sure, you will be glad to hear about. Paula Valeria, the sister of
Triarius, has divorced herself, without any reason, from her husband,
the very day he was to arrive from his province; she is going to marry
Decimus Brutus. Have you never suspected it? Since your absence
incredible things of this kind have happened. No one would have believed
that Servius Ocella was a man of intrigue, if he had not been caught in
the act twice in the space of three days. You will ask me where? In
truth it was where I should not wish it to be,[195] but I leave you
something to learn from others. I should be glad to think that a
victorious proconsul will go and ask everybody with what woman a man has
been caught.”[196]
Evidently he who wrote this entertaining letter was never so thoroughly
converted as Cicero made believe, and it seems to me that we still find
the harebrained young fellow who made so much racket in the streets of
Rome, and the lover of Clodia, in the man of wit who recounts so
pleasantly these trifling intrigues. We may affirm, then, without
temerity that, although from this moment his private life is unknown to
us, he never entirely renounced the dissipations of his youth, and that,
magistrate and politician as he was, he continued to the end to mix
pleasure with business.
II.
But Caelius was not only a hero of amorous adventures, and did not
content himself with the empty honour of giving the tone for elegance of
manners to the youth of Rome. He had more solid qualities. Thanks to
Cicero’s lessons he speedily became a great orator. A short time after
he had escaped from this honourable tutelage, he made a brilliant
commencement in a case in which he was opposed to Cicero himself, and
this time the disciple beat the master. Since this success his
reputation had continued to increase. There were orators in the Forum
that men of taste admired more, and whose gifts they considered more
perfect; there were none more dreaded than he, such was the violence of
his attack and the bitterness of his raillery. He excelled in seizing
the ridiculous side of his opponents, and in making, in a very few
words, those ironical and cutting observations on them which are never
forgotten. Quintilian quotes one as a model of its kind, which well
exemplifies the talent of this terrible wit. He is speaking, in this
passage, of that Antony who had been the colleague of Cicero in his
consulship, and who, in spite of all the eulogies that the Orations
against Catiline lavish on him, was but an inferior intriguer and a
coarse debauchee. After having, according to custom, pillaged Macedonia,
which he governed, he had attacked some neighbouring tribes in order to
obtain a pretext for a triumph. He counted upon an easy victory, but as
he was more taken up with his pleasures than with the war, he was
ignominiously beaten. Caelius, who attacked him on his return,
described, or rather imagined, in his speech, one of those orgies during
which the general, while dead drunk, allowed himself to be surprised by
the enemy.
“Women, his ordinary officers, fill the banqueting-hall, stretched on
all the couches, or lying about on the ground. When they learn that the
enemy is come, half-dead with fright, they try to awaken Antony; they
shout his name, they raise him up by the neck. Some whisper soft words
in his ear, others treat him more roughly and even strike him; but he,
who recognizes their voices and touch, stretches out his arms by habit,
seizes and wishes to embrace the first he meets with. He can neither
sleep, so much they shout to awaken him, nor wake, so drunk is he. At
last, powerless to shake off this drowsiness, he is carried off in the
arms of his centurions and his mistresses.”[197]
When a man possesses such a biting and incisive talent it is natural for
him to have an aggressive temper; nothing therefore suited Caelius
better than personal struggles. He liked and sought disputation because
he was sure to succeed in it, and because he could make use of those
violent modes of attack that could not be resisted. He wished to be
contradicted, for contradiction excited him and gave him energy. Seneca
relates that one day one of the clients of Caelius, a man of pacific
temper, and who, no doubt, had suffered from his rudeness, confined
himself during a meal to agreeing with him. Caelius at last grew enraged
because the man gave him no opportunity for getting angry, and
exclaimed: “Do contradict me that there may be two of us.”[198] The
talents of Caelius, such as I have just depicted them, marvellously
suited the time in which he lived. This thoroughly explains the
reputation that he enjoyed, and the important position he took among his
contemporaries. This fiery debater, this pitiless wit, this vehement
accuser would not have been altogether in his place in quiet times; but
in the midst of a revolution he became a valuable auxiliary whom all
parties contended for. Caelius was moreover a statesman as well as an
orator, and it is for this that Cicero most frequently praises him. “I
know no one, he told him, who is a better politician than you.”[199] He
knew men thoroughly, he had a clear insight into situations; he decided
quickly, a quality that Cicero much appreciated in others, for it was
just that which he most lacked, and when once he had decided, he set to
work with a vigour and force that gained him the sympathies of the
multitude. At a time when power belonged to those who were bold enough
to seize it, the audacity of Caelius seemed to promise him a brilliant
political future.
