_CICERO AS ÆDILE AND PRÆTOR._
[Sidenote: B.C. 69, ætat. 38.]
The year after the trial of Verres was that of Cicero's Ædileship. We
know but little of him in the performance of the duties of this office,
but we may gather that he performed them to the satisfaction of the
people. He did not spend much money for their amusements, although it
was the custom of Ædiles to ruin themselves in seeking popularity after
this fashion; and yet when, two years afterward, he solicited the
Prætorship from the people, he was three times elected as first Prætor
in all the comitia--three separate elections having been rendered
necessary by certain irregularities and factious difficulties. To all
the offices, one after another, he was elected in his first year--the
first year possible in accordance with his age--and was elected first in
honor, the first as Prætor, and then the first as Consul. This, no
doubt, was partly due to his compliance with those rules for canvassing
which his brother Quintus is said to have drawn out, and which I have
quoted; but it proves also the trust which was felt in him by the
people. The candidates, for the most part, were the candidates for the
aristocracy. They were put forward with the idea that thus might the
aristocratic rule of Rome be best maintained. Their elections were
carried on by bribery, and the people were for the most part indifferent
to the proceeding. Whether it might be a Verres, or an Antony, or a
Hortensius, they took the money that was going. They allowed themselves
to be delighted with the games, and they did as they were bid. But every
now and then there came up a name which stirred them, and they went to
the voting pens--ovilia--with a purpose of their own. When such a
candidate came forward, he was sure to be first. Such had been Marius,
and such had been the great Pompey, and such was Cicero. The two former
were men successful in war, who gained the voices of the people by their
victories. Cicero gained them by what he did inside the city. He could
afford not to run into debt and ruin himself during his Ædileship, as
had been common with Ædiles, because he was able to achieve his
popularity in another way. It was the chief duty of the Ædiles to look
after the town generally--to see to the temples of the gods, to take
care that houses did not tumble down, to look to the cleansing of the
streets, and to the supply of water. The markets were under them, and
the police, and the recurrent festivals. An active man, with
common-sense, such as was Cicero, no doubt did his duty as Ædile well.
He kept up his practice as an advocate during his years of office. We
have left to us the part of one speech and the whole of another spoken
during this period. The former was in favor of Fonteius, whom the Gauls
prosecuted for plundering them as Proprætor, and the latter is a civil
case on behalf of Cæcina, addressed to the "Recuperatores," as had been
that for Marcus Tullius. The speech for Fonteius is remarkable as being
as hard against the provincial Gauls as his speech against Verres had
been favorable to the Sicilians. But the Gauls were barbarians, whereas
the Sicilians were Greeks. And it should be always remembered that
Cicero spoke as an advocate, and that the praise and censure of an
advocate require to be taken with many grains of salt. Nothing that
these wretched Gauls could say against a Roman citizen ought to be
accepted in evidence! "All the Romans," he says, "who have been in the
province wish well to Fonteius. Would you rather believe these
Gauls--led by what feeling? By the opinion of men! Is the opinion, then,
of your enemies of greater weight than that of your fellow-citizens, or
is it the greater credibility of the witnesses? Would you prefer, then,
unknown men to known--dishonest men to honest--foreigners to your own
countrymen--greedy men to those who come before you for nothing--men of
no religion to those who fear the gods--those who hate the Empire and
the name of Rome to allies and citizens who are good and faithful?"[134]
In every word of this he begs the question so as to convince us that his
own case was weak; and when he makes a final appeal to the pity of the
judges we are sure that Fonteius was guilty. He tells the judges that
the poor mother of the accused man has no other support than this son,
and that there is a sister, one of the virgins devoted to the service of
Vesta, who, being a vestal virgin, cannot have sons of her own, and is
therefore entitled to have her brother preserved for her. When we read
such arguments as these, we are sure that Fonteius had misused the
Gauls. We believe that he was acquitted, because we are told that he
bought a house in Rome soon afterward; but we feel that he escaped by
the too great influence of his advocate. We are driven to doubt whether
the power over words which may be achieved by a man by means of natural
gifts, practice, and erudition, may not do evil instead of good. A man
with such a tongue as that of Cicero will make the listener believe
almost whatever he will; and the advocate is restrained by no horror of
falsehood. In his profession alone it is considered honorable to be a
bulwark to deception, and to make the worse appear the better cause.
