





THE

LIFE OF CICERO

BY

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

_IN TWO VOLUMES_

VOL. I.

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1881




 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.


  CHAPTER I.
                                         PAGE
  INTRODUCTION.                             7


  CHAPTER II.

  HIS EDUCATION.                           40


  CHAPTER III.

  THE CONDITION OF ROME.                   62


  CHAPTER IV.

  HIS EARLY PLEADINGS.--SEXTUS ROSCIUS
    AMERINUS.--HIS INCOME.                 80


  CHAPTER V.

  CICERO AS QUÆSTOR.                      107


  CHAPTER VI.

  VERRES.                                 124


  CHAPTER VII.

  CICERO AS ÆDILE AND PRÆTOR.             162


  CHAPTER VIII.

  CICERO AS CONSUL.                       184


  CHAPTER IX.

  CATILINE.                               206


  CHAPTER X.

  CICERO AFTER HIS CONSULSHIP.            240


  CHAPTER XI.

  THE TRIUMVIRATE.                        264


  CHAPTER XII.

  HIS EXILE.                              297

       *       *       *       *       *

  APPENDICES.

  APPENDIX A.                             335

  APPENDIX B.                             340

  APPENDIX C.                             242

  APPENDIX D.                             345

  APPENDIX E.                             347




THE LIFE OF CICERO.




CHAPTER I.

_INTRODUCTION._


I am conscious of a certain audacity in thus attempting to give a
further life of Cicero which I feel I may probably fail in justifying by
any new information; and on this account the enterprise, though it has
been long considered, has been postponed, so that it may be left for
those who come after me to burn or publish, as they may think proper;
or, should it appear during my life, I may have become callous, through
age, to criticism.

The project of my work was anterior to the life by Mr. Forsyth, and was
first suggested to me as I was reviewing the earlier volumes of Dean
Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire. In an article on the
Dean's work, prepared for one of the magazines of the day, I inserted an
apology for the character of Cicero, which was found to be too long as
an episode, and was discarded by me, not without regret. From that time
the subject has grown in my estimation till it has reached its present
dimensions.

I may say with truth that my book has sprung from love of the man, and
from a heartfelt admiration of his virtues and his conduct, as well as
of his gifts. I must acknowledge that in discussing his character with
men of letters, as I have been prone to do, I have found none quite to
agree with me. His intellect they have admitted, and his industry; but
his patriotism they have doubted, his sincerity they have disputed, and
his courage they have denied. It might have become me to have been
silenced by their verdict; but I have rather been instigated to appeal
to the public, and to ask them to agree with me against my friends. It
is not only that Cicero has touched all matters of interest to men, and
has given a new grace to all that he has touched; that as an orator, a
rhetorician, an essayist, and a correspondent he was supreme; that as a
statesman he was honest, as an advocate fearless, and as a governor
pure; that he was a man whose intellectual part always dominated that of
the body; that in taste he was excellent, in thought both correct and
enterprising, and that in language he was perfect. All this has been
already so said of him by other biographers. Plutarch, who is as
familiar to us as though he had been English, and Middleton, who
thoroughly loved his subject, and latterly Mr. Forsyth, who has
struggled to be honest to him, might have sufficed as telling us so much
as that. But there was a humanity in Cicero, a something almost of
Christianity, a stepping forward out of the dead intellectualities of
Roman life into moral perceptions, into natural affections, into
domesticity, philanthropy, and conscious discharge of duty, which do not
seem to have been as yet fully appreciated. To have loved his neighbor
as himself before the teaching of Christ was much for a man to achieve;
and that he did this is what I claim for Cicero, and hope to bring home
to the minds of those who can find time for reading yet another added to
the constantly increasing volumes about Roman times.

It has been the habit of some latter writers, who have left to Cicero
his literary honors, to rob him of those which had been accorded to him
as a politician. Macaulay, expressing his surprise at the fecundity of
Cicero, and then passing on to the praise of the Philippics as
senatorial speeches, says of him that he seems to have been at the head
of the "minds of the second order." We cannot judge of the
classification without knowing how many of the great men of the world
are to be included in the first rank. But Macaulay probably intended to
express an opinion that Cicero was inferior because he himself had never
dominated others as Marius had done, and Sylla, and Pompey, and Cæsar,
and Augustus. But what if Cicero was ambitious for the good of others,
while these men had desired power only for themselves?

Dean Merivale says that Cicero was "discreet and decorous," as with a
similar sneer another clergyman, Sydney Smith, ridiculed a Tory
prime-minister because he was true to his wife. There is nothing so open
to the bitterness of a little joke as those humble virtues by which no
glitter can be gained, but only the happiness of many preserved. And the
Dean declares that Cicero himself was not, except once or twice, and for
a "moment only, a real power in the State." Men who usurped authority,
such as those I have named, were the "real powers," and it was in
opposition to such usurpation that Cicero was always urgent. Mr.
Forsyth, who, as I have said, strives to be impartial, tells us that
"the chief fault of Cicero's moral character was a want of sincerity."
Absence of sincerity there was not. Deficiency of sincerity there was.
Who among men has been free from such blame since history and the lives
of men were first written? It will be my object to show that though less
than godlike in that gift, by comparison with other men around him he
was sincere, as he was also self-denying; which, if the two virtues be
well examined, will indicate the same phase of character.

But of all modern writers Mr. Froude has been the hardest to Cicero. His
sketch of the life of Cæsar is one prolonged censure on that of Cicero.
Our historian, with all that glory of language for which he is so
remarkable, has covered the poor orator with obloquy. There is no period
in Cicero's life so touching, I think, as that during which he was
hesitating whether, in the service of the Republic, it did or did not
behoove him to join Pompey before the battle of Pharsalia. At this time
he wrote to his friend Atticus various letters full of agonizing doubts
as to what was demanded from him by his duty to his country, by his
friendship for Pompey, by loyalty to his party, and by his own dignity.
As to a passage in one of those, Mr. Froude says "that Cicero had lately
spoken of Cæsar's continuance in life as a disgrace to the State." "It
has been seen also that he had long thought of assassination as the
readiest means of ending it,"[1] says Mr. Froude. The "It has been seen"
refers to a statement made a few pages earlier, in which he translates
certain words written by Cicero to Atticus.[2] "He considered it a
disgrace to them that Cæsar was alive." That is his translation; and in
his indignation he puts other words, as it were, into the mouth of his
literary brother of two thousand years before. "Why did not somebody
kill him?" The Latin words themselves are added in a note, "Cum vivere
ipsum turpe sit nobis."[3] Hot indignation has so carried the translator
away that he has missed the very sense of Cicero's language. "When even
to draw the breath of life at such a time is a disgrace to us!" That is
what Cicero meant. Mr. Froude in a preceding passage gives us another
passage from a letter to Atticus,[4] "Cæsar was mortal."[5] So much is
an intended translation. Then Mr. Froude tells us how Cicero had "hailed
Cæsar's eventual murder with rapture;" and goes on to say, "We read the
words with sorrow and yet with pity." But Cicero had never dreamed of
Cæsar's murder. The words of the passage are as follows: "Hunc primum
mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse cogitabam." "I
bethought myself in the first place that this man was mortal, and then
that there were a hundred ways in which he might be put on one side."
All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed the "hunc" or "this
man" to be Pompey. I should say that this was proved by the gist of the
whole letter--one of the most interesting that was ever written, as
telling the workings of a great man's mind at a peculiar crisis of his
life--did I not know that former learned editors have supposed Cæsar to
have been meant. But whether Cæsar or Pompey, there is nothing in it to
do with murder. It is a question--Cicero is saying to his friend--of the
stability of the Republic. When a matter so great is considered, how is
a man to trouble himself as to an individual who may die any day, or
cease from any accident to be of weight? Cicero was speaking of the
effect of this or that step on his own part. Am I, he says, for the sake
of Pompey to bring down hordes of barbarians on my own country,
sacrificing the Republic for the sake of a friend who is here to-day and
may be gone to-morrow? Or for the sake of an enemy, if the reader thinks
that the "hunc" refers to Cæsar. The argument is the same. Am I to
consider an individual when the Republic is at stake? Mr. Froude tells
us that he reads "the words with sorrow and yet with pity." So would
every one, I think, sympathizing with the patriot's doubts as to his
leader, as to his party, and as to his country. Mr. Froude does so
because he gathers from them that Cicero is premeditating the murder of
Cæsar!

It is natural that a man should be judged out of his own mouth. A man
who speaks much, and so speaks that his words shall be listened to and
read, will be so judged. But it is not too much to demand that when a
man's character is at stake his own words shall be thoroughly sifted
before they are used against him.

The writer of the biographical notice in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
Cicero, sends down to posterity a statement that in the time of the
first triumvirate, when our hero was withstanding the machinations of
Cæsar and Pompey against the liberties of Rome, he was open to be
bought. The augurship would have bought him. "So pitiful," says the
biographer, "was the bribe to which he would have sacrificed his honor,
his opinions, and the commonwealth!" With no more sententious language
was the character of a great man ever offered up to public scorn. And on
what evidence? We should have known nothing of the bribe and the
corruption but for a few playful words in a letter from Cicero himself
to Atticus. He is writing from one of his villas to his friend in Rome,
and asks for the news of the day: Who are to be the new consuls? Who is
to have the vacant augurship? Ah, says he, they might have caught even
me with that bait;[6] as he said on another occasion that he was so much
in debt as to be fit for a rebel; and again, as I shall have to explain
just now, that he was like to be called in question under the Cincian
law because of a present of books! This was just at the point of his
life when he was declining all offers of public service--of public
service for which his soul longed--because they were made to him by
Cæsar. It was then that the "Vigintiviratus" was refused, which
Quintilian mentions to his honor. It was then that he refused to be
Cæsar's lieutenant. It was then that he might have been fourth with
Cæsar, and Pompey, and Crassus, had he not felt himself bound not to
serve against the Republic. And yet the biographer does not hesitate to
load him with infamy because of a playful word in a letter half jocose
and half pathetic to his friend. If a man's deeds be always honest,
surely he should not be accused of dishonesty on the strength of some
light word spoken in the confidence of familiar intercourse. The light
words are taken to be grave because they meet the modern critic's eye
clothed in the majesty of a dead language; and thus it comes to pass
that their very meaning is misunderstood.

My friend Mr. Collins speaks, in his charming little volume on Cicero,
of "quiet evasions" of the Cincian law,[7] and tells us that we are
taught by Cicero's letters not to trust Cicero's words when he was in a
boasting vein. What has the one thing to do with the other? He names no
quiet evasions. Mr. Collins makes a surmise, by which the character of
Cicero for honesty is impugned--without evidence. The anonymous
biographer altogether misinterprets Cicero. Mr. Froude charges Cicero
with anticipation of murder, grounding his charge on words which he has
not taken the trouble to understand. Cicero is accused on the strength
of his own private letters. It is because we have not the private
letters of other persons that they are not so accused. The courtesies of
the world exact, I will not say demand, certain deviations from
straightforward expression; and these are made most often in private
conversations and in private correspondence. Cicero complies with the
ways of the world; but his epistles are no longer private, and he is
therefore subjected to charges of falsehood. It is because Cicero's
letters, written altogether for privacy, have been found worthy to be
made public that such accusations have been made. When the injustice of
these critics strikes me, I almost wish that Cicero's letters had not
been preserved.

As I have referred to the evidence of those who have, in these latter
days, spoken against Cicero, I will endeavor to place before the
reader the testimony of his character which was given by writers,
chiefly of his own nation, who dealt with his name for the hundred and
fifty years after his death--from the time of Augustus down to that
of Adrian--a period much given to literature, in which the name of a
politician and a man of literature would assuredly be much discussed.
Readers will see in what language he was spoken of by those who came
after him. I trust they will believe that if I knew of testimony on
the other side, of records adverse to the man, I would give them. The
first passage to which I will allude does not bear Cicero's name; and
it may be that I am wrong in assuming honor to Cicero from a passage
in poetry, itself so famous, in which no direct allusion is made to
himself. But the idea that Virgil in the following lines refers to the
manner in which Cicero soothed the multitude who rose to destroy the
theatre when the knights took their front seats in accordance with
Otho's law, does not originate with me. I give the lines as translated
by Dryden, with the original in a note.[8]

   "As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd,
    Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;
    And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,
    And all the rustic arms that fury can supply;
    If then some grave and pious man appear,
    They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear;
    He soothes with sober words their angry mood,
    And quenches their innate desire of blood."

This, if it be not intended for a portrait of Cicero on that occasion,
exactly describes his position and his success. We have a fragment of
Cornelius Nepos, the biographer of the Augustan age, declaring that at
Cicero's death men had to doubt whether literature or the Republic had
lost the most.[9] Livy declared of him only, that he would be the best
writer of Latin prose who was most like to Cicero.[10] Velleius
Paterculus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, speaks of Cicero's
achievements with the highest honor. "At this period," he says, "lived
Marcus Cicero, who owed everything to himself; a man of altogether a new
family, as distinguished for ability as he was for the purity of his
life."[11] Valerius Maximus quotes him as an example of a forgiving
character.[12] Perhaps the warmest praise ever given to him came from
the pen of Pliny the elder, from whose address to the memory of Cicero I
will quote only a few words, as I shall refer to it more at length when
speaking of his consulship. "Hail thou," says Pliny, "who first among
men was called the father of your country."[13] Martial, in one of his
distichs, tells the traveller that if he have but a book of Cicero's
writing he may fancy that he is travelling with Cicero himself.[14]
Lucan, in his bombastic verse, declares how Cicero dared to speak of
peace in the camp of Pharsalia. The reader may think that Cicero should
have said nothing of the kind, but Lucan mentions him with all
honor.[15] Not Tacitus, as I think, but some author whose essay De
Oratoribus was written about the time of Tacitus, and whose work has
come to us with the name of Tacitus, has told us of Cicero that he was a
master of logic, of ethics, and of physical science.[16] Everybody
remembers the passage in Juvenal,

                               "Sed Roma parentem
    Roma patrem patriæ Ciceronem libera dixit."

"Rome, even when she was free, declared him to be the father of his
country."[17] Even Plutarch, who generally seems to have a touch of
jealousy when speaking of Cicero, declares that he verified the
prediction of Plato, "That every State would be delivered from its
calamities whenever power should fortunately unite with wisdom and
justice in one person."[18] The praises of Quintilian as to the man are
so mixed with the admiration of the critic for the hero of letters, that
I would have omitted to mention them here were it not that they will
help to declare what was the general opinion as to Cicero at the time in
which it was written. He has been speaking of Demosthenes,[19] and then
goes on: "Nor in regard to Cicero do I see that he ever failed in the
duty of a good citizen. There is in evidence of this the splendor of his
consulship, the rare integrity of his provincial administration, his
refusal of office under Cæsar,[20] the firmness of his mind on the civil
wars, giving way neither to hope nor fear, though these sorrows came
heavily on him in his old age. On all these occasions he did the best he
could for the Republic." Florus, who wrote after the twelve Cæsars, in
the time of Trajan and of Adrian, whose rapid summary of Roman events
can hardly be called a history, tells us, in a few words, how Catiline's
conspiracy was crushed by the authority of Cicero and Cato in opposition
to that of Cæsar.[21] Then, when he has passed in a few short chapters
over all the intervening history of the Roman Empire, he relates, in
pathetic words, the death of Cicero. "It was the custom in Rome to put
up on the rostra the heads of those who had been slain; but now the city
was not able to restrain its tears when the head of Cicero was seen
there, upon the spot from which the citizens had so often listened to
his words."[22] Such is the testimony given to this man by the writers
who may be supposed to have known most of him as having been nearest to
his time. They all wrote after him. Sallust, who was certainly his
enemy, wrote of him in his lifetime, but never wrote in his dispraise.
It is evident that public opinion forbade him to do so. Sallust is never
warm in Cicero's praise, as were those subsequent authors whose words I
have quoted, and has been made subject to reproach for envy, for having
passed too lightly over Cicero's doings and words in his account of
Catiline's conspiracy; but what he did say was to Cicero's credit. Men
had heard of the danger, and therefore, says Sallust,[23] "They
conceived the idea of intrusting the consulship to Cicero. For before
that the nobles were envious, and thought that the consulship would be
polluted if it were conferred on a _novus homo_, however distinguished.
But when danger came, envy and pride had to give way." He afterward
declares that Cicero made a speech against Catiline most brilliant, and
at the same time useful to the Republic. This was lukewarm praise, but
coming from Sallust, who would have censured if he could, it is as
eloquent as any eulogy. There is extant a passage attributed to Sallust
full of virulent abuse of Cicero, but no one now imagines that Sallust
wrote it. It is called the Declamation of Sallust against Cicero, and
bears intrinsic evidence that it was written in after years. It suited
some one to forge pretended invectives between Sallust and Cicero, and
is chiefly noteworthy here because it gives to Dio Cassius a foundation
for the hardest of hard words he said against the orator.[24]

Dio Cassius was a Greek who wrote in the reign of Alexander Severus,
more than two centuries and a half after the death of Cicero, and he no
doubt speaks evil enough of our hero. What was the special cause of
jealousy on his part cannot probably be now known, but the nature of his
hatred may be gathered from the passage in the note, which is so
foul-mouthed that it can be only inserted under the veil of his own
language.[25] Among other absurdities Dio Cassius says of Cicero that in
his latter days he put away a gay young wife, forty years younger than
himself, in order that he might enjoy without disturbance the company of
another lady who was nearly as much older than himself as his wife was
younger.

Now I ask, having brought forward so strong a testimony, not, I will
say, as to the character of the man, but of the estimation in which he
was held by those who came shortly after him in his own country; having
shown, as I profess that I have shown, that his name was always treated
with singular dignity and respect, not only by the lovers of the old
Republic but by the minions of the Empire; having found that no charge
was ever made against him either for insincerity or cowardice or
dishonesty by those who dealt commonly with his name, am I not justified
in saying that they who have in later days accused him should have shown
their authority? Their authority they have always found in his own
words. It is on his own evidence against himself that they have
depended--on his own evidence, or occasionally on their own surmises.
When we are told of his cowardice, because those human vacillations of
his, humane as well as human, have been laid bare to us as they came
quivering out of his bosom on to his fingers! He is a coward to the
critics because they have written without giving themselves time to feel
the true meaning of his own words. If we had only known his acts and not
his words--how he stood up against the judges at the trial of Verres,
with what courage he encountered the responsibility of his doings at the
time of Catiline, how he joined Pompey in Macedonia from a sense of
sheer duty, how he defied Antony when to defy Antony was probable
death--then we should not call him a coward! It is out of his own mouth
that he is condemned. Then surely his words should be understood. Queen
Christina says of him, in one of her maxims, that "Cicero was the only
coward that was capable of great actions." The Queen of Sweden, whose
sentences are never worth very much, has known her history well enough
to have learned that Cicero's acts were noble, but has not understood
the meaning of words sufficiently to extract from Cicero's own
expressions their true bearing. The bravest of us all, if he is in high
place, has to doubt much before he can know what true courage will
demand of him; and these doubts the man of words will express, if there
be given to him an _alter ego_ such as Cicero had in Atticus.

In reference to the biography of Mr Forsyth I must, in justice both to
him and to Cicero, quote one passage from the work: "Let those who, like
De Quincey,[26] Mommsen, and others, speak disparagingly of Cicero, and
are so lavish in praise of Cæsar, recollect that Cæsar never was
troubled by a conscience." Here it is that we find that advance almost
to Christianity of which I have spoken, and that superiority of mind
being which makes Cicero the most fit to be loved of all the Romans.

It is hard for a man, even in regard to his own private purposes, to
analyze the meaning of a conscience, if he put out of question all
belief in a future life. Why should a man do right if it be not for a
reward here or hereafter? Why should anything be right--or wrong? The
Stoics tried to get over the difficulty by declaring that if a man could
conquer all his personal desires he would become, by doing so, happy,
and would therefore have achieved the only end at which a man can
rationally aim. The school had many scholars, but probably never a
believer. The normal Greek or Roman might be deterred by the law, which
means fear of punishment, or by the opinion of his neighbors, which
means ignominy. He might recognize the fact that comfort would combine
itself with innocence, or disease and want with lust and greed. In this
there was little need of a conscience--hardly, perhaps, room for it. But
when ambition came, with all the opportunities that chance, audacity,
and intellect would give--as it did to Sylla, to Cæsar, and to
Augustus--then there was nothing to restrain the men. There was to such
a man no right but his power, no wrong but opposition to it. His cruelty
or his clemency might be more or less, as his conviction of the utility
of this or that other weapon for dominating men might be strong with
him. Or there might be some variation in the flowing of the blood about
his heart which might make a massacre of citizens a pleasing diversion
or a painful process to him; but there was no conscience. With the man
of whom we are about to speak conscience was strong. In his sometimes
doubtful wanderings after political wisdom--in those mental mazes which
have been called insincerity--we shall see him, if we look well into his
doings, struggling to find whether, in searching for what was his duty,
he should go to this side or to that. Might he best hope a return to
that state of things which he thought good for his country by adhering
to Cæsar or to Pompey? We see the workings of his conscience, and, as we
remember that Scipio's dream of his, we feel sure that he had, in truth,
within him a recognition of a future life.

In discussing the character of a man, there is no course of error so
fertile as the drawing of a hard and fast line. We are attracted by
salient points, and, seeing them clearly, we jump to conclusions, as
though there were a light-house on every point by which the nature of
the coast would certainly be shown to us. And so it will, if we accept
the light only for so much of the shore as it illumines. But to say that
a man is insincere because he has vacillated in this or the other
difficulty, that he is a coward because he has feared certain dangers,
that he is dishonest because he has swerved, that he is a liar because
an untrue word has been traced to him, is to suppose that you know all
the coast because one jutting headland has been defined to you. He who
so expresses himself on a man's character is either ignorant of human
nature, or is in search of stones with which to pelt his enemy. "He has
lied! He has lied!" How often in our own political contests do we hear
the cry with a note of triumph! And if he have, how often has he told
the truth? And if he have, how many are entitled by pure innocence in
that matter to throw a stone at him? And if he have, do we not know how
lies will come to the tongue of a man without thought of lying? In his
stoutest efforts after the truth a man may so express himself that when
afterward he is driven to compare his recent and his former words, he
shall hardly be able to say even to himself that he has not lied. It is
by the tenor of a man's whole life that we must judge him, whether he be
a liar or no.

To expect a man to be the same at sixty as he was at thirty, is to
suppose that the sun at noon shall be graced with the colors which adorn
its setting. And there are men whose intellects are set on so fine a
pivot that a variation in the breeze of the moment, which coarser minds
shall not feel, will carry them round with a rapidity which baffles the
common eye. The man who saw his duty clearly on this side in the morning
shall, before the evening come, recognize it on the other; and then
again, and again, and yet again the vane shall go round. It may be that
an instrument shall be too fine for our daily uses. We do not want a
clock to strike the minutes, or a glass to tell the momentary changes in
the atmosphere. It may be found that for the work of the world, the
coarse work--and no work is so coarse, though none is so important, as
that which falls commonly into the hands of statesmen--instruments
strong in texture, and by reason of their rudeness not liable to sudden
impressions, may be the best. That it is which we mean when we declare
that a scrupulous man is impractical in politics. But the same man may,
at various periods of his life, and on various days at the same period,
be scrupulous and unscrupulous, impractical and practical, as the
circumstances of the occasion may affect him. At one moment the rule of
simple honesty will prevail with him. "Fiat justitia, ruat c[oe]lum."
"Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinæ." At another he will
see the necessity of a compromise for the good of the many. He will tell
himself that if the best cannot be done, he must content himself with
the next best. He must shake hands with the imperfect, as the best way
of lifting himself up from a bad way toward a better. In obedience to
his very conscience he will temporize, and, finding no other way of
achieving good, will do even evil that good may come of it. "Rem si
possis recte; si non, quocunque modo rem." In judging of such a
character as this, a hard and fast line will certainly lead us astray.
In judging of Cicero, such a hard and fast line has too generally been
used. He was a man singularly sensitive to all influences. It must be
admitted that he was a vane, turning on a pivot finer than those on
which statesmen have generally been made to work. He had none of the
fixed purpose of Cæsar, or the unflinching principle of Cato. They were
men cased in brass, whose feelings nothing could hurt. They suffered
from none of those inward flutterings of the heart, doubtful
aspirations, human longings, sharp sympathies, dreams of something
better than this world, fears of something worse, which make Cicero so
like a well-bred, polished gentleman of the present day. It is because
he has so little like a Roman that he is of all the Romans the most
attractive.

Still there may be doubt whether, with all the intricacies of his
character, his career was such as to justify a further biography at this
distance of time. "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?" asks Hamlet,
when he finds himself stirred by the passion thrown into the bare
recital of an old story by an itinerant player. What is Cicero to us of
the nineteenth century that we should care so much for him as to read
yet another book? Nevertheless, Hamlet was moved because the tale was
well told. There is matter in the earnestness, the pleasantness, the
patriotism, and the tragedy of the man's life to move a reader still--if
the story could only be written of him as it is felt! The difficulty
lies in that, and not in the nature of the story.

The period of Cicero's life was the very turning-point of civilization
and government in the history of the world. At that period of time the
world, as we know it, was Rome. Greece had sunk. The Macedonian Empire
had been destroyed. The kingdoms of the East--whether conquered, or even
when conquering, as was Parthia for awhile--were barbaric, outside the
circle of cultivation, and to be brought into it only by the arms and
influence of Rome. During Cæsar's career Gaul was conquered; and
Britain, with what was known of Germany, supposed to be partly
conquered. The subjugation of Africa and Spain was all but completed.
Letters, too, had been or were being introduced. Cicero's use of
language was so perfect that it seems to us to have been almost
necessarily the result of a long established art of Latin literature.
But, in truth, he is the earliest of the prose writers of his country
with whose works we are familiar. Excepting Varro, who was born but ten
years before him, no earlier Latin prose writer has left more than a
name to us; and the one work by which Varro is at all known, the De Re
Rustica, was written after Cicero's death. Lucretius, whose language we
regard as almost archaic, so unlike is it to that of Virgil or Horace,
was born eight years after Cicero. In a great degree Cicero formed the
Latin language--or produced that manipulation of it which has made it so
graceful in prose, and so powerful a vehicle of thought. That which he
took from any Latin writer he took from Terence.

And it was then, just then, that there arose in Rome that unpremeditated
change in its form of government which resulted in the self-assumed
dictatorship of Cæsar, and the usurpation of the Empire by Augustus. The
old Rome had had kings. Then the name and the power became odious--the
name to all the citizens, no doubt, but the power simply to the
nobility, who grudged the supremacy of one man. The kings were
abolished, and an oligarchy was established under the name of a
Republic, with its annual magistrates--at first its two Consuls, then
its Prætors and others, and occasionally a Dictator, as some current
event demanded a concentration of temporary power in a single hand for a
certain purpose. The Republic was no republic, as we understand the
word; nor did it ever become so, though their was always going on a
perpetual struggle to transfer the power from the nobles to the people,
in which something was always being given or pretended to be given to
the outside class. But so little was as yet understood of liberty that,
as each plebeian made his way up into high place and became one of the
magistrates of the State, he became also one of the oligarchical
faction. There was a continued contest, with a certain amount of good
faith on each side, on behalf of the so-called Republic--but still a
contest for power. This became so continued that a foreign war was at
times regarded as a blessing, because it concentrated the energies of
the State, which had been split and used by the two sections--by each
against the other. It is probably the case that the invasion of the
Gauls in earlier days, and, later on, the second Punic war, threatening
as they were in their incidents to the power of Rome, provided the
Republic with that vitality which kept it so long in existence. Then
came Marius, dominant on one side as a tribune of the people, and Sylla,
as aristocrat on the other, and the civil wars between them, in which,
as one prevailed or the other, Rome was mastered. How Marius died, and
Sylla reigned for three bloody, fatal years, is outside the scope of our
purpose--except in this, that Cicero saw Sylla's proscriptions, and made
his first essay into public life hot with anger at the Dictator's
tyranny.

It occurs to us as we read the history of Rome, beginning with the early
Consuls and going to the death of Cæsar and of Cicero, and the
accomplished despotism of Augustus, that the Republic could not have
been saved by any efforts, and was in truth not worth the saving. We are
apt to think, judging from our own idea of liberty, that there was so
much of tyranny, so little of real freedom in the Roman form of
government, that it was not good enough to deserve our sympathies. But
it had been successful. It had made a great people, and had produced a
wide-spread civilization. Roman citizenship was to those outside the one
thing the most worthy to be obtained. That career which led the great
Romans up from the state of Quæstor to the Ædile's, Prætor's, and
Consul's chair, and thence to the rich reward of provincial government,
was held to be the highest then open to the ambition of man. The Kings
of Greece, and of the East, and of Africa were supposed to be inferior
in their very rank to a Roman Proconsul, and this greatness was carried
on with a semblance of liberty, and was compatible with a belief in the
majesty of the Roman citizen. When Cicero began his work, Consuls,
Prætors, Ædiles, and Quæstors were still chosen by the votes of the
citizens. There was bribery, no doubt, and intimidation, and a resort to
those dirty arts of canvassing with which we English have been so
familiar; but in Cicero's time the male free inhabitants of Rome did
generally carry the candidates to whom they attached themselves. The
salt of their republican theory was not as yet altogether washed out
from their practice.

The love of absolute liberty as it has been cultivated among modern
races did not exist in the time of Cicero. The idea never seems to have
reached even his bosom, human and humanitarian as were his sympathies,
that a man, as man, should be free. Half the inhabitants of Rome were
slaves, and the institution was so grafted in the life of the time that
it never occurred to a Roman that slaves, as a body, should be
manumitted. The slaves themselves, though they were not, as have been
the slaves whom we have seen, of a different color and presumed inferior
race, do not themselves seem to have entertained any such idea. They
were instigated now and again to servile wars, but there was no rising
in quest of freedom generally. Nor was it repugnant to the Roman theory
of liberty that the people whom they dominated, though not subjected to
slavery, should still be outside the pale of civil freedom. That boon
was to be reserved for the Roman citizen, and for him only. It had
become common to admit to citizenship the inhabitants of other towns and
further territories. The glory was kept not altogether for Rome, but for
Romans.

Thus, though the government was oligarchical, and the very essence of
freedom ignored, there was a something which stood in the name of
liberty, and could endear itself to a real patriot. With genuine
patriotism Cicero loved his country, and beginning his public life as he
did at the close of Sylla's tyranny, he was able to entertain a dream
that the old state of things might be restored and the republican form
of government maintained. There should still be two Consuls in Rome,
whose annual election would guard the State against regal dominion. And
there should, at the same time, be such a continuance of power in the
hands of the better class--the "optimates," as he called them--as would
preserve the city from democracy and revolution. No man ever trusted
more entirely to popular opinion than Cicero, or was more anxious for
aristocratic authority. But neither in one direction nor the other did
he look for personal aggrandizement, beyond that which might come to him
in accordance with the law and in subjection to the old form of
government.

It is because he was in truth patriotic, because his dreams of a
Republic were noble dreams, because he was intent on doing good in
public affairs, because he was anxious for the honor of Rome and of
Romans, not because he was or was not a "real power in the State" that
his memory is still worth recording. Added to this was the intellect and
the wit and erudition of the man, which were at any rate supreme. And
then, though we can now see that his efforts were doomed to failure by
the nature of the circumstances surrounding him, he was so nearly
successful, so often on the verge of success, that we are exalted by the
romance of his story into the region of personal sympathy. As we are
moved by the aspirations and sufferings of a hero in a tragedy, so are
we stirred by the efforts, the fortune, and at last the fall of this
man. There is a picturesqueness about the life of Cicero which is
wanting in the stories of Marius or Sylla, of Pompey, or even of
Cæsar--a picturesqueness which is produced in great part by these very
doubtings which have been counted against him as insincerity.

His hands were clean when the hands of all around him were defiled by
greed. How infinitely Cicero must have risen above his time when he
could have clean hands! A man in our days will keep himself clean from
leprosy because to be a leper is to be despised by those around him.
Advancing wisdom has taught us that such leprosy is bad, and public
opinion coerces us. There is something too, we must suppose, in the
lessons of Christianity. Or it may be that the man of our day, with all
these advantages, does not keep himself clean--that so many go astray
that public opinion shall almost seem to tremble in the balance. Even
with us this and that abomination becomes allowable because so many do
it. With the Romans, in the time of Cicero, greed, feeding itself on
usury, rapine, and dishonesty, was so fully the recognized condition of
life that its indulgence entailed no disgrace. But Cicero, with eyes
within him which saw farther than the eyes of other men, perceived the
baseness of the stain. It has been said also of him that he was not
altogether free from reproach. It has been suggested that he accepted
payment for his services as an advocate, any such payment being illegal.
The accusation is founded on the knowledge that other advocates allowed
themselves to be paid, and on the belief that Cicero could not have
lived as he did without an income from that source. And then there is a
story told of him that, though he did much at a certain period of his
life to repress the usury, and to excite at the same time the enmity of
a powerful friend, he might have done more. As we go on, the stories of
these things will be told; but the very nature of the allegations
against him prove how high he soared in honesty above the manners of his
day. In discussing the character of the men, little is thought of the
robberies of Sylla, the borrowings of Cæsar, the money-lending of
Brutus, or the accumulated wealth of Crassus. To plunder a province, to
drive usury to the verge of personal slavery, to accept bribes for
perjured judgment, to take illegal fees for services supposed to be
gratuitous, was so much the custom of the noble Romans that we hardly
hate his dishonest greed when displayed in its ordinary course. But
because Cicero's honesty was abnormal, we are first surprised, and then,
suspecting little deviations, rise up in wrath against him, because in
the midst of Roman profligacy he was not altogether a Puritan in his
money matters.

Cicero is known to us in three great capacities: as a statesman, an
advocate, and a man of letters. As the combination of such pursuits is
common in our own days, so also was it in his. Cæsar added them all to
the great work of his life as a soldier. But it was given to Cicero to
take a part in all those political struggles, from the resignation of
Sylla to the first rising of the young Octavius, which were made on
behalf of the Republic, and were ended by its downfall. His political
life contains the story of the conversion of Rome from republican to
imperial rule; and Rome was then the world. Could there have been no
Augustus, no Nero, and then no Trajan, all Europe would have been
different. Cicero's efforts were put forth to prevent the coming of an
Augustus or a Nero, or the need of a Trajan; and as we read of them we
feel that, had success been possible, he would have succeeded.

As an advocate he was unsurpassed. From him came the feeling--whether it
be right or wrong--that a lawyer, in pleading for his client, should
give to that client's cause not only all his learning and all his wit,
but also all his sympathy. To me it is marvellous, and interesting
rather than beautiful, to see how completely Cicero can put off his own
identity and assume another's in any cause, whatever it be, of which he
has taken the charge. It must, however, be borne in mind that in old
Rome the distinction between speeches made in political and in civil or
criminal cases was not equally well marked as with us, and also that the
reader having the speeches which have come down to us, whether of one
nature or the other, presented to him in the same volume, is apt to
confuse the public and that which may, perhaps, be called the private
work of the man. In the speeches best known to us Cicero was working as
a public man for public objects, and the ardor, I may say the fury, of
his energy in the cause which he was advocating was due to his public
aspirations. The orations which have come to us in three sets, some of
them published only but never spoken--those against Verres, against
Catiline, and the Philippics against Antony--were all of this nature,
though the first concerned the conduct of a criminal charge against one
individual. Of these I will speak in their turn; but I mention them here
in order that I may, if possible, induce the reader to begin his inquiry
into Cicero's character as an advocate with a just conception of the
objects of the man. He wished, no doubt, to shine, as does the barrister
of to-day: he wished to rise; he wished, if you will, to make his
fortune, not by the taking of fees, but by extending himself into higher
influence by the authority of his name. No doubt he undertook this and
the other case without reference to the truth or honesty of the cause,
and, when he did so, used all his energy for the bad, as he did for the
good cause. There seems to be special accusation made against him on this
head, as though, the very fact that he undertook his work without pay
threw upon him the additional obligation of undertaking no cause that
was not in itself upright. With us the advocate does this notoriously
for his fee. Cicero did it as notoriously in furtherance of some
political object of the moment, or in maintenance of a friendship which
was politically important. I say nothing against the modern practice.
This would not be the place for such an argument. Nor do I say that, by
rules of absolute right and wrong, Cicero was right; but he was as
right, at any rate, as the modern barrister. And in reaching the
high-minded conditions under which he worked, he had only the light of
his own genius to guide him. When compare the clothing of the savage
race with our own, their beads and woad and straw and fibres with our
own petticoats and pantaloons, we acknowledge the progress of
civilization and the growth of machinery. It is not a wonderful thing to
us that an African prince should not be as perfectly dressed as a young
man in Piccadilly. But, when we make a comparison of morals between our
own time and a period before Christ, we seem to forget that more should
be expected from us than from those who lived two thousand years ago.

There are some of those pleadings, speeches made by Cicero on behalf of
or against an accused party, from which we may learn more of Roman life
than from any other source left to us. Much we may gather from Terence,
much from Horace, something from Juvenal. There is hardly, indeed, a
Latin author from which an attentive reader may not pick up some detail
of Roman customs. Cicero's letters are themselves very prolific. But the
pretty things of the poets are not quite facts, nor are the bitter
things of the satirist; and though a man's letters to his friend may be
true, such letters as come to us will have been the products of the
greater minds, and will have come from a small and special class. I fear
that the Newgate Calendar of the day would tell us more of the ways of
living then prevailing than the letters of Lady Mary W. Montagu or of
Horace Walpole. From the orations against Verres we learn how the people
of a province lived under the tyranny inflicted upon them; and from
those spoken in defence of Sextus Amerinus and Aulus Cluentius, we
gather something of the horrors of Roman life--not in Rome, indeed, but
within the limits of Roman citizenship.

It is, however, as a man of letters that Cicero will be held in the
highest esteem. It has been his good-fortune to have a great part of
what he wrote preserved for future ages. His works have not perished, as
have those of his contemporaries, Varro and Hortensius. But this has
been due to two causes, which were independent of Fortune. He himself
believed in their value, and took measures for their protection; and
those who lived in his own time, and in the immediately succeeding ages,
entertained the same belief and took the same care. Livy said that, to
write Latin well, the writer should write it like Cicero; and
Quintilian, the first of Latin critics, repeated to us what Livy had
asserted.[27] There is a sweetness of language about Cicero which runs
into the very sound; so that passages read aright would, by their very
cadences, charm the ear of listeners ignorant of the language. Eulogy
never was so happy as his. Eulogy, however, is tasteless in comparison
with invective. Cicero's abuse is awful. Let the reader curious in such
matters turn to the diatribes against Vatinius, one of Cæsar's
creatures, and to that against the unfortunate Proconsul Piso; or to his
attacks on Gabinius, who was Consul together with Piso in the year of
Cicero's banishment. There are wonderful morsels in the philippics
dealing with Antony's private character; but the words which he uses
against Gabinius and Piso beat all that I know elsewhere in the science
of invective. Junius could not approach him; and even Macaulay, though
he has, in certain passages, been very bitter, has not allowed himself
the latitude which Roman taste and Roman manners permitted to Cicero.

It may, however, be said that the need of biographical memoirs as to a
man of letters is by no means in proportion to the excellence of the
work that he has achieved. Alexander is known but little to us, because
we know so little of the details of his life. Cæsar is much to us,
because we have in truth been made acquainted with him. But Shakspeare,
of whose absolute doings we know almost nothing, would not be nearer or
dearer had he even had a Boswell to paint his daily portrait. The man of
letters is, in truth, ever writing his own biography. What there is in
his mind is being declared to the world at large by himself; and if he
can so write that the world at large shall care to read what is written,
no other memoir will, perhaps, be necessary. For myself I have never
regretted those details of Shakspeare's life which a Boswell of the time
might have given us. But Cicero's personality as a man of letters seems
especially to require elucidation. His letters lose their chief charm if
the character of the man be not known, and the incidents of his life.
His essays on rhetoric--the written lessons which he has left on the art
of oratory--are a running commentary on his own career as an orator.
Most of his speeches require for their understanding a knowledge of the
circumstances of his life. The treatises which we know as his
Philosophy--works which have been most wrongly represented by being
grouped under that name--can only be read with advantage by the light of
his own experience. There are two separate classes of his so-called
Philosophy, in describing which the word philosophy, if it be used at
all, must be made to bear two different senses. He handles in one set of
treatises, not, I think, with his happiest efforts, the teaching of the
old Greek schools. Such are the Tusculan Disquisitions, the Academics,
and the De Finibus. From reading these, without reference to the
idiosyncrasies of the writer, the student would be led to believe that
Cicero himself was a philosopher after that sort. But he was, in truth,
the last of men to lend his ears

    "To those budge doctors of the stoic fur."

Cicero was a man thoroughly human in all his strength and all his
weakness. To sit apart from the world and be happy amid scorn, poverty,
and obscurity, with a mess of cabbage and a crust, absolutely contented
with abstract virtue, has probably been given to no man; but of none has
it been less within the reach than of Cicero. To him ginger was always
hot in the mouth, whether it was the spice of politics, or of social
delight, or of intellectual enterprise. When in his deep sorrow at the
death of his daughter, when for a time the Republic was dead to him, and
public and private life were equally black, he craved employment. Then
he took down his Greek manuscripts and amused himself as best he might
by writing this way or that. It was a matter on which his intellect
could work and his energies be employed, though the theory of his life
was in no way concerned in it. Such was one class of his Philosophy. The
other consisted of a code of morals which he created for himself by his
own convictions, formed on the world around him, and which displayed
itself in essays, such as those De Officiis--on the duties of life; De
Senectute, De Amicitia--on old age and friendship, and the like, which
were not only intended for use, but are of use to any man or woman who
will study them up to this day. There are others, treatises on law and
on government and religion, which have all been lumped together, for the
misguidance of school-boys, under the name of Cicero's Philosophy. But
they, be they of one class or the other, require an understanding of the
man's character before they can be enjoyed.

For these reasons I think that there are incidents in the life, the
character, and the work of Cicero which ought to make his biography
interesting. His story is fraught with energy, with success, with
pathos, and with tragedy. And then it is the story of a man human as men
are now. No child of Rome ever better loved his country, but no child of
Rome was ever so little like a Roman. Arms and battles were to him
abominable, as they are to us. But arms and battles were the delight of
Romans. He was ridiculed in his own time, and has been ridiculed ever
since, for the alliterating twang of the line in which he declared his
feeling:

    "Cedant arma togæ; concedat laurea linguæ."

But the thing said was thoroughly good, and the better because the
opinion was addressed to men among whom the glory of arms was still in
ascendant over the achievements of intellectual enterprise. The greatest
men have been those who have stepped out from the mass, and gone beyond
their time--seeing things, with eyesight almost divine, which have
hitherto been hidden from the crowd. Such was Columbus when he made his
way across the Western Ocean; such were Galileo and Bacon; such was
Pythagoras, if the ideas we have of him be at all true. Such also was
Cicero. It is not given to the age in which such men live to know them.
Could their age even recognize them, they would not overstep their age
as they do. Looking back at him now, we can see how like a Christian was
the man--so like, that in essentials we can hardly see the difference.
He could love another as himself--as nearly as a man may do; and he
taught such love as a doctrine.[28] He believed in the existence of one
supreme God.[29] He believed that man would rise again and live forever
in some heaven.[30] I am conscious that I cannot much promote this view
of Cicero's character by quoting isolated passages from his works--words
which taken alone may be interpreted in one sense or another, and which
should be read, each with its context, before their due meaning can be
understood. But I may perhaps succeed in explaining to a reader what it
is that I hope to do in the following pages, and why it is that I
undertake a work which must be laborious, and for which many will think
that there is no remaining need.

I would not have it thought that, because I have so spoken of Cicero's
aspirations and convictions, I intend to put him forth as a faultless
personage in history. He was much too human to be perfect. Those who
love the cold attitude of indifference may sing of Cato as perfect.
Cicero was ambitious, and often unscrupulous in his ambition. He was a
loving husband and a loving father; but at the end of his life he could
quarrel with his old wife irrecoverably, and could idolize his daughter,
while he ruined his son by indulgence. He was very great while he spoke
of his country, which he did so often; but he was almost as little when
he spoke of himself--which he did as often. In money-matters he was
honest--for the times in which he lived, wonderfully honest; but in
words he was not always equally trustworthy. He could flatter where he
did not love. I admit that it was so, though I will not admit without a
protest that the word insincere should be applied to him as describing
his character generally. He was so much more sincere than others that
the protest is needed. If a man stand but five feet eleven inches in his
shoes, shall he be called a pygmy? And yet to declare that he measures
full six feet would be untrue.

Cicero was a busybody. Were there anything to do, he wished to do it,
let it be what it might. "Cedant arma togæ." If anything was written on
his heart, it was that. Yet he loved the idea of leading an army, and
panted for a military triumph. Letters and literary life were dear to
him, and yet he liked to think that he could live on equal terms with
the young bloods of Rome, such as C[oe]lius. As far as I can judge, he
cared nothing for luxurious eating and drinking, and yet he wished to be
reckoned among the gormands and gourmets of his times. He was so little
like the "budge doctors of the stoic fur," of whom it was his delight to
write when he had nothing else to do, that he could not bear any touch
of adversity with equanimity. The stoic requires to be hardened against
"the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." It is his profession to
be indifferent to the "whips and scorns of time." No man was less
hardened, or more subject to suffering from scorns and whips. There be
those who think proneness to such suffering is unmanly, or that the
sufferer should at any rate hide his agony. Cicero did not. Whether of
his glory or of his shame, whether of his joy or of his sorrow, whether
of his love or of his hatred, whether of his hopes or of his despair, he
spoke openly, as he did of all things. It has not been the way of
heroes, as we read of them; but it is the way with men as we live with
them.

What a man he would have been for London life! How he would have enjoyed
his club, picking up the news of the day from all lips, while he seemed
to give it to all ears! How popular he would have been at the Carlton,
and how men would have listened to him while every great or little
crisis was discussed! How supreme he would have sat on the Treasury
bench, or how unanswerable, how fatal, how joyous, when attacking the
Government from the opposite seats! How crowded would have been his rack
with invitations to dinner! How delighted would have been the
middle-aged countesses of the time to hold with him mild intellectual
flirtations--and the girls of the period, how proud to get his
autograph, how much prouder to have touched the lips of the great orator
with theirs! How the pages of the magazines would have run over with
little essays from his pen! "Have you seen our Cicero's paper on
agriculture? That lucky fellow, Editor ----, got him to do it last month!"
"Of course you have read Cicero's article on the soul. The bishops don't
know which way to turn." "So the political article in the _Quarterly_ is
Cicero's?" "Of course you know the art-criticism in the _Times_ this
year is Tully's doing?" But that would probably be a bounce. And then
what letters he would write! With the penny-post instead of travelling
messengers at his command, and pen instead of wax and sticks, or perhaps
with an instrument-writer and a private secretary, he would have
answered all questions and solved all difficulties. He would have so
abounded with intellectual fertility that men would not have known
whether most to admire his powers of expression or to deprecate his want
of reticence.

There will necessarily be much to be said of Cicero's writings in the
following pages, as it is my object to delineate the literary man as
well as the politician. In doing this, there arises a difficulty as to
the sequence in which his works should be taken. It will hardly suit the
purpose in view to speak of them all either chronologically or
separately as to their subjects. The speeches and the letters clearly
require the former treatment as applying each to the very moment of time
at which they were either spoken or written. His treatises, whether on
rhetoric or on the Greek philosophy, or on government, or on morals, can
best be taken apart as belonging in a very small degree, if at all, to
the period in which they were written. I will therefore endeavor to
introduce the orations and letters as the periods may suit, and to treat
of his essays afterward by themselves.

A few words I must say as to the Roman names I have used in my
narrative. There is a difficulty in this respect, because the practice
of my boyhood has partially changed itself. Pompey used to be Pompey
without a blush. Now with an erudite English writer he is generally
Pompeius. The denizens of Africa--the "nigger" world--have had, I think,
something to do with this. But with no erudite English writer is Terence
Terentius, or Virgil Virgilius, or Horace Horatius. Were I to speak of
Livius, the erudite English listener would think that I alluded to an
old author long prior to our dear historian. And though we now talk of
Sulla instead of Sylla, we hardly venture on Antonius instead of Antony.
Considering all this, I have thought it better to cling to the sounds
which have ever been familiar to myself; and as I talk of Virgil and of
Horace and Ovid freely and without fear, so shall I speak also of Pompey
and of Antony and of Catiline. In regard to Sulla, the change has been
so complete that I must allow the old name to have re-established itself
altogether.

It has been customary to notify the division of years in the period of
which I am about to write by dating from two different eras, counting
down from the building of Rome, A.U.C., or "anno urbis conditæ," and
back from the birth of Christ, which we English mark by the letters
B.C., before Christ. In dealing with Cicero, writers (both French and
English) have not uncommonly added a third mode of dating, assigning his
doings or sayings to the year of his age. There is again a fourth mode,
common among the Romans, of indicating the special years by naming the
Consuls, or one of them. "O nata mecum consule Manlio," Horace says,
when addressing his cask of wine. That was, indeed, the official mode of
indicating a date, and may probably be taken as showing how strong the
impression in the Roman mind was of the succession of their Consuls. In
the following pages I will use generally the date B.C., which, though
perhaps less simple than the A.U.C., gives to the mind of the modern
reader a clearer idea of the juxtaposition of events. The reader will
surely know that Christ was born in the reign of Augustus, and crucified
in that of Tiberius; but he will not perhaps know, without the trouble
of some calculation, how far removed from the period of Christ was the
year 648 A.U.C., in which Cicero was born. To this I will add on the
margin the year of Cicero's life. He was nearly sixty-four when he died.
I shall, therefore, call that year his sixty-third year.




CHAPTER II.

_HIS EDUCATION._


At Arpinum, on the river Liris, a little stream which has been made to
sound sweetly in our ears by Horace,[31] in a villa residence near the
town, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born, 106 years before Christ, on the 3d
of January, according to the calendar then in use. Pompey the Great was
born in the same year. Arpinum was a State which had been admitted into
Roman citizenship, lying between Rome and Capua, just within that
portion of Italy which was till the other day called the Kingdom of
Naples. The district from which he came is noted, also, as having given
birth to Marius. Cicero was of an equestrian family, which means as much
as though we were to say among ourselves that a man had been born a
gentleman and nothing more. An "eques" or knight in Cicero's time became
so, or might become so, by being in possession of a certain income. The
title conferred no nobility. The plebeian, it will be understood, could
not become patrician, though he might become noble--as Cicero did. The
patrician must have been born so--must have sprung from the purple of
certain fixed families.[32] Cicero was born a plebeian, of equestrian
rank and became ennobled when he was ranked among the senators because
of his service among the high magistrates of the Republic. As none of
his family had served before him, he was "novus homo," a new man, and
therefore not noble till he had achieved nobility himself. A man was
noble who could reckon a Consul, a Prætor, or an Ædile among his
ancestors. Such was not the case with Cicero. As he filled all these
offices, his son was noble--as were his son's sons and grandsons, if
such there were.

It was common to Romans to have three names, and our Cicero had three.
Marcus, which was similar in its use to the Christian name of one of us,
had been that of his grandfather and father, and was handed on to his
son. This, called the prænomen, was conferred on the child when a babe
with a ceremony not unlike that of our baptism. There was but a limited
choice of such names among the Romans, so that an initial letter will
generally declare to those accustomed to the literature that intended.
A. stands for Aulus, P. for Publius, M. generally for Marcus, C. for
Caius, though there was a Cneus also. The nomen, Tullius, was that of
the family. Of this family of Tullius to which Cicero belonged we know
no details. Plutarch tells us that of his father nothing was said but in
extremes, some declaring that he had been a fuller, and others that he
had been descended from a prince who had governed the Volsci. We do not
see why he may not have sprung from the prince, and also have been a
fuller. There can, however, be no doubt that he was a gentleman, not
uneducated himself, with means and the desire to give his children the
best education which Rome or Greece afforded. The third name or
cognomen, that of Cicero, belonged to a branch of the family of Tullius.
This third name had generally its origin, as do so many of our surnames,
in some specialty of place, or trade, or chance circumstance. It was
said that an ancestor had been called Cicero from "cicer," a vetch,
because his nose was marked with the figure of that vegetable. It is
more probable that the family prospered by the growing and sale of
vetches. Be that as it may, the name had been well established before
the orator's time. Cicero's mother was one Helvia, of whom we are told
that she was well-born and rich. Cicero himself never alludes to her--as
neither, if I remember rightly, did Horace to his mother, though he
speaks so frequently of his father. Helvia's younger son, Quintus, tells
a story of his mother in a letter, which has been, by chance, preserved
among those written by our Cicero. She was in the habit of sealing up
the empty wine-jars, as well as those which were full, so that a jar
emptied on the sly by a guzzling slave might be at once known. This is
told in a letter to Tiro, a favorite slave belonging to Marcus, of whom
we shall hear often in the course of our work. As the old lady sealed up
the jars, though they contained no wine, so must Tiro write letters,
though he has nothing to say in them. This kind of argument, taken from
the old familiar stories of one's childhood and one's parents, could be
only used to a dear and familiar friend. Such was Tiro, though still a
slave, to the two brothers. Roman life admitted of such friendships,
though the slave was so completely the creature of the master that his
life and death were at the master's disposal. This is nearly all that is
known of Cicero's father and mother, or of his old home.

There is, however, sufficient evidence that the father paid great
attention to the education of his sons--if, in the case of Marcus, any
evidence were wanting where the result is so manifest by the work of his
life. At a very early age, probably when he was eight--in the year which
produced Julius Cæsar--he was sent to Rome, and there was devoted to
studies which from the first were intended to fit him for public life.
Middleton says that the father lived in Rome with his son, and argues
from this that he was a man of large means. But Cicero gives no
authority for this. It is more probable that he lived at the house of
one Aculeo, who had married his mother's sister, and had sons with whom
Cicero was educated. Stories are told of his precocious talents and
performances such as we are accustomed to hear of many remarkable
men--not unfrequently from their own mouths. It is said of him that he
was intimate with the two great advocates of the time, Lucius Crassus
and Marcus Antonius the orator, the grandfather of Cicero's future
enemy, whom we know as Marc Antony. Cicero speaks of them both as though
he had seen them and talked much of them in his youth. He tells us
anecdotes of them;[33] how they were both accustomed to conceal their
knowledge of Greek, fancying that the people in whose eyes they were
anxious to shine would think more of them if they seemed to have
contented themselves simply with Roman words and Roman thoughts. But the
intimacy was probably that which a lad now is apt to feel that he has
enjoyed with a great man, if he has seen and heard him, and perhaps been
taken by the hand. He himself gives in very plain language an account of
his own studies when he was seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen. He speaks
of the orators of that day[34]: "When I was above all things anxious to
listen to these men, the banishment of Cotta was a great sorrow to me. I
was passionately intent on hearing those who were left, daily writing,
reading, and making notes. Nor was I content only with practice in the
art of speaking. In the following year Varius had to go, condemned by
his own enactment; and at this time, in working at the civil law, I gave
much of my time to Quintus Scævola, the son of Publius, who, though he
took no pupils, by explaining points to those who consulted him, gave
great assistance to students. The year after, when Sulla and Pompey were
Consuls, I learned what oratory really means by listening to Publius
Sulpicius, who as tribune was daily making harangues. It was then that
Philo, the Chief of the Academy, with other leading philosophers of
Athens, had been put to flight by the war with Mithridates, and had come
to Rome. To him I devoted myself entirely, stirred up by a wonderful
appetite for acquiring the Greek philosophy. But in that, though the
variety of the pursuit and its greatness charmed me altogether, yet it
seemed to me that the very essence of judicial conclusion was altogether
suppressed. In that year Sulpicius perished, and in the next, three of
our greatest orators, Quintus Catulus, Marcus Antonius, and Caius
Julius, were cruelly killed." This was the time of the civil war between
Marius and Sulla. "In the same year I took lessons from Molo the
Rhodian, a great pleader and master of the art." In the next chapter he
tells us that he passed his time also with Diodatus the Stoic, who
afterward lived with him, and died in his house. Here we have an
authentic description of the manner in which Cicero passed his time as a
youth at Rome, and one we can reduce probably to absolute truth by
lessening the superlatives. Nothing in it, however, is more remarkable
than the confession that, while his young intellect rejoiced in the
subtle argumentation of the Greek philosophers, his clear common sense
quarrelled with their inability to reach any positive conclusion.

But before these days of real study had come upon him he had given
himself up to juvenile poetry. He is said to have written a poem called
Pontius Glaucus when he was fourteen years old. This was no doubt a
translation from the Greek, as were most of the poems that he wrote, and
many portions of his prose treatises.[35] Plutarch tells us that the
poem was extant in his time, and declares that, "in process of time,
when he had studied this art with greater application, he was looked
upon as the best poet, as well as the greatest orator in Rome." The
English translators of Plutarch tell us that their author was an
indifferent judge of Latin poetry, and allege as proof of this that he
praised Cicero as a poet, a praise which he gave "contrary to the
opinion of Juvenal." But Juvenal has given no opinion of Cicero's
poetry, having simply quoted one unfortunate line noted for its egotism,
and declared that Cicero would never have had his head cut off had his
philippics been of the same nature.[36] The evidence of Quintus Mucius
Scævola as to Cicero's poetry was perhaps better, as he had the means,
at any rate, of reading it. He believed that the Marius, a poem written
by Cicero in praise of his great fellow-townsman, would live to
posterity forever. The story of the old man's prophecy comes to us, no
doubt, from Cicero himself, and is put into the mouth of his
brother;[37] but had it been untrue it would have been contradicted.

The Glaucus was a translation from the Greek done by a boy, probably as
a boy's lesson It is not uncommon that such exercises should be
treasured by parents, or perhaps by the performer himself, and not
impossible that they should be made to reappear afterward as original
compositions. Lord Brougham tells us in his autobiography that in his
early youth he tried his hand at writing English essays, and even tales
of fiction.[38] "I find one of these," he says, "has survived the
waste-paper basket, and it may amuse my readers to see the sort of
composition I was guilty of at the age of thirteen. My tale was entitled
'Memnon, or Human Wisdom,' and is as follows." Then we have a fair
translation of Voltaire's romance, "Memnon," or "La Sagesse Humaine."
The old lord, when he was collecting his papers for his autobiography,
had altogether forgotten his Voltaire, and thought that he had composed
the story! Nothing so absurd as that is told of Cicero by himself or on
his behalf.

It may be as well to say here what there may be to be said as to
Cicero's poetry generally. But little of it remains to us, and by that
little it has been admitted that he has not achieved the name of a great
poet; but what he did was too great in extent and too good in its nature
to be passed over altogether without notice. It has been his fate to be
rather ridiculed than read as a maker of verses, and that ridicule has
come from two lines which I have already quoted. The longest piece which
we have is from the Phænomena of Aratus, which he translated from the
Greek when he was eighteen years old, and which describes the heavenly
bodies. It is known to us best by the extracts from it given by the
author himself in his treatise, De Naturâ Deorum. It must be owned that
it is not pleasant reading. But translated poetry seldom is pleasant,
and could hardly be made so on such a subject by a boy of eighteen. The
Marius was written two years after this, and we have a passage from it,
quoted by the author in his De Divinatione, containing some fine lines.
It tells the story of the battle of the eagle and the serpent. Cicero
took it, no doubt (not translated it, however), from the passage in the
Iliad, lib, xii, 200, which has been rendered by Pope with less than his
usual fire, and by Lord Derby with no peculiar charm. Virgil has
reproduced the picture with his own peculiar grace of words. His version
has been translated by Dryden, but better, perhaps, by Christopher Pitt.
Voltaire has translated Cicero's lines with great power, and Shelley has
reproduced the same idea at much greater length in the first canto of
the Revolt of Islam, taking it probably from Cicero, but, if not, from
Voltaire.[39] I venture to think that, of the nine versions, Cicero's is
the best, and that it is the most melodious piece of Latin poetry we
have up to that date. Twenty-seven years afterward, when Lucretius was
probably at work on his great poem, Cicero wrote an account of his
consulship in verse. Of this we have fifty or sixty lines, in which the
author describes the heavenly warnings which were given as to the
affairs of his own consular year. The story is not a happy one, but the
lines are harmonious. It is often worth our while to inquire how poetry
has become such as it is, and how the altered and improved phases of
versification have arisen. To trace our melody from Chaucer to Tennyson
is matter of interest to us all. Of Cicero as a poet we may say that he
found Latin versification rough, and left it smooth and musical. Now, as
we go on with the orator's life and prose works, we need not return to
his poetry.

The names of many masters have been given to us as those under whom
Cicero's education was carried on. Among others he is supposed, at a
very early age, to have been confided to Archias. Archias was a Greek,
born at Antioch, who devoted himself to letters, and, if we are to
believe what Cicero says, when speaking as an advocate, excelled all his
rivals of the day. Like many other educated Greeks, he made his way to
Rome, and was received as one of the household of Lucullus, with whom he
travelled, accompanying him even to the wars. He became a citizen of
Rome--so Cicero assures us--and Cicero's tutor. What Cicero owed to him
we do not know, but to Cicero Archias owed immortality. His claim to
citizenship was disputed; and Cicero, pleading on his behalf, made one
of those shorter speeches which are perfect in melody, in taste, and in
language. There is a passage in which speaking on behalf of so excellent
a professor in the art, he sings the praises of literature generally. I
know no words written in praise of books more persuasive or more
valuable. "Other recreations," he says, "do not belong to all seasons
nor to all ages, nor to all places. These pursuits nourish our youth and
delight our old age. They adorn our prosperity and give a refuge and a
solace to our troubles. They charm us at home, and they are not in our
way when we are abroad. They go to bed with us. They travel about with
us. They accompany us as we escape into the country."[40] Archias
probably did something for him in directing his taste, and has been
rewarded thus richly. As to other lessons, we know that he was
instructed in law by Scævola, and he has told us that he listened to
Crassus and Antony. At sixteen he went through the ceremony of putting
off his boy's dress, the toga prætexta, and appearing in the toga
virilis before the Prætor, thus assuming his right to go about a man's
business. At sixteen the work of education was _not_ finished--no more
than it is with us when a lad at Oxford becomes "of age" at twenty-one;
nor was he put beyond his father's power, the "patria potestas," from
which no age availed to liberate a son; but, nevertheless, it was a very
joyful ceremony, and was duly performed by Cicero in the midst of his
studies with Scævola.

At eighteen he joined the army. That doctrine of the division of labor
which now, with us, runs through and dominates all pursuits, had not as
yet been made plain to the minds of men at Rome by the political
economists of the day. It was well that a man should know something of
many things--that he should especially, if he intended to be a leader of
men, be both soldier and orator. To rise to be Consul, having first been
Quæstor, Ædile, and Prætor, was the path of glory. It had been the
special duty of the Consuls of Rome, since the establishment of consular
government, to lead the armies of the Republic. A portion of the duty
devolved upon the Prætors, as wars became more numerous; and latterly
the commanders were attended by Quæstors. The Governors of the
provinces, Proconsuls, or Proprætors with proconsular authority, always
combined military with civil authority. The art of war was, therefore, a
necessary part of the education of a man intended to rise in the service
of the State. Cicero, though, in his endeavor to follow his own tastes,
he made a strong effort to keep himself free from such work, and to
remain at Rome instead of being sent abroad as a Governor, had at last
to go where fighting was in some degree necessary, and, in the saddest
phase of his life, appeared in Italy with his lictors, demanding the
honors of a triumph. In anticipation of such a career, no doubt under
the advice of his friends, he now went out to see, if not a battle,
something, at any rate, of war. It has already been said how the
citizenship of Rome was conferred on some of the small Italian States
around, and not on others. Hence, of course, arose jealousy, which was
increased by the feeling on the part of those excluded that they were
called to furnish soldiers to Rome, as well as those who were included.
Then there was formed a combination of Italian cities, sworn to remedy
the injury thus inflicted on them. Their purpose was to fight Rome in
order that they might achieve Roman citizenship; and hence arose the
first civil war which distracted the Empire. Pompeius Strabo, father of
Pompey the Great, was then Consul (B.C. 89), and Cicero was sent out to
see the campaign under him. Marius and Sulla, the two Romans who were
destined soon to bathe Rome in blood, had not yet quarrelled, though
they had been brought to hate each other--Marius by jealousy, and Sulla
by rivalry. In this war they both served under the Consuls, and Cicero
served with Sulla. We know nothing of his doings in that campaign. There
are no tidings even of a misfortune such as that which happened to
Horace when he went out to fight, and came home from the battle-field
"relicta non bene parmula."

Rome trampled on the rebellious cities, and in the end admitted them to
citizenship. But probably the most important, certainly the most
notorious, result of the Italian war, was the deep antagonism of Marius
and Sulla. Sulla had made himself conspicuous by his fortune on the
occasion, whereas Marius, who had become the great soldier of the
Republic, and had been six times Consul, failed to gather fresh laurels.
Rome was falling into that state of anarchy which was the cause of all
the glory and all the disgrace of Cicero's life, and was open to the
dominion of any soldier whose grasp might be the least scrupulous and
the strongest. Marius, after a series of romantic adventures with which
we must not connect ourselves here, was triumphant only just before his
death, while Sulla went off with his army, pillaged Athens, plundered
Asia Minor generally, and made terms with Mithridates, though he did not
conquer him. With the purport, no doubt, of conquering Mithridates, but
perhaps with the stronger object of getting him out of Rome, the army
had been intrusted to him, with the consent of the Marian faction.

Then came those three years, when Sulla was in the East and Marius dead,
of which Cicero speaks as a period of peace, in which a student was able
to study in Rome. "Triennium fere fuit urbs sine armis."[41] These must
have been the years 86, 85, and 84 before Christ, when Cicero was
twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three years old; and it was this
period, in truth, of which he speaks, and not of earlier years, when he
tells us of his studies with Philo, and Molo, and Diodatus. Precocious
as he was in literature, writing one poem--or translating it--when he
was fourteen, and another when he was eighteen, he was by no means in a
hurry to commence the work of his life. He is said also to have written
a treatise on military tactics when he was nineteen; which again, no
doubt, means that he had exercised himself by translating such an essay
from the Greek. This, happily, does not remain. But we have four books,
Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium, and two books De Inventione, attributed to
his twentieth and twenty-first years, which are published with his
works, and commence the series. Of all that we have from him, they are
perhaps the least worth reading; but as they are, or were, among his
recognized writings, a word shall be said of them in their proper place.

The success of the education of Cicero probably became a commonplace
among Latin school-masters and Latin writers. In the dialogue De
Oratoribus, attributed to Tacitus, the story of it is given by Messala
when he is praising the orators of the earlier age. "We know well," says
Messala, "that book of Cicero which is called Brutus, in the latter part
of which he describes to us the beginning and the progress of his own
eloquence, and, as it were, the bringing up on which it was founded. He
tells us that he had learned civil law under Q. Mutius Scævola; that he
had exhausted the realm of philosophy--learning that of the Academy
under Philo, and that of the Stoics under Diodatus; that, not content
with these treatises, he had travelled through Greece and Asia, so as to
embrace the whole world of art. And thus it had come about that in the
works of Cicero no knowledge is wanting--neither of music, nor of
grammar, nor any other liberal accomplishment. He understood the
subtilty of logic, the purpose of ethics, the effects and causes of
things." Then the speaker goes on to explain what may be expected from
study such as that. "Thus it is, my good friends--thus, that from the
acquirement of many arts, and from a general knowledge of all things,
eloquence that is truly admirable is created in its full force; for the
power and capacity of an orator need not be hemmed in, as are those of
other callings, by certain narrow bounds; but that man is the true
orator who is able to speak on all subjects with dignity and grace, so
as to persuade those who listen, and to delight them, in a manner suited
to the nature of the subject in hand and the convenience of the
time."[42]

We might fancy that we were reading words from Cicero himself! Then the
speaker in this imaginary conversation goes on to tell us how far
matters had derogated in his time, pointing out at the same time that
the evils which he deplores had shown themselves even before Cicero, but
had been put down, as far as the law could put them down, by its
interference. He is speaking of those schools of rhetoric in which Greek
professors of the art gave lessons for money, which were evil in their
nature, and not, as it appears, efficacious even for the purpose in
hand. "But now," continues Messala, "our very boys are brought into the
schools of those lecturers who are called 'rhetores,' who had sprung up
before Cicero, to the displeasure of our ancestors, as is evident from
the fact that when Crassus and Domitius were Censors they were ordered
to shut up their school of impudence, as Cicero calls it. Our boys, as I
was going to say, are taken to these lecture-rooms, in which it is hard
to say whether the atmosphere of the place, or the lads they are thrown
among, or the nature of the lessons taught, are the most injurious. In
the place itself there is neither discipline nor respect. All who go
there are equally ignorant. The boys among the boys, the lads among the
lads, utter and listen to just what words they please. Their very
exercises are, for the most part, useless. Two kinds are in vogue with
these 'rhetores,' called 'suasoriæ' and 'controversiæ,'" tending, we may
perhaps say, to persuade or to refute. "Of these, the 'suasoriæ,' as
being the lighter and requiring less of experience, are given to the
little boys, the 'controversiæ' to the bigger lads. But--oh heavens,
what they are--what miserable compositions!" Then he tells us the
subjects selected. Rape, incest, and other horrors are subjected to the
lads for their declamation, in order that they may learn to be orators.

