Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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Through it all we can see there is but one thing that he fears--that
he shall be driven by the exigencies of the occasion to take some
steps which shall afterward be judged not to have been strictly legal,
and which shall put him into the power of his enemies when the day
of his ascendency shall have passed away. It crops out repeatedly
in these speeches.[202] He seems to be aware that some over-strong
measure will be forced upon him for which he alone will be held
responsible. If he can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else; if
he cannot avoid it, he will encounter even that danger. His foresight
was wonderfully accurate. The strong hand was used, and the punishment
came upon him, not from his enemies but from his friends, almost to
the bursting of his heart.

Though the Senate had decreed that the Consuls were to see that
the Republic should take no harm, and though it was presumed that
extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it is evident that no power
was conferred of inflicting punishment. Antony, as Cicero's colleague,
was nothing. The authority, the responsibility, the action were, and
were intended, to remain with Cicero. He could not legally banish any
one. It was only too evident that there must be much slaughter. There
was the army of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight. Let
them go, these rebels within the city, and either join the army and
get themselves killed, or else disappear, whither they would, among
the provinces. The object of this second Catiline oration, spoken to
the people, was to convince the remaining conspirators that they had
better go, and to teach the citizens generally that in giving such
counsel he was "banishing" no one. As far as the citizens were
concerned he was successful; but he did not induce the friends
of Catiline to follow their chief. This took place on the 9th of
November. After the oration the Senate met again, and declared
Catiline and Mallius to be public enemies.

Twenty-four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken--twenty-
four days during which Rome must have been in a state of very great
fever. Cicero was actively engaged in unravelling the plots the
details of which were still being carried on within the city; but
nevertheless he made that speech for Murena before the judicial bench
of which I gave an account in the last chapter, and also probably
another for Piso, of which we have nothing left. We cannot but marvel
that he should have been able at such a time to devote his mind to
such subjects, and carefully to study all the details of legal cases.
It was only on October 21st that Murena had been elected Consul; and
yet on the 20th of November Cicero defended him with great skill on
a charge of bribery. There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness, a
drollery about this speech which appears to be almost incompatible
with the stern, absorbing realities and great personal dangers in the
midst of which he was placed; but the agility of his mind was such
that there appears to have been no difficulty to him in these rapid
changes.

On the same day, the 20th of November, when Cicero was defending
Murena, the plot was being carried on at the house of a certain Roman
lady named Sempronia. It was she of whom Sallust said that she danced
better than became an honest woman. If we can believe Sallust, she
was steeped in luxury and vice. At her house a most vile project was
hatched for introducing into Rome Rome's bitterest foreign foes. There
were in the city at this time certain delegates from a people called
the Allobroges, who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The Allobroges
were of Gaulish race. They were warlike, angry, and at the present
moment peculiarly discontented with Rome. There had been certain
injuries, either real or presumed, respecting which these delegates
had been sent to the city. There they had been delayed, and fobbed off
with official replies which gave no satisfaction, and were supposed to
be ready to do any evil possible to the Republic. What if they could
be got to go back suddenly to their homes, and bring a legion of
red-haired Gauls to assist the conspirators in burning down Rome? A
deputation from the delegates came to Sempronia's house and there met
the conspirators--Lentulus and others. They entered freely into the
project; but having, as was usual with foreign embassies at Rome, a
patron or peculiar friend of their own among the aristocracy, one
Fabius Sanga by name, they thought it well to consult him.[203] Sanga,
as a matter of course, told everything to our astute Consul.

Then the matter was arranged with more than all the craft of a modern
inspector of police. The Allobroges were instructed to lend themselves
to the device, stipulating, however, that they should have a written
signed authority which they could show to their rulers at home. The
written signed documents were given to them. With certain conspirators
to help them out of the city they were sent upon their way. At a
bridge over the Tiber they were stopped by Cicero's emissaries. There
was a feigned fight, but no blood was shed; and the ambassadors with
their letters were brought home to the Consul.

