XIV. At his banquets no one ever heard any other entertainment for the ears 283 than a reader; an entertainment which we, for our parts, think in the highest degree pleasing; nor was there ever a supper at his house without reading of some kind, that the guests might find their intellect gratified no less than their appetite, for he used to invite people whose tastes were not at variance with his own. After a large addition, too, was made to his property, he made no change in his daily arrangements, or usual way of life, and exhibited such moderation, that he neither lived unhandsomely, with a fortune of two thousand sestertia,284 which he had inherited from his father, nor did he, when he had a fortune of a hundred thousand sestertia,285 adopt a more splendid mode of living than that with which he had commenced, but kept himself at an equal elevation in both states. He had no gardens, no expensive suburban or maritime villa, nor any farm except those at Ardea and Nomentum; and his whole revenue arose from his property in Epirus and at Rome. Hence it may be seen that he was accustomed to estimate the worth of money, not by the quantity of it, but by the mode in which it was used.
XV. He would neither utter a falsehood himself, nor could he endure it in others. His courtesies, accordingly, were paid with a strict regard to veracity, just as his gravity was mingled with affability; so that it is hard to determine whether his friends’ reverence or love for him were the greater. Whatever he was asked to do, he did not promise without solemnity,286 for he thought it the part, not of a liberal, but of a light-minded man, to promise what he would be unable to perform. But in striving to effect what he had once engaged to do, he used to take so much pains, that he seemed to be engaged, not in an affair entrusted to him, but in his own. Of a matter which he had once taken in hand, he was never weary; for he thought his reputation, than which he held nothing more dear, concerned in the accomplishment of it. Hence it happened that he managed all the commissions 287 of the Ciceros, Cato, Marius, Quintus Hortensius, Aulus Torquatus, and of many Roman knights besides. It may therefore be thought certain that he declined business of state, not from indolence, but from judgment.
XVI. Of his kindness of disposition, I can give no greater proof than that, when he was young, he was greatly liked by Sulla, who was then old, and when he was old, he was much beloved by Marcus Brutus, then but young; and that with those friends of the same age as himself, Quintus Hortensius and Marcus Cicero, he lived in such a manner that it is hard to determine to which age his disposition was best adapted, though Marcus Cicero loved him above all men, so that not even his brother Quintus was dearer or more closely united to him. In testimony of this fact (besides the books in which Cicero mentions him, and which have been published to the world), there are sixteen books of letters, written to Atticus, which extend from his consulship to his latter days, and which he that reads will not much require a regular history of those times; for all particulars concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government, are so fully stated in them that every thing is made clear; and it may be easily concluded that wisdom is in some degree divination, as Cicero not only predicted that those things would happen which took place during his life, but foretold, like a prophet, the things which are coming to pass at present.
XVII. Of the affectionate disposition of Atticus towards his relatives, why should I say much, since I myself heard him proudly assert, and with truth, at the funeral of his mother, whom he buried at the age of ninety, that “he had never had occasion to be reconciled to his mother,” 288 and that “he had never been at all at variance with his sister,” who was nearly of the same age with himself; a proof that either no cause of complaint had happened between them, or that he was a person of such kind feelings towards his relatives, as to think it an impiety to be offended with those whom he ought to love. Nor did he act thus from nature alone, though we all obey her, but from knowledge; for he had fixed in his mind the precepts of the greatest philosophers, so as to use them for the direction of his life, and not merely for ostentation.
XVIII. He was also a strict imitator of the customs of our ancestors, and a lover of antiquity, of which he had so exact a knowledge, that he has illustrated it throughout in the book in which he has characterized 289 the Roman magistrates; for there is no law, or peace, or war, or illustrious action of the Roman people, which is not recorded in it at its proper period, and, what was extremely difficult, he has so interwoven in it the origin of families, that we may ascertain from it the pedigrees of eminent men. He has given similar accounts too, separately, in other books; as, at the request of Marcus Brutus, he specified in order the members of the Junian family, from its origin to the present age, stating who each was, from whom sprung, what offices he held, and at what time. In like manner, at the request of Marcellus Claudius, he gave an account of the family of the Marcelli; at the request of Scipio Cornelius and Fabius Maximus, of that of the Fabii and Aemilii; than which books nothing can be more agreeable to those who have any desire for a knowledge of the actions of illustrious men.
