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Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

A >> Anthony Trollope >> Life of Cicero




Glabrio was the Praetor for this present year. In Glabrio Cicero could
put some trust. With Hortensius and the two Metelluses in power,
Verres would be as good as acquitted. Cicero, therefore, had to be
on the alert, so that in this unexpected way, by sacrificing his own
grand opportunity for a speech, he might conquer the schemers. We hear
how he went to Sicily in a little boat from an unknown port, so as to
escape the dangers contrived for him by the friends of Verres.[109] If
it could be arranged that the clever advocate should be kidnapped by a
pirate, what a pleasant way would that be of putting an end to these
abominable reforms! Let them get rid of Cicero, if only for a time,
and the plunder might still be divided. Against all this he had to
provide. When in Sicily he travelled sometimes on foot, for the sake
of caution--never with the retinue to which he was entitled as a Roman
senator. As a Roman senator he might have demanded free entertainment
at any town he entered, at great cost to the town. But from all this
he abstained, and hurried back to Rome with his evidence so quickly
that he was able to produce it before the judges, so as to save the
adjournments which he feared.

Verres retired from the trial, pleading guilty, after hearing the
evidence. Of the witness, and of the manner in which they told the
story, we have no account. The second speech which we have--the
Divinatio, or speech against Caecilius, having been the first--is
called the Actio Prima contra Verrem--"the first process against
Verres." This is almost entirely confined to an exhortation to the
judges. Cicero had made up his mind to make no speech about Verres
till after the trial should be over. There would not be the requisite
time. The evidence he must bring forward. And he would so appall these
corrupt judges that they should not dare to acquit the accused. This
Actio Prima contains the words in which he did appall the judges. As
we read them, we pity the judges. There were fourteen, whose names we
know. That there may have been many more is probable. There was the
Praetor Urbanus of the day, Glabrio. With him were Metellus, one
of the Praetors for the next year, and Caesonius, who, with Cicero
himself, was Aedile designate. There were three Tribunes of the
people and two military Tribunes. There was a Servilius, a Catulus, a
Marcellus. Whom among these he suspected can hardly say. Certainly he
suspected Metellus. To Servilius[110] he paid an ornate compliment in
one of the written orations published after the trial was over, from
whence we may suppose that he was well inclined toward him. Of Glabrio
he spoke well. The body, as a body, was of such a nature that he found
it necessary to appall them. It is thus that he begins: "Not by human
wisdom, O ye judges, but by chance, and by the aid, as it were, of the
gods themselves, an event has come to pass by which the hatred now
felt for your order, and the infamy attached to the judgment seat,
may be appeased; for an opinion has gone abroad, disgraceful to the
Republic, full of danger to yourselves--which is in the mouths of
all men not only here in Rome but through all nations--that by these
courts as they are now constituted, a man, if he be only rich enough,
will never be condemned, though he be ever so guilty." What an
exordium with which to begin a forensic pleading before a bench of
judges composed of Praetors, Aediles, and coming Consuls! And this at
a time, too, when men's minds were still full of Sulla's power; when
some were thinking that they too might be Sullas; while the idea was
still strong that a few nobles ought to rule the Roman Empire for
their own advantage and their own luxury! What words to address to a
Metellus, a Catulus, and a Marcellus! I have brought before you such
a wretch, he goes on to say, that by a just judgment upon him you can
recover your favor with the people of Rome, and your credit with other
nations. "This is a trial in which you, indeed, will have to judge
this man who is accused, but in which also the Roman people will have
to judge you. By what is done to him will be determined whether a man
who is guilty, and at the same time rich, can possibly be condemned
in Rome.[111]If the matter goes amiss here, all men will declare, not
that better men should be selected out of your order, which would be
impossible, but that another order of citizens must be named from
which to select the judges."[112] This short speech was made. The
witnesses were examined during nine days; then Hortensius, with hardly
a struggle at a reply, gave way, and Verres stood condemned by his own
verdict.

