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But the men who lived then, who were attached to the republican government by tradition and memories, who recalled the great things it had done, who owed to it their dignities, position, and renown, could they think like us and resign themselves as easily to its fall? Firstly, this government existed. They were familiarized to its defects, since they had lived with them so long. They suffered less from them, through the long habit of enduring them. On the other hand, they did not know what this new power that wished to replace the republic would be. Royalty inspired the Romans with an instinctive repugnance, especially since they had conquered the East. They had found there, under this name, the most odious of governments, the most complete slavery in the midst of the most refined civilization, all the pleasures of luxury and the arts, the finest expansion of intellect with the heaviest and basest tyranny; princes accustomed to play with the fortune, honour, and life of men, a species of cruel spoilt children, such as are only now to be found in the African deserts. This picture did not attract them, and whatever disadvantages the republic had, they asked themselves if it was worth while to exchange them for those that royalty might have. Besides, it was natural that the fall of the republic should not appear to them so near and so sure as it does to us. It is with states as with men, for whom we find, after their death, a thousand causes of death which nobody suspected during their life-time. While the machinery of this ancient government was still working it could not be seen how disorganized it was. Cicero has, sometimes, moments of profound despair, in which he announces to his friends that all is lost; but these moments do not last, and he quickly regains his courage. It seems to him that a firm hand, an eloquent voice, and the agreement of good citizens can repair all, and that liberty will easily remedy the abuses and faults of liberty. He never perceives the whole gravity of danger. In the worst days, his thoughts never go beyond the schemers and the ambitious men who disturb the public repose; it is always Catiline, Caesar, or Clodius whom he accuses, and he thinks that all will be saved if one can succeed in overcoming them. He was mistaken, Catiline and Clodius were only the symptoms of a deeper evil that could not be cured; but is he to be blamed for entertaining this hope, chimerical as it was? Is he to be blamed for having thought that there were other means of saving the republic than the sacrifice of liberty? An honest man and a good citizen ought not to accept these counsels of despair at first. It is useless to tell him that the decrees of destiny condemn to perish the constitution that he prefers and that he has promised to defend, he does well not to believe it entirely lost until it is actually overthrown. We may call such men, if we like, blind or dupes; it is honourable in them not to be too perspicacious, and there are errors and illusions that are worth more than a too easy resignation. Real liberty existed no longer at Rome, as I believe, the shadow only remained, but the shadow was still something. One cannot bear a grudge against those who attached themselves to it and made desperate efforts not to allow it to perish, for this shadow, this semblance, consoled them for lost liberty and gave them some hope of regaining it. This is what honest men like Cicero thought, who, after mature reflection, without enthusiasm, without passion, and even without hope, went to find Pompey again; this is what Lucan makes Cato say in those admirable lines which seem to me to express the feelings of all those who, without concealing from themselves the sad state of the republic, persisted in defending it to the last: "As a father who has just lost his child takes pleasure in conducting his obsequies, lights with his own hands the funeral pyre, leaves it with regret, as tardily as he can; so, Rome, I will not forsake thee until that I have held thee dead in my arms. I will follow to the end thy very name, O Liberty, even when thou shalt be no more than a vain shadow!"

Pharsalia was not the end of Cicero's political career, as he had thought. Events were to lead him back once more to power and replace him at the head of the republic. His retired life, his silence during the early days of Caesar's dictatorship, far from injuring his reputation, on the contrary enhanced it. Statesmen do not lose so much as they think by remaining for a time outside of affairs. Retirement, supported with dignity, increases their importance. That they are no longer in power suffices for people to find some inclination to regret them. There are fewer reasons to be severe towards them when their place is not coveted, and as people no longer suffer from their faults the memory of them is easily lost, and their good qualities only are remembered. This is what happened to Cicero. His disgrace disarmed all the enemies that his power had made him, and his popularity was never so great as when he kept himself voluntarily from the public eye. A little later, when he thought he ought to draw nearer to Caesar, he conducted himself with so much tact, he adjusted so cleverly submission and independence, he knew so well how to preserve an appearance of opposition even in his eulogies and flatteries, that public opinion did not cease to favour him. Besides, the most illustrious defenders of the vanquished cause, Pompey, Cato, Scipio, Bibulus, were dead. Of all those who had occupied with honour the highest posts under the old government, he alone remained; consequently it was usual to regard him as the last representative of the republic. We know that on the Ides of March, Brutus and his friends, after having struck down Caesar, while brandishing their bloody swords, called for Cicero. They seemed to recognize him as the head of their party, and to give him the credit of the bloodshed that they had just committed.

It was, then, circumstances rather than his own will that caused him to play so great a part in the events which followed the death of Caesar.

I shall narrate later how he was led to engage in that struggle with Antony, in which he was to perish. I shall show that it was not of himself and voluntarily that he began it. He had quitted Rome and did not wish to return. He thought that the time for resistance under legal forms had passed, that it was necessary to oppose to Antony's veterans good soldiers rather than good reasons, and he was not wrong. Convinced that his part was finished, and that that of the men of war was about to begin, he set out for Greece, when a gale cast him on the coast of Rhegium. Thence he repaired to the port of Velia, where he found Brutus, who was also preparing to leave Italy, and it was he who, always scrupulous, always the enemy of violence, asked him to make once again an effort to rouse the people, and once more to attempt the struggle on the basis of law. Cicero yielded to the request of his friend, and although he had little hope of success, he hastened to return to Rome there to offer this last battle. This was the second time that he came, like Amphiara?s, "to throw himself alive into the gulf."

The events that followed are too well known for me to have need of repeating them. Never had Cicero played a greater political part than at this moment; never had he better deserved that name of statesman that his enemies denied him. For six months he was the soul of the republican party, which was re-constituted at his call. "It was I, said he proudly, who gave the signal for this awakening," and he was right in saying so. His voice seemed to restore some patriotism and some energy to this unconcerned people. He made them once more applaud those grand names of country and liberty that the Forum would soon hear no more. From Rome, the ardour gained the neighbouring townships, and gradually all Italy was roused. This, however, was not enough for him, he went still further to raise up enemies for Antony and defenders for the republic. He wrote to the proconsuls of the provinces and to the generals of the armies. From one end of the world to the other he chid the lukewarm, flattered the ambitious, and congratulated the energetic. He it was who incited Brutus, always undecided, to seize Greece. He applauded the bold stroke of Cassius, which made him master of Asia; he urged Cornificius to drive Antony's soldiers from Africa; he encouraged Decimus Brutus to resist in Modena. The promises of support that he invited with so much earnestness arrived from all sides. Even enemies and traitors dared not openly refuse him their co-operation. Lepidus and Plancus made emphatic protestations of fidelity. Pollio wrote to him in a solemn tone "that he swears to be the enemy of all tyrants." On all sides his friendship is demanded, his support solicited, men put themselves under his protection. His Philippics, which, happily, he had not time to revise, are scattered through the whole world, very nearly as he spoke them, and with the vivacity of the first sketch, preserve traces of the interruptions and applause of the people. These passionate harangues carry everywhere the passion of these grand popular scenes. They are read in the provinces, they are devoured in the armies, and from the most distant countries evidence of the admiration they excite arrives to Cicero! "Your robe is even more fortunate than our arms," says a victorious general to him, and adds, "In you the consular has conquered the consul." "My soldiers are yours," wrote another to him. The credit of all the good fortune of the republic was attributed to him. It was he who was congratulated and thanked for all the successes that were obtained. On the evening that the victory of Modena was known at Rome, the whole people went to his house to seek him, conducted him in triumph to the Capitol, and wished to hear from his own mouth an account of the battle. "This day," he wrote to Brutus, "has repaid me for all my trouble."

This was the last triumph of Cicero and the republic. Success is sometimes more fatal to coalitions than reverses. When the common enemy, hatred of whom has united them, has been conquered, private dissensions break out. Octavius wished to weaken Antony in order to obtain from him what he wanted; he did not wish to destroy him. When he saw him flying towards the Alps, he made overtures to him, and both together marched on Rome. From that time nothing remained for Cicero but "to imitate brave gladiators, and seek like them to die honourably." His death was courageous, whatever Pollio, who, having betrayed him, had an interest in calumniating him, may have asserted. I would rather believe the testimony of Livy, who was not one of his friends, and who lived at the court of Augustus: "Of all his misfortunes," says he, "death is the only one that he bore like a man." This, it must be confessed, was something. He might have fled, and at one moment he tried to do so. He wished to set out for Greece, where he would have found Brutus; but after some days' sailing with contrary winds, suffering from the sea, tormented above all by regrets and sadness, he lost heart for life, and was landed at Gaeta, and went back to his house at Formiae to die there. He had often thanked the gale that took him back to Velia, the first time that he wished to flee to Greece. This it was that gave him the opportunity to deliver his Philippics. The storm which drove him ashore at Gaeta has not been less serviceable to his fame. His death seems to me to redeem the weaknesses of his life. It is much for a man like him, who did not boast of being a Cato, to have been so firm at this terrible moment; the more timid he was by temperament the more I am touched at finding him so resolute in dying. Thus, when, in studying his history, I am tempted to reproach him with his irresolution and weakness, I think of his end, I see him as Plutarch has so well depicted him, "his beard and hair dirty, his countenance worn, taking his chin in his left hand as his manner was, and looking steadily at his murderers," and I no longer dare to be severe. Notwithstanding his defects he was an honest man, "who loved his country well," as Augustus himself said on a day of sincerity and remorse. If he was sometimes too hesitating and feeble, he always ended by defending what he regarded as the cause of justice and right, and when that cause had been for ever conquered, he rendered it the last service it could claim from its defenders, he honoured it by his death.

