Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic/Chapter 7

by James Leigh Strachan-Davidson

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CHAPTER VII.

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.

60-59 B.C.

ÆSAR had well employed the time of his absence in Spain, June, 60 B.C.as Cicero said, "with a marvellous fair wind in his sails." In the first place he had freed himself from the most pressing of his money difficulties; he "had wanted," so he said, "a million sterling^[1] to be worth nothing," and now he was able to look his creditors in the face. Notwithstanding his great gains, he brought back the reputation of a good provincial governor. Above all he had served with success his apprenticeship as a general. To himself the secret, that he had a genius for the art of war, was no doubt already revealed, and the consciousness of this power determined the path which he marked out. Even in the eyes of the world his victories over revolted Spanish tribes were such as fairly to entitle him to a triumph, and to confirm the inclination of the voters to raise the most popular of the Nobles at once to the consulship.

The triumph he was obliged to forego, owing to the spiteful interposition of Cato, who obstructed^[2] a dispensation which the Senate would have granted, and compelled Cæsar to forfeit his command by coming within the walls to sue for the consulship. This however was a small matter. Cæsar was duly elected consul for the next year, 59 B.C., having for his colleague Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, who was the brother-in-law of Cato, and a vehement partisan of the oligarchy.

In anticipation of Cæsar's success the Senate, when assigning provinces for the consuls of 59 B.C., had chosen trivial and obscure spheres of administration. Cæsar did not intend to be thus set aside. He was determined to have a great provincial command, and the control of a powerful army; and to gain this object he set himself to combine all the powers which were at the moment in a state of alienation from the Senate.

He could count on the support of his old ally Crassus; and though Pompey and Crassus were generally on bad terms, he did not despair of uniting them. To Crassus he could point out how necessary it was for the fortunes of the democratic party that Pompey should be estranged once for all from the Senate; and as for Pompey himself, the insults and provocations to which he had been subjected for the last eighteen months, and the embarrassments of his present position, rendered him very open to the offers which Cæsar was prepared to make. If the three could agree on common action, they might hope to overbear all opposition, and hope would be almost a certainty if the adherence of Cicero could likewise be secured. His presence in the coalition would disarm the hostility of the middle class and of the country people of Italy, his character would give respectability to the new party, and his eloquence would sway public opinion to its side.

Cæsar's first scheme then was for a quattuorvirate, consisting of himself, Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero. This project was not, of course, openly proclaimed at the time; but four years later Cicero publicly anounced the fact. "Cæsar," he says,^[3] "wished me to be one of three consulars most intimately allied with himself. . . He showed, and I was not insensible to it, how friendly his intentions were, when he offered me a place side by side with the foremost of all the citizens, his own son-in-law." About the same time (56 B.C.) we find Cicero, in confidential letter to Atticus,^[4] lamenting that he, who had refused to be one of the masters in the coalition, should now be reduced to act as its servant.

Cæsar had probably made some tentative advances even before his arrival in Rome, for, as we saw in the last chapter (p. 188), Cicero expressed 60 B.C.so early as the beginning of June the hope that he could bring Cæsar to a better mind. Though Cæsar failed in this portion of his scheme, it does not follow that his expectations were irrational or impossible of fulfilment. Cicero had throughout his life acted with the equestrian order, and that order was now estranged from the Senate. He had from the first chosen Pompey as his leader, and after the temporary coolness, caused by the events of his consulship, he and Pompey had again drawn closely together. The Nobles on the other hand had rejected Cicero's latest counsels. It was well worth trying whether he might not be induced to follow Pompey and the Knights in their quest of new allies. Between the time of his election to the consulship and his entry on office Cæsar made serious overtures, which will best be described in Cicero's own words^[5]: "They say that Cæsar looks for my support and has no doubt whatever that he will get it. For Cornelius came to see me just now, Cornelius Balbus I mean, Cæsar's confidential agent. He assures me that Cæsar will in all matters act under the advice of Pompey and myself, and that he will exert himself to unite Pompey and Crassus. To accept this proposal offers many advantages: an intimate alliance with Pompey, and, since it comes to that, with Cæsar too; reconciliation with my enemies, peace with the multitude, quiet for my old age." On the other side is the conviction that to enter on this new alliance will be to throw up the "good cause" and to derogate from the glories of his consulship. He supports this good resolution by some bad verses from his own poem, and concludes that his duty to his country obliges him to abide fast by his principles. That this resolve was final, is clear from one of the early letters of the next year,^[6] in which he says: "Meantime I pursue my studies with a mind quiet, and even cheerful and contented; for it never occurs to me to envy Crassus, or to regret that I did not prove false to myself."