Cicero did so when the occasion seemed to him to require it, and has
been accused of hypocrisy in consequence. There is a passage in one of
the dialogues, De Oratore, which has been continually quoted against him
because the word "fibs" has been used with approval. The orator is told
how it may become him to garnish his good story with little white
lies--"mendaciunculis."[135] The advice does not indeed refer to facts,
or to evidence, or to arguments. It goes no farther than to suggest that
amount of exaggeration which is used by every teller of a good story in
order that the story may be good. Such "mendaciuncula" are in the mouth
of every diner-out in London, and we may pity the dinner-parties at
which they are not used. Reference is made to them now because the use
of the word by Cicero, having been misunderstood by some who have
treated his name with severity, has been brought forward in proof of his
falsehood. You shall tell a story about a very little man, and say that
he is only thirty-six inches. You know very well that he is more than
four feet high. That will be a "mendaciunculum," according to Cicero.
The phrase has been passed on from one enemy to another, till the little
fibs of Cicero's recommending have been supposed to be direct lies
suggested by him to all advocates, and therefore continually used by him
as an advocate. They have been only the garnishing of his drolleries. As
an advocate, he was about as false and about as true as an advocate of
our own day.[136] That he was not paid, and that our English barristers
are paid for the work they do, makes, I think, no difference either in
the innocency or the falseness of the practice. I cannot but believe
that, hereafter, an improved tone of general feeling will forbid a man
of honor to use arguments which he thinks to be untrue, or to make
others believe that which he does not believe himself. Such is not the
state of things now in London, nor was it at Rome in Cicero's time.
There are touches of eloquence in the plea for Fonteius, but the reader
will probably agree with me that the orator was well aware that the late
governor who was on his trial had misused those unfortunate Gauls.
In the year following that of Cicero's Ædileship were written the first
of his epistles which have come to us. He was then not yet thirty-nine
years old--B.C. 68--and during that year and the next seven were written
eleven letters, all to Atticus. Those to his other friends--Ad
Familiares, as we have been accustomed to call them; Ad Diversos, they
are commonly called now--began only with the close of his consular year.
How it has come to pass that there have been preserved only those which
were written after a period of life at which most men cease to be free
correspondents, cannot be said with certainty. It has probably been
occasioned by the fact that he caused his letters to be preserved as
soon as he himself perceived how great would be their value. Of the
nature of their value it is hardly possible to speak too highly. I am
not prepared, indeed, to agree with the often quoted assertion of
Cornelius Nepos that he who has read his letters to Atticus will not
lack much of the history of those days.[137]
A man who should have read them and nothing else, even in the days of
Augustus, would not have learned much of the preceding age. But if not
for the purpose of history, the letters generally have, if read aright,
been all but enough for the purpose of biography. With a view to the
understanding of the man's character, they have, I think, been enough.
From them such a flood of light has been turned upon the writer that all
his nobility and all his defects, all his aspirations and all his
vacillations, have been made visible. We know how human he was, and how,
too, he was only human--how he sighed for great events, and allowed
himself to think sometimes that they could be accomplished by small
man[oe]uvres--how like a man he could be proud of his work and
boast--how like a man he could despair and almost die. But I wish it to
be acknowledged, by those who read his letters in order that they may
also read his character, that they were, when written, private letters,
intended to tell the truth, and that if they are to be believed in
reference to his weaknesses, they are also to be believed in reference
to his strength. If they are singularly transparent as to the
man--opening, especially to Atticus, the doors of his soul more
completely than would even any girl of the nineteenth century when
writing to her bosom friend--they must be taken as being more honestly
true. To regard the aspirations as hypocritical, and only the meaner
effusions of his mind as emblematic of the true man, is both
unreasonable and uncharitable. Nor, I think, will that reader grasp the
way to see the truth who cannot teach himself what has in Cicero's case,
been the effect of daring to tell to his friend an unvarnished tale.
