Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope
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Anthony Trollope >> Life of Cicero
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Continued efforts were made among Cicero's friends at Rome to bring
him back, with which he was not altogether contented. He argues the
matter repeatedly with Atticus, not always in the best temper. His
friends at Rome were, he thought, doing the matter amiss: they would
fail, and he would still have to finish his days abroad. Atticus,
in his way to Epirus, visits him at Dyrrachium, and he is sure that
Atticus would not have left Rome but that the affair was hopeless.
The reader of the correspondence is certainly led to the belief that
Atticus must have been the most patient of friends; but he feels, at
the same time, that Atticus would not have been patient had not Cicero
been affectionate and true. The Consuls for the new year were Lentulus
and Metellus Nepos. The former was Cicero's declared friend, and the
other had already abandoned his enmity. Clodius was no longer Tribune,
and Pompey had been brought to yield. The Senate were all but unanimous.
But there was still life in Clodius and his party; and day dragged
itself after day, and month after month, while Cicero still lingered
at Dyrrachium, waiting till a bill should have been passed by the
people. Pompey, who was never whole-hearted in anything, had declared
that a bill voted by the people would be necessary. The bill at last
was voted, on the 14th of August, and Cicero, who knew well what was
being done at Rome, passed over from Dyrrachium to Brundisium on the
same day, having been a year and four months absent from Rome. During
the year B.C. 57, up to the time of his return, he wrote but three
letters that have come to us--two very short notes to Atticus, in the
first of which he declares that he will come over on the authority of
a decree of the Senate, without waiting for a law. In the second he
falls again into despair, declaring that everything is over. In the
third he asks Metellus for his aid, telling the Consul that unless it
be given soon the man for whom it is asked will no longer be living to
receive it. Metellus did give the aid very cordially.
It has been remarked that Cicero did nothing for literature during his
banishment, either by writing essays or preparing speeches; and it has
been implied that the prostration of mind arising from his misfortunes
must have been indeed complete, when a man whose general life was
made marvellous by its fecundity had been repressed into silence. It
should, however, be borne in mind that there could be no inducement
for the writing of speeches when there was no opportunity of
delivering them. As to his essays, including what we call his
Philosophy and his Rhetoric, they who are familiar with his works will
remember how apt he was, in all that he produced, to refer to the
writings of others. He translates and he quotes, and he makes constant
use of the arguments and illustrations of those who have gone before
him. He was a man who rarely worked without the use of a library. When
I think how impossible it would be for me to repeat this oft-told tale
of Cicero's life without a crowd of books within reach of my hand,
I can easily understand why Cicero was silent at Thessalonica and
Dyrrachium. It has been remarked also by a modern critic that we find
"in the letters from exile a carelessness and inaccuracy of expression
which contrasts strongly with the style of his happier days". I will
not for a moment put my judgment in such a matter in opposition to
that of Mr. Tyrrell--but I should myself have been inclined rather to
say that the style of Cicero's letters varies constantly, being very
different when used to Atticus, or to his brother, or to lighter
friends such as Poetus and Trebatius; and very different again when
business of state was in hand, as are his letters to Decimus Brutus,
Cassius Brutus, and Plancus. To be correct in familiar letters is not
to charm. A studied negligence is needed to make such work live to
posterity--a grace of loose expression which may indeed have been made
easy by use, but which is far from easy to the idle and unpractised
writer. His sorrow, perhaps, required a style of its own. I have not
felt my own untutored perception of the language to be offended by
unfitting slovenliness in the expression of his grief.
Notes:
[266] See the evidence of Asconius on this point, as to which Cicero's
conduct has been much mistaken. We shall come to Milo's trial before
long.
[267] The statement is made by Mr. Tyrrell in his biographical
introduction to the Epistles.
[268] The 600 years, or anni DC., is used to signify unlimited
futurity.
[269] Mommsen's History, book v., ca.v.
[270] [Greek: _Automalos onomazeto_] is the phrase of Dio Cassius.
"Levissume transfuga" is the translation made by the author of the
"Declamatio in Ciceronem". If I might venture on a slang phrase, I
should say that [Greek: _automalos_] was a man who "went off on his
own hook." But no man was ever more loyal as a political adherent than
Cicero.
[271] Ad Att., ii., 25.
