The Menaechmi
The Asses
The Merchant
The Swaggering Soldier
Stichus
The Pot of Gold
Curculio
Epidicus
The Captives
The Rope
Trinummus
Mostelleria
Pseudolus
The Two Bacchides
Amphitryon
Casina
The Persian
Truculentus
The Woman of Andros
The Mother-In-Law
The Self-Tormentor
The Eunuch
Phormio
The Brothers
Roman culture originated out of Etruscan rituals and religion
and was influenced greatly by the Greeks.
Livy described how Etruscan
dance and music
were introduced in Rome during a
plague in 364
BC to appease the gods.
Histrionic gestures were developed into
dialogs with plots
adapted from Greek tragedies and comedies
by
a Greek slave named Livius Andronicus by 240 BC.
Andronicus translated
Homer's Odyssey into
Latin,
and it was used in schools for generations.
Short Oscan
plays from Campania using mime called
fabula Atellana were
based on the characters of the
stupid clown Maccus, the bragging
glutton Bucco,
the foolish old Pappus, and the hunchback trickster
Dossennus.
In the late third century BC Gnaeus Naevius wrote an
epic
on the first Punic war,
a few tragedies about the Trojan war,
and dozens of comedies based
on Greek plays as well as one
play about Romulus and Remus and
one about the victory by
consul Marcellus over the Insubrian Gauls
in 222 BC;
the plays of Naevius were so critical of political
figures
that he was imprisoned and went into exile.
Greek tragedies
were also adapted by Quintius Ennius
(239-169 BC), Marcus Pacuvius
(c. 220-c. 130 BC), and
Lucius Accius (170-c. 86 BC), and Greek
comedies were
translated by the freed Insubrian slave Caecilius
Statius
(c. 219-c. 166 BC), but these are all lost.
The only surviving ancient Roman plays are the 21 comedies
(one only in fragments) by Plautus listed by Varro as authentic,
six comedies by Terence, ten tragedies by Seneca in the
first
century CE, and one comedy from the fifth century CE.
Titus Maccius
Plautus was born in the Umbrian town of Sarsina,
lived about seventy
years,
and according to Cicero died in 184 BC.
He was probably
named Titus after his father,
Maccius after the clown, and Plautus
for having flat feet.
He worked in Roman theatrical productions
and was said to
have lost his investment in a merchant venture
and had to work
in a mill before writing his comedies based on
Greek plays.
His first few plays were produced
during the long
second Punic war.
The Menaechmi by Plautus is a
comedy of errors,
as Shakespeare called his adaptation, and as
it refers to Hiero
ruling in Syracuse, it may have been produced
before his death in 215 BC.
Comic confusion occurs when a twin
Sosicles, separated from
his brother at age seven and now using
the same name
Menaechmus, arrives in Epidamnus with his slave
Messenio.
Menaechmus quarrels with his wife and threatens divorce,
steals a dress from her, and gives it to his mistress Erotium,
who offers to make dinner for him
and his parasitic companion
Peniculus.
While Menaechmus is busy in town with the legal problems
of his clients, Sosicles is taken for his brother by Erotium
and
handsomely entertained.
Erotium asks him to get the dress and
gold bracelets
she received from his brother altered;
Sosicles
has found what he calls "booty."
Having lost a free
meal, Peniculus tells the wife that
Menaechmus gave her dress
to his mistress;
she asks for it back, and Menaechmus, not having
it,
gets locked out of both houses.
When the father-in-law accuses
Sosicles, he acts insane.
A doctor gets four slaves to arrest
Menaechmus for treatment,
but the slave Messenio rescues him from
them and is granted
his freedom for it by Menaechmus,
who does
not even know him.
Finally the brothers meet; the confusion is
cleared up;
and Sosicles happily liberates Messenio.
In the comedy of The Asses Plautus has
fun
with some very low characters.
A profligate son Argyrippus
is in love with Philaenium
the daughter of the courtesan Cleareta,
and his father
Demaenetus wants to help him even though
his wife
Artemona controls the money.
With his two slaves they manage to
get money from the
sale of asses so that Argyrippus can buy the
love of Philaenium
for a year; but his father insists on being
allowed
to spend the first night with her.
His wife discovers
her husband and son with the daughter
in the courtesan's house,
and there is hell to pay.
This story of lust, greed, and deception
shows the darker side
of human nature, which Freud quoted as man
being a wolf to
his fellow man, although line 495 of Plautus more
precisely
means, "A man is no man, but a wolf, to a stranger."1
The slaves feel victimized by their captivity, the women
by their
need for money,
and the men by their desire for women.
The Merchant is a similar story of young
Charinus,
who buys a young woman he loves and found on his
business
trip and says he is going to give her to her mother
for a servant;
but he really wants to have his neighbor friend
Eutychus take
her so as to avoid suspicion.
However, his father Demipho buys
her first
and gives her to Lysimachus, father of Eutychus.
The
wife of Lysimachus returns and is very suspicious,
and her 84-year-old
female slave
complains about the old double standard.
If a man secretly takes a harlot, and his wife
finds it out, the man goes unpunished.
But if a wife even goes out of the house
without her husband's knowledge,
the man has grounds for divorce,
and she's driven out.
There ought to be the same law
for husbands as for wives!
For a good wife is satisfied with one husband;
why shouldn't a man be satisfied with one woman?2
Finally Demipho gives her back to his son, and the play
concludes
with a resolution that old men who consort with
harlots should
be considered stupid
and deserve to lose the property they waste.
The Swaggering Soldier by Plautus was
probably
produced in 205 BC; this satire of a vain soldier was
popular with Romans tired of the Punic wars.
Based on a Greek play set in Ephesus, a conceited soldier,
bragging
he has killed 7,000 people, is organizing troops
to help Seleucus
regain his kingdom; he has abducted a girl
Philocomasium from
Athens and also acquired the
slave Palaestrio, who had served
her lover Pleusicles.
Palaestrio cleverly masterminds the
deceptions
that fool the soldier.
First, he enables Pleusicles to meet his
lover by cutting a
hole in the wall between the house where he
is staying
and the soldier's; then he convinces the watchman that
Philocomasium has a twin sister visiting next door.
The slave
warns the watchman that he may be killed for
making a false accusation
about the girl, or he may be
killed for having let her see a lover;
but the watchman is
afraid he'll be killed for not reporting it.
The helpful bachelor neighbor explains why he prefers
the joy
of freedom to marriage, and he cooperates with
Palaestro's plan
to use an attractive courtesan and her
maid to pose as his wife
to seduce
the vain and lecherous soldier.
The slave persuades
the stupid soldier to let Philocomasium
go with the gifts he gave
her including Palaestro as her
servant so that he can make it
with the attractive courtesan.
Once they have safely left, the
soldier goes to see her
next door and is caught and punished by
the neighbor.
The Casket is a Latin translation of a lost play by
Menander but is not complete.
In this sentimental story a young
lover, whose father
will not let him marry the daughter of a courtesan,
discovers that she is a foundling with a respectable father.
In The Carthaginian by Plautus a young man and his slave
organize a way to entrap into a crime a pimp,
who is on the verge
of making two sisters prostitutes
when their Carthaginian father
fortuitously appears to claim
that they were stolen away years
ago;
the young man is then able to marry his sweetheart.
Stichus, named after the slave who gets
drunk
at the end, was produced in Rome in 200 BC and seems
to
celebrate a return to better times after nearly
two decades of
war with Carthage.
Two brothers married to two sisters have been
away
three years on a merchant venture, and the father of the
girls
is threatening to marry them off to someone else;
they fear
his parental prerogative and the shame and
disgrace that would
result from disobeying the patriarch.
Plautus hints that an unwilling
woman given in marriage
will not be a wife but an enemy.
However,
the brothers return with abundant goods,
and a feast is planned.
Much of the conflict revolves around a long-hungry
parasite's
efforts to gain a free meal;
this seems to symbolize the long
period of suffering
caused by Hannibal's invasion.
The Pot of Gold by Plautus was the
basis
for Moliere's Miser.
Guided by the household god, Euclio
has found the gold buried
by his grandfather, because the god
wants his kind daughter
to have a dowry.
However, Euclio is so
afraid of losing money he has never
had before that he does not
tell anyone about it and is
constantly worried that someone will
find it.
He even agrees to let the elderly bachelor next door
wed his daughter, because he asks no dowry;
but Lyconides has
already slept with the reputed virgin,
and his slave finds the
treasure.
His master's confession of deflowering Euclio's daughter
is misunderstood by the obsessed father
as admitting he stole
the gold.
Lyconides insists the slave give the gold back.
Although
the ending of the play is lost, it is likely that
the slave gets
his freedom and Lyconides a bride with a dowry,
because in a fragment
Euclio says that now he can sleep
after not having any rest day
or night.
Curculio is about a parasite, who takes
a ring from a
soldier after a crooked dice game to redeem Planesium
rom a pimp by means of a letter sealed by the ring to a banker.
Curculio likens the bankers to the pimp for the evil of their
high interest rates and ways of finding loopholes.
Planesium is
now able to marry her sweetheart Phaedromus;
because the pimp
has not been healed in the
temple of Aesculapius, she is still
a virgin.
When it is discovered that Planesium is the free-born
sister
of the soldier, the pimp is forced to
give back the money
for having sold her.
Epidicus is named after a slave, who
cleverly sets up
one deception after another to please the changing
desires
of his master's son Stratippocles for women.
Plautus said
this was his favorite play; he changed the Greek
plot to prevent
a brother from marrying his half-sister,
since the Romans considered
this incest,
though it did not bother the Greeks.
It looks as
though Epidicus is going to be punished
for his shenanigans; but
when the girl Stratippocles bought
while off in war turns out
to be the illegitimate daughter
of his father, Epidicus wins his
freedom,
though Stratippocles has to be content with
finding a
sister instead of a bride.
The sentiments of Plautus seem to have
been
on the side of the clever slave.
In The Captives Plautus made some important
ethical points, and the 18th-century German writer Lessing
called
it the finest play ever staged.
The Elean Philocrates and his
slave Tyndarus, having been
captured in war, are prisoners and
slaves bought by Hegio
so that he can trade for his son captured
in Elis.
Pretending to be each other, the supposed slave Philocrates
is sent to make the trade,
while Tyndarus risks his life by remaining.
Tyndarus invokes the principle of justice so that
he will be treated
better when he says to Hegio,
There is surely a God above, who sees and
hears all we do; how he will care for your son
over there will depend on your treatment of me here
he will reward kindness with kindness, I am sure;
and unkindness with its like.3
At first Hegio is pleased with the plan and says,
"It
does a good man good to do
a good turn to another good man."4
Yet all love themselves.
A friend of Philocrates has also been
captured, and efforts of
Tyndarus to make Hegio believe he is
insane are unsuccessful;
when Hegio finds out he has been fooled,
he sends Tyndarus to the quarries for the hardest labor.
Believing
that dying in an act of courage is
not an everlasting death, Tyndarus
tries to convince Hegio
that his own loyalty to Philocrates is
right.
Comic relief is provided by a hungry man looking for a
dinner,
who uses his knowledge that Hegio's son has returned
to
gain one and goes wild in the kitchen.
The slave, who stole Hegio's
other son when he was
four years old, also has arrived, and they
all discover
that Tyndarus is that son, causing Hegio to realize
he should have treated him better
when he was his captive slave.
The Rope begins with the stellar god
Arcturus explaining
how Jupiter sends spies to observe people's
actions and
characters so that virtue may be rewarded.
Those who
pervert justice by perjury or deceit will find
their cases retried
by Jupiter,
and the penalties suffered may be greater.
Arcturus
declares that heaven is merciful,
but there is no mercy for the
hard-hearted;
thus he encourages people to be faithful, honest,
and steadfast so that they will earn the blessings they deserve.
A pimp has absconded with two young women while
promising to meet
a young Athenian, who has paid a deposit
for Palaestra; but the
god uses a storm to shipwreck them
so that they arrive at the
appointed
temple of Venus on the beach.
Palaestra complains that
the innocent are being treated
like the guilty, though she recognizes
that it is
because of the wicked deeds of her master.
They all survive the shipwreck; but when the pimp grabs
the
girls in the temple, the young Athenian's slave Trachalio
calls
out for help to rescue the innocent, praying that life be
lawful
and that no one be frightened
by fear or force of the powerful.
When Gripus, the slave of Daemones, salvages the chest
in his
fishing net, there is a long argument and tug-of-war
with ropes
between him and Trachalio, because in the chest
is the evidence
that Palaestra is the daughter of Daemones.
Daemones wants to
do the right thing.
Gripus sells the trunk to the pimp; but Daemones
overrules
him by using the money to buy the other girl and free
Gripus,
who is so frustrated at the end of the play that not hearing
he says he is going to hang himself.
Daemones even invites the
pimp to dinner.
In this ethical play Plautus seems to be identifying
more with the compassionate master.
Trinummus refers to a triple day's
wage given to the
imposture hired near the end of the play.
In
the prolog Luxury with her daughter Poverty says it was
translated
by Plautus from a Greek play by Philemon.
Callicles explains to
his friend the Stoic idea that he is only
responsible for what
is within his own control—
his actions, not what other people
think of them.
Charmides has left Callicles in charge of his household
while
he has gone to Seleucia;
but the spendthrift son Lesbonicus
sold the house.
Callicles bought it to preserve its secret buried
treasure.
