Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero

Dedication

My dear Lord Brougham, —

I dedicate this work to you as a token of our friendship, and because a Life of Cicero cannot be more appropriately inscribed than with the name of one whose Eloquence and other splendid intellectual gifts, so conspicuously displayed and uniformly employed for the welfare of mankind, vividly recall to the minds of his countrymen the great Orator, Statesman, and Philosopher of ancient Rome. " Superest adhuc et exornat setatis nostrae gloriam Vir saBculorum memorial dignus, qui olim nominabitur nunc intelligitur."

Believe me,

Preface

More than a century has elapsed since Middleton first published his u History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero," which has during that period exclusively occupied the field in this country as the Biography of Cicero. It occurred to me that the time had come when another Life might be acceptable to the public. The advanced state of scholarship, which has made the history and literature of Rome so much better understood than when Middleton wrote, — to say nothing of his defects as a biographer, — justifies the appearance of a new account of the great Roman. The faults of his work are not inconsiderable. It is disfigured by a blind and indiscriminating tone of panegyric which is the language of flattery rather than of truth. It is almost entirely occupied with Cicero as a politician and an orator, and does not sufficiently enter into the details of his private and domestic life, which, in my opinion, form the chief charm of a biography. For as Madame Swetchine in one of her letters, alluding to the subject in the case of deceased friends, happily remarks, — " Tant que nous ne connaissons rien de leur caractesre, de leur vocation, des actions de leur vie, ils demeurent pour nous a l'6tat d'abstraction ;

6 PREFACE.

or, vous savez si ce sont les abstractions qui parlent au coeur." Middleton's work is also overlaid and encumbered with too much of the history of the time, so that the character of individuality is often lost. It is in fact, as the title seems to imply, an historical composition in which Cicero is the principal figure, but it is not the portrait of the man himself, with details properly subordinated as accessaries so as to form the background of the picture. Besides, the style is heavy and tedious ; and I think that De Quincey is not far from the truth when he says, that, " by weeding away from it all that is colloquial, you would strip it of all that is characteristic ; and if you should remove its slang vulgarisms, you would remove its whole principle of vitality."

My object has been to exhibit Cicero not only as an orator and a politician, but as he was in private life, surrounded by his family and friends — speaking and acting like other men in the ordinary affairs of home. And the more we accustom ourselves to regard the ancients as persons of like passions as ourselves, and familiarize ourselves with the idea of them as fathers, husbands, friends, and gentlemen, the better we shall understand them.

It would be ungrateful in me not to acknowledge how much I am indebted to Abeken's most interesting and able work, " Cicero in Seinen Briefen," — an invaluable contribution to our right knowledge of his history, — and to the " Onomasticon Tullianum " of Orelli and Baiter. I have also made much use of Drumann's " Geschichte Eoms nach Geschlechtern," although I differ greatly from the estimate he has formed of the character of Cicero, and think him

PREFACE. 7

both prejudiced and unfair. I have derived most material assistance from the admirable edition of Cicero's letters by Schiitz, where the correspondence is arranged in chronological order, and the difficulties are explained by clear and excellent notes. But for the convenience of reference I have always quoted the letters as they are given — most unmethodically it is true — in the popular edition of Ernesti. I have also referred to Bruckner's " Leben Cicero,'* which has the merit of fulness and accuracy, but is a dull and unattractive book. It would, however, be mere pedantry in me to mention all the authorities of which I have made use. I believe that there is no author who has written on the subject whose work I have neglected. But, after all, the great authority for the life of Cicero is Cicero himself, of whose works I have been, during a great period of my life, an assiduous student, attracted to them by the irresistible fascination of their contents and their style.