When the trial was over, and Verres had consented to go into exile,
and to pay whatever fine was demanded, the "perpetua oratio" which
Cicero thought good to make on the matter was published to the world.
It is written as though it was to have been spoken, with counterfeit
tricks of oratory--with some tricks so well done in the first part
of it as to have made one think that, when these special words were
prepared, he must have intended to speak them. It has been agreed,
however, that such was not the case. It consists of a narration of the
villainies of Verres, and is divided into what have been called five
different speeches, to which the following appellations are given: De
Praetura Urbana, in which we are told what Verres did when he was city
Praetor, and very many things also which he did before he came to that
office, De Jurisdictione Siciliensi, in which is described his conduct
as a Roman magistrate on the island; De Re Frumentaria, setting forth
the abomination of his exactions in regard to the corn tax; De Signis,
detailing the robberies he perpetuated in regard to statues and other
ornaments; and De Suppliciis, giving an account of the murders he
committed and the tortures he inflicted. A question is sometimes
mooted in conversation whether or no the general happiness of the
world has been improved by increasing civilization When the reader
finds from these stories, as told by a leading Roman of the day, how
men were treated under the Roman oligarchy--not only Greek allies but
Romans also--I think he will be inclined to answer the question in
favour of civilization.

I can only give a few of the many little histories which have been
preserved for us in this Actio Secunda; but perhaps these few may
suffice to show how a great Roman officer could demean himself in his
government. Of the doings of Verres before he went to Sicily I will
select two. It became his duty on one occasion--a job which he seems
to have sought for purpose of rapine--to go to Lampsacus, a town in
Asia, as lieutenant, or legate, for Dolabella, who then had command
in Asia. Lampsacus was on the Hellespont, an allied town of specially
good repute. Here he is put up as a guest, with all the honors of a
Roman officer, at the house of a citizen named Janitor. But he heard
that another citizen, one Philodamus, had a beautiful daughter--an
article with which we must suppose that Janitor was not equally well
supplied. Verres, determined to get at the lady, orders that his
creature Rubrius shall be quartered at the house of Philodamus.
Philodamus, who from his rank was entitled to be burdened only
with the presence of leading Romans, grumbles at this; but, having
grumbled, consents, and having consented, does the best to make his
house comfortable. He gives a great supper, at which the Romans eat
and drink, and purposely create a tumult. Verres, we understand, was
not there. The intention is that the girl shall be carried away and
brought to him. In the middle of their cups the father is desired to
produce his daughter; but this he refuses to do. Rubrius then orders
the doors to be closed, and proceeds to ransack the house.
Philodamus, who will not stand this, fetches his son, and calls his
fellow-citizens around him. Rubrius succeeds in pouring boiling water
over his host, but in the row the Romans get the worst of it. At last
one of Verres's lictors--absolutely a Roman lictor--is killed, and the
woman is not carried off. The man at least bore the outward signs of
a lictor, but, according to Cicero, was in the pay of Verres as his
pimp.

So far Verres fails; and the reader, rejoicing at the courage of the
father who could protect his own house even against Romans, begins to
feel some surprise that this case should have been selected. So far
the lieutenant had not done the mischief he had intended, but he
soon avenges his failure. He induces Dolabella, his chief, to have
Philodamus and his son carried off to Laodicea, and there tried before
Nero, the then Proconsul, for killing the sham lictor. They are tried
at Laodicea before Nero, Verres himself sitting as one of the judges,
and are condemned. Then in the market place of the town, in the
presence of each other, the father and son are beheaded--a thing, as
Cicero says, very sad for all Asia to behold. All this had been done
some years ago; and, nevertheless, Verres had been chosen Praetor, and
sent to Sicily to govern the Sicilians.