Philto lectures his son Lysiteles on the recent decline
in morality,
because people do what they want instead of what
they should,
being enslaved to their inclinations; he believes
the virtuous
people are aware of how they fall short of honesty
and virtue.
Lysiteles wants to marry the sister of his friend
Lesbonicus,
who promises her without a dowry and then insists
on giving
what little he has left as a dowry.
Callicles and his
friend hire an imposture to bring forged letters
from Charmides
so that Callicles can offer a dowry without
betraying the secrecy
of the treasure.
Charmides arrives to encounter the imposture.
Even his slave Stasimus is lamenting the morality of
self-advancement
instead of law.
He notes that what you lend is lost; when asking
for it back,
you often find a friend made an enemy by your kindness.
Finally Charmides gives Lysiteles the hand of his daughter
with
a thousand gold Philippics in another ethical play.
Mostelleria means a ghost story, which
is made up
by the slave Tranio to try to cover up how his young
master
Philolaches has borrowed money to buy
a girl's freedom
and to party.
The father has returned from Egypt to learn from
Tranio that
his house is haunted and that his son purchased the
house
next door, which proves false.
However, the friend of Philolaches
offers to pay off the loan
and asks the father to forgive his
son and his slave,
and he does so.
Pseudolus was produced in 191 BC and
is named after
a lying slave, who finds a deceptive way of buying
his young
master Calidorus' girl-friend from a pimp even though
the
pimp has been warned by the father Simo that Pseudolus
will
attempt this by trickery.
A soldier has paid 1500 drachmas and
will send the
other 500 with his seal for the young woman;
but
Pseudolus intercepts his messenger Harpax
by posing as the pimp's
servant to obtain the seal,
and then he hires a man to use it and get the young woman.
When Harpax comes for her, the pimp thinks
he has been
put up to it by Pseudolus but learns that he has already
been tricked by the wily slave, who collects
2,000 drachmas from
Simo on a bet and gets drunk,
while Simo wins the same amount
on another bet from the pimp.
Plautus showed that those who utter
insults
will also hear them.
Once again the slave proves to be
the most clever;
the young man gets his girl-friend;
and the pimp
gets what he deserves.
The Two Bacchides is also about a slave
conniving to
get money from the father to pay for the courtesan
of the son;
but in the end the two fathers are seduced into forgiving
everyone by the two young women both named Bacchis.
The son Mnesilochus
expresses the worthy axiom that it is
better to let off an enemy
than slight someone
who has done you a good turn,
extravagance
being nobler than ingratitude.
In Amphitryon produced in 186 BC Plautus
created
another comedy of errors as Jupiter and Mercury appear
as Amphitryo and his slave Sosia so that
Jupiter can enjoy a night
of love with Alcmena.
Mercury persuades the slave that he exists
in two places,
and the husband Amphitryo accuses his wife of adultery;
but in the end the light of Jupiter helps Alcmena
give birth to
twins, and the baby Hercules kills two snakes.
Casina is a low comedy about two slaves,
who want to marry a servant by that name.
The old master Lysidamus
wants his overseeing slave Olympio
to wed her so that he can enjoy
her away from his wife,
while his wife Cleustrata wants the other
slave Chalinus
to have her because of her jealousy and for the
sake
of her son, who also desires her.
They cast lots and the
overseer wins, but
the arrangements made by Lysidamus are foiled
by his wife
when her maid tells them that Casina is threatening
to kill
with a sword whoever tries to sleep with her,
and Chalinus
is dressed up as Casina on the wedding day.
Lysidamus in his desire
keeps making mistakes
in his speech substituting himself for the
bridegroom.
The Plautus farce ends with this absurd situation,
though the epilog indicates that Casina will be revealed
to be a free citizen and will marry the son of Lysidamus,
neither of
whom appear on stage at all.
In this play the women—Cleustrata,
her maid, Casina,
and the neighbor's wife—fool the men,
and
the marriage of slaves was a radical issue for that time.
In The Persian the slave Toxilus in
order to raise money
to buy Lemniselenis from the pimp arranges
for his slave friend
Sagaristo to pretend to be a Persian and
sell the daughter of
the parasite Saturio, who can then reclaim
her from the pimp
after the illegal sale of a free person.
The
daughter intelligently lists ten vices of the city as
treachery,
graft, greed, envy, political corruption, gossip,
perjury, laziness,
fraud, and crime.
Toxilus and the freed Lemniselenis celebrate,
as their slave friends make fun of the fooled pimp.
Truculentus, named after a truculent
slave, is about
the courtesan Phronesium, who has three men
giving
her substantial gifts.
Diniarchus tells the audience that if concealed
deeds were
known so that the wisdom of the past could be passed
on
to our descendants, there would be no more pimps
and harlots
and few spendthrifts.
Phronesium uses another woman's baby to
deceive a soldier
to think she bore his child in order to get
more gifts
from him, then turns her attentions away from him
because
Diniarchus has sent her many gifts.
He too is rejected when Strabax
brings her money
from the sale of his father's sheep.
Diniarchus
is caught and confesses raping another woman,
though he tries
to pass it off on the influence of wine;
but her father Callicles
notes that wine
does not control men, but men wine.
Diniarchus
asks to marry her, and Phronesium promises
her charms to both
the soldier and Strabax
as long as their gifts keep coming.
Perhaps
Plautus is hoping that through this satire
people will become
more prudent and wise.
Publius Terentius Afer, known as Terence,
was born in Carthage
probably in 185 BC.
He was brought to Rome as the slave of the
senator Terentius Lucanus, who gave him a liberal education
and
his freedom because of his intelligence and good looks.
Young
Terence was befriended by the Scipionic circle that
included Scipio
Aemilianus, the satirist Gaius Lucilius,
the Stoic Gaius Laelius,
the philosopher Panaetius of Rhodes,
and the historian Polybius.
His six produced plays are all extant, but only The Eunuch
was really popular in his own time.
Four were based on plays by
Menander,
while The Mother-in-Law and Phormio were
adapted
from works by Apollodorus of Carystus;
rumors persisted
that his influential friends
helped write his plays, and Terence
seemed proud
rather than ashamed of his friends' influence.
At
the age of 25 Terence went to Greece and Asia Minor
in search
of more Greek plays and never returned;
it was assumed he died
in 159 BC,
but stories of how varied.
His new comedies were very
influential through the
middle ages for their elegant Latin style
and in the
development of comedies of manners in the Renaissance.
The Woman of Andros by Terence was
produced at Rome
during the spring festival of the Great Mother
in 166 BC.
Simo and his freed slave Sosia explain the situation
and praise
the character of Pamphilus, the son of Simo.
Sosia
comments that the way to win friends these days
is to agree with
everything, because the truth is unpopular.
This is to be the
wedding day of Pamphilus and Philumena,
the daughter of Chremes;
but Simo has learned that his son
is in love with Glycerium, who
is believed to be the sister
of the late courtesan from Andros.
Learning of this, Chremes has withdrawn
his consent from the marriage.
The slave Davos finds that Glycerium is having a baby
that Pamphilus
is going to acknowledge as his.
Meanwhile Charinus is in love
with Philumena
and wants to marry her;
but his slave advises him
that if he can't have what he wants,
he should want what he can
have.
Davos suggests that Pamphilus pretend he is going to marry
Philumena so as not to disappoint his father,
because Chremes
is calling off the wedding anyway.
When Simo persuades Chremes
to allow the wedding,
Davos gets in trouble.
When Simo learns
his son is in love with Glycerium,
Chremes advises him that fathers
should not be too hard
on their children whatever their faults.
A passing stranger reveals that Glycerium is also the
daughter
of Chremes, and the play ends happily
with a pending double wedding
of the two sisters.
At the first performance of Terence's The
Mother-In-Law
in 165 BC the audience was distracted by tight-rope
walkers
and a boxing match, and five years later its failure
was blamed on news of a gladiator show;
but the same year it was finally
completed successfully.
Pamphilus, in love with the courtesan
Bacchis,
agreed to marry Philumena but refused to have
sexual
relations with her for two months.
He has just returned from a
business trip;
but his wife has gone back to her parents' house,
blaming her mother-in-law,
but really because she is pregnant.
She had been raped and had her mother's ring
stolen before her
marriage,
and her mother now intends to expose the child.
No one
can get the couple re-united until Bacchis tells
the father of
Pamphilus that she has had no relations
with his son since his
wedding.
He asks her to tell this to Philumena and her mother,
who identifies the ring Pamphilus gave Bacchis,
bringing the realization
that Pamphilus
is the father of Philumena's child.
Pamphilus is
happily re-united with his wife
and does not bother to tell his
father
what usually occurs in the final scenes of comedies.
This
father does not consider it a vice for his son
to keep a mistress
even while he is married;
though he is not told about his son's
rape,
no one else seems to be bothered much by
that violent act when it is discovered
the woman turned out to be his future wife.
The Self-Tormentor by Terence was first
performed
in 163 BC and has a plot so complicated that the slave
Syrus can fool the two fathers by telling them the truth,
because
it is so unusual, they fear he is trying to trick them.
Chremes,
the father of Clitipho, makes the wonderful
humanist statement
that being human
he is concerned about anything human.
He says
to the father of Clinia, Menedemus,
who is tormenting himself
with hard work because
he drove his son into the army, that if
he is right,
Chremes will imitate him; but if he is wrong,
he
will try to get him to mend his ways.
What bothered Menedemus
was that his son
fell in love and was living with Antiphila,
the
daughter of a woman of humble means.
Clinia has returned from Asia and is in the house of Clitipho
with Bacchis, a courtesan beloved by Clitipho
but who is pretending
to be Clinia's mistress
while Antiphila pretends to be her maid.
A comic problem is that Clitipho cannot keep his hands
off Bacchis
which threatens to expose the ruse.
Syrus claims it is against
his principles to tell lies
but without doing so is able to get
Menedemus to be
duped into giving money for his son and Chremes
a dowry
when it is discovered that Antiphila is his daughter,
because both fathers really want to help their children.
Chremes,
who years ago had his wife give away their
daughter to be exposed,
is now happy to have a
daughter to give to his friend's son in
marriage.
In fact to teach his son a lesson, he plans to give
all his
wealth as a dowry; this stimulates Clitipho to agree to
marry
another woman of his choice, not the courtesan Bacchis.
Thus the value of noble birth is affirmed,
and the courtesan is
denigrated.
The Eunuch produced in 161 BC was Terence's
most popular play and earned him 8,000 sesterces,
the most ever
paid for a Roman comedy.
In his prolog Terence wrote that he aimed
to please
as many and hurt as few honest people as possible,
but
he continued to criticize his rival Luscius Lanuvinus,
whom he
blamed for first attacking him.
The courtesan Thais has a 16-year-old
girl named
Pamphila, who had been stolen from Attica
and given
to her mother to raise until she died.
The brother of Thais sold
the girl, but her soldier friend
Thasos bought Pamphila as a present
for Thais.
Now Thais asks her lover Phaedria for two days
to make
sure she gets the girl from Thasos,
who has a parasite skilled in saying
what the proud soldier likes to hear.
Phaedria's slave
Parmeno is to deliver a eunuch to
Thais as a gift; but Phaedria's
younger brother
Chaerea has fallen in love with Pamphila and dresses
up as the eunuch to be admitted into the house,
where he rapes
the beautiful girl when she is sleeping.
Pamphila's brother Chremes
comes along to prove
that she is free-born; he provokes the jealousy of the
soldier Thasos, who tries to storm the house of Thais.
Only the servant Pythias seems upset by the rape,
and she tries
to get back at Parmeno for setting it up
by telling him that they
plan to execute the punishment
for adultery on Chaerea which is
castration;
but instead he is allowed to marry Pamphila,
while
Thais puts herself under the patronage of
Phaedria, who is persuaded
by the parasite
to share her with the generous Thasos.
Phormio was produced later the same
year
at the Roman games.
The slave Geta explains that Phaedria,
the son of Chremes,
has fallen in love with a flute girl and needs
3,000 drachmas
to buy her, because the pimp is about to sell her.
While Demipho was away, his son Antipho was able to
marry a young
woman Phanium having no dowry,
because the adventurer Phormio
forced him to do so
in a legal case as the closest relative of
an orphan.
When the avaricious Demipho returns, he tries to end
his
son's marriage by paying Phormio 3,000 to marry Phanium,
Phormio
getting the money for Phaedria.
When Chremes learns that Phanium
is his daughter
by a second wife he had in Lemnos,
he and Demipho
try to keep it a secret;
but Geta overhears them, enabling Phormio
to blackmail
Chremes into giving him the 3,000
even though he
is not marrying Phanium now.
As Phormio tells the wife of Chremes,
she concludes that
if her husband had two wives surely their son
can have a mistress; she happily invites Phormio for dinner.
Terence
brought the stock characters and situations to life
so well that
Moliere adapted this play
in Les Fourberies de Scapin.
The Brothers was produced in 160 BC
and contrasts
the strict parenting of Demea with the indulgence
of his
bachelor brother Micio, who is raising Demea's son Aeschinus.
Micio allows Aeschinus a free rein so that he will not
have to
hide his misdeeds nor be restrained by fear;
he believes in training
his son to choose the right course freely
by being a father but
not a tyrant.
Demea complains that Micio has spoiled Aeschinus,
who has just broken into a house and carried off a girl.
The pimp
tries to get her back but reluctantly agrees
to sell her to Aeschinus
for what he paid for her.
