_CICERO AFTER HIS CONSULSHIP._
The idea that the great Consul had done illegally in putting citizens to
death was not allowed to lie dormant even for a day. It must be
remembered that a decree of the Senate had no power as a law. The laws
could be altered, or even a new law made, only by the people. Such was
the constitution of the Republic. Further on, when Cicero will appeal
as, in fact, on trial for the offence so alleged to have been committed,
I shall have to discuss the matter; but the point was raised against
him, even in the moment of his triumph, as he was leaving the
Consulship. The reiteration of his self-praise had created for him many
enemies. It had turned friends against him, and had driven men even of
his own party to ask themselves whether all this virtue was to be
endured. When a man assumes to be more just than his neighbors there
will be many ways found of throwing in a shell against him. It was
customary for a Consul when he vacated his office to make some
valedictory speech. Cicero was probably expected to take full advantage
of the opportunity. From other words which have come from him, on other
occasions but on the same subject, it would not be difficult to compose
such a speech as he might have spoken. But there were those who were
already sick of hearing him say that Rome had been saved by his
intelligence and courage. We can imagine what Cæsar might have said
among his friends of the expediency of putting down this self-laudatory
Consul. As it was, Metellus Nepos, one of the Tribunes, forbade the
retiring officer to do more than take the oath usual on leaving office,
because he had illegally inflicted death upon Roman citizens. Metellus,
as Tribune, had the power of stopping any official proceeding. We hear
from Cicero himself that he was quite equal to the occasion. He swore,
on the spur of the moment, a solemn oath, not in accordance with the
form common to Consuls on leaving office, but to the effect that during
his Consulship Rome had been saved by his work alone.[212] We have the
story only as it is told by Cicero himself, who avers that the people
accepted the oath as sworn with exceeding praise.[213] That it was so we
may, I think, take as true. There can be no doubt as to Cicero's
popularity at this moment, and hardly a doubt also as to the fact that
Metellus was acting in agreement with Cæsar, and also in accord with the
understood feelings of Pompey, who was absent with his army in the East.
This Tribune had been till lately an officer under Pompey, and went into
office together with Cæsar, who in that year became Prætor. This,
probably, was the beginning of the party which two years afterward
formed the first Triumvirate, B.C. 60. It was certainly now, in the year
succeeding the Consulship of Cicero, that Cæsar, as Prætor, began his
great career.
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]
It becomes manifest to us, as we read the history of the time, that the
Dictator of the future was gradually entertaining the idea that the old
forms of the Republic were rotten, and that any man who intended to
exercise power in Rome or within the Roman Empire must obtain it and
keep it by illegal means. He had probably adhered to Catiline's first
conspiracy, but only with such moderate adhesion as enabled him to
withdraw when he found that his companions were not fit for the work. It
is manifest that he sympathized with the later conspiracy, though it may
be doubted whether he himself had ever been a party to it. When the
conspiracy had been crushed by Cicero, he had given his full assent to
the crushing of it. We have seen how loudly he condemned the wickedness
of the conspirators in his endeavor to save their lives. But, through it
all, there was a well-grounded conviction in his mind that Cicero, with
all his virtues, was not practical. Not that Cicero was to him the same
as Cato, who with his Stoic grandiloquence must, to his thinking, have
been altogether useless. Cicero, though too virtuous for supreme rule,
too virtuous to seize power and hold it, too virtuous to despise as
effete the institutions of the Republic, was still a man so gifted, and
capable in so many things, as to be very great as an assistant, if he
would only condescend to assist. It is in this light that Cæsar seems to
have regarded Cicero as time went on; admiring him, liking him, willing
to act with him if it might be possible, but not the less determined to
put down all the attempts at patriotic republican virtue in which the
orator delighted to indulge. Mr. Forsyth expresses an opinion that
Cæsar, till he crossed the Rubicon after his ten years' fighting in
Gaul, had entertained no settled plan of overthrowing the Constitution.
