one who is a friend to the party of the Few as opposed to the Many. The
meaning of an oligarchy, according to Aristotle (_Politik_, 4, c. 4), is
a government in which the rich and those of noble birth possess the
political power, being Few in number. But the smallness of the number is
only an accident: the essence of an oligarchy consists in the power
being in the hands of the rich and the noble, who happen in all
countries to be the Few compared with the Many.
[107] This was a proverbial expression, of which different explanations
were given. Sardinia, it is said, was noted for a bitter herb which
contracted the features of those who tasted it. Pausanias (x. 17) says
it is a plant like parsley, which grows near springs, and causes people
who eat it to laugh till they die; and he supposes that Homer's
expression (_Odyssey_ xx. 302), a Sardinian laugh, is an allusion to
this property of the plant: but this is not a probable explanation of
the expression in Homer.
[108] Some fragments of the Letters of Cornelia are extant, but there is
great difficulty in determining if they are genuine, and opinions are
divided on the subject. Gerlach, in his essay on Tiberius and Caius
Gracchus (p. 37), maintains their genuineness against the opinion of
Spalding and Bernhardy. The Fragments are collected by Roth.
[109] The story in Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 25) is somewhat different.
[110] The Roman stilus, which Plutarch translates by _graphíum_
([Greek: grapheion]), "a writing instrument," was of metal, iron or
brass, sharp at one end and flat at the other. The point was used for
writing on tablets which were smeared with wax: the other end was used
for erasing what was written and making the surface even again. The word
was often used by the best Roman writers in a metaphorical sense to
express the manner and character of a written composition, and from them
it has passed into some of the modern languages of Europe, our own among
the rest: thus we speak of a good style, a bad style of writing, and so
on.
[111] The form of the decree was, Videant consules ne quid respublica
detrimenti capiat (Livius, 3, c. 4), which empowered the consuls or
consul, as the case might be, to provide that the commonwealth sustained
no damage. The word detrimentum, which signifies damage caused by
rubbing off, had a tacit reference to the majestas of the Populus
Romanus. The majestas (majesty) of the state is its integrity, its
wholeness, any diminution of which was an offence; and under the
Emperors the crime of majestas, that is majestas impaired, was
equivalent to high treason. The decree here alluded to was only adopted,
as Livius expresses it, in the utmost extremity, when the state was in
danger; its effect was to proclaim martial law, and to suspend for the
time all the usual forms of proceeding.
[112] This was one of the hills or eminences in Rome: it was the
plebeian quarter.
[113] This is the Roman term which corresponds to the _kerukeion_
([Greek: kêrykeion]) of Plutarch, or the staff which ambassadors or
heralds carried in time of war when they were sent to an enemy.
[114] The Cretans were often employed as mercenaries in the Roman army,
as we see from passages in Livius (37, c. 41).
[115] This is not Plutarch's word, but it expresses his meaning, and he
uses the word elsewhere. Amnesty is Greek and was used by the later
Greek writers in a sense the same or nearly the same as in modern times,
to express a declaration on the part of those who had the sovereign
power for the time that they would pardon those who had in any way acted
in opposition to such power.
[116] The Pons Sublicius as it was called, the oldest bridge over the
Tiber at Rome.
[117] As usual in such cases, there is a dispute about the person or at
least his name. Velleius (ii. 6,) and Aurelius Victor called him
Euporus. Both names are Greek, and the faithful slave was doubtless a
Greek, of whom there were now many at Rome. They were valued for their
superior acquirements and dexterity, and filled the higher places in
great families. The slaves from barbarous nations, that is, nations not
Greek, were used for meaner purposes.
[118] Kaltwasser remarks that Aurelius Victor (_De Viris Illustribus_,
c. 55) says that Caius died in the grove of Furina, the goddess of
thieves, whose sacred place was beyond, that is on the west side of the
Tiber, and that Plutarch appears to have confounded this with the name
of the Furies, the Greek Erinnyes. This may be so; or Victor may have
made a mistake, which he often has done.
[119] Opimius must have been as great a knave as Septimuleius, for the
fraud was palpable. Stories of this kind are generally given with
variations. Plinius (_N.H._ 33, c. 14) says it was the mouth that was
filled with lead, and that Septimuleius had been a confidential friend
of Caius. This was the first instance in Rome of head money being
offered and paid; but the example was followed in the proscriptions of
Sulla, and those of the triumviri Lepidus, M. Antonius, and Cæsar
Octavianus.
