You wrote to your
friend Q Cornificius in October, 45BCE and with a sense of foreshadowing, I
see the rising of Marc Antony, and of the tyrants who would follow
after Caesar. But, as so often happens in this study of your
letters, I discovered something else, hidden between the lines.
DCLXVII
In truth, this is always among the
results of civil wars – that it is not only what the victor wishes
is done : concessions have also to be made to those by whose aid that
victory was won. For my part I have become so hardened that at our
friend Caesar's games I saw T Plancus and listened to the poems of
Laberius and Publilius with the utmost sangfroid. There is nothing I
feel the lack of so much as of some one with whom to laugh at these
things in a confidential and philosophical spirit.
So I asked myself,
who were these men, Plancus, Laberius and Publilius?
Plancus was an
exiled citizen who had been recalled by Caesar. There is a story
there, but it is not the one I want to tell today. Laberius and
Publilius however... Publilius, possibly better known as Syrus, was
a poet and playwright. As the fortune of the centuries would have
it, a collection of his sayings have survived through the writings of
Petronius Arbiter, and Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
So Cicero, you
described only briefly the scene in your letter to Q Cornificius, of
being seated at the games hosted by Caesar, where the poetic contest
was held. The book, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus – a
Roman Slave, translated by D Lyman in 1856, sets the scene with
far more detail, and I here quote from the introduction to the book.
(Translated from the French of Th. Baudment)
Syrus traveled Italy for a long
time, writing and playing by turns, every where applauded as a poet
and as an actor. The fame of his success finally reached Rome, and an
occasion offered for his
appearance there with honor to
himself. When Caesar was elected dictator a second time, he resolved
to give the enslaved Romans such shows and amusements as should
surpass in splendor and duration every thing they had before seen.
Many days were to be devoted to games, to contests of all kinds, to
theatrical representations in all quarters of the city, and in all
languages of the then known world ; conquered kings were to take part
in them. To add to the success and splendor of the performances,
Caesar had solicited the presence of the most celebrated writers and
actors, and among others, called Syrus to Rome. The news of the
exhibitions attracted such multitudes from the neighboring provinces,
that, as the houses were full, it was necessary to pitch tents for
them in the streets and open fields ; and many citizens, among the
rest two senators, were crushed to death by the crowd.
Quite proud of his provincial
success, when Syrus arrived in Rome, he had the courage to challenge
to a trial of wits all the poets who adorned the stage. Every one
accepted the challenge, and they were every one beaten. The caprice
of Cassar brought out against him, however, a formidable competitor.
The dictator had commanded Laberius, then sixty years of age, to
perform in one of his own mimes, which was a disgrace for a freeman,
and above all for a knight. Laberius submitted, but his vengeance was
at hand. The day and hour of the contest came. Cassar was the judge,
and all the senators and magistrates were its spectators, together
with the whole order of knights, all the generals of the victorious
army, all the strangers whom conquest or curiosity had made the
guests of Rome, and last of all the people, that people whose highest
desires were now comprised in bread and public shows —panem et
circenses.
Laberius appeared on the stage, and
began, in an admirable prologue, with deploring his compulsory
appearance, as an actor, so little in keeping with his age and rank.
" Behold me, then, who after having spent a life of sixty years
without a stain on my honor, have left my house a knight, to return
to it a mere actor. I have lived too long by one day." Then
thinking of the talent of his young rival, and fearing a defeat, he
added, to extenuate its possible disgrace, and gain the pity of the
spectators — " what do I bring upon the stage to day ? I have
lost every thing — beauty of form, grace of mien, energy of
expression, and the advantage of a good utterance. Like a tomb, I
bear on my person only a name." But he soon recovered his
self-possession, and in his performance launched against tyranny a
torrent of severe invective, the application of which was readily
seen. Thus acting the part of a slave, escaping from the hands of his
executioner, he fled shouting — " It is all over with us,
Romans, liberty is lost I" " He who becomes a terror to
multitudes, he added a moment after, has multitudes to dread" —
while his gaze was continually fixed on the impassible dictator.
The performance ended, Caesar
invited the audacious actor to take a seat among the spectators of
his own rank. Syrus, whose turn to perform had now come, then
approaching Laberius, said with
a modest air, " be so good as
to receive with kindness as a spectator, him against whom you have
contended as an actor." Laberius sought a place among the ranks
of the knights, who however crowded to gether so as not to allow him
a seat. Cicero, who was somewhat given to raillery, shouted to him
from a distance, directing his irony at once against the actor and
the new batch of senators : " I would cheerfully give you my
place, if it were not too much crowded." " I am
astonished," pertly replied Laberius, " to hear that from a
man who is wont to sit so well on two seats at once ;" a witty
allusion to the equivocal character of the orator, a friend at the
same time of
Cassar and Pompey. He seated himself
as he best could, to listen to his rival.
Syrus at length appeared, the crowd
shouting their applause, and played the piece he had composed ; but
we are ignorant even of its title.
Whether from resentment, or a sense
of justice, Cassar awarding to Syrus the prize of the theatrical
contest, immediately passed him the triumphal palm, saying to the
knight, with a mocking smile,
"Although I was on your side,
Laberius, a Syrian has beaten you."
" Such is the fate of man,"
answered the poet ; " to-day, every thing; to-morrow, nothing."
Notwithstanding, to restore the honor of the knight, lost by
compliance with his own orders, Caesar passed him a gold ring, the
symbol of knightly rank, and added to it a present of five hundred
thousand sesterces.
Oh Cicero, he
who enters the tyrant's court is but the tyrant's slave, and
tyranny enslaves even those who serve it. Even he who is master of
that court, is but a slave to his own will. Caesar, having
conquered, was made a slave to his own domination, and to the demands
of those who helped him win power, and for all his deeds, whether
good or ill, he was punished in the end.
But you Cicero,
lived to see him fall, and to see the rise of another monster far
worse than Caesar.
Happy he who died when death was
desirable. - Publius Syrus.
You, Cicero, had
more than once desired death, but you chose to live instead, and in
those years of uneasy peace and bloody civil war, you produced great
works of literature which have granted you a place among the
immortals. Soon I will write to you on the death of Caesar, and
then, on your speeches against Marc Antony.
But they are
letters for another day, my dear friend.
With gratitude and
respect,
Morgan.
