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Title: Cicero and his friends : A study of Roman society in the time of Caesar
Author: Boissier, Gaston
Language: English
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CICERO
AND HIS FRIENDS
_A STUDY OF ROMAN SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF CAESAR_
BY
GASTON BOISSIER
OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY
TRANSLATED, WITH AN INDEX AND TABLE OF CONTENTS, BY
ADNAH DAVID JONES
_THIRD EDITION_
LONDON
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION:
CICERO’S LETTERS 1
Importance of private correspondence in ancient times.
Characteristics of Cicero’s letters, 1
CICERO IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE:
I. PUBLIC LIFE 22
Severe judgments on Cicero in modern times, 22
i. Circumstances which determined Cicero’s political
attitude. Birth, philosophical ideas, character, 24
ii. Cicero’s political career. An opponent at first of the
aristocracy, 36. Attempts to form a middle party, 46.
The knights, 47. Finally joins the aristocratic party,
51
iii. Judgment on Cicero should be from the point of view of
his contemporaries, 51. Corrupt state of the Roman
people, 64
iv. Cicero’s work for the Republican party after the death
of Caesar, 69. His death, 77
II. PRIVATE LIFE 79
i. Sources of his wealth, 79
ii. His married life, 89
iii. His children, 100
iv. His relations to his slaves, 108. His clients, 113.
Rabirius, 116
ATTICUS 123
i. His reasons for not entering public life, 124. His life
at Athens, 127. His life in Rome, 132
ii. His character in private life, 134
iii. His character in public life, 147
CAELIUS:
THE ROMAN YOUTH IN THE TIME OF CAESAR 159
i. Family and education of Caelius, 160. Influence of women
at Rome, 163. Clodia, 166
ii. Character of Caelius, 176. Joins Caesar’s party, 184
iii. Caesar had no genuine friends, 191. Reasons of Caelius’
enmity to him, 197. His death, 206
CAESAR AND CICERO:
I. CICERO AND THE CAMP OF CAESAR IN GAUL 209
i. Cicero’s return to Rome, 210. State of the city, 211.
Leaves the aristocratic party and joins the triumvirs,
216
ii. Renews his intimacy with Caesar, 224. Pompey and Caesar
compared, 226. Caesar in Gaul, 230
iii. Cicero’s letters to his brother and to Trebatius
supplement the _Commentaries_, 241. Effect produced in
Rome by Caesar’s victories, 251
II. THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED 257
Cicero’s intention to retire from political life, 257
i. Resumes intercourse with Caesar, 260. The exiles
recalled through his influence, 268. The _Pro
Marcello_, 271
ii. Discussion between Cicero and Caesar as to Cato. Cato
not so hard as he is usually considered, his rectitude
made him unpractical, 277. Unfitted to lead a party,
284. Becomes more moderate, 285. His death, 287.
Contrasted with Caesar, 288
iii. Caesar wishes to conciliate the Republican party, 291.
Appoints members of it to public offices, 293. In
spite of this there was a profound discontent with the
new government, 297
BRUTUS:
HIS RELATIONS WITH CICERO 303
i. His family, education, and character, 304. His
friendship with Cicero, 308. Roman ideas of governing
the provinces, 311. Joins Pompey, 317
ii. Brutus’s prospects of high office destroyed by the
battle of Pharsalia. Turns to philosophy. Cicero does
the same and produces his philosophical works, 318
iii. Formation of a new Republican party, 329. Influences
brought to bear on Brutus in order to implicate him in
the conspiracy against Caesar, 330
iv. Causes of the failure of Brutus and his party, 339
OCTAVIUS:
THE POLITICAL TESTAMENT OF AUGUSTUS 359
The Ancyran Inscription, 361
i. The narrative intentionally incomplete, 364. Light
thrown by it on the internal government of Augustus,
368. Relations of Augustus with his soldiers, 369.
With the people, 372. With the senate, 373. His policy
in reconstructing public buildings, 377
ii. The preamble of the Edict of proscription and the
Ancyran Inscription, together, contain the political
life of Augustus, 381. Permanent effect of his policy
on the government of the empire, 386
iii. Publication of Cicero’s letters, 388
CICERO AND HIS FRIENDS
INTRODUCTION
CICERO’S LETTERS
No history is more readily studied now-a-days than that of the last
years of the Roman Republic. Learned works have recently been published
upon this subject in France, England, and Germany,[1] and the public has
read them with avidity. The importance of the subjects which were then
debated, the dramatic character of the events, and the grandeur of the
characters warrant this interest; but the attraction we feel for this
singular epoch is better explained by the fact that it is narrated for
us in Cicero’s letters.
A contemporary said that he who read these letters would not be tempted
to seek the history of that time[2] elsewhere, and in fact we find it
much more living and true in them than in regular works composed
expressly to teach it to us. What more would Asinius Pollio, Livy, or
Cremutius Cordus teach us if we had them preserved? They would give us
their personal opinion; but this opinion is for the most part open to
suspicion because it comes from persons who could not tell the whole
truth, from men like Livy, who wrote at the court of the emperors, or
who hoped, like Pollio, to get their treason pardoned, by blackening the
character of those whom they had betrayed. Instead of receiving a
ready-made opinion it is better to make one for ourselves, and the
perusal of Cicero’s letters enables us to do this. It throws us into the
midst of the events, and lets us follow them day by day. We seem to see
them pass before our eyes, notwithstanding the eighteen centuries that
intervene, and we find ourselves in the unique position of being
sufficiently near the facts to see their real character, and
sufficiently distant to judge them dispassionately.
The importance of these letters is easily explained. The politicians of
those times had more need of correspondence with each other than those
of the present day. The proconsul starting from Rome to govern some
distant province felt that he was withdrawing altogether from political
life. To pass several years in those out-of-the-way countries which the
public rumour of Rome did not reach, was very irksome to men accustomed
to the stir of business, the agitations of parties, or, as they said,
the broad daylight of the Forum. They did indeed receive a sort of
official gazette, the _Acta diurna_, the venerable ancestor of our
_Moniteur_. But it appears as though every official journal is condemned
by its nature to be somewhat insignificant. The Roman journal contained
a rather tame official report of public meetings, a short summary of
important cases tried in the Forum, besides an account of public
ceremonies and accurate notice of atmospheric phenomena or prodigies
occurring in Rome or its neighbourhood. This is not precisely the sort
of news that a praetor or proconsul wished to know, and therefore, in
order to fill up the gaps in the official journal, he had recourse to
paid correspondents, who made “news-letters” for the use of inquisitive
provincials, as was the fashion among ourselves in the last century; but
while, in the eighteenth century, literary men of reputation, intimate
with the nobles and well received by ministers, undertook this duty, the
Roman correspondents were only obscure compilers, workmen as Caelius
calls them, usually chosen among those hungry Greeks whom want made
ready for anything. They had no admittance into the great houses, nor
could they approach the politicians. Their part simply consisted in
running over the town and picking up what they heard or saw in the
streets. They carefully noted theatrical chit-chat, inquired about
actors who had been hissed and gladiators who had been beaten, described
minutely handsome funerals, noted the rumours and ill-natured gossip,
and especially the scandalous tales they could catch.[3] All this
chatter amused for a moment, but did not satisfy those political
personages who wished above all to be kept abreast of affairs, and, in
order to become acquainted with them, they naturally applied to some one
who was in a position to know them. They chose a few trustworthy and
well-informed friends of good position, and through them learnt the
reason and the real character of the facts reported dryly and without
comment by the journals; and while their paid correspondents gave them
only the talk of the town, the others introduced them into the cabinets
of the high politicians, and made them listen to their most private
conversations.
No one felt this need of being kept informed of everything, and, so to
say, of living in the midst of Rome after he had left it, more than
Cicero. No one liked that excitement of public life which statesmen
complain of when they possess it, and never cease to regret when they
have lost it, more than he. We must not believe him too readily when he
says that he is tired of the stormy discussions of the senate; that he
seeks a country where they have not heard of Vatinius or Caesar, and
where they do not trouble themselves about agrarian laws; that he has an
anxious craving to go and forget Rome under the agreeable shades of
Arpinum, or in the delightful neighbourhood of Formiae. As soon as he is
settled down at Formiae or Arpinum, or in some other of those handsome
villas which he proudly calls the gems of Italy, _ocellos Italiae_, his
thoughts naturally return to Rome, and couriers are constantly starting
to go and learn what people are thinking and doing there. He could never
take his eyes off the Forum, whatever he may say. Far or near he must
have what Saint-Simon calls “that smack of business that politicians
cannot do without.” He wished by all means to know the position of
parties, their secret agreements, their internal discords, all those
hidden intrigues that lead up to events and explain them. This is what
he was continually demanding of Atticus, Curio, Caelius, and so many
other great men mixed up in these intrigues either as actors or
spectators, and what he himself narrates to his absent friends in the
most lively manner, and thus the letters that he received or sent
contain, without his intending it, all the history of his time.[4]
The correspondence of political men of our time, when it is published,
is far from having the same importance, because the exchange of
sentiment and thought is not made so much by means of letters now as it
was then. We have invented new methods. The immense publicity of the
press has advantageously replaced those cautious communications which
could not reach beyond a few persons. Now-a-days the newspapers keep a
man informed of what is doing in the world, whatever unfrequented place
he may have retired to. As he learns events almost as soon as they
happen, he receives the excitement as well as the news of them, and has
no need of a well-informed friend to apprise him of them. To seek for
all that the newspapers have destroyed and replaced among us would be an
interesting study. In Cicero’s time letters often took their place and
rendered the same services. They were passed from hand to hand when they
contained news men had an interest in knowing; and those of important
persons which made known their sentiments were read, commented on, and
copied. A politician, who was attacked, defended himself by them before
people whose esteem he desired to preserve, and through them men tried
to form a sort of public opinion in a limited public when the Forum was
silent, as in Caesar’s time. The newspapers have taken up this duty now
and make a business of politics, and as they are incomparably more
convenient, rapid, and diffused, they have taken from correspondence one
of its principal subjects.
