Chapter XXIV: Part 24

Plutarch has treated the subject of the Gracchi with perfect impartiality. He has given them credit for good motives, and approved of their measures in general, but he has not disguised their faults. Appian considered that the measures of Tiberius were for the public good, but that his conduct was not judicious. Sallustius also admits that the Gracchi did not conduct themselves with sufficient moderation (_Jugurthine War_, c. 46); but Sallustius belonged to the popular party, and he approved of their measures. Most of the other Roman writers express an unfavourable opinion of the Gracchi. Florus however gives them credit for good intentions, but disapproves of the means by which they attempted to carry their measures into effect. That part of the work of Livius which treated of this period is lost, but we may collect his opinions of the Gracchi from the Epitomes of the lost books, and the general tenor of his History. The measures of the Gracchi were estimated by the rule of party spirit. The judgment of Cicero, who often mentions the Gracchi, is both for and against. His expressed opinion, whatever might be his real opinion, varied with circumstances. If we only knew his opinion from the second oration against the Agrarian Law of Rullus (ii. 5), we should consider him as approving of all the measures of the Gracchi. When he delivered that oration, Cicero had just been elected Consul: he was a Novus homo, a new man as the Romans called him, who was the first of his family to attain to the high honours of the State, and he had obtained the consulship as a friend of the people, as a popular man (Popularis). In his treatise on Friendship and other of his writings, he gives a contradictory judgment of the Gracchi; he says that Tiberius Gracchus aimed at the kingly power, or rather in fact was king for a few months; he calls the two Gracchi degenerate sons of their father; he extols the murderers of Tiberius Gracchus; he commiserates the hard fate of Opimius after saving the state by putting Caius Gracchus to death. All this was written or said after he was consul, after he had done what the murderers of the Gracchi had done, after he had put to death Catilina and his accomplices without trial contrary to the constitution, contrary to a special law which Caius Gracchus had carried that no Roman citizen should be put to death without a duly constituted trial; after he had, like Nasica and Opimius, made himself a murderer by putting men to death without letting them be tried according to law; whether they were guilty or not, is immaterial; they were put to death without trial, contrary to a principle of justice which, before he became guilty himself, Cicero had maintained and defended. The acts of the Gracchi were on record and well understood; but Cicero made his opinion of their acts depend not on his convictions, but on his interests; it is to him mainly that we may trace the common notion that the Gracchi were merely a couple of designing demagogues. The Gracchi were not wise enough or firm enough to be good reformers, but few reformers in so difficult a situation have left behind them so fair a reputation for honest intention. There was a great mass of contemporary materials for the history of the Gracchi, consisting of the speeches of the two brothers, of the numerous speeches made against them, the history of Polybius, who could not have overlooked the Gracchi in his account of the Numantine war, the history of Fannius, and other materials which Gerlach has enumerated in his Essay on the Gracchi. It is plain from Plutarch's narrative, that he used these authorities; and if we consider how far removed he was from the time of the Gracchi, and his character, we may conclude that he has given as impartial a view of the times as he could collect from contemporary evidence. He may have made mistakes, and some mistakes we cannot help considering that he has made; but he can hardly have made any mistake in his representation of the nature of the reforms which the two brothers attempted, of the opposition that they encountered, and of their general character.

_Misenum._ Misenum was on the coast of Campania near Cape Miseno, a favourite residence of the wealthy Romans, who built villas there. The house of Cornelia had many occupants. It became the property of Caius Marius (c. 34), then of Lucius Lucullus, and finally of the Emperor Tiberius, who died here. It was seated on a hill which commanded an extensive sea-view.

In the last sentence of this chapter I have adopted the reading of Sintenis ([Greek: phylattomenês]), which is necessary for the sense.

[124] Alluding to the fight of Herakles with the Lernæan hydra which had nine heads. Herakles struck off its heads with his club, but in the place of the head he cut off, two new heads grew forth each time.

[125] This was a frontier town, whose possession was disputed by the Athenians and Boeotians.

[126] An Athenian of the township of Thriasia, near Eleusis.

[127] A fellow-scholar of Demosthenes.

[128] A low quarter of Athens.

[129] See Life of Crassus, ch. 2.

[130] The battle of Chæronea, B.C. 338, in which Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotians, and crushed the liberties of Greece.

[131] The hero of a mock-heroic poem supposed to have been written by Homer.

[132] Kassander built a new city on the site of Potidæa, on the narrow isthmus of the promontory of Pallene. Potidæa had been destroyed by Philip, B.C. 356. The new city of Kassandrea soon became the most flourishing city in Macedonia.

[133] This was Agis III. who at the time of the battle of Issus, B.C. 333, was communicating with the Persian naval commanders in the Ægean, to obtain supplies for the war against the Macedonians. He was killed in action, about the time of the battle of Arbela, B.C. 331.

[134] The second month of the Attic year, the latter half of August and first of September. The two next months mentioned in the text correspond to the latter half of September and the first of October and the latter half of October and first of November respectively.

[135] A small island in the Saronic Gulf off the coast of Argolis and opposite Troezen, where was a celebrated temple of Poseidon which was regarded as an inviolable asylum. Hither Demosthenes fled to avoid Antipater, and here he took poison, B.C. 322.

[136] The Greek word signifies a reed, in the upper part of which poison might easily be placed.

[137] A festival in honour of Demeter. For details see Smith 'Dict. of Antiq.'

[138] The Helvia Gens was plebeian. It becomes historical from the time of the second Punic war, and became ennobled (nobilis) by M. Helvius being elected prætor B.C. 197, the first year in which six prætors were elected (Liv. 32. c. 27). It is said that Cicero never mentions his mother in his writings, but an anecdote of her careful housekeeping is recorded by her son Quintus (Cic. _Ad Diversos_, xvi. 26).

