charge, but was meant to render the proper part of the accusation more
probable, exposes the excesses and malversations committed by Verres in
early life, before his appointment to the Prætorship of Sicily—his
embezzlement of public money while Quæstor of Gaul—his extortions under
Dolabella in Asia, and, finally, his unjust, corrupt, and partial
decisions while in the office of _Prætor Urbanus_ at Rome, which, forming
a principal part of the oration, the whole has been entitled _De Prætura
Urbana_. In the following harangue, entitled _De Jurisdictione
Siciliensi_, the orator commences with an elegant eulogy on the dignity,
antiquity, and usefulness of the province, which was not here a mere idle
or rhetorical embellishment, but was most appropriately introduced, as
nothing could be better calculated to excite indignation against the
spoiler of Sicily, than the picture he draws of its beauty; after which,
he proceeds to give innumerable instances of the flagrant sale of justice,
offices, and honours, and, among the last, even of the priesthood of
Jupiter. The next oration is occupied with the malversations of Verres
concerning grain, and the new ordinances, by which he had contrived to put
the whole corps of the island at the disposal of his officers. In this
harangue the dry statements of the prices of corn are rather fatiguing;
but the following oration, _De Signis_, is one of the most interesting of
his productions, particularly as illustrating the history of ancient art.
For nearly six centuries Rome had been filled only with the spoils of
barbarous nations, and presented merely the martial spectacle of a warlike
and conquering people. Subsequently, however, to the campaigns in _Magna
Græcia_, Sicily, and Greece, the Roman commanders displayed at their
triumphs costly ornaments of gold, pictures, statues, and vases, instead
of flocks driven from the Sabines or Volsci, the broken arms of the
Samnites, and empty chariots of the Gauls. The statues and paintings which
Marcellus transported from Syracuse to Rome, first excited that cupidity
which led the Roman provincial magistrates to pillage, without scruple or
distinction, the houses of private individuals, and temples of the
gods(319). Marcellus and Mummius, however, despoiled only hostile and
conquered countries. They had made over their plunder to the public, and,
after it was conveyed to Rome, devoted it to the embellishment of the
capital; but subsequent governors of provinces having acquired a taste for
works of art, began to appropriate to themselves those masterpieces of
Greece, which they had formerly neither known nor esteemed. Some contrived
plausible pretexts for borrowing valuable works of art from cities and
private persons, without any intention of restoring them; while others,
less cautious, or more shameless, seized whatever pleased them, whether
public or private property, without excuse or remuneration. But though
this passion was common to most provincial governors, none of them ever
came up to the full measure of the rapacity of Verres, who, allowing much
for the high colouring of the counsel and orator, appears to have been
infected with a sort of disease, or mania, which gave him an irresistible
propensity to seize whatever he saw or heard of, which was precious either
in materials or workmanship. For this purpose he retained in his service
two brothers from Asia Minor, on whose judgment he relied for the choice
of statues and pictures, and who were employed to search out everything of
this sort which was valuable in the island. Aided by their suggestions, he
seized tapestry, pictures, gold and silver plate, vases, gems, and
Corinthian bronzes, till he literally did not leave a single article of
value of these descriptions in the whole island. The chief objects of this
pillage were the statues and pictures of the gods, which the Romans
regarded with religious veneration; and they, accordingly, viewed such
rapine as sacrilege. Hence the frequent adjurations and apostrophes to the
deities who had been insulted, which are introduced in the oration. The
circumstances of violence and circumvention, under which the depredations
were committed, are detailed with much vehemence, and at considerable
length. Some description is given of the works of sculpture; and the names
of the statuaries by whom they were executed, are also frequently
recorded. Thus, we are told that Verres took away from a private gentleman
of Messina the marble Cupid, by Praxiteles: He sacrilegiously tore a
figure of Victory from the temple of Ceres—he deprived the city Tyndaris
of an image of Mercury, which had been restored to it from Carthage, by
Scipio, and was worshipped by the people with singular devotion and an
