_CILICIA._
[Sidenote: B.C. 51, aetat. 56.]
We cannot but think that at this time the return of Caesar was greatly
feared at Rome by the party in the State to which Cicero belonged; and
this party must now be understood as including Pompey. Pompey had been
nominally Proconsul in Spain since the year of his second Consulship,
conjointly with Crassus, B.C. 55, but had remained in Rome and had taken
upon himself the management of Roman affairs, considering himself to be
the master of the irregular powers which the Triumvirate had created;
and of this party was also Cicero, with Cato, Bibulus, Brutus, and all
those who were proud to call themselves "optimates." They were now
presumed to be desirous to maintain the old republican form of
government, and were anxious with more or less sincerity according to
the character of the men. Cato and Brutus were thoroughly in earnest,
not seeing, however, that the old form might be utterly devoid of the
old spirit. Pompey was disposed to take the same direction, thinking
that all must be well in Rome as long as he was possessed of high
office, grand names, and the appanages of Dictatorship. Cicero, too, was
anxious, loyally anxious, but anxious without confidence. Something
might perhaps be saved if these optimates could be aroused to some idea
of their duty by the exercise of eloquence such as his own.
I will quote a few words from Mr. Froude's Caesar: "If Caesar came to Rome
as Consul, the Senate knew too well what it might expect;" and then he
adds, "Cicero had for some time seen what was coming."[64] As to these
assertions I quite agree with Mr. Froude; but I think that he has read
wrongly both the history of the time and the character of the man when
he goes on to state that "Cicero preferred characteristically to be out
of the way at the moment when he expected that the storm should break,
and had accepted the government of Cilicia and Cyprus." All the known
details of Cicero's life up to the period of his government of Cilicia,
during his government, and after his return from that province, prove
that he was characteristically wedded to a life in Rome. This he
declared by his distaste to that employment and his impatience of return
while he was absent. Nothing, I should say, could be more certain than
that he went to Cilicia in obedience to new legal enactments which he
could not avoid, but which, as they acted upon himself, were odious to
him. Mr. Froude tells us that he held the government but for two
years.[65] The period of these provincial governments had of late much
varied. The acknowledged legal duration was for one year. They had been
stretched by the governing party to three, as in the case of Verres in
Sicily; to five, as with Pompey for his Spanish government; to ten for
Caesar in Gaul. This had been done with the view of increasing the
opportunities for plunder and power, but had been efficacious of good in
enabling governors to carry out work for which one year would not have
sufficed. It may be a question whether Cicero as Proconsul in Cilicia
deserved blame for curtailing the period of his services to the Empire,
or praise for abstaining from plunder and power; but the fact is that he
remained in his province not two years but exactly one;[66] and that he
escaped from it with all the alacrity which we may presume to be
expected by a prisoner when the bars of his jail have been opened for
him. Whether we blame him or praise him, we can hardly refrain from
feeling that his impatience was grotesque. There certainly was no desire
on Cicero's part either to go to Cilicia or to remain there, and of all
his feelings that which prompted him never to be far absent from Rome
was the most characteristic of the man.
Among various laws which Pompey had caused to be passed in the previous
year, B.C. 52, and which had been enacted with views personal to himself
and his own political views, had been one "de jure magistratuum"--as to
the way in which the magistrates of the Empire should be selected. Among
other clauses it contained one which declared that no Praetor and no
Consul should succeed to a province till he had been five years out of
office. It would be useless here to point out how absolutely subversive
of the old system of the Republic this new law would have been, had the
new law and the old system attempted to live together. The Propraetor
would have been forced to abandon his aspirations either for the
province or for the Consulship, and no consular governor would have been
eligible for a province till after his fiftieth year. But at this time
Pompey was both consul and governor, and Caesar was governor for ten
years with special exemption from another clause in the war which would
otherwise have forbidden him to stand again for the Consulship during
his absence.[67] The law was wanted probably only for the moment; but it
had the effect of forcing Cicero out of Rome. As there would naturally
come from it a dearth of candidates for the provinces it was further
decreed by the Senate that the ex-Praetors and ex-Consuls who had not yet
served as governors should now go forth and undertake the duties of
government. In compliance with this order, and probably as a specially
intended consequence of it, Cicero was compelled to go to Cilicia. Mr.
Froude has said that "he preferred characteristically to be out of the
way." I have here given what I think to be the more probable cause of
his undertaking the government of Cilicia.
[Sidenote: B.C. 51, aetat. 56.]
In April of this year Cicero before he started wrote the first of a
series of letters which he addressed to Appius Claudius, who was his
predecessor in the province. This Appius was the brother of the Publius
Clodius whom we have known for the last two or three years as Cicero's
pest and persecutor; but he addresses Appius as though they were dear
friends: "Since it has come to pass, in opposition to all my wishes and
to my expectations, that I must take in hand the government of a
province, I have this one consolation in my various troubles--that no
better friend to yourself than I am could follow you, and that I could
take up the government from the hands of none more disposed to make the
business pleasant to me than you will be."[68] And then he goes on: "You
perceive that, in accordance with the decree of the Senate, the province
has to be occupied." His next letter on the subject was written to
Atticus while he was still in Italy, but when he had started on his
journey. "In your farewell to me," he says, "I have seen the nature of
your love to me. I know well what is my own for you. It must, then, be
your peculiar care to see lest by any new arrangement this parting of
ours should be prolonged beyond one year."[69] Then he goes on to tell
the story of a scene that had occurred at Arcanum, a house belonging to
his brother Quintus, at which he had stopped on the road for a family
farewell. Pomponia was there, the wife of Quintus and the sister to
Atticus. There were a few words between the husband and the wife as to
the giving of the invitation for the occasion, in which the lady behaved
with much Christian perversity of temper. "Alas," says Quintus to his
brother, "you see what it is that I have to suffer every day!" Knowing
as we all do how great were the powers of the Roman paterfamilias, and
how little woman's rights had been ventilated in those days, we should
have thought that an ex-Praetor might have managed his home more
comfortably; but ladies, no doubt, have had the capacity to make
themselves disagreeable in all ages.
