Chapter 10

[e] Hirtius and Pansa were consuls A.U.C. 711; before the Christian æra 43. In this year, the famous _triple league_, called the TRIUMVIRATE, was formed between Augustus, Lepidus, and Antony. The _proscription_, or the list of those who were doomed to die for the crime of adhering to the cause of liberty, was also settled, and Cicero was one of the number. A band of assassins went in quest of him to his villa, called _Astura_, near the sea-shore. Their leader was one Popilius Lænas, a military tribune, whom Cicero had formerly defended with success in a capital cause. They overtook Cicero in his litter. He commanded his servants to set him down, and make no resistance; then looking upon his executioners with a presence and firmness which almost daunted them, and thrusting his neck as forward as he could out of the litter, he bade them _do their work, and take what they wanted_. The murderers cut off his head, and both his hands. Popilius undertook to convey them to Rome, as the most agreeable present to Antony; without reflecting on the _infamy of carrying that head, which had saved his own_. He found Antony in the forum, and upon shewing the spoils which he brought, was rewarded on the spot with the _honour of a crown, and about eight thousand pounds sterling_. Antony ordered the head to be _fixed upon the rostra, between the two hands_; a sad spectacle to the people, who beheld those mangled members, which used to exert themselves, from that place, in defence of the lives, the fortunes, and the liberties of Rome. Cicero was killed on the seventh of December, about ten days from the settlement of the triumvirate, after he had lived _sixty-three years, eleven months, and five days_. See Middleton's _Life of Cicero_, 4to edit. vol. ii. p. 495 to 498. Velleius Paterculus, after mentioning Cicero's death, breaks out in a strain of indignation, that almost redeems the character of that time-serving writer. He says to Antony, in a spirited apostrophe, you have no reason to exult: you have gained no point by paying the assassin, who stopped that eloquent mouth, and cut off that illustrious head. You have paid the wages of murder, and you have destroyed a consul who was the conservator of the commonwealth. By that act you delivered Cicero from a distracted world, from the infirmities of old age, and from a life which, under your usurpation, would have been worse than death. His fame was not to be crushed: the glory of his actions and his eloquence still remains, and you have raised it higher than ever. He lives, and will continue to live in every age and nation. Posterity will admire and venerate the torrent of eloquence, which he poured out against yourself, and will for ever execrate the horrible murder which you committed. _Nihil tamen egisti, Marce Antoni (cogit enim excedere propositi formam operis erumpens animo ac pectore indignatio): nihil, inquam, egisti; mercedem cælestissimi oris, et clarissimi capitis abscissi numerando; auctoramentoque funebri ad conservatoris quondam reipublicæ tantique consulis irritando necem. Rapuisti tu Marco Ciceroni lucem sollicitam et ætatem senilem, et vitam miseriorem te principe, quam sub te triumviro mortem. Famam vero, gloriamque factorum atque dictorum adeo non abstulisti, ut auxeris. Vivit, vivetque per omnium sæculorum memoriam; omnisque posteritas illius in te scripta mirabitur, tuum in eum factum execrabitur._ Vell. Paterc. lib. ii. s. 66.

[f] Between the consulship of Augustus, which began immediately after the destruction of Hirtius and Pansa, A.U.C. 711, and the death of that emperor, which was A.U. 767, fifty-six years intervened, and to the sixth of Vespasian (A.U.C. 828), about 118 years. For the sake of a round number, it is called in the Dialogue a space of 120 years.

[g] Julius Cæsar landed in Britain in the years of Rome 699 and 700. See _Life of Agricola_, s. 13. note a. It does not appear when Aper was in Britain; it could not be till the year of Rome 796, when Aulus Plautius, by order of the emperor Claudius, undertook the conquest of the island. See _Life of Agricola_, s. 14. note a. At that time, the Briton who fought against Cæsar, must have been far advanced in years.

