REGLA ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA. 4 ENC 7-51 Cicero. CICERO was a NICERO (Marcus) Tullius, the celebrated Roman orator, was born in the year of Rome 647, about 107 years before Chrift. His father Marcus Tullius, who was of the equeftrian order, took great care of his education, which was directed particularly with a view to the bar. Young Tully, at his first appearance in public, declaimed with fuch vehemence againft Sylla's party, that it became expedient for him to retire into Greece; where he heard the Athenian orators and philofophers, and greatly improved both in eloquence and knowledge. Here he met with T. Pomponius, who had been his fchool-fellow; and who, from his love to Athens, and spending a great part of his days in it, obtained the furname of Atticus; and there they revived and confirmed that noted friendship which fubfifted between them through life with so celebrated a conftancy and affection. From Athens he passed into Afia; and after an excurfion of two years came back again into Italy. Cicero was now arrived at Rome; and, after one year more spent at the bar, obtained, in the next place, the dignity of quæftor. Among the caufes which he pleaded before his queftorfhip, was that of the famous comedian Rofcius, whom a fingular merit in his art had recommended to the familiarity and friendship of the great men in Rome. The queftors were the general receivers or treasurers of the republic, and were sent annually into the provinces diftributed to them, as they always were, by lot. The island of Sicily happened to fall to Cicero's fhare; and that part of it, for it was confiderable enough to be divided into two provinces, which was called Lilybaum. This office he received, not as a gift, but a truft; and he acquitted himself fo well in it, that he gained the love and admiration of all the Sicilians. Before he left Sicily, he made the tour of the island, to fee every thing that was curious, and especially the city of Syracufe; where he discovered the tomb of Archimedes to the magiftrates who were fhowing him the curiofities of the place, but who, to his surprife, knew nothing of any fuch tomb. We have no account of the precife time of Cicero's marriage with Terentia; but it is fuppofed to have been celebrated immediately after his return from his travels to Italy, when he was about 30 years old. He was now difengaged from his queftorship in Sicily, by which first step, in the legal gradation and afcent of public honours, he gained an immediate right to the fenate, and an actual admiffion into it during life; and fettled again in Rome, where he employed himfelf conftantly in defending the perfons and properties VOL. V. Part I. of its citizens, and was indeed a general patron. Five Cicero. years were almost elapfed fince Cicero's election to the queftorfhip, which was the proper interval prescribed by law before he could hold the next office of ædile; to which he was now, in his 37th year, elected by the unanimous fuffrages of all the tribes, and preferably to all his competitors. After Cicero's election to the ædilefhip, but before his entrance upon the office, he undertook the famed profecution of C. Verres, the late prætor of Sicily; who was charged with many flagrant acts of injuftice, rapine, and cruelty, during his triennial government of that ifland. This was one of the most memorable tranfactions of his life; for which he was greatly and juitly celebrated by antiquity, and for which he will, in all ages, be admired and efteemed by the friends of mankind. The refult was, that, by his diligence and address, he fo confounded Hortenfius, though the reigning orator at the bar and ufually ftyled the king of the forum, that he had nothing to fay for his client. Verres, defpairing of all defence, fubmitted immediately, without expecting the sentence, to a voluntary exile; where he lived many years, forgotten and deferted by all his friends. He is faid to have been relieved in this miserable fituation by the generofity of Cicero; yet was profcribed and murdered after all by Mark Antony, for the fake of those fine ftatues and Corinthian veffels of which he had plundered the Sicilians. After the ufual interval of two years from the time of his being chofen ædile, Cicero offered himself a candidate for the prætorship; and in three different affemblies convened for the choice of prætors, two of which were diffolved without effect, he was declared every time the first prætor by the fuffrages of all the centuries. He was now in the career of his fortunes; and in fight, as it were, of the confulfhip, the grand object of his ambition; and therefore, when his prætorfhip was at an end, he would not accept any foreign province, the ufual reward of that magiftracy, and the chief fruit which the generality propofed from it. He had no particular love for money, nor genius for arms; fo that those