1.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum, the native place of
Marius,[93] in the year of Rome 648 (A.C. 106), the same year which
gave birth to the Great Pompey. His family was ancient and of
Equestrian rank, but had never taken part in the public affairs of
Rome,[94] though both his father and grandfather were persons of
consideration in the part of Italy to which they belonged.[95] His
father, being a man of cultivated mind himself, determined to give his
two sons the advantage of a liberal education, and to fit them for the
prospect of those public employments which a feeble constitution
incapacitated himself from undertaking. Marcus, the elder of the two,
soon displayed indications of a superior intellect, and we are told
that his schoolfellows carried home such accounts of him, that their
parents often visited the school for the sake of seeing a youth who
gave such promise of future eminence.[96] One of his earliest masters
was the poet Archias, whom he defended afterwards in his Consular year;
under his instructions he was able to compose a poem, though yet a boy,
on the fable of Glaucus, which had formed the subject of one of the
tragedies of Æschylus. Soon after he assumed the manly gown he was
placed under the care of Scævola, the celebrated lawyer, whom he
introduces so beautifully into several of his philosophical dialogues;
and in no long time he gained a thorough knowledge of the laws and
political institutions of his country.[97]
This was about the time of the Social war; and, according to the
Roman custom, which made it a necessary part of education to learn the
military art by personal service, Cicero took the opportunity of
serving a campaign under the Consul Pompeius Strabo, father of Pompey
the Great. Returning to pursuits more congenial to his natural taste,
he commenced the study of Philosophy under Philo the Academic, of whom
we shall speak more particularly hereafter.[98] But his chief attention
was reserved for Oratory, to which he applied himself with the
assistance of Molo, the first rhetorician of the day; while Diodotus
the Stoic exercised him in the argumentative subtleties for which the
disciples of Zeno were so generally celebrated. At the same time he
declaimed daily in Greek and Latin with some young noblemen, who were
competitors with him in the same race of political honours.
Of the two professions,[99] which, from the contentiousness of human
nature, are involved in the very notion of society, while that of arms,
by its splendour and importance, secures the almost undivided
admiration of a rising and uncivilized people, legal practice, on the
other hand, becomes the path to honours in later and more civilized
ages, by reason of the oratorical accomplishments to which it usually
gives scope. The date of Cicero's birth fell precisely during that
intermediate state of things, in which the glory of military exploits
lost its pre-eminence by means of the very opulence and luxury which
were their natural issue; and he was the first Roman who found his way
to the highest dignities of the State with no other recommendation than
his powers of eloquence and his merits as a civil magistrate.[100]
The first cause of importance he undertook was his defence of Sextus
Roscius; in which he distinguished himself by his spirited opposition
to Sylla, whose favourite Chrysogonus was prosecutor in the action.
This obliging him, according to Plutarch, to leave Rome on prudential
motives, he employed his time in travelling for two years under
pretence of his health, which, he tells us,[101] was as yet unequal to
the exertion of pleading. At Athens he met with T. Pomponius Atticus,
whom he had formerly known at school, and there renewed with him a
friendship which lasted through life, in spite of the change of
interests and estrangements of affection so common in turbulent
times.[102] Here too he attended the lectures of Antiochus, who, under
the name of Academic, taught the dogmatic doctrines of Plato and the
Stoics. Though Cicero felt at first considerable dislike of his
philosophical views,[103] he seems afterwards to have adopted the
sentiments of the Old Academy, which they much resembled; and not till
late in life to have relapsed into the sceptical tenets of his former
instructor Philo.[104] After visiting the principal philosophers and
rhetoricians of Asia, in his thirtieth year he returned to Rome, so
strengthened and improved both in bodily and mental powers, that he
soon eclipsed in his oratorical efforts all his competitors for public
favour. So popular a talent speedily gained him the suffrage of the
Commons; and, being sent to Sicily as Quæstor, at a time when the
metropolis itself was visited with a scarcity of corn, he acquitted
himself in that delicate situation with such address as to supply the
clamorous wants of the people without oppressing the province from
which the provisions were raised.[105] Returning thence with greater
honours than had ever been before decreed to a Roman Governor, he
ingratiated himself still farther in the esteem of the Sicilians by
undertaking his celebrated prosecution of Verres; who, though defended
by the influence of the Metelli and the eloquence of Hortensius, was at
length driven in despair into voluntary exile.
Five years after his Quæstorship, Cicero was elected Ædile, a post
of considerable expense from the exhibition of games connected with it.
In this magistracy he conducted himself with singular propriety;[106]
for, it being customary to court the people by a display of splendour
in these official shows, he contrived to retain his popularity without
submitting to the usual alternative of plundering the provinces or
sacrificing his private fortune. The latter was at this time by no
means ample; but, with the good sense and taste which mark his
character, he preserved in his domestic arrangements the dignity of a
literary and public man, without any of the ostentation of magnificence
which often distinguished the candidate for popular applause.[107]
After the customary interval of two years, he was returned at the
head of the list as Prætor;[108] and now made his first appearance in
the rostrum in support of the Manilian law. About the same time he
defended Cluentius. At the expiration of his Prætorship, he refused to
accept a foreign province, the usual reward of that magistracy;[109]
but, having the Consulate full in view, and relying on his interest
with Cæsar and Pompey, he allowed nothing to divert him from that
career of glory for which he now believed himself to be destined.
2.
It may be doubted, indeed, whether any individual ever rose to power
by more virtuous and truly honourable conduct; the integrity of his
public life was only equalled by the correctness of his private morals;
and it may at first sight excite our wonder that a course so splendidly
begun should afterwards so little fulfil its early promise. Yet it was
a failure from the period of his Consulate to his Pro-prætorship in
Cilicia, and each year is found to diminish his influence in public
affairs, till it expires altogether with the death of Pompey. This
surprise, however, arises in no small degree from measuring Cicero's
political importance by his present reputation, and confounding the
authority he deservedly possesses as an author with the opinions
entertained of him by his contemporaries as a statesman. From the
consequence usually attached to passing events, a politician's
celebrity is often at its zenith in his own generation; while the
author, who is in the highest repute with posterity, may perhaps have
been little valued or courted in his own day. Virtue indeed so
conspicuous as that of Cicero, studies so dignified, and oratorical
powers so commanding, will always invest their possessor with a large
portion of reputation and authority; and this is nowhere more apparent
than in the enthusiastic welcome with which he was greeted on his
return from exile. But unless other qualities be added, more peculiarly
necessary for a statesman, they will hardly of themselves carry that
political weight which some writers have attached to Cicero's public
life, and which his own self-love led him to appropriate.
The advice of the Oracle,[110] which had directed him to make his
own genius, not the opinion of the people, his guide to immortality
(which in fact pointed at the above-mentioned distinction between the
fame of a statesman and of an author), at first made a deep impression
on his mind; and at the present day he owes his reputation principally
to those pursuits which, as Plutarch tells us, exposed him to the
ridicule and even to the contempt of his contemporaries as a “pedant
and a professor.”[111] But his love of popularity overcame his
philosophy, and he commenced a career which gained him one triumph and
ten thousand mortifications.
It is not indeed to be doubted that in his political course he was
more or less influenced by a sense of duty. To many it may even appear
that a public life was best adapted for the display of his particular
talents; that, at the termination of the Mithridatic war, Cicero was in
fact marked out as the very man to adjust the pretensions of the rival
parties in the Commonwealth, to withstand the encroachments of Pompey,
and to baffle the arts of Cæsar. And if the power of swaying and
controlling the popular assemblies by his eloquence; if the
circumstances of his rank, Equestrian as far as family was concerned,
yet almost Patrician from the splendour of his personal honours; if the
popularity derived from his accusation of Verres, and defence of
Cornelius, and the favour of the Senate acquired by the brilliant
services of his Consulate; if the general respect of all parties which
his learning and virtue commanded; if these were sufficient
qualifications for a mediator between contending factions, Cicero was
indeed called upon by the voice of his country to that most arduous and
honourable post. And in his Consulate he had seemed sensible of the
call: “All through my Consulate,” he declares in his speech against
Piso, “I made a point of doing nothing without the advice of the Senate
and the approval of the People. I ever defended the Senate in the
Rostrum, in the Senate House the People, and united the populace with
the leading men, the Equestrian order with the Senate.”
Yet, after that eventful period, we see him resigning his high
station to Cato, who, with half his abilities, little foresight, and no
address,[112] possessed that first requisite for a statesman, firmness.
Cicero, on the contrary, was irresolute, timid, and inconsistent.[113]
He talked indeed largely of preserving a middle course,[114] but he was
continually vacillating from one to the other extreme; always too
confident or too dejected; incorrigibly vain of success, yet meanly
panegyrizing the government of an usurper. His foresight, sagacity,
practical good sense, and singular tact, were lost for want of that
strength of mind which points them steadily to one object. He was never
decided, never (as has sometimes been observed) took an important step
without afterwards repenting of it. Nor can we account for the firmness
and resolution of his Consulate, unless we discriminate between the
case of resisting and exposing a faction, and that of balancing
contending interests. Vigour in repression differs widely from
steadiness in mediation; the latter requiring a coolness of judgment,
which a direct attack upon a public foe is so far from implying, that
it even inspires minds naturally timid with unusual ardour.
3.
His Consulate was succeeded by the return of Pompey from the East,
and the establishment of the First Triumvirate; which, disappointing
his hopes of political power, induced him to resume his forensic and
literary occupations. From these he was recalled, after an interval of
four years, by the threatening measures of Clodius, who at length
succeeded in driving him into exile. This event, which, considering the
circumstances connected with it, was one of the most glorious of his
life, filled him with the utmost distress and despondency. He wandered
about Greece bewailing his miserable fortune, refusing the consolations
which his friends attempted to administer, and shunning the public
honours with which the Greek cities were eager to load him.[115] His
return, which took place in the course of the following year,
reinstated him in the high station he had filled at the termination of
his Consulate, but the circumstances of the times did not allow him to
retain it. We refer to Roman history for an account of his vacillations
between the several members of the Triumvirate; his defence of Vatinius
to please Cæsar; and of his bitter political enemy Gabinius, to
ingratiate himself with Pompey. His personal history in the meanwhile
furnishes little worth noticing, except his election into the college
of Augurs, a dignity which had been a particular object of his
ambition. His appointment to the government of Cilicia, which took
place about five years after his return from exile, was in consequence
of Pompey's law, which obliged those Senators of Consular or Prætorian
rank, who had never held any foreign command, to divide the vacant
provinces among them. This office, which we have above seen him
decline, he now accepted with feelings of extreme reluctance, dreading
perhaps the military occupations which the movements of the Parthians
in that quarter rendered necessary. Yet if we consider the state and
splendour with which the Proconsuls were surrounded, and the
opportunities afforded them for almost legalized plunder and extortion,
we must confess that this insensibility to the common objects of human
cupidity was the token of no ordinary mind. The singular
disinterestedness and integrity of his administration, as well as his
success against the enemy, also belong to the history of his times. The
latter he exaggerated from the desire, so often instanced in eminent
men, of appearing to excel in those things for which nature has not
adapted them.