We are astonished at the marvellous folly of these conspirators, so
that we could hardly have believed the story had it not been told
alike by Cicero and by Sallust, and had not allusion to the details
been common among later writers.[204] The ambassadors were taken at
the Milvian bridge early on the morning of the 3d of December, and in
the course of that day Cicero sent for the leaders of the conspiracy
to come to him. Lentulus, who was then Praetor, Cethegus, Gabinius,
and Statilius all obeyed the summons. They did not know what had
occurred, and probably thought that their best hope of safety lay
in compliance. Caeparius was also sent for, but he for the moment
escaped--in vain; for before two days were over he had been taken and
put to death with the others. Cicero again called the Senate together,
and entered the meeting leading the guilty Praetor by the hand. Here
the offenders were examined and practically acknowledged their guilt.
The proofs against them were so convincing that they could not deny
it. There were the signatures of some; arms were found hidden in the
house of another. The Senate decreed that the men should be kept
in durance till some decision as to their fate should have been
pronounced. Each of them was then given in custody to some noble Roman
of the day. Lentulus the Praetor was confided to the keeping of a
Censor, Cethegus to Cornificius, Statilius to Caesar, Gabinius to
Crassus, and Caeparius, who had not fled very far before he was taken,
to one Terentius. We can imagine how willingly would Crassus and
Caesar have let their men go, had they dared. But Cicero was in the
ascendant. Caesar, whom we can imagine to have understood that the
hour had not yet come for putting an end to the effete Republic, and
to have perceived also that Catiline was no fit helpmate for him in
such a work, must bide his time, and for the moment obey. That he was
inclined to favor the conspirators there is no doubt; but at present
he could befriend them only in accordance with the law. The Allobroges
were rewarded. The Praetors in the city who had assisted Cicero were
thanked. To Cicero himself a supplication was decreed. A supplication
was, in its origin, a thanksgiving to the gods on account of a
victory, but had come to be an honor shown to the General who had
gained the victory.

In this case it was simply a means of adding glory to Cicero, and was
peculiar, as hitherto the reward had only been conferred for military
service.[205] Remembering that, we can understand what at the time
must have been the feeling in Rome as to the benefits conferred by the
activity and patriotism of the Consul.

On the evening of the same day, the 3d of December, Cicero again
addressed the people, explaining to them what he had done, and what
he had before explained in the Senate. This was the third Catiline
speech, and for rapid narrative is perhaps surpassed by nothing that
he ever spoke. He explains again the motives by which he had been
actuated; and in doing so extols the courage, the sagacity, the
activity of Catiline, while he ridicules the folly and the fury of
the others.[206] Had Catiline remained, he says, we should have been
forced to fight with him here in the city; but with Lentulus the
sleepy, and Cassius the fat, and Cethegus the mad, it has been
comparatively easy to deal. It was on this account that he had got rid
of him, knowing that their presence would do no harm. Then he reminds
the people of all that the gods have done for them, and addresses them
in language which makes one feel that they did believe in their gods.
It is one instance, one out of many which history and experience
afford us, in which an honest and a good man has endeavored to use for
salutary purposes a faith in which he has not himself participated.
Does the bishop of to-day, when he calls upon his clergy to pray for
fine weather, believe that the Almighty will change the ordained
seasons, and cause his causes to be inoperative because farmers are
anxious for their hay or for their wheat? But he feels that when men
are in trouble it is well that they should hold communion with the
powers of heaven. So much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke as
he did on this occasion. As to his own religious views, I shall say
something in a future chapter.

Then in a passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly
in accordance with our idea of the manner in which a man should
speak of himself, he explains his own ambition: "For all which, my
fellow-countrymen, I ask for no other recompense, no ornament or
honor, no monument but that this day may live in your memories. It is
within your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh my triumph,
my glory, the trophies of my exploits. No silent, voiceless statue,
nothing which can be bestowed upon the worthless, can give me delight.
Only by your remembrance can my fortunes be nurtured--by your good
words, by the records which you shall cause to be written, can they be
strengthened and perpetuated. I do think that this day, the memory of
which, I trust, may be eternal, will be famous in history because
the city has been preserved, and because my Consulship has been
glorious."[207] He ends the paragraph by an allusion to Pompey,
admitting Pompey to a brotherhood of patriotism and praise. We shall
see how Pompey repaid him.

