his time. Like Aristotle, he accepted the institution, and thought it
legitimate. While proclaiming that a man has duties to fulfil towards
his slaves, he did not hesitate to admit that they must be held down by
cruelty when there was no other means of managing them;[126] but in
practice he treated them with great mildness. He attached himself to
them so far as to weep for them when he had the misfortune to lose them.
This, probably, was not usual, for we see that he almost begs pardon for
it of his friend Atticus. “My mind is quite troubled, he writes to him;
I have lost a young man named Sositheus, who was my reader, and I am
more grieved perhaps than I ought to be at the death of a slave.”[127] I
only see one, in all his correspondence, with whom he seems to be very
angry; this was a certain Dionysius whom he sought for even in the
depths of Illyria, and whom he wished to have again at any price;[128]
but Dionysius had stolen some of his books, and this was a crime that
Cicero could not forgive. His slaves also loved him very much. He boasts
of the fidelity they showed towards him in his misfortunes, and we know
that at the last moment they would have died for him if he had not
prevented them.
We know better than the rest one of them, who had a greater share in his
affection, namely, Tiro. The name he bears is Latin, which makes us
suspect that he was one of those slaves born in the master’s house
(_vernae_), who were looked upon as belonging to the family more than
the rest, because they had never left it. Cicero became attached to him
early, and had him carefully instructed. Perhaps he even took the
trouble to finish his education himself. He calls himself, somewhere,
his teacher, and likes to rally him about his way of writing. He had a
very lively affection for him, and at last could not do without him. He
played a great part in Cicero’s house, and his powers were very various.
He represented in it order and economy, which were not the ordinary
qualities of his master. He was the confidential man through whose hands
all financial matters passed. On the first of the month he undertook to
scold the debtors who were in arrears, and to get too pressing creditors
to have patience; he revised the accounts of the steward Eros, which
were not always correct; he went to see the obliging bankers whose
credit supported Cicero in moments of difficulty. Every time there was
some delicate commission to be executed he was applied to, as for
instance when it was a question of demanding some money of Dolabella
without displeasing him too much. The care he gave to the most important
affairs did not prevent him being employed on the smallest. He was sent
to overlook the gardens, spur on the workmen, superintend the building
operations: the dining-room, even, fell within his province, and I see
that he is entrusted with the sending out the invitations to a dinner, a
thing not always without its difficulties, for one must only bring
together guests who are mutually agreeable, “and Tertia will not come if
Publius is invited.”[129] But it is as secretary, especially, that he
rendered Cicero the greatest services. He wrote almost as quickly as one
speaks, and he alone could read his master’s writing, that the copyists
could not decipher. He was more than a secretary for him, he was a
confidant, and even a collaborator. Aulus Gellius asserts that he helped
him in the composition of his works,[130] and the correspondence does
not belie this opinion. One day when Tiro had remained ill in some
country house, Cicero wrote to him that Pompey, who was then on a visit
to him, asked him to read him something, and that he had answered that
all was mute in the house when Tiro was not there. “My literature,” he
added, “or rather ours, languishes in your absence. Come back as quickly
as possible to re-animate our muses.”[131] At this time Tiro was still a
slave. It was not till much later, about the year 700, that he was
manumitted. Every one about Cicero applauded this just recompense for so
many faithful services. Quintus, who was then in Gaul, wrote expressly
to his brother to thank him for having given him a new friend. In the
sequel, Tiro bought a small field, no doubt out of his master’s bounty,
and Marcus, in the letter he wrote him from Athens, rallies him
pleasantly on the new tastes this acquisition will develop in him. “Now
you are a landowner!” says he, “you must leave the elegance of the town
and become quite a Roman peasant. How much pleasure I have in
contemplating you from here under your new aspect! I think I see you
buying agricultural implements, talking with the farmer, or saving seeds
for your garden in a fold of your robe at dessert!”[132] But, proprietor
and freedman, Tiro was no less at his master’s service than when he was
a slave.
