Cicero

Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language

As for Cicero's mother Helvia, they say she was well-born and lived well, but about his father nothing definite could be learned: some say the man was born and raised in a fuller's shop, while others trace the origin of the family back to Tullus Attius, who reigned splendidly among the Volscians and made war on the Romans not without success.

The first of the family to be given the name Cicero seems to have been a man worth mentioning, which is why his descendants did not reject the surname but embraced it, even though it was mocked by many. For the Latins call a chickpea "cicer," and that man, it seems, had a blunt, chickpea-shaped notch at the tip of his nose, and it was from this that he acquired the name.

Cicero himself, the subject of this account, when his friends thought he ought to flee the name and change it, at the time he first entered public life and took up politics, is said to have answered, with the boldness of youth, that he meant to work until the name Cicero outshone those of the Scauri and the Catuli.

When serving as quaestor in Sicily and making a silver dedication to the gods, he had the first two of his names inscribed, Marcus and Tullius, but instead of the third, as a joke, he had the craftsman engrave a chickpea alongside the letters. This, then, is what has been recorded about the name.

They say Cicero's birth caused his mother neither pain nor trouble, and that it occurred on the third day of the new Kalends, on which day the magistrates now offer prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the ruler. To his nurse, it seems, an apparition appeared and foretold that she was raising a great boon for all Romans.

These things, though they seemed mere dreams and idle talk, he himself soon proved to be a true prophecy when he reached the age for learning, blazing forth through natural talent and gaining name and reputation among the boys, to such a degree that their fathers would go to the schoolrooms in person, eager for a glimpse of Cicero himself and firsthand word of the sharpness and grasp he showed in his lessons, of which everyone spoke, while the more boorish among them grew angry at their own sons when they saw Cicero being taken up in the streets between them as a mark of honor.

Being, as Plato requires of the nature that loves learning and philosophy, the sort to welcome every subject of study and to disdain no form of reasoning or education, he was drawn somehow more eagerly toward poetry. And a certain little poem of his still survives from when he was a boy, the Pontius Glaucus, composed in tetrameter verse. As time went on and he took up the Muse of poetry in more varied ways, he came to be regarded as unmatched among the Romans, in poetry no less than in oratory.

His reputation for oratory endures to this day, even though no small innovation has occurred in the field of speech, but his poetry, since many gifted men came after him, has fallen away altogether into obscurity and disrepute.

Having left behind his boyhood studies, he attended Philo of the Academy, whom the Romans, among the associates of Cleitomachus, admired most for his reasoning and loved most for his character. At the same time, in the company of the circle around Mucius, men of public affairs and leaders of the senate, he profited toward experience in the laws; and for a time he even took part in military campaigns under Sulla during the Marsic War.

Then, seeing affairs falling into faction, and out of faction into unchecked monarchy, he turned to the life of leisure and contemplation, keeping company with learned Greeks and devoting himself to studies, until Sulla gained control and the city seemed to reach some settlement. In this period Chrysogonus, a freedman of Sulla, having reported someone's property as belonging to a man put to death by the proscription, bought it himself for two thousand drachmas,

but when Roscius, who was the dead man's son and inherited from him, objected and demonstrated that the property was worth two hundred and fifty talents, Sulla, being exposed, grew angry and brought against Roscius a charge of parricide, Chrysogonus having contrived it; and no one helped him, but all turned away, fearing Sulla's severity,

and so, through such desolation, the young man took refuge with Cicero, and his friends urged him on, saying that no brighter opportunity for glory, nor a finer one, would ever come to him again. So he took up the defense, and having succeeded, was admired; but fearing Sulla, he went abroad to Greece, spreading word that his body needed treatment.

And indeed he was truly thin and lacking in flesh, taking in, on account of a weak stomach, only small and scanty food, and that late in the day; his voice was full and good, but harsh and unshaped, and being driven always, by the vehemence and passion of his speech, through the higher registers, it caused fear for his health:

once in Athens, he became a listener of Antiochus of Ascalon, drawn in by the fluent grace of the man's delivery, even while withholding approval from the doctrinal changes Antiochus was introducing — for Antiochus had by then broken away from the school known as the New Academy and given up the Carneadean position, whether he was bending under the force of clear evidence and the senses, or, as some say, out of a certain rivalry and disagreement with the associates of Cleitomachus and Philo, courting the Stoic doctrine instead, in most matters.

Cicero, however, loved and adhered more to the teachings of those men, thinking that, if he were ever entirely shut out from public affairs, he would transfer his life here, away from the forum and politics, and spend it in quiet together with philosophy.

But when word came to him that Sulla had died, and his body, being strengthened by exercises, was moving toward a vigorous condition, and his voice too, taking on a fuller shape, had been trained to be pleasant to the ear and had been moderately adapted to the condition of his body, while many of his friends from Rome wrote urging him, and Antiochus too kept exhorting him to take up public affairs, he again tuned up his rhetorical speech like an instrument and stirred back to life his political power, both training himself with exercises and seeking out the most praised orators,

and for this reason he sailed to Asia and Rhodes, and among the Asian orators he studied with Xenocles of Adramyttium, and Dionysius of Magnesia, and Menippus of Caria; and at Rhodes, with the orator Apollonius, son of Molon, and the philosopher Posidonius. It is said that Apollonius, not understanding the Roman tongue, asked Cicero to declaim in Greek; and he complied readily, thinking that in this way the correction would be all the better.

Once he had declaimed, the others were astonished and vied with one another in praise, but Apollonius, neither warming while listening to him nor, once Cicero had finished, betraying any delight, remained silent and pensive a good while; and when this unsettled Cicero, he said: "You, Cicero, I praise and admire, but I pity the fortune of Greece, seeing that the only fine things left to us — even these, through you, have now passed to the Romans: learning and eloquence."

So then Cicero, full of hopes as he was carried toward public life, had his impulse blunted by a certain oracle. For when he asked the god at Delphi how he might become most illustrious, the Pythia's response was that he should let his own character, rather than the judgment of the crowd, direct how he lived.

And for the first period in Rome he lived cautiously, approached office hesitantly, and was passed over, being called by those most vulgar and familiar terms among the Romans, "Greek" and "schoolman." But since he was by nature ambitious, and was spurred on by his father and his friends, he gave himself over to advocacy, and did not advance gently toward the first rank, but at once blazed forth in reputation and stood far above those contending in the forum.

It is said that he himself, no less than Demosthenes, was afflicted with concern for delivery, and paid careful attention now to Roscius the comic actor, now to Aesopus the tragic actor. This Aesopus, they relate, while performing in the theater the role of Atreus deliberating vengeance for Thyestes, when one of the attendants suddenly ran past him, was so carried outside his own reckoning by passion that he struck and killed the man with his scepter.

No small weight toward persuasion came to Cicero from his practice of delivery. And he used to mock those orators who employed loud shouting, saying that through weakness they leapt to shouting the way lame men leap onto a horse. This wit and playfulness about jesting seemed suited to the courtroom and elegant, but since he used it excessively, he gave offense to many and gained a reputation for malice.

Having been appointed quaestor during a grain shortage and allotted Sicily, he was, at the start, a nuisance to the people, who were compelled to send grain to Rome; but afterward, having had experience of his diligence, justice, and mildness, they honored him as they had honored none of their governors ever before.

And when many young men from Rome, distinguished and of good birth, on a charge of disorder and cowardice in the war, were sent up before the governor of Sicily, Cicero pleaded for them with distinction and secured their acquittal. Thinking greatly of himself for this, then, as he walked toward Rome, he says something ridiculous happened to him:

for meeting, in Campania, a man of distinguished standing whom he thought a friend, he asked what account the Romans held of the things he had done, and what they thought — assuming his own doings had by now spread his name and glory through the entire city; and the man replied: "Why, where were you, Cicero,

all this time?" At that moment he was utterly discouraged, seeing that the report about him, falling into the city as into a vast, shoreless sea, had produced no perceptible effect on his fame; but afterward, giving himself an accounting, he greatly reduced his ambition, since he had been competing for glory against something boundless and having no attainable limit.

Nevertheless, his exceptional delight in being praised, and his rather passionate attachment to reputation, remained with him to the very end, and often disturbed many of his otherwise sound judgments.

Taking up politics more eagerly, he considered it shameful that craftsmen, who use instruments and lifeless tools, should be ignorant of none of their names, place, or function, while the statesman, through whom public affairs are carried out by means of men, should be careless and negligent about knowing the citizens.

For this reason he trained himself not only to remember people's names, but also the place where each of his acquaintances lived, and what land he owned, and what friends he kept company with, and he came to know their neighbors as well; and as Cicero traveled every road of Italy, he could readily name and point out the estates and country houses of his friends.

He possessed a small estate, but one sufficient and adequate to his expenses, and he was admired for accepting neither fees nor gifts for his advocacy — above all when he took up the case against Verres. For this man, who had been governor of Sicily and had committed many crimes, he convicted at the prosecution of the Sicilians, not by speaking, but in a sense by not speaking.

For when the presiding officials, doing Verres a favor, kept throwing the trial into postponements and many delays until the last possible day, so that it was plain in advance that the time allotted for the day would not suffice for the speeches and the judgment would never reach its conclusion, Cicero stood up and said he had no need of speeches, but bringing forward the witnesses and examining them, he ordered the jurors to cast their vote. Nevertheless many witty remarks are still remembered concerning that very trial.

