_THE TRIUMVIRATE._
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]
I know of no great fact in history so impalpable, so shadowy, so unreal,
as the First Triumvirate. Every school-boy, almost every school-girl,
knows that there was a First Triumvirate, and that it was a political
combination made by three great Romans of the day, Julius Cæsar, Pompey
the Great, and Crassus the Rich, for managing Rome among them. Beyond
this they know little, because there is little to know. That it was a
conspiracy against the ordained government of the day, as much so as
that of Catiline, or Guy Faux, or Napoleon III., they do not know
generally, because Cæsar, who, though the youngest of the three, was the
mainspring of it, rose by means of it to such a galaxy of glory that all
the steps by which he rose to it have been supposed to be magnificent
and heroic. But of the method in which this Triumvirate was constructed,
who has an idea? How was it first suggested, where, and by whom? What
was it that the conspirators combined to do? There was no purpose of
wholesale murder like that of Catiline for destroying the Senate, and of
Guy Faux for blowing up the House of Lords. There was no plot arranged
for silencing a body of legislators like that of Napoleon. In these
scrambles that are going on every year for place and power, for
provinces and plunder, let us help each other. If we can manage to stick
fast by each other, we can get all the power and nearly all the plunder.
That, said with a wink by one of the Triumvirate--Cæsar, let us say--and
assented to with a nod by Pompey and Crassus, was sufficient for the
construction of such a conspiracy as that which I presume to have been
hatched when the First Triumvirate was formed.[231] Mommsen, who never
speaks of a Triumvirate under that name, except in his index,[232] where
he has permitted the word to appear for the guidance of persons less
well instructed than himself, connects the transaction which we call the
First Triumvirate with a former coalition, which he describes as having
been made in (B.C. 71) the year before the Consulship of Pompey and
Crassus. With that we need not concern ourselves as we are dealing with
the life of Cicero rather than with Roman history, except to say that
Cæsar, who was the motive power of the second coalition, could have had
no personal hand in that of 71. Though he had spent his early years in
"harassing the aristocracy," as Dean Merivale tells us, he had not been
of sufficient standing in men's minds to be put on a par with Pompey and
Crassus. When this First Triumvirate was formed, as the modern world
generally calls it, or the second coalition between the democracy and
the great military leaders, as Mommsen with greater, but not with
perfect, accuracy describes it, Cæsar no doubt had at his fingers' ends
the history of past years. "The idea naturally occurred," says Mommsen,
"whether * * * an alliance firmly based on mutual advantage might not be
established between the democrats, with their ally, Crassus, on the one
side, and Pompeius and the great capitalists on the other. For Pompeius
such a coalition was certainly a political suicide."[233] The democracy
here means Cæsar. Cæsar during his whole life had been learning that no
good could come to any one from an effete Senate, or from republican
forms which had lost all their salt. Democracy was in vogue with him;
not, as I think, from any philanthropic desire for equality; not from
any far-seeing view of fraternal citizenship under one great paternal
lord--the study of politics had never then reached to that height--but
because it was necessary that some one, or perhaps some two or three,
should prevail in the coming struggle, and because he felt himself to be
more worthy than others. He had no conscience in the matter. Money was
to him nothing. Another man's money was the same as his own--or better,
if he could get hold of it. That doctrine taught by Cicero that men are
"ad justitiam natos" must have been to him simply absurd. Blood was to
him nothing. A friend was better than a foe, and a live man than a dead.
Blood-thirstiness was a passion unknown to him; but that tenderness
which with us creates a horror of blood was equally unknown. Pleasure
was sweet to him; but he was man enough to feel that a life of pleasure
was contemptible. To pillage a city, to pilfer his all from a rich man,
to debauch a friend's wife, to give over a multitude of women and
children to slaughter, was as easy to him as to forgive an enemy. But
nothing rankled with him, and he could forgive an enemy. Of courage he
had that better sort which can appreciate and calculate danger, and then
act as though there were none. Nothing was wrong to him but what was
injudicious. He could flatter, cajole, lie, deceive, and rob; nay, would
think it folly not to do so if to do so were expedient.[234] In this
coalition he appears as supporting and supported by the people.
Therefore Mommsen speaks of him as "the democrat." Crassus is called the
ally of the democrats. It will be enough for us here to know that
Crassus had achieved his position in the Senate by his enormous wealth,
and that it was because of his wealth, which was essential to Cæsar,
that he was admitted into the league. By means of his wealth he had
risen to power and had conquered and killed Spartacus, of the honor and
glory of which Pompey robbed him. Then he had been made Consul. When
Cæsar had gone as Proprætor to Spain, Crassus had found the money. Now
Cæsar had come back, and was hand and glove with Crassus. When the
division of the spoil came, some years afterward--the spoil won by the
Triumvirate--when Cæsar had half perfected his grand achievements in
Gaul, and Crassus had as yet been only a second time Consul, he got
himself to be sent into Syria, that by conquering the Parthians he might
make himself equal to Cæsar. We know how he and his son perished there,
each of them probably avoiding the last extremity of misery to a
Roman--that of falling into the hands of a barbarian enemy--by
destroying himself. Than the life of Crassus nothing could be more
contemptible; than the death nothing more pitiable. "For Pompeius," says
Mommsen, "such a coalition was certainly a political suicide." As events
turned out it became so, because Cæsar was the stronger man of the two;
but it is intelligible that at that time Pompey should have felt that he
could not lord it over the Senate, as he wished to do, without aid from
the democratic party. He had no well-defined views, but he wished to be
the first man in Rome. He regarded himself as still greatly superior to
Cæsar, who as yet had been no more than Prætor, and at this time was
being balked of his triumph because he could not at one and the same
moment be in the city, as candidate for the Consulship, and out of the
city waiting for his triumph. Pompey had triumphed three times, had been
Consul at an unnaturally early age with abnormal honors, had been
victorious east and west, and was called "Magnus." He did not as yet
fear to be overshadowed by Cæsar.[235] Cicero was his bugbear.
