The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [320]
12. And who was an emancipated slave of his brother Quintus, betrayed Cicero,
13. Informing the tribune that the litter was on its way to the sea through the close and shady walks.
14. The tribune, taking a few with him, ran out in pursuit. And Cicero, perceiving Herennius approaching, commanded his servants to set down the litter;
15. And stroking his chin, as he used to do, with his left hand, his person covered with dust, his beard and hair untrimmed,
16. And his face worn with his troubles, he looked steadfastly upon his murderers.
17. Such was the pity of the sight that the greatest part of those that stood by covered their faces while Herennius slew him.
18. And thus he was murdered, stretching forth his neck out of the litter to receive the blow. He was in his sixty-fourth year.
19. Herennius cut off his head, and, by Mark Antony’s command, cut off his hands also, by which his Philippics were written;
20. For so Cicero styled those orations he wrote against Antony, and so they are called to this day.
21. When Cicero’s head and hands were brought to Rome,
22. Antony was holding an assembly for the choice of public officers;
23. And when he heard it, and saw them, he cried out, ‘Now let there be an end of our proscriptions.’
24. He commanded the head and hands to be fastened up over the rostra, where the orators spoke;
25. A sight which the Roman people shuddered to behold, and they believed they saw there, not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony’s own mind.
26. A long time afterwards Octavius Caesar, visiting one of his daughter’s sons, found him with a book of Cicero’s in his hand.
27. The boy for fear endeavoured to hide it under his gown; which Octavius Caesar perceiving, he took it from him,
28. And turning over a great part of the book, gave it back, saying, ‘My child, this was a learned man, and a lover of his country.’
29. And immediately after he had vanquished Mark Antony, being then consul, he made Cicero’s son his colleague in the office;
30. And under that consulship the senate took down all the statues of Antony, and abolished all the other honours that had been given him,
31. And decreed that none of that family should thereafter bear the name of Marcus;
32. And thus the final acts of the punishment of Antony were carried out by the family of Cicero.
Epistles
Epistle 1
1. My dear son: you must begin by having a true estimate of our human species,
2. Before you can begin to formulate how you will advance yourself to being one of the better specimens of it.
3. That will be the purpose of these letters to you, as you take your journey among people and places,
4. So that you can combine your experience of them with the experience I offer you.
5. There are those who exalt the human species to the skies, and represent man as a paragon;
6. And there are those who insist on the worst of human nature, and can discover nothing except vanity and folly in man, making him no better than other animals.
7. A delicate sense of morals is apt to give one a disgust of the world, and to make one consider the common course of human affairs with indignation and dislike.
8. For my part I think that those who view mankind favourably and sympathetically do more to promote virtue than those who have a mean opinion of human nature.
9. When a man has a high notion of his moral status, he will naturally endeavour to live up to it, and will scorn to do a base or vicious thing, which might sink him below the figure he makes in his own imagination.
10. Accordingly we find that all the best moralists concentrate on the idea that vice is unworthy of us, as well as being odious in itself.
11. In disputes concerning the dignity or meanness of human nature it is right to begin by accepting that there is a natural difference between merit and demerit, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly.
12. Yet it is evident that in assigning approbation or blame, we are commonly more influenced by comparison than by any fixed standard