He attempted also poetry, in order, we suppose, that he might not be without experience of the pleasure of writing it; for he has characterized in verse such men as excelled the rest of the Roman people in honour and the greatness of their achievements, so that he has narrated, under each of their effigies, their actions and offices, in not more than four or five lines; and it is almost inconceivable that such important matters could have been told in so small a space. There is also a book of his written in Greek, on the consulship of Cicero.
These particulars, so far, were published by me whilst Atticus was alive.
XIX. Since fortune has chosen that we should outlive him, we will now proceed with the sequel, and will show our readers by example, as far as we can, that (as we have intimated above) “it is in general a man’s manners that bring him his fortune.”290 For Atticus, though content in the equestrian rank in which he was born, became united by marriage with the emperor Julius’s son, whose friendship he had previously obtained by nothing else but his elegant mode of living, by which he had charmed also other eminent men in the state, of equal birth,291 but of lower fortune; for such prosperity attended Caesar, that fortune gave him everything that she had previously bestowed upon any one, and secured for him what no citizen of Rome had ever been able to attain. Atticus had a granddaughter, the daughter of Agrippa, to whom he had married his daughter in her maidenhood; and Caesar betrothed her, when she was scarcely a year old, to Tiberius Claudius Nero, son of Drusilla, and step-son to himself; an alliance which established their friendship, and rendered their intercourse more frequent.
XX. Even before this connexion, however, Caesar not only, when he was absent from the city, never despatched letters to any one of his friends without writing to Atticus what he was doing, what, above all, he was reading, in what place he was, and how long he was going to stay in it, but even when he was in Rome, and through his numberless occupations enjoyed the society of Atticus less frequently than he wished, scarcely any day passed in which he did not write to him, sometimes asking him something relating to antiquity, sometimes proposing to him some poetical question, and sometimes, by a jest, drawing from him a longer letter than ordinary. Hence it was, that when the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, built in the Capitol by Romulus, was unroofed and falling down through age and neglect, Caesar, on the suggestion of Atticus, took care that it should be repaired.
Nor was he less frequently, when absent, addressed in letters by Mark Antony; so that, from the remotest parts of the earth, he gave Atticus precise information what he was doing, and what cares he had upon him. How strong such attachment is, he will be easily able to judge, who can understand how much prudence is required to preserve the friendship and favour of those between whom there existed not only emulation in the highest matters, but such a mutual struggle to lessen one another as was sure to happen between Caesar and Antony, when each of them desired to be chief, not merely of the city of Rome, but of the whole world.
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nbsp; XXI. After he had completed, in such a course of life, seventy-seven years, and had advanced, not less in dignity, than in favour and fortune (for he obtained many legacies on no other account than his goodness of disposition), and had also been in the enjoyment of so happy a state of health, that he had wanted no medicine for thirty years, he contracted a disorder of which at first both himself and the physicians thought lightly, for they supposed it to be a tenesmus, and speedy and easy remedies were proposed for it; but after he had passed three months under it without any pain, except what he suffered from the means adopted for his cure, such force of the disease fell into the one intestine,292 that at last a putrid ulcer broke out through his loins. Before this took place, and when he found that the pain was daily increasing, and that fever was superadded, he caused his son-in-law Agrippa to be called to him, and with him Lucius Cornelius Balbus and Sextus Peducaeus. When he saw that they were come, he said, as he supported himself on his elbow, “How much care and diligence I have employed to restore my health on this occasion, there is no necessity for me to state at large, since I have yourselves as witnesses; and since I have, as I hope, satisfied you, that I have left nothing undone that seemed likely to cure me, it remains that I consult for myself. Of this feeling on my part I had no wish that you should be ignorant; for I have determined on ceasing to feed the disease; as, by the food and drink that I have taken during the last few days, I have prolonged life only so as to increase my pains without hope of recovery. I therefore entreat you, in the first place, to give your approbation to my resolution, and in the next, not to labour in vain by endeavouring to dissuade me from executing it.”
