Cicero and His Friends

Atticus

Of all Cicero’s correspondents, none kept up a longer or more regular intercourse with him than Atticus. Their friendly relations lasted without interruption and without a shadow till their death. They corresponded during the shortest absences, and, when it was possible, more than once a day. These letters, sometimes short to communicate a passing reflection, sometimes long and studied, when events were graver, playful or serious according to circumstances, that were written in haste wherever the writers happened to be, these letters reflect the whole life of the two friends. Cicero characterized them happily when he said “They were like a conversation between us two.” Unfortunately, at present, we hear only one of the speakers and the conversation has become a monologue. In publishing his friend’s letters Atticus took good care not to add his own. No doubt he did not wish his sentiments to be read too openly, and his prudence sought to withhold from the public the knowledge of his opinions and the secrets of his private life; but in vain he sought to hide himself, the voluminous correspondence that Cicero kept up with him was sufficient to make him known, and it is easy to form from it an exact idea of the person to whom it is addressed. This person is assuredly one of the most curious of an important epoch, and deserves that we should take the trouble to study him with some care.

I

Atticus was twenty years old when the war between Marius and Sulla began. He saw its beginnings and nearly became its victim; the tribune Sulpicius, one of the chief heads of the popular party, and his relation, was put to death with his partisans and friends by Sulla’s orders, and as Atticus often visited him he ran some risk. This first danger decided his whole life. As, notwithstanding his age, he had a firm and prudent mind, he did not allow himself to be discouraged, but reconsidered his position. If he had had hitherto some slight inclination towards political ambition, and the idea of seeking public honours, he gave them up without hesitation when he saw what a price must sometimes be paid for them. He understood that a republic, in which power could only be seized by force, was lost, and that in perishing it was likely to drag down with it those who had served it. He resolved then to hold himself aloof from public affairs, and his whole policy consisted henceforth in creating for himself a safe position, outside of parties, and out of reach of danger.

Sieyès was asked one day: “What did you do during the Terror?” “What did I do?” he answered; “I lived.” That was a great thing to do. Atticus did still more, he lived not only during a terror of a few months, but during a terror of several years. As if to test his prudence and ability, he was placed in the most troubled period in history. He looked on at three civil wars, he saw Rome four times invaded by different leaders, and the massacres recommence at each new victory. He lived, not humble, unknown, allowing himself to be forgotten in some distant town, but at Rome, and in full publicity. Everything contributed to draw attention to him; he was rich, which was a sufficient cause for being proscribed, he had a great reputation as a man of wit, he willingly associated with the powerful, and, through his connections at least, he was regarded as an important person. Nevertheless, he was able to escape all the dangers that his position and his wealth created for him, and even contrived to become greater at each of those revolutions which, it seemed, might have ruined him. Each change of government, which hurled his friends from power, left him richer and stronger, so that at last he found himself placed, quite naturally, almost on a level with the new master. By what miracle of cleverness, by what prodigy of skilful combinations did he succeed in living honoured, rich and powerful at a time when it was so difficult to live at all? It was a problem full of difficulties; this is how he solved it.

In view of the first massacres of which he had been a witness, Atticus decided to take no part henceforth in public affairs and parties; but that is not so easy to do as one might think, and the firmest resolution does not always suffice for success. It is useless to declare that you wish to remain neutral; the world persists in classing you according to the name you bear, your family traditions, your personal ties and the earlier manifestations of your preferences. Atticus understood that, in order to escape this sort of forced enlistment and to throw public opinion off the scent, it was necessary to leave Rome, and to leave it for a long time. He hoped, by this voluntary exile, to regain full possession of himself and break the ties that, against his will, still bound him to the past. But, if he wished to withdraw himself from the eyes of his fellow-citizens, he did not intend to be forgotten by everybody. He meant to return; and did not wish to return as a stranger, no longer recognized, and lose all the benefit of his early friendships. Thus he did not choose for his retreat some distant estate, in an unknown province, or one of those obscure towns on which the eyes of the Roman people never fell. He retired to Athens, that is to say, to the only city that had preserved a great renown, and which still held a place in the admiration of the nations on a level with Rome. There, by a few well-placed liberalities, he drew to himself the affection of everybody. He distributed corn to the citizens, he lent money without interest to that city of men of letters, the finances of which were always embarrassed. He did more, he flattered the Athenians on their most sensitive side. He was the first Roman who dared openly to declare his taste for the letters and arts of Greece. Up to that time it had been the fashion among his countrymen to esteem and cultivate the Greek muses in private, and to laugh at them in public. Cicero himself, who on so many occasions braved this stupid prejudice, dared not appear to know off-hand the name of a great sculptor; but Cicero was a statesman for whom it was proper to show, at least now and then, that haughty disdain for other nations which partly constituted what is called the Roman dignity. It was necessary to flatter this national weakness if one wished to please the people. Atticus, who did not mean to ask anything of them, was more free; so he openly laughed at these customs. Immediately on his arrival he began to speak and write Greek, to openly frequent the studios of sculptors and painters, to buy statues and pictures, and to compose works on the fine arts. The Athenians were as much delighted as surprised to see one of their conquerors partake in their most cherished tastes, and thus protest against the unjust disdain of the rest. Their gratitude, which was always very noisy, as we know, overwhelmed Atticus with all sorts of flattery. Decrees in his honour were multiplied, he was offered all the dignities of the city; they even wished to raise statues to him. Atticus hastened to refuse everything; but the effect was produced, and the report of such great popularity did not fail to reach Rome, carried by those young men of high family who had just finished their education in Greece. In this manner the reputation of Atticus lost nothing by his absence; people of taste talked of this enlightened connoisseur of the arts who had made himself remarked even at Athens; and during this same time the politicians, no longer seeing him, lost the habit of classing him with a political party.

