conduct entirely according to the ideas of our days. Opinion has become
less severe now on those who openly make profession of living apart from
politics. So many men aspire to govern their country, and it has become
so difficult to make choice among this multitude, that we are tempted to
look kindly upon those who have not this ambition. Far from being
blamed, they are called moderate and wise; they form an exception which
is encouraged in order to lessen the number of aspirants. At Rome they
thought otherwise, and it is not difficult to find reasons for this
difference. There, what we may call the political body was in reality
very circumscribed. Besides the slaves, who did not count, and the
common people, who contented themselves with giving or rather selling
their votes in the elections, and whose greatest privilege it was to be
entertained at the expense of the candidates, and fed at the expense of
the public treasury, there remained only a few families of ancient
lineage or more recent celebrity who divided all public employments
among themselves. The aristocracy of birth and of fortune was not very
numerous, and scarcely sufficed to furnish the required number of
officials of all sorts to govern the world. It was necessary therefore
that no one should refuse to take his part, and to live in retirement
was considered a desertion. It is not the same in our democracy. As all
offices are open to everybody, and as, thanks to the diffusion of
education, men worthy to occupy them may arise in all ranks, we need no
longer fear lest the absence of a few quiet people, friends of peace and
repose, will make a sensible and regrettable gap in the serried ranks of
those who struggle from all quarters for power. Moreover, we think now
that there are many other ways of serving one’s country besides public
life. Romans of high birth knew no other; they looked upon commerce as a
not very honourable means[166] that a private man might employ to make
his fortune, and did not see what the state might gain by it; literature
seemed an agreeable but trivial pastime, and they did not understand its
social importance. It follows that among them, a man of a certain rank
could only find one honourable mode of employing his activity and being
useful to his country, namely, to fill political offices.[167] To do
anything else was, according to their ideas, to do nothing; they gave
the name of idlers to the most laborious scholars, and it did not come
into their heads that there was anything worth the trouble of occupying
a citizen’s time beyond the service of the state. All the ancient Romans
thought thus, and they would have experienced a strange surprise if they
had seen any one claim the right, as Atticus did, not to serve his
country within the limits of his powers and talents. Assuredly Cato, who
never rested, and who, at ninety years of age, bravely quitted his villa
at Tusculum to go and accuse Servius Galba, the butcher of the
Lusitanians, would have thought that to remain in his house on the
Quirinal, or on his estate in Epirus in the midst of his books and
statues, while the fate of Rome was being decided in the Forum or at
Pharsalia, was to commit the same crime as to remain in his tent on the
day of battle.
This systematic abstention of Atticus was not, then, a Roman custom; he
had it from the Greeks. In those small ungovernable republics of Greece,
where they knew no repose, and which passed constantly and without
warning from the sternest tyranny to the most unbridled licence, we can
understand that quiet and studious men should have grown weary of all
this sterile agitation, and ceased to desire public employments which
were only obtained by flattering the capricious multitude, and only kept
on condition of obeying it. Moreover, what value could this power, so
hardly acquired, so seldom preserved, have, when it was necessary to
share it with the most obscure demagogues? was it really worth while to
take so much trouble in order to become the successor or the colleague
of Cleon? At the same time that weariness and disgust kept honourable
men aloof from these paltry struggles, philosophy, more studied every
day, communicated to its disciples a sort of pride which led them to the
same result. Men who passed their time in meditating upon God and the
world, and who endeavoured to understand the laws that govern the
universe, did not deign to descend from these heights to govern states a
few leagues square. Thus they constantly discussed in the schools,
whether a man should occupy himself with public affairs, whether the
sage ought to seek public office, and whether the active or the
contemplative life was the better. A few philosophers hesitatingly gave
the preference to active life, the greater number sustained the opposite
opinion, and under cover of these discussions many men thought
themselves authorized to create a sort of elegant indolence in
voluptuous retreats embellished by letters and the arts, where they
lived happily while Greece was perishing.