When Verres was Praetor at Rome--the year before he was sent to
Sicily--it became his duty, or rather privilege, as he found it, to
see that a certain temple of Castor in the city was given up in proper
condition by the executors of a defunct citizen who had taken a
contract for keeping it in repair. This man, whose name had been
Junius, left a son, who was a Junius also under age, with a large
fortune in charge of various trustees, tutors, as they were called,
whose duty it was to protect the heir's interests. Verres, knowing of
old that no property was so easily preyed on as that of a minor, sees
at once that something may be done with the temple of Castor. The heir
took oath, and to the extent of his property he was bound to keep the
edifice in good repair. But Verres, when he made an inspection, finds
everything to be in more than usually good order. There is not a
scratch on the roof of which he can make use. Nothing has been allowed
to go astray. Then "one of his dogs"--for he had boasted to his friend
Ligur that he always went about with dogs to search out his game for
him--suggested that some of the columns were out of the perpendicular.
Verres does not know what this means; but the dog explains. All
columns are, in fact, by strict measurement, more or less out of the
perpendicular, as we are told that all eyes squint a little, though we
do not see that they squint. But as columns ought to be perpendicular,
here was a matter on which he might go to work. He does go to work.
The trustees knowing their man--knowing also that in the present
condition of Rome it was impossible to escape from an unjust Praetor
without paying largely--went to his mistress and endeavored to settle
the matter with her. Here we have an amusing picture of the way
in which the affairs of the city were carried on in that lady's
establishment; how she had her levee, took her bribes, and drove
a lucrative trade. Doing, however, no good with her, the trustees
settled with an agent to pay Verres two hundred thousand sesterces to
drop the affair. This was something under L2000. But Verres repudiated
the arrangement with scorn. He could do much better than that with
such a temple and such a minor. He puts the repairs up to auction; and
refusing a bid from the trustees themselves--the very persons who are
the most interested in getting the work done, if there were work to
do--has it knocked down to himself for five hundred and sixty thousand
sesterces, or about L5000.[113] Then we are told how he had the
pretended work done by the putting up of a rough crane. No real work
is done, no new stones are brought, no money is spent. That is the way
in which Verres filled his office as Praetor Urbanus; but it does not
seem that any public notice is taken of his iniquities as long as he
confined himself to little jobs such as this.

Then we come to the affairs of Sicily--and the long list of robberies
is commenced by which that province was made desolate. It seems that
nothing gave so grand a scope to the greed of a public functionary who
was at the same time governor and judge as disputed wills. It was not
necessary that any of the persons concerned should dispute the will
among them. Given the facts that a man had died and left property
behind him, then Verres would find means to drag the heir into court,
and either frighten him into payment of a bribe or else rob him of
his inheritance. Before he left Rome for the province he heard that a
large fortune had been left to one Dio on condition that he should put
up certain statues in the market-place.[114] It was not uncommon for a
man to desire the reputation of adorning his own city, but to choose
that the expense should be borne by his heir rather than by himself.
Failing to put up the statues, the heir was required to pay a fine to
Venus Erycina--to enrich, that is, the worship of that goddess, who
had a favorite temple under Mount Eryx. The statues had been duly
erected. But, nevertheless, here there was an opening. So Verres goes
to work, and in the name of Venus brings an action against Dio. The
verdict is given, not in favor of Venus but in favor of Verres.

This manner of paying honor to the gods, and especially to Venus, was
common in Sicily. Two sons[115] received a fortune from their father,
with a condition that, if some special thing were not done, a fine
should be paid to Venus. The man had been dead twenty years ago. But
"the dogs" which the Praetor kept were very sharp, and, distant as was
the time, found out the clause. Action is taken against the two sons,
who indeed gain their case; but they gain it by a bribe so enormous
that they are ruined men. There was one Heraclius,[116] the son of
Hiero, a nobleman of Syracuse, who received a legacy amounting to
3,000,000 sesterces--we will say L24,000--from a relative, also a
Heraclius. He had, too, a house full of handsome silver plate, silk
and hangings, and valuable slaves. A man, "Dives equom, dives pictai
vestis et auri." Verres heard, of course. He had by this time taken
some Sicilian dogs into his service, men of Syracuse, and had learned
from them that there was a clause in the will of the elder Heraclius
that certain statues should be put up in the gymnasium of the city.
They undertake to bring forward servants of the gymnasium who should
say that the statues were never properly erected. Cicero tells us how
Verres went to work, now in this court, now in that, breaking all
the laws as to Sicilian jurisdiction, but still proceeding under the
pretence of law, till he got everything out of the wretch--not only
all the legacies from Heraclius, but every shilling, and every article
left to the man by his father. There is a pretence of giving some of
the money to the town of Syracuse; but for himself he takes all the
valuables, the Corinthian vases, the purple hangings, what slaves he
chooses. Then everything else is sold by auction. How he divided the
spoil with the Syracusans, and then quarrelled with them, and how he
lied as to the share taken by himself, will all be found in Cicero's
narrative. Heraclius was of course ruined. For the stories of
Epicrates and Sopater I must refer the reader to the oration. In that
of Sopater there is the peculiarity that Verres managed to get paid by
everybody all round.