The allusion is to the Volscian with whom Coriolanus took refuge when he left Rome (Plutarch, _Life of Coriolanus_, c. 22; Livy, 2, c. 35).

[139] Cicero himself did not claim any illustrious descent. The family had been long settled at Arpinum, now Arpino, a Volscian town. The first person who is mentioned as bearing the name of Cicero is C. Claudius Cicero, a tribunus plebis, B.C. 454 (Liv. 3. c. 31). M. Tullius Cicero, the grandfather of the orator, was born B.C. 140, and nothing is known of the orator's family before him. Arpinum received the limited Roman civitas in B.C. 303 (Liv. 10. c. 1), that is, probably Commercium and Connubium, for the suffrage (suffragii latio) was not given to the people of Arpinum till B.C. 188 (Liv. 38. c. 36). The orator's grandfather lived to see his grandson born B.C. 106. Cicero's father belonged to the class of Equites. He spent the greater part of his life on his lands at Arpinum, near the junction of the Fibrenus with the Liris (Garigliano). He afterwards removed to Rome to educate his sons Marcus and Quintus, and had a house in the Carinæ. Among his friends were the orators M. Antonius and Lucius Crassus, and Q. Scævola the Augur, a distinguished Jurist. His sons had accordingly the advantage of being acquainted in their youth with some of the most distinguished of the Romans. He is said to have died B.C. 64, the year before his son was consul. A letter of Cicero to Atticus (i. 6) is generally supposed to speak of his father's death, but the true reading is undoubtedly "pater a nobis discessit;" and it is plain that Cicero is simply speaking of his father leaving Rome for a time (Drumann, _Tullii_, p. 213).

[140] The cognomen Cicero, as already observed, occurs early in Roman history. Many of the Roman cognomina were derived from some particular plant which a man cultivated, or from some personal peculiarity, or from some other accidental circumstance. The mark on the nose is just as likely to be the origin of the name as the cultivation of the _cicer_; for if the name Fabius comes from _faba_, "a bean," and Lentulus, from _lens_, "pulse;" yet Catulus means "a whelp," and Scaurus means "knock-knee'd," or something of the kind.

The words [Greek: diastolê, diaphyê] mean what I have translated them. Kaltwasser has translated the passage thus, according to Reiske's explanation:--"Jener hatte an der spitze der nase einen kleinen anwuchs oder warze in form einer solchen erbse, woven er den beinamen erhielt." But this is not a translation. Plutarch does not say that he had a wart at the end of his nose, but that the end of his nose was like a vetch, because there was a kind of split or cleft in it. There is no reason for misrepresenting even a man's nose.

[141] The "third day of the new calends" is the third of January of the unreformed Roman calendar. Pompeius Magnus was born in the same year, B.C. 106. Cicero himself mentions his birthday (_Ad Attic._ vii. 5; xiii. 42). Plutarch's stories of his aptitude for learning might be collected from the mass of anecdotes that existed in his time about all the great Romans of Cicero's period. The story shows at least what were the traditional stories about Cicero's youth.

[142] Kaltwasser refers to the passage in Plato's Republic, book v. p. 56, of the Bipont edition.

[143] Glaucus was a fisherman of Anthedon in Boeotia. After eating of a certain herb he jumped into the sea and became a sea-god with the power of prophecy (Pausanias, ix. 22). Strabo (p. 405, ed. Casaub.) says that he became a fish of some kind ([Greek: kêtos]), a change more appropriate to his new element, though perhaps not to his new vocation. Æschylus made a drama on the subject, which Cicero may have used.

[144] Cicero translated the poem of Aratus into Latin verse. He also wrote an epic poem, the subject of which was his countryman Caius Marius; and one on his own consulship, which was always a favourite topic with him. Of the translation of the 'Phænomena' of Aratus, which was made when he was a youth, about four hundred lines remain. The fragments of these poems, and of others not here enumerated, are in Orelli's edition of Cicero, vol. iv.

[145] Philo, a pupil of the Carthaginian Clitomachus, fled from Athens to Rome in B.C. 88, at the time when the troops of Mithridates were in possession of Athens (Cicero, _Brutus_, c. 89, and Meyer's note).

[146] The elder of these Mucii was Q. Mucius Scævola, Consul B.C. 117, commonly called the Augur. After his death Cicero attached himself to Q. Mucius Scævola, Pontifex Maximus, who was a distinguished jurist. The Pontifex was assassinated in the consulship of the younger Marius, B.C. 82, in the temple of Vesta (Florus, iii. 21). Cicero has in several places commemorated his virtues and talents (_De Orat._ i. 39; iii. 3).

Cicero, in his _Brutus_, c. 88, &c., has given an account of his own early studies.

[147] In B.C. 89 Cicero served under Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompeius Magnus (Life of Pompeius, c. 1. notes). Cicero speaks of this event of his life in his twelfth Philippic, c. 11.

[148] L. Cornelius Chrysogonus was probably a Greek. His name Cornelius was derived from his patron (Life of Sulla, c. 31, notes). Cicero's speech for Sextus Roscius Amerinus was spoken B.C. 80; it is still extant. Cicero's first extant speech, pro P. Quintio, was spoken B.C. 81.

[149] Cicero went to Greece B.C. 79. The reasons for his journey are stated by himself in his _Brutus_ (c. 91). He speaks of his leanness and weakness, and of the length and slenderness of his neck. His physicians recommended him to give up speaking for a time. When he left Rome he had been engaged for two years in pleading causes.