Probably not; nor even then. It may be doubted whether Cæsar ever spoke
to himself of overthrowing the Constitution. He came gradually to see
that power and wealth were to be obtained by violent action, and only by
violent action. He had before him the examples of Marius and Sulla, both
of whom had enjoyed power and had died in their beds. There was the
example, also, of others who, walking unwarily in those perilous times,
had been banished as was Verres, or killed as was Catiline. We can
easily understand that he, with his great genius, should have
acknowledged the need both of courage and caution. Both were exercised
when he consented to be absent from Rome, and almost from Italy, during
the ten years of the Gallic wars. But this, I think, is certain, that
from the time in which his name appears prominent--from the period,
namely, of the Catiline conspiracy--he had determined not to overthrow
the Constitution, but so to carry himself, amid the great affairs of the
day, as not to be overthrown himself.
Of what nature was the intercourse between him and Pompey when Pompey
was still absent in the East we do not know; but we can hardly doubt
that some understanding had begun to exist. Of this Cicero was probably
aware. Pompey was the man whom Cicero chose to regard as his
party-leader, not having himself been inured to the actual politics of
Rome early enough in life to put himself forward as the leader of his
party. It had been necessary for him, as a "novus homo," to come forward
and work as an advocate, and then as an administrative officer of the
State, before he took up with politics. That this was so I have shown by
quoting the opening words of his speech Pro Lege Manilia. Proud as he
was of the doings of his Consulship, he was still too new to his work to
think that thus he could claim to stand first. Nor did his ambition lead
him in that direction. He desired personal praise rather than personal
power. When in the last Catiline oration to the people he speaks of the
great men of the Republic--of the two Scipios, and of Paulus Æmilius and
of Marius--he adds the name of Pompey to these names; or gives, rather,
to Pompey greater glory than to any of them; "Anteponatur omnibus
Pompeius." This was but a few days before Metellus as Tribune had
stopped him in his speech--at the instigation, probably, of Cæsar, and
in furtherance of Pompey's views. Pompey and Cæsar could agree, at any
rate, in this--that they did not want such a one as Cicero to interfere
with them.
All of which Cicero himself perceived. The specially rich province of
Macedonia, which would have been his had he chosen to take it on
quitting the Consulship, he made over to Antony--no doubt as a bribe, as
with us one statesman may resign a special office to another to keep
that other from kicking over the traces. Then Gaul became his province,
as allotted--Cisalpine Gaul, as northern Italy was then called; a
province less rich in plunder and pay than Macedonia. But Cicero wanted
no province, and had contrived that this should be confided to Metellus
Celer, the brother of Nepos, who, having been Prætor when he himself was
Consul, was entitled to a government. This too was a political bribe. If
courtesy to Cæsar, if provinces given up here and there to Antonys and
Metelluses, if flattery lavished on Pompey could avail anything, he
could not afford to dispense with such aids. It all availed nothing.
From this time forward, for the twenty years which were to run before
his death, his life was one always of trouble and doubt, often of
despair, and on many occasions of actual misery. The source of this was
that Pompey whom, with divine attributes, he had extolled above all
other Romans.
The first extant letter written by Cicero after his Consulship was
addressed to Pompey.[214] Pompey was still in the East, but had
completed his campaigns against Mithridates successfully. Cicero begins
by congratulating him, as though to do so were the purpose of his
letter. Then he tells the victorious General that there were some in
Rome not so well pleased as he was at these victories. It is supposed
that he alluded here to Cæsar; but, if so, he probably misunderstood the
alliance which was already being formed between Cæsar and Pompey. After
that comes the real object of the epistle. He had received letters from
Pompey congratulating him in very cold language as to the glories of his
Consulship. He had expected much more than that from the friend for whom
he had done so much. Still, he thanks his friend, explaining that the
satisfaction really necessary to him was the feeling that he had behaved
well to his friend. If his friend were less friendly to him in return,
then would the balance of friendship be on his side. If Pompey were not
bound to him, Cicero, by personal gratitude, still would he be bound by
necessary co-operation in the service of the Republic. But, lest Pompey
should misunderstand him, he declares that he had expected warmer
language in reference to his Consulship, which he believes to have been
withheld by Pompey lest offence should be given to some third person. By
this he means Cæsar, and those who were now joining themselves to Cæsar.
