Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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[203] Sallust, Catilinaria, xli.: "Itaque Q. Fabio Sangae cujus
patrocinio civitas plurimum utebatur rem omnem uti cognoverant
aperiunt."

[204] Horace, Epo. xvi., 6: "Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox." The
unhappy Savoyard has from this line been known through ages as a
conspirator, false even to his fellow-conspirators. Juvenal, vii.,
214: "Rufum qui toties Ciceronem Allobroga dixit." Some Rufus,
acting as advocate, had thought to put down Cicero by calling him an
Allobrogian.

[205] The words in which this honor was conferred he himself repeats:
"Quod urbem incendiis, caede cives, Italiam bello liberassem"--"
because I had rescued the city from fire, the citizens from slaughter,
and Italy from war."

[206] It is necessary in all oratory to read something between the
lines. It is allowed to the speaker to produce effect by diminishing
and exaggeratng. I think we should detract something from the praises
bestowed on Catiline's military virtues. The bigger Catiline could be
made to appear, the greater would be the honor of having driven him
out of the city.

[207] In Catilinam, iii., xi.

[208] In Catilinam, ibid., xii.: "Ne mihi noceant vestrum est
providere."

[209] "Prince of the Senate" was an honorary title, conferred on
some man of mark as a dignity--at this period on some ex-Consul; it
conferred no power. Cicero, the Consul who had convened the Senate,
called on the speakers as he thought fit.

[210] Caesar, according to Sallust, had referred to the Lex Porcia.
Cicero alludes, and makes Caesar allude, to the Lex Sempronia. The
Porcian law, as we are told by Livy, was passed B.C. 299, and forbade
that a Roman should be scourged or put to death. The Lex Sempronia
was introduced by C. Gracchus, and enacted that the life of a citizen
should not be taken without the voice of the citizens.

[211] Velleius Paterculus, xxxvi.: "Consulatui Ciceronis non mediocre
adjecit decus natus eo anno Divus Augustus."

CHAPTER X.

CICERO AFTER HIS CONSULSHIP.

The idea that the great Consul had done illegally in putting citizens
to death was not allowed to lie dormant even for a day. It must be
remembered that a decree of the Senate had no power as a law. The laws
could be altered, or even a new law made, only by the people. Such was
the constitution of the Republic. Further on, when Cicero will
appeal as, in fact, on trial for the offence so alleged to have been
committed, I shall have to discuss the matter; but the point was
raised against him, even in the moment of his triumph, as he was
leaving the Consulship. The reiteration of his self-praise had created
for him many enemies. It had turned friends against him, and had
driven men even of his own party to ask themselves whether all this
virtue was to be endured. When a man assumes to be more just than his
neighbors there will be many ways found of throwing in a shell against
him. It was customary for a Consul when he vacated his office to make
some valedictory speech. Cicero was probably expected to take full
advantage of the opportunity. From other words which have come from
him, on other occasions but on the same subject, it would not be
difficult to compose such a speech as he might have spoken. But there
were those who were already sick of hearing him say that Rome had been
saved by his intelligence and courage. We can imagine what Caesar
might have said among his friends of the expediency of putting down
this self-laudatory Consul. As it was, Metellus Nepos, one of the
Tribunes, forbade the retiring officer to do more than take the oath
usual on leaving office, because he had illegally inflicted death upon
Roman citizens. Metellus, as Tribune, had the power of stopping any
official proceeding. We hear from Cicero himself that he was quite
equal to the occasion. He swore, on the spur of the moment, a solemn
oath, not in accordance with the form common to Consuls on leaving
office, but to the effect that during his Consulship Rome had been
saved by his work alone.[212] We have the story only as it is told by
Cicero himself, who avers that the people accepted the oath as sworn
with exceeding praise.[213] That it was so we may, I think, take as
true. There can be no doubt as to Cicero's popularity at this moment,
and hardly a doubt also as to the fact that Metellus was acting in
agreement with Caesar, and also in accord with the understood feelings
of Pompey, who was absent with his army in the East. This Tribune
had been till lately an officer under Pompey, and went into office
together with Caesar, who in that year became Praetor. This, probably,
was the beginning of the party which two years afterward formed
the first Triumvirate, B.C. 60. It was certainly now, in the year
succeeding the Consulship of Cicero, that Caesar, as Praetor, began
his great career.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, aetat. 45.]