[150] Cicero stayed six months at Athens. The New Academy was founded by Arkesilaus. The school taught that certainty was not attainable in anything, and that the evidence of the senses was deceptive. The words "by the evidence and by the senses" are the exact copy of the original. Schaefer proposes to omit "and" ([Greek: kai]), in which case the passage would stand thus--"by the evidence of the senses." Sintenis retains the conjunction ([Greek: kai]), and refers to Cicero, _Academ._ 2. 6 and 7.

[151] Cicero was at Rhodes in B.C. 78 (compare his _Brutus_, c. 91). Cicero calls this "Apollonius the son of Molo," simply Molo (see the Life of Cæsar, c. 3, notes). Molo had the two most distinguished of the Romans among his pupils, C. Julius Cæsar and Cicero.

Poseidonius was the chief Stoic of his time.

[152] Cicero never mentions this visit to Delphi in his writings, and Middleton thinks the visit is improbable, because Cicero (_De Divinatione_, ii. 56) shows that he knew what was the value of the oracle. But a man who despises a popular superstition may try to use it for his purposes, and may be disappointed if he cannot. Perhaps the soundness of the oracle's advice may be a good reason for disbelieving the story.

Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 77.

[153] This was Q. Roscius, in whose behalf Cicero made a speech in B.C. 76, before C. Piso as judex. The subject of the cause is stated in the arguments to the oration.

Claudius Æsopus, the great tragic actor, whom Cicero considered a perfect master of his art, was probably a Greek and a freedman of some member of the Claudia Gens. He was liberal in his expenditure, and yet he acquired an enormous fortune, which his son spent.

[154] [Greek: ek tou hypokrinesthai], that is, from "acting." One Greek word for actor is [Greek: hypokritês]. Oratorical action was therefore viewed as a part of the histrionic art; and so it is. But oratorical acting requires to be kept within narrower limits.

[155] Bawling is properly viewed as an effort to accomplish by loudness of voice what ought to be accomplished by other means. It is simply ridiculous, and misses the mark that it aims at. "If you mouth it," says Hamlet to the players, "as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoke my lines."--"Let your discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature."

[156] Cicero was elected quæstor B.C. 76, when he was thirty years of age. He discharged the duties of his office during B.C. 75. He speaks well of his own quæstorship in his oration for Cn. Plancius (c. 26).

[157] Cicero tells the story himself in his oration for Cn. Plancius (c. 26). The place of the adventure was Puteoli (Pozzuoli), B.C. 74, a place to which the Romans used to resort to enjoy the natural hot springs and the agreeable neighbourhood.

[158] Verres during his prætorship in Sicily, B.C. 73-71, had greatly misconducted himself. He was prosecuted in B.C. 70, in which year Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus were consuls (Life of Crassus, c. 12). Hortensius, the orator, defended Verres. The object of Hortensius and of these prætors was to prolong or defer the trial to the next year, for which Hortensius was elected consul.

There are extant seven orations of Cicero on the matter of Verres, of which two only were delivered; that against Cæcilius (_De Divinatione_), who claimed to conduct the prosecution, his object being to get Verres off, and the Actio Prima, which is an opening of the whole case. Before the other speeches were delivered, Verres gave up his defence and went into exile. Cicero, however, published the speeches, or probably even wrote them entire after the affair was over.

This Cæcilius was Q. Cæcilius Metellus, a Sicilian by birth, and probably the descendant of a freedman of one of the Metelli. It seems that he was suspected of being of Jewish origin. Cicero's allusion to the hog, and many other passages in the Roman writers, show that the Jews were well known in Rome at this time.

[159] [Greek: entos thyrôn], "within doors." Kaltwasser has translated the passage: "So solltest du hinter der thür mit deinen söhnen schmälen." The repartee does not admit or need explanation.

[160] The story of the monster sphinx and her ænigma which OEdipus solved is well known. This work of art was of metal, according to Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ 34. c. 18).

[161] There is probably some error in Plutarch as to the amount. In the Divinatio (c. 5) the peculations of Verres were estimated at "millies HS.," or one hundred millions of sesterces; but in the Actio Prima (c. 18), which was spoken after Cicero had been in Sicily to collect evidence, he put the amount at forty millions of sesterces, or two-fifths of the first sum. If Plutarch's drachmæ are Roman denarii, his 750,000 drachmæ will make only three millions of sesterces.

Verres continued in exile, and he remained quiet during the civil wars. Though an unprincipled scoundrel, he showed his taste in stealing: he had kept many valuable objects of art, and he would not part with them. The story is that M. Antonius put his name in the proscription list, B.C. 43, because he would not give up his Corinthian vessels. He was put to death, but he died, it is said, with great resolution; and he had the satisfaction of hearing that his old enemy Cicero had gone before him (Drumann, _Tullii_, p. 328). But all this story is very improbable.

[162] Cicero was Curule Ædile in B.C. 69, with M. Cæsonius for his colleague.

[163] This is evidently a mistake in Plutarch's text. Arpinum is meant.

[164] This is what Cicero calls his Pompeianum. Middleton, in his Life of Cicero, has mentioned all Cicero's country residences in Italy, which were very numerous.

[165] See the Life of Cato, c. 19. The time of Cicero's marriage is uncertain. Drumann conjectures that he married her about B.C. 80 or 79, before his journey to Asia.

[166] Cicero was Prætor in the year B.C. 66, and it fell to his lot to preside at the trials for Repetundæ. This Macer was C. Licinius Macer. After he had been prætor he had a province, and during his administration he was guilty of illegal practices, for which he was tried and convicted (Cic. _Ad Attic._ i. 4). Crassus, who also belonged to the Licinia Gens, felt some sympathy for a man whose crime was getting money by unlawful means. Macer was an orator and a writer. A few fragments of his Annals (Krause, _Vitæ et Fragm. Vet. Histor. Rom._) are preserved.