When with us some poor thought does make its way across our minds, we do
not sit down and write it to another, nor, if we did, would an
immortality be awarded to the letter. If one of us were to lose his
all--as Cicero lost his all when he was sent into exile--I think it
might well be that he should for a time be unmanned; but he would either
not write, or, in writing, would hide much of his feelings. On losing
his Tullia, some father of to-day would keep it all in his heart, would
not maunder out his sorrows. Even with our truest love for our friends,
some fear is mingled which forbids the use of open words. Whether this
be for good or for evil I will not say, but it is so. Cicero, whether he
did or did not know that his letters would live, was impeded by no such
fear. He said everything that there was within him--being in this, I
should say, quite as unlike to other Romans of the day as he was to
ourselves. In the collection as it has come to us there are about fifty
letters--not from Cicero--written to Cicero by his brother, by Decimus
Brutus, by Plancus, and others. It will, I think, be admitted that their
tone is quite different from that used by himself. There are none,
indeed, from Atticus--none written under terms of such easy friendship
as prevailed when many were written by Cicero himself. It will probably
be acknowledged that his manner of throwing himself open to his
correspondent was peculiar to him. If this be so, he should surely have
the advantage as well as the disadvantage of his own mode of utterance.
The reader who allows himself to think that the true character of the
man is to be read in the little sly things he said to Atticus, but that
the nobler ideas were merely put forth to cajole the public, is as
unfair to himself as he is to Cicero.
In reading the entire correspondence--the letters from Cicero either to
Atticus or to others--it has to be remembered that in the ordinary
arrangement of them made by Grævius[138] they are often incorrectly
paced in regard to chronology. In subsequent times efforts have been
made to restore them to their proper position, and so they should be
read. The letters to Atticus and those Ad Diversos have generally been
published separately. For the ordinary purpose of literary pleasure they
may perhaps be best read in that way. The tone of them is different. The
great bulk of the correspondence is political, or quasi-political. The
manner is much more familiar, much less severe--though not on that
account indicating less seriousness--in those written to Atticus than in
the others. With one or two signal exceptions, those to Atticus are
better worth reading. The character of the writer may perhaps be best
gathered from divided perusal; but for a general understanding of the
facts of Cicero's life, the whole correspondence should be taken as it
was written. It has been published in this shape as well as in the
other, and will be used in this shape in my effort to portray the life
of him who wrote them.[139]
[Sidenote: B.C. 68, ætat. 39.]
We have three letters written when he was thirty-eight, in the year
after his Ædileship. In the first he tells his friend of the death of
his cousin, Lucius Cicero, who had travelled with him into Sicily, and
alludes to the disagreements which had taken place between Pomponia, the
sister of Atticus, and her husband, Quintus Cicero--our Cicero's
brother. Marcus, in all that he says of his brother, makes the best of
him. That Quintus was a scholar and a man of parts there can be no
doubt; one, too, who rose to high office in the Republic. But he was
arrogant, of harsh temper, cruel to those dependent on him, and
altogether unimbued with the humanity which was the peculiar
characteristic of his brother. "When I found him to be in the wrong,"
says Cicero, in his first letter, "I wrote to him as to a brother whom
I loved; but as to one younger than myself, and whom I was bound to tell
of his fault." As is usual with correspondents, half the letter is taken
up with excuses for not writing sooner; then he gives commissions for
the purchase of statues for his Tusculan villa, of which we now hear for
the first time, and tells his friend how his wife, Terentia, sends her
love, though she is suffering from the gout. Tullia also, the dear
little Tullia, "deliciæ nostræ,"[140]sends her love. In the next, he
says how a certain house which Atticus had intended to purchase had been
secured by Fonteius for 130,000 sesterces--something over £1000, taking
the sesterce at 2 _d_. This no doubt was part of the plunder which
Fonteius had taken from the Gauls. Quintus is getting on better with his
wife. Then he tells his friend very abruptly that his father died that
year on the eighth day before the kalends of December--on the 24th of
November. Some question as to the date of the old man's death had
probably been asked. He gives further commissions as to statues, and
declares of his Tusculan villa that he is happy only when he is there.
