Cic'e-ro, [Gr. Kwcepuv; It. Cicerone, che-cha-ro'ni ;
Fr. Ciceron, se'sa'rdN'; Ger. Cicero, tsits'J-ro; Sp.
Ciceron, the-thA-r6n',] (Marcus Tullius,) often called
Tully by English writers, an illustrious Roman orator,
philosopher, and statesman, was born at Arpinum, (now
Arpino,) about seventy miles east-southeast of Rome,
on the 3d of January, 106 B.C., (647 A.u.C) He was a
son of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an opulent citizen of the
equestrian order, who owned an estate near Arpinum and
devoted much time to literary pursuits. His mother's
name was Helvia. His early education was directed by
Archias the Greek poet, Q. yElius the grammarian, and
other teachers, at Rome. During his minority he composed
a number of poems, among which was " Pontius
Glaucus," which is lost. His disposition was genial and
amiable. He learned to speak Greek fluently, and was
profoundly versed in Greek literature and philosophy.
Having assumed the manly gown (toga virilis) in his
sixteenth year, (91 B.C.,) he applied himself to the study
of law under Mucius Scaevola the Augur, an eminent
jurist and statesman.
In the year 89 B.C. he served a campaign under Cneius
Pompeius Strabo in the Social war, in obedience to the
law which then required every citizen to perform military
service. During the six ensuing years after this campaign
he passed his life in studious retirement, and took
no part in the bloody civil war between Marius and
Sulla. He attended the lectures of the Greek philosopher
Philo, the chief of the New Academy, studied logic
with Diodotus the Stoic, and was instructed in rhetoric
by Apollonius Molo of Rhodes. " He had," says Plutarch,
" both the capacity and inclination to learn all the
arts, nor was there any branch of science that he despised
: yet he was most inclined to poetry. ... In
process of time he was looked upon as the best poet as
well as the greatest orator in Rome. His reputation for
oratory still remains; . . . but, as many ingenious poets
have appeared since his time, his poetry has lost its
credit and is now neglected." In his admirable oration
" Pro Archia," Cicero informs us that Archias the poet
exerted great influence over the formation of his taste
and the development and direction of his genius. Among
his early productions was a heroic poem entitled "Marius,"
which is not extant : also a treatise on rhetoric,
entitled " De Inventione Rhetorica."
Having laid a solid foundation for his fame by the
severe and systematic discipline of his rare talents, and
by assiduous efforts to perfect his elocution by the
practice
of declamation, he began, at the age of twenty-five,
his career as a pleader in the Forum. An argument
which he made in 81 B.C. for his client P. Quinctius, in a
civil suit, is still extant. The first important criminal
trial in which he was employed was that of Sextus Roscius
Amerinus, who was accused of parricide by an agent of
the dictator Sulla, the dread of whose power and cruelty
was so great that all the other advocates declined to appear
for the defence. Cicero defended him with success,
denounced the malice and iniquity of the prosecutor, and
gained great applause by his courage and eloquence.
This event occurred in the twenty-seventh year of his
age. His physical constitution in his youth was so delicate
that his medical friends advised him to abandon
the bar. "My body," says he, "was very weak and
emaciated, my neck long and small, which is a habit
thought liable to great risk of life, if engaged in any
fatigue or labour of the lungs." He therefore resolved
to improve his health by travel, and to finish his education
by visits to the famous seats of learning and art in
Greece and Asia. Having departed from Rome in 79
B.C., he spent about six months in Athens, where ne
pursued his favourite studies with Antiochus of Ascalon,
Zeno the Epicurean,, and Demetrius Syrus. He also
enjoyed in Athens the society of Pomponius Atticus,
with whom he formed a lasting and memorable friendship,
lie afterwards travelled extensively in Asia Minor.
"He came back again to Italy," says Middleton-, "after
an excursion of two years, extremely improved, and
changed, as it were, into a new man : the vehemence of
his voice and action was moderated, the redundancy of
his style and fancy corrected, his lungs strengthened,
and his whole constitution confirmed."
In 76 B.C. he was elected quaestor (paymaster) by
the unanimous suffrage of all the tribes. The quaestors
were sent annually into the several provinces, one with
every proconsul or governor, to whom he was next in
authority. The office of quaestor was the first step in the
gradation of public honours, and entitled him to an
admission
into the senate for life. He officiated as quaestor
in Sicily, and performed his duties with such integrity,
moderation, and humanity that he won, it is said, the
love and admiration of all the Sicilians. As he was
returning
to Rome (74 B.C.) somewhat elated with his success,
and entertaining the idea that the great capital was
resounding with his praises, he met one of his
acquaintances,
a person of eminence, and inquired what they said
and thought of his actions in Rome. The answer was,
"
Why, where have you been, then, Cicero, all this time ?"
He then perceived that the reports of his conduct and
services had been lost in Rome, as in an immense
sea, and had added little or nothing to his reputation.
About 76 B.C. he married a rich heiress, named Terentia.
