town in the country of the Brutii, now Bivona, on the gulf of Sta.
Eufemia. He had written to Atticus (iii. 3) to meet him at Vibo, but his
next letter informed Atticus that he had set out to Brundusium. Cicero
names the person, Sica, who had shown him hospitality near Vibo.
Plutarch calls him [Greek: Ouibios Sikelos anêr], as if he had mistaken
the name Sica.
[233] Cicero mentions this circumstance in his oration for Cn. Plancius,
c. 40 (ed. Wunder, and the Notes). He was well received by the municipia
which lay between Vibo and Brundusium. He did not enter the city of
Brundusium, but lodged in the gardens of M. Lænus Flaccus.
[234] Cicero did not remain at Dyrrachium. His movements are described
in his own letters, and in his oration for Cn. Plancius. He went to
Thessalonica in Macedonia, where Plancius then was in the capacity of
quæstor to L. Apuleius, Prætor of Macedonia. He reached Thessalonica on
the 23rd of May (x. Kal. Jun.), and there is a letter extant addressed
to Atticus (ii. 8), which is dated from Thessalonica on the 29th of May
(Dat. iiii. Kal. Jun. Thessalonicæ).
[235] His unmanly lamentations are recorded in his own letters and in
his own speech for Cn. Plancius, c. 42.
[236] Cicero was not a practical philosopher. Like most persons who have
been much engaged in public life, he lived in the opinion of others. He
did not follow the maxim of the Emperor Antoninus, who bids us "Look
within; for within is the source of good, and it sends up a continuous
stream to those who will always dig there" (vii. 59). Cicero did not
reverence his own soul, but he placed his happiness "in the opinion of
others" (i. 6). Perhaps however he was not weaker than most active
politicians, whose letters would be as dolorous and lachrymose as his,
if they were banished to a distant colony.
[237] This is not obscure, if it is properly considered, and it contains
a serious truth. A man must view things as they are, and he must not
take his notions of them from the affects of the many. "Things touch not
the soul, but they are out of it, and passive; perturbations come only
from the opinion that is within a man" (M. Antoninus, iv. 3).
The philosophic emperor and the unphilosophic statesman were very
different persons. The emperor both preached and practised. The
statesman showed his feebleness by his arrogance in prosperity and his
abjectness in adversity.
[238] These proceedings are described by Cicero in his oration (_Pro
Domo_, c. 24). The marble columns were removed from his house on the
Palatine to the premises of the father-in-law of the consul Piso, in the
presence of the people. Gabinius, the other consul, who was Cicero's
neighbour at Tusculum, removed to his own land the stock that was on
Cicero's estate and the ornaments of the house, and even the trees.
[239] In B.C. 57, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cæcilius
Metellus Nepos were consuls. Cicero alludes to the disturbance which
preceded his recall in his oration for P. Sextius, c. 35: "Caedem in
foro maximam faciunt, universique destrictis gladiis et cruentis in
omnibus fori partibus fratrem meum, virum optimum, fortissimum, meique
amantissimum oculis quaerebant, voce poscebant." Cicero adds that his
brother being driven from the Rostra lay down in the Comitium, and
protected himself "with the bodies of slaves and freedmen;" by which
Cicero seems to mean that his slaves and freedmen kept watch over him
till he made his escape at night. Plutarch appears to have misunderstood
the passage or to have had some other authority. In this dreadful tumult
"the Tiber was filled with the dead bodies of the citizens, the drains
were choaked, and the blood was wiped up from the Forum with sponges."
This looks somewhat like rhetorical embellishment.
[240] Cicero in a letter to Atticus (iv. 2) gives an account of the
compensation which he received. The valuation of his house at Rome
(superficies aedium) was fixed at HS. vicies, or two million sesterces.
He seems not to have objected to this, but he complains of the valuation
of his Tusculanum and Formianum.