[h] A largess was given to the people, in the fourth year of Vespasian, when Domitian entered on his second consulship. This, Brotier says, appears on a medal, with this inscription: CONG. II. COS. II. _Congiarium alterum, Domitiano consule secundùm._ The custom of giving large distributions to the people was for many ages established at Rome. Brotier traces it from Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome, when the poverty of the people called for relief. The like bounty was distributed by the generals, who returned in triumph. Lucullus and Julius Cæsar displayed, on those occasions, great pomp and magnificence. Corn, wine, and oil, were plentifully distributed, and the popularity, acquired by those means, was, perhaps, the ruin of the commonwealth. Cæsar lavished money. Augustus followed the example, and Tiberius did the same; but prodigality was not his practice. His politic genius taught him all the arts of governing. The bounties thus distributed, were called, when given to the people, CONGIARIA, and, to the soldiers, DONATIVA. Whoever desires to form an idea of the number of Roman citizens who, at different times, received largesses, and the prodigious expence attending them, may see an account drawn up with diligent attention by Brotier, in an elaborate note on this passage. He begins with Julius Cæsar; and pursues the enquiry through the several successive emperors, fixing the date and expence at every period, as low down as the consulship of Constantius and Galerius Maximianus; when, the empire being divided into the eastern and western, its former magnificence was, by consequence, much diminished.

[i] The person here called Corvinus was the same as Corvinus Messala, who flourished in the reign of Augustus, at the same time with Asinius Pollio. See s. xii. note [e].

Section XVIII.

[a] Servius Sulpicius Galba was consul A.U.C. 610, before the Christian æra 144. Cicero says of him, that he was, in his day, an orator of eminence. When he spoke in public, the natural energy of his mind supported him, and the warmth of his imagination made him vehement and pathetic; his language was animated, bold, and rapid; but when he, afterwards, took his pen in hand to correct and polish, the fit of enthusiasm was over; his passions ebbed away, and the composition was cold and languid. _Galbam fortasse vis non ingenii solum, sed etiam animi, et naturalis quidam dolor, dicentem incendebat, efficiebatque, ut et incitata, et gravis, et vehemens esset oratio; dein cum otiosus stilum prehenderat, motusque omnis animi, tanquam ventus, hominem defecerat, flaccescebat oratio. Ardor animi non semper adest, isque cum consedit, omnis illa vis, et quasi flamma oratoris extinguitur._ _De Claris Orat._ s. 93. Suetonius says, that the person here intended was of consular dignity, and, by his eloquence, gave weight and lustre to his family. _Life of Galba_, s. iii.

[b] Caius Papirius Carbo was consul A.U.C. 634. Cicero wishes that he had proved himself as good a citizen, as he was an orator. Being impeached for his turbulent and seditious conduct, he did not choose to stand the event of a trial, but escaped the judgement of the senate by a voluntary death. His life was spent in forensic causes. Men of sense, who heard him have reported, that he was a fluent, animated, and harmonious speaker; at times pathetic, always pleasing, and abounding with wit. _Carbo, quoad vita suppeditavit, est in multis judiciis causisque cognitus. Hunc qui audierant prudentes homines, canorum oratorem, et volubilem, et satis acrem, atque eundem et vehementem, et valde dulcem, et perfacetum fuisse dicebant._ _De Claris Orat._ s. 105.

[c] Calvus and Cælius have been mentioned already. See s. xvii. note [c].

[d] Caius Gracchus was tribune of the people A.U.C. 633. In that character he took the popular side against the patricians; and, pursuing the plan of the agrarian law laid down by his brother, Tiberius Gracchus, he was able by his eloquence to keep the city of Rome in violent agitation. Amidst the tumult, the senate, by a decree, ordered the consul, Lucius Opimius, _to take care that the commonwealth received no injury_; and, says Cicero, not a single night intervened, before that magistrate put Gracchus to death. _Decrevit senatus, ut Lucius Opimius, consul, videret, ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet: nox nulla intercessit; interfectus est propter quasdam seditionum suspiciones Caius Gracchus, clarissimo patre natus, avis majoribus. Orat. i. in Catilinam._ His reputation as an orator towers above all his contemporaries. Cicero says, the commonwealth and the interests of literature suffered greatly by his untimely end. He wishes that the love of his country, and not zeal for the memory of his brother, had inspired his actions. His eloquence was such as left him without a rival: in his diction, what a noble splendour! in his sentiments, what elevation! and in the whole of his manner, what weight and dignity! His compositions, it is true, are not retouched with care; they want the polish of the last hand; what is well begun, is seldom highly finished; and yet he, if any one, deserves to be the study of the Roman youth. In him they will find what can, at once, quicken their genius, and enrich the understanding. _Damnum enim, illius immaturo interitu, res Romanæ, Latinæque literæ fecerunt. Utinam non tam fratri pietatem, quam patriæ præstare voluisset. Eloquentia quidem nescio an habuisset parem: grandis est verbis, sapiens sententiis, genere toto gravis. Manus extrema non accessit operibus ejus; præclare inchoata multa, perfecta non plane. Legendus est hic orator, si quisquam alius, juventuti; non enim solum acuere, sed etiam alere ingenium potest._ _De Claris Orat._ s. 125, 126.