Atticus followed their example. Importing this custom from Greece into
Rome, he openly announced his resolution not to take part in political
discussions. He began by adroitly keeping aloof during all those
quarrels that continually agitated Rome from the time of Cicero’s
consulship to the civil wars. At the very moment when these struggles
were most active he frequented all parties, he had friends on all sides,
and found in these widespread friendships a new pretext for remaining
neutral. Atticus was more than sixty years old when Caesar passed the
Rubicon, an age when the obligation of military service ceased among the
Romans. This was another reason for remaining quiet, and he did not fail
to use it. “I have taken my discharge,”[168] he replied to those who
wished to enrol him. He held the same course, and with the same success,
after the death of Caesar; but he then disappointed public opinion still
more. He was so well known to be the friend of Brutus that it was
thought he would not hesitate to take his side this time. Cicero
himself, who ought to have known him, reckoned upon it; but Atticus was
not inconsistent with himself, and took advantage of an important
occasion to let the public know that he would not be drawn in against
his will. While Brutus was raising an army in Greece, some knights, his
friends, started the idea of raising a subscription among the richest
men of Rome to give him the means of maintaining his soldiers. They
applied at first to Atticus, whose name they wished to put at the head
of the list. Atticus bluntly refused to subscribe. He answered that his
fortune was at the service of Brutus, if he had need of it, and asked
him as a friend, but he declared at the same time that he would take no
part in a political manifestation, and his refusal caused the failure of
the subscription. At the same time, true to his habit of flattering all
parties, he welcomed Fulvia, Antony’s wife, as well as Volumnius the
superintendent of his workmen, and, sure of having friends everywhere,
he waited for the result of the struggle without much fear.
The strangest thing is that this man, while so persistent in remaining
neutral, was not indifferent. His biographer gives him this praise, that
he always belonged to the best party,[169] and that is true; only he
made it a rule not to serve his party; he was contented with giving it
his good wishes. But these good wishes were the warmest imaginable. He
had, though we should scarcely believe it, political passions which he
dared to express in private with incredible vigour. He hated Caesar so
much that he went as far as to blame Brutus for having permitted his
interment.[170] He would have wished, no doubt, as the most furious
demanded, that his corpse should be thrown into the Tiber. Thus he did
not abstain from having preferences, and showing them to his most
intimate friends. His reserve only began when it was necessary to act.
He never consented to take part in the struggle; but if he did not share
its danger he felt at least all its excitement. We smile at seeing him
become animated and excited as if he were a real combatant; he takes his
share in all successes and all reverses, he congratulates the energetic,
he entreats the lukewarm, and even scolds the faltering, and permits
himself to advise and reprimand those who seem to him, who did not act
at all, to act too languidly. It is amusing to hear the reproaches he
addresses to Cicero when he sees him hesitating to go and join Pompey;
he adopts the most pathetic tone, he reminds him of his actions and his
words, he entreats him in the name of his glory, he quotes his own words
to him to persuade him.[171] This excess of audacity into which he
allows himself to be drawn for others, sometimes produces rather comic
incidents. At the moment when Pompey had just shut himself up in
Brundusium, Atticus, moved by the most lively grief, wished for some
attempts to be made to save him, and went so far as to ask Cicero to do
some striking action before leaving. “It only requires a banner,” said
he, “every one will flock to it.”[172] The worthy Cicero felt himself
quite excited by these lively exhortations of his friend, and there were
times when he was tempted to be bold, and when he only demanded the
opportunity to strike a heavy blow. The opportunity came, and he relates
in the following words how he took advantage of it. “As I arrived at my
house at Pompeii, your friend Ninnius came to tell me that the
centurions of three cohorts who were there, asked to see me the next
day, as they wished to deliver up the place to me. Do you know what I
did? I went away before daylight in order not to see them. What are, in
fact, three cohorts? And if there had been more, what should I have done
with them?”[173] This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows
himself well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in
the ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately
refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so
prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are with
good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a little that
part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking part, up to
a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise man of
Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he tranquilly
enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human conflicts; but
he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that he feels is
diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and understands his
pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight itself, he sees it
close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he will retire in
time.
