Those who have read Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus, and know what place questions of money occupy in these private communications, will not be surprised that I begin the study of his private life by endeavouring to estimate the amount of his fortune. The men of those days were as much concerned about money as the men of to-day, and it is perhaps in this that these two periods, which men have so often taken pleasure in comparing, most resemble each other.
It would be necessary to have at hand the account-books of Eros, Cicero’s steward, in order to set down with exactness the expenses of his household. All that we know with certainty on this subject is, that his father left him a very moderate fortune only, and that he increased this greatly, while we cannot say precisely to how much it amounted. His enemies were in the habit of exaggerating it in order to throw suspicion on the means by which it had been acquired, and it is indeed probable that if we knew the total it would appear to us considerable; but we must take care not to judge of it according to the ideas of our own time. Wealth is not an absolute thing; a man is rich or poor according to the position in which he lives, and it is possible that what would be wealth in one place would scarcely be a competency elsewhere. Now we know that at Rome wealth was far from being so evenly distributed as it is among us. Forty years before the consulship of Cicero, the tribune Philip said that, in that immense city, there were not two thousand persons who had a patrimony;[[70]] but these possessed all the public wealth. Crassus asserted that, in order to call himself rich, it was necessary for a man to be able to support an army out of his revenues, and we know that he was in a position to do so without inconvenience. Milo contrived to get into debt in a few years to the amount of more than seventy million sesterces (£560,000). Caesar, while still a private person, expended, at one time, one hundred and twenty million sesterces (£960,000) in order to make a present of a new Forum to the Roman people. This outrageous extravagance implies immense fortunes. In comparison with these, we can understand that Cicero’s, which scarcely sufficed for the purchase of a house on the Palatine, and which the adornment of his Tusculan villa almost exhausted, must have appeared very moderate.
In what manner had he gained it? It is not without interest to know this in order to reply to the ill-natured reports that his enemies circulated. He says somewhere that the means by which a fortune was honestly made at Rome were commerce, contracting for public works and farming the taxes;[[71]] but these means, very convenient for people in haste to enrich themselves, could only be used by those who had no political ambition; they excluded from public honours, and consequently did not suit a man who aspired to govern his country. We do not see, either, that he acted like Pompey, who invested his funds in an important bank and shared in the profits; at least there remains no trace in his letters of undertakings of this nature. Nor could he think of making money out of his works. It was not the custom then for an author to sell his works to a bookseller; or rather, the trade of a bookseller, as we understand it now, scarcely existed. Usually those who wished to read or possess a book borrowed it of the author or of his friends, and had it copied by their slaves. When they had more copyists than they needed for their own use, they made them work for the public and sold the copies they did not want; but the author had nothing to do with the profits they drew from them. And finally, public offices could not have enriched Cicero; we know that they were less a means of making money than an occasion of expense and ruin, either by the price it was sometimes necessary to pay for them, or by the games and entertainments that were expected from those who had obtained them. It was only in the government of provinces that immense gains were made. It was on these gains that the ambitious nobles usually counted to repair the waste of their fortunes that the luxury of their private life and the profusion of their public life had caused. Now Cicero deprived himself of this opportunity by yielding to his colleague Antony the province that, according to custom, he ought to have governed after his consulship. It has been suspected, indeed, that he then made with him some bargain by which he reserved to himself a share in the handsome profits that he relinquished. If this bargain existed, which is doubtful, it is certain it was not kept. Antony pillaged his province, but he pillaged it for himself alone, and Cicero drew nothing from it. Twelve years later, without having desired it, he was appointed proconsul of Cilicia. We know that he remained there only a year, and that, without doing any illegal act, and while securing the happiness of his subjects, he contrived to take back two million two hundred thousand sesterces (£17,600), which gives us an idea of what might be gained in the provinces when they were pillaged without scruple. Besides, this money did not profit Cicero; he lent part of it to Pompey, who did not return it, and it is probable that the civil war caused him to lose the rest, since he found himself without means at its close. We must seek, then, elsewhere for the origin of his fortune. If he had lived in our days we should have no trouble in learning whence it came. It would be sufficiently explained by his ability as an advocate. With an eloquence such as his, he would not fail now-a-days to enrich himself quickly at the bar; but at that time there was a law forbidding orators to accept any fee or present from those for whom they had pleaded (lex Cincia, de donis et muneribus). Although it was the work of a tribune, who had made it, says Livy, in the interest of the people,[[72]] it was at bottom an aristocratic law. By not allowing the advocate to draw a legitimate profit from his talent, it kept away from the bar those who had nothing, and reserved the exercise of this profession for the rich as a privilege, or rather it prevented it becoming really a profession. I think, however, that this law was always very imperfectly obeyed. As it could not provide against everything, it was scarcely possible for it to prevent the gratitude of clients finding some ingenious method to escape its severity. If they were really determined to pay in some manner for the services which they had received, it seems to me that the law could only with difficulty prevent it. In Cicero’s time, they did not fail to violate it openly. Verres told his friends that he had divided the money he brought back from Sicily into three parts; the most considerable was to corrupt his judges, the second to pay his advocates, and he contented himself with the third.