His return to Italy was followed by earnest endeavours to reconcile
Pompey with Cæsar, and by very spirited behaviour when Cæsar required
his presence in the Senate. On this occasion he felt the glow of
self-approbation with which his political conduct seldom repaid him: he
writes to Atticus,[116] “I believe I do not please Cæsar, but I am
pleased with myself, which has not happened to me for a long while.”
However, this effort at independence was but transient. At no period of
his public life did he display such miserable vacillation as at the
opening of the civil war.[117] We find him first accepting a commission
from the Republic; then courting Cæsar; next, on Pompey's sailing for
Greece, resolving to follow him thither; presently determining to stand
neuter; then bent on retiring to the Pompeians in Sicily; and, when
after all he had joined their camp in Greece, discovering such timidity
and discontent as to draw from Pompey the bitter reproof, “I wish
Cicero would go over to the enemy, that he may learn to fear us.”[118]
On his return to Italy, after the battle of Pharsalia, he had the
mortification of learning that his brother and nephew were making their
peace with Cæsar, by throwing on himself the blame of their opposition
to the conqueror. And here we see one of those elevated points of
character which redeem the weaknesses of his political conduct; for,
hearing that Cæsar had retorted on Quintus Cicero the charge which the
latter had brought against himself, he wrote a pressing letter in his
favour, declaring his brother's safety was not less precious to him
than his own, and representing him not as the leader, but as the
companion of his voyage.[119]
Now too the state of his private affairs reduced him to much
perplexity; a sum he had advanced to Pompey had impoverished him, and
he was forced to stand indebted to Atticus for present assistance.[120]
These difficulties led him to take a step which it has been customary
to regard with great severity; the divorce of his wife Terentia, though
he was then in his sixty-second year, and his marriage with his rich
ward Publilia, who of course was of an age disproportionate to his
own.[121] Yet, in reviewing this proceeding, we must not adopt the
modern standard of propriety, forgetful of a condition of society which
reconciled actions even of moral turpitude with a reputation for honour
and virtue. Terentia was a woman of a most imperious and violent
temper, and (what is more to the purpose) had in no slight degree
contributed to his present embarrassments by her extravagance in the
management of his private affairs.[122] By her he had two children, a
son, born a year before his Consulate, and a daughter whose loss he was
now fated to deplore. To Tullia he was tenderly attached, not only from
the excellence of her disposition, but from her literary tastes; and
her death tore from him, as he so pathetically laments to Sulpicius,
the only comfort which the course of public events had left him.[123]
At first he was inconsolable; and, retiring to a little island near his
estate at Antium, he buried himself in the woods, to avoid the sight of
man.[124] His distress was increased by the conduct of his new wife
Publilia; whom he soon divorced for testifying joy at the death of her
stepdaughter. On this occasion he wrote his Treatise on Consolation,
with a view to alleviate his grief; and, with the same object, he
determined on dedicating a temple to his daughter, as a memorial of her
virtues and his affection. His friends were assiduous in their
attentions; and Cæsar, who had treated him with extreme kindness on his
return from Egypt, signified the respect he bore his character by
sending him a letter of condolence from Spain,[125] where the remains
of the Pompeian party still engaged him. Cæsar, moreover, had shortly
before given a still stronger proof of his favour, by replying to a
work which Cicero had drawn up in praise of Cato;[126] but no
attentions, however considerate, could soften Cicero's vexation at
seeing the country he had formerly saved by his exertions now subjected
to the tyranny of one master. His speeches, indeed, for Marcellus and
Ligarius, exhibit traces of inconsistency; but for the most part he
retired from public business, and gave himself up to the composition of
those works which, while they mitigated his political sorrows, have
secured his literary celebrity.
4.
The murder of Cæsar, which took place in the following year, once
more brought him on the stage of public affairs; but as our present
paper is but supplemental to the history of the times, we leave to
others to relate what more has to be told of him, his unworthy
treatment of Brutus, his coalition with Octavius, his orations against
Antonius, his proscription, and his violent death, at the age of
sixty-four. Willingly would we pass over his public life altogether;
for he was as little of a great statesman as of a great commander. His
merits are of another kind and in a higher order of excellence.
Antiquity may be challenged to produce a man more virtuous, more
perfectly amiable than Cicero. None interest more in their life, none
excite more painful emotions in their death. Others, it is true, may be
found of loftier and more heroic character, who awe and subdue the mind
by the grandeur of their views, or the intensity of their exertions.
But Cicero engages our affections by the integrity of his public
conduct, the correctness of his private life, the generosity,[127]
placability, and kindness of his heart, the playfulness of his wit, the
warmth of his domestic attachments. In this respect his letters are
invaluable. “Here,” says Middleton, “we may see the genuine man without
disguise or affectation, especially in his letters to Atticus; to whom
he talked with the same frankness as to himself, opened the rise and
progress of each thought; and never entered into any affair without his
particular advice.”[128]
It must be confessed, indeed, that this private correspondence
discloses the defects of his political conduct, and shows that they
were partly of a moral character. Want of firmness has been repeatedly
mentioned as his principal failing; and insincerity is the natural
attendant on a timid and irresolute mind. On the other hand, it must
not be forgotten that openness and candour are rare qualities in a
statesman at all times, and while the duplicity of weakness is
despised, the insincerity of a powerful but crafty mind, though
incomparably more odious, is too commonly regarded with feelings of
indulgence. Cicero was deficient, not in honesty, but in moral courage;
his disposition, too, was conciliatory and forgiving; and much which
has been referred to inconsistency should be attributed to the generous
temper which induced him to remember the services rather than the
neglect of Plancius, and to relieve the exiled and indigent
Verres.[129] Much too may be traced to his professional habits as a
pleader; which led him to introduce the licence of the Forum into
deliberative discussions, and (however inexcusably) even into his
correspondence with private friends.
Some writers, as Lyttelton, have considered it an aggravation of
Cicero's inconsistencies, that he was so perfectly aware, as his
writings show, of what was philosophically and morally upright and
honest. It might be sufficient to reply, that there is a wide
difference between calmly deciding on an abstract point, and acting on
that decision in the hurry of real life; that Cicero in fact was apt to
fancy (as all will fancy when assailed by interest or passion) that the
circumstances of his case constituted it an exception to the broad
principles of duty. Besides, he considered it to be actually the duty
of a statesman to accommodate theoretical principle to the exigencies
of existing circumstances. “Surely,” he says in his defence of
Plancius, “it is no mark of inconsistency in a statesman to determine
his judgment and to steer his course by the state of the political
weather. This is what I have been taught, what I have experienced, what
I have read; this is what is recorded in history of the wisest and most
eminent men, whether at home or abroad; namely, that the same man is
not bound always to maintain the same opinions, but those, whatever
they may be, which the state of the commonwealth, the direction of the
times, and the interests of peace may demand.”[130] Moreover, he
claimed for himself especially the part of mediator between political
rivals; and he considered it to be a mediator's duty alternately to
praise and blame both parties, even to exaggeration, if by such means
it was possible either to flatter or frighten them into an adoption of
temperate measures.[131] “Cicero,” says Plutarch, “used to give them
private advice, keeping up a correspondence with Cæsar, and urging many
things upon Pompey himself, soothing and persuading each of them.”[132]
5.
But such criticism on Cicero as Lyttelton's proceeds on an entire
misconception of the design and purpose with which the ancients
prosecuted philosophical studies. The motives and principles of morals
were not so seriously acknowledged as to lead to a practical
application of them to the conduct of life. Even when they proposed
them in the form of precept, they still regarded the perfectly virtuous
man as the creature of their imagination rather than a model for
imitation—a character whom it was a mental recreation rather than a
duty to contemplate; and if an individual here or there, as Scipio or
Cato, attempted to conform his life to his philosophical conceptions of
virtue, he was sure to be ridiculed for singularity and affectation.
Even among the Athenians, by whom philosophy was, in many cases,
cultivated to the exclusion of every active profession, intellectual
amusement, not the discovery of Truth, was the principal object of
their discussions. That we must thus account for the ensnaring
questions and sophistical reasonings of which their disputations
consisted, has been noticed by writers on Logic;[133] and it was their
extension of this system to the case of morals which brought upon their
Sophists the irony of Socrates and the sterner rebuke of Aristotle. But
if this took place in a state of society in which the love of
speculation pervaded all ranks, much more was it to be expected among
the Romans, who, busied as they were in political enterprises, and
deficient in philosophical acuteness, had neither time nor inclination
for abstruse investigations; and who considered philosophy simply as
one of the many fashions introduced from Greece, “a sort of table
furniture,” as Warburton well expresses it, a mere refinement in the
arts of social enjoyment.[134] This character it bore both among
friends and enemies. Hence the popularity which attended the three
Athenian philosophers who had come to Rome on an embassy from their
native city; and hence the inflexible determination with which Cato
procured their dismissal, through fear, as Plutarch tells us,[135] lest
their arts of disputation should corrupt the Roman youth. And when at
length, by the authority of Scipio,[136] the literary treasures of
Sylla, and the patronage of Lucullus, philosophical studies had
gradually received the countenance of the higher classes of their
countrymen, still, in consistency with the principle above laid down,
we find them determined in their adoption of this or that system, not
so much by the harmony of its parts, or by the plausibility of its
reasonings, as by its suitableness to the particular profession and
political station to which they severally belonged. Thus, because the
Stoics were more minute than other sects in inculcating the moral and
social duties, we find the Roman jurisconsults professing themselves
followers of Zeno;[137] the orators, on the contrary, adopted the
disputatious system of the later Academics;[138] while Epicurus was the
master of the idle and the wealthy. Hence, too, they confined the
profession of philosophical science to Greek teachers; considering them
the sole proprietors, as it were, of a foreign and expensive luxury,
which the vanquished might suitably have the duty of furnishing, and
which the conquerors could well afford to purchase.
Before the works of Cicero, no attempts worth considering had been
made for using the Latin tongue in philosophical subjects. The natural
stubbornness of the language conspired with Roman haughtiness to
prevent this application.[139] The Epicureans, indeed, had made the
experiment, but their writings were even affectedly harsh and
slovenly,[140] and we find Cicero himself, in spite of his
inexhaustible flow of rich and expressive diction, making continual
apologies for his learned occupations, and extolling philosophy as the
parent of everything great, virtuous, and amiable.[141]
Yet, with whatever discouragement his design was attended, he
ultimately triumphed over the pride of an unlettered people, and the
difficulties of a defective language. He was indeed possessed of that
first requisite for eminence, an enthusiastic attachment to the studies
he was recommending. But, occupied as he was with the duties of a
statesman, mere love of literature would have availed little, if
separated from that energy and breadth of intellect by which he was
enabled to pursue a variety of objects at once, with equally perserving
and indefatigable zeal. “He suffered no part of his leisure to be
idle,” says Middleton, “or the least interval of it to be lost; but
what other people gave to the public shows, to pleasures, to feasts,
nay, even to sleep and the ordinary refreshments of nature, he
generally gave to his books, and the enlargement of his knowledge. On
days of business, when he had anything particular to compose, he had no
other time for meditating but when he was taking a few turns in his
walks, where he used to dictate his thoughts to his scribes who
attended him. We find many of his letters dated before daylight, some
from the senate, others from his meals, and the crowd of his morning
levee.”[142] Thus he found time, without apparent inconvenience, for
the business of the State, for the turmoil of the courts, and for
philosophical studies. During his Consulate he delivered twelve
orations in the Senate, Rostrum, or Forum. His Treatises de Oratore
and de Republicâ, the most finished perhaps of his compositions,
were written at a time when, to use his own words, “not a day passed
without his taking part in forensic disputes.”[143] And in the last
year of his life he composed at least eight of his philosophical works,
besides the fourteen orations against Antony, which are known by the
name of Philippics.
