He was a bitter hater of those who opposed his prejudices. His enmity to Carthage sprung much more from his antagonism to Scipio, as the leader of the Greek or movement party, than from fears for the safety of Rome. Scipio said, Let Carthage be; therefore Cato’s will was, let Carthage be destroyed. When his hatred of injustice was aroused, as, for example, by the perfidy of S. Sulpicius Galba towards the Lusitanians, he could support the cause of foreigners against a fellow-countryman. His character is full of apparent inconsistencies. Although he hated oppression, he was cruel to his slaves; tyrannical and implacable, simply because he would not brook opposition to his will. His integrity was incorruptible, and yet he was a grinding usurer; frugal in his habits, and notwithstanding his few wants, grasping and avaricious; but it was his love of business that he was gratifying, rather than a love of money. Trade was with him a combat in which he would not allow an advantage to be gained by his adversary. Virtue did not present itself to Cato in an amiable form. He had but one idea of it—austerity; and, as his hatred of wrong was not counterbalanced by a love of right, the intensity of his hatred was only kept in check by the practical good sense and utilitarian views which occupy so prominent a place in the Roman character. Being himself reserved and undemonstrative, he expected others to be so likewise, and thought it unbecoming the dignity of a Roman to exhibit tenderness of feeling. On one occasion we are told that he degraded a Roman knight for embracing his wife in the presence of his daughter. His personal appearance was not more prepossessing than his manners, as we learn from the following severe epigram:—[328]
With his red hair, constant snarl, and gray eyes, Proserpine would not receive Porcius, even after death, into Hades.
As, notwithstanding his defects, Cato was morally the greatest man ever Rome produced, so he was one of the greatest intellectually. His genius was perfectly original; his character was not moulded by other men; he had no education except self-education. He had immense power of acquiring learning, and he ransacked every source to increase his stores; but he was indebted to no man for his opinions—they were self-formed, except those which he inherited, and in which his own independent convictions led him to acquiesce. He had the ability and the determination to excel in everything which he undertook, politics, war, rural economy, oratory, history. His style is rude, unpolished, ungraceful, because to him wit was artifice, and polish superficial, and therefore unreal. For this reason he did not profit by the inconceivably rapid change which was then taking place in the Latin language, and which is evident from the comparison of the fragments of Cato’s works with the polished comedies of Terence.
His statements, however, were clear and transparent; his illustrations, though quaint, were striking; the words with which he enriched his native tongue were full of meaning; his wit was keen and lively, although he never would permit it to offend against gravity, or partake of irreverence.[329] His arguments went straight to the intellect, and carried conviction with them.
The character of Cato forms one of the most beautiful passages in the works of Livy:[330] “In hoc viro tanta vis animi ingeniique fuit, ut, quocunque loco natus esset, fortunam sibi ipse facturus fuisse videretur. Nulla ars, neque privatæ, neque publicæ rei gerendæ, ei defuit. Urbanas rusticasque res pariter callebat. Ad summos honores alios scientia juris, alios eloquentia, alios gloria militaris provexit. Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, ut natum ad id unum diceres, quodcunque ageret. In bello manu fortissimus, multisque insignibus clarus pugnis; idem, postquam ad magnos honores pervenit, summus imperator: idem in pace, si jus consuleres, peritissimus; si causa oranda esset, eloquentissimus. Nec is tantum, cujus lingua vivo eo viguerit, monumentum eloquentiæ nullum exstet: vivit immo vigetque eloquentia ejus, sacrata scriptis omnis generis. Orationes et pro se multæ, et pro aliis et in alios; nam non solum accusando, sed etiam causam dicendo, fatigavit inimicos. Simultates nimio plures et exercuerunt eum, et ipse exercuit eas; nec facile dixeris, utrum magis presserit eum nobilitas, an ille agitaverit nobilitatem. Asperi proculdubio animi, et linguæ acerbæ, et immodice liberæ fuit; sed invicti a cupiditatibus animi, et rigidæ innocentiæ; contemptor gratiæ divitiarum. In parsimonia, in patientia laboris, periculi, ferrei prope corporis animique; quam neque senectus quidem, quæ solvit omnia, fregerit. Qui sextum et octogesimum annum agens causam dixerit, ipse pro se oraverit, scripseritque; nonagesimo anno Ser. Galbam ad populi adduxerit judicium.”
Cato’s great historical and antiquarian work, “The Origines,” was written in his old age.[331] Its title would seem to imply that it was merely an inquiry into the ancient history of his country; but in reality it comprehended far more than this—it was a history of Italy and Rome from the earliest times to the latest events which occurred in his own lifetime. The contents of the work are thus described by Cornelius Nepos.[332] It is divided into seven books. The first treats of the history of the kings; the second and third of the rise and progress of the Italian states; the fourth contains the first Punic war; the fifth the war with Hannibal; the remaining two the history of the subsequent wars down to the prætorship of Servius Galba.
It was a work of great research and originality. For his archæological information, he had consulted the records and documents, not only of Rome, but of the principal Italian towns. It is probable that their constitutional history was introduced incidentally to the main narrative; and that the rise and progress of the Roman constitution was illustrated by the political principles of the Italian nations. The “Origines” also contained valuable notices respecting the history and constitution of Carthage,[333] his embassy having furnished him with full opportunity for collecting materials. It was, in fact, a unique work: no other Roman historian wrote in the same spirit, or was equally laborious in the work of original investigation.
The truthfulness and honesty of Cato must have rendered the contemporary part of the history equally valuable with the antiquarian portion. He could not have been guilty of flattery, he had no regard for the feelings of individuals. Not only he never mentions himself, but, except in times long gone by, he never names any one.[334] The glory of a victory, or of a gallant exploit, belongs to the general, or consul, or tribune, as the representative of the republic. He does not allow either individual or family to participate in that which he considered the exclusive property of his country.