In the third letter he promises that he will be ready to pay one Cincius
£170 on a certain day, the price probably of more statues, and gives
orders to his friend as to the buying of books. "All my prospect of
enjoying myself at my ease depends on your goodness." These were the
letters he wrote when he had just ceased to be Ædile.
From the next two years five letters remain to us, chiefly noticeable
from the continued commissions given by Cicero to Atticus for statues.
Statues and more statues are wanted as ornaments for his Tusculanum.
Should there be more than are needed for that villa, he will begin to
decorate another that he has, the Formianum, near Caieta. He wants
whatever Atticus may think proper for his "palæstra" and "gymnasium."
Atticus has a library or collection of maps for sale, and Cicero engages
to buy them, though it seems that he has not at present quite got the
money. He reserves, he says, all his little comings-in,
"vindemiolas"--what he might make by selling his grapes as a lady in the
country might get a little income from her spare butter--in order that
he may have books as a resource for his old age. Again, he bids Atticus
not to be afraid but what he, Cicero, will be able to buy them some
day--which if he can do he will be richer than Crassus, and will envy no
one his mansions or his lawns. He also declares that he has betrothed
Tullia, then ten years old, to Caius Piso, son of Lucius Piso Frugi. The
proposed marriage, which after three years of betrothal was duly
solemnized, was considered to be in all respects desirable. Cicero
thought very highly of his son-in-law, who was related to Calpurnius
Piso, one of the Consuls of that year. So far everything was going well
with our orator.
[Sidenote: B.C. 67, ætat. 40.]
He was then candidate for the Prætorship, and was elected first, as has
been already said. It was in that year, too that a law was passed in
Rome, at the instance of one Gabinius, a tribune, authorizing Pompey to
exterminate the pirates in the Mediterranean, and giving him almost
unlimited power for this object. Pompey was not, indeed, named in this
law. A single general, one who had been Consul, was to be approved by
the Senate, with exclusive command by sea and for fifty miles on shore.
He was to select as his own officers a hitherto unheard-of number, all
of senatorial rank. It was well understood when the law was worded that
Pompey alone could fill the place. The Senate opposed the scheme with
all its power, although, seven years before, it had acknowledged the
necessity of some measure for extirpating the pirates. But jealousies
prevailed, and the Senate was afraid of Pompey. Gabinius, however,
carried his law by the votes of the people, and Pompey was appointed.
Nothing tells us more clearly the wretched condition of things in Rome
at this time than this infliction of pirates, under which their commerce
was almost destroyed. Sulla had re-established the outside show of a
strong government--a government which was strong enough to enable rich
men to live securely in Rome; but he had done nothing to consolidate the
Empire. Even Lucullus in the East had only partially succeeded, leaving
Mithridates still to be dealt with by Pompey. Of what nature was the
government of the provinces under Sulla's aristocracy we learn from the
trials of Verres, and of Fonteius, and of Catiline. The Mediterranean
swarmed with pirates, who taught themselves to think that they had
nothing to fear from the hands of the Romans. Plutarch declares to
us--no doubt with fair accuracy, because the description has been
admitted by subsequent writers--how great was the horror of these
depredations.[141] It is marvellous to us now that this should have been
allowed--marvellous that pirates should reach such a pitch of importance
that Verres had found it worth his while to sacrifice Roman citizens in
their place. Pompey went forth with his officers, his fleets, and his
money, and cleared the Mediterranean in forty days, as Plutarch says.
