Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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Then he points out that which he describes as the one great difficulty
in the career of a Roman Provincial Governor.[246] The collectors of
taxes, or "publicani," were of the equestrian order. This business of
farming the taxes had been their rich privilege for at any rate more
than a century, and as Cicero says, farther on in his letter, it was
impossible not to know with what hardship the Greek allies would be
treated by them when so many stories were current of their
cruelty even in Italy. Were Quintus to take a part against these
tax-gatherers, he would make them hostile not only to the Republic but
to himself also, and also to his brother Marcus; for they were of the
equestrian order, and specially connected with these "publicani" by
family ties. He implies, as he goes on, that it will be easier to
teach the Greeks to be submissive than the tax-gatherers to be
moderate. After all, where would the Greeks of Asia be if they had no
Roman master to afford them protection? He leaves the matter in the
hands of his brother, with advice that he should do the best he can
on one side and on the other. If possible, let the greed of the
"publicani" be restrained; but let the ally be taught to understand
that there may be usage in the world worse even than Roman taxation.
It would be hardly worth our while to allude to this part of Cicero's
advice, did it not give an insight into the mode in which Rome taxed
her subject people.

After this he commences that portion of the letter for the sake of
which we cannot but believe that the whole was written. "There is one
thing," he says, "which I will never cease to din into your ears,
because I could not endure to think that, amid the praises which are
lavished on you, there should be any matter in which you should be
found wanting. All who come to us here"--all who come to Rome from
Asia, that is--"when they tell us of your honesty and goodness of
heart, tell us also that you fail in temper. It is a vice which, in
the daily affairs of private life, betokens a weak and unmanly spirit;
but there can be nothing so poor as the exhibition of the littleness
of nature in those who have risen to the dignity of command." He will
not, he goes on to say, trouble his brother with repeating all that
the wise men have said on the subject of anger; he is sure that
Quintus is well acquainted with all that. But is it not a pity, when
all men say that nothing could be pleasanter than Quintus Cicero
when in a good-humor, the same Quintus should allow himself to be so
provoked that his want of kindly manners should be regretted by all
around him? "I cannot assert," he goes on to say, "that when nature
has produced a certain condition of mind, and that years as they run
on have strengthened it, a man can change all that and pluck out from
his very self the habits that have grown within him; yet I must tell
you that if you cannot eschew this evil altogether--if you cannot
protect yourself against the feeling of anger, yet you should prepare
yourself to be ready for it when it comes, so that, when your very
soul within you is hot with it, your tongue, at any rate, may be
restrained." Then toward the end of the letter there is a fraternal
exhortation which is surely very fine: "Since chance has thrown into
my way the duties of official life in Rome, and into yours that of
administrating provincial government, if I, in the performance of my
work, have been second to none, do you see that you in yours may be
equally efficient." How grand, from an elder brother to a younger!
"And remember this, that you and I have not to strive after some
excellence still unattained, but have to be on our watch to guard
that which has been already won. If I should find myself in anything
divided from you, I should desire no further advance in life. Unless
your deeds and your words go on all-fours with mine, I should feel
that I had achieved nothing by all the work and all the dangers which
you and I have encountered together." The brother at last was found to
be a poor, envious, ill-conditioned creature--intellectually gifted,
and capable of borrowing something from his brother's nobler nature;
but when struggles came, and political feuds, and the need of looking
about to see on which side safety lay, ready to sacrifice his brother
for the sake of safety. But up to this time Marcus was prepared to
believe all good of Quintus; and having made for himself and for the
family a great name, was desirous of sharing it with his brother, and,
as we shall afterward see, with his brother's son, and with his own.
In this he failed. He lived to know that he had failed as regarded his
brother and his nephew. It was not, however, added to his misery to
live to learn how little his son was to do to maintain the honor of
his family.

I find a note scribbled by myself some years ago in a volume in which
I had read this epistle, "Probably the most beautiful letter ever
written." Reading it again subsequently, I added another note, "The
language altogether different from that of his ordinary letters." I
do not dissent now either from the enthusiastic praise or the more
careful criticism. The letter was from the man's heart--true,
affectionate, and full of anxious, brotherly duty--but written in
studied language, befitting, as Cicero thought, the need and the
dignity of the occasion.

[Sidenote: B C 59, aetat. 48.]

