The Life of Cicero Volume II Part 14

[3] Pro Cn. Plancio, ca. x.x.x.: "Nonne etiam illa testis est oratio quae est a me prima habita in Senatu. * * * Recitetur oratio, quae propter rei magnitudinem dicta de scripto est."

[4] Quintilian, lib. xi., ca. 1, who as a critic worshipped Cicero, has nevertheless told us very plainly what had been up to his time the feeling of the Roman world as to Cicero's self-praise: "Reprehensus est in hac parte non mediocriter Cicero."

[5] Ad Att., lib. iv., 2. He recommends that the speech should be put into the hands of all young men, and thus gives further proof that we still here have his own words.

When so much has come to us, we cannot but think that an oration so prepared would remain extant.

[6] I had better, perhaps, refer my readers to book v., chap. viii., of Mommsen's History.

[7] "Politique des Romains dans la religion;" a treatise which was read by its author to certain students at Bordeaux. It was intended as a preface to a longer work.

[8] Ad Div., lib. i., 2.

[9] Ad Div., lib. i., 5: "Nosti hominis tarditatem, et taciturnitatem."

[10] Ad Quintum Fratrem, lib. ii., 3.

[11] Ibid., lib. ii., 6.

[12] Ad Att., lib. iv., 5.

[13] Ad Div., lib. v., 12.

[14] Very early in the history of Rome it was found expedient to steal an Etruscan soothsayer for the reading of these riddles, which was gallantly done by a young soldier, who ran off with an old prophet in his arms (Livy, v., 15).

We are naively told by the historian that the more the prodigies came the more they were believed. On a certain occasion a crowd of them was brought together: Crows built in the temple of Juno. A green tree took fire. The waters of Mantua became b.l.o.o.d.y. In one place it rained chalk in another fire. Lightning was very destructive, sinking the temple of a G.o.d or a nut-tree by the roadside indifferently.

An ox spoke in Sicily. A precocious baby cried out "Io triumphe" before it was born. At Spoletum a woman became a man. An altar was seen in the heavens. A ghostly band of armed men appeared in the Janiculum (Livy, xxiv., 10). On such occasions the "aruspices" always ordered a vast slaughter of victims, and no doubt feasted as did the wicked sons of Eli.

Even Horace wrote as though he believed in the anger of the G.o.ds--certainly as though he thought that public morals would be improved by renewed attention to them:

Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Romane, donec templa refeceris.--Od., lib. iii., 6.

[15] See the Preface by M. Guerault to his translation of this oration, De Aruspium Responsis.

[16] Ca. ix.: "Who is there so mad that when he looks up to the heavens he does not acknowledge that there are G.o.ds, or dares to think that the things which he sees have sprung from chance--things so wonderful that the most intelligent among us do not understand their motions?"

[17] Ca. xxviii.: "Quae in tempestate saeva quieta est, et lucet in tenebris, et pulsa loco manet tamen, atque haeret in patria, splendetque per se semper, neque alienis unquam sordibus obsolescit." I regard this as a perfect allocution of words in regard to the arrangement both for the ear and for the intellect.

[18] Ca. xliv.: "There have always been two kinds of men who have busied themselves in the State, and have struggled to be each the most prominent. Of these, one set have endeavored to be regarded as 'populares,' friends of the people; the other to be and to be considered as 'optimates,'

the most trustworthy. They who did and said what could please the people were 'populares,' but they who so carried themselves as to satisfy every best citizen, they were 'optimates.'" Cicero, in his definition, no doubt begs the question; but to do so was his object.

[19] Mommsen, lib. v., chap. viii., in one of his notes, says that this oration as to the provinces was the very "palinodia" respecting which Cicero wrote to Atticus. The subject discussed was no doubt the same. What authority the historian has found for his statement I do not know; but no writer is generally more correct.

[20] De Prov. Cons., ca. viii.

[21] Ca. xiii.

[22] Ca. xiv.

[23] Ca. xviii.

[24] Pro C. Balbo, ca. vii.

[25] Ibid., ca. xiii.

[26] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ca. vii.

[27] There was no covenant, no bond of service, no master's authority, probably no discipline; but the eager pupil was taught to look upon the anxious tutor with love, respect, and faith.

[28] In Pisonem, xxvii. Even in Cicero's words as used here there is a touch of irony, though we cannot but imagine that at this time he was anxious to stand well with Pompey.

"There are coming on the games, the most costly and the most magnificent ever known in the memory of man; such as there never were before, and, as far as I can see, never will be again." "Show yourself there if you dare!"--he goes on to say, addressing the wretched Piso.

[29] Plutarch's Life of Pompey: "Cra.s.sus upon the expiration of his Consulship repaired to his province. Pompey, remaining in Rome, opened his theatre." But Plutarch, no doubt, was wrong.

[30] We may imagine what was the standing of the family from the address which Horace made to certain members of it in the time of Augustus. "Credite Pisones," De Arte Poetica.

The Pisones so addressed were the grandsons of Cicero's victim.

[31] Quin., ix., 4: "Pro dii immortales, quis hic illuxit dies!" The critic quotes it as being vicious in sound, and running into metre, which was considered a great fault in Roman prose, as it is also in English. Our ears, however, are hardly fine enough to catch the iambic tw.a.n.g of which Quintilian complains.

[32] Ca. xviii., xx., xxii.

[33] "Quae potest homini esse polito delectatio," Ad Div., vii., 1. These words have in subsequent years been employed as an argument against all out-of-door sports, with disregard of the fact that they were used by Cicero as to an amus.e.m.e.nt in which the spectators were merely looking on, taking no active part in deeds either of danger or of skill.--_Fortnightly Review_, October, 1869, The Morality of Field Sports.

[34] Ad Att., lib. iv., 16.

[35] Ad Div., ii., 8.

[36] See the letter, Ad Quin. Frat., lib. iii., 2: "h.o.m.o undique actus, et quam a me maxime vulneraretur, non tulit, et me trementi voce exulem appellavit." The whole scene is described.

[37] Ad Fam., v., 8.

[38] Ad Quin. Frat., ii., 12.

[39] Ad Att., iv., 15.

[40] Val. Max., lib. iv., ca. ii., 4.

[41] Horace, Sat., lib. ii., 1:

HOR. "Trebati, Quid faciam praescribe."--TREB. "Quiescas."--HOR.

"Ne faciam, inquis, Omnino versus?"--TREB. "Aio."--HOR.

"Peream male si non Optimum erat."

Trebatius became a noted jurisconsult in the time of Augustus, and wrote treatises.

[42] Ca. iv.: "Male judicavit populus. At judicavit. Non debuit, at potuit."

[43] Ca. vi.: "Servare necesse est gradus. Cedat consulari generi praetorium, nec contendat c.u.m praetorio equester locus."

[44] Ca. xix.