Floras tells us that not a ship was lost by the Romans, and not a pirate
left on the seas.[142]
In the history of Rome at this time we find men of mark whose
characters, as we read, become clear to us, or appear to become clear.
Of Marius and of Sulla we have a defined idea. Cæsar, with his
imperturbable courage, absence of scruples, and assurance of success,
comes home to us. Cicero, I think, we certainly may understand.
Catiline, Cato, Antony, and Brutus have left their portraits with us. Of
Pompey I must acknowledge for myself that I have but a vague conception.
His wonderful successes seem to have been produced by so very little
power of his own! He was not determined and venomous as was Marius; not
cold-blooded and ruthless as was Sulla; certainly not confident as was
Cæsar; not humane as was Cicero; not passionate as Catiline; not stoic
as was Cato; not reckless as was Antony, nor wedded to the idea of an
oligarchy as was Brutus. Success came in his way, and he found it--found
it again and again, till fortune seemed to have adopted him. Success
lifted him higher and higher, till at last it seemed to him that he must
be a Sulla whether he would or no.[143] But he could not endure the idea
of a rival Sulla. I doubt whether ambition would have prompted him to
fight for the empire of the Republic, had he not perceived that that
empire would fall into Cæsar's hands did he not grasp it himself. It
would have satisfied him to let things go, while the citizens called him
"Magnus," and regarded him as the man who could do a great thing if he
would, if only no rivalship had been forced upon him. Cæsar did force it
on him, and then, as a matter of course, he fell. He must have
understood warfare from his youth upward, knowing well the purposes of a
Roman legion and of Roman auxiliaries. He had destroyed Sertorius in
Spain, a man certainly greater than himself, and had achieved the honor
of putting an end to the Servile war when Spartacus, the leader of the
slaves and gladiators, had already been killed. He must have appreciated
at its utmost the meaning of those words, "Cives Romanus." He was a
handsome man, with good health, patient of labor, not given to luxury,
reticent, I should say ungenerous, and with a strong touch of vanity; a
man able to express but unable to feel friendship; with none of the
highest attributes of manhood, but with all the second-rate attributes
at their best; a capable, brave man, but one certain to fall crushed
beneath the heel of such a man as Cæsar, and as certain to leave such a
one as Cicero in the lurch.
It is necessary that the reader should attempt to realize to himself the
personal characteristics of Pompey, as from this time forward Cicero's
political life--and his life now became altogether political--was
governed by that of Pompey. That this was the case to a great extent is
certain--to a sad extent, I think. The two men were of the same age; but
Pompey had become a general among soldiers before Cicero had ceased to
be a pupil among advocates. As Cicero was making his way toward the
front, Pompey was already the first among Romans. He had been Consul
seven years before his proper time, and had lately, as we have seen,
been invested with extraordinary powers in that matter of putting down
the pirates. In some sort the mantle of Sulla had fallen upon him. He
was the leader of what we may call the conservative party. If, which I
doubt, the political governance of men was a matter of interest to him,
he would have had them governed by oligarchical forms. Such had been the
forms in Rome, in which, though the votes of the people were the source
of all power, the votes hardly went further than the selection of this
or that oligarch. Pompey no doubt felt the expediency of maintaining the
old order of things, in the midst of which he had been born to high
rank, and had achieved the topmost place either by fortune or by merit.
For any heartfelt conviction as to what might be best for his country or
his countrymen, in what way he might most surely use his power for the
good of the citizens generally, we must, I think, look in vain to that
Pompey whom history has handed down to us. But, of all matters which
interested Cicero, the governance of men interested him the most. How
should the great Rome of his day rise to greater power than ever, and
yet be as poor as in the days of her comparative insignificance? How
should Rome be ruled so that Romans might be the masters of the world,
in mental gifts as well as bodily strength, in arts as well as in
arms--as by valor, so by virtue? He, too, was an oligarch by strongest
conviction. His mind could conceive nothing better than Consuls,
Prætors, Censors, Tribunes, and the rest of it; with, however, the
stipulation that the Consuls and the Prætors should be honest men. The
condition was no doubt an impossible one; but this he did not or would
not see. Pompey himself was fairly honest. Up to this time he had shown
no egregious lust for personal power. His hands were clean in the midst
of so much public plunder. He was the leader of the conservative party.