The year following was that of Caesar's first Consulship, which he
held in conjunction with Bibulus, a man who was altogether opposed to
him in thought, in character, and in action. So hostile were these two
great officers to each other that the one attempted to undo whatever
the other did. Bibulus was elected by bribery, on behalf of the
Senate, in order that he might be a counterpoise to Caesar. But Caesar
now was not only Caesar: he was Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus united,
with all their dependents, all their clients, all their greedy
hangers-on. To give this compact something of the strength of family
union, Pompey, who was now nearly fifty years of age, took in marriage
Caesar's daughter Julia, who was a quarter of a century his junior.
But Pompey was a man who could endear himself to women, and the
opinion seems to be general that had not Julia died in childbirth
the friendship between the men would have been more lasting. But for
Caesar's purposes the duration of this year and the next was enough.
Bibulus was a laughing-stock, the mere shadow of a Consul, when
opposed to such an enemy. He tried to use all the old forms of the
Republic with the object of stopping Caesar in his career; but Caesar
only ridiculed him; and Pompey, though we can imagine that he did not
laugh much, did as Caesar would have him. Bibulus was an augur, and
observed the heavens when political manoeuvres were going on which he
wished to stop. This was the old Roman system for using religion as a
drag upon progressive movements. No work of state could be carried on
if the heavens were declared to be unpropitious; and an augur could
always say that the heavens were unpropitious if he pleased. This was
the recognized constitutional mode of obstruction, and was quite in
accord with the feelings of the people. Pompey alone, or Crassus with
him, would certainly have submitted to an augur; but Caesar was above
augurs. Whatever he chose to have carried he carried, with what
approach he could to constitutional usage, but with whatever departure
from constitutional usage he found to be necessary.

What was the condition of the people of Rome at the time it is
difficult to learn from the conflicting statements of historians. That
Cicero had till lately been popular we know. We are told that Bibulus
was popular when he opposed Caesar. Of personal popularity up to this
time I doubt whether Caesar had achieved much. Yet we learn that,
when Bibulus with Cato and Lucullus endeavored to carry out their
constitutional threats, they were dragged and knocked about, and one
of them nearly killed. Of the illegality of Caesar's proceedings
there can be no doubt. "The tribunitian veto was interposed; Caesar
contented himself with disregarding it."[247] This is quoted from the
German historian, who intends to leave an impression that Caesar
was great and wise in all that he did; and who tells us also of the
"obstinate, weak creature Bibulus," and of "the dogmatical fool Cato."
I doubt whether there was anything of true popular ferment, or that
there was any commotion except that which was made by the "roughs" who
had attached themselves for pay to Caesar or to Pompey, or to Crassus,
or, as it might be, to Bibulus and the other leaders. The violence did
not amount to more than "nearly" killing this man or the other. Some
Roman street fights were no doubt more bloody--as for instance that in
which, seven years afterward, Clodius was slaughtered by Milo--but the
blood was made to flow, not by the people, but by hired bravoes. The
Roman citizens of the day were, I think, very quiescent. Neither pride
nor misery stirred them much. Caesar, perceiving this, was aware that
he might disregard Bibulus and his auguries so long as he had a band
of ruffians around him sufficient for the purposes of the hour. It was
in order that he might thus prevail that the coalition had been made
with Pompey and Crassus. His colleague Bibulus, seeing how matters
were going, retired to his own house, and there went through a farce
of consular enactments. Caesar carried all his purposes, and the
people were content to laugh, dividing him into two personages, and
talking of Julius and Caesar as the two Consuls of the year. It was
in this way that he procured to be allotted to him by the people his
irregular command in Gaul. He was to be Proconsul, not for one year,
with perhaps a prolongation for two or three, but for an established
period of five. He was to have the great province of Cisalpine
Gaul--that is to say, the whole of what we now call Italy, from the
foot of the Alps down to a line running from sea to sea just north of
Florence. To this Transalpine Gaul was afterward added. The province
so named, possessed at the time by the Romans, was called "Narbonensis",
a country comparatively insignificant, running from the Alps to the
Pyrenees along the Mediterranean. The Gaul or Gallia of which Caesar
speaks when, in the opening words of his Commentary, he tells us that
it was divided into three parts, was altogether beyond the Roman
province which was assigned to him. Caesar, when he undertook his
government, can hardly have dreamed of subjecting to Roman rule the
vast territories which were then known as Gallia, beyond the frontiers
of the Empire, and which we now call France.