Being thus ardent in the cause of philosophy, he recommended it to
the notice of his countrymen, not only for the honour which its
introduction would reflect upon himself (which of course was a motive
with him), but also with the fondness of one who esteemed it “the guide
of life, the parent of virtue, the guardian in difficulty, and the
tranquillizer in misfortune.”[144] Nor were his mental endowments less
adapted to the accomplishment of his object than the spirit with which
he engaged in the work. Gifted with great versatility of talent, with
acuteness, quickness of perception, skill in selection, art in
arrangement, fertility of illustration, warmth of fancy, and
extraordinary taste, he at once seizes upon the most effective parts of
his subject, places them in the most striking point of view, and arrays
them in the liveliest and most inviting colours. His writings have the
singular felicity of combining brilliancy of execution with
never-failing good sense. It must be allowed that he is deficient in
depth; that he skims over rather than dives into the subjects of which
he treats; that he had too great command of the plausible to be a
patient investigator or a sound reasoner. Yet if he has less
originality of thought than others, if he does not grapple with his
subject, if he is unequal to a regular and lengthened disquisition, if
he is frequently inconsistent in his opinions, we must remember that
mere soundness of view, without talent for display, has few
recommendations for those who have not yet imbibed a taste even for the
outward form of knowledge,[145] that system nearly precludes freedom,
and depth almost implies obscurity. It was this very absence of
scientific exactness which constituted in Roman eyes a principal charm
of Cicero's compositions.[146]
Nor must his profession as a pleader be forgotten in enumerating the
circumstances which concurred to give his writings their peculiar
character. For, however his design of interesting his countrymen in
Greek literature, however too his particular line of talent, may have
led him to explain rather than to invent; yet he expressly informs us
it was principally with a view to his own improvement in Oratory that
he devoted himself to philosophical studies.[147] This induced him to
undertake successively the cause of the Stoic, the Epicurean, or the
Platonist, as an exercise for his powers of argumentation; while the
wavering and unsettled state of mind, occasioned by such habits of
disputation, led him in his personal judgment to prefer the sceptical
tenets of the New Academy.
6.
Here then, before enumerating Cicero's philosophical writings, an
opportunity is presented to us of redeeming the pledge we have given
elsewhere in our Encyclopædia,[148] to consider the system of doctrine
which the reformers (as they thought themselves) of the Academic school
introduced about 300 years before the Christian era.
We shall not trace here the history of the Old Academy, or speak of
the innovations on the system of Plato, silently introduced by the
austere Polemo. When Zeno, however, who was his pupil, advocated the
same rigid tenets in a more open and dogmatic form,[149] the Academy at
length took the alarm, and a reaction ensued. Arcesilas, who had
succeeded Polemo and Crates, determined on reverting to the principles
of the elder schools;[150] but mistaking the profession of ignorance,
which Socrates had used against the Sophists on physical questions, for
an actual scepticism on points connected with morals, he fell into the
opposite extreme, and declared, first, that nothing could be known, and
therefore, secondly, nothing should be maintained.[151]
Whatever were his private sentiments (for some authors affirm his
esoteric doctrines to have been dogmatic[152]), he brought forward
these sceptical tenets in so unguarded a form, that it required all his
argumentative powers, which were confessedly great, to maintain them
against the obvious objections which were pressed upon him from all
quarters. On his death, therefore, as might have been anticipated, his
school was deserted for those of Zeno and Epicurus; and during the
lives of Lacydes, Evander, and Hegesinus, who successively filled the
Academic chair, being no longer recommended by the novelty of its
doctrines,[153] or the talents of its masters, it became of little
consideration amid the wranglings of more popular philosophies.
Carneades,[154] therefore, who succeeded Hegesinus, found it necessary
to use more cautious and guarded language; and, by explaining what was
paradoxical, by reservations and exceptions, in short, by all the arts
which an acute and active genius could suggest, he contrived to
establish its authority, without departing, as far as we have the means
of judging, from the principle of universal scepticism which Arcesilas
had so pertinaciously advocated.[155]
The New Academy,[156] then, taught with Plato, that all things in
their own nature were fixed and determinate; but that, through the
constitution of the human mind, it was impossible for us to see
them in their simple and eternal forms, to separate appearance from
reality, truth from falsehood.[157] For the conception we form of any
object is altogether derived from and depends on the sensation, the
impression, it produces on our own minds ([Greek: pathos energeias,
phantasia]). Reason does but deduce from premisses ultimately supplied
by sensation. Our only communication, then, with actual existences
being through the medium of our own impressions, we have no means of
ascertaining the correspondence of the things themselves with the ideas
we entertain of them; and therefore can in no case be certain of the
truthfulness of our senses. Of their fallibility, however, we may
easily assure ourselves; for in cases in which they are detected
contradicting each other, all cannot be correct reporters of the object
with which they profess to acquaint us. Food, which is the same as far
as sight and touch are concerned, tastes
differently to different individuals; fire, which is the same to the
eye, communicates a sensation of pain at one time, of
pleasure at another; the oar appears crooked in the water,
while the touch assures us it is as straight as before it was
immersed.[158] Again, in dreams, in intoxication, in madness,
impressions are made upon the mind, vivid enough to incite to
reflection and action, yet utterly at variance with those produced by
the same objects when we are awake, or sober, or in possession of our
reason.[159]
It appears, then, that we cannot prove that our senses are ever
faithful to the things they profess to report about; but we do know
they often produce erroneous impressions of them. Here then is
room for endless doubt; for why may they not deceive us in cases in
which we cannot detect the deception? It is certain they often
act irregularly; is there any consistency at all in their
operations, any law to which these varieties may be referred?
It is undeniable that an object often varies in the impression which
it makes upon the mind, while, on the other hand, the same impression
may arise from different objects. What limit is to be assigned to this
disorder? is there any sensation strong enough to assure us of
the presence of the object which it seems to intimate, any such as to
preclude the possibility of deception? If, when we look into a mirror,
our minds are impressed with the appearance of trees, fields, and
houses, which are unreal, how can we ascertain beyond all doubt whether
the scene we directly look upon has any more substantial existence than
the former?[160]
From these reasonings the Academics taught that nothing was certain,
nothing was to be known ([Greek: katalêpton]). For the Stoics
themselves, their most determined opponents, defined the [Greek:
katalêptikê phantasia] (the phantasy or impression which involved
knowledge[160a]) to be one that was capable of being produced by no
object except that to which it really belonged.[161]
Since then we cannot arrive at knowledge, we must suspend our
decision, pronounce absolutely on nothing, nay, according to Arcesilas,
never even form an opinion.[162] In the conduct of life, however,
probability[163] must determine our choice of action; and this admits
of different degrees. The lowest kind is that which suggests itself on
the first view of the case ([Greek: phantasia pithanê], or
persuasive phantasy); but in all important matters we must correct
the evidence of our senses by considerations derived from the nature of
the medium, the distance of the object, the disposition of the organ,
the time, the manner, and other attendant circumstances. When the
impression has been thus minutely considered, the phantasy
becomes [Greek: aperiôdeumenê], or approved on circumspection;
and if during this examination no objection has arisen to weaken our
belief, the highest degree of probability is attained, and the phantasy
is pronounced unembarrassed with doubt, or [Greek:
aperispastos].[164]
Sextus Empiricus illustrates this as follows:[165] If on entering a
dark room we discern a coiled rope, our first impression may be that it
is a serpent—this is the persuasive phantasy. On a closer
inspection, however, after walking round it ([Greek:
periodeusantes]), or on circumspection, we observe it does not
move, nor has it the proper colour, shape, or proportions; and now we
conclude it is not a serpent; here we are determined in our belief by
the [Greek: periôdeumenê phantasia], and we assent to the
circumspective phantasy. For an instance of the third and most
accurate kind, viz., that with which no contrary impression interferes,
we may refer to the conduct of Admetus on the return of Alcestis from
the infernal regions. He believes he sees his wife; everything confirms
it; but he cannot simply acquiesce in that opinion, because his mind is
embarrassed or distracted [Greek: perispatai] from the knowledge he
has of her having died; he asks, “What! do I see my wife I just now
buried?” (Alc. 1148.) Hercules resolves his difficulty, and his
phantasy is in repose, or [Greek: aperispastos].
The suspension then of assent ([Greek: epochê]) which the Academics
enjoined, was, at least from the time of Carneades,[166] almost a
speculative doctrine;[167] and herein lay the chief difference between
them and the Pyrrhonists; that the latter altogether denied the
existence of the probable, while the former admitted there was
sufficient to allow of action, provided we pronounced absolutely on
nothing.
Little more can be said concerning the opinions of a sect whose
fundamental maxim was that nothing could be known, and nothing should
be taught. It lay midway between the other philosophies; and in the
altercations of the various schools it was at once attacked by
all,[168] yet appealed to by each of the contending parties, if not to
countenance its own sentiments, at least to condemn those advocated by
its opponents,[169] and thus to perform the office of an umpire.[170]
From this necessity, then, of being prepared on all sides for
attack,[171] it became as much a school of rhetoric as of
philosophy,[172] and was celebrated among the ancients for the
eloquence of its masters.[173] Hence also its reputation was
continually varying: for, requiring the aid of great abilities to
maintain its exalted and arduous post, it alternately rose and fell in
estimation, according to the talents of the individual who happened to
fill the chair.[174] And hence the frequent alterations which took
place in its philosophical tenets; which, depending rather on the
arbitrary determinations of its present head, than on the tradition of
settled maxims, were accommodated to the views of each successive
master, according as he hoped by sophistry or concession to overcome
the repugnance which the mind ever will feel to the doctrines of
universal scepticism.
And in these continual changes it is pleasing to observe that the
interests of virtue and good order were uniformly promoted; interests
to which the Academic doctrines were certainly hostile, if not
necessarily fatal. Thus, although we find Carneades, in conformity to
the plan adopted by Arcesilas,[175] opposing the dogmatic
principles of the Stoics concerning moral duty,[176] and studiously
concealing his private views even from his friends;[177] yet, by
allowing that the suspense of judgment was not always a duty, that the
wise man might sometimes believe though he could not know
;[178] he in some measure restored the authority of those great
instincts of our nature which his predecessor appears to have
discarded. Clitomachus pursued his steps by innovations in the same
direction;[179] Philo, who followed next, attempting to reconcile his
tenets with those of the Platonic school,[180] has been accounted the
founder of a fourth academy—while, to his successor Antiochus, who
embraced the doctrines of the Porch,[181] and maintained the fidelity
of the senses, it has been usual to assign the establishment of a
fifth.
7.