I had written much more than is printed in the following work, but as it would have swelled the volumes to an inconvenient size, I have been obliged very considerably to reduce my manuscript. For this reason I have omitted many details and translations of many parts of the speeches which I had prepared, and which I should have been glad to insert in the text. For the same reason also I have omitted a number of references in support of the opinions I have advanced, but if necessary they can be readily produced. I mention this merely lest it should be supposed that I have shunned pains and labor in the completion of my task. I can truly say

8 PREFACE.

that it has been with me a labor of love, and the most agreeable relaxation I cared to find from the toils of my profession. It is,* no doubt, perilous to the interests of lawyers to be supposed to occupy even their horce subsecivce with anything like literature. But although their profession has the first and foremost claims upon their attention, it need not monopolize the whole, and it can hardly be thought that they are less likely to be qualified for the discharge of its duties if they make themselves familiar with the models of ancient Eloquence and the Law of ancient times, than if they confine themselves wholly to the study of technical precedents, and seek for inspiration only in the volumes of Reports.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Chap. **u

I. The Boyhood 11-27

II. The Student 28-36

III. Cicero at the Bar 37-49

IV. QUiESTOR AND CURULE J2DILE . . 50-71

V. Correspondence and Domestic Life . 72-91

VI. The Pr^etorship 92-106

VII. Canvass for the Consulship, and Election 107-121

VTII. The Consulship 122-161

IX. VlR CONSULARIS 162-174

X. Mysteries of the Bona Dea, and Trial

of Clodius 175-198

XI. The First Triumvirate . . . . 199-233

XII. The Exile 234-255

XIII. The Return 256-283

XIV. Confusion at Rome.— Cicero supports

CiESAR. — His Speeches in several important Trials. — Defence of Cce-

XV. Letters from the Country. — Attack on p IS0 . — Gossip. — Defence of Plancius. — Political Apology. — Distracted state of Rome . . . 815-864

CONTENTS OP VOL. II.

Chap. Pagi

XVI. Clodius and Milo 5-32

XVII. The Proconsulate .... 33-76

XVIII. Civil War 77-125

XIX. Domestic Troubles. — Divorce from Terentia. — Death of Tullia. — Second Marriage 126-164

XX. Death of Cesar 165-192

XXI. Vacillation. — Departure from Italy

and sudden Return to Rome . . 193-215 XXII. Quarrel with Antony. — The Second Philippic. — Movements of Antony and Oct a vi an 216-240

XXIII. The Embassy to Antony . . . 241-270

and Treachery of Octavian . . 271-308 XXV. The Proscription and Death of Cicero. — His Character ... 309-330

Appendix

Cicero's Orations 331, 332

Roman Consuls during Cicero's Life 833, 334

LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME L

Cicero: from a bronze medal struck by the town op

Magnesia in Lydia to face, Title-pagt t

Arpino, near which Cicero was born . . . to face p. 11

The Roman Forum: from a photograph ... "37

Site of Lilyb^eum, now Marsala .... "50

Cicero's Villa, Formic "87

Temple of Concord: restored by Cav. Canina . " 141

The Port of Brundusium " 243

Pompey's Theatre: restored by Cav. Canima . " 321

VOLUME IL

The Tomb of Cicero . . ' . . . . to face Title-page.

The Appian Way — Regina Viarum .... to face p. 13

Pompey the Great " 130

Julius Caesar * 165

Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus: restored by Cav.

Canina "283

Fobmijs, where Cicero was murdered ... " 316

AIUMNO. NEAU WHICH CICEKO WAS BORN

W I p. 11

THE LIFE

OF

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.

Chapter I

On the steep side of one of the Volscian hills, below which the river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed in a winding channel to the sea, and on the northern frontier of what has since been known as the Terra di Lavoro in the kingdom of Naples, lay the ancient town of Arpinum. The banks of the river were thickly wooded with lofty poplars, and a grove of oaks extended to the east, where, not far off, the little river Fibrenus, now the Fibreno, in the midst of one of the loveliest of Italian landscapes, mingled its icecold waters with the waters of the Liris. Before its confluence with the larger stream it divided into two channels and rushed rapidly past a small and beautiful island, now called the Isola di Carnello ; and lower down at the point where the two rivers met, another island was formed, now known as the Isola San Paolo, or San Domenico, from a Dominican monastery, which in later times was erected there and still remains.