Ctesipho is afraid of his father Demea
finding out,
and so Aeschinus has done all of this for him
and
even taken them into his house.
The mother of Aeschinus' girl-friend
Pamphila,
who is about to have his baby, finds out
he has bought
another girl and gets very upset.
When Demea learns of this pregnant
woman,
he becomes even more contemptuous of his
brother's failure
as a father.
Ironically he believes he is the first to know of
these wrongs
when he really has no clue of the truth,
because
his son is afraid of him.
Micio at first scares Aeschinus by telling him Pamphila must
by law marry her next of kin, but then he makes his
adopted son
very happy by approving his marriage to her.
Micio answers Demea's
charges about morality by saying
that older people tend to think
too much of money.
Then in a stunning reversal Demea says he has
learned
that affability and forbearance are better than black
looks,
and tired of money-grubbing and admiring the parental
rewards of his brother, he suddenly becomes generous,
tells the servant
to break a hole between the houses
to make it easier for the pregnant
woman,
approves of both marriages, urges Micio to marry
Pamphila's
mother, gives property to their relative,
frees his slave, and
buys the freedom
of his former slave's wife;
the point he says
finally is to prove that what people
thought was Micio's good
nature is really
weakness, indulgence, and extravagance.
He is
willing to let his sons squander their fortune
and is ready to
give advice if asked.
Thus Terence reveals the value of liberal
education
with a cautionary note.
Lucretius was born about 100 BC, probably lived in Rome,
and
died about 55 BC.
Little is known about his life, but he wrote
a philosophical
poem On the Nature of Things
to promote
the ideas of Epicurus.
He
began by calling upon life-giving Venus, by whose doing
all nature
teems with life, writing that this goddess instills
love in all
and is the guiding power of the universe
enabling everything to
grow in joy and loveliness.
The poem prays that the brutal business
of war may
everywhere be lulled to peace;
only Venus can bring
mortals the blessing of tranquillity,
for she can calm brutal
Mars.
Lucretius praised Epicurus
for venturing in the mind
to infinity and crushing superstition
beneath his feet.
He believed people are led astray by prophets,
because they are haunted by the fear
of eternal punishment after
death.
In most of the poem Lucretius explained his theoretical
ideas of a materialistic universe based on atomic particles.
The physical
atoms are eternal
and cannot be reduced to nothing.
He noted the
specific power of generation
that reproduces species.
Physical
things have properties that cannot be detached
from them such
as weight, heat, fluidity, and tangibility;
but more abstract
qualities like servitude and liberty,
poverty and riches, war
and peace he called accidents.
The second book begins with exclamations
of joy at being
able to observe the afflictions of life from a
quiet citadel,
seeing only two values in life—a body free of
pain
and a mind free of worry and fear,
enjoying pleasurable sensations.
Lucretius acknowledged free will that originates
in the heart or mind and then operates the limbs;
this can clearly be distinguished
from involuntary
movement that comes from outside oneself.
His argument that living organisms can be produced
from insentient
material because worms swarm out
of rotted earth has been proven
false.
He did acknowledge that we are all sprung from heavenly
seed with the same father and all-nourishing mother;
when death
breaks up the conjunction of atoms,
it does not annihilate these
particles which return to heaven,
while the material atoms are
used again on earth.
Nonetheless he gave several arguments that
the
mind and spirit die along with the organism.
Lucretius wanted
to release people from the fear of death
and satirized the human
quest for immortality
through wealth and ambition that heaps carnage
upon
carnage; some even sacrifice their own lives
as well as others'
for ephemeral fame.
He observed a vital breath of energy in the
body and
connected mind and spirit as a single substance made
of very subtle matter which controls the body
but also dissolves
with its death.
He believed that philosophy can enable humans
to live a life worthy of the gods.
Lucretius argued that mind and spirit are born, grow, and die,
noting how they are weakened by sickness
and healed by medicine.
He found no evidence for the mind and spirit
having any power
without the body.
Death is not to be feared, because there is
no
consciousness then, like in sleep.
Any hellish torments that
exist are on earth during life.
Jealousy can gnaw at one like
birds, and the ambitious
person constantly seeking high office
is like
Sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill.
As an Epicurean
Lucretius emphasized the sensations
and gave elaborate explanations
of how they work
according to atomic theory.
He did observe that
action is initiated
after the mind first foresees what it wills.
He found the sexual passions of Venus can lead to frenzy,
distraction,
and suffering, and he recommended keeping
away from seductive
images and suggested men should
concentrate on a woman's faults
to avoid enticement.
The way to be like the gods is to defeat
the enemies
of pride, meanness, lust, self-indulgence, and boredom.
Instead of seeking great riches, Lucretius praised a life
of
true philosophy with a modest livelihood
enjoyed by a tranquil
mind.
The craving for power is an idle dream, and the struggle
for status is beset with perils,
likely to result in being cast
down from a peak.
Envy tends to strike those above the common
level;
a quiet life is better than lordship over kingdoms.
It
is better not to enter upon the bloody and sweaty path
of ambition;
kings are killed and trampled by the mob.
In his brief survey
of how civilization developed,
he noted that people learned how
to form a constitution
based on rights and laws so that humanity
worn out by violence and feuds could submit
by their own free
will to laws and institutions,
producing a society with a distaste
for violence
whose equitable laws no longer tolerate angry vengeance.
Now enjoying life's prizes is tempered by the fear of
punishment,
and those enmeshed in wrong-doing and
violence have them recoil
upon their initiator.
Those who break the mutual compact may not
have
a peaceful and untroubled life.
However, he did not appeal
to the gods as a motive
for good behavior, but he found true piety
in
contemplating the universe with a quiet mind.
People are victims,
because they fail to realize the limits
of genuine pleasure;
but
they are driven on by discontent to the tumult of war.
The philosopher Lucretius admired Epicurus
set bounds to
desire and fear in order to attain the greatest
good.
People are as afraid in daylight as children are of the
dark
until their ignorance is dispelled by
understanding the workings
of nature.
Ignorance of these phenomena drives people into
superstitious
beliefs that omnipotent gods control everything.
Unless one purges
the mind of notions that are unworthy
of the gods and foreign
to tranquillity, such beliefs
in angry gods can do harm.
Lucretius
wrote,
This is not because the supreme majesty of the gods
can in fact be wronged, so as to be tempted in a fit
of anger to wreak a savage revenge.
No, the fault will be in you.
Because you will picture the quiet ones in their
untroubled peace as tossed on turbulent waves
of anger, you will not approach their temples
with a tranquil heart; you will not be able to admit
into a breast at peace those images emanating
from a holy body that bring to human minds
their tidings of a form divine.5
Lucretius then explained as best he could the physical
causes
of natural disasters such as thunder, lightning, storms,
earthquakes,
volcanoes, and epidemics.
Catullus was born about 84 BC at Verona in
Cisalpine Gaul
and was raised there by his parents, who at least
once
entertained Julius Caesar; later he lived in an
unfashionable
suburb of Rome.
In his passionate poetry Catullus was not afraid
to satirize
Pompey or Julius Caesar, as when he wrote,
"Utter
indifference to your welfare, Caesar, is matched only
by ignorance
of who you are."6
According to Suetonius, Caesar found his
criticism damaging
but nonetheless forgave him.
Catullus felt
like dropping dead when Nonnius
became a magistrate, while he
wrote that Caesar's supporter
Vatinius committed perjury for the
sake of a consulate.
Catullus died about 54 BC, but a few years
before that
he traveled to Bithynia to visit the Roman governor
Gaius Memmius, to whom Lucretius addressed
his famous poem, and
he returned sailing his own yacht.
The poetry of Catullus is passionate, erotic, and sensual,
sometimes even crude.
One short poem sums this up: "I hate
and I love.
And if you ask me how, I do not know:
I only feel
it, and I'm torn in two."7
In many poems he expressed his
love for the sexually attractive
Lesbia, whom scholars identify
with Clodia, sister of Clodius
and wife of Metellus Celer, who
defeated Catiline's revolt
in battle and was consul in 60 BC;
Catullus probably met her shortly before
her husband died the
next year.
Most of his poetry is short and epigrammatic,
but his
longer poems celebrate marriage
and its sensual pleasures.
Catullus
translated a poem by the Alexandrian Callimachus
praising Ptolemy III's wife Berenice.
One poem consoled a friend after his wife died,
during which Catullus
lamented his own brother's death
and told the story of Laodamia's
passion
for her late husband.
Another poem has Attis castrate
himself in his devotion
to the mother goddess Cybele.
The longest poem of Catullus tells of the Nereid Thetis
and
Peleus, the parents of Achilles.
A quilt is described that depicts
Theseus slaying the Minotaur
and escaping with Ariadne's help,
his abandoning her on
Naxos, and in divine retribution his forgetting
to change
the sail on his returning ship,
which resulted in the
suicide of his father Aegeus.
The feelings of Ariadne are expressed
as she calls Theseus
an attractive captain "with a soul like
a trap-door,"
for she took pity on him and was left alone.
In conclusion Catullus lamented that gods and goddesses
no longer
reveal themselves to people,
whose piety has fled and been replaced
by
loveless children, fratricide, and incest.
Virgil was born October 15, 70 BC and was
well educated
in Greek literature and Epicurean philosophy.
During
the civil wars he wrote the pastoral Eclogues.
He complained
that farmers were losing their land
to the veteran soldiers of
Antony and Octavian.
When these two leaders made an alliance by
marriage
he prophesied a golden age of peace.
However, he found
that his songs did not avail
amid the clash of arms any more than
doves
when an eagle comes.
Yet he concluded that love conquers
all and that
we should yield to love.
In the Georgics he
praised and elucidated the agricultural life.
Once again he protested
the ravages of war.
Long since the courts of heaven
Begrudge us thee, our Caesar, and complain
That thou regards the triumphs of mankind,
Here where the wrong is right, the right is wrong,
Where wars abound so many, and myriad-faced
Is crime; where no meet honor has the plough;
The fields, their husbandmen led far away,
Rot in neglect, and curvèd pruning-hooks
Into sword's stiff blade are fused and forged.
Euphrates here, here Germany new strife
Is stirring; neighbouring cities are in arms,
The laws that bound them snapped; and godless war
Rages through all the universe; as when
The four-horse chariots from the barriers poured
Still quicken o'er the course, and, idly now
Grasping the reins, the driver by his team
Is onward borne, nor heeds the car his curb.8
Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum in central Italy
on January 3, 106 BC.
His wealthy father had him well educated
with his brother
Quintus in the house of Licinius Crassus,
where
he memorized the law code of the Twelve Tables.
At age fifteen
Cicero was initiated into manhood
and put on the white toga.
He
studied law with two outstanding jurists, the elderly
Mucius Scaevola
the augur and after he died in 87 BC
with his younger cousin of
the same name,
who was chief priest.
There he met his closest
friend Atticus.
Cicero served in the army under Sulla against
the Marsians
in 89 BC, but apparently he did not like army life.
Cicero wrote poetry, but he became renowned for
his oratory as
a lawyer and politician.
Though not a patrician but a "new
man" he attained political
offices at the earliest possible
legal age, being elected
quaestor at 30, aedile at 36, praetor
at 39, and consul at 42.
For several years young Cicero was a
keen observer of the
lawcourts and political debates but held
back from
participating, mainly because he disliked the lawlessness
and autocracy of Cinna's government 87-84 BC,
just as forty years
later he would withdraw
from the dictatorship of Julius
Caesar.
Cicero also held back during Sulla's
regime until young
Sextus Roscius could not find a lawyer to defend
him against
a parricide charge brought by Sulla
supporters in 80 BC.
One night in Rome while returning from a
dinner party,
the elder Sextus Roscius had been attacked and murdered.
Although the deaths by Sulla's proscriptions had ended by then,
it was arranged to add the name of Roscius to the list of
enemies so that his property would be put up at public
auction instead
of going to his son.
The estate was purchased by Chrysogonus for
2,000 sestertii,
because no one would bid against this Sulla supporter.
The
dispossessed young Roscius went to the town council
of Ameria
to appeal to Sulla,
but they were naively
dissuaded from talking directly to Sulla
by Chrysogonus.
Roscius was charged with parricide, which carried
the
capital punishment of sewing the convicted murderer
in a bag with a dog, rooster, snake, and ape
before being thrown into the
river.
Only the young Cicero would take his case
against the powerful
Sullans.
He pointed out that the property of the late Roscius
was
worth six million sestertii, and while his client was
suffering
grief and destitution, the two murderers Capito and
Magnus
were sharing the Roscius farms with Chrysogonus,
who had
purchased them at such a ridiculously low price.
On the night
of the murder the Roscius son was in Ameria;
but Magnus was in
Rome, and Capito was the first to be
informed of the murder by
special messenger.
Cicero was careful to say that Sulla did not
have knowledge
of these things; but it was courageous of him to
take
this dangerous case, and by his accusing the murderers and
explaining their motivations Roscius was acquitted,
yielding Cicero
great acclaim.
Plutarch wrote that Cicero left Rome after this
out of fear
of Sulla;
but Cicero actually handled some other cases first,
including
defending the rights of a woman from Arretium
in which he challenged
Sulla's attempt
to disenfranchise Etruscans.
In Athens Cicero studied with Antiochus at the Academy and
with rhetoricians there, in Asia Minor, and in Rhodes,
where he
also studied with the philosopher Poseidonius.
