I have been told that two days ago he sent a written request in which he demanded that my statue should be given a conspicuous place, and above all told of the bonds of friendship which began under such honourable circumstances, when we served together beneath the banner of literature and studied under the same masters; he then recorded[54] all the good wishes for his success with which I had welcomed each successive step of his advance in his official career. He had already done me a compliment in remembering that I had once been his fellow student: it was a fresh compliment that so great a man should record my friendship for him as though I were his equal. But he went further. He stated that other peoples and cities had decreed not only statues, but other distinctions as well in my honour. Could anything be added to such a panegyric as this, delivered by the lips of an ex-consul? Yes: for he cited the [priesthood] I had undertaken, and showed that I had attained the highest honour that Carthage can bestow. But the greatest and most remarkable compliment[55] paid me was this: after producing such a wealth of flattering testimonials he commended me to your notice by himself voting in my favour. Finally, he, a man in whose honour every province rejoices through all the world to erect four or six horse chariots, promised that he would erect my statue at Carthage at his own expense.
What lacks there to sanction and establish my glory and to set it on the topmost pinnacle of fame? I ask you, what is there lacking? Aemilianus Strabo, who has already held the consulship and is destined, as we all hope and pray, soon to be a proconsul, proposed the resolution conferring these honours upon me in the senate-house of Carthage. You gave your unanimous assent to the proposal. Surely in your eyes this was more than a mere resolution, it was a solemn enactment of law. Nay more, all the Carthaginians gathered in this august assembly showed such readiness in granting a site for the statue that they might make it clear to you that, if they put off a resolution for the erection of a second statue, as I hope,[56] to the next meeting of the senate, they were influenced by the desire to show the fullest reverence and respect to their honourable consular, and to avoid seeming to emulate rather than imitate his beneficence. That is to say, they wished to set apart a whole day for the business of conferring on me the public honour still in store. Moreover, these most excellent magistrates, these most gracious chiefs of your city, remembered that the charge with which you men of Carthage had entrusted them was in full harmony with their desires. Would you have me be ignorant, be silent, as to these details? It would be rank ingratitude. Far from that, I offer my very warmest thanks to the whole assembly for their most lavish favour. I could not be more grateful. For they have honoured me with the most flattering applause in that senate-house, where even to be named is the height of honour. And so I have in some sense achieved—pardon my vanity—that which was so hard to achieve, and seemed indeed not unnaturally to be beyond my powers. I have won the affections of the people, the favour of the senate, the approbation of the magistrates and the chief men of the city. What lacks there now to the honour of my statue, save the price of the bronze and the service of the artist? These have never been denied me even in small cities. Much less shall Carthage deny it, Carthage, whose senate, even where greater issues are at stake, decrees and counts not the cost. But I will speak of this more fully at a later date, when you have given fuller effect to your resolution. Moreover, when the time comes for the dedication of my statue, I will proclaim my gratitude to you yet more amply in another written discourse, will declare it to you, noble senators, to you, renowned citizens, to you, my worthy friends. Yes, I will commit my gratitude to the retentive pages of a book, that it may travel through every province and, worlds and ages hence, record my praises of your kindness to all peoples and all time.
Fragment of a panegyric on Scipio Orfitus.
