The Project Gutenberg eBook of Plutarch's Lives, Translated from the Greek by Aubrey Stewart and George Long.

[162] Cicero was Curule Ædile in B.C. 69, with M. Cæsonius for his colleague.

[163] This is evidently a mistake in Plutarch’s text. Arpinum is meant.

[164] This is what Cicero calls his Pompeianum. Middleton, in his Life of Cicero, has mentioned all Cicero’s country residences in Italy, which were very numerous.

[165] See the Life of Cato, c. 19. The time of Cicero’s marriage is uncertain. Drumann conjectures that he married her about B.C. 80 or 79, before his journey to Asia.

[166] Cicero was Prætor in the year B.C. 66, and it fell to his lot to preside at the trials for Repetundæ. This Macer was C. Licinius Macer. After he had been prætor he had a province, and during his administration he was guilty of illegal practices, for which he was tried and convicted (Cic. Ad Attic. i. 4). Crassus, who also belonged to the Licinia Gens, felt some sympathy for a man whose crime was getting money by unlawful means. Macer was an orator and a writer. A few fragments of his Annals (Krause, Vitæ et Fragm. Vet. Histor. Rom.) are preserved.

[167] P. Vatinius was afterwards consul B.C. 47. There is extant a speech of Cicero against him, in which of course he has a very bad character given to him. Kaltwasser says that a thick neck was considered by the Romans as a sign of a shameless man, and he refers to the Life of Marius, c. 29, where a like expression is used. Cicero’s neck, according to his own account, was very thin, and he thought it no good sign of his strength. However this may be as to the thickness of the neck of Vatinius, it was clearly not a thing that he could alter.

[168] C. Manilius, a Tribunus Plebis, had in this same year proposed and carried the law which gave Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war, and Cicero had supported the measure in a speech which is extant (Life of Pompeius, c. 30). This story of the accusation and defence of Manilius is unintelligible. C. Orchinius presided at the trials for peculatus, and Manilius should have been brought before him (Cic. Pro Cluentio, c. 53). See Dion Cassius, 36. c. 27; and Drumann’s remarks, Tullii, p. 375.

[169] Cicero wes consul in B.C. 63 with C. Antonius. As to the affair of Catiline, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes; and Drumann, Tullii, p. 385, &c.

[170] See the Life of Sulla, c. 32.

[171] Sallust (Bell. Catilin. c. 22) tells a story somewhat to the same effect, of the conspirators drinking of human blood, but he does not believe the story, and perhaps few people will.

[172] The measure to which Plutarch alludes was the Agrarian Law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus. Cicero made three speeches against the proposal, which are extant, and he defeated the scheme.

[173] C. Antonius went as governor to Macedonia in B.C. 62, where he took the opportunity of getting all the money that he could. He gave it out that Cicero was to have a share of it. The evidence of such an unprincipled man is not worth much; but one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus (i. 12), which he never expected would be read by anybody else, shows that he knew there was such a rumour; and the manner in which he treats it is perfectly incomprehensible. A certain Hilarus, a freedman of Cicero, was then with Antonius in Macedonia, as Cicero was informed, and Cicero was also informed that Antonius declared that Cicero was to have some of the money that he was getting, and that Hilarus had been sent by Cicero to look after his share. Cicero was a good deal troubled, as he says, though he did not believe the report; yet, he adds, there was certainly some talk. Cn. Plancius was named to Cicero as the authority for the report. Atticus is requested to examine into the matter, and—not to apply to Antonius or to Plancius—but to get the rascal (Hilarus) out of those parts, if in any way he can. This is a mode of proceeding that is quite inconsistent with perfect innocence on the part of Cicero. There was something between him and Antonius. Cicero says that if Antonius should be recalled, as was expected, he could not for his character’s sake defend the man; and what is more, he says, he felt no inclination; and then he proceeds to tell Atticus about this awkward report. Yet Cicero did defend Antonius (B.C. 59) and Antonius was convicted.

[174] It appears from Cicero’s oration for Murena, c. 19, that his name was Lucius Roscius Otho, and he was not Prætor, but Tribunus Plebis. This Lex Roscia was enacted B.C. 67, in the consulship of M. Acilius Glabrio and C. Calpurnius Piso (Don Cassius, 36. c. 25). His law gave to the equites and those who had the equestrian census a select place of fourteen rows at the public spectacles, which were next to the seats of the senators. This unpopular measure was that which Cicero now spoke in favour of (Ad. Attic. ii. 1). Cicero’s oration is lost, but a passage is preserved, says Kaltwasser, by Macrobius (Saturnalia ii. 10). Some also suppose, as Kaltwasser says, that Virgil alludes to it in the passage in the Aeneid (i. 152). There is no extract from this oration in Macrobius, who appears to suppose that Cicero made an oration to rebuke the people for making a disturbance while Roscius, the player, was acting.