Cicero married
Terentia, who bore two children.
In 75 BC Cicero served as quaestor
in western Sicily,
where he conscientiously regulated the grain
supply
in a time of high prices.
He successfully defended some
Romans, who were charged
in Sicily with indiscipline and cowardice
in the army.
Upon returning to Rome he was disconcerted to learn
that
his reputation for virtue had not spread that far.
The next
year Cicero became a senator and defended
Scamander, who was convicted
of
attempting to poison Cluentius.
Although lawyers could not
take money legally,
Cicero's advocacy gained him many friends
and clients
who would support his political career.
His family
fortune, although not huge,
was adequate for his needs.
In 70
BC his Sicilian friends asked him to prosecute Verres
for having
governed Sicily so corruptly for three years.
Usually preferring
to argue in defense,
this was Cicero's first prosecution.
Cicero and his cousin Lucius spent fifty days
collecting evidence
in Sicily.
Sulla had
removed all but senators
from the jury of the extortion court.
The best orator of the day, consul elect Quintus Hortensius,
was
defending Verres, while money was mobilized against
Cicero in
his candidacy for the aedileship, which he managed
to win without
promising too many games.
Cicero was not only contending against
baskets of
Sicilian money but also the most powerful Metellus
family.
The first defense tactic was to try to appoint the sympathetic
Q. Caecilius prosecutor in place of Cicero,
who had to argue before
a judge that he was better qualified;
the Sicilians had appealed
to him, and for reasons
of personal character, honesty, firmness,
experience, ability,
and training Cicero claimed he could do a
better job.
Next the defense hoped to delay the case to the next
year
when the magistrates elected would be more favorable;
but
Cicero cut short his opening speech
and went straight to the evidence.
After this first stage of the trial, Verres fled to Massilia
and
was condemned to pay a large fine.
Cicero published not only the
first two speeches he made,
but what he would have said
in the
presentation of the detailed evidence.
In his opening statement Cicero appealed to the senators on
the jury not to be bought off with the bribes of Verres and
destroy
what was left of the credibility of senatorial juries.
Cicero
argued that the corruption had become so bad that
Verres had extorted
money not only for himself and his
protectors but in order to
pay off the judge and jurors too.
Inheritances were canceled;
farmers were robbed;
allies were treated as enemies; Roman citizens
were
tortured and executed; criminals were acquitted by bribery,
while the just were condemned; harbors and cities
were attacked
by pirates and robbers;
and Sicilians were starved to death.
These
charges would be supported from
evidence of records, witnesses,
and letters.
He pleaded that people were losing faith in the courts,
and in fact shortly after this trial the membership of the juries
was reformed to include knights and the next wealthiest class;
Pompey also had restored
the powers of the tribunes.
The question Cicero posed was whether
a court of senators
would convict a guilty man if he was rich.
He appealed to the judge to let justice, honesty, principle,
and
conscience be his cause.
Cicero concluded his opening speech by
charging Verres
with acts of brutality, lechery, and other crimes
that included taking forty million sestercii from Sicily.
The grateful Sicilians sent Cicero gifts of livestock and farm
produce, which he passed along to the Romans in lowered
prices
without profiting himself, as he was able to live
comfortably
on his wife's dowry and his inheritance.
Cicero was elected praetor
at the top of the poll,
and he supported the Manilian law giving Pompey authority
in
the Mithridatic war which was strongly
opposed by Catulus and
Hortensius.
Cicero temporarily left the court he presided over
as praetor
in order to defend Cluentius, who was accused of killing
his stepfather Oppianicus six years before.
This was the same
Cluentius Cicero's client had been convicted
of trying to poison
in 74 BC, and most of his speech discussed
that case, arguing
that the judges had been bribed by
Oppianicus and deducing fallaciously
that if so, then his current
client Cluentius could not have bribed
them;
but the truth seems to have been that both sides
bribed
judges and witnesses.
Cicero later bragged about how he had deceived
the judges;
so it is assumed that he won the case
and that his
client was probably guilty.
Cicero sponsored a bill that increased the penalties for bribery,
and in 65 BC he opposed the proposal of Crassus
and Caesar
to make Egypt
a tributary province, although he did defend the
tribunes Manilius,
who fled, and Cornelius, who was acquitted.
When the bribery decree
was vetoed, Cicero responded
with a sharp invective against Antonius
Hybrida and Cataline.
Cicero reached the pinnacle of power when
defeating Cataline
he was elected to serve as consul for the year
63 BC;
it had been more than thirty years since a non-patrician,
or new man, had been elected to this highest office.
He arranged
for his colleague Antonius Hybrida to be
assigned to Macedonia,
and Cicero himself declined Gaul
so that he could stay in Rome.
In December before Cicero took office, the tribune Rullus,
probably at the behest of Caesar
and Crassus, proposed
a bill to establish a commission with sweeping powers to
give public land to the poor citizens.
Cicero gave speeches against
it in the senate, before the
people's assembly, and to a mass
meeting, arguing that
the commissioners were given too much power
by
undemocratic means that assured the election of Rullus
while
excluding those absent like Pompey;
the commissioners
were unaccountable and could arbitrarily decide
what
public property could be sold in the entire empire,
allowing
the victims no remedy or recourse;
valuable public assets like
the Campania could be liquidated;
whole provinces like Asia and
Bithynia could be disposed of;
Egypt could be taken over;
and
the profiteering would be extensive.
Cicero's oratory was successful,
and the bill was withdrawn;
but Cicero had shown little concern
for the poor,
and he would again oppose land reform
by Caesar
in the years ahead.
When people became upset about a recent law reserving the
first
fourteen rows in the theatre for the knights,
Cicero's oratory
persuaded them to accept it.
The conservative Cicero also resisted
efforts to reduce
or cancel debts, and his law that added the
penalty of
ten years' exile for bribery was aimed at the electoral
tactics
of populists like Cataline and Caesar.
Cicero also opposed restoring the rights taken away from the
sons
of those proscribed by Sulla on the specious argument
that any
change of Sulla's enactments
would threaten the whole republic.
When Rabirius was charged with treason for having killed
Saturninus
to stop an attempted coup in 100 BC
and was going to be tried
before Julius Caesar
and his cousin
Lucius, Cicero used his consulship to veto the
proceeding.
Rabirius was then indicted for capital murder and
tried before
the assembly; he was defended by Cicero, who considered
it
his duty as consul to take this case.
At stake was the power
of the senate to declare an emergency
to give consuls unfettered
power to quell a violent revolution.
Cicero argued that it was
in the public interest to maintain this
bulwark of the nation;
the consul must protect the lives
and interests of the people.
This method of the senate deliberately giving extra-legal
power to the consul had replaced the previous
appointments of dictators
in earlier crises.
Thus Rabirius deserved praise, not punishment,
for taking up arms when asked to do so
by the consul Marius in
that emergency
caused by the violence of Saturninus.
If his client
were convicted, the state would lose the ability
to defend itself
from violent revolutions.
Only given a half hour by the judge,
the eloquence of Cicero
was astonishing.
First he lamented the possibility that as a punishment
for
treason a citizen might have been crucified on the
field of
Mars where voting occurred.
He was glad to use his authority
to
stop that tyrannical procedure.
Scaurus, the president of the
senate, had issued the call
to arms against Saturninus, and it
was supported by the
augur Scaevola and many other noble men
as
well as the consul Marius.
Saturninus had actually had been killed
by a slave
named Scaeva, who won his freedom by that act.
The
weak point in Cicero's case was that
the safety of Saturninus
had been guaranteed.
In the current situation Cicero pointed out that no king or
foreign power effectively threatened the Roman republic
anymore,
but the savagery and violence of their own passions
in revolution
was the peril they now had to face.
Cicero boldly concluded by
hoping that those who desired
the safety of the state would uphold
the proclamation,
and he asked them never to use their votes to
prevent him
as consul from using it, or else they would be banning
their future hopes of freedom, deliverance, and honor.
A guilty
verdict was prevented when Metellus Celer
took down the red flag
that flew over the
assembly when it was meeting.
In the ancient
times removing the flag meant that
the Etruscan enemies were approaching,
and the assembly must adjourn in self-defense.
Labienus could
have renewed his prosecution, but he did not.
This case foreshadowed
the power the senate and
consul Cicero would use to quell the
Cataline conspiracy later that year.
Cicero had contemplated defending Catiline in an extortion
case
two years before; but when he heard that Catiline intended
to
have him murdered on election day in October 63 BC,
consul
Cicero postponed the elections.
The next day the senate declared
an emergency and gave
absolute power to the consuls.
Cicero doubled
his guards and
brought more troops into the city;
on election
day he even wore a breastplate under his robe.
Catiline lost again,
and after he learned of the conspiracy
Cicero called another meeting
of the senate
at the temple of Jupiter.
Catiline attended but
was shunned by the other senators
and sat alone.
Cicero told Catiline
that he had reason to execute him
but would not do so.
Cicero
had learned about the conspiracy's plans to seize
Praeneste and
so had fortified it.
Cicero was not only concerned that they would
murder him,
but now they conspired to burn down the city.
If he
had Catiline executed, the other conspirators
would remain at
large; Cicero hoped that they would leave
the city with Cataline,
removing the seeds of future evils.
When Cataline tried to justify
himself, the senators
called him a traitor; the desperate man
threatened to enflame
all in a common ruin, and after conferring
with his friends
he fled to the camp of Manlius,
who had organized
a rebel army.
Cicero then explained the situation to the people in the forum,
describing what he had done to counter this enemy and
declaring
that he would allow the other rebels to depart also.
Most of these
rebels were men desperate with large debts,
and Cicero contrasted
the virtues with their vices of
wantonness, fraud, insanity, baseness,
lust, iniquity, luxury,
indolence, rashness, and destitution.
Cicero portrayed himself as a general
saving the many by punishing
a few.
The senate declared Cataline a public enemy and pardoned
his followers who would return to duty by a specific date.
The
other consul Antonius was sent with an army after Cataline.
At this time Murena, who had just been elected consul,
was
accused of bribery by losing candidate Servius Sulpicius
and Cato, who had been elected
tribune.
Murena was defended by three great orators—
Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero.
Cato during the election
had promised to prosecute the winner
after seeing all the candidates
corrupted by bribes.
Cicero had supported his friend Servius Sulpicius
and was
now defending Murena against his own law; but he argued
that in this crisis the duly elected consul must be allowed
to
serve for the national safety.
Cicero had been compelled to be
stern and severe in the
Cataline conspiracy; but in this case
his natural humanity
and kindness could be displayed.
Cicero mostly discussed the characters of the candidates
rather
than the detailed charges.
He praised Murena for his military
record in Asia and credited
Roman glory and power to its military
prowess.
He noted that when Servius began looking for witnesses
to
prepare a legal case before the election was even held,
he
gave the voters a signal that he expected to lose.
Cicero chided Cato for being too austere
and harsh
in his Stoicism, never forgiving or showing mercy.
Cicero
argued that sometimes a philosopher can pardon or
change an opinion
if finding a better one.
In keeping his promise to prosecute, Cato was threatening
a decent and honest man with exile.
Cicero pleaded that for the
sake of peace, concord,
and freedom both consuls must be allowed
to serve
and face the unresolved challenge of the Cataline conspiracy,
for a tribune could block the election of a second consul.
Murena
was acquitted.
Cicero's spies learned that the conspiracy had approached
the
ambassadors of the Allobroges Gauls.
With their cooperation he
obtained sealed letters of the
conspirators; and summoning the
leaders, he had them arrested.
When the senate met at the temple
of Concord,
the ambassadors testified; the letters were opened
and read.
The conspirators acknowledged their seals on the letters,
and Lentulus, who confessed, was deposed from his office
of praetor;
all were detained.
Cicero then went to the forum and told the
people what had
happened and how he had saved the city
from a
massacre and conflagration.
The next day the senate rewarded the
Gallic ambassadors;
but rumors of plots to rescue the prisoners
caused Cicero
to place a garrison and recruit more forces,
and
before the senate he proposed their execution.
Only Julius Caesar suggested imprisonment
and confiscation of their property.
Cicero argued that even though
execution increased his own
danger, it was for the sake of the
Roman people.
The rebellion had spread throughout Italy and even
crossed
the Alps; to distribute the prisoners in the towns,
as Caesar proposed, would
be cumbersome and dangerous.
To get around the laws protecting
citizens from execution
without a trial Cicero argued that such
enemies
were no longer citizens.
The senate agreed, and Cicero
had the arrested conspirators
executed on December 5 in 63 BC.
The tribune Nepos Metellus prevented Cicero from making
a speech
on the last day of his consulate, and so in taking his
final oath
he swore that he had saved his country.
Cicero's popularity declined,
as conflicts between the senate
and the knights and between the
"good" men he represented
and the populists broke up
the harmony of the orders he sought.
While he was defending Publius
Sulla, who was charged with
complicity in the Cataline conspiracy,
the prosecutor
Torquatus accused Cicero of tyranny.
Cicero had
refused to defend and testified against Autronius
on the same
charge; but his client Sulla was acquitted.
The enemy who caused Cicero's exile was Clodius.
This libertine,
wanting to seduce Caesar's wife, had been
caught in the house
of that high priest during a
sacred ceremony open only to women.
His political ally Caesar
did not prosecute Clodius but
divorced
his wife merely because
people suspected her of adultery.
