Life of Cicero by Anthony Trollope

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There were other means in which a noble Roman might make money, and
might do so without leaving the city. An orator might be paid for his
services as an advocate. Cicero, had such a trade been opened to him,
might have made almost any sum to which his imagination could have
stretched itself. Such a trade was carried on to a very great extent.
It was illegal, such payment having been forbidden by the "Lex Cincia
De Muneribus," passed more than a century before Cicero began his
pleadings.[78] But the law had become a dead letter in the majority
of cases. There can be no doubt that Hortensius, the predecessor and
great rival of Cicero, took presents, if not absolute payment. Indeed,
the myth of honorary work, which is in itself absurd, was no more
practicable in Rome than it has been found to be in England, where
every barrister is theoretically presumed to work for nothing. That
the "Lex Cincia," as far as the payment of advocates went, was absurd,
may be allowed by us all. Services for which no regular payment can be
exacted will always cost more than those which have a defined price.
But Cicero would not break the law. It has been hinted rather than
stated that he, like other orators of the day, had his price. He
himself tells us that he took nothing; and no instance has been
adduced that he had ever done so. He is free enough in accusing
Hortensius of having accepted a beautiful statuette, an ivory sphinx
of great value. What he knew of Hortensius, Hortensius would have
known of him, had it been there to know; and what Hortensius or others
had heard would certainly have been told. As far as we can learn,
there is no ground for accusing Cicero of taking fees or presents
beyond the probability that he would do so. I think we are justified
in believing that he did not do so, because those who watched his
conduct closely found no opportunity of exposing him. That he was paid
by different allied States for undertaking their protection in the
Senate, is probable, such having been a custom not illegal. We know
that he was specially charged with the affairs of Dyrrachium, and
had probably amicable relations with other allied communities. This,
however, must have been later in life, when his name was sufficiently
high to insure the value of his services, and when he was a Senator.

Noble Romans also--noble as they were, and infinitely superior to the
little cares of trade--were accustomed to traffic very largely in
usury. We shall have a terrible example of such baseness on the part
of Brutus--that Brutus whom we have been taught to regard as almost
on a par with Cato in purity. To lend money to citizens, or more
profitably to allied States and cities, at enormous rates of interest,
was the ordinary resource of a Roman nobleman in quest of revenue. The
allied city, when absolutely eaten to the bone by one noble Roman,
who had plundered it as Proconsul or Governor, would escape from its
immediate embarrassment by borrowing money from another noble Roman,
who would then grind its very bones in exacting his interest and his
principal. Cicero, in the most perfect of his works--the treatise De
Officiis, an essay in which he instructs his son as to the way in
which a man should endeavor to live so as to be a gentleman--inveighs
both against trade and usury. When he tells us that they are to be
accounted mean who buy in order that they may sell, we, with our later
lights, do not quite agree with him, although he founds his assertion
on an idea which is too often supported by the world's practice,
namely, that men cannot do a retail business profitably without
lying.[79] The doctrine, however, has always been common that retail
trade is not compatible with noble bearing, and was practised by all
Romans who aspired to be considered among the upper classes. That
other and certainly baser means of making money by usury was, however,
only too common. Crassus, the noted rich man of Rome in Caesar's day,
who was one of the first Triumvirate, and who perished ignominiously
in Parthia, was known to have gathered much of his wealth by such
means. But against this Cicero is as staunchly severe as against
shopkeeping. "First of all," he says, "these profits are despicable
which incur the hatred of men, such as those of gatherers of custom
and lenders of money on usury."[80]

