29.
But the man of whom I am speaking is excessively accomplished, not in
philosophy alone, but also in general literature, which they
say that the rest of the Epicureans commonly neglect. He composes a poem, so
witty, so neat, so elegant, that nothing can be cleverer. In respect of
which any one may find fault with him who pleases, provided he does so
good-humouredly, treating him not as a profligate, or a rascal, or a
desperado, but merely as a Greekling, as a flatterer, as a poet. He comes
to, or rather, I should say, he falls in with him, deceived by the same
rigid brow of his (being, too, a Greek and a stranger) as this wise and
great city was beguiled by. He could not withdraw when he had once become
entangled in his intimacy, and he was afraid also of getting the character
of being fickle. Being entreated, and invited, and compelled, he wrote so
many things which he addressed to him, so many things too about him, that he
has described in the most delicate poetry possible all the lusts of the man,
all his debaucheries, all his different suppers and revels, and even all his
adulteries.
[71]
And, in that poetry, any one
who pleases can see that fellow's way of life reflected as in a mirror. And
I would recite you much of it, which many men have read or heard, if I were
not afraid that even the kind of speech which I am indulging in at this
moment is at variance with the general usages of this place; and at the same
time, I do not wish to do any injury to the character of the man who wrote
it.
For if he had had better fortune in getting a pupil, perhaps he might have
turned out a more strict and dignified man himself; but chance has led him
into a habit of writing in this manner, very unworthy of a philosopher; if
at least philosophy does, as is reported, comprehend the whole system of
virtue, and duty, and living properly; and a man who professes it appears to
me to have taken on himself a very serious and difficult character.
[72]
But the same chance has polluted the
man, who was quite ignorant of what he was professing when he called himself
a philosopher, with the mud and filth of that fellow's most obscene and
intemperate flock.
And when he had praised the achievements of my consulship, (and I feel that
the panegyric of that basest of men was almost a discredit to me myself,)
“it was not,” says he, “any odium that you
incurred by your conduct then, which injured you, but your
verses.” It was too great a punishment that was established, I
trust, by you when you were consul, for a poet, whether he
were a bad one, or too free an one. For you wrote—“
Arms to the gown must yield.
” What then?—“This was what excited all that storm against you.” But I imagine that never was written in that panegyric, which, while you were consul was engraved on the sepulchre of the republic—“May it please you, that because Marcus Cicero has written a verse,...” but because he punished the guilty.
” What then?—“This was what excited all that storm against you.” But I imagine that never was written in that panegyric, which, while you were consul was engraved on the sepulchre of the republic—“May it please you, that because Marcus Cicero has written a verse,...” but because he punished the guilty.