The law prescribed that five years should elapse after his
election to the quaestorship (or that he must attain the
age of thirty-eight) before he could hold the office of
aedile, which was the next in the ascending scale. The
orations which he pronounced during this period have
not been preserved. His principal rival in forensic
eloquence
was Hortensius, whom he soon surpassed. According
to Plutarch,
"
it was not by slow and insensible
degrees that he gained the palm of eloquence : his fame
shot foi th at once, and he was distinguished above all
the orators of Rome." He excelled in sarcasm and
witty repartees, with which he often seasoned his forensic
arguments. All the resources of his genius, his art, his
learning and influence were freely devoted to the defence
of those whose lives or dignity or reputations were
judicially assailed. He received no pay for his services
as an advocate. He deviated from his general rule and
practice of pleading for the defendant, in the case of the
infamous Caius Verres, who in 70 B.C. was impeached
by the Sicilians for atrocious acts of cruelty and rapine,
but was supported by the most powerful families of
Rome, including the Metelli. At the urgent request of
the Sicilians, Cicero conducted the prosecution of Verres,
who employed Hortensius to defend him ; but the
evidence against the accused was so overwhelming that
his counsel declined to plead, or had nothing to say, the
defence suddenly collapsed, and Verres himself, anticipating
his sentence, went into exile. Cicero, therefore,
actually spoke only two of his seven celebrated orations
against Verres ; but the others were published, and remain
a noble and imperishable monument of his versatile
and almost universal genius.
Having acquired great popularity, he was elected to
the aedileship, in 70 B.C., by a majority of the voters of
every tribe. As aedile, he had the care of the sacred
edifices, and was required by law or usage to gratify the
people with public games and shows and costly pageants,
partly at his own expense. In the year 67 he
offered himself as a candidate for the office of praetor,
which was one grade higher than that of aedile, and next
in dignity to the consulship. Although he had several
eminent competitors, he was elected the first praetor
urbanus by the suffrages of all the centuries. The duty
of the praetors was to preside as judges in the highest
courts, and their jurisdictions were assigned to them by
lot, which decided that Cicero should judge in cases of
extortion and rapine of which governors of provinces
were accused. " As a president in the courts of justice,
he acted with great integrity and honour." (Plutarch's
"Life of Cicero.") While he held the office of prxtor
(66 B.C.) he made an important and famous political oration
for the Manilian Law, (" Pro Lege Manilia,") the
design of which was to appoint Pompey commanderin-
chief in the war against Mithridates the Great. This
was the first occasion on which Cicero ever mounted
the rostrum. The Manilian Law, although strenuously
opposed by the nobles, or optimates, and many powerful
senators, was adopted. In the same year he defended
A. Cluentius, (who was accused of poisoning his fatherin-
law,) in a plea which is still extant.
At the expiration of his praetorship, Cicero would not
accept the government of a foreign p'rovince, which, says
Middleton,
" was the usual reward of that magistracy,
and the chief fruit which the generality proposed from
it. . . . The glory which he pursued was to shine in the
eyes of the city as the guardian of its laws, and to teach
the magistrates how to execute, the citizens how to obey
them. But he was now preparing to sue for the consulship,
the great object of all his hopes." The most formidable
obstacle to his ambition was the jealousy of the
nobles or aristocrats, who regarded the highest office as
their birthright, and who would oppose the election of a
" new man," (novus homo,) as they called all men whose
ancestors were mere private citizens. He offered himself
as a candidate for the consulship in his forty-third
year, 64 B.C., with six competitors, among whom were
P. Sulpicius Galba, C. Antonius, and L. Sergius Catilina.
The last two formed a coalition against Cicero, and were
favoured by Caesar and Crassus. During the canvass
Cicero uttered a severe invective on the habits and
characters
of Catiline and Antonius, in his oration "In Toga
Candida." The election resulted in the choice of Cicero
andC. Antonius, the former of whom received the votes
of all the centuries, and was the only
" new man" that
had been chosen consul in forty years. Among the
events of this year was the birth of his only son. He
had also a daughter, Tullia, who was born several years
earlier and was the object of his warmest affection. She
was a very amiable and accomplished woman.
He entered upon the office on the 1st of January, 63
B.C., and found the republic in a very critical and perilous
condition, distracted by pestilent laws and seditious
harangues and undermined by pervading corruption and
traitorous conspiracies. The difficulty was increased by
the fact that his colleague Antonius was a man of bad
(though feeble) character and was opposed to the policy
of Cicero. The latter, however, secured the co-operation,
or at least the neutrality, of Antonius, by a bargain
that he should have the best and most lucrative of the
provinces which were to be assigned to the consuls at
the expiration of their term. He promoted the cause
of liberty and order by another capital stroke of policy
when he induced the senators and the equites (knights)
to form a political alliance and unite in a common party.
" He was," says Middleton, "the only man in the city
capable of effecting such a coalition, being now at the
head of the senate, yet the darling of the knights." By
an artful and powerful speech he persuaded the people
to reject an agrarian law proposed by Rullus, a tribune
of the people. According to Niebuhr, this was " one of
the most brilliant achievements of eloquence." He defended
Kabirius, (accused of the murder of L. Satuininus,
who had been dead about forty years,) in an oration which
is extant.
