Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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The Consul's work, however, was severe enough. We find from his own
words, in a letter to Atticus written in the year but one after his
Consulship, 61 B.C., that as Consul he made twelve public addresses.
Each of them must have been a work of labor, requiring a full mastery
over the subject in hand, and an arrangement of words very different
in their polished perfection from the generality of parliamentary
speeches to which we are accustomed. The getting up of his cases
must have taken great time. Letters went slowly and at a heavy cost.
Writing must have been tedious when that most common was done with a
metal point on soft wax. An advocate who was earnest in a case had to
do much for himself. We have heard how Cicero made his way over to
Sicily, creeping in a little boat through the dangers prepared for
him, in order that he might get up the evidence against Verres. In
defending Aulus Cluentius when he was Praetor, Cicero must have found
the work to have been immense. In preparing the attack upon Catiline
it seems that every witness was brought to himself. There were four
Catiline speeches made in the year of his Consulship, but in the same
year many others were delivered by him. He mentions, as we shall see
just now, twelve various speeches made in the year of his Consulship.

I imagine that the words spoken can in no case have been identical
with those which have come to us--which were, as we may say, prepared
for the press by Tiro, his slave and secretary. We have evidence as to
some of them, especially as to the second Catiline oration, that time
did not admit of its being written and learned by heart after the
occurrence of the circumstances to which it alludes. It needs must
have been extemporary, with such mental preparation as one night may
have sufficed to give him. How the words may have been taken down in
such a case we do not quite know; but we are aware that short-hand
writers were employed, though there can hardly have been a science of
stenography perfected as is that with us.[150]

The words which we read were probably much polished before they were
published, but how far this was done we do not know. What we do know
is that the words which he spoke moved, convinced, and charmed those
who heard them, as do the words we read move, convince and charm us.
Of these twelve consular speeches Cicero gives a special account to
his friend. "I will send you," he says, "the speechlings[151] which
you require, as well as some others, seeing that those which I have
written out at the request of a few young men please you also. It was
an advantage to me here to follow the example of that fellow-citizen
of yours in those orations which he called his Philippics. In these he
brightened himself up, and discarded his 'nisi prius' way of speaking,
so that he might achieve something more dignified, something more
statesman-like. So I have done with these speeches of mine which may
be called 'consulares,'" as having been made not only in his consular
year but also with something of consular dignity. "Of these, one, on
the new land laws proposed, was spoken in the Senate on the kalends of
January. The second, on the same subject, to the people. The third was
respecting Otho's law.[152]

The fourth was in defence of Rabirius.[153]

The fifth was in reference to the children of those who had lost their
property and their rank under Sulla's proscription.[154]

The sixth was an address to the people, and explained why I renounced
my provincial government.[155]

The seventh drove Catiline out of the city. The eighth was addressed
to the people the day after Catiline fled. The ninth was again spoken
to the people, on the day on which the Allobroges gave their evidence.
Then, again, the tenth was addressed to the Senate on the fifth
of December"--also respecting Catiline. "There arc also two short
supplementary speeches on the Agrarian war. You shall have the whole
body of them. As what I write and what I do are equally interesting to
you, you will gather from the same documents all my doings and all my
sayings."

It is not to be supposed that in this list are contained all the
speeches which he made in his consular year, but those only which he
made as Consul--those to which he was desirous of adding something of
the dignity of statesmanship, something beyond the weight attached to
his pleadings as a lawyer. As an advocate, Consul though he was, he
continued to perform his work; from whence we learn that no State
dignity was so high as to exempt an established pleader from the
duty of defending his friends. Hortensius, when Consul elect, had
undertaken to defend Verres. Cicero defended Murena when he was
Consul. He defended C. Calpurnius Piso also, who was accused, as were
so many, of proconsular extortion; but whether in this year or in the
preceding is not, I think, known.[156]

Of his speech on that occasion we have nothing remaining. Of his
pleading for Murena we have, if not the whole, the material part, and,
though nobody cares very much for Murena now, the oration is very
amusing. It was made toward the end of the year, on the 20th of
November, after the second Catiline oration, and before the third, at
the very moment in which Cicero was fully occupied with the evidence
on which he intended to convict Catiline's fellow-conspirators. As I
read it I am carried away by wonder, rather than admiration, at the
energy of the man who could at such a period of his life give up his
time to master the details necessary for the trial of Murena.