Clodius was prosecuted for sacrilege,
and Cicero's wife,
jealous of her husband's attentions to the
attractive Clodia,
sister of Clodius, urged Cicero to testify
that Clodius
was in Rome on the day in question.
This ruined the
alibi of Clodius, but his bribery was
sufficient to get the jury
to acquit him anyway.
Cicero declined a position on Caesar's staff, criticized him,
and considered retiring from politics.
After being declared a
plebeian so that
he could be elected tribune, Clodius proposed
a bill banning
anyone who had executed a Roman citizen without
a trial.
Cicero put on black in mourning, as young ruffians of
Clodius
attacked him in the streets.
Knights put on black in sympathy,
and senators voted to do
the same while surrounded by armed men
of Clodius.
Cicero appealed to Pompey
for armed assistance,
but in private retirement he refused to
intervene.
Advised by friends to depart, the day before the
bill
of Clodius passed the assembly in 58 BC,
Cicero went into voluntary
exile.
Cicero went to Greece, as Clodius had his villas
and home in
Rome burned down.
The emotional Cicero became dejected; the biographer
Plutarch was surprised he did not take this
change of fortune
more philosophically.
After the Clodius tribunate, senators and Pompey gathered
popular
support for the return of Cicero.
Finally the senate decided they
would not transact any public
business until it was decreed; but
resisting tribunes were
wounded in the forum, and Cicero's brother
Quintus was nearly killed.
People from other cities organized,
and Pompey drove
the
forces of Clodius out of the forum so that the people
could vote
to welcome Cicero back to Rome
and to re-build his houses at public
expense.
Cicero rejoined the senate in the summer of 57 BC
during
a grain crisis and immediately proposed that Pompey
should be
put in charge of a board of 15 commissioners;
he in turn named
Cicero as the first commissioner.
In November armed rowdies of
Clodius drove off the
workman re-building Cicero's house,
burned
the house of his brother Quintus,
and made an incendiary attack
on the house of Milo;
Cicero predicted that Milo would kill Clodius.
In a trial the next year Cicero got Pompey's friend Sestius
acquitted after he had been wounded in the riots over Cicero's
recall when acting as a tribune.
Cicero explained his own banishment
and recall, while arguing
for the "peace with dignity"
he believed was the aim
of the aristocrats (optimates).
He criticized
the terrorist tactics of Clodius
and argued for self-defense.
Cicero also launched an invective against the witness Vatinius
and severely criticized Caesar's recent consulship.
A month later
in April 56 BC Cicero defended Caelius Rufus
on five charges he
suspected were caused by the notorious
sister of Clodius, Clodia.
Apparently Caelius had been her lover for a while
after the poet
Catullus.
Caelius seems to have been acquitted too, as Cicero
had
regained his outspoken form.
In the senate the next day Cicero
assaulted Caesar's
triumvirate when he proposed taking up the
controversial Campanian land bill.
However, after meetings at Luca renewed the alliance of
Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus,
Cicero's brother Quintus, who
had promised the senator's cooperation
when his exile was
ended, was told that Cicero had better be careful.
Cicero did not even attend the senate meeting to discuss the
land
bill; he voted to grant Caesar ten legates and money for
more
legions; and instead of arguing that Caesar be replaced
in Gaul,
he praised his accomplishments and suggested that
consuls be sent
to replace Piso in Macedonia and Gabinius
in Syria, both of whom
he castigated for corruption.
Cicero defended Caesar's Spanish henchman Balbus on a
charge
he had illegally assumed Roman citizenship.
Balbus, also defended
by Pompey and Crassus,
had been granted citizenship by Pompey
under the
Lex Gellia Cornelia; but the Lex Papia
had been passed in
65 BC to expel foreigners from Rome who lived
outside of
Italy in order to weaken support for Julius Caesar.
Cicero argued that Rome had granted citizenship to numerous
of
its tribute-paying provinces and that freedom depended
on an individual's
right to keep or renounce citizenship.
The optimates (meaning
"best" whom Cicero usually supported)
had attacked Balbus
not for anything he did but because his
friends were their enemies;
these vicarious feuds were
dangerous to the national harmony
Cicero
believed he was defending.
When Pompey's governor in Syria, Gabinius,
was acquitted
for corruption, Cicero had testified against him;
but reconciled
with Pompey
he was persuaded to defend Gabinius in a
second trial, which resulted
in his banishment.
Cicero also defended Caius Rabirius, who was
involved with
Gabinius in corruption involving Ptolemy XII;
Rabirius
was acquitted.
Cicero was appointed a legate of Pompey
for 53 BC,
and late in that year he was elected into the college
of augurs.
In January 52 BC Clodius and about thirty armed horsemen
attacked Milo and his family on the Appian way;
in the scuffle
Clodius was wounded, and according to Asconius
the trial established
that Milo then ordered him killed.
In the delayed elections Milo
had been running for consul
and Clodius for praetor.
In the resulting
turmoil Pompey was chosen
sole consul
and ordered an investigation.
In a hostile atmosphere
surrounded by Pompey's troops Cicero
tried to defend Milo but
was so nervous he could
hardly
speak; Milo was convicted and went
into exile at Massilia.
Later Cicero published an eloquent defense
speech in which
he argued that violence is only justified to repel
violence;
the law allows one the right to defend oneself but condemns
anyone for having a weapon in order to kill.
After the death of
Clodius, the tribune Plancus brought his
body into the senate;
when the people used the seats to burn
the body, the senate house
was burned down.
Cicero argued that Clodius had been plotting to murder Milo.
His slave had even been caught with a dagger in the senate
trying
to kill Pompey.
Pompey had ordered the
investigation, not because the facts
were in doubt, but because
of circumstances that would
indicate Milo was defending himself.
Cicero asked the famous and brief question,
"Who benefited?"
(Cui bono?)
Clodius had the motive, because he did not want
the consulship
of Milo limiting his praetorship.
Cicero's letters
show he was delighted that his enemy, who had
banished him, was
dead, and he marked a new liberty
in his life from that day.
Cicero
even took the rare step for him of prosecuting
one of the followers
of Clodius.
After a law was passed requiring five years before consuls
and praetors took up governorships after their term of office
in order to reduce ambition and corruption, in 51 BC Cicero
was appointed proconsul in Cilicia.
He managed to keep Cappadocia
friendly and protect
Cilicia without going to war.
Replacing the
corrupt governor Appius Claudius,
Cicero refused to accept gifts
even from kings and reduced
embezzlement considerably so that
cities
could regain financial stability.
He investigated the magistrates
and made them pay back
the community for their peculations.
When
the Parthian threat faded, Cicero did use the
military force he
had mobilized to
drive "robbers" from Mount Amanus.
The aedile Caelius requested he send panthers for a show
at Rome;
but Cicero quipped that they had run off to Caria,
because Cilicia
was so peaceful panthers were the only
creatures being attacked
there.
As Cicero waited outside of Rome for the senate to decide
whether
to grant him a triumph, he attempted to mediate the
impending
civil war between Caesar
and Pompey.
He thought
he had persuaded Pompey
to make concessions,
but he observed a strange madness for this
worst calamity.
When Caesar began to march his army through Italy
without the shadow of an ideal, he criticized Caesar's
justification
of "honor" as having no moral right.
How could it be
right for his army to seize Roman towns
without public authority?
Cicero wrote that he would rather die a thousand deaths
than entertain
one thought of Caesar's "greatness."
Cicero believed
that both men aimed at personal domination
and not the happiness
of the community, commenting,
"I know whom to flee, but I
don't know whom to follow."9
He lamented that they would
never have a free state
as long as either one of those two men
lived.
In March 49 BC he tried to open negotiations for peace
and civic harmony between the rivals.
However, he saw peace excluded
with victory bringing
destruction to the conquered and slavery
to the victors.
On March 28 Caesar
visited Cicero's house at Formiae
and asked the senator to work
for peace;
but Cicero said that he would have to urge the senate
not to approve an expedition to Spain nor the transport of
armies
to Greece; this was not what Caesar
wanted to hear.
When Caesar left
for Spain, Cicero sailed
to join Pompey
at Dyrrhachium.
There Cato
judged Cicero had made a mistake,
saying he should have stayed
neutral.
Cicero had refused Pompey's offers of commands and made
sarcastic comments in the camp.
After Pompey's defeat at Pharsalia,
Cicero went to Brundisium,
where he waited a year for Caesar
to return from Egypt and Asia.
During Caesar's dictatorship Cicero
made a speech for
Claudius Marcellus in which he thanked Caesar.
Then he defended Quintus Ligarius and Galatian king Deiotarus
before the dictator himself, and the forgiving Caesar
let them
go even though he had drawn up the sentence
for Ligarius
before the trial.
Retiring from politics, Cicero divorced his
wife Terentia,
quarreled with his brother Quintus, married a wealthy
virgin,
lost his beloved daughter Tullia when she died in childbirth,
divorced again, and found consolation studying
and writing books
on philosophy.
Although Brutus was
his close friend, Cicero was not invited
to join the conspiracy
against Julius Caesar.
Immediately after the assassination Cicero urged Brutus
and
Cassius as praetors to summon the senate and assume
leadership
of the state, but against his advice they hoped to
make an agreement
with Antony.
When a
compromise was reached in the senate two days later,
Cicero spoke
for amnesty and reconciliation.
Cicero complied with Antony
at first but complained to his
friends that Antony was doing what
Caesar never permitted
by forging memoranda in his name.
Cicero
could see another civil war coming, because
Sextus Pompey was
in arms in Spain; this time neutrality
would not be safe, as he
predicted a massacre of those who
had rejoiced at Caesar's death.
In June 44 BC the consul Dolabella in expectation of his
governorship
in Syria appointed Cicero to his staff
so that he could travel
freely.
Cicero met with Brutus
and his family at Antium and
encouraged him to accept the grain
commission to Asia,
though Cassius considered it an insult and
said he would
not take up his in Sicily.
Brutus
said he wanted to return to Rome, but Cicero
warned him that would
not be safe; so Brutus
took up his province of Macedonia instead.
Calpurnius Piso had been alone in criticizing Antony
in the senate until Cicero returned.
On the first of September
44 BC Antony castigated
Cicero
and threatened to tear his house down for not attending
the
session honoring Caesar as a god.
The next day in Antony's
absence Cicero began his series of
speeches challenging Antony
called "Philippics" after the
orations Demosthenes had
given in opposition to Philip
II of
Macedonia three centuries before.
Cicero began by commending Antony for abolishing
at least
the name of dictatorship, which had attained
the authority
of regal power.
Cicero said that he could not give any dead man
the worship paid to the immortal gods.
He complained of the notes
of Caesar being ratified
and asked if these were to annul his actual laws,
such as that
limiting the governorship of provinces.
Revenues had been diminished
by granting countless
exemptions of a dead man.
Most of all, he
denounced Antony
for his use of violence and arms.
These should
be used only for defense and not
to injure those who had expressed
their views on public issues.
Ignorant of true glory, Antony
wanted to have more power
than the rest of the people.
The fate
of Caesar should have convinced him to prefer
being loved instead
of feared;
Cicero exhorted him to change his mind.
In turn Antony
repudiated his friendship
with Cicero and criticized his career.
Though he was risking his life, Cicero believed that
he should
not fail the commonwealth.
His second Philippic was not delivered,
but copies were sent to Brutus
and Cassius.
In November 44 BC Octavian
Caesar wrote asking Cicero's
advice whether to march on Rome with
3,000 veterans;
Cicero concurred even though this privately raised
army
was clearly illegal.
The 19-year-old wanted Cicero to work
for him
through the senate; yet both Cicero and his friend Atticus
could see that Octavian's tyranny could be more solidly
approved
and would be bad for Brutus.
In his third Philippic Cicero noted that to quell a mutiny at
Brundisium Antony had
executed 300 centurions and soldiers.
Antony
had been giving 300 denarii per man,
but Octavian handed
out 500 to levy troops.
Cicero commended the Martian troops and
fourth legion
for deserting Antony to join Octavian.
Cicero argued Antony
must not be considered legally consul
or else the troops of Decimus
Brutus and Octavian
were
all criminals for opposing him; by not daring to move the
senate against Octavian,
Antony had admitted
himself
to be a public enemy.
Cicero charged Antony
with illegal plundering and
encouraged the senate to regain their
liberties
Cicero was defending.
Antony
was leading only one mutilated legion into Gaul.
In January 43 BC Cicero argued that the people of Rome
were not bound by the laws Antony
had passed by violence
and deceit, and he accused Antony of taking 700,000,000
sesterces from the Roman people to pay his debts,
forging decrees, giving away kingdoms, and conferring
citizenship
and tax immunity in return for bribes.
Cicero proposed that consul-elect
Decimus Brutus be
confirmed in Cisalpine Gaul, Lepidus be honored
for
preventing a civil war by making peace with Sextus Pompey,
and military command be entrusted to Octavian.
The senate agreed to these but persisted in sending
envoys to Antony against Cicero's
advice.
Cicero continued to speak out as one keeping watch.
He
believed that the gods had granted Rome rulership
of all nations
and that in this extreme crisis the issue was
whether they would
be free or enslaved.
Cicero argued that peace with Antony would
be dishonorable
and dangerous; and he wrote to Cassius that if
he had been
invited to the dinner on the Ides of March,
there
would not have been left-overs.
After Antony
sent back unacceptable terms, the senate
declined to send a second
embassy, declaring a state of
"tumult" and Antony
an adversary though not an enemy.