The Romans call a gelded pig a "verres." So when a certain freedman, a man liable to the charge of Judaizing, named Caecilius, wished to push aside the Sicilians and himself bring the prosecution against Verres, Cicero remarked, "What business does a Jew have with a pig?" Verres had a son just short of manhood, who was thought not to conduct himself in his youth in a manner befitting a free man. So when Verres taunted Cicero as effeminate, Cicero replied, "One ought to hurl abuse at one's sons

within doors." And when the orator Hortensius, not daring to speak directly in defense of Verres, nevertheless consented to appear at the assessment of the penalty and received an ivory Sphinx as his fee, Cicero made an oblique remark to him; and when Hortensius answered that riddle-solving was not among his talents, Cicero said, "Yet a Sphinx sits right there in your own house."

Verres having thus been condemned, Cicero assessed the damages at seven hundred and fifty myriads, and thereby incurred the accusation that he had lowered the assessment for money. Nevertheless the Sicilians, in gratitude, when he was serving as aedile, brought many things from the island and carried many things to him, from none of which he made any profit, but he made use only of the men's eager generosity to lower the price of goods in the market.

He owned a fine property at Arpinum, and there was a field near Naples and another near Pompeii, neither large; and there was added the dowry of his wife Terentia, ten myriads, and a certain inheritance amounting to nine myriads of denarii. From these means he lived generously and at the same time temperately together with the Greeks and Romans devoted to letters who shared his life, rarely, if ever, reclining before sunset — not so much because of business as because his body was in poor condition as regards his stomach.

He was also precise and meticulous in his other care of his body, so that he made use of rubbings and walks arranged according to a fixed number. By managing his constitution in this way he kept it free of illness and equal to many great contests and labors. His paternal house he gave over to his brother, while he himself lived near the Palatine, so that those who paid court to him should not be troubled by walking far,

and they attended on him daily, coming to his door in numbers no fewer than those who attended Crassus for his wealth or Pompey for his power in the armies — he being among the most admired of the Romans and reckoned among the very greatest. And Pompey too paid court to Cicero, and Cicero's political conduct contributed greatly to Pompey's power and reputation.

When he stood for the praetorship together with many others of note, he was proclaimed first of all of them, and he was thought to have conducted the trials with purity and honor. It is also said that Licinius Macer, a man powerful in his own right in the city and using Crassus as his helper, being tried before him for embezzlement and trusting in his power and influence,

while the jurors were still casting their votes, went off home, had his hair cut in haste, and put on a clean garment as though he had won, and was setting out again for the forum; but when Crassus met him at the courtyard gate and informed him that every single vote had gone against him, he turned back, lay down, and died.

This affair brought Cicero a reputation for having presided over the court with diligence. And when Vatinius — a man who had something rough and disdainful toward magistrates in his advocacies, and whose neck was covered over with scrofulous swellings — stood up and asked something of Cicero, and Cicero did not grant it but deliberated a long time, Vatinius said that he himself, if he were praetor, would not hesitate on such a matter; Cicero, turning to him, said, "But I do not have so great a neck as you."

Again, when he had two or three days left of his office, someone brought Manilius before him charged with embezzlement. This Manilius had the goodwill and enthusiasm of the people, being thought to be persecuted on Pompey's account, for he was a friend of Pompey's. When Manilius asked for a day, Cicero granted him only the very next day, and the people were indignant, since the praetors were accustomed to grant at least ten days to men in jeopardy.

When the tribunes brought him before the rostrum and accused him, he asked to be heard, and said that since he had always, so far as the laws allowed, treated men in jeopardy with fairness and humanity, he thought it a terrible thing not to grant the same to Manilius; that the single day still under his authority as praetor he had deliberately fixed as the day, for to throw the case forward onto another magistrate was not the act of a man who wished to help.

These words produced a remarkable change in the people, and amid much acclaim of him they begged him to take up the advocacy on Manilius's behalf. He undertook it eagerly, not least on account of the absent Pompey; and standing up again he delivered a fresh speech from the beginning, attacking with youthful vigor the oligarchic faction and those who begrudged Pompey his position.

To the consulship he was advanced no less by the aristocratic party than by the common people, on account of the city, for the following reason, both sides working together on his behalf. The change in the constitution brought about by Sulla, which at first had seemed strange, but which by then, through time and habit, seemed to the many to have achieved a settlement not without some merit, had its opponents: men seeking to shake up and overturn the present state of things for their own private gain, not for the best interest of the state — while Pompey was still off fighting the kings of Pontus and Armenia, and in Rome there stood no force adequate to match those bent on revolution,

and these men had as their leader a bold and ambitious man of versatile character, Lucius Catiline, who had once, in addition to other great crimes, been charged with having lain with his own virgin daughter and with the slaying of his own brother; dreading a trial over that killing, he had persuaded Sulla to enter the man, though still alive, on the list of those marked for death.

Taking this man as their champion, the wicked bound themselves to one another by further pledges, and having sacrificed a human being, tasted his flesh; and a large share of the city's young men had been corrupted by him, he procuring for each man continually pleasures, drinking bouts, and love affairs with women, and unstintingly providing the expense for such things. All Etruria too had been roused toward revolt, and much of Gaul this side of the Alps.

Rome was in a most precarious state for revolution because of the inequality in wealth: men of the greatest repute and pride had beggared themselves upon theaters and banquets and love of office and building projects, while riches had flowed together into the hands of low and mean men, so that affairs needed but a small push, and it lay in the power of any man bold enough to overturn the constitution itself, sick as it already was from within.

Nevertheless, wishing to secure in advance some strong base of operations, Catiline canvassed for the consulship, and he was brilliant in his hopes, expecting to hold the office together with Gaius Antonius, a man who by himself was inclined neither strongly to the better course nor to the worse, but who, as an addition bringing another man's power, would tend toward whichever side prevailed.

Foreseeing this, most of the good and honest men put forward Cicero for the consulship; and the people receiving him eagerly, Catiline was rejected, and Cicero and Gaius Antonius were chosen. And yet of the candidates Cicero alone was the son of a man of equestrian, not senatorial, rank.

And while the matter of Catiline was still, for the most part, unnoticed by the many, great preliminary contests awaited Cicero's consulship. For on the one hand, those who had been barred by Sulla's laws from holding office — men neither weak nor few — were canvassing for offices and stirring up the people, bringing against Sulla's tyranny accusations true and just in themselves, yet not moving the constitution at the right time nor with good judgment;

and on the other hand, the tribunes for their part kept bringing forward laws serving that same end, establishing a board of ten men with absolute authority, to whom was granted power over all Italy, all Syria, and whatever had lately been added through Pompey — men who, being masters of these, could sell the public lands, judge whomever they thought fit, banish exiles, found and settle cities, take money from the treasury, and maintain and levy as many soldiers as they required.

For this reason the law was supported by other men of distinction, and first of all by Antonius, Cicero's colleague, as one who was to be among the ten. And it was thought too that he was aware of Catiline's revolutionary designs and was not displeased by them, being burdened by a mass of debts — a thing which caused the greatest fear among the best citizens.

Cicero, courting this man first, voted him the province of Macedonia among the provinces, while he himself declined Gaul, which was offered to him, and by this favor he won over Antonius so completely that, like a hired actor, he now spoke the second part on behalf of the fatherland; and once he had thus been won over and made tractable, Cicero, taking greater courage, now stood firmly against those bent on revolution.

In the senate, then, delivering a kind of prosecution against the law, he so overwhelmed the very men proposing it that none of them made any reply. But when they made the attempt again, and, having made their preparations, summoned the consuls before the people, Cicero, feeling no fear at all, but bidding the senate to follow him, went forth, and not only threw out the law but also caused the tribunes themselves to abandon their other measures, so thoroughly were they overcome by his argument.

For this man above all demonstrated to the Romans how much pleasure eloquence adds to what is honorable, and that justice, when rightly pleaded, cannot be beaten down, and that the man who conducts public affairs harmoniously must always in deed choose what is honorable over what merely flatters, but in speech remove whatever is painful from what is advantageous,

and a proof of the charm of his eloquence is what happened concerning the theatrical shows during his consulship. For whereas previously the knights had sat mixed in among the multitude in the theaters and watched together with the common people as chance had it, Marcus Otho, as praetor, was the first to distinguish the knights in honor from the rest of the citizens, and assigned to them a separate section of seats at the shows, which they still hold as a special privilege to this day,

the common people felt this as a slight aimed at them, and the moment Otho showed himself in the theater they greeted him with insulting hisses, while the knights received the man with brilliant applause; then the people redoubled their hissing, and the knights in turn their applause. From this they turned upon one another with abuse, and disorder took hold of the theater.

But when Cicero, hearing of it, arrived and called the people together at the temple of Bellona, he rebuked them and gave them counsel, and they went back again into the theater and applauded Otho brilliantly, and vied with the knights in honoring and praising the man.

The conspiracy around Catiline, which had cowered and grown fearful at first, took heart again, and its members began meeting with one another and urging a bolder approach to the business before Pompey returned, who was already said to be on his way back with his army. What most inflamed Catiline were Sulla's old soldiers, scattered though they were across all Italy, but with the largest and most warlike contingents settled in the Etruscan cities, dreaming again of plunder and the carving up of ready-made fortunes.