annual festival. Some of the works of art were openly carried off—some
borrowed under plausible pretences, but never restored, and others
forcibly purchased at an inadequate value. If the speech _De Signis_ be
the most curious, that _De Suppliciis_ is incomparably the finest of the
series of _Verrine_ orations. The subject afforded a wider field than the
former for the display of eloquence, and it presents us with topics of
more general and permanent interest. Such, indeed, is the vehement pathos,
and such the resources employed to excite pity in favour of the oppressed,
and indignation against the guilty, that the genius of the orator is
nowhere more conspicuously displayed—not even in the Philippics or
Catilinarian harangues. It was now proved that Verres had practiced every
species of fraud and depredation, and on these heads no room was left for
defence. But as the duties of provincial Prætors were twofold—the
administration of the laws, and the direction of warlike operations—it was
suspected that the counsel of Verres meant to divert the attention of the
judges from his avarice to his military conduct and valour. This plea the
orator completely anticipates. His misconduct, indeed, in the course of
the naval operations against the pirates, forms one of the chief topics of
Cicero’s bitter invective. He demonstrates that the fleet had been
equipped rather for show than for service; that it was unprovided with
sailors or stores, and altogether unfit to act against an enemy. The
command was given to Cleomenes, a Syracusan, who was ignorant of naval
affairs, merely that Verres might enjoy the company of his wife during his
absence. The description of the sailing of the fleet from Syracuse is
inimitable, and it is so managed that the whole seems to pass before the
eyes. Verres, who had not been seen in public for many months, having
retired to a splendid pavilion, pitched near the fountain of Arethusa,
where he passed his time in company of his favourites, amidst all the
delights that arts and luxury could administer, at length appeared, in
order to view the departure of the squadron; and a Roman Prætor exhibited
himself, standing on the shore in sandals, with a purple cloak flowing to
his heels, and leaning on the shoulder of a harlot! The fleet, as was to
be expected, was driven on shore, and there burned by the pirates, who
entered Syracuse in triumph, and retired from it unmolested. Verres, in
order to divert public censure from himself, put the captains of the ships
to death; and this naturally leads on to the subject which has given name
to the oration,—the cruel and illegal executions, not merely of Sicilians,
but Roman citizens. The punishments of death and torture usually reserved
for slaves, but inflicted by Verres on freemen of Rome, formed the climax
of his atrocities, which are detailed in oratorical progression. After the
vivid description of his former crimes, one scarcely expects that new
terms of indignation will be found; but the expressions of the orator
become more glowing, in proportion as Verres grows more daring in his
guilt. The sacred character borne over all the world by a Roman citizen,
must be fully remembered, in order to read with due feeling the
description of the punishment of Gavius, who was scourged, and then nailed
to a cross, which, by a refinement in cruelty, was erected on the shore,
and facing Italy, that he might suffer death with his view directed
towards home and a land of liberty. The whole is poured forth in a torrent
of the most rapid and fervid composition; and had it actually flowed from
the lips of the speaker, we cannot doubt the prodigious effect it would
have had on a Roman audience, and on Roman judges. In the oration _De
Signis_, something, as we have seen, is lost to a modern reader, by the
diminished reverence for the mythological deities; and, in like manner,
_we_ cannot enter fully into the spirit of the harangue _De Suppliciis_,
which is planned with a direct reference to national feeling, to that
stern decorum which could not be overstepped without shame, and that
adoration of the majesty of Rome, which invested its citizens with
inexpressible dignity, and bestowed on them an almost inviolable nature.
Hence the appearance of Verres in public, in a long purple robe, is
represented as the climax of his enormities, and the punishment of
scourging inflicted on a Roman citizen is treated (without any discussion
concerning the justice of the sentence) as an unheard-of and unutterable
crime. Yet even those parts least attractive to modern readers, are
perfect in their execution; and the whole series of orations will ever be
regarded as among the most splendid monuments of Tully’s transcendent
genius.
