THE POLITICAL TESTAMENT OF AUGUSTUS
Cicero liked young men; he willingly frequented their society and readily became young again with them. Just after he had been praetor and consul, we see him surrounding himself with promising young men like Caelius, Curio, and Brutus, whom he took with him to the Forum and taught to plead at his side. Later, when the defeat of Pharsalia had removed him from the government of his country, he began to live familiarly with those light-hearted young men who had followed the party of the conqueror, and even consented, as a pastime, to give them lessons in oratory. “They are my pupils in the art of speaking well,” he merrily wrote, “and my masters in the art of dining well.”[[375]] After the death of Caesar events brought him into connection with a still younger generation, which then began to appear in political life. Plancus, Pollio, Messala, whom fate destined to become high dignitaries of a new government, sought his friendship, and the founder of the empire called him father.
The correspondence of Octavius and Cicero was published, and we know that it formed at least three books. It would have been very interesting had it been preserved. In reading it we might follow all the phases of that friendship of a few months which was to end in such a terrible manner. Probably the earlier letters of Cicero would show him distrustful at first, doubtful and coldly polite. Notwithstanding what has been said, it was not he who called Octavius to the help of the republic. Octavius came of his own accord. He wrote to Cicero every day;[[376]] he overwhelmed him with protestations and promises, he assured him of a devotion that could not fail. Cicero hesitated for a long time to put this devotion to the proof. He thought Octavius was intelligent and resolute, but rather young. He dreaded his name and his friends. “He has too many bad men around him,” said he, “he will never be a good citizen.”[[377]] Nevertheless he allowed himself to be gained over; he forgot his mistrust, and when the boy, as he affected to call him, had raised the siege of Modena, his gratitude was carried to an excess that the prudent Atticus disapproved, and which displeased Brutus. The joy that he felt at the defeat of Antony made him forget all restraint; he was blinded and carried away by his hatred. When he saw “that drunkard fall into the snares of Octavius, on coming from his debauches,”[[378]] he was beside himself. But this joy did not last long, for he learnt of the treason of the general almost at the same time as of his victory. It is at this moment above all that his letters would become interesting. They would throw a light on the last months of his life, the history of which we do not know well. The efforts that he then made to soften his old friend have been imputed to him as a crime, and I admit that, consulting only his dignity, it would have been better not to have asked anything from him who had so basely betrayed him. But it was not a question of himself alone. Rome had no soldiers to oppose to those of Octavius. The sole resource that remained in order to disarm him, was to remind him of the promises he had made. No hope remained of success in reviving any sparks of patriotism in that selfish mind; but the attempt at least should be made. The republic was in danger as well as the life of Cicero, and what it was not proper for him to do to prolong his own life, it was necessary to attempt in order to save the republic. Supplication is not base when a man defends the liberty of his country, and there is no other way of defending it. It was, no doubt, at this terrible moment that he wrote those very humble words to Octavius that we find in the fragments of his letters: “Let me know for the future what you wish me to do, I shall exceed your expectation.”[[379]] Far from reproaching him for his entreaties, I admit that I cannot see without emotion this glorious old man humble himself thus before the boy who had betrayed his confidence, who had played with his credulity, but who has the power to save or destroy the republic!
Unfortunately there only remain fragments of these letters, which can teach us nothing. If we wish to know him who held so great a place in the last events of Cicero’s life we must look elsewhere. It would be easy and instructive to reproduce here the opinions that the historians of the empire give of him. But I prefer to keep to the method that I have followed in this work to the end, and if it is possible, to judge Octavius, like Cicero, by what he tells us himself, by his admissions and his confidences. In the absence of his correspondence and memoirs which are lost, let us take the great inscription at Ancyra, which is sometimes called the political testament of Augustus, because he sums up his whole life in it. Fortunately it has come down to us. We know from Suetonius that he had ordered it to be engraven on brass plates fixed on his tomb.[[380]] It is probable that it was very widely diffused in the first century of the Christian era, and that flattery or gratitude had multiplied copies everywhere, at the same time that the worship of the founder of the empire extended throughout the universe. Fragments have been found among the ruins of Apollonia, and it still exists entire at Angora, the ancient Ancyra. When the inhabitants of Ancyra erected a temple to Augustus, who had been their benefactor, they thought they could not honour his memory better than by engraving this account, or rather this glorification of his life that he had himself composed. Since that time, the monument consecrated to Augustus has more than once changed its destination; to the Greek temple a Byzantine church succeeded, and to the church a Turkish school. The roof has fallen in, dragging with it the ornaments of the summit, the columns of the porticoes have disappeared, and to the ancient ruins has been added the rubbish of the Byzantine and Turkish buildings, which are already also in ruins. But by singular good fortune the slabs of marble which recount the actions of Augustus have remained solidly attached to the indestructible walls.
This is a favourable opportunity for studying this monument. M. Perrot[[381]] has just brought from Galatia a more correct copy of the Latin text, and an altogether new part of the Greek translation which elucidates and completes the Latin. Thanks to him, with the exception of a few lacunae of little importance, the inscription is now complete, and can be read from beginning to end. We can therefore now perceive and interpret its general sense.