These men, with Manlius as their leader — one of those who had served under Sulla with distinction — joined forces with Catiline and came to Rome to help him in the elections; for he was again standing for the consulship, having resolved to kill Cicero amid the confusion of the polling.

The divine also seemed to give advance warning of what was happening, through earthquakes, thunderbolts, and apparitions. The reports from human informants were true, but not yet sufficient to secure a conviction against a man so distinguished and powerful as Catiline. On that account Cicero put off the election date and had Catiline brought before the senate, where he questioned him about the rumors circulating.

He, supposing there were many in the senate who desired a revolution, and at the same time signaling to his fellow conspirators, gave Cicero a mad answer: "What terrible thing am I doing," he said, "if, there being two bodies, one lean and wasted but possessing a head, while the second, headless yet powerful and massive, still lacks one — should I not be its head?"

Since these words were spoken as a riddle aimed at the senate and the people, Cicero grew more afraid, and all the powerful men, along with many of the young, escorted him down to the Campus in a breastplate, having brought him from his house; and he deliberately let part of the breastplate show, having loosened his tunic at the shoulders, to demonstrate the danger to those who saw it.

They were indignant and gathered closely around him, and in the end, at the voting, they again rejected Catiline and chose Silanus and Murena as consuls.

Not long after this, while Catiline's men in Etruria were already assembling and organizing into companies, and the day fixed for the attack was drawing near, around midnight some of Rome's leading and most influential citizens came to Cicero's house — Marcus Crassus, Marcus Marcellus, and Scipio Metellus. They knocked on the doors and, calling the doorkeeper, told him to wake Cicero and announce their presence; and the reason was this.

After dinner the doorkeeper handed Crassus some letters, brought by some unknown person, addressed severally to different people, and to Crassus himself one without a name. Crassus, reading only that one, found that it told of a great slaughter about to occur through Catiline, and it advised him to steal away from the city without delay. Crassus left the rest unopened and hurried straight to Cicero, shaken by the frightening news, and in part clearing himself of the suspicion he had incurred through his friendship with Catiline.

Cicero, after deliberating, at daybreak convened the senate, brought in the letters, and handed each one over to the person it named, directing that they be read aloud before the assembly. Every one revealed the same plot. Quintus Arrius, a man of praetorian rank, then reported that troops were gathering in Etruria, and word came that Manlius was roaming near those towns with a sizable force, forever watching Rome for some fresh turn of events,

the senate passed a decree entrusting affairs to the consuls, that they, taking charge, should manage matters and preserve the city as they knew how. This the senate is not accustomed to do often, but only when some great danger is feared.

When Cicero had received this authority, he entrusted external affairs to Quintus Metellus, but kept the city in his own hands, and each day went out surrounded by so great a bodyguard that a large part of the forum was filled by his escort when he entered it. Catiline, no longer able to bear the delay, decided to set out himself to join Manlius

and his army, directing Marcius and Cethegus to arm themselves with swords, appear at Cicero's door at dawn as though paying a courtesy call, and then attack and kill him on the spot. Fulvia, a woman of high birth, revealed this plan to Cicero; she visited him at night, pressing him to be on his guard against Cethegus's men. They came at daybreak, and being prevented from entering, grew indignant and shouted at the door, which made them all the more suspect,

and Cicero, coming out, summoned the senate to the temple of Zeus Stesios, whom the Romans call Stator, situated at the beginning of the Sacred Way, on the ascent to the Palatine. There, when Catiline too came with the others intending to defend himself, not one senator could bring himself to remain at his side, and everyone shifted away from that seat. When he began to speak he was shouted down, and finally Cicero rose and ordered him to leave the city: for since he himself governed by words and Catiline by arms, there had to be a wall between them.

So Catiline immediately went out with three hundred armed men, and surrounding himself with the rods of office as though he were a magistrate, and raising axes and standards, made his way to Manlius; and when about twenty thousand men had gathered together, he went around the cities urging them to revolt and inciting them to rebellion, so that, the war having become open, Antonius was sent out to fight it.

Those of the corrupted who remained behind in the city were rallied and stirred up by Cornelius Lentulus, called Sura, a man born to a distinguished house, but one who had lived basely and had earlier been expelled from the senate for licentiousness, and who was then serving his second term as praetor, as is the custom for those recovering senatorial rank from the beginning,

and it is said that he got his surname Sura for a reason of this kind. In the times of Sulla, while serving as quaestor, he lost and squandered a great deal of public money. When Sulla grew angry and demanded an accounting before the senate, he came forward and, with great disdain and contempt, said he would render no reckoning at all, but instead offer up his shin — just as boys do when caught missing the ball in their games.

From this he was nicknamed Sura, for the Romans call the leg "sura." Again, being on trial and having corrupted some of the jurors, since his acquittal came by a margin of just two votes, he remarked that the payment made to the extra juror had gone to waste, since it would have been enough if he had been acquitted by even a single vote.

This man, being of such a nature, once stirred up by Catiline, was further corrupted by empty hopes offered by false prophets and charlatans who chanted fabricated verses and oracles, as though from the Sibylline books, foretelling that it was fated for Rome to have three Cornelii as monarchs, of whom two had already fulfilled their destiny, Cinna and Sulla, and that to the third remaining Cornelius the divine power was bringing the monarchy, and that he must by all means accept it and not ruin the opportune moment, as Catiline had done.

So Lentulus contemplated nothing small or obscure, but had decided to put to death the whole senate together with every other citizen he could reach, to set the city itself ablaze, and to leave unharmed only Pompey's children; those they intended to capture and hold under their own guard as hostages, to use in negotiating terms with Pompey — for there was already much steady talk that he was coming down from his great campaign.

A single night among the Saturnalia was fixed for the attack, and swords, tow, and sulfur were carried to Cethegus's house and hidden there. They assigned a hundred men and distributed among each an equal number of districts of Rome, so that the city might be set ablaze everywhere at once by many hands lighting fires. Others were to block the aqueducts and slaughter those drawing water.

While these things were being carried out, it happened that two envoys of the Allobroges were staying in the city, a people whose affairs were then in an especially bad way and who were burdened by Roman rule. Lentulus and his associates, thinking them useful for stirring up and turning Gaul against Rome, made them fellow conspirators. They gave them letters to their senate there, and letters to Catiline, in the one promising freedom, and in the other urging Catiline, once he had freed the slaves, to march on Rome.

Along with the envoys they dispatched to Catiline a man named Titus of Croton, entrusted with carrying the letters. But the schemes of unstable men, plotted for the most part over wine and in the company of women, were being tracked down by Cicero with painstaking, sober reasoning and extraordinary intelligence; he had many outside observers watching what was happening and tracking it down together with him, and he was in secret conversation, trusting them, with many who seemed to share in the conspiracy,

and he learned of the negotiation with the foreigners, and by lying in wait at night he caught the man from Croton and the letters, the Allobroges secretly cooperating with him.

At daybreak he gathered the senate at the temple of Concord, read out the letters, and heard the informers. Junius Silanus also said he had heard some of Cethegus's people saying that three consuls and four praetors were about to be killed. Piso too, a man of consular rank, reported other such things.

Gaius Sulpicius, one of the praetors, sent to Cethegus's house, found there many missiles and weapons, and a great many swords and daggers, all newly sharpened. Finally, when the senate voted immunity to the man from Croton for his information, Lentulus, once convicted, stepped down from office — since he was serving as praetor — and, removing his toga edged in purple there in the senate house, put on garments suited to his changed fortune. He and his associates were then handed over into unfettered custody with the praetors.

It being already evening, and the people waiting in a crowd, Cicero came out, told the citizens what had happened, and, with an escort, made his way to a nearby friend's house, because his own home was taken up by women carrying out secret rites for the goddess whom the Romans call Bona and the Greeks call the Women's Goddess.

Sacrifice is made to her each year in the house of the consul, through his wife or mother, with the Vestal virgins present. So Cicero, entering, kept by himself, very few being present with him at all, and pondered how he should deal with the men. He shrank from the extreme punishment fitting for crimes of such magnitude, and hesitated, both out of the fairness of his character and so as not to seem to abuse his authority too greatly and trample harshly upon men of the first rank who also had powerful friends in the city; yet if he treated them too gently, he feared the danger from them.

For, he reasoned, a punishment milder than death would never satisfy them; instead they would erupt into the most reckless extremes, piling new fury onto their earlier crimes; and he himself would seem unmanly and soft, not otherwise thought by most people to be a man of the greatest courage.

While Cicero was still in this perplexity, a sign occurred to the women as they were sacrificing. For the altar, when the fire seemed already to have died down, sent up from the ashes and the burnt bark a great and bright flame. The other women were frightened by this, but the sacred virgins told Cicero's wife Terentia to hurry to her husband at once and urge him to follow through on the course he had decided for his country's benefit, for the goddess was sending forth a brilliant light as a sign of his safety and coming glory.

As for Terentia, she was not by nature a mild or timid woman, but ambitious, and, as Cicero himself says, took a larger share of his political concerns from him than she gave him of household ones; she told him these things and spurred him on against the men. Likewise his brother Quintus, and among his philosophical companions Publius Nigidius, whom he consulted more than any other on the most important matters apart from politics, did the same.