Messala then explains that in those latter days--his days, that
is--under the rule of despotic princes, truly large subjects are not
allowed to be discussed in public--confessing, however, that those large
subjects, though they afford fine opportunities to orators, are not
beneficial to the State at large. But it was thus, he says, that Cicero
became what he was, who would not have grown into favor had he defended
only P. Quintius and Archias, and had had nothing to do with Catiline,
or Milo, or Verres, or Antony--showing, by-the-way, how great was the
reputation of that speech, Pro Milone, with which we shall have to deal
farther on.

The treatise becomes somewhat confused, a portion of it having
probably been lost. From whose mouth the last words are supposed to
come is not apparent. It ends with a rhapsody in favor of imperial
government--suitable, indeed, to the time of Domitian, but very unlike
Tacitus. While, however, it praises despotism, it declares that only by
the evils which despotism had quelled could eloquence be maintained.
"Our country, indeed, while it was astray in its government; while it
tore itself to pieces by parties and quarrels and discord; while there
was no peace in the Forum, no agreement in the Senate, no moderation on
the judgment-seat, no reverence for letters, no control among the
magistrates, boasted, no doubt, a stronger eloquence."

From what we are thus told of Cicero, not what we hear from himself, we
are able to form an idea of the nature of his education. With his mind
fixed from his early days on the ambition of doing something noble with
himself, he gave himself up to all kinds of learning. It was Macaulay, I
think, who said of him that the idea of conquering the "omne
scibile,"--the understanding of all things within the reach of human
intellect--was before his eyes as it was before those of Bacon. The
special preparation which was, in Cicero's time, employed for students
at the bar is also described in the treatise from which I have
quoted--the preparation which is supposed to have been the very opposite
of that afforded by the "rhetores." "Among ourselves, the youth who was
intended to achieve eloquence in the Forum, when already trained at home
and exercised in classical knowledge, was brought by his father or his
friends to that orator who might then be considered to be the leading
man in the city. It became his daily work to follow that man, to
accompany him, to be conversant with all his speeches, whether in the
courts of law or at public meetings, so that he might learn, if I might
say so, to fight in the very thick of the throng." It was thus that
Cicero studied his art. A few lines farther down, the pseudo-Tacitus
tells us that Crassus, in his nineteenth year, held a brief against
Carbo; that Cæsar did so in his twenty-first against Dolabella; and
Pollio, in his twenty-second year, against Cato.[43] In this precocity
Cicero did not imitate Crassus, or show an example to the Romans who
followed him. He was twenty-six when he pleaded his first cause. Sulla
had then succeeded in crushing the Marian faction, and the Sullan
proscriptions had taken place, and were nominally over. Sulla had been
declared Dictator, and had proclaimed that there should be no more
selections for death. The Republic was supposed to be restored.
"Recuperata republica * * * tum primum nos ad causas et privatas et
publicas adire c[oe]pimus,"[44] "The Republic having been restored, I then
first applied myself to pleadings, both private and public."

Of Cicero's politics at that time we are enabled to form a fair
judgment. Marius had been his townsman; Sulla had been his captain. But
the one thing dear to him was the Republic--what he thought to be the
Republic. He was neither Marian nor Sullan. The turbulence in which so
much noble blood had flowed--the "crudelis interitus oratorum," the
crushing out of the old legalized form of government--was abominable to
him. It was his hope, no doubt his expectation, that these old forms
should be restored in all their power. There seemed to be more
probability of this--there was more probability of it--on the side of
Sulla than the other. On Sulla's side was Pompey, the then rising man,
who, being of the same age with Cicero, had already pushed himself into
prominence, who was surnamed the Great, and who "triumphed" during these
very two years in which Cicero began his career; who through Cicero's
whole life was his bugbear, his stumbling-block, and his mistake. But on
that side were the "optimates," the men who, if they did not lead, ought
to lead the Republic; those who, if they were not respectable, ought to
be so; those who, if they did not love their country, ought to love it.
If there was a hope, it was with them. The old state of things--that
oligarchy which has been called a Republic--had made Rome what it was;
had produced power, civilization, art, and literature. It had enabled
such a one as Cicero was himself to aspire to lead, though he had been
humbly born, and had come to Rome from an untried provincial family. To
him the Republic--as he fancied that it had been, as he fancied that it
might be--was all that was good, all that was gracious, all that was
beneficent. On Sulla's side lay what chance there was of returning to
the old ways. When Sulla was declared Dictator, it was presumed that the
Republic was restored. But not on this account should it be supposed
that Cicero regarded the proscriptions of Sulla with favor, or that he
was otherwise than shocked by the wholesale robberies for which the
proscription paved the way. This is a matter with which it will be
necessary to deal more fully when we come in our next chapter to the
first speeches made by Cicero; in the very first of which, as I place
them, he attacks the Sullan robberies with an audacity which, when we
remember that Sulla was still in power, rescues, at any rate, in regard
to this period of his life, the character of the orator from that charge
of cowardice which has been imputed to him.

It is necessary here, in this chapter devoted to the education of
Cicero, to allude to his two first speeches, because that education was
not completed till afterward--so that they may be regarded as
experiments, or trials, as it were, of his force and sufficiency. "Not
content with these teachers"--teachers who had come to Rome from Greece
and Asia--"he had travelled through Greece and Asia, so as to embrace
the whole world of art." These words, quoted a few pages back from the
treatise attributed to Tacitus, refer to a passage in the Brutus in
which Cicero makes a statement to that effect. "When I reached
Athens,[45] I passed six months with Antiochus, by far the best known
and most erudite of the teachers of the old Academy, and with him, as my
great authority and master, I renewed that study of philosophy which I
had never abandoned--which from my boyhood I had followed with always
increasing success. At the same time I practised oratory laboriously
with Demetrius Syrus, also at Athens, a well-known and by no means
incapable master of the art of speaking. After that I wandered over all
Asia, and came across the best orators there, with whom I practised,
enjoying their willing assistance." There is more of it, which need not
be repeated verbatim, giving the names of those who aided him in Asia:
Menippus of Stratonice--who, he says, was sweet enough to have belonged
himself to Athens--with Dionysius of Magnesia, with [OE]schilus of Cnidos,
and with Xenocles of Adramyttium. Then at Rhodes he came across his old
friend Molo, and applied himself again to the teaching of his former
master. Quintilian explains to us how this was done with a purpose, so
that the young orator, when he had made a first attempt with his
half-fledged wings in the courts, might go back to his masters for
awhile[46].

He was twenty-eight when he started on this tour. It has been suggested
that he did so in fear of the resentment of Sulla, with whose favorites
and with whose practices he had dealt very plainly. There is no reason
for alleging this, except that Sulla was powerful, that Sulla was
blood-thirsty, and that Sulla must have been offended. This kind of
argument is often used. It is supposed to be natural, or at least
probable, that in a certain position a man should have been a coward or
a knave, ungrateful or cruel; and in the presumption thus raised the
accusation is brought against him. "Fearing Sulla's resentment,"
Plutarch says, "he travelled into Greece, and gave out that the recovery
of his health was the motive." There is no evidence that such was his
reason for travelling; and, as Middleton says in his behalf, it is
certain that he "continued for a year after this in Rome without any
apprehension of danger." It is best to take a man's own account of his
own doings and their causes, unless there be ground for doubting the
statement made. It is thus that Cicero himself speaks of his journey:
"Now," he says, still in his Brutus[47], "as you wish to know what I
am--not simply what mark I may have on my body from my birth, or with
what surroundings of childhood I was brought up--I will include some
details which might perhaps seem hardly necessary. At this time I was
thin and weak, my neck being long and narrow--a habit and form of body
which is supposed to be adverse to long life; and those who loved me
thought the more of this, because I had taken to speaking without
relaxation, without recreation with all the powers of my voice, and with
much muscular action. When my friends and the doctors desired me to give
up speaking, I resolved that, rather than abandon my career as an
orator, I would face any danger. But when it occurred to me that by
lowering my voice, by changing my method of speaking, I might avoid the
danger, and at the same time learn to speak with more elegance, I
accepted that as a reason for going into Asia, so that I might study how
to change my mode of elocution. Thus, when I had been two years at work
upon causes, and when my name was already well known in the Forum, I
took my departure, and left Rome."

During the six months that he was at Athens he renewed an early
acquaintance with one who was destined to become the most faithful, and
certainly the best known, of his friends. This was Titus Pomponius,
known to the world as that Atticus to whom were addressed something more
than half the large body of letters which were written by Cicero, and
which have remained for our use.[48] He seems to have lived much with
Atticus, who was occupied with similar studies, though with altogether
different results. Atticus applied himself to the practices of the
Epicurean school, and did in truth become "Epicuri de grege porcus." To
enjoy life, to amass a fortune, to keep himself free from all turmoils
of war or state, to make the best of the times, whether they were bad or
good, without any attempt on his part to mend them--this was the
philosophy of Titus Pomponius, who was called Atticus because Athens,
full of art and literature, easy, unenergetic, and luxurious, was dear
to him. To this philosophy, or rather to this theory of life, Cicero was
altogether opposed. He studied in all the schools--among the Platonists,
the Stoics, even with the Epicureans enough to know their dogmas so that
he might criticise them--proclaiming himself to belong to the new
Academy, or younger school of Platonists, but in truth drawing no system
of morals or rule of life from any of them. To him, and also to Atticus,
no doubt, these pursuits afforded an intellectual pastime. Atticus found
himself able to justify to himself the bent of his disposition by the
name of a philosopher, and therefore became an Epicurean. Cicero could
in no way justify to himself any deviation from the energy of public
life, from its utility, from its ambition, from its loves, or from its
hatred; and from the Greek philosophers whom he named of this or the
other school, received only some assistance in that handling of
so-called philosophy which became the chief amusement of his future
life. This was well understood by the Latin authors who wrote of Cicero
after his own time. Quintilian, speaking of Cicero and Brutus as writers
of philosophy, says of the latter, "Suffecit ponderi rerum; scias enim
sentire quæ dicit."[49]--"He was equal to the weight of the subject, for
you feel that he believes what he writes." He leaves the inference, of
course, that Cicero wrote on such matters only for the exercise of his
ingenuity, as a school-boy writes.

When at Athens, Cicero was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries--as
to which Mr. Collins, in his little volume on Cicero, in the Ancient
Classics for English Readers, says that they "contained under this veil
whatever faith in the Invisible and Eternal rested in the mind of an
enlightened pagan." In this Mr. Collins is fully justified by what
Cicero himself has said although the character thus given to these
mysteries is very different from that which was attributed to them by
early Christian writers. They were to those pious but somewhat
prejudiced theologists mysterious and pagan, and therefore horrible.[50]
But Cicero declares in his dialogue with Atticus, De Legibus, written
when he was fifty-five years old, in the prime of his intellect, that
"of all the glories and divine gifts which your Athens has produced for
the improvement of men nothing surpasses these mysteries, by which the
harshness of our uncivilized life has been softened, and we have been
lifted up to humanity; and as they are called 'initia,'" by which
aspirants were initiated, "so we have in truth found in them the seeds
of a new life. Nor have we received from them only the means of living
with satisfaction, but also of dying with a better hope as to the
future."[51]

Of what took place with Cicero and Atticus at their introduction to the
Eleusinian mysteries we know nothing. But it can hardly be that, with
such memories running in his mind after thirty years, expressed in such
language to the very friend who had then been his companion, they should
not have been accepted by him as indicating the commencement of some
great line of thought. The two doctrines which seem to mark most clearly
the difference between the men whom we regard, the one as a pagan and
the other as a Christian, are the belief in a future life and the duty
of doing well by our neighbors. Here they are both indicated, the former
in plain language, and the latter in that assurance of the softening of
the barbarity of uncivilized life, "Quibus ex agresti immanique vita
exculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sumus."

Of the inner life of Cicero at this moment--how he ate, how he drank,
with what accompaniment of slaves he lived, how he was dressed, and how
lodged--we know very little; but we are told enough to be aware that he
could not have travelled, as he did in Greece and Asia, without great
expense. His brother Quintus was with him, so that cost, if not double,
was greatly increased. Antiochus, Demetrius Syrus, Molo, Menippus, and
the others did not give him their services for nothing. These were
gentlemen of whom we know that they were anxious to carry their wares to
the best market. And then he seems to have been welcomed wherever he
went, as though travelling in some sort "en prince." No doubt he had
brought with him the best introductions which Rome could afford; but
even with them a generous allowance must have been necessary, and this
must have come from his father's pocket.

As we go on, a question will arise as to Cicero's income and the sources
whence it came. He asserts of himself that he was never paid for his
services at the bar. To receive such payment was illegal, but was usual.
He claims to have kept himself exempt from whatever meanness there may
have been in so receiving such fees--exempt, at any rate, from the fault
of having broken the law. He has not been believed. There is no evidence
to convict him of falsehood, but he has not been believed, because there
have not been found palpable sources of income sufficient for an
expenditure so great as that which we know to have been incident to the
life he led. But we do not know what were his father's means. Seeing the
nature of the education given to the lad, of the manner in which his
future life was prepared for him from his earliest days, of the promise
made to him from his boyhood of a career in the metropolis if he could
make himself fit for it, of the advantages which costly travel afforded
him, I think we have reason to suppose that the old Cicero was an
opulent man, and that the house at Arpinum was no humble farm, or
fuller's poor establishment.




CHAPTER III.

_THE CONDITION OF ROME._


It is far from my intention to write a history of Rome during the
Ciceronian period. Were I to attempt such a work, I should have to
include the doings of Sertorius in Spain, of Lucullus and Pompey in the
East, Cæsar's ten years in Gaul, and the civil wars from the taking of
Marseilles to the final battles of Thapsus and Munda. With very many of
the great events which the period includes Cicero took but slight
concern--so slight that we can hardly fail to be astonished when we find
how little he had to say of them--he who ran through all the offices of
the State, who was the chosen guardian of certain allied cities, who has
left to us so large a mass of correspondence on public subjects, and who
was essentially a public man for thirty-four years. But he was a public
man who concerned himself personally with Rome rather than with the
Roman Empire. Home affairs, and not foreign affairs, were dear to him.
To Cæsar's great deeds in Gaul we should have had from him almost no
allusion, had not his brother Quintus been among Cæsar's officers, and
his young friend Trebatius been confided by himself to Cæsar's care. Of
Pharsalia we only learn from him that, in utter despair of heart, he
allowed himself to be carried to the war. Of the proconsular governments
throughout the Roman Empire we should not learn much from Cicero, were
it not that it has been shown to us by the trial of Verres how atrocious
might be the conduct of a Roman Governor, and by the narratives of
Cicero's own rule in Cilicia, how excellent. The history of the time has
been written for modern readers by Merivale and Mommsen, with great
research and truth as to facts, but, as I think with some strong
feeling. Now Mr. Froude has followed with his Cæsar, which might well
have been called Anti-Cicero. All these in lauding, and the two latter
in deifying, the successful soldier, have, I think, dealt hardly with
Cicero, attributing to his utterances more than they mean; doubting his
sincerity, but seeing clearly the failure of his political efforts. With
the great facts of the Roman Empire as they gradually formed themselves
from the fall of Carthage, when the Empire began,[52] to the
establishment of Augustus, when it was consummated, I do not pretend to
deal, although by far the most momentous of them were crowded into the
life of Cicero. But in order that I may, if possible, show the condition
of his mind toward the Republic--that I may explain what it was that he
hoped and why he hoped it--I must go back and relate in a few words what
it was that Marius and Sulla had done for Rome.

Of both these men all the doings with which history is greatly concerned
were comprised within the early years of Cicero's life. Marius, indeed,
was nearly fifty years of age when his fellow-townsman was born, and had
become a distinguished soldier, and, though born of humble parents, had
pushed himself to the Consulate. His quarrel with Sulla had probably
commenced, springing from jealousy as to deeds done in the Jugurthine
war. But it is not matter of much moment, now that Marius had proved
himself to be a good and hardy soldier, excepting in this, that, by
making himself a soldier in early life, he enabled himself in his latter
years to become the master of Rome.

Sulla, too, was born thirty-two years before Cicero--a patrician of the
bluest blood--and having gone, as we say, into public life, and having
been elected Quæstor, became a soldier by dint of office, as a man with
us may become head of the Admiralty. As Quæstor he was sent to join
Marius in Africa a few months before Cicero was born. Into his hands, as
it happened, not into those of Marius, Jugurtha was surrendered by his
father-in-law, Bocchus, who thought thus to curry favor with the Romans.
Thence came those internecine feuds, in which, some twenty-five years
later, all Rome was lying butchered. The cause of quarrelling between
these two men, the jealousies which grew in the heart of the elder, from
the renewed successes of the younger, are not much to us now; but the
condition to which Rome had been brought, when two such men could
scramble for the city, and each cut the throats of the relatives,
friends, and presumed allies of the other, has to be inquired into by
those who would understand what Rome had been, what it was, and what it
was necessarily to become.

When Cicero was of an age to begin to think of these things, and had put
on the "toga virilis," and girt himself with a sword to fight under the
father of Pompey for the power of Rome against the Italian allies who
were demanding citizenship, the quarrel was in truth rising to its
bitterness. Marius and Sulla were on the same side in that war. But
Marius had then not only been Consul, but had been six times Consul; and
he had beaten the Teutons and the Cimbrians, by whom Romans had feared
that all Italy would be occupied. What was not within the power of such
a leader of soldiers? and what else but a leader of soldiers could
prevail when Italy and Rome, but for such a General, had been at the
mercy of barbaric hordes, and when they had been compelled to make that
General six times Consul?

Marius seems to have been no politician. He became a soldier and then a
General; and because he was great as a soldier and General, the affairs
of the State fell into his hands with very little effort. In the old
days of Rome military power had been needed for defence, and successful
defence had of course produced aggressive masterhood and increased
territory. When Hannibal, while he was still lingering in Italy, had
been circumvented by the appearance of Scipio in Africa and the Romans
had tasted the increased magnificence of external conquest, the desire
for foreign domination became stronger than that of native rule. From
that time arms were in the ascendant rather than policy. Up to that time
a Consul had to become a General, because it was his business to look
after the welfare of the State. After that time a man became a Consul in
order that he might be a General. The toga was made to give way to the
sword, and the noise of the Forum to the trumpets. We, looking back now,
can see that it must have been so, and we are prone to fancy that a wise
man looking forward then might have read the future. In the days of
Marius there was probably no man so wise. Cæsar was the first to see it.
Cicero would have seen it, but that the idea was so odious to him that
he could not acknowledge to himself that it need be so. His life was one
struggle against the coming evil--against the time in which brute force
was to be made to dominate intellect and civilization. His "cedant arma
togæ" was a scream, an impotent scream, against all that Sulla had done
or Cæsar was about to do. The mischief had been effected years before
his time, and had gone too far ahead to be arrested even by his tongue.
Only, in considering these things, let us confess that Cicero saw what
was good and what was evil, though he was mistaken in believing that the
good was still within reach.

Marius in his way was a Cæsar--as a soldier, undoubtedly a very
efficient Cæsar--having that great gift of ruling his own appetites
which enables those who possess it to conquer the appetites of others.
It may be doubted whether his quickness in stopping and overcoming the
two great hordes from the north, the Teutons and the Cimbrians, was not
equal in strategy to anything that Cæsar accomplished in Gaul. It is
probable that Cæsar learned much of his tactics from studying the
man[oe]uvres of Marius. But Marius was only a General. Though he became
hot in Roman politics, audacious and confident, knowing how to use and
how to disregard various weapons of political power as they had been
handed down by tradition and law, the "vetoes" and the auguries, and the
official dignities, he used them, or disregarded them, in quest only of
power for himself. He was able to perceive how vain was law in such a
period as that in which he lived; and that, having risen by force of
arms, he must by force of arms keep his place or lose his life. With
him, at least, there was no idea of Roman liberty, little probably of
Roman glory, except so far as military glory and military power go
together.

Sulla was a man endowed with a much keener insight into the political
condition of the world around him. To make a dash for power, as a dog
might do, and keep it in his clutch as a dog would, was enough for
Marius. Sulla could see something of future events. He could understand
that, by reducing men around him to a low level, he could make fast his
own power over them, and that he could best do this by cutting off the
heads of all who stood a little higher than their neighbors. He might
thus produce tranquillity, and security to himself and others. Some
glimmer of an idea of an Augustan rule was present to him; and with the
view of producing it, he re-established many of the usages of the
Republic, not reproducing the liberty but the forms of liberty. It seems
to have been his idea that a Sullan party might rule the Empire by
adherence to these forms. I doubt if Marius had any fixed idea of
government. To get the better of his enemies, and then to grind them
into powder under his feet, to seize rank and power and riches, and then
to enjoy them, to sate his lust with blood and money and women, at last
even with wine, and to feed his revenge by remembering the hard things
which he was made to endure during the period of his overthrow--this
seems to have been enough for Marius.[53] With Sulla there was
understanding that the Empire must be ruled, and that the old ways would
be best if they could be made compatible with the newly-concentrated
power.

The immediate effect upon Rome, either from one or from the other, was
nearly the same. In the year 87 B.C. Marius occupied himself in
slaughtering the Sullan party--during which, however, Sulla escaped from
Rome to the army of which he was selected as General, and proceeded to
Athens and the East with the object of conquering Mithridates; for,
during these personal contests, the command of this expedition had been
the chief bone of contention among them. Marius, who was by age
unfitted, desired to obtain it in order that Sulla might not have it. In
the next year, 86 B.C., Marius died, being then Consul for the seventh
time. Sulla was away in the East, and did not return till 83 B.C. In the
interval was that period of peace, fit for study, of which Cicero
afterward spoke. "Triennium fere fuit urbs sine armis."[54] Cicero was
then twenty-two or twenty-three years old, and must well have
understood, from his remembrance of the Marian massacres, what it was to
have the city embroiled by arms. It was not that men were fighting, but
that they were simply being killed at the pleasure of the slaughterer.
Then Sulla came back, 83 B.C., when Cicero was twenty-four; and if
Marius had scourged the city with rods, he scourged it with scorpions.
It was the city, in truth, that was scourged, and not simply the hostile
faction. Sulla began by proscribing 520 citizens declaring that he had
included in his list all that he remembered, and that those forgotten
should be added on another day. The numbers were gradually raised to
4,700! Nor did this merely mean that those named should be caught and
killed by some miscalled officers of justice.[55] All the public was
armed against the wretched, and any who should protect them were also
doomed to death. This, however, might have been comparatively
inefficacious to inflict the amount of punishment intended by Sulla. Men
generally do not specially desire to imbrue their hands in the blood of
other men. Unless strong hatred be at work, the ordinary man, even the
ordinary Roman, will hardly rise up and slaughter another for the sake
of the employment. But if lucre be added to blood, then blood can be
made to flow copiously. This was what Sulla did. Not only was the
victim's life proscribed, but his property was proscribed also; and the
man who busied himself in carrying out the great butcher's business
assiduously, ardently, and unintermittingly, was rewarded by the
property so obtained. Two talents[56] was to be the fee for mere
assassination; but the man who knew how to carry on well the work of an
informer could earn many talents. It was thus that fortunes were made in
the last days of Sulla. It was not only those 520 who were named for
killing. They were but the firstlings of the flock--the few victims
selected before the real workmen understood how valuable a trade
proscription and confiscation might be made. Plutarch tells us how a
quiet gentleman walking, as was his custom, in the Forum, one who took
no part in politics, saw his own name one day on the list. He had an
Alban villa, and at once knew that his villa had been his ruin. He had
hardly read the list, and had made his exclamation, before he was
slaughtered. Such was the massacre of Sulla, coming with an interval of
two or three years after those of Marius, between which was the blessed
time in which Rome was without arms. In the time of Marius, Cicero was
too young, and of no sufficient importance, on account of his birth or
parentage, to fear anything. Nor is it probable that Marius would have
turned against his townsmen. When Sulla's turn came, Cicero, though not
absolutely connected with the Dictator, was, so to say, on his side in
politics. In going back even to this period we may use the terms
Liberals and Conservatives for describing the two parties. Marius was
for the people; that is to say, he was opposed to the rule of the
oligarchy, dispersed the Senate, and loved to feel that his own feet
were on the necks of the nobility. Of liberty, or rights, or popular
institutions he recked nothing; but not the less was he supposed to be
on the people's side. Sulla, on the other hand, had been born a
patrician, and affected to preserve the old traditions of oligarchic
rule; and, indeed, though he took all the power of the State into his
own hands, he did restore, and for a time preserve, these old
traditions. It must be presumed that there was at his heart something of
love for old Rome. The proscriptions began toward the end of the year 82
B.C., and were continued through eight or nine fearful months--up to the
beginning of June, 81 B.C. A day was fixed at which there should be no
more slaughtering--no more slaughtering, that is, without special order
in each case, and no more confiscation--except such as might be judged
necessary by those who had not as yet collected their prey from past
victims. Then Sulla, as Dictator, set himself to work to reorganize the
old laws. There should still be Consuls and Prætors, but with restricted
powers, lessened almost down to nothing. It seems hard to gather what
was exactly the Dictator's scheme as the future depositary of power when
he should himself have left the scene. He did increase the privileges of
the Senate; but thinking of the Senate of Rome as he must have thought
of it, esteeming those old men as lowly as he must have esteemed them,
he could hardly have intended that imperial power should be maintained
by dividing it among them. He certainly contemplated no follower to
himself, no heir to his power, as Cæsar did. When he had been
practically Dictator about three years--though he did not continue the
use of the objectionable name--he resigned his rule and walked down, as
it were, from his throne into private life. I know nothing in history
more remarkable than Sulla's resignation; and yet the writers who have
dealt with his name give no explanation of it. Plutarch, his biographer,
expresses wonder that he should have been willing to descend to private
life, and that he who made so many enemies should have been able to do
so with security. Cicero says nothing of it. He had probably left Rome
before it occurred, and did not return till after Sulla's death. It
seems to have been accepted as being in no especial way remarkable.[57]
At his own demand, the plenary power of Dictator had been given to
him--power to do all as he liked, without reference either to the Senate
or to the people, and with an added proviso that he should keep it as
long as he thought fit, and lay it down when it pleased him. He did lay
it down, flattering himself, probably, that, as he had done his work, he
would walk out from his dictatorship like some Camillus of old. There
had been no Dictator in Rome for more than a century and a quarter--not
since the time of Hannibal's great victories; and the old dictatorships
lasted but for a few months or weeks, after which the Dictator, having
accomplished the special task, threw up his office. Sulla now affected
to do the same; and Rome, after the interval of three years, accepted
the resignation in the old spirit. It was natural to them, though only
by tradition, that a Dictator should resign--so natural that it required
no special wonder. The salt of the Roman Constitution was gone, but the
remembrance of the savor of it was still sweet to the minds of the
Romans.

It seems certain that no attempt was made to injure Sulla when he ceased
to be nominally at the head of the army, but it is probable that he did
not so completely divest himself of power as to be without protection.
In the year after his abdication he died, at the age of sixty-one,
apparently strong as regards general health, but, if Plutarch's story be
true, affected with a terrible cutaneous disease. Modern writers have
spoken of Sulla as though they would fain have praised him if they
dared, because, in spite of his demoniac cruelty, he recognized the
expediency of bringing the affairs of the Republic again into order.
Middleton calls him the "only man in history in whom the odium of the
most barbarous cruelties was extinguished by the glory of his great
acts." Mommsen, laying the blame of the proscriptions on the head of the
oligarchy, speaks of Sulla as being either a sword or a pen in the
service of the State, as a sword or a pen would be required, and
declares that, in regard to the total "absence of political
selfishness--although it is true in this respect only--Sulla deserves to
be named side by side with Washington."[58] To us at present who are
endeavoring to investigate the sources and the nature of Cicero's
character, the attributes of this man would be but of little moment,
were it not that Cicero was probably Cicero because Sulla had been
Sulla. Horrid as the proscriptions and confiscations were to Cicero--and
his opinion of them was expressed plainly enough when it was dangerous
to express them[59]--still it was apparent to him that the cause of
order (what we may call the best chance for the Republic) lay with the
Senate and with the old traditions and laws of Rome, in the
re-establishment of which Sulla had employed himself. Of these
institutions Mommsen speaks with a disdain which we now cannot but feel
to be justified. "On the Roman oligarchy of this period," he says "no
judgment can be passed save one of inexorable and remorseless
condemnation; and, like everything connected with it, the Sullan
constitution is involved in that condemnation."[60] We have to admit
that the salt had gone out from it, and that there was no longer left
any savor by which it could be preserved. But the German historian seems
to err somewhat in this, as have also some modern English historians,
that they have not sufficiently seen that the men of the day had not the
means of knowing all that they, the historians, know. Sulla and his
Senate thought that by massacring the Marian faction they had restored
everything to an equilibrium. Sulla himself seems to have believed that
when the thing was accomplished Rome would go on, and grow in power and
prosperity as she had grown, without other reforms than those which he
had initiated. There can be no doubt that many of the best in Rome--the
best in morals, the best in patriotism, and the best in erudition--did
think that, with the old forms, the old virtue would come back. Pompey
thought so, and Cicero. Cato thought so, and Brutus. Cæsar, when he came
to think about it, thought the reverse. But even now to us, looking back
with so many things made clear to us, with all the convictions which
prolonged success produces, it is doubtful whether some other milder
change--some such change as Cicero would have advocated--might not have
prevented the tyranny of Augustus, the mysteries of Tiberius, the freaks
of Caligula, the folly of Claudius, and the madness of Nero.

It is an uphill task, that of advocating the cause of a man who has
failed. The Cæsars of the world are they who make interesting stories.
That Cicero failed in the great purpose of his life has to be
acknowledged. He had studied the history of his country, and was aware
that hitherto the world had produced nothing so great as Roman power;
and he knew that Rome had produced true patriotism. Her Consuls, her
Censors, her Tribunes, and her Generals had, as a rule, been true to
Rome, serving their country, at any rate till of late years, rather than
themselves. And he believed that liberty had existed in Rome, though
nowhere else. It would be well if we could realize the idea of liberty
which Cicero entertained. Liberty was very dear to him--dear to him not
only as enjoying it himself, but as a privilege for the enjoyment of
others. But it was only the liberty of a few. Half the population of the
Roman cities were slaves, and in Cicero's time the freedom of the city,
which he regarded as necessary to liberty, belonged only to a small
proportion of the population of Italy. It was the liberty of a small
privileged class for which he was anxious. That a Sicilian should be
free under a Roman Proconsul, as a Roman citizen was entitled to be, was
abhorrent to his doctrine. The idea of cosmopolitan freedom--an idea
which exists with us, but is not common to very many even now--had not
as yet been born: that care for freedom which springs from a desire to
do to others as we would that they should do to us. It required Christ
to father that idea; and Cicero, though he was nearer to Christianity
than any who had yet existed, had not reached it. But this liberty,
though it was but of a few, was so dear to him that he spent his life in
an endeavor to preserve it. The kings had been expelled from Rome
because they had trampled on liberty. Then came the Republic, which we
know to have been at its best no more than an oligarchy; but still it
was founded on the idea that everything should be done by the votes of
the free people. For many years everything was done by the votes of the
free people. Under what inducements they had voted is another question.
Clients were subject to their patrons, and voted as they were told. We
have heard of that even in England, where many of us still think that
such a way of voting is far from objectionable. Perhaps compulsion was
sometimes used--a sort of "rattening" by which large bodies were driven
to the poll to carry this or the other measure. Simple eloquence
prevailed with some, and with others flattery. Then corruption became
rampant, as was natural, the rich buying the votes of the poor; and
votes were bought in various ways--by cheap food as well as by money, by
lavish expenditure in games, by promises of land, and other means of
bribery more or less overt. This was bad, of course. Every freeman
should have given a vote according to his conscience. But in what
country--the millennium not having arrived in any--has this been
achieved? Though voting in England has not always been pure, we have not
wished to do away with the votes of freemen and to submit everything to
personal rule. Nor did Cicero.

He knew that much was bad, and had himself seen many things that were
very evil. He had lived through the dominations of Marius and Sulla, and
had seen the old practices of Roman government brought down to the
pretence of traditional forms. But still, so he thought, there was life
left in the old forms, if they could be revivified by patriotism, labor,
and intelligence. It was the best that he could imagine for the
State--infinitely better than the chance of falling into the bloody
hands of one Marius and one Sulla after another. Mommsen tells us that
nothing could be more rotten than the condition of oligarchical
government into which Rome had fallen; and we are inclined to agree with
Mommsen, because we have seen what followed. But that Cicero, living and
seeing it all as a present spectator, should have hoped better things,
should not, I think, cause us to doubt either Cicero's wisdom or his
patriotism. I cannot but think that, had I been a Roman of those days, I
should have preferred Cicero, with his memories of the past, to Cæsar,
with his ambition for the future.

Looking back from our standing-point of to-day, we know how great Rome
was--infinitely greater, as far as power is concerned, than anything
else which the world has produced. It came to pass that "Urbis et orbis"
was not a false boast. Gradually growing from the little nest of robbers
established on the banks of the Tiber, the people of Rome learned how to
spread their arms over all the known world, and to conquer and rule,
while they drew to themselves all that the ingenuity and industry of
other people had produced. To do this, there must have been not only
courage and persistence, but intelligence, patriotism, and superior
excellence in that art of combination of which government consists. But
yet, when we look back, it is hard to say when were the palmy days of
Rome. When did those virtues shine by which her power was founded? When
was that wisdom best exhibited from which came her capacity for ruling?
Not in the time of her early kings, whose mythic virtues, if they
existed, were concerned but in small matters; for the Rome of the kings
claimed a jurisdiction extending as yet but a few miles from the city.
And from the time of their expulsion, Rome, though she was rising in
power, was rising slowly, and through such difficulties that the reader
of history, did he not know the future, would think from time to time
that the day of her destruction had come upon her. Not when Brennus was
at Rome with his Gauls, a hundred and twenty-five years after the
expulsion of the kings, could Rome be said to have been great; nor when,
fifty or sixty years afterward, the Roman army--the only army which Rome
then possessed--had to lay down its arms in the Caudine Forks and pass
under the Samnite yoke. Then, when the Samnite wars were ended, and Rome
was mistress in Italy--mistress, after all, of no more than Southern
Italy--the Punic wars began. It could hardly have been during that long
contest with Carthage, which was carried on for nearly fifty years, that
the palmy days of Rome were at their best. Hannibal seems always to be
the master. Trebia, Thrasymene and Cannæ, year after year, threaten
complete destruction to the State. Then comes the great Scipio; and no
doubt, if we must mark an era of Roman greatness, it would be that of
the battle of Zama and the submission of Carthage, 201 years before
Christ. But with Scipio there springs up the idea of personal ambition;
and in the Macedonian and Greek wars that follow, though the arm of Rome
is becoming stronger every day, and her shoulders broader, there is
already the glamour of her decline in virtue. Her dealings with
Antiochus, with Pyrrhus, and with the Achæans, though successful, were
hardly glorious. Then came the two Gracchi, and the reader begins to
doubt whether the glory of the Republic is not already over. They
demanded impossible reforms, by means as illegal as they were
impossible, and were both killed in popular riots. The war with Jugurtha
followed, in which the Romans were for years unsuccessful, and during
which German hordes from the north rushed into Gaul and destroyed an
army of 80,000 Romans. This brings us to Marius and to Sulla, of whom we
have already spoken, and to that period of Roman politics which the
German historian describes as being open to no judgment "save one of
inexorable and remorseless condemnation."

But, in truth, the history of every people and every nation will be
subject to the same criticism, if it be regarded with the same severity.
In all that man has done as yet in the way of government, the seeds of
decay are apparent when looked back upon from an age in advance. The
period of Queen Elizabeth was very great to us; yet by what dangers were
we enveloped in her days! But for a storm at sea, we might have been
subjected to Spain. By what a system of falsehood and petty tyrannies
were we governed through the reigns of James I. and Charles I.! What
periods of rottenness and danger there have been since! How little
glorious was the reign of Charles II.! how full of danger that of
William! how mean those of the four Georges, with the dishonesty of
ministers such as Walpole and Newcastle! And to-day, are there not many
who are telling us that we are losing the liberties which our
forefathers got for us, and that no judgment can be passed on us "save
one of inexorable and remorseless condemnation?" We are a great nation,
and the present threatenings are probably vain. Nevertheless, the seeds
of decay are no doubt inherent in our policies and our practices--so
manifestly inherent that future historians will pronounce upon them with
certainty.

But Cicero, not having the advantage of distance, having simply in his
mind the knowledge of the greatness which had been achieved, and in his
heart a true love for the country which had achieved it, and which was
his own, encouraged himself to think that the good might be recovered
and the bad eliminated. Marius and Sulla--Pompey also, toward the end of
his career, if I can read his character rightly--Cæsar, and of course
Augustus, being all destitute of scruple, strove to acquire, each for
himself, the power which the weak hands of the Senate were unable to
grasp. However much, or however little, the country of itself might have
been to any of them, it seemed good to him, whether for the country's
sake or for his own, that the rule should be in his own hands. Each had
the opportunity, and each used it, or tried to use it. With Cicero there
is always present the longing to restore the power to the old
constitutional possessors of it. So much is admitted, even by his bitter
enemies; and I am sometimes at a loss whether to wonder most that a man
of letters, dead two thousand years ago, should have enemies so bitter
or a friend so keenly in earnest about him as I am. Cicero was aware
quite as well as any who lived then, if he did not see the matter
clearer even than any others, that there was much that was rotten in the
State. Men who had been murderers on behalf of Marius, and then others
who had murdered on behalf of Sulla--among whom that Catiline, of whom
we have to speak presently, had been one--were not apt to settle
themselves down as quiet citizens. The laws had been set aside. Even the
law courts had been closed. Sulla had been law, and the closets of his
favorites had been the law courts. Senators had been cowed and obedient.
The Tribunes had only been mock Tribunes. Rome, when Cicero began his
public life, was still trembling. The Consuls of the day were men chosen
at Sulla's command. The army was Sulla's army. The courts were now again
opened by Sulla's permission. The day fixed by Sulla when murderers
might no longer murder--or, at any rate, should not be paid for
murdering--had arrived. There was not, one would say, much hope for good
things. But Sulla had reproduced the signs of order, and the best hope
lay in that direction. Consuls, Prætors, Quæstors, Ædiles, even
Tribunes, were still there. Perhaps it might be given to him, to Cicero,
to strengthen the hands of such officers. At any rate, there was no
better course open to him by which he could serve his country.

The heaviest accusation brought against Cicero charges him with being
insincere to the various men with whom he was brought in contact in
carrying out the purpose of his life, and he has also been accused of
having changed his purpose. It has been alleged that, having begun life
as a democrat, he went over to the aristocracy as soon as he had secured
his high office of State. As we go on, it will be my object to show that
he was altogether sincere in his purpose, that he never changed his
political idea, and that, in these deviations as to men and as to means,
whether, for instance, he was ready to serve Cæsar or to oppose him, he
was guided, even in the insincerity of his utterances, by the sincerity
of his purpose. I think that I can remember, even in Great Britain, even
in the days of Queen Victoria, men sitting check by jowl on the same
Treasury bench who have been very bitter to each other with anything but
friendly words. With us fidelity in friendship is, happily, a virtue. In
Rome expediency governed everything. All I claim for Cicero is, that he
was more sincere than others around him.




CHAPTER IV.

_HIS EARLY PLEADINGS.--SEXTUS ROSCIUS AMERINUS.--HIS INCOME._


[Sidenote: B.C. 80, ætat. 27.]

We now come to the beginning of the work of Cicero's life. This at first
consisted in his employment as an advocate, from which he gradually rose
into public or political occupation, as so often happens with a
successful barrister in our time. We do not know with absolute certainty
even in what year Cicero began his pleadings, or in what cause. It may
probably have been in 81 B.C., when he was twenty-five, or in his
twenty-sixth year. Of the pleadings of which we know the particulars,
that in the defence of Sextus Roscius Amerinus, which took place
undoubtedly in the year 80 B.C., ætat twenty-seven, was probably the
earliest. As to that, we have his speech nearly entire, as we have also
one for Publius Quintius, which has generally been printed first among
the orator's works. It has, however, I think, been made clear that that
spoken for Sextus Roscius came before it. It is certain that there had
been others before either of them. In that for Sextus he says that he
had never spoken before in any public cause,[61] such as was the
accusation in which he was now engaged, from which the inference has to
be made that he had been engaged in private causes; and in that for
Quintius he declares that there was wanting to him in that matter an aid
which he had been accustomed to enjoy in others.[62] No doubt he had
tried his 'prentice hand in cases of less importance. That of these two
the defence of Sextus Roscius came first, is also to be found in his own
words. More than once, in pleading for Quintius, he speaks of the
proscriptions and confiscations of Sulla as evils then some time past.
These were brought nominally to a close in June, 81; but it has been
supposed by those who have placed this oration first that it was spoken
in that very year. This seems to have been impossible. "I am most
unwilling," says he, "to call to mind that subject, the very memory of
which should be wiped out from our thoughts."[63] When the tone of the
two speeches is compared, it will become evident that that for Sextus
Roscius was spoken the first. It was, as I have said, spoken in his
twenty-seventh year, B.C. 80, the year after the proscription lists had
been closed, when Sulla was still Dictator, and when the sales of
confiscated goods, though no longer legal, were still carried on under
assumed authority. As to such violation of Sulla's own enactment, Cicero
excuses the Dictator in this very speech, likening him to Great Jove the
Thunderer. Even "Jupiter Optimus Maximus," as he is whose nod the
heavens, the earth, and seas obey--even he cannot so look after his
numerous affairs but that the winds and the storms will be too strong
sometimes, or the heat too great, or the cold too bitter. If so, how can
we wonder that Sulla, who has to rule the State, to govern, in fact, the
world, should not be able himself to see to everything? Jove probably
found it convenient not to see many things. Such must certainly have
been the case with Sulla.

I will venture, as other biographers have done before, to tell the story
of Sextus Roscius of Ameria at some length, because it is in itself a
tale of powerful romance, mysterious, grim, betraying guilt of the
deepest dye, misery most profound, and audacity unparalleled; because,
in a word, it is as interesting as any novel that modern fiction has
produced; and also, I will tell it, because it lets in a flood of light
upon the condition of Rome at the time. Our hair is made to stand on end
when we remember that men had to pick their steps in such a State as
this, and to live if it were possible, and, if not, then to be ready to
die. We come in upon the fag-end of the proscription, and see, not the
bloody wreath of Sulla as he triumphed on his Marian foes, not the cruel
persecution of the ruler determined to establish his order of things by
slaughtering every foe, but the necessary accompaniments of such
ruthless deeds--those attendant villanies for which the Jupiter Optimus
Maximus of the day had neither ears nor eyes. If in history we can ever
get a glimpse at the real life of the people, it is always more
interesting than any account of the great facts, however grand.

The Kalends of June had been fixed by Sulla as the day on which the
slaughter legalized by the proscriptions should cease. In the September
following an old gentleman named Sextus Roscius was murdered in the
streets of Rome as he was going home from supper one night, attended by
two slaves. By whom he was murdered, probably more than one or two knew
then, but nobody knows now. He was a man of reputation, well acquainted
with the Metelluses and Messalas of the day, and passing rich. His name
had been down on no proscription list, for he had been a friend of
Sulla's friends. He was supposed, when he was murdered, to be worth
about six million of sesterces, or something between fifty and sixty
thousand pounds of our money. Though there was at that time much money
in Rome, this amounted to wealth; and though we cannot say who murdered
the man, we may feel sure that he was murdered for his money.

Immediately on his death his chattels were seized and sold--or divided,
probably, without being sold--including his slaves, in whom, as with
every rich Roman, much of his wealth was invested; and his landed
estates--his farms, of which he had many--were also divided. As to the
actual way in which this was done, we are left much in the dark. Had the
name of Sextus Roscius been on one of the lists, even though the list
would then have been out of date, we could have understood that it
should have been so. Jupiter Optimus Maximus could not see everything,
and great advantages were taken. We must only suppose that things were
so much out of order that they who had been accustomed to seize upon the
goods of the proscribed were able to stretch their hands so as to grasp
almost anything that came in their way. They could no longer procure a
rich man's name to be put down on the list, but they could pretend that
it had been put down. At any rate, certain persons seized and divided
the chattels of the murdered man as though he had been proscribed.

Old Roscius, when he was killed, had one son, of whom we are told that
he lived always in the country at Ameria, looking after his father's
farms, never visiting the capital, which was distant from Ameria
something under fifty miles; a rough, uncouth, and probably honest
man--one, at any rate, to whom the ways of the city were unknown, and
who must have been but partially acquainted with the doings of the
time.[64] As we read the story, we feel that very much depends on the
character of this man, and we are aware that our only description of him
comes from his own advocate. Cicero would probably say much which,
though beyond the truth, could not be absolutely refuted, but would
state as facts nothing that was absolutely false. Cicero describes him
as a middle-aged man, who never left his farm, doing his duty well by
his father, as whose agent he acted on the land--a simple, unambitious,
ignorant man, to whom one's sympathies are due rather than our
antipathy, because of his devotion to agriculture. He was now accused of
having murdered his father. The accusation was conducted by one Erucius,
who in his opening speech--the speech made before that by Cicero--had
evidently spoken ill of rural employments. Then Cicero reminds him, and
the judges, and the Court how greatly agriculture had been honored in
the old days, when Consuls were taken from the ploughs. The imagination,
however, of the reader pictures to itself a man who could hardly have
been a Consul at any time--one silent, lonely, uncouth, and altogether
separate from the pleasant intercourses of life. Erucius had declared of
him that he never took part in any festivity. Cicero uses this to show
that he was not likely to have been tempted by luxury to violence. Old
Roscius had had two sons, of whom he had kept one with him in Rome--the
one, probably, whose society had been dearest to him. He, however, had
died, and our Roscius--Sextus Roscius Amerinus, as he came to be called
when he was made famous by the murder--was left on one of the farms down
in the country. The accusation would probably not have been made, had he
not been known to be a man sullen, silent, rough, and unpopular--as to
whom such a murder might be supposed to be credible.

Why should any accusation have been made unless there was clear evidence
as to guilt? That is the first question which presents itself. This son
received no benefit from his father's death. He had in fact been
absolutely beggared by it--had lost the farm, the farming utensils,
every slave in the place, all of which had belonged to his father, and
not to himself. They had been taken, and divided; taken by persons
called "Sectores," informers or sequestrators, who took possession of
and sold--or did not sell--confiscated goods. Such men in this case had
pounced down upon the goods of the murdered man at once and swallowed
them all up, not leaving an acre or a slave to our Roscius. Cicero tells
us who divided the spoil among them. There were two other Rosciuses,
distant relatives, probably, both named Titus; Titus Roscius Magnus, who
sojourned in Rome, and who seems to have exercised the trade of informer
and assassin during the proscriptions, and Titus Roscius Capito, who,
when at home, lived at Ameria, but of whom Cicero tells us that he had
become an apt pupil of the other during this affair. They had got large
shares, but they shared also with one Chrysogonus, the freedman and
favorite of Sulla, who did the dirty work for Jupiter Optimus Maximus
when Jupiter Optimus Maximus had not time to do it himself. We presume
that Chrysogonus had the greater part of the plunder. As to Capito, the
apt pupil, we are told again and again that he got three farms for
himself.

Again, it is necessary to say that all these facts come from Cicero,
who, in accordance with the authorized practice of barristers, would
scruple at saying nothing which he found in his instructions. How
instructions were conveyed to an advocate in those days we do not quite
know. There was no system of attorneys. But the story was probably made
out for the "patronus" or advocate by an underling, and in some way
prepared for him. That which was thus prepared he exaggerated as the
case might seem to require. It has to be understood of Cicero that he
possessed great art and, no doubt, great audacity in such exaggeration;
in regard to which we should certainly not bear very heavily upon him
now, unless we are prepared to bear more heavily upon those who do the
same thing in our own enlightened days. But Cicero, even as a young man,
knew his business much too well to put forward statements which could be
disproved. The accusation came first; then the speech in defence; after
that the evidence, which was offered only on the side of the accuser,
and which was subject to cross-examination. Cicero would have no
opportunity of producing evidence. He was thus exempted from the
necessity of proving his statements, but was subject to have them all
disproved. I think we may take it for granted that the property of the
murdered man was divided as he tells us.

If that was so, why should any accusation have been made? Our Sextus
seems to have been too much crushed by the dangers of his position to
have attempted to get back any part of his father's wealth. He had
betaken himself to the protection of a certain noble lady, one Metella,
whose family had been his father's friends, and by her and her friends
the defence was no doubt managed. "You have my farms," he is made to say
by his advocate; "I live on the charity of another. I abandon everything
because I am placid by nature, and because it must be so. My house,
which is closed to me, is open to you: I endure it. You have possessed
yourself of my whole establishment; I have not one single slave. I
suffer all this, and feel that I must suffer it. What do you want more?
Why do you persecute me further? In what do you think that I shall hurt
you? How do I interfere with you? In what do I oppose you? Is it your
wish to kill a man for the sake of plunder? You have your plunder. If
for the sake of hatred, what hatred can you feel against him of whose
land you have taken possession before you had even known him?"[65] Of
all this, which is the advocate's appeal to pity, we may believe as
little as we please. Cicero is addressing the judge, and desires only an
acquittal. But the argument shows that no overt act in quest of
restitution had as yet been made. Nevertheless, Chrysogonus feared such
action, and had arranged with the two Tituses that something should be
done to prevent it. What are we to think of the condition of a city in
which not only could a man be murdered for his wealth walking home from
supper--that, indeed, might happen in London if there existed the means
of getting at the man's money when the man was dead--but in which such a
plot could be concerted in order that the robbery might be consummated?
"We have murdered the man and taken his money under the false plea that
his goods had been confiscated. Friends, we find, are interfering--these
Metellas and Metelluses, probably. There is a son who is the natural
heir. Let us say that he killed his own father. The courts of law, which
have only just been reopened since the dear days of proscription,
disorder, and confiscation, will hardly yet be alert enough to acquit a
man in opposition to the Dictator's favorite. Let us get him convicted,
and, as a parricide, sewed up alive in a bag and thrown into the
river"--as some of us have perhaps seen cats drowned, for such was the
punishment--"and then he at least will not disturb us." It must have
thus been that the plot was arranged.

It was a plot so foul that nothing could be fouler; but not the less was
it carried out persistently with the knowledge and the assistance of
many. Erucius, the accuser, who seems to have been put forward on the
part of Chrysogonus, asserted that the man had caused his father to be
murdered because of hatred. The father was going to disinherit the son,
and therefore the son murdered the father. In this there might have been
some probability, had there been any evidence of such an intention on
the father's part. But there was none. Cicero declares that the father
had never thought of disinheriting his son. There had been no quarrel,
no hatred. This had been assumed as a reason--falsely. There was in
fact no cause for such a deed; nor was it possible that the son should
have done it. The father was killed in Rome when, as was evident, the
son was fifty miles off. He never left his farm. Erucius, the accuser,
had said, and had said truly, that Rome was full of murderers.[66] But
who was the most likely to have employed such a person: this rough
husbandman, who had no intercourse with Rome, who knew no one there, who
knew little of Roman ways, who had nothing to get by the murder when
committed, or they who had long been concerned with murderers, who knew
Rome, and who were now found to have the property in their hands?

The two slaves who had been with the old man when he was killed, surely
they might tell something? Here there comes out incidentally the fact
that slaves when they were examined as witnesses were tortured, quite as
a matter of course, so that their evidence might be extracted. This is
spoken of with no horror by Cicero, nor, as far as I can remember, by
other Roman writers. It was regarded as an established rule of life that
a slave, if brought into a court of law, should be made to tell the
truth by such appliances. This was so common that one is tempted to
hope, and almost to suppose that the "question" was not ordinarily
administered with circumstances of extreme cruelty. We hear, indeed, of
slaves having their liberty given them in order that, being free, they
may not be forced by torture to tell the truth;[67] but had the cruelty
been of the nature described by Scott in "Old Mortality," when the poor
preacher's limbs were mangled, I think we should have heard more of it.
Nor was the torture always applied, but only when the expected evidence
was not otherwise forth-coming. Cicero explains, in the little dialogue
given below, how the thing was carried on.[68] "You had better tell the
truth now, my friend: Was it so and so?" The slave knows that, if he
says it was so, there is the cross for him, or the "little horse;" but
that, if he will say the contrary, he will save his joints from racking.
And yet the evidence went for what it was worth.

In this case of Roscius there had certainly been two slaves present; but
Cicero, who, as counsel for the defence, could call no witnesses, had
not the power to bring them into court; nor could slaves have been made
to give evidence against their masters. These slaves, who had belonged
to the murdered man, were now the property either of Chrysogonus or of
the two Tituses. There was no getting at their evidence but by
permission of their masters, and this was withheld. Cicero demands that
they shall be produced, knowing that the demand will have no effect.
"The man here," he says, pointing to the accused, "asks for it, prays
for it. What will you do in this case? Why do you refuse?"[69]

By this time the reader is brought to feel that the accused person
cannot possibly have been guilty; and if the reader, how much more the
hearer? Then Cicero goes on to show who in truth were guilty. "Doubt now
if you can, judges, by whom Roscius was killed: whether by him who, by
his father's death, is plunged into poverty and trouble--who is
forbidden even to investigate the truth--or by those who are afraid of
real evidence, who themselves possess the plunder, who live in the midst
of murder, and on the proceeds of murder."[70]

Then he addresses one of the Tituses, Titus Magnus, who seems to have
been sitting in the court, and who is rebuked for his impudence in doing
so: "Who can doubt who was the murderer--you who have got all the
plunder, or this man who has lost everything? But if it be added to this
that you were a pauper before--that you have been known as a greedy
fellow, as a dare-devil, as the avowed enemy of him who has been
killed--then need one ask what has brought you to do such a deed as
this?"[71]

He next tells what took place, as far as it was known, immediately after
the murder. The man had been killed coming home from supper, in
September, after it was dark, say at eight or nine o'clock, and the fact
was known in Ameria before dawn. Travelling was not then very quick; but
a messenger, one Mallius Glaucia, a man on very close terms with Titus
Magnus, was sent down at once in a light gig to travel through the night
and take the information to Titus Capito Why was all this hurry? How did
Glaucia hear of the murder so quickly? What cause to travel all through
the night? Why was it necessary that Capito should know all about it at
once? "I cannot think," says Cicero, "only that I see that Capito has
got three of the farms out of the thirteen which the murdered man
owned!" But Capito is to be produced as a witness, and Cicero gives us
to understand what sort of cross-examination he will have to undergo.

In all this the reader has to imagine much, and to come to conclusions
as to facts of which he has no evidence. When that hurried messenger was
sent, there was probably no idea of accusing the son. The two real
contrivers of the murder would have been more on their guard had they
intended such a course. It had been conceived that when the man was dead
and his goods seized, the fear of Sulla's favorite, the still customary
dread of the horrors of the time, would cause the son to shrink from
inquiry. Hitherto, when men had been killed and their goods taken, even
if the killing and the taking had not been done strictly in accordance
with Sulla's ordinance, it had been found safer to be silent and to
endure; but this poor wretch, Sextus, had friends in Rome--friends who
were friends of Sulla--of whom Chrysogonus and the Tituses had probably
not bethought themselves. When it came to pass that more stir was made
than they had expected, then the accusation became necessary.

But, in order to obtain the needed official support and aid, Chrysogonus
must be sought. Sulla was then at Volaterra, in Etruria perhaps 150
miles north-west from Rome, and with him was his favorite Chrysogonus.
In four days from the time of this murder the news was earned thither,
and, so Cicero states, by the same messenger--by Glaucia--who had taken
it to Ameria. Chrysogonus immediately saw to the selling of the goods,
and from this Cicero implies that Chrysogonus and the two Tituses were
in partnership.

But it seems that when the fact of the death of old Roscius was known at
Ameria--at which place he was an occasional resident himself, and the
most conspicuous man in the place--the inhabitants, struck with horror,
determined to send a deputation to Sulla. Something of what was being
done with their townsman's property was probably known, and there seems
to have been a desire for justice. Ten townsmen were chosen to go to
Sulla, and to beg that he would personally look into the matter. Here,
again, we are very much in the dark, because this very Capito, to whom
these farms were allotted as his share, was not only chosen to be one of
the ten, but actually became their spokesman and their manager. The
great object was to keep Sulla himself in the dark, and this Capito
managed to do by the aid of Chrysogonus. None of the ten were allowed to
see Sulla. They are hoaxed into believing that Chrysogonus himself will
look to it, and so they go back to Ameria, having achieved nothing. We
are tempted to believe that the deputation was a false deputation, each
of whom probably had his little share, so that in this way there might
be an appearance of justice. If it was so, Cicero has not chosen to tell
that part of the story, having, no doubt, some good advocate's reason
for omitting it.

So far the matter had gone with the Tituses, and with Chrysogonus who
had got his lion's share. Our poor Roscius, the victim, did at first
abandon his property, and allow himself to be awed into silence. We
cannot but think that he was a poor creature, and can fancy that he had
lived a wretched life during all the murders of the Sullan
proscriptions. But in his abject misery he had found his way up among
the great friends of his family at Rome, and had there been charged with
the parricide, because Chrysogonus and the Tituses began to be afraid of
what these great friends might do.

This is the story as Cicero has been able to tell it in his speech.
Beyond that, we only know that the man was acquitted. Whether he got
back part of his father's property there is nothing to inform us.
Whether further inquiry was made as to the murder; whether evil befell
those two Tituses or Chrysogonus was made to disgorge, there has been no
one to inform us. The matter was of little importance in Rome, where
murders and organized robberies of the kind were the common incidents of
every-day life. History would have meddled with nothing so ordinary had
not it happened that the case fell into the hands of a man so great a
master of his language that it has been worth the while of ages to
perpetuate the speech which he made in the matter. But the story, as a
story of Roman life, is interesting, and it gives a slight aid to
history in explaining the condition of things which Sulla had produced.

The attack upon Chrysogonus is bold, and cannot but have been offensive
to Sulla, though Sulla is by name absolved from immediate blame.
Chrysogonus himself, the favorite, he does not spare, saying words so
bitter of tone that one would think that the judges--Sulla's
judges--would have stopped him, had they been able. "Putting aside
Sextus Roscius," he says, "I demand, first of all, why the goods of an
esteemed citizen were sold; then, why have the goods been sold of one
who had not himself been proscribed, and who had not been killed while
defending Sulla's enemies? It is against those only that the law is
made. Then I demand why they were sold when the legal day for such sales
had passed, and why they were sold for such a trifle."[72] Then he gives
us a picture of Chrysogonus flaunting down the streets. "You have seen
him, judges, how, his locks combed and perfumed, he swims along the
Forum"--he, a freedman, with a crowd of Roman citizens at his heels,
that all may see that he thinks himself inferior to none--"the only
happy man of the day, the only one with any power in his hands."[73]

This trial was, as has been said, a "causa publica," a criminal
accusation of such importance as to demand that it should be tried
before a full bench of judges. Of these the number would be uncertain,
but they were probably above fifty. The Prætor of the day--the Prætor to
whom by lot had fallen for that year that peculiar duty--presided, and
the judges all sat round him. Their duty seems to have consisted in
listening to the pleadings, and then in voting. Each judge could
vote[74] "guilty," "acquitted," or "not proven," as they do in Scotland.
They were, in fact, jurymen rather than judges. It does not seem that
any amount of legal lore was looked for specially in the judges, who at
different periods had been taken from various orders of the citizens,
but who at this moment, by a special law enacted by Sulla, were selected
only from the Senators. We have ample evidence that at this period the
judges in Rome were most corrupt. They were tainted by a double
corruption: that of standing by their order instead of standing by the
public--each man among them feeling that his turn to be accused might
come--and that also of taking direct bribes. Cicero on various
occasions--on this, for instance, and notably in the trial of Verres, to
which we shall come soon--felt very strongly that his only means of
getting a true verdict from the majority of judges was to frighten them
into temporary honesty by the magnitude of the occasion. If a trial
could be slurred through with indifferent advocates, with nothing to
create public notice, with no efforts of genius to attract admiration,
and a large attendance and consequent sympathy the judgment would, as a
matter of course, be bought. In such a case as this of Sextus Roscius,
the poor wretch would be condemned, sewed up in his bag, and thrown into
the sea, a portion of the plunder would be divided among the judges, and
nothing further would be said about it. But if an orator could achieve
for himself such a reputation that the world would come and listen to
him, if he could so speak that Rome should be made to talk about the
trial, then might the judges be frightened into a true verdict. It may
be understood, therefore, of what importance it was to obtain the
services of a Cicero, or of a Hortensius, who was unrivalled at the
Roman bar when Cicero began to plead.

There were three special modes of oratory in which Cicero displayed his
powers. He spoke either before the judges--a large body of judges who
sat collected round the Prætor, as in the case of Sextus Roscius--or in
cases of civil law before a single judge, selected by the Prætor, who
sat with an assessor, as in the case of Roscius the actor, which shall
be mentioned just now. This was the recognized work of his life, in
which he was engaged, at any rate, in his earlier years; or he spoke to
the populace, in what was called the Concio, or assembly of the
people--speeches made before a crowd called together for a special
purpose, as were the second and third orations against Catiline; or in
the Senate, in which a political rather than a judicial sentence was
sought from the votes of the Senators. There was a fourth mode of
address, which in the days of the Emperors became common, when the
advocate spoke "ad Principem;" that is, to the Emperor himself, or to
some ruler acting for him as sole judge. It was thus that Cicero pleaded
before Cæsar for Ligarius and for King Deiotarus, in the latter years of
his life. In each of these a separate manner and a distinct line had to
be adopted, in all of which he seems to have been equally happy, and
equally powerful. In judging of his speeches, we are bound to remember
that they were not probably uttered with their words arranged as we read
them. Some of those we have were never spoken at all, as was the case
with the five last Verrene orations, and with the second, by far the
longest of the Philippics. Some, as was specially the case with the
defence of Milo, the language of which is perhaps as perfect as that of
any oration which has reached us from ancient or modern days, were only
spoken in part; so that that which we read bears but small relation to
that which was heard. All were probably retouched for publication.[75]
That words so perfect in their construction should have flowed from a
man's mouth, often with but little preparation, we cannot conceive. But
we know from the evidence of the day, and from the character which
remained of him through after Roman ages, how great was the immediate
effect of his oratory. We can imagine him, in this case of Sextus
Roscius, standing out in the open air in the Forum, with the movable
furniture of the court around him, the seats on which the judges sat
with the Prætor in the midst of them, all Senators in their white robes,
with broad purple borders. There too were seated, we may suppose on
lower benches, the friends of the accused and the supporters of the
accusation, and around, at the back of the orator, was such a crowd as
he by the character of his eloquence may have drawn to the spot. Cicero
was still a young man; but his name had made itself known and we can
imagine that some tidings had got abroad as to the bold words which
would be spoken in reference to Sulla and Chrysogonus. The scene must
have been very different from that of one of our dingy courts, in which
the ermine is made splendid only by the purity and learning of the man
who wears it. In Rome all exterior gifts were there. Cicero knew how to
use them, so that the judges who made so large a part in the pageant
should not dare to disgrace themselves because of its publicity.
Quintilian gives his pupils much advice as to the way in which they
should dress themselves[76] and hold their togas--changing the folds of
the garment so as to suit the different parts of the speech--how they
should move their arms, and hold their heads, and turn their necks; even
how they should comb their hair when they came to stand in public and
plead at the bar. All these arts, with many changes, no doubt, as years
rolled on, had come down to him from days before Cicero; but he always
refers to Cicero as though his were the palmy days of Roman eloquence.
We can well believe that Cicero had studied many of these arts by his
twenty-seventh year--that he knew how to hold his toga and how to drop
it--how to make the proper angle with his elbow--how to comb his hair,
and yet not be a fop--and to add to the glory of his voice all the
personal graces which were at his command.

Sextus Roscius Amerinus, with all his misfortunes, injustices, and
miseries, is now to us no more than the name of a fable; but to those
who know it, the fable is, I think, more attractive than most novels.

We know that Cicero pleaded other causes before he went to Greece in the
year 79 B.C., especially those for Publius Quintius, of which we have
his speech, and that for a lady of Arretium, in which he defended her
right to be regarded as a free woman of that city. In this speech he
again attacked Sulla, the rights of the lady in question having been
placed in jeopardy by an enactment made by the Dictator; and again
Cicero was successful. This is not extant. Then he started on his
travels, as to which I have already spoken. While he was absent Sulla
died, and the condition of the Republic during his absence was anything
but hopeful. Lepidus was Consul during these two years, than whom no
weaker officer ever held rule in Rome--or rebelled against Rome; and
Sertorius, who was in truth a great man, was in arms against Rome in
Spain, as a rebel, though he was in truth struggling to create a new
Roman power, which should be purer than that existing in Italy. What
Cicero thought of the condition of his country at this time we have no
means of knowing. If he then wrote letters, they have not been
preserved. His spoken words speak plainly enough of the condition of the
courts of law, and let us know how resolved he was to oppose himself to
their iniquities. A young man may devote himself to politics with as
much ardor as a senior, but he cannot do so if he be intent on a
profession. It is only when his business is so well grasped by him as to
sit easily on him, that he is able to undertake the second occupation.

There is a rumor that Cicero, when he returned home from Greece, thought
for awhile of giving himself up to philosophy, so that he was called
Greek and Sophist in ridicule. It is not, however, to be believed that
he ever for a moment abandoned the purpose he had formed for his own
career. It will become evident as we go on with his life, that this
so-called philosophy of the Greeks was never to him a matter of more
than interesting inquiry. A full, active, human life, in which he might
achieve for himself all the charms of high rank, gilded by intelligence,
erudition, and refined luxury, in which also he might serve his country,
his order, and his friends--just such a life as our leading men propose
to themselves here, to-day, in our country--this is what Cicero had
determined to achieve from his earliest years, and it was not likely
that he should be turned from it by the pseudo logic of Greek
philosophers. That the logic even of the Academy was false to him we
have ample evidence, not only in his life but in his writings. There is
a story that, during his travels, he consulted the oracle at Delphi as
to his future career, and that on being told that he must look to his
own genius and not to the opinion of the world at large, he determined
to abandon the honors of the Republic. That he should have talked among
the young men of the day of his philosophic investigations till they
laughed at him and gave him a nickname, may be probable, but it cannot
have been that he ever thought of giving up the bar.

In the year of his return to Rome, when he was thirty, he married
Terentia, a noble lady, of whom we are informed that she had a good
fortune, and that her sister was one of the Vestal Virgins.[77] Her
nobility is inferred from the fact that the virgins were, as a rule,
chosen from the noble families, though the law required only that they
should be the daughters of free parents, and of persons engaged in no
mean pursuits. As to the more important question of Terentia's fortune
there has never been a doubt. Plutarch, however, does not make it out to
have been very great, assuming a sum which was equal to about £4200 of
our money. He tells us at the same time that Cicero's own fortune was
less than £4000. But in both of these statements, Plutarch, who was
forced to take his facts where he could get them, and was not very
particular in his authority, probably erred. The early education of
Cicero, and the care taken to provide him with all that money could
purchase, is, I think, conclusive of his father's wealth; and the mode
of life adopted by Cicero shows that at no period did he think it
necessary to live as men do live with small incomes.