[[73]] Cicero, who on this occasion laughed at Verres’ advocate, Hortensius, and at the sphynx that he had received on account, took care not to imitate him. His brother affirms that up to the time when he was a candidate for the consulship he had never asked anything from his clients.[[74]] Nevertheless, whatever scruples we may suppose him to have had, it is very difficult to admit that he had never profited by their good-will. No doubt he refused the presents that the Sicilians wished to make him when he had avenged them on Verres; perhaps it would not have been prudent to accept them after such a notorious trial, which had drawn all eyes upon him, and made him powerful enemies; but some years afterwards I see that he allowed himself to accept the present made him by his friend Papirius Poetus, for whom he had just pleaded.[[75]] It consisted of some fine Greek and Latin books, and Cicero loved nothing so much as books. I notice also that when he had need of money, which happened sometimes, he preferred to apply to rich men whom he had defended. These were less harsh and more patient creditors to him than others, and it was natural that he should profit by their influence after having aided them by his eloquence. He tells us himself that he bought the house of Crassus with the money of his friends. Among them, P. Sylla, for whom he had just pleaded, alone lent him two million sesterces (£16,000). When he was attacked for this in the senate, Cicero got out of it with a joke; which proves that the lex Cincia was no longer much respected, and that those who infringed it had no great fear of being prosecuted.[[76]] It is very possible, then, that those nobles whose honour or fortune he had saved, that those towns or provinces that he had protected against greedy governors, that those foreign princes whose interests he had defended in the senate, above all, those rich societies of farmers of the taxes, through whose hands passed all the money that the world sent to Rome, and whom he served so vigorously by his reputation or his eloquence, had often sought and sometimes found an opportunity of testifying their gratitude. This generosity appears to us now-a-days so natural that we should scarcely blame Cicero for not having always rejected it; but we may be sure that, if he sometimes thought that he might accept it, he always did so with more moderation and reserve than the greater number of his contemporaries.
We know one of the most usual forms, and, as it seems, one of the most legal by which this generosity showed itself. It was the custom at Rome to pay, after death and by will, all debts of gratitude and affection contracted during life. This was a means that offered itself to the client of discharging his obligations to the advocate who had defended him, and it does not appear that the lex Cincia threw any obstacle in the way. We have nothing like it among ourselves. At that time, the father of a family who had natural heirs might withdraw from his fortune any amount that he wished, and give his relations, his friends, and all who had been useful or agreeable to him, a good share of his estate. This custom had become an abuse. Fashion and vanity had come to have a large share in it. A man wished to appear to have many friends by inscribing the names of many persons in his will, and naturally the most illustrious were inscribed by preference. Sometimes people were brought together in it who seldom met anywhere else, and who must have been surprised to find themselves there. Cluvius, a rich banker of Puteoli, left his estate to Cicero and Caesar after Pharsalia.[[77]] The architect Cyrus placed among his heirs both Clodius and Cicero, that is to say, the two persons who most heartily detested each other in Rome.[[78]] This architect, no doubt, regarded it as an honour to have friends among all parties. It even happened that a man set down in his will people whom he had never seen. Lucullus augmented his immense wealth by bequests which unknown persons left him while he governed Asia. Atticus received a good number of legacies from people of whom he had never heard, and who only knew him by reputation. How much more then must a great orator like Cicero, to whom so many were under obligation, and of whom all Romans were proud, have been often the object of this posthumous liberality! We see in his letters that he was the heir of many persons who do not seem to have held a large place in his life. In general, the amounts left to him are not very large. One of the largest is that which he inherited from his old master the Stoic Diodotus, whom he had kept at his house till his death.[[79]] In recompense of this long-continued affection, Diodotus left him all his savings as a philosopher and teacher. They amounted to a hundred thousand sesterces (£800). The union of all these small legacies no doubt made up a considerable sum. Cicero himself values it at more than twenty million sesterces (£160,000).[[80]] It seems to me, therefore, that there is no doubt that these legacies, with the presents he may have received from the gratitude of his clients, were the chief sources of his wealth.