Again, we are entitled to say that Cicero did not condescend to enrich
himself by the means which he himself condemns, because, had he done
so, the accusations made against him by his contemporaries would have
reached our ears. Nor is it probable that a man in addressing his son
as to rules of life would have spoken against a method of gathering
riches which, had he practised it himself, must have been known to his
son. His rules were severe as compared with the habits of the time.
His dear friend Atticus did not so govern his conduct, or Brutus, who,
when he wrote the De Officiis, was only less dear to him than Atticus.
But Cicero himself seems to have done so faithfully. We learn from his
letter that he owned house-property in Rome to a considerable extent,
having probably thus invested his own money or that of his wife. He
inherited also the family house at Arpinum. He makes it a matter for
boasting that he had received in the course of his life by legacies
nearly L200,000 (twenty million sesterces), in itself a source of
great income, and one common with Romans of high position.[81] Of the
extent of his income it is impossible to speak, or even make a guess.
But we do know that he lived always as a rich man--as one who regards
such a condition of life as essentially proper to him; and that though
he was often in debt, as was customary with noble Romans, he could
always write about his debts in a vein of pleasantry, showing that
they were not a heavy burden to him; and we know that he could at all
times command for himself villas, books, statues, ornaments, columns,
galleries, charming shades, and all the delicious appendages of
mingled wealth and intelligence. He was as might be some English
marquis, who, though up to his eyes in mortgages, is quite sure that
he will never want any of the luxuries befitting a marquis. Though we
have no authority to tell us how his condition of life became what it
was, it is necessary that we should understand that condition if we
are to get a clear insight into his life. Of that condition we have
ample evidence. He commenced his career as a youth upon whose behalf
nothing was spared, and when he settled himself in Rome, with the
purport of winning for himself the highest honors of the Republic, he
did so with the means of living like a nobleman.

But the point on which it is most necessary to insist is this: that
while so many--I may almost say all around him in his own order--were
unscrupulous as to their means of getting money, he kept his hands
clean. The practice then was much as it is now. A gentleman in our
days is supposed to have his hands clean; but there has got abroad
among us a feeling that, only let a man rise high enough, soil will
not stick to him. To rob is base; but if you rob enough, robbery will
become heroism, or, at any rate, magnificence. With Caesar his debts
have been accounted happy audacity; his pillage of Gaul and Spain, and
of Rome also, have indicated only the success of the great General;
his cruelty, which in cold-blooded efficiency has equalled if not
exceeded the blood-thirstiness of any other tyrant, has been called
clemency.[82] I do not mean to draw a parallel between Caesar and
Cicero. No two men could have been more different in their natures
or in their career. But the one has been lauded because he was
unscrupulous, and the other has incurred reproach because, at every
turn and twist in his life, scruples dominated him. I do not say that
he always did what he thought to be right. A man who doubts much can
never do that. The thing that was right to him in the thinking became
wrong to him in the doing. That from which he has shrunk as evil when
it was within his grasp, takes the color of good when it has been
beyond his reach. Cicero had not the stuff in him to rule the Rome and
the Romans of his period; but he was a man whose hands were free from
all stain, either of blood or money; and for so much let him, at any
rate, have the credit.

Between the return of Cicero to Rome in 77 B.C. and his election as
Quaestor in 75, in which period he married Terentia, he made various
speeches in different causes, of which only one remains to us, or
rather, a small part of one. This is notable as having been spoken in
behalf of that Roscius, the great comic actor, whose name has become
familiar to us on account of his excellence, almost as have those of
Garrick, of Siddons, and of Talma. It was a pleading as to the value
of a slave, and the amount of pecuniary responsibility attaching to
Roscius on account of the slave, who had been murdered when in his
charge. As to the murder, no question is made. The slave was valuable,
and the injury done to his master was a matter of importance. He,
having been a slave, could have no stronger a claim for an injury done
to himself than would a dog or a horse. The slave, whose name was
Panurge--a name which has since been made famous as having been
borrowed by Rabelais, probably from this occurrence, and given to
his demon of mischief--showed aptitude for acting, and was therefore
valuable. Then one Flavius killed him; why or how we do not know; and,
having killed him, settled with Roscius for the injury by giving him
a small farm. But Roscius had only borrowed or hired the man from one
Chaerea--or was in partnership with Chaerea as to the man--and on
that account paid something out of the value of the farm for the loss
incurred; but the owner was not satisfied, and after a lapse of time
made a further claim. Hence arose the action, in pleading which Cicero
was successful. In the fragment we have of the speech there is nothing
remarkable except the studied clearness of the language; but it
reminds us of the opinion which Cicero had expressed of this actor
in the oration which he made for Publius Quintius, who was the
brother-in-law of Roscius. "He is such an actor," says Cicero, "that
there is none other on the stage worthy to be seen; and such a man
that among men he is the last that should have become an actor."[83]
The orator's praise of the actor is not of much importance. Had not
Roscius been great in his profession, his name would not have come
down to later ages. Nor is it now matter of great interest that the
actor should have been highly praised as a man by his advocate; but it
is something for us to know that the stage was generally held in such
low repute as to make it seem to be a pity that a good man should have
taken himself to such a calling.