Early in the year Cicero had caused a law to be passed--which, after
him, was called the Lex Tullia--increasing the stringency of the
enactments against bribery on the part of consular candidates. His
intention had probably been to hinder Catiline, who was again about to
become a candidate. But Murena, who was elected, was supposed to have
been caught in the meshes of the net, and also Silanus, the other
Consul designate. Cato, the man of stern nature, the great Stoic of
the day, was delighted to have an opportunity of proceeding against
some one, and not very sorry to attack Murena with weapons provided
from the armory of Murena's friend, Cicero. Silanus, however, who
happened to be cousin to Cato, was allowed to pass unmolested.
Sulpicius, who was one of the disappointed candidates, Cato, and
Postumius were the accusers. Hortensius, Crassus, and Cicero were
combined together for the defence of Murena. But as we read the single
pleading that has come to us, we feel that, unlike those Roman trials
generally, this was carried on without any acrimony on either side.
I think it must have been that Cato wished to have an opportunity of
displaying his virtue, but it had been arranged that Murena was to be
acquitted. Murena was accused, among other things, of dancing! Greeks
might dance, as we hear from Cornelius Nepos,[157] but for a Roman
Consul it would be disgraceful in the highest extreme. A lady, indeed,
might dance, but not much. Sallust tells us of Sempronia--who was,
indeed, a very bad female if all that he says of her be true--that she
danced more elegantly than became an honest woman.[158]

She was the wife of a Consul. But a male Roman of high standing might
not dance at all. Cicero defends his friend by showing how impossible
it was--how monstrous the idea. "No man would dance unless drunk or
mad." Nevertheless, I imagine that Murena had danced.

Cicero seizes an opportunity of quizzing Cato for his stoicism, and
uses it delightfully. Horace was not more happy when, in defence of
Aristippus, he declared that any philosopher would turn up his nose at
cabbage if he could get himself asked to the tables of rich men.[159]
"There was one Zeno," Cicero says, "who laid down laws. No wise man
would forgive any fault. No man worthy of the name of man would allow
himself to be pitiful. Wise men are beautiful, even though deformed;
rich though penniless; kings though they be slaves. We who are not
wise are mere exiles, runagates, enemies of our country, and madmen.
Any fault is an unpardonable crime. To kill an old cock, if you do not
want it, is as bad as to murder your father!"[160]

And these doctrines, he goes on to say, which are used by most of us
merely as something to talk about, this man Cato absolutely believes,
and tries to live by them. I shall have to refer back to this when
I speak of Cicero's philosophy more at length; but his common-sense
crops up continually in the expressions which he uses for defending
the ordinary conditions of a man's life, in opposition to that
impossible superiority to mundane things which the philosophers
professed to teach their pupils. He turns to Cato and asks him
questions, which he answers himself with his own philosophy: "Would
you pardon nothing? Well, yes; but not all things. Would you do
nothing for friendship? Sometimes, unless duty should stand in the
way. Would you never be moved to pity? I would maintain my habit of
sincerity, but something must no doubt be allowed to humanity. It is
good to stick to your opinion, but only until some better opinion
shall have prevailed with you." In all this the humanity of our
Cicero, as opposed equally to the impossible virtue of a Cato or the
abominable vice of a Verres, is in advance of his age, and reminds us
of what Christ has taught us.

