_HIS EARLY PLEADINGS.--SEXTUS ROSCIUS AMERINUS.--HIS INCOME._
[Sidenote: B.C. 80, ætat. 27.]
We now come to the beginning of the work of Cicero's life. This at first
consisted in his employment as an advocate, from which he gradually rose
into public or political occupation, as so often happens with a
successful barrister in our time. We do not know with absolute certainty
even in what year Cicero began his pleadings, or in what cause. It may
probably have been in 81 B.C., when he was twenty-five, or in his
twenty-sixth year. Of the pleadings of which we know the particulars,
that in the defence of Sextus Roscius Amerinus, which took place
undoubtedly in the year 80 B.C., ætat twenty-seven, was probably the
earliest. As to that, we have his speech nearly entire, as we have also
one for Publius Quintius, which has generally been printed first among
the orator's works. It has, however, I think, been made clear that that
spoken for Sextus Roscius came before it. It is certain that there had
been others before either of them. In that for Sextus he says that he
had never spoken before in any public cause,[61] such as was the
accusation in which he was now engaged, from which the inference has to
be made that he had been engaged in private causes; and in that for
Quintius he declares that there was wanting to him in that matter an aid
which he had been accustomed to enjoy in others.[62] No doubt he had
tried his 'prentice hand in cases of less importance. That of these two
the defence of Sextus Roscius came first, is also to be found in his own
words. More than once, in pleading for Quintius, he speaks of the
proscriptions and confiscations of Sulla as evils then some time past.
These were brought nominally to a close in June, 81; but it has been
supposed by those who have placed this oration first that it was spoken
in that very year. This seems to have been impossible. "I am most
unwilling," says he, "to call to mind that subject, the very memory of
which should be wiped out from our thoughts."[63] When the tone of the
two speeches is compared, it will become evident that that for Sextus
Roscius was spoken the first. It was, as I have said, spoken in his
twenty-seventh year, B.C. 80, the year after the proscription lists had
been closed, when Sulla was still Dictator, and when the sales of
confiscated goods, though no longer legal, were still carried on under
assumed authority. As to such violation of Sulla's own enactment, Cicero
excuses the Dictator in this very speech, likening him to Great Jove the
Thunderer. Even "Jupiter Optimus Maximus," as he is whose nod the
heavens, the earth, and seas obey--even he cannot so look after his
numerous affairs but that the winds and the storms will be too strong
sometimes, or the heat too great, or the cold too bitter. If so, how can
we wonder that Sulla, who has to rule the State, to govern, in fact, the
world, should not be able himself to see to everything? Jove probably
found it convenient not to see many things. Such must certainly have
been the case with Sulla.
I will venture, as other biographers have done before, to tell the story
of Sextus Roscius of Ameria at some length, because it is in itself a
tale of powerful romance, mysterious, grim, betraying guilt of the
deepest dye, misery most profound, and audacity unparalleled; because,
in a word, it is as interesting as any novel that modern fiction has
produced; and also, I will tell it, because it lets in a flood of light
upon the condition of Rome at the time. Our hair is made to stand on end
when we remember that men had to pick their steps in such a State as
this, and to live if it were possible, and, if not, then to be ready to
die. We come in upon the fag-end of the proscription, and see, not the
bloody wreath of Sulla as he triumphed on his Marian foes, not the cruel
persecution of the ruler determined to establish his order of things by
slaughtering every foe, but the necessary accompaniments of such
ruthless deeds--those attendant villanies for which the Jupiter Optimus
Maximus of the day had neither ears nor eyes. If in history we can ever
get a glimpse at the real life of the people, it is always more
interesting than any account of the great facts, however grand.
The Kalends of June had been fixed by Sulla as the day on which the
slaughter legalized by the proscriptions should cease. In the September
following an old gentleman named Sextus Roscius was murdered in the
streets of Rome as he was going home from supper one night, attended by
two slaves. By whom he was murdered, probably more than one or two knew
then, but nobody knows now. He was a man of reputation, well acquainted
with the Metelluses and Messalas of the day, and passing rich. His name
had been down on no proscription list, for he had been a friend of
Sulla's friends. He was supposed, when he was murdered, to be worth
about six million of sesterces, or something between fifty and sixty
thousand pounds of our money. Though there was at that time much money
in Rome, this amounted to wealth; and though we cannot say who murdered
the man, we may feel sure that he was murdered for his money.
Immediately on his death his chattels were seized and sold--or divided,
probably, without being sold--including his slaves, in whom, as with
every rich Roman, much of his wealth was invested; and his landed
estates--his farms, of which he had many--were also divided. As to the
actual way in which this was done, we are left much in the dark. Had the
name of Sextus Roscius been on one of the lists, even though the list
would then have been out of date, we could have understood that it
should have been so. Jupiter Optimus Maximus could not see everything,
and great advantages were taken. We must only suppose that things were
so much out of order that they who had been accustomed to seize upon the
goods of the proscribed were able to stretch their hands so as to grasp
almost anything that came in their way. They could no longer procure a
rich man's name to be put down on the list, but they could pretend that
it had been put down. At any rate, certain persons seized and divided
the chattels of the murdered man as though he had been proscribed.
