Part 21

The oration for Marcellus, the genuineness of which has also been called in question, is somewhat in a different style from the other harangues of Cicero; for, though entitled _Pro Marcello_, it is not so much a speech in his defence, as a panegyric on Cæsar, for having granted the pardon of Marcellus at the intercession of the Senate. Marcellus had been one of the most violent opponents of the views of Cæsar. He had recommended in the Senate, that he should be deprived of the province of Gaul: he had insulted the magistrates of one of Cæsar’s new-founded colonies; and had been present at Pharsalia on the side of Pompey. After that battle he retired to Mitylene, where he was obliged to remain, being one of the few adversaries to whom the conqueror refused to be reconciled. The Senate, however, one day when Cæsar was present, with an united voice, and in an attitude of supplication, having implored his clemency in favour of Marcellus, and their request having been granted, Cicero, though he had resolved to preserve eternal silence, being moved by the occasion, delivered one of the most strained encomiums that has ever been pronounced.

In the first part he extols the military exploits of Cæsar; but shows, that his clemency to Marcellus was more glorious than any of his other actions, as it depended entirely on himself, while fortune and his army had their share in the events of the war. In the second part he endeavours to dispel the suspicions which it appears Cæsar still entertained of the hostile intentions of Marcellus, and takes occasion to assure the Dictator that his life was most dear and valuable to all, since on it depended the tranquillity of the state, and the hopes of the restoration of the commonwealth.

This oration, which Middleton declares to be superior to anything extant of the kind in all antiquity, and which a celebrated French critic terms, “Le discours le plus noble, le plus pathetique, et en meme tems le plus patriotique, que la reconnaissance, l’amitié, et la vertu, puissent inspirer à une ame elevée et sensible,” continued to be not only of undisputed authenticity, but one of Cicero’s most admired productions, till Wolf, in the preface and notes to a new edition of it, printed in 1802, attempted to show, that it was a spurious production, totally unworthy of the orator whose name it bore, and that it was written by some declaimer, soon after the Augustan age, not as an imposition upon the public, but as an exercise,—according to the practice of the rhetoricians, who were wont to choose, as a theme, some subject on which Cicero had spoken. In his letters to Atticus, Cicero says, that he had returned thanks to Cæsar _pluribus verbis_. This Middleton translates a _long speech_; but Wolf alleges it can only mean a few words, and never can be interpreted to denote a full oration, such as that which we now possess for Marcellus. That Cicero did not deliver a long or formal speech, is evident, he contends, from the testimony of Plutarch, who mentions, in his life of Cicero, that, a short time afterwards, when the orator was about to plead for Ligarius, Cæsar asked, how it happened that he had not heard Cicero speak for so long a period,—which would have been absurd if he had heard him, a few months before, pleading for Marcellus. Being an extemporary effusion, called forth by an unforeseen occasion, it could not (he continues to urge) have been prepared and written beforehand; nor is it at all probable, that, like many other orations of Cicero, it was revised and made public after being delivered. The causes which induced the Roman orators to write out their speeches at leisure, were the magnitude and public importance of the subject, or the wishes of those in whose defence they were made, and who were anxious to possess a sort of record of their vindication. But none of these motives existed in the present case. The matter was of no importance or difficulty; and we know that Marcellus, who was a stern republican, was not at all gratified by the intervention of the senators, or conciliated by the clemency of Cæsar. As to internal evidence, deduced from the oration, Wolf admits, that there are interspersed in it some Ciceronian sentences; and how otherwise could the learned have been so egregiously deceived? but the resemblance is more in the varnish of the style than in the substance. We have the words rather than the thoughts of Cicero; and the rounding of his periods, without their energy and argumentative connection. He adduces, also, many instances of phrases unusual among the classics, and of conceits which betray the rhetorician or sophist. His extolling the act of that day on which Cæsar pardoned Marcellus as higher than all his warlike exploits, would but have raised a smile on the lips of the Dictator; and the slighting way in which the cause of the republic and Pompey are mentioned, is totally different from the manner in which Cicero expressed himself on these delicate topics, even in presence of Cæsar, in his authentic orations for Deiotarus and Ligarius.

