Cicero’s Tenants

To explain our purpose and values, we choose to introduce an analogy between the great rhetorician Cicero as characterized by modern history remembers and Cicero the man. Inconsistencies between these provide an interesting perspective on interpretation of history, and this same concept is applied to other historical events and persons to illustrate a new perspective.

Cicero the Man

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was a first century Roman statesman, and a Renaissance man 1,300 years before the Renaissance! Cicero was a lawyer, prosecutor, augur, Senator, orator, Greek language scholar, poet, censor, philosopher, writer, consul, proconsul, and exile. He was not much of a soldier though he did perform his obligatory military service when he was young.

Cicero is considered perhaps the most talented Latin writer. Cicero’s Latin writing style, along with Caesar’s, is generally thought to be the pinnacle of Latin literary composition. Cicero has more manuscripts extant in our time than any other Latin classical author. Countless Western schoolboys have had to study his Latin works for centuries.

In 79 BC Cicero left Rome because his strict Republican views had angered the current Roman dictator, Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78). He travelled eastward, first to Athens, where he studied philosophy under neo-Platonic devotee Antiochus of Ascalon; he went on to Rhodes where he studied oratory under Apollonius ¹. In the East Cicero became enamored of the Greek language, its rhetoric and philosophy.

Cicero introduced Romans to Greek thought through his Latin writings. Cicero’s influenced the trend for his contemporary patrician Romans to learn, speak and write in Greek. As a matter of fact, this trend became a linguistic tradition that endured the extent of the Roman Empire for the next 500 years.

Cicero became co-consul, one of the two most powerful magistrates in the Roman Republic in 63 BC. Consul Cicero faced down the Cataline conspiracy which threatened to overthrow the Roman government. This revolutionary movement’s eponymous leader was Senator Lucius Sergius Cataline (108-62), a haughty, impoverished aristocrat needing political power in order to replenish his insolvent purse. Even after heavy bribery Cataline had lost the consular elections to Cicero and his co-consul Gaius Antonius Hybrida (no dates). Revolution now was Cataline’s answer to his predicament.

Cicero launched four orations against the Senator and his co-conspirators, and delivered letters in evidence against them. Cicero secured peace within the City by having five conspirators summarily executed by strangulation in a Roman gaol without trial. A short time later, Roman legions easily defeated Cataline and his rebel army in nearby Etruria. Never shy about self-promotion, Cicero would insist, till the last of his days, that he had ‘saved’ Rome in 63 from the ‘Cataline conspiracy’.

In 62 Cicero purchased from Marcus Licinius Crassus (115?-53) a gargantuan palace on the Palatine Hill. The purchase price was so high that Cicero had to borrow money to complete the sale from Publius Sulla (?-died 45 BC). The circumstances surrounding this transaction were mired in conflict of interest. In exchange for this loan, Cicero defended Sulla, who was on trial for his role in the Cataline conspiracy. Cicero’s pleadings resulted in Sulla’s acquittal on all charges.

In 60 BC, Cicero was solicited by his personal friend Julius Caesar to join in the First Triumvirate as a fourth partner along with Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the Great (106-48) and Marcus Licinius Crassus. Cicero refused the invitation as he fervently believed in Roman Republican values, not in autocratic government.

Cicero’s enemies caught up to him in 58 when Plebian Tribune Clodius Pulcher forced through a law aimed solely at Cicero. The law decreed that Rome would exile ² any magistrate who executed Romans without a trial. Even though this was a ‘de facto’ (Latin for ‘after the fact’) law, Cicero left Rome. His magnificent house was burned to the ground, and the property was defaulted to the state.

A year later, Cicero’s exile judgment was overturned by the Senate through Pompey’s favour; such political influence was the a means of battling radicals like the tribune Clodius and Cicero was an able politician.. Cicero returned to Italy and appealed to the College of Pontiffs for the return of his property. The College acceded to his petition, giving him back his property and rebuilding his palace on the Palatine.

In 49 BC Caesar crossed the Rubicon in defiance of Roman laws whereby proconsuls, such as Caesar, were forbidden to bring their pro-consular armies onto Italian soil. The Roman civil war had now commenced. Cicero joined the Republican forces, under Pompey the Great, fighting against Caesar and his various generals.

Caesar prevailed in the contest. After his victory Caesar forgave and reconciled with many of Republicans, including Marcus Junius Brutus (85-42), Cassius (87-42), and Cicero.

