PROSE WRITERS—INFLUENCE OF CICERO UPON THE LANGUAGE—HIS CONVERSE WITH
HIS FRIENDS—HIS EARLY LIFE—PLEADS HIS FIRST CAUSE—IS QUÆSTOR, ÆDILE,
PRÆTOR AND CONSUL—HIS EXILE, RETURN, AND PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION—HIS
VACILLATING CONDUCT—HE DELIVERS HIS PHILIPPICS—IS PROSCRIBED AND
ASSASSINATED—HIS CHARACTER.
As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dignity, Cicero
is not only the representative of the flourishing period of the
language, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at perfection.
Circumstances may have been favourable to his influence. The national
mind may have been in that stage of progress which only required a
master-genius to develop it; but still it was he who gave a fixed
character to the language, who showed his countrymen what eloquence
especially was in its combination of the precepts of art and the
principles of natural beauty; what the vigour of Latin was, and of what
elegance and polish it was capable.
His age was not an age of poetry; but he paved the way for poetry by
investing the language with those graces which are indispensable to its
perfection. He freed it from all coarseness and harshness, and
accustomed the educated classes to use language, even in their every-day
conversation, which never called up gross ideas, but was fit for pure
and noble sentiments. Before his time, Latin was plain-spoken, and
therefore vigorous; but the penalty which was paid for this was, that it
was sometimes gross and even indecent. The conversational language of
the upper classes became in the days of Cicero in the highest degree
refined: it admitted scarcely an offensive expression. The truth of this
assertion is evident from those of his writings which are of the
familiar character—from his graphic Dialogues, in which he describes the
circumstances as naturally as if they really occurred; from his letters
to Atticus, in which he lays open the secret thoughts of his heart to
his most intimate friend, his second self. Cicero purified the language
morally as well as æsthetically. It was the licentious wantonness of the
poets which degraded the pleasures of the imagination by pandering to
the passions at first in language delicately veiled, and then by open
and disgusting sensuality.
It is difficult for us, perhaps, to whom religion comes under the aspect
of revelation separate from philosophy, and who consider the
philosophical investigation of moral subjects as different from the
religious view of morals, to form an adequate conception of the pure and
almost holy nature of the conversations of Cicero and his distinguished
contemporaries. To them philosophy was the contemplation of the nature
and attributes of the Supreme Being. The metaphysical analysis of the
internal nature of man was the study of immortality and the evidence for
another life. Cato, for example, read the Phædo of Plato in his last
moments in the same serious spirit in which the Christian would read the
words of inspiration. The study of ethics was that of the sanctions with
which God has supported duty and enlightened the conscience. They were
the highest subjects with which the mind of man could be conversant. For
men to meet together, as was the habitual practice of Cicero and his
friends, and pass their leisure hours in such discussions, was the same
as if Christians were to make the great truths of the gospel the
subjects of social converse.
Again, if we examine the character of their lighter conversations, when
they turned from philosophy to literature,—it was not mere gossip on the
popular literature of the day—it was not even confined to works written
in their native tongue—it embraced the whole field of the literature of
a foreign nation. They talked of poets, orators, philosophers, and
historians, who were ancients to them as they are to us. They did not
then think the subject of a foreign and ancient literature dull or
pedantic. They did not consider it necessary that conversation should be
trifling or frivolous in order to be entertaining.
Nor was the influence which Cicero exercised on the literature of his
day merely extensive, but it was permanent. The great men of whom he was
the leader and guide caught his spirit. His influence survived until
external political causes destroyed eloquence, and its place was
supplied by a cold and formal rhetoric: it was felt almost until the
language was corrupted by the admixture of barbarisms. It may be
discerned in the soldier-like plainness of Cæsar, in the Herodotean
narrative of Livy, and its sweetness without its diffuseness
occasionally adorns the reflective pages of Tacitus.
