Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic/Chapter 9

by James Leigh Strachan-Davidson

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CHAPTER IX.

ROME AFTER THE CONFERENCE OF LUCA.

56-52 B.C.

ÆSAR had spent the winter of 57-56 B.C. in his southern provinces, Illyricum and Cispalpine Gaul. A crisis was evidently at hand, and it was needful for him to be as near as possible to the capital "to set a form upon that indigest."

Towards the end of March he summoned Crassus to meet him at Ravenna. While they were consulting on the political situation the news arrived of Cicero's action in the matter of the Campanian land. April 5, 56 B.C.The importance of this move was instantly manifest to Cæsar. An offensive and defensive alliance between Pompey and Cicero seemed imminent, and the two, once united, would secure the adherence of the equestrian order and of the country-people of Italy. If Pompey should support Cicero in this first assault, the Nobles would probably attack the grant of a province to Cæsar by the law of Vatinius. Domitius Ahenobarbus, whose candidature for next year's consulship seemed certain of success, openly declared his intention to propose Cæsar's recall.^[1] If then Cæsar held his hand and allowed things to drift, they were likely to drift towards civil war, and for civil war he was not yet ready. Even at this moment news had arrived of fresh trouble in Gaul. The maritime people of the Veneti on the shores of the Bay of Biscay had massacred his commissariat officers and had risen in arms. He must have time to complete and consolidate his conquests, and to obtain tithe he was willing to pay a heavy price. Considerations, other than those of ambition and expediency doubtless co-operated in making him anxious to find terms of agreement. "It is probable," as Mommsen remarks, "that Cæsar hesitated to break the heart of his beloved daughter, who was sincerely attached to her husband; in his soul there was room for much besides the statesman."

The conference was adjourned to Luca, the southernmost point in Cæsar's dominion, and thither Pompey was invited to come to meet his confederates. This must have been about the middle of April. The assembly of these great April, 56 B.C.potentates was like a congress of sovereign princes. Cæsar was attended by a great retinue of his officers. Roman politicians and place-hunters flocked to Luca, and provincial governors found the little town on the way to or from their posts. It is said that 120 lictors could be counted and 200 senators.^[2] But no state or pageantry could adequately express the importance of this meeting between the three chiefs. If they could come to an agreement, their power was sufficient to dispose of an Empire which was the civilised world.

The terms which Cæsar offered were so liberal that Pompey at once assented to them, and the bonds of the coalition were drawn closer than ever. As on the occasion of the first formation of the triumvirate, all that Pompey had been in vain endeavouring by painful intrigues to extract from his natural allies the constitutionalists, was granted to him in a word by his magnificent rival. It was arranged that Pompey and Crassus should forget their differences, and be consuls together for the next year (55 B.C.). After their consulship, Crassus was to lead an expedition against Parthia, and Pompey was to have for five years the governorship of Spain, which, however, he might administer by means of lieutenants, while he remained at the head of affairs in Rome. In return, Cæsar stipulated for an extension of five years in his command of the Gallic provinces, and for the defence at home of all Acts of his consulship.

To secure this last condition, it was necessary that Cicero should either be persuaded to renounce his opposition, or that he should again be driven into exile. Pompey, who had for his own purposes encouraged Cicero to put himself in the fore-front of the battle, accepted the ungracious task of checking and humiliating him. Now, as two years before,

LUCA.

(Duruy)

Cicero found that the support of Pompey was not to be relied on. Pompey was far more scrupulous than Cæsar, when it was a question of committing criminal acts, but he had none of Cæsar's delicacy where personal honour was concerned. He wanted the partisan loyalty, which made Cæsar aver, "that if he had been obliged to use the help of cut-throats and foot-pads in maintaining his cause, even to them he would not fail in awarding a due recompense."^[3] Cicero had all along served Pompey faithfully, but Pompey seems to have felt no remorse in using him and then dropping him, whenever it suited his own convenience.

After the conference of Luca, Cæsar once more turned his back on the intrigues of the capital, and hurried to meet his foes on the shores of the Atlantic. The details of the arrangement between the Three were kept a profound secret for the moment; but that they had come to an arrangement was soon manifest. Pompey sent to Cicero a request, which was equivalent to an order, that he should suspend all action on the question of the Campanian land until he himself should return to Rome.^[4] To Quintus Cicero whom he met immediately afterwards in Sardinia he expressed himself for once with an almost brutal frankness: "'You are the very man I want,' he said, 'nothing could be luckier; unless you take pains to keep your brother Marcus straight, I shall hold you responsible for your pledges on his account.' To make a long story short, he complained bitterly; recounted the obligations under which he had laid us and his own stipulations and my brother's engagements as to Cæsar's Acts, and appealed to my brother's own knowledge that all which he had done for my restoration had been done with Cæsar's consent. By way of recommending Cæsar's cause and dignity to me, he begged that I would not assail them, if I could not or would not defend them."^[5]

These announcements came as a crushing blow to Cicero. The ground on which he was taking his stand had shifted under his feet. On the Ides of May he absented himself from the Senate, and the discussion fell through. "As for the previous arrangement," he writes,^[6] "that the question of the Campanian land was to be dealt with on the 15th and 16th, it was not dealt with. In this matter there is a stoppage in the current of my action."

