The outward life, the political career, of Marcus Tullius Cicero, is to
nearly all students of history a tragic and pathetic story. He seems
peculiarly unfitted to the people and the time in which his lot was
cast. His enlightened love for the traditions of the past, his
passionate sentiment of patriotism, his forceful eloquence as a debater
in the Senate or as an orator in the Forum,--these qualities of a Burke
or a Webster stand out violently dissevered from the lurid history of
his time. This humane scholarly life was flung into the midst of the
wildest century in all Rome's grim annals; the hundred years of civic
turmoil and bloodshed, from the elder Gracchus's murder to the death of
Cleopatra.
And yet such was the marvelous activity, the all-sided productiveness,
of the Ciceronian intellect, that perhaps no human mind has ever so
fully exploited all its powers. Moreover, in each intellectual field
which he entered, the chances of time have removed nearly every Roman
rival, leaving us no choice save to accept Cicero's guidance. There was
many another orator, and history of eloquence. There were other
practical treatises on rhetoric. Many a notable correspondence was
actually preserved and published, though now lost. Even his free
transcriptions from Greek philosophical treatises--hastily conned and
perhaps imperfectly understood--have acquired, through the disappearance
of the Greek scrolls themselves, an ill-deserved authority as to the
tenets of the Epicurean and other schools.
Before and above all else, Cicero was a pleader. Out of that activity
grew his ill-starred political activity, while his other literary tastes
were essentially but a solace in times of enforced retirement. With the
discussion of his oratory, therefore, we may best combine a rapid
outline of his life.
By their common birthplace, Arpinum, and by a slight tie of kinship,
Cicero was associated with Marius; and he began life, like Disraeli,
with radical sympathies. He was the elder son of a wealthy Roman
citizen, but no ancestor had ennobled the family by attaining curule
office. After a most thorough course of training in Latin and Greek,
Cicero began to "practice law." The pleader in ancient Rome was supposed
to receive no fee, and even more than with us, found his profession the
natural stepping-stone to political honors.
At the age of twenty-six, Cicero (in 80 B.C.) defended his first
important client in a criminal case. In the closing days of the Sullan
proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged with
murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kinsmen were
probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chrysogonus, a wealthy
freedman and favorite of the Dictator, to insert the dead man's name
among the outlawed victims and to divide the confiscated estate. The son
was persecuted because he resisted this second outrage. Cicero says he
is himself protected by his obscurity, though no other advocate has
dared to plead for the unlucky youth. In our present text there are some
audacious words aimed at Sulla's own measures: they were probably
sharpened in a later revision. The case was won, against general
expectation. Cicero may have played the hero that day: certainly the
brief remainder of Sulla's life was spent by the young democratic
pleader traveling in the East,--"for his health," as Plutarch adds,
truly enough. At this time his style was chastened and his manner
moderated by the teachers of Athens, and especially by Molo in Rhodes.
Cicero's quaestorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B.C. Here he knit close
friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a creditable piece of
archaeological work by rediscovering Archimedes's tomb. His impeachment
of Verres for misgovernment in Sicily was in 70 B.C. This time the
orator runs a less desperate risk. Since Sulla's death the old
constitution has languidly revived. Speech was comparatively free and
safe. The "knights" or wealthy middle class,--Cicero's own,--deprived by
Sulla of the right to sit as the jurors in impeachment trials like
Verres's, partially regain the privilege in this very year. The
overwhelming mass of evidence made Verres flee into exile, and
Hortensius, till then leader of the Roman bar, threw up the case in
despair. Nevertheless Cicero published the stately series of orations he
had prepared. They form the most vivid picture, and the deadliest
indictments ever drawn, of Roman provincial government,--and of a
ruthless art-collector. Cicero instantly became the foremost among
lawyers. Moreover, this success made Cicero a leader in the time of
reaction after Sulla, and hastened his elevation to posts where only men
of sterner nature could be fully and permanently successful.
