_MILO._
[Sidenote: B.C. 52, aetat. 55.]
The preceding year came to an end without any consular election. It was
for the election expected to have taken place that the services of Curio
had been so ardently bespoken by Cicero on behalf of Milo. In order to
impede the election Clodius accused Milo of being in debt, and Cicero
defended him. What was the nature of the accusation we do not exactly
know. "An inquiry into Milo's debts!" Such was the name given to the
pleadings as found with the fragments which have come to us.[54] In
these, which are short and not specially interesting, there is hardly a
word as to Milo's debts; but much abuse of Clodius, with some praise of
Cicero himself, and some praise also of Pompey, who was so soon to take
up arms against Cicero, not metaphorically, but in grim reality of sword
and buckler, in this matter of his further defence of Milo. We cannot
believe that Milo's debts stood in the way of his election, but we know
that at last he was not elected. Early in the year Clodius was killed,
and then, at the suggestion of Bibulus--whom the reader will remember as
the colleague of Caesar in the Consulship when Caesar reduced his
colleague to ridiculous impotence by his violence--Pompey was elected as
sole Consul, an honor which befell no other Roman.[55] The condition of
Rome must have been very low when such a one as Bibulus thought that no
order was possible except by putting absolute power into the hands of
him who had so lately been the partner of Caesar in the conspiracy which
had not even yet been altogether brought to an end. That Bibulus acted
under constraint is no doubt true. It would be of little matter now from
what cause he acted, were it not that his having taken a part in this
utter disruption of the Roman form of government is one proof the more
that there was no longer any hope for the Republic.
But the story of the killing of Clodius must be told at some length,
because it affords the best-drawn picture that we can get of the sort of
violence with which Roman affairs had to be managed; and also because it
gave rise to one of the choicest morsels of forensic eloquence that have
ever been prepared by the intellect and skill of an advocate. It is well
known that the speech to which I refer was not spoken, and could not
have been spoken, in the form in which it has reached us. We do not know
what part of it was spoken and what was omitted; but we do know that the
Pro Milone exists for us, and that it lives among the glories of
language as a published oration. I find, on looking through the
Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, that in his estimation the Pro Milone
was the first in favor of all our author's orations--"facile princeps,"
if we may collect the critic's ideas on the subject from the number of
references made and examples taken. Quintilian's work consists of
lessons on oratory, which he supports by quotations from the great
orators, both Greek and Latin, with whose speeches he has made himself
familiar. Cicero was to him the chief of orators; so much so that we may
almost say that Quintilian's Institutio is rather a lecture in honor of
Cicero than a general lesson. With the Roman school-master's method of
teaching for the benefit of the Roman youth of the day we have no
concern at present, but we can gather from the references made by him
the estimation in which various orations were held by others, as well as
by him, in his day. The Pro Cluentio, which is twice as long as the Pro
Milone, and which has never, I think, been a favorite with modern
readers, is quoted very frequently by Quintilian. It is the second in
the list. Quintilian makes eighteen references to it; but the Pro Milone
is brought to the reader's notice thirty-seven times. Quintilian was
certainly a good critic; and he understood how to recommend himself to
his own followers by quoting excellences which had already been
acknowledged as the best which Roman literature had afforded.
Those who have gone before me in writing the life of Cicero have, in
telling their story as to Milo, very properly gone to Asconius for their
details. As I must do so too, I shall probably not diverge far from
them. Asconius wrote as early as in the reign of Claudius, and had in
his possession the annals of the time which have not come to us. Among
other writings he could refer to those books of Livy which have since
been lost. He seems to have done his work as commentator with no glow of
affection and with no touch of animosity, either on one side or on the
other. There can be no reason for doubting the impartiality of Asconius
as to Milo's trial, and every reason for trusting his knowledge of the
facts.
[Sidenote: B.C. 52, aetat. 55.]
When the year began, no Consuls had been chosen, and an interrex became
necessary--one interrex after another--to make the election of Consuls
possible in accordance with the forms of the constitution. These men
remained in office each for five days, and it was customary that an
election which had been delayed should be completed within the days of
the second or third interrex. There were three candidates, Milo,
Hypsaeus, and Q. Metellus Scipio, by all of whom bribery and violence
were used with open and unblushing profligacy. Cicero was wedded to
Milo's cause, as we have seen from his letter to Curio, but it does not
appear that he himself took any active part in the canvass. The duties
to be done required rather the services of a Curio. Pompey, on the other
hand, was nearly as warmly engaged in favor of Hypsaeus and Scipio,
though in the turn which affairs took he seems to have been willing
enough to accept the office himself when it came in his way. Milo and
Clodius had often fought in the streets of Rome, each ruffian attended
by a band of armed combatants, so that in audacity, as Asconius says,
they were equal.