It is true that private affairs remain for it, and we are tempted to
think at first that this subject is inexhaustible, and that with the
sentiments and affections of so many kinds that fill our home life it
would always be rich enough. Nevertheless, I think that private
correspondence becomes every day shorter and less interesting, where it
is only a question of feeling and affection. That constant and agreeable
intercourse which filled so large a place in the life of former times,
tends almost to disappear, and one would say that by a strange chance
the facility and rapidity of intercourse, which ought to give it more
animation, have been injurious to it. Formerly, when there was no post,
or when it was reserved for the emperor’s use, as with the Romans, men
were obliged to take advantage of any opportunity that occurred, or to
send their letters by a slave. Then writing was a serious affair. They
did not want the messenger to make a useless journey; letters were made
longer and more complete to avoid the necessity of beginning again too
often; unconsciously they were more carefully finished, by the thought
we naturally give to things that cost trouble and are not very easy.
Even in the time of Madame de Sévigné, when the mails started only once
or twice a week, writing was still a serious business to which every
care was given. The mother, far from her daughter, had no sooner sent
off her letter than she was thinking of the one she would send a few
days later. Thoughts, memories, regrets gathered in her mind during this
interval, and when she took up her pen “she could no longer govern this
torrent.” Now, when we know that we can write when we will, we do not
collect material as Madame de Sévigné did, we do not write a little
every day, we no longer seek to “empty our budget,” or torment ourselves
in order to forget nothing, lest forgetfulness should make the news
stale by coming too late. While the periodical return of the post
formerly brought more order and regularity into correspondence, the
facility we have now for writing when we will causes us to write less
often. We wait to have something to say, which is seldomer than one
thinks. We write no more than is necessary; and this is very little for
a correspondence whose chief pleasure lies in the superfluous, and we
are threatened with a reduction of that little. Soon, no doubt, the
telegraph will have replaced the post; we shall only communicate by this
breathless instrument, the image of a matter-of-fact and hurried
society, which, even in the style it employs, tries to use a little less
than what is necessary. With this new progress the pleasure of private
correspondence, already much impaired, will have disappeared for ever.
But when people had more opportunities for writing letters, and wrote
them better, all did not succeed equally. Some dispositions are fitter
for this work than others. People whose minds move slowly, and who have
need of much reflection before writing, make memoirs and not letters.
The sober-minded write in a regular and methodical manner, but they lack
grace and warmth. Logicians and reasoners have the habit of following up
their thoughts too closely; now, one ought to know how to pass lightly
from one subject to another, in order that the interest may be
sustained, and to leave them all before they are exhausted. Those who
are solely occupied with one idea, who concentrate themselves on it, and
will not leave it, are only eloquent when they speak of it, which is not
enough. To be always agreeable, and on all subjects, as a regular
correspondence demands, one must have a lively and active imagination
which receives the impressions of the moment and changes abruptly with
them. This is the first quality of good letter writers; I will add to
it, if you like, a little artifice. Writing always requires a certain
effort. To succeed in writing we must aim at success, and the
disposition to please must precede the wish to do so. It is natural
enough to wish to please that great public for whom books are written,
but it is the mark of a more exacting vanity to exert one’s powers for a
single person. It has often been asked since La Bruyère, why women
succeed better than men in this kind of writing? Is it not because they
have a greater desire to please and a natural vanity which is, so to
say, always under arms, which neglects no conquest, and feels the need
of making efforts to please everybody?
I think nobody ever possessed these qualities in the same degree as
Cicero. That insatiable vanity, that openness to impressions, that
easiness in letting himself be seized and mastered by events, are found
in his whole life and in all his works. It seems, at first sight, that
there is a great difference between his letters and his speeches, and we
are tempted to ask ourselves how the same man has been able to succeed
in styles so opposed; but astonishment ceases as soon as we look a
little closer. When we seek the really original qualities of his
speeches they are found to be altogether the same that charm us in his
letters. His commonplaces have got rather old, his pathos leaves us
cold, and we often find that there is too much artifice in his rhetoric,
but his narrations and portraits remain living in his speeches. It would
be difficult to find a greater talent than his for narrative and
description, and for representing to the life as he does both events and
men. If he shows them to us so clearly, it is because he has them
himself before his eyes. When he shows us the trader Cherea “with his
eyebrows shaved, and that head which smells of tricks, and in which
malignity breathes,”[5] or the praetor Verres taking an airing in a
litter with eight bearers, like a king of Bithynia, softly lying on
Malta roses,[6] or Vatinius rushing forth to speak, “his eyes starting,
his neck swollen, his muscles stretched,”[7] or the Gallic witnesses,
who walk about the Forum with an air of triumph and head erect,[8] or
the Greek witnesses who chatter without ceasing and gesticulate with the
shoulders,[9] all those characters, in fine, that when once they have
been met with in his works are never forgotten, his powerful and mobile
imagination sees them before painting them. He possesses in a wonderful
degree the faculty of making himself the spectator of what he narrates.
Things strike him, persons attract or repel him with an incredible
vivacity, and he throws himself entirely into the pictures he makes of
them. What passion there is in his narratives! What furious bursts of
anger in his attacks! What frenzy of joy when he describes some ill
fortune of his enemies! How one feels that he is penetrated and
overwhelmed with it, that he enjoys it, that he delights in it and
gloats over it, according to his energetic expressions: _his ego rebus
pascor, his delector, his perfruor!_[10] Saint-Simon, intoxicated with
hatred and joy, expresses himself almost in the same terms in the famous
scene of the “bed of justice,” when he sees the Duke of Maine struck
down and the bastards discrowned. “I, however,” says he, “was dying with
joy, I was even fearing a swoon. My heart, swelled to excess, found no
room to expand.... I triumphed, I avenged myself, I swam in my
vengeance.” Saint-Simon earnestly desired power, and twice he thought he
held it; “but the waters, as with Tantalus, retired from his lips every
time he thought to touch them.” I do not think, however, that we ought
to pity him. He would have ill filled the place of Colbert and Louvois,
and even his good qualities perhaps would have been hurtful to him.
Passionate and irritable, he feels warmly the slightest injury, and
flies into a passion at every turn. The smallest incidents excite him,
and we feel that when he relates them he does so with all his heart.
This ardent sensitiveness which warms all his narratives has made him an
incomparable painter, but as it would always have confused his judgment
it would have made him an indifferent politician. Cicero’s example shows
this well.
We are right then in saying that we find the same qualities in Cicero’s
speeches as in his letters, but they are more evident in his letters,
because he is freer and gives more play to his feelings. When he writes
to any of his friends, he does not reflect so long as when he is to
address the people; he gives his first impressions, and gives them with
life and passion as they rise in him. He does not take the trouble to
polish his style; all that he writes has usually such a graceful air,
something so easy and simple that we cannot suspect preparation or
artifice. A correspondent who wished to please him, having spoken to him
one day of the thunders of his utterance, _fulmina verborum_, he
answered: “What do you think then of my letters? Do you not think that I
write to you in the ordinary style? One must not always keep the same
tone. A letter cannot resemble a pleading or a political speech ... one
uses every-day expressions in it.”[11] Even if he had wished to give
more care to them he could not have found leisure. He had so many to
write to content everybody! Atticus alone sometimes received three in
the same day. So he wrote them where he could—during the sitting of the
senate, in his garden, when he is out walking, on the high-road when he
is travelling. Sometimes he dates them from his dining-room, where he
dictates them to his secretaries between two courses. When he writes
them with his own hand he does not give himself time to reflect any the
more. “I take the first pen I find,” he tells his brother, “and use it
as if it were good.”[12] Thus it was not always easy to decipher him.
When any one complains he does not lack excuses. It is the fault of his
friends’ messengers, who will not wait. “They come all ready to start,
with their travelling caps on, saying that their companions are waiting
for them at the door.”[13] Not to keep them waiting, he must write at
random all that comes into his mind.
Let us thank these impatient friends, these hurried messengers who did
not give Cicero time to make eloquent essays. His letters please us
precisely because they contain the first flow of his emotions, because
they are full of graceful negligence and naturalness. As he does not
take time to disguise himself we see him as he is. His brother said to
him one day, “I saw your own self in your letter.”[14] We are inclined
to say the same thing ourselves every time we read him. If he is so
lively, earnest, and animated when he addresses his friends, it is
because he so easily transports himself in imagination to the places
where they are. “I feel as though I were talking to you,”[15] he writes
to one of them. “I don’t know how it happens,” he says to another, “that
I think I am near you while writing to you.”[16] He gives way to his
passing emotions in his letters even more than in his speeches. When he
arrives at one of his fine country houses that he likes so much, he
gives himself up to the pleasure of seeing it again; it has never seemed
to him so fine. He visits his porticoes, his gymnasia, his garden seats;
he runs to his books, ashamed of having left them. Love of solitude
seizes him so strongly that he never finds himself sufficiently alone.
