His popularity therefore was very great at Rome; but, as sometimes happens, his prosperity ruined him. He had lent a good deal of money to Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, who probably gave him good interest. This king having got himself expelled by his subjects, Rabirius was induced to make him fresh advances in order to recover the money that was at stake. He pledged his own fortune and even that of his friends to provide for his expenses; he defrayed the cost of the magnificent royal cortège when Ptolemy went to Rome to demand the support of the senate, and, what must have cost him still more, gave him the means of gaining over the most influential senators. Ptolemy’s business appeared safe. As people hoped much from the gratitude of the king, the most important personages strove for the honour or rather the profit of reinstating him. Lentulus, then proconsul of Cilicia, contended that they could not refuse it to him; but at the same time Pompey, who received the young prince at his house at Alba, demanded it for himself. This rivalry caused everything to miscarry. The opposing interests counteracted each other, and in order not to cause jealousy by letting one man profit by this fortunate opportunity, the senate would not grant it to anybody. It is said that Rabirius, who knew the Romans well, then gave the king the bold advice to apply to one of those adventurers of whom Rome was full and who flinched from nothing for money. A former tribune, Gabinius, governed Syria. He was promised 10,000 talents (£2,200,000) if he would openly disobey the decree of the senate. It was a large sum; Gabinius accepted the bargain, and his troops brought Ptolemy back to Alexandria. As soon as Rabirius knew that he was re-established he hastened to meet him. To make more sure of recovering his money, he consented to become his overseer of the revenue (diaecetes), or as we should now say, his minister of finance. He wore the Greek mantle, to the great scandal of strict Romans, and put on the insignia of his office. He had only accepted it with the idea that he should never be better paid than if he paid himself, through his own hands. This is what he tried to do, and it appears that in raising the money promised to Gabinius he also cautiously took enough to repay himself; but the people, who were being ruined, complained, and the king, to whom Rabirius had become intolerable now that he had no longer need of him, and who was no doubt delighted to find a convenient means of getting rid of a creditor, threw him into prison and even threatened his life. Rabirius fled from Egypt as soon as he could, happy to have left only his fortune there. He had only one resource left. At the same time that he administered the king’s finances, he had bought on his own account Egyptian merchandise, paper, flax, glass, and had laden several vessels which unloaded at Puteoli with considerable ostentation. The report of this reached Rome, and, as people there were used to the lucky adventures of Rabirius, rumour took pleasure in exaggerating the number of the vessels and the value of their cargo. It was even said, in an undertone, that there was among these ships a smaller one that was not shown, no doubt because it was full of gold and precious objects. Unfortunately for Rabirius there was no truth in all these tales. The little ship only existed in the imagination of news-mongers, and the goods that the others carried being sold at a loss, he was quite ruined. His disaster made a sensation at Rome, and was the talk of a whole season. The friends he had so generously obliged deserted him; public opinion, which up to that time had been so favourable to him, turned against him. The most indulgent called him a fool, the most violent accused him of feigning poverty and of withholding a part of his fortune from his creditors. It is certain, however, that he had nothing, and only lived on the bounty of Caesar, one of that small number who remained true to him in his misfortune. Cicero did not forget him either. He remembered that, at the time of his exile, Rabirius had put his fortune at his disposal and paid men to accompany him, and therefore he hastened to plead for him when it was proposed to include him in the prosecution of Gabinius, and he succeeded at least in preserving his honour and liberty.
One trait is missing in this description. Cicero tells us in his speech that Rabirius was only moderately educated. He had done so many things in his life that he had not had time to think of learning, but this was not usual; we know that many of his colleagues, notwithstanding their not very literary occupations, were none the less witty and lettered men. Cicero, recommending a merchant of Thespiae to Sulpicius, tells him: “He has a taste for our studies.”[[141]] He looked upon Curius of Patras as one of those who had best preserved the turn of the ancient Roman humour. “Make haste and come back to Rome, he wrote him, lest the seed of our native humour be lost.”[[142]] Those knights who associated themselves in powerful companies and farmed the taxes, were also men of wit and men of the best society. Cicero, who came from their ranks, had connection with almost all of them; but it seems that he was more especially connected with the company that farmed the pasturages of Asia, and he says that it put itself under his protection.
