Cicero's affection for his family gives us an entirely unfamiliar insight into Roman manners. There is a softness, a tenderness, an eagerness about it, such as would give a grace to the life of some English nobleman who had his heart garnered up for him at home, though his spirit was at work for his country. But we do not expect this from the Pompeys and Cæsars and Catos of Rome, perhaps because we do not know them as we know Cicero. It is odd, however, that we should have no word of love for his boys, as to Pompey; no word of love for his daughter, as to Cæsar. But Cicero's love for his wife, his brother, his son, his nephew, especially for his daughter, was unbounded. All offences on their part he could forgive, till there came his wife's supposed dishonesty, which was not to be forgiven. The ribaldry of Dio Cassius has polluted the story of his regard for Tullia; but in truth we know nothing sweeter in the records of great men, nothing which touches us more, than the profundity of his grief. His readiness to forgive his brother and to forgive his nephew, his anxiety to take them back to his affections, his inability to live without them, tell of his tenderness.
His friendship for Atticus was of the same calibre. It was of that nature that it could not only bear hard words but could occasionally give them without fear of a breach. Can any man read the records of this long affection without wishing that he might be blessed with such a friendship? As to that love of our fellow-creatures which comes not from personal liking for them, but from that kindness of heart toward all mankind which has been the fruit to us of Christ's teaching, that desire to do unto others as they should do unto us, his whole life is an example. When Quæstor in Sicily, his chief duty was to send home corn. He did send it home, but so that he hurt none of those in Sicily by whom it was supplied. In his letter to his brother as to his government of Asia Minor, the lessons which he teaches are to the same effect. When he was in Cilicia, it was the same from first to last. He would not take a penny from the poor provincials—not even what he might have taken by law. "Non modo non fænum, sed ne ligna quidem!" Where did he get the idea that it was a good thing not to torment the poor wretches that were subjected to his power? Why was it that he took such an un-Roman pleasure in making the people happy?
Cicero, no doubt, was a pagan, and in accordance with the rules prevailing in such matters it would be necessary to describe him of that religion, if his religion be brought under discussion. But he has not written as pagans wrote, nor did he act as they acted. The educated intelligence of the Roman world had come to repudiate their gods, and to create for itself a belief—in nothing. It was easier for a thoughtful man, and pleasanter for a thoughtless, to believe in nothing, than in Jupiter and Juno, in Venus and in Mars. But when there came a man of intellect so excellent as to find, when rejecting the gods of his country, that there existed for him the necessity of a real God, and to recognize it as a fact that the intercourse of man with man demanded it, we must not, in recording the facts of his life, pass over his religion as though it were simple chance. Christ came to us, and we do not need another teacher. Christ came to us so perfected in manhood as to be free from blemish. Cicero did not come at all as a teacher. He never recognized the possibility of teaching men a religion, or probably the necessity. But he did see the way to so much of the truth as to perceive that there was a heaven; that the way to it must be found in good deeds here on earth; and that the good deeds required of him would be kindness to others. Therefore I have written this final chapter on his religion.
APPENDIX.
(See page [308], Vol. II.)
SCIPIO'S DREAM.
Scipio the younger had gone, when in Africa, to meet Massinissa, and had there discussed with the African king the character of his nominal grandfather, for he was in fact the son of Paulus Æmilius and had been adopted by the son of the great conqueror at Zama. He had then retired to rest, and had dreamed a dream, and is thus made to tell it. Africanus the elder had shown himself to him greater than life, and had spoken to him in the following words: "Approach," said the ghost; "approach in spirit, and cease to fear, and write down on the tablets of your memory this that I shall tell you.
"Look down upon that city. I compelled it to obey Rome. It now seeks to renew its former strife, and you, but yet new to arms, have come to conquer it." Then from his starry heights he points to the once illustrious Carthage. "In twice twelve months that city you shall conquer, and shall have earned for yourself that name which by descent has become yours. Destroyer of Carthage, triumphant Censor, ambassador from Rome to Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you shall be chosen Consul a second time, though absent and, having besieged Numantia, shall bring a great war to an end. Then will the whole State turn to you and to your name. The Senate, the citizens, the allies will expect you. In one word, it will be to you as Dictator that the Republic will look to be saved from the crimes of your relatives.