The whole oration is interspersed with beautiful maxims and sentences, which have been quoted with delight in all ages. There appears in it, however, perhaps too much, and certainly more than in the other orations, of what Lord Monboddo calls concinnity. “We have in it,” observes he, speaking of this oration, “strings of antitheses, the figure of like endings, and a perfect similarity of the structure, both as to the grammatical form of the words, and even the number of them[326].” The whole, too, is written in a style of exaggeration and immoderate praise. The orator talks of the poet Archias, as if the whole glory of Rome, and salvation of the commonwealth, depended on his poetical productions, and as if the smallest injury offered to him would render the name of Rome execrable and infamous in all succeeding generations.
Pro Cn. Plancio.—The defence of Plancius was one of the first orations pronounced by Cicero after his return from banishment. Plancius had been Quæstor of Macedon when Cicero came to that country during his exile, and had received [pg 171]him with honours proportioned to his high character, rather than his fallen fortunes. In return for this kindness, Cicero undertook his defence against a charge, preferred by a disappointed competitor, of bribery and corruption in suing for the ædileship.
Pro Sextio.—This is another oration produced by the gratitude of Cicero, and the circumstances of his banishment. Sextius, while Tribune of the people, had been instrumental in procuring his recall, and Cicero requited this good office by one of the longest and most elaborate of his harangues. The accusation, indeed, was a consequence of his interposition in favour of the illustrious exile; for when about to propose his recall to the people, he was violently attacked by the Clodian faction, and left for dead on the street. His enemies, however, though obviously the aggressors, accused him of violence, and exciting a tumult. This was the charge against which Cicero defended him. The speech is valuable for the history of the times; as it enters into all the recent political events in which Cicero had borne so distinguished a part. The orator inveighs against his enemies, the Tribune Clodius, and the Consuls Gabinius and Piso, and details all the circumstances connected with his own banishment and return, occasionally throwing in a word or two about his client Sextius.
Contra Vatinium.—Vatinius, who belonged to the Clodian faction, appeared, at the trial of Sextius, as a witness against him. This gave Cicero an opportunity of interrogating him; and the whole oration being a continued invective on the conduct of Vatinius, poured forth in a series of questions, without waiting for an answer to any of them, has been entitled, Interrogatio.
Pro Cælio.—Middleton has pronounced this to be the most entertaining of the orations which Cicero has left us, from the vivacity of wit and humour with which he treats the gallantries of Clodia, her commerce with Cælius, and in general the gaieties and licentiousness of youth.
Cælius was a young man of considerable talents and accomplishments, who had been intrusted to the care of Cicero on his first introduction to the Forum; but having imprudently engaged in an intrigue with Clodia, the well-known sister of Clodius, and having afterwards deserted her, she accused him of an attempt to poison her, and of having borrowed money from her in order to procure the assassination of Dio, the Alexandrian ambassador. In this, as in most other prosecutions of the period, a number of charges, unconnected with the main one, seem to have been accumulated, in order to [pg 172]give the chief accusation additional force and credibility. Cicero had thus to defend his client against the suspicions arising from the general libertinism of his conduct. He justifies that part of it which related to his intercourse with Clodia, by enlarging on the loose character of this woman, whom he treats with very little ceremony; and, in order to place her dissolute life in a more striking point of view, he conjures up in fancy one of her grim and austere ancestors of the Clodian family reproaching her with her shameful degeneracy. All this the orator was aware would not be sufficient for the complete vindication of his client; and it is curious to remark the ingenuity with which the strenuous advocate of virtue and regularity of conduct palliates, on this occasion, the levities of youth,—not, indeed, by lessening the merits of strict morality, but by representing those who withstand the seductions of pleasure as supernaturally endued.
This oration was a particular favourite of one who was long a distinguished speaker in the British Senate. “By the way,” says Mr Fox, in a letter to Wakefield, “I know no speech of Cicero more full of beautiful passages than this is, nor where he is more in his element. Argumentative contention is what he by no means excels in; and he is never, I think, so happy as when he has an opportunity of exhibiting a mixture of philosophy and pleasantry; and especially when he can interpose anecdotes and references to the authority of the eminent characters in the history of his country. No man appears, indeed, to have had such real respect for authority as he; and therefore, when he speaks upon that subject, he is always natural and in earnest; and not like those among us, who are so often declaiming about the wisdom of our ancestors, without knowing what they mean, or hardly ever citing any particulars of their conduct, or of their dicta[327].”
De Provinciis Consularibus. The government of Gaul was continued to Cæsar, in consequence of this oration, so that it may be considered as one of the immediate causes of the ruin of the Roman Republic, which it was incontestibly the great wish of Cicero to protect and maintain inviolate. But Cicero had evidently been duped by Cæsar, as he formerly had nearly been by Catiline, and as he subsequently was by Octavius, Pollio, and every one who found it his interest to cajole him, by proclaiming his praises, and professing ardent zeal for the safety of the state. So little had he penetrated the real views of Cæsar, that we find him asking the Senate, in his oration, what possible motive or inducement Cæsar [pg 173]could have to remain in the province of Gaul, except the public good. “For would the amenity of the regions, the beauty of the cities, or civilization of the inhabitants, detain him there—or can a return to one’s native country be so distasteful?”
Pro Cornelio Balbo.—Balbus was a native of Cadiz, who having been of considerable service to Pompey, during his war in Spain, against Sertorius, had, in return, received the freedom of Rome from that commander, in virtue of a special law, by which he had obtained the power of granting this benefit to whom he chose. The validity of Pompey’s act, however, was now questioned, on the ground that Cadiz was not within the terms of that relation and alliance to Rome, which could, under any circumstances, entitle its citizens to such a privilege. The question, therefore, was, whether the inhabitants of a federate state, which had not adopted the institutions and civil jurisprudence of Rome, could receive the rights of citizenship. This point was of great importance to the municipal towns of the Republic, and the oration throws considerable light on the relations which existed between the provinces and the capital.
In Pisonem.—Piso having been recalled from his government of Macedon, in consequence of Cicero’s oration, De Provinciis Consularibus, he complained, in one of his first appearances in the Senate, of the treatment he had received, and attacked the orator, particularly on the score of his poetry, ridiculing the well known line,