In the renowned cause against Verres, there can be no doubt that the
orator displayed the whole resources of his vast talents. Every
circumstance concurred to stimulate his exertions and excite his
eloquence. It was the first time he had appeared as an accuser in a public
trial—his clients were the injured people of a mighty province, rivalling
in importance the imperial state—the inhabitants of Sicily surrounded the
Forum, and an audience was expected from every quarter of Italy, of all
that was exalted, intelligent, and refined. But, chiefly, he had a
subject, which, from the glaring guilt of the accused, and the nature of
his crimes, was so copious, interesting, and various, so abundant in those
topics which an orator would select to afford full scope for the exercise
of his powers, that it was hardly possible to labour tamely or listlessly
in so rich a mine of eloquence. Such a wonderful assemblage of
circumstances never yet prepared the course for the triumphs of oratory;
so great an opportunity for the exhibition of forensic art will, in all
probability, never again occur. Suffice it to say, that the orator
surpassed by his workmanship the singular beauty of his materials; and
instead of being overpowered by their magnitude, derived from the vast
resources which they supplied the merit of an additional excellence, in
the skill and discernment of his choice.
The infinite variety of entertaining anecdotes with which the series of
pleadings against Verres abounds—the works of art which are
commemorated—the interesting topographical descriptions—the insight
afforded into the laws and manners of the ancient Sicilians—the
astonishing profusion of ironical sallies, all conspire to dazzle the
imagination and rivet the attention of the reader; yet there is something
in the idea that they were not actually delivered, which detracts from the
effect of circumstances which would otherwise heighten our feelings. It
appears to us even preposterous to read, in the commencement of the second
oration, of a report having been spread that Verres was to abandon his
defence, but that there he sat braving his accusers and judges with his
characteristic impudence. The exclamations on his effrontery, and the
adjurations of the judges, lose their force, when we cannot help
recollecting that before one word of all this could be pronounced, the
person against whom they were directed as present had sneaked off into
voluntary exile. Whatever effect this recollection may have had on the
ancients, who regarded oratory as an art, and an oration as an elaborate
composition, nothing can be more grating or offensive to the taste and
feelings of a modern reader, whose idea of eloquence is that of something
natural, heart-felt, inartificial, and extemporaneous.
The Sicilians, though they could scarcely have been satisfied with the
issue of the trial, appear to have been sufficiently sensible of Cicero’s
great exertions in their behalf. Blainville, in his Travels, mentions,
that while at Grotta Ferrata, a convent built on the ruins of Cicero’s
Tusculan Villa, he had been shown a silver medal, unquestionably antique,
struck by the Sicilians in gratitude for his impeachment of Verres. One
side exhibits a head of Cicero, crowned with laurel, with the legend _M.
T. Ciceroni_—on the reverse, there is the representation of three legs
extended in a triangular position, in the form of the three great capes or
promontories of Sicily, with the motto,—“_Prostrato Verre Trinacria_.”
_Pro Fonteio_. It is much to be regretted, that the oration for Fonteius,
the next which Cicero delivered, has descended to us incomplete. It was
the defence of an unpopular governor, accused of oppression by the
province intrusted to his administration; and, as such, would have formed
an interesting contrast to the accusation of Verres.
_Pro Cæcina_. This was a mere question of civil right, turning on the
effect of a Prætorian edict.
_Pro Lege Manilia_. Hitherto Cicero had only addressed the judges in the
Forum in civil suits or criminal prosecutions. The oration for the
Manilian law, which is accounted one of the most splendid of his
productions, was the first in which he spoke to the whole people from the
rostrum. It was pronounced in favour of a law proposed by Manilius, a
tribune of the people, for constituting Pompey sole general, with
extraordinary powers, in the war against Mithridates and Tigranes, in
which Lucullus at that time commanded. The chiefs of the Senate regarded
this law as a dangerous precedent in the republic; and all the authority
of Catulus, and eloquence of Hortensius, were directed against it. It has
been conjectured, that in supporting pretensions which endangered the
public liberty, Cicero was guided merely by interest, since an opposition
to Pompey might have prevented his own election to the consulship, which
was now the great object of his ambition. His life, however, and writings,
will warrant us in ascribing to him a different, though perhaps less
obvious motive. With the love of virtue and the republic, which glowed so
intensely in the breast of this illustrious Roman, that less noble
passion, the immoderate desire of popular fame, was unfortunately mingled.