Sufficient fragments of the “Origines” remain to make us regret that more have not been preserved; but though very numerous, they are, with the exception of two, excessively brief. One of these is a portion of his own speech in favour of the Rhodians;[335] the other a simple and affecting narrative of an act of self-devoted heroism. A consular army was surprised and surrounded by the Carthaginians in a defile, from which there was no escape. The tribune, whom Cato does not name, but who, as A. Gellius informs us, was Cædicius, went to the consul and recommended him to send four hundred men to occupy a neighbouring height. The enemy, he added, will attack them, and without doubt they will be slain to a man. Nevertheless, whilst the enemy is thus occupied, the army will escape. But, replied the consul, who will be the leader of this band? I will, said the tribune; I devote my life to you, and to my country. The tribune and four hundred men set forth to die. They sold their lives dearly, but all fell. “The immortal gods,” adds Cato, for Gellius is here quoting his very words, “granted the tribune a lot according to his valour. For thus it came to pass. Though he had received many wounds, none proved mortal; and when his comrades recognised him amongst the dead, faint from loss of blood, they took him up, and he recovered. But it makes a vast difference in what country a generous action is performed. Leonidas, of Lacedæmon, is praised, who performed a similar exploit at Thermopylæ. On account of his valour united Greece testified her gratitude in every possible way, and adorned his exploit with monumental records, pictures, statues, eulogies, histories. The Roman tribune gained but faint praise, and yet he had done the same, and saved the republic.” The most pathetic writer could not have told the tale more effectively than the stern Cato.
Circumstances invest his treatise “De Re Rustica” with great interest. The population of Rome, both patrician and plebeian, was necessarily agricultural. For centuries they had little commerce: their wealth consisted in flocks and herds, and in the conquered territories of nations as poor as themselves. The ager Romanus, and subsequently as they gained fresh acquisitions, the fertile plains, and valleys, and mountain sides of Italy, supplied them with maintenance. The statesman and the general, in the intervals of civil war or military service, returned, like Cincinnatus and Cato, to the cultivation of their fields and gardens. The Roman armies were recruited from the peasantry; and when the war was over, the soldier returned to his daily labour; and, in later times, the veteran, when his period of service was completed, became a small farmer in a military colony. To a restless nation, who could not exist in a state of inactivity, a change of labour was relaxation; and the pleasures of rural life, which were so often sung by the Augustan poets, were heartily enjoyed by the same man whose natural atmosphere seemed to be either politics or war.
Besides the possession of these rural tastes the Romans were essentially a domestic people. The Greeks were social; they lived in public; they had no idea of home. Woman did not with them occupy a position favourable to the existence of home-feeling. The Roman matron was the centre of the domestic circle; she was her husband’s equal, sometimes his counsellor, and generally the educator of his children in their early years. Hundreds of sepulchral inscriptions bear testimony to the sweet charities of home-life, to the dutiful obedience of children, the devoted affection of parents, the fidelity of wives, the attachments of husbands. Hence, home and all its pursuits and occupations had an interest in the eyes of a Roman. For this reason there were so many writers on rural and domestic economy. From Cato to Columella we have a list of authors whose object was instruction in the various branches of the subject. They were thus enumerated by Columella himself:[336] “Cato was the first who taught the art of agriculture to speak in Latin; after him it was improved by the diligence of the two Sasernæ, father and son; next it acquired eloquence from Scrofa Tremellius; polish from M. Terentius, (Varro;) poetic power from Virgil.” To their illustrious names he adds those of J. Hyginus, the Carthaginian Mago, Corn. Celsus, J. Atticus, and his disciple J. Græcinus.
The work of Cato, “De Re Rustica,” has come down to us almost in form and substance as it was written. It has not the method of a regular treatise. It is a commonplace-book of agriculture and domestic economy under one hundred and sixty-three heads. The subjects are connected, but not regularly arranged; they form a collection of useful instructions, hints, and receipts. Its object is utility, not science. It serves the purposes of a farmers’ and gardeners’ manual; a domestic medicine, an herbal, and cookery-book; prudential maxims are interspersed, and some favourite charms for the cure of diseases in man and beast. Cato teaches his readers, for example, how to plant ozier-beds, to cultivate vegetables, to preserve the health of cattle, to pickle pork, and to make savoury dishes. He is shrewd and economical, but he never allows humanity to interfere with profits; for he recommends his readers to sell every thing which they do not want, even old horses and old slaves. He is a great conjurer, for he informs us that the most potent cure for a sprain is the repetition of the following hocus-pocus:[337] “Daries dardaries, astataries dissunapitea;” or, “Huat hanat, huat hista, pista sista, domiabo damnaustra;” or, “Huat huat, huat, ista sis tar sis, ordannabon damnaustra.” This miscellaneous collection is preceded by an introduction, in which is maintained the superiority of agriculture over other modes of gaining a livelihood, especially over that of trade and money-lending.
Cato was a conscientious father. He could not trust Greeks, but undertook the education of his son himself. As a part of his system, he addressed to him, in the form of letters, instruction on various topics—historical, philosophical, and moral. A very few fragments of this work, unfortunately, remain. In one of them he recommends a cursory view of Greek literature, but not a profound study of it. He evidently considered Greek writings morally dangerous; but he entertained a still greater horror of their medicine. He had confidence in his own old-fashioned charms and rural pharmacopeia; but he firmly believed, as he would the voice of an oracle, that all the Greek physicians were banded together to destroy the Romans as barbarians.
Of the orations of Cato, ninety titles are extant, together with numerous fragments.[338] Some of these were evidently judicial, but the majority deliberative. After what has been said of his works it is scarcely necessary to describe the style of his eloquence. Unless a man is a mere actor, his character is generally exemplified in his speaking. This is especially true of Cato. He despised art. He was too fearless and upright, too confident in the justice of his cause, to be a rhetorician; too much wrapt up in his subject to be careful of the language in which he conveyed his thoughts. He imitated no one, and no one was ever able to imitate him. His style was abrupt, concise, witty, full of contrast; its beauty that of nature, namely, the rapid alternations of light and shade. Now it was rude and harsh, now pathetic and affecting. It was the language of debate—antagonistic, gladiatorial, elenchtic.
Plutarch compares him to Socrates; but he omits the principal point of resemblance, namely, that he always speaks as if he was hand to hand with an adversary. Even amidst the glitter and polish of the Augustan age, old Cato had some admirers.[339] But this was not the general feeling. The intrinsic value of the rough gem was not appreciated. Cicero[340] tells us that, to his astonishment, Cato was almost entirely unknown. The time afterwards arrived when criticism became a science, and he was estimated as he deserved to be; but this admiration for the antique form was not a revival of the antique spirit; it was only an attempt to compensate for its loss; it was an imitation, not a reality.