I doubt whether we have any testimony whatever as to Cicero's provincial
government, except that which comes from himself and which is confined
to the letters written by him at the time.[70] Nevertheless, we have a
clear record of his doings, so full and satisfactory are the letters
which he then wrote. The truth of his account of himself has never been
questioned. He draws a picture of his own integrity, his own humanity,
and his own power of administration which is the more astonishing,
because we cannot but compare it with the pictures which we have from
the same hand of the rapacity, the cruelty, and the tyranny of other
governors. We have gone on learning from his speeches and his letters
that these were habitual plunderers, tyrants, and malefactors, till we
are taught to acknowledge that, in the low condition to which Roman
nature had fallen, it was useless to expect any other conduct from a
Roman governor; and then he gives us the account of how a man did
govern, when, as by a miracle, a governor had been found honest,
clear-headed, sympathetic, and benevolent. That man was himself; and he
gives this account of himself, as it were, without a blush! He tells the
story of himself, not as though it was remarkable! That other governors
should grind the bones of their subjects to make bread of them, and draw
the blood from their veins for drink; but that Cicero should not
condescend to take even the normal tribute when willingly offered, seems
to Cicero to have been only what the world had a right to expect from
him! A wonderful testimony is this as to the man's character; but surely
the universal belief in his own account of his own governorship is more
wonderful. "The conduct of Cicero in his command was meritorious," says
De Quincey. "His short career as Proconsul in Cilicia had procured for
him well-merited honor," says Dean Merivale.[71] "He had managed his
province well; no one ever suspected Cicero of being corrupt or unjust,"
says Mr. Froude, who had, however, said (some pages before) that Cicero
was "thinking as usual of himself first, and his duty afterward."[72]
Dio Cassius, who is never tired of telling disagreeable stories of
Cicero's life, says not a word of his Cilician government, from which we
may, at any rate, argue that no stories detrimental to Cicero as a
Proconsul had come in the way of Dio Cassius. I have confirmed what I
have said as to this episode in Cicero's life by the corroborating
testimony of writers who have not been generally favorable in their
views of his character. Nevertheless, we have no testimony but his own
as to what Cicero did in Cilicia.[73]
It has never occurred to any reader of Cicero's letters to doubt a line
in which he has spoken directly of his own conduct. His letters have
often been used against himself, but in a different manner. He has been
judged to give true testimony against himself, but not false testimony
in his own favor. His own record has been taken sometimes as meaning
what it has not meant--and sometimes as implying much more that the
writer intended. A word which has required for its elucidation an
insight into the humor of the man has been read amiss, or some trembling
admissions to a friend of shortcoming in the purpose of the moment has
been presumed to refer to a continuity of weakness. He has been injured,
not by having his own words as to himself discredited, but by having
them too well credited where they have been misunderstood. It is at any
rate the fact that his own account of his own proconsular doings has
been accepted in full, and that the present reader may be encouraged to
believe what extracts I may give to him by the fact that all other
readers before him have believed them.
From his villa at Cumae on his journey he wrote to Atticus in high
spirits. Hortensius had been to see him--his old rival, his old
predecessor in the glory of the Forum--Hortensius, whom he was fated
never to see again. His only request to Hortensius had been that he
should assist in taking care that he, Cicero, should not be required to
stay above one year in his province. Atticus is to help him also; and
another friend, Furnius, who may probably be the Tribune for the next
year, has been canvassed for the same object. In a further letter from
Beneventum he alludes to a third marriage for his daughter Tullia, but
seems to be aware that, as he is leaving Italy, he cannot interfere in
that matter himself. He writes again from Venusia, saying that he
purports to see Pompey at Tarentum before he starts, and gives special
instructions to Atticus as to the payment of a debt which is due by him
to Caesar. He has borrowed money of Caesar, and is specially anxious that
the debt should be settled. In another letter from Tarentum he presses
the same matter. He is anxious to be relieved from the obligation.[74]
From Athens he wrote again to his friend a letter which is chiefly
remarkable as telling us something of the quarrel between Marcus
Claudius Marcellus, who was one of the Consuls for the year, and Caesar,
who was still absent in Gaul. This Marcellus, and others of his family
who succeeded him in his office, were hotly opposed to Caesar, belonging
to that party of the State to which Cicero was attached, and to which
Pompey was returning.[75] It seems to have been the desire of the Consul
not only to injure but to insult Caesar. He had endeavored to get a
decree of the Senate for recalling Caesar at once, but had succeeded only
in having his proposition postponed for consideration in the following
year--when Caesar would naturally return. But to show how little was his
regard to Caesar, he caused to be flogged in Rome a citizen from one of
those towns of Cisalpine Gaul to which Caesar had assumed to give the
privilege of Roman citizenship. The man was present as a delegate from
his town, Novocomum[76]--the present Como--in furtherance of the
colony's claims, and the Consul had the man flogged to show thereby that
he was not a Roman. Marcellus was punished for his insolence by
banishment, inflicted by Caesar when Caesar was powerful. We shall learn
before long how Cicero made an oration in his favor; but, in the letter
written from Athens, he blames Marcellus much for flogging the man.[77]
"Fight in my behalf," he says, in the course of this letter; "for if my
government be prolonged, I shall fail and become mean." The idea of
absence from Rome is intolerable to him. From Athens also he wrote to
his young friend Caelius, from whom he had requested information as to
what was going on in Rome. But Caelius has to be again instructed as to
the nature of the subjects which are to be regarded as interesting.
