always go together. Aristotle forbids us to represent heroes perfect in
all points in the drama, lest they should not interest the public.
Things go in ordinary life very much as they do on the stage; a sort of
instinctive dread holds us aloof from irreproachable characters, and as
it is usually by our common failings that we are drawn together, we feel
very little attraction towards a man who has no failings, and are
content to respect perfection at a distance. Yet it was not so in the
case of Brutus, and Cicero could say of him with truth in one of the
works that he addresses to him: “Who was ever more respected and loved
than you?”[324] And yet this man without weaknesses was weak for those
he loved. His mother and sisters had great influence over him, and made
him commit more than one fault. He had many friends, and Cicero blames
him for listening too readily to their advice; they were worthy men who
understood nothing of public affairs; but Brutus was so much attached to
them that he could not protect himself against them. His last sorrow at
Philippi was to learn of the death of Flavius, his overseer of works,
and that of Labeo, his lieutenant; he forgot his own self to weep for
them. His last words before his death were to congratulate himself that
none of his friends had betrayed him: this fidelity, so rare at that
time, consoled his last moments. His legions also, although they were
partly composed of old soldiers of Caesar, and he kept them tightly in
hand, punishing plunderers and marauders, his very legions loved him and
remained faithful to him. Even the people of Rome themselves, who were
in general enemies of the cause he defended, showed their sympathy for
him more than once. When Octavius proclaimed the assassins of Caesar
public enemies, every one sadly bowed their heads when they heard the
name of Brutus pronounced from the rostrum, and in the midst of the
terrified senate which foresaw the proscriptions, a voice dared to
declare that it would never condemn Brutus.
Cicero fell under the charm like the rest, but not without resistance.
His friendship with Brutus was troubled and stormy, and, notwithstanding
the general agreement of their opinions, violent dissensions arose
between them more than once. Their disagreements are explained by the
diversity of their characters. Never did two friends resemble each other
less. There never was a man who seemed made for society more than
Cicero; he brought into it all the qualities that are necessary for
success, great flexibility of opinion, much toleration for others,
allowance enough for himself, the talent of steering with ease between
all parties, and a certain natural indulgence that made him understand
and almost accept everything. Although he made bad verses, he had the
temperament of a poet, a strange mobility of impression, an irritable
sensitiveness, a supple, broad, and quick intellect which conceived
promptly, but quickly abandoned its ideas, and passed from one extreme
to another at a bound. He did not make a single serious resolution of
which he did not repent the next day. Whenever he joined a party he was
only quick and decided at the beginning, and gradually cooled down.
Brutus, on the contrary, had not a quick intelligence: he usually
hesitated at the commencement of an enterprise and did not decide at
once. Slow and serious, he advanced step by step in everything, but,
once resolved, he was so absorbed in his conviction that nothing could
divert him: he isolated and concentrated himself in it, he excited and
inflamed himself for it by reflection, and at last listened only to that
inflexible logic that drove him to realize his purpose. He was one of
those minds of which Saint-Simon says that they have an almost ferocious
consistency. His obstinacy was the real source of his strength, and
Caesar well understood it when he said of him: “All that he wills he
means.”[325]
Two friends who resembled each other so little must naturally have
clashed at every opportunity. Their first differences were literary. It
was a custom then at the bar to divide an important case among several
orators; each took the part best suited to his talents. Cicero, obliged
to appear often before the judges, went with his friends and pupils, and
gave out to them part of his work in order to be able to get through it.
He was often satisfied with keeping the peroration for himself, in which
his copious and impassioned eloquence was at home, and left them the
rest. It was thus that Brutus pleaded at his side and under his
direction. Brutus, however, was not of his school: a fanatical admirer
of Demosthenes, whose statue he had placed among those of his ancestors,
and nurtured on the study of the Attic masters, he sought to reproduce
their graceful severity and vigorous strength. Tacitus says that his
efforts were not always happy: by dint of avoiding ornament and pathos
he was dull and cold, and by too eagerly seeking precision and strength
he became dry and stiff. These faults were repugnant to Cicero, who
always saw in this type of eloquence, which was founding a school, a
criticism of his own, and tried by every means to convert Brutus; but he
did not succeed, and on this point they never agreed. After the death of
Caesar, and when something else than literary discussions was in
question, Brutus sent his friend the speech he had just delivered in the
Capitol, and begged him to correct it. Cicero took good care not to do
so: he knew too well by experience the self-esteem of the literary man
to run the risk of offending Brutus by trying to do better than he.