On the 20th of January Milo was returning to Rome from Lanuvium, where
he had been engaged, as chief magistrate of the town, in nominating a
friend for the municipality. He was in a carriage with his wife Fausta,
and with a friend, and was followed, as was his wont, by a large band of
armed men, among whom were two noted gladiators, Eudamus and Birria. At
Bovillae, near the temple of the Bona Dea, his cortege was met by Clodius
on horseback, who had with him some friends, and thirty slaves armed
with swords. Milo's attendants were nearly ten times as numerous. It is
not supposed by Asconius that either of the two men expected the
meeting, which may be presumed to have been fortuitous. Milo and Clodius
passed each other without words or blows--scowling, no doubt; but the
two gladiators who were at the end of the file of Milo's men began to
quarrel with certain of the followers of Clodius. Clodius interfered,
and was stabbed in the shoulder by Birria; then he was carried to a
neighboring tavern while the fight was in progress. Milo, having heard
that his enemy was there concealed--thinking that he would be greatly
relieved in his career by the death of such a foe, and that the risk
should be run though the consequences might be grave--caused Clodius to
be dragged out from the tavern and slaughtered. On what grounds Asconius
has attributed these probable thoughts to Milo we do not know. That the
order was given the jury believed, or at any rate affected to believe.
Up to this moment Milo was no more guilty than Clodius, and neither of
them, probably, guilty of more than their usual violence. Partisans on
the two sides endeavored to show that each had prepared an ambush for
the other, but there is no evidence that it was so. There is no
evidence existing now as to this dragging out of Clodius that he might
be murdered; but we know what was the general opinion of Rome at the
time and we may conclude that it was right. The order probably was given
by Milo--as it would have been given by Clodius in similar
circumstances--at the spur of the moment, when Milo allowed his passion
to get the better of his judgment.
The thirty servants of Clodius were either killed or had run away and
hidden themselves, when a certain Senator, S. Tedius, coming that way,
found the dead body on the road, and carrying it into the city on a
litter deposited it in the dead man's house. Before nightfall the death
of Clodius was known through the city, and the body was surrounded by a
crowd of citizens of the lower order and of slaves. With them was
Fulvia, the widow, exposing the dead man's wounds and exciting the
people to sympathy. On the morrow there was an increased crowd, among
whom were Senators and Tribunes, and the body was carried out into the
Forum, and the people were harangued by the Tribunes as to the horror of
the deed that had been done. From thence the body was borne into the
neighboring Senate-house[56] by the crowd, under the leading of Sextus
Clodius, a cousin of the dead man. Here it was burnt with a great fire
fed with the desks and benches, and even with the books and archives
which were stored there. Not only was the Senate-house destroyed by the
flames, but a temple also that was close to it. Milo's house was
attacked, and was defended by arms. We are made to understand that all
Rome was in a state of violence and anarchy. The Consuls' fasces had
been put away in one of the temples--that of Venus Libitina: these the
people seized and carried to the house of Pompey, declaring that he
should be Dictator, and he alone Consul, mingling anarchy with a
marvellous reverence for legal forms.
But there arose in the city a feeling of great anger at the burning of
the Senate-house, which for a while seemed to extinguish the sympathy
for Clodius, so that Milo, who was supposed to have taken himself off,
came back to Rome and renewed his canvass, distributing bribes to all
the citizens--"millia assuum"--perhaps something over ten pounds to
every man. Both he and Caelius harangued the people, and declared that
Clodius had begun the fray. But no Consuls could be elected while the
city was in such a state, and Pompey, having been desired to protect the
Republic in the usual form, collected troops from all Italy.
Preparations were made for trying Milo, and the friends of each party
demanded that the slaves of the other party should be put to the torture
and examined as witnesses; but every possible impediment and legal
quibble was used by the advocates on either side. Hortensius, who was
engaged for Milo, declared that Milo's slaves had all been made free men
and could not be touched. Stories were told backward and forward of the
cruelty and violence on each side. Milo made an offer to Pompey to
abandon his canvass in favor of Hypsaeus, if Pompey would accept this as
a compromise. Pompey answered, with the assumed dignity that was common
to him, that he was not the Roman people, and that it was not for him to
interfere.
