_THE WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY._
What official arrangements were made for Proconsuls in regard to money,
when in command of a province, we do not know. The amounts allowed were
no doubt splendid, but it was not to them that the Roman governor looked
as the source of that fortune which he expected to amass. The means of
plunder were infinite, but of plunder always subject to the danger of an
accusation. We remember how Verres calculated that he could divide his
spoil into three sufficient parts--one for the lawyers, one for the
judges, so as to insure his acquittal, and then one for himself. This
plundering was common--so common as to have become almost a matter of
course; but it was illegal, and subjected some unfortunate culprits to
exile, and to the disgorging of a part of what they had taken. No
accusation was made against Cicero. As to others there were constantly
threats, if no more than threats. Cicero was not even threatened. But he
had saved out of his legitimate expenses a sum equal to L18,000 of our
money--from which we may learn how noble were the appanages of a Roman
governor. The expenses of all his staff passed through his own hands,
and many of those of his army. Any saving effected would therefore be to
his own personal advantage. On this money he counted much when his
affairs were in trouble, as he was going to join Pompey at Pharsalia in
the following year. He then begged Atticus to arrange his matters for
him, telling him that the sum was at his call in Asia,[116] but he
never saw it again: Pompey borrowed it--or took it; and when Pompey had
been killed the money was of course gone.
His brother Quintus was with him in Cilicia, but of his brother's doings
there he says little or nothing. We have no letters from him during the
period to his wife or daughter. The latter was married to her third
husband, Dolabella, during his absence, with no opposition from Cicero,
but not in accordance with his advice. He had purposed to accept a
proposition for her hand made to him by Tiberius Nero, the young Roman
nobleman who afterward married that Livia whom Augustus took away from
him even when she was pregnant, in order that he might marry her
himself, and who thus became the father of the Emperor Tiberius. It is
worthy of remark at the same time that the Emperor Tiberius married the
granddaughter of Atticus. Cicero when in Cilicia had wished that Nero
should be chosen; but the family at home was taken by the fashion and
manners of Dolabella, and gave the young widow to him as her third
husband when she was yet only twenty-five. This marriage, like the
others, was unfortunate. Dolabella, though fashionable, nobly born,
agreeable, and probably handsome, was thoroughly worthless. He was a
Roman nobleman of the type then common--heartless, extravagant, and
greedy. His country, his party, his politics were subservient, not to
ambition or love of power, but simply to a desire for plunder. Cicero
tried hard to love him, partly for his daughter's sake, more perhaps
from the necessity which he felt for supporting himself by the power and
strength of the aristocratic party to which Dolabella belonged.
I cannot bring him back to Rome, and all that he suffered there, without
declaring that much of his correspondence during his government,
especially during the latter months of it, and the period of his journey
home, is very distressing. I have told the story of his own doings, I
think, honestly, and how he himself abstained, and compelled those
belonging to him to do so; how he strove to ameliorate the condition of
those under his rule; how he fully appreciated the duty of doing well by
others, so soon to be recognized by all Christians. Such humanity on the
part of a Roman at such a period is to me marvellous, beautiful, almost
divine; but, in eschewing Roman greed and Roman cruelty, he was unable
to eschew Roman insincerity. I have sometimes thought that to have done
so it must have been necessary for him altogether to leave public life.
Why not? my readers will say. But in our days, when a man has mixed
himself for many years with all that is doing in public, how hard it is
for him to withdraw, even though, in withdrawing he fears no violence,
no punishment, no exile, no confiscation. The arguments, the prayers,
the reproaches of those around him draw him back; and the arguments, the
reproaches from within are more powerful even than those from his
friends. To be added to these is the scorn, perhaps the ridicule, of his
opponents. Such are the difficulties in the way of the modern politician
who thinks that he has resolved to retire; but the Roman ex-Consul,
ex-Praetor, ex-Governor had entered upon a mode of warfare in which his
all, his life, his property, his choice of country, his wife, his
children, were open to the ready attacks of his eager enemies. To have
deserved well would be nothing, unless he could keep a party round him
bound by mutual interests to declare that he had deserved well. A rich
man, who desired to live comfortably beyond the struggle of public life,
had to abstain, as Atticus had done, from increasing the sores, from
hurting the ambition, from crushing the hopes of aspirants. Such a man
might be safe, but he could not be useful; such, at any rate, had not
been Cicero's life. In his earlier days, till he was Consul, he had kept
himself free from political interference in doing the work of his life;
but since that time he had necessarily put himself into competition with
many men, and had made many enemies by the courage of his opinions. He
had found even those he had most trusted opposed to him. He had aroused
the jealousy not only of the Caesars and the Crassuses and the Pisos,
but also of the Pompeys and Catos and Brutuses. Whom was he not
compelled to fear? And yet he could not escape to his books; nor, in
truth, did he wish it. He had made for himself a nature which he could
not now control.