Cicero proposed an amnesty for
those deserting Antony
before March 15, while anyone joining him after that
would be
considered a traitor.
In the tenth Philippic Cicero proposed that Marcus Brutus
be confirmed in his command of troops
in Illyricum, Macedonia,
and Greece.
The senate was persuaded to do this but refused to
confirm
Cassius in Syria, though he soon defeated Dolabella.
Cicero
dissuaded the senate from sending himself and others
to negotiate
with Antony.
Cicero
urged Lepidus not to compromise with Antony.
After Antony was defeated
at Mutina by the consuls,
who were killed, Octavian and
Cicero
praised them in a funeral oration.
Rome celebrated and
cheered Cicero,
and Antony was declared an enemy.
However, Lepidus
disregarded Cicero's advice, and facing
mutinying troops, he joined Antony; the Roman senate
declared Lepidus a public enemy too.
Octavian
heard rumors that Cicero wanted to get rid of him.
Cicero appealed
to Brutus and Cassius,
but they could not come.
To Brutus
Cicero wrote:
Everybody demands as much political power
as there is force behind him.
Reason, moderation, law, tradition, duty count
for nothing—likewise the judgment and views
of the citizen body and respect for the opinion
of those who come after us.10
Octavian returned
to Rome with his army and demanded
that he be made consul even
though
he was not close to the required age.
Some date the end
of the republic on August 19
when the senate elected him consul.
Plancus, who had been designated consul for 42 BC
with Decimus
Brutus by the late Caesar,
gave his five legions to Antony
and Lepidus.
Deserted by his men, Decimus Brutus fled, was captured,
and killed by Antony's order.
Octavian
marched his army north; as the senate repealed
the decrees of
Antony and Lepidus as public enemies,
he joined them in a triumvirate.
Antony insisted that
Cicero be proscribed for death.
Cicero tried to flee, but the
ships
were driven back by contrary winds.
Finally Cicero's head
and hands were cut off
on December 7, 43 BC and displayed by Antony's
order on the speakers' platform in Rome.
With the exception of a poem on his consulate, Cicero had
been too busy writing speeches and letters to take up serious
works until 55 BC after his return from exile and muzzling
by the renewed
power of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.
Then he wrote On Oratory, which superseded
his early writing
on the subject.
Cicero naturally considered political oratory
a most
important art and great service to the community.
The emotions
of the human spirit must be understood
intimately and can be used
to calm the feelings of the audience.
Humor, wit, culture, and
urbane charm are to be used along
with a good memory of history,
precedents, and the laws.
Delivery depends upon body carriage,
gestures,
and changing intonations of the voice.
Cicero set his
dialog in 91 BC with the orators he admired
as a youth—Lucius
Licinius Crassus (his teacher),
Marcus Antonius (grandfather of
the triumvir), and others.
Crassus says oratory is most excellent for winning the
good
will of people and directing their inclinations.
In free nations
that enjoy peace this art reigns supreme.
One person's eloquence
can transform the impulses of a crowd,
the consciences of judges,
and the austerity of the senate;
it can help the suppliant, lift
those cast down, bestow security,
imperil the free, and maintain
human rights,
defending oneself and challenging the wicked.
The
ability to communicate with words is the advantage
humans have
over the brutes and is what upholds individual
dignity and the
safety of the state.
The augur Scaevola points out that
it also
can be used to damage the state.
Crassus replies that the orator
can rouse human hearts
to anger, hatred or indignation or recall
them
from those passions to mercy.
To achieve this the speaker
needs profound insight into
human nature and character and what
motivates souls.
One must have broad knowledge, be aware of the
relevant facts, but also be able to shape
and polish one's style
in fluent speech.
Antonius observes that many Greeks believed
only the wise can be truly eloquent and virtuous.
Sulpicius Rufus wonders if there is an art of oratory,
and
Scaevola asks Crassus to respond as one whose
eloquence has excelled
in the seat of imperial power.
Crassus begins with his belief
that natural talent
is the greatest contributor to oratory.
Skill
in invention, exposition, embellishment, and memory
depend upon
intelligence, and physical gifts are a ready tongue,
ringing tones,
strong lungs, vigor, and a suitable body and face.
A good orator
needs the subtlety of a logician,
the thought of a philosopher,
poetic diction, a lawyer's memory,
and the voice and bearing of
an actor.
Training is also important though and requires
enthusiasm
and passionate desire.
Diction should use correct Latin, be lucid,
elegant,
and fit the dignity of the topic with grace.
Learning
to control and train the voice, breathing, gestures,
and the tongue
depend on exertion as well as art.
Learning pieces by heart can
train the memory.
Crassus believes the orator should know human nature,
ethics, how to arouse and calm human minds,
history, government, and common
law.
Common law is defined as preserving the impartiality of
statutes
and customs in the concerns and disputes of citizens.
Common law
can be the basis for ethical discussions,
because merit is coveted
when fitting exertion wins high office,
rewards, and honor, while
misdeeds are punished with fines,
degradations, imprisonment,
scourging, banishment, and death.
People learn not by debate to
control their passions and their
hands from taking what is their
neighbor's but by the
authoritative decisions of the laws.
Crassus
points to the Twelve Tables of laws which teach
more than anything
else, and he believes that Roman laws
surpass those of Lycurgus,
Draco, and Solon.
He also mentions the elements of oratory as
invention,
style, arrangement, memory, and delivery.
Antonius agrees that the person expert in the statutes
and
customary law is qualified to advise others in lawsuits.
The philosopher
strives to know the significance, nature,
and causes of everything
human and divine in order
to master a complete theory of right
living.
The orator needs this and the ability to use agreeable
language
with arguments that persuade
in legal disputes and public
debates.
Yet Antonius warns against the orator getting into tactless
philosophical discussions that are not relevant.
Philosophers
also sometimes disapprove of arguments
that are rhetorically effective.
He notes how Socrates defended himself as a teacher
rather than
a submissive prisoner
and was condemned to death.
For Antonius
the orator does not need wide knowledge of law,
but special points
can be researched; one should not dissipate
one's energy over
too wide a field of study.
He also believes that virtue can be
taught by persuasion
without the threat of punishment, force,
and terror.
Practice is important.
In the second book of On Oratory Cicero wrote that
excellence
in oratory depends not only upon training in
speaking but in pursuing
all knowledge as well.
Crassus points out the value of leisure,
because no one is free
who is not sometimes doing nothing.
Antonius
states that the orator's duty is to arouse a listless
nation and
to curb its impetuosity.
By eloquence the deceitful are destroyed,
the just delivered,
the virtuous encouraged, the vicious reclaimed,
the
wicked censured, the worthy praised, the lawless subdued,
and the grieved soothed.
Antonius agrees with Aristotle that rhetoric
includes speeches
of praising as well as forensic lawsuits
and
political deliberations.
The Romans considered history as part
of rhetoric, though
Antonius says that telling the truth and the
whole truth
without bias or malice is most important.
The historian
should also estimate consequences,
expose causes, and reveal the
particulars in the lives
and characters of renowned people.
The
orator's duty is to discuss good and evil in all
its ramifications
including the state, sovereignty, war,
political science, and
the customs of people.
Antonius considers most difficult the forensic arguments in
courtrooms, where the ignorant often judge an orator's power.
A good speech opens by winning the goodwill and attention
of the
audience, states the case plausibly, lucidly, and concisely,
defines
the issue, establishes points by evidence and argument,
disproves
opposing views, (some allow a digression
for amplification), then
sums up the case with a peroration.
The art of speaking persuades
in three ways: winning the favor
of the listeners, instructing
them and proving one's points,
and arousing people's feelings;
these require a gentle style, acuteness, and energy.
Speech reveals
one's character, and thus
a gentle approach usually gains favor.
The speaker must feel the emotions one wishes to excite.
The love
of the audience is won by upholding their interests
or by working
for what is good and useful.
The arguments of the opponents need
to be disproved,
and emotions can be countered by their opposites.
Cicero has Caesar Vopiscus analyze the difficult subject of
wit and humor, giving many examples.
The use of these should be
sparing and appropriate.
Humor may derive from ambiguity, the
unexpected,
plays on words, quotations, taking words literally,
allegory,
metaphor, irony, antithetical expressions, comparison,
caricature, understatement, ridicule, and personal retorts.
Then
Antonius resumes his discourse, emphasizing the
importance of
avoiding doing any damage to one's case.
He suggests arranging
one's strongest point first.
Dignity is important, because everyone
values moral worth
as the highest goal even though expediency
often wins the day.
To move people from the latter to the former,
an exhortation is often helpful.
Praise can also be used.
In the third book Crassus discusses embellishing style by
making
language correct, lucid, ornamental, and appropriate.
One should
include the fullest supply of facts.
In addition to praise, censure
can also be used to make points.
Knowledge can be expressed through
inference,
definition, and deduction.
Inference discovers; definition
explains;
and deduction investigates consequences.
Conduct can
be discussed in relation to duty
by viewing right and wrong, virtues
and vices;
or emotions can be swayed using exhortation, reproach,
consolation, compassion, and by exciting or allaying feelings.
Crassus concludes by discussing
the use of metaphors and rhythm.
Cicero also analyzed speaking in On the Parts of Oratory
in a dialog with his son.
In 46 BC he had the leisure to review
the orators of Greece
and Rome in Brutus, a dialog with
his friends
Atticus and Marcus Brutus.
Cicero lamented the current juncture when recourse
was made to
arms, and those who used them successfully
were not using them
beneficially.
Of one thing he was certain:
"No one has ever
been made eloquent by war."11
The conditions which create
eloquence are peace
and tranquillity, the products of a state
in good order.
He noted how Aristotle observed that the courts
were used
in Sicily by people to get their property back
after
the tyrants were expelled.
Cicero admired the skill of the Gracchi
brothers
even though he disagreed with their radical politics.
Cicero also attempted to describe the perfect orator
in a work
dedicated to Marcus Brutus
called The Orator.
Cicero began working on his Republic in 54 BC
and completed
it by 51 BC.
Most of the manuscript was lost until much of it
was
discovered in the Vatican and published in 1822.
The dialog
is set in 129 BC with the Scipio circle of friends.
This Scipio
Africanus was the son of Aemilius Paulus,
hero of the Macedonian
war,
and was adopted into the Scipio family.
His heroics came
in the final destruction of Carthage
in 146 BC and of Numantia
in 133 BC.
Scipio opposed the land reform of Tiberius Gracchus
and
died mysteriously the year of this dialog.
Scipio's circle
had included the comic poet Terence,
the satirist Lucilius, the
Stoic philosopher Panaetius,
and the historian Polybius, but his
main interlocutor
here is his close friend Laelius.
Cicero introduced his dialog on the state with his own views
that virtue must be applied and that government is its highest
use.
He believed strongly in private property and suggested that
a law of nature forbids it unless
one knows how to use things
wisely.
Laelius observes that the Gracchi conception of the tribunate
had divided people into two factions, but he hoped to bring
about
the union of the people with the senate.
Scipio discusses the
three main forms of government as
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,
but he notes that these tend to degenerate into
tyranny, oligarchy,
and mob rule.
Most societies reserve high offices to ancient families
and the wealthy, except Athens and Rhodes
allowed all free citizens
to hold office.
Law holds societies together and must be equally
applied to all,
but property cannot be equally distributed
because
of varying abilities.
True aristocracy is rule by the best, but
in their ignorance
people tend to choose the wealthy
or those
from distinguished families.
Scipio believes that riches, reputation,
and power
without wisdom and moderation result in
shameless and
insufferable arrogance.
The difficulty of one man or the ignorant
many ruling
has tended to give power to a few.
Scipio applies the Pythagorean idea of the intelligence
controlling
anger, greed, ambition, and lust
to governance of the state.
In
monarchy one bad king's injustice can ruin the state,
as happened
with Tarquin Superbus in Rome.
Then the people can take over the
government,
but revolution can also oust a just king.
Uncontrolled
freedom can lead to chaos
and the desire for a tyrant.
A tyrant
can be overthrown and replaced
with constitutional government.
Scipio recommends a combination of a royal element
with some power
given to the aristocracy, while referring
certain matters to the
people's judgment,
resulting in some equality and strength.
He
suggests the Roman republic as a model
in discussing the perfect
state.
In the second book Scipio describes how Roman institutions
developed progressively through history, noting that Romulus
kept
order by imposing fines in sheep and cattle instead of
inflicting
corporal punishment.
The early Romans at first chose their kings
for their
excellence and wisdom rather than by descent.
Next Scipio proposes to disprove that injustice is a necessary
part of government while showing that a high degree of justice
is essential to the state functioning well.
Philus, who like the
philosopher Carneades can discuss
both sides of an issue, is assigned
to talk about injustice
in the state; he criticizes the Voconian
law that restricted the
right of women to inherit money.
Laelius
responds that a true and eternal law of reason
summons all people
to perform their duties
and restrains them from doing wrong.
The
good are influenced by its commands but not the bad.
Human legislation
against this law is never morally right;
to restrict it is not
permissible;
and it is impossible to annul it completely.
Wars
against reason are unlawful, and no war can be justified
except
to redress an injury or drive out an invader.
According to Isidore
of Seville, Cicero also added that
no war is lawful unless it
is officially declared.
The soul rules the body like a king his
subjects or a father
his children; but it rules the desires as
a master drives his
slaves and as wisdom disciplines the passions
and emotions.
