Cicero and his friends

by Gaston Boissier

IV.

This study of Cicero’s family life is not yet complete; there remain a few details to add. We know that a Roman family was not only composed of the persons united by relationship, but that it also comprised the slaves. Servant and master were then more closely connected than they are now, and they had more community of life. In order to know Cicero thoroughly, then, in his family, we must say a few words about his relations with his slaves.

In theory, he did not hold opinions upon slavery different from those of his time. Like Aristotle, he accepted the institution, and thought it legitimate. While proclaiming that a man has duties to fulfil towards his slaves, he did not hesitate to admit that they must be held down by cruelty when there was no other means of managing them;[^[126]] but in practice he treated them with great mildness. He attached himself to them so far as to weep for them when he had the misfortune to lose them. This, probably, was not usual, for we see that he almost begs pardon for it of his friend Atticus. “My mind is quite troubled, he writes to him; I have lost a young man named Sositheus, who was my reader, and I am more grieved perhaps than I ought to be at the death of a slave.”[^[127]] I only see one, in all his correspondence, with whom he seems to be very angry; this was a certain Dionysius whom he sought for even in the depths of Illyria, and whom he wished to have again at any price;[^[128]] but Dionysius had stolen some of his books, and this was a crime that Cicero could not forgive. His slaves also loved him very much. He boasts of the fidelity they showed towards him in his misfortunes, and we know that at the last moment they would have died for him if he had not prevented them.

We know better than the rest one of them, who had a greater share in his affection, namely, Tiro. The name he bears is Latin, which makes us suspect that he was one of those slaves born in the master’s house (vernae), who were looked upon as belonging to the family more than the rest, because they had never left it. Cicero became attached to him early, and had him carefully instructed. Perhaps he even took the trouble to finish his education himself. He calls himself, somewhere, his teacher, and likes to rally him about his way of writing. He had a very lively affection for him, and at last could not do without him. He played a great part in Cicero’s house, and his powers were very various. He represented in it order and economy, which were not the ordinary qualities of his master. He was the confidential man through whose hands all financial matters passed. On the first of the month he undertook to scold the debtors who were in arrears, and to get too pressing creditors to have patience; he revised the accounts of the steward Eros, which were not always correct; he went to see the obliging bankers whose credit supported Cicero in moments of difficulty. Every time there was some delicate commission to be executed he was applied to, as for instance when it was a question of demanding some money of Dolabella without displeasing him too much. The care he gave to the most important affairs did not prevent him being employed on the smallest. He was sent to overlook the gardens, spur on the workmen, superintend the building operations: the dining-room, even, fell within his province, and I see that he is entrusted with the sending out the invitations to a dinner, a thing not always without its difficulties, for one must only bring together guests who are mutually agreeable, “and Tertia will not come if Publius is invited.”[^[129]] But it is as secretary, especially, that he rendered Cicero the greatest services. He wrote almost as quickly as one speaks, and he alone could read his master’s writing, that the copyists could not decipher. He was more than a secretary for him, he was a confidant, and even a collaborator. Aulus Gellius asserts that he helped him in the composition of his works,[^[130]] and the correspondence does not belie this opinion. One day when Tiro had remained ill in some country house, Cicero wrote to him that Pompey, who was then on a visit to him, asked him to read him something, and that he had answered that all was mute in the house when Tiro was not there. “My literature,” he added, “or rather ours, languishes in your absence. Come back as quickly as possible to re-animate our muses.”[^[131]] At this time Tiro was still a slave. It was not till much later, about the year 700, that he was manumitted. Every one about Cicero applauded this just recompense for so many faithful services. Quintus, who was then in Gaul, wrote expressly to his brother to thank him for having given him a new friend. In the sequel, Tiro bought a small field, no doubt out of his master’s bounty, and Marcus, in the letter he wrote him from Athens, rallies him pleasantly on the new tastes this acquisition will develop in him. “Now you are a landowner!” says he, “you must leave the elegance of the town and become quite a Roman peasant. How much pleasure I have in contemplating you from here under your new aspect! I think I see you buying agricultural implements, talking with the farmer, or saving seeds for your garden in a fold of your robe at dessert!”[^[132]] But, proprietor and freedman, Tiro was no less at his master’s service than when he was a slave.