“Fame,” says a modern historian, “was the prize at which he aimed; his
weakness of bodily constitution sought it through the most strenuous
labours—his natural timidity of mind pursued it through the greatest
dangers. Pompey, who had fortunately attained it, he contemplated as the
happiest of men, and was led, from this illusion of fancy, not only to
speak of him, but really to think of him,” (till he became unfortunate,)
“with a fondness of respect bordering on enthusiasm. The glare of glory
that surrounded Pompey, concealed from Cicero his many and great
imperfections, and seduced an honest citizen, and finest genius in Rome, a
man of unparalleled industry, and that generally applied to the noblest
purposes, into the prostitution of his abilities and virtues, for exalting
an ambitious chief, and investing him with such exorbitant and
unconstitutional powers, as virtually subverted the commonwealth(320).”
In defending this pernicious measure, Cicero divided his discourse into
two parts—showing, first, that the importance and imminent dangers of the
contest in which the state was engaged, required the unusual remedy
proposed—and, secondly, that Pompey was the fittest person to be intrusted
with the conduct of the war. This leads to a splendid panegyric on that
renowned commander, in which, while he does justice to the merits of his
predecessor, Lucullus, he enlarges on the military skill, valour,
authority, and good fortune of this present idol of his luxuriant
imagination, with all the force and beauty which language can afford. He
fills the imagination with the immensity of the object, kindles in the
breast an ardour of affection and gratitude, and, by an accumulation of
circumstances and proofs, so aggrandizes his hero, that he exalts him to
something more than mortal in the minds of his auditory; while, at the
same time, every word inspires the most perfect veneration for his
character, and the most unbounded confidence in his integrity and
judgment. The whole world is exhibited as an inadequate theatre for the
actions of such a superior genius; while all the nations, and potentates
of the earth, are in a manner called as witnesses of his valour and his
truth. By enlarging on these topics, by the most solemn protestations of
his own sincerity, and by adducing examples from antiquity, of the state
having been benefited or saved, by intrusting unlimited power to a single
person, he allayed all fears of the dangers which it was apprehended might
result to the constitution, from such extensive authority being vested in
one individual—and thus struck the first blow towards the subversion of
the republic!
_Pro Cluentio_. This is a pleading for Cluentius, who, at his mother’s
instigation, was accused of having poisoned his stepfather, Oppianicus.
Great part of the harangue appears to be but collaterally connected with
the direct subject of the prosecution. Oppianicus, it seems, had been
formerly accused by Cluentius, and found guilty of a similar attempt
against his life; but after his condemnation, a report became current that
Cluentius had prevailed in the cause by corrupting the judges, and, to
remove the unfavourable impression thus created against his client, Cicero
recurs to the circumstances of that case. In the second part of the
oration, which refers to the accusation of poisoning Oppianicus, he finds
it necessary to clear his client from two previous charges of attempts to
poison. In treating of the proper subject of the criminal proceedings,
which does not occupy above a sixth part of the whole oration, he shows
that Cluentius could have had no access or opportunity to administer
poison to his father, who was in exile; that there was nothing unusual or
suspicious in the circumstances of his death; and that the charge
originated in the machinations of Cluentius’ unnatural mother, against
whom he inveighs with much force, as one hurried along blindfold by
guilt—who acts with such folly that no one can account her a rational
creature—with such violence that none can imagine her to be a woman—with
such cruelty, that none can call her a mother. The whole oration discloses
such a scene of enormous villainy—of murders, by poison and
assassination—of incest, and subornation of witnesses, that the family
history of Cluentius may be regarded as the counterpart in domestic
society, of what the government of Verres was in public life. Though very
long, and complicated too, in the subject, it is one of the most correct
and forcible of all Cicero’s judicial orations; and, under the impression
that it comes nearer to the strain of a modern pleading than any of the
others, it has been selected by Dr Blair as the subject of a minute
analysis and criticism(321).