This wealth was composed of property of different kinds. He possessed, firstly, houses in Rome. Besides that which he inhabited on the Palatine, and that which he had from his father at Carinae, he had others in Argiletum and on the Aventine which brought him in an income of eighty thousand sesterces (£640).[[81]] He possessed numerous villas in Italy. We know of eight very important ones belonging to him,[[82]] without reckoning those small houses (diversoria) that the nobles bought along the principal roads to have somewhere to rest when they went from one domain to another. He had also sums of money of which he disposed in different manners, as we see in his correspondence. We cannot estimate this part of his wealth with exactness; but according to the practice of the rich Romans of that time, it may be affirmed that it was not less than his houses or estates. One day when he is asking Atticus to buy him some gardens that he wishes, he says to him, in an off-hand way, that he thinks he may have about six hundred thousand sesterces (£4800) in his own hands.[[83]] We have here perhaps one of the most curious differences that distinguish that state of society from ours. Now-a-days scarcely any but bankers by profession handle such considerable sums of money. Our aristocracy has always affected to look down upon questions of finance. The Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, understood them well, and thought much about them. Their great wealth was used to further political ambition, and they did not hesitate to risk a part of it to gain adherents. The purse of a candidate for public honours was open to all who could be of use to him. He gave to the poorest, he lent to others, and sought to form with them bonds of interest which would attach them to his cause. Success usually followed those who had put the greatest number of men under obligations. Cicero, although less rich than the majority of them, imitated them. In his letters to Atticus he is almost always writing about bills and dates of maturity, and we see in them that his money circulated on all sides. He is in constant business relations, and as we should now say, has a running account with the greatest personages. Sometimes he lends to Caesar, and sometimes borrows of him. Among his numerous debtors are found persons of all ranks and fortunes, from Pompey to Hermogenes, who seems to have been a simple freedman. Unfortunately, counting them all, his creditors are still more numerous. Notwithstanding the example and advice of Atticus, he ill understood how to manage his fortune. He constantly had costly fancies. He would have at any price statues and pictures to adorn his galleries and give them the appearance of the gymnasia of Greece. He ruined himself to embellish his country houses. Generous out of season, we see him lending to others when he is constrained to borrow for himself. It is always when he is deepest in debt that he has the greatest desire to buy some new villa. He does not hesitate, then, to apply to all the bankers of Rome; he goes to see Considius, Axius, Vectenus, Vestorius; he would even try to soften Caecilius, the uncle of his friend Atticus, if he did not know that he was inflexible. Nevertheless he bears his troubles with a light heart. The prudent Atticus tells him in vain that it is disgraceful to be in debt; but as he shares this disgrace with a great many people it seems light, and he is the first to joke about it. One day he told one of his friends that he was so much in debt that he would willingly enter into some conspiracy, if any one would receive him, but that since he had punished Catiline’s he inspired no confidence in others;[[84]] and when the first day of the month arrives, when payments become due, he is content to shut himself up at Tusculum and leave Eros or Tiro to argue with the creditors.
These embarrassments and troubles, of which his correspondence is full, make us think, almost in spite of ourselves, of certain passages in his philosophical works which appear rather surprising when we compare them with his mode of living, and which may easily be turned against him. Is it really this thoughtless prodigal, always ready to spend without consideration, who exclaimed one day in a tone of conviction that moves us: “Ye immortal gods, when will men understand what treasures are found in economy!”[[85]] How dared this ardent lover of works of art, this impassioned friend of magnificence and luxury, how dared he treat as madmen people who love statues and pictures too well, or build themselves magnificent houses? He stands self-condemned, and I do not wish to entirely absolve him; but while we pronounce on him a severe sentence, let us remember the times in which he lived, and let us think of his contemporaries. I will not compare him with the worst men, his superiority would be too evident; but among those who are regarded as the most honourable, he still holds one of the foremost places. He did not owe his wealth to usury like Brutus and his friends; he did not augment it by that sordid avarice with which Cato is reproached; he did not pillage the provinces like Appius or Cassius; he did not consent like Hortensius to take his share of this pillage. We must then acknowledge that, notwithstanding the blame we may lay upon him, he was more scrupulous and disinterested in money matters than others. In the main, his irregularities only injured himself,[[86]] and if he had too much taste for ruinous prodigality, at least he did not have recourse to scandalous gains in order to satisfy it. These scruples honour him so much the more as they were then very rare, and few people have passed, without stain, through that greedy and corrupt society in the midst of which he lived.
