July 26, 2025 • 32 mins
Dive into the captivating life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, an influential orator, statesman, philosopher, and correspondent who emerged as a new man in the chaotic final years of Romes republican government. In this biography, acclaimed novelist Anthony Trollope delivers a passionate defense of Ciceros virtues against critics who question his political and personal strength. Trollopes personal approach offers a unique glimpse into his own thought process and era, as well as those of Cicero. Volume I explores Ciceros formative years, his ascension through the courts and state offices to the Consulship, and his subsequent exile. This version omits footnotes and appendices, which mostly consist of bibliographical citations, Latin quotations, and substantial extracts from other works, unless they are explicitly referred to in the main text. Catch up with Volume II after this.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twelve, Part one of the Life of Cicero, Volume one.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philippa Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollop, Chapter twelve, His Exile,
(00:21):
Part one. We now come to that period of Cicero's life,
in which, by common consent of all who have hitherto
written of him, he is supposed to have shown himself
as least worthy of his high name. Middleton, who certainly
loved his hero's memory and was always anxious to do
him justice, condemns him. It cannot be denied that in
(00:42):
this calamity of his exile, he did not behave himself
with that firmness which might reasonably be expected from one
who had borne so glorious a part in the Republic Morabain.
The French biographer speaks of the wailings of his grief,
of its injustice and its follies. CICEROI t tree alle plance,
sommelurred nuvellesperance. He says, Ila vesu portees Omela ravig pud Kurage,
(01:09):
says another Frenchman, Monsieur de Rosoar. In introducing us to
the speeches which Cicero made on his return, Dean Merrivale
declares that he marred the grace of the concession in
the eyes of posterity, alluding to the concession made to
the popular feeling by his voluntary departure from Rome, as
will thereafter be described by the unmanly lamentations with which
(01:31):
he accompanied it. Momson, with a want of insight into character,
wonderful in an author who has so closely studied the
history of the period, speaks of his exile as a
punishment inflicted on a man notoriously timid and belonging to
the class of political weathercocks. We now come, says mister Forsyth,
(01:51):
to the most melancholy period of Cicero's life. Melancholy not
so much from its nature and the extent of the
misfortunes which overtook him, as from the the abject's prostration
of mind into which he was thrown. Mister Food, as
might be expected us his language stronger than that of others,
and tells us that he retired to Macedonia to pour
(02:11):
out his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of
a woman. We have to admit that modern historians and
biographers have been united in accusing Cicero of want of
manliness during his exile. I propose, not indeed, to wash
the black and more white, but to show, if I can,
that he was as white as others might be expected
(02:33):
to have been in similar circumstances. We are, I think,
somewhat proud of the courage shown by public men of
our country who have suffered, either justly or unjustly under
the laws. Our annals are bloody, and many such have
had to meet their death. They have done so generally
with becoming manliness. Even though they may have been rebels
(02:54):
against the powers of the day. Their memories have been
made green because they have fallen like brave men. Sir
Thomas Moore, who was no rebel, died well and crowned
a good life by his manner of leaving it. Thomas
Cromwell submitted to the axe without a complaint. Lady Jane Gray,
when on the scaffold, yielded nothing in manliness to the others.
(03:15):
Cranmer and the martyr Bishops perished nobly. The Earl of
Essex and Raleigh and Strafford, and Strafford's master showed no
fear when the fatal moment came. In regarding the fate
of each we sympathize with the victim because of a
certain dignity at the moment of death. But there is
I think, no crisis of life in which it is
(03:36):
so easy for a man to carry himself honorably as
that in which he has to leave it when it's
summadies in na luctabile tempus, No doubting now can be
of avail. No moment is left for the display of
conduct beyond this, which requires only decorum and a free
use of the pulses to become in some degree glorious.
(03:59):
The wretch from the lowest dregs of the people can
achieve it with a halter around his neck. Cicero had
that moment also to face, and when it came he
was as brave as the best Englishman of them all.
But of those I have named, no one had an
Atticus to whom it had been the privilege of his
life to open his very soul in language so charming
(04:22):
as to make it worth posterity's while to read it,
to study it, to sift it, and to criticize it.
Wolsey made many plaints in his misery, but they have
reached us in such forms of grace that they did
not disparage him. But then he too had no atticus.
Shaftsbury and Bolingbroke were dismissed ministers and doomed to live
in exile, the latter for many years, and felt no
(04:45):
doubt strongly their removal from the glare of public life
to obscurity. We hear no complaint from them, which can
justify some future critic in saying that their whales were
unworthy of a woman. But neither of them was capable
of telling an atticus the thoughts of his mind as
they rose. What other public man ever had an atticus
(05:07):
to whom, in the sorrows which the ingratitude of friends
had brought upon him, he could disclose every throb of
his heart. I think that we are often at a
loss in our efforts at appreciation of character, and in
the expressions of our opinion respecting it, to realize the
meaning of courage and manliness. That sententious Swedish queen, one
(05:29):
of whose foolish maxims I have quoted, has said that Cicero,
though a coward, was capable of great actions because she
did not know what a coward was. To doubt, to
tremble with anxiety, to vacillate hither and thither between this
cause and the other, as to which may be the better.
To complain within one's own breast, that this or that
thing has been an injustice, To hesitate within oneself, not
(05:54):
quite knowing which way honor may require us to go,
To be indignant even at fancied wrongs, to rise in
wrath against another, and then, before the hour has pass,
to turn that wrath against one's self. That is not
to be a coward. To know what duty requires, and
then to be deterred by fear of results, that is
(06:15):
to be a coward. But the man of many scruples
may be the greatest hero of them all. Let the
law of things be declared clearly, so that the doubting
mind shall no longer doubt, so that scruples may be
laid at rest, so that the sense of justice may
be satisfied, and he of whom I speak shall be
ready to meet the world in arms against him. There
(06:38):
are men very useful in their way, who shall never
doubt at all, but shall be ready as the bull
is ready to encounter any obstacles that there may be
before them. I will not say but that for the
coarse purposes of the world, they may not be the
most efficacious, But I will not admit that they are
therefore the bravest. The bull, who has no imagination to
(06:59):
tell him what the obstacle may do to him, is
not brave. He is brave who, fully, understanding the potentiality
of the obstacle, shall for sufficient purpose move against it.