The following day, during a senate debate over what penalty the men deserved, Silanus, called on first for his view, said it was fitting that they be led to the prison and suffer the ultimate penalty. And all agreed with him in turn, down to Gaius Caesar, who afterward became dictator. He at that time was still young and only at the first stages of his rise, but already, in his political course and hopes, had set foot upon that road by which he later changed the affairs of the Romans into monarchy.

The others he escaped notice of, but toward Cicero he gave rise to many suspicions, though no handle for proof; indeed some could be heard saying that he came near to being caught and slipped from the man's grasp, while others say that Cicero willingly overlooked and passed over the information against him out of fear of his friends and his power. For it was plain to everyone that those men would more likely become an addition to Caesar's safety than Caesar to their punishment.

When, then, the turn for an opinion came round to him, he rose and declared that the men should not be put to death, but that their property should become public, and that they themselves should be led away to such cities of Italy as might seem good to Cicero, and kept there in bonds until Catiline should be defeated in war.

Since this opinion was moderate and its speaker most capable, Cicero added no small weight to it, for he himself rose and argued for each side, supporting in part the earlier opinion, in part Caesar's; and all his friends, thinking that Caesar's opinion was more advantageous for Cicero — since he would be less liable to blame if he did not put the men to death — favored the second opinion the more,

so that Silanus too, changing his position again, begged off and said that not even he himself had proposed a sentence of death, for the prison was, for a man who was a Roman senator, the ultimate penalty. When this opinion had been stated, the first to speak against it was Catulus Lutatius; then Cato took it up, and pressing his suspicion of Caesar vigorously in his speech, he filled the senate with anger and resolve, so that they voted death for the men.

Concerning the confiscation of the property Caesar objected, holding that it was not right, having rejected the humane parts of his own proposal, to adopt the single harshest one; and when many pressed the point he appealed to the tribunes, who would not listen to him — but Cicero himself yielded and gave up the proposal about confiscation.

He proceeded with the senate against the men; not all were in the same place, but each of the praetors kept guard over one. First, taking Lentulus from the Palatine, he marched him along the Sacred Way and across the center of the forum, encircled by leading men who formed a bodyguard around him, while the people shuddered at what was happening and passed by in silence, especially the young, as though they thought some ancestral rite of an aristocratic authority was being performed with fear and awe.

Passing through the forum and coming to the prison, he handed Lentulus over to the executioner and ordered him put to death; then Cethegus in turn, and so, bringing down each of the others, he had them killed. Seeing that many of those still remaining from the conspiracy stood gathered together in the forum, unaware of what had already happened and lingering there until nightfall, believing the men were still alive and could be rescued, he cried out loudly to them, "They have lived," he said. This is how those Romans who do not wish to speak ill-omened words signify death.

It was already evening, and he made his way up across the forum toward home, no longer accompanied by citizens escorting him in silence and good order, but receiving him with shouts and applause wherever he passed, calling him savior and founder of his country. Many lights lit up the narrow streets, as people set up little lamps and torches at their doors,

and the women showed themselves from the rooftops in honor and for the sight of the man, as he went up most solemnly escorted by the noblest men — most of whom, having brought great wars to conclusion, entered the city in triumphal processions, and had added no small extent of land and sea to their conquests — walked along acknowledging to one another that the Roman people were indebted to numerous commanders and generals of that era for wealth, plunder, and dominion, yet owed their safety and survival to Cicero alone, who had removed from them so great and so terrible a danger.

For it did not seem so wonderful that he had stopped what was being done and punished those doing it, but that he had extinguished the greatest of all revolutions ever attempted, with the fewest possible evils, without civil strife and disorder. Indeed most of those who had flocked to Catiline, as soon as they learned what had happened to Lentulus and Cethegus, abandoned him and departed; and fighting it out against Antonius with those who remained with him, he himself was destroyed along with his army.

Nonetheless there were those prepared both to speak and to act against Cicero on account of these things, with Caesar, holding the praetorship, together with Metellus and Bestia, holding the tribuneship, as their leaders among the newly installed magistrates. These, having assumed office while Cicero still had a few days left in his, would not allow him to address the people, but placing benches in front of the rostra, they did not permit or allow him to speak, but ordered that, if he wished, he could only come down after swearing an oath concerning his office.

And he came forward as though to take this oath; and when silence fell for him, he swore — not the customary oath, but a peculiar and new one of his own — that he had indeed saved his country and preserved its supremacy. And the whole people swore the oath along with him, at which Caesar and the tribunes, growing all the more angry, contrived other troubles for Cicero, and a law was introduced by them to summon Pompey with his army, as though to overthrow Cicero's power.

But it was of great benefit to Cicero and to the whole city that Cato was then tribune, opposing their political maneuvers with equal authority but greater reputation; for he easily dissolved their other measures, and he extolled Cicero's consulship so highly in a speech delivered before the people that they awarded him the most extraordinary honors ever bestowed, and addressed him as father of his country, for he seems to have been the first to receive this title, Cato having so addressed him before the people.

And though he had the greatest power in the city at that time, he made himself an object of envy to many, not from any wicked act, but because he was resented by many for always praising and magnifying himself. For there was no meeting of the senate, the people, or a court in which one did not have to hear Catiline and Lentulus endlessly repeated.

In the end he even filled his books and writings with self-praise, and made his speech — which was in itself most pleasant and full of the greatest charm — burdensome and tiresome to his hearers, as though some sort of wax of this unpleasantness were always sticking to him. Yet even so, being possessed of such unrestrained ambition, he was free of envy toward others, being most generous in praising both the men before him and those of his own time, as one can gather from his writings.

Many of his sayings are also remembered, such as that concerning Aristotle, that he was a river of flowing gold; and concerning Plato's dialogues, that if Zeus were by nature to use speech, he would speak in such a manner. Theophrastus he was accustomed to call his own particular delight. When asked, concerning the speeches of Demosthenes, which one seemed to him the finest, he said, "the longest."

Even so, certain men who claim to be imitators of Demosthenes seize upon a remark of Cicero's, which he set down in a letter written to one of his friends, that Demosthenes nods off in places in his speeches; but they forget the great and admiring praises which he applies to the man in many places, and that the speeches about which he took most particular care among his own, those against Antony, he entitled "Philippics."

Among the men of his own time renowned for eloquence and wisdom he enhanced the reputation of every single one, whether through speaking or writing well of them. For Cratippus the Peripatetic he arranged to have Roman citizenship conferred, Caesar now being in power, and he arranged also that the council of the Areopagus should vote to request that he remain in Athens and lecture to the young men, as an adornment to the city.

Cicero's correspondence includes letters addressed to Herodes, as well as others sent to his own son, encouraging him to pursue philosophy alongside Cratippus. Gorgias the rhetorician, whom he charged with leading his young son on to pleasures and drinking, he drove away from his company,

and this is nearly the only one of his Greek letters, along with a second to Pelops of Byzantium, written in some anger — the one rebuking Gorgias fittingly, if indeed he was worthless and dissolute, as he seemed to be; the other, to Pelops, being petty and full of complaints, as though he had neglected to see that certain honors and decrees be granted him by the Byzantines.

Such things were signs of ambition, and also this: that often, carried away by the cleverness of his speech, he let go of what was fitting. For once, when pleading for Munatius, after that man was acquitted and then prosecuted his own friend Sabinus, Cicero is said to have burst out so far in anger as to say: "Was it, Munatius, on your own account that you escaped that trial, and not because I poured much darkness over the light of the courtroom?"

Once, praising Marcus Crassus from the rostrum, he had great success, and a few days later, reviling him instead, when Crassus said, "Did you not just now praise us here yourself?" he replied, "Yes," he said, "exercising my speech as practice on a poor subject."

And when Crassus once said that no Crassus at Rome had ever lived beyond sixty years, and then afterward denied it and said, "What could have made me say such a thing?", Cicero said, "You knew the Romans would be glad to hear it, and that is why you courted the people with it." And when Crassus said he was pleased with the Stoics, because they declare the good man to be rich, Cicero said, "See rather whether it is not that they say all things

belong to the wise man" — for Crassus was accused of love of money. And when one of Crassus's sons, who bore a supposed resemblance to a man named Axius, and on that account his mother faced a shameful slander involving Axius, won approval by a speech he delivered in the senate, Cicero, when asked what he thought of it, said, "Worthy [axios] of Crassus."

When Crassus was about to depart for Syria, he wished to have Cicero as a friend rather than an enemy; and, being friendly, he said he wished to dine at his house, and Cicero received him gladly. A few days later, when some friends were interceding on behalf of Vatinius, as if he were seeking a truce and goodwill — since the two were enemies — Cicero said, "Surely Vatinius too does not wish to dine at my house?" Such was he toward Crassus,

but Vatinius himself, who had swellings on his neck, and who was pleading a case, he called "a swollen orator." And hearing that he had died, then a little later learning for certain that he was alive, he said, "Then may the man who lied about it come to a bad and evil end."

And when, after Caesar had carried a vote that the land in Campania be distributed among the soldiers, many in the senate were displeased, and Lucius Gellius, who was nearly the oldest man there, said that this would not happen while he lived, Cicero said, "Let us wait, since Gellius isn't requesting much of a delay."

