Dear Cicero,
Another day, the world is ending, my coffee tastes the same. My coffee tastes good. My Father died last week, the result of Diabetes, and though I am grieving as any son who loved his father would, it is not with pain or sadness, but with some new kind of agonising joy that I find myself crying. It is good that children should bury their parents, it is natural, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to live in a peaceful part of the world where this is possible. The present conditions of the pandemic prevent any sort of family gathering for a funeral, but that is not such a heartbreak as one might imagine. I have time to write the eulogy. I have time to sort through the legal and financial procedures. I have time to grieve on my own terms.
I wrote a letter to my father, Cicero, which you may read here if you wish.
Despite this current calamity, I have been reading your book, On the Orator, a very modern translation (2012). You come across as a little pompous, but I suppose that you are a little pompous. It seems to be the Roman habit, an ingrained belief in the absolute superiority of Romans, particularly those living in the city itself. It comes across a bit pig headed these days, like this declaration that you put in the mouth of Lucius Licinius Crassus:
Compare our laws with those of other communities; with the laws of Lycurgus and Draco and Solon. You will find them extremely easy to understand why our ancestors surpassed every other nation in the world in wisdom. For the laws of all other countries are incredibly disorderly; one might even call them ridiculous. This, however is a subject that will be familiar to you from my daily conversation, since I am always repeating how much wiser we Romans are than the Greeks and everyone else.
You lived on top of the world.
Seneca reminded me today, as he so often does, that there are not many in Rome who have achieved greatness, who were not also brought low by the same fortune that made them soar. I bring this up I suppose because I have been relinquishing my own ambitions, finding instead that contentedness with small joys, is a far better path to tread. I am content with my family and home, I am content with my music, with my art, and with my work. This contentedness is not static, rather it is lively and swept up in a great spirit of innovation. I have been spending a lot more time at home with my kids, gardening, or watching movies, reading books, playing games. There is a plague, you see. Nothing like the Athenian Plague, but still, the whole world is affected, and many people are spending a lot more time at home.
I am breathing out, and as I said, relinquishing my ambition. Holding myself up to my own impossible standards was exhausting, and ultimately defeating. My goals are always shifting, I am unable to enjoy the triumphs as I strive for recognition, as I strive for a voice in the crowded atmosphere of art, music, writing.
You didn't let go, Cicero.
You didn't let go.
Are you a brave man or a fool?
Whatever mixture of virtue and vice that you possess, you are are terrific writer. I am racing through On the Orator, laughing and reading passages to my partner, underlining all my favourite sections so that I could write about them to you.
For the fact is that there is no earthly reason why a man should limit himself to the knowledge of one art and one only. Neither nature nor statute nor usage demand any such restriction. Pericles, for example, although he was the most eloquent man in Athens, also directed its national policy for very many years...
You also make reference to the Greek physician Empedocles being a good poet, and of Socrates, not only being a master of philosophy, but also of geometry and music. I bring this up because it reminds me of a quote from another author on a similar topic.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, from 'Time Enough for Love'
I read this book when I was about twenty years old, (I am forty now), and the above passage has subtly influenced the ebb and flow of my entire adult life. I know that the passage I quoted from you Cicero, is not quite pointed in this direction, you were making a different sort of argument, but you know how one thing leads to another, and cross disciplinary study produces unique fruits. Heinlein may have been a science fiction author, but I have long supported notion that Fiction contains as much truth as Non-Fiction, and that often the most profound philosophical maxims are best delivered through the mouths of imaginary characters.
Considering that your book, On the Orator, is a sort of philosophical/historical fiction, presented in the same manner as Plato's Socratic dialogues, or Xenophon's Cyropaedia, it seems that we are on the same page.
*
PS. I have been watching for you in the movies....
Cicero in the movie Cleopatra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KvR9ksDJlM
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