Book 4, Letter 1, Part 2 of 2 To Cicero, on consolations for grief

I am aware in reading your letters, that despite the huge quantity preserved by Tiro, there must have been twice that number or more omitted from his selection. This is visible to me, in that the first mention of your grief relating to the death of your daughter, is in a letter to Atticus in which you ask him to send notice of your ill-health to the Augural college, making excuses for your non-attendance at meetings. Making no direct mention of her death you only say ...yet that passionate unrest haunts and never quits me, not, on my word, that I encourage it, I rather fight against it : still it is there. (DXLIV – Cicero to Atticus).

As grateful as I am to have so much of your writing Cicero, I often find myself wishing that Tiro had kept everything, every single little scrap upon which your thoughts had found solid shape on paper or clay or wax. There is so much unsaid...

DXLV

Cicero to Atticus

...You wish me some relaxation of my mourning : you are kind, as usual, but you can bear me witness that I have not been wanting to myself. For not a word has been written by anyone on the subject of abating grief which I did not read at your house. But my sorrow is too much for any consolation. Nay, I have done what certainly no one ever did before me – tried to console myself by writing a book, which I will send to you as soon as my amanuenses have made copies of it. I assure you that there is no more efficacious consolation. I write all day long, not that I do any good, but for a while I experience a kind of check, or if not quite that – for the violence of my grief is overpowering – yet I get some relaxation, and I try with all my might to recover composure, not of heart, yet, if possible, of countenance. When doing that I sometimes feel myself to be doing wrong, sometimes that I shall be doing wrong if I don't. Solitude does me some good, but it would have done me more good, if after all you had been here : and that is my only reason for quitting this place, for it does well in such miserable circumstances. And even this suggests another cause of sorrow. For you will not able to be to me now what you once were : everything you used to like about me is gone...

DXLVI

Cicero to Atticus

...In this lonely place I have no one with whom to converse, and plunging into a dense and wild wood early in the day, I don't leave it till evening. Next to you I have no greater friend than solitude. In it my one and only conversation is with books. Even that is interrupted by tears, which I fight against as long as I can. But as yet I am not equal to it...

It is difficult to read the ongoing struggles of your grief, yet in my quest to truly understand you, I press on...

DLXXIII

Cicero to Servius Sulpicius Rufus

But now, after such a crushing blow as this, the wounds which seemed to have healed break out afresh. For there is no republic now to offer me a refuge and consolation but its good fortunes when I leave my home in sorrow, as there once was a home to receive me when I returned saddened by the state of public affairs. Hence I absent myself from both home and forum, because home can no longer console the sorrow which public affairs cause me, nor public affairs that which I suffer at home.

Yet Cicero, you were not crushed utterly by your grief, and applying yourself to literary pursuits, you spent your days and nights writing. You wrote your own book of consolations for grief, which has unfortunately been lost to time, but the letters you wrote give us a clear enough picture of what you might have said. However, it is in a letter from your friend Rufus that I find perhaps the clearest picture of what specific philosophy you might have applied to your wounds.

DLIV

Servius Suplicius Rufus to Cicero

Is it on her account, pray, that you sorrow? How many times have you recurred to the thought that in times like these theirs is far from being the worst fate to whom it has been granted to exchange life for a painless death? Now what was there at such an epoch that could greatly tempt her to live?

...Do we mannikins feel rebellious if one of us perishes or is killed – we whose life ought to be still shorter – when the corpses of so many towns lie in helpless ruin? Will you please restrain yourself and recollect that you are born a mortal man? … If she had not died now, she would yet have had to die a few years hence, for she was mortal born. You too, withdraw soul and thought from such things, and rather remember those which become the part you have played in life : that she lived as long as life had anything to give her ; that her life outlasted that of the Republic ; that she lived to see you – her own father – praetor, consul and augur; that she married young men of the highest rank ; that she had enjoyed nearly every possible blessing ; that, when the Republic fell, she departed from life. What fault have you or she to find with fortune on this score?

In fine, do not forget that you are Cicero, and a man accustomed to instruct and advise others ; and do not imitate bad physicians, who in the diseases of others profess to understand the art of healing, but are unable to prescribe for themselves. Rather suggest to yourself and bring home to your own mind the very maxims which you are accustomed to impress upon others. There is no sorrow beyond the power of time at length to diminish and soften...

...We have seen you on many occasions bear good fortune with a noble dignity which greatly enhanced your your fame : now is the time for you to convince us that you are able to bear bad fortune equally well, and that it does not appear to you to be a heavier burden that you ought to think it. I would not have this be the only one of all the virtues that you do not possess.