[e] This is the celebrated Marcus Portius Cato, commonly known by the name of Cato the censor. He was quæstor under Scipio, who commanded against the Carthaginians, A.U.C. 548. He rose through the regular gradations of the magistracy to the consulship. When prætor, he governed the province of Sardinia, and exerted himself in the reform of all abuses introduced by his predecessors. From his own person, and his manner of living, he banished every appearance of luxury. When he had occasion to visit the towns that lay within his government, he went on foot, clothed with the plainest attire, without a vehicle following him, or more than one servant, who carried the robe of office, and a vase, to make libations at the altar. He sat in judgement with the dignity of a magistrate, and punished every offence with inflexible rigour. He had the happy art of uniting in his own person two things almost incompatible; namely, strict severity and sweetness of manners. Under his administration, justice was at once terrible and amiable. Plutarch relates that he never wore a dress that cost more than thirty shillings; that his wine was no better than what was consumed by his slaves; and that by leading a laborious life, he meant to harden his constitution for the service of his country. He never ceased to condemn the luxury of the times. On this subject a remarkable apophthegm is recorded by Plutarch; _It is impossible_, said Cato, _to save a city, in which a single fish sells for more money than an ox._ The account given of him by Cicero in the Cato Major, excites our veneration of the man. He was master of every liberal art, and every branch of science, known in that age. Some men rose to eminence by their skill in jurisprudence; others by their eloquence; and a great number by their military talents. Cato shone in all alike. The patricians were often leagued against him, but his virtue and his eloquence were a match for the proudest connections. He was chosen CENSOR, in opposition to a number of powerful candidates, A.U.C. 568. He was the adviser of the third Punic war. The question occasioned several warm debates in the senate. Cato always insisted on the demolition of Carthage: DELENDA EST CARTHAGO. He preferred an accusation against Servius Sulpicius Galba on a charge of peculation in Spain, A.U.C. 603; and, though he was then ninety years old, according to Livy (Cicero says he lived to eighty-five), he conducted the business with so much vigour, that Galba, in order to excite compassion, produced his children before the senate, and by that artifice escaped a sentence of condemnation. Quintilian gives the following character of Cato the censor: His genius, like his learning, was universal: historian, orator, lawyer, he cultivated the three branches; and what he undertook, he touched with a master-hand. The science of husbandry was also his. Great as his attainments were, they were acquired in camps, amidst the din of arms; and in the city of Rome, amidst scenes of contention, and the uproar of civil discord. Though he lived in rude unpolished times, he applied himself, when far advanced in the vale of years, to the study of Greek literature, and thereby gave a signal proof that even in old age the willing mind may be enriched with new stores of knowledge. _Marcus Censorius Cato, idem orator, idem historiæ conditor, idem juris, idem rerum rusticarum peritissimus fuit. Inter tot opera militiæ, tantas domi contentions, ridi sæculo literas Græcas, ætate jam declinatâ didicit, ut esset hominibus documento, ea quoque percipi posse, quæ senes concupissent._ Lib. xii. cap. 11.

