History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. II

by John Colin Dunlop

The correspondence with Quintus is divided into three books. The first letter in the collection, is one of the noblest productions of the kind which has ever been penned. It is addressed to Quintus on occasion of his government in Asia being prolonged for a third year. Availing himself of the rights of an elder brother, as well as of the authority derived from his superior dignity and talents, Cicero counsels and exhorts his brother concerning the due administration of his province, particularly with regard to the choice of his subordinate officers, and the degree of trust to be reposed in them. He earnestly reproves him, but with much fraternal tenderness and affection, for his proneness to resentment; and he concludes with a beautiful exhortation, to strive in all respects to merit the praise of his contemporaries, and bequeath to posterity an untainted name. The second letter transmits to Quintus an account of some complaints which Cicero had heard in Rome, with regard to his brother’s conduct in the administration of his government. The two following epistles, which conclude the first book, are written from Thessalonica, in the commencement of his exile. The first of these, beginning, “Mi frater, mi frater, mi frater,” written in a sad state of agitation and depression, is a fine specimen of eloquent and pathetic expostulation. It is full of strong and almost unbounded expressions of attachment, and exhibits much of that exaggeration, both in sentiment and language, in which Cicero indulged so frequently in his orations.

The second and third books of letters, addressed to his brother in Sardinia and Gaul, give an interesting account of the state of public affairs during the years 697, 698, and part of 699, as also of his subsisting domestic relations during the same period.

Along with his letters to Quintus, there is usually printed an epistle or memoir, which Quintus addressed to his brother when he stood candidate for the consulship, and which is entitled De Petitione Consulatûs. It gives advice with regard to the measures he should pursue to attain his object, particularly inculcating the best means to gain private friends, and acquire general popularity. But though professedly drawn up merely for the use of his brother, it appears to have been intended by the author as a guide, or manual, for all who might be placed in similar circumstances. It is written with considerable elegance, and perfect purity of style, and forms an important document for the history of the Roman republic, as it affords [pg 283]us a clearer insight than we can derive from any other work now extant, into the intrigues resorted to by the heads of parties to gain the suffrages of the people.

The authenticity of the Correspondence between Cicero and Brutus, has formed the subject of a literary controversy, perhaps the most celebrated which has ever occurred, except that concerning the Epistles of Phalaris.

It is quite ascertained, that a correspondence had been carried on between Cicero and Brutus; and a collection of the letters which had passed between them, extending to not less than eight books, existed for several ages after Cicero’s death. They were all written during the period which elapsed from the assassination of Cæsar to the tragical end of the orator, which comprehended about a year and a half; and it appears from the fragments of them, cited by Plutarch and the grammarians, that they chiefly related to the memorable political events of that important interval, and to a literary controversy which subsisted between Cicero and Brutus, with regard to the attributes of perfect eloquence[488].

This collection is mentioned, and passages cited from it, by Quintilian, Plutarch, and even Nonius Marcellus[489], who lived about the year 400. After this, all trace of it is lost, till, in the fourteenth century, we find some of the disputed letters in the possession of Petrarch; and it has been conjectured that Petrarch himself was the discoverer of them[490]. Eighteen of these letters, which were all that were then known, were published at Rome in 1470. Many years afterwards, five more, but in a mutilated state, were found in Germany, and these, in all subsequent editions, were printed along with the original eighteen. All the letters relate to the situation of public affairs after the death of Cæsar. They contain a good deal of recrimination: Brutus blaming Cicero for his dangerous elevation of Octavius, and conferring honours on him too profusely; Cicero censuring Brutus for having spared the life of Antony at the time of the conspiracy.

Now the point in dispute is, If these twenty-three letters be parts of the original eight books of the genuine correspondence of Cicero and Brutus, so often cited by Plutarch, Quintilian, and Nonius; or if they be the forgery of some monk or [pg 284]sophist, during the dark ages which elapsed between the time of Nonius and Petrarch.

From their very first appearance, the eighteen letters, which had come into the possession of Petrarch, passed among the learned for original epistles of Cicero and Brutus; and the five discovered in Germany, though doubted for a while, were soon received into the same rank with the others. Erasmus seems to have been the first who suspected the whole to be the declamatory composition of some rhetorician or sophist. They continued, however, to be cited by every other commentator, critic, and historian, as the unquestionable remains of the great author to whom they were ascribed. Middleton, in particular, in his Life of Cicero, freely referred to them as biographical authorities, along with the Familiar Epistles, and those to Atticus.

Matters were in this situation, when Tunstall, in 1741, addressed a Latin Epistle to Middleton, written professedly to introduce a proposal for a new edition of Cicero’s letters to Atticus, and his brother Quintus. In the first part of this epistle, he attempted to retrieve the original readings of these authentic treasures of Ciceronian history, and asserted their genuine sense against the corruptions or false interpretations of them, which had led to many erroneous conclusions in Middleton’s Life of Cicero. In the second part, he denies the authenticity of the whole correspondence between Cicero and Brutus, which he alleges is the production of some sophist or scholiast of the middle ages, who probably wrote them, according to the practice of those days, as an exercise for his rhetorical talents, and with the view either of drawing up a supplement to the Epistles to Atticus, so as to carry on the history from the period at which they terminate, or to vindicate Cicero’s character from the imputation of rashness, in throwing too much power into the hands of Octavius. Tunstall farther thinks, that the leading subject of these letters was suggested to the sophist by a passage in Plutarch’s Life of Brutus, where it is mentioned that Brutus had remonstrated with Cicero, and complained of him to their mutual friend Atticus, for the court he paid to Octavius, which showed that his aim was not to procure liberty for his country, but a kind master to himself.

Middleton soon afterwards published an English translation of the whole correspondence between Brutus and Cicero, with notes; and, in a prefatory dissertation, written with considerable and unprovoked asperity, he attempted to vindicate the authority of the epistles, and to answer the objections of Tunstall. His adversary replied in an immense English work, of [pg 285]more than 400 pages, entitled, “Observations on the present Collection of Epistles between Cicero and Brutus, representing several evident marks of Forgery in those Epistles, in answer to the late pretences of Dr Middleton: 1744.”