_CICERO AS CONSUL._
Hitherto everything had succeeded with Cicero. His fortune and his fame
had gone hand-in-hand. The good-will of the citizens had been accorded
to him on all possible occasions. He had risen surely, if not quickly,
to the top of his profession, and had so placed himself there as to have
torn the wreath from the brow of his predecessor and rival, Hortensius.
On no memorable occasion had he been beaten. If now and then he had
failed to win a cause in which he was interested, it was as to some
matter in which, as he had said to Atticus in speaking of his
contemplated defence of Catiline, he was not called on to break his
heart if he were beaten. We may imagine that his life had been as happy
up to this point as a man's life may be. He had married well. Children
had been born to him, who were the source of infinite delight. He had
provided himself with houses, marbles, books, and all the intellectual
luxuries which well-used wealth could produce. Friends were thick around
him. His industry, his ability, and his honesty were acknowledged. The
citizens had given him all that it was in their power to give. Now at
the earliest possible day, with circumstances of much more than usual
honor, he was put in the highest place which his country had to offer,
and knew himself to be the one man in whom his country at this moment
trusted. Then came the one twelve-month, the apex of his fortunes; and
after that, for the twenty years that followed, there fell upon him one
misery after another--one trouble on the head of another trouble--so
cruelly that the reader, knowing the manner of the Romans, almost
wonders that he condescended to live.
[Sidenote: B.C. 64, ætat. 43.]
He was chosen Consul, we are told, not by the votes but by the unanimous
acclamation of the citizens. What was the exact manner of doing this we
can hardly now understand. The Consuls were elected by ballot, wooden
tickets having been distributed to the people for the purpose; but
Cicero tells us that no voting tickets were used in his case, but that
he was elected by the combined voice of the whole people.[148]
He had stood with six competitors. Of these it is only necessary to
mention two, as by them only was Cicero's life affected, and as out of
the six, only they seem to have come prominently forward during the
canvassing. These were Catiline the conspirator, as we shall have to
call him in dealing with his name in the next chapter, and Caius
Antonius, one of the sons of Marc Antony, the great orator of the
preceding age, and uncle of the Marc Antony with whom we are all so well
acquainted, and with whom we shall have so much to do before we get to
the end of this work. Cicero was so easily the first that it may be said
of him that he walked over the course. Whether this was achieved by the
Machiavellian arts which his brother Quintus taught in his treatise De
Petitione Consulatus, or was attributable to his general popularity, may
be a matter of doubt. As far as we can judge from the signs which remain
to us of the public feeling of the period, it seems that he was at this
time regarded with singular affection by his countrymen. He had robbed
none, and had been cruel to no one. He had already abandoned the profit
of provincial government--to which he was by custom entitled after the
lapse of his year's duty as Prætor--in order that he might remain in
Rome among the people. Though one of the Senate himself--and full of the
glory of the Senate, as he had declared plainly enough in that passage
from one of the Verrine orations which I have quoted--he had generally
pleaded on the popular side. Such was his cleverness, that even when on
the unpopular side--as he may be supposed to have been when defending
Fonteius--he had given a popular aspect to the cause in hand. We cannot
doubt, judging from the loud expression of the people's joy at his
election, that he had made himself beloved But, nevertheless, he omitted
none of those cares which it was expected that a candidate should take.
He made his electioneering speech "in toga candida"--in a white robe, as
candidates did, and were thence so called. It has not come down to us,
nor do we regret it, judging from the extracts which have been collected
from the notes which Asconius wrote upon it. It was full of personal
abuse of Antony and Catiline, his competitors. Such was the practice of
Rome at this time, as it was also with us not very long since. We shall
have more than enough of such eloquence before we have done our task.
When we come to the language in which Cicero spoke of Clodius, his
enemy, of Piso and Gabinius, the Consuls who allowed him to be banished,
and of Marc Antony, his last great opponent--the nephew of the man who
was now his colleague--we shall have very much of it. It must again be
pleaded that the foul abuse which fell from other lips has not been
preserved and that Cicero, therefore, must not be supposed to have been
more foul mouthed than his rivals. We can easily imagine that he was
more bitter than others, because he had more power to throw into his
words the meaning which he intended them to convey.
