good fortune in attaching to himself so many friends. He took much
trouble to do so. From his arrival at Rome we see him busied in putting
himself on good terms with everybody, and using every means to please
men of all parties. His birth, his wealth, and the manner in which he
had acquired it, drew him towards the knights; these rich farmers of the
taxes were his natural friends, and he soon enjoyed a great reputation
among them; but he was not less connected with the patricians, usually
so disdainful of all who were not of their caste. He had taken the
surest means to conciliate them, which was to flatter their vanity. He
took advantage of his historical knowledge to manufacture for them
agreeable genealogies, in which he made himself partaker in a good many
lies, and supported their most fanciful pretensions by his learning.
This example shows at once his knowledge of the world, and the advantage
he drew from it when he wished to gain the friendship of anybody. We can
see what a close observer he must have been, and the talent that he had
for seizing and profiting by the weak side of people, merely by
considering the nature of the services that he rendered to each person.
He had proposed to Cato to undertake the management of his affairs at
Rome during his absence, and Cato hastened to accept this: a steward of
such capacity was not to be despised by a man who cared so much for his
wealth. He had gratified the vain Pompey, by busying himself in
selecting in Greece some fine statues to ornament the theatre he was
building.[151] As he well knew that Caesar was not accessible to the
same kind of flattery, and that, to attract him, more real services were
necessary, he lent him money.[152] Naturally, he attached himself by
preference to the heads of parties; but he did not neglect others when
he could serve them. He carefully cultivated Balbus and Theophanes, the
confidants of Caesar and Pompey; he even went sometimes to visit Clodius
and his sister Clodia, as well as other people of doubtful reputation.
Having neither rigid scruples like Cato, nor violent aversions like
Cicero, he accommodated himself to everybody; his good-nature lent
itself to everything; he suited all ages as well as all characters.
Cornelius Nepos remarks with admiration, that while yet very young he
charmed the old Sulla, and that when very old he could please the young
Brutus. Atticus formed a common link between all these men who were so
different in temper, rank, opinions, and age. He went continually from
one to the other, as a sort of pacific ambassador, trying to bring them
together and unite them, for it was his habit, says Cicero, to form
friendships between others.[153] He removed the suspicions and
prejudices which prevented them knowing one another; he inspired them
with the desire to see each other and become intimate, and if, later,
any differences arose between them, he became their intermediary, and
brought about explanations which made them friends again. His
masterpiece in this line is to have succeeded in reconciling Hortensius
and Cicero, and making them live amicably together notwithstanding the
violent jealousy that separated them. What trouble must he not have had
to calm their irritable vanity, which was always ready to fly out, and
which fate seemed to take pleasure in exciting still more, by putting
them in constant rivalry!
All these acquaintanceships of Atticus were certainly not real
friendships. He visited many of these personages only for the advantage
that his safety or his wealth might draw from them; but there are a
great number of others who were really his friends. To confine ourselves
to the most important, Cicero loved no one so much as he did him; Brutus
showed him an unreserved confidence to the last, and on the eve of
Philippi wrote him his last confidences. There remain too many striking
proofs of these two illustrious friendships for them to be called in
question, and we must admit that he was able to inspire a lively
affection in two of the noblest minds of that time. At first we are very
much surprised at this. His prudent reserve, that openly avowed
determination to keep clear of all entanglements in order to escape all
danger, ought, as it seems, to have kept aloof from him men of
conviction who sacrificed fortune and life for their opinions. By what
merit was he nevertheless able to attach them to himself? How was a man
so taken up with himself and so careful of his interests able to enjoy
so fully the pleasures of friendship, which seem at first sight, to
exact devotedness and self-forgetfulness? How did he succeed in making
the moralists, who assert that egotism is the death of true affection,
belie themselves?[154]
This is still one of those problems of which the life of Atticus is
full, and it is the most difficult to solve. Seen from a distance, even
through the praises of Cicero, Atticus does not seem attractive, and one
would not be tempted to choose him for a friend. And yet it is certain
that those who lived with him did not judge him as we do. They loved
him, and felt themselves from the first inclined to love him. That
general good-will that he inspired, that determination of every one to
pardon or not to see his defects, those lively friendships that he
called forth, are evidences that it is impossible to resist, whatever
surprise they may cause us. There was, then, about this personage
something else than we see; he must have possessed a kind of attraction
that is inexplicable to us, which was personal to him, and which has
disappeared with him. For this reason it is no longer possible for us to
understand thoroughly that strange attraction that he exercised at first
sight on all his contemporaries. We can, however, form some idea of it,
and the writers who knew him, especially Cicero, give a glimpse of some
of those brilliant or solid qualities by which he gained over those who
approached him. I shall enumerate them according to their testimony, and
if they still do not seem sufficient to justify altogether the number of
his friendships and their ardour, we must join to them in thought that
personal charm that it is impossible now to define or recover because it
vanished with himself.