[120] I have followed Kaltwasser in translating the Greek word [Greek:
aponoia], which signifies madness, desperation, or a desperate deed, by
discord, for the sake of maintaining something like the opposition
between the two words which exists in the original.
[121] Caius Opimius was consul with Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, B.C.
121, the year of the death of Caius. The history of his conduct in Libya
is told by Sallustius in the Jugurthine war. He was one of ten
commissioners who were sent, B.C. 112, to settle the disputes between
Adherbal, the son of Micipsa, and Jugurtha, the illegitimate son of
Micipsa's brother. The commissioners were bribed by Jugurtha and decided
in his favour. Opimius and the rest of them were tried for the offence,
B.C. 109, and banished. Opimius died in great poverty at Dyrrachium
(Durazzo) in Epirus. (Sallustius, _Jugurthine War_, c. 134; Velleius,
ii. 7.) Cicero thinks that Opimius was very hardly used after his
services in crushing the insurrection at Fregellæ and putting down the
disturbances excited by Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus: he calls him
the saviour of the state, and laments his condemnation. (Cicero, _Pro
Plancio_, c. 28, &c.; _Brutus_, c. 34; &c.)
[122] M. Fulvius Flaccus was consul, B.C. 125, during which year he
defeated the Transalpine Ligurians.
[123] The legislation of the Gracchi, particularly of Caius Gracchus,
comprehended many objects, the provisions as to which are comprehended
under the general name of Semproniæ Leges, for it was the fashion to
name a law after the gentile name of him who proposed it. The most
important of the measures of Caius have been mentioned by Plutarch, with
the exception of a law about the provinces. At the outbreak of the
Social War, B.C. 91, the Roman provinces comprehended Sardinia, Corsica,
Sicily, the Spanish Peninsula, the whole of which, however, was not
subdued, Cisalpine Gaul, Asia, Macedonia, Achæa, Transalpine Gaul, and
some others of less note.
The original sense of the word provincia had no reference to a
territory, though this is the later sense of the word and the common
usage of it. The functions of the prætor urbanus who stayed at Rome were
called his provincia, that is, the administration of justice was his
provincia or business. The word is used in the sense of a function or
office by Livius with reference to a time when there was no provincia in
the later sense of the word. In the time of Cicero, provincia signified
a territory out of Italy, which was administered by a Roman governor.
The term Italy, at this time, did not comprise the whole peninsula, but
only that part which was south of the rivers Rubico and Macra. The
primary meaning of the word is confirmed by its etymology; provincia is
a shortened form of providentia, which also appears in the shape
prudentia. Providentia signifies "foresight," "superintending care," and
so forth; and it is formed on the same principle as beneficentia,
benevolentia, and other Latin words which are of a participial
character. The etymology of Niebuhr (proventus) is untenable, and that
which I have partly adopted (Smith's _Dict. of Antiquities_, art.
"Provincia") is no better. Since writing that article, I saw that the
word is only another form of providentia, and a friend has pointed out
to me that Mr. G. C. Lewis first suggested this as the origin of the
word in his Essay on the Government of Dependencies, London, 1841, Note
H. p. 353. If this explanation of the word is correct, the true
orthography is provintia, but I have not yet been able to find it on an
inscription.
The old practice was for the Senate, after the elections of the Consuls
and Prætors, to name two provinces which should be given to the consuls
after the consulship was expired. The two consuls settled by lot or by
agreement which province of the two they should have. As the consuls
were chosen before the two consular provinces were determined by the
senate, it was in the power of the senate to give what provinces they
pleased to the consuls, and so make the appointment either a favour or
not. A law of Gracchus enacted that the two consular provinces should be
determined before the election of consuls, and that the senate should
not have the power, which they had formerly exercised, of prolonging a
man's government in a province beyond the year. This law manifestly
limited the power of the Senate, though some writers conceive that it
was enacted for the advantage of that body as some compensation for
their loss of the judicial power.
