Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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At the end of this year, B.C. 62, there occurred a fracas in Rome
which was of itself but of little consequence to Rome, and would have
been of none to Cicero but that circumstances grew out of it which
created for him the bitterest enemy he had yet encountered, and led
to his sorest trouble. This was the affair of Clodius and of the
mysteries of the Bona Dea, and I should be disposed to say that it was
the greatest misfortune of his life, were it not that the wretched
results which sprung from it would have been made to spring from some
other source had that source not sufficed. I shall have to tell how
it came to pass that Cicero was sent into exile by means of the
misconduct of Clodius; but I shall have to show also that the
misconduct of Clodius was but the tool which was used by those who
were desirous of ridding themselves of the presence of Cicero.

This Clodius, a young man of noble family and of debauched manners, as
was usual with young men of noble families, dressed himself up as a
woman, and made his way in among the ladies as they were performing
certain religious rites in honor of the Bona Dea, or Goddess Cybele, a
matron goddess so chaste in her manners that no male was admitted into
her presence. It was specially understood that nothing appertaining to
a man was to be seen on the occasion, not even the portrait of one;
and it may possibly have been the case that Clodius effected his
entrance among the worshipping matrons on this occasion simply because
his doing so was an outrage, and therefore exciting. Another reason
was alleged. The rites in question were annually held, now in the
house of this matron and then of that, and during the occasion the
very master of the house was excluded from his own premises. They were
now being performed under the auspices of Pompeia, the wife of Julius
Caesar, the daughter of one Quintus Pompeius, and it was alleged that
Clodius came among the women worshippers for the sake of carrying on
an intrigue with Caesar's wife. This was highly improbable, as Mr.
Forsyth has pointed out to us, and the idea was possibly used simply
as an excuse to Caesar for divorcing a wife of whom he was weary.
At any rate, when the scandal got abroad, he did divorce Pompeia,
alleging that it did not suit Caesar to have his wife suspected.

[Sidenote: B.C. 61, aetat. 46.]

The story became known through the city, and early in January Cicero
wrote to Atticus, telling him the facts: "You have probably heard
that Publius Clodius, the son of Appius, has been taken dressed in
a woman's clothes in the house of Cains Caesar, where sacrifice was
being made for the people, and that he escaped by the aid of a female
slave. You will be sorry to hear that it has given rise to a great
scandal.[222]

A few days afterward Cicero speaks of it again to Atticus at greater
length, and we learn that the matter had been taken up by the
magistrates with the view of punishing Clodius. Cicero writes without
any strong feeling of his own, explaining to his friend that he had
been at first a very Lycurgus in the affair, but that he is now tamed
down.[223] Then there is a third letter in which Cicero is indignant
because certain men of whom he disapproves, the Consul Piso among the
number[224] are anxious to save this wicked young nobleman from the
punishment due to him; whereas others of whom he approves Cato among
the number, are desirous of seeing justice done. But it was no affair
special to Cicero. Shortly afterward he writes again to Atticus as to
the result of the trial--for a trial did take place--and explains to
his friend how justice had failed. Atticus had asked him how it had
come to pass that he, Cicero, had not exerted himself as he usually
did.[225] This letter, though there is matter enough in it of a
serious kind, yet jests with the Clodian affair so continually as
to make us feel that he attributed no importance to it as regarded
himself. He had exerted himself till Hortensius made a mistake as to
the selection of the judges. After that he had himself given evidence.
An attempt was made to prove an alibi, but Cicero came forward to
swear that he had seen Clodius on the very day in question. There had,
too, been an exchange of repartee in the Senate between himself and
Clodius after the acquittal, of which he gives the details to his
correspondent with considerable self-satisfaction. The passage does
not enhance our idea of the dignity of the Senate, or of the power
of Roman raillery. It was known that Clodius had been saved by the
wholesale bribery of a large number of the judges. There had been
twenty-five for condemning against thirty-one for acquittal.[226]

Cicero in the Catiline affair had used a phrase with frequency
by which he boasted that he had "found out" this and "found out"
that--"comperisse omnia." Clodius, in the discussion before the trial,
throws this in his teeth: "Comperisse omnia criminabatur." This gave
rise to ill-feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonor done
to the Bona Dea. As for that, we may say that he and the Senate and
the judges cared personally very little, although there was no doubt
a feeling that it was wise to awe men's minds by the preservation of
religious respect. Cicero had cared but little about the trial; but as
he had been able to give evidence he had appeared as a witness, and
enmity sprung from the words which were spoken both on one side and on
the other. Clodius was acquitted, which concerns us not at all, and
concerns Rome very little; but things had so come to pass at the trial
that Cicero had been very bitter, and that Clodius had become his
enemy. When a man was wanted, three years afterward, to take the lead
in persecuting Cicero, Clodius was ready for the occasion.