II CICERO'S PRIVATE LIFE

Those who have read Cicero's correspondence with Atticus, and know what place questions of money occupy in these private communications, will not be surprised that I begin the study of his private life by endeavouring to estimate the amount of his fortune. The men of those days were as much concerned about money as the men of to-day, and it is perhaps in this that these two periods, which men have so often taken pleasure in comparing, most resemble each other.

It would be necessary to have at hand the account-books of Eros, Cicero's steward, in order to set down with exactness the expenses of his household. All that we know with certainty on this subject is, that his father left him a very moderate fortune only, and that he increased this greatly, while we cannot say precisely to how much it amounted. His enemies were in the habit of exaggerating it in order to throw suspicion on the means by which it had been acquired, and it is indeed probable that if we knew the total it would appear to us considerable; but we must take care not to judge of it according to the ideas of our own time. Wealth is not an absolute thing; a man is rich or poor according to the position in which he lives, and it is possible that what would be wealth in one place would scarcely be a competency elsewhere. Now we know that at Rome wealth was far from being so evenly distributed as it is among us. Forty years before the consulship of Cicero, the tribune Philip said that, in that immense city, there were not two thousand persons who had a patrimony; but these possessed all the public wealth. Crassus asserted that, in order to call himself rich, it was necessary for a man to be able to support an army out of his revenues, and we know that he was in a position to do so without inconvenience. Milo contrived to get into debt in a few years to the amount of more than seventy million sesterces . Caesar, while still a private person, expended, at one time, one hundred and twenty million sesterces in order to make a present of a new Forum to the Roman people. This outrageous extravagance implies immense fortunes. In comparison with these, we can understand that Cicero's, which scarcely sufficed for the purchase of a house on the Palatine, and which the adornment of his Tusculan villa almost exhausted, must have appeared very moderate.

This wealth was composed of property of different kinds. He possessed, firstly, houses in Rome. Besides that which he inhabited on the Palatine, and that which he had from his father at Carinae, he had others in Argiletum and on the Aventine which brought him in an income of eighty thousand sesterces . He possessed numerous villas in Italy. We know of eight very important ones belonging to him, without reckoning those small houses that the nobles bought along the principal roads to have somewhere to rest when they went from one domain to another. He had also sums of money of which he disposed in different manners, as we see in his correspondence. We cannot estimate this part of his wealth with exactness; but according to the practice of the rich Romans of that time, it may be affirmed that it was not less than his houses or estates. One day when he is asking Atticus to buy him some gardens that he wishes, he says to him, in an off-hand way, that he thinks he may have about six hundred thousand sesterces in his own hands. We have here perhaps one of the most curious differences that distinguish that state of society from ours. Now-a-days scarcely any but bankers by profession handle such considerable sums of money. Our aristocracy has always affected to look down upon questions of finance. The Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, understood them well, and thought much about them. Their great wealth was used to further political ambition, and they did not hesitate to risk a part of it to gain adherents. The purse of a candidate for public honours was open to all who could be of use to him. He gave to the poorest, he lent to others, and sought to form with them bonds of interest which would attach them to his cause. Success usually followed those who had put the greatest number of men under obligations. Cicero, although less rich than the majority of them, imitated them. In his letters to Atticus he is almost always writing about bills and dates of maturity, and we see in them that his money circulated on all sides. He is in constant business relations, and as we should now say, has a running account with the greatest personages. Sometimes he lends to Caesar, and sometimes borrows of him. Among his numerous debtors are found persons of all ranks and fortunes, from Pompey to Hermogenes, who seems to have been a simple freedman. Unfortunately, counting them all, his creditors are still more numerous. Notwithstanding the example and advice of Atticus, he ill understood how to manage his fortune. He constantly had costly fancies. He would have at any price statues and pictures to adorn his galleries and give them the appearance of the gymnasia of Greece. He ruined himself to embellish his country houses. Generous out of season, we see him lending to others when he is constrained to borrow for himself. It is always when he is deepest in debt that he has the greatest desire to buy some new villa. He does not hesitate, then, to apply to all the bankers of Rome; he goes to see Considius, Axius, Vectenus, Vestorius; he would even try to soften Caecilius, the uncle of his friend Atticus, if he did not know that he was inflexible. Nevertheless he bears his troubles with a light heart. The prudent Atticus tells him in vain that it is disgraceful to be in debt; but as he shares this disgrace with a great many people it seems light, and he is the first to joke about it. One day he told one of his friends that he was so much in debt that he would willingly enter into some conspiracy, if any one would receive him, but that since he had punished Catiline's he inspired no confidence in others; and when the first day of the month arrives, when payments become due, he is content to shut himself up at Tusculum and leave Eros or Tiro to argue with the creditors.

These embarrassments and troubles, of which his correspondence is full, make us think, almost in spite of ourselves, of certain passages in his philosophical works which appear rather surprising when we compare them with his mode of living, and which may easily be turned against him. Is it really this thoughtless prodigal, always ready to spend without consideration, who exclaimed one day in a tone of conviction that moves us: "Ye immortal gods, when will men understand what treasures are found in economy!" How dared this ardent lover of works of art, this impassioned friend of magnificence and luxury, how dared he treat as madmen people who love statues and pictures too well, or build themselves magnificent houses? He stands self-condemned, and I do not wish to entirely absolve him; but while we pronounce on him a severe sentence, let us remember the times in which he lived, and let us think of his contemporaries. I will not compare him with the worst men, his superiority would be too evident; but among those who are regarded as the most honourable, he still holds one of the foremost places. He did not owe his wealth to usury like Brutus and his friends; he did not augment it by that sordid avarice with which Cato is reproached; he did not pillage the provinces like Appius or Cassius; he did not consent like Hortensius to take his share of this pillage. We must then acknowledge that, notwithstanding the blame we may lay upon him, he was more scrupulous and disinterested in money matters than others. In the main, his irregularities only injured himself, and if he had too much taste for ruinous prodigality, at least he did not have recourse to scandalous gains in order to satisfy it. These scruples honour him so much the more as they were then very rare, and few people have passed, without stain, through that greedy and corrupt society in the midst of which he lived.

He does not deserve less praise for having been honourable and regular in his family life. These were virtues of which his contemporaries did not set him an example.

It is probable that his youth was austere. He had firmly resolved to become a great orator, and that was not to be done without trouble. We know from himself how hard the apprenticeship to oratory then was. "To succeed in it, he tells us, a man must renounce all pleasures, avoid all amusements, say farewell to recreation, games, entertainments, and almost to intercourse with one's friends." This was the price he paid for his success. The ambition by which he was devoured preserved him from the other passions, and sufficed him. His youth was completely taken up with study. When once these early years were passed the danger was less; the habit of work that he had formed, and the important affairs in which he was engaged might suffice to preserve him from all dangerous impulses. Writers who do not like him have vainly tried to find in his life traces of that licentiousness which was so common around him. The most ill-disposed, like Dio, banter him about a clever woman, named Caerellia, whom he somewhere calls his intimate friend. She was so in fact, and it appears that she was not wanting in influence over him. His correspondence with her was preserved and published. This correspondence was, it is said, rather free in tone, and seemed at first to give some occasion to the malicious; but it must be remarked, that Caerellia was much older than he; that, far from being a cause of dissension in his household, we only see her intervening to reconcile him with his wife, in fact that their acquaintance seems to have begun in a common liking for philosophy; a sedate origin which does not forebode unpleasing consequences. Caerellia was a learned lady whose conversation must have been very pleasing to Cicero. Her age, her education which was not that of ordinary women, put him at ease with her, and, as he was naturally quick at repartee, as, once excited by the animation of conversation, he could not always govern and restrain his wit, and as, besides, by patriotism as by taste, he put nothing above that free and daring gaiety of which Plautus seemed to him the model, it may have happened that he wrote to her without ceremony those pleasantries "more spicy than those of the Attic writers, and yet truly Roman." Later, when these rustic and republican manners were no longer in fashion, when, under the influence of the gradually developing court life, the rules of politeness were being refined, and manners were becoming more ceremonious, the freedom of these remarks no doubt shocked some fastidious minds, and may have given rise to ill-natured remarks. For our own part, of all that correspondence of Cicero which is now lost, the letters to Caerellia are those perhaps that we most regret. They would have shown us better than all the rest the habits of society, and the life of the fashionable world at that time.