Besides, the speech seemed to him very fine, and he wrote to Atticus
that nothing could have been more graceful or better written. “Yet,”
added he, “if I had had to make it I should have put more passion in
it.”[326] Assuredly Brutus did not lack passion, but it was in him a
secret and repressed flame that only touched the nearest, and he
disliked to give the rein to those powerful emotions and that fiery
pathos without which one cannot carry away the multitude.
He was not then a docile follower of Cicero, and we may add that neither
was he an accommodating friend. He lacked pliancy in his relations with
others, and his tone was always rough and abrupt. At the commencement of
their intercourse, Cicero, accustomed to be treated with great respect
even by the highest personages, thought the letters of this young man
were curt and haughty, and felt hurt. This was not the only complaint he
had to make of him. We know the great consular’s irritable, suspicious
and exacting vanity; we know to what a degree he loved praise; he gave
it to himself liberally and he expected it from others, and if they were
slow in giving it he was not ashamed to ask for it. His friends were
generally indulgent to this harmless failing, and did not wait to be
invited by him to praise him. Brutus alone resisted; he prided himself
on his candour, and spoke out what he thought. Accordingly Cicero often
complains that he was chary of his praises; one day indeed he was
seriously angry with him. It was a question of the great consulship, and
of the discussion in consequence of which Lentulus and the accomplices
of Catiline were executed. This was the most vigorous action of Cicero’s
life, and he had a right to be proud of it, since he had paid for it
with exile. In the narrative that Brutus gave of the events of this day
he depreciated the part that Cicero had played in them to the advantage
of his uncle Cato. He only praised him for having punished the
conspiracy, without saying that he had discovered it, and contented
himself with calling him an _excellent consul_. “Poor praise!” said
Cicero angrily; “one would think it came from an enemy.”[327] But those
were only small differences arising from wounded self-esteem, which
might easily be made up; we must now mention a graver disagreement that
deserves to be dwelt upon, for it suggests some serious reflections on
the Roman society of that period.
In 702, that is to say, a short time after the commencement of his
relations with Brutus, Cicero went out as proconsul to Cilicia. He had
not sought this office, for he knew what difficulties he should find in
it. He set out decided to do his duty, and he could not do it without
bringing on his hands at the same time the patricians, his protectors,
and the knights, his _protégés_ and clients. In fact, patricians and
knights, usually enemies, agreed, with a singular unanimity, in
plundering the provinces. The knights, farmers of the public revenue,
had only one thought: to make a fortune in five years, the usual
duration of their contract. Consequently they exacted without mercy the
tax of a tenth on the productions of the soil, a twentieth on
merchandise at the ports, the harbour dues, the tax on pasture-lands in
the interior; in fact, all the tribute that Rome had imposed on the
conquered nations. Their greed respected nothing. Livy wrote this
terrible sentence about them: “Wherever the ‘publican’ penetrates, there
is no more justice or liberty for any one.”[328] It was very difficult
for the wretched cities to satisfy these insatiable financiers; almost
everywhere the municipal coffers, ill administered by incompetent, or
pillaged by dishonest magistrates, were empty. Money, however, had to be
found at any price. Now, of whom could they borrow it, except of the
bankers of Rome, who had been for a century the bankers of the whole
world? It was to them therefore that they applied. Some were rich enough
to draw from their private fortune money to lend to foreign cities, or
sovereigns, like that Rabirius Postumus, for whom Cicero had pleaded,
who furnished the king of Egypt with the money necessary to reconquer
his kingdom. Others, in order to run less risk, formed financial
companies, in which the most illustrious Romans invested their funds.