We have already observed that Cicero in early life inclined to the
doctrines of Plato and Antiochus, which, at the time he composed the
bulk of his writings, he had abandoned for those of Carneades and
Philo.[182] Yet he was never so entirely a disciple of the New Academy
as to neglect the claims of morality and the laws. He is loud in his
protestations that truth is the great object of his search: “For my own
part, if I have applied myself especially to this philosophy, through
any love of display or pleasure in disputation, I should condemn not
only my folly, but my moral condition. And, therefore, unless it were
absurd, in an argument like this, to do what is sometimes done in
political discussions, I would swear by Jupiter and the divine Penates
that I burn with a desire of discovering the truth, and really believe
what I am saying.”[183] And, however inappropriate this boast may
appear, he at least pursues the useful and the magnificent in
philosophy; and uses his academic character as a pretext rather for a
judicious selection from each system than for an indiscriminate
rejection of all.[184] Thus, in the capacity of a statesman, he calls
in the assistance of doctrines which, as an orator, he does not scruple
to deride; those of Zeno in particular, who maintained the truth of the
popular theology, and the divine origin of augury, and (as we noticed
above) was more explicit than the other masters in his views of social
duty. This difference of sentiment between the magistrate and the
pleader is strikingly illustrated in the opening of his treatise de
Legibus; where, after deriving the principles of law from the
nature of things, he is obliged to beg quarter of the Academics, whose
reasonings he feels could at once destroy the foundation on which his
argument rested. “My treatise throughout,” he says, “aims at the
strengthening of states and the welfare of peoples. I dread therefore
to lay down any but well considered and carefully examined principles;
I do not say principles which are universally received, for none are
such, but principles received by those philosophers who consider virtue
to be desirable for its own sake, and nothing whatever to be good, or
at least a great good, which is not in its own nature praiseworthy.”
These philosophers are the Stoics; and then, apparently alluding to the
arguments of Carneades against justice, which he had put into the mouth
of Philus in the third book of his de Republicâ, he proceeds:
“As to the Academy, which puts the whole subject into utter confusion,
I mean the New Academy of Arcesilas and Carneades, let us persuade it
to hold its peace. For, should it make an inroad upon the views which
we consider we have so skilfully put into shape, it will make an
extreme havoc of them. The Academy I cannot conciliate, and I dare not
ignore.”[185]
And as, in questions connected with the interests of society, he
thus uniformly advocates the tenets of the Porch, so in discussions of
a physical character we find him adopting the sublime and glowing
sentiments of Pythagoras and Plato. Here, however, having no object of
expediency in view to keep him within the bounds of consistency, he
scruples not to introduce whatever is most beautiful in itself, or most
adapted to his present purpose. At one time he describes the Deity as
the all-pervading Soul of the world, the cause of life and motion;[186]
at another He is the intelligent Preserver and Governor of every
separate part.[187] At one time the soul of man is in its own nature
necessarily eternal, without beginning or end of existence;[188] at
another it is represented as a portion, or the haunt of the one
infinite Spirit;[189] at another it is to enter the assembly of the
Gods, or to be driven into darkness, according to its moral conduct in
this life;[190] at another, it is only in its best and greatest
specimens destined for immortality;[191] sometimes that immortality is
described as attended with consciousness and the continuance of earthly
friendships;[192] sometimes as but an immortality of name and
glory;[193] more frequently however these separate notions are confused
together in the same passage.
Though the works of Aristotle were not given to the world till
Sylla's return from Greece, Cicero appears to have been a considerable
proficient in his philosophy,[194] and he has not overlooked the
important aid it affords in those departments of science which are
alike removed from abstract reasoning and fanciful theorizing. To
Aristotle he is indebted for most of the principles laid down in his
rhetorical discussions,[195] while in his treatises on morals not a few
of his remarks may be traced to the same acute philosopher.[196]
The doctrines of the Garden alone, though some of his most intimate
friends were of the Epicurean school, he regarded with aversion and
contempt; feeling no sort of interest in a system which cut at the very
root of that activity of mind, industry, and patriotism, for which he
himself both in public and private was so honourably
distinguished.[197]
Such then was the New Academy, and such the variation of opinion
which, in Cicero's judgment, was not inconsistent with the profession
of an Academic. And, however his adoption of that philosophy may be in
part referred to his oratorical habits, or his natural cast of mind,
yet, considering the ambition which he felt to inspire his countrymen
with a taste for literature and science,[198] we must conclude with
Warburton[199] that, in acceding to the system of Philo, he was
strongly influenced by the freedom of thought and reasoning which it
allowed to his literary works, the liberty of illustrating the
principles and doctrines, the strong and weak parts, of every Grecian
school. Bearing then in mind his design of recommending the study of
philosophy, it is interesting to observe the artifices of style and
manner which, with this end, he adopted in his treatises; and though to
enter minutely into this subject would be foreign to our present
purpose, it may be allowed us to make some general remarks on the
character of works so eminently successful in accomplishing the object
for which they were undertaken.
8.
The obvious peculiarity of Cicero's philosophical discussions is the
form of dialogue in which most of them are conveyed. Plato, indeed, and
Xenophon, had, before his time, been even more strictly dramatic in
their compositions; but they professed to be recording the sentiments
of an individual, and the Socratic mode of argument could hardly be
displayed in any other shape. Of that interrogative and inductive
conversation, however, Cicero affords but few specimens;[200] the
nature of his dialogue being as different from that of the two
Athenians as was his object in writing. His aim was to excite interest;
and he availed himself of this mode of composition for the life and
variety, the ease, perspicuity, and vigour which it gave to his
discussions. His dialogue is of two kinds: according as the subject of
it is beyond or under controversy, it assumes the shape of a continued
treatise, or a free disputation; in the latter case imparting clearness
to what is obscure, in the former relief to what is clear. Thus his
practical and systematic treatises on rhetoric and moral duty, when not
written in his own person, are merely divided between several speakers
who are the mere organs of his own sentiments; while in questions of a
more speculative cast, on the nature of the gods, on the human soul, on
the greatest good, he uses his academic liberty, and brings forward the
theories of contending schools under the character of their respective
advocates. The advantages gained in both cases by the form of dialogue
are evident. In controverted subjects he is not obliged to discover his
own views, he can detail opposite arguments forcibly and luminously,
and he is allowed the use of those oratorical powers in which, after
all, his great strength lay. In those subjects, on the other hand,
which are uninteresting because they are familiar, he may pause or
digress before the mind is weary and the attention begins to flag; the
reader is carried on by easy journeys and short stages, and novelty in
the speaker supplies the want of novelty in the matter. Nor does Cicero
discover less skill in the execution of these dialogues than address in
their method. It were idle to enlarge upon the beauty, richness, and
taste of compositions which have been the admiration of every age and
country. In the dignity of his speakers, their high tone of mutual
courtesy, the harmony of his groups, and the delicate relief of his
contrasts, he is inimitable. The majesty and splendour of his
introductions, which generally address themselves to the passions or
the imagination, the eloquence with which both sides of a question are
successively displayed, the clearness and terseness of his statements
on abstract points, the grace of his illustrations, his exquisite
allusions to the scene or time of the supposed conversation, his
digressions in praise of philosophy or great men, his quotations from
Grecian and Roman poetry; lastly, the melody and fulness of his style,
unite to throw a charm round his writings peculiar to themselves. To
the Roman reader they especially recommended themselves by their
continual and most artful references to the heroes of the old republic,
who now appeared but exemplars, and (as it were) patrons of that
eternal philosophy, which he had before, perhaps, considered as the
short-lived reveries of ingenious but inactive men. Nor is there any
confusion, want of keeping, or appearance of effort in the introduction
of the various beauties we have been enumerating, which are blended
together with so much skill and propriety, that it is sometimes
difficult to point out the particular sources of the admiration which
they inspire.
9.
The series of his rhetorical works[201] has been preserved nearly
complete, and consists of the De Inventione, De Oratore,
Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus, Orator sive de optimo genere
Dicendi, De partitione Oratoriâ, Topica, and de
optimo genere Oratorum. The last-mentioned, which is a fragment, is
understood to have been the proem to his translation (now lost) of the
speeches of Demosthenes and Æschines, De Coronâ. These he
translated with the view of defending, by the example of the Greek
orators, his own style of eloquence, which, as we shall afterwards
find, the critics of the day censured as too Asiatic in its character;
and hence the proem, which still survives, is on the subject of the
Attic style of oratory. This composition and his abstracts of his own
orations[202] are his only rhetorical works not extant, and probably
our loss is not very great. The Treatise on Rhetoric, addressed
to Herennius, though edited with his works, and ascribed to him by
several of the ancients, is now generally attributed to Cornificius, or
some other writer of the day.
The works, which we have enumerated, consider the art of rhetoric in
different points of view, and thus receive from each other mutual
support and illustration, while they prevent the tediousness which
might else arise, if they were moulded into one systematic treatise on
the general subject. Three are in the form of dialogue; the rest are
written in his own person. In all, except perhaps the Orator, he
professes to have availed himself of the principles of the Aristotelic
and Isocratean schools, selecting what was best in each of them, and,
as occasion might offer, adding remarks and precepts of his own.[203]
The subject of Oratory is considered in three distinct lights;[204]
with reference to the case, the speaker, and the speech. The case, as
respects its nature, is definite or indefinite; with reference to the
hearer, it is judicial, deliberative, or descriptive; as regards the
opponent, the division is fourfold—according as the fact, its nature,
its quality, or its propriety is called in question. The art of the
speaker is directed to five points: the discovery of persuasives
(whether ethical, pathetical, or argumentative), arrangement, diction,
memory, delivery. And the speech itself consists of six parts:
introduction, statement of the case, division of the subject, proof,
refutation, and conclusion.
His treatises De Inventione and Topica, the first and
nearly the last of his compositions, are both on the invention of
arguments, which he regards, with Aristotle, as the very foundation of
the art; though he elsewhere confines the term eloquence, according to
its derivation, to denote excellence of diction and delivery, to the
exclusion of argumentative skill.[205] The former of these works was
written at the age of twenty, and seems originally to have consisted of
four books, of which but two remain.[206] In the first of these he
considers rhetorical invention generally, supplies commonplaces for the
six parts of an oration promiscuously, and gives a full analysis of the
two forms of argument, syllogism and induction. In the second book he
applies these rules particularly to the three subject-matters of
rhetoric, the deliberative, the judicial, and the descriptive, dwelling
principally on the judicial, as affording the most ample field for
discussion. This treatise seems for the most part compiled from the
writings of Aristotle, Isocrates, and Hermagoras;[207] and as such he
alludes to it in the opening of his De Oratore as deficient in
the experience and judgment which nothing but time and practice can
impart. Still it is an entertaining, nay, useful work; remarkable, even
among Cicero's writings, for its uniform good sense, and less familiar
to the scholar only because the greater part has been superseded by the
compositions of his riper years.