So far Cicero had no choice but to submit. But he had still to decide how to shape his general policy in view of the altered circumstances. The union, which he had been encouraged to attempt, of Pompey with the Nobles in defence of the constitution against Cæsar was now obviously impossible. Pompey was committed to an entirely different line of action. Lucullus was dead, and the Republic had no general but Pompey, so that it would have been madness to persist in words which could not be supported by deeds. Cicero then must either continue to follow his old leader in this new departure, or else efface himself completely and sit down in silence and inactivity in company with the more obstinate of the Nobles. He would be obliged even to renounce his great position as leader of the Roman bar, for politics were ever intruding themselves into forensic contests. Such a sacrifice, had Cicero been prepared to make it, would perhaps have been the most honourable, certainly it would have been the most dignified course.

But it was doubtful whether he could count on a cordial reception from the Nobles, and still more doubtful whether they could or would afford him effective protection from Clodius and his other enemies. Cicero had been convinced all along that the Nobles had deserted him in his hour of peril, and now he was equally sure that they were jealous of him and would be glad to see him reduced to a non-entity; as he had written to his friend soon after his return: "Those same men, my dear Atticus, who clipped my wings, are displeased to see them growing again, for growing I hope they are."^[7] Even during the last month, some of them had not been able to conceal their delight^[8] that Cicero, who had so often supported Pompey against what they considered the interests of the party, should now have incurred his displeasure and that of Cæsar. Further the Nobles continued to abet Clodius, and by this conduct they forfeited, as Cicero thought, their claim to be considered the party of order^[9]; Pompey was at least the enemy of his enemy.^[10] Cicero feared likewise to compromise his brother's fortunes. Quintus had pledged himself for Cicero's good behaviour to Pompey, and Pompey had pledged himself to Cæsar.^[11] Should these pledges go unredeemed? It was soon made dear to him that more was expected from him than a passive acquiescence in the supremacy of the triumvirs, and that his active support would be welcomed, and recompensed with ample protection from his enemies and with at least outward deference and consideration. Cicero had now, as frequently before, grave reason to resent Pompey's conduct; but after all it was Pompey more than any one else who had restored him from his exile, and he dreaded the reproach of ingratitude. His instincts of personal loyalty bound him to his old chief, and on the whole he resolved to abide by him, even though his adherence involved the acceptance of the mild but inexorable yoke of Cæsar.

It was not without many misgivings and much upbraiding from his own conscience, that he came to this conclusion. He expresses these feelings very frankly soon after in a letter to Atticus^[12]: "What is more degraded than the life which we are living—I especially; for you, though you are a statesman by nature, yet have no bondage of your own to serve and have only your share in the national servitude. But I, who, if I speak as I ought, am reckoned for a madman; if as I must, for a slave; if I hold my peace, am accounted as crushed and baffled, how bitter should be my grief? So indeed it is, and all the more bitter because I cannot even grieve without seeming ungrateful. Well, can I rest on my oars, and take refuge in a haven of peace? Nay, the only haven that waits for us is a camp and a battle-field. Well, then I must submit to be a servant, I who refused to be one of the masters.^[13] So it must be; for this, I see, is your decision, and would that I had always hearkened to your advice."

Cicero's first action in the Senate on these new lines related to certain votes in favour of Cæsar, which, though fully justified by the work which Cæsar was now doing for Rome,June, 56 B.C. were awkwardly inconsistent with the attack which had been contemplated on his position. Cicero describes these measures in very reserved language to Lentulus Spinther:^[14] "You ask me about the political situation; there is much contention, but no struggle on equal terms. For those who have the advantage in resources, in arms and in power, seem to me through the folly and inconsistency of their opponents to have been given the advantage in argument as well. So with very faint opposition they have obtained through the Senate what they never expected to obtain even through the People without revolution. With little or no trouble pay has been voted for Cæsar's troops, ten lieutenants have been granted him, and in assigning provinces under Gracchus' law,^[15] it has been resolved that he shall not be susperseded. I tell my story briefly, for I take no pleasure in the present state of things."

Cicero had himself given his voice in favour of a Thanksgiving of fifteen days for Cæsar's victories, and for the other measures in his interest, which he recounted to Lentulus. The controversy whether the consuls of 55 B.C. were to succeed Cæsar in his Gallic provinces was, if the combatants had known it, a mere beating of the air. The consulships for 55 had been settled on Pompey and Crassus, and their future provinces determined for them at the conference of Luca, and Gaul had been entailed for years to come on Cæsar. But all this was as yet a secret; and Cicero argued the question in June, 56, as if the Senate really had the disposal of the provinces. He urged that the provinces named should be Syria and Macedonia, in order that his enemies, Gabinius and Piso, might be recalled from their posts, and he protested against any scheme which should cut short Cæsar's career of conquest.

