Atticus

Titus Pomponius Atticus, sprung from the most ancient stock of the Roman race, held without interruption the equestrian dignity received from his ancestors. He had a father careful and, as the times then were, wealthy, and above all devoted to letters. He, since he himself loved literature, instructed his son in all those branches of learning with which boyhood ought to be imbued. There was, moreover, in the boy, besides a teachableness of mind, the greatest sweetness of look and of voice, so that he not only quickly grasped what was taught him, but also delivered it admirably. By this in his boyhood he was esteemed famous among his fellows and shone forth more brightly than his well-born schoolmates could bear with an even mind. And so he stirred them all by his own zeal; among whose number were Lucius Torquatus, Gaius Marius the younger, and Marcus Cicero: whom he so bound to himself by his society that no one was ever dearer to them in their whole lives.

His father died early. He himself, while quite young, on account of his kinship with Publius Sulpicius, who as tribune of the people was slain, was not free from that peril: for Anicia, the cousin of Pomponius, had married Servius, the brother of Sulpicius. And so, after Sulpicius was slain, when he saw the state thrown into confusion by the Cinnan disturbance, and that no opportunity was given him of living in accordance with his dignity without offending one party or the other — the minds of the citizens being divided, since some favoured the Sullan, others the Cinnan party — thinking it a fitting time to indulge his pursuits, he betook himself to Athens. Yet none the less he aided with his resources the young Marius, who had been declared a public enemy, and relieved his flight with money. And, lest that sojourn abroad bring any loss to his estate, he transferred a great part of his fortunes thither. Here he so lived that he was deservedly most dear to all the Athenians. For besides the favour which already in the young man was great, he often relieved their public want with his own resources. For when it was necessary publicly to contract a loan, and they could not get fair terms for it, he always interposed himself, and that in such wise that he never took interest from them, nor suffered them to remain in debt longer than had been agreed. Both of which were of advantage to them: for he neither let their debt grow old by indulgence, nor suffered it to swell by the multiplying of interest. He increased this service by another act of generosity besides: for he gave grain to all of them, so that six measures of wheat were given to each — a measure which at Athens is called a medimnus.

He, moreover, so bore himself that he seemed of one rank with the lowest, the equal of the chief men. Hence it came about that they paid him publicly all the honours they could and were eager to make him a citizen: which benefit he was unwilling to use, because some so interpret it that Roman citizenship is lost when another is adopted. As long as he was present, he resisted any statue being set up to him; absent, he could not prevent it. And so they set up several both to him and to Phidias in the most sacred places: for in all the administration of the commonwealth they had him as their chief mover and adviser. To begin, then, with that first gift of fortune, that he was born in that city in which was the seat of the empire of the whole world, so that he had the same place both for his country and for his home; this was a mark of prudence, that, when he had betaken himself to that state which surpassed all in antiquity, culture, and learning, he alone was most dear to it.

When Sulla, on his way back from Asia, had come thither, as long as he was there he kept Pomponius with him, captivated by the young man's both refinement and learning. For he spoke Greek so well that he might have seemed born at Athens; and so great, moreover, was the sweetness of his Latin speech that it was plain there was in him a certain native charm, not acquired. He recited poems too, both in Greek and in Latin, so that nothing could be added to them. By these things it came about that Sulla never let him go from his side and wished to take him away with him. When he tried to persuade him, 'Do not, I beg you,' said Pomponius, 'wish to lead me against those, against whom, that I might not bear arms against you, I left Italy.' But Sulla, having praised the young man's sense of duty, on setting out ordered all the gifts which he had received at Athens to be brought to him. Here, having tarried several years, since he both gave to his estate as much attention as a careful head of a household ought, and devoted all the rest of his time either to letters or to the commonwealth of the Athenians, he none the less rendered his friends their civic services. For he both went regularly to their elections, and, if any greater matter was transacted, he was not wanting. So he showed Cicero singular fidelity in all his perils: to whom, fleeing from his country, he gave two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces. When affairs at Rome had grown calm, he returned to Rome, in the consulship, I think, of Lucius Cotta and Lucius Torquatus: and as he departed, the whole state of the Athenians so escorted him that by their tears it betrayed the grief of the loss they would feel.