[272] We do not know when the marriage took place, or any of the
circumstances; but we are aware that when Tullia came, in the
following year, B.C. 57, to meet her father at Brundisium, she was a
widow.
[273] Suetonius, Julius Caesar, xii.: "Subornavit etiam qui C. Rabirio
perduellionis diem diceret."
[274] "Qui civem Romanum indemnatum perimisset, ei aqua at igni
interdiceretur."
[275]Plutarch tells us of this sobriquet, but gives another reason for
it, equally injurious to the lady's reputation.
[276] Ad Att., lib.iii., 15.
[277] In Pisonem, vi.
[278] Ad Att., lib.x., 4.
[279] We are told by Cornelius Nepos, in his life of Atticus, that
when Cicero fled from his country Atticus advanced to him two hundred
and fifty sesterces, or about L2000. I doubt, however, whether the
flight here referred to was not that early visit to Athens which
Cicero was supposed to have made in his fear of Sulla.
[280] Ad Fam., lib.xiv., iv.: "Tullius to his Terentia, and to his
young Tullia, and to his Cicero," meaning his boy.
[281] Pro Domo Sua, xxiv.
[282] Ad Quin. Fra., 1, 3.
[283] The reader who wishes to understand with what anarchy the
largest city in the world might still exist, should turn to chapter
viii. of book v. of Mommsen's History.
[284] Ad Att., lib.iii, 12.
APPENDICES TO VOLUME I.
APPENDIX A.
(See ch. II, note [39])
THE BATTLE OF THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT.
Homer, Iliad, lib. xii, 200:
[Greek:
Oi rh' eti mermaerizon ephestaotes para taphroi.
Ornis gar sphin epaelthe peraesemenai memaosin,
Aietos upsipetaes ep' aristera laon eergon,
Phoinaeenta drakonta pheron onuchessi peloron,
Zoon et aspaironta kai oupo laetheto charmaes.
Kopse gar auton echonta kata staethos para deiraen,
Idnotheis opiso ho d'apo ethen aeke chamaze,
Algaesas odunaesi, mesoi d' eni kabbal' omilo
Autos de klagxas peteto pnoaeis anemoio.]
Pope's translation of the passage, book xii, 231:
"A signal omen stopp'd the passing host,
The martial fury in their wonder lost.
Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;
A bleeding serpent, of enormous size,
His talons trussed; alive, and curling round,
He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound.
Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey,
In airy circles wings his painful way,
Floats on the winds, and rends the heav'ns with cries.
Amid the host the fallen serpent lies.
They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd,
And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold."
Lord Derby's Iliad, book xii, 236:
"For this I read the future, if indeed
To us, about to cross, this sign from Heaven
Was sent, to leftward of the astonished crowd:
A soaring eagle, bearing in his claws
A dragon huge of size, of blood-red hue,
Alive; yet dropped him ere he reached his home,
Nor to his nestlings bore the intended prey."
Cicero's telling of the story:
"Hic Jovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles,
Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu,
Ipsa feris subigit transfigens unguibus anguem
Semianimum, et varia graviter cervice micantem.
Quem se intorquentem lanians, rostroque cruentans,
Jam satiata animum, jam duros ulta dolores,
Abjicit efflantem, et laceratum affligit in unda;
Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus."
Voltaire's translation:
"Tel on voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre,
Blesse par un serpent elance de la terre;
Il s'envole, il entraine au sejour azure
L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entoure.
Le sang tombe des airs. Il dechire, il devore
Le reptile acharne qui le combat encore;
Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs;
Par cent coups redoubles il venge ses douleurs.
Le monstre, en expirant, se debat, se replie;
Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie;
Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux,
Le rejette en fureur, et plane au haut des cieux."
Virgil's version, Aeneid, lib. xi., 751:
"Utque volans alte raptum quum fulva draconem
Fert aquila, implicuitque pedes, atque unguibus haesit
Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina versat,
Arrectisque horret squamis, et sibilat ore,
Arduus insurgens. Illa haud minus urget obunco
Luctantem rostro; simul aethera verberat alis."
Dryden's translation from Virgil's Aeneid, book xi.:
"So stoops the yellow eagle from on high,
And bears a speckled serpent through the sky;
Fastening his crooked talons on the prey,
The prisoner hisses through the liquid way;
Resists the royal hawk, and though opprest,
She fights in volumes, and erects her crest.
Turn'd to her foe, she stiffens every scale,
And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threatening tail.