We shall find, as we go on, that he spent his money freely, as men did
at Rome who had the command of large means. We are aware that he was
often in debt. We find that from his letters. But he owed money not as a
needy man does, but as one who is speculative, sanguine, and quite
confident of his own resources. The management of incomes was not so
fixed a thing then as it is with us now. Speculation was even more
rampant, and rising men were willing and were able to become indebted
for enormous sums, having no security to offer but the promise of their
future career. Cæsar's debts during various times of his life were
proverbial. He is said to have owed over £300,000 before he reached his
first step in the public employment. Cicero rushed into no such danger
as this. We know, indeed, that when the time came to him for public
expenditure on a great scale, as, for instance, when he was filling the
office of Ædile, he kept within bounds, and he did not lavish money
which he did not possess. We know also that he refrained, altogether
refrained, from the iniquitous habits of making large fortunes which
were open to the great politicians of the Republic. To be Quæstor that
he might be Ædile, Ædile that he might be Prætor and Consul, and Prætor
and Consul that he might rob a province--pillage Sicily, Spain, or Asia,
and then at last come back a rich man, rich enough to cope with all his
creditors, and to bribe the judges should he be accused for his
misdeeds--these were the usual steps to take by enterprising Romans
toward power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be observed, in this
sequence of circumstances, the robbery of the province was essential to
success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent a fashion as to
have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of Verres will be
narrated in the next chapter but one. Something of moderation was more
general, so that the fleeced provincial might still live, and prefer
sufferance to the doubtful chances of recovery. A Proconsul might rob a
great deal, and still return with hands apparently clean, bringing with
him a score of provincial Deputies to laud his goodness before the
citizens at home. But Cicero robbed not at all. Even they who have been
most hard upon his name, accusing him of insincerity and sometimes of
want of patriotism, because his Roman mode of declaring himself without
reserve in his letters has been perpetuated for us by the excellence of
their language, even they have acknowledged that he kept his hands
studiously clean in the service of his country, when to have clean hands
was so peculiar as to be regarded as absurd.

There were other means in which a noble Roman might make money, and
might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his
services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him,
might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have
stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very great extent. It
was illegal, such payment having been forbidden by the "Lex Cincia De
Muneribus," passed more than a century before Cicero began his
pleadings.[78] But the law had become a dead letter in the majority of
cases. There can be no doubt that Hortensius, the predecessor and great
rival of Cicero, took presents, if not absolute payment. Indeed, the
myth of honorary work, which is in itself absurd, was no more
practicable in Rome than it has been found to be in England, where every
barrister is theoretically presumed to work for nothing. That the "Lex
Cincia," as far as the payment of advocates went, was absurd, may be
allowed by us all. Services for which no regular payment can be exacted
will always cost more than those which have a defined price. But Cicero
would not break the law. It has been hinted rather than stated that he,
like other orators of the day, had his price. He himself tells us that
he took nothing; and no instance has been adduced that he had ever done
so. He is free enough in accusing Hortensius of having accepted a
beautiful statuette, an ivory sphinx of great value. What he knew of
Hortensius, Hortensius would have known of him, had it been there to
know; and what Hortensius or others had heard would certainly have been
told. As far as we can learn, there is no ground for accusing Cicero of
taking fees or presents beyond the probability that he would do so. I
think we are justified in believing that he did not do so, because those
who watched his conduct closely found no opportunity of exposing him.
That he was paid by different allied States for undertaking their
protection in the Senate, is probable, such having been a custom not
illegal. We know that he was specially charged with the affairs of
Dyrrachium, and had probably amicable relations with other allied
communities. This, however, must have been later in life, when his name
was sufficiently high to insure the value of his services, and when he
was a Senator.

Noble Romans also--noble as they were, and infinitely superior to the
little cares of trade--were accustomed to traffic very largely in usury.
We shall have a terrible example of such baseness on the part of
Brutus--that Brutus whom we have been taught to regard as almost on a
par with Cato in purity. To lend money to citizens, or more profitably
to allied States and cities, at enormous rates of interest, was the
ordinary resource of a Roman nobleman in quest of revenue. The allied
city, when absolutely eaten to the bone by one noble Roman, who had
plundered it as Proconsul or Governor, would escape from its immediate
embarrassment by borrowing money from another noble Roman, who would
then grind its very bones in exacting his interest and his principal.
Cicero, in the most perfect of his works--the treatise De Officiis, an
essay in which he instructs his son as to the way in which a man should
endeavor to live so as to be a gentleman--inveighs both against trade
and usury. When he tells us that they are to be accounted mean who buy
in order that they may sell, we, with our later lights, do not quite
agree with him, although he founds his assertion on an idea which is too
often supported by the world's practice, namely, that men cannot do a
retail business profitably without lying.[79] The doctrine, however, has
always been common that retail trade is not compatible with noble
bearing, and was practised by all Romans who aspired to be considered
among the upper classes. That other and certainly baser means of making
money by usury was, however, only too common. Crassus, the noted rich
man of Rome in Cæsar's day, who was one of the first Triumvirate, and
who perished ignominiously in Parthia, was known to have gathered much
of his wealth by such means. But against this Cicero is as staunchly
severe as against shopkeeping. "First of all," he says, "these profits
are despicable which incur the hatred of men, such as those of gatherers
of custom and lenders of money on usury."[80]

Again, we are entitled to say that Cicero did not condescend to enrich
himself by the means which he himself condemns, because, had he done so,
the accusations made against him by his contemporaries would have
reached our ears. Nor is it probable that a man in addressing his son as
to rules of life would have spoken against a method of gathering riches
which, had he practised it himself, must have been known to his son. His
rules were severe as compared with the habits of the time. His dear
friend Atticus did not so govern his conduct, or Brutus, who, when he
wrote the De Officiis, was only less dear to him than Atticus. But
Cicero himself seems to have done so faithfully. We learn from his
letter that he owned house-property in Rome to a considerable extent,
having probably thus invested his own money or that of his wife. He
inherited also the family house at Arpinum. He makes it a matter for
boasting that he had received in the course of his life by legacies
nearly £200,000 (twenty million sesterces), in itself a source of great
income, and one common with Romans of high position.[81] Of the extent
of his income it is impossible to speak, or even make a guess. But we do
know that he lived always as a rich man--as one who regards such a
condition of life as essentially proper to him; and that though he was
often in debt, as was customary with noble Romans, he could always write
about his debts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that they were not a
heavy burden to him; and we know that he could at all times command for
himself villas, books, statues, ornaments, columns, galleries, charming
shades, and all the delicious appendages of mingled wealth and
intelligence. He was as might be some English marquis, who, though up to
his eyes in mortgages, is quite sure that he will never want any of the
luxuries befitting a marquis. Though we have no authority to tell us how
his condition of life became what it was, it is necessary that we should
understand that condition if we are to get a clear insight into his
life. Of that condition we have ample evidence. He commenced his career
as a youth upon whose behalf nothing was spared, and when he settled
himself in Rome, with the purport of winning for himself the highest
honors of the Republic, he did so with the means of living like a
nobleman.

But the point on which it is most necessary to insist is this: that
while so many--I may almost say all around him in his own order--were
unscrupulous as to their means of getting money, he kept his hands
clean. The practice then was much as it is now. A gentleman in our days
is supposed to have his hands clean; but there has got abroad among us a
feeling that, only let a man rise high enough, soil will not stick to
him. To rob is base; but if you rob enough, robbery will become heroism,
or, at any rate, magnificence. With Cæsar his debts have been accounted
happy audacity; his pillage of Gaul and Spain, and of Rome also, have
indicated only the success of the great General; his cruelty, which in
cold-blooded efficiency has equalled if not exceeded the
blood-thirstiness of any other tyrant, has been called clemency.[82] I
do not mean to draw a parallel between Cæsar and Cicero. No two men
could have been more different in their natures or in their career. But
the one has been lauded because he was unscrupulous, and the other has
incurred reproach because, at every turn and twist in his life, scruples
dominated him. I do not say that he always did what he thought to be
right. A man who doubts much can never do that. The thing that was right
to him in the thinking became wrong to him in the doing. That from which
he has shrunk as evil when it was within his grasp, takes the color of
good when it has been beyond his reach. Cicero had not the stuff in him
to rule the Rome and the Romans of his period; but he was a man whose
hands were free from all stain, either of blood or money; and for so
much let him, at any rate, have the credit.

Between the return of Cicero to Rome in 77 B.C. and his election as
Quæstor in 75, in which period he married Terentia, he made various
speeches in different causes, of which only one remains to us, or
rather, a small part of one. This is notable as having been spoken in
behalf of that Roscius, the great comic actor, whose name has become
familiar to us on account of his excellence, almost as have those of
Garrick, of Siddons, and of Talma. It was a pleading as to the value of
a slave, and the amount of pecuniary responsibility attaching to Roscius
on account of the slave, who had been murdered when in his charge. As to
the murder, no question is made. The slave was valuable, and the injury
done to his master was a matter of importance. He, having been a slave,
could have no stronger a claim for an injury done to himself than would
a dog or a horse. The slave, whose name was Panurge--a name which has
since been made famous as having been borrowed by Rabelais, probably
from this occurrence, and given to his demon of mischief--showed
aptitude for acting, and was therefore valuable. Then one Flavius killed
him; why or how we do not know; and, having killed him, settled with
Roscius for the injury by giving him a small farm. But Roscius had only
borrowed or hired the man from one Chærea--or was in partnership with
Chærea as to the man--and on that account paid something out of the
value of the farm for the loss incurred; but the owner was not
satisfied, and after a lapse of time made a further claim. Hence arose
the action, in pleading which Cicero was successful. In the fragment we
have of the speech there is nothing remarkable except the studied
clearness of the language; but it reminds us of the opinion which Cicero
had expressed of this actor in the oration which he made for Publius
Quintius, who was the brother-in-law of Roscius. "He is such an actor,"
says Cicero, "that there is none other on the stage worthy to be seen;
and such a man that among men he is the last that should have become an
actor."[83] The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance.
Had not Roscius been great in his profession, his name would not have
come down to later ages. Nor is it now matter of great interest that the
actor should have been highly praised as a man by his advocate; but it
is something for us to know that the stage was generally held in such
low repute as to make it seem to be a pity that a good man should have
taken himself to such a calling.

In the year 76 B.C. Cicero became father of a daughter, whom we shall
know as Tullia--who, as she grew up, became the one person whom he loved
best in all the world--and was elected Quæstor. Cicero tells us of
himself that in the preceding year he had solicited the Quæstorship,
when Cotta was candidate for the Consulship and Hortensius for the
Prætorship. There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus--which has
had the name of Brutus always given to it--some passages in which the
orator tells us more of himself than in any other of his works. I will
annex a translation of a small portion because of its intrinsic
interest; but I will relegate it to an appendix, because it is too long
either for insertion in the text or for a note.[84]




CHAPTER V.

_CICERO AS QUÆSTOR._


Cicero was elected Quæstor in his thirtieth year, B.C. 76. He was then
nearly thirty-one. His predecessors and rivals at the bar, Cotta and
Hortensius, were elected Consul and Prætor, respectively, in the same
year. To become Quæstor at the earliest age allowed by the law (at
thirty-one, namely) was the ambition of the Roman advocate who purposed
to make his fortune by serving the State. To act as Quæstor in his
thirty-second year, Ædile in his thirty-seventh, Prætor in his
forty-first, and Consul in his forty-fourth year, was to achieve, in the
earliest succession allowed by law, all the great offices of trust,
power, and future emolument. The great reward of proconsular rapine did
not generally come till after the last step, though there were notable
instances in which a Proprætor with proconsular authority could make a
large fortune, as we shall learn when we come to deal with Verres, and
though Ædiles, and even Quæstors, could find pickings. It was therefore
a great thing for a man to begin as early as the law would permit, and
to lose as few years as possible in reaching the summit. Cicero lost
none. As he himself tells us in the passage to which I have referred in
the last chapter, and which is to be found in the Appendix, he gained
the good-will of men--that is, of free Romans who had the suffrage, and
who could therefore vote either for him or against him--by the assiduity
of his attention to the cases which he undertook, and by a certain
brilliancy of speech which was new to them.[85] Putting his hand
strenuously to the plough, allowing himself to be diverted by none of
those luxuries to which Romans of his day were so wont to give way, he
earned his purpose by a resolution to do his very best. He was "Novus
Homo"--a man, that is, belonging to a family of which no member had as
yet filled high office in the State. Against such there was a strong
prejudice with the aristocracy, who did not like to see the good things
of the Republic dispersed among an increased number of hands. The power
of voting was common to all Roman male citizens; but the power of
influencing the electors had passed very much into the hands of the
rich. The admiration which Cicero had determined to elicit would not go
very far, unless it could be produced in a very high degree. A Verres
could get himself made Prætor; a Lepidus some years since could receive
the Consulship; or now an Antony, or almost a Catiline. The candidate
would borrow money on the security of his own audacity, and would thus
succeed--perhaps with some minor gifts of eloquence, if he could achieve
them. With all this, the borrowing and the spending of money, that is,
with direct bribery, Cicero would have nothing to do; but of the art of
canvassing--that art by which he could at the moment make himself
beloved by the citizens who had a vote to give--he was a profound
master.

There is a short treatise, De Petitione Consulatus, on canvassing for
the Consulship, of which mention may be made here, because all the
tricks of the trade were as essential to him, when looking to be
Quæstor, as when he afterward desired to be Consul, and because the
political doings of his life will hurry us on too quickly in the days of
his Consulship to admit of our referring to these lessons. This little
piece, of which we have only a fragment, is supposed to have been
addressed to Cicero by his brother Quintus, giving fraternal advice as
to the then coming great occasion. The critics say that it was retouched
by the orator himself. The reader who has studied Cicero's style will
think that the retouching went to a great extent, or that the two
brothers were very like each other in their power of expression.

The first piece of advice was no doubt always in Cicero's mind, not only
when he looked for office, but whenever he addressed a meeting of his
fellow-citizens. "Bethink yourself what is this Republic; what it is you
seek to be in it, and who you are that seek it. As you go down daily to
the Forum, turn the answer to this in your mind: 'Novus sum; consulatum
peto; Roma est'--'I am a man of an untried family. It is the Consulship
that I seek. It is Rome in which I seek it.'" Though the condition of
Rome was bad, still to him the Republic was the greatest thing in the
world, and to be Consul in that Republic the highest honor which the
world could give.

There is nobility in that, but there is very much that is ignoble in the
means of canvassing which are advocated. I cannot say that they are as
yet too ignoble for our modern use here in England, but they are too
ignoble to be acknowledged by our candidates themselves, or by their
brothers on their behalf. Cicero, not having progressed far enough in
modern civilization to have studied the beauty of truth, is held to be
false and hypocritical. We who know so much more than he did, and have
the doctrine of truth at our fingers' ends, are wise enough to declare
nothing of our own shortcomings, but to attribute such malpractices only
to others. "It is a good thing to be thought worthy of the rank we seek
by those who are in possession of it." Make yourself out to be an
aristocrat, he means. "Canvass them, and cotton to them. Make them
believe that in matters of politics you have always been with the
aristocracy, never with the mob;" that if "you have at all spoken a word
in public to tickle the people, you have done so for the sake of gaining
Pompey." As to this, it is necessary to understand Pompey's peculiar
popularity at the moment, both with the Liberals and with the
Conservatives. "Above all, see that you have with you the 'jeunesse
dorée.' They carry so much! There are many with you already. Take care
that they shall know how much you think of them."

He is especially desired to make known to the public the iniquities of
Catiline, his opponent, as to whom Quintus says that, though he has
lately been acquitted in regard to his speculations in Africa, he has
had to bribe the judges so highly that he is now as poor as they were
before they got their plunder. At every word we read we are tempted to
agree with Mommsen that on the Roman oligarchy of the period no judgment
can be passed save one, "of inexorable condemnation."[86]

"Remember," says Quintus, "that your candidature is very strong in that
kind of friendship which has been created by your pleadings. Take care
that each of those friends shall know what special business is allotted
to him on the occasion; and as you have not troubled any of them yet,
make them understand that you have reserved for the present moment the
payment of their debts." This is all very well; but the next direction
mingles so much of business with its truth, that no one but Machiavelli
or Quintus Cicero could have expressed it in words. "Men," says Quintus,
"are induced to struggle for us in these canvassings by three
motives--by memory of kindness done, by the hope of kindness to come,
and by community of political conviction. You must see how you are to
catch each of these. Small favors will induce a man to canvass for you;
and they who owe their safety to your pleadings, for there are many
such, are aware that if they do not stand by you now they will be
regarded by all the world as sorry fellows. Nevertheless, they should be
made to feel that, as they are indebted to you, you will be glad to have
an opportunity of becoming indebted to them. But as to those on whom you
have a hold only by hope--a class of men very much more numerous, and
likely to be very much more active--they are the men whom you should
make to understand that your assistance will be always at their
command."

How severe, how difficult was the work of canvassing in Rome, we learn
from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life that
he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried that we
wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work of his
life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every morning early
in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into the Forum, to be
attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become so much a matter of
course that a public man would have felt himself deserted had he been
left alone either at home or abroad. Rome was full of idlers--of men who
got their bread by the favors of the great, who lounged through their
lives--political quidnuncs, who made canvassing a trade--men without a
conviction, but who believed in the ascendency of this or the other
leader, and were ready to fawn or to fight in the streets, as there
might be need. These were the Quirites of the day--men who were in truth
fattened on the leavings of the plunder which was extracted from the
allies; for it was the case now that a Roman was content to live on the
industry of those whom his father had conquered. They would still fight
in the legions; but the work of Rome was done by slaves, and the wealth
of Rome was robbed from the Provinces. Hence it came about that there
was a numerous class, to whom the name "assectatores" was given, who of
course became specially prominent at elections. Quintus divides all such
followers into three kinds, and gives instructions as to the special
treatment to be applied to each. "There are those who come to pay their
respects to you at your own house"--"Salutatores" they were called;
"then those who go down with you into the Forum"--"Deductores;" "and
after these the third, the class of constant followers"--"Assectatores,"
as they were specially named. "As to the first, who are the least in
consequence, and who, according to our present ways of living, come in
great numbers, you should take care to let them know that their doing
even so much as this is much esteemed by you. Let them perceive that you
note it when they come, and say as much to their friends, who will
repeat your words. Tell themselves often if it be possible. In this way
men, when there are many candidates, will observe that there is one who
has his eyes open to these courtesies, and they will give themselves
heart and soul to him, neglecting all others. And mind you, when you
find that a man does but pretend, do not let him perceive that you have
perceived it. Should any one wish to excuse himself, thinking that he is
suspected of indifference, swear that you have never doubted him, nor
had occasion to doubt.

"As to the work of the 'Deductores,' who go out with you--as it is much
more severe than that of those who merely come to pay their compliments,
let them understand that you feel it to be so, and, as far as possible,
be ready to go into town with them at fixed hours." Quintus here means
that the "Deductores" are not to be kept waiting for the patron longer
than can be helped. "The attendance of a daily crowd in taking you down
to the Forum gives a great show of character and dignity.

"Then come the band of followers which accompanies you diligently
wherever you go. As to those who do this without special obligation,
take care that they should know how much you think of them. From those
who owe it to you as a duty, exact it rigorously. See that they who can
come themselves do come themselves, and that they who cannot, send
others in their places." What an idea does this give as to the labor of
a candidate in Rome! I can imagine it to be worse even than the
canvassing of an English borough, which to a man of spirit and honor is
the most degrading of all existing employments not held to be absolutely
disgraceful.

Quintus then goes on from the special management of friends to the
general work of canvassing. "It requires the remembering of men's
names"--"nomenclationem," a happy word we do not possess--"flattery,
diligence, sweetness of temper, good report, and a high standing in the
Republic. Let it be seen that you have been at the trouble to remember
people, and practise yourself to it so that the power may increase with
you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a
softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem
to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not
unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men--which is in
truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at
elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but
when it is necessary to make a friend it can be pardoned. A candidate
must do it, whose face and look and tongue should be made to suit those
he has to meet. What perseverance means I need not tell you. The word
itself explains itself. As a matter of course, you shall not leave the
city; but it is not enough for you to stick to your work in Rome and in
the Forum. You must seek out the voters and canvass them separately; and
take care that no one shall ask from another what it is that you want
from him. Let it have been solicited by yourself, and often solicited."
Quintus seems to have understood the business well, and the elder
brother no doubt profited by the younger brother's care.

It was so they did it at Rome. That men should have gone through all
this in search of plunder and wealth does not strike us as being
marvellous, or even out of place. A vile object justifies vile means.
But there were some at Rome who had it in their hearts really to serve
their country, and with whom it was at the same time a matter of
conscience that, in serving their country, they would not dishonestly or
dishonorably enrich themselves. There was still a grain of salt left.
But even this could not make itself available for useful purpose without
having recourse to tricks such as these!

[Sidenote: B.C. 75, ætat. 32.]

In his proper year Cicero became Quæstor, and had assigned to him by lot
the duty of looking after the Western Division of Sicily. For Sicily,
though but one province as regarded general condition, being under one
governor with proconsular authority, retained separate modes of
government, or, rather, varied forms of subjection to Rome, especially
in matters of taxation, according as it had or had not been conquered
from the Carthaginians.[87] Cicero was quartered at Lilybæum, on the
west, whereas the other Quæstor was placed at Syracuse, in the east.
There were at that time twenty Quæstors elected annually, some of whom
remained in Rome; but most of the number were stationed about the
Empire, there being always one as assistant to each Proconsul. When a
Consul took the field with an army, he always had a Quæstor with him.
This had become the case so generally that the Quæstor became, as it
were, something between a private secretary and a senior lieutenant to a
governor. The arrangement came to have a certain sanctity attached to
it, as though there was something in the connection warmer and closer
than that of mere official life; so that a Quæstor has been called a
Proconsul's son for the time, and was supposed to feel that reverence
and attachment that a son entertains for his father.

But to Cicero, and to young Quæstors in general, the great attraction of
the office consisted in the fact that the aspirant having once become a
Quæstor was a Senator for the rest of his life, unless he should be
degraded by misconduct. Gradually it had come to pass that the Senate
was replenished by the votes of the people, not directly, but by the
admission into the Senate of the popularly elected magistrates. There
were in the time of Cicero between 500 and 600 members of this body. The
numbers down to the time of Sulla had been increased or made up by
direct selection by the old Kings, or by the Censors, or by some
Dictator, such as was Sulla; and the same thing was done afterward by
Julius Cæsar. The years between Sulla's Dictatorship and that of Cæsar
were but thirty--from 79 to 49 B.C. These, however, were the years in
which Cicero dreamed that the Republic could be re-established by means
of an honest Senate, which Senate was then to be kept alive by the
constant infusion of new blood, accruing to it from the entrance of
magistrates who had been chosen by the people. Tacitus tells us that it
was with this object that Sulla had increased the number of
Quæstors.[88] Cicero's hopes--his futile hopes of what an honest Senate
might be made to do--still ran high, although at the very time in which
he was elected Quæstor he was aware that the judges, then elected from
the Senate, were so corrupt that their judgment could not be trusted. Of
this popular mode of filling the Senate he speaks afterward in his
treatise De Legibus. "From those who have acted as magistrates the
Senate is composed--a measure altogether in the popular interest, as no
one can now reach the highest rank"--namely, the Senate--"except by the
votes of the people, all power of selecting having been taken away from
the Censors."[89] In his pleadings for P. Sextus he makes the same boast
as to old times, not with absolute accuracy, as far as we can understand
the old constitution, but with the same passionate ardor as to the body.
"Romans, when they could no longer endure the rule of kings, created
annual magistrates, but after such fashion that the Council of the
Senate was set over the Republic for its guidance. Senators were chosen
for that work by the entire people, and the entrance to that order was
opened to the virtue and to the industry of the citizens at large."[90]
When defending Cluentius, he expatiates on the glorious privileges of
the Roman Senate. "Its high place, its authority, its splendor at home,
its name and fame abroad, the purple robe, the ivory chair, the appanage
of office, the fasces, the army with its command, the government of the
provinces!"[91] On that splendor "apud exteras gentes," he expatiates in
one of his attacks upon Verres.[92] From all this will be seen Cicero's
idea of the chamber into which he had made his way as soon as he had
been chosen Quæstor.

In this matter, which was the pivot on which his whole life turned--the
character, namely, of the Roman Senate--it cannot but be observed that
he was wont to blow both hot and cold. It was his nature to do so, not
from any aptitude for deceit, but because he was sanguine and
vacillating--because he now aspired and now despaired. He blew hot and
cold in regard to the Senate, because at times he would feel it to be
what it was--composed, for the most part, of men who were time-serving
and corrupt, willing to sell themselves for a price to any buyer; and
then, again, at times he would think of the Senate as endowed with all
those privileges which he names, and would dream that under his
influence it would become what it should be--such a Senate as he
believed it to have been in its old palmy days. His praise of the
Senate, his description of what it should be and might be, I have given.
To the other side of the picture we shall come soon, when I shall have
to show how, at the trial of Verres, he declared before the judges
themselves how terrible had been the corruption of the judgment-seat in
Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the
Senators. One passage I will give now, in order that the reader may see
by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as
loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand
in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against
Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the
judgment-seat during the ten years since the power of judging had been
transferred to the Senate should be not only denounced by him, but also
proved;" and in that on the right I will repeat the noble phrases which
he afterward used in the speech for Cluentius when he chose to speak
well of the order.[93]

It was on the Senate that they who wished well for Rome must depend--on
the Senate, chosen, refreshed, and replenished from among the people; on
a body which should be at the same time august and popular--as far
removed on the one side from the tyranny of individuals as on the other
from the violence of the mob; but on a Senate freed from its corruption
and dirt, on a body of noble Romans, fitted by their individual
character and high rank to rule and to control their fellow-citizens.
This was Cicero's idea, and this the state of things which he endeavored
to achieve. No doubt he dreamed that his own eloquence and his own
example might do more in producing this than is given to men to achieve
by such means. No doubt there was conceit in this--conceit and perhaps,
vanity. It has to be admitted that Cicero always exaggerated his own
powers. But the ambition was great, the purpose noble, and the course of
his whole life was such as to bring no disgrace on his aspirations. He
did not thunder against the judges for taking bribes, and then plunder a
province himself. He did not speak grandly of the duty of a patron to
his clients, and then open his hands to illicit payments. He did not
call upon the Senate for high duty, and then devote himself to luxury
and pleasure. He had a _beau ideal_ of the manner in which a Roman
Senator should live and work, and he endeavored to work and live up to
that ideal. There was no period after his Consulship in which he was not
aware of his own failure. Nevertheless, with constant labor, but with
intermittent struggles, he went on, till, at the end, in the last fiery
year of his existence, he taught himself again to think that even yet
there was a chance. How he struggled, and in struggling perished, we
shall see by-and-by.

What Cicero did as Quæstor in Sicily we have no means of knowing. His
correspondence does not go back so far. That he was very active, and
active for good, we have two testimonies, one of which is serious,
convincing, and most important as an episode in his life. The other
consists simply of a good story, told by himself of himself; not
intended at all for his own glorification, but still carrying with it a
certain weight. As to the first: Cicero was Quæstor in Lilybæum in the
thirty-second year of his life. In the thirty-seventh year he was
elected Ædile, and was then called upon by the Sicilians to attack
Verres on their behalf. Verres was said to have carried off from Sicily
plunder to the amount of nearly £400,000,[94] after a misrule of three
years' duration. All Sicily was ruined. Beyond its pecuniary losses, its
sufferings had been excruciating; but not till the end had come of a
Governor's proconsular authority could the almost hopeless chance of a
criminal accusation against the tyrant be attempted. The tyrant would
certainly have many friends in Rome. The injured provincials would
probably have none of great mark. A man because he had been Quæstor was
not, necessarily, one having influence, unless he belonged to some great
family. This was not the case with Cicero. But he had made for himself
such a character during his year of office that the Sicilians declared
that, if they could trust themselves to any man at Rome, it would be to
their former Quæstor. It had been a part of his duty to see that the
proper supply of corn was collected in the island and sent to Rome. A
great portion of the bread eaten in Rome was grown in Sicily, and much
of it was supplied in the shape of a tax. It was the hateful practice of
Rome to extract the means of living from her colonies, so as to spare
her own laborers. To this, hard as it was, the Sicilians were well used.
They knew the amount required of them by law, and were glad enough when
they could be quit in payment of the dues which the law required; but
they were seldom blessed by such moderation on the part of their rulers.
To what extent this special tax could be stretched we shall see when we
come to the details of the trial of Verres. It is no doubt only from
Cicero's own words that we learn that, though he sent to Rome plenteous
supplies, he was just to the dealer, liberal to the pawns, and
forbearing to the allies generally; and that when he took his departure
they paid him honors hitherto unheard of.[95] But I think we may take it
for granted that this statement is true; firstly, because it has never
been contradicted; and then from the fact that the Sicilians all came to
him in the day of their distress.

As to the little story to which I have alluded, it has been told so
often since Cicero told it himself, that I am almost ashamed to repeat
it. It is, however, too emblematic of the man, gives us too close an
insight both into his determination to do his duty and to his
pride--conceit, if you will--at having done it, to be omitted. In his
speech for Plancius[96] he tells us that by chance, coming direct from
Sicily after his Quæstorship, he found himself at Puteoli just at the
season when the fashion from Rome betook itself to that delightful
resort. He was full of what he had done--how he had supplied Rome with
corn, but had done so without injury to the Sicilians, how honestly he
had dealt with the merchants, and had in truth won golden opinions on
all sides--so much so that he thought that when he reached the city the
citizens in a mob would be ready to receive him. Then at Puteoli he met
two acquaintances. "Ah," says one to him, "when did you leave Rome? What
news have you brought?" Cicero, drawing his head up, as we can see him,
replied that he had just returned from his province. "Of course, just
back from Africa," said the other. "Not so," said Cicero, bridling in
anger--"stomachans fastidiose," as he describes it himself--"but from
Sicily." Then the other lounger, a fellow who pretended to know
everything, put in his word. "Do you not know that our Cicero has been
Quæstor at Syracuse?" The reader will remember that he had been Quæstor
in the other division of the island, at Lilybæum. "There was no use in
thinking any more about it," says Cicero. "I gave up being angry and
determined to be like any one else, just one at the waters." Yes, he had
been very conceited, and well understood his own fault of character in
that respect; but he would not have shown his conceit in that matter had
he not resolved to do his duty in a manner uncommon then among Quæstors,
and been conscious that he had done it.

Perhaps there is no more certain way of judging a man than from his own
words, if his real words be in our possession. In doing so, we are bound
to remember how strong will be the bias of every man's mind in his own
favor, and for that reason a judicious reader will discount a man's
praise of himself. But the reader, to get at the truth, if he be indeed
judicious, will discount them after a fashion conformable with the
nature of the man whose character he is investigating. A reader will not
be judicious who imagines that what a man says of his own praises must
be false, or that all which can be drawn from his own words in his own
dispraise must be true. If a man praise himself for honor, probity,
industry, and patriotism, he will at any rate show that these virtues
are dear to him, unless the course of his life has proved him to be
altogether a hypocrite in such utterances. It has not been presumed that
Cicero was a hypocrite in these utterances. He was honest and
industrious; he did appreciate honor and love his country. So much is
acknowledged; and yet it is supposed that what good he has told us of
himself is false. If a man doubt of himself constantly; if in his most
private intercourse and closest familiar utterances he admit
occasionally his own human weakness; if he find himself to have failed
at certain moments, and says so, the very feelings that have produced
such confessions are proof that the highest points which have not been
attained have been seen and valued. A man will not sorrowfully regret
that he has won only a second place, or a third, unless he be alive to
the glory of the first. But Cicero's acknowledgments have all been taken
as proof against himself. All manner of evil is argued against him from
his own words, when an ill meaning can be attached to them; but when he
speaks of his great aspirations, he is ridiculed for bombast and vanity.
On the strength of some perhaps unconsidered expression, in a letter to
Atticus, he is condemned for treachery, whereas the sentences in which
he has thoughtfully declared the purposes of his very soul are counted
as clap-traps.

No one has been so frequently condemned out of his mouth as Cicero, and
naturally. In these modern days we have contemporary records as to
prominent persons. Of the characters of those who lived in long-past
ages we generally fail to have any clear idea, because we lack those
close chronicles which are necessary for the purpose. What insight have
we into the personality of Alexander the Great, or what insight had
Plutarch, who wrote about him? As to Samuel Johnson, we seem to know
every turn of his mind, having had a Boswell. Alexander had no Boswell.
But here is a man belonging to those past ages of which I speak who was
his own Boswell, and after such a fashion that, since letters were
invented, no records have ever been written in language more clear or
more attractive. It is natural that we should judge out of his own mouth
one who left so many more words behind him than did any one else,
particularly one who left words so pleasant to read. And all that he
wrote was after some fashion about himself. His letters, like all
letters, are personal to himself. His speeches are words coming out of
his own mouth about affairs in which he was personally engaged and
interested. His rhetoric consists of lessons given by himself about his
own art, founded on his own experience, and on his own observation of
others. His so-called philosophy gives us the workings of his own mind.
No one has ever told the world so much about another person as Cicero
has told the world about Cicero. Boswell pales before him as a
chronicler of minutiæ. It may be a matter of small interest now to the
bulk of readers to be intimately acquainted with a Roman who was never
one of the world's conquerors. It may be well for those who desire to
know simply the facts of the world's history, to dismiss as unnecessary
the aspirations of one who lived so long ago. But if it be worth while
to discuss the man's character, it must be worth while to learn the
truth about it.

"Oh that mine adversary had written a book!" Who does not understand the
truth of these words! It is always out of a man's mouth that you may
most surely condemn him. Cicero wrote many books, and all about himself.
He has been honored very highly. Middleton, in the preface to his own
biography, which, with all its charms, has become a bye-word for eulogy,
quotes the opinion of Erasmus, who tells us that he loves the writings
of the man "not only for the divine felicity of his style, but for the
sanctity of his heart and morals." This was the effect left on the mind
of an accurate thinker and most just man. But then also has Cicero been
spoken of with the bitterest scorn. From Dio Cassius, who wrote two
hundred and twenty years after Christ, down to Mr. Froude, whose Cæsar
has just been published, he has had such hard things said of him by men
who have judged him out of his own mouth, that the reader does not know
how to reconcile what he now reads with the opinion of men of letters
who lived and wrote in the century next after his death--with the
testimony of such a man as Erasmus, and with the hearty praises of his
biographer, Middleton. The sanctity of his heart and morals! It was thus
that Erasmus was struck in reading his works. It is a feeling of that
kind, I profess, that has induced me to take this work in hand--a
feeling produced altogether by the study of his own words. It has seemed
to be that he has loved men so well, has been so anxious for the true,
has been so capable of honesty when dishonesty was common among all
around him, has been so jealous in the cause of good government, has
been so hopeful when there has been but little ground for hope, as to
have deserved a reputation for sanctity of heart and morals.

Of the speeches made by Cicero as advocate after his Quæstorship, and
before those made in the accusation of Verres, we have the fragment only
of the second of two spoken in defence of Marcus Tullius Decula, whom we
may suppose to have been distantly connected with his family. He does
not avow any relationship. "What," he says, in opening his argument,
"does it become me, a Tullius, to do for this other Tullius, a man not
only my friend, but my namesake?" It was a matter of no great
importance, as it was addressed to judges not so called, but to
"recuperatores," judges chosen by the Prætor, and who acted in lighter
cases.




CHAPTER VI.

_VERRES._


There are six episodes, or, as I may say, divisions in the life of
Cicero to which special interest attaches itself. The first is the
accusation against Verres, in which he drove the miscreant howling out
of the city. The second is his Consulship, in which he drove Catiline
out of the city, and caused certain other conspirators who were joined
with the arch rebel to be killed, either legally or illegally. The third
was his exile, in which he himself was driven out of Rome. The fourth
was a driving out, too, though of a more honorable kind, when he was
compelled, much against his will, to undertake the government of a
province. The fifth was Cæsar's passing of the Rubicon, the battle of
Pharsalia, and his subsequent adherence to Cæsar. The last was his
internecine combat with Antony, which produced the Philippics, and that
memorable series of letters in which he strove to stir into flames the
expiring embers of the Republic. The literary work with which we are
acquainted is spread, but spread very unequally, over his whole life. I
have already told the story of Sextus Roscius Amerinus, having taken it
from his own words. From that time onward he wrote continually; but the
fervid stream of his eloquence came forth from him with unrivalled
rapidity in the twenty last miserable months of his life.

We have now come to the first of those episodes, and I have to tell the
way in which Cicero struggled with Verres, and how he conquered him. In
74 B.C. Verres was Prætor in Rome. At that period of the Republic there
were eight Prætors elected annually, two of whom remained in the city,
whereas the others were employed abroad, generally with the armies of
the Empire. In the next year, 73 B.C., Verres went in due course to
Sicily with proconsular or proprætorial authority, having the government
assigned to him for twelve months. This was usual and constitutional,
but it was not unusual, even if unconstitutional, that this period
should be prolonged. In the case of Verres it was prolonged, so that he
should hold the office for three years. He had gone through the other
offices of the State, having been Quæstor in Asia and Ædile afterward in
Rome, to the great misfortune of all who were subjected to his handling,
as we shall learn by-and-by. The facts are mentioned here to show that
the great offices of the Republic were open to such a man as Verres.
They were in fact more open to such a candidate than they would be to
one less iniquitous--to an honest man or a scrupulous one, or to one
partially honest, or not altogether unscrupulous. If you send a dog into
a wood to get truffles, you will endeavor to find one that will tear up
as many truffles as possible. A proconsular robber did not rob only for
himself; he robbed more or less for all Rome. Verres boasted that with
his three years of rule he could bring enough home to bribe all the
judges, secure all the best advocates, and live in splendid opulence for
the rest of his life. What a dog he was to send into a wood for
truffles!

To such a condition as this had Rome fallen when the deputies from
Sicily came to complain of their late governor, and to obtain the
services of Cicero in seeking for whatever reparation might be possible.
Verres had carried on his plunder during the years 73, 72, 71 B.C.
During this time Cicero had been engaged sedulously as an advocate in
Rome. We know the names of some of the cases in which he was
engaged--those, for instance, for Publius Oppius, who, having been
Quæstor in Bithynia, was accused by his Proconsul of having endeavored
to rob the soldiers of their dues. We are told that the poor province
suffered greatly under these two officers, who were always quarrelling
as to a division of their plunder. In this case the senior officer
accused the younger, and the younger, by Cicero's aid, was acquitted.
Quintilian more than once refers to the speech made for Oppius. Cicero
also defended Varenus, who was charged with having murdered his brother,
and one Caius Mustius, of whom we only know that he was a farmer of
taxes. He was advocate also for Sthenius, a Sicilian, who was accused
before the Tribunes by Verres. We shall hear of Sthenius again among the
victims in Sicily. The special charge in this case was that, having been
condemned by Verres as Prætor in Sicily, he had run away to Rome, which
was illegal. He was, however, acquitted. Of these speeches we have only
some short fragments, which have been quoted by authors whose works have
come down to us, such as Quintilian; by which we know, at any rate, that
Cicero's writings had been so far carefully preserved, and that they
were commonly read in those days. I will translate here the concluding
words of a short paper written by M. du Rozoir in reference to Cicero's
life at this period: "The assiduity of our orator at the bar had
obtained for him a high degree of favor among the people, because they
had seen how strictly he had observed that Cincian law which forbade
advocates to take either money or presents for then pleadings--which
law, however, the advocates of the day generally did not scruple to
neglect."[97] It is a good thing to be honest when honesty is in vogue;
but to be honest when honesty is out of fashion is magnificent.

In the affair with Verres, there are two matters to interest the
reader--indeed, to instruct the reader--if the story were sufficiently
well told. The iniquity of Verres is the first--which is of so
extravagant a nature as to become farcical by the absurdity of the
extent to which he was not afraid to go in the furtherance of his
avarice and lust. As the victims suffered two thousand years ago, we can
allow ourselves to be amused by the inexhaustible fertility of the man's
resources and the singular iniquity of his schemes. Then we are brought
face to face with the barefaced corruption of the Roman judges--a
corruption which, however, became a regular trade, if not ennobled,
made, at any rate, aristocratic by the birth, wealth high names, and
senatorial rank of the robbers. Sulla, for certain State purposes--which
consisted in the maintenance of the oligarchy--had transferred the
privileges of sitting on the judgment-seat from the Equites, or Knights,
to the Senators. From among the latter a considerable number--thirty,
perhaps, or forty, or even fifty--were appointed to sit with the Prætor
to hear criminal cases of importance, and by their votes, which were
recorded on tablets, the accused person was acquitted or condemned. To
be acquitted by the most profuse corruption entailed no disgrace on him
who was tried, and often but little on the judges who tried him. In
Cicero's time the practice, with all its chances, had come to be well
understood. The Provincial Governors, with their Quæstors and
lieutenants, were chosen from the high aristocracy, which also supplied
the judges. The judges themselves had been employed, or hoped to be
employed, in similar lucrative service. The leading advocates belonged
to the same class. If the proconsular thief, when he had made his bag,
would divide the spoil with some semblance of equity among his brethren,
nothing could be more convenient. The provinces were so large, and the
Greek spirit of commercial enterprise which prevailed in them so lively,
that there was room for plunder ample, at any rate, for a generation or
two. The Republic boasted that, in its love of pure justice, it had
provided by certain laws for the protection of its allied subjects
against any possible faults of administration on the part of its own
officers. If any injury were done to a province, or a city, or even to
an individual, the province, or city, or individual could bring its
grievance to the ivory chair of the Prætor in Rome and demand redress;
and there had been cases not a few in which a delinquent officer had
been condemned to banishment. Much, indeed, was necessary before the
scheme as it was found to exist by Verres could work itself into
perfection. Verres felt that in his time everything had been done for
security as well as splendor. He would have all the great officers of
State on his side. The Sicilians, if he could manage the case as he
thought it might be managed, would not have a leg to stand upon. There
was many a trick within his power before they could succeed in making
good even their standing before the Prætor. It was in this condition of
things that Cicero bethought himself that he might at one blow break
through the corruption of the judgment-seat, and this he determined to
do by subjecting the judges to the light of public opinion. If Verres
could be tried under a bushel, as it were, in the dark, as many others
had been tried, so that little or nothing should be said about the trial
in the city at large, then there would be no danger for the judges. It
could only be by shaming them, by making them understand that Rome would
become too hot to hold them, that they could be brought to give a
verdict against the accused. This it was that Cicero determined to
effect, and did effect. And we see throughout the whole pleadings that
he was concerned in the matter not only for the Sicilians, or against
Verres. Could something be done for the sake of Rome, for the sake of
the Republic, to redeem the courts of justice from the obloquy which was
attached to them? Might it be possible for a man so to address himself
not only to the judgment-seat, but to all Rome, as to do away with this
iniquity once and forever? Could he so fill the minds of the citizens
generally with horror at such proceedings as to make them earnest in
demanding reform? Hortensius, the great advocate of the day, was not
only engaged on behalf of Verres, but he was already chosen as Consul
for the next year. Metellus, who was elected Prætor for the next year,
was hot in defence of Verres. Indeed, there were three Metelluses among
the friends of the accused, who had also on his side the Scipio of the
day. The aristocracy of Rome was altogether on the side of Verres, as
was natural. But if Cicero might succeed at all in this which he
meditated, the very greatness of his opponents would help him. When it
was known that he was to be pitted against Hortensius as an advocate,
and that he intended to defy Hortensius as the coming Consul, then
surely Rome would be awake to the occasion; and if Rome could be made to
awake herself, then would this beautiful scheme of wealth from
provincial plunder be brought to an end.

I will first speak of the work of the judges, and of the attempts made
to hinder Cicero in the business he had undertaken. Then I will endeavor
to tell something of the story of Verres and his doings. The subject
divides itself naturally in this way. There are extant seven so-called
orations about Verres, of which the two first apply to the manner in
which the case should be brought before the courts. These two were
really spoken, and were so effective that Verres--or probably
Hortensius, on his behalf--was frightened into silence. Verres pleaded
guilty, as we should say, which, in accordance with the usages of the
court, he was enabled to do by retiring and going into voluntary
banishment. This he did, sooner than stand his ground and listen to the
narration of his iniquities as it would be given by Cicero in the full
speech--the "perpetua oratio"--which would follow the examination of the
witnesses. What the orator said before the examination of the witnesses
was very short. He had to husband his time, as it was a part of the
grand scheme of Hortensius to get adjournment after adjournment because
of certain sacred rites and games, during the celebration of which the
courts could not sit. All this was arranged for in the scheme; but
Cicero, in order that he might baffle the schemers, got through his
preliminary work as quickly as possible, saying all that he had to say
about the manner of the trial, about the judges, about the scheme, but
dilating very little on the iniquities of the criminal. But having thus
succeeded, having gained his cause in a great measure by the unexpected
quickness of his operations, then he told his story. Then was made that
"perpetua oratio" by which we have learned the extent to which a Roman
governor could go on desolating a people who were intrusted to his
protection. This full narration is divided into five parts, each devoted
to a separate class of iniquity. These were never spoken, though they
appear in the form of speeches. They would have been spoken, if
required, in answer to the defence made by Hortensius on behalf of
Verres after the hearing of the evidence. But the defence broke down
altogether, in the fashion thus described by Cicero himself. "In that
one hour in which I spoke"--this was the speech which we designate as
the Actio Prima contra Verrem, the first pleading made against Verres,
to which we shall come just now--"I took away all hope of bribing the
judges from the accused--from this brazen-faced, rich, dissolute, and
abandoned man. On the first day of the trial, on the mere calling of the
names of the witnesses, the people of Rome were able to perceive that if
this criminal were absolved, then there could be no chance for the
Republic. On the second day his friends and advocates had not only lost
all hope of gaining their cause, but all relish for going on with it.
The third day so paralyzed the man himself that he had to bethink
himself not what sort of reply he could make, but how he could escape
the necessity of replying by pretending to be ill."[98] It was in this
way that the trial was brought to an end.

But we must go back to the beginning. When an accusation was to be made
against some great Roman of the day on account of illegal public
misdoings, as was to be made now against Verres, the conduct of the
case, which would require probably great labor and expense, and would
give scope for the display of oratorical excellence, was regarded as a
task in which a young aspirant to public favor might obtain honor and by
which he might make himself known to the people. It had, therefore, come
to pass that there might be two or more accusers anxious to undertake
the work, and to show themselves off as solicitous on behalf of injured
innocence, or desirous of laboring in the service of the Republic. When
this was the case, a court of judges was called upon to decide whether
this man or that other was most fit to perform the work in hand. Such a
trial was called "Divinatio," because the judges had to get their lights
in the matter as best they could without the assistance of witnesses--by
some process of divination--with the aid of the gods, as it might be.
Cicero's first speech in the matter of Verres is called In Quintum
Cæcilium Divinatio, because one Cæcilius came forward to take the case
away from him. Here was a part of the scheme laid by Hortensius. To deal
with Cicero in such a matter would no doubt be awkward. His purpose, his
diligence, his skill, his eloquence, his honesty were known. There must
be a trial. So much was acknowledged; but if the conduct of it could be
relegated to a man who was dishonest, or who had no skill, no fitness,
no special desire for success, then the little scheme could be carried
through in that way. So Cæcilius was put forward as Cicero's competitor,
and our first speech is that made by Cicero to prove his own superiority
to that of his rival.

Whether Cæcilius was or was not hired to break down in his assumed duty
as accuser, we do not know. The biographers have agreed to say that such
was the case,[99] grounding their assertion, no doubt, on extreme
probability. But I doubt whether there is any evidence as to this.
Cicero himself brings this accusation, but not in that direct manner
which he would have used had he been able to prove it. The Sicilians, at
any rate, said that it was so. As to the incompetency of the man, there
was probably no doubt, and it might be quite as serviceable to have an
incompetent as a dishonest accuser. Cæcilius himself had declared that
no one could be so fit as himself for the work. He knew Sicily well,
having been born there. He had been Quæstor there with Verres, and had
been able to watch the governor's doings. No doubt there was--or had
been in more pious days--a feeling that a Quæstor should never turn
against the Proconsul under whom he had served, and to whom he had held
the position almost of a son.[100] But there was less of that feeling
now than heretofore. Verres had quarrelled with his Quæstor. Oppius was
called on to defend himself against the Proconsul with whom he had
served. No one could know the doings of the governor of a province as
well as his own Quæstor; and, therefore, so said Cæcilius, he would be
the preferable accuser. As to his hatred of the man, there could be no
doubt as to that. Everybody knew that they had quarrelled. The purpose,
no doubt, was to give some colorable excuse to the judges for rescuing
Verres, the great paymaster, from the fangs of Cicero.

Cicero's speech on the occasion--which, as speeches went in those days,
was very short--is a model of sagacity and courage. He had to plead his
own fitness, the unfitness of his adversary, and the wishes in the
matter of the Sicilians. This had to be done with no halting phrases. It
was not simply his object to convince a body of honest men that, with
the view of getting at the truth, he would be the better advocate of the
two. We may imagine that there was not a judge there, not a Roman
present, who was not well aware of that before the orator began. It was
needed that the absurdity of the comparison between them should be
declared so loudly that the judges would not dare to betray the
Sicilians, and to liberate the accused, by choosing the incompetent man.
When Cicero rose to speak, there was probably not one of them of his own
party, not a Consul, a Prætor, an Ædile, or a Quæstor, not a judge, not
a Senator, not a hanger-on about the courts, but was anxious that Verres
with his plunder should escape. Their hope of living upon the wealth of
the provinces hung upon it. But if he could speak winged words--words
that should fly all over Rome, that might fly also among subject
nations--then would the judges not dare to carry out this portion of the
scheme.

"When," he says, "I had served as Quæstor in Sicily, and had left the
province after such a fashion that all the Sicilians had a grateful
memory of my authority there, though they had older friends on whom they
relied much, they felt that I might be a bulwark to them in their need.
These Sicilians, harassed and robbed, have now come to me in public
bodies, and have implored me to undertake their defence. 'The time has
come,' they say, 'not that I should look after the interest of this or
that man, but that I should protect the very life and well-being of the
whole province.' I am inclined by my sense of duty, by the faith which I
owe them, by my pity for them, by the example of all good Romans before
me, by the custom of the Republic, by the old constitution, to undertake
this task, not as pertaining to my own interests, but to those of my
close friends."[101] That was his own reason for undertaking the case.
Then he reminds the judges of what the Roman people wished--the people
who had felt with dismay the injury inflicted upon them by Sulla's
withdrawal of all power from the Tribunes, and by the putting the whole
authority of the bench into the hands of the Senators. "The Roman
people, much as they have been made to suffer, regret nothing of that
they have lost so much as the strength and majesty of the old judges. It
is with the desire of having them back that they demand for the Tribunes
their former power. It is this misconduct of the present judges that has
caused them to ask for another class of men for the judgment-seat. By
the fault and to the shame of the judges of to-day, the Censor's
authority, which has hitherto always been regarded as odious and stern,
even that is now requested by the people."[102] Then he goes on to show
that, if justice is intended, this case will be put into the hands of
him whom the Sicilians have themselves chosen. Had the Sicilians said
that they were unwilling to trust their affairs to Cæcilius because they
had not known him, but were willing to trust him, Cicero, whom they did
know, would not even that have been reasonable enough of itself? But the
Sicilians had known both of them, had known Cæcilius almost as well as
Cicero, and had expressed themselves clearly. Much as they desired to
have Cicero, they were as anxious not to have Cæcilius. Even had they
held their tongues about this, everybody would have known it; but they
had been far from holding their tongues. "Yet you offer yourself to
these most unwilling clients," he says, turning to Cæcilius. "Yet you
are ready to plead in a cause that does not belong to you! Yet you would
defend those who would rather have no defender than such a one as
you!"[103] Then he attacks Hortensius, the advocate for Verres. "Let him
not think that, if I am to be employed here, the judges can be bribed
without infinite danger to all concerned. In undertaking this cause of
the Sicilians, I undertake also the cause of the people of Rome at
large. It is not only that one wretched sinner should be crushed, which
is what the Sicilians want, but that this terrible injustice should be
stopped altogether, in compliance with the wishes of the people."[104]
When we remember how this was spoken, in the presence of those very
judges, in the presence of Hortensius himself, in reliance only on the
public opinion which he was to create by his own words, we cannot but
acknowledge that it is very fine.

After that he again turns upon Cæcilius. "Learn from me," he says, "how
many things are expected from him who undertakes the accusation of
another. If there be one of those qualities in you, I will give up to
you all that you ask."[105] Cæcilius was probably even now in alliance
with Verres. He himself, when Quæstor, had robbed the people in the
collection of the corn dues, and was unable therefore to include that
matter in his accusation. "You can bring no charge against him on this
head, lest it be seen that you were a partner with him in the
business."[106] He ridicules him as to his personal insufficiency.
"What, Cæcilius! as to those practices of the profession without which
an action such as this cannot be carried on, do you think that there is
nothing in them? Need there be no skill in the business, no habit of
speaking, no familiarity with the Forum, with the judgment-seats, and
the laws?"[107] "I know well how difficult the ground is. Let me advise
you to look into yourself, and to see whether you are able to do that
kind of thing. Have you got voice for it, prudence, memory, wit? Are you
able to expose the life of Verres, as it must be done, to divide it into
parts and make everything clear? In doing all this, though nature should
have assisted you"--as it has not at all, is of course implied--"if from
your earliest childhood you had been imbued with letters; if you had
learned Greek at Athens instead of at Lilybæum--Latin in Rome instead of
in Sicily--still would it not be a task beyond your strength to
undertake such a case, so widely thought of, to complete it by your
industry, and then to grasp it in your memory; to make it plain by your
eloquence, and to support it with voice and strength sufficient? 'Have I
these gifts,' you will ask. Would that I had! But from my childhood I
have done all that I could to attain them."[108]

Cicero makes his points so well that I would fain go through the whole
speech, were it not that a similar reason might induce me to give
abridgments of all his speeches. It may not be that the readers of these
orations will always sympathize with the orator in the matter which he
has in hand--though his power over words is so great as to carry the
reader with him very generally, even at this distance of time--but the
neatness with which the weapon is used, the effectiveness of the thrust
for the purpose intended, the certainty with which the nail is hit on
the head--never with an expenditure of unnecessary force, but always
with the exact strength wanted for the purpose--these are the
characteristics of Cicero's speeches which carry the reader on with a
delight which he will want to share with others, as a man when he has
heard a good story instantly wishes to tell it again. And with Cicero we
are charmed by the modernness, by the tone of to-day, which his language
takes. The rapid way in which he runs from scorn to pity, from pity to
anger, from anger to public zeal, and then instantly to irony and
ridicule, implies a lightness of touch which, not unreasonably,
surprises us as having endured for so many hundred years. That poetry
should remain to us, even lines so vapid as some of those in which Ovid
sung of love, seems to be more natural, because verses, though they be
light, must have been labored. But these words spoken by Cicero seem
almost to ring in our ears as having come to us direct from a man's
lips. We see the anger gathering on the brow of Hortensius, followed by
a look of acknowledged defeat. We see the startled attention of the
judges as they began to feel that in this case they must depart from
their intended purpose. We can understand how Cæcilius cowered, and
found consolation in being relieved from his task. We can fancy how
Verres suffered--Verres whom no shame could have touched--when all his
bribes were becoming inefficient under the hands of the orator.

Cicero was chosen for the task, and then the real work began. The work
as he did it was certainly beyond the strength of any ordinary advocate.
It was necessary that he should proceed to Sicily to obtain the evidence
which was to be collected over the whole island. He must rate up, too,
all the previous details of the life of this robber. He must be
thoroughly prepared to meet the schemers on every point. He asked for a
hundred and ten days for the purpose of getting up his case, but he took
only fifty. We must imagine that, as he became more thoroughly versed in
the intrigues of his adversaries, new lights came upon him. Were he to
use the whole time allotted to him, or even half the time, and then make
such an exposition of the criminal as he would delight to do were he to
indulge himself with that "perpetua oratio" of which we hear, then the
trial would be protracted till the coming of certain public games,
during which the courts would not sit. There seem to have been three
sets of games in his way--a special set for this year, to be given by
Pompey, which were to last fifteen days; then the Ludi Romani, which
were continued for nine days. Soon after that would come the games in
honor of Victory--so soon that an adjournment over them would be
obtained as a matter of course. In this way the trial would be thrown
over into the next year, when Hortensius and one Metellus would be
Consuls, and another Metellus would be the Prætor, controlling the
judgment-seats. Glabrio was the Prætor for this present year. In Glabrio
Cicero could put some trust. With Hortensius and the two Metelluses in
power, Verres would be as good as acquitted. Cicero, therefore, had to
be on the alert, so that in this unexpected way, by sacrificing his own
grand opportunity for a speech, he might conquer the schemers. We hear
how he went to Sicily in a little boat from an unknown port, so as to
escape the dangers contrived for him by the friends of Verres.[109] If
it could be arranged that the clever advocate should be kidnapped by a
pirate, what a pleasant way would that be of putting an end to these
abominable reforms! Let them get rid of Cicero, if only for a time, and
the plunder might still be divided. Against all this he had to provide.
When in Sicily he travelled sometimes on foot, for the sake of
caution--never with the retinue to which he was entitled as a Roman
senator. As a Roman senator he might have demanded free entertainment at
any town he entered, at great cost to the town. But from all this he
abstained, and hurried back to Rome with his evidence so quickly that he
was able to produce it before the judges, so as to save the adjournments
which he feared.

Verres retired from the trial, pleading guilty, after hearing the
evidence. Of the witnesses and of the manner in which they told the
story, we have no account. The second speech which we have--the
Divinatio, or speech against Cæcilius, having been the first--is called
the Actio Prima contra Verrem--"the first process against Verres." This
is almost entirely confined to an exhortation to the judges. Cicero had
made up his mind to make no speech about Verres till after the trial
should be over. There would not be the requisite time. The evidence he
must bring forward. And he would so appall these corrupt judges that
they should not dare to acquit the accused. This Actio Prima contains
the words in which he did appall the judges. As we read them, we pity
the judges. There were fourteen, whose names we know. That there may
have been many more is probable. There was the Prætor Urbanus of the
day, Glabrio. With him were Metellus, one of the Prætors for the next
year, and Cæsonius, who, with Cicero himself, was Ædile designate. There
were three Tribunes of the people and two military Tribunes. There was a
Servilius, a Catulus, a Marcellus. Whom among these he suspected we can
hardly say. Certainly he suspected Metellus. To Servilius[110] he paid
an ornate compliment in one of the written orations published after the
trial was over, from whence we may suppose that he was well inclined
toward him. Of Glabrio he spoke well. The body, as a body, was of such a
nature that he found it necessary to appall them. It is thus that he
begins: "Not by human wisdom, O ye judges, but by chance, and by the
aid, as it were, of the gods themselves, an event has come to pass by
which the hatred now felt for your order, and the infamy attached to the
judgment seat, may be appeased; for an opinion has gone abroad,
disgraceful to the Republic, full of danger to yourselves--which is in
the mouths of all men not only here in Rome but through all
nations--that by these courts as they are now constituted, a man, if he
be only rich enough, will never be condemned, though he be ever so
guilty." What an exordium with which to begin a forensic pleading before
a bench of judges composed of Prætors, Ædiles, and coming Consuls! And
this at a time, too, when men's minds were still full of Sulla's power;
when some were thinking that they too might be Sullas; while the idea
was still strong that a few nobles ought to rule the Roman Empire for
their own advantage and their own luxury! What words to address to a
Metellus, a Catulus, and a Marcellus! I have brought before you such a
wretch, he goes on to say, that by a just judgment upon him you can
recover your favor with the people of Rome, and your credit with other
nations. "This is a trial in which you, indeed, will have to judge this
man who is accused, but in which also the Roman people will have to
judge you. By what is done to him will be determined whether a man who
is guilty, and at the same time rich, can possibly be condemned in
Rome.[111]If the matter goes amiss here, all men will declare, not that
better men should be selected out of your order, which would be
impossible, but that another order of citizens must be named from which
to select the judges."[112] This short speech was made. The witnesses
were examined during nine days; then Hortensius, with hardly a struggle
at a reply, gave way, and Verres stood condemned by his own verdict.

When the trial was over, and Verres had consented to go into exile, and
to pay whatever fine was demanded, the "perpetua oratio" which Cicero
thought good to make on the matter was published to the world. It is
written as though it was to have been spoken, with counterfeit tricks of
oratory--with some tricks so well done in the first part of it as to
have made one think that, when these special words were prepared, he
must have intended to speak them. It has been agreed, however, that such
was not the case. It consists of a narration of the villainies of
Verres, and is divided into what have been called five different
speeches, to which the following appellations are given: De Prætura
Urbana, in which we are told what Verres did when he was city Prætor,
and very many things also which he did before he came to that office, De
Jurisdictione Siciliensi, in which is described his conduct as a Roman
magistrate on the island; De Re Frumentaria, setting forth the
abomination of his exactions in regard to the corn tax; De Signis,
detailing the robberies he perpetuated in regard to statues and other
ornaments; and De Suppliciis, giving an account of the murders he
committed and the tortures he inflicted. A question is sometimes mooted
in conversation whether or no the general happiness of the world has
been improved by increasing civilization When the reader finds from
these stories, as told by a leading Roman of the day, how men were
treated under the Roman oligarchy--not only Greek allies but Romans
also--I think he will be inclined to answer the question in favour of
civilization.

I can only give a few of the many little histories which have been
preserved for us in this Actio Secunda; but perhaps these few may
suffice to show how a great Roman officer could demean himself in his
government. Of the doings of Verres before he went to Sicily I will
select two. It became his duty on one occasion--a job which he seems to
have sought for purpose of rapine--to go to Lampsacus, a town in Asia,
as lieutenant, or legate, for Dolabella, who then had command in Asia.
Lampsacus was on the Hellespont, an allied town of specially good
repute. Here he is put up as a guest, with all the honors of a Roman
officer, at the house of a citizen named Janitor. But he heard that
another citizen, one Philodamus, had a beautiful daughter--an article
with which we must suppose that Janitor was not equally well supplied.
Verres, determined to get at the lady, orders that his creature Rubrius
shall be quartered at the house of Philodamus. Philodamus, who from his
rank was entitled to be burdened only with the presence of leading
Romans, grumbles at this; but, having grumbled, consents, and having
consented, does the best to make his house comfortable. He gives a great
supper, at which the Romans eat and drink, and purposely create a
tumult. Verres, we understand, was not there. The intention is that the
girl shall be carried away and brought to him. In the middle of their
cups the father is desired to produce his daughter; but this he refuses
to do. Rubrius then orders the doors to be closed, and proceeds to
ransack the house. Philodamus, who will not stand this, fetches his son,
and calls his fellow-citizens around him. Rubrius succeeds in pouring
boiling water over his host, but in the row the Romans get the worst of
it. At last one of Verres's lictors--absolutely a Roman lictor--is
killed, and the woman is not carried off. The man at least bore the
outward signs of a lictor, but, according to Cicero, was in the pay of
Verres as his pimp.

So far Verres fails; and the reader, rejoicing at the courage of the
father who could protect his own house even against Romans, begins to
feel some surprise that this case should have been selected. So far the
lieutenant had not done the mischief he had intended, but he soon
avenges his failure. He induces Dolabella, his chief, to have Philodamus
and his son carried off to Laodicea, and there tried before Nero, the
then Proconsul, for killing the sham lictor. They are tried at Laodicea
before Nero, Verres himself sitting as one of the judges, and are
condemned. Then in the market place of the town, in the presence of each
other, the father and son are beheaded--a thing, as Cicero says, very
sad for all Asia to behold. All this had been done some years ago; and,
nevertheless, Verres had been chosen Prætor, and sent to Sicily to
govern the Sicilians.

When Verres was Prætor at Rome--the year before he was sent to
Sicily--it became his duty, or rather privilege, as he found it, to see
that a certain temple of Castor in the city was given up in proper
condition by the executors of a defunct citizen who had taken a contract
for keeping it in repair. This man, whose name had been Junius, left a
son, who was a Junius also under age, with a large fortune in charge of
various trustees, tutors, as they were called, whose duty it was to
protect the heir's interests. Verres, knowing of old that no property
was so easily preyed on as that of a minor, sees at once that something
may be done with the temple of Castor. The heir took oath, and to the
extent of his property he was bound to keep the edifice in good repair.
But Verres, when he made an inspection, finds everything to be in more
than usually good order. There is not a scratch on the roof of which he
can make use. Nothing has been allowed to go astray. Then "one of his
dogs"--for he had boasted to his friend Ligur that he always went about
with dogs to search out his game for him--suggested that some of the
columns were out of the perpendicular. Verres does not know what this
means; but the dog explains. All columns are, in fact, by strict
measurement, more or less out of the perpendicular, as we are told that
all eyes squint a little, though we do not see that they squint. But as
columns ought to be perpendicular, here was a matter on which he might
go to work. He does go to work. The trustees knowing their man--knowing
also that in the present condition of Rome it was impossible to escape
from an unjust Prætor without paying largely--went to his mistress and
endeavored to settle the matter with her. Here we have an amusing
picture of the way in which the affairs of the city were carried on in
that lady's establishment; how she had her levee, took her bribes, and
drove a lucrative trade. Doing, however, no good with her, the trustees
settled with an agent to pay Verres two hundred thousand sesterces to
drop the affair. This was something under £2000. But Verres repudiated
the arrangement with scorn. He could do much better than that with such
a temple and such a minor. He puts the repairs up to auction; and
refusing a bid from the trustees themselves--the very persons who are
the most interested in getting the work done, if there were work to
do--has it knocked down to himself for five hundred and sixty thousand
sesterces, or about £5000.[113] Then we are told how he had the
pretended work done by the putting up of a rough crane. No real work is
done, no new stones are brought, no money is spent. That is the way in
which Verres filled his office as Prætor Urbanus; but it does not seem
that any public notice is taken of his iniquities as long as he confined
himself to little jobs such as this.

Then we come to the affairs of Sicily--and the long list of robberies is
commenced by which that province was made desolate. It seems that
nothing gave so grand a scope to the greed of a public functionary who
was at the same time governor and judge as disputed wills. It was not
necessary that any of the persons concerned should dispute the will
among them. Given the facts that a man had died and left property behind
him, then Verres would find means to drag the heir into court, and
either frighten him into payment of a bribe or else rob him of his
inheritance. Before he left Rome for the province he heard that a large
fortune had been left to one Dio on condition that he should put up
certain statues in the market-place.[114] It was not uncommon for a man
to desire the reputation of adorning his own city, but to choose that
the expense should be borne by his heir rather than by himself. Failing
to put up the statues, the heir was required to pay a fine to Venus
Erycina--to enrich, that is, the worship of that goddess, who had a
favorite temple under Mount Eryx. The statues had been duly erected.
But, nevertheless, here there was an opening. So Verres goes to work,
and in the name of Venus brings an action against Dio. The verdict is
given, not in favor of Venus but in favor of Verres.

This manner of paying honor to the gods, and especially to Venus, was
common in Sicily. Two sons[115] received a fortune from their father,
with a condition that, if some special thing were not done, a fine
should be paid to Venus. The man had been dead twenty years ago. But
"the dogs" which the Prætor kept were very sharp, and, distant as was
the time, found out the clause. Action is taken against the two sons,
who indeed gain their case; but they gain it by a bribe so enormous that
they are ruined men. There was one Heraclius,[116] the son of Hiero, a
nobleman of Syracuse, who received a legacy amounting to 3,000,000
sesterces--we will say £24,000--from a relative, also a Heraclius. He
had, too, a house full of handsome silver plate, silk and hangings, and
valuable slaves. A man, "Dives equom, dives pictai vestis et auri."
Verres heard, of course. He had by this time taken some Sicilian dogs
into his service, men of Syracuse, and had learned from them that there
was a clause in the will of the elder Heraclius that certain statues
should be put up in the gymnasium of the city. They undertake to bring
forward servants of the gymnasium who should say that the statues were
never properly erected. Cicero tells us how Verres went to work, now in
this court, now in that, breaking all the laws as to Sicilian
jurisdiction, but still proceeding under the pretence of law, till he
got everything out of the wretch--not only all the legacies from
Heraclius, but every shilling, and every article left to the man by his
father. There is a pretence of giving some of the money to the town of
Syracuse; but for himself he takes all the valuables, the Corinthian
vases, the purple hangings, what slaves he chooses. Then everything else
is sold by auction. How he divided the spoil with the Syracusans, and
then quarrelled with them, and how he lied as to the share taken by
himself, will all be found in Cicero's narrative. Heraclius was of
course ruined. For the stories of Epicrates and Sopater I must refer the
reader to the oration. In that of Sopater there is the peculiarity that
Verres managed to get paid by everybody all round.

