Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

To write the life of Cicero in all the known details would be to write the history of Rome during the entire period of his manhood. The historian of literature must content himself with a mere sketch. Cicero was born at Arpinum, a small town in the hills of eastern Latium, on the third of January, 106 B. C. The town was also the birthplace of Marius, whose fame no doubt fired the imagination of the young Cicero and helped to rouse his ambition. His father determined to give him the best possible education and sent him to Rome, where he knew the two great orators, M. Antonius and L. Crassus, and also the aged M. Accius and the Greek poet Archias. Since legal knowledge was a necessary part of an orator’s education, he studied with the jurist Q. Scævola (p. 44), and the Augur of the same name. He also paid attention to philosophy, studying with the Epicurean Phædrus, the Academic philosopher Philo, who was a pupil of Clitomachus, and the Stoic Diodotus. His teacher of rhetoric was Molo, of Rhodes, and he also received instruction from the rhetorician M. Antonius Gnipho and the actors Roscius and Æsopus. He acquired a great reputation as an advocate by several speeches, especially by his defense of Quinctius (81 B. C.) and Roscius of Ameria (80 B. C.); but his health failed, and at the same time he wished to perfect his education. He therefore left Rome and spent two years (79-77 B. C.) in Greece and Asia. At Athens he studied under the Academic Antiochus, the Epicurean Zeno, his old teacher Phædrus, and the instructor in oratory, Demetrius. In Asia he became acquainted with the florid Asian style of eloquence, and at Rhodes he studied again under his former teacher Molo, who exerted himself to chasten the exuberance of his style, which had been encouraged by the Asiatic orators. At Rhodes he also became acquainted with the famous Stoic Posidonius.

In 77 B. C. he returned to Rome and continued his career as an orator. It was soon after his return that he married Terentia, a lady of noble birth, with whom he lived for thirty-two years. In 75 B. C. he began his official career as quæstor of Lilybæum in Sicily, an office which he filled with great credit. He was elected ædile in 69 and prætor in 66 B. C. In 63 B. C. he was chosen consul, with Antonius as his colleague, and truthfully claimed that, although he was a novus homo , a man who had no family influence or prestige to aid him, he had obtained each of the important offices of the state at the earliest legally admissible age. In his consulship the conspiracy of Catiline occurred, which Cicero suppressed with relentless vigor, although it was supposed to be favored by some of the most powerful men in Rome, including Crassus and Cæsar. The conspirators were not sentenced to death by regular legal process, but the senate decreed that the consul should defend the safety of the state, and Cicero gave the order for their execution. To this year belong the four speeches against Catiline.

In 60 B. C. the first triumvirate was formed. The triumvirs found the influence of Cicero unfavorable to their plans, and encouraged his enemy, P. Clodius Pulcher, who had been adopted into a plebeian family and been elected tribune of the people, to propose a bill that any one who had put a Roman citizen to death without due process of law be banished. Cicero, finding that he could not defend himself with success, withdrew from Rome, and his banishment was decreed. He remained in exile from April, 58 B. C., until August, 57 B. C., when he was recalled and received with great honors.

In 53 B. C. he was elected to fill the place in the college of augurs made vacant by the death of the younger Crassus. In 51 and 50 B. C. Cicero was again absent from Rome, as proconsul of Cilicia. On his return he found Cæsar and Pompey in open strife. Cicero had never been a party man. He was always a sincere patriot, full of pride in the glorious past of his country, and more than ready to do his duty, and now, when he could not fail to see that both parties were ruled by selfish ambition rather than by disinterested patriotism, it was hard for him to attach himself to either. After some hesitation, he joined the party of Pompey and the senate, and, in 49 B. C., followed Pompey to Epirus, but was not present at the battle of Pharsalus. After Pompey’s defeat he waited at Brundusium until Cæsar allowed him to return to Rome in 47 B. C. Here he lived in retirement, devoting himself to literary pursuits. In 46 B. C. he divorced his wife, Terentia, and married his young ward, Publilia, from whom he parted the following year. The year 45 B. C. was saddened by the death of his only daughter, Tullia. The death of Cæsar, in 44 B. C., recalled Cicero for a short time to public life, but he seems to have left the city in April and to have spent some months at his various villas. In July he decided to visit Athens, where his son was studying, but after he had reached Sicily he heard that he was needed at Rome, gave up his plan, and returned to the capital. Here he took a leading part in the opposition to Antony, against whom he delivered the fourteen orations known as the Philippics . When the triumvirs came to terms with one another, Cicero was included by Antony among those whose death he demanded. After moving first to Tusculum, and then to Formiæ, he went aboard a ship at Caeta, but turned back to land, resolved to die in his native country. On his way between his villa and the sea he was overtaken by a party of Antony’s soldiers and killed, on the seventh of December, 43 B. C. His head and hands were cut off and exposed upon the rostra in the Roman forum.

Cicero’s oratorical and literary activity falls naturally into four chronological divisions: his earlier years, to the beginning of his career as a political orator (81-66 B. C.); the period of his greatest power, lasting until just before his banishment (66-59 B. C.); from his return from banishment until his departure for Cilicia (57-51 B. C.); and from his return from Cilicia until his death (50-43 B. C.).

To the first period belong several speeches delivered in different kinds of lawsuits, the most remarkable of which are the seven orations in the suit against Verres (70 B. C.) for extortion and misgovernment in Sicily. At the earnest request of the Sicilians, Cicero undertook the prosecution. The first speech, the Divinatio in Cæcilium , was delivered to determine whether Cicero or Q. Cæcilius Niger, who had been quæstor under Verres in Sicily, should conduct the prosecution. The first speech in the prosecution itself settled the case. Cicero had prepared all the evidence and summoned the witnesses, and instead of giving the defence an opportunity for delay, brought forward his overwhelming evidence at the beginning, after a mere introduction. Hortensius, Verres’ advocate, gave up the defence after hearing the evidence, and Verres was banished. The five remaining orations, called the Actio Secunda in Verrem , were published by Cicero in order that the facts might be universally known, but were never delivered in court. They show not only that Cicero was at this time a consummate master of eloquence, but also that his diligence in the collection and preparation of his material was remarkable. In addition to his speeches, Cicero wrote in this period several translations from the Greek, which are lost, and also a handbook of oratory, the De Inventione , in two books. This work was written when the author was only twenty years old, and is based upon the treatise addressed to Herennius (p. 45). In it Cicero treats of the various divisions of oratory and their uses. The work is greatly inferior to his later rhetorical writings.

The second period opens with the superb oration For the Manilian Law or De Imperio Gnæi Pompei (66 B. C.), in which Cicero advocates the appointment of Pompey with extraordinary powers to carry on the war against Mithridates. The four brilliant and vehement speeches Against Catiline belong to the year of Cicero’s consulship, 63 B. C. To the same year belongs the witty and able speech For Muræna , in which Cicero defends Muræna against a charge of bribery. The delightful speech For the Poet Archias was delivered in 62 B. C. in support of the poet’s claim to the Roman citizenship. Throughout this period Cicero’s time and energy were so fully occupied with affairs of state and with the suits in which he was engaged as to leave him little leisure for purely literary production. In 60 B. C., however, when the troubles that led to his banishment were thickening about him, he made a metrical version of the astronomical poems of Aratus, portions of which are preserved in his later work On the Nature of the Gods , and wrote a poem in three books On His Consulship , which is lost.