works (_Farbenlehre_, Theil 2, p. 126) by Goethe, as '_die
abgeschmackteste That die jemals begangen worden_'--_the most
outrageously absurd act that ever was committed_. Goethe is right, and
more than right. For not only was it an atrocity so absolutely without a
purpose as never to have been examined by one single conspirator with a
view to its probable tendencies--in that sense therefore it was absurd
as pointing to no result--but also in its immediate arrangements and
precautions it had been framed so negligently, with a carelessness so
total as to the natural rebounds and reflex effects of such a tragic
act, that the conspirators had neither organized any resources for
improving their act, nor for securing their own persons from the first
blind motions of panic, nor even for establishing a common rendezvous.
When they had executed their valiant exploit, the very possibility of
which from the first step to the last they owed to the sublime
magnanimity of their victim--well knowing his own continual danger, but
refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust--when they had
gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their
daggers--cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'--they had
come to the end of the play. _Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite_. Not a step
further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they
began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe that no act
so thoroughly womanish, that is, moving under a blind impulse without a
thought of consequences, without a concerted succession of steps, and no
_arrière pensée_ as to its final improvement, ever yet had a place or
rating in the books of Conspiracy, far less was attended (as by accident
this was) with an equipage of earth-shattering changes. Even the poor
deluded followers of the Old Mountain Assassin, though drugged with
bewildering potions, such men as Sir Walter Scott describes in the
person of that little wily fanatic gambolling before the tent of Richard
_Coeur-de-lion_, had always settled which way they would run when the
work was finished. And how peculiarly this reach of foresight was
required for these anti-Julian conspirators--will appear from one fact.
Is the reader aware, were these boyish men aware, that--besides, what we
all know from Shakespeare, a mob won to Cæsar's side by his very last
codicils of his will; besides a crowd of public magistrates and
dependents charged upon the provinces, etc., for two years deep by
Cæsar's act, though in requital of no services or attachment to himself;
besides a distinct Cæsarian party; finally, besides Antony, the express
representative and assignee of Cæsar, armed at this moment with the
powers of Consul--there was over and above a great military officer of
Cæsar's (Lentulus), then by accident in Rome, holding a most potent
government through the mere favour of Cæsar, and pledged therefore by an
instant interest of self-promotion, backed by a large number of Julian
troops at that instant billeted on a suburb of Rome--veterans, and
fierce fellows that would have cut their own fathers' throats 'as soon
as say dumpling' (see Lucan's account of them in Cæsar's harangue before
Pharsalia)? Every man of sense would have predicted ruin to the
conspirators. '_You'll tickle it for your concupy_' (Thersites in 'Troil
and Cress.') would have been the word of every rational creature to
these wretches when trembling from their tremulous act, and reeking from
their bloody ingratitude. For most remarkable it is that not one
conspirator but was personally indebted to Cæsar for eminent favours;
and many among them had even received that life from their victim which
they employed in filching away _his_. Yet after that feature of the
case, so notorious as it soon became, historians and biographers are all
ready to notice of the centurion who amputated Cicero's head that, he
had once been defended by Cicero. What if he had, which is more than we
know--must _that_ operate as a perpetual retaining fee on Cicero's
behalf? Put the case that we found ourselves armed with a commission (no
matter whence emanating) for abscinding the head of Mr. Adolphus who now
pleads with so much lustre at the general jail delivery of London and
Middlesex, or the head of Mr. Serjeant Wild, must it bar our claim that
once Mr. Adolphus had defended us on a charge of sheep-stealing, or that
the Serjeant had gone down 'special' in our cause to York? Very well,
but doubtless they had their fees. 'Oh, but Cicero could not receive
fees by law.' Certainly not by law; but by custom many _did_ receive
them at dusk through some postern gate in the shape of a huge cheese, or
a guinea-pig. And, if the 'special retainer' from Popilius Lænas is
somewhat of the doubtfullest, so is the 'pleading' on the part of
Cicero.
However, it is not impossible but some will see in this desperate game
of hazard a sort of courage on the part of the conspirators which may
redeem their knavery. But the courage of desperation is seldom genuine,
and least of all where the desperation itself was uncalled for. Yet even
this sort of merit the conspirators wanted. The most urgent part of the
danger was that which in all probability they had not heard of, viz.,
the casual presence at Rome of Julian soldiers. Pursuing no inquiries at
all, they would hear not; practising no caution, they would keep no
secret. The plot had often been betrayed, we will swear: but Cæsar and
Cæsar's friends would look upon all such stories as the mere expressions
of a permanent case, so much inevitable exposure on _their_ part--so
much possibility of advantage redounding to the other side. And out of
these naked possibilities, as some temptation would continually arise to
use them profitably, much more would arise to use them as delightful
offsets to the sense of security and power.
