victories. In conquering Gaul, he rendered it entirely and for ever
Roman. That marvellous rapidity with which Rome then assimilated the
Gauls can only be understood, when we know in what a state she had found
them. They were not altogether barbarians like the Germans; it is to be
remarked that their conqueror, who knew them well, does not call them so
in his _Commentaries_. They had great cities, a regular system of
taxation, a body of religious beliefs, an ambitious and powerful
aristocracy, and a sort of national education directed by the priests.
This culture, although imperfect, if it had not entirely enlightened
their minds, had at least awakened them. They were frank and
inquisitive, intelligent enough to know what they were deficient in, and
sufficiently free from prejudice to give up their usages when they found
better ones. From the very beginning of the war, they succeeded in
imitating the Roman tactics, in constructing siege machines, and in
working them with a skill to which Caesar does justice. They were still
rude and unpolished, but already quite inclined for a superior
civilization for which they had the desire and instinct. This explains
how they did so readily accept it. They had fought for ten years against
the domination of the foreigner; they did not hesitate for a day to
adopt his language and usages. We may say that Gaul resembled those
lands, parched by a burning sun, which drink in with such avidity the
first drops of rain; so completely did she imbibe the Roman civilization
for which she longed before she knew it, that after so many centuries,
and in spite of so many revolutions, she has not yet lost the mark of
it; and this is the only thing that has endured to the present time in
this country where everything changes. Caesar, then, did not only add a
few new territories to the possessions of Rome; the present that he made
her was greater and more useful; he gave her an entire people,
intelligent, and civilized almost as soon as conquered, which, becoming
Roman in heart as well as in language, sinking her interests in those of
her new nationality, enlisting in her legions to defend her, and
throwing herself with a remarkable ardour and talent into the study of
the arts and letters, shed a new lustre over her, and for a long time
gave a new youth and a return of vigour to the failing empire.
While these great events were passing in Gaul, Rome continued to be the
theatre of the most shameful disorders. There was no longer any
government; scarcely did they succeed in electing magistrates, and there
was a fight every time the people assembled in the Forum or in the
Campus Martius. These disorders, of which honest men were ashamed, added
still more to the effect that Caesar’s victories produced. What a
contrast was there between the battles fought with Ariovistus or
Vercingetorix and those combats of gladiators that stained the streets
of Rome with blood! And how glorious appeared the taking of Agendicum or
Alesia to people who were only occupied with the siege of Milo’s house
by Clodius or the assassination of Clodius by Milo! All the statesmen
who had remained in Rome, Pompey as well as Cicero, had lost something
of their dignity by mixing themselves up in these intrigues. Caesar, who
had withdrawn in time, was the only man who had risen amidst the general
degradation. Therefore all those whose heart was wounded by these sad
spectacles, and who had some care for Roman honour, kept their eyes
fixed upon him and his army. As happened at certain moments of our own
revolution, military glory consoled honest men for scandals and distress
at home. At the same time, the excess of the evil caused men to seek an
efficacious remedy everywhere. The idea began to spread that, in order
to obtain repose, it was necessary to create a strong and durable power.
After Cicero’s exile, the aruspices had predicted that the monarchy was
about to recommence,[278] and one did not need to be a prophet to
anticipate this. A few years later, the evil having increased still
more, the republican party itself, notwithstanding its repugnance, was
forced to have recourse to the violent remedy of a temporary
dictatorship. Pompey was appointed sole consul, but Pompey had shown
more than once that he had neither the vigour nor the resolution
necessary to overcome anarchy entirely. A stronger arm and a more
determined will had to be sought elsewhere, and all eyes turned
naturally towards the conqueror of Gaul. His glory pointed him out for
this part; the hopes of some and the fears of others called him to
fulfil it; men’s minds became accustomed every day to the idea that he
would be the heir of the republic, and the revolution that delivered up
Rome to him was more than half accomplished when he crossed the Rubicon.
II
THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED
AFTER PHARSALIA
The civil war interrupted the intercourse that Cicero had kept up with
Caesar during the Gallic war. He hesitated for a long time to take part
in it, and it was after long indecision that the stings of conscience,
the fear of public opinion, and above all the example of his friends
decided him at length to start for Pompey’s camp. “As the ox follows the
herd,” said he, “I go to join the good citizens;”[279] but he went
half-heartedly and without hope. After Pharsalia he did not think it was
possible to continue the struggle: he said so openly in a council of the
republican chiefs held at Dyrrhachium, and he hastened to return to
Brundusium to hold himself at the disposal of the conqueror.