While the expediency of putting Clodius on his trial was being
discussed, Pompey had returned from the East, and taken up his
residence outside the city, because he was awaiting his triumph. The
General, to whom it was given to march through the city with triumphal
glory, was bound to make his first entrance after his victories
with all his triumphal appendages, as though he was at that moment
returning from the war with all his warlike spoils around him. The
usage had obtained the strength of law, but the General was not on
that account deburred from city employment during the interval. The
city must be taken out to him instead of his coming into the city.
Pompey was so great on his return from his Mithridatic victories that
the Senate went out to sit with him in the suburbs, as he could not
sit with it within the walls. We find him taking part in these Clodian
discussions. Cicero at once writes of him to Athens with evident
dissatisfaction. When questioned about Clodius, Pompey had answered
with the grand air of aristocrat. Crassus on this occasion, between
whom and Cicero there was never much friendship, took occasion to
belaud the late great Consul on account of his Catiline successes.
Pompey, we are told, did not bear this well.[227] Crassus had probably
intended to produce some such effect. Then Cicero had spoken in answer
to the remarks of Crassus, very glibly, no doubt, and had done his
best to "show off" before Pompey, his new listener.[228]

More than six years had passed since Pompey could have heard him, and
then Cicero's voice had not become potential in the Senate. Cicero
had praised Pompey with all the eloquence in his power. "Anteponatur
omnibus Pompeius," he had said, in the last Catiline oration to the
Senate; and Pompey, though he had not heard the words spoken, knew
very well what had been said. Such oratory was never lost upon those
whom it most concerned the orator to make acquainted with it. But in
return for all this praise, for that Manilian oration which had helped
to send him to the East, for continual loyalty, Pompey had replied
to Cicero with coldness. He would now let Pompey know what was his
standing in Rome. "If ever," he says to Atticus, "I was strong with my
grand rhythm, with my quick rhetorical passages, with enthusiasm, and
with logic, I was so now. Oh, the noise that I made on the occasion!
You know what my voice can do. I need say no more about it, as surely
you must have heard me away there in Epirus." The reader, I trust,
will have already a sufficiently vivid idea of Cicero's character
to understand the mingling of triumph and badinage, with a spark of
disappointment, which is here expressed. "This Pompey, though I have
so true to him, has not thought much of me--of me, the great Consul
who saved Rome! He has now heard what even Crassus has been forced to
say about me. He shall hear me too, me myself, and perhaps he will
then know better." It was thus that Cicero's mind was at work while
he was turning his loud periods. Pompey was sitting next to him
listening, by no means admiring his admirer as that admirer expected
to be admired. Cicero had probably said to himself that they two
together, Pompey and Cicero, might suffice to preserve the Republic.
Pompey, not thinking much of the Republic, was probably telling
himself that he wanted no brother near the throne. When of two men the
first thinks himself equal to the second, the second will generally
feel himself to be superior to the first. Pompey would have liked
Cicero better if his periods had not been so round nor his voice so
powerful. Not that Pompey was distinctly desirous of any throne.
His position at the moment was peculiar. He had brought back his
victorious army from the East to Brundisium, and had then disbanded
his legions. I will quote here the opening words from one of Mommsen's
chapters:[229] "When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs
committed to his charge, again turned his eyes toward home, he found,
for the second time, the diadem at his feet." He says farther on,
explaining why Pompey did not lift the diadem: "The very peculiar
temperament of Pompeius naturally turned once more the scale. He was
one of those men who are capable, it may be, of a crime, but not of
insubordination." And again: "While in the capital all was preparation
for receiving the new monarch, news came that Pompeius, when barely
landed at Brundisium, had broken up his legions, and with a small
escort had entered his journey to the capital. If it is a piece of
good-fortune to gain a crown without trouble, fortune never did more
for mortal than it did for Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the
gods lavish every favor and every gift in vain." I must say here that,
while I acknowledge the German historian's research and knowledge