The most memorable part of his administration appears
in the ability, courage, and elastic energy with
which he detected and baffled the nefarious designs of
Catiline and his accomplices. Catiline was a candidate
for the consulship in the election of 63 B.C., and hired
assassins to kill Cicero in the Campus Martius when he
should come to preside at the election ; but, as the consul
came guarded by armed men, the plot failed, and
Catiline was not elected. This second repulse rendered
him furious. He conspired to seize the chief power by
the burning of the city and a general massacre of the
senators and the Hand* of order. His capacity and
resources for such an enterprise were very great, and
he was abetted by vast numbers of disaffected and desperate
men, some of whom were of high rank and great
influence. The leaders of this plot met on the 6th of
November, and arranged the immediate execution of
the same ; but their plans were revealed to Cicero by
Fulvia, the mistress of one of the conspirators, and when
two of then went to his house next morning to assassinate
the consul they found it well guarded. On the
8th
Read More
Marcus Tullius. The greatest of the Roman orators. He was born at Arpinum, the native place of Marius, B.C. 106, the same year
which gave birth to Pompey the Great. His family was ancient, and of equestrian rank, but had never taken part in public
affairs at Rome, though both his father and grandfather were persons of consideration in the part of Italy in which they
resided. His father, being a man of cultivated mind, determined to educate his two sons, Marcus and Quintus, on an enlarged
and liberal plan, and to fit them for the prospect of those public employments which his own weak state of health
incapacitated him from seeking. Marcus, the elder of the two, soon displayed indications of a superior mind, and we are told
that his school-fellows carried home such accounts of his extraordinary parts that their parents often visited the school for
the sake of seeing a boy who gave so much promise of future eminence. One of his earliest masters was the poet Archias, whom
he defended afterwards in his consular year; and under his instruction he attained such proficiency as to compose a poem,
though yet a boy, on the fable of Glaucus, which had formed the subject of one of the tragedies of Aeschylus. Soon after he
assumed the toga virilis, he was placed under the care of Scaevola, the celebrated lawyer, whom he introduces so beautifully
in several of his philosophical dialogues; and in no long time he gained a thorough knowledge of the laws and political
institutions of his country. This was about the period of the Social War; and, according to the Roman custom, which made it a
necessary part of education to learn military science by actual service, Cicero took the opportunity of serving a campaign
under the consul Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey the Great. Returning to pursuits more congenial to his natural tastes, he
commenced the study of philosophy under Philo the Academic. But his chief attention was reserved for oratory, to which he
applied himself with the assistance of Molo, the ablest rhetorician of the day; while Diodotus the Stoic exercised him in the
argumentative subtleties for which the disciples of Zeno were so celebrated. At the same time he declaimed daily in Greek and
Latin with certain young noblemen, who were competitors in the same race for honours with himself.
Cicero was the first Roman who found his way to the highest dignities of the State with no other recommendation than his
powers of eloquence and his merits as a civil magistrate. The first case of importance which he undertook was the defence of
Roscius Amerinus, in which he distinguished himself by his courageous defence of his client, who had been accused of parricide
by Chrysogonus, a favourite of Sulla 's. This obliging him, however, according to Plutarch, to leave Rome from prudential
motives, the power of Sulla being at that time paramount, he employed his time in travelling for two years under pretence of
his health, which he tells us was as yet unequal to the exertion of pleading. At Athens he met with T. Pomponius Atticus, whom
he had formerly known at school, and there renewed with him a friendship which lasted through life, in spite of the change of
interests and estrangement of affection so commonly attendant on turbulent times. Here, too, he attended the lectures of
Antiochus, who, under the name of an Academic, taught the dogmatic doctrines of Plato and the Stoics. Though Cicero at first
evinced considerable dislike for his philosophical views, he seems afterwards to have adopted the sentiments of the Old
Academy, which they much resembled, and not until late in life to have relapsed into the sceptical tenets of his earlier
instructor Philo. See Philosophia.
After visiting the principal philosophers and rhetoricians of Asia, he returned at the age of thirty to Rome, so strengthened
and improved both in bodily and mental powers that he soon eclipsed in speaking all his competitors for public favour. Such
brilliant gifts speedily gained him the suffrage of the people; and being sent to Sicily as quaestor, at a time when the
metropolis itself was visited with a scarcity of corn, he acquitted himself in that delicate situation with so much success as
to supply the clamorous wants of the Romans without oppressing the province from which the provisions were raised. Returning
thence with greater honours than had ever before been decreed to a Roman governor, he gained for himself still further the
esteem of the Sicilians by undertaking his celebrated prosecution of Verres (q.v.) for his misgovernment of Sicily. Verres,
though defended by the influence of the Metelli and the eloquence of Hortensius (q.v.), was driven in despair into voluntary
exile. Five years after his quaestorship Cicero was elected aedile. Though possessed of only a moderate fortune, he
nevertheless, with the good sense and taste which mark his character, was enabled, while holding this expensive office, to
preserve in his domestic arrangements the dignity of a literary and public man, without any of the ostentation of magnificence
which often distingnished the candidate for popular applause. After the customary interval of two years, he was returned at
the head of the list as praetor, and now made his first appearance on the Rostra in support of the Manilian law. (See Lex
Manilia.) About the same time, also, he defended Cluentius. At the expiration of his praetorship, he refused to accept a
foreign province, the usual reward of that magistracy; but, having the consulship in view, and relying on his interest with
Caesar and Pompey, he allowed nothing to divert him from that career of glory for which he now believed himself to be
destined. Having succeeded at length in attaining to the high office of which he was in quest, he signalized his consulship by
crushing the conspiracy of Lucius Catiline; and the Romans hailed him, on the discovery and overthrow of this nefarious plot,
as the Father and Deliverer of his country. His consulate was succeeded by the return of Pompey from the East, and the
establishment of the First Triumvirate; which, disappointing his hopes of political greatness, induced him to resume his
