Part 64
So wisely did the Athenians of that day confer political rewards; so improperly do you. But how the rewards of foreigners? To Menon the Pharsalian, who gave twelve talents in money for the war at Eion by Amphipolis, and assisted them with two hundred horsemen of his own retainers, the Athenians then voted not the freedom of their city, but only granted immunity from imposts. And in earlier times to Perdiccas, who reigned in Macedonia during the invasion of the Barbarian--when he had destroyed the Persians who retreated from Platæa after their defeat, and completed the disaster of the King--they voted not the freedom of their city, but only granted immunity from imposts; doubtless esteeming their country to be of high value, honor, and dignity, surpassing all possible obligation. But now, ye men of Athens, ye adopt the vilest of mankind, menials and the sons of menials, to be your citizens, receiving a price as for any other salable commodity. And you have fallen into such a practice, not because your natures are inferior to your ancestors, but because they were in a condition to think highly of themselves, while from you, men of Athens, this power is taken away. It can never be, methinks, that your spirit is generous and noble, while you are engaged in petty and mean employments; no more than you can be abject and mean-spirited, while your actions are honorable and glorious. Whatever be the pursuits of men their sentiments must necessarily be similar.
Mark what a summary view may be taken of the deeds performed by your ancestors and by you. Possibly from such comparison you may rise superior to yourselves. They for a period of five and forty years took the lead of the Greeks by general consent, and carried up more than ten thousand talents into the citadel; and many glorious trophies they erected for victories by land and sea, wherein even yet we take a pride. And remember, they erected these, not merely that we may survey them with admiration, but, also, that we may emulate the virtues of the dedicators. Such was their conduct; but for ours--fallen as we have on a solitude manifest to you all--look if it bears any resemblance. Have not more than fifteen hundred talents been lavished ineffectually on the distressed people of Greece? Have not all private fortunes, the revenues of the state, the contributions from our allies, been squandered? Have not the allies, whom we gained in the war, been lost recently in the peace? But forsooth, in these respects only was it better anciently than now, in other respects worse. Very far from that! Let us examine what instances you please. The edifices which they left, the ornaments of the city in temples, harbors, and the like, were so magnificent and beautiful, that room is not left for any succeeding generation to surpass them; yonder gateway, the Parthenon, docks, porticos, and others structures, which they adorned the city withal and bequeathed to us. The private houses of the men in power were so modest and in accordance with the name of the constitution, that if any one knows the style of house which Themistocles occupied, or Cimon, or Aristides, or Miltiades, and the illustrious of that day, he perceives it to be no grander than that of the neighbors. But now, ye men of Athens--as regards public measures--our government is content to furnish roads, fountains, whitewashing, and trumpery; not that I blame the authors of these works; far otherwise; I blame you, if you suppose that such measures are all you have to execute. As regards individual conduct--your men in office have (some of them) made their private houses, not only more ostentatious than the multitude, but more splendid than the public buildings; others are farming land which they have purchased of such an extent as once they never hoped for in a dream.
The cause of this difference is, that formerly the people were lords and masters of all; any individual citizen was glad to receive from them his share of honor, office, or profit. Now, on the contrary, these persons are the disposers of emoluments; everything is done by their agency; the people are treated as underlings and dependents, and you are happy to take what these men allow you for your portion.
ORATION ON THE CROWN.
(_By Demosthenes._)
Let me begin, men of Athens, by imploring, of all the Heavenly Powers, that the same kindly sentiments which I have, throughout my public life, cherished towards this country and each one of you, may now by you be shown towards me in the present contest! In two respects my adversary plainly has the advantage of me. First, we have not the same interests at stake; it is by no means the same thing for me to forfeit your esteem, and for Æschines, an unprovoked volunteer, to fail in his impeachment. My other disadvantage is, the natural proneness of men to lend a pleased attention to invective and accusation, but to give little heed to him whose theme is his own vindication. To my adversary, therefore, falls the part which ministers to your gratification, while to me there is only left that which, I may almost say, is distasteful to all. And yet, if I do not speak of myself and my own conduct, I shall appear defenseless against his charges, and without proof that my honors were well earned. This, therefore, I must do; but it shall be with moderation. And bear in mind that the blame of my dwelling on personal topics must justly rest upon him who has instituted this personal impeachment.