What regret must he not have felt, if his thoughts went back several
years, and he remembered his triumphal return from exile! In that very
town, where he had been received with so much rejoicing, he was
constrained to disembark furtively, to conceal his lictors, to avoid the
crowd, and only go out at night. He passed eleven months there, the
saddest of his life, in isolation and anxiety. He was distressed on all
sides, and his domestic affairs did not cause him less sorrow than
public events. His absence had completed the disorder of his pecuniary
affairs. When they were most involved, he had been so imprudent as to
lend what ready money he had to Pompey: the poniard of the King of Egypt
had at the same time carried off the debtor and put an end to his power
of paying. While he was trying to procure some resources by selling his
furniture and plate, he discovered that his wife was acting in concert
with his freedmen to despoil him of what remained; he learnt that his
brother and his nephew, who had gone over to Caesar, sought to justify
themselves at his expense, and were working to ruin him in order to save
themselves; he saw Tullia, his beloved daughter, again, but he found her
sad and ill, lamenting at the same time the misfortunes of her father,
and the infidelity of her husband. To these very real misfortunes were
joined at the same time imaginary troubles, which caused him as much
suffering; above all, he was tormented by his habitual irresolution.
Scarcely had he set foot in Italy when he repented having come.
According to his habit, his restless imagination always puts things at
their worst, and he is ingenious in finding some reason for discontent
in everything that happens to him. He laments when Antony wishes to
force him to leave Italy; when he is allowed to remain, he still
laments, because this exception made in his favour may injure his
reputation. If Caesar neglects to write to him, he is alarmed; if he
receives a letter from him, however friendly it may be, he weighs all
its expressions so carefully that he discovers at last some motive for
fear; even the broadest and most complete amnesty does not entirely
remove his fears. “When a man pardons so easily,” he says, “it is
because he defers his vengeance.”[280]
At last, after a sojourn of nearly a year in that noisy and pestilential
town, he was permitted to leave Brundusium. He returned to his fine
country houses that he liked so much, and where he had been so happy; he
found his books again, he resumed his interrupted studies, he could
appreciate again those precious things which we enjoy without thinking
about them while they are ours, and only begin to appreciate when we
have lost them for a moment, namely, security and leisure. He thought
that nothing could equal the charm of those first days passed tranquilly
at Tusculum after so many storms, and of that return to the quiet
pleasures of the mind for which he felt then that he was in reality
made. “Know,” he wrote to his friend Varro, “that since my return I have
been reconciled to my old friends: I mean my books. In truth, if I fled
from them, it was not because I was angry with them, but I could not see
them without some confusion. It seemed to me that in engaging in such
stirring affairs, with doubtful allies, I have not followed their
precepts faithfully enough. They forgive me, they recall me to their
company; they tell me that you have been wiser than I not to leave them.
Now that I am restored to their favour, I really hope that I shall
support more easily the evils that oppress us and those with which we
are threatened.”[281]
His conduct henceforth was clearly marked out. He owed it to the great
party he had served and defended to hold aloof from the new government.
He must seek in philosophy and letters a useful employment for his
activity, and create an honourable retreat far from public affairs in
which he could no longer take part with honour. He well understood this
when he said: “Let us preserve at least a partial liberty by knowing how
to hide ourselves and keep silence.”[282] To keep silence and hide, was
indeed the programme that suited him best, as it did all those who had
submitted after Pharsalia. We shall see how far he was faithful to it.
I.
It is very difficult to relinquish politics all at once. The conduct of
public affairs and the exercise of power, even when they do not entirely
content the mind, give a secondary importance to other things, and life
appears aimless to him who can no longer employ himself in them. This is
what happened to Cicero. He was certainly very sincere when, on leaving
Brundusium, he undertook “to hide himself entirely in literature”; but
he had promised more than he was able to perform. He soon wearied of
repose, and the pleasures of study at length seemed a little too quiet;
he listened with more curiosity to outside rumours, and, in order to
hear them better, quitted Tusculum and returned to Rome. There he
insensibly resumed his old habits; he returned to the senate; his house
was again open to all who loved and cultivated letters; he began again
to frequent the houses of the friends he had in Caesar’s party, and by
their means resumed intercourse with Caesar himself.