forensic and literary occupations. From these he was called away, after an interval of four years, by the threatening measures
of P. Clodius (q. v.), who at length succeeded in driving him into exile. This event, which, considering the circumstances
connected with it, was one of the most glorious of his life, filled him with the utmost distress and despondency. Its history
is as follows: Clodius, Cicero's bitter enemy, had caused a law to be renewed, declaring every one guilty of treason who
ordered the execution of a Roman citizen before the people had condemned him. The blow was aimed against Cicero, on account of
the punishment he had caused to be inflicted, by the authority of the Senate, upon the accomplices of Catiline. The
illustrious exconsul put on mourning, and appeared in public, accompanied by the equites and many young patricians, demanding
the protection of the people. Clodius, however, at the head of his armed adherents, insulted them repeatedly, and ventured
even to besiege the Senate-house. Cicero, upon this, went into voluntary exile. His conduct, however, in this reverse of
fortune, showed anything but the firmness of a man of fortitude. He wandered about Greece, bewailing his miserable condition,
refusing the consolations which his friends attempted to administer, and shunning the public honours with which the Greek
cities were eager to load him. He ultimately took refuge in Thessalonica with Plancus. Clodius, in the meantime, procured new
decrees, in consequence of which Cicero's country-seats were torn down, and a temple of Libertas built on the site of his
house at Rome. His wife and children were also exposed to ill-usage from his embittered persecutors. A favourable change,
however, soon took place in the minds of his countrymen. The insolence of Clodius became insupportable to all. Pompey
encouraged Cicero's friends to get him recalled to Rome, and the Senate also declared that it would not attend to any business
until the decree which ordered his banishment was revoked. Through the zeal of the consul Lentulus, and at the proposition of
several tribunes, the decree of recall passed the assembly of the people in the following year, in spite of a bloody tumult,
in which Cicero's brother Quintus was dangerously wounded; and the orator returning to his native country after an absence of
ten months, was received with every mark of honour. The Senate met him at the city gates, and his entry resembled a triumphal
procession. The attacks of Clodius, though they could now do little harm, were immediately renewed, until Cicero was freed
from the insults of this turbulent demagogue by the hand of Milo, whom he afterwards, in a public trial for the deed,
unsuccessfully defended. (See Milo.) Five years after his return from exile he received the government of Cilicia, in
consequence of Pompey's law, which obliged those senators of consular or praetorian rank, who had never held any foreign
command, to divide the vacant provinces among them. Cicero conducted a war, while
Cicero. (Capitoline Museum.)
in this office, with good success against the plundering tribes of the mountain districts of Cilicia, and was greeted by his
soldiers with the title of Imperator. He resigned his command, and returned to Italy about the close of the year 50, intending
to prefer his claim to a triumph; but the troubles which were just then commencing between Caesar and Pompey prevented him
from obtaining one. His return home was followed by earnest endeavours to reconcile Pompey with Caesar, and by very spirited
behaviour when Caesar required his presence in the Senate. But this independent temper was only transient; and at no period of
his public life did he display such miserable vacillation as at the opening of the Civil War. His conduct, in this respect,
had been faulty enough before, for he then vacillated between the several members of the First Triumvirate, defending Vatinius
in order to please Caesar, and his bitter political enemy Gabinius to ingratiate himself with Pompey. Now, however, we find
him first accepting a commission from the Republic; then courting Caesar; next, on Pompey's sailing for Greece, resolving to
follow him thither; presently determining to stand neutral; then bent on retiring to the Pompeians in Sicily; and when finally
he had joined their camp in Greece, exhibiting such timidity and discontent as to draw from Pompey the bitter remark, Cupio ad
hostes Cicero transeat, ut nos timeat (Macrob. Sat. ii. 3).
After the battle of Pharsalia (B.C. 48) and the flight of Pompey, he refused to take the command of some troops then under the
orders of Cato , but returned to Italy, which was governed by Antony, the representative of Caesar. His return was attended
with several unpleasant circumstances, until the conqueror wrote to him, and soon after received him in the most friendly
spirit. Cicero now devoted himself entirely to literature and philosophy. The state of his private affairs, however, involved
him in great embarrassment. A large sum, which he had advanced to Pompey, had impoverished him, and he was forced to stand
indebted to Atticus for present assistance. These difficulties led him to a step which it has been customary to regard with
great severity-the divorce of his wife Terentia, though he was then in his sixty-second year, and his marriage with his rich
ward Publilia, who was of an age disproportionate to his own. Yet, in reviewing this proceeding, we must not adopt the modern
standard of propriety, forgetful of the character of an age which reconciled actions even of moral turpitude with a reputation
for honour and virtue. Terentia was a woman of a most imperious and violent temper, and had, besides, in no slight degree
contributed to his present embarrassment by her extravagance in the management of his private affairs. By her he had had two
children-a son born the year before his consulship, and a daughter, whose loss he was now fated to experience. To Tullia he
was tenderly attached, not only from the excellence of her disposition, but from her love of polite literature; and her death
now took from him, as he so pathetically laments to Sulpicius, the only comfort which the course of public events had left
him. His distress was increased by the unfeeling conduct of Publilia, whom he soon divorced for testifying joy at the death of
her step-daughter. It was on this occasion that he wrote the treatise De Consolatione, with a view to mitigate the anguish of
his sufferings. His friends were assiduous in their attentions; and Caesar, who had treated him with the utmost kindness on
his return from Egypt, signified the respect he bore his character by sending a letter of condolence from Spain, where the
remains of the Pompeian party still engaged him. But no attentions, however considerate, could soften Cicero's vexation at
seeing the country he had formerly saved by his exertions now subjected to the dominion of a single master. His speeches,
indeed, for Marcellus and Ligarius exhibit traces of inconsistency; but for the most part he retired from public business, and
gave himself up to the composition of those works which, while they mitigated his political sorrows, have secured his literary
fame.