It may be doubted, even if Cæsar had gained Cicero's adhesion, whether he could so far have modified his own course of action as to keep the union unimpaired. The presence of an ally who objected to breaking the law would have seriously hampered his proceedings. In seeking Cicero's support, he must either have hoped that this support would enable him to carry out his projects by milder means, or else he must have calculated that Cicero, once committed to his party, would have been unable to shake himself loose, and would have been drawn along wherever it suited Cæsar to carry him.

As it was, Cicero stood aloof; the coalition was organised as a triumvirate, and Cæsar went on his way unchecked by any scruples. His plan was at once simple and effective. He knew exactly what he wanted, and was prepared to pay the price. Let his confederates give him an extraordinary command for a term of years of a province and an army, and he will undertake to secure for them anything else which they desire. All that they had been vainly striving to obtain for the last two years was to be theirs at once. Pompey was to have his acts in Asia confirmed, and his soldiers were to get their lands; the populace of the capital was likewise to be provided for in an agrarian law; the equestrian order, the clients of Crassus, were to have their Asiatic contract revised, and were to hear nothing more about prosecutions for judicial corruption. In case these objects could not be gained by legal methods, Cæsar promised to accomplish them in spite of law and constitution. It followed of course that his allies must not be critical of the means employed; he would take all the responsibility of carrying his measures, but they must be prepared to support whatever he did.

On these terms the great conspiracy, known to history as the "First Triumvirate" was formed. Crassus, when once the initial difficulty of reconciliation with Pompey was overcome, was not likely to find anything objectionable in the conditions; but the case was different with Pompey. How could any price tempt Pompey to put another man in possession of just such a commanding military position as he had himself enjoyed three years before? Pompey must have recollected afterwards with bitter repentance that, if he could only have possessed his integrity in patience for a few months longer, all would have been well. The migration of the Helvetii and the passage of Ariovistus into Gaul would have certainly created a situation calling for his intervention, if he had not already placed Cæsar in a position to deal with it. The explanation of Pompey's acquiescence doubtless is, that he had no idea that he was dealing with a man of military genius equal or superior to his own. Up to the age of forty Cæsar, though he had shown distinguished bravery in his youth, had never been in command of troops; he was famous as a politician and party leader, but quite unknown as a soldier. Just now indeed he had supplemented his record by a single year's command in Spain; but to the veteran warrior this would seem a very insufficient training, and Cæsar's achievements, though creditable to him as an officer, were not such as to undeceive Pompey respecting his powers. There was then, as yet, little reason to fear a serious rivalry on this ground; and Cæsar was able to represent his province and his army merely as a reserve force, on which his partners at home might fall back in case of necessity.

Other scruples however must have suggested themselves. Pompey had declined the despotism which was within his reach, and had refused to violate his duty to the State in his own interest; and now he was asked to abandon the character of a loyal republican, and to give his sanction to illegal action and violent breaches of the constitution. It seems probable that he was too short-sighted to perceive clearly the treasonable nature of his compact with Cæsar, and that he salved his conscience by disclaiming responsibility for whatever he could not approve. The bargain once struck, Pompey was no longer a free man. He had reaped the benefit of Cæsar's illegalities, and could not refuse to support them in all their consequences; and so we shall find him during the ensuing years compelled in spite of misgivings to do Cæsar's work for him, and unable to break with him until Cæsar has made himself too strong to be safely resisted. Cicero afterwards^[7] remarked with truth that, as the day of the battle of Allia, not that on which the Gauls entered Rome, was marked as the black day in the Roman Calendar, so this compact should be regarded as the fatal epoch, rather than the Civil War which was merely its sequel.

Meantime the temptation of Cæsar's offers was too strong for Pompey. He must have suffered keenly during the months in which he had been worried and thwarted by the senseless and ungrateful opposition of the Nobles, and now his patience was worn out, and, come what might, he was resolved to be even with the pack of them and to carry his measures in their despite. Pompey's surrender dealt a fatal blow to Cicero's ideal party, and indeed to Cicero's position as an independent statesman. For the next eight years we shall find Roman politics dominated by the coalition, and when that coalition breaks up all controversies have to be decided on the battle-field. Cicero becomes almost powerless, and his statesmanship suffers an eclipse, from which it fully emerges only after Cæsar's death.