Nevertheless, he had also great defects, which sometimes arose from his
very good qualities. He knew men well, a great advantage no doubt, but
in studying them it was their bad side that struck him most. By dint of
trying them in every way, his startling penetration succeeded in laying
bare some weakness. He did not reserve his severity for his adversaries
only; his best friends did not escape his clear-sighted analysis. We see
in his private correspondence that he knew all their defects, and did
not stand on ceremony in speaking of them. Dolabella, his companion in
pleasure, is a poor babbler, “incapable of keeping a secret, even though
his imprudence should ruin him.”[200] Curio, his usual associate in
political intrigues, “is only an unstable busybody, changing with every
breath of wind, who can do nothing sensible,”[201] nevertheless, at the
time when he is treating them thus, Curio and Dolabella had sufficient
influence over him to draw him into Caesar’s party. As to Caesar
himself, he speaks no better of him, although he is preparing to embrace
his cause. This son of Venus, as he calls him, appears to him “but an
egotist who scoffs at the interests of the republic and only cares for
his own,”[202] and he has no scruple in confessing that in his camp,
where, nevertheless, he is going, there are only dishonourable men, “all
of whom have causes for apprehension in the past and criminal hopes for
the future.”[203] With such a disposition of mind, and so decided a
leaning to judge every one harshly, it was natural that Caelius should
not trust any one entirely, and that no one dared to count upon him with
confidence. To serve a cause usefully you must give yourself up to it
completely; now, how can you do so if you cannot shut your eyes a little
and not see too clearly its bad sides? Those cautious and clear-sighted
persons, who are entirely taken up with the fear of being dupes, and who
always see the faults of others so plainly, are never anything but
lukewarm friends and useless allies. While they inspire no confidence in
the party that they wish to serve, because they always make reservations
in serving it, they are not sufficiently enthusiastic to form a party
themselves, and always fall short of that degree of passion that leads a
man to undertake great things. Therefore it happens that, as they can
neither be chiefs nor privates, and cannot attach themselves to others
or attach others to themselves, they end by finding themselves alone.
Let us add that Caelius, who had no illusions about persons, seemed also
to have no preference for parties. He never sought the reputation of
being a man of principle, nor to put order and consistency into his
political life. In that, as in his private affairs, he lived from hand
to mouth. The circumstances of the moment, interest, or friendship, gave
him an accidental conviction to which he did not pretend to be long
faithful. He went over from Cicero to Catiline when Catiline seemed to
him the stronger; he returned to Cicero when Cicero was victorious. He
was the friend of Clodias as long as he remained Clodia’s lover; he
abandoned the brother at the same time that he left the sister, and
suddenly embraced Milo’s party. He passed several times from the people
to the senate, and from the senate to the people without scruple or
embarrassment. At bottom, the cause that he served was of little
consequence to him, and he had not to make much effort to disengage
himself from it. At the time that he seemed to be taking the most
trouble for it, he spoke of it in a tone that left people to imagine it
was quite foreign to him. Even in the gravest affairs, and when it was a
question of the fate of the republic, he did not appear to suppose that
it had anything to do with him, and that he was interested in its safety
or ruin. “It is your business, rich old men,”[204] he said. But what did
it matter to him? As he is always ruined he never has anything to lose.
