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Background Information: Cicero: On Old Age and On Friendship
CONTENTS: The essay on Old Age was probably written just after the death of Caesar (March 15, 44 B.C.) although many competent authorities place the date as just before this momentous event. The essay itself was written to his dear friend Titus Atticus, who was at this time 65 years old. (Cicero was 62.) The purpose of the essay was to alleviate the dread of old age by applying the principles of philosophy. Cicero himself testifiers to the comfort afforded him in setting down the arguments and hoped that his friend Atticus would also be comforted. There is no doubt but that Cicero had in mind a political purpose, too. By contrasting the era of the Punic wars (which he regarded as the golden age of Roman, politics, self-sacrificing patriotism and serious simplicity) with the pleasure -loving time in which he was living, he wished to create a popular admiration for the stern principles adhered to in the former age. The Essays on Old Age and Friendship are written in the form of a dialogue, copying somewhat the style of Aristotle. One person really creates all the discussion or rather exposition, for there is no debate. The minor characters are merely placed thee to make the Treatise appear as if the discussion actually took place. The essay opens with a brief introduction. Scipio and Laelius, who are visiting Cato, are led to wonder how it is that Cato, seems to enjoy old age so much when other elderly men are constantly complaining about their advancing years. In reply Cato proceeds to defend Old Age by outlining the various arguments usually set forth against senility and then proceeds to show how groundless these are. M. Porcius Cato at the time of this alleged conversation was 84 (one year before his death in 149 B.C.). He was born on a small farm in the ancient Latin town of Tusculum. He rose to power at an early age and for many years was the most influential man in Rome. Throughout his life he was an active enemy against the luxury, immorality and corruption of his times. Although sincere and honest in his denunciations, he nevertheless used his frequent outbursts against the iniquities of the Roman leaders to further his personal ambitions and narrow-minded conservatism. All his life Cato was opposed to the teachings and influence of the Greeks. Only in his declining years did he turn to the creative genius of Greece. It is, then, not the real Cato we find in the essay on Old Age declaiming philosophy of the Greeks, but rather a marionette whose strings are guided by the unseen hands of Cicero, himself. The Scipio of this essay was a son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus, the conquerer of Macedonia. But Scipio took his name from his foster father P. Cornelius Scipio (son of the famous Africanus). At the time of the conversation he was about 35 years of age. The friendship Scipio bore for Cato was somewhat remarkable, considering the vicious verbal attacks of Cato against Scipio's Africanus and his brother Asiaticus, which proved to be the downfall of these two great Romans. Laelius was Scipio's most intimate friend. He was an able soldier, speaker and writer. Throughout life he was an exponent of Greek learning and Stoic philosophy.
The Essay on Friendship was probably written by Cicero shortly after his Essay on Old Age. Here again the influence of Greek philosophy is clearly shown. The essay, although doubtless intended as a popular treatise of the subject, was dedicated to his friend Atticus. This friend-ship had begun in early life when both were students together Atticus never entered public life, preferring to devote his time to literary and philosophical studies. For over twenty years he lived in Athens, so that he might be in closer touch with the center of Greek culture. The conversation of the essay takes place in 129 B. C. Frannius and Scaevola come to the house of their father-in-law, Gaius Laelius, who is mourning the recent death of his dear friend, Scipio. In the course of conversation the subject of Laelius's lifelong friendship for Scipio is discussed; the two younger men request Laelius's views on friendship which he thereupon proceeds to expound. The Laelius of this essay is the same man we have read about in the Essay on Old Age. He bore the title of Sapiens, probably more because of his good common-sense and wisdom in practical affairs than because of his scholarly attainments in literature and Greek philosophy. Scaevola and Fannius were both sons-in-law of Laelius. Both, likewise, rose to prominence in public life, for each became consul. Their importance in this essay, however, is but slight, for the duty of carrying on the discussion is left entirely to Laelius.