Such was the literary position occupied by him whom Niebuhr pronounces to be the only great man in his generation, and one of the greatest and most honourable characters in Roman history.[341]
There was no one worthy to follow Cato as an historian but L. Cassius Hemina. A. Postumius Albinus, consul B. C. 151, was, according to Cicero,[342] a learned and eloquent man, and wrote a history of Rome in Greek;[343] but it was so inelegant that he apologized on the ground that he was a Roman writing in a foreign language.[344] It is probable, also, that he was inaccurate and puerile. He tells us, for example, that Baiæ was so named after Boia, the nurse of one of Æneas’ friends, and that Brutus used to eat green figs and honey.[345]
Hemina wrote Roman annals in five or six books, and published them about the time of the fall of Carthage:[346] a considerable number of fragments are extant. He was the last writer of this period who investigated the original sources of history. His researches went back to very early times; and he appears to have attempted, at least, a comparison of Greek and Italian chronology, for he fixes the age of Homer and Hesiod in the dynasty of the Silvii, more than 160 years after the siege of Troy. He relates the original legend of Cacus and the oxen of Hercules, the finding of Numa’s coffin, and the celebration of the fourth sæcular games in the consulship of Lentulus and Mummius.[347] This was probably the last event of importance previous to the publication of his work. Only two fragments are of sufficient length to enable us to form any judgment respecting his style. Many of his expressions are very archaic, but the story of Cacus is told in a simple and pleasing manner.
After Hemina, Roman history was, for some years, nothing more than a compilation from the old chronicles, and from the labours and investigations of previous authors. Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus was consul A. U. C. 612. His Latin style must have been very deficient in euphony, if he frequently indulged in such words as litterosissimum, which occurs in one of the fragments extant. C. Fannius, prætor A. U. C. 617, wrote a meager history[348] in not inelegant Latin. Vennonius, his contemporary, was the author of annals which are referred to by Dionysius. To this list of historians may be added C. Sempronius Tuditanus, a polished gentleman as well as an elegant writer.[349]
The days of the Gracchi were very fruitful in historians and autobiographers. At the head of them stands L. Cælius Antipater,[350] a Roman freedman, an eloquent orator, and skilful jurist. His work consisted of seven books, and many fragments are preserved by the grammarians. He seems to have delighted in the marvellous; for Cicero quotes from two remarkable dreams in his treatise on divination. He is also frequently referred to by Livy in his history of the Punic wars.
Contemporaneously with Cælius lived Cn. Gellius, whose voluminous history extended to the length of ninety-seven books at least. Livy seldom refers to him. Probably, in this instance, he acted wisely; for he seems to have been an historian of little or no authority. Two other Gellii, Sextus and Aulus, flourished at the same time.
Publius Sempronius Asellio wrote, about the middle of the seventh century of Rome, a memoir of the Numantian war. He was an eye-witness of the scenes which he describes, for he was tribune at Numantia under Scipio Africanus.[351]
The only constitutional history of Rome was the work of C. Junius, who was surnamed Gracchanus, in consequence of his intimacy with C. Gracchus. It is certain that this work must have been the result of original research, as there are no remains extant of any history which could have furnished the materials. The legal and political knowledge which it contained was evidently considerable, for it is quoted by the jurists as a trustworthy authority.[352]
Servius Fabius Pictor[353] wrote annals; but his principal work was a treatise on the pontifical law, an antiquarian record of rites and ceremonies. L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Censorius was consul in the year in which Ti. Sempronius Gracchus was killed, and censor the year after the murder of C. Gracchus:[354] he is occasionally quoted by Dionysius, and twice by Livy, who, on the points in question, consider his authority less trustworthy than that of Fabius Pictor.[355] Gellius[356] quotes from him the following traditional anecdote of Romulus. Once upon a time the king was invited out to supper. He drank very little, because he had business to transact on the following day. Some one at table remarked, if every body did so, wine would be cheaper. “Nay,” replied Romulus, “I have drank as much as I wished; if every body did so, it would be dear.”
Piso was an honest man, but not an honest historian. He acquired the surname Frugi by his strict integrity and simple habits; but his ingenuity tempted him to disregard historical truth. Niebuhr considers him the first who introduced systematic forgeries into Roman history. Seeing the discrepancies and consistencies between the accounts given by previous annalists, instead of weighing them together, and adopting those which were best supported by the testimony of antiquity, he either invented theories, in order to reconcile conflicting statements, or substituted some narrative which he thought might have been the groundwork of the marvellous legend. Niebuhr observes, that he treated history precisely in the same way in which the rationalists endeavoured to divest the scripture of its miraculous character.
M. Æmilius Scaurus, P. Rutilius Rufus, and Q. Lutatius Catulus, were the first Roman autobiographers; and their example was afterwards followed by Sulla, who employed his retirement in writing his own memoir in twenty-two books. Scaurus was the son of a charcoal-dealer, who, by his military talents, twice raised himself to the consulship, and once enjoyed the honour of a triumph. A few unimportant fragments of his personal memoirs are preserved by the grammarians. Rutilius was consul A. U. C. 649: he wrote his own life in Latin, and a history of Rome in Greek.[357] Catulus is praised by Cicero for his Latinity, who compares his style to that of Xenophon.[358]
The other historians, who flourished immediately before the literary period of Cicero, were C. Licinius Macer, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, and Q. Valerius Antias.
Macer[359] was a prolix and gossiping writer: he was not deficient in industry; he spared no pains in collecting traditions; but he had no judgment in selection, and accepted all the Greek fables respecting Italy without discrimination. Hence he makes some statements which were rejected by annalists of greater authority. Niebuhr[360] defends him, and regrets deeply the loss of his annals. He thinks it not improbable that Cicero’s unfavourable criticism may have been owing to political prejudice. His work was voluminous, and probably traced the Roman history from the commencement to his own times.