Therefore all forms of government are indifferent to him, and curiosity
alone makes him take an interest in these struggles, in which,
nevertheless, he plays such an active part. If he plunges with so much
ardour into the tumult of public life, it is because events and men are
seen closer, and one can make piquant reflections on it, or find amusing
scenes in it. When he announces to Cicero, with remarkable perspicacity,
the approaching civil war and the misfortunes that are coming, he adds:
“If you were not running some risk, I should say that fortune was
preparing a great and curious spectacle for you!”[205] A cruel speech
that Caelius paid for dearly in the sequel, for one does not play at
these deadly games without peril, and often becomes a victim while
thinking to be only a spectator.
When this war, which he thus announced to Cicero, was on the point of
breaking out, Caelius had just been appointed aedile, and his great
anxiety was to have some Cilician panthers for the games that he wished
to give to the people. At this time, after having belonged more or less
to all parties, he made profession of defending the cause of the senate,
that is to say, that in speaking of the senators, he said, “our
friends,” and that he affected to call them “good citizens”; which did
not prevent him, according to his custom, having his eyes open to the
faults that the “good citizens” might commit, and scoffing at his
“friends” bitterly when the opportunity presented itself. Cicero thought
him cold and undecided; he would have wished to see him pledge himself
deeper. At the time of his departure for Cilicia, he did not cease to
extol the great qualities of Pompey to him: “Believe me, he said, trust
yourself to this great man, he will gladly welcome you.”[206] But
Caelius took good care not to do anything of the kind. He knew Pompey,
of whom he has drawn satirical portraits on different occasions; he did
not much admire him, and did not like him at all. If he kept aloof from
him at the time of his greatest power, he certainly would not, we can
well understand, throw himself into his arms when this power was
threatened. In proportion as the crisis that he had foreseen advanced,
he took more care to hold himself in reserve, and waited for the turn of
events.
It was, moreover, a time when the most honourable hesitated. This
irresolution, which does not seem to have been very surprising then, has
been much blamed in our days. It is easy, however, to understand this.
Questions do not present themselves to the eyes of contemporaries with
the same clearness as to those of posterity. When they are looked at
from a distance, and with a mind free from all prejudice; when, besides,
the results and the causes are taken in at the same time, and when we
can judge the causes by the results, nothing is easier than to come to a
decision; but it is not so when one lives in the midst of the events,
and too near them to take in the whole, when one’s mind is influenced by
previous ties or personal preferences, and when the decision one is
about to take may endanger one’s safety and fortune. It is not possible,
then, to see things so clearly. The state of anarchy in which the old
parties of the Roman republic were added to the confusion at that time.
To speak the truth, there were no longer parties, but coalitions. For
fifty years they had struggled, not for questions of principle, but for
personal questions. Parties being no longer organized as formerly, it
followed that timid minds which have need to attach themselves to
ancient traditions to guide them, drifted about, and often changed.
These striking changes of opinion in honourable and respected persons
disturbed the less settled minds, and rendered it difficult to make out
the right. Caesar, who knew of these vacillations, and hoped to profit
by them, did what he could to increase their causes. At the very moment
when he was preparing to destroy the constitution of his country, he had
the art to appear to respect it more than anybody. An expert judge in
these matters, and one who knows the Roman laws thoroughly, has
declared, after mature examination, that the law was on the side of
Caesar, and that the grievances he complained of were well founded.[207]
He took good care not to disclose all his projects then, or to speak
with so much freedom as he did afterwards, when he was master. Sometimes
he presented himself as the successor of the Gracchi, and the defender
of popular rights; sometimes he affected to say, in order to reassure
everybody, that the republic was not interested in the dispute, and
reduced the quarrel to a struggle for influence between two powerful
competitors. While he was gathering his legions in the cities of Upper
Italy, he only spoke of his desire to preserve the public peace; in
proportion as his enemies became more violent he became more moderate,
and he never proposed conditions so acceptable as when he was sure that
the senate would not listen to them. On the other side, on the contrary,
in the camp where moderate and wise men ought to be found, there was
nothing but rashness and stupidity. Those who showed some repugnance to
civil war were treated as public enemies; they talked only of
proscribing and confiscating, and the example of Sulla was in every
one’s mouth. It happened then, by a strange contradiction, that it was
in the camp where profession was made of defending liberty, that
exceptional measures were most persistently demanded; and while the man
who expected everything from the war, and whose army was ready, offered
peace, those who had not a soldier under arms were eager to refuse it.
