In the first part he extols the military exploits of Cæsar; but shows, that his clemency to Marcellus was more glorious than any of his other actions, as it depended entirely on himself, while fortune and his army had their share in the events of the war. In the second part he endeavours to dispel the suspicions which it appears Cæsar still entertained of the hostile intentions of Marcellus, and takes occasion to assure the Dictator that his life was most dear and valuable to all, since on it depended the tranquillity of the state, and the hopes of the restoration of the commonwealth.
This oration, which Middleton declares to be superior to anything extant of the kind in all antiquity, and which a celebrated French critic terms, “Le discours le plus noble, le plus pathetique, et en meme tems le plus patriotique, que la reconnaissance, l’amitié, et la vertu, puissent inspirer à une ame elevée et sensible,” continued to be not only of undisputed authenticity, but one of Cicero’s most admired productions, till Wolf, in the preface and notes to a new edition of it, printed in 1802, attempted to show, that it was a spurious production, totally unworthy of the orator whose name it bore, and that it was written by some declaimer, soon after the Augustan age, not as an imposition upon the public, but as an exercise,—according to the practice of the rhetoricians, who were wont to choose, as a theme, some subject on which Cicero had spoken. In his letters to Atticus, Cicero says, that he had returned thanks to Cæsar pluribus verbis. This Middleton translates a long speech; but Wolf alleges it can only mean a few words, and never can be interpreted to denote a full oration, such as that which we now possess for Marcellus. That Cicero did not deliver a long or formal speech, is evident, he contends, from the testimony of Plutarch, who mentions, in his life of Cicero, that, a short time afterwards, when the orator was about to plead for Ligarius, Cæsar asked, how it happened that he had not heard Cicero speak for so long a period,—which would have been absurd if he had heard him, a few months before, pleading for Marcellus. Being an extemporary effusion, called forth by an unforeseen occasion, it could not (he continues to urge) have been pre[pg 189]pared and written beforehand; nor is it at all probable, that, like many other orations of Cicero, it was revised and made public after being delivered. The causes which induced the Roman orators to write out their speeches at leisure, were the magnitude and public importance of the subject, or the wishes of those in whose defence they were made, and who were anxious to possess a sort of record of their vindication. But none of these motives existed in the present case. The matter was of no importance or difficulty; and we know that Marcellus, who was a stern republican, was not at all gratified by the intervention of the senators, or conciliated by the clemency of Cæsar. As to internal evidence, deduced from the oration, Wolf admits, that there are interspersed in it some Ciceronian sentences; and how otherwise could the learned have been so egregiously deceived? but the resemblance is more in the varnish of the style than in the substance. We have the words rather than the thoughts of Cicero; and the rounding of his periods, without their energy and argumentative connection. He adduces, also, many instances of phrases unusual among the classics, and of conceits which betray the rhetorician or sophist. His extolling the act of that day on which Cæsar pardoned Marcellus as higher than all his warlike exploits, would but have raised a smile on the lips of the Dictator; and the slighting way in which the cause of the republic and Pompey are mentioned, is totally different from the manner in which Cicero expressed himself on these delicate topics, even in presence of Cæsar, in his authentic orations for Deiotarus and Ligarius.
It is evident, at first view, that many of Wolf’s observations are hypercritical; and that in his argument concerning the encomiums on Cæsar, and the overrated importance of his clemency to Marcellus, he does not make sufficient allowance for Cicero’s habit of exaggeration, and the momentary enthusiasm produced by one of those transactions,
—— “Quæ, dum geruntur,
Percellunt animos.” ——
Accordingly, in the year following that of Wolf’s edition, Olaus Wormius published, at Copenhagen, a vindication of the authenticity of this speech. To the argument adduced from Plutarch, he answers, that some months had elapsed between the orations for Marcellus and Ligarius, which might readily be called a long period, by one accustomed to hear Cicero harangue almost daily in the Senate or Forum. Besides, the phrase of Plutarch, λεγοντος may mean pleading [pg 190]for some one, which was not the nature of the speech for Marcellus. As to the motive which led to write and publish the oration, Cicero, above all men, was delighted with his own productions, and nothing can be more probable than that he should have wished to preserve the remembrance of that memorable day, which he calls in his letters, diem illam pulcherrimam. It was natural to send the oration to Marcellus, in order to hasten his return to Rome, and it must have been an acceptable thing to Cæsar, thus to record his fearlessness and benignity. With regard to the manner in which Pompey and the republican party are talked of, it is evident, from his letters, that Cicero was disgusted with the political measures of that faction, that he wholly disapproved of their plan of the campaign, and foreseeing a renewal of Sylla’s proscriptions in the triumph of the aristocratic power, he did not exaggerate in so highly extolling the humanity of Cæsar.