[167] P. Vatinius was afterwards consul B.C. 47. There is extant a speech of Cicero against him, in which of course he has a very bad character given to him. Kaltwasser says that a thick neck was considered by the Romans as a sign of a shameless man, and he refers to the Life of Marius, c. 29, where a like expression is used. Cicero's neck, according to his own account, was very thin, and he thought it no good sign of his strength. However this may be as to the thickness of the neck of Vatinius, it was clearly not a thing that he could alter.

[168] C. Manilius, a Tribunus Plebis, had in this same year proposed and carried the law which gave Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war, and Cicero had supported the measure in a speech which is extant (Life of Pompeius, c. 30). This story of the accusation and defence of Manilius is unintelligible. C. Orchinius presided at the trials for peculatus, and Manilius should have been brought before him (Cic. _Pro Cluentio_, c. 53). See Dion Cassius, 36, c. 27; and Drumann's remarks, _Tullii_, p. 375.

[169] Cicero was consul in B.C. 63 with C. Antonius. As to the affair of Catiline, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes; and Drumann, _Tullii_, p. 385, &c.

[170] See the Life of Sulla, c. 32.

[171] Sallust (_Bell. Catilin._ c. 22) tells a story somewhat to the same effect, of the conspirators drinking of human blood, but he does not believe the story, and perhaps few people will.

[172] The measure to which Plutarch alludes was the Agrarian Law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus. Cicero made three speeches against the proposal, which are extant, and he defeated the scheme.

[173] C. Antonius went as governor to Macedonia in B.C. 62, where he took the opportunity of getting all the money that he could. He gave it out that Cicero was to have a share of it. The evidence of such an unprincipled man is not worth much; but one of Cicero's letters to Atticus (i. 12), which he never expected would be read by anybody else, shows that he knew there was such a rumour; and the manner in which he treats it is perfectly incomprehensible. A certain Hilarus, a freedman of Cicero, was then with Antonius in Macedonia, as Cicero was informed, and Cicero was also informed that Antonius declared that Cicero was to have some of the money that he was getting, and that Hilarus had been sent by Cicero to look after his share. Cicero was a good deal troubled, as he says, though he did not believe the report; yet, he adds, there was certainly some talk. Cn. Plancius was named to Cicero as the authority for the report. Atticus is requested to examine into the matter, and--not to apply to Antonius or to Plancius--but to get the rascal (Hilarus) out of those parts, if in any way he can. This is a mode of proceeding that is quite inconsistent with perfect innocence on the part of Cicero. There was something between him and Antonius. Cicero says that if Antonius should be recalled, as was expected, he could not for his character's sake defend the man; and what is more, he says, he felt no inclination; and then he proceeds to tell Atticus about this awkward report. Yet Cicero did defend Antonius (B.C. 59) and Antonius was convicted.

[174] It appears from Cicero's oration for Murena, c. 19, that his name was Lucius Roscius Otho, and he was not Prætor, but Tribunus Plebis. This Lex Roscia was enacted B.C. 67, in the consulship of M. Acilius Glabrio and C. Calpurnius Piso (Dion Cassius, 36. c. 25). His law gave to the equites and those who had the equestrian census a select place of fourteen rows at the public spectacles, which were next to the seats of the senators. This unpopular measure was that which Cicero now spoke in favour of (_Ad. Attic._ ii. 1). Cicero's oration is lost, but a passage is preserved, says Kaltwasser, by Macrobius (_Saturnalia_ ii. 10). Some also suppose, as Kaltwasser says, that Virgil alludes to it in the passage in the Æneid (i. 152). There is no extract from this oration in Macrobius, who appears to suppose that Cicero made an oration to rebuke the people for making a disturbance while Roscius, the player, was acting.

[175] As to the conspiracy, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes.

[176] His name was C. Manlius Acidinus. There is no reason for saying that his true name was Mallius: that was merely a Greek form of Manlius. He fell in the battle in which Catiline's troops were defeated.

[177] Cicero has recorded this answer of Catiline in his oration for Murena, c. 25: "duo corpora esse in republica, unum debile, _infirmo_ capite, alterum firmum, sine capite: huic, cum ita de se meritum esset, caput se vivo non defuturum." Cicero makes Catiline say that the weak body had a weak head. Cicero's version of what he said is obviously the true one.

[178] Decimus Junius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena were consuls for the year B.C. 62. As to the trial of Murena for bribery at the elections (ambitus), see the Life of Cato, c. 21.

[179] This affair is not mentioned by Sallustius in his history of the conspiracy of Catiline. The usual form in which the Senate gave this extraordinary power is mentioned by Sallustius (c. 29): "dent operam consules nequid Res Publica detrimenti capiat."

[180] The assassins, according to Sallustius, were C. Cornelius and L. Vargunteius. See the note of Drumann, _Tullii_, p. 457: "Plutarch hunted in his authorities only after anecdotes and traits of character in order to paint his heroes: the names of the subordinate persons were indifferent to him; with such frivolous and one-sided views he could not fail to confound persons." "Frivolous," is perhaps hardly the translation of Drumann's "leichtsinnig," but it comes pretty near to it. And yet the fact of the design to assassinate is the main feature in the history: the actors in the intended assassination are subordinate to the design. A painstaking compiler is entitled to grumble at such a blunder, but Plutarch does not merit reproach in these terms.

[181] She was a mistress or something of the kind of one Q. Curius. Whether Curius sent her to Cicero or she went of her own accord is doubtful. Perhaps she expected to get something for her information. Sallustius, c. 23. 28, speaks of this affair; and Cicero, _Catilin._ i. c. 9.

