Aware of this difficulty, and conscious, perhaps, that he possessed not precision and originality of thinking sufficient to recommend a formal treatise, Cicero adopted the mode of writing in dialogues, in which rhetorical diffuseness, and looseness of definition, might be overlooked, and in which ample scope would be afforded for the ornaments of language.
It was by oral discourse that knowledge was chiefly communicated at the dawn of science, when books either did not exist, or were extremely rare. In the Porch, in the Garden, or among the groves of the Academy, the philosopher conferred with his disciples, listened to their remarks, and replied [pg 222]to their objections. Socrates, in particular, was accustomed thus to inculcate his moral lessons; and it was natural for the scholars, who recorded them, to follow the manner in which they had been disclosed. Of these disciples, Plato, who was the most distinguished, readily adopted a form of composition, which gave scope to his own fertile and poetical imagination; while, at the same time, it enabled him more accurately to paint his great master. One of his chief objects, too, was to represent the triumph of Socrates over the Sophists; and if a writer wish to cover an opponent with ridicule, perhaps no better mode could be devised, than to set him up as a man of straw in a dialogue. As argumentative victory, or the embarrassment of the antagonist of Socrates, was often all that was aimed at, it was unnecessary to be very scrupulous about the means, and, considered in this view, the agreeable irony of that philosopher—the address with which, by seeming to yield, he ensnares the adversary—his quibbles—his subtle distinctions, and perplexing interrogatories, display consummate skill, and produce considerable dramatic effect; while, at the same time, the scenery and circumstances of the dialogue are often described with a richness and beauty of imagination, which no philosophic writer has as yet surpassed[393].
When Cicero, towards the close of his long and meritorious life, employed himself in transferring to Rome the philosophy of Greece, he appears to have been chiefly attracted by the diffusive majesty of Plato, whose intellectual character was in many respects congenial to his own. His dialogues in so far resemble those of Plato, that the personages are real, and of various characters and opinions; while the circumstances of time and place are, for the most part, as completely fictitious as in his Greek models. Yet there is a considerable difference in the manner of Cicero’s Dialogues, from those of the great founder of the Academy. Plato ever preserved something of the Socratic method of giving birth to the thoughts of others—of awakening, by interrogatories, the sense of truth, and supplanting errors. But Cicero himself, or the person who speaks his sentiments, always takes the lead in the conference, and gives us long, and often uninterrupted dissertations. His object, too, appears to have been not so much to cover his adversaries with ridicule, or even to prevail in the argument, as to pay a complimentary tribute to his numerous and illustrious friends, or to recall, as it were, from the tomb, the departed heroes and sages of his country.
In the form of dialogue, Cicero has successively treated of Law, Metaphysics, Theology, and Morals.
De Legibus.—Of this dialogue there are only three books now extant, and even in these considerable chasms occur. A conjecture has been recently hazarded by a learned German, in an introduction to a translation of the dialogue, that these three books, as we now have them, were not written by Cicero, but that they are mere excerpts taken from his lost writings, by some monk or father of the church[394]. There are few works, however, in which more genuine marks of the master-hand of Cicero may be traced, than in the tract De Legibus; and the connection between the different parts is too closely preserved, to admit of the notion that it has been made up in the manner which this critic supposes. Another conjecture is, that it formed part of the third, fourth, and fifth books of Cicero’s lost treatise De Republica. This surmise, however, was highly improbable, since Cicero, in the course of the work De Legibus, refers to that De Republica as a separate production, and it is now proved to be chimerical by the discovery of Mai. The dialogue De Legibus, however, seems to have been drawn up as a kind of supplement to that De Republica, being intended to point out what laws would be most suitable to the perfect republic, which the author had previously described[395].
As to the period of composition, it thus manifestly appears to have been written subsequently to the dialogue De Republica; and it is evident, from his letters to his brother Quintus, that the work De Republica was begun in 699, and finished in 700[396], so that the dialogue De Legibus could not have been composed before that year. It is further clear, that it was written after the year 701, since he obviously alludes in it to the murder of Clodius,—boasting that his chief enemy was now not only deprived of life, but wanted sepulture, and the accustomed funeral obsequies[397]. Now, it is well known that Clodius was slain in 701, and that his dead body was dragged naked by a lawless mob into the Forum, where it was consumed amid the conflagration raised in the Senate-house. It is equally evident that the treatise De Legibus was written before that De Finibus, composed in 708, since, in the former work, the author alludes to the questions which we find discussed in the latter, as controversies which he is one day to take up[398]. But it is demonstrable that the dialogue De Legibus was written even previous to the battle of Pharsalia, which was fought in 705, since the author talks in it of Pompey as of [pg 224]a person still alive, and in the plenitude of glory[399]. Chapman, in his dissertation De Ætate Librorum de Legibus, subjoined to Tunstall’s Latin letter to Middleton, concerning the epistles to Brutus, thinks that it was not written till the year 709. He is of opinion, that what is said of Pompey, and the allusions to the murder of Clodius, as to a recent event, were only intended to suit the time in which the dialogue takes place: But then it so happens, that no historical period whatever is assigned by the author of the dialogue, as the date of its actual occurrence. Chapman also maintains, that this is the only mode of accounting for the work De Legibus not being mentioned in the treatise De Divinatione, where Cicero’s other philosophical productions are enumerated. The reason of this omission, however, might be, that the work De Legibus never was made public by the author; and, indeed, with exception of the first book, the whole is but a sketch or outline of what he intended to write, and is far from having received the polish and perfection of those performances which he circulated himself.