Antony was chosen as Cicero's colleague. It seems, from such evidence as
we are able to get on the subject, that Cicero trusted Antony no better
than he did Catiline, but, appreciating the wisdom of the maxim, "divide
et impera"--separate your enemies and you will get the better of them,
which was no doubt known as well then as now--he soon determined to use
Antony as his ally against Catiline, who was presumed to reckon Antony
among his fellow-conspirators. Sallust puts into the mouth of Catiline a
declaration to this effect,[149] and Cicero did use Antony for the
purpose. The story of Catiline's conspiracy is so essentially the story
of Cicero's Consulship, that I may be justified in hurrying over the
other events of his year's rule; but still there is something that must
be told. Though Catiline's conduct was under his eye during the whole
year, it was not till October that the affairs in which we shall have to
interest ourselves commenced.
Of what may have been the nature of the administrative work done by the
great Roman officers of State we know very little; perhaps I might
better say that we know nothing. Men, in their own diaries, when they
keep them, or even in their private letters, are seldom apt to say much
of those daily doings which are matter of routine to themselves, and are
by them supposed to be as little interesting to others. A Prime-minister
with us, were he as prone to reveal himself in correspondence as was
Cicero with his friend Atticus, would hardly say when he went to the
Treasury Chambers or what he did when he got there. We may imagine that
to a Cabinet Minister even a Cabinet Council would, after many sittings,
become a matter of course. A leading barrister would hardly leave behind
him a record of his work in chambers. It has thus come to pass that,
though we can picture to ourselves a Cicero before the judges, or
addressing the people from the rostra, or uttering his opinion in the
Senate, we know nothing of him as he sat in his office and did his
consular work. We cannot but suppose that there must have been an office
with many clerks. There must have been heavy daily work. The whole
operation of government was under the Consul's charge, and to Cicero,
with a Catiline on his hands, this must have been more than usually
heavy. How he did it, with what assistance, sitting at what
writing-table, dressed in what robes, with what surroundings of archives
and red tape, I cannot make manifest to myself. I can imagine that there
must have been much of dignity, as there was with all leading Romans,
but beyond that I cannot advance even in fancying what was the official
life of a Consul.
In the old days the Consul used, as a matter of course, to go out and do
the fighting. When there was an enemy here, or an enemy there, the
Consul was bound to hurry off with his army, north or south, to
different parts of Italy. But gradually this system became
impracticable. Distances became too great, as the Empire extended itself
beyond the bounds of Italy, to admit of the absence of the Consuls. Wars
prolonged themselves through many campaigns, as notably did that which
was soon to take place in Gaul under Cæsar. The Consuls remained at
home, and Generals were sent out with proconsular authority. This had
become so certainly the case, that Cicero on becoming Consul had no fear
of being called on to fight the enemies of his country. There was much
fighting then in course of being done by Pompey in the East; but this
would give but little trouble to the great officers at home, unless it
might be in sending out necessary supplies.
The Consul's work, however, was severe enough. We find from his own
words, in a letter to Atticus written in the year but one after his
Consulship, 61 B.C., that as Consul he made twelve public addresses.
Each of them must have been a work of labor, requiring a full mastery
over the subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different in
their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary speeches
to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his cases must have taken
great time. Letters went slowly and at a heavy cost. Writing must have
been tedious when that most common was done with a metal point on soft
wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case had to do much for himself.
We have heard how Cicero made his way over to Sicily, creeping in a
little boat through the dangers prepared for him, in order that he might
get up the evidence against Verres. In defending Aulus Cluentius when he
was Prætor, Cicero must have found the work to have been immense. In
preparing the attack upon Catiline it seems that every witness was
brought to himself. There were four Catiline speeches made in the year
of his Consulship, but in the same year many others were delivered by
him. He mentions, as we shall see just now, twelve various speeches made
in the year of his Consulship.