Quadrigarius is much quoted both by Livy and the grammarians. From the fragments extant it is clear that his history commenced with the Gallic wars; and from a passage in Plutarch’s Life of Numa,[361] he appears to have been actuated by a motive indicative of his truthfulness as an historian. He was not content with fabulous legends; and there were no documents in existence anterior to the capture of Rome by the Gauls. His work consisted of twenty-three books: it carried the history, as is generally supposed, as far as the death of Sulla,[362] or, as Niebuhr believed, down to the consulship of Cicero.[363] The longest fragment extant has been preserved by Gellius, and relates the combat of Manlius Torquatus with the gigantic Gaul.
The style is abrupt and sententious, and the structure of the sentences loose; but the story is told in a naïve and spirited manner. One can realize the scene as the historian describes it—the awe of the Roman host at the unwonted sight—the gigantic stature, the truculent countenance of the Goliath-like youth—the unbroken silence, in the midst of which his voice of thunder uttered his defiance—the scorn with which he sneered and put out his tongue when no one accepted his challenge—the shame and grief of the noble Manlius—the struggle—the cutting off the monster’s head, and the wreathing his own neck with the collar still reeking with blood.
It has been suggested that this historian received the surname Quadrigarius because, in the games of the circus, celebrated after the victory of Sulla, he won the prize in the chariot-race.
No Roman historian ever made greater pretensions to accuracy than Valerius Antias, and no one was less trustworthy. Livy, on one occasion,[364] accuses him of either negligence or impudent exaggeration; but there is no doubt that he was guilty of the latter fault. Almost all the places in which he is quoted by Livy have reference to numbers, and in all he not only goes far beyond all other historians,[365] but even transgresses the bounds of possibility. Livy never hesitates to call him a liar. In all cases he is guilty of falsehood; the only question is whether his falsehood is more or less moderate. The following examples are sufficient to convict him. He undertakes to assert that the exact number of the Sabine virgins was 527.[366] If one historian states that 60 engines of war were taken, he makes the number 6,000;[367] when all authors, Greek and Latin, unite in asserting that in A. U. C. 553, there was no memorable campaign, he says a battle was fought in which 12,000 of the enemy were slain and 1,200 taken prisoners.[368] In another place 10,000 slain become 40,000;[369] and a fine which Quadrigarius states was to be paid by instalments in thirty years, he distributes only over the space of ten.[370] With matter of this unauthentic kind, he filled no less than seventy-five books, of which a large portion of passages have been preserved, especially by Livy.
Hitherto, with one doubtful exception, Latin historical composition was in the hands of the great and noble; the first historian belonging to the order of the libertinei was L. Otacilius Pilitus. Suetonius[371] says, that he was not only originally a slave, but that he acted as porter, and, as was the custom, was chained to his master’s door. Nothing is known of his works; it is probable, therefore, that they were of no merit.
Two more important names remain to be mentioned amongst the annalists of this period—L. Cornelius Sisenna and Q. Ælius Tubero. Sisenna, according to the testimony of Cicero,[372] was born between B. C. 640 and B. C. 680, and filled the office of quæstor B. C. 676. He was, according to the same authority, a man of learning and taste, wrote pure Latin, was well acquainted with public business, and, although deficient in industry, surpassed all his predecessors and contemporaries in his talents as an historian. Probably his style of writing approached more nearly to that of the new school, although still below the Ciceronian standard. The testimony of Sallust is not so favourable, as he considers him not sufficiently impartial to fulfil adequately the duties of a contemporary historian.[373]
No fragments are extant of sufficient length to enable us to form any estimate of his merits, although, on account of the numerous unusual words which occur in his writings, no historian of this period has been more frequently quoted by the grammarians. The probability is that his twenty-three books are of little or no value, as they are never referred to in order to illustrate matters of historical or antiquarian interest.
Tubero was the contemporary of Cicero, and did not write his annals until after Cicero’s consulship. Nevertheless he must be considered as belonging to the old school, and its last as well as one of its most worthy representatives. He was the father of L. Tubero, the legate of Q. Cicero, in Asia. Like Piso, he was a stout opponent of the Gracchic policy, and a firm supporter of the aristocracy. A stoic in philosophy, his life was in strict accordance with his creed, and his style of writing is said to have been marked with Catonian rudeness. He describes, in his history, the cruel tortures of Regulus by the Carthaginians, and relates the story of the wonderful serpent at Bagrada.[374] He is once quoted by Dionysius and twice by Livy.
Eloquence, though of a rude, unpolished kind, must have been in the very earliest times a characteristic of the Roman people. It is a plant indigenous to a free soil. Its infancy was nurtured in the schools of Tisias and Corax, when, on the dethronement of the tyrants, the dawn of freedom brightened upon Sicily; and, just as in modern times it has flourished, especially in England and America, fostered by the unfettered freedom of debate, so it found a congenial home in free Greece and republican Rome. He who could contrast in the most glowing colours the cruelty of the pitiless creditor, with the sufferings of the ruined debtor—who could ingeniously connect those patent evils with some defects in the constitution, some inequalities in political rights hitherto hidden and unobserved—would wield at will the affections of the people, and become the master-spirit amongst his fellow-citizens.
Occasions would not be wanting in a state where, from the earliest times, a struggle was continually maintained between a dominant and a subject race, for the use of those arts of eloquence which nature, the mistress of all art, suggests. The plebeians, in their conflicts with the patricians, must have had some leader, and eloquence, probably to a great extent, directed the selection, even though there was, in reality, no Menenius Agrippa to lead them back from the sacred mountain with his homely wisdom. Cases of oppression, doubtless, inspired some Icilius or Virginius with words of burning indignation, and many a Siccius Dentatus, though he had never learnt technical rhetoric, used the rhetorical artifice of appealing to his honourable wounds and scars in front, which he had received in the service of his country, and to disgraceful weals with which his back was lacerated by the lash of the torturer. In an army where the personal influence of the general was more productive of heroism than the rules of a long-established discipline, a short harangue often led the soldiers to victory. And, lastly, the relation subsisting between the two orders of patron and client taught a milder and more business-like eloquence—that of explaining with facility common civil rights, and unravelling the knotty points of the constitutional law. Oratory, in fact, was the unwritten literature of active life, and recommended itself by its antagonistic spirit and its utility to a warlike and utilitarian people. Long, therefore, before the art of the historian was sufficiently advanced to record a speech, or to insert a fictitious one, as an embellishment or illustration of its pages, the forum, senate, the battle-field, the threshold of the jurisconsult, had been nurseries of Roman eloquence, or schools in which oratory attained a vigorous youth, and prepared for its subsequent maturity.
