attributed to an Archias who may have been our Archias, but the name (of Doric origin) was so common among the Greeks that we cannot feel certain. No fragments of the longer poems we know Archias to have written have come down to our time. About the year 103 B.C., Archias, still only a boy, left home for a long course of travel. The political troubles that disturbed his native land had no doubt clouded the prospects of men of genius1. He first visited the cities of Western Asia, then traversed Greece, passed over to the Greek towns of Southern Italy, and finally reached Rome in 102 B.C. If Cicero is to be believed, the journey of Archias was throughout a sort of triumphal progress: his visits were expected everywhere with the utmost eagerness, and welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm. If his talents had been admired in Greece proper, it was natural that they should be still more highly valued in the cities of Magna Graecia, which had a strong Italian element in their population, and were therefore both by nature and by habit fond of improvisation. The intellectual activity also of the GraecoItalian cities (which forty years later had died away3) made foreign men of letters sure of a warm reception there. The citizens of Tarentum, Regium, Neapolis, and possibly Locri, presented Archias with the freedom of their respective cities, and paid him other public honours. His fame went before him to Rome, which he reached at an opportune time. The domestic peace of Rome and Latium had been long unbroken, and art and science flourished vigorously, more vigorously than at the time when this speech of Cicero was delivered, after forty years of almost constant political troubles. The great impulse given to Greek culture by the circle of litterati of which the house of the Scipios formed the centre, had not yet died away. The patronage of learning and genius, and especially of Greek learning and genius, was a fashion of the day with the aristocratic 1 See n. on § 4 quondam. 2 From the Italian talent for improvisation sprang the only indigenous Italian literature, the versus Fescennini, the Saturae, the Mimi, and the fabulae Atellanae. 3 See n. on tum § 5. On the Scipionic circle see Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, Bk. IV. c. 13. families of Rome. Many Greek poets, rhetoricians, and philosophers found homes in the noblest houses. Archias soon lived on terms of friendship with the foremost men of the time1. He was the guest of Catulus, the consul of 102 B. C., and composed a poem in honour of the great successes achieved by Marius and his colleague against the Teutones and Cimbri. But his most attached patrons were the Luculli, with whom he maintained a life-long intimacy. The head of the house, L. Licinius Lucullus, was absent during the year 102 B. C., governing Sicily as propraetor. Lucius, his son, the conqueror of Mithridates, loved during his whole life the society of learned Greeks, some of whom were always to be found among his suite even on his numerous campaigns 2. Sulla paid Lucius the compliment of appointing him his literary executor. Marcus, the brother of Lucius, was also a man of culture; he became the adopted son of M. Terentius Varro, the greatest scholar of the age. Sorrow soon fell on the Luculli. The father was guilty of disgraceful conduct during his administration of Sicily, and on his return was prosecuted and righteously condemned3. His case was so bad that his own brother-in-law, the well-known Q. Metellus Numidicus, refused to appear as a witness in his favour. Yet Roman notions of filial duty (pietas) required his sons to do all in their power to inflict injury on their father's enemy. They gained great renown by the vigour of their plans for revenge. A prosecution was instituted against the man who had prosecuted L. Lucullus the elder, and it was probably to collect evidence that M. Lucullus undertook a journey to Sicily, on which Archias accompanied him, some time after his arrival at Rome. On their return from Sicily they stayed at Heraclia, a Greek town on the gulf of Tarentum, where probably L. Lucullus the elder lived in exile. It was the custom for the cities of 1 § 6. 2 See my Introduction to Cicero's Academica p. LVIII and cf. In Verr. IV. 49. 3 See Dict. Biog. art. Lucullus. 4 magna cum gloria Cic. Aca demica II. I. 5 § 6 satis longo intervallo. Richter (introd. to his edition) wrongly concludes from the words ex provincia decederet (§ 6) that the mission of Lucullus was official. See n. on the passage. the Roman empire to get leading statesmen to act as their recognised patrons and champions in the capital. Very likely there was some such connexion between the family of the Luculli and the town of Heraclia, and it was partly with the intention of doing honour to their patrons that the burgesses enrolled Archias among their number1. Although Archias already possessed the freedom of several Graeco-Italian cities, some of them more famous than Heraclia, he described himself henceforward as a citizen of Heraclia, in order to mark his affection for the Luculli 2. Although living in close friendship with some of the noblest Romans, Archias was still politically an alien at the