confederacy was again revived under Leosthenes, a brave general, who
shut up Antipater in Lauria and besieged him there. Now, Pytheas the
orator and Kallimedon, surnamed the "crab," who were exiled from Athens,
joined Antipater, and travelled about Greece in company with his friends
and ambassadors, urging the cities not to join the Athenians and revolt
from Macedonia. Demosthenes, on the other hand, joined the embassy sent
out by Athens and co-operated with them, striving to induce the Greeks
to rise against the Macedonians and drive them out of Greece. In
Arcadia, Phylarchus tells us that a wordy battle took place between
Pytheas and Demosthenes at a public meeting in which Pytheas was
advocating the cause of Macedonia, and Demosthenes that of Greece.
Pytheas said that we may always know that there is sickness in a house
if we see asses' milk carried into it, and that a city must be in a bad
way if it received an embassy from Athens. To this Demosthenes answered
by turning his own illustration against him, for, he said, asses' milk
is brought into houses to cure the sick, and Athenians come into other
cities to save them from ruin. The people of Athens were so delighted
with the conduct of Demosthenes in this matter that they decreed his
restoration. The decree was proposed by Demon, one of the township of
Pæania, and a cousin of Demosthenes; and a trireme was sent to Ægina
to fetch him home. When he landed at Peiræus he was met by the whole
people, and by all the priests and archons, all of whom greeted him
warmly. On this occasion, Demetrius of Magnesia relates that he raised
his hands to heaven and congratulated himself on having returned home
more gloriously than Alkibiades, because he had persuaded, not forced,
his countrymen to receive him back. As the fine imposed upon him still
remained in force, for the people could not alter a verdict at their
pleasure, they made use of a legal fiction. It was the custom at the
festival of Zeus the Preserver to pay a sum of money to those who
ornamented the altar for the sacrifice: they charged Demosthenes with
this office, and ordered him to execute it for the sum of fifty talents,
which was the amount of his fine.
XXVIII. He did not, however, long enjoy his restoration, for the Greeks
were soon utterly ruined. In the month of Metageitnion[134] the battle
of Krannon took place, in Boedromion a Macedonian garrison entered
Munychia, and in Pyanepsion Demosthenes was put to death in the
following manner:--As soon as it became known that Antipater and Kraterus
were marching upon Athens, Demosthenes and his party escaped out of the
city, and the people, at the instance of Demades, condemned them to
death. As they had dispersed to all quarters of Greece, Antipater sent
men in pursuit of them, the chief of whom was Archias, who was surnamed
the Exile-hunter. This man, who was a citizen of Thurii, is said once to
have been a tragic actor, and to have studied his art under the
celebrated Polus of Ægina. Hermippus reckons Archias among the pupils of
the orator Lakritus, while Demetrius tells us that he was a student of
philosophy of the school of Anaximenes. This Archias tore away from the
shrine of Æakus at Ægina the orator Hypereides, Aristonikus of Marathon,
and Himeræus, the brother of Demetrius of Phalerum, who had taken
sanctuary there, and sent them to Antipater at Kleonæ, where they were
put to death. It is even said that Hypereides had his tongue cut out.
XXIX. Hearing that Demosthenes was sitting as a suppliant in the temple
of Poseidon at Kalauria,[135] Archias crossed over thither in some small
boats with a guard of Thracian mercenaries, and tried to persuade
Demosthenes to leave the temple and accompany him to Antipater,
promising that he should not be ill-treated. Demosthenes had a strange
dream the night before that he was contending with Archias in acting a
play, and that although he acted well and delighted his audience, yet he
was beaten by Archias, who was better furnished with stage properties
and appliances. Wherefore, when Archias tried to cajole him, Demosthenes
looked him full in the face, and, without rising, said, "Archias, your
acting never affected me on the stage, nor will your promises now."