Mommsen I believe to be right in eschewing the word "Triumvirate." I
know no mention of it by any Roman writer as applied to this conspiracy,
though Tacitus, Suetonius, and Florus call by that name the later
coalition of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus. The Langhornes, in
translating Plutarch's life of Crassus, speak of the Triumvirate; but
Plutarch himself says that Cæsar combined "an impregnable stronghold" by
joining the three men.[236] Paterculus and Suetonius[237] explain very
clearly the nature of the compact, but do not use the term. There was
nothing in the conspiracy entitling it to any official appellation,
though, as there were three leading conspirators, that which has been
used has been so far appropriate.
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]
Cicero was the bugbear to them all. That he might have been one of them,
if ready to share the plunder and the power, no reader of the history of
the time can doubt. Had he so chosen he might again have been a "real
power in the State;" but to become so in the way proposed to him it was
necessary that he should join others in a conspiracy against the
Republic.
I do not wish it to be supposed that Cicero received the overtures made
to him with horror. Conspiracies were too common for horror; and these
conspirators were all our Cicero's friends in one sense, though in
another they might be his opponents. We may imagine that at first
Crassus had nothing to do with the matter, and that Pompey would fain
have stood aloof in his jealousy. But Cæsar knew that it was well to
have Cicero, if Cicero was to be had. It was not only his eloquence
which was marvellously powerful, or his energy which had been shown to
be indomitable: there was his character, surpassed by that of no Roman
living; if only, in giving them the use of his character, he could be
got to disregard the honor and the justice and the patriotism on which
his character had been founded. How valuable may character be made, if
it can be employed under such conditions! To be believed because of your
truth, and yet to lie; to be trusted for your honesty, and yet to cheat;
to have credit for patriotism, and yet to sell your country! The
temptations to do this are rarely put before a man plainly, in all their
naked ugliness. They certainly were not so presented to Cicero by Cæsar
and his associates. The bait was held out to him, as it is daily to
others, in a form not repellent, with words fitted to deceive and
powerful almost to persuade. Give us the advantage of your character,
and then by your means we shall be able to save our country. Though our
line of action may not be strictly constitutional, if you will look into
it you will see that it is expedient. What other course is there? How
else shall any wreck of the Republic be preserved? Would you be another
Cato, useless and impractical? Join us, and save Rome to some purpose.
We can understand that in such way was the lure held out to Cicero, as
it has been to many a politician since. But when the politician takes
the office offered to him--and the pay, though it be but that of a Lord
of the Treasury--he must vote with his party.
That Cicero doubted much whether he would or would not at this time
throw in his lot with Cæsar and Pompey is certain. To be of real
use--not to be impractical, as was Cato--to save his country and rise
honestly in power and glory--not to be too straitlaced, not
over-scrupulous--giving and taking a little, so that he might work to
good purpose with others in harness--that was his idea of duty as a
Roman. To serve in accord with Pompey was the first dream of his
political life, and now Pompey was in accord with Cæsar. It was natural
that he should doubt--natural that he should express his doubts. Who
should receive them but Atticus, that "alter ego?" Cicero doubted
whether he should cling to Pompey--as he did in every phase of his
political life, till Pompey had perished at the mouth of the Nile. But
at last he saw his way clear to honesty, as I think he always did. He
tells his friend that Cæsar had sent his confidential messenger, Balbus,
to sound him. The present question is whether he shall resist a certain
agrarian law of which he does not approve, but which is supported by
both Pompey and Cæsar, or retire from the contest and enjoy himself at
his country villas, or boldly stay at Rome and oppose the law. Cæsar
assures him that if he will come over to them, Cæsar will be always true
to him and Pompey, and will do his best to bring Crassus into the same
frame of mind. Then he reckons up all the good things which would accrue
to him: "Closest friendship with Pompey--with Cæsar also, should he wish
it; the making up of all quarrels with his enemies; popularity with the
people; ease for his old age, which was coming on him. But that
conclusion moves me to which I came in my third book."[238] Then he
repeats the lines given in the note below, which he had written,
probably this very year, in a poem composed in honor of his own
Consulship. The lines are not in themselves grand, but the spirit of
them is magnificent: "Stick to the good cause which in your early youth
you chose for yourself, and be true to the party you have made your
own." "Should I doubt when the muse herself has so written," he says,
alluding to the name of Calliope, given to this third book of his. Then
he adds a line of Homer, very excellent for the occasion:[239] "No
augury for the future can be better for you than that which bids you
serve your country." "But," he says, "we will talk of all that when you
come to me for the holidays. Your bath shall be ready for you: your
sister and mother shall be of the party." And so the doubts are settled.
Now came on the question of the Tribuneship of Clodius, in reference to
which I will quote a passage out of Middleton, because the phrase which
he uses exactly explains the purposes of Cæsar and Pompey.
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]
"Clodius, who had been contriving all this while how to revenge himself
on Cicero, began now to give an opening to the scheme which he had
formed for that purpose. His project was to get himself chosen Tribune,
and in that office to drive him out of the city, by the publication of a
law which, by some stratagem or other, he hoped to obtrude on the
people. But as all Patricians were incapable of the Tribunate, by its
original institution so his first step was to make himself a Plebeian by
the pretence of an adoption into a Plebeian house, which could not yet
be done without the suffrage of the people. This case was wholly new,
and contrary to all the forms--wanting every condition, and serving none
of the ends which were required in regular adoptions--so that, on the
first proposal, it seemed too extravagant to be treated seriously, and
would soon have been hissed off with scorn, had it not been concerted
and privately supported by persons of much more weight than Clodius.
Cæsar was at the bottom of it, and Pompey secretly favored it--not that
they intended to ruin Cicero, but to keep him only under the lash--and
if they could not draw him into their measures, to make him at least sit
quiet, and let Clodius loose upon him."[240]
This, no doubt, was the intention of the political leaders in Rome at
this conjunction of affairs. It had been found impossible to draw Cicero
gently into the net, so that he should become one of them. If he would
live quietly at his Antian or Tusculan villa, amid his books and
writings, he should be treated with all respect; he should be borne
with, even though he talked so much of his own Consulate. But if he
would interfere with the politics of the day, and would not come into
the net, then he must be dealt with. Cæsar seems to have respected
Cicero always, and even to have liked him; but he was not minded to put
up with a "friend" in Rome who from day to day abused all his projects.