They were easily reconciled, notwithstanding all their motives for ill
will. The taste for intellectual pleasures which united them was
stronger than all political antipathy. The first irritation over, they
approached each other with that ease that the habit and experience of
society give, forgetting or appearing to forget all the disagreements
that had separated them. Nevertheless these relations had become more
difficult than ever for Cicero. It was not only a protector that he had
found in his old fellow-student, it was a master. There was no longer
between them, as formerly, an agreement or understanding that created
reciprocal obligations; there was the victor to whom the laws of war
permitted everything, and the vanquished who owed his life to his
clemency. The difficulty of the position was greater, because the more
right the conqueror had to be exacting the more public opinion commanded
the conquered to be reserved. It may be supposed that, at the time of
the Gallic war, Cicero defended Caesar’s projects through friendship or
conviction; but since he had shown that he disapproved his cause by
boldly expressing his opinions during the civil war, the deference he
might show to his wishes was nothing more than a sort of base flattery,
and a discreditable way of earning his pardon. Already his sudden return
from Pharsalia had been much blamed. “I am not forgiven for
living,”[283] said he. He was forgiven still less for his familiar
relations with Caesar’s friends. Good citizens murmured at seeing him
visit so assiduously the house of Balbus, go and dine with the
voluptuous Eutrapelus in company with Pansa or Antony, and by the side
of the actress Cytheris, take part in the sumptuous feasts that
Dolabella gave with the money of the vanquished; on all sides the
malevolent had their eyes open to his weaknesses. He had, then, to
satisfy at once all parties, to hold with the conquerors and the
conquered for the sake of his reputation or his safety, to live near the
master without being too confident, and without ever offending him, and
in these dangerous relations to make what he owed to his honour agree
with what was needful for his repose. It was a delicate situation, from
which an ordinary man would have had perhaps some trouble to extricate
himself, but which was not beyond the dexterity of Cicero. To get out of
it he had in his favour one marvellous quality which prevented him from
appearing too humble and too base, even when he was constrained to
flatter. Madame de Sévigné has said somewhere: “Wit is a dignity.” This
saying is true in every sense; nothing helps one more to pass through
difficult times without baseness. When a man preserves his wit before an
absolute master, when he dares to joke and smile in the midst of the
silence and terror of others, he shows by this that the greatness of him
to whom he speaks does not intimidate him, and that he feels himself
sufficiently strong to support it. To remain master of oneself in his
presence is still a way of braving him, and it seems to me that an
exacting and suspicious despot ought to be almost as displeased with
those who dare to be witty before him as with those he may suspect of
having courage. There is, then, below that courage of the soul that
inspires energetic resolutions, but near it, that courage of the mind
which is not to be despised, for it is often the sole courage possible.
After the defeat of the men of resolution, the men of wit have their
turn, and they still do some service when the others can no longer do
anything. As they are crafty and supple, as they can raise their head
quickly after necessity has forced them to bend it, they maintain
themselves with a certain amount of honour in the ruin of their party.
Their raillery, however discreet it may be, is a sort of protestation
against the silence imposed on all, and it at least prevents the loss of
liberty of speech after having lost the liberty of action. Wit is not
then such a trivial thing as people affect to consider it; it also has
its grandeur, and it may be that, after a great disaster, when all is
silent, downcast, and discouraged, it alone maintains human dignity,
which is in great danger of perishing.
Such was, very nearly, the part Cicero played at this time, and we must
acknowledge that it was not wanting in importance. In that great city,
submissive and mute, he alone dared to speak. He began to do so early,
he was still at Brundusium, not knowing if he should obtain his pardon,
when he frightened Atticus by the freedom of his remarks. Impunity
naturally rendered him bolder, and after his return to Rome he took
scarcely any other precaution than to make his raillery as agreeable and
as witty as possible. Caesar liked wit even when it was exercised at his
own expense. Instead of getting angry at Cicero’s jokes, he made a
collection of them, and in the midst of the war in Spain, he ordered his
correspondents to send them to him. Cicero, who knew this, spoke without
constraint. This freedom, then so rare, drew all eyes upon him. He had
never had more society round him. The friends of Caesar frequented his
society readily to give themselves an air of liberality and tolerance,
after the example of their chief. As he was the most illustrious
survivor of the republican party after the death of Pompey and Cato, the
remaining partisans of the republic crowded around him. People came to
see him from all sides, and all parties met in the mornings in his
vestibule. “I receive at the same time,” said he, “the visits of many
good citizens who are downcast, and those of our joyful
conquerors.”[284]
This attention no doubt had something flattering in it, and nothing must
have given him more pleasure than to have regained his importance. Let
us remark, however, that in regaining his position as a person of
eminence, whose friendship was sought and whose house was frequented, he
had already fallen short of the first part of the programme that he had
laid down for himself; the share he had, about the same time, in the
return of the exiles, soon made him forget the other. He had given up
hiding to respond to Caesar’s advances. We are going to see how he
ceased to keep silence in order to thank him for his clemency.
Caesar’s clemency is admired with good reason, and it deserves the
praises awarded to it. For the first time a ray of humanity had been
seen to shine in the midst of the pitiless wars of the ancient world.
