Moving on from the war, there is something I
discovered in your letters of the year 54bce. It seems that the
political situation in Rome was worsening, the threat of a
dictatorship loomed large in everyone's fearful minds and a
particularly corrupt legal case was bothering you. You were still in
the city when you wrote to your friend Atticus about the situation,
and your feelings regarding it.
CLIII (a iv 18)
TO ATTICUS (In Asia)
October, 54BCE
“...We have
lost, my dear Pomponius, not only all the healthy sap and blood of
our old constitution, but even its colour and outward show. There is
no Republic to give a moment's pleasure or a feeling of security.
"And is that, then," you will say, "a satisfaction to
you?" Precisely that. For I recall what a fair course the state
had for a short time, while I was at the helm, and what a return has
been made me! It does not give me a pang that one man absorbs all
power. The men to burst with envy are those who were indignant at my
having had some power. There are many things which console me,
without my departing an inch from my regular position; and I am
returning to the life best suited to my natural disposition—to
letters and the studies that I love. My labour in pleading I console
by my delight in oratory. I find delight in my town house and my
country residences. I do not recall the height from which I have
fallen, but the humble position from which I have risen. As long as I
have my brother and you with me, let those fellows be hanged, drawn,
and quartered for all I care: I can play the philosopher with you.
That part of my soul, in which in old times irritability had its
home, has grown completely callous. I find no pleasure in anything
that is not private and domestic. You will find me in a state of
magnificent repose, to which nothing contributes more than the
prospect of your return. For there is no one in the wide world whose
feelings are so much in sympathy with my own.”
Everyone who writes of you, even your brilliant
biographer Anthony Trollope, speaks continuously of your deep and
mutual friendship with Atticus. Everywhere the phrase 'my second
self' is used to describe your feelings towards him, but in your very
next letter, this time addressed to your brother Quintus, I
discovered something that seems to counter this idea. Everyone
thinks that Atticus was your closest, most trusted friend, but I
think that there were things that you could not share, even with him.
CLIV (q fr iii,
5-6)
TO HIS BROTHER
QUINTUS (IN GAUL)
Tusculum
(October)
bc 54, aet 52
“...I
withdraw myself, it is true, from all political anxiety and devote
myself to literature; still, I will hint to you what, by heaven, I
specially wished to have concealed from you. It cuts me to the heart,
my dearest brother, to the heart, to think that there is no Republic,
no law courts, and that my present time of life, which ought to have
been in the full bloom of senatorial dignity, is distracted with the
labours of the forum or eked out by private studies, and that the
object on which from boyhood I had set my heart, "Far to excel,
and tower above the crowd," is entirely gone: that my opponents
have in some cases been left unattacked by me, in others even
defended: that not only my sympathies, but my very dislikes, are not
free: and that Cæsar is the one man in the world who has been found
to love me to my heart's content, or even, as others think, the only
one who was inclined to do so. However, there is none of all these
vexations of such a kind as to be beyond the reach of many daily
consolations; but the greatest of consolations will be our being
together. As it is, to those other sources of vexation there is added
my very deep regret for your absence.”
So you wrote to
your best friend Atticus telling him that all Rome was going to hell
in a hand basket, but that you didn't care. You were happy to spend
time at home busying yourself with domestic pleasures and playing the
philosopher. Yet in the same month, you wrote to your brother
Quintus, who was still stationed thousands of miles away in Gaul,
telling him that your are sorely hurt by the turning of events in
Rome and that your heart is heavy with a sense of unfulfilled
ambition, and the weight of censorship and oppression existing in
Rome.
There are things,
Cicero, which we cannot share with our closest friends. Your brother
though, was someone whom you could confess your secret pains to, when
you could not admit your true feelings to Atticus. Quintus was your
blood. You grew up together, you raised your sons in each other's
company, you cared for each other's sons when the other was away.
There was a bond between you that seems far more magnificent than the
polite, intellectual society that you shared with Atticus. I don't
claim to know everything about you and your relationships...all I
have are these letters, but when I read the above letter you wrote to
Quintus, I caught a glimpse of something.
Just a glimmer at
the bottom of the well.
Love, Cicero.
Two thousand years after you and your brother were both murdered,
your love still shines bright enough for me to see.
So that's all I
wanted to write today. The morning sky is clouded and the air is
cool. Tiny birds flock and chirrup in the Eucalyptus trees outside
my bedroom window, as I write letters to you, my dear friend, Cicero.
With gratitude
and respect.
Morgan.
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Post Script: To my readers.
Dear readers from many nations. I have recently released my first, full length, solo album. Zebulon: Music of an Invisible Enclave.
You can listen, download, and purchase my music here:
Also, if you enjoy this blog, please spread the word among your friends.
Thank you.
With Gratitude and Respect.
Morgan.
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