In defending Antony, the Macedonian Proconsul who was condemned, Cicero
made some unpleasant remarks on the then condition of things. Cæsar, we
are told, when he heard of this, on the very spur of the moment, caused
Clodius to be accepted as a Plebeian.
In all this we are reminded of the absolute truth of Mommsen's verdict
on Rome, which I have already quoted more than once: "On the Roman
oligarchy of this period no judgment can be passed, save one of
inexorable and remorseless condemnation." How had it come to pass that
Cæsar had the power of suddenly causing an edict to become law, whether
for good or for evil? Cicero's description of what took place is as
follows:[241] "About the sixth hour of the day, when I was defending my
colleague Antony in court, I took occasion to complain of certain things
which were being done in the Republic, and which I thought to be
injurious to my poor client. Some dishonest persons carried my words to
men in power"--meaning Cæsar and Pompey--"not, indeed, my own words, but
words very different from mine. At the ninth hour on that very same day,
you, Clodius, were accepted as a Plebeian." Cæsar, having been given to
understand that Cicero had been making himself disagreeable, was
determined not to put up with it. Suetonius tells the same story with
admirable simplicity. Of Suetonius it must be said that, if he had no
sympathy for a patriot such as Cicero, neither had he any desire to
represent in rosy colors the despotism of a Cæsar. He tells his stories
simply as he has heard them. "Cicero," says Suetonius,[242] "having at
some trial complained of the state of the times, Cæsar, on the very same
day, at the ninth hour, passed Clodius over from the Patrician to the
Plebeian rank, in accordance with his own desire." How did it come to
pass that Cæsar, who, though Consul at the time, had no recognized power
of that nature, was efficacious for any such work as this? Because the
Republic had come to the condition which the German historian has
described. The conspiracy between Cæsar and his subordinates had not
been made for nothing.
The reader will require to know why Clodius should have desired
degradation, and how it came to pass that this degradation should have
been fatal to Cicero. The story has been partly told in the passage from
Middleton. A Patrician, in accordance with the constitution, could not
be a Tribune of the people. From the commencement of the Tribunate, that
office had been reserved for the Plebeians. But a Tribune had a power of
introducing laws which exceeded that of any Senator or any other
official. "They had acquired the right," we are told in Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, "of proposing to the comitia
tributa, or to the Senate, measures on nearly all the important affairs
of the State;" and as matters stood at this time, no one Tribune could
"veto" or put an arbitrary stop to a proposition from another. When such
proposition was made, it was simply for the people to decide by their
votes whether it should or should not be law. The present object was to
have a proposition made and carried suddenly, in reference to Cicero,
which should have, at any rate, the effect of stopping his mouth. This
could be best done by a Tribune of the people. No other adequate Tribune
could be found--no Plebeian so incensed against Cicero as to be willing
to do this, possessing at the same time power enough to be elected.
Therefore it was that Clodius was so anxious to be degraded.
No Patrician could become a Tribune of the people; but a Patrician might
be adopted by a Plebeian, and the adopted child would take the rank of
his father--would, in fact, for all legal purposes, be the same as a
son. For doing this in any case a law had to be passed--or, in other
words, the assent of the people must be obtained and registered. But
many conditions were necessary. The father intending to adopt must have
no living son of his own, and must be past the time of life at which he
might naturally hope to have one; and the adopted son must be of a
fitting age to personate a son--at any rate, must be younger than the
father; nothing must be done injurious to either family; there must be
no trick in it, no looking after other result than that plainly
intended. All these conditions were broken. The pretended father,
Fonteius, had a family of his own, and was younger than Clodius. The
great Claudian family was desecrated, and there was no one so ignorant
as not to know that the purpose intended was that of entering the
Tribunate by a fraud. It was required by the general law that the Sacred
College should report as to the proper observances of the prescribed
regulations, but no priest was ever consulted. Yet Clodius was adopted,
made a Plebeian, and in the course of the year elected as Tribune.
In reading all this, the reader is mainly struck by the wonderful
admixture of lawlessness and law-abiding steadfastness. If Cæsar, who
was already becoming a tyrant in his Consulship, chose to make use of
this means of silencing Cicero, why not force Clodius into the Tribunate
without so false and degrading a ceremony? But if, as was no doubt the
case, he was not yet strong enough to ignore the old popular feelings on
the subject, how was it that he was able to laugh in his sleeve at the
laws, and to come forth at a moment's notice and cause the people to
vote, legally or illegally, just as he pleased? It requires no conjurer
to tell us the reason. The outside hulls and husks remain when the rich
fruit has gone. It was in seeing this, and yet not quite believing that
it must be so, that the agony of Cicero's life consisted. There could
have been no hope for freedom, no hope for the Republic, when Rome had
been governed as it was during the Consulship of Cæsar; but Cicero could
still hope, though faintly, and still buoy himself up with remembrances
of his own year of office.
In carrying on the story of the newly-adopted child to his election as
Tribune, I have gone beyond the time of my narration, so that the reader
may understand the cause and nature and effect of the anger which
Clodius entertained for Cicero. This originated in the bitter words
spoken as to the profanation of the Bona Dea, and led to the means for
achieving Cicero's exile and other untoward passages of his life. In the
year 60 B.C., when Metellus Celer and Afranius were Consuls, Clodius was
tried for insulting the Bona Dea, and the since so-called Triumvirate
was instituted. It has already been shown that Cicero, not without many
doubts, rejected the first offers which were made to him to join the
forces that were so united. He seems to have passed the greater portion
of this year in Rome. One letter only was written from the country, to
Atticus, from his Tusculan villa, and that is of no special moment. He
spent his time in the city, still engaged in the politics of the day; as
to which, though he dreaded the coming together of Cæsar and Pompey and
Crassus--those "graves principum amicitias" which were to become so
detrimental to all who were concerned in them--he foresaw as yet but
little of the evil which was to fall upon his own head. He was by no
means idle as to literature, though we have but little of what he wrote,
and do not regret what we have lost. He composed a memoir of his
Consulate in Greek, which he sent to Atticus with an allusion to his own
use of the foreign language intended to show that he is quite at ease in
that matter. Atticus had sent him a memoir, also written in Greek, on
the same subject, and the two packets had crossed each other on the
road. He candidly tells Atticus that his attempt seems to be "horridula
atque incompta," rough and unpolished; whereas Posidonius, the great
Greek critic of Rhodes who had been invited by him, Cicero, to read the
memoir, and then himself to treat the same subject, had replied that he
was altogether debarred from such an attempt by the excellence of his
correspondent's performance.[244] He also wrote three books of a poem on
his Consulate, and sent them to Atticus; of which we have a fragment of
seventy-five lines quoted by himself,[243] and four or five other lines
including that unfortunate verse handed down by Quintilian, "O
fortunatum natam me consule Romam"--unless, indeed, it be spurious, as
is suggested by that excellent critic and whole-hearted friend of the
orator's, M. Guéroult. Previous to these he had produced in hexameters,
also, a translation of the Prognostics of Aratus. This is the second
part of a poem on the heavenly bodies, the first part, the Phænomena,
having been turned into Latin verse by him when he was eighteen. Of the
Prognostics we have only a few lines preserved by Priscian, and a
passage repeated by the author, also in his De Divinatione. I think that
Cicero was capable of producing a poem quite worthy of preservation; but
in the work of this year the subjects chosen were not alluring.
