You ask us, O Gratius, why we are so exceedingly attached to this man.
Because he supplies us with food whereby our mind is refreshed after
this noise in the Forum, and with rest for our ears after they have been
wearied with bad language. Do you think it possible that we could find a
supply for our daily speeches, when discussing such a variety of
matters, unless we were to cultivate our minds by the study of
literature? or that our minds could bear being kept so constantly on the
stretch if we did not relax them by that same study? But I confess that
I am devoted to those studies; let others be ashamed of them if they
have buried themselves in books without being able to produce anything
out of them for the common advantage, or anything which may bear the
eyes of men and the light. But why need I be ashamed, who for many years
have lived in such a manner as never to allow my own love of
tranquillity to deny me to the necessity or advantage of another, or my
fondness for pleasure to distract, or even sleep to delay, my attention
to such claims? Who then can reproach me, or who has any right to be
angry with me, if I allow myself as much time for the cultivation of
these studies as some take for the performance of their own business; or
for celebrating days of festival and games; or for other pleasures; or
even for the rest and refreshment of mind and body; or as others devote
to early banquets, to playing at dice, or at ball? And this ought to be
permitted to me, because by these studies my power of speaking and those
faculties are improved, which as far as they do exist in me have never
been denied to my friends when they have been in peril. And if that
ability appears to any one to be but moderate, at all events I know
whence I derive those principles which are of the greatest value. For if
I had not persuaded myself from my youth upwards, both by the precepts
of many masters and by much reading, that there is nothing in life
greatly to be desired except praise and honor, and that while pursuing
those things all tortures of the body, all dangers of death and
banishment are to be considered but of small importance, I should never
have exposed myself in defense of your safety to such numerous and
arduous contests, and to these daily attacks of profligate men. But all
books are full of such precepts, and all the sayings of philosophers,
and all antiquity, are full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but
all these things would lie buried in darkness if the light of literature
and learning were not applied to them. How many images of the bravest
men, carefully elaborated, have both the Greek and Latin writers
bequeathed to us, not merely for us to look at and gaze upon, but also
for our imitation! And I, always keeping them before my eyes as examples
for my own public conduct, have endeavored to model my mind and views by
continually thinking of those excellent men.
Some one will ask "What! were those identical great men, whose virtues
have been recorded in books, accomplished in all that learning which you
are extolling so highly?" It is difficult to assert this of all of them;
but still I know what answer I can make to that question: I admit that
many men have existed of admirable disposition and virtue, who without
learning, by the almost divine instinct of their own mere nature, have
been, of their own accord as it were, moderate and wise men. I even add
this, that very often nature without learning has had more to do with
leading men to credit and to virtue, than learning when not assisted by
a good natural disposition. And I also contend that when to an excellent
and admirable natural disposition there is added a certain system and
training of education, then from that combination arises an
extraordinary perfection of character: such as is seen in that godlike
man whom our fathers saw in their time--Africanus; and in Caius Laelius
and Lucius Furius, most virtuous and moderate men; and in that most
excellent man, the most learned man of his time, Marcus Cato the elder:
and all these men, if they had been to derive no assistance from
literature in the cultivation and practice of virtue, would never have
applied themselves to the study of it. Though even if there were no such
great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only pleasure that
is sought from these studies, still I imagine you would consider it a
most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other
occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but
these studies are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the
ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight
at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in
travel, and in the country.
And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these advantages, nor
even taste them with our senses, still we ought to admire them even when
we saw them in others.... And indeed, we have constantly heard from men
of the greatest eminence and learning that the study of other sciences
was made up of learning, and rules, and regular method; but that a poet
was such by the unassisted work of nature, and was moved by the vigor of
his own mind, and was inspired as it were by some divine wrath.