The assassination of Caesar, which took place in the following year (B.C. 44), once more brought him on the stage of public
affairs. He hoped to regain great political influence; but Antony took Caesar's place, and all that was left Cicero to do was
to compose those vigorous orations against him which are known by the name of Philippics, and are equally distinguished for
eloquence and patriotism. His enmity towards Antony induced him to favour the young Octavianus, although the pretended
moderation of the latter by no means deceived him. With him originated all the energetic resolutions of the Senate in favour
of the war which the consuls and the young Caesar were conducting against Antony in the name of the Republic; and for a time
the prospect seemed to brighten. At last, however, Octavianus having possessed himself of the consulship, and having formed
the alliance with Antony and Lepidus known as the Second Triumvirate, Cicero became convinced that liberty was at an end. At
Tusculum, whither he had retired with his brother and his nephew, he learned that Octavianus had basely deserted him, and that
his name, at Antony's demand, had been added to the list of the proscribed. He repaired, in a state of indecision, to the sea-
coast and embarked. Contrary winds, however, drove him back to the shore. At the request of his slaves he embarked a second
time, but soon returned again to await his fate at his country-seat near Formiae. "I will die," said he, "in that country
which I have so often saved." Here, then, he was disposed to remain and to meet his death; but his slaves, who were warmly
attached to him, could not bear to see him thus sacrificed; and when the party of soldiers sent to murder him was advancing
towards the villa, they almost used force to make him enter his litter, and to allow them to carry him once more on board of
the vessel, which was still lying at Caieta. But, as they were bearing the litter towards the sea, they were overtaken in the
walks of his own grounds by the soldiers who were in search of him, and who were headed by one Herennius, a centurion, and by
C. Popilius Laenas. Popilius was a native of Picenum, and had, on a former occasion, been successfully defended by Cicero,
when brought to trial for some offence before the courts at Rome. As the assistance of advocates was given gratuitously, the
connection between them and their clients was esteemed very differently from what it is among us; and it was therefore an
instance of peculiar atrocity that Popilius offered his services to Antony to murder his patron, from no other motive than the
hope of gaining his favour by showing such readiness to destroy his greatest enemy. The slaves of Cicero, undismayed at the
appearance of the soldiers, prepared to defend their master; but he refused to allow any blood to be shed on his account, and
commanded them to set down the litter and await the issue in silence. He was obeyed; and when the soldiers came up he
stretched out his head with perfect calmness, and submitted his neck to the sword of Popilius. He died in his sixty-third
year, B.C. 43. When the murder was accomplished the soldiers cut off his two hands also, as the instruments with which he had
written his Philippic orations; and the head and hands were carried to Rome, and exposed together at the Rostra. Men crowded
to see the mournful sight, and testified by their tears the compassion and affection which his unworthy death, and his pure
and amiable character, had so justly deserved.
On the whole, antiquity may be challenged to produce an individual so upright and so amiable as Cicero. None interest us more
in their lives; none excite more painful emotions in their deaths. Others may be found of loftier and more heroic character,
who awe and subdue the mind by the grandeur of their views or the intensity of their exertions; but Cicero wins our affections
by the integrity of his public conduct, the purity of his private life, the generosity, placability, and kindness of his
heart, the playfulness of his temper, and the warmth of his domestic attachments. In this respect his letters are invaluable.
Here we see the man without disguise or affectation, especially in his letters to Atticus, to whom he unbosomed every thought,
and talked with the same frankness as to himself. It must, however, be confessed that the publication of this same
correspondence has laid open the defects of his political character. Everything seemed to point out Cicero as the fittest
person of the day to be a mediator between contending factions. And yet, after the eventful period of his consulship, we see
him resigning the high station in the Republic which he himself might have filled, to the younger Cato , who, with only half
his abilities, little foresight, and no address, possessed that first requisite for a statesman, firmness. Cicero, on the
contrary, was irresolute, timid, and inconsistent. He talked, indeed, largely of preserving a middle course, but he was
continually vacillating from one to the other extreme; always too confident or too dejected; incorrigibly vain of success, yet
meanly panegyrizing the government of a usurper. His foresight, sagacity, practical good sense, and singular tact in directing
men's measures, were lost for want of that strength of mind which points them steadily to one object. He was never decided,
and never took an important step without afterwards repenting of it. Nor can we account for the firmness and resolution of his
consulate, unless we discriminate between the ease of resisting a party and that of balancing contending interests.
We may now consider Cicero as a public speaker and writer. The orations that he is known to have composed amount in all to
107, of which seventyseven, either entire or in part, have been preserved. All those pronounced by him during the five years
intervening between his election to the quaestorship and the aedileship have perished, except that for M. Tullius, the
exordium and narratio of which were brought to light by the discoveries of Mai in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. From the
same quarter have been obtained many other proofs of the eloquence of Cicero, among the most important of which are a large
fragment of the oration for Scaurus, and detached portions of that delivered against Clodius for his profanation of the
mysteries of the Bona Dea. Of all the lost orations, the two most regretted are that in defence of Cornelius, and the speech
delivered by him in the Temple of Bellona in quelling the disturbance excited by the law of Otho. (See Roscia Lex.) This last
is said to have been one of the most signal victories of eloquence over the turbulence of human passions, while to the former
Cicero himself frequently alludes as among the most finished of his compositions. The oration for Marcellus is maintained by
many to be a spurious performance. It would seem, however, after weighing all the arguments adduced by modern critics, that a
part is actually genuine, but that much has been subsequently interpolated by some rhetorician or declaimer.