"What!--do you think that I have asked you to send me stories of
gladiators, law-court adjournments, and the pilferings of
Christus--trash that no one would think of mentioning to me if I were in
Rome?"[78] But he does not finish his letter to Caelius without begging
Caelius to assist in bringing about his speedy recall. Caelius troubles
him much afterward by renewed requests for Cilician panthers wanted for
AEdilian shows. Cicero becomes very sea-sick on his journey, and then
reaches Ephesus, in Asia Minor, dating his arrival there on the five
hundred and sixtieth day from the battle of Bovilla, showing how much
the contest as to Milo still clung to his thoughts.[79] Ephesus was not
in his province, but at Ephesus all the magistrates came out to do him
honor, as though he had come among them as their governor. "Now has
arrived," he says, "the time to justify all those declarations which I
have made as to my own conduct; but I trust I can practise the lessons
which I have learned from you." Atticus, in his full admiration of his
friend's character, had doubtless said much to encourage and to
instigate the virtue which it was Cicero's purpose to employ. We have
none of the words ever written by Atticus to Cicero, but we have light
enough to show us that the one friend was keenly alive to the honor of
the other, and thoroughly appreciated its beauty. "Do not let me be more
than a year away," he exclaims; "do not let even another month be
added."[80] Then there is a letter from Caelius praying for panthers.[81]
In passing through the province of Asia to his own province, he declares
that the people everywhere receive him well. "My coming," he says, "has
cost no man a shilling."[82] His whole staff has now joined him except
one Tullius, whom he speaks of as a friend of Atticus, but afterward
tells us he had come to him from Titinius. Then he again enjoins Atticus
to have that money paid to Caesar. From Tralles, still in the province of
Asia, he writes to Appius, the outgoing governor, a letter full of
courtesies, and expressing an anxious desire for a meeting. He had
offered before to go by any route which might suit Appius, but Appius,
as appears afterward, was anxious for anything rather than to encounter
the new governor within the province he was leaving.[83]
On 31st July he reached Laodicea, within his own boundaries, having
started on his journey on 10th May, and found all people glad to see
him; but the little details of his office harass him sadly. "The action
of my mind, which you know so well, cannot find space enough. All work
worthy of my industry is at an end. I have to preside at Laodicea while
some Plotius is giving judgment at Rome. * * * And then am I not
regretting at every moment the life of Rome--the Forum, the city itself,
my own house? Am I not always regretting you? I will endeavor to bear it
for a year; but if it be prolonged, then it will be all over with me. *
* * You ask me how I am getting on. I am spending a fortune in carrying
out this grand advice of yours. I like it hugely; but when the time
comes for paying you your debts I shall have to renew the bill. * * * To
make me do such work as this is putting a saddle upon a cow"--cutting a
block with a razor, as we should say--"clearly I am not made for it; but
I will bear it, so that it be only for one year."[84]
From Laodicea, a town in Phrygia, he went west to Synnada. His province,
known as Cilicia, contained the districts named on the map of Asia Minor
as Phrygia, Pisidia, Pamphylia, part of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the
island of Cyprus. He soon found that his predecessors had ruined the
people. "Know that I have come into a province utterly and forever
destroyed," he says to Atticus.[85] "We hear only of taxes that cannot
be paid, of men's chattels sold on all sides, of the groans from the
cities, of lamentations, of horrors such as some wild beast might have
produced rather than a human being. There is no room for question. Every
man is tired of his life; and yet some relief is given now, because of
me, and by my officers, and by my lieutenants. No expense is imposed on
any one. We do not take even the hay which is allowed by the Julian
law--not even the wood. Four beds to lie on is all we accept, and a roof
over our heads. In many places not even that, for we live in our tents.
Enormous crowds therefore come to us, and return, as it were, to life
through the justice and moderation of your Cicero. Appius, when he knew
that I was come, ran away to Tarsus, the farthest point of the
province." What a picture we have here of the state of a Roman
dependency under a normal Roman governor, and of the good which a man
could do who was able to abstain from plunder! In his next letter his
pride expresses itself so loudly that we have to remember that this man,
after all, is writing only his own secret thoughts to his bosom friend.
"If I can get away from this quickly, the honors which will accrue to me
from my justice will be all the greater, as happened to Scaevola, who was
governor in Asia only for nine months."[86] Then again he declares how
Appius had escaped into the farthest corner of the province--to
Tarsus--when he knew that Cicero was coming.
He writes again to Appius, complaining. "When I compare my conduct to
yours," he says, "I own that I much prefer my own."[87] He had taken
every pains to meet Appius in a manner convenient to him, but had been
deceived on every side. Appius had, in a way unusual among Roman
governors, carried on his authority in remote parts of the province,
although he had known of his successor's arrival. Cicero assures him
that he is quite indifferent to this. If Appius will relieve him of one
month's labor out of the twelve he will be delighted. But why has Appius
taken away three of the fullest cohorts, seeing that in the entire
province the number of soldiers left has been so small? But he assures
Appius that, as he makes his journey, neither good nor bad shall hear
evil spoken by him of his predecessor. "But as for you, you seem to have
given to the dishonest reasons for thinking badly of me." Then he
describes the exact course he means to take in his further journey, thus
giving Appius full facility for avoiding him.
From Cybistra, in Cappadocia, he writes official letters to Caius
Marcellus, who had been just chosen Consul, the brother of Marcus the
existing Consul; to an older Caius Marcellus, who was their father, a
colleague of his own in the College of Augurs, and to Marcus the
existing Consul, with his congratulations, also to AEmilius Paulus, who
had also been elected Consul for the next year. He writes, also, a
despatch to the Consuls, to the Praetors, to the Tribunes, and to the
Senate, giving them a statement as to affairs in the province. These are
interesting, rather as showing the way in which these things were done,
than by their own details. When he reaches Cilicia proper he writes them
another despatch, telling them that the Parthians had come across the
Euphrates. He writes as Wellington may have done from Torres Vedras. He
bids them look after the safety of their Eastern dominions. Though they
are too late in doing this, yet better now than never.[88] "You know,"
he says, "with what sort of an army you have supported me here; and you
know also that I have undertaken this duty not in blind folly, but
because in respect for the Republic I have not liked to refuse. * * * As
for our allies here in the province, because our rule here has been so
severe and injurious, they are either too weak to help us, or so
embittered against us that we dare not trust them."
Then there is a long letter to Appius,[89] respecting the embassy which
was to be sent from the province to Rome, to carry the praises of the
departing governor and declare his excellence as a Proconsul! This was
quite the usual thing to do! The worse the governor the more necessary
the embassy; and such was the terror inspired even by a departing Roman,
and such the servility of the allies--even of those who were about to
escape from him--that these embassies were a matter of course. There had
been a Sicilian embassy to praise Verres. Appius had complained as
though Cicero had impeded this legation by restricting the amount to be
allowed for its expenses. He rebukes Appius for bringing the charge
against him.
The series of letters written this year by Caelius to Cicero is very
interesting as giving us a specimen of continued correspondence other
than Ciceronian. We have among the eight hundred and eighty-five letters
ten or twelve from Brutus, if those attributed to him were really
written by him; ten or twelve from Decimus Brutus, and an equal number
from Plancus; but these were written in the stirring moments of the last
struggle, and are official or military rather than familiar. We have a
few from Quintus, but not of special interest unless we are to consider
that treatise on the duties of a candidate as a letter. But these from
Caelius to his older friend are genuine and natural as those from Cicero
himself. There are seventeen. They are scattered over three or four
years, but most of them refer to the period of Cicero's provincial
government.