He had a maternal uncle, Quintus Caecilius, a Roman knight, an intimate of Lucius Lucullus, rich, of a most difficult nature: whose harshness he so respected that — a man whom no one could endure — he kept his good will, without giving offence, even to his extreme old age. By this conduct he reaped the fruit of his dutifulness. For Caecilius, dying, by his will adopted him and made him heir to three-quarters of his estate: from which inheritance he received about ten million sesterces. A sister of Atticus was married to Quintus Tullius Cicero, and that match Marcus Cicero had brought about, with whom from their schooldays he lived in the closest union, far more intimately even than with Quintus, so that it may be judged that likeness of character avails more in friendship than ties of kinship. He was on intimate terms, too, with Quintus Hortensius, who in those times held the first place in eloquence, so that it could not be told which of the two loved him more, Cicero or Hortensius; and — what was most difficult — he brought it about that, between men in whom there was rivalry for so great praise, no disparagement should pass, and that he should be the bond between such great men.

In public life he so conducted himself that he both was, and was held to be, always of the best party, yet did not commit himself to the civic tempests, because he thought that those who had given themselves to these were no more in their own control than those who were tossed by the storms of the sea. He did not seek honours, although they lay open to him by reason both of his influence and of his standing: because they could neither be sought after the manner of the ancestors nor obtained, with the laws preserved, amid such unbridled bribery of canvassing, nor administered for the good of the state without peril, the morals of the city being corrupted. He never came forward to the public auction. He became surety or contractor for nothing. He accused no one either in his own name or by subscription, went to law concerning his own affairs never, held no judicial office. The governorships offered him by many consuls and praetors he so accepted that he followed no one into a province, was content with the honour, and looked down upon the gain of his estate: he who would not even go with Quintus Cicero into Asia, although he might have held the place of legate with him. For he did not think it became him, when he had been unwilling to hold the praetorship, to be a praetor's attendant. In this he served not only his dignity but also his tranquillity, since he avoided even the suspicions of charges. By this it came about that his attentiveness was the dearer to all, since they saw it ascribed to duty, and not to fear or hope.

The Caesarian civil war broke out, when he was about sixty years old. He used the exemption of his age and did not stir anywhere from the city. Whatever his friends, on setting out to Pompey, had need of, he gave them all from his own estate; Pompey himself, his connection, he did not offend. He had no mark of distinction from him, as had the rest who had got through him either honours or riches: of whom some most unwillingly followed his camp, others to his deep offence remained at home. But to Caesar Atticus's quiet was so welcome that the victor, when by his letters he was levying sums of money upon private men, not only was no trouble to him, but even released to him his sister's son and Quintus Cicero from the camp of Pompey. So, by the old rule of his life, he escaped fresh perils.

There followed this. When Caesar had been slain and the commonwealth seemed to be in the hands of the Bruti and Cassius, and the whole state had turned to them, Atticus so used Marcus Brutus that that young man was on no more familiar terms with any of his own age than with this old man, and had him not only as the chief of his counsel, but also as a daily companion. It was devised by certain men that a private treasury should be established for Caesar's assassins by the Roman knights. They thought this could easily be brought about if the leading men of that order contributed sums. And so Atticus was appealed to by Gaius Flavius, an intimate of Brutus, to be willing to be the chief in that matter. But he, who thought that the duties to be rendered to friends should be performed without faction, and had always kept himself away from such counsels, answered: that, if Brutus wished to use any of his own means, he would use them so far as they would allow, but that he would neither confer with anyone on the matter nor join in it. Thus that combination of partisanship was broken up by the dissent of this one man. Not long after, Antony began to be the stronger, so that Brutus and Cassius, abandoning the care of the provinces which had been given them for form's sake by the consul, in despair of their cause set out into exile. Atticus, who had been unwilling to contribute money together with the rest to that party while it flourished, sent a hundred thousand sesterces as a gift to Brutus, now cast down and quitting Italy; and to the same man, in his absence in Epirus, he ordered three hundred thousand to be given; nor for all that did he flatter the powerful Antony or desert the desperate.