The story of Sthenius is so interesting that I cannot pass it by.
Sthenius was a man of wealth and high standing, living at Therma in
Sicily, with whom Verres often took up his abode; for, as governor,
he travelled much about the island, always in pursuit of plunder.
Sthenius had had his house full of beautiful things. Of all these
Verres possessed himself--some by begging, some by demanding, and
some by absolute robbery. Sthenius, grieved as he was to find himself
pillaged, bore all this. The man was Roman Praetor, and injuries such
as these had to be endured. At Therma, however, in the public place of
the city, there were some beautiful statues. For these Verres longed,
and desired his host to get them for him.

Sthenius declared that this was impossible. The statues had, under
peculiar circumstances, been recovered by Scipio Africanus from
Carthage, and been restored by the Roman General to the Sicilians,
from whom they had been taken, and had been erected at Therma. There
was a peculiarly beautiful figure of Stesichorus, the poet, as an old
man bent double, with a book in his hand--a very glorious work of art;
and there was a goat--in bronze probably--as to which Cicero is at the
pains of telling us that even he, unskilled as he was in such matters,
could see its charms. No one had sharper eyes for such pretty
ornaments than Cicero, or a more decided taste for them. But as
Hortensius, his rival and opponent in this case, had taken a marble
sphinx from Verres, he thought it expedient to show how superior he
was to such matters. There was probably something of joke in this,
as his predilections would no doubt be known to those he was
addressing.[117]

In the matter Sthenius was incorruptible, and not even the Praetor
could carry them away without his aid. Cicero, who is very warm in
praise of Sthenius, declares that "here at last Verres had found one
town, the only one in the world, from which he was unable to carry
away something of the public property by force, or stealth, or open
command, or favor."[118]

The governor was so disgusted with this that he abandoned Sthenius,
leaving the house which he had plundered of everything, and betook
himself to that of one Agathinus, who had a beautiful daughter,
Callidama, who, with her husband, Dorotheus, lived with her father
They were enemies of Sthenius, and we are given to understand that
Verres ingratiated himself with them partly for the sake of Callidama,
who seems very quickly to have been given up to him,[119] and partly
that he might instigate them to bring actions against Sthenius. This
is done with great success; so that Sthenius is forced to run away,
and betake himself, winter as it was, across the seas to Rome. It
has already been told that when he was at Rome an action was brought
against him by Verres for having run away when he was under judgment,
in which Cicero defended him, and in which he was acquitted. In the
teeth of his acquittal, Verres persecuted the man by every form of law
which came to his hands as Praetor, but always in opposition to the
law. There is an audacity about the man's proceedings, in his open
contempt of the laws which it was his special duty to carry out,
making us feel how confident he was that he could carry everything
before him in Rome by means of his money. By robbery and concealing
his robberies, by selling his judgments in such a way that he should
maintain some reticence by ordinary precaution, he might have made
much money, as other governors had done. But he resolved that it would
pay him better to rob everywhere openly, and then, when the day of
reckoning came, to buy the judges wholesale. As to shame at such
doings, there was no such feelings left among Romans.

Before he comes to the story of Sthenius, Cicero makes a grandly
ironical appeal to the bench before him: "Yes, O judges, keep this
man; keep him in the State! Spare him, preserve him so that he,
too, may sit with us as a judge here so that he, too, may, with
impartiality, advise us, as a Senator, what may be best for us as to
peace and war! Not that we need trouble ourselves as to his senatorial
duties. His authority would be nothing. When would he dare, or when
would he care, to come among us? Unless it might be in the idle month
of February, when would a man so idle, so debauched, show himself in
the Senate-house? Let him come and show himself. Let him advise us
to attack the Cretans; to pronounce the Greeks of Byzantium free; to
declare Ptolemy King.[120] Let him speak and vote as Hortensius
may direct. This will have but little effect upon our lives or
our property. But beyond this there is something we must look to;
something that would be distrusted; something that every good man has
to fear! If by chance this man should escape out of our hands, he
would have to sit there upon that bench and be a judge. He would be
called upon to pronounce on the lives of a Roman citizen. He would be
the right-hand officer in the army of this man here,[121] of this man
who is striving to be the lord and ruler of our judgment-seats. The
people of Rome at least refuse this! This at least cannot be endured!"