He ends by disliking his house at Formiae because there are so many
intruders. “It is not a villa,” he says, “it is a public lounge.”[17]
There he finds again the greatest bores in the world, his friend Sebosus
and his friend Arrius, who persists in not returning to Rome, however
much he may entreat him, in order to keep him company and philosophize
with him all day long. “While I am writing to you,” he says to Atticus,
“Sebosus is announced. I have not finished lamenting this when I hear
Arrius saluting me. Is this leaving Rome? What is the use of flying from
others to fall into the hands of these?” I wish, he adds, quoting a fine
verse very likely borrowed from his own works, “I wish to fly to the
mountains of my birthplace, the cradle of my infancy. _In montes patrios
et ad incunabula nostra._”[18] He goes in fact to Arpinum; he extends
his journey to Antium, the wild Antium, where he passes the time
counting the waves. This obscure tranquillity pleases him so much that
he regrets he was not duumvir in this little town rather than consul at
Rome. He has no higher ambition than to be rejoined by his friend
Atticus, to walk with him in the sun, or to talk philosophy “seated on
the little bench beneath the statue of Aristotle.” At this moment he
seems disgusted with public life, he will not hear speak of it. “I am
resolved to think no more about it,”[19] he says. But we know how he
kept this sort of promise. As soon as he is back in Rome he plunges into
the thick of politics; the country and its pleasures are forgotten. We
only detect from time to time a few passing regrets for a calmer life.
“When shall we live then?” _quando vivemus?_ says he sadly in this
whirlwind of business that hurries him on.[20] But these timorous
complaints are soon stifled by the noise and movement of the combat. He
enters and takes part in it with more ardour than anybody. He is still
excited by it when he writes to Atticus, its agitation is shown by his
letters which communicate it to us. We imagine ourselves looking on at
those incredible scenes that take place in the senate when he attacks
Clodius, sometimes by set speeches, sometimes by impetuous questions,
employing against him by turns the heaviest arms of rhetoric and the
lightest shafts of raillery. He is still more sprightly when he
describes the popular assemblies and recounts the scandals of the
elections. “Follow me to the Campus Martius, corruption is rampant,
_sequere me in Campum; ardet ambitus_.”[21] And he shows us the
candidates at work, purse in hand, or the judges in the Forum
shamelessly selling themselves to whoever will pay them, _judices quos
fames magis quam fama commovit_.
As he has the habit of giving way to his impressions and changing with
them, his tone varies from letter to letter. Nothing is more desponding
than those he writes in exile; they are a continual moan; but his
sentences suddenly become majestic and triumphant immediately after his
return from exile. They are full of those flattering superlatives that
he distributes so liberally to those who have served him, _fortissimus_,
_prudentissimus_, _exoptatissimus_, etc., he extols in magnificent terms
the marks of esteem given him by people of position, the authority he
enjoys in the Curia, the credit he has so gloriously reconquered in the
Forum, _splendorem ilium forensem, et in senatu auctoritatem et apud
viros bonos gratiam_.[22] Although he is only addressing his faithful
Atticus, we think we hear an echo of the set orations he has just
pronounced in the senate and before the people. It sometimes happens
that on the gravest occasions he smiles and jokes with a friend who
amuses him. In the thick of his conflict with Antony he writes that
charming letter to Papirius Poetus, in which he advises him in such a
diverting manner to frequent again the good tables, and to give good
dinners to his friends.[23] He does not defy dangers, he forgets them;
but let him meet some timorous person, he soon partakes his fear, his
tone changes at once; he becomes animated, heated; sadness, fear,
emotion carry him without effort to the highest flights of eloquence.
When Caesar threatens Rome, and insolently places his final conditions
before the senate, Cicero’s courage rises, and he uses, when writing to
a single person, those energetic figures of speech which would not be
out of place in a public oration. “What a fate is ours! Must we then
give way to his impudent demands! for so Pompey calls them. In fact has
a more shameless audacity ever been seen?—You have occupied for ten
years a province that the senate has not given you, but which you have
seized yourself by intrigue and violence. The term has arrived which
your caprice alone and not the law has fixed for your power.—But let us
suppose it was the law—the term having arrived, we name your successor,
but you resist and say, ‘Respect my rights.’ And you, what do you do to
ours? What pretext have you for keeping your army beyond the term fixed
by the people, in spite of the senate?—You must give way to me or
fight.—Well then! let us fight, answers Pompey, at least we have the
chance of conquering or of dying free men.”[24]
If I wished to find another example of this agreeable variety and these
rapid changes, I should not turn to Pliny or to those who, like him,
wrote their letters for the public, I should come down to Madame de
Sévigné. She, like Cicero, has a very lively and versatile imagination;
she gives way to her first emotions without reflection; she is caught by
things present, and the pleasure she is enjoying always seems the
highest. It has been remarked that she took pleasure everywhere, not
through that indolence of mind that attaches us to the place where we
are, to avoid the trouble of changing, but by the vivacity of her
character which gave her up entirely to the pleasures of the moment.
Paris does not charm her so much as to prevent her liking the country,
and no one of that age has spoken about nature better than this woman of
fashion who was so much at ease in drawing-rooms, and seemed made for
them. She escapes to Livry the first fine day to enjoy “the triumph of
May,” to “the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the warbler that begin the
spring in the woods.” But Livry is still too fashionable, she must have
a more complete solitude, and she cheerfully retires under her great
trees in Brittany. This time her Paris friends think she will be wearied
to death, having no news to repeat or fine wits to converse with. But
she has taken some serious moral treatise by Nicole with her; she has
found among those neglected books whose last refuge, like that of old
furniture, is the country, some romance of her young days which she
reads again secretly, and in which she is astonished still to find
pleasure. She chats with her tenants, and just as Cicero preferred the
society of the country people to that of the provincial fashionables,
she likes better to talk with her gardener Pilois than with “several who
have preserved the title of esquire in the parliament of Rennes.” She
walks in her Mall, in those solitary alleys where the trees covered with
fine-sounding mottoes almost seem as though they were speaking to each
other; she finds, in fact, so much pleasure in her desert that she
cannot make up her mind to leave it; nevertheless no woman likes Paris
better. Once back there she surrenders herself wholly to the pleasures
of fashionable life. Her letters are full of it. She takes impressions
so readily that we might almost tell in perusing them what books she has
just been reading, at what conversations she has been present, what
drawing-rooms she has just left. When she repeats so pleasantly to her
daughter the gossip of the court we perceive that she has just been
conversing with the graceful and witty Madame de Coulanges, who has
repeated it to her. When she speaks so touchingly of Turenne she has
just left the Hôtel de Bouillon, where the prince’s family are lamenting
his broken fortunes as well as his death. She lectures, she sermonizes
herself with Nicole, but not for long. Let her son come in and tell her
some of those gay adventures of which he has been the hero or the
victim, she recounts boldly the most risky tales on condition of saying
a little later, “Pardon us, Monsieur Nicole!” When she has been visiting
La Rochefoucauld everything turns to morality; she draws lessons from
everything, everywhere she sees some image of life and of the human
heart, even in the viper broth that they are going to give Madame de la
Fayette who is ill. Is not this viper, which though opened and skinned
still writhes, like our old passions? “What do we not do to them? We
treat them with insult, harshness, cruelty, disdain; we wrangle, lament,
and storm, and yet they move. We cannot overcome them. We think, when we
have plucked out their heart, that they are done with and we shall hear
no more of them. But no; they are always alive, they are always moving.”
This ease with which she receives impressions, and which causes her to
adopt so quickly the sentiments of the people she visits, makes her also
feel the shock of the great events she looks on at. The style of her
letters rises when she narrates them, and, like Cicero, she becomes
eloquent unconsciously. Whatever admiration the greatness of the
thoughts and the liveliness of expression in that fine piece of Cicero
upon Caesar that I quoted just now may cause me, I am still more
touched, I admit, by the letter of Madame de Sévigné on the death of
Louvois, and I find more boldness and brilliancy in that terrible
dialogue which she imagines between the minister who demands pardon and
God who refuses it.
These are admirable qualities, but they bring with them certain
disadvantages. Such hasty impressions are often rather fleeting. When
people are carried away by a too vivid imagination, they do not take
time to reflect before speaking, and run the risk of often having to
change their opinion. Thus Madame de Sévigné has contradicted herself
more than once. But being only a woman of fashion, her inconsistency has
not much weight, and we do not look on it as a crime. What does it
matter to us that her opinions on Fléchier and Mascaron have varied,
that after having unreservedly admired the _Princesse de Clèves_ when
she read it alone, she hastened to find a thousand faults in it when her
cousin Bussy condemned it? But Cicero is a politician, and he is
expected to be more serious. We demand that his opinions should have
more coherency; now, this is precisely what the liveliness of his
imagination least permits. He never boasted of being consistent. When he
judges events or men he sometimes passes without scruple, in a few days,
from one extreme to the other. In a letter of the end of October Cato is
called an excellent friend (_amicissimus_), and the way in which he has
acted is declared to be satisfactory; at the beginning of November he is
accused of having been shamefully malevolent in the same affair,[25]
because Cicero seldom judges but by his impressions, and in a mobile
spirit like his, very different but equally vivid impressions follow
each other very quickly.