[Illustration: CICERO.]
Pompey, born in the same year, was at this time leading the revolt
against Sulla's measures. The attachment now formed, the warmer hearted
Cicero never wholly threw off. The young general's later foreign
victories are nowhere so generously set forth as in Cicero's
too-rhetorical plea "for the Manilian Law," in 66 B.C. Pompey was
then wintering in the East, after sweeping piracy in a single summer
from the Mediterranean. This plea gave him the larger command against
Mithridates. Despite the most extravagant laudation, however, Pompey
remains, here as elsewhere, one of those large but vague and misty
figures that stalk across the stage of history without ever once turning
upon us a fully human face. Far more distinct than he, there looms above
him the splendid triumphal pageant of Roman imperialism itself.
Cicero's unrivaled eloquence won him not only a golden shower of gifts
and legacies, but also the praetorship and consulship at the earliest
legal age. Perhaps some of the old nobles foresaw and prudently avoided
the Catilinarian storm of 63 B.C. The common dangers of that year, and
the pride of assured position, may have hastened the full transfer of
Cicero's allegiance to the old senatorial faction. Tiberius Gracchus,
boldly praised in January, has become for Cicero a notorious demagogue;
his slayers instead are the undoubted patriots, in the famous harangues
of November. These latter, by the way, were certainly under the file
three years afterward,--and it is not likely that we read any Ciceronian
speech just as it was delivered. If there be any thread of consistency
in Cicero's public career, it must be sought in his long but vain hope
to unite the nobility and the _equites_, in order to resist the growing
proletariat.
The eager vanity with which Cicero seized the proud title "Father of the
fatherland" is truly pathetic. The summary execution of the traitors may
have been prompted by that physical timidity so often associated with
the scholarly temperament. Whether needless or not, the act returned to
plague him.
The happiest effort of the orator in his consular year was the famous
plea for Murena. This consul-elect for 62 was a successful soldier.
Catiline must be met in the spring "in the jaws of Etruria." Cicero's
dearest friend, Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a defeated candidate, accused
Murena of bribery. The conditions of Roman politics, the character of
Sulpicius, the tone of Cicero himself, bid us adjudge Murena probably
guilty. Cicero had supported Sulpicius, but now feels it is no time to
"go behind the returns," or to replace a bold soldier by a scholarly
lawyer.
To win his case Cicero must heap ridicule upon his own profession in his
friend's person, and upon Stoic philosophy, represented by Cato,
Sulpicius's chief advocate. This he did so successfully that Cato
himself exclaimed with a grim smile, "What a jester our consul is!"
Cicero won his case--and kept his friends. This speech is cited _sixteen
times_ by Quintilian, and is a model of forensic ingenuity, wit, and
grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but hardly its moral
standards.
The next year produced the famous and successful defense of
Cluentius,--probably guilty of poisoning,--and also the most delightful
of all Cicero's speeches, the oration for the poet Archias. Whether the
old Greek's claim to Roman citizenship was beyond cavil we neither know
nor greatly care. The legal argument is suspiciously brief. The praise
of literature and the scholarly life, however, has re-echoed ever since,
and still reaches all hearts. Brother Quintus, sitting in judgment as
praetor, is pleasantly greeted.
This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boastful
words uttered in these days make us doubt if he remembered Solon's and
Sophocles's maxim, "Count no life happy before its close." The
fast-growing power of Caesar presently made the two successful generals
Pompey and Crassus his political tools. Cicero refused to enter, on
similar conditions, the cabal later known as the "First Triumvirate."
Caesar, about to depart for his long absence in Gaul, might well regard
the patriotic and impulsive orator as the most serious source of
possible opposition in his absence. Marcus refused, himself, to go along
to Gaul a-soldiering, though Brother Quintus accepted a commission and
served creditably. At last, reluctantly, Caesar suffered Cicero's
personal enemy Clodius to bring forward a decree outlawing "those who
had put Roman citizens to death without trial" (March, 58 B.C.). Cicero
meekly withdrew from Rome, was condemned by name in absence, and his
town house and villas pillaged.
