Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

A >> Anthony Trollope >> Life of Cicero

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

The description of Verres's rapacity in regard to the corn tax is long
and complex, and need hardly be followed at length, unless by those
who desire to know how the iniquity of such a one could make the most
of an imposition which was in itself very bad, and pile up the burden
till the poor province was unable to bear it. There were three kinds
of imposition as to corn. The first, called the "decumanum," was
simply a tithe.

The producers through the island had to furnish Rome with a tenth of
their produce, and it was the Praetor's duty, or rather that of the
Quaestor under the Praetor, to see that the tithe was collected. How
Verres saw to this himself, and how he treated the Sicilian husbandmen
in regard to the tithe, is so told that we are obliged to give the
man credit for an infinite fertility of resources. Then there is the
"emptum," or corn bought for the use of Rome, of which there were two
kinds. A second tithe had to be furnished at a price fixed by the
Roman Senate, which price was considered to be below that of its
real value, and then 800,000 bushels were purchased, or nominally
purchased, at a price which was also fixed by the Senate, but which
was nearer to the real value. Three sesterces a bushel for the first
and four for the last, were the prices fixed at this time. For making
these payments vast sums of money were remitted to Verres, of which
the accounts were so kept that it was hard to say whether any found
its way into the hands of the farmers who undoubtedly furnished the
corn. The third corn tax was the "aestimatum". This consisted of a
certain fixed quantity which had to be supplied to the Praetor for the
use of his governmental establishment--to be supplied either in grain
or in money. What such a one as Verres would do with his, the reader
may conceive.

All this was of vital importance to Rome. Sicily and Africa were the
granaries from which Rome was supplied with its bread. To get supplies
from a province was necessary. Rich men have servants in order that
they may live at ease themselves. So it was with the Romans to whom
the provinces acted as servants. It was necessary to have a sharp
agent, some Proconsul or Propraetor; but when there came one so sharp
as Verres, all power of recreating supplies would for a time be
destroyed. Even Cicero boasted that in a time of great scarcity, he,
being then Quaestor in Sicily, had sent extraordinary store of corn
over to the city.[124] But he had so done it as to satisfy all who
were concerned.

Verres, in his corn dealings with the Sicilians, had a certain friend,
companion, and minister--one of his favorite dogs, perhaps we may call
him--named Apronius, whom Cicero specially describes. The description
I must give, because it is so powerful; because it shows us how one
man could in those days speak of another in open court before all the
world; because it affords us an instance of the intensity of hatred
which the orator could throw into his words; but I must hide it in the
original language, as I could not translate it without offence."[125]

Then we have a book devoted to the special pillage of statues and
other ornaments, which, for the genius displayed in story-telling, is
perhaps of all the Verrine orations the most amusing. The Greek people
had become in a peculiar way devoted to what we generally call Art.
We are much given to the collecting of pictures, china, bronze,
and marbles, partly from love of such things, partly from pride in
ornamenting our houses so as to excite the admiration of others,
partly from a feeling that money so invested is not badly placed with
a view to future returns. All these feelings operated with the Greeks
to a much greater extent. Investments in consols and railway shares
were not open to them. Money they used to lend at usury, no doubt,
but with a great chance of losing it. The Greek colonists were
industrious, were covetous, and prudent. From this it had come to pass
that, as they made their way about the world--to the cities which they
established round the Mediterranean--they collected in their new homes
great store of ornamental wealth. This was done with much profusion at
Syracuse, a Greek city in Sicily, and spread from them over the whole
island. The temples of the gods were filled with the works of the
great Greek artists, and every man of note had his gallery. That
Verres, hog as he is described to have been, had a passion for these
things, is manifest to us. He came to his death at last in defence of
some favorite images. He had returned to Rome by means of Caesar's
amnesty, and Marc Antony had him murdered because he would not
surrender some treasures of art. When we read the De Signis--About
Statues--we are led to imagine that the search after these things was
the chief object of the man throughout his three years of office--as
we have before been made to suppose that all his mind and time had
been devoted to the cheating of the Sicilians in the matter of corn.
But though Verres loved these trinkets, it was not altogether for
himself that he sought them. Only one third of his plunder was for
himself. Senators, judges, advocates, Consuls, and Praetors could be
bribed with articles of _vertu_ as well as with money.