This was an important step. There remained a more important one to take. Atticus had seen betimes that to be rich is the first condition of independence. This general truth was even more evident at that time than at any other. How many people were there whose conduct during the civil wars can only be explained by the state of their fortunes! Curio had but one motive for serving Caesar, whom he did not like, namely, the pressure of his creditors; and Cicero himself puts among the chief reasons that prevented him going to Pompey’s camp, whither all his sympathies called him, the money that Caesar had lent him, and which he could not repay. To escape embarrassments of this kind and gain entire liberty, Atticus resolved to become rich, and became so. It is of importance, I think, to give here a few details to show how people got rich at Rome. His father had left him a rather moderate fortune, two million sesterces (£16,000). When he left Rome he sold almost all the family property, that he might leave nothing behind to tempt the proscribers, and bought an estate in Epirus, in that country of large herds, where the land brought in so much. It is probable he did not pay much for it. Mithridates had just ravaged Greece, and, as there was no money, everything went at a low price. This domain quickly prospered under skilful management; new lands were bought every year out of the surplus revenue, and Atticus became one of the great landed proprietors of the country. But is it likely that his wealth came to him solely through the good management of his land? He would have willingly had this believed, in order to resemble somewhat in this manner Cato and the Romans of the old school. Unluckily for him, his friend Cicero betrays him. In reading this unreserved correspondence we are not long in perceiving that Atticus had many other ways of enriching himself besides the sale of his corn and herds. This skilful agriculturalist was at the same time a clever trader, who carried on all businesses successfully. He excelled in drawing a profit, not only from the follies of others, which is common, but even from his own pleasures, and his talent consisted in enriching himself where others ruin themselves. We know for instance that he was fond of fine books; then, as now, this was a very costly fancy, but he knew how to make it a source of handsome profits. He collected in his house a large number of skilful copyists whom he trained himself; after having made them work for him, when his passion was satisfied he set them to work for others, and sold the books they copied to the public very dear. He was thus a veritable publisher for Cicero, and as his friend’s works sold well it happened that this friendship, which was full of charm for his heart, was not without use to his fortune.144 This commerce might be avowed, and a friend to letters was not forbidden to become a bookseller; but Atticus engaged as well in many transactions that ought to have been more repugnant to him. As he saw the success that everywhere attended gladiatorial fights, and that no festival took place without one of these grand butcheries, he thought of raising gladiators on his estates. He had them carefully instructed in the art of dying gracefully, and hired them out at a high rate to cities that wished to amuse themselves.145 It must be acknowledged that this is not a suitable trade for a scholar and a philosopher; but the profits were large, and the philosophy of Atticus was accommodating as soon as there was a good profit to make. Besides, he was a banker when the opportunity offered, and lent at a high rate of interest, as the greatest nobles of Rome did without scruple. Only, he was more circumspect than others, and took care to appear as little as possible in the affairs that he conducted, and he had, no doubt, in Italy and Greece, clever agents who made the most of his capital. His business relations extended throughout the world; we know of his debtors in Macedonia, Epirus, Ephesus and Delos, almost everywhere. He lent to private persons; he lent also to cities, but quite secretly, for this business was then as little esteemed as it was lucrative, and persons who took to it were not considered either honest or scrupulous. So Atticus, who thought as much of his reputation as of his fortune, would not let any one know that he conducted this sort of business. He carefully concealed it even from his friend Cicero, and we should be ignorant of it now if he had not experienced some untoward accidents in this risky business. Although usually great profits were gained, some dangers also were run. After having suffered the Roman domination for two centuries, all the cities, allied and municipal, and especially those of Asia, were completely ruined. They all had less revenue than debts, and the proconsuls, combined with the farmers of the taxes, carried off their resources so completely that there was nothing left for the creditors to take, unless they exerted themselves. This is what happened once to Atticus, notwithstanding his activity. We see that Cicero rallies him in one of his letters about the siege he is going to lay to Sicyon;146 this siege was evidently that of some recalcitrant debtors; Atticus never made any other campaigns; and, in truth, this one succeeded badly. While he thus went to war against this unfortunate indebted town, the senate took pity on it, and protected it by a decree against its too exacting creditors, so that Atticus, who set out from Epirus as a conqueror, with flying banners, was reduced, says Cicero, when he had arrived under the walls, to extract from the Sicyonians a few poor crowns (nummulorum aliquid) by means of prayers and flatteries.147 We must, however, suppose that Atticus was usually more lucky in the investment of his funds, and by his well-known prudence we are assured that he knew how to choose more solvent debtors. All this business that he carried on would certainly soon have made him very rich; but he had no need to take so much trouble, for while he was working so skilfully to make his fortune it came to him ready made from another quarter. He had an uncle, Q. Caecilius, who passed for the most terrible usurer of Rome, where there were so many, and who only consented to lend to his nearest relations, and as a special favour, at the rate of one per cent. per month. He was a hard, inflexible man, who had rendered himself so hateful to everybody that the people could not be prevented from outraging his corpse on the day of his funeral. Atticus was the only person who had been able to get on with him. Caecilius adopted him by will, and left him the greater part of his property, ten million sesterces, a little more than £80,000. Henceforth his fortune was made, he was independent of everybody, and free to follow his own inclinations.