In 44 BC Caesar was assassinated. Mark Antony (82-30) was consul at that time and delivered a fine oration at Caesar’s funeral (Caesar gave much of his fortune me in his will to the people of Rome). Antony’s eloquence was popular with the masses as he won them over to his side. Cicero, in reaction, delivered his ‘Phippics” ³ against Antony which fired up the Republican side which led to another civil war.

In 43, Cicero was proscribed by Antony ⁴ with Octavius’s permission. When Cicero was found by Roman soldiers travelling, he placed his head outside the litter so the assassins would have a good target for their swords, such that his execution be would quick and easy. He admonished the assassins, apparently, in his last words, “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.” Ironically, the icon Cicero was a horrible landlord. We know much about Cicero and the late Roman Republic as many of his personal letters to his rich friend and Greek publisher Titus Pomponius Atticus (110-31 BC) have survived. Below is an excerpt from a letter Cicero sent to Atticus in 44 BC:

As to your question about having sent for Chrysippos two of my shops have fallen down and the rest are cracking. .So not only the tenants but the very mice have migrated. Other people are calling it a misfortune, I don’t even call even it a nuisance…..Heavens above, how utterly trivial such things apear to me! However, there is a building scheme under way…which would turn this loss into a profit ⁵

A great man, perhaps. However: the man who saved Rome in 63 would not lift a finger to provide proper maintenance in his own commercial property caring not for his tenants safety, health or convenience. One certainly would not want to have been, ‘Cicero’s Tenant’.

Cicero’s Tenant will attempt to penetrate and explore this paradox of historical status quo judgments when examining the actual facts of the contemporary times. Not only with Cicero, of course, but with other historical personages, historical documents, religions, and other status quo perceptions.

Thomas Jefferson

Let’s employ some more examples on the reexamination, revisionist thinking of traditionally treasured figures and documents.

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1808 US President; lived:1733-1826) is a touchstone for the idea of ‘freedom’. One of the prime architects of the American Constitution, the third American President, he is another icon. However, Thomas Jefferson had a 40-year relationship with his black slave ‘mistress’, Sally Hemings. He fathered at least six children by Ms. Hemings. And, to call her his ‘mistress’ is a misnomer. A mistress needs to give her consent to have sexual relations, a slave has no choice as she or he is property.

The Jeffersonian paradox: a beacon of freedom while, simultaneously, sexually exploiting his own slave for his personal benefit. In Jefferson’s defense, when he died at age 83 in 1826 the man was $100,000 dollars (roughly,$2.4MM in today’s terms) in debt. He couldn’t pass on his estate to his family in whole because of his indebtedness; and even though he needed every penny he did codify in his will that at his death his estate, posthumously, would emancipate all the surviving children of Ms. Hemings. Jefferson owned 130 slaves at his death, only five were given their freedom; the other 125 slaves were sold at auction on behalf of his indebted estate ⁶.

Mother Teresa

Mother Theresa won the Nobel peace prize in 1979 and was canonized as a Saint by the Catholic Church in 2006. An iconic figure, no doubt. But, let’s look a little closer.

The woman had a perverse attitude toward the dying in her care: that the more filthy, poor, or sickly the person, the more the pain such a person would suffer, in Mother Teresa opinion, the closer they were to God. Thus, care was not a priority, in fact the Saint rebuffed medical care of her ‘wards’.

The Lancet, a UK medical journal, asserted in 1994 that the in hospices medicine was almost nonexistent such that the terminally ill patients had little or no pain relief. Of course, such a divinely sanctioned protocol was more cost efficient [‘cheaper’ is a better word, here, editor] for the Catholic Church. Of course, when Mother Teresa was dying she was in the hospital she had the most modern medical assistance possible.

Mother Teresa was adamantly against woman’s rights, abortion and divorce. However, she blessed the divorce of her friends Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

Was Mother Teresa a Saint or a crazy person? Are all Saints ‘crazy persons’? A subject Cicero’s Tenant needs to examine.

The Magna Carta

The Magna Carta (1215 with many renditions), also referred to as, “The Articles of the Barons” was essentially a reactionary document, not the first ‘glint’ of freedom for current democracies, as is currently celebrated by the status quo. To understand why this is so, let’s take an objective look at the document and the times.