Firstly, he had a good deal of cultivation, everybody agrees about that,
and a sort of cultivation especially agreeable to the society that he
frequented. He was not solely one of those pleasant triflers who charm
for a moment on a passing acquaintance, but who have not the
qualifications for a longer connection. He was a person of many
attainments and solid knowledge; not that he was a man of deep learning,
this title is not a great recommendation in the intercourse of society;
Cicero thought that people like Varro, who are perfect mines of
knowledge, are not always amusing, and relates that when the latter came
to see him at Tusculum he did not tear his mantle in trying to retain
him.[155] But, without being really a scholar, Atticus had touched on
everything in his studies, the fine arts, poetry, grammar, philosophy,
and history. Upon all these subjects he possessed just and sometimes
original ideas; he could discuss matters with learned men without too
great disadvantage, and he always had some curious detail to tell those
who were not so. Pascal would have called him a cultivated gentleman
(_honnête homme_); in everything he was an intelligent and enlightened
amateur. Now, for several reasons, the knowledge that an amateur
acquires is of the kind most current in society. Firstly, as he does not
study according to rule, he interests himself above all in curiosities;
he learns by preference racy and novel details, and it is precisely
these that people of society want to know. Besides, the very
multiplicity of the studies which tempt him, prevents him exhausting
any; his caprice always carries him off elsewhere before he has
thoroughly examined anything. The result is that he knows a great many
things, and always within the limits in which it pleases men of the
world to know them. In fact, the characteristic of the amateur is to do
everything, even what he only does for a moment, with enthusiasm. As it
is a personal taste that draws him to his studies, and as he only
continues them as long as they interest him, his language is more lively
when he speaks of them, his tone freer and more original, and
consequently more agreeable, than that of scholars by profession. Such
is the notion we must form of the learning of Atticus. It was too
extensive for his conversation ever to become monotonous; it was not
deep enough to run the risk of being tedious; it was, in fine, living,
for when things are done with enthusiasm it is natural to speak of them
with interest. This is what made his conversation so attractive, and
this is how he charmed the most fastidious and least favourably disposed
minds. He was still quite young when the aged Sulla, who had no reason
to like him, met him at Athens. He took so much pleasure in hearing him
read Greek and Latin verses and talk about literature, that he would not
leave him, and wished by all means to take him back with him to Rome.
Long after, Augustus felt the same charm; he was never tired of hearing
Atticus talk, and when he could not go to see him, he wrote to him every
day simply to receive his answers, and thus to continue, in some sort,
those long conversations with which he was so delighted.