It becomes manifest to us, as we read the history of the time, that
the Dictator of the future was gradually entertaining the idea that
the old forms of the Republic were rotten, and that any man who
intended to exercise power in Rome or within the Roman Empire must
obtain it and keep it by illegal means. He had probably adhered to
Catiline's first conspiracy, but only with such moderate adhesion as
enabled him to withdraw when he found that his companions were not
fit for the work. It is manifest that he sympathized with the later
conspiracy, though it may be doubted whether he himself had ever been
a party to it. "When the conspiracy had been crushed by Cicero, he had
given his full assent to the crushing, of it. We have seen how loudly
he condemned the wickedness of the conspirators in his endeavor to
save their lives. But, through it all, there was a well-grounded
conviction in his mind that Cicero, with all his virtues, was not
practical. Not that Cicero was to him the same as Cato, who with his
Stoic grandiloquence must, to his thinking, have been altogether
useless. Cicero, though too virtuous for supreme rule, too virtuous
to seize power and hold it, too virtuous to despise as effete the
institutions of the Republic, was still a man so gifted, and capable
in so many things, as to be very great as an assistant, if he would
only condescend to assist. It is in this light that Caesar seems
to have regarded Cicero as time went on; admiring him, liking him,
willing to act with him if it might be possible, but not the less
determined to put down all the attempts at patriotic republican virtue
in which the orator delighted to indulge. Mr. Forsyth expresses an
opinion that Caesar, till he crossed the Rubicon after his ten years'
fighting in Gaul, had entertained no settled plan of overthrowing the
Constitution. Probably not; nor even then. It may be doubted whether
Caesar ever spoke to himself of overthrowing the Constitution. He came
gradually to see that power and wealth were to be obtained by violent
action, and only by violent action, He had before him the examples of
Marius and Sulla, both of whom had enjoyed power and had died in their
beds. There was the example, also, of others who, walking unwarily in
those perilous times, had been banished as was Verres, or killed as
was Catiline. We can easily understand that he, with his great genius,
should have acknowledged the need both of courage and caution. Both
were exercised when he consented to be absent from Rome, and almost
from Italy, during the ten years of the Gallic wars. But this, I
think, is certain, that from the time in which his name appears
prominent--from the period, namely, of the Catiline conspiracy--he had
determined not to overthrow the Constitution, but so to carry himself,
amid the great affairs of the day, as not to be overthrown himself.

Of what nature was the intercourse between him and Pompey when Pompey
was still absent in the East we do not know; but we can hardly doubt
that some understanding had begun to exist. Of this Cicero was
probably aware. Pompey was the man whom Cicero chose to regard as his
party-leader, not having himself been inured to the actual politics of
Rome early enough in life to put himself forward as the leader of
his party. It had been necessary for him, as a "novus homo," to come
forward and work as an advocate, and then as an administrative officer
of the State, before he took up with politics. That this was so I have
shown by quoting the opening words of his speech Pro Lege Manilia.
Proud as he was of the doings of his Consulship, he was still too new
to his work to think that thus he could claim to stand first. Nor did
his ambition lead him in that direction. He desired personal praise
rather than personal power. When in the last Catiline oration to the
people he speaks of the great men of the Republic--of the two Scipios,
and of Paulus Aemilius and of Marius--he adds the name of Pompey to
these names; or gives, rather, to Pompey greater glory than to any of
them; "Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius." This was but a few days before
Metellus as Tribune had stopped him in his speech--at the instigation,
probably, of Caesar, and in furtherance of Pompey's views. Pompey and
Caesar could agree, at any rate, in this--that they did not want such
a one as Cicero to interfere with them.

All of which Cicero himself perceived. The specially rich, province
of Macedonia, which would have been his had he chosen to take it on
quitting the Consulship, he made over to Antony--no doubt as a bribe,
as with us one statesman may resign a special office to another to
keep that other from kicking over the traces. Then Gaul became his
province, as allotted--Cisalpine Gaul, as northern Italy was then
called; a province less rich in plunder and pay than Macedonia. But
Cicero wanted no province, and had contrived that this should be
confided to Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos, who, having been
Praetor when he himself was Consul, was entitled to a government. This
too was a political bribe. If courtesy to Caesar, if provinces given
up here and there to Antonys and Metelluses, if flattery lavished on
Pompey could avail anything, he could not afford to dispense with such
aids. It all availed nothing. From this time forward, for the twenty
years which were to run before his death, his life was one always of
trouble and doubt, often of despair, and on many occasions of
actual misery. The source of this was that Pompey whom, with divine
attributes, he had extolled above all other Romans.