The reluctant royal signatory of the document was King John (r.1199-1216; lived 1166-1216) whose reign was so wretched there hasn’t been another English King John in over 800 years. However, John did inherent a neglected, impoverished kingdom from his older brother King Richard I, a.k.a. Richard the Lion Hearted (r.1189-1099; lived 1157-1199). King Richard I spent only five months in England during his reign. Richard helped lead and finance the moderately successful Third Crusade (1189-1192) in the Levant. The Crusaders managed to conquer Cyprus, recaptured Levantine cities such as Acre and Jaffa from the Muslim leader, Sultan, Saladin (1138-1193). However, the ultimate goal of any Crusade was to occupy and rule Jerusalem. Sadly, this proved to be a bridge too far for these Crusaders.

Shipwrecked on his way back to England from the Crusades, Richard I eventually became a captive of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (r.1191-1197) who ransomed King Richard I for 100,000 pounds of silver. In the late 12th century this amount of silver was two to three times the annual income of the English/Norman/Aquitaine ⁷ kingdom’s treasuries. Taxes had to be hurriedly raised in the English kingdom in order to pay the King’s ransom. These draconian confiscations did not aid the Angevin Kings’ popularity with his subjects.

In 1204 King John lost his Norman Kingdom to the French King Phillip II (r. 1180-1223) who invaded the Angevin territory. This defeat cost King John his income from Normandy. In 1214 King John attempted to regain his Norman Kingdom; again, he leaned on his English kingdom for taxes to pay for the war against France. King John was defeated again by the French monarch and his allies.

When the Magna Carta was ‘negotiated’ in June of 1215 King John was broke, militarily weak, despised by his over taxed subjects; he was a juicy target for the Nobles(13th century oligarchs) to consolidate their power at the King’s expense. The Barons forced impotent King John to put the King’s Great Seal on the document giving it royal assent thereby making The Articles of the Barons the ‘law of the land’

In reality, the Nobles were the military caste, the rentiers to the King’s subjects. The practical reality of this document’s affect on the Kingdom’s populace is a conspicuously absent description from status quo history books which prefer instead to sing romanticized themes of freedom worthy of troubadours.

The sovereignty of the English King was fractured and largely supplanted by Nobles seizing authority within their fiefdoms. Nobles became feudal lords with nearly absolute power. The Barons were much more oppressive to their peasants than had been the King’s way such that the hoi polloi lives became more miserably slavish. Only the Great Plague of 1346-1350, which so drastically reduced European populations, could propel the price of labour to a level that ameliorated the harshness of the peasants’ lives.

There are specific amnesties in the Magna Carta text. The amnesties described in many clauses are devoted to the termination of agreed loan covenants owed by the Barons to finance their wars against the King. All the lenders were Jewish so the Magna Carta was anti-Semitic document , hardly the stuff of emancipation and equal rights for all.

The Magna Carta is also heralded as granting ‘freedom’ to the Church. This ‘freedom’ was utilized by the Church authorities now having the ‘freedom’ to pay taxes whenever they liked, further diminishing the King’s treasury, and by extension, his authority.

The King’s declaration that ‘free men would not be denied justice’, written by the clever Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (r. 1207-1228), was only targeted at the burgeoning mercantile class, or junior oligarchs, if you will. At the time, ‘Free Men’ meant they possessed significant property. In our terms, those 13th century free men had to have possessed around one million dollars in assets. Peasants need not apply for justice, a trial by their peers.

The embittered King John did not abide by the sealed agreement, and the First War of the Barons (1215-1217) commenced. King John and his army were constantly on the back foot⁸.

Hence, all things considered, the Magna Carta was a step backward for ordinary English people, its tenants; on the other hand these new ‘laws’ were a huge step forward politically, economically for the Barons, the 13th century’s oligarchs.

Conclusion

Perhaps, I have been long winded,[you think? editor] the fundamental points that Cicero’s Tenant wants to undertake: unmask the propaganda to locate the truth, to undress the expensive clothes from the Status Quo Emperors. And finally, to illustrate that in many ways the vast majority of us all are doomed to be Cicero’s Tenants in our modern social/political economic culture.

Let’s try to find the pulleys, the fulcrums, the camouflage, the disguises which history is cloaked in, which adorns and forms our perceived reality. From the confines between the two great Promethean rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, where the first Assyrian priests hypnotized ,controlled the populace: to the Pharaohs to Moses to Buddha to Plato to Aristotle to Alexander the Great to Hannibal to Cato the Elder to Cicero to Jesus to the Donation of Constantine to St. Augustine of Hippo to Stephen Langton to Queen Elisabeth I to Rousseau to Napoleon Bonaparte to Friedrich Nietzsche to Freud to Edward Bernays to Hitler to Mao Tse Tung ………..to ancient history and Beyond!!