XXII. Having delivered this address with so much steadiness of voice and countenance, that he seemed to be removing, not out of life, but out of one house into another, when Agrippa, weeping over him and kissing him, entreated and conjured him “not to accelerate that which nature herself would bring, and, since he might live some time longer,293 to preserve his life for himself and his friends,” he put a stop to his prayers, by an obstinate silence. After he had accordingly abstained from food for two days, the fever suddenly left him, and the disease began to be less oppressive. He persisted, nevertheless, in executing his purpose; and in consequence, on the fifth day after he had fixed his resolution, and on the last day of February, in the consulship of Cnaeus Domitius and Caius Sosius, he died.294 His body was carried out of his house on a small couch, as he himself had directed, without any funereal pomp, all the respectable portion of the people attending, 295 and a vast crowd of the populace. He was buried close by the Appian way, at the fifth milestone from the city, in the sepulchre of his uncle Quintus Caecilius.
FRAGMENTS 296
I. Words excerpted from the letter of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, from the book of Cornelius Nepos On the Latin Historians.297
You will say that it is beautiful to take revenge on enemies. That seems neither greater nor more beautiful to anyone than to me, but
II. Likewise from another place.
I intend to swear formally that, apart from those who killed Tiberius Gracchus, no enemy has caused me so many troubles and so many labours as you on account of these things; you who should, as the only one
III. Cornelius Nepos, in the book On the Latin Historians, in praise of Cicero.298
You should not ignore that this 299 is the sole branch of Latin letters that still cannot be compared with that of the Greeks, but was left rude and inchoate by the death of Cicero. For he was the only man who could or sought to produce history in a worthy way, since he highly polished up the rude eloquence handed down from the great men of the past, and strengthened Latin philosophy, before him uncouth, with his style. From which I doubt whether from his loss the republic or history suffered more.
IV. Likewise.
Opulent and divine nature, to obtain greater admiration and wider benefit, has chosen not to give every gift to one man, nor further to deny every gift to anyone.
V. Cornelius Nepos so wrote to Cicero. 300
I am so far from thinking that philosophy teaches how to live, and the thing that perfects a blessed life, that I consider no men have more need of teachers in how to live than most of those who spend their time teaching it. For I see that a great part of those who lecture most subtly in the schools on decency and continence themselves live in lusts for every kind of sensual pleasure.
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS MENTIONED BY CORNELIUS NEPOS.
In this Chronological Summary such events only are noticed as more immediately concern Cornelius Nepos. Facts that are not found here may be sought in the Chronology appended to Justin in this volume, or in general Chronological Tables. The dates are taken from Tzschucke.
B.C.
512. Miltiades sent to the Chersones. Milt. 1
507. returns to Athens. Milt 3.
489. dies. Milt. 7.
483. Aristides banished. Arist. 1.
Themistocles begins to construct the harbour of the Piraeeus.
479. prevails on the Athenians to rebuild the walls of their city. Them. 6.
477. completes the Piraeeus. Them. 6.
Pausanias sails to Cyprus with the combined fleet of Greece. Paus. 2.
Aristides establishes the treasury of Greece at Delos. Arist. 3.
471. Themistocles flees to Artaxerxes. Them. 8.
467. Death of Aristides. Arist. 3.
466. — . Themistocles. Them. 10.
463. Cimon subdues the Thasians. Cim 2.
460. banished. Cim. 3.
455. recalled. Ib.
450. defeats the Persians in Cyprus. Ib.
449. dies in Cyprus. Ib.
416. Alcibiades, with Nicias and Lamachus, sails against Syracuse. Alcib. 3.
415. -, accused of treachery to his country, flees to Sparta. Alcib. 4.
414. -prevails on the Lacedaemonians to fortify Decelia. Ib.
411. -joins the Athenian army; is united in command with Thrasybulus and Theramenes; defeats the Lacedaemonians. Alcib. 5.
408. -is unsuccessful, and banished. Alcib. 6, 7.
406. Dionysius the elder becomes tyrant of Syracuse. Dion. 1; De Reg. 2.
405. Lysander terminates the Peloponnesian war. Lys. 1; Alcib. 8; Conon 1
404. Alcibiades killed, Alcib. 10.
403. Lysander tried for attempting to bribe the oracle of Jupiter Ammon. Lys. 3.
401. Thrasybulus overthrows the Thirty Tyrants. Thras. 1.
400. Agesilaus becomes king of Sparta. Ages. 1.
398. Plato goes to Syracuse. Dion 2.
396. Lysander falls in battle against the Thebans at Haliartus. Lys, 3.
394. , with the aid of the Thebans, rebuilds the walls of Athens, Con. 4, 5.
Delphi Complete Works of Cornelius Nepos Page 15