[Sidenote: B.C. 60, ætat. 47.]
Among his epistles of the year there is one which might of itself have
sufficed to bring down his name to posterity. This is a long letter,
full of advice, to his brother Quintus, who had gone out in the previous
year to govern the province of Asia as Proprætor. We may say that good
advice could never have been more wanted, and that better advice could
not have been given. It has been suggested that it was written as a
companion to that treatise on the duties of a candidate which Quintus
composed for his brother's service when standing for his Consulship. But
I cannot admit the analogy. The composition attributed to Quintus
contained lessons of advice equally suitable to any candidate, sprung
from the people, striving to rise to high honors in the State. This
letter is adapted not only to the special position of Quintus, but to
the peculiarities of his character, and its strength lies in this: that
while the one brother praises the other, justly praises him, as I
believe, for many virtues, so as to make the receipt of it acceptable,
it points out faults--faults which will become fatal, if not amended--in
language which is not only strong but unanswerable.
The style of this letter is undoubtedly very different from that of
Cicero's letters generally--so as to suggest to the reader that it must
have been composed expressly for publication whereas the daily
correspondence is written "currente calamo," with no other than the
immediate idea of amusing, instructing, or perhaps comforting the
correspondent. Hence has come the comparison between this and the
treatise De Petitione Consulatus. I think that the gravity of the
occasion, rather than any regard for posterity, produced the change of
style. Cicero found it to be essential to induce his brother to remain
at his post, not to throw up his government in disgust, and so to bear
himself that he should not make himself absolutely odious to his own
staff and to other Romans around him; for Quintus Cicero, though he had
been proud and arrogant and ill tempered, had not made himself notorious
by the ordinary Roman propensity to plunder his province "What is it
that is required of you as a governor?"[245] asks Cicero. "That men
should not be frightened by your journeys hither and thither--that they
should not be eaten up by your extravagance--that they should not be
disturbed by your coming among them--that there should be joy at your
approach; when each city should think that its guardian angel, not a
cruel master, had come upon it--when each house should feel that it
entertained not a robber but a friend. Practice has made you perfect in
this. But it is not enough that you should exercise those good offices
yourself, but that you should take care that every one of those who come
with you should seem to do his best for the inhabitants of the province,
for the citizen of Rome, and for the Republic." I wish that I could give
the letter entire--both in English, that all readers might know how
grand are the precepts taught, and in Latin, that they who understand
the language might appreciate the beauty of the words--but I do not dare
to fill my pages at such length. A little farther on he gives his idea
of the duty of all those who have power over others--even over the dumb
animals.[246] "To me it seems that the duty of those in authority over
others consists in making those who are under them as happy as the
nature of things will allow. Every one knows that you have acted on this
principle since you first went to Asia." This, I fear, must be taken as
flattery, intended to gild the pill which comes afterward "This is not
only his duty who has under him allies and citizens, but is also that of
the man who has slaves under his control, and even dumb cattle, that he
should study the welfare of all over whom he stands in the position of
master!" Let the reader look into this, and ask himself what precepts of
Christianity have ever surpassed it.
Then he points out that which he describes as the one great difficulty
in the career of a Roman Provincial Governor.[247] The collectors of
taxes, or "publicani," were of the equestrian order. This business of
farming the taxes had been their rich privilege for at any rate more
than a century, and as Cicero says, farther on in his letter, it was
impossible not to know with what hardship the Greek allies would be
treated by them when so many stories were current of their cruelty even
in Italy. Were Quintus to take a part against these tax-gatherers, he
would make them hostile not only to the Republic but to himself also,
and also to his brother Marcus; for they were of the equestrian order,
and specially connected with these "publicani" by family ties. He
implies, as he goes on, that it will be easier to teach the Greeks to be
submissive than the tax-gatherers to be moderate. After all, where would
the Greeks of Asia be if they had no Roman master to afford them
protection? He leaves the matter in the hands of his brother, with
advice that he should do the best he can on one side and on the other.
If possible, let the greed of the "publicani" be restrained; but let the
ally be taught to understand that there may be usage in the world worse
even than Roman taxation. It would be hardly worth our while to allude
to this part of Cicero's advice, did it not give an insight into the
mode in which Rome taxed her subject people.
After this he commences that portion of the letter for the sake of which
we cannot but believe that the whole was written. "There is one thing,"
he says, "which I will never cease to din into your ears, because I
could not endure to think that, amid the praises which are lavished on
you, there should be any matter in which you should be found wanting.