governments had no charms for him: the glory which he purfued was to fhine in the eyes of the city as the guardian of its laws; and to teach the magiftraces how to execute, the citizens how to obey, them. Being now in his 43d year, the proper age required by law, he declared himself a candidate for the confulfhip; along with fix competitors, L. Sculpicius Galba, L. Sergius Catillina, C. Antonius, L. Caffius Longinus, Q. Cornificius, and C. Licinius Sacerdos. The A 6154 two Cicero. two firft were patricians; the two next plebeians, yet noble; the two laft the fons of fathers who had firft imported the public honours into their families: Cicero was the only new man, as he was called, among them, or one of equeftrian rank. These were the competitors; and in this competition the practice of bribing was carried on as openly and as fhamefully by Antonius and Catiline as it ufually is at our eletions in Britain. However, as the election approached, Cicero's intereft appeared to be fuperior to that of all the candidates: for the nobles themselves, though always envious and defirous to deprefs him, yet out of regard to the dangers which threatened the city from many quarters, and feemed ready to burst out into a flame, began to think him the only man qualified to preferve the republic, and break the cabals of the defperate by the vigour and prudence of his adminiftration. The method of choofing confuls was not by an open vote; but by a kind of ballot, or little tickets of wood diftributed to the citizens, with the names of the feveral candidates infcribed upon each: but in Cicero's cafe the people were not content with this fecret and filent way; but, before they came to any fcrutiny, loudly and univerfally proclaimed Cicero the first conful: fo that, as he himfelf fays, "he was not chofen by the votes of particular citizens, but the common fuffrage of the city; nor declared by the voice of the crier, but of the whole Roman people." Cicero had no fooner entered upon his office than he had occafion to exert himself against P. Servilius Rullus, one of the new tribunes, who had been alarm ing the fenate with the promulgation of an Agrarian law; the purpose of which was to create a decemvirate, or ten commiffioners, with abfolute power for five years over all the revenues of the republic, to diftribute them at pleasure to the citizens, &c. Thefe laws ufed to be greedily received by the populace, and were proposed therefore by factious magiftrates as oft as they had any point to carry with the multitude against the public good; fo that Cicero's firft bufinefs was to quiet the apprehenfions of the city, and to baffle, if poffible, the intrigues of the tribune. Accordingly, in an artful and elegant fpeech from the rotra, he gave fuch a turn to the inclination of the people, that they rejected this law with as much eager nefs as they had ever received one. But the grand affair of all, which conftituted the glory of his conful fhip, and has tranfmitted his name with fuch luftre to pofterity, was the kill he fhowed, and the unwearied pains he took, in fuppreffing that horrid confpiracy which was formed by Cataline and his accomplices for the fubverfion of the commonwealth. For this great fervice he was honoured with the glorious title of pater patria," the father of his country," which he retained for a long time after. fhip, took care to fend a particular account of his Cicero. Cicero's adminiftration was now at an end; but he had no fooner quitted his office, than he began to feel the weight of that envy which is the certain fruit of illuftrious merit. He was now, therefore, the common mark, not only of all the factious, againft whom be had declared perpetual war, but of another party not lefs dangerous, the envious too: whofe united fpleen never left him from this moment till they had driven him out of that city which he had fo lately preferved. Cicero, upon the expiration of hia conful. About this time Cicero bought a houfe of M. Craffus of the Palatine-hill, adjoining to that in which he had always lived with his father, and which he is now fupposed to have given up to his brother Quintius. The houfe coft him near L. 30,000, and leems to have been one of the nobleft in Rome. It was built about 30 years before by the famous tribune M. Livius Dru fus: on which occafion we are told, that when the architect promised to build it for him in fuch a manner that none of his neighbours fhould overlook him; "But if you have any fkill (replied Drufus), contrive it rather fo that all the world may fee what I am doing." The purchase of fo expenlive a house raised fome cenfure on his vanity; and especially as it was made with borrowed money. This circumftance he himself does not diffemble; but fays merrily upon it, that "he was now plunged fo deeply in debt, as to be ready for a plot, only that the conspirators would not trust him." The most remarkable