As to the cowardice of this hasty retreat, none need use severer words
than did the exile himself. It is the decisive event in his career. His
uninterrupted success was ended. His pride could never recover fully
from the hurt. Worst of all, he could never again pose, even before his
own eyes, as the fearless hero-patriot. In short, Caesar, the consummate
master of action and of men, had humanely but decisively crippled the
erratic yet patriotic rhetorician.
In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the personal
good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics, brought
round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were however effectively
clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of independence, he made full,
even abject, submission to the dominant Caesarian faction. This was in 56
B.C. The next five years, inglorious politically, were however full of
activity in legal oratory and other literary work. In his eloquent
defense of Caelius Rufus, charged with an attempt to poison Clodia,
Cicero perforce whitewashes, or at least paints in far milder colors
than of old, Catiline, Caelius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing
feature is the abusive attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia,
probably the "Lesbia" of Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to
have preceded Caelius in the fickle matron's favor.)
The events of the year 52 well illustrate the unfitness of Cicero for
politics in such an age. Rome was full of street brawls, which Pompey
could not check. The orator's old enemy Clodius, at the head of his
bravos, was slain by a fellow ruffian Milo in January. At Milo's trial
in April Cicero defended him, or attempted to do so. A court-room
encircled by a yelling mob and guarded by Pompey's legions caused him to
break down altogether. As afterward written out at leisure, the speech
is a masterpiece of special pleading. The exiled Milo's criticism on it
is well known: "I'm glad you never delivered it: I should not now be
enjoying the mullets of Marseilles."
The year 51-50 Cicero spent, most unwillingly, as proconsular governor
in far-off Cilicia. Though really humane and relatively honest, he
accumulated in these few months a handsome sum in "gifts" from
provincials and other perquisites. Even Cicero was a Roman.
Meantime the civil war had all but broken out at home. Cicero hesitated
long, and the correspondence with Atticus contains exhaustive analyses
of his motives and temptations. His naive selfishness and vanity at
times in these letters seem even like self-caricature. Yet through it
all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patriotism. Still the
craving for a triumph--he had fought some savage mountain clans in Asia
Minor!--was hardly less dominant.
Repairing late and with many misgivings to Pompey's camp in Epirus,
Cicero seems to have been there a "not unfeared, half-welcome" and
critical guest. Illness is his excuse for absence from the decisive
battle. He himself tells us little of these days. As Plutarch relates
the tale, after Pompey's flight to Egypt Cicero refused the supreme
command, and was thereupon threatened with death by young Gneius Pompey;
but his life was saved by Cato.
One thing at least is undisputed. The last man to decide for Pompey's
cause, he was the first to hurry back to Italy and crave Caesar's grace!
For many months he waited in ignoble retirement, fearing the success of
his deserted comrades even more than Caesar's victory. It is this action
that gives the _coup de grace_ to Cicero's character as a hero. With
whatever misgivings, he had chosen his side. Whatever disturbing threats
of violent revenge after victory he heard in Pompey's camp, he awaited
the decisive battle. Then there remained, for any brave man, only
constancy in defeat--or a fall upon his sword.
Throughout Caesar's brief reign,--or long dictatorship,--from 48 to 44,
Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of courtiers. For him
who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for mercy accorded, at a
despot's footstool, there are no more graceful models than the 'Pro
Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello.' Caesar himself realized, and wittily
remarked, how irksome and hateful such a part must be to the older,
vainer, more self-conscious man of the twain.
Midway in this period Cicero divorced his wife after thirty years of
wedlock, seemingly from some dissatisfaction over her financial
management, and soon after married a wealthy young ward. This is the
least pleasing chapter of his private life, but perhaps the
mortification and suffering it entailed were a sufficient penalty. His
only daughter Tullia's death in 45 B.C. nearly broke the father's heart.