In the year 76 B.C. Cicero became father of a daughter, whom we shall
know as Tullia--who, as she grew up, became the one person whom he
loved best in all the world--and was elected Quaestor. Cicero tells
us of himself that in the preceding year he had solicited the
Quaestorship, when Cotta was candidate for the Consulship and
Hortensius for the Praetorship. There are in the dialogue De Claris
Oratoribus--which has had the name of Brutus always given to it--some
passages in which the orator tells us more of himself than in any
other of his works. I will annex a translation of a small portion
because of its intrinsic interest; but I will relegate it to an
appendix, because it is too long either for insertion in the text or
for a note.[84]

NOTES:

[61] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.xxi.: "Quod antea causam publicam nullam
dixerim." He says also in the Brutus, ca. xc., "Itaque prima causa
publica, pro Sex. Roscio dicta." By "publica causa" he means a
criminal accusation in distinction from a civil action.

[62] Pro Publio Quintio, ca.i: "Quod mihi consuevit in ceteris causis
esse adjumento, id quoque in hac causa deficit."

[63] Pro Publio Quintio, ca.xxi: "Nolo eam rem commemorando renovare,
cujus omnino rei memoriam omnem tolli funditus ac deleri arbitor
oportere."

[64] Pro Roscio, ca.xlix. Cicero says of him that he would be sure to
suppose that anything would have been done according to law of which
he should be told that it was done by Sulla's order. "Putat homo
imperitus noram, agricola et rusticus, ista omnia, que vos per Sullam
gesta esse diciis, more, lege, jure gentium facta."

[65] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.1.

[66] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.xxix.: "Ejusmodi tempus erat, inquit, ut
homines vulgo impune occiderentur."

[67] Pro T. A. Milone, ca.xxi.: "Cur igitur cos manumisit? Metuebat
scilicit ne indicarent; ne dolorem perferre non possent."

[68] Pro T. A. Milone, ca.xxii.: "Heus tu, Ruscio, verbi gratia,
cave sis mentiaris. Clodius insidias fecit Miloni? Fecit. Certa crux.
Nullas fecit. Sperata libertas."

[69] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.xxviii.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid, ca.xxxi.

[72] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.xlv.

[73] Pro Sexto Roscio, ca.xlvi. The whole picture of Chrysogonus, of
his house, of his luxuries, and his vanity, is too long for quotation,
but is worth referring to by those who wish to see how bold and how
brilliant Cicero could be.

[74] They put in tablets of wax, on which they recorded their
judgement by inscribing letter, C, A, or NL--Condemno, Absolvo, or Non
liquent--intending to show that the means of coming to a decision did
not seem to be sufficient.

[75] Quintilian tells us, lib.x., ca.vii., that Cicero's speeches as
they had come to his day had been abridged--by which he probably means
only arranged--by Tiro, his slave and secretary and friend. "Nam
Ciceronis ad praesens modo tempus aptatos libertus Tiro contraxit."

[76] Quintilian, lib.xi., ca.iii.: "Nam et toga, et calecus, et
capillus, tam nimia cura, quam negligentia, sunt reprehendenda."
----"Sinistrum brachium eo usque allevandum est, ut quasi normalem
illum angulum faciat." Quint., lib.xii., ca.x., "ne hirta toga sit;"
don't let the toga be rumpled; "non serica:" the silk here interdicted
was the silk of effeminacy, not that silk of authority of which our
barristers are proud. "Ne intonsum caput; non in gradus atque annulos
comptum." It would take too much space were I to give here all the
lessons taught by this professor of deportment as to the wearing of
the toga.

[77] A doubt has been raised whether he was not married when he went
to Greece, as otherwise his daughter would seem to have become a wife
earlier than is probable. The date, however, has been generally given
as it is stated here.

[78] Tacitus, Annal., xl, 5, says, "Qua cavetiur antiquitus, ne quis,
ob causam orandam, pecuniam donumve accipiat."

[79] De Off, lib.i., ca.xlii.: "Sordidi etiam putandi, qui mercantur
a mercatoribus, quod statim vendant. Nihil enim proficiunt, nisi
admodum mentiantur."

[80] De Off, lib.i, ca.xlii.: "Primum improbantur ii quaestus, qui in
odia hominum incurrant: ut portitorum ut foeneratorum." The Portitores
were inferior collectors of certain dues, stationed at seaports, who
are supposed to have been extremely vexatious in their dealings with
the public.

[81] Philipp, 11-16.

