Marcus, alone in his litter, travelled through the country to his sea-side villa at Astura. Then he went on to Formiæ, sick with doubt, not knowing whether to stay and die, or encounter the winter sea in such boat as was provided for him. Should he seek the uncomfortable refuge of Brutus's army? We can remember his bitter exclamations as to the miseries of camp life. He did go on board; but was brought back by the winds, and his servants could not persuade him to make another attempt. Plutarch tells us that he was minded to go to Rome, to force his way into young Cæsar's house and there to stab himself, but that he was deterred from this melodramatic death by the fear of torture. The story only shows how great had been the attention given to every detail of his last moments, and what the people in Rome had learned to say of them. The same remark applies to Plutarch's tale as to the presuming crows who pecked at the cordage of his sails when his boat was turned to go back to the land, and afterward with their beaks strove to drag the bedclothes from off him when he lay waiting his fate the night before the murderers came to him.
He was being carried down from his villa at Formiæ to the sea-side when Antony's emissaries came upon him in his litter. There seem to have been two of them—both soldiers and officers in the pay of Antony—Popilius Lænas and Herennius. They overtook him in the wood, through which paths ran from the villa down to the sea-shore. On arriving at the house they had not found Cicero, but were put upon his track by a freedman who had belonged to Quintus, named Philologus. He could hardly have done a kinder act than to show the men the way how they might quickly release Cicero from his agony. They went down to the end of the wood, and there met the slaves bearing the litter. The men were willing to fight for their master; but Cicero, bidding them put down the chair, stretched out his neck and received his death-blow. Antony had given special orders to his servants. They were to bring Cicero's head and his hands—the hands which had written the Philippics, and the tongue which had spoken them—and his order was obeyed to the letter. Cicero was nearly sixty-four when he died, his birthday being on the 3d of January following. It would be hardly worth our while to delay ourselves for a moment with the horrors of Antony's canduct, and those of his wife Fulvia—Fulvia the widow of Clodius and the wife of Antony—were it not that we may see what were the manners to which a great Roman lady had descended in those days in which the Republic was brought to an end. On the rostra was stuck up the head and the hands as a spectacle to the people, while Fulvia specially avenged herself by piercing the tongue with her bodkin. That is the story of Cicero's death as it has been generally told.
We are told also that Rome heard the news and saw the sight with ill-suppressed lamentation. We can easily believe that it should have been so. I have endeavored, as I have gone on with my work, to compare him to an Englishman of the present day; but there is no comparing English eloquence to his, or the ravished ears of a Roman audience to the pleasure taken in listening to our great orators. The world has become too impatient for oratory, and then our Northern senses cannot appreciate the melody of sounds as did the finer organs of the Roman people. We require truth, and justice, and common-sense from those who address us, and get much more out of our public speeches than did the old Italians. We have taught ourselves to speak so that we may be believed—or have come near to it. A Roman audience did not much care, I fancy, whether the words spoken were true. But it was indispensable that they should be sweet—and sweet they always were. Sweet words were spoken to them, with their cadences all measured, with their rhythm all perfect; but no words had ever been so sweet as those of Cicero. I even, with my obtuse ears, can find myself sometimes lifted by them into a world of melody, little as I know of their pronunciation and their tone. And with the upper classes—those who read, his literature had become almost as divine as his speech. He had come to be the one man who could express himself in perfect language. As in the next age the Eclogues of Virgil and the Odes of Horace became dear to all the educated classes because of the charm of their expression, so in their time, I fancy, had become the language of Cicero. It is not surprising that men should have wept when they saw that ghaatly face staring at them from the rostra, and the protruding tongue and the outstretched hands. The marvel is that, seeing it, they should still have borne with Antony.
That which Cicero has produced in literature is, as a rule, admitted to be excellent; but his character as a man has been held to be tarnished by three faults—dishonesty, cowardice, and insincerity. As to the first, I have denied it altogether, and my denial is now submitted to the reader for his judgment It seems to have been brought against him not in order to make him appear guilty, but because it bas appeared to be impossible that, when others were so deeply in fault, he should have been innocent. That he should have asked for nothing, that he should have taken no illicit rewards, that he should not have submitted to be feed, but that he should have kept his hands clean while all around him were grasping at everything—taking money, selling their aid for stipulated payments, grinding miserable creditors has been too much for believe. I will not take my readers back over the cases brought against him, but will ask them to ask themselves whether there is one supported by evidence fit to go before a jury. The accusations have been made by men clean-handed themselves; but to them it has appeared unreasonable to believe that a Roman oligarch of those days should be an honest gentleman.