There was a certain Octavius who was said to be of Libyan descent. When he claimed in some trial that he could not hear what Cicero was saying, Cicero said, "And yet you have a pierced ear." And when Metellus Nepos said that Cicero had destroyed more men by testifying against them than he had saved by defending them, Cicero replied, "Yes, I admit that I have more good faith than eloquence."

There was a young man accused of giving his father poison in a cake, who boasted and said he would abuse Cicero with insults; Cicero said, "I'd sooner take that abuse from you than the cake." And when Publius Sestius took him on as an advocate along with others in some trial, but wanted to say everything himself and let no one else speak, and the jurors were plainly on the verge of voting to acquit him as the ballots were already being cast, Cicero said, "Use your opportunity today, Sestius,

for tomorrow you will be a private citizen again." And Publius Cotta, who wanted to be thought a legal expert but was in fact ignorant and unskilled, Cicero called as a witness in some trial; and when the man said he knew nothing, Cicero said, "Perhaps you think you are being asked about points of law." And when Metellus Nepos, in some dispute, kept repeatedly saying, "Who is your father?" Cicero said, "In your case your mother has made that question a harder one to answer."

For Nepos's mother was thought to be unchaste, while he himself was a fickle sort of man. Once he abandoned his tribunate abruptly and sailed off to Pompey in Syria, then came back from there even more unaccountably. When he buried his teacher Philagrus, he set up over his grave, with excessive care, a stone raven; and Cicero said, "This was the wiser thing to do, since he taught you to fly better than to speak."

And when Marcus Appius, opening some case with a preamble, said that his friend had begged him to provide diligence, eloquence, and good faith, Cicero said, "How is it, then, that you have become such a man of iron that you have provided your friend with none of all the things he asked for?"

Now to use rather bitter jokes against enemies or opposing litigants seems to belong properly to oratory; but to give offense to whomever he happened upon merely for the sake of a laugh brought Cicero a great deal of hatred. I will record a few instances of this too. As for Marcus Aquinius, whose two daughters had both married men now living in exile, Cicero nicknamed him Adrastus.

When Lucius Cotta, then serving as censor and remarkably devoted to wine, was standing for the consulship, Cicero grew thirsty, and as his friends stood around him while he drank, he said, "You are right to be afraid that the censor will be harsh with me for drinking water." And meeting Voconius, who was leading along with him his three exceedingly ugly daughters, he recited: Though Phoebus forbade it, he sowed his children.

When Marcus Gellius, who was thought not to be freeborn, read out a letter to the senate in a loud and ringing voice, Cicero said, "Do not be surprised — he too belongs among those who bawl out announcements for a living." (a reference to the town criers). And when Faustus, son of Sulla who had made himself sole ruler at Rome and had posted for death the names of many, having fallen into debt and squandered much of his estate, posted a notice of auction, Cicero said that this proscription pleased him more than his father's.

From all this Cicero became burdensome to many people, and Clodius's faction combined against him, having gotten their start in this way. Clodius came of noble stock, still youthful in age but daring and reckless in temperament; being in love with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, he made his way secretly into Caesar's house, dressed and got up as a woman lute-player, for the women were performing that secret sacrifice which no man may see, in Caesar's house, and no man was present;

but Clodius, being still a mere youth and not yet bearded, hoped to slip in unnoticed among the women to Pompeia; but once he had gone by night into the great house, he lost his way among its passages. And a maidservant of Aurelia, Caesar's mother, seeing him wandering about, asked his name; and when he was forced to speak and said he was looking for Pompeia's attendant, a girl named Abra, the maid, recognizing that the voice was not a woman's, cried out and called the women together.

They shut the doors and, searching through everything, discovered Clodius hiding in the room of the slave girl with whom he had entered the house. When the matter became widely known, Caesar divorced Pompeia and brought a charge of impiety against Clodius.

Cicero, on friendly terms with Clodius, had relied on him during the Catiline affair as an especially eager helper and bodyguard; but when Clodius, defending himself against the charge, maintained that he had been nowhere near Rome during that period, claiming instead to have been staying at places quite far off, Cicero testified against him that he had come to his house and

had discussed certain matters with him, which was true; yet it did not seem that Cicero testified for the sake of the truth, but rather to defend himself before his wife Terentia. For she resented Clodius over his sister Clodia, believing that Clodia wanted to be married to Cicero and was working toward this through a certain Tullus, who was a close companion and intimate friend of Cicero's, and who, by constantly visiting and courting Clodia, who lived nearby, aroused suspicion in Terentia,

who, being harsh in temper and dominant over Cicero, provoked him to join in the attack on Clodius and to testify against him. Many good and honorable men testified against Clodius, charging him with perjuries, corrupt practices, bribing the crowds, and the seduction of women. Lucullus even produced maidservants who testified that Clodius had had intercourse with the youngest of his sisters while she was married to Lucullus.

It was also widely believed that Clodius kept company with his other two sisters as well, of whom Marcius Rex had Tertia, and Metellus Celer had Clodia, whom people called Quadrantaria, because one of her admirers slipped copper coins into a small purse and sent them to her as though they were silver ones — the coin of least value in bronze bearing the name quadrans. It was chiefly on this sister's account that Clodius got his bad reputation.

Nevertheless, since the people at that time were arrayed against those who testified and conspired against Clodius, the jurors grew afraid and stationed a guard about themselves, and the greater part of them turned in ballots with the letters blurred into illegibility. All the same, the majority appeared to be for acquittal, and it was even said that bribery had passed through the court.

For this reason Catulus, meeting the jurors, said, "You really did ask for a guard for your safety, being afraid that someone would take the money away from you." And when Clodius said to Cicero that his testimony had won no credit with the jurors, Cicero replied, "On the contrary, twenty-five of the jurors believed me — that many voted to convict you; but thirty did not believe you, for they did not acquit you until they had taken the money."

Caesar, however, though summoned, did not testify against Clodius, nor did he say that he had found his wife guilty of adultery; he said he had divorced her because he thought that whoever was married to Caesar must be clear not only of any shameful act, but even of the mere report of one.

Having escaped this danger, Clodius, elected tribune of the people, immediately set himself against Cicero, gathering and stirring up every affair and every man against him. He won over the people with humane laws, voted great provinces for each of the consuls — Macedonia for Piso, Syria for Gabinius — enrolled many of the poor into the citizen body, and kept armed slaves about him.

Of the three men who then held the greatest power, Crassus was openly hostile to Cicero, Pompey was playing coy toward both sides, while Caesar, on the verge of departing for Gaul at the head of his army, was the one Cicero worked his way toward for protection; though Caesar was not his friend but rather suspicious of him because of the Catiline affair, Cicero asked to serve as his legate on the campaign.

Caesar accepted, and when Clodius saw Cicero escaping his tribunate, he pretended to be reconciled, laying most of the blame on Terentia, always speaking of Cicero himself moderately and offering fair-minded words, as one who felt neither hatred nor anger but was making only measured and friendly complaints, and so entirely removed Cicero's fear that Cicero declined the legation from Caesar and took up public affairs again,

at which Caesar, provoked, both strengthened Clodius's hand and turned Pompey completely away from Cicero, and personally declared before the people that putting men to death without a trial struck him as neither right nor lawful — meaning Lentulus and Cethegus and their associates. For this was the charge, and it was on this account that Cicero was being summoned. Being in danger and pursued, Cicero changed his dress and went about with unkempt hair, begging the people for mercy.

Everywhere Clodius met him in the narrow streets, with insolent and bold men about him, who mocked without restraint at the change in Cicero's dress and bearing, and in many places pelted him with mud and stones, obstructing his pleas for mercy.

Nevertheless, nearly the whole body of the knights changed their dress along with Cicero, and no fewer than twenty thousand young men followed him about with unkempt hair, joining in his supplications. Then, when the senate met to vote that the people should change their garments as in a time of mourning, and the consuls opposed it, and Clodius stationed armed men about the senate house, many of the senators rushed out, tearing their tunics and shouting.

But since this spectacle drew neither pity nor any respect, and Cicero faced a choice between running away and letting armed force and the blade settle the matter with Clodius, he appealed to Pompey for aid — Pompey having purposely made himself scarce and withdrawn to his estates near Alba. Cicero sent his son-in-law Piso ahead to plead with him, then went up in person afterward.

But Pompey, on learning of it, could not bring himself to appear before him, for he felt a terrible shame before a man who had fought great struggles on his behalf and had conducted much of his public life for his sake; but being Caesar's son-in-law, and Caesar making the request, he betrayed his old debts of gratitude, and slipping out by another door, avoided the meeting. Thus betrayed by him and left utterly alone, Cicero took refuge with the consuls,

and Gabinius was harsh as always, but Piso spoke to him more gently, advising him to give way and yield before the onrush of Clodius, and to bear the change in circumstances, and to become again the savior of his country when it was in factional strife and troubles because of Clodius. Having received such an answer, Cicero deliberated with his friends: Lucullus urged him to stay, on the ground that he would prevail, while others urged him to flee, on the ground that the people would soon long for him once they had had their fill of Clodius's madness and folly.