What motives drove him to this disagreeable extremity? Probably we do not know them all. Terentia's disagreeable temper must have often caused those little quarrels in the household which, repeated continually, end by wearing out the most steadfast affection. About the time that Cicero was recalled from exile, and a very few months after he had written those passionate letters of which I have spoken, he said to Atticus: "I have some domestic troubles of which I cannot write to you," and added, so that he might be understood: "My daughter and my brother love me still." We must think that he had good reason to complain of his wife, to leave her thus out of the list of persons by whom he thought himself loved. It has been suspected that Terentia was jealous of the affection Cicero showed to his daughter. This affection was somewhat excessive and so exclusive as possibly to wound her, and she was not a woman to endure this without complaint. We may believe that these dissensions prepared and led up to the divorce, but they were not the final cause of it. The motive was more prosaic and vulgar. Cicero justified it by the waste and misuse of his money by his wife, and several times he accused her of having ruined him for her own benefit. One of the most curious characteristics of that age was that the women appear as much engaged in business and as interested in speculations as the men. Money is their first care. They work their estates, invest their funds, lend and borrow. We find one among Cicero's creditors, and two among his debtors. Only, as they could not always appear themselves in these financial undertakings, they had recourse to some obliging freedman, or some shady business man, who watched their interests and profited by their gains. Cicero, in his speech for Caecina, coming across a character of this sort, whose business was to devote themselves to the fortune of women, and often to make their own at their expense, depicts him in these terms: "There is no man one finds oftener in ordinary life. He is the flatterer of women, the advocate of widows, a pettifogging lawyer by profession, a lover of quarrels, a constant attendant at trials, ignorant and stupid among men, a clever and learned lawyer among women, expert in alluring by the appearance of a false zeal and a hypocritical friendship, eager to render services sometimes useful but rarely faithful." He was a marvellous guide for women tormented with the desire of making a fortune; so Terentia had one of these men about her, her freedman, Philotimus, a clever man of business, but not very scrupulous, who had succeeded at this trade, since he was rich and himself possessed slaves and freedmen. In early days Cicero often made use of him, doubtless at the request of Terentia. It was he who got for him at a low price some of the property of Milo when he was exiled. It was a profitable piece of business, but not in very good taste, and Cicero, who felt it to be so, speaks of it with some shame. On his departure for Cilicia he left the administration of part of his property to Philotimus, but he was not long in repenting of it. Philotimus, like the steward of a great house, paid less attention to his master's interests than to his own. He kept for himself the profits he had made on the property of Milo, and on Cicero's return presented him an account in which he figured as his creditor for a considerable amount. "He is a marvellous thief!" said Cicero, in a rage. At this time his suspicions did not go beyond Philotimus; when he returned from Pharsalia he saw clearly that Terentia was his accomplice. "I have found my household affairs, said he to a friend, in as bad a state as those of the republic." The distress in which he found himself at Brundusium made him distrustful. He looked more closely into his accounts, a thing that was not usual with him, and it was not difficult for him to discover that Terentia had often deceived him. At one time she had retained sixty thousand sesterces out of her daughter's dowry. This was a handsome profit, but she was not negligent of small gains. Her husband caught her one day pocketing two thousand sesterces out of a sum he had asked her for. This rapacity completed the irritation of Cicero, whom other causes no doubt had soured and hurt for a long time. He resigned himself to the divorce, but not without sorrow. We do not break with impunity the bonds that habit, in the absence of affection, ought to draw closer. At the moment of separation, after so many happy days have been passed together, so many ills supported in common, there must always be some memory which troubles us. What adds to the sadness of these painful moments is, that when we wish to withdraw and isolate ourselves in our sorrow, business people arrive; we must defend our interests, reckon and discuss with these people. These discussions, which had never suited Cicero, made him then suffer more than usual. He said to the obliging Atticus, when asking him to undertake them for him: "The wounds are too recent, I could not touch them without making them bleed." And as Terentia continued making difficulties, he wished to put an end to the discussion by giving her all she asked. "I would rather," he wrote, "have cause to complain of her than become discontented with myself."

We can well understand that the wags did not fail to make merry on the subject of this divorce. It was a just retaliation after all, and Cicero had too often laughed at others to expect to be spared himself. Unfortunately he gave them, a short time after, a new opportunity of amusing themselves at his expense. Notwithstanding his sixty-three years he thought of marrying again, and he chose a very young girl, Publilia, whom her father, when dying, confided to his guardianship. A marriage between guardian and ward is a real stage marriage, and the guardian generally has the worst of it. How did it happen that Cicero, with his experience of the world and of life, allowed himself to be drawn into this imprudent step? Terentia, who had to revenge herself, repeated everywhere that he had fallen violently in love with this young girl; but his secretary, Tiro, asserted that he had only married her in order to pay his debts with her fortune, and I think we must believe Tiro, although it is not usual that, in this kind of marriage, the elder is also the poorer. As might be foreseen, trouble was not long in appearing in the household. Publilia, who was younger than her step-daughter, did not agree with her, and, it appears, could not conceal her joy when she died. This was an unpardonable crime in Cicero's eyes, and he refused to see her again. It is strange that this young woman, far from accepting with pleasure the liberty that he wished to restore to her, made great efforts to re-enter the house of this old man who divorced her, but he was inflexible. This time he had had enough of marriage, and it is said that, when his friend Hirtius came to offer him the hand of his sister, he refused her, under the pretence that it is difficult to attend at the same time to a wife and to philosophy. It was a wise answer, but he would have done well to have thought of it sooner.

Cicero was inconsolable for her death, and his grief at losing her was certainly the greatest of his life. As his affection for his daughter was well known, letters came to him from all sides, of the sort that usually console those only who have no need of consolation. The philosophers, to whom his name gave credit, tried by their exhortations to make him support his loss more courageously. Caesar wrote to him from Spain, where he had just vanquished Pompey's sons. The greatest personages of all parties, Brutus, Lucceius, Dolabella himself, shared his sorrow; but none of these letters must have touched him more sensibly than that which he received from one of his old friends, Sulpicius, the great lawyer, who at that time governed Greece. Fortunately it has been preserved. It is worthy of the great man who wrote it and of him to whom it was addressed. The following passage has often been quoted: "I must tell you a reflection that has consoled me, perhaps it will succeed in diminishing your affliction. On my return from Asia, as I was sailing from Aegina towards Megara, I began to look at the country surrounding me. Megara was in front of me, Aegina behind, the Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the left. Formerly these were very flourishing cities, now they are but scattered ruins. At this sight I said to myself: How dare we, poor mortals that we are, complain of the death of our friends, whose life nature has made so short, when we see at one glance the mere corpses of so many great cities lying around!" The thought is new and grand. This lesson drawn from the ruins, this manner of drawing moral ideas from nature, this grave melancholy mingled with the contemplation of a fine landscape, are sentiments little known to pagan antiquity. This passage seems inspired by the spirit of Christianity. We should say it was written by a man familiar with the sacred writings, and "who was already sitting, with the prophet, on the ruins of desolate cities." This is so true that Saint Ambrose, wishing to write a letter of condolence, imitated this one, and it was thought, quite naturally, to be Christian. Cicero's reply was not less noble. We see in it a most touching picture of his sadness and isolation. After having described the sorrow he felt at the fall of the republic, he adds: "My daughter at least was left me. I had a place to which to retire and rest. The charm of her conversation made me forget my cares and sorrows; but the dreadful wound I received in losing her has re-opened in my heart all those wounds that I thought closed. Formerly I retired into my family to forget the misfortunes of the state, but can the state now offer me any remedy to make me forget the misfortunes of my family? I am obliged to shun, at the same time, both my home and the Forum, for my home no longer consoles me for the trouble the republic causes me, and the republic cannot fill the void that I find in my home."

Philosophy succeeded still less with Cicero's son Marcus than with his daughter. His father was completely mistaken about his tastes and abilities, which is not very extraordinary, for parental tenderness is often more warm than enlightened. Marcus had only the instincts of a soldier, Cicero wished to make him a philosopher and an orator, but he lost his labour. These instincts, repressed for a moment, always broke out again with added force. At eighteen, Marcus lived like all the young men of that time, and it was necessary to remonstrate with him on his expenditure. He was bored with the lessons of his master, Dionysius, and with the rhetoric that his father tried to teach him. He wished to set out for the Spanish war with Caesar. Instead of listening to him, Cicero sent him to Athens to finish his education. He had an establishment like a nobleman's son. They gave him freedmen and slaves that he might make as good a figure as the young Bibulus, Acidinus and Messala who studied with him. About a hundred thousand sesterces were assigned to him for his annual expenses, which seems a reasonable allowance for a student in philosophy; but Marcus went away in a bad humour, and his stay at Athens did not have the results that Cicero expected. No longer under his father's eyes he indulged his tastes without restraint. Instead of following the lectures of the rhetoricians and philosophers, his time was taken up with good dinners and noisy entertainments. His life was so much the more dissolute as, to all appearance, he was encouraged in his dissipation by his master himself, the rhetorician Gorgias. This rhetorician was a thorough Greek, that is to say, a man ready to do anything to make his fortune. In studying his pupil he saw that he should gain more by flattering his vices than by cultivating his good qualities, and he accordingly flattered his vices. In this school, Marcus, instead of paying attention to Plato and Aristotle, as his father recommended him, acquired the taste for Falernian and Chian wine, a taste that continued with him. The only reputation that he was proud of afterwards was that of being the hardest drinker of his time; he sought and obtained the glory of conquering the triumvir Antony, who enjoyed a great reputation in this line, that he was very proud of. This was his way of avenging his father, whom Antony had put to death. Later, Augustus, who wished to pay the son the debt he had contracted with his father, made him a consul, but did not succeed in breaking him of his habits of debauchery, for the sole exploit that we are told of him is, that one day, when he was drunk, he threw his glass at Agrippa's head.

