Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
Treatises on Friendship and Old AgeINTRODUCTORY NOTEON FRIENDSHIPON OLD AGECopyright
Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
Marcus Tullius Cicero
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and
the chief master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, Jan. 3,
106 B.C. His father, who was a man of property and belonged to the
class of the "Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a child; and
the future statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric,
law, and philosophy, studying and practising under some of the most
noted teachers of the time. He began his career as an advocate at
the age of twenty-five, and almost immediately came to be
recognized not only as a man of brilliant talents but also as a
courageous upholder of justice in the face of grave political
danger. After two years of practice he left Rome to travel in
Greece and Asia, taking all the opportunities that offered to study
his art under distinguished masters. He returned to Rome greatly
improved in health and in professional skill, and in 76 B. C. was
elected to the office of quaestor. He was assigned to the province
of Lilybarum in Sicily, and the vigor and justice of his
administration earned him the gratitude of the inhabitants. It was
at their request that he undertook in 70 B. C. the Prosecution of
Verres, who as Praetor had subjected the Sicilians to incredible
extortion and oppression; and his successful conduct of this case,
which ended in the conviction and banishment of Verres, may be said
to have launched him on his political career. He became aedile in
the same year, in 67 B.C. praetor, and in 64 B. C. was elected
consul by a large majority. The most important event of the year of
his consulship was the conspiracy of Catiline. This notorious
criminal of patrician rank had conspired with a number of others,
many of them young men of high birth but dissipated character, to
seize the chief offices of the state, and to extricate themselves
from the pecuniary and other difficulties that had resulted from
their excesses, by the wholesale plunder of the city. The plot was
unmasked by the vigilance of Cicero, five of the traitors were
summarily executed, and in the overthrow of the army that had been
gathered in their support Catiline himself perished. Cicero
regarded himself as the savior of his country, and his country for
the moment seemed to give grateful assent.But reverses were at hand. During the existence of the
political combination of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, known as the
first triumvirate, P. Clodius, an enemy of Cicero's, proposed a law
banishing "any one who had put Roman citizens to death without
trial." This was aimed at Cicero on account of his share in the
Catiline affair, and in March, 58 B. C., he left Rome. The same day
a law was passed by which he was banished by name, and his property
was plundered and destroyed, a temple to Liberty being erected on
the site of his house in the city. During his exile Cicero's
manliness to some extent deserted him. He drifted from place to
place, seeking the protection of officials against assassination,
writing letters urging his supporters to agitate for his recall,
sometimes accusing them of lukewarmness and even treachery,
bemoaning the ingratitude of his' country or regretting the course
of action that had led to his outlawry, and suffering from extreme
depression over his separation from his wife and children and the
wreck of his political ambitions. Finally in August, 57 B. C., the
decree for his restoration was passed, and he returned to Rome the
next month, being received with immense popular enthusiasm. During
the next few years the renewal of the understanding among the
triumvirs shut Cicero out from any leading part in politics, and he
resumed his activity in the law-courts, his most important case
being, perhaps, the defence of Milo for the murder of Clodius,
Cicero's most troublesome enemy. This oration, in the revised form
in which it has come down to us, is ranked as among the finest
specimens of the art of the orator, though in its original form it
failed to secure Milo's acquittal. Meantime, Cicero was also
devoting much time to literary composition, and his letters show
great dejection over the political situation, and a somewhat
wavering attitude towards the various parties in the state. In 55
B. C. he went to Cilicia in Asia Minor as proconsul, an office
which he administered with efficiency and integrity in civil
affairs and with success in military. He returned to Italy in the
end of the following year, and he was publicly thanked by the
senate for his services, but disappointed in his hopes for a
triumph. The war for supremacy between Caesar and Pompey which had
for some time been gradually growing more certain, broke out in 49
B.C., when Caesar led his army across the Rubicon, and Cicero after
much irresolution threw in his lot with Pompey, who was overthrown
the next year in the battle of Pharsalus and later murdered in
Egypt. Cicero returned to Italy, where Caesar treated him
magnanimously, and for some time he devoted himself to
philosophical and rhetorical writing. In 46 B.C. he divorced his
wife Terentia, to whom he had been married for thirty years and
married the young and wealthy Publilia in order to relieve himself
from financial difficulties; but her also he shortly divorced.