But the best morsel in the whole oration is that in which he snubs the
lawyers. It must be understood that Cicero did not pride himself on
being a lawyer. He was an advocate, and if he wanted law there were
those of an inferior grade to whom he could go to get it. In truth,
he did understand the law, being a man of deep research, who inquired
into everything. As legal points had been raised, he thus addresses
Sulpicius, who seems to have affected a knowledge of jurisprudence,
who had been a candidate for the Consulship, and who was his own
intimate friend: "I must put you out of your conceit," he says; "it
was your other gifts, not a knowledge of the laws--your moderation,
your wisdom, your justice--which, in my opinion, made you worthy of
being loved. I will not say you threw away your time in studying law,
but it was not thus you made yourself worthy of the Consulship.[161]

That power of eloquence, majestic and full of dignity which has so
often availed in raising a man to the Consulship, is able by its words
to move the minds of the Senate and the people and the judges.[162]
But in such a poor science as that of law what honor can there be? Its
details are taken up with mere words and fragments of words.[163]
They forget all equity in points of law, and stick to the mere
letter."[164] He goes through a presumed scene of chicanery, which,
Consul as he was, he must have acted before the judges and the people,
no doubt to the extreme delight of them all. At last he says, "Full as
I am of business, if you raise my wrath I will make myself a lawyer,
and learn it all in three days."[165] From these and many other
passages in Cicero's writings and speeches, and also from, Quintilian,
we learn that a Roman advocate was by no means the same as an English
barrister. The science which he was supposed to have learned was
simply that of telling his story in effective language. It no doubt
came to pass that he had much to do in getting up the details of his
story--what we may call the evidence--but he looked elsewhere, to
men of another profession, for his law. The "juris consultus" or the
"juris peritus" was the lawyer, and as such was regarded as being of
much less importance than the "patronus" or advocate, who stood before
the whole city and pleaded the cause. In this trial of Murena, who was
by trade a soldier, it suited Cicero to belittle lawyers and to extol
the army. When he is telling Sulpicius that it was not by being a
lawyer that a man could become Consul, he goes on to praise the high
dignity of his client's profession. "The greatest glory is achieved
by those who excel in battle. All our empire, all our republic, is
defended and made strong by them."[166] It was thus that the advocate
could speak! This comes from the man who always took glory to himself
in declaring that the "toga" was superior to helmet and shield. He
had already declared that they erred who thought that they were going
to get his own private opinion in speeches made in law courts.[167] He
knew how to defend his friend Murena, who was a soldier, and in doing
so could say very sharp things, though yet in joke, against his friend
Sulpicius, the lawyer. But in truth few men understood the Roman law
better than did Cicero.