Whatever the reason, Cicero was certainly not in the secret of Caesar's
assassination. Twice in letters to members of the conspiracy in later
months he begins: "How I wish you had invited me to your glorious
banquet on the Ides of March." "There would have been no remnants," he
once adds. That is, Antony would not have been left alive.
We have now reached the last two years--perhaps the most creditable
time--in Cicero's eventful life. This period runs from March 15th, 44
B.C., to December 7th, 43 B.C. It was one long struggle, first covert,
then open, between Antony and the slayers of Caesar. Cicero's energy and
eloquence soon made him the foremost voice in the Senate once more. For
the first time since his exile, he is now speaking out courageously his
own real sentiments. His public action is in harmony with his own
convictions. The cause was not hopeless by any means, so far as the
destruction of Antony would have been a final triumph. Indeed, that wild
career seemed near its end, when Octavian's duplicity again threw the
game into his rival's reckless hands. However, few students of history
imagine that any effective restoration of senatorial government was
possible. The peculiar pathos of Cicero's end, patriot as he was, is
this: it removed one of the last great obstacles to the only stable and
peaceful rule Rome could receive--the imperial throne of Augustus.
This last period is however among the most creditable, perhaps the most
heroic, in Cicero's career. Its chief memorials are the fourteen extant
orations against Antony. The comparative sincerity of these
'Philippics,' and the lack of private letters for much of this time,
make them important historical documents. The only one which ranks among
his greatest productions--perhaps the classic masterpiece of
invective--is the 'Second Philippic.' This was never delivered at all,
but published as a pamphlet. This unquestioned fact throws a curious
light on passages like--"He is agitated, he perspires, he turns pale!"
describing Antony at the (imaginary) delivery of the oration. The
details of the behavior of Catiline and others may be hardly more
authentic. The 'Ninth Philippic' is a heartfelt funeral eulogy on that
same Sulpicius whom he had ridiculed in the 'Pro Murena.'
"The milestones into headstones turn,
And under each a friend."
A fragment from one of Livy's lost books says, "Cicero bore with
becoming spirit none of the ills of life save death itself." He indeed
perished not only bravely but generously, dissuading his devoted slaves
from useless resistance, and extending his neck to Antony's assassins.
Verres lived to exult at the news, and then shared his enemy's fate,
rather than give up his Greek vases to Antony! Nearly every Roman, save
Nero, dies well.
Upon Cicero's political career our judgment is already indicated. He was
always a patriot at heart, though often a bewildered one. His vanity,
and yet more his physical cowardice, caused some grievous blots upon the
record. His last days, and death, may atone for all--save one. The
precipitate desertion of the Pompeians is not to be condoned.
The best English life of Cicero is by Forsyth; but quaint, dogged,
prejudiced old Middleton should not be forgotten. Plutarch's Cicero
"needs no bush."
Cicero's oratory was splendidly effective upon his emotional Italian
hearers. It would not be so patiently accepted by any Teutonic folk. His
very copiousness, however, makes him as a rule wonderfully clear and
easy reading. Quintilian well says: "From Demosthenes's periods not a
word can be spared, to Cicero's not one could be added."
Despite the rout of Verres and of Catiline, the merciless dissection of
Clodia, and the statelier thunders of the 'Philippics,' Cicero was most
successful and happiest when "defending the interests of his friends."
Perhaps the greatest success against justice was the 'Pro Cluentio,'
which throws so lurid a light on ante-Borgian Italian criminology. This
speech is especially recommended by Niebuhr to young philologues as a
nut worthy of the strongest teeth. There is a helpful edition by Ramsay,
but Hertland's 'Murena' will be a pleasanter variation for students
wearying of the beaten track followed by the school editions. Both the
failure of the 'Pro Milone' and the world-wide success of the 'Pro
Archia' bid us repeat the vain wish, that this humane and essentially
modern nature might have fallen on a gentler age. Regarding his whole
political life as an uncongenial role forced on him by fate, we return
devout thanks for _fifty-eight_ orations, nearly all in revised and
finished literary form! Fragments of seventeen, and titles of still
thirty more, yet remain. From all his rivals, predecessors, pupils, not
one authentic speech survives.
