There is no masterly
translation
comparable with the fine work
done by Kennedy for Demosthenes.
done by Kennedy for Demosthenes.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 to v10 - Cal to Fro
His enlightened love for the tradi-
tions 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 product-
iveness, 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
## p. 3676 (#32) ############################################
3676
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 Sul-
lan proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged
with murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kins-
men were probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chryso-
gonus, 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 quæstorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B. C. Here he
knit close friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a credit-
able piece of archæological 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 com-
paratively 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 pic-
ture, 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 per-
manently successful.
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.
## p. 3677 (#33) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3677
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 prætorship 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 un-
doubted patriots, in the famous harangues of November. These lat-
ter, 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 pub-
lic 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 profes-
sion 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 ingenu-
ity, wit, and grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but
hardly its moral standards.
## p. 3678 (#34) ############################################
3678
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
The next year produced the famous and successful defense of
Cluentius, probably guilty of poisoning, and also the most de-
lightful 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 sus-
piciously brief. The praise of literature and the scholarly life, how-
ever, has re-echoed ever since, and still reaches all hearts. Brother
Quintus, sitting in judgment as prætor, is pleasantly greeted.
This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boast-
ful 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 Cæsar presently made the two
successful generals Pompey and Crassus his political tools.
refused to enter, on similar conditions, the cabal later known as the
"First Triumvirate. " Cæsar, 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, Cæsar 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, Cæsar, the consummate master of action and of men, had
humanely but decisively crippled the erratic yet patriotic rheto-
rician.
In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the per-
sonal good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics,
brought round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were how-
ever effectively clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of inde-
pendence, he made full, even abject, submission to the dominant
Cæsarian faction. This was in 56 B. C. The next five years, inglo-
rious politically, were however full of activity in legal oratory and
other literary work. In his eloquent defense of Cælius Rufus,
charged with an attempt to poison Clodia, Cicero perforce white-
washes, or at least paints in far milder colors than of old, Catiline,
Cælius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing feature is the abusive
attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia, probably the "Lesbia" of
## p. 3679 (#35) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3679
Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to have preceded Cælius
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 exhaust-
ive analyses of his motives and temptations. His naïve selfishness
and vanity at times in these letters seem even like self-caricature.
Yet through it all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patri-
otism. 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-wel-
come" 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
Cæsar's grace! For many months he waited in ignoble retirement,
fearing the success of his deserted comrades even more than Cæsar'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 Cæsar's brief reign,- or long dictatorship,- from 48
to 44, Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of court-
iers. For him who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for
## p. 3680 (#36) ############################################
3680
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
mercy accorded, at a despot's footstool, there are no more graceful
models than the 'Pro Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello. ' Cæsar him-
self 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 morti-
fication 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
Cæsar'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
Cæsar. 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 pub-
lic 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 pe-
culiar 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
―
## p. 3681 (#37) ############################################
MARCUS TUL IUS CICERO
3681
others may be hardly more authentic. The Ninth Philippic' is a
heartfelt funeral eulogy on that same Sulpicius whom he had ridi-
culed 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 griev-
ous 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 Ital-
ian hearers. It would not be so patiently accepted by any Teutonic
folk. His very copiousness, however, makes him as a rule wonder-
fully clear and easy reading. Quintilian well says: "From Demos-
thenes'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 dissec-
tion 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 fol-
lowed 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 rôle 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.
VI-231
## p. 3682 (#38) ############################################
3682
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 dic-
tator, sometimes a selection from the Philippics' or Verrine ora-
tions.