[175] As to the conspiracy, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes.

[176] His name was C. Manlius Acidinus. There is no reason for saying that his true name was Mallius: that was merely a Greek form of Manlius. He fell in the battle in which Catiline’s troops were defeated.

[177] Cicero has recorded this answer of Catiline in his oration for Murena, c. 25: “duo corpora esse in republica, unum debile, infirmo capite, alterum firmum, sine capite: huic, cum ita de se meritum esset, caput se vivo non defuturum.” Cicero makes Catiline say that the weak body had a weak head. Cicero’s version of what he said is obviously the true one.

[178] Decimus Junius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena were consuls for the year B.C. 62. As to the trial of Murena for bribery at the elections (ambitus), see the Life of Cato, c. 21.

[179] This affair is not mentioned by Sallustius in his history of the conspiracy of Catiline. The usual form in which the Senate gave this extraordinary power is mentioned by Sallustius (c. 29): “dent operam consules nequid Res Publica detrimenti capiat.”

[180] The assassins, according to Sallustius, were C. Cornelius and L. Vargunteius. See the note of Drumann, Tullii, p. 457: “Plutarch hunted in his authorities only after anecdotes and traits of character in order to paint his heroes: the names of the subordinate persons were indifferent to him; with such frivolous and one-sided views he could not fail to confound persons.” “Frivolous,” is perhaps hardly the translation of Drumann’s “leichtsinnig,” but it comes pretty near to it. And yet the fact of the design to assassinate is the main feature in the history: the actors in the intended assassination are subordinate to the design. A painstaking compiler is entitled to grumble at such a blunder, but Plutarch does not merit reproach in these terms.

[181] She was a mistress or something of the kind of one Q. Curius. Whether Curius sent her to Cicero or she went of her own accord is doubtful. Perhaps she expected to get something for her information. Sallustius, c. 23. 28, speaks of this affair; and Cicero, Catilin. i. c. 9.

[182] Plutarch, as Kaltwasser observes, appears to refer to the words of Cicero (Catilin. i. c. 5): “magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit.” Catiline left Rome on the night of the 8th of November.

[183] L. Cornelius Lentulus Sura was consul B.C. 71. He had been put out of the Senate by the censors for his irregular life. His restoration to his rank and the matter of the prætorship are mentioned by Dion Cassius (37, c. 30, and the note of Reimarus). The meaning of the story about the ball is obvious enough; but Lentulus was not the first who had the name Sura, and Plutarch’s story is so far untrue. See Drumann’s note on the name Sura, Cornelii, p. 530.

[184] See the Lives of Marius and Sulla.

[185] It was a period of festivity, and considered suitable for the purpose of the conspirators. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 34, notes.

[186] The narrative of Sallustius, as to the proposed burning of the city, is somewhat different (Bell. Catil. c. 43).

[187] The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of Gallia, on the Rhone. They belonged to the division of Gallia which under Augustus was called Gallia Narbonensis. Their chief town was Vienna, now Vienne. According to Cæsar’s description (Bell. Gall. i. 6.) the Rhodanus in the upper part of its course separated the Helvetii from the Allobroges. The remotest town of the Allobroges, on the side of the Helvetii, was Geneva. Cæsar describes the Allobroges as recently (B.C. 58) brought to friendly terms with the Romans.

[188] This Titus of Croton is named Titus Volturcius by Sallustius.

[189] The Senate met on the third of December of the unreformed calendar in the temple of Concord, on the Capitoline Hill.

[190] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 9, and the notes.

[191] Compare Dion Cassius, 37, c. 35. Fabia, the sister of Terentia, was one of the Vestals, and Drumann supposes that this fact confirms his supposition that Cicero had arranged all this affair with his wife, in order to work on the popular opinion. Middleton made the same supposition a long time ago. It requires no great penetration to make such a conjecture; but it may not be true.

[192] It is said that this does not appear in any of Cicero’s extant writings.

[193] The Senate assembled on the fourth of December in the temple of Concord; and again on the fifth to pass judgment on the conspirators. As to the speeches delivered on the occasion, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes. The whole matter of the conspiracy is treated with great minuteness and tedious prolixity by Drumann (Tullii, under the year B.C. 63).