We can understand what sorrow Cicero must have felt when he learnt of his son's early dissoluteness. I suppose he hesitated to believe it for a long time, for he liked to delude himself about his children. So when Marcus, lectured by all the family, dismissed Gorgias and promised to behave better, his father, who was very willing to be deceived, was eager to believe it. From this time we see him constantly engaged in begging Atticus not to let his son want for anything, and in studying the letters he receives from him to try and discover some progress. There remains just one of these letters of Marcus of the time when he seems to return to better habits. It was addressed to Tiro, and is full of protestations of repentance. He acknowledges himself so humiliated, so tormented by all his faults, "that not only his soul detests them, but he cannot bear to hear of them." To convince him thoroughly of his sincerity he draws the picture of his life; it is impossible to imagine one better occupied. He passes his days and almost his nights with the philosopher Cratippus, who treats him like a son. He keeps him to dinner in order to deprive himself of his society as little as possible. He is so charmed with the learned conversation of Bruttius that he wishes to have him near him, and pays his board and lodging. He declaims in Latin, he declaims in Greek with the most learned rhetoricians. He only visits well-informed men; he only sees learned old men, the wise Epicrates, the venerable Leonidas, all the Areopagus in fact, and this edifying narration ends with these words: "Above all, take care to keep in good health, that we may be able to talk science and philosophy together."

It is a very pleasing letter, but in reading it a certain suspicion comes into our mind. These protestations are so exaggerated that we suspect Marcus had some design in making them, especially when we remember that Tiro possessed the confidence of his master, and disposed of all his liberalities. Who knows if these regrets and high-sounding promises did not precede and excuse some appeal for funds?

This study of Cicero's family life is not yet complete; there remain a few details to add. We know that a Roman family was not only composed of the persons united by relationship, but that it also comprised the slaves. Servant and master were then more closely connected than they are now, and they had more community of life. In order to know Cicero thoroughly, then, in his family, we must say a few words about his relations with his slaves.

In theory, he did not hold opinions upon slavery different from those of his time. Like Aristotle, he accepted the institution, and thought it legitimate. While proclaiming that a man has duties to fulfil towards his slaves, he did not hesitate to admit that they must be held down by cruelty when there was no other means of managing them; but in practice he treated them with great mildness. He attached himself to them so far as to weep for them when he had the misfortune to lose them. This, probably, was not usual, for we see that he almost begs pardon for it of his friend Atticus. "My mind is quite troubled, he writes to him; I have lost a young man named Sositheus, who was my reader, and I am more grieved perhaps than I ought to be at the death of a slave." I only see one, in all his correspondence, with whom he seems to be very angry; this was a certain Dionysius whom he sought for even in the depths of Illyria, and whom he wished to have again at any price; but Dionysius had stolen some of his books, and this was a crime that Cicero could not forgive. His slaves also loved him very much. He boasts of the fidelity they showed towards him in his misfortunes, and we know that at the last moment they would have died for him if he had not prevented them.

We know better than the rest one of them, who had a greater share in his affection, namely, Tiro. The name he bears is Latin, which makes us suspect that he was one of those slaves born in the master's house , who were looked upon as belonging to the family more than the rest, because they had never left it. Cicero became attached to him early, and had him carefully instructed. Perhaps he even took the trouble to finish his education himself. He calls himself, somewhere, his teacher, and likes to rally him about his way of writing. He had a very lively affection for him, and at last could not do without him. He played a great part in Cicero's house, and his powers were very various. He represented in it order and economy, which were not the ordinary qualities of his master. He was the confidential man through whose hands all financial matters passed. On the first of the month he undertook to scold the debtors who were in arrears, and to get too pressing creditors to have patience; he revised the accounts of the steward Eros, which were not always correct; he went to see the obliging bankers whose credit supported Cicero in moments of difficulty. Every time there was some delicate commission to be executed he was applied to, as for instance when it was a question of demanding some money of Dolabella without displeasing him too much. The care he gave to the most important affairs did not prevent him being employed on the smallest. He was sent to overlook the gardens, spur on the workmen, superintend the building operations: the dining-room, even, fell within his province, and I see that he is entrusted with the sending out the invitations to a dinner, a thing not always without its difficulties, for one must only bring together guests who are mutually agreeable, "and Tertia will not come if Publius is invited." But it is as secretary, especially, that he rendered Cicero the greatest services. He wrote almost as quickly as one speaks, and he alone could read his master's writing, that the copyists could not decipher. He was more than a secretary for him, he was a confidant, and even a collaborator. Aulus Gellius asserts that he helped him in the composition of his works, and the correspondence does not belie this opinion. One day when Tiro had remained ill in some country house, Cicero wrote to him that Pompey, who was then on a visit to him, asked him to read him something, and that he had answered that all was mute in the house when Tiro was not there. "My literature," he added, "or rather ours, languishes in your absence. Come back as quickly as possible to re-animate our muses." At this time Tiro was still a slave. It was not till much later, about the year 700, that he was manumitted. Every one about Cicero applauded this just recompense for so many faithful services. Quintus, who was then in Gaul, wrote expressly to his brother to thank him for having given him a new friend. In the sequel, Tiro bought a small field, no doubt out of his master's bounty, and Marcus, in the letter he wrote him from Athens, rallies him pleasantly on the new tastes this acquisition will develop in him. "Now you are a landowner!" says he, "you must leave the elegance of the town and become quite a Roman peasant. How much pleasure I have in contemplating you from here under your new aspect! I think I see you buying agricultural implements, talking with the farmer, or saving seeds for your garden in a fold of your robe at dessert!" But, proprietor and freedman, Tiro was no less at his master's service than when he was a slave.

There is one reflection that we cannot help making when we study the relations of Tiro with his master, and that is, that ancient slavery, looked at from this point of view, and in the house of such a man as Cicero, appears less repulsive. It was evidently much softened at this time, and letters have a large share in this improvement. They had diffused a new virtue among those who loved them, one whose name often recurs in Cicero's philosophical works, namely, humanity, that is to say, that culture of mind that softens the heart. It was by its influence that slavery, without being attacked in principle, was profoundly modified in its effects. This change came about noiselessly. People did not try to run counter to dominant prejudices; up to Seneca's time they did not insist on establishing the right of the slave to be reckoned among men, and he continued to be excluded from the grand theories that were made upon human brotherhood; but in reality no one profited more than he by the softening of manners. We have just seen how Cicero treated his slaves, and he was not exceptional. Atticus acted like him, and this humanity had become a sort of point of honour, on which this society of polished and lettered people prided themselves. A few years later, Pliny the younger, who also belonged to this society, speaks with a touching sadness of the sickness and death of his slaves. "I know well, he says, that many others only regard this kind of misfortune as a simple loss of goods, and in thinking thus they consider themselves great and wise men. For myself, I do not know if they are as great and wise as they imagine, but I do know that they are not men." These were the sentiments of all the distinguished society of that time. Slavery, then, had lost much of its harshness towards the end of the Roman republic and in the early times of the empire. This improvement, which is usually referred to Christianity, was much older than it, and we must give the credit of it to philosophy and letters.

Besides the freedmen and slaves, who formed part of the family of a rich Roman, there were other persons who were attached to it, although less closely, namely, the clients. Doubtless the ancient institution of clientage had lost much of its grave and sacred character. The time had gone by when Cato said that the clients should take precedence of kinsmen and neighbours in the house, and that the title of patron came immediately after that of father. These ties were much slackened, and the obligations they imposed had become much less rigid. Almost the only one still respected was the necessity the clients were under of going to salute the patron early in the morning. Quintus, in the very curious letter that he addressed to his brother on the subject of his candidature for the consulship, divides them into three classes: first, those who content themselves with the morning visit; these are, in general, lukewarm friends or inquisitive observers who come to learn the news, or who even sometimes visit all the candidates that they may have the pleasure of reading in their faces the state of their hopes; then, those who accompany their patron to the Forum and form his train while he takes two or three turns in the basilica, that everybody may see that it is a man of importance who arrives; and lastly, those who do not leave him all the time he is out of doors, and who conduct him back to his house as they had gone to meet him there. These are the faithful and devoted followers, who do not haggle about the time they give, and whose unwearied zeal obtains for the candidate the dignities he desires.