Another danger, and one still greater, of this excess of imagination
which cannot control itself is that it may give us the lowest and most
false opinion of those who yield to it. Perfect characters are only
found in novels. Good and evil are so intermingled in our nature that
the one is seldom found without the other. The strongest characters have
their weaknesses, and the finest actions do not spring only from the
most honourable motives. Our best affections are not entirely exempt
from selfishness; doubts and wrongful suspicions sometimes trouble the
firmest friendships, and it may happen at certain moments that cupidity
and jealousy, of which one is ashamed the next day, flit rapidly through
the mind of the most honourable persons. The prudent and clever
carefully conceal all those feelings which cannot bear the light; those
whose quick impressions carry them away, like Cicero, speak out, and
they are very much blamed. The spoken or written word gives more
strength and permanence to these fugitive thoughts; they were only
flashes; they are fixed and accentuated by writing; they acquire a
clearness, a relief and importance that they had not in reality. Those
momentary weaknesses, those ridiculous suspicions which spring from
wounded self-esteem, those short bursts of anger, quieted as soon as
reflected on, those unjust thoughts that vexation produces, those
ambitious fits that reason hastens to disavow, never perish when once
they have been confided to a friend. One of these days a prying
commentator will study these too unreserved disclosures, and will use
them, to draw a portrait of the indiscrete person who made them, to
frighten posterity. He will prove by exact and irrefutable quotations
that he was a bad citizen and a bad friend, that he loved neither his
country nor his family, that he was jealous of honest people, and that
he betrayed all parties. It is not so, however, and a wise man will not
be deceived by the artifice of misleading quotations. Such a man well
knows that we must not take these impetuous people literally or give too
much credence to what they say. We must save them from themselves,
refuse to listen to them when they are led astray by passion, and
especially must we distinguish their real and lasting feelings from all
those exaggerations which are merely passing. For these reasons every
one is not fitted to thoroughly understand these letters, every one
cannot read them as they should be read. I mistrust those learned men
who, without any acquaintance with men or experience of life, pretend to
judge Cicero from his correspondence. Most frequently they judge him
ill. They search for the expression of his thought in that commonplace
politeness which society demands, and which no more binds those who use
it than it deceives those who accept it. Those concessions that must be
made if we wish to live together they call cowardly compromises. They
see manifest contradictions in those different shades a man gives to his
opinions, according to the persons he is talking with. They triumph over
the imprudence of certain admissions, or the fatuity of certain praises,
because they do not perceive the fine irony that tempers them. To
appreciate all these shades, to give things their real importance, to be
a good judge of the drift of those phrases which are said with half a
smile, and do not always mean what they seem to say, requires more
acquaintance with life than one usually gets in a German university. If
I must say what I think, I would rather trust a man of the world than a
scholar in this matter, for a delicate appreciation.
Cicero is not the only person whom this correspondence shows us. It is
full of curious details about all those who had friendly or business
relations with him. They were the most illustrious persons of the time,
and they played the chief parts in the revolution that put an end to the
Roman Republic. No one deserves to be studied more than they. It must be
remarked here, that one of Cicero’s failings has greatly benefited
posterity. If it were a question of some one else, of Cato for instance,
how many people’s letters would be missing in this correspondence! The
virtuous alone would find a place in it, and Heaven knows their number
was not then very great. But, happily, Cicero was much more tractable,
and did not bring Cato’s rigorous scruples into the choice of his
friends. A sort of good-nature made him accessible to people of every
opinion; his vanity made him seek praise everywhere. He had dealings
with all parties, a great fault in a politician, for which the shrewd
people of his time have bitterly reproached him, but a fault that we
profit by; hence it happens that all parties are represented in his
correspondence. This obliging humour sometimes brought him into contact
with people whose opinions were the most opposite to his, and he found
himself at certain times in close relations with the worst citizens whom
he has at other times lashed with his invectives. Letters that he had
received from Antony, Dolabella, and Curio still remain, and these
letters are full of expressions of respect and friendship. If the
correspondence went further back we should probably have some of
Catiline’s, and, frankly, I regret the want of them; for if we wish to
judge of the state of a society as of the constitution of a man, it is
not enough to examine the sound parts, we must handle and probe to the
bottom the unsound parts. Thus, all the important men of that time,
whatever their conduct may have been, or to whatever party they may have
belonged, had dealings with Cicero. Memorials of all are found in his
correspondence. A few of their letters still exist, and we have a large
number of those that Cicero wrote to them. The private details he gives
us about them, what he tells us of their opinions, their habits, and
character, allows us to enter freely into their life. Thanks to him, all
those persons indistinctly depicted by history resume their original
appearance; he seems to bring them nearer to us and to make us
acquainted with them; and when we have read his correspondence we can
say that we have just visited the whole Roman society of his time.
The end we have in view in this book is to study closely a few of these
personages, especially those who were most involved in the great
political events of that period. But before beginning this study it is
necessary to make a firm resolution not to bring to it considerations
which belong to our own time. It is too much the custom now-a-days to
seek arms for our present struggles in the history of the past. Smart
allusions and ingenious parallels are most successful. Perhaps Roman
antiquity is so much in fashion only because it gives political parties
a convenient and less dangerous battle-field where, under ancient
costumes, present-day passions may struggle. If the names of Caesar,
Pompey, Cato, and Brutus are quoted on all occasions, these great men
must not be too proud of the honour. The curiosity they excite is not
altogether disinterested, and when they are spoken of it is almost
always to point an epigram or set off a flattery. I wish to avoid this
mistake. These illustrious dead seem to me to deserve something better
than to serve as instruments in the quarrels that divide us, and I have
sufficient respect for their memory and their repose not to drag them
into the arena of our every-day disputes. It should never be forgotten
that it is an outrage to history to subject it to the changing interest
of parties, and that it should be, according to the fine expression of
Thucydides, a work made for eternity.
These precautions being taken, let us penetrate with Cicero’s letters
into the Roman society of that great period, and let us begin by
studying him who offers himself so gracefully to do us the honours.
CICERO IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE
I
CICERO’S PUBLIC LIFE
Cicero’s public life is usually severely judged by the historians of our
time. He pays the penalty of his moderation. As this period is only
studied now with political intentions, a man like him who tried to avoid
extremes fully satisfies nobody. All parties agree in attacking him; on
all sides he is laughed at or insulted. The fanatical partisans of
Brutus accuse him of timidity, the warmest friends of Caesar call him a
fool. It is in England and amongst us[26] that he has been least abused,
and that classical traditions have been more respected than elsewhere;
the learned still persist in their old habits and their old admirations,
and in the midst of so many convulsions criticism at least has remained
conservative. Perhaps also the indulgence shown to Cicero in both
countries comes from the experience they have of political life. When a
man has lived in the practice of affairs and in the midst of the working
of parties, he can better understand the sacrifices that the necessities
of the moment, the interest of his friends and the safety of his cause
may demand of a statesman, but he who only judges his conduct by
inflexible theories thought out in solitude and not submitted to the
test of experience becomes more severe towards him. This, no doubt, is
the reason why the German scholars use him so roughly. With the
exception of M. Abeken,[27] who treats him humanely, they are without
pity. Drumann[28] especially overlooks nothing. He has scrutinized his
works and his life with the minuteness and sagacity of a lawyer seeking
the grounds of a lawsuit. He has laid bare all his correspondence in a
spirit of conscientious malevolence. He has courageously resisted the
charm of those confidential disclosures which makes us admire the writer
and love the man in spite of his weaknesses, and by opposing to each
other detached fragments of his letters and discourses he has succeeded
in drawing up a formal indictment, in which nothing is omitted and which
almost fills a volume. M. Mommsen[29] is scarcely more gentle, he is
only less long. Taking a general view of things he does not lose himself
in the details. In two of those compact pages full of facts, such as he
knows how to write, he has found means to heap on Cicero more insults
than Drumann’s whole volume contains. We see particularly that this
pretended statesman was only an egotist and a short-sighted politician,
and that this great writer is only made up of a newspaper novelist and a
special-pleader. Here we perceive the same pen that has just written
down Cato a Don Quixote and Pompey a corporal. As in his studies of the
past he always has the present in his mind, one would say that he looks
for the squireens of Prussia in the Roman aristocracy, and that in
Caesar he salutes in advance that popular despot whose firm hand can
alone give unity to Germany.
How much truth is there in these fierce attacks? What confidence can we
place in this boldness of revolutionary criticism? What judgment must we
pronounce on Cicero’s political conduct? The study of the facts will
teach us.
I.
Three causes generally contribute to form a man’s political opinions—his
birth, his personal reflections, and his temperament. If I were not
speaking here of sincere convictions only, I would readily add a fourth,
which causes more conversions than the others, namely interest, that is
to say, that leaning one has almost in spite of oneself to think that
the most advantageous course is also the most just, and to conform one’s
opinion to the position one holds or wishes for. Let us try and discover
what influence these causes had upon Cicero’s conduct and political
preferences.
