The Life of Cicero. Volume II.

In the second book he inculcates the observance of religious ceremonies in direct opposition to that which he afterward tells us in his treatise De Divinatione. But in this, De Legibus, we may presume that he intends to give instructions for the guidance of the public, whereas in the other he is communicating to a few chosen friends those esoteric doctrines which it would be dangerous to give to the world at large. There is a charming passage, in which we are told not to devote the rich things of the earth to the gods. Gold and silver will create impure desire. Ivory, taken from the body of an animal, is a gift not simple enough for a god. Metals, such as iron, are for war rather than for worship. An image, if it is to be used, let it be made of one bit of wood, or one block of stone. If cloth is given, let it not be more than a woman can make in a month. Let there be no bright colors. White is best for the gods; and so on.310 Here we have the wisdom of Plato, or of those from whom Plato had borrowed it, teaching us a lesson against which subsequent ages have rebelled. It is not only that a god cannot want our gold and silver, but that a man does want them. That rule as to the woman's morsel of cloth was given in some old assembly, lest her husband or her brother should lose the advantage of her labor. It was seen what superstition would do in collecting the wealth of the world round the shrines of the gods. How many a man has since learned to regret the lost labor of his household; and yet what god has been the better? There may be a question of æsthetics, indeed, with which Cicero does not meddle.

In the third book he descends to practical and at the same time political questions. There had been no matter contested so vehemently among Romans as that of the establishment and maintenance of the Tribunate. Cicero defends its utility, giving, with considerable wit, the task of attacking it to his brother Quintus. Quintus, indeed, is very violent in his onslaught. What can be more "pestiferous," or more prone to sedition? Then Cicero puts him down. "O Quintus," he says, "you see clearly the vices of the Tribunate! but can there be anything more unjust than, in discussing a matter, to remember all its evils and to forget all its merits? You might say the same of the Consuls; for the very possession of power is an evil in itself. But without that evil you cannot have the good which the institution contains. The power of the Tribunes is too great, you say. Who denies it? But the violence of the people, always cruel and immodest, is less so under their own leader than if no leader had been given them. The leader will measure his danger; but the people itself know no such measurement."311 He afterward takes up the question of the ballot, and is against it on principle. "Let the people vote as they will," he says, "but let their votes be known to their betters."312 It is, alas, useless now to discuss the matter here in England! We have been so impetuous in our wish to avoid the evil of bribery – which was quickly going – that we have rushed into that of dissimulation, which can only be made to go by revolutionary changes. When men vote by tens of thousands the ballot will be safe, but no man will then care for the ballot. It is, however, strange to see how familiar men were under the Roman Empire with matters which are perplexing us to-day.

We now come to the three purely moral essays, the last written of his works, except the Philippics and certain of his letters, and the Topica. Indeed, when you reach the last year or two of his life, it becomes difficult to assign their exact places to each. He mentions one as written, and then another; but at last this latter appears before the former. They were all composed in the same year, the year before his death – the most active year of his life, as far as his written works are concerned – and I shall here treat De Senectute first, then De Amicitia, and the De Officiis last, believing them to have been published in that order.