[241] In the seventeenth month according to Clinton (_Fasti Hellen._
B.C. 57). The passage that Plutarch refers to is in the Oration to the
Senate after his return (c. 15): "Cum me vestra auctoritas arcessierit,
Populus Romanus revocarit, Respublica implorarit, Italia cuncta paene
suis humeris reportarit."
[242] See the Life of Cato, c. 40, and Dion Cassius, 39, c. 21.
[243] Clodius was killed B.C. 52, the year in which Pompeius was chosen
sole consul. Cicero's speech for Milo is extant, or at least a speech
which he wrote after the trial. Milo was condemned and went an exile to
Massilia. His property was sold and it went cheap. Cicero was under some
suspicion of being a purchaser; but the matter is quite unintelligible
(Drumann, _Annii_, p. 49, and the references). There could be no reason
why Cicero should write in such obscure terms to Atticus, if his conduct
in this matter was fair.
[244] Crassus perished B.C. 54. See the Life of Crassus.
[245] His province also comprehended Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Cyprus. The
proconsulship of Cicero was in B.C. 51, though he had been consul in
B.C. 63. Cicero went to Cilicia against his will (_Ad Diversos_, iii.
2). Pompeius had got the Senate (B.C. 52) to pass an order that no
person should hold a province within five years after being consul or
prætor. This was aimed at Cæsar, if he should get a second consulship.
Pompeius also wished to have Cicero out of the way, and the provinces
were to be supplied with governors from among those who did not come
within the terms of the new rule: and Cicero was one of them (Cicero,
_Ad Diversos_, iii. 2; _Ad Attic._ vi. 6).
[246] He was the third Cappadocian king of this name. This unlucky king
was a debtor of Cn. Pompeius and M. Junius Brutus, the most
distinguished Roman money-lender of his day (Cicero, _Ad Attic._ vi.
1-3). Both Pompeius and Brutus were pressing the king for money.
Deiotarus also sent to Ariobarzanes to try to get some money out of him
for Brutus. The king's answer was that he had none, and Cicero says that
he believed he told the truth, for that no country was in a more
impoverished state and nobody more beggared than the king. Cicero dunned
the king continually with letters, but he was not particularly well
pleased with his commission (_Ad Attic._ vi. 2). The end was that the
king provided for the payment of about one hundred talents to Brutus
during Cicero's year of government. He had promised Pompeius two hundred
in six months, which, as a judicious commentator remarks, is not worth
so much as a security for one hundred. These money doings of the
supposed patriot Brutus should be well examined by those who still
retain an opinion of the virtues of this Republican hero.
[247] There seems no reason to doubt that Cicero's administration of his
province was just and mild. Plutarch has apparently derived some of the
facts here mentioned from Cicero himself (_Ad Attic._ vi. 2): "Aditus
autem ad me minime provinciales; nihil per cubicularium: ante lucem
inambulabam domi, ut olim candidatus."
[248] Cicero's exploits were such as would not have been recorded, if he
had not been his own historian. In a letter to Cato (_Ad Diversos_, xv.
4), he gives a pretty full account of his operations; and he asks Cato
to use his influence to get him the honour of a Supplicatio or Public
Thanksgiving. Cato's short reply, which he says is longer than his
letters usually are, is a model in its way.
[249] So it is in Plutarch's text: it may be the blunder of Plutarch, or
the blunder of his copyists. The true name is M. Cælius (Cic. _Ad
Diversos_, ii. 11), who was curule ædile B.C. 51. The saying about the
panthers is in this letter of Cicero, who had set the panther-hunters to
work.
Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 50. He mentions (_Ad Attic._ vi. 7) his
intention to call at Rhodes.
[250] The events of this chapter, which belong to B.C. 49, are told at
length in the Lives of Pompeius and Cæsar. Cicero's irresolution is well
marked in his own letters; in one of which (_Ad Attic._ viii. 7,
referred to by Kaltwasser) he says:--"Ego quem fugiam habeo, quem sequar
non habeo."