When a man had the good fortune to belong to a great family, he possessed by inheritance a ready-made clientage. A Claudius or a Cornelius, even before he had taken the trouble to oblige anybody, was sure to find his hall half filled every morning with people whom gratitude attached to his family, and he produced a sensation in the Forum by the number of those who accompanied him the day he went there to plead his first cause. Cicero had not this advantage; but, although he owed his clients to himself alone, they were none the less very numerous. In that time of exciting struggles, when the quietest citizens were exposed every day to the most unreasonable accusations, many people were forced to have recourse to him to defend them. He did so readily, for he had no other means of making a clientage than by giving his services to a great many. It was this, perhaps, that made him accept so many bad cases. As he arrived at the Forum almost alone, without that train of persons whom he had obliged, which gave public importance, it was necessary for him not to be too particular in order to form and increase it. Whatever repugnance his honest mind may have felt on taking up a doubtful case, his vanity could not resist the pleasure of adding another person to the multitude of those who accompanied him. There were, in this crowd, according to his brother, citizens of every age, rank, and fortune. Important personages no doubt were mingled with those insignificant folks who usually formed this kind of retinue. Speaking of a tribune of the people, Memmius Gemellus, the protector of Lucretius, he calls him his client.

It was not only at Rome that he had clients and persons who were under obligation to him; we see by his correspondence that his protection extended much further, and that people wrote to him from all parts demanding his services. The Romans were then scattered over the entire world; after having conquered it they busied themselves in making the greatest possible profit out of it. In the track of the legions and almost at their heels, a swarm of clever and enterprising men settled on the just conquered provinces to seek their fortunes there; they knew how to adapt their skill to the resources and needs of each country. In Sicily and in Gaul they cultivated vast estates, and speculated in wines and corn; in Asia, where there were so many cities opulent or involved in debt, they became bankers, that is to say, they furnished them, by their usury, a prompt and sure means of ruining themselves. In general, they thought of returning to Rome as soon as their fortune was made, and in order to return the sooner, they sought to enrich themselves as quickly as possible. As they were only encamped, and not really settled in the conquered countries, as they found themselves there without ties of affection and without root, they treated them without mercy and made themselves detested. They were often prosecuted before the tribunals and had great need of being defended, and so they sought to procure the support of the best advocates, above all that of Cicero, the greatest orator of his time. His talent and his credit were not too great to extricate them from the discreditable affairs in which they were mixed up.

One trait is missing in this description. Cicero tells us in his speech that Rabirius was only moderately educated. He had done so many things in his life that he had not had time to think of learning, but this was not usual; we know that many of his colleagues, notwithstanding their not very literary occupations, were none the less witty and lettered men. Cicero, recommending a merchant of Thespiae to Sulpicius, tells him: "He has a taste for our studies." He looked upon Curius of Patras as one of those who had best preserved the turn of the ancient Roman humour. "Make haste and come back to Rome, he wrote him, lest the seed of our native humour be lost." Those knights who associated themselves in powerful companies and farmed the taxes, were also men of wit and men of the best society. Cicero, who came from their ranks, had connection with almost all of them; but it seems that he was more especially connected with the company that farmed the pasturages of Asia, and he says that it put itself under his protection.

This protection was also extended to people who were not Romans by birth. Foreigners, we can well understand, regarded it as a great honour and security to be in any way connected with an illustrious personage in Rome. They could not be his clients, they wished to become his hosts. At a time when there were so few convenient hotels in the countries one passed through, it was necessary, when you wished to travel, to have obliging friends who would consent to receive you. In Italy, rich people bought little houses where they passed the night on the roads they were accustomed to travel; but, elsewhere, they journeyed from one host to another. To shelter a rich Roman in this way was often a heavy expense. He always had a large train with him. Cicero tells us that he met P. Vedius in the depths of Asia "with two chariots, a carriage, a litter, horses, numerous slaves, and, besides, a monkey on a little car, and a number of wild asses." Vedius was a comparatively unknown Roman. One may judge of the suite that a proconsul and a praetor had when they went to take possession of their provinces! However, although their passage exhausted the house that received them, this ruinous honour was solicited because numberless advantages were found in securing their support. Cicero had hosts in all the great cities of Greece and Asia, and they were almost always the principal citizens. Kings themselves like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes considered themselves honoured by this title. Important cities, Volaterrae, Atella, Sparta, Paphos frequently claimed his protection and rewarded it with public honours. He counted entire provinces, nations almost, among his clients, and after the affair of Verres, for instance, he was the defender and patron of Sicily. This custom survived the republic, and in the time of Tacitus orators of renown had still among their clients provinces and kingdoms. It was the only mark of real distinction that remained to eloquence.

These details, it seems to me, complete our knowledge of what the life of an important person was at that time. As long as we are satisfied with studying the few persons who compose what we should now-a-days call his family, and only see him with his wife and children, his life very much resembles our own. The sentiments which are the foundation of human nature have not changed, and they always lead to very nearly the same results. The cares which troubled Cicero's domestic hearth, his joys and misfortunes, are much like ours; but as soon as we leave this limited circle, when we replace the Roman among the crowd of his servants and familiar friends, the difference between that society and ours becomes manifest. Now-a-days life has become more plain and simple. We have no longer those immense riches, those extensive connections, nor that multitude of people attached to our fortunes. What we call a great retinue would scarcely have sufficed for one of those clerks of the farmers of the revenue who went to collect the taxes in some provincial town. A noble, or even a rich Roman knight, did not content himself with so little. When we think of those armies of slaves they gathered together in their houses and on their estates, of those freedmen who formed a sort of court around them, of that multitude of clients who encumbered the streets of Rome through which they passed, of those hosts they had throughout the world, of those cities and realms that implored their protection, we can better understand the authority of their speech, the haughtiness of their bearing, the breadth of their eloquence, the gravity of their deportment, the feeling of personal importance which they threw into all their actions and speeches. It is here, above all, that the perusal of Cicero's letters renders us a great service. They give us a notion of lives lived on a scale such as we no longer know, and thus help us to understand better the society of that time.

ATTICUS

Of all Cicero's correspondents, none kept up a longer or more regular intercourse with him than Atticus. Their friendly relations lasted without interruption and without a shadow till their death. They corresponded during the shortest absences, and, when it was possible, more than once a day. These letters, sometimes short to communicate a passing reflection, sometimes long and studied, when events were graver, playful or serious according to circumstances, that were written in haste wherever the writers happened to be, these letters reflect the whole life of the two friends. Cicero characterized them happily when he said "They were like a conversation between us two." Unfortunately, at present, we hear only one of the speakers and the conversation has become a monologue. In publishing his friend's letters Atticus took good care not to add his own. No doubt he did not wish his sentiments to be read too openly, and his prudence sought to withhold from the public the knowledge of his opinions and the secrets of his private life; but in vain he sought to hide himself, the voluminous correspondence that Cicero kept up with him was sufficient to make him known, and it is easy to form from it an exact idea of the person to whom it is addressed. This person is assuredly one of the most curious of an important epoch, and deserves that we should take the trouble to study him with some care.

Atticus was twenty years old when the war between Marius and Sulla began. He saw its beginnings and nearly became its victim; the tribune Sulpicius, one of the chief heads of the popular party, and his relation, was put to death with his partisans and friends by Sulla's orders, and as Atticus often visited him he ran some risk. This first danger decided his whole life. As, notwithstanding his age, he had a firm and prudent mind, he did not allow himself to be discouraged, but reconsidered his position. If he had had hitherto some slight inclination towards political ambition, and the idea of seeking public honours, he gave them up without hesitation when he saw what a price must sometimes be paid for them. He understood that a republic, in which power could only be seized by force, was lost, and that in perishing it was likely to drag down with it those who had served it. He resolved then to hold himself aloof from public affairs, and his whole policy consisted henceforth in creating for himself a safe position, outside of parties, and out of reach of danger.

In view of the first massacres of which he had been a witness, Atticus decided to take no part henceforth in public affairs and parties; but that is not so easy to do as one might think, and the firmest resolution does not always suffice for success. It is useless to declare that you wish to remain neutral; the world persists in classing you according to the name you bear, your family traditions, your personal ties and the earlier manifestations of your preferences. Atticus understood that, in order to escape this sort of forced enlistment and to throw public opinion off the scent, it was necessary to leave Rome, and to leave it for a long time. He hoped, by this voluntary exile, to regain full possession of himself and break the ties that, against his will, still bound him to the past. But, if he wished to withdraw himself from the eyes of his fellow-citizens, he did not intend to be forgotten by everybody. He meant to return; and did not wish to return as a stranger, no longer recognized, and lose all the benefit of his early friendships. Thus he did not choose for his retreat some distant estate, in an unknown province, or one of those obscure towns on which the eyes of the Roman people never fell. He retired to Athens, that is to say, to the only city that had preserved a great renown, and which still held a place in the admiration of the nations on a level with Rome. There, by a few well-placed liberalities, he drew to himself the affection of everybody. He distributed corn to the citizens, he lent money without interest to that city of men of letters, the finances of which were always embarrassed. He did more, he flattered the Athenians on their most sensitive side. He was the first Roman who dared openly to declare his taste for the letters and arts of Greece. Up to that time it had been the fashion among his countrymen to esteem and cultivate the Greek muses in private, and to laugh at them in public. Cicero himself, who on so many occasions braved this stupid prejudice, dared not appear to know off-hand the name of a great sculptor; but Cicero was a statesman for whom it was proper to show, at least now and then, that haughty disdain for other nations which partly constituted what is called the Roman dignity. It was necessary to flatter this national weakness if one wished to please the people. Atticus, who did not mean to ask anything of them, was more free; so he openly laughed at these customs. Immediately on his arrival he began to speak and write Greek, to openly frequent the studios of sculptors and painters, to buy statues and pictures, and to compose works on the fine arts. The Athenians were as much delighted as surprised to see one of their conquerors partake in their most cherished tastes, and thus protest against the unjust disdain of the rest. Their gratitude, which was always very noisy, as we know, overwhelmed Atticus with all sorts of flattery. Decrees in his honour were multiplied, he was offered all the dignities of the city; they even wished to raise statues to him. Atticus hastened to refuse everything; but the effect was produced, and the report of such great popularity did not fail to reach Rome, carried by those young men of high family who had just finished their education in Greece. In this manner the reputation of Atticus lost nothing by his absence; people of taste talked of this enlightened connoisseur of the arts who had made himself remarked even at Athens; and during this same time the politicians, no longer seeing him, lost the habit of classing him with a political party.

