and from our friendship. It is
true that what men said against me after the death of Cæsar was known
to me. They call it a sin of mine that I sorrow over the death of a man
dear to me, and because I grieve that he whom I loved is no more, for
they say that 'fatherland should be above friendship,' just as if they
had proved already that his death has been of service to the state. But
I will make no subtle plea. I confess that I have not attained to your
high philosophic planes; for, on the one hand, in the Civil War I did
not follow a Cæsar, but a friend, and although I was grieved at the
state of things, still I did not desert him; nor, on the other hand,
did I at any time approve of the Civil War, nor even of the reason for
strife, which I most earnestly sought to extinguish when it was
kindling. Therefore, in the moment of victory for one bound to me by
the closest ties, I was not captivated by the charm either of public
office or of gold, while his other friends, although they had less
influence with him than I, misused these rewards in no small degree.
Nay, even my own property was impaired by a law of Cæsar's, thanks to
which very law many who rejoice at the death of Cæsar have remained at
Rome. I have worked as for my own welfare that conquered citizens might
be spared.
"Then may not I, who have desired the welfare of all, be indignant
that he, from whom this favor came, is dead? especially since the very
men who were forgiven have brought him both unpopularity and death. You
shall be punished, then, they say, 'since you dare to disapprove of our
deed.' Unheard of arrogance, that some men glory in their crime, that
others may not even sorrow over it without punishment! But it has
always been the unquestioned right, even of slaves, to fear, to
rejoice, to grieve according to the dictates of their own feelings
rather than at the bidding of another man; of these rights, as things
stand now, to judge from what these champions of freedom keep saying,
they are trying to deprive us by intimidation; but their efforts are
useless. I shall never be driven by the terrors of any danger from the
path of duty or from the claims of friendship, for I have never thought
that a man should shrink from an honorable death; nay, I have often
thought that he should seek it. But why are they angry at me, if I wish
them to repent of their deed? for I desire to have Cæsar's death a
bitter thing to all men.
"'But I ought as a citizen to desire the welfare of the state.' Unless
my life in the past and my hope for the future, without words from me,
prove that I desire that very end, I do not seek to establish the fact
by words. Wherefore I beg you the more earnestly to consider deeds more
than words, and to believe, if you feel that it is well for the right
to prevail, that I can have no intercourse with dishonorable men. For
am I now, in my declining years, to change that course of action which
I maintained in my youth, when I might even have gone astray with hope
of indulgence, and am I to undo my life's work? I will not do so. Yet I
shall take no step which may be displeasing to any man, except to
grieve at the cruel fate of one most closely bound to me, of one who
was a most illustrious man. But if I were otherwise minded, I would
never deny what I was doing lest I should be regarded as shameless in
doing wrong, a coward and a hypocrite in concealing it.
"'Yet the games which the young Cæsar gave in memory of Cæsar's victory
I superintended.' But that has to do with my private obligation and not
with the condition of the state; a duty, however, which I owed to the
memory and the distinguished position of a dear friend even though he
was dead, a duty which I could not decline when asked by a young man of
most excellent promise and most worthy of Cæsar. 'I even went
frequently to the house of the consul Antony to pay my respects!' to
whom you will find that those who think that I am lacking in devotion
to my country kept coming in throngs to ask some favor forsooth or
secure some reward. But what arrogance this is that, while Cæsar never
interfered with my cultivating the friendship of men whom I pleased,
even when he himself did not like them, these men who have taken my
friend from me should try to prevent me by their slander from loving
those whom I will.
"But I am not afraid lest the moderation of my life may prove too weak
to withstand false reports, or that even those who do not love me
because of my loyalty to Cæsar may not prefer to have friends like me
rather than like themselves. So far as I myself am concerned, if what I
prefer shall be my lot, the life which is left me I shall spend in
retirement at Rhodes; but if some untoward circumstance shall prevent
it, I shall live at Rome in such a wise as to desire always that right
be done. Our friend Trebatius I thank heartily in that he has disclosed
your sincere and friendly feeling toward me, and has shown me that him
whom I have always loved of my own free will I ought with the more
reason to esteem and honor. Bene vale et me dilige."
With these words our knowledge of Matius comes almost to an end. His life
was prolonged into the imperial period, and, strangely enough, in one of
the few references to him which we find at a later date, he is
characterized as "the friend of Augustus" (divi Augusti amicus). It would
seem that the affection which he felt for Cæsar he transferred to Cæsar's
heir and successor. He still holds no office or title. In this connection
it is interesting to recall the fact that we owe the best of Cicero's
philosophical work to him, the "Academics," the "De Finibus," and the
"Tusculan Questions," for Cicero tells us in his letter that he was
induced to write his treatises on philosophy by Matius. It is a pleasant
thing to think that to him we may also be indebted for Cicero's charming
essay "On Friendship." The later life of Matius, then, we may think was
spent in retirement, in the study of philosophy, and in the pursuit of
literature. His literary pursuits give a homely and not unpleasant touch
to his character. They were concerned with gastronomy, for Columella, in
the first century of our era, tells us[147] that Matius composed three
books, bearing the titles of "The Cook," "The Butler," and "The
Picklemaker," and his name was transmitted to a later generation in a dish
known as "mincemeat à la Matius" (_minutal Matianum_).[148] He passes out
of the pages of history in the writings of Pliny the Elder as the man who
"invented the practice of clipping shrubbery."[149] To him, then, we
perhaps owe the geometrical figures, and the forms of birds and beasts
which shrubs take in the modern English garden. His memory is thus ever
kept green, whether in a way that redounds to his credit or not is left
for the reader to decide.