The marvel to me is that Caelius should have adopted a style so near akin
to that of his master in literature. Scholars who have studied the words
can probably tell us of deficiencies in language; but the easy, graphic
tone is to my ear Ciceronian. Tiro, who was slave, secretary, freedman,
and then literary executor, may have had the handling of these letters,
and have done something toward producing their literary excellence. The
subjects selected were not always good, and must occasionally have
produced in Cicero's own mind a repetition of the reprimand which he
once expressed as to the gladiatorial shows and law-court adjournments;
but Caelius does communicate much of the political news from Rome. In one
letter, written in October of this year, he declares what the Senate has
decreed as to the recall of Caesar from Gaul, and gives the words of the
enactments made, with the names subscribed to them of the promoters--and
also the names of the Tribunes who had endeavored to oppose them.[90]
The purport of these decrees I have mentioned before. The object was to
recall Caesar, and the effect was to postpone any such recall till it
would mean nothing; but Caelius specially declares that the intention of
recalling Caesar was agreeable to Pompey, whereby we may know that the
pact of the Triumvirate was already at an end. In another letter he
speaks of the coming of the Parthians, and of Cicero's inability to
fight with them because of the inadequate number of soldiers intrusted
to him. Had there been a real Roman army, then Caelius would have been
afraid, he says, for his friend's life. As it is, he fears only for his
reputation, lest men should speak ill of him for not fighting, when to
fight was beyond his power.[91] The language here is so pretty that I am
tempted to think that Tiro must have had a hand in it. At Rome, we must
remember, the tidings as to Crassus were as yet uncertain. We cannot,
however, doubt that Caelius was in truth attached to Cicero.
But Cicero was forced to fight, not altogether unwillingly--not with the
Parthians, but with tribes which were revolting from Roman authority
because of the Parthian success. "It has turned out as you wished it,"
he says to Caelius--"a job just sufficient to give me a small coronet of
laurel." Hearing that men had risen in the Taurus range of mountains,
which divided his province from that of Syria, in which Bibulus was now
governor, he had taken such an army as he was able to collect to the
Amanus, a mountain belonging to that range, and was now writing from his
camp at Pindenissum, a place beyond his own province. Joking at his own
soldiering, he tells Caelius that he had astonished those around him by
his prowess. "Is this he whom we used to know in the city? Is this our
talkative Senator? You can understand the things they said.[92] * * *
When I got to the Amanus I was glad enough to find our friend Cassius
had beaten back the real Parthians from Antioch." But Cicero claims to
have done some gallant things: "I have harassed those men of Amanus who
are always troubling us. Many I have killed; some I have taken; the rest
are dispersed. I came suddenly upon their strongholds, and have got
possession of them. I was called 'Imperator' at the river Issus." It is
hardly necessary to explain, yet once again, that this title belonged
properly to no commander till it had been accorded to him by his own
soldiers on the field of battle.[93] He reminds Caelius that it was on
the Issus that Alexander had conquered Darius. Then he had sat down
before Pindenissum with all the machinery of a siege--with the turrets,
covered ways, and ramparts. He had not as yet quite taken the town. When
he had done so, he would send home his official account of it all; but
the Parthians may yet come, and there may be danger. "Therefore, O my
Rufus"--he was Caelius Rufus--"see that I am not left here, lest, as you
suspect, things should go badly with me." There is a mixture in all this
of earnestness and of drollery, of boasting and of laughing at what he
was doing, which is inimitable in its reality. His next letter is to his
other young friend, Curio, who has just been elected Tribune. He gives
much advice to Curio, who certainly always needed it.[94] He carries on
the joke when he tells Atticus that the "people of Pindenissum have
surrendered." "Who the mischief are these Pindenissians? you will say. I
have not even heard the name before. What would you have? I cannot make
an AEtolia out of Cilicia. With such an army as this do you expect me to
do things like a Macedonicus?[95] * * * I had my camp on the Issus,
where Alexander had his--a better soldier no doubt than you or I. I
really have made a name for myself in Syria. Then up comes Bibulus,
determined to be as good as I am; but he loses his whole cohort." The
failure made by Bibulus at soldiering is quite as much to him as his own
success. Then he goes back to Laodicea, leaving the army in
winter-quarters, under the command of his brother Quintus.
But his heart is truly in other matters, and he bursts out, in the same
letter, with enthusiastic praise of the line of conduct which Atticus
has laid down for him: "But that which is more to me than anything is
that I should live so that even that fellow Cato cannot find fault with
me. May I die, if it could be done better. Nor do I take praise for it
as though I was doing something distasteful; I never was so happy as in
practising this moderation. The thing itself is better to me even than
the reputation of it. What would you have me say? It was worth my while
to be enabled thus to try myself, so that I might know myself as to what
I could do."
Then there is a long letter to Cato in which he repeats the story of his
grand doings at Pindenissum. The reader will be sure that a letter to
Cato cannot be sincere and pleasant as are those to Atticus and Caelius.
"If there be one man far removed from the vulgar love of praise, it is
I," he says to Cato.[96] He tells Cato that they two are alike in all
things. They two only have succeeded in carrying the true ancient
philosophy into the practice of the Forum. Never surely were two men
more unlike than the stiff-necked Cato and the versatile Cicero.
[Sidenote: B.C. 50, aetat. 57.]