The story of Sthenius is so interesting that I cannot pass it by.
Sthenius was a man of wealth and high standing, living at Therma in
Sicily, with whom Verres often took up his abode; for, as governor, he
travelled much about the island, always in pursuit of plunder. Sthenius
had had his house full of beautiful things. Of all these Verres
possessed himself--some by begging, some by demanding, and some by
absolute robbery. Sthenius, grieved as he was to find himself pillaged,
bore all this. The man was Roman Prætor, and injuries such as these had
to be endured. At Therma, however, in the public place of the city,
there were some beautiful statues. For these Verres longed, and desired
his host to get them for him. Sthenius declared that this was
impossible. The statues had, under peculiar circumstances, been
recovered by Scipio Africanus from Carthage, and been restored by the
Roman General to the Sicilians, from whom they had been taken, and had
been erected at Therma. There was a peculiarly beautiful figure of
Stesichorus, the poet, as an old man bent double, with a book in his
hand--a very glorious work of art; and there was a goat--in bronze
probably--as to which Cicero is at the pains of telling us that even he,
unskilled as he was in such matters, could see its charms. No one had
sharper eyes for such pretty ornaments than Cicero, or a more decided
taste for them. But as Hortensius, his rival and opponent in this case,
had taken a marble sphinx from Verres, he thought it expedient to show
how superior he was to such matters. There was probably something of
joke in this, as his predilections would no doubt be known to those he
was addressing.[117]

In the matter Sthenius was incorruptible, and not even the Prætor could
carry them away without his aid. Cicero, who is very warm in praise of
Sthenius, declares that "here at last Verres had found one town, the
only one in the world, from which he was unable to carry away something
of the public property by force, or stealth, or open command, or
favor."[118] The governor was so disgusted with this that he abandoned
Sthenius, leaving the house which he had plundered of everything, and
betook himself to that of one Agathinus, who had a beautiful daughter,
Callidama, who, with her husband, Dorotheus, lived with her father They
were enemies of Sthenius, and we are given to understand that Verres
ingratiated himself with them partly for the sake of Callidama, who
seems very quickly to have been given up to him,[119] and partly that he
might instigate them to bring actions against Sthenius. This is done
with great success; so that Sthenius is forced to run away, and betake
himself, winter as it was, across the seas to Rome. It has already been
told that when he was at Rome an action was brought against him by
Verres for having run away when he was under judgment, in which Cicero
defended him, and in which he was acquitted. In the teeth of his
acquittal, Verres persecuted the man by every form of law which came to
his hands as Prætor, but always in opposition to the law. There is an
audacity about the man's proceedings, in his open contempt of the laws
which it was his special duty to carry out, making us feel how confident
he was that he could carry everything before him in Rome by means of his
money. By robbery and concealing his robberies, by selling his judgments
in such a way that he should maintain some reticence by ordinary
precaution, he might have made much money, as other governors had done.
But he resolved that it would pay him better to rob everywhere openly,
and then, when the day of reckoning came, to buy the judges wholesale.
As to shame at such doings, there was no such feelings left among
Romans.

Before he comes to the story of Sthenius, Cicero makes a grandly
ironical appeal to the bench before him: "Yes, O judges, keep this man;
keep him in the State! Spare him, preserve him so that he, too, may sit
with us as a judge here so that he, too, may, with impartiality, advise
us, as a Senator, what may be best for us as to peace and war! Not that
we need trouble ourselves as to his senatorial duties. His authority
would be nothing. When would he dare, or when would he care, to come
among us? Unless it might be in the idle month of February, when would a
man so idle, so debauched, show himself in the Senate-house? Let him
come and show himself. Let him advise us to attack the Cretans; to
pronounce the Greeks of Byzantium free; to declare Ptolemy King.[120]
Let him speak and vote as Hortensius may direct. This will have but
little effect upon our lives or our property. But beyond this there is
something we must look to; something that would be distrusted; something
that every good man has to fear! If by chance this man should escape out
of our hands, he would have to sit there upon that bench and be a judge.
He would be called upon to pronounce on the lives of a Roman citizen. He
would be the right-hand officer in the army of this man here,[121] of
this man who is striving to be the lord and ruler of our judgment-seats.
The people of Rome at least refuse this! This at least cannot be
endured!"

The third of these narratives tells us how Verres managed in his
province that provision of corn for the use of Rome, the collection of
which made the possession of Sicily so important to the Romans. He
begins with telling his readers--as he does too frequently--how great
and peculiar is the task he has undertaken; and he uses an argument of
which we cannot but admit the truth, though we doubt whether any modern
advocate would dare to put it forward. We must remember, however, that
Romans were not accustomed to be shamefaced in praising themselves. What
Cicero says of himself all others said also of themselves; only Cicero
could say it better than others. He reminds us that he who accuses
another of any crime is bound to be especially free from that crime
himself. "Would you charge any one as a thief? you must be clear from
any suspicion of even desiring another man's property. Have you brought
a man up for malice or cruelty? take care that you be not found
hard-hearted. Have you called a man a seducer or an adulterer? be sure
that your own life shows no trace of such vices. Whatever you would
punish in another, that you must avoid yourself. A public accuser would
be intolerable, or even a caviller, who should inveigh against sins for
which he himself is called in question. But in this man I find all
wickednesses combined. There is no lust, no iniquity, no shamelessness
of which his life does not supply with ample evidence." The nature of
the difficulty to which Cicero is thus subjected is visible enough. As
Verres is all that is bad, so must he, as accuser, be all that is good;
which is more, we should say, than any man would choose to declare of
himself! But he is equal to the occasion. "In regard to this man, O
judges, I lay down for myself the law as I have stated it. I must so
live that I must clearly seem to be, and always have been, the very
opposite of this man, not only in my words and deeds, but as to that
arrogance and impudence which you see in him." Then he shows how
opposite he is to Verres at any rate, in impudence! "I am not sorry to
see," he goes on to say, "that that life which has always been the life
of my own choosing, has now been made a necessity to me by the law which
I have laid down for myself."[122] Mr. Pecksniff spoke of himself in the
same way, but no one, I think, believed him. Cicero probably was
believed. But the most wonderful thing is, that his manner of life
justified what he said of himself. When others of his own order were
abandoned to lust, iniquity, and shamelessness, he lived in purity, with
clean hands, doing good as far as was in his power to those around him.
A laugh will be raised at his expense in regard to that assertion of his
that, even in the matter of arrogance, his conduct should be the
opposite of that of Verres. But this will come because I have failed to
interpret accurately the meaning of those words, "oris oculorumque illa
contumacia ac superbia quam videtis." Verres, as we can understand, had
carried himself during the trial with a bragging, brazen, bold face,
determined to show no shame as to his own doings. It is in this, which
was a matter of manner and taste, that Cicero declares that he will be
the man's opposite as well as in conduct. As to the ordinary boastings,
by which it has to be acknowledged that Cicero sometimes disgusts his
readers, it will be impossible for us to receive a just idea of his
character without remembering that it was the custom of a Roman to
boast. We wait to have good things said of us, or are supposed to wait.
The Roman said them of himself. The "veni, vidi, vici" was the ordinary
mode of expression in those times, and in earlier times among the
Greeks.[123] This is distasteful to us; and it will probably be
distasteful to those who come after us, two or three hundred years
hence, that this or that British statesman should have made himself an
Earl or a Knight of the Garter. Now it is thought by many to be proper
enough. It will shock men in future days that great peers or rich
commoners should have bargained for ribbons and lieutenancies and
titles. Now it is the way of the time. Though virtue and vice may be
said to remain the same from all time to all time, the latitudes allowed
and the deviations encouraged in this or the other age must be
considered before the character of a man can be discovered. The
boastings of Cicero have been preserved for us. We have to bethink
ourselves that his words are 2000 years old. There is such a touch of
humanity in them, such a feeling of latter-day civilization and almost
of Christianity, that we are apt to condemn what remains in them of
paganism, as though they were uttered yesterday. When we come to the
coarseness of his attacks, his descriptions of Piso by-and-by, his abuse
of Gabinius, and his invectives against Antony; when we read his altered
opinions, as shown in the period of Cæsar's dominion, his flattery of
Cæsar when in power, and his exultations when Cæsar has been killed;
when we find that he could be coarse in his language and a bully, and
servile--for it has all to be admitted--we have to reflect under what
circumstances, under what surroundings, and for what object were used
the words which displease us. Speaking before the full court at this
trial, he dared to say he knew how to live as a man and to carry himself
as a gentleman. As men and gentlemen were then, he was justified.

The description of Verres's rapacity in regard to the corn tax is long
and complex, and need hardly be followed at length, unless by those who
desire to know how the iniquity of such a one could make the most of an
imposition which was in itself very bad, and pile up the burden till the
poor province was unable to bear it. There were three kinds of
imposition as to corn. The first, called the "decumanum," was simply a
tithe.

The producers through the island had to furnish Rome with a tenth of
their produce, and it was the Prætor's duty, or rather that of the
Quæstor under the Prætor, to see that the tithe was collected. How
Verres saw to this himself, and how he treated the Sicilian husbandmen
in regard to the tithe, is so told that we are obliged to give the man
credit for an infinite fertility of resources. Then there is the
"emptum," or corn bought for the use of Rome, of which there were two
kinds. A second tithe had to be furnished at a price fixed by the Roman
Senate, which price was considered to be below that of its real value,
and then 800,000 bushels were purchased, or nominally purchased, at a
price which was also fixed by the Senate, but which was nearer to the
real value. Three sesterces a bushel for the first and four for the
last, were the prices fixed at this time. For making these payments vast
sums of money were remitted to Verres, of which the accounts were so
kept that it was hard to say whether any found its way into the hands of
the farmers who undoubtedly furnished the corn. The third corn tax was
the "æstimatum." This consisted of a certain fixed quantity which had to
be supplied to the Prætor for the use of his governmental
establishment--to be supplied either in grain or in money. What such a
one as Verres would do with his, the reader may conceive.

All this was of vital importance to Rome. Sicily and Africa were the
granaries from which Rome was supplied with its bread. To get supplies
from a province was necessary. Rich men have servants in order that they
may live at ease themselves. So it was with the Romans to whom the
provinces acted as servants. It was necessary to have a sharp agent,
some Proconsul or Proprætor; but when there came one so sharp as Verres,
all power of recreating supplies would for a time be destroyed. Even
Cicero boasted that in a time of great scarcity, he, being then Quæstor
in Sicily, had sent extraordinary store of corn over to the city.[124]
But he had so done it as to satisfy all who were concerned.

Verres, in his corn dealings with the Sicilians, had a certain friend,
companion, and minister--one of his favorite dogs, perhaps we may call
him--named Apronius, whom Cicero specially describes. The description I
must give, because it is so powerful; because it shows us how one man
could in those days speak of another in open court before all the world;
because it affords us an instance of the intensity of hatred which the
orator could throw into his words; but I must hide it in the original
language, as I could not translate it without offence.[125]

Then we have a book devoted to the special pillage of statues and other
ornaments, which, for the genius displayed in story-telling, is perhaps
of all the Verrine orations the most amusing. The Greek people had
become in a peculiar way devoted to what we generally call Art. We are
much given to the collecting of pictures, china, bronze, and marbles,
partly from love of such things, partly from pride in ornamenting our
houses so as to excite the admiration of others, partly from a feeling
that money so invested is not badly placed with a view to future
returns. All these feelings operated with the Greeks to a much greater
extent. Investments in consols and railway shares were not open to them.
Money they used to lend at usury, no doubt, but with a great chance of
losing it. The Greek colonists were industrious, were covetous, and
prudent. From this it had come to pass that, as they made their way
about the world--to the cities which they established round the
Mediterranean--they collected in their new homes great store of
ornamental wealth. This was done with much profusion at Syracuse, a
Greek city in Sicily, and spread from them over the whole island. The
temples of the gods were filled with the works of the great Greek
artists, and every man of note had his gallery. That Verres, hog as he
is described to have been, had a passion for these things, is manifest
to us. He came to his death at last in defence of some favorite images.
He had returned to Rome by means of Cæsar's amnesty, and Marc Antony had
him murdered because he would not surrender some treasures of art. When
we read the De Signis--About Statues--we are led to imagine that the
search after these things was the chief object of the man throughout his
three years of office--as we have before been made to suppose that all
his mind and time had been devoted to the cheating of the Sicilians in
the matter of corn. But though Verres loved these trinkets, it was not
altogether for himself that he sought them. Only one third of his
plunder was for himself. Senators, judges, advocates, Consuls, and
Prætors could be bribed with articles of _vertu_ as well as with money.

There are eleven separate stories told of these robberies. I will give
very shortly the details of one or two. There was one Marcus Heius, a
rich citizen of Messana, in whose house Verres took great delight.
Messana itself was very useful to him, and the Mamertines, as the people
of Messana were called were his best friends in all Sicily: for he made
Messana the depot of his plunder, and there he caused to be built at the
expense of the Government an enormous ship called the _Cybea_,[126] in
which his treasures were carried out of the island. He therefore
specially favored Messana, and the district of Messana was supposed to
have been scourged by him with lighter rods than those used elsewhere in
Sicily. But this man Heius had a chapel, very sacred, in which were
preserved four specially beautiful images. There was a Cupid by
Praxiteles, and a bronze Hercules by Myro, and two Can[oe]phræ by
Polycletus. These were treasures which all the world came to see, and
which were open to be seen by all the world. These Verres took away, and
caused accounts to be forged in which it was made to appear that he had
bought them for trifling sums. It seems that some forced assent had been
obtained from Heius as to the transaction. Now there was a plan in vogue
for making things pleasant for a Proconsul retiring from his government,
in accordance with which a deputation would proceed from the province to
Rome to declare how well and kindly the Proconsul had behaved in his
government. The allies, even when they had been, as it were, skinned
alive by their governor, were constrained to send their deputations.
Deputations were got up in Sicily from Messana and Syracuse, and with
the others from Messana came this man Heius. Heius did not wish to tell
about his statues; but he was asked questions, and was forced to answer.
Cicero informs us how it all took place. "He was a man," he said--this
is what Cicero tells us that Heius said--"who was well esteemed in his
own country, and would wish you"--you judges--"to think well of his
religious spirit and of his personal dignity. He had come here to praise
Verres because he had been required to do so by his fellow-citizens. He,
however, had never kept things for sale in his own house; and had he
been left to himself, nothing would have induced him to part with the
sacred images which had been left to him by his ancestors as the
ornaments of his own chapel.[127] Nevertheless, he had come to praise
Verres, and would have held his tongue had it been possible."

Cicero finishes his catalogue by telling us of the manifold robberies
committed by Verres in Syracuse, especially from the temples of the
gods; and he begins his account of the Syracusan iniquities by drawing a
parallel between two Romans whose names were well known in that city:
Marcellus, who had besieged it as an enemy and taken it, and Verres, who
had been sent to govern it in peace. Marcellus had saved the lives of
the Syracusans; Verres had made the Forum to run with their blood. The
harbor which had held its own against Marcellus, as we may read in our
Livy, had been wilfully opened by Verres to Cilician pirates. This
Syracuse which had been so carefully preserved by its Roman conqueror,
the most beautiful of all the Greek cities on the face of the earth--so
beautiful that Marcellus had spared to it all its public ornaments--had
been stripped bare by Verres. There was the temple of Minerva from which
he had taken all the pictures. There were doors to this temple of such
beauty that books had been written about them. He stripped the ivory
ornaments from them, and the golden balls with which they had been made
splendid. He tore off from them the head of the Gorgon and carried it
away, leaving them to be rude doors, Goth that he was!

And he took the Sappho from the Prytaneum, the work of Silanion! a thing
of such beauty that no other man can have the like of it in his own
private house; yet Verres has it--a man hardly fit to carry such a work
of art as a burden, not possess it as a treasure of his own. "What,
too!" he says, "have you not stolen Pæan from the temple of
Æsculapius--a statue so remarkable for its beauty, so well-known for the
worship attached to it, that all the world has been wont to visit it?
What! has not the image of Aristæus been taken by you from the temple of
Bacchus? Have you not even stolen the statue of Jupiter Imperator, so
sacred in the eyes of all men--that Jupiter which the Greeks call
Ourios? You have not hesitated to rob the temple of Proserpine of the
lovely head in Parian marble."[128] Then Cicero speaks of the worship
due to all these gods as though he himself believed in their godhead. As
he had begun this chapter with the Mamertines of Messana, so he ends it
with an address to them. "It is well that you should come, you alone out
of all the provinces, and praise Verres here in Rome. But what can you
say for him? Was it not your duty to have built a ship for the Republic?
You have built none such, but have constructed a huge private
transport-vessel for Verres. Have you not been exempted from your tax on
corn? Have you not been exempted in regard to naval and military
recruits? Have you not been the receptacle of all his stolen goods? They
will have to confess, these Mamertines, that many a ship laden with his
spoils has left their port, and especially this huge transport-ship
which they built for him!"

In the De Suppliciis--the treatise about punishments, as the last
division of this process is called--Cicero tells the world how Verres
exacted vengeance from those who were opposed to him, and with what
horrid cruelty he raged against his enemies. The stories, indeed, are
very dreadful. It is harrowing to think that so evil a man should have
been invested with powers so great for so bad a purpose. But that which
strikes a modern reader most is the sanctity attached to the name of a
Roman citizen, and the audacity with which the Roman Proconsul
disregarded that sanctity. "Cives Romanus" is Cicero's cry from the
beginning to the end. No doubt he is addressing himself to Romans, and
seeking popularity, as he always did. But, nevertheless, the demands
made upon the outside world at large by the glory of that appellation
are astonishing, even when put forward on such an occasion as this. One
Gavius escapes from a prison in Syracuse, and, making his way to
Messana, foolishly boasts that he would be soon over in Italy, out of
the way of Prætor Verres and his cruelties. Verres, unfortunately, is in
Messana, and soon hears from some of his friends, the Mamertines, what
Gavius was saying. He at once orders Gavius to be flogged in public.
"Cives Romanus sum!" exclaims Gavius, no doubt truly. It suits Verres to
pretend to disbelieve this, and to declare that the man is a runagate
slave. The poor wretch still cries "Cives Romanus!" and trusts alone to
that appeal. Whereupon Verres puts up a cross on the sea-shore, and has
the man crucified in sight of Italy, so that he shall be able to see the
country of which he is so proud. Whether he had done anything to deserve
crucifixion, or flogging, or punishment at all, we are not told. The
accusation against Verres is not for crucifying the man, but for
crucifying the Roman. It is on this occasion that Cicero uses the words
which have become proverbial as to the iniquity of this proceeding.[129]
During the telling of this story he explains this doctrine, claiming for
the Roman citizen, all the world over, some such protection as
freemasons are supposed to give each other, whether known or unknown.
"Men of straw," he says, "of no special birth, go about the world. They
resort to places they have never seen before, where they know none, and
none know them. Here, trusting to their claim solely, they feel
themselves to be safe--not only where our magistrates are to be found,
who are bound both by law and by opinion, not only among other Roman
citizens who speak their language and follow the same customs, but
abroad, over the whole world, they find this to be sufficient
protection."[130] Then he goes on to say that if any Prætor may at his
will put aside this sanctity, all the provinces, all the kingdoms, all
the free states, all the world abroad, will very soon lose the feeling.

But the most remarkable story is that told of a certain pirate captain.
Verres had been remiss in regard to the pirates--very cowardly, indeed,
if we are to believe Cicero. Piracy in the Mediterranean was at that
time a terrible drawback to trade--that piracy that a year or two
afterward Pompey was effectual in destroying. A governor in Sicily had,
among other special duties, to keep a sharp lookout for the pirates.
This Verres omitted so entirely that these scourges of the sea soon
learned that they might do almost as they pleased on the Sicilian
coasts. But it came to pass that on one day a pirate vessel fell by
accident into the hands of the governor's officers. It was not taken,
Cicero says, but was so overladen that it was picked up almost
sinking.[131] It was found to be full of fine, handsome men, of silver
both plated and coined, and precious stuffs. Though not "taken," it was
"found," and carried into Syracuse. Syracuse is full of the news, and
the first demand is that the pirates, according to Roman custom, shall
all be killed. But this does not suit Verres. The slave-markets of the
Roman Empire are open, and there are men among the pirates whom it will
suit him better to sell than to kill. There are six musicians,
"symphoniacos homines," whom he sends as a present to a friend at Rome.
But the people of Syracuse are very much in earnest. They are too sharp
to be put off with pretences, and they count the number of slaughtered
pirates. There are only some useless, weak, ugly old fellows beheaded
from day to day; and being well aware how many men it must have taken to
row and manage such a vessel, they demand that the full crew shall be
brought to the block. "There is nothing in victory more sweet," says
Cicero, "no evidence more sure, than to see those whom you did fear, but
have now got the better of, brought out to tortures or death."[132]
Verres is so much frightened by the resolution of the citizens that he
does not dare to neglect their wishes. There are lying in the prisons of
Syracuse a lot of prisoners, Roman citizens, of whom he is glad to rid
himself. He has them brought out, with their heads wrapped up so that
they shall not be known, and has them beheaded instead of the pirates! A
great deal is said, too, about the pirate captain--the arch-pirate, as
he is called. There seems to have been some money dealings personally
between him and Verres, on account of which Verres kept him hidden. At
any rate, the arch-pirate was saved. "In such a manner this celebrated
victory is managed.[133] The pirate ship is taken, and the chief pirate
is allowed to escape. The musicians are sent to Rome. The men who are
good-looking and young are taken to the Prætor's house. As many Roman
citizens as will fill their places are carried out as public enemies,
and are tortured and killed! All the gold and silver and precious stuffs
are made a prize of by Verres!"

Such are the accusations brought against this wonderful man--the truth
of which has, I think, on the whole been admitted. The picture of Roman
life which it displays is wonderful, that such atrocities should have
been possible; and equally so of provincial subjection, that such
cruelties should have been endured. But in it all the greatest wonder is
that there should have risen up a man so determined to take the part of
the weak against the strong with no reward before him, apparently with
no other prospect than that of making himself odious to the party to
which he belonged. Cicero was not a Gracchus, anxious to throw himself
into the arms of the people; he was an oligarch by conviction, born to
oligarchy, bred to it, convinced that by it alone could the Roman
Republic be preserved. But he was convinced also that unless these
oligarchs could be made to do their duty the Republic could not stand.
Therefore it was that he dared to defy his own brethren, and to make the
acquittal of Verres an impossibility. I should be inclined to think that
the day on which Hortensius threw up the sponge, and Verres submitted to
banishment and fine, was the happiest in the orator's life.

Verres was made to pay a fine which was very insufficient for his
crimes, and then to retire into comfortable exile. From this he returned
to Rome when the Roman exiles were amnestied, and was shortly afterward
murdered by Antony, as has been told before.




CHAPTER VII.

_CICERO AS ÆDILE AND PRÆTOR._


[Sidenote: B.C. 69, ætat. 38.]

The year after the trial of Verres was that of Cicero's Ædileship. We
know but little of him in the performance of the duties of this office,
but we may gather that he performed them to the satisfaction of the
people. He did not spend much money for their amusements, although it
was the custom of Ædiles to ruin themselves in seeking popularity after
this fashion; and yet when, two years afterward, he solicited the
Prætorship from the people, he was three times elected as first Prætor
in all the comitia--three separate elections having been rendered
necessary by certain irregularities and factious difficulties. To all
the offices, one after another, he was elected in his first year--the
first year possible in accordance with his age--and was elected first in
honor, the first as Prætor, and then the first as Consul. This, no
doubt, was partly due to his compliance with those rules for canvassing
which his brother Quintus is said to have drawn out, and which I have
quoted; but it proves also the trust which was felt in him by the
people. The candidates, for the most part, were the candidates for the
aristocracy. They were put forward with the idea that thus might the
aristocratic rule of Rome be best maintained. Their elections were
carried on by bribery, and the people were for the most part indifferent
to the proceeding. Whether it might be a Verres, or an Antony, or a
Hortensius, they took the money that was going. They allowed themselves
to be delighted with the games, and they did as they were bid. But every
now and then there came up a name which stirred them, and they went to
the voting pens--ovilia--with a purpose of their own. When such a
candidate came forward, he was sure to be first. Such had been Marius,
and such had been the great Pompey, and such was Cicero. The two former
were men successful in war, who gained the voices of the people by their
victories. Cicero gained them by what he did inside the city. He could
afford not to run into debt and ruin himself during his Ædileship, as
had been common with Ædiles, because he was able to achieve his
popularity in another way. It was the chief duty of the Ædiles to look
after the town generally--to see to the temples of the gods, to take
care that houses did not tumble down, to look to the cleansing of the
streets, and to the supply of water. The markets were under them, and
the police, and the recurrent festivals. An active man, with
common-sense, such as was Cicero, no doubt did his duty as Ædile well.

He kept up his practice as an advocate during his years of office. We
have left to us the part of one speech and the whole of another spoken
during this period. The former was in favor of Fonteius, whom the Gauls
prosecuted for plundering them as Proprætor, and the latter is a civil
case on behalf of Cæcina, addressed to the "Recuperatores," as had been
that for Marcus Tullius. The speech for Fonteius is remarkable as being
as hard against the provincial Gauls as his speech against Verres had
been favorable to the Sicilians. But the Gauls were barbarians, whereas
the Sicilians were Greeks. And it should be always remembered that
Cicero spoke as an advocate, and that the praise and censure of an
advocate require to be taken with many grains of salt. Nothing that
these wretched Gauls could say against a Roman citizen ought to be
accepted in evidence! "All the Romans," he says, "who have been in the
province wish well to Fonteius. Would you rather believe these
Gauls--led by what feeling? By the opinion of men! Is the opinion, then,
of your enemies of greater weight than that of your fellow-citizens, or
is it the greater credibility of the witnesses? Would you prefer, then,
unknown men to known--dishonest men to honest--foreigners to your own
countrymen--greedy men to those who come before you for nothing--men of
no religion to those who fear the gods--those who hate the Empire and
the name of Rome to allies and citizens who are good and faithful?"[134]
In every word of this he begs the question so as to convince us that his
own case was weak; and when he makes a final appeal to the pity of the
judges we are sure that Fonteius was guilty. He tells the judges that
the poor mother of the accused man has no other support than this son,
and that there is a sister, one of the virgins devoted to the service of
Vesta, who, being a vestal virgin, cannot have sons of her own, and is
therefore entitled to have her brother preserved for her. When we read
such arguments as these, we are sure that Fonteius had misused the
Gauls. We believe that he was acquitted, because we are told that he
bought a house in Rome soon afterward; but we feel that he escaped by
the too great influence of his advocate. We are driven to doubt whether
the power over words which may be achieved by a man by means of natural
gifts, practice, and erudition, may not do evil instead of good. A man
with such a tongue as that of Cicero will make the listener believe
almost whatever he will; and the advocate is restrained by no horror of
falsehood. In his profession alone it is considered honorable to be a
bulwark to deception, and to make the worse appear the better cause.
Cicero did so when the occasion seemed to him to require it, and has
been accused of hypocrisy in consequence. There is a passage in one of
the dialogues, De Oratore, which has been continually quoted against him
because the word "fibs" has been used with approval. The orator is told
how it may become him to garnish his good story with little white
lies--"mendaciunculis."[135] The advice does not indeed refer to facts,
or to evidence, or to arguments. It goes no farther than to suggest that
amount of exaggeration which is used by every teller of a good story in
order that the story may be good. Such "mendaciuncula" are in the mouth
of every diner-out in London, and we may pity the dinner-parties at
which they are not used. Reference is made to them now because the use
of the word by Cicero, having been misunderstood by some who have
treated his name with severity, has been brought forward in proof of his
falsehood. You shall tell a story about a very little man, and say that
he is only thirty-six inches. You know very well that he is more than
four feet high. That will be a "mendaciunculum," according to Cicero.
The phrase has been passed on from one enemy to another, till the little
fibs of Cicero's recommending have been supposed to be direct lies
suggested by him to all advocates, and therefore continually used by him
as an advocate. They have been only the garnishing of his drolleries. As
an advocate, he was about as false and about as true as an advocate of
our own day.[136] That he was not paid, and that our English barristers
are paid for the work they do, makes, I think, no difference either in
the innocency or the falseness of the practice. I cannot but believe
that, hereafter, an improved tone of general feeling will forbid a man
of honor to use arguments which he thinks to be untrue, or to make
others believe that which he does not believe himself. Such is not the
state of things now in London, nor was it at Rome in Cicero's time.
There are touches of eloquence in the plea for Fonteius, but the reader
will probably agree with me that the orator was well aware that the late
governor who was on his trial had misused those unfortunate Gauls.

In the year following that of Cicero's Ædileship were written the first
of his epistles which have come to us. He was then not yet thirty-nine
years old--B.C. 68--and during that year and the next seven were written
eleven letters, all to Atticus. Those to his other friends--Ad
Familiares, as we have been accustomed to call them; Ad Diversos, they
are commonly called now--began only with the close of his consular year.
How it has come to pass that there have been preserved only those which
were written after a period of life at which most men cease to be free
correspondents, cannot be said with certainty. It has probably been
occasioned by the fact that he caused his letters to be preserved as
soon as he himself perceived how great would be their value. Of the
nature of their value it is hardly possible to speak too highly. I am
not prepared, indeed, to agree with the often quoted assertion of
Cornelius Nepos that he who has read his letters to Atticus will not
lack much of the history of those days.[137]

A man who should have read them and nothing else, even in the days of
Augustus, would not have learned much of the preceding age. But if not
for the purpose of history, the letters generally have, if read aright,
been all but enough for the purpose of biography. With a view to the
understanding of the man's character, they have, I think, been enough.
From them such a flood of light has been turned upon the writer that all
his nobility and all his defects, all his aspirations and all his
vacillations, have been made visible. We know how human he was, and how,
too, he was only human--how he sighed for great events, and allowed
himself to think sometimes that they could be accomplished by small
man[oe]uvres--how like a man he could be proud of his work and
boast--how like a man he could despair and almost die. But I wish it to
be acknowledged, by those who read his letters in order that they may
also read his character, that they were, when written, private letters,
intended to tell the truth, and that if they are to be believed in
reference to his weaknesses, they are also to be believed in reference
to his strength. If they are singularly transparent as to the
man--opening, especially to Atticus, the doors of his soul more
completely than would even any girl of the nineteenth century when
writing to her bosom friend--they must be taken as being more honestly
true. To regard the aspirations as hypocritical, and only the meaner
effusions of his mind as emblematic of the true man, is both
unreasonable and uncharitable. Nor, I think, will that reader grasp the
way to see the truth who cannot teach himself what has in Cicero's case,
been the effect of daring to tell to his friend an unvarnished tale.
When with us some poor thought does make its way across our minds, we do
not sit down and write it to another, nor, if we did, would an
immortality be awarded to the letter. If one of us were to lose his
all--as Cicero lost his all when he was sent into exile--I think it
might well be that he should for a time be unmanned; but he would either
not write, or, in writing, would hide much of his feelings. On losing
his Tullia, some father of to-day would keep it all in his heart, would
not maunder out his sorrows. Even with our truest love for our friends,
some fear is mingled which forbids the use of open words. Whether this
be for good or for evil I will not say, but it is so. Cicero, whether he
did or did not know that his letters would live, was impeded by no such
fear. He said everything that there was within him--being in this, I
should say, quite as unlike to other Romans of the day as he was to
ourselves. In the collection as it has come to us there are about fifty
letters--not from Cicero--written to Cicero by his brother, by Decimus
Brutus, by Plancus, and others. It will, I think, be admitted that their
tone is quite different from that used by himself. There are none,
indeed, from Atticus--none written under terms of such easy friendship
as prevailed when many were written by Cicero himself. It will probably
be acknowledged that his manner of throwing himself open to his
correspondent was peculiar to him. If this be so, he should surely have
the advantage as well as the disadvantage of his own mode of utterance.
The reader who allows himself to think that the true character of the
man is to be read in the little sly things he said to Atticus, but that
the nobler ideas were merely put forth to cajole the public, is as
unfair to himself as he is to Cicero.

In reading the entire correspondence--the letters from Cicero either to
Atticus or to others--it has to be remembered that in the ordinary
arrangement of them made by Grævius[138] they are often incorrectly
paced in regard to chronology. In subsequent times efforts have been
made to restore them to their proper position, and so they should be
read. The letters to Atticus and those Ad Diversos have generally been
published separately. For the ordinary purpose of literary pleasure they
may perhaps be best read in that way. The tone of them is different. The
great bulk of the correspondence is political, or quasi-political. The
manner is much more familiar, much less severe--though not on that
account indicating less seriousness--in those written to Atticus than in
the others. With one or two signal exceptions, those to Atticus are
better worth reading. The character of the writer may perhaps be best
gathered from divided perusal; but for a general understanding of the
facts of Cicero's life, the whole correspondence should be taken as it
was written. It has been published in this shape as well as in the
other, and will be used in this shape in my effort to portray the life
of him who wrote them.[139]

[Sidenote: B.C. 68, ætat. 39.]

We have three letters written when he was thirty-eight, in the year
after his Ædileship. In the first he tells his friend of the death of
his cousin, Lucius Cicero, who had travelled with him into Sicily, and
alludes to the disagreements which had taken place between Pomponia, the
sister of Atticus, and her husband, Quintus Cicero--our Cicero's
brother. Marcus, in all that he says of his brother, makes the best of
him. That Quintus was a scholar and a man of parts there can be no
doubt; one, too, who rose to high office in the Republic. But he was
arrogant, of harsh temper, cruel to those dependent on him, and
altogether unimbued with the humanity which was the peculiar
characteristic of his brother. "When I found him to be in the wrong,"
says Cicero, in his first letter, "I wrote to him as to a brother whom
I loved; but as to one younger than myself, and whom I was bound to tell
of his fault." As is usual with correspondents, half the letter is taken
up with excuses for not writing sooner; then he gives commissions for
the purchase of statues for his Tusculan villa, of which we now hear for
the first time, and tells his friend how his wife, Terentia, sends her
love, though she is suffering from the gout. Tullia also, the dear
little Tullia, "deliciæ nostræ,"[140]sends her love. In the next, he
says how a certain house which Atticus had intended to purchase had been
secured by Fonteius for 130,000 sesterces--something over £1000, taking
the sesterce at 2 _d_. This no doubt was part of the plunder which
Fonteius had taken from the Gauls. Quintus is getting on better with his
wife. Then he tells his friend very abruptly that his father died that
year on the eighth day before the kalends of December--on the 24th of
November. Some question as to the date of the old man's death had
probably been asked. He gives further commissions as to statues, and
declares of his Tusculan villa that he is happy only when he is there.
In the third letter he promises that he will be ready to pay one Cincius
£170 on a certain day, the price probably of more statues, and gives
orders to his friend as to the buying of books. "All my prospect of
enjoying myself at my ease depends on your goodness." These were the
letters he wrote when he had just ceased to be Ædile.

From the next two years five letters remain to us, chiefly noticeable
from the continued commissions given by Cicero to Atticus for statues.
Statues and more statues are wanted as ornaments for his Tusculanum.
Should there be more than are needed for that villa, he will begin to
decorate another that he has, the Formianum, near Caieta. He wants
whatever Atticus may think proper for his "palæstra" and "gymnasium."
Atticus has a library or collection of maps for sale, and Cicero engages
to buy them, though it seems that he has not at present quite got the
money. He reserves, he says, all his little comings-in,
"vindemiolas"--what he might make by selling his grapes as a lady in the
country might get a little income from her spare butter--in order that
he may have books as a resource for his old age. Again, he bids Atticus
not to be afraid but what he, Cicero, will be able to buy them some
day--which if he can do he will be richer than Crassus, and will envy no
one his mansions or his lawns. He also declares that he has betrothed
Tullia, then ten years old, to Caius Piso, son of Lucius Piso Frugi. The
proposed marriage, which after three years of betrothal was duly
solemnized, was considered to be in all respects desirable. Cicero
thought very highly of his son-in-law, who was related to Calpurnius
Piso, one of the Consuls of that year. So far everything was going well
with our orator.

[Sidenote: B.C. 67, ætat. 40.]

He was then candidate for the Prætorship, and was elected first, as has
been already said. It was in that year, too that a law was passed in
Rome, at the instance of one Gabinius, a tribune, authorizing Pompey to
exterminate the pirates in the Mediterranean, and giving him almost
unlimited power for this object. Pompey was not, indeed, named in this
law. A single general, one who had been Consul, was to be approved by
the Senate, with exclusive command by sea and for fifty miles on shore.
He was to select as his own officers a hitherto unheard-of number, all
of senatorial rank. It was well understood when the law was worded that
Pompey alone could fill the place. The Senate opposed the scheme with
all its power, although, seven years before, it had acknowledged the
necessity of some measure for extirpating the pirates. But jealousies
prevailed, and the Senate was afraid of Pompey. Gabinius, however,
carried his law by the votes of the people, and Pompey was appointed.

Nothing tells us more clearly the wretched condition of things in Rome
at this time than this infliction of pirates, under which their commerce
was almost destroyed. Sulla had re-established the outside show of a
strong government--a government which was strong enough to enable rich
men to live securely in Rome; but he had done nothing to consolidate the
Empire. Even Lucullus in the East had only partially succeeded, leaving
Mithridates still to be dealt with by Pompey. Of what nature was the
government of the provinces under Sulla's aristocracy we learn from the
trials of Verres, and of Fonteius, and of Catiline. The Mediterranean
swarmed with pirates, who taught themselves to think that they had
nothing to fear from the hands of the Romans. Plutarch declares to
us--no doubt with fair accuracy, because the description has been
admitted by subsequent writers--how great was the horror of these
depredations.[141] It is marvellous to us now that this should have been
allowed--marvellous that pirates should reach such a pitch of importance
that Verres had found it worth his while to sacrifice Roman citizens in
their place. Pompey went forth with his officers, his fleets, and his
money, and cleared the Mediterranean in forty days, as Plutarch says.
Floras tells us that not a ship was lost by the Romans, and not a pirate
left on the seas.[142]

In the history of Rome at this time we find men of mark whose
characters, as we read, become clear to us, or appear to become clear.
Of Marius and of Sulla we have a defined idea. Cæsar, with his
imperturbable courage, absence of scruples, and assurance of success,
comes home to us. Cicero, I think, we certainly may understand.
Catiline, Cato, Antony, and Brutus have left their portraits with us. Of
Pompey I must acknowledge for myself that I have but a vague conception.
His wonderful successes seem to have been produced by so very little
power of his own! He was not determined and venomous as was Marius; not
cold-blooded and ruthless as was Sulla; certainly not confident as was
Cæsar; not humane as was Cicero; not passionate as Catiline; not stoic
as was Cato; not reckless as was Antony, nor wedded to the idea of an
oligarchy as was Brutus. Success came in his way, and he found it--found
it again and again, till fortune seemed to have adopted him. Success
lifted him higher and higher, till at last it seemed to him that he must
be a Sulla whether he would or no.[143] But he could not endure the idea
of a rival Sulla. I doubt whether ambition would have prompted him to
fight for the empire of the Republic, had he not perceived that that
empire would fall into Cæsar's hands did he not grasp it himself. It
would have satisfied him to let things go, while the citizens called him
"Magnus," and regarded him as the man who could do a great thing if he
would, if only no rivalship had been forced upon him. Cæsar did force it
on him, and then, as a matter of course, he fell. He must have
understood warfare from his youth upward, knowing well the purposes of a
Roman legion and of Roman auxiliaries. He had destroyed Sertorius in
Spain, a man certainly greater than himself, and had achieved the honor
of putting an end to the Servile war when Spartacus, the leader of the
slaves and gladiators, had already been killed. He must have appreciated
at its utmost the meaning of those words, "Cives Romanus." He was a
handsome man, with good health, patient of labor, not given to luxury,
reticent, I should say ungenerous, and with a strong touch of vanity; a
man able to express but unable to feel friendship; with none of the
highest attributes of manhood, but with all the second-rate attributes
at their best; a capable, brave man, but one certain to fall crushed
beneath the heel of such a man as Cæsar, and as certain to leave such a
one as Cicero in the lurch.

It is necessary that the reader should attempt to realize to himself the
personal characteristics of Pompey, as from this time forward Cicero's
political life--and his life now became altogether political--was
governed by that of Pompey. That this was the case to a great extent is
certain--to a sad extent, I think. The two men were of the same age; but
Pompey had become a general among soldiers before Cicero had ceased to
be a pupil among advocates. As Cicero was making his way toward the
front, Pompey was already the first among Romans. He had been Consul
seven years before his proper time, and had lately, as we have seen,
been invested with extraordinary powers in that matter of putting down
the pirates. In some sort the mantle of Sulla had fallen upon him. He
was the leader of what we may call the conservative party. If, which I
doubt, the political governance of men was a matter of interest to him,
he would have had them governed by oligarchical forms. Such had been the
forms in Rome, in which, though the votes of the people were the source
of all power, the votes hardly went further than the selection of this
or that oligarch. Pompey no doubt felt the expediency of maintaining the
old order of things, in the midst of which he had been born to high
rank, and had achieved the topmost place either by fortune or by merit.
For any heartfelt conviction as to what might be best for his country or
his countrymen, in what way he might most surely use his power for the
good of the citizens generally, we must, I think, look in vain to that
Pompey whom history has handed down to us. But, of all matters which
interested Cicero, the governance of men interested him the most. How
should the great Rome of his day rise to greater power than ever, and
yet be as poor as in the days of her comparative insignificance? How
should Rome be ruled so that Romans might be the masters of the world,
in mental gifts as well as bodily strength, in arts as well as in
arms--as by valor, so by virtue? He, too, was an oligarch by strongest
conviction. His mind could conceive nothing better than Consuls,
Prætors, Censors, Tribunes, and the rest of it; with, however, the
stipulation that the Consuls and the Prætors should be honest men. The
condition was no doubt an impossible one; but this he did not or would
not see. Pompey himself was fairly honest. Up to this time he had shown
no egregious lust for personal power. His hands were clean in the midst
of so much public plunder. He was the leader of the conservative party.
The "Optimates," or "Boni," as Cicero indifferently calls them--meaning,
as we should say, the upper classes, who were minded to stand by their
order--believed in him, though they did not just at that time wish to
confide to him the power which the people gave him. The Senate did not
want another Sulla; and yet it was Sulla who had reinstated the Senate.
The Senate would have hindered Pompey, if it could, from his command
against the pirates, and again from his command against Mithridates. But
he, nevertheless, was naturally their head, as came to be seen plainly
when, seventeen years afterward, Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and Cicero in
his heart acknowledged Pompey as his political leader while Pompey
lived. This, I think, was the case to a sad extent, as Pompey was
incapable of that patriotic enthusiasm which Cicero demanded. As we go
on we shall find that the worst episodes in Cicero's political career
were created by his doubting adherence to a leader whom he bitterly felt
to be untrue to himself, and in whom his trust became weaker and weaker
to the end.

Then came Cicero's Prætorship. In the time of Cicero there were eight
Prætors, two of whom were employed in the city, and the six others in
the provinces. The "Prætor Urbanus" was confined to the city, and was
regarded as the first in authority. This was the office filled by
Cicero. His duty was to preside among the judges, and to name a judge or
judges for special causes.

[Sidenote: B.C. 66, ætat. 41.]

Cicero at this time, when he and Pompey were forty or forty-one,
believed thoroughly in Pompey. When the great General was still away,
winding up the affairs of his maritime war against the pirates, there
came up the continually pressing question of the continuation of the
Mithridatic war. Lucullus had been absent on that business nearly seven
years, and, though he had been at first grandly victorious, had failed
at last. His own soldiers, tired of their protracted absence, mutinied
against him, and Glabrio, a later Consul, who had been sent to take the
command out of his hands, had feared to encounter the difficulty. It was
essential that something should be done, and one Manilius, a Tribune, a
man of no repute himself, but whose name has descended to all posterity
in the oration Pro Lege Manilia, proposed to the people that Pompey
should have the command. Then Cicero first entered, as we may say, on
political life. Though he had been Quæstor and Ædile, and was now
Prætor, he had taken a part only in executive administration. He had had
his political ideas, and had expressed them very strongly in that matter
of the judges, which, in the condition of Rome, was certainly a
political question of great moment. But this he had done as an advocate,
and had interfered only as a barrister of to-day might do, who, in
arguing a case before the judges, should make an attack on some alleged
misuse of patronage. Now, for the first time, he made a political
harangue, addressing the people in a public meeting from the rostra.
This speech is the oration Pro Lego Manilia. This he explains in his
first words. Hitherto his addresses had been to the judges--Judices; now
it is to the people--Quirites: "Although, Quirites, no sight has ever
been so pleasant to me as that of seeing you gathered in
crowds--although this spot has always seemed to me the fittest in the
world for action and the noblest for speech--nevertheless, not my own
will, indeed, but the duties of the profession which I have followed
from my earliest years have hitherto hindered me from entering upon this
the best path to glory which is open to any good man." It is only
necessary for our purpose to say, in reference to the matter in
question, that this command was given to Pompey in opposition to the
Senate.

As to the speech itself, it requires our attention on two points. It is
one of those choice morsels of polished Latinity which have given to
Cicero the highest rank among literary men, and have, perhaps, made him
the greatest writer of prose which the world has produced. I have
sometimes attempted to make a short list of his _chefs d'[oe]uvre_--of
his tidbits, as I must say, if I am bound to express myself in English.
The list would never allow itself to be short, and so has become almost
impossible; but, whenever the attempt has been made, this short oration
in its integrity has always been included in it. My space hardly permits
me to insert specimens of the author's style, but I will give in an
appendix[144] two brief extracts as specimens of the beauty of words in
Latin. I almost fancy that if properly read they would have a grace
about them even to the ears of those to whom Latin is unknown. I venture
to attach to them in parallel columns my own translation, acknowledging
in despair how impossible I have found it to catch anything of the
rhythm of the author. As to the beauty of the language I shall probably
find no opponent. But a serious attack has been made on Cicero's
character, because it has been supposed that his excessive praise was
lavished on Pompey with a view of securing the great General's
assistance in his candidature for the Consulship. Even Middleton repeats
this accusation, and only faintly repels it. M. Du Rozoir, the French
critic, declares that "in the whole oration there is not a word which
was not dictated to Cicero the Prætor by his desire to become Consul,
and that his own elevation was in his thoughts all through, and not that
of Pompey." The matter would be one to us but of little moment, were it
not that Cicero's character for honesty as a politician depends on the
truth or falsehood of his belief in Pompey. Pompey had been almost
miraculously fortunate up to this period of his life's career. He had
done infinitely valuable service to the State. He had already crushed
the pirates. There was good ground for believing that in his hands the
Roman arms would be more efficacious against Mithridates than in those
of any other General. All that Cicero says on this head, whatever might
have been his motive for saying it, was at any rate true.

A man desirous of rising in the service of his country of course adheres
to his party. That Cicero was wrong in supposing that the Republic,
which had in fact already fallen, could be re-established by the
strength of any one man, could be bolstered up by any leader, has to be
admitted; that in trusting to Pompey as a politician he leaned on a
frail reed I admit; but I will not admit that in praising the man he was
hypocritical or unduly self-seeking. In our own political contests, when
a subordinate member of the Cabinet is zealously serviceable to his
chief, we do not accuse him of falsehood because by that zeal he has
also strengthened his own hands. How shall a patriot do the work of his
country unless he be in high place? and how shall he achieve that place
except by co-operation with those whom he trusts? They who have blamed
Cicero for speaking on behalf of Pompey on this occasion, seem to me to
ignore not only the necessities but the very virtues of political life.

One other remarkable oration Cicero made during his Prætorship--that,
namely, in defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus. As it is the longest, so
is it the most intricate, and on account of various legal points the
most difficult to follow of all his speeches. But there are none perhaps
which tell us more of the condition, or perhaps I should say the
possibilities, of life among the Romans of that day. The accusation
against Roscius Amerinus was accompanied by horrible circumstances. The
iniquities of Verres, as a public officer who had the power of blessing
or of cursing a whole people, were very terrible; but they do not shock
so much as the story here told of private life. That any man should have
lived as did Oppianicus, or any woman as did Sassia, seems to prove a
state of things worse than anything described by Juvenal a hundred and
fifty years later. Cicero was no doubt unscrupulous as an advocate, but
he could have gained nothing here by departing from verisimilitude. We
must take the picture as given us as true, and acknowledge that, though
law processes were common, crimes such as those of this man and of this
woman were not only possible, but might be perpetrated with impunity.
The story is too long and complicated to be even abridged; but it should
be read by those who wish to know the condition of life in Italy during
the latter days of the Republic.

[Sidenote: B.C. 65, ætat. 42.]

In the year after he was Prætor--in the first of the two years between
his Prætorship and Consulship, B.C. 65--he made a speech in defence of
one Caius Cornelius, as to which we hear that the pleadings in the case
occupied four days. This, with our interminable "causes célèbres," does
not seem much to us, but Cicero's own speech was so long that in
publishing it he divided it into two parts. This Cornelius had been
Tribune in the year but one before, and was accused of having misused
his power when in office. He had incurred the enmity of the aristocracy
by attempts made on the popular side to restrain the Senate; especially
by the stringency of a law proposed for stopping bribery at elections.
Cicero's speeches are not extant. We have only some hardly intelligible
fragments of them, which were preserved by Asconius,[145] a commentator
on certain of Cicero's orations; but there is ground for supposing that
these Cornelian orations were at the time matter of as great moment as
those spoken against Verres, or almost as those spoken against Catiline.
Cicero defended Cornelius, who was attacked by the Senate--by the rich
men who desired office and the government of provinces. The law proposed
for the restriction of bribery at elections no doubt attempted to do
more by the severity of its punishment than can be achieved by such
means: it was mitigated, but was still admitted by Cicero to be too
rigorous. The rancor of the Senate against Cornelius seems to have been
due to this attempt; but the illegality with which he was charged, and
for which he was tried, had reference to another law suggested by
him--for restoring to the people the right of pardon which had been
usurped by the Senate. Caius Cornelius seems to have been a man honest
and eager in his purpose to save the Republic from the greed of the
oligarchs, but--as had been the Gracchi--ready in his eagerness to push
his own authority too far in his attempt to restrain that of the Senate.
A second Tribune, in the interest of the Senate, attempted to exercise
an authority which undoubtedly belonged to him, by inhibiting the
publication or reading of the proposed law. The person whose duty it was
to read it was stopped; then Cornelius pushed aside the inferior
officer, and read it himself. There was much violence, and the men who
brought the accusation about Cornelius--two brothers named Cominii--had
to hide themselves, and saved their lives by escaping over the roofs of
the houses.

This took place when Cicero was standing for the Prætorship, and the
confusion consequent upon it was so great that it was for awhile
impossible to carry on the election. In the year after his Prætorship
Cornelius was put upon his trial, and the two speeches were made.

The matter seems to have been one of vital interest in Rome. The contest
on the part of the Senate was for all that made public life dear to such
a body. Not to bribe--not to be able to lay out money in order that
money might be returned ten-fold, a hundred-fold--would be to them to
cease to be aristocrats. The struggles made by the Gracchi, by Livius
Drusus, by others whose names would only encumber us here, by this
Cornelius, were the expiring efforts of those who really desired an
honest Republic. Such were the struggles made by Cicero himself; though
there was present always to him an idea, with which, in truth, neither
the demagogues nor the aristocrats sympathized, that the reform could be
effected, not by depriving the Senate of its power, but by teaching the
Senate to use it honestly. We can sympathize with the idea, but we are
driven to acknowledge that it was futile.

Though we know that this was so, the fragments of the speeches, though
they have been made intelligible to us by the "argument" or story of
them prefixed by Asconius in his notes, cannot be of interest to
readers. They were extant in the time of Quintilian, who speaks of them
with the highest praise.[146] Cicero himself selects certain passages
out of these speeches as examples of eloquence or rhythm,[147] thus
showing the labor with which he composed them, polishing them by the
exercise of his ear as well as by that of his intellect. We know from
Asconius that this trial was regarded at the time as one of vital
interest.

We have two letters from Cicero written in the year after his
Prætorship, both to Atticus, the first of which tells us of his probable
competition for the Consulship; the second informs his friend that a son
is born to him--he being then forty-two years old--and that he is
thinking to undertake the defence of Catiline, who was to be accused of
peculation as Proprætor in Africa. "Should he be acquitted," says
Cicero, "I should hope to have him on my side in the matter of my
canvass. If he should be convicted, I shall be able to bear that too."
There were to be six or seven candidates, of whom two, of course, would
be chosen. It would be much to Cicero "to run," as our phrase goes, with
the one who among his competitors would be the most likely to succeed.
Catiline, in spite of his then notorious character--in the teeth of the
evils of his government in Africa--was, from his birth, his connections,
and from his ability, supposed to have the best chance. It was open to
Cicero to defend Catiline as he had defended Fonteius, and we know from
his own words that he thought of doing so. But he did not; nor did
Cicero join himself with Catiline in the canvassing. It is probable that
the nature of Catiline's character and intentions were now becoming
clearer from day to day. Catiline was tried and acquitted, having, it is
said, bribed the judges.




CHAPTER VIII.

_CICERO AS CONSUL._


Hitherto everything had succeeded with Cicero. His fortune and his fame
had gone hand-in-hand. The good-will of the citizens had been accorded
to him on all possible occasions. He had risen surely, if not quickly,
to the top of his profession, and had so placed himself there as to have
torn the wreath from the brow of his predecessor and rival, Hortensius.
On no memorable occasion had he been beaten. If now and then he had
failed to win a cause in which he was interested, it was as to some
matter in which, as he had said to Atticus in speaking of his
contemplated defence of Catiline, he was not called on to break his
heart if he were beaten. We may imagine that his life had been as happy
up to this point as a man's life may be. He had married well. Children
had been born to him, who were the source of infinite delight. He had
provided himself with houses, marbles, books, and all the intellectual
luxuries which well-used wealth could produce. Friends were thick around
him. His industry, his ability, and his honesty were acknowledged. The
citizens had given him all that it was in their power to give. Now at
the earliest possible day, with circumstances of much more than usual
honor, he was put in the highest place which his country had to offer,
and knew himself to be the one man in whom his country at this moment
trusted. Then came the one twelve-month, the apex of his fortunes; and
after that, for the twenty years that followed, there fell upon him one
misery after another--one trouble on the head of another trouble--so
cruelly that the reader, knowing the manner of the Romans, almost
wonders that he condescended to live.

[Sidenote: B.C. 64, ætat. 43.]

He was chosen Consul, we are told, not by the votes but by the unanimous
acclamation of the citizens. What was the exact manner of doing this we
can hardly now understand. The Consuls were elected by ballot, wooden
tickets having been distributed to the people for the purpose; but
Cicero tells us that no voting tickets were used in his case, but that
he was elected by the combined voice of the whole people.[148]

He had stood with six competitors. Of these it is only necessary to
mention two, as by them only was Cicero's life affected, and as out of
the six, only they seem to have come prominently forward during the
canvassing. These were Catiline the conspirator, as we shall have to
call him in dealing with his name in the next chapter, and Caius
Antonius, one of the sons of Marc Antony, the great orator of the
preceding age, and uncle of the Marc Antony with whom we are all so well
acquainted, and with whom we shall have so much to do before we get to
the end of this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it may be said
of him that he walked over the course. Whether this was achieved by the
Machiavellian arts which his brother Quintus taught in his treatise De
Petitione Consulatus, or was attributable to his general popularity, may
be a matter of doubt. As far as we can judge from the signs which remain
to us of the public feeling of the period, it seems that he was at this
time regarded with singular affection by his countrymen. He had robbed
none, and had been cruel to no one. He had already abandoned the profit
of provincial government--to which he was by custom entitled after the
lapse of his year's duty as Prætor--in order that he might remain in
Rome among the people. Though one of the Senate himself--and full of the
glory of the Senate, as he had declared plainly enough in that passage
from one of the Verrine orations which I have quoted--he had generally
pleaded on the popular side. Such was his cleverness, that even when on
the unpopular side--as he may be supposed to have been when defending
Fonteius--he had given a popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot
doubt, judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at his
election, that he had made himself beloved But, nevertheless, he omitted
none of those cares which it was expected that a candidate should take.
He made his electioneering speech "in toga candida"--in a white robe, as
candidates did, and were thence so called. It has not come down to us,
nor do we regret it, judging from the extracts which have been collected
from the notes which Asconius wrote upon it. It was full of personal
abuse of Antony and Catiline, his competitors. Such was the practice of
Rome at this time, as it was also with us not very long since. We shall
have more than enough of such eloquence before we have done our task.
When we come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius, his
enemy, of Piso and Gabinius, the Consuls who allowed him to be banished,
and of Marc Antony, his last great opponent--the nephew of the man who
was now his colleague--we shall have very much of it. It must again be
pleaded that the foul abuse which fell from other lips has not been
preserved and that Cicero, therefore, must not be supposed to have been
more foul mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he was
more bitter than others, because he had more power to throw into his
words the meaning which he intended them to convey.

Antony was chosen as Cicero's colleague. It seems, from such evidence as
we are able to get on the subject, that Cicero trusted Antony no better
than he did Catiline, but, appreciating the wisdom of the maxim, "divide
et impera"--separate your enemies and you will get the better of them,
which was no doubt known as well then as now--he soon determined to use
Antony as his ally against Catiline, who was presumed to reckon Antony
among his fellow-conspirators. Sallust puts into the mouth of Catiline a
declaration to this effect,[149] and Cicero did use Antony for the
purpose. The story of Catiline's conspiracy is so essentially the story
of Cicero's Consulship, that I may be justified in hurrying over the
other events of his year's rule; but still there is something that must
be told. Though Catiline's conduct was under his eye during the whole
year, it was not till October that the affairs in which we shall have to
interest ourselves commenced.

Of what may have been the nature of the administrative work done by the
great Roman officers of State we know very little; perhaps I might
better say that we know nothing. Men, in their own diaries, when they
keep them, or even in their private letters, are seldom apt to say much
of those daily doings which are matter of routine to themselves, and are
by them supposed to be as little interesting to others. A Prime-minister
with us, were he as prone to reveal himself in correspondence as was
Cicero with his friend Atticus, would hardly say when he went to the
Treasury Chambers or what he did when he got there. We may imagine that
to a Cabinet Minister even a Cabinet Council would, after many sittings,
become a matter of course. A leading barrister would hardly leave behind
him a record of his work in chambers. It has thus come to pass that,
though we can picture to ourselves a Cicero before the judges, or
addressing the people from the rostra, or uttering his opinion in the
Senate, we know nothing of him as he sat in his office and did his
consular work. We cannot but suppose that there must have been an office
with many clerks. There must have been heavy daily work. The whole
operation of government was under the Consul's charge, and to Cicero,
with a Catiline on his hands, this must have been more than usually
heavy. How he did it, with what assistance, sitting at what
writing-table, dressed in what robes, with what surroundings of archives
and red tape, I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that there
must have been much of dignity, as there was with all leading Romans,
but beyond that I cannot advance even in fancying what was the official
life of a Consul.

In the old days the Consul used, as a matter of course, to go out and do
the fighting. When there was an enemy here, or an enemy there, the
Consul was bound to hurry off with his army, north or south, to
different parts of Italy. But gradually this system became
impracticable. Distances became too great, as the Empire extended itself
beyond the bounds of Italy, to admit of the absence of the Consuls. Wars
prolonged themselves through many campaigns, as notably did that which
was soon to take place in Gaul under Cæsar. The Consuls remained at
home, and Generals were sent out with proconsular authority. This had
become so certainly the case, that Cicero on becoming Consul had no fear
of being called on to fight the enemies of his country. There was much
fighting then in course of being done by Pompey in the East; but this
would give but little trouble to the great officers at home, unless it
might be in sending out necessary supplies.

The Consul's work, however, was severe enough. We find from his own
words, in a letter to Atticus written in the year but one after his
Consulship, 61 B.C., that as Consul he made twelve public addresses.
Each of them must have been a work of labor, requiring a full mastery
over the subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different in
their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary speeches
to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his cases must have taken
great time. Letters went slowly and at a heavy cost. Writing must have
been tedious when that most common was done with a metal point on soft
wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case had to do much for himself.
We have heard how Cicero made his way over to Sicily, creeping in a
little boat through the dangers prepared for him, in order that he might
get up the evidence against Verres. In defending Aulus Cluentius when he
was Prætor, Cicero must have found the work to have been immense. In
preparing the attack upon Catiline it seems that every witness was
brought to himself. There were four Catiline speeches made in the year
of his Consulship, but in the same year many others were delivered by
him. He mentions, as we shall see just now, twelve various speeches made
in the year of his Consulship.

I imagine that the words spoken can in no case have been identical with
those which have come to us--which were, as we may say, prepared for the
press by Tiro, his slave and secretary. We have evidence as to some of
them, especially as to the second Catiline oration, that time did not
admit of its being written and learned by heart after the occurrence of
the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs must have been
extemporary, with such mental preparation as one night may have sufficed
to give him. How the words may have been taken down in such a case we do
not quite know; but we are aware that short-hand writers were employed,
though there can hardly have been a science of stenography perfected as
is that with us.[150] The words which we read were probably much
polished before they were published, but how far this was done we do not
know. What we do know is that the words which he spoke moved, convinced,
and charmed those who heard them, as do the words we read move, convince
and charm us. Of these twelve consular speeches Cicero gives a special
account to his friend. "I will send you," he says, "the speechlings[151]
which you require, as well as some others, seeing that those which I
have written out at the request of a few young men please you also. It
was an advantage to me here to follow the example of that fellow-citizen
of yours in those orations which he called his Philippics. In these he
brightened himself up, and discarded his 'nisi prius' way of speaking,
so that he might achieve something more dignified, something more
statesman-like. So I have done with these speeches of mine which may be
called 'consulares,'" as having been made not only in his consular year
but also with something of consular dignity. "Of these, one, on the new
land laws proposed, was spoken in the Senate on the kalends of January.
The second, on the same subject, to the people. The third was respecting
Otho's law.[152] The fourth was in defence of Rabirius.[153] The fifth
was in reference to the children of those who had lost their property
and their rank under Sulla's proscription.[154] The sixth was an address
to the people, and explained why I renounced my provincial
government.[155] The seventh drove Catiline out of the city. The eighth
was addressed to the people the day after Catiline fled. The ninth was
again spoken to the people, on the day on which the Allobroges gave
their evidence. Then, again, the tenth was addressed to the Senate on
the fifth of December"--also respecting Catiline. "There are also two
short supplementary speeches on the Agrarian war. You shall have the
whole body of them. As what I write and what I do are equally
interesting to you, you will gather from the same documents all my
doings and all my sayings."

It is not to be supposed that in this list are contained all the
speeches which he made in his consular year, but those only which he
made as Consul--those to which he was desirous of adding something of
the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond the weight attached to
his pleadings as a lawyer. As an advocate, Consul though he was, he
continued to perform his work; from whence we learn that no State
dignity was so high as to exempt an established pleader from the duty of
defending his friends. Hortensius, when Consul elect, had undertaken to
defend Verres. Cicero defended Murena when he was Consul. He defended C.
Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused, as were so many, of proconsular
extortion; but whether in this year or in the preceding is not, I think,
known.[156] Of his speech on that occasion we have nothing remaining. Of
his pleading for Murena we have, if not the whole, the material part,
and, though nobody cares very much for Murena now, the oration is very
amusing. It was made toward the end of the year, on the 20th of
November, after the second Catiline oration, and before the third, at
the very moment in which Cicero was fully occupied with the evidence on
which he intended to convict Catiline's fellow-conspirators. As I read
it I am carried away by wonder, rather than admiration, at the energy of
the man who could at such a period of his life give up his time to
master the details necessary for the trial of Murena.

Early in the year Cicero had caused a law to be passed--which, after
him, was called the Lex Tullia--increasing the stringency of the
enactments against bribery on the part of consular candidates. His
intention had probably been to hinder Catiline, who was again about to
become a candidate. But Murena, who was elected, was supposed to have
been caught in the meshes of the net, and also Silanus, the other Consul
designate. Cato, the man of stern nature, the great Stoic of the day,
was delighted to have an opportunity of proceeding against some one, and
not very sorry to attack Murena with weapons provided from the armory of
Murena's friend, Cicero. Silanus, however, who happened to be cousin to
Cato, was allowed to pass unmolested. Sulpicius, who was one of the
disappointed candidates, Cato, and Postumius were the accusers.
Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero were combined together for the defence
of Murena. But as we read the single pleading that has come to us, we
feel that, unlike those Roman trials generally, this was carried on
without any acrimony on either side. I think it must have been that Cato
wished to have an opportunity of displaying his virtue, but it had been
arranged that Murena was to be acquitted. Murena was accused, among
other things, of dancing! Greeks might dance, as we hear from Cornelius
Nepos,[157] but for a Roman Consul it would be disgraceful in the
highest extreme. A lady, indeed, might dance, but not much. Sallust
tells us of Sempronia--who was, indeed, a very bad female if all that he
says of her be true--that she danced more elegantly than became an
honest woman.[158] She was the wife of a Consul. But a male Roman of
high standing might not dance at all. Cicero defends his friend by
showing how impossible it was--how monstrous the idea. "No man would
dance unless drunk or mad." Nevertheless, I imagine that Murena had
danced.

Cicero seizes an opportunity of quizzing Cato for his stoicism, and uses
it delightfully. Horace was not more happy when, in defence of
Aristippus, he declared that any philosopher would turn up his nose at
cabbage if he could get himself asked to the tables of rich men.[159]
"There was one Zeno," Cicero says, "who laid down laws. No wise man
would forgive any fault. No man worthy of the name of man would allow
himself to be pitiful. Wise men are beautiful, even though deformed;
rich though penniless; kings though they be slaves. We who are not wise
are mere exiles, runagates, enemies of our country, and madmen. Any
fault is an unpardonable crime. To kill an old cock, if you do not want
it, is as bad as to murder your father!"[160] And these doctrines, he
goes on to say, which are used by most of us merely as something to talk
about, this man Cato absolutely believes, and tries to live by them. I
shall have to refer back to this when I speak of Cicero's philosophy
more at length; but his common-sense crops up continually in the
expressions which he uses for defending the ordinary conditions of a
man's life, in opposition to that impossible superiority to mundane
things which the philosophers professed to teach their pupils. He turns
to Cato and asks him questions, which he answers himself with his own
philosophy: "Would you pardon nothing? Well, yes; but not all things.
Would you do nothing for friendship? Sometimes, unless duty should stand
in the way. Would you never be moved to pity? I would maintain my habit
of sincerity, but something must no doubt be allowed to humanity. It is
good to stick to your opinion, but only until some better opinion shall
have prevailed with you." In all this the humanity of our Cicero, as
opposed equally to the impossible virtue of a Cato or the abominable
vice of a Verres, is in advance of his age, and reminds us of what
Christ has taught us.

But the best morsel in the whole oration is that in which he snubs the
lawyers. It must be understood that Cicero did not pride himself on
being a lawyer. He was an advocate, and if he wanted law there were
those of an inferior grade to whom he could go to get it. In truth, he
did understand the law, being a man of deep research, who inquired into
everything. As legal points had been raised, he thus addresses
Sulpicius, who seems to have affected a knowledge of jurisprudence, who
had been a candidate for the Consulship, and who was his own intimate
friend: "I must put you out of your conceit," he says; "it was your
other gifts, not a knowledge of the laws--your moderation, your wisdom,
your justice--which, in my opinion, made you worthy of being loved. I
will not say you threw away your time in studying law, but it was not
thus you made yourself worthy of the Consulship.[161] That power of
eloquence, majestic and full of dignity which has so often availed in
raising a man to the Consulship, is able by its words to move the minds
of the Senate and the people and the judges.[162] But in such a poor
science as that of law what honor can there be? Its details are taken up
with mere words and fragments of words.[163] They forget all equity in
points of law, and stick to the mere letter."[164] He goes through a
presumed scene of chicanery, which, Consul as he was, he must have acted
before the judges and the people, no doubt to the extreme delight of
them all. At last he says, "Full as I am of business, if you raise my
wrath I will make myself a lawyer, and learn it all in three days."[165]
From these and many other passages in Cicero's writings and speeches,
and also from Quintilian, we learn that a Roman advocate was by no
means the same as an English barrister. The science which he was
supposed to have learned was simply that of telling his story in
effective language. It no doubt came to pass that he had much to do in
getting up the details of his story--what we may call the evidence--but
he looked elsewhere, to men of another profession, for his law. The
"juris consultus" or the "juris peritus" was the lawyer, and as such was
regarded as being of much less importance than the "patronus" or
advocate, who stood before the whole city and pleaded the cause. In this
trial of Murena, who was by trade a soldier, it suited Cicero to
belittle lawyers and to extol the army. When he is telling Sulpicius
that it was not by being a lawyer that a man could become Consul, he
goes on to praise the high dignity of his client's profession. "The
greatest glory is achieved by those who excel in battle. All our empire,
all our republic, is defended and made strong by them."[166] It was thus
that the advocate could speak! This comes from the man who always took
glory to himself in declaring that the "toga" was superior to helmet and
shield. He had already declared that they erred who thought that they
were going to get his own private opinion in speeches made in law
courts.[167] He knew how to defend his friend Murena, who was a soldier,
and in doing so could say very sharp things, though yet in joke, against
his friend Sulpicius, the lawyer. But in truth few men understood the
Roman law better than did Cicero.