This Cicero always did. He braved the murderous anger of Sullah, when,
as a young man he thought it well to stop
(07:21):
the greed of Sulla's minions. He trusted himself amid the
dangers prepared for him, when it was necessary that with
extraordinary speed he should get together the evidence needed to
the prosecution of fairies. He was firm against all that
Catiline attempted for his destruction, and had courage enough for
the responsibility when he thought it expedient to doom the
(07:41):
friends of Catiline to death in defending Milo. Whether the
cause were good or bad, he did not blench. He
joined the Republican army in Macedonia, though he distrusted Pompey
and his companions. When he thought that there was a
hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all
the courage of a tigress protecting her young. And when
(08:04):
all had failed and was rotten around him, when the
Republic had so fallen that he knew it to be gone,
then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman,
with all the apparent indifference of life which was displayed
by those countrymen of our own whom I have named.
But why did he write so piteously when he was
driven into exile? Why at any rate did he turn
(08:27):
upon his chosen friend and scold him, as though that
friend had not done enough for friendship? Why did he
talk of suicide, as though by that he might find
the easiest way of escape. I hold it to be
natural that a man should wail to himself under a
sense not simply of misfortune, but of misfortune coming to
him from the injustice of others, and specially from the
(08:49):
ingratitude of friends. Afflictions which come to us from natural causes,
such as sickness and physical pain, or from some chance,
such as the loss of our money by the breaking
of a bank. An heroic man will bear without even
inward complainings, but a sense of wrong done to him
by friends will stir him, not by the misery inflicted,
(09:11):
but because of the injustice, and that which he says
to himself. He will say to his wife, if his
wife be to him as second self, or to his friend,
if he have one so dear to him. The testimony
by which the writers I have named have been led
to treat Cicero so severely has been found in the
letters which he wrote during his exile. And of these
(09:32):
letters all but one were addressed either to Atticus, or
to his wife, or to his brother. Twenty seven of
them were to Atticus before he accepted a voluntary exile
as the best solution of the difficulty in which he
was placed, For it was voluntary at first, As will
be seen, he applied to the consul Piso for aid,
(09:52):
and for the same purpose visited Pompey. So far he
was a suppliant, But this he did in conformity was
Roman and usage. In asking favor of a man in power,
there was held to be no disgrace even though the
favor asked were one improper to be granted, which was
not the case with Cicero, and he went about the
forum in mourning saudidatus, as was the custom with men
(10:16):
on their trial. We cannot doubt that in each of
these cases he acted with the advice of his friends.
His conduct and his words after his return from exiled
betray exaltation rather than despondency. It is from the letters
which he wrote to Atticus that he has been judged,
from words boiling with indignation, that such a one as
(10:37):
he should have been surrendered by the Rome, that he
had saved by those friends to whom he had been
so true, to be trampled on by such a one
as Clodius. When a man has written words intended for
the public ear, it is fair that he should bear
the brunt of them, be it what it may. He
has intended them for public effects, and if they are
used against him, he should not complain. But here where
(11:00):
the secret murmurings of the man's soul were sent forth
to his choicest friend, with no idea that from them
would he be judged by the historians to come in
six hundred years of whose good word he thought so much.
Quidwero historiadenobis ad annos sescenti pred Carinth, He says to Atticus,
(11:20):
how is it that from them, after two thousand years,
the merryvales, momsons, and foods condemn their great brother in
letters whose lightest utterances have been found worthy of so
long a life. Is there not an injustice in falling
upon a man's private words, words when written intended only
for privacy, and making them the basis of an accusation
(11:43):
in which an illustrious man shall be arraigned forever as
a coward. It is said that he was unjust even
to Atticus, accusing even Atticus of luke warmness. What if
he did so for an hour? Is that an affair
of ours? Did Attica quarrel with him? Let any reader
of these words, who has lived long enough to have
(12:04):
an old friend, ask himself whether there has never been
a moment of anger in his heart, of anger of
which he has soon learned to recognize the injustice. He
may not have written his angel, but then perhaps he
has not had the pen of a Cicero. Let those
who rebuke the unmanliness of Cicero's wailings. Remember what were
(12:25):
his sufferings. The story has yet to be told, but
I may, in rough words, describe their nature. Everything was
to be taken from him all that he had, his houses,
his books, his peasant gardens, his busts and pictures, his
wide retinue of slaves, and possessions lordly as are those
of our dukes and earls. He was driven out from Italy,
(12:49):
and so driven that no place of delight could be
open to him. Cicily, where he had friends, and Athens,
where he might have lived, were closed against him. He
had to look where to live, and did live for
a while on money borrowed from his friends. All the
cherished occupations of his life were over for him, the
law courts, the forum, the Senate, and the crowded meetings
(13:12):
of Roman citizens hanging on his words. The circumstances of
his exile separated him from his wife and children, so
that he was alone. All this was assured to him
for life, as far as Roman law could assure it.
Let us think of the condition of some great and
serviceable Englishmen in similar circumstances. Let us suppose that Sir
(13:34):
Robert Peel had been impeached and forced by some iniquitous
sentence to live beyond the pale of civilization, That the
houses at Whitehall Gardens and at Drayton had been confiscated,
dismantled and leveled to the ground, and his rents and
revenues made over to his enemies. That everything should have
been done to destroy him by the country he had served,
except the act of taking away that life, which would
(13:57):
thus have been made a burden to him. Would not
his case have been more piteous, a source of more
righteous indignation than that even of the Moors or Raleigh's.
He suffered under invectives in the House of Commons, and
we sympathize with him. But if some Clodius of the
day could have done this to him, should we have
thought the worse of him? Had he opened his wounds
(14:18):
to his wife, or to his brother, or to his
friend of friends. Had cisro put an end to his
life in his exile, as he thought of doing, he
would have been a second Cato to admiring posterity. And
some Lucan with rolling verses would have told us narratives
of his valor. The judges of today look back to
(14:39):
his half formed purposes in this direction, as being an
added evidence of the weakness of the man. But had
he let himself blood and have perished in his bath,
he would have been thought to have escaped from life
as honorably as de Junius Brutus. It is because he
dared to live on that we are taught to think
so little of him. Because he had anti dated Christianity
(15:01):
so far as to feel, when the moment came that
such an escape was in truth unmanly, he doubted, and
when the deed had not been done, he expressed regret
that he had allowed himself to live, but he did
not do it as Cato would have done or Brutus.