He had not been long in Cilicia before he knew well how cruel, how
dishonest, how greedy, how thoroughly Roman had been the conduct of his
predecessor Appius. His letters to Atticus are full of the truths which
he had to tell on that matter. His conduct, too, with regard to Appius
was mainly right. As far as in him lay he endeavored to remedy the evils
which the unjust Proconsul had done, and to stop what further evil was
still being done. He did not hesitate to offend Appius when it was
necessary to do so by his interference. But Appius was a great nobleman,
one of the "optimates," a man with a strong party at his back in Rome.
Appius knew well that Cicero's good word was absolutely necessary to
save him from the ruin of a successful accusation. Cicero knew also that
the support of Appius would be of infinite service to him in his Roman
politics. Knowing this, he wrote to Appius letters full of
flattery--full of falsehood, if the plain word can serve our purpose
better. Dolabella, the new son-in-law, had taken upon himself, for some
reason as to which it can hardly be worth our while to inquire, to
accuse Appius of malversation in his province. That Appius deserved
condemnation there can be no doubt; but in these accusations the
contests generally took place not as to the proof of the guilt, but as
to the prestige and power of the accuser and the accused. Appius was
tried twice on different charges, and was twice acquitted; but the fact
that his son-in-law should be the accuser was fraught with danger to
Cicero. He thought it necessary for the hopes which he then entertained
to make Appius understand that his son-in-law was not acting in concert
with him, and that he was desirous that Appius should receive all the
praise which would have been due to a good governor. So great was the
influence of Appius at Rome that he was not only acquitted, but shortly
afterward elected Censor. The office of Censor was in some respects the
highest in Rome. The Censors were elected only once in four years,
remaining in office for eighteen months. The idea was that powers so
arbitrary as these should be in existence only for a year and a half out
of each four years. Questions of morals were considered by them. Should
a Senator be held to have lived as did not befit a Senator, a Censor
could depose him. As Appius was elected Censor immediately after his
acquittal, together with that Piso whom Cicero had so hated, it may be
understood that his influence was very great.[117] It was great enough
to produce from Cicero letters which were flattering and false. The man
who had been able to live with a humanity, a moderation, and an honesty
befitting a Christian, had not risen to that appreciation of the beauty
of truth which an exercise of Christianity is supposed to exact.
"Sed quid agas? Sic vivitur!"[118]--"What would you have me do? It is
thus we live now!" This he exclaims in a letter to Caelius, written a
short time before he left the province. "What would you say if you read
my last letter to Appius?" You would open your eyes if you knew how I
have flattered Appius--that was his meaning. "Sic vivitur!"--"It is so
we live now." When I read this I feel compelled to ask whether there was
an opportunity for any other way of living. Had he seen the baseness of
lying as an English Christian gentleman is expected to see it, and had
adhered to truth at the cost of being a martyr, his conduct would have
been high though we might have known less of it; but, looking at all the
circumstances of the period, have we a right to think that he could have
done so?