Then he goes on to warn him as to the future: "Nevertheless, when you
return, you will find that my actions have been of such a nature that,
even though you may loom larger than Scipio, I shall be found worthy to
be accepted as your Lælius."[215]
Infinite care had been given to the writing of this letter, and sharp
had been the heart-burnings which dictated it. It was only by asserting
that he, on his own part, was satisfied with his own fidelity as a
friend, that Cicero could express his dissatisfaction at Pompey's
coldness. It was only by continuing to lavish upon Pompey such flattery
as was contained in the reference to Scipio, in which a touch of subtle
irony is mixed with the flattery, that he could explain the nature of
the praise which had, he thought, been due to himself. There is
something that would have been abject in the nature of these
expressions, had it not been Roman in the excess of the adulation. But
there is courage in the letter, too, when he tells his correspondent
what he believes to have been the cause of the coldness of which he
complains: "Quod verere ne cujus animum offenderes"--"Because you fear
lest you should give offence to some one." But let me tell you, he goes
on to say, that my Consulship has been of such a nature that you,
Scipio, as you are, must admit me as your friend.
In these words we find a key to the whole of Cicero's connection with
the man whom he recognizes as his political leader. He was always
dissatisfied with Pompey; always accusing Pompey in his heart of
ingratitude and insincerity; frequently speaking to Atticus with bitter
truth of the man's selfishness and incapacity, even of his cruelty and
want of patriotism; nicknaming him because of his absurdities; declaring
of him that he was minded to be a second Sulla; but still clinging to
him as the political friend and leader whom he was bound to follow. In
their earlier years, when he could have known personally but little of
Pompey, because Pompey was generally absent from Rome, he had taken it
into his head to love the man. He had been called "Magnus;" he had been
made Consul long before the proper time; he had been successful on
behalf of the Republic, and so far patriotic. He had hitherto adhered to
the fame of the Republic. At any rate, Cicero had accepted him, and
could never afterward bring himself to be disloyal to the leader with
whom he had professed to act. But the feeling evinced in this letter was
carried on to the end. He had been, he was, he would be, true to his
political connection with Pompey; but of Pompey's personal character to
himself he had nothing but complaints to make.
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]
We have two other letters written by Cicero in this year, the first of
which is in answer to one from Metellus Celer to him, also extant.
Metellus wrote to complain of the ill-treatment which he thought he had
received from Cicero in the Senate, and from the Senate generally.
Cicero writes back at much greater length to defend himself, and to
prove that he had behaved as a most obliging friend to his
correspondent, though he had received a gross affront from his
correspondent's brother Nepos. Nepos had prevented him in that matter of
the speech. It is hardly necessary to go into the question of this
quarrel, except in so far as it may show how the feeling which led to
Cicero's exile was growing up among many of the aristocracy in Rome.
There was a counterplot going on at the moment--a plot on the behalf of
the aristocracy for bringing back Pompey to Rome, not only with glory
but with power, probably originating in a feeling that Pompey would be a
more congenial master than Cicero. It was suggested that as Pompey had
been found good in all State emergencies--for putting down the pirates,
for instance, and for conquering Mithridates--he would be the man to
contend in arms with Catiline. Catiline was killed before the matter
could be brought to an issue, but still the conspiracy went on, based on
the jealousy which was felt in regard to Cicero. This man, who had
declared so often that he had served his country, and who really had
crushed the Catilinarians by his industry and readiness, might, after
all, be coming forward as another Sulla, and looking to make himself
master by dint of his virtues and his eloquence. The hopelessness of the
condition of the Republic may be recognized in the increasing
conspiracies which were hatched on every side. Metellus Nepos was sent
home from Asia in aid of the conspiracy, and got himself made Tribune,
and stopped Cicero's speech. In conjunction with Cæsar, who was Prætor,
he proposed his new law for the calling of Pompey to their aid. Then
there was a fracas between him and Cæsar on the one side and Cato on the
other, in which Cato at last was so far victorious that both Cæsar and
Metellus were stopped in the performance of their official duties. Cæsar
was soon reinstated, but Metellus Nepos returned to Pompey in the East,
and nothing came of the conspiracy. It is only noticed here as evidence
of the feeling which existed as to Cicero in Rome, and as explaining the
irritation on both sides indicated in the correspondence between Cicero
and Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos,[216] whom Cicero had procured
the government of Gaul.