There are eleven separate stories told of these robberies. I will give
very shortly the details of one or two. There was one Marcus Heius,
a rich citizen of Messana, in whose house Verres took great delight.
Messana itself was very useful to him, and the Mamertines, as the
people of Messana were called were his best friends in all Sicily: for
he made Messana the depot of his plunder, and there he caused to be
built at the expense of the Government an enormous ship called the
_Cybea_,[126] in which his treasures were carried out of the island.
He therefore specially favored Messana, and the district of Messana
was supposed to have been scourged by him with lighter rods than
those used elsewhere in Sicily. But this man Heius had a chapel, very
sacred, in which were preserved four specially beautiful images. There
was a Cupid by Praxiteles, and a bronze Hercules by Myro, and two
Canoephrae by Polycletus These were treasures which all the world came
to see, and which were open to be seen by all the world. These Verres
took away, and caused accounts to be forged in which it was made to
appear that he had bought them for trifling sums. It seems that some
forced assent had been obtained from Heius as to the transaction. Now
there was a plan in vogue for making things pleasant for a Proconsul
retiring from his government, in accordance with which a deputation
would proceed from the province to Rome to declare how well and kindly
the Proconsul had behaved in his government. The allies, even when
they had been, as it were, skinned alive by their governor, were
constrained to send their deputations. Deputations were got up in
Sicily from Messana and Syracuse, and with the others from Messana
came this man Heius. Heius did not wish to tell about his statues; but
he was asked questions, and was forced to answer. Cicero informs us
how it all took place. "He was a man," he said--this is what Cicero
tells us that Heius said--"who was well esteemed in his own country,
and would wish you"--you judges--"to think well of his religious
spirit and of his personal dignity. He had come here to praise Verres
because he had been required to do so by his fellow-citizens. He,
however, had never kept things for sale in his own house; and had he
been left to himself, nothing would have induced him to part with
the sacred images which had been left to him by his ancestors as the
ornaments of his own chapel.[127]

Nevertheless, he had come to praise Verres, and would have held his
tongue had it been possible."

Cicero finishes his catalogue by telling us of the manifold robberies
committed by Verres in Syracuse, especially from the temples of the
gods; and he begins his account of the Syracusan iniquities by drawing
a parallel between two Romans whose names were well known in that
city: Marcellus, who had besieged it as an enemy and taken it, and
Verres, who had been sent to govern it in peace. Marcellus had saved
the lives of the Syracusans; Verres had made the Forum to run with
their blood. The harbor which had held its own against Marcellus,
as we may read in our Livy, had been wilfully opened by Verres to
Cilician pirates. This Syracuse which had been so carefully preserved
by its Roman conqueror the most beautiful of all the Greek cities on
the face of the earth--so beautiful that Marcellus had spared to it
all its public ornaments--had been stripped bare by Verres. There was
the temple of Minerva from which he had taken all the pictures. There
were doors to this temple of such beauty that books had been written
about them. He stripped the ivory ornaments from them, and the golden
balls with which they had been made splendid. He tore off from them
the head of the Gorgon and carried it away, leaving them to be rude
doors, Goth that he was!

And he took the Sappho from the Prytaneum, the work of Silanion! a
thing of such beauty that no other man can have the like of it in his
own private house; yet Verres has it--a man hardly fit to carry such
a work of art as a burden, not possess it as a treasure of his own.
"What, too!" he says, "have you not stolen Paean from the temple of
Aesculapius--a statue so remarkable for its beauty, so well-known for
the worship attached to it, that all the world has been wont to visit
it? What! has not the image of Aristaeus been taken by you from the
temple of Bacchus? Have you not even stolen the statue of Jupiter
Imperator, so sacred in the eyes of all men--that Jupiter which the
Greeks call Ourios? You have not hesitated to rob the temple of
Proserpine of the lovely head in Parian marble."[128] Then Cicero
speaks of the worship due to all these gods as though he himself
believed in their godhead. As he had begun this chapter with the
Mamertines of Messana, so he ends it with an address to them. "It is
well that you should come, you alone out of all the provinces, and
praise Verres here in Rome. But what can you say for him? Was it not
your duty to have built a ship for the Republic? You have built none
such, but have constructed a huge private transport-vessel for Verres.
Have you not been exempted from your tax on corn? Have you not been
exempted in regard to naval and military recruits? Have you not been
the receptacle of all his stolen goods? They will have to confess,
these Mamertines, that many a ship laden with his spoils has left
their port, and especially this huge transport-ship which they built
for him!"