At Rome, for a long time past, opinions had been decided by birth. In a
city where traditions were so much respected the ideas of parents were
inherited as well as their property or their name, and it was a point of
honour to follow their politics faithfully; but in Cicero’s time these
customs were beginning to decay. The oldest families had no scruple in
failing in their hereditary engagements. At that time many names which
had become illustrious by defending popular interests are found in the
senatorial party, and the most audacious demagogue of that time bore the
name of Clodius. Besides, Cicero would never at any time have found
political direction in his birth. He belonged to an unknown family, he
was the first of his race to engage in public affairs, and the name he
bore did not commit him in advance to any party. In fact, he was not
born at Rome. His father lived in one of those little country municipia
of which the wits readily made fun, because doubtful Latin was spoken
and fine manners were not well known in them, but which, none the less,
were the strength and honour of the Republic. That rude but brave and
temperate people who inhabited the neglected cities of Campania, Latium,
and the Sabine country, and among whom the habits of rural life had
preserved something of the ancient virtue,[30] was in reality the Roman
people. That which filled the streets and squares of the great city,
spent its time in the theatre, took part in the riots of the Forum, and
sold its votes in the Campus Martius, was only a collection of freedmen
and foreigners among whom only disorder, intrigue, and corruption could
be learnt. Life was more honest and healthy in the municipia. The
citizens who inhabited them remained for the most part strangers to the
questions that were debated in Rome, and the rumour of public affairs
did not reach them. They were sometimes seen on the Campus Martius or
the Forum, when it was a question of voting for one of their
fellow-citizens, or of supporting him by their presence before the
tribunals; but usually they troubled themselves little about exercising
their rights, and stayed at home. They were none the less devoted to
their country, jealous of their privileges, even when they made no use
of them, proud of their title of Roman citizens, and much attached to
the Republican Government that had given it them. For them the Republic
had preserved its prestige because, living at a distance, they saw less
of its weaknesses and always recalled its ancient glory. Cicero’s
childhood was spent in the midst of these rural populations, as backward
in their ideas as in their manners. He learnt from them to love the past
more than to know the present. This was the first impression and the
first teaching he received from the places as from the people among whom
his early years were passed. Later, he spoke with emotion of that humble
house that his father had built near the Liris, and which recalled the
house of the old Curius[31] by its stern simplicity. I fancy that those
who lived in it must have thought themselves carried back a century, and
that in causing them to live among the memorials of the past, it gave
them the inclination and taste for old-fashioned things. If Cicero owed
anything to his birth it was this. He may have gained in his family
respect for the past, love of his country, and an instinctive preference
for the Republican Government, but he found in it no precise tradition,
no positive engagement with any party. When he entered political life he
was obliged to decide for himself, a great trial for an irresolute
character! And in order to choose among so many conflicting opinions it
was necessary early to study and reflect.
Cicero has embodied the results of his reflections and studies in
political writings, of which the most important, _The Republic_, has
only reached us in a very imperfect state. What remains of it shows that
he is here, as everywhere else, a fervent disciple of the Greeks. He
attaches himself by preference to Plato, and his admiration for him is
so strong that he often almost makes us think that he is content with
translating him. In general Cicero does not appear to care much for the
glory of originality. This is almost the only vanity he lacks. In his
correspondence there is a singular admission on this subject, which has
been freely used against him. In order to make his friend Atticus
understand how his works cost him so little trouble, he says: “I only
furnish the words, of which I have no lack”;[32] but Cicero, contrary to
his usual custom, calumniates himself here. He is not such a servile
translator as he wishes to make believe, and the difference between him
and Plato is great, especially in his political works. Their books bear,
indeed, the same title, but as soon as they are opened we perceive that
in reality they are quite unlike. It is the characteristic of a
speculative philosopher like Plato to consider the absolute end in
everything. If he wants to form a constitution, instead of studying the
people to be governed by it, he begins with some principle which reason
lays down, and follows it up with inflexible rigour to its logical
consequences. Thus he succeeds in forming one of those political systems
where everything is bound and held together, and which by their
admirable unity delight the mind of the sage who studies them as the
regularity of a fine building pleases the eye of those who look at it.
Unfortunately this kind of constitution, thought out in solitude and
cast all of a piece, is difficult of application. When it comes to be
put in practice unexpected resistance crops up on all sides. National
traditions, character, and recollections, all those social forces which
have been overlooked, will not submit to the severe laws imposed on
them. It is then perceived that these things cannot be moulded at will,
and since they absolutely refuse to give way, one must be prepared to
modify this constitution which seemed so fine when it was not put into
use. But here again the difficulty is great. It is not easy to change
anything in these compact and logical systems, where everything is so
skilfully arranged that one piece being disturbed throws the rest out of
gear. Besides, philosophers are naturally imperious and absolute; they
do not like to be thwarted. To avoid that opposition that provokes them,
to escape as much as possible the demands of reality, they imitate the
Athenian of whom Aristophanes speaks, who, despairing of finding here
below a republic to suit him, went to look for one in the clouds. They
also build castles in the air, ideal republics governed by imaginary
laws. They frame admirable constitutions, but they have the defect of
not applying to any particular country because they are made for the
whole human race.
Cicero did not act thus. He knew the public he addressed; he knew that
that grave and sensible race, so quick to seize the practical side of
things, would be ill-satisfied with these fancies, and so he does not
lose himself in these dreams of the ideal and the absolute. He does not
presume to make laws for the universe; he is thinking especially of his
own country and his own times, and although he appears to be drawing up
the plan of a perfect republic, that is to say, one that cannot exist,
it is plain that his eyes are fixed on a constitution which does really
exist. The following are very nearly his political theories. Of the
three forms of government usually distinguished, none altogether pleases
him when it is isolated. I need not speak of the absolute government of
a single man, he died in order to oppose that.[33]
The other two, government by all or by a few, that is to say democracy
and aristocracy, do not seem to him faultless either. It is difficult to
be quite contented with the aristocracy when one has not the advantage
of belonging to a great family. The Roman aristocracy, notwithstanding
the great qualities it displayed in the conquest and government of the
world, was supercilious and exclusive like others. The checks it had
suffered for a century, its visible decline, and the feeling it must
have had of its approaching end, far from curing its pride, rendered it
more intractable. Prejudices seem to become narrower and more inflexible
when they have but a short time to live. We know how our _émigrés_, face
to face with a victorious revolution, used up their last strength in
foolish struggles for precedence. In the same way the Roman nobility, at
the moment when the power was slipping from it, seemed to make a point
of exaggerating its defects, and of discouraging by its disdain the
respectable people who offered themselves to defend it. Cicero felt
himself drawn towards it by his taste for refinement of manners and
elegant pleasures; but he could not endure its insolence. Thus he always
kept up the ill-will of the discontented plebeian against it, even while
serving it. He knew very well that his birth was not overlooked, and
that he was called an upstart (_homo novus_), and in return he was never
tired of jesting about those fortunate people who do not need to have
any merit, who do not require to take trouble, and to whom the highest
places in the republic come while they are sleeping (_quibus omnia
populi romani beneficia dormientibus deferuntur_).[34]
But if aristocracy pleased him little, he liked popular government still
less. It is the worst of all, he said, anticipating Corneille,[35] and
in saying so he followed the opinion of the greater number of the Greek
philosophers, his masters, who have almost all shown a great aversion to
democracy. They were not only kept aloof from the multitude by the
nature of their studies, pursued in silence and solitude, but they
carefully shunned it lest they should partake of its errors and
prejudices. Their constant care was to keep themselves outside and above
it. The pride that this isolation nourished in them prevented them
seeing an equal in a man of the people, a stranger to those studies they
were so proud of. Thus the supremacy of numbers, which gives the same
importance to the unlearned as to the sage, was distasteful to them.
Cicero says positively that equality understood in this way is the
greatest inequality, _ipsa aequitas iniquissima est_.[36] This was not
the only nor even the greatest reproach that the Greek philosophers, and
Cicero with them, threw on democracy. They thought it was naturally
restless and turbulent, the enemy of meditation, and that it does not
give that leisure to the learned and the sage which is needful for the
works they are projecting. When Cicero thought of popular government, he
had in his mind only wrangles and faction-fights. He recalled the
plebeian riots and the stormy scenes of the Forum. He fancied he heard
those threatening complaints of the debtors and the needy which had
troubled the repose of the rich for three hundred years. How could any
one apply himself amidst this turmoil to studies which require peace and
quietness? The pleasures of the mind are interrupted every moment in
this reign of violence, which constantly drags people from the
tranquillity of their library into the public streets. This tumultuous
and unstable life was ill suited to such a firm friend of study, and if
the arrogance of the nobles sometimes threw him towards the popular
party, dislike of violence and noise did not allow him to remain in it.
What form of government then seemed to him the best? That which unites
them all in a just equilibrium—he says so very plainly in his
_Republic_. “I should wish that there be in the state a supreme and
royal power, that another part be reserved for the authority of the
chief citizens, and that certain things be left to the judgment and will
of the people.”[37] Now this mixed and limited government is not,
according to him, an imaginary system, like the republic of Plato. It is
in actual existence and working; it is that of his own country. This
opinion has been much contested. M. Mommsen thinks it agrees as little
with philosophy as with history. Taking it strictly, it is certainly
more patriotic than true. It would be going very far to consider the
Roman constitution as a faultless model, and to close our eyes to its
defects at the very moment when it perished through those very defects;
yet it must be admitted that, with all its imperfections, it was one of
the wisest of ancient times, and that none, perhaps, had made so many
efforts to satisfy the two great needs of society—order and liberty. Nor
can it be denied that its chief merit consisted in its effort to unite
and reconcile the different forms of government, notwithstanding their
obvious antagonisms. Polybius had perceived this before Cicero, and it
derives this merit from its origin and the way in which it was formed.