But we must go back to that agrarian law respecting which, as he tells
us, four of his consular speeches were made. This had been brought
forward by Rullus, one of the Tribunes, toward the end of the last year.
The Tribunes came into office in December, whereas at this period of the
Republic the Consuls were in power only on and from January 1st. Cicero,
who had been unable to get the particulars of the new law till it had
been proclaimed, had but a few days to master its details. It was, to
his thinking, altogether revolutionary. We have the words of many of the
clauses; and though it is difficult at this distance of time to realize
what would have been its effect, I think we are entitled to say that it
was intended to subvert all property. Property, speaking of it
generally, cannot be destroyed The land remains, and the combined
results of man's industry are too numerous, too large, and too lasting
to become a wholesale prey to man's anger or madness. Even the elements
when out of order can do but little toward perfecting destruction. A
deluge is wanted--or that crash of doom which, whether it is to come or
not, is believed by the world to be very distant. But it is within human
power to destroy possession, and redistribute the goods which industry,
avarice, or perhaps injustice has congregated. They who own property are
in these days so much stronger than those who have none, that an idea of
any such redistribution does not create much alarm among the possessors.
The spirit of communism does not prevail among people who have learned
that it is, in truth, easier to earn than to steal. But with the Romans
political economy had naturally not advanced so far as with us. A
subversion of property had to a great extent taken place no later than
in Sulla's time. How this had been effected the story of the property of
Roscius Amerinus has explained to us. Under Sulla's enactments no man
with a house, with hoarded money, with a family of slaves, with rich
ornaments, was safe. Property had been made to change hands recklessly,
ruthlessly, violently, by the illegal application of a law promulgated
by a single individual, who, however, had himself been instigated by no
other idea than that of re-establishing the political order of things
which he approved. Rullus, probably with other motives, was desirous of
effecting a subversion which, though equally great, should be made
altogether in a different direction. The ostensible purpose was
something as follows: as the Roman people had by their valor and wisdom
achieved for Rome great victories, and therefore great wealth, they, as
Roman citizens, were entitled to the enjoyment of what they had won;
whereas, in fact, the sweets of victory fell to the lot only of a few
aristocrats. For the reform of this evil it should be enacted that all
public property which had been thus acquired, whether land or chattels,
should be sold, and with the proceeds other lands should be bought fit
for the use of Roman citizens, and be given to those who would choose to
have it. It was specially suggested that the rich country called the
Campania--that in which Naples now stands with its adjacent
isles--should be bought up and given over to a great Roman colony. For
the purpose of carrying out this law ten magistrates should be
appointed, with plenipotentiary power both as to buying and selling.
There were many underplots in this. No one need sell unless he chose to
sell; but at this moment much land was held by no other title than that
of Sulla's proscriptions. The present possessors were in daily fear of
dispossession, by some new law made with the object of restoring their
property to those who had been so cruelly robbed. These would be very
glad to get any price in hand for land of which their tenure was so
doubtful; and these were the men whom the "decemviri," or ten
magistrates, would be anxious to assist. We are told that the
father-in-law of Rullus himself had made a large acquisition by his use
of Sulla's proscriptions. And then there would be the instantaneous
selling of the vast districts obtained by conquest and now held by the
Roman State. When so much land would be thrown into the market it would
be sold very cheap and would be sold to those whom the "decemviri" might
choose to favor. We can hardly now hope to unravel all the intended
details, but we may be sure that the basis on which property stood would
have been altogether changed by the measure. The "decemviri" were to
have plenary power for ten years. All the taxes in all the provinces
were to be sold, or put up to market. Everything supposed to belong to
the Roman State was to be sold in every province, for the sake of
collecting together a huge sum of money, which was to be divided in the
shape of land among the poorer Romans. Whatever may have been the
private intentions of Rullus, whether good or bad, it is evident, even
at this distance of time, that a redistribution of property was intended
which can only be described as a general subversion. To this the new
Consul opposed himself vehemently, successfully, and, we must needs say,
patriotically.

The intense interest which Cicero threw into his work is as manifest in
these agrarian orations as in those subsequently made as to the Catiline
conspiracy. He ascends in his energy to a dignity of self-praise which
induces the reader to feel that a man who could so speak of himself
without fear of contradiction had a right to assert the supremacy of his
own character and intellect. He condescends, on the other hand, to a
virulence of personal abuse against Rullus which, though it is to our
taste offensive, is, even to us, persuasive, making us feel that such a
man should not have undertaken such a work. He is describing the way in
which the bill was first introduced: "Our Tribunes at last enter upon
their office. The harangue to be made by Rullus is especially expected.
He is the projector of the law, and it was expected that he would carry
himself with an air of special audacity. When he was only Tribune elect
he began to put on a different countenance, to speak with a different
voice, to walk with a different step. We all saw how he appeared with
soiled raiment, with his person uncared for, and foul with dirt, with
his hair and beard uncombed and untrimmed."[168] In Rome men under
afflictions, particularly if under accusation, showed themselves in
soiled garments so as to attract pity, and the meaning here is that
Rullus went about as though under grief at the condition of his poor
fellow-citizens, who were distressed by the want of this agrarian law.
No description could be more likely to turn an individual into ridicule
than this of his taking upon himself to represent in his own person the
sorrows of the city. The picture of the man with the self-assumed
garments of public woe, as though he were big enough to exhibit the
grief of all Rome, could not but be effective. It has been supposed that
Cicero was insulting the Tribune because he was dirty. Not so. He was
ridiculing Rullus because Rullus had dared to go about in
mourning--"sordidatus"--on behalf of his country.

But the tone in which Cicero speaks of himself is magnificent. It is so
grand as to make us feel that a Consul of Rome, who had the cares of
Rome on his shoulders, was entitled to declare his own greatness to the
Senate and to the people. There are the two important orations--that
spoken first in the Senate, and then the speech to the people from which
I have already quoted the passage personal to Rullus. In both of them he
declares his own idea of a Consul, and of himself as Consul. He has been
speaking of the effect of the proposed law on the revenues of the State,
and then proceeds: "But I pass by what I have to say on that matter and
reserve it for the people. I speak now of the danger which menaces our
safety and our liberty. For what will there be left to us untouched in
the Republic, what will remain of your authority and freedom, when
Rullus, and those whom you fear much more than Rullus,[169] with this
band of ready knaves, with all the rascaldom of Rome, laden with gold
and silver, shall have seized on Capua and all the cities round? To all
this, Senators"--Patres conscripti he calls them--"I will oppose what
power I have. As long as I am Consul I will not suffer them to carry out
their designs against the Republic.

"But you, Rullus, and those who are with you, have been mistaken
grievously in supposing that you will be regarded as friends of the
people in your attempts to subvert the Republic in opposition to a
Consul who is known in very truth to be the people's friend I call upon
you, I invite you to meet me in the assembly. Let us have the people of
Rome as a judge between us. Let us look round and see what it is that
the people really desire. We shall find that there is nothing so dear to
them as peace and quietness and ease. You have handed over the city to
me full of anxiety, depressed with fear, disturbed by these projected
laws and seditious assemblies." (It must be remembered that he had only
on that very day begun his Consulship) "The wicked you have filled with
hope, the good with fear. You have robbed the Forum of loyalty and the
Republic of dignity. But now, when in the midst of these troubles of
mind and body, when in this great darkness the voice and the authority
of the Consul has been heard by the people--when he shall have made it
plain that there is no cause for fear, that no strange army shall enroll
itself, no bands collect themselves; that there shall be no new
colonies, no sale of the revenue, no altered empire, no royal
'decemvirs,' no second Rome, no other centre of rule but this; that while
I am Consul there shall be perfect peace, perfect ease--do you suppose
that I shall dread the superior popularity of your new agrarian law?
Shall I, do you think, be afraid to hold my own against you in an
assembly of the citizens when I shall have exposed the iniquity of your
designs, the fraud of this law, the plots which your Tribunes of the
people, popular as they think themselves, have contrived against the
Roman people? Shall I fear--I who have determined to be Consul after
that fashion in which alone a man may do so in dignity and freedom,
reaching to ask nothing for myself which any Tribune could object to
have given to me?"[170]

This was to the Senate, but he is bolder still when he addresses the
people. He begins by reminding them that it has always been the custom
of the great officers of state, who have enjoyed the right of having in
their houses the busts and images of their ancestors, in their first
speech to the people to join with thanks for the favors done to
themselves some records of the noble deeds done by their forefathers.
[171] He, however, could do nothing of the kind: he had no such right:
none in his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself might
seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful. Therefore would he
restrain himself, but would still say something, so that he might
acknowledge what he had received. Then he would leave it for them to
judge whether he had deserved what they had done for him.

"It is long ago--almost beyond the memory of us now here--since you last
made a new man Consul.[172] That high office the nobles had reserved for
themselves, and defended it, as it were, with ramparts. You have secured
it for me, so that in future it shall be open to any who may be worthy
of it. Nor have you only made me a Consul, much as that is, but you have
done so in such a fashion that but few among the old nobles have been so
treated, and no new man--'novus ante me nemo.' I have, if you will think
of it, been the only new man who has stood for the Consulship in the
first year in which it was legal, and who has got it." Then he goes on
to remind them, in words which I have quoted before, that they had
elected him by their unanimous voices. All this, he says, had been very
grateful to him, but he had quite understood that it had been done that
he might labor on their behalf. That such labor was severe, he declares.
The Consulship itself must be defended. His period of Consulship to any
Consul must be a year of grave responsibility, but more so to him than
to any other. To him, should he be in doubt, the great nobles would give
no kind advice. To him, should he be overtasked, they would give no
assistance. But the first thing he would look for should be their good
opinion. To declare now, before the people, that he would exercise his
office for the good of the people was his natural duty. But in that
place, in which it was difficult to speak after such a fashion, in the
Senate itself, on the very first day of his Consulship, he had declared
the same thing--"popularem me futurum esse consulem."[173]

The course he had to pursue was noble, but very difficult. He desired,
certainly, to be recognized as a friend of the people, but he desired so
to befriend them that he might support also at the same time the power
of the aristocracy. He still believed, as we cannot believe now, that
there was a residuum of good in the Senate sufficient to blossom forth
into new powers of honest government. When speaking to the oligarchs in
the Senate of Rullus and his land law, it was easy enough to carry them
with him. That a Consul should oppose a Tribune who was coming forward
with a "Lex agraria" in his hands, as the latest disciple of the
Gracchi, was not out of the common order of things. Another Consul would
either have looked for popularity and increased power of plundering, as
Antony might have done, or have stuck to his order, as he would have
called it--as might have been the case with the Cottas, Lepiduses and
Pisos of preceding years. But Cicero determined to oppose the demagogue
Tribune by proving himself to the people to be more of a demagogue than
he. He succeeded, and Rullus with his agrarian law was sent back into
darkness. I regard the second speech against Rullus as the _ne plus
ultra_, the very _beau ideal_ of a political harangue to the people on
the side of order and good government.

I cannot finish this chapter, in which I have attempted to describe the
lesser operations of Cicero's Consulship, without again alluding to the
picture drawn by Virgil of a great man quelling the storms of a
seditious rising by the gravity of his presence and the weight of his
words.[174] The poet surely had in his memory some occasion in which had
taken place this great triumph of character and intellect combined. When
the knights, during Cicero's Consulship essayed to take their privileged
places in the public theatre, in accordance with a law passed by Roscius
Otho a few years earlier (B.C. 68), the founder of the obnoxious law
himself entered the building. The people, enraged against a man who had
interfered with them and their pleasures, and who had brought them, as
it were under new restraints from the aristocracy, arose in a body and
began to break everything that came to hand. "Tum pietate gravem!" The
Consul was sent for. He called on the people to follow him out of the
theatre to the Temple of Bellona, and there addressed to them that
wonderful oration by which they were sent away not only pacified but in
good-humor with Otho himself. "Iste regit dictis animos et pectora
mulcet." I have spoken of Pliny's eulogy as to the great Consul's doings
of the year. The passage is short and I will translate it:[175] "But,
Marcus Tullius, how shall I reconcile it to myself to be silent as to
you, or by what special glory shall I best declare your excellence? How
better than by referring to the grand testimony given to you by the
whole nation, and to the achievements of your Consulship as a specimen
of your entire life? At your voice the tribes gave up their agrarian
law, which was as the very bread in their mouths. At your persuasion
they pardoned Otho his law and bore with good-humor the difference of
the seats assigned to them. At your prayer the children of the
proscribed forbore from demanding their rights of citizenship. Catiline
was put to flight by your skill and eloquence. It was you who
silenced[176] M. Antony. Hail, thou who wert first addressed as the
father of your country--the first who, in the garb of peace, hast
deserved a triumph and won the laurel wreath of eloquence." This was
grand praise to be spoken of a man more than a hundred years after his
death, by one who had no peculiar sympathies with him other than those
created by literary affinity.

None of Cicero's letters have come to us from the year of his
Consulship.




CHAPTER IX

_CATILINE._


To wash the blackamoor white has been the favorite task of some modern
historians. To find a paradox in character is a relief to the
investigating mind which does not care to walk always in the well-tried
paths, or to follow the grooves made plain and uninteresting by earlier
writers. Tiberius and even Nero have been praised. The memories of our
early years have been shocked by instructions to regard Richard III. and
Henry VIII. as great and scrupulous kings. The devil may have been
painted blacker than he should be, and the minds of just men, who will
not accept the verdict of the majority, have been much exercised to put
the matter right. We are now told that Catiline was a popular hero;
that, though he might have wished to murder Cicero, he was, in
accordance with the practice of his days, not much to be blamed for
that; and that he was simply the follower of the Gracchi, and the
forerunner of Cæsar in his desire to oppose the oligarchy of Rome.[177]
In this there is much that is true. Murder was common. He who had seen
the Sullan proscriptions, as both Catiline and Cicero had done, might
well have learned to feel less scrupulous as to blood than we do in
these days. Even Cicero, who of all the Romans was the most humane--even
he, no doubt, would have been well contented that Catiline should have
been destroyed by the people.[178] Even he was the cause, as we shall
see just now, of the execution of the leaders of the conspirators whom
Catiline left behind him in the city--an execution of which the legality
is at any rate very doubtful. But in judging even of bloodshed we have
to regard the circumstances of the time in the verdicts we give. Our
consciousness of altered manners and of the growth of gentleness force
this upon us. We cannot execrate the conspirators who murdered Cæsar as
we would do those who might now plot the death of a tyrant; nor can we
deal as heavily with the murderers of Cæsar as we would have done then
with Catilinarian conspirators in Rome, had Catiline's conspiracy
succeeded. And so, too, in acknowledging that Catiline was the outcome
of the Gracchi, and to some extent the preparation for Cæsar, we must
again compare him with them, his motives and designs with theirs, before
we can allow ourselves to sympathize with him, because there was much in
them worthy of praise and honor.

That the Gracchi were seditious no historian has, I think, denied. They
were willing to use the usages and laws of the Republic where those
usages and laws assisted them, but as willing to act illegally when the
usages and laws ran counter to them. In the reforms or changes which
they attempted they were undoubtedly rebels; but no reader comes across
the tale of the death, first of one and then of the other, without a
regret. It has to be owned that they were murdered in tumults which they
themselves had occasioned. But they were honest and patriotic. History
has declared of them that their efforts were made with the real purport
of relieving their fellow-countrymen from what they believed to be the
tyranny of oligarchs. The Republic even in their time had become too
rotten to be saved; but the world has not the less given them the credit
for a desire to do good; and the names of the two brothers, rebels as
they were, have come down to us with a sweet savor about them. Cæsar, on
the other hand, was no doubt of the same political party. He too was
opposed to the oligarchs, but it never occurred to him that he could
save the Republic by any struggles after freedom. His mind was not given
to patriotism of that sort--not to memories, not to associations. Even
laws were nothing to him but as they might be useful. To his thinking,
probably even in his early days, the state of Rome required a master.
Its wealth, its pleasures, its soldiers, its power, were there for any
one to take who could take them--for any one to hold who could hold
them. Mr. Beesly, the last defender of Catiline, has stated that very
little was known in Rome of Cæsar till the time of Catiline's
conspiracy, and in that I agree with him. He possessed high family rank,
and had been Quæstor and Ædile; but it was only from this year out that
his name was much in men's mouths, and that he was learning to look into
things. It may be that he had previously been in league with
Catiline--that he was in league with him till the time came for the
great attempt. The evidence, as far as it goes, seems to show that it
was so. Rome had been the prey of many conspiracies. The dominion of
Marius and the dominion of Sulla had been effected by conspiracies. No
doubt the opinion was strong with many that both Cæsar and Crassus, the
rich man, were concerned with Catiline. But Cæsar was very far-seeing,
and, if such connection existed, knew how to withdraw from it when the
time was not found to be opportune. But from first to last he always was
opposed to the oligarchy. The various steps from the Gracchi to him were
as those which had to be made from the Girondists to Napoleon. Catiline,
no doubt, was one of the steps, as were Danton and Robespierre steps.
The continuation of steps in each case was at first occasioned by the
bad government and greed of a few men in power. But as Robespierre was
vile and low, whereas Vergniaud was honest and Napoleon great, so was it
with Catiline between the Gracchi and Cæsar. There is, to my thinking,
no excuse for Catiline in the fact that he was a natural step, not even
though he were a necessary step, between the Gracchi and Cæsar.

I regard as futile the attempts which are made to rewrite history on the
base of moral convictions and philosophical conclusion. History very
often has been, and no doubt often again will be, rewritten, with good
effect and in the service of truth, on the finding of new facts. Records
have been brought to light which have hitherto been buried, and
testimonies are compared with testimonies which have not before been seen
together. But to imagine that a man may have been good who has lain under
the ban of all the historians, all the poets, and all the tellers of
anecdotes, and then to declare such goodness simply in accordance with
the dictates of a generous heart or a contradictory spirit, is to disturb
rather than to assist history. Of Catiline we at least know that he
headed a sedition in Rome in the year of Cicero's Consulship; that he
left the city suddenly; that he was killed in the neighborhood of Pistoia
fighting against the Generals of the Republic, and that he left certain
accomplices in Rome who were put to death by an edict of the Senate. So
much I think is certain to the most truculent doubter. From his
contemporaries, Sallust and Cicero, we have a very strongly expressed
opinion of his character. They have left to us denunciations of the man
which have made him odious to all after-ages, so that modern poets have
made him a stock character, and have dramatized him as a fiend. Voltaire
has described him as calling upon his fellow-conspirators to murder
Cicero and Cato, and to burn the city. Ben Jonson makes Catiline kill a
slave and mix his blood, to be drained by his friends. "There cannot be a
fitter drink to make this sanction in." The friends of Catiline will say
that this shows no evidence against the man. None, certainly; but it is a
continued expression of the feeling that has prevailed since Catiline's
time. In his own age Cicero and Sallust, who were opposed in all their
political views, combined to speak ill of him. In the next, Virgil makes
him as suffering his punishment in hell.[179] In the next, Velleius
Paterculus speaks of him as the conspirator whom Cicero had
banished.[180] Juvenal makes various allusions to him, but all in the
same spirit. Juvenal cared nothing for history, but used the names of
well-known persons as illustrations of the idea which he was
presenting.[181] Valerius Maximus, who wrote commendable little essays
about all the virtues and all the vices, which he illustrated with the
names of all the vicious and all the virtuous people he knew, is very
severe on Catiline.[182] Florus, who wrote two centuries and a half after
the conspiracy, gives us of Catiline the same personal story as that told
both by Sallust and Cicero: "Debauchery, in the first place; and then the
poverty which that had produced; and then the opportunity of the time,
because the Roman armies were in distant lands, induced Catiline to
conspire for the destruction of his country."[183] Mommsen, who was
certainly biassed by no feeling in favor of Cicero, declares that
Catiline in particular was "one of the most nefarious men in that
nefarious age. His villanies belong to the criminal records, not to
history."[184] All this is no evidence. Cicero and Sallust may possibly
have combined to lie about Catiline. Other Roman writers may have
followed them, and modern poets and modern historians may have followed
the Roman writers. It is possible that the world may have been wrong as
to a period of Roman history with which it has thought itself to be well
acquainted; but the world now has nothing to go by but the facts as they
have come down to it. The writers of the ages since have combined to
speak of Cicero with respect and admiration. They have combined, also, to
speak of Catiline with abhorrence. They have agreed, also, to treat those
other rebels, the Gracchi, after such a fashion that, in spite of their
sedition, a sweet savor, as I have said, attaches itself to their names.
For myself, I am contented to take the opinion of the world, and feel
assured that I shall do no injustice in speaking of Catiline as all who
have written about him hitherto have spoken of him I cannot consent to
the building up of a noble patriot out of such materials as we have
concerning him.[185]

Two strong points have been made for Catiline in Mr. Beesly's defence.
His ancestors had been Consuls when the forefathers of patricians of a
later date "were clapping their chapped hands and throwing up their
sweaty nightcaps." That scorn against the people should be expressed by
the aristocrat Casca was well supposed by Shakspeare; but how did a
liberal of the present day bring himself to do honor to his hero by such
allusions? In truth, however, the glory of ancient blood and the
disgrace attaching to the signs of labor are ideas seldom relinquished
even by democratic minds. A Howard is nowhere lovelier than in America,
or a sweaty nightcap less relished. We are then reminded how Catiline
died fighting, with the wounds all in front; and are told that the
"world has generally a generous word for the memory of a brave man dying
for his cause, be that cause what it will; but for Catiline none!" I
think there is a mistake in the sentiment expressed here. To die readily
when death must come is but a little thing, and is done daily by the
poorest of mankind. The Romans could generally do it, and so can the
Chinese. A Zulu is quite equal to it, and people lower in civilization
than Chinese or Zulus. To encounter death, or the danger of death, for
the sake of duty--when the choice is there; but duty and death are
preferred to ignominious security, or, better still, to security which
shall bring with it self-abasement--that is grand. When I hear that a
man "rushed into the field and, foremost fighting, fell," if there have
been no adequate occasion, I think him a fool. If it be that he has
chosen to hurry on the necessary event, as was Catiline's case, I
recognize him as having been endowed with certain physical attributes
which are neither glorious nor disgraceful. That Catiline was
constitutionally a brave man no one has denied. Rush, the murderer, was
one of the bravest men of whom I remember to have heard. What credit is
due to Rush is due to Catiline.

What we believe to be the story of Catiline's life is this: In Sulla's
time he was engaged, as behooved a great nobleman of ancient blood, in
carrying out the Dictator's proscriptions and in running through
whatever means he had. There are fearful stories told of him as to
murdering his own son and other relatives; as to which Mr. Beesly is no
doubt right in saying that such tales were too lightly told in Rome to
deserve implicit confidence. To serve a purpose any one would say
anything of any enemy. Very marvellous qualities are attributed to
him--as to having been at the same time steeped in luxury and yet able
and willing to bear all bodily hardships. He probably had been engaged
in murders--as how should a man not have been so who had served under
Sulla during the Dictatorship? He had probably allured some young
aristocrats into debauchery, when all young aristocrats were so allured.
He had probably undergone some extremity of cold and hunger. In reading
of these things the reader will know by instinct how much he may
believe, and how much he should receive as mythic. That he was a fast
young nobleman, brought up to know no scruples, to disregard blood, and
to look upon his country as a milch cow from which a young nobleman
might be fed with never-ending streams of rich cream in the shape of
money to be borrowed, wealth to be snatched, and, above all, foreigners
to be plundered, we may take, I think, as proved. In spite of his vices,
or by aid of them, he rose in the service of his country. That such a
one should become a Prætor and a Governor was natural. He went to Africa
with proconsular authority, and of course fleeced the Africans. It was
as natural as that a flock of sheep should lose their wool at shearing
time. He came back intent, as was natural also, on being a Consul, and
of carrying on the game of promotion and of plunder. But there came a
spoke in his wheel--the not unusual spoke of an accusation from the
province. While under accusation for provincial robbery he could not
come forward as a candidate, and thus he was stopped in his career.

It is not possible now to unravel all the personal feuds of the
time--the ins and outs of family quarrels. Clodius--the Clodius who was
afterward Cicero's notorious enemy and the victim of Milo's fury--became
the accuser of Catiline on behalf of the Africans. Though Clodius was
much the younger, they were men of the same class. It may be possible
that Clodius was appointed to the work--as it had been intended that
Cæcilius should be appointed at the prosecution of Verres--in order to
assure not the conviction but the acquittal of the guilty man. The
historians and biographers say that Clodius was at last bought by a
bribe, and that he betrayed the Africans after that fashion. It may be
that such bribery was arranged from the first. Our interest in that
trial lies in the fact that Cicero no doubt intended, from political
motives, to defend Catiline. It has been said that he did do so. As far
as we know, he abandoned the intention. We have no trace of his speech,
and no allusion in history to an occurrence which would certainly have
been mentioned.[186] But there was _no_ reason why he should not have
done so. He defended Fonteius, and I am quite willing to own that he
knew Fonteius to have been a robber. When I look at the practice of our
own times, I find that thieves and rebels are defended by honorable
advocates, who do not scruple to take their briefs in opposition to
their own opinions. It suited Cicero to do the same. If I were detected
in a plot for blowing up a Cabinet Council, I do not doubt but that I
should get the late attorney-general to defend me.[187]

But Catiline, though he was acquitted, was balked in his candidature for
the Consulship of the next year, B.C. 65. P. Sulla and Autronius were
elected--that Sulla to whose subsequent defence I have just referred in
this note--but were ejected on the score of bribery, and two others,
Torquatus and Cotta, were elected in their place. In this way three men
standing on high before their countrymen--one having been debarred from
standing for the Consulship, and the other two having been robbed of
their prize even when it was within their grasp--not unnaturally became
traitors at heart. Almost as naturally they came together and conspired.
Why should they have been selected as victims, having only done that
which every aristocrat did as a matter of course in following out his
recognized profession in living upon the subject nations? Their conduct
had probably been the same as that of others, or if more glaring, only
so much so as is always the case with vices as they become more common.
However, the three men fell, and became the centre of a plot which is
known as the first Catiline conspiracy.

The reader must bear in mind that I am now telling the story of
Catiline, and going back to a period of two years before Cicero's
Consulship, which was B.C. 63. How during that year Cicero successfully
defended Murena when Cato endeavored to rob him of his coming
Consulship, has been already told. It may be that Murena's hands were no
cleaner than those of Sulla and Autronius, and that they lacked only the
consular authority and forensic eloquence of the advocate who defended
Murena. At this time, when the two appointed Consuls were rejected,
Cicero had hardly as yet taken any part in public politics. He had been
Quæstor, Ædile, and Prætor, filling those administrative offices to the
best of his ability. He had, he says, hardly heard of the first
conspiracy.[189] That what he says is true, is, I think, proved by the
absence of all allusion to it in his early letters, or in the speeches
or fragments of speeches that are extant. But that there was such a
conspiracy we cannot doubt, nor that the three men named, Catiline,
Sulla, and Autronius, were leaders in it. What would interest us, if
only we could have the truth, is whether Cæsar and Crassus were joined
in it.

It is necessary again to consider the condition of the Republic. To us a
conspiracy to subvert the government under which the conspirer lives
seems either a very terrible remedy for great evils, or an attempt to do
evil which all good men should oppose. We have the happy conspiracy in
which Washington became the military leader, and the French Revolution,
which, bloody as it was, succeeded in rescuing Frenchmen from the
condition of serfdom. At home we have our own conspiracy against the
Stuart royalty, which had also noble results. The Gracchi had attempted
to effect something of the same kind at Rome; but the moral condition of
the people had become so low that no real love of liberty remained.
Conspiracy! oh yes. As long as there was anything to get, of course he
who had not got it would conspire against him who had. There had been
conspiracies for and against Marius, for and against Cinna, for and
against Sulla. There was a grasping for plunder, a thirst for power
which meant luxury, a greed for blood which grew from the hatred which
such rivalry produced. These were the motive causes for conspiracies;
not whether Romans should be free but whether a Sulla or a Cotta should
be allowed to run riot in a province.

Cæsar at this time had not done much in the Roman world except fall
greatly into debt. Knowing, as we do know now, his immense intellectual
capacity, we cannot doubt but at the age he had now reached,
thirty-five, B.C. 65, he had considered deeply his prospects in life.
There is no reason for supposing that he had conceived the idea of being
a great soldier. That came to him by pure accident, some years
afterward. To be Quæstor, Prætor, and Consul, and catch what was going,
seems to have been the cause to him of having encountered extraordinary
debt. That he would have been a Verres, or a Fonteius, or a Catiline, we
certainly are not entitled to think. Over whatever people he might have
come to reign, and in whatever way he might have procured his kingdom,
he would have reigned with a far-seeing eye, fixed upon future results.
At this period he was looking out for a way to advance himself. There
were three men, all just six years his senior, who had risen or were
rising into great repute; they were Pompey, Cicero, and Catiline. There
were two who were noted for having clean hands in the midst of all the
dirt around; and they were undoubtedly the first Romans of the day.
Catiline was determined that he too would be among the first Romans of
the day; but his hands had never been clean. Which was the better way
for such a one as Cæsar to go?

To have had Pompey under his feet, or Cicero, must have then seemed to
Cæsar to be impracticable, though the time came when he did, in
different ways, have his feet on both. With Catiline the chance of
success might be better. Crassus he had already compassed. Crassus was
like M. Poirier in the play--a man who, having become rich, then allowed
himself the luxury of an ambition. If Cæsar joined the plot we can well
understand that Crassus should have gone with him. We have all but
sufficient authority for saying that it was so, but authority
insufficient for declaring it. That Sallust, in his short account of the
first conspiracy, should not have implicated Cæsar was a matter of
course,[190] as he wrote altogether in Cæsar's interest. That Cicero
should not have mentioned it is also quite intelligible. He did not wish
to pull down upon his ears the whole house of the aristocracy.
Throughout his career it was his object to maintain the tenor of the law
with what smallest breach of it might be possible; but he was wise
enough to know that when the laws were being broken on every side he
could not catch in his nets all those who broke them. He had to pass
over much; to make the best of the state of things as he found them. It
is not to be supposed that a conspirator against the Republic would be
horrible to him, as would be to us a traitor against the Crown: there
were too many of them for horror. If Cæsar and Crassus could be got to
keep themselves quiet, he would be willing enough not to have to add
them to his list of enemies. Livy is presumed to have told us that this
conspiracy intended to restore the ejected Consuls, and to kill the
Consuls who had been established in their place. But the book in which
this was written is lost, and we have only the Epitome, or heading of
the book, of which we know that it was not written by Livy.[191]
Suetonius, who got his story not improbably from Livy, tells us that
Cæsar was suspected of having joined this conspiracy with Crassus;[192]
and he goes on to say that Cicero, writing subsequently to one Axius,
declared that "Cæsar had attempted in his Consulship to accomplish the
dominion which he had intended to grasp in his Ædileship" the year in
question. There is, however, no such letter extant. Asconius, who, as I
have said before, wrote in the time of Tiberius, declares that Cicero in
his lost oration, "In toga candida," accused Crassus of having been the
author of the conspiracy. Such is the information we have; and if we
elect to believe that Cæsar was then joined with Catiline, we must be
guided by our ideas of probability rather than by evidence.[193] As I
have said before, conspiracies had been very rife. To Cæsar it was no
doubt becoming manifest that the Republic, with its oligarchs, must
fall. Subsequently it did fall, and he was--I will not say the
conspirator, nor will I judge the question by saying that he was the
traitor; but the man of power who, having the legions of the Republic in
his hands, used them against the Republic. I can well understand that he
should have joined such a conspiracy as this first of Catiline, and then
have backed out of it when he found he could not trust those who were
joined with him.

This conspiracy failed. One man omitted to give a signal at one time,
and another at another. The Senate was to have been slaughtered; the two
Consuls, Cotta and Torquatus, murdered, and the two ex-Consuls, Sulla
and Autronius, replaced. Though all the details seem to have been known
to the Consuls, Catiline was allowed to go free, nor were any steps
taken for the punishment of the conspirators.

The second conspiracy was attempted in the Consulship of Cicero, B.C.
63, two years after the first. Catiline had struggled for the
Consulship, and had failed. Again there would be no province, no
plunder, no power. This interference, as it must have seemed to him,
with his peculiar privileges, had all come from Cicero. Cicero was the
busybody who was attempting to stop the order of things which had, to
his thinking, been specially ordained by all the gods for the sustenance
of one so well born, and at the same time so poor, as himself. There was
a vulgar meddling about it--all coming from the violent virtue of a
Consul whose father had been a nobody at Arpinum--which was well
calculated to drive Catiline into madness. So he went to work and got
together in Rome a body of men as discontented and almost as nobly born
as himself, and in the country north of Rome an army of rebels, and
began his operations with very little secrecy. In all the story the most
remarkable feature is the openness with which many of the details of the
conspiracy were carried on. The existence of the rebel army was known;
it was known that Catiline was the leader; the causes of his
disaffection were known; his comrades in guilt were known When any
special act was intended, such as might be the murder of the Consul or
the firing of the city, secret plots were concocted in abundance. But
the grand fact of a wide-spread conspiracy could go naked in Rome, and
not even a Cicero dare to meddle with it.

[Sidenote: B.C. 63, ætat. 44.]

As to this second conspiracy, the conspiracy with which Sallust and
Cicero have made us so well acquainted, there is no sufficient ground
for asserting that Cæsar was concerned in it.[194] That he was greatly
concerned in the treatment of the conspirators there is no doubt. He had
probably learned to appreciate the rage, the madness, the impotence of
Catiline at their proper worth. He too, I think, must have looked upon
Cicero as a meddling, over-virtuous busybody; as did even Pompey when he
returned from the East. What practical use could there be in such a man
at such a time--in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of
liberty and the Republic, and imagined that he could set the world right
by talking? Such must have been the feeling of Cæsar, who had both
experience and foresight to tell him that Rome wanted and must have a
master. He probably had patriotism enough to feel that he, if he could
acquire the mastership, would do something beyond robbery--would not
satisfy himself with cutting the throats of all his enemies, and feeding
his supporters with the property of his opponents. But Cicero was
impracticable--unless, indeed, he could be so flattered as to be made
useful. It was thus, I think, that Cæsar regarded Cicero, and thus that
he induced Pompey to regard him. But now, in the year of his Consulship,
Cicero had really talked himself into power, and for this year his
virtue must be allowed to have its full way.

He did so much in this year, was so really efficacious in restraining
for a time the greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not
surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There were, too,
enough of others anxious for the Republic to bolster him up in his own
belief. There was that Cornelius in whose defence Cicero made the two
great speeches which have been unfortunately lost, and there was Cato,
and up to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero, till he
found himself candidate for the Consulship, had contented himself with
undertaking separate cases, in which, no doubt, politics were concerned,
but which were not exclusively political. He had advocated the
employment of Pompey in the East, and had defended Cornelius. He was
well acquainted with the history of the Republic; but he had probably
never asked himself the question whether it was in mortal peril, and if
so, whether it might possibly be saved. In his Consulship he did do so;
and, seeing less of the Republic than we can see now, told himself that
it was possible.

The stories told to us of Catiline's conspiracy by Sallust and by Cicero
are so little conflicting that we can trust them both. Trusting them
both, we are justified in believing that we know the truth. We are here
concerned only with the part which Cicero took. Nothing, I think, which
Cicero says is contradicted by Sallust, though of much that Cicero
certainly did Sallust is silent. Sallust damns him, but only by faint
praise. We may, therefore, take the account of the plot as given by
Cicero himself as verified: indeed, I am not aware that any of Cicero's
facts have been questioned.

Sallust declares that Catiline's attempt was popular in Rome
generally.[195] This, I think, must be taken as showing simply that
revolution and conspiracy were in themselves popular: that, as a
condition of things around him such as existed in Rome, a plotter of
state plots should be able to collect a body of followers, was a thing
of course; that there were many citizens who would not work, and who
expected to live in luxury on public or private plunder, is certain.
When the conspiracy was first announced in the Senate, Catiline had an
army collected; but we have no proof that the hearts of the inhabitants
of Rome generally were with the conspirators. On the other hand, we have
proof, in the unparalleled devotion shown by the citizens to Cicero
after the conspiracy was quelled, that their hearts were with him. The
populace, fond of change, liked a disturbance; but there is nothing to
show that Catiline was ever beloved as had been the Gracchi, and other
tribunes of the people who came after them.

Catiline, in the autumn of the year B.C. 63, had arranged the outside
circumstances of his conspiracy, knowing that he would, for the third
time, be unsuccessful in his canvass for the Consulship. That Cicero
with other Senators should be murdered seems to have been their first
object, and that then the Consulship should be seized by force. On the
21st of October Cicero made his first report to the Senate as to the
conspiracy, and called upon Catiline for his answer. It was then that
Catiline made his famous reply: "That the Republic had two bodies, of
which one was weak and had a bad head"--meaning the aristocracy, with
Cicero as its chief--"and the other strong, but without any head,"
meaning the people; "but that as for himself, so well had the people
deserved of him, that as long as he lived a head should be
forth-coming."[196] Then, at that sitting, the Senate decreed, in the
usual formula, "That the Consuls were to take care that the Republic did
not suffer."[197] On the 22d of October, the new Consuls, Silanus and
Murena, were elected. On the 23d, Catiline was regularly accused of
conspiracy by Paulus Lepidus, a young nobleman, in conformity with a law
which had been enacted fifty-five years earlier, "de vi publica," as to
violence applied to the State. Two days afterward it was officially
reported that Manlius--or Mallius, as he seems to have been generally
called--Catiline's lieutenant, had openly taken up arms in Etruria. The
27th had been fixed by the conspirators for the murder of Cicero and the
other Senators. That all this was to be, and was so arranged by
Catiline, had been declared in the Senate by Cicero himself on that day
when Catiline told them of the two bodies and the two heads. Cicero,
with his intelligence, ingenuity, and industry, had learned every
detail. There was one Curius among the conspirators, a fair specimen of
the young Roman nobleman of the day, who told it all to his mistress
Fulvia, and she carried the information to the Consul. It is all
narrated with fair dramatic accuracy in Ben Jonson's dull play, though
he has attributed to Cæsar a share in the plot, for doing which he had
no authority. Cicero, on that sitting in the Senate, had been specially
anxious to make Catiline understand that he knew privately every
circumstance of the plot. Throughout the whole conspiracy his object was
not to take Catiline, but to drive him out of Rome. If the people could
be stirred up to kill him in their wrath, that might be well; in that
way there might be an end of all the trouble. But if that did not come
to pass, then it would be best to make the city unbearable to the
conspirators. If they could be driven out, they must either take
themselves to foreign parts and be dispersed, or must else fight and
assuredly be conquered. Cicero himself was never blood-thirsty, but the
necessity was strong upon him of ridding the Republic from these
blood-thirsty men.

The scheme for destroying Cicero and the Senators on the 27th of October
had proved abortive. On the 6th of the next month a meeting was held in
the house of one Marcus Porcius Læca, at which a plot was arranged for
the killing of Cicero the next day--for the killing of Cicero alone--he
having been by this time found to be the one great obstacle in their
path. Two knights were told off for the service, named Vargunteius and
Cornelius. These, after the Roman fashion, were to make their way early
on the following morning into the Consul's bedroom for the ostensible
purpose of paying him their morning compliments, but, when there, they
were to slay him. All this, however, was told to Cicero, and the two
knights, when they came, were refused admittance. If Cicero had been a
man given to fear, as has been said of him, he must have passed a
wretched life at this period. As far as I can judge of his words and
doings throughout his life, he was not harassed by constitutional
timidity. He feared to disgrace his name, to lower his authority, to
become small in the eyes of men, to make political mistakes, to do that
which might turn against him. In much of this there was a falling off
from that dignity which, if we do not often find it in a man, we can all
of us imagine; but of personal dread as to his own skin, as to his own
life, there was very little. At this time, when, as he knew well, many
men with many weapons in their hands, men who were altogether
unscrupulous, were in search for his blood he never seems to have
trembled.

But all Rome trembled--even according to Sallust. I have already shown
how he declares in one part of his narrative that the common people as a
body were with Catiline, and have attempted to explain what was meant by
that expression. In another, in an earlier chapter, he says "that the
State," meaning the city, "was disturbed by all this, and its appearance
changed.[198] Instead of the joy and ease which had lately prevailed,
the effect of the long peace, a sudden sadness fell upon every one." I
quote the passage because that other passage has been taken as proving
the popularity of Catiline. There can, I think, be no doubt that the
population of Rome was, as a body, afraid of Catiline. The city was to
be burnt down, the Consuls and the Senate were to be murdered, debts
were to be wiped out, slaves were probably to be encouraged against
their masters. The "permota civitas" and the "cuncta plebes," of which
Sallust speaks, mean that all the "householders" were disturbed, and
that all the "roughs" were eager with revolutionary hopes.

On the 8th of November, the day after that on which the Consul was to
have been murdered in his own house, he called a special meeting of the
Senate in the temple of Jupiter Stator. The Senate in Cicero's time was
convened according to expedience, or perhaps as to the dignity of the
occasion, in various temples. Of these none had a higher reputation than
that of the special Jupiter who is held to have befriended Romulus in
his fight with the Sabines. Here was launched that thunderbolt of
eloquence which all English school-boys have known for its "Quousque
tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra." Whether it be from the awe
which has come down to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with
something of dread for the great pedagogue who first made the words to
sound grandly in my ears, or whether true critical judgment has since
approved to me the real weight of the words, they certainly do contain
for my intelligence an expression of almost divine indignation. Then
there follows a string of questions, which to translate would be vain,
which to quote, for those who read the language, is surely unnecessary.
It is said to have been a fault with Cicero that in his speeches he runs
too much into that vein of wrathful interrogation which undoubtedly
palls upon us in English oratory when frequent resort is made to it. It
seems to be too easy, and to contain too little of argument. It was
this, probably, of which his contemporaries complained when they
declared him to be florid, redundant, and Asiatic in his style.[199]
This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech, but the reader
cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in reference to the matter in
hand. Catiline was sitting there himself in the Senate, and the
questions were for the most part addressed to him. We can see him now, a
man of large frame, with bold, glaring eyes, looking in his wrath as
though he were hardly able to keep his hands from the Consul's throat,
even there in the Senate. Though he knew that this attack was to be made
on him, he had stalked into the temple and seated himself in a place of
honor, among the benches intended for those who had been Consuls. When
there, no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The consular Senators
shrunk away, leaving their places of privilege. Even his
brother-conspirators, of whom many were present, did not dare to
recognize him. Lentulus was no doubt there, and Cethegus, and two of the
Sullan family, and Cassius Longinus, and Autronius, and Læca, and
Curius. All of them were or had been conspirators in the same cause.
Cæsar was there too, and Crassus. A fellow conspirator with Catiline
would probably be a Senator. Cicero knew them all. We cannot say that in
this matter Cæsar was guilty, but Cicero, no doubt, felt that Cæsar's
heart was with Catiline. It was his present task so to thunder with his
eloquence that he should turn these bitter enemies into seeming
friends--to drive Catiline from out of the midst of them, so that it
should seem that he had been expelled by those who were in truth his
brother-conspirators; and this it was that he did.

He declared the nature of the plot, and boldly said that, such being the
facts, Catiline deserved death. "If," he says, "I should order you to be
taken and killed, believe me I should be blamed rather for my delay in
doing so than for my cruelty." He spoke throughout as though all the
power were in his own hands, either to strike or to forbear. But it was
his object to drive him out and not to kill him. "Go," he said; "that
camp of yours and Mallius, your lieutenant, are too long without you.
Take your friends with you. Take them all. Cleanse the city of your
presence. When its walls are between you and me then I shall feel myself
secure. Among us here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not have
it--I will not endure it. If I were to suffer you to be killed, your
followers in the conspiracy would remain here; but if you go out, as I
desire you, this cesspool of filth will drain itself off from out the
city. Do you hesitate to do at my command that which you would fain do
yourself? The Consul requires an enemy to depart from the city. Do you
ask me whether you are to go into exile? I do not order it; but if you
ask my counsel, I advise it." Exile was the severest punishment known by
the Roman law, as applicable to a citizen, and such a punishment it was
in the power of no Consul or other officer of state to inflict. Though
he had taken upon himself the duty of protecting the Republic, still he
could not condemn a citizen. It was to the moral effect of his words
that he must trust: "Non jubeo, sed si me consulis, suadeo." Catiline
heard him to the end, and then, muttering a curse, left the Senate, and
went out of the city. Sallust tells us that he threatened to extinguish,
in the midst of the general ruin he would create, the flames prepared
for his own destruction. Sallust, however, was not present on the
occasion, and the threat probably had been uttered at an earlier period
of Catiline's career. Cicero tells us expressly, in one of his
subsequent works, that Catiline was struck dumb.[200]

Of this first Catiline oration Sallust says, that "Marcus Tullius the
Consul, either fearing the presence of the man, or stirred to anger,
made a brilliant speech, very useful to the Republic."[201] This, coming
from an enemy, is stronger testimony to the truth of the story told by
Cicero, than would have been any vehement praise from the pen of a
friend.

Catiline met some of his colleagues the same night. They were the very
men who as Senators had been present at his confusion, and to them he
declared his purpose of going. There was nothing to be done in the city
by him. The Consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was too
closely watched for personal action. He would join the army at Fæsulæ
and then return and burn the city. His friends, Lentulus, Cethegus, and
the others, were to remain and be ready for fire and slaughter as soon
as Catiline with his army should appear before the walls. He went, and
Cicero had been so far successful.

But these men, Lentulus, Cethegus, and the other Senators, though they
had not dared to sit near Catiline in the Senate, or to speak a word to
him, went about their work zealously when evening had come. A report was
spread among the people that the Consul had taken upon himself to drive
a citizen into exile. Catiline, the ill-used Catiline--Catiline, the
friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseilles in order that
he might escape the fury of the tyrant Consul. In this we see the
jealousy of Romans as to the infliction of any punishment by an
individual officer on a citizen. It was with a full knowledge of what
was likely to come that Cicero had ironically declared that he only
advised the conspirator to go. The feeling was so strong that on the
next morning he found himself compelled to address the people on the
subject. Then was uttered the second Catiline oration, which was spoken
in the open air to the citizens at large. Here too there are words,
among those with which he began his speech, almost as familiar to us as
the "Quousque tandem"--"Abiit; excessit; evasit; erupit!" This Catiline,
says Cicero, this pest of his country, raging in his madness, I have
turned out of the city. If you like it better, I have expelled him by my
very words. "He has departed. He has fled. He has gone out from among
us. He has broken away!" "I have made this conspiracy plain to you all,
as I said I would, unless indeed there may be some one here who does not
believe that the friends of Catiline will do the same as Catiline would
have done. But there is no time now for soft measures. We have to be
strong-handed. There is one thing I will do for these men. Let them too
go out, so that Catiline shall not pine for them. I will show them the
road. He has gone by the Via Aurelia. If they will hurry they may catch
him before night." He implies by this that the story about Marseilles
was false. Then he speaks with irony of himself as that violent Consul
who could drive citizens into exile by the very breath of his mouth.
"Ego vehemens ille consul qui verbo cives in exsilium ejicio." So he
goes on, in truth defending himself, but leading them with him to take
part in the accusation which he intends to bring against the chief
conspirators who remain in the city. If they too will go, they may go
unscathed; if they choose to remain, let them look to themselves.

Through it all we can see there is but one thing that he fears--that he
shall be driven by the exigencies of the occasion to take some steps
which shall afterward be judged not to have been strictly legal, and
which shall put him into the power of his enemies when the day of his
ascendency shall have passed away. It crops out repeatedly in these
speeches.[202] He seems to be aware that some over-strong measure will
be forced upon him for which he alone will be held responsible. If he
can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else; if he cannot avoid it,
he will encounter even that danger. His foresight was wonderfully
accurate. The strong hand was used, and the punishment came upon him,
not from his enemies but from his friends, almost to the bursting of his
heart.

Though the Senate had decreed that the Consuls were to see that the
Republic should take no harm, and though it was presumed that
extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it is evident that no power
was conferred of inflicting punishment. Antony, as Cicero's colleague,
was nothing. The authority, the responsibility, the action were, and
were intended, to remain with Cicero. He could not legally banish any
one. It was only too evident that there must be much slaughter. There
was the army of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight. Let
them go, these rebels within the city, and either join the army and get
themselves killed, or else disappear, whither they would, among the
provinces. The object of this second Catiline oration, spoken to the
people, was to convince the remaining conspirators that they had better
go, and to teach the citizens generally that in giving such counsel he
was "banishing" no one. As far as the citizens were concerned he was
successful; but he did not induce the friends of Catiline to follow
their chief. This took place on the 9th of November. After the oration
the Senate met again, and declared Catiline and Mallius to be public
enemies.

Twenty-four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken--twenty-four
days during which Rome must have been in a state of very great fever.
Cicero was actively engaged in unravelling the plots the details of
which were still being carried on within the city; but nevertheless he
made that speech for Murena before the judicial bench of which I gave an
account in the last chapter, and also probably another for Piso, of
which we have nothing left. We cannot but marvel that he should have
been able at such a time to devote his mind to such subjects, and
carefully to study all the details of legal cases. It was only on
October 21st that Murena had been elected Consul; and yet on the 20th of
November Cicero defended him with great skill on a charge of bribery.
There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness, a drollery about this
speech which appears to be almost incompatible with the stern, absorbing
realities and great personal dangers in the midst of which he was
placed; but the agility of his mind was such that there appears to have
been no difficulty to him in these rapid changes.

On the same day, the 20th of November, when Cicero was defending Murena,
the plot was being carried on at the house of a certain Roman lady named
Sempronia. It was she of whom Sallust said that she danced better than
became an honest woman. If we can believe Sallust, she was steeped in
luxury and vice. At her house a most vile project was hatched for
introducing into Rome Rome's bitterest foreign foes. There were in the
city at this time certain delegates from a people called the Allobroges,
who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The Allobroges were of Gaulish
race. They were warlike, angry, and at the present moment peculiarly
discontented with Rome. There had been certain injuries, either real or
presumed, respecting which these delegates had been sent to the city.
There they had been delayed, and fobbed off with official replies which
gave no satisfaction, and were supposed to be ready to do any evil
possible to the Republic. What if they could be got to go back suddenly
to their homes, and bring a legion of red-haired Gauls to assist the
conspirators in burning down Rome? A deputation from the delegates came
to Sempronia's house and there met the conspirators--Lentulus and
others. They entered freely into the project; but having, as was usual
with foreign embassies at Rome, a patron or peculiar friend of their own
among the aristocracy, one Fabius Sanga by name, they thought it well to
consult him.[203] Sanga, as a matter of course, told everything to our
astute Consul.

Then the matter was arranged with more than all the craft of a modern
inspector of police. The Allobroges were instructed to lend themselves
to the device, stipulating, however, that they should have a written
signed authority which they could show to their rulers at home. The
written signed documents were given to them. With certain conspirators
to help them out of the city they were sent upon their way. At a bridge
over the Tiber they were stopped by Cicero's emissaries. There was a
feigned fight, but no blood was shed; and the ambassadors with their
letters were brought home to the Consul.

We are astonished at the marvellous folly of these conspirators, so that
we could hardly have believed the story had it not been told alike by
Cicero and by Sallust, and had not allusion to the details been common
among later writers.[204] The ambassadors were taken at the Milvian
bridge early on the morning of the 3d of December, and in the course of
that day Cicero sent for the leaders of the conspiracy to come to him.
Lentulus, who was then Prætor, Cethegus, Gabinius, and Statilius all
obeyed the summons. They did not know what had occurred, and probably
thought that their best hope of safety lay in compliance. Cæparius was
also sent for, but he for the moment escaped--in vain; for before two
days were over he had been taken and put to death with the others.
Cicero again called the Senate together, and entered the meeting leading
the guilty Prætor by the hand. Here the offenders were examined and
practically acknowledged their guilt. The proofs against them were so
convincing that they could not deny it. There were the signatures of
some; arms were found hidden in the house of another. The Senate decreed
that the men should be kept in durance till some decision as to their
fate should have been pronounced. Each of them was then given in custody
to some noble Roman of the day. Lentulus the Prætor was confided to the
keeping of a Censor, Cethegus to Cornificius, Statilius to Cæsar,
Gabinius to Crassus, and Cæparius, who had not fled very far before he
was taken, to one Terentius. We can imagine how willingly would Crassus
and Cæsar have let their men go, had they dared. But Cicero was in the
ascendant. Cæsar, whom we can imagine to have understood that the hour
had not yet come for putting an end to the effete Republic, and to have
perceived also that Catiline was no fit helpmate for him in such a work,
must bide his time, and for the moment obey. That he was inclined to
favor the conspirators there is no doubt; but at present he could
befriend them only in accordance with the law. The Allobroges were
rewarded. The Prætors in the city who had assisted Cicero were thanked.
To Cicero himself a supplication was decreed. A supplication was, in its
origin, a thanksgiving to the gods on account of a victory, but had come
to be an honor shown to the General who had gained the victory. In this
case it was simply a means of adding glory to Cicero, and was peculiar,
as hitherto the reward had only been conferred for military
service.[205] Remembering that, we can understand what at the time must
have been the feeling in Rome as to the benefits conferred by the
activity and patriotism of the Consul.

On the evening of the same day, the 3d of December, Cicero again
addressed the people, explaining to them what he had done, and what he
had before explained in the Senate. This was the third Catiline speech,
and for rapid narrative is perhaps surpassed by nothing that he ever
spoke. He explains again the motives by which he had been actuated; and
in doing so extols the courage, the sagacity, the activity of Catiline,
while he ridicules the folly and the fury of the others.[206] Had
Catiline remained, he says, we should have been forced to fight with him
here in the city; but with Lentulus the sleepy, and Cassius the fat, and
Cethegus the mad, it has been comparatively easy to deal. It was on this
account that he had got rid of him, knowing that their presence would do
no harm. Then he reminds the people of all that the gods have done for
them, and addresses them in language which makes one feel that they did
believe in their gods. It is one instance, one out of many which history
and experience afford us, in which an honest and a good man has
endeavored to use for salutary purposes a faith in which he has not
himself participated. Does the bishop of to-day, when he calls upon his
clergy to pray for fine weather, believe that the Almighty will change
the ordained seasons, and cause his causes to be inoperative because
farmers are anxious for their hay or for their wheat? But he feels that
when men are in trouble it is well that they should hold communion with
the powers of heaven. So much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke
as he did on this occasion. As to his own religious views, I shall say
something in a future chapter.

Then in a passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly
in accordance with our idea of the manner in which a man should speak of
himself, he explains his own ambition: "For all which, my
fellow-countrymen, I ask for no other recompense, no ornament or honor,
no monument but that this day may live in your memories. It is within
your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh my triumph, my glory,
the trophies of my exploits. No silent, voiceless statue, nothing which
can be bestowed upon the worthless, can give me delight. Only by your
remembrance can my fortunes be nurtured--by your good words, by the
records which you shall cause to be written, can they be strengthened
and perpetuated. I do think that this day, the memory of which, I trust,
may be eternal, will be famous in history because the city has been
preserved, and because my Consulship has been glorious."[207] He ends
the paragraph by an allusion to Pompey, admitting Pompey to a
brotherhood of patriotism and praise. We shall see how Pompey repaid
him.

How many things must have been astir in his mind when he spoke those
words of Pompey! In the next sentence he tells the people of his own
danger. He has taken care of their safety; it is for them to take care
of his.[208] But they, these Quirites, these Roman citizens, these
masters of the world, by whom everything was supposed to be governed,
could take care of no one; certainly not of themselves, as certainly not
of another. They could only vote, now this way and now that, as somebody
might tell them, or more probably as somebody might pay them. Pompey was
coming home, and would soon be the favorite. Cicero must have felt that
he had deserved much of Pompey, but was by no means sure that the debt
of gratitude would be paid.

Now we come to the fourth or last Catiline oration, which was made to
the Senate, convened on the 5th of December with the purpose of deciding
the fate of the leading conspirators who were held in custody. We learn
to what purport were three of the speeches made during this
debate--those of Cæsar and of Cato and of Cicero. The first two are
given to us by Sallust, but we can hardly think that we have the exact
words. The Cæsarean spirit which induced Sallust to ignore altogether
the words of Cicero would have induced him to give his own
representation of the other two, even though we were to suppose that he
had been able to have them taken down by short-hand writers--Cicero's
words, we have no doubt, with such polishing as may have been added to
the short-hand writers' notes by Tiro, his slave and secretary. The
three are compatible each with the other, and we are entitled to believe
that we know the line of argument used by the three orators.

Silanus, one of the Consuls elect, began the debate by counselling
death. We may take it for granted that he had been persuaded by Cicero
to make this proposition. During the discussion he trembled at the
consequences, and declared himself for an adjournment of their decision
till they should have dealt with Catiline. Murena, the other Consul
elect, and Catulus, the Prince of the Senate,[209] spoke for death.
Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor, made that
proposition for adjournment to which Silanus gave way. Then--or I should
rather say in the course of the debate, for we do not know who else may
have spoken--Cæsar got up and made his proposition. His purpose was to
save the victims, but he knew well that, with such a spirit abroad as
that existing in the Senate and the city, he could only do so not by
absolving but by condemning. Wicked as these men might be, abominably
wicked it was, he said, for the Senate to think of their own dignity
rather than of the enormity of the crime. As they could not, he
suggested, invent any new punishment adequate to so abominable a crime,
it would be better that they should leave the conspirators to be dealt
with by the ordinary laws. It was thus that, cunningly, he threw out the
idea that as Senators they had no power of death. He did not dare to
tell them directly that any danger would menace them, but he exposed the
danger skilfully before their eyes. "Their crimes," he says again,
"deserve worse than any torture you can inflict. But men generally
recollect what comes last. When the punishment is severe, men will
remember the severity rather than the crime." He argues all this
extremely well. The speech is one of great ingenuity, whether the words
be the words of Sallust or of Cæsar. We may doubt, indeed, whether the
general assertion he made as to death had much weight with the Senators
when he told them that death to the wicked was a relief, whereas life
was a lasting punishment; but when he went on to remind them of the Lex
Porcia, by which the power of punishing a Roman citizen, even under the
laws, was limited to banishment, unless by a plebiscite of the people
generally ordering death, then he was efficacious. He ended by proposing
that the goods of the conspirators should be sold, and that the men
should be condemned to imprisonment for life, each in some separate
town. This would, I believe, have been quite as illegal as the
death-sentence, but it would not have been irrevocable. The Senate, or
the people, in the next year could have restored to the men their
liberty, and compensated them for their property. Cicero was determined
that the men should die. They had not obeyed him by leaving the city,
and he was convinced that while they lived the conspiracy would live
also. He fully understood the danger, and resolved to meet it. He
replied to Cæsar, and with infinite skill refrained from the expression
of any strong opinion, while he led his hearers to the conviction that
death was necessary. For himself he had been told of his danger; "but if
a man be brave in his duty death cannot be disgraceful to him; to one
who had reached the honors of the Consulship it could not be premature;
to no wise man could it be a misery." Though his brother, though his
wife, though his little boy, and his daughter just married were warning
him of his peril, not by all that would he be influenced. "Do you," he
says, "Conscript Fathers, look to the safety of the Republic. These are
not the Gracchi, nor Saturninus, who are brought to you for
judgment--men who broke the laws, indeed, and therefore suffered death,
but who still were not unpatriotic. These men had sworn to burn the
city, to slay the Senate, to force Catiline upon you as a ruler. The
proofs of this are in your own hands. It was for me, as your Consul, to
bring the facts before you. Now it is for you, at once, before night, to
decide what shall be done. The conspirators are very many; it is not
only with these few that you are dealing. On whatever you decide, decide
quickly. Cæsar tells you of the Sempronian law[210]--the law, namely,
forbidding the death of a Roman citizen--but can he be regarded as a
citizen who has been found in arms against the city?" Then there is a
fling at Cæsar's assumed clemency, showing us that Cæsar had already
endeavored to make capital out of that virtue which he displayed
afterward so signally at Alesia and Uxellodunum. Then again he speaks of
himself in words so grand that it is impossible but to sympathize with
him: "Let Scipio's name be glorious--he by whose wisdom and valor
Hannibal was forced out of Italy. Let Africanus be praised loudly, who
destroyed Carthage and Numantia, the two cities which were most hostile
to Rome. Let Paulus be regarded as great--he whose triumph that great
King Perses adorned. Let Marius be held in undying honor, who twice
saved Italy from foreign yoke. Let Pompey be praised above all, whose
noble deeds are as wide as the sun's course. Perhaps among them there
may be a spot, too, for me; unless, indeed, to win provinces to which we
may take ourselves in exile is more than to guard that city to which the
conquerors of provinces may return in safety." The last words of the
orator also are fine: "Therefore, Conscript Fathers, decide wisely and
without fear. Your own safety, and that of your wives and children, that
of your hearths and altars, the temples of your gods, the homes
contained in your city, your liberty, the welfare of Italy and of the
whole Republic are at stake. It is for you to decide. In me you have a
Consul who will obey your decrees, and will see that they be made to
prevail while the breath of life remains to him." Cato then spoke
advocating death, and the Senate decreed that the men should die. Cicero
himself led Lentulus down to the vaulted prison below, in which
executioners were ready for the work, and the other four men were made
to follow. A few minutes afterward, in the gleaming of the evening, when
Cicero was being led home by the applauding multitude, he was asked
after the fate of the conspirators. He answered them but by one word
"Vixerunt"--there is said to have been a superstition with the Romans as
to all mention of death--"They have lived their lives."

As to what was being done outside Rome with the army of conspirators in
Etruria, it is not necessary for the biographer of Cicero to say much.
Catiline fought, and died fighting. The conspiracy was then over. On the
31st of December Cicero retired from his office, and Catiline fell at
the battle of Pistoia on the 5th of January following, B.C. 62.

A Roman historian writing in the reign of Tiberius has thought it worth
his while to remind us that a great glory was added to Cicero's consular
year by the birth of Augustus--him who afterward became Augustus
Cæsar.[211] Had a Roman been living now, he might be excused for saying
that it was an honor to Augustus to have been born in the year of
Cicero's Consulship.




CHAPTER X.

_CICERO AFTER HIS CONSULSHIP._


The idea that the great Consul had done illegally in putting citizens to
death was not allowed to lie dormant even for a day. It must be
remembered that a decree of the Senate had no power as a law. The laws
could be altered, or even a new law made, only by the people. Such was
the constitution of the Republic. Further on, when Cicero will appeal
as, in fact, on trial for the offence so alleged to have been committed,
I shall have to discuss the matter; but the point was raised against
him, even in the moment of his triumph, as he was leaving the
Consulship. The reiteration of his self-praise had created for him many
enemies. It had turned friends against him, and had driven men even of
his own party to ask themselves whether all this virtue was to be
endured. When a man assumes to be more just than his neighbors there
will be many ways found of throwing in a shell against him. It was
customary for a Consul when he vacated his office to make some
valedictory speech. Cicero was probably expected to take full advantage
of the opportunity. From other words which have come from him, on other
occasions but on the same subject, it would not be difficult to compose
such a speech as he might have spoken. But there were those who were
already sick of hearing him say that Rome had been saved by his
intelligence and courage. We can imagine what Cæsar might have said
among his friends of the expediency of putting down this self-laudatory
Consul. As it was, Metellus Nepos, one of the Tribunes, forbade the
retiring officer to do more than take the oath usual on leaving office,
because he had illegally inflicted death upon Roman citizens. Metellus,
as Tribune, had the power of stopping any official proceeding. We hear
from Cicero himself that he was quite equal to the occasion. He swore,
on the spur of the moment, a solemn oath, not in accordance with the
form common to Consuls on leaving office, but to the effect that during
his Consulship Rome had been saved by his work alone.[212] We have the
story only as it is told by Cicero himself, who avers that the people
accepted the oath as sworn with exceeding praise.[213] That it was so we
may, I think, take as true. There can be no doubt as to Cicero's
popularity at this moment, and hardly a doubt also as to the fact that
Metellus was acting in agreement with Cæsar, and also in accord with the
understood feelings of Pompey, who was absent with his army in the East.
This Tribune had been till lately an officer under Pompey, and went into
office together with Cæsar, who in that year became Prætor. This,
probably, was the beginning of the party which two years afterward
formed the first Triumvirate, B.C. 60. It was certainly now, in the year
succeeding the Consulship of Cicero, that Cæsar, as Prætor, began his
great career.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]

It becomes manifest to us, as we read the history of the time, that the
Dictator of the future was gradually entertaining the idea that the old
forms of the Republic were rotten, and that any man who intended to
exercise power in Rome or within the Roman Empire must obtain it and
keep it by illegal means. He had probably adhered to Catiline's first
conspiracy, but only with such moderate adhesion as enabled him to
withdraw when he found that his companions were not fit for the work. It
is manifest that he sympathized with the later conspiracy, though it may
be doubted whether he himself had ever been a party to it. When the
conspiracy had been crushed by Cicero, he had given his full assent to
the crushing of it. We have seen how loudly he condemned the wickedness
of the conspirators in his endeavor to save their lives. But, through it
all, there was a well-grounded conviction in his mind that Cicero, with
all his virtues, was not practical. Not that Cicero was to him the same
as Cato, who with his Stoic grandiloquence must, to his thinking, have
been altogether useless. Cicero, though too virtuous for supreme rule,
too virtuous to seize power and hold it, too virtuous to despise as
effete the institutions of the Republic, was still a man so gifted, and
capable in so many things, as to be very great as an assistant, if he
would only condescend to assist. It is in this light that Cæsar seems to
have regarded Cicero as time went on; admiring him, liking him, willing
to act with him if it might be possible, but not the less determined to
put down all the attempts at patriotic republican virtue in which the
orator delighted to indulge. Mr. Forsyth expresses an opinion that
Cæsar, till he crossed the Rubicon after his ten years' fighting in
Gaul, had entertained no settled plan of overthrowing the Constitution.
Probably not; nor even then. It may be doubted whether Cæsar ever spoke
to himself of overthrowing the Constitution. He came gradually to see
that power and wealth were to be obtained by violent action, and only by
violent action. He had before him the examples of Marius and Sulla, both
of whom had enjoyed power and had died in their beds. There was the
example, also, of others who, walking unwarily in those perilous times,
had been banished as was Verres, or killed as was Catiline. We can
easily understand that he, with his great genius, should have
acknowledged the need both of courage and caution. Both were exercised
when he consented to be absent from Rome, and almost from Italy, during
the ten years of the Gallic wars. But this, I think, is certain, that
from the time in which his name appears prominent--from the period,
namely, of the Catiline conspiracy--he had determined not to overthrow
the Constitution, but so to carry himself, amid the great affairs of the
day, as not to be overthrown himself.

Of what nature was the intercourse between him and Pompey when Pompey
was still absent in the East we do not know; but we can hardly doubt
that some understanding had begun to exist. Of this Cicero was probably
aware. Pompey was the man whom Cicero chose to regard as his
party-leader, not having himself been inured to the actual politics of
Rome early enough in life to put himself forward as the leader of his
party. It had been necessary for him, as a "novus homo," to come forward
and work as an advocate, and then as an administrative officer of the
State, before he took up with politics. That this was so I have shown by
quoting the opening words of his speech Pro Lege Manilia. Proud as he
was of the doings of his Consulship, he was still too new to his work to
think that thus he could claim to stand first. Nor did his ambition lead
him in that direction. He desired personal praise rather than personal
power. When in the last Catiline oration to the people he speaks of the
great men of the Republic--of the two Scipios, and of Paulus Æmilius and
of Marius--he adds the name of Pompey to these names; or gives, rather,
to Pompey greater glory than to any of them; "Anteponatur omnibus
Pompeius." This was but a few days before Metellus as Tribune had
stopped him in his speech--at the instigation, probably, of Cæsar, and
in furtherance of Pompey's views. Pompey and Cæsar could agree, at any
rate, in this--that they did not want such a one as Cicero to interfere
with them.