[f] Lucius Licinius Crassus is often mentioned, and always to his advantage, by Cicero DE CLARIS ORATORIBUS. He was born, as appears in that treatise (sect. 161), during the consulship of Lælius and Cæpio, A.U.C. 614: he was contemporary with Antonius, the celebrated orator, and father of Antony the triumvir. Crassus was about four and thirty years older than Cicero. When Philippus the consul shewed himself disposed to encroach on the privileges of the senate, and, in the presence of that body, offered indignities to Licinius Crassus, the orator, as Cicero informs us, broke out in a blaze of eloquence against that violent outrage, concluding with that remarkable sentence: He shall not be to me A CONSUL, to whom I am not A SENATOR. _Non es mihi consul, quia nec ego tibi senator sum._ See _Valerius Maximus_, lib. xli. cap. 2. Cicero has given his oratorical character. He possessed a wonderful dignity of language, could enliven his discourse with wit and pleasantry, never descending to vulgar humour; refined, and polished, without a tincture of scurrility. He preserved the true Latin idiom; in his selection of words accurate, with apparent facility; no stiffness, no affectation appeared; in his train of reasoning always clear and methodical; and, when the cause hinged upon a question of law, or the moral distinctions of good and evil, no man possessed such a fund of argument, and happy illustration. _Crasso nihil statuo fieri potuisse perfectius: erat summa gravitas; erat cum gravitate junctus facetiarum et urbanitatis oratorius, non scurrilis, lepos. Latinè loquendi accurata, et, sine molestiâ, diligens elegantia; in disserendo mira explicatio; cum de jure civili, cum de æquo et bono disputaretur, argumentorum et similitudinum copia._ _De Claris Orat._ s. 143. In Cicero's books DE ORATORE, Licinius Crassus supports a capital part in the dialogue; but in the opening of the third book, we have a pathetic account of his death, written, as the Italians say, _con amore_. Crassus returned from his villa, where the dialogue passed, to take part in the debate against Philippus the consul, who had declared to an assembly of the people, that he was obliged to seek new counsellors, for with such a senate he could not conduct the affairs of the commonwealth. The conduct of Crassus, upon that occasion, has been mentioned already. The vehemence, with which he exerted himself, threw him into a violent fever, and, on the seventh day following, put a period to his life. Then, says Cicero, that tuneful swan expired: we hoped once more to hear the melody of his voice, and went, in that expectation, to the senate-house; but all that remained was to gaze on the spot where that eloquent orator spoke for the last time in the service of his country. _Illud immortalitate dignum ingenium, illa humanitas, illa virtus Lucii Crassi morte extincta subitâ est, vix diebus decem post eum diem, qui hoc et superiore libra continetur. Illa tanquam cycnea fuit divini hominis vox, et oratio, quam quasi expectantes, post ejus interitum veniebamus in curiam, ut vestigium illud ipsum, in quo ille postremum institisset, contueremur._ _De Orat._ lib, iii. s. 1. and 6. This passage will naturally call to mind the death of the great earl of Chatham. He went, in a feeble state of health, to attend a debate of the first importance. Nothing could detain him from the service of his country. The dying notes of the BRITISH SWAN were heard in the House of Peers. He was conveyed to his own house, and on the eleventh of May 1778, he breathed his last. The news reached the House of Commons late in the evening, when Colonel BARRE had the honour of being the first to shed a patriot tear on that melancholy occasion. In a strain of manly sorrow, and with that unprepared eloquence which the heart inspires, he moved for a funeral at the public expence, and a monument to the memory of virtue and departed genius. By performing that pious office, Colonel BARRE may be said to have made his own name immortal. History will record the transaction.

[g] Messala Corvinus is often, in this Dialogue, called Corvinus only. See s. xii. note [e].

[h] Appius Claudius was censor in the year of Rome 442; dictator, 465; and, having at a very advanced age lost his sight, he became better known by the name of Appius Cæcus. Afterwards, A.U. 472, when Pyrrhus, by his ambassador, offered terms of peace, and a treaty of alliance, Appius, whom blindness, and the infirmities of age, had for some time withheld from public business, desired to be conveyed in a litter to the senate-house. Being conducted to his place, he delivered his sentiments in so forcible a manner, that the fathers resolved to prosecute the war, and never to hear of an accommodation, till Italy was evacuated by Pyrrhus and his army. See Livy, b. xiii. s. 31. Cicero relates the same fact in his CATO MAJOR, and further adds, that the speech made by APPIUS CÆCUS was then extant. Ovid mentions the temple of Bellona, built and dedicated by Appius, who, when blind, saw every thing by the light of his understanding, and rejected all terms of accommodation with Pyrrhus.

Hac sacrata die Tusco Bellona duello Dicitur, et Latio prospera semper adest. Appius est auctor, Pyrrho qui pace negatâ Multum animo vidit, lumine cæcus erat. FASTORUM lib vi. ver. 201.