From Athens on his way home Cicero wrote to his wife, joining Tullia's
name with hers. "Lux nostra," he calls his daughter; "the very apple of
my eye!" He had already heard from various friends that civil war was
expected. He will have to declare himself on his arrival--that is, to
take one side or the other--and the sooner he does so the better. There
is some money to be looked for--a legacy which had been left to him. He
gives express directions as to the persons to be employed respecting
this, omitting the name of that Philotomus as to whose honesty he is
afraid. He calls his wife "suavissima et optatissima Terentia," but he
does not write to her with the true love which was expressed by his
letters when in exile. From Athens, also, where he seems to have stayed
nearly two months, he wrote in December. He is easy, he says, about his
triumph unless Caesar should interfere--but he does not care much about
his triumph now. He is beginning to feel the wearisomeness of the
triumph; and indeed it was a time in which the utter hollowness of
triumphal pretensions must have made the idea odious to him. But to have
withdrawn would have been to have declared his own fears, his own
doubts, his own inferiority to the two men who were becoming declared as
the rival candidates for Roman power. We may imagine that at such a time
he would gladly have gone in quiet to his Roman mansion or to one of his
villas, ridding himself forever of the trouble of his lictors, his
fasces, and all the paraphernalia of imperatorial dignity; but a man
cannot rid himself of such appanages without showing that he has found
it necessary to do so. It was the theory of a triumph that the
victorious Imperator should come home hot (as it were) from the
battle-field, with all his martial satellites around him, and have
himself carried at once through Rome. It was barbaric and grand, as I
have said before, but it required the martial satellites. Tradition had
become law, and the Imperator intending to triumph could not dismiss his
military followers till the ceremony was over. In this way Cicero was
sadly hampered by his lictors when, on his landing at Brundisium, he
found that Italy was already preparing for her great civil war.
[Sidenote: B.C. 50, aetat. 57.]
Early in this year it had been again proposed in the Senate that Caesar
should give up his command. At this time the two Consuls, L. AEmilius
Paulus and C. Claudius Marcellus, were opposed to Caesar, as was also
Curio, who had been one of Cicero's young friends, and was now Tribune.
But two of these Caesar managed to buy by the payment of enormous bribes.
Curio was the more important of the two, and required the larger bribe.
The story comes to us from Appian,[119] but the modern reader will find
it efficiently told by Mommsen.[120] The Consul had fifteen hundred
talents, or about L500,000! The sum named as that given by Caesar to
Curio was something greater, because he was so deeply in debt! Bribes to
the amount of above a million of money, such as money is to us now,
bestowed upon two men for their support in the Senate! It was worth a
man's while to be a Consul or a Tribune in those days. But the money was
well earned--plunder, no doubt, extracted from Gaul. The Senate decided
that both Pompey and Caesar should be required to abandon their
commands--or rather they adopted a proposal to that effect without any
absolute decree. But this sufficed for Caesar, who was only anxious to be
relieved from the necessity of obeying any order from the Senate by the
knowledge that Pompey also was ordered, and also was disobedient. Then
it was--in the summer of this year--that the two commanders were desired
by the Senate to surrender each of them a legion, or about three
thousand men, under the pretence that the forces were wanted for the
Parthian war. The historians tell us that Pompey had lent a legion to
Caesar, thus giving us an indication of the singular terms on which
legions were held by the proconsular officers who commanded them. Caesar
nobly sends up to Rome two legions, the one as having been ordered to be
restored by himself, and the other as belonging to Pompey. He felt, no
doubt, that a show of nobleness in this respect would do him better
service than the withholding of the soldiers. The men were stationed at
Capua, instead of being sent to the East, and no doubt drifted back into
Caesar's hands. The men who had served under Caesar would not willingly
find themselves transferred to Pompey.
Caesar in the summer came across the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, which as
yet had not been legally taken from him, and in the autumn sat himself
down at Ravenna, which was still within his province. It was there that
he had to meditate the crossing of the Rubicon and the manifestation of
absolute rebellion. Matters were in this condition when Cicero returned
to Italy, and heard the corroboration of the news as to the civil war
which had reached him at Athens.