All who come to us here"--all who come to Rome from Asia, that is--"when
they tell us of your honesty and goodness of heart, tell us also that
you fail in temper. It is a vice which, in the daily affairs of private
life, betokens a weak and unmanly spirit; but there can be nothing so
poor as the exhibition of the littleness of nature in those who have
risen to the dignity of command." He will not, he goes on to say,
trouble his brother with repeating all that the wise men have said on
the subject of anger; he is sure that Quintus is well acquainted with
all that. But is it not a pity, when all men say that nothing could be
pleasanter than Quintus Cicero when in a good-humor, the same Quintus
should allow himself to be so provoked that his want of kindly manners
should be regretted by all around him? "I cannot assert," he goes on to
say, "that when nature has produced a certain condition of mind, and
that years as they run on have strengthened it, a man can change all
that and pluck out from his very self the habits that have grown within
him; yet I must tell you that if you cannot eschew this evil
altogether--if you cannot protect yourself against the feeling of anger,
yet you should prepare yourself to be ready for it when it comes, so
that, when your very soul within you is hot with it, your tongue, at any
rate, may be restrained." Then toward the end of the letter there is a
fraternal exhortation which is surely very fine: "Since chance has
thrown into my way the duties of official life in Rome, and into yours
that of administrating provincial government, if I, in the performance
of my work, have been second to none, do you see that you in yours may
be equally efficient." How grand, from an elder brother to a younger!
"And remember this, that you and I have not to strive after some
excellence still unattained, but have to be on our watch to guard that
which has been already won. If I should find myself in anything divided
from you, I should desire no further advance in life. Unless your deeds
and your words go on all-fours with mine, I should feel that I had
achieved nothing by all the work and all the dangers which you and I
have encountered together." The brother at last was found to be a poor,
envious, ill-conditioned creature--intellectually gifted, and capable of
borrowing something from his brother's nobler nature; but when struggles
came, and political feuds, and the need of looking about to see on which
side safety lay, ready to sacrifice his brother for the sake of safety.
But up to this time Marcus was prepared to believe all good of Quintus;
and having made for himself and for the family a great name, was
desirous of sharing it with his brother, and, as we shall afterward see,
with his brother's son, and with his own. In this he failed. He lived to
know that he had failed as regarded his brother and his nephew. It was
not, however, added to his misery to live to learn how little his son
was to do to maintain the honor of his family.
I find a note scribbled by myself some years ago in a volume in which I
had read this epistle, "Probably the most beautiful letter ever
written." Reading it again subsequently, I added another note, "The
language altogether different from that of his ordinary letters." I do
not dissent now either from the enthusiastic praise or the more careful
criticism. The letter was from the man's heart--true, affectionate, and
full of anxious, brotherly duty--but written in studied language,
befitting, as Cicero thought, the need and the dignity of the occasion.
[Sidenote: B.C. 59, ætat. 48.]
The year following was that of Cæsar's first Consulship, which he held
in conjunction with Bibulus, a man who was altogether opposed to him in
thought, in character, and in action. So hostile were these two great
officers to each other that the one attempted to undo whatever the other
did. Bibulus was elected by bribery, on behalf of the Senate, in order
that he might be a counterpoise to Cæsar. But Cæsar now was not only
Cæsar: he was Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus united, with all their
dependents, all their clients, all their greedy hangers-on. To give this
compact something of the strength of family union, Pompey, who was now
nearly fifty years of age, took in marriage Cæsar's daughter Julia, who
was a quarter of a century his junior. But Pompey was a man who could
endear himself to women, and the opinion seems to be general that had
not Julia died in childbirth the friendship between the men would have
been more lasting. But for Cæsar's purposes the duration of this year
and the next was enough. Bibulus was a laughing-stock, the mere shadow
of a Consul, when opposed to such an enemy. He tried to use all the old
forms of the Republic with the object of stopping Cæsar in his career;
but Cæsar only ridiculed him; and Pompey, though we can imagine that he
did not laugh much, did as Cæsar would have him. Bibulus was an augur,
and observed the heavens when political man[oe]uvres were going on which
he wished to stop. This was the old Roman system for using religion as a
drag upon progressive movements. No work of state could be carried on if
the heavens were declared to be unpropitious; and an augur could always
say that the heavens were unpropitious if he pleased. This was the
recognized constitutional mode of obstruction, and was quite in accord
with the feelings of the people. Pompey alone, or Crassus with him,
would certainly have submitted to an augur; but Cæsar was above augurs.
Whatever he chose to have carried he carried, with what approach he
could to constitutional usage, but with whatever departure from
constitutional usage he found to be necessary.
What was the condition of the people of Rome at the time it is difficult
to learn from the conflicting statements of historians. That Cicero had
till lately been popular we know. We are told that Bibulus was popular
when he opposed Cæsar. Of personal popularity up to this time I doubt
whether Cæsar had achieved much. Yet we learn that, when Bibulus with
Cato and Lucullus endeavored to carry out their constitutional threats,
they were dragged and knocked about, and one of them nearly killed. Of
the illegality of Cæsar's proceedings there can be no doubt. "The
tribunitian veto was interposed; Cæsar contented himself with
disregarding it."[248] This is quoted from the German historian, who
intends to leave an impression that Cæsar was great and wise in all that
he did; and who tells us also of the "obstinate, weak creature Bibulus,"
and of "the dogmatical fool Cato." I doubt whether there was anything of
true popular ferment, or that there was any commotion except that which
was made by the "roughs" who had attached themselves for pay to Cæsar or
to Pompey, or to Crassus, or, as it might be, to Bibulus and the other
leaders. The violence did not amount to more than "nearly" killing this
man or the other. Some Roman street fights were no doubt more bloody--as
for instance that in which, seven years afterward, Clodius was
slaughtered by Milo--but the blood was made to flow, not by the people,
but by hired bravoes. The Roman citizens of the day were, I think, very
quiescent. Neither pride nor misery stirred them much. Cæsar, perceiving
this, was aware that he might disregard Bibulus and his auguries so long
as he had a band of ruffians around him sufficient for the purposes of
the hour. It was in order that he might thus prevail that the coalition
had been made with Pompey and Crassus. His colleague Bibulus, seeing how
matters were going, retired to his own house, and there went through a
farce of consular enactments. Cæsar carried all his purposes, and the
people were content to laugh, dividing him into two personages, and
talking of Julius and Cæsar as the two Consuls of the year. It was in
this way that he procured to be allotted to him by the people his
irregular command in Gaul. He was to be Proconsul, not for one year,
with perhaps a prolongation for two or three, but for an established
period of five. He was to have the great province of Cisalpine
Gaul--that is to say, the whole of what we now call Italy, from the foot
of the Alps down to a line running from sea to sea just north of
Florence. To this Transalpine Gaul was afterward added. The province so
named, possessed at the time by the Romans, was called "Narbonensis," a
country comparatively insignificant, running from the Alps to the
Pyrenees along the Mediterranean. The Gaul or Gallia of which Cæsar
speaks when, in the opening words of his Commentary, he tells us that it
was divided into three parts, was altogether beyond the Roman province
which was assigned to him. Cæsar, when he undertook his government, can
hardly have dreamed of subjecting to Roman rule the vast territories
which were then known as Gallia, beyond the frontiers of the Empire, and
which we now call France.