without any reserve, I cannot accept his deductions as to character. I
do not believe that Pompey found any diadem at his feet, or thought of
any diadem, nor, according to my reading of Roman history, had Marius
or had Sulla; nor did Caesar. The first who thought of that perpetual
rule--a rule to be perpetuated during the ruler's life, and to
be handed down to his successors--was Augustus. Marius, violent,
self-seeking, and uncontrollable, had tumbled into supreme power; and,
had he not died, would have held it as long as he could, because it
pleased his ambition for the moment. Sulla, with a purpose, had
seized it, yet seems never to have got beyond the old Roman idea of a
temporary Dictatorship. The old Roman horror of a king was present
to these Romans, even after they had become kings. Pompey, no doubt,
liked to be first, and when he came back from the East thought that by
his deeds he was first, easily first. Whether Consul year after year,
as Marius had been, or Dictator, as Sulla had been, or Imperator, with
a running command over all the Romans, it was his idea still to adhere
to the forms of the Republic. Mommsen, foreseeing--if an historian
can be said to foresee the future from his standing-point in the
past--that a master was to come for the Roman Empire, and giving all
his sympathies to the Caesarean idea, despises Pompey because Pompey
would not pick up the diadem. No such idea ever entered Pompey's head.
After a while he "Sullaturized"--was desirous of copying Sulla--to
use an excellent word which Cicero coined. When he was successfully
opposed by those whom he had thought inferior to himself, when he
found that Caesar had got the better of him, and that a stronger body
of Romans went with Caesar than with him, then proscriptions, murder,
confiscations, and the seizing of dictatorial power presented
themselves to his angry mind, but of permanent despotic power there
was, I think, no thought, nor, as far as I can read the records, had
such an idea been fixed in Caesar's bosom. To carry on the old trade
of Praetor, Consul, Proconsul, and Imperator, so as to get what he
could of power and wealth and dignity in the scramble, was, I think,
Caesar's purpose. The rest grew upon him. As Shakspeare, sitting down
to write a play that might serve his theatre, composed some Lear or
Tempest--that has lived and will live forever, because of the genius
which was unknown to himself--so did Caesar, by his genius, find his
way to a power which he had not premeditated. A much longer time is
necessary for eradicating an idea from men's minds than a fact from
their practice. This should be proved to us by our own loyalty to the
word "monarch," when nothing can be farther removed from a monarchy
than our own commonwealth. From those first breaches in republican
practice which the historian Florus dates back to the siege of
Numantia,[230] B.C. 133, down far into the reign of Augustus, it took
a century and a quarter to make the people understand that there was
no longer a republican form of government, and to produce a leader who
could himself see that there was room for a despot.

Pompey had his triumph; but the same aristocratic airs which had
annoyed Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honors. Only
two days were allowed for his processions. He was irritated, jealous,
and no doubt desirous of making his power felt; but he thought of no
diadem. Caesar saw it all; and he thought of that conspiracy which we
have since called the First Triumvirate.

[Sidenote: B.C. 62, 61. aetat.45,46.]

The two years to which this chapter has been given were uneventful in
Cicero's life, and produced but little of that stock of literature
by which he has been made one of mankind's prime favorites. Two
discourses were written and published, and probably spoken, which are
now lost--that, namely, to the people against Metellus, in which, no
doubt, he put forth all that he had intended to say when Metellus
stopped him from speaking at the expiration of his Consulship; the
second, against Clodius and Curio, in the Senate, in reference to the
discreditable Clodian affair. The fragments which we have of this
contain those asperities which he retailed afterward in his letter to
Atticus, and are not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from
these fragments that Clodius was already preparing that scheme for
entering the Tribunate by an illegal repudiation of his own family
rank, which he afterward carried out, to the great detriment of
Cicero's happiness. Of the speeches extant on behalf of Archias and
P. Sulla I have spoken already. We know of no others made during this
period. We have one letter besides this to Atticus, addressed to
Antony, his former colleague, which, like many of his letters, was
written solely for the sake of popularity.