[82] Let any who doubt this statement refer to the fate of the
inhabitants of Alesia and Uxellodunum. Caesar did not slay or torture
for the sake of cruelty, but was never deterred by humanity when
expediency seemed to him to require victims. Men and women, old and
young, many or few, they were sacrificed without remorse if his
purpose required it.

[83] Pro Pub. Quintio, ca.xxv.

[84] See Appendix B, Brutus, ca.xcii., xciii.

CHAPTER V.

CICERO AS QUAESTOR.

Cicero was elected Quaestor in his thirtieth year, B.C. 76. He was
then nearly thirty-one. His predecessors and rivals at the bar, Cotta
and Hortensius, were elected Consul and Praetor, respectively, in the
same year. To become Quaestor at the earliest age allowed by the law
(at thirty-one, namely) was the ambition of the Roman advocate who
purposed to make his fortune by serving the State. To act as Quaestor
in his thirty-second year, Aedile in his thirty-seventh, Praetor in
his forty-first, and Consul in his forty-fourth year, was to achieve,
in the earliest succession allowed by law, all the great offices of
trust, power, and future emolument. The great reward of proconsular
rapine did not generally come till after the last step, though
there were notable instances in which a Propraetor with proconsular
authority could make a large fortune, as we shall learn when we come
to deal with Verres, and though Aediles, and even Quaestors, could
find pickings. It was therefore a great thing for a man to begin as
early as the law would permit, and to lose as few years as possible in
reaching the summit. Cicero lost none. As he himself tells us in the
passage to which I have referred in the last chapter, and which is to
be found in the Appendix, he gained the good-will of men--that is, of
free Romans who had the suffrage, and who could therefore vote either
for him or against him--by the assiduity of his attention to the cases
which he undertook, and by a certain brilliancy of speech which was
new to them.[85] Putting his hand strenuously to the plough, allowing
himself to be diverted by none of those luxuries to which Romans
of his day were so wont to give way, he earned his purpose by a
resolution to do his very best. He was "Novus Homo"--a man, that is,
belonging to a family of which no member had as yet filled high office
in the State. Against such there was a strong prejudice with the
aristocracy, who did not like to see the good things of the Republic
dispersed among an increased number of hands.

The power of voting was common to all Roman male citizens; but the
power of influencing the electors had passed very much into the hands
of the rich. The admiration which Cicero had determined to elicit
would not go very far, unless it could be produced in a very high
degree. A Verres could get himself made Praetor; a Lepidus some years
since could receive the Consulship; or now an Antony, or almost a
Catiline. The candidate would borrow money on the security of his own
audacity, and would thus succeed--perhaps with some minor gifts of
eloquence, if he could achieve them. With all this, the borrowing and
the spending of money, that is, with direct bribery, Cicero would have
nothing to do; but of the art of canvassing--that art by which he
could at the moment make himself beloved by the citizens who had a
vote to give--he was a profound master.

There is a short treatise, De Petitione Consulatus, on canvassing for
the Consulship, of which mention may be made here, because all the
tricks of the trade were as essential to him, when looking to be
Quaestor, as when he afterward desired to be Consul, and because the
political doings of his life will hurry us on too quickly in the days
of his Consulship to admit of our referring to these lessons. This
little piece, of which we have only a fragment, is supposed to have
been addressed to Cicero by his brother Quintus, giving fraternal
advice as to the then coming great occasion. The critics say that
it was retouched by the orator himself. The reader who has studied
Cicero's style will think that the retouching went to a great extent,
or that the two brothers were very like each other in their power of
expression.

The first piece of advice was no doubt always in Cicero's mind, not
only when he looked for office, but whenever he addressed a meeting of
his fellow-citizens. "Bethink yourself what is this Republic; what it
is you seek to be in it, and who you are that seek it. As you go down
daily to the Forum, turn the answer to this in your mind: 'Novus sum;
consulatum peto; Roma est'--'I am a man of an untried family. It is
the Consulship that I seek. It is Rome in which I seek it.'" Though
the condition of Rome was bad, still to him the Republic was the
greatest thing in the world, and to be Consul in that Republic the
highest honor which the world could give.