The arguments of Wormius were expanded and illustrated by Weiske, In Commentario perpetuo et pleno in Orat. Ciceronis pro Marcello, published at Leipsic, in 1805[344], while, on the other hand, Spalding, in his De Oratione pro Marcello Disputatio, published in 1808, supported the opinions of Wolfius.
The controversy was in this state, and was considered as involved in much doubt and obscurity, when Aug. Jacob, in an academical exercise, printed at Halle and Berlin, in 1813, and entitled De Oratione quæ inscribitur pro Marcello, Ciceroni vel abjudicata vel adjudicata, Quæstio novaque conjectura, adopted a middle course. Finding such dissimilarity in the different passages of the oration, some being most powerful, elegant, and beautiful, while others were totally futile and frigid, he was led to believe that part had actually flowed from the lips of Cicero, but that much had been subsequently interpolated by some rhetorician or declaimer. He divides his whole treatise into four heads, which comprehend all the various points agitated on the subject of this oration: 1. The testimony of different authors tending to prove the authenticity or spuriousness of the production: 2. The history of the period, with which every genuine oration must necessarily concur: 3. The genius and manner of Cicero, from which no [pg 191]one of his orations could be entirely remote: 4. The style and phraseology, which must be correct and classical. In the prosecution of his inquiry in these different aspects of the subject, the author successively reviews the opinions and judgments of his predecessors, sometimes agreeing with Wolf and his followers, at other times, and more frequently, with their opposers. He thinks that the much-contested phrase pluribus verbis, may mean a long oration, as Cicero elsewhere talks of having pleaded for Cluentius, pluribus verbis, though the speech in his defence consists of 58 chapters. Besides, Cicero only says that he had returned thanks to Cæsar, pluribus verbis. Now, the whole speech does not consist of thanks to Cæsar, being partly occupied in removing the suspicions which he entertained of Marcellus. With regard to encomiums on Cæsar, which Spalding has characterized as abject and fulsome, and totally different from the delicate compliments addressed to him in the oration for Deiotarus or Ligarius, Jacob reminds his readers that the harangues could have no resemblance to each other, the latter being pleadings in behalf of the accused, and the former a professed panegyric. Nor can any one esteem the eulogies on Cæsar too extravagant for Cicero, when he remembers the terms in which the orator had formerly spoken of Roscius, Archias, and Pompey.
Schütz, the late German editor of Cicero, has subscribed to the opinion of Wolf, and has published the speech for Marcellus, along with the other four doubtful harangues at the end of the genuine orations.
But supposing that these five contested speeches are spurious, a sufficient number of genuine orations remain to enable us to distinguish the character of Cicero’s eloquence. Ambitious from his youth of the honours attending a fine speaker, he early travelled to Greece, where he accumulated all the stores of knowledge and rules of art, which could be gathered from the rhetoricians, historians, and philosophers, of that intellectual land. While he thus extracted and imbibed the copiousness of Plato, the sweetness of Isocrates, and force of Demosthenes, he, at the same time, imbued his mind with a thorough knowledge of the laws, constitution, antiquities, and literature, of his native country. Nor did he less study the peculiar temper, the jealousies, and enmities of the Roman people, both as a nation and as individuals, without a knowledge of which, his eloquence would have been unavailing in the Forum or Comitia, where so much was decided by favouritism and cabal. By these means he ruled the passions and deliberations of his countrymen with almost resistless sway—[pg 192]upheld the power of the Senate—stayed the progress of tyranny—drove the audacious Catiline from Rome—directed the feelings of the state in favour of Pompey—shook the strong mind of Cæsar—and kindled a flame by which Antony had been nearly consumed. But the main secret of his success lay in the warmth and intensity of his feelings. His heart swelled with patriotism, and was dilated with the most magnificent conceptions of the glory of Rome. Though it throbbed with the fondest anticipations of posthumous fame, the momentary acclaim of a multitude was a chord to which it daily and most readily vibrated; while, at the same time, his high conceptions of oratory counteracted the bad effect which this exuberant vanity might otherwise have produced. Thus, when two speakers were employed in the same cause, though Cicero was the junior, to him was assigned the peroration, in which he surpassed all his contemporaries; and he obtained this pre-eminence not so much on account of his superior genius or knowledge of law, as because he was more moved and affected himself, without which he would never have moved or affected his judges.