During these years he lived no doubt splendidly as one of the great
men of the greatest city in the world. He had his magnificent new
mansion in Rome, and his various villas, which were already becoming
noted for their elegance and charms of upholstery and scenic beauty.
Not only had he climbed to the top of official life himself, but had
succeeded in taking his brother Quintus up with him. In the second
of the two years, B.C. 61, Quintus had been sent out as Governor or
Propraetor to Asia, having then nothing higher to reach than the
Consulship, which, however, he never attained. This step in the life
of Quintus has become famous by a letter which the elder brother wrote
to him in the second year of his office, to which reference will be
made in the next chapter.

So far all things seemed to have gone well with Cicero. He was high in
esteem and authority, powerful, rich, and with many people popular.
But the student of his life now begins to see that troubles are
enveloping him. He had risen too high not to encounter envy, and had
been too loud in his own praise not to make those who envied him very
bitter in their malice.

Notes:

[212] In Pisonem, iii.: "Sine ulla dubitatione juravi rempublicam
atque hanc urbem mea unius opera esse salvam."

[213] Dio Cassius tells the same story, lib. xxxvii., ca. 38, but he
adds that Cicero was more hated than ever because of the oath he took:
[Greek: Kai ho men ek touton poly mallon emisaethae.]

[214] It is the only letter given in the collection as having been
addressed direct to Pompey. In two letters written some years later to
Atticus, B.C. 49, lib. viii., 11, and lib. viii., 12, he sends copies
of a correspondence between himself and Pompey and two of the Pompeian
generals.

[215] Lib. v., 7. It is hardly necessary to explain that the younger
Scipio and Laelius were as famous for their friendship as Pylades and
Orestes. The "Virtus Scipiadae et mitis sapientia Laeli" have been
made famous to us all by Horace.

[216] These two brothers, neither of whom was remarkable for great
qualities, though they were both to be Consuls, were the last known
of the great family of the Metelli, a branch of the "Gens Caecilia."
Among them had been many who had achieved great names for themselves
in Roman history, on account of the territories added to the springing
Roman Empire by their victories. There had been a Macedonicus, a
Numidicus, a Balearicus, and a Creticus. It is of the first that
Velleius Paterculus sings the glory--lib. i., ca. xi., and the elder
Pliny repeats the story, Hist. Nat., vii., 44--that of his having been
carried to the grave by four sons, of whom at the time of his death
three had been Consuls, one had been a Praetor, two had enjoyed
triumphal honors, and one had been Censor. In looking through the
consular list of Cicero's lifetime, I find that there were no less
than seven taken from the family of the Metelli. These two brothers,
Metellus Nepos and Celer, again became friends to Cicero; Nepos, who
had stopped his speech and assisted in forcing him into exile, having
assisted as Consul in obtaining his recall from exile. It is very
difficult to follow the twistings and turnings of Roman friendships at
this period.

[217] Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii., ca. xiv. Paterculus tells us
how, when the architect offered to build the house so as to hide its
interior from the gaze of the world, Drusus desired the man so to
construct it that all the world might see what he was doing.

[218] It may be worth while to give a translation of the anecdote as
told by Aulus Gellius, and to point out that the authors intention was
to show what a clever fellow Cicero was. Cicero did defend P. Sulla
this year; but whence came the story of the money borrowed from Sulla
we do not know. "It is a trick of rhetoric craftily to confess charges
made, so as not to come within the reach of the law. So that, if any-
thing base be alleged which cannot be denied, you may turn it aside
with a joke, and make it a matter of laughter rather than of disgrace,
as it is written that Cicero did when, with a drolling word, he made
little of a charge which he could not deny. For when he was anxious
to buy a house on the Palatine Hill, and had not the ready money, he
quietly borrowed from P. Sulla--who was then about to stand his trial,
'sestertium viciens'--twenty million sesterces. When that became
known, before the purchase was made, and it was objected to him that
he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by
the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was
going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was
thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so
lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family
would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the
article against himself"--Noctes Atticae, xii., 12. Aulus Gellius
though he tells us that the story was written, does not tell us where
he read it.