The third letter from Cicero in this year was to Sextius, who was then
acting as Quæstor--or Proquæstor, as Cicero calls him--with Antony as
Proconsul in Macedonia. It is specially interesting as telling us that
the writer had just completed the purchase of a house in Rome from
Crassus for a sum amounting to about £30,000 of our money. There was
probably no private mansion in Rome of greater pretension. It had been
owned by Livius Drusus, the Tribune--a man of colossal fortune, as we
are told by Mommsen--who was murdered at the door of it thirty years
before. It afterward passed into the hands of Crassus the rich, and now
became the property of Cicero. We shall hear how it was destroyed during
his exile, and how fraudulently made over to the gods, and then how
restored to Cicero, and how rebuilt at the public expense. The history
of the house has been so well written that we know even the names of
Cicero's two successors in it, Censorinus and Statilius.[217]
It is interesting to know the sort of house which Cicero felt to be
suitable to his circumstances, for by that we may guess what his
circumstances were. In making this purchase he is supposed to have
abandoned the family house in which his father had lived next door to
the new mansion, and to have given it up to his brother. Hence we may
argue that he had conceived himself to have risen in worldly
circumstances. Nevertheless, we are informed by himself in this letter
to Sextius that he had to borrow money for the occasion--so much so
that, being a man now indebted, he might be supposed to be ripe for any
conspiracy. Hence has come to us a story through Aulus Gellius, the
compiler of anecdotes, to the effect that Cicero was fain to borrow this
money from a client whose cause he undertook in requital for the favor
so conferred. Aulus Gellius collected his stories two centuries
afterward for the amusement of his children, and has never been regarded
as an authority in matters for which confirmation has been wanting.
There is no allusion to such borrowing from a client made by any
contemporary. In this letter to Sextius, in which he speaks jokingly of
his indebtedness, he declares that he has been able to borrow any amount
he wanted at six per cent--twelve being the ordinary rate--and gives as
a reason for this the position which he has achieved by his services to
the State. Very much has been said of the story, as though the purchaser
of the house had done something of which he ought to have been ashamed,
but this seems to have sprung entirely from the idea that a man who, in
the midst of such wealth as prevailed at Rome, had practised so widely
and so successfully the invaluable profession of an advocate, must
surely have taken money for his services. He himself has asserted that
he took none, and all the evidence that we have goes to show that he
spoke the truth. Had he taken money, even as a loan, we should have
heard of it from nearer witnesses than Aulus Gellius, if, as Aulus
Gellius tells us, it had become known at the time. But because he tells
his friend that he has borrowed money for the purpose, he is supposed to
have borrowed it in a disgraceful manner! It will be found that all the
stones most injurious to Cicero's reputation have been produced in the
same manner. His own words have been misinterpreted--either the purport
of them, if spoken in earnest, or their bearing, if spoken in joke--and
then accusations have been founded on them.[218]
Another charge of dishonest practice was about this time made against
Cicero without a grain of evidence, though indeed the accusations so
made, and insisted upon, apparently from a feeling that Cicero cannot
surely have been altogether clean when all others were so dirty, are too
numerous to receive from each reader's judgment that indignant denial to
which each is entitled. The biographer cannot but fear that when so much
mud has been thrown some will stick, and therefore almost hesitates to
tell of the mud, believing that no stain of this kind has been in truth
deserved.
It seems that Antony, Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who became
Proconsul in Macedonia, had undertaken to pay some money to Cicero. Why
the money was to be paid we do not know, but there are allusions in
Cicero's letters to Atticus to one Teucris (a Trojan woman), and it
seems that Antony was designated by the nickname. Teucris is very slow
at paying his money, and Cicero is in want of it. But perhaps it will be
as well not to push the matter. He, Antony, is to be tried for
provincial peculation, and Cicero declares that the case is so bad that
he cannot defend his late colleague. Hence have arisen two different
suspicions: one that Antony had agreed to make over to Cicero a share of
the Macedonian plunder in requital of Cicero's courtesy in giving up the
province which had been allotted to himself; the second, that Antony was
to pay Cicero for defending him. As to the former, Cicero himself
alludes to such a report as being common in Macedonia, and as having
been used by Antony himself as an excuse for increased rapine. But this
has been felt to be incredible, and has been allowed to fall to the
ground because of the second accusation. But in support of that there is
no word of evidence,[219] whereas the tenor of the story as told by
Cicero himself is against it. Is it likely, would it be possible, that
Cicero should have begun his letter to Atticus by complaining that he
could not get from Antony money wanted for a peculiar purpose--it was
wanted for his new house--and have gone on in the same letter to say
that this might be as well, after all, as he did not intend to perform
the service for which the money was to be paid? The reader will remember
that the accusation is based solely on Cicero's own statement that
Antony was negligent in paying to him money that had been promised. In
all these accusations the evidence against Cicero, such as it is, is
brought exclusively from Cicero's own words. Cicero did afterward defend
this Antony, as we learn from his speech Pro Domo Suâ; but his change of
purpose in that respect has nothing to do with the argument.
