{"id":519,"date":"2017-02-25T22:23:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-25T22:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/?p=519"},"modified":"2017-03-04T19:42:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T19:42:21","slug":"dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/?p=519","title":{"rendered":"Dictator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/DictatorFrontCover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-520\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/DictatorFrontCover-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/DictatorFrontCover-199x300.jpg 199w, http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/DictatorFrontCover-678x1024.jpg 678w, http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/DictatorFrontCover.jpg 715w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a>To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cicero, 46 BC<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I enjoy reading history and biographies tremendously. However, never was I able to articulate what Cicero said above about the pleasure and rationale of doing so. This is one of the key benefits of reading, to be in the company of the great men from history, see their actions, hear their speeches and feel the inspiration. At the very least, let their words express our vague thoughts. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dictator is the last one of the Cicero trilogy written by Robert Harris. It brings us back to an era when perhaps the most epic events of Roman history took place. Roman Republic was crumbling, the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First Triumvirate<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Julius_Caesar\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Julius Caesar<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pompey\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pompey the Great<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marcus Licinius Crassus<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fell apart when Crassus was killed in battle<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">against the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Parthian_Empire\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parthians<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Cicero envisioned, with the death of Crassus, the imbalance of power <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">between Pompey and Caesar would cause great turmoil. Indeed, the civil war was broken, with Pompey murdered by the Egyptians during his retreat, who were eager to please the winning side. Caesar became the dictator of the Roman Republic, and was subsequently assassinated as a result of a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">conspiracy among\u00a0several Roman senators, not including Cicero<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. However, as pleased as Cicero was with Caesar\u2019s death, he also feared for the future of Roman Republic. The conspirators were not able to restore that, despite the great efforts from Cicero\u2019s part throughout the book. Further civil wars were pressing resulted from the assassination among Brutus, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Octavi<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an, Mark Antony and others. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With a great amount of mentoring and advocacy in the Senator from Cicero, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Augustus\">Octavian<\/a>, the sole heir of Caesar and still a teenager, substantially grew his influence. At the end he betrayed Cicero and proscribed him on the death list, allegedly yielding to Mark Antony\u2019s demand. Cicero\u2019s head and hands were cut off and put on display in Rome to warn anyone who might oppose the new Triumvirate (Octavian, Mark Antony and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marcus_Aemilius_Lepidus_(triumvir)\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marcus Aemilius Lepidus<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). Not too long afterwards, Antony committed suicide after being defeated by Octavian who later\u00a0became the Emperor Augustus. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robert Harris ended the book with Tiro\u2019s voice, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">thinking of Scipio\u2019s dream of where dead statesmen dwell in on the Republic: <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I gazed in every direction and all appeared wonderfully beautiful. There were stars which we never see from earth, and they were all larger than we have ever imagined. The starry spheres were much greater than the earth; indeed the earth itself seemed to me so small that I was scornful of our empire, which covers only a single point, as it were, upon its surface. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf only you will look on high,\u201d the old statesmen tells Scipio, \u201cand contemplate this eternal home and resting place, you will no longer bother with the gossip of the common herd or put your trust in human reward for your exploits. Nor will any man\u2019s reputation endure very long, for what men say dies with them and is blotted out with the forgetfulness of posterity.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All that will remain of us is what is written down. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To finish the article here would not do Robert Harris, Cicero and Tiro any justice. It is during the years covered in Dictator that Cicero wrote his many books and articles. Tiro assembled Cicero\u2019s large volume of correspondences and carefully made three copies to be kept for future generations. I do not know how many of those survived but certainly I am very earnest to find out and read Cicero\u2019s own writings. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are some extracts from the book with brief annotations from me. A few are in Tiro\u2019s words, many others are excerpts from the speeches that Cicero gave to the Senate or Roman public: <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We none of us needs to be reminded of the frightful violence that gripped the city yesterday &#8211; violence which has at its core a shortage of that most basic of human needs, bread. Some of us believe it was an ill day when our citizens were granted a free dole of corn in the first place, for it is human nature that what starts as gratitude quickly becomes dependency and ends as entitlement. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Had I experienced nothing but an unruffled tranquility, I should have missed the incredible and well-nigh superhuman transports of delight which your kindness now permits me to enjoy.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Partially thanking Pompey for ensuring his return to Rome, Cicero flattered Pompey to the public: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here is a man who has had, has, and will have, no rival in virtue, sagacity and renown. He gave to me all that he had given to the republic, what no other has ever given to a private friend &#8211; safety, security, dignity. To him, fellow citizens, I owe a debt such as it is scarce lawful for one human being to owe to another. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tiro noted that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pompey\u2019s beam of pleasure was as wide and warm as the sun. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On that occasion Pompey had pretended to be out to avoid seeing Cicero. The memory of his cowardice still rankled with me, but Cicero refused to dwell on it: \u201cIf I do, I shall become bitter, and a man who is bitter hurts no one but himself. We must look to the future.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He (Cicero) seemed once again to hold all the threads of life in his hands, just as he had in his prime. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The arguments Cicero put forth in defending Rufus that shamed Clodia such that she resigned from the Roman public life forever: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am now forgetting, Clodia, the wrongs you have done me; I am putting aside the memory of what I have suffered; I pass over your cruel actions towards my family during my absence; but I ask you this: if a woman without a husband open her house to all men\u2019s desires, and publicly leads the life of a courtesan; if she is in the habit of attending dinner parties with men who are perfect strangers; if she does this in Rome, in her park outside the city walls, and amid all those crowds on the Bay of Naples, if her embraces and caresses, her beach parties, her water parties, her dinner parties, proclaim her to be not only a courtesan, but also a shameless and wanton courtesan &#8211; if she does all that and a young man should be discovered consorting with this woman, should he be considered the corrupter or the corrupted, the seducer or the seduced? This whole charge arises from a hostile, infamous, merciless, crime-stained, lust-stained house. An unstable and angry wanton of a woman has forged this accusation. Gentlemen of the jury: do not allow Marcus Caelius Rufus to be sacrificed to her lust. If you restore Rufus in safety to me, to his family, to the state, you will find in him one pledged, devoted and bound to you and to your children; and it is you above all, gentlemen, who will reap the rich and lasting fruits of all his exertions and labours. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Complaining about the rules of a contest is always a sure sign of a man who knows he is about to lose it. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just as the purpose of a pilot is to ensure a smooth passage for his ship, and of a doctor to make his patient healthy, so the statesman\u2019s objective must be the happiness of his country. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I dreaded the prospect of coming, naturally, but when I arrived it was not so bad. One deals with grief, I have come to believe, either by never thinking of it or by thinking of it all the time. I chose the latter path, and here at least I am surrounded by memories of her, and her ashes are interred in the garden. Friends have been very kind, especially those who have suffered similar losses. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sulpicius wrote to Cicero: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How can we manikins wax indignant if one of us dies or is killed, ephemeral creatures as we are, when the corpses of so many towns lie abandoned in a single spot? Check yourself, Servius, and remember that you were born a mortal man.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd! To have no job, to devote one\u2019s time to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When falls on man the anger of the gods, First from his mind they banish understanding. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I arrived expecting to be torn to pieces and instead I find myself drowning in honey. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople of Rome,\u201d he (Cicero) said at last, gesturing to quiet the ovation, \u201cafter the agony and violence not just of the last few days but of the last few years, let past grievances and bitterness be set aside.\u201d Just at that moment a shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds, gilding the bronze roof of Jupiter\u2019s temple on the Capitol, where the white togas of the conspirators were plainly visible. \u201cBehold the sun of Liberty,\u201d cried Cicero, seizing the moment, \u201cshining once again over the Roman Forum! Let is warm us &#8211; let it warm the whole of humanity &#8211; with the beneficence of its healing rays.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cicero wrote to Atticus, describing moving into a property:<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> I have put out my books and now my house has a soul. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cicero gave Tiro a parting gift, the original manuscript of On Friendship, with the following passage from the book copied out by hand at the top of the roll: <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If a man ascended into heaven and gazed upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvelous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself. And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight. Nature abhors solitude. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gentlemen, I have already reaped the reward of my return simply by making these few remarks. Whatever happens to me, I have kept faith with my beliefs. If I can speak again here safely, I shall. If I can\u2019t, then I shall hold myself ready in case the state should call me. I have lived long enough for years and for fame. Whatever time remains to me will not be mine, but will be devoted to the service of our commonwealth. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was perhaps at the end of the last meeting between Cicero and Octavian. It was undoubtful that Cicero and Octavian reached a deal that Cicero would advocate for Octavian being given imperium and the legal authority to wage war against Antony; in return, Octavian would place himself under the command of the consuls. Before parting, Cicero made the speech: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On this day youth and experience, arms and the toga, have come together in solemn compact to rescue the commonwealth. Let us go forth from this place, each man to his station, resolved to do his duty to the republic. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Octavian\u2019s parting words:<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Your speeches and my swords will make an unbeatable alliance. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This was not long before Octavian betrayed Cicero.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I shall end <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with Of all the sayings associated with Cicero, the most famous and characteristic: <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">while there is life there is hope. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history? Cicero, 46 BC I enjoy reading history and biographies tremendously. However, never was I able to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/?p=519\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Dictator<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saFL7T-dictator","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}