It is evident, at first view, that many of Wolf’s observations are hypercritical; and that in his argument concerning the encomiums on Cæsar, and the overrated importance of his clemency to Marcellus, he does not make sufficient allowance for Cicero’s habit of exaggeration, and the momentary enthusiasm produced by one of those transactions,

—— “Quæ, dum geruntur, Percellunt animos.” ——

Accordingly, in the year following that of Wolf’s edition, Olaus Wormius published, at Copenhagen, a vindication of the authenticity of this speech. To the argument adduced from Plutarch, he answers, that some months had elapsed between the orations for Marcellus and Ligarius, which might readily be called a long period, by one accustomed to hear Cicero harangue almost daily in the Senate or Forum. Besides, the phrase of Plutarch, λεγοντος may mean pleading for some one, which was not the nature of the speech for Marcellus. As to the motive which led to write and publish the oration, Cicero, above all men, was delighted with his own productions, and nothing can be more probable than that he should have wished to preserve the remembrance of that memorable day, which he calls in his letters, _diem illam pulcherrimam_. It was natural to send the oration to Marcellus, in order to hasten his return to Rome, and it must have been an acceptable thing to Cæsar, thus to record his fearlessness and benignity. With regard to the manner in which Pompey and the republican party are talked of, it is evident, from his letters, that Cicero was disgusted with the political measures of that faction, that he wholly disapproved of their plan of the campaign, and foreseeing a renewal of Sylla’s proscriptions in the triumph of the aristocratic power, he did not exaggerate in so highly extolling the humanity of Cæsar.

The arguments of Wormius were expanded and illustrated by Weiske, _In Commentario perpetuo et pleno in Orat. Ciceronis pro Marcello_, published at Leipsic, in 1805(344), while, on the other hand, Spalding, in his _De Oratione pro Marcello Disputatio_, published in 1808, supported the opinions of Wolfius.

The controversy was in this state, and was considered as involved in much doubt and obscurity, when Aug. Jacob, in an academical exercise, printed at Halle and Berlin, in 1813, and entitled _De Oratione quæ inscribitur pro Marcello, Ciceroni vel abjudicata vel adjudicata, Quæstio novaque conjectura_, adopted a middle course. Finding such dissimilarity in the different passages of the oration, some being most powerful, elegant, and beautiful, while others were totally futile and frigid, he was led to believe that part had actually flowed from the lips of Cicero, but that much had been subsequently interpolated by some rhetorician or declaimer. He divides his whole treatise into four heads, which comprehend all the various points agitated on the subject of this oration: 1. The testimony of different authors tending to prove the authenticity or spuriousness of the production: 2. The history of the period, with which every genuine oration must necessarily concur: 3. The genius and manner of Cicero, from which no one of his orations could be entirely remote: 4. The style and phraseology, which must be correct and classical. In the prosecution of his inquiry in these different aspects of the subject, the author successively reviews the opinions and judgments of his predecessors, sometimes agreeing with Wolf and his followers, at other times, and more frequently, with their opposers. He thinks that the much-contested phrase _pluribus verbis_, may mean a long oration, as Cicero elsewhere talks of having pleaded for Cluentius, _pluribus verbis_, though the speech in his defence consists of 58 chapters. Besides, Cicero only says that he had _returned thanks_ to Cæsar, _pluribus verbis_. Now, the whole speech does not consist of thanks to Cæsar, being partly occupied in removing the suspicions which he entertained of Marcellus. With regard to encomiums on Cæsar, which Spalding has characterized as abject and fulsome, and totally different from the delicate compliments addressed to him in the oration for Deiotarus or Ligarius, Jacob reminds his readers that the harangues could have no resemblance to each other, the latter being pleadings in behalf of the accused, and the former a professed panegyric. Nor can any one esteem the eulogies on Cæsar too extravagant for Cicero, when he remembers the terms in which the orator had formerly spoken of Roscius, Archias, and Pompey.

Schütz, the late German editor of Cicero, has subscribed to the opinion of Wolf, and has published the speech for Marcellus, along with the other four doubtful harangues at the end of the genuine orations.