The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his
neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his
conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most anxious
to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in which he
reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon him than that of
Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days, great praise
has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the beginning of the civil
war: “He who is not against me is for me,” and the contrary saying of
Pompey has been much blamed: “He who is not for me is against me.”
However, looking at things fairly, this praise and this blame appear
equally unreasonable. Each of the two rivals, when he expressed himself
thus, speaks in character, and their words were suggested by their
position. Caesar, however we may judge him, came to overturn the
established order, and he naturally was grateful to those who gave him a
free hand. What more could he reasonably ask of them? In reality, those
who did not hinder him served him. But lawful order, established order,
considers it has the right to call upon every one to defend it, and to
regard as enemies all who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a
generally recognized principle that he who does not bring help to the
law when openly attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of
those who violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at
Rome, should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as
it was also that those in Pompey’s camp should be very much irritated
against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he let them
talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not console
themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to avenge themselves
on those who had remained. What did these menaces matter to him? He was
sure that he had preserved the esteem of the two most important and most
respected men of the party, and he could oppose their testimony to all
the indignation of the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the
strength of their convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and
they appear to have approved of his not taking part in public affairs.
“I know the honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said
Cicero to him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend
himself; there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we
have arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me
desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made you
seek an honourable leisure!”[174] Again, Brutus wrote to him towards the
end of his life: “I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your age, your
character, your family, everything makes you love repose.”[175]
This good-will on the part of Brutus and Cicero is so much the more
surprising, as they knew very well the mischief such an example might do
to the cause that they defended. The republic did not perish by the
audacity of its enemies alone, but also by the apathy of its partisans.
The sad spectacle it offered for fifty years, the public sale of
dignities, the scandalous violence that took place on the Forum every
time a new law was discussed, the battles that at each new election
stained the Campus Martius with blood, those armies of gladiators needed
for self-defence, all those shameful disorders, all those base intrigues
in which the last strength of Rome was used up, had completely
discouraged honest men. They held aloof from public life; they had no
more relish for power since they were forced to dispute it with men
ready for every violence. It required Cato’s courage to return to the
Forum after having been received with showers of stones, and having come
out with torn robe and bleeding head. Thus, the more the audacious
attempted, the more the timid let them alone, and from the time of the
first triumvirate and the consulship of Bibulus, it was evident that the
apathy of honest men would deliver the republic over to the ambitious
nobles who desired to dominate it. Cicero saw this clearly, and in his
letters never ceases his bitter railleries against those indolent rich
men, doting on their fish-ponds, who consoled themselves for the ruin
that they foresaw by thinking that they would save at least their
lampreys. In the introduction to the _De Republica_ he attacks with
admirable energy those who, being discouraged themselves, try to
discourage others, who maintain that a man has the right to withhold his
services from his country, and to consult his own welfare while
neglecting that of his country. “Let us not listen,” says he in
finishing, “to that signal for retreat that sounds in our ears, and
would recall those who have already gone to the front.”[176] Brutus also
knew the evil of which the republic was dying, and complained more than
once of the weakness and discouragement of the Romans. “Believe me,” he
wrote, “we are too much afraid of exile, death, and poverty.”[177] It
was Atticus to whom he wrote these noble words, and yet he does not
dream of applying them to him! What strange charm then did this man
possess, what influence did his friendship exercise, that these two
great patriots have thus belied themselves in his favour, and have so
freely pardoned in him what they condemned in others?