All of which Cicero himself perceived. The specially rich province of
Macedonia, which would have been his had he chosen to take it on
quitting the Consulship, he made over to Antony--no doubt as a bribe, as
with us one statesman may resign a special office to another to keep
that other from kicking over the traces. Then Gaul became his province,
as allotted--Cisalpine Gaul, as northern Italy was then called; a
province less rich in plunder and pay than Macedonia. But Cicero wanted
no province, and had contrived that this should be confided to Metellus
Celer, the brother of Nepos, who, having been Prætor when he himself was
Consul, was entitled to a government. This too was a political bribe. If
courtesy to Cæsar, if provinces given up here and there to Antonys and
Metelluses, if flattery lavished on Pompey could avail anything, he
could not afford to dispense with such aids. It all availed nothing.
From this time forward, for the twenty years which were to run before
his death, his life was one always of trouble and doubt, often of
despair, and on many occasions of actual misery. The source of this was
that Pompey whom, with divine attributes, he had extolled above all
other Romans.

The first extant letter written by Cicero after his Consulship was
addressed to Pompey.[214] Pompey was still in the East, but had
completed his campaigns against Mithridates successfully. Cicero begins
by congratulating him, as though to do so were the purpose of his
letter. Then he tells the victorious General that there were some in
Rome not so well pleased as he was at these victories. It is supposed
that he alluded here to Cæsar; but, if so, he probably misunderstood the
alliance which was already being formed between Cæsar and Pompey. After
that comes the real object of the epistle. He had received letters from
Pompey congratulating him in very cold language as to the glories of his
Consulship. He had expected much more than that from the friend for whom
he had done so much. Still, he thanks his friend, explaining that the
satisfaction really necessary to him was the feeling that he had behaved
well to his friend. If his friend were less friendly to him in return,
then would the balance of friendship be on his side. If Pompey were not
bound to him, Cicero, by personal gratitude, still would he be bound by
necessary co-operation in the service of the Republic. But, lest Pompey
should misunderstand him, he declares that he had expected warmer
language in reference to his Consulship, which he believes to have been
withheld by Pompey lest offence should be given to some third person. By
this he means Cæsar, and those who were now joining themselves to Cæsar.
Then he goes on to warn him as to the future: "Nevertheless, when you
return, you will find that my actions have been of such a nature that,
even though you may loom larger than Scipio, I shall be found worthy to
be accepted as your Lælius."[215]

Infinite care had been given to the writing of this letter, and sharp
had been the heart-burnings which dictated it. It was only by asserting
that he, on his own part, was satisfied with his own fidelity as a
friend, that Cicero could express his dissatisfaction at Pompey's
coldness. It was only by continuing to lavish upon Pompey such flattery
as was contained in the reference to Scipio, in which a touch of subtle
irony is mixed with the flattery, that he could explain the nature of
the praise which had, he thought, been due to himself. There is
something that would have been abject in the nature of these
expressions, had it not been Roman in the excess of the adulation. But
there is courage in the letter, too, when he tells his correspondent
what he believes to have been the cause of the coldness of which he
complains: "Quod verere ne cujus animum offenderes"--"Because you fear
lest you should give offence to some one." But let me tell you, he goes
on to say, that my Consulship has been of such a nature that you,
Scipio, as you are, must admit me as your friend.

In these words we find a key to the whole of Cicero's connection with
the man whom he recognizes as his political leader. He was always
dissatisfied with Pompey; always accusing Pompey in his heart of
ingratitude and insincerity; frequently speaking to Atticus with bitter
truth of the man's selfishness and incapacity, even of his cruelty and
want of patriotism; nicknaming him because of his absurdities; declaring
of him that he was minded to be a second Sulla; but still clinging to
him as the political friend and leader whom he was bound to follow. In
their earlier years, when he could have known personally but little of
Pompey, because Pompey was generally absent from Rome, he had taken it
into his head to love the man. He had been called "Magnus;" he had been
made Consul long before the proper time; he had been successful on
behalf of the Republic, and so far patriotic. He had hitherto adhered to
the fame of the Republic. At any rate, Cicero had accepted him, and
could never afterward bring himself to be disloyal to the leader with
whom he had professed to act. But the feeling evinced in this letter was
carried on to the end. He had been, he was, he would be, true to his
political connection with Pompey; but of Pompey's personal character to
himself he had nothing but complaints to make.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]

We have two other letters written by Cicero in this year, the first of
which is in answer to one from Metellus Celer to him, also extant.
Metellus wrote to complain of the ill-treatment which he thought he had
received from Cicero in the Senate, and from the Senate generally.
Cicero writes back at much greater length to defend himself, and to
prove that he had behaved as a most obliging friend to his
correspondent, though he had received a gross affront from his
correspondent's brother Nepos. Nepos had prevented him in that matter of
the speech. It is hardly necessary to go into the question of this
quarrel, except in so far as it may show how the feeling which led to
Cicero's exile was growing up among many of the aristocracy in Rome.
There was a counterplot going on at the moment--a plot on the behalf of
the aristocracy for bringing back Pompey to Rome, not only with glory
but with power, probably originating in a feeling that Pompey would be a
more congenial master than Cicero. It was suggested that as Pompey had
been found good in all State emergencies--for putting down the pirates,
for instance, and for conquering Mithridates--he would be the man to
contend in arms with Catiline. Catiline was killed before the matter
could be brought to an issue, but still the conspiracy went on, based on
the jealousy which was felt in regard to Cicero. This man, who had
declared so often that he had served his country, and who really had
crushed the Catilinarians by his industry and readiness, might, after
all, be coming forward as another Sulla, and looking to make himself
master by dint of his virtues and his eloquence. The hopelessness of the
condition of the Republic may be recognized in the increasing
conspiracies which were hatched on every side. Metellus Nepos was sent
home from Asia in aid of the conspiracy, and got himself made Tribune,
and stopped Cicero's speech. In conjunction with Cæsar, who was Prætor,
he proposed his new law for the calling of Pompey to their aid. Then
there was a fracas between him and Cæsar on the one side and Cato on the
other, in which Cato at last was so far victorious that both Cæsar and
Metellus were stopped in the performance of their official duties. Cæsar
was soon reinstated, but Metellus Nepos returned to Pompey in the East,
and nothing came of the conspiracy. It is only noticed here as evidence
of the feeling which existed as to Cicero in Rome, and as explaining the
irritation on both sides indicated in the correspondence between Cicero
and Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos,[216] whom Cicero had procured
the government of Gaul.

The third letter from Cicero in this year was to Sextius, who was then
acting as Quæstor--or Proquæstor, as Cicero calls him--with Antony as
Proconsul in Macedonia. It is specially interesting as telling us that
the writer had just completed the purchase of a house in Rome from
Crassus for a sum amounting to about £30,000 of our money. There was
probably no private mansion in Rome of greater pretension. It had been
owned by Livius Drusus, the Tribune--a man of colossal fortune, as we
are told by Mommsen--who was murdered at the door of it thirty years
before. It afterward passed into the hands of Crassus the rich, and now
became the property of Cicero. We shall hear how it was destroyed during
his exile, and how fraudulently made over to the gods, and then how
restored to Cicero, and how rebuilt at the public expense. The history
of the house has been so well written that we know even the names of
Cicero's two successors in it, Censorinus and Statilius.[217]

It is interesting to know the sort of house which Cicero felt to be
suitable to his circumstances, for by that we may guess what his
circumstances were. In making this purchase he is supposed to have
abandoned the family house in which his father had lived next door to
the new mansion, and to have given it up to his brother. Hence we may
argue that he had conceived himself to have risen in worldly
circumstances. Nevertheless, we are informed by himself in this letter
to Sextius that he had to borrow money for the occasion--so much so
that, being a man now indebted, he might be supposed to be ripe for any
conspiracy. Hence has come to us a story through Aulus Gellius, the
compiler of anecdotes, to the effect that Cicero was fain to borrow this
money from a client whose cause he undertook in requital for the favor
so conferred. Aulus Gellius collected his stories two centuries
afterward for the amusement of his children, and has never been regarded
as an authority in matters for which confirmation has been wanting.
There is no allusion to such borrowing from a client made by any
contemporary. In this letter to Sextius, in which he speaks jokingly of
his indebtedness, he declares that he has been able to borrow any amount
he wanted at six per cent--twelve being the ordinary rate--and gives as
a reason for this the position which he has achieved by his services to
the State. Very much has been said of the story, as though the purchaser
of the house had done something of which he ought to have been ashamed,
but this seems to have sprung entirely from the idea that a man who, in
the midst of such wealth as prevailed at Rome, had practised so widely
and so successfully the invaluable profession of an advocate, must
surely have taken money for his services. He himself has asserted that
he took none, and all the evidence that we have goes to show that he
spoke the truth. Had he taken money, even as a loan, we should have
heard of it from nearer witnesses than Aulus Gellius, if, as Aulus
Gellius tells us, it had become known at the time. But because he tells
his friend that he has borrowed money for the purpose, he is supposed to
have borrowed it in a disgraceful manner! It will be found that all the
stones most injurious to Cicero's reputation have been produced in the
same manner. His own words have been misinterpreted--either the purport
of them, if spoken in earnest, or their bearing, if spoken in joke--and
then accusations have been founded on them.[218]

Another charge of dishonest practice was about this time made against
Cicero without a grain of evidence, though indeed the accusations so
made, and insisted upon, apparently from a feeling that Cicero cannot
surely have been altogether clean when all others were so dirty, are too
numerous to receive from each reader's judgment that indignant denial to
which each is entitled. The biographer cannot but fear that when so much
mud has been thrown some will stick, and therefore almost hesitates to
tell of the mud, believing that no stain of this kind has been in truth
deserved.

It seems that Antony, Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who became
Proconsul in Macedonia, had undertaken to pay some money to Cicero. Why
the money was to be paid we do not know, but there are allusions in
Cicero's letters to Atticus to one Teucris (a Trojan woman), and it
seems that Antony was designated by the nickname. Teucris is very slow
at paying his money, and Cicero is in want of it. But perhaps it will be
as well not to push the matter. He, Antony, is to be tried for
provincial peculation, and Cicero declares that the case is so bad that
he cannot defend his late colleague. Hence have arisen two different
suspicions: one that Antony had agreed to make over to Cicero a share of
the Macedonian plunder in requital of Cicero's courtesy in giving up the
province which had been allotted to himself; the second, that Antony was
to pay Cicero for defending him. As to the former, Cicero himself
alludes to such a report as being common in Macedonia, and as having
been used by Antony himself as an excuse for increased rapine. But this
has been felt to be incredible, and has been allowed to fall to the
ground because of the second accusation. But in support of that there is
no word of evidence,[219] whereas the tenor of the story as told by
Cicero himself is against it. Is it likely, would it be possible, that
Cicero should have begun his letter to Atticus by complaining that he
could not get from Antony money wanted for a peculiar purpose--it was
wanted for his new house--and have gone on in the same letter to say
that this might be as well, after all, as he did not intend to perform
the service for which the money was to be paid? The reader will remember
that the accusation is based solely on Cicero's own statement that
Antony was negligent in paying to him money that had been promised. In
all these accusations the evidence against Cicero, such as it is, is
brought exclusively from Cicero's own words. Cicero did afterward defend
this Antony, as we learn from his speech Pro Domo Suâ; but his change of
purpose in that respect has nothing to do with the argument.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]

We have two speeches extant made this year: one on behalf of P. Sulla,
nephew to the Dictator; the other for Archias the Greek scholar and
poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of
Rome. I have already given an extract from this letter, as showing the
charm of words with which Cicero could recommend the pursuit of
literature to his hearers. The whole oration is a beautiful morsel of
Latinity, in which, however, strength of argument is lacking. Cicero
declares of Archias that he was so eminent in literature that, if not a
Roman citizen, he ought to be made one. The result is not known, but the
literary world believes that the citizenship was accorded to him.[220]

The speech on behalf of Sulla was more important, but still not of much
importance. This Sulla, as may be remembered, had been chosen as Consul
with Autronius, two years before the Consulship of Cicero, and he had
then after his election been deposed for bribery, as had also Autronius.
L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus had been elected in their
places. It has also been already explained that the two rejected Consuls
had on this account joined Catiline in his first conspiracy. There can
be no doubt that whether as Consuls or as rejected Consuls, and on that
account conspirators, their purpose was to use their position as
aristocrats for robbing the State. They were of the number of those to
whom no other purpose was any longer possible. Then there came
Catiline's second conspiracy--the conspiracy which Cicero had
crushed--and there naturally rose the question whether from time to time
this or the other noble Roman should not be accused of having joined it.
Many noble Romans had no doubt joined besides those who had fallen
fighting, or who had been executed in the dungeons. Accusations became
very rife. One Vettius accused Cæsar, the Prætor; but Cæsar, with that
potentiality which was peculiar to him, caused Vettius to be put into
prison instead of going to prison himself. Many were convicted and
banished; among them Porcius Læca, Vargunteius, Servius Sulla, the
brother of him of whom we are now speaking, and Autronius his colleague.
In the trial of these men Cicero took no part. He was specially invited
by Autronius, who was an old school-fellow, to defend him, but he
refused; indeed, he gave evidence against Autronius at the trial. But
this Publius Sulla he did defend, and defended successfully. He was
joined in the case with Hortensius, and declared that as to the matter
of the former conspiracy he left all that to his learned friend, who was
concerned with political matters of that date.[221] He, Cicero, had
known nothing about them. The part of the oration which most interests
us is that in which he defends himself from the accusations somewhat
unwisely made against himself personally by young Torquatus, the son of
him who had been raised to the Consulship in the place of P. Sulla.
Torquatus had called him a foreigner because he was a "novus homo," and
had come from the municipality of Arpinum, and had taunted him with
being a king, because he had usurped authority over life and death in
regard to Lentulus and the other conspirators. He answers this very
finely, and does so without an ill-natured word to young Torquatus,
whom, from respect to his father, he desires to spare. "Do not," he
says, "in future call me a foreigner, lest you be answered with
severity, nor a king, lest you be laughed at--unless, indeed, you think
it king-like so to live as to be a slave not only to no man but to no
evil passion; unless you think it be king-like to despise all lusts, to
thirst for neither gold nor silver nor goods, to express yourself freely
in the Senate, to think more of services due to the people than of
favors won from them, to yield to none, and to stand firm against many.
If this be king-like, then I confess that I am a king." Sulla was
acquitted, but the impartial reader will not the less feel sure that he
had been part and parcel with Catiline in the conspiracy. It is trusted
that the impartial reader will also remember how many honest, loyal
gentlemen have in our own days undertaken the causes of those whom they
have known to be rebels, and have saved those rebels by their ingenuity
and eloquence.

At the end of this year, B.C. 62, there occurred a fracas in Rome which
was of itself but of little consequence to Rome, and would have been of
none to Cicero but that circumstances grew out of it which created for
him the bitterest enemy he had yet encountered, and led to his sorest
trouble. This was the affair of Clodius and of the mysteries of the Bona
Dea, and I should be disposed to say that it was the greatest misfortune
of his life, were it not that the wretched results which sprung from it
would have been made to spring from some other source had that source
not sufficed. I shall have to tell how it came to pass that Cicero was
sent into exile by means of the misconduct of Clodius; but I shall have
to show also that the misconduct of Clodius was but the tool which was
used by those who were desirous of ridding themselves of the presence of
Cicero.

This Clodius, a young man of noble family and of debauched manners, as
was usual with young men of noble families, dressed himself up as a
woman, and made his way in among the ladies as they were performing
certain religious rites in honor of the Bona Dea, or Goddess Cybele, a
matron goddess so chaste in her manners that no male was admitted into
her presence. It was specially understood that nothing appertaining to a
man was to be seen on the occasion, not even the portrait of one; and it
may possibly have been the case that Clodius effected his entrance among
the worshipping matrons on this occasion simply because his doing so was
an outrage, and therefore exciting. Another reason was alleged. The
rites in question were annually held, now in the house of this matron
and then of that, and during the occasion the very master of the house
was excluded from his own premises. They were now being performed under
the auspices of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, the daughter of one
Quintus Pompeius, and it was alleged that Clodius came among the women
worshippers for the sake of carrying on an intrigue with Cæsar's wife.
This was highly improbable, as Mr. Forsyth has pointed out to us, and
the idea was possibly used simply as an excuse to Cæsar for divorcing a
wife of whom he was weary. At any rate, when the scandal got abroad, he
did divorce Pompeia, alleging that it did not suit Cæsar to have his
wife suspected.

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ætat. 46.]

The story became known through the city, and early in January Cicero
wrote to Atticus, telling him the facts: "You have probably heard that
Publius Clodius, the son of Appius, has been taken dressed in a woman's
clothes in the house of Caius Cæsar, where sacrifice was being made for
the people, and that he escaped by the aid of a female slave. You will
be sorry to hear that it has given rise to a great scandal."[222] A few
days afterward Cicero speaks of it again to Atticus at greater length,
and we learn that the matter had been taken up by the magistrates with
the view of punishing Clodius. Cicero writes without any strong feeling
of his own, explaining to his friend that he had been at first a very
Lycurgus in the affair, but that he is now tamed down.[223] Then there
is a third letter in which Cicero is indignant because certain men of
whom he disapproves, the Consul Piso among the number[224] are anxious
to save this wicked young nobleman from the punishment due to him;
whereas others of whom he approves Cato among the number, are desirous
of seeing justice done. But it was no affair special to Cicero. Shortly
afterward he writes again to Atticus as to the result of the trial--for
a trial did take place--and explains to his friend how justice had
failed. Atticus had asked him how it had come to pass that he, Cicero,
had not exerted himself as he usually did.[225] This letter, though
there is matter enough in it of a serious kind, yet jests with the
Clodian affair so continually as to make us feel that he attributed no
importance to it as regarded himself. He had exerted himself till
Hortensius made a mistake as to the selection of the judges. After that
he had himself given evidence. An attempt was made to prove an alibi,
but Cicero came forward to swear that he had seen Clodius on the very
day in question. There had, too, been an exchange of repartee in the
Senate between himself and Clodius after the acquittal, of which he
gives the details to his correspondent with considerable
self-satisfaction. The passage does not enhance our idea of the dignity
of the Senate, or of the power of Roman raillery. It was known that
Clodius had been saved by the wholesale bribery of a large number of the
judges. There had been twenty-five for condemning against thirty-one for
acquittal.[226] Cicero in the Catiline affair had used a phrase with
frequency by which he boasted that he had "found out" this and "found
out" that--"comperisse omnia." Clodius, in the discussion before the
trial, throws this in his teeth: "Comperisse omnia criminabatur." This
gave rise to ill-feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonor
done to the Bona Dea. As for that, we may say that he and the Senate and
the judges cared personally very little, although there was no doubt a
feeling that it was wise to awe men's minds by the preservation of
religious respect. Cicero had cared but little about the trial; but as
he had been able to give evidence he had appeared as a witness, and
enmity sprung from the words which were spoken both on one side and on
the other. Clodius was acquitted, which concerns us not at all, and
concerns Rome very little; but things had so come to pass at the trial
that Cicero had been very bitter, and that Clodius had become his enemy.
When a man was wanted, three years afterward, to take the lead in
persecuting Cicero, Clodius was ready for the occasion.

While the expediency of putting Clodius on his trial was being
discussed, Pompey had returned from the East, and taken up his residence
outside the city, because he was awaiting his triumph. The General, to
whom it was given to march through the city with triumphal glory, was
bound to make his first entrance after his victories with all his
triumphal appendages, as though he was at that moment returning from the
war with all his warlike spoils around him. The usage had obtained the
strength of law, but the General was not on that account debarred from
city employment during the interval. The city must be taken out to him
instead of his coming into the city. Pompey was so great on his return
from his Mithridatic victories that the Senate went out to sit with him
in the suburbs, as he could not sit with it within the walls. We find
him taking part in these Clodian discussions. Cicero at once writes of
him to Athens with evident dissatisfaction. When questioned about
Clodius, Pompey had answered with the grand air of aristocrat. Crassus
on this occasion, between whom and Cicero there was never much
friendship, took occasion to belaud the late great Consul on account of
his Catiline successes. Pompey, we are told, did not bear this
well.[227] Crassus had probably intended to produce some such effect.
Then Cicero had spoken in answer to the remarks of Crassus, very glibly,
no doubt, and had done his best to "show off" before Pompey, his new
listener.[228] More than six years had passed since Pompey could have
heard him, and then Cicero's voice had not become potential in the
Senate. Cicero had praised Pompey with all the eloquence in his power.
"Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius," he had said, in the last Catiline
oration to the Senate; and Pompey, though he had not heard the words
spoken, knew very well what had been said. Such oratory was never lost
upon those whom it most concerned the orator to make acquainted with it.
But in return for all this praise, for that Manilian oration which had
helped to send him to the East, for continual loyalty, Pompey had
replied to Cicero with coldness. He would now let Pompey know what was
his standing in Rome. "If ever," he says to Atticus, "I was strong with
my grand rhythm, with my quick rhetorical passages, with enthusiasm, and
with logic, I was so now. Oh, the noise that I made on the occasion! You
know what my voice can do. I need say no more about it, as surely you
must have heard me away there in Epirus." The reader, I trust, will have
already a sufficiently vivid idea of Cicero's character to understand
the mingling of triumph and badinage, with a spark of disappointment,
which is here expressed. "This Pompey, though I have so true to him, has
not thought much of me--of me, the great Consul who saved Rome! He has
now heard what even Crassus has been forced to say about me. He shall
hear me too, me myself, and perhaps he will then know better." It was
thus that Cicero's mind was at work while he was turning his loud
periods. Pompey was sitting next to him listening, by no means admiring
his admirer as that admirer expected to be admired. Cicero had probably
said to himself that they two together, Pompey and Cicero, might suffice
to preserve the Republic. Pompey, not thinking much of the Republic, was
probably telling himself that he wanted no brother near the throne. When
of two men the first thinks himself equal to the second, the second will
generally feel himself to be superior to the first. Pompey would have
liked Cicero better if his periods had not been so round nor his voice
so powerful. Not that Pompey was distinctly desirous of any throne. His
position at the moment was peculiar. He had brought back his victorious
army from the East to Brundisium, and had then disbanded his legions. I
will quote here the opening words from one of Mommsen's chapters:[229]
"When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed to his
charge, again turned his eyes toward home, he found, for the second
time, the diadem at his feet." He says farther on, explaining why Pompey
did not lift the diadem: "The very peculiar temperament of Pompeius
naturally turned once more the scale. He was one of those men who are
capable, it may be, of a crime, but not of insubordination." And again:
"While in the capital all was preparation for receiving the new monarch,
news came that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up
his legions, and with a small escort had entered his journey to the
capital. If it is a piece of good-fortune to gain a crown without
trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did for Pompeius; but
on those who lack courage the gods lavish every favor and every gift in
vain." I must say here that, while I acknowledge the German historian's
research and knowledge without any reserve, I cannot accept his
deductions as to character. I do not believe that Pompey found any
diadem at his feet, or thought of any diadem, nor, according to my
reading of Roman history, had Marius or had Sulla; nor did Cæsar. The
first who thought of that perpetual rule--a rule to be perpetuated
during the ruler's life, and to be handed down to his successors--was
Augustus. Marius, violent, self-seeking, and uncontrollable, had tumbled
into supreme power; and, had he not died, would have held it as long as
he could, because it pleased his ambition for the moment. Sulla, with a
purpose, had seized it, yet seems never to have got beyond the old Roman
idea of a temporary Dictatorship. The old Roman horror of a king was
present to these Romans, even after they had become kings. Pompey, no
doubt, liked to be first, and when he came back from the East thought
that by his deeds he was first, easily first. Whether Consul year after
year, as Marius had been, or Dictator, as Sulla had been, or Imperator,
with a running command over all the Romans, it was his idea still to
adhere to the forms of the Republic. Mommsen, foreseeing--if an
historian can be said to foresee the future from his standing-point in
the past--that a master was to come for the Roman Empire, and giving all
his sympathies to the Cæsarean idea, despises Pompey because Pompey
would not pick up the diadem. No such idea ever entered Pompey's head.
After a while he "Sullaturized"--was desirous of copying Sulla--to use
an excellent word which Cicero coined. When he was successfully opposed
by those whom he had thought inferior to himself, when he found that
Cæsar had got the better of him, and that a stronger body of Romans went
with Cæsar than with him, then proscriptions, murder, confiscations, and
the seizing of dictatorial power presented themselves to his angry mind,
but of permanent despotic power there was, I think, no thought, nor, as
far as I can read the records, had such an idea been fixed in Cæsar's
bosom. To carry on the old trade of Prætor, Consul, Proconsul, and
Imperator, so as to get what he could of power and wealth and dignity in
the scramble, was, I think, Cæsar's purpose. The rest grew upon him. As
Shakspeare, sitting down to write a play that might serve his theatre,
composed some Lear or Tempest--that has lived and will live forever,
because of the genius which was unknown to himself--so did Cæsar, by his
genius, find his way to a power which he had not premeditated. A much
longer time is necessary for eradicating an idea from men's minds than a
fact from their practice. This should be proved to us by our own loyalty
to the word "monarch," when nothing can be farther removed from a
monarchy than our own commonwealth. From those first breaches in
republican practice which the historian Florus dates back to the siege
of Numantia,[230] B.C. 133, down far into the reign of Augustus, it took
a century and a quarter to make the people understand that there was no
longer a republican form of government, and to produce a leader who
could himself see that there was room for a despot.

Pompey had his triumph; but the same aristocratic airs which had annoyed
Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honors. Only two days
were allowed for his processions. He was irritated, jealous, and no
doubt desirous of making his power felt; but he thought of no diadem.
Cæsar saw it all; and he thought of that conspiracy which we have since
called the First Triumvirate.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, 61, ætat. 45, 46.]

The two years to which this chapter has been given were uneventful in
Cicero's life, and produced but little of that stock of literature by
which he has been made one of mankind's prime favorites. Two discourses
were written and published, and probably spoken, which are now
lost--that, namely, to the people against Metellus, in which, no doubt,
he put forth all that he had intended to say when Metellus stopped him
from speaking at the expiration of his Consulship; the second, against
Clodius and Curio, in the Senate, in reference to the discreditable
Clodian affair. The fragments which we have of this contain those
asperities which he retailed afterward in his letter to Atticus, and are
not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from these fragments
that Clodius was already preparing that scheme for entering the
Tribunate by an illegal repudiation of his own family rank, which he
afterward carried out, to the great detriment of Cicero's happiness. Of
the speeches extant on behalf of Archias and P. Sulla I have spoken
already. We know of no others made during this period. We have one
letter besides this to Atticus, addressed to Antony, his former
colleague, which, like many of his letters, was written solely for the
sake of popularity.

During these years he lived no doubt splendidly as one of the great men
of the greatest city in the world. He had his magnificent new mansion in
Rome, and his various villas, which were already becoming noted for
their elegance and charms of upholstery and scenic beauty. Not only had
he climbed to the top of official life himself, but had succeeded in
taking his brother Quintus up with him. In the second of the two years,
B.C. 61, Quintus had been sent out as Governor or Proprætor to Asia,
having then nothing higher to reach than the Consulship, which, however,
he never attained. This step in the life of Quintus has become famous by
a letter which the elder brother wrote to him in the second year of his
office, to which reference will be made in the next chapter.

So far all things seemed to have gone well with Cicero. He was high in
esteem and authority, powerful, rich, and with many people popular. But
the student of his life now begins to see that troubles are enveloping
him. He had risen too high not to encounter envy, and had been too loud
in his own praise not to make those who envied him very bitter in their
malice.




CHAPTER XI.

_THE TRIUMVIRATE._


[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]

I know of no great fact in history so impalpable, so shadowy, so unreal,
as the First Triumvirate. Every school-boy, almost every school-girl,
knows that there was a First Triumvirate, and that it was a political
combination made by three great Romans of the day, Julius Cæsar, Pompey
the Great, and Crassus the Rich, for managing Rome among them. Beyond
this they know little, because there is little to know. That it was a
conspiracy against the ordained government of the day, as much so as
that of Catiline, or Guy Faux, or Napoleon III., they do not know
generally, because Cæsar, who, though the youngest of the three, was the
mainspring of it, rose by means of it to such a galaxy of glory that all
the steps by which he rose to it have been supposed to be magnificent
and heroic. But of the method in which this Triumvirate was constructed,
who has an idea? How was it first suggested, where, and by whom? What
was it that the conspirators combined to do? There was no purpose of
wholesale murder like that of Catiline for destroying the Senate, and of
Guy Faux for blowing up the House of Lords. There was no plot arranged
for silencing a body of legislators like that of Napoleon. In these
scrambles that are going on every year for place and power, for
provinces and plunder, let us help each other. If we can manage to stick
fast by each other, we can get all the power and nearly all the plunder.
That, said with a wink by one of the Triumvirate--Cæsar, let us say--and
assented to with a nod by Pompey and Crassus, was sufficient for the
construction of such a conspiracy as that which I presume to have been
hatched when the First Triumvirate was formed.[231] Mommsen, who never
speaks of a Triumvirate under that name, except in his index,[232] where
he has permitted the word to appear for the guidance of persons less
well instructed than himself, connects the transaction which we call the
First Triumvirate with a former coalition, which he describes as having
been made in (B.C. 71) the year before the Consulship of Pompey and
Crassus. With that we need not concern ourselves as we are dealing with
the life of Cicero rather than with Roman history, except to say that
Cæsar, who was the motive power of the second coalition, could have had
no personal hand in that of 71. Though he had spent his early years in
"harassing the aristocracy," as Dean Merivale tells us, he had not been
of sufficient standing in men's minds to be put on a par with Pompey and
Crassus. When this First Triumvirate was formed, as the modern world
generally calls it, or the second coalition between the democracy and
the great military leaders, as Mommsen with greater, but not with
perfect, accuracy describes it, Cæsar no doubt had at his fingers' ends
the history of past years. "The idea naturally occurred," says Mommsen,
"whether * * * an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might not be
established between the democrats, with their ally, Crassus, on the one
side, and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. For Pompeius
such a coalition was certainly a political suicide."[233] The democracy
here means Cæsar. Cæsar during his whole life had been learning that no
good could come to any one from an effete Senate, or from republican
forms which had lost all their salt. Democracy was in vogue with him;
not, as I think, from any philanthropic desire for equality; not from
any far-seeing view of fraternal citizenship under one great paternal
lord--the study of politics had never then reached to that height--but
because it was necessary that some one, or perhaps some two or three,
should prevail in the coming struggle, and because he felt himself to be
more worthy than others. He had no conscience in the matter. Money was
to him nothing. Another man's money was the same as his own--or better,
if he could get hold of it. That doctrine taught by Cicero that men are
"ad justitiam natos" must have been to him simply absurd. Blood was to
him nothing. A friend was better than a foe, and a live man than a dead.
Blood-thirstiness was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness
which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure
was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure
was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man,
to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and
children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But
nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. Of courage he
had that better sort which can appreciate and calculate danger, and then
act as though there were none. Nothing was wrong to him but what was
injudicious. He could flatter, cajole, lie, deceive, and rob; nay, would
think it folly not to do so if to do so were expedient.[234] In this
coalition he appears as supporting and supported by the people.
Therefore Mommsen speaks of him as "the democrat." Crassus is called the
ally of the democrats. It will be enough for us here to know that
Crassus had achieved his position in the Senate by his enormous wealth,
and that it was because of his wealth, which was essential to Cæsar,
that he was admitted into the league. By means of his wealth he had
risen to power and had conquered and killed Spartacus, of the honor and
glory of which Pompey robbed him. Then he had been made Consul. When
Cæsar had gone as Proprætor to Spain, Crassus had found the money. Now
Cæsar had come back, and was hand and glove with Crassus. When the
division of the spoil came, some years afterward--the spoil won by the
Triumvirate--when Cæsar had half perfected his grand achievements in
Gaul, and Crassus had as yet been only a second time Consul, he got
himself to be sent into Syria, that by conquering the Parthians he might
make himself equal to Cæsar. We know how he and his son perished there,
each of them probably avoiding the last extremity of misery to a
Roman--that of falling into the hands of a barbarian enemy--by
destroying himself. Than the life of Crassus nothing could be more
contemptible; than the death nothing more pitiable. "For Pompeius," says
Mommsen, "such a coalition was certainly a political suicide." As events
turned out it became so, because Cæsar was the stronger man of the two;
but it is intelligible that at that time Pompey should have felt that he
could not lord it over the Senate, as he wished to do, without aid from
the democratic party. He had no well-defined views, but he wished to be
the first man in Rome. He regarded himself as still greatly superior to
Cæsar, who as yet had been no more than Prætor, and at this time was
being balked of his triumph because he could not at one and the same
moment be in the city, as candidate for the Consulship, and out of the
city waiting for his triumph. Pompey had triumphed three times, had been
Consul at an unnaturally early age with abnormal honors, had been
victorious east and west, and was called "Magnus." He did not as yet
fear to be overshadowed by Cæsar.[235] Cicero was his bugbear.

Mommsen I believe to be right in eschewing the word "Triumvirate." I
know no mention of it by any Roman writer as applied to this conspiracy,
though Tacitus, Suetonius, and Florus call by that name the later
coalition of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus. The Langhornes, in
translating Plutarch's life of Crassus, speak of the Triumvirate; but
Plutarch himself says that Cæsar combined "an impregnable stronghold" by
joining the three men.[236] Paterculus and Suetonius[237] explain very
clearly the nature of the compact, but do not use the term. There was
nothing in the conspiracy entitling it to any official appellation,
though, as there were three leading conspirators, that which has been
used has been so far appropriate.

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]

Cicero was the bugbear to them all. That he might have been one of them,
if ready to share the plunder and the power, no reader of the history of
the time can doubt. Had he so chosen he might again have been a "real
power in the State;" but to become so in the way proposed to him it was
necessary that he should join others in a conspiracy against the
Republic.

I do not wish it to be supposed that Cicero received the overtures made
to him with horror. Conspiracies were too common for horror; and these
conspirators were all our Cicero's friends in one sense, though in
another they might be his opponents. We may imagine that at first
Crassus had nothing to do with the matter, and that Pompey would fain
have stood aloof in his jealousy. But Cæsar knew that it was well to
have Cicero, if Cicero was to be had. It was not only his eloquence
which was marvellously powerful, or his energy which had been shown to
be indomitable: there was his character, surpassed by that of no Roman
living; if only, in giving them the use of his character, he could be
got to disregard the honor and the justice and the patriotism on which
his character had been founded. How valuable may character be made, if
it can be employed under such conditions! To be believed because of your
truth, and yet to lie; to be trusted for your honesty, and yet to cheat;
to have credit for patriotism, and yet to sell your country! The
temptations to do this are rarely put before a man plainly, in all their
naked ugliness. They certainly were not so presented to Cicero by Cæsar
and his associates. The bait was held out to him, as it is daily to
others, in a form not repellent, with words fitted to deceive and
powerful almost to persuade. Give us the advantage of your character,
and then by your means we shall be able to save our country. Though our
line of action may not be strictly constitutional, if you will look into
it you will see that it is expedient. What other course is there? How
else shall any wreck of the Republic be preserved? Would you be another
Cato, useless and impractical? Join us, and save Rome to some purpose.
We can understand that in such way was the lure held out to Cicero, as
it has been to many a politician since. But when the politician takes
the office offered to him--and the pay, though it be but that of a Lord
of the Treasury--he must vote with his party.

That Cicero doubted much whether he would or would not at this time
throw in his lot with Cæsar and Pompey is certain. To be of real
use--not to be impractical, as was Cato--to save his country and rise
honestly in power and glory--not to be too straitlaced, not
over-scrupulous--giving and taking a little, so that he might work to
good purpose with others in harness--that was his idea of duty as a
Roman. To serve in accord with Pompey was the first dream of his
political life, and now Pompey was in accord with Cæsar. It was natural
that he should doubt--natural that he should express his doubts. Who
should receive them but Atticus, that "alter ego?" Cicero doubted
whether he should cling to Pompey--as he did in every phase of his
political life, till Pompey had perished at the mouth of the Nile. But
at last he saw his way clear to honesty, as I think he always did. He
tells his friend that Cæsar had sent his confidential messenger, Balbus,
to sound him. The present question is whether he shall resist a certain
agrarian law of which he does not approve, but which is supported by
both Pompey and Cæsar, or retire from the contest and enjoy himself at
his country villas, or boldly stay at Rome and oppose the law. Cæsar
assures him that if he will come over to them, Cæsar will be always true
to him and Pompey, and will do his best to bring Crassus into the same
frame of mind. Then he reckons up all the good things which would accrue
to him: "Closest friendship with Pompey--with Cæsar also, should he wish
it; the making up of all quarrels with his enemies; popularity with the
people; ease for his old age, which was coming on him. But that
conclusion moves me to which I came in my third book."[238] Then he
repeats the lines given in the note below, which he had written,
probably this very year, in a poem composed in honor of his own
Consulship. The lines are not in themselves grand, but the spirit of
them is magnificent: "Stick to the good cause which in your early youth
you chose for yourself, and be true to the party you have made your
own." "Should I doubt when the muse herself has so written," he says,
alluding to the name of Calliope, given to this third book of his. Then
he adds a line of Homer, very excellent for the occasion:[239] "No
augury for the future can be better for you than that which bids you
serve your country." "But," he says, "we will talk of all that when you
come to me for the holidays. Your bath shall be ready for you: your
sister and mother shall be of the party." And so the doubts are settled.

Now came on the question of the Tribuneship of Clodius, in reference to
which I will quote a passage out of Middleton, because the phrase which
he uses exactly explains the purposes of Cæsar and Pompey.

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]

"Clodius, who had been contriving all this while how to revenge himself
on Cicero, began now to give an opening to the scheme which he had
formed for that purpose. His project was to get himself chosen Tribune,
and in that office to drive him out of the city, by the publication of a
law which, by some stratagem or other, he hoped to obtrude on the
people. But as all Patricians were incapable of the Tribunate, by its
original institution so his first step was to make himself a Plebeian by
the pretence of an adoption into a Plebeian house, which could not yet
be done without the suffrage of the people. This case was wholly new,
and contrary to all the forms--wanting every condition, and serving none
of the ends which were required in regular adoptions--so that, on the
first proposal, it seemed too extravagant to be treated seriously, and
would soon have been hissed off with scorn, had it not been concerted
and privately supported by persons of much more weight than Clodius.
Cæsar was at the bottom of it, and Pompey secretly favored it--not that
they intended to ruin Cicero, but to keep him only under the lash--and
if they could not draw him into their measures, to make him at least sit
quiet, and let Clodius loose upon him."[240]

This, no doubt, was the intention of the political leaders in Rome at
this conjunction of affairs. It had been found impossible to draw Cicero
gently into the net, so that he should become one of them. If he would
live quietly at his Antian or Tusculan villa, amid his books and
writings, he should be treated with all respect; he should be borne
with, even though he talked so much of his own Consulate. But if he
would interfere with the politics of the day, and would not come into
the net, then he must be dealt with. Cæsar seems to have respected
Cicero always, and even to have liked him; but he was not minded to put
up with a "friend" in Rome who from day to day abused all his projects.
In defending Antony, the Macedonian Proconsul who was condemned, Cicero
made some unpleasant remarks on the then condition of things. Cæsar, we
are told, when he heard of this, on the very spur of the moment, caused
Clodius to be accepted as a Plebeian.

In all this we are reminded of the absolute truth of Mommsen's verdict
on Rome, which I have already quoted more than once: "On the Roman
oligarchy of this period no judgment can be passed, save one of
inexorable and remorseless condemnation." How had it come to pass that
Cæsar had the power of suddenly causing an edict to become law, whether
for good or for evil? Cicero's description of what took place is as
follows:[241] "About the sixth hour of the day, when I was defending my
colleague Antony in court, I took occasion to complain of certain things
which were being done in the Republic, and which I thought to be
injurious to my poor client. Some dishonest persons carried my words to
men in power"--meaning Cæsar and Pompey--"not, indeed, my own words, but
words very different from mine. At the ninth hour on that very same day,
you, Clodius, were accepted as a Plebeian." Cæsar, having been given to
understand that Cicero had been making himself disagreeable, was
determined not to put up with it. Suetonius tells the same story with
admirable simplicity. Of Suetonius it must be said that, if he had no
sympathy for a patriot such as Cicero, neither had he any desire to
represent in rosy colors the despotism of a Cæsar. He tells his stories
simply as he has heard them. "Cicero," says Suetonius,[242] "having at
some trial complained of the state of the times, Cæsar, on the very same
day, at the ninth hour, passed Clodius over from the Patrician to the
Plebeian rank, in accordance with his own desire." How did it come to
pass that Cæsar, who, though Consul at the time, had no recognized power
of that nature, was efficacious for any such work as this? Because the
Republic had come to the condition which the German historian has
described. The conspiracy between Cæsar and his subordinates had not
been made for nothing.

The reader will require to know why Clodius should have desired
degradation, and how it came to pass that this degradation should have
been fatal to Cicero. The story has been partly told in the passage from
Middleton. A Patrician, in accordance with the constitution, could not
be a Tribune of the people. From the commencement of the Tribunate, that
office had been reserved for the Plebeians. But a Tribune had a power of
introducing laws which exceeded that of any Senator or any other
official. "They had acquired the right," we are told in Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, "of proposing to the comitia
tributa, or to the Senate, measures on nearly all the important affairs
of the State;" and as matters stood at this time, no one Tribune could
"veto" or put an arbitrary stop to a proposition from another. When such
proposition was made, it was simply for the people to decide by their
votes whether it should or should not be law. The present object was to
have a proposition made and carried suddenly, in reference to Cicero,
which should have, at any rate, the effect of stopping his mouth. This
could be best done by a Tribune of the people. No other adequate Tribune
could be found--no Plebeian so incensed against Cicero as to be willing
to do this, possessing at the same time power enough to be elected.
Therefore it was that Clodius was so anxious to be degraded.

No Patrician could become a Tribune of the people; but a Patrician might
be adopted by a Plebeian, and the adopted child would take the rank of
his father--would, in fact, for all legal purposes, be the same as a
son. For doing this in any case a law had to be passed--or, in other
words, the assent of the people must be obtained and registered. But
many conditions were necessary. The father intending to adopt must have
no living son of his own, and must be past the time of life at which he
might naturally hope to have one; and the adopted son must be of a
fitting age to personate a son--at any rate, must be younger than the
father; nothing must be done injurious to either family; there must be
no trick in it, no looking after other result than that plainly
intended. All these conditions were broken. The pretended father,
Fonteius, had a family of his own, and was younger than Clodius. The
great Claudian family was desecrated, and there was no one so ignorant
as not to know that the purpose intended was that of entering the
Tribunate by a fraud. It was required by the general law that the Sacred
College should report as to the proper observances of the prescribed
regulations, but no priest was ever consulted. Yet Clodius was adopted,
made a Plebeian, and in the course of the year elected as Tribune.

In reading all this, the reader is mainly struck by the wonderful
admixture of lawlessness and law-abiding steadfastness. If Cæsar, who
was already becoming a tyrant in his Consulship, chose to make use of
this means of silencing Cicero, why not force Clodius into the Tribunate
without so false and degrading a ceremony? But if, as was no doubt the
case, he was not yet strong enough to ignore the old popular feelings on
the subject, how was it that he was able to laugh in his sleeve at the
laws, and to come forth at a moment's notice and cause the people to
vote, legally or illegally, just as he pleased? It requires no conjurer
to tell us the reason. The outside hulls and husks remain when the rich
fruit has gone. It was in seeing this, and yet not quite believing that
it must be so, that the agony of Cicero's life consisted. There could
have been no hope for freedom, no hope for the Republic, when Rome had
been governed as it was during the Consulship of Cæsar; but Cicero could
still hope, though faintly, and still buoy himself up with remembrances
of his own year of office.

In carrying on the story of the newly-adopted child to his election as
Tribune, I have gone beyond the time of my narration, so that the reader
may understand the cause and nature and effect of the anger which
Clodius entertained for Cicero. This originated in the bitter words
spoken as to the profanation of the Bona Dea, and led to the means for
achieving Cicero's exile and other untoward passages of his life. In the
year 60 B.C., when Metellus Celer and Afranius were Consuls, Clodius was
tried for insulting the Bona Dea, and the since so-called Triumvirate
was instituted. It has already been shown that Cicero, not without many
doubts, rejected the first offers which were made to him to join the
forces that were so united. He seems to have passed the greater portion
of this year in Rome. One letter only was written from the country, to
Atticus, from his Tusculan villa, and that is of no special moment. He
spent his time in the city, still engaged in the politics of the day; as
to which, though he dreaded the coming together of Cæsar and Pompey and
Crassus--those "graves principum amicitias" which were to become so
detrimental to all who were concerned in them--he foresaw as yet but
little of the evil which was to fall upon his own head. He was by no
means idle as to literature, though we have but little of what he wrote,
and do not regret what we have lost. He composed a memoir of his
Consulate in Greek, which he sent to Atticus with an allusion to his own
use of the foreign language intended to show that he is quite at ease in
that matter. Atticus had sent him a memoir, also written in Greek, on
the same subject, and the two packets had crossed each other on the
road. He candidly tells Atticus that his attempt seems to be "horridula
atque incompta," rough and unpolished; whereas Posidonius, the great
Greek critic of Rhodes who had been invited by him, Cicero, to read the
memoir, and then himself to treat the same subject, had replied that he
was altogether debarred from such an attempt by the excellence of his
correspondent's performance.[244] He also wrote three books of a poem on
his Consulate, and sent them to Atticus; of which we have a fragment of
seventy-five lines quoted by himself,[243] and four or five other lines
including that unfortunate verse handed down by Quintilian, "O
fortunatum natam me consule Romam"--unless, indeed, it be spurious, as
is suggested by that excellent critic and whole-hearted friend of the
orator's, M. Guéroult. Previous to these he had produced in hexameters,
also, a translation of the Prognostics of Aratus. This is the second
part of a poem on the heavenly bodies, the first part, the Phænomena,
having been turned into Latin verse by him when he was eighteen. Of the
Prognostics we have only a few lines preserved by Priscian, and a
passage repeated by the author, also in his De Divinatione. I think that
Cicero was capable of producing a poem quite worthy of preservation; but
in the work of this year the subjects chosen were not alluring.

[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]

Among his epistles of the year there is one which might of itself have
sufficed to bring down his name to posterity. This is a long letter,
full of advice, to his brother Quintus, who had gone out in the previous
year to govern the province of Asia as Proprætor. We may say that good
advice could never have been more wanted, and that better advice could
not have been given. It has been suggested that it was written as a
companion to that treatise on the duties of a candidate which Quintus
composed for his brother's service when standing for his Consulship. But
I cannot admit the analogy. The composition attributed to Quintus
contained lessons of advice equally suitable to any candidate, sprung
from the people, striving to rise to high honors in the State. This
letter is adapted not only to the special position of Quintus, but to
the peculiarities of his character, and its strength lies in this: that
while the one brother praises the other, justly praises him, as I
believe, for many virtues, so as to make the receipt of it acceptable,
it points out faults--faults which will become fatal, if not amended--in
language which is not only strong but unanswerable.

The style of this letter is undoubtedly very different from that of
Cicero's letters generally--so as to suggest to the reader that it must
have been composed expressly for publication whereas the daily
correspondence is written "currente calamo," with no other than the
immediate idea of amusing, instructing, or perhaps comforting the
correspondent. Hence has come the comparison between this and the
treatise De Petitione Consulatus. I think that the gravity of the
occasion, rather than any regard for posterity, produced the change of
style. Cicero found it to be essential to induce his brother to remain
at his post, not to throw up his government in disgust, and so to bear
himself that he should not make himself absolutely odious to his own
staff and to other Romans around him; for Quintus Cicero, though he had
been proud and arrogant and ill tempered, had not made himself notorious
by the ordinary Roman propensity to plunder his province "What is it
that is required of you as a governor?"[245] asks Cicero. "That men
should not be frightened by your journeys hither and thither--that they
should not be eaten up by your extravagance--that they should not be
disturbed by your coming among them--that there should be joy at your
approach; when each city should think that its guardian angel, not a
cruel master, had come upon it--when each house should feel that it
entertained not a robber but a friend. Practice has made you perfect in
this. But it is not enough that you should exercise those good offices
yourself, but that you should take care that every one of those who come
with you should seem to do his best for the inhabitants of the province,
for the citizen of Rome, and for the Republic." I wish that I could give
the letter entire--both in English, that all readers might know how
grand are the precepts taught, and in Latin, that they who understand
the language might appreciate the beauty of the words--but I do not dare
to fill my pages at such length. A little farther on he gives his idea
of the duty of all those who have power over others--even over the dumb
animals.[246] "To me it seems that the duty of those in authority over
others consists in making those who are under them as happy as the
nature of things will allow. Every one knows that you have acted on this
principle since you first went to Asia." This, I fear, must be taken as
flattery, intended to gild the pill which comes afterward "This is not
only his duty who has under him allies and citizens, but is also that of
the man who has slaves under his control, and even dumb cattle, that he
should study the welfare of all over whom he stands in the position of
master!" Let the reader look into this, and ask himself what precepts of
Christianity have ever surpassed it.

Then he points out that which he describes as the one great difficulty
in the career of a Roman Provincial Governor.[247] The collectors of
taxes, or "publicani," were of the equestrian order. This business of
farming the taxes had been their rich privilege for at any rate more
than a century, and as Cicero says, farther on in his letter, it was
impossible not to know with what hardship the Greek allies would be
treated by them when so many stories were current of their cruelty even
in Italy. Were Quintus to take a part against these tax-gatherers, he
would make them hostile not only to the Republic but to himself also,
and also to his brother Marcus; for they were of the equestrian order,
and specially connected with these "publicani" by family ties. He
implies, as he goes on, that it will be easier to teach the Greeks to be
submissive than the tax-gatherers to be moderate. After all, where would
the Greeks of Asia be if they had no Roman master to afford them
protection? He leaves the matter in the hands of his brother, with
advice that he should do the best he can on one side and on the other.
If possible, let the greed of the "publicani" be restrained; but let the
ally be taught to understand that there may be usage in the world worse
even than Roman taxation. It would be hardly worth our while to allude
to this part of Cicero's advice, did it not give an insight into the
mode in which Rome taxed her subject people.

After this he commences that portion of the letter for the sake of which
we cannot but believe that the whole was written. "There is one thing,"
he says, "which I will never cease to din into your ears, because I
could not endure to think that, amid the praises which are lavished on
you, there should be any matter in which you should be found wanting.
All who come to us here"--all who come to Rome from Asia, that is--"when
they tell us of your honesty and goodness of heart, tell us also that
you fail in temper. It is a vice which, in the daily affairs of private
life, betokens a weak and unmanly spirit; but there can be nothing so
poor as the exhibition of the littleness of nature in those who have
risen to the dignity of command." He will not, he goes on to say,
trouble his brother with repeating all that the wise men have said on
the subject of anger; he is sure that Quintus is well acquainted with
all that. But is it not a pity, when all men say that nothing could be
pleasanter than Quintus Cicero when in a good-humor, the same Quintus
should allow himself to be so provoked that his want of kindly manners
should be regretted by all around him? "I cannot assert," he goes on to
say, "that when nature has produced a certain condition of mind, and
that years as they run on have strengthened it, a man can change all
that and pluck out from his very self the habits that have grown within
him; yet I must tell you that if you cannot eschew this evil
altogether--if you cannot protect yourself against the feeling of anger,
yet you should prepare yourself to be ready for it when it comes, so
that, when your very soul within you is hot with it, your tongue, at any
rate, may be restrained." Then toward the end of the letter there is a
fraternal exhortation which is surely very fine: "Since chance has
thrown into my way the duties of official life in Rome, and into yours
that of administrating provincial government, if I, in the performance
of my work, have been second to none, do you see that you in yours may
be equally efficient." How grand, from an elder brother to a younger!
"And remember this, that you and I have not to strive after some
excellence still unattained, but have to be on our watch to guard that
which has been already won. If I should find myself in anything divided
from you, I should desire no further advance in life. Unless your deeds
and your words go on all-fours with mine, I should feel that I had
achieved nothing by all the work and all the dangers which you and I
have encountered together." The brother at last was found to be a poor,
envious, ill-conditioned creature--intellectually gifted, and capable of
borrowing something from his brother's nobler nature; but when struggles
came, and political feuds, and the need of looking about to see on which
side safety lay, ready to sacrifice his brother for the sake of safety.
But up to this time Marcus was prepared to believe all good of Quintus;
and having made for himself and for the family a great name, was
desirous of sharing it with his brother, and, as we shall afterward see,
with his brother's son, and with his own. In this he failed. He lived to
know that he had failed as regarded his brother and his nephew. It was
not, however, added to his misery to live to learn how little his son
was to do to maintain the honor of his family.

I find a note scribbled by myself some years ago in a volume in which I
had read this epistle, "Probably the most beautiful letter ever
written." Reading it again subsequently, I added another note, "The
language altogether different from that of his ordinary letters." I do
not dissent now either from the enthusiastic praise or the more careful
criticism. The letter was from the man's heart--true, affectionate, and
full of anxious, brotherly duty--but written in studied language,
befitting, as Cicero thought, the need and the dignity of the occasion.

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, ætat. 48.]

The year following was that of Cæsar's first Consulship, which he held
in conjunction with Bibulus, a man who was altogether opposed to him in
thought, in character, and in action. So hostile were these two great
officers to each other that the one attempted to undo whatever the other
did. Bibulus was elected by bribery, on behalf of the Senate, in order
that he might be a counterpoise to Cæsar. But Cæsar now was not only
Cæsar: he was Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus united, with all their
dependents, all their clients, all their greedy hangers-on. To give this
compact something of the strength of family union, Pompey, who was now
nearly fifty years of age, took in marriage Cæsar's daughter Julia, who
was a quarter of a century his junior. But Pompey was a man who could
endear himself to women, and the opinion seems to be general that had
not Julia died in childbirth the friendship between the men would have
been more lasting. But for Cæsar's purposes the duration of this year
and the next was enough. Bibulus was a laughing-stock, the mere shadow
of a Consul, when opposed to such an enemy. He tried to use all the old
forms of the Republic with the object of stopping Cæsar in his career;
but Cæsar only ridiculed him; and Pompey, though we can imagine that he
did not laugh much, did as Cæsar would have him. Bibulus was an augur,
and observed the heavens when political man[oe]uvres were going on which
he wished to stop. This was the old Roman system for using religion as a
drag upon progressive movements. No work of state could be carried on if
the heavens were declared to be unpropitious; and an augur could always
say that the heavens were unpropitious if he pleased. This was the
recognized constitutional mode of obstruction, and was quite in accord
with the feelings of the people. Pompey alone, or Crassus with him,
would certainly have submitted to an augur; but Cæsar was above augurs.
Whatever he chose to have carried he carried, with what approach he
could to constitutional usage, but with whatever departure from
constitutional usage he found to be necessary.

What was the condition of the people of Rome at the time it is difficult
to learn from the conflicting statements of historians. That Cicero had
till lately been popular we know. We are told that Bibulus was popular
when he opposed Cæsar. Of personal popularity up to this time I doubt
whether Cæsar had achieved much. Yet we learn that, when Bibulus with
Cato and Lucullus endeavored to carry out their constitutional threats,
they were dragged and knocked about, and one of them nearly killed. Of
the illegality of Cæsar's proceedings there can be no doubt. "The
tribunitian veto was interposed; Cæsar contented himself with
disregarding it."[248] This is quoted from the German historian, who
intends to leave an impression that Cæsar was great and wise in all that
he did; and who tells us also of the "obstinate, weak creature Bibulus,"
and of "the dogmatical fool Cato." I doubt whether there was anything of
true popular ferment, or that there was any commotion except that which
was made by the "roughs" who had attached themselves for pay to Cæsar or
to Pompey, or to Crassus, or, as it might be, to Bibulus and the other
leaders. The violence did not amount to more than "nearly" killing this
man or the other. Some Roman street fights were no doubt more bloody--as
for instance that in which, seven years afterward, Clodius was
slaughtered by Milo--but the blood was made to flow, not by the people,
but by hired bravoes. The Roman citizens of the day were, I think, very
quiescent. Neither pride nor misery stirred them much. Cæsar, perceiving
this, was aware that he might disregard Bibulus and his auguries so long
as he had a band of ruffians around him sufficient for the purposes of
the hour. It was in order that he might thus prevail that the coalition
had been made with Pompey and Crassus. His colleague Bibulus, seeing how
matters were going, retired to his own house, and there went through a
farce of consular enactments. Cæsar carried all his purposes, and the
people were content to laugh, dividing him into two personages, and
talking of Julius and Cæsar as the two Consuls of the year. It was in
this way that he procured to be allotted to him by the people his
irregular command in Gaul. He was to be Proconsul, not for one year,
with perhaps a prolongation for two or three, but for an established
period of five. He was to have the great province of Cisalpine
Gaul--that is to say, the whole of what we now call Italy, from the foot
of the Alps down to a line running from sea to sea just north of
Florence. To this Transalpine Gaul was afterward added. The province so
named, possessed at the time by the Romans, was called "Narbonensis," a
country comparatively insignificant, running from the Alps to the
Pyrenees along the Mediterranean. The Gaul or Gallia of which Cæsar
speaks when, in the opening words of his Commentary, he tells us that it
was divided into three parts, was altogether beyond the Roman province
which was assigned to him. Cæsar, when he undertook his government, can
hardly have dreamed of subjecting to Roman rule the vast territories
which were then known as Gallia, beyond the frontiers of the Empire, and
which we now call France.

But he caused himself to be supported by an enormous army. There were
stationed three legions on the Italian side of the Alps, and one on the
other. These were all to be under his command for five years certain,
and amounted to a force of not less than thirty thousand men. "As no
troops could constitutionally be stationed in Italy proper, the
commander of the legions of Northern Italy and Gaul," says Mommsen,
"dominated at the same time Italy and Rome for the next five years; and
he who was master for five years was master for life."[249]

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, ætat. 48.]

Such was the condition of Rome during the second year of the
Triumvirate, in which Cæsar was Consul and prepared the way for the
powers which he afterward exercised. Cicero would not come to his call;
and therefore, as we are told, Clodius was let loose upon him. As he
would not come to Cæsar's call, it was necessary that he should be
suppressed, and Clodius, notwithstanding all constitutional
difficulties--nay, impossibilities--was made Tribune of the people.
Things had now so far advanced with a Cæsar that a Cicero who would not
come to his call must be disposed of after some fashion.

Till we have thought much of it, often of it, till we have looked
thoroughly into it, we find ourselves tempted to marvel at Cicero's
blindness. Surely a man so gifted must have known enough of the state of
Rome to have been aware that there was no room left for one honest,
patriotic, constitutional politician. Was it not plain to him that if,
"natus ad justitiam," he could not bring himself to serve with those who
were intent on discarding the Republic, he had better retire among his
books, his busts, and his literary luxuries, and leave the government of
the country to those who understood its people? And we are the more
prone to say and to think all this because the man himself continually
said it, and continually thought it. In one of the letters written early
in the year[250] to Atticus from his villa at Antium he declares very
plainly how it is with him; and this, too, in a letter written in
good-humor, not in a despondent frame of mind, in which he is able
pleasantly to ridicule his enemy Clodius, who it seems had expressed a
wish to go on an embassy to Tigranes, King of Armenia. "Do not think,"
he says, "that I am complaining of all this because I myself am desirous
of being engaged in public affairs. Even while it was mine to sit at the
helm I was tired of the work; but now, when I am in truth driven out of
the ship, when the rudder has not been thrown down but seized out of my
hands, how should I take a pleasure in looking from the shore at the
wrecks which these other pilots have made?" But the study of human
nature tells us, and all experience, that men are unable to fathom their
own desires, and fail to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at
their fingers' ends. The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after
the seals and the ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul
be able to rise above considerations of emolument, and there will creep
into a man's mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other
sources may be impossible, if he were there once more the evil could at
least be mitigated, might possibly be cured. So it was during this
period of his life with Cicero. He did believe that political justice
exercised by himself, with such assistance as his eloquence would obtain
for it, might be efficacious for preserving the Republic, in spite of
Cæsar, and of Pompey, and of Crassus. He did not yet believe that these
men would consent to such an outrage as his banishment. It must have
been incredible to him that Pompey should assent to it. When the blow
came, it crushed him for the time. But he retricked his beams and
struggled on to the end, as we shall see if we follow his life to the
close.

Such was the intended purpose of the degradation of Clodius. This,
however, was not at once declared. It was said that Clodius as Tribune
intended rather to oppose Cæsar than to assist him. He at any rate chose
that Cicero should so believe and sent Curio, a young man to whom Cicero
was attached, to visit the orator at his villa at Antium and to declare
these friendly purposes. According to the story told by Cicero,[251]
Clodius was prepared to oppose the Triumvirate; and the other young men
of Rome, the _jeunesse dorée_, of which both Curio and Clodius were
members, were said to be equally hostile to Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus,
whose doings in opposition to the constitution were already evident
enough; so that it suited Cicero to believe that the rising aristocracy
of Rome would oppose them. But the aristocracy of Rome, whether old or
young, cared for nothing but its fish-ponds and its amusements.

Cicero spent the earlier part of the year out of Rome, among his various
villas--at Tusculanum, at Antium, and at Formiæ. The purport of all his
letters at this period is the same--to complain of the condition of the
Republic, and especially of the treachery of his friend Pompey. Though
there be much of despondency in his tone, there is enough also of high
spirit to make us feel that his literary aspirations are not out of
place, though mingled with his political wailing. The time will soon
come when his trust even in literature will fail him for a while.

Early in the year he declares that he would like to accept a mission to
Egypt, offered to him by Cæsar and Pompey, partly in order that he might
for a while be quit of Rome, and partly that Romans might feel how ill
they could do without him. He then uses for the first time, as far as I
am aware, a line from the Iliad,[252] which is repeated by him again and
again, in part or in whole, to signify the restraint which is placed on
him by his own high character among his fellow-citizens. "I would go to
Egypt on this pleasant excursion, but that I fear what the men of Troy,
and the Trojan women, with their wide-sweeping robes, would say of me."
And what, he asks, would the men of our party, "the optimates," say? and
what would Cato say, whose opinion is more to me than that of them all?
And how would history tell the story in future ages? But he would like
to go to Egypt, and he will wait and see. Then, after various questions
to Atticus, comes that great one as to the augurship, of which so much
has been made by Cicero's enemies, "quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi
possim." A few lines above he had been speaking of another lure, that of
the mission to Egypt. He discusses that with his friend, and then goes
on in his half-joking phrase, "but this would have been the real thing
to catch me." Nothing caught him. He was steadfast all through,
accepting no offer of place from the conspirators by which his integrity
or his honor could be soiled. That it was so was well known to history
in the time of Quintilian, whose testimony as to the "repudiatus
vigintiviratus"--his refusal of a place among the twenty
commissioners--has been already quoted.[253] And yet biographers have
written of him as of one willing to sell his honor, his opinions, and
the commonwealth, for a "pitiful bribe;" not that he did do so, not that
he attempted to do it, but because in a half-joking letter to the friend
of his bosom he tells his friend which way his tastes lay![254]

He had been thinking of writing a book on geography, and consulted
Atticus on the subject; but in one of his letters he tells his friend
that he had abandoned the idea. The subject was too dull; and if he took
one side in a dispute that was existing, he would be sure to fall under
the lash of the critics on the other. He is enjoying his leisure at
Antium, and thinks it a much better place than Rome. If the weather will
not let him catch fish, at any rate he can count the waves. In all these
letters Cicero asks questions about his money and his private affairs;
about the mending of a wall, perhaps, and adds something about his wife
or daughter or son. He is going from Antium to Formiæ, but must return
to Antium by a certain date because Tullia wants to see the games.

Then again he alludes to Clodius. Pompey had made a compact with
Clodius--so at least Cicero had heard--that he, Clodius, if elected for
the Tribunate, would do nothing to injure Cicero. The assurance of such
a compact had no doubt been spread about for the quieting of Cicero; but
no such compact had been intended to be kept, unless Cicero would be
amenable, would take some of the good things offered to him, or at any
rate hold his peace. But Cicero affects to hope that no such agreement
may be kept. He is always nicknaming Pompey, who during his Eastern
campaign had taken Jerusalem, and who now parodies the Africanus, the
Asiaticus, and the Macedonicus of the Scipios and Metelluses. "If that
Hierosolymarian candidate for popularity does not keep his word with me,
I shall be delighted. If that be his return for my speeches on his
behalf"--the Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius, for instance--"I will play
him such a turn of another kind that he shall remember it."[255]

He begins to know what the "Triumvirate" is doing with the Republic, but
has not yet brought himself to suspect the blow that is to fall on
himself. "They are going along very gayly," he says, "and do not make as
much noise as one would have expected."[256] If Cato had been more on
the alert, things would not have gone so quickly; but the dishonesty of
others, who have allowed all the laws to be ignored, has been worse than
Cato. If we used to feel that the Senate took too much on itself, what
shall we say when that power has been transferred, not to the people,
but to three utterly unscrupulous men? "They can make whom they will
Consuls, whom they will Tribunes--so that they may hide the very goitre
of Vatinius under a priest's robe." For himself, Cicero says, he will be
contented to remain with his books, if only Clodius will allow him; if
not, he will defend himself.[257] As for his country, he has done more
for his country than has even been desired of him; and he thinks it to
be better to leave the helm in the hands of pilots, however incompetent,
than himself to steer when passengers are so thankless. Then we find
that he robs poor Tullia of her promised pleasure at the games, because
it will be beneath his dignity to appear at them. He is always very
anxious for his friend's letters, depending on them for news and for
amusement. "My messenger will return at once," he says, in one;
"therefore, though you are coming yourself very soon, send me a heavy
letter, full not only of news but of your own ideas."[258] In another:
"Cicero the Little sends greeting," he says, in Greek, "to Titus the
Athenian"--that is, to Titus Pomponius Atticus. The Greek letters were
probably traced by the child at his father's knee as Cicero held the pen
or the stylus. In another letter he declares that there, at Formiæ,
Pompey's name of Magnus is no more esteemed than that of Dives belonging
to Crassus. In the next he calls Pompey Sampsiceramus. We learn from
Josephus that there was a lady afterward in the East in the time of
Vitellius, who was daughter of Sampsigeramus, King of the Emesi. It
might probably be a royal family name.[259] In choosing the absurd
title, he is again laughing at his party leader. Pompey had probably
boasted of his doings with the Sampsiceramus of the day and the priests
of Jerusalem. "When this Sampsiceramus of ours finds how ill he is
spoken of, he will rush headlong into revolution." He complains that he
can do nothing at Formiæ because of the visitors. No English poet was
ever so interviewed by American admirers. They came at all hours, in
numbers sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house. How
can he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this?
Nevertheless he will attempt something. He goes on criticising all that
is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt was
vacillating sadly between Cæsar, to whom he was bound, and Bibulus, the
other Consul, to whom he ought to have been bound, as being naturally on
the aristocratic side. He cannot for a moment keep his pen from public
matters; nor, on the other hand, can he refrain from declaring that he
will apply himself wholly, undividedly, to his literature. "Therefore,
oh my Titus, let me settle down to these glorious occupations, and
return to that which, if I had been wise, I never should have
left."[260] A day or two afterward, writing from the same place, he asks
what Arabarches is saying of him. Arabarches is another name for
Pompey--this Arabian chieftain.