Cæsar entered on his consulship on the Ist of January, 59, and at once proceeded to carry out the engagements into which he had entered. 59 B.C. January.Of the bills which he announced only one was of the nature of a legislative reform. This was the "Lex Julia Repetundarum" which consolidated and amended the laws against extortion in the provinces. His other proposals were strictly party measures. He brought in a bill for the purchase of lands, alike for Pompey's veterans and for the fathers of large families among the poorer citizens. He proposed another bill for the confirmation of Pompey's acts in Asia, and a third remitting part of the sum which the tax-farmers had agreed to pay to the Treasury. At the same time he contrived an ingenious scheme to provide himself and his confederates with money. It will be remembered that the title of the present ruler of Egypt was defective, and that Rome had claims on the country under the Will of the late king (see page 102). For twenty-two years Roman statesmen had failed to make up their minds whether they should annex Egypt or not. Cæsar and Crassus, who had been for annexation six years before, now looked to the North rather than to the East for their provincial base of operations, and were disposed to utilise Egypt in another way. It was therefore resolved to procure a decree of the people, recognising Ptolemy Auletes as king, and for this service Ptolemy paid the triumvirs a bribe of 6000 talents, about a million and a half sterling.^[8] The prize which Cæsar had marked for himself, the command for five years in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, was to be bestowed not by a law of his own proposing but by one brought in by the tribune Vatinius.

Cæsar at first affected to act with moderation. He submitted all his bills to the Senate, and in the case of the Agrarian Law in particular he declared himself ready and willing to listen to argument and to accept amendments. It was not likely, however, that the Senate would, except under compulsion, grant to Cæsar what they had refused the year before to Pompey and Cicero. Accordingly a bitter opposition was raised to the measure in the Senate. Cato in particular spoke at such length and with such virulence, that Cæsar ordered him to be arrested for contempt. Like Metellus the year before, Cato would not appeal for protection to a tribune, and he was marched off by the lictors continuing his speech as he walked towards the prison, while the senators rose from their places to accompany him to his confinement. This did not suit the plans of the consul, and he sent word to one of his own tribunes to interpose and release the prisoner.

The obstinate opposition to Cæsar's measures gave him, however, an excuse for declaring that no fair treatment could be got from the Senate, and that he should therefore cease to consult it and should bring his bills direct before the People. It has been explained in the second chapter (p. 27) how such an action on the part of a magistrate was a breach of constitutional order, and how it could not be carried through to the end without an actual violation of the law. Cæsar had complete command of the streets, and could easily provide an assembly to say "aye" to his proposals, if only his power of initiating them were unimpeded. But this power of initiative was subject to the veto of his colleague and of the tribunes. Of the tribunes some were little more than his own servants, but there were also some ready to obey with equal promptitude the orders of the Senate. Bibulus accompanied by two tribunes appeared in the Forum on the day appointed for the voting on the Agrarian Law, and in due order vetoed the bill. This rendered all further proceedings unlawful. But Cæsar set law at defiance; his mob drove Bibulus and the tribunes with blows from the spot,^[9] and he then submitted his proposal to the assembly and declared it to be carried. A bill so passed was, of course, invalid, and could only be sustained, even as it had been enacted, by the strong hand.

It was now clear that the personal interposition of the veto could be made only at the peril of the life of the intervening magistrate, and Bibulus was not inclined to face the risk again. But the constitution allowed the exercise of the veto in a more convenient form, namely by the allegation of religious obstacles to the business. At this period the religious, no less than the civil, veto was an essential part of the constitution, and the conditions under which it might be applied were strictly regulated by the law.