17. I leave it to those who are in the habit of obtruding themselves upon their proconsul's leisure moments[57] to attempt to commend their wits by the exuberance of their speech, and to glorify themselves by affecting to bask in the smiles of your friendship. Both of these offences are far from me, [Scipio Orfitus]. For on the one hand my poor wit, such as it is, is too well known to all men to have any need of further commendation; on the other hand, I prefer to enjoy rather than to parade the friendship of yourself and such as you; I desire such friendship, but I do not boast of it, for desire can in no case be other than genuine, whereas boasting may always be false. With this in view I have ever cultivated the arts of virtue, I have always sought both here in Africa and when I moved among your friends in Rome to win a fair name both for my character and studies, as you yourself can amply testify, with the result that you should be no less eager to court my friendship than I to long for yours. Reluctance to excuse the rarity of a friend's appearances is a sign that you desire his continual presence; if you delight in the frequency of his visits or are angry with him for neglecting to come, if you welcome his company and regret its cessation, it is clear proof of love, since it is obvious that his presence must be a pleasure whose absence is a pain. But the voice, if it be refrained in continued silence, is as useless as the nostrils when choked by a cold in the head, the ears when they are blocked with dirt, the eyes when they are sealed by cataract. What can the hands do, if they are fettered, or what the feet, if they are shackled? What can[58] the mind that rules and directs us do, if it be relaxed in sleep or drowned in wine or crushed beneath the weight of disease? Nay, as the sword acquires its sheen by usage, and rusts if it lie idle, so the voice is dulled by its long torpor if it be hidden in the sheath of silence. Desuetude must needs beget sloth, and sloth decay. If the tragic actor declaim not daily, the resonance of his voice is dulled and its channels grow hoarse. Wherefore he purges his huskiness by loud and repeated recitation. However, it is vain toil and useless labour[59] for a man to attempt to improve the natural quality of the human voice. There are many sounds that surpass it. The trumpet's blare is louder, the music of the lyre more varied, the plaint of the flute more pleasing, the murmurs of the pipe sweeter, the message of the bugle further heard. I forbear to mention the natural sounds of many animals which challenge admiration by their different peculiarities, as, for instance, the deep bellow of the bull, the wolf's shrill howl, the dismal trumpeting of the elephant, the horse's lively neigh, the bird's piercing song, the angry roar of the lion, together with the cries of other beasts, harsh or musical, according as they are roused by the madness of anger or the charms of pleasure. In place of such cries the gods have given man a voice of narrower compass; but if it give less delight to the ear, it is far more useful to the understanding. Wherefore it should be all the more cultivated by the most frequent use, and that nowhere else[60] than in the presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before crowded assemblies. It was in solitude that
[Orpheus to woods], to fish Arion sang.
For if we may believe legend, Orpheus had been driven to lonely exile, Arion hurled from his ship. One of them soothed savage beasts, the other charmed beasts that were compassionate: both musicians were unhappy, inasmuch as they strove not for honour nor of their free choice, but for their safety and of hard necessity. I should have admired them more if they had pleased men, not beasts. Such solitude were far better suited to birds, to blackbird and nightingale and swan. The blackbird whistles like a happy boy in distant wilds, the nightingale trills its song of youthful passion in the lonely places of Africa, the swan by far-off rivers chants the music of old age. But he who would produce a song that shall profit boys, youths, and greybeards, must sing it in the midst of thousands of men, even as now I sing the virtues of Orfitus. It is late, perhaps, but it is meant in all earnestness, and may prove no less pleasing than profitable to the boys, the youths, and the old men of Carthage. For all have enjoyed the indulgence of the best of all proconsuls: he has tempered their desires and restrained them with gentle remedies, he has given to boys the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security. But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved, show with me that you recognize them!
A discourse pronounced before the Carthaginians,
incidentally treating of Thales and Protagoras.
18. You have come in such large numbers to hear me that I feel I ought rather to congratulate Carthage for possessing so many friends of learning among her citizens than demand pardon for myself, the professed philosopher who ventures to speak in public. For the crowd that has collected is worthy of the grandeur of our city, and the place chosen for my speech is worthy of so great a multitude. Moreover, in a theatre we must consider, not the marble of its pavements, not the boards of the stage, nor the columns of the back-scene, nay, nor yet the height of its gables, the splendour of its fretted roofs, the expanse of its tiers of seats; we need not call to mind that this place is sometimes the scene for the foolery of the mime, the dialogue of comedy, the sonorous rant of tragedy, the perilous antics of the rope-walker, the juggler's sleight of hand, the gesticulation of the dancer, with all the tricks of their respective arts that are displayed before the people by other artists. All these considerations may be put on one side; all that we need consider is this, the discourse of the orator and the reasons for the presence of the audience. Wherefore, just as poets in this place shift the scene to various other cities—take, for instance, [the tragic poet] who makes his actor say
|
Liber, that dwellest on these heights august Of famed Cithaeron |
or the comic poet who says