I imagine that the words spoken can in no case have been identical with
those which have come to us--which were, as we may say, prepared for the
press by Tiro, his slave and secretary. We have evidence as to some of
them, especially as to the second Catiline oration, that time did not
admit of its being written and learned by heart after the occurrence of
the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs must have been
extemporary, with such mental preparation as one night may have sufficed
to give him. How the words may have been taken down in such a case we do
not quite know; but we are aware that short-hand writers were employed,
though there can hardly have been a science of stenography perfected as
is that with us.[150] The words which we read were probably much
polished before they were published, but how far this was done we do not
know. What we do know is that the words which he spoke moved, convinced,
and charmed those who heard them, as do the words we read move, convince
and charm us. Of these twelve consular speeches Cicero gives a special
account to his friend. "I will send you," he says, "the speechlings[151]
which you require, as well as some others, seeing that those which I
have written out at the request of a few young men please you also. It
was an advantage to me here to follow the example of that fellow-citizen
of yours in those orations which he called his Philippics. In these he
brightened himself up, and discarded his 'nisi prius' way of speaking,
so that he might achieve something more dignified, something more
statesman-like. So I have done with these speeches of mine which may be
called 'consulares,'" as having been made not only in his consular year
but also with something of consular dignity. "Of these, one, on the new
land laws proposed, was spoken in the Senate on the kalends of January.
The second, on the same subject, to the people. The third was respecting
Otho's law.[152] The fourth was in defence of Rabirius.[153] The fifth
was in reference to the children of those who had lost their property
and their rank under Sulla's proscription.[154] The sixth was an address
to the people, and explained why I renounced my provincial
government.[155] The seventh drove Catiline out of the city. The eighth
was addressed to the people the day after Catiline fled. The ninth was
again spoken to the people, on the day on which the Allobroges gave
their evidence. Then, again, the tenth was addressed to the Senate on
the fifth of December"--also respecting Catiline. "There are also two
short supplementary speeches on the Agrarian war. You shall have the
whole body of them. As what I write and what I do are equally
interesting to you, you will gather from the same documents all my
doings and all my sayings."
It is not to be supposed that in this list are contained all the
speeches which he made in his consular year, but those only which he
made as Consul--those to which he was desirous of adding something of
the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond the weight attached to
his pleadings as a lawyer. As an advocate, Consul though he was, he
continued to perform his work; from whence we learn that no State
dignity was so high as to exempt an established pleader from the duty of
defending his friends. Hortensius, when Consul elect, had undertaken to
defend Verres. Cicero defended Murena when he was Consul. He defended C.
Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused, as were so many, of proconsular
extortion; but whether in this year or in the preceding is not, I think,
known.[156] Of his speech on that occasion we have nothing remaining. Of
his pleading for Murena we have, if not the whole, the material part,
and, though nobody cares very much for Murena now, the oration is very
amusing. It was made toward the end of the year, on the 20th of
November, after the second Catiline oration, and before the third, at
the very moment in which Cicero was fully occupied with the evidence on
which he intended to convict Catiline's fellow-conspirators. As I read
it I am carried away by wonder, rather than admiration, at the energy of
the man who could at such a period of his life give up his time to
master the details necessary for the trial of Murena.
Early in the year Cicero had caused a law to be passed--which, after
him, was called the Lex Tullia--increasing the stringency of the
enactments against bribery on the part of consular candidates. His
intention had probably been to hinder Catiline, who was again about to
become a candidate. But Murena, who was elected, was supposed to have
been caught in the meshes of the net, and also Silanus, the other Consul
designate. Cato, the man of stern nature, the great Stoic of the day,
was delighted to have an opportunity of proceeding against some one, and
not very sorry to attack Murena with weapons provided from the armory of
Murena's friend, Cicero. Silanus, however, who happened to be cousin to
Cato, was allowed to pass unmolested. Sulpicius, who was one of the
disappointed candidates, Cato, and Postumius were the accusers.
Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero were combined together for the defence
of Murena. But as we read the single pleading that has come to us, we
feel that, unlike those Roman trials generally, this was carried on
without any acrimony on either side. I think it must have been that Cato
wished to have an opportunity of displaying his virtue, but it had been
arranged that Murena was to be acquitted. Murena was accused, among
other things, of dancing! Greeks might dance, as we hear from Cornelius
Nepos,[157] but for a Roman Consul it would be disgraceful in the
highest extreme. A lady, indeed, might dance, but not much. Sallust
tells us of Sempronia--who was, indeed, a very bad female if all that he
says of her be true--that she danced more elegantly than became an
honest woman.[158] She was the wife of a Consul. But a male Roman of
high standing might not dance at all. Cicero defends his friend by
showing how impossible it was--how monstrous the idea. "No man would
dance unless drunk or mad." Nevertheless, I imagine that Murena had
danced.