The "Optimates," or "Boni," as Cicero indifferently calls them--meaning,
as we should say, the upper classes, who were minded to stand by their
order--believed in him, though they did not just at that time wish to
confide to him the power which the people gave him. The Senate did not
want another Sulla; and yet it was Sulla who had reinstated the Senate.
The Senate would have hindered Pompey, if it could, from his command
against the pirates, and again from his command against Mithridates. But
he, nevertheless, was naturally their head, as came to be seen plainly
when, seventeen years afterward, Cæsar passed the Rubicon, and Cicero in
his heart acknowledged Pompey as his political leader while Pompey
lived. This, I think, was the case to a sad extent, as Pompey was
incapable of that patriotic enthusiasm which Cicero demanded. As we go
on we shall find that the worst episodes in Cicero's political career
were created by his doubting adherence to a leader whom he bitterly felt
to be untrue to himself, and in whom his trust became weaker and weaker
to the end.
Then came Cicero's Prætorship. In the time of Cicero there were eight
Prætors, two of whom were employed in the city, and the six others in
the provinces. The "Prætor Urbanus" was confined to the city, and was
regarded as the first in authority. This was the office filled by
Cicero. His duty was to preside among the judges, and to name a judge or
judges for special causes.
[Sidenote: B.C. 66, ætat. 41.]
Cicero at this time, when he and Pompey were forty or forty-one,
believed thoroughly in Pompey. When the great General was still away,
winding up the affairs of his maritime war against the pirates, there
came up the continually pressing question of the continuation of the
Mithridatic war. Lucullus had been absent on that business nearly seven
years, and, though he had been at first grandly victorious, had failed
at last. His own soldiers, tired of their protracted absence, mutinied
against him, and Glabrio, a later Consul, who had been sent to take the
command out of his hands, had feared to encounter the difficulty. It was
essential that something should be done, and one Manilius, a Tribune, a
man of no repute himself, but whose name has descended to all posterity
in the oration Pro Lege Manilia, proposed to the people that Pompey
should have the command. Then Cicero first entered, as we may say, on
political life. Though he had been Quæstor and Ædile, and was now
Prætor, he had taken a part only in executive administration. He had had
his political ideas, and had expressed them very strongly in that matter
of the judges, which, in the condition of Rome, was certainly a
political question of great moment. But this he had done as an advocate,
and had interfered only as a barrister of to-day might do, who, in
arguing a case before the judges, should make an attack on some alleged
misuse of patronage. Now, for the first time, he made a political
harangue, addressing the people in a public meeting from the rostra.
This speech is the oration Pro Lego Manilia. This he explains in his
first words. Hitherto his addresses had been to the judges--Judices; now
it is to the people--Quirites: "Although, Quirites, no sight has ever
been so pleasant to me as that of seeing you gathered in
crowds--although this spot has always seemed to me the fittest in the
world for action and the noblest for speech--nevertheless, not my own
will, indeed, but the duties of the profession which I have followed
from my earliest years have hitherto hindered me from entering upon this
the best path to glory which is open to any good man." It is only
necessary for our purpose to say, in reference to the matter in
question, that this command was given to Pompey in opposition to the
Senate.
As to the speech itself, it requires our attention on two points. It is
one of those choice morsels of polished Latinity which have given to
Cicero the highest rank among literary men, and have, perhaps, made him
the greatest writer of prose which the world has produced. I have
sometimes attempted to make a short list of his _chefs d'[oe]uvre_--of
his tidbits, as I must say, if I am bound to express myself in English.