The best complete edition of the orations with English notes is by
George Long, in the Bibliotheca Classica. The 'Philippics' alone are
better edited by J.R. King in the Clarendon Press series. School
editions of select speeches are superabundant. They regularly include
the four Catilinarians, the Manilian, and the pleas before the dictator,
sometimes a selection from the 'Philippics' or Verrine orations.
There is no masterly translation comparable with the fine work done by
Kennedy for Demosthenes. The Bohn version is respectable in quality.
Among Cicero's numerous works on rhetoric the chief is the 'De Oratore.'
Actually composed in 55 B.C., it is a dialogue, the scene set in 91
B.C., the characters being the chief Roman orators of that day. L.
Crassus, who plays the host gracefully at his Tusculan country-seat, is
also the chief speaker. These men were all known to Cicero in his
boyhood, but most of them perished soon after in the Marian
proscriptions. Of real character-drawing there is little, and all alike
speak in graceful Ciceronian periods. The exposition of the technical
parts of rhetoric goes on in leisurely wise, with copious illustrations
and digressions. There is much pleasant repetition of commonplaces.
Wilkins's edition of the 'De Oratore' is a good but not an ideal one.
The introductions are most helpful. Countless discussions on etymology,
etc., in the notes, should be relegated to the dictionaries. Instead, we
crave adequate cross-references to passages in this and other works. The
notes seem to be written too largely piecemeal, each with the single
passage in mind.
In Cicero's 'Brutus,' written in 46 B.C., Cicero, Brutus, and Atticus
carry on the conversation, but it is mostly a monologue of Cicero and a
historical sketch of Roman oratory. The affected modesty of the
autobiographic parts is diverting. Brutus was the chief exponent of a
terse, simple, direct, oratory,--far nearer, we judge, to English taste
than the Ciceronian; and the opposition between them already appears. A
convenient American edition is that by Kellogg (Ginn).
The opposition just mentioned comes out more clearly in the 'Orator.'
This portrays the ideal public speaker. His chief accomplishments are
summed up in versatility,--the power to adapt himself to any case and
audience. An interesting passage discusses the rhythms of prose. This
book has been elaborately edited by J.E. Sandys. In these three
dialogues Cicero says everything of importance, at least once; and the
other rhetorical works in the Corpus may be neglected here, the more as
the most practical working rhetoric among them all, the 'Auctor ad
Herennium,' is certainly not Cicero's. It is probably by Cornificius,
and is especially important as the _first_ complete prose work
transmitted to us in authentic Latin form. (Cato's 'De Re Rustica' has
been "modernized.")
The later history of the Ciceronian correspondence is a dark and much
contested field. (The most recent discussion, with bibliography, is by
Schanz, in Iwan Mueller's Handbuch, Vol. viii., pp. 238-243.) Probably
Cicero's devoted freedman Tiro laid the foundations of our collections.
The part of Petrarch in recovering the letters during the "Revival of
Learning" was much less than has been supposed.
The letters themselves are in wild confusion. There are four
collections, entitled 'To Atticus,' 'To Friends,' 'To Brother Marcus,'
'To Brutus': altogether over eight hundred epistles, of which a
relatively small number are written _to_ Cicero by his correspondents.
The order is not chronological, and the dates can in many cases only be
conjectured. Yet these letters afford us our chief sources for the
history of this great epoch,--and the best insight we can ever hope to
have into the private life of Roman gentlemen.
The style of the cynical, witty Caelius, or of the learned lawyer
Sulpicius, differs perceptibly in detail from Cicero's own; yet it is
remarkable that all seem able to write clearly if not gracefully.
