CICER O.

DIED B.C. 43.

LTHOUGH ancient, if tested by the lapse of years, the times of Cicero, so far as concerns the habits of life, the ways of thinking, the politics, and the tastes of the Romans of his day, were wonderfully like our own; and have, therefore, more interest for a modern reader than classic history generally.

After receiving a good education, Cicero's early manhood was spent in studying for the bar, and in the usual military service. He began to practise as an advocate at the age of twenty-five, and, having succeeded almost too quickly, he retired to Athens for the benefit of his health. There he met his old schoolfellow Atticus, with whom he afterwards corresponded for many years, and nearly four hundred of his letters have been preserved. He also travelled in Asia Minor. On his return to Rome, he increased his reputation as a pleader, which led to his holding several public offices, and obtaining a seat in the Senate. Whilst acting as a quæstor in Sicily, he earned a great name for ability and honourable conduct, which so elated him that he tells us how, on landing at Puteoli, on his way home, during the fashionable season there, he was quite disconcerted to find that his doings were no longer in everybody's mouth, and the valuable lesson it taught him. His next public service was the impeachment of Verres, who was

charged with crimes and misdemeanours in his province. One of his offences was that he had scourged a Roman citizen, and Cicero's denunciation of him, in the speech he prepared for the occasion, is considered the most magnificent piece of declamation in any language. But, though handed down to us, it was never spoken, Verres having retired to Marseilles, and allowed judgment to go against him by default. The result of the trial, however, raised Cicero to the leadership of the Roman bar, and thus gratified his jealousy of his rival Hortensius.

In the prime of his manhood he was elected the first of the two consuls for the year rendered famous by the conspiracy of Catiline, whose character he graphically sketched in defending a young friend who had fallen under the conspirator's influence. He also delivered a most eloquent oration against him in the Senate-house, to which Catiline attempted to reply, but he was silenced with the cries of 'traitor,' and the same night joined his fellow-insurgents. Several of them who had been seized were strangled by Cicero's authority, and for this prompt action he was hailed by the people as the 'Father of his country.' Catiline soon afterwards fell fighting in the struggle with the legions sent against his rebel army. Cicero was now the foremost man in Rome, and he vainly showed that no one had a more profound appreciation of his services than himself. When, however, he was about to retire from the consulship, a tribune reminded him that he had put Roman citizens to death without a trial. He was now a very wealthy man, with a noble town mansion, and several country villas, his favourite resort being one at Tusculum, where he indulged his luxurious tastes, and took special pleasure in his library, without which he said a house was a body without a soul. He had his callers too, though in his letters to Atticus he complains that some of them are bores; and to another friend he says, "Cling to the city, and live in her light; all employment elsewhere is obscure for those who have abilities to make them famous at Rome.' Other letters prove that he was very happy at this time in his family, and he boasts of having received many valuable legacies.

But his political enemies had not forgotten him; and, at length, a young profligate named Clodius, against whom he had given evidence for sacrilege, proposed a law that whoever had put to death a Roman citizen uncondemned should be banished. In vain he appealed both to Cæsar and Pompey; and, at last, in anticipation of the edict, he voluntarily withdrew into exile, his property was confiscated, and a temple to Liberty erected on the site of his house. At the expiration of a year and a-half, during which he wandered from place to place, bemoaning himself like a woman, he was recalled, partly through the effect of an appeal in his behalf made to the audience by a popular actor at the theatre; and Cicero relates that he was forewarned of his good fortune in a dream. He also tells with pardonable pride of his reception on his return, having, as he afterwards boasted, been carried back to Rome on the shoulders of Italy. Nevertheless, for nearly four years Clodius continued to incite the people against him, until at last he was killed in a street fight between his retainers and those of Milo, a candidate for the consulship. Cicero prepared a magnificent speech for the defence of Milo, but Pompey over-awed the jury by the presence of a military force, and the orator utterly broke down. He was afterwards, against his wish, appointed to the government of Cilicia; but was consoled on his arrival to find that he was known, even in that distant province, as the consul who had saved Rome.' There, as in Sicily, he astonished the people by neither robbing nor ill-using them, and gratified his vanity by gaining a victory which secured him the honoured title of imperator. He would probably also have obtained a triumph on his return, but for the revolution which followed.