This is what Cicero decided to do. The statue of Athena which he had long kept set up in his house and honored above all others, he carried up to the Capitol and dedicated, inscribing it "To Athena, Guardian of Rome"; and taking an escort from his friends, he slipped out of the city about the middle of the night and traveled on foot through Lucania, intending to make for Sicily.

But when it was now clear that he had fled, Clodius brought a vote of exile against him, and posted an edict denying him fire and water and forbidding anyone to house him within a five-hundred-mile radius of Italy. Most people, however, showed scant regard for this decree, out of the esteem they held for Cicero, and showed him every

escorted him with friendly courtesy. At Hipponium, a city of Lucania which they now call Vibo, Vibius, a Sicilian man who had enjoyed many benefits of Cicero's friendship and had, during Cicero's consulship, been appointed prefect of engineers, would not receive him into his house, though he promised to make over an estate to him; and Gaius Vergilius, Sicily's praetor, a man long counted among Cicero's closest friends,

wrote telling him to keep away from Sicily. Discouraged by these things, he made his way toward Brundisium, and once there set sail for Dyrrhachium with a favorable wind, when a sea wind blew against him during the day he turned back, then put out again later. It is said that when he had landed at Dyrrhachium and was about to disembark, there occurred at the same time an earthquake and a convulsion of the sea; and from these the diviners concluded that his exile would not be lasting, for these were signs of change.

Though many came to see him out of sheer goodwill, and city after Greek city competed to send him embassies, still he spent most of his time despondent and grief-stricken, gazing toward Italy like a lovesick man, and had become, in his pride, so very small and humbled and shrunken by his misfortune that no one would have expected such a thing of a man who had lived with so great a training in learning.

And yet he himself had many times urged his friends to call him a philosopher rather than an orator, since it was philosophy he had taken up as his life's work, and used rhetoric merely as an instrument for the needs of his political career. But reputation has a terrible power to wash the dye of philosophy off the soul, as it were, and to smear onto men engaged in politics the passions of the multitude, through their intercourse and familiarity with them, unless one guards very carefully against being carried along with externals to such a degree as to share in the passions attached to affairs, rather than merely in the affairs themselves.

Clodius, having driven Cicero out, burned down his country houses, and burned down his city house too, and built on the site a temple of Liberty; and he put the rest of his property up for sale and had it cried day after day, though no one would buy any of it. Having thereby become formidable to the aristocratic party, and dragging the people along, given over to great insolence and boldness, he set upon Pompey, tearing apart some of the arrangements Pompey had made during his campaigns,

over which Pompey, in disgrace, reproached himself for having abandoned Cicero, and again, in a complete reversal, became active in every way, joining Cicero's friends in working for his recall; and since Clodius stood against it, the Senate resolved to ratify no public business in the meantime, and to conduct no public affair, unless Cicero's return should be granted,

and when Lentulus and his colleague were consuls and factional violence had reached the point where tribunes suffered wounds in the forum, and Quintus, Cicero's own brother, lay unnoticed among the corpses as if slain, opinion among the populace began to shift, and of the tribunes Annius Milo was the first who dared haul Clodius into court on a charge of violence; a great crowd rallied around Pompey, drawn from both the city populace and the towns nearby, and marching out together with them and driving Clodius out of the forum, he called on the citizens to vote.

And it is said that never before had the people passed any measure with such unanimity. The Senate, vying with the people, decreed that the cities which had shown Cicero care during his exile should be commended, and that his town house and his country estates, torn down by Clodius, should be restored at the public's cost.

Cicero came back in the exile's sixteenth month, and the cities' rejoicing, together with the crowds eager to greet him along the way, was so great that what Cicero later said fell short of the truth: he said that Italy had carried him on her shoulders into Rome. Even Crassus, who had been his enemy before the exile, then came eagerly to meet him and made up with him, doing a favor, as he said, to his son Publius, who was an admirer of Cicero.

Not long after this, watching for a time when Clodius was away from the city, he went up to the Capitol with many companions and tore away and destroyed the tribunician tablets, on which were recorded the acts of Clodius's tribunate. When Clodius made an accusation about this, and Cicero said that Clodius had unlawfully passed from patrician status to the tribunate, and that therefore nothing done by

him had any validity, Cato grew indignant and spoke against this; not that he approved of Clodius, indeed he was displeased with his political conduct, but he declared it a dangerous and violent thing for the Senate to vote the annulment of so many decrees and acts, among which was his own administration of affairs in Cyprus and Byzantium. From this Cicero fell into a quarrel with Cato, one that did not come to anything open, but which made their friendliness toward one another somewhat dimmer.

After this, Milo killed Clodius; and being prosecuted for the murder, he brought in Cicero as his advocate. The Senate, fearing that with a man so famous and high-spirited as Milo in danger, disturbance might arise in the city, entrusted to Pompey the conduct of this and the other trials, so that he should provide security for the city and the courts.

While Pompey, while it was still night, had surrounded the forum with soldiers occupying the heights, Milo, fearing that Cicero, disturbed by the unfamiliar sight, might plead his case worse, persuaded him to be carried to the forum in a litter and remain quiet there until the judges assembled and the court was filled; for Cicero was not only,

as it seems, lacking in courage amid weapons, but he even approached speaking with fear, and would scarcely stop trembling and shaking even after his speech, in many contests, had reached its peak and settled into its course. When he was defending Licinius Murena, who was being prosecuted by Cato, and was eager to surpass Hortensius, who had performed brilliantly, he did not rest at all during the night, so that from excessive worry and sleeplessness he was worn out and appeared inferior to himself.

So then, on that occasion, coming forward from his litter for Milo's trial, and seeing Pompey seated up above as if in a military camp, and weapons gleaming all around the forum, he was thrown into confusion and could scarcely begin his speech, his body trembling and his voice choked, while Milo himself stood by fearlessly and manfully to face the contest, disdaining to let his hair grow long or to change into mourning clothes; which indeed seems to have contributed not a little to his conviction. But Cicero, because of this, was thought to be more devoted to his friend than cowardly.

He was also enrolled among the priests the Romans term augurs, filling the vacancy left when young Crassus perished on Parthian soil. Then, having received by lot the province of Cilicia and an army of twelve thousand infantry and two thousand six hundred cavalry, he sailed out, having also been instructed to render King Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia friendly and obedient.

These things he accomplished and arranged blamelessly, without war; and seeing the Cilicians, elated by the Roman disaster against the Parthians and by the revolutionary movement in Syria, he calmed them by governing mildly. He accepted no gifts even when kings offered them, and he released the provincials from the burden of banquets; instead he himself, each day, entertained the cultivated men of the region with feasts, not extravagant, but generous.

His house had no doorkeeper, nor was he himself ever seen lying abed by anyone, but from early morning he stood or walked before his chamber and greeted those who came to pay their respects. It is said that he never had anyone beaten with rods, nor tore anyone's clothing, nor in anger hurled abuse together with insult upon anyone incurring a fine,

and having discovered that much public money had been embezzled, he made the cities prosperous, and kept those who repaid it from suffering anything further, preserving their civic standing. He also engaged in war, routing the bandits who lived around Mount Amanus, for which he was even hailed imperator by the soldiers.

When Caelius the orator asked him to send leopards from Cilicia to Rome for some spectacle, priding himself on his accomplishments he wrote back to him that there were no leopards in Cilicia, since they had fled into Caria, indignant that they alone were being warred upon while everyone else was at peace. Sailing away from his province, he touched first at Rhodes, and then lingered at Athens gladly, longing for his old pursuits there.

After spending time with the leading men in learning, and greeting the friends and companions of his earlier days, and being admired as was fitting by Greece, he returned to the city, since affairs were already, as it were, moving toward civil war under some inflammation.

Now in the Senate, when a triumph was voted to him, he said he would rather follow in Caesar's triumph if an agreement were reached; and privately he gave much advice, writing much to Caesar and asking much of Pompey himself, soothing and consoling each of them. But when matters proved beyond remedy and Caesar was advancing, Pompey did not remain, but left the city with many good men; from this flight Cicero held back, but he was thought to be siding with Caesar.

And it is clear from his own words that his mind was tossed back and forth many times between the two sides and suffered greatly. In his letters he confesses that he cannot decide toward which side he should incline, for Pompey had a glorious and noble cause for the war, while Caesar was managing affairs more skillfully and was better able to save himself and his friends, so that he had someone to flee from, but no one to flee to.

When Trebatius, one of Caesar's companions, wrote a letter saying that Caesar thought it best that Cicero above all should be examined together with himself and share in his hopes, but if he shrank back on account of old age, he should go to Greece and sit quietly there, keeping out of both men's way, Cicero, astonished that Caesar himself had not written, answered angrily that he would never do anything beneath the dignity of his career in public affairs. Such, then, are the things written in his letters.

Once Caesar had departed for Spain, Cicero without delay took ship to join Pompey; and while he appeared welcome to the others, Cato, on seeing him privately, reproached him at length for having gone over to Pompey's side, saying that for himself it would not have been honorable to abandon the political position he had chosen from the beginning, but that Cicero, by contrast, could have served his country and his friends better by remaining where he was, adapting himself with neutrality to whatever should happen, and that it was by no reasoning and not out of necessity that he had become an enemy of Caesar and had come here to share in so great a danger.