Cicero seizes an opportunity of quizzing Cato for his stoicism, and uses
it delightfully. Horace was not more happy when, in defence of
Aristippus, he declared that any philosopher would turn up his nose at
cabbage if he could get himself asked to the tables of rich men.[159]
"There was one Zeno," Cicero says, "who laid down laws. No wise man
would forgive any fault. No man worthy of the name of man would allow
himself to be pitiful. Wise men are beautiful, even though deformed;
rich though penniless; kings though they be slaves. We who are not wise
are mere exiles, runagates, enemies of our country, and madmen. Any
fault is an unpardonable crime. To kill an old cock, if you do not want
it, is as bad as to murder your father!"[160] And these doctrines, he
goes on to say, which are used by most of us merely as something to talk
about, this man Cato absolutely believes, and tries to live by them. I
shall have to refer back to this when I speak of Cicero's philosophy
more at length; but his common-sense crops up continually in the
expressions which he uses for defending the ordinary conditions of a
man's life, in opposition to that impossible superiority to mundane
things which the philosophers professed to teach their pupils. He turns
to Cato and asks him questions, which he answers himself with his own
philosophy: "Would you pardon nothing? Well, yes; but not all things.
Would you do nothing for friendship? Sometimes, unless duty should stand
in the way. Would you never be moved to pity? I would maintain my habit
of sincerity, but something must no doubt be allowed to humanity. It is
good to stick to your opinion, but only until some better opinion shall
have prevailed with you." In all this the humanity of our Cicero, as
opposed equally to the impossible virtue of a Cato or the abominable
vice of a Verres, is in advance of his age, and reminds us of what
Christ has taught us.
But the best morsel in the whole oration is that in which he snubs the
lawyers. It must be understood that Cicero did not pride himself on
being a lawyer. He was an advocate, and if he wanted law there were
those of an inferior grade to whom he could go to get it. In truth, he
did understand the law, being a man of deep research, who inquired into
everything. As legal points had been raised, he thus addresses
Sulpicius, who seems to have affected a knowledge of jurisprudence, who
had been a candidate for the Consulship, and who was his own intimate
friend: "I must put you out of your conceit," he says; "it was your
other gifts, not a knowledge of the laws--your moderation, your wisdom,
your justice--which, in my opinion, made you worthy of being loved. I
will not say you threw away your time in studying law, but it was not
thus you made yourself worthy of the Consulship.[161] That power of
eloquence, majestic and full of dignity which has so often availed in
raising a man to the Consulship, is able by its words to move the minds
of the Senate and the people and the judges.[162] But in such a poor
science as that of law what honor can there be? Its details are taken up
with mere words and fragments of words.[163] They forget all equity in
points of law, and stick to the mere letter."[164] He goes through a
presumed scene of chicanery, which, Consul as he was, he must have acted
before the judges and the people, no doubt to the extreme delight of
them all. At last he says, "Full as I am of business, if you raise my
wrath I will make myself a lawyer, and learn it all in three days."[165]
From these and many other passages in Cicero's writings and speeches,
and also from Quintilian, we learn that a Roman advocate was by no
means the same as an English barrister. The science which he was
supposed to have learned was simply that of telling his story in
effective language. It no doubt came to pass that he had much to do in
getting up the details of his story--what we may call the evidence--but
he looked elsewhere, to men of another profession, for his law. The
"juris consultus" or the "juris peritus" was the lawyer, and as such was
regarded as being of much less importance than the "patronus" or
advocate, who stood before the whole city and pleaded the cause. In this
trial of Murena, who was by trade a soldier, it suited Cicero to
belittle lawyers and to extol the army. When he is telling Sulpicius
that it was not by being a lawyer that a man could become Consul, he
goes on to praise the high dignity of his client's profession. "The
greatest glory is achieved by those who excel in battle. All our empire,
all our republic, is defended and made strong by them."[166] It was thus
that the advocate could speak! This comes from the man who always took
glory to himself in declaring that the "toga" was superior to helmet and
shield. He had already declared that they erred who thought that they
were going to get his own private opinion in speeches made in law
courts.[167] He knew how to defend his friend Murena, who was a soldier,
and in doing so could say very sharp things, though yet in joke, against
his friend Sulpicius, the lawyer. But in truth few men understood the
Roman law better than did Cicero.
But we must go back to that agrarian law respecting which, as he tells
us, four of his consular speeches were made. This had been brought
forward by Rullus, one of the Tribunes, toward the end of the last year.