But he caused himself to be supported by an enormous army. There were
stationed three legions on the Italian side of the Alps, and one on the
other. These were all to be under his command for five years certain,
and amounted to a force of not less than thirty thousand men. "As no
troops could constitutionally be stationed in Italy proper, the
commander of the legions of Northern Italy and Gaul," says Mommsen,
"dominated at the same time Italy and Rome for the next five years; and
he who was master for five years was master for life."[249]
[Sidenote: B.C. 59, ætat. 48.]
Such was the condition of Rome during the second year of the
Triumvirate, in which Cæsar was Consul and prepared the way for the
powers which he afterward exercised. Cicero would not come to his call;
and therefore, as we are told, Clodius was let loose upon him. As he
would not come to Cæsar's call, it was necessary that he should be
suppressed, and Clodius, notwithstanding all constitutional
difficulties--nay, impossibilities--was made Tribune of the people.
Things had now so far advanced with a Cæsar that a Cicero who would not
come to his call must be disposed of after some fashion.
Till we have thought much of it, often of it, till we have looked
thoroughly into it, we find ourselves tempted to marvel at Cicero's
blindness. Surely a man so gifted must have known enough of the state of
Rome to have been aware that there was no room left for one honest,
patriotic, constitutional politician. Was it not plain to him that if,
"natus ad justitiam," he could not bring himself to serve with those who
were intent on discarding the Republic, he had better retire among his
books, his busts, and his literary luxuries, and leave the government of
the country to those who understood its people? And we are the more
prone to say and to think all this because the man himself continually
said it, and continually thought it. In one of the letters written early
in the year[250] to Atticus from his villa at Antium he declares very
plainly how it is with him; and this, too, in a letter written in
good-humor, not in a despondent frame of mind, in which he is able
pleasantly to ridicule his enemy Clodius, who it seems had expressed a
wish to go on an embassy to Tigranes, King of Armenia. "Do not think,"
he says, "that I am complaining of all this because I myself am desirous
of being engaged in public affairs. Even while it was mine to sit at the
helm I was tired of the work; but now, when I am in truth driven out of
the ship, when the rudder has not been thrown down but seized out of my
hands, how should I take a pleasure in looking from the shore at the
wrecks which these other pilots have made?" But the study of human
nature tells us, and all experience, that men are unable to fathom their
own desires, and fail to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at
their fingers' ends. The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after
the seals and the ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul
be able to rise above considerations of emolument, and there will creep
into a man's mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other
sources may be impossible, if he were there once more the evil could at
least be mitigated, might possibly be cured. So it was during this
period of his life with Cicero. He did believe that political justice
exercised by himself, with such assistance as his eloquence would obtain
for it, might be efficacious for preserving the Republic, in spite of
Cæsar, and of Pompey, and of Crassus. He did not yet believe that these
men would consent to such an outrage as his banishment. It must have
been incredible to him that Pompey should assent to it. When the blow
came, it crushed him for the time. But he retricked his beams and
struggled on to the end, as we shall see if we follow his life to the
close.
Such was the intended purpose of the degradation of Clodius. This,
however, was not at once declared. It was said that Clodius as Tribune
intended rather to oppose Cæsar than to assist him. He at any rate chose
that Cicero should so believe and sent Curio, a young man to whom Cicero
was attached, to visit the orator at his villa at Antium and to declare
these friendly purposes. According to the story told by Cicero,[251]
Clodius was prepared to oppose the Triumvirate; and the other young men
of Rome, the _jeunesse dorée_, of which both Curio and Clodius were
members, were said to be equally hostile to Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus,
whose doings in opposition to the constitution were already evident
enough; so that it suited Cicero to believe that the rising aristocracy
of Rome would oppose them. But the aristocracy of Rome, whether old or
young, cared for nothing but its fish-ponds and its amusements.
Cicero spent the earlier part of the year out of Rome, among his various
villas--at Tusculanum, at Antium, and at Formiæ. The purport of all his
letters at this period is the same--to complain of the condition of the
Republic, and especially of the treachery of his friend Pompey. Though
there be much of despondency in his tone, there is enough also of high
spirit to make us feel that his literary aspirations are not out of
place, though mingled with his political wailing. The time will soon
come when his trust even in literature will fail him for a while.
Early in the year he declares that he would like to accept a mission to
Egypt, offered to him by Cæsar and Pompey, partly in order that he might
for a while be quit of Rome, and partly that Romans might feel how ill
they could do without him. He then uses for the first time, as far as I
am aware, a line from the Iliad,[252] which is repeated by him again and
again, in part or in whole, to signify the restraint which is placed on
him by his own high character among his fellow-citizens. "I would go to
Egypt on this pleasant excursion, but that I fear what the men of Troy,
and the Trojan women, with their wide-sweeping robes, would say of me."
And what, he asks, would the men of our party, "the optimates," say? and
what would Cato say, whose opinion is more to me than that of them all?