Upon this Archias became angry, and savagely threatened him. "Now," said
Demosthenes, "you speak like the true Macedonian that you are; but just
now you were acting a part. So now wait for a little while until I have
sent a letter home." Saying this, he retired into the inner part of the
temple, took his tablets as though about to write, placed his pen in his
mouth and bit it, as he was wont to do when meditating what he should
write, and after remaining so for some time, covered his head with his
robe and leaned it on his arms. The soldiers standing at the door of the
temple jeered at him for a coward, and Archias walked up to him and bade
him rise, repeating his assurance that he would make Antipater his
friend. Demosthenes, as soon as he perceived that the poison was
beginning to work upon him, uncovered his head, and, looking steadfastly
at Archias, said, "Now, as soon as you please, you may play the part of
Kreon in the play, and throw my body to the dogs without burial. But I,
good Poseidon, leave thy temple while I am yet alive, and will not
profane the sanctuary by my death there, though Antipater and his
Macedonians have not feared to pollute it with murder." Having spoken
these words, he asked them to support him by the arms, as his strength
was fast failing him, and as they were assisting him to walk past the
altar he fell with a groan and died there.
XXX. As for the poison, Ariston says that it was contained in his
pen,[136] as has been related. But one Pappas, from whom Hermippus has
borrowed his account of the scene, says that when Demosthenes fell
before the altar, in his tablets were found written the opening words of
a letter, "Demosthenes to Antipater," and nothing more. All were
surprised at the suddenness of his death, but the Thracian mercenaries
at the door declared that they saw him take the poison out of a little
cloth and put it into his mouth. They imagined that what he swallowed
was gold; but a maid-servant that waited on him told Archias, in answer
to his inquiries, that Demosthenes had for a long time carried about a
packet containing poison, to be used in case of need. Eratosthenes
himself writes that Demosthenes carried the poison in a hollow bracelet
which he wore on his arm. It would be tedious to notice all the
discrepancies to be found in the numerous accounts which have been
written of the death of Demosthenes; but I will mention that Demochares,
a relative of Demosthenes, states his belief that he did not die by
poison, but by the provident care of the gods, who rescued him from the
cruelty of the Macedonians by a swift and painless death. He perished on
the sixteenth day of the month Pyanepsion, which is observed as a day of
the strictest fasting and humiliation by the women who celebrate the
festival of the Thesmophoria.[137] The people of Athens soon afterwards
bestowed on Demosthenes the honours which he deserved, by erecting a
brazen statue in memory of him, and decreeing that the eldest of his
family should be maintained in the Prytaneum for ever. On the base of
the statue was inscribed the celebrated couplet:
"Could'st thou have fought as well as thou could'st speak,
The Macedonian ne'er had ruled the Greek."
It is a complete mistake to suppose, as some writers do, that
Demosthenes himself composed this couplet in Kalauria just before he
took the poison.
XXXI. A short time before my own first visit to Athens, the following
incident is said to have taken place. A soldier, being summoned by his
commanding officer to be tried for some offence, placed all his money in
the hands of the statue of Demosthenes, which are represented as clasped
together. Beside the statue grew a small plane-tree, and several leaves
of this tree, either blown there by chance, or placed there on purpose
by the soldier, concealed and covered up the money, so that it remained
there a long while. At last the soldier returned and found it, and as
the circumstance became widely known, many literary men seized the
opportunity of making epigrams on this striking proof of the
incorruptible honesty of Demosthenes.
Demades did not long enjoy the honour which he had won, for the gods, in
order to avenge Demosthenes, led him to Macedonia, where he perished
miserably by the hands of those whose favour he had so basely courted.
He had long been disliked by the Macedonian court, and at last a clear
proof of his treasonable practices was discovered in an intercepted
letter of his to Perdikkas, in which he urged him to seize the throne of
Macedonia and save the Greeks, who were now hanging by an old and rotten
thread (meaning Antipater). On the evidence of this letter, Deinarchus
of Corinth charged him with treason, and Kassander was so infuriated at
his perfidy that he first stabbed Demades's own son while in his
father's arms, and then ordered him to be put to death. Thus, by
inflicting on him the greatest misery which a man could suffer, he
proved to him the truth of that saying of Demosthenes which he had never
before believed, that traitors first of all betray themselves. You now,
my friend Sossius, know all that I have either read or heard concerning
the life of Demosthenes.
LIFE OF CICERO.