The Tribunes came into office in December, whereas at this period of the
Republic the Consuls were in power only on and from January 1st. Cicero,
who had been unable to get the particulars of the new law till it had
been proclaimed, had but a few days to master its details. It was, to
his thinking, altogether revolutionary. We have the words of many of the
clauses; and though it is difficult at this distance of time to realize
what would have been its effect, I think we are entitled to say that it
was intended to subvert all property. Property, speaking of it
generally, cannot be destroyed The land remains, and the combined
results of man's industry are too numerous, too large, and too lasting
to become a wholesale prey to man's anger or madness. Even the elements
when out of order can do but little toward perfecting destruction. A
deluge is wanted--or that crash of doom which, whether it is to come or
not, is believed by the world to be very distant. But it is within human
power to destroy possession, and redistribute the goods which industry,
avarice, or perhaps injustice has congregated. They who own property are
in these days so much stronger than those who have none, that an idea of
any such redistribution does not create much alarm among the possessors.
The spirit of communism does not prevail among people who have learned
that it is, in truth, easier to earn than to steal. But with the Romans
political economy had naturally not advanced so far as with us. A
subversion of property had to a great extent taken place no later than
in Sulla's time. How this had been effected the story of the property of
Roscius Amerinus has explained to us. Under Sulla's enactments no man
with a house, with hoarded money, with a family of slaves, with rich
ornaments, was safe. Property had been made to change hands recklessly,
ruthlessly, violently, by the illegal application of a law promulgated
by a single individual, who, however, had himself been instigated by no
other idea than that of re-establishing the political order of things
which he approved. Rullus, probably with other motives, was desirous of
effecting a subversion which, though equally great, should be made
altogether in a different direction. The ostensible purpose was
something as follows: as the Roman people had by their valor and wisdom
achieved for Rome great victories, and therefore great wealth, they, as
Roman citizens, were entitled to the enjoyment of what they had won;
whereas, in fact, the sweets of victory fell to the lot only of a few
aristocrats. For the reform of this evil it should be enacted that all
public property which had been thus acquired, whether land or chattels,
should be sold, and with the proceeds other lands should be bought fit
for the use of Roman citizens, and be given to those who would choose to
have it. It was specially suggested that the rich country called the
Campania--that in which Naples now stands with its adjacent
isles--should be bought up and given over to a great Roman colony. For
the purpose of carrying out this law ten magistrates should be
appointed, with plenipotentiary power both as to buying and selling.
There were many underplots in this. No one need sell unless he chose to
sell; but at this moment much land was held by no other title than that
of Sulla's proscriptions. The present possessors were in daily fear of
dispossession, by some new law made with the object of restoring their
property to those who had been so cruelly robbed. These would be very
glad to get any price in hand for land of which their tenure was so
doubtful; and these were the men whom the "decemviri," or ten
magistrates, would be anxious to assist. We are told that the
father-in-law of Rullus himself had made a large acquisition by his use
of Sulla's proscriptions. And then there would be the instantaneous
selling of the vast districts obtained by conquest and now held by the
Roman State. When so much land would be thrown into the market it would
be sold very cheap and would be sold to those whom the "decemviri" might
choose to favor. We can hardly now hope to unravel all the intended
details, but we may be sure that the basis on which property stood would
have been altogether changed by the measure. The "decemviri" were to
have plenary power for ten years. All the taxes in all the provinces
were to be sold, or put up to market. Everything supposed to belong to
the Roman State was to be sold in every province, for the sake of
collecting together a huge sum of money, which was to be divided in the
shape of land among the poorer Romans. Whatever may have been the
private intentions of Rullus, whether good or bad, it is evident, even
at this distance of time, that a redistribution of property was intended
which can only be described as a general subversion. To this the new
Consul opposed himself vehemently, successfully, and, we must needs say,
patriotically.
The intense interest which Cicero threw into his work is as manifest in
these agrarian orations as in those subsequently made as to the Catiline
conspiracy. He ascends in his energy to a dignity of self-praise which
induces the reader to feel that a man who could so speak of himself
without fear of contradiction had a right to assert the supremacy of his
own character and intellect. He condescends, on the other hand, to a
virulence of personal abuse against Rullus which, though it is to our
taste offensive, is, even to us, persuasive, making us feel that such a
man should not have undertaken such a work. He is describing the way in
which the bill was first introduced: "Our Tribunes at last enter upon
their office. The harangue to be made by Rullus is especially expected.