Wherefore rightly does our own great Ennius call poets holy; because
they seem to be recommended to us by some especial gift, as it were, and
liberality of the gods. Let then, judges, this name of poet, this name
which no barbarians even have ever disregarded, be holy in your eyes,
men of cultivated minds as you all are. Rocks and deserts reply to the
poet's voice; savage beasts are often moved and arrested by song; and
shall we who have been trained in the pursuit of the most virtuous acts
refuse to be swayed by the voice of poets? The Colophonians say that
Homer was their citizen; the Chians claim him as theirs; the Salaminians
assert their right to him; but the men of Smyrna loudly assert him to
be a citizen of Smyrna, and they have even raised a temple to him in
their city. Many other places also fight with one another for the honor
of being his birthplace.
They then claim a stranger, even after his death, because he was a poet:
shall we reject this man while he is alive, a man who by his own
inclination and by our laws does actually belong to us? especially when
Archias has employed all his genius with the utmost zeal in celebrating
the glory and renown of the Roman people? For when a young man, he
touched on our wars against the Cimbri and gained the favor even of
Caius Marius himself, a man who was tolerably proof against this sort of
study. For there was no one so disinclined to the Muses as not willingly
to endure that the praise of his labors should be made immortal by means
of verse. They say that the great Themistocles, the greatest man that
Athens produced, said when some one asked him what sound or whose voice
he took the greatest delight in hearing, "The voice of that by whom his
own exploits were best celebrated." Therefore, the great Marius was also
exceedingly attached to Lucius Plotius, because he thought that the
achievement which he had performed could be celebrated by his genius.
And the whole Mithridatic war, great and difficult as it was, and
carried on with so much diversity of fortune by land and sea, has been
related at length by him; and the books in which that is sung of, not
only make illustrious Lucius Lucullus, that most gallant and celebrated
man, but they do honor also to the Roman people. For while Lucullus was
general, the Roman people opened Pontus, though it was defended both by
the resources of the king and by the character of the country itself.
Under the same general the army of the Roman people, with no very great
numbers, routed the countless hosts of the Armenians. It is the glory of
the Roman people that by the wisdom of that same general, the city of
the Cyzicenes, most friendly to us, was delivered and preserved from all
the attacks of the kind, and from the very jaws as it were of the whole
war. Ours is the glory which will be for ever celebrated, which is
derived from the fleet of the enemy which was sunk after its admirals
had been slain, and from the marvelous naval battle off Tenedos: those
trophies belong to us, those monuments are ours, those triumphs are
ours. Therefore I say that the men by whose genius these exploits are
celebrated make illustrious at the same time the glory of the Roman
people. Our countryman Ennius was dear to the elder Africanus; and even
on the tomb of the Scipios his effigy is believed to be visible, carved
in the marble. But undoubtedly it is not only the men who are themselves
praised who are done honor to by those praises, but the name of the
Roman people also is adorned by them. Cato, the ancestor of this Cato,
is extolled to the skies. Great honor is paid to the exploits of the
Roman people. Lastly, all those great men, the Maximi, the Marcelli, and
the Fulvii, are done honor to, not without all of us having also a share
in the panegyric....
Certainly, if the mind had no anticipations of posterity, and if it were
to confine all its thoughts within the same limits as those by which the
space of our lives is bounded, it would neither break itself with such
severe labors, nor would it be tormented with such cares and sleepless
anxiety, nor would it so often have to fight for its very life. At
present there is a certain virtue in every good man, which night and day
stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all
mention of our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but
that our fame will endure to all posterity.
Do we all who are occupied in the affairs of the State, and who are
surrounded by such perils and dangers in life, appear to be so
narrow-minded as, though to the last moment of our lives we have never
passed one tranquil or easy moment, to think that everything will perish
at the same time as ourselves? Ought we not, when many most illustrious
men have with great care collected and left behind them statues and
images, representations not of their minds but of their bodies, much
more to desire to leave behind us a copy of our counsels and of our
virtues, wrought and elaborated by the greatest genius? I thought, at
the very moment of performing them, that I was scattering and
disseminating all the deeds which I was performing, all over the world
for the eternal recollection of nations. And whether that delight is to
be denied to my soul after death, or whether, as the wisest men have
thought, it will affect some portion of my spirit, at all events I am at
present delighted with some such idea and hope.