Yet it is not just when those who might be their
own masters
are subjected to another; this latter statement would
make
human slavery rather hard to justify.
Most of the fourth book of Cicero's Republic
is on education and lost.
Laelius notes how the Twelve Tables
defined disagreement as
"a controversy between persons who
still preserve their
good will toward each other;"12
thus
neighbors may disagree with each other
without quarreling as enemies.
Scipio defines the goal of the ruler as the happiness
of the citizens,
making them secure in their resources,
rich in wealth, great in
renown, and distinguished in virtue.
He believes that one who
corrupts by using eloquence is
worse than one who corrupts a judge
with money,
because the honest cannot be seduced by money
but
can be fooled by specious pleas.
In the last book Cicero describes
the ideal ruler as wise, just,
self-controlled, and eloquent in
order to control the people;
he should understand law and know
Greek literature.
As Plato concluded his
Republic with the mystical
tale of Er,
Cicero ends his with a mystical dream.
Scipio recounts
how when he arrived in Africa in 149 BC
and met Numidian king
Masinissa, his grandfather,
also called Scipio Africanus, appeared
to him in a dream,
predicting he would overcome Carthage
in three
years and later Numantia.
In Rome he will find the republic in
turmoil from another
grandson (Tiberius Gracchus).
Scipio might save the state if he can escape the godless
hands
of his family, implying that Cicero may have believed
he was murdered
by his wife Sempronia Gracchus.
The elder Africanus assures him
that all who save or benefit
their country are assigned a special
place in heaven,
where they enjoy eternal bliss; for God, who
rules the universe,
is most pleased by societies that are united
by law and right.
Then Scipio saw his father Paulus coming toward
him.
Scipio wants to go to him, but his father tells him
he must
wait until he is released from the prison of the body.
Humans
born on earth are meant to guard that place,
and he must not desert
the tasks imposed by God.
He should cultivate justice and loyalty
to parents, kindred, and country.
The stars are described as much greater in size than the earth,
which is the lowest of spheres.
The real person is not the body
but the soul, which is divine.
The divine principle is what lives,
feels, remembers, foresees,
rules, guides, and activates the body,
just as the supreme God rules the universe.
Only the self-originating
mover never ceases to move
and is the source of all other motion.
Beginning has no source but originates itself,
and all other things
arise from this beginning.
Thus the self-originating mover can
neither be born nor die.
The noblest concerns of the soul are
the security of one's
country, and the soul disciplined in that
work will fly to heaven;
but those who are slaves of passion and
by lust violate divine
and human laws wander near the earth after
they escape
from the body, not returning to the divine abode for
many ages.
Cicero wrote most of his Laws in 52 BC,
but only the
first three books are extant.
He spoke for himself in a dialog
with his brother Quintus
and best friend Atticus.
Cicero believed
that law represented not only the highest
reason, but that it
was implanted by Nature, commanding
people to do right and forbidding
wrong.
He found virtue only in humans as Nature
developed to its
highest point.
Thus we are born for justice, and right is based
not on
opinion but Nature, because we are so like each other.
The human race is bound in a unity, and knowledge of
the principles
of right living is what makes people better,
bringing all together
equally in a natural feeling
of kindness, good-will, and justice.
Cicero noted that people pay the penalty for crimes,
not so
much through the decisions of courts, but they are
tormented by
remorse and a guilty conscience.
Because of this natural sense
of justice even the most
brazen criminal attempts to justify a
crime
by some excuse or principle of right.
"Now if even
the wicked dare to appeal to such principles,
how jealously should
they be guarded by the good?"13
Cicero observed that pleasure,
the counterfeit of good
and mother of all evils, seductively corrupts
people.
He believed the good are virtuous for its own reward,
and those who do right out of fear of punishment
and for utility
are not good but merely shrewd.
Those sunk deepest into vice are
not wretched because of
the penalties or losses but because their
nature is debased.
Cicero recommended the Delphic counsel to know
oneself,
because it means knowing the divine element within
as
an image of God that will lead one to act in a way worthy
of so
great a gift and to acquire wisdom,
which results in goodness
and happiness.
In the second book on Laws Cicero elaborated his view
that the principles of justice and law are natural and held
that
bad statutes nations put in force do not deserve to be
called
laws, implying they need not be obeyed any more
than the rules
of a gang of robbers.
Most of the book discusses religious laws,
beginning with
approaching God in purity taken from Numa Pompilius
and moving on to the Twelve Tables.
He conservatively accepted
Roman laws, including the
prohibition of having any gods other
than those of the state.
Cicero essentially described the Roman form
of government in
the third book.
Quaestors, praetors, and consuls are elected and
are then
qualified to serve in the senate.
Tribunes were established
to check the power of the consuls,
as the Spartans had set up
ephors to oppose their dual kingship.
Cicero was concerned that
no one be appointed as an envoy
having any motive other than for
the national interest.
He had hoped to abolish these delegations
but did manage
to get their tenures limited to one year.
He recommended
short speeches in the senate
except in two circumstances.
If harmful
action is impending or if greater length is required
to win others
over on an important cause or to see that
they are properly informed;
then one might speak all day.
He noted that Cato
was good in both cases.
In the assemblies Cicero warned against
the use
of any violence, which is opposed to justice and civic
life.
He advocated strict laws to control bribery by punishing
violence with the death penalty, greed by a fine,
and excessive
ambition by public disgrace.
After completing one's office, functionaries
should explain
their actions to the censors, who should publish
a report.
In the last three years of his life Cicero devoted most of
his
time to studying and writing about philosophy and ethics.
In 46 BC he discussed six paradoxes of the Stoics.
They are:
1) that only what is morally noble is good;
2) that virtue is sufficient for happiness;
3) that any transgression or right action
is equally bad or good;
4) that all fools are insane;
5) that the wise alone are free, and all
fools are slaves; and
6) that only the wise are wealthy.
The wise do nothing against their will nor with regret nor
by
compulsion; but the wicked are enslaved because their abject
spirit has no volition of its own.
Those with excessive desires
are needy and poor no matter
how much money they have, while those
who are content with what they have are rich.
In On the Ends of Goods and Evils Cicero compared the
ethical views of the Epicureans,
Stoics, and Academics.
In the first book Torquatus states that Epicurus found the
greatest
good in pleasure and the greatest evil in pain.
The wise reject
some pleasures to attain greater pleasure
and endure some pains
to avoid worse pains.
The Epicurean
definition of pleasure includes mental pleasures
that derive from
physical ones and considers the absence
of pain as the greatest
pleasure.
They use wisdom to reject desires that are unnatural
and
unnecessary while accepting some desires.
Virtues like wisdom
are useful for gaining the greatest
pleasure and least pain.
Temperance
bestows peace of mind and soothes the heart.
Courage removes fear
and anxiety from the mind.
Justice also brings mental tranquillity
and does not cause harm.
Mental pleasures can be more intense
than sensory ones, and
Torquatus concludes that a life of enjoyment
is a life of virtue.
They study natural science to understand
death,
avoid the terrors of religion, and find peace of mind.
Cicero criticizes Epicureanism himself by pointing out that
pleasure is universally understood as an agreeable activity
of
the senses and that the absence of pain is not pleasure.
He questions
whether a sensualist can keep the desires within
bounds, believing
that desires should be uprooted completely.
In making pleasure
the highest good Cicero infers that there
would be no action too
base to be committed for the sake of
pleasure provided one were
guaranteed against detection.
He believes that the most natural
instinct in living creatures
is not to seek pleasure but is self-preservation.
He objects to the utilitarian view of virtues
as means to the
end of pleasure.
After pointing out self-sacrificing heroes, he
wonders who are
the great Epicureans, who do not really seek virtue
but only its appearance.
No Epicurean
could ever appeal to serve the public
for the sake of pleasure.
Although Cicero recognizes that in his life Epicurus
valued
friendship, his philosophy makes that a means to an end
also.
For Cicero friendship means loving someone as an end in
itself,
and to make someone a means to one's own pleasure
is not
really friendship.
Stoic ethics is presented
by Cato and begins with
the idea
that love of self is the primary impulse to action,
as
can be seen with children.
Stoics
value what is in accord with Nature
and living in harmony with
that.
Integrity gained by virtue is the greatest good,
and they
are indifferent to everything else,
though they do exercise "preferences."
They believe the universe is governed by divine will,
and everyone
is a universal citizen, though they recognize
no rights for other
animals.
Cato also notes
that friendship and justice cannot exist
if they are not valued
for their own sake.
In conclusion he asks if it is true that only
the good are happy,
then what is more valuable than philosophy
or more divine than virtue?
Cicero criticizes Stoic
ethics for inventing a new terminology
or an old philosophy which
starts
with the instinct for self-preservation.
The Stoic
contention that virtue alone is the greatest good
would only be
true for a creature who consisted solely of
pure intellect; a
more complete philosophy cares
for the body as well as the mind.
Cicero also disproves the notion that there are no degrees
in
virtue or vice with numerous examples from common sense.
To maintain
that the only good is integrity is to do away with
care of health,
property, politics, conduct, and duties,
although Zeno
did hold that some
are to be selected or preferred over others.
Cicero dismissed the skepticism of the new Academy,
because
their failure to accept any knowledge prevented them
from presenting
any positive theory of ethics.
However, he was won over by the
philosophy of his teacher
Antiochus, who went back to the old
Academy ideas
of Plato and Aristotle.
These ideas are presented
by Piso.
They also believe good is living in accord with Nature
but
developed to its full perfection with all its needs and based
on everyone loving oneself.
People do not love themselves for
the sake of pleasure
but rather seek pleasure for themselves.
Again self-preservation is fundamental.
They analyze the mind
as having abilities that are non-volitional,
such as intelligence
and memory, and abilities depending on
volition, virtues such
as prudence,
temperance, courage, and justice.
The Peripatetics
expound the doctrine that virtue is the
perfection of reason and
that the end for humans is the
perfection of one's whole being.
To know ourselves is to know our abilities of body and mind
and
to actualize them fully.
Thus external goods, like the health
and concerns of the body,
are important, though still subordinate
to the mind and spiritual virtues.
Cicero questions then whether virtue alone can guarantee
happiness,
and Piso responds that it can,
though not by itself complete happiness.
Thus this philosophy avoids the absurdity of holding that
a virtuous
person suffering pain is completely happy.
In 45 BC Cicero discussed some philosophical and ethical
issues in Tusculan Disputations in order to make Greek
philosophical ideas more accessible to Romans.
Cicero noted that Roman oratory
had reached its zenith,
and with the ending of the republic presciently
he predicted
it would soon come to nothing.
He hoped that in those
evil days there could be a birth
of philosophy in Latin.
Although
inclined to Stoicism and
definitely a critic of
Epicurean
hedonism, Cicero preferred the Peripatetic and
Academic method
of discussing both sides of every question,
not only to find the
truth but also as practice in oratory.
The first book concerns
death, and Cicero emphasized the
views of Plato
on the immortality of the soul.
The second book takes up the problem
of pain.
He noted that the Latin word for virtue derives from
the word
for man and is related also to courage.
For Cicero moral
disgrace is much more evil than pain.
Even in pain one can be
master of oneself, for it is as though
we have two selves—one
to be master and one to obey.
In the third book Cicero examined stress in the emotions
which he considered a disorder in the soul,
holding that the wise could
be free of this.
Evils can lead to distress and fear, while pursuit
of good
can be perverted into lust and excessive pleasures.
Anxiety
and distress can be laid aside at any moment by
realizing that
they give no advantage
and that indulging in them is useless.
Distress in humans does not originate in an act of nature
but
is caused by judgment and belief in a grief the mind
somehow considers
is a duty to feel.
Neither does fear affect the wise, because it is only
expectation
of distress and so can also be removed.
Not liable to these nor
to lust and excessive pleasure,
the mind of the wise will always
be at peace.
Under distress Cicero discussed envy, rivalry, jealousy,
compassion, anxiety, mourning, sadness, troubling, grief,
lamenting,
depression, vexation, pining, and despondency.
Fear included sluggishness,
shame, fright, timidity,
consternation, cowardice, bewilderment,
and faintheartedness.
Excessive pleasures mentioned are malice,
rapture, and
ostentation, and his category of lust contained the
emotions
of anger, rage, hatred, enmity, wrath, greed, and longing.
Disturbance by pleasures and lust can be cleansed by
realizing
they are not good, and the disorders of distress
and fear can
be removed by understanding
they are neither natural nor necessary.
In The Nature of the Gods Cicero compared the Epicurean,
Stoic, and Academic ideas
on religion.
The history of Greek ideas on the gods is reviewed
unsympathetically by the Epicurean Velleius, and the religious
ideas of Epicurus are criticized at length by the Academic Cotta.
Stoic ideas that God exists
as the universe and providentially
governs the world and cares
for humans
are presented by Balbus.
He asks if reason, faith,
virtue, and concord are found
among people, where else could they
have come from
except from the gods?
If humans have some measure
of rationality and wisdom,
the gods must have even more.
Later
Cotta responds to this by arguing that people may
consecrate shrines
to Reason, Faith, and Virtue,
but we know that only within ourselves
are they found.
The prosperity of the wicked disproves
the power
of moral gods.
Cicero continued the debate on religion in his
next book,
On Divination.
Part of his book On Fate
is also extant.
In 44 BC Cicero dedicated two short books
to his friend Atticus—On Old Age and On Friendship.