event that happened in this year, which was the 45th of Cicero's life, was the pollution of the mytes of the bona dea by P. Clodius; which, by an unhappy train of confequences, involved Cicero in a great and unexpected calamity. Clodius had an intrigue with Cæfar's wife Pompeia, who, according to annual cuftom, was now celebrating in her house those awful facrifices of the goddefs, to which no male creature ever was admitted, and where every thing mafculine was fo fcrupulously excluded, that even pictures of that fort were covered during the ceremony. It flattered Clodius's imagination greatly to gain access to his mistress in the midft of her holy miniftry; and with this view he dreffed himfelf in a woman's habit, that by the benefit of his fmooth face, and the introduction of one of the maids, he might pafs without difcovery: but by fome mistake between him and his guide, he loft his way when he came within the houfe, and fell in unluckily among the other famale fervants. Here he was detected by his voice, and the fervants alarmed the whole company by their fhrieks, to the great amazement of the matrons, who threw a veil over their facred my fteries, while Clodius found means to escape. The ftory was presently spread abroad, and raised a general fcandal and horror throughout the city. The whole defence which Clodius made when, by order of the fenate, he was brought to a trial, was to prove himself abfent at the time of the fact; for which purpose be produced two men to fwear that he was then at Interamna, about two or three days journey from the city. But Cicero being called upon to give his teftimony, depofed, that Clodius had been with him that very morn ing to be demolished, and his goods fet up to fale. It can- Cicero, not be denied, that in this great calamity he did not behave himself with that firmnefs which might reafonably be expected from one who had borne fo glorious a part in the republic; confcious of his integrity, and fuffering in the caufe of his country: for his letters are generally filled with fuch lamentable expreflions of grief and despair, that his best friends, and even his wife, were forced fometimes to admonish him to rouse his courage, and remember his former character. Atticus was conftantly putting him in mind of it; and sent him word of a report that was brought to Rome by one of Caffius's freed-men, that his affliction had difordered his fenfes. He was now indeed attacked in his weakest part: the only place in which he was vulnerable. To have been as great in affliction as he was in profperity, would have been a perfection not given to man: yet this very weaknefs flowed from a fource which rendered him the more amiable in all the other parts of his life; and the fame tenderness of dis pofition which made him love his friends, his children, and his country, more paffionately than other men, made him feel the lofs of them more fenfibly. When he had been gone a little more than two months, a motion was made in the fenate by one of the tribunes, who was his friend, to recal him, and repeal the laws of Clodius; to which the whole houfe readily agreed. Many obftructions, as may be eafily imagined, were given to it by the Clodian faction; but this made the fenate only more refolute to effect it. They paffed a vote, therefore, that no other bufinefs fhould be done till Cicero's return was carried: which at laft it was; and in fo fplendid and triumphant a manner, that he had reafon, he fays, to fear, left people fhould imagine that he himself had contrived his late flight for the fake of fo glorious a restoration. Cicern. ing at his houfe in Rome. Irritated by this, Clodius Clodius, in the mean time, was obliging the people with feveral new laws, contrived chiefly for their advantage; the defign of all which was only to introduce, with a better grace, the ground-plot of the play, the banishment of Cicero. In fhort, having caused a law to be enacted, importing, that any who had condemned a Roman citizen unheard, fhould himfelf be banished, he foon after impeached Cicero upon it. It was in vain that this great man went up and down the city foliciting his caufe in the habit of a fuppliant, and attended by many of the firft young noblemen whom he had taught the rules of eloquence; thofe powers of fpeaking which had fo often been fuccefful in defending the cause of others, feemed totally to forfake his own: he was banished by the votes of the people 400 miles from Italy; his houses were ordered Cicero, now in his 50th year, was reftored to his former dignity, and foon after to his former fortunes; fatisfaction being made to him for the ruin of his eftates and houses; which laft were built up again by himfelf with more magnificence than before. But he had domeftic grievances about this time, which touched him very nearly; and which, as he fignifies obfcurely to Atticus, were of too delicate a nature to be