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, ætat. 45.]
We have two speeches extant made this year: one on behalf of P. Sulla,
nephew to the Dictator; the other for Archias the Greek scholar and
poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of
Rome. I have already given an extract from this letter, as showing the
charm of words with which Cicero could recommend the pursuit of
literature to his hearers. The whole oration is a beautiful morsel of
Latinity, in which, however, strength of argument is lacking. Cicero
declares of Archias that he was so eminent in literature that, if not a
Roman citizen, he ought to be made one. The result is not known, but the
literary world believes that the citizenship was accorded to him.[220]
The speech on behalf of Sulla was more important, but still not of much
importance. This Sulla, as may be remembered, had been chosen as Consul
with Autronius, two years before the Consulship of Cicero, and he had
then after his election been deposed for bribery, as had also Autronius.
L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus had been elected in their
places. It has also been already explained that the two rejected Consuls
had on this account joined Catiline in his first conspiracy. There can
be no doubt that whether as Consuls or as rejected Consuls, and on that
account conspirators, their purpose was to use their position as
aristocrats for robbing the State. They were of the number of those to
whom no other purpose was any longer possible. Then there came
Catiline's second conspiracy--the conspiracy which Cicero had
crushed--and there naturally rose the question whether from time to time
this or the other noble Roman should not be accused of having joined it.
Many noble Romans had no doubt joined besides those who had fallen
fighting, or who had been executed in the dungeons. Accusations became
very rife. One Vettius accused Cæsar, the Prætor; but Cæsar, with that
potentiality which was peculiar to him, caused Vettius to be put into
prison instead of going to prison himself. Many were convicted and
banished; among them Porcius Læca, Vargunteius, Servius Sulla, the
brother of him of whom we are now speaking, and Autronius his colleague.
In the trial of these men Cicero took no part. He was specially invited
by Autronius, who was an old school-fellow, to defend him, but he
refused; indeed, he gave evidence against Autronius at the trial. But
this Publius Sulla he did defend, and defended successfully. He was
joined in the case with Hortensius, and declared that as to the matter
of the former conspiracy he left all that to his learned friend, who was
concerned with political matters of that date.[221] He, Cicero, had
known nothing about them. The part of the oration which most interests
us is that in which he defends himself from the accusations somewhat
unwisely made against himself personally by young Torquatus, the son of
him who had been raised to the Consulship in the place of P. Sulla.
Torquatus had called him a foreigner because he was a "novus homo," and
had come from the municipality of Arpinum, and had taunted him with
being a king, because he had usurped authority over life and death in
regard to Lentulus and the other conspirators. He answers this very
finely, and does so without an ill-natured word to young Torquatus,
whom, from respect to his father, he desires to spare. "Do not," he
says, "in future call me a foreigner, lest you be answered with
severity, nor a king, lest you be laughed at--unless, indeed, you think
it king-like so to live as to be a slave not only to no man but to no
evil passion; unless you think it be king-like to despise all lusts, to
thirst for neither gold nor silver nor goods, to express yourself freely
in the Senate, to think more of services due to the people than of
favors won from them, to yield to none, and to stand firm against many.
If this be king-like, then I confess that I am a king." Sulla was
acquitted, but the impartial reader will not the less feel sure that he
had been part and parcel with Catiline in the conspiracy. It is trusted
that the impartial reader will also remember how many honest, loyal
gentlemen have in our own days undertaken the causes of those whom they
have known to be rebels, and have saved those rebels by their ingenuity
and eloquence.
At the end of this year, B.C. 62, there occurred a fracas in Rome which
was of itself but of little consequence to Rome, and would have been of
none to Cicero but that circumstances grew out of it which created for
him the bitterest enemy he had yet encountered, and led to his sorest
trouble. This was the affair of Clodius and of the mysteries of the Bona
Dea, and I should be disposed to say that it was the greatest misfortune
of his life, were it not that the wretched results which sprung from it
would have been made to spring from some other source had that source
not sufficed. I shall have to tell how it came to pass that Cicero was
sent into exile by means of the misconduct of Clodius; but I shall have
to show also that the misconduct of Clodius was but the tool which was
used by those who were desirous of ridding themselves of the presence of
Cicero.