12 THE BOYHOOD. [At. 1-16,

In this pleasant spot, at the point where the Liris and the Fibrenus met, amidst hills and rocks and woods, on the third of January, b. c. 106, Cicero was born. 1

His family was old and respectable, but was of the plebeian and not of the patrician order. It was not ennobled — that is, none of its members had filled any curule office ; not even an aedileship, which was the lowest step in the ladder of rank that entitled a citizen to the honor of the ivory chair, and which, like all the other magistracies at Rome, was, at all events in the later centuries of the republic, open to plebeian and patrician families alike. It belonged to the equestrian class, and had long been settled in the neighborhood of Arpinum. There was indeed a tradition at Rome that the Tullian gens was of royal descent ; and Plutarch alludes to it, saying, that some persons carried back the origin of the family to Tullus Attius, a king of the Volscians, who waged wai not without honor against the Romans.

Cicero himself, like Napoleon, smiled at the efforts to make out for him an illustrious pedigree ; and, alluding to the funeral orations at Rome as a fertile source of the falsification of family history, said, that an instance of it would be an assertion by him that he was descended from Manius Tullius, the patrician who was consul with Servius Sulpicius ten years after the expulsion of the Tarquins. 2

1 The consuls for the year were C. Atilius Serranus and Q. Servilius Caepio. According to the Julian reformed calendar the date of Cicero's birth would be October, b. c. 107.

2 The word Tullius seems originally to have meant " spring" or "rivulet." Tullios alii dixerunt esse silanos, alii rivos, alii vehementes projectiones sanguinis arcuatim fluentis. — Festus.

b. c. 106-91.] DERIVATION OF THE FAMILY NAME. 13

Arpinum had received the Roman franchise some time before, so that the inhabitants enjoyed the fuh rights of citizens of the Great Republic. The family name of Cicero was most probably derived, like those of the Lentuli, Fabii, Pisones, and others, from the fact that some ancestor had been known as a successful cultivator of the humble vegetable called cicer ; but another less complimentary theory is, that it was given in consequence of a personal defect in the face of one of his progenitors — in fact, a wart or carbuncle on the nose. 1 His paternal grandfather Marcus, who was still alive when Cicero was born, was no friend of innovation, and when his brother-in-law Gratidius, whose sister Gratidia he had married, proposed to introduce vote by ballot into Arpinum, he strongly opposed it. Cicero mentions this story of his grandfather, and adds that Gratidius was trying to raise a tempest in a cup (excitabat Jluctus in simpulo). When feeaurus the consul heard of old Marcus's firmness, he much applauded it, and said, " I wish with such courage and virtue as you have shown, you had preferred the arena of a great metropolis to a provincial town." The old gentleman hated the Greeks, and used to say that his countrymen were like Syrian slaves, the more Greek they knew, the greater rascals they were.

Marcus the grandfather and Gratidia had another

1 When Cicero as quaestor in Sicily was about to make an offering in a temple of some silver vessels which he had inscribed with his names Marcus Tullius, he told the silversmith' to engrave the figure of a vetch {cicer) for the third name. Had he lived in the days of heraldry, his canting arms would probably have had a vetch for the crest. Plutarch says that when he was about to enter into 1 'public -life he was advised to change his name of Cicero, but he proudly answered that he would make it more glorious than the names of the Scauri and the Catuli : and surely he kept his word.

14 THE BOYHOOD. [Mt. 1-16

son named Lucius, besides Cicero's father; and, according to most genealogists, a daughter Tullia, married to Caius Aculeo, a Roman knight. But Drumann asserts that he had no daughter, and that Aculeo, who was a learned lawyer and distinguished orator, was married to Cicero's maternal aunt, the sister of his mother. 1 He was also the intimate friend of L. Licinius Crassus, who contested the palm of eloquence with Antonius, the grandfather of the Triumvir, and Antonius himself was connected by marriage with Lucius, the paternal uncle of Cicero. 2

His father, who was also called Marcus, had weak health, and he preferred to reside on his property and lead the quiet life of a country gentleman, instead of engaging in the struggles of ambition and mingling in the society and bustle of Rome. But he had also literary tastes, and seems to have been a man of cultivated mind according to the measure of his opportunities. He had enlarged the old dwelling of the family, which appears previously to have been little better than an ordinary farm-house. The name of Cicero's mother was Helvia, of whose family noth-

2 The following genealogical table will be useful for reference: —

Marcus Tullius Cicero m. Gratidia.