expreffed in a letter: They arofe chiefly from the petulant humour of his wife, which began to give him frequent occafions of chagrin; and, by a feries of repeated provocations, confirmed in him that fettled difguft which at laft ended in a divorce. In the 56th year of his age, he was made proconful of Cilicia; and his administration there gained him great honour. About this time the expectation of a breach between Cæfar and Pompey engaged the general attention. Craffus had been defroyed with his army fome years before in the war with the Parthians; and Julia the daughter of Cæfar, whom Pompey married, and who, while fhe lived, was the cement of their union, was alfo dead in child-bed. Cæfar had put an end to the Gallic war, and reduced the whole province to the Roman yoke: but though his commiffion was near expiring, he feemed to have no thoughts of giving it up and returning to the condition of a private fubject. He pretended that he could not poffibly be fafe if he parted with his army; especially while Pompey held the province of Spain A 2 prolonged Cicero. prolonged to him for five years. This difpofition to a breach Cicero foon learned from his friends, as he was returning from his province of Cilicia. But as he forefaw the confequences of a war more clearly and fully than any of them, so his first refolution was to apply all his endeavours and authority to the mediation of a peace; though, in the event of a breach, he was determined within himself to follow Pompey. He clearly forefaw, what he declared without fcruple to his friends, that which fide foever got the better, the war muft neceffarily end in a tyranny. The only difference, he said, was, that if their enemies conquered, they would be profcribed; if their friends, they would be flaves. He no fooner arrived at the city, however, than he fell, as he tells us, into the very flame of civil difcord, and found the war in effect proclaimed: for the fenate had just voted a decree, that Cæfar fhould difband his army by a certain day, or be declared an enemy; and Cæfar's fudden march towards Rome effectually confirmed it. In the midst of all this hurry and confufion, Cæfar was extremely folicitous about Cicero; not fo much to gain him, for that was not to be expected, as to prevail with him to ftand neuter. He wrote to him feveral times to that effect; and employed all their common friends to prefs him with letters on that fubject: all which was done; but in vain, for Cicero was impatient to be gone to Pompey. In the mean time, these letters give us a moft senfible proof of the high esteem and credit in which Cicero flourished at this time in Rome; when, in a conteft for empire, which force alone was to decide, we fee the chiefs on both fides fo folicitous to gain a man to their party, who had no peculiar fill in arms or talents for war. Purfuing, however, the refult of all his deliberations, he embarked at length to follow Pompey who had been obliged to quit Italy fome time before, and was then at Dyrrhachium; and arrived fafely in his camp with his fon, his brother, and his nephew, committing the fortunes of the whole family to the iffue of that caufe. After the battle of Pharfalia, in which Pompey was defeated, Cicero returned into Italy, and was afterwards received into great favour by Cæfar, who was now declared dictator the fecond time, and Mark Antony his mafter of horfe. We may easily imagine, what we find indeed from his letters, that he was not a little difcompofed at the thoughts of an interview with Cæfar, and the indignity of offering himself to a conqueror against whom he had been in arms: for though upon many ac counts he had reason to expect a kind reception from Cæfar, yet he hardly thought his life, he fays, worth begging; fince what was given by a mafter might always be taken away again at pleasure. But at their meeting he had no occafion to fay or do any thing that was below his dignity; for Cæfar no fooner faw him than he alighted, ran to embrace him, and walked with him alone, converfing very familiarly for feveral furlongs. Cicero was now in his 61ft year, and forced at laft to part with his wife Terentia; whofe humour and conduct had been long uneafy to him. She was a woman of an imperious and turbulent fpirit: and though he had borne her perverfeness in the vigour of health, and flourishing tate of his fortunes; yet, in a declining life, foured by a continual fucceffion of mor tifications from abroad, the want of eafe and quiet at home was no longer tolerable to him. But he was immediately oppreffed by a new and most cruel affiction, the death of his beloved daughter Tullia, who died in child-bed foon after her divorce from her third hufband Dolabella. She was about 32 years old at the time of her death; and, by the few hints which are left of her character, appears to have been an excellent and admirable woman. She was most affectionately