The third of these narratives tells us how Verres managed in his
province that provision of corn for the use of Rome, the collection
of which made the possession of Sicily so important to the Romans. He
begins with telling his readers--as he does too frequently--how great
and peculiar is the task he has undertaken; and he uses an argument
of which we cannot but admit the truth, though we doubt whether any
modern advocate would dare to put it forward. We must remember,
however, that Romans were not accustomed to be shamefaced in praising
themselves. What Cicero says of himself all others said also of
themselves; only Cicero could say it better than others. He reminds
us that he who accuses another of any crime is bound to be especially
free from that crime himself. "Would you charge any one as a thief?
you must be clear from any suspicion of even desiring another man's
property. Have you brought a man up for malice or cruelty? take care
that you be not found hard-hearted. Have you called a man a seducer or
an adulterer? be sure that your own life shows no trace of such vices.
Whatever you would punish in another, that you must avoid yourself. A
public accuser would be intolerable, or even a caviller, who should
inveigh against sins for which he himself is called in question. But
in this man I find all wickednesses combined. There is no lust, no
iniquity, no shamelessness of which his life does not supply with
ample evidence." The nature of the difficulty to which Cicero is thus
subjected is visible enough. As Verres is all that is bad, so must he,
as accuser, be all that is good; which is more, we should say, than
any man would choose to declare of himself! But he is equal to the
occasion. "In regard to this man, O judges, I lay down for myself the
law as I have stated it. I must so live that I must clearly seem to
be, and always have been, the very opposite of this man, not only in
my words and deeds, but as to that arrogance and impudence which you
see in him." Then he shows how opposite he is to Verres at any rate,
in impudence! "I am not sorry to see," he goes on to say, "that that
life which has always been the life of my own choosing, has now
been made a necessity to me by the law which I have laid down for
myself."[122] Mr. Pecksniff spoke of himself in the same way, but no
one, I think, believed him. Cicero probably was believed. But the most
wonderful thing is, that his manner of life justified what he said
of himself. When others of his own order were abandoned to lust,
iniquity, and shamelessness, he lived in purity, with clean hands,
doing good as far as was in his power to those around him. A laugh
will be raised at his expense in regard to that assertion of his that,
even in the matter of arrogance, his conduct should be the opposite of
that of Verres. But this will come because I have failed to interpret
accurately the meaning of those words, "oris oculorumque illa
contumacia ac superbia quam videtis." Verres, as we can understand,
had carried himself during the trial with a bragging, brazen, bold
face, determined to show no shame as to his own doings. It is in this,
which was a matter of manner and taste, that Cicero declares that he
will be the man's opposite as well as in conduct. As to the ordinary
boastings, by which it has to be acknowledged that Cicero sometimes
disgusts his readers, it will be impossible for us to receive a just
idea of his character without remembering that it was the custom of
a Roman to boast. We wait to have good things said of us, or are
supposed to wait. The Roman said them of himself. The "veni, vidi,
vici" was the ordinary mode of expression in those times, and in
earlier times among the Greeks.[123] This is distasteful to us; and it
will probably be distasteful to those who come after us, two or three
hundred years hence, that this or that British statesman should have
made himself an Earl or a Knight of the Garter. Now it is thought by
many to be proper enough. It will shock men in future days that
great peers or rich commoners should have bargained for ribbons and
lieutenancies and titles. Now it is the way of the time. Though virtue
and vice may be said to remain the same from all time to all time, the
latitudes allowed and the deviations encouraged in this or the
other age must be considered before the character of a man can be
discovered. The boastings of Cicero have been preserved for us. We
have to bethink ourselves that his words are 2000 years old. There
is such a touch of humanity in them, such a feeling of latter-day
civilization and almost of Christianity, that we are apt to condemn
what remains in them of paganism, as though they were uttered
yesterday. When we come to the coarseness of his attacks, his
descriptions of Piso by-and-by, his abuse of Gabinius, and his
invectives against Antony; when we read his altered opinions, as shown
in the period of Caesar's dominion, his flattery of Caesar when in
power, and his exultations when Caesar has been killed; when we find
that he could be coarse in his language and a bully, and servile--for
it has all to be admitted--we have to reflect under what
circumstances, under what surroundings, and for what object were used
the words which displease us. Speaking before the full court at this
trial, he dared to say he knew how to live as a man and to carry
himself as a gentleman. As men and gentlemen were then, he was
justified.

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Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Three Women was first heard as a radio drama and then published as a poem. Robert Shaw explains his desire to stage the piece as it was intended

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A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.

Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.

Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."

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