James Leigh Strachan-Davidson

“ It was the part of a wise citizen not to leave to some pestilent demagogue the credit of a measure, which was not so very dangerous in itself, and which was too popular to be resisted."
But if Cicero were dubious or neutral in respect of this portion of the programme of the opposition, it was far otherwise when he dealt with the reform of the jury-courts. Here he was heart and soul with the order from whose ranks he had sprung. He felt that it was a mere mockery of responsibility to bring corrupt governors before a bench of their peers, who were too often their accomplices. ”

“ Though Atticus was staggered by Pompey's desertion of Italy, and though at first he counselled neutrality with a view to mediation of peace, yet when that hope failed it was with his full concurrence that Cicero betook himself to Pompey's camp. Immediately after the assassination of Cæsar, Atticus could see, though both Cicero and Brutus were blind to it, that, whether 44 B.C.or no Cæsar's acts were to be confirmed, it was ruinous policy to allow a public funeral to his body, and that passions would thus be excited which would be fatal to the general amnesty. ”

“ They are just those which the practical necessities of pleading have prescribed to modern lawyers. The advocate speaks as the representative of his client; it is not his business to weigh the case as a judge, but to put as strongly as possible those points which are in favour of his client, and to extenuate those which make against him. It once fell to Cicero's lot to speak in defence of a man named Aulus Cluentius who lay under strong suspicion of having bribed a jury to obtain the condemnation of his enemy. ”

“ It is from this perfect confidence that the letters to Atticus derive their peculiar interest and their peculiar value. Cicero is no more likely to deceive Atticus than a patient is likely to lie to his physician; the statement of the circumstances which he lays before his counsellor may sometimes be erroneous, but it is never wilfully misleading. Cicero set the highest value on the judgment of his friend. At critical seasons he writes to him every day, and sometimes as much as thrice in a day. ”

“ It is a great mistake to suppose that in our speeches, which are delivered at the bar, you have our deliberate judgments on record. All such speeches are the utterances not so much of the counsel as of his brief and of the case. For, if the case of a litigant could speak for itself, no one would employ a pleader. Now we are employed to utter, not that which we are to lay down on our own responsibility, but that which is prompted by the requirements of the case in which we are engaged. ”

“ Even in later years, when he had himself suffered from the unbridled power of a tribune, he contended, though somewhat faintly, that Pompey was justified in his policy. [3] He urges that, though the power of the tribune is doubtless excessive, yet "the violence of the people is a force yet more savage by far and more uncontrollable, and this is sometimes under greater restraint, if it has a leader, than if it has none; for the leader considers that he advances at his own peril, whereas the popular impulse takes no account of danger." ”

“ Atticus cannot have been a selfish man, for he spent his life in doing good to his friends, at the cost of unceasing trouble and sometimes of serious danger. He must have been a lovable man, for every one loved him, and such affection is not to be gained except by a kindly and tender heart. ”

“ Cicero's description of the governorship of Verres serves as a sort of high-water mark to show to what a pitch of iniquity men set above the fear of responsibility may attain, when granted absolute power over a subject population. I prefer to dwell on a matter which could be treated by the orator with lighter touches. ”

“ Side by side with this passage we may set another from the Brutus [14] in which Cicero's ideal of the qualities of the forensic orator is more fully set forth. "To have studied more subtilely than other men that literature wherein the fountain-head of perfect eloquence is to be found; to have embraced philosophy the mother of all good deeds and good words: to have learned the Civil Law, a matter most necessary for private suits and for the technical skill of a pleader; to hold in your memory the story of Rome, whence you can summon, when need is, most authentic witnesses from the tomb ”

“ On such occasions Cicero gets alarmed about his credit, and writes to Atticus to raise money for him at any cost or to sell his property at any sacrifice rather than allow him to appear for a moment as a defaulter. Atticus never grudged trouble on behalf of his friend. We always find that, one way or another, he manages to meet the call, and a few months' economy or a legacy, opportunely failing in, sets Cicero's affairs straight again.
One business relation between the friends has a more permanent interest. ”

“ In death they were not divided; and Cicero's nephew, too, redeemed a worthless life by a heroic end. In the last dreadful days of the Proscription, the two brothers set forth together on their flight. Quintus returned with his son to Rome to procure supplies for their journey, and the two fell into the power of the head-hunters. They died like worthy Romans, each striving to sacrifice his own life for the preservation of the other. [42] Young Marcus, the son of Cicero, alone survived. Like his uncle he was a gallant soldier, and he did good service both under Pompey and under Brutus ”