and pioufly obfervant of her father; and, to the ufual graces of her fex, having added the more folid accomplishments of knowledge and polite letters, was qualified to be the companion and delight of his age; and was juftly esteemed not only as one of the beft, but the most learned, of the Roman ladies. His affliction for the death of this daughter was fo great, that, to fhun all company as much as he could, he removed to Atticus's house, where he lived chiefly in his library, turning over every book he could meet with on the subject of moderating grief. But finding his refidence here too public, and a greater refort to him than he could bear, he retired to Afturia, one of his feats near Antium; a little ifland on the Latian fhore, at the mouth of a river of the fame name, covered with woods and groves cut into fhady walks; a fcene of all others the fittest to indulge melancholy, and where he could give a free course to his grief. "Here (fays he to Atticus) I live without the speech of man: every morning early I hide myself in the thickelt of the wood, and never come out till the evening. Next to yourself, nothing is fo dear to me as this folitude; and my whole converfation is with my books." Indeed his whole time was employed in little else than reading and writing during Cæfar's adminiftration, which he could never cheerfully fubmit to; and it was within this period that he drew up one of the gravest of thofe philofophical pieces which are ftill extant in his works. Upon the death of Cæfar, Octavius his nephew and heir coming into Italy, was prefented to Cicero by Hirtius and Panfa, with the ftrongest profeffions on the part of the youg man that he would be governed entirely by his direction, Indeed Cicero thought it neceffary to cherish and encourage Octavius, if for nothing elfe, yet to keep him at a distance from Antony; but could not yet be perfuaded to enter heartily into his affairs. He fufpected his youth and want of experience; and that he had not ftrength enough to deal with Antony; and, above all, that he had no good dif pofition towards the confpirators. He thought it impoffible he should ever be a friend to them; and was perfuaded rather, that if ever he got the upper hand, his uncle's acts would be more violently enforced, and his death more cruelly revenged, than by Antony him felf. And when Cicero did confent at latt to unite himself to Octavius's interests, it was with no other view but to arm him with a power fufficient to opprefs Antony; yet fo checked and limited, that he should not be able to opprefs the republic. In the hurry of all these politics, he was ftill profe cuting his ftudies with his ufual application; and, befides fome philofophical pieces, now finished his book of offices, or the duties of man, for the ufe of his fon : A work admired by all fucceeding ages as the most perfect fyftem of Heathen morality, and the nobleft effort and Cicero. : Cicero. and fpecimen of what reafon could do in guiding man through life with innocence and happiness. How ever, he paid a conftant attention to public affairs; miffed no opportunities, but did every thing that human prudence could do for the recovery of the republic for all that vigour with which it was making this laft effort for itself, was entirely owing to his counfels and authority. This appears from thofe memorable Philippics which from time to time he published against Antony, as well as from other monuments of antiquity. But all was in vain: for though Antony's army was entirely defeated at the fiege of Modena, which made many people imagine that the war was at an end, and the liberty of Rome established; yet the death of the confuls Panfa and Hirtius, in that action gave the fatal blow to all Cicero's fchemes, and was the immediate cause of the ruin of the republic. Octavius having fubdued the fenate to his mind, marched towards Gaul to meet Antony and Lepidus; who had already paffed the Alps, and brought their armies into Italy, in order to have a perfonal interview with him; which had been privately concerted for fettling the terms of a triple league, and dividing the power and provinces of Italy among themselves. The place appointed for this interview was a small ifland about two miles from Bononia, formed by the river Rhenus, which runs near that city. Here they met, and spent three days in a clofe conference to adjust the plan of their accommodation : and the laft thing they adjufted was the lift of a profcription which they were determined to make of their enemies. This, as the writers tell us, occafioned much difficulty and warm contefts among them; till each in his turn confented to facrifice fome of his best friends to the revenge and refentment of his colleagues. Cicero was at his Tufculan villa, when he first received the news of the profcription, and of his being included in it. It was the defign of the triumvirate to keep it a