There are no letters extant of Trebatius to the purport which Plutarch
states, but Cæsar wrote to Cicero and begged him to stay at Rome. Cicero
(_Ad Attic._ ix. 16) has given a copy of Cæsar's letter; and a copy of
another letter from Cæsar (_Ad Attic._ x. 8), in which he urges Cicero
to keep quiet. There seems to be no doubt that Trebatius had been
employed by Cæsar to write to Cicero and speak to him about remaining
neutral at least. Cicero had an interview with Cæsar at Formiæ, after
Cæsar's return from Brundusium (_Ad Atticum_, ix. 18, 19; _Ad Diversos_,
iv. 1). The letter last referred to is addressed to Servius Sulpicius.
[251] L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 34.
[252] See the Life of Pompeius, c. 37, notes.
[253] Smart sayings are not generally improved by explanation, and they
ought not to require it. Cicero apparently meant to say that it was as
absurd to talk of men being dispirited after a victory, as if one were
to say that Cæsar's friends disliked him.
[254] After defeating Pharnaces Cæsar landed in Italy, in September,
B.C. 47, of the unreformed calendar. Cicero had received a letter from
Cæsar before Cæsar's arrival in Italy. The letter was written in Egypt
(Cicero, _Ad Diversos_, xiv. 23; _Pro Q. Ligario_, c. 3). Compare Dion
Cassius, 46, c. 12, 22, as to the conduct of Cicero to Cæsar. Before the
end of the year Cicero was in Rome.
[255] It is difficult to see what was the resemblance between Perikles
and Cicero. Theramenes was somewhat more like him, for he tried to be on
more sides than one, and met with the usual fate of such people. He was
one of the so-called Thirty Tyrants of Athens, and he was sacrificed by
his colleagues.
[256] The speech of Cicero is extant. The allusion of Plutarch is
particularly to the third chapter.
[257] Cicero in a letter to L. Papirius Pætus (_Ad Diversos_, ix. 18)
alludes to his occupations at Tusculum. He compares himself to
Dionysius, who after being driven from Syracuse is said to have opened a
school at Corinth. Cicero's literary activity after B.C. 47 is the most
remarkable passage in his life. He required to be doing something.
[258] The allusion is to the story of Laertes in the Odyssey, i. 190,
and xxiv. 226.
[259] She was divorced some time in B.C. 46. The latest extant letter to
Terentia is dated on the first of October, B.C. 47, from Venusia. Cicero
was then on his road from Brundusium to Tusculanum. He orders his wife
to have everything ready for him; some friends would probably be with
him, and they might stay some time. The bath was to be got ready, and
eatables, and everything else. A gentleman would write a more civil
letter to his housekeeper.
In a letter to Cn. Plancius (_Ad Diversos_, ix. 14), who congratulates
Cicero on his new marriage, he says that nothing would have induced him
to take such a step at such a time, if he had not found on his return
his domestic affairs even worse than public affairs. According to his
own account he was hardly safe in his own house, and it was necessary to
strengthen himself by new alliances against the perfidy of old ones.
Terentia may have been a bad housekeeper, and her temper was not the
sweetest. She could not have any feeling for her husband except
contempt, and he repaid it by getting rid of her. Cicero had to repay
the Dos of Terentia, but she never got it back, so far as we can learn.
It is not known what was the age of Terentia when she was divorced, but
she could not be young. Yet there are stories of her marrying
Sallustius, the historian, and after him Messala Corvinus, but the
authority for these marriages is weak. She is said to have attained the
age of one hundred and three. Terentia had a large property of her own.
There is no imputation on her character, which, for those times, is much
in her favour. She had courage in danger and firmness of purpose, both
of which her husband wanted. "Her husband," says Drumann, "who always
looked for and needed some support, must often have acted under her
influence: for him it was a fortunate thing to have such a woman by his
side, and a scandal that he put her away."