“ Quintus married Pomponia the sister of Atticus, and had by her one son named after his father. This "Quintus the son" was spoiled, so his uncle thought, by the over-indulgence of his parents. He died nobly in the end, but his conduct as he emerged from boyhood was anything but satisfactory. Cicero always felt himself .responsible for the behaviour of his brother and his nephew and was ever in a fidget lest they should do something to discredit the family. It is needless to say that he confides his alarms to Atticus. One such communication may serve to illustrate the elder brother's uneasiness. ”

“ Nevertheless he is keenly interested not only in the safety but in the good fame of his friend. He recognises that while the Roman Knight, the man of business and of letters, may be permitted to make his own preservation and his own ease the first object, a very different standard of conduct is set up for the consular. He sees that by the lofty tone of his speeches and writings Cicero has given hostages to public opinion which must not be forfeited. Atticus may go out to the fifth milestone to greet Cæsar, as he 49 B.C. returns after driving Pompey from Italy ”

“ Of the statue of Sappho from the prytaneum of Syracuse Cicero says, [4] "this gave you so fair an excuse that one is almost obliged to allow it. This masterpiece of Selanion, so perfect, so graceful, so exquisite, how should it be in the possession of any individual or of any State, saving only of our most elegant and accomplished Verres? Any one of us, not born to such good fortune, has no business to be particular ”

“ It is because they cannot trust the courts that they clamour for the tribunician power; it is because the courts are corrupt that another rank of men is demanded for the bench; it is from the iniquity and the ill-fame of the jurors that the censorship, which was once a name of dread, is now asked for, is now a popular cry and calls forth cheers of approbation. ”

“ DRUSUS CÆSAR, SON OF EMPEROR TIBERIUS.
GREAT-GRANDSON OF ATTICUS.
(Cohen.)
he was "void of noble rage"; he never knew that there are some wrongs which it is degradation to forgive; he could love, but his love was never strong enough to cause him to hate; and a man without the capacity for hatred is but half a man. Cicero's earliest letter to Atticus [37] records a domestic trouble, the death of his cousin Lucius, to whom he was much attached. Late in the previous year Cicero had lost his 60 B.C.father, and his mother had been long dead. ”

“ In Cicero the affectation o [ indifference is merely playful and is not long sustained; but while it lasts it is very pretty fooling, and affords an excellent specimen of the "mendaciuncula," or mystifications, with which, as he tells us, [5] an advocate is permitted to season the gravity of his discourse. ”

“ The evidence was so overwhelming that Verres abandoned his defence and retired into exile.
In the meantime public opinion was running high against the corruption of the senatorial juries. If we may trust Cicero's representation, it was this which gave force to the whole attack against the constitution of Sulla. "The Roman people," he says, [9] : "though beset with many distresses and many anxieties, yet seeks for no reform in the State so eagerly as for the restoration of the old firmness and the old integrity of the juries. ”

“ The case was a notorious one, and had been referred to as such by Cicero, when three years previously in his speech against Verres he was inveighing against the corruption of the courts. The counsel opposed to Cluentius took advantage of this circumstance to claim the authority of Cicero's sentence against his own client. Cicero's argument in reply is very much what an English barrister would plead on a similar occasion. "There remains one most weighty judgment, which to my shame I was nearly forgetting to notice, for it is that of no less a person than myself. ”

“ The family of Atticus had held its place for generations in the equestrian order, but unlike that of Cicero it belonged from the first to the purely Roman stock. [15] He was closely connected with the tribune Sulpicius Rufus, who became the victim of Sulla in his first attack on Rome in the year 88. The young Pomponius is said to have been in some danger on this occasion, but this did not deter him from aiding the flight and supplying the needs of the younger Marius, who was proscribed at the same time by Sulla. ”

“ The pious historian [43] deemed it a clear case of the special interposition of Providence, that Marcus Tullius Cicero was consul in the latter part of the year 30 B.C., and that so it fell to his lot to announce in the Senate the tidings of the final defeat and death of Antony, and to decree the destruction of Antony's statues and the legal damnation of his name. ”

“ Here again the government, which might easily have won the support of Pompey, foolishly haggled over the price. The Nobles had soon reason to regret their obstinacy. The democrats grasped the opportunity 71 B.C.and called on Pompey to put himself at the head of the opposition. Pompey and Crassus availed themselves of the pretext of their intended triumph to march their united armies to the gates of Rome. The Senate, which had no troops available, was forced to an ignominious surrender ”