I. They say that Cicero's mother Helvia[138] was of good family and
conversation, but as to his father the accounts are in opposite
extremes. For some say that the man was born and brought up in a
fuller's workshop; but others carry back his pedigree to Tullus
Attius,[139] who reigned with distinction among the Volsci and fought
against the Romans with no small vigour. However, the first of the
family who got the cognomen of Cicero[140] must have been a man of note,
and this was the reason why his descendants did not reject the name, but
were well pleased with it, though it was a matter of jeering to many:
for the Latins call a vetch Cicer, and the first Cicero had at the end
of his nose a cleft or split, slightly marked as we may suppose, like
the cleft in a vetch, whence he got the cognomen. Indeed Cicero himself,
the subject of this Life, on his friends advising him when he was first
a candidate for office and began to engage in public life, to get rid of
the name and take another, is reported to have boldly replied that he
would strive to make the name of Cicero more glorious than that of
Scaurus and Catulus. While he was quæstor in Sicily, and causing a
silver offering to the gods to be made, he had inscribed on it his first
two names, Marcus and Tullius, but in place of the third he jocosely
ordered the artist to cut the figure of a vetch by the side of the
characters. This then is what is recorded about the name.
II. They say that Cicero's mother gave birth[141] to him, after a
painless and easy labor, on the third day of the new calends, on which
the magistrates now offer up prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the
Emperor. It is said that a vision appeared to his nurse and foretold her
that she was nurturing a great blessing for all Romans. Such things as
these are generally considered to be mere dreams and idle talk, but in
his case Cicero soon showed that it was a real prophecy when he was of
age to be taught, for he was conspicuous for his natural talent and got
a name and reputation among the boys, so that their fathers used to
visit the schools out of desire to see Cicero, and to inquire of his
famed quickness and capacity for learning; but the ill-educated part
were angry with their sons when they saw them giving Cicero a place in
the midst of them in the public roads by way of honour. Cicero, who had
a talent, such as Plato[142] requires in a nature that loves learning
and loves wisdom, for embracing all knowledge and undervaluing no kind
of learning and discipline, happened to show a strong inclination to
poetry: and indeed a small poem of his is still preserved, which was
written when he was a boy: it is entitled Pontius Glaucus,[143] and is
in tetrameter verse. In the course of time he applied himself to the
Muse of such arts with still more versatility, and got the reputation of
being not only the first orator, but also the best poet[144] among the
Romans. Now his oratorical reputation continues to the present day,
though there has been no small innovation in matters that concern
eloquence; but as to his poetical reputation, owing to many poets of
genius who have come after him, its fate has been to die away altogether
unknown to fame and unhonoured.
III. After being released from his youthful studies, he heard Philo[145]
of the Academy, whom of all the scholars of Kleitomachus, the Romans
admired most for his eloquence and loved most for his manners. At the
same time by his intimacy with the Mucii,[146] who were statesmen and
leaders in the Senate, he was aided in getting some knowledge of the
law; and for a time, also, he served in the army under Sulla in the
Marsic war.[147] But seeing that matters were coming to a civil war, and
from a civil war to a pure monarchy, betaking himself to a life of quiet
and contemplation, he kept company with learned Greeks and applied
himself to the sciences, until Sulla had got the mastery, and the state
seemed to have received a settlement. During this time Chrysogonus,[148]
a freedman of Sulla, having laid an information about a man's property
as being one of those who were put to death during the proscriptions,
bought it for two thousand drachmæ. Roscius, the son and heir of the
dead man, complained of this, and showed that the property was of the
value of two hundred and fifty talents, on which Sulla, being convicted,
was angry, and with the assistance of Chrysogonus instituted a
prosecution against Roscius for parricide. No one gave Roscius help, but
all were deterred through fear of the severity of Sulla, on which the
young man in his desolate condition had recourse to Cicero, who was also
importuned by his friends, who urged that he would never again have a
more splendid opportunity of gaining a reputation nor a more honourable.
Accordingly Cicero undertook the defence, and gained credit by his
success; but, being afraid of Sulla, he went into Greece,[149] giving
out that his bodily health required care. And indeed he was lean and had
little flesh, and owing to weakness of stomach, he took little food, and
that of a light kind late in the day; his voice was full and good, but
hard and unmanageable, and owing to the vehemence and passion of his
language being continually carried through the higher notes it gave him
alarm about his health.