At least, my judges, you will admit that this question concerns me as much as Ctesiphon, and justifies on my part an equal anxiety. To be stripped of any possession, and more especially by an enemy, is grievous to bear, but to be robbed of your confidence and esteem--of all possessions the most precious--is indeed intolerable. Such, then, being my stake in this cause, I conjure you all to give ear to my defense against these charges, with that impartiality which the laws enjoin--those laws first given by Solon, and which he fixed, not only by engraving them on brazen tables, but by the sanction of the oaths you take when sitting in judgment; because he perceived that, the accuser being armed with the advantage of speaking first, the accused can have no chance of resisting his charges, unless you, his judges, keeping the oath sworn before Heaven, shall receive with favor the defense which comes last, and, lending an equal ear to both parties, shall thus make up your minds upon the whole of the case.
CICERO.
Cicero, taken all in all, for his eloquence, for his learning, for his true patriotism, for the profound and ennobling views he has left us in his critical, oratorical and philosophical writings, as well as for his purity in all the domestic relations of life, in the midst of almost universal profligacy, stands forth upon the page of history as one of the very brightest names the ancients have left us. He was probably distinguished most as an orator, in which character he is most generally known, though as a general scholar and statesman he was almost without a peer. He was born on the third of January, 106 B.C. His father was a member of the Equestrian order, and lived in easy circumstances near Arpinum, but afterwards removed to Rome for the purpose of educating his sons, Marcus and Quintus. The very best teachers were procured for them. Almost immediately after his schooling he was promoted, and rose from one station of honor and distinction to another.
It may be doubted whether any individual ever rose to power by more virtuous and truly honorable conduct, and the integrity of his public life was only equaled by the purity of his private morals. But as his history is taught to our school boys and his orations read in their original language, we will not lengthen our remarks. The following are his works. They are numerous and diversified, but may be arranged under five separate heads: 1. _Philosophical Works._ 2. _Speeches._ 3. _Correspondence._ 4. _Poems._ 5. _Historical and Miscellaneous Works._ The following are the most important:
First, his _Philosophical Works_, 1. _De Inventione Rhetorica_, "On the Rhetorical Art;" intended to exhibit, in a compendious form, all that are most valuable in the works of the Grecian rhetoricians. 2. _De Partitione Oratorio Dialogus_, "A Dialogue on the several Divisions of Rhetoric," a sort of catechism of rhetoric. 3. _De Oratore_, "On the True Orator," a systematic work on the art of oratory. This is one of his most brilliant efforts, and so accurately finished in its minute parts, that it may be regarded as a masterpiece of skill in all that relates to the graces of style and composition. 4. _Brutus: de claris Oratoribus._ This is in the form of a dialogue, and contains a complete critical history of Roman eloquence. 5. _Orator_, "The Orator," addressed to Marcus Brutus, giving his views as to what constitutes a perfect orator. 6. _De Republica_, "On the Republic," in six books, designed to show the best form of government and the duty of the citizen; but a considerable portion of this is lost. 7. _De Officiis_; a treatise on moral obligations, viewed not so much with reference to a metaphysical investigation of the basis on which they rest, as to the practical business of the world, and the intercourse of social and political life. This is one of his most precious legacies. 8. _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_, "On the Ends of Good and Evil," a series of dialogues dedicated to M. Brutus, in which the opinions of the Grecian schools, especially of the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Peripatetics, on the Supreme Good, the _Summum Bonum_, that is, the _finis_, "the end."
[Illustration: AUGUSTUS CÆSAR. (_Found at Pompeii._)]
INVECTIVE AGAINST CATILINE.
(_By Cicero._)
How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long shalt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch, posted to secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards! Nothing, by the rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the senate in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?--that thy wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge, here in the senate?--that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of the night before; the place, of meeting, the company convoked, the measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The senate understands all this. The Consul sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council; takes part in our deliberations; and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are, think we have amply discharged our duty to the state, if we but _shun_ this madman's sword and fury!
Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. We have a decree--though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard--a decree by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late, than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow, long since deserved. _Then_ will I doom thee, when no man is found so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason--the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noon-day, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire, as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more
## active in providing for the preservation of the state than thou in
plotting its destruction!--_First Oration._
EXPULSION OF CATILINE FROM ROME.
(_By Cicero._)
At length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth, drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few! Be speedy, ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy, and you may overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish, deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that compose his army; _his_ army, I say--for who doubts that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons; miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration!
Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans, your garrisons and armies; and first to that maimed and battered gladiator oppose your consuls and generals; next, against that miserable, outcast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all Italy! On the one side, chastity contends; on the other wantonness; here purity, there pollution; here integrity, there treachery; here piety, there profaneness; here constancy, there rage; here honesty, there baseness; here continence, there lust; in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury, cowardice, rashness; every virtue with every vice; and, lastly, the contest lies between well-grounded hope and absolute despair. In such a conflict, were even human aid to fail, would not the immortal gods empower such conspicuous virtue to triumph over such complicated vice?--_Second Oration._
THE TYRANT PRÆTOR DENOUNCED.