But he caused himself to be supported by an enormous army. There were
stationed three legions on the Italian side of the Alps, and one on
the other. These were all to be under his command for five years
certain, and amounted to a force of not less than thirty thousand men.
"As no troops could constitutionally be stationed in Italy proper, the
commander of the legions of Northern Italy and Gaul," says Mommsen,
"dominated at the same time Italy and Rome for the next five years;
and he who was master for five years was master for life."[248]

[Sidenote: B.C. 59, aetat. 48.]

Such was the condition of Rome during the second year of the
Triumvirate, in which Caesar was Consul and prepared the way for the
powers which he afterward exercised. Cicero would not come to his
call; and therefore, as we are told, Clodius was let loose upon him.
As he would not come to Caesar's call, it was necessary that he
should he suppressed, and Clodius, notwithstanding all constitutional
difficulties--nay, impossibilities--was made Tribune of the people.
Things had now so far advanced with a Caesar that a Cicero who would
not come to his call must be disposed of after some fashion.

Till we have thought much of it, often of it, till we have looked
thoroughly into it, we find ourselves tempted to marvel at Cicero's
blindness. Surely a man so gifted must have known enough of the state
of Rome to have been aware that there was no room left for one honest,
patriotic, constitutional politician. Was it not plain to him that if,
"natus ad justitiam," he could not bring himself to serve with those
who were intent on discarding the Republic, he had better retire
among his books, his busts, and his literary luxuries, and leave the
government of the country to those who understood its people? And
we are the more prone to say and to think all this because the man
himself continually said it, and continually thought it. In one of the
letters written early in the year[249] to Atticus from his villa at
Antium he declares very plainly how it is with him; and this, too, in
a letter written in good-humor, not in a despondent frame of mind,
in which he is able pleasantly to ridicule his enemy Clodius, who it
seems had expressed a wish to go on an embassy to Tigranes, King of
Armenia. "Do not think," he says, "that I am complaining of all this
because I myself am desirous of being engaged in public affairs. Even
while it was mine to sit at the helm I was tired of the work; but now,
when I am in truth driven out of the ship, when the rudder has not
been thrown down but seized out of my hands, how should I take a
pleasure in looking from the shore at the wrecks which these other
pilots have made?" But the study of human nature tells us, and all
experience, that men are unable to fathom their own desires, and fail
to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at their fingers' ends.
The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after the seals and the
ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul be able to rise
above considerations of emolument, and there will creep into a man's
mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other sources may be
impossible, if he were there once more the evil could at least be
mitigated, might possibly be cured. So it was during this period of
his life with Cicero. He did believe that political justice exercised
by himself, with such assistance as his eloquence would obtain for it,
might be efficacious for preserving the Republic, in spite of Caesar,
and of Pompey, and of Crassus. He did not yet believe that these men
would consent to such an outrage as his banishment. It must have been
incredible to him that Pompey should assent to it. When the blow came,
it crushed him for the time. But he retricked his beams and struggled
on to the end, as we shall see if we follow his life to the close.

Such was the intended purpose of the degradation of Clodius. This,
however, was not at once declared. It was said that Clodius as Tribune
intended rather to oppose Caesar than to assist him. He at any rate
chose that Cicero should so believe and sent Curio, a young man to
whom Cicero was attached to visit the orator at his villa at Antium
and to declare these friendly purposes. According to the story told by
Cicero,[250] Clodius was prepared to oppose the Triumvirate; and the
other young men of Rome, the _jeunesse doree_, of which both Curio
and Clodius were members, were said to be equally hostile to Caesar,
Pompey, and Crassus, whose doings in opposition to the constitution
were already evident enough; so that it suited Cicero to believe that
the rising aristocracy of Rome would oppose them. But the aristocracy
of Rome, whether old or young, cared for nothing but its fish-ponds
and its amusements.

Cicero spent the earlier part of the year out of Rome, among his
various villas--at Tusculanum, at Antium, and at Formiae. The purport
of all his letters at this period is the same--to complain of the
condition of the Republic, and especially of the treachery of his
friend Pompey. Though there be much of despondency in his tone, there
is enough also of high spirit to make us feel that his literary
aspirations are not out of place, though mingled with his political
wailing. The time will soon come when his trust even in literature
will fail him for a while.

