We might, with the utmost ignominy, have passed the rest of our days in exile. Some of you, after losing your property, might have waited at Rome for assistance from others. But because such a life, to men of spirit, was disgusting and unendurable, you resolved upon your present course. If you wish to quit it, you must exert all your resolution, for none but conquerors have exchanged war for peace. To hope for safety in flight when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart.
When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me. Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave. To prevent the numbers of the enemy from surrounding us, our confined situation is sufficient. But should Fortune be unjust to your valor, take care not to lose your lives unavenged; take care not to be taken and butchered like cattle, rather than, fighting like men, to leave to your enemies a bloody and mournful victory.
cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest of the Roman orators, and one of the foremost orators of all times, was born at Arpinum, on the northern border of the Volscian territory, 106 b. c., and was killed by order of Marc Antony at the close of the year 43 b. c. Thus passed away, at the age of sixty-three, one of the most illustrious statesmen and the most eloquent orator that the vast empire of Rome produced.
Cicero lived in a venal age, yet he escaped contamination. He was a politician, yet he rarely stooped to the trickery of the ancient politicians. Only in two instances did he fall below the high standard of manliness up to which all must measure who would be esteemed patriots: once, when he combined with Catiline, a notoriously corrupt and ruined character, for the consulship; and again, in turning from Pompey and crooking “the pregnant hinges of the knee” to Caesar when that warrior’s star commenced to climb toward the zenith of his fame. A weak trait in Cicero’s character was shown in his behavior during banishment. Instead of bearing up bravely against the injustice of his enemies, strong in the consciousness of his own rectitude, he cringingly besought clemency and begged to be permitted to return to Rome, thus tacitly admitting that there had been just grounds for his banishment. Despite these failings, he was a truly great man who did much for his country and the world. Much of his spoken and written matter has come down to us and authentic information concerning his education, his style of oratory, the manner of his life, and his views of men and questions are to be had at first hand. He is not shrouded in mystery, as are many great men of a much nearer period, but he can be as clearly perceived by the student of today as he was by his contemporaries—in fact, clearer, because the picture is not now, as it was then, blurred by the excessive praise of friends nor the calumnies of enemies.
All through his life Cicero worked to fit himself for adequately filling such positions of honor and renown as he sought, and he finally became the most perfect specimen of the Roman of the governing class. As a youth he was under the instruction of the famous orator Crassus, and he read the poets and orators of Greece under the guidance of the Greek poet Archias, then a teacher at Rome, during the early period of his schooling. He studied the Roman national law and ritual under the two Scaevolas, as he desired a thorough knowledge of these things in order that he might become a successful advocate. He also studied under Philo, the chief of the Academics, Diodotus the Stoic, and Milo the philosopher. He commenced his career as an advocate when twenty-six years of age by a civil cause in the speech Pro Quinctio, and in the following year he undertook a criminal cause in the action brought against Roscius Amerinus. Soon after this he went to Athens and diligently studied the art of declamation under the best masters. Some claim that Cicero was not original in his matter nor his manner; that he spent too much time studying the works and methods of others; but be this as it may, he certainly became wonderfully proficient in gathering the matter and presenting it in a manner that was marvelously impressive and successful. He was undoubtedly the best prepared orator that the world has ever known; and as a speaker he was always master of himself, his subject, and his audience.
The First Oration Against Verres (70 b. c.). That which was above all things to be desired, O judges, and which above all things was calculated to have the greatest influence toward allaying the unpopularity of your order, and putting an end to the discredit into which your judicial decisions have fallen, appears to have been thrown in your way, and given to you not by any human contrivance, but almost by the interposition of the gods, at a most important crisis of the republic. For an opinion has now become established, pernicious to us and pernicious to the public, which has been the common talk of every one, not only at Rome, but among foreign nations also—that in the courts of law as they exist at present, no wealthy man, however guilty he may be, can possibly be convicted.
Now at this time of peril to your order and to your tribunal, when men are ready to attempt by harangues, and by the proposal of new laws, to increase the existing unpopularity of the senate, Caius Verres is brought to trial as a criminal—a man condemned in the opinion of every one by his life and actions, but acquitted by the enormousness of his wealth according to his own hope and boast. I, O judges, have undertaken this cause as prosecutor with the greatest good wishes and expectation on the part of the Roman people, not in order to increase the unpopularity of the senate, but to relieve it from the discredit which I share with it. For I have brought before you a man, by acting justly in whose case you have an opportunity of retrieving the lost credit of your judicial proceedings, of regaining your credit with the Roman people, and of giving satisfaction to foreign nations; a man, the embezzler of public funds, the petty tyrant of Asia and Pamphylia, the robber who deprived the city of its rights, the disgrace and ruin of the province of Sicily. And if you come to a decision about this man with severity and a due regard to your oaths, that authority which ought to remain in you will cling to you still; but if that man’s vast riches shall break down the sanctity and honesty of the courts of justice, at least I shall achieve this, that it shall be plain that it was rather honest judgment that was wanting to the republic, than a criminal to the judges or an accuser to the criminal.
I, indeed, that I may confess to you the truth about myself, O judges, though many snares were laid for me by Caius Verres, both by land and sea, which I partly avoided by my own vigilance, and partly warded off by the zeal and kindness of my friends, yet I never seemed to be incurring so much danger, and I never was in such a state of great apprehension as I am now in this very court of law. Nor does the expectation which people have formed of my conduct of this prosecution, nor this concourse of so vast a magnitude as is here assembled, influence me (though indeed I am greatly agitated by these circumstances) so much as his nefarious plots which he is endeavoring to lay at one and the same time against me, against you, against Marcus Glabrio, the praetor, and against the allies, against foreign nations, against the senate, and even against the very name of senator; whose favorite saying it is that they have got to fear who have stolen only as much as is enough for themselves, but that he has stolen so much that it may easily be plenty for many; that nothing is so holy that it can not be corrupted, or so strongly fortified that it can not be stormed by money. But if he were as secret in acting as he is audacious in attempting; perhaps in some particular he might some time or other have escaped our notice.
But it happens very fortunately that to his incredible audacity there is joined a most unexampled folly. For as he was unconcealed in committing his robberies of money, so in his hope of corrupting the judges he has made his intentions and endeavors visible to every one. He says that only once in his life has he felt fear at the time when he was first impeached as a criminal by me; because he was only lately arrived from his province, and was branded with unpopularity and infamy, not modern but ancient and of long standing; and, besides that, the time was unlucky, being very ill suited for corrupting the judges. Therefore, when I had demanded a very short time to prosecute my inquiries in Sicily, he found a man to ask for two days less to make investigations in Achaia; not with any real intention of doing the same with his diligence and industry, that I have accomplished by my labor, and daily and nightly investigations. For the Achaean inquisitor never even arrived at Brundusium. I in fifty days so traveled over the whole of Sicily that I examined into the records and injuries of all the tribes and of all private individuals, so that it was easily visible to every one that he had been seeking out a man not really for the purpose of bringing the defendant whom he accused to trial, but merely to occupy the time which ought to belong to me.