Plutarch has treated the subject of the Gracchi with perfect
impartiality. He has given them credit for good motives, and approved of
their measures in general, but he has not disguised their faults. Appian
considered that the measures of Tiberius were for the public good, but
that his conduct was not judicious. Sallustius also admits that the
Gracchi did not conduct themselves with sufficient moderation
(_Jugurthine War_, c. 46); but Sallustius belonged to the popular party,
and he approved of their measures. Most of the other Roman writers
express an unfavourable opinion of the Gracchi. Florus however gives
them credit for good intentions, but disapproves of the means by which
they attempted to carry their measures into effect. That part of the
work of Livius which treated of this period is lost, but we may collect
his opinions of the Gracchi from the Epitomes of the lost books, and the
general tenor of his History. The measures of the Gracchi were estimated
by the rule of party spirit. The judgment of Cicero, who often mentions
the Gracchi, is both for and against. His expressed opinion, whatever
might be his real opinion, varied with circumstances. If we only knew
his opinion from the second oration against the Agrarian Law of Rullus
(ii. 5), we should consider him as approving of all the measures of the
Gracchi. When he delivered that oration, Cicero had just been elected
Consul: he was a Novus homo, a new man as the Romans called him, who was
the first of his family to attain to the high honours of the State, and
he had obtained the consulship as a friend of the people, as a popular
man (Popularis). In his treatise on Friendship and other of his
writings, he gives a contradictory judgment of the Gracchi; he says that
Tiberius Gracchus aimed at the kingly power, or rather in fact was king
for a few months; he calls the two Gracchi degenerate sons of their
father; he extols the murderers of Tiberius Gracchus; he commiserates
the hard fate of Opimius after saving the state by putting Caius
Gracchus to death. All this was written or said after he was consul,
after he had done what the murderers of the Gracchi had done, after he
had put to death Catilina and his accomplices without trial contrary to
the constitution, contrary to a special law which Caius Gracchus had
carried that no Roman citizen should be put to death without a duly
constituted trial; after he had, like Nasica and Opimius, made himself a
murderer by putting men to death without letting them be tried according
to law; whether they were guilty or not, is immaterial; they were put to
death without trial, contrary to a principle of justice which, before he
became guilty himself, Cicero had maintained and defended. The acts of
the Gracchi were on record and well understood; but Cicero made his
opinion of their acts depend not on his convictions, but on his
interests; it is to him mainly that we may trace the common notion that
the Gracchi were merely a couple of designing demagogues. The Gracchi
were not wise enough or firm enough to be good reformers, but few
reformers in so difficult a situation have left behind them so fair a
reputation for honest intention. There was a great mass of contemporary
materials for the history of the Gracchi, consisting of the speeches of
the two brothers, of the numerous speeches made against them, the
history of Polybius, who could not have overlooked the Gracchi in his
account of the Numantine war, the history of Fannius, and other
materials which Gerlach has enumerated in his Essay on the Gracchi. It
is plain from Plutarch's narrative, that he used these authorities; and
if we consider how far removed he was from the time of the Gracchi, and
his character, we may conclude that he has given as impartial a view of
the times as he could collect from contemporary evidence. He may have
made mistakes, and some mistakes we cannot help considering that he has
made; but he can hardly have made any mistake in his representation of
the nature of the reforms which the two brothers attempted, of the
opposition that they encountered, and of their general character.
_Misenum._ Misenum was on the coast of Campania near Cape Miseno, a
favourite residence of the wealthy Romans, who built villas there. The
house of Cornelia had many occupants. It became the property of Caius
Marius (c. 34), then of Lucius Lucullus, and finally of the Emperor
Tiberius, who died here. It was seated on a hill which commanded an
extensive sea-view.
In the last sentence of this chapter I have adopted the reading of
Sintenis ([Greek: phylattomenês]), which is necessary for the sense.
[124] Alluding to the fight of Herakles with the Lernæan hydra which had
nine heads. Herakles struck off its heads with his club, but in the
place of the head he cut off, two new heads grew forth each time.
[125] This was a frontier town, whose possession was disputed by the
Athenians and Boeotians.
[126] An Athenian of the township of Thriasia, near Eleusis.
[127] A fellow-scholar of Demosthenes.
[128] A low quarter of Athens.
[129] See Life of Crassus, ch. 2.
[130] The battle of Chæronea, B.C. 338, in which Philip defeated the
Athenians and Boeotians, and crushed the liberties of Greece.
[131] The hero of a mock-heroic poem supposed to have been written by
Homer.
[132] Kassander built a new city on the site of Potidæa, on the narrow
isthmus of the promontory of Pallene. Potidæa had been destroyed by
Philip, B.C. 356. The new city of Kassandrea soon became the most
flourishing city in Macedonia.
[133] This was Agis III. who at the time of the battle of Issus, B.C.