In a letter written from Athens, earlier than the one last quoted,
Cicero declared to Atticus that it would become him better to be
conquered with Pompey than to conquer with Caesar.[121] The opinion here
given may be taken as his guiding principle in politics till Pompey was
no more. Through all the doubts and vacillations which encumbered him,
this was the rule not only of his mind but of his heart. To him there
was no Triumvirate: the word had never been mentioned to his ears. Had
Pompey remained free from Caesar it would have been better. The two men
had come together, and Crassus had joined them. It was better for him to
remain with them and keep them right, than to stand away, angry and
astray, as Cato had done. The question how far Caesar was justified in
the position which he had taken up by certain alleged injuries, affected
Cicero less than it has done subsequent inquirers. Had an attempt been
made to recall Caesar illegally? Was he subjected to wrong by having his
command taken away from him before the period had passed for which the
people had given it? Was he refused indulgences to which the greatness
of his services entitled him--such as permission to sue for the
Consulship while absent from Rome--while that, and more than that, had
been granted to Pompey? All these questions were no doubt hot in debate
at the time, but could hardly have affected much the judgment of Cicero,
and did not at all affect his conduct. Nor, I think, should they
influence the opinions of those who now attempt to judge the conduct of
Caesar. Things had gone beyond the domain of law, and had fallen
altogether into that of potentialities. Decrees of the Senate or votes
of the people were alike used as excuses. Caesar, from the beginning of
his career, had shown his determination to sweep away as cobwebs the
obligations which the law imposed upon him. It is surely vain to look
for excuses for a man's conduct to the practice of that injustice
against him which he has long practised against others. Shall we forgive
a house-breaker because the tools which he has himself invented are used
at last upon his own door? The modern lovers of Caesar and of Caesarism
generally do not seek to wash their hero white after that fashion. To
them it is enough that the man has been able to trample upon the laws
with impunity, and to be a law not only to himself but to all the world
around him. There are some of us who think that such a man, let him be
ever so great--let him be ever so just, if the infirmities of human
nature permit justice to dwell in the breast of such a man--will in the
end do more harm than good. But they who sit at the feet of the great
commanders admire them as having been law-breaking, not law-abiding.
To say that Caesar was justified in the armed position which he took in
Northern Italy in the autumn of this year, is to rob him of his praise.
I do not suppose that he had meditated any special line of policy during
the years of hard work in Gaul, but I think that he was determined not
to relinquish his power, and that he was ready for any violence by which
he might preserve it.
If such was Cicero's idea of this man--if such the troubled outlook
which he took into the circumstances of the Empire--he thought probably
but little of the legality of Caesar's recall. What would the Consuls do,
what would Curio do, what would Pompey do, and what Caesar? It was of
this that he thought. Had law-abiding then been possible, he would have
been desirous to abide by the law. Some nearest approach to the law
would be the best. Caesar had ignored all laws, except so far as he could
use them for his own purposes. Pompey, in conspiring with Caesar, had
followed Caesar's lead; but was desirous of using the law against Caesar
when Caesar outstripped him in lawlessness. But to Cicero there was still
some hope of restraining Pompey. Pompey, too, had been a conspirator,
but not so notorious a conspirator as Caesar. With Pompey there would be
some bond to the Republic; with Caesar there could be none; therefore it
was better for him to fall with Pompey than to rise with Caesar. That was
his conviction till Pompey had altogether fallen.
His journey homeward is made remarkable by letters to Tiro, his slave
and secretary. Tiro was taken ill, and Cicero was obliged to leave him
at Patrae, in Greece. Whence he had come to Cicero we do not know, or
when; but he had not probably fallen under his master's peculiar notice
before the days of the Cilician government, as we find that on his
arrival at Brundisium he writes to Atticus respecting him as a person
whom Atticus had not much known.[122] But his affection for Tiro is very
warm, and his little solicitudes for the man whom he leaves are
charming. He is to be careful as to what boat he takes, and under what
captain he sails. He is not to hurry. The doctor is to be consulted and
well paid. Cicero himself writes various letters to various persons, in
order to secure that attention which Tiro could not have insured unless
so assisted.
Early in January Cicero reached the city, but could not enter it because
of his still unsettled triumph, and Caesar crossed the little river which
divided his province from the Roman territory. The 4th of January is the
date given for the former small event. For the latter I have seen no
precise day named, I presume that it was after the 6th, as on that day
the Senate appointed Domitian as his successor in his province. On this
being done, the two Tribunes, Antony and Cassius, hurried off to Caesar,
and Caesar then probably crossed the stream. Cicero was appointed to a
command in Campania--that of raising levies, the duties of which were
not officially repugnant to his triumph.