There followed the war waged near Mutina. In which, if I should call him only prudent, I should say less than I ought, since he was rather one with the gift of divination — if perpetual natural goodness, which is shaken by no chances and is not diminished, is to be called divination. Antony, declared a public enemy, had quitted Italy: there was no hope of his being restored. Not only his enemies, who were then most powerful and most numerous, but even those who were ingratiating themselves with his adversaries and hoped to gain some advantage by injuring him, pursued the intimates of Antony, desired to strip his wife Fulvia of all her goods, and even prepared to do away with his children. Atticus, although he enjoyed the closest intimacy with Cicero and was a great friend of Brutus, not only gave them no encouragement to outrage Antony, but on the contrary sheltered, so far as he could, the intimates of Antony as they fled from the city, and helped them in what they needed. To Publius Volumnius he gave such aid that more could not have proceeded from a parent. To Fulvia herself, when she was harassed by lawsuits and vexed with great alarms, he so attentively rendered his service that she stood no bail-bond without Atticus, and Atticus was her surety in all matters. Nay more, when she, in prosperous fortune, had bought an estate on credit and could not, after her downfall, raise a loan, he interposed himself and lent the money without interest and without any bond, counting it the greatest profit to be known as mindful and grateful, and at the same time making plain that he was wont to be a friend not to fortune but to men. While he did these things, no one could think he did them for the occasion: for it occurred to no one's mind that Antony would gain mastery. But his disposition was blamed by some of the aristocrats, because he seemed too little to hate the wicked citizens. But he, of his own judgement, looked rather to what it was right for him to do than to what others would praise.

Fortune was suddenly reversed. When Antony returned into Italy, everyone thought that Atticus was in great peril on account of his close intimacy with Cicero and Brutus. And so, at the coming of the leaders, he had withdrawn from the Forum, fearing proscription, and lay hid with Publius Volumnius, to whom, as we have shown, a little before he had brought aid (so great in those times was the changeableness of fortune, that now these, now those, were at the height either of glory or of peril); and he had with him Quintus Gellius Canus, a man of his own age and most like himself. This too is an instance of Atticus's goodness, that he lived so closely with one whom he had known as a boy at school, that to extreme old age their friendship grew. Antony, however, although he was borne by such hatred against Cicero that he was an enemy not only to him but to all his friends, and wished to proscribe them, with many urging him to it, yet was mindful of the service of Atticus, and, when he had sought out where he was, wrote with his own hand that he should not fear and should come to him at once: that he had exempted both him and, for his sake, Canus from the number of the proscribed. And, lest any peril befall him — because this was done by night — he sent him a guard. Thus Atticus, in the height of fear, was a protection not only to himself but also to him whom he held most dear: for he did not seek of anyone aid for his own safety alone, but for that of his friend's too, so that it appeared that he wished no fortune to be sundered for himself from him. But if a helmsman is extolled with especial praise who saves his ship from a storm and a rocky sea, why should not the prudence of him be held singular, who out of so many and so grievous civic tempests came through to safety?

