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I've never been much of a Cicero fan. This may go back to my difficulties in Latin 302 where we had to read [that is, labor through] his Catilinarian Orations. I found his periodic style very cumbersome and difficult to wade through. But this semester I decided to have my students evaluate a recent popular biography of the orator and statesman, since despite my general dislike, he was a central eyewitness figure in the fall of the Roman Republic, who also happened to leave us tons of primary source material for the period. For some balance I did have them read Sallust's account of the Catilinarian Conspiracy as well, which puts Cicero in a less favorable light, then he put himself in his own speeches.
So, now I'm reading this biography of Cicero, and I may have gained some new respect for him (although perhaps still not for his Latin style). He commented on his own educational training in his Pro Archias:
I find this statement to be just as applicable to our own day and age, and to me personally, as it was to the late Roman Republic (and probably also as meaningful as it must have been to Petrarch in the 14th century). In it, I think we find the key to Cicero's success - he was a country gentleman (read: bumpkin - his name means 'chickpea') who came to Rome as a young man determined to pull himself up by his bootstraps to the highest magistracies of the Roman Republic. He might have come to Rome, simply fit into this society, and promptly fell back into oblivion, but he did not. Instead he shunned the typical pleasures that most nobles wasted their time and money on in order to constantly improve himself and achieve his goal: the Roman consulship. Even if he was not the greatest orator in the history of Rome, he probably deserved to be, if we believe his own statement about his pursuit of education.
If we look at our own lives, how often do we feel that we have not achieved our full potential? And then, we might ask, how often have we come home at the end of the day and said to ourselves, "I'm so tired tonight, I'm just going to veg in front of the tube"; or how often do we plan to 'attend the games' [watch the football game] this weekend instead of toiling away at some chore that would see us nearer to our own personal goals? We live in a society focused on fun, and in that we have much in common with the people of the Roman Empire. Do we choose to wallow with the crowd in their entertainments, or do we seek the more lasting, even eternal, pursuits which will see us achieve immortality (however we choose to define that idea, which has been with us since the days of Achilles)?
Now, I am not advocating a life devoid of the simple pleasures of life, as I'm sure that Cicero did not avoid all the entertainments of his world (he seems to have been a fan of the theatre, for example). But we might well ask where our priorities lie, and those priorities might be best evaluated by an examination into our daily activities. How much time, or how much money, do we spend "taking holidays and attending games, indulging in pleasures of various kinds or even enjoying mental relaxation and bodily recreation, . . . on protracted parties and gambling and playing ball." Is it at a healthy level? How does that time and money spent compare to our "literary pursuits" - which might be more broadly defined in our day than in Cicero's? I write all this not to castigate anyone, as I know myself to be as guilty as anyone in my neglect of more substantial pursuits, but as part of my overall campaign to stem the tide of cultural decline in our civilization - a decline that I see everyday in my profession, and against which I fight a losing battle. It is not a question of if, but only when, our civilization will suffer a fate similar to that of the Romans. If it is any comfort, it took Rome almost 500 years from Cicero's day before it collapsed, but I would remind us that the last 300 years were far from pleasant.
So, now I'm reading this biography of Cicero, and I may have gained some new respect for him (although perhaps still not for his Latin style). He commented on his own educational training in his Pro Archias:
The time which others spend in advancing their own personal affairs, taking holidays and attending games, indulging in pleasures of various kinds or even enjoying mental relaxation and bodily recreation, the time they spend on protracted parties and gambling and playing ball, proves in my case to have been taken up with returning over and over again to . . . literary pursuits.
I find this statement to be just as applicable to our own day and age, and to me personally, as it was to the late Roman Republic (and probably also as meaningful as it must have been to Petrarch in the 14th century). In it, I think we find the key to Cicero's success - he was a country gentleman (read: bumpkin - his name means 'chickpea') who came to Rome as a young man determined to pull himself up by his bootstraps to the highest magistracies of the Roman Republic. He might have come to Rome, simply fit into this society, and promptly fell back into oblivion, but he did not. Instead he shunned the typical pleasures that most nobles wasted their time and money on in order to constantly improve himself and achieve his goal: the Roman consulship. Even if he was not the greatest orator in the history of Rome, he probably deserved to be, if we believe his own statement about his pursuit of education.
If we look at our own lives, how often do we feel that we have not achieved our full potential? And then, we might ask, how often have we come home at the end of the day and said to ourselves, "I'm so tired tonight, I'm just going to veg in front of the tube"; or how often do we plan to 'attend the games' [watch the football game] this weekend instead of toiling away at some chore that would see us nearer to our own personal goals? We live in a society focused on fun, and in that we have much in common with the people of the Roman Empire. Do we choose to wallow with the crowd in their entertainments, or do we seek the more lasting, even eternal, pursuits which will see us achieve immortality (however we choose to define that idea, which has been with us since the days of Achilles)?
Now, I am not advocating a life devoid of the simple pleasures of life, as I'm sure that Cicero did not avoid all the entertainments of his world (he seems to have been a fan of the theatre, for example). But we might well ask where our priorities lie, and those priorities might be best evaluated by an examination into our daily activities. How much time, or how much money, do we spend "taking holidays and attending games, indulging in pleasures of various kinds or even enjoying mental relaxation and bodily recreation, . . . on protracted parties and gambling and playing ball." Is it at a healthy level? How does that time and money spent compare to our "literary pursuits" - which might be more broadly defined in our day than in Cicero's? I write all this not to castigate anyone, as I know myself to be as guilty as anyone in my neglect of more substantial pursuits, but as part of my overall campaign to stem the tide of cultural decline in our civilization - a decline that I see everyday in my profession, and against which I fight a losing battle. It is not a question of if, but only when, our civilization will suffer a fate similar to that of the Romans. If it is any comfort, it took Rome almost 500 years from Cicero's day before it collapsed, but I would remind us that the last 300 years were far from pleasant.
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