Old Roscius, when he was killed, had one son, of whom we are told that
he lived always in the country at Ameria, looking after his father's
farms, never visiting the capital, which was distant from Ameria
something under fifty miles; a rough, uncouth, and probably honest
man--one, at any rate, to whom the ways of the city were unknown, and
who must have been but partially acquainted with the doings of the
time.[64] As we read the story, we feel that very much depends on the
character of this man, and we are aware that our only description of him
comes from his own advocate. Cicero would probably say much which,
though beyond the truth, could not be absolutely refuted, but would
state as facts nothing that was absolutely false. Cicero describes him
as a middle-aged man, who never left his farm, doing his duty well by
his father, as whose agent he acted on the land--a simple, unambitious,
ignorant man, to whom one's sympathies are due rather than our
antipathy, because of his devotion to agriculture. He was now accused of
having murdered his father. The accusation was conducted by one Erucius,
who in his opening speech--the speech made before that by Cicero--had
evidently spoken ill of rural employments. Then Cicero reminds him, and
the judges, and the Court how greatly agriculture had been honored in
the old days, when Consuls were taken from the ploughs. The imagination,
however, of the reader pictures to itself a man who could hardly have
been a Consul at any time--one silent, lonely, uncouth, and altogether
separate from the pleasant intercourses of life. Erucius had declared of
him that he never took part in any festivity. Cicero uses this to show
that he was not likely to have been tempted by luxury to violence. Old
Roscius had had two sons, of whom he had kept one with him in Rome--the
one, probably, whose society had been dearest to him. He, however, had
died, and our Roscius--Sextus Roscius Amerinus, as he came to be called
when he was made famous by the murder--was left on one of the farms down
in the country. The accusation would probably not have been made, had he
not been known to be a man sullen, silent, rough, and unpopular--as to
whom such a murder might be supposed to be credible.
Why should any accusation have been made unless there was clear evidence
as to guilt? That is the first question which presents itself. This son
received no benefit from his father's death. He had in fact been
absolutely beggared by it--had lost the farm, the farming utensils,
every slave in the place, all of which had belonged to his father, and
not to himself. They had been taken, and divided; taken by persons
called "Sectores," informers or sequestrators, who took possession of
and sold--or did not sell--confiscated goods. Such men in this case had
pounced down upon the goods of the murdered man at once and swallowed
them all up, not leaving an acre or a slave to our Roscius. Cicero tells
us who divided the spoil among them. There were two other Rosciuses,
distant relatives, probably, both named Titus; Titus Roscius Magnus, who
sojourned in Rome, and who seems to have exercised the trade of informer
and assassin during the proscriptions, and Titus Roscius Capito, who,
when at home, lived at Ameria, but of whom Cicero tells us that he had
become an apt pupil of the other during this affair. They had got large
shares, but they shared also with one Chrysogonus, the freedman and
favorite of Sulla, who did the dirty work for Jupiter Optimus Maximus
when Jupiter Optimus Maximus had not time to do it himself. We presume
that Chrysogonus had the greater part of the plunder. As to Capito, the
apt pupil, we are told again and again that he got three farms for
himself.
Again, it is necessary to say that all these facts come from Cicero,
who, in accordance with the authorized practice of barristers, would
scruple at saying nothing which he found in his instructions. How
instructions were conveyed to an advocate in those days we do not quite
know. There was no system of attorneys. But the story was probably made
out for the "patronus" or advocate by an underling, and in some way
prepared for him. That which was thus prepared he exaggerated as the
case might seem to require. It has to be understood of Cicero that he
possessed great art and, no doubt, great audacity in such exaggeration;
in regard to which we should certainly not bear very heavily upon him
now, unless we are prepared to bear more heavily upon those who do the
same thing in our own enlightened days. But Cicero, even as a young man,
knew his business much too well to put forward statements which could be
disproved. The accusation came first; then the speech in defence; after
that the evidence, which was offered only on the side of the accuser,
and which was subject to cross-examination. Cicero would have no
opportunity of producing evidence. He was thus exempted from the
necessity of proving his statements, but was subject to have them all
disproved. I think we may take it for granted that the property of the
murdered man was divided as he tells us.
If that was so, why should any accusation have been made? Our Sextus
seems to have been too much crushed by the dangers of his position to
have attempted to get back any part of his father's wealth. He had
betaken himself to the protection of a certain noble lady, one Metella,
whose family had been his father's friends, and by her and her friends
the defence was no doubt managed. "You have my farms," he is made to say
by his advocate; "I live on the charity of another. I abandon everything
because I am placid by nature, and because it must be so. My house,
which is closed to me, is open to you: I endure it. You have possessed
yourself of my whole establishment; I have not one single slave. I
suffer all this, and feel that I must suffer it. What do you want more?