It is difficult in a limited space to do justice to Cicero, even as a
literary man; such was his versatility of genius, such his indefatigable
industry, so vast the range of subjects which he touched and adorned. Of
course, therefore, it is impossible to do more than rapidly glance at
the leading events of his political career, or at his public character,
since his history is, in fact, a history of his stirring and critical
times.
M. TULLIUS CICERO (BORN B. C. 106.)
On the banks of the noiseless and gently-flowing[781] Liris
(Garigliano,) near Arpinum, the birthplace of Marius,[782] lived a Roman
knight named M. Tullius Cicero. A competent hereditary estate enabled
him to devote his time to literary pursuits. He had two sons: the elder,
who bore his father’s name, was born January 3rd, B. C. 106. The other,
Quintus, was about four years younger. As both, and Marcus especially,
displayed quick talents and a lively disposition, and gave promise of
inheriting their father’s taste for learning, he migrated to Rome when
Marcus was about fourteen years of age. The boys were educated with
their cousins, the young Aculei.[783] Q. Ælius[784] taught them grammar;
learned Greeks instructed them in philosophy; and the poet Archias
exercised them in the technical rules of verse, although he did not
succeed in giving them the inspiration of poetry. Quintus prided himself
on his poetic skill; and a poem by him, on the twelve zodiacal signs, is
still extant.[785] Cicero also had in his boyhood some poetical taste;
and there is great elegance in the translations from the Greek which we
meet with in his works. He wrote a poem in hexameters, entitled “Pontius
Glaucus,” as a sort of juvenile exercise, which was extant in the time
of Plutarch; and also when he was a young man in praise of Marius.
After assuming the toga virilis at sixteen years of age, M. T. Cicero
attended the forum diligently; and, by carefully exercising himself in
composition, made the eloquence of the celebrated orators whom he heard
his own, whilst from the lectures and advice of Q. Mucius Scævola, he
acquired the principles of Roman jurisprudence.
He served but little in the armies of his country: his only
campaign[786] was made under the father of Pompey the Great in the
social war. During the remainder of this period, Molo, the Rhodian
rhetorician, instructed him in oratory, whilst Diodotus the Stoic,
Phædrus the Epicurean, and Philo, who had presided over the New Academy
at Athens, were his masters in philosophy. The various schools, the
principles of which he thus imbibed, led to the eclecticism which
characterizes his philosophical creed. The bloody era of the Marian and
Sullan war was passed by him in study: he did not interfere in politics,
and the fruits of his retirement are extant in the treatise _de
Inventione Rhetorica_.
At twenty-five, he pleaded his first cause,[787] and in the following
year defended S. Roscius of Ameria; but his constitution was not strong
enough to bear great exertion. His friends, therefore, induced him to
travel, and he determined to pass some time at Athens.[788] There was
also another reason for this recommendation. His courageous defence of
Roscius had provoked the enmity of Chrysogonus, a creature of Sulla, and
it was therefore dangerous for him to remain at Rome. He was accompanied
by his brother Quintus,[789] and found Pomponius Atticus residing there,
who afterwards became his most intimate friend. From Athens he travelled
to Asia and Rhodes, employing his time in the cultivation of oratory,
his principal study at Athens having been philosophy. From Asia he
returned to Rome[790] with improved health and an invigorated
constitution; where he found a powerful rival, as an orator, in
Hortensius, who was then at the zenith of his popularity.
As soon as he was old enough,[791] he was elected quæstor, and the
province of Sicily was allotted to him. In the exercise of this office,
the unusual mildness and integrity of his administration endeared him to
the provincials; whilst the judgment with which he regulated the
supplies of corn from the granary of Rome, gained him equal credit with
his fellow-countrymen. It was during his stay in Sicily that his love of
antiquarianism was gratified by the discovery of the tomb of
Archimedes.[792] On his return home[793] he resumed his forensic
practice: and in B. C. 70 was the champion of his old friends, the
Sicilians, and impeached Verres, who had been prætor of Syracuse, for
oppression and maladministration. In the following year[794] he was
elected curule ædile by a triumphant majority. In the celebration of the
games which belonged to the province of this magistrate, he exhibited
great prudence by avoiding the lavish expenditure in which so many were
accustomed to indulge, whilst, at the same time, no one could accuse him
of meanness and illiberality.