In the early summer of this year Cicero returned to Rome, probably in
time to see Atticus, who was then about to leave the city for his
estates in Epirus. We have a letter written by him to his friend on the
journey, telling us that Cæsar had made him two distinct offers,
evidently with the view of getting rid of him, but in such a manner as
would be gratifying to Cicero himself.[261] Cæsar asks him to go with
him to Gaul as his lieutenant, or, if that will not suit him, to accept
a "free legation for the sake of paying a vow." This latter was a kind
of job by which Roman Senators got themselves sent forth on their
private travels with all the appanages of a Senator travelling on public
business. We have his argument as to both. Elsewhere he objects to a
"libera legatio" as being a job.[262] Here he only points out that,
though it enforce his absence from Rome at a time disagreeable to
him--just when his brother Quintus would return--it would not give him
the protection which he needs. Though he were travelling about the world
as a Senator on some pretended embassy, he would still be open to the
attacks of Clodius. He would necessarily be absent, or he would not be
in enjoyment of his privilege, but by his very absence he would find his
position weakened; whereas, as Cæsar's appointed lieutenant, he need not
leave the city at once, and in that position he would be quite safe
against all that Clodius or other enemies could do to him.[263] No
indictment could be made against a Roman while he was in the employment
of the State. It must be remembered, too, on judging of these overtures,
that both the one and the other--and indeed all the offers then made to
him--were deemed to be highly honorable, as Rome then existed. "The free
legation"--the "libera legatio voti causa"--had no reference to parties.
It was a job, no doubt, and, in the hands of the ordinary Roman
aristocrat, likely to be very onerous to the provincials among whom the
privileged Senator might travel; but it entailed no party adhesion. In
this case it was intended only to guarantee the absence of a man who
might be troublesome in Rome. The other was the offer of genuine work in
which politics were not at all concerned. Such a position was accepted
by Quintus, our Cicero's brother, and in performance of the duties which
fell to him he incurred terrible danger, having been nearly destroyed by
the Gauls in his winter quarters among the Nervii. Labienus, who was
Cæsar's right-hand man in Gaul, was of the same politics as Cicero--so
much so that when Cæsar rebelled against the Republic, Labienus, true to
the Republic, would no longer fight on Cæsar's side. It was open to
Cicero, without disloyalty, to accept the offer made to him; but with an
insight into what was coming, of which he himself was hardly conscious,
he could not bring himself to accept offers which in themselves were
alluring, but which would seem in future times to have implied on his
part an assent to the breaking up of the Republic. [Greek: Aideomai
Trôas kai Trôadas elkesipeplous.] What will be said of me in history by
my citizens if I now do simply that which may best suit my own
happiness? Had he done so, Pliny and the others would not have spoken of
him as they have spoken, and it would not have been worth the while of
modern lovers of Cæsarism to write books against the one patriot of his
age.

During the remainder of this year, B.C. 59, Cicero was at Rome, and
seems gradually to have become aware that a personal attack was to be
made upon him. At the close of a long and remarkable letter written to
his brother Quintus in November, he explains the state of his own mind,
showing us, who have now before us the future which was hidden from him,
how greatly mistaken he was as to the results which were to be expected.
He had been telling his brother how nearly Cato had been murdered for
calling Pompey, in public, a Dictator. Then he goes on to describe his
own condition.[264] "You may see from this what is the state of the
Republic. As far as I am concerned, it seems that friends will not be
wanting to defend me. They offer themselves in a wonderful way, and
promise assistance. I feel great hope and still greater spirit--hope,
which tells me that we shall be victors in the struggle; spirit, which
bids me fear no casualty in the present state of public affairs."[265]
But the matter stands in this way: "If he"--that is, Clodius--"should
indict me in court, all Italy would come to my defence, so that I should
be acquitted with honor. Should he attack me with open violence, I
should have, I think, not only my own party but the world at large to
stand by me. All men promise me their friends, their clients, their
freedmen, their slaves, and even their money. Our old body of
aristocrats"--Cato, Bibulus, and the makers of fish-ponds
generally--"are wonderfully warm in my cause. If any of these have
heretofore been remiss, now they join our party from sheer hatred of
these kings"--the Triumvirs. "Pompey promises everything, and so does
Cæsar, whom I only trust so far as I can see them." Even the Triumvirs
promise him that he will be safe; but his belief in Pompey's honesty is
all but gone. "The coming Tribunes are my friends. The Consuls of next
year promise well." He was wofully mistaken. "We have excellent Prætors,
citizens alive to their duty. Domitius, Nigidius, Memmius, and Lentulus
are specially trustworthy. The others are good men. You may therefore
pluck up your courage and be confident." From this we perceive that he
had already formed the idea that he might perhaps be required to fight
for his position as a Roman citizen; and it seems also that he
understood the cause of the coming conflict. The intention was that he
should be driven out of Rome by personal enmity. Nothing is said in any
of these letters of the excuse to be used, though he knew well what that
excuse was to be. He was to be charged by the Patrician Tribune with
having put Roman citizens to death in opposition to the law. But there
arises at this time no question whether he had or had not been justified
in what he, as Consul, had done to Lentulus and the others. Would
Clodius be able to rouse a mob against him? and, if so, would Cæsar
assist Clodius? or would Pompey who still loomed to his eyes as the
larger of the two men? He had ever been the friend of Pompey, and Pompey
had promised him all manner of assistance; but he knew already that
Pompey would turn upon him. That Rome should turn upon him--Rome which
he had preserved from the torches of Catiline's conspirators--that he
could not bring himself to believe!

We must not pass over this long letter to Quintus without observing that
through it all the evil condition of the younger brother's mind becomes
apparent. The severity of his administration had given offence. His
punishments had been cruel. His letters had been rash, and his language
violent. In short, we gather from the brother's testimony that Quintus
Cicero was very ill-fitted to be the civil governor of a province.

The only work which we have from Cicero belonging to this year, except
his letters, is the speech, or part of the speech, he made for Lucius
Valerius Flaccus. Flaccus had been Prætor when Cicero was Consul, and
had done good service, in the eyes of his superior officers, in the
matter of the Catiline conspiracy. He had then gone to Asia as governor,
and, after the Roman manner, had fleeced the province. That this was so
there is no doubt. After his return he was accused, was defended by
Cicero, and was acquitted. Macrobius tells us that Cicero, by the
happiness of a bon-mot, brought the accused off safely, though he was
manifestly guilty. He adds also that Cicero took care not to allow the
joke to appear in the published edition of his speech.[266] There are
parts of the speech which have been preserved, and are sufficiently
amusing even to us. He is very hard upon the Greeks of Asia, the class
from which the witnesses against Flaccus were taken. We know here in
England that a spaniel, a wife, and a walnut-tree may be beaten with
advantage. Cicero says that in Asia there is a proverb that a Phrygian
may be improved in the same way. "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili." It
is declared through Asia that you should take a Carian for your
experiment. The "last of the Mysians" is the well-known Asiatic term for
the lowest type of humanity. Look through all the comedies, you will
find the leading slave is a Lydian. Then he turns to these poor
Asiatics, and asks them whether any one can be expected to think well of
them, when such is their own testimony of themselves! He attacks the
Jew, and speaks of the Jewish religion as a superstition worthy in
itself of no consideration. Pompey had spared the gold in the Temple of
Jerusalem, because he thought it wise to respect the religious
prejudices of the people; but the gods themselves had shown, by
subjecting the Jews to the Romans, how little the gods had regarded
these idolatrous worshippers! Such were the arguments used; and they
prevailed with the judges--or jury, we should rather call them--to whom
they were addressed.




CHAPTER XII.

_HIS EXILE._


We now come to that period of Cicero's life in which, by common consent
of all who have hitherto written of him, he is supposed to have shown
himself as least worthy of his high name. Middleton, who certainly loved
his hero's memory and was always anxious to do him justice, condemns
him. "It cannot be denied that in this calamity of his exile he did not
behave himself with that firmness which might reasonably be expected
from one who had borne so glorious a part in the Republic." Morabin, the
French biographer, speaks of the wailings of his grief, of its injustice
and its follies. "Cicéron était trop plein de son malheur pour donner
entrée à de nouvelles espérances," he says. "Il avait supporté ce
malheur avec peu de courage," says another Frenchman, M. Du Rozoir, in
introducing us to the speeches which Cicero made on his return. Dean
Merivale declares that "he marred the grace of the concession in the
eyes of posterity"--alluding to the concession made to popular feeling
by his voluntary departure from Rome, as will hereafter be
described--"by the unmanly lamentations with which he accompanied it."
Mommsen, with a want of insight into character wonderful in an author
who has so closely studied the history of the period, speaks of his
exile as a punishment inflicted on a "man notoriously timid, and
belonging to the class of political weather-cocks." "We now come," says
Mr. Forsyth, "to the most melancholy period of Cicero's life, melancholy
not so much from its nature and the extent of the misfortunes which
overtook him, as from the abject prostration of mind into which he was
thrown." Mr. Froude, as might be expected, uses language stronger than
that of others, and tells us that "he retired to Macedonia to pour out
his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of a woman." We
have to admit that modern historians and biographers have been united in
accusing Cicero of want of manliness during his exile. I propose--not,
indeed, to wash the blackamoor white--but to show, if I can, that he was
as white as others might be expected to have been in similar
circumstances.

We are, I think, somewhat proud of the courage shown by public men of
our country who have suffered either justly or unjustly under the laws.
Our annals are bloody, and many such have had to meet their death. They
have done so generally with becoming manliness. Even though they may
have been rebels against the powers of the day, their memories have been
made green because they have fallen like brave men. Sir Thomas More, who
was no rebel, died well, and crowned a good life by his manner of
leaving it. Thomas Cromwell submitted to the axe without a complaint.
Lady Jane Grey, when on the scaffold, yielded nothing in manliness to
the others. Cranmer and the martyr bishops perished nobly. The Earl of
Essex, and Raleigh, and Strafford, and Strafford's master showed no fear
when the fatal moment came. In reading the fate of each, we sympathize
with the victim because of a certain dignity at the moment of death. But
there is, I think, no crisis of life in which it is so easy for a man to
carry himself honorably as that in which he has to leave it. "Venit
summa dies et ineluctabile tempus." No doubting now can be of avail. No
moment is left for the display of conduct beyond this, which requires
only decorum and a free use of the pulses to become in some degree
glorious. The wretch from the lowest dregs of the people can achieve it
with a halter round his neck. Cicero had that moment also to face; and
when it came he was as brave as the best Englishman of them all. But of
those I have named no one had an Atticus to whom it had been the
privilege of his life to open his very soul, in language so charming as
to make it worth posterity's while to read it, to study it, to sift it,
and to criticise it. Wolsey made many plaints in his misery, but they
have reached us in such forms of grace that they do not disparage him;
but then he too had no Atticus. Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke were
dismissed ministers and doomed to live in exile, the latter for many
years, and felt, no doubt, strongly their removal from the glare of
public life to obscurity. We hear no complaint from them which can
justify some future critic in saying that their wails were unworthy of a
woman; but neither of them was capable of telling an Atticus the
thoughts of his mind as they rose. What other public man ever had an
Atticus to whom, in the sorrows which the ingratitude of friends had
brought upon him, he could disclose every throb of his heart?

I think that we are often at a loss, in our efforts at appreciation of
character, and in the expressions of our opinion respecting it, to
realize the meaning of courage and manliness. That sententious Swedish
Queen, one of whose foolish maxims I have quoted, has said that Cicero,
though a coward, was capable of great actions, because she did not know
what a coward was. To doubt--to tremble with anxiety--to vacillate
hither and thither between this course and the other as to which may be
the better--to complain within one's own breast that this or that thing
has been an injustice--to hesitate within one's self, not quite knowing
which way honor may require us to go--to be indignant even at fancied
wrongs--to rise in wrath against another, and then, before the hour has
passed, to turn that wrath against one's self--that is not to be a
coward. To know what duty requires, and then to be deterred by fear of
results--that is to be a coward; but the man of many scruples may be the
greatest hero of them all. Let the law of things be declared clearly so
that the doubting mind shall no longer doubt, so that scruples may be
laid at rest, so that the sense of justice may be satisfied--and he of
whom I speak shall be ready to meet the world in arms against him. There
are men, very useful in their way, who shall never doubt at all, but
shall be ready, as the bull is ready, to encounter any obstacles that
there may be before them. I will not say but that for the coarse
purposes of the world they may not be the most efficacious, but I will
not admit that they are therefore the bravest. The bull, who has no
imagination to tell him what the obstacle may do to him, is not brave.
He is brave who, fully understanding the potentiality of the obstacle,
shall, for a sufficient purpose, move against it.

This Cicero always did. He braved the murderous anger of Sulla when, as
a young man, he thought it well to stop the greed of Sulla's minions. He
trusted himself amid the dangers prepared for him, when it was necessary
that with extraordinary speed he should get together the evidence needed
for the prosecution of Verres. He was firm against all that Catiline
attempted for his destruction, and had courage enough for the
responsibility when he thought it expedient to doom the friends of
Catiline to death. In defending Milo, whether the cause were good or
bad, he did not blench.[267] He joined the Republican army in Macedonia
though he distrusted Pompey and his companions. When he thought that
there was a hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all the
courage of a tigress protecting her young; and when all had failed and
was rotten around him, when the Republic had so fallen that he knew it
to be gone--then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman with all
the apparent indifference of life which was displayed by those
countrymen of our own whom I have named.

But why did he write so piteously when he was driven into exile? Why, at
any rate, did he turn upon his chosen friend and scold him, as though
that friend had not done enough for friendship? Why did he talk of
suicide as though by that he might find the easiest way of escape?

I hold it to be natural that a man should wail to himself under a sense,
not simply of misfortune, but of misfortune coming to him from the
injustice of others, and specially from the ingratitude of friends.
Afflictions which come to us from natural causes, such as sickness and
physical pain, or from some chance such as the loss of our money by the
breaking of a bank, an heroic man will bear without even inward
complainings. But a sense of wrong done to him by friends will stir him,
not by the misery inflicted, but because of the injustice; and that
which he says to himself he will say to his wife, if his wife be to him
a second self, or to his friend, if he have one so dear to him. The
testimony by which the writers I have named have been led to treat
Cicero so severely has been found in the letters which he wrote during
his exile; and of these letters all but one were addressed either to
Atticus or to his wife or to his brother.[268] Twenty-seven of them were
to Atticus. Before he accepted a voluntary exile, as the best solution
of the difficulty in which he was placed--for it was voluntary at first,
as will be seen--he applied to the Consul Piso for aid, and for the same
purpose visited Pompey. So far he was a suppliant, but this he did in
conformity with Roman usage. In asking favor of a man in power there was
held to be no disgrace, even though the favor asked were one improper to
be granted, which was not the case with Cicero. And he went about the
Forum in mourning--"sordidatus"--as was the custom with men on their
trial. We cannot doubt that in each of these cases he acted with the
advice of his friends. His conduct and his words after his return from
exile betray exultation rather than despondency.

It is from the letters which he wrote to Atticus that he has been
judged--from words boiling with indignation that such a one as he should
have been surrendered by the Rome that he had saved, by those friends to
whom he had been so true to be trampled on by such a one as Clodius!
When a man has written words intended for the public ear, it is fair
that he should bear the brunt of them, be it what it may. He has
intended them for public effect, and if they are used against him he
should not complain. But here the secret murmurings of the man's soul
were sent forth to his choicest friend, with no idea that from them
would he be judged by the "historians to come in 600 years,"[269] of
whose good word he thought so much. "Quid vero historiæ de nobis ad
annos DC. prædicarint!" he says, to Atticus. How is it that from them,
after 2000 years, the Merivales, Mommsens, and Froudes condemn their
great brother in letters whose lightest utterances have been found
worthy of so long a life! Is there not an injustice in falling upon a
man's private words, words when written intended only for privacy, and
making them the basis of an accusation in which an illustrious man shall
be arraigned forever as a coward? It is said that he was unjust even to
Atticus, accusing even Atticus of lukewarmness. What if he did so--for
an hour? Is that an affair of ours? Did Atticus quarrel with him? Let
any reader of these words who has lived long enough to have an old
friend, ask himself whether there has never been a moment of anger in
his heart--of anger of which he has soon learned to recognize the
injustice? He may not have written his anger, but then, perhaps, he has
not had the pen of a Cicero. Let those who rebuke the unmanliness of
Cicero's wailings remember what were his sufferings. The story has yet
to be told, but I may in rough words describe their nature. Everything
was to be taken from him: all that he had--his houses, his books, his
pleasant gardens, his busts and pictures, his wide retinue of slaves,
and possessions lordly as are those of our dukes and earls. He was
driven out from Italy and so driven that no place of delight could be
open to him. Sicily, where he had friends, Athens, where he might have
lived, were closed against him. He had to look where to live, and did
live for a while on money borrowed from his friends. All the cherished
occupations of his life were over for him--the law courts, the Forum,
the Senate, and the crowded meetings of Roman citizens hanging on his
words. The circumstances of his exile separated him from his wife and
children, so that he was alone. All this was assured to him for life, as
far as Roman law could assure it. Let us think of the condition of some
great and serviceable Englishman in similar circumstances. Let us
suppose that Sir Robert Peel had been impeached, and forced by some
iniquitous sentence to live beyond the pale of civilization: that the
houses at Whitehall Gardens and at Drayton had been confiscated,
dismantled, and levelled to the ground, and his rents and revenues made
over to his enemies; that everything should have been done to destroy
him by the country he had served, except the act of taking away that
life which would thus have been made a burden to him. Would not his case
have been more piteous, a source of more righteous indignation, than
that even of the Mores or Raleighs? He suffered under invectives in the
House of Commons, and we sympathized with him; but if some Clodius of
the day could have done this to him, should we have thought the worse of
him had he opened his wounds to his wife, or to his brother, or to his
friend of friends?

Had Cicero put an end to his life in his exile, as he thought of doing,
he would have been a second Cato to admiring posterity, and some Lucan
with rolling verses would have told us narratives of his valor. The
judges of to-day look back to his half-formed purposes in this direction
as being an added evidence of the weakness of the man; but had he let
himself blood and have perished in his bath, he would have been thought
to have escaped from life as honorably as did Junius Brutus It is
because he dared to live on that we are taught to think so little of
him,--because he had antedated Christianity so far as to feel when the
moment came that such an escape was, in truth, unmanly. He doubted, and
when the deed had not been done he expressed regret that he had allowed
himself to live. But he did not do it,--as Cato would have done, or
Brutus.

It may be as well here to combat, in as few words as possible, the
assertions which have been made that Cicero, having begun life as a
democrat, discarded his colors as soon as he had received from the
people those honors for which he had sought popularity. They who have
said so have taken their idea from the fact that, in much of his early
forensic work, he spoke against the aristocratic party. He attacked
Sulla, through his favorite Chrysogonus, in his defence of Roscius
Amerinus. He afterward defended a woman of Arretium in the spirit of
antagonism to Sulla. His accusation of Verres was made on the same side
in politics, and was carried on in opposition to Hortensius and the
oligarchs. He defended the Tribune Caius Cornelius. Then, when he became
Consul, he devoted himself to the destruction of Catiline, who was
joined with many, perhaps with Cæsar's sympathy, in the conspiracy for
the overthrow of the Republic. Cæsar soon became the leader of the
democracy,--became rather what Mommsen describes as "Democracy" itself;
and as Cicero had defended the Senate from Catiline, and had refused to
attach himself to Cæsar, he is supposed to have turned from the
political ideas of his youth, and to have become a Conservative when
Conservative ideas suited his ambition.

I will not accept the excuse put forward on his behalf, that the early
speeches were made on the side of democracy because the exigencies of
the occasion required him to so devote his energies as an advocate. No
doubt he was an advocate, as are our barristers of to-day, and, as an
advocate, supported this side or that; but we shall be wrong if we
suppose that the Roman "patronus" supplied his services under such
inducements. With us a man goes into the profession of the law with the
intention of making money, and takes the cases right and left, unless
there be special circumstances which may debar him from doing so with
honor. It is a point of etiquette with him to give his assistance, in
turn, as he may be called on; so much so, that leading men are not
unfrequently employed on one side simply that they may not be employed
on the other side. It should not be urged on the part of Cicero that, so
actuated, he defended Amerinus, a case in which he took part against the
aristocrats, or defended Publius Sulla, in doing which he appeared on
the side of the aristocracy. Such a defence of his conduct would be
misleading, and might be confuted. It would be confuted by those who
suppose him to have been "notoriously a political trimmer," as Mommsen
has[270] called him; or a "deserter," as he was described by Dio Cassius
and by the Pseudo-Sallust,[271] by showing that in fact he took up
causes under the influence of strong personal motives such as rarely
govern an English barrister. These motives were in many cases partly
political; but they operated in such a manner as to give no guide to his
political views. In defending Sulla's nephew he was moved, as far as we
know, solely by private motives. In defending Amerinus he may be said to
have attacked Sulla. His object was to stamp out the still burning
embers of Sulla's cruelty; but not the less was he wedded to Sulla's
general views as to the restoration of the authority of the Senate. In
his early speeches, especially in that spoken against Verres, he
denounces the corruption of the senatorial judges; but at that very
period of his life he again and again expresses his own belief in the
glory and majesty of the Senate. In accusing Verres he accused the
general corruption of Rome's provincial governors; and as they were
always past-Consuls or past-Prætors, and had been the elite of the
aristocracy, he may be said so far to have taken the part of a democrat;
but he had done so only so far as he had found himself bound by a sense
of duty to put a stop to corruption. The venality of the judges and the
rapacity of governors had been fit objects for his eloquence; but I deny
that he can be fairly charged with having tampered with democracy
because he had thus used his eloquence on behalf of the people.

He was no doubt stirred by other political motives less praiseworthy,
though submitted to in accordance with the practice and the known usages
of Rome. He had undertaken to speak for Catiline when Catiline was
accused of corruption on his return from Africa, knowing that Catiline
had been guilty. He did not do so; but the intention, for our present
purpose, is the same as the doing. To have defended Catiline would have
assisted him in his operations as a candidate for the Consulship.
Catiline was a bad subject for a defence--as was Fonteius, whom he
certainly did defend--and Catiline was a democrat. But Cicero, had he
defended Catiline, would not have done so as holding out his hand to
democracy. Cicero, when, in the Pro Lege Manilia, he for the first time
addressed the people, certainly spoke in opposition to the wishes of the
Senate in proposing that Pompey should have the command of the
Mithridatic war; but his views were not democratic. It has been said
that this was done because Pompey could help him to the Consulship. To
me it seems that he had already declared to himself that among leading
men in Rome Pompey was the one to whom the Republic would look with the
most security as a bulwark, and that on that account he had resolved to
bind himself to Pompey in some political marriage. Be that as it may,
there was no tampering with democracy in the speech Pro Lege Manilia. Of
all the extant orations made by him before his Consulship, the attentive
reader will sympathize the least with that of Fonteius. After his
scathing onslaught on Verres for provincial plunder, he defended the
plunderer of the Gauls, and held up the suffering allies of Rome to
ridicule as being hardly entitled to good government. This he did simply
as an advocate, without political motive of any kind--in the days in
which he was supposed to be currying favor with democracy--governed by
private friendship, looking forward, probably, to some friendly office
in return, as was customary. It was thus that afterward he defended
Antony, his colleague in the Consulship, whom he knew to have been a
corrupt governor. Autronius had been a party to Catiline's conspiracy,
and Autronius had been Cicero's school-fellow; but Cicero, for some
reserved reason with which we are not acquainted, refused to plead for
Autronius. There is, I maintain, no ground for suggesting that Cicero
had shown by his speeches before his Consulship any party adherence. The
declaration which he made after his Consulship, in the speech for Sulla,
that up to the time of Catiline's first conspiracy forensic duties had
not allowed him to devote himself to party politics, is entitled to
belief: we know, indeed, that it was so. As Quæstor, as Ædile, and as
Prætor, he did not interfere in the political questions of Rome, except
in demanding justice from judges and purity from governors. When he
became Consul then he became a politician, and after that there was
certainly no vacillation in his views. Critics say that he surrendered
himself to Cæsar when Cæsar became master. We shall come to that
hereafter; but the accusation with which I am dealing now is that which
charges him with having abandoned the democratic memories of his youth
as soon as he had enveloped himself with the consular purple. There had
been no democratic promises, and there was no change when he became
Consul.

In truth, Cicero's political convictions were the same from the
beginning to the end of his career, with a consistency which is by no
means usual in politicians; for though, before his Consulship, he had
not taken up politics as a business he had entertained certain political
views, as do all men who live in public. From the first to the last we
may best describe him by the word we have now in use, as a conservative.
The government of Rome had been an oligarchy for many years, though much
had been done by the citizens to reduce the thraldom which an oligarchy
is sure to exact. To that oligarchy Cicero was bound by all the
convictions, by all the practices, and by all the prejudices of his
life. When he speaks of a Republic he speaks of a people and of an
Empire governed by an oligarchy; he speaks of a power to be kept in the
hands of a few--for the benefit of the few, and of the many if it might
be--but at any rate in the hands of a few. That those few should be so
select as to admit of no new-comers among them, would probably have been
a portion of his political creed, had he not been himself a "novus
homo." As he was the first of his family to storm the barrier of the
fortress, he had been forced to depend much on popular opinion; but not
on that account had there been any dealings between him and democracy.
That the Empire should be governed according to the old oligarchical
forms which had been in use for more than four centuries, and had
created the power of Rome--that was his political creed. That Consuls,
Censors, and Senators might go on to the end of time with no diminution
of their dignity, but with great increase of justice and honor and truth
among them--that was his political aspiration. They had made Rome what
it was, and he knew and could imagine nothing better; and, odious as an
oligarchy is seen to be under the strong light of experience to which
prolonged ages has subjected it, the aspiration on his part was noble.
He has been wrongly accused of deserting "that democracy with which he
had flirted in his youth." There had been no democracy in his youth,
though there had existed such a condition in the time of the Gracchi.
There was none in his youth and none in his age. That which has been
wrongly called democracy was conspiracy--not a conspiracy of democrats
such as led to our Commonwealth, or to the American Independence, or to
the French Revolution; but conspiracy of a few nobles for the better
assurance of the plunder, and the power, and the high places of the
Empire. Of any tendency toward democracy no man has been less justly
accused than Cicero, unless it might be Cæsar. To Cæsar we must accord
the merit of having seen that a continuation of the old oligarchical
forms was impracticable This Cicero did not see. He thought that the
wounds inflicted by the degeneracy and profligacy of individuals were
curable. It is attributed to Cæsar that he conceived the grand idea of
establishing general liberty under the sole dominion of one great, and
therefore beneficent, ruler. I think he saw no farther than that he, by
strategy, management, and courage might become this ruler, whether
beneficent or the reverse. But here I think that it becomes the writer,
whether he be historian, biographer, or fill whatever meaner position he
may in literature, to declare that no beneficence can accompany such a
form of government. For all temporary sleekness, for metropolitan
comfort and fatness, the bill has to be paid sooner or later in
ignorance, poverty, and oppression. With an oligarchy there will be
other, perhaps graver, faults; but with an oligarchy there will be salt,
though it be among a few. There will be a Cicero now and again--or at
least a Cato. From the dead, stagnant level of personal despotism there
can be no rising to life till corruption paralyzes the hands of power,
and the fabric falls by its own decay Of this no proof can be found in
the world's history so manifest as that taught by the Roman Empire.

I think it is made clear by a study of Cicero's life and works, up to
the period of his exile, that an adhesion to the old forms of the Roman
Government was his guiding principle. I am sure that they who follow me
to the close of his career will acknowledge that after his exile he
lived for this principle, and that he died for it. "Respublica," the
Republic, was the one word which to his ear contained a political charm.
It was the shibboleth by which men were to be conjured into well-being.
The word constitution is nearly as potent with us. But it is essential
that the reader of Roman history and Roman biography should understand
that the appellation had in it, for all Roman ears, a thoroughly
conservative meaning. Among those who at Cicero's period dealt with
politics in Rome--all of whom, no doubt, spoke of the Republic as the
vessel of State which was to be defended by all persons--there were four
classes. These were they who simply desired the plunder of the
State--the Catilines, the Sullas of the day, and the Antonys; men such
as Verres had been, and Fonteius, and Autronius. The other three can be
best typified each by one man. There was Cæsar, who knew that the
Republic was gone, past all hope. There was Cato--"the dogmatical fool
Cato" as Mommsen calls him, perhaps with some lack of the historian's
dignity--who was true to the Republic, who could not bend an inch, and
was thus as detrimental to any hope of reconstruction as a Catiline or a
Cæsar. Cicero was of the fourth class, believing in the Republic, intent
on saving it, imbued amid all his doubts with a conviction that if the
"optimates" or "boni"--the leading men of the party--would be true to
themselves, Consuls, Censors, and Senate would still suffice to rule the
world; but prepared to give and take with those who were opposed to him.
It was his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands
clean, but should wink at much dirt in the world at large. Nothing, he
saw, could be done by Catonic rigor. We can see now that Ciceronic
compromises were, and must have been, equally ineffective. The patient
was past cure. But in seeking the truth as to Cicero, we have to
perceive that amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes
overwhelmed by the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold
fast by this idea to the end. The frequent expressions made to Atticus
in opposition to this belief are to be taken as the murmurs of his mind
at the moment; as you shall hear a man swear that all is gone, and see
him tear his hair, and shall yet know that there is a deep fund of hope
within his bosom. It was the ingratitude of his political friends, his
"boni" and his "optimates," of Pompey as their head, which tried him the
sorest; but he was always forgiving them, forgiving Pompey as the head
of them, because he knew that, were he to be severed from them, then the
political world must be closed to him altogether.

Of Cicero's strength or Cicero's weakness Pompey seems to have known
nothing. He was no judge of men. Cæsar measured him with a great
approach to accuracy. Cæsar knew him to be the best Roman of his day;
one who, if he could be brought over to serve in Cæsarean ranks, would
be invaluable--because of his honesty, his eloquence, and his
capability; but he knew him as one who must be silenced if he were not
brought to serve on the Cæsarean side. Such a man, however, might be
silenced for a while--taught to perceive that his efforts were vain--and
then brought into favor by further overtures, and made of use.
Personally he was pleasant to Cæsar, who had taste enough to know that
he was a man worthy of all personal dignity. But Cæsar was not, I think,
quite accurate in his estimation, having allowed himself to believe at
the last that Cicero's energy on behalf of the Republic had been
quelled.

[Sidenote: B.C. 58, ætat. 49.]

Now we will go back to the story of Cicero's exile. Gradually during the
preceding year he had learned that Clodius was preparing to attack him,
and to doubt whether he could expect protection from the Triumvirate.
That he could be made safe by the justice either of the people or by
that of any court before which he could be tried, seems never to have
occurred to him. He knew the people and he knew the courts too well.
Pompey no doubt might have warded off the coming evil; such at least was
Cicero's idea. To him Pompey was the greatest political power as yet
extant in Rome; but he was beginning to believe that Pompey would be
untrue to him. When he had sent to Pompey a long account of the grand
doings of his Consulship, Pompey had replied with faintest praises. He
had rejected the overtures of the Triumvirate. In the last letter to
Atticus in the year before, written in August,[272] he had declared that
the Republic was ruined; that they who had brought things to this
pass--meaning the Triumvirate--were hostile; but, for himself, he was
confident in saying that he was quite safe in the good will of men
around him. There is a letter to his brother written in November, the
next letter in the collection, in which he says that Pompey and Cæsar
promise him everything. With the exception of two letters of
introduction, we have nothing from him till he writes to Atticus from
the first scene of his exile.

When the new year commenced, Clodius was Tribune of the people, and
immediately was active. Piso and Gabinius were Consuls. Piso was kinsman
to Piso Frugi, who had married Cicero's daughter,[273]and was expected
to befriend Cicero at this crisis. But Clodius procured the allotment of
Syria and Macedonia to the two Consuls by the popular vote. They were
provinces rich in plunder; and it was matter of importance for a Consul
to know that the prey which should come to him as Proconsul should be
worthy of his grasp. They were, therefore, ready to support the Tribune
in what he proposed to do. It was necessary to Cicero's enemies that
there should be some law by which Cicero might be condemned. It would
not be within the power of Clodius, even with the Triumvirate at his
back, to drive the man out of Rome and out of Italy, without an alleged
cause. Though justice had been tabooed, law was still in vogue. Now
there was a matter as to which Cicero was open to attack. As Consul he
had caused certain Roman citizens to be executed as conspirators, in the
teeth of a law which enacted that no Roman citizen should be condemned
to die except by a direct vote of the people. It had certainly become a
maxim of the constitution of the Republic that a citizen should not be
made to suffer death except by the voice of the people. The Valerian,
the Porcian, and the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect.
Now there had been no popular vote as to the execution of Lentulus and
the other conspirators, who had been taken red-handed in Rome in the
affair of Catiline. Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the
decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero; but no decree of
the Senate had the power of a law. In spite of that decree the old law
was in force; and no appeal to the people had been allowed to Lentulus.
But there had grown up in the constitution a practice which had been
supposed to override the Valerian and Porcian laws. In certain
emergencies the Senate would call upon the Consuls to see that the
Republic should suffer no injury, and it had been held that at such
moments the Consuls were invested with an authority above all law.
Cicero had been thus strengthened when, as Consul, he had struggled with
Catiline; but it was an open question, as Cicero himself very well knew.
In the year of his Consulship--the very year in which Lentulus and the
others had been strangled--he had defended Rabirius, who was then
accused of having killed a citizen thirty years before. Rabirius was
charged with having slaughtered the Tribune Saturninus by consular
authority, the Consuls of the day having been ordered to defend the
Republic, as Cicero had been ordered. Rabirius probably had not killed
Saturninus, nor did any one now care whether he had done so or not. The
trial had been brought about notoriously by the agency of Cæsar, who
caused himself to be selected by the Prætor as one of the two judges for
the occasion;[274] and Cæsar's object as notoriously was to lessen the
authority of the Senate, and to support the democratic interest. Both
Cicero and Hortensius defended Rabirius, but he was condemned by Cæsar,
and, as we are told, himself only escaped by using that appeal to the
people in support of which he had himself been brought to trial. In
this, as in so many of the forensic actions of the day, there had been
an admixture of violence and law. We must, I think, acknowledge that
there was the same leaven of illegality in the proceedings against
Lentulus. It had no doubt been the intention of the constitution that a
Consul, in the heat of an emergency, should use his personal authority
for the protection of the Commonwealth, but it cannot be alleged that
there was such an emergency, when the full Senate had had time to debate
on the fate of the Catiline criminals. Both from Cæsar's words as
reported by Sallust, and from Cicero's as given to us by himself, we are
aware that an idea of the illegality of the proceeding was present in
the minds of Senators at the moment. But, though law was loved at Rome,
all forensic and legislative proceedings were at this time carried on
with monstrous illegality. Consuls consulted the heavens falsely;
Tribunes used their veto violently; judges accepted bribes openly; the
votes of the people were manipulated fraudulently. In the trial and
escape of Rabirius, the laws were despised by those who pretended to
vindicate them. Clodius had now become a Tribune by the means of certain
legal provision, but yet in opposition to all law. In the conduct of the
affair against Catiline Cicero seems to have been actuated by pure
patriotism, and to have been supported by a fine courage; but he knew
that in destroying Lentulus and Cethegus he subjected himself to certain
dangers. He had willingly faced these dangers for the sake of the object
in view. As long as he might remain the darling of the people, as he was
at that moment, he would no doubt be safe; but it was not given to any
one to be for long the darling of the Roman people. Cicero had become so
by using an eloquence to which the Romans were peculiarly susceptible;
but though they loved sweet tongues, long purses went farther with them.
Since Cicero's Consulship he had done nothing to offend the people,
except to remain occasionally out of their sight; but he had lost the
brilliancy of his popularity, and he was aware that it was so.

In discussing popularity in Rome we have to remember of what elements it
was formed. We hear that this or that man was potent at some special
time by the assistance coming to him from the popular voice. There was
in Rome a vast population of idle men, who had been trained by their
city life to look to the fact of their citizenship for their support,
and who did, in truth, live on their citizenship. Of "panem et
circenses" we have all heard, and know that eleemosynary bread and the
public amusements of the day supplied the material and æsthetic wants of
many Romans. But men so fed and so amused were sure to need further
occupations. They became attached to certain friends, to certain
patrons, and to certain parties, and soon learned that a return was
expected for the food and for the excitement supplied to them. This they
gave by holding themselves in readiness for whatever violence was needed
from them, till it became notorious in Rome that a great party man might
best attain his political object by fighting for it in the streets. This
was the meaning of that saying of Crassus, that a man could not be
considered rich till he could keep an army in his own pay. A popular
vote obtained and declared by a faction fight in the forum was still a
popular vote, and if supported by sufficient violence would be valid.
There had been street fighting of the kind when Cicero had defended
Caius Cornelius, in the year after his Prætorship; there had been
fighting of the kind when Rabirius had been condemned in his Consulship.
We shall learn by-and-by to what extent such fighting prevailed when
Clodius was killed by Milo's body-guard. At the period of which we are
now writing, when Clodius was intent on pursuing Cicero to his ruin, it
was a question with Cicero himself whether he would not trust to a
certain faction in Rome to fight for him, and so to protect him. Though
his popularity was on the wane--that general popularity which, we may
presume, had been produced by the tone of his voice and the grace of his
language--there still remained to him that other popularity which
consisted, in truth, of the trained bands employed by the "boni" and the
"optimates," and which might be used, if need were, in opposition to
trained bands on the other side.

The bill first proposed by Clodius to the people with the object of
destroying Cicero did not mention Cicero, nor, in truth, refer to him.
It purported to enact that he who had caused to be executed any Roman
citizen not duly condemned to death, should himself be deprived of the
privilege of water or fire.[275] This condemned no suggested malefactor
to death; but, in accordance with Roman law, made it impossible that any
Roman so condemned should live within whatever bounds might be named for
this withholding of fire and water. The penalty intended was banishment;
but by this enactment no individual would be banished. Cicero, however,
at once took the suggestion to himself, and put himself into mourning,
as a man accused and about to be brought to his trial. He went about the
streets accompanied by crowds armed for his protection; and Clodius also
caused himself to be so accompanied. There came thus to be a question
which might prevail should there be a general fight. The Senate was, as
a body, on Cicero's side, but was quite unable to cope with the
Triumvirate. Cæsar no doubt had resolved that Cicero should be made to
go, and Cæsar was lord of the Triumvirate. On behalf of Cicero there was
a large body of the conservative or oligarchical party who were still
true to him; and they, too, all went into the usual public mourning,
evincing their desire that the accused man should be rescued from his
accusers.

The bitterness of Clodius would be surprising did we not know how bitter
had been Cicero's tongue. When the affair of the Bona Dea had taken
place there was no special enmity between this debauched young man and
the great Consul. Cicero, though his own life had ever been clean and
well ordered, rather affected the company of fast young men when he
found them to be witty as well as clever. This very Clodius had been in
his good books till the affair of the Bona Dea. But now the Tribune's
hatred was internecine. I have hitherto said nothing, and need say but
little, of a certain disreputable lady named Clodia. She was the sister
of Clodius and the wife of Metellus Celer. She was accused by public
voice in Rome of living in incest with her brother, and of poisoning her
husband. Cicero calls her afterward, in his defence of Cælius, "amica
omnium." She had the nickname of Quadrantaria[276] given to her, because
she frequented the public baths, at which the charge was a farthing. It
must be said also of her, either in praise or in dispraise, that she was
the Lesbia who inspired the muse of Catullus. It was rumored in Rome
that she had endeavored to set her cap at Cicero. Cicero in his raillery
had not spared the lady. To speak publicly the grossest evil of women
was not opposed to any idea of gallantry current among the Romans. Our
sense of chivalry, as well as decency, is disgusted by the language used
by Horace to women who once to him were young and pretty, but have
become old and ugly. The venom of Cicero's abuse of Clodia annoys us,
and we have to remember that the gentle ideas which we have taken in
with our mother's milk had not grown into use with the Romans. It is
necessary that this woman's name should be mentioned, and it may appear
here as she was one of the causes of that hatred which burnt between
Clodius and Cicero, till Clodius was killed in a street row.

It has been presumed that Cicero was badly advised in presuming publicly
that the new law was intended against himself, and in taking upon
himself the outward signs of a man under affliction. "The resolution,"
says Middleton, "of changing his gown was too hasty and inconsiderate,
and helped to precipitate his ruin." He was sensible of his error when
too late, and oft reproaches Atticus that, being a stander-by, and less
heated with the game than himself, he would suffer him to make such
blunders. And he quotes the words written to Atticus: "Here my judgment
first failed me, or, indeed, brought me into trouble. We were blind,
blind I say, in changing our raiment and in appealing to the
populace. * * * I handed myself and all belonging to me over to my enemies,
while you were looking on, while you were holding your peace; yes, you,
who, if your wit in the matter was no better than mine, were impeded by
no personal fears."[277] But the reader should study the entire letter,
and study it in the original, for no translator can give its true
purport. This the reader must do before he can understand Cicero's state
of mind when writing it, or his relation to Atticus; or the thoughts
which distracted him when, in accordance with the advice of Atticus, he
resolved, while yet uncondemned, to retire into banishment. The censure
to which Atticus is subjected throughout this letter is that which a
thoughtful, hesitating, scrupulous man is so often disposed to address
to himself. After reminding Atticus of the sort of advice which should
have been given--the want of which in the first moment of his exile he
regrets--and doing this in words of which it is very difficult now to
catch the exact flavor, he begs to be pardoned for his reproaches. "You
will forgive me this," he says. "I blame myself more than I do you; but
I look to you as a second self, and I make you a sharer with me of my
own folly." I take this letter out of its course, and speak of it as
connected with that terrible period of doubt to which it refers, in
which he had to decide whether he would remain in Rome and fight it out,
or run before his enemies. But in writing the letter afterward his mind
was as much disturbed as when he did fly. I am inclined, therefore, to
think that Middleton and others may have been wrong in blaming his
flight, which they have done, because in his subsequent vacillating
moods he blamed himself. How the battle might have gone had he remained,
we have no evidence to show; but we do know that though he fled, he
returned soon with renewed glory, and altogether overcame the attempt
which had been made to destroy him.

In this time of his distress a strong effort was made by the Senate to
rescue him. It was proposed to them that they all as a body should go
into mourning on his behalf; indeed, the Senate passed a vote to this
effect, but were prevented by the two Consuls from carrying it out. As
to what he had best do he and his friends were divided. Some recommended
that he should remain where he was, and defend himself by
street-fighting should it be necessary. In doing this he would
acknowledge that law no longer prevailed in Rome--a condition of things
to which many had given in their adherence, but with which Cicero would
surely have been the last to comply. He himself, in his despair, thought
for a time that the old Roman mode of escape would be preferable, and
that he might with decorum end his life and his troubles by suicide.
Atticus and others dissuaded him from this, and recommended him to fly.
Among these Cato and Hortensius have both been named. To this advice he
at last yielded, and it may be doubted whether any better could have
been given. Lawlessness, which had been rampant in Rome before, had,
under the Triumvirate, become almost lawful. It was Cæsar's intention to
carry out his will with such compliance with the forms of the Republic
as might suit him, but in utter disregard to all such forms when they
did not suit him. The banishment of Cicero was one of the last steps
taken by Cæsar before he left Rome for his campaigns in Gaul. He was
already in command of the legions, and was just without the city. He had
endeavored to buy Cicero, but had failed. Having failed, he had
determined to be rid of him. Clodius was but his tool, as were Pompey
and the two Consuls. Had Cicero endeavored to support himself by
violence in Rome, his contest would, in fact have been with Cæsar.

Cicero, before he went, applied for protection personally to Piso the
Consul, and to Pompey. Gabinius, the other Consul, had already declared
his purpose to the Senate, but Piso was bound to him by family ties. He
himself relates to us in his oration, spoken after his return, against
this Piso, the manner of the meeting between him and Rome's chief
officer. Piso told him--so at least Cicero declared in the Senate, and
we have heard of no contradiction--that Gabinius was so driven by debts
as to be unable to hold up his head without a rich province; that he
himself, Piso, could only hope to get a province by taking part with
Gabinius; that any application to the Consuls was useless, and that
every one must look after himself.[278] Concerning his appeal to Pompey
two stories have been given to us, neither of which appears to be true.
Plutarch says that when Cicero had travelled out from Rome to Pompey's
Alban villa, Pompey ran out of the back-door to avoid meeting him.
Plutarch cared more for a good story than for accuracy, and is not
worthy of much credit as to details unless when corroborated. The other
account is based on Cicero's assertion that he did see Pompey on this
occasion. Nine or ten years after the meeting he refers to it in a
letter to Atticus, which leaves no doubt as to the fact. The story
founded on that letter declares that Cicero threw himself bodily at his
old friend's feet, and that Pompey did not lend a hand to raise him, but
told him simply that everything was in Cæsar's hands. This narrative is,
I think, due to a misinterpretation of Cicero's words, though it is
given by a close translation of them. He is describing Pompey when Cæsar
after his Gallic wars had crossed the Rubicon, and the two late
Triumvirates--the third having perished miserably in the East--were in
arms against each other. "Alter ardet furore et scelere" he says.[279]
Cæsar is pressing on unscrupulous in his passion. "Alter is qui nos sibi
quondam ad pedes stratos ne sublevabat quidem, qui se nihil contra hujus
voluntatem aiebat facere posse." "That other one," he continues--meaning
Pompey, and pursuing his picture of the present contrast--"who in days
gone by would not even lift me when I lay at his feet, and told me that
he could do nothing but as Cæsar wished it." This little supposed detail
of biography has been given, no doubt, from an accurate reading of the
words; but in it the spirit of the writer's mind as he wrote it has
surely been missed. The prostration of which he spoke, from which Pompey
would not raise him, the memory of which was still so bitter to him, was
not a prostration of the body. I hold it to have been impossible that
Cicero should have assumed such an attitude before Pompey, or that he
would so have written to Atticus had he done so. It would have been
neither Roman nor Ciceronian, as displayed by Cicero to Pompey. He had
gone to his old ally and told him of his trouble, and had no doubt
reminded him of those promises of assistance which Pompey had so often
made. Then Pompey had refused to help him, and had assured him, with too
much truth, that Cæsar's will was everything. Again, we have to remember
that in judging of the meaning of words between two such correspondents
as Cicero and Atticus, we must read between the lines, and interpret the
words by creating for ourselves something of the spirit in which they
were written and in which they were received. I cannot imagine that, in
describing to Atticus what had occurred at that interview nine years
after it had taken place, Cicero had intended it to be understood that
he had really grovelled in the dust.

Toward the end of March he started from Rome, intending to take refuge
among his friends in Sicily. On the same day Clodius brought in a bill
directed against Cicero by name and caused it to be carried by the
people, "Ut Marco Tullio aqua et igni interdictum sit"--that it should
be illegal to supply Cicero with fire and water. The law when passed
forbade any one to harbor the criminal within four hundred miles of
Rome, and declared the doing so to be a capital offence. It is evident,
from the action of those who obeyed the law, and of those who did not,
that legal results were not feared so much as the ill-will of those who
had driven Cicero to his exile. They who refused him succor did do so
not because to give it him would be illegal, but lest Cæsar and Pompey
would be offended. It did not last long, and during the short period of
his exile he found perhaps more of friendship than of enmity; but he
directed his steps in accordance with the bearing of party-spirit. We
are told that he was afraid to go to Athens, because at Athens lived
that Autronius whom he had refused to defend. Autronius had been
convicted of conspiracy and banished, and, having been a Catilinarian
conspirator, had been in truth on Cæsar's side. Nor were geographical
facts sufficiently established to tell Cicero what places were and what
were not without the forbidden circle. He sojourned first at Vibo, in
the extreme south of Italy, intending to pass from thence into Sicily.
It was there that he learned that a certain distance had been
prescribed; but it seems that he had already heard that the Proconsular
Governor of the island would not receive him, fearing Cæsar. Then he
came north from Vibo to Brundisium, that being the port by which
travellers generally went from Italy to the East. He had determined to
leave his family in Rome, feeling, probably, that it would be easier for
him to find a temporary home for himself than for him and them together.
And there were money difficulties in which Atticus helped him.[280]
Atticus, always wealthy, had now become a very rich man by the death of
an uncle. We do not know of what nature were the money arrangements made
by Cicero at the time, but there can be no doubt that the losses by his
exile were very great. There was a thorough disruption of his property,
for which the subsequent generosity of his country was unable altogether
to atone. But this sat lightly on Cicero's heart. Pecuniary losses never
weighed heavily with him.

As he journeyed back from Vibo to Brundisium friends were very kind to
him, in spite of the law. Toward the end of the speech which he made
five years afterward on behalf of his friend C. Plancius he explains the
debt of gratitude which he owed to his client, whose kindness to him in
his exile had been very great. He commences his story of the goodness of
Plancius by describing the generosity of the towns on the road to
Brundisium, and the hospitality of his friend Flavius, who had received
him at his house in the neighborhood of that town, and had placed him
safely on board a ship when at last he resolved to cross over to
Dyrrachium. There were many schemes running in his head at this time. At
one period he had resolved to pass through Macedonia into Asia, and to
remain for a while at Cyzicum. This idea he expresses in a letter to his
wife written from Brundisium. Then he goes, wailing no doubt, but in
words which to me seem very natural as coming from a husband in such a
condition: "O me perditum, O me afflictum;"[281] exclamations which it
is impossible to translate, as they refer to his wife's separation from
himself rather than to his own personal sufferings. "How am I to ask you
to come to me?" he says; "you a woman, ill in health, worn out in body
and in spirit. I cannot ask you! Must I then live without you? It must
be so, I think. If there be any hope of my return, it is you must look
to it, you that must strengthen it; but if, as I fear, the thing is
done, then come to me. If I can have you I shall not be altogether
destroyed." No doubt these are wailings; but is a man unmanly because he
so wails to the wife of his bosom? Other humans have written prettily
about women: it was common for Romans to do so. Catullus desires from
Lesbia as many kisses as are the stars of night or the sands of Libya.
Horace swears that he would perish for Chloe if Chloe might be left
alive. "When I am dying," says Tibullus to Delia, "may I be gazing at
you; may my last grasp hold your hand." Propertius tells Cynthia that
she stands to him in lieu of home and parents, and all the joys of life.
"Whether he be sad with his friends or happy, Cynthia does it all." The
language in each case is perfect; but what other Roman was there of whom
we have evidence that he spoke to his wife like this? Ovid in his
letters from his banishment says much of his love for his wife; but
there is no passion expressed in anything that Ovid wrote.

Clodius, as soon as the enactment against Cicero became law, caused it
be carried into effect with all its possible cruelties. The criminal's
property was confiscated. The house on the Palatine Hill was destroyed,
and the goods were put up to auction, with, as we are told, a great lack
of buyers. His choicest treasures were carried away by the Consuls
themselves. Piso, who had lived near him in Rome, got for himself and
for his father-in-law the rich booty from the town house. The country
villas were also destroyed, and Gabinius, who had a country house close
by Cicero's Tusculan retreat, took even the very shrubs out of the
garden. He tells the story of the greed and enmity of the Consuls in the
speech he made after his return, Pro Domo Sua,[282] pleading for the
restitution of his household property. "My house on the Palatine was
burnt," he says, "not by any accident, but by arson. In the mean time
the Consuls were feasting, and were congratulating themselves among the
conspirators, when one boasted that he had been Catiline's friend, the
other that Cethegus had been his cousin." By this he implies that the
conspiracy which during his Consulship had been so odious to Rome was
now, in these days of the Triumvirate, again in favor among Roman
aristocrats.

He went across from Brundisium to Dyrrachium, and from thence to
Thessalonica, where he was treated with most loving-kindness by
Plancius, who was Quæstor in these parts, and who came down to
Dyrrachium to meet him, clad in mourning for the occasion. This was the
Plancius whom he afterward defended, and indeed he was bound to do so.
Plancius seems to have had but little dread of the law, though he was a
Roman officer employed in the very province to the government of which
the present Consul Piso had already been appointed. Thessalonica was
within four hundred miles, and yet Cicero lived there with Plancius for
some months.

The letters from Cicero during his exile are to me very touching, though
I have been told so often that in having written them he lacked the
fortitude of a Roman. Perhaps I am more capable of appreciating natural
humanity than Roman fortitude. We remember the story of the Spartan boy
who allowed the fox to bite him beneath his frock without crying. I
think we may imagine that he refrained from tears in public, before some
herd of school-fellows, or a bench of masters, or amid the sternness of
parental authority; but that he told his sister afterward how he had
been tortured, or his mother as he lay against her bosom, or perhaps his
chosen chum. Such reticences are made dignified by the occasion, when
something has to be won by controlling the expression to which nature
uncontrolled would give utterance, but are not in themselves evidence
either of sagacity or of courage. Roman fortitude was but a suit of
armor to be worn on state occasions. If we come across a warrior with
his crested helmet and his sword and his spear, we see, no doubt, an
impressive object. If we could find him in his night-shirt, the same man
would be there, but those who do not look deeply into things would be
apt to despise him because his grand trappings were absent. Chance has
given us Cicero in his night-shirt. The linen is of such fine texture
that we are delighted with it, but we despise the man because he wore a
garment--such as we wear ourselves indeed, though when we wear it nobody
is then brought in to look at us.

There is one most touching letter written from Thessalonica to his
brother, by whom, after thoughts vacillating this way and that, he was
unwilling to be visited, thinking that a meeting would bring more of
pain than of service. "Mi frater, mi frater, mi frater!" he begins. The
words in English would hardly give all the pathos. "Did you think that I
did not write because I am angry, or that I did not wish to see you? I
angry with you! But I could not endure to be seen by you. You would not
have seen your brother; not him whom you had left; not him whom you had
known; not him whom, weeping as you went away, you had dismissed,
weeping himself as he strove to follow you."[283] Then he heaps blame on
his own head, bitterly accusing himself because he had brought his
brother to such a pass of sorrow. In this letter he throws great blame
upon Hortensius, whom together with Pompey he accuses of betraying him.
What truth there may have been in this accusation as to Hortensius we
have no means of saying. He couples Pompey in the same charge, and as to
Pompey's treatment of him there can be no doubt. Pompey had been untrue
to his promises because of his bond with Cæsar. It is probable that
Hortensius had failed to put himself forward on Cicero's behalf with
that alacrity which the one advocate had expected from the other. Cicero
and Hortensius were friends afterward, but so were Cicero and Pompey.
Cicero was forgiving by nature, and also by self-training. It did not
suit his purposes to retain his enmities. Had there been a possibility
of reconciling Antony to the cause of the "optimates" after the
Philippics, he would have availed himself of it.

Cicero at one time intended to go to Buthrotum in Epirus, where Atticus
possessed a house and property; but he changed his purpose. He remained
at Thessalonica till November, and then returned to Dyrrachium, having
all through his exile been kept alive by tidings of steps taken for his
recall. There seems very soon to have grown up a feeling in Rome that
the city had disgraced itself by banishing such a man; and Cæsar had
gone to his provinces. We can well imagine that when he had once left
Rome, with all his purposes achieved, having so far quieted the tongue
of the strong speaker who might have disturbed them, he would take no
further steps to perpetuate the orator's banishment. Then Pompey and
Clodius soon quarrelled. Pompey, without Cæsar to direct him, found the
arrogance of the Patrician Tribune insupportable. We hear of wheels
within wheels, and stories within stories, in the drama of Roman history
as it was played at this time. Together with Cicero, it had been
necessary to Cæsar's projects that Cato also should be got out of Rome;
and this had been managed by means of Clodius, who had a bill passed for
the honorable employment of Cato on state purposes in Cyprus. Cato had
found himself obliged to go. It was as though our Prime-minister had got
parliamentary authority for sending a noisy member of the Opposition to
Asiatic Turkey for six months There was an attempt, or an alleged
attempt, of Clodius to have Pompey murdered; and there was
street-fighting, so that Pompey was besieged, or pretended to be
besieged, in his own house. "We might as well seek to set a charivari to
music as to write the history of this political witches' revel," says
Mommsen, speaking of the state of Rome when Cæsar was gone, Cicero
banished, and Pompey supposed to be in the ascendant.[284] There was, at
any rate, quarrelling between Clodius and Pompey, in the course of which
Pompey was induced to consent to Cicero's return. Then Clodius took upon
himself, in revenge, to turn against the Triumvirate altogether, and to
repudiate even Cæsar himself. But it was all a vain hurly-burly, as to
which Cæsar, when he heard the details in Gaul, could only have felt how
little was to be gained by maintaining his alliance with Pompey. He had
achieved his purpose, which he could not have done without the
assistance of Crassus, whose wealth, and of Pompey, whose authority,
stood highest in Rome; and now, having had his legions voted to him, and
his provinces, and his prolonged term of years, he cared nothing for
either of them.

There is a little story which must be repeated, as against Cicero, in
reference to this period of his exile, because it has been told in all
records of his life. Were I to omit the little story, it would seem as
though I shunned the records which have been repeated as opposed to his
credit. He had written, some time back, a squib in which he had been
severe upon the elder Curio; so it is supposed; but it matters little
who was the object or what the subject. This had got wind in Rome, as
such matters do sometimes, and he now feared that it would do him a
mischief with the Curios and the friends of the Curios. The authorship
was only matter of gossip. Could it not be denied? "As it is written,"
says Cicero, "in a style inferior to that which is usual to me, can it
not be shown not to have been mine?"[285] Had Cicero possessed all the
Christian virtues, as we hope that prelates and pastors possess them in
this happy land, he would not have been betrayed into, at any rate, the
expression of such a wish. As it is, the enemies of Cicero must make the
most of it. His friends, I think, will look upon it leniently.

Continued efforts were made among Cicero's friends at Rome to bring him
back, with which he was not altogether contented. He argues the matter
repeatedly with Atticus, not always in the best temper. His friends at
Rome were, he thought, doing the matter amiss: they would fail, and he
would still have to finish his days abroad. Atticus, in his way to
Epirus, visits him at Dyrrachium, and he is sure that Atticus would not
have left Rome but that the affair was hopeless. The reader of the
correspondence is certainly led to the belief that Atticus must have
been the most patient of friends; but he feels, at the same time, that
Atticus would not have been patient had not Cicero been affectionate and
true. The Consuls for the new year were Lentulus and Metellus Nepos. The
former was Cicero's declared friend, and the other had already abandoned
his enmity. Clodius was no longer Tribune, and Pompey had been brought
to yield. The Senate were all but unanimous. But there was still life in
Clodius and his party; and day dragged itself after day, and month after
month, while Cicero still lingered at Dyrrachium, waiting till a bill
should have been passed by the people. Pompey, who was never
whole-hearted in anything, had declared that a bill voted by the people
would be necessary. The bill at last was voted, on the 14th of August,
and Cicero, who knew well what was being done at Rome, passed over from
Dyrrachium to Brundisium on the same day, having been a year and four
months absent from Rome. During the year B.C. 57, up to the time of his
return, he wrote but three letters that have come to us--two very short
notes to Atticus, in the first of which he declares that he will come
over on the authority of a decree of the Senate, without waiting for a
law. In the second he falls again into despair, declaring that
everything is over. In the third he asks Metellus for his aid, telling
the Consul that unless it be given soon the man for whom it is asked
will no longer be living to receive it. Metellus did give the aid very
cordially.

It has been remarked that Cicero did nothing for literature during his
banishment, either by writing essays or preparing speeches; and it has
been implied that the prostration of mind arising from his misfortunes
must have been indeed complete, when a man whose general life was made
marvellous by its fecundity had been repressed into silence. It should,
however, be borne in mind that there could be no inducement for the
writing of speeches when there was no opportunity of delivering them. As
to his essays, including what we call his Philosophy and his Rhetoric,
they who are familiar with his works will remember how apt he was, in
all that he produced, to refer to the writings of others. He translates
and he quotes, and he makes constant use of the arguments and
illustrations of those who have gone before him. He was a man who rarely
worked without the use of a library. When I think how impossible it
would be for me to repeat this oft-told tale of Cicero's life without a
crowd of books within reach of my hand, I can easily understand why
Cicero was silent at Thessalonica and Dyrrachium. It has been remarked
also by a modern critic that we find "in the letters from exile a
carelessness and inaccuracy of expression which contrasts strongly with
the style of his happier days." I will not for a moment put my judgment
in such a matter in opposition to that of Mr. Tyrrell--but I should
myself have been inclined rather to say that the style of Cicero's
letters varies constantly, being very different when used to Atticus, or
to his brother, or to lighter friends such as Poetus and Trebatius; and
very different again when business of state was in hand, as are his
letters to Decimus Brutus, Cassius Brutus, and Plancus. To be correct in
familiar letters is not to charm. A studied negligence is needed to make
such work live to posterity--a grace of loose expression which may
indeed have been made easy by use, but which is far from easy to the
idle and unpractised writer. His sorrow, perhaps, required a style of
its own. I have not felt my own untutored perception of the language to
be offended by unfitting slovenliness in the expression of his grief.




APPENDICES TO VOLUME I.




APPENDIX A.


(_See_ ch. II., note [39])

_THE BATTLE OF THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT._

    Homer, Iliad, lib. xii, 200:

    [Greek:
    Hoi rh' eti mermêrizon ephestaotes para taphrôi.
    Ornis gar sphin epêlthe perêsemenai memaôsin,
    Aietos upsipetês ep' aristera laon eergôn,
    Phoinêenta drakonta pherôn onuchessi pelôron,
    Zôon et' aspaironta; kai oupô lêtheto charmês.
    Kopse gar auton echonta kata stêthos para deirên,
    Idnôtheis opisô; ho d' apo ethen êke chamaze,
    Algêsas odunêisi, mesoi d' eni kabbal' homilôi;
    Autos de klanxas peteto pnoêis anemoio.]

Pope's translation of the passage, book xii, 231:

   "A signal omen stopp'd the passing host,
    The martial fury in their wonder lost.
    Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;
    A bleeding serpent, of enormous size,
    His talons trussed; alive, and curling round,
    He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound.
    Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey,
    In airy circles wings his painful way,
    Floats on the winds, and rends the heav'ns with cries.
    Amid the host the fallen serpent lies.
    They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll'd,
    And Jove's portent with beating hearts behold."

Lord Derby's Iliad, book xii, 236:

   "For this I read the future, if indeed
    To us, about to cross, this sign from Heaven
    Was sent, to leftward of the astonished crowd:
    A soaring eagle, bearing in his claws
    A dragon huge of size, of blood-red hue,
    Alive; yet dropped him ere he reached his home,
    Nor to his nestlings bore the intended prey."

Cicero's telling of the story:

   "Hic Jovis altisoni subito pinnata satelles,
    Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu,
    Ipsa feris subigit transfigens unguibus anguem
    Semianimum, et varia graviter cervice micantem.
    Quem se intorquentem lanians, rostroque cruentans,
    Jam satiata animum, jam duros ulta dolores,
    Abjicit efflantem, et laceratum affligit in unda;
    Seque obitu a solis nitidos convertit ad ortus."

Voltaire's translation:

   "Tel on voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre,
    Blessé par un serpent élancé de la terre;
    Il s'envole, il entraîne au séjour azuré
    L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entouré.
    Le sang tombe des airs. Il déchire, il dévore
    Le reptile acharné qui le combat encore;
    Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs;
    Par cent coups redoublés il venge ses douleurs.
    Le monstre, en expirant, se débat, se replie;
    Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie;
    Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux,
    Le rejette en fureur, et plane au haut des cieux."

Virgil's version, Æneid, lib. xi., 751:

   "Utque volans alte raptum quum fulva draconem
    Fert aquila, implicuitque pedes, atque unguibus hæsit
    Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina versat,
    Arrectisque horret squamis, et sibilat ore,
    Arduus insurgens. Illa haud minus urget obunco
    Luctantem rostro; simul æthera verberat alis."

Dryden's translation from Virgil's Æneid, book xi.:

   "So stoops the yellow eagle from on high,
    And bears a speckled serpent through the sky;
    Fastening his crooked talons on the prey,
    The prisoner hisses through the liquid way;
    Resists the royal hawk, and though opprest,
    She fights in volumes, and erects her crest.
    Turn'd to her foe, she stiffens every scale,
    And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threatening tail.
    Against the victor all defence is weak.
    Th' imperial bird still plies her with his beak:
    He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores,
    Then claps his pinions, and securely soars."

Pitt's translation, book xi.:

   "As when th' imperial eagle soars on high,
    And bears some speckled serpent through the sky,
    While her sharp talons gripe the bleeding prey,
    In many a fold her curling volumes play,
    Her starting brazen scales with horror rise,
    The sanguine flames flash dreadful from her eyes
    She writhes, and hisses at her foe, in vain,
    Who wins at ease the wide ærial plain,
    With her strong hooky beak the captive plies,
    And bears the struggling prey triumphant through the skies."

Shelley's version of the battle, The Revolt of Islam, canto i.:

      "For in the air do I behold indeed
       An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight,
       And now relaxing its impetuous flight,
       Before the ærial rock on which I stood
       The eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right,
       And hung with lingering wings over the flood,
    And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude

      "A shaft of light upon its wings descended,
       And every golden feather gleamed therein--
       Feather and scale inextricably blended
       The serpent's mailed and many-colored skin
       Shone through the plumes, its coils were twined within
       By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high
       And far, the neck receding lithe and thin,
       Sustained a crested head, which warily
    Shifted and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye.

      "Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling,
       With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed
       Incessantly--sometimes on high concealing
       Its lessening orbs, sometimes, as if it failed,
       Drooped through the air, and still it shrieked and wailed,
       And casting back its eager head, with beak
       And talon unremittingly assailed
       The wreathed serpent, who did ever seek
    Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak

      "What life, what power was kindled, and arose
       Within the sphere of that appalling fray!
       For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes,
       A vapor like the sea's suspended spray
       Hung gathered; in the void air, far away,
       Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,
       Where'er the eagle's talons made their way,
       Like sparks into the darkness; as they sweep,
    Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.

      "Swift chances in that combat--many a check,
       And many a change--a dark and wild turmoil;
       Sometimes the snake around his enemy's neck
       Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,
       Until the eagle, faint with pain and toil,
       Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea
       Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil
       His adversary, who then reared on high
    His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.

      "Then on the white edge of the bursting surge,
       Where they had sunk together, would the snake
       Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge
       The wind with his wild writhings; for, to break
       That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake
       The strength of his unconquerable wings
       As in despair, and with his sinewy neck
       Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings,
    Then soar--as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.

      "Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,
       Thus long, but unprevailing--the event
       Of that portentous fight appeared at length.
       Until the lamp of day was almost spent
       It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent,
       Hung high that mighty serpent, and at last
       Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent,
       With clang of wings and scream, the eagle past,
    Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast."

I have repudiated the adverse criticism on Cicero's poetry which has
been attributed to Juvenal; but, having done so, am bound in fairness
to state that which is to be found elsewhere in any later author of
renown as a classic. In the treatise De Oratoribus, attributed to
Tacitus, and generally published with his works by him--a treatise
commenced, probably, in the last year of Vespasian's reign, and
completed only in that of Domitian--Cicero as a poet is spoken of
with a severity of censure which the writer presumes to have been his
recognized desert. "For Cæsar," he says, "and Brutus made verses, and
sent them to the public libraries; not better, indeed, than Cicero, but
with less of general misfortune, because only a few people knew that
they had done so." This must be taken for what it is worth. The treatise,
let it have been written by whom it might, is full of wit, and is
charming in language and feeling. It is a dialogue after the manner of
Cicero himself, and is the work of an author well conversant with the
subjects in hand. But it is, no doubt, the case that those two
unfortunate lines which have been quoted became notorious in Rome when
there was a party anxious to put down Cicero.




APPENDIX B.


(_See_ ch. IV., note [84])

FROM THE BRUTUS--CA. XCII., XCIII.

"There were at that time two orators, Cotta and Hortensius, who
towered above all others, and incited me to rival them. The first
spoke with self-restraint and moderation, clearly and easily,
expressing his ideas in appropriate language. The other was
magnificent and fierce; not such as you remember him, Brutus, when he
was already failing, but full of life both in his words and actions. I
then resolved that Hortensius should, of the two, be my model, because
I felt myself like to him in his energy, and nearer to him in his age.
I observed that when they were in the same causes, those for Canuleius
and for our consular Dolabella, though Cotta was the senior counsel,
Hortensius took the lead. A large gathering of men and the noise of
the Forum require that a speaker shall be quick, on fire, active, and
loud. The year after my return from Asia I undertook the charge of
causes that were honorable, and in that year I was seeking to be
Quæstor, Cotta to be Consul, and Hortensius to be Prætor. Then for a
year I served as Quæstor in Sicily. Cotta, after his Consulship, went
as governor into Gaul, and then Hortensius was, and was considered to
be, first at the bar. When I had been back from Sicily twelve months
I began to find that whatever there was within me had come to such
perfection as it might attain. I feel that I am speaking too much of
myself, but it is done, not that you may be made to own my ability or
my eloquence--which is far from my thoughts--but that you may see how
great was my toil and my industry. Then, when I had been employed for
nearly five years in many cases, and was accounted a leading advocate,
I specially concerned myself in conducting the great cause on behalf
of Sicily--the trial of Verres--when I and Hortensius were Ædile and
Consul designate.