Why do you persecute me further? In what do you think that I shall hurt
you? How do I interfere with you? In what do I oppose you? Is it your
wish to kill a man for the sake of plunder? You have your plunder. If
for the sake of hatred, what hatred can you feel against him of whose
land you have taken possession before you had even known him?"[65] Of
all this, which is the advocate's appeal to pity, we may believe as
little as we please. Cicero is addressing the judge, and desires only an
acquittal. But the argument shows that no overt act in quest of
restitution had as yet been made. Nevertheless, Chrysogonus feared such
action, and had arranged with the two Tituses that something should be
done to prevent it. What are we to think of the condition of a city in
which not only could a man be murdered for his wealth walking home from
supper--that, indeed, might happen in London if there existed the means
of getting at the man's money when the man was dead--but in which such a
plot could be concerted in order that the robbery might be consummated?
"We have murdered the man and taken his money under the false plea that
his goods had been confiscated. Friends, we find, are interfering--these
Metellas and Metelluses, probably. There is a son who is the natural
heir. Let us say that he killed his own father. The courts of law, which
have only just been reopened since the dear days of proscription,
disorder, and confiscation, will hardly yet be alert enough to acquit a
man in opposition to the Dictator's favorite. Let us get him convicted,
and, as a parricide, sewed up alive in a bag and thrown into the
river"--as some of us have perhaps seen cats drowned, for such was the
punishment--"and then he at least will not disturb us." It must have
thus been that the plot was arranged.
It was a plot so foul that nothing could be fouler; but not the less was
it carried out persistently with the knowledge and the assistance of
many. Erucius, the accuser, who seems to have been put forward on the
part of Chrysogonus, asserted that the man had caused his father to be
murdered because of hatred. The father was going to disinherit the son,
and therefore the son murdered the father. In this there might have been
some probability, had there been any evidence of such an intention on
the father's part. But there was none. Cicero declares that the father
had never thought of disinheriting his son. There had been no quarrel,
no hatred. This had been assumed as a reason--falsely. There was in
fact no cause for such a deed; nor was it possible that the son should
have done it. The father was killed in Rome when, as was evident, the
son was fifty miles off. He never left his farm. Erucius, the accuser,
had said, and had said truly, that Rome was full of murderers.[66] But
who was the most likely to have employed such a person: this rough
husbandman, who had no intercourse with Rome, who knew no one there, who
knew little of Roman ways, who had nothing to get by the murder when
committed, or they who had long been concerned with murderers, who knew
Rome, and who were now found to have the property in their hands?
The two slaves who had been with the old man when he was killed, surely
they might tell something? Here there comes out incidentally the fact
that slaves when they were examined as witnesses were tortured, quite as
a matter of course, so that their evidence might be extracted. This is
spoken of with no horror by Cicero, nor, as far as I can remember, by
other Roman writers. It was regarded as an established rule of life that
a slave, if brought into a court of law, should be made to tell the
truth by such appliances. This was so common that one is tempted to
hope, and almost to suppose that the "question" was not ordinarily
administered with circumstances of extreme cruelty. We hear, indeed, of
slaves having their liberty given them in order that, being free, they
may not be forced by torture to tell the truth;[67] but had the cruelty
been of the nature described by Scott in "Old Mortality," when the poor
preacher's limbs were mangled, I think we should have heard more of it.
Nor was the torture always applied, but only when the expected evidence
was not otherwise forth-coming. Cicero explains, in the little dialogue
given below, how the thing was carried on.[68] "You had better tell the
truth now, my friend: Was it so and so?" The slave knows that, if he
says it was so, there is the cross for him, or the "little horse;" but
that, if he will say the contrary, he will save his joints from racking.
And yet the evidence went for what it was worth.
In this case of Roscius there had certainly been two slaves present; but
Cicero, who, as counsel for the defence, could call no witnesses, had
not the power to bring them into court; nor could slaves have been made
to give evidence against their masters. These slaves, who had belonged
to the murdered man, were now the property either of Chrysogonus or of
the two Tituses. There was no getting at their evidence but by
permission of their masters, and this was withheld. Cicero demands that
they shall be produced, knowing that the demand will have no effect.
"The man here," he says, pointing to the accused, "asks for it, prays
for it. What will you do in this case? Why do you refuse?"[69]
By this time the reader is brought to feel that the accused person
cannot possibly have been guilty; and if the reader, how much more the
hearer? Then Cicero goes on to show who in truth were guilty. "Doubt now
if you can, judges, by whom Roscius was killed: whether by him who, by
his father's death, is plunged into poverty and trouble--who is
forbidden even to investigate the truth--or by those who are afraid of
real evidence, who themselves possess the plunder, who live in the midst
of murder, and on the proceeds of murder."[70]
Then he addresses one of the Tituses, Titus Magnus, who seems to have
been sitting in the court, and who is rebuked for his impudence in doing
so: "Who can doubt who was the murderer--you who have got all the
plunder, or this man who has lost everything? But if it be added to this
that you were a pauper before--that you have been known as a greedy
fellow, as a dare-devil, as the avowed enemy of him who has been
killed--then need one ask what has brought you to do such a deed as
this?"[71]
He next tells what took place, as far as it was known, immediately after
the murder. The man had been killed coming home from supper, in
September, after it was dark, say at eight or nine o'clock, and the fact
was known in Ameria before dawn. Travelling was not then very quick; but
a messenger, one Mallius Glaucia, a man on very close terms with Titus
Magnus, was sent down at once in a light gig to travel through the night
and take the information to Titus Capito Why was all this hurry? How did
Glaucia hear of the murder so quickly? What cause to travel all through
the night? Why was it necessary that Capito should know all about it at
once? "I cannot think," says Cicero, "only that I see that Capito has
got three of the farms out of the thirteen which the murdered man
owned!" But Capito is to be produced as a witness, and Cicero gives us
to understand what sort of cross-examination he will have to undergo.