But was it not to be feared, that when he was back in Rome, the resolution that he took to shun all ties would have a bad look? He could not decently pretend indifference or fear as a reason for keeping aloof from parties; he had to find a more honourable motive and one that he might proclaim; a school of philosophy furnished him with it. The Epicureans, sacrificing everything to the conveniences of life, said that it was good to abstain from public employments to avoid the worry they brought. “Do not engage in politics,” was their favourite maxim. Atticus professed to be an Epicurean; henceforth his abstention had a plausible pretext, fidelity to the opinions of his sect, and if he was blamed, the blame fell upon the whole school, which always makes the share of each individual very light. Was Atticus in reality a veritable and complete Epicurean? This is a question that the learned discuss, and that the character of this personage easily permits us to solve. To suppose that in anything whatever he attached himself scrupulously to a school, and pledged himself to be a faithful disciple of it, would be to know him ill. He had studied them all for the pleasure that this study gave to his inquisitive mind, but he was determined not to be a slave to their systems. He had found a principle in the Epicurean morals that suited him, and seized it in order to justify his political conduct. As to Epicurus himself and his doctrine, he cared very little about them, and was ready to abandon them on the first pretext. Cicero shows this very pleasantly in a passage of the De Legibus. He represents himself in this work chatting with Atticus on the banks of the Fibrenus, under the delightful shades of Arpinum. As he wishes to trace back the origin of laws to the gods, it is necessary for him first to lay down that the gods concern themselves with men, which the Epicureans denied. He turns then to his friend, and says: “Do you admit, Pomponius, that the power of the immortal gods, their reason, their wisdom, or, if you like it better, their providence, rule the universe? If you do not admit it I must begin by demonstrating it.—Well then, replies Atticus, I admit it, if you like, for thanks to these birds that are singing, and to the murmuring of these brooks, I have no fear that any of my fellow-disciples may hear me.”148 Here is a very accommodating philosopher, and the school will not get very much good from an adept who abandons it as soon as he is sure that it will not be known. The character of Atticus is here well seen. To embrace an opinion resolutely is to pledge oneself to defend it, and to expose oneself to the necessity of fighting for it. Now, philosophical quarrels, although they be not bloody, are no less desperate than others; this is war all the same, and Atticus wishes for peace in all things, at least for himself. It is amusing to examine the part that Cicero gives him in the philosophical dialogues into which he introduces him. In general he does not discuss, he incites to discussion. Inquisitive and insatiable, he asks, he interrogates continually; he compels a reply, he raises objections, he animates the combatants, and during this time he quietly enjoys the fight without ever taking part in it. We shall see, by and by, that this was exactly the part he took in politics.

Atticus remained twenty-three years away from Rome, only visiting it at long intervals and usually remaining but a very short time. When he thought that, by his long absence, he was quite free from the ties that attached him to the political parties, when he had gained independence with wealth, when he had secured himself against all the reproaches that might be made him on his conduct by giving his prudence the appearance of a philosophical conviction, he thought of returning definitively to Rome and there resuming his interrupted course of life. He chose a moment for returning when all was calm, and, as if to break entirely with his past, he came back with a new surname, by which people soon learnt to call him. This name of Atticus, which he brought back from Athens, seemed to indicate clearly that he would only live henceforth for the study of letters and the enjoyment of the arts.

From this moment he divided his time between residence in Rome and in his country houses. He quietly wound up his banking affairs, some of which were still standing over, and took measures to hide from the public the sources of his wealth. He kept only his estates in Epirus and his houses in Rome, which brought him in a good deal, and the profits of which he could acknowledge. His property continued to increase, thanks to the way in which he managed it. Besides, he had none of those weaknesses which might have endangered it; he did not care about buying or building, he did not possess any of those splendid villas at the gates of Rome or at the sea-side, the keeping up of which ruined Cicero. He still sometimes lent money, but, as it appears, rather to oblige than to enrich himself. He was careful, besides, to choose safe persons, and showed himself without pity when debts fell due. This he did, he said, in the interest of his debtors, for, in tolerating their negligence he would encourage them to ruin themselves. But he did not stand upon ceremony in dismissing those with whom his money would have run some risk, even if they were his nearest relations. Cicero, relating to him one day that their common nephew, the young Quintus, had come to him and tried to move him by the picture of his poverty, added: “I took then something of your eloquence; I answered nothing.” It was a good contrivance, and Atticus must have employed it more than once with regard to his brother-in-law and his nephew, who were always without money. He had learnt how to make for himself a high social position at small cost. He lived in his house on the Quirinal—which was more spacious and commodious within than handsome without, and which he repaired as little as possible—among the works of art that he had selected in Greece, and the lettered slaves whom he had carefully trained himself, and whom everybody envied him. He often assembled the cultivated people of Rome at feasts where there was a great display of learning. His hospitality did not cost much, if it is true, as Cornelius Nepos, who had seen his accounts, asserts, that he only spent 3000 asses (£6) a month on his table.149 Cicero, always indiscreet, relates that Atticus often served to his guests very common vegetables on very costly dishes;150 but what did it matter? every one considered himself fortunate in taking part in these select parties, where they heard Atticus talk and Cicero’s finest works read before they were published, and it may be said that all the most distinguished persons of that great period held it an honour to frequent that house on the Quirinal.

II

Of all the advantages of Atticus, one is most tempted to envy him his good fortune in attaching to himself so many friends. He took much trouble to do so. From his arrival at Rome we see him busied in putting himself on good terms with everybody, and using every means to please men of all parties. His birth, his wealth, and the manner in which he had acquired it, drew him towards the knights; these rich farmers of the taxes were his natural friends, and he soon enjoyed a great reputation among them; but he was not less connected with the patricians, usually so disdainful of all who were not of their caste. He had taken the surest means to conciliate them, which was to flatter their vanity. He took advantage of his historical knowledge to manufacture for them agreeable genealogies, in which he made himself partaker in a good many lies, and supported their most fanciful pretensions by his learning. This example shows at once his knowledge of the world, and the advantage he drew from it when he wished to gain the friendship of anybody. We can see what a close observer he must have been, and the talent that he had for seizing and profiting by the weak side of people, merely by considering the nature of the services that he rendered to each person. He had proposed to Cato to undertake the management of his affairs at Rome during his absence, and Cato hastened to accept this: a steward of such capacity was not to be despised by a man who cared so much for his wealth. He had gratified the vain Pompey, by busying himself in selecting in Greece some fine statues to ornament the theatre he was building.151 As he well knew that Caesar was not accessible to the same kind of flattery, and that, to attract him, more real services were necessary, he lent him money.152 Naturally, he attached himself by preference to the heads of parties; but he did not neglect others when he could serve them. He carefully cultivated Balbus and Theophanes, the confidants of Caesar and Pompey; he even went sometimes to visit Clodius and his sister Clodia, as well as other people of doubtful reputation. Having neither rigid scruples like Cato, nor violent aversions like Cicero, he accommodated himself to everybody; his good-nature lent itself to everything; he suited all ages as well as all characters. Cornelius Nepos remarks with admiration, that while yet very young he charmed the old Sulla, and that when very old he could please the young Brutus. Atticus formed a common link between all these men who were so different in temper, rank, opinions, and age. He went continually from one to the other, as a sort of pacific ambassador, trying to bring them together and unite them, for it was his habit, says Cicero, to form friendships between others.153 He removed the suspicions and prejudices which prevented them knowing one another; he inspired them with the desire to see each other and become intimate, and if, later, any differences arose between them, he became their intermediary, and brought about explanations which made them friends again. His masterpiece in this line is to have succeeded in reconciling Hortensius and Cicero, and making them live amicably together notwithstanding the violent jealousy that separated them. What trouble must he not have had to calm their irritable vanity, which was always ready to fly out, and which fate seemed to take pleasure in exciting still more, by putting them in constant rivalry!