It was then that Pompey was created sole Consul at the instigation of
Bibulus. He immediately caused a new law to be passed for the management
of the trial which was coming on, and when he was opposed in this by
Caelius, declared that if necessary he would carry his purpose by force
of arms. Pretending to be afraid of Milo's violence, he remained at
home, and on one occasion dismissed the Senate. Afterward, when Milo
entered the Senate, he was accused by a Senator present of having come
thither with arms hidden beneath his toga; whereupon he lifted his toga
and showed that there were none. Asconius tells us that upon this
Cicero declared that all the other charges made against the accused were
equally false. This is the first word of Cicero's known to us in the
matter.
Two or three men declared that because they had been present at the
death of Clodius they had been kidnapped and kept close prisoners by
Milo; and the story, whether true or false, did Milo much harm. It seems
that Milo became again very odious to the people, and that their hatred
was for the time extended to Cicero as Milo's friend and proposed
advocate. Pompey seems to have shared the feeling, and to have declared
that violence was contemplated against himself. "But such was Cicero's
constancy," says Asconius, "that neither the alienation of the people
nor the suspicions of Pompey, no fear of what might befall himself at
the trial, no dread of the arms which were used openly against Milo,
could hinder him from going on with the defence, although it was within
his power to avoid the quarrel with the people and to renew his
friendship for Pompey by abstaining from it." Domitius AEnobarbus was
chosen as President, and the others elected as judges were, we are told,
equally good men. Milo was accused both of violence and bribery, but was
able to arrange that the former case should be tried first. The method
of the trial is explained. Fifty-one judges or jurymen were at last
chosen. Schola was the first witness examined, and he exaggerated as
best he could the horror of the murder. When Marcellus, as advocate for
Milo, began to examine Schola, the people were so violent that the
President was forced to protect Marcellus by taking him within the
barrier of the judges' seats. Milo also was obliged to demand protection
within the court. Pompey, then sitting at the Treasury, and frightened
by the clamor, declared that he himself would come down with troops on
the next day. After the hearing of the evidence the Tribune Munatius
Plancus harangued the people, and begged them to come in great numbers
on the morrow so that Milo might not be allowed to escape. On the
following day, which was the 11th of April, all the taverns were shut.
Pompey filled the Forum and every approach to it with his soldiers. He
himself remained seated at the Treasury as before, surrounded by a
picked body of men. At the trial on this day, when three of the
advocates against Milo had spoken--Appius, Marc Antony, and Valerius
Nepos--Cicero stood up to defend the criminal. Brutus had prepared an
oration declaring that the killing of Clodius was in itself a good deed,
and praiseworthy on behalf of the Republic; but to this speech Cicero
refused his consent, arguing that a man could not legally be killed
simply because his death was to be desired, and Brutus's speech was not
spoken. Witnesses had declared that Milo had lain in wait for Clodius.
This Cicero alleged to be false, contending that Clodius had lain in
wait for Milo, and he endeavored to make this point and no other. "But
it is proved," says Asconius, "that neither of the men had any design of
violence on that day; that they met by chance, and that the killing of
Clodius had come from the quarrelling of the slaves. It was well known
that each had often threatened the death of the other. Milo's slaves had
no doubt been much more numerous than those of Clodius when the meeting
took place; but those of Clodius had been very much better prepared for
fighting. When Cicero began to address the judges, the partisans of
Clodius could not be induced to abstain from riot even by fear of the
soldiery; so that he was unable to speak with his accustomed firmness."
Such is the account as given by Asconius, who goes on to tell us that
out of the fifty-one judges thirty-eight condemned Milo and only
thirteen were for acquitting him. Milo, therefore, was condemned, and
had to retire at once into exile at Marseilles.