But we must go back to that agrarian law respecting which, as he tells
us, four of his consular speeches were made. This had been brought
forward by Rullus, one of the Tribunes, toward the end of the last
year. The Tribunes came into office in December, whereas at this
period of the Republic the Consuls were in power only on and from
January 1st. Cicero, who had been unable to get the particulars of the
new law till it had been proclaimed, had but a few days to master its
details. It was, to his thinking, altogether revolutionary. We have
the words of many of the clauses; and though it is difficult at this
distance of time to realize what would have been its effect, I think
we are entitled to say that it was intended to subvert all property.
Property, speaking of it generally, cannot be destroyed The land
remains, and the combined results of man's industry are too numerous,
too large, and too lasting to become a wholesale prey to man's anger
or madness. Even the elements when out of order can do but little
toward perfecting destruction. A deluge is wanted--or that crash of
doom which, whether it is to come or not, is believed by the world to
be very distant. But it is within human power to destroy possession,
and redistribute the goods which industry, avarice, or perhaps
injustice has congregated. They who own property are in these days
so much stronger than those who have none, that an idea of any such
redistribution does not create much alarm among the possessors. The
spirit of communism does not prevail among people who have learned
that it is, in truth, easier to earn than to steal. But with the
Romans political economy had naturally not advanced so far as with us.
A subversion of property had to a great extent taken place no later
than in Sulla's time. How this had been effected the story of the
property of Roscius Amerinus has explained to us. Under Sulla's
enactments no man with a house, with hoarded money, with a family
of slaves, with rich ornaments, was safe. Property had been made
to change hands recklessly, ruthlessly, violently, by the illegal
application of a law promulgated by a single individual, who,
however, had himself been instigated by no other idea than that of
re-establishing the political order of things which he approved.
Rullus, probably with other motives, was desirous of effecting a
subversion which, though equally great, should be made altogether in a
different direction. The ostensible purpose was something as follows:
as the Roman people had by their valor and wisdom achieved for Rome
great victories, and therefore great wealth, they, as Roman citizens,
were entitled to the enjoyment of what they had won; whereas, in fact,
the sweets of victory fell to the lot only of a few aristocrats. For
the reform of this evil it should be enacted that all public property
which had been thus acquired, whether land or chattels, should be
sold, and with the proceeds other lands should be bought fit for the
use of Roman citizens, and be given to those who would choose to have
it. It was specially suggested that the rich country called the
Campania--that in which Naples now stands with its adjacent
isles--should be bought up and given over to a great Roman colony.
For the purpose of carrying out this law ten magistrates should be
appointed, with plenipotentiary power both as to buying and selling.
There were many underplots in this. No one need sell unless he chose
to sell; but at this moment much land was held by no other title than
that of Sulla's proscriptions. The present possessors were in daily
fear of dispossession, by some new law made with the object of
restoring their property to those who had been so cruelly robbed.
These would be very glad to get any price in hand for land of which
their tenure was so doubtful; and these were the men whom the
"decemviri," or ten magistrates, would be anxious to assist. We
are told that the father-in-law of Rullus himself had made a large
acquisition by his use of Sulla's proscriptions. And then there
would be the instantaneous selling of the vast districts obtained by
conquest and now held by the Roman State. When so much land would be
thrown into the market it would be sold very cheap and would be sold
to those whom the "decemviri" might choose to favor. We can hardly now
hope to unravel all the intended details, but we may be sure that the
basis on which property stood would have been altogether changed by
the measure. The "decemviri" were to have plenary power for ten years.
All the taxes in all the provinces were to be sold, or put up to
market. Everything supposed to belong to the Roman State was to be
sold in every province, for the sake of collecting together a huge
sum of money, which was to be divided in the shape of land among
the poorer Romans. Whatever may have been the private intentions of
Rullus, whether good or bad, it is evident, even at this distance of
time, that a redistribution of property was intended which can only
be described as a general subversion. To this the new Consul
opposed himself vehemently, successfully, and, we must needs say,
patriotically.

The intense interest which Cicero threw into his work is as manifest
in these agrarian orations as in those subsequently made as to
the Catiline conspiracy. He ascends in his energy to a dignity of
self-praise which induces the reader to feel that a man who could so
speak of himself without fear of contradiction had a right to assert
the supremacy of his own character and intellect. He condescends, on
the other hand, to a virulence of personal abuse against Rullus which,
though it is to our taste offensive, is, even to us, persuasive,
making us feel that such a man should not have undertaken such a work.
He is describing the way in which the bill was first introduced: "Our
Tribunes at last enter upon their office. The harangue to be made by
Rullus is especially expected. He is the projector of the law, and
it was expected that he would carry himself with an air of special
audacity. When he was only Tribune elect he began to put on a
different countenance, to speak with a different voice, to walk with a
different stop. We all saw how he appeared with soiled raiment, with
his person uncared for, and foul with dirt, with his hair and
beard uncombed and untrimmed."[168] In Rome men under afflictions,
particularly if under accusation, showed themselves in soiled garments
so as to attract pity, and the meaning here is that Rullus went about
as though under grief at the condition of his poor fellow-citizens,
who were distressed by the want of this agrarian law. No description
could be more likely to turn an individual into ridicule than this of
his taking upon himself to represent in his own person the sorrows of
the city. The picture of the man with the self-assumed garments of
public woe, as though he were big enough to exhibit the grief of all
Rome, could not but be effective. It has been supposed that Cicero was
insulting the Tribune because he was dirty. Not so. He was ridiculing
Rullus because Rullus had dared to go about in mourning--"sordidatus"
--on behalf of his country.