Cicero's own style varies very widely. The letters to Atticus are
usually colloquial, full of unexplained allusions, sometimes made
intentionally obscure and pieced out with a Greek phrase, for fear of
the carrier's treachery! Other letters again, notably a long 'Apologia'
addressed to Lentulus after Cicero's return from exile, are as plainly
addressed in reality to the public or to posterity as are any of the
orations.
Prof. R. Y. Tyrrell has long been engaged upon an annotated edition of
all the letters in chronological order. This will be of the utmost
value. An excellent selection, illustrating the orator's public life
chiefly, has been published by Professor Albert Watson. This volume
contains also very full tables of dates, bibliography of all Cicero's
works, and in general is indispensable for the advanced Latin student.
The same letters annotated by Professor Watson have been delightfully
translated by G. E. Jeans. To this volume, rather than to Forsyth's
biography, the English reader should turn to form his impressions of
Cicero at first hand. It is a model of scholarly--and also
literary--translation.
The "New Academy," to which Cicero inclined in philosophy, was skeptical
in its tendencies, and regarded absolute truth as unattainable. This
made it easier for Cicero to cast his transcriptions in the form of
dialogues, revealing the beliefs of the various schools through the lips
of the several interlocutors. Thus the 'De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum'
sets forth in three successive conversations the ideas of Epicureans,
of Stoics, and of the Academy, on the Highest Good. It is perhaps the
chief of these treatises,--though we would still prefer to have even
those later compendiums of the Greek schools through which Cicero
probably cited the chief philosophers at second hand! J. S. Reid, an
eminent English scholar, has spent many years upon this dialogue, and
his work includes a masterly translation.
With a somewhat similar plan, the three books of the 'De Natura Deorum'
contain the views of the three schools on the Divine Beings. The
speakers are Cicero's Roman contemporaries. This rather sketchy work has
been annotated by J. B. Mayor in his usual exhaustive manner. The now
fragmentary dialogue entitled 'The Republic,' and its unfinished
supplement 'The Laws,' were composed and named in avowed rivalry with
Plato's two largest works, but fail to approach the master. The Roman
Constitution is defended as the ideal mingling of monarchy, aristocracy,
and democracy. The student of pure literature can for the most part
neglect these, and others among the hastily written philosophic works,
with the explicit approval of so indefatigable a student as Professor B.
L. Gildersleeve.
The chief fragment preserved of the 'Republic' is the 'Dream of Scipio.'
Its dependence on the vision at the close of Plato's 'Republic' should
be carefully observed. It may be fairly described as a free translation
and enlargement from Greek originals, of which Plato's passage is the
chief. Plagiarism was surely viewed quite otherwise then than now.
Still, the Roman additions and modifications are interesting also,--and
even as a translator Cicero is no ordinary cicerone! Moreover, in this
as in so many other examples, the Latin paraphrase had a wider and more
direct influence than the original. It has been accepted with justice
ever since, as the final and most hopeful pagan word in favor of the
soul's immortality. The lover of Chaucer will recall the genial
paraphrase of 'Scipio's Dream' in the 'Parlament of Foules' (stanzas
5-12). We give below, entire, in our quotations from Cicero, the
masterly version of the 'Dream,' prepared by Prof. T. R. Lounsbury for
his edition of Chaucer's poems. The speaker is the younger Scipio
Africanus, and his visit to Africa as a subaltern here described was in
149 B.C., three years previous to his own decisive campaign against
Carthage which ended in the destruction of the city.
Cicero shared in full the Roman tendency to give a practical, an ethical
turn to all metaphysical discussion. This is prominent in the popular
favorite among his larger volumes, the 'Tusculan Disputations.' In each
of the five related books a thesis is stated negatively, to be
triumphantly reversed later on:--
(1) "Death seems to me an evil."
(2) "I think pain the greatest of all evils."
(3) "Misery seems to me to befall the wise man."
(4) "It does not appear to me that the wise man can be secure from
distress of mind."
(5) "Character does not seem to me sufficient for happiness in life."