The De Senectute is an essay written in defence of old age, generally called Cato Major. It is supposed to have been spoken by the old Censor, 149 b. c., and to have been listened to by Scipio and Lælius. This was the same Scipio who had the dream – who, in truth, was not a Scipio at all, but a son of Paulus Æmilius, whom we remember in history as the younger Africanus. Cato rushes at once into his subject, and proves to us his point by insisting on all those commonplace arguments which were probably as well known before his time as they have been since. All men wish for old age, but none rejoice when it has come. The answer is that no man really wishes for old age, but simply wishes for a long life, of which old age is the necessary ending. It creeps on us so quickly! But in truth it does not creep quicker on youth than does youth on infancy; but the years seem to fly fast because not marked by distinct changes. It is the part of a wise man to see that each portion of his five-act poem shall be well performed. Cato goes on with his lesson, and tells us perhaps all that could be said on behalf of old age at that period of the world's history. It was written by an old man to an old man; for it is addressed to Atticus, who was now sixty-seven, and of course deals much in commonplaces. But it is full of noble thoughts, and is pleasant, and told in the easiest language; and it leaves upon the reader a sweet savor of the dignity of age. Let the old man feel that it is not for him to attempt the pranks of youth, and he will already have saved himself from much of the evil which Time can do to him. I am ready for you, and you cannot hurt me. "Let not the old man assume the strength of the young, as a young man does not that of the bull or the elephant. * * * But still there is something to be regretted by an orator, for to talk well requires not only intellect but all the powers of the body. The melodious voice, however, remains, which – and you see my years – I have not yet lost. The voice of an old man should always be tranquil and contained."313 He tells a story of Massinissa, who was then supposed to be ninety. He was stiff in his joints, and therefore when he went a journey had himself put upon a horse, and never left it, or started on foot and never mounted.314 "We must resist old age, my Lælius. We must compensate our shortness by our diligence, my Scipio. As we fight against disease, so let us contend with old age.315 * * * Why age should be avaricious I could never tell. Can there be anything more absurd than to demand so great a preparation for so small a journey?"316 He tells them that he knew their fathers, and that "he believes they are still alive – that, though they have gone from this earth, they are still leading that life which can only be considered worthy of the name."317

The De Amicitia is called Lælius. It is put into the mouth of Lælius, and is supposed to be a discourse on friendship held by him in the presence of his two sons-in-law, Caius Fannius and Mucius Scævola, a few days after the death of Scipio his friend. Not Damon and Pythias were more renowned for their friendship than Scipio and Lælius. He discusses what is friendship, and why it is contracted; among whom friendship should exist; what should be its laws and duties; and, lastly, by what means it should be preserved.

Cicero begins by telling the story of his own youth; how he had been placed under the charge of Scævola the augur, and how, having changed his toga, he never left the old man's side till he died; and he recalls how once, sitting with him in a circle with friends, Scævola fell into that mode of conversation which was usual with him, and told him how once Lælius had discoursed to them on friendship. It is from first to last fresh and green and cooling, as is the freshness of the early summer grass to men who live in cities. The reader feels, as he goes on with it, that he who had such thoughts and aspirations could never have been altogether unhappy. Coming at the end of his life, in the telling the stories of which we have had to depend so much on his letters to Atticus, it reminds me of the love that existed between them. He has sometimes been querulous with his Atticus. He has complained of bad advice, of deficient care, of halting friendship – in reading which accusations we have, all of us, declared him to be wrong. But Atticus understood him. He knew that the privileges and the burden must go together, and told himself how much more than sufficient were the privileges to compensate the burden. When we make our histories on the bases of such loving letters, we should surely open them with careful hands, and deal with them in sympathy with their spirit. In writing this treatise De Amicitia especially for the eyes of Atticus, how constantly the heart must have gone back to all that had passed between them – how confident he must have been of the truth of his friend! He who, after nearly half a century of friendship, could thus write to his friend on friendship cannot have been an unhappy man.

"Should a new friendship spring up," he tells us, "let it not be repressed. You shall still gather fruit from young trees; but do not let it take the place of the old. Age and custom will have given the old fruit a flavor of its own. Who is there that would ride a new horse in preference to one tried – one who knows your hand?"318

I regard the De Officiis as one of the most perfect treatises on morals which the world possesses, whether for the truth of the lessons given, for their universality, or for the beauty and lightness of the language. It is on a subject generally heavy, but is treated with so much art and grace as to make it a delight to have read it, and an important part of education to know it. It is addressed to his son, and is as good now as when it was written. There is not a precept taught in it which is not modern as well as ancient, and which is not fit alike for Christians and Pagans. A system of morality, we might have said, should be one which would suit all men alike. We are bound to acknowledge that this will suit only gentlemen, because he who shall live in accordance with it must be worthy of that name. The "honestum" means much more in Latin than it does in English. Neither "honor" nor "honesty" will give the rendering – not that honor or that honesty which we know. Modern honor flies so high that it leaves honesty sometimes too nearly out of sight; while honesty, though a sterling virtue, ignores those sentiments on which honor is based. "Honestum" includes it all; and Cicero has raised his lessons to such a standard as to comprise it all. But he so teaches that listeners delight to hear. He never preaches. He does not fulminate his doctrine at you, bidding you beware of backslidings and of punishments; but he leads you with him along the grassy path, till you seem to have found out for yourself what is good – you and he together, and together to have learned that which is manly, graceful, honest, and decorous.