[182] Plutarch, as Kaltwasser observes, appears to refer to the words of Cicero (_Catilin._ i. c. 5): "magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit." Catiline left Rome on the night of the 8th of November.

[183] L. Cornelius Lentulus Sura was consul B.C. 71. He had been put out of the Senate by the censors for his irregular life. His restoration to his rank and the matter of the prætorship are mentioned by Dion Cassius (37, c. 30, and the note of Reimarus). The meaning of the story about the ball is obvious enough; but Lentulus was not the first who had the name Sura, and Plutarch's story is so far untrue. See Drumann's note on the name Sura, _Cornelii_, p. 530.

[184] See the Lives of Marius and Sulla.

[185] It was a period of festivity, and considered suitable for the purpose of the conspirators. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 34, notes.

[186] The narrative of Sallustius, as to the proposed burning of the city, is somewhat different (_Bell. Catil._ c. 43).

[187] The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of Gallia, on the Rhone. They belonged to the division of Gallia which under Augustus was called Gallia Narbonensis. Their chief town was Vienna, now Vienne. According to Cæsar's description (_Bell. Gall._ i. 6.) the Rhodanus in the upper part of its course separated the Helvetii from the Allobroges. The remotest town of the Allobroges, on the side of the Helvetii, was Geneva. Cæsar describes the Allobroges as recently (B.C. 58) brought to friendly terms with the Romans.

[188] This Titus of Croton is named Titus Volturcius by Sallustius.

[189] The Senate met on the third of December of the unreformed calendar in the temple of Concord, on the Capitoline Hill.

[190] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 9, and the notes.

[191] Compare Dion Cassius, 37, c. 35. Fabia, the sister of Terentia, was one of the Vestals, and Drumann supposes that this fact confirms his supposition that Cicero had arranged all this affair with his wife, in order to work on the popular opinion. Middleton made the same supposition a long time ago. It requires no great penetration to make such a conjecture; but it may not be true.

[192] It is said that this does not appear in any of Cicero's extant writings.

[193] The Senate assembled on the fourth of December in the temple of Concord; and again on the fifth to pass judgment on the conspirators. As to the speeches delivered on the occasion, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes. The whole matter of the conspiracy is treated with great minuteness and tedious prolixity by Drumann (_Tullii_, under the year B.C. 63).

[194] I believe that I have translated this correctly. I suppose that Plutarch means to say, that if Cæsar had been accused as a member of the conspiracy, he would have been acquitted, and the conspirators would have had a chance of escaping also. There was no chance of securing the condemnation of the conspirators and involving Cæsar in their fate. On the contrary, if Cæsar was accused, all might escape. It was better, therefore, not to touch him. Kaltwasser has made the passage unintelligible. The explanation of Coraës, as corrected by Schäfer, is right.

[195] Sallustius (_Bell. Cat._ c. 51, &c.) states Cæsar's proposal to have been the confiscation of the property of the conspirators and their perpetual confinement in the chief municipia of Italy, and that the Senate should make a declaration that any man who proposed to set them at liberty, or to mitigate their punishment, should be considered an enemy of the State. Cicero (_In Catilin._ iv. 5) states the opinion of Cæsar to the same effect. Cæsar had urged the illegality of condemning Roman citizens to death without a trial, and this was provided by a Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus. But Cicero replies that Cææar's measure was as severe.

[196] The speech which he delivered on the occasion is the fourth oration against Catiline. Some critics maintain that it is not genuine. Drumann, who maintains that it is, has a long note on the subject (_Tullii_, p. 512).

[197] Plutarch likens the feelings of the youth at the sight of the prisoners being led to execution to the solemn ceremonies of initiation in some mysterious rites. The conspirators were taken to the only prison that Rome then had, the Tullianum, where they were strangled. Five men were put to death. Nine had been condemned to death, but four had escaped being seized. Appian (_Civil Wars_, ii. 6) seems to say that Cicero saw the men put to death. If he did not see the execution, we may safely assume that he took care to see that the men really were dead. Their bodies were delivered to their kinsfolk for interment.

[198] Antonius did not command in the battle. He was ill, or pretended to be ill. His legatus, Petreius, an able officer, commanded the troops. The battle was fought early in B.C. 62, probably near Pistoria (Pistoia) in Etruria. It was a bloody struggle, hand to hand, and the loss on the victorious side was great. Dion says that Antonius sent the head of Catilina to Rome. According to Roman usage, he was entitled to the honour of the victory, because Petreius was his inferior officer.

[199] Metellus Nepos and the other tribunes began to exercise their functions on the tenth of December. The consuls began to exercise their functions on the first of January. The oath that Cicero had to swear was, that he had obeyed the laws. He alludes to the oath that he did swear on the last day of December on giving up his office, in a letter to Q. Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos (_Ad Diversos_, v. 2), and in his oration against Piso, c. 3. Manutius (_Comment. in_ Cic. Ep. _Ad Divers._ v. 2) shows that Bestia was a tribune during Cicero's consulship, and as he had gone out of office on the ninth of December he could not have acted with Metellus on the thirty-first of December.

As to Metellus Nepos, see the Life of Cato, c. 20.

[200] It is said that this does not occur in the extant letters of Cicero.

[201] In the beginning of his treatise De Officiis, which is addressed to his son, then at Athens (B.C. 44), Cicero speaks of the youth having then been a year under the instruction of Kratippus. Kratippus was a native of Mitylene, and he was living there when Pompeius touched at the island after the battle of Pharsalia (Life of Pompeius, c. 75). Cicero's son was attached to his master, and in an extant letter to Tiro (Cic. _Ad Diversos_, xvii. 21) he expresses his affection for him. Kratippus was more than a philosopher: he was a pleasant companion, and perhaps young Cicero liked his table-talk as much as his philosophy.

