Book 2, Letter 13

To Cicero, on love and slavery

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Dear Cicero,

I have been reading your letters, and, just as Petrarch told me I would, I am discovering the human being beneath the glamour of your history, unadorned. You, as you revealed yourself to your closest friend, Atticus. Titus Pomponius Atticus, your second self, as you would have us understand the quality of your friendship to be.

I keep reminding myself what Petrach so wisely said of you.

“...remember that neither you nor anyone else can be in a fit position to judge, until you will have read, and carefully, all the letters of Cicero; for it is these which gave rise to the whole discussion.”

                                Francesco Petrarcha (Petrarch)

Petrarch was the first to discover your letters, (after the collapse of the Roman Empire) in France in the year 1345 CE, I trust his feeling towards the letters. Petrarch had read a great deal of your work and loved you like a brother, claiming that to have a single one of your books was akin to having you at his side, a friend to converse with through day an night.

There are many parallels between the past and the present. I sometimes feel as if Petrarch is a brother of sorts to me, and that we three (you Cicero, Petrarch and myself) might someday meet as ghosts and clasp hands in kinship. The first letter I have of yours, Cicero, you wrote to your best friend Atticus, in 68BCE, aged thirty eight. I am thirty eight years old now, as I begin reading these letters. It is like having you sit at the coffee table with me, a relaxed smile upon your face as you take pleasure in knowing that your immortality is enjoyed by millions who revel in your company likewise.

To Atticus (at Athens)

Rome

68BCE

“We are such intimate friends that more than almost anyone else you can appreciate the grief as well as the actual public and private loss that the death of my cousin Lucius is to me. There is absolutely no gratification which any human being can receive from the kindly character of another that I have not been accustomed to receive from him. I am sure, therefore, that you will share my grief.”

I've been putting it off, reading your letters. There's just so many of them, and I will guiltily admit, that in the edition I have of your letters, as translated by Evelyn S Shuckburgh, the writing looks so dense upon the page that it has felt a chore to even begin reading them.

However, once I began, I discovered that I was excitedly turning page after page, caught up instantly in the colour and humour of your writing. I wonder at the running jokes you seem to share with Atticus, the good natured chiding, and the strange silent echo in the total lack of any of his replies to you. It is a one sided conversation, and with my ear pressed against the stone wall of the earth in which you are entombed, I strain to hear a reply still vibrating in the memory of the planet.

I have heard nothing yet. It is very quiet. Atticus' letters are lost to us, either he did not wish for his letters to survive, or maybe they have burned away in some accident, or rotted in the soil. I truly hope that his letters are yet to be discovered, buried in some basement in Rome.

What's two thousand years between friends? Right?

*

I would like to write about your friends, Cicero. (I'll get back to the Cataline conspiracy soon, I have some more reading to do. I want to read Caesar's book on the Civil war first.) I have heard it said that an individual's personality is an amalgam of their closest friends. So, Atticus, Pompey, Quintus your brother, and Tiro, your servant, may serve as illustrations of your character, along with your family; your son, Marcus, your daughter Tullia and your wife Terentia.

To talk of friends, I will begin as Petrarch advised, with your letters, and specifically those you wrote to Tiro.

From what I understand, Tiro was your slave for many years, a sort of private secretary, a scribe, a research assistant for a man of letters, so to speak. The slave business in your time is complicated, not only in the broader context of, say, the slave revolts and Spartacus, but also in the personal relationships between master and slave.

I read many years ago, in a book on the topic of slavery, that there were two kinds of slave masters, the cruel and the kind. The slave may hate the cruel master, and feel justified in his hatred, for the justice of his yearnings for freedom are only amplified by the violence of his servitude. But the slave who serves a kind master, is burdened with feelings of guilt. His desire for freedom and parallel hatred of slave ownership, is forever contrasted by the kindnesses which he is shown.

Thus, kindness shown to the slave, is another kind of cruelty, a kind of savage manipulation of the slave's emotional bondage, in making the slave love the kind master, despite the inhuman servitude he must endure against his will. It makes the slave feel bad for desiring freedom, binding him in an even deeper slavery: the desire to return kindness with kindness.

I know that the issue is far more complex, and perhaps there are examples and unique stories to be explored in every single master/slave relationship, but you Cicero, seem to be the model of kindnesses and compassion in relation to your slaves, and not just Tiro.