This was an important step. There remained a more important one to take. Atticus had seen betimes that to be rich is the first condition of independence. This general truth was even more evident at that time than at any other. How many people were there whose conduct during the civil wars can only be explained by the state of their fortunes! Curio had but one motive for serving Caesar, whom he did not like, namely, the pressure of his creditors; and Cicero himself puts among the chief reasons that prevented him going to Pompey's camp, whither all his sympathies called him, the money that Caesar had lent him, and which he could not repay. To escape embarrassments of this kind and gain entire liberty, Atticus resolved to become rich, and became so. It is of importance, I think, to give here a few details to show how people got rich at Rome. His father had left him a rather moderate fortune, two million sesterces . When he left Rome he sold almost all the family property, that he might leave nothing behind to tempt the proscribers, and bought an estate in Epirus, in that country of large herds, where the land brought in so much. It is probable he did not pay much for it. Mithridates had just ravaged Greece, and, as there was no money, everything went at a low price. This domain quickly prospered under skilful management; new lands were bought every year out of the surplus revenue, and Atticus became one of the great landed proprietors of the country. But is it likely that his wealth came to him solely through the good management of his land? He would have willingly had this believed, in order to resemble somewhat in this manner Cato and the Romans of the old school. Unluckily for him, his friend Cicero betrays him. In reading this unreserved correspondence we are not long in perceiving that Atticus had many other ways of enriching himself besides the sale of his corn and herds. This skilful agriculturalist was at the same time a clever trader, who carried on all businesses successfully. He excelled in drawing a profit, not only from the follies of others, which is common, but even from his own pleasures, and his talent consisted in enriching himself where others ruin themselves. We know for instance that he was fond of fine books; then, as now, this was a very costly fancy, but he knew how to make it a source of handsome profits. He collected in his house a large number of skilful copyists whom he trained himself; after having made them work for him, when his passion was satisfied he set them to work for others, and sold the books they copied to the public very dear. He was thus a veritable publisher for Cicero, and as his friend's works sold well it happened that this friendship, which was full of charm for his heart, was not without use to his fortune. This commerce might be avowed, and a friend to letters was not forbidden to become a bookseller; but Atticus engaged as well in many transactions that ought to have been more repugnant to him. As he saw the success that everywhere attended gladiatorial fights, and that no festival took place without one of these grand butcheries, he thought of raising gladiators on his estates. He had them carefully instructed in the art of dying gracefully, and hired them out at a high rate to cities that wished to amuse themselves. It must be acknowledged that this is not a suitable trade for a scholar and a philosopher; but the profits were large, and the philosophy of Atticus was accommodating as soon as there was a good profit to make. Besides, he was a banker when the opportunity offered, and lent at a high rate of interest, as the greatest nobles of Rome did without scruple. Only, he was more circumspect than others, and took care to appear as little as possible in the affairs that he conducted, and he had, no doubt, in Italy and Greece, clever agents who made the most of his capital. His business relations extended throughout the world; we know of his debtors in Macedonia, Epirus, Ephesus and Delos, almost everywhere. He lent to private persons; he lent also to cities, but quite secretly, for this business was then as little esteemed as it was lucrative, and persons who took to it were not considered either honest or scrupulous. So Atticus, who thought as much of his reputation as of his fortune, would not let any one know that he conducted this sort of business. He carefully concealed it even from his friend Cicero, and we should be ignorant of it now if he had not experienced some untoward accidents in this risky business. Although usually great profits were gained, some dangers also were run. After having suffered the Roman domination for two centuries, all the cities, allied and municipal, and especially those of Asia, were completely ruined. They all had less revenue than debts, and the proconsuls, combined with the farmers of the taxes, carried off their resources so completely that there was nothing left for the creditors to take, unless they exerted themselves. This is what happened once to Atticus, notwithstanding his activity. We see that Cicero rallies him in one of his letters about the siege he is going to lay to Sicyon; this siege was evidently that of some recalcitrant debtors; Atticus never made any other campaigns; and, in truth, this one succeeded badly. While he thus went to war against this unfortunate indebted town, the senate took pity on it, and protected it by a decree against its too exacting creditors, so that Atticus, who set out from Epirus as a conqueror, with flying banners, was reduced, says Cicero, when he had arrived under the walls, to extract from the Sicyonians a few poor crowns by means of prayers and flatteries. We must, however, suppose that Atticus was usually more lucky in the investment of his funds, and by his well-known prudence we are assured that he knew how to choose more solvent debtors. All this business that he carried on would certainly soon have made him very rich; but he had no need to take so much trouble, for while he was working so skilfully to make his fortune it came to him ready made from another quarter. He had an uncle, Q. Caecilius, who passed for the most terrible usurer of Rome, where there were so many, and who only consented to lend to his nearest relations, and as a special favour, at the rate of one per cent. per month. He was a hard, inflexible man, who had rendered himself so hateful to everybody that the people could not be prevented from outraging his corpse on the day of his funeral. Atticus was the only person who had been able to get on with him. Caecilius adopted him by will, and left him the greater part of his property, ten million sesterces, a little more than ?80,000. Henceforth his fortune was made, he was independent of everybody, and free to follow his own inclinations.

Atticus remained twenty-three years away from Rome, only visiting it at long intervals and usually remaining but a very short time. When he thought that, by his long absence, he was quite free from the ties that attached him to the political parties, when he had gained independence with wealth, when he had secured himself against all the reproaches that might be made him on his conduct by giving his prudence the appearance of a philosophical conviction, he thought of returning definitively to Rome and there resuming his interrupted course of life. He chose a moment for returning when all was calm, and, as if to break entirely with his past, he came back with a new surname, by which people soon learnt to call him. This name of Atticus, which he brought back from Athens, seemed to indicate clearly that he would only live henceforth for the study of letters and the enjoyment of the arts.

From this moment he divided his time between residence in Rome and in his country houses. He quietly wound up his banking affairs, some of which were still standing over, and took measures to hide from the public the sources of his wealth. He kept only his estates in Epirus and his houses in Rome, which brought him in a good deal, and the profits of which he could acknowledge. His property continued to increase, thanks to the way in which he managed it. Besides, he had none of those weaknesses which might have endangered it; he did not care about buying or building, he did not possess any of those splendid villas at the gates of Rome or at the sea-side, the keeping up of which ruined Cicero. He still sometimes lent money, but, as it appears, rather to oblige than to enrich himself. He was careful, besides, to choose safe persons, and showed himself without pity when debts fell due. This he did, he said, in the interest of his debtors, for, in tolerating their negligence he would encourage them to ruin themselves. But he did not stand upon ceremony in dismissing those with whom his money would have run some risk, even if they were his nearest relations. Cicero, relating to him one day that their common nephew, the young Quintus, had come to him and tried to move him by the picture of his poverty, added: "I took then something of your eloquence; I answered nothing." It was a good contrivance, and Atticus must have employed it more than once with regard to his brother-in-law and his nephew, who were always without money. He had learnt how to make for himself a high social position at small cost. He lived in his house on the Quirinal--which was more spacious and commodious within than handsome without, and which he repaired as little as possible--among the works of art that he had selected in Greece, and the lettered slaves whom he had carefully trained himself, and whom everybody envied him. He often assembled the cultivated people of Rome at feasts where there was a great display of learning. His hospitality did not cost much, if it is true, as Cornelius Nepos, who had seen his accounts, asserts, that he only spent 3000 asses a month on his table. Cicero, always indiscreet, relates that Atticus often served to his guests very common vegetables on very costly dishes; but what did it matter? every one considered himself fortunate in taking part in these select parties, where they heard Atticus talk and Cicero's finest works read before they were published, and it may be said that all the most distinguished persons of that great period held it an honour to frequent that house on the Quirinal.