[202] He is mentioned by Cicero in his Letters to Atticus (xiv. 16, 18, and xv. 16).

[203] Cicero, in the letter to Tiro (xvi. 21) above referred to, says that Gorgias was useful to him in his declamatory exercises, but he had dismissed him in obedience to his father's positive command.

[204] It does not appear which of the Munatii this was.

[205] Crassus could not well misunderstand the Stoical doctrine, but he appears to have purposely expressed himself as if the Stoics considered "rich" and "good" as convertible terms. Cicero's repartee implies that "good" is the more comprehensive term: Crassus therefore was not "good," because he was "rich."

[206] This is a frigid joke. Axius in Greek ([Greek: axios]) signifies "worthy;" and Cicero's words literally translated are, he is "worthy of Crassus," if we take Axius as a Greek word. They can also mean, he is "Axius son of Crassus." The wit lay in associating the name of Axius and Crassus; but the joke is only made duller by the explanation.

A Roman Senator named Axius is mentioned by Cicero (_Ad Attic._ iii. 15, and elsewhere).

[207] See the Life of Crassus, c. 16.

[208] L. Gellius Publicola was consul with Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, B.C. 72.

[209] It is uncertain who this man was. The allusion to the hole in his ear signifies that his ears were bored to carry pendants or earrings after the fashion of some nations at that time. Cicero meant to imply that he was not of genuine Italian stock. Juvenal alludes to a man's foreign origin being shown by his ears being bored, in the following terms:--

"----quamvis
Natus ad Euphratem, molles quod in aure fenestræ
Arguerint, licet ipse neges."

_Sat._ i. 103, and the note of Heinrichs.

[210] Publius Sextius or Sestius was the name of a tribunus plebis who exerted himself to accomplish the recall of Cicero. There is extant an oration of Cicero entitled Pro P. Sestio, in defence of Publius, who was tried in the year after Cicero's return on a charge of raising a tumult (de vi) at the popular meeting in which Cicero's recall was proposed. Cicero speaks of the acquittal of Publius in a letter to his brother Quintus (ii. 4).

[211] This obscure man's name is also incorrectly written.

[212] See the Life of Cato, c. 29.

[213] Kaltwasser conjectures that the name should be Manius Aquilius, who acted as Proconsul in the Servile war in Sicily B.C. 100. In B.C. 88 he conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia. He fell into the hands of Mithridates, who put him to death.

But this cannot be the person meant by Plutarch, who evidently means a person who may be called a contemporary of Cicero. A certain M. Aquinius is mentioned in the Book on the African War (_De Bell. Afric._ 57).

[214] Adrastus, king of Argos, gave his two daughters in marriage to Tydeus and Polynices, both of whom were exiles from their native country.

[215] L. Aurelius Cotta was consul B.C. 65, and censor B.C. 64, the year in which Cicero was elected consul. In his prætorship, B.C. 70, he proposed the Lex Aurelia, which determined that the judices for public trials should be chosen from the Senators, Equites and Tribuni Ærarii. Notwithstanding this joke, Cotta was a friend of Cicero, and Cicero often speaks in high terms of praise of him.

[216] It is uncertain who this Voconius was. The verse, which is apparently from some Greek tragedian, is conjectured to allude to Laius, who begat OEdipus contrary to the advice of the oracle of Apollo.

[217] Cicero means that he had acted as a public crier (præco). Such persons were often of servile descent.

[218] See the life of Sulla, c. 34. The Roman word "Proscriptio" means putting up a public notice, as a sale and the like. The term was also applied to the public notices, now commonly called proscriptions, by which Sulla and the Triumviri declared the heads of their enemies and their property to be forfeited. (See the Life of Sulla, c. 81, and the notes.) This saying of Cicero had both truth and point.

[219] This story of the intrigue of Clodius is told in the Life of Cæsar, c. 9.

[220] There is something wanting in the Greek text; but the meaning is not obscure. See the note of Sintenis.

[221] Of course on the day on which Clodius pretended that he was not at Rome. Kaltwasser has inserted the words "on that day;" but they are not in the original.

[222] So it is in the MSS., though it should probably be Tertia. A confusion may easily have arisen between the name Terentia, which has already been mentioned in this chapter, and the name Tertia (third), though the wife of Q. Marcius Rex is said to have been the oldest of the three sisters. Quadranteria is a misprint for Quadrantaria. This lady was the wife of Q. Metellus Celer, and was suspected of poisoning him. Cicero vents unbounded abuse upon her; and he also preserved the name Quadrantaria (_Or. Pro Cælio_, c. 26). The Roman word Quadrans, a fourth, signified a fourth part of a Roman as, and was a small copper coin. The way in which one of her lovers is reported to have paid her in copper coin seems to have circulated in Rome as a good practical joke.

[223] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 10, and the notes.

[224] The number twenty-five agrees with the common text in Cicero's Letter to Atticus (i. 16): the other number in the common text of Cicero is thirty-one. See the note in the Variorum edition.

[225] Clodius was tribunus plebis in B.C. 58. The consuls of the year were L. Calpurnius Piso, the father of Calpurnia, Cæsar's wife, and Aulus Gabinius, a tool of Pompeius.

[226] Dion Cassius (38, c. 15) says that Cæsar proposed to Cicero to go to Gaul with him; and Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (i. 19), speaks of Cæsar's proposal to him to go as his legatus. It is difficult to imagine that Cæsar made such a proposal, or at least that he seriously intended to take Cicero with him. He would have been merely an incumbrance.