The first extant letter written by Cicero after his Consulship was
addressed to Pompey.[214] Pompey was still in the East, but had
completed his campaigns against Mithridates successfully. Cicero
begins by congratulating him, as though to do so were the purpose of
his letter. Then he tells the victorious General that there were
some in Rome not so well pleased as he was at these victories. It
is supposed that he alluded here to Caesar; but, if so, he probably
misunderstood the alliance which was already being formed between
Caesar and Pompey. After that comes the real object of the epistle.
He had received letters from Pompey congratulating him in very cold
language as to the glories of his Consulship. He had expected much
more than that from the friend for whom he had done so much. Still, he
thanks his friend, explaining that the satisfaction really necessary
to him was the feeling that he had behaved well to his friend. If his
friend were less friendly to him in return, then would the balance of
friendship be on his side. If Pompey were not bound to him, Cicero, by
personal gratitude, still would he be bound by necessary co-operation
in the service of the Republic. But, lest Pompey should misunderstand
him, he declares that he had expected warmer language in reference to
his Consulship, which he believes to have been withheld by Pompey lest
offence should be given to some third person. By this he means Caesar,
and those who were now joining themselves to Caesar. Then he goes on
to warn him as to the future: "Nevertheless, when you return, you will
find that my actions have been of such a nature that, even though you
may loom larger than Scipio, I shall be found worthy to be accepted
as your Laelius."[215] Infinite care had been given to the writing of
this letter, and sharp had been the heart-burnings which dictated it.
It was only by asserting that he, on his own part, was satisfied
with his own fidelity as a friend, that Cicero could express his
dissatisfaction at Pompey's coldness. It was only by continuing to
lavish upon Pompey such flattery as was contained in the reference to
Scipio, in which a touch of subtle irony is mixed with the flattery,
that he could explain the nature of the praise which had, he thought,
been due to himself. There is something that would have been abject in
the nature of these expressions, had it not been Roman in the excess
of the adulation. But there is courage in the letter, too, when he
tells his correspondent what he believes to have been the cause of
the coldness of which he complains: "Quod verere ne cujus animum
offenderes"--"Because you fear lest you should give offence to some
one." But let me tell you, he goes on to say, that my Consulship has
been of such a nature that you, Scipio, as you are, must admit me as
your friend.

In these words we find a key to the whole of Cicero's connection with
the man whom he recognizes as his political leader. He was always
dissatisfied with Pompey; always accusing Pompey in his heart of
ingratitude and insincerity; frequently speaking to Atticus with
bitter truth of the man's selfishness and incapacity, even of his
cruelty and want of patriotism; nicknaming him because of his
absurdities; declaring of him that he was minded to be a second Sulla;
but still clinging to him as the political friend and leader whom he
was bound to follow. In their earlier years, when he could have known
personally but little of Pompey, because Pompey was generally absent
from Rome, he had taken it into his head to love the man. He had been
called "Magnus;" he had been made Consul long before the proper
time; he had been successful on behalf of the Republic, and so far
patriotic. He had hitherto adhered to the fame of the Republic. At any
rate, Cicero had accepted him, and could never afterward bring himself
to be disloyal to the leader with whom he had professed to act. But
the feeling evinced in this letter was carried on to the end. He had
been, he was, he would be, true to his political connection with
Pompey; but of Pompey's personal character to himself he had nothing
but complaints to make.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, aetat. 45.]

We have two other letters written by Cicero in this year, the first
of which is in answer to one from Metellus Celer to him, also extant.
Metellus wrote to complain of the ill-treatment which he thought he
had received from Cicero in the Senate, and from the Senate generally.
Cicero writes back at much greater length to defend himself, and
to prove that he had behaved as a most obliging friend to his
correspondent, though he had received a gross affront from his
correspondent's brother Nepos. Nepos had prevented him in that matter
of the speech. It is hardly necessary to go into the question of this
quarrel, except in so far as it may show how the feeling which led to
Cicero's exile was growing up among many of the aristocracy in Rome.
There was a counterplot going on at the moment--a plot on the behalf
of the aristocracy for bringing back Pompey to Rome, not only with
glory but with power, probably originating in a feeling that Pompey
would be a more congenial master than Cicero. It was suggested that as
Pompey had been found good in all State emergencies--for putting down
the pirates, for instance, and for conquering Mithridates--he would be
the man to contend in arms with Catiline. Catiline was killed before
the matter could be brought to an issue, but still the conspiracy went
on, based on the jealousy which was felt in regard to Cicero. This
man, who had declared so often that he had served his country, and who
really had crushed the Catilinarians by his industry and readiness,
might, after all, be coming forward as another Sulla, and looking to
make himself master by dint of his virtues and his eloquence. The
hopelessness of the condition of the Republic may be recognized in the
increasing conspiracies which were hatched on every side. Metellus
Nepos was sent home from Asia in aid of the conspiracy, and got
himself made Tribune, and stopped Cicero's speech. In conjunction with
Caesar, who was Praetor, he proposed his new law for the calling of
Pompey to their aid. Then there was a fracas between him and Caesar on
the one side and Cato on the other, in which Cato at last was so
far victorious that both Caesar and Metellus were stopped in the
performance of their official duties. Caesar was soon reinstated, but
Metellus Nepos returned to Pompey in the East, and nothing came of the
conspiracy. It is only noticed here as evidence of the feeling which
existed as to Cicero in Rome, and as explaining the irritation on both
sides indicated in the correspondence between Cicero and Metellus
Celer, the brother of Nepos,[216] whom Cicero had procured the
government of Gaul.