Cicero, we all grieve. We grieve for things we have lost, for things we strive towards but fail to achieve, and for the dreams which we know will never come to pass. There is a Persian saying that grief and love are the same feeling. This is expressed nowhere better than in Persian music, yet this idea would seem to paint the world with tears and make sadness drown out even the happiest of moments. Everything we gain, we will loose in the end.

So it is that I will end this letter with a piece of advice which you gave to your friend Aulus Manlius Torquatus (DLXXIV):

...no one may make a private grievance of what affects all alike.

I had intended to write to you about the monument you planned to house your daughter's remains. I had expected to speak on your gradual moving out of grief and into anger that marks the rise of your final gesture of greatness, but I find that today I cannot. I am grieved too much myself for the loss of my own country, and the madness that descends upon our politics and the tyranny that slides in to replace the considered debates of true democracy. I live in the age of the information wars and now, unable to discern truth from lies in the public sphere, I rest my mind upon the firmer soil of ancient wisdom.

Your wisdom.

I reflect that no one may make a private grief of what affects all alike. I must rise above my own dour and pessimistic disposition and strive, ever hopeful, towards the goals I have set for myself. I am consoled every day by the marvellous and loving wisdom of my family. I must not let my confusion and doubt overwhelm the truth that is self evident in their kind actions and supportive words.

So Cicero, I understand your struggle to stay positive. Now that you have divorced your wife, now that your daughter is dead, now that your son is away studying in Greece, you must find within yourself the strength to fight Marc Antony...

I am eager to read, eager to learn, eager to feel my passions stirred by the fire of your words.

Thank you Cicero,

with admiration and respect.

Morgan.

Book 4, Letter 1, Part 1 of 2 To Cicero, on consolations for grief

Dear Cicero, if you are well, then I am well. There are so many things that I would like to write to you about, but I find myself hesitating. I have been reading the letters from your difficult year after Julius Caesar took over Rome, a calamity which, though great, seems only a pale shadow by comparison to the death of your beautiful and lovely daughter Tullia. What a terrible year 45BCE was for you. I have found that my passion for reading your letters has waned. I know that from here on the story has too little triumph, and far too much bloodshed. I am looking forward to re-reading your speeches against Marc Antony, which I consider to be magnificent examples of your fiery passion and grand skill as a speaker and writer.

But today I must address, as I have addressed only in passing in prior letters, your grief, and the consolations you found in writing. Though perhaps consolation is too strong a word, and distraction may better describe the usefulness of your literary pursuits in assuaging the pain of your loss. Loss of hope, loss of country, liberty and family. Your letters from this period are full of the advice you give to others, and which they likewise return to you. I begin in the months before Tullia's death...

DXXVII

Cicero To Titius

...Now there is a source of consolation – hackneyed indeed to the last degree – which we ought ever to have on our lips and in our hearts : we should remember that we are men, born under the conditions which expose our life to all the missiles of fortune; and we must not decline life on the conditions under which we were born, nor rebel so violently under mischances which we are unable to avoid by any precautions; and by recalling what has happened to others we should reflect that nothing strange has betided us...

...there is no evil in death, after which if any sensation remains it is to be regarded as immortality rather than death, while if it is all lost, it follows that nothing must be regarded as misery which is not felt – yet this much I can assert, that confusions are brewing, disasters preparing and threatening the Republic, such that whoever has left them cannot possibly, as it seems to me, be in the wrong.

I have been reading a lot of the Stoic philosophers, and the above letter seems to neatly summarise a certain Stoic attitude towards death. If we do live on in consciousness after death, then that life must be immortal, and so, death is not to be feared. If we do not maintain any sensation after death, then it is nought but the release from mortal torment, and thus, death is not to be feared.

Of course, it is not our own death that is the cause of our greatest fears.

DXXIX

Cicero to C. Cassius Longinus

…”Can we laugh, then?” you will say. No by Hercules, not very easily. Yet other means of distraction from our troubles we have none. “Where then,” you will say, “is your philosophy?” yours indeed is in the kitchen, while mine is in the schools. For I am ashamed of being a slave. Accordingly I pose as being busy about other things, to avoid the reproach of Plato.

That reproach from Plato, (Republic 387b), being that men ought to be free and fear slavery worse than death.