We can imagine, then, that the first time people met this accomplished
man they felt themselves drawn towards him by the charm of his
conversation. In proportion as he was better known, other and more solid
qualities were discovered, which retained those whom his culture had
attracted. In the first place there was a great security in his
intercourse. Although he was connected with people holding very diverse
opinions, and though, through them, he had the secrets of all parties,
he was never reproached with having betrayed these to anybody. We cannot
see that he ever furnished a serious cause to any of his friends to keep
aloof from him, or that any of his connections were broken otherwise
than by death. This intercourse, so secure, was at the same time very
easy. No one was ever more indulgent and accommodating. He took care not
to weary by his demands or to repulse by bluntness. Those storms which
so often troubled the friendship of Cicero and Brutus were not to be
feared in his. It was rather one of those calm and uniform intimacies
which grow stronger from day to day by their regular continuance. It was
this especially that must have charmed those politicians who were
oppressed and fatigued by that bustling activity which used up their
lives. On coming out of this whirlwind of business, they were happy to
find, at a few paces from the Forum, that peaceful house on the Quirinal
into which outside quarrels did not enter, and to go and chat for a
moment with that even-tempered and accomplished man who always received
them with the same smile, and in whose good-will they had such a
tranquil confidence.
But nothing, assuredly, could have won him so many friends as his
readiness to oblige them. This was inexhaustible, and it could not be
asserted that it was interested, since, contrary to custom, he gave much
and demanded nothing. Here again is one of the reasons why his
friendships were so lasting, for it is always this sort of interchange
that we think we have a right to demand, and the comparisons that we
make, in spite of ourselves, between good offices which we render and
those which we receive, which in the end disturb the most firm
friendships. Atticus, who knew this well, had so contrived as to have
need of nobody. He was rich, he never had law-suits, he did not seek
public employments, so that a friend who was determined to recompense
the services he had received could never find the opportunity,[156] and
remained always under obligations to him, and his debt continued to
increase, for Atticus never wearied of being useful. We have an easy
means of appreciating the extent of this serviceableness, to see it
close, and, so to say at work, namely, to rapidly recall the services of
all sorts that he had rendered Cicero during their long intimacy. Cicero
had much need of a friend like Atticus. He was one of those clever men
who cannot reckon; when his account-books were presented to him he would
gladly have said, like his pupil, Pliny the Younger, that he was used to
another sort of literature: _aliis sum chartis, aliis litteris
initiatus_. Atticus became his man of business; we know his talent for
this profession. He leased Cicero’s property very dear, saved as much as
he could out of the income and paid the most pressing debts. When he
discovered new ones, he dared to scold his friend, who hastened to reply
very humbly that he would be more careful for the future. Atticus, who
did not much believe this, set to work to make up the deficit. He went
to see the wealthy Balbus or the other great bankers of Rome with whom
he had business relations. If the calamities of the times made it
difficult to get credit, he did not hesitate to dip into his own purse.
Those who know him will not think this generosity without merit. When
Cicero wished to buy some estate, Atticus at first would get angry; but
if his friend did not give way, he quickly went to visit it and discuss
the price. If it was a question of building some elegant villa, Atticus
lent his architect, corrected the plans, and overlooked the work. When
the house was built, it had to be adorned, and Atticus would send to
Greece for statues. He excelled in selecting them, and Cicero was
inexhaustible in his praises of the Hermathenae in Pentelican marble
that he had procured for him. In a villa of Cicero, we can well
understand that the library was not forgotten, and it was from Atticus
again that the books came. He traded in them, and kept the handsomest
for his friend. The books being bought, it was necessary to arrange
them, so Atticus sent his librarian Tyrannion with his workmen, who
painted the shelves, pasted together the detached leaves of papyrus, put
the labels on the rolls, and arranged the whole in such good order that
Cicero, enchanted, wrote: “Since Tyrannion has arranged my books one
would say that the house has a soul.”[157]
But Atticus did not stop at these services, which we might call
external; he penetrated into the home, he knew all its secrets. Cicero
kept nothing from him, and confided to him unreservedly all his domestic
griefs. He tells him about the violent temper of his brother and the
follies of his nephew; he consults him on the vexations that his wife
and son cause him. When Tullia was of an age to marry, it was Atticus
who sought her a husband. The one he proposed was the son of a rich and
well-conducted knight. “Return,” he said sagely to Cicero, “return to
your old flock.” Unfortunately he was not listened to. They preferred to
the rich financier a broken-down nobleman, who squandered Tullia’s dowry
and forced her to leave him. When Tullia was dead, of grief perhaps,
Atticus went to the nurse’s to visit the little child she had left, and
took care that it wanted for nothing. At the same time Cicero gave him
plenty of occupation with his two divorces. After he had divorced his
first wife, Terentia, it was Atticus whom he charged to get her to make
a will in his favour. It was to him also that he gave the disagreeable
commission to remove the second, Publilia, when she was determined to
forcibly re-enter the home of her husband, who would have nothing more
to do with her.