[227] Read "as in a public calamity." Cicero speaks of this affair in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 35; in the latter part of which oration he speaks at some length of the circumstances that attended his going into exile.

[228] This was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, the first husband of Tullia. She was his wife at least as early as B.C. 63, and she was his widow before the end of B.C. 57.

[229] Cicero, in the oration which he subsequently spoke against this Piso, gives (c. 6) a strange account of his reception by Piso.

Cato and Hortensius advised Cicero to go (Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17).

[230] Compare Cicero _De Legibus_, ii. 17, ed. Bakius; and _Ad Attic._ vii. 3. Cicero left Rome in the month of March, B.C. 58.

[231] Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (iii. 4) says that he was required to move four hundred Roman miles from the city. Compare Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17.

[232] Cicero received the news of his sentence when he was near Vibo, a town in the country of the Brutii, now Bivona, on the gulf of Sta. Eufemia. He had written to Atticus (iii. 3) to meet him at Vibo, but his next letter informed Atticus that he had set out to Brundusium. Cicero names the person, Sica, who had shown him hospitality near Vibo. Plutarch calls him [Greek: Ouibios Sikelos anêr], as if he had mistaken the name Sica.

[233] Cicero mentions this circumstance in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 40 (ed. Wunder, and the Notes). He was well received by the municipia which lay between Vibo and Brundusium. He did not enter the city of Brundusium, but lodged in the gardens of M. Lænus Flaccus.

[234] Cicero did not remain at Dyrrachium. His movements are described in his own letters, and in his oration for Cn. Plancius. He went to Thessalonica in Macedonia, where Plancius then was in the capacity of quæstor to L. Apuleius, Prætor of Macedonia. He reached Thessalonica on the 23rd of May (x. Kal. Jun.), and there is a letter extant addressed to Atticus (ii. 8), which is dated from Thessalonica on the 29th of May (Dat. iiii. Kal. Jun. Thessalonicæ).

[235] His unmanly lamentations are recorded in his own letters and in his own speech for Cn. Plancius, c. 42.

[236] Cicero was not a practical philosopher. Like most persons who have been much engaged in public life, he lived in the opinion of others. He did not follow the maxim of the Emperor Antoninus, who bids us "Look within; for within is the source of good, and it sends up a continuous stream to those who will always dig there" (vii. 59). Cicero did not reverence his own soul, but he placed his happiness "in the opinion of others" (i. 6). Perhaps however he was not weaker than most active politicians, whose letters would be as dolorous and lachrymose as his, if they were banished to a distant colony.

[237] This is not obscure, if it is properly considered, and it contains a serious truth. A man must view things as they are, and he must not take his notions of them from the affects of the many. "Things touch not the soul, but they are out of it, and passive; perturbations come only from the opinion that is within a man" (M. Antoninus, iv. 3).

The philosophic emperor and the unphilosophic statesman were very different persons. The emperor both preached and practised. The statesman showed his feebleness by his arrogance in prosperity and his abjectness in adversity.

[238] These proceedings are described by Cicero in his oration (_Pro Domo_, c. 24). The marble columns were removed from his house on the Palatine to the premises of the father-in-law of the consul Piso, in the presence of the people. Gabinius, the other consul, who was Cicero's neighbour at Tusculum, removed to his own land the stock that was on Cicero's estate and the ornaments of the house, and even the trees.

[239] In B.C. 57, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos were consuls. Cicero alludes to the disturbance which preceded his recall in his oration for P. Sextius, c. 35: "Caedem in foro maximam faciunt, universique destrictis gladiis et cruentis in omnibus fori partibus fratrem meum, virum optimum, fortissimum, meique amantissimum oculis quaerebant, voce poscebant." Cicero adds that his brother being driven from the Rostra lay down in the Comitium, and protected himself "with the bodies of slaves and freedmen;" by which Cicero seems to mean that his slaves and freedmen kept watch over him till he made his escape at night. Plutarch appears to have misunderstood the passage or to have had some other authority. In this dreadful tumult "the Tiber was filled with the dead bodies of the citizens, the drains were choaked, and the blood was wiped up from the Forum with sponges." This looks somewhat like rhetorical embellishment.

[240] Cicero in a letter to Atticus (iv. 2) gives an account of the compensation which he received. The valuation of his house at Rome (superficies aedium) was fixed at HS. vicies, or two million sesterces. He seems not to have objected to this, but he complains of the valuation of his Tusculanum and Formianum.

[241] In the seventeenth month according to Clinton (_Fasti Hellen._ B.C. 57). The passage that Plutarch refers to is in the Oration to the Senate after his return (c. 15): "Cum me vestra auctoritas arcessierit, Populus Romanus revocarit, Respublica implorarit, Italia cuncta paene suis humeris reportarit."

[242] See the Life of Cato, c. 40, and Dion Cassius, 39, c. 21.

[243] Clodius was killed B.C. 52, the year in which Pompeius was chosen sole consul. Cicero's speech for Milo is extant, or at least a speech which he wrote after the trial. Milo was condemned and went an exile to Massilia. His property was sold and it went cheap. Cicero was under some suspicion of being a purchaser; but the matter is quite unintelligible (Drumann, _Annii_, p. 49, and the references). There could be no reason why Cicero should write in such obscure terms to Atticus, if his conduct in this matter was fair.

[244] Crassus perished B.C. 54. See the Life of Crassus.

[245] His province also comprehended Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Cyprus. The proconsulship of Cicero was in B.C. 51, though he had been consul in B.C. 63. Cicero went to Cilicia against his will (_Ad Diversos_, iii. 2). Pompeius had got the Senate (B.C. 52) to pass an order that no person should hold a province within five years after being consul or prætor. This was aimed at Cæsar, if he should get a second consulship. Pompeius also wished to have Cicero out of the way, and the provinces were to be supplied with governors from among those who did not come within the terms of the new rule: and Cicero was one of them (Cicero, _Ad Diversos_, iii. 2; _Ad Attic._ vi. 6).