The third letter from Cicero in this year was to Sextius, who was then
acting as Quaestor--or Proquaestor, as Cicero calls him--with Antony
as Proconsul in Macedonia. It is specially interesting as telling us
that the writer had just completed the purchase of a house in Rome
from Crassus for a sum amounting to about L30,000 of our money. There
was probably no private mansion in Rome of greater pretension. It had
been owned by Livius Drusus, the Tribune--a man of colossal fortune,
as we are told by Mommsen--who was murdered at the door of it thirty
years before. It afterward passed into the hands of Crassus the rich,
and now became the property of Cicero. We shall hear how it was
destroyed during his exile, and how fraudulently made over to the
gods, and then how restored to Cicero, and how rebuilt at the public
expense. The history of the house has been so well written that we
know even the names of Cicero's two successors in it, Censorinus and
Statilius.[217] It is interesting to know the sort of house which
Cicero felt to be suitable to his circumstances, for by that we may
guess what his circumstances were. In making this purchase he is
supposed to have abandoned the family house in which his father had
lived next door to the new mansion, and to have given it up to his
brother. Hence we may argue that he had conceived himself to have
risen in worldly circumstances. Nevertheless, we are informed by
himself in this letter to Sextius that he had to borrow money for
the occasion--so much so that, being a man now indebted, he might be
supposed to be ripe for any conspiracy. Hence has come to us a story
through Aulus Gellius, the compiler of anecdotes, to the effect that
Cicero was fain to borrow this money from a client whose cause he
undertook in requital for the favor so conferred. Aulus Gellius
collected his stories two centuries afterward for the amusement of his
children, and has never been regarded as an authority in matters for
which confirmation has been wanting. There is no allusion to such
borrowing from a client made by any contemporary. In this letter to
Sextius, in which he speaks jokingly of his indebtedness, he declares
that he has been able to borrow any amount he wanted at six per
cent--twelve being the ordinary rate--and gives as a reason for this
the position which he has achieved by his services to the State. Very
much has been said of the story, as though the purchaser of the house
had done something of which he ought to have been ashamed, but this
seems to have sprung entirely from the idea that a man who, in the
midst of such wealth as prevailed at Rome, had practised so widely and
so successfully the invaluable profession of an advocate, must surely
have taken money for his services. He himself has asserted that he
took none, and all the evidence that we have goes to show that he
spoke the truth. Had he taken money, even as a loan, we should have
heard of it from nearer witnesses than Aulus Gellius, if, as Aulus
Gellius tells us, it had become known at the time. But because he
tells his friend that he has borrowed money for the purpose, he is
supposed to have borrowed it in a disgraceful manner! It will be found
that all the stones most injurious to Cicero's reputation have
been produced in the same manner. His own words have been
misinterpreted--either the purport of them, if spoken in earnest,
or their bearing, if spoken in joke--and then accusations have been
founded on them.[218]

Another charge of dishonest practice was about this time made against
Cicero without a gram of evidence, though indeed the accusations so
made, and insisted upon, apparently from a feeling that Cicero cannot
surely have been altogether clean when all others were so dirty, are
too numerous to receive from each reader's judgment that indignant
denial to which each is entitled. The biographer cannot but fear that
when so much mud has been thrown some will stick, and therefore almost
hesitates to tell of the mud, believing that no stain of this kind has
been in truth deserved.