The antiquarian history of this religious veto is curious and interesting.^[10] The desire to ascertain beforehand what is the pleasure of the gods, forms only a secondary motive in Roman augury; the primary object is to win the luck to your side, to avoid anything unchancy, to catch up and appropriate any word or sight which may have a happy significance. The Romans were full of contrivances for manufacturing good luck. Like Balak, if the first sacrifice turned out unpropitious, they tried another, and continued the process until they found what they wanted. They starved the sacred chickens to make sure of their feeding, and then gave them porridge to eat, so that some of the food should drop from their beaks, which was esteemed a particularly happy augury. An omen again was held to be significant, not as it occurred in nature, but as it caught the attention of the person concerned, and this doctrine admitted of many developments. If anything happened which it was inconvenient for the magistrate to see, he might refuse to notice it; much as Nelson put the telescope to his blind eye to look for the signal ordering him to retreat. The Marcellus of the Second Punic War, an excellent augur, as Cicero tells us,^[11] always went in a closed litter when he meant to give battle, and so escaped the chance of seeing anything unlucky. Again, if an attendant falsely reported an omen to the magistrate, the magistrate might accept it as reported. The attendant indeed took the curse of the falsehood on his own head^[12]; but it was not difficult to find persons willing thus to purchase to themselves damnation in the way of their calling.

Now the Roman magistrate, entering on any official business, was accustomed to consecrate that business by the previous consultation of the auspices. The omen which was most desired was a flash of lightning on the left hand, and this was at once obtained by asking the attendant if he saw such a flash and receiving his answer in the affirmative. This was technically termed servare de cælo "to observe something (i.e. lightning) coming from the sky." But this omen, so good in itself, might be used as an obstruction to other business. A thunderstorm occurring during a meeting of the People was unlucky and broke up the assembly; and accordingly the flash of lightning, which the magistrate was supposed to have seen, arrested all legislation for the day. To avoid this inconvenience the consul, when he fixed a day for the assembly of the People, used to issue an edict forbidding any inferior magistrate to look for lightning for any purpose of his own on that day. Such a prohibition was, however, of no avail against the consul's colleague or against the tribunes of the plebs, who were not bound to obey his orders. The duties and powers of the magistrates in this matter were accurately fixed for them by the Law of Ælius and Fufius (circ. 150 B.C.). By this law every magistrate holding an assembly of the People was forbidden to ignore any omen officially reported to him by his colleague, and every magistrate who had the right to "observe lightning" for his own purposes, might cause the same to be reported as a deterrent omen for his colleague who was proposing a bill to the People. Such a report rendered all proceedings by the assembly null and void. It is manifest that any sincere religious feeling on the subject, which may once have existed, must have died out before this cut-and-dried procedure was ordained. The regulation must be regarded not as a piece of superstition, but as a portion of constitutional law. It was a machinery contrived to extend the power of veto (for under this form it might be used by the consul even against a tribune), and to make its application more easy and convenient.

Driven by armed force from the Forum, Bibulus now resorted to this method. He shut himself up in his house, and on every day when the people assembled he "saw lightning" and caused an official intimation of it to be sent to Cæsar.^[13] Cæsar systematically ignored the prohibition and passed his measures one by one. He thereby broke the law, and usurped powers which were not his. As consul he had the legal right to propose measures to the people, but only provided that his initiative was not lawfully impeded. His colleague had an absolute right to forbid him. The whole business of the lightning was indeed a constitutional fiction, and absurd enough in itself; but it was not more absurd than the other fiction,^[14] that by reading a bill to the handful of partisans whom he could collect in the Forum, Cæsar had obtained the sanction of the nine hundred thousand Roman citizens who were scattered through Italy. Bibulus effected his purpose, so far as this, that he established abundant and valid grounds for hereafter setting aside the laws of Cæsar, if ever the constitutional party should again become strong enough to insist on its rights.

The moment that Cæsar received his governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, which legally commenced on the 1st of March of his consulship, he hurried on the enlistment of troops, so that he soon had an armed force collected at the gates of Rome. Many of Pompey's veterans were likewise invited to the city to support the measures in which their general was interested. Cæsar, under the pretence that violence was likely to be used against him, had publicly appealed to Pompey for assistance, and Pompey had solemnly replied that, if the opponents of the consul ventured to draw the sword, he would provide both shield and sword in his defence.^[15] Meanwhile he indulged himself in his favourite weakness of disclaiming responsibility. Every one knew that Cæsar's measures were carried in the interest of Pompey, and that Cæsar would have been powerless without Pompey's support. Nevertheless, "he takes refuge in quibbles of this sort. He approves the substance of Cæsar's laws, but Cæsar himself is to answer for his procedure. The Agrarian Law was quite to his mind; whether or no it could be vetoed is no business of his. He was glad that the Egyptian question should be settled at last; whether or not Bibulus observed lightning on that occasion, it was not for him to inquire. As for the tax-farmers, he was willing to oblige that order; what would be the result of Bibulus coming down to the Forum he could not have predicted."^[16]