It seems to have been acknowledged by the judges that Clodius had not
been wounded at first by any connivance on the part of Milo; but they
thought that Milo did direct that Clodius should be killed during the
fight which the slaves had commenced among themselves. As far as we can
take any interest in the matter we must suppose that it was so; but we
are forced to agree with Brutus that the killing of Clodius was in
itself a good deed done--and we have to acknowledge at the same time
that the killing of Milo would have been as good. Though we may doubt as
to the manner in which Clodius was killed, there are points in the
matter as to which we may be quite assured. Milo was condemned, not for
killing Clodius, but because he was opposed at the moment to the line of
politics which Pompey thought would be most conducive to his own
interests. Milo was condemned, and the death of the wretched Clodius
avenged, because Pompey had desired Hypsaeus to be Consul and Milo had
dared to stand in his way. An audience was refused to Cicero, not from
any sympathy with Clodius, but because it suited Pompey that Milo should
be condemned. Could Cicero have spoken the words which afterward were
published, the jury might have hesitated and the criminal might have
been acquitted. Caesar was absent, and Pompey found himself again lifted
into supreme power--for a moment. Though no one in Rome had insulted
Pompey as Clodius had done, though no one had so fought for Pompey as
Cicero had done, still it suited Pompey to avenge Clodius and to punish
Cicero for having taken Milo's part in regard to the consulship. Milo,
after his condemnation for the death of Clodius, was condemned in three
subsequent trials, one following the other almost instantly, for
bribery, for secret conspiracy, and again for violence in the city. He
was absent, but there was no difficulty in obtaining his conviction.
When he was gone one Saufeius, a friend of his, who had been with him
during the tumult, was put upon his trial for his share in the death of
Clodius. He at any rate was known to have been guilty in the matter. He
had been leader of the party who attacked the tavern, had killed the
tavern-keeper, and had dragged out Clodius to execution. But Saufeius
was twice acquitted. Had there been any hope of law-abiding tranquillity
in Rome, it might have been well that Clodius should be killed and Milo
banished. As it was, neither the death of the one nor the banishment of
the other could avail anything. The pity of it was--the pity--that such
a one as Cicero, a man with such intellect, such ambition, such
sympathies, and such patriotism, should have been brought to fight on
such an arena.
[Sidenote: B.C. 52, aetat. 55.]
We have in this story a graphic and most astounding picture of the Rome
of the day. No Consuls had been or could be elected, and the system by
which "interreges" had been enabled to superintend the election of their
successors in lieu of the Consuls of the expiring year had broken down.
Pompey had been made sole Consul in an informal manner, and had taken
upon himself all the authority of a Dictator in levying troops. Power in
Rome seems at the moment to have been shared between him and bands of
gladiators, but he too had succeeded in arming himself, and as the
Clodian faction was on his side, he was for a while supreme. For law by
this time he could have but little reverence, having been partner with
Caesar in the so-called Triumvirate for the last eight years. But yet he
had no aptitude for throwing the law altogether on one side, and making
such a coup-de-main as was now and again within his power. Beyond Pompey
there was at this time no power in Rome, except that of the gladiators,
and the owners of the gladiators, who were each intent on making plunder
out of the Empire. There were certain men, such as were Bibulus and
Cato, who considered themselves to be "optimates"--leading citizens who
believed in the Republic, and were no doubt anxious to maintain the
established order of things--as we may imagine the dukes and earls are
anxious in these days of ours. But they were impotent and bad men of
business, and as a body were too closely wedded to their "fish
ponds"--by which Cicero means their general luxuries and extravagances.
In the bosoms of these men there was no doubt an eager desire to
perpetuate a Republic which had done so much for them, and a courage
sufficient for the doing of some great deed, if the great deed would
come in their way. They went to Pharsalia, and Cato marched across the
deserts of Libya. They slew Caesar, and did some gallant fighting
afterward; but they were like a rope of sand, and had among them no
fitting leader and no high purpose.
