The Letters, Volume 3. Cicero

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СКАЧАТЬ in Cicero's speech pro Marcello³⁹ that he was weary in body and mind; and, like Napoleon at Waterloo, he might have found that he no longer had the vigour that had won him so many victories. An absolute ruler may have almost any vice except that of weakness. If weakness had begun to shew itself in Caesar, it would not only encourage open enemies, it would make everyone prone to regard as a hardship what they tolerated before as inevitable. The very multitude and greatness of his beneficent schemes, while they prove his wisdom and statesmanship, must have brought him into collision with a hundred vested interests and as many deep-seated prejudices. He was ruling men who had known what it was, not only to be free, but to belong to a body small enough to allow every member to feel himself an integral part of the government in a world-wide empire. His great-nephew—more adroit, though without a tithe of his great-uncle's military ability and largeness of view—was more successful, partly because he had to deal with a generation that had largely forgotten what it was to be free. Cicero at any rate was never for a moment reconciled in heart to Caesar's régime; never for a moment forgot and perhaps exaggerated the dignity of the position from which he had fallen.

      His final view of Caesar is perhaps best expressed in the second Philippic (§ 116): “He had genius, a power of reasoning, memory, knowledge of literature, accuracy, depth of thought, energy. His achievements in war, however disastrous to the Republic, were at any rate great. After planning for many years his way to royal power, with great labour, with many dangers he had effected his design. By public exhibitions, by monumental buildings, by largesses, by fiats he had conciliated the unreflecting multitude. He had bound to himself his own friends by favours, his opponents by a show of clemency. In short, he at last brought upon a free state—partly by the fear which he inspired, partly by the toleration extended to him—the habit of servitude.”

      In these circumstances Cicero found his consolation in literature. He had the power which distinguished Mr. Gladstone—nor is this the only point of resemblance—of throwing himself with extraordinary vehemence and apparently exclusive interest into whatever he took in hand. His first impulse was to return to his old field of distinction—eloquence;

      and to discuss the science and history of the art to which he owed his splendid reputation. Accordingly, we owe to the first years of his return to Rome and his villas three rhetorical treatises, the Partitiones Oratoriae, the Orator ad M. Brutum, and the Brutus or de claris Oratoribus. The last-named is made especially interesting by numerous references to his own intellectual history. For a time he found some interest, as well as renewed health and cheerfulness, in teaching a number of young men the art of which he was master.⁴⁰ But his thoughts were turning in another direction. He soon resolved to abandon as much as possible the active business of the forum, and to bury himself "in the obscurity of literature."⁴¹ From oratory therefore he passed to philosophy. He begins with a brief tract on the Paradoxes of the Stoics; but when, early in B.C. 45, the death of his beloved daughter Tullia added a new motive and a new excuse for retirement, he strove to dispel his sorrow and drown bitter recollections by flinging himself with ardour into the task of making Greek philosophy intelligible to his countrymen. The de Finibus and the Academics were the first-fruits of this toil. They were produced with extraordinary speed; and whatever may be said about their value as original treatises, they were and still remain the most popular and generally intelligible exposition of post-Platonic philosophy existing. The charm of his inimitable style will always attract readers who might be repelled by works which contain clearer reasoning or more exact statement. At any rate their composition had the effect of lightening his sorrow, and distracting his mind from dwelling so exclusively on the mortifications caused by the political situation. Finally, in the last few months preceding the murder of Caesar, he composed what is perhaps the most pleasing of all his quasi-philosophical works, the Tusculan Disputations. The first book "On the Fear of Death"— both from the universal interest of its subject and the wisdom which it contains—whether his own or of the authorities from whom he quotes—has an abiding place among the choicest books of the world. Thus posterity has had as much reason to be glad as he had himself that he "effected a reconciliation with his old friends—his books."⁴²

      After the death of Tullia.

      The retirement to Astura, after the bitter sorrow caused by the death of Tullia, was thus not unfruitful. "The passionate unrest," of which he speaks,⁴³ drove him to literature, but though it pervades the letters it does not monopolize them. They are still full of signs of his interest in affairs, both private and public. He had also conceived the idea of purchasing a site near Rome, some horti in which there might be built a memorial chapel or shrine to commemorate the daughter he had lost. This design does not seem to have been carried out; but its mere conception, with the endless discussions which it involved, seems to have been a consolation to him. Before the letters in this volume come to an end, though he tells Dolabella that "the old cheerfulness and gaiety, in which he took more delight than anybody else, had all been taken from," yet by the latter part of May he is back again at Tusculum, not appreciably less cheerful, and certainly not less interested in public affairs than before. He is especially eager as to the opinion Varro will express of his Academics, to whom the book is eventually dedicated in a very careful and courteous letter (pp.304-305).

      The younger Marcus Cicero.

      Another subject of anxiety to Cicero during this period of which we hear a good deal in the latter part of this volume is the settlement of his son. The young man—now just twenty years old—was anxious to join Caesar's army in Spain. He seems to have been more fitted for the life of a soldier than for anything else: but his father shrank from seeing a son of his fighting against Pompeians even now, and was anxious that he should go to Athens to study rhetoric and philosophy. The young man yielded. But the natural result followed. The academical studies at Athens had no attraction for him, and he sought amusement in idleness and dissipation. His allowance, which seems to have been an ample one, drawn from the rents of certain houses in Rome which had formed part of his mother's fortune, was apparently exceeded in his first year, and the reports of his tutors and instructors gave his father great anxiety. However, in his second year matters began to improve. His expenses went down, better—though not yet quite confident—reports came home, and Cicero began to hope both from the style of his letters and the reports of more than one of his correspondents that he was reforming and seriously attending to his work.⁴⁴ Still—though he says that he was glad to allow himself to be deceived on such a subject—the doubtful tone of his son's tutors gave him some uneasiness. In the summer of B.C. 44 he meditated going to Athens to see him. His discontent with the policy of Antony made him wish to leave Italy, but he also fancied that his presence at Athens might confirm his son's good resolutions. The treatise on duty—de Officiis—was now composed for his benefit. Cicero also took great pains, as he became more convinced that the young man was really improving, that he should be liberally supplied with money; and the last letter from young Cicero himself, addressed to Tiro in August, B.C. 44, gives a perhaps too rosy account of his own diligence and determination to please his father. But the opportunity came soon afterwards for a career better suited to his disposition and ability. Brutus arrived in Athens in the autumn of B.C. 44, and offered young Cicero, as he did the young Horace, a position in the army which he was collecting to take possession of Macedonia. The offer was gladly accepted, and—to his father's great delight—he served with some distinction in that province against Gaius Antonius. After the battle of Philippi in B.C. 42, he seems to have attached himself to Augustus. He was sent home in B.C., 30 to announce the death of Antony, and was rewarded by the consulship for the latter part of that year. His after career is not known. Probably it was undistinguished and short, as he is said to have become addicted to drink.

      Letters of condolence.

      Of the divorce from Terentia we have in the letters only one very brief direct mention.⁴⁵ But as to the repayment of her dowry, and the disposition of her property in the interests of her son, there is a great deal said in the letters to Atticus. The death of Tullia about the end of February, B.C. 45, not СКАЧАТЬ