Cato's words shook Cicero's resolve, as did the fact that Pompey found little use for his services. The cause was Cicero himself, who did not deny that he regretted having come, but disparaged Pompey's preparations and was covertly discontented with his plans, and did not refrain from mocking and saying witty things against the allies, though he himself always went about the camp gloomy and never laughing, while providing others with laughter they had no need of.

It is worth setting down a few of these as well. When Domitius was bringing forward a man not suited to war for a command post, and saying that he was reasonable and moderate in character, Cicero said, "Then why not keep him as a guardian for your children?"

When some were praising Theophanes of Lesbos, who held the post of camp engineer-in-chief, for how skillfully he had comforted the Rhodians after losing their fleet, Cicero said, "What a fine thing it is to have a Greek as prefect!" And when Caesar was succeeding in most things and in a way besieging them, and Lentulus said he heard that Caesar's friends were gloomy, he answered, "You mean they are ill-disposed toward Caesar."

And when a certain Marcius, newly arrived from Italy, said that a rumor prevailed at Rome that Pompey was being besieged, he said, "Then did you sail here so that you might believe this by seeing it for yourself?" And after the defeat, when Nonius urged that hope was still warranted, given that seven eagles remained in Pompey's camp, Cicero said, "Now that would be fine counsel to follow,"

he said, "your advice would be sound if we happened to be fighting jackdaws." And when Labienus kept pressing certain oracles on him and insisting that Pompey must win, he said, "well, thanks to that clever plan of yours, we have now lost our camp."

But when the battle at Pharsalus took place — which he did not take part in on account of illness — and Pompey had fled, Cato commanded a sizeable army together with a substantial fleet stationed at Dyrrachium, and he thought that Cicero ought to take command in accordance with the law, since he outranked him in consular standing; but Cicero, pushing away the command and altogether avoiding further campaigning, came within a hair's breadth of being killed,

with the younger Pompey and his friends calling him a traitor and drawing their swords, had not Cato stepped in and with difficulty rescued him and got him away from the camp. Putting in at Brundisium, he remained there, awaiting Caesar's arrival, since Caesar had been held up by affairs in Asia and the region around Egypt,

and when word came that Caesar had put in at Tarentum and was making his way on foot from there to Brundisium, he set out toward him — not altogether without hope, but ashamed, with so many people present, to make trial of a man who was both an enemy and now in power. Yet he had no need to do or say anything unworthy of himself.

As soon as Caesar caught sight of him approaching well ahead of the rest to greet him, he got down and embraced him, and conversing with him alone he walked on for a good many stadia. And from that time he continued to honor and treat him kindly, so that when Cicero wrote a eulogy of Cato, Caesar, writing in reply, praised the speech while likening the man's career to that of Pericles and Theramenes.

Cicero's speech is entitled Cato, and Caesar's Anticato. And it is said that when Quintus Ligarius was on trial because he had become one of Caesar's enemies, and Cicero was pleading on his behalf, Caesar said to his friends, "what's stopping us from hearing Cicero speak again after all this time, since the man has long since been judged wicked and hostile?"

But when Cicero, having begun to speak, moved his audience extraordinarily and his speech advanced, varied in its pathos and marvelous in its charm, many colors came and went over Caesar's face, and it was plain that every turn of feeling passed through his soul; and finally, when the orator touched on the struggles at Pharsalus, Caesar was so overcome that he shook in his body and dropped some of the papers from his hand — in the end he was forced to acquit the man of the charge.

After this, with the constitution having shifted into monarchy, Cicero gave up public business and devoted his leisure to the young men eager to take up philosophy, and it was almost through his familiarity with these — who were of the noblest birth and foremost rank — that he again came to have very great influence in the city,

his own task being to render philosophical dialogues into Latin and translate them, and to give a Roman equivalent to each of the terms of logic or natural philosophy; for it was he, they say, who first, or most of all, gave the Romans names for "presentation," "assent," "suspension of judgment," and "comprehension," and further "the atom," "the indivisible," "the void," and many other such terms, making them familiar and expressible, some by metaphors, others by other devices of adaptation.

He used his facility for poetry as a form of play. It is said that whenever the impulse came upon him, he would compose five hundred verses in a night. For most of this period he spent his time at his country estates near Tusculum, and in letters told his friends he felt he was living out Laertes' existence — whether jesting, as was his custom, or because he burned with ambition for public life and was troubled by the state of affairs.

It was seldom that he came down into the city, and on those occasions merely to pay his respects to Caesar; yet he stood at the front of those pressing for honors in Caesar's favor, eager as they were to find some fresh praise for the man and his deeds — such as the remark he made about Pompey's statues, which had been taken down and thrown to the ground, but which Caesar ordered set up again — and they were set up. For Cicero said that by this act of humanity Caesar was setting up Pompey's statues while fixing his own firmly in place.

He was planning, it is said, to compose in writing the history of his fatherland, mixing in much from Greek history, and altogether to turn into it the stories and myths he had gathered — but he was overtaken by many public troubles and many private ones and sufferings, of which most seem to have come about through his own choice.

For first he sent away his wife Terentia, who had shown him neglect during the war, so that he was sent off short of even the necessary provisions for the journey, and did not find her considerate even when he returned again to Italy — for she herself did not come to him, though he stayed a long time at Brundisium, and when his daughter, a young girl, came so great a distance, she provided her neither with a fitting escort nor with the necessary funds, and moreover she left Cicero's house stripped bare and empty of everything, burdened with many great debts.

These are said to be the most respectable pretexts for the separation; but even as Terentia denied these very charges, he himself made her defense a brilliant one — for not long afterward he married a young girl, as Terentia gave it out, out of desire for her youthful beauty, but as Tiro, Cicero's freedman, has written, for the sake of wealth to pay off his debts,

for the girl was extremely rich, and Cicero, having been left as trustee of her estate, was keeping it safe. Since he owed a great many thousands, his friends and relatives urged him toward marrying the girl despite the difference in age, so that he could use her money to clear his creditors. Antony, mentioning this marriage in his replies to the Philippics, says that Cicero cast out a wife with whom he had grown old — wittily mocking at the same time Cicero's staying at home as that of a man inactive and unfit for soldiering.

Not long after he married her, his daughter died in childbirth at Lentulus's house — for she had been married to him after the death of her former husband Piso. Friends gathered from every side to console Cicero, but he took the event so hard that he even sent away the wife he had just married, believing she had seemed pleased at Tullia's death.

Such, then, was the state of affairs at home for Cicero. As for the plot forming against Caesar, he took no part in it, although he was among the closest companions of Brutus, and seemed, more than anyone else, to be weighed down by the present state of things and to long for the old order. But the conspirators feared his nature, as lacking in boldness, and also his age, at which even the most vigorous natures fall short of courage.

So when the deed had been done by Brutus and Cassius and their circle, and Caesar's friends were combining against them, there was fear again that the city would be plunged into civil wars; but Antony, then consul, convened the senate and spoke briefly about concord, while Cicero, discoursing at length in a manner suited to the occasion, persuaded the senate, imitating the Athenians, to vote an amnesty for what had been done against Caesar, and to hand out provinces to Cassius, Brutus, and their associates.

But none of this came to anything; for the people themselves, moved to pity of their own accord when they saw the corpse being borne through the forum, and when Antony displayed before them the garment drenched in blood and slashed everywhere by the swords, went mad with rage and searched the forum for the men, and ran with fire toward their houses meaning to burn them down. The conspirators escaped this danger because they had guarded against it beforehand, but expecting many other and greater dangers, they left the city.

At once Antony was exalted, and was feared by everyone as one about to become sole ruler, but most feared of all by Cicero. For seeing his power reviving again in the state, and knowing him to be well disposed toward Brutus's circle, Antony was displeased at his presence. And there had already existed some measure of suspicion between them owing to the dissimilarity and difference of their ways of life.

Fearing this, Cicero first set out to sail off with Dolabella to Syria as his legate; but when Hirtius and Pansa, who were to be consuls after Antony, both of them decent men who admired Cicero, pleaded with him to stay by them, promising to put down Antony while he remained, he — neither wholly distrusting nor wholly trusting them — let Dolabella go his way, and having agreed with Hirtius's circle that he would spend the summer at Athens and return again once they took up their office, he set sail on his own.

But there was a delay in the voyage, and when news arrived from Rome, as usually happens, that Antony had undergone an astonishing change and was doing and managing everything in accordance with the senate's wishes, and that only his own presence was lacking for affairs to be in the best condition, he reproached himself for having been overly cautious and turned back toward Rome once more.

And he was not mistaken in his first hopes: so great a crowd of people poured out to meet him in joy and longing that almost an entire day was spent in the greetings and expressions of goodwill around the gates and at his entrance. But on the next day, when Antony convened the senate and summoned him, he did not come, but lay in bed, pretending to be unwell from fatigue.

The truth seems to have been fear of a plot, arising from some suspicion and information that had reached him on the road. Antony was angered at this slander and sent soldiers either to bring him or to burn down his house, as he ordered; but when many objected and pleaded, he stopped after merely taking hostages.

And from then on they went about warily, keeping their distance from one another and on guard, until the young Caesar arrived from Apollonia, took up the inheritance of the elder Caesar, and fell into a dispute with Antony over the twenty-five million sesterces which Antony was withholding from the estate.