Against the victor all defence is weak.
Th' imperial bird still plies her with his beak:
He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores,
Then claps his pinions, and securely soars."
Pitt's translation, book xi.:
"As when th' imperial eagle soars on high,
And bears some speckled serpent through the sky,
While her sharp talons gripe the bleeding prey,
In many a fold her curling volumes play,
Her starting brazen scales with horror rise,
The sanguine flames flash dreadful from her eyes
She writhes, and hisses at her foe, in vain,
Who wins at ease the wide aerial plain,
With her strong hooky beak the captive plies,
And bears the struggling prey triumphant through the skies."
Shelley's version of the battle, The Revolt of Islam, canto i.:
"For in the air do I behold indeed
An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight,
And now relaxing its impetuous flight,
Before the aerial rock on which I stood
The eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right,
And hung with lingering wings over the flood,
And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude
"A shaft of light upon its wings descended,
And every golden feather gleamed therein--
Feather and scale inextricably blended
The serpent's mailed and many-colored skin
Shone through the plumes, its coils were twined within
By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high
And far, the neck receding lithe and thin,
Sustained a crested head, which warily
Shifted and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye.
"Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling,
With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed
Incessantly--sometimes on high concealing
Its lessening orbs, sometimes, as if it failed,
Drooped through the air, and still it shrieked and wailed,
And casting back its eager head, with beak
And talon unremittingly assailed
The wreathed serpent, who did ever seek
Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak
"What life, what power was kindled, and arose
Within the sphere of that appalling fray!
For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes,
A vapor like the sea's suspended spray
Hung gathered; in the void air, far away,
Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,
Where'er the eagle's talons made their way,
Like sparks into the darkness; as they sweep,
Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.
"Swift chances in that combat--many a check,
And many a change--a dark and wild turmoil;
Sometimes the snake around his enemy's neck
Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,
Until the eagle, faint with pain and toil,
Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea
Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil
His adversary, who then reared on high
His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.
"Then on the white edge of the bursting surge,
Where they had sunk together, would the snake
Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge
The wind with his wild writhings; for, to break
That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake
The strength of his unconquerable wings
As in despair, and with his sinewy neck
Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings,
Then soar--as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.
"Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,
Thus long, but unprevailing--the event
Of that portentous fight appeared at length.
Until the lamp of day was almost spent
It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent,
Hung high that mighty serpent, and at last
Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent,
With clang of wings and scream, the eagle past,
Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast."
I have repudiated the adverse criticism on Cicero's poetry which has
been attributed to Juvenal; but, having done so, am bound in fairness
to state that which is to be found elsewhere in any later author of
renown as a classic. In the treatise De Oratoribus, attributed to
Tacitus, and generally published with his works by him--a treatise
commenced, probably, in the last year of Vespasian's reign, and
completed only in that of Domitian--Cicero as a poet is spoken of
with a severity of censure which the writer presumes to have been his
recognized desert. "For Caesar," he says, "and Brutus made verses, and
sent them to the public libraries; not better, indeed, than Cicero, but
with less of general misfortune, because only a few people knew that
they had done so." This must be taken for what it is worth. The treatise,
let it have been written by whom it might, is full of wit, and is
charming in language and feeling. It is a dialogue after the manner of
Cicero himself, and is the work of an author well conversant with the
subjects in hand. But it is, no doubt, the case that those two
unfortunate lines which have been quoted became notorious in Rome when
there was a party anxious to put down Cicero.
APPENDIX B.
(See ch.IV, note [84])
FROM THE BRUTUS--CA. XCII., XCIII.
"There were at that time two orators, Cotta and Hortensius, who
towered above all others, and incited me to rival them. The first
spoke with self-restraint and moderation, clearly and easily,
expressing his ideas in appropriate language. The other was
magnificent and fierce; not such as you remember him, Brutus, when he
was already failing, but full of life both in his words and actions. I
then resolved that Hortensius should, of the two, be my model, because
I felt myself like to him in his energy, and nearer to him in his age.