This Clodius, a young man of noble family and of debauched manners, as
was usual with young men of noble families, dressed himself up as a
woman, and made his way in among the ladies as they were performing
certain religious rites in honor of the Bona Dea, or Goddess Cybele, a
matron goddess so chaste in her manners that no male was admitted into
her presence. It was specially understood that nothing appertaining to a
man was to be seen on the occasion, not even the portrait of one; and it
may possibly have been the case that Clodius effected his entrance among
the worshipping matrons on this occasion simply because his doing so was
an outrage, and therefore exciting. Another reason was alleged. The
rites in question were annually held, now in the house of this matron
and then of that, and during the occasion the very master of the house
was excluded from his own premises. They were now being performed under
the auspices of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, the daughter of one
Quintus Pompeius, and it was alleged that Clodius came among the women
worshippers for the sake of carrying on an intrigue with Cæsar's wife.
This was highly improbable, as Mr. Forsyth has pointed out to us, and
the idea was possibly used simply as an excuse to Cæsar for divorcing a
wife of whom he was weary. At any rate, when the scandal got abroad, he
did divorce Pompeia, alleging that it did not suit Cæsar to have his
wife suspected.
[Sidenote: B.C. 61, ætat. 46.]
The story became known through the city, and early in January Cicero
wrote to Atticus, telling him the facts: "You have probably heard that
Publius Clodius, the son of Appius, has been taken dressed in a woman's
clothes in the house of Caius Cæsar, where sacrifice was being made for
the people, and that he escaped by the aid of a female slave. You will
be sorry to hear that it has given rise to a great scandal."[222] A few
days afterward Cicero speaks of it again to Atticus at greater length,
and we learn that the matter had been taken up by the magistrates with
the view of punishing Clodius. Cicero writes without any strong feeling
of his own, explaining to his friend that he had been at first a very
Lycurgus in the affair, but that he is now tamed down.[223] Then there
is a third letter in which Cicero is indignant because certain men of
whom he disapproves, the Consul Piso among the number[224] are anxious
to save this wicked young nobleman from the punishment due to him;
whereas others of whom he approves Cato among the number, are desirous
of seeing justice done. But it was no affair special to Cicero. Shortly
afterward he writes again to Atticus as to the result of the trial--for
a trial did take place--and explains to his friend how justice had
failed. Atticus had asked him how it had come to pass that he, Cicero,
had not exerted himself as he usually did.[225] This letter, though
there is matter enough in it of a serious kind, yet jests with the
Clodian affair so continually as to make us feel that he attributed no
importance to it as regarded himself. He had exerted himself till
Hortensius made a mistake as to the selection of the judges. After that
he had himself given evidence. An attempt was made to prove an alibi,
but Cicero came forward to swear that he had seen Clodius on the very
day in question. There had, too, been an exchange of repartee in the
Senate between himself and Clodius after the acquittal, of which he
gives the details to his correspondent with considerable
self-satisfaction. The passage does not enhance our idea of the dignity
of the Senate, or of the power of Roman raillery. It was known that
Clodius had been saved by the wholesale bribery of a large number of the
judges. There had been twenty-five for condemning against thirty-one for
acquittal.[226] Cicero in the Catiline affair had used a phrase with
frequency by which he boasted that he had "found out" this and "found
out" that--"comperisse omnia." Clodius, in the discussion before the
trial, throws this in his teeth: "Comperisse omnia criminabatur." This
gave rise to ill-feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonor
done to the Bona Dea. As for that, we may say that he and the Senate and
the judges cared personally very little, although there was no doubt a
feeling that it was wise to awe men's minds by the preservation of
religious respect. Cicero had cared but little about the trial; but as
he had been able to give evidence he had appeared as a witness, and
enmity sprung from the words which were spoken both on one side and on
the other. Clodius was acquitted, which concerns us not at all, and
concerns Rome very little; but things had so come to pass at the trial
that Cicero had been very bitter, and that Clodius had become his enemy.
When a man was wanted, three years afterward, to take the lead in
persecuting Cicero, Clodius was ready for the occasion.
