Second Epilogue
Scholarly Appraisals of Cicero’s Final Years
The following pages are by no means meant to give a full account of scholarly debates on Cicero’s final years between the Renaissance and the 20th century.1 What they want to offer are specimens of evaluations of Cicero’s political and moral behaviour in order to sketch a general tendency in scholarship, but even more in order to show that the final years of Cicero’s life have continued to interest readers far beyond the early modern period.2
The sixteenth century: Erasmus and Lipsius
Erasmus’ Ciceronianus, mentioned in the previous two chapters, contains a view of Cicero’s character and life which is not purely hagiographical. As others had done before him, Erasmus chides Cicero’s frequent self-praise, his poetry, and his frequent mistakes of facts, but he does not stop there. Bulephorus, Erasmus’ spokesperson, remarks for example:
Fatebor eloquentem, qui Ciceronem feliciter expresserit: sed qui totum, exceptis uiciis: et ne sim iniquior, una cum ipsis uiciis, modo totum. Feremus illud subinane, feremus mentum leua demulceri, feremus et collum oblongum atque exilius, feremus perpetuam uocis contentionem, feremus indecoram parumque uirilem in initio dicendi trepidationem, feremus iocorum intemperantiam: et si qua sunt alia, in quibus M. Tullius uel sibi, uel aliis displicuit, modo simul et illa exprimant, quibus ista uel texit ille, uel pensauit.3
I will acknowledge him eloquent who copies Cicero successfully; but he must copy him as a whole and his very faults too. I will put up with that suggestion of emptiness, that stroking of the chin with the left hand, the long and thin neck, the continual straining of the voice, the unbecoming and unmanly nervousness as he begins to speak, the excessive number of jokes, and everything else which in Cicero is displeasing to himself or to others, provided only he copy those other traits too by which he concealed these or compensated for them.
Cicero’s behaviour during his final years, however, has no place in his harangue. Bulephorus even suggests that Cicero’s faults became less conspicuous towards the end of his career, as he claims that Cicero’s eloquence in the Philippics is that “of an older man, […] less redundant and less boastful”,4 and that during his last year he “spoke freely before the Senate and the Roman People, laying aside the fear of death”.5 This is perhaps not unexpected given Erasmus’ positive estimation of ‘Cicero’s’ contempt for death found in the Epistula ad Octauianum, as mentioned by Van der Velden in this volume (cf. p. 131).
Erasmus’ treatise sparked many further contributions by scholars all over Europe, some of which aimed to defend Cicero against the aspersions cast over his character.6 One of these was Julius Caesar Scaliger, who even reacted to the relatively minor incriminations found in the above-mentioned quotation.7 Justus Lipsius, although stylistically by no means a Ciceronian, also took up the task of defending Cicero’s character. He did so in an Oratio pro defendendo Cicerone in criminibus ei objectis, held between 1564 and 1568, when he was still a student in Leuven.8 In this speech,9 he discusses the criticism of Cicero’s character found in Erasmus separate from the question of the imitatio of Cicero: he would tackle that in a different speech, the Oratio utrum a solo Cicerone petenda sit eloquentia.10
In the beginning of his oratio, Lipsius draws a distinction between the reception of Cicero’s oratorical prowess and the reception of his life and career:
Non laudatur ab omnibus Cicero? Fateor, sed sic, ut eloquens, ut facundus, ut disertus patronus; quae laudes ejusmodi sunt, ut uel de Catilina, uel de Clodio, perditis ciuibus, et quos ipsos ualuisse dicendo accepimus, ne inimici quidem jejunius dixerint. […] Cujus [sc. Ciceronis] tamen, si recte consideremus, non minorem gloriam integerrima uita quam laudem eloquentia meruit.11
Is Cicero not praised by everyone? Yes, I admit it, but he is praised as an eloquent, articulate and well-spoken advocate. Praise of this kind might also be bestowed on Catiline or Clodius, wretched citizens of whom we learn that they too were good at speaking. […] But if we judged the matter rightly, we would discover that Cicero’s most blameless life makes him worthy of as much renown as his eloquence makes him worthy of praise.
Lipsius then sets out to refute two points of criticism against Cicero’s integerrima uita, which we have encountered many times over in this volume:12 Cicero’s leuitas and inconstantia in his political career, and his arrogantia and a puerilis gloriae cupiditas in political life. To the first charge, Lipsius responds that it was only normal for Cicero’s opinions and allegiances to fluctuate, given that he was living in such a tumultuous period.13 To the second, he objects that Cicer...