[260] Her name was Publilia. Cicero was now sixty years of age. Various
ladies had been recommended to Cicero. He would not marry the daughter
of Pompeius Magnus, the widow of Faustus Sulla, perhaps for fear that it
might displease Cæsar; another who was recommended to him was too ugly
(_Ad Attic._ xiv. 11). Publilia was young and rich: her father had left
her a large fortune, but in order to evade the Lex Voconia, which
limited the amount that a woman could take by testament, the property
was given to Cicero in trust to give it to her. The marriage turned out
unhappy. In a letter to Atticus (xiv. 32), written when Cicero was alone
in the country, he says that Publilia had written to pray that she might
come to him with her mother; but he had told her that he preferred being
alone, and he begs Atticus to let him know how long he could safely stay
in the country without a visit from his young wife. Tullia died in B.C.
45, and Cicero had now no relief except in his studies; his new wife was
a burden to him, and he divorced her. He had the Dos of Publilia now to
repay, and Terentia was not settled with; thus, in addition to his other
troubles, he was troubled about money (_Ad Attic._, xiv. 34, 47).
Dion Cassius (57. 15) says that Vibius Rufus, who was consul A.D. 22, in
the time of Tiberius, married Cicero's widow, and Middleton supposes
that Terentia is meant, but this is very unlikely; Dion must mean
Publilia.
[261] Tiro was a freedman of Cicero, and had been brought up in his
house. He had a good capacity and his master was strongly attached to
him. Cicero's letters to him are in the sixteenth book of the
Miscellaneous Collection. It is said that Tiro collected the letters of
Cicero after Cicero's death, by doing which he has rendered a great
service to history, and little to his master.
[262] Tullia's first husband was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who died
probably early in B.C. 57. In B.C. 56 Tullia married Furius Crassipes,
from whom she was divorced, but the circumstances are not known. Her
third husband was P. Cornelius Dolabella, a patrician. It seems that she
was separated from Dolabella before she died. Tullia did not die in
Rome, but at her father's house at Tusculum, in February, B.C. 45.
Tullia left one son by Dolabella, who was named Lentulus. His father,
Dolabella, is also named Lentulus, whence it is concluded that he had
been adopted by a Lentulus. The Lentuli were Cornelii.
[263] Cæsar was murdered on the Ides of March, B.C. 44. The
circumstances of Cæsar's death, and the events which follow, are told in
the Lives of Cæsar and Antonius. Cicero saw Cæsar fall (_Ad Attic._ xiv.
14), and he rejoiced.
[264] An "oblivion" or "non-remembrance" is a declaration of those who
have the sovereign power in a state, that certain persons shall be
excused for their political acts. It implies that those who grant the
amnesty have the power, and that those to whom it is granted are in
subjection to them, or have not the political power which the authors of
the amnesty assume. After Thrasybulus at Athens had overthrown the
Thirty Tyrants as they are called, an amnesty was declared, but the
Thirty and some few others were excluded from it (Xenophon, _Hellen._
ii. 4, 38).
Cicero in his first Philippic (c. 1) alludes to his attempt to bring
about a settlement. The senate met on the eighteenth of March in the
temple of Tellus: "In quo templo quantum in me fuit jeci fundamenta
pacis, Atheniensiumque renovavi vetus exemplum: Græcum etiam verbum
usurpavi quo tum in sedandis discordiis erat usa civitas illa, atque
omnem memoriam discordiarum oblivione sempiterna delendam censui."
[265] P. Cornelius Dolabella, once the husband of Tullia, Cicero's
daughter. He was consul, after Cæsar's death, with M. Antonius, and in
the next year, B.C. 43, he was in Syria as governor. Cassius, who was
also in Syria, attacked Dolabella and took Laodicea, where Dolabella
was. To avoid falling into the hands of his enemy, Dolabella ordered a
soldier to kill him.
[266] A. Hirtius, or as Plutarch writes the name Irtius, and C. Vibius
Pansa were the consuls of B.C. 53. Cicero set out from Rome soon after
Cæsar's death with the intention of going to Greece (_Ad Attic._ xiv.).