In all this the reader has to imagine much, and to come to conclusions
as to facts of which he has no evidence. When that hurried messenger was
sent, there was probably no idea of accusing the son. The two real
contrivers of the murder would have been more on their guard had they
intended such a course. It had been conceived that when the man was dead
and his goods seized, the fear of Sulla's favorite, the still customary
dread of the horrors of the time, would cause the son to shrink from
inquiry. Hitherto, when men had been killed and their goods taken, even
if the killing and the taking had not been done strictly in accordance
with Sulla's ordinance, it had been found safer to be silent and to
endure; but this poor wretch, Sextus, had friends in Rome--friends who
were friends of Sulla--of whom Chrysogonus and the Tituses had probably
not bethought themselves. When it came to pass that more stir was made
than they had expected, then the accusation became necessary.
But, in order to obtain the needed official support and aid, Chrysogonus
must be sought. Sulla was then at Volaterra, in Etruria perhaps 150
miles north-west from Rome, and with him was his favorite Chrysogonus.
In four days from the time of this murder the news was earned thither,
and, so Cicero states, by the same messenger--by Glaucia--who had taken
it to Ameria. Chrysogonus immediately saw to the selling of the goods,
and from this Cicero implies that Chrysogonus and the two Tituses were
in partnership.
But it seems that when the fact of the death of old Roscius was known at
Ameria--at which place he was an occasional resident himself, and the
most conspicuous man in the place--the inhabitants, struck with horror,
determined to send a deputation to Sulla. Something of what was being
done with their townsman's property was probably known, and there seems
to have been a desire for justice. Ten townsmen were chosen to go to
Sulla, and to beg that he would personally look into the matter. Here,
again, we are very much in the dark, because this very Capito, to whom
these farms were allotted as his share, was not only chosen to be one of
the ten, but actually became their spokesman and their manager. The
great object was to keep Sulla himself in the dark, and this Capito
managed to do by the aid of Chrysogonus. None of the ten were allowed to
see Sulla. They are hoaxed into believing that Chrysogonus himself will
look to it, and so they go back to Ameria, having achieved nothing. We
are tempted to believe that the deputation was a false deputation, each
of whom probably had his little share, so that in this way there might
be an appearance of justice. If it was so, Cicero has not chosen to tell
that part of the story, having, no doubt, some good advocate's reason
for omitting it.
So far the matter had gone with the Tituses, and with Chrysogonus who
had got his lion's share. Our poor Roscius, the victim, did at first
abandon his property, and allow himself to be awed into silence. We
cannot but think that he was a poor creature, and can fancy that he had
lived a wretched life during all the murders of the Sullan
proscriptions. But in his abject misery he had found his way up among
the great friends of his family at Rome, and had there been charged with
the parricide, because Chrysogonus and the Tituses began to be afraid of
what these great friends might do.
This is the story as Cicero has been able to tell it in his speech.
Beyond that, we only know that the man was acquitted. Whether he got
back part of his father's property there is nothing to inform us.
Whether further inquiry was made as to the murder; whether evil befell
those two Tituses or Chrysogonus was made to disgorge, there has been no
one to inform us. The matter was of little importance in Rome, where
murders and organized robberies of the kind were the common incidents of
every-day life. History would have meddled with nothing so ordinary had
not it happened that the case fell into the hands of a man so great a
master of his language that it has been worth the while of ages to
perpetuate the speech which he made in the matter. But the story, as a
story of Roman life, is interesting, and it gives a slight aid to
history in explaining the condition of things which Sulla had produced.
The attack upon Chrysogonus is bold, and cannot but have been offensive
to Sulla, though Sulla is by name absolved from immediate blame.