In the De Suppliciis--the treatise about punishments, as the last
division of this process is called--Cicero tells the world how Verres
exacted vengeance from those who were opposed to him, and with what
horrid cruelty he raged against his enemies. The stories, indeed, are
very dreadful. It is harrowing to think that so evil a man should have
been invested with powers so great for so bad a purpose. But that
which strikes a modern reader most is the sanctity attached to the
name of a Roman citizen, and the audacity with which the Roman
Proconsul disregarded that sanctity. "Cives Romanus" is Cicero's cry
from the beginning to the end. No doubt he is addressing himself to
Romans, and seeking popularity, as he always did. But, nevertheless,
the demands made upon the outside world at large by the glory of that
appellation are astonishing, even when put forward on such an occasion
as this. One Gavius escapes from a prison in Syracuse, and, making his
way to Messana, foolishly boasts that he would be soon over in
Italy, out of the way of Praetor Verres and his cruelties. Verres,
unfortunately, is in Messana, and soon hears from some of his friends,
the Mamertines, what Gavius was saying. He at once orders Gavius to
be flogged in public. "Cives Romanus sum!" exclaims Gavius, no doubt
truly. It suits Verres to pretend to disbelieve this, and to declare
that the man is a runagate slave. The poor wretch still cries "Cives
Romanus!" and trusts alone to that appeal. Whereupon Verres puts up a
cross on the sea-shore, and has the man crucified in sight of Italy,
so that he shall be able to see the country of which he is so proud.
Whether he had done anything to deserve crucifixion, or flogging, or
punishment at all, we are not told. The accusation against Verres is
not for crucifying the man, but for crucifying the Roman. It is on
this occasion that Cicero uses the words which have become proverbial
as to the iniquity of this proceeding.[129] During the telling of this
story he explains this doctrine, claiming for the Roman citizen, all
the world over, some such protection as freemasons are supposed to
give each other, whether known or unknown. "Men of straw," he says,
"of no special birth, go about the world. They resort to places they
have never seen before, where they know none, and none know them.
Here, trusting to their claim solely, they feel themselves to be
safe--not only where our magistrates are to be found, who are bound
both by law and by opinion, not only among other Roman citizens who
speak their language and follow the same customs, but abroad, over the
whole world, they find this to be sufficient protection."[130] Then
he goes on to say that if any Praetor may at his will put aside this
sanctity, all the provinces, all the kingdoms, all the free states,
all the world abroad, will very soon lose the feeling.

But the most remarkable story is that told of a certain pirate
captain. Verres had been remiss in regard to the pirates--very
cowardly, indeed, if we are to believe Cicero. Piracy in the
Mediterranean was at that time a terrible drawback to trade--that
piracy that a year or two afterward Pompey was effectual in
destroying. A governor in Sicily had, among other special duties, to
keep a sharp lookout for the pirates. This Verres omitted so entirely
that these scourges of the sea soon learned that they might do almost
as they pleased on the Sicilian coasts. But it came to pass that
on one day a pirate vessel fell by accident into the hands of the
governor's officers. It was not taken, Cicero says, but was so
overladen that it was picked up almost sinking.[131] It was found to
be full of fine, handsome men, of silver both plated and coined, and
precious stuffs. Though not "taken," it was "found," and carried into
Syracuse. Syracuse is full of the news, and the first demand is that
the pirates, according to Roman custom, shall all be killed. But this
does not suit Verres. The slave-markets of the Roman Empire are open,
and there are men among the pirates whom it will suit him better to
sell than to kill. There are six musicians, "symphoniacos homines,"
whom he sends as a present to a friend at Rome. But the people of
Syracuse are very much in earnest. They are too sharp to be put off
with pretences, and they count the number of slaughtered pirates.
There are only some useless, weak, ugly old fellows beheaded from day
to day; and being well aware how many men it must have taken to row
and manage such a vessel, they demand that the full crew shall be
brought to the block. "There is nothing in victory more sweet," says
Cicero, "no evidence more sure, than to see those whom you did
fear, but have now got the better of, brought out to tortures or
death."[132] Verres is so much frightened by the resolution of the
citizens that he docs not dare to neglect their wishes. There are
lying in the prisons of Syracuse a lot of prisoners, Roman citizens,
of whom he is glad to rid himself. He has them brought out, with
their heads wrapped up so that they shall not be known, and has them
beheaded instead of the pirates! A great deal is said, too, about the
pirate captain--the arch-pirate, as he is called. There seems to have
been some money dealings personally between him and Verres, on account
of which Verres kept him hidden. At any rate, the arch-pirate was
saved. "In such a manner this celebrated victory is managed.[133] The
pirate ship is taken, and the chief pirate is allowed to escape. The
musicians are sent to Rome. The men who are good-looking and young
are taken to the Praetor's house. As many Roman citizens as will fill
their places are carried out as public enemies, and are tortured and
killed! All the gold and silver and precious stuffs are made a prize
of by Verres!"