In the year B. C. 67, he obtained the prætorship, and notwithstanding
the judicial duties of his office, defended Cluentius. Hitherto his
speeches had been entirely of the judicial kind. He now for the first
time distinguished himself as a deliberative orator, and supported the
Manilian law which conferred upon Pompey, to the discomfiture of the
aristocratic party, the command in chief of the Mithridatic war.
The great object of his ambition now was the consulship, which seemed
almost inaccessible to a _new man_. As all difficulties and prejudices
were on the side of the aristocratic party, his only hope of surmounting
them was by warmly espousing the cause of the people.
Catiline and C. Antonius, who were his principal competitors, formed a
coalition, and were supported by Cæsar and Crassus, but the influence of
Pompey and the popular party prevailed; and Cicero and Antony were
elected. He entered upon his office January 1, B. C. 63. At this period,
perhaps, the moral qualities of his character are the highest, and his
genius shines forth with the brightest splendour.
The conspiracy of Catiline was the great event of his consulship; a plot
which its historian does not hesitate to dignify with the title of a
war. Yet this war was crushed in an unparalleled short space of time;
and a splendid triumph was gained over so formidable an enemy, by one
who wore the peaceful _toga_, not the habiliments of a general. The
prudence and tact of the civilian did as good service as the courage and
decision of the soldier. The applause and gratitude of his fellow
citizens were unbounded, and all united in hailing him the father of his
country. One act alone laid him open to attack, and in fact eventually
caused his ruin. There is no doubt that it was unconstitutional,
although under the circumstances it was defensible, perhaps scarcely to
be avoided. This act was the execution of Lentulus, Cethegus, and the
other ringleaders, without sentence being passed upon them by the
comitia. The senate, seeing that the danger was imminent, had invested
Cicero and his colleague with power to do all that the exigencies of the
state might require (_videre ne quid res publica detrimenti caperet_;)
and although it was Cicero who recommended the measure and argued in its
favour, it was the senate who pronounced the sentence, and assumed that,
as traitors, the conspirators had forfeited their rights as citizens.
The grateful people saw this clearly; and when Metellus Celer, one of
the tribunes, would have prevented Cicero from giving an account of his
administration at the close of the consular year, he swore that he saved
his country, and his oath was confirmed by the acclamations of the
multitude. This was a great triumph; and in sadder times he looked back
to it with a justifiable self-complacency.[795] He now, as though his
mission was accomplished, refused all public dignities except that of a
senator: but he did not thus escape peril; he soon exposed himself to
the implacable vengeance of a powerful and unscrupulous enemy. The
infamous P. Clodius Pulcher intruded himself in female attire into the
rites of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated in the house of Cæsar.
Suspicion fell upon Cæsar’s wife, and a divorce was the
consequence.[796] Clodius was brought to trial on the charge of
sacrilege, and pleaded an alibi. Cicero, however, proved his presence in
Rome on the very day on which the accused asserted that he was at
Interamnum.
Although the guilt of Clodius was fully established, his influence over
the corrupt Roman _judices_ was powerful enough to procure an acquittal.
Henceforward he never could forgive Cicero, and determined to work his
ruin. He caused himself to be adopted in a plebeian family; and thus
becoming qualified for the tribunate was elected to that magistracy,
B. C. 59. No sooner was he appointed, than he proposed a bill for the
outlawry of any one who had caused the execution of a citizen without
trial. Cicero at once saw that this blow was aimed against himself. He
had disgusted Cæsar by his political coquetry; the false and selfish
Pompey refused to aid him in his trouble; and spirit-broken, he fled to
Brundisium,[797] and thence to Thessalonica. He had an interview with
Pompey before his flight, but it led to no results.[798] He had sworn to
help him as long as he felt that there was danger, lest he should join
Cæsar’s party; but when he saw that his foes were successful, he
deserted him.