His Topica, or treatise on commonplaces, has less extent and
variety of plan, being little else than a compendium of Aristotle's
work on the same subject. It was, as he informs us in its proem, drawn
up from memory on his voyage from Italy to Greece, soon after Cæsar's
murder, and in compliance with the wishes of Trebatius, who had some
time before urged him to undertake the translation.[208]
Cicero seems to have intended his De Oratore, De claris
Oratoribus, and Orator, to form one complete system.[209] Of
these three noble works the first lays down the principles and rules of
the rhetorical art; the second exemplifies them in the most eminent
speakers of Greece and Rome; and the third shadows out the features of
that perfect orator, whose superhuman excellences should be the aim of
our ambition. The De Oratore was written when the author was
fifty-two, two years after his return from exile; and is a dialogue
between some of the most illustrious Romans of the preceding age on the
subject of oratory. The principal speakers are the orators Crassus and
Antonius, who are represented unfolding the principles of their art to
Sulpicius and Cotta, young men just rising in the legal profession. In
the first book, the conversation turns on the subject-matter of
rhetoric, and the qualifications requisite for the perfect orator. Here
Crassus maintains the necessity of his being acquainted with the whole
circle of the arts, while Antonius confines eloquence to the province
of speaking well. The dispute for the most part seems verbal; for
Cicero himself, though he here sides with Crassus, yet elsewhere, as we
have above noticed, pronounces eloquence, strictly speaking, to consist
in beauty of diction. Scævola, the celebrated lawyer, takes part in
this preliminary discussion; but, in the ensuing meetings, makes way
for Catulus and Cæsar, the subject leading to such technical
disquisitions as were hardly suitable to the dignity of the aged
Augur.[210] The next morning Antonius enters upon the subject of
invention, which Cæsar completes by subjoining some remarks on the use
of humour in oratory; and Antonius, relieving him, finishes the morning
discussion with treating of arrangement and memory. In the afternoon
the rules for propriety and elegance of diction are explained by
Crassus, who was celebrated in this department of the art; and the work
concludes with his handling the subject of delivery and action. Such is
the plan of the De Oratore, the most finished perhaps of
Cicero's compositions. An air of grandeur and magnificence reigns
throughout. The characters of the aged senators are finely conceived,
and the whole company is invested with an almost religious majesty,
from the allusions interspersed to the melancholy destinies for which
its members were reserved.
His treatise De claris Oratoribus was written after an
interval of nine years, about the time of Cato's death, when he was
sixty-one, and is thrown into the shape of a dialogue between Brutus,
Atticus, and himself. He begins with Solon, and after briefly
mentioning the orators of Greece, proceeds to those of his own country,
so as to take in the whole period from the time of Junius Brutus down
to himself. About the same time he wrote his Orator; in which he
directs his attention principally to diction and delivery, as in his
De Inventione and Topica he considers the matter of an
oration.[211] This treatise is of a less practical nature than the
rest.[212] It adopts the principles of Plato, and delineates the
perfect orator according to the abstract conceptions of the intellect
rather than the deductions of observation and experience. Hence he sets
out with a definition of the perfectly eloquent man, whose
characteristic it is to express himself with propriety on all subjects,
whether humble, great, or of an intermediate character;[213] and here
he has an opportunity of paying some indirect compliments to himself.
With this work he was so well satisfied that he does not scruple to
declare, in a letter to a friend, that he was ready to rest on its
merits his reputation for judgment in Oratory.[214]
The treatise De partitione Oratoriâ, or on the three parts of
rhetoric, is a kind of catechism between Cicero and his son, drawn up
for the use of the latter at the same time with the two preceding. It
is the most systematic and perspicuous of his rhetorical works, but
seems to be but the rough draught of what he originally intended.[215]
10.
The connection which we have been able to preserve between the
rhetorical writings of Cicero cannot be attained in his moral,
political, and metaphysical treatises; partly from the extent of the
subject, partly from the losses occasioned by time, partly from the
inconsistency which we have warned the reader to expect in his
sentiments. In our enumeration, therefore, we shall observe no other
order than that which the date of their composition furnishes.
The earliest now extant is part of his treatise De Legibus,
in three books; being a sequel to his work on Politics. Both were
written in imitation of Plato's treatises on the same subjects.[216]
The latter of these (De Republicâ) was composed a year after the
De Oratore,[217] and seems to have vied with it in the majesty and
interest of the dialogue. It consisted of a series of discussions in
six books on the origin and principles of government, Scipio being the
principal speaker, but Lælius, Philus, Manilius, and other personages
of like gravity taking part in the conversation. Till lately, but a
fragment of the fifth book was understood to be in existence, in which
Scipio, under the fiction of a dream, inculcates the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul. But in the year 1822, Monsignor Mai, librarian
of the Vatican, published considerable portions of the first and second
books, from a palimpsest manuscript of St. Austin's Commentary on
the Psalms. In the part now recovered, Scipio discourses on the
different kinds of constitutions and their respective advantages; with
a particular reference to that of Rome. In the third book, the subject
of justice was discussed by Lælius and Philus; in the fourth, Scipio
treated of morals and education; while in the fifth and sixth, the
duties of a magistrate were explained, and the best means of preventing
changes and revolutions in the constitution itself. In the latter part
of the treatise, allusion was made to the actual posture of affairs in
Rome, when the conversation was supposed to have occurred, and the
commotions excited by the Gracchi.
In his treatise De Legibus, which was written two years later
than the De Republicâ, when he was fifty-five, and shortly after
the murder of Clodius, he represents himself as explaining to his
brother Quintus and Atticus, in their walks through the woods of
Arpinum, the nature and origin of the laws and their actual state, both
in other countries and in Rome. The first part only of the subject is
contained in the books now extant; the introduction to which we have
had occasion to notice, when speaking of his Stoical sentiments on
questions connected with State policy. Law he pronounces to be the
perfection of reason, the eternal mind, the divine energy, which, while
it pervades and unites in one the whole universe, associates gods and
men by the more intimate resemblance of reason and virtue, and still
more closely men with men, by the participation of common faculties,
affections, and situations. He then proves, at length, that justice is
not merely created by civil institutions, from the power of conscience,
the imperfections of human law, the moral sense, and the
disinterestedness of virtue. He next proceeds to unfold the principles,
first, of religious law, under the heads of divine worship; the
observance of festivals and games; the office of priests, augurs, and
heralds; the punishment of sacrilege and purjury; the consecration of
land, and the rights of sepulchre; and, secondly, of civil law, which
gives him an opportunity of noticing the respective duties of
magistrates and citizens. In these discussions, though professedly
speaking of the abstract question, he does not hesitate to anticipate
the subject of the lost books, by frequent allusions to the history and
customs of his own country. It must be added, that in no part of his
writings do worse instances occur, than in this treatise, of that
vanity which was notoriously his weakness, which are rendered doubly
offensive by their being put into the mouth of his brother and
Atticus.[218]
Here a period of seven or eight years intervenes, during which he
composed little of importance besides his Orations. He then published
the De claris Oratoribus and Orator; and a year later,
when he was sixty-three, his Academicæ Quæstiones, in the
retirement from public business to which he was driven by the
dictatorship of Cæsar. This work had originally consisted of two
dialogues, which he entitled Catulus and Lucullus, from
the names of the respective speakers in each. These he now remodelled
and enlarged into four books, dedicating them to Varro, whom he
introduced as advocating, in the presence of Atticus, the tenets of
Antiochus, while he himself defended those of Philo. Of this most
valuable composition, only the second book (Lucullus) of the
first edition and part of the first book of the second are now extant.
In the former of those two, Lucullus argues against, and Cicero for,
the Academic sect, in the presence of Catulus and Hortensius; in the
latter, Varro pursues the history of philosophy from Socrates to
Arcesilas, and Cicero continues it down to the time of Carneades. In
the second edition the style was corrected, the matter condensed, and
the whole polished with extraordinary care and diligence.[219]
The same year he published his treatise De Finibus, or “On
the chief good,” in five books, in which are explained the sentiments
of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics on the subject. This is the
earliest of his works in which the dialogue is of a disputatious
character. It is opened with a defence of the Epicurean tenets,
concerning pleasure, by Torquatus; to which Cicero replies at length.
The scene then shifts from the Cuman villa to the library of young
Lucullus (his father being dead), where the Stoic Cato expatiates on
the sublimity of the system which maintains the existence of one only
good, and is answered by Cicero in the character of a Peripatetic.
Lastly, Piso, in a conversation held at Athens, enters into an
explanation of the doctrine of Aristotle, that happiness is the
greatest good. The general style of this treatise is elegant and
perspicuous; and the last book in particular has great variety and
splendour of diction.
It was about this time that Cicero was especially courted by the
heads of the dictator's party, of whom Hirtius and Dolabella went so
far as to declaim daily at his house for the benefit of his
instructions.[220] A visit of this nature to the Tusculan villa, soon
after the publication of the De Finibus, gave rise to his work
entitled Tusculanæ Quæstiones, which professes to be the
substance of five philosophical disputes between himself and friends,
digested into as many books. He argues throughout after the manner of
an Academic, even with an affectation of inconsistency; sometimes
making use of the Socratic dialogue, sometimes launching out into the
diffuse expositions which characterise his other treatises.[221] He
first disputes against the fear of death; and in so doing he adopts the
opinion of the Platonic school, as regards the nature of God and the
soul. The succeeding discussions on enduring pain, on alleviating
grief, on the other emotions of the mind, and on virtue, are conducted
for the most part on Stoical principles.[222] This is a highly
ornamental composition, and contains more quotations from the poets
than any other of Cicero's treatises.
We have already had occasion to remark upon the singular activity of
his mind, which becomes more and more conspicuous as we approach the
period of his death. During the ensuing year, which is the last of his
life, in the midst of the confusion and anxieties consequent on Cæsar's
death, and the party warfare of his Philippics, he found time to write
the De Naturâ Deorum, De Divinatione, De Fato,
De Senectute, De Amicitiâ, De Officiis, and
Paradoxa, besides the treatise on Rhetorical Common Places above
mentioned.
Of these, the first three were intended as a full exposition of the
conflicting opinions entertained on their respective subjects; the
De Fato, however, was not finished according to this plan.[223] His
treatise De Naturâ Deorum, in three books, may be reckoned the
most splendid of all his works, and shows that neither age nor
disappointment had done injury to the richness and vigour of his mind.
In the first book, Velleius, the Epicurean, sets forth the physical
tenets of his sect, and is answered by Cotta, who is of the Academic
school. In the second, Balbus, the disciple of the Porch, gives an
account of his own system, and is, in turn, refuted by Cotta in the
third. The eloquent extravagance of the Epicurean, the solemn
enthusiasm of the Stoic, and the brilliant raillery of the Academic,
are contrasted with extreme vivacity and humour;—while the sublimity
of the subject itself imparts to the whole composition a grander and
more elevated character, and discovers in the author imaginative
powers, which, celebrated as he justly is for playfulness of fancy,
might yet appear more the talent of the poet than the orator.
His treatise De Divinatione is conveyed in a discussion
between his brother Quintus and himself, in two books. In the former,
Quintus, after dividing Divination into the heads of natural and
artificial, argues with the Stoics for its sacred nature, from the
evidence of facts, the agreement of all nations, and the existence of
divine intelligences. In the latter, Cicero questions its authority,
with Carneades, from the uncertain nature of its rules, the absurdity
and uselessness of the art, and the possibility of accounting from
natural causes for the phenomena on which it was founded. This is a
curious work, from the numerous cases adduced from the histories of
Greece and Rome to illustrate the subject in dispute.
His treatise De Fato is quite a fragment; it purports to be
the substance of a dissertation in which he explained to Hirtius (soon
after Consul) the sentiments of Chrysippus, Diodorus, Epicurus,
Carneades, and others, upon that abstruse subject. It is supposed to
have consisted at least of two books, of which we have but the proem of
the first, and a small portion of the second.