The list would never allow itself to be short, and so has become almost
impossible; but, whenever the attempt has been made, this short oration
in its integrity has always been included in it. My space hardly permits
me to insert specimens of the author's style, but I will give in an
appendix[144] two brief extracts as specimens of the beauty of words in
Latin. I almost fancy that if properly read they would have a grace
about them even to the ears of those to whom Latin is unknown. I venture
to attach to them in parallel columns my own translation, acknowledging
in despair how impossible I have found it to catch anything of the
rhythm of the author. As to the beauty of the language I shall probably
find no opponent. But a serious attack has been made on Cicero's
character, because it has been supposed that his excessive praise was
lavished on Pompey with a view of securing the great General's
assistance in his candidature for the Consulship. Even Middleton repeats
this accusation, and only faintly repels it. M. Du Rozoir, the French
critic, declares that "in the whole oration there is not a word which
was not dictated to Cicero the Prætor by his desire to become Consul,
and that his own elevation was in his thoughts all through, and not that
of Pompey." The matter would be one to us but of little moment, were it
not that Cicero's character for honesty as a politician depends on the
truth or falsehood of his belief in Pompey. Pompey had been almost
miraculously fortunate up to this period of his life's career. He had
done infinitely valuable service to the State. He had already crushed
the pirates. There was good ground for believing that in his hands the
Roman arms would be more efficacious against Mithridates than in those
of any other General. All that Cicero says on this head, whatever might
have been his motive for saying it, was at any rate true.
A man desirous of rising in the service of his country of course adheres
to his party. That Cicero was wrong in supposing that the Republic,
which had in fact already fallen, could be re-established by the
strength of any one man, could be bolstered up by any leader, has to be
admitted; that in trusting to Pompey as a politician he leaned on a
frail reed I admit; but I will not admit that in praising the man he was
hypocritical or unduly self-seeking. In our own political contests, when
a subordinate member of the Cabinet is zealously serviceable to his
chief, we do not accuse him of falsehood because by that zeal he has
also strengthened his own hands. How shall a patriot do the work of his
country unless he be in high place? and how shall he achieve that place
except by co-operation with those whom he trusts? They who have blamed
Cicero for speaking on behalf of Pompey on this occasion, seem to me to
ignore not only the necessities but the very virtues of political life.
One other remarkable oration Cicero made during his Prætorship--that,
namely, in defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus. As it is the longest, so
is it the most intricate, and on account of various legal points the
most difficult to follow of all his speeches. But there are none perhaps
which tell us more of the condition, or perhaps I should say the
possibilities, of life among the Romans of that day. The accusation
against Roscius Amerinus was accompanied by horrible circumstances. The
iniquities of Verres, as a public officer who had the power of blessing
or of cursing a whole people, were very terrible; but they do not shock
so much as the story here told of private life. That any man should have
lived as did Oppianicus, or any woman as did Sassia, seems to prove a
state of things worse than anything described by Juvenal a hundred and
fifty years later. Cicero was no doubt unscrupulous as an advocate, but
he could have gained nothing here by departing from verisimilitude. We
must take the picture as given us as true, and acknowledge that, though
law processes were common, crimes such as those of this man and of this
woman were not only possible, but might be perpetrated with impunity.
The story is too long and complicated to be even abridged; but it should
be read by those who wish to know the condition of life in Italy during
the latter days of the Republic.
[Sidenote: B.C. 65, ætat. 42.]
In the year after he was Prætor--in the first of the two years between
his Prætorship and Consulship, B.C. 65--he made a speech in defence of
one Caius Cornelius, as to which we hear that the pleadings in the case
occupied four days. This, with our interminable "causes célèbres," does
not seem much to us, but Cicero's own speech was so long that in
publishing it he divided it into two parts. This Cornelius had been
Tribune in the year but one before, and was accused of having misused
his power when in office. He had incurred the enmity of the aristocracy
by attempts made on the popular side to restrain the Senate; especially
by the stringency of a law proposed for stopping bribery at elections.
