invasions of foreigners; but it was useless to make severe laws to
remove them, they always returned to hide themselves in that immense
city without a police, and, once settled there, the more prosperous, by
means of their money, the others by means of base services or cunning,
succeeded in obtaining the title of citizens. Those who received it more
naturally, and without needing to demand it, were the freedmen. No doubt
the law did not grant them all political rights at once; but after one
or two generations all these reservations disappeared, and the grandson
of him who had ground at the mill and who had been sold in the
slave-market voted the laws and elected the consuls like a Roman of the
old stock. It was of this mixture of freedmen and foreigners, that was
formed what at this time was called the Roman people, a wretched people
who lived on the bounty of private persons or the alms of the state, who
had neither memories nor traditions, nor political capacity, nor
national character, nor even morality, for they were ignorant of that
which makes up the honour and dignity of life in the lower classes,
namely, work. With such a people a republic was no longer possible. This
is, of all governments, that which demands the greatest integrity and
political judgment in those who enjoy it. The more privileges it confers
the more devotedness and intelligence it demands. People who did not use
their rights, or only used them to sell them, were not worthy to
preserve them. That absolute power which they had invited by their
votes, which they had received with applause, was made for them; and one
understands that the historian who studies from afar the events of the
past, when he sees liberty disappear from Rome, consoles himself for its
fall by saying that it was deserved and inevitable, and that he pardons
or even applauds the man who, in overturning it, was only an instrument
of necessity or justice.
But the men who lived then, who were attached to the republican
government by tradition and memories, who recalled the great things it
had done, who owed to it their dignities, position, and renown, could
they think like us and resign themselves as easily to its fall? Firstly,
this government existed. They were familiarized to its defects, since
they had lived with them so long. They suffered less from them, through
the long habit of enduring them. On the other hand, they did not know
what this new power that wished to replace the republic would be.
Royalty inspired the Romans with an instinctive repugnance, especially
since they had conquered the East. They had found there, under this
name, the most odious of governments, the most complete slavery in the
midst of the most refined civilization, all the pleasures of luxury and
the arts, the finest expansion of intellect with the heaviest and basest
tyranny; princes accustomed to play with the fortune, honour, and life
of men, a species of cruel spoilt children, such as are only now to be
found in the African deserts. This picture did not attract them, and
whatever disadvantages the republic had, they asked themselves if it was
worth while to exchange them for those that royalty might have. Besides,
it was natural that the fall of the republic should not appear to them
so near and so sure as it does to us. It is with states as with men, for
whom we find, after their death, a thousand causes of death which nobody
suspected during their life-time. While the machinery of this ancient
government was still working it could not be seen how disorganized it
was. Cicero has, sometimes, moments of profound despair, in which he
announces to his friends that all is lost; but these moments do not
last, and he quickly regains his courage. It seems to him that a firm
hand, an eloquent voice, and the agreement of good citizens can repair
all, and that liberty will easily remedy the abuses and faults of
liberty. He never perceives the whole gravity of danger. In the worst
days, his thoughts never go beyond the schemers and the ambitious men
who disturb the public repose; it is always Catiline, Caesar, or Clodius
whom he accuses, and he thinks that all will be saved if one can succeed
in overcoming them. He was mistaken, Catiline and Clodius were only the
symptoms of a deeper evil that could not be cured; but is he to be
blamed for entertaining this hope, chimerical as it was? Is he to be
blamed for having thought that there were other means of saving the
republic than the sacrifice of liberty? An honest man and a good citizen
ought not to accept these counsels of despair at first. It is useless to
tell him that the decrees of destiny condemn to perish the constitution
that he prefers and that he has promised to defend, he does well not to
believe it entirely lost until it is actually overthrown. We may call
such men, if we like, blind or dupes; it is honourable in them not to be
too perspicacious, and there are errors and illusions that are worth
more than a too easy resignation. Real liberty existed no longer at
Rome, as I believe, the shadow only remained, but the shadow was still
something. One cannot bear a grudge against those who attached
themselves to it and made desperate efforts not to allow it to perish,
for this shadow, this semblance, consoled them for lost liberty and gave
them some hope of regaining it. This is what honest men like Cicero
thought, who, after mature reflection, without enthusiasm, without
passion, and even without hope, went to find Pompey again; this is what
Lucan makes Cato say in those admirable lines which seem to me to
express the feelings of all those who, without concealing from
themselves the sad state of the republic, persisted in defending it to
the last: “As a father who has just lost his child takes pleasure in
conducting his obsequies, lights with his own hands the funeral pyre,
leaves it with regret, as tardily as he can; so, Rome, I will not
forsake thee until that I have held thee dead in my arms. I will follow
to the end thy very name, O Liberty, even when thou shalt be no more
than a vain shadow!”[59]
IV.