It may be as well here to combat in as
(15:22):
few words as possible, the assertions which have been made
that Cicero, having begun life as a democrat, discarded his
colours as soon as he had received from the people
those honours for which he had sought popularity. They who
have said so have taken their idea from the fact
that in much of his early forensic work he spoke
against the Aristocratic party. He attacked Sullah through his favourite
(15:46):
Chrysogonus in his defense of Roscius Amarinus. He afterward defended
a woman of Arretium in the spirit of antagonism to Sullah.
His accusation of varies was made on the same side
in politics, and was carried on in opposition to Hortensius
and the oligarchs. He defended the tribune Caius Cornelius. Then,
(16:06):
when he became consul, he devoted himself to the destruction
of Cataline, who was joined with many, perhaps with Caesar's sympathy,
in the conspiracy for the overthrow of the republic. Caesar
soon became the leader of the democracy, became rather what
Momson describes as democracy itself. And as Cicero had defended
(16:27):
the Senate from Cataline and had refused to attach himself
to Caesar, he is supposed to have turned from the
political ideas of his youth, and to have become a
conservative when conservative ideas suited his ambition. I will not
accept the excuse put forward on his behalf that the
early speeches were made on the side of democracy because
(16:48):
the exigencies of the occasion required him to so devote
his energies as an advocate. No doubt he was an advocate,
as are our barristers. Of today, and as an advocate,
supported this side or that. But we shall be wrong
if we suppose that the Roman Patronus supplied his services
under such inducements. With us, a man goes into the
(17:09):
profession of the law with the intention of making money,
and takes the cases right and left, unless there be
special circumstances which may debar him from doing so. With honor,
it is a point of etiquette with him to give
his assistance in turn as he may be called on,
so much so that leading men are not unfrequently employed
on one side, simply that they may not be employed
(17:30):
on the other side. It should not be urged on
the part of Cicero that so actuated he defended Amarinus
a case in which he took part against the aristocrats,
or defended Publio Sulla in doing which he appeared on
the side of the aristocracy. Such a defense of his
conduct would be misleading and might be confuted. It would
(17:51):
be confuted by those who suppose him to have been
notoriously a political trimmer, as Momson has called him, or
a deserter, as he was described by Diocassius and by
the pseudo sallust. By showing that In fact, he took
up causes under the influence of strong personal motives, such
as rarely govern an English barrister. These motives were in
(18:12):
many cases partly political, but they operated in such a
manner as to give no guide to his political views.
In defending Sulla's nephew, he was moved, as far as
we know, solely by private motives. In defending Amarinus he
may be said to have attacked Sullah. His object was
to stamp out the still burning embers of Sulla's cruelty.
(18:34):
But not the less was he wedded to Sulla's general
views as to the restoration of the authority of the Senate.
In his early speeches, especially in that spoken against Varies,
he denounces the corruption of the senatorial judges, But at
that very period of his life he again and again
expresses his own belief in the glory and majesty of
the Senate. In accusing Varies, he accused the general corruption
(18:58):
of Rome's provincial governors. And as they were always past
consuls or past titles, and had been the elite of
the aristocracy, he may be said so far to have
taken the part of a democrat, But he had done
so only so far as he had found himself bound
by a sense of duty. But a stop to corruption,
the venality of the judges and the rapacity of governors
(19:21):
had been fit objects for his eloquence. But I deny
that he can be fairly charged with having tampered with democracy.
Because he had thus used his eloquence on behalf of
the people, he was no doubt stirred by other political
motives less praiseworthy, though submitted to in accordance with the
practice and the known usages of Rome. He had undertaken
(19:43):
to speak for Catiline when Cataline was accused of corruption
on his return from Africa, knowing that Cataline had been guilty,
he did not do so. But the intention for our
present purpose is the same as the doing. To have
defended Cataline would have assisted him in his operations as
a candidate for the consul. Catiline was a bad subject
for defense, as was Fontaeus, whom he certainly did defend,
(20:07):
and Cataline was a democrat. But Cicero, had he defended Cataline,
would not have done so as holding out his hand
to democracy. Cicero, when in the pro Lege Manilia, he
for the first time addressed the people. Certainly spoke in
opposition to the wishes of the Senate in proposing that
Pompey should have the command of the Mithridatic War, but
(20:28):
his views were not democratic. It has been said that
this was done because Pompey could help him to the consulship.
To me, it seems that he had already declared to
himself that among leading men in Rome, Pompey was the
one to whom the Republic would look with the most
security as a bulwark, and that on that account he
had resolved to bind himself to Pompey in some political marriage.
(20:52):
Be that as it may, there was no tampering with
democracy in the speech pro lege Manilia. Of all the
extant horation made by him before his consulship, the attentive
reader will sympathize the least with that of Fonteus. After
his scathing onslaught on Erries for provincial plunder, he defended
the plunder of the Gauls, and held up the suffering
(21:13):
allies of Rome to ridicule as being hardly entitled to
good government. This he did simply as an advocate, without
political motive of any kind. In the days in which
he was supposed to be currying favor with democracy governed
by private friendship, looking forward probably to some friendly office
in return, as was customary. It was thus that afterward
(21:37):
he defended Antony, his colleague in the consulship, whom he
knew to have been a corrupt governor. Artronius had been
a party to Catalian conspiracy, and Artronius had been Cicero's schoolfellow.
But Cicero, for some reserved reason with which we are
not acquainted, refused to plead for Artronius. There is I
(21:57):
maintain no ground for suggesting that Cicero had shown by
his speeches before his consulship any party adherents. The declaration
which he had made after his consulship in the speech
for Sulla, that up to the time of Cataline's first conspiracy,
forensic duties had not allowed him to devote himself to
party politics is entitled to belief. We know indeed that
(22:20):
it was so. As Christore, as Edyle, and as pritor,
he did not interfere in the political questions of Rome,
except in demanding justice from judges and purity from governors.
When he became consul, then he became a politician, and
after that there was certainly no vacillation in his views.