Cicero had foreboded that the result of the contest between Cæsar and Pompey would be a despotism, and his policy, like that of many other public men, consisted in bending to circumstances. He refused the chief command after Pompey's death, and, having returned to Rome, gradually became friendly with Cæsar; but his political occupation was gone, and he amused himself with his literary productions. The death of his daughter Tullia at

this time was a severe blow to him, and he sought consolation in his sorrow from the effort of writing and completing his works, rather than in the philosophical reflections on death, and pain, and the practice of virtue, which they contained.

It

It remained for him to take part in one more great national struggle. On the Ides of March, Cæsar had been assassinated in the Capitol by Brutus and Cassius, and Antony had taken his place. Cicero felt that he was no longer safe in Rome, and soon left it. Wandering from place to place he occupied himself with philosophy. was now that he wrote his essays on 'Friendship' and 'Old Age,' and his celebrated treatise 'De Officiis.' But his heart was still in the Forum, and he returned thither; crowds rushed to welcome him, and thenceforth it was a fight to the death between him and Antony. Having been denounced in the Senate by the new Dictator as a traitor and a coward, he delivered, the following day, the first of his Philippics,' as he himself named them, against his policy. Then Antony, after the lapse of a fortnight, replied, adding to other charges that of complicity with the murder of Cæsar. Cicero was not present, for he dreaded personal violence, but he replied in a second speech, full of bitter personality, which was handed to his friends in manuscript; and followed up by several others. Antony had now placed himself at the head of his legions, in defiance of the Senate, and was defeated by the consuls. Cicero delivered his fourteenth Philippic, and almost thought that he had again saved the Commonwealth. But Antony, having joined his forces with those led against him by Cæsar's great-nephew Octavianus, formed with him and Lepidus, at Bologna, the second Triumvirate, and Cicero was included in the list of proscriptions. He might have escaped, but for the indecision which led him to disembark from the ship he had taken refuge in, and, at last, he was overtaken by the emissaries of the triumvirs, as he was being hurried in a litter to the shore again, and his head was carried to Antony, by whose order it was nailed upon the Rostra, to speak there, more eloquently than the living lips had spoken, of the dead liberty of Rome.

In one of his numerous confidential letters to his friend

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Atticus he asks,-'What will history say of me six hundred years hence?'-and the reply is that posterity has hardly yet made up its mind. Of no other man have we the same means of judging as to his private motives and ambitions, his secret jealousies, and his hopes and fears, which these outpourings of his heart reveal; but, on the other hand, we know far too little of the true relations between the various parties at Rome, to enable us fairly to decide upon his conduct as a patriot and a politician. His public actions, however, and his private feelings, both indicate that he wanted manliness, which, in fact, was fast dying out among the Romans, amidst the luxury and corruption of those degenerate times. His views on some of the great political problems were often uttered ironically. For instance, of the ballot he says 'it enables men to open their faces and cover up their thoughts;' and that the voting paper is 'the tablet which secures the liberty of silence.' Much of the charm of his oratory is lost by not hearing the language in which his thoughts were clothed, and most of his speeches were re-shaped and polished for publication. His excited delivery and action would probably have aroused more sympathy with a French than with an English audience. His treatise on 'Oratory' was the first attempt to reduce eloquence to a science; and his ideal of an orator was, that he should be a man of perfect education and taste, who could speak on all subjects, out of the fulness of his mind, with variety and copiousness. He tells beginners that it is more important to say nothing which may injure their case, than to omit something that might possibly serve it. He by no means scorns the tricks of his art which help to secure a verdict, such as having his client by his side in tears, or a family group; and he always had his own tears at command in case of need. He frequently indulged, too, in coarse invective, and bitter ridicule, even of personal defects; whilst on other occasions he introduced anecdotes and pleasantry. His speech on behalf of Cælius is full of wit and sarcasm, and his defence of Ligarius for treason has also been deservedly praised. Cæsar was Dictator at the time, and the case was tried before him without the pretence of a jury, but the