The discussion De Legibus is carried on, in the shape of dialogue, by Cicero, his brother Quintus, and Atticus. Of these Cicero is the chief interlocutor. The scene is laid amid the walks and pleasure-grounds of Cicero’s villa of Arpinum, which lay about three miles from the town of that name, and was situated in a mountainous but picturesque region of the ancient territory of the Samnites, now forming part of the kingdom of Naples. This house was the original seat of the family of Cicero, who was born in it during the life of his grandfather, while it was yet small and humble as the Sabine cottage of Curius or Cincinnatus; but his father had gradually enlarged and embellished it, till it became a spacious and elegant mansion, where, as his health was infirm, he passed the greater part of his life in literary retirement[400]. Cicero was thus equally attracted to this villa by the many pleasing and tender recollections with which it was associated, and by the amenity of the situation, which was the most retired and delightful, even in that region of enchanting landscape. It was closely surrounded by a grove, and stood not far from the confluence of the Fibrenus with the Liris. The former stream, which murmured over a rocky channel, was remarkable for its clearness, rapidity, and coolness; and its sloping verdant banks were shaded with lofty poplars[401]. “Many streams,” says Mr. Kelsall, one of our latest Italian tourists, “which are celebrated in story and song, disappoint the traveller,— [pg 225]
‘Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry,’—
but, in the course of long travels, I never met with so abundant and lucid a current as the Fibrenus; the length of the stream considered, which does not exceed four miles and a half. It flows with great rapidity, and is about thirty or thirty-five feet in width near the Ciceronian isles. It is generally fifteen and even twenty in depth; ‘largus et exundans,’ like the genius of him who had so often trodden its banks. The water even in the intensest heats, still retains its icy coldness; and, although the thermometer was above 80° in the shade, the hand, plunged for a few seconds into the Fibrenus, caused a complete numbness[402].” Near to the house, the Fibrenus was divided into equal streams by a little island, which was fringed with a few plane-trees, and on which stood a portico[403], where Cicero often retired to read or meditate, and composed some of his sublimest harangues. Just below this islet, each branch of the stream rushed by a sort of cascade, into the cerulean Liris[404], on which the Fibrenus bestowed additional freshness and coolness, and after this union received the name of the more noble river[405]. The epithet taciturnus, applied to the Liris by Horace, and quietus, by Silius Italicus, must be understood only of the lower windings of its course. No river in Italy is so noisy as the Liris about Arpino and Cicero’s villa; for the space of a mile and a half after receiving the Fibrenus, it formed no less than six cascades, varying in height from three to twenty feet[406]. This spot, embellished with all the ornaments of hills and valleys, and wood and water-falls, was one of Cicero’s most favourite retreats. When Atticus first visited it, he was so charmed, that, instead of wondering as before that it was such a favourite residence of his friend, he expressed his surprise that he ever retired elsewhere[407]; declaring, at the same time, his contempt of the marble pavements, arched ceilings, and artificial canals of magnificent villas, compared with the tranquillity and natural beauties of Arpinum. Cicero, indeed, appears at one time to have thought of the island, formed by the Fibrenus, as the place most suitable for the monument which he intended to raise to his beloved daughter Tullia[408].
The situation of this villa was close to the spot where now [pg 226]stands the city of Sora[409]. “The Liris,” says Eustace, “still bears its ancient name till it passes Sora, when it is called the Garigliano. The Fibrenus, still so called, falls into it a little below Sora, and continues to encircle the island in which Cicero lays the scene of the dialogue De Legibus. Arpinum, also, still retains its name[410].” Modern travellers bear ample testimony to the scenery round Sora being such as fully justifies the fond partiality of Cicero, and the admiration of Atticus. “Nothing,” says Mr Kelsall, “can be imagined finer than the surrounding landscape. The deep azure of the sky, unvaried by a single cloud—Sora on a rock at the foot of the precipitous Apennines—both banks of the Garigliano covered with vineyards—the fragor aquarum, alluded to by Atticus in the work De Legibus—the coolness, rapidity, and ultramarine hue of the Fibrenus,—the noise of its cataracts—the rich turquoise colour of the Liris—the minor Apennines round Arpino, crowned with umbrageous oaks to their very summits, present scenery hardly elsewhere to be equalled, certainly not to be surpassed, even in Italy[411].” The spot where Cicero’s villa stood, was, in the time of Middleton, possessed by a convent of monks, and was called the villa of St Dominic. It was built in the year 1030, from the fragments of the Arpine villa!