How many things must have been astir in his mind when he spoke those
words of Pompey! In the next sentence he tells the people of his own
danger. He has taken care of their safety; it is for them to take care
of his.[208] But they, these Quirites, these Roman citizens, these
masters of the world, by whom everything was supposed to be governed,
could take care of no one; certainly not of themselves, as certainly
not of another. They could only vote, now this way and now that, as
somebody might tell them, or more probably as somebody might pay them.
Pompey was coming home, and would soon be the favorite. Cicero must
have felt that he had deserved much of Pompey, but was by no means
sure that the debt of gratitude would be paid.

Now we come to the fourth or last Catiline oration, which was made
to the Senate, convened on the 5th of December with the purpose
of deciding the fate of the leading conspirators who were held in
custody. We learn to what purport were three of the speeches made
during this debate--those of Caesar and of Cato and of Cicero. The
first two are given to us by Sallust, but we can hardly think that we
have the exact words. The Caesarean spirit which induced Sallust to
ignore altogether the words of Cicero would have induced him to give
his own representation of the other two, even though we were to
suppose that he had been able to have them taken down by short-hand
writers--Cicero's words, we have no doubt, with such polishing as may
have been added to the short-hand writers' notes by Tiro, his slave
and secretary. The three are compatible each with the other, and we
are entitled to believe that we know the line of argument used by the
three orators.

Silanus, one of the Consuls elect, began the debate by counselling
death. We may take it for granted that he had been persuaded by Cicero
to make this proposition. During the discussion he trembled at the
consequences, and declared himself for an adjournment of their
decision till they should have dealt with Catiline. Murena, the other
Consul elect, and Catulus, the Prince of the Senate,[209] spoke for
death. Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor, made that
proposition for adjournment to which Silanus gave way. Then--or I
should rather say in the course of the debate, for we do not know who
else may have spoken--Caesar got up and made his proposition. His
purpose was to save the victims, but he knew well that, with such a
spirit abroad as that existing in the Senate and the city, he could
only do so not by absolving but by condemning. Wicked as these men
might be, abominably wicked it was, he said, for the Senate to think
of their own dignity rather than of the enormity of the crime. As they
could not, he suggested, invent any new punishment adequate to so
abominable a crime, it would be better that they should leave the
conspirators to be dealt with by the ordinary laws. It was thus that,
cunningly, he threw out the idea that as Senators they had no power
of death. He did not dare to tell them directly that any danger would
menace them, but he exposed the danger skilfully before their eyes.
"Their crimes," he says again, "deserve worse than any torture you
can inflict. But men generally recollect what comes last. When the
punishment is severe, men will remember the severity rather than the
crime." He argues all this extremely well. The speech is one of great
ingenuity, whether the words be the words of Sallust or of Caesar. We
may doubt, indeed, whether the general assertion he made as to death
had much weight with the Senators when he told them that death to the
wicked was a relief, whereas life was a lasting punishment; but when
he went on to remind them of the Lex Porcia, by which the power
of punishing a Roman citizen, even under the laws, was limited to
banishment, unless by a plebiscite of the people generally ordering
death, then he was efficacious. He ended by proposing that the goods
of the conspirators should be sold, and that the men should be
condemned to imprisonment for life, each in some separate town. This
would, I believe, have been quite as illegal as the death-sentence,
but it would not have been irrevocable. The Senate, or the people,
in the next year could have restored to the men their liberty, and
compensated them for their property. Cicero was determined that the
men should die. They had not obeyed him by leaving the city, and he
was convinced that while they lived the conspiracy would live also. He
fully understood the danger, and resolved to meet it. He replied to
Caesar, and with infinite skill refrained from the expression of any
strong opinion, while he led his hearers to the conviction that death
was necessary. For himself he had been told of his danger; "but if a
man be brave in his duty death cannot be disgraceful to him; to
one who had reached the honors of the Consulship it could not be
premature; to no wise man could it be a misery." Though his brother,
though his wife, though his little boy, and his daughter just married
were warning him of his peril, not by all that would he be influenced.
"Do you," he says, "Conscript Fathers, look to the safety of the
Republic. These are not the Gracchi, nor Saturninus, who are brought
to you for judgment--men who broke the laws, indeed, and therefore
suffered death, but who still were not unpatriotic. These men had
sworn to burn the city, to slay the Senate, to force Catiline upon you
as a ruler. The proofs of this are in your own hands. It was for me,
as your Consul, to bring the facts before you. Now it is for you, at
once, before night, to decide what shall be done. The conspirators
are very many; it is not only with these few that you are dealing.
On whatever you decide, decide quickly. Caesar tells you of the
Sempronian law[210]--the law, namely, forbidding the death of a Roman
citizen--but can he be regarded as a citizen who has been found in
arms against the city?" Then there is a fling at Caesar's assumed
clemency, showing us that Caesar had already endeavored to make
capital out of that virtue which he diplayed afterward so signally at
Alesia and Uxellodunum. Then again he speaks of himself in words so
grand that it is impossible but to sympathize with him: "Let Scipio's
name be glorious--he by whose wisdom and valor Hannibal was forced out
of Italy. Let Africanus be praised loudly, who destroyed Carthage and
Numantia, the two cities which were most hostile to Rome. Let Paulus
be regarded as great--he whose triumph that great King Perses adorned.
Let Marius be held in undying honor, who twice saved Italy from
foreign yoke. Let Pompey be praised above all, whose noble deeds are
as wide as the sun's course. Perhaps among them there may be a spot,
too, for me; unless, indeed, to win provinces to which we may take
ourselves in exile is more than to guard that city to which the
conquerors of provinces may return in safety." The last words of the
orator also are fine: "Therefore, Conscript Fathers, decide wisely and
without fear. Your own safety, and that of your wives and children,
that of your hearths and altars, the temples of your gods, the homes
contained in your city, your liberty, the welfare of Italy and of the
whole Republic are at stake. It is for you to decide. In me you have a
Consul who will obey your decrees, and will see that they be made to
prevail while the breath of life remains to him." Cato then spoke
advocating death, and the Senate decreed that the men should die.
Cicero himself led Lentulus down to the vaulted prison below, in which
executioners were ready for the work, and the other four men were made
to follow. A few minutes afterward, in the gleaming of the evening,
when Cicero was being led home by the applauding multitude, he was
asked after the fate of the conspirators. He answered them but by one
word "Vixerunt"--there is said to have been a superstition with the
Romans as to all mention of death--"They have lived their lives."