fecret, if poffible, to the moment of execution; in order to furprife thofe whom they had defined to deftruction, before they were aware of their danger, or had time to make their efcape. But fome of Cicero's friends found means to give him early notice of it; upon which he fet forward to the fea-fide, with a defign to transport himself out of the reach of his enemies. There, finding a veffel ready, he prefently embarked; but the winds being adverfe, and the fea uneafy to him, after he had failed about two leagues along the coaft, he was obliged to land, and spend the night on fhore. From thence he was forced, by the importunity of his fervants, on board again; but was foon afterwards obliged to land at a country feat of his a mile from the hore, weary of life, and declaring he was refolved to die in that country which he had fo often faved. Here he flept foundly for fome time, till his fervants once more forced him away in a litter towards the fhip, having heard that he was purfued by Antony's affaffins. They were fcarce departed when the affaffins arrived at his houfe; and, perceiving him to be fled, purfued him immediately towards the fea, and overtook him in a wood that was near the fhore. Their leader was one Popilius Lenas, a tribune of the army, whofe life Cicero had formerly defended and faved. As foon as the foldiers appeared, the fervants prepared to defend their master's lite at the hazard of their own; but Cicero commanded them to fet him. down and make no refiftance. They foon cut off his head and his hands, returning with them to Rome as the molt agreeable prefent to their cruel employer. Antony, who was then at Rome, received them with extreme joy, rewarding the murderer with a large fum of money, and ordering the head to be fixed upon the roftra between the two hands: a fad fpectacle to the city; and what drew tears from every eye, to fee thofe mangled members which used to exert themselves fo glorioufly from that place in defence of the lives, the fortunes, and the liberties of the Roman people, fo lamentably expofed to the fcorn of fycophants and traitors. The deaths of the reft, fays an hiftorian of that age, caufed only a private and particular for- row; but Cicero's an univerfal one. It was a triumph over the republic itfelf; and feemed to confirm and eltablish the perpetual flavery of Rome. ii. Cicero. A modern writer *, however, is of opinion, that Swinburne "pofterity has been too much feduced by the name of Travels in Cicero, and that better citizens were facrificed to the Sicily, vol.. jealoufy of the triumvirs without exciting fo much in. ". p. 502. dignation. If we take an impartial furvey of Cicero's conduct and principles, avowed in his own epiftolary correfpondence, and trace him through all the labyrinths of his contradictory letters, we shall find more to blame than to admire; and discover, that the defire of advancing his fortunes, and making himself a name, were, from his outfet in life, the only objects he had in view. The good of his country, and the dictates of stern steady virtue, were not, as in Brutus and Cato,. the conftant fprings of his actions. The misfortunes that befel him after his confulfhip, developed his character, and fhowed him in his true colours: from that time to his death, pufillanimity, irrefolution, and unworthy repining, tainted his judgment, and perplexed every ftep he wifhed to take. He flattered Pompey and cringed to Cæfar, while in his private letters he abufed them both alternately. He acknowledges in a> letter to his friend, the time ferving Atticus, that, although he was at prefent determined to fupport the caufe of Rome and liberty, and to bear misfortune like a philofopher, there was one thing which would gain him over to the triumvirs, and that was their procuring for him the vacant augurfhip; fo pitiful was the bribe to which he would have facrificed his honour,. his opinion, and the commonwealth. By his wavering imprudent conduct, he contributed greatly towardsits deftruction. After reproaching the confpirators for leaving him out of the fecret, and loading them with the moft flattering compliments on their delivering. Rome from Cæfar's tyranny, he calls Cafca an afafin, to pay his court to the boy Octavius, by whom he was completely duped. His praifes of this triumvir are in the higheft ftrain of panegyric. Mark Antony well knew, that the virulent abufe which Cicero was continually pouring out against him, was not an effufion of patriotic zeal or virtuous indignation, but merely the ebullitions of perfonal hatred. He therefore caufed Cicero to be killed, as an angry man that has been ftung ftamps on a venomous animal that comes within reach of his foot. The cloak he threw over the body. of Brutus, and the fpeech he pronounced at the fight of that hero when dead, differ widely from the treatment he gave the remains of Cicero ; and show, that he made |