Cicero's speeches are not extant. We have only some hardly intelligible
fragments of them, which were preserved by Asconius,[145] a commentator
on certain of Cicero's orations; but there is ground for supposing that
these Cornelian orations were at the time matter of as great moment as
those spoken against Verres, or almost as those spoken against Catiline.
Cicero defended Cornelius, who was attacked by the Senate--by the rich
men who desired office and the government of provinces. The law proposed
for the restriction of bribery at elections no doubt attempted to do
more by the severity of its punishment than can be achieved by such
means: it was mitigated, but was still admitted by Cicero to be too
rigorous. The rancor of the Senate against Cornelius seems to have been
due to this attempt; but the illegality with which he was charged, and
for which he was tried, had reference to another law suggested by
him--for restoring to the people the right of pardon which had been
usurped by the Senate. Caius Cornelius seems to have been a man honest
and eager in his purpose to save the Republic from the greed of the
oligarchs, but--as had been the Gracchi--ready in his eagerness to push
his own authority too far in his attempt to restrain that of the Senate.
A second Tribune, in the interest of the Senate, attempted to exercise
an authority which undoubtedly belonged to him, by inhibiting the
publication or reading of the proposed law. The person whose duty it was
to read it was stopped; then Cornelius pushed aside the inferior
officer, and read it himself. There was much violence, and the men who
brought the accusation about Cornelius--two brothers named Cominii--had
to hide themselves, and saved their lives by escaping over the roofs of
the houses.
This took place when Cicero was standing for the Prætorship, and the
confusion consequent upon it was so great that it was for awhile
impossible to carry on the election. In the year after his Prætorship
Cornelius was put upon his trial, and the two speeches were made.
The matter seems to have been one of vital interest in Rome. The contest
on the part of the Senate was for all that made public life dear to such
a body. Not to bribe--not to be able to lay out money in order that
money might be returned ten-fold, a hundred-fold--would be to them to
cease to be aristocrats. The struggles made by the Gracchi, by Livius
Drusus, by others whose names would only encumber us here, by this
Cornelius, were the expiring efforts of those who really desired an
honest Republic. Such were the struggles made by Cicero himself; though
there was present always to him an idea, with which, in truth, neither
the demagogues nor the aristocrats sympathized, that the reform could be
effected, not by depriving the Senate of its power, but by teaching the
Senate to use it honestly. We can sympathize with the idea, but we are
driven to acknowledge that it was futile.
Though we know that this was so, the fragments of the speeches, though
they have been made intelligible to us by the "argument" or story of
them prefixed by Asconius in his notes, cannot be of interest to
readers. They were extant in the time of Quintilian, who speaks of them
with the highest praise.[146] Cicero himself selects certain passages
out of these speeches as examples of eloquence or rhythm,[147] thus
showing the labor with which he composed them, polishing them by the
exercise of his ear as well as by that of his intellect. We know from
Asconius that this trial was regarded at the time as one of vital
interest.
We have two letters from Cicero written in the year after his
Prætorship, both to Atticus, the first of which tells us of his probable
competition for the Consulship; the second informs his friend that a son
is born to him--he being then forty-two years old--and that he is
thinking to undertake the defence of Catiline, who was to be accused of
peculation as Proprætor in Africa. "Should he be acquitted," says
Cicero, "I should hope to have him on my side in the matter of my
canvass. If he should be convicted, I shall be able to bear that too."
There were to be six or seven candidates, of whom two, of course, would
be chosen. It would be much to Cicero "to run," as our phrase goes, with
the one who among his competitors would be the most likely to succeed.
Catiline, in spite of his then notorious character--in the teeth of the
evils of his government in Africa--was, from his birth, his connections,
and from his ability, supposed to have the best chance. It was open to
Cicero to defend Catiline as he had defended Fonteius, and we know from
his own words that he thought of doing so. But he did not; nor did
Cicero join himself with Catiline in the canvassing. It is probable that
the nature of Catiline's character and intentions were now becoming
clearer from day to day. Catiline was tried and acquitted, having, it is
said, bribed the judges.