Chrysogonus himself, the favorite, he does not spare, saying words so
bitter of tone that one would think that the judges--Sulla's
judges--would have stopped him, had they been able. "Putting aside
Sextus Roscius," he says, "I demand, first of all, why the goods of an
esteemed citizen were sold; then, why have the goods been sold of one
who had not himself been proscribed, and who had not been killed while
defending Sulla's enemies? It is against those only that the law is
made. Then I demand why they were sold when the legal day for such sales
had passed, and why they were sold for such a trifle."[72] Then he gives
us a picture of Chrysogonus flaunting down the streets. "You have seen
him, judges, how, his locks combed and perfumed, he swims along the
Forum"--he, a freedman, with a crowd of Roman citizens at his heels,
that all may see that he thinks himself inferior to none--"the only
happy man of the day, the only one with any power in his hands."[73]
This trial was, as has been said, a "causa publica," a criminal
accusation of such importance as to demand that it should be tried
before a full bench of judges. Of these the number would be uncertain,
but they were probably above fifty. The Prætor of the day--the Prætor to
whom by lot had fallen for that year that peculiar duty--presided, and
the judges all sat round him. Their duty seems to have consisted in
listening to the pleadings, and then in voting. Each judge could
vote[74] "guilty," "acquitted," or "not proven," as they do in Scotland.
They were, in fact, jurymen rather than judges. It does not seem that
any amount of legal lore was looked for specially in the judges, who at
different periods had been taken from various orders of the citizens,
but who at this moment, by a special law enacted by Sulla, were selected
only from the Senators. We have ample evidence that at this period the
judges in Rome were most corrupt. They were tainted by a double
corruption: that of standing by their order instead of standing by the
public--each man among them feeling that his turn to be accused might
come--and that also of taking direct bribes. Cicero on various
occasions--on this, for instance, and notably in the trial of Verres, to
which we shall come soon--felt very strongly that his only means of
getting a true verdict from the majority of judges was to frighten them
into temporary honesty by the magnitude of the occasion. If a trial
could be slurred through with indifferent advocates, with nothing to
create public notice, with no efforts of genius to attract admiration,
and a large attendance and consequent sympathy the judgment would, as a
matter of course, be bought. In such a case as this of Sextus Roscius,
the poor wretch would be condemned, sewed up in his bag, and thrown into
the sea, a portion of the plunder would be divided among the judges, and
nothing further would be said about it. But if an orator could achieve
for himself such a reputation that the world would come and listen to
him, if he could so speak that Rome should be made to talk about the
trial, then might the judges be frightened into a true verdict. It may
be understood, therefore, of what importance it was to obtain the
services of a Cicero, or of a Hortensius, who was unrivalled at the
Roman bar when Cicero began to plead.
There were three special modes of oratory in which Cicero displayed his
powers. He spoke either before the judges--a large body of judges who
sat collected round the Prætor, as in the case of Sextus Roscius--or in
cases of civil law before a single judge, selected by the Prætor, who
sat with an assessor, as in the case of Roscius the actor, which shall
be mentioned just now. This was the recognized work of his life, in
which he was engaged, at any rate, in his earlier years; or he spoke to
the populace, in what was called the Concio, or assembly of the
people--speeches made before a crowd called together for a special
purpose, as were the second and third orations against Catiline; or in
the Senate, in which a political rather than a judicial sentence was
sought from the votes of the Senators. There was a fourth mode of
address, which in the days of the Emperors became common, when the
advocate spoke "ad Principem;" that is, to the Emperor himself, or to
some ruler acting for him as sole judge. It was thus that Cicero pleaded
before Cæsar for Ligarius and for King Deiotarus, in the latter years of
his life. In each of these a separate manner and a distinct line had to
be adopted, in all of which he seems to have been equally happy, and
equally powerful. In judging of his speeches, we are bound to remember
that they were not probably uttered with their words arranged as we read
them. Some of those we have were never spoken at all, as was the case
with the five last Verrene orations, and with the second, by far the
longest of the Philippics. Some, as was specially the case with the
defence of Milo, the language of which is perhaps as perfect as that of
any oration which has reached us from ancient or modern days, were only
spoken in part; so that that which we read bears but small relation to
that which was heard. All were probably retouched for publication.[75]
That words so perfect in their construction should have flowed from a
man's mouth, often with but little preparation, we cannot conceive. But
we know from the evidence of the day, and from the character which
remained of him through after Roman ages, how great was the immediate
effect of his oratory. We can imagine him, in this case of Sextus
Roscius, standing out in the open air in the Forum, with the movable
furniture of the court around him, the seats on which the judges sat
with the Prætor in the midst of them, all Senators in their white robes,
with broad purple borders. There too were seated, we may suppose on
lower benches, the friends of the accused and the supporters of the
accusation, and around, at the back of the orator, was such a crowd as
he by the character of his eloquence may have drawn to the spot. Cicero
was still a young man; but his name had made itself known and we can
imagine that some tidings had got abroad as to the bold words which
would be spoken in reference to Sulla and Chrysogonus. The scene must
have been very different from that of one of our dingy courts, in which
the ermine is made splendid only by the purity and learning of the man
who wears it. In Rome all exterior gifts were there. Cicero knew how to
use them, so that the judges who made so large a part in the pageant
should not dare to disgrace themselves because of its publicity.
Quintilian gives his pupils much advice as to the way in which they
should dress themselves[76] and hold their togas--changing the folds of
the garment so as to suit the different parts of the speech--how they
should move their arms, and hold their heads, and turn their necks; even
how they should comb their hair when they came to stand in public and
plead at the bar. All these arts, with many changes, no doubt, as years
rolled on, had come down to him from days before Cicero; but he always
refers to Cicero as though his were the palmy days of Roman eloquence.