"But as this discussion of ours is intended to produce not a mere
catalogue of orators, but some true lessons of oratory, let us see
what there was in Hortensius that we must blame. When he was out of
his Consulship, seeing that among past Consuls there was no one on a
par with him, and thinking but little of those who were below consular
rank, he became idle in his work to which from boyhood he had devoted
himself, and chose to live in the midst of his wealth, as he thought
a happier life--certainly an easier one. The first two or three years
took off something from him. As the gradual decay of a picture will
be observed by the true critic, though it be not seen by the world at
large, so was it with his decay. From day to day he became more and
more unlike his old self, failing in all branches of oratory, but
specially in the rapidity and continuity of his words. But for myself
I never rested, struggling always to increase whatever power there was
in me by practice of every kind, especially in writing. Passing over
many things in the year after I was Ædile, I will come to that in
which I was elected first Prætor, to the great delight of the public
generally; for I had gained the good-will of men, partly by my
attention to the causes which I undertook, but specially by a certain
new strain of eloquence, as excellent as it was uncommon, with which
I spoke." Cicero, when he wrote this of himself, was an old man
sixty-two years of age, broken hearted for the loss of his daughter,
to whom it was no doubt allowed among his friends to praise himself
with the garrulity of years, because it was understood that he had
been unequalled in the matter of which he was speaking. It is easy for
us to laugh at his boastings; but the account which he gives of his
early life, and of the manner in which he attained the excellence for
which he had been celebrated, is of value.




APPENDIX C.


(_See_ ch. VI., note [117])

There was still prevailing in Rome at this time a strong feeling that
a growing taste for these ornamental luxuries was injurious to the
Republic, undermining its simplicity and weakening its stability. We
are well aware that its simplicity was a thing of the past, and its
stability gone The existence of a Verres is proof that it was so; but
still the feeling remained--and did remain long after the time of
Cicero--that these beautiful things were a sign of decay. We know
how conquering Rome caught the taste for them from conquered Greece.
"Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes intulit agresti Latio."
[286] Cicero submitted himself to this new captivity readily, but with
apologies, as shown in his pretended abnegation of all knowledge
of art. Two years afterward, in a letter to Atticus, giving him
instructions as to the purchase of statues, he declares that he is
altogether carried away by his longing for such things, but not
without a feeling of shame. "Nam in eo genere sic studio efferimur ut
abs te adjuvandi, ab aliis propre reprehendi simus"[287]--"Though you
will help me, others I know will blame me." The same feeling is
expressed beautifully, but no doubt falsely, by Horace when he
declares, as Cicero had done, his own indifference to such delicacies:

    "Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes,
     Pictures, gold plate, Gætulian coverlets,
     There are who have not. One there is, I trow,
     Who cares not greatly if he has or no."[288]

Many years afterward, in the time of Tiberius, Velleius Paterculus says
the same when he is telling how ignorant Mummius was of sculpture, who,
when he had taken Corinth, threatened those who had to carry away the
statues from their places, that if they broke any they should be made to
replace them. "You will not doubt, however," the historian says, "that
it would have been better for the Republic to remain ignorant of these
Corinthian gems than to understand them as well as it does now. That
rudeness befitted the public honor better than our present taste."[289]
Cicero understood well enough, with one side of his intelligence, that
as the longing for these things grew in the minds of rich men, as the
leading Romans of the day became devoted to luxury rather than to work,
the ground on which the Republic stood must be sapped. A Marcellus or a
Scipio had taken glory in ornamenting the city. A Verres or even an
Hortensius--even a Cicero--was desirous of beautiful things for his own
house. But still, with the other side of his intelligence, he saw that a
perfect citizen might appreciate art, and yet do his duty, might
appreciate art, and yet save his country. What he did not see was, that
the temptations of luxury, though compatible with virtue, are
antagonistic to it. The camel may be made to go through the eye of the
needle--but it is difficult.




APPENDIX D.


(_See_ ch. VII., note [144])

PRO LEGE MANILIA--CA. X., XVI.

"Utinam, Quirites, virorum fortium, atque innocentium copiam tantam
haberetis, ut hæc vobis deliberatio difficilis esset, quemnam
potissimum tantis rebus ac tanto bello præficiendum putaretis! Nunc
vero cum sit unus Cn. Pompeius, qui non modo eorum hominum, qui nunc
sunt, gloriam, sed etiam antiquitatis memoriam virtute superarit; quæ
res est, quæ cujusquam animum in hac causa dubium facere posset?
Ego enim sic existimo, in summo imperatore quatuor has res inesse
oportere, scientiam rei militaris, virtutem, auctoritatem,
felicitatem. Quis igitur hoc homine scientior umquam aut fuit, aut
esse debuit? qui e ludo, atque pueritiæ disciplina, bello maximo
atque acerrimis hostibus, ad patris exercitum atque in militiæ
disciplinam profectus est? qui extrema pueritia miles fuit summi
imperatoris? ineunte adolescentia maximi ipse exercitus imperator? qui
sæpius cum hoste conflixit, quam quisquam cum inimico concertavit?
plura bella gessit, quam cæteri legerunt? plures provincias confecit,
quam alii concupiverunt? cujus adolescentia ad scientiam rei militaris
non alienis præceptis, sed suis imperiis; non offensionibus belli,
sed victoriis; non stipendiis, sed triumphis est erudita? Quod
denique genus belli esse potest, in quo illum non exercuerit fortuna
reipublicæ? Civile; Africanum; Transalpinum; Hispaniense; mistum
ex civitatibus atque ex bellicosissimis nationibus servile; navale
bellum, varia et diversa genera, et bellorum et hostium, non solum
gesta ab hoc uno, sed etiam confecta, nullam rem esse declarant, in
usu militari positam, quæ hojus viri scientiam fugere posset.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Quare cum et bellum ita necessarium sit, ut negligi non possit; ita
magnum, ut accuratissime sit administrandum; et cum ei imperatorem
præficere possitis, in quo sit eximia belli scientia, singularis
virtus, clarissima auctoritas, egregia fortuna; dubitabitis, Quirites,
quin hoc tantum boni, quod vobis a diis immortalibus oblatum et datum
est, in rempublicam conservandam atque amplificandam conferatis?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I could wish, Quirites, that there was open to you so large a choice
of men capable at the same time, and honest, that you might find a
difficulty in deciding who might best be selected for command in a
war so momentous as this. But now when Pompey alone has surpassed in
achievements not only those who live, but all of whom we have read in
history, what is there to make any one hesitate in the matter? In my
opinion there are four qualities to be desired in a general--military
knowledge, valor, authority, and fortune. But whoever was or was ever
wanted to be more skilled than this man, who, taken fresh from school
and from the lessons of his boyhood, was subjected to the discipline
of his father's army during one of our severest wars, when our enemies
were strong against us? In his earliest youth he served under our
greatest general. As years went on he was himself in command over
a large army. He has been more frequent in fighting than others in
quarrelling. Few have read of so many battles as he has fought.
He has conquered more provinces than others have desired to pillage. He
learned the art of war not from written precepts, but by his own
practice; not from reverses, but from victories. He does not count his
campaigns, but the triumphs which he has won. What nature of warfare is
there in which the Republic has not used his services? Think of our
Civil war[290]--of our African war[291]--of our war on the other side of
the Alps[292]--of our Spanish wars[293]--of our Servile war[294]--which
was carried on by the energies of so many mighty people--and this
Maritime war.[295] How many enemies had we, how various were our
contests! They were all not only carried through by this one man, but
brought to an end so gloriously as to show that there is nothing in the
practice of warfare which has escaped his knowledge.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Seeing, therefore, that this war cannot be neglected; that its
importance demands the utmost care in its administration; that it
requires a general in whom should be found sure military science,
manifest valor, conspicuous authority, and pre-eminent good
fortune--do you doubt, Quirites, but that you should use the great
blessing which the gods have given you for the preservation and glory
of the Republic?"

       *       *       *       *       *

On reading, however, the piece over again, I almost doubt whether
there be any passages in it which should be selected as superior to
others.




APPENDIX E.


(_See_ ch. XI., note [235])

_LUCAN, LIBER I._

    "O male concordes, nimiaque cupidine cæci,
     Quid miscere juvat vires orbemque tenere
     In medio."

    "Temporis angusti mansit concordia discors,
     Paxque fuit non sponte ducum. Nam sola futuri
     Crassus erat belli medius mora. Qualiter undas
     Qui secat, et geminum gracilis mare separat isthmos,
     Nec patitur conferre fretum; si terra recedat,
     Ionium Ægæo frangat mare. Sic, ubi sæva
     Arma ducum dirimens, miserando funere Crassus
     Assyrias latio maculavit sanguine Carras."

    "Dividitur ferro regnum; populique potentis,
     Quæ mare, quæ terras, quæ totum possidet orbem,
     Non cepit fortuna duos."

    "Tu nova ne veteres obscurent acta triumphos,
     Et victis cedat piratica laurea Gallis,
     Magne, times; te jam series, ususque laborum
     Erigit, impatiensque loci fortuna secundi.
     Nec quemquam jam ferre potest Cæsarve priorem,
     Pompeiusve parem. Quis justius induit arma,
     Scire nefas; magno se judice quisque tuetur,
     Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa, Catoni.[296]
     Nec coiere pares; alter vergentibus annis
     In senium, longoque togæ tranquillior usu
     Dedidicit jam pace ducem; famæque petitor
     Multa dare in vulgas; totus popularibus auris
     Impelli, plausuque sui gaudere theatri;
     Nec reparare novas vires, multumque priori
     Credere fortunæ. Stat magni nominis umbra."

                     "Sed non in Cæsare tantum
     Nomen erat, nec fama ducis; sed nescia virtus
     Stare loco; solusque pudor non vincere bello.
     Acer et indomitus; quo spes, quoque ira vocasset,
     Ferre manum, et nunquam te merando parcere ferro;
     Successus urgere suos; instare favori
     Numinis."--Lucan, lib. i.

       *       *       *       *       *

"O men so ill-fitted to agree, O men blind with greed, of what service
can it be that you should join your powers, and possess the world
between you?"

"For a short time the ill-sorted compact lasted, and there was a peace
which each of them abhorred. Crassus alone stood between the others,
hindering for a while the coming war--as an isthmus separates two
waters and forbids sea to meet sea. If the morsel of land gives way,
the Ionian waves and the Ægean dash themselves in foam against each
other. So was it with the arms of the two chiefs when Crassus fell,
and drenched the Assyrian Carræ with Roman blood."

"Then the possession of the Empire was put to the arbitration of the
sword. The fortunes of a people which possessed sea and earth and the
whole world, were not sufficient for two men."

"You, Magnus, you, Pompeius, fear lest newer deeds than yours should
make dull your old triumphs, and the scattering of the pirates should
be as nothing to the conquering of Gaul. The practice of many wars has
so exalted you, O Cæsar, that you cannot put up with a second place.
Cæsar will endure no superior; but Pompey will have no equal. Whose
cause was the better the poet dares not inquire! Each will have his
own advocate in history. On the side of the conqueror the gods ranged
themselves. Cato has chosen to follow the conquered.

"But surely the men were not equal. The one in declining years, who
had already changed his arms for the garb of peace, had unlearned the
general in the statesman--had become wont to talk to the people,
to devote himself to harangues, and to love the applause of his own
theatre. He has not cared to renew his strength, trusting to his old
fortune. There remains of him but the shadow of his great name."

"The name of Cæsar does not loom so large; nor is his character as a
general so high. But there is a spirit which can content itself with
no achievements; there is but one feeling of shame--that of not
conquering; a man determined, not to be controlled, taking his arms
wherever lust of conquest or anger may call him; a man never sparing
the sword, creating all things from his own good-fortune trusting
always the favors of the gods."

    [1] Froude's Cæsar, p. 444.

    [2] Ibid., p. 428.

    [3] Ad Att., lib. xiii., 28.

    [4] Ad Att., lib. ix., 10.

    [5] Froude, p. 365.

    [6] Ad Att., lib. ii., 5: "Quo quidem uno ego ab istis
    capi possum."

    [7] The Cincian law, of which I shall have to speak
    again, forbade Roman advocates to take any payment for
    their services. Cicero expressly declares that he has
    always obeyed that law. He accused others of disobeying
    it, as, for instance, Hortensius. But no contemporary
    has accused him. Mr. Collins refers to some books which
    had been given to Cicero by his friend P[oe]tus. They are
    mentioned in a letter to Atticus, lib. i., 20; and
    Cicero, joking, says that he has consulted
    Cincius--perhaps some descendant of him who made the law
    145 years before--as to the legality of accepting the
    present. But we have no reason for supposing that he had
    ever acted as an advocate for P[oe]tus.

    [8] Virgil, Æneid, i., 150:

     "Ac, veluti magno in populo quum sæpe coorta est
      Seditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus;
      Jamque faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat:
      Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem
      Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant;
      Iste regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet."

    [9] The author is saying that a history from Cicero
    would have been invaluable, and the words are "interitu
    ejus utrum respublica an historia magis doleat."

    [10] Quintilian tells us this, lib. ii., c. 5. The
    passage of Livy is not extant. The commentators suppose
    it to have been taken from a letter to his son.

    [11] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., c. 34.

    [12] Valerius Maximus, lib. iv., c. 2; 4.

    [13] Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. vii., xxxi., 30.

    [14] Martial, lib. xiv., 188.

    [15] Lucan, lib. vii., 62:

     "Cunctorum voces Romani maximus auctor
      Tullius eloquii, cujus sub jure togaque
      Pacificas sævus tremuit Catilina secures,
      Pertulit iratus bellis, cum rostra forumque
      Optaret passus tam longa silentia miles
      Addidit invalidæ robur facundia causæ."

    [16] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx.

    [17] Juvenal, viii., 243.

    [18] Demosthenes and Cicero compared.

    [19] Quintilian, xii., 1.

    [20] "Repudiatus vigintiviratus." He refused a position
    of official value rendered vacant by the death of one
    Cosconius. See Letters to Atticus, 2,19.

    [21] Florus, lib. iv., 1. In a letter from Essex to Foulke
    Greville, the writing of which has been attributed to
    Bacon by Mr. Spedding, Florus is said simply to have
    epitomized Livy (Life, vol. ii., p. 23). In this I think
    that Bacon has shorn him of his honors.

    [22] Florus, lib. iv., 1.

    [23] Sallust, Catilinaria, xxiii.

    [24] I will add the concluding passage from the pseudo
    declamation, in order that the reader may see the nature
    of the words which were put into Sallust's mouth: "Quos
    tyrannos appellabas, eorum nunc potentiæ faves; qui
    tibi ante optumates videbantur, eosdem nunc dementes ac
    furiosos vocas; Vatinii caussam agis, de Sextio male
    existumas; Bibulum petulantissumis verbis lædis, laudas
    Cæsarem; quem maxume odisti, ei maxume obsequeris.
    Aliud stans, aliud sedens, de republica sentis; his
    maledicis, illos odisti; levissume transfuga, neque in
    hac, neque illa parte fidem habes." Hence Dio Cassius
    declared that Cicero had been called a turncoat. [Greek:
    kai automalos ônomazeto.]

    [25] Dio Cassius, lib. xlvi., 18: [Greek: pros hên
    kai autên toiautas epistolas grapheis hoias an grapseien
    anêr skôptolês athuroglôrros ... kai proseti kai to
    stoma autou diaballein epecheirêse tosautê aselgeia
    kai akatharsia para panta ton bion chrômenos hôste mêde
    tôn sungenestatôn apechesthai, alla tên te gunaika
    proagôgeuein kai tên thugatera moicheuein.]

    [26] As it happens, De Quincey specially calls Cicero a
    man of conscience. "Cicero is one of the very few pagan
    statesmen who can be described as a thoroughly
    conscientious man," he says. The purport of his
    illogical essay on Cicero is no doubt thoroughly hostile
    to the man. It is chiefly worth reading on account of
    the amusing virulence with which Middleton, the
    biographer, is attacked.

    [27] Quintilian, lib. ii., c. 5.

    [28] De Finibus, lib. v., ca. xxii.: "Nemo est igitur, qui
    non hanc affectionem animi probet atque laudet."

    [29] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Nihil est enim illi
    principi deo, qui omnem hunc mundum regit, quod quidem
    in terris fiat acceptius." Tusc. Quest., lib. i., ca. xxx.:
    "Vetat enim dominans ille in nobis deus."

    [30] De Rep., lib. vi., ca. vii.: "Certum esse in c[oe]lo
    definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur."

    [31] Hor., lib. i., Ode xxii.,

      "Non rura quæ; Liris quieta
       Mordet aqua taciturnus amnis."

    [32] Such was the presumed condition of things at Rome.
    By the passing of a special law a plebeian might, and
    occasionally did, become patrician. The patricians had
    so nearly died out in the time of Julius Cæsar that he
    introduced fifty new families by the Lex Cassia.

    [33] De Orat., lib. ii., ca. 1.

    [34] Brutus, ca. lxxxix.

    [35] It should be remembered that in Latin literature it
    was the recognized practice of authors to borrow
    wholesale from the Greek, and that no charge of
    plagiarism attended such borrowing. Virgil, in taking
    thoughts and language from Homer, was simply supposed to
    have shown his judgment in accommodating Greek delights
    to Roman ears and Roman intellects.

    The idea as to literary larceny is of later date, and
    has grown up with personal claims for originality and
    with copyright. Shakspeare did not acknowledge whence he
    took his plots, because it was unnecessary. Now, if a
    writer borrow a tale from the French, it is held that he
    ought at least to owe the obligation, or perhaps even
    pay for it.

    [36] Juvenal, Sat. x., 122,

      "O fortunatam natam me Consule Romam!
       Antoni gladios potuit contemnere, si sic
       Omnia dixisset."

    [37] De Leg., lib. i., ca. 1.

    [38] Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, written by
    himself, vol. i., p. 58.

    [39] I give the nine versions to which I allude in an
    Appendix A, at the end of this volume, so that those
    curious in such matters may compare the words in which
    the same picture has been drawn by various hands.

    [40] Pro Archia, ca. vii.

    [41] Brutus, ca. xc.

    [42] Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxx.

    [43] Quintilian, lib. xii., c. vi., who wrote about the
    same time as this essayist, tells us of these three
    instances of early oratory, not, however, specifying the
    exact age in either case. He also reminds us that
    Demosthenes pleaded when he was a boy, and that Augustus
    at the age of twelve made a public harangue in honor of
    his grandmother.

    [44] Brutus, ca. xc.

    [45] Brutus, xci.

    [46] Quintilian, lib. xii., vi.: "Quum jam clarum
    meruisset inter patronos, qui tum erant, nomen, in Asiam
    navigavit, seque et aliis sine dubio eloquentiæ ac
    sapientiæ magistris, sed præcipue tamen Apollonio
    Moloni, quem Romæ quoque audierat, Rhodi rursus
    formandum ac velut recognendum dedit."

    [47] Brutus, xci.

    [48] The total correspondence contains 817 letters, of
    which 52 were written to Cicero, 396 were written by
    Cicero to Atticus, and 369 by Cicero to his friends in
    general. We have no letters from Atticus to Cicero.

    [49] Quintilian, lib. x., ca. 1.

    [50] Clemens of Alexandria, in his exhortation to the
    Gentiles, is very severe upon the iniquities of these
    rites. "All evil be to him," he says, "who brought them
    into fashion, whether it was Dardanus, or Eetion the
    Thracian, or Midas the Phrygian." The old story which he
    repeats as to Ceres and Proserpine may have been true,
    but he was altogether ignorant of the changes which the
    common-sense of centuries had produced.

    [51] De Legibus, lib. ii., c. xiv.

    [52] It was then that the foreign empire commenced, in
    ruling which the simplicity and truth of purpose and
    patriotism of the Republic were lost.

    [53] The reverses of fortune to which Marius was
    subjected, how he was buried up to his neck in the mud,
    hiding in the marshes of Minturnæ, how he would have
    been killed by the traitorous magistrates of that city
    but that he quelled the executioners by the fire of his
    eyes; how he sat and glowered, a houseless exile, among
    the ruins of Carthage--all which things happened to him
    while he was running from the partisans of Sulla--are
    among the picturesque episodes of history. There is a
    tragedy called the _Wounds of Civil War_, written by
    Lodge, who was born some eight years before Shakspeare,
    in which the story of Marius is told with some exquisite
    poetry, but also with some ludicrous additions. The Gaul
    who is hired to kill Marius, but is frightened by his
    eyes, talks bad French mingled with bad English, and
    calls on Jesus in his horror!

    [54] Brutus, ca. xc.

    [55] Florus tells us that there were 2000 Senators and
    Knights, but that any one was allowed to kill just whom
    he would. "Quis autem illos potest computare quos in
    urbe passim quisquis voluit occidit" (lib. iii., ca.
    21).

    [56] About £487 10_s._ In Smith's Dictionary of Greek and
    Roman Antiquities the Attic talent is given as being
    worth £243 15_s._ Mommsen quotes the price as 12,000
    denarii, which would amount to about the same sum.

    [57] Suetonius speaks of his death. Florus mentions the
    proscriptions and abdication. Velleius Paterculus is
    eloquent in describing the horrors of the massacres and
    confiscation. Dio Cassius refers again and again to the
    Sullan cruelty. But none of them give a reason for the
    abdication of Sulla.

    [58] Vol. iii., p. 386. I quote from Mr. Dickson's
    translation, as I do not read German.

    [59] In defending Roscius Amerinus, while Sulla was
    still in power, he speaks of the Sullan massacres as
    "pugna Cannensis," a slaughter as foul, as disgraceful,
    as bloody as had been the defeat at Cannæ.

    [60] Mommsen, vol. iii., p. 385.

    [61] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxi.: "Quod antea causam
    publicam nullam dixerim." He says also in the Brutus,
    ca. xc., "Itaque prima causa publica, pro Sex. Roscio
    dicta." By "publica causa" he means a criminal
    accusation in distinction from a civil action.

    [62] Pro Publio Quintio, ca. i.: "Quod mihi consuevit in
    ceteris causis esse adjumento, id quoque in hac causa
    deficit."

    [63] Pro Publio Quintio, ca. xxi.: "Nolo eam rem
    commemorando renovare, cujus omnino rei memoriam omnem
    tolli funditus ac deleri arbitror oportere."

    [64] Pro Roscio, ca. xlix. Cicero says of him that he
    would be sure to suppose that anything would have been
    done according to law of which he should be told that it
    was done by Sulla's order. "Putat homo imperitus morum,
    agricola et rusticus, ista omnia, quæ vos per Sullam
    gesta esse dicitis, more, lege, jure gentium facta."

    [65] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. 1.

    [66] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxix.: "Ejusmodi tempus erat,
    inquit, ut homines vulgo impune occiderentur."

    [67] Pro T. A. Milone, ca. xxi.: "Cur igitur cos
    manumisit? Metuebat scilicit ne indicarent; ne dolorem
    perferre non possent."

    [68] Pro T. A. Milone, ca. xxii.: "Heus tu, Ruscio, verbi
    gratia, cave sis mentiaris. Clodius insidias fecit
    Miloni? Fecit. Certa crux. Nullas fecit. Sperata
    libertas."

    [69] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xxviii.

    [70] Ibid.

    [71] Ibid., ca. xxxi.

    [72] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xlv.

    [73] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca. xlvi. The whole picture of
    Chrysogonus, of his house, of his luxuries, and his
    vanity, is too long for quotation, but is worth
    referring to by those who wish to see how bold and how
    brilliant Cicero could be.

    [74] They put in tablets of wax, on which they recorded
    their judgment by inscribing letter, C, A, or
    NL--Condemno, Absolvo, or Non liquet--intending to show
    that the means of coming to a decision did not seem to
    be sufficient.

    [75] Quintilian tells us, lib. x., ca. vii., that Cicero's
    speeches as they had come to his day had been
    abridged--by which he probably means only arranged--by
    Tiro, his slave and secretary and friend. "Nam Ciceronis
    ad præsens modo tempus aptatos libertus Tiro
    contraxit."

    [76] Quintilian, lib. xi., ca. iii.: "Nam et toga, et
    calecus, et capillus, tam nimia cura, quam negligentia,
    sunt reprehendenda." * * * "Sinistrum brachium eo usque
    allevandum est, ut quasi normalem illum angulum faciat."
    Quint., lib. xii., ca. x., "ne hirta toga sit;" don't let
    the toga be rumpled; "non serica:" the silk here
    interdicted was the silk of effeminacy, not that silk of
    authority of which our barristers are proud. "Ne
    intonsum caput; non in gradus atque annulos comptum." It
    would take too much space were I to give here all the
    lessons taught by this professor of deportment as to the
    wearing of the toga.

    [77] A doubt has been raised whether he was not married
    when he went to Greece, as otherwise his daughter would
    seem to have become a wife earlier than is probable. The
    date, however, has been generally given as it is stated
    here.

    [78] Tacitus, Annal., xi., 5, says, "Qua cavetur
    antiquitus, ne quis, ob causam orandam, pecuniam donumve
    accipiat."

    [79] De Off., lib. i., ca. xlii.: "Sordidi etiam putandi,
    qui mercantur a mercatoribus, quod statim vendant. Nihil
    enim proficiunt, nisi admodum mentiantur."

    [80] De Off., lib. i., ca. xlii.: "Primum improbantur ii
    quæstus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt: ut portitorum
    ut f[oe]neratorum." The Portitores were inferior
    collectors of certain dues, stationed at seaports, who
    are supposed to have been extremely vexatious in their
    dealings with the public.

    [81] Philipp., 11-16.

    [82] Let any who doubt this statement refer to the fate
    of the inhabitants of Alesia and Uxellodunum. Cæsar did
    not slay or torture for the sake of cruelty, but was
    never deterred by humanity when expediency seemed to him
    to require victims. Men and women, old and young, many
    or few, they were sacrificed without remorse if his
    purpose required it.

    [83] Pro Pub. Quintio, ca. xxv.

    [84] See Appendix B, Brutus, ca. xcii., xciii.

    [85] Brutus, ca. xciii.: "Animos hominum ad me dicendi
    novitate converteram."

    [86] It must be remembered that this advice was actually
    given when Cicero subsequently became a candidate for
    the Consulship, but it is mentioned here as showing the
    manner in which were sought the great offices of State.

    [87] Cicero speaks of Sicily as divided into two
    provinces, "Quæstores utriusque provinciæ." There was,
    however, but one Prætor or Proconsul. But the island
    had been taken by the Romans at two different times.
    Lilybæum and the west was obtained from the
    Carthaginians at the end of the first Punic war,
    whereas, Syracuse was conquered by Marcellus and
    occupied during the second Punic war.

    [88] Tacitus, Ann., lib. xi., ca. xxii.: "Post, lege
    Sullæ, viginti creati supplendo senatui, cui judicia
    tradiderat."

    [89] De Legibus, iii., xii.

    [90] Pro P. Sexto, lxv.

    [91] Pro Cluentio, lvi.

    [92] Contra Verrem, Act. iv., ca. xi.: "Ecquæ civitas
    est, non modo in provinciis nostris, verum etiam in
    ultimis nationibus, aut tam potens, aut tam libera, aut
    etiam am immanis ac barbara; rex denique ecquis est, qui
    senatorem populi Romani tecto ac domo non invitet?"

    [93] Contra Verrem, Act. i., ca. xiii.: "Omnia non modo
    commemorabuntur, sed etiam, expositis certis rebus,
    agentur, quæ inter decem annos, posteaquam judicia ad
    senatum translata sunt, in rebus judicandis nefarie
    flagitioseque facta sunt."

    Pro Cluentio, lvi.: "Locus, auctoritas, domi splendor,
    apud exteras nationes nomen et gratia, toga prætexta,
    sella curulis, insignia, fasces, exercitus, imperia,
    provincia."

    [94] Contra Verrem, Act. i., ca. xviii.: "Quadringenties
    sestertium ex Sicilia contra leges abstulisse." In
    Smith's Dictionary of Grecian and Roman Antiquities we
    are told that a thousand sesterces is equal in our money
    to £8 17_s._ 1_d._ Of the estimated amount of this plunder
    we shall have to speak again.

    [95] Pro Plancio, xxvi.

    [96] Pro Plancio, xxvi.

    [97] M. du Rozoir was a French critic, and was joined
    with M. Guéroult and M. de Guerle in translating and
    annotating the Orations of Cicero for M. Panckoucke's
    edition of the Latin classics.

    [98] In Verrem Actio Secunda, lib. i., vii.

    [99] Plutarch says that Cæcilius was an emancipated
    slave, and a Jew, which could not have been true, as he
    was a Roman Senator.

    [100] De Oratore, lib. ii., c. xlix. The feeling is
    beautifully expressed in the words put into the mouth of
    Antony in the discussion on the charms and attributes of
    eloquence: "Qui mihi in liberum loco more majorum esse
    deberet."

    [101] In Q. Cæc. Divinatio, ca. ii.

    [102] Divinatio, ca. iii.

    [103] Ibid., ca. vi.

    [104] Ibid., ca. viii.

    [105] Divinatio, ca. ix.

    [106] Ibid., ca. xi.

    [107] Ibid.

    [108] Ibid., ca. xii.

    [109] Actio Secunda, lib. ii., xl. He is speaking of
    Sthenius, and the illegality of certain proceedings on
    the part of Verres against him. "If an accused man could
    be condemned in the absence of the accuser, do you think
    that I would have gone in a little boat from Vibo to
    Velia, among all the dangers prepared for me by your
    fugitive slaves and pirates, when I had to hurry at the
    peril of my life, knowing that you would escape if I
    were not present to the day?"

    [110] Actio Secunda, l. xxi.

    [111] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

    [112] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

    [113] We are to understand that the purchaser at the
    auction having named the sum for which he would do the
    work, the estate of the minor, who was responsible for
    the condition of the temple, was saddled with that
    amount.

    [114] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., vii.

    [115] Ibid., ix.

    [116] Ibid., lib. ii., xiv.

    [117] See Appendix C.

    [118] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., ca. xxxvi.

    [119] Ibid. "Una nox intercesserat, quam iste Dorotheum
    sic diligebat, ut diceres, omnia inter eos esse
    communia."--wife and all. "Iste" always means Verres in
    these narratives.

    [120] These were burning political questions of the
    moment. It was as though an advocate of our days should
    desire some disgraced member of Parliament to go down to
    the House and assist the Government in protecting Turkey
    in Asia and invading Zululand.

    [121] "Sit in ejus exercitu signifer." The "ejus" was
    Hortensius, the coming Consul, too whom Cicero intended
    to be considered as pointing. For the passage, see In
    Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. ii., xxxi.

    [122] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iii., 11.

    [123] "Exegi monumentum ære perennius," said Horace,
    gloriously. "Sum pius Æneas" is Virgil's expression,
    put into the mouth of his hero. "Ipse Menaleas," said
    Virgil himself. Homer and Sophocles introduce their
    heroes with self-sounded trumpetings:

      [Greek: Eim' Odysseus Daertiadês hos pasi doloisi
      Anthrôpoisi melô, kai meu kleos ouranon ikei.]
      Odyssey, book ix., 19 and 20.

      [Greek: Ho pasi kleinos Oidipous kaloumenos.]
      [OE]dipus Tyrannus, 8.

    [124] Pro Plancio, xxvi.: "Frumenti in summa caritate
    maximum numerum miseram; negotiatoribus comis,
    mercatoribus justus, municipibus liberalis, sociis
    abstinens, omnibus eram visus in omni officio
    diligentissimus."

    [125] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iii., ix.: "Is erit
    Apronius ille; qui, ut ipse non solum vita, sed etiam
    corpore atque ore significat, immensa aliqua vorago est
    ac gurges vitiorum turpitudinumque omnium. Hunc in
    omnibus stupris, hunc in fanorum expilationibus, hunc in
    impuris conviviis principem adhibebat; tantamque
    habebat morum similitudo conjunctionem atque concordiam,
    ut Apronius, qui aliis inhumanus ac barbarus, isti uni
    commodus ac disertus videretur; ut quem omnes odissent
    neque videre vellent sine eo iste esse non posset; ut
    quum alii ne conviviis quidem iisdem quibus Apronius,
    hic iisdem etiam poculis uteretur, postremo, ut, odor
    Apronii teterrimus oris et corporis, quem, ut aiunt, ne
    bestiæ quidem ferre possent, uni isti suavis et
    jucundus videretur. Ille erat in tribunali proximus; in
    cubiculo socius; in convivio dominus, ac tum maxime,
    quum, accubante prætextato prætoris filio, in convivio
    saltare nudus c[oe]perat."

    [126] A great deal is said of the _Cybea_ in this and
    the last speech. The money expended on it was passed
    through the accounts as though the ship had been built
    for the defence of the island from pirates, but it was
    intended solely for the depository of the governor's
    plunder.

    [127] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iv., vii.

    [128] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iv., lvii.

    [129] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., lxvi.: "Facinus
    est vinciri civem Romanum; scelus verberari; prope
    parricidium necari; quid dicam in crucem tollere!"

    [130] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., lxv.

    [131] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., xx.: "Onere suo
    plane captam atque depressam."

    [132] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. v., xxvi.

    [133] Ibid., xxviii.

    [134] Pro Fonteio, xiii.

    [135] De Oratore, lib. ii., lix.: "Perspicitis, hoc genus
    quam sit facetum, quam elegans, quam oratorium, sive
    habeas vere, quod narrare possis, quod tamen, est
    mendaciunculis aspergendum, sive fingas." Either invent
    a story, or if you have an old one, add on something so
    as to make it really funny. Is there a parson, a bishop,
    an archbishop, who, if he have any sense of humor about
    him, does not do the same?

    [136] Cicero, Pro Cluentio, l., explains very clearly
    his own idea as to his own speeches as an advocate, and
    may be accepted, perhaps, as explaining the ideas of
    barristers of to-day. "He errs," he says, "who thinks
    that he gets my own opinions in speeches made in law
    courts; such speeches are what the special cases
    require, and are not to be taken as coming from the
    advocate as his own."

    [137] When the question is discussed, we are forced
    rather to wonder how many of the great historical doings
    of the time are not mentioned, or are mentioned very
    slightly, in Cicero's letters. Of Pompey's treatment of
    the pirates, and of his battling in the East, little or
    nothing is said, nothing of Cæsar's doings in Spain.
    Mention is made of Cæsar's great operations in Gaul
    only in reference to the lieutenancy of Cicero's brother
    Quintus, and to the employment of his young friend
    Trebatius. Nothing is said of the manner of Cæsar's
    coming into Rome after passing the Rubicon; nothing of
    the manner of fighting at Dyrrachium and Pharsalia; very
    little of the death of Pompey; nothing of Cæsar's delay
    in Egypt. The letters deal with Cicero's personal doings
    and thoughts, and with the politics of Rome as a city.
    The passage to which allusion is made occurs in the life
    of Atticus, ca. xvi: "Quæ qui legat non multum
    desideret historiam contextam illorum temporum."

    [138] Jean George Greefe was a German, who spent his
    life as a professor at Leyden, and, among other
    classical labors, arranged and edited the letters of
    Cicero. He died in 1703.

    [139] It must be explained, however, that continued
    research and increased knowledge have caused the order
    of the letters, and the dates assigned to them, to be
    altered from time to time; and, though much has been
    done to achieve accuracy, more remains to be done. In my
    references to the letters I at first gave them, both to
    the arrangement made by Grævius and to the numbers
    assigned in the edition I am using; but I have found
    that the numbers would only mislead, as no numbering has
    been yet adopted as fixed. Arbitrary and even fantastic
    as is the arrangement of Grævius, it is better to
    confine myself to that because it has been acknowledged,
    and will enable my readers to find the letters if they
    wish to do so. Should Mr. Tyrrell continue and complete
    his edition of the correspondence, he will go far to
    achieve the desired accuracy. A second volume has
    appeared since this work of mine has been in the press.

    [140] The peculiarities of Cicero's character are
    nowhere so clearly legible as in his dealings with and
    words about his daughter. There is an effusion of love,
    and then of sorrow when she dies, which is un-Roman,
    almost feminine, but very touching.

    [141] I annex a passage from our well known English
    translation: "The power of the pirates had its
    foundation in Cilicia. Their progress was the more
    dangerous, because at first it had been but little
    noticed. In the Mithridatic war they assumed new
    confidence and courage, on account of some services
    which they had rendered the king. After this, the Romans
    being engaged in civil war at the very gates of their
    capital, the sea was left unguarded, and the pirates by
    degrees attempted higher things--not only attacking
    ships, but islands and maritime towns. Many persons
    distinguished for their wealth, birth and capacity
    embarked with them, and assisted in their depredations,
    as if their employment had been worthy the ambition of
    men of honor. They had in various places arsenals,
    ports, and watch-towers, all strongly fortified. Their
    fleets were not only extremely well manned, supplied
    with skilful pilots, and fitted for their business by
    their lightness and celerity, but there was a parade of
    vanity about them, more mortifying than their strength,
    in gilded sterns, purple canopies, and plated oars, as
    if they took a pride and triumphed in their villany.
    Music resounded, and drunken revels were exhibited on
    every coast. Here generals were made prisoners; and
    there the cities which the pirates had seized upon were
    paying their ransom, to the great disgrace of the Roman
    power. The number of their galleys amounted to a
    thousand, and the cities taken to four hundred." The
    passage is taken from the life of Pompey.

    [142] Florus, lib. iii., 6: "An felicitatem, quod ne una
    cuidam navis amissa est; an vero perpetuitatem, quod
    amplius piratæ non fuerunt."

    [143] Of the singular trust placed in Pompey there are
    very many proofs in the history of Rome at this period,
    but none, perhaps, clearer than the exception made in
    this favor in the wording of laws. In the agrarian law
    proposed by the Tribune Rullus, and opposed by Cicero
    when he was Consul, there is a clause commanding all
    Generals under the Republic to account for the spoils
    taken by them in war. But there is a special exemption
    in favor of Pompey. "Pompeius exceptus esto." It is as
    though no Tribune dared to propose a law affecting
    Pompey.

    [144] See Appendix D.

    [145] Asconius Pedianus was a grammarian who lived in
    the reign of Tiberius, and whose commentaries on
    Cicero's speeches, as far as they go, are very useful in
    explaining to us the meaning of the orator. We have his
    notes on these two Cornelian orations and some others,
    especially on that of Pro Milone. There are also
    commentaries on some of the Verrine orations--not by
    Asconius, but from the pen of some writer now called
    Pseudo-Asconius, having been long supposed to have come
    from Asconius. They, too, go far to elucidate much which
    would otherwise be dark to us.

    [146] Quint., lib. viii., 3. The critic is explaining the
    effect of ornament in oratory--of that beauty of
    language which with the people has more effect than
    argument--and he breaks forth himself into perhaps the
    most eloquent passage in the whole Institute: "Cicero,
    in pleading for Cornelius, fought with arms which were
    as splendid as they were strong. It was not simply by
    putting the facts before the judges, by talking
    usefully, in good language and clearly, that he
    succeeded in forcing the Roman people to acknowledge by
    their voices and by their hands their admiration; it was
    the grandeur of his words, their magnificence, their
    beauty, their dignity, which produced that outburst."

    [147] Orator., lxvii. and lxx.

    [148] De Lege Agraria, ii., 2: "Meis comitiis non
    tabellam, vindicem tacitæ libertatis, sed vocem vivam
    præ vobis, indicem vestrarum erga me voluntatum ac
    studiorum tulistis. Itaque me * * * una voce universus
    populus Romanus consulem declaravit."

    [149] Sall., Conj. Catilinaria, xxi.: "Petere consulatum
    C. Antonium, quem sibi collegam fore speraret, hominem
    et familiarem, et omnibus necessitudinibus
    circumventum." Sallust would no doubt have put anything
    into Catiline's mouth which would suit his own purpose;
    but it was necessary for his purpose that he should
    confine himself to credibilities.

    [150] Cicero himself tells us that many short-hand
    writers were sent by him--"Plures librarii," as he calls
    them--to take down the words of the Agrarian law which
    Rullus proposed. De Lege Agra., ii., 5. Pliny,
    Quintilian, and Martial speak of these men as Notarii.
    Martial explains the nature of their business:

      "Currant verba licet, manus est velocior illis;
          Nondum lingua suum, dextra peregit opus."--xiv., 208.

    [151]Ad Att., ii., 1. "Oratiunculas," he calls them. It
    would seem here that he pretends to have preserved these
    speeches only at the request of some admiring young
    friends. Demosthenes, of course, was the
    "fellow-citizen," so called in badinage, because
    Atticus, deserting Rome, lived much at Athens.

    [152] This speech, which has been lost, was addressed to
    the people with the view of reconciling them to a law in
    accordance with which the Equites were entitled to
    special seats in the theatre. It was altogether
    successful.

    [153] This, which is extant, was spoken in defence of an
    old man who was accused of a political homicide
    thirty-seven years before--of having killed, that is,
    Saturninus the Tribune. Cicero was unsuccessful, but
    Rabirius was saved by the common subterfuge of an
    interposition of omens. There are some very fine
    passages in this oration.

    [154] This has been lost. Cicero, though he acknowledged
    the iniquity of Sulla's proscriptions, showed that their
    effects could not now be reversed without further
    revolutions. He gained his point on this occasion.

    [155] This has been lost. Cicero, in accordance with the
    practice of the time, was entitled to the government of
    a province when ceasing to be Consul. The rich province
    of Macedonia fell to him by lot, but he made it over to
    his colleague Antony, thus purchasing, if not Antony's
    co-operation, at any rate his quiescence, in regard to
    Catiline. He also made over the province of Gaul, which
    then fell to his lot, to Metellus, not wishing to leave
    the city. All this had to be explained to the people.

    [156] It will be seen that he also defended Rabirius in
    his consular year, but had thought fit to include that
    among his consular speeches. Some doubt has been thrown,
    especially by Mr. Tyrrell, on the genuineness of
    Cicero's letter giving the list of his "oratiunculas
    consulares," because the speeches Pro Murena and Pro
    Pisone are omitted, and as containing some "rather
    un-Ciceronian expressions." My respect for Mr. Tyrrell's
    scholarship and judgment is so great that I hardly dare
    to express an opinion contrary to his; but I should be
    sorry to exclude a letter so Ciceronian in its feeling.
    And if we are to have liberty to exclude without
    evidence, where are we to stop?

    [157] Corn. Nepo., Epaminondas, I.: "We know that with
    us" (Romans) "music is foreign to the employments of a
    great man. To dance would amount to a vice. But these
    things among the Greeks are not only pleasant but
    praiseworthy."

    [158] Conj. Catilinaria, xxv.

    [159] Horace, Epis. i., xvii.:

           "Si sciret regibus uti
       Fastidiret olus qui me notat."

    [160] Pro Murena, xxix.

    [161] Pro Murena, x. This Sulpicius was afterward Consul
    with M. Marcellus, and in the days of the Philippics was
    sent as one of a deputation to Antony. He died while on
    the journey. He is said to have been a man of excellent
    character, and a thorough-going conservative.

    [162] Pro Murena, xi.

    [163] Ibid., xi.

    [164] Ibid., xii.

    [165] Ibid., xiii.

    [166] Ibid., xi.

    [167] Pro Cluentio, 1.

    [168] De Lege Agraria, ii., 5.

    [169] He alludes here to his own colleague Antony, whom
    through his whole year of office he had to watch lest
    the second Consul should join the enemies whom he
    fears--should support Rullus or go over to Catiline.
    With this view, choosing the lesser of the two evils, he
    bribes Antony with the government of Macedonia.

    [170] De Lege Agraria, i., 7 and 8.

    [171] The "jus imaginis" belonged to those whose
    ancestors was counted an Ædile, a Prætor, or a Consul.
    The descendants of such officers were entitled to have
    these images, whether in bronze, or marble, or wax,
    carried at the funerals of their friends.

    [172] Forty years since, Marius who was also "novus
    homo," and also, singularly enough, from Arpinum, had
    been made Consul, but not with the glorious
    circumstances as now detailed by Cicero.

    [173] De Lege Agraria, ii., 1, 2, and 3.

    [174] See Introduction.

    [175] Pliny the elder, Hist. Nat., lib. vii., ca. xxxi.

    [176] The word is "proscripsisti," "you proscribed him."
    For the proper understanding of this, the bearing of
    Cicero toward Antony during the whole period of the
    Philippics must be considered.

    [177] Catiline, by Mr. Beesly. Fortnightly Review, 1865.

    [178] Pro Murena, xxv.: "Quem omnino vivum illinc exire
    non oportuerat." I think we must conclude from this that
    Cicero had almost expected that his attack upon the
    conspirators, in his first Catiline oration, would have
    the effect of causing him to be killed.

    [179] Æneid, viii., 668:

                     "Te, Catilina, minaci
            Pendentem scopulo."

    [180] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., xxxiv.

    [181] Juvenal, Sat. ii., 27: "Catilina Cethegum!" Could
    such a one as Catiline answer such a one as Cethegus?
    Sat. viii., 232: "Arma tamen vos Nocturna et flammas
    domibus templisque parastis." Catiline, in spite of his
    noble blood, had endeavored to burn the city. Sat. xiv.,
    41: "Catilinam quocunque in populo videas." It is hard
    to find a good man, but it is easy enough to put your
    hand anywhere on a Catiline.

    [182] Val Maximus, lib. v., viii., 5; lib. ix., 1, 9;
    lib. ix., xi., 3.

    [183] Florus, lib. iv.

    [184] Mommsen's History of Rome, book v., chap v.

    [185] I feel myself constrained here to allude to the
    treatment given to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his
    little work on the two Roman Triumvirates. The Dean's
    sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr. Beesly,
    but he values too highly his own historical judgment to
    allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's
    sympathies. "The real designs," he says, "of the
    infamous Catiline and his associates must indeed always
    remain shrouded in mystery. * * * Nevertheless, it is
    impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be
    unreasonable to doubt, that such a conspiracy there
    really was, and that the very existence of the
    commonwealth was for a moment seriously imperilled." It
    would certainly be unreasonable to doubt it. But the
    Dean, though he calls Catiline infamous, and
    acknowledges the conspiracy, nevertheless give us ample
    proof of his sympathy with the conspirators, or rather
    of his strong feeling against Cicero. Speaking of
    Catiline at a certain moment, he says that he "was not
    yet hunted down." He speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and
    plainly shows us that his heart is with the side which
    had been Cæsar's. Whether conspiracy or no conspiracy,
    whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a
    single master with a strong hand was the one remedy
    needed for Rome! The reader must understand that
    Cicero's one object in public life was to resist that
    lesson.

    [186] Asconius, "In toga candida," reports that
    Fenestella, a writer of the time of Augustus, had
    declared that Cicero had defended Catiline; but Asconius
    gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.

    [187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a
    difference between traitors to their country and other
    criminals. Pro P. Sulla, ca. iii.: "Verum etiam quædam
    contagio sceleris, si defendas eum, quem obstrictum esse
    patriæ parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same
    oration, ca. vi., he explains that he had refused to
    defend Autronius because he had known Autronius to be a
    conspirator against his country. I cannot admit the
    truth of the argument in which Mr. Forsyth defends the
    practice of the English bar in this respect, and in
    doing so presses hard upon Cicero. "At Rome," he says,
    "it was different. The advocate there was conceived to
    have a much wider discretion than we allow." Neither in
    Rome nor in England has the advocate been held to be
    disgraced by undertaking the defence of bad men who have
    been notoriously guilty. What an English barrister may
    do, there was no reason that a Roman advocate should not
    do, in regard to simple criminality. Cicero himself has
    explained in the passage I have quoted how the Roman
    practice did differ from ours in regard to treason. He
    has stated also that he knew nothing of the first
    conspiracy when he offered to defend Catiline on the
    score of provincial peculations. No writer has been
    heavy on Hortensius for defending Verres, but only
    because he took bribes from Verres.

    [188] Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Publius Autronius
    P[oe]tus.

    [189] Pro P. Sulla, iv. He declares that he had known
    nothing of the first conspiracy and gives the reason:
    "Quod nondum penitus in republica versabar, quod nondum
    ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram, quod mea me
    ambitio et forensis labor ab omni illa cogitatione
    abstrahebat."

    [190] Sallust, Catilinaria, xviii.

    [191] Livy, Epitome, lib. ci.

    [192] Suetonius, J. Cæsar, ix.

    [193] Mommsen, book v., ca. v., says of Cæsar and
    Crassus as to this period, "that this notorious action
    corresponds with striking exactness to the secret action
    which this report ascribes to them." By which he means
    to imply that they probably were concerned in the plot.

    [194] Sallust tells us, Catilinaria, xlix., that Cicero
    was instigated by special enemies of Cæsar to include
    Cæsar in the accusation, but refused to mix himself up
    in so great a crime. Crassus also was accused, but
    probably wrongfully. Sallust declares that an attempt
    was made to murder Cæsar as he left the Senate. There
    was probably some quarrel and hustling, but no more.

    [195] Sallust, Catilinaria, xxxvii.: "Omnino cuncta
    plebes, novarum rerum studio, Catilinæ incepta
    probabat." By the words "novarum rerum studio"--by a love
    of revolution--we can understand the kind of popularity
    which Sallust intended to express.

    [196] Pro Murena, xxv.

    [197] "Darent operam consules ne quid detrimenti
    respublica capiat."

    [198] Catilinaria, xxxi.

    [199] Quintilian, lib. xii., 10: "Quem tamen et suorum
    homines temporum incessere audebant, ut tumidiorem, et
    asianum, et redundantem."

    [200] Orator., xxxvii.: "A nobis homo audacissimus
    Catilina in senatu accusatus obmutuit."

    [201] 2 Catilinaria, xxxi.

    [202] In the first of them to the Senate, chap. ix., he
    declares this to Catiline himself: "Si mea voce
    perterritus ire in exsilium animum induxeris, quanta
    tempestas invidiæ nobis, si minus in præsens tempus,
    recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem
    impendeat." He goes on to declare that he will endure
    all that, if by so doing he can save the Republic. "Sed
    est mihi tanti; dummodo ista privata sit calamitas, et a
    reipublicæ periculis sejungatur."

    [203] Sallust, Catilinaria, xli.: "Itaque Q. Fabio
    Sangæ cujus patrocinio civitas plurimum utebatur rem
    omnem uti cognoverant aperiunt."

    [204] Horace, Epo. xvi., 6: "Novisque rebus infidelis
    Allobrox." The unhappy Savoyard has from this line been
    known through ages as a conspirator, false even to his
    fellow-conspirators.

    Juvenal, vii., 214: "Rufum qui toties Ciceronem
    Allobroga dixit." Some Rufus, acting as advocate, had
    thought to put down Cicero by calling him an
    Allobrogian.

    [205] The words in which this honor was conferred he
    himself repeats: "Quod urbem incendiis, cæde cives,
    Italiam bello liberassem"--"because I had rescued the
    city from fire, the citizens from slaughter, and Italy
    from war."

    [206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something
    between the lines. It is allowed to the speaker to
    produce effect by diminishing and exaggerating. I think
    we should detract something from the praises bestowed on
    Catiline's military virtues. The bigger Catiline could
    be made to appear, the greater would be the honor of
    having driven him out of the city.

    [207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.

    [208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: "Ne mihi noceant
    vestrum est providere."

    [209] "Prince of the Senate" was an honorary title,
    conferred on some man of mark as a dignity--at this
    period on some ex-Consul; it conferred no power. Cicero,
    the Consul who had convened the Senate, called on the
    speakers as he thought fit.

    [210] Cæsar, according to Sallust, had referred to the
    Lex Porcia. Cicero alludes, and makes Cæsar allude, to
    the Lex Sempronia. The Porcian law, as we are told by
    Livy, was passed B.C. 299, and forbade that a Roman
    should be scourged or put to death. The Lex Sempronia
    was introduced by C. Gracchus, and enacted that the life
    of a citizen should not be taken without the voice of
    the citizens.

    [211] Velleius Paterculus, xxxvi.: "Consulatui Ciceronis
    non mediocre adjecit decus natus eo anno Divus
    Augustus."

    [212] In Pisonem, iii.: "Sine ulla dubitatione juravi
    rempublicam atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse
    salvam."

    [213] Dio Cassius tells the same story, lib. xxxvii.,
    ca. 38, but he adds that Cicero was more hated than ever
    because of the oath he took: [Greek: kai ho men kai ek
    toutou poly mallon emisêthê.]

    [214] It is the only letter given in the collection as
    having been addressed direct to Pompey. In two letters
    written some years later to Atticus, B.C. 49, lib.
    viii., 11, and lib. viii., 12, he sends copies of a
    correspondence between himself and Pompey and two of the
    Pompeian generals.

    [215] Lib. v., 7. It is hardly necessary to explain that
    the younger Scipio and Lælius were as famous for their
    friendship as Pylades and Orestes. The "Virtus Scipiadæ
    et mitis sapientia Læli" have been made famous to us
    all by Horace.

    [216] These two brothers, neither of whom was remarkable
    for great qualities, though they were both to be
    Consuls, were the last known of the great family of the
    Metelli, a branch of the "Gens Cæcilia." Among them had
    been many who had achieved great names for themselves in
    Roman history, on account of the territories added to
    the springing Roman Empire by their victories. There had
    been a Macedonicus, a Numidicus, a Balearicus, and a
    Creticus. It is of the first that Velleius Paterculus
    sings the glory--lib. i., ca. xi., and the elder Pliny
    repeats the story, Hist. Nat., vii., 44--that of his
    having been carried to the grave by four sons, of whom
    at the time of his death three had been Consuls, one had
    been a Prætor, two had enjoyed triumphal honors, and
    one had been Censor. In looking through the consular
    list of Cicero's lifetime, I find that there were no
    less than seven taken from the family of the Metelli.
    These two brothers, Metellus Nepos and Celer, again
    became friends to Cicero; Nepos, who had stopped his
    speech and assisted in forcing him into exile, having
    assisted as Consul in obtaining his recall from exile.
    It is very difficult to follow the twistings and
    turnings of Roman friendships at this period.

    [217] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., ca. xiv. Paterculus
    tells us how, when the architect offered to build the
    house so as to hide its interior from the gaze of the
    world, Drusus desired the man so to construct it that
    all the world might see what he was doing.

    [218] It may be worth while to give a translation of the
    anecdote as told by Aulus Gellius, and to point out that
    the authors intention was to show what a clever fellow
    Cicero was. Cicero did defend P. Sulla this year; but
    whence came the story of the money borrowed from Sulla
    we do not know. "It is a trick of rhetoric craftily to
    confess charges made, so as not to come within the reach
    of the law. So that, if anything base be alleged which
    cannot be denied, you may turn it aside with a joke, and
    make it a matter of laughter rather than of disgrace, as
    it is written that Cicero did when, with a drolling
    word, he made little of a charge which he could not
    deny. For when he was anxious to buy a house on the
    Palatine Hill, and had not the ready money, he quietly
    borrowed from P. Sulla--who was then about to stand his
    trial, 'sestertium viciens'--twenty million sesterces.
    When that became known, before the purchase was made,
    and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the
    money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the
    unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that
    he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it
    and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed
    heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses
    as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family
    would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the
    price of the article against himself."--Noctes Atticæ,
    xii., 12. Aulus Gellius though he tells us that the
    story was written, does not tell us where he read it.

    [219] I must say this, "pace" Mr. Tyrrell, who, in his
    note on the letter to Atticus, lib. i., 12, attempts to
    show that some bargain for such professional fee had
    been made. Regarding Mr. Tyrrell as a critic always
    fair, and almost always satisfactory, I am sorry to have
    to differ from him; but it seems to me that he, too, has
    been carried away by the feeling that in defending a
    man's character it is best to give up some point.

    [220] I have been amused at finding a discourse,
    eloquent and most enthusiastic, in praise of Cicero and
    especially of this oration, spoken by M. Guéroult at the
    College of France in June, 1815. The worst literary
    faults laid to the charge of Cicero, if committed by
    him--which M. Guéroult thinks to be doubtful--had been
    committed even by Voltaire and Racine! The learned
    Frenchman, with whom I altogether sympathize, rises to
    an ecstasy of violent admiration, and this at the very
    moment in which Waterloo was being fought. But in truth
    the great doings of the world do not much affect
    individual life. We should play our whist at the clubs
    though the battle of Dorking were being fought.

    [221] Pro P. Sulla, iv.: "Scis me * * * illorum expertem
    temporum et sermonum fuisse; credo, quod nondum penitus
    in republica versabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi
    finem honoris perveneram. * * * Quis ergo intererat vestris
    consiliis? Omnes hi, quos vides huic adesse et in primis
    Q. Hortensius."

    [222] Ad Att., lib. i., 12.

    [223] Ad Att., lib. i., 13.

    [224] Ibid., i., 14.

    [225]Ibid., i., 16: "Vis scire quomodo minus quam soleam
    præliatus sum."

    [226] "You have bought a fine house," said Clodius.
    "There would be more in what you say if you could accuse
    me of buying judges," replied Cicero. "The judges would
    not trust you on your oath," said Clodius, referring to
    the alibi by which he had escaped in opposition to
    Cicero's oath. "Yes," replied Cicero, "twenty-five
    trusted me; but not one of the thirty-one would trust
    you without having his bribe paid beforehand."

    [227] Ad Att., i., 14: "Proxime Pompeium sedebam.
    Intellexi hominem moveri."

    [228] Ibid.: "Quo modo [Greek: eneperpereusamên], novo
    auditori Pompeio."

    [229] Mommsen, book v., chap. vi. This probably has been
    taken from the statement of Paterculus, lib. ii., 40:
    "Quippe plerique non sine exercitu venturum in urbem
    adfirmabant, et libertati publicæ statuturum arbitrio
    suo modum. Quo magis hoc homines timuerant, eo gratior
    civilis tanti imperatoris reditus fuit." No doubt there
    was a dread among many of Pompey coming back as Sulla
    had come: not from indications to be found in the
    character of Pompey, but because Sulla had done so.

    [230] Florus, lib. ii., xix. Having described to us the
    siege of Numantia, he goes on "Hactenus populus Romanus
    pulcher, egregius, pius, sanctus atque magnificus.
    Reliqua seculi, ut grandia æque, ita vel magis turbida
    et f[oe]da."

    [231] We have not Pollio's poem on the conspiracy, but
    we have Horace's record of Pollio's poem:

       Motum ex Metello consule civicum,
       Bellique causas et vitia, et modos,
         Ludumque Fortunæ, gravesque
           Principum amicitias, et arma
       Nondum expiatis uncta cruoribus,
       Periculosæ plenum opus aleæ,
         Tractas, et incedis per ignes
           Suppositos cineri doloso.--Odes, lib. ii., 1.

    [232] The German index appeared--very much after the
    original work--as late as 1875.

    [233] Mommsen, lib. v., chap. vi. I cannot admit that
    Mommsen is strictly accurate, as Cæsar had no real
    idea of democracy. He desired to be the Head of
    the Oligarchs, and, as such, to ingratiate himself
    with the people.

    [234] For the character of Cæsar generally I would refer
    readers to Suetonius, whose life of the great man
    is, to my thinking, more graphic than any that has
    been written since. For his anecdotes there is
    little or no evidence. His facts are not all
    historical. His knowledge was very much less
    accurate than that of modern writers who have had
    the benefit of research and comparison. But there
    was enough of history, of biography, and of
    tradition to enable him to form a true idea of the
    man. He himself as a narrator was neither
    specially friendly nor specially hostile. He has
    told what was believed at the time, and he has
    drawn a character that agrees perfectly with all
    that we have learned since.

    [235] By no one has the character and object of the
    Triumvirate been so well described as by Lucan, who,
    bombastic as he is, still manages to bring home to the
    reader the ideas as to persons and events which he
    wishes to convey. I have ventured to give in an
    Appendix, E, the passages referred to, with such a
    translation in prose as I have been able to produce. It
    will be found at the end of this volume.

    [236] Plutarch--Crassus: [Greek: kai synestêsen ek tôn
    triôn ischyn amachon.]

    [237] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., 44: "Hoc igitur
    consule, inter eum et Cn. Pompeium et M. Crassum inita
    potentiæ societas, quæ urbi orbique terrarum, nec
    minus diverso quoque tempore ipsis exitiabilis fuit."
    Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xix., "Societatem cum utroque
    iniit." Officers called Triumviri were quite common, as
    were Quinqueviri and Decemviri. Livy speaks of a
    "Triumviratus"--or rather two such offices exercised by
    one man--ix., 46. We remember, too, that wretch whom
    Horace gibbeted, Epod. iv.: "Sectus flagellis hic
    triumviralibus." But the word, though in common use, was
    not applied to this conspiracy.

    [238] Ad Att., lib. ii., 3: "Is affirmabat, illum omnibus
    in rebus meo et Pompeii consilio usurum, daturumque
    operam, ut cum Pompeio Crassum conjungeret. Hic sunt
    hæc. Conjunctio mihi summa cum Pompeio; si placet etiam
    cum Cæsare; reditus in gratiam cum inimicis, pax cum
    multitudine; senectulis otium. Sed me [Greek: katakleis]
    mea illa commovet, quæ est in libro iii.

      "Interea cursus, quos prima a parte juventæ
       Quosque adeo consul virtute, animoque petisti,
       Hos retine, atque, auge famam laudesque bonorum."

    [239] Homer, Iliad, lib. xii., 243: [Greek: Eis oiônos
    aristos amynesthai peri patrês.]

    [240] Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. i., p. 291.

    [241] Pro Domo Sua, xvi. This was an oration, as the
    reader will soon learn more at length, in which the
    orator pleaded for the restoration of his town mansion
    after his return from exile. It has, however, been
    doubted whether the speech as we have it was ever made
    by Cicero.

    [242] Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xx.

    [243] Ad Att., lib. ii., 1: "Quid quæris?" says Cicero.
    "Conturbavi Græcam nationem"--"I have put all Greece
    into a flutter."

    [244] De Divinatione, lib. i.

    [245] Ad Quin. Fratrem, lib. i., 1: "Non itineribus tuis
    perterreri homines? non sumptu exhauriri? non adventu
    commoveri? Esse, quocumque veneris, et publice et
    privatim maximam lætitiam; quum urbs custodem non
    tyrannum; domus hospitem non expilatorem, recipisse
    videatur? His autem in rebus jam te usus ipse profecto
    erudivit nequaquam satis esse, ipsum hasce habere
    virtutis, sed esse circumspiciendum diligentur, ut in
    hac custodia provinciæ non te unum, sed omnes ministros
    imperii tui, sociis, et civibus, et reipublicæ
    præstare videare."

    [246] Ad Quin. Fratrem, lib. i., 1: "Ac mihi quidem
    videntur huc omnia esse referenda iis qui præsunt
    aliis; ut ii, qui erunt eorum in imperio sint quam
    beatissimi, quod tibi et esse antiquissimum et ab initio
    fuisse, ut primum Asiam attigisti, constante fama atque
    omnium sermone celebratum est. Est autem non modo ejus,
    qui sociis et civibus, sed etiam ejus qui servis, qui
    mutis pecudibus præsit, eorum quibus præsit commodis
    utilitatique servire."

    [247] "Hæc est una in toto imperio tuo difficultas."

    [248] Mommsen, book v., ca. 6.

    [249] Mommsen, vol. v., ca. vi.

    [250] Ad Att., lib. ii., 7: "Atque hæc, sin velim
    existimes, non me abs te [Greek: kata to praktikon]
    quærere, quod gestiat animus aliquid agere in
    republica. Jam pridem gubernare me tædebat, etiam quum
    licebat."

    [251] Ad Att., lib. ii., 8: "Scito Curionem adolescentem
    venisse ad me salutatum. Valde ejus sermo de Publio cum
    tuis litteris congruebat, ipse vero mirandum in modum
    Reges odisse superbos. Peræque narrabat incensam esse
    juventutem, neque ferre hæc posse." The "reges
    superbos" were Cæsar and Pompey.

    [252] Ad Att., lib. ii., 5: [Greek: Aideomai Trôas kai
    Trôadas helkesipeplous].--Il., vi., 442. "I fear what
    Mrs. Grundy would say of me," is Mr. Tyrrell's homely
    version. Cicero's mind soared, I think, higher when he
    brought the words of Hector to his service than does the
    ordinary reference to our old familiar critic.

    [253] Quint., xii., 1.

    [254] Enc. Britannica on Cicero.

    [255] Ad Att., lib. ii., 9.

    [256] Ibid.: "Festive, mihi crede, et minore sonitu,
    quam putaram, orbis hic in republica est conversus."
    "Orbis hic," this round body of three is the
    Triumvirate.

    [257] We cannot but think of the threat Horace made,
    Sat., lib. ii., 1:

                                "At ille
      Qui me commorit, melius non tangere! clamo,
      Flebit, et insignis tota cantabitur urbe."

    [258] Ad Att., lib. ii., 11: "Da ponderosam aliquam
    epistolam."

    [259] Josephus, lib. xviii., ca. 5.

    [260] Ad Att., lib. ii., 16.

    [261] Ad Att., lib. ii., 18: "A Cæsare valde liberaliter
    invitor in legationem illam, sibi ut sim legatus; atque
    etiam libera legatio voti causa datur."

    [262] De Legibus, lib. iii., ca. viii.: "Jam illud apertum
    prefecto est nihil esse turpius, quam quenquam legari
    nisi republica causa."

    [263] It may be seen from this how anxious Cæsar was to
    secure his silence, and yet how determined not to screen
    him unless he could secure his silence.

    [264] Ad Quintum, lib. i., 2.

    [265] Of this last sentence I have taken a translation
    given by Mr. Tyrrell, who has introduced a special
    reading of the original which the sense seems to
    justify.

    [266] Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. ii., ca. i.: We are told
    that Cicero had been called the consular buffoon. "And
    I," says Macrobius, "if it would not be too long, could
    relate how by his jokes he has brought off the most
    guilty criminals." Then he tells the story of Lucius
    Flaccus.

    [267] See the evidence of Asconius on this point, as to
    which Cicero's conduct has been much mistaken. We shall
    come to Milo's trial before long.

    [268] The statement is made by Mr. Tyrrell in his
    biographical introduction to the Epistles.

    [269] The 600 years, or anni DC., is used to signify
    unlimited futurity.

    [270] Mommsen's History, book v., ca. v.

    [271] [Greek: Automalos ônomazeto] is the phrase of
    Dio Cassius. "Levissume transfuga" is the translation
    made by the author of the "Declamatio in Ciceronem." If
    I might venture on a slang phrase, I should say that
    [Greek: automalos] was a man who "went off on his own
    hook." But no man was ever more loyal as a political
    adherent than Cicero.

    [272] Ad Att., ii., 25.

    [273] We do not know when the marriage took place, or
    any of the circumstances; but we are aware that when
    Tullia came, in the following year, B.C. 57, to meet her
    father at Brundisium, she was a widow.

    [274] Suetonius, Julius Cæsar, xii.: "Subornavit etiam
    qui C. Rabirio perduellionis diem diceret."

    [275] "Qui civem Romanum indemnatum perimisset, ei aqua
    at igni interdiceretur."

    [276] Plutarch tells us of this sobriquet, but gives
    another reason for it, equally injurious to the lady's
    reputation.

    [277] Ad Att., lib. iii., 15.

    [278] In Pisonem, vi.

    [279] Ad Att., lib. x., 4.

    [280] We are told by Cornelius Nepos, in his life of
    Atticus, that when Cicero fled from his country Atticus
    advanced to him two hundred and fifty sesterces, or
    about £2000. I doubt, however, whether the flight here
    referred to was not that early visit to Athens which
    Cicero was supposed to have made in his fear of Sulla.

    [281] Ad Fam., lib. xiv., iv.: "Tullius to his Terentia,
    and to his young Tullia, and to his Cicero," meaning his
    boy.

    [282] Pro Domo Sua, xxiv.

    [283] Ad Quin. Fra., 1, 3.

    [284] The reader who wishes to understand with what
    anarchy the largest city in the world might still exist,
    should turn to chapter viii. of book v. of Mommsen's
    History.

    [285] Ad Att., lib. iii., 12.

    [286] Horace, Epis., lib. ii., 1.

    [287] Ad Att., lib. i., 8.

    [288] Horace, Epis., lib. ii., 11. The translation is
    Conington's.

    [289] Vell. Pat., lib. i., xiii.

    [290] "Civile;" when Sulla, with Pompey under him, was
    fighting with young Marius and Cinna.

    [291] "Africanum;" when he had fought with Domitius, the
    son-in-law of Cinna, and with Hiarbas.

    [292] "Transalpinum;" during his march through Gaul into
    Spain.

    [293] "Hispaniense;" in which he conquered Sertorius.

    [294] "Servile;" the war with Spartacus, with the slaves
    and gladiators.

    [295] "Navale Bellum;" the war with the pirates.

    [296] For the full understanding of this oft-quoted line
    the reader should make himself acquainted with Cato's
    march across Libya after the death of Pompey, as told by
    Lucan in his 9th book.


END OF VOLUME I.