Cicero's speech has been preserved to us under the title De Provinciis Consularibus. The orator cannot avoid some reference to Cæsar's Acts in his consulship, but he touches the painful subject as lightly as possible, taking refuge in a somewhat weak argumentum ad hominem. Those who wished to set them aside were the same men who now acknowledged as valid the laws of Clodius' tribunate. Yet the adoption of Clodius was one of Cæsar's Acts, and if they were cancelled then Clodius was a patrician and therefore no tribune. "You must permit me to decline an inquisition into the title of useful measures, when you refuse such an inquisition in the case of most mischievous ones."^[16] Cicero is more successful when he tells the story of his personal relations with Cæsar, and justifies his full reconciliation. Their early friendship, Cæsar's flattering offers of alliance when consul, his co-operation with Pompey in Cicero's restoration,—all authorise him to forget and forgive, even if he has some grievances to complain of in the matter of his exile.^[17] Above all, is he not bound to lay aside private resentments when recommending what is for the good of the State? Cæsar is no lounger the turbulent demagogue of the capital, but the champion of the Roman State; he is now bound to the Senate by the extraordinary honours which it has conferred on him, and it is folly to alienate him by petty attacks. "I do not pretend to penetrate into any man's intentions in the future; but I know what I hope. It is my duty as a senator to secure to the best of my power that no eminent or powerful man shall have just ground for complaint against this House; and this, even if I were Cæsar's bitterest enemy, I should maintain for the good of the commonwealth."^[18]

In setting forth the recent services, on which Cæsar rests his claims to the consideration of the Senate, Cicero has a theme worthy of his eloquence. Here there is no need for hesitation or apology. "He has striven on glorious battle-fields with the fierce tribes and mighty hosts of Germania and Helvetia; the rest he has terrified, checked, and tamed, and taught them to obey the commands of the Roman People. Over regions and nations which no book, no traveller, no report had made known to us, our general, our soldiers, and the arms of the Roman People have found a way. It was but a strip of Gaul that we held before, Senators; the rest was occupied by tribes, enemies of our rule or rebels against it, or by men unknown to us, or known only as dangerous, savage, and warlike. Every one desired that these tribes should be broken and subdued; from the first days of our empire there never has been a prudent statesman who did not recognise that Gaul was the great danger to our State. But owing to the might and multitude of those races we never before ventured to try conclusions with them as a nation. It was always we that were the challenged, and we fought only on the defensive. Now at length we have reached the consummation that our empire extends to the utmost limits of that land. Not without the Providence of Heaven nature piled the Alps to be a rampart to Italy. For if that approach had lain open to the fierce hordes of Gaul, never would this city have survived to be the seat and home of sovereignty. Now let them sink in the earth! for beyond those mountain peaks as far as the extremest verge of ocean there is nothing left for Italy to fear."^[19]

Cicero forthwith published this splendid oration. As a master-piece of his art, he might well be proud of it; but as marking definitely his submission to the Triumvirate, the "recantation," as he called it, caused him shame and self-reproach. "What is this you say," he writes to Atticus,^[20] "do you think that there is any one by whom I wish my works to be read and approved rather than by yourself? Why then did I send it to any one else first? Well, I was pressed by the person to whom I sent it, and I had not another copy; and besides—I keep nibbling round what I have got to swallow—this recantation seemed to me to be somewhat discreditable. But a long good night to the thorough downright honest policy. It is incredible what treachery I find in these noble chiefs,^[21] as they wish to be, and as they might be if they had any loyalty. I felt and knew how I had been led on by them and then deserted and tossed aside; still my hope was that I might work together with them in politics. But no, they were the same as ever, and by the aid of your monitions I have at last come to my senses. . . Let us finish with them. Since those, who have no power, will none of my love, let me take care that those who have the power^[22] shall love me. You will say, 'I only wish you had thought of this before'; I know that you wished it, and that I have been a downright ass."

The reconstitution of the triumvirate was followed by a period of quiet at Rome, and the State moved along the lines which the Three had traced for it. Pompey and Crassus were consuls in 55 B.C., and each of the confederates received the provincial command for which he had stipulated. The union between them seemed now absolutely re-established, and Cicero did not at this time appreciate how hollow the alliance necessarily was. In this settlement, which left Pompey for the moment the acknowledged head of the State, Cicero believed that 55 B.C.he was obliged to acquiesce. Early in the year 55 he writes to Lentulus:^[23] "The State lies beyond question in the power of our friends, and that so absolutely that it is unlikely that this generation will see any change in the situation. I subordinate my action to the wishes of the man whom I am bound in honour not to oppose; and I am not playing the hypocrite in this, as some fancy; for such is my earnestness in Pompey's cause, and such my devotion to him, that they have power to make his interests and wishes seem to me all that is right. To my mind, even his opponents would not do wrong if, feeling themselves to be no match for him, they were now to desist from contending. . . Peace is the best we can hope for now, and that the present rulers seem likely to secure us, if men will submit patiently to their domination. As for my old consular dignity of a brave and consistent senator, there is no use thinking of that; it has been lost, all through the fault of those who estranged from the Senate that order which would have been their best friend, and that man who would have been their most glorious champion."^[24]

We hear little of Clodius at this time; probably he had received notice from Cæsar that he must not disturb the peace. At any rate we find that Cicero was able to be reconciled with two of Clodius' chief backers, his brother Appius and Crassus, the third member of the triumvirate. In the latter case a renunciation of their long-standing feud was pressed upon both of them by Pompey and Cæsar, and was rendered the easier by the mediation of young Publius Crassus,^[25] then as always a devoted friend of Cicero. With all his violence of expression Cicero was of a very placable nature, and found it almost impossible to refuse a hand which was held out to him. In the matter of Crassus, he says to Lentulus,^[26] "I obeyed the call not only of expediency, but of my own disposition." Immediately Nov., 55 B.C.before his departure for the East Crassus accepted an invitation to dinner from Cicero in the gardens of his son-in-law Crassipes, "so that he started for his province almost from my hearthstone."