Thus, Pompey had a share for a considerable sum in one of those
joint-stock companies founded by Cluvius of Puteoli. All these
money-lenders, whether private individuals or companies, knights or
patricians, were very unscrupulous, and only advanced their money at
enormous interest, generally 4 or 5 per cent. per month. Their
difficulty consisted in getting paid. As it is only men who are quite
ruined who accept these hard terms, the money lent on such high interest
is always subject to risk. When the date of payment arrived the poor
city was less than ever in a position to pay: it employed a thousand
pettifogging tricks, spoke of complaining to the senate, and began by
appealing to the proconsul. Unfortunately for it, the proconsul was
usually an accomplice of its enemies, and took his share of their
profits. The creditors who had secured his co-operation by paying him
well, had then only to send into the province some freedman or agent who
represented them; the proconsul placed the public forces at the service
of private interests, gave this agent the title of his lieutenant, some
soldiers, and full powers, and if the insolvent town did not quickly
come to some satisfactory arrangement, it suffered the horrors of a
siege and of official pillage in time of peace. The proconsul who
refused to lend himself to these abuses, and who intended, according to
Cicero’s expression, to prevent the provinces perishing, naturally
aroused the anger of all those who lived by the ruin of the provinces.
The knights, the nobles, who no longer got their money, became his
deadly enemies. It is true he had the gratitude of his province, but
this did not amount to much. It had been remarked that, in those Eastern
countries “trained by a long servitude to loathsome flattery,”[329] the
governors who received most adulation, and to whom they raised most
statues were precisely those who had robbed the most, because they were
the most dreaded. Cicero’s predecessor had completely ruined Cilicia:
consequently they thought of building him a temple. These were some of
the difficulties to which an upright governor exposed himself. Cicero
extricated himself with honour. Seldom was a province so well
administered as his under the Roman republic; but he only brought back
from it some gratitude, little money, and many enemies, and very nearly
quarrelled with Brutus.
Brutus, though we can scarcely believe it, had a hand in this traffic.
He had lent money to Ariobarzanes, king of Armenia, one of those small
princes that Rome charitably allowed to live, and to the town of Salamis
in the island of Cyprus. At the moment of Cicero’s departure for his
province, Atticus, who himself, as we know, did not despise this species
of gain, recommended these two affairs to him very warmly; but Brutus
had invested his money badly, and it was not possible for Cicero to get
him repaid. Ariobarzanes had many creditors and paid none. “I cannot
imagine,” said Cicero, “any one poorer than this king, and anything more
miserable than this kingdom.”[330] Nothing could be got from him. As to
the business of Salamis, it was from the first still graver. Brutus had
not dared, at the beginning, to acknowledge that he was directly
interested in it, the usury was so enormous and the circumstances so
scandalous. A certain Scaptius, a friend of Brutus, had lent a large sum
to the inhabitants of Salamis at 4 per cent. per month. As they could
not repay it he had, according to custom, obtained from Appius, Cicero’s
predecessor, a company of cavalry, with which he held the senate of
Salamis so closely besieged that five senators had died of hunger. On
learning of this conduct Cicero was shocked, and hastened to recall the
soldiers of whom such bad use had been made. He only thought he was
hurting a _protégé_ of Brutus; but as the affair took a more serious
turn, Brutus showed his hand more openly, so that Cicero might show
himself more accommodating in arranging matters. As he saw that he had
no hope of being paid, except at a great reduction, he became quite
offended, and decided to let it be known that Scaptius was only a man of
straw, and that he himself was the real creditor of the Salaminians.
Cicero’s astonishment when he learnt this will be shared by everybody,
so much does Brutus’ action seem at variance with his whole conduct.
Certainly no one could doubt his disinterestedness and honesty. Some
years before, Cato had paid them a splendid tribute, when, not knowing
whom to trust, so rare were men of honour, he had appointed him to
collect the treasure of the king of Cyprus, and to carry it to Rome. Let
us be assured then, that if Brutus conducted himself as he had done
towards the Salaminians, it was because he thought he might legitimately
do so. He followed the example of others, he yielded to an opinion that
was universal around him. The provinces were still considered as
conquered countries by the Romans of that time. They had been conquered
too short a time for the remembrance of their defeat to be obliterated.