But the tone in which Cicero speaks of himself is magnificent. It is
so grand as to make us feel that a Consul of Rome, who had the cares
of Rome on his shoulders, was entitled to declare his own greatness
to the Senate and to the people. There are the two important
orations--that spoken first in the Senate, and then the speech to
the people from which I have already quoted the passage personal to
Rullus. In both of them he declares his own idea of a Consul, and of
himself as Consul. He has been speaking of the effect of the proposed
law on the revenues of the State, and then proceeds: "But I pass by
what I have to say on that matter and reserve it for the people. I
speak now of the danger which menaces our safety and our liberty. For
what will there be left to us untouched in the Republic, what will
remain of your authority and freedom, when Rullus, and those whom you
fear much more than Rullus,[169] with this band of ready knaves, with
all the rascaldom of Rome, laden with gold and silver, shall
have seized on Capua and all the cities round? To all this,
Senators"--Patres conscripti he calls them--"I will oppose what power
I have. As long as I am Consul I will not suffer them to carry out
their designs against the Republic.

"But you, Rullus, and those who are with you, have been mistaken
grievously in supposing that you will be regarded as friends of the
people in your attempts to subvert the Republic in opposition to a
Consul who is known in very truth to be the people's friend I call
upon you, I invite you to meet me in the assembly. Let us have the
people of Rome as a judge between us. Let us look round and see what
it is that the people really desire. We shall find that their is
nothing so dear to them as peace and quietness and ease. You have
handed over the city to me full of anxiety, depressed with fear,
disturbed by these projected laws and seditious assemblies." (It must
be remembered that he had only on that very day begun his Consulship)
"The wicked you have filled with hope, the good with fear. You have
lobbed the Forum of loyalty and the Republic of dignity. But now, when
in the midst of these troubles of mind and body, when in this great
darkness the voice and the authority of the Consul has been heard by
the people--when he shall have made it plain that there is no cause
for fear, that no strange army shall enroll itself, no bands collect
themselves; that there shall be no new colonies, no sale of the
revenue no altered empire, no royal 'decemvirs,' no second Rome no
other centre of rule but this; that while I am Consul there shall be
perfect peace, perfect ease--do you suppose that I shall dread the
superior popularity of your new agrarian law? Shall I, do you think,
be afraid to hold my own against you in an assembly of the citizens
when I shall have exposed the iniqiuty of your designs, the fraud of
this law, the plots which your Tribunes of the people, popular as they
think themselves, have contrived against the Roman people? Shall I
fear--I who have determined to be Consul after that fashion in which
alone a man may do so in dignity and freedom, reaching to ask nothing
for myself which any Tribune could object to have given to me?"[170]

This was to the Senate, but he is bolder still when he addresses the
people. He begins by reminding them that it has always been the custom
of the great officers of state, who have enjoyed the right of having
in their houses the busts and images of their ancestors, in their
first speech to the people to join with thanks for the favors done
to themselves some records of the noble deeds done by their forefathers.
[171] He, however, could do nothing of the kind: he had no such right:
none in his family had achieved such dignity. To speak of himself might
seem too proud, but to be silent would be ungrateful. Therefore would
he restrain himself, but would still say something, so that he might
acknowledge what he had received. Then he would leave it for them to
judge whether he had deserved what they had done for him.

"It is long ago--almost beyond the memory of us now here--since you
last made a new man Consul.[172] That high office the nobles had
reserved for themselves, and defended it, as it were, with ramparts.
You have secured it for me, so that in future it shall be open to any
who may be worthy of it. Nor have you only made me a Consul, much as
that is, but you have done so in such a fashion that but few among the
old nobles have been so treated, and no new man--'novus ante me nemo.'
I have, if you will think of it, been the only new man who has stood
for the Consulship in the first year in which it was legal, and who
has got it." Then he goes on to remind them, in words which I have
quoted before, that they had elected him by their unanimous voices.
All this, he says, had been very grateful to him, but he had quite
understood that it had been done that he might labor on their behalf.
That such labor was severe, he declares. The Consulship itself must
be defended. His period of Consulship to any Consul must be a year of
grave responsibility, but more so to him than to any other. To him,
should he be in doubt, the great nobles would give no kind advice. To
him, should he be overtasked, they would give no assistance. But the
first thing he would look for should be their good opinion. To declare
now, before the people, that he would exercise his office for the good
of the people was his natural duty. But in that place, in which it was
difficult to speak after such a fashion, in the Senate itself, on
the very first day of his Consulship, he had declared the same
thing--"popularem me futurum esse consulem."[173]

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