[194] I believe that I have translated this correctly. I suppose that Plutarch means to say, that if Cæsar had been accused as a member of the conspiracy, he would have been acquitted, and the conspirators would have had a chance of escaping also. There was no chance of securing the condemnation of the conspirators and involving Cæsar in their fate. On the contrary, if Cæsar was accused, all might escape. It was better, therefore, not to touch him. Kaltwasser has made the passage unintelligible. The explanation of Coraës, as corrected by Schäfer, is right.

[195] Sallustius (Bell. Cat. c. 51, &c.) states Cæsar’s proposal to have been the confiscation of the property of the conspirators and their perpetual confinement in the chief municipia of Italy, and that the Senate should make a declaration that any man who proposed to set them at liberty, or to mitigate their punishment, should be considered an enemy of the State. Cicero (In Catilin. iv. 5) states the opinion of Cæsar to the same effect. Cæsar had urged the illegality of condemning Roman citizens to death without a trial, and this was provided by a Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus. But Cicero replies that Cææar’s measure was as severe.

[196] The speech which he delivered on the occasion is the fourth oration against Catiline. Some critics maintain that it is not genuine. Drumann, who maintains that it is, has a long note on the subject (Tullii, p. 512).

[197] Plutarch likens the feelings of the youth at the sight of the prisoners being led to execution to the solemn ceremonies of initiation in some mysterious rites. The conspirators were taken to the only prison that Rome then had, the Tullianum, where they were strangled. Five men were put to death. Nine had been condemned to death, but four had escaped being seized. Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 6) seems to say that Cicero saw the men put to death. If he did not see the execution, we may safely assume that he took care to see that the men really were dead. Their bodies were delivered to their kinsfolk for interment.

[198] Antonius did not command in the battle. He was ill, or pretended to be ill. His legatus, Petreius, an able officer, commanded the troops. The battle was fought early in B.C. 62, probably near Pistoria (Pistoia) in Etruria. It was a bloody struggle, hand to hand, and the loss on the victorious side was great. Dion says that Antonius sent the head of Catilina to Rome. According to Roman usage, he was entitled to the honour of the victory, because Petreius was his inferior officer.

[199] Metellus Nepos and the other tribunes began to exercise their functions on the tenth of December. The consuls began to exercise their functions on the first of January. The oath that Cicero had to swear was, that he had obeyed the laws. He alludes to the oath that he did swear on the last day of December on giving up his office, in a letter to Q. Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos (Ad Diversos, v. 2), and in his oration against Piso, c. 3. Manutius (Comment. in Cic. Ep. Ad Divers. v. 2) shows that Bestia was a tribune during Cicero’s consulship, and as he had gone out of office on the ninth of December he could not have acted with Metellus on the thirty-first of December.

As to Metellus Nepos, see the Life of Cato, c. 20.

[200] It is said that this does not occur in the extant letters of Cicero.

[201] In the beginning of his treatise De Officiis, which is addressed to his son, then at Athens (B.C. 44), Cicero speaks of the youth having then been a year under the instruction of Kratippus. Kratippus was a native of Mitylene, and he was living there when Pompeius touched at the island after the battle of Pharsalia (Life of Pompeius, c. 75). Cicero’s son was attached to his master, and in an extant letter to Tiro (Cic. Ad Diversos, xvii. 21) he expresses his affection for him. Kratippus was more than a philosopher: he was a pleasant companion, and perhaps young Cicero liked his table-talk as much as his philosophy.

[202] He is mentioned by Cicero in his Letters to Atticus (xiv. 16, 18, and xv. 16).

[203] Cicero, in the letter to Tiro (xvi. 21) above referred to, says that Gorgias was useful to him in his declamatory exercises, but he had dismissed him in obedience to his father’s positive command.

[204] It does not appear which of the Munatii this was.

[205] Crassus could not well misunderstand the Stoical doctrine, but he appears to have purposely expressed himself as if the Stoics considered “rich” and “good” as convertible terms. Cicero’s repartee implies that “good” is the more comprehensive term: Crassus therefore was not “good,” because he was “rich.”

[206] This is a frigid joke. Axius in Greek (ἄξιος) signifies “worthy;” and Cicero’s words literally translated are, he is “worthy of Crassus,” if we take Axius as a Greek word. They can also mean, he is “Axius son of Crassus.” The wit lay in associating the name of Axius and Crassus; but the joke is only made duller by the explanation.

A Roman Senator named Axius is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. iii. 15, and elsewhere).

[207] See the Life of Crassus, c. 16.

[208] L. Gellius Publicola was consul with Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, B.C. 72.