The original portion of this work is relatively large, and many Roman
illustrations occur. Dr. Peabody has included the Tusculans, the two
brief essays next mentioned, and the 'De Officiis,' in his excellent
series of versions (Little, Brown and Company).
The little dialogue on 'Old Age' is perhaps most read of all Cicero's
works. Its best thoughts, it must be confessed, are freely borrowed from
the opening pages of Plato's 'Republic.' Still, on this theme of
universal human interest, the Roman also offers much pleasant food for
thought. The moderation of the Greek is forgotten by Cicero, the
professional advocate and special pleader, who almost cries out to us at
last:--
"Grow old along with me:
The best is yet to be.
The last of life, for which the first was made!"
It was written in 45-4 B.C. The other little essay 'On Friendship' does
not deserve to be bound up in such good company, though it usually is so
edited. Bacon's very brief essay has more meat in it. Cicero had many
good friends, but fully trusted hardly any one of them--not even
Atticus. It was an age which put friendship to fearful trial, and the
typical Roman seems to us rather selfish and cold. Certainly this essay
is in a frigid tone. Professor Gildersleeve, I believe, has likened it
to a treatise of Xenophon on hunting, so systematically is the _pursuit_
of friends discussed.
Perhaps the most practical among Roman Manuals of Morals is the treatise
on Duties ('De Officiis'), in three books. Here the personal experience
of sixty years is drawn upon, avowedly for the edification of young
Marcus, the author's unworthy son. This sole Ciceronian survivor of
Antony's massacres lived to be famous for his capacity in wine-drinking,
and to receive officially, as consul under Augustus, the news of
Antony's final defeat and death--a dramatic revenge.
Most of these philosophic treatises were composed near the end of
Cicero's life, largely in one marvelously productive year, 45-4 B.C.,
just previous to the slaying of Caesar. Not all even of the extant works
have been catalogued here. The 'Academica' and 'De Divinatione' should
at least be mentioned.
Such were Cicero's distractions, when cut off from political life and
oratory, and above all when bereft by Tullia's death. The especial
'Consolatio,' composed to regain his courage after this blow, must head
the list of lost works. It took a most pessimistic view of human life,
for which it was reproved by Lactantius. Another perished essay, the
'Hortensius,' introducing the whole philosophic series, upheld Milton's
thesis, "How charming is divine philosophy," and first turned the
thoughts of Augustine to serious study.
Cicero's poems, chiefly translations, are extant in copious fragments.
They show metrical facility, a little taste, no creative imagination at
all. A final proof of his unresting activity is his attempt to write
history. Few, even among professional advocates, could have less of the
temper for mere narration and truth. Indeed, reasonable disregard for
the latter trammel is frankly urged upon a friend who was to write upon
the illustrious moments of Cicero's own career!
We said at first that the caprice of fate had exaggerated some sides of
Cicero's activity, by removing all competitors. In any case, however,
his supremacy among Italian orators, and in the ornate discursive school
of eloquence generally, could not have been questioned.
Yet more: As a stylist, he lifted a language hitherto poor in
vocabulary, and stiff in phrase, to a level it never afterward
surpassed. Many words he successfully coined, chiefly either by
translation or free imitation of Greek originals. His clear, copious,
rhythmical phrase was even more fully his own creation. Indeed, at the
present moment, four or five great forms of living speech testify to
Cicero's amazing mastery over both word and phrase. The eloquence of
Castelar, Crispi, and Gambetta, of Gladstone and of Everett, is shot
through and through, in all its warp and woof, with golden Ciceronian
threads. The 'Archias' speaks to any appreciative student of Western
Europe, as it were, in a mother tongue which dominates his vernacular
speech. Human language, then, has become a statelier memorial of Cicero
than even his vanity can ever have imagined.
(After writing the substance of this paragraph, I was glad to find
myself in close agreement with Mackail's words in his masterly little
'Latin Literature,' page 62.)