The Life of Cicero, vol 1 | Page 2

who can find time for reading yet another added to the constantly increasing volumes about Roman times.
It has been the habit of some latter writers, who have left to Cicero his literary honors, to rob him of those which had been accorded to him as a politician. Macaulay, expressing his surprise at the fecundity of Cicero, and then passing on to the praise of the Philippics as senatorial speeches, says of him that he seems to have been at the head of the "minds of the second order." We cannot judge of the classification without knowing how many of the great men of the world are to be included in the first rank. But Macaulay probably intended to express an opinion that Cicero was inferior because he himself had never dominated others as Marius had done, and Sylla, and Pompey, and Caesar, and Augustus. But what if Cicero was ambitious for the good of others, while these men had desired power only for themselves?
Dean Merivale says that Cicero was "discreet and decorous," as with a similar sneer another clergyman, Sydney Smith, ridiculed a Tory prime-minister because he was true to his wife. There is nothing so open to the bitterness of a little joke as those humble virtues by which no glitter can be gained, but only the happiness of many preserved. And the Dean declares that Cicero himself was not, except once or twice, and for a "moment only, a real power in the State." Men who usurped authority, such as those I have named, were the "real powers," and it was in opposition to such usurpation that Cicero was always urgent. Mr. Forsyth, who, as I have said, strives to be impartial, tells us that "the chief fault of Cicero's moral character was a want of sincerity." Absence of sincerity there was not. Deficiency of sincerity there was. Who among men has been free from such blame since history and the lives of men were first written? It will be my object to show that though less than godlike in that gift, by comparison with other men around him he was sincere, as he was also self-denying; which, if the two virtues be well examined, will indicate the same phase of character.
But of all modern writers Mr. Froude has been the hardest to Cicero. His sketch of the life of Caesar is one prolonged censure on that of Cicero. Our historian, with all that glory of language for which he is so remarkable, has covered the poor orator with obloquy. There is no period in Cicero's life so touching, I think, as that during which he was hesitating whether, in the service of the Republic, it did or did not behoove him to join Pompey before the battle of Pharsalia. At this time he wrote to his friend Atticus various letters full of agonizing doubts as to what was demanded from him by his duty to his country, by his friendship for Pompey, by loyalty to his party, and by his own dignity. As to a passage in one of those, Mr. Froude says "that Cicero had lately spoken of Caesar's continuance in life as a disgrace to the State." "It has been seen also that he had long thought of assassination as the readiest means of ending it,"[1] says Mr. Froude. The "It has been seen" refers to a statement made a few pages earlier, in which he translates certain words written by Cicero to Atticus."[2] "He considered it a disgrace to them that Caesar was alive." That is his translation; and in his indignation he puts other words, as it were, into the mouth of his literary brother of two thousand years before. "Why did not somebody kill him ?" The Latin words themselves are added in a note, "Cum vivere ipsum turpe sit nobis."[3] Hot indignation has so carried the translator away that he has missed the very sense of Cicero's language." When even to draw the breath of life at such a time is a disgrace to us!" That is what Cicero meant. Mr. Froude in a preceding passage gives us another passage from a letter to Atticus,[4] "Caesar was mortal."[5] So much is an intended translation. Then Mr. Froude tells us how Cicero had "hailed Caesar's eventual murder with rapture;" and goes on to say, "We read the words with sorrow and yet with pity." But Cicero had never dreamed of Caesar's murder. The words of the passage are as follows: "Hunc primum mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam." "I bethought myself in the first place that this man was mortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side." All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the "hunc" or "this