When he had emerged from these evils, he did nothing else than make himself a help to as many as he could, by whatever means he could. When the common people were hunting down the proscribed for the rewards of the leaders, no one came into Epirus who lacked anything: to no one was the chance of remaining there permanently denied; nay more, after the battle of Philippi and the death of Gaius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, he set about protecting Lucius Julius Mocilla, of praetorian rank, and his son, and Aulus Torquatus, and the rest stricken with like fortune, and ordered everything to be conveyed to them from Epirus to Samothrace. It is difficult to recount everything, and not necessary. This one thing we wish to be understood, that his generosity was neither temporary nor calculating. This can be judged from the very circumstances and times, in that he did not make a market of himself to the prosperous, but always succoured the afflicted: who indeed cherished Servilia, Brutus's mother, no less after his death than while he flourished. So, using his generosity in this way, he engaged in no enmities, because he neither injured anyone, nor, if he had received any wrong, did he not prefer to forget it rather than to avenge it. The same man, kindnesses received he kept with undying memory; but those which he himself had conferred he remembered only so long as he who had received them was grateful. And so he brought it about that that saying seems truly spoken: 'Each man's own character shapes his fortune.' Yet he did not shape his fortune before he shaped himself, in that he took care never in any matter to be justly punished.

By these things, then, he brought it about that Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, joined in the closest intimacy with the young Caesar, although, by reason both of his own favour and of Caesar's power, he might have had his choice of any match, preferred above all his connection by marriage, and chose the daughter of a Roman knight rather than the alliances of noble ladies. And the promoter of this marriage was (for it must not be concealed) Marcus Antonius, one of the triumvirs for ordering the commonwealth. By whose favour, although he might have increased his possessions, he was so far from greed of money that he used it in nothing except in deprecating the perils or losses of his friends. This indeed was most conspicuous in the very time of the proscription. For when the triumvirs had sold the goods of Lucius Saufeius, a Roman knight, his own age-mate, who, led by zeal for philosophy, had lived several years at Athens and had valuable possessions in Italy, by the custom in which affairs were then conducted, by the pains and industry of Atticus it came about that by the same messenger Saufeius was informed both that he had lost his patrimony and that he had recovered it. The same man freed Lucius Julius Calidus — whom, after the death of Lucretius and Catullus, I think I can truly maintain to be by far the most refined poet that our age has produced, and no less a good man and instructed in the best accomplishments — who, after the proscription of the knights, on account of his great African possessions, had been entered, in his absence, in the number of the proscribed by Publius Volumnius, Antony's prefect of engineers. Whether in the present case this was more laborious or more glorious for him, it is difficult to judge, because it was known that, in the perils of his friends, the absent were no less a care to Atticus than the present.

Nor indeed was he held a less good head of a household than a citizen. For although he was wealthy, no one was less given to buying, less to building. Yet none the less he was lodged among the best, and used all the best things. For he had a house on the Quirinal hill, the Tamphilian, left him by inheritance from his uncle, whose charm lay not in the building but in the grounds; for the house itself, built in ancient times, had more of good taste than of cost: in which he changed nothing, save what he was forced to by age. He used a household which, if it must be judged by usefulness, was the best, if by appearance, scarcely middling. For in it there were most literate slaves, excellent readers and very many copyists, so that there was not even a footman who could not do both these things well; in like manner the other craftsmen whom domestic establishment requires were thoroughly good. Yet he had none of these save born in his house and trained in his house: which is a mark not only of self-restraint but also of diligence. For both not to desire intemperately what you see most men do ought to be reckoned a mark of self-restraint, and to procure rather by industry than by purchase is no slight diligence. He was elegant, not magnificent; splendid, not lavish: and all his care aimed at neatness, not abundance. His furniture was moderate, not abundant, so that he could be conspicuous on neither side. Nor will I pass over — although I think it may seem trifling to some — that although he was above all a refined Roman knight, and not without liberality invited to his house men of every rank, he was wont, from his account-book, to set down to the expense of his table no more than three thousand sesterces, taken evenly, in each month. And this we tell not as something heard, but as known: for often, on account of our intimacy, we were present at his domestic affairs.