[Mommsen is more at one with De Quincey here than Merivale,
who, at p. 478, vol. ii., writes: 'We learn with pleasure
that the conspirators did not venture even to sound Cicero';
but at vol. iii., p. 9, he has these significant words:
'Cicero, himself, we must believe, was not ashamed to lament
the scruples which had denied him initiation into the plot.'
Forsyth writes of Cicero's views: 'He was more than ever
convinced of the want of foresight shown by the
conspirators. Their deed, he said, was the deed of men,
their counsels were the counsels of children,' 'Life of
Cicero,' 3rd edition, pp. 435-6.--ED.]
_IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY)._
Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero
as Proconsul of Cilicia.[19] And it surprises us greatly to find a man,
so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf
of a friend. How came it--that he or any man of the world should fancy
any substance or reality in the public enthusiasm for one whose
character belonged to a past generation? Nine out of ten amongst the
Campanians must have been children when Pompey's name was identified
with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to
sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns
knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching
question--Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so
extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more
heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive
privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer who
amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was
well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the
hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen,
crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations,
could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators
panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he
beheld--taking the field on the opposite quarter--one, the greatest of
men, who spoke authentically to all classes alike, authorizing all to
hope and to draw their breath in freedom under that general recast of
Roman society which had now become inevitable! As between such
competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally
the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion,
although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed
locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have
gathered about the name of Cæsar. But enough transpired to show which
way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He
acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Cæsar. And Pompey, who
was much more forced into towns and public scenes, had even less
opportunity for deceiving himself. He, who had fancied all Campania
streaming with incense to heaven on his own personal account, now made
the misanthropical discovery--not only that all was hollow, and that his
own name was held in no esteem--but absolutely that the barrier to any
hope of popularity for himself was that very man whom, on other and
previous grounds, he had for some time viewed as his own capital
antagonist.
Here then, in this schism of the public affections, and in the
mortifying discovery so abruptly made by Pompey, lay the bitter affront
which he could not digest--the injury which he purposed to avenge. What
barbed this injury to his feelings, what prepared him for exhausting
its bitterness, was the profound delusion in which he had been
previously laid asleep by flattering friends--the perfect faith in his
own uniform popularity. And now, in the very teeth of all current
representations, we advance this proposition: That the quality of his
meditated revenge and its horrid extent were what originally unveiled to
Cicero's eyes the true character of Pompey and his partisans.
* * * * *
The last letter of the sixth book is written from Athens, which city,
after a voyage of about a fortnight, Cicero reached precisely in the
middle of October, having sailed out of Ephesus on the 1st. He there
found a letter from Atticus, dated from Rome on the 18th of September;
and his answer, which was 'by return of post,' closes with these words:
'Mind that you keep your promise of writing to me fully about my darling
Tullia,' which means of course about her new husband Dolabella; next
about the Commonwealth, which by this time I calculate must be entering
upon its agony; and then about the Censors, etc. Hearken: 'This letter
is dated on the 16th of October; that day on which, by your account,
Cæsar is to reach Placentia with four legions. What, I ask myself for
ever, is to become of us? My own situation at this moment, which is in
the Acropolis of Athens, best meets my idea of what is prudent under the
circumstances.'
Well it would have been for Cicero's peace of mind if he could seriously
have reconciled himself to abide by that specular station. Had he
pleaded ill-health, he might have done so with decorum. As it was,
thinking his dignity concerned in not absenting himself from the public
councils at a season so critical, after a few weeks' repose he sailed
forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with
what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem,
after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his
friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required,
every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution,
individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero
discovered in the end) a principle of despair, and _the secret reserve
of a flight operating_ upon the leaders _from the very beginning_. The
key to all this is obvious for those who read with their eyes awake.