Outside of these was Cicero, who certainly was not a fitting leader when
fighting was necessary, and who as to politics in general was fitted
rather by noble aspirations than supported by fixed purposes. We are
driven to wonder that there should have been, at such a period and among
such a people, aspirations so noble joined with so much vanity of
expression. Among Romans he stands the highest, because of all Romans he
was the least Roman. He had begun with high resolves, and had acted up
to them. Among all the Quaestors, AEdiles, Praetors, and Consuls Rome had
known, none had been better, none honester, none more patriotic. There
had come up suddenly in those days a man imbued with the unwonted idea
that it behooved him to do his duty to the State according to the best
of his lights--no Cincinnatus, no Decius, no Camillus, no Scipio, no
pretentious follower of those half-mythic heroes, no demigod struggling
to walk across the stage of life enveloped in his toga and resolved to
impose on all eyes by the assumption of a divine dignity, but one who at
every turn was conscious of his human duty, and anxious to do it to the
best of his human ability. He did it; and we have to acknowledge that
the conceit of doing it overpowered him. He mistook the feeling of
people around him, thinking that they too would be carried away by their
admiration of his conduct. Up to the day on which he descended from his
Consul's seat duty was paramount with him. Then gradually there came
upon him the conviction that duty, though it had been paramount with
him, did not weigh so very much with others. He had been lavish in his
worship of Pompey, thinking that Pompey, whom he had believed in his
youth to be the best of citizens, would of all men be the truest to the
Republic. Pompey had deceived him, but he could not suddenly give up
his idol. Gradually we see that there fell upon him a dread that the
great Roman Republic was not the perfect institution which he had
fancied. In his early days Chrysogonus had been base, and Verres, and
Oppianicus, and Catiline; but still, to his idea, the body of the Roman
Republic had been sound. But when he had gone out from his Consulship,
with resolves strung too high that he would remain at Rome, despising
provinces and plunder, and be as it were a special providence to the
Republic, gradually he fell from his high purpose, finding that there
were no Romans such as he had conceived them to be. Then he fell away
and became the man who could condescend to waste his unequalled
intellect in attacking Piso, in praising himself, and in defending Milo.
The glory of his active life was over when his Consulship was done--the
glory was over, with the exception of that to come from his final
struggle with Antony--but the work by which his immortality was to be
achieved was yet before him. I think that after defending Milo he must
have acknowledged to himself that all partisan fighting in Rome was
mean, ignoble, and hollow. With the Senate-house and its archives burnt
as a funeral pile for Clodius, and the Forum in which he had to plead
lined with soldiers who stopped him by their clang of arms instead of
protecting him in his speech, it must have been acknowledged by Cicero
that the old Republic was dead, past all hope of resurrection. He had
said so often to Atticus; but men say words in the despondency of the
moment which they do not wish to have accepted as their established
conviction. In such humor Cicero had written to his friend; but now it
must have occurred to him that his petulant expressions were becoming
only too true. When instigating Curio to canvass for Milo, and defending
Milo as though it had been a good thing for a Roman nobleman to travel
in the neighborhood of the city with an army at his heels, he must have
ceased to believe even in himself as a Roman statesman.
In the oration which we possess--which we must teach ourselves to
regard as altogether different from that which Cicero had been able to
pronounce among Pompey's soldiers and the Clodian rabble--the reader is
astonished by the magnificence of the language in which a case so bad in
itself could be enveloped, and is made to feel that had he been on the
jury, and had such an address been made to him, he would certainly have
voted for an acquittal. The guilt or innocence of Milo as to the murder
really turned on the point whether he did or did not direct that Clodius
should be dragged out of the tavern and slain; but here in this oration
three points are put forward, in each of which it was within the scope
of the orator to make the jury believe that Clodius had in truth
prepared an ambuscade, that Clodius was of all Romans the worst, and
that Milo was loyal and true, and, in spite of a certain fierceness of
disposition, a good citizen at heart. We agree with Milo, who declared,
when banished, that he would never have been able to enjoy the fish of
Marseilles had Cicero spoken in the Forum the speech which he afterward
composed.
"I would not remind you," he says, "of Milo's Tribuneship, nor of all
his service to the State, unless I could make plain to you as daylight
the ambush which on that day was laid for him by his enemy. I will not
pray you to forgive a crime simply because Milo has been a good citizen;
nor, because the death of Clodius has been a blessing to us all, will I
therefore ask you to regard it as a deed worthy of praise. But if the
fact of the ambush be absolutely made evident, then I beseech you at any
rate to grant that a man may lawfully defend himself from the arrogance
and from the arms of his enemies."[57] From this may be seen the nature
of the arguments used. For the language the reader must turn to the
original. That it will be worth his while to do so he has the evidence
of all critics--especially that of Milo when he was eating sardines in
his exile, and of Quintilian when he was preparing his lessons on
rhetoric. It seems that Cicero had been twitted with using something of
a dominating tyranny in the Senate--which would hardly have been true,
as the prevailing influence of the moment was that of Pompey--but he
throws aside the insinuation very grandly. "Call it tyranny if you
please--if you think it that, rather than some little authority which
has grown from my services to the State, or some favor among good men
because of my rank. Call it what you will, while I am able to use it for
the defence of the good against the violence of the evil-minded."[58]
Then he describes the fashion in which these two men travelled on the
occasion--the fashion of travelling as it suited him to describe it. "If
you did not hear the details of the story, but could see simply a
picture of all that occurred, would it not appear which of them had
planned the attack, which of them was ignorant of all evil? One of them
was seated in his carriage, clad in his cloak, and with his wife beside
him. His garments, his clients, his companions all show how little
prepared he was for fighting. Then, as to the other, why was he leaving
his country-house so suddenly? Why should he do this so late in the
evening? Why did he travel so slowly at this time of the year? He was
going, he says, to Pompey's villa. Not that he might see Pompey, because
he knew that Pompey was at Alsium. Did he want to see the villa? He had
been there a thousand times. Why all this delay, and turning backward
and forward? Because he would not leave the spot till Milo had come up.
