Cicero - Anthony Everitt [140]
The exchange was a reminder that some thought needed to be given to the twenty-year-old’s future. He had practical rather than academic abilities and had inherited little of his father’s literary talent. Nevertheless, in the following year it was decided that he should continue his studies in Athens. He seems not to have been the most diligent of students. In a handful of letters to Tiro from 44, he apologized for being a dilatory correspondent and promised to work harder. He wanted the freedman to put in a good word for him with his father and be his “publicity agent.” He also dropped a hint about his “meager allowance” and asked Tiro to get a clerk sent out to him, preferably a Greek. “I waste a lot of time copying out my notes.” On Cicero’s explicit instructions, Marcus dropped the company of Gorgias, a rhetorician who was encouraging the young man to overspend and to drink too much, and began to study with a distinguished Aristotelian philosopher. Marcus was good-natured, lazy and fond of a good time. He was too much in awe of his father to stand up to him directly and had the diffidence of the child who knows he is not a favorite.
Cicero now made a disastrous move in his personal life. In 46 he at last found the wife he had been looking for, but his selection, a wealthy teenage ward of his, Publilia, was unfortunate. Terentia, sniping from the sidelines, accused him of an old man’s infatuation. Cicero did not help his case by responding to criticism with a tasteless joke. When someone reproached him on the eve of the wedding for marrying a mere girl, he retorted: “She’ll be a woman tomorrow.”
Little is known about Cicero’s relations with the opposite sex. He claims that he made a point of not being promiscuous in his youth and seems to have endured separations from Terentia even early on in their marriage with equanimity. Accounts of the political support she gave him during his Consulship suggest a businesslike relationship and strong mutual loyalty. What remains of their correspondence was written when they were both middle-aged and conveys little more than routine affection.
The only woman with whom Cicero’s emotions seem to have been powerfully engaged was Tullia. This was noticed by his contemporaries. In an age when political invective made a great deal out of opponents’ sexual peccadilloes, the only serious (but completely unconvincing) charge against him was that he had committed incest with his daughter.
Although Roman upper-class women had considerable social freedom and could sometimes exert political influence behind the scenes, it was a male world and the socially conservative Cicero mainly enjoyed the company of men. There is mention of one elderly woman friend, although unfortunately there is very little information about her. This was Caerullia, who was ten or more years older than Cicero and had philosophical interests. They were very close towards the end of his life and their correspondence (now lost) was said to have been somewhat risqué.
Tiro disagreed with Terentia about Cicero’s motives for marrying Publilia. Many years later he claimed that friends and relatives pressed Cicero to make the match in order to settle his large debts. The only comment Cicero has left behind was matter-of-fact and says more about Terentia than Publilia. He wrote to a friend:
AS for your congratulations on the step I have taken, I am sure your wishes are sincere. But I should not have taken any new decision at so sad a time, if on my return I had not found my household affairs in as bad a state as the country’s. In my own house, I knew no security, had no refuge from intrigue, because of the villainy of those to whom my welfare and estate should have been most precious in view of the signal kindnesses I had showered on them. So I thought it advisable to fortify myself by the