His health was poor, and not always sufficiently attended to. Everybody
liked him, but under this pretext everybody made him work. They seemed
to agree in abusing his good-nature, which they knew to be
inexhaustible. Quintus, Atticus, and Marcus insisted upon his constantly
giving them news of Rome and of Cicero. Tiro so readily took his share
of each addition to the business that came upon his master, that at last
he fell ill. He fatigued himself so much during Cicero’s governorship of
Cilicia that, on the return journey, he had to be left at Patras. Cicero
very much regretted the separation from him, and to testify the sorrow
he felt at leaving him, he wrote to him as often as three times in the
same day. The care that Cicero took on every occasion of this delicate
and precious health was extreme; he became a doctor in order to cure
him. One day, when he had left him indisposed at Tusculum, he wrote to
him: “Take care of your health, which you have heretofore neglected in
order to serve me. You know what it demands: a good digestion, no
fatigue, moderate exercise, amusement, and keeping the body open. Come
back a good-looking fellow, I shall like you all the better for it, you
and Tusculum.”[133] When the illness was graver the advice was given at
greater length. All the family joined in writing, and Cicero, who held
the pen, said to him, in the name of his wife and children: “If you love
us all, and particularly me who have brought you up, you will only think
of re-establishing your health.... I beg you not to regard expense. I
have written to Curius to give you all that you want, and to pay the
doctor liberally that he may be more attentive. You have rendered me
numberless services at home, at the Forum, at Rome, in my province, in
my public and private affairs, in my studies and my literary work; but
you will put the finishing touch if, as I hope, I see you again in good
health.”[134] Tiro repaid this affection by an indefatigable
devotedness. With his feeble health, he lived more than a hundred years,
and we may say that all this long life was employed in his master’s
service. His zeal did not flag when he had lost him, and his time was
taken up with him to his last moments. He wrote his biography, he
brought out his unpublished works; that nothing should be lost, he
collected his smallest notes and witty sayings, of which, it is said, he
made a somewhat too large collection, for his admiration did not allow
him to distinguish, and he published some excellent editions of his
speeches, which were still consulted in the time of Aulus Gellius.[135]
These assuredly were services for which Cicero, who thought so much of
his literary glory, would have most heartily thanked his faithful
freedman.
There is one reflection that we cannot help making when we study the
relations of Tiro with his master, and that is, that ancient slavery,
looked at from this point of view, and in the house of such a man as
Cicero, appears less repulsive. It was evidently much softened at this
time, and letters have a large share in this improvement. They had
diffused a new virtue among those who loved them, one whose name often
recurs in Cicero’s philosophical works, namely, humanity, that is to
say, that culture of mind that softens the heart. It was by its
influence that slavery, without being attacked in principle, was
profoundly modified in its effects. This change came about noiselessly.
People did not try to run counter to dominant prejudices; up to Seneca’s
time they did not insist on establishing the right of the slave to be
reckoned among men, and he continued to be excluded from the grand
theories that were made upon human brotherhood; but in reality no one
profited more than he by the softening of manners. We have just seen how
Cicero treated his slaves, and he was not exceptional. Atticus acted
like him, and this humanity had become a sort of point of honour, on
which this society of polished and lettered people prided themselves. A
few years later, Pliny the younger, who also belonged to this society,
speaks with a touching sadness of the sickness and death of his slaves.
“I know well, he says, that many others only regard this kind of
misfortune as a simple loss of goods, and in thinking thus they consider
themselves great and wise men. For myself, I do not know if they are as
great and wise as they imagine, but I do know that they are not
men.”[136] These were the sentiments of all the distinguished society of
that time. Slavery, then, had lost much of its harshness towards the end
of the Roman republic and in the early times of the empire. This
improvement, which is usually referred to Christianity, was much older
than it, and we must give the credit of it to philosophy and letters.