Such are the accusations brought against this wonderful man--the truth
of which has, I think, on the whole been admitted. The picture of
Roman life which it displays is wonderful, that such atrocities should
have been possible; and equally so of provincial subjection, that such
cruelties should have been endured. But in it all the greatest wonder
is that there should have risen up a man so determined to take the
part of the weak against the strong with no reward before him,
apparently with no other prospect than that of making himself odious
to the party to which he belonged. Cicero was not a Gracchus, anxious
to throw himself into the arms of the people; he was an oligarch by
conviction, born to oligarchy, bred to it, convinced that by it alone
could the Roman Republic be preserved. But he was convinced also that
unless these oligarchs could be made to do their duty the Republic
could not stand. Therefore it was that he dared to defy his own
brethren, and to make the acquittal of Verres an impossibility. I
should be inclined to think that the day on which Hortensius threw
up the sponge, and Verres submitted to banishment and fine, was the
happiest in the orator's life. Verres was made to pay a fine which was
very insufficient for his crimes, and then to retire into comfortable
exile. From this he returned to Rome when the Roman exiles were
amnestied, and was shortly afterward murdered by Antony, as has been
told before.

Notes:

[97] M. du Rozoir was a French critic, and was joined with M. Gueroult
and M. de Guerle in translating and annotating the Orations of Cicero
for M. Pauckoucke's edition of the Latin classics.

[98] In Verrem Actio Secunda, lib.i., vii.

[99] Plutarch says that Caecilius was an emancipated slave, and a Jew,
which could not have been true, as he was a Roman Senator.

[100] De Oratore, lib.ii., c.xlix. The feeling is beautifully
expressed in the words put into the mouth of Antony in the discussion
on the charms and attributes of eloquence: "Qui mihi in liberum loco
more majorum esse deberet."

[101] In Q. Caec. Divinatio, ca.ii.

[102] Divinatio, ca.iii.

[103] Ibid., ca.vi.

[104] Ibid., ca.viii.

[105] Divinatio, ca.ix.

[106] Ibid., ca.xi.

[107] Ibid.

[108] Ibid., ca.xii.

[109] Actio Secunda, lib. ii., xl. He is speaking of Sthenius, and the
illegality of certain proceedings on the part of Verres against him.
"If an accused man could be condemned in the absence of the accuser,
do you think that I would have gone in a little boat from Vibo to
Vella, among all the dangers prepared for me by your fugitive slaves
and pirates, when I had to hurry at the peril of my life, knowing that
you would escape if I were not present to the day?"

[110] Actio Secunda, I. xxi.

[111] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

[112] In Verrem, Actio Prima, xvi.

[113] We are to understand that the purchaser at the auction having
named the sum for which he would do the work, the estate of the minor,
who was responsible for the condition of the temple, was saddled with
that amount.

[114] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.ii., vii.

[115] Ibid, ix.

[116] Ibid., lib.ii., xiv.

[117] See Appendix C.

[118] In Verrem, Actio Secunde, lib. ii., ca. xxxvi.

[119] Ibid. "Una nox intercesserat, quam iste Dorotheum sic diligebat,
ut diceres, omnia inter eos esse communia."--wife and all. "Iste"
always means Verres in these narratives.

[120] These were burning political questions of the moment. It was as
though an advocate of our days should desire some disgraced member
of Parliament to go down to the House and assist the Government in
protecting Turkey in Asia and invading Zululand.

[121] "Sit in ejus exercitu signifer." The "ejus" was Hortensius, the
coming Consul, too whom Cicero intended to be considered as pointing.
For the passage, see In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.ii., xxxi.

[122] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.iii., II.

[123] "Exegi monumentum aere perennius," said Horace, gloriously. "Sum
pius Aeneas" is Virgil's expression, put into the mouth of his hero.
"Ipse Menaleas," said Virgil himself. Homer and Sophocles introduce
their heroes with self-sounded trumpetings:

[Greek: _Eiae Odysseus Daertiadaes os pasi doloisi
Anthropoisi melo, kai meu kleos ouranon ikei_.]
Odyssey, book ix., 19 and 20.