Of all the advantages of Atticus, one is most tempted to envy him his good fortune in attaching to himself so many friends. He took much trouble to do so. From his arrival at Rome we see him busied in putting himself on good terms with everybody, and using every means to please men of all parties. His birth, his wealth, and the manner in which he had acquired it, drew him towards the knights; these rich farmers of the taxes were his natural friends, and he soon enjoyed a great reputation among them; but he was not less connected with the patricians, usually so disdainful of all who were not of their caste. He had taken the surest means to conciliate them, which was to flatter their vanity. He took advantage of his historical knowledge to manufacture for them agreeable genealogies, in which he made himself partaker in a good many lies, and supported their most fanciful pretensions by his learning. This example shows at once his knowledge of the world, and the advantage he drew from it when he wished to gain the friendship of anybody. We can see what a close observer he must have been, and the talent that he had for seizing and profiting by the weak side of people, merely by considering the nature of the services that he rendered to each person. He had proposed to Cato to undertake the management of his affairs at Rome during his absence, and Cato hastened to accept this: a steward of such capacity was not to be despised by a man who cared so much for his wealth. He had gratified the vain Pompey, by busying himself in selecting in Greece some fine statues to ornament the theatre he was building. As he well knew that Caesar was not accessible to the same kind of flattery, and that, to attract him, more real services were necessary, he lent him money. Naturally, he attached himself by preference to the heads of parties; but he did not neglect others when he could serve them. He carefully cultivated Balbus and Theophanes, the confidants of Caesar and Pompey; he even went sometimes to visit Clodius and his sister Clodia, as well as other people of doubtful reputation. Having neither rigid scruples like Cato, nor violent aversions like Cicero, he accommodated himself to everybody; his good-nature lent itself to everything; he suited all ages as well as all characters. Cornelius Nepos remarks with admiration, that while yet very young he charmed the old Sulla, and that when very old he could please the young Brutus. Atticus formed a common link between all these men who were so different in temper, rank, opinions, and age. He went continually from one to the other, as a sort of pacific ambassador, trying to bring them together and unite them, for it was his habit, says Cicero, to form friendships between others. He removed the suspicions and prejudices which prevented them knowing one another; he inspired them with the desire to see each other and become intimate, and if, later, any differences arose between them, he became their intermediary, and brought about explanations which made them friends again. His masterpiece in this line is to have succeeded in reconciling Hortensius and Cicero, and making them live amicably together notwithstanding the violent jealousy that separated them. What trouble must he not have had to calm their irritable vanity, which was always ready to fly out, and which fate seemed to take pleasure in exciting still more, by putting them in constant rivalry!

This is still one of those problems of which the life of Atticus is full, and it is the most difficult to solve. Seen from a distance, even through the praises of Cicero, Atticus does not seem attractive, and one would not be tempted to choose him for a friend. And yet it is certain that those who lived with him did not judge him as we do. They loved him, and felt themselves from the first inclined to love him. That general good-will that he inspired, that determination of every one to pardon or not to see his defects, those lively friendships that he called forth, are evidences that it is impossible to resist, whatever surprise they may cause us. There was, then, about this personage something else than we see; he must have possessed a kind of attraction that is inexplicable to us, which was personal to him, and which has disappeared with him. For this reason it is no longer possible for us to understand thoroughly that strange attraction that he exercised at first sight on all his contemporaries. We can, however, form some idea of it, and the writers who knew him, especially Cicero, give a glimpse of some of those brilliant or solid qualities by which he gained over those who approached him. I shall enumerate them according to their testimony, and if they still do not seem sufficient to justify altogether the number of his friendships and their ardour, we must join to them in thought that personal charm that it is impossible now to define or recover because it vanished with himself.

Firstly, he had a good deal of cultivation, everybody agrees about that, and a sort of cultivation especially agreeable to the society that he frequented. He was not solely one of those pleasant triflers who charm for a moment on a passing acquaintance, but who have not the qualifications for a longer connection. He was a person of many attainments and solid knowledge; not that he was a man of deep learning, this title is not a great recommendation in the intercourse of society; Cicero thought that people like Varro, who are perfect mines of knowledge, are not always amusing, and relates that when the latter came to see him at Tusculum he did not tear his mantle in trying to retain him. But, without being really a scholar, Atticus had touched on everything in his studies, the fine arts, poetry, grammar, philosophy, and history. Upon all these subjects he possessed just and sometimes original ideas; he could discuss matters with learned men without too great disadvantage, and he always had some curious detail to tell those who were not so. Pascal would have called him a cultivated gentleman ; in everything he was an intelligent and enlightened amateur. Now, for several reasons, the knowledge that an amateur acquires is of the kind most current in society. Firstly, as he does not study according to rule, he interests himself above all in curiosities; he learns by preference racy and novel details, and it is precisely these that people of society want to know. Besides, the very multiplicity of the studies which tempt him, prevents him exhausting any; his caprice always carries him off elsewhere before he has thoroughly examined anything. The result is that he knows a great many things, and always within the limits in which it pleases men of the world to know them. In fact, the characteristic of the amateur is to do everything, even what he only does for a moment, with enthusiasm. As it is a personal taste that draws him to his studies, and as he only continues them as long as they interest him, his language is more lively when he speaks of them, his tone freer and more original, and consequently more agreeable, than that of scholars by profession. Such is the notion we must form of the learning of Atticus. It was too extensive for his conversation ever to become monotonous; it was not deep enough to run the risk of being tedious; it was, in fine, living, for when things are done with enthusiasm it is natural to speak of them with interest. This is what made his conversation so attractive, and this is how he charmed the most fastidious and least favourably disposed minds. He was still quite young when the aged Sulla, who had no reason to like him, met him at Athens. He took so much pleasure in hearing him read Greek and Latin verses and talk about literature, that he would not leave him, and wished by all means to take him back with him to Rome. Long after, Augustus felt the same charm; he was never tired of hearing Atticus talk, and when he could not go to see him, he wrote to him every day simply to receive his answers, and thus to continue, in some sort, those long conversations with which he was so delighted.

We can imagine, then, that the first time people met this accomplished man they felt themselves drawn towards him by the charm of his conversation. In proportion as he was better known, other and more solid qualities were discovered, which retained those whom his culture had attracted. In the first place there was a great security in his intercourse. Although he was connected with people holding very diverse opinions, and though, through them, he had the secrets of all parties, he was never reproached with having betrayed these to anybody. We cannot see that he ever furnished a serious cause to any of his friends to keep aloof from him, or that any of his connections were broken otherwise than by death. This intercourse, so secure, was at the same time very easy. No one was ever more indulgent and accommodating. He took care not to weary by his demands or to repulse by bluntness. Those storms which so often troubled the friendship of Cicero and Brutus were not to be feared in his. It was rather one of those calm and uniform intimacies which grow stronger from day to day by their regular continuance. It was this especially that must have charmed those politicians who were oppressed and fatigued by that bustling activity which used up their lives. On coming out of this whirlwind of business, they were happy to find, at a few paces from the Forum, that peaceful house on the Quirinal into which outside quarrels did not enter, and to go and chat for a moment with that even-tempered and accomplished man who always received them with the same smile, and in whose good-will they had such a tranquil confidence.

But Atticus did not stop at these services, which we might call external; he penetrated into the home, he knew all its secrets. Cicero kept nothing from him, and confided to him unreservedly all his domestic griefs. He tells him about the violent temper of his brother and the follies of his nephew; he consults him on the vexations that his wife and son cause him. When Tullia was of an age to marry, it was Atticus who sought her a husband. The one he proposed was the son of a rich and well-conducted knight. "Return," he said sagely to Cicero, "return to your old flock." Unfortunately he was not listened to. They preferred to the rich financier a broken-down nobleman, who squandered Tullia's dowry and forced her to leave him. When Tullia was dead, of grief perhaps, Atticus went to the nurse's to visit the little child she had left, and took care that it wanted for nothing. At the same time Cicero gave him plenty of occupation with his two divorces. After he had divorced his first wife, Terentia, it was Atticus whom he charged to get her to make a will in his favour. It was to him also that he gave the disagreeable commission to remove the second, Publilia, when she was determined to forcibly re-enter the home of her husband, who would have nothing more to do with her.

Here is something far removed from the notion we usually have of him, and yet we cannot resist such clear testimony. How can we contend that he had only a doubtful affection for his friends when we see all his friends contented with it? Are we to be more exacting than they, and would it not be wronging men like Brutus and Cicero to suppose that they had been dupes so long without perceiving it? On the other hand, how can we explain the fact that posterity, which only judges by the documents that the friends of Atticus have furnished it, draws from these very documents an opinion quite the reverse of that held by them? Evidently it is because posterity and contemporaries do not judge men from the same stand-point. We have seen that Atticus, who had made a rule not to engage in public affairs, did not think himself obliged to partake the dangers that his friends might run, through having taken part in them. He left them both the honours and the perils. Sensitive, obliging, devoted to them in the ordinary business of life, when a great political crisis occurred that compromised them, he stood aside, and left them to expose themselves alone. Now, when we look at the facts from a distance, and are separated from them, as we are, by several centuries, we only perceive the most important events, and especially the political revolutions, that is to say, precisely those circumstances with which the friendship of Atticus had nothing to do. Hence the severe judgment we pronounce upon it. But his contemporaries judged otherwise. Those great crises are, after all, but rare and passing exceptions; without doubt contemporaries are much struck by them, but they are still more impressed by those numberless small incidents which make up every-day life, and which posterity does not perceive. They judge of a man's friendship by those services which are rendered every moment, and which are important by their mere number, much more than by any exceptional service which may be given on one of these great and rare occasions. This accounts for the fact that they had an opinion of Atticus so different from ours.