While the expediency of putting Clodius on his trial was being
discussed, Pompey had returned from the East, and taken up his residence
outside the city, because he was awaiting his triumph. The General, to
whom it was given to march through the city with triumphal glory, was
bound to make his first entrance after his victories with all his
triumphal appendages, as though he was at that moment returning from the
war with all his warlike spoils around him. The usage had obtained the
strength of law, but the General was not on that account debarred from
city employment during the interval. The city must be taken out to him
instead of his coming into the city. Pompey was so great on his return
from his Mithridatic victories that the Senate went out to sit with him
in the suburbs, as he could not sit with it within the walls. We find
him taking part in these Clodian discussions. Cicero at once writes of
him to Athens with evident dissatisfaction. When questioned about
Clodius, Pompey had answered with the grand air of aristocrat. Crassus
on this occasion, between whom and Cicero there was never much
friendship, took occasion to belaud the late great Consul on account of
his Catiline successes. Pompey, we are told, did not bear this
well.[227] Crassus had probably intended to produce some such effect.
Then Cicero had spoken in answer to the remarks of Crassus, very glibly,
no doubt, and had done his best to "show off" before Pompey, his new
listener.[228] More than six years had passed since Pompey could have
heard him, and then Cicero's voice had not become potential in the
Senate. Cicero had praised Pompey with all the eloquence in his power.
"Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius," he had said, in the last Catiline
oration to the Senate; and Pompey, though he had not heard the words
spoken, knew very well what had been said. Such oratory was never lost
upon those whom it most concerned the orator to make acquainted with it.
But in return for all this praise, for that Manilian oration which had
helped to send him to the East, for continual loyalty, Pompey had
replied to Cicero with coldness. He would now let Pompey know what was
his standing in Rome. "If ever," he says to Atticus, "I was strong with
my grand rhythm, with my quick rhetorical passages, with enthusiasm, and
with logic, I was so now. Oh, the noise that I made on the occasion! You
know what my voice can do. I need say no more about it, as surely you
must have heard me away there in Epirus." The reader, I trust, will have
already a sufficiently vivid idea of Cicero's character to understand
the mingling of triumph and badinage, with a spark of disappointment,
which is here expressed. "This Pompey, though I have so true to him, has
not thought much of me--of me, the great Consul who saved Rome! He has
now heard what even Crassus has been forced to say about me. He shall
hear me too, me myself, and perhaps he will then know better." It was
thus that Cicero's mind was at work while he was turning his loud
periods. Pompey was sitting next to him listening, by no means admiring
his admirer as that admirer expected to be admired. Cicero had probably
said to himself that they two together, Pompey and Cicero, might suffice
to preserve the Republic. Pompey, not thinking much of the Republic, was
probably telling himself that he wanted no brother near the throne. When
of two men the first thinks himself equal to the second, the second will
generally feel himself to be superior to the first. Pompey would have
liked Cicero better if his periods had not been so round nor his voice
so powerful. Not that Pompey was distinctly desirous of any throne. His
position at the moment was peculiar. He had brought back his victorious
army from the East to Brundisium, and had then disbanded his legions. I
will quote here the opening words from one of Mommsen's chapters:[229]
"When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed to his
charge, again turned his eyes toward home, he found, for the second
time, the diadem at his feet." He says farther on, explaining why Pompey
did not lift the diadem: "The very peculiar temperament of Pompeius
naturally turned once more the scale. He was one of those men who are
capable, it may be, of a crime, but not of insubordination." And again:
"While in the capital all was preparation for receiving the new monarch,
news came that Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, had broken up
his legions, and with a small escort had entered his journey to the
capital. If it is a piece of good-fortune to gain a crown without
trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did for Pompeius; but
on those who lack courage the gods lavish every favor and every gift in
vain." I must say here that, while I acknowledge the German historian's
research and knowledge without any reserve, I cannot accept his
deductions as to character. I do not believe that Pompey found any
diadem at his feet, or thought of any diadem, nor, according to my
reading of Roman history, had Marius or had Sulla; nor did Cæsar. The
first who thought of that perpetual rule--a rule to be perpetuated
during the ruler's life, and to be handed down to his successors--was
Augustus. Marius, violent, self-seeking, and uncontrollable, had tumbled
into supreme power; and, had he not died, would have held it as long as
he could, because it pleased his ambition for the moment. Sulla, with a
purpose, had seized it, yet seems never to have got beyond the old Roman
idea of a temporary Dictatorship. The old Roman horror of a king was
present to these Romans, even after they had become kings. Pompey, no
doubt, liked to be first, and when he came back from the East thought
that by his deeds he was first, easily first. Whether Consul year after
year, as Marius had been, or Dictator, as Sulla had been, or Imperator,
with a running command over all the Romans, it was his idea still to
adhere to the forms of the Republic. Mommsen, foreseeing--if an
historian can be said to foresee the future from his standing-point in
the past--that a master was to come for the Roman Empire, and giving all
his sympathies to the Cæsarean idea, despises Pompey because Pompey
would not pick up the diadem. No such idea ever entered Pompey's head.