Tradition speaks of a speech recorded even before the poetry of Nævius was written, and this speech was known to Cicero. It was delivered against Pyrrhus by Appius Claudius the blind.[375] He belonged to a house, every member of which, from the decemvir to the emperor, was born to bow down their fellow-men beneath their strong wills. Such a character, united with a poetical genius, implies the very elements of that oratory which would curb a nation accustomed to be restrained by force as much as by reason. On this celebrated occasion,[376] the blind old man caused himself to be borne into the senate-house on a litter, that he might confront the wily Cineas whom Pyrrhus had sent to negotiate peace. The Macedonian minister was an accomplished speaker, and his memory, that important auxiliary to eloquence, was so powerful, that in one day he learnt to address all the senators and knights by name, yet it is said that he was no match for the energy of Appius, and was obliged to quit Rome.
Whilst the legal and political constitution of the Roman people gave direct encouragement to deliberative and judicial oratory, respect to the illustrious dead furnished opportunities for panegyric. The song of the bard in honour of the departed warrior gave place to the funeral oration, (laudatio.)
Before the commencement of the second Punic war,[377] Q. Metellus pronounced the funeral harangue over his father, the conqueror of Hasdrubal; history also speaks of him as a debator in the senate, and his address to the censors is found in the fourth decade of Livy.[378] This funeral oration was admired even in the time of J. Cæsar, and Pliny[379] has recorded the substance of one remarkable passage which it contained. The period of the second Punic war produced Corn. Cethegus. Cicero mentions him in his list of Roman orators;[380] and although he had never seen a specimen of his style, he states that he retained his force and vigour even in his old age. Ennius also bears testimony to his eloquence in the following line:—
At the conclusion of the second war, Fabius Cunctator pronounced the eulogium[381] of his elder son; and Cicero, although he denies him the praise of eloquence, states that he was a fluent and correct speaker.
Scipio Africanus Major, on that memorable day when his enemies called upon him to render an account of the moneys received from Antiochus, proved himself a consummate orator: he disdained to refute the malignant charges of his opponents, but spoke till dusk of the benefits which he had conferred upon his country. Thus it came to pass that the adjourned meeting was held on the anniversary of Zama. Livy has adorned the simple words of the great soldier with his graceful language, but A. Gellius[382] has preserved the peroration almost in his own words. “I call to remembrance, Romans,” said he, “that this is the very day on which I vanquished in a bloody battle on the plains of Africa the Carthaginian Hannibal, the most formidable enemy Rome ever encountered. I obtained for you a peace and an unlooked-for victory. Let us then not be ungrateful to heaven, but let us leave this knave, and at once offer our grateful thanksgivings to Jove, supremely good and great.”
The people obeyed his summons—the forum was deserted, and crowds followed him with acclamations to the Capitol.
Mention has already been made of the stern eloquence of his adversary Cato. He was equally laborious as a speaker and a writer. No fewer than one hundred and fifty of his orations were extant in Cicero’s time, most of which were on subjects of public and political interest.
The father of the Gracchi was distinguished amongst his contemporaries for a plain and nervous eloquence, but no specimens of his oratory have survived.
Scipio Africanus Minor (Æmilianus) was precisely qualified to be the link between the new and the old school of oratory. His soldier-like character displayed all the vigour and somewhat of the sternness of the old Roman, but the harder outlines were modified by an ardent love of learning. His first campaign was in Greece, under his father Æmilius Paulus. His first literary friendship was formed there with the historian Polybius, which ripened into the closest intimacy when Polybius came as a hostage to Rome. Subsequently he became acquainted with Panætius, who was his instructor in the principles of philosophy. His taste was gratified with Greek refinement, although he abhorred the effeminacy and profligacy of the Greeks themselves. In the spirit of Cato, for whom he entertained the warmest admiration, he indignantly remonstrated against the inroad of Greek manners. In his speech in opposition to the law of C. Gracchus, he warned his hearers of the corruptions which were already insinuating themselves amongst the Roman youth. “I did not believe what I heard,” he says, “until I witnessed it with my own eyes: at the dancing-school I saw more than five hundred of the youth of both sexes. I saw a boy, of at least twelve years old, wearing the badge of noble birth, who performed a castanet dance, which an immodest slave could not have danced without disgrace.”
The degeneracy of Greek manners had not corrupted his moral nature, or rendered him averse to the active duties of a citizen; it had not destroyed the frankness, whilst it had humanized the rough honesty, of the Roman, and taught him to love the beautiful as well as the good, and to believe that the former was the proper external development of the latter.
One friend, whose influence contributed to form the mind of Scipio, was the wise and gentle Lælius. In other places, as well as in the “de Amicitia,” Cicero associates their names together. These distinguished friends were well suited to each other. The sentiments of both were noble and elevated. “Both,” as Cicero[383] says, “were ‘imprimis eloquentes.’” Their discrepancies were such as draw men of similar tastes more closely together, in those hours which they can devote to their favourite pursuits. Scipio was an active man of business—Lælius, a contemplative philosopher: Scipio, a Roman in heart and soul—Lælius, a citizen of the world: Scipio was rather inclined to ostentatious display—Lælius was retiring. The former had a correct taste, spoke Latin with great purity, and had an extensive acquaintance with the literature both of Greece and his own country. The attainments of the latter were more solid, and his acquaintance with the mind of Greece more profound. But Lælius was not equally calculated to occupy a place in history; and hence, perhaps, although a few fragments of the eloquence of Scipio are extant,[384] the remains of that of Lælius extend only to as many lines. Cheerfulness, (hilaritas,) smoothness, (lenitas,) and learning distinguished the speeches of Lælius, whilst spirit, genius, and natural power marked those of Scipio.