We can well believe that Cicero had studied many of these arts by his
twenty-seventh year--that he knew how to hold his toga and how to drop
it--how to make the proper angle with his elbow--how to comb his hair,
and yet not be a fop--and to add to the glory of his voice all the
personal graces which were at his command.
Sextus Roscius Amerinus, with all his misfortunes, injustices, and
miseries, is now to us no more than the name of a fable; but to those
who know it, the fable is, I think, more attractive than most novels.
We know that Cicero pleaded other causes before he went to Greece in the
year 79 B.C., especially those for Publius Quintius, of which we have
his speech, and that for a lady of Arretium, in which he defended her
right to be regarded as a free woman of that city. In this speech he
again attacked Sulla, the rights of the lady in question having been
placed in jeopardy by an enactment made by the Dictator; and again
Cicero was successful. This is not extant. Then he started on his
travels, as to which I have already spoken. While he was absent Sulla
died, and the condition of the Republic during his absence was anything
but hopeful. Lepidus was Consul during these two years, than whom no
weaker officer ever held rule in Rome--or rebelled against Rome; and
Sertorius, who was in truth a great man, was in arms against Rome in
Spain, as a rebel, though he was in truth struggling to create a new
Roman power, which should be purer than that existing in Italy. What
Cicero thought of the condition of his country at this time we have no
means of knowing. If he then wrote letters, they have not been
preserved. His spoken words speak plainly enough of the condition of the
courts of law, and let us know how resolved he was to oppose himself to
their iniquities. A young man may devote himself to politics with as
much ardor as a senior, but he cannot do so if he be intent on a
profession. It is only when his business is so well grasped by him as to
sit easily on him, that he is able to undertake the second occupation.
There is a rumor that Cicero, when he returned home from Greece, thought
for awhile of giving himself up to philosophy, so that he was called
Greek and Sophist in ridicule. It is not, however, to be believed that
he ever for a moment abandoned the purpose he had formed for his own
career. It will become evident as we go on with his life, that this
so-called philosophy of the Greeks was never to him a matter of more
than interesting inquiry. A full, active, human life, in which he might
achieve for himself all the charms of high rank, gilded by intelligence,
erudition, and refined luxury, in which also he might serve his country,
his order, and his friends--just such a life as our leading men propose
to themselves here, to-day, in our country--this is what Cicero had
determined to achieve from his earliest years, and it was not likely
that he should be turned from it by the pseudo logic of Greek
philosophers. That the logic even of the Academy was false to him we
have ample evidence, not only in his life but in his writings. There is
a story that, during his travels, he consulted the oracle at Delphi as
to his future career, and that on being told that he must look to his
own genius and not to the opinion of the world at large, he determined
to abandon the honors of the Republic. That he should have talked among
the young men of the day of his philosophic investigations till they
laughed at him and gave him a nickname, may be probable, but it cannot
have been that he ever thought of giving up the bar.
In the year of his return to Rome, when he was thirty, he married
Terentia, a noble lady, of whom we are informed that she had a good
fortune, and that her sister was one of the Vestal Virgins.[77] Her
nobility is inferred from the fact that the virgins were, as a rule,
chosen from the noble families, though the law required only that they
should be the daughters of free parents, and of persons engaged in no
mean pursuits. As to the more important question of Terentia's fortune
there has never been a doubt. Plutarch, however, does not make it out to
have been very great, assuming a sum which was equal to about £4200 of
our money. He tells us at the same time that Cicero's own fortune was
less than £4000. But in both of these statements, Plutarch, who was
forced to take his facts where he could get them, and was not very
particular in his authority, probably erred. The early education of
Cicero, and the care taken to provide him with all that money could
purchase, is, I think, conclusive of his father's wealth; and the mode
of life adopted by Cicero shows that at no period did he think it
necessary to live as men do live with small incomes.
We shall find, as we go on, that he spent his money freely, as men did
at Rome who had the command of large means. We are aware that he was
often in debt. We find that from his letters. But he owed money not as a
needy man does, but as one who is speculative, sanguine, and quite
confident of his own resources. The management of incomes was not so
fixed a thing then as it is with us now. Speculation was even more
rampant, and rising men were willing and were able to become indebted
for enormous sums, having no security to offer but the promise of their
future career. Cæsar's debts during various times of his life were
proverbial. He is said to have owed over £300,000 before he reached his
first step in the public employment. Cicero rushed into no such danger
as this. We know, indeed, that when the time came to him for public
expenditure on a great scale, as, for instance, when he was filling the
office of Ædile, he kept within bounds, and he did not lavish money
which he did not possess. We know also that he refrained, altogether
refrained, from the iniquitous habits of making large fortunes which
were open to the great politicians of the Republic. To be Quæstor that
he might be Ædile, Ædile that he might be Prætor and Consul, and Prætor
and Consul that he might rob a province--pillage Sicily, Spain, or Asia,
and then at last come back a rich man, rich enough to cope with all his
creditors, and to bribe the judges should he be accused for his
misdeeds--these were the usual steps to take by enterprising Romans
toward power, wealth, and enjoyment. But it will be observed, in this
sequence of circumstances, the robbery of the province was essential to
success. This was sometimes done after so magnificent a fashion as to
have become an immortal fact in history. The instance of Verres will be
narrated in the next chapter but one. Something of moderation was more
general, so that the fleeced provincial might still live, and prefer
sufferance to the doubtful chances of recovery. A Proconsul might rob a
great deal, and still return with hands apparently clean, bringing with
him a score of provincial Deputies to laud his goodness before the
citizens at home. But Cicero robbed not at all. Even they who have been
most hard upon his name, accusing him of insincerity and sometimes of
want of patriotism, because his Roman mode of declaring himself without
reserve in his letters has been perpetuated for us by the excellence of
their language, even they have acknowledged that he kept his hands
studiously clean in the service of his country, when to have clean hands
was so peculiar as to be regarded as absurd.