Cicero had declined any partnership with Cæsar, but it was not yet clear whether he would venture on active opposition. Cæsar was resolved to hold him in check, and to accomplish this he possessed an effective instrument. We have seen that Clodius had an old grudge against Cicero, and an old debt of gratitude to Cæsar and Crassus. He would be delighted to wipe off both scores at once, and to inflict punishment on Cicero, nominally for having put the Catilinarian conspirators to death, really for not being sufficiently submissive to the triumvirs. To deliver this attack it was necessary that Clodius should become tribune of the plebs, but he was debarred from the office by his patrician birth. The obstacle might be removed by his adoption into a plebeian family, and such adoptions were in the control of Cæsar as Pontifex Maximus. Cæsar was prepared to use this control according as Cicero behaved.

This question was decided early in the year, March, 59 B.C.probably during the month of March. Caius Antonius, Cicero's colleague in his consulship, who had since grossly misconducted himself in his province of Macedonia, was put on his trial, not only, as was reasonable, for extortion, but on the charge of complicity in the Catilinarian conspiracy. Cicero was counsel for the defence, and, as he himself tells us,^[17] "uttered in the course of my speech some complaints regarding the present state of the nation, which seemed to me to bear on the case of my unfortunate client." This was at noon, and Cicero's remarks were forthwith reported (in an exaggerated form, he says) to the consul. Cæsar accepted the words as evidence that Cicero meant to throw in his lot with the opposition, and he instantly took up the challenge. At three o'clock the same afternoon C1odius was transferred to the plebs. Pompey officiated as augur on the occasion. He took the precaution indeed of exacting from Clodius and his brother Appius a solemn engagement that they would make no attack on Cicero; but Clodius' promises were notoriously worthless, and Clodius was ready to make any number of them that might be desired, if only Pompey would put him in a position in which he would have the power to break them.

Soon after receiving this significant warning Cicero retired into the country, where he spent the months of April and May. The tone of his letters to Atticus is at first more careless and cheerful than might have been expected. He was convinced, and not without reason, that the high-handed proceedings of the triumvirs must set public opinion against them,^[18] and that dissensions must arise even amongst their own followers. He forgot for the moment that the triumvirs were resolved to rule by force, and that with force on their side they could afford to ignore public opinion. The country-people, as was natural, were disgusted with the doings in the capital. "You write that at Rome there is dead silence; so I supposed; but here in the fields men are by no means silent; the very fields themselves rebel against your tyranny. If you come to this 'far Læstrygonia'—to Formiæ, I mean—you will see how men chafe under it, how indignant they grow, how they detest our friend the Great One. His surname will soon be as much out of date as that of Crassus the Rich.^[19] Trust me, I have not met a single man who takes these things so quietly as I do myself."^[20]

After the rejection of his own policy, Cicero had good reason to be sick of public life, and he seems to have contemplated with satisfaction a complete retirement. "I was weary of piloting the State, even while I was allowed to do so; and now that I have been turned out of the boat, and have not abandoned the helm but have had it wrenched out of my hand, I had rather watch their ship-wreck from the shore, and as your friend Sophocles says—

'Beneath my roof-tree list with drowsy sense
The plashing of the rain.'"^[21]

At one time Cicero fancied that the triumvirs would offer him a mission to Egypt, but though he liked the prospect, he felt that he could April, 59 B.C.not accept the offer at their hands. In the same letter he inquires,^[22] who is to have the vacant augurship, and adds, "that is the only bait with which they could catch me. Observe my venality. But why do I talk of these things, when all I want is to get rid of them and to devote my whole mind to philosophy? That, I say, is my intention, and I only wish I had done so from the first." Of course this hankering after the augurship is only a momentary whim, which goes down, as does every passing thought, on paper to his friend. If Cicero had been seriously willing to sell his services for any such price, Cæsar would gladly have paid it twenty times over.^[23]

In the month of May, Cicero began to be more anxious. He was alarmed by Pompey's marriage with Cæsar's daughter Julia, and by a fresh agrarian proposal, under which the Campanian land, expressly exempted from the former law, was destined for distribution. "These things," he writes,^[24] "are bad enough in themselves, but they cannot be meant to stop here. For what have these people gained by them as yet? They would never have gone so far, except to pave the way for further abominations."