The constitution of Greece had almost all been the work of one man, the
Roman constitution was the work of time. That skilful balance of powers
that Polybius admired so much, had not been contrived by one foreseeing
mind. We do not find in the early times of Rome a single legislator who
regulated in advance the part each social element was to play in the
general combination; these elements combined by themselves. The
seditions of the plebeians, the desperate struggles of the tribunate
with the patricians, which terrified Cicero, had contributed more than
all the rest to complete that constitution that he admired. After a
struggle of nearly two hundred years, when the opposing forces perceived
that they were not able to destroy each other, they resigned themselves
to unite, and from the efforts they made to agree together there
resulted a government, imperfect doubtless—can there be a perfect
one?—but which is none the less the best, perhaps, of the ancient world.
We remember, of course, that Cicero did not bestow this praise on the
Roman constitution as it was in his time. His admiration went further
back. He recognized that it had been profoundly modified since the time
of the Gracchi, but he thought that before it had undergone these
alterations it was irreproachable. Thus the studies of his riper age
carried him back to those first impressions of his childhood, and
strengthened his love of ancient times and his respect for ancient
customs. As he advanced in life all his mistakes and all his misfortunes
threw him back to that time. The more the present was sad and the future
threatening the more he looked back with regret on the past. If he had
been asked in what time he would have wished to have been born, I think
he would have unhesitatingly chosen the period that followed the Punic
wars, that is to say, the moment when Rome, proud of her victory,
confident in the future and dreaded by the world, caught a glimpse for
the first time of the beauties of Greece, and began to feel the charm of
letters and the arts. Cicero considers this Rome’s best time, and places
in it by preference the scene of his dialogues. He would certainly have
liked to live among those great men whom he causes to speak so well, in
the company of Scipio, Fabius, and Cato the Elder, by the side of
Lucilius and Terence; and in this illustrious group, the personage whose
life and career would most have tempted him, he that he would have
wished to be, if a man could choose his time and order his destiny, was
the wise and learned Laelius.[38] To unite, like him, a high political
situation to the cultivation of literature, to add to the supreme
authority of eloquence some military successes, which the greatest
preachers of pacific triumphs do not disdain, to reach the highest
dignities of the republic in quiet and orderly times, and after an
honourable life to enjoy a respected old age—this was Cicero’s ideal.
What regrets and sadness does he not experience, when he wakes from this
fine dream to the disappointments of reality, and instead of living in a
tranquil republic, and in free intercourse with the Scipios, he must be
the rival of Catiline, the victim of Clodius, and the subject of Caesar.
Cicero’s temperament, I think, had still more to do with his political
preferences than his birth or his reflections. There is no more to learn
about the weaknesses of his character; they have been laid bare with
delight, they have even been wilfully exaggerated, and since Montaigne
it is the usual thing to laugh at them. I need not repeat, then, what
has been said so often, that he was timid, hesitating, and irresolute. I
admit with everybody that nature made him a man of letters rather than a
politician, but I do not think that this admission does him so much harm
as might be thought. The mind of the man of letters is often more
perfect, more comprehensive, broader than that of the politician, and it
is precisely this breadth that cramps and thwarts him when he undertakes
public affairs. We ask ourselves what qualities are necessary for a
statesman; would it not be wiser to seek those it is good for him to
lack, and does not political capacity show itself sometimes in its
limitations and exclusions? A man of action who ought to decide quickly
may be hampered by the number of contradictory reasons a too close and
penetrating view of things may present to him. A too vivid imagination,
showing him many plans at once, prevents him fixing on any.
Determination often comes from narrowness of mind, and is one of the
greatest virtues in a politician. A very sensitive conscience, by making
him too particular in the choice of his allies, would deprive him of
powerful support. He must distrust those generous impulses which lead
him to do justice even to his enemies: in the furious struggle for power
a man runs the risk of disarming himself and allowing an advantage to be
taken if he has the misfortune to be just and tolerant. There is nothing
that may not become a danger for him, even to that natural uprightness,
the first quality of a statesman. If he is too sensitive to the excesses
and acts of injustice of his party he will serve it feebly, if his
fidelity is to be unshaken he must not only excuse, he should be able to
shut his eyes to them. These are some of the imperfections of heart and
mind by which he gains his successes. If it be true, as I believe it is,
that the politician often succeeds in the government of a state through
his defects, and that the literary man fails by his very qualities, it
is paying the latter almost a compliment to say he is not fit for the
management of affairs.
We may say then without discrediting Cicero, that he was not altogether
fit for public life. The causes which made him an incomparable writer
did not allow him to be a good politician. That openness to impressions,
that delicate and irritable sensitiveness, the principal sources of his
literary talent, did not leave him sufficiently master of his will.
Particular events had too great a hold on him, and a man must be able to
detach himself from these in order to control them. His versatile and
fertile imagination, by drawing his attention to all sides at once,
rather incapacitated him for forming well-connected plans. He could not
delude himself enough about men or enterprises, and thus he was subject
to sudden fits of irresolution. He often boasted of having foreseen and
predicted the future. It was certainly not in his position of augur, but
by a kind of troublesome perspicacity, that showed him the consequences
of events, and the bad ones rather than the good. On the nones of
December, when he executed Catiline’s accomplices, he did not forget the
vengeance to which he exposed himself, and he foresaw his exile: that
day then, notwithstanding the irresolution he has been reproached with,
he had more courage than another who in a moment of excitement would not
have seen the danger. One cause of his inferiority and weakness was that
he was moderate, moderate by constitution rather than principle, that is
to say, with that nervous and irritable impatience which at last employs
violence to defend moderation. In political struggles all excess can
seldom be avoided. Usually parties are unjust in their complaints when
they are beaten, cruel in their reprisals when they conquer, and ready
to do without scruple, as soon as they are able, what they blame in
their enemies. If any in the victorious party perceive they are going
too far and dare to say so, they inevitably irritate everybody against
them. They are accused of timidity and vacillation, they are called weak
and changeable; but is this reproach well deserved? Did Cicero
contradict himself when, after defending the unfortunate men whom the
aristocracy oppressed under Sulla, he defended, thirty years later, the
victims of the democracy under Caesar? Was he not, on the contrary, more
consistent than those who, after bitterly complaining of being exiled,
exiled their enemies as soon as they had the power? We must, however,
admit that if this lively sense of justice is honourable in a private
man it may become dangerous in a politician. Parties do not like those
who refuse to join in their excesses, and in the midst of general
licence set up the claim of alone remaining within bounds. It was
Cicero’s misfortune not to have that firm resolution which fixes a man
in his opinions, and to pass from one opinion to another, because he saw
clearly the good and evil of all. A man must be very self-reliant to try
and do without others. This isolation takes for granted a decision and
energy that were wanting in Cicero. If he had resolutely attached
himself to one party he would have found in it traditions and fixed
principles, firm friends and steady leading, and need only have allowed
himself to be led. On the other hand, by endeavouring to walk alone he
risked making all the rest his enemies while he himself had no clearly
marked out line of conduct. A glance at the chief events of his
political life is sufficient to show that this was the origin of a part
of his misfortunes and his faults.
II.
What I have just said of Cicero’s character explains his early political
opinions. He first appeared in the Forum under the government of Sulla.
The aristocracy was then all-powerful, and strangely abused its power.
Having been conquered for a moment by Marius its reprisals had been
terrible. Tumultuous and indiscriminate massacres could not appease its
rage. Applying its cold and orderly spirit to murder itself, it had
invented proscription, which was only another way of organizing
assassination. After having thus satisfied its vengeance it began to
strengthen its authority. It had dispossessed the richest municipia of
Italy of their property, excluded the knights from the tribunals,
lessened the privileges of the popular comitia, deprived the tribunes of
the right of intervention, that is, it had levelled everything around
itself. When it had broken down all resistance by the death of its
enemies, and concentrated all power in itself, it solemnly declared that
the revolution was ended, that legal government would recommence, and
that “killing would cease after the kalends of June.” Notwithstanding
these pompous declarations, massacres still continued for a long time.
Assassins, protected by the freedmen of Sulla, who shared the profits
with them, went out by night into the dark and crooked streets of the
old city, even to the foot of the Palatine. They murdered rich men
returning home, and under some pretext or other obtained their property
from the courts of justice, no one daring to complain. Such was the
government under which men lived at Rome when Cicero pleaded his first
causes. A moderate man like him, to whom excess was distasteful, must
have had a horror of this violence. An aristocratic tyranny did not suit
him better than a popular tyranny. Before this abuse of authority that
the nobility allowed itself he felt himself naturally drawn to aid the
democracy, and he began his career in the ranks of its defenders.