M. T. Cicero m. Helvia. Lucius T. Cicero

M. T. Cicero m. (1) Terentia. Quintus T. Cicero m. Pomponia. Lucius t! Cioero I (2) Publilia. I

Cullia, m. (1) Piso. M. T. Cicero.

(2) Crassipes.

-(3) Dolabella.

Q. T. Cicero.

Lentalus.

ing more is known than what Plutarch tells us, and this is comprised in the short sentence that she was a lady well born. Cicero himself makes no allusion whatever to his mother in all his numerous works. One is curious to know whether she was a woman of strong intellect, and an instance amongst the many that could be quoted of mothers to whom their eons have owed the mental powers which have made them famous ; and in such cases it will generally be found that it has not been so much any brilliancy of imagination or accomplishment as native shrewdness and good sense, in fact, what we call motherwit, which has distinguished the mothers of celebrated men. An anecdote has been preserved of her, as told by her son Quintus in one of his letters, which shows that she was a careful housewife and looked well after her domestic concerns. He says that she used to seal up all the wine-jars in the house, even when they were empty, to prevent mistakes and discourage clandestine visits to the cellar. Cicero, as for the sake of convenience we shall call the subject of this biography, although that was properly his surname, had one younger brother, named Quintus, but no sister. At the usual time, that is on the ninth day after his birth, he received what we should call the baptismal name of Marcus, 1

1 This was called the dies lustricus. The full name, according to Roman style, would be written thus —

M. Tullius M. F. M. N. Cor. Cicero,

Marcus Tullius, Marci Filius, Marci Nepos, Cornelia, Cicero; that is, Mark Tully Cicero, son of Mark, grandson of Mark, of the Cornelian Tribe. In order to enjoy the rights of Roman citizenship it was necessary to be enrolled in one of the thirty-five tribes; and when the franchise was bestowed *n Arpinum, its inhabitants were included iu the Cornelian tribe.

16 THE BOYHOOD. [iET. 1-16.

which, as it was afterwards given to his own son, was thus kept in the family for at least four generations. Of his childish years at the family residence near Arpinum no anecdote has been preserved. Plutarch indeed says that when he began to learn he was so distinguished by his abilities, that the fathers of his schoolfellows used to visit the school that they might see the young prodigy, and some of then* were foolish enough to be annoyed because the boys when they walked together put Cicero in the middle as the place of honor. But this, if true, no doubt refers to the period when he had left Arpinum for Rome, as we shall see was the case during his boyhood, although the exact period is not known. He always had throughout life the greatest attachment to his birthplace, which he calls his cradle and ancestral home, and he seems to have loved its wild scenery with no ordinary fondness. Marius was a native of Arpinum, and just four years before the birth of Cicero had gained his brilliant victory over the savage hordes of Teutones and Ambones at Aquae Sextiae (the modern Aix) in the southeast of Gaul. This was followed next year by the complete and utter destruction of the Cimbri in a great battle fought near Verona, when Marius came to the rescue cf the proconsul Catulus, hard pressed by the barbarians, and by their overthrow saved Rome from an attack which would have been more terrible than that of the Gauls three centuries before. We may 'veil imagine, when the fame of these victories reached Arpinum, how proud the citizens were of the hero who had won them, and how they loved to talk in the forum and the market-place of his exploits, tell-

B.c. 106-91.] TAKEN TO ROME. 17

ing the tale to which the young Cicero must often, as he grew older, have lent a listening ear, and perhaps awakening in his mind that eager desire for distinction and applause which became the ruling passion of his life. 1 No memorial remains at Arpinum to mark the birthplace of the great Roman orator, but the fragment of an ancient altar built into the wall of a house on which are still seen the letters COS. VII., requires no name to show that it was erected in honor of Marius, for of him alone could it be said that he was seven times consul.