_De Lege Agraria contra Rullum_. In his discourse _Pro Lege Manilia_, the
first of the deliberative kind addressed to the assembly of the people,
Cicero had the advantage of speaking for a favourite of the multitude, and
against the chiefs of the Senate; but he was placed in a very different
situation when he came to oppose the Agrarian law. This had been for 300
years the darling object of the Roman tribes—the daily attraction and
rallying word of the populace—the signal of discord, and most powerful
engine of the seditious tribunate. The first of the series of orations
against the Agrarian law, now proposed by Rullus, was delivered by Cicero
in the Senate-house, shortly after his election to the consulship: The
second and third were addressed to the people from the rostrum. The scope
of the present Agrarian law was, to appoint Decemvirs for the purpose of
selling the public domains in the provinces, and to recover from the
generals the spoils acquired in foreign wars, by which a fund might be
formed for the purchase of lands in Italy, particularly Campania—to be
equally divided among the people. Cicero, in his first oration, of which
the commencement is now wanting, quieted the alarms of the Senate, by
assuring them of his resolution to oppose the law with his utmost power.
When the question came before the people, he did not fear to encounter the
Tribunes on their own territory, and most popular subject; he did not
hesitate to make the rabble judges in their own cause, though one in which
their passions, interests, and prejudices, and those of their fathers, had
been engaged for so many centuries. Conscious of his superiority, he
invited the Tribunes to ascend the rostrum, and argue the point with him
before the assembled multitude; but the field was left clear to his
argument and eloquence, and by alternately flattering the people, and
ridiculing the proposer of the law, he gave such a turn to their
inclinations, that they rejected the proposition as eagerly as they had
before received it.
But although the Tribunes were unable to cope with Cicero in the Forum,
they subsequently contrived to instil suspicions into the minds of the
populace, with regard to his motives in opposing the Agrarian law. These
imputations made such an impression on the city, that he found it
necessary to defend himself against them, in a short speech to the people.
It has been disputed, whether this third oration was the last which Cicero
pronounced on occasion of this Agrarian law. In the letters to Atticus,
while speaking of his consular orations, he says, “that among those sent,
was that pronounced in the Senate, and that addressed to the people, on
the Agrarian law(322).” These are the first and second of the speeches,
which we now have against Rullus; but he also mentions, that there were
two _apospasmatia_, as he calls them, concerning the Agrarian law. Now,
what is at present called the third, was probably the first of these two,
and the last must have perished.
_Pro Rabirio_. About the year 654, Saturninus, a seditious Tribune, had
been slain by a party attached to the interests of the Senate. Thirty-six
years afterwards, Rabirius was accused of accession to this murder, by
Labienus, subsequently well known as Cæsar’s lieutenant in Gaul.
Hortensius had pleaded the cause before the Duumvirs, Caius and Lucius
Cæsar, by whom Rabirius being condemned, appealed to the people, and was
defended by Cicero in the Comitia. The Tribune, it seems, had been slain
in a tumult during a season of such danger, that a decree had been passed
by the Senate, requiring the Consuls to be careful that the republic
received no detriment. This was supposed to sanction every proceeding
which followed in consequence; and the design of the popular party, in the
impeachment of Rabirius, was to attack this prerogative of the Senate.
Cicero’s oration on this contention between the Senatorial and Tribunitial
power, gives us more the impression of prompt and unstudied eloquence than
most of his other harangues. It is, however, a little obscure, partly from
the circumstance that the accuser would not permit him to exceed half an
hour in the defence. The argument seems to have been, that Rabirius did
not kill Saturninus; but that even if he had slain him, the action was not
merely legal, but praiseworthy, since all citizens had been required to
arm in aid of the Consuls.
