Dear Cicero,
I'm near the end, only a few letters to go and I will have read every single one, just as Petrarch requested. I must savour these last words, despite their grim subject matter. There are no more letters to Atticus, no more to Tiro, no more to any of your friends – these are letters of war. To Marcus and Decimus Brutus, to Plancus, to Lepidus, and many others, all men of high office, all embroiled in the same civil strife, all of you working day and night to see your ambitions realised.
To save the Republic
They say that history is written by the victors, but tonight I understood that with you, Cicero, this is not true. You wrote your own history, and you lost hard. Your whole quest to save the Republic was a failure, yet your immortality is unquestionable. People today squabble over whether or not you complained too much or whether or not you had any real courage or power - and I repeat Petrarch's words to them; do not judge, until you have read all the letters, and read them well, and with careful, slow consideration.
As I near the end, I am scared to finish. Something of the truth of your death looms waiting for me. A truth I do not wish to face: that immortality is paper thin, and that the death which you walked towards with a steady gaze, is the real end of your story. I may read your works and feel you beside me, I may, for a time, sense the presence of your spirit as I read aloud your speeches, but death is forever, while life is short.
I see my own world crumbling, just as you were witness to the final days of your own dear Republic. I see the warning signs of civil war, and of a global systems collapse. If human nature asserts itself as it has in the past, it cannot be long before assassination becomes a commonplace political statement, and the similarities between your time and my own will increase. Nations are once again arming themselves...
But I should not worry. I cannot write the future. I will stand or fall as the wheat in the field, and my time shall be measured by the speed of the blade.
I am glad to have known you Cicero.
The story of the end of the Republic is written in your letters...
DCCCLX
M Brutus to M Cicero
May
43BCE
Because Antony is still alive and in arms, while in regard to Caesar, what could and was bound to be done, is all over and cannot be undone, Octavius is the man whose decision as to us is awaited by the Roman people ; we are in such a position that one man has to be petitioned to enable us to live. I however – to return to your policy – so far from being the sort of man to supplicate, am one forcibly to coerce those who demand that supplications should be addressed to them. If I can't do that, I will withdraw far from the servile herd and will for myself regard Rome as wherever I am able to be free. I shall feel only pity for men like yourself, if neither age nor honours nor the example of other men's courage has been able to lessen your clinging to life. For myself I shall only think myself happy if I abide with firmness and persistency in the idea that my patriotism has had its reward : for what is there better than the memory of good actions, and for a man – wanting nothing except liberty – to disregard the vicissitudes of human life?
Now, there is some doubt as to the authenticity of this letter from Brutus, and I, an amateur who cannot read Latin, still feel that there is something 'off' about the style of the above letter, especially given Brutus' usual laconic style. However, Shuckburgh, the translator of the 1895 edition, has this to say on the subject of these letters from Brutus:
There seems to be a kind of fashion in criticism. Forty of fifty years ago there was a tendency to throw doubt on the genuineness of ancient writings with a kind of triumphant scepticism; now the pendulum has swung back – for the most part happily so – and the impulse is do defend everything. Neither fashion is wholly in the right.
So, whether or not the letter is fake, I would like to address something about what it says, and how, in light of modern events, it seems a relevant example of political conflict. Brutus claims that Rome is wherever he can be free – but in all civil wars, Freedom, is what both sides always claim they are fighting for. The word is so over-used as to lose all meaning. Brutus also claims 'liberty or death', and as such, knowing something of his conservative political opinions, and yours Cicero, he comes across as a suicidal fanatic. To me, it is the most discreditable facet of your story, and of the actions of the senatorial order, that they refused to be flexible with their opposition.
Of course, that is too simplistic. After 100 years of bloodshed, the political process was little better than open gang warfare, and compromise, concessions and dialogue were utterly futile. Both sides had killed so many of their opposition, the blood grudge on both sides was never to be resolved. Or, Cicero, as you put it:
DCCCXCII
M Tullius Cicero to M Iunius Brutus
June 43BCE
Each man claims to be powerful in the Republic in proportion to his physical force. Reason, moderation, law, custom, duty – all go for nothing : as do the judgement and opinion of their fellow citizens, and their respect for the verdict of posterity. It was because I foresaw all this long ago that I was on the point of flying from Italy at the time when the report of the edicts issued by you and Cassius recalled me.
I love to find the moments in your life when your choices seem to draw you with a purpose towards your grisly fate. There are so many times when, had you chosen differently, you might have outlived the Republic. You might have met with your son in Greece and perhaps even studied with him, you might have turned your skills to philosophy and left the bloody contest for Rome behind. Here in June, 43BCE, not for the first time, some force drew you back into the battle. The wind herself diverted your ship more than once back to Italy.
Fortune had plans for you Cicero, and she played the strings of your heart and mind to the bloody end.
No comments:
Post a Comment