Early in the year he declares that he would like to accept a mission
to Egypt, offered to him by Caesar and Pompey, partly in order that he
might for a while be quit of Rome, and partly that Romans might feel
how ill they could do without him. He then uses for the first time, as
far as I am aware, a line from the Iliad,[251] which is repeated by
him again and again, in part or in whole, to signify the restraint
which is placed on him by his own high character among his
fellow-citizens. "I would go to Egypt on this pleasant excursion, but
that I fear what the men of Troy, and the Trojan women, with their
wide-sweeping robes, would say of me." And what, he asks, would the
men of our party, "the optimates," say? and what would Cato say, whose
opinion is more to me than that of them all? And how would history
tell the story in future ages? But he would like to go to Egypt, and
he will wait and see. Then, after various questions to Atticus, comes
that great one as to the augurship, of which so much has been made by
Cicero's enemies, "quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi possim." A few
lines above he had been speaking of another lure, that of the mission
to Egypt. He discusses that with his friend, and then goes on in his
half-joking phrase, "but this would have been the real thing to catch
me." Nothing caught him. He was steadfast all through, accepting no
offer of place from the conspirators by which his integrity or his
honor could be soiled. That it was so was well known to history in
the time of Quintilian, whose testimony as to the "repudiatus
vigintiviratus"--his refusal of a place among the twenty
commissioners--has been already quoted.[252] And yet biographers have
written of him as of one willing to sell his honor, his opinions, and
the commonwealth, for a "pitiful bribe;" not that he did do so, not
that he attempted to do it, but because in a half-joking letter to the
friend of his bosom he tells his friend which way his tastes lay![253]

He had been thinking of writing a book on geography, and consulted
Atticus on the subject; but in one of his letters he tells his friend
that he had abandoned the idea. The subject was too dull; and if he
took one side in a dispute that was existing, he would be sure to fall
under the lash of the critics on the other. He is enjoying his leisure
at Antium, and thinks it a much better place than Rome. If the weather
will not let him catch fish, at any late he can count the waves.
In all these letters Cicero asks questions about his money and his
private affairs; about the mending of a wall, perhaps, and adds
something about his wife or daughter or son. He is going from Antium
to Formiae, but must return to Antium by a certain date because Tullia
wants to see the games.

Then again he alludes to Clodius. Pompey had made a compact with
Clodius--so at least Cicero had heard--that he, Clodius, if elected
for the Tribunate, would do nothing to injure Cicero. The assurance
of such a compact had no doubt been spread about for the quieting
of Cicero; but no such compact had been intended to be kept, unless
Cicero would be amenable, would take some of the good things offered
to him, or at any rate hold his peace. But Cicero affects to hope that
no such agreement may be kept. He is always nicknaming Pompey, who
during his Eastern campaign had taken Jerusalem, and who now parodies
the Africanus, the Asiaticus, and the Macedonicus of the Scipios and
Metelluses. "If that Hierosolymarian candidate for popularity does not
keep his word with me, I shall be delighted. If that be his return
for my speeches on his behalf"--the Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius, for
instance--"I will play him such a turn of another kind that he shall
remember it"[254]

He begins to know what the "Triumvirate" is doing with the Republic,
but has not yet brought himself to suspect the blow that is to fall on
himself. "They are going along very gayly," he says, "and do not make
as much noise as one would have expected."[255] If Cato had been
more on the alert, things would not have gone so quickly; but the
dishonesty of others, who have allowed all the laws to be ignored, has
been worse than Cato. If we used to feel that the Senate took too much
on itself, what shall we say when that power has been transferred, not
to the people, but to three utterly unscrupulous men? "They can make
whom they will Consuls, whom they will Tribunes--so that they may
hide the very goitre of Vatinius under a priest's robe." For himself,
Cicero says, he will be contented to remain with his books, if only
Cledius will allow him; if not, he will defend himself.[256] As for
his country, he has done more for his country than has even been
desired of him; and he thinks it to be better to leave the helm in
the hands of pilots, however incompetent, than himself to steer when
passengers are so thankless. Then we find that he robs poor Tullia of
her promised pleasure at the games, because it will be beneath his
dignity to appear at them. He is always very anxious for his friend's
letters, depending on them for news and for amusement. "My messenger
will return at once," he says, in one; "therefore, though you are
coming yourself very soon, send me a heavy letter, full not only of
news but of your own ideas."[257] In another: "Cicero the Little sends
greeting," he says, in Greek, "to Titus the Athenian"--that is, to
Titus Pomponius Atticus. The Greek letters were probably traced by the
child at his father's knee as Cicero held the pen or the stylus. In
another letter he declares that there, at Formiae, Pompey's name of
Magnus is no more esteemed than that of Dives belonging to Crassus. In
the next he calls Pompey Sampsiceramus. We learn from Josephus that
there was a lady afterward in the East in the time of Vitellius, who
was daughter of Sampsigeramus, King of the Emesi. It might probably be
a royal family name.[258]