Source: Dewey, Frederick Holland. Cicero's Essays on Old and and Friendship. New York: Translation Publishing, 1926. Caius Laelius Sapiens, the son of Caius Laelius, who was the life-long friend of Scipio Africanus the Elder, was born B.C. 186. a little earlier in the same year with his friend Africanus the Younger. He was not undistinguished as a military commander, as was proved by his successful campaign against Viriathus, the Lusitanian chieftain, who had long held the Roman armies at bay, and had repeatedly gained signed advantages over them. He was known in the State, at first as leaning, though moderately and guardedly, to the popular side, but after the disturbances created by the Gracchi, as a strong conservative. He was a learned and accomplished man, was an elegant writer,-though while the Latin tongue retained no little of its archaic rudeness,-and was possessed of some reputation as an orator. Though bearing his part in public affairs, holding at intervals the offices of Tribune, Praetor, and Consul, and in his latter years attending with exemplary fidelity to such duties as belonged to him as a member of the college of Augurs, he yet loved retirement, and cultivated, so far as he was able, studious and contemplative habits. He was noted for his wise economy of time. To an idle man who said to him, "I have sixty years" (that is, I am sixty years old), he replied, "Do you mean the sixty years which you have not?" His private life was worthy of all praise for the virtues that enriched and adorned it; and its memory was so fresh after the lapse of more than two centuries, that Seneca, who well knew the better way which he had not always strength to tread, advises his young friend Lucilius to " live with Laelius;" that is, to take his life as a model. The friendship of Laelius and the younger Scipio Africanus well deserves the commemoration which it ahs in this dialogue of Cicero. It began in their boyhood, and continued without interruption till Scipio's death. Laelius served in Africa, mainly that he might not be separated from his friend. To each the other's home was as his own. They were of one mind as to public men and measures, and in all probability the more pliant nature of Laelius yielded in great measure to the cause of the aristocracy. While they were united in grave pursuits and weighty interests, we have the most charming pictures of their rural and seaside life together, even of their gathering shells on the shore, and of fireside frolics in which they forgot the cares of the republic, ceased to be stately old Romans, and played like children in vacation-time.
Caius Fannius Strabo in early life served with high reputation in Africa, under the younger Africanus, and afterward in Spain, in the war with Viriathus. Like his father-in-law, he was versed in the philosophy of the Stoic school, under the tuition of Panaetius. He was an orator, as were almost all the Romans who aimed at distinction; but we have no reason to suppose that he in this respect rose above mediocrity. He wrote a history, of which Cicero speaks well, and which Sallust commends for its accuracy; but it is entirely lost, and we have no direct information even as to the ground which it covered. It seems probable, however, that it was a history either of the third of the Punic wars, or of all of them; for Plutarch quotes from him-probably from his History-the statement that he, Fannius, and Tiberius Gracchus were the first to mount the walls of Carthage when the city was taken.
Quintus Mucius Scaevola filled successively most of the important offices of the State, and was for many years, and until death, a member of the college of Augurs. He was eminent for this legal learning, and to a late and infirm old age was still consulted in questions of law, never refusing to receive clients at any moment after daylight. But while he was regarded as foremost among the jurists of his time, he professed himself less thoroughly versed in the laws relating to mortgages than two of his coevals, to whom he was wont to send those who brought cases of this class for his opinion or advise. He was remarkable for early rising, constant industry, and undeviating punctuality,-at the meetings of the Senate being always the first on the ground. No man held a higher reputation than Scanevola for rigid and scrupulous integrity. It is related of him that when as a witness in court he had given testimony full, clear, strong, and of the most damnatory character against the person on trial, he protested against the conviction of the defendant on his testimony, if not corroborated, on the principle held sacred in the Jewish law, that it would be a dangerous precedent to suffer the issue of any case to depend on the intelligence and veracity of a single witness. When, after Marius had been driven from the city, Sulla asked the Senate to declare him by their vote a public enemy, Scaevola stood in a minority of one; and when Sulla urged him to give his vote in the affirmative, his reply was : "Although you show me the military guard with which you have surrounded the Senate-house, although you threaten me with death, you will never induce me, for the little blood still in an old man's veins, to pronounce Marius-who has been the preserver of the city and of Italy-an enemy." His daughter married Lucius Licinius Crassus, who has such reverence for his father-in-law, that, when a candidate for the consulship, he could not persuade himself in the presence of Scaevola to cringe to the people, or to adopt any of the usual self-humiliating methods of canvassing for the popular vote.
Source: Peabody, Andrew P. Cicero: De Amicitia. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1884. |
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