As to what was being done outside Rome with the army of conspirators
in Etruria, it is not necessary for the biographer of Cicero to say
much. Catiline fought, and died fighting. The conspiracy was then
over. On the 31st of December Cicero retired from his office,
and Catiline fell at the battle of Pistoia on the 5th of January
following, B.C. 62.

A Roman historian writing in the reign of Tiberius has thought it
worth his while to remind us that a great glory was added to Cicero's
consular year by the birth of Augustus--him who afterward became
Augustus Caesar.[211] Had a Roman been living now, he might be excused
for saying that it was an honor to Augustus to have been born in the
year of Cicero's Consulship.

Notes:

[177] Catiline, by Mr. Beesly. Fortnightly Review, 1865.

[178] Pro Murena, xxv.: "Quem omnino vivum illine exire non oportuerat."
I think we must conclude from this that Cicero had almost expected that
his attack upon the conspirators, in his first Catiline oration, would
have the effect of causing him to be killed.

[179] Aeneid, viii., 668:

"Te, Catalina, minaci
Pendentem scopulo."

[180] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii, xxxiv.

[181] Juvenal, Sat. ii., 27: "Catilina Cethegum!" Could such a one as
Catiline answer such a one as Cethegus? Sat. viii., 232: "Arma tamen
vos Nocturna et flammas domibus templisque parastis." Catiline, in
spite of his noble blood, had endeavored to burn the city. Sat. xiv.,
41: "Catilinam quocunque in populo videas." It is hard to find a good
man, but it is easy enough to put your hand anywhere on a Catiline.

[182] Val Maximus, lib. v., viii., 5; lib. ix., 1, 9; lib. ix., xi., 3.

[183] Florus, lib. iv.

[184] Mommsen's History of Rome, book v., chap v.