[i] Quintilian acknowledges this fact, with his usual candour. The question concerning Attic and Asiatic eloquence was of long standing. The style of the former was close, pure, and elegant; the latter was said to be diffuse and ostentatious. In the ATTIC, nothing was idle, nothing redundant: the ASIATIC swelled above all bounds, affecting to dazzle by strokes of wit, by affectation and superfluous ornament. Cicero was said by his enemies to be an orator of the last school. They did not scruple to pronounce him turgid, copious to a fault, often redundant, and too fond of repetition. His wit, they said, was the false glitter of vain conceit, frigid, and out of season; his composition was cold and languid; wire-drawn into amplification, and fuller of meretricious finery than became a man. _Et antiqua quidem illa divisio inter Asianos et Atticos fuit; cum hi pressi, et integri, contra, inflati illi et inanes haberentur; et in his nihil superflueret, illis judicium maximè ac modus deesset. Ciceronem tamen et suorum homines temporum incessere audebant ut tumidiorem, et Asianum, et redundantem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in salibus aliquando frigidum, et in compositione fractum, exultantem, ac penè (quod procul absit) viro molliorem._ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 10. The same author adds, that, when the great orator was cut off by Marc Antony's proscription, and could no longer answer for himself, the men who either personally hated him, or envied his genius, or chose to pay their court to the, triumvirate, poured forth their malignity without reserve. It is unnecessary to observe, that Quintilian, in sundry parts of his work, has vindicated Cicero from these aspersions. See s. xvii. note [b].

[k] For Calvus, see s. xvii. note [c]. For Brutus, see the same section, note [d]. What Cicero thought of Calvus has been already quoted from the tract _De Claris Oratoribus_, in note [c], s. xvii. By being too severe a critic on himself, he lost strength, while he aimed at elegance. It is, therefore, properly said in this Dialogue, that Cicero thought Calvus cold and enervated. But did he think Brutus disjointed, loose and negligent--_otiosum atque disjunctum_? That he often thought him disjointed is not improbable. Brutus was a close thinker, and he aimed at the precision and brevity of Attic eloquence. The sententious speaker is, of course, full and concise. He has no studied transitions, above the minute care of artful connections. To discard the copulatives for the sake of energy was a rule laid down by the best ancient critics. Cicero has observed that an oration may be said to be disjointed, when the copulatives are omitted, and strokes of sentiment follow one another in quick succession. _Dissolutio sive disjunctio est, quæ conjunctionibus e medio sublatis, partibus separatis effertur, hoc modo: Gere morem parenti; pare cognatis; obsequere amicis; obtempera legibus. Ad Herennium_, lib. iv. s. 41. In this manner, Brutus might appear disjointed, and that figure, often repeated, might grow into a fault. But how is the word OTIOSUS to be understood? If it means a neglect of connectives, it may, perhaps, apply to Brutus. There is no room to think that Cicero used it in a worse sense, since we find him in a letter to Atticus declaring, that the oratorical style of Brutus was, in language as well as sentiment, elegant to a degree that nothing could surpass. _Est enim oratio ejus scripta elegantissimè, sententiis et verbis, ut nihil possit ultra._ A grave philosopher, like Brutus, might reject the graces of transition and regular connection, and, for that reason, might be thought negligent and abrupt. This disjointed style, which the French call _style coupé_, was the manner cultivated by Seneca, for which Caligula pronounced him, sand without lime; _arenam sine calce_. Sueton. _Life of Calig._ s. 53. We know from Quintilian, that a spirit of emulation, and even jealousy, subsisted between the eminent orators of Cicero's time; that he himself was so far from ascribing perfection to Demosthenes, that he used to say, he often found him napping; that Brutus and Calvus sat in judgement on Cicero, and did not wish to conceal their objections; and that the two Pollios were so far from being satisfied with Cicero's style and manner, that their criticisms were little short of declared hostility. _Quamquam neque ipsi Ciceroni Demosthenes videatur satis esse perfectus, quem dormitare interdum dicit; nec Cicero Bruto Calvoque, qui certè compositionem illius etiam apud ipsum reprehendunt; ne Asinio utrique, qui vitia orationis ejus etiam inimicè pluribus locis insequuntur._ Quintil. lib. xii. cap. 1.

Section XIX.