There is nobility in that, but there is very much that is ignoble in
the means of canvassing which are advocated. I cannot say that they
are as yet too ignoble for our modern use here in England, but they
are too ignoble to be acknowledged by our candidates themselves, or
by their brothers on their behalf. Cicero, not having progressed far
enough in modern civilization to have studied the beauty of truth, is
held to be false and hypocritical. We who know so much more than he
did, and have the doctrine of truth at our fingers' ends, are wise
enough to declare nothing of our own shortcomings, but to attribute
such malpractices only to others. "It is a good thing to be thought
worthy of the rank we seek by those who are in possession of it." Make
yourself out to be an aristocrat, he means. "Canvass them, and cotton
to them. Make them believe that in matters of politics you have always
been with the aristocracy, never with the mob;" that if "you have at
all spoken a word in public to tickle the people, you have done so for
the sake of gaining Pompey." As to this, it is necessary to understand
Pompey's peculiar popularity at the moment, both with the Liberals and
with the Conservatives. "Above all, see that you have with you the
'jeunesse doree.' They carry so much! There are many with you already.
Take care that they shall know how much you think of them."

He is especially desired to make known to the public the iniquities of
Catiline, his opponent, as to whom Quintus says that, though he has
lately been acquitted in regard to his speculations in Africa, he has
had to bribe the judges so highly that he is now as poor as they were
before they got their plunder. At every word we read we are tempted
to agree with Mommsen that on the Roman oligarchy of the period no
judgment can be passed save one, "of inexorable condemnation."[86]

"Remember," says Quintus, "that your candidature is very strong in
that kind of friendship which has been created by your pleadings. Take
care that each of those friends shall know what special business is
allotted to him on the occasion; and as you have not troubled any of
them yet, make them understand that you have reserved for the present
moment the payment of their debts." This is all very well; but the
next direction mingles so much of business with its truth, that no one
but Machiavelli or Quintus Cicero could have expressed it in words.
"Men," says Quintus, "are induced to struggle for us in these
canvassings by three motives--by memory of kindness done, by the hope
of kindness to come, and by community of political conviction. You
must see how you are to catch each of these. Small favors will induce
a man to canvass for you; and they who owe their safety to your
pleadings, for there are many such, are aware that if they do not
stand by you now they will be regarded by all the world as sorry
fellows. Nevertheless, they should be made to feel that, as they are
indebted to you, you will be glad to have an opportunity of becoming
indebted to them. But as to those on whom you have a hold only by
hope--a class of men very much more numerous, and likely to be very
much more active--they are the men whom you should make to understand
that your assistance will be always at their command."

How severe, how difficult was the work of canvassing in Rome, we learn
from these lessons. It was the very essence of a great Roman's life
that he should live in public; and to such an extent was this carried
that we wonder how such a man as Cicero found time for the real work
of his life. The Roman patron was expected to have a levee every
morning early in his own house, and was wont, when he went down into
the Forum, to be attended by a crowd of parasites. This had become
so much a matter of course that a public man would have felt himself
deserted had he been left alone either at home or abroad. Rome was
full of idlers--of men who got their bread by the favors of the
great, who lounged through their lives--political quidnuncs, who made
canvassing a trade--men without a conviction, but who believed in the
ascendency of this or the other leader, and were ready to fawn or to
fight in the streets, as there might be need. These were the Quirites
of the day--men who were in truth fattened on the leavings of the
plunder which was extracted from the allies; for it was the case now
that a Roman was content to live on the industry of those whom his
father had conquered. They would still fight in the legions; but the
work of Rome was done by slaves, and the wealth of Rome was robbed
from the Provinces. Hence it came about that there was a numerous
class, to whom the name "assectatores" was given, who of course became
specially prominent at elections. Quintus divides all such followers
into three kinds, and gives instructions as to the special treatment
to be applied to each. "There are those who come to pay their respects
to you at your own house"--"Salutatores" they were called; "then those
who go down with you into the Forum"--"Deductores;" "and after these
the third, the class of constant followers"--"Assectatores," as
they were specially named. "As to the first, who are the least in
consequence, and who, according to our present ways of living, come in
great numbers, you should take care to let them know that their doing
even so much as this is much esteemed by you. Let them perceive that
you note it when they come, and say as much to their friends, who will
repeat your words. Tell themselves often if it be possible. In this
way men, when there are many candidates, will observe that there is
one who has his eyes open to these courtesies, and they will give
themselves heart and soul to him, neglecting all others. And mind you,
when you find that a man does but pretend, do not let him perceive
that you have perceived it. Should any one wish to excuse himself,
thinking that he is suspected of indifference, swear that you have
never doubted him, nor had occasion to doubt.

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