And how would history tell the story in future ages? But he would like
to go to Egypt, and he will wait and see. Then, after various questions
to Atticus, comes that great one as to the augurship, of which so much
has been made by Cicero's enemies, "quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi
possim." A few lines above he had been speaking of another lure, that of
the mission to Egypt. He discusses that with his friend, and then goes
on in his half-joking phrase, "but this would have been the real thing
to catch me." Nothing caught him. He was steadfast all through,
accepting no offer of place from the conspirators by which his integrity
or his honor could be soiled. That it was so was well known to history
in the time of Quintilian, whose testimony as to the "repudiatus
vigintiviratus"--his refusal of a place among the twenty
commissioners--has been already quoted.[253] And yet biographers have
written of him as of one willing to sell his honor, his opinions, and
the commonwealth, for a "pitiful bribe;" not that he did do so, not that
he attempted to do it, but because in a half-joking letter to the friend
of his bosom he tells his friend which way his tastes lay![254]
He had been thinking of writing a book on geography, and consulted
Atticus on the subject; but in one of his letters he tells his friend
that he had abandoned the idea. The subject was too dull; and if he took
one side in a dispute that was existing, he would be sure to fall under
the lash of the critics on the other. He is enjoying his leisure at
Antium, and thinks it a much better place than Rome. If the weather will
not let him catch fish, at any rate he can count the waves. In all these
letters Cicero asks questions about his money and his private affairs;
about the mending of a wall, perhaps, and adds something about his wife
or daughter or son. He is going from Antium to Formiæ, but must return
to Antium by a certain date because Tullia wants to see the games.
Then again he alludes to Clodius. Pompey had made a compact with
Clodius--so at least Cicero had heard--that he, Clodius, if elected for
the Tribunate, would do nothing to injure Cicero. The assurance of such
a compact had no doubt been spread about for the quieting of Cicero; but
no such compact had been intended to be kept, unless Cicero would be
amenable, would take some of the good things offered to him, or at any
rate hold his peace. But Cicero affects to hope that no such agreement
may be kept. He is always nicknaming Pompey, who during his Eastern
campaign had taken Jerusalem, and who now parodies the Africanus, the
Asiaticus, and the Macedonicus of the Scipios and Metelluses. "If that
Hierosolymarian candidate for popularity does not keep his word with me,
I shall be delighted. If that be his return for my speeches on his
behalf"--the Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius, for instance--"I will play
him such a turn of another kind that he shall remember it."[255]
He begins to know what the "Triumvirate" is doing with the Republic, but
has not yet brought himself to suspect the blow that is to fall on
himself. "They are going along very gayly," he says, "and do not make as
much noise as one would have expected."[256] If Cato had been more on
the alert, things would not have gone so quickly; but the dishonesty of
others, who have allowed all the laws to be ignored, has been worse than
Cato. If we used to feel that the Senate took too much on itself, what
shall we say when that power has been transferred, not to the people,
but to three utterly unscrupulous men? "They can make whom they will
Consuls, whom they will Tribunes--so that they may hide the very goitre
of Vatinius under a priest's robe." For himself, Cicero says, he will be
contented to remain with his books, if only Clodius will allow him; if
not, he will defend himself.[257] As for his country, he has done more
for his country than has even been desired of him; and he thinks it to
be better to leave the helm in the hands of pilots, however incompetent,
than himself to steer when passengers are so thankless. Then we find
that he robs poor Tullia of her promised pleasure at the games, because
it will be beneath his dignity to appear at them. He is always very
anxious for his friend's letters, depending on them for news and for
amusement. "My messenger will return at once," he says, in one;
"therefore, though you are coming yourself very soon, send me a heavy
letter, full not only of news but of your own ideas."[258] In another:
"Cicero the Little sends greeting," he says, in Greek, "to Titus the
Athenian"--that is, to Titus Pomponius Atticus. The Greek letters were
probably traced by the child at his father's knee as Cicero held the pen
or the stylus. In another letter he declares that there, at Formiæ,
Pompey's name of Magnus is no more esteemed than that of Dives belonging
to Crassus. In the next he calls Pompey Sampsiceramus. We learn from
Josephus that there was a lady afterward in the East in the time of
Vitellius, who was daughter of Sampsigeramus, King of the Emesi. It
might probably be a royal family name.[259] In choosing the absurd
title, he is again laughing at his party leader. Pompey had probably
boasted of his doings with the Sampsiceramus of the day and the priests
of Jerusalem. "When this Sampsiceramus of ours finds how ill he is
spoken of, he will rush headlong into revolution." He complains that he
can do nothing at Formiæ because of the visitors. No English poet was
ever so interviewed by American admirers. They came at all hours, in
numbers sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house. How
can he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this?
Nevertheless he will attempt something. He goes on criticising all that
is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt was
vacillating sadly between Cæsar, to whom he was bound, and Bibulus, the
other Consul, to whom he ought to have been bound, as being naturally on
the aristocratic side. He cannot for a moment keep his pen from public
matters; nor, on the other hand, can he refrain from declaring that he
will apply himself wholly, undividedly, to his literature. "Therefore,
oh my Titus, let me settle down to these glorious occupations, and
return to that which, if I had been wise, I never should have
left."[260] A day or two afterward, writing from the same place, he asks
what Arabarches is saying of him. Arabarches is another name for
Pompey--this Arabian chieftain.
In the early summer of this year Cicero returned to Rome, probably in
time to see Atticus, who was then about to leave the city for his
estates in Epirus. We have a letter written by him to his friend on the
journey, telling us that Cæsar had made him two distinct offers,
evidently with the view of getting rid of him, but in such a manner as
would be gratifying to Cicero himself.[261] Cæsar asks him to go with
him to Gaul as his lieutenant, or, if that will not suit him, to accept
a "free legation for the sake of paying a vow." This latter was a kind
of job by which Roman Senators got themselves sent forth on their
private travels with all the appanages of a Senator travelling on public
business. We have his argument as to both. Elsewhere he objects to a
"libera legatio" as being a job.[262] Here he only points out that,
though it enforce his absence from Rome at a time disagreeable to
him--just when his brother Quintus would return--it would not give him
the protection which he needs. Though he were travelling about the world
as a Senator on some pretended embassy, he would still be open to the
attacks of Clodius. He would necessarily be absent, or he would not be
in enjoyment of his privilege, but by his very absence he would find his
position weakened; whereas, as Cæsar's appointed lieutenant, he need not
leave the city at once, and in that position he would be quite safe
against all that Clodius or other enemies could do to him.[263] No
indictment could be made against a Roman while he was in the employment
of the State. It must be remembered, too, on judging of these overtures,
that both the one and the other--and indeed all the offers then made to
him--were deemed to be highly honorable, as Rome then existed. "The free
legation"--the "libera legatio voti causa"--had no reference to parties.