II.
He does not deserve less praise for having been honourable and regular in his family life. These were virtues of which his contemporaries did not set him an example.
It is probable that his youth was austere.[[87]] He had firmly resolved to become a great orator, and that was not to be done without trouble. We know from himself how hard the apprenticeship to oratory then was. “To succeed in it, he tells us, a man must renounce all pleasures, avoid all amusements, say farewell to recreation, games, entertainments, and almost to intercourse with one’s friends.”[[88]] This was the price he paid for his success. The ambition by which he was devoured preserved him from the other passions, and sufficed him. His youth was completely taken up with study. When once these early years were passed the danger was less; the habit of work that he had formed, and the important affairs in which he was engaged might suffice to preserve him from all dangerous impulses. Writers who do not like him have vainly tried to find in his life traces of that licentiousness which was so common around him. The most ill-disposed, like Dio,[[89]] banter him about a clever woman, named Caerellia, whom he somewhere calls his intimate friend.[[90]] She was so in fact, and it appears that she was not wanting in influence over him. His correspondence with her was preserved and published. This correspondence was, it is said, rather free in tone, and seemed at first to give some occasion to the malicious; but it must be remarked, that Caerellia was much older than he; that, far from being a cause of dissension in his household, we only see her intervening to reconcile him with his wife,[[91]] in fact that their acquaintance seems to have begun in a common liking for philosophy;[[92]] a sedate origin which does not forebode unpleasing consequences. Caerellia was a learned lady whose conversation must have been very pleasing to Cicero. Her age, her education which was not that of ordinary women, put him at ease with her, and, as he was naturally quick at repartee, as, once excited by the animation of conversation, he could not always govern and restrain his wit, and as, besides, by patriotism as by taste, he put nothing above that free and daring gaiety of which Plautus seemed to him the model, it may have happened that he wrote to her without ceremony those pleasantries “more spicy than those of the Attic writers, and yet truly Roman.”[[93]] Later, when these rustic and republican manners were no longer in fashion, when, under the influence of the gradually developing court life, the rules of politeness were being refined, and manners were becoming more ceremonious, the freedom of these remarks no doubt shocked some fastidious minds, and may have given rise to ill-natured remarks. For our own part, of all that correspondence of Cicero which is now lost, the letters to Caerellia are those perhaps that we most regret. They would have shown us better than all the rest the habits of society, and the life of the fashionable world at that time.
It is thought that he was about thirty when he married. It was towards the end of Sulla’s rule, at the time of his first oratorical successes. His wife, Terentia, belonged to a rich and distinguished family. She brought him in dowry, according to Plutarch,[[94]] 120,000 drachmae (£4440), and we see that she possessed houses in Rome, besides a forest near Tusculum.[[95]] It was an advantageous marriage for a young man just beginning political life with more talent than fortune. Cicero’s correspondence does not give a very good impression of Terentia. We imagine her as an economical and orderly, but sharp and disagreeable housewife, with whom it was difficult to live at ease. She did not agree very well with her brother-in-law Quintus, and still less with Pomponia her sister-in-law, who, however, did not agree with anybody. She had that influence over her husband that a determined and obstinate woman always has over a careless and irresolute mind. For a long time Cicero left her absolute mistress of the household, he was very glad to shift on to somebody else those occupations that did not suit him. She was not without influence on his political life. She advised him to take energetic measures at the time of the great consulship, and later she embroiled him with Clodius, from dislike to Clodia, whom she suspected of wishing to allure him. As no gain came amiss to her, she succeeded in entangling him in some financial affairs, that Atticus himself, who was not over scrupulous, did not think very honourable; but there her power ended. She seems to have remained a stranger, and perhaps to have been indifferent to her husband’s literary glory. In none of Cicero’s works, in which the names of his daughter, his brother, and his son recur so frequently, is there any mention of his wife. Terentia had no influence on his mind. He never confided to her his private opinions on the most serious affairs of life; he never admitted her to share in his opinions and beliefs. We have a curious proof of this in his correspondence. Terentia was devout, and devout to excess. She consulted soothsayers, she believed in prodigies, and Cicero did not take the trouble to cure her of this eccentricity. He seems even, somewhere, to make a singular distribution of labours between her and himself; he shows her respectfully serving the gods, while he is occupied in working for men.