In his beautiful compositions, De Senectute and De
Amicitiâ, Cato the censor and Lælius are respectively introduced,
delivering their sentiments on those subjects. The conclusion of the
former, in which Cato discourses on the immortality of the soul, has
been always celebrated; and the opening of the latter, in which Fannius
and Scævola come to console Lælius on the death of Scipio, is as
exquisite an instance of delicacy and taste in composition as can be
found in his works. In the latter he has borrowed largely from the
eighth and ninth books of Aristotle's Ethics.
His treatise De Officiis was finished about the time he wrote
his second Philippic, a circumstance which illustrates the great
versatility of his mental powers. Of a work so extensively celebrated,
it is enough to have mentioned the name. Here he lays aside the less
authoritative form of dialogue, and, with the dignity of the Roman
Consul, unfolds, in his own person, the principles of morals, according
to the views of the older schools, particularly of the Stoics. It is
written in three books, with great perspicuity and elegance of style;
the first book treats of the honestum, or virtue, the
second of the utile, or expedience, and the third adjusts
the claims of the two, when they happen to interfere with each other.
His Paradoxa Stoicorum might have been more suitably,
perhaps, included in his rhetorical works, being six short declamations
in support of the positions of Zeno; in which that philosopher's
subtleties are adapted to the comprehension of the vulgar, and the
events of the times. The second, fourth, and sixth, are respectively
directed against Antony, Clodius, and Crassus. They seem to have
suffered from time.[224] The sixth is the most eloquent, but the
argument of the third is strikingly maintained.
Besides the works now enumerated, we have a considerable fragment of
his translation of Plato's Timæus, which he seems to have
finished in his last year. His remaining philosophical works, viz.: the
Hortensius, which was a defence of philosophy; De Gloriâ;
De Consolatione, written upon Platonic principles on his daughter's
death; De Jure Civili, De Virtutibus, De Auguriis,
Chorographia, translations of Plato's Protagoras, and
Xenophon's OEconomics, works on Natural History, Panegyric on
Cato, and some miscellaneous writings, are, except a few fragments,
entirely lost.
* * * * *
His Letters, about one thousand in all, are comprised in thirty-six
books, sixteen of which are addressed to Atticus, three to his brother
Quintus, one to Brutus, and sixteen to his different friends; and they
form a history of his life from his fortieth year. Among those
addressed to his friends, some occur from Brutus, Metellus, Plancius,
Cælius, and others. For the preservation of this most valuable
department of Cicero's writings, we are indebted to Tyro, the author's
freedman, though we possess, at the present day, but a part of those
originally published. As his correspondence with his friends belongs to
his character as a man and politician, rather than to his literary
aspect, we have already noticed it in the first part of this memoir.
* * * * *
His Poetical and Historical works have suffered a heavier fate. The
latter class, consisting of his commentary on his consulship and his
history of his own times, is altogether lost. Of the former, which
consisted of the heroic poems Halcyone, Limon, Marius, and his Consulate, the elegy of Tamelastes, translations of
Homer and Aratus, epigrams, etc., nothing remains, except some
fragments of the Phænomena and Diosemeia of Aratus. It
may, however, be questioned whether literature has suffered much by
these losses. We are far, indeed, from speaking contemptuously of the
poetical talent of one who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and
so fine an ear.[225] But his poems were principally composed in his
youth; and afterwards, when his powers were more mature, his
occupations did not allow even to his active mind the time necessary
for polishing a language still more rugged in metre than it was in
prose. His contemporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have
conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have contained less
faithful, information than his private correspondence; while, with all
the penetration he assuredly possessed, it may be doubted if his
diffuse and graceful style was adapted for the deep and condensed
thoughts and the grasp of facts and events which are the chief
excellences of historical composition.
11.
The Orations which he is known to have composed amount in all to
about eighty, of which fifty-nine, either entire or in part, are
preserved. Of these some are deliberative, others judicial, others
descriptive; some delivered from the rostrum, or in the senate; others
in the forum, or before Cæsar; and, as might be anticipated from the
character already given of his talents, he is much more successful in
pleading or in panegyric than in debate or invective. In deliberative
oratory, indeed, great part of the effect of the composition depends on
its creating in the hearer a high opinion of the speaker; and, though
Cicero takes considerable pains to interest the audience in his favour,
yet his style is not simple and grave enough, he is too ingenious, too
declamatory, discovers too much personal feeling, to elicit that
confidence in him, without which argument has little influence. His
invectives, again, however grand and imposing, yet, compared with his
calmer and more familiar productions, have a forced and unnatural air.
Splendid as is the eloquence of his Catilinarians and Philippics, it is
often the language of abuse rather than of indignation; and even his
attack on Piso, the most brilliant and imaginative of its kind, becomes
wearisome from want of ease and relief. His laudatory orations, on the
other hand, are among his happiest efforts. Nothing can exceed the
taste and beauty of those for the Manilian law, for Marcellus, for
Ligarius, for Archias, and the ninth Philippic, which is principally in
praise of Servius Sulpicius. But it is in judicial eloquence,
particularly on subjects of a lively cast, as in his speeches for
Cælius and Muræna, and against Cæcilius, that his talents are displayed
to the best advantage. In both these departments of oratory the grace
and amiableness of his genius are manifested in their full lustre,
though none of his orations are without tokens of those characteristic
excellences. Historical allusions, philosophical sentiments,
descriptions full of life and nature, and polite raillery, succeed each
other in the most agreeable manner, without appearance of artifice or
effort. Such are his pictures of the confusion of the Catilinarian
conspirators on detection;[226] of the death of Metellus;[227] of
Sulpicius undertaking the embassy to Antony;[228] the character he
draws of Catiline;[229] and his fine sketch of old Appius, frowning on
his degenerate descendant Clodia.[230]
These, however, are but incidental and occasional artifices to
divert and refresh the mind, since his Orations are generally laid out
according to the plan proposed in rhetorical works; the introduction,
containing the ethical proof; the body of the speech, the argument, and
the peroration addressing itself to the passions of the judges. In
opening his case, he commonly makes a profession of timidity and
diffidence, with a view to conciliate the favour of his audience; the
eloquence, for instance, of Hortensius, is so powerful,[231] or so much
prejudice has been excited against his client,[232] or it is his first
appearance in the rostrum,[233] or he is unused to speak in an armed
assembly,[234] or to plead in a private apartment.[235] He proceeds to
entreat the patience of his judges; drops out some generous or popular
sentiment, or contrives to excite prejudice against his opponent. He
then states the circumstances of his case, and the intended plan of his
oration; and here he is particularly clear. But it is when he comes
actually to prove his point that his oratorical powers begin to have
their full play. He accounts for everything so naturally, makes trivial
circumstances tell so happily, so adroitly converts apparent objections
into confirmations of his argument, connects independent facts with
such ease and plausibility, that it becomes impossible to entertain a
question on the truth of his statement. This is particularly observable
in his defence of Cluentius, where prejudices, suspicions, and
difficulties are encountered with the most triumphant ingenuity; in the
antecedent probabilities of his Pro Milone;[236] in his apology
for Muræna's public,[237] and Cælius's private life,[238] and his
disparagement of Verres's military services in Sicily;[239] it is
observable too in the address with which the Agrarian law of
Rullus,[240] and the accusation of Rabirius,[241] both popular
measures, are represented to be hostile to public liberty; with which
Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching incident;[242] and Cato's
attack upon the crowd of clients which accompanied the candidate for
office, a tyrannical disregard for the feelings of the poor.[243] So
great indeed is his talent, that he even hurts a good cause by an
excess of plausibility.
But it is not enough to have barely proved his point; he proceeds,
either immediately, or towards the conclusion of his speech, to
heighten the effect by amplification.[244] Here he goes (as it were)
round and round his object; surveys it in every light; examines it in
all its parts; retires, and then advances; turns and re-turns it;
compares and contrasts it; illustrates, confirms, enforces his view of
the question, till at last the hearer feels ashamed of doubting a
position which seems built on a foundation so strictly argumentative.
Of this nature is his justification of Rabirius in taking up arms
against Saturninus;[245] his account of the imprisonment of the Roman
citizens by Verres, and of the crucifixion of Gavius;[246] his
comparison of Antony with Tarquin;[247] and the contrast he draws of
Verres with Fabius, Scipio, and Marius.[248]
And now, having established his case, he opens upon his opponent a
discharge of raillery, so delicate and good-natured, that it is
impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it. Or where
the subject is too grave to admit this, he colours his exaggeration
with all the bitterness of irony or vehemence of passion. Such are his
frequent delineations of Gabinius, Piso, Clodius, and Antony;[249]
particularly his vivid and almost humorous contrast of the two consuls,
who sanctioned his banishment, in his oration for Sextius.[250] Such
the celebrated account (already referred to) of the crucifixion of
Gavius by Verres, which it is difficult to read, even at the present
day, without having our feelings roused against the merciless Prætor.
But the appeal to the gentler emotions of the soul is reserved (perhaps
with somewhat of sameness) for the close of his oration; as in his
defence of Cluentius, Muræna, Cælius, Milo, Sylla, Flaccus, and
Rabirius Postumus; the most striking instances of which are the
poetical burst of feeling with which he addresses his client
Plancius,[251] and his picture of the desolate condition of the Vestal
Fonteia, should her brother be condemned.[252] At other times, his
peroration contains more heroic and elevated sentiments; as in his
invocation of the Alban groves and altars in the peroration of the
Pro Milone, the panegyric on patriotism, and the love of glory in
his defence of Sextius, and that on liberty at the close of the third
and tenth Philippics.[253]
12.
But it is by the invention of a style, which adapts itself with
singular felicity to every class of subjects, whether lofty or
familiar, philosophical or forensic, that Cicero answers even more
exactly to his own definition of a perfect orator[254] than by his
plausibility, pathos, and brilliancy. It is not, however, here intended
to enter upon the consideration of a subject so ample and so familiar
to all scholars as Cicero's diction, much less to take an extended view
of it through the range of his philosophical writings and familiar
correspondence. Among many excellences, the greatest is its
suitableness to the genius of the Latin language; though the
diffuseness thence necessarily resulting has exposed it, both in his
own days and since his time, to the criticisms of those who have
affected to condemn its Asiatic character, in comparison with the
simplicity of Attic writers, and the strength of Demosthenes.[255]
Greek, however, is celebrated for its copiousness in vocabulary, for
its perspicuity, and its reproductive power; and its consequent
facility of expressing the most novel or abstruse ideas with precision
and elegance. Hence the Attic style of eloquence was plain and simple,
because simplicity and plainness were not incompatible with clearness,
energy, and harmony. But it was a singular want of judgment, an
ignorance of the very principles of composition, which induced Brutus,
Calvus, Sallust, and others to imitate this terse and severe beauty in
their own defective language, and even to pronounce the opposite kind
of diction deficient in taste and purity. In Greek, indeed, the words
fall, as it were, naturally, into a distinct and harmonious order; and,
from the exuberant richness of the materials, less is left to the
ingenuity of the artist. But the Latin language is comparatively weak,
scanty, and unmusical; and requires considerable skill and management
to render it expressive and graceful. Simplicity in Latin is scarcely
separable from baldness; and justly as Terence is celebrated for chaste
and unadorned diction, yet, even he, compared with Attic writers, is
flat and heavy.[256] Again, the perfection of strength is clearness
united to brevity; but to this combination Latin is utterly unequal.