Lucius AEmilius Paullus and C. Clodius Marcellus were Consuls for the
next year. Cicero writes to both of them with tenders of friendship; but
from both of them he asks that they should take care to have a decree of
the Senate passed praising his doings in Cilicia.[97] With us, too, a
returning governor is anxious enough for a good word from the
Prime-minister; but he does not ask for it so openly. The next letter
from Caelius tells him that Appius has been accused as to malpractices in
his government, and that Pompey is in favor of Appius. Curio has gone
over to Caesar. But the important subject is the last handled: "It will
be mean in you if I should have no Greek panthers."[98] The next refers
to the marriages and divorces of certain ladies, and ends with an
anecdote told as to a gentleman with just such ill-natured wit as is
common in London. No one could have suspected Ocella of looking after
his neighbor's wife unless he had been detected thrice in the fact.[99]
From Laodicea he answers a querulous letter which his predecessor had
written, complaining, among other things, that Cicero had failed to show
him personal respect. He proves that he had not done so, and then rises
to a strain of indignation. "Do you think that your grand old names will
affect me who, even before I had become great in the service of my
country, knew how to distinguish between titles and the men who bore
them?"[100]
The next letter to Appius is full of flattery, and asking for favors,
but it begins with a sharp reproof. "Now at last I have received an
epistle worthy of Appius Claudius. The sight of Rome has restored you to
your good-humor. Those I got from you in your journey were such that I
could not read them without displeasure."[101]
In February Cicero wrote a letter to Atticus which is, I think, more
expressive in describing the mind of the man than any other which we
have from him. In it is commenced the telling of a story respecting
Brutus--the Brutus we all know so well--and one Scaptius, of whom no one
would have heard but for this story, which, as it deeply affects the
character of Cicero, must occupy a page or two in our narrative; but I
must first refer to his own account of his own government as again
given here. Nothing was ever so wonderful to the inhabitants of a
province as that they should not have been put to a shilling of expense
since he had entered it. Not a penny had been taken on his own behalf or
on that of the Republic by any belonging to him, except on one day by
one Tullius, and by him indeed under cover of the law. This dirty fellow
was a follower with whom Titinius had furnished him. When he was passing
from Tarsus back into the centre of his province wondering crowds came
out to him, the people not understanding how it had been that no letters
had been sent to them exacting money, and that none of his staff had
been quartered on them. In former years during the winter months they
had groaned under exactions. Municipalities with money at their command
had paid large sums to save themselves from the quartering of soldiers
on them. The island of Cyprus, which on a former occasion had been made
to pay nearly L50,000 on this head,[102] had been asked for nothing by
him. He had refused to have any honors paid to him in return for this
conduct. He had prohibited the erection of statues, shrines, and bronze
chariots in his name--compliments to Roman generals which had become
common. The harvest that year was bad; but so fully convinced were the
people of his honest dealing, that they who had saved up corn--the
regraters--brought it freely into market at his coming. As some scourge
from hell must have been the presence of such governors as Appius and
his predecessors among a people timid but industrious like these Asiatic
Greeks. Like an unknown, unexpected blessing, direct from heaven, must
have been the coming of a Cicero.
Now I will tell the story of Brutus and Scaptius and their
money--premising that it has been told by Mr. Forsyth with great
accuracy and studied fairness. Indeed, there is not a line in Mr.
Forsyth's volume which is not governed by a spirit of justice. He,
having thought that Cicero had been too highly praised by Middleton, and
too harshly handled by subsequent critics, has apparently written his
book with the object of setting right these exaggerations. But in his
comments on this matter of Brutus and Scaptius he seems to me not to
have considered the difference in that standard of honor and honesty
which governs himself, and that which prevailed in the time of Cicero.
Not seeing, as I think, how impossible it was for a Roman governor to
have achieved that impartiality of justice with which a long course of
fortunate training has imbued an English judge, he accuses Cicero of
"trifling with equity." The marvel to me is that one man such as
Cicero--a man single in his purpose--should have been able to raise his
own ideas of justice so high above the level prevailing with the best of
those around him. It had become the nature of a Roman aristocrat to
pillage an ally till hardly the skin should be left to cover the man's
bones. Out of this nature Cicero elevated himself completely. In his own
conduct he was free altogether from stain. The question here arose how
far he could dare to go on offending the instincts, the habits, the
nature, of other noble Romans, in protecting from their rapacity the
poor subjects who were temporarily beneath his charge. It is easy for a
judge to stand indifferent between a great man and a little when the
feelings of the world around him are in favor of such impartiality; but
it must have been hard enough to do so when such conduct seemed to the
noblest Romans of the day to be monstrous, fanatical, and pretentious.
In this case Brutus, our old friend whom all English readers have so
much admired because he dared to tell his brother-in-law Cassius that he
was
"Much condemned to have an itching palm,"
appears before us in the guise of an usurious money-lender. It would be
hard in the history of usury to come across the well-ascertained details
of a more grasping, griping usurer. His practice had been of the kind
which we may have been accustomed to hear rebuked with the scathing
indignation of our just judges. But yet Brutus was accounted one of the
noblest Romans of the day, only second, if second, to Cato in general
virtue and philosophy. In this trade of money-lending the Roman nobleman
had found no more lucrative business than that of dealing with the
municipalities of the allies. The cities were peopled by a money-making,
commercial race, but they were subjected to the grinding impositions of
their governors. Under this affliction they were constantly driven to
borrow money, and found the capitalists who supplied it among the class
by whom they were persecuted and pillaged. A Brutus lent the money which
an Appius exacted--and did not scruple to do so at forty-eight per
cent., although twelve per cent. per annum, or one per cent. per month,
was the rate of interest permitted by law.
But a noble Roman such as Brutus did not carry on his business of this
nature altogether in his own name. Brutus dealt with the municipality of
Salamis in the island of Cyprus, and there had two agents, named
Scaptius and Matinius, whom he specially recommended to Cicero as
creditors of the city of Salamis, praying Cicero, as governor of the
province, to assist these men in obtaining the payment of their
debts.[103] This was quite usual, but it was only late in the
transaction that Cicero became aware that the man really looking for his
money was the noble Roman who gave the recommendation. Cicero's letter
tells us that Scaptius came to him, and that he promised that for
Brutus's sake he would take care that the people of Salamis should pay
their debt.[104] Scaptius thanked him, and asked for an official
position in Salamis which would have given him the power of compelling
the payment by force. Cicero refused, explaining that he had determined
to give no such offices in his province to persons engaged in trade. He
had refused such requests already--even to Pompey and to Torquatus.