In choosing the absurd title, he is again laughing at his party
leader. Pompey had probably boasted of his doings with the
Sampsiceramus of the day and the priests of Jerusalem. "When this
Sampsiceramus of ours finds how ill he is spoken of, he will rush
headlong into revolution." He complains that he can do nothing
at Formiae because of the visitors. No English poet was ever so
interviewed by American admirers. They came at all hours, in numbers
sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house. How can
he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this?
Nevertheless he will attempt something. He goes on criticising all
that is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt
was vacillating sadly between Caesar, to whom he was bound, and
Bibulus, the other Consul, to whom he ought to have been bound, as
being naturally on the aristocratic side. He cannot for a moment keep
his pen from public matters; nor, on the other hand, can he refrain
from declaring that he will apply himself wholly, undividedly, to
his literature. "Therefore, oh my Titus, let me settle down to these
glorious occupations, and return to that which, if I had been wise, I
never should have left."[259] A day or two afterward, writing from the
same place, he asks what Arabarches is saying of him. Arabarches is
another name for Pompey--this Arabian chieftain.

In the early summer of this year Cicero returned to Rome, probably
in time to see Atticus, who was then about to leave the city for his
estates in Epirus. We have a letter written by him to his friend on
the journey, telling us that Caesar had made him two distinct offers,
evidently with the view of getting rid of him, but in such a manner as
would be gratifying to Cicero himself.[260] Caesar asks him to go
with him to Gaul as his lieutenant, or, if that will not suit him, to
accept a "free legation for the sake of paying a vow." This latter was
a kind of job by which Roman Senators got themselves sent forth on
their private travels with all the appanages of a Senator travelling
on public business. We have his argument as to both. Elsewhere he
objects to a "libera legatio" as being a job.[261]

Here he only points out that, though it enforce his absence from Rome
at a time disagreeable to him--just when his brother Quintus would
return--it would not give him the protection which he needs. Though
he were travelling about the world as a Senator on some pretended
embassy, he would still be open to the attacks of Clodius. He would
necessarily be absent, or he would not be in enjoyment of his
privilege, but by his very absence he would find his position
weakened; whereas, as Caesar's appointed lieutenant, he need not leave
the city at once, and in that position he would be quite safe against
all that Clodius or other enemies could do to him.[262]

No indictment could be made against a Roman while he was in the
employment of the State. It must be remembered, too, on judging of
these overtures, that both the one and the other--and indeed all the
offers then made to him--were deemed to be highly honorable, as
Rome then existed. "The free legation"--the "libera legatio voti
causa"--had no reference to parties. It was a job, no doubt, and, in
the hands of the ordinary Roman aristocrat, likely to be very onerous
to the provincials among whom the privileged Senator might travel; but
it entailed no party adhesion. In this case it was intended only to
guarantee the absence of a man who might be troublesome in Rome. The
other was the offer of genuine work in which politics were not at
all concerned. Such a position was accepted by Quintus, our Cicero's
brother, and in performance of the duties which fell to him he
incurred terrible danger, having been nearly destroyed by the Gauls
in his winter quarters among the Nervii. Labienus, who was Caesar's
right-hand man in Gaul, was of the same politics as Cicero--so much so
that when Caesar rebelled against the Republic, Labienus, true to
the Republic, would no longer fight on Caesar's side. It was open to
Cicero, without disloyalty, to accept the offer made to him; but
with an insight into what was coming, of which he himself was hardly
conscious, he could not bring himself to accept offers which in
themselves were alluring, but which would seem in future times to have
implied on his part an assent to the breaking up of the Republic.
[Greek: Aideomai Troas kai Troadas elkesipeplous.] What will be said
of me in history by my citizens if I now do simply that which may best
suit my own happiness? Had he done so, Pliny and the others would not
have spoken of him as they have spoken, and it would not have been
worth the while of modern lovers of Caesarism to write books against
the one patriot of his age.

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