But supposing that these five contested speeches are spurious, a sufficient number of genuine orations remain to enable us to distinguish the character of Cicero’s eloquence. Ambitious from his youth of the honours attending a fine speaker, he early travelled to Greece, where he accumulated all the stores of knowledge and rules of art, which could be gathered from the rhetoricians, historians, and philosophers, of that intellectual land. While he thus extracted and imbibed the copiousness of Plato, the sweetness of Isocrates, and force of Demosthenes, he, at the same time, imbued his mind with a thorough knowledge of the laws, constitution, antiquities, and literature, of his native country. Nor did he less study the peculiar temper, the jealousies, and enmities of the Roman people, both as a nation and as individuals, without a knowledge of which, his eloquence would have been unavailing in the Forum or Comitia, where so much was decided by favouritism and cabal. By these means he ruled the passions and deliberations of his countrymen with almost resistless sway—upheld the power of the Senate—stayed the progress of tyranny—drove the audacious Catiline from Rome—directed the feelings of the state in favour of Pompey—shook the strong mind of Cæsar—and kindled a flame by which Antony had been nearly consumed. But the main secret of his success lay in the warmth and intensity of his feelings. His heart swelled with patriotism, and was dilated with the most magnificent conceptions of the glory of Rome. Though it throbbed with the fondest anticipations of posthumous fame, the momentary acclaim of a multitude was a chord to which it daily and most readily vibrated; while, at the same time, his high conceptions of oratory counteracted the bad effect which this exuberant vanity might otherwise have produced. Thus, when two speakers were employed in the same cause, though Cicero was the junior, to him was assigned the peroration, in which he surpassed all his contemporaries; and he obtained this pre-eminence not so much on account of his superior genius or knowledge of law, as because he was more moved and affected himself, without which he would never have moved or affected his judges.

With such natural endowments, and such acquirements, he early took his place as the refuge and support of his fellow-citizens in the Forum, as the arbiter of the deliberations of the Senate, and as the most powerful defender from the Rostrum of the political interests of the commonwealth.

Cicero and Demosthenes have been frequently compared. Suidas says, that one Cicilus, a native of Sicily, whose works are now lost, was the first to institute the parallel, and they have been subsequently compared, in due form, by Plutarch and Quintilian, and, (as far as relates to sublimity,) by Longinus, among the ancients; and among the moderns, by Herder, in his _Philosophical History of Man_, and by Jenisch, in a German work devoted to the subject(345). Rapin, and all other French critics, with the exception of Fenelon, give the preference to Cicero.

From what has already been said, it is sufficiently evident that Cicero had not to contend with any of those obstructions from nature which Demosthenes encountered; and his youth, in place of being spent like that of the Greek orator, in remedying and supplying defects, was unceasingly employed in pursuit of the improvements auxiliary to his art. But if Cicero derived superior advantages from nature, Demosthenes possessed other advantages, in the more advanced progress of his country in refinement and letters, at the era in which he appeared. Greek literature had reached its full perfection before the birth of Demosthenes, but Cicero was, in a great measure, himself the creator of the literature of Rome, and no prose writer of eminence had yet existed, after whom he could model his phraseology. In other external circumstances, they were placed in situations not very dissimilar. But Cicero had a wider, and perhaps more beautiful field, in which to expatiate and to exercise his powers. The wide extent of the Roman empire, the striking vices and virtues of its citizens, the memorable events of its history, supplied an endless variety of great and interesting topics; whereas many of the orations of Demosthenes are on subjects unworthy of his talents. Their genius and capacity were in many respects the same. Their eloquence was of that great and comprehensive kind, which dignifies every subject, and gives it all the force and beauty it is capable of receiving. “I judge Cicero and Demosthenes,” says Quintilian, “to be alike in most of the great qualities they possessed. They were alike in design, in the manner of dividing their subject, and preparing the minds of the audience; in short, in every thing belonging to invention.” But while there was much similarity in their talents, there was a wide difference in their tempers and characters. Demosthenes was of an austere, harsh, melancholy disposition, obstinate and resolute in all his undertakings: Cicero was of a lively, flexible, and wavering humour. This seems the chief cause of the difference in their eloquence; but the contrasts are too obvious, and have been too often exhibited to be here displayed. No person wishes to be told, for the twentieth time, that Demosthenes assumes a higher tone, and is more serious, vehement, and impressive, than Cicero; while Cicero is more insinuating, graceful, and affecting: That the Greek orator struck on the soul by the force of his argument, and ardour of his expressions; while the Roman made his way to the heart, alternately moving and allaying the passions of his hearers, by all the arts of rhetoric, and by conforming to their opinions and prejudices.

Cicero was not only a great orator, but has also left the fullest instructions and the most complete historical details on the art which he so gloriously practised. His precepts are contained in the dialogue _De Oratore_ and the _Orator_; while the history of Roman eloquence is comprehended in the dialogue entitled, _Brutus, sive De Claris Oratoribus_.