In Cicero's essays is to be found always a perfect withdrawal of himself from the circumstances of the world around him; so that the reader shall be made to suppose that, in the evening of his life, having reached at last, by means of work done for the State, a time of blessed rest, he gives forth the wisdom of his age, surrounded by all that a tranquil world can bestow upon him. Look back through the treatises written during the last two years, and each shall appear to have been prepared in some quiet and undisturbed period of his life; but we know that the last polish given by his own hands to these three books De Officiis was added amid the heat and turmoils of the Philippics. It is so singular, this power of adapting his mind to whatever pursuit he will, that we are taught almost to think that there must have been two Ciceros, and that the one was eager in personal conflict with Antony, while the other was seated in the garden of some Italian villa meditating words by obeying which all men might be ennobled.

In the dialectical disputations of the Greek philosophers he had picked up a mode of dividing his subject into numbers which is hardly fitted for a discourse so free and open as is this. We are therefore somewhat offended when we are told that virtue is generally divided "into three headings."319 If it be so, and if it be necessary that we should know it, it should, I think, be conveyed to us without this attempt at logical completeness. It is impossible to call this a fault. Accuracy must, indeed, be in all writers a virtue. But feeling myself to be occasionally wounded by this numbering, I mention it. In the De Officiis he divides the entire matter into three parts, and to each part he devotes a book. In the first he considers whether a thing is fit to be done or left undone – that is, whether it be "honestum" or "turpe;" in the second, whether it be expedient, that is "utile," or the reverse; and in the third he compares the "honestum" and the "utile," and tells us what to choose and what to avoid.

The duty due by a citizen to his country takes with him a place somewhat higher than we accord to it. "Parents are dear, children are dear to us, so are relations and friends; but our country embraces it all, for what good man would not die so that he might serve it? How detestable, then, is the barbarity of those who wound their country at every turn, and have been and are occupied in its destruction."320 He gives us some excellent advice as to our games, which might be read with advantage, perhaps, by those who row in our university races. But at the end of it he tells us that the hunting-field affords an honest and fitting recreation.321 I have said that he was modern in his views – but not altogether modern. He defends the suicide of Cato. "To them," he says, speaking of Cato's companions in Africa, "it might not have been forgiven. Their life was softer and their manners easier. But to Cato nature had given an invincible gravity of manners which he had strengthened with all the severity of his will. He had always remained steadfast in the purpose that he would never stand face to face with the tyrant of his country."322 There was something terribly grand in Cato's character, which loses nothing in coming to us from the lips of Cicero. So much Cicero allows to the stern nature of the man's character. Let us look back and we shall find that we make the same allowance. This is not, in truth, a lesson which he gives us, but an apology which he makes.

Read his advice given in the following line for the outward demeanor of a gentleman: "There are two kinds of beauty. The one is loveliness, which is a woman's gift. But dignity belongs to the man. Let all ornament be removed from the person not worthy of a man to wear – and all fault in gesture and in motion which is like to it. The manners of the wrestling-ground and of the stage are sometimes odious; but let us see the actor or the wrestler walking simple and upright, and we praise him. Let him use a befitting neatness, not verging toward the effeminate, but just avoiding a rustic harshness. The same measure is to be taken with your clothes as with other matters in which a middle course is best."323

