Your life contains many lessons,
Cicero, and it seems that with every page, there is something vital
and worthwhile to learn. But, you're not the only one on my
reading list; that poet, Publius Syrus, (who you didn't like)
is remembered for some rather wise words as well, and I, seeker after
wisdom, will drink from whatever cup is offered, if it contains the
wine of truth.
Even calamity becomes virtue's
opportunity
You, Cicero, lived
to see great change, you were required to make great choices,
influenced as you were by your culture, your history, and all the
philosophy you studied. You made the choices that reflected and
expressed yourself as a human being in the centre of a nexus of
powerful forces, not the least of which was your sense of conviction.
You believed in yourself Cicero. All those letters expressing your
doubt, to me, are proof of your conviction, for you felt driven by
contrary winds, yet you always chose what seemed right to you.
In light of these
thoughts, whilst reading the biography of Samuel Johnson, written by
James Boswell, of Scotland, 1791, this passage struck me as something
I should share with you.
Every man naturally persuades
himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his
imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment. This
opinion of our own constancy is so prevalent, that we always despise
him who suffers his general and settled purpose to be overpowered by
an occasional desire. They, therefore, whom frequent failures have
made desperate, cease to form resolutions; and they who are become
cunning, do not tell them. Those who do not make them are very few,
but of their effect little is perceived; for scarcely any man
persists in a course of life planned by choice, but as he is
restrained from deviation by some external power. He who may live as
he will, seldom lives long in the observation of his own rules.
Now that I think of
it, a conversation between yourself and Johnson, would be
entertaining in the extreme. Ahem...I digress.
Samuel Johnson
Cicero, those who
would accuse you of inconstancy or cowardice, do so from the peculiar
belief that the unbending hubris of your contemporaries represents an
admirable trait. While you were human enough to be flexible (to a
point...), others were fixed, and thus were cut down by the storm.
However, you really
stuck your feet in the ground when you took on Antony, so what
happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Well,
you lost your head and your hands for it, but let's not dwell on the
details. Although, Mark Antony had a rather unpleasant end as
well...
Returning to the
point, dear Cicero, there is much in the above passage from Johnson
that offers opportunity for sophistic revelation. Life has no
rule-book, it is not governed by the turns of phrase we use to guide
our choices, and fortune blows us in unexpected directions. Men who
live rigidly by the codes of their conviction, are often swept away,
right or wrong. Men who turn with the tides, men who are flexible,
are subject to the same vicissitudes, and are led just as often to
the same fate.
Which is to say,
life is a roll of the dice.
So it's all about
how you roll, to borrow from the modern vernacular.
You, Cicero, rolled
with the philosophers, and you were better acquainted with them than
I will likely ever be, but so often I gain my introductions to these
eminent friends of yours, through your books. I have been reading
The Tusculan Disputations, (Book 5) and, distillations of
worldly wisdom that your many books are, I find this tome no
exception. I find, in fact, the very advice which I might have given
you:
Folly, even after it has attained
what it was seeking for, is still never satisfied. But wisdom is
invariably contented with what it has got. It never has anything to
feel sorry about.
Taken on face
value, Cicero, it would seem that you did not take your own advice,
and that even after achieving all the glory that civil service in
Rome could grant, you persisted in your eager pursuit of both fame
and justice. So, the above quote, (taken out of it's context), seems
to suggest that you were not wise enough to know when to be
satisfied, and to step away from politics. However, if I include the
preceding paragraph, something of your true nature becomes revealed
to us.
If moral goodness is sufficient to
guarantee a good life, it follows that the same quality is also
sufficient to guarantee a happy one. Now, one aspect of moral
goodness, quite evidently, is courage; and courage is merely another
word for the superiority of character which makes it impossible for a
person to feel afraid or worsted by setbacks. No one, then, who
possesses these qualities will ever have any regrets about anything,
or feel the absence of anything, or find anything getting in his way.
Instead, his entire life will be rich, complete, successful – in
other words, happy.
Courage, Cicero,
that one quality which you are so often accused of as lacking, I find
that you possessed in great quantity. You were happy to risk your
life to defend the Republic, happy to devote yourself to opposing
Antony, knowing that every word you spoke against him brought you
ever closer to death. And if Cassius Dio's description of your last moments is true, it seems that
you recognised the virtue of a courageous death, and faced your
execution with gravitas and a poetic spirit.
With Gratitude and
Respect
Morgan.
- For my letter on the Philippics (The speeches Cicero gave against his enemy Marc Antony, during the last year of his life), see Book 2, Letter 4
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