It was supposed that they also had not forgotten it, which led to
distrust of them; in any case it was remembered, and the conquerors
always thought themselves armed with those terrible laws of war against
which no one in antiquity had protested. The property of the vanquished
belonging to the victor, far from blaming themselves for taking what
they took, they thought they gave whatever they did not take, and
perhaps at the bottom of their heart they thought they were generous in
leaving them anything. The provinces were regarded as the domains and
property of the Roman people (_praedia, agri fructuarii populi Romani_),
and they were treated accordingly. When they consented to spare them it
was not through pity or affection, but through prudence, and in
imitation of good landowners who take care not to exhaust their fields
by over-cultivation. This was the meaning of the laws made under the
republic to protect the provinces; humanity had a smaller share in them
than well-considered interest, which, in exercising a certain restraint
on the present, is mindful of the future. Evidently Brutus fully
accepted this way of looking at the rights of the conqueror and the
condition of the vanquished. In this we touch one of the greatest
failings of this upright but narrow soul. Brought up in the selfish
ideas of the Roman aristocracy, he had not sufficient breadth or
elevation of mind to perceive their iniquity; he followed them without
hesitation till the time that his natural mildness and humanity got the
better of the recollections of his education, and the traditions of his
class. The mode in which he behaved in the provinces that he governed
shows that all his life there was a struggle between the integrity of
his nature and these imperious prejudices. After having ruined the
Salaminians by his usury, he governed Cisalpine Gaul with a
disinterestedness that did him honour, and while he had made himself
detested in the island of Cyprus, the remembrance of his beneficent
administration was preserved in Milan even to the time of Augustus. The
same contrast is found in the last campaign; he wept with grief at
seeing the inhabitants of Xanthus persist in destroying their city, and
on the eve of Philippi he promised his soldiers the pillage of
Thessalonica and Lacedaemon. This is the single grave fault that
Plutarch finds to censure in his whole life; it was the last awakening
of an inveterate prejudice of which he could never get rid
notwithstanding his uprightness of mind, and which shows the sway that
the society in which his birth had placed him, exercised over him to the
last.
Yet this influence was not felt then by everybody. Cicero, who, being a
“new man,” could more easily protect himself against the tyranny of
tradition, had always shown more humanity towards the provinces, and
blamed the scandalous gains that were drawn from them. In a letter to
his brother he boldly proclaimed this principle,[331] then altogether
new, that they must not be governed in the exclusive interest of the
Roman people, but also in their own interest, and in such a manner as to
give them the greatest amount of happiness and well-being that was
possible. This is what he tried to do in Cilicia: accordingly he was
very much hurt by the action of Brutus, and flatly refused to have
anything to do with it, although Atticus, whose conscience was more
elastic, warmly begged him to do so. “I am sorry,” he replied, “that I
am not able to please Brutus, and still more so to find him so different
from what I had thought him.”[332] “If he condemns me,” he said
elsewhere, “I do not want such friends. At least I am certain that his
uncle Cato will not condemn me.”[333]
These were bitter words, and their friendship would no doubt have
suffered much from these disputes if the grave events which supervened
had not drawn them together again. Cicero had scarcely returned to Italy
when the civil war, so long foreseen, broke out. Private differences had
to disappear before this great conflict. Besides, Cicero and Brutus were
united by a singular community of feelings. Both had gone to Pompey’s
camp, but both had done so without enthusiasm or eagerness, as a
sacrifice demanded by duty. Brutus loved Caesar, who showed him a
paternal affection on all occasions, and moreover he detested Pompey.
Besides the fact that his pompous vanity displeased him, he could not
forgive the death of his father, killed during the civil wars of Sulla.