Servius Sulpicius Galba, whom Cato[385] prosecuted for his treachery to the Lusitanians, obtained from Cicero the praise of having been the first Roman who really understood how to apply the theoretical principles of Greek rhetoric. He is said likewise to have carried away with him the feelings of his auditors by his animated and vehement delivery. How skilful he was in the use of rhetorical artifice is shown by his parading before the assembly of the people, when brought to trial, his two infant sons, and the orphan of his friend Sulpicius Gallus. His tears and embraces touched the hearts of his judges, and the cold-blooded perjurer was acquitted. External artifice, however, probably constituted his whole merit. He had the tact thus to cover a dry and antique style, destitute of nerve and muscle, of which no specimen except only a few words remain.
All periods of political disquiet are necessarily favourable to eloquence, and the era of the Gracchi was especially so. Extensive political changes were now established. They had been of slow and gradual growth, and were the natural development of the Roman system; but they were changes which could not take place without the crisis being accompanied by great political convulsions. In order to understand the state of parties, of which the great leaders and principal orators were the representatives, it is necessary to explain briefly in what these changes consisted. The result of an obstinate and persevering struggle during nearly four centuries was, that the old distinction of patrician and plebeian no longer existed. Plebeians held the consulship[386] and censorship,[387] and patricians, like the Gracchi, stood forward as plebeian tribunes and champions of popular rights.
The distinctions of blood and race, therefore, were no longer regarded. Most of the old patrician families were extinct. Niebuhr believes that at this period not more than fifteen patrician “gentes” remained; and the individual members of those which survived, if they maintained their position at all, maintained it by personal influence. The constitutional principle which determined the difference of ranks was property. This line of demarkation between rich and poor was not an impassable one like that of birth, but it had now become very broad and deep, owing to the accumulation of wealth in few hands; and thus between these two orders there was as little sympathy as there had been between the patrician creditors and the plebeian debtors in the earlier times of the republic.
But besides this constitutional principle of distinction, there was another of a more aristocratic nature, which owed its erection to public opinion. Those families the members of which had held high public offices were termed nobiles (nobles.) Those individuals whose families had never been so distinguished were termed new men (novi homines.) Thus a man’s ancestors were made hostages for his patriotism; and so trustworthy a pledge was hereditary merit considered for ability and fidelity in the discharge of high functions, that only in a few exceptional cases was the consulship, although open to all, conferred upon a new man. One consequence of all these changes was, that the struggle for political distinction became hotter than ever, and the strife more vehement between the competitors for public favour.
These stirring times produced many celebrated orators. Papirius Carbo, the ultra-liberal and unscrupulous colleague of Tiberius Gracchus, who united the gift of a beautiful voice to copiousness and fluency; Lepidus Porcina, who attained the perfection of Attic gentleness, and whom Tib. Gracchus took as his model; Æmilius Scaurus, whom Statius libelled as of ignoble birth; Rutilius Rufus, who was too upright to appeal to the compassion of his judges;[388] M. Junius Pennus, who met by an insulting alien act the bill of Gracchus for the enfranchisement of the Italians.
The Gracchi themselves were each in a different degree eloquent, and possessed those endowments and accidents of birth which would recommend their eloquence to their countrymen. Gentleness and kindness were the characteristics of this illustrious race. Their father, by his mild administration, attached to himself the warm affection of the Spaniards. Their mother inherited the strong mind and genius of Scipio. To a sound knowledge of Greek and Latin literature[389] and a talent for poetry, she added feminine accomplishments. She danced elegantly, more elegantly, indeed, than according to the strict notions of Roman morality a woman of character need have done. She could also sing and accompany herself upon the lute. To her care in early youth the illustrious brothers owed the development of their natural endowments, and the direction of their generous principles. Cicero tells us that he had seen the letters of this remarkable woman, which showed how much her sons were indebted to her teaching. Greek philosophers aided her in her work; and the accomplished Lælius contributed to add grace and polish to the more solid portions of her education.
Notwithstanding that the political principles which the Gracchi embraced were the same, their characters, or, more properly speaking, their temperaments, widely differed, and their style of speaking was, as might be expected, in accordance with their respective dispositions. Tiberius was cold, deliberate, sedate, reserved. The storms of passion never ruffled the calmness of his feelings. His speaking, therefore, was self-possessed and grave, as stoical as his philosophical creed. His conduct was not the result of impulse, but of a strict sense of duty. Cicero termed him homo sanctissimus, and his style was as chastened as his integrity was spotless. Such, if we may trust Plutarch, was the character of his oratory, for no fragments remain.
Caius, who was nine years younger than his brother, was warm, passionate, and impetuous: he was inferior to Tiberius morally, as he was intellectually his superior. His impulses were generous and amiable, but he had not that unswerving rectitude of purpose which is the result of moral principle. He had, however, more genius, more creative power. His imagination, lashed by the violence of his passions, required a strong curb; but for that reason it gushed forth as from a natural fountain, and like a torrent carried all before it. On one occasion, to which Cicero alludes,[390] his look, his voice, his gestures, were so inexpressibly affecting, that even his enemies were dissolved in tears. It is said that in his calmer moments he was conscious that his vehemence was apt to offend against good taste, and employed a slave to stand near him with a pitch-pipe, in order that he might regulate his voice when passion rendered the tones unmusical. His education enabled him to rid himself of the harshness of the old school, and to gain the reputation of being the father of Roman prose. But his impetuosity made him leave unfinished that which he had well begun. “His language was noble, his sentiments wise; gravity pervaded his whole style, but his works wanted the last finishing stroke. There were many glorious beginnings, but they were not brought to perfection.”[391] Several fragments remain, which confirm the correctness of Cicero’s criticism—one of the most beautiful is from his speech against Popilius Lænas, which drove that blood-thirsty tyrant into voluntary exile.