He went as far as Syracuse, whence he returned to Rome, which he reached
on the last day of August (_Ad Diversos_, xii. 25; _Ad Attic._ xvi. 7;
_Philipp._ i. 5; v. 7). Cicero in the passage last referred to speaks of
the violent measures of Antonius; "huc etiam nisi venirem Kal. Sept.
fabros se missurum et domum meam disturbaturum esse dixit." On the
second of September he delivered his first Philippic in the Senate. It
is an evidence of Cicero's great mental activity that he wrote his
Topica, addressed to Trebatius, on shipboard after he had set sail from
Velia with the intention of going to Greece. He says that he had no
books with him (_Topica_, c. 1, &c.).
[267] C. Octavius, the grandson of Cæsar's younger sister Julia, and the
son of C. Octavius, prætor B.C. 61, by Atia, the daughter of M. Atius
Balbus and Julia. C. Octavius, the young Cæsar, was born B.C. 63, in the
consulship of Cicero. The dictator by his testament left him a large
property and his name. Accordingly he is henceforth called C. Julius
Cæsar Octavianus, but he is better known as the future Emperor Augustus.
At the time of the Dictator's assassination he was at Apollonia, a town
on the coast of Illyricum. He came to Rome on the news of Cæsar's death
with his friend M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Cicero saw him at his Cuman villa
on his way to Rome (_Ad. Attic._ xiv. 11, 12).
[268] Plutarch probably means Greek drachmæ, for he states the sum in
his Life of Antonius, c. 15, in round numbers at 4000 talents. The
Septies Millies which Cicero speaks of (_Philipp._ ii. 37) is a
different sum of money.
[269] Cæsar's mother had taken for her second husband L. Marcius
Philippus. She just lived to see her youthful son consul in B.C. 43.
Octavia, the younger sister of Cæsar, was now the wife of C. Marcellus,
who had been consul B.C. 50. After the death of Marcellus, she married
M. Antonius (B.C. 40), being then with child by her deceased husband.
The Roman law did not allow a woman to marry till ten months after her
husband's death; the object of the rule was to prevent the paternity of
a child from being doubtful. Plutarch correctly states the time at ten
months (Life of Antonius, c. 31). If Octavia was then with child, as
Dion Cassius says (48. c. 3), the reason for the rule did not exist. In
later times, at least, the rule was dispensed with when the reason for
it ceased, as when a pregnant widow was delivered of a child before the
end of the ten months. Ten months was the assumed time of complete
gestation (Savigny, _System_, &c. ii. 181).
[270] Young Cæsar had raised troops in Campania, and chiefly at Capua
among the veteran soldiers of the dictator, who had been settled on
lands there (Dion Cassius, 45. c. 12; Cicero, _Ad Atticum_, xvi. 8). He
gave the men five hundred denarii apiece, about eighteen pounds
sterling, by way of bounty, and led them to Rome. These men were old
soldiers, well trained to their work. The youth who did this was
nineteen years of age, a boy, as Cicero calls him; but a boy who
outwitted him and everybody else, and maintained for more than half a
century the power which he now seized.
[271] Dreams were viewed in a sort as manifestations of the will of the
gods. This dream happened, as Dion Cassius tells (45. c. 2), to Catulus;
and he makes Cicero dream another dream. Cicero dreamed that Octavius
was let down from heaven by a chain of gold, and was presented with a
whip by Jupiter. Suetonius (_Octav. Cæsar_, c. 94) agrees with Dion
Cassius. The whip was significant. Jupiter meant that somebody required
whipping, and he put the whip in the hands of a youth who knew how to
use it.
[272] The young man cajoled the old one and made a tool of him. Like all
vain men, Cicero was ready to be used by those who knew how to handle
him. There is a letter from Brutus to Cicero (_Ad Brutum_, 16), and one
of Brutus to Atticus (_Ad Brutum_, 17), to the purport here stated by
Plutarch. But these letters may be spurious.