Pharsalia was not the end of Cicero’s political career, as he had
thought. Events were to lead him back once more to power and replace him
at the head of the republic. His retired life, his silence during the
early days of Caesar’s dictatorship, far from injuring his reputation,
on the contrary enhanced it. Statesmen do not lose so much as they think
by remaining for a time outside of affairs. Retirement, supported with
dignity, increases their importance. That they are no longer in power
suffices for people to find some inclination to regret them. There are
fewer reasons to be severe towards them when their place is not coveted,
and as people no longer suffer from their faults the memory of them is
easily lost, and their good qualities only are remembered. This is what
happened to Cicero. His disgrace disarmed all the enemies that his power
had made him, and his popularity was never so great as when he kept
himself voluntarily from the public eye. A little later, when he thought
he ought to draw nearer to Caesar, he conducted himself with so much
tact, he adjusted so cleverly submission and independence, he knew so
well how to preserve an appearance of opposition even in his eulogies
and flatteries, that public opinion did not cease to favour him.
Besides, the most illustrious defenders of the vanquished cause, Pompey,
Cato, Scipio, Bibulus, were dead. Of all those who had occupied with
honour the highest posts under the old government, he alone remained;
consequently it was usual to regard him as the last representative of
the republic. We know that on the Ides of March, Brutus and his friends,
after having struck down Caesar, while brandishing their bloody swords,
called for Cicero. They seemed to recognize him as the head of their
party, and to give him the credit of the bloodshed that they had just
committed.
It was, then, circumstances rather than his own will that caused him to
play so great a part in the events which followed the death of Caesar.
I shall narrate later[60] how he was led to engage in that struggle with
Antony, in which he was to perish. I shall show that it was not of
himself and voluntarily that he began it. He had quitted Rome and did
not wish to return. He thought that the time for resistance under legal
forms had passed, that it was necessary to oppose to Antony’s veterans
good soldiers rather than good reasons, and he was not wrong. Convinced
that his part was finished, and that that of the men of war was about to
begin, he set out for Greece, when a gale cast him on the coast of
Rhegium. Thence he repaired to the port of Velia, where he found Brutus,
who was also preparing to leave Italy, and it was he who, always
scrupulous, always the enemy of violence, asked him to make once again
an effort to rouse the people, and once more to attempt the struggle on
the basis of law. Cicero yielded to the request of his friend, and
although he had little hope of success, he hastened to return to Rome
there to offer this last battle. This was the second time that he came,
like Amphiaraüs, “to throw himself alive into the gulf.”
