CICERO
CICERO. Cicero the orator, when his name was played
upon and his friends advised him to change it, answered,
that he would make the name of Cicero more honorable
than the name of the Catos, the Catuli, or the Scauri. He
dedicated to the Gods a silver cup with a cover, with the
first letters of his other names, and instead of Cicero a
chick-pea (
cicer) engraven. Loud bawling orators, he
said, were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men
to take horse. Verres had a son that in his youth had not
well secured his chastity; yet he reviled Cicero for his
effeminacy, and called him catamite. Do you not know,
said he, that children are to be rebuked at home within
doors? Metellus Nepos told him he had slain more by his
testimony than he had saved by his pleadings. You say
true, said he, my honesty exceeds my eloquence. When
Metellus asked him who his father was, Your mother, said
he, hath made that question a harder one for you to answer
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than for me. For she was unchaste, while Metellus himself was a light, inconstant, and passionate man. The
same Metellus, when Diodotus his master in rhetoric died,
caused a marble crow to be placed on his monument; and
Cicero said, he returned his master a very suitable gratuity, who had taught him to fly but not to declaim. Hearing
that Vatinius, his enemy and otherwise a lewd person, was
dead, and the next day that he was alive, A mischief on
him, said he, for lying. To one that seemed to be an
African, who said he could not hear him when he pleaded,
And yet, said he, your ears are of full bore. He had summoned Popilius Cotta, an ignorant blockhead that pretended
to the law, as a witness in a cause; and when he told the
court he knew nothing of the business, On my conscience,
I'll warrant you, said Cicero, he thinks you ask him a
question in the law. Verres sent a golden sphinx as a
present to Hortensius the orator, who told Cicero, when
he spoke obscurely, that he was not skilled in riddles.
That's strange, said he, since you have a sphinx in your
house. Meeting Voconius with his three daughters that
were hard favored, he told his friends softly that verse,—
Children he hath got,
Though Apollo favored not.
When Faustus the son of Sylla, being very much in
debt, set up a writing that he would sell his goods by auction, he said, I like this proscription better than his father's.
When Pompey and Caesar fell out, he said, I know whom
to fly from, but I know not whom to fly to. He blamed
Pompey for leaving the city, and for imitating Themistocles
rather than Pericles, when his affairs did not resemble the
former's but the latter's. He changed his mind and went
over to Pompey, who asked him where he left his soninlaw Piso. He answered, With your father-in-law Caesar.
To one that went over from Caesar to Pompey, saying that
in his haste and eagerness he had left his horse behind him,
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he said, You have taken better care of your horse than of
yourself. To one that brought news that the friends of
Caesar looked sourly, You do as good as call them, said
he, Caesar's enemies. After the battle in Pharsalia, when
Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles
left still, and advised to try what they would do. Your
advice, said he, were good, if we were to fight with jackdaws. Caesar, now conqueror, honorably restored the
statues of Pompey that were thrown down; whereupon
Cicero said, that Caesar by erecting Pompey's statues had
secured his own. He set so high a value on oratory, and
did so lay out himself especially that way, that having a
cause to plead before the centumviri, when the day approached and his slave Eros brought him word it was
deferred until the day following, he presently made him
free.