His parents must have soon observed that the young Cicero was a child of no ordinary promise, and this no doubt determined his father to take him and his brother Quintus to Rome, in order that they might there have the benefit of an education which it was impossible tcr procure at a provincial town. He therefore placed them both with their uncle Aculeo, who had a house in the street called Carince? that they might join their cousins in the usual course of education pursued by Roman youths of good family.

There is a curious remark by Niebuhr that Cicero in his youth was without friends. 3 But for this he

1 There was a distant connection between the families of Cicero and Marius in the following manner. A brother of Marius had adopted Gratidianus, the son of Gratidius, who was the brother-in-law of Cicero's grandfather.

2 Drumann, Gesch. Boms, V. 213, assuming that Cicero's father had a residence in Rome, says that he lived in the Carinae. It was one of the principal streets or perhaps "regions" of Rome. It lay between the Cc&- Jian and Esquiline mounts, and was then a fashionable quarter. Fompey had a house there. Virgil, jEn. VIII. 361, speaks of lautce Carina:.

3 Hist, of Rome, V. 30 (Ed. Schmitz). He in another passage qualifies this by saying, " He seems to have passed his youth without any intimate friend; and it was only in his maturer age that a true friendship was formed between him and Atticus."

VOL. I. 9

18 THE BOYHOOD. |>Et. 1-16

certainly had no authority. I should be inclined to believe that the direct contrary is the truth, and to say that few young men are likely to have had more. His amiable disposition and lovable nature, in which there was no coldness or reserve, to say nothing of his splendid talents and genial wit, must have made him one of the most companionable of men. Quick, warm, and impulsive in feeling, he was singularly fitted to form early friendships, and we need not doubt that he did so. But alas ! how often are our early friendships buried prematurely in the grave. Who of us cannot from his own sad experience verify the mournful lines of the poet, —

They, the young and strong, who cherished

Noble longings for the strife, By the wayside fell and perished,

Wearied with the march of life ?

We do not know with any certainty whether Marcus the father left his sons under the care of their uncle and returned to his retreat in the neighborhood of Arpinum, or whether he stayed at Rome to superintend their education. I think it is very probable that he sacrificed his inclination for a rural life to a sense of duty, and took up his residence, for a time at least, in the great metropolis ; for Cicero speaks affectionately of the pains he took in instructing his sons, or in giving them the means of instruction (in nobis erudiendis), and calls him a most wise and excellent man. 1

The two brothers, stimulated by the reputation of Crassus, and perhaps at his recommendation, attended the lectures of the same professors or teach-

b.c. 106-91. J CRASSUS AND ANTONIUS. 19

ers whom he had used for the purposes of his own education. These seem to have been Greeks, and the object was not only to learn the language, with which Crassus was so familiar that it seemed to be his native tongue, but to acquire those branches of instruction such as rhetoric, grammar, and composi tion, which Greek teachers were alone at that period competent to impart at Rome. Cicero became very intimate, notwithstanding his extreme youth, not only with him but with Antonius, the grandfather of the Triumvir, who divided with Crassus the palm of Roman eloquence in those days ; and he expressly mentions that he used to apply for information from time to time to Antonius, and put questions to him as far as his boyish modesty allowed him to venture with so distinguished a man. We can well believe that both Crassus and Antonius took delight in gratifying the eager curiosity of so intelligent an inquirer, and must have felt respecting him what Lady Holland said to her husband, the first Lord Holland, of " little William Pitt," that he was " really the cleverest child she ever saw." a In alluding to these two eminent men at an advanced period of his life, Cicero says that with regard to Greek literature the difference between them was this : Crassus wished to have the reputation of knowing it, but affected to despise it, giving the preference in all things, including literature, in which the Latin language was up to that time miserably deficient, to the native productions of Rome over those of Greece, while Antonius, in compliance with that narrow-minded bigotry which the Romans mistook for patriotism, pretended

1 Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt, Vol. I. p. 4.

20 THE BOYHOOD. [At. 1-16.

complete ignorance of both the language and literature of Greece. But the object of both was the same. They thought that the effect of their oratorywould be lessened before a Roman audience if they were supposed to be admirers of a nation whom their countrymen so thoroughly despised. Crassus therefore took care to vaunt his preference for everything Roman, while Antonius thought the safer plan would be to have it supposed that he was wholly ignorant of the exotic article.