This protection was also extended to people who were not Romans by birth. Foreigners, we can well understand, regarded it as a great honour and security to be in any way connected with an illustrious personage in Rome. They could not be his clients, they wished to become his hosts. At a time when there were so few convenient hotels in the countries one passed through, it was necessary, when you wished to travel, to have obliging friends who would consent to receive you. In Italy, rich people bought little houses where they passed the night on the roads they were accustomed to travel; but, elsewhere, they journeyed from one host to another. To shelter a rich Roman in this way was often a heavy expense. He always had a large train with him. Cicero tells us that he met P. Vedius in the depths of Asia “with two chariots, a carriage, a litter, horses, numerous slaves, and, besides, a monkey on a little car, and a number of wild asses.”[[143]] Vedius was a comparatively unknown Roman. One may judge of the suite that a proconsul and a praetor had when they went to take possession of their provinces! However, although their passage exhausted the house that received them, this ruinous honour was solicited because numberless advantages were found in securing their support. Cicero had hosts in all the great cities of Greece and Asia, and they were almost always the principal citizens. Kings themselves like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes considered themselves honoured by this title. Important cities, Volaterrae, Atella, Sparta, Paphos frequently claimed his protection and rewarded it with public honours. He counted entire provinces, nations almost, among his clients, and after the affair of Verres, for instance, he was the defender and patron of Sicily. This custom survived the republic, and in the time of Tacitus orators of renown had still among their clients provinces and kingdoms. It was the only mark of real distinction that remained to eloquence.
These details, it seems to me, complete our knowledge of what the life of an important person was at that time. As long as we are satisfied with studying the few persons who compose what we should now-a-days call his family, and only see him with his wife and children, his life very much resembles our own. The sentiments which are the foundation of human nature have not changed, and they always lead to very nearly the same results. The cares which troubled Cicero’s domestic hearth, his joys and misfortunes, are much like ours; but as soon as we leave this limited circle, when we replace the Roman among the crowd of his servants and familiar friends, the difference between that society and ours becomes manifest. Now-a-days life has become more plain and simple. We have no longer those immense riches, those extensive connections, nor that multitude of people attached to our fortunes. What we call a great retinue would scarcely have sufficed for one of those clerks of the farmers of the revenue who went to collect the taxes in some provincial town. A noble, or even a rich Roman knight, did not content himself with so little. When we think of those armies of slaves they gathered together in their houses and on their estates, of those freedmen who formed a sort of court around them, of that multitude of clients who encumbered the streets of Rome through which they passed, of those hosts they had throughout the world, of those cities and realms that implored their protection, we can better understand the authority of their speech, the haughtiness of their bearing, the breadth of their eloquence, the gravity of their deportment, the feeling of personal importance which they threw into all their actions and speeches. It is here, above all, that the perusal of Cicero’s letters renders us a great service. They give us a notion of lives lived on a scale such as we no longer know, and thus help us to understand better the society of that time.
ATTICUS
Of all Cicero’s correspondents, none kept up a longer or more regular intercourse with him than Atticus. Their friendly relations lasted without interruption and without a shadow till their death. They corresponded during the shortest absences, and, when it was possible, more than once a day. These letters, sometimes short to communicate a passing reflection, sometimes long and studied, when events were graver, playful or serious according to circumstances, that were written in haste wherever the writers happened to be, these letters reflect the whole life of the two friends. Cicero characterized them happily when he said “They were like a conversation between us two.” Unfortunately, at present, we hear only one of the speakers and the conversation has become a monologue. In publishing his friend’s letters Atticus took good care not to add his own. No doubt he did not wish his sentiments to be read too openly, and his prudence sought to withhold from the public the knowledge of his opinions and the secrets of his private life; but in vain he sought to hide himself, the voluminous correspondence that Cicero kept up with him was sufficient to make him known, and it is easy to form from it an exact idea of the person to whom it is addressed. This person is assuredly one of the most curious of an important epoch, and deserves that we should take the trouble to study him with some care.
I.