(22:40):
Critics say that he surrendered himself to Caesar when Caesar
became master. We shall come to that hereafter. But the
accusation with which I am dealing now is that which
charges him with having abandoned the democratic memories of his
youth as soon as he had enveloped himself with the
consular purple. There had been no democratic promises, and there
(23:01):
was no change when he became consul. In truth, Cicero's
political convictions were the same from the beginning to the
end of his career, with a consistency which is by
no means usual in politicians. For though before his consulship
he had not taken up politics as a business, he
had entertained certain political views, as do all men who
(23:21):
live in public, from the first to the last. We
may best describe him by the word we now have
in use, as a conservative. The government of Rome had
been an oligarchy for many years, though much had been
done by the citizens to reduce the thralldom which an
oligarchy is sure to exact. To that oligarchy, Cicero was
(23:42):
bound by all the convictions, by all the practices, and
by all the prejudices of his life. When he speaks
of a republic, he speaks of a people, and of
an empire governed by an oligarchy. He speaks of a
power to be kept in the hands of a few
for the benefit of the few and of the many,
if it might be but at any rate in the
(24:02):
hands of a few. That those few should be so
select as to admit of no newcomers among them would
probably have been a portion of his political creed had
he not been himself a novus homo. As he was
the first of his family to storm the barrier of
the fortress, he had been forced to depend much on
popular opinion, But not on that account had there been
(24:25):
any dealings between him and democracy. That the empire should
be governed according to the old oligarchical forms, which had
been in use for more than four centuries and had
created the power of Rome. That was his political creed.
That consuls, censes and senators might go on to the
end of time with no diminution of their dignity, but
(24:46):
with great increase of justice and honor and truth among them.
That was his political aspiration. They had made Rome what
it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better
and odious as an old ligarchy is seen to be
under the strong light of experience to which prolonged ages
has subjected it. The aspiration on his part was noble.
(25:08):
He has been wrongly accused of deserting that democracy with
which he had flirted in his youth. There had been
no democracy in his youth. Though there had existed such
a condition in the time of the Grachai, there was
none in his youth, and none in his age. That
which has been wrongly called democracy was conspiracy. Not a
(25:31):
conspiracy of democrats, such as led to our commonwealth, or
to the American independence, or to the French Revolution, but
conspiracy of a few nobles for the better assurance of
the plunder and the power and the high places of
the empire of any tendency toward democracy. No man has
been less justly accused than Cicero, unless it might be Caesar.
(25:55):
To Caesar, we must accord the merit of having seen
that a continuation of the old oligarchical forms was impracticable.
This Cicero did not see. He thought that the wounds
inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were curable.
It is attributed to Caesar that he conceived the grand
idea of establishing general liberty under the sole dominion of
(26:19):
one great and therefore beneficent ruler. I think he saw
no farther than that he, by strategy, management and courage,
might become this ruler, whether beneficent or the reverse. But
here I think that it becomes the writer, whether he
be historian, biographer, or fill whatever meaner position he may
(26:39):
in literature, to declare that no beneficence can accompany such
a form of government. For all temporary sleekness, for metropolitan
comfort and fatness, the bill has to be paid sooner
or later in ignorance, poverty, and oppression. With an oligarchy
there will be other, perhaps graver faults. But with an
(27:02):
oligarchy there will be salt, although it be among a few.
There will be a Cicero now and again, or at
least a Cato from the dead stagnant level of personal despotism.
There can be no rising to life till corruption paralyzes
the hands of power and the fabric fools by its
own decay. Of this, no proof can be found in
(27:25):
the world's history so manifest as that taught by the
Roman Empire. I think it is made clear by a
study of Cicero's life and works up to the period
of his exile, that an adhesion to the old forms
of the Roman government was his guiding principle. I am
sure that they who follow me to the close of
his career will acknowledge that after his exile he lived
(27:48):
for this principle, and that he died for it. Res
publica the republic was the one word which to his
ear contained a political charm. It was the shiboleth by
which men were to be conjured into well being. The
word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it
is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman
(28:10):
biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for
all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning. Among those who
at Cicero's period dealt with politics in Rome, all of
whom no doubt spoke of the republic as the vessel
of state which was to be defended by all persons,
there were four classes. There were they who simply desired
(28:33):
the plunder of the state, the catalans, the sulas of
the day, and the antonies. Men such as various had Been,
and Fonteus and Altronius. The other three can best be
typified each by one man. There was Caesar, who knew
that the Republic was gone past all hope. There was Cato,
the dogmatical fool, Cato, as Momson calls him, perhaps with
(28:56):
some lack of the historian's dignity, who was true, true
to the Republic, who could not bend an inch, and
was thus as detrimental to any hope of reconstruction as
a Cataline or a Caesar. Cicero was of the fourth class,
believing in the republic, intent on saving it, imbued amid
all his doubts with a conviction that if the Optimates
(29:19):
or Bonni, the leading men of the party would be
true to themselves, consuls senses and the Senate would still
suffice to rule the world, but prepared to give and
take with those who were opposed to him. It was
his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands clean,
but should wink at much dirt in the world at large.
(29:40):
Nothing he saw could be done by Catonic rigor. We
can see now that Ciceronic compromises were and must have been,
equally ineffective. The patient was past cure But in seeking
the truth as to Cicero, we have to perceive that,
amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes overwhelmed by
(30:02):
the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold
fast by this idea to the end. The frequent expressions
made to Atticus in opposition to this belief are to
be taken as the murmurs of his mind at the
moment as you shall hear a man swear that all
is gone, and see him tear his hair, and shall
yet know that there is a deep fund of hope
(30:24):
within his bosom. It was the ingratitude of his political friends,
his bonnie, and his optimaties of Pompey as their head,
which tried him the sorest. But he was always forgiving them,
forgiving Pompey as the head of them, because he knew
that were he to be severed from them, then the
political world must be closed to him altogether. Of Cicero's
(30:48):
strength or Cicero's weakness, Pompey seems to have known nothing.
He was no judge of men. Caesar measured him with
a great approach to accuracy. Caesar knew him to be
the best Roman of his day, one who, if he
could be brought over to serve in Cesarean ranks, would
be invaluable because of his honesty, his eloquence, and his capability.
(31:13):
But he knew him as one who must be silenced
if he were not brought to serve on the Cesarean side.
Such a man, however, might be silenced for a while,
taught to perceive that his efforts were vain, and then
brought into favor by further overtures, and made of use personally.