There were two schools — we may almost call them parties — of education at Rome in those days. The one was the Latin, the other the Greek school. 1 The first who opened a school for instruction in Latin literature there, was Lucius Plautius, about the time when young Cicero removed from Arpinum to the capital, and he wished to become a student at his lectures, which were well attended. But he reluctantly yielded to the advice of friends, who thought that he had better devote himself exclusively to Greek. Perhaps the wiser plan would have been to allow a boy of such industry and aptitude to study both, but if the choice lay between the two, beyond all doubt they acted rightly in giving preference to Greek, for Latin literature was then still in its in-

1 About half a century before Cicero was born the Senate passed a re90* lution banishing philosophers and rhetoricians from Rome. The then censors brought the subject again under the notice of the Senate, saying that men who called themselves " Latin rhetoricians " had introduced a new kind of learning, and their schools were frequented by young men who idled away their time there for whole days together (ibi homines adolescentulos dies totos desidere). They declared that they did not like the noveUy, And called on the Senate to mark its displeasure against both teachers and pupils. They were ordered to shut up their " schools of impudence " (&*- dum impudentice). ■ - De Or at. III. 24.

B.C. 106-91.] STUDY OF GREEK LITERATURE. 21

fancy, and the language had not been enriched by the prose of Cicero, Sallust, Varro, and Livy, and by the poetry of Lucretius, Virgil, Catullus, and Horace. The only Latin poets who had then written, were Pacuvius, Naevius, and Ennius, and the only Latin histories were the dry and meagre annals of Fabius Pictor, Calpurnius Piso, and others.

Greek, however, had become at this time the fashionable study at Rome, and occupied something of the same position in a course of education that French does amongst ourselves. And Cicero tells us that the language was cultivated in Latium, or, as we should say, in the provinces, even more zealously than in the capital. It was considered the accomplishment of a gentleman, -and Greek phrases and Greek quotations were everywhere current in good society. Even the sturdy Cato, the ^ensoi^ who despised the nation and their effeminate character, and who had deemed their literature beneath the attention of a Roman, at last gave way to the prevailing Graeco-mania, and, according to a well-known story, applied himself in extreme old age to the study of the language. Cicero, as might be expected from his exquisite taste, was passionately fond of Greek literature, and his letters abound in expressions and quotations which prove his intimate familiarity with the rich treasures it contains. One practical reason for learning that language thoroughly was, that he might be able to converse with hi& Greek teachers, who seem to have been able to speak Latin only imperfectly, and in some cases perhaps not at all. Phaedrus, the Epicurean, was one of his instructors, and he speaks of him in terms of peculiar regard.

22 THE BOYHOOD. [Mt. 1-ltt

He became also a pupil of the poet Archias. He was a Greek who had come to Rome from Antioch when Cicero was five years old, and, according to the usual custom of those days, resided in the house of a Roman patron, the wealthy Lucullus. His reputation as a poet depends exclusively on the speech which Cicero in later years delivered in defence of his former teacher and friend, for not a line of his verses has been preserved, but we know that he composed laudatory poems in honor of some of the noble families of Rome.

His intimacy with Archias may have awakened in Cicero the desire to be himself also a poet. We are told by Plutarch, that when very young he composed a poem called Pontius Glaucus, the hero of which was a fisherman of Bceotia who, having eaten a cer- Jfcainplant, went mad and sprang into the sea, where he was changed into a sea-god, the place from which he made the fatal spring being afterwards known as the Glaucus-leap. He translated also into Latin verse two Greek poems on astronomy or subjects connected with that science — the Phenomena and Prognostica or Diosemeia of Aratus, whose works were very popular at Rome. Although he had not the poetic faculty in the proper sense of the word, and frankly acknowledged this himself, he had great facility in the composition of verses, and amused himself with it at different periods of his life. Some of his productions were long poems such as the Marius, which seems to have been written during the life of that hero, 1 and was an epic celebration of hia

i Dramann, Gesch. Roms, V. 221, ingeniously fixes the date of this poem is b. c. 87, when Cicero therefore was nineteen years old.