All these acquaintanceships of Atticus were certainly not real friendships. He visited many of these personages only for the advantage that his safety or his wealth might draw from them; but there are a great number of others who were really his friends. To confine ourselves to the most important, Cicero loved no one so much as he did him; Brutus showed him an unreserved confidence to the last, and on the eve of Philippi wrote him his last confidences. There remain too many striking proofs of these two illustrious friendships for them to be called in question, and we must admit that he was able to inspire a lively affection in two of the noblest minds of that time. At first we are very much surprised at this. His prudent reserve, that openly avowed determination to keep clear of all entanglements in order to escape all danger, ought, as it seems, to have kept aloof from him men of conviction who sacrificed fortune and life for their opinions. By what merit was he nevertheless able to attach them to himself? How was a man so taken up with himself and so careful of his interests able to enjoy so fully the pleasures of friendship, which seem at first sight, to exact devotedness and self-forgetfulness? How did he succeed in making the moralists, who assert that egotism is the death of true affection, belie themselves?154

This is still one of those problems of which the life of Atticus is full, and it is the most difficult to solve. Seen from a distance, even through the praises of Cicero, Atticus does not seem attractive, and one would not be tempted to choose him for a friend. And yet it is certain that those who lived with him did not judge him as we do. They loved him, and felt themselves from the first inclined to love him. That general good-will that he inspired, that determination of every one to pardon or not to see his defects, those lively friendships that he called forth, are evidences that it is impossible to resist, whatever surprise they may cause us. There was, then, about this personage something else than we see; he must have possessed a kind of attraction that is inexplicable to us, which was personal to him, and which has disappeared with him. For this reason it is no longer possible for us to understand thoroughly that strange attraction that he exercised at first sight on all his contemporaries. We can, however, form some idea of it, and the writers who knew him, especially Cicero, give a glimpse of some of those brilliant or solid qualities by which he gained over those who approached him. I shall enumerate them according to their testimony, and if they still do not seem sufficient to justify altogether the number of his friendships and their ardour, we must join to them in thought that personal charm that it is impossible now to define or recover because it vanished with himself.

Firstly, he had a good deal of cultivation, everybody agrees about that, and a sort of cultivation especially agreeable to the society that he frequented. He was not solely one of those pleasant triflers who charm for a moment on a passing acquaintance, but who have not the qualifications for a longer connection. He was a person of many attainments and solid knowledge; not that he was a man of deep learning, this title is not a great recommendation in the intercourse of society; Cicero thought that people like Varro, who are perfect mines of knowledge, are not always amusing, and relates that when the latter came to see him at Tusculum he did not tear his mantle in trying to retain him.155 But, without being really a scholar, Atticus had touched on everything in his studies, the fine arts, poetry, grammar, philosophy, and history. Upon all these subjects he possessed just and sometimes original ideas; he could discuss matters with learned men without too great disadvantage, and he always had some curious detail to tell those who were not so. Pascal would have called him a cultivated gentleman (honnête homme); in everything he was an intelligent and enlightened amateur. Now, for several reasons, the knowledge that an amateur acquires is of the kind most current in society. Firstly, as he does not study according to rule, he interests himself above all in curiosities; he learns by preference racy and novel details, and it is precisely these that people of society want to know. Besides, the very multiplicity of the studies which tempt him, prevents him exhausting any; his caprice always carries him off elsewhere before he has thoroughly examined anything. The result is that he knows a great many things, and always within the limits in which it pleases men of the world to know them. In fact, the characteristic of the amateur is to do everything, even what he only does for a moment, with enthusiasm. As it is a personal taste that draws him to his studies, and as he only continues them as long as they interest him, his language is more lively when he speaks of them, his tone freer and more original, and consequently more agreeable, than that of scholars by profession. Such is the notion we must form of the learning of Atticus. It was too extensive for his conversation ever to become monotonous; it was not deep enough to run the risk of being tedious; it was, in fine, living, for when things are done with enthusiasm it is natural to speak of them with interest. This is what made his conversation so attractive, and this is how he charmed the most fastidious and least favourably disposed minds. He was still quite young when the aged Sulla, who had no reason to like him, met him at Athens. He took so much pleasure in hearing him read Greek and Latin verses and talk about literature, that he would not leave him, and wished by all means to take him back with him to Rome. Long after, Augustus felt the same charm; he was never tired of hearing Atticus talk, and when he could not go to see him, he wrote to him every day simply to receive his answers, and thus to continue, in some sort, those long conversations with which he was so delighted.

We can imagine, then, that the first time people met this accomplished man they felt themselves drawn towards him by the charm of his conversation. In proportion as he was better known, other and more solid qualities were discovered, which retained those whom his culture had attracted. In the first place there was a great security in his intercourse. Although he was connected with people holding very diverse opinions, and though, through them, he had the secrets of all parties, he was never reproached with having betrayed these to anybody. We cannot see that he ever furnished a serious cause to any of his friends to keep aloof from him, or that any of his connections were broken otherwise than by death. This intercourse, so secure, was at the same time very easy. No one was ever more indulgent and accommodating. He took care not to weary by his demands or to repulse by bluntness. Those storms which so often troubled the friendship of Cicero and Brutus were not to be feared in his. It was rather one of those calm and uniform intimacies which grow stronger from day to day by their regular continuance. It was this especially that must have charmed those politicians who were oppressed and fatigued by that bustling activity which used up their lives. On coming out of this whirlwind of business, they were happy to find, at a few paces from the Forum, that peaceful house on the Quirinal into which outside quarrels did not enter, and to go and chat for a moment with that even-tempered and accomplished man who always received them with the same smile, and in whose good-will they had such a tranquil confidence.