Brutus did him a good service that day. The desperate enterprise in
which he engaged him, almost in spite of himself, could not be useful to
the republic, but was serviceable to Cicero’s glory. This was perhaps
the grandest moment in his political life. In the first place, we have
the pleasure and almost the surprise of finding him firm and decided. He
seems to have freed himself from all that hesitation that usually
troubled his conduct; and besides, it was scarcely possible to hesitate
then, for the question had never been so clearly stated. At each new
development of events, the parties stood out more clearly. For the first
time, the ambition of Caesar, of which everybody knew, by rallying round
the Roman aristocracy all those who wished, like it, to preserve the
ancient institutions, had enlarged the limits of this party and modified
its programme. By taking into itself new elements it changed in name as
in character; it became the party of order, the party of honest men, of
the “optimates.” It is thus that Cicero loves to name it. The meaning of
this name was at first rather vague, after Pharsalia it became more
precise. As at this moment there was no longer any doubt of the
intentions of the conqueror, as he was seen to openly substitute his
authority for that of the senate and people, the party that resisted him
took the name proper to it, and which nobody could any longer refuse it;
it became the republican party. The struggle was fairly begun between
the republic and despotism. And, that doubt might be still less
possible, despotism after Caesar’s death showed itself to the Romans
under its least disguised and, so to say, most brutal form. A soldier
without political genius, without distinction of manners, without
greatness of soul, at once coarse, debauched and cruel, asserted by
force his right to the inheritance of the great dictator. He did not
take the trouble to hide his designs, and neither Cicero nor anybody
else could be deceived any longer. It must have been a great relief to
that mind usually so undecided and uncertain to see the truth so
clearly, to be no longer perplexed by shadows, to have such a complete
confidence in the justice of his cause, and after so much doubt and
obscurity at last to fight in clear daylight. We feel that his mind is
at ease! how much freer and more lively he is! what ardour there is in
this old man, and what eagerness for the fight! None of the young men
about him show so much decision as he, and he himself is assuredly
younger than when he strove against Catiline or Clodius. Not only does
he begin the struggle resolutely, but, what is more unusual with him, he
pursues it to the end without giving way. By a strange contrast, the
most dangerous enterprise that he had ever undertaken, and which was to
cost him his life, was precisely that in which he best resisted his
usual fits of discouragement and weakness.
Immediately on his return to Rome, while he was still inspired by the
ardour that he had acquired at Velia from his conversations with Brutus,
he went to the senate and ventured to speak there. The first Philippic,
compared with the others, appears timid and colourless; what courage,
however, did it not need to pronounce it in that unconcerned city,
before those frightened senators, at a few paces from the furious and
threatening Antony, who by his spies heard all that was said against
him! Cicero ended then as he had begun. Twice, at an interval of
thirty-five years, he raised his voice alone, in the midst of a general
silence, against a dreaded power which would not tolerate resistance.
Courage, like fear, is contagious. The courage that Cicero showed in his
speech awakened that of others. This freedom of speech surprised at
first, then shamed those who kept silence. Cicero took advantage of this
first revival, which was still rather hesitating, to assemble a few
persons round him and find some defenders of the almost forgotten
republic. Here was the difficulty. There were scarcely any republicans
left, and the most determined had gone to join Brutus in Greece. All
that could be done was to appeal to the moderates of all parties, to all
those whom Antony’s excesses had shocked. Cicero adjured them to forget
their old enmities and to reunite. “Now,” said he, “there is only one
vessel for all honest men.”[61] Here we recognize his usual policy. It
is again a coalition that he tries to form as at the time of his
consulship. This part is clearly that for which he has most taste and
which suits him best. By the pliability of his character and his
principles he was fitter than anybody to reconcile opinions, and the
habit he had of approaching all parties made him not a stranger to any,
and he had friends everywhere. Thus his undertaking appeared at first to
succeed very well. Several of Caesar’s generals readily listened to him,
those especially who thought that, in the main, they lost less by
remaining citizens of a free state, than by becoming subjects of Antony;
and ambitious subalterns, like Hirtius and Pansa, who, after the
master’s death, did not feel themselves strong enough to aim at the
first place, and who would not be contented with the second.
Unfortunately it was still but a collection of chiefs without soldiers,
and never had there been more need of soldiers than at that moment.