In his absence his exile was decreed, and his town and country houses
were given up to plunder. It cannot be denied that during his banishment
he exhibited weakness and pusillanimity: his reverses had such an effect
upon his mind that he was even supposed to be mad.[799] His great fault
was vanity, of which defect he was himself conscious, and confessed
it;[800] and disappointed vanity was the cause of his affliction. He
could bear anything better than loss of popular applause; and on this
occasion, more than any other, he gave grounds for the assertion, that
“he bore none of his calamities like a man, except his death.” Rome,
however, could not forget her preserver; and in the following year he
was recalled, and entered Rome in triumph, in the midst of the loud
plaudits of the assembled people.[801] Still, however, he was obliged to
secure the prosperity which he had recovered by political
tergiversation. The measures of the triumvirate, which he had formerly
attacked with the utmost virulence, he did not hesitate now to approve
and defend.
After his return[802] he was appointed to a seat in the College of
Augurs; a dignity which he had anxiously coveted before his exile, and
to obtain which, he had offered almost any terms to Cæsar and
Pompey.[803] The following year, much against his will, the province of
Cilicia was assigned to him. Strictly did the accuser of Verres act up
to the high and honourable principles which he professed. His was a
model administration: a stop was put to corruption, wrongs were
redressed, justice impartially administered. Those great occasions on
which he was compelled to act on his own responsibility, and to listen
to the dictates of his beautiful soul, “_seine schöne seele_,”[804] his
pure, honest, and incorruptible heart, are the bright points in Cicero’s
career. The emergency of the occasion overcame his constitutional
timidity.
In the year B. C. 49, he returned to Rome, and finding himself in a
position in which he could calmly observe the current of affairs, and
determine unbiassed what part he should take in them, or whether it was
his duty to take any part at all, his weak, wavering, vacillating temper
again got the mastery over him. He would not do anything dishonest, but
he was not chivalrous enough to spurn at once that which was
dishonourable. Cæsar and Pompey were now at open war, and he could not
make up his mind which to join.[805] He felt, probably, that the energy,
ability, and firmness of Cæsar, would be crowned with success; and yet
his friends, his party, and his own heart were with Pompey, and he
dreaded the scorn which would be heaped upon him if he forsook his
political opinions. His were not the stern, unyielding principles of a
Cato; but the fear of what men would say of him made him anxious and
miserable. The struggle was a long one between caution and honour, but
at length honour overcame caution. He made his decision, and went to the
camp of Pompey; but he could never rally his spirits, or feel sanguine
as to the result. He immediately saw that Pharsalia decided the question
for ever, and consequently hastened to Brundisium, where he awaited the
return of the conqueror. It was a long time to remain in suspense; but
at last the generous Cæsar relieved him from it by a full and free
pardon.
And now again his character rose higher, and his good qualities had room
to display themselves. There were no longer equally balanced parties to
revive the discord which formerly distracted his mind, nor were the
circumstances of the times such as to demand his active interference in
the cause of his country; but he was as great in the exercise of his
contemplative faculties as he had been in the brightest period of his
political life. The same faults may, perhaps, be discerned in his
philosophical speculations: the same indecision which rendered him
incapable of being a statesman or a patriot caused him to adopt in
philosophy a skeptical eclecticism. Truth was to him as variable as
political honesty; but he is always the advocate and supporter of
resignation, and fortitude, and purity, and virtue.
He had hitherto suffered as a public man: he was now bowed down by
domestic affliction. A quarrel with his wife Terentia ended in a
divorce:[806] such was the facility with which at Rome the nuptial tie
could be severed. His second wife was his own ward—a young lady of large
fortune; but disparity of years and temper prevented this connexion from
lasting long. In B. C. 45 he lost his daughter Tullia. The blow was
overwhelming: he sought in vain to soothe his grief in the woody
solitudes of his maritime villa at Astura, and it was long before the
bereaved father found consolation in philosophy.