Pompey and the other consular leaders were ruined for action by age and
by the derangement of their digestive organs. Eating too much and too
luxuriously is far more destructive to the energies of action than
intemperance as to drink. Women everywhere alike are temperate as to
eating; and the only females memorable for ill-health from luxurious
eating have been Frenchwomen or Belgians--witness the Duchess of
Portsmouth, and many others of the two last centuries whom we could
name. But men everywhere commit excesses in this respect, if they have
it in their power. With the Roman nobles it was almost a necessity to do
so. Could any popular man evade the necessity of keeping a splendid
dinner-table? And is there one man in a thousand who can sit at a festal
board laden with all the delicacies of remotest climates, and continue
to practise an abstinence for which he is not sure of any reward? All
his abstinence may be defeated by a premature fate, and in the meantime
he is told, with some show of reason, that a life defrauded of its
genial enjoyments is _not_ life, is at all events a present loss, whilst
the remuneration is doubtful, except where there happen to be powerful
intellectual activities to reap an _instant_ benefit from such
sacrifices. Certainly it is the last extremity of impertinence to attack
men's habits in this respect. No man, we may be assured, has ever yet
practised any true self-denial in such a case, or ever will. Either he
has been trained under a wholesome poverty to those habits which
intercept the very development of a taste for luxuries, which evade the
very possibility therefore of any; or if this taste has once formed
itself, he would find it as impossible in this as in any other case to
maintain a fight with a temptation recurring _daily_. Pompey certainly
could not. He was of a slow, torpid nature through life; required a
continual supply of animal stimulation, and, if he had _not_ required
it, was assuredly little framed by nature for standing out against an
_artificial_ battery of temptation. There is proof extant that his
system was giving way under the action of daily dinners. Cicero mentions
the fact of his suffering from an annual illness; what may be called the
_etesian_ counter-current from his intemperance. Probably the liver was
enlarged, and the pylorus was certainly not healthy. Cicero himself was
not free from dyspeptic symptoms. If he had survived the Triumvirate, he
would have died within seven years from some disease of the intestinal
canal. Atticus, we suspect, was troubled with worms. Locke, indeed, than
whom no man ever less was acquainted with Greek or Roman life, pretends
that the ancients seldom used a pocket-handkerchief; knew little of
catarrhs, and even less of what the French consider indigenous to this
rainy island--_le catch-cold_. Nothing can be more unfounded. Locke was
bred a physician, but his practice had been none; himself and the cat
were his chief patients. Else we, who are no physicians, would wish to
ask him--what meant those continual _febriculæ_ to which all Romans of
rank were subject? What meant that _fluenter lippire_, a symptom so
troublesome to Cicero's eyes, and always arguing a functional, if not
even an organic, derangement of the stomach? Take this rule from us,
that wherever the pure white of the eye is clouded, or is veined with
red streaks, or wherever a continual weeping moistens the eyelashes,
there the digestive organs are touched with some morbid affection,
probably in it's early stages; as also that the inferior viscera, _not_
the stomach, must be slightly disordered before toothache _can_ be an
obstinate affection. And as to _le catch-cold_, the-most dangerous shape
in which it has ever been known, resembling the English _cholera
morbus_, belongs to the modern city of Rome from situation; and probably
therefore to the ancient city from the same cause. Pompey, beyond all
doubt, was a wreck when he commenced the struggle.
Struggle, conflict, for a man who needed to be in his bed! And struggle
with whom? With that man whom his very enemies viewed as a monster
([Greek: teras] is Cicero's own word), as preternaturally endowed, in
this quality of working power. But how then is it consistent with our
view of Roman dinners, that Cæsar should have escaped the universal
scourge? We reply, that one man is often stronger than another; every
man is stronger in some one organ; and secondly, Cæsar had lived away
from Rome through the major part of the last ten years; and thirdly, the
fact that Cæsar _had_ escaped the contagion of dinner luxury, however it
may be accounted for, is attested in the way of an exception to the
general order of experience, and with such a degree of astonishment, as
at once to prove the general maxim we have asserted, and the special
exemption in favour of Cæsar. He _only_, said Cato, he, as a
contradiction to all precedents--to the Gracchi, to Marius, to Cinna, to
Sylla, to Catiline--had come in a state of temperance (_sobrius_) to the
destruction of the state; not meaning to indicate mere superiority to
wine, but to _all_ modes of voluptuous enjoyment. Cæsar practised, it is
true, a refined epicureanism under the guidance of Greek physicians, as
in the case of his emetics; but this was by way of evading any gross
effects from a day of inevitable indulgence, not by way of aiding them.