During the year 54, no great change occurred in the situation. Cæsar was still fighting hard in Gaul, Pompey ruling, as best he could, at home. Throughout a long letter of explanation to 54 B.C.Lentulus, written in this year, Cicero refers to the supremacy of Pompey in the State as the central fact in the situation, and he seems entirely to have forgotten that this supremacy might come to be challenged by Cæsar.

To maintain for any length of time good order in Rome was beyond Pompey's power. The elections were not only scandalously corrupt,^[27] but so turbulent that year after year had to begin with an "interregnum," because no consuls could be chosen at the proper time. A painful accident occurring at one of these scenes of tumult had serious consequences in the future. Some one standing near to Pompey was struck by a stone or a bludgeon, and Pompey's gown was bespattered with blood. The gown was carried home, and unhappily met the eye of his young wife. The shock of the sight occasioned a miscarriage, from the effect of which Julia never recovered, and her death some months later severed one of the main bonds which united Cæsar and Pompey.

The glimpses which we get of the law-courts at this time do not give a high idea of the administration of justice. "Now for the news of Rome. 54 B.C.On the 5th of July Sufenas and Caius Cato were acquitted, and Procilius convicted; from which we may gather that our potent, grave, and reverend signors do not care a straw for bribery, for the elections, for the interregnum, for treason, nor for the safety of the whole commonwealth, but that we must draw the line at killing householders in their own homes; they do not appear to be very sure about that either, for 22 voted not-guilty against 29. Clodius, who prosecuted, roused the feelings of the jury by a peroration which was certainly fine. Hortensius was for the defence in his usual style. I did not open my lips; for my little girl, who is now near her time, was nervous about me, and would not have me cross Clodius' path."^[28]

Whatever may have been the alarms in which Tullia was privileged to indulge, her father had not much to fear from Clodius, so long as he kept on good terms with the triumvirs. Shortly July, 54 B.C.before this, he had written in answer to his brother's inquiries:^[29] "Your question comes to this; what sort of year is before me? Well I think that it will be one of complete peace, or at least that I have ample protection. My levée, the Forum, and the expressions of feeling in the theatre give daily evidence of this; my friends are free from anxiety knowing the forces I have at command in the support of Cæsar and Pompey. All this makes me confident; but if any outburst of that mad fellow should occur, everything is prepared to crush him."

As an advocate Cicero reigned pre-eminent. He was in urgent request for every important case, and he tells his brother that he was never before so pressed with business. "In your last letter," he adds,^[30] "as frequently before, you cheer me on to fresh exertions and fresh ambitions. I will do as you wish; but O when shall I find time to live?"

Of the cases in which Cicero was engaged at this time, one must have given him great satisfaction. His old friend Plancius, the same who had sheltered him in his exile, was elected ædile and then, almost as a matter of course, put on his trial for his proceedings during the election. Cicero delivered in his behalf an admirable speech (from which I have had occasion to quote freely^[31]) and procured an acquittal.

Other briefs Cicero was obliged to undertake, not because he wished them, but because he could not refuse his powerful friends. The most notable cases were those of two objects of his former vituperations, Vatinius and Gabinius. Of the first he says^[32] that it was an easy business. Pompey had patched up a reconciliation between them, and Cæsar had earnestly pressed him to undertake the defence. Vatinius was an unscrupulous but amusing and good-humoured rascal, who disarmed hostility^[33] by making fun of his own physical deformities and moral obliquities. He was acquitted, and lived to show Cicero much kindness^[34] after the battle of Pharsalia, and to beg the favour of Cicero's advocacy of his interests again later on.^[35]

It was much more painful to Cicero to have to defend Gabinius, the man who had sold him to Clodius, and who had shared with his colleague Piso and with Clodius himself Cicero's extremest hatred. There were several accusations against Gabinius, but the most serious was for treason in having quitted his province without leave to restore the King of Egypt (see p. 252). Cicero was one of the witnesses against him at the first trial, but he declined to prosecute out of regard for Pompey. Gabinius was very humble now to Cicero; he refused to cross-examine him at the trial, professed gratitude for his forbearance, and said that, if he were permitted to retain his place in the State, he would one day make amends for the injuries he had done him.^[36] Pompey, while begging Cicero to undertake the defence at a second trial for extortion, acknowledged that he could ask the favour only supposing that Gabinius made atonement for his conduct.^[37] What Gabinius said or did to satisfy him, we are not informed: but Cicero after holding out for some time longer yielded at last. This second trial took place before the stern bar of Cato,^[38] and all the exertions of Cicero and all the influence of Pompey were unable to procure a verdict. The result was very damaging to Pompey, especially following as it did on the acquittal of Vatinius. Pompey had failed, where Cæsar had succeeded, in saving from ruin a partisan, whose sole virtue was that he had been a zealous and useful servant to his chief. Gabinius judged that so ineffective a master had best be deserted, and when the Civil War came, he no less than Vatinius was to be found on the side of Cæsar. Cicero never really forgave himself for his pliancy on this occasion. "Why," he writes in the bitterness of his heart five years later—"why should I take account of my enemies? there are friends of mine, men whom I have defended at the bar, whom I cannot see in the Senate-house without pain, or associate with them without disgrace."^[39]