[209] It is uncertain who this man was. The allusion to the hole in his ear signifies that his ears were bored to carry pendants or earrings after the fashion of some nations at that time. Cicero meant to imply that he was not of genuine Italian stock. Juvenal alludes to a man’s foreign origin being shown by his ears being bored, in the following terms:—

“——quamvis

Natus ad Euphratem, molles quod in aure fenestræ

Arguerint, licet ipse neges.”

Sat. i. 103, and the note of Heinrichs.

[210] Publius Sextius or Sestius was the name of a tribunus plebis who exerted himself to accomplish the recall of Cicero. There is extant an oration of Cicero entitled Pro P. Sestio, in defence of Publius, who was tried in the year after Cicero’s return on a charge of raising a tumult (de vi) at the popular meeting in which Cicero’s recall was proposed. Cicero speaks of the acquittal of Publius in a letter to his brother Quintus (ii. 4).

[211] This obscure man’s name is also incorrectly written.

[212] See the Life of Cato, c. 29.

[213] Kaltwasser conjectures that the name should be Manius Aquilius, who acted as Proconsul in the Servile war in Sicily B.C. 100. In B.C. 88 he conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia. He fell into the hands of Mithridates, who put him to death.

But this cannot be the person meant by Plutarch, who evidently means a person who may be called a contemporary of Cicero. A certain M. Aquinius is mentioned in the Book on the African War (De Bell. Afric. 57).

[214] Adrastus, king of Argos, gave his two daughters in marriage to Tydeus and Polynices, both of whom were exiles from their native country.

[215] L. Aurelius Cotta was consul B.C. 65, and censor B.C. 64, the year in which Cicero was elected consul. In his prætorship, B.C. 70, he proposed the Lex Aurelia, which determined that the judices for public trials should be chosen from the Senators, Equites and Tribuni Ærarii. Notwithstanding this joke, Cotta was a friend of Cicero, and Cicero often speaks in high terms of praise of him.

[216] It is uncertain who this Voconius was. The verse, which is apparently from some Greek tragedian, is conjectured to allude to Laius, who begat Œdipus contrary to the advice of the oracle of Apollo.

[217] Cicero means that he had acted as a public crier (præco). Such persons were often of servile descent.

[218] See the life of Sulla, c. 34. The Roman word “Proscriptio” means putting up a public notice, as a sale and the like. The term was also applied to the public notices, now commonly called proscriptions, by which Sulla and the Triumviri declared the heads of their enemies and their property to be forfeited. (See the Life of Sulla, c. 31, and the notes.) This saying of Cicero had both truth and point.

[219] This story of the intrigue of Clodius is told in the Life of Cæsar, c. 9.

[220] There is something wanting in the Greek text; but the meaning is not obscure. See the note of Sintenis.

[221] Of course on the day on which Clodius pretended that he was not at Rome. Kaltwasser has inserted the words “on that day;” but they are not in the original.

[222] So it is in the MSS., though it should probably be Tertia. A confusion may easily have arisen between the name Terentia, which has already been mentioned in this chapter, and the name Tertia (third), though the wife of Q. Marcius Rex is said to have been the oldest of the three sisters. Quadranteria is a misprint for Quadrantaria. This lady was the wife of Q. Metellus Celer, and was suspected of poisoning him. Cicero vents unbounded abuse upon her; and he also preserved the name Quadrantaria (Or. Pro Cælio, c. 26). The Roman word Quadrans, a fourth, signified a fourth part of a Roman as, and was a small copper coin. The way in which one of her lovers is reported to have paid her in copper coin seems to have circulated in Rome as a good practical joke.

[223] See the Life of Cæsar, c. 10, and the notes.

[224] The number twenty-five agrees with the common text in Cicero’s Letter to Atticus (i. 16): the other number in the common text of Cicero is thirty-one. See the note in the Variorum edition.

[225] Clodius was tribunus plebis in B.C. 58. The consuls of the year were L. Calpurnius Piso, the father of Calpurnia, Cæsar’s wife, and Aulus Gabinius, a tool of Pompeius.

[226] Dion Cassius (38, c. 15) says that Cæsar proposed to Cicero to go to Gaul with him; and Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (i. 19), speaks of Cæsar’s proposal to him to go as his legatus. It is difficult to imagine that Cæsar made such a proposal, or at least that he seriously intended to take Cicero with him. He would have been merely an incumbrance.

[227] Read “as in a public calamity.” Cicero speaks of this affair in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 35; in the latter part of which oration he speaks at some length of the circumstances that attended his going into exile.

[228] This was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, the first husband of Tullia. She was his wife at least as early as B.C. 63, and she was his widow before the end of B.C. 57.