He was present to Caesar, who had taste enough to
(31:33):
know that he was a man worthy of all personal dignity.
But Caesar was not, I think quite accurate in his estimation,
having allowed himself to believe at the last that Cicero's
energy on behalf of the republic had been quelled. End
of Chapter twelve, Part one
Chapter twelve, Part one of the Life of Cicero, Volume one.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Philippa Jevons. The Life
of Cicero, Volume one by Anthony Trollop, Chapter twelve, His Exile,
(00:21):
Part one. We now come to that period of Cicero's life,
in which, by common consent of all who have hitherto
written of him, he is supposed to have shown himself
as least worthy of his high name. Middleton, who certainly
loved his hero's memory and was always anxious to do
him justice, condemns him. It cannot be denied that in
(00:42):
this calamity of his exile, he did not behave himself
with that firmness which might reasonably be expected from one
who had borne so glorious a part in the Republic Morabain.
The French biographer speaks of the wailings of his grief,
of its injustice and its follies. CICEROI t tree alle plance,
sommelurred nuvellesperance. He says, Ila vesu portees Omela ravig pud Kurage,
(01:09):
says another Frenchman, Monsieur de Rosoar. In introducing us to
the speeches which Cicero made on his return, Dean Merrivale
declares that he marred the grace of the concession in
the eyes of posterity, alluding to the concession made to
the popular feeling by his voluntary departure from Rome, as
will thereafter be described by the unmanly lamentations with which
(01:31):
he accompanied it. Momson, with a want of insight into character,
wonderful in an author who has so closely studied the
history of the period, speaks of his exile as a
punishment inflicted on a man notoriously timid and belonging to
the class of political weathercocks. We now come, says mister Forsyth,
(01:51):
to the most melancholy period of Cicero's life. Melancholy not
so much from its nature and the extent of the
misfortunes which overtook him, as from the the abject's prostration
of mind into which he was thrown. Mister Food, as
might be expected us his language stronger than that of others,
and tells us that he retired to Macedonia to pour
(02:11):
out his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of
a woman. We have to admit that modern historians and
biographers have been united in accusing Cicero of want of
manliness during his exile. I propose, not indeed, to wash
the black and more white, but to show, if I can,
that he was as white as others might be expected
(02:33):
to have been in similar circumstances. We are, I think,
somewhat proud of the courage shown by public men of
our country who have suffered, either justly or unjustly under
the laws. Our annals are bloody, and many such have
had to meet their death. They have done so generally
with becoming manliness. Even though they may have been rebels
(02:54):
against the powers of the day. Their memories have been
made green because they have fallen like brave men. Sir
Thomas Moore, who was no rebel, died well and crowned
a good life by his manner of leaving it. Thomas
Cromwell submitted to the axe without a complaint. Lady Jane Gray,
when on the scaffold, yielded nothing in manliness to the others.
(03:15):
Cranmer and the martyr Bishops perished nobly. The Earl of
Essex and Raleigh and Strafford, and Strafford's master showed no
fear when the fatal moment came. In regarding the fate
of each we sympathize with the victim because of a
certain dignity at the moment of death. But there is
I think, no crisis of life in which it is
(03:36):
so easy for a man to carry himself honorably as
that in which he has to leave it when it's
summadies in na luctabile tempus, No doubting now can be
of avail. No moment is left for the display of
conduct beyond this, which requires only decorum and a free
use of the pulses to become in some degree glorious.
(03:59):
The wretch from the lowest dregs of the people can
achieve it with a halter around his neck. Cicero had
that moment also to face, and when it came he
was as brave as the best Englishman of them all.
But of those I have named, no one had an
Atticus to whom it had been the privilege of his
life to open his very soul in language so charming
(04:22):
as to make it worth posterity's while to read it,
to study it, to sift it, and to criticize it.
Wolsey made many plaints in his misery, but they have
reached us in such forms of grace that they did
not disparage him. But then he too had no atticus.
Shaftsbury and Bolingbroke were dismissed ministers and doomed to live
in exile, the latter for many years, and felt no
(04:45):
doubt strongly their removal from the glare of public life
to obscurity. We hear no complaint from them, which can
justify some future critic in saying that their whales were
unworthy of a woman. But neither of them was capable
of telling an atticus the thoughts of his mind as
they rose. What other public man ever had an atticus
(05:07):
to whom, in the sorrows which the ingratitude of friends
had brought upon him, he could disclose every throb of
his heart. I think that we are often at a
loss in our efforts at appreciation of character, and in
the expressions of our opinion respecting it, to realize the
meaning of courage and manliness. That sententious Swedish queen, one
(05:29):
of whose foolish maxims I have quoted, has said that Cicero,
though a coward, was capable of great actions because she
did not know what a coward was. To doubt, to
tremble with anxiety, to vacillate hither and thither between this
cause and the other, as to which may be the better.
To complain within one's own breast, that this or that
thing has been an injustice, To hesitate within oneself, not
(05:54):
quite knowing which way honor may require us to go,
To be indignant even at fancied wrongs, to rise in
wrath against another, and then, before the hour has pass,
to turn that wrath against one's self. That is not
to be a coward. To know what duty requires, and
then to be deterred by fear of results, that is
(06:15):
to be a coward. But the man of many scruples
may be the greatest hero of them all. Let the
law of things be declared clearly, so that the doubting
mind shall no longer doubt, so that scruples may be
laid at rest, so that the sense of justice may
be satisfied, and he of whom I speak shall be
ready to meet the world in arms against him. There
(06:38):
are men very useful in their way, who shall never
doubt at all, but shall be ready as the bull
is ready to encounter any obstacles that there may be
before them. I will not say but that for the
coarse purposes of the world, they may not be the
most efficacious, But I will not admit that they are
therefore the bravest. The bull, who has no imagination to
(06:59):
tell him what the obstacle may do to him, is
not brave. He is brave who, fully, understanding the potentiality
of the obstacle, shall for sufficient purpose move against it.