As to his cowardice, I feel more doubt as to my power of carrying my readers with me, though no doubt as to Cicero's courage. Cowardice in a man is abominable. But what is cowardice? and what courage? It is a matter in which so many errors are made! Tinsel is so apt to shine like gold and dazzle the sight! In one of the earlier chapters of this book, when speaking of Catiline, I have referred to the remarks of a contemporary writer: "The world has generally a generous word for the memory of a brave man dying for his cause!" "All wounded in front," is quoted by this author from Sallust. "Not a man taken alive! Catiline himself gasping out his life ringed around with corpses of his friends." That is given as a picture of a brave man dying for his cause, who should excite our admiration even though his cause were bad. In the previous lines we have an intended portrait of Cicero, who, "thinking, no doubt, that he had done a good day's work for his patrons, declined to run himself into more danger." Here is one story told of courage, and another of fear. Let us pause for a moment and regard the facts. Catiline, when hunted to the last gasp, faced his enemy and died fighting like a man—or a bull. Who is there cannot do so much as that? For a shilling or eighteen-pence a day we can get an army of brave men who will face an enemy—and die, if death should come. It is not a great thing, nor a rare, for a man in battle not to run away. With regard to Cicero the allegation is that he would not be allowed to be bribed to accuse Cæsar, and thus incur danger. The accusation which is thus brought against him is borrowed from Sallust, and is no doubt false; but I take it in the spirit in which it is made. Cicero feared to accuse Cæsar, lest he should find himself enveloped, through Cæsar's means, in fresh danger. Grant that he did so. Was he wrong at such a moment to save his life for the Republic—and for himself? His object was to banish Catiline, and not to catch in his net every existing conspirator. He could stop the conspiracy by securing a few, and might drive many into arms by endeavoring to encircle all. Was this cowardice? During all those days he had to live with his life in his hands, passing about among conspirators who he knew were sworn to kill him, and in the midst of his danger he could walk and talk and think like a man. It was the same when he went down into the court to plead for Milo, with the gladiators of Clodius and the soldiery of Pompey equally adverse to him. It was the same when he uttered Philippic after Philippic in the presence of Antony's friends. True courage, to my thinking, consists not in facing an unavoidable danger. Any man worthy of the name can do that. The felon that will be hung to-morrow shall walk up to the scaffold and seem ready to surrender the life he cannot save. But he who, with the blood running hot through his veins, with a full desire of life at his heart, with high aspirations as to the future, with everything around him to make him happy—love and friendship and pleasant work—when he can willingly imperil all because duty requires it, he is brave. Of such a nature was Cicero's courage.
As to the third charge—that of insincerity—I would ask of my readers to bethink themselves how few men are sincere now? How near have we approached to the beauty of truth, with all Christ's teaching to guide us? Not by any means close, though we are nearer to it than the Romans were in Cicero's days. At any rate we have learned to love it dearly, though we may not practise it entirely. He also had learned to love it, but not yet to practise it quite so well as we do. When it shall be said of men truly that they are thoroughly sincere, then the millennium will have come. We flatter, and love to be flattered. Cicero flattered men, and loved it better. We are fond of praise, and all but ask for it. Cicero was fond of it, and did ask for it. But when truth was demanded from him, truth was there.
Was Cicero sincere to his party, was he sincere to his friends, was he sincere to his family, was he sincere to his dependents? Did he offer to help and not help? Did he ever desert his ship, when he had engaged himself to serve? I think not. He would ask one man to praise him to another—and that is not sincere. He would apply for eulogy to the historian of his day—and that is not sincere. He would speak ill or well of a man before the judge, according as he was his client or his adversary—and that perhaps is not sincere. But I know few in history on whose positive sincerity in a cause his adherents could rest with greater security. Look at his whole life with Pompey—as to which we see his little insincerities of the moment because we have his letters to Atticus; but he was true to his political idea of a Pompey long after that Pompey had faded from his dreams. For twenty years we have every thought of his heart; and because the feelings of one moment vary from those of another, we call him insincere. What if we had Pompey's thoughts and Cæsar's, would they be less so? Could Cæsar have told us all his feelings? Cicero was insincere: I cannot say otherwise. But he was so much more sincere than other Romans as to make me feel that, when writing his life, I have been dealing with the character of one who might have been a modern gentleman.