[219] I must say this, "pace" Mr. Tyrrell, who, in his note on the
letter to Atticus, lib. i, 12, attempts to show that some bargain for
such professional fee had been made. Regarding Mr. Tyrrell as a critic
always fair, and almost always satisfactory, I am sorry to have to
differ from him; but it seems to me that he, too, has been carried
away by the feeling that in defending a man's character it is best to
give up some point.

[220] I have been amused at finding a discourse, eloquent and most
enthusiastic, in praise of Cicero and especially of this oration,
spoken by M. Gueroult at the College of France in June, 1815. The
worst literary faults laid to the charge of Cicero, if committed by
him--which M. Gueroult thinks to be doubtful--had been committed even
by Voltaire and Racine! The learned Frenchman, with whom I altogether
sympathize, rises to an ecstasy of violent admiration, and this at the
very moment in which Waterloo was being fought. But in truth the great
doings of the world do not much affect individual life. We should play
our whist at the clubs though the battle of Dorking were being fought.

[221] Pro P. Sulla, iv.: "Scis me----illorum expertem temporum et
sermonum fuisse; credo, quod nondum penitus in republica versabar,
quod nondum ad propositum mihi finem honoris perveneram.----Quis ergo
intererat vestris consiliis? Omnes hi, quos vides huic adesse et in
primis Q. Hortensius."

[222] Ad Att., lib.i., 12.

[223] Ad Att., lib.i., 13.

[224] Ibid., i., 14.

[225]Ibid., i., 16: "Vis scire quomodo minus quam soleam praeliatus
sum."

[226] "You have bought a fine house," said Clodius. "There would be
more in what you say if you could accuse me of buying judges," replied
Cicero. "The judges would not trust you on your oath," said Clodius,
referring to the alibi by which he had escaped in opposition to
Cicero's oath. "Yes," replied Cicero, "twenty-five trusted me; but not
one of the thirty-one would trust you without having his bribe paid
beforehand."

[227] Ad Att., i., 14: "Proxime Pompeium sedebam. Intellexi hominem
moveri."

[228] Ibid.: "Quo modo [Greek: eneperpereusamaen], novo auditori
Pompeio."

[229] Mommsen, book v., chap.vi. This probably has been taken from
the statement of Paterculus, lib.ii., 40: "Quippe plerique non
sine exercitu venturum in urbem adfirmabant, et libertati publicae
statuturum arbitrio suo modum. Quo magis hoc homines timuerant, eo
gratior civilis tanti imperatoris reditus fuit." No doubt there was
a dread among many of Pompey coming back as Sulla had come: not from
indications to be found in the character of Pompey, but because Sulla
had done so.

[230] Florus, lib.ii., xix. Having described to us the siege of
Numantia, he goes on "Ilactenus populus Romanus pulcher, egregius,
pius, sanctusarque magnificus. Reliqua seculi, ut grandia aeque, ita
vel magis turbida et foeda".

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRIUMVIRATE.

[Sidenote: BC. 60, aetat. 47.]

I know of no great fact in history so impalpable, so shadowy, so
unreal, as the First Triumvirate. Every school-boy, almost every
school-girl, knows that there was a First Triumvirate, and that it was
a political combination made by three great Romans of the day, Julius
Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Crassus the Rich, for managing Rome
among them. Beyond this they know little, because there is little to
know. That it was a conspiracy against the ordained government of the
day, as much so as that of Catiline, or Guy Faux, or Napoleon III.,
they do not know generally, because Caesar, who, though the youngest
of the three, was the mainspring of it, rose by means of it to such a
galaxy of glory that all the steps by which he rose to it have been
supposed to be magnificent and heroic. But of the method in which
this Triumvirate was constructed, who has an idea? How was it first
suggested, where, and by whom? What was it that the conspirators
combined to do? There was no purpose of wholesale murder like that of
Catiline for destroying the Senate, and of Guy Faux for blowing up the
House of Lords. There was no plot arranged for silencing a body of
legislators like that of Napoleon. In these scrambles that are going
on every year for place and power, for provinces and plunder, let us
help each other. If we can manage to stick fast by each other, we can
get all the power and nearly all the plunder. That, said with a wink
by one of the Triumvirate--Caesar, let us say--and assented to with a
nod by Pompey and Crassus, was sufficient for the construction of such
a conspiracy as that which I presume to have been hatched when the
First Triumvirate was formed.[231]

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