[285] Plutarch’s narrative leads us to suppose that Cicero saw that his time was come and offered his neck to the murderers. Appian’s narrative (Civil Wars, iv. 20) is that Lænas drew Cicero’s head out of the litter and struck three blows before he severed it. He was so awkward at the work that the operation was like sawing the neck off.
Cicero was murdered on the 7th of December, B.C. 73, being nearly sixty-four years of age.
[286] The same story is told by Appian, except that he mentions only the right hand. The murderer received for his pains a large sum of money, much more than was promised. It is hardly credible that Antonius placed the head of Cicero on a tablet at a banquet (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 20). Though he hated Cicero and with good reason, such a brutal act is not credible of him, nor is it consistent with the story of the head being fixed on the Rostra; not to mention other reasons against the story that might be urged. Dion Cassius (47. c. 8) says that Fulvia, the wife of Antonius, pierced the tongue of Cicero with one of the pins which women wore in their hair, and added other insults. To make his story probable, he says that it was done before the head was fixed on the Rostra.
[287] His name was Philogonus. The story about Philogonus is refuted by the silence of Tiro.
Pomponia, the wife of Quintus, was the sister of T. Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero. She and her husband did not live in harmony.
[288] These were Caius and Lucius, the sons of Cæsar’s daughter Julia by M. Vipsanius Agrippa.
[289] Cæsar defeated Antonius at the battle of Actium, B.C. 31. Cicero’s son Marcus was made an augur, and he was consul with Cæsar in B.C. 30. He was afterwards proconsul of Asia. The time of his death is unknown. Cicero’s son had neither ambition nor ability. All that is certainly known of him is that he loved eating and drinking, for neither of which had his father any inclination. There are two letters of the son to Tiro extant (Cicero, Ad Diversos, xvi. 21, 25).
The Life of Cicero is only a sketch of Cicero’s character, but a better sketch than any modern writer has made. It does not affect to be a history of the times, nor does it affect to estimate with any exactness his literary merit. But there is not a single great defect in his moral character that is not touched, nor a virtue that has not been signalized. Those who would do justice to him and have not time to examine for themselves, may trust Plutarch at least as safely as any modern writer.
If in these notes I have occasionally expressed an unfavourable opinion directly or indirectly, I have expressed none that I do not believe true, and none for which abundant evidence cannot be produced, even from Cicero’s own writings. It is a feeble and contemptible criticism that would palliate or excuse that which admits not of excuse. It is a spurious liberality that would gloss over the vices and faults of men because they have had great virtues, and would impute to those who tell the whole truth a malignant pleasure in defaming and vilifying exalted merit. This assumed fair dealing and magnanimity would deprive us of the most instructive lessons that human life teaches—that all men have their weaknesses, their failings and their vices, and that no intellectual greatness is a security against them. “It is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever” (Montaigne). The failings of a great man are more instructive than those of an obscure man. They exhibit the weak points at which any man may be assailed, and in some of which no man is impregnable. Cicero’s writings have made us as familiar with him as with the writers of our own country, and there is hardly a European author of modern times who is more universally read than Cicero in some or other of his numerous compositions. His letters alone, which were never intended for publication, and were written to a great variety of persons as the events of the day prompted, furnish a mass of historical evidence, which, if we consider his position and the times in which he lived, is not surpassed by any similar collection. He is thus mixed up with the events of the most stirring and interesting period of his country’s history; and every person who studies that history must endeavour to form a just estimate of the character of a man who is both a great actor in public events and an important witness.
The Life of Cicero by Middleton is a partial work: the evidence is imperfectly examined and the author’s prejudices in favour of Cicero have given a false colouring to many facts. The most laborious life of Cicero is by Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Tullii), in which all the authorities are collected. In the ‘Penny Cyclopædia’ (art. ‘Cicero’) there is a good sketch of Cicero’s political career; and in the ‘Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,’ edited by Dr. W. Smith, a very complete account of Cicero’s writings, distributed under their several heads.