No doubt about the extent of his rights had hitherto entered the mind of
the conqueror; he believed them to have no limit, and exercised them
without scruple. Who, before Caesar, had thought of proclaiming and
practising consideration for the vanquished? He was the first who
declared that his vengeance would not outlast his victory, and that he
would not strike a disarmed enemy. What adds to the admiration his
conduct inspires is that he gave this fine example of mildness and
moderation in a time of violence, between the proscriptions of Sulla and
those of Octavius; that he pardoned his enemies at the very moment that
they were massacring his soldiers who were prisoners, and burning his
sailors alive with their ships. We must not, however, exaggerate, and
history should not be a panegyric. Without attempting to diminish
Caesar’s glory, we may be allowed to ask what motive he had in pardoning
the vanquished, and it is right to inquire how and within what limits he
exercised his clemency.
Curio, one of his closest friends, said one day to Cicero, in a private
conversation, that Caesar was cruel by nature, and that he had only
spared his enemies to preserve the affection of the people;[285] but the
sceptic Curio was very much disposed, like Caelius, to look at people
always on their bad side: he has certainly calumniated his chief. The
truth is that Caesar was clement both by nature and policy: _pro natura
et pro instituto_;[286] the continuator of his _Commentaries_, who knew
him well, says so. Now, if the heart does not change, policy often
changes with circumstances. When a man is good solely by nature he is
good always; but when the reflection which calculates the good effect
clemency will produce, and the advantage which may be drawn from it, is
added to the natural instinct that inclines to clemency, it may happen
that a man may become less clement as soon as he has less interest to be
so. He who becomes gentle and humane, by policy, in order to draw men
towards him, would become cruel, by policy also, if he had need of
intimidating them. This happened to Caesar, and when we study his life
closely we find that his clemency suffered more than one eclipse. I do
not think that he committed any gratuitous cruelties for the sake of
committing them, as so many of his contemporaries did; but neither did
he refrain when he found some advantage in them. While he was praetor in
Spain he sometimes stormed towns which were willing to surrender, in
order to have a pretext for sacking them. In Gaul he never hesitated to
terrify his enemies by fearful vengeance; we see him behead the whole
senate of the Veneti, massacre the Usipetes and the Tencteri, sell the
forty thousand inhabitants of Genabum for slaves at one time, and cut
off the hands of all in Uxellodunum who had taken up arms against him.
And did he not keep in prison five whole years that heroic chief of the
Arverni, that Vercingetorix who was an adversary so worthy of him, that
he might coolly give the order to slaughter him on the day of his
triumph? Even at the time of the civil war and when he was fighting his
fellow-citizens, he got tired of pardoning. When he saw that his system
of clemency did not disarm his enemies, he gave it up, and their
obstinacy, which surprised him, at last made him cruel. As the struggle
was prolonged it took darker colours on both sides. The war between the
republicans exasperated by their defeats and the conqueror furious at
their resistance, became merciless. After Thapsus, Caesar set the
example of punishments, and his army, inspired by his anger, slaughtered
the vanquished before his face. He had proclaimed, when starting on his
last expedition into Spain, that his clemency was exhausted, and that
all who did not lay down their arms should be put to death. Therefore
the battle of Munda was terrible. Dio relates that both armies attacked
with silent rage, and that instead of the war-songs that usually
resounded, one only heard at intervals the words: “strike and kill.”
When the fight was over the massacre began. The eldest son of Pompey,
who had succeeded in escaping, was tracked in the forest for several
days and killed without mercy, like the Vendean chiefs in our wars of
the Bocage.
The most glorious moment of Caesar’s clemency was just after the battle
of Pharsalia. He had proclaimed in advance when he entered Italy that
the proscriptions would not recommence. “I will not imitate Sulla,” said
he in a celebrated letter, which no doubt was widely circulated. “Let us
introduce a new way of conquering, and seek our safety in clemency and
mildness.”[287] At first he did not belie these fair words. After the
victory, he ordered the soldiers to spare their fellow-citizens, and on
the battle-field itself he gave his hand to Brutus and many others. It
is wrong however to think that there was a general amnesty at that
moment.[288] On the contrary, an edict of Antony, who governed Rome in
the absence of Caesar, strictly forbade any Pompeian to return to Italy
without having obtained permission. Cicero and Laelius, from whom there
was nothing to fear, were alone excepted. Many others returned
afterwards, but they were only recalled individually and by special
decree. This was a means for Caesar to make the most of his clemency.
Usually pardons thus given separately were not given gratuitously, they
were almost always bought by the exiles with a part of their property.
Besides, they were seldom complete at first; the exiles were allowed to
return to Sicily, then to Italy, before opening to them completely the
gates of Rome. These steps cleverly managed, by multiplying the number
of favours granted by Caesar, did not allow public admiration to cool.
Each time the chorus of flatterers recommenced their praises, and did
not cease to celebrate the generosity of the victor.