There were other means in which a noble Roman might make money, and
might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his
services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him,
might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have
stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very great extent. It
was illegal, such payment having been forbidden by the "Lex Cincia De
Muneribus," passed more than a century before Cicero began his
pleadings.[78] But the law had become a dead letter in the majority of
cases. There can be no doubt that Hortensius, the predecessor and great
rival of Cicero, took presents, if not absolute payment. Indeed, the
myth of honorary work, which is in itself absurd, was no more
practicable in Rome than it has been found to be in England, where every
barrister is theoretically presumed to work for nothing. That the "Lex
Cincia," as far as the payment of advocates went, was absurd, may be
allowed by us all. Services for which no regular payment can be exacted
will always cost more than those which have a defined price. But Cicero
would not break the law. It has been hinted rather than stated that he,
like other orators of the day, had his price. He himself tells us that
he took nothing; and no instance has been adduced that he had ever done
so. He is free enough in accusing Hortensius of having accepted a
beautiful statuette, an ivory sphinx of great value. What he knew of
Hortensius, Hortensius would have known of him, had it been there to
know; and what Hortensius or others had heard would certainly have been
told. As far as we can learn, there is no ground for accusing Cicero of
taking fees or presents beyond the probability that he would do so. I
think we are justified in believing that he did not do so, because those
who watched his conduct closely found no opportunity of exposing him.
That he was paid by different allied States for undertaking their
protection in the Senate, is probable, such having been a custom not
illegal. We know that he was specially charged with the affairs of
Dyrrachium, and had probably amicable relations with other allied
communities. This, however, must have been later in life, when his name
was sufficiently high to insure the value of his services, and when he
was a Senator.
Noble Romans also--noble as they were, and infinitely superior to the
little cares of trade--were accustomed to traffic very largely in usury.
We shall have a terrible example of such baseness on the part of
Brutus--that Brutus whom we have been taught to regard as almost on a
par with Cato in purity. To lend money to citizens, or more profitably
to allied States and cities, at enormous rates of interest, was the
ordinary resource of a Roman nobleman in quest of revenue. The allied
city, when absolutely eaten to the bone by one noble Roman, who had
plundered it as Proconsul or Governor, would escape from its immediate
embarrassment by borrowing money from another noble Roman, who would
then grind its very bones in exacting his interest and his principal.
Cicero, in the most perfect of his works--the treatise De Officiis, an
essay in which he instructs his son as to the way in which a man should
endeavor to live so as to be a gentleman--inveighs both against trade
and usury. When he tells us that they are to be accounted mean who buy
in order that they may sell, we, with our later lights, do not quite
agree with him, although he founds his assertion on an idea which is too
often supported by the world's practice, namely, that men cannot do a
retail business profitably without lying.[79] The doctrine, however, has
always been common that retail trade is not compatible with noble
bearing, and was practised by all Romans who aspired to be considered
among the upper classes. That other and certainly baser means of making
money by usury was, however, only too common. Crassus, the noted rich
man of Rome in Cæsar's day, who was one of the first Triumvirate, and
who perished ignominiously in Parthia, was known to have gathered much
of his wealth by such means. But against this Cicero is as staunchly
severe as against shopkeeping. "First of all," he says, "these profits
are despicable which incur the hatred of men, such as those of gatherers
of custom and lenders of money on usury."[80]
Again, we are entitled to say that Cicero did not condescend to enrich
himself by the means which he himself condemns, because, had he done so,
the accusations made against him by his contemporaries would have
reached our ears. Nor is it probable that a man in addressing his son as
to rules of life would have spoken against a method of gathering riches
which, had he practised it himself, must have been known to his son. His
rules were severe as compared with the habits of the time. His dear
friend Atticus did not so govern his conduct, or Brutus, who, when he
wrote the De Officiis, was only less dear to him than Atticus. But
Cicero himself seems to have done so faithfully. We learn from his
letter that he owned house-property in Rome to a considerable extent,
having probably thus invested his own money or that of his wife. He
inherited also the family house at Arpinum. He makes it a matter for
boasting that he had received in the course of his life by legacies
nearly £200,000 (twenty million sesterces), in itself a source of great
income, and one common with Romans of high position.[81] Of the extent
of his income it is impossible to speak, or even make a guess. But we do
know that he lived always as a rich man--as one who regards such a
condition of life as essentially proper to him; and that though he was
often in debt, as was customary with noble Romans, he could always write
about his debts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that they were not a
heavy burden to him; and we know that he could at all times command for
himself villas, books, statues, ornaments, columns, galleries, charming
shades, and all the delicious appendages of mingled wealth and
intelligence. He was as might be some English marquis, who, though up to
his eyes in mortgages, is quite sure that he will never want any of the
luxuries befitting a marquis. Though we have no authority to tell us how
his condition of life became what it was, it is necessary that we should
understand that condition if we are to get a clear insight into his
life. Of that condition we have ample evidence. He commenced his career
as a youth upon whose behalf nothing was spared, and when he settled
himself in Rome, with the purport of winning for himself the highest
honors of the Republic, he did so with the means of living like a
nobleman.