IV. On his arrival at Athens[150] he became a hearer of Antiochus of
Askalon, being pleased with the easy flow of his speech and his graceful
manner, but he did not like his doctrinal innovations. For Antiochus was
now seceding from what is called the New Academy, and deserting the sect
of Karneades; whether it was that he was influenced by the evidence and
by the senses, or as some say, through rivalry and differences with the
followers of Kleitomachus and the partisans of Philo, he was changing to
be a cultivator of the Stoic principle in most things. But Cicero liked
the other doctrines better, and attached himself to them in preference,
intending, if he should altogether be excluded from public affairs, to
remove himself to Athens from the Forum and public life and live there
in tranquillity with philosophy. But when news came that Sulla was dead,
and his body being strengthened by discipline was attaining a vigorous
habit, and his voice being now brought under management had become
pleasant to the ear and powerful, and was suitably adapted to his habit
of body, and his friends from Rome were sending him many letters and
exhortations, and Antiochus strongly urged him to engage in public
affairs, he began anew to fashion his oratorical power, as if it were an
instrument, and to rouse afresh his political capacity, by exercising
himself in the proper discipline and attending the rhetoricians of
repute. Accordingly he sailed to Asia and Rhodes;[151] and among the
Asiatic orators he attended the instruction of Xenokles of Adramyttium,
and Dionysius of Magnesia, and Menippus of Caria; and in Rhodes, the
rhetorician Apollonius, the son of Molo, and the philosopher
Poseidonius. It is said that Apollonius, who did not understand the
Latin language, requested Cicero to perform his exercises in Greek; and
that Cicero readily complied, thinking that his faults would thus be
better corrected. When he had finished his exercise, all the rest were
amazed, and vied with one another in their praises, but Apollonius,
while he was listening to Cicero, showed no approbation, and when Cicero
had finished he sat for a long time wrapped in thought; and as Cicero
showed his dissatisfaction, he said, "You indeed, Cicero, I commend and
admire, but I pity the fortune of Greece, seeing that the only excellent
things which were left to us have been transferred to the Romans by you,
learning and eloquence."
V. Now Cicero, full of hope in his course to a political career, had his
ardour dulled by an oracular answer. For on consulting the god at
Delphi[152] how he might get most fame, the Pythia bade him make his own
nature, and not the opinion of the many, his guide in life. At first he
lived with reserve at Rome, and was slow in offering himself for
magistracies, and was undervalued, being called Greek and pedant, names
current among and familiar to the lowest citizens. But as he was
naturally ambitious and was urged on by his father and friends, he
devoted himself to assisting persons in their causes, and he did not
approach the highest distinction by gradual steps, but at once blazed
forth in reputation, and was far superior to those who exerted
themselves in the Forum. It is said that he was as defective as
Demosthenes in action, and that accordingly he carefully devoted himself
first to Roscius[153] the comedian, and then to Æsopus the tragedian. Of
this Æsopus it is told, that when he was representing on the stage
Atreus deliberating how he should revenge himself on Thyestes, and one
of the servants suddenly ran past him, being transported out of his
reason by his feelings he struck the man with his sceptre and killed
him. Cicero derived no small power of persuasion from his action.[154]
He used scoffingly to say of the orators who bawled loud,[155] that
because of their weakness they had recourse to shouting, like lame men
leaping on horses. His readiness at sarcasm and other sharp sayings was
considered well adapted to courts of justice and clever, but by over use
of it he gave offence to many and got the character of an ill-disposed
person.
VI. Being elected quæstor[156] at a time of scarcity of corn, and having
got Sicily as his province, he gave offence to the people at first by
compelling them to send corn to Rome. But afterwards, when they had
proof of his care and justice and mildness, they respected him as they
never had any governor before. And when many young Romans of good repute
and noble birth, who were under a charge of neglect of discipline and
bad behaviour in the war, were sent up to the prætor of Sicily, Cicero
pleaded for them in a remarkable manner, and gained their acquittal.