The elder Cato one
year before his death at 85 in 149 BC
is the main speaker in On
Old Age; his listeners are
Scipio Africanus and his friend
Laelius.
Cato observes that there are occupations for old people's
minds even after their bodies are weak.
He contends that they
can still remember what is important to
them, provided they retain
their concentration and application.
The old can teach the young
and train them for various jobs.
He suggests that the aged will
be respected if they fight for
themselves, maintain their rights,
avoid dependence,
and assert control over their own affairs.
Old
age often removes desires that lead to doing wrong;
sensuality
can ruin the good life.
After campaigns of sex, ambition, rivalry,
quarreling,
and other pleasures have ended, the human spirit
can
return to live within itself.
A major satisfaction comes from
knowledge and learning.
"To be respected is the crowning
glory of old age."14
Faults people complain come from old
age, such as being
morose, petulant, and ill-tempered,
are really
faults of character.
Cato considers old misers absurd to think
they need
more funds when the journey is nearly over.
He finds
consolation in immortality of the divine soul.
If death is like
sleep, then there is either unconsciousness
or dreams that can
be divine and see into the future.
He feels leaving life on earth
should be like
leaving a hostel, not a home.
Laelius is the principle speaker in On Friendship,
and
the
dialog is set only days after the mysterious
death of Scipio
in 129 BC.
Cicero wrote that he learned of this conversation
from
his teacher Scaevola the augur.
Scipio and Laelius were the best
of friends and were
considered the two greatest orators of their
day.
Laelius was called wise, and it was believed
he helped Terence
with his comedies.
Laelius places friendship above every other
human concern
and believes it is only possible between good men.
The sexism aside, goodness consists of
living rightly according
to nature.
He believes that real friendship is between
only two
people or very few.
It is an identity of feeling on all things
strengthened
by mutual goodwill and affection.
The most satisfying
experience is to have someone
you can speak to freely as your
own self on any subject.
No barrier can shut out friendship, which
can never be
untimely nor in the way.
Without it no house or city
could stand or hold together.
Friendship does involve giving and receiving,
but it is much
more than calculations of profit.
The Latin word for friendship (amicitia) derives
from the word for love (amor).
Goodwill is established by love, and goodness has an
exceptional
appeal towards affection.
Kindness and generosity are not given
to exact repayment.
Favors are not hired out to charge interest.
We behave kindly because it is natural.
Friendship is a blessing,
not because of hope for a material
return, but because the union
is a benefit in itself.
Authentic friendship is lasting and depends
on ethical behavior.
To claim one did wrong for a friend is not
an excuse,
for true friendship comes from a mutual belief
in each
other's goodness.
If one stops being good, how can friendship
continue?
Thus friends should not ask for anything that is wrong;
if asked for such a thing,
one should turn the application down.
Laelius criticizes the argument that freedom from cares
cannot be achieved if one has worries of others and the idea
that friendships
should be cultivated not for affection
but solely for mutual utility.
Congeniality of temperament is the
greatest incentive to friendship.
A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Two charges of fickleness
are forgetting friends when one is
doing well and deserting a
friend who is in difficulties.
Friends standing up to these tests
are almost superhuman.
This reliability comes from trust, and
friendship
improves with age like fine wine.
Sometimes friendships
need to be dissolved when interests
or politics change, but Laelius
considers it discreditable
to let a friend become an enemy.
Friendships
embrace everything worthwhile,
such as goodness, fame, peace of
mind, and satisfaction.
They raise our behavior to the highest
standard of morality.
If ethics is ignored, a friendship may be
found wanting
when put to the test.
Laelius suggests testing a
friend before becoming devoted,
rather than being devoted first
and then trying one.
Laelius disagrees with a quote from Terence that flattery
can
gain friends, while truth earns ill will.
He believes flattery
is tiresome; when it indulges a friend's
misdeeds, it can contribute
to his ruin.
Worst is to spurn the truth and allow flattery
to
seduce one into doing wrong.
Friends should be honest with each
other, and anyone who
cannot hear the truth, even from a friend,
is a hopeless case.
Hypocrisy is vicious and contaminates standards
of
truthfulness and thus is incompatible with friendship.
Laelius
concludes that no one can be a friend
unless one is good, and
that next to goodness
friendship is the finest thing in the world.
Cicero's last book and major work on ethics was written
to
his son Marcus and was called On Duties (De Officiis).
Cicero began with the principle that
virtue should be desired
for its own sake.
The subject of duties involves explaining what
is good and
describing in precepts how our duty
may govern our
lives and actions.
First, one should consider whether an action
is honest;
second, whether it is useful in supplying conveniences
and
pleasures; and third, how to resolve conflicts
between honesty
and profit.
Cicero once again starts with the premise that every
creature
endeavors to preserve itself and that people have a natural
affection for their own children and for other people.
What sets
humans apart is our search for the truth.
Individuals also desire
to be pre-eminent.
Finally humans can use reason
to order their
lives with decorum.
He gave his views of the four traditional
Greek virtues
he called prudence, justice, courage, and temperance.
Prudence depends on knowledge of the truth.
Duty toward society Cicero divided into justice
and beneficence
or liberality.
The first requirement of justice is not to harm
others,
although
he excepted a reasonable retribution for an injury
received.
He also added respect for property.
In serving and assisting
one another we should follow Nature
by mutually giving and receiving
good turns by knowledge,
industry, and wealth to preserve social
love.
Justice depends on being faithful to one's word and
conscientiously
keeping agreements.
Injustice can be not only injuring others
but not helping and
defending them when one could.
Injustice is
caused by fear, an exorbitant appetite,
greed for riches, and
ambition for glory, honor, or empire.
Some are afraid of offending
others or bringing trouble
upon themselves; others are negligent,
idle, and mean or too
taken up with their own concerns to help
the oppressed,
whom Cicero considered it a duty to save and protect.
For an honest action to be virtuous it must also be done
by choice
with good will.
Justice requires doing greater duties before lesser
ones.
Revenge and punishment should be limited, and the laws of
war must be strictly observed by the government.
War can never
be just unless satisfaction is first demanded,
and it is publicly
proclaimed.
Cicero seemed to allow wars for empire, though he
believed
they should be carried on with less animosity.
Injustice
can be by open force and violence or by fraud and
subtlety, the
latter hypocrisy being more odious to Cicero.
Liberality should not be prejudicial nor go beyond our means,
and our kindness should be in proportion to a person's merits.
People's needs ought to be considered
even more than one's relationship
to them.
Because reason, communication, and love unite people
in
communities, we should share things produced for the
common advantage and benefit of all.
After humanity as a whole Cicero
placed
country, city, and family next.
Without naming them he
lamented those like Caesar and
Antony, who had mangled and ruined
their native country.
Cicero defined courage as a Stoic
virtue
fighting for justice and integrity.
Robbing, plundering
or injuring cannot be courageous
because they are unjust.
True
courage secures and protects people from injuries.
Courage and
greatness should disregard outward goods
and be willing to perform
actions that are beneficial
even if they are difficult or dangerous.
Cicero felt we should free ourselves not only of fear
and desire but also sorrow, joy, and anger so that
the mind may be calm and
undisturbed.
Those in positions of public trust should not only
be honest
but qualified to manage their task.
Cicero believed
that wise actions at home can be more
glorious than winning wars
abroad, noting that the political
reforms of Solon lasted, while
the victory of Themistocles
was a one-time event.
War should never
be undertaken with any other aim than
of obtaining an honorable
peace.
Rashness and cruelty must be avoided, and greatness of
spirit
pardons many and only punishes those principally at fault.
In government the safety and interest of the citizens is the
greatest
goal, and the good of the whole
should be considered over the
interests of any party.
With discord and factions few may be left,
who are
concerned for the benefit of the whole.
Cicero praised
clemency and gentleness but noted the need for
just severity when
it is required to keep a city well governed.
He admired and considered
evenness of temper most brave.
The fourth virtue Cicero described as temperance, modesty,
governing passions, and ordering all words and actions
in time
and place, resulting in grace, beauty, and decorum.
The main thing
is never to demean one's nature or bring shame.
One should have
a sufficient reason for every action.
The young should respect
elders, and the older may
counsel the young with their wisdom.
Cicero made it a general rule to be free of passions,
which reject
allegiance to reason.
One may benefit by advice from others, but
one should
diligently observe what a people's real opinions are
and what their reasons are for them.
Cicero found some ways of
getting money discreditable,
such as usury and tax collection,
which bring one hatred and ill will.
In the second book of On Duties Cicero discussed
what
is profitable.
He had personally worked for the preservation of
the republic,
but he found no place for himself and his orations
after one
man (Caesar)
seized the state; so he turned to philosophy.
Cicero believed
that what is honest and just is most profitable.
People need to
learn that ways of trickery and underhanded
dealing are not as
successful as acting justly and with integrity.
Society is only
possible because humans have learned to help
and assist one another;
thus laws and customs arose with
equity and justice to regulate
human conduct.
None of the great men and military leaders could
have
accomplished anything without the support of many others.
Cicero cited a book by the Peripatetic Dicaearchus, which
showed
that much greater ruin had occurred by human
wars and seditions
than by natural disasters,
pestilence, famine, and wild beasts.
Wealth, honor, and power can be attained by kindness,
by respecting
virtue, by trust, by fear of authority,
and by hope of gain; but
it is far better
to be motivated by love than by fear.
Those who
are feared are hated,
and their power cannot last long.
Loving
ways are much more successful and enduring.
Cicero looked back
at the earlier history of Rome's
empire
when actions to protect allies and defend honor were more
merciful than the later period of injustice and violence.
Then Rome did not dominate the
world but protected it.
After cruelty was used against
fellow
citizens in the time of Sulla,
people began to think that nothing
could be unjust to allies.
True glory comes from love of the people,
their trust, and admiration.
These are gained in the usual ways,
but some use
bountiful gifts to win over people.
People will trust
those who are wise and just.
Justice is more important,
because
wisdom without it is suspected.
Even robbers and pirates cannot
be successful
without being just to each other.
How much more
then is it required
by a constitutional republic!
Judges must
find the real truth without bias,
but an advocate may present
an appearance.
Liberality can be given by work or money,
but actual
service is far greater than money,
which is best spent on public
works
such as walls, docks, havens, and aqueducts.
When we make a mistake from rashness or unwillingly,
we must
endeavor to make amends and
repair the damage as best we can.
The responsibility of a governor is to secure every individual's
enjoyment and property and not to impose heavy taxes,
especially
for war.
The conservative Cicero opposed land redistribution and
the
forgiving of debts, believing that society is held together
by the faith that debts will be paid.
He claimed that as consul
he avoided this evil
by resisting those who took up arms to excuse
debtors.
For Cicero there was no real conflict between honesty
and profit,
because honesty is always the greater good.
He considered it scandalous
to prefer pretended advantage
before duty and conscience.
To plunder
and destroy neighbors would be to dissolve society.
Ills that
affect one's body or fortune can never be
greater than those of
the soul.
Thus we should all seek the same end and find our own
interest
in the good of the community as a whole.
We all live
equally under the same law of nature
which makes it wrong to injure
another.
It is our duty to reject what might seem to be profitable
at first
if it is dishonest, because ultimately it is not really
profitable.
Nothing beneficial can be dishonest,
and what is beneficial can never be dishonest.
Just as one should not sell a house without
informing the buyer
of its defects, Cicero also held that a grain
merchant knowing
a shipment is coming should not gain a high price
by not informing buyers of the situation.
Cicero would banish
lying from all business and commerce.
Laws punish frauds after
the action, but philosophy attempts
to prevent them by teaching
wisdom and using reason.
Unjust action can never be beneficial, because to lose one's
integrity is to be changed into a brute.
Cicero reprimanded Euripides for
making an exception
for a kingdom.
Any man who calls this honest ambition is insane;
for to justify subverting laws and liberty is to make what is
the most detestable oppression seem glorious.
Cicero gave examples
to show how
some conflicting duties can be decided.
Even if one
is entrusted with a large sum of money,
one should not give it
back if the person intends to use it
for a rebellion against his
country;
for that would be to act against the public interest.
Not every agreement should be kept if circumstances change.
Everyone
desires their own interest, but to separate profit
from honesty
is to pervert the first principles of nature.
In choosing the
lesser of two evils,
how can any calamity be worse than injustice?
So in a flurry of writing at the end of his life,
Cicero attempted
to enlighten humanity to the benefits
of philosophy and ethics
before he was ruthlessly murdered
by the tyranny of Antony
and Octavian,
which
destroyed the republic he had defended.
1. Plautus: The Comedies Volume III ed. David R. Slavitt
and Palmer Bovie, p. ix.
2. Plautus, The Merchant 819-824 tr. Charles T. Murphy.
3. Plautus, The Prisoners 313-316 tr. E. F. Watling.
4. Ibid., 359-360.
5. Lucretius, The Nature of the Universe, 6:71-80 tr. Ronald
Latham.
6. Catullus 93 tr. Peter Whigham.
7. Ibid., 85.
8. Virgil, Georgic I:500-514 tr. James Rhoades.
9. Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Cicero, p. 148.
10. Ibid., p. 273.
11. Cicero, Brutus 24 tr. Michael Grant.
12. Cicero, On the Commonwealth 4:8 tr. Sabine and Smith,
p. 237.
13. Cicero, Laws 1:14:40 tr. C. W. Keyes.
14. Cicero, On Old Age 17:61 tr. Michael Grant.
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