Then he tells his son what pursuits are to be regarded as sordid. "Those sources of gain are to be regarded as mean in the pursuit of which men are apt to be offended, as are the business of tax-gathers and usurers. All those are to be regarded as illiberal to which men bring their work but not their art." As for instance, the painter of a picture shall be held to follow a liberal occupation – but not so the picture dealer. "They are sordid who buy from merchants that they may sell again: they have to lie like the mischief or they cannot make their living. All mere workmen are engaged in ignoble employment: what of grandeur can the mere workshop produce? Least of all can those trades be said to be good which administer only to our pleasures – such as fish-mongers, butchers, cooks, and poulterers."324 He adds at the end of his list that of all employment none is better than agriculture, or more worthy of the care of a freeman. In all of this it is necessary that we should receive what he says with some little allowance for the difference in time; but there is nothing, if we look closely into it, in which we cannot see the source of noble ideas, and the reason for many notions which are now departing from us – whether for good or evil who shall say?

In the beginning of the second book he apologizes for his love of philosophy, as he calls it, saying that he knew how it had been misliked among those round him. "But when the Republic," he says, "had ceased to be – that Republic which had been all my care – my employment ceased both in the Forum and the Senate. But when my mind absolutely refused to be inactive, I thought that I might best live down the misery of the time if I devoted myself to philosophy."325 From this we may see how his mind had worked when the old occupation of his life was gone. "Nihil agere autem quum animus non posset!" How piteous was his position, and yet how proud! There was nothing for him to do – but there was nothing because hitherto there had been so much that he had always done.

He tells his son plainly how an honest man must live. To be ashamed of nothing, he must do nothing of which he will be ashamed. But for him there is this difficulty: "If any one on his entrance into the world has had laid upon him the greatness of a name won by his father, let us say – as, my Cicero, has perhaps happened to you – the eyes of all men will be cast upon him, and inquiry will be made as to his mode of life. He will be so placed under the meridian sun that no word spoken or deed done by him shall be hidden.326 * * * He must live up to the glory to which he has been born." He gives to his son much advice about the bar. "But the greatest praise," he says, "comes from defending a man accused; and especially so when you shall assist one who is surrounded and ill-treated by the power of some great man. This happened to me more than once in my youth, when, for instance, I defended Roscius Amerinus against Sulla's power. The speech is with us extant still."327 He tells us much as to the possession of money, and the means of insuring it in a well-governed state. "Take care that you allow no debts to the injury of the Republic. You must guard against this at all hazards – but never by taking from the rich and giving it to the poor. Nothing is so requisite to the State as public credit – which cannot exist unless debtors be made to pay what they owe. There was nothing to which I looked more carefully than this when I was Consul. Horse and foot, they tried their best; but I opposed them, and freed the Republic from the threatened evil. Never were debts more easily or more quickly collected. When men knew that they could not ignore their creditors, then they paid. But he who was then the conquered is the conqueror now. He has effected what he contemplated – even though it be not now necessary for him."328 From this passage it seems that these books must have been first written before Cæsar's death. Cæsar, at the time of Catiline's conspiracy, had endeavored to annul all debts – that is, to establish "new tables" according to the Roman idiom – but had failed by Cicero's efforts. He had since affected it, although he might have held his power without seeking for the assistance of such debtors. Who could that be but Cæsar? In the beginning of the third book there is another passage declaring the same thing: "I have not strength enough for silent solitude, and therefore give myself up to my pen. In the short time since the Republic has been overturned I have written more than in all my former years."329 That, again, he could not have written after Cæsar had fallen. We are left, indeed, to judge, from the whole nature of the discourse, that it was written at the period in which the wrongs done by Cæsar to Rome – wrongs at any rate as they appeared to Cicero – were just culminating in that regal pride of action which led to his slaughter. It was written then, but was published a few months afterward.