His health was poor, and not always sufficiently attended to. Everybody liked him, but under this pretext everybody made him work. They seemed to agree in abusing his good-nature, which they knew to be inexhaustible. Quintus, Atticus, and Marcus insisted upon his constantly giving them news of Rome and of Cicero. Tiro so readily took his share of each addition to the business that came upon his master, that at last he fell ill. He fatigued himself so much during Cicero’s governorship of Cilicia that, on the return journey, he had to be left at Patras. Cicero very much regretted the separation from him, and to testify the sorrow he felt at leaving him, he wrote to him as often as three times in the same day. The care that Cicero took on every occasion of this delicate and precious health was extreme; he became a doctor in order to cure him. One day, when he had left him indisposed at Tusculum, he wrote to him: “Take care of your health, which you have heretofore neglected in order to serve me. You know what it demands: a good digestion, no fatigue, moderate exercise, amusement, and keeping the body open. Come back a good-looking fellow, I shall like you all the better for it, you and Tusculum.”[^[133]] When the illness was graver the advice was given at greater length. All the family joined in writing, and Cicero, who held the pen, said to him, in the name of his wife and children: “If you love us all, and particularly me who have brought you up, you will only think of re-establishing your health.... I beg you not to regard expense. I have written to Curius to give you all that you want, and to pay the doctor liberally that he may be more attentive. You have rendered me numberless services at home, at the Forum, at Rome, in my province, in my public and private affairs, in my studies and my literary work; but you will put the finishing touch if, as I hope, I see you again in good health.”[^[134]] Tiro repaid this affection by an indefatigable devotedness. With his feeble health, he lived more than a hundred years, and we may say that all this long life was employed in his master’s service. His zeal did not flag when he had lost him, and his time was taken up with him to his last moments. He wrote his biography, he brought out his unpublished works; that nothing should be lost, he collected his smallest notes and witty sayings, of which, it is said, he made a somewhat too large collection, for his admiration did not allow him to distinguish, and he published some excellent editions of his speeches, which were still consulted in the time of Aulus Gellius.[^[135]] These assuredly were services for which Cicero, who thought so much of his literary glory, would have most heartily thanked his faithful freedman.

There is one reflection that we cannot help making when we study the relations of Tiro with his master, and that is, that ancient slavery, looked at from this point of view, and in the house of such a man as Cicero, appears less repulsive. It was evidently much softened at this time, and letters have a large share in this improvement. They had diffused a new virtue among those who loved them, one whose name often recurs in Cicero’s philosophical works, namely, humanity, that is to say, that culture of mind that softens the heart. It was by its influence that slavery, without being attacked in principle, was profoundly modified in its effects. This change came about noiselessly. People did not try to run counter to dominant prejudices; up to Seneca’s time they did not insist on establishing the right of the slave to be reckoned among men, and he continued to be excluded from the grand theories that were made upon human brotherhood; but in reality no one profited more than he by the softening of manners. We have just seen how Cicero treated his slaves, and he was not exceptional. Atticus acted like him, and this humanity had become a sort of point of honour, on which this society of polished and lettered people prided themselves. A few years later, Pliny the younger, who also belonged to this society, speaks with a touching sadness of the sickness and death of his slaves. “I know well, he says, that many others only regard this kind of misfortune as a simple loss of goods, and in thinking thus they consider themselves great and wise men. For myself, I do not know if they are as great and wise as they imagine, but I do know that they are not men.”[^[136]] These were the sentiments of all the distinguished society of that time. Slavery, then, had lost much of its harshness towards the end of the Roman republic and in the early times of the empire. This improvement, which is usually referred to Christianity, was much older than it, and we must give the credit of it to philosophy and letters.