Of the rhetorical works of Cicero, the most admired and finished is the dialogue De Oratore, of which Cicero himself highly
approved, and which his friends were accustomed to regard as one of the finest of his productions. In the Oratoriae
Partitiones, the subject is the art of arranging and distributing the parts of an oration so as to adapt them in the best
manner to their proper end-that of moving and persuading an audience. In the dialogue on famous orators, entitled Brutus, he
gives a short description of all who had ever flourished in Greece or Rome, with any considerable reputation for eloquence,
down to his own time. It was intended as a fourth and supplemental book to the treatise De Oratore. The Orator, addressed to
Brutus, and written at his solicitation, was intended to complete the two works just mentioned. It enlarges on the favourite
topic of Cicero, which had already been partially discussed in the treatise De Oratore-the character of the perfect orator;
and seeks to confirm his favourite proposition-that perfection in oratory requires an extensive acquaintance with every art.
It is on the merits of this work in particular that Cicero, in a letter to a friend, asserts his perfect willingness that his
reputation should be staked. The Topica is a compendium of the Topica of Aristotle. The treatise De Optimo Genere Oratorum was
originally intended as a preface to a translation of the celebrated orations of Demosthenes and Aeschines De Corona. The work
De Inventione was a youthful performance; and that addressed to Herennius, according to the best authorities, never proceeded
from his pen. In all Cicero's rhetorical works, except, perhaps, the Orator, he professes to have digested the principles of
the Aristotelian and Isocratic schools into one finished system, selecting what was best in each, and, as occasion might
offer, adding remarks and precepts of his own. The subject is considered in three distinct lights, with reference to
1. the case,
2. the speaker, and
3. the speech.
The case, as respects its nature, is definite or indefinite; with reference to the hearer, it is judicial, deliberative, or
descriptive; as regards the opponent, the division is fourfold-according as the fact, its nature, its quality, or its
propriety is called in question. The art of the speaker is directed to five points: the sources of persuasion (whether
ethical, pathetic, or argumentative), arrangement, diction, memory, delivery. And the speech itself consists of six parts:
introduction (or exordium), statement of the case, division of the subject, proof, refutation, and conclusion or peroration.
Cicero's laudatory orations are among his happiest efforts. Nothing can exceed the taste and beauty of those for the Manilian
law, for Marcellus, for Ligarius, for Archias, and the Ninth Philippic, which is principally in praise of Servius Sulpicius.
But it is in judicial eloquence, particularly on subjects of a lively cast, as in his speeches for Caelius and Muraena and
against Caecilius, that his talents are displayed to the best advantage. To both kinds his urbane and pleasant cast of mind
imparts inexpressible grace and delicacy; historical allusions, philosophical sentiments, descriptions full of life and
nature, and polite raillery, succeed each other in the most agreeable manner, without appearance of artifice or effort. Of
this nature are his pictures of the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators on detection ( In Cat. iii. 3); of the death of
Metellus (Pro Cael. 10); of Sulpicius undertaking the embassy to Antony (Philipp. ix. 3); the character he draws of Catiline
(Pro Cael. 6); and his fine sketch of old Appius frowning on his degenerate descendant Clodia (ib. 6). But, by the formation
of a style which adapts itself with singular felicity to every class of subjects, whether lofty or familiar, philosophical or
forensic, Cicero answers more exactly to his own definition of a perfect orator ( Orat. 29) than by his plausibility, pathos,
and vivacity. Among many excellences possessed by Cicero's oratorical diction, the greatest is its suitability to the genius
of the Latin language; though the diffuseness thence necessarily resulting has exposed it, both in his own days and since his
time, to the criticisms of those who have affected to condemn its Asiatic character, in comparison with the simplicity of
Attic writers and the strength of Demosthenes. Greek, however, is celebrated for copiousness in its vocabulary and perspicuity
in its phrases, and its consequent facility of expressing the most novel or abstruse ideas with precision and elegance. Hence
the Attic style of eloquence was plain and simple, because simplicity and plainness were not incompatible with clearness,
energy, and harmony. But it was a singular want of judgment, an ignorance of the very principles of composition, which induced
Brutus, Calvus, Sallust, and others, to imitate this terse and severe beauty in their own defective language, and even to
pronounce the opposite kind of diction deficient in taste and purity. In Greek, indeed, the words fall, as it were, naturally
into a distinct and harmonious order; and, from the exuberant richness of the materials, less is left to the ingenuity of the
artist. But the Latin language is comparatively weak, scanty, and unmusical, and requires considerable skill and management to
render it expressive and graceful. Simplicity in Latin is scarcely separable from baldness; and justly as Terence is
celebrated for chaste and unadorned diction, yet even he, compared with Attic writers, is flat and heavy. Again, the
perfection of strength is clearness united to brevity; and to this combination Latin is usually unequal. From the vagueness
and uncertainty of meaning which characterize its separate words, to be perspicuous it must be full. What Livy and, much more
Tacitus, have gained in energy, they have lost in perspicuity and elegance. Latin, in short, is not a philosophical language;
not a language in which a deep thinker is likely to express himself with purity or neatness. Now Cicero rather made a language
than a style, yet not so much by the invention as by the combination of words. Some terms, indeed, his philosophical subjects
compelled him to coin, and these are often admirable-e. g. qualitas, quantitas=ποιότης, ποσότης; but his great art lies in the
application of existing materials, in converting the very disadvantages of the language into beauties, in enriching it with
circumlocutions and metaphors, in pruning it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and in systematizing the structure of a
sentence. This is that copia dicendi which gained Cicero the high testimony of Caesar to his inventive powers, and which makes
him the greatest master of composition the world has ever seen.