But nothing, assuredly, could have won him so many friends as his readiness to oblige them. This was inexhaustible, and it could not be asserted that it was interested, since, contrary to custom, he gave much and demanded nothing. Here again is one of the reasons why his friendships were so lasting, for it is always this sort of interchange that we think we have a right to demand, and the comparisons that we make, in spite of ourselves, between good offices which we render and those which we receive, which in the end disturb the most firm friendships. Atticus, who knew this well, had so contrived as to have need of nobody. He was rich, he never had law-suits, he did not seek public employments, so that a friend who was determined to recompense the services he had received could never find the opportunity,156 and remained always under obligations to him, and his debt continued to increase, for Atticus never wearied of being useful. We have an easy means of appreciating the extent of this serviceableness, to see it close, and, so to say at work, namely, to rapidly recall the services of all sorts that he had rendered Cicero during their long intimacy. Cicero had much need of a friend like Atticus. He was one of those clever men who cannot reckon; when his account-books were presented to him he would gladly have said, like his pupil, Pliny the Younger, that he was used to another sort of literature: aliis sum chartis, aliis litteris initiatus. Atticus became his man of business; we know his talent for this profession. He leased Cicero’s property very dear, saved as much as he could out of the income and paid the most pressing debts. When he discovered new ones, he dared to scold his friend, who hastened to reply very humbly that he would be more careful for the future. Atticus, who did not much believe this, set to work to make up the deficit. He went to see the wealthy Balbus or the other great bankers of Rome with whom he had business relations. If the calamities of the times made it difficult to get credit, he did not hesitate to dip into his own purse. Those who know him will not think this generosity without merit. When Cicero wished to buy some estate, Atticus at first would get angry; but if his friend did not give way, he quickly went to visit it and discuss the price. If it was a question of building some elegant villa, Atticus lent his architect, corrected the plans, and overlooked the work. When the house was built, it had to be adorned, and Atticus would send to Greece for statues. He excelled in selecting them, and Cicero was inexhaustible in his praises of the Hermathenae in Pentelican marble that he had procured for him. In a villa of Cicero, we can well understand that the library was not forgotten, and it was from Atticus again that the books came. He traded in them, and kept the handsomest for his friend. The books being bought, it was necessary to arrange them, so Atticus sent his librarian Tyrannion with his workmen, who painted the shelves, pasted together the detached leaves of papyrus, put the labels on the rolls, and arranged the whole in such good order that Cicero, enchanted, wrote: “Since Tyrannion has arranged my books one would say that the house has a soul.”157

But Atticus did not stop at these services, which we might call external; he penetrated into the home, he knew all its secrets. Cicero kept nothing from him, and confided to him unreservedly all his domestic griefs. He tells him about the violent temper of his brother and the follies of his nephew; he consults him on the vexations that his wife and son cause him. When Tullia was of an age to marry, it was Atticus who sought her a husband. The one he proposed was the son of a rich and well-conducted knight. “Return,” he said sagely to Cicero, “return to your old flock.” Unfortunately he was not listened to. They preferred to the rich financier a broken-down nobleman, who squandered Tullia’s dowry and forced her to leave him. When Tullia was dead, of grief perhaps, Atticus went to the nurse’s to visit the little child she had left, and took care that it wanted for nothing. At the same time Cicero gave him plenty of occupation with his two divorces. After he had divorced his first wife, Terentia, it was Atticus whom he charged to get her to make a will in his favour. It was to him also that he gave the disagreeable commission to remove the second, Publilia, when she was determined to forcibly re-enter the home of her husband, who would have nothing more to do with her.

These are doubtless great services; he rendered others still more delicate, still more appreciated. It was to him that Cicero entrusted what was most dear to him in the world, his literary glory. He communicated his works to him as soon as he had written them, he took his advice in making corrections, and waited for his decision to publish them. Thus he treated him as a friend with whom one feels at home, and to whom one unbosoms oneself completely. Although he was eager that his eloquence should be taken seriously, when he was sure of being heard by Atticus only, he made no scruple of joking about himself and his works. He introduced him without reserve to all the secrets of the craft, and showed him the receipts for his most popular effects. “This time, said he gaily, I employed the whole scent-box of Isocrates, and all the caskets of the disciples.”158 Nothing can be more curious than the way in which he related to him one day, one of his greatest oratorical successes. It was a question of celebrating the fame of the great consulship, a subject upon which, as we know, he was inexhaustible. That day he had a reason for speaking with more brilliancy than usual. Pompey was present; now Pompey had the weakness to be jealous of Cicero’s glory. It was a good opportunity to enrage him, and Cicero took care not to neglect it. “When my turn came to speak, he writes to Atticus, immortal gods! what rein I gave myself! What pleasure I took in loading myself with praises in the presence of Pompey, who had never heard me extol my consulship! If I ever called to my aid periods, enthymemes, metaphors, and all the other figures of rhetoric, it was then. I did not speak, I shouted, for it was a question of my stock subjects, the wisdom of the senate, the good-will of the knights, the union of all Italy, the smothered remains of the conspiracy, peace and plenty re-established, etc. You know my thunders when I speak of these subjects. They were so fine that day that I have no need to tell you more about them; you may often have heard the like at Athens!”159 It is impossible to quiz oneself with greater lightheartedness. Atticus repaid these confidences by the trouble he took for the success of his friend’s works. As he had seen their birth, and had busied himself with them before they were known to the public, he almost regarded himself as their parent. It was he who took upon himself to start them in the world and make them succeed. Cicero says that he was admirably well skilled in this, and it does not surprise us. The means he most frequently employed to create a good opinion of them, was to have the finest passages read by his best readers to the clever men whom he assembled round his table. Cicero, who knew the usual frugality of his repasts, begged him to deviate from it a little on these occasions. “Have a care, he writes to him, to treat your guests well, for if they are in a bad humour with you, they will vent it on me.”160 It was natural that Cicero should be extremely grateful for all these services; but it would be judging him ill to suppose that he was only attached to him for the benefits he received from him. He really loved him, and all his letters are full of evidences of the most sincere affection. He was always happy with him; he was never tired of associating with him; he had scarcely left him than he ardently wished to see him again. “May I die, he wrote to him, if either my house at Tusculum, where I feel so comfortable, or the Isles of the Blest could please me without you!”161 Whatever pleasure he experienced at being fêted, applauded, flattered, at having around him an obsequious and admiring multitude, in the midst of this crowd and noise he always turned with regret towards his absent friend. “With all these people, he tells him, I feel myself more alone than if I had only you.”162 All these people, in fact, are composed of political friends who change with circumstances, whom a common interest brings to you, and a rival ambition takes away again; with them Cicero is obliged to be reserved and careful, which is a torture for such an open-hearted nature. On the other hand, he can tell Atticus everything, and confide in him without restraint. So he hastens to demand his presence when the least annoyance happens to him. “I want you, he writes to him, I have need of you, I am waiting for you. I have a thousand things that disturb and vex me, and a single walk with you will relieve me.”163 We should never end if we were to collect all those charming expressions of which the correspondence is full, and in which his heart plainly speaks. They leave no doubt about Cicero’s feelings; they prove that he regarded Atticus not only as one of those steadfast and serious friends on whose support he could count, but also, which is more surprising, as a sensitive and tender soul: “You take your share,” he tells him, “in all the troubles of others.”164