Thus the two sides exchanged characters, and each appeared to speak and
act contrary to its interests, or its principles. Is it surprising that
in the midst of such obscurity, and among so many reasons for
hesitation, honourable men like Sulpicius and Cicero, devoted to their
country, but fitter to serve it in quiet times than in these violent
crises, should not have decided at once?
Caelius also hesitated; but not altogether for the same reasons as
Cicero and Sulpicius. While they anxiously asked themselves where the
right lay, Caelius only sought where the superior force lay. He admitted
this himself with singular candour: “In intestine quarrels,” he writes
to Cicero, “as long as one struggles by legal means, and without having
recourse to arms, one ought to attach oneself to the most honourable
party; but when one comes to war it is necessary to turn towards the
stronger, and regard the safest party as the best.”[208] From the moment
that he was satisfied with simply comparing the strength of the two
rivals, his choice became easier; in order to decide it was enough to
open his eyes. On one side there were eleven legions, supported by tried
auxiliaries, and commanded by the greatest general of the republic,
ranged on the frontiers, and ready to open the campaign at the first
signal;[209] on the other, few or no trained troops, but a great number
of young men of illustrious families as incapable of commanding as they
were little disposed to obey, and many of those great names that honour
a party more than they help it; on one side, military rule and the
discipline of a camp; on the other, quarrels, disputes, resentments,
rival authorities, differences of opinion, in short, all the
inconvenient habits of civil life transported into a camp. These are the
ordinary difficulties of a party that claims to defend liberty, for it
is difficult to impose silence on people who fight to preserve the right
of free speech, and all authority quickly becomes suspected when men
have taken up arms to oppose an abuse of authority. But it was the
character of the two chiefs, more than anything else, that made the
difference between the two parties. Caesar appeared to all the world,
even to his greatest enemies, a prodigy of activity and foresight. As to
Pompey it was clearly seen that he committed only faults, and it was not
any easier then than it is now to explain his conduct. The war had not
taken him unawares; he told Cicero that he had foreseen it for a long
time.[210] There was no great difficulty in foreseeing it, he had
appeared to wish for it; Caesar’s proposals had been rejected by his
advice, and the majority of the senate did nothing without consulting
him. He had, then, seen the crisis approaching from afar, and during all
that long diplomatic war which preceded actual hostilities he had had
the time necessary to prepare himself. Every one, therefore, believed
that he was ready, although nothing showed it. When he said, with his
usual boastfulness, that he had only to stamp his foot to bring up
legions, it was supposed he meant to speak of secret levies, or of
alliances not generally known, that at the last moment would bring him
troops. His confidence restored courage to the most terror-stricken. In
truth, such a strange self-confidence in the midst of such real danger,
in a man who had conquered kingdoms, and conducted great affairs, passes
our comprehension.