These are doubtless great services; he rendered others still more
delicate, still more appreciated. It was to him that Cicero entrusted
what was most dear to him in the world, his literary glory. He
communicated his works to him as soon as he had written them, he took
his advice in making corrections, and waited for his decision to publish
them. Thus he treated him as a friend with whom one feels at home, and
to whom one unbosoms oneself completely. Although he was eager that his
eloquence should be taken seriously, when he was sure of being heard by
Atticus only, he made no scruple of joking about himself and his works.
He introduced him without reserve to all the secrets of the craft, and
showed him the receipts for his most popular effects. “This time, said
he gaily, I employed the whole scent-box of Isocrates, and all the
caskets of the disciples.”[158] Nothing can be more curious than the way
in which he related to him one day, one of his greatest oratorical
successes. It was a question of celebrating the fame of the great
consulship, a subject upon which, as we know, he was inexhaustible. That
day he had a reason for speaking with more brilliancy than usual. Pompey
was present; now Pompey had the weakness to be jealous of Cicero’s
glory. It was a good opportunity to enrage him, and Cicero took care not
to neglect it. “When my turn came to speak, he writes to Atticus,
immortal gods! what rein I gave myself! What pleasure I took in loading
myself with praises in the presence of Pompey, who had never heard me
extol my consulship! If I ever called to my aid periods, enthymemes,
metaphors, and all the other figures of rhetoric, it was then. I did not
speak, I shouted, for it was a question of my stock subjects, the wisdom
of the senate, the good-will of the knights, the union of all Italy, the
smothered remains of the conspiracy, peace and plenty re-established,
etc. You know my thunders when I speak of these subjects. They were so
fine that day that I have no need to tell you more about them; you may
often have heard the like at Athens!”[159] It is impossible to quiz
oneself with greater lightheartedness. Atticus repaid these confidences
by the trouble he took for the success of his friend’s works. As he had
seen their birth, and had busied himself with them before they were
known to the public, he almost regarded himself as their parent. It was
he who took upon himself to start them in the world and make them
succeed. Cicero says that he was admirably well skilled in this, and it
does not surprise us. The means he most frequently employed to create a
good opinion of them, was to have the finest passages read by his best
readers to the clever men whom he assembled round his table. Cicero, who
knew the usual frugality of his repasts, begged him to deviate from it a
little on these occasions. “Have a care, he writes to him, to treat your
guests well, for if they are in a bad humour with you, they will vent it
on me.”[160] It was natural that Cicero should be extremely grateful for
all these services; but it would be judging him ill to suppose that he
was only attached to him for the benefits he received from him. He
really loved him, and all his letters are full of evidences of the most
sincere affection. He was always happy with him; he was never tired of
associating with him; he had scarcely left him than he ardently wished
to see him again. “May I die, he wrote to him, if either my house at
Tusculum, where I feel so comfortable, or the Isles of the Blest could
please me without you!”[161] Whatever pleasure he experienced at being
_fêted_, applauded, flattered, at having around him an obsequious and
admiring multitude, in the midst of this crowd and noise he always
turned with regret towards his absent friend. “With all these people, he
tells him, I feel myself more alone than if I had only you.”[162] All
these people, in fact, are composed of political friends who change with
circumstances, whom a common interest brings to you, and a rival
ambition takes away again; with them Cicero is obliged to be reserved
and careful, which is a torture for such an open-hearted nature. On the
other hand, he can tell Atticus everything, and confide in him without
restraint. So he hastens to demand his presence when the least annoyance
happens to him. “I want you, he writes to him, I have need of you, I am
waiting for you. I have a thousand things that disturb and vex me, and a
