Dialogue XVII

MARCUS BRUTUS--POMPONIUS ATTICUS.

Brutus.--Well, Atticus, I find that, notwithstanding your friendship for Cicero and for me, you survived us both many years, with the same cheerful spirit you had always possessed, and, by prudently wedding your daughter to Agrippa, secured the favour of Octavius Caesar, and even contracted a close alliance with him by your granddaughter’s marriage with Tiberius Nero.

Atticus.--You know, Brutus, my philosophy was the Epicurean. I loved my friends, and I served them in their wants and distresses with great generosity; but I did not think myself obliged to die when they died, or not to make others as occasions should offer.

Brutus.--You did, I acknowledge, serve your friends, as far as you could, without bringing yourself, on their account, into any great danger or disturbance of mind: but that you loved them I much doubt. If you loved Cicero, how could you love Antony? If you loved me, how could you love Octavius? If you loved Octavius, how could you avoid taking part against Antony in their last civil war? Affection cannot be so strangely divided, and with so much equality, among men of such opposite characters, and who were such irreconcilable enemies to each other.

Atticus.--From my earliest youth I possessed the singular talent of ingratiating myself with the heads of different parties, and yet not engaging with any of them so far as to disturb my own quiet. My family was connected with the Marian party; and, though I retired to Athens that I might not be unwillingly involved in the troubles which that turbulent faction had begun to excite, yet when young Marius was declared an enemy by the Senate, I sent him a sum of money to support him in his exile. Nor did this hinder me from making my court so well to Sylla, upon his coming to Athens, that I obtained from him the highest marks of his favour. Nevertheless, when he pressed me to go with him to Rome, I declined it, being as unwilling to fight for him against the Marian party, as for them against him. He admired my conduct; and at his departure from Athens, ordered all the presents made to him during his abode in that city to be carried to me. I remind you of this only to show that moderation in all contentions of this kind had been always my principle; and that in the instances you mentioned I did not act from any levity or inconstancy in my nature, but from a regular consistent plan of conduct, which my reason convinced me was the wisest I could follow.

Brutus.--I remember indeed that you observed the same neutrality between Pompey and Julius Caesar.

Atticus.--I did so--and that I might be able to do it with dignity, and without the reproach of ingratitude, I never would accept any office or honour from either of those great men; nor from Cicero, though my sister had married his brother; nor from you, Marcus Brutus, whose friendship I thought the greatest honour of my life.

Brutus.--Are there no obligations to a good heart, Pomponius, but honours and offices? Or could you, by refusing to encumber yourself with these, dissolve all other ties? But, setting aside any considerations of private affection or esteem, how was you able to reconcile your conduct with that which is the ruling principle in the heart of every virtuous man, and more especially a virtuous Roman, the love of the public?

Atticus.--The times I lived in were so bad, and the conflict of parties had so little to do in reality with the love of the public, that I thought my virtue much safer and purer by avoiding than mixing in the fray.

Brutus.--Possibly, in the dispute between Marius and Sylla, and even in that between Pompey and Caesar, a virtuous man might see so much to blame on both sides, and so much to fear, whichever faction should overcome the other, as to be justified in not engaging with either. But let me say, without vanity, in the war which I waged against Antony and Octavius you could have nothing to blame, for I know you approved the principle upon which I killed Julius Caesar. Nor had you anything to fear if our arms had succeeded, for you know that my intentions were upright and pure; nor was it doubtful that Cassius was as much determined as I to restore the Republic. How could you, then, with any sense of virtue in your heart, maintain an indifference and neutrality between the deliverers and the tyrants of your country?