capital. Rome shewed during nearly her whole history a surprising readiness to confer the franchise on whole communities, but it was almost as difficult at Rome as it was at Athens in the days of her greatness, for individual foreigners to become full citizens. The Italian war however resulted (roughly speaking) in thé enfranchisement of all Italians. In the year 90 B. C., while the war was still going on, L. Iulius Caesar (father of the dictator Caesar) carried a law which enfranchised all corporate communities in Italy, excepting those which had joined in the rebellion, provided that the communities themselves formally consented to be incorporated with the body of Roman burgesses3. Archias might have obtained the citizenship under this law. He was on the burgess-roll of Neapolis, Heraclia, Tarentum, Regium, and probably Locri Epizephyrii. Neapolis and Heraclia were at first disinclined to accept the position offered them by Caesar's law, because the conditions of the treaties which bound them to Rome were exceptionally favourable. that Neapolis accepted the Julian law, the other four cities named above. year, 89 B.C., a law passed by the vanus and C. Papirius Carbo 1 n. on § 6 and on § 8 egisse. 3 Cic. Pro Balbo § 21. But we know definitely as in all probability did However, in the following tribunes, M. Plautius Sil(called after its authors the lex ac foedere. 5 See Cic. Ad Fam. XIII. 30. The other four towns were municipia at the time of this speech : § 10. Plautia Papiria), gave the citizenship to all individuals who could prove, (1) that their names were on the burgess-roll of some city in Italy1, whose relations with Rome were regulated by a formal treaty (foedus, civitas foederata), (2) that they had a settled habitation (domicilium) in Italy, (3) that within sixty days after the passing of the law they had inscribed their names on the books of one of the praetors for the year2. Archias claimed the citizenship under this law, possibly because his title could thus be most clearly established, possibly also because the Julian law had not been yet adopted by the Graeco-Italian cities to which he belonged. He appeared before his intimate friend Q. Metellus Pius3, one of the praetors of the year 89 B. C., who allowed his claim, on the grounds of his being a citizen of Heraclia, and having a settled habitation at Rome. Archias now took the full name of Aulus Licinius Archias. The name Licinius was the name of the gens of which the Luculli formed part, and Archias adopted it just as Roman slaves on being freed adopted the gentile names of their old masters and new patrons. Why he took the praenomen Aulus it is difficult to say. If he had followed the usual custom, he would have assumed a praenomen commonly used by the Luculli. But the name Aulus never occurs as one of the names of a Lucullus. This fact renders improbable the suggestion of some scholars, that the brother of Lucius Lucullus was originally called Aulus, and not Marcus, which name he is supposed to have taken on his adoption by M. Terentius Varro 4. Archias then was at Rome in 89 B. C. In the years 86 and 70 B. C., we know him to have been absent with L. Lucullus on his campaigns". It is probable that he was attached to the person of L. Lucullus from the year 88 B. C., when that general first went to the East, to the time when he died (about 59 B. C.). Archias appears to have been alive in the year 44 B. C., when he must have been quite an old man1. This is the last we hear of him. §2. Cicero's connexion with Archias. Cicero tells us that he could not recollect a time when he had not known Archias, who had encouraged his boyish love of learning and eloquence. The poet can scarcely have given regular instruction to the young orator, but merely advice?: From 102 to 88 B. C., Archias had lived in the midst of the circle of Optimates with whom Cicero was familiar, but it is not likely that in later years the friendship between the two was very close. L. Lucullus was only at Rome for three years between 88 and 66 B. C., in 79 when he was aedile, in 78 when he was praetor, and in 74 when he was consul. Between him and Cicero there was never a cordial intimacy; their intercourse was always cool, distant, and polite, arising from political agreement rather than from personal liking. Just before this speech was spoken (62 B. C.), Archias had begun a poem upon what Cicero regarded as the noblest possible theme, the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy3. Doubtless, as we shall see presently, the reasons which determined Cicero to defend Archias were chiefly political, but he was of course glad also to place the poet in his debt, and so hasten the completion of the poem. We learn, however, that Cicero had reason to be dissatisfied with the slowness of Archias in fulfilling his promise. Archias spent his time in finishing a poem on the achievements of the Luculli in the East'; he then purposed writing in honour of his warm friends, the Metelli. So at the end of a year after the speech, the poem on Cicero's consulship made no progress. Cicero had himself written a Latin poem on the same subject; 1 Cic. De Div. I § 79. 2 praecepta § 1. 4 Cf. § 21 with Cic. Ad Att. 1. 16, 15. 3 § 28. |