[Greek: _Ho pasi kleinos Oidipous kaloumenos_.]
Oedipus Tyrannus, 8.

[124] Pro Plancio, xxvi.: "Fumenti in summa caritate maximum numerum
miseram; negotiatoribus comis, mercatoribus justus, municipibus
liberalis, sociis abstinens, omnibus eram visus in omni officio
diligentissimus."

[125] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib. iii., ix.: "is erit Apronius
ille; qui, ut ipse non solum vita, sed etiam corpore atque
ore significat, immensa aliqua vorago est ac gurges vitiorum
turpitudinumque omnium. Hunc in omnibus stupris, hunc in fanorum
expilationibus, hunc in impuris conviviis principera adhibebat;
tantamque habebat morum similitudo conjuncnorum atque concordiam,
ut Apronius, qui aliis inhumanus ac barbarus, isti uni commodus ac
disertus videretur; ut quem omnes odissent neque videre vellent sine
eo iste esse non posset; ut quum alii ne conviviis quidem iisdem
quibus Apronius, hic iisdem etiam poculis uteretur, postremo, ut, odor
Apronii teterrimus oris et corporis, quem, ut aiunt, ne bestiae quidem
ferre possent, uni isti suavis et jucundus videretur. Ille erat in
tribunali proximus; in cubiculo socius; in convivio dominus, ac tum
maxime, quum, accubante praetextato praetoris filio, in convivio
saltare nudus coeperat".

[126] A great deal is said of the _Cybea_ in this and the last speech.
The money expended on it was passed through the accounts as though the
ship had been built for the defence of the island from pirates, but it
was intended solely for the depository of the governor's plunder.

[127] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.iv., vii.

[128] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.iv., lvii.

[129] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.v., lxvi.: "Facinus est vinciri
civem Romanum; scelus verberari; prope parricidium necari; quid dicam
in crucem!"

[130] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.v., lxv.

[131] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.v., xx.: "Onere suo plane captam
atque depressam."

[132] In Verrem, Actio Secunda, lib.v., xxvi.

[133] Ibid., xxviii.

CHAPTER VII.

CICERO AS AEDILE AND PRAETOR.

[Sidenote: B.C. 69, _aetat_. 38.]

The year after the trial of Verres was that of Cicero's Aedileship.
We know but little of him in the performance of the duties of this
office, but we may gather that he performed them to the satisfaction
of the people. He did not spend much money for their amusements,
although it was the custom of Aediles to ruin themselves in seeking
popularity after this fashion; and yet when, two years afterward, he
solicited the Praetorship from the people, he was three times elected
as first Praetor in all the comitia--three separate elections having
been rendered necessary by certain irregularities and factious
difficulties. To all the offices, one after another, he was elected
in his first year--the first year possible in accordance with his
age--and was elected first in honor, the first as Praetor, and then
the first as Consul. This, no doubt, was partly due to his compliance
with those rules for canvassing which his brother Quintus is said to
have drawn out, and which I have quoted; but it proves also the trust
which was felt in him by the people. The candidates, for the most part,
were the candidates for the aristocracy. They were put forward with
the idea that thus might the aristocratic rule of Rome be best
maintained. Their elections were carried on by bribery, and the people
were for the most part indifferent to the proceeding. Whether it might
be a Verres, or an Antony, or a Hortensius, they took the money that
was going. They allowed themselves to be delighted with the games, and
they did as they were bid. But every now and then there came up a name
which stirred them, and they went to the voting pens--ovilia--with a
purpose of their own. When such a candidate came forward, he was sure
to be first. Such had been Marius, and such had been the great Pompey,
and such was Cicero. The two former were men successful in war, who
gained the voices of the people by their victories. Cicero gained them
by what he did inside the city. He could afford not to run into debt
and ruin himself during his Aedileship, as had been common with Aediles,
because he was able to achieve his popularity in another way. It was
the chief duty of the Aediles to look after the town generally--to see
to the temples of the gods, to take care that houses did not tumble
down, to look to the cleansing of the streets, and to the supply of
water. The markets were under them, and the police, and the recurrent
festivals. An active man, with common-sense, such as was Cicero, no
doubt did his duty as Aedile well.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27