It was a job, no doubt, and, in the hands of the ordinary Roman
aristocrat, likely to be very onerous to the provincials among whom the
privileged Senator might travel; but it entailed no party adhesion. In
this case it was intended only to guarantee the absence of a man who
might be troublesome in Rome. The other was the offer of genuine work in
which politics were not at all concerned. Such a position was accepted
by Quintus, our Cicero's brother, and in performance of the duties which
fell to him he incurred terrible danger, having been nearly destroyed by
the Gauls in his winter quarters among the Nervii. Labienus, who was
Cæsar's right-hand man in Gaul, was of the same politics as Cicero--so
much so that when Cæsar rebelled against the Republic, Labienus, true to
the Republic, would no longer fight on Cæsar's side. It was open to
Cicero, without disloyalty, to accept the offer made to him; but with an
insight into what was coming, of which he himself was hardly conscious,
he could not bring himself to accept offers which in themselves were
alluring, but which would seem in future times to have implied on his
part an assent to the breaking up of the Republic. [Greek: Aideomai
Trôas kai Trôadas elkesipeplous.] What will be said of me in history by
my citizens if I now do simply that which may best suit my own
happiness? Had he done so, Pliny and the others would not have spoken of
him as they have spoken, and it would not have been worth the while of
modern lovers of Cæsarism to write books against the one patriot of his
age.
During the remainder of this year, B.C. 59, Cicero was at Rome, and
seems gradually to have become aware that a personal attack was to be
made upon him. At the close of a long and remarkable letter written to
his brother Quintus in November, he explains the state of his own mind,
showing us, who have now before us the future which was hidden from him,
how greatly mistaken he was as to the results which were to be expected.
He had been telling his brother how nearly Cato had been murdered for
calling Pompey, in public, a Dictator. Then he goes on to describe his
own condition.[264] "You may see from this what is the state of the
Republic. As far as I am concerned, it seems that friends will not be
wanting to defend me. They offer themselves in a wonderful way, and
promise assistance. I feel great hope and still greater spirit--hope,
which tells me that we shall be victors in the struggle; spirit, which
bids me fear no casualty in the present state of public affairs."[265]
But the matter stands in this way: "If he"--that is, Clodius--"should
indict me in court, all Italy would come to my defence, so that I should
be acquitted with honor. Should he attack me with open violence, I
should have, I think, not only my own party but the world at large to
stand by me. All men promise me their friends, their clients, their
freedmen, their slaves, and even their money. Our old body of
aristocrats"--Cato, Bibulus, and the makers of fish-ponds
generally--"are wonderfully warm in my cause. If any of these have
heretofore been remiss, now they join our party from sheer hatred of
these kings"--the Triumvirs. "Pompey promises everything, and so does
Cæsar, whom I only trust so far as I can see them." Even the Triumvirs
promise him that he will be safe; but his belief in Pompey's honesty is
all but gone. "The coming Tribunes are my friends. The Consuls of next
year promise well." He was wofully mistaken. "We have excellent Prætors,
citizens alive to their duty. Domitius, Nigidius, Memmius, and Lentulus
are specially trustworthy. The others are good men. You may therefore
pluck up your courage and be confident." From this we perceive that he
had already formed the idea that he might perhaps be required to fight
for his position as a Roman citizen; and it seems also that he
understood the cause of the coming conflict. The intention was that he
should be driven out of Rome by personal enmity. Nothing is said in any
of these letters of the excuse to be used, though he knew well what that
excuse was to be. He was to be charged by the Patrician Tribune with
having put Roman citizens to death in opposition to the law. But there
arises at this time no question whether he had or had not been justified
in what he, as Consul, had done to Lentulus and the others. Would
Clodius be able to rouse a mob against him? and, if so, would Cæsar
assist Clodius? or would Pompey who still loomed to his eyes as the
larger of the two men? He had ever been the friend of Pompey, and Pompey
had promised him all manner of assistance; but he knew already that
Pompey would turn upon him. That Rome should turn upon him--Rome which
he had preserved from the torches of Catiline's conspirators--that he
could not bring himself to believe!
We must not pass over this long letter to Quintus without observing that
through it all the evil condition of the younger brother's mind becomes
apparent. The severity of his administration had given offence. His
punishments had been cruel. His letters had been rash, and his language
violent. In short, we gather from the brother's testimony that Quintus
Cicero was very ill-fitted to be the civil governor of a province.
The only work which we have from Cicero belonging to this year, except
his letters, is the speech, or part of the speech, he made for Lucius
Valerius Flaccus. Flaccus had been Prætor when Cicero was Consul, and
had done good service, in the eyes of his superior officers, in the
matter of the Catiline conspiracy. He had then gone to Asia as governor,
and, after the Roman manner, had fleeced the province. That this was so
there is no doubt. After his return he was accused, was defended by
Cicero, and was acquitted. Macrobius tells us that Cicero, by the
happiness of a bon-mot, brought the accused off safely, though he was
manifestly guilty. He adds also that Cicero took care not to allow the
joke to appear in the published edition of his speech.[266] There are
parts of the speech which have been preserved, and are sufficiently
amusing even to us. He is very hard upon the Greeks of Asia, the class
from which the witnesses against Flaccus were taken. We know here in
England that a spaniel, a wife, and a walnut-tree may be beaten with
advantage. Cicero says that in Asia there is a proverb that a Phrygian
may be improved in the same way. "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili." It
is declared through Asia that you should take a Carian for your
experiment. The "last of the Mysians" is the well-known Asiatic term for
the lowest type of humanity. Look through all the comedies, you will
find the leading slave is a Lydian. Then he turns to these poor
Asiatics, and asks them whether any one can be expected to think well of
them, when such is their own testimony of themselves! He attacks the
Jew, and speaks of the Jewish religion as a superstition worthy in
itself of no consideration. Pompey had spared the gold in the Temple of
Jerusalem, because he thought it wise to respect the religious
prejudices of the people; but the gods themselves had shown, by
subjecting the Jews to the Romans, how little the gods had regarded
these idolatrous worshippers! Such were the arguments used; and they
prevailed with the judges--or jury, we should rather call them--to whom
they were addressed.