No one at his banquet heard any other entertainment than a reader, which we at least think most delightful; nor was there ever dining at his table without some reading, so that the guests were no less delighted in mind than in stomach: for he invited those whose characters were not at variance with his own. When so great an accession of money had been made, he changed nothing of his daily mode of life, nothing of his way of living, and used such moderation that he neither, on the two million sesterces which he had received from his father, bore himself too little splendidly, nor, on the ten million, lived more lavishly than he had begun, but stood at an equal height in either fortune. He had no pleasure-gardens, no costly suburban or seaside villa, nor in Italy, except the Arretine and the Nomentan, any country estate, and all the income of his money consisted in his Epirote and city possessions. From this it can be known that he was wont to measure the use of money not by its quantity, but by reason.

A lie he neither told nor could endure. And so his affability was not without seriousness, nor his seriousness without graciousness, so that it was difficult to understand whether his friends revered him more or loved him. Whatever he was asked, he promised scrupulously, because he thought it the part not of a generous but of a frivolous man to promise what he could not perform. The same man, in keeping what he had once granted, was of such care that he seemed to be conducting not a commission but his own affair. He never grew weary of a business he had undertaken: for he thought that his own repute was at stake in it, than which he held nothing dearer. Hence it came about that he managed all the affairs of the Ciceros, of Marcus Cato, of Quintus Hortensius, of Aulus Torquatus, and of many Roman knights besides. From this it can be judged that he shunned the administration of the commonwealth not out of indolence, but of judgement.

Of his courtesy, indeed, I can bring no greater testimony than that, as a young man, he was most pleasing to the aged Sulla, and as an old man to the young Marcus Brutus, while with his contemporaries Quintus Hortensius and Marcus Cicero he so lived that it is difficult to judge to which age he was most suited. Yet Cicero especially loved him, so that not even his brother Quintus was dearer to him or more intimate. To this there are as witnesses, besides those books in which he makes mention of him, which are published abroad, sixteen volumes of letters sent to Atticus from his consulship down to his last time: which, whoever reads them, will not much miss a connected history of those times. For everything concerning the aims of the leading men, the vices of the leaders, the changes of the commonwealth is so set down that nothing in them is not made plain, and it can easily be judged that prudence is in a manner divination. For Cicero foretold as future not only those things which happened in his lifetime, but also, like a seer, sang of what now comes to pass.

But why should I say more of the dutifulness of Atticus? When I myself heard him truly boasting of this very thing, at the funeral of his mother, whom he buried at the age of ninety, while he himself was sixty-seven, that he had never been reconciled with his mother, because he had never quarrelled with her, and had never been at variance with his sister, whom he had nearly of his own age. This is a sign either that no complaint ever passed between them, or that he was of such indulgence toward his own that he counted it sin to be angry with those whom he ought to love. Nor did he do this by nature alone, although we are all subject to that, but by learning too: for he had so grasped the precepts of the chief philosophers that he used them for the conduct of life, not for display.

He was, moreover, a great imitator of the customs of his ancestors and a lover of antiquity, which he had so diligently come to know that he set it all forth in that volume in which he arranged the magistrates in order. For there is no law nor peace nor war nor illustrious event of the Roman people which is not noted in it in its own time; and — what was most difficult — he so wove in the origin of families that from it we can learn the descents of famous men. He did this same thing separately in other books, as, at the request of Marcus Brutus, he set forth the Junian family in order from its stock down to the present age, noting who was sprung from whom and what honours each had held and at what times; in like manner the Marcelli of the family of Marcus Claudius, the Cornelii of Scipio and the Fabii and Aemilii of Fabius Maximus. Than which books nothing can be sweeter to those who have any desire for the knowledge of famous men. He touched poetry too, in order, we believe, that he might not be without a taste of its sweetness. For in verse he set forth those who in honour and in the greatness of their exploits surpassed the rest of the Roman people, in such wise that under the images of each he described their deeds and magistracies in no more than four or five lines: which it is scarcely to be believed could have been so briefly set forth, things so great. There is also one book composed in Greek, on the consulship of Cicero.

