I took a break from the news and
listened to an audiobook that was written nearly 200 years ago about a major
public figure from 2,000 years ago. It is about a politician who had been
openly hostile to Julius Caesar’s imperialist ambitions, but who had to tone
down after Caesar took over the country. After Caesar’s assassination, the
politician championed, through writings, a return to republican principles and
ran a smear campaign against the new top strongman, Mark Anthony. Despite the
effort, within three years the republic was finished and in its place was the
colonialist, imperialist, Roman Empire.
Cicero by W Lucas Collins.
Cicero by W Lucas Collins was a
good book to read during this intense lead-up to the 2020 USA Presidential
elections. I had already read two books providing insight into the Trump
presidency and every now and then catch up on Brexit, the tension between India
and China; Taiwan and China, and global responses to the impact of COVID-19. I
have also been brought into awareness of the separate interests of persons who
affiliate themselves with the ADOS and FBA movements (American Descendants of
Slavery and Foundational Black Americans) versus the general POC grouping,
Person of Colour, which includes dark skinned people from the Caribbean like
myself.
The book has helped me to pull
away from current affairs for awhile and return with a longer range viewpoint.
I have not overlooked that Marcus
Tullius Cicero started his professional life as an advocate in about 90BC, and
that Collins was an academic and Anglican clergyman who started his
professional life in 1840.
The appeal of this work is that
Cicero’s writing gives us a look into the mind of a leading political actor
during a tumultuous time in human history and Collins was able to explain,
summarise and put the historical text into context for an era closer to my own.
Cicero wrote about 2,310 years ago, and this book was published 180 years ago.
Cicero is worthy of reading as not
only does he add to earlier ideas of personal duty and role of the state, but
he was a wordsmith who excelled in rhetoric. Collins repeats that English
translations do not carry the beauty of the poetry and literary prose of the
languages Cicero used, which is Greek and Latin; I have to accept, take note
and move on.
During Cicero's time it was,
according to Collins, the culture of Romans that their primary fidelity was to
the state, then to their families, friends and other associations. Cicero
himself wrote that every stage of life has its duty. Collins quotes from
Treatise on Moral Duties, which was written with Cicero’s son in mind, "As
justice consists in no abstract theory, but in upholding society among men, ---
as "greatness of soul itself, if it be isolated from the duties of social
life, is but a kind of uncouth churlishness" --- so it is each citizen's
duty to leave his philosophic seclusion of a cloister, and take his place in
public life, if the times demand it..."
The book notes that the political
culture of Ancient Rome was influenced by an earlier Greek culture, but in
significant ways, departed from it. Collins notes of Cicero, “What he loved in
the Greeks, then, was rather the grandeur of their literature and the charm of
their social qualities… he had no respect whatever for their national character.”
Views are that Cicero appropriated statuary as furniture and was not a true
lover of art. These glimpses into Cicero’s character is entirely racist and
still too common throughout cultures; societies like the music and dance and
food of one set of people, but not the company of the people; this bigotry has
passed into our own time.
On the matter of democracy and the
concept of one citizen, one vote, Cicero lived through dramatic changes. His
rural grandfather did not support the view that all citizens should have a
ballot for all offices in the annual elections, and denounced it as yet another
corrupting Greek idea. Cicero has written that he agrees with the one citizen
one vote concept, but not to have the vote cast privately. He says that secrecy,
"enables men to open their faces, and to cover up their thoughts; it gives
them licence to promise whatever they are asked, and at the same time to do
whatever they please." In those times, there seems to have been a system
where votes may have been tied to an elite, which to me, has cast a long shadow
to the current Electoral College of the USA. I could also add, the political
parties that we see today tie our votes to them. A few years after Cicero died,
voting for the leader of the state was abolished and the danger that he worked
his life to prevent became real, the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.
My major takeaway from the book is
how Collins describes how legacies are judged. More than 800 writings by Cicero
himself have come down to the present time. These include publications and
speeches and his official and private letters. He presented himself to
different people in different ways and his personal thoughts on a range of
ideas were freely put to paper to his confidantes.
Collins says: "If we know too
much of Cicero to judge him merely by his public life, as we are obligated to
do with so many heroes of history, we also know far too little of those stormy
times in which he lived, to pronounce too strongly upon his behavior in such
difficult circumstances....His character was full of conflicting elements, like
the times in which he lived, and was necessarily in a great degree moulded by
them.
"The
egotism which shows itself so plainly alike in his public speeches and in his
private writings, more than once made him personals enemies, and brought him
into trouble, though it was combined with great kindness of heart and
consideration for others."
Then there is this sentence from
the mind of Collins that would be condemned today.
"There is one comprehensive
quality which may be said to have been wanting in his nature, which clouded his
many excellences, led him continually into false positions, and even in his
delightful letters excites in the reader, from time to time, an impatient
feeling of contempt. He wanted manliness." LoL, I wish Collins were here
so that I could ask him what that means, but I believe he means that Cicero
could be indecisive where perhaps a clear, firm statement and actions were
needed.
At age 37, Cicero achieved the top
public office as Consul, which was like a shared one-year presidency of the
Roman Republic and then he went on to serve in other areas. At age 62 he was
called back as a political schemer in the leadership struggle for Rome between
Consul Mark Anthony age 39, and the grandnephew and heir of Julius Caesar,
Octavius age 19. Cicero denounced the character of Mark Antony across 14
scathing articles now known as The Philippics. The propaganda so enraged Mark
Anthony that he ordered Cicero’s death, but the damage had been done, and Mark
Anthony lost the support of his generals and sought refuge with his babymother,
the Queen Cleopatra who well knew the political value of a Roman General in her
bed chamber. For clarity, Cleopatra had been the mistress of Julius Caesar
from 46BC and was in Rome when Caesar was killed in 44BC. She and Mark
Anthony were a couple from 41BC to 30 BC when they both died as the result of
ongoing military belligerency with Octavius. Three years later, he was Emperor.
My other interest in this book is
that Collins also looked at the thoughts of Cicero and religion and presented
his handpicked references of this pre-Christian era to Christian thought. He
quotes a Stoic poet who is said to have been quoted by St Paul who was
previously Saul of Tarsus, an educated Roman citizen. Collins also spoke about
another poet Persius who speaks about self-surrender, fidelity to duty,
sacrifice for others, which are hallmarks of the Christian faith and apparently
also how Romans felt about their marvellous republic. Collins seems to suggest
that Christian salvation, when aligned with Roman state culture of duty,
sacrifice, and absorption of other cultures, promoted Christianity into a
widely dispersed movement, even though the religion was not legalized in Rome
until 313.
Cicero was a pagan, but
Christianity gives him a pass because his writings show that he was searching
for the best way to live a human life, and he died in 43BC before salvation
through Jesus was available to all.
This is a book for anyone who has
a general interest in the archaic and in public affairs.
I was able to appreciate this book
thanks to the Gutenberg project.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11448