We come next to Cicero's philosophical writings, after a brief enumeration of which we shall offer a few remarks on the
character of his philosophy itself. The treatise De Legibus has reached us in an imperfect state, only three books remaining,
and these disfigured by numerous chasms that cannot be supplied. It traces the philosophic principles of jurisprudence to
their remotest sources, sets forth a body of laws conformable to Cicero's idea of a well-regulated State, and is supposed to
have treated in the books that are lost of the executive power of magistrates and the rights of Roman citizens. The treatise
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum is written after the manner of Aristotle, and discusses the chief good and the chief evil
(summum bonum et summum malum); in it Cicero explains the several opinions entertained on this subject by the philosophers of
antiquity. The Academicae Quaestiones relates to the Academic philosophy, whose tenets Cicero himself had embraced. It is an
account and defence of the doctrines of the Academy. In the Tusculanae Disputationes, five books are devoted to as many
different questions of philosophy, bearing the most strongly on the practice of life, and involving topics the most essential
to human happiness. The Paradoxa contains a defence of six paradoxes of the Stoics. The work De Natura Deorum, in three books,
embraces a full examination of the various theories of heathen antiquity on the nature of the gods, to which the treatise De
Divinatione may be regarded as a supplement. The essay De Officiis, on moral duties, has, not unaptly, been styled the heathen
Whole Duty of Man; nor have the dialogues De Senectute and De Amicitia been incorrectly regarded as among the most highly
finished and pleasing performances of which any language can boast. We have to lament the loss of the treatises De
Consolatione, De Gloria, and the one entitled Hortensius, in which last Cicero undertook the defence of learning and
philosophy, and left to his illustrious competitor the task of arraigning them. It was this book which first led St. Augustine
to the study of Christian philosophy and the doctrines of Christianity. The treatise De Republica has been in part rescued
from the destroying hand of time by the labours of Mai. Except the works De Inventione and De Oratore, this was the earliest
of Cicero's literary productions. It was given to the world in B.C. 53, just before its author set out for his proconsular
government in Cilicia. He was then in his fifty-third year. The object and spirit of the work were highly patriotic. He wished
to bring the constitution back to its first principles by an impression expositive of its theory; to inflame his
contemporaries with the love of virtue by pourtraying the character of their ancestors in its primeval purity and beauty; and
while he was raising a monument to all future ages of what Rome had been, to inculcate upon his own times what it ought still
to be. We know it to have been his original purpose to make it a very voluminous work; for he expressly tells his brother that
it was to be extended to nine books. Ernesti thinks that they were all given to the world, although Cicero, in a letter to
Atticus, on which that learned and suggestive scholar makes this very remark, speaks of them as his six pledges or sureties
for his good behaviour.
Cicero, as a philosopher, belongs, upon the whole, to the New Academy. It has been disputed whether he was really attached to
this system, or had merely resorted to it as being the best adapted for furnishing him with oratorical arguments suited to all
occasions. At first its adoption was subsidiary to his other plans. But, towards the conclusion of his life, when he no longer
maintained the place he was wont to hold in the Senate or the Forum, and when philosophy formed the occupation "with which,"
to quote his own words, "life was just tolerable, and without which it would have been intolerable," he doubtless became
convinced that the principles of the New Academy, illustrated as they had been by Carneades (q.v.) and Philo , formed the
soundest system which had descended to mankind from the schools of Athens. The attachment, however, of Cicero to the Academic
philosophy was free from the exclusive spirit of sectarianism, and hence it did not prevent his extracting from other systems
what he found in them conformable to virtue and reason. His ethical principles, in particular, appear eclectic, having been in
a great measure formed from the opinions of the Stoics. Of most of the Greek sects he speaks with respect and esteem. For the
Epicureans alone he seems, notwithstanding his friendship for Atticus, to have entertained a decided aversion and contempt.
The general purpose of Cicero's philosophical works was rather to give a history of the ancient philosophy, than dogmatically
to inculcate opinions of his own. It was his great aim to explain to his fellow-citizens, in their own language, whatever the
sages of Greece had taught on the most important subjects, in order to enlarge their minds and reform their morals.
In theoretical investigation, in the development of abstract ideas, and in the analysis of qualities and perceptions, Cicero
can not be regarded as in any degree an inventor or a profound original thinker, and can not be ranked with Plato and
Aristotle. His peculiar merit as a philosophical writer lay in his luminous and popular exposition of the leading principles
and disputes of the ancient schools, and no works transmitted from antiquity present so concise and comprehensive a view of
the opinions of the Greek philosophers. The most obvious peculiarity of Cicero's philosophical writings is their form of
dialogue. The idea was borrowed from Plato and Xenophon; but the nature of Cicero's dialogue is as different from that of the
two Athenians as was his object in writing. With them, the Socratic mode of argument could hardly be displayed in any other
shape; whereas Cicero's aim was to excite interest, and he availed himself of this mode of composition for the life and
variety, the ease, perspicuity, and vigour which it gave to his discussions. The majesty and splendour of his introductions,
the eloquence with which both sides of a question are successively displayed, the clearness and terseness of his statements on
abstract points, his exquisite allusions to the scene or time of the supposed conversation, his digressions in praise of
philosophy, and, lastly, the melody and richness of his style, unite to throw a charm around these productions which has been
felt in every age.
