26
CICERO AFTER HIS CONSULSHIP.
great victory over Mitliridates, and was thinking of nothing
and nobody but himself, Cicero sent to him in Asia an unfor-
tunate letter3 to inform him of his having saved his country
from destruction, and to express his disappointment at Pompey’s
not having taken any notice of it in his letter. This letter to
Pompey afterwards became the cause of infinite sorrow to
Cicero. Pompey answered it in a very cold manner, and was
mean enough to think himself insulted by Cicero, who had
dared to mention his own merits by the side of those of the
conqueror of Mithridates. Here we must also remember the
aristocratic sentiments which Pompey liked to display towards
a noυus homo like Cicero, for his family was at that time at the
head of the aristocracy, although his great grand-father had
been a musician. They had amassed immense riches by robbery
and plunder.
All party opinions had lost their significance; sons were
found among the opponents of the party to which their fathers
had belonged. Even at the end of his consulship Cicero was
most impudently assailed by Metellus and Bestia, two men of
very high plebeian nobility, who then acted the part of dema-
gogues. It is very pleasing to read Cicero’s oration for
Murena, and to see the quiet inward satisfaction which made
him happy for some time after his consulship. This speech
has never yet been fully understood, especially by the jurists
who have come forward as the champions of the great lawyer
Ser. Sulpicius; no one has recognised in it the happy state of
mind which Cicero enjoyed at the time. If a man has taken
a part in the great events of the world, he looks upon things
which are little as very little; and he cannot conceive that
people, to whom their little is their All and their Everything,
should feel offended at a natural expression of his sentiments.
I have myself experienced this during the great commotions
which I have witnessed. Thus it has happened that the senti-
ments expressed in the speech for Murena have for centuries
been looked upon as trifling, and even at the present day they
are not understood. The stoic philosophy, and the juris-
prudence, of which Cicero speaks so highly on other occasions,
are here treated of as ridiculous; but all this is only the inno-
cent expression of his cheerful state of mind.
In his youth Cicero had been without friends, and afterwards
2 Ad Famil. ¥. 7.
TENDER-HEARTEDNESS OF CICERO.
27
he attached himself chiefly to young men of talent, whom he
raised and drew towards himself wherever he had an oppor-
tunity. Hortenslus, who was exceedingly afraid of being
eclipsed, pursued the very contrary plan towards rising young-
men. In this manner, Brutus and the very different Caclius
Bufus became attached to Cicero, and Catullus too knew him,
and was treated by him with affection. Cicero was not repul-
sive even to those young men who had gone astray from the
path of virtue; and thus we find him exerting himself to the
utmost to lead the talented Curio to adopt a better mode of
life, though unfortunately without success.3 Among the few-
interesting things which occur in the letters of M. Aurelius to
Fronto, there is one passage in which the emperor intimates
that the Boman language had no word for φtλoστoloγ∕α, that
is, a tender love for one’s friends and parents.4 This feeling
was not a Boman one, but Cicero possessed it in a degree
which few Bomans could comprehend; and hence he was
laughed at as unmanly and effeminate for the grief which he
felt at the death of his daughter Tullia.s But nevertheless he
was not a man of weak character; whenever there was need
of it, he shewed the greatest firmness and resolution. What
makes him appear weak is his sensitive nature ; a thing which
he thought an indignity (indignum) completely annihilated
him. When Milton makes God say to Adam
A nice and subtle happiness, I see,
Thou to thyself proposest,
he makes me think of that class of men to which Cicero be-
longed. I have known a man of a very similar character,
Frederic Jacobi, who has likewise been charged with vanity,
irascibility, and weakness. He often reminded me of Cicero,
whose character has, in fact, become clear to me in my inter-
course with Jacobi.
The root, indeed, of the Catilinarian conspiracy was destroyed,
but many of its fibres yet remained, and soon began to shoot.
Not long after Cicero’s consulship, an event took place to which
the misfortunes of the rest of his life were attributable. This
was the trial of P. Clodius, the youngest of the three sons of
Appius Claudius, and a direct descendant of Appius Claudius
the decemvir. The eldest, who bore the family name, Appius,
3 Cicero, Brutus, 81. 4 Frontonis Beliquiae, p. 144, ed. Niebuhr.
s Ad Famil. iv. 5, ix. 11, ad Atticum, xii. 12, 18, 19, 26.