He is the projector of the law, and it was expected that he would carry
himself with an air of special audacity. When he was only Tribune elect
he began to put on a different countenance, to speak with a different
voice, to walk with a different step. We all saw how he appeared with
soiled raiment, with his person uncared for, and foul with dirt, with
his hair and beard uncombed and untrimmed."[168] In Rome men under
afflictions, particularly if under accusation, showed themselves in
soiled garments so as to attract pity, and the meaning here is that
Rullus went about as though under grief at the condition of his poor
fellow-citizens, who were distressed by the want of this agrarian law.
No description could be more likely to turn an individual into ridicule
than this of his taking upon himself to represent in his own person the
sorrows of the city. The picture of the man with the self-assumed
garments of public woe, as though he were big enough to exhibit the
grief of all Rome, could not but be effective. It has been supposed that
Cicero was insulting the Tribune because he was dirty. Not so. He was
ridiculing Rullus because Rullus had dared to go about in
mourning--"sordidatus"--on behalf of his country.
But the tone in which Cicero speaks of himself is magnificent. It is so
grand as to make us feel that a Consul of Rome, who had the cares of
Rome on his shoulders, was entitled to declare his own greatness to the
Senate and to the people. There are the two important orations--that
spoken first in the Senate, and then the speech to the people from which
I have already quoted the passage personal to Rullus. In both of them he
declares his own idea of a Consul, and of himself as Consul. He has been
speaking of the effect of the proposed law on the revenues of the State,
and then proceeds: "But I pass by what I have to say on that matter and
reserve it for the people. I speak now of the danger which menaces our
safety and our liberty. For what will there be left to us untouched in
the Republic, what will remain of your authority and freedom, when
Rullus, and those whom you fear much more than Rullus,[169] with this
band of ready knaves, with all the rascaldom of Rome, laden with gold
and silver, shall have seized on Capua and all the cities round? To all
this, Senators"--Patres conscripti he calls them--"I will oppose what
power I have. As long as I am Consul I will not suffer them to carry out
their designs against the Republic.
"But you, Rullus, and those who are with you, have been mistaken
grievously in supposing that you will be regarded as friends of the
people in your attempts to subvert the Republic in opposition to a
Consul who is known in very truth to be the people's friend I call upon
you, I invite you to meet me in the assembly. Let us have the people of
Rome as a judge between us. Let us look round and see what it is that
the people really desire. We shall find that there is nothing so dear to
them as peace and quietness and ease. You have handed over the city to
me full of anxiety, depressed with fear, disturbed by these projected
laws and seditious assemblies." (It must be remembered that he had only
on that very day begun his Consulship) "The wicked you have filled with
hope, the good with fear. You have robbed the Forum of loyalty and the
Republic of dignity. But now, when in the midst of these troubles of
mind and body, when in this great darkness the voice and the authority
of the Consul has been heard by the people--when he shall have made it
plain that there is no cause for fear, that no strange army shall enroll
itself, no bands collect themselves; that there shall be no new
colonies, no sale of the revenue, no altered empire, no royal
'decemvirs,' no second Rome, no other centre of rule but this; that while
I am Consul there shall be perfect peace, perfect ease--do you suppose
that I shall dread the superior popularity of your new agrarian law?
Shall I, do you think, be afraid to hold my own against you in an
assembly of the citizens when I shall have exposed the iniquity of your
designs, the fraud of this law, the plots which your Tribunes of the
people, popular as they think themselves, have contrived against the
Roman people? Shall I fear--I who have determined to be Consul after
that fashion in which alone a man may do so in dignity and freedom,
reaching to ask nothing for myself which any Tribune could object to
have given to me?"[170]
This was to the Senate, but he is bolder still when he addresses the
people. He begins by reminding them that it has always been the custom
of the great officers of state, who have enjoyed the right of having in
their houses the busts and images of their ancestors, in their first
speech to the people to join with thanks for the favors done to
themselves some records of the noble deeds done by their forefathers.
[171] He, however, could do nothing of the kind: he had no such right:
none in his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself might
seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful. Therefore would he
restrain himself, but would still say something, so that he might
acknowledge what he had received. Then he would leave it for them to
judge whether he had deserved what they had done for him.