The more we think of it, the less can we imagine the reasons he could
give them to justify his conduct. If he had been one of those scholars
who, wedded to their researches in history or philosophy, only dwell in
the past or the future, and are not really the contemporaries of the
people with whom they live, we might have understood his not taking part
in their struggles since he held himself aloof from their passions; but
we know that, on the contrary, he had the most lively relish for all the
small agitations and obscure intrigues of the politics of his time. He
was anxious to know them, he excelled in unravelling them, this was the
regular food of his inquisitive mind, and Cicero applied to him by
choice when he wished to know about such matters. He was not one of
those gentle and timid souls, made for reflection and solitude, who have
not the energy necessary for active life. This man of business, of clear
and decided judgment, would, on the contrary, have made an excellent
statesman. To be useful to his country he would only have needed to
employ in its service a little of that activity and intelligence he had
used to enrich himself, and Cicero was right in thinking that he had the
political temperament. And, finally, he had not even left himself the
poor resource of pretending that he sided with no party because all
parties were indifferent to him, and that, having no settled opinions,
he did not know which side to take. He had said the contrary a hundred
times in his letters to Cicero and Brutus; he had charmed them a hundred
times by the ardour of his republican zeal, and yet he remained quiet
when the opportunity came of serving this government to which he said he
was so much attached. Instead of making a single effort to retard its
fall, he was only careful not to be crushed under its ruins. But if he
did not try to defend it, did he, at least, pay it that last respect of
appearing to regret it? Did he show in any way that, although he had not
appeared in the combat, he felt that he shared in the defeat? Did he
know, while he grew old under a power to which he was forced to submit,
how to retire in a dignified sadness which forces respect even from a
conqueror? No, and it is assuredly this that is most repugnant to us in
his life; he showed an unpleasant eagerness to accommodate himself to
the new order of things. The day after he had himself been proscribed,
we see him become the friend of the proscribers. He lavishes all the
charms of his mind on them, assiduously frequents their houses, attends
all their _fêtes_. However habituated we may be to see him welcome all
triumphant governments, we cannot get used to the notion that the friend
of Brutus and the confidant of Cicero should become so quickly the
familiar of Antony and Octavius. Those most disposed to indulgence will
certainly think that those illustrious friendships created duties which
he did not fulfil, and that it was a treason to the memory of these men
who had honoured him with their friendship, to choose just their
executioners as their successors.
If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him as
Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in the
naïve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This indulgent
biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with the happy
chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot get over his
surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus,
withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so many proscriptions,
and preserve himself so skilfully where so many others perished. “If we
overwhelm with praises,” says he, “the pilot who saves his vessel from
the rocks and tempests, ought we not to consider admirable the prudence
of a man who in the midst of those violent political storms succeeded in
saving himself?”[178] Admiration is here too strong a word. We keep that
for those courageous men who made their actions agree with their
principles, and who knew how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill
success does not injure them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of
Atticus may say, there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is
drawn than from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly
deserves is that which his biographer gives him with so much
complacency, namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but
we know that there are other forms of praise which are of more value
than this.
CAELIUS
THE ROMAN YOUTH IN THE TIME OF CAESAR
There is perhaps no more curious figure than that of Caelius in the
history we are studying. His life has a special interest for us. He was
not, like Brutus, a brilliant exception among his contemporaries; on the
contrary, he quite belongs to his time; he lived as others lived around
him. All the young men of that time, the Curios, the Dolabellas,
resemble him. They are all, like him, corrupted early, little concerned
about their dignity, prodigal of their wealth, friends of facile
pleasures; they all throw themselves into public life as soon as they
can, with a restless ambition and great needs to satisfy, and with few
scruples and no beliefs. His history, then, is that of all the rest, and
the advantage we find in studying it is that we know at once the whole
generation of which he formed part. Now, thanks to Cicero, this study is
easy for us. Notwithstanding so many differences in conduct and
principles, Cicero always felt a singular inclination for Caelius; he
liked the conversation of this clever man who laughed at everything, and
was more at ease with him than with people like Cato or Brutus, whose
severity somewhat alarmed him. He defended him in the law courts when a
woman whom he had loved tried to ruin him, and this speech of his is
certainly one of the most interesting that remain to us. Later, when he
was obliged to go to Cilicia, he chose him for his political
correspondent. By a happy chance Caelius’ letters have come down to us
with those of Cicero, and there are none in all this collection that are
more witty and more racy. Let us collect all the details scattered
through them; let us try, in collecting them, to reproduce an account of
Caelius, and by it to gain an idea of what the Roman youth of that time
was. It is not without interest to know them, for they played an
important part, and Caesar made use of them more especially for the
revolution that he wished to accomplish.