[273] He was at Athens in B.C. 44, when Cicero addressed to him his
Officia. He had been a year there (_De Offic._ i. 1) at the time when
the first chapter was written. The poet Horatius was there at the same
time. When M. Brutus came to Athens in the autumn of B.C. 44, Cicero
joined Brutus, who gave him a command in his cavalry (Plutarch,
_Brutus_, c. 24, 26).
[274] The consuls were sent to relieve Mutina (Modena), in which Decimus
Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, was besieged by Antonius. Cicero
had recommended the Senate to give Cæsar the authority of a commander.
Cæsar received a command with the insignia of a prætor. There were two
battles at Mutina, in April, B.C. 43, in which the two consuls fell.
[275] It is stated by various authorities that Cicero was cajoled with
the hopes of the consulship (Dion Cassius, 46. c. 42; Appian, _Civil
Wars_, iii. 82). The testimony of the tenth letter to Brutus (Cicero _Ad
Brutum_, 10) is not decisive against other evidence. Cæsar came to Rome
in August, B.C. 43, with his army, and through the alarm which he
created, was elected consul with Q. Pedius (Dion Cassius, 16. c. 43,
&c.; Appian, _Civil Wars_, iii. 94).
[276] After he was elected consul, Cæsar left the city for North Italy,
and was joined by Antonius and Lepidus (Appian, _Civil War_, iii. 96,
&c.). M. Æmilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78, was consul
in B.C. 46, with C. Julius Cæsar. He was elected Pontifex Maximus after
Cæsar's death: he had been declared an enemy of the State by the Senate,
but Cæsar had compelled the Senate to annul their declaration against
Antonius and Lepidus, as a preparatory step to the union with them which
he meditated. Lepidus is painted to the life by Shakespeare (_Julius
Cæsar_, iv. 2):
"_Ant._ This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands."
[277] Now Bologna. They met in a small island of the Rhenus, or
Lavinius, as the name is in Appian (_Civil Wars_, iv. 2). The meeting is
also described by Dion Cassius (46. c. 45), and here they formed a
triumvirate for five years. The number of the proscribed, according to
Appian, was three hundred senators and two thousand equites. The power
of the triumvirate was confirmed at Rome in legal form (Appian, _Civil
Wars_, iv. 7).
[278] L. Æmilius Paulus, consul B.C. 50, who is said to have sold
himself to the Dictator Cæsar (_Life of Cæsar_, c. 29). As to his name
Paulus, see Drumann (_Æmilii_). Paulus was allowed to escape to M.
Brutus, by the favour of some soldiers. He was as insignificant as his
brother the Triumvir. L. Cæsar, consul B.C. 64, was the brother of
Julia, the mother of M. Antonius. Julia saved her brother's life. Lucius
was a man of no mark.
[279] The circumstances of Cicero's death are told more minutely by
Plutarch than by any other writer. He left the city before the arrival
of the Triumviri in November, and apparently when the bloody work of the
proscription had commenced. He had probably heard of his fate before he
reached Tusculum.
[280] Astura was a small place on the coast of Latium, a little south of
Antium. Near Astura a small stream, Fiume Astura, flows into the sea.
Cicero had a villa here. The country at the back was a forest.
(Westphal, _Die Römische Kampagne_, and his maps.)
[281] Appian (_Civil Wars_, iv. 20) says that the father told his
murderers to kill him first, his son did the same, on which they were
parted and murdered at the same time. Dion Cassius (47, c. 10) gives a
different story. The main fact that they were murdered is not doubtful,
but, as is usual, the circumstances are uncertain.
[282] Or Circeii, now Monte Circello, that remarkable mountain
promontory which is the only striking feature on the coast of Latium.
The agony of Cicero's mind is powerfully depicted in his irresolution.
The times were such as to make even a brave man timid, but a true
philosopher would have shown more resolution. His turning his steps
towards Rome and his return are not improbable. He had been doing the
same kind of thing all his life.