From the month of June onwards Cicero is again in Rome, and his letters to Atticus (who has now retired to his estate in Epirus) give a lively picture of the situation. The triumvirs are absolute masters, but they are likewise the objects of universal hatred. "Speech is a little freer than it was, at least when people converse together in public places, or at dinner. Indignation begins to overpower fear.^[25] Things are really much worse than before, because men have lost patience. "The poison administered at first was so slow in working that I thought we might have a painless extinction; now I fear that the hisses of the Commons, the plain-speaking of decent folk, and the indignation of Italy will stir them up to violence."^[26] Bibulus' edicts, full of invective against Pompey and Cæsar were eagerly welcomed; "there is a block in the street, where they are posted up, from the numbers who stand to read them. They cut Pompey to the heart, so that he is viliely fallen away with fretting; and to myself they are, I confess, unpleasing, both because they give too much pain to one for whom I have always had a regard, and because I fear lest a man of his stubborn nature, who is so used to wear his hand on his sword-hilt and so unaccustomed to listen to abuse, should abandon himself to the dictates of vexation and displeasure."^[27] Cicero tells us in the same letter that he could not restrain his tears at sight of the abject figure which Pompey made, when in face of a hostile audience he tried to defend himself against these attacks at a public meeting. "It was a sight to please Crassus . . . for myself I felt as Apelles or Protogenes might feel if they saw their masterpieces dragged in the dirt."

At the games the young Curio, who had been bolder than others in his opposition, was heartily cheered alike by the equestrian benches and by the people, while Cæsar himself was received in dead silence. The audience caught up every line in the play which could be applied against their masters.

"The time shall come when thou shalt rue his valour,"

and

"If neither law nor duty can restrain you,"

were received with rounds of applause, and the actor Diphilus was rapturously encored, when he turned on Pompey with the words—

"By our misery thou art Great."^[28]

To Cæsar all this signified little; indeed it was so far to his advantage that the unpopularity of Pompey made him the less able to dispense with his allies. Cæsar had now ample force at his command, and all else was indifferent to him; think what they might, Cæsar could rig an assembly to vote whatever he should please. This was indeed so evident that the Senate at his request added Transalpine Gaul to his province in order to prevent that too being given away over their heads by decree of the People.^[29] When his year of office was over, Cæsar ventured to give a yet more striking proof of the lengths to which he could go with the Senate. Two of the new prætors foolishly brought the question of the validity of Cæsar's acts before the House. Law and right were absolutely on their side; but force was not. Cæsar accepted the challenge, and with a feigned courtesy begged the Senate to decide the question once for all under the eyes of his soldiers. The Senate was, of course, helpless, and could only evade a formal surrender by ignominiously declining to entertain the question.^[30] While he could thus trample the Senate under foot, it was not likely that Cæsar should trouble himself about any other unarmed members of the commonwealth. The only notice which he took of the demonstrations in the theatre was to hint to the Knights that, unless they behaved themselves, he would take away their reserved seats, and to the populace that, if they hissed the wrong men, he would cut off the distribution of corn.^[31] Pompey on the other hand felt his conscience uneasy and his position awkward. "I must inform you,"^[32] Cicero writes to Atticus about the month of August, Aug., 59 B.C."that our friend, the Great Bashaw, is heartily sick of the state of affairs and is anxious to recover the position from which he has fallen; he confides his distress to me and openly begs me to suggest a remedy, which for my part I am wholly unable to do."