Here is something far removed from the notion we usually have of him, and yet we cannot resist such clear testimony. How can we contend that he had only a doubtful affection for his friends when we see all his friends contented with it? Are we to be more exacting than they, and would it not be wronging men like Brutus and Cicero to suppose that they had been dupes so long without perceiving it? On the other hand, how can we explain the fact that posterity, which only judges by the documents that the friends of Atticus have furnished it, draws from these very documents an opinion quite the reverse of that held by them? Evidently it is because posterity and contemporaries do not judge men from the same stand-point. We have seen that Atticus, who had made a rule not to engage in public affairs, did not think himself obliged to partake the dangers that his friends might run, through having taken part in them. He left them both the honours and the perils. Sensitive, obliging, devoted to them in the ordinary business of life, when a great political crisis occurred that compromised them, he stood aside, and left them to expose themselves alone. Now, when we look at the facts from a distance, and are separated from them, as we are, by several centuries, we only perceive the most important events, and especially the political revolutions, that is to say, precisely those circumstances with which the friendship of Atticus had nothing to do. Hence the severe judgment we pronounce upon it. But his contemporaries judged otherwise. Those great crises are, after all, but rare and passing exceptions; without doubt contemporaries are much struck by them, but they are still more impressed by those numberless small incidents which make up every-day life, and which posterity does not perceive. They judge of a man’s friendship by those services which are rendered every moment, and which are important by their mere number, much more than by any exceptional service which may be given on one of these great and rare occasions. This accounts for the fact that they had an opinion of Atticus so different from ours.

It is, beyond doubt, one of the characteristic traits of this person, that it was a necessity to him to have many friends, and that he took trouble to attract and retain them. We may refuse to admit, if we will, that this need was, with him, the effect of a generous and sympathetic nature, that it came from what Cicero admirably calls “the impulse of the soul that desires to love;” but, even supposing that he only thought of occupying and filling up his life, we must acknowledge that to fill it up in this manner is not a mark of a vulgar nature. This refined Epicurean, this master in the art of living at ease, knew “that life is no longer life if we cannot repose on the affection of a friend.”165 He had given up the excitement of political strife, the triumphs of eloquence, the joys of satisfied ambition, but, as a compensation, he was determined to enjoy all the pleasures of private life. The more he confined and limited himself to it, the more particular and refined he became with regard to the pleasures it could give; as he had only left himself these, he wished to enjoy them fully, to relish them, to live on them. He needed friends, and among them the greatest minds, the noblest souls of his time. He expended all that energy which he did not employ in anything else, in procuring for himself those pleasures of society that Bossuet calls the greatest good of human life. Atticus enjoyed this good even beyond his desires, and friendship generously repaid him for all the trouble he had taken for it. It was his single passion; he was able to satisfy it completely, and friendship, after having adorned his life, has shed a lustre on his name.

III

Atticus appears in a favourable light in private life. He is less fortunate when we study the course he followed in public affairs. On this point he has not been spared blame, and it is not easy to defend him.

We should not however be very unfavourable to him if we judged his conduct entirely according to the ideas of our days. Opinion has become less severe now on those who openly make profession of living apart from politics. So many men aspire to govern their country, and it has become so difficult to make choice among this multitude, that we are tempted to look kindly upon those who have not this ambition. Far from being blamed, they are called moderate and wise; they form an exception which is encouraged in order to lessen the number of aspirants. At Rome they thought otherwise, and it is not difficult to find reasons for this difference. There, what we may call the political body was in reality very circumscribed. Besides the slaves, who did not count, and the common people, who contented themselves with giving or rather selling their votes in the elections, and whose greatest privilege it was to be entertained at the expense of the candidates, and fed at the expense of the public treasury, there remained only a few families of ancient lineage or more recent celebrity who divided all public employments among themselves. The aristocracy of birth and of fortune was not very numerous, and scarcely sufficed to furnish the required number of officials of all sorts to govern the world. It was necessary therefore that no one should refuse to take his part, and to live in retirement was considered a desertion. It is not the same in our democracy. As all offices are open to everybody, and as, thanks to the diffusion of education, men worthy to occupy them may arise in all ranks, we need no longer fear lest the absence of a few quiet people, friends of peace and repose, will make a sensible and regrettable gap in the serried ranks of those who struggle from all quarters for power. Moreover, we think now that there are many other ways of serving one’s country besides public life. Romans of high birth knew no other; they looked upon commerce as a not very honourable means166 that a private man might employ to make his fortune, and did not see what the state might gain by it; literature seemed an agreeable but trivial pastime, and they did not understand its social importance. It follows that among them, a man of a certain rank could only find one honourable mode of employing his activity and being useful to his country, namely, to fill political offices.167 To do anything else was, according to their ideas, to do nothing; they gave the name of idlers to the most laborious scholars, and it did not come into their heads that there was anything worth the trouble of occupying a citizen’s time beyond the service of the state. All the ancient Romans thought thus, and they would have experienced a strange surprise if they had seen any one claim the right, as Atticus did, not to serve his country within the limits of his powers and talents. Assuredly Cato, who never rested, and who, at ninety years of age, bravely quitted his villa at Tusculum to go and accuse Servius Galba, the butcher of the Lusitanians, would have thought that to remain in his house on the Quirinal, or on his estate in Epirus in the midst of his books and statues, while the fate of Rome was being decided in the Forum or at Pharsalia, was to commit the same crime as to remain in his tent on the day of battle.