Thus far these things were published by us while Atticus lived. Now, since fortune has willed us to be his survivors, we shall pursue what remains, and, so far as we can, instruct our readers by examples drawn from the facts, as we have signified above, that for the most part each man's own character procures his fortune. For he, content with the equestrian order, in which he was born, came into a marriage connection with the emperor, the son of a god, although he had already before won his intimacy by no other thing than the elegance of his life, by which he had captivated the other leading men of the state, his equals in dignity but lower in fortune. For so great prosperity attended Caesar that fortune denied him nothing which it had ever bestowed on anyone, and procured for him what no Roman citizen down to that time had been able to attain. There was born, moreover, to Atticus a granddaughter from Agrippa, to whom he had given his maiden daughter in marriage. This granddaughter, scarcely a year old, Caesar betrothed to Tiberius Claudius Nero, son of Drusilla, his own stepson: which union confirmed the connection between them and made their intimacy more frequent.

And yet, even before this betrothal, not only, when he was away from the city, did Caesar never send a letter to any of his own people without writing to Atticus what he was doing, and above all what he was reading and in what places and how long he was going to stay; but even when he was in the city and, on account of his boundless occupations, enjoyed Atticus less often than he wished, scarcely a day passed by without his writing to him, now asking him something about antiquity, now propounding to him some poetical question, sometimes in jest drawing forth his more wordy letters. Hence it came about that, when the temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol, established by Romulus, through age and neglect was unroofed and falling into ruin, Caesar, at the suggestion of Atticus, saw to its repair. Nor indeed was he less courted, in his absence, by letters from Marcus Antonius, so much so that Antony took pains carefully to inform Atticus, from the ends of the earth, what he was doing. How great this is, he will the more easily judge who can estimate how great wisdom it is to retain the friendly relations and good will of men between whom there was not only rivalry over the greatest matters, but disparagement so great as must needs fall out between Caesar and Antony, since each desired to be the chief not only of the city of Rome but of the whole world.

When in this manner he had completed seventy-seven years and had grown, to extreme old age, in dignity no less than in favour and fortune (for he gained many inheritances by no other thing than goodness), and had enjoyed such prosperity of health that for thirty years he had had no need of medicine, he caught a disease which at first both he himself and the physicians made light of: for they thought it was a tenesmus, for which speedy and easy remedies were proposed. When in this he had spent three months without any pains, save those which he got from the treatment, suddenly so great a violence of the disease broke out into the lower bowel that at the last fistulas of pus burst out through his loins. And before this befell him, after he perceived that the pains were increasing day by day and that fevers had come on, he ordered his son-in-law Agrippa to be summoned to him, and with him Lucius Cornelius Balbus and Sextus Peducaeus. When he saw that they had come, leaning on his elbow he said: 'How great care and diligence I have employed in looking after my health at this time, since I have you as witnesses, there is no need to recall in many words. To whom, since, as I hope, I have satisfied you that I have left nothing undone that pertained to my cure, it remains that I take counsel for myself. This I did not wish you to be ignorant of: for I am resolved to cease to feed the disease. For in these days, whatever food I have taken, I have so prolonged my life as to increase my pains without hope of recovery. Wherefore I ask of you, first that you approve my resolve, then that you do not attempt to hinder me by dissuading me in vain.'

This speech delivered with such constancy of voice and countenance that he seemed to be migrating not out of life but out of one house into another, when Agrippa, weeping and kissing him, begged and besought him not himself too to hasten what nature was forcing, and, since even then he might survive for a time, to keep himself for himself and his own, he overbore his entreaties by his own silent steadfastness. So, when he had abstained from food for two days, suddenly the fever departed and the disease began to be lighter. Yet he carried out his purpose none the less, and so on the fifth day after he had entered upon that resolve, on the day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Gnaeus Domitius and Gaius Sosius, he died. He was carried out, as he himself had directed, in a small litter, without any pomp of funeral, all good men attending, with a very great throng of the common people. He was buried beside the Appian Way, at the fifth milestone, in the monument of Quintus Caecilius, his uncle.