Antony was at Brundusium, where he was waiting for the legions he had
sent for to Macedonia. Enraged by the unexpected resistance that he had
met with, he proclaimed that he would avenge himself by pillage and
slaughter, and he was known to be the man to do so. Every one thought
that already he saw his house sacked, his estate parcelled out, his
family proscribed. Fear reigned everywhere, men trembled, hid themselves
and fled. The most courageous sought on all sides for some one who might
be called upon to defend the republic. No aid was to be hoped for but
from Decimus Brutus, who occupied Cisalpine Gaul with some legions, or
from Sextus Pompey, who was reorganizing his troops in Sicily, but this
aid was distant and doubtful, and ruin was near and sure. In the midst
of this general panic, the nephew of Caesar, the young Octavius, whom
the jealousy of Antony, and the distrust of the republicans had up till
then kept away, and who impatiently awaited the opportunity of making
himself known, thought that this opportunity had come. He went through
the environs of Rome calling to arms his uncle’s veterans who were
settled there. His name, his liberality, the promises he lavished soon
brought him soldiers. At Calatia, at Casilinum, he found three thousand
in a few days. Then he addressed the leaders of the senate, offered them
the support of his veterans, demanding for sole recompense that they
would acknowledge him in the efforts he was about to make to save them.
In such distress there was no means of refusing this help without which
they would perish, and Cicero himself, who had at first shown some
distrust, let himself be seduced at last by this young man who consulted
him, flattered him, and called him father. When, thanks to him, they had
been saved, when they saw Antony, abandoned by some of his legions,
obliged to leave Rome where Octavius held him in check, the gratitude of
the senate was as lavish as their fear had been great. The liberator was
loaded with dignities and honours. Cicero, in his eulogies, raised him
much above his uncle; he called him a divine young man raised up by
heaven for the defence of his country: he stood surety for his
patriotism and fidelity; imprudent words for which Brutus reproached him
severely, and which the event was not long in falsifying!
The events that followed are too well known for me to have need of
repeating them. Never had Cicero played a greater political part than at
this moment; never had he better deserved that name of statesman that
his enemies denied him. For six months he was the soul of the republican
party, which was re-constituted at his call. “It was I, said he proudly,
who gave the signal for this awakening,”[62] and he was right in saying
so. His voice seemed to restore some patriotism and some energy to this
unconcerned people. He made them once more applaud those grand names of
country and liberty that the Forum would soon hear no more. From Rome,
the ardour gained the neighbouring townships, and gradually all Italy
was roused. This, however, was not enough for him, he went still further
to raise up enemies for Antony and defenders for the republic. He wrote
to the proconsuls of the provinces and to the generals of the armies.
From one end of the world to the other he chid the lukewarm, flattered
the ambitious, and congratulated the energetic. He it was who incited
Brutus, always undecided, to seize Greece. He applauded the bold stroke
of Cassius, which made him master of Asia; he urged Cornificius to drive
Antony’s soldiers from Africa; he encouraged Decimus Brutus to resist in
Modena. The promises of support that he invited with so much earnestness
arrived from all sides. Even enemies and traitors dared not openly
refuse him their co-operation. Lepidus and Plancus made emphatic
protestations of fidelity. Pollio wrote to him in a solemn tone “that he
swears to be the enemy of all tyrants.”[63] On all sides his friendship
is demanded, his support solicited, men put themselves under his
protection. His Philippics, which, happily, he had not time to revise,
are scattered through the whole world, very nearly as he spoke them, and
with the vivacity of the first sketch, preserve traces of the
interruptions and applause of the people. These passionate harangues
carry everywhere the passion of these grand popular scenes. They are
read in the provinces, they are devoured in the armies, and from the
most distant countries evidence of the admiration they excite arrives to
Cicero! “Your robe is even more fortunate than our arms,” says a
victorious general to him, and adds, “In you the consular has conquered
the consul.”[64] “My soldiers are yours,” wrote another to him.[65] The
credit of all the good fortune of the republic was attributed to him. It
was he who was congratulated and thanked for all the successes that were
obtained. On the evening that the victory of Modena was known at Rome,
the whole people went to his house to seek him, conducted him in triumph
to the Capitol, and wished to hear from his own mouth an account of the
battle. “This day,” he wrote to Brutus, “has repaid me for all my
trouble.”[66]
This was the last triumph of Cicero and the republic. Success is
sometimes more fatal to coalitions than reverses. When the common enemy,
hatred of whom has united them, has been conquered, private dissensions
break out. Octavius wished to weaken Antony in order to obtain from him
what he wanted; he did not wish to destroy him. When he saw him flying
towards the Alps, he made overtures to him, and both together marched on
Rome. From that time nothing remained for Cicero but “to imitate brave
gladiators, and seek like them to die honourably.”[67] His death was
courageous, whatever Pollio, who, having betrayed him, had an interest
in calumniating him, may have asserted. I would rather believe the
testimony of Livy, who was not one of his friends, and who lived at the
court of Augustus: “Of all his misfortunes,” says he, “death is the only
one that he bore like a man.”[68] This, it must be confessed, was
something. He might have fled, and at one moment he tried to do so. He
wished to set out for Greece, where he would have found Brutus; but
after some days’ sailing with contrary winds, suffering from the sea,
tormented above all by regrets and sadness, he lost heart for life, and
was landed at Gaeta, and went back to his house at Formiae to die there.