It seems that Antony, Cicero's colleague in the Consulship, who became
Proconsul in Macedonia, had undertaken to pay some money to Cicero.
Why the money was to be paid we do not know, but there are allusions
in Cicero's letters to Atticus to one Teucris (a Trojan woman), and it
seems that Antony was designated by the nickname. Teucris is very slow
at paying his money, and Cicero is in want of it. But perhaps it will
be as well not to push the matter. He, Antony, is to be tried for
provincial peculation, and Cicero declares that the case is so bad
that he cannot defend his late colleague. Hence have arisen two
different suspicions: one that Antony had agreed to make over to
Cicero a share of the Macedonian plunder in requital of Cicero's
courtesy in giving up the province which had been allotted to himself;
the second, that Antony was to pay Cicero for defending him. As to the
former, Cicero himself alludes to such a report as being common in
Macedonia, and as having been used by Antony himself as an excuse for
increased rapine. But this has been felt to be incredible, and has
been allowed to fall to the ground because of the second accusation.
But in support of that there is no word of evidence,[219] whereas the
tenor of the story as told by Cicero himself is against it. Is it
likely, would it be possible, that Cicero should have begun his letter
to Atticus by complaining that he could not get from Antony money
wanted for a peculiar purpose--it was wanted for his new house--and
have gone on in the same letter to say that this might be as well,
after all, as he did not intend to perform the service for which the
money was to be paid? The reader will remember that the accusation is
based solely on Cicero's own statement that Antony was negligent in
paying to him money that had been promised. In all these accusations
the evidence against Cicero, such as it is, is brought exclusively
from Cicero's own words. Cicero did afterward defend this Antony, as
we learn from his speech Pro Domo Sua; but his change of purpose in
that respect has nothing to do with the argument.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, aetat. 45.]

We have two speeches extant made this year: one on behalf of P. Sulla,
nephew to the Dictator; the other for Archias the Greek scholar and
poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of
Rome. I have already given an extract from this letter, as showing
the charm of words with which Cicero could recommend the pursuit of
literature to his hearers. The whole oration is a beautiful morsel of
Latinity, in which, however, strength of argument is lacking. Cicero
declares of Archias that he was so eminent in literature that, if not
a Roman citizen, he ought to be made one. The result is not known,
but the literary world believes that the citizenship was accorded to
him.[220]

The speech on behalf of Sulla was more important, but still not of
much importance. This Sulla, as may be remembered, had been chosen as
Consul with Autronius, two years before the Consulship of Cicero, and
he had then after his election been deposed for bribery, as had also
Autronius. L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus had been elected
in their places. It has also been already explained that the two
rejected Consuls had on this account joined Catiline in his first
conspiracy.

There can be no doubt that whether as Consuls or as rejected Consuls,
and on that account conspirators, their purpose was to use their
position as aristocrats for robbing the State. They were of the number
of those to whom no other purpose was any longer possible. Then there
came Catiline's second conspiracy--the conspiracy which Cicero had
crushed--and there naturally rose the question whether from time to
time this or the other noble Roman should not be accused of having
joined it. Many noble Romans had no doubt joined besides those who had
fallen fighting, or who had been executed in the dungeons. Accusations
became very rife. One Vettius accused Caesar, the Praetor; but Caesar,
with that potentiality which was peculiar to him, caused Vettius to
be put into prison instead of going to prison himself. Many were
convicted and banished; among them Portius Leca, Vargunteius, Servius
Sulla, the brother of him of whom we are now speaking, and Autronius
his colleague. In the trial of these men Cicero took no part. He was
specially invited by Autronius, who was an old school-fellow,
to defend him, but he refused; indeed, he gave evidence against
Autrionius at the trial. But this Publius Sulla he did defend, and
defended successfully. He was joined in the case with Hortensius, and
declared that as to the matter of the former conspiracy he left all
that to his learned friend, who was concerned with political matters
of that date.[221] He, Cicero, had known nothing about them. The part
of the oration which most interests us is that in which he defends
himself from the accusations somewhat unwisely made against himself
personally by young Torquatus, the son of him who had been raised to
the Consulship in the place of P. Sulla. Torquatus had called him
a foreigner because he was a "novus homo," and had come from the
municipality of Arpinum, and had taunted him with being a king,
because he had usurped authority over life and death in regard to
Lentulus and the other conspirators. He answers this very finely, and
does so without an ill-natured word to young Torquatus, whom, from
respect to his father, he desires to spare. "Do not," he says, "in
future call me a foreigner, lest you be answered with severity, nor a
king, lest you be laughed at--unless, indeed, you think it king-like
so to live as to be a slave not only to no man but to no evil passion;
unless you think it be king-like to despise all lusts, to thirst for
neither gold nor silver nor goods, to express yourself freely in the
Senate, to think more of services due to the people than of favors won
from them, to yield to none, and to stand firm against many. If this
be king-like, then I confess that I am a king." Sulla was acquitted,
but the impartial reader will not the less feel sure that he had been
part and parcel with Catiline in the conspiracy. It is trusted that
the impartial reader will also remember how many honest, loyal
gentlemen have in our own days undertaken the causes of those whom
they have known to be rebels, and have saved those rebels by their
ingenuity and eloquence.

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