[185] I feel myself constrained here to allude to the treatment given
to Catiline by Dean Merivale in his little work on the two Roman
Triumvirates. The Dean's sympathies are very near akin to those of Mr.
Beesly, but he values too highly his own historical judgment to
allow it to run on all fours with Mr. Beesly's sympathies. "The real
designs," he says, "of the infamous Catiline and his associates must
indeed always remain shrouded in mystery.----Nevertheless, it is
impossible to deny, and on the whole it would be unreasonable to
doubt, that such a conspiracy there really was, and that the very
existence of the commonwealth was for a moment seriously imperilled."
It would certainly be unreasonable to doubt it. But the Dean, though
he calls Catiline infamous, and acknowledges the conspiracy, never-
theless give us ample proof of his sympathy with the conspirators,
or rather of his strong feeling against Cicero. Speaking of Catiline
at a certain moment, he says that he "was not yet hunted down." He
speaks of the "upstart Cicero," and plainly shows us that his heart
is with the side which had been Caesar's. Whether conspiracy or no
conspiracy, whether with or without wholesale murder and rapine, a
single master with a strong hand was the one remedy needed for Rome!
The reader must understand that Cicero's one object in public life
was to resist that lesson.

[186] Asconius, "In to gacandida," reports that Fenestella, a writer
of the time of Augustus, had declared that Cicero had defended
Catiline; but Asconius gives his reasons for disbelieving the story.

[187] Cicero, however, declares that he has made a difference between
traitors to their country and other criminals. Pro P. Sulla, ca.
iii.: "Verum etiam quaedam contagio scelens, si defendas eum, quem
obstrictum esse patriae parricidio suspicere." Further on in the same
oration, ca. vi., he explains that he had refused to defend Autronius
because he had known Autronius to be a conspirator against his
country. I cannot admit the truth of the argument in which Mr. Forsyth
defends the practice of the English bar in this respect, and in doing
so presses hard upon Cicero. "At Rome," he says, "it was different.
The advocate there was conceived to have a much wider discretion than
we allow." Neither in Rome nor in England has the advocate been held
to be disgraced by undertaking the defence of bad men who have been
notoriously guilty. What an English barrister may do, there was no
reason that a Roman advocate should not do, in regard to simple
criminality. Cicero himself has explained in the passage I have quoted
how the Roman practice did differ from ours in regard to treason. He
has stated also that he knew nothing of the first conspiracy when he
offered to defend Catiline on the score of provincial peculations. No
writer has been heavy on Hortensius for defending Verres, but only
because he took bribes from Verres.

[188] Publius Cornelius Sulla, and Publius Autronius Poetus.

[189] Pro P. Sulla, iv. He declares that he had known nothing of
the first conspiracy and gives the reason: "Quod nondum penitus in
republic aver sabar, quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris
perveneram, quod mea me ambitio et forensis labor ab omni illa
cogitatione abstrahebat."

[190] Sallust, Catilinaria, xviii.

[191] Livy, Epitome, lib. ci.

[192] Suetonius, J. Caesar, ix.

[193] Mommsen, book v., ca. v., says of Caesar and Crassus as to
this period, "that this notorious action corresponds with striking
exactness to the secret action which this report ascribes to them." By
which he means to imply that they probably were concerned in the plot.

[194] Sallust tells us, Catilinaria, xlix., that Cicero was instigated
by special enemies of Caesar to include Caesar in the accusation,
but refused to mix himself up in so great a crime. Crassus also was
accused, but probably wrongfully. Sallust declares that an attempt was
made to murder Caesar as he left the Senate. There was probably some
quarrel and hustling, but no more.

[195] Sallust, Catilinaria, xxxvii.: "Omnino cuneta plebes, novarum
rerum studio, Catilinae incepta probabat." By the words "novarum
rerum studio--by a love of revolution--we can understand the kind of
popularity which Sallust intended to express.

[196] Pro Murena, xxv.

[197] "Darent operam consules ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat"

[198] Catilinaria, xxxi.

[199] Quintilian,lib.xii, 10: "Quem tamen et suorum homines temporum
incessere audebant, ut tumidiorem, et asianum, et redundantem."

[200] Orator., xxxvii.: "A nobis homo audacissimus Catilina in senatu
accusatus obmutuit."

[201] 2 Catilinaria, xxxi.

[202] In the first of them to the Senate, chap.ix., he declares this
to Catiline himself: "Si mea voce perterritus ire in exsilium animum
induxeris, quanta tempestas invidiae nobis, si minus in praesens
tempus, recenti memoria scelerum tuorum, at in posteritatem
impendeat." He goes on to declare that he will endure all that, if by
so doing he can save the Republic "Sed est mihi tanti; dummodo ista
privata sit calamitas, et a reipublicae periculis sejungatui"

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