He made a bold and splendid beginning. In the midst of that silent
terror that the memory of the proscriptions kept up, he dared to speak
out, and the universal silence gave a louder echo to his words. His
political importance dates from the defence of Roscius. This unfortunate
man, whose property had been first taken, and who had then been accused
of murdering his father, could find no defender. Cicero undertook his
defence. He was young and unknown, two great advantages in undertaking
these bold strokes, for obscurity diminishes the danger which a man
runs, and youth prevents the seeing it. He had no trouble in proving the
innocence of his client, who was accused without evidence; but this
success was not enough for him. It was known that one of the most
powerful freedmen of Sulla, the rich and voluptuous Chrysogonus, was the
hidden mover of the accusation. No doubt he thought the dread his name
inspired was a sufficient protection against the boldness of the
defence. Cicero dragged him into the case. Traces of the dismay that
seized the audience when they heard this dreaded name are perceptible in
his speech. The accusers were dumfoundered, the multitude remained
silent. The young orator alone seemed tranquil and self-possessed. He
smiled, he joked, he dared to jeer at those terrible men whom no one
else dared look in the face, because in doing so they thought of the two
thousand heads of knights and senators they had cut off. He does not
altogether respect the master himself. That surname, “the happy,” that
his flatterers had given him gave rise to a pun. “What man is _happy_
enough,” says he, “not to have some rascal in his train?”[39] This
rascal is no other than the all-powerful Chrysogonus. Cicero does not
spare him. He depicts his vulgar luxury and arrogance. He shows him
heaping up in his house on the Palatine all the precious objects that he
had taken from his victims, annoying the neighbourhood with the noise of
his singers and musicians, “or hovering about the Forum with his hair
well combed and shining with unguents.”[40] More serious accusations are
mingled with these jests. The word proscriptions is sometimes pronounced
in this speech, the memory and impression they have left is found
everywhere. We feel that the speaker, who has seen them, has his mind
full of the subject, and that the horror that he feels and that he
cannot master prevents him keeping silence whatever danger there may be
in speaking. This generous emotion shows itself every moment, in spite
of the reticence the neighbourhood of the proscribers imposes. Speaking
of their victims, he dares to say that they have been cruelly murdered,
though it was usual to attribute to them every kind of crime. He holds
up to public scorn and hatred the wretches who have enriched themselves
by these massacres, and with a successful pun calls them “cut-heads and
cut-purses.”[41] He then demands formally that an end should be put to
these proceedings, of which humanity was ashamed; “otherwise,” he adds,
“it would be better to go and live among wild beasts than to remain in
Rome.”[42]
Cicero spoke thus at a few paces from the man who had ordered the
proscriptions, and in the presence of those who had carried them out and
profited by them. We can imagine the effect his words must have
produced. They expressed the secret feelings of all, they relieved the
public conscience, forced to keep silence, and humiliated by its
silence. Thus the democratic party showed the most lively sympathy, from
that time, for the eloquent young man who protested so courageously
against a hateful rule. The remembrance of this preserved the popular
favour for him so faithfully even to the time of his consulship. Every
time he sought an office the citizens hastened in crowds to the Campus
Martius to record their votes for him. No politician of that time, and
there were many more eminent than he, so easily reached the highest
dignities. Cato suffered more than one check, Caesar and Pompey needed
coalitions and intrigues to succeed. Cicero is almost the only one whose
candidatures succeeded the first time, and who never had to recur to the
means usually required for success. In the midst of those scandalous
bargains which gave honours to the richest, notwithstanding those
deeprooted traditions which seemed to reserve them for the noblest,
Cicero, who had no claims of birth and but a small fortune, always
defeated all the rest. He was appointed quaestor, aedile; he obtained
the urban praetorship, which was the most honourable; he attained the
consulship the first time he sought for it, as soon as the law permitted
him to aspire to it, and none of these dignities cost anything either to
his honour or his fortune.
It is worthy of remark, that when he was appointed praetor he had not
delivered any political speech. Up to the age of forty years he was only
what we call an advocate, and had not felt the need of being anything
else. Forensic eloquence then led to everything; a few brilliant
successes before the tribunals were sufficient to carry a man to public
dignities, and nobody thought of asking Cicero for any other proof of
his capacity for public business, when they were about to commit the
highest interests of his country to his charge, and to invest him with
the supreme authority. However, if this long time passed at the bar was
not detrimental to his political career, I think it caused some injury
to his talents. All the reproaches we may address to the advocate of
to-day, wrongly, no doubt, were well deserved by the advocate of those
times. It may be said of him with truth, that he took all cases
indifferently, that he changed his opinion with each suit, that he used
all his art in and made his fame by finding good reasons for supporting
every sophism. The young man who devoted himself to oratory in the
ancient schools, never heard it said that it was necessary to be
convinced, and proper only to speak conscientiously. He was taught that
there are different kinds of cases, those which are honest and those
which are not so (_genera causarum sunt honestum, turpe_, etc.).[43] It
was not thought necessary to add that the latter were to be avoided. On
the contrary, by exaggerating the merit of success in these, he acquired
the taste for undertaking them by preference. After he had been taught
how to defend and save the guilty, he was, without hesitation, also
taught how to bring discredit on an honest man. Such was the education
received by the pupil of the rhetoricians, and when he had quitted their
schools he did not lack opportunity of applying their precepts. For
instance, he did not make the mistake of being moderate and restrained
in his attacks. By constraining himself to be just he would have
deprived himself of an element of success with that fickle and
passionate mob which applauded satirical portraits and violent
invective. He was not more prejudiced in favour of truth than of
justice. It was a precept of the schools to invent, even in criminal
causes, racy and imaginary details that diverted the audience (_causam
mendaciunculis adspergere_).[44] Cicero quotes with great commendation
some of these agreeable little lies which perhaps cost the honour or the
life of some unfortunate people who were unlucky enough to have too
witty opponents, and as he had himself a fertile imagination in this
way, he did not stint himself in having recourse to this easy means of
success. Nothing was more indifferent to the ancient advocate than being
inconsistent with himself. It was said that the orator Antonius never
would write any of his speeches, lest some one should take it into his
head to compare his late with his present opinion. Cicero had not these
scruples. He contradicted himself all his life, and was never uneasy
about it. One day, when he too openly stated the contrary to what he had
formerly upheld, as he was pressed to explain these sudden changes, he
answered without perturbation: “You are mistaken if you think that you
find the expression of our personal opinions in our speeches; they are
the language of the cause and the case, and not that of the man and the
orator.”[45] This at least is a sincere avowal; but how much do the
orator and the man not lose by thus suiting their language to
circumstances! They learnt to be careless of putting order and
consistency in their lives, to dispense with sincerity in their
opinions, and conviction in their speech, to make the same expenditure
of talent for untruth as for truth, to consider only the needs of the
moment, and the success of the case in hand. These are the lessons that
the bar of that age taught Cicero. He remained at it too long, and when
he quitted it at forty to make his first essay in political oratory, he
could not shake off the bad habits acquired there.
Does this mean that Cicero should be struck off the list of political
orators? If this name is given to every man whose speech has some
influence on the affairs of his country, who sways the mob, or convinces
honest people, it seems difficult to refuse it to Cicero. He knew how to
talk to the multitude and make himself listened to. At times he mastered
it in its most furious outbursts. He made it accept and even applaud
opinions contrary to its preferences. He seemed to drag it out of its
apathy, and to call up in it for a short time an appearance of energy
and patriotism. He is not to blame if his successes were not followed
up, if after these grand triumphs of eloquence brute force remained
master. At least he did with his words all that words could then do. I
admit, however, that what was wanting in his character was wanting also
in his political eloquence. It is nowhere sufficiently resolute,
decided, practical. It is too much taken up with itself, and not enough
with the questions it is treating. It does not attack them boldly on
their salient points. It is involved in pompous phrases, instead of
trying to speak that clear and precise language which is the language of
public business. When we examine it closely, and begin to analyze it, we
find that it is chiefly composed of a good deal of rhetoric and a little
philosophy. All those agreeable and smart arguments, all those artifices
of debate, and also all that ostentation of pathos that we find in it,
come from rhetoric. Philosophy has furnished those grand commonplaces
developed with talent, but not always germane to the subject. There is
too much artifice and method about it. A concise and simple statement
would be more suitable to the discussion of affairs than these
subtleties and emotions; these long philosophical tirades would be
advantageously replaced by a clear and judicious exposition of the
orator’s principles and of the general ideas that regulate his conduct.
Unfortunately, as I have said, Cicero preserved, on reaching the
rostrum, the habits he had acquired at the bar. He attacks, with the
arguments of an advocate, that agrarian law, so honest, moderate, and
wise, which was proposed by the tribune Rullus. In the fourth
Catilinarian Oration he had to discuss this question, one of the gravest
that can be placed before a deliberative assembly, namely, how far is it
permitted to deviate from legality in order to save one’s country? He
has not even approached it. It is painful to see how he hangs back from
it, how he flies from and avoids it, to develop small reasons and lose
himself in a vulgar pathos. The grave and serious kind of eloquence
evidently was not that which Cicero preferred, and in which he felt most
at ease. If you wish to know the real tendency of his talents, read,
immediately after the fourth Catilinarian Oration, the speech for
Muraena, delivered at the same time. There is none more agreeable in the
collection of his speeches, and we wonder how a man who was consul, and
who had then so many affairs on his hands, found his mind sufficiently
free to joke with so much ease and point; the truth is, there he was in
his element. Accordingly, although he was consul or consular, he
returned to the bar as often as he could. It was to oblige his friends,
he said. I think that he wished still more to please himself; he appears
happy, and his animation and wit expand so freely, when he has some
agreeable and lively case to plead. Not only did he never miss an
opportunity of appearing before the judges, but as much as possible he
threw his political discourses into the form of ordinary pleadings.