I observed that when they were in the same causes, those for Canuleius
and for our consular Dolabella, though Cotta was the senior counsel,
Hortensius took the lead. A large gathering of men and the noise of
the Forum require that a speaker shall be quick, on fire, active, and
loud. The year after my return from Asia I undertook the charge of
causes that were honorable, and in that year I was seeking to be
Quaestor, Cotta to be Consul, and Hortensius to be Praetor. Then for a
year I served as Quaestor in Sicily. Cotta, after his Consulship, went
as governor into Gaul, and then Hortensius was, and was considered to
be, first at the bar. When I had been back from Sicily twelve months
I began to find that whatever there was within me had come to such
perfection as it might attain. I feel that I am speaking too much of
myself, but it is done, not that you may be made to own my ability or
my eloquence--which is far from my thoughts--but that you may see how
great was my toil and my industry. Then, when I had been employed for
nearly five years in many cases, and was accounted a leading advocate,
I specially concerned myself in conducting the great cause on behalf
of Sicily--the trial of Verres--when I and Hortensius were Aedile and
Consul designate.
"But as this discussion of ours is intended to produce not a mere
catalogue of orators, but some true lessons of oratory, let us see
what there was in Hortensius that we must blame. When he was out of
his Consulship, seeing that among past Consuls there was no one on a
par with him, and thinking but little of those who were below consular
rank, he became idle in his work to which from boyhood he had devoted
himself, and chose to live in the midst of his wealth, as he thought
a happier life--certainly an easier one. The first two or three years
took off something from him. As the gradual decay of a picture will
be observed by the true critic, though it be not seen by the world at
large, so was it with his decay. From day to day he became more and
more unlike his old self, failing in all branches of oratory, but
specially in the rapidity and continuity of his words. But for myself
I never rested, struggling always to increase whatever power there was
in me by practice of every kind, especially in writing. Passing over
many things in the year after I was Aedile, I will come to that in
which I was elected first Praetor, to the great delight of the public
generally; for I had gained the good-will of men, partly by my
attention to the causes which I undertook, but specially by a certain
new strain of eloquence, as excellent as it was uncommon, with which
I spoke." Cicero, when he wrote this of himself, was an old man
sixty-two years of age, broken hearted for the loss of his daughter,
to whom it was no doubt allowed among his friends to praise himself
with the garrulity of years, because it was understood that he had
been unequalled in the matter of which he was speaking. It is easy for
us to laugh at his boastings; but the account which he gives of his
early life, and of the manner in which he attained the excellence for
which he had been celebrated, is of value.
APPENDIX C.
(See ch. VII, note [144])
There was still prevailing in Rome at this time a strong feeling that
a growing taste for these ornamental luxuries was injurious to the
Republic, undermining its simplicity and weakening its stability. We
are well aware that its simplicity was a thing of the past, and its
stability gone The existence of a Verres is proof that it was so; but
still the feeling remained--and did remain long after the time of
Cicero--that these beautiful things were a sign of decay. We know
how conquering Rome caught the taste for them from conquered Greece.
"Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes intulit agresti Latio".
[1] Cicero submitted himself to this new captivity readily, but with
apologies, as shown in his pretended abnegation of all knowledge
of art. Two years afterward, in a letter to Atticus, giving him
instructions as to the purchase of statues, he declares that he is
altogether carried away by his longing for such things, but not
without a feeling of shame. "Nam in eo genere sic studio efferimur ut
abs te adjuvandi, ab aliis propre reprehendi simus"[2]--"Though you
will help me, others I know will blame me." The same feeling is
expressed beautifully, but no doubt falsely, by Horace when he
declares, as Cicero had done, his own indifference to such delicacies:
"Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes,
Pictures, gold plate, Gaetulian coverlets,
There are who have not. One there is, I trow,
Who cares not greatly if he has or no."[3]
Many years afterward, in the time of Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus
says the same when he is telling how ignorant Mummius was of
sculpture, who, when he had taken Corinth, threatened those who had to
carry away the statues from their places, that if they broke any they
should be made to replace them. "You will not doubt, however," the
historian says, "that it would have been better for the Republic to
remain ignorant of these Corinthian gems than to understand them as
well as it does now.
That rudeness befitted the public honor better than our present
taste."[4] Cicero understood well enough, with one side of his
intelligence, that as the longing for these things grew in the minds
of rich men, as the leading Romans of the day became devoted to luxury
rather than to work, the ground on which the Republic stood must be
sapped. A Marcellus or a Scipio had taken glory in ornamenting the
city. A Verres or even an Hortensius--even a Cicero--was desirous of
beautiful things for his own house. But still, with the other side of
his intelligence, he saw that a perfect citizen might appreciate art,
and yet do his duty, might appreciate art, and yet save his country.
