24

24. On the greatness of Rome

[A series of exempla partly arising from reading an edition of Julius Caesar, and starting with a major borrowing from Cicero’s Epistulae familiares, ‘Familiar letters’, which many, including Montaigne, thought to be better called Epistulae ad familiares, ‘Letters to his friends’.]

[A] I only want to say one word on this inexhaustible subject in order to show the silliness of those who compare the wretched greatness of our times to that of Rome. In the seventh book of Cicero’s Epistulae familiares (and our grammarians if they wish can indeed remove the epithet familiar, which is not really appropriate, while those who wish to replace familiares by ad familiares [to his friends] can find some support from Suetonius, who in his Life of Caesar says that he had a volume of his Epistulae ad familiares),1 there is a letter from Cicero to Caesar, then in Gaul, in which he repeats words from another letter which Caesar had written to him: ‘As for Marcus Furius whom you have recommended to me, I will make him King of Gaul; and if you want me to advance some other friend of yours, send him to me.’2 It was no new thing for a simple Roman citizen, as Caesar then was, to dispose of kingdoms, since he relieved King Dejotarus of his to bestow it on a nobleman of the town of Pergamo who was called Mithridates. And his biographers mention several other kingdoms which he sold; Suetonius says that he extorted from King Ptolemy three million six hundred thousand crowns at one go – which was tantamount to selling it to him!

[B] Tot Galatæ, tot Pontus eat, tot Lydia nummis. [For Galatia, so much, Pontus, so much, Lydia, so much.]

Mark Antony said that the greatness of the Roman people was not so much revealed by what they took away as by what they gave away.3 [C] Yet among other things, a good century before Antony they took away something with such a wonderful show of authority that I do not know any single event in all of their history which raises higher the credit of the name of Rome: Antiochus had subdued the whole of Egypt and was preparing to conquer Cyprus and other outposts of its Empire; in the flood of his victories Gaius Popilius journeyed to him on behalf of the Senate and, from the outset, refused to clasp his hand until he had read the letter he had brought. King Antiochus read it and said he would think about it; whereupon Popilius drew a circle round him with his baton and said: ‘Before you step out of that circle give me an answer to take back to the Senate.’ Antiochus was thunderstruck by the roughness of so pressing an order; he reflected for a while and then said: ‘I shall do whatever the Senate commands me.’ Thereupon Popilius greeted him as a friend of the Roman People.4 When his fortunes were prospering thus he gave up so great a monarchy under the impact of three lines of writing! He was indeed right, as he later did, to inform the Senate by his ambassadors that he had received their command with the same respect as if it had come from the immortal gods.

[B] All the kingdoms which Augustus conquered by right of war he either restored to those who had lost them or bestowed on foreigners.

[A] In this connection Tacitus, talking of the English King Cogidunus, has a marvellous remark which makes us feel Rome’s infinite power. ‘The Romans,’ he says, ‘from the earliest times have been accustomed to leave kings whom they have vanquished in the possession of their kingdoms but under their authority, so that they might have even kings as tools of servitude – ‘ut haberet instrumenta servitutis et reges’.5

[C] It is likely that Solyman, whom we have seen generously giving away the Kingdom of Hungary and other states,6 was moved more by that consideration than by the one he usually cited: namely that he was sated by so many monarchies [’95] and overburdened by such dominion acquired by his own virtue or that of his forebears.