(_By Cicero._)
An opinion has long prevailed, fathers, that, in public prosecutions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the state, is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will compass his acquittal, but whose life and actions are sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Caius Verres, who, if he now receive not the sentence his crimes deserve, it shall not be through the lack of a criminal or of a prosecutor, but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does the quæstorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of villainies? The public treasure squandered, a Consul stripped and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But his praætorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have violated all law, all precedent, all right. His extortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful allies have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment due to their guilt.
I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges? Art thou not the tyrant prætor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death, on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus? And what was his offense? He had declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized, brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured. In vain did he exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and who will attest my innocence!" Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting for innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted! While the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his lips--words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to protection--you ordered him to death, to a death upon the cross!
O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred--now trampled on! Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate--a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people--in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and put to an infamous death, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, the tears of pitying spectators, the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of this country, restrain the merciless monster, who, in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very root of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? And shall this man escape? Fathers, it must not be! It must not be, unless you would undermine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and call down anarchy, massacre and ruin on the commonwealth.--_Oration against Verres._
ADVANTAGES OF AGE.
(_By Cicero._)
Indeed, old age is so far from being necessarily a state of languor and inactivity, that it generally continues to exert itself in that sort of occupation which was the favorite object of its pursuit in more vigorous years. I will add, that instances might be produced of men who, in this period of life, have successfully applied themselves even to the acquisition of some art of science to which they were before entirely strangers. Thus Solon in one of his poems, written when he was advanced in years, glories that "he learned something every day he lived." And old as I myself am, it is but lately that I acquired a knowledge of the Greek language; to which I applied with the more zeal and diligence, as I had long entertained an earnest desire of becoming acquainted with the writings and characters of those excellent men, to whose examples I have occasionally appealed in the course of our present conversation. Thus, Socrates, too, in his old age, learned to play upon the lyre, an art which the ancients did not deem unworthy of their application. If I have not followed the philosopher's example in this instance (which, indeed, I very much regret), I have spared, however, no pains to make myself master of the Greek language and learning.
Inestimable, too, are the advantages of old age, if we contemplate it in another point of view; if we consider it as delivering us from the tyranny of lust and ambition; from the angry and contentious passions; from every inordinate and irrational desire; in a word, as teaching us to retire within ourselves, and look for happiness in our own bosoms. If to these moral benefits naturally resulting from length of days be added that sweet food of the mind which is gathered in the fields of science, I know not any season of life that is passed more agreeably than the learned leisure of a virtuous old age.
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
(_By Cicero._)
And now, among the different sentiments of the philosophers concerning the consequences of our final dissolution, may I not venture to declare my own? and the rather, as the nearer death advances towards me, the more clearly I seem to discern its real nature.
I am well convinced, then, that my dear departed friends, your two illustrious fathers, are so far from having ceased to live, that the state they now enjoy can alone with propriety be called _life_. The soul, during her confinement within this prison of the body, is doomed by fate to undergo a severe penance; for her native seat is in heaven, and it is with reluctance that she is forced down from those celestial mansions into these lower regions, where all is foreign and repugnant to her divine nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus widely disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed them with human bodies, that there might be a race of intelligent creatures, not only to have dominion over this, our earth, but to contemplate the host of heaven, and imitate in their moral conduct the same beautiful order and uniformity so conspicuous in those splendid orbs. This opinion I am induced to embrace, not only as agreeable to the best deductions of reason, but in just deference, also, to the authority of the noblest and most distinguished philosophers. And I am further confirmed in my belief of the soul's immortality by the discourse which Socrates--whom the oracle of Apollo pronounced to be the wisest of men--held upon this subject just before his death. In a word, when I consider the faculties with which the human mind is endued; its amazing celerity; its wonderful power in recollecting past events, and sagacity in discerning future; together with its numberless discoveries in the several arts and sciences, I feel a conscious conviction that this
## active, comprehensive principle can not possibly be of a mortal
nature. And as this unceasing activity of the soul derives its energy from its own intrinsic and essential powers, without receiving it from any foreign or external impulse, it necessarily follows (as it is absurd to suppose the soul would desert itself) that this activity must continue forever. But farther; as the soul is evidently a simple, uncompounded substance, without any dissimilar parts or heterogeneous mixture, it can not, therefore, be divided; consequently, it can not perish. I might add, that the facility and expedition with which youth are taught to acquire numberless very difficult arts, is a strong presumption that the soul possessed a considerable portion of knowledge before it entered into the human form, and that what seems to be received from instruction is, in fact, no other than a reminiscence or recollection of its former ideas. This, at least, is the opinion of Plato.
JULIUS CAESAR.