Besides the freedmen and slaves, who formed part of the family of a rich
Roman, there were other persons who were attached to it, although less
closely, namely, the clients. Doubtless the ancient institution of
clientage had lost much of its grave and sacred character. The time had
gone by when Cato said that the clients should take precedence of
kinsmen and neighbours in the house, and that the title of patron came
immediately after that of father. These ties were much slackened,[137]
and the obligations they imposed had become much less rigid. Almost the
only one still respected was the necessity the clients were under of
going to salute the patron early in the morning. Quintus, in the very
curious letter that he addressed to his brother on the subject of his
candidature for the consulship, divides them into three classes: first,
those who content themselves with the morning visit; these are, in
general, lukewarm friends or inquisitive observers who come to learn the
news, or who even sometimes visit all the candidates that they may have
the pleasure of reading in their faces the state of their hopes; then,
those who accompany their patron to the Forum and form his train while
he takes two or three turns in the basilica, that everybody may see that
it is a man of importance who arrives; and lastly, those who do not
leave him all the time he is out of doors, and who conduct him back to
his house as they had gone to meet him there. These are the faithful and
devoted followers, who do not haggle about the time they give, and whose
unwearied zeal obtains for the candidate the dignities he desires.[138]
When a man had the good fortune to belong to a great family, he
possessed by inheritance a ready-made clientage. A Claudius or a
Cornelius, even before he had taken the trouble to oblige anybody, was
sure to find his hall half filled every morning with people whom
gratitude attached to his family, and he produced a sensation in the
Forum by the number of those who accompanied him the day he went there
to plead his first cause. Cicero had not this advantage; but, although
he owed his clients to himself alone, they were none the less very
numerous. In that time of exciting struggles, when the quietest citizens
were exposed every day to the most unreasonable accusations, many people
were forced to have recourse to him to defend them. He did so readily,
for he had no other means of making a clientage than by giving his
services to a great many. It was this, perhaps, that made him accept so
many bad cases. As he arrived at the Forum almost alone, without that
train of persons whom he had obliged, which gave public importance, it
was necessary for him not to be too particular in order to form and
increase it. Whatever repugnance his honest mind may have felt on taking
up a doubtful case, his vanity could not resist the pleasure of adding
another person to the multitude of those who accompanied him. There
were, in this crowd, according to his brother, citizens of every age,
rank, and fortune. Important personages no doubt were mingled with those
insignificant folks who usually formed this kind of retinue. Speaking of
a tribune of the people, Memmius Gemellus, the protector of Lucretius,
he calls him his client.[139]
It was not only at Rome that he had clients and persons who were under
obligation to him; we see by his correspondence that his protection
extended much further, and that people wrote to him from all parts
demanding his services. The Romans were then scattered over the entire
world; after having conquered it they busied themselves in making the
greatest possible profit out of it. In the track of the legions and
almost at their heels, a swarm of clever and enterprising men settled on
the just conquered provinces to seek their fortunes there; they knew how
to adapt their skill to the resources and needs of each country. In
Sicily and in Gaul they cultivated vast estates, and speculated in wines
and corn; in Asia, where there were so many cities opulent or involved
in debt, they became bankers, that is to say, they furnished them, by
their usury, a prompt and sure means of ruining themselves. In general,
they thought of returning to Rome as soon as their fortune was made, and
in order to return the sooner, they sought to enrich themselves as
quickly as possible. As they were only encamped, and not really settled
in the conquered countries, as they found themselves there without ties
of affection and without root, they treated them without mercy and made
themselves detested. They were often prosecuted before the tribunals and
had great need of being defended, and so they sought to procure the
support of the best advocates, above all that of Cicero, the greatest
orator of his time. His talent and his credit were not too great to
extricate them from the discreditable affairs in which they were mixed
up.
If we wish to become well acquainted with one of those great merchants
of Rome, who, by their character and their fate, sometimes resemble the
speculators of our days, we must read the speech that Cicero delivered
in defence of Rabirius Postumus. He there narrates the whole story of
his client. It is a lively story, and it is not without interest to sum
it up in order to know what those Roman business men, who so often had
recourse to his eloquence, were like. Rabirius, the son of a rich and
acute farmer of taxes, was born with the spirit of enterprise. He did
not confine himself to a single branch of commerce, for he was one of
those of whom Cicero said that they knew all the roads by which money
could come in, _omnes vias pecuniae norunt_.[140] He transacted all
kinds of business, and with equally good fortune; he undertook much
himself, and often shared in the enterprises of others. He farmed the
public taxes; he lent to private persons, to the provinces and to kings.