Meanwhile the triumvirs made their arrangements for the magistracies of the next year. They put into the consulship Pompey's old adherent Gabinius, and along with him Piso, whose daughter Calpurnia was lately married to Cæsar. At the same time Clodius was elected tribune. Since his adoption he had been playing strange pranks. In the month of April we find him announcing that he will stand for the tribuneship as an opponent of the triumvirs and with the intention of cancelling Cæsar's laws. "In that case," retorted the chief pontiff and the officiating augur, "we shall deny that we ever made a plebeian of you."^[33] His sister Clodia, the terrible beauty of Rome, with whom Atticus was on very intimate terms, assured Cicero's friend that she was urging her brother on this new course,^[34] but it is not clear that she told Atticus the truth. In any case this quarrel was soon patched up, and before Clodius was elected tribune he and Cæsar were again fast friends. He now openly announced that he intended to attack Cicero, and Pompey as vehemently protested that he would allow no such thing. "He declares that there is no danger; he takes his oath to it; he adds that Clodius will have to pass over his dead body before he shall do me any harm."^[35] And again: "It would be an everlasting disgrace to him, he says, if any mischief came to me, through the man into whose hands he placed a weapon of offence, when he allowed him to become a plebeian."^[36]

Cæsar however had otherwise determined. From the time when he returned from Spain to the end of his life, it was a principle of Cæsar's policy that Cicero must be brought over to his side. Sometimes he tries to attract him by friendly offers and delicate acts of kindness, sometimes to drive him by well-directed strokes of chastisement. The means employed might differ, but in pursuit of the end Cæsar never wearied; he knew full well that the great orator must be either a useful ally or a dangerous enemy, and that he could not afford to neglect him. In the present crisis he was prepared to employ either method as occasion might serve. For the moment he held Clodius in leash, but he made it clear that he was to be slipped on his prey, unless Cicero gave sufficient guarantees that he had abandoned his opposition to the triumvirs. That Cicero should now have a voice in the counsels of the confederates, was of course out of the question; but he might still, if he pleased, receive protection from them as the price of his silence. So far as outward position went, Cæsar's offers were meant to be honourable and complimentary to Cicero; and in after times Caesar unhesitatingly appealed to them as evidence of his good-will. Ten years later Cicero writes^[37]: "When he is justifying his conduct, he always throws on me the blame for the occurrences of that time; I was so bitter against him, he says, that I would not accept even honours from his hand." But these honours would effectually have closed Cicero's mouth. He was offered either a vacant place on the board of commissioners for executing Cæsar's Agrarian Law, or else the post of Cæsar's lieutenant in Gaul. Finally he was allowed the option of simple retirement by the acceptance of an honorary commission, which would have removed him for a year from Italy.

All these offers Cicero declined. He claimed complete freedom of action, and thought himself strong enough to face the attack of Clodius unaided. "I am now bearing myself," he writes in the autumn,^[38] "so that every day increases my forces and the goodwill with which I am supported. I let politics alone, and work with all my might in my old field of labour, the law-courts. I find that this is favourably regarded not only by my clients but by the public. My house is thronged, crowds come to greet me, the memory of my consulship is revived; I am promised support, and I have raised my hopes, till I sometimes think that the struggle which lies before me is a thing to be welcomed."

Cicero's efforts to fortify his position by speeches at the bar may receive illustration from his successful defence of Lucius Flaccus, the only 59 B.C.oration of this year which has been preserved to us. Flaccus, now accused of extortion in his province of Asia, had been prætor in 63 B.C., and was one of the two who arrested the Allobroges on the Mulvian Bridge. Cicero speaks in his behalf, as if the prosecution were directed against himself and all his coadjutors in the suppression of the conspiracy.

"Caius Antonius has been overwhelmed. Be it so; he had his faults; yet even he would never, if I may be allowed to say as much, have been found guilty by such a jury as that to which I speak today. On his condemnation the tomb of Lucius Catilina was wreathed with flowers; abandoned men and traitors to the State thronged to the spot and feasted there; Catiline's ghost had its due. Now you are asked to wreak on Flaccus vengeance for Lentulus. How can you find a victim more sweet for Publius Lentulus, that Lentulus who tried to slaughter you in the arms of your wives and children and to bury you beneath the ashes of our country, than by sating with the blood of Lucius Flaccus that bitter hatred which he had for all of us. Let us perform then an expiatory sacrifice for Lentulus, let us appease the shade of Cethegus, let us call back their associates from banishment. Let us, if so it must be, in our turn bear the punishment due to too exact a loyalty and to an excessive love of our country. For it is we who are now named by informers, against us charges are invented, for us perils are afoot. . . Well, we see now clearly enough the mind and will of the Roman People. In every way which is open to it the Roman People makes it clear what it thinks; there is no difference of opinion or of wish or of utterance. So if any man summons me to that bar, here I am. I do not refuse the Roman People for judge in this quarrel, nay I claim its decision. Only let force be absent, let swords and stones be kept out of the way, let the hired gangs depart, let the slaves be silent. No one who hears me, if he be but a citizen and a freeman, will be so unfair as not to judge that the question is not of punishment for me, but of reward."^[39]