Appius had given the same man a military command in Salamis--no doubt
also at the instance of Brutus--and the people of Salamis had been
grievously harassed. Cicero had heard of this, and had recalled the man
from Cyprus. Of this Scaptius had complained bitterly, and at last he
and delegates from Salamis who were willing to pay their debt, if they
could only do it without too great extortion, went together to Cicero
who was then at Tarsus, in the most remote part of his province. Here he
was called upon to adjudicate in the matter, Scaptius trusting to the
influence which Brutus would naturally have with his friend the
governor, and the men of Salamis to the reputation for justice which
Cicero had already created for himself in Cilicia. The reader must also
be made to understand that Cicero had been entreated by Atticus to
oblige Brutus, who was specially the friend of Atticus. He must remember
also that this narrative is sent by Cicero to Atticus, who exhorted his
correspondent, even with tears in his eyes, to be true to his honor in
the government of his province.[105] He is appealing from Atticus to
Atticus. I am bound to oblige you--but how can I do so in opposition to
your own lessons? That is his argument to Atticus.
Then there arises a question as to the amount of money due. The
principal is not in dispute, but the interest. The money has been
manifestly lent on an understanding that four per cent. per month, or
forty-eight per cent. per annum, should be charged on it. But there has
been a law passed that higher interest than one per cent. per month, or
twelve per cent. per annum, shall not be legal. There has, however, been
a counter decree made in regard to these very Salaminians, and made
apparently at the instigation of Brutus, saying that any contract with
them shall be held in force, notwithstanding the law. But Cicero again
has made a decree that he will authorize no exaction above twelve per
cent. in his province. The exact condition of the legal claim is less
clear to me than to Mr. Forsyth, who has the advantage of being a
lawyer. Be that as it may, Cicero decides that twelve per cent. shall be
exacted, and orders the Salaminians to pay the amount. To his request
they demur, but at last agree to obey, alleging that they are enabled to
do so by Cicero's own forbearance to them, Cicero having declined to
accept the presents which had been offered to him from the island.[106]
They will therefore pay this money in some sort, as they say, out of the
governor's own pocket.
But when the sum is fixed, Scaptius, finding that he cannot get it
over-reckoned after some fraudulent scheme of his own, declines to
receive it. If with the assistance of a friendly governor he cannot do
better than that for himself and his employer, things must be going
badly with Roman noblemen. But the delegates are now very anxious to pay
this money, and offer to deposit it. Scaptius begs that the affair shall
go no farther at present, no doubt thinking that he may drive a better
bargain with some less rigid future governor. The delegates request to
be allowed to place their money as paid in some temple, by doing which
they would acquit themselves of all responsibility; but Cicero begs them
to abstain. "Impetravi ab Salaminiis ut silerent," he says. "I shall be
grieved, indeed, that Brutus should be angry with me," he writes; "but
much more grieved that Brutus should have proved himself to be such as I
shall have found him."
Then comes the passage in his letter on the strength of which Mr.
Forsyth has condemned Cicero, not without abstract truth in his
condemnation: "They, indeed, have consented"--that is the
Salaminians--"but what will befall them if some such governor as Paulus
should come here? And all this I have done for the sake of Brutus!"
AEmilius Paulus was the Consul, and might probably have Cilicia as a
province, and would no doubt give over the Salaminians to Brutus and his
myrmidons without any compunction. In strictness--with that assurance in
the power of law by means of which our judges are enabled to see that
their righteous decisions shall be carried out without detriment to
themselves--Cicero should have caused the delegates from Salamis
instantly to have deposited their money in the temple. Instead of doing
so, he had only declared the amount due according to his idea of
justice--in opposition to all Romans, even to Atticus--and had then
consented to leave the matter, as for some further appeal. Do we not
know how impossible it is for a man to abide strictly by the right, when
the strict right is so much in advance of all around him as to appear to
other eyes than his own as straitlaced, unpractical, fantastic, and
almost inhuman? Brutus wanted his money sorely, and Brutus was becoming
a great political power on the same side with Pompey, and Cato, and the
other "optimates." Even Atticus was interfering for Brutus. What other
Roman governor of whom we have heard would have made a question on the
subject? Appius had lent a guard of horse-soldiers to this Scaptius with
which he had outraged all humanity in Cyprus--had caused the councillors
of the city to be shut up till they would come to obedience, in doing
which he had starved five of them to death! Nothing had come of this,
such being the way with the Romans in their provinces. Yet Cicero, who
had come among these poor wretches as an unheard-of blessing from
heaven, is held up to scorn because he "trifled with equity!" Equity
with us runs glibly on all fours. With Appius in Cilicia it was utterly
unknown. What are we to say of the man who, by the strength of his own
conscience and by the splendor of his own intellect, could advance so
far out of the darkness of his own age, and bring himself so near to the
light of ours!
Let us think for a moment of our own Francis Bacon, a man more like to
Cicero than any other that I can remember in history. They were both
great lawyers, both statesmen, both men affecting the _omne scibile_,
and coming nearer to it than perhaps any other whom we can name; both
patriots, true to their conceived idea of government, each having risen
from obscure position to great power, to wealth, and to rank; each from
his own education and his nature prone to compromise, intimate with
human nature, not over-scrupulous either as to others or as to himself.
They were men intellectually above those around them, to a height of
which neither of them was himself aware. To flattery, to admiration, to
friendship, and to love each of them was peculiarly susceptible. But one
failed to see that it behooved him, because of his greatness, to abstain
from taking what smaller men were grasping; while the other swore to
himself from his very outset that he would abstain--and kept the oath
which he had sworn. I am one who would fain forgive Bacon for doing what
I believe that others did around him; but if I can find a man who never
robbed, though all others around him did--in whose heart the "auri sacra
fames" had been absolutely quenched, while the men with whom he had to
live were sickening and dying with an unnatural craving--then I seem to
have recognized a hero.
Another complaint is made against Cicero as to Ariobarzanes, the King of
Cappadocia, and is founded, as are all complaints against Cicero, on
Cicero's own telling of the story in question. Why there should have
been complaint in this matter I have not been able to discover.
Ariobarzanes was one of those Eastern kings who became milch cows to
the Roman nobles, and who, in their efforts to satisfy the Roman nobles,
could only fleece their own subjects. The power of this king to raise
money seems to have been limited to about L8000 a month.[107] Out of
this he offered a part to Cicero as the Proconsul who was immediately
over him. This Cicero declined, but pressed the king to pay the money to
the extortionate Brutus, who was a creditor, and who endeavored to get
this money through Cicero. But Pompey also was a creditor, and Pompey's
name was more dreadful to the king than that of Brutus. Pompey,
therefore, got it all, though we are told that it was not enough to pay
him his interest; but Pompey, getting it all, was graciously pleased to
be satisfied "Cnaeus noster clementer id fert." "Our Cicero puts up with
that, and asks no questions about the capital," says Cicero, ironically.