Chapter XIV

CICERO'S RELIGION

I should hardly have thought it necessary to devote a chapter of my book to the religion of a pagan, had I not, while studying Cicero's life, found that I was not dealing with a pagan's mind. The mind of the Roman who so lived as to cause his life to be written in after-times was at this period, in most instances, nearly a blank as to any ideas of a God. Horace is one who in his writing speaks much of himself. Ovid does so still more constantly. They are both full of allusions to "the gods." They are both aware that it is a good thing to speak with respect of the national worship, and that the orders of the Emperor will be best obeyed by believers. "Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas," says Horace, when, in obedience probably to Augustus, he tells his fellow-citizens that they are forgetting their duties in their unwillingness to pay for the repairs of the temples. "Superi, quorum sumus omnia," says Ovid, thinking it well to show in one of his writings, which he sent home from his banishment, that he still entertained the fashionable creed. But they did not believe. It was at that time the fashion to pretend a light belief, in order that those below might live as though they believed, and might induce an absolute belief in the women and the children. It was not well that the temple of the gods should fall into ruins. It was not well that the augurs, who were gentlemen of high family, should go for nothing. Cæsar himself was the high-priest, and thought much of the position, but he certainly was bound by no priestcraft. A religious belief was not expected from a gentleman. Religious ceremonies had gradually sunk so low in the world's esteem that the Roman nobility had come to think of their gods as things to swear by, or things to amuse them, or things from which, if times were bad with them, some doubtful assistance might perchance come. In dealing with ordinary pagans of those days religion may be laid altogether on one side. I remember no passage in Livy or Tacitus indicating a religious belief.

But with Cicero my mind is full of such; and they are of a nature to make me feel that had he lived a hundred years later I should have suspected him of some hidden knowledge of Christ's teachings. M. Renan has reminded us of Cicero's dislike to the Jews. He could not learn from the Jews – though the Jew, indeed, had much that he could teach him. The religion which he required was far from the selfishness of either Jew or Roman. He believed in eternity, in the immortality of the soul, in virtue for the sake of its reward hereafter, in the omnipotence of God, the performance of his duty to his neighbors, in conscience, and in honesty. "Certum esse in cælo definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur."330 "There is certainly a place in heaven where the blessed shall enjoy eternal life." Can St. Paul have expressed with more clearness his belief as to a heaven? Earlier in his career he expresses in language less definite, but still sufficiently clear, his ideas as to another world: "An vero tam parvi animi videamur esse omnes, qui in republica, atque in his vitæ periculis laboribusque versamur, ut, quum, usque ad extremum spatium, nullum tranquillum atque otiosum spiritum duxerimus, vobiscum simul moritura omnia arbitremur?"331 "Are we all of us so poor in spirit as to think that after toiling for our country and ourselves – though we have not had one moment of ease here upon earth – when we die all things shall die with us?" And when he did go it should be to that glory for which virtue shall have trained him. "Neque te sermonibus vulgi dederis, nec in præmis humanis spem posueris rerum tuarum; suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus."332 "You shall put your hope neither in man's opinion nor in human rewards; but Virtue itself by her own charms shall lead you the way to true glory." He thus tells us his idea of God's omnipotence: "Quam vim animum esse dicunt mundi, eamdemque esse mentem sapientiamque perfectam; quem Deum appellant."333 "This force they call the soul of the world, and, looking on it as perfect in intelligence and wisdom, they name it their God." And again he says, speaking of God's care, "Quis enim potest – quam existimet a deo se curari – non et dies, et noctes divinum numen horrere?"334 "Who is there, when he thinks that a God is taking care of him, shall not live day and night in awe of his divine majesty?" As to man's duty to his neighbor, a subject as to which Pagans before and even after the time of Cicero seem to have had but vague ideas, the treatise De Officiis is full of it, as indeed is the whole course of his life. "Omne officium, quod ad conjunctionem hominum et ad societatem tuendam valet, anteponendum est illi officio, quod cognitione et scientia continetur."335 "All duty which tends to protect the society of man with men is to be preferred to that of which science is the simple object." His belief in a conscience is shown in the law he lays down against suicide: "Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis deus, injussu hinc nos suo demigrare."336 "That God within us forbids us to depart hence without his permission." As to justice, I need give no quotation from his works as proof of that virtue which all his works have been written to uphold.