During the years following the conference of Luca, Cæsar was untiring in his efforts to win the regard of Cicero, and to unite him to himself by every bond of personal and political friendship. There was no fear lest Cicero should forget that Cæsar could deal heavy blows, if he were so minded; and now no opportunity was lost to impress him with the conviction, that Cæsar had been driven to strike against his will, and that his earnest desire was for cordial and intimate alliance. Cæsar never failed where good breeding was required, and he courted the restored exile with a delicacy and a geniality which strongly affected him. "Never does the slightest word of mine pass Cæsar's cause, to say nothing of acts, without his acknowledging it with such a distinguished courtesy that I cannot but feel myself bound to him."^[40] Cæsar pressed him to recommend to his care any friends who wished for an opening in his province, and these he always treated with such marked favour as to make them feel that Cicero's request was all-powerful with him. He would not hear a word of thanks: "As for Mescinius Rufus, whom you mentioned to me, I will make him King of Gaul if you please, or else you may hand him over to Lepta, and send me some one else to make much of."^[41] When Clodius wrote to Cæsar with some calumnies against Cicero, Cæsar showed his contempt by not answering the letter,^[42] and he took care that this should come to Cicero's ears. In the embarrassments which resulted from Cicero's building operations, Cæsar freely accommodated him with loans of money. To Cicero likewise in conjunction with his own confidential agent Oppius he entrusted the spending of great sums on the erection of public buildings and the adornment of the city. We find that they put up a town-hall^[43] on the Campus Martius and marble polling-places on the same spot. The Forum was also enlarged at a cost of £600,000. Cicero was much pleased at the compliment conveyed by this honourable commission. It was entrusted, as he writes to Atticus,^[44] "to Cæsar's friends, Oppius and myself—yes, you may fret and fume—I say, to Cæsar's friends."

Above all Cæsar approached Cicero on his most sensitive side by constant kindness and attention to his brother Quintus, who was now serving 54 B.C.as lieutenant-general in Gaul. The two were together in Britain during the summer of 54 B.C., and when the troops went into winter camps, the choice of quarters was allowed to Quintus, who selected the territory of the Nervii, one of the Belgic tribes. The younger Cicero was a brave and skilful officer. By a sudden rising the Gauls overwhelmed one division of the Roman army, and they next made a furious attack on the isolated station of Quintus. The whole country was in arms, and it was long before a messenger could get through to Cæsar. Quintus Cicero defended his post with unwearied though almost desperate valour. It was like the stand made at Lucknow after the disaster of Cawnpore in the Indian mutiny. When the relieving force, led by Cæsar in person, at length appeared, the Roman eagle still crowned the camp of Cicero's legion, but of those who had kept it so well nine out of ten were either killed or wounded.

Cæsar's reception of the first proposal that Quintus should serve under him, gives a characteristic picture both of the man and of the situation.^[45] Marcus Cicero had, it appears, written to Cæsar to make the offer of his brother's services. The mail in which this offer was conveyed got soaked on the road and Cicero's letter was reduced to such a state of pulp, that it could not even be recognised for his. Fortunately a letter of Balbus in the same packet had

THE SHE-WOLF OF THE CAPITOL.

(Duruy.)

not fared quite so badly. Cæsar was able to read a few words of it, and wrote in reply as follows: "I see that you have written something about Cicero; I could not make it all out, but so far as I can decipher the meaning it was something so good that I could wish for it, but hardly hope for it." On receiving another copy, Cæsar joyfully accepted the proposal, modestly, however, warning Cicero that he feared his brother would be disappointed if he expected he was coming to a rich province.

Cicero was not the man to resist such constant and flattering attentions. He was completely dazzled alike by the splendour of Cæsar's exploits, and by the friendship which he displayed towards himself. To his brother in Cæsar's camp he expresses himself very warmly. "l have taken Cæsar to my bosom and will never let him slip."^[46] "Like a belated traveller, I must make up for lost time. I have been too much behindhand in availing myself of his friendship; now I will put my best foot forward."^[47] "I can have no reserve when I deal with Cæsar. He comes next to you and to our children in my affection, and not far behind."^[48] Perhaps it is not safe to take these letters, which were to travel in Cæsar's despatch-boxes, as absolutely confidential.^[49] But even in the letters to Atticus, "in which there are so many confidences, that we do not trust even our secretaries for fear anything should get wind,"^[50] there is not a hint that any distrust of Cæsar survives. "One thing," he writes, "at any rate I have gained, that I have full evidence of Cæsar's esteem and affection";^[51] and again: "The delightful friendship with Cæsar is the one plank saved from my shipwreck, which gives me real pleasure. Just see with what honour, consideration, and favour he treats our dear Quintus! Good Heavens! I could do no more, if I were commander-in-chief myself."^[52]

Though he is thus appreciative of Cæsar's personal charm, which blinds him for the moment to the dangers which the commonwealth has to fear from him, it must not be supposed that Cicero does not feel Oct., 54 B.C.keenly the destruction of his old ideals. "We have lost, my dear Atticus, not only the blood and substance but the very outward hue and complexion of the State as it used to be. There is no Republic left which can give me any pleasure or on which my eye can rest with satisfaction. 'And do you take that so easily?' you will say. Well yes, even that. . . . The place in my heart, where resentment used to dwell, has grown callous."^[53]