After a while he "Sullaturized"--was desirous of copying Sulla--to use
an excellent word which Cicero coined. When he was successfully opposed
by those whom he had thought inferior to himself, when he found that
Cæsar had got the better of him, and that a stronger body of Romans went
with Cæsar than with him, then proscriptions, murder, confiscations, and
the seizing of dictatorial power presented themselves to his angry mind,
but of permanent despotic power there was, I think, no thought, nor, as
far as I can read the records, had such an idea been fixed in Cæsar's
bosom. To carry on the old trade of Prætor, Consul, Proconsul, and
Imperator, so as to get what he could of power and wealth and dignity in
the scramble, was, I think, Cæsar's purpose. The rest grew upon him. As
Shakspeare, sitting down to write a play that might serve his theatre,
composed some Lear or Tempest--that has lived and will live forever,
because of the genius which was unknown to himself--so did Cæsar, by his
genius, find his way to a power which he had not premeditated. A much
longer time is necessary for eradicating an idea from men's minds than a
fact from their practice. This should be proved to us by our own loyalty
to the word "monarch," when nothing can be farther removed from a
monarchy than our own commonwealth. From those first breaches in
republican practice which the historian Florus dates back to the siege
of Numantia,[230] B.C. 133, down far into the reign of Augustus, it took
a century and a quarter to make the people understand that there was no
longer a republican form of government, and to produce a leader who
could himself see that there was room for a despot.
Pompey had his triumph; but the same aristocratic airs which had annoyed
Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honors. Only two days
were allowed for his processions. He was irritated, jealous, and no
doubt desirous of making his power felt; but he thought of no diadem.
Cæsar saw it all; and he thought of that conspiracy which we have since
called the First Triumvirate.
[Sidenote: B.C. 62, 61, ætat. 45, 46.]
The two years to which this chapter has been given were uneventful in
Cicero's life, and produced but little of that stock of literature by
which he has been made one of mankind's prime favorites. Two discourses
were written and published, and probably spoken, which are now
lost--that, namely, to the people against Metellus, in which, no doubt,
he put forth all that he had intended to say when Metellus stopped him
from speaking at the expiration of his Consulship; the second, against
Clodius and Curio, in the Senate, in reference to the discreditable
Clodian affair. The fragments which we have of this contain those
asperities which he retailed afterward in his letter to Atticus, and are
not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from these fragments
that Clodius was already preparing that scheme for entering the
Tribunate by an illegal repudiation of his own family rank, which he
afterward carried out, to the great detriment of Cicero's happiness. Of
the speeches extant on behalf of Archias and P. Sulla I have spoken
already. We know of no others made during this period. We have one
letter besides this to Atticus, addressed to Antony, his former
colleague, which, like many of his letters, was written solely for the
sake of popularity.
During these years he lived no doubt splendidly as one of the great men
of the greatest city in the world. He had his magnificent new mansion in
Rome, and his various villas, which were already becoming noted for
their elegance and charms of upholstery and scenic beauty. Not only had
he climbed to the top of official life himself, but had succeeded in
taking his brother Quintus up with him. In the second of the two years,
B.C. 61, Quintus had been sent out as Governor or Proprætor to Asia,
having then nothing higher to reach than the Consulship, which, however,
he never attained. This step in the life of Quintus has become famous by
a letter which the elder brother wrote to him in the second year of his
office, to which reference will be made in the next chapter.
So far all things seemed to have gone well with Cicero. He was high in
esteem and authority, powerful, rich, and with many people popular. But
the student of his life now begins to see that troubles are enveloping
him. He had risen too high not to encounter envy, and had been too loud
in his own praise not to make those who envied him very bitter in their
malice.