333, was communicating with the Persian naval commanders in the Ægean,
to obtain supplies for the war against the Macedonians. He was killed in
action, about the time of the battle of Arbela, B.C. 331.
[134] The second month of the Attic year, the latter half of August and
first of September. The two next months mentioned in the text correspond
to the latter half of September and the first of October and the latter
half of October and first of November respectively.
[135] A small island in the Saronic Gulf off the coast of Argolis and
opposite Troezen, where was a celebrated temple of Poseidon which was
regarded as an inviolable asylum. Hither Demosthenes fled to avoid
Antipater, and here he took poison, B.C. 322.
[136] The Greek word signifies a reed, in the upper part of which poison
might easily be placed.
[137] A festival in honour of Demeter. For details see Smith 'Dict. of
Antiq.'
[138] The Helvia Gens was plebeian. It becomes historical from the time
of the second Punic war, and became ennobled (nobilis) by M. Helvius
being elected prætor B.C. 197, the first year in which six prætors were
elected (Liv. 32. c. 27). It is said that Cicero never mentions his
mother in his writings, but an anecdote of her careful housekeeping is
recorded by her son Quintus (Cic. _Ad Diversos_, xvi. 26).
The allusion is to the Volscian with whom Coriolanus took refuge when he
left Rome (Plutarch, _Life of Coriolanus_, c. 22; Livy, 2, c. 35).
[139] Cicero himself did not claim any illustrious descent. The family
had been long settled at Arpinum, now Arpino, a Volscian town. The first
person who is mentioned as bearing the name of Cicero is C. Claudius
Cicero, a tribunus plebis, B.C. 454 (Liv. 3. c. 31). M. Tullius Cicero,
the grandfather of the orator, was born B.C. 140, and nothing is known
of the orator's family before him. Arpinum received the limited Roman
civitas in B.C. 303 (Liv. 10. c. 1), that is, probably Commercium and
Connubium, for the suffrage (suffragii latio) was not given to the
people of Arpinum till B.C. 188 (Liv. 38. c. 36). The orator's
grandfather lived to see his grandson born B.C. 106. Cicero's father
belonged to the class of Equites. He spent the greater part of his life
on his lands at Arpinum, near the junction of the Fibrenus with the
Liris (Garigliano). He afterwards removed to Rome to educate his sons
Marcus and Quintus, and had a house in the Carinæ. Among his friends
were the orators M. Antonius and Lucius Crassus, and Q. Scævola the
Augur, a distinguished Jurist. His sons had accordingly the advantage of
being acquainted in their youth with some of the most distinguished of
the Romans. He is said to have died B.C. 64, the year before his son was
consul. A letter of Cicero to Atticus (i. 6) is generally supposed to
speak of his father's death, but the true reading is undoubtedly "pater
a nobis discessit;" and it is plain that Cicero is simply speaking of
his father leaving Rome for a time (Drumann, _Tullii_, p. 213).
[140] The cognomen Cicero, as already observed, occurs early in Roman
history. Many of the Roman cognomina were derived from some particular
plant which a man cultivated, or from some personal peculiarity, or from
some other accidental circumstance. The mark on the nose is just as
likely to be the origin of the name as the cultivation of the _cicer_;
for if the name Fabius comes from _faba_, "a bean," and Lentulus, from
_lens_, "pulse;" yet Catulus means "a whelp," and Scaurus means
"knock-knee'd," or something of the kind.
The words [Greek: diastolê, diaphyê] mean what I have translated them.
Kaltwasser has translated the passage thus, according to Reiske's
explanation:--"Jener hatte an der spitze der nase einen kleinen anwuchs
oder warze in form einer solchen erbse, woven er den beinamen erhielt."
But this is not a translation. Plutarch does not say that he had a wart
at the end of his nose, but that the end of his nose was like a vetch,
because there was a kind of split or cleft in it. There is no reason for
misrepresenting even a man's nose.
[141] The "third day of the new calends" is the third of January of the
unreformed Roman calendar. Pompeius Magnus was born in the same year,
B.C. 106. Cicero himself mentions his birthday (_Ad Attic._ vii. 5;
xiii. 42). Plutarch's stories of his aptitude for learning might be
collected from the mass of anecdotes that existed in his time about all
the great Romans of Cicero's period. The story shows at least what were
the traditional stories about Cicero's youth.
[142] Kaltwasser refers to the passage in Plato's Republic, book v. p.