And now compare this ruffian's mode of travelling with that of Milo. It
has been the constant custom with Clodius to have his wife with him, but
now she was not there. He has always been in a carriage, but now he was
on horseback. His young Greek sybarites have ever been with him, even
when he went as far as Tuscany; on this occasion there were no such
trifles in his company. Milo, with whom such companions were not usual,
had his wife's singing-boys with him and a bevy of female slaves.
Clodius, who usually never moved without a crowd of prostitutes at his
heels, now had no one with him but men picked for this work in
hand."[59] What a picture we have here of the manner in which noble
Romans were wont to move about the city and the suburbs! We may imagine
that the singing-boys of Milo's wife were quite as bad as the Greek
attendants in whom Clodius usually rejoiced. Then he asks a question as
to Pompey full of beautiful irony. If Pompey could bring back Clodius
from the dead--Pompey, who is so fond of him; Pompey, who is so
powerful, so fortunate, so capable of all things; Pompey, who would be
so glad to do it because of his love for the man--do you not know that
on behalf of the Republic he would leave him down among the ghosts where
he is?[60] There is a delightful touch of satire in this when we
remember how odious Clodius had been to Pompey in days not long gone by,
and how insolent.
The oration is ended by histrionic effects in language which would have
been marvellous had they ever been spoken, but which seem to be
incredible to us when we know that they were arranged for publication
when the affair was over. "O me wretched! O me unhappy!"[61] But these
attempts at translation are all vain. The student who wishes to
understand what may be the effect of Latin words thrown into this
choicest form should read the Milo.
We have very few letters from Cicero in this year--four only, I think,
and they are of no special moment. In one of them he recommends Avianus
to Titus Titius, a lieutenant then serving under Pompey.[62] In this he
is very anxious to induce Titius to let Avianus know all the good
things that Cicero had said of him. In our times we sometimes send our
letters of introduction open by the hands of the person introduced, so
that he may himself read his own praise; but the Romans did not scruple
to ask that this favor might be done for them. "Do me this favor.
Titius, of being kind to Avianus; but do me also the greater favor of
letting Avianus know that I have asked you." What Cicero did to Titius
other noble Romans did in their communications with their friends in the
provinces. In another letter to Marius he expresses his great joy at the
condemnation of that Munatius Plancus who had been Tribune when Clodius
was killed. Plancus had harangued the people, exciting them against Milo
and against Cicero, and had led to the burning of the Senate-house and
of the temple next door. For this Plancus could not be accused during
his year of office, but he had been put upon his trial when that year
was over. Pompey had done his best to save him, but in vain; and Cicero
rejoices not only that the Tribune who had opposed him should be
punished, but that Pompey should have been beaten, which he attributes
altogether to the favor shown toward himself by the jury.[63] He is
aroused to true exultation that there should have been men on the bench
who, having been chosen by Pompey in order that they might acquit this
man, had dared to condemn him. Cicero had himself spoken against Plancus
on the occasion. Sextus Clodius, who had been foremost among the
rioters, was also condemned.
[Sidenote: B.C. 52, aetat. 55.]
This was the year in which Caesar was so nearly conquered by the Gauls at
Gergovia, and in which Vercingetorix, having shut himself up in Alesia,
was overcome at last by the cruel strategy of the Romans. The brave
Gaul, who had done his best to defend his country and had carried
himself to the last with a fine gallantry, was kept by his conqueror
six years in chains and then strangled amid the glories of that
conqueror's triumph, a signal instance of the mercy which has been
attributed to Caesar as his special virtue. In this year, too, Cicero's
dialogues with Atticus, De Legibus, were written. He seems to have
disturbed his labors in the Forum with no other work.