In his youth, Cicero had written and published some undigested observations on the subject of eloquence; but considering these as unworthy of the character and experience he afterwards acquired, he applied himself to write a treatise on the art which might be more commensurate to his matured talents. He himself mentions several Sicilians and Greeks, who had written on oratory(346). But the models he chiefly followed, were Aristotle, in his books of rhetoric(347); and Isocrates, the whole of whose theories and precepts he has comprehended in his rhetorical works. He has thrown his ideas on the subject into the form of dialogue or conference, a species of composition, which, however much employed by the Greeks, had not hitherto been attempted at Rome. This mode of writing presented many advantages: By adopting it he avoided that dogmatical air, which a treatise from him on such a subject would necessarily have worn, and was enabled to instruct without dictating rules. Dialogue, too, relieved monotony of style, by affording opportunity of varying it according to the characters of the different speakers—it tempered the austerity of precept by the cheerfulness of conversation, and developed each opinion with the vivacity and fulness naturally employed in the oral discussion of a favourite topic. Add to this, the facility which it presented of paying an acceptable compliment to the friends who were introduced as interlocutors, and its susceptibility of agreeable description of the scenes in which the persons of the dialogue were placed—a species of embellishment, for which ample scope was afforded by the numerous villas of Cicero, situated in the most beautiful spots of Italy, and in every variety of landscape, from the Alban heights to the shady banks of the Liris, or glittering shore of Baiæ. As a method of communicating knowledge, however, (except in discussions which are extremely simple, and susceptible of much delineation of character,) the mode of dialogue is, in many respects, extremely inconvenient. “By the interruptions which are given,” says the author of the life of Tasso, in his remarks on the dialogues of that poet,—“By the interruptions which are given, if a dialogue be at all dramatic—by the preparations and transitions, order and precision must, in a great degree, be sacrificed. In reasoning, as much brevity must be used as is consistent with perspicuity; but in dialogue, so much verbiage must be employed, that the scope of the argument is generally lost. The replies, too, to the objections of the opponent, seem rather arguments _ad hominem_, than possessed of the value of abstract truth; so that the reader is perplexed and bewildered, and concludes the inquiry, beholding one of the characters puzzled, indeed, and perhaps subdued, but not at all satisfied that the battle might not have been better fought, and more victorious arguments adduced.”

The dialogue _De Oratore_ was written in the year 698, when Cicero, disgusted with the political dissensions of the capital, had retired, during part of the summer, to the country: But, according to the supposition of the piece, the dialogue occurred in 662. The author addresses it to his brother in a dedication, strongly expressive of his fondness for study; and, after some general observations on the difficulty of the oratoric art, and the numerous accomplishments requisite to form a complete orator, he introduces his dialogue, or rather the three dialogues, of which the performance consists. Dialogue writing may be executed either as direct conversation, in which none but the speakers appear, and where, as in the scenes of a play, no information is afforded except from what the persons of the drama say to each other; or as the recital of the conversation, where the author himself appears, and after a preliminary detail concerning the persons of the dialogue, and the circumstances of time and place in which it was held, proceeds to give an account of what passed in the discourse at which he had himself been present, or the import of which was communicated to him by some one who had attended and borne his part in the conference. It is this latter method that has been followed by Cicero, in his dialogues _De Oratore_. He mentions in his own person, that during the celebration of certain festivals at Rome, the orator Crassus retired to his villa at Tusculum, one of the most delightful retreats in Italy, whither he was accompanied by Antony, his most intimate friend in private life, but most formidable rival in the Forum; and by his father-in-law, Scævola, who was the greatest jurisconsult of his age, and whose house in the city was resorted to as an oracle, by men of the highest rank and dignity. Crassus was also attended by Cotta and Sulpicius, at that time the two most promising orators of Rome, the former of whom afterwards related to Cicero (for the author is not supposed to be personally present) the conversation which passed among these distinguished men, as they reclined on the benches under a planetree, that grew on one of the walks surrounding the villa. It is not improbable, that some such conversation may have been actually held, and that Cicero, notwithstanding his age, and the authority derived from his rhetorical reputation, may have chosen to avail himself of the circumstance, in order to shelter his opinions under those of two ancient masters, who, previously to his own time, were regarded as the chief organs of Roman eloquence.