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 repeti-
tion 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 rele-
gated to the dictionaries. Instead, we crave adequate cross-refer-
ences 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 Atti-
cus 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 accom-
plishments are summed up in versatility,—the power to adapt him-
self 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 impor-
tance, at least once; and the other rhetorical works in the Corpus
may be neglected here, the more as the most practical working rheto-
ric among them all, the Auctor ad Herennium,' is certainly not
## p. 3683 (#39) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3683
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 Müller'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 col-
lections, entitled To Atticus,' To Friends,' To Brother Marcus,'
'To Brutus': altogether over eight hundred epistles, of which a rela-
tively 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 Cælius, 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 in-
tentionally 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 unat-
tainable. 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
## p. 3684 (#40) ############################################
3684
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 philoso-
phers 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 com-
posed 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 'Repub-
lic' 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 modifica-
tions 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 Chau-
cer'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 Disputa-
tions. ' In each of the five related books a thesis is stated nega-
tively, to be triumphantly reversed later on:-
## p. 3685 (#41) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3685
"Death seems to me an evil. ”
"I think pain the greatest of all evils. "
«<
Misery seems to me to befall the wise man. "
(1)
(2)
(3)
(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 sys-
tematically 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 per-
sonal 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 Cæsar. Not all even of the extant
works have been catalogued here. The Academica' and 'De
Divinatione' should at least be mentioned.
(
## p. 3686 (#42) ############################################
3686
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Such were Cicero's distractions, when cut off from political life
and oratory, and above all when bereft by Tullia's death. The espe-
cial 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 per-
ished 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 frag-
ments. They show metrical facility, a little taste, no creative imagi-
nation 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 dis-
cursive 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 sur-
passed. Many words he successfully coined, chiefly either by trans-
lation 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 elo-
quence 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 stu-
dent of Western Europe, as it were, in a mother tongue which dom-
inates 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. )
RESUME OF GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
The chief encyclopædia of facts and citations for this period is
the cumbrous old Geschichte Roms, oder Pompeius Cæsar Cicero
und ihre Zeitgenossen' of W. Drumann (Königsberg: 1834-44). The
plan is ideally bad, being a series of family chronicles, while these
three men are more completely isolated from their families and kin
## p. 3687 (#43) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3687
than any other great trio in all Roman history! The book is how-
ever an exhaustive, inexhaustible, little acknowledged, but still
worked quarry of erudition. The best single book in English is
Watson's edition of the (selected) letters (or Jeans's translation), until
it shall be superseded by the complete annotated edition of the corre-
spondence, by Tyrrell.
Mommsen's severe judgment on Cicero is well known. The other
standard historians are less severe. Forsyth's life is not the final
word on the subject by any means, but gives a good general view.
The stately Ciceronian Lexicon by Merguet, already complete for the
orations, will eventually provide a complete concordance and copious
elucidation for all the works. The most accessible complete edition
of Cicero's writings in Latin is by Baiter and Kayser, in eleven vol-
umes. The Index Nominum alone fills four hundred closely printed
pages of Vol. xi. The great critical edition is that of Orelli (Zurich:
1826-38).
On Cicero as an author, and indeed in the whole field of Latin
literature, the 'Geschichte der Römischen Literatur' of Martin
Schanz (in I. Müller's 'Handbuch') is most helpful, and even
readable.
Lawrons
William Cranston Lawton
OF THE OFFICES OF LITERATURE AND POETRY
From the Oration for the Poet Archias
You
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 lan-
guage. 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 with-
out 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
## p. 3688 (#44) ############################################
3688
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 an-
tiquity, are full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but all
these things would lie buried in darkness if the light of litera-
ture 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 con-
tinually 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
## p. 3689 (#45) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3689
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 dispo-
sition 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 Lælius 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 vir-
tue, 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 occu-
pations 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 com-
panions by night, and in travel, and in the country.
And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these advan-
tages, 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 En-
nius 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 bar-
barians 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;
## p. 3690 (#46) ############################################
3690
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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.
tions 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 product-
iveness, 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
## p. 3676 (#32) ############################################
3676
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 Sul-
lan proscriptions, young Roscius, of Ameria in Umbria, was charged
with murdering his own father in Rome. A pair of Roscius's kins-
men were probably the real culprits, and had arranged with Chryso-
gonus, 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 quæstorship was passed in Sicily, 75-4 B. C. Here he
knit close friendships with many Greek provincials, and did a credit-
able piece of archæological 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 com-
paratively 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 pic-
ture, 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 per-
manently successful.