Oratory began now to be studied more as an art, and to be invested with a more polished garb. The interval between the Gracchi and Cicero boasted of many distinguished names, such as those of Q. Catulus, Curio, Fimbria, Scævola, Cotta, P. Sulpicius, and the Memmii. The most illustrious names of this epoch were M. Antonius, L. Licinius Crassus, and Cicero’s immediate predecessor and most formidable rival, Hortensius. Antony and Crassus, says Cicero, were the first Romans who elevated eloquence to the heights to which it had been raised by Greek genius.[392] From this complaint it may be inferred that, notwithstanding the popular prejudice which existed against Greek taste, and to which even Cicero himself sometimes conceived himself obliged to yield,[393] the leading orators had ceased to take the specimens of old Roman eloquence as their models. Cicero asserts[394] that both Antony and Crassus owed their eminence to a diligent study of Greek literature, and to the instructions of Greek professors. The former, he says, attended regularly lectures at Athens and Rhodes, and the latter spoke Greek as if it had been his mother tongue. Yet both had the narrow-minded vanity to deny their obligations: they thought their eloquence would be more popular, the one by showing contempt for the Greeks, the other by affecting not to know them.
M. Antonius entered public life as a pleader, and thus laid the foundation of his brilliant political career; but he was through life greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. He was indefatigable in preparing his case, and made every point tell: he was a great master of the pathetic, and knew the way to the hearts of the judices. He was not free from the prevailing fault of advocates, of being somewhat unscrupulous in his assertions; and the reason which he is said to have given for never having published any of his speeches was, lest he should be forced to deny his words. This statement, however, is refuted by Cicero.[395] Although he did not himself give his speeches to posterity, some of his most pointed expressions and favourite passages left an indelible impression on the memories of his hearers: many are preserved by Cicero, who has given us also a complete epitome of one of them.[396] In the prime of life, he fell a victim to political fury; and his bleeding head was placed upon the rostrum which was so frequently the scene of his eloquent triumphs.
L. Licinius Crassus was four years younger than Antonius, having been born B. C. 140. It is not known whether he was connected with the distinguished family whose name he bore. He commenced his career at the Roman bar.[397] At the early age of twenty-one, he successfully impeached C. Carbo, and in the year B. C. 118 supported the foundation of a colony at Narbo, in Gaul. A measure so beneficial to the poorer citizens increased his popularity as well as his professional fame. He went to Asia as quæstor, and there studied under Metrodorus the rhetorician. On his way home he remained a short time at Athens, and attended the lectures of the leading professors.
Notwithstanding his knowledge of jurisprudence, and his early eminence as a pleader, the speech which established his reputation was a political one. Under the Roman judicial system, the prætor presided in court, with a certain number of assessors, (judices,) who gave their verdict like our jurymen. These were chosen from the senators. Experience proved that not only in their determination to stand by their order they were guilty of partiality, but that they had also been open to bribery. The knights constituted the nearest approach which could be found to a rich middle class. C. Gracchus, therefore, by the “Lex Sempronia,” transferred the administration of justice to a body of three hundred men, chosen from the equestrian order. This promised to be a salutary change; but so corrupt was the whole framework of Roman society, that it did not prove effectual. The Publicani, who farmed the revenues of the provinces, were all Roman knights. The new judges, therefore, were as anxious to shield the peculations and extortions of their own brethren as the old had been.
In B. C. 106, L. Servilius Cæpio brought in a bill for the restoration of the judicial office to the senators. In support of this measure (the first Lex Servilia,) Crassus delivered a powerful and triumphant oration, in which he warmly espoused the cause of the senate, whom he had before as strenuously opposed on the question of the colony to Narbo. This speech was his chef-d’œuvre.[398] After serving the office of consul,[399] in which he seems to have mistaken his vocation by exchanging the toga for the sword, he was raised to the censorship.[400] His year of office is celebrated for the closing the schools of the Latin rhetoricians by an edict of himself and his colleague. The foundations of these schools had been laid in the ruins of the Greek schools, when the philosophers and rhetoricians were banished from Rome.[401] Although the censorial power could suppress the schools, it could not put a stop to the education given there. The professors found a refuge in private mansions; and thus, protected and fostered by intelligent patrons, continued to fulfil their duties as instructors of youth. How often did literature at Rome have to seek an asylum from private patronage against the rude attacks of public prejudice! The reasons for the measure of Crassus are stated in the preamble.[402] These schools were a novelty; they were contrary to ancient institutions; they encouraged idle habits among the Roman youth. Cicero defended this arbitrary act on the ground that the professors pretended to teach subjects of which they were themselves ignorant; but Cicero could scarcely find a fault in Crassus. He thought him a model of perfection—the first of orators and jurists.[403] He saw no inconsistency in his conduct in the cases of the Narbonne colony and the Servilian law.[404] He is lavish in his praises of his wit and facetiousness, (lepor et facetiæ,[405]) and applies to his malignant and ill-natured jokes the term urbanity. The bon-mots of Crassus were by no means superior to the generality of Roman witticisms, which were deficient in point, although they were personal, caustic, and severe.[406] The grave Romans were content with a very little wit; the quality for which they looked in an oration was not playfulness, but skill in the art of ingenious tormenting. Crassus never uttered a jest equal to that of old Cato, when he said of Q. Helvidius, the glutton, whose house was on fire, “What he could not eat he has burned.”[407]
His conduct with respect to the Latin schools, and his self-indulgent life in his magnificent mansion on the Palatine, prove that he had retained the narrow-mindedness of the old Romans without their temperance and self-denial, and had acquired the luxury and taste of the Greeks without their liberality. If, however, we make some allowance for partiality, Crassus deserves the favourable criticism of Cicero.[408] His style is careful and yet not laboured—it is elegant, accurate, and perspicuous. He seems to have possessed considerable powers of illustration, and great clearness in explaining and defining; his delivery was calm and self-possessed, his action sufficiently vehement, but not excessive.[409] He took especial pains with the commencement of his speech. When he was about to speak, every one was prepared to listen, and the very first words which he uttered showed him worthy of the expectation formed. No one better understood the difficult art of uniting elegance with brevity.