As generous as he was rich, he made his friends profit by his good
fortune. He created employment for them, gave them an interest in his
business, and a share in the profits.
His popularity therefore was very great at Rome; but, as sometimes
happens, his prosperity ruined him. He had lent a good deal of money to
Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, who probably gave him good interest.
This king having got himself expelled by his subjects, Rabirius was
induced to make him fresh advances in order to recover the money that
was at stake. He pledged his own fortune and even that of his friends to
provide for his expenses; he defrayed the cost of the magnificent royal
_cortège_ when Ptolemy went to Rome to demand the support of the senate,
and, what must have cost him still more, gave him the means of gaining
over the most influential senators. Ptolemy’s business appeared safe. As
people hoped much from the gratitude of the king, the most important
personages strove for the honour or rather the profit of reinstating
him. Lentulus, then proconsul of Cilicia, contended that they could not
refuse it to him; but at the same time Pompey, who received the young
prince at his house at Alba, demanded it for himself. This rivalry
caused everything to miscarry. The opposing interests counteracted each
other, and in order not to cause jealousy by letting one man profit by
this fortunate opportunity, the senate would not grant it to anybody. It
is said that Rabirius, who knew the Romans well, then gave the king the
bold advice to apply to one of those adventurers of whom Rome was full
and who flinched from nothing for money. A former tribune, Gabinius,
governed Syria. He was promised 10,000 talents (£2,200,000) if he would
openly disobey the decree of the senate. It was a large sum; Gabinius
accepted the bargain, and his troops brought Ptolemy back to Alexandria.
As soon as Rabirius knew that he was re-established he hastened to meet
him. To make more sure of recovering his money, he consented to become
his overseer of the revenue (_diaecetes_), or as we should now say, his
minister of finance. He wore the Greek mantle, to the great scandal of
strict Romans, and put on the insignia of his office. He had only
accepted it with the idea that he should never be better paid than if he
paid himself, through his own hands. This is what he tried to do, and it
appears that in raising the money promised to Gabinius he also
cautiously took enough to repay himself; but the people, who were being
ruined, complained, and the king, to whom Rabirius had become
intolerable now that he had no longer need of him, and who was no doubt
delighted to find a convenient means of getting rid of a creditor, threw
him into prison and even threatened his life. Rabirius fled from Egypt
as soon as he could, happy to have left only his fortune there. He had
only one resource left. At the same time that he administered the king’s
finances, he had bought on his own account Egyptian merchandise, paper,
flax, glass, and had laden several vessels which unloaded at Puteoli
with considerable ostentation. The report of this reached Rome, and, as
people there were used to the lucky adventures of Rabirius, rumour took
pleasure in exaggerating the number of the vessels and the value of
their cargo. It was even said, in an undertone, that there was among
these ships a smaller one that was not shown, no doubt because it was
full of gold and precious objects. Unfortunately for Rabirius there was
no truth in all these tales. The little ship only existed in the
imagination of news-mongers, and the goods that the others carried being
sold at a loss, he was quite ruined. His disaster made a sensation at
Rome, and was the talk of a whole season. The friends he had so
generously obliged deserted him; public opinion, which up to that time
had been so favourable to him, turned against him. The most indulgent
called him a fool, the most violent accused him of feigning poverty and
of withholding a part of his fortune from his creditors. It is certain,
however, that he had nothing, and only lived on the bounty of Caesar,
one of that small number who remained true to him in his misfortune.
Cicero did not forget him either. He remembered that, at the time of his
exile, Rabirius had put his fortune at his disposal and paid men to
accompany him, and therefore he hastened to plead for him when it was
proposed to include him in the prosecution of Gabinius, and he succeeded
at least in preserving his honour and liberty.