Being accordingly greatly elated at all this, on his journey to Rome, as
he tells us, a ludicrous incident happened to him. In Campania[157]
falling in with a man of rank, whom he considered to be a friend of his,
he asked him what the Romans said about his conduct in Sicily, and what
they thought of it, supposing that the city was full of his name and of
his measures, and upon the man replying, "But where have you been all
this time Cicero?" he was completely dispirited that his fame was lost
in the city as in a boundless sea and had produced no glorious result to
his reputation; but on reflection he abated much of his ambition,
considering that he was striving for fame as for a thing indefinite and
one which had no attainable limit. However all along there abided in him
an exceeding love of praise and a strong passion for fame, which, often
disturbed much of his sound judgment.
VII. But when he began to engage more actively in public concerns, he
thought it a shame that artisans, who make use of inanimate instruments
and tools, should be acquainted with the name of each and its place and
use, and that the political man, whose public acts are effected by the
agency of men, should be indolent and indifferent about the knowledge of
his fellow-citizens. Accordingly he not only accustomed himself to
remember persons' names, but he also knew the place in which every man
of note dwelt, and the spot where he had his property, and the friends
with whom he was familiar and his neighbours; and whatever road in Italy
he was traversing, Cicero could easily tell and point out the lands and
houses of his friends. As he had only a small property, though
sufficient and adequate to his expenses, he obtained credit by accepting
neither pay nor presents for his services as an advocate, and most
particularly by his undertaking the prosecution against Verres,[158] who
had been prætor of Sicily. Verres, who had been guilty of great
malversation, was prosecuted by the Sicilians, and Cicero caused his
conviction, not by speeches, but in a manner, as one may say, by not
speaking at all. For as the prætors favoured Verres, and were putting
off the trial to the last day by adjournments and tricks, and it was
clear that the space of one day would not be sufficient for the
speeches and the trial would not be brought to a conclusion, Cicero got
up and said that the case required no speeches, and bringing forward the
witnesses and taking their evidence he told the judices to give their
vote. Yet many lively sayings of his at that trial are recorded. The
Romans call a castrated hog "verres." Now when a man of the class of
libertini named Cæcilius, who was under the imputation of Judaism,
wished to put aside the Siceliots and be the prosecutor of Verres,
Cicero said "What has a Jew to do with a verres?" Verres also had a son
grown up, who was reputed not to have regard to his youthful beauty as a
person of free birth ought to have. Accordingly when Cicero was reviled
for his effeminacy by Verres, he replied, "A man should find fault with
his sons at home."[159] The orator Hortensius did not venture directly
to defend the cause of Verres, yet he was induced to give him his
assistance when the damages were assessed, for which he had received an
ivory sphinx as his reward. Upon Cicero saying something to him in an
oblique way, and Hortensius replying that he had no skill in solving
ænigmas, Cicero answered, "And yet you have the sphinx[160] at home."
VIII. Verres being convicted, Cicero laid the damages at seventy-five
ten thousands, and yet he fell under suspicion of having lowered the
damages[161] for a bribe. However the Siceliots were grateful, and
during his ædileship[162] they came and brought many things from the
island, from none of which did Cicero make any gain, but he availed
himself of the men's desire to honour him so far as to cheapen the
market. He possessed a fine place at Arpi,[163] and he had an estate
near Naples, and another near Pompeii,[164] neither of them large: he
had also the marriage portion of his wife Terentia[165] to the amount of
ten ten thousands, and a bequest which amounted to nine ten thousands of
denarii. With these means he lived honourably and moderately, enjoying
the company of the Greeks who were familiar with him, and of the Romans
of learning: he rarely, if ever, lay down to table before sunset, and
not so much because of his occupations, as because of his health, which
suffered much from the stomach. He was also exact and careful in other
matters that concerned the care of his body, and he employed both
friction and walking a fixed number of times. By thus regulating his
habit of body he maintained it free from disease, and equal to undergo
many and great trials and labours. He gave up his father's house to his
brother, and he fixed his own residence on the Palatine, in order that
those who paid their respects to him might not be troubled by coming a
great distance; and people used to come daily to his doors to pay their
respects, no fewer than those who waited on Crassus because of his
wealth, and on Pompeius because of his influence with the soldiers,
which two were at that time highest in repute and chief of the Romans.
Pompeius also courted Cicero, and Cicero's policy contributed greatly
to the power and credit of Pompeius.