Plato

Living as I do in a post-Nuremberg trials world, where the moral responsibility is upon the individual to follow their own conscience during times of war and to refuse to follow orders contrary to the dictates of human decency, reinforces the belief that slavery to a tyrant should be more feared than death. I feel an obligation to follow in Socrates footsteps and to place liberty above other concerns, and yet as I watch the tightening grip of tyranny squeeze my own country, I cannot help but feel that life, even under such a grip, is worth something. If only to remain in peace with my family, to be a father to my children, to remain alive under any conditions seems to me to be right also. I think I understand, Cicero, the contradiction of your conscience that you chose to remain alive, when to die for your beliefs was offered to you as a noble option. Life must continue, for there is yet more good to be done, regardless of which Caesar rules our lives.

End of Book 3: a letter to my readers

Dear readers,

Book three of this blog is now complete, another 21 letters to my dead friends.

Book four is being written. I have found myself standing in the shadows of the Seven Pillars of wisdom, by TE Lawrence, I converse with Epictetus, and and I return at length to Xenophon, Tacitus, Herodotus, and finally, Ryokan, the Zen monk.  There is much more to be learned, and this year I will complete reading the 4th, and final book of Cicero's letters.  I will be reading more of his political speeches, including the Philippics, and I will begin reading his political treatises.  At least, that's the plan.

The last few months have been very productive.  I released a solo album in August 2019, and another in February 2020.  They can be found here: Zebulon Storyteller  If you enjoy music that tells a story, or poetry that asks more questions than it gives answers, then you will likely enjoy my music.

I also have many videos on Youtube, including the complete recordings from the festival show my band put on in 2019.  Iron Dwarf presents: Gil and the Kid - the hard-boiled detective story retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh, complete with a belly dancer, a funk band and puppets.

Gil and the Kid - (Full Video's here)

I also teach middle eastern drumming here in Adelaide, and the last year has seen a great leap forward in the troupe's skills.  I write a study blog for them here...  Drum Arabesque

My new novel is nearly complete.  Monkey and Tortoise.  It is a novel concerning an animal sanctuary where the inhabitants have gained the ability to read and write and speak with the humans who live nearby.  My previous novel, a dark fantasy, The Hangman Tree, is still in proofreading and third draft editing.  Of all my writing projects, this has taken the most time and requires the most concentration to work on.  It is still a couple years away from completion, but I cannot rush the river.

I have started a new blog, In Praise of the Living, where I publish my reviews of books and music performances.  I currently have reviews up for some Adelaide poets who I absolutely recommend, as well as a three page write up of Amanda Palmer's recent 4 hour concert – There will be no intermission.

In other news, I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons with my two sons, and the current game events are set in a fictionalised Rome, where Caesar is a Gaulish War Chief and the popularly elected dictator of the Roman Republic, while Crassus (a shapeshifter) fights Pompey (a half giant) for control of the city, and Cicero, grown vengeful after his exile, has returned to Rome from Asia with an army of assassins, intent on taking over all of Italy.  Then there is the Pirate Archipelago to the north, the Orcs and Wild Elves in the south, and a race of Mind Flayers trying to take over the whole planet from the moon, by psychically enslaving all the Gnomes of Rome, which has led to the unanimous decision of the Roman Senate, to declare: NO GNOMES IN ROME!!!

 The Pirate Archipelago

 Gaul

Rome

To you my readers, I must express my gratitude.  I absolutely appreciate the time you give to read my letters, and I thank everyone who posts comments here on the blog, or on Facebook.  I am always eager to chat.  I am fascinated by the influence the dead have on our lives, but I do not ignore the gifts of the living.

So, I raise a glass and salute the coming year, whatever it may hold. 

Thank You.


Morgan.


PS.  Good luck to us all in coping with the Covid pandemic.  The future is unwritten.

Book 3, Letter 21, Part 3 of 3. To Cicero, on life under a tyrant

Then in January of the next year, (45BCE) writing to Cassius Longinus, you admit your true feelings concerning life under Caesar. The speech of lavish thanks to Caesar, given before the senate, is proved false by the following honest testimony given in private:

DXXIX

To Cassius Longinus

“...Can we laugh then? You will say. No, by Hercules, not very easily. Yet other means of distraction from our troubles we have none. Where then, you will say, is your philosophy? Yours indeed is in the kitchen, mine in the schools only gives me annoyance. For I am ashamed of being a slave. Accordingly, I pose as being busy about other things, to avoid the reproach of Plato...”

Plato, he seems as influential now as he was in you day Cicero. The reproach of which you speak comes from The Republic, 387b, which says that men ought to “...be free and fear slavery worse than death.”

It is a death that I wish now to finally confront. The death of Marcellus.