Besides, Pompey and Cicero were about seven years older than Cæsar. They
stood upon the threshold of their sixtieth year at the _opening_ of the
struggle; Cæsar was a hale young man of fifty-two. And we all know that
Napoleon at forty-two was incapacitated for Borodino by incipient
disease of the stomach; so that from that day he, though junior by
seventeen years to Pompey, yet from Pompey's self-indulgence (not
certainly in splendid sensuality, but in the gross modes belonging to
his obscure youth) was pronounced by all the judicious, superannuated as
regarded the indispensable activity of martial habits. If he cannot face
the toils of military command, said his officers, why does he not
retire? Why does he not make room for others? Neither was the campaign
of 1813 or 1814 any refutation of this. Infinite are the cases in which
the interests of nations or of armies have suffered through the dyspepsy
of those who administered them. And above all nations the Romans laid
themselves open to this order of injuries from a dangerous oversight in
their constitutional arrangements, which placed legal bars on the
youthful side of all public offices, but none on the aged side. Of all
nations the Romans had been most indebted to men emphatically young; of
all nations they, by theory, most exclusively sanctioned the pretensions
of old ones. Not before forty-three could a man stand for the
consulship; and we have just noticed a case where a man of pestilent
activity in our own times had already become dyspeptically incapable of
command at forty-two. Besides, after laying down his civil office
(which, by itself, was often in the van of martial perils), the consul
had to pass into some province as military leader, with the prospect by
possibility of many years' campaigning. It is true that some men far
anticipated the legal age in assuming offices, honours, privileges. But
this, being always by infraction of fundamental laws, was no subject of
rejoicing to a patriotic Roman. And the Roman folly at this very crisis,
in trusting one side of the quarrel to an elderly, lethargic invalid,
subject to an annual struggle for his life, was appropriately punished
by that catastrophe which six years after threw them into the hands of a
schoolboy.
Yet on the other hand it may be asked, by those who carry the proper
spirit of jealousy into their historical reading, was Cicero always
right in these angry comments upon Pompey's strategies? Might it not be,
that where Cicero saw nothing but groundless procrastination, in reality
the obstacle lay in some overwhelming advantage of Cæsar's? That, where
his reports to Atticus read the signs of the time into the mere panic of
a Pompey, some more impartial report would see nothing to wonder at but
the overcharged expectations of a Cicero? Sometimes undoubtedly this is
the plain truth. Pompey's disadvantages were considerable; he had no
troops upon which he could rely; that part which had seen service
happened to be a detachment from Cæsar's army, sent home as a pledge for
his civic intentions at an earlier period, and their affection was still
lively to their original leader. The rest were raw levies. And it is a
remarkable fact, that the insufficiency of such troops was only now
becoming matter of notoriety. In foreign service, where the Roman
recruits were incorporated with veterans, as the natives in our Eastern
army, with a small proportion of British to steady them, they often
behaved well, and especially because they seldom acted against an enemy
that was not as raw as themselves. But now, in civil service against
their own legions, it was found that the mere novice was worth nothing
at all; a fact which had not been fully brought out in the strife of
Marius and Sylla, where Pompey had himself played a conspicuous and
cruel part, from the tumultuary nature of the contest; besides which the
old legions were then by accident as much concentrated on Italian ground
as now they were dispersed in transmarine provinces. Of the present
Roman army, ten legions at least were scattered over Macedonia, Achaia,
Cilicia, and Syria; five were in Spain; and six were with Cæsar, or
coming up from the rear. To say nothing of the forces locked up in
Sicily, Africa, Numidia, etc. It was held quite unadvisable by Pompey's
party to strip the distant provinces of their troops, or the great
provincial cities of their garrisons. All these were accounted as so
many reversionary chances against Cæsar. But certainly a bolder game was
likely to have prospered better; had large drafts from all these distant
armies been ordered home, even Cæsar's talents might have been
perplexed, and his immediate policy must have been so far baffled as to
force him back upon Transalpine Gaul. Yet if such a plan were eligible,
it does not appear that Cicero had ever thought of it; and certainly it
was not Pompey, amongst so many senatorial heads, who could be blamed
for neglecting it. Neglect he did; but Pompey had the powers of a
commander-in-chief for the immediate arrangements; but in the general
scheme of the war he, whose game was to call himself the servant of the
Senate, counted but for one amongst many concurrent authorities.
Combining therefore his limited authority with his defective materials,
we cannot go along with Cicero in the whole bitterness of his censure.
The fact is, no cautious scheme whatever, no practicable scheme could
have kept pace with Cicero's burning hatred to Cæsar. 'Forward, forward!
crush the monster; stone him, stab him, hurl him into the sea!' This was
the war-song of Cicero for ever; and men like Domitius, who shared in
his hatreds, as well as in his unseasonable temerity, by precipitating
upon Cæsar troops that were unqualified for the contest, lost the very
_élite_ of the Italian army at Corfinium; and such men were soon found
to have been embarked upon the ludicrous enterprise of 'catching a
Tartar;' following and seeking those
'Quos opimus
Fallere et effugere est triumphus.'
ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR CICERO.
I.
Bribery was it? which had been so organized as the sole means of
succeeding at elections, and which, once rendered necessary as the organ
of assertion for each man's birthright, became legitimate; in which
Cicero himself declared privately that there was '[Greek: exochê] in
nullo,' no sort of pre-eminence, one as bad as another, _pecunia
exaequet omnium dignitatem_. Money was the universal leveller. Was it
gladiators bought for fighting with? These were bought by his friend
Milo as well as his enemy Clodius, by Sextus Pompey on one side as much
as by Cæsar on the other. Was it neglect of _obnunciatio_? And so far as
regards treating, Cicero himself publicly justified it against the
miserable theatrical Cato. How ridiculous to urge that against a popular
man as a crime, when it was sometimes enjoined by the Senate with
menaces as a duty! Was it the attacking all obnoxious citizens' houses?
That was done by one side quite as much as by the other, and signifies
little, for the attack always fell on some leading man in wealth; and
such a man's house was a fortress. Was it accepting provinces from the
people? Cicero would persuade us that this was an unheard of crime in
Clodius. But how came it that so many others did the same thing? Nay,
that the Senate abetted them in doing it; saying to such a person, 'Oh,
X., we perceive that you have extorted from the people.'
II.
Then his being recalled; what if a man should say that his nephew was
for it, and all his little nieces, not to mention his creditors? The
Senate were for it. But why not? Had the Senate exiled him? And,
besides, he was their agent.
III.
It was 'an impious bargain' are the words of Middleton, and Deiotarus
who broke it was a prince of noble character. What was he noble for? We
never heard of anything very noble that he did; and we doubt whether Dr.
Conyers knew more about him than we. But we happen to know why he calls
him noble. Cicero, who long afterwards came to know this king personally
and gave him a good dinner, says now upon hearsay (for he had then never
been near him, and could have no accounts of him but from the wretched
Quintus) that _in eo multa regia fuerunt_. Why yes, amputating heads was
in those parts a very regal act. But what he chiefly had in his eye,
comes out immediately after. Speaking to Clodius, he says that the visit
of this king was so bright, _maxime quod tibi nullum nummum dedit_.
IV.
Wicked Middleton says that Cicero followed his conscience in following
Pompey and the cause approved by what in the odious slang of his own
days he calls 'the honest men.' But be it known unto him that he tells a
foul falsehood. He followed his personal gratitude. This he is careful
to say over and over again. Some months before he had followed what he
deemed the cause of the Commonwealth and of the _boni_. The _boni_ were
vanished, he sought them and found only a heap of selfish nobles, half
crazy with fear and half crazy with pride. These were gone, but Pompey
the man remained that he clung to. And in his heart of hearts was
another feeling--hatred to Cæsar.
V.
403. 'Cicero had only stept aside' was the technical phrase for lurking
from creditors. So Bishop Burnet of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, it was
thought he might have stept aside for debt.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Cicero entered on the office of Proconsul of Cilicia on the last
day of July, 703 A.U.C.; he resigned it on the last day but one of July,
704.--ED.
_V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY._
I. _The Main Subject Opened._ What is Chronology, and how am I to teach
it? The _what_ is poorly appreciated, and chiefly through the defects of
the _how_. Because it is so ill-taught, therefore in part it is that
Chronology is so unattractive and degraded. Chronology is represented to
be the handmaid of history. But unless the machinery for exhibiting this
is judicious, the functions, by being obscured, absolutely lose all
their value, flexibility, and attraction. Chronology is not meant only
to enable us to refer each event to its own particular era--that may be
but trivial knowledge, of little value and of slight significance in its
application; but chronology has higher functions. It teaches not only
when A happened, but also with what other events, B, C, or D, it was
associated. It may be little to know that B happened 500 years before
Christ, but it may be a most important fact that A and B happened
concurrently with D, that both B and D were prepared by X, and that
through their concurrent operation arose the ultimate possibility of Z.
The mere coincidences or consecutions, mere accidents of simultaneity or
succession, of precession or succession, maybe less than nothing. But
the co-operation towards a common result, or the relation backwards to a
common cause, may be so important as to make the entire difference
between a story book, on the one hand, and a philosophic history, on the
other, of man as a creature.