[246] He was the third Cappadocian king of this name. This unlucky king was a debtor of Cn. Pompeius and M. Junius Brutus, the most distinguished Roman money-lender of his day (Cicero, _Ad Attic._ vi. 1-3). Both Pompeius and Brutus were pressing the king for money. Deiotarus also sent to Ariobarzanes to try to get some money out of him for Brutus. The king's answer was that he had none, and Cicero says that he believed he told the truth, for that no country was in a more impoverished state and nobody more beggared than the king. Cicero dunned the king continually with letters, but he was not particularly well pleased with his commission (_Ad Attic._ vi. 2). The end was that the king provided for the payment of about one hundred talents to Brutus during Cicero's year of government. He had promised Pompeius two hundred in six months, which, as a judicious commentator remarks, is not worth so much as a security for one hundred. These money doings of the supposed patriot Brutus should be well examined by those who still retain an opinion of the virtues of this Republican hero.

[247] There seems no reason to doubt that Cicero's administration of his province was just and mild. Plutarch has apparently derived some of the facts here mentioned from Cicero himself (_Ad Attic._ vi. 2): "Aditus autem ad me minime provinciales; nihil per cubicularium: ante lucem inambulabam domi, ut olim candidatus."

[248] Cicero's exploits were such as would not have been recorded, if he had not been his own historian. In a letter to Cato (_Ad Diversos_, xv. 4), he gives a pretty full account of his operations; and he asks Cato to use his influence to get him the honour of a Supplicatio or Public Thanksgiving. Cato's short reply, which he says is longer than his letters usually are, is a model in its way.

[249] So it is in Plutarch's text: it may be the blunder of Plutarch, or the blunder of his copyists. The true name is M. Cælius (Cic. _Ad Diversos_, ii. 11), who was curule ædile B.C. 51. The saying about the panthers is in this letter of Cicero, who had set the panther-hunters to work.

Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 50. He mentions (_Ad Attic._ vi. 7) his intention to call at Rhodes.

[250] The events of this chapter, which belong to B.C. 49, are told at length in the Lives of Pompeius and Cæsar. Cicero's irresolution is well marked in his own letters; in one of which (_Ad Attic._ viii. 7, referred to by Kaltwasser) he says:--"Ego quem fugiam habeo, quem sequar non habeo."

There are no letters extant of Trebatius to the purport which Plutarch states, but Cæsar wrote to Cicero and begged him to stay at Rome. Cicero (_Ad Attic._ ix. 16) has given a copy of Cæsar's letter; and a copy of another letter from Cæsar (_Ad Attic._ x. 8), in which he urges Cicero to keep quiet. There seems to be no doubt that Trebatius had been employed by Cæsar to write to Cicero and speak to him about remaining neutral at least. Cicero had an interview with Cæsar at Formiæ, after Cæsar's return from Brundusium (_Ad Atticum_, ix. 18, 19; _Ad Diversos_, iv. 1). The letter last referred to is addressed to Servius Sulpicius.

[251] L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 34.

[252] See the Life of Pompeius, c. 37, notes.

[253] Smart sayings are not generally improved by explanation, and they ought not to require it. Cicero apparently meant to say that it was as absurd to talk of men being dispirited after a victory, as if one were to say that Cæsar's friends disliked him.

[254] After defeating Pharnaces Cæsar landed in Italy, in September, B.C. 47, of the unreformed calendar. Cicero had received a letter from Cæsar before Cæsar's arrival in Italy. The letter was written in Egypt (Cicero, _Ad Diversos_, xiv. 23; _Pro Q. Ligario_, c. 3). Compare Dion Cassius, 46, c. 12, 22, as to the conduct of Cicero to Cæsar. Before the end of the year Cicero was in Rome.

[255] It is difficult to see what was the resemblance between Perikles and Cicero. Theramenes was somewhat more like him, for he tried to be on more sides than one, and met with the usual fate of such people. He was one of the so-called Thirty Tyrants of Athens, and he was sacrificed by his colleagues.

[256] The speech of Cicero is extant. The allusion of Plutarch is particularly to the third chapter.

[257] Cicero in a letter to L. Papirius Pætus (_Ad Diversos_, ix. 18) alludes to his occupations at Tusculum. He compares himself to Dionysius, who after being driven from Syracuse is said to have opened a school at Corinth. Cicero's literary activity after B.C. 47 is the most remarkable passage in his life. He required to be doing something.

[258] The allusion is to the story of Laertes in the Odyssey, i. 190, and xxiv. 226.

[259] She was divorced some time in B.C. 46. The latest extant letter to Terentia is dated on the first of October, B.C. 47, from Venusia. Cicero was then on his road from Brundusium to Tusculanum. He orders his wife to have everything ready for him; some friends would probably be with him, and they might stay some time. The bath was to be got ready, and eatables, and everything else. A gentleman would write a more civil letter to his housekeeper.

In a letter to Cn. Plancius (_Ad Diversos_, ix. 14), who congratulates Cicero on his new marriage, he says that nothing would have induced him to take such a step at such a time, if he had not found on his return his domestic affairs even worse than public affairs. According to his own account he was hardly safe in his own house, and it was necessary to strengthen himself by new alliances against the perfidy of old ones. Terentia may have been a bad housekeeper, and her temper was not the sweetest. She could not have any feeling for her husband except contempt, and he repaid it by getting rid of her. Cicero had to repay the Dos of Terentia, but she never got it back, so far as we can learn.