[229] Cicero, in the oration which he subsequently spoke against this Piso, gives (c. 6) a strange account of his reception by Piso.

Cato and Hortensius advised Cicero to go (Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17).

[230] Compare Cicero De Legibus, ii. 17, ed. Bakius; and Ad Attic. vii. 3. Cicero left Rome in the month of March, B.C. 58.

[231] Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (iii. 4) says that he was required to move four hundred Roman miles from the city. Compare Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17.

[232] Cicero received the news of his sentence when he was near Vibo, a town in the country of the Brutii, now Bivona, on the gulf of Sta. Eufemia. He had written to Atticus (iii. 3) to meet him at Vibo, but his next letter informed Atticus that he had set out to Brundusium. Cicero names the person, Sica, who had shown him hospitality near Vibo. Plutarch calls him Οὐίβιος Σικελὸς ἀνήρ, as if he had mistaken the name Sica.

[233] Cicero mentions this circumstance in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 40 (ed. Wunder, and the Notes). He was well received by the municipia which lay between Vibo and Brundusium. He did not enter the city of Brundusium, but lodged in the gardens of M. Lænus Flaccus.

[234] Cicero did not remain at Dyrrachium. His movements are described in his own letters, and in his oration for Cn. Plancius. He went to Thessalonica in Macedonia, where Plancius then was in the capacity of quæstor to L. Apuleius, Prætor of Macedonia. He reached Thessalonica on the 23rd of May (x. Kal. Jun.), and there is a letter extant addressed to Atticus (ii. 8), which is dated from Thessalonica on the 29th of May (Dat. iiii. Kal. Jun. Thessalonicae).

[235] His unmanly lamentations are recorded in his own letters and in his own speech for Cn. Plancius, c. 42.

[236] Cicero was not a practical philosopher. Like most persons who have been much engaged in public life, he lived in the opinion of others. He did not follow the maxim of the Emperor Antoninus, who bids us “Look within; for within is the source of good, and it sends up a continuous stream to those who will always dig there” (vii. 59). Cicero did not reverence his own soul, but he placed his happiness “in the opinion of others” (i. 6). Perhaps however he was not weaker than most active politicians, whose letters would be as dolorous and lachrymose as his, if they were banished to a distant colony.

[237] This is not obscure, if it is properly considered, and it contains a serious truth. A man must view things as they are, and he must not take his notions of them from the affects of the many. “Things touch not the soul, but they are out of it, and passive; perturbations come only from the opinion that is within a man” (M. Antoninus, iv. 3).

The philosophic emperor and the unphilosophic statesman were very different persons. The emperor both preached and practised. The statesman showed his feebleness by his arrogance in prosperity and his abjectness in adversity.

[238] These proceedings are described by Cicero in his oration (Pro Domo, c. 24). The marble columns were removed from his house on the Palatine to the premises of the father-in-law of the consul Piso, in the presence of the people. Gabinius, the other consul, who was Cicero’s neighbour at Tusculum, removed to his own land the stock that was on Cicero’s estate and the ornaments of the house, and even the trees.

[239] In B.C. 57, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos were consuls. Cicero alludes to the disturbance which preceded his recall in his oration for P. Sextius, c. 35: “Caedem in foro maximam faciunt, universique destrictis gladiis et cruentis in omnibus fori partibus fratrem meum, virum optimum, fortissimum, meique amantissimum oculis quaerebant, voce poscebant.” Cicero adds that his brother being driven from the Rostra lay down in the Comitium, and protected himself “with the bodies of slaves and freedmen;” by which Cicero seems to mean that his slaves and freedmen kept watch over him till he made his escape at night. Plutarch appears to have misunderstood the passage or to have had some other authority. In this dreadful tumult “the Tiber was filled with the dead bodies of the citizens, the drains were choaked, and the blood was wiped up from the Forum with sponges.” This looks somewhat like rhetorical embellishment.

[240] Cicero in a letter to Atticus (iv. 2) gives an account of the compensation which he received. The valuation of his house at Rome (superficies aedium) was fixed at HS. vicies, or two million sesterces. He seems not to have objected to this, but he complains of the valuation of his Tusculanum and Formianum.

[241] In the seventeenth month according to Clinton (Fasti Hellen. B.C. 57). The passage that Plutarch refers to is in the Oration to the Senate after his return (c, 15): “Cum me vestra auctoritas arcessierit, Populus Romanus revocarit, Respublica implorarit, Italia cuncta paene suis humeris reportarit.”

[242] See the Life of Cato, c. 40, and Dion Cassius, 39, c. 21.