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.
## p. 3677 (#33) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3677
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 prætorship 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 un-
doubted patriots, in the famous harangues of November. These lat-
ter, 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 pub-
lic 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 profes-
sion 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 ingenu-
ity, wit, and grace. Its patriotism may be plausibly defended, but
hardly its moral standards.
## p. 3678 (#34) ############################################
3678
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
The next year produced the famous and successful defense of
Cluentius, probably guilty of poisoning, and also the most de-
lightful 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 sus-
piciously brief. The praise of literature and the scholarly life, how-
ever, has re-echoed ever since, and still reaches all hearts. Brother
Quintus, sitting in judgment as prætor, is pleasantly greeted.
This is the culmination in Cicero's career of success. Some boast-
ful 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 Cæsar presently made the two
successful generals Pompey and Crassus his political tools.
refused to enter, on similar conditions, the cabal later known as the
"First Triumvirate. " Cæsar, 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, Cæsar 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, Cæsar, the consummate master of action and of men, had
humanely but decisively crippled the erratic yet patriotic rheto-
rician.
In little more than a year the bad conduct of Clodius, the per-
sonal good-will of the "triumvirs," and the whirligig of politics,
brought round Cicero's return from Greece. His wings were how-
ever effectively clipped. After a brief and slight flutter of inde-
pendence, he made full, even abject, submission to the dominant
Cæsarian faction. This was in 56 B. C. The next five years, inglo-
rious politically, were however full of activity in legal oratory and
other literary work. In his eloquent defense of Cælius Rufus,
charged with an attempt to poison Clodia, Cicero perforce white-
washes, or at least paints in far milder colors than of old, Catiline,
Cælius's lifelong friend! A still less pleasing feature is the abusive
attack on the famous and beautiful Clodia, probably the "Lesbia" of
## p. 3679 (#35) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3679
Catullus. (The unhappy young poet seems to have preceded Cælius
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 exhaust-
ive analyses of his motives and temptations. His naïve selfishness
and vanity at times in these letters seem even like self-caricature.
Yet through it all glimmers a vein of real though bewildered patri-
otism. 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-wel-
come" 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
Cæsar's grace! For many months he waited in ignoble retirement,
fearing the success of his deserted comrades even more than Cæsar'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 Cæsar's brief reign,- or long dictatorship,- from 48
to 44, Cicero is the most stately and the most obsequious of court-
iers. For him who would plead for clemency, or return thanks for
## p. 3680 (#36) ############################################
3680
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
mercy accorded, at a despot's footstool, there are no more graceful
models than the 'Pro Ligario' and the 'Pro Marcello. ' Cæsar him-
self 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 morti-
fication 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
Cæsar'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
Cæsar. 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 pub-
lic 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 pe-
culiar 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
―
## p. 3681 (#37) ############################################
MARCUS TUL IUS CICERO
3681
others may be hardly more authentic. The Ninth Philippic' is a
heartfelt funeral eulogy on that same Sulpicius whom he had ridi-
culed 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 griev-
ous 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 Ital-
ian hearers. It would not be so patiently accepted by any Teutonic
folk. His very copiousness, however, makes him as a rule wonder-
fully clear and easy reading. Quintilian well says: "From Demos-
thenes'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 dissec-
tion 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 fol-
lowed 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 rôle 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.
VI-231
## p. 3682 (#38) ############################################
3682
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 dic-
tator, sometimes a selection from the Philippics' or Verrine ora-
tions.