This systematic abstention of Atticus was not, then, a Roman custom; he had it from the Greeks. In those small ungovernable republics of Greece, where they knew no repose, and which passed constantly and without warning from the sternest tyranny to the most unbridled licence, we can understand that quiet and studious men should have grown weary of all this sterile agitation, and ceased to desire public employments which were only obtained by flattering the capricious multitude, and only kept on condition of obeying it. Moreover, what value could this power, so hardly acquired, so seldom preserved, have, when it was necessary to share it with the most obscure demagogues? was it really worth while to take so much trouble in order to become the successor or the colleague of Cleon? At the same time that weariness and disgust kept honourable men aloof from these paltry struggles, philosophy, more studied every day, communicated to its disciples a sort of pride which led them to the same result. Men who passed their time in meditating upon God and the world, and who endeavoured to understand the laws that govern the universe, did not deign to descend from these heights to govern states a few leagues square. Thus they constantly discussed in the schools, whether a man should occupy himself with public affairs, whether the sage ought to seek public office, and whether the active or the contemplative life was the better. A few philosophers hesitatingly gave the preference to active life, the greater number sustained the opposite opinion, and under cover of these discussions many men thought themselves authorized to create a sort of elegant indolence in voluptuous retreats embellished by letters and the arts, where they lived happily while Greece was perishing.

Atticus followed their example. Importing this custom from Greece into Rome, he openly announced his resolution not to take part in political discussions. He began by adroitly keeping aloof during all those quarrels that continually agitated Rome from the time of Cicero’s consulship to the civil wars. At the very moment when these struggles were most active he frequented all parties, he had friends on all sides, and found in these widespread friendships a new pretext for remaining neutral. Atticus was more than sixty years old when Caesar passed the Rubicon, an age when the obligation of military service ceased among the Romans. This was another reason for remaining quiet, and he did not fail to use it. “I have taken my discharge,”168 he replied to those who wished to enrol him. He held the same course, and with the same success, after the death of Caesar; but he then disappointed public opinion still more. He was so well known to be the friend of Brutus that it was thought he would not hesitate to take his side this time. Cicero himself, who ought to have known him, reckoned upon it; but Atticus was not inconsistent with himself, and took advantage of an important occasion to let the public know that he would not be drawn in against his will. While Brutus was raising an army in Greece, some knights, his friends, started the idea of raising a subscription among the richest men of Rome to give him the means of maintaining his soldiers. They applied at first to Atticus, whose name they wished to put at the head of the list. Atticus bluntly refused to subscribe. He answered that his fortune was at the service of Brutus, if he had need of it, and asked him as a friend, but he declared at the same time that he would take no part in a political manifestation, and his refusal caused the failure of the subscription. At the same time, true to his habit of flattering all parties, he welcomed Fulvia, Antony’s wife, as well as Volumnius the superintendent of his workmen, and, sure of having friends everywhere, he waited for the result of the struggle without much fear.

The strangest thing is that this man, while so persistent in remaining neutral, was not indifferent. His biographer gives him this praise, that he always belonged to the best party,169 and that is true; only he made it a rule not to serve his party; he was contented with giving it his good wishes. But these good wishes were the warmest imaginable. He had, though we should scarcely believe it, political passions which he dared to express in private with incredible vigour. He hated Caesar so much that he went as far as to blame Brutus for having permitted his interment.170 He would have wished, no doubt, as the most furious demanded, that his corpse should be thrown into the Tiber. Thus he did not abstain from having preferences, and showing them to his most intimate friends. His reserve only began when it was necessary to act. He never consented to take part in the struggle; but if he did not share its danger he felt at least all its excitement. We smile at seeing him become animated and excited as if he were a real combatant; he takes his share in all successes and all reverses, he congratulates the energetic, he entreats the lukewarm, and even scolds the faltering, and permits himself to advise and reprimand those who seem to him, who did not act at all, to act too languidly. It is amusing to hear the reproaches he addresses to Cicero when he sees him hesitating to go and join Pompey; he adopts the most pathetic tone, he reminds him of his actions and his words, he entreats him in the name of his glory, he quotes his own words to him to persuade him.171 This excess of audacity into which he allows himself to be drawn for others, sometimes produces rather comic incidents. At the moment when Pompey had just shut himself up in Brundusium, Atticus, moved by the most lively grief, wished for some attempts to be made to save him, and went so far as to ask Cicero to do some striking action before leaving. “It only requires a banner,” said he, “every one will flock to it.”172 The worthy Cicero felt himself quite excited by these lively exhortations of his friend, and there were times when he was tempted to be bold, and when he only demanded the opportunity to strike a heavy blow. The opportunity came, and he relates in the following words how he took advantage of it. “As I arrived at my house at Pompeii, your friend Ninnius came to tell me that the centurions of three cohorts who were there, asked to see me the next day, as they wished to deliver up the place to me. Do you know what I did? I went away before daylight in order not to see them. What are, in fact, three cohorts? And if there had been more, what should I have done with them?”173 This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows himself well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in the ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are with good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a little that part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking part, up to a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise man of Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he tranquilly enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human conflicts; but he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that he feels is diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and understands his pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight itself, he sees it close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he will retire in time.