Yet, in this public danger, he forgot his personal likings and hatreds,
and went to Thessaly, where the consuls and senate were already. We know
that he made himself remarked for his zeal in Pompey’s camp;[334] many
things however happened there which must have displeased him, and no
doubt he thought that too many personal rancours and ambitions were
mixed up with the cause of liberty which alone he wished to defend. This
also displeased his friend Cicero and his brother-in-law Cassius, and
these two last, indignant at the language of those madmen who surrounded
Pompey, resolved not to pursue the war to extremes as others wished to
do. “I still remember,” Cicero wrote later to Cassius, “those familiar
conversations in which, after long deliberation, we made up our minds to
allow our action, if not the abstract justice of our cause, to be
determined by the result of a single battle.”[335] We do not know
whether Brutus was present at these conversations of his two friends;
but it is certain that all three behaved in the same manner. Cicero, on
the day after Pharsalia, refused the command of the republican army;
Cassius hastened to hand over the fleet he commanded to Caesar; as to
Brutus, he did his duty as a brave man during the battle; but, the
battle over, he thought he had done enough, and went over to the
conqueror, who welcomed him joyfully, took him apart in confidential
conversation, and succeeded in obtaining some information about Pompey’s
retreat. After this conversation Brutus was completely gained over; not
only did he not go and rejoin the republicans who were fighting in
Africa, but he followed Caesar to the conquest of Egypt and of Asia.
II.
Brutus was thirty-seven years old at the battle of Pharsalia. This was
the age of political activity among the Romans. Usually a man had then
just been quaestor or aedile; he might look forward to the praetorship
and the consulship, and acquired a right to gain them by courageously
contending in the Forum or the Curia. The brightest hope of every young
man on entering public life was to obtain these high honours at the age
appointed by law, the praetorship at forty and the consulship at
forty-three, and nothing was thought to give greater distinction than to
be able to say, “I was praetor or consul as soon as I had the right to
be so (_meo anno_).” If by good luck, while a man held these offices,
fortune favoured him by some considerable war that gave an opportunity
of killing five thousand enemies, he obtained a triumph and had nothing
more to wish for.
There is no doubt that Brutus had conceived this hope like the rest, and
it is certain that his birth and his talents would have permitted him to
realize it; Pharsalia upset all these projects. He was not precluded
from honours, for he was the friend of him who distributed them; but
these honours were now only empty titles, since one man had seized all
real power. This man really aimed at being sole master, and admitted no
one to share his authority. “He does not even consult his own friends,”
says Cicero, “and only takes counsel of himself.”[336] Political life
did not exist for the rest, and even those whom the new government
employed felt time hang heavy on their hands, especially after the
violent agitations of the preceding years. God, according to Virgil’s
expression, gave leisure to everybody. Brutus employed this leisure by
returning to the studies of his youth, which he had rather interrupted
than forsaken. To return to them was to draw still nearer to Cicero.
He had not indeed forgotten him; while following Caesar in Asia he had
learnt that his friend, having retired to Brundusium, suffered at once
from the threats of the Caesarians, who did not forgive his going to
Pharsalia, and from the ill-will of the Pompeians, who blamed him for
having returned too quickly. Amidst all this irritation, Cicero, who, as
we know, had not much energy, was very downcast. Brutus wrote to him to
encourage him. “You have performed actions,” said he, “which will speak
of you, notwithstanding your silence, which will live after your death,
and which, by the safety of the state, if the state is saved, by its
loss, if it is not saved, will for ever bear witness in favour of your
political conduct.”[337] Cicero says that in reading this letter he
seemed to recover from a long illness, and to open his eyes to the
light. When Brutus returned to Rome, their intercourse became more
frequent. Knowing each other better they appreciated each other more.
Cicero, whose imagination was so lively, whose heart was so youthful, in
spite of his sixty years, became entirely enamoured of Brutus. This
constant communication with a mind so inquiring and a soul so upright,
reanimated and revived his talents. His friend always holds a large
place in the fine works that he published at that time, which succeeded
each other so rapidly. We see that his heart is full of him, he speaks
of him as often as he can, he is never weary of praising him, he wishes
to please him before everything; one would almost say that he cares only
for the praises and friendship of Brutus.