He had often thanked the gale that took him back to Velia, the first
time that he wished to flee to Greece. This it was that gave him the
opportunity to deliver his Philippics. The storm which drove him ashore
at Gaeta has not been less serviceable to his fame. His death seems to
me to redeem the weaknesses of his life. It is much for a man like him,
who did not boast of being a Cato, to have been so firm at this terrible
moment; the more timid he was by temperament the more I am touched at
finding him so resolute in dying. Thus, when, in studying his history, I
am tempted to reproach him with his irresolution and weakness, I think
of his end, I see him as Plutarch has so well depicted him, “his beard
and hair dirty, his countenance worn, taking his chin in his left hand
as his manner was, and looking steadily at his murderers,”[69] and I no
longer dare to be severe. Notwithstanding his defects he was an honest
man, “who loved his country well,” as Augustus himself said on a day of
sincerity and remorse. If he was sometimes too hesitating and feeble, he
always ended by defending what he regarded as the cause of justice and
right, and when that cause had been for ever conquered, he rendered it
the last service it could claim from its defenders, he honoured it by
his death.
II
CICERO’S PRIVATE LIFE
I
Those who have read Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus, and know what
place questions of money occupy in these private communications, will
not be surprised that I begin the study of his private life by
endeavouring to estimate the amount of his fortune. The men of those
days were as much concerned about money as the men of to-day, and it is
perhaps in this that these two periods, which men have so often taken
pleasure in comparing, most resemble each other.
It would be necessary to have at hand the account-books of Eros,
Cicero’s steward, in order to set down with exactness the expenses of
his household. All that we know with certainty on this subject is, that
his father left him a very moderate fortune only, and that he increased
this greatly, while we cannot say precisely to how much it amounted. His
enemies were in the habit of exaggerating it in order to throw suspicion
on the means by which it had been acquired, and it is indeed probable
that if we knew the total it would appear to us considerable; but we
must take care not to judge of it according to the ideas of our own
time. Wealth is not an absolute thing; a man is rich or poor according
to the position in which he lives, and it is possible that what would be
wealth in one place would scarcely be a competency elsewhere. Now we
know that at Rome wealth was far from being so evenly distributed as it
is among us. Forty years before the consulship of Cicero, the tribune
Philip said that, in that immense city, there were not two thousand
persons who had a patrimony;[70] but these possessed all the public
wealth. Crassus asserted that, in order to call himself rich, it was
necessary for a man to be able to support an army out of his revenues,
and we know that he was in a position to do so without inconvenience.
Milo contrived to get into debt in a few years to the amount of more
than seventy million sesterces (£560,000). Caesar, while still a private
person, expended, at one time, one hundred and twenty million sesterces
(£960,000) in order to make a present of a new Forum to the Roman
people. This outrageous extravagance implies immense fortunes. In
comparison with these, we can understand that Cicero’s, which scarcely
sufficed for the purchase of a house on the Palatine, and which the
adornment of his Tusculan villa almost exhausted, must have appeared
very moderate.