Pompey was too wise to kill the goose that laid such golden eggs.
Nevertheless, we are told that Cicero, in this case, abused his
proconsular authority in favor of Brutus. Cicero effected nothing for
Brutus; but, when there was a certain amount of plunder to be divided
among the Romans, refused any share for himself. Pompey got it all, but
not by Cicero's aid.
There is another long letter, in which Cicero again, for the third time,
tells the story of Brutus and Scaptius.[108] I mention it, as he
continues to describe his own mode of doing his work. He has been at
Laodicea from February to May, deciding questions that had been there
brought before him from all parts of his province except Cilicia proper.
The cities which had been ground down by debt have been enabled to free
themselves, and then to live under their own laws. This he has done by
taking nothing from them for his own expenses--not a farthing. It is
marvellous to see how the municipalities have sprung again into life
under this treatment. "He has been enabled by this to carry on justice
without obstruction and without severity. Everybody has been allowed
approach to him--a custom which has been unknown in the provinces. There
has been no back-stairs influence. He has walked openly in his own
courts, as he used to do when a candidate at home. All this has been
grateful to the people, and much esteemed; nor has it been too laborious
to himself, as he had learned the way of it in his former life." It was
thus that Cicero governed Cilicia.
There are further letters to Appius and Caelius, written from various
parts of the province, which cannot fail to displease us because we feel
that Cicero is endeavoring to curry favor. He wishes to stand well with
those who might otherwise turn against him on his reappearance in Rome.
He is afraid lest Appius should be his enemy and lest Pompey should not
be his friend. The practice of justice and of virtue would, he knew,
have much less effect in Rome than the friendship and enmity of such
men. But to Atticus he bursts out into honest passion against Brutus.
Brutus had recommended to him one Gavius, whom, to oblige Brutus, he
appointed to some office. Gavius was greedy, and insolent when his greed
was not satisfied. "You have made me a prefect," said Gavius; "where am
I to go for my rations?" Cicero tells him that as he has done no work he
will get no pay; whereupon Gavius, quite unaccustomed to such treatment,
goes off in a huff. "If Brutus can be stirred by the anger of such a
knave as this," he says to Atticus, "you may love him, if you will,
yourself; you will not find me a rival for his friendship."[109] Brutus,
however, became a favorite with Cicero, because he had devoted himself
to literature. In judging these two men we should not lean too heavily
on Brutus, because he did no worse than his neighbors. But then, how are
we to judge of Cicero?
In the latter months of his government there began a new trouble, in
which it is difficult to sympathize with him, because we are unable to
produce in our own minds a Roman's estimation of Roman things. With true
spirit he had laughed at his own military doings at Pindenissum; but not
the less on that account was he anxious to enjoy the glories of a
triumph, and to be dragged through the city on a chariot, with military
trophies around him, as from time immemorial the Roman conquerors had
been dragged when they returned from their victories.
For the old barbaric conquerors this had been fine enough. A display of
armor--of helmets, of shields, and of swords--a concourse of chariots,
of trumpets, and of slaves, of victims kept for the Tarpeian rock, the
spoils and rapine of battle, the self-asserting glory of the big
fighting hero, the pride of bloodshed, and the boasting over fallen
cities, had been fit for men who had in their hearts conceived nothing
greater than military renown. Our sympathies go along with a Camillus or
a Scipio steeped in the blood of Rome's enemies. A Marius, a Pompey, and
again a few years afterward a Caesar, were in their places as they were
dragged along the Via Sacra up to the Capitol amid the plaudits of the
city, in commemoration of their achievements in arms; but it could not
be so with Cicero. "Concedat laurea linguae" had been the watchword of
his life. "Let the ready tongue and the fertile brain be held in higher
honor than the strong right arm." That had been the doctrine which he
had practised successfully. To him it had been given to know that the
lawyer's gown was raiment worthier of a man than the soldier's
breastplate. How, then, could it be that he should ask for so small a
thing as a triumph in reward for so small a deed as that done at
Pindenissum? But it had become the way with all Proconsuls who of late
years had been sent forth from Rome into the provinces. Men to whose
provincial government a few cohorts were attached aspired to be called
"Imperator" by their soldiers after mock battles, and thought that, as
others had followed up their sham victories with sham triumphs, it
should be given to them to do the same. If Bibulus triumphed it would be
a disgrace to Cicero not to triumph. We measure our expected rewards not
by our own merits but by the good things which have been conceded to
others. To have returned from Pindenissum and not to be allowed the
glory of trumpets would be a disgrace, in accordance with the theory
then prevailing in Rome on such matters; therefore Cicero demanded a
triumph.
In such a matter it was in accordance with custom that the General
should send an immediate account of his victorious doings, demand a
"supplication," and have the triumph to be decreed to him or not after
his return home. A supplication was in form a thanksgiving to the gods
for the great favor shown by them to the State, but in fact took the
guise of public praise bestowed upon the man by whose hands the good had
been done. It was usually a reward for military success, but in the
affair of Catiline a supplication had been decreed to Cicero for saving
the city, though the service rendered had been of a civil nature. Cicero
now applied for a supplication, and obtained it. Cato opposed it, and
wrote a letter to Cicero explaining his motives--upon high republican
principles. Cicero might have endured this more easily had not Cato
voted for a supplication in honor of Bibulus, whose military
achievements had, as Cicero thought, been less than his own. One Hirrus
opposed it also, but in silence, having intended to allege that the
numbers slain by Cicero in his battles were not sufficient to justify a
supplication. We learn that, according to strict rule, two thousand dead
men should have been left on the field. Cicero's victims had probably
been much fewer; nevertheless the supplication was granted, and Cicero
presumed that the triumph would follow as a matter of course. Alas,
there came grievous causes to interfere with the triumph!
Of all that went on at Rome Caelius continued to send Cicero accounts.
The Triumvirate was now over. Caelius says that Pompey will not attack
Caesar openly, but that he does all he can to prevent Caesar from being
elected Consul before he shall have given up his province and his
army.[110] For details Caelius refers him to a Commentarium--a word which
has been translated as meaning "newspaper" in this passage--by Melmoth.