From amongst the crowd of orators which were then flourishing in the last days of expiring Roman liberty, Cicero selected Crassus to be the representative of his sentiments in his imaginary conversation in the de Oratore. He felt that their tastes were congenial. In this most captivating essay, he introduces his readers to a distinguished literary circle, men who united activity in public life with a taste for refined leisure. Antony, Crassus, Scævola, Cotta, and Sulpicius, met at Tusculum to talk of the politics of the day. For this especial purpose they had come, and all day long they ceased not to converse on these grave matters. They spoke not of lighter matters until they reclined at supper. Their day seemed to have been spent in the senate, their evening at Tusculum. Next day, in the serene and sunny climate of Frascati, a scene well fitted for the calm repose of a Platonic dialogue, Scævola proposed to imitate the Socrates of Plato, and converse, as the great philosopher did, beneath the shade of a plane-tree. Crassus assented, suggesting only that cushions would be more convenient than the grass. So the dialogue began in which Crassus is made the mouthpiece to deliver the sentiments of Cicero.
Like our own Chatham, Crassus almost died on the floor of the senate-house, and his last effort was in support of the aristocratic party. His opponent, Philippus the consul, strained his power to the utmost to insult him, and ordered his goods to be seized. His last words were worthy of him. He mourned the bereavement of the senate—that the consul, like a sacrilegious robber, should strip of its patrimony the very order of which he ought to have been a kind parent or faithful guardian. “It is useless,” he continued, “to seize these: if you will silence Crassus, you must tear out his tongue, and even then my liberty shall breathe forth a refutation of thy licentiousness!” The paroxysm was too much for him; fever ensued, and in seven days he was a corpse.
We must pass over numerous names contained in the catalogue of Cicero, mentioning by the way Cotta and the two Sulpicii. Cotta’s taste was pure; but his delicate lungs made his oratory too tame for his vehement countrymen. Publius Sulpicius had all the powers of a tragic actor to influence the passions, but professed that he could not write, and therefore left no specimens behind him. His reluctance to write must have been the result of reserve or of indolence, and not of inability, for nothing can be more tender and touching, and yet more philosophical, than his letter to Cicero on the death of his beloved daughter.[410] Servius, like too many orators, and even Cicero himself, at first despised an accurate knowledge of the Roman law. The great Scævola, however, rebuked him, and reminded him how disgraceful it was for one who desired the reputation of an advocate to be ignorant of law. These words excited his emulation; he ardently devoted himself to the study of jurisprudence,[411] and at length is said to have surpassed even Scævola himself.
The last of the pre-Ciceronian orators was Hortensius. Although he was scarcely eight years senior to the greatest of all Roman orators, he cannot be considered as belonging to the same literary period, since the genius and eloquence of Cicero constitute the commencement of a new era. He was, nevertheless, his contemporary and his rival; and all that is known respecting his career is derived from the writings of Cicero.
Q. Hortensius was the son of L. Hortensius, prætor of Sicily, B. C. 97. He was born B. C. 114; and, as it was the custom that noble Roman youths should be called to the bar at an early age, he commenced his career as a pleader at nineteen, and pleaded, with applause and success, before two consuls who were excellent judges of his merits, the orator Crassus and the jurist Scævola. His first speech was in support of the province of Africa against the extortions of the governor. In his second he defended Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, against his brother, who had dethroned him. When Crassus and Antony were dead, he was left without any rival except Cotta, but he soon surpassed him.[412] The eloquence of Cotta was too languid to stand against the impetuous flow, and he thus became the acknowledged leader of the Roman bar until the star of Cicero arose. They first came in contact when Cicero pleaded the cause of Quintius, and in that oration he pays the highest possible compliment to the talents and genius of Hortensius.
His political connexion with the faction of Sulla, and his unscrupulous support of the profligate corruption which characterized that administration both at home and abroad, enlisted his legal talents in defence of the infamous Verres; but the eloquence of Cicero, together with the justice of the cause which he espoused, prevailed, and from that time forward his superiority over Hortensius was established and complete. But the admiration which Cicero entertained for his rival had ripened into friendship, which neither the fact of their being retained on opposite sides, nor even difference in politics, had power to interrupt. The only danger which ever threatened its stability was some little jealousy on the part of Cicero—a jealousy which must be attributed to his morbid temperament and susceptible disposition. But Hortensius was always a warm and affectionate friend to Cicero, and Cicero was affected with the deepest grief when he heard of the death of Hortensius.[413] The time at length arrived when identity of political sentiments drew them more closely together; and it is to this we owe the place which Hortensius so often occupies in the letters and other works of the great Roman orator.
Cicero had originally espoused the popular cause; but his zeal gradually became less ardent, and the Catilinarian conspiracy threw him entirely into the arms of the aristocratic party. At the Roman bar politics had great influence in determining the side taken by the leading advocates. They were virtually the great law officers of the party in the republic to which they belonged, and had, as it were, general retainers on their own side. Hence Hortensius generally advocated the same side with Cicero. Together they defended Rabirius, Muræna, Flaccus, Sextius, Scaurus, and Milo; but the former seems to have at once acknowledged his inferiority, and henceforward to have taken but little part in public life. In B. C. 51, he defended his nephew from a charge of bribery; but the guilt of the accused was so plain that the people hissed him when he entered the theatre.[414] The following year he died, at the age of seventy-five, and left behind him a daughter, whose eloquence is celebrated in history. An oration, of which she was the author, was read in the time of Quintilian for the sake of its own merits, and not as a mere compliment to the female sex. Q. Hortensius has been accused of corruption; and his attachment to a corrupt party, his luxurious habits, extravagant expenditure, numerous villas, and enormous wealth, make it probable that this suspicion was not unfounded. He was an easy, kind-hearted, hospitable, but self-indulgent man. His park was a complete menagerie; his fish-ponds were stocked with fish so tame that they would feed from his hand. His gardens were so carefully kept that he even watered his trees with wine. He had a taste for both poetry and painting, wrote some amatory verses, and for one picture gave 140,000 sesterces, (about 1,100l.) His table was sumptuous; and peacocks were seen for the first time in Rome at his banquets. His cellar was so well supplied that he left 10,000 casks of Chian wine behind him.[415]
Cicero[416] tells us that the principal reason of Hortensius’ early popularity and subsequent failure was, that his style of eloquence was suited to the brilliance and liveliness of youth, but not the dignity and gravity of mature age. In those days there were two parties,[417] who differed in their views as to the theory of eloquence; the one admired the oratory of the Attic rhetoricians, which was calm, polished, refined, eschewing all redundancies; the other that of the Asiatic schools, which was florid and ornate.