His doings during the whole of this time were but little to his credit;
but who is there whose doings were to his credit at that period? The
effect had been to take all power out of his hand. Caesar had given him
up. Pompey could not do so, but we can imagine how willing Pompey would
have been that he should have remained in Cilicia. He had been sent
there, out of the way, but had hurried home again. If he would only have
remained and plundered! If he would only have remained there and have
been honest--so that he would be out of the way! But here he was--back
in Italy, an honest, upright man! No one so utterly unlike the usual
Roman, so lost amid the self-seekers of Rome, so unnecessarily
clean-handed, could be found! Cato was honest, foolishly honest for his
time; but with Cato it was not so difficult to deal as with Cicero. We
can imagine Cato wrapping himself up in his robe and being savagely
unreasonable. Cicero was all alive to what was going on in the world,
but still was honest! In the mean time he remained in the neighborhood
of Naples, writing to his wife and daughter, writing to Tiro, writing to
Atticus, and telling us all those details which we now seem to know so
well--because he has told us. In one of his letters to Atticus at this
time he is sadly in earnest. He will die with Pompey in Italy, but what
can he do by leaving it? He has his "lictors" with him still. Oh, those
dreadful lictors! His friendship for Cnaeus! His fear of having to join
himself with the coming tyrant! "Oh that you would assist me with your
counsel!"[123] He writes again, and describes the condition of
Pompey--of Pompey who had been Magnus. "See how prostrate he is. He has
neither courage, counsel, men, nor industry! Put aside those things;
look at his flight from the city, his cowardly harangues in the towns,
his ignorance of his own strength and that of his enemy! * * * Caesar in
pursuit of Pompey! Oh, sad! * * * Will he kill him?" he exclaims. Then,
still to Atticus, he defends himself. He will die for Pompey, but he
does not believe that he can do any good either to Pompey or to the
Republic by a base flight. Then there is another cause for staying in
Italy as to which he cannot write. This was Terentia's conduct. At the
end of one of his letters he tells Atticus that with the same lamp by
which he had written would he burn that which Atticus had sent to him.
In another he speaks of a Greek tutor who has deserted him, a certain
Dionysius, and he boils over with anger. His letters to Atticus about
the Greek tutor are amusing at this distance of time, because they show
his eagerness. "I never knew anything more ungrateful; and there is
nothing worse than ingratitude."[124]
He heaps his scorn upon Pompey: "It is true, indeed, that I said that it
was better to be conquered with him than to conquer with those others. I
would indeed. But of what Pompey was it that I so spoke? Was it of this
one who flies he knows not what, nor whom, nor whither he will
fly?"[125] He writes again the same day: "Pompey had fostered Caesar, and
then had feared him. He had left the city; he had lost Picenum by his
own fault, he had betaken himself to Apulia! Then he went into Greece,
leaving us in the dark as to his plans!" He excuses a letter of his own
to Caesar. He had written to Caesar in terms which might be pleasing to
the great man. He had told Caesar of Caesar's admirable wisdom. Was it not
better so? He was willing that his letter should be read aloud to all
the people, if only those of Pompey might also be read aloud. Then
follow copies of a correspondence between him and Pompey. In the last he
declares[126] that "when he had written from Canusium he had not dreamed
that Pompey was about to cross the sea. He had known that Pompey had
intended to treat for peace--for peace even under unjust conditions--but
he had never thought that Pompey was meditating a retreat out of Italy."
He argues well and stoutly, and does take us along with him. Pompey had
been beaten back from point to point, never once rallying himself
against Caesar. He had failed, and had slipped away, leaving a man here
and there to stand up for the Republic. Pompey was willing to risk
nothing for Rome. It had come to pass at last that he was being taught
Caesarism by Caesar, and when he died was more imperial than his master.
At this time Cicero's eyes were bad. "Mihi molestior lippitudo erat
etiam quam ante fuerat." And again, "Lippitudinis meae signum tibi sit
librarii manus." But we may doubt whether any great men have lived so
long with so little to tease them as to their health. And yet the amount
of work he got through was great. He must have so arranged his affairs
as to have made the most he could of his hours, and have carried in his
memory information on all subjects. When we remember the size of the
books which he read, their unwieldy shapes, their unfitness for such
work as that of ours, there seems to have been a continuation of study
such as we cannot endure. Throughout his life his hours were early, but
they must also have been late. Of his letters we have not a half, of
his speeches not a half, of his treatises not more than a half. When he
was abroad during his exile, or in Cilicia during his government, he
could not have had his books with him. That Caesar should have been
Caesar, or Pompey Pompey, does not seem to me a matter so difficult as
that Cicero should have been Cicero. Then comes that letter of which I
spoke in my first chapter, in which he recapitulates the Getae, the
Armenians, and the men of Colchis. "Shall I, the savior of the city,
assist to bring down upon that city those hordes of foreign men? Shall I
deliver it up to famine and to destruction for the sake of one man who
is no more than mortal?"[127] It was Pompey as to whom he then asked the
question. For Pompey's sake am I to let in these crowds? We have been
told, indeed, by Mr. Froude that the man was Caesar, and that Cicero
wrote thus anxiously with the special object of arranging his death!