From the vagueness and uncertainty of meaning which characterises its
separate words, to be perspicuous it must be full. What Livy, and much
more Tacitus, have gained in energy, they have lost in lucidity and
elegance; the correspondence of Brutus with Cicero is forcible, indeed,
but harsh and abrupt. Latin, in short, is not a philosophical language,
not a language in which a deep thinker is likely to express himself
with purity or neatness. Cicero found it barren and dissonant, and as
such he had to deal with it. His good sense enabled him to perceive
what could be done, and what it was in vain to attempt; and happily his
talents answered precisely to the purpose required. He may be compared
to a clever landscape-gardener, who gives depth and richness to narrow
and confined premises by ingenuity and skill in the disposition of his
trees and walks. Terence and Lucretius had cultivated simplicity;
Cotta, Brutus, and Calvus had attempted strength; but Cicero rather
made a language than a style; yet not so much by the invention as by
the combination of words. Some terms, indeed, his philosophical
subjects obliged him to coin;[257] but his great art lies in the
application of existing materials, in converting the very disadvantages
of the language into beauties,[258] in enriching it with
circumlocutions and metaphors, in pruning it of harsh and uncouth
expressions, in systematizing the structure of a sentence.[259] This is
that copia dicendi which gained Cicero the high testimony of
Cæsar to his inventive powers,[260] and which, we may add, constitutes
him the greatest master of composition that the world has seen.
13.
Such, then, are the principal characteristics of Cicero's oratory;
on a review of which we may, with some reason, conclude that Roman
eloquence stands scarcely less indebted to his works than Roman
philosophy. For, though in his De claris Oratoribus he begins
his review from the age of Junius Brutus, yet, soberly speaking (and as
he seems to allow in the opening of the De Oratore), we cannot
assign an earlier date to the rise of eloquence among his countrymen,
than that of the same Athenian embassy which introduced the study of
philosophy. To aim, indeed, at persuasion, by appeals to the reason or
passions, is so natural, that no country, whether refined or barbarous,
is without its orators. If, however, eloquence be the mere power of
persuading, it is but a relative term, limited to time and place,
connected with a particular audience, and leaving to posterity no test
of its merits but the report of those whom it has been successful in
influencing; but we are speaking of it as the subject-matter of an
art.[261]
The eloquence of Carneades and his associates had made (to use a
familiar term) a great sensation among the Roman orators, who soon
split into two parties,—the one adhering to the rough unpolished
manners of their forefathers, the other favouring the artificial graces
which distinguished the Grecian rhetoricians. In the former class were
Cato and Lælius,[262] both men of cultivated minds, particularly Cato,
whose opposition to Greek literature was founded solely on political
considerations. But, as might have been expected, the Athenian cause
had prevailed; and Carbo and the two Gracchi, who are the principal
orators of the next generation, are praised as masters of an oratory
learned, majestic, and harmonious in its character.[263] These were
succeeded by Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpicius, and Hortensius; who,
adopting greater liveliness and variety of manner, form a middle age in
the history of Roman eloquence. But it was in that which immediately
followed that the art was adorned by an assemblage of orators, which
even Greece will find it difficult to match. Of these Cæsar, Cicero,
Curio, Brutus, Cælius, Calvus, and Callidius, are the most celebrated.
The talents, indeed, of Cæsar were not more conspicuous in arms than in
his style, which was noted for its force and purity.[264] Cælius, whom
Cicero brought forward into public life, excelled in natural quickness,
loftiness of sentiment, and politeness in attack;[265] Brutus in
philosophical gravity, though he sometimes indulged himself in a warmer
and bolder style.[266] Callidius was delicate and harmonious; Curio
bold and flowing; Calvus, from studied opposition to Cicero's
peculiarities, cold, cautious, and accurate.[267] Brutus and Calvus
have been before noticed as the advocates of the dry sententious mode
of speaking, which they dignified by the name of Attic; a kind of
eloquence which seems to have been popular from the comparative
facility with which it was attained.
In the Ciceronian age the general character of the oratory was
dignified and graceful. The popular nature of the government gave
opportunities for effective appeals to the passions; and, Greek
literature being as yet a novelty, philosophical sentiments were
introduced with corresponding success. The republican orators were long
in their introductions, diffuse in their statements, ample in their
divisions, frequent in their digressions, gradual and sedate in their
perorations.[268] Under the Emperors, however, the people were less
consulted in state affairs; and the judges, instead of possessing an
almost independent authority, being but delegates of the executive,
from interested politicians became men of business; literature, too,
was now familiar to all classes; and taste began sensibly to decline.
The national appetite felt a craving for stronger and more stimulating
compositions. Impatience was manifested at the tedious majesty and
formal graces, the parade of arguments, grave sayings, and shreds of
philosophy,[269] which characterized their fathers; and a smarter and
more sparkling kind of oratory succeeded,[270] just as in our own
country the minuet of the last century has been supplanted by the
quadrille, and the stately movements of Giardini have given way to
Rossini's brisker and more artificial melodies. Corvinus, even before
the time of Augustus, had shown himself more elaborate and fastidious
in his choice of expressions.[271] Cassius Severus, the first who
openly deviated from the old style of oratory, introduced an
acrimonious and virulent mode of pleading.[272] It now became the
fashion to decry Cicero as inflated, languid, tame, and even deficient
in ornament;[273] Mecænas and Gallio followed in the career of
degeneracy; till flippancy of attack, prettiness of expression, and
glitter of decoration prevailed over the bold and manly eloquence of
free Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] De Legg. i. 1, ii. 1.
[94] Contra Rull. ii. 1.
[95] De Legg. ii. 1, iii. 16; de Orat. ii. 66.
[96] Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[97] Middleton's Life, vol. i. p. 13. 4to; de Clar. Orat. 89.
[98] Ibid.
[99] Pro Muræna, 11; de Orat. i. g.
[100] In Catil. iii. 6; in Pis. 3; pro Sylla, 30; pro Dom. 37; de
Harusp. resp. 23; ad Fam. xv. 4.
[101] De Clar. Orat. 91.
[102] Middleton's Life, vol. i. p. 42, 4to.
[103] Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[104] Warburton, Div. Leg. lib, iii. sec. 3; and Vossius. de Nat.
Logic. c. viii. sec. 22.
[105] Pro Planc. 26; in Ver. vi. 14.
[106] Pro Dom. 57, 58.
[107] De Offic. ii. 17; Middleton.
[108] In Pis. 1.
[109] Pro Murænâ, 20.
[110] Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[111] [Greek: Graikos kai scholastikos]. Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[112] Ad Atticum, i. 18, ii. 1.
[113] See Montesquieu, Grandeur des Romains, ch. xii.
[114] Ad Atticum, i. 19.
[115] Ad Atticum, lib. iii.; ad Fam. lib. xiv.; pro Sext. 22; pro
Dom. 36; Plutarch, in Vitâ. It is curious to observe how he converts
the alleviating circumstances of his case into exaggerations of his
misfortune: he writes to Atticus: “As to your many fierce objurgations
of me, for my weakness of mind, I ask you, what aggravation is wanting
to my calamity? Who else has ever fallen from so high a position, in so
good a cause, with so large an intellect, influence, popularity, with
all good men so powerfully supporting him, as I?”—iii. 10. Other
persons would have reckoned the justice of their cause, and the
countenance of good men, alleviations of their distress; and so, when
others were concerned, he himself thought. Vid. pro Sext. 12.
[116] Ad Atticum, ix. 18.
[117] Ibid. vii. 11, ix. 6, x. 8 and 9, xi, 9, etc.
[118] Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 3.
[119] Ad Atticum, xi. 8, 9, 10 and 12.
[120] Ibid. xi. 13.
[121] Ad Fam. iv. 14; Middleton, vol. ii. p. 149.
[122] Ibid.
[123] Ad Fam. iv. 6.
[124] Ad Atticum, xii. 15, etc
[125] Ad Atticum, xiii. 20.
[126] Ibid. xii. 40 and 41.
[127] His want of jealousy towards his rivals was remarkable; this
was exemplified in his esteem for Hortensius, and still more so in his
conduct towards Calvus. See Ad Fam. xv. 21.
[128] Vol. ii. p. 525, 4to.
[129] Pro Planc.; Middleton, vol. i. p. 108.
[130] C. 39.
[131] Ad Fam. vi. 6, vii. 3.
[132] Plutarch, in Vitâ Cic. See also in Vitâ Pomp.
[133] Vid. Dr. Whately in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.
[134] Lactantius, Inst. iii. 16.
[135] Plutarch, in Vitâ Caton. See also de Invent. i. 36.
[136] Paterculus, i. 12, etc. Plutarch, in Vitt. Lucull. et Syll.
[137] Gravin. Origin. Juris Civil. lib. i. c. 44.
[138] Quinct. xii. 2. Auct. Dialog. de Orator. 31.
[139] De Nat. Deor. i. 4; de Off. i. 1; de Fin.; init. Acad. Quæst.
init. etc.
[140] Tusc Quæst. i. 3; ii. 3; Acad. Quæst. i. 2; de Nat. Deor. i.
21; de Fin. i. 3, etc.; de Clar. Orat. 35.
[141] Lucullus, 2; de Fin. i. 1-3; Tusc Quæst. ii. 1, 2; iii. 2; v.
2; de Legg. i. 22-24; de Off. ii. 2; de Orat. 41, etc.
[142] Middleton's Life, vol. ii. p. 254.
[143] Ad Quinct. fratr. iii. 3.
[144] Tusc. Quæst, v. 2.
[145] De Off. i. 5. init.
[146] Johnson's observations on Addison's writings may be well
applied to those of Cicero, who would have been eminently successful in
short miscellaneous essays, like those of the Spectator, had the
manners of the age allowed it.
[147] Orat iii. 4; Tusc. Quæst. ii. 3; de Off. i. 1. Paradox.
præfat. Quinct. Instit. xii. 2.
[148] Article, Plato, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.
[149] Acad. Quæst. i. 10, etc.; Lucullus, 5; de Legg. i. 20; iii. 3,
etc.
[150] Acad. Quæst. i. 4, 12, 13; Lucullus, 5 and 23; de Nat. Deor.
i. 5; de Fin. ii. 1; de Orat. iii. 18. Augustin. contra Acad. ii. 6.
Plutarch, in Colot. 26.
[151] “Arcesilas negabat esse quidquam, quod sciri posset, ne illud
quidem ipsum quod Socrates sibi reliquisset. Sic omnia latere censebat
in occulto, neque esse quicquam quod cerni, quod intelligi, posset;
quibus de causis nihil oportere neque profiteri neque affirmare
quenquam, neque assentione approbare, etc.”—Acad. Quæst. i. 12.
See also Lucullus, 9 and 18. They were countenanced in these
conclusions by Plato's doctrine of ideas.—Lucullus, 46.
[152] Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 33. Diogenes Laertius, lib. iv.
in Arcesil. Vid. Lactant. Instit. iii. 6.
[153] Lucullus, 6.
[154] Augustin. contr. Acad. iii. 17.