Cicero's demands for a free decision of the people were of course absurd. Cæsar's object was, not to give the Roman People an opportunity of expressing its opinion about the execution of Lentulus, but merely to coerce or to muzzle a dangerous political opponent. Cicero had rejected his offers, and though Cæsar had no wish to hurt Cicero unnecessarily, he had decided that the blow should fall. To this most practical of statesmen it would have appeared the extreme of simplicity to allow his victim a chance of escape. He intended to effect Cicero's banishment, as he had effected the measures of his consulship, by the exercise of sheer force.

To the latter part of this year belongs a strange story, for which a brief allusion must suffice. A creature named Vettius, who had acted 59 B.C.as a spy on the Catilinarians for Cicero during his consulship, proposed to young Curio a plot to kill Pompey. Curio reported the matter to his father; the two gave information to Pompey, and Vettius was promptly arrested. He now disclosed a tale about a great conspiracy of the Nobles in which Bibulus and Cicero were implicated. The triumvirs at first tried to make political capital out of the story, to damage the character of their opponents and rouse some popular feeling in favour of themselves. But Vettius proved to be a clumsy liar, and the contradictions and absurdities of his evidence were too glaring for him to be of any service. He was found strangled in prison, and the matter was hushed up. Whether the whole business was contrived by the triumvirs and their adherents (as Cicero himself undoubtedly believed),^[40] or whether some mad partisans of the oligarchy really had formed a plan of assassination, which served Vettius as the foundation of his lies about the senatorial leaders, it is impossible at this distance of time to determine.

For us the chief interest of the transaction lies in the face that the alarm brought Atticus back in hot haste from Epirus to his friend's side. Cicero had just before pressed him to return—"As you love me, if you are asleep, wake up; if you are on your legs, march; if you are on the march, run; if you are running, fly."^[41] The fresh peril brooked no delay. Atticus returned at once to Rome, and the series of letters to him is interrupted until the following April.

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1. Twenty-five million drachmas, Appian, Bell. Civ., ii., 8.
2. Plutarch, Cato Minor, 31, 3.
3. De Prov. Cons., 17, 41.
4. See below, p. 269.
5. Ad Att., ii., 3, 3.
6. Ad Att., ii., 4, 2.
7. Ad Att., ix., 5, 2.
8. Suetonius, Jul., 54.
9. Dio Cassius, xxxvii., 6.
10. See Mommsen Staats-recht, i., p. 77 et seq.
11. De Divin., ii., 36, 77.
12. Those who wish to see this doctrine illustrated by an amusing story may look at Livy, x., 40.
13. Dio Cassius, xxxvii., 6, 5.
14. See above, p. 26.
15. Plutarch, Pomp., 47, 5.
16. Ad Att., ii., 16, 2.
17. Pro Domo, 16, 41.
18. Ad Att., ii., 9, 2.
19. This is not the triumvir, but another person of the name who had fallen from great wealth to bankruptcy.
20. Ad Att., ii., 13, 2.
21. Ad Att., ii., 7, 4.
22. Ad Att., ii., 5.
23. Cicero afterwards tells Cato (Ad Fam., xv., 4, 13), with apparent reference to this time, that he could have had the augurship if he had pressed for it.
24. Ad Att., ii., 17, 1.
25. Ad Att., ii., 18, 2.
26. Ad Att., ii., 21, 1.
27. Ad Att., ii., 21, 4.
28. Ad Att., ii., 19, 3.
29. Dio Cassius, xxxviii., 8, 4, confirmed by Cicero, De Prov. Cons., 15, 36.
30. Suetonius, Jul., 23.
31. Ad Att., ii., 19, 3.
32. Ad Att., ii., 23, 2.
33. Ad Att., ii., 12, 1.
34. Ad Att., ii., 9, 1.
35. Ad Att., ii., 20, 2.
36. Ad Att., ii., 22, 2.
37. Ad Att., ix., 2, b. 1.
38. Ad Att., ii., 22, 3.
39. Pro Flacco. ch. 38.
40. Ad Att., ii., 24.
41. Ad Att., ii., 23, 3.