"Now, if ever, think what we shall do," he says. "A Roman army sits
round Pompey and makes him a prisoner within valley and rampart--and
shall we live? The city stands; the Praetors give the law, the AEdiles
keep up the games, good men look to their principal and their interest.
Shall I remain sitting here? Shall I rush hither and thither madly, and
implore the credit of the towns? Men of substance will not follow me.
The revolutionists will arrest me. Is there any end to this misery?
People will point at me and say, 'How wise he was not to go with him.' I
was not wise. Of his victory I never wished to be the comrade--yet now I
do of his sorrow."[128]
[Sidenote: B.C. 49, aetat. 58.]
Pompey had crossed the sea from Brundisium, and Caesar had retreated
across Italy to Capua. As he was journeying he saw Cicero, and asked him
to go to Rome. This Cicero refused, and Caesar passed on. "I must then
use other counsels," said Caesar, thus leaving him for the last time
before the coming battle. Cicero went on to Arpinum, and there heard the
nightingales. From that moment he resolved. He had not thought it
possible that when the moment came he should have been able to prevail
against Caesar's advice; but he had done so. He had feared that Caesar
would overcome him; but when the moment came he was strong against even
Caesar. He gave his boy his toga, or, as we should say, made a man of
him. He was going after Pompey, not for the sake of Pompey, not for the
sake of the Republic, but for loyalty. He was going because Atticus had
told him to go. But as he is going there came fresh ground for grief. He
writes to Atticus about the two boys, his son and nephew. The one is
good by nature, and has not yet gone astray. The other, the elder and
his nephew, has been encouraged by this uncle's indulgence, and has
openly adopted evil ways. In other words, he has become Caesarian--for a
reward.[129] The young Quintus has shown himself to be very false.
Cicero is so bound together with his family in their public life that
this falling off of one of them makes him unhappy. Then Curio comes the
way, and there is a most interesting conversation. It seems that Curio,
who is fond of Cicero, tells him everything; but Cicero, who doubts him,
lets him pass on. Then Caelius writes to him. Caelius implores him, for
the sake of his children, to bear in mind what he is doing. He tells him
much of Caesar's anger, and asks him if he cannot become Caesarian; at any
rate to betake himself to some retreat till the storm shall pass by and
quieter days should come. But Caelius, though it had suited Cicero to
know him intimately, had not read the greatness of the man's mind. He
did not understand in the least the difficulty which pervaded Cicero. To
Caelius it was play--play in which a man might be beaten, or banished, or
slaughtered; but it was a game in which men were fighting each for
himself. That there should be a duty in the matter, beyond that, was
inexplicable to Caelius. And his children, too--his anger against young
Quintus and his forgiveness of Marcus! He thinks that Quintus had been
purchased by a large bribe on Caesar's side, and is thankful that it is
no worse with him. What can have been worse to a young man than to have
been open to such payment? Antony is frequently on the scene, and
already disgusts us by the vain frivolity and impudence of his life. And
then Cicero's eyes afflict him, and he cannot see. Servius Sulpicius
comes to him weeping. For Servius, who is timid and lachrymose,
everything has gone astray. And then there is that Dionysius who had
plainly told him that he desired to follow some richer or some readier
master. At the last comes the news of his Tullia's child's birth. She is
brought to bed of a son. He cannot, however, wait to see how the son
thrives. From the midst of enemies, and with spies around him, he
starts. There is one last letter written to his wife and daughter from
on board the ship at Caieta, sending them many loves and many careful
messages, and then he is off.
It was now the 11th of June, the third day before the ides, B.C. 49, and
we hear nothing special of the events of his journey. When he reached
the camp, which he did in safety, he was not well received there. He had
given his all to place himself along with Pompey in the republican
quarters, and when there the republicans were unwilling to welcome him.