[155] Lucullus, 18, 24. Augustin. contr. Acad. iii. 39.
[156] See Sext. Empir. adv. Log. i. 166., etc., p. 405.
[157] Acad. Quæst. i. 13; Lucullus, 23, 38; de Nat. Deor. i. 5;
Orat. 71.
[158] “Tu autem te negas infracto remo neque columbæ collo
commoveri. Primum cur? nam et in remo sentio non esse id quod videatur,
et in columbâ plures videri colores, nec esse plus uno, etc.”—
Lucullus, 25.
[159] Lucullus, 16-18; 26-28.
[160] “Vehementer errare eos qui dicant ab Academiâ sensus eripi; à
quibus nunquam dictum sit aut colorem aut saporem aut sonum nullum
esse, [sed] illud sit disputatum, non inesse in his propriam, quæ
nusquam alibi esset, veri et certi notam.”—Lucullus, 32. See
also 13, 24, 31; de Nat. Deor. i. 5.
[160a] [Greek: Oi goun Stôikoi katalêpsin einai phasi katalêptikê
phantasia sugkatathesô] Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. iii. 25. Vid.
also Adv. Log. i. 152, p. 402.
[161] “Verum non posse comprehendi ex illâ Stoici Zenonis
definitione arripuisse videbantur, qui ait id verum percipi posse, quod
ita esset animo impressum ex eo unde esset, ut esse non posset ex eo
unde non esset. Quod brevius planiusque sic dicitur, his signis verum
posse comprehendi, quæ signa non potest habere quod falsum est.”—
Augustin, contra Acad. ii. 5. See also Sext. Empir. adv. Math. lib.
vii. [Greek: peri metabolês], and Cf. Lucullus, 6 with 13.
[162] Lucullus, 13, 21, 40.
[163] [Greek: Tois phainomenois oun prosechoutes kata tên biôtikên
têrêsin adoxastôs bioumen, epei mê dunametha anenergêtoi pantapasin
einai].—Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. 1, 11.
[164] Cicero terms these three impressions, “visio probabilis; quæ
ex circumspectione aliquâ et accuratâ consideratione fiat; quæ non
impediatur.”—Lucullus, 11.
[165] Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 33.
[166] Numen. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 7.
[167] Lucullus, 31, 34; de Off. ii. 2; de Fin. v. 26. Quinct. xii.
1.
[168] Lucullus, 22, et alibi; Tusc. Quæst. ii. 2.
[169] See a striking passage from Cicero's Academics, preserved by
Augustine, contra Acad. iii. 7, and Lucullus, 18.
[170] De Nat. Deor. passim; de Div. ii. 72. “Quorum controversiam
solebat tanquam honorarius arbiter judicare Carneades.”—Tusc.
Quæst. v. 41.
[171] De Fin. ii. 1; de Orat. i. 18; Lucullus, 3; Tusc. Quæst. v.
11; Numen. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6, etc. Lactantius, Inst. iii.
4.
[172] De Nat. Deor. i. 67; de Fat. 2; Dialog. de Orat. 31, 32.
[173] Lucullus, 6, 18; de Orat. ii. 38, iii. 18. Quint, Inst. xii.
2. Numen. apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6 and 8.
[174] “Hæc in philosophiâ ratio contra omnia disserendi nullamque
rem apertè judicandi, profecta à Socrate, repetita ab Arcesilâ,
confirmata à Carneade, usque ad nostram viguit ætatem; quam nunc
propemodum orbam esse in ipsâ Græciâ intelligo. Quod non
Academiæ vitio, sed tarditate hominum arbitror contigisse. Nam
si singulas disciplinas percipere magnum est, quanto majus omnes? quod
facere iis necesse est, quibus propositum est, veri reperiendi causâ,
et contra omnes philosophos et pro omnibus dicere.”—De Nat. Deor.
i. 5.
[175] De Nat. Deor. i. 25, Augustin, contra Acad. iii. 17. Numen.
apud Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6.
[176] De Fin. ii. 13, v. 7; Lucullus, 42; Tusc. Quæst. v. 29.
[177] Lucullus, 45.
[178] Lucullus, 21, 24; for an elevated moral precept of his, see de
Fin. ii. 18.
[179] [Greek: Anêr en tais trisin airesesi diatripsas, en te tê
Akadêmaikê kai Peripatê tikê kai Stôikê].—Diogenes Laertius,
lib. iv. sub fin.
[180] “Quanquam Philo, magnus vir, negaret in libris duas Academias
esse erroremque eorum qui ita putârunt coarguit.”—Acad. Quæst.
i. 4.
[181] De Fin, v. 5; Lucullus, 22, 43. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 33.
[182] Acad. Quæst. i. 4; de Nat. Deor. i. 7.
[183] Lucullus, 20; see also de Nat. Deor. i. 7; de Fin. i. 5.
[184] “Nobis autem nostra Academia magnam licentiam dat, ut,
quodcunque maximè probabile occurrat, id nostro jure liceat
defendere.”—De Off. iii. 4. See also Tusc. Quæst. iv. 4, v. 29;
de Invent. ii. 3.
[185] De Legg. i. 13.
[186] Tusc. Quæst. i. 27; de Div. ii. 72; pro Milon. 31; de Legg.
ii. 7.
[187] Fragm. de Rep. 3; Tusc. Quæst. i. 29.
[188] Tusc. Quæst. i. passim; de Senect. 21, 22; Somn. Scip.
8.
[189] De Div. i. 32, 49; Fragm. de Consolat.
[190] Tusc. Quæst. i. 30; Som. Scip. 9; de Legg. ii. 11.
[191] De Amic. 4; de Off. iii. 28; pro Cluent. 61; de Legg. ii. 17:
Tusc. Quæst. i. 11; pro Sext. 21; de Nat. Deor. i. 17.
[192] De Senect. 23.
[193] Pro Arch. 11, 12, ad Fam. v. 21, vi. 21.
[194] He seems to have fallen into some misconceptions of
Aristotle's meaning. De Invent. i. 35, 36, ii. 14; see Quinct. Inst. v.
14.
[195] De Invent. i. 7, ii. 51, et passim; ad. Fam. i. 9; de
Orat. ii. 36.
[196] De Off. i. 1; de Fin. iv. 5.
[197] De Fin. ii. 21, iii. 1; de Legg. i. 13; de Orat. iii. 17; ad
Fam. xiii. 1; pro Sext. 10.
[198] De Nat. Deor. i. 4; Tusc. Quæst. i. 1, v. 29; de Fin. i. 3, 4;
de Off. i. 1; de Div. ii. 1, 2.
[199] Div. Leg. lib. iii. sec. 9.
[200] See Tusc. Quæst and de Republ.
[201] See Fabricius, Bibliothec. Latin.; Olivet, in Cic. opp. omn.;
Middleton's Life.
[202] Quinct. Inst. x. 7.
[203] De Invent. ii. 2 et 3; ad Fam. i. 9.
[204] Cf. de part. Orat. with de Invent.
[205] Orat. 19.
[206] Vossius, de Nat. Rhet. c. xiii.; Fabricius, Bibliothec. Latin.
[207] De Invent. i. 5, 6; de clar. Orat. 76.
[208] Ad Fam. vii. 19.
[209] De Div. ii. 1.
[210] Ad Atticum. iv. 16.
[211] Orat. 16.
[212] Orat. 14, 31.
[213] Orat. 21, 29.
[214] Ad Fam. vi. 18.
[215] See Middleton, vol. ii. p. 147.
[216] De Legg. i. 5.
[217] Ang. Mai. præf. in Remp. Middleman, vol. i. p. 486
[218] Quinct. Inst. xi. 1.
[219] Ad Atticum, xiii. 13, 16, 19.
[220] Ad Fam. ix. 16, 18.
[221] Tusc. Quæst v. 4, 11.
[222] Ibid. iii. 10, v. 27.
[223] De Nat. Deor. i. 6; de Div. i. 4, de Fat. 1.
[224] Sciopp. in Olivet.
[225] See Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[226] In Catil. iii. 3-5.
[227] Pro Cæl. 24.
[228] Philipp. ix. 3.
[229] Pro Cæl. 6.
[230] Ibid. 14.
[231] Pro Quinct. 1, and In Verr. Act i. 13
[232] Pro Cluent 1.
[233] Pro Leg. Manil. 1.
[234] Pro Milon. 1.
[235] Pro Deiotar. 2.
[236] Pro Milon. 14, etc.
[237] Pro Muræn. 9.
[238] Pro Cæl. 7, etc.
[239] In Verr. vi. 2, etc.
[240] Contra Rull. ii. 6, 7.
[241] Pro Rabir. 4.
[242] Pro Milon. init. et alibi.
[243] Pro Muræn. 34.
[244] De Orat. partit. 8, 16, 17.
[245] Pro Rabir. 8.
[246] In Verr. v. 56, etc., and 64, etc.
[247] Philipp. iii. 4.
[248] In Verr. vi. 10.
[249] Post Redit. in Senat. i. 4-8; pro Dom. 9, 39, etc.; in Pis.
10, 11. Philipp. ii. 18, etc.
[250] Pro Sext. 8-10.
[251] Pro Planc. 41, 42.
[252] Pro Fonteio, 17.
[253] Vid. his ideal description of an orator, in Orat. 40. Vid.
also de clar. Orat. 93, his negative panegyric on his own oratorical
attainments.
[254] Orat. 29.
[255] Tusc. Quæst. i. 1; de clar. Orat. 82, etc., de opt. gen.
dicendi.
[256] Quinct. x. 1.
[257] De Fin. iii. 1 and 4; Lucull. 6. Plutarch, in Vitâ.
[258] This, which is analogous to his address in pleading, is
nowhere more observable than in his rendering the recurrence of the
same word, to which he is forced by the barrenness or vagueness of the
language, an elegance.
[259] It is remarkable that some authors attempted to account for
the invention of the Asiatic style, on the same principle we
have here adduced to account for Cicero's adoption of it in
Latin; viz. that the Asiatics had a defective knowledge of Greek, and
devised phrases, etc., to make up for the imperfection of their scanty
vocabulary. See Quinct. xii. 10.
[260] De clar. Orat. 72.
[261] “Vulgus interdum,” says Cicero, “non probandum oratorem
probat, sed probat sine comparatione, cùm à mediocri aut etiam â malo
delectatur; eo est contentus: esse melius sentit: illud quod est,
qualecunque est, probat.”—De clar. Orat. 52.
[262] De clar. Orat. 72. Quinct. xii. 10.
[263] De clar. Orat. 25, 27; pro Harusp. resp. 19.
[264] Quinct. x. 1 and 2. De clar. Orat. 75.
[265] Ibid.
[266] Ibid. and ad Atticum, xiv. 1.
[267] Ibid.
[268] Dialog. de Orat. 20 apud Tacit. and 22. Quinct. x. 2.
[269] “It is not uncommon for those who have grown wise by the
labour of others, to add a little of their own, and overlook their
master.”—Johnson. We have before compared Cicero to Addison as
regards the purpose of inspiring their respective countrymen with
literary taste. They resembled each other in the return they
experienced.
[270] Dialog. 18.
[271] Ibid.
[272] Dialog. 19.
[273] Dialog. 18 and 22 Quinct. xii 10.