Caesar, who had now become supreme in Rome, was assassinated in 44
B.C., and though Cicero was not a sharer in the conspiracy, he
seems to have approved the deed. In the confusion which followed he
supported the cause of the conspirators against Antony; and when
finally the triumvirate of Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus was
established, Cicero was included among the proscribed, and on
December 7, 43 B.C., he was killed by agents of Antony. His head
and hand were cut off and exhibited at Rome.The most important orations of the last months of his life
were the fourteen "Philippics" delivered against Antony, and the
price of this enmity he paid with his life.To his contemporaries Cicero was primarily the great forensic
and political orator of his time, and the fifty-eight speeches
which have come down to us bear testimony to the skill, wit,
eloquence, and Passion which gave him his pre-eminence. But these
speeches of necessity deal with the minute details of the occasions
which called them forth, and so require for their appreciation a
full knowledge of the history, political and personal, of the time.
The letters, on the other hand, are less elaborate both in style
and in the handling of current events, while they serve to reveal
his personality, and to throw light upon Roman life in the last
days of the Republic in an extremely vivid fashion. Cicero as a
man, in spite of his self-importance, the vacillation of his
political conduct in desperate crises, and the whining despondency
of his times of adversity, stands out as at bottom a patriotic
Roman of substantial honesty, who gave his life to check the
inevitable fall of the commonwealth to which he was devoted. The
evils which were undermining the Republic bear so many striking
resemblances to those which threaten the civic and national life of
America to-day that the interest of the period is by no means
merely historical.As a philosopher, Cicero's most important function was to
make his countrymen familiar with the main schools of Greek
thought. Much of this writing is thus of secondary interest to us
in comparison with his originals, but in the fields of religious
theory and of the application of philosophy to life he made
important first-hand contributions. From these works have been
selected the two treatises, on Old Age and on Friendship, which
have proved of most permanent and widespread interest to posterity,
and which give a clear impression of the way in which a high-minded
Roman thought about some of the main problems' of human
life.
ON FRIENDSHIP
THE augur Quintus Mucius Scaevola used to recount a number of
stories about his father-in-law Galus Laelius, accurately
remembered and charmingly told; and whenever he talked about him
always gave him the title of "the wise" without any hesitation. I
had been introduced by my father to Scaevola as soon as I had
assumed thetoga virilis, and I
took advantage of the introduction never to quit the venerable
man's side as long as I was able to stay and he was spared to us.
The consequence was that I committed to memory many disquisitions
of his, as well as many short pointed apophthegms, and, in short,
took as much advantage of his wisdom as I could. When he died, I
attached myself to Scaevola the Pontifex, whom I may venture to
call quite the most distinguished of our countrymen for ability and
uprightness. But of this latter I shall take other occasions to
speak. To return to Scaevola the augur. Among many other occasions
I particularly remember one. He was sitting on a semicircular
garden-bench, as was his custom, when I and a very few intimate
friends were there, and he chanced to turn the conversation upon a
subject which about that time was in many people's mouths. You must
remember, Atticus, for you were very intimate with Publius
Sulpicius, what expressions of astonishment, or even indignation,
were called forth by his mortal quarrel, as tribune, with the
consul Quintus Pompeius, with whom he had formerly lived on terms
of the closest intimacy and affection. Well, on this occasion,
happening to mention this particular circumstance, Scaevola
detailed to us a discourse of Laelius on friendship delivered to
himself and Laelius's other son-in-law Galus Fannius, son of Marcus
Fannius, a few days after the death of Africanus. The points of
that discussion I committed to memory, and have arranged them in
this book at my own discretion. For I have brought the speakers, as
it were, personally on to my stage to prevent the constant "said I"
and "said he" of a narrative, and to give the discourse the air of
being orally delivered in our hearing.You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and
I quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's
investigation, and specially suited to the close intimacy that has
existed between you and me. Accordingly I was quite ready to
benefit the public at your request.As to thedramatis personae. In the treatise on Old Age, which I dedicated to you, I
introduced Cato as chief speaker. No one, I thought, could with
greater propriety speak on old age than one who had been an old man
longer than any one else, and had been exceptionally vigorous in
his old age. Similarly, having learnt from tradition that of all
friendships that between Gaius Laelius and Publius Scipio was the
most remarkable, I thought Laelius was just the person to support
the chief part in a discussion on friendship which Scaevola
remembered him to have actually taken. Moreover, a discussion of
this sort gains somehow in weight from the authority of men of
ancient days, especially if they happen to have been distinguished.