[[96]] Not only did he not disturb her devotion, but he showed a consideration for her which surprises us. When he was about to start for Pompey’s camp, he wrote to her: “At last I am free from that uneasiness and suffering that I experienced, and which caused you so much concern. The day after my departure I recognized the cause. During the night I threw off pure bile, and felt myself relieved as if some god had been my doctor. Evidently it was Apollo and Aesculapius. I beg you to return thanks to them with your usual piety and zeal.”[[97]] This is strange language in the mouth of that sceptic who wrote the treatise On the Nature of the Gods; but Cicero was, no doubt, one of those people, like Varro and many others, who while they make little use themselves of religious practices, think that they are not bad for the common people and for women. There has survived a whole book of letters from Cicero to Terentia, which contains the history of his household. What strikes one on opening it is that, as we get further on, the letters become shorter, the last are no more than short notes. And not only does the length of the letters diminish, but their tone is no longer the same, and marks of affection become more and more rare. We may then conclude that this affection was not of the kind that increases with time; that common life, which strengthens true personal unions, enfeebled this one. Instead of being strengthened, it was worn out by length of time. The earlier letters show an incredible passion, and this in spite of the fact that Cicero had been married nearly twenty years; but he was then very unfortunate, and it seems that misfortune makes people more tender, and that families feel the need of drawing closer when heavy blows fall on them. Cicero had just been condemned to exile. He departed very sorrowfully from Rome, where he knew that his house was burnt, his friends persecuted, his family ill-treated. Terentia had behaved very energetically, she had suffered for her husband, and suffered with courage. On learning the manner in which she had been treated, Cicero wrote to her despairingly: “How wretched I am! And must a woman so virtuous, so honourable, so gentle, so devoted, be thus tormented for my sake!”[[98]] “Be assured, he tells her elsewhere, that I have nothing dearer than you. At this moment I think I see you, and cannot restrain my tears!”[[99]] He added with still more effusion, “Oh, my life, I would wish to see you again, and die in your arms!”[[100]] The correspondence then ceases for six years. It recommences at the time Cicero left Rome, to go and govern Cilicia, but the tone is very much changed. In the single letter remaining to us of this date, affection is replaced by business. It has to do with a legacy that had fallen in very opportunely for Cicero’s fortunes, and of the means of turning it to the best account. It is true he still calls Terentia his very dear and much-desired wife, suavissima atque optatissima, but these words have the appearance of polite phrases. However, he shows a great desire to see her again, and asks her to come as far as she can and wait for him.[[101]] She went as far as Brundusium, and, by a lucky chance, she entered the town at the same time that her husband arrived in the harbour; they met and embraced on the Forum. It was a happy moment for Cicero. He returned with the title of imperator and the hope of a triumph; he found his family united and joyous. Unfortunately the civil war was just about to break out. During his absence parties had broken with each other; they were about to come to blows, and immediately after his arrival Cicero was obliged to make choice between them, and to take his side. This war not only injured his political position, it was fatal to his private happiness. When the correspondence recommences, after Pharsalia, it becomes extremely matter-of-fact. Cicero returns to Italy, and lands again at Brundusium, no longer triumphant and happy, but vanquished and desperate. This time he does not wish to see his wife again, although he never had more need of consolation. He keeps her at a distance, and that without much ceremony. “If you come, he tells her, I do not see how you can be useful to me.”[[102]] What makes this answer more cruel is, that, at the same time, he sent for his daughter, and consoled himself with her conversation. As to his wife she gets nothing more from him than short notes, and he has the courage to tell her that he does not make them longer because he has nothing to say.[[103]] At the same time he refers her to Lepta, Trebatius, Atticus, and Sicca, to learn what decisions he has taken. This shows clearly enough that she no longer enjoyed his confidence. The only mark of interest he still gives her is to ask her, from time to time, to take care of her health, a superfluous recommendation, since she lived more than a hundred years! The last letter he addressed to her is just what a man would write to his steward to give an order. “I expect to be at Tusculum the 7th or 8th of the month, he says; be careful to prepare everything. I shall, perhaps, have several persons with me, and very likely we shall remain some time. Let the bath be ready, and let nothing be wanting that is necessary to comfort and health.”[[104]] A few months afterwards, the separation which this tone foreshadows, took place between the couple. Cicero divorced Terentia after more than thirty years of marriage, and when they had children and grandchildren.