It is, beyond doubt, one of the characteristic traits of this person, that it was a necessity to him to have many friends, and that he took trouble to attract and retain them. We may refuse to admit, if we will, that this need was, with him, the effect of a generous and sympathetic nature, that it came from what Cicero admirably calls "the impulse of the soul that desires to love;" but, even supposing that he only thought of occupying and filling up his life, we must acknowledge that to fill it up in this manner is not a mark of a vulgar nature. This refined Epicurean, this master in the art of living at ease, knew "that life is no longer life if we cannot repose on the affection of a friend." He had given up the excitement of political strife, the triumphs of eloquence, the joys of satisfied ambition, but, as a compensation, he was determined to enjoy all the pleasures of private life. The more he confined and limited himself to it, the more particular and refined he became with regard to the pleasures it could give; as he had only left himself these, he wished to enjoy them fully, to relish them, to live on them. He needed friends, and among them the greatest minds, the noblest souls of his time. He expended all that energy which he did not employ in anything else, in procuring for himself those pleasures of society that Bossuet calls the greatest good of human life. Atticus enjoyed this good even beyond his desires, and friendship generously repaid him for all the trouble he had taken for it. It was his single passion; he was able to satisfy it completely, and friendship, after having adorned his life, has shed a lustre on his name.

Atticus appears in a favourable light in private life. He is less fortunate when we study the course he followed in public affairs. On this point he has not been spared blame, and it is not easy to defend him.

We should not however be very unfavourable to him if we judged his conduct entirely according to the ideas of our days. Opinion has become less severe now on those who openly make profession of living apart from politics. So many men aspire to govern their country, and it has become so difficult to make choice among this multitude, that we are tempted to look kindly upon those who have not this ambition. Far from being blamed, they are called moderate and wise; they form an exception which is encouraged in order to lessen the number of aspirants. At Rome they thought otherwise, and it is not difficult to find reasons for this difference. There, what we may call the political body was in reality very circumscribed. Besides the slaves, who did not count, and the common people, who contented themselves with giving or rather selling their votes in the elections, and whose greatest privilege it was to be entertained at the expense of the candidates, and fed at the expense of the public treasury, there remained only a few families of ancient lineage or more recent celebrity who divided all public employments among themselves. The aristocracy of birth and of fortune was not very numerous, and scarcely sufficed to furnish the required number of officials of all sorts to govern the world. It was necessary therefore that no one should refuse to take his part, and to live in retirement was considered a desertion. It is not the same in our democracy. As all offices are open to everybody, and as, thanks to the diffusion of education, men worthy to occupy them may arise in all ranks, we need no longer fear lest the absence of a few quiet people, friends of peace and repose, will make a sensible and regrettable gap in the serried ranks of those who struggle from all quarters for power. Moreover, we think now that there are many other ways of serving one's country besides public life. Romans of high birth knew no other; they looked upon commerce as a not very honourable means that a private man might employ to make his fortune, and did not see what the state might gain by it; literature seemed an agreeable but trivial pastime, and they did not understand its social importance. It follows that among them, a man of a certain rank could only find one honourable mode of employing his activity and being useful to his country, namely, to fill political offices. To do anything else was, according to their ideas, to do nothing; they gave the name of idlers to the most laborious scholars, and it did not come into their heads that there was anything worth the trouble of occupying a citizen's time beyond the service of the state. All the ancient Romans thought thus, and they would have experienced a strange surprise if they had seen any one claim the right, as Atticus did, not to serve his country within the limits of his powers and talents. Assuredly Cato, who never rested, and who, at ninety years of age, bravely quitted his villa at Tusculum to go and accuse Servius Galba, the butcher of the Lusitanians, would have thought that to remain in his house on the Quirinal, or on his estate in Epirus in the midst of his books and statues, while the fate of Rome was being decided in the Forum or at Pharsalia, was to commit the same crime as to remain in his tent on the day of battle.

This systematic abstention of Atticus was not, then, a Roman custom; he had it from the Greeks. In those small ungovernable republics of Greece, where they knew no repose, and which passed constantly and without warning from the sternest tyranny to the most unbridled licence, we can understand that quiet and studious men should have grown weary of all this sterile agitation, and ceased to desire public employments which were only obtained by flattering the capricious multitude, and only kept on condition of obeying it. Moreover, what value could this power, so hardly acquired, so seldom preserved, have, when it was necessary to share it with the most obscure demagogues? was it really worth while to take so much trouble in order to become the successor or the colleague of Cleon? At the same time that weariness and disgust kept honourable men aloof from these paltry struggles, philosophy, more studied every day, communicated to its disciples a sort of pride which led them to the same result. Men who passed their time in meditating upon God and the world, and who endeavoured to understand the laws that govern the universe, did not deign to descend from these heights to govern states a few leagues square. Thus they constantly discussed in the schools, whether a man should occupy himself with public affairs, whether the sage ought to seek public office, and whether the active or the contemplative life was the better. A few philosophers hesitatingly gave the preference to active life, the greater number sustained the opposite opinion, and under cover of these discussions many men thought themselves authorized to create a sort of elegant indolence in voluptuous retreats embellished by letters and the arts, where they lived happily while Greece was perishing.

The strangest thing is that this man, while so persistent in remaining neutral, was not indifferent. His biographer gives him this praise, that he always belonged to the best party, and that is true; only he made it a rule not to serve his party; he was contented with giving it his good wishes. But these good wishes were the warmest imaginable. He had, though we should scarcely believe it, political passions which he dared to express in private with incredible vigour. He hated Caesar so much that he went as far as to blame Brutus for having permitted his interment. He would have wished, no doubt, as the most furious demanded, that his corpse should be thrown into the Tiber. Thus he did not abstain from having preferences, and showing them to his most intimate friends. His reserve only began when it was necessary to act. He never consented to take part in the struggle; but if he did not share its danger he felt at least all its excitement. We smile at seeing him become animated and excited as if he were a real combatant; he takes his share in all successes and all reverses, he congratulates the energetic, he entreats the lukewarm, and even scolds the faltering, and permits himself to advise and reprimand those who seem to him, who did not act at all, to act too languidly. It is amusing to hear the reproaches he addresses to Cicero when he sees him hesitating to go and join Pompey; he adopts the most pathetic tone, he reminds him of his actions and his words, he entreats him in the name of his glory, he quotes his own words to him to persuade him. This excess of audacity into which he allows himself to be drawn for others, sometimes produces rather comic incidents. At the moment when Pompey had just shut himself up in Brundusium, Atticus, moved by the most lively grief, wished for some attempts to be made to save him, and went so far as to ask Cicero to do some striking action before leaving. "It only requires a banner," said he, "every one will flock to it." The worthy Cicero felt himself quite excited by these lively exhortations of his friend, and there were times when he was tempted to be bold, and when he only demanded the opportunity to strike a heavy blow. The opportunity came, and he relates in the following words how he took advantage of it. "As I arrived at my house at Pompeii, your friend Ninnius came to tell me that the centurions of three cohorts who were there, asked to see me the next day, as they wished to deliver up the place to me. Do you know what I did? I went away before daylight in order not to see them. What are, in fact, three cohorts? And if there had been more, what should I have done with them?" This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows himself well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in the ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are with good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a little that part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking part, up to a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise man of Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he tranquilly enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human conflicts; but he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that he feels is diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and understands his pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight itself, he sees it close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he will retire in time.

The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most anxious to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in which he reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon him than that of Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days, great praise has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the beginning of the civil war: "He who is not against me is for me," and the contrary saying of Pompey has been much blamed: "He who is not for me is against me." However, looking at things fairly, this praise and this blame appear equally unreasonable. Each of the two rivals, when he expressed himself thus, speaks in character, and their words were suggested by their position. Caesar, however we may judge him, came to overturn the established order, and he naturally was grateful to those who gave him a free hand. What more could he reasonably ask of them? In reality, those who did not hinder him served him. But lawful order, established order, considers it has the right to call upon every one to defend it, and to regard as enemies all who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a generally recognized principle that he who does not bring help to the law when openly attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of those who violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at Rome, should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as it was also that those in Pompey's camp should be very much irritated against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he let them talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not console themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to avenge themselves on those who had remained. What did these menaces matter to him? He was sure that he had preserved the esteem of the two most important and most respected men of the party, and he could oppose their testimony to all the indignation of the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the strength of their convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and they appear to have approved of his not taking part in public affairs. "I know the honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said Cicero to him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend himself; there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we have arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made you seek an honourable leisure!" Again, Brutus wrote to him towards the end of his life: "I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your age, your character, your family, everything makes you love repose."

If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him as Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in the na?ve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This indulgent biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with the happy chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot get over his surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus, withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so many proscriptions, and preserve himself so skilfully where so many others perished. "If we overwhelm with praises," says he, "the pilot who saves his vessel from the rocks and tempests, ought we not to consider admirable the prudence of a man who in the midst of those violent political storms succeeded in saving himself?" Admiration is here too strong a word. We keep that for those courageous men who made their actions agree with their principles, and who knew how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill success does not injure them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of Atticus may say, there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is drawn than from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly deserves is that which his biographer gives him with so much complacency, namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but we know that there are other forms of praise which are of more value than this.

CAELIUS

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