Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/841

CICERO. 741 CICERO. followed the death of Caesar, Cicero hesitated and temporized and so niiscaloulated the attitude and the intentions of the eonllictinf; parlios that, in the end, both of theui conceived for him an emnity mingled with contempt. In his oratory, Cicero represents a mean he- tween the Attic sim])licity of Demosthenes and the so-called 'Asiatic' Horidity of his own for- mer rival, Hortensius. Ancient rhetoricians clas- sified him as belonjjintf to the Khodian school of eloquence, lie had, indeed, all the gifts of na- ture and of training which go to make the per- fect orator — an impressionable nature, a vivid imagination, and a mastery of language such as has never been surpassed. The one defect in Cicero's oratory is the defect that has been al- ready noted in his character, and which may be defined as a lack of sincerity, of genuine con- viction, of the ring of trutli. This strain of insincerity makes him almost always seem to be the special pleader who praises or denounces, as the case may be, more from a certain sympathetic facility for working up a temporary interest in almost any cause, than from the impelling force of a master mind which takes its stand upon the rock of principle, from which neither self-interest nor flattery nor danger can shake it free. Hence there is nothing in all Cicero's oratorical effort worthy to be set beside the one sublime master- piece of Demosthenes without api)earing by com- parison light and hollow and almost trivial. 'This defect, however, is wholly moral and psycho- logical. On the linguistic side, and viewed sim- ply as a master of language, it is impossil)le to" set Cicero's rank too liigli. The perfect har- mony of his periods, the exquisite choice of his words, the delicate balance of his cadences, whose sound keeps up an ever running accompaniment to sense, and the majestic roll of his wonderful perorations are absolutely without counterpart in Creek, or English, or any other langxiage whatsoever, and they make reasonable and true the judgment of Quintilian, that "Cicero is now less the name of a man than of eloquence itself." As a man of letters, Cicero has also left to posterity a mighty name. He created a prose style which for richness and refinement has never been surpassed, and which became at once the standard by which all other I^atin prose is now tested and compared. He added, indeed, very largely to the vocabulary of liis own language, giving currency to striking and picturesque words and phrases which had hitlicrto not entered into the diction of formal literature, but which were exceedingly expressive, and needed only the authority of a genius like Cicero to gain univer- sal currency. Likewise, when necessary. an<l es- pecially when paraphrasing in Latin the philo- sophical writings of the Greeks, he struck out new words to express new ideas. :ind these newly minted words were so thoroughly in a<'Cordanee with the analogies of the Latin language as to be at once accepted and ap|iroveil. Cicero was a facile writer, and he dealt with many subjects in many departments of iiiti-llectual interest. Nearly all of his philosophical books were bor- rowed almost wholly from Creek sources and are therefore entirely unoriginal in matter: but the manner is most attractive and has a lucidity and grace such as the Creek philosophical writers seldom attained. His rhetorical works, written in the dialogue form, are of great value, first as being the production of one who was liimself an accomplished rhetorician, and in the second place for the richness of the historical material which Cicero scattered tlirough theni with a lav- i;-h hand, .iiiong the niiiior works of Cicero two, a treatise on old age {Dc Hrncctittc) and one on friendsliip (Dc Amicitia) have always lieeii admired, both for their exquisite cliarm of style and for their urbane and cultivated tone. Highly important among the Ciceronian re- mains are four collections of letters written by Cicero to various acquaintances and friends, and numbering in all 771 pieces. These letters were not collected by Cicero himself, nor did lie ever intend that they should bo published. They rep- resent, therefore, an unstudied, unconscious, spontaneous self-revelation of their author, and they are, liesides, an inexhaustible treasure-house of information, often of a very intimate charac- ter, concerning Cicero's contemporaries and the political history of his time. This correspond- ence was preserved and edited by Cicero's anianu- cnsis. Tullius Tiro, and also in part by Cicero's familiar friend, Pomponius Atticiis, to whom very many of the letters were addressed. CiceTO likewise, in his early years, composed poetry, little of which has survived and none of which was favorably criticised by his own countrymen. The extant orations of Cicero are fifty-seven in number, of which the most famous are the four against Catiline, the fourteen so-called Philippics against Antony, the oration on behalf of Archias, and two legal orations, one on behalf of L, Mu- rena and the other on behalf of Marcus Ca'lius, It should be remembered always in reading these orations that they do not represent the actual form in which they were delivered, Init that Cicero edited them freely, as Webster edited his famous speech in reply to Hayiie. Some of the Ciceronian orations, in fact, were not deliv- ered at all, and this was especially the case with most of the Philippics, which were in reality political tracts or pamphlets. Of the speeches which have been mentioned above, the first ora- tion against Catiline is the most highh" wrought and splendidly rhetorical ; the one in behalf of Archias is the most graceful, easy, and refined; the two legal orations are the neatest and wit- tiest; v.-hi!e the second Philippic is the most elab- orately violent in the severity and at times the coarseness of its denunciation. The best complete text edition of Cicero's works is that of Miiller (Leipzig, 1878). The best edition of the letters with a coiiimeiilary is that of Tyrrell and Purser (0 vols., Lomloii. iS8.5-!)n). The letters are translated by Shuckliurgli (Lon- don. 1st)!)), There are no good translations into English of the rest of Cicero's works. There is a German lexicon to the philosophical writings ( 18'.)5) and to the orations ( 1884), both by Mer- guet. For an account of Cicero's career, see Mid- dleton, Lifr of Cicero- (London, 1741), very old- fashioned and extreme: Forsyth, Life of Cicero (London, 1804) : Davidson, Life of Cicero (New York, 1804); and Boissier, Cici'ron il xrs amis (.5th ed.. Paris, 189.')). An uncritical but inter- esting book is Trollope, Life of Cicero (New York, 1880). For an unfavorable view of Cicero, see Mommsen, Ilistorij of Rome, vol. iv. (New- York, 1880), while the strongest plea for Cicero is that of Gerlach (Basel, 1804). On Cicero as a |)liiIoso])Iier. consult Levin. Lectures on the Philoxoiihi) of Cicero (Cambridge, 1871) ; on his Ieg:il merits, Gasquy, Ciciron jurisconsuUe