One trait is missing in this description. Cicero tells us in his speech
that Rabirius was only moderately educated. He had done so many things
in his life that he had not had time to think of learning, but this was
not usual; we know that many of his colleagues, notwithstanding their
not very literary occupations, were none the less witty and lettered
men. Cicero, recommending a merchant of Thespiae to Sulpicius, tells
him: “He has a taste for our studies.”[141] He looked upon Curius of
Patras as one of those who had best preserved the turn of the ancient
Roman humour. “Make haste and come back to Rome, he wrote him, lest the
seed of our native humour be lost.”[142] Those knights who associated
themselves in powerful companies and farmed the taxes, were also men of
wit and men of the best society. Cicero, who came from their ranks, had
connection with almost all of them; but it seems that he was more
especially connected with the company that farmed the pasturages of
Asia, and he says that it put itself under his protection.
This protection was also extended to people who were not Romans by
birth. Foreigners, we can well understand, regarded it as a great honour
and security to be in any way connected with an illustrious personage in
Rome. They could not be his clients, they wished to become his hosts. At
a time when there were so few convenient hotels in the countries one
passed through, it was necessary, when you wished to travel, to have
obliging friends who would consent to receive you. In Italy, rich people
bought little houses where they passed the night on the roads they were
accustomed to travel; but, elsewhere, they journeyed from one host to
another. To shelter a rich Roman in this way was often a heavy expense.
He always had a large train with him. Cicero tells us that he met P.
Vedius in the depths of Asia “with two chariots, a carriage, a litter,
horses, numerous slaves, and, besides, a monkey on a little car, and a
number of wild asses.”[143] Vedius was a comparatively unknown Roman.
One may judge of the suite that a proconsul and a praetor had when they
went to take possession of their provinces! However, although their
passage exhausted the house that received them, this ruinous honour was
solicited because numberless advantages were found in securing their
support. Cicero had hosts in all the great cities of Greece and Asia,
and they were almost always the principal citizens. Kings themselves
like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes considered themselves honoured by this
title. Important cities, Volaterrae, Atella, Sparta, Paphos frequently
claimed his protection and rewarded it with public honours. He counted
entire provinces, nations almost, among his clients, and after the
affair of Verres, for instance, he was the defender and patron of
Sicily. This custom survived the republic, and in the time of Tacitus
orators of renown had still among their clients provinces and kingdoms.
It was the only mark of real distinction that remained to eloquence.
These details, it seems to me, complete our knowledge of what the life
of an important person was at that time. As long as we are satisfied
with studying the few persons who compose what we should now-a-days call
his family, and only see him with his wife and children, his life very
much resembles our own. The sentiments which are the foundation of human
nature have not changed, and they always lead to very nearly the same
results. The cares which troubled Cicero’s domestic hearth, his joys and
misfortunes, are much like ours; but as soon as we leave this limited
circle, when we replace the Roman among the crowd of his servants and
familiar friends, the difference between that society and ours becomes
manifest. Now-a-days life has become more plain and simple. We have no
longer those immense riches, those extensive connections, nor that
multitude of people attached to our fortunes. What we call a great
retinue would scarcely have sufficed for one of those clerks of the
farmers of the revenue who went to collect the taxes in some provincial
town. A noble, or even a rich Roman knight, did not content himself with
so little. When we think of those armies of slaves they gathered
together in their houses and on their estates, of those freedmen who
formed a sort of court around them, of that multitude of clients who
encumbered the streets of Rome through which they passed, of those hosts
they had throughout the world, of those cities and realms that implored
their protection, we can better understand the authority of their
speech, the haughtiness of their bearing, the breadth of their
eloquence, the gravity of their deportment, the feeling of personal
importance which they threw into all their actions and speeches. It is
here, above all, that the perusal of Cicero’s letters renders us a great
service. They give us a notion of lives lived on a scale such as we no
longer know, and thus help us to understand better the society of that
time.
ATTICUS