I.
Caelius did not come of an illustrious family. He was the son of a Roman
knight of Puteoli, who had been in trade and acquired great wealth in
Africa. His father, who had all his life no other concern than that of
enriching himself, showed, as often happens, more ambition for his son
than for himself: he wished him to become a politician, and as he saw
that dignities were reached only through eloquence, he took him betimes
to Cicero, that he might make him a great orator, if it were possible.
It was not yet the custom to confine young men to the schools of the
rhetoricians, and to be contented with exercising them in imaginary
cases. As soon as they had assumed the _toga virilis_, that is, when
they were about sixteen years old, no time was lost in taking them to
some statesman of reputation, whom they did not leave. Admitted to his
most intimate society, they listened to his conversations with his
friends, his disputations with his adversaries; they saw him prepare
himself in silence for the great battles of eloquence, they followed him
into the basilicas and the Forum, they heard him pleading causes or
speaking to the assembled people, and when they had become capable of
speaking themselves, they made their first appearance at his side and
under his patronage. Tacitus much regrets this manly education, which,
placing a young man under the conditions of reality instead of retaining
him among the fictions of rhetoric, gave him a taste for real and
natural eloquence which strengthened him, by throwing him from the first
into the midst of real contests, and, according to his expression,
taught him war on the field of battle, _pugnare in praelio
discebant_.[179] This education, however, had its dangers. It taught him
things that it is better to be ignorant of for a long time, it
familiarized him with the scandalous and corrupt sights that public life
usually offers, it gave him a too rapid maturity and inflamed him with
precocious ambition. Must not a young man of sixteen, who thus lived in
intimacy with old and unscrupulous statesmen, and to whom were laid bare
without precaution the basest manœuvres of parties, must he not have
lost something of the generosity and sensitiveness of his age? Was it
not to be feared that this corrupting intercourse might end by giving
him a taste for intrigue, for the worship of success, an unbridled love
of power, the desire to attain a high position quickly and by any means,
and as, generally, the worst means are also the quickest, the temptation
to employ them by preference? This is what happened to Caelius. For
three entire years, three honest and laborious years, he did not leave
Cicero; but he perceived at length, that a young man like himself, who
had his political fortune to make, would gain more with those who wished
to destroy the government than with him who wished to preserve it, and
he abandoned Cicero to attach himself to Catiline. The change was
sudden, but Caelius never took the trouble to delay about these
transitions. Henceforth, we can easily understand, his life took another
turn; he became a seditious and turbulent man, whose biting speech in
the Forum and violence in the Campus Martius were dreaded. At the
election of a pontif he struck a senator. When he was appointed
quaestor, every one accused him of having bought his votes. Not content
with disturbing the comitia at Rome, we see him stirring up a popular
tumult at Naples, we do not know why. At the same time, he did not
neglect his pleasures. The debaucheries of those noisy young men of whom
he was one, continually disturbed the public peace. It is said that the
streets of Rome were unsafe when they returned at night from their
suppers, and that, after the manner of those giddy fellows that Plautus
and Terence depict, they molested honest women whom they met on their
road. All these follies did not go on without great expense, and the
father of Caelius, although he was rich, was not of a temper to be
always paying. No doubt at this time the honest merchant of Puteoli must
have regretted his ambition for his son, and thought it cost him dear to
have wished to make him a politician. Caelius, on his side, was not of a
temper to put up with reprimands easily; he left the paternal house,
and, under pretext of being nearer the Forum and business, rented a
lodging on the Palatine, in the house of the famous tribune Appius
Clodius, for ten thousand sesterces (£80). This was an important event
in his life, for it was there that he became acquainted with Clodia.