It was believed, that in spite of the exertions of Cicero, Rabirius would
have been condemned, had not the Prætor Metellus devised an expedient for
dissolving the Comitia, before sentence could be passed. The cause was
neither farther prosecuted at this time, nor subsequently revived; the
public attention being now completely engrossed by the imminent dangers of
the Catilinarian Conspiracy, which was discovered during the Consulship of
Cicero.
_Contra Catilinam_. The detection and suppression of that nefarious plot,
form the most glorious part of the political life of Cicero; and the
orations he pronounced against the chief conspirator, are still regarded
as the most splendid monuments of his eloquence. It was no longer to
defend the rights and prerogatives of a municipal town or province, nor to
move and persuade a judge in favour of an unfortunate client, but to save
his country and the republic, that Cicero ascended the Rostrum. The
conspiracy of Catiline tended to the utter extinction of the city and
government. Cicero, having discovered his design, (which was to leave Rome
and join his army, assembled in different parts of Italy, while the other
conspirators remained within the walls, to butcher the Senators and fire
the capital,) summoned the Senate to meet in the Temple of Jupiter Stator,
with the intention of laying before it the whole circumstances of the
plot. But Catiline having unexpectedly appeared in the midst of the
assembly, his audacity impelled the consular orator into an abrupt
invective, which is directly addressed to the traitor, and commences
without the preamble by which most of his other harangues are introduced.
In point of effect, this oration must have been perfectly electric. The
disclosure to the criminal himself of his most secret purposes—their
flagitious nature, threatening the life of every one present—the whole
course of his villainies and treasons, blazoned forth with the fire of
incensed eloquence—and the adjuration to him, by flying from Rome, to free
his country from such a pestilence, were all wonderfully calculated to
excite astonishment, admiration, and horror. The great object of the whole
oration, was to drive Catiline into banishment; and it appears somewhat
singular, that so dangerous a personage, and who might have been so easily
convicted, should thus have been forced, or even allowed, to withdraw to
his army, instead of being seized and punished. Catiline having escaped
unmolested to his camp, the conduct of the Consul in not apprehending, but
sending away this formidable enemy, had probably excited some censure and
discontent; and the second Catilinarian oration was in consequence
delivered by Cicero, in an assembly of the people, in order to justify his
driving the chief conspirator from Rome. A capital punishment, he admits,
ought long since to have overtaken Catiline, but such was the spirit of
the times, that the existence of the conspiracy would not have been
believed, and he had therefore resolved to place his guilt in a point of
view so conspicuous, that vigorous measures might without hesitation be
adopted, both against Catiline and his accomplices. He also takes this
opportunity to warn his audience against those bands of conspirators who
still lurked within the city, and whom he divides into various classes,
describing, in the strongest language, the different degrees of guilt and
profligacy by which they were severally characterized.
Manifest proofs of the whole plot having been at length obtained, by the
arrest of the ambassadors from the Allobroges, with whom the conspirators
had tampered, and who were bearing written credentials from them to their
own country, Cicero, in his third oration, laid before the people all the
particulars of the discovery, and invited them to join in celebrating a
thanksgiving, which had been decreed by the Senate to his honour, for the
preservation of his country.
The last Catilinarian oration was pronounced in the Senate, on the debate
concerning the punishment to be inflicted on the conspirators. Silanus had
proposed the infliction of instant death, while Cæsar had spoken in favour
of the more lenient sentence of perpetual imprisonment. Cicero does not
precisely declare for any particular punishment; but he shows that his
mind evidently inclined to the severest, by dwelling on the enormity of
the conspirators’ guilt, and aggravating all their crimes with much
acrimony and art. His sentiments finally prevailed; and those
conspirators, who had remained in Rome, were strangled under his immediate
superintendence.