Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers by Rev. W. Lucas Collins
page 40 of 165 (24%)
page 40 of 165 (24%)
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natural course of things in Roman society at any date, and even so much as
this was become a notable exception in these later days. It is paying a high honour to the character of Cicero and his household--and from all evidence that has come down to us it may be paid with truth--that even in those evil times it might have presented the original of what Virgil drew as almost a fancy picture, or one to be realised only in some happy retirement into which the civilised vices of the capital had never penetrated-- "Where loving children climb to reach a kiss-- A home of chaste delights and wedded bliss.[1]" His little daughter, Tullia, or Tulliola, which was her pet name (the Roman diminutives being formed somewhat more elegantly than ours, by adding a syllable instead of cutting short), was the delight of his heart in his earlier letters to Atticus he is constantly making some affectionate mention of her--sending her love, or some playful message which his friend would understand. She had been happily married (though she was then but thirteen at the most) the year before his consulship; but the affectionate intercourse between father and daughter was never interrupted until her early death. His only son, Marcus, born after a considerable interval, who succeeded to Tullia's place as a household pet, is made also occasionally to send some childish word of remembrance to his father's old friend: "Cicero the Little sends his compliments to Titus the Athenian"--"Cicero the Philosopher salutes Titus the Politician.[2]" These messages are written in Greek at the end of the letters. Abeken thinks that in the originals they might have been added in the little Cicero's own hand, "to show that he had begun Greek;" "a conjecture", says Mr. Merivale, "too |
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