The Life of Cicero Volume I Part 13

[3] Ad Att., lib. xiii., 28.

[4] Ad Att., lib. ix., 10.

[5] Froude, p. 365.

[6] Ad Att., lib. ii., 5: "Quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi possum."

[7] The Cincian law, of which I shall have to speak again, forbade Roman advocates to take any payment for their services. Cicero expressly declares that he has always obeyed that law. He accused others of disobeying it, as, for instance, Hortensius. But no contemporary has accused him. Mr. Collins refers to some books which had been given to Cicero by his friend P[oe]tus. They are mentioned in a letter to Atticus, lib. i., 20; and Cicero, joking, says that he has consulted Cincius--perhaps some descendant of him who made the law 145 years before--as to the legality of accepting the present. But we have no reason for supposing that he had ever acted as an advocate for P[oe]tus.

[8] Virgil, aeneid, i., 150:

"Ac, veluti magno in populo quum saepe coorta est Seditio, saevitque animis ign.o.bile vulgus; Jamque faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat: Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant; Iste regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet."

[9] The author is saying that a history from Cicero would have been invaluable, and the words are "interitu ejus utrum respublica an historia magis doleat."

[10] Quintilian tells us this, lib. ii., c. 5. The pa.s.sage of Livy is not extant. The commentators suppose it to have been taken from a letter to his son.

[11] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., c. 34.

[12] Valerius Maximus, lib. iv., c. 2; 4.

[13] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. vii., x.x.xi., 30.

[14] Martial, lib. xiv., 188.

[15] Lucan, lib. vii., 62:

"Cunctorum voces Romani maximus auctor Tullius eloquii, cujus sub jure togaque Pacificas saevus tremuit Catilina secures, Pertulit iratus bellis, c.u.m rostra forumque Optaret pa.s.sus tam longa silentia miles Addidit invalidae robur facundia causae."

[16] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, x.x.x.

[17] Juvenal, viii., 243.

[18] Demosthenes and Cicero compared.

[19] Quintilian, xii., 1.

[20] "Repudiatus vigintiviratus." He refused a position of official value rendered vacant by the death of one Cosconius. See Letters to Atticus, 2,19.

[21] Florus, lib. iv., 1. In a letter from Ess.e.x to Foulke Greville, the writing of which has been attributed to Bacon by Mr. Spedding, Florus is said simply to have epitomized Livy (Life, vol. ii., p. 23). In this I think that Bacon has shorn him of his honors.

[22] Florus, lib. iv., 1.

[23] Sall.u.s.t, Catilinaria, xxiii.

[24] I will add the concluding pa.s.sage from the pseudo declamation, in order that the reader may see the nature of the words which were put into Sall.u.s.t's mouth: "Quos tyrannos appellabas, eorum nunc potentiae faves; qui tibi ante optumates videbantur, eosdem nunc dementes ac furiosos vocas; Vatinii caussam agis, de s.e.xtio male existumas; Bibulum petulantissumis verbis laedis, laudas Caesarem; quem maxume odisti, ei maxume obsequeris.

Aliud stans, aliud sedens, de republica sentis; his maledicis, illos odisti; levissume transfuga, neque in hac, neque illa parte fidem habes." Hence Dio Ca.s.sius declared that Cicero had been called a turncoat. [Greek: kai automalos onomazeto.]

[25] Dio Ca.s.sius, lib. xlvi., 18: [Greek: pros hen kai auten toiautas epistolas grapheis hoias an grapseien aner skoptoles athuroglorros ... kai proseti kai to stoma autou diaballein epecheirese tosaute aselgeia kai akatharsia para panta ton bion chromenos hoste mede ton sungenestaton apechesthai, alla ten te gunaika proagogeuein kai ten thugatera moicheuein.]

[26] As it happens, De Quincey specially calls Cicero a man of conscience. "Cicero is one of the very few pagan statesmen who can be described as a thoroughly conscientious man," he says. The purport of his illogical essay on Cicero is no doubt thoroughly hostile to the man. It is chiefly worth reading on account of the amusing virulence with which Middleton, the biographer, is attacked.

[27] Quintilian, lib. ii., c. 5.

[28] De Finibus, lib. v., ca. xxii.: "Nemo est igitur, qui non hanc affectionem animi probet atque laudet."

[29] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Nihil est enim illi principi deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem in terris fiat acceptius." Tusc. Quest., lib. i., ca. x.x.x.: "Vetat enim dominans ille in n.o.bis deus."

[30] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Certum esse in c[oe]lo definitum loc.u.m, ubi beati aevo sempiterno fruantur."

[31] Hor., lib. i., Ode xxii.,

"Non rura quae; Liris quieta Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis."

[32] Such was the presumed condition of things at Rome.

By the pa.s.sing of a special law a plebeian might, and occasionally did, become patrician. The patricians had so nearly died out in the time of Julius Caesar that he introduced fifty new families by the Lex Ca.s.sia.

[33] De Orat., lib. ii., ca. 1.

[34] Brutus, ca. lx.x.xix.

[35] It should be remembered that in Latin literature it was the recognized practice of authors to borrow wholesale from the Greek, and that no charge of plagiarism attended such borrowing. Virgil, in taking thoughts and language from Homer, was simply supposed to have shown his judgment in accommodating Greek delights to Roman ears and Roman intellects.

The idea as to literary larceny is of later date, and has grown up with personal claims for originality and with copyright. Shakspeare did not acknowledge whence he took his plots, because it was unnecessary. Now, if a writer borrow a tale from the French, it is held that he ought at least to owe the obligation, or perhaps even pay for it.

[36] Juvenal, Sat. x., 122,

"O fortunatam natam me Consule Romam!

Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, si sic Omnia dixisset."

[37] De Leg., lib. i., ca. 1.

[38] Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, written by himself, vol. i., p. 58.

[39] I give the nine versions to which I allude in an Appendix A, at the end of this volume, so that those curious in such matters may compare the words in which the same picture has been drawn by various hands.

[40] Pro Archia, ca. vii.

[41] Brutus, ca. xc.

[42] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, x.x.x.

[43] Quintilian, lib. xii., c. vi., who wrote about the same time as this essayist, tells us of these three instances of early oratory, not, however, specifying the exact age in either case. He also reminds us that Demosthenes pleaded when he was a boy, and that Augustus at the age of twelve made a public harangue in honor of his grandmother.

[44] Brutus, ca. xc.

[45] Brutus, xci.