Book 4, Letter 7, Part 1 of 2, To Cicero: On having the courage to fight a losing battle

Dear Cicero,

There are many reasons why I identify with you, why I call you my friend. Perhaps I am projecting, perhaps I am seeing what I want to see in you, in the hope that it justifies my own life choices. I think that you believed in peace even in the middle of civil war, you tried to dissuade your political associates from fighting until it became impossible.

So I would like to share a poem of my own...

Middle Ground

April 2020

When I'm fighting for the middle ground,

it's a fight I can never win.

The two opposing sides will always see me as the villain

for siding with their enemy,

while all I can see are potential allies

Allies who remain ignorant of the true virtues or vices of their opponent

because half-real illusions and half-justified injuries

dominate their vision.

While I'm stuck in the middle

fighting half-heartedly for a lost cause.

When I am unable to make peace

I must find satisfaction in war,

or at the very least,

in sacrifice,

as I find that

keeping my silence

is the only way

to win at all...

and that is no kind of victory for anyone.

*

I have throughout my life often been a family peace-maker, a chairperson of committees, a messenger, a middleman – the communicator. It doesn't always go well for me. Trying to prevent conflict rarely ends well for the one in the middle, and I have failed to prevent conflicts often enough that I have developed a terrible nervous reaction to any sort of contest of wills. I have found myself forced to choose between two kinds of betrayal, and ultimately, have ended up betraying myself. I fold before I bluff, I am a terrible poker player, and though I find myself frequently caught between disagreeing parties, it seems that either I have learned nothing of the gentle arts of peace making, or that the position itself is one doomed to failure.

And so I find that keeping my silence is the only way to win.

Oh Cicero, if only you had kept your silence. If only the Republic you believed in had really existed. If only... it's a stupid phrase really, if only. It denies the reality of the situation, and the reality was that the Roman Republic was long dead, and your efforts, well intended though they may have been, were ultimately futile. You lived in a tyranny, but you thought you were fighting for freedom. In the end, it was a battle to save your own dignity. While all those around you were being murdered, or bribed, or exiled, you were busy writing your own glorious epitaph; a collection of books and speeches that have taught the world many lessons.

I quote now from the Harmsworths Universal Encyclopaedia, 1921

(Cicero was...) Naturally of conservative leanings and believing in the possibility of reform within the machinery of the old constitution, he chose the aristocratic or senatorial party. But he was no consistent supporter of this party, and severely criticised some of its members, while the aristocracy had no particular affection for one whom they considered a parvenu, although they regarded his oratorical powers as a valuable party asset.

...

After the murder of Caesar, in which he had no part, he reappeared in public life, delivering violent speeches against Antony. When Antony became master of the situation, Cicero was a marked man. He might have found safety in flight, but with the words “Let me die in the country which I have often saved,” resigned himself to meet the emissaries of Antony, by whom he was killed, Dec 7^th, 43BCE

Cicero's reputation as a statesman is marred by his fatal lack of decision, and it is as a man of letters that his fame rests on the surest reputation. “Cicero's unique and imperishable glory” is that “he used the latin language to form a prose style which twenty centuries have not displaced, and I some respects, have scarcely altered.” (Mackail). In addition to over 5o extant speeches, Cicero found time to write on oratory, philosophy, law and politics. Many books of letters also survive, his chief correspondent being his life-long friend Atticus. In these letters the real Cicero is revealed as ambitious, vain, vacillating, yet with his own ideals, kindly, and essentially loveable.

What might have happened if you had kept your silence and faded into old age in peaceful retirement in Greece with your son? What might have happened to your books if you had decided to save yourself, rather than to try, and fail, to save your country? Is your fame made greater because of the bright flare of your final struggle and violent death? Would Tiro have preserved your letters if you had peacefully faded from history?

I don't know.

The truth is that you fought to the death for a failed cause, and whether or not it was a noble cause, I cannot say. If I lived my life in your time Cicero, I probably would have been one of the urban poor, or even a slave musician or scribe. I would probably have lamented the bloodshed, but have resigned myself to being a person of very little influence. I might have mourned your death, I might have cheered at the loss of the Republic's loudest defender, glad that at last a populare leader was taking over.

I probably would have been happy as long as free bread continued to be offered, regardless of who was in power.

I don't know.

You fought, and you lost. Perhaps it is that fact which makes me identify with you and admire you as much as I do, for life is fully of failure. I don't know, today I vacillate between pride and shame, hope and despair, confidence and anxiety.

Tomorrow?