After this, Philip, who had the young Caesar's mother, and Marcellus, who had his sister, brought the young man to meet with Cicero, and reached an agreement: Cicero would provide him the power that came from his oratory and his standing in politics, both in the senate and with the people, and he in turn would provide Cicero the security that came from his money and his arms — for the young man already had around him not a few of those who had served under the elder Caesar.

There seems also to have been a greater cause for Cicero's eagerly accepting Caesar's friendship. It is said that while Pompey and Caesar were still alive, Cicero dreamed that someone was calling the sons of senators to the Capitol, since one of them was about to be appointed by Jupiter as ruler of Rome;

and that the citizens, running eagerly, stood around the temple, and the boys, in their purple-bordered togas, sat in silence, and suddenly the doors opened and, one by one, as each boy rose, he walked in a circle past the god, who looked over all of them and sent them away disappointed. But when this one came up to him, he stretched out his right hand and said, "Romans, this one, when he becomes your leader, will be the end of your civil wars."

They say that after seeing such a dream, Cicero had the boy's appearance impressed upon him and held it clearly in mind, though he did not know who he was. The next day, going down to the Campus Martius, he saw the boys already finished with their exercises departing, and that boy appeared to Cicero looking exactly as he had appeared in the dream; and astonished, he inquired who his parents were,

His father was an Octavius, not a man of any great distinction, and his mother was Attia, the niece of Caesar; and it was for this reason that Caesar, having no children of his own, gave him his property and his household in his will. From that time, they say, Cicero made a point of meeting the boy diligently whenever they crossed paths, and the young man received his friendly attentions warmly, since it had also happened, by chance, that he was born in the year of Cicero's consulship.

These, then, were the reasons that were given out. But it was Cicero's hatred of Antony that came first, and then his nature, which was too fond of honor, that led him to court Caesar's favor, thinking he was thereby adding that young man's power to his own political cause. So completely did the boy win him over that Cicero even called him father.

At which Brutus was furious, and in his letters to Atticus he reproached Cicero, saying that in courting Caesar out of fear of Antony he was plainly not securing freedom for his country but was seeking out a kindly master for himself. Nevertheless Brutus took Cicero's own son, who was then living in Athens among the philosophers, and kept him at his side in positions of command, and made good use of him in many matters.

At that time Cicero's power in the city had reached its very height, and, master of the situation to whatever degree he wished, he drove Antony out and organized the political forces against him, dispatching the pair of consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, against him in war; and it was he who won over the senate to grant Caesar the fasces and full military insignia, as though the young man were waging war for his homeland's defense.

But when Antony had been defeated, and both consuls had died as a result of the battle, their forces joined themselves to Caesar; and the senate, afraid of this young man who had enjoyed such brilliant fortune, attempted through honors and rewards to lure his soldiers from his side and to strip away his power, on the ground that it no longer needed defenders now that Antony had fled.

It was because of this that Caesar, taking fright, sent men privately to Cicero, urging him to seek the consulship jointly with himself, so that Caesar could manage affairs however he himself had determined, while taking hold of the office, and could let the young man administer things while getting only the name and the glory of it. Caesar himself admitted that, being afraid of being disbanded and in danger of being left without support, he had made use of Cicero's ambition for office when it suited his need, urging him to stand for the consulship while promising his own cooperation and support in the canvass.

It was here above all that Cicero, an old man led on by a young one, was deceived, and by joining in the canvassing and gaining the senate's support for him, he at once incurred blame from his friends, and only a little later realized that he had destroyed himself and had surrendered the people's freedom in the bargain.

For the young man, once he had grown in strength and obtained the consulship, said farewell to Cicero, and, becoming friends with Antony and Lepidus and combining his forces with theirs, divided up the supreme power among them as though it were some piece of property; and there were drawn up lists of men who were to die, more than two hundred of them. But the greatest dispute among their claims was caused by the proscription of Cicero, with Antony refusing any settlement unless Cicero were the very first to die, and Lepidus siding with Antony, while Caesar held out against them both.

Their meetings were held in secret, with none but themselves present, near the city of Bononia, over the course of three days, and they came together in a certain place at some distance from the camps, encircled by a stream. For the first two days, it is said, Caesar contended vigorously in Cicero's defense, but on the third day yielded and abandoned the man; and the terms of this exchange of victims were as follows.

Caesar had to give up Cicero, Lepidus his own brother Paulus, and Antony had to give up Lucius Caesar, who was his uncle on his mother's side — so far had they fallen, through rage and madness, from human reasoning, or rather, so clearly did they reveal that man, once passion has mastered him, becomes more savage than any wild beast.

While these things were being carried out, Cicero was on his own estate near Tusculum, with his brother at his side; and when they learned of the proscriptions they decided to move on to Astura, a coastal property of Cicero's, and from there to sail to Macedonia to join Brutus, for word was already going about that he was in control there. They were carried in litters, worn out with grief, and along the road they would stop and set their litters side by side and weep together.

Quintus was the more despondent of the two, and a reckoning of his own lack of resources came over him — he said he had brought nothing from home with him, and that even Cicero's traveling funds were scanty; it would be better, then, for Cicero to go on ahead in his flight, while he himself ran back home to gather his belongings. This they decided; and, embracing one another and weeping, they parted.

Quintus, then, not many days later, was betrayed by his own household slaves to those hunting him, and was put to death along with his son. Cicero, having been carried to Astura and finding a boat there, at once boarded it and sailed along the coast as far as Circaeum, making use of a favorable wind. From there, though the pilots wished to set sail at once, he disembarked — whether from fear of the sea, or because he had not yet entirely given up hope in Caesar's good faith — and went on foot for a hundred stadia, as though making his way toward Rome.

But again he grew distracted and changed his mind, and went back down to the sea toward Astura. There he spent the night turning over terrible and desperate calculations, so much so that he even considered making his way secretly into Caesar's house and killing himself upon the hearth, to bring down an avenging spirit upon him. But fear of torture turned him away from this course as well, and, going through many confused and shifting plans in his thinking, he entrusted himself to his servants to be carried by sea to Caieta, where he had estates and a pleasant refuge in the summer season, when the etesian winds blow most agreeably.

The place also has a small temple of Apollo above the sea. From there a flock of crows rose up together, screeching, and flew toward Cicero's boat as it was being rowed to land; and settling on the yardarm on either side, some cawed while the rest gnawed at the rope-ends, and to everyone present, the omen looked ill-boding. Cicero, in any case, disembarked, and went into his villa to rest, and lay down.

Most of the crows perched on the window, making a great commotion with their cries, but one of them flew down onto the couch where Cicero lay with his face covered, and with its beak began little by little to pull the cloak away from his face. The servants, seeing this, and reproaching themselves for waiting about as spectators while their master was being murdered, when even wild creatures came to his aid and showed concern for him beyond what he deserved, while they themselves offered no defense, partly by pleading with him and partly by taking him up by force, carried him in his litter down toward the sea.

Meanwhile the assassins arrived — a centurion, Herennius, and Popillius, a military tribune, whom Cicero had once defended when he was on trial for the murder of his father — and they had attendants with them. Finding the doors closed, they broke them down, and since Cicero was nowhere to be seen and those inside claimed not to know where he was,

it is said that a young man, one who had been raised by Cicero in liberal letters and learning but who was a freedman of his brother Quintus, named Philologus, informed the tribune that the litter was passing along the shaded, overgrown walkways on its way toward the sea. The tribune, taking a few men with him, ran around to the exit, while Herennius came running through the walkways; and Cicero became aware of him, and ordered his servants to set the litter down right there.

He himself, as was his custom, touched his chin with his left hand and gazed steadily at his killers, filthy and unkempt and his face wasted away with anxieties, so that most of those present covered their own faces while Herennius cut him down.

He was slaughtered as he stretched his neck out from the litter, in the sixty-fourth year of his life; and Antony ordered that his head and his hands be cut off — the hands with which he had written the Philippics. For Cicero himself had entitled his speeches against Antony the Philippics, and to this day the books are still called by that name.

When the severed parts were brought to Rome, Antony happened to be presiding over an election; and when he heard of it and saw them he cried out that now the proscriptions were at an end. He ordered the head and the hands to be placed above the Rostra on the speaker's platform, a spectacle horrifying to the Romans, who felt they were looking not at Cicero's face but at an image of Antony's own soul —

except that in one small matter he showed some moderation in these dealings: he turned Philologus over to Quintus's wife, Pomponia. Once the man was in her power, she inflicted other terrible punishments upon him, forcing him to slice off pieces of his own flesh, roast them bit by bit, and eat them. So, at least, some of the historians have recorded it; but Tiro, the freedman who had once served Cicero, says nothing whatsoever about Philologus's treachery.

I have also learned that Caesar, a long time afterward, came in upon one of his grandsons who was holding a book of Cicero's in his hands; and the boy, in alarm, tried to hide it under his cloak, but Caesar, seeing this, took the book and read through a great part of it standing there, and then, handing it back to the young man, said, "An eloquent man, my boy — eloquent, and a lover of his country."

Indeed, as soon as he had finished off Antony in the war, being consul himself he chose Cicero's son as his fellow consul; and during that same consulship the senate pulled down Antony's statues, annulled all his other honors, and further decreed that no one of the Antonii should bear the name Marcus — so did the divine power bring round, upon the household of Cicero, the final act of Antony's punishment.

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