The political crisis which ensued upon the assassination of Cæsar
alarmed him for his own personal safety: he therefore meditated a voyage
to Greece; but being wind-bound at Rhegium, the hopes of an
accommodation between Antony and the senate (a hope destined not to be
realized) induced him to return. Antony now left Rome, and Cicero
delivered that torrent of indignant and eloquent invective—his twelve
Philippic orations.[807] He was again the popular idol—crowds of
applauding and admiring fellow-citizens attended him to the Forum in a
kind of triumphant procession, as they had on his return from exile. But
soon the second triumvirate was formed. Each member readily gave up
friends to satisfy the vengeance of his colleagues, and Octavius
sacrificed Cicero.
The story of his death is a brief and sad one. He was enjoying the
literary retirement of his Tusculan villa when his friends warned him of
his approaching fate. He was too great a philosopher to fear death; but
too high-principled and resigned to the Divine will to commit suicide.
Still he scarcely thought life worth preserving: “I will die,” he said,
“in my fatherland, which I have so often saved.” However, at the
entreaty of his brother, to whom he was affectionately attached, he
endeavoured to escape. He first went across the country to Astura, and
there embarked. The weather was tempestuous, and as he suffered much
from sea-sickness, he again landed at Gaëta. A treacherous freedman
betrayed him, and as he was being carried in a litter he was overtaken
by his pursuers. He would not permit his attendants to make any
resistance; but patiently and courageously submitted to the sword of the
assassins, who cut off his head and hands and carried them to Antony. A
savage joy sparkled in the eyes of the triumvir at the sight of these
bloody trophies. His wife, Fulvia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the
pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle that once
eloquent tongue. The head and hands were fixed upon the rostrum which
had so often witnessed his unequalled eloquence. All that passed by
bewailed his death, and gave vent to their affectionate feelings.
Although it is impossible to be blind to the numerous faults of Cicero,
few men have been more maligned and misrepresented, and the judgment of
antiquity has been, upon the whole, generally unfavourable. He was vain,
vacillating, inconstant, constitutionally timid, and the victim of a
morbid sensibility; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous,
pure-minded, and warm-hearted. His amiability, acted upon by timidity,
led him to set too high a value on public esteem and favour; and this
weakened his moral sense and his instinctive love of virtue. That he
possessed heroism is proved by his defence of Roscius, although the
favourite of the terrible Sulla was his adversary. He was not entirely
destitute of decision, or he would not so promptly have expressed his
approbation of Cæsar’s assassins as tyrannicides. He had resolution to
strive against his over-sensitiveness, and wisdom to see that mental
occupation was its best remedy; for in the midst of the distractions and
anxieties of that eventful and critical year which preceded the
consulship of Hirtius and Pansa an almost incredible number of works
proceeded from his pen.[808]
There are many circumstances to account for his political inconsistency
and indecision. He had an early predilection for the aristocratic party;
but he saw that they were narrow-minded and behind their age. All the
patricians, except Sulla and his small party, were on the popular side.
He was proud of his connexion with Marius; and his friend Sulpicius
Rufus, whom he greatly admired, joined the Marians. For these reasons,
Cicero was inconsistent as a politician. Again, during periods of
revolutionary turbulence, moderate men are detested by both sides; and
yet it was impossible for a philosophic temper, which could calmly and
dispassionately weigh the merits and demerits of both, to sympathize
warmly with either. Cicero saw that both were wrong: he was too
temperate to approve, too honest to pretend a zeal which he did not
feel, and, therefore, he was undecided.
Again, having a large benevolence, and a firm faith in virtue, he was
unconscious of guile himself, and thought no evil of others. He
therefore mistook flattery for sincerity, and compliments for kindness.
He was vain; but vanity is a weakness not inconsistent with great minds,
and in the case of Cicero it was fed by the unanimous voice of public
approbation.
As an advocate his delight was to defend, not to accuse.[809] In three
only of his twenty-four orations did he undertake the office of an
accuser.
Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died
as a philosopher.