single walk with you will relieve me.”[163] We should never end if we
were to collect all those charming expressions of which the
correspondence is full, and in which his heart plainly speaks. They
leave no doubt about Cicero’s feelings; they prove that he regarded
Atticus not only as one of those steadfast and serious friends on whose
support he could count, but also, which is more surprising, as a
sensitive and tender soul: “You take your share,” he tells him, “in all
the troubles of others.”[164]
Here is something far removed from the notion we usually have of him,
and yet we cannot resist such clear testimony. How can we contend that
he had only a doubtful affection for his friends when we see all his
friends contented with it? Are we to be more exacting than they, and
would it not be wronging men like Brutus and Cicero to suppose that they
had been dupes so long without perceiving it? On the other hand, how can
we explain the fact that posterity, which only judges by the documents
that the friends of Atticus have furnished it, draws from these very
documents an opinion quite the reverse of that held by them? Evidently
it is because posterity and contemporaries do not judge men from the
same stand-point. We have seen that Atticus, who had made a rule not to
engage in public affairs, did not think himself obliged to partake the
dangers that his friends might run, through having taken part in them.
He left them both the honours and the perils. Sensitive, obliging,
devoted to them in the ordinary business of life, when a great political
crisis occurred that compromised them, he stood aside, and left them to
expose themselves alone. Now, when we look at the facts from a distance,
and are separated from them, as we are, by several centuries, we only
perceive the most important events, and especially the political
revolutions, that is to say, precisely those circumstances with which
the friendship of Atticus had nothing to do. Hence the severe judgment
we pronounce upon it. But his contemporaries judged otherwise. Those
great crises are, after all, but rare and passing exceptions; without
doubt contemporaries are much struck by them, but they are still more
impressed by those numberless small incidents which make up every-day
life, and which posterity does not perceive. They judge of a man’s
friendship by those services which are rendered every moment, and which
are important by their mere number, much more than by any exceptional
service which may be given on one of these great and rare occasions.
This accounts for the fact that they had an opinion of Atticus so
different from ours.
It is, beyond doubt, one of the characteristic traits of this person,
that it was a necessity to him to have many friends, and that he took
trouble to attract and retain them. We may refuse to admit, if we will,
that this need was, with him, the effect of a generous and sympathetic
nature, that it came from what Cicero admirably calls “the impulse of
the soul that desires to love;” but, even supposing that he only thought
of occupying and filling up his life, we must acknowledge that to fill
it up in this manner is not a mark of a vulgar nature. This refined
Epicurean, this master in the art of living at ease, knew “that life is
no longer life if we cannot repose on the affection of a friend.”[165]
He had given up the excitement of political strife, the triumphs of
eloquence, the joys of satisfied ambition, but, as a compensation, he
was determined to enjoy all the pleasures of private life. The more he
confined and limited himself to it, the more particular and refined he
became with regard to the pleasures it could give; as he had only left
himself these, he wished to enjoy them fully, to relish them, to live on
them. He needed friends, and among them the greatest minds, the noblest
souls of his time. He expended all that energy which he did not employ
in anything else, in procuring for himself those pleasures of society
that Bossuet calls the greatest good of human life. Atticus enjoyed this
good even beyond his desires, and friendship generously repaid him for
all the trouble he had taken for it. It was his single passion; he was
able to satisfy it completely, and friendship, after having adorned his
life, has shed a lustre on his name.
III.
Atticus appears in a favourable light in private life. He is less
fortunate when we study the course he followed in public affairs. On
this point he has not been spared blame, and it is not easy to defend
him.