In the year 53 B.C. occurred the destruction of Crassus and his army in Mesopotamia. This disaster entailed on the Romans much anxiety for the safety of the eastern portion of 53 B.C.their empire. But the external danger passed away without serious consequences, and the death of Crassus was important chiefly as it affected the situation of Roman leaders and Roman parties. For Cæsar it was a most untoward event; it deprived him of a reserved force on whose co-operation he might rely in case of a civil war with Pompey. To such an issue the Roman factions were now slowly but surely drifting. Pompey was becoming thoroughly alarmed at the growing power and great position of Cæsar, and the leaders of the optimate party now, when it was too late, began to open their eyes to the true state of the case. They recognised that they had taken right in the wrong direction, and that the only chance for the Republic was staked on the sword of the man whom they had opposed and distrusted for the last twenty years. Pompey on his side was glad to draw towards that party to which his nature and aspirations would always have attached him, if he had not been kept aloof by the folly of its leaders. He marked his new departure by declining Cæsar's offer of the hand of his niece Octavia, and by arranging a marriage with Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Metellus, one of the chief men of the optimate party.

A gap of two years and a half occurs at this period in the correspondence between Cicero and Atticus. From the end of the year 54 B.C. onwards the two appear to have been constantly together in Rome. We cannot, therefore, trace the opinions of Cicero on the altered situation, and do not even know how far he was admitted to share the counsels of the Optimates or of Pompey.

Milo was candidate for the consulship during the year 53 B.C., and Clodius for the prætorship, and the two heartily renewed their old faction-fights. Pompey's destined father-in-law, Scipio Metellus, was in competition with Milo, and this circumstance now inclined Pompey to favour Clodius. Bribery and intimidation were carried on to a reckless extent on both sides. No election could be held, and the next year began 52 B.C.as usual with an interregnum. Milo and Clodius roamed the streets, each with his armed gang, and leaders and followers alike carried their lives in their hands.

On the evening of the 7th of January, 52 B.C., the two came into collision on the Appian Way, some ten miles from Rome. The victory in this "Battle of Bovillæ" remained with Milo, and Clodius was left dead on the road. The body was found the same night and conveyed to the city. The death of Clodius caused intense excitement amongst the lowest classes in Rome. The corpse was seized upon and burned by a tumultuous mob in the Forum. By accident or design the flames spread and destroyed the Curia Hostilia, the ordinary meeting-place of the Senate. Stormy discussions ensued in the House; Milo was fiercely attacked by the kinsmen of Clodius, and was defended with equal rigour by Cicero, Cato, and Marcus

RUINS OF THE CIRCUS OF BOVILLÆ.

(Duruy.)

Marcellus. The tribunes were divided between the one party and the other.

Rome now looked to Pompey as the only man capable of restoring order. The Senate issued its proclamation of martial law, and as there were no consuls to whom it could be addressed, the mandate ran "that the interrex and the tribunes of the plebs and the proconsul Cnæus Pompeius should see to it that the State took no harm." Finally the reconciliation of Pompey with the Optimates was sealed by a decree, proposed by Bibulus and assented to by Cato, that Pompey should be elected sole consul. This recommendation was carried out by the interrex and the assembly of the People, and Pompey assumed a position resembling that of the dictator in the Old Republic. His first care was to enlist a strong body of troops. He next passed severe and retrospective laws against rioting and electoral corruption, and provided a machinery for trials under them, by which the bribing of a jury was made almost impossible.

Milo was speedily arraigned. The most damning charge against him was that, after Clodius had been wounded and carried into a house, Milo had caused him to be dragged forth and despatched.^[54] This accusation is not noticed in Cicero's speech, but the verdict of the jury makes it highly probable that it was true.^[55] The Forum was occupied during the trial by armed guards, and the consul himself took his station with a strong reserve force at the door of the treasury of Saturn which overlooked the court. These precautions seem to have been absolutely necessary to preserve order, and we cannot fairly accuse Pompey, though his own wishes were against the prisoner, of attempting to coerce the jury. Cicero, who had throughout been unremitting in his exertions, and who owed Milo a debt of gratitude for many deeds of faithful partisanship, was sole counsel for the defence. It must have been a bitter disappointment to him that this speech was a failure. His nerve broke down in the presence of the drawn swords of the soldiers, and of the intense excitement of the by-standers. Perhaps likewise his great anxiety for success on this supreme occasion defeated its own object. Asconius tells us that the speech which he actually delivered was taken down by shorthand writers, and that it differed widely from the magnificent oration which he afterwards wrote out and published. When Cicero sent a copy to Milo in his exile, Milo is reported^[56] to have said: "It is just as well that Cicero did not succeed in delivering this speech, or I should never have known the taste of these excellent mullets of Massilia."

Milo's name lives in those splendid pages; but probably Rome was well rid of him, as well as of Clodius. Cicero, to prove that Milo had no interest in killing Clodius, urges that while he lived Milo was a necessary man. Now he is dead, Milo's importance is diminished. "The killing was unintentional," he says, "and we can only thank the Providence which made Clodius lay an ambush to attack so brave a man as Milo; but every one of you must breathe more freely now that this ruffian is removed from your path; will you then bless the deed and yet punish the doer?" The jurors appear to have argued differently. The two had held each other in check, but the survivor would be intolerable; Milo's occupation was gone, and they judged that he had better go too.