The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most anxious to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in which he reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon him than that of Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days, great praise has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the beginning of the civil war: “He who is not against me is for me,” and the contrary saying of Pompey has been much blamed: “He who is not for me is against me.” However, looking at things fairly, this praise and this blame appear equally unreasonable. Each of the two rivals, when he expressed himself thus, speaks in character, and their words were suggested by their position. Caesar, however we may judge him, came to overturn the established order, and he naturally was grateful to those who gave him a free hand. What more could he reasonably ask of them? In reality, those who did not hinder him served him. But lawful order, established order, considers it has the right to call upon every one to defend it, and to regard as enemies all who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a generally recognized principle that he who does not bring help to the law when openly attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of those who violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at Rome, should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as it was also that those in Pompey’s camp should be very much irritated against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he let them talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not console themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to avenge themselves on those who had remained. What did these menaces matter to him? He was sure that he had preserved the esteem of the two most important and most respected men of the party, and he could oppose their testimony to all the indignation of the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the strength of their convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and they appear to have approved of his not taking part in public affairs. “I know the honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said Cicero to him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend himself; there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we have arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made you seek an honourable leisure!”174 Again, Brutus wrote to him towards the end of his life: “I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your age, your character, your family, everything makes you love repose.”175

This good-will on the part of Brutus and Cicero is so much the more surprising, as they knew very well the mischief such an example might do to the cause that they defended. The republic did not perish by the audacity of its enemies alone, but also by the apathy of its partisans. The sad spectacle it offered for fifty years, the public sale of dignities, the scandalous violence that took place on the Forum every time a new law was discussed, the battles that at each new election stained the Campus Martius with blood, those armies of gladiators needed for self-defence, all those shameful disorders, all those base intrigues in which the last strength of Rome was used up, had completely discouraged honest men. They held aloof from public life; they had no more relish for power since they were forced to dispute it with men ready for every violence. It required Cato’s courage to return to the Forum after having been received with showers of stones, and having come out with torn robe and bleeding head. Thus, the more the audacious attempted, the more the timid let them alone, and from the time of the first triumvirate and the consulship of Bibulus, it was evident that the apathy of honest men would deliver the republic over to the ambitious nobles who desired to dominate it. Cicero saw this clearly, and in his letters never ceases his bitter railleries against those indolent rich men, doting on their fish-ponds, who consoled themselves for the ruin that they foresaw by thinking that they would save at least their lampreys. In the introduction to the De Republica he attacks with admirable energy those who, being discouraged themselves, try to discourage others, who maintain that a man has the right to withhold his services from his country, and to consult his own welfare while neglecting that of his country. “Let us not listen,” says he in finishing, “to that signal for retreat that sounds in our ears, and would recall those who have already gone to the front.”176 Brutus also knew the evil of which the republic was dying, and complained more than once of the weakness and discouragement of the Romans. “Believe me,” he wrote, “we are too much afraid of exile, death, and poverty.”177 It was Atticus to whom he wrote these noble words, and yet he does not dream of applying them to him! What strange charm then did this man possess, what influence did his friendship exercise, that these two great patriots have thus belied themselves in his favour, and have so freely pardoned in him what they condemned in others?

The more we think of it, the less can we imagine the reasons he could give them to justify his conduct. If he had been one of those scholars who, wedded to their researches in history or philosophy, only dwell in the past or the future, and are not really the contemporaries of the people with whom they live, we might have understood his not taking part in their struggles since he held himself aloof from their passions; but we know that, on the contrary, he had the most lively relish for all the small agitations and obscure intrigues of the politics of his time. He was anxious to know them, he excelled in unravelling them, this was the regular food of his inquisitive mind, and Cicero applied to him by choice when he wished to know about such matters. He was not one of those gentle and timid souls, made for reflection and solitude, who have not the energy necessary for active life. This man of business, of clear and decided judgment, would, on the contrary, have made an excellent statesman. To be useful to his country he would only have needed to employ in its service a little of that activity and intelligence he had used to enrich himself, and Cicero was right in thinking that he had the political temperament. And, finally, he had not even left himself the poor resource of pretending that he sided with no party because all parties were indifferent to him, and that, having no settled opinions, he did not know which side to take. He had said the contrary a hundred times in his letters to Cicero and Brutus; he had charmed them a hundred times by the ardour of his republican zeal, and yet he remained quiet when the opportunity came of serving this government to which he said he was so much attached. Instead of making a single effort to retard its fall, he was only careful not to be crushed under its ruins. But if he did not try to defend it, did he, at least, pay it that last respect of appearing to regret it? Did he show in any way that, although he had not appeared in the combat, he felt that he shared in the defeat? Did he know, while he grew old under a power to which he was forced to submit, how to retire in a dignified sadness which forces respect even from a conqueror? No, and it is assuredly this that is most repugnant to us in his life; he showed an unpleasant eagerness to accommodate himself to the new order of things. The day after he had himself been proscribed, we see him become the friend of the proscribers. He lavishes all the charms of his mind on them, assiduously frequents their houses, attends all their fêtes. However habituated we may be to see him welcome all triumphant governments, we cannot get used to the notion that the friend of Brutus and the confidant of Cicero should become so quickly the familiar of Antony and Octavius. Those most disposed to indulgence will certainly think that those illustrious friendships created duties which he did not fulfil, and that it was a treason to the memory of these men who had honoured him with their friendship, to choose just their executioners as their successors.

If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him as Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in the naïve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This indulgent biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with the happy chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot get over his surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus, withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so many proscriptions, and preserve himself so skilfully where so many others perished. “If we overwhelm with praises,” says he, “the pilot who saves his vessel from the rocks and tempests, ought we not to consider admirable the prudence of a man who in the midst of those violent political storms succeeded in saving himself?”178 Admiration is here too strong a word. We keep that for those courageous men who made their actions agree with their principles, and who knew how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill success does not injure them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of Atticus may say, there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is drawn than from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly deserves is that which his biographer gives him with so much complacency, namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but we know that there are other forms of praise which are of more value than this.