To Atticus, 61BCE

“And indeed, at the moment of writing, I am in considerable distress: for a delightful youth, my reader Sosthenes, has just died, and his death has effected me more than a slave should, I think, do.”

It is hard to see through the grime of centuries to get a clear picture of your life, but this little mention of Sosthenes opens a window to show me something. You must have had many servants over your life, many slaves and freedmen who served you as porters, as readers, as letter carriers and as scribes, who wrote your words down as you strode about your office, dictating speeches or letters, your toga draped dramatically over your forearm.

The slaves of your time were not all considered worthless mules to be whipped until death, many of them earned reputations as men and women of great skill and learning. Some were permitted to earn their own money, or even to own land. Slaves were often the respected teachers of children in the homes of wealthy and powerful senators. Slaves were gardeners, builders, cleaners, kitchen staff...all the myriad of domestic services were performed by slaves, and under a kind master, such servitude offered a stability of lifestyle and security against poverty, and even chance to rise above servitude through legal manumission.

However, the stories about Roman mines are absolutely horrific, and for a great proportion of slaves under Roman yoke, life was probably brutal, painful and short. Slavery could also carry with it the added indignity of sexual 'duties' to the master, and when the kindness or cruelty of a master could vary like the wind, I am sure that your era would have had an equivalent term for what we call “Stockholm Syndrome” today. Perhaps your era would simply describe such a slave as having been 'broken in', like a horse whose will has been tamed.

                         "I'm Spartacus....No, I'm Spartacus...."

Link to an article on Roman slavery

The kindness of a slave master is sometimes the worst cruelty of all, where, by means of kindness, the master makes the slave love his slavery, and feel guilty about his desires for freedom. Can love really exist when one person owns the other? I think perhaps that love is a force that works around all barriers, and is in itself a slavery all its own. This topic is endlessly complex, but I might find some sort of resolution in the letters you wrote to your slave, Tiro, regarding the time of his release from your service, when you granted him his freedom. For it is in your letters to him, that you Cicero, confess your love for him who serves you.

You wrote the following to Tiro during an illness which laid him low for some time, just prior to his manumission.

“I shall consider that I have everything possible from you, if I see you in good health. I am awaiting the arrival of Andricus, (the doctor) whom I sent to you, with the utmost anxiety. Do take pains to recover, if you love me: and as soon as you have thoroughly re-established your health, come to me. Good-bye.”

Then in another letter, written the very next day:

“...I can take pleasure in nothing; can employ myself in no literary work, which I cannot touch till I have seen you. Give orders to promise the doctor any fee he chooses to ask....I am told that your mind is ill at ease, and that the doctor says this is what makes you ill. If you care for me, rouse from their sleep your studies and your culture, which make you the dearest object of my affection.”

Then the next day you sent another letter, along with a servant named Aegypta, and a private cook to serve Tiro and assist him in his recovery from his illness. Seven days later you sent another letter expressing again your desire to see Tiro, but fearing for his health on the seven day journey to reunite with you at Cumae. Then you tell him this:

“...My poor studies, or rather ours, have been in a very poor way owing to your absence...Pompey is staying with me at the moment of writing this, and seems to be cheerful and enjoying himself. He asks me to read him something of ours, but I told him that without you the oracle was dumb. Pray prepare to renew your services to our Muses. My promise shall be performed on the day named....Take care to make a complete recovery. I shall be with you directly. Good-bye.”

Your promise was fulfilled, or so Heironymous tells us, and Tiro, who was about the same age as you, was freed in 59BCE. Tiro lived a further forty six years, dying in 5BCE, in his hundredth year. In granting him his freedom, you also granted him your name, and thereafter Tiro was known as Marcus Tullius Tiro. A high honour indeed.

It was Tiro who preserved your letters Cicero.

A high honour, Cicero. I might even call it an act of love.

I cannot read these letters without feeling the love that must have existed between you and Tiro, a love growing through all his years of slavery to you and blooming in the summer of his freedom. I am softened by the kindness you express to him, your compassion and concern for his health. I am impressed by the honour you paid to Tiro in describing him as an oracle, and refusing to read any of your writing to you friend Pompey, (who was never a man you wished to disappoint). You make it sound almost as if Tiro might be credited as co-author of some of your writing.

                                             Pompey

Every great man, must have need of greater friends, and you Cicero, are famous for your friendships, and for the admiration you had for your many teachers and contemporaries in philosophy, oratory and politics.

There are worse things to be remembered for.

With gratitude and respect,

Morgan.