Cicero - Anthony Everitt [141]
A month or two after the marriage Cicero was struck by the most terrible blow he had ever experienced in his life. For the first time since his exile his mental equilibrium was threatened. Tullia died.
In January 45, she gave birth to a son, “little Lentulus,” as Cicero called him after one of his father’s names. The lying-in apparently took place at Dolabella’s house, although the couple was now divorced. The mother failed to recover, surviving for only a few weeks, and the child died some months later. Tullia is a shadowy figure, who never speaks for herself and is glimpsed only through her father’s loving comments. We can guess that she was intelligent and amusing (as well as being self-willed and with a pronounced tendency to fall for unsuitable men).
Cicero was devastated. Tusculum and his house on the Palatine were too full of memories and for a time he stayed with Atticus, reading everything he could find in his library that the Greek philosophers had to say about grief. Then, having gained leave of absence from his public duties, he fled the city. He went to Astura, a property he had recently bought on the coast south of Antium, a wooded and remote spot where he could hide away and grieve. The Romans disapproved of extravagant mourning, especially over a woman, and Cicero did his best to control or at least to conceal his emotions. He asked Atticus to attribute his absence from Rome to ill health.
Reading did not help, so he picked up his pen and wrote a Self-Consolation, one of the most celebrated works of antiquity, although now lost. Consolatory texts were a recognized genre, but he was, he thought, the first man to write one for himself. He assembled every relevant text he could find and “threw them all into one attempt at consolation,” he wrote to Atticus, “for my soul was in a feverish state and I attempted every means of curing its condition.” He worked quickly and finished the book by early March, when he promised a copy to Atticus (with whom he was corresponding daily). “I write all day long, not that I do myself any real good, but just for the time being it distracts me—not enough, for grief is powerful and importunate; still it brings a respite.” He suspected that his anguish was changing his personality and was afraid that Atticus would no longer feel towards him as in the past. “The things you like in me are gone for good.”
He found that he could not stop crying and spent most of his time on his own out-of-doors. “In this lonely place I don’t talk to a soul. Early in the day I hide myself in a thick, thorny wood, and don’t emerge till evening. When I am alone all my conversation is with books; it is interrupted by fits of weeping, against which I struggle as best I can. But so far it is an unequal fight.”
When contrasted with the self-indulgent and sometimes slightly formulaic expressions of grief of his letters from exile, Cicero’s state of mind during this crisis reveals a new intensity of feeling, too raw and too astonishing to be publicized. He showed little self-pity; his pain was so fierce as almost to be physical. This was a true breakdown and he recognized it. He withdrew from the world like a sick animal and fought as hard as he could for recovery, for the regaining of his life.
Tullia’s death spelled the end of Cicero’s brief marriage to Publilia. She was said to be pleased that someone she had seen as a rival had been removed from the scene, and Cicero could not forgive this. Even if the story was false, his bereavement pushed her to the far periphery of his concerns. Publilia was not allowed to visit him and he asked for Atticus’s support in preventing either her or her relatives from seeking him out. “I want you to find out just how long I can stay here [at Astura] without getting caught.” His mind was set on divorce and before long the baffled and relieved teenager was out of his life for good.
Letters of condolence for Tullia’s death poured in, among them from Brutus and from Caesar in Spain, who knew well the agony