So it comes about that in reading over what I have myself written I
have a feeling at times that it is actually Cato that is speaking,
not I.Finally, as I sent the former essay to you as a gift from one
old man to another, so I have dedicated thisOn
Friendshipas a most affectionate friend to his
friend. In the former Cato spoke, who was the oldest and wisest man
of his day; in this Laelius speaks on friendship—Laelius, who was
at once a wise man (that was the title given him) and eminent for
his famous friendship. Please forget me for a while; imagine
Laelius to be speaking.Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come to call on their
father-in-law after the death of Africanus. They start the subject;
Laelius answers them. And the whole essay on friendship is his. In
reading it you will recognise a picture of yourself.2.Fannius. You are quite
right, Laelius! there never was a better or more illustrious
character than Africanus. But you should consider that at the
present moment all eyes are on you. Everybody calls you "the
wise"par excellence, and
thinks you so. The same mark of respect was lately paid Cato, and
we know that in the last generation Lucius Atilius was called "the
wise." But in both cases the word was applied with a certain
difference. Atilius was so called from his reputation as a jurist;
Cato got the name as a kind of honorary title and in extreme old
age because of his varied experience of affairs, and his reputation
for foresight and firmness, and the sagacity of the opinions which
he delivered in senate and forum. You, however, are regarded as
wise in a somewhat different sense not alone on account of natural
ability and character, but also from your industry and learning;
and not in the sense in which the vulgar, but that in which
scholars, give that title. In this sense we do not read of any one
being called wise in Greece except one man at Athens; and he, to be
sure, had been declared by the oracle of Apollo also to be "the
supremely wise man." For those who commonly go by the name of the
Seven Sages are not admitted into the category of the wise by
fastidious critics. Your wisdom people believe to consist in this,
that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing and regard the
changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your
virtue. Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also
our Scaevola here, how you bear the death of Africanus. This
curiosity has been the more excited from the fact that on the Nones
of this month, when we augurs met as usual in the suburban villa of
Decimus Brutus for consultation, you were not present, though it
had always been your habit to keep that appointment and perform
that duty with the utmost punctuality.Scaevola. Yes, indeed, Laelius, I am
often asked the question mentioned by Fannius. But I answer in
accordance with what I have observed: I say that you bear in a
reasonable manner the grief which you have sustained in the death
of one who was at once a man of the most illustrious character and
a very dear friend. That of course you could not but be
affected—anything else would have been wholly unnatural in a man of
your gentle nature—but that the cause of your non-attendance at our
college meeting was illness, not melancholy.Laelius. Thanks, Scaevola! You are
quite right; you spoke the exact truth. For in fact I had no right
to allow myself to be withdrawn from a duty which I had regularly
performed, as long as I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor
do I think that anything that can happen will cause a man of
principle to intermit a duty. As for your telling me, Fannius, of
the honourable appellation given me (an appellation to which I do
not recognise my title, and to which I make no claim), you
doubtless act from feelings of affection; but I must say that you
seem to me to do less than justice to Cato. If any one was ever
"wise,"—of which I have my doubts,—he was. Putting aside everything
else, consider how he bore his son's death! I had not forgotten
Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes Gallus. But they lost their
sons when mere children; Cato his when he was a full-grown man with
an assured reputation. Do not therefore be in a hurry to reckon as
Cato's superior even that same famous personage whom Apollo, as you
say, declared to be "the wisest." Remember the former's reputation
rests on deeds, the latter's on words.3. Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you
now), believe me the case stands thus. If I were to say that I am
not affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to
justify my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie.
Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there
will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was
before. But I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own
consolation, and it consists chiefly in my being free from the
mistaken notion which generally causes pain at the departure of
friends. To Scipio I am convinced no evil has befallen mine is the
disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at
one's own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but
that you love yourself.