I think that there is no authority for this idea, and that the
commentary was simply the compilation of Caelius, as were the
commentaries we so well know the compilation of Caesar. The Acta Diurna
were published by authority, and formed an official gazette. These no
doubt reached Cicero, but were very different in their nature from the
private record of things which he obtained from his friend.
There are passages in Greek, in two letters[111] written about this time
to Atticus, which refer to the matter from which probably arose his
quarrel with his wife, and her divorce. He makes no direct allusion to
his wife, but only to a freedman of hers, Philotomus. When Milo was
convicted, his goods were confiscated and sold as a part of his
punishment. Philotomus is supposed to have been a purchaser, and to have
made money out of the transaction--taking advantage of his position to
acquire cheap bargains--as should not have been done by any one
connected with Cicero, who had been Milo's friend. The cause of Cicero's
quarrel with his wife has never been absolutely known, but it is
supposed to have arisen from her want of loyalty to him in regard to
money. She probably employed this freedman in filling her pockets at the
expense of her husband's character.
[Sidenote: B.C. 50, aetat. 57.]
In his own letters he tells of preparations made for his return, and
allusions are made as to his expected triumph. He is grateful to Caelius
as to what has been done as to the supplication, and expresses his
confidence that all the rest will follow.[112] He is so determined to
hurry away that he will not wait for the nomination of a successor, and
resolves to put the government into the hands of any one of his officers
who may be least unfit to hold it. His brother Quintus was his
lieutenant, but if he left Quintus people would say of him that in doing
so he was still keeping the emoluments in his own hands. At last he
determines to intrust it to a young Quaestor named C. Caelius--no close
connection of his friend Caelius, as Cicero finds himself obliged to
apologize for the selection to his friend. "Young, you will say. No
doubt; but he had been elected Quaestor, and is of noble birth."[113] So
he gives over the province to the young man, having no one else fitter.
Cicero tells us afterward, when at Athens on his way home, that he had
considerable trouble with his own people on withholding certain plunder
which was regarded by them as their perquisite. He had boasted much of
their conduct--having taken exception to one Tullius, who had demanded
only a little hay and a little wood. But now there came to be
pickings--savings out of his own proconsular expenses--to part with
which at the last moment was too hard upon them. "How difficult is
virtue," he exclaims; "how doubly difficult to pretend to act up to it
when it is not felt!"[114] There had been a certain sum saved which he
had been proud to think that he would return to the treasury. But the
satellites were all in arms: "Ingemuit nostra cohors." Nevertheless, he
disregarded the "cohort," and paid the money into the treasury.
As to the sum thus saved, there has been a dispute which has given rise
to some most amusing literary vituperation. The care with which MSS.
have been read now enables us to suppose that it was ten hundred
thousand sesterces--thus expressed, "H.S.X."--amounting to something
over L8000. We hear elsewhere, as will be mentioned again, that Cicero
realized out of his own legitimate allowance in Cilicia a profit of
about L18,000; and we may imagine that the "cohort" should think itself
aggrieved in losing L8000 which they expected to have divided among
them. Middleton has made a mistake, having supposed the X to be
CI[C] or M--a thousand instead of ten--and quotes the sum
saved as having amounted to eight hundred thousand instead of eight
thousand pounds. We who have had so much done for us by intervening
research, and are but ill entitled to those excuses for error which may
fairly be put forward on Middleton's behalf, should be slow indeed in
blaming him for an occasional mistake, seeing how he has relieved our
labors by infinite toil on his part; but De Quincey, who has been very
rancorous against Cicero, has risen to a fury of wrath in his
denunciation of Cicero's great biographer. "Conyers Middleton," he says,
"is a name that cannot be mentioned without an expression of disgust."
The cause of this was that Middleton, a beneficed clergyman of the
Church of England, and a Cambridge man, differed from other Cambridge
clergymen on controversial points and church questions. Bentley was his
great opponent--and as Bentley was a stout fighter, so was Middleton.
Middleton, on the whole, got the worst of it, because Bentley was the
stronger combatant; but he seems to have stood in good repute all his
life, and when advanced in years was appointed Professor of Natural
History. He is known to us, however, only as the biographer of Cicero.
Of this book, Monk, the biographer of Middleton's great opponent,
Bentley, declares that, "for elegance, purity, and ease, Middleton's
style yields to none in the English language." De Quincey says of it
that, by "weeding away from it whatever is colloquial, you would strip
it of all that is characteristic"--meaning, I suppose, that the work
altogether wants dignity of composition. This charge is, to my thinking,
so absolutely contrary to the fact, that it needs only to be named to be
confuted by the opinion of all who have read the work. De Quincey
pounces upon the above-named error with profoundest satisfaction, and
tells us a pleasant little story about an old woman who thought that
four million people had been once collected at Caernarvon. Middleton had
found the figure wrongly deciphered and wrongly copied for him, and had
translated it as he found it, without much thought. De Quincey thinks
that the error is sufficient to throw over all faith in the book: "It is
in the light of an evidence against Middleton's good-sense and
thoughtfulness that I regard it as capital." That is De Quincey's
estimate of Middleton as a biographer. I regard him as a laborer who
spared himself no trouble, who was enabled by his nature to throw
himself with enthusiasm into his subject, who knew his work as a writer
of English, and who, by a combination of erudition, intelligence, and
industry, has left us one of those books of which it may truly be said
that no English library should be without it.
The last letter written by Cicero in Asia was sent to Atticus from
Ephesus the day before he started--on the last day, namely, of September.
He had been delayed by winds and by want of vessels large enough to carry
him and his suite. News here reached him from Rome--news which was not
true in its details, but true enough in its spirit. In a letter to
Atticus he speaks of "miros terrores Caesarianos"[115]--"dreadful reports
as to outrages by Caesar;" that he would by no means dismiss his army;
that he had with him the Praetors elect, one of the Tribunes, and even one
of the Consuls; and that Pompey had resolved to leave the city. Such were
the first tidings presaging Pharsalia. Then he adds a word about his
triumph. "Tell me what you think about this triumph, which my friends
desire me to seek. I should not care about it if Bibulus were not also
asking for a triumph--Bibulus, who never put a foot outside his own doors
as long as there was an enemy in Syria!" Thus Cicero had to suffer untold
misery because Bibulus was asking for a triumph!