What he did not see was, that the temptations of luxury, though
compatible with virtue, are antagonistic to it. The camel may be made
to go through the eye of the needle--but it is difficult.
Notes:
[1] Horace, Epis., lib.ii., 1.
[2] Ad Att., lib.i. 8.
[3] Horace, Epis., lib.ii., 11. The translation is Conington's.
[4] Vell. Pat., lib.i., xiii
APPENDIX D.
(See ch. XI, note [235])
PRO LEGE MANILIA--CA. X., XVI.
"Utinam, Quirites, virorum fortium, atque innocentium copiam tantam
haberetis, ut haec vobis deliberatio difficilis esset, quemnam
potissimum tantis rebus ac tanto bello praeficiendum putaretis! Nunc
vero cum sit unus Cn. Pompeius, qui non modo eorum hominum, qui nunc
sunt, gloriam, sed etiam antiquitatis memoriam virtute superarit; quae
res est, quae cujusquam animum in hac causa dubium facere posset?
Ego enim sic existimo, in summo imperatore quatuor has res inesse
oportere, scientiam rei militaris, virtutem, auctoritatem,
felicitatem. Quis igitur hoc homine scientior umquam aut fuit, aut
esse debuit? qui e ludo, atque pueritiae disciplina, bello maximo
atque acerrimis hostibus, ad patris exercitum atque in militiae
disciplinam profectus est? qui extrema pueritia miles fuit summi
imperatoris? ineunte adolescentia maximi ipse exercitus imperator? qui
saepius cum hoste conflixit, quam quisquam cum inimico concertavit?
plura bella gessit, quam caeteri legerunt? plures provincias confecit,
quam alii concupiverunt? cujus adolescentia ad scientiam rei militaris
non alienis praeceptis, sed suis imperiis; non offensionibus belli,
sed victoriis; non stipendiis, sed triumphis est erudita? Quod
denique genus belli esse potest, in quo illum non exercuerit fortuna
reipublicae? Civile; Africanum; Transalpinum; Hispaniense; mistum
ex civitatibus atque ex bellicosissimis nationibus servile; navale
bellum, varia et diversa genera, et bellorum et hostium, non solum
gesta ab hoc uno, sed etiam confecta, nullam rem esse declarant, in
usu militari positam, quae hojus viri scientiam fugere posset.
* * * * *
"Quare cum et bellum ita necessarium sit, ut negligi non possit; ita
magnum, ut accuratissime sit administrandum; et cum ei imperatorem
praeficere possitis, in quo sit eximia belli scientia, singularis
virtus, clarissima auctoritas, egregia fortuna; dubitabitis, Quirites,
quin hoc tantum boni, quod vobis a diis immortalibus oblatum et datum
est, in rempublicam conservandam atque amplificandam conferatis?"
* * * * *
"I could wish, Quirites, that there was open to you so large a choice
of men capable at the same time, and honest, that you might find a
difficulty in deciding who might best be selected for command in a
war so momentous as this. But now when Pompey alone has surpassed in
achievements not only those who live, but all of whom we have read in
history, what is there to make any one hesitate in the matter? In my
opinion there are four qualities to be desired in a general--military
knowledge, valor, authority, and fortune. But whoever was or was ever
wanted to be more skilled than this man, who, taken fresh from school
and from the lessons of his boyhood, was subjected to the discipline
of his father's army during one of our severest wars, when our enemies
were strong against us? In his earliest youth he served under our
greatest general. As years went on he was himself in command over
a large army. He has been more frequent in fighting than others in
quarrelling. Few have read of so many battles as he has fought.
He has conquered more provinces than others have desired to pillage.
He learned the art of war not from written precepts, but by his own
practice; not from reverses, but from victories. He does not count his
campaigns, but the triumphs which he has won. What nature of warfare
is there in which the Republic has not used his services? Think of our
Civil war[1]--of our African war[2]--of our war on the other side of
the Alps[3]--of our Spanish wars[4]--of our Servile war[5]--which was
carried on by the energies of so many mighty people--and this Maritime
war.[6] How many enemies had we, how various were our contests! They
were all not only carried through by this one man, but brought to an
end so gloriously as to show that there is nothing in the practice of
warfare which has escaped his knowledge.
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