But the point on which it is most necessary to insist is this: that
while so many--I may almost say all around him in his own order--were
unscrupulous as to their means of getting money, he kept his hands
clean. The practice then was much as it is now. A gentleman in our days
is supposed to have his hands clean; but there has got abroad among us a
feeling that, only let a man rise high enough, soil will not stick to
him. To rob is base; but if you rob enough, robbery will become heroism,
or, at any rate, magnificence. With Cæsar his debts have been accounted
happy audacity; his pillage of Gaul and Spain, and of Rome also, have
indicated only the success of the great General; his cruelty, which in
cold-blooded efficiency has equalled if not exceeded the
blood-thirstiness of any other tyrant, has been called clemency.[82] I
do not mean to draw a parallel between Cæsar and Cicero. No two men
could have been more different in their natures or in their career. But
the one has been lauded because he was unscrupulous, and the other has
incurred reproach because, at every turn and twist in his life, scruples
dominated him. I do not say that he always did what he thought to be
right. A man who doubts much can never do that. The thing that was right
to him in the thinking became wrong to him in the doing. That from which
he has shrunk as evil when it was within his grasp, takes the color of
good when it has been beyond his reach. Cicero had not the stuff in him
to rule the Rome and the Romans of his period; but he was a man whose
hands were free from all stain, either of blood or money; and for so
much let him, at any rate, have the credit.
Between the return of Cicero to Rome in 77 B.C. and his election as
Quæstor in 75, in which period he married Terentia, he made various
speeches in different causes, of which only one remains to us, or
rather, a small part of one. This is notable as having been spoken in
behalf of that Roscius, the great comic actor, whose name has become
familiar to us on account of his excellence, almost as have those of
Garrick, of Siddons, and of Talma. It was a pleading as to the value of
a slave, and the amount of pecuniary responsibility attaching to Roscius
on account of the slave, who had been murdered when in his charge. As to
the murder, no question is made. The slave was valuable, and the injury
done to his master was a matter of importance. He, having been a slave,
could have no stronger a claim for an injury done to himself than would
a dog or a horse. The slave, whose name was Panurge--a name which has
since been made famous as having been borrowed by Rabelais, probably
from this occurrence, and given to his demon of mischief--showed
aptitude for acting, and was therefore valuable. Then one Flavius killed
him; why or how we do not know; and, having killed him, settled with
Roscius for the injury by giving him a small farm. But Roscius had only
borrowed or hired the man from one Chærea--or was in partnership with
Chærea as to the man--and on that account paid something out of the
value of the farm for the loss incurred; but the owner was not
satisfied, and after a lapse of time made a further claim. Hence arose
the action, in pleading which Cicero was successful. In the fragment we
have of the speech there is nothing remarkable except the studied
clearness of the language; but it reminds us of the opinion which Cicero
had expressed of this actor in the oration which he made for Publius
Quintius, who was the brother-in-law of Roscius. "He is such an actor,"
says Cicero, "that there is none other on the stage worthy to be seen;
and such a man that among men he is the last that should have become an
actor."[83] The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance.
Had not Roscius been great in his profession, his name would not have
come down to later ages. Nor is it now matter of great interest that the
actor should have been highly praised as a man by his advocate; but it
is something for us to know that the stage was generally held in such
low repute as to make it seem to be a pity that a good man should have
taken himself to such a calling.
In the year 76 B.C. Cicero became father of a daughter, whom we shall
know as Tullia--who, as she grew up, became the one person whom he loved
best in all the world--and was elected Quæstor. Cicero tells us of
himself that in the preceding year he had solicited the Quæstorship,
when Cotta was candidate for the Consulship and Hortensius for the
Prætorship. There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus--which has
had the name of Brutus always given to it--some passages in which the
orator tells us more of himself than in any other of his works. I will
annex a translation of a small portion because of its intrinsic
interest; but I will relegate it to an appendix, because it is too long
either for insertion in the text or for a note.[84]