Everything turned into personal questions with him. The discussion of
ideas usually leaves him cold. He had to contend against some one in
order to let us see him at his best. The finest speeches he delivered in
the Forum or the senate are eulogies or invectives. In them he is
unrivalled; in them, according to one of his expressions, his eloquence
rises and triumphs; but however fine invectives and eulogies may be,
they are not altogether our ideal of political eloquence, and we demand
something else of it now-a-days. All that can be said in justification
of Cicero’s speeches is, that they were perfectly appropriate to his
time, and that their character is explained by the circumstances in
which they were delivered. Eloquence did not then guide the state as in
the best times of the republic. Other influences had replaced it; in the
elections, money and the intrigues of the candidates, in out-door
discussions, the occult and terrible power of the popular societies, and
above all the army, which, since Sulla, raised or overthrew every
government. Eloquence feels itself powerless in the midst of these
forces which overpower it. How can it still preserve the commanding
accent, the imperious and resolute tone of one who knows his power? Need
it appeal to reason and logic, and try and force itself upon men’s
convictions by a close and forcible argument, when it knows that the
questions it is treating are decided otherwise? M. Mommsen maliciously
remarks, that in most of his great political speeches Cicero pleads
causes already victorious. When he published the Verrine Orations, the
laws of Sulla on the composition of the tribunals had just been
abolished. He well knew that Catiline had decided to leave Rome when he
pronounced the first Catilinarian Oration, in which he so feelingly
adjures him to go away. The second Philippic, which seems so bold when
we think of it as spoken to the face of the all-powerful Antony, was
only made public at the moment when Antony was flying to Cisalpine Gaul.
Of what use then were all these fine speeches? They did not cause
decisions to be taken, since these decisions were already taken; but
they caused them to be accepted by the multitude, they stirred public
opinion and excited it in their favour: this was something. It was
necessary to accept the facts of the situation; speech no longer
governed, eloquence could no longer hope to direct events, but it acted
on them indirectly, it tried to produce those great movements of opinion
that prepare or complete them; “it does not secure votes and acts, it
arouses the emotions.”[46] If this moral effect is the only end it had
in view at the time, Cicero’s eloquence, by its copiousness and
splendour, by its brilliancy and pathos, was well calculated to attain
it.
At first he had put his eloquence at the service of the popular party;
we have seen that it was in the ranks of this party that he made his
first political appearance; but although he faithfully served it for
seventeen years, I am inclined to think that he did not always do so
heartily. The excesses of the aristocratic government threw him towards
democracy, but he must have found democracy not much wiser, especially
when it was victorious. It sometimes gave him terrible clients to
defend. He had to plead the cause of factious and seditious persons who
were always troubling the public peace. One day he even pleaded, or was
on the point of pleading, for Catiline. It is probable that all this was
painful to him, and that the violent excesses of democracy tempted him
more than once to separate from it. Unfortunately he did not know where
to go if he left it, and if the plebeians offended him by their
violence, the aristocracy, by its arrogance and prejudices, did not any
more attract him. Since in existing parties he did not find any which
exactly corresponded to his convictions, and which altogether suited his
disposition, he had no other resource than to form one for himself. This
is what he tried to do. When he felt that the brilliancy of his
eloquence, the offices he had filled, the popularity that surrounded
him, made him an important person, in order to assure his future, to
take a higher and more permanent position in the republic, to free
himself from the requirements of his former protectors, in order not to
be forced to stretch out his hand to his old enemies, he sought to
create a new party, composed of the moderate men of all parties, and of
which he was to be the head. But he very well understood that he could
not create this party in a moment and produce it from nothing. It was
necessary first to find a nucleus around which the new recruits that he
expected should group themselves. He thought he had found it in that
class of citizens to which he belonged by his birth, and who were called
the knights.
Rome always lacked what we now call the middle and citizen class. In
proportion as the small farmers left their friends to go and live in the
city, and “as those hands which had worked at the corn and the vine were
only occupied in applauding at the theatre and the circus,”[47] the gap
became greater between the opulent aristocracy which possessed almost
all the public wealth, and that indigent and famished people that was
continually recruited from the slaves. The sole intermediaries were the
knights. This name, at the time we are considering, was not only used to
describe the citizens to whom the state gave a horse (_equites equo
publico_), and who voted separately in the elections; it was also given
to all those who possessed the equestrian income qualification, that is
to say, those whose fortune exceeded 400,000 sesterces (£3200). We may
well believe that the nobility behaved haughtily to these obscure
plebeians whom chance or economy had enriched; it kept these parvenus at
a distance; dealt out its disdain to them as liberally as to the poor
people of the plebs, and obstinately closed the entrance to public
dignities to them. When Cicero was appointed consul it was thirty years
since a new man, whether knight or plebeian, had attained the
consulship. Removed from political life by the jealousy of the great
nobles, the knights were obliged to turn their energies elsewhere.
Instead of wasting time in useless candidatures, they busied themselves
in making their fortunes. When Rome had conquered the world, it was the
knights especially who profited by these conquests. They formed an
industrious and enlightened class, they were already in easy
circumstances, and able to make loans, and thought they could speculate
in the conquered countries for their own profit. Penetrating wherever
the Roman arms were carried, they became merchants, bankers, farmers of
the taxes, and amassed immense riches. As Rome was no longer the Rome of
the Curii and the Cincinnati, and dictators were no longer taken from
the plough, their wealth gave them consideration and importance. From
that time they were spoken of with more respect. The Gracchi, who wished
to make them allies in the struggle they were waging with the
aristocracy, caused it to be decided that the judges should be taken
from their ranks. Cicero went further; he tried to make them the
foundation of the great moderate party he wished to create. He knew that
he could count on their devotedness. He belonged to them by birth; he
had shed over them the splendour that surrounded his name; he had never
neglected to defend their interests before the tribunals or in the
senate. He also reckoned that they would be grateful to him for wishing
to augment their importance and call them to a great political future.
All these combinations of Cicero seemed at first to succeed very
happily; but, to tell the truth, the merit of this success was chiefly
due to circumstances. This great coalition of the moderates upon which
he congratulated himself as his finest work, almost succeeded under the
influence of fear. A social revolution seemed imminent. The dregs of all
the old parties, wretched plebeians and ruined nobles, old soldiers of
Marius, and proscribers of Sulla, had united under the leadership of a
bold and able chief, who promised them a new distribution of public
wealth. The existence of this party compelled those whom it threatened
to unite also in order to defend themselves. Fear was more efficacious
than the finest speeches would have been, and in this sense we may say
that Cicero was perhaps more indebted for this union which he regarded
as the main point of his policy to Catiline rather than to himself.
Community of interests, then, brought about, at least for a time, a
reconciliation of the aims of various classes. The richest, and
consequently the most seriously endangered, namely the knights, were
naturally the soul of the new party. By their side the honest plebeians
who did not wish political reforms to be exaggerated took their stand,
as well as those nobles whose threatened pleasures drew them from their
apathy, who would have allowed the republic to perish without defending
it, but who did not wish their lampreys and fish-ponds touched. The new
party had not to look about long for a head. Pompey was in Asia, Caesar
and Crassus secretly favoured the conspiracy. Besides these there was no
greater name than Cicero’s. This explains that great wave of public
opinion which carried him into the consulship. His election was almost a
triumph. I shall say nothing of his consulship, of which he has had the
misfortune to speak too much himself. I do not wish to underrate the
victory that he gained over Catiline and his accomplices. The danger was
serious; even his enemy Sallust affirms it. Behind the plot were hidden
ambitious politicians ready to profit by events. Caesar knew well that
the reign of anarchy could not last long. After some pillaging and
massacres, Rome would have recovered from her surprise, and honest
folks, being driven to activity by despair, would have again got the
upper hand. Only it is probable that then one of those reactions that
usually follow great anarchy would have taken place. The remembrance of
the ills from which they had escaped with such difficulty would have
disposed many people to sacrifice the liberty which exposed them to so
many perils, and Caesar held himself ready to offer them the sovereign
remedy of absolute power. By cutting the evil at the root, by surprising
and punishing the conspiracy before it broke out, Cicero perhaps delayed
the advent of monarchical government at Rome for fifteen years. He was
not wrong, then, in boasting of the services he rendered at that time to
his country’s liberty, and we must acknowledge, with Seneca, that if he
has praised his consulship without measure he has not done so without
reason.[48]
Coalitions of this kind, unfortunately, seldom long survive the
circumstances that give rise to them. When the interests that a common
danger had united began to feel themselves secure, they recommenced
their old quarrels. The plebeians, who were no longer afraid, felt their
old animosity against the nobility revive. The nobles began again to
envy the wealth of the knights. As to the knights, they had none of
those qualities that were necessary to make them the soul of a political
party, as Cicero had hoped. They were more occupied with their private
affairs than with those of the republic. They had not the strength of
numbers, like the plebeians, and were wanting in those great traditions
of government that maintained so long the authority of the nobility.
Their only guiding principle was that instinct usual with men of large
fortunes, which led them to prefer order to liberty. They sought, before
all things, a strong power which could defend them, and Caesar had in
the end no more devoted followers than they. In this break-up of his
party, Cicero, who could not stand alone, asked himself on which side he
ought to place himself. The fright that Catiline had given him, the
presence of Caesar and Crassus in the ranks of the democracy, prevented
his return to that party, and he finally attached himself to the
nobility, notwithstanding his repugnance. From the date of his
consulship he resolutely turned towards this party. We know how the
democracy avenged itself for what it considered a betrayal. Three years
after it condemned its old head, now become its enemy, to exile, and
only consented to recall him to cast him at the feet of Caesar and
Pompey, whose union had made them masters of Rome.[49]
III.
The gravest political crisis that Cicero passed through, after the great
struggles of his consulship, was certainly that which terminated in the
fall of the Roman republic at Pharsalia. We know that he did not
willingly engage in this terrible conflict, of which he foresaw the
issue, and that he hesitated for nearly a year before deciding on his
course. It is not surprising that he hesitated so long. He was no longer
young and obscure as when he pleaded for Roscius. He had a high position
and an illustrious name