Cicero's epistulae, nearly one thousand (864 B.C.) in all, are comprised in thirty-six books, sixteen of which are addressed
to Atticus, three to his brother Quintus, one to Brutus, and sixteen to his different friends; and they form a history of his
life from his fortieth year. Among those addressed to his friends (Ad Familiares) some occur written to him by Brutus,
Metellus, Plancus, Caelius, and others. For the preservation of this most valuable department of Cicero's writings we are
indebted to Tiro , the author's freedman, though we possess at the present day only a part of those originally published. The
most interesting by far are the letters to Atticus, for they not only throw great light on the history of the times, but also
give us a full insight into the private character of Cicero himself, who was accustomed at all times to unbosom his thoughts
most freely to this friend of his. The authenticity of the correspondence with Brutus has been disputed by modern scholars,
but the general opinion is favourable to the genuineness of all but two (xvi. and xvii.).
His poetical and historical works have suffered a hard fate. The latter class, consisting of his commentary on his consulship
and his history of his own times, are altogether lost. Of the former, which comprised the heroic poems Alcyone, Marius, and on
his own consulate, translations of parts of Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aratus, epigrams, etc., but little remains except
some fragments of the Phaenomena and Diosemeia of Aratus. It may, however, be questioned whether literature has suffered much
by this loss. We should refrain from speaking contemptuously of the poetic powers of one who possessed so much fancy, so much
taste, and so fine an ear; but his poems were principally composed in his youth; and afterwards, when his powers were more
mature, his occupations did not allow even his active mind the time necessary for polishing a language then still more rugged
in verse than it was in prose. Hence we find that his own contemporaries criticised unfavourably his attempts in verse, a fact
to which he himself bears witness; and such specimens as remain show the ante-classical fondness for alliterative jingle; as,
for instance, the famous line which he quotes in his De Officiis (i. 77):
"Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi,"
and the absurdly egotistical hexameter sneered at by Juvenal in his Tenth Satire:
"O fortunatam natam me consule Roman!"
His contemporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have contained less
faithful, information than his private correspondence; while, with all the penetration he assuredly possessed, it may be
doubted if his diffuse and graceful style of thought and composition was adapted for the depth of reflection and condensation
of meaning which are the chief excellences of historical composition.
Manuscripts.
The MSS. of Cicero are so numerous and so scattered over Europe as to preclude an exhaustive enumeration of them here. The
Laurentian Library alone contains 188 codices, of which the oldest dates back to the tenth century. The Bibliothèque Nationale
at Paris possesses 231, collected prior to the Revolution of 1789. Six of these date from the ninth century; 138 are of the
fifteenth. The oldest collection of the letters ad familiares is the Codex Vercellensis (now the Codex Mediceus) of the ninth
century. Petrarch, in 1345, discovered at Verona the letters to Brutus, Q. Cicero, and Atticus. The MS. found by Petrarch has
again been lost, so that only a copy of it remains. Other important Ciceronian MSS. are as follows: of the fourteen
Philippics, the Vatican-Basilican MS. of the ninth century; of the orations against Verres, the Vatican palimpsest of the
fourth (?) century, and two Wolfenbüttel MSS. dependent upon a Paris codex of the ninth century; of the Catilinarian orations,
the Ambrosian Codex of the tenth century, and the Munich MSS. of the eleventh century; of the oration for Archias, the Codex
Bruxellensis (Brussels) of the eleventh century; of the oration on the Manilian law, the Codex Erfurtensis of the twelfth
century; of the oration for Milo, the Munich MS. (18,787) and a palimpsest at Turin; of the treatises De Oratore, Brutus, and
Orator, the Codex Laudensis (Lodi), or rather three copies of that codex made after 1422; of the Partitiones Oratoriae, a
Paris MS. of the eleventh century (No. 7231); of the Topica, a codex at Leyden and two at St. Gall; of the treatise De Optimo
Genere Oratorum, a MS. at St. Gall; of the philosophical works, the Codices Leidenses (Vossiani, 84 saec. x., and 86 saec.
xi.), the Codex Laurentianus S. Marci (257 B.C.) of the tenth century, and the Codex Vindobonensis (Vienna) of the tenth
century. A collection of 600 excerpts from Cicero's philosophical writings, made by a certain Hadoardus in the ninth century,
is in the Vatican. For the treatise De Legibus, the best MSS. are the Leyden codices (Vossiani, 84 saec. x., and 86 saec.
xi.); for the Paradoxa, the same; for the De Finibus, the Palatino-Vaticanus of the eleventh century; for the Academica, the
Codices Leidenses already mentioned; for the Tusculanae Disputationes, a MS. at Paris dating from the tenth century, and one
at Brussels of the twelfth century; for the Timaeus, the Codices Leidenses; for the De Natura Deorum, the same; for the Cato
Maior, a Codex Leidensis (Voss. F. 12, saec. x.); for the De Divinatione, the Palatino-Vaticanus noted above; for the De Fato,
a codex at Vienna (189 B.C.); for the Laelius, a MS. at Munich of the tenth century; for the De Officiis, a MS. at Bern of the
tenth century, and one of the same age at Paris (no. 6601).
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