This Cicero always did. He braved the murderous anger of Sullah, when,
as a young man he thought it well to stop
(07:21):
the greed of Sulla's minions. He trusted himself amid the
dangers prepared for him, when it was necessary that with
extraordinary speed he should get together the evidence needed to
the prosecution of fairies. He was firm against all that
Catiline attempted for his destruction, and had courage enough for
the responsibility when he thought it expedient to doom the
(07:41):
friends of Catiline to death in defending Milo. Whether the
cause were good or bad, he did not blench. He
joined the Republican army in Macedonia, though he distrusted Pompey
and his companions. When he thought that there was a
hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all
the courage of a tigress protecting her young. And when
(08:04):
all had failed and was rotten around him, when the
Republic had so fallen that he knew it to be gone,
then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman,
with all the apparent indifference of life which was displayed
by those countrymen of our own whom I have named.
But why did he write so piteously when he was
driven into exile? Why at any rate did he turn
(08:27):
upon his chosen friend and scold him, as though that
friend had not done enough for friendship? Why did he
talk of suicide, as though by that he might find
the easiest way of escape. I hold it to be
natural that a man should wail to himself under a
sense not simply of misfortune, but of misfortune coming to
him from the injustice of others, and specially from the
(08:49):
ingratitude of friends. Afflictions which come to us from natural causes,
such as sickness and physical pain, or from some chance,
such as the loss of our money by the breaking
of a bank. An heroic man will bear without even
inward complainings, but a sense of wrong done to him
by friends will stir him, not by the misery inflicted,
(09:11):
but because of the injustice, and that which he says
to himself. He will say to his wife, if his
wife be to him as second self, or to his friend,
if he have one so dear to him. The testimony
by which the writers I have named have been led
to treat Cicero so severely has been found in the
letters which he wrote during his exile. And of these
(09:32):
letters all but one were addressed either to Atticus, or
to his wife, or to his brother. Twenty seven of
them were to Atticus before he accepted a voluntary exile
as the best solution of the difficulty in which he
was placed, For it was voluntary at first, As will
be seen, he applied to the consul Piso for aid,
(09:52):
and for the same purpose visited Pompey. So far he
was a suppliant, But this he did in conformity was
Roman and usage. In asking favor of a man in power,
there was held to be no disgrace even though the
favor asked were one improper to be granted, which was
not the case with Cicero, and he went about the
forum in mourning saudidatus, as was the custom with men
(10:16):
on their trial. We cannot doubt that in each of
these cases he acted with the advice of his friends.
His conduct and his words after his return from exiled
betray exaltation rather than despondency. It is from the letters
which he wrote to Atticus that he has been judged,
from words boiling with indignation, that such a one as
(10:37):
he should have been surrendered by the Rome, that he
had saved by those friends to whom he had been
so true, to be trampled on by such a one
as Clodius. When a man has written words intended for
the public ear, it is fair that he should bear
the brunt of them, be it what it may. He
has intended them for public effects, and if they are
used against him, he should not complain. But here where
(11:00):
the secret murmurings of the man's soul were sent forth
to his choicest friend, with no idea that from them
would he be judged by the historians to come in
six hundred years of whose good word he thought so much.
Quidwero historiadenobis ad annos sescenti pred Carinth, He says to Atticus,
(11:20):
how is it that from them, after two thousand years,
the merryvales, momsons, and foods condemn their great brother in
letters whose lightest utterances have been found worthy of so
long a life. Is there not an injustice in falling
upon a man's private words, words when written intended only
for privacy, and making them the basis of an accusation
(11:43):
in which an illustrious man shall be arraigned forever as
a coward. It is said that he was unjust even
to Atticus, accusing even Atticus of luke warmness. What if
he did so for an hour? Is that an affair
of ours? Did Attica quarrel with him? Let any reader
of these words, who has lived long enough to have
(12:04):
an old friend, ask himself whether there has never been
a moment of anger in his heart, of anger of
which he has soon learned to recognize the injustice. He
may not have written his angel, but then perhaps he
has not had the pen of a Cicero. Let those
who rebuke the unmanliness of Cicero's wailings. Remember what were
(12:25):
his sufferings. The story has yet to be told, but
I may, in rough words, describe their nature. Everything was
to be taken from him all that he had, his houses,
his books, his peasant gardens, his busts and pictures, his
wide retinue of slaves, and possessions lordly as are those
of our dukes and earls. He was driven out from Italy,
(12:49):
and so driven that no place of delight could be
open to him. Cicily, where he had friends, and Athens,
where he might have lived, were closed against him. He
had to look where to live, and did live for
a while on money borrowed from his friends. All the
cherished occupations of his life were over for him, the
law courts, the forum, the Senate, and the crowded meetings
(13:12):
of Roman citizens hanging on his words. The circumstances of
his exile separated him from his wife and children, so
that he was alone. All this was assured to him
for life, as far as Roman law could assure it.
Let us think of the condition of some great and
serviceable Englishmen in similar circumstances. Let us suppose that Sir
(13:34):
Robert Peel had been impeached and forced by some iniquitous
sentence to live beyond the pale of civilization, That the
houses at Whitehall Gardens and at Drayton had been confiscated,
dismantled and leveled to the ground, and his rents and
revenues made over to his enemies. That everything should have
been done to destroy him by the country he had served,
except the act of taking away that life, which would
(13:57):
thus have been made a burden to him. Would not
his case have been more piteous, a source of more
righteous indignation than that even of the Moors or Raleigh's.
He suffered under invectives in the House of Commons, and
we sympathize with him. But if some Clodius of the
day could have done this to him, should we have
thought the worse of him? Had he opened his wounds
(14:18):
to his wife, or to his brother, or to his
friend of friends. Had cisro put an end to his
life in his exile, as he thought of doing, he
would have been a second Cato to admiring posterity. And
some Lucan with rolling verses would have told us narratives
of his valor. The judges of today look back to
(14:39):
his half formed purposes in this direction, as being an
added evidence of the weakness of the man. But had
he let himself blood and have perished in his bath,
he would have been thought to have escaped from life
as honorably as de Junius Brutus. It is because he
dared to live on that we are taught to think
so little of him. Because he had anti dated Christianity
(15:01):
so far as to feel, when the moment came that
such an escape was in truth unmanly, he doubted, and
when the deed had not been done, he expressed regret
that he had allowed himself to live, but he did
not do it as Cato would have done or Brutus.