Whence then could this confidence come to Pompey? Had he no exact
information of the strength of his enemy? did he really believe, as he
said, that his troops were discontented, his generals unfaithful, and
that no one would follow him in the war he was going to wage against
his country? or did he reckon on the good fortune of his earlier
years, on the prestige of his name, on the happy chances that had
given him so many victories? It is certain that, at the moment when
the veterans of Alesia and Gergovia were assembling at Ravenna, and
approaching the Rubicon, Pompey imprudently exhibited a great disdain
for the general and for his troops, _vehementer contemnebat hunc
hominem!_[211] But this foolish boasting did not last long; on the
news that Caesar was marching resolutely on Rome, it ceased at once,
and this same man whom Cicero showed us just now disdaining his rival
and predicting his defeat, he shows us a few days later, terrified and
flying into the depths of Apulia without daring to halt or make a
stand anywhere. We have the letter that Pompey then wrote to the
consuls, and to Domitius, who attempted at least to hold out in
Corfinium: “Know, he tells them, that I am in great uneasiness
(_scitote me esse in summa sollicitudine_”).[212] What a contrast to
the over-confident words of just now! This is just the tone of a man
who, waking up with a start from exaggerated hopes, passes suddenly
from one extreme to another. He had prepared nothing because he had
been too well assured of success; he dared undertake nothing because
he was too certain of failure. He has no confidence or hope in any
one; all resistance seems to him useless; he does not even count upon
the awakening of a patriotic spirit, and it does not occur to him to
make an appeal to the republican youth of the Italian municipia. At
each step that his enemy takes in advance, he retreats still farther.
Brundusium itself, with its strong walls, does not give him
confidence; he thinks of quitting Italy, and does not believe that he
is safe until he has put the sea between himself and Caesar.
Caelius had not waited so long to take a side. Even before the struggle
commenced it was easy for him to see where the superior strength lay and
on which side victory would be. He had then boldly faced about and put
himself in the front rank among Caesar’s friends. He took his side
openly when he supported with his usual vigour the proposition of
Calidius, who demanded that Pompey should be sent back to his province
of Spain. When the hope of peace was completely lost, he left Rome with
his friends Curio and Dolabella, and went to join Caesar at Ravenna. He
followed him in his triumphal march through Italy; he saw him pardon
Domitius, who had been taken in Corfinium, pursue Pompey, and shut him
up closely in Brundusium. In the intoxication of these rapid successes
he wrote to Cicero: “Have you ever seen a man more foolish than your
Pompey, who brings us into such great troubles, and whose conduct is so
childish? On the other hand, have you ever read or heard of anything
that surpasses the ardour of Caesar in action and his moderation in
victory? What do you think of our soldiers, who, in the depth of winter,
notwithstanding the difficulties of a wild and frozen country, have
finished the war in an unopposed march?”[213]
When Caelius had once decided, his only thought was to draw Cicero after
him. He knew that he could do nothing more agreeable to Caesar.
Victorious though he was, Caesar, who did not delude himself about those
who served him, felt that he wanted a few honest men to give his party a
better appearance. The great name of Cicero would have sufficed to
correct the bad impression that the character of those about him
produced. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get Cicero to decide.
From the day when the Rubicon was passed till the capture of Brundusium
he wavered and changed his mind every day. Both sides were equally
anxious to secure him, and the two chiefs themselves approached him, but
in a very different manner. Pompey, always bungling, wrote him short and
imperious letters: “Take the Appian road as soon as possible, come and
join me at Luceria, at Brundusium, there you will be safe.”[214] Strange
language in the vanquished who persists in speaking as a superior!
Caesar was much more judicious: “Come, he says to him, come and aid me
with your counsel, your name, and your glory!”[215] This consideration,
these advances from a victorious general, who humbly solicited when he
had the right to command, could not fail to influence Cicero. At the
same time, to be more sure of gaining him over, Caesar got his dearest
friends to write to him, Oppius, Balbus, Trebatius, and especially
Caelius, who knew so well how to approach him. They attacked him on all
his weak sides at once; they revived his old grudges against Pompey;
they moved him by the picture of the misfortunes that threatened his
family; they excited his vanity by pointing out to him the honour of
reconciling parties and pacifying the republic.