Besides the freedmen and slaves, who formed part of the family of a rich Roman, there were other persons who were attached to it, although less closely, namely, the clients. Doubtless the ancient institution of clientage had lost much of its grave and sacred character. The time had gone by when Cato said that the clients should take precedence of kinsmen and neighbours in the house, and that the title of patron came immediately after that of father. These ties were much slackened,[^[137]] and the obligations they imposed had become much less rigid. Almost the only one still respected was the necessity the clients were under of going to salute the patron early in the morning. Quintus, in the very curious letter that he addressed to his brother on the subject of his candidature for the consulship, divides them into three classes: first, those who content themselves with the morning visit; these are, in general, lukewarm friends or inquisitive observers who come to learn the news, or who even sometimes visit all the candidates that they may have the pleasure of reading in their faces the state of their hopes; then, those who accompany their patron to the Forum and form his train while he takes two or three turns in the basilica, that everybody may see that it is a man of importance who arrives; and lastly, those who do not leave him all the time he is out of doors, and who conduct him back to his house as they had gone to meet him there. These are the faithful and devoted followers, who do not haggle about the time they give, and whose unwearied zeal obtains for the candidate the dignities he desires.[^[138]]

When a man had the good fortune to belong to a great family, he possessed by inheritance a ready-made clientage. A Claudius or a Cornelius, even before he had taken the trouble to oblige anybody, was sure to find his hall half filled every morning with people whom gratitude attached to his family, and he produced a sensation in the Forum by the number of those who accompanied him the day he went there to plead his first cause. Cicero had not this advantage; but, although he owed his clients to himself alone, they were none the less very numerous. In that time of exciting struggles, when the quietest citizens were exposed every day to the most unreasonable accusations, many people were forced to have recourse to him to defend them. He did so readily, for he had no other means of making a clientage than by giving his services to a great many. It was this, perhaps, that made him accept so many bad cases. As he arrived at the Forum almost alone, without that train of persons whom he had obliged, which gave public importance, it was necessary for him not to be too particular in order to form and increase it. Whatever repugnance his honest mind may have felt on taking up a doubtful case, his vanity could not resist the pleasure of adding another person to the multitude of those who accompanied him. There were, in this crowd, according to his brother, citizens of every age, rank, and fortune. Important personages no doubt were mingled with those insignificant folks who usually formed this kind of retinue. Speaking of a tribune of the people, Memmius Gemellus, the protector of Lucretius, he calls him his client.[^[139]]

It was not only at Rome that he had clients and persons who were under obligation to him; we see by his correspondence that his protection extended much further, and that people wrote to him from all parts demanding his services. The Romans were then scattered over the entire world; after having conquered it they busied themselves in making the greatest possible profit out of it. In the track of the legions and almost at their heels, a swarm of clever and enterprising men settled on the just conquered provinces to seek their fortunes there; they knew how to adapt their skill to the resources and needs of each country. In Sicily and in Gaul they cultivated vast estates, and speculated in wines and corn; in Asia, where there were so many cities opulent or involved in debt, they became bankers, that is to say, they furnished them, by their usury, a prompt and sure means of ruining themselves. In general, they thought of returning to Rome as soon as their fortune was made, and in order to return the sooner, they sought to enrich themselves as quickly as possible. As they were only encamped, and not really settled in the conquered countries, as they found themselves there without ties of affection and without root, they treated them without mercy and made themselves detested. They were often prosecuted before the tribunals and had great need of being defended, and so they sought to procure the support of the best advocates, above all that of Cicero, the greatest orator of his time. His talent and his credit were not too great to extricate them from the discreditable affairs in which they were mixed up.

If we wish to become well acquainted with one of those great merchants of Rome, who, by their character and their fate, sometimes resemble the speculators of our days, we must read the speech that Cicero delivered in defence of Rabirius Postumus. He there narrates the whole story of his client. It is a lively story, and it is not without interest to sum it up in order to know what those Roman business men, who so often had recourse to his eloquence, were like. Rabirius, the son of a rich and acute farmer of taxes, was born with the spirit of enterprise. He did not confine himself to a single branch of commerce, for he was one of those of whom Cicero said that they knew all the roads by which money could come in, omnes vias pecuniae norunt.[^[140]] He transacted all kinds of business, and with equally good fortune; he undertook much himself, and often shared in the enterprises of others. He farmed the public taxes; he lent to private persons, to the provinces and to kings. As generous as he was rich, he made his friends profit by his good fortune. He created employment for them, gave them an interest in his business, and a share in the profits.