It may be as well here to combat in as
(15:22):
few words as possible, the assertions which have been made
that Cicero, having begun life as a democrat, discarded his
colours as soon as he had received from the people
those honours for which he had sought popularity. They who
have said so have taken their idea from the fact
that in much of his early forensic work he spoke
against the Aristocratic party. He attacked Sullah through his favourite
(15:46):
Chrysogonus in his defense of Roscius Amarinus. He afterward defended
a woman of Arretium in the spirit of antagonism to Sullah.
His accusation of varies was made on the same side
in politics, and was carried on in opposition to Hortensius
and the oligarchs. He defended the tribune Caius Cornelius. Then,
(16:06):
when he became consul, he devoted himself to the destruction
of Cataline, who was joined with many, perhaps with Caesar's sympathy,
in the conspiracy for the overthrow of the republic. Caesar
soon became the leader of the democracy, became rather what
Momson describes as democracy itself. And as Cicero had defended
(16:27):
the Senate from Cataline and had refused to attach himself
to Caesar, he is supposed to have turned from the
political ideas of his youth, and to have become a
conservative when conservative ideas suited his ambition. I will not
accept the excuse put forward on his behalf that the
early speeches were made on the side of democracy because
(16:48):
the exigencies of the occasion required him to so devote
his energies as an advocate. No doubt he was an advocate,
as are our barristers. Of today, and as an advocate,
supported this side or that. But we shall be wrong
if we suppose that the Roman Patronus supplied his services
under such inducements. With us, a man goes into the
(17:09):
profession of the law with the intention of making money,
and takes the cases right and left, unless there be
special circumstances which may debar him from doing so. With honor,
it is a point of etiquette with him to give
his assistance in turn as he may be called on,
so much so that leading men are not unfrequently employed
on one side, simply that they may not be employed
(17:30):
on the other side. It should not be urged on
the part of Cicero that so actuated he defended Amarinus
a case in which he took part against the aristocrats,
or defended Publio Sulla in doing which he appeared on
the side of the aristocracy. Such a defense of his
conduct would be misleading and might be confuted. It would
(17:51):
be confuted by those who suppose him to have been
notoriously a political trimmer, as Momson has called him, or
a deserter, as he was described by Diocassius and by
the pseudo sallust. By showing that In fact, he took
up causes under the influence of strong personal motives, such
as rarely govern an English barrister. These motives were in
(18:12):
many cases partly political, but they operated in such a
manner as to give no guide to his political views.
In defending Sulla's nephew, he was moved, as far as
we know, solely by private motives. In defending Amarinus he
may be said to have attacked Sullah. His object was
to stamp out the still burning embers of Sulla's cruelty.
(18:34):
But not the less was he wedded to Sulla's general
views as to the restoration of the authority of the Senate.
In his early speeches, especially in that spoken against Varies,
he denounces the corruption of the senatorial judges, But at
that very period of his life he again and again
expresses his own belief in the glory and majesty of
the Senate. In accusing Varies, he accused the general corruption
(18:58):
of Rome's provincial governors. And as they were always past
consuls or past titles, and had been the elite of
the aristocracy, he may be said so far to have
taken the part of a democrat, But he had done
so only so far as he had found himself bound
by a sense of duty. But a stop to corruption,
the venality of the judges and the rapacity of governors
(19:21):
had been fit objects for his eloquence. But I deny
that he can be fairly charged with having tampered with democracy.
Because he had thus used his eloquence on behalf of
the people, he was no doubt stirred by other political
motives less praiseworthy, though submitted to in accordance with the
practice and the known usages of Rome. He had undertaken
(19:43):
to speak for Catiline when Cataline was accused of corruption
on his return from Africa, knowing that Cataline had been guilty,
he did not do so. But the intention for our
present purpose is the same as the doing. To have
defended Cataline would have assisted him in his operations as
a candidate for the consul. Catiline was a bad subject
for defense, as was Fontaeus, whom he certainly did defend,
(20:07):
and Cataline was a democrat. But Cicero, had he defended Cataline,
would not have done so as holding out his hand
to democracy. Cicero, when in the pro Lege Manilia, he
for the first time addressed the people. Certainly spoke in
opposition to the wishes of the Senate in proposing that
Pompey should have the command of the Mithridatic War, but
(20:28):
his views were not democratic. It has been said that
this was done because Pompey could help him to the consulship.
To me, it seems that he had already declared to
himself that among leading men in Rome, Pompey was the
one to whom the Republic would look with the most
security as a bulwark, and that on that account he
had resolved to bind himself to Pompey in some political marriage.
(20:52):
Be that as it may, there was no tampering with
democracy in the speech pro lege Manilia. Of all the
extant horation made by him before his consulship, the attentive
reader will sympathize the least with that of Fonteus. After
his scathing onslaught on Erries for provincial plunder, he defended
the plunder of the Gauls, and held up the suffering
(21:13):
allies of Rome to ridicule as being hardly entitled to
good government. This he did simply as an advocate, without
political motive of any kind. In the days in which
he was supposed to be currying favor with democracy governed
by private friendship, looking forward probably to some friendly office
in return, as was customary. It was thus that afterward
(21:37):
he defended Antony, his colleague in the consulship, whom he
knew to have been a corrupt governor. Artronius had been
a party to Catalian conspiracy, and Artronius had been Cicero's schoolfellow.
But Cicero, for some reserved reason with which we are
not acquainted, refused to plead for Artronius. There is I
(21:57):
maintain no ground for suggesting that Cicero had shown by
his speeches before his consulship any party adherents. The declaration
which he had made after his consulship in the speech
for Sulla, that up to the time of Cataline's first conspiracy,
forensic duties had not allowed him to devote himself to
party politics is entitled to belief. We know indeed that
(22:20):
it was so. As Christore, as Edyle, and as pritor,
he did not interfere in the political questions of Rome,
except in demanding justice from judges and purity from governors.
When he became consul, then he became a politician, and
after that there was certainly no vacillation in his views.