He didn't come back to Rome immediately after his pardon, but began his journey in the following spring. To refuse the pardon of a tyrant, is to insult him with indifference to his wishes. I am sure that Marcellus' absence from Rome was seen as a continued statement of opposition to Caesar. You wrote him a short letter in January, gently reminding him of your feelings on the matter.

DXXXV

Jan 45BCE

“...Do your best, then, to come at the earliest opportunity : your coming, believe me, will be welcomed not only by us, I mean by your personal friends, but by absolutely everybody. I say this because it occurs to me sometimes to be a little afraid that you have a fancy for postponing your departure...”

A few months later, in May, your good friend Servius Sulpicius Rufus wrote to you with the news that Marcellus had been murdered.

DCXII

Servius Sulpicius Rufus to Marcus Tullius Cicero

May 31^st 45BCE

Athens.

Servius sends many good wishes to Cicero. Though I know that I shall be giving you no very pleasant news, yet since chance and nature bear the sway among us men, I thought it encumbent on me to give you information of whatever kind it might be. On the 23^rd of May, on sailing into the Piraeus, I met my colleague M.Marcellus, and spent the day there in order to enjoy his society. Next day, when I parted from him with the design of going from Athens to Boeotia, and finishing what remained of my legal business, he told me that he intended to sail round Cape Malea and make for Italy. On the third day after that, just as I was intending to start from Athens, at the tenth hour of the night my friend Publius Postumius called on me with the information that my colleage M. Marcellus just after dinner had been stabbed with a dagger by his friend P. Magius Cilo, and had received two wounds, one in the stomach, a second in the head behind the ear; but that hopes were entertained that he might survive; and that Magius had killed himself afterwards. He added that he had been sent by Marcellus to tell me this, and to ask me to send some physicians. Accordingly I summoned some physicians, and immediately started just as day was breaking. When I was not far from Piraeus, a slave of Acidinus me me bearing a note containing information that Marcellus had expired a little before daybreak.

So there is a man of most illustrious character cut off in a most distressing manner by the vilest of men. His personal enemies had spared him in consideration of his character; but one of his own friends was found to inflict death upon him. However, I continued my journey to his tent. There I found two freedmen and a few slaves: they said the rest had run away in terror, because their master had been killed in front of the tent. I was obliged to carry him back to the city in the same litter in which I had ridden down and to use my own bearers: and there, considering the means at my disposal at Athens, I saw to his having an honourable funeral. I could not induce the Athenians to grant him a place of burial within the city, as they alleged that they were prevented by religious scruples from doing so; and it is a fact that they had never granted that privilege to anyone. But they allowed us, which was the next best thing, to bury him in any gymnasium we chose. We chose a place in the most famous gymnasium in the world—that of the Academy—and there we burnt the body, and afterwards saw to these same Athenians giving out a contract for the construction of a marble monument over him. So I think I have done all for him alive and dead required by our colleagueship and close connexion. Goodbye.

Call me paranoid if you wish, but it seems all to easy for Caesar to have arranged the murder-suicide of Marcellus and Magius Clio. The convenient excuse of the debt motivated desperation of Magius, the easy distance from Rome, plus, the elimination of one's enemies had become a time honoured tradition in the generations-long civil conflict of Rome. Sulla practically made assassination legal, so bold and open handed was he in his proscriptions. It seems naive to consider Marcellus' murder to be unconnected to Caesar's wishes, especially if Marcellus was as important and as influential as both you and Rufus seem to think he was.

So, apologetic as I am to bring up this terrible event in your life, I do so in defence of you Cicero. If you are a coward for having submitted to Caesar, then so too was every other able bodied and active citizen in Rome. If you decided that your life was worth the price, then I must agree with you. You believed that your life might still be worth something even under the tyranny of a dictator, you believed that you might still serve the Republic. You chose to suffer whatever indignity might be forced upon you, in order that you might yet defend the virtues and ideals of your beloved Rome.

I can only imagine what heartbreak and self doubt you must have felt, to know that the man you had so encouraged to return to Rome, Marcellus, the man whom you had debased yourself before Caesar in order to secure his pardon, was then murdered. Did you suspect that you had been used? Did you consider that Caesar had given his pardon knowing that Marcellus would only attempt to return to Rome if you begged him? Were you the bait that brought Caesar's enemy close enough to be murdered by his men, and that murder blamed on a money hungry debt-crippled desperado?

Yet Caesar was killed, and you Cicero, would not repeat your much maligned submission a second time, so when Marc Antony rose to replace Caesar, you stood firm against him.

A letter for another day, my dear friend.

With gratitude and respect

Morgan