Atticus was twenty years old when the war between Marius and Sulla began. He saw its beginnings and nearly became its victim; the tribune Sulpicius, one of the chief heads of the popular party, and his relation, was put to death with his partisans and friends by Sulla’s orders, and as Atticus often visited him he ran some risk. This first danger decided his whole life. As, notwithstanding his age, he had a firm and prudent mind, he did not allow himself to be discouraged, but reconsidered his position. If he had had hitherto some slight inclination towards political ambition, and the idea of seeking public honours, he gave them up without hesitation when he saw what a price must sometimes be paid for them. He understood that a republic, in which power could only be seized by force, was lost, and that in perishing it was likely to drag down with it those who had served it. He resolved then to hold himself aloof from public affairs, and his whole policy consisted henceforth in creating for himself a safe position, outside of parties, and out of reach of danger.
Sieyès was asked one day: “What did you do during the Terror?” “What did I do?” he answered; “I lived.” That was a great thing to do. Atticus did still more, he lived not only during a terror of a few months, but during a terror of several years. As if to test his prudence and ability, he was placed in the most troubled period in history. He looked on at three civil wars, he saw Rome four times invaded by different leaders, and the massacres recommence at each new victory. He lived, not humble, unknown, allowing himself to be forgotten in some distant town, but at Rome, and in full publicity. Everything contributed to draw attention to him; he was rich, which was a sufficient cause for being proscribed, he had a great reputation as a man of wit, he willingly associated with the powerful, and, through his connections at least, he was regarded as an important person. Nevertheless, he was able to escape all the dangers that his position and his wealth created for him, and even contrived to become greater at each of those revolutions which, it seemed, might have ruined him. Each change of government, which hurled his friends from power, left him richer and stronger, so that at last he found himself placed, quite naturally, almost on a level with the new master. By what miracle of cleverness, by what prodigy of skilful combinations did he succeed in living honoured, rich and powerful at a time when it was so difficult to live at all? It was a problem full of difficulties; this is how he solved it.
In view of the first massacres of which he had been a witness, Atticus decided to take no part henceforth in public affairs and parties; but that is not so easy to do as one might think, and the firmest resolution does not always suffice for success. It is useless to declare that you wish to remain neutral; the world persists in classing you according to the name you bear, your family traditions, your personal ties and the earlier manifestations of your preferences. Atticus understood that, in order to escape this sort of forced enlistment and to throw public opinion off the scent, it was necessary to leave Rome, and to leave it for a long time. He hoped, by this voluntary exile, to regain full possession of himself and break the ties that, against his will, still bound him to the past. But, if he wished to withdraw himself from the eyes of his fellow-citizens, he did not intend to be forgotten by everybody. He meant to return; and did not wish to return as a stranger, no longer recognized, and lose all the benefit of his early friendships. Thus he did not choose for his retreat some distant estate, in an unknown province, or one of those obscure towns on which the eyes of the Roman people never fell. He retired to Athens, that is to say, to the only city that had preserved a great renown, and which still held a place in the admiration of the nations on a level with Rome. There, by a few well-placed liberalities, he drew to himself the affection of everybody. He distributed corn to the citizens, he lent money without interest to that city of men of letters, the finances of which were always embarrassed. He did more, he flattered the Athenians on their most sensitive side. He was the first Roman who dared openly to declare his taste for the letters and arts of Greece. Up to that time it had been the fashion among his countrymen to esteem and cultivate the Greek muses in private, and to laugh at them in public. Cicero himself, who on so many occasions braved this stupid prejudice, dared not appear to know off-hand the name of a great sculptor; but Cicero was a statesman for whom it was proper to show, at least now and then, that haughty disdain for other nations which partly constituted what is called the Roman dignity. It was necessary to flatter this national weakness if one wished to please the people. Atticus, who did not mean to ask anything of them, was more free; so he openly laughed at these customs. Immediately on his arrival he began to speak and write Greek, to openly frequent the studios of sculptors and painters, to buy statues and pictures, and to compose works on the fine arts. The Athenians were as much delighted as surprised to see one of their conquerors partake in their most cherished tastes, and thus protest against the unjust disdain of the rest. Their gratitude, which was always very noisy, as we know, overwhelmed Atticus with all sorts of flattery. Decrees in his honour were multiplied, he was offered all the dignities of the city; they even wished to raise statues to him. Atticus hastened to refuse everything; but the effect was produced, and the report of such great popularity did not fail to reach Rome, carried by those young men of high family who had just finished their education in Greece. In this manner the reputation of Atticus lost nothing by his absence; people of taste talked of this enlightened connoisseur of the arts who had made himself remarked even at Athens; and during this same time the politicians, no longer seeing him, lost the habit of classing him with a political party.