(22:40):
Critics say that he surrendered himself to Caesar when Caesar
became master. We shall come to that hereafter. But the
accusation with which I am dealing now is that which
charges him with having abandoned the democratic memories of his
youth as soon as he had enveloped himself with the
consular purple. There had been no democratic promises, and there
(23:01):
was no change when he became consul. In truth, Cicero's
political convictions were the same from the beginning to the
end of his career, with a consistency which is by
no means usual in politicians. For though before his consulship
he had not taken up politics as a business, he
had entertained certain political views, as do all men who
(23:21):
live in public, from the first to the last. We
may best describe him by the word we now have
in use, as a conservative. The government of Rome had
been an oligarchy for many years, though much had been
done by the citizens to reduce the thralldom which an
oligarchy is sure to exact. To that oligarchy, Cicero was
(23:42):
bound by all the convictions, by all the practices, and
by all the prejudices of his life. When he speaks
of a republic, he speaks of a people, and of
an empire governed by an oligarchy. He speaks of a
power to be kept in the hands of a few
for the benefit of the few and of the many,
if it might be but at any rate in the
(24:02):
hands of a few. That those few should be so
select as to admit of no newcomers among them would
probably have been a portion of his political creed had
he not been himself a novus homo. As he was
the first of his family to storm the barrier of
the fortress, he had been forced to depend much on
popular opinion, But not on that account had there been
(24:25):
any dealings between him and democracy. That the empire should
be governed according to the old oligarchical forms, which had
been in use for more than four centuries and had
created the power of Rome. That was his political creed.
That consuls, censes and senators might go on to the
end of time with no diminution of their dignity, but
(24:46):
with great increase of justice and honor and truth among them.
That was his political aspiration. They had made Rome what
it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better
and odious as an old ligarchy is seen to be
under the strong light of experience to which prolonged ages
has subjected it. The aspiration on his part was noble.
(25:08):
He has been wrongly accused of deserting that democracy with
which he had flirted in his youth. There had been
no democracy in his youth. Though there had existed such
a condition in the time of the Grachai, there was
none in his youth, and none in his age. That
which has been wrongly called democracy was conspiracy. Not a
(25:31):
conspiracy of democrats, such as led to our commonwealth, or
to the American independence, or to the French Revolution, but
conspiracy of a few nobles for the better assurance of
the plunder and the power and the high places of
the empire of any tendency toward democracy. No man has
been less justly accused than Cicero, unless it might be Caesar.
(25:55):
To Caesar, we must accord the merit of having seen
that a continuation of the old oligarchical forms was impracticable.
This Cicero did not see. He thought that the wounds
inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were curable.
It is attributed to Caesar that he conceived the grand
idea of establishing general liberty under the sole dominion of
(26:19):
one great and therefore beneficent ruler. I think he saw
no farther than that he, by strategy, management and courage,
might become this ruler, whether beneficent or the reverse. But
here I think that it becomes the writer, whether he
be historian, biographer, or fill whatever meaner position he may
(26:39):
in literature, to declare that no beneficence can accompany such
a form of government. For all temporary sleekness, for metropolitan
comfort and fatness, the bill has to be paid sooner
or later in ignorance, poverty, and oppression. With an oligarchy
there will be other, perhaps graver faults. But with an
(27:02):
oligarchy there will be salt, although it be among a few.
There will be a Cicero now and again, or at
least a Cato from the dead stagnant level of personal despotism.
There can be no rising to life till corruption paralyzes
the hands of power and the fabric fools by its
own decay. Of this, no proof can be found in
(27:25):
the world's history so manifest as that taught by the
Roman Empire. I think it is made clear by a
study of Cicero's life and works up to the period
of his exile, that an adhesion to the old forms
of the Roman government was his guiding principle. I am
sure that they who follow me to the close of
his career will acknowledge that after his exile he lived
(27:48):
for this principle, and that he died for it. Res
publica the republic was the one word which to his
ear contained a political charm. It was the shiboleth by
which men were to be conjured into well being. The
word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it
is essential that the reader of Roman history and Roman
(28:10):
biography should understand that the appellation had in it, for
all Roman ears, a thoroughly conservative meaning. Among those who
at Cicero's period dealt with politics in Rome, all of
whom no doubt spoke of the republic as the vessel
of state which was to be defended by all persons,
there were four classes. There were they who simply desired
(28:33):
the plunder of the state, the catalans, the sulas of
the day, and the antonies. Men such as various had Been,
and Fonteus and Altronius. The other three can best be
typified each by one man. There was Caesar, who knew
that the Republic was gone past all hope. There was Cato,
the dogmatical fool, Cato, as Momson calls him, perhaps with
(28:56):
some lack of the historian's dignity, who was true, true
to the Republic, who could not bend an inch, and
was thus as detrimental to any hope of reconstruction as
a Cataline or a Caesar. Cicero was of the fourth class,
believing in the republic, intent on saving it, imbued amid
all his doubts with a conviction that if the Optimates
(29:19):
or Bonni, the leading men of the party would be
true to themselves, consuls senses and the Senate would still
suffice to rule the world, but prepared to give and
take with those who were opposed to him. It was
his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands clean,
but should wink at much dirt in the world at large.
(29:40):
Nothing he saw could be done by Catonic rigor. We
can see now that Ciceronic compromises were and must have been,
equally ineffective. The patient was past cure But in seeking
the truth as to Cicero, we have to perceive that,
amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes overwhelmed by
(30:02):
the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold
fast by this idea to the end. The frequent expressions
made to Atticus in opposition to this belief are to
be taken as the murmurs of his mind at the
moment as you shall hear a man swear that all
is gone, and see him tear his hair, and shall
yet know that there is a deep fund of hope
(30:24):
within his bosom. It was the ingratitude of his political friends,
his bonnie, and his optimaties of Pompey as their head,
which tried him the sorest. But he was always forgiving them,
forgiving Pompey as the head of them, because he knew
that were he to be severed from them, then the
political world must be closed to him altogether. Of Cicero's
(30:48):
strength or Cicero's weakness, Pompey seems to have known nothing.
He was no judge of men. Caesar measured him with
a great approach to accuracy. Caesar knew him to be
the best Roman of his day, one who, if he
could be brought over to serve in Cesarean ranks, would
be invaluable because of his honesty, his eloquence, and his capability.
(31:13):
But he knew him as one who must be silenced
if he were not brought to serve on the Cesarean side.
Such a man, however, might be silenced for a while,
taught to perceive that his efforts were vain, and then
brought into favor by further overtures, and made of use personally.
He was present to Caesar, who had taste enough to
(31:33):
know that he was a man worthy of all personal dignity.
But Caesar was not, I think quite accurate in his estimation,
having allowed himself to believe at the last that Cicero's
energy on behalf of the republic had been quelled. End
of Chapter twelve, Part one
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!