56, of the Bipont edition.
[143] Glaucus was a fisherman of Anthedon in Boeotia. After eating of a
certain herb he jumped into the sea and became a sea-god with the power
of prophecy (Pausanias, ix. 22). Strabo (p. 405, ed. Casaub.) says that
he became a fish of some kind ([Greek: kêtos]), a change more
appropriate to his new element, though perhaps not to his new vocation.
Æschylus made a drama on the subject, which Cicero may have used.
[144] Cicero translated the poem of Aratus into Latin verse. He also
wrote an epic poem, the subject of which was his countryman Caius
Marius; and one on his own consulship, which was always a favourite
topic with him. Of the translation of the 'Phænomena' of Aratus, which
was made when he was a youth, about four hundred lines remain. The
fragments of these poems, and of others not here enumerated, are in
Orelli's edition of Cicero, vol. iv.
[145] Philo, a pupil of the Carthaginian Clitomachus, fled from Athens
to Rome in B.C. 88, at the time when the troops of Mithridates were in
possession of Athens (Cicero, _Brutus_, c. 89, and Meyer's note).
[146] The elder of these Mucii was Q. Mucius Scævola, Consul B.C. 117,
commonly called the Augur. After his death Cicero attached himself to Q.
Mucius Scævola, Pontifex Maximus, who was a distinguished jurist. The
Pontifex was assassinated in the consulship of the younger Marius, B.C.
82, in the temple of Vesta (Florus, iii. 21). Cicero has in several
places commemorated his virtues and talents (_De Orat._ i. 39; iii. 3).
Cicero, in his _Brutus_, c. 88, &c., has given an account of his own
early studies.
[147] In B.C. 89 Cicero served under Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of
Pompeius Magnus (Life of Pompeius, c. 1. notes). Cicero speaks of this
event of his life in his twelfth Philippic, c. 11.
[148] L. Cornelius Chrysogonus was probably a Greek. His name Cornelius
was derived from his patron (Life of Sulla, c. 31, notes). Cicero's
speech for Sextus Roscius Amerinus was spoken B.C. 80; it is still
extant. Cicero's first extant speech, pro P. Quintio, was spoken B.C.
81.
[149] Cicero went to Greece B.C. 79. The reasons for his journey are
stated by himself in his _Brutus_ (c. 91). He speaks of his leanness and
weakness, and of the length and slenderness of his neck. His physicians
recommended him to give up speaking for a time. When he left Rome he had
been engaged for two years in pleading causes.
[150] Cicero stayed six months at Athens. The New Academy was founded by
Arkesilaus. The school taught that certainty was not attainable in
anything, and that the evidence of the senses was deceptive. The words
"by the evidence and by the senses" are the exact copy of the original.
Schaefer proposes to omit "and" ([Greek: kai]), in which case the
passage would stand thus--"by the evidence of the senses." Sintenis
retains the conjunction ([Greek: kai]), and refers to Cicero, _Academ._
2. 6 and 7.
[151] Cicero was at Rhodes in B.C. 78 (compare his _Brutus_, c. 91).
Cicero calls this "Apollonius the son of Molo," simply Molo (see the
Life of Cæsar, c. 3, notes). Molo had the two most distinguished of the
Romans among his pupils, C. Julius Cæsar and Cicero.
Poseidonius was the chief Stoic of his time.
[152] Cicero never mentions this visit to Delphi in his writings, and
Middleton thinks the visit is improbable, because Cicero (_De
Divinatione_, ii. 56) shows that he knew what was the value of the
oracle. But a man who despises a popular superstition may try to use it
for his purposes, and may be disappointed if he cannot. Perhaps the
soundness of the oracle's advice may be a good reason for disbelieving
the story.
Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 77.
[153] This was Q. Roscius, in whose behalf Cicero made a speech in B.C.
76, before C. Piso as judex. The subject of the cause is stated in the
arguments to the oration.
Claudius Æsopus, the great tragic actor, whom Cicero considered a
perfect master of his art, was probably a Greek and a freedman of some
member of the Claudia Gens. He was liberal in his expenditure, and yet
he acquired an enormous fortune, which his son spent.
[154] [Greek: ek tou hypokrinesthai], that is, from "acting." One Greek
word for actor is [Greek: hypokritês]. Oratorical action was therefore
viewed as a part of the histrionic art; and so it is. But oratorical
acting requires to be kept within narrower limits.