PLINY THE YOUNGER ON CICERO, TIRO AND HIMSELF
Gaius Plinius Caecilius (61-ca. 113), known by the suffix Secundus to distinguish him from his eminent uncle, was a suffect consul and governor of Roman provinces whose 247 surviving letters, published in ten books, are a priceless source of information about life in the early Roman Empire. The letter presented in part here is the only one that can easily be said to concern Greek love (though letter IX 33 will be found in the article On Dolphins as Boy-lovers).
In this letter, Pliny compares his own feelings wth those of the famous Roman orator, writer and politician M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) for his slave Tiro. The latter’s age is unknown except that he was much younger than Cicero, but he was probably born roughly around 80 BC. Having become his master’s secretary and main general assistant, he was freed in 54 or 53 BC. A close and faithful lifelong friend, he became Cicero’s executor and died long afterwards in 4 BC.
The translation is by Betty Radice for the Loeb Classical Library volume 59 published by the Harvard University Press in 1969.
VII 4
In a letter to his friend Pontius Allifanus, probably written in 107 and published a year or two later, explaining how he first came to write hendecasyllables:
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While I was staying in my house at Laurentum I had Asinius Gallus’s works read aloud to me, in which he draws a comparison between his father and Cicero and quotes an epigram of Cicero’s on his Tiro[1]. Then, when I had retired for my siesta (it was summer) and was unable to sleep, I began to reflect upon the fact that all the greatest orators had amused themselves with this kind of writing and had seen merit in doing so. I set my mind to it, and, to my surprise, in spite of being long out of practice, I had soon expressed the very thought which had inspired me to write. This was the result: |
[iii] Legebantur in Laurentino mihi libri Asini Galli de comparatione patris et Ciceronis. Incidit epigramma Ciceronis in Tironem suum. [iv] Dein cum meridie (erat enim aestas) dormiturus me recepissem, nec obreperet somnus, coepi reputare maximos oratores hoc studii genus et in oblectationibus habuisse et in laude posuisse. [v] Intendi animum contraque opinionem meam post longam desuetudinem perquam exiguo temporis momento id ipsum, quod me ad scribendum sollicitaverat, his versibus exaravi: |
Reading the works of Gallus, where he ventures
To hand the palm of glory to his father,
I found that Cicero could unbend his talent
To play with polished wit on lighter theme.
He showed how well the minds of mighty men
Enjoyed the pleasure of much varied charms:
Tiro, he says, defrauds and cheats his lover;
Kisses—not many—promised for a dinner
Are afterwards denied when night-time comes.
Why then conceal my blushes, fear to publish
My Tiro’s wiles and coy endearing favours
Whereby he heaps the fuel on my passion?
[vi] Cum libros Galli legerem, quibus ille parenti
ausus de Cicerone dare est palmamque decusque,
lascivum inveni lusum Ciceronis et illo
spectandum ingenio, quo seria condidit et quo
humanis salibus multo varioque lepore
magnorum ostendit mentes gaudere virorum.
Nam queritur quod fraude mala frustratus amantem
paucula cenato sibi debita savia Tiro
tempore nocturno subtraxerit. His ego lectis
“cur post haec” inquam “nostros celamus amores
nullumque in medium timidi damus atque fatemur
Tironisque dolos, Tironis nosse fugaces
blanditias et furta novas addentia flammas?”
[1] The translator renders “Tironem suum” as “his favourite Tiro.” “Favourite” has been removed as an unjustified interpolation, however likely it may have been that Tiro was Cicero’s beloved.
One may reasonably surmise that Cicero had been hoping for more than just kisses if he was Tiro’s lover. There is no evidence as to when the incident occurred, but as Roman male homosexual lust and love were almost always directed towards males somewhere in the 11 to 19 age range, it is most likely to have been sometime in the 60s BC.
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