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 repeti-
tion 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 rele-
gated to the dictionaries. Instead, we crave adequate cross-refer-
ences 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 Atti-
cus 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 accom-
plishments are summed up in versatility,—the power to adapt him-
self 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 impor-
tance, at least once; and the other rhetorical works in the Corpus
may be neglected here, the more as the most practical working rheto-
ric among them all, the Auctor ad Herennium,' is certainly not
## p. 3683 (#39) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3683
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 Müller'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 col-
lections, entitled To Atticus,' To Friends,' To Brother Marcus,'
'To Brutus': altogether over eight hundred epistles, of which a rela-
tively 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 Cælius, 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 in-
tentionally 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 unat-
tainable. 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
## p. 3684 (#40) ############################################
3684
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 philoso-
phers 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 com-
posed 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 'Repub-
lic' 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 modifica-
tions 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 Chau-
cer'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 Disputa-
tions. ' In each of the five related books a thesis is stated nega-
tively, to be triumphantly reversed later on:-
## p. 3685 (#41) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3685
"Death seems to me an evil. ”
"I think pain the greatest of all evils. "
«<
Misery seems to me to befall the wise man. "
(1)
(2)
(3)
(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 sys-
tematically 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 per-
sonal 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 Cæsar. Not all even of the extant
works have been catalogued here. The Academica' and 'De
Divinatione' should at least be mentioned.
(
## p. 3686 (#42) ############################################
3686
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Such were Cicero's distractions, when cut off from political life
and oratory, and above all when bereft by Tullia's death. The espe-
cial 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 per-
ished 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 frag-
ments. They show metrical facility, a little taste, no creative imagi-
nation 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 dis-
cursive 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 sur-
passed. Many words he successfully coined, chiefly either by trans-
lation 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 elo-
quence 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 stu-
dent of Western Europe, as it were, in a mother tongue which dom-
inates 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. )
RESUME OF GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
The chief encyclopædia of facts and citations for this period is
the cumbrous old Geschichte Roms, oder Pompeius Cæsar Cicero
und ihre Zeitgenossen' of W. Drumann (Königsberg: 1834-44). The
plan is ideally bad, being a series of family chronicles, while these
three men are more completely isolated from their families and kin
## p. 3687 (#43) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3687
than any other great trio in all Roman history! The book is how-
ever an exhaustive, inexhaustible, little acknowledged, but still
worked quarry of erudition. The best single book in English is
Watson's edition of the (selected) letters (or Jeans's translation), until
it shall be superseded by the complete annotated edition of the corre-
spondence, by Tyrrell.
Mommsen's severe judgment on Cicero is well known. The other
standard historians are less severe. Forsyth's life is not the final
word on the subject by any means, but gives a good general view.
The stately Ciceronian Lexicon by Merguet, already complete for the
orations, will eventually provide a complete concordance and copious
elucidation for all the works. The most accessible complete edition
of Cicero's writings in Latin is by Baiter and Kayser, in eleven vol-
umes. The Index Nominum alone fills four hundred closely printed
pages of Vol. xi. The great critical edition is that of Orelli (Zurich:
1826-38).
On Cicero as an author, and indeed in the whole field of Latin
literature, the 'Geschichte der Römischen Literatur' of Martin
Schanz (in I. Müller's 'Handbuch') is most helpful, and even
readable.
Lawrons
William Cranston Lawton
OF THE OFFICES OF LITERATURE AND POETRY
From the Oration for the Poet Archias
You
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 lan-
guage. 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 with-
out 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
## p. 3688 (#44) ############################################
3688
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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 an-
tiquity, are full of precedents teaching the same lesson; but all
these things would lie buried in darkness if the light of litera-
ture 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 con-
tinually 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
## p. 3689 (#45) ############################################
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
3689
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 dispo-
sition 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 Lælius 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 vir-
tue, 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 occu-
pations 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 com-
panions by night, and in travel, and in the country.
And if we ourselves were not able to arrive at these advan-
tages, 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 En-
nius 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 bar-
barians 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;
## p. 3690 (#46) ############################################
3690
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
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.