Pompey would have preferred that he should have remained away, so as to
be able to say hereafter that he had not come.
Of what occurred to Cicero during the great battle which led to the
solution of the Roman question we know little or nothing. We hear that
Cicero was absent, sick at Dyrrachium, but there are none of those
tirades of abuse with which such an absence might have been greeted. We
hear, indeed, from other sources, very full accounts of the
fighting--how Caesar was nearly conquered, how Pompey might have
prevailed had he had the sense to take the good which came in his way,
how he failed to take it, how he was beaten, and how, in the very
presence of his wife, he was murdered at last at the mouth of the Nile
by the combined energies of a Roman and a Greek.
We can imagine how the fate of the world was decided on the Pharsalus
where the two armies met, and the victory remained with Caesar. Then
there were weepings and gnashings of teeth, and there were the
congratulations and self-applause of the victors. In all Cicero's
letters there is not a word of it. There was terrible suffering before
it began, and there is the sense of injured innocence on his return, but
nowhere do we find any record of what took place. There is no mourning
for Pompey, no turning to Caesar as the conqueror. Petra has been lost,
and Pharsalia has been won, but there is no sign.
[Sidenote: B.C. 48, aetat. 59.]
Cicero, we know, spent the time at Dyrrachium close to which the battle
of Petra was fought, and went from thence to Corcyra. There invitation
was made to him, as the senior consular officer present, to take the
command of the beaten army, but that he declined. We are informed that
he was nearly killed in the scuffle which took place. We can imagine
that it was so--that in the confusion and turmoil which followed he
should have been somewhat roughly told that it behooved him to take the
lead and to come forth as the new commander; that there should be a time
at last in which no moment should be allowed him for doubt, but that he
should doubt, and, after more or less of reticence, pass on. Young
Pompey would have it so. What name would be so good to bind together the
opponents of Caesar as that of Cicero? But Cicero would not be led. It
seems that he was petulant and out of sorts at the time; that he had
been led into the difficulty of the situation by his desire to be true
to Pompey, and that he was only able to escape from it now that Pompey
was gone. We can well imagine that there should be no man less able to
fight against Caesar, though there was none whose name might be so
serviceable to use as that of Cicero. At any rate, as far as we are
concerned, there was silence on the subject on his part. He wrote not a
word to any of the friends whom Pompey had left behind him, but returned
to Italy dispirited, silent, and unhappy. He had indeed met many men
since the battle of the Pharsalus, but to none of whom we are conversant
had he expressed his thoughts regarding that great campaign.
Here we part from Pompey, who ran from the fighting-ground of Macedonia
to meet his doom in the roads of Alexandria. Never had man risen so high
in his youth to be extinguished so ingloriously in his age. He was born
in the same year with Cicero, but had come up quicker into the
management of the world's affairs, so as to have received something from
his equals of that which was due to age. Habit had given him that ease
of manners which enabled him to take from those who should have been his
compeers the deference which was due not to his age but to his
experience. When Cicero was entering the world, taking up the cudgels to
fight against Sulla, Pompey had already won his spurs, in spite of Sulla
but by means of Sulla. Men in these modern days learn, as they grow old
in public life, to carry themselves with indifference among the
backslidings of the world. In reading the life of Cicero, we see that it
was so then. When defending Amerinus, we find the same character of man
as was he who afterward took Milo's part. There is the same readiness,
the same ingenuity, and the same high indignation; but there is not the
same indifference as to results. With Amerinus it is as though all the
world depended on it; with Milo he felt it to be sufficient to make the
outside world believe it. When Pompey triumphed, 70 B.C., and was made
Consul for the second time, he was already old in glory--when Cicero had
not as yet spoken those two orations against Verres which had made the
speaking of another impossible. Pompey, we may say, had never been
young. Cicero was never old. There was no moment in his life in which
Cicero was not able to laugh with the Curios and the Caeliuses behind the
back of the great man. There was no moment in which Pompey could have
done so. He who has stepped from his cradle on to the world's high
places has lost the view of those things which are only to be seen by
idle and luxurious young men of the day. Cicero did not live for many
years beyond Pompey, but I doubt whether he did not know infinitely more
of men. To Pompey it had been given to rule them; but to Cicero to live
with them.