"It is long ago--almost beyond the memory of us now here--since you last
made a new man Consul.[172] That high office the nobles had reserved for
themselves, and defended it, as it were, with ramparts. You have secured
it for me, so that in future it shall be open to any who may be worthy
of it. Nor have you only made me a Consul, much as that is, but you have
done so in such a fashion that but few among the old nobles have been so
treated, and no new man--'novus ante me nemo.' I have, if you will think
of it, been the only new man who has stood for the Consulship in the
first year in which it was legal, and who has got it." Then he goes on
to remind them, in words which I have quoted before, that they had
elected him by their unanimous voices. All this, he says, had been very
grateful to him, but he had quite understood that it had been done that
he might labor on their behalf. That such labor was severe, he declares.
The Consulship itself must be defended. His period of Consulship to any
Consul must be a year of grave responsibility, but more so to him than
to any other. To him, should he be in doubt, the great nobles would give
no kind advice. To him, should he be overtasked, they would give no
assistance. But the first thing he would look for should be their good
opinion. To declare now, before the people, that he would exercise his
office for the good of the people was his natural duty. But in that
place, in which it was difficult to speak after such a fashion, in the
Senate itself, on the very first day of his Consulship, he had declared
the same thing--"popularem me futurum esse consulem."[173]
The course he had to pursue was noble, but very difficult. He desired,
certainly, to be recognized as a friend of the people, but he desired so
to befriend them that he might support also at the same time the power
of the aristocracy. He still believed, as we cannot believe now, that
there was a residuum of good in the Senate sufficient to blossom forth
into new powers of honest government. When speaking to the oligarchs in
the Senate of Rullus and his land law, it was easy enough to carry them
with him. That a Consul should oppose a Tribune who was coming forward
with a "Lex agraria" in his hands, as the latest disciple of the
Gracchi, was not out of the common order of things. Another Consul would
either have looked for popularity and increased power of plundering, as
Antony might have done, or have stuck to his order, as he would have
called it--as might have been the case with the Cottas, Lepiduses and
Pisos of preceding years. But Cicero determined to oppose the demagogue
Tribune by proving himself to the people to be more of a demagogue than
he. He succeeded, and Rullus with his agrarian law was sent back into
darkness. I regard the second speech against Rullus as the _ne plus
ultra_, the very _beau ideal_ of a political harangue to the people on
the side of order and good government.
I cannot finish this chapter, in which I have attempted to describe the
lesser operations of Cicero's Consulship, without again alluding to the
picture drawn by Virgil of a great man quelling the storms of a
seditious rising by the gravity of his presence and the weight of his
words.[174] The poet surely had in his memory some occasion in which had
taken place this great triumph of character and intellect combined. When
the knights, during Cicero's Consulship essayed to take their privileged
places in the public theatre, in accordance with a law passed by Roscius
Otho a few years earlier (B.C. 68), the founder of the obnoxious law
himself entered the building. The people, enraged against a man who had
interfered with them and their pleasures, and who had brought them, as
it were under new restraints from the aristocracy, arose in a body and
began to break everything that came to hand. "Tum pietate gravem!" The
Consul was sent for. He called on the people to follow him out of the
theatre to the Temple of Bellona, and there addressed to them that
wonderful oration by which they were sent away not only pacified but in
good-humor with Otho himself. "Iste regit dictis animos et pectora
mulcet." I have spoken of Pliny's eulogy as to the great Consul's doings
of the year. The passage is short and I will translate it:[175] "But,
Marcus Tullius, how shall I reconcile it to myself to be silent as to
you, or by what special glory shall I best declare your excellence? How
better than by referring to the grand testimony given to you by the
whole nation, and to the achievements of your Consulship as a specimen
of your entire life? At your voice the tribes gave up their agrarian
law, which was as the very bread in their mouths. At your persuasion
they pardoned Otho his law and bore with good-humor the difference of
the seats assigned to them. At your prayer the children of the
proscribed forbore from demanding their rights of citizenship. Catiline
was put to flight by your skill and eloquence. It was you who
silenced[176] M. Antony. Hail, thou who wert first addressed as the
father of your country--the first who, in the garb of peace, hast
deserved a triumph and won the laurel wreath of eloquence." This was
grand praise to be spoken of a man more than a hundred years after his
death, by one who had no peculiar sympathies with him other than those
created by literary affinity.
None of Cicero's letters have come to us from the year of his
Consulship.