Cicero could not save Milo, but he procured the acquittal of Saufeius, Milo's comrade in the fight, and when he brought to the bar Munatius Bursa, who had taken a leading part in the riotous proceedings after Clodius' death, the jury convicted in spite of the efforts of Pompey on his behalf. "They were brave citizens," writes Cicero to his friend Marius,^[57] "who dared convict him against all the influence of the man who had selected them as jurors. They would not have done it, if they had not made my indignation their own."

Throughout the year 52, though still professedly acting as Cæsar's associate, Pompey was passing laws which were in reality framed to 52 B.C.work against Cæsar's interests. It was of vital importance to Cæsar that he-should be able to hold on to his province and army until he should enter on a second consulship. Pompey and the Optimates, while granting all his specific demands, proceeded so to arrange the order of succession to the provincial governorships as to deprive him of his legitimate expectations. Thus the ground was prepared for a dispute, which was destined toend in civil war. Meantime the new arrangements about the provinces necessitated the acceptance by Cicero of the governorship of Cilicia, for which he set out in the spring of the year 51 B.C.

The death of the younger Crassus, who fell fighting bravely by his father's side against the Parthians, occasioned a vacancy in a plebeian stall of the college of augurs, and Cicero was elected to fill the place. The augurship always had an attraction for him,^[58] and in his political writings of this time, the power and dignity of his new office are dwelt on with evident satisfaction.

In his private affairs we find Cicero at one time much embarrassed, owing to the plunder and destruction of his houses by Clodius. He had to borrow freely to meet the expenses of building and furnishing. As early as the year 54 B.C. he seems to be pretty free from these difficulties. "Very little is now wanting," he writes to Quintus,^[59] "for my habits of life are simple, and I shall have no difficulty in meeting what calls remain if only I keep my health." His debt to Cæsar however was still owing, and his letters to Atticus in 51 B.C. are full of instructions as to its discharge. In view of the political complications which were likely to arise between Cæsar and the Senate, Cicero felt it necessary for his own freedom of action that he should no longer be Cæsar's debtor.

Cicero's son and nephew were passing through their boyhood during these years, an.d he was much interested in their education. Tullia, whose first husband, Piso, had died during Cicero's banishment, was again married in the year 56 B.C. to Furius Crassipes, but divorced before Cicero left Rome for his province in 51 B.C. About the same time Atticus married a lady named Pilia. She and Tullia were warm friends, and kind messages to and fro occur frequently in the letters. We hear not a word of Terentia in these five years. "Other matters are vexing me," writes Cicero on one occasion,^[60] "but they are too private for a letter. My brother and my daughter are full of affection for me." The ominous silence as to his wife in this sentence seems to point to the beginning of the estrangement which led at last to a divorce.

Before finishing the story of Cicero's residence in Rome since his banishment, we must look back at his literary labours during this period. In the year 55 B.C. he was engaged on one of the most delightful of his creations, the dialogue De Oratore. The scene is laid during the last days (91 B.C.) of the life of Lucius Crassus, the foremost orator of the generation before Cicero. The second person of the dialogue is Antonius, the great rival of Crassus, and the minor parts are taken by the younger statesmen of the day; Cicero's old master, Scævola the augur, appears in the opening scene, but like the aged Cephalus in Plato's Republic,^[61] he soon retires. The technical discussions in this book are admirably interwoven with anecdote and conversation, and in charm and interest the work is only inferior to a dialogue of Plato.

The distraction of literary composition gave Cicero some relief from his drudgery in the law-courts, and some consolation in his disgust at the political situation. During a holiday at Puteoli, where probably the greater part of the De Oratore was planned, we find him writing to Atticus:^[62] "Here I am feasting in Faustus Sulla's library. Don't suppose I mean on the oysters of the Lucrine—not that they are wanting. But the truth is that in proportion as my taste for all other pleasures is spoiled by grief for the commonwealth, I find myself more and more dependent on literature for support and comfort."

Cicero's next effort was in the direction of political philosophy. In May 54 B.C., he begs Atticus to give him the run of his library during his absence. He wishes particularly to consult some writings of Varro, "for the purpose of the work which I have in hand and which I think will give you pleasure."^[63] This work was that which afterwards developed into the two treatises on The Commonwealth, and on The Laws. We gather^[64] that Cicero had at first written nine books of the dialogues of Scipio and his friends. Afterwards he cut off the last three books and made them the nucleus of the separate treatise entitled The Laws, in which he drops his historical personages and makes Atticus, Quintus, and himself the speakers. In this latter dialogue he repeatedly refers to the outlines of the State laid down by Scipio in the former treatise as supplying the principles on which he is working, and the two must undoubtedly be taken together as portions of the same task. Only fragments of the later and more important books of The Commonwealth survive; but it is clear that after describing the unmixed forms of government, which he considers to be all unsatisfactory, monarchy being the best of them, Scipio is made to decide in favour of a mixed constitution, such as he conceives that of Rome to be. In The Laws, accordingly, we find even the most perverse details of the Roman constitution preserved. Cicero has much to say of the duties of a statesman, but he seems blind to the faults in the machinery of government. His methods of reasoning are those of the Greek philosophers, his conclusions those of a Roman statesman with all a Roman's limitations. The experience of the world has silently worked out the problem which the greatest men of antiquity could not solve. Cæsar and Cicero were the "least mortal minds" of Republican Rome, yet neither of them conceived it as possible, that not only a free city could be organised but a free nation.

We can gather little from these treatises regarding Cicero's opinion on the questions before the world at the moment when he wrote. It has been supposed indeed that in the fragments of the fifth book of The Commonwealth, the picture of the "princeps," "the guide of the State," "the director of the Commonwealth," is meant to indicate that a place might be found in Rome for a kind of monarchical power, to be exercised by Pompey. It is clear, however, from the account of the magistracies in the third book of The Laws, that no extraordinary authority, like that established by Augustus in the next generation, was contemplated in Cicero's Republic. The character drawn, so far as we can judge from the few lines that remain, seems to be only that of the "best citizen," the ideal statesman, who guides a free commonwealth by his advice and influence. It was a part^[65] which might have been played by Pompey or by Cæsar or by Cicero himself, or even by all three at once.

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1. Suetonius, Jul., 24.
2. Plutarch, Pomp., 51, 2.
3. Seutonius, Jul., 72.
4. Ad Fam., i., 9, 10.
5. Ad Fam., i., 9, 9.
6. Ad Q. F., ii., 6, 2.
7. Ad Att., iv., 2, 5.
8. Ad Fam., i., 9, 10.
9. Ad Fam., i., 7, 7, and 9, 17.
10. Ad Fam., i., 9, 11, "meumque inimicum unum in civitate habuit inimicum."
11. Ad Fam., i., 9, 12.
12. Ad Att., iv., 6, 2.
13. See above, p. 203.
14. Ad Fam., i., 7, 10.
15. By this law the Senate was obliged before the electing of next year's consuls to decide what provinces should be assigned to them.
16. De Prov. Cons., 19, 46.
17. De Prov. Cons., 17 and 18.
18. De Prov. Cons., 16, 39.
19. De Prov. Cons., 13, 33 seq.
20. Ad Att., iv., 5.
21. I.e., Hortensius, Bibulus, Domitius, and other leaders of the optimate party.
22. I.e., The triumvirs.
23. Ad Fam., i., 8, 1-4.
24. I.e. The Knights and Pompey.
25. Ad Q. F., ii., 7, 2.
26. Ad Fam., i., 9, 20. The reconciliation did not alter Cicero's opinion of Crassus' character. "What a rascal it is!" he exclaims in a confidential letter (Ad Att., iv., 13, 2) immediately afterwards.
27. In the year 54 B.C. the rate of interest rose from four to eight per cent., owing to the demand for ready money to be spent in bribery; £100,000 was promised for the vote of the first century; Scaurus, who came rather late into the field, is reported "to have satisfied the electors tribe by tribe at his house," and so forth.
28. Ad Att., iv., 15, 4.
29. Ad Q. F. ii., 14, 2.
30. Ad Q. F., iii., 1, 12.
31. See pp. 7, 22, 94, 108.
32. Ad Q. F., ii., 15, 3.
33. Seneca de Const. Sap., 17, 3.
34. Ad Att., xi., 5, 4.
35. Ad Fam., v., 9.
36. Ad Q. F., iii., 4, 3.
37. Ad Att., iv., 18, 1. The references in the fourth book of the Letters to Atticus are to Wesenberg's Teubner edition.
38. Ad Q. F., iii., 1, 15.
39. Ad Att., x., 8, 3.
40. Ad Fam., i., 9, 21.
41. Ad Fam., vii., 5, 2.
42. Ad Q. F., iii., 1, 11.
43. This villa publica seems to have been used chiefly for the business of the census.
44. Ad Att., iv., 16, 8.
45. Ad Q. F., ii., 10, 4.
46. Ad Q. F., ii., 11, 1.
47. Ad Q. F., ii., 13, 2.
48. Ad Q. F., iii., 1, 18.
49. Cicero believed that his letters might be opened and read on the road (Ad Q. F., iii., 1, 21, and 8, 2, and 9, 3). The Romans were not very exact in their code of honour in this matter. Cicero several times opened letters of members of his family under circumstances which would not to our notions justify the action.
50. Ad Att., iv., 17, 1.
51. Ad Att., iv., 15, 10.
52. Ad Att., iv., 19, 2.
53. Ad Att., iv., 18, 2.
54. Asconius In Milonianam.
55. "For more than two years Milo had been 'looking for Clodius,' as they say in Texas" (Tyrrell). See above p. 255.
56. Dio Cassius, xl., 54.
57. Ad Fam., vii., 2, 3.
58. See above p. 218.
59. Ad Q. F., ii., 14, 3.
60. Ad Att., iv., 2, 7.
61. Ad Att., iv., 16, 3.
62. Ad Att., iv., 10, 1.
63. Ad Att., iv., 14, 1.
64. Ad Q. F., iii., 5, 1.
65. An extract from Moore's Life of Byron (ch. li.) may serve to illustrate Cicero's conception of the "princeps." "In politics, as in every other pursuit, his ambition was to be among the first; nor would it have been from any want of a due appreciation of all that is noblest and most disinterested in patriotism, that he would ever have stooped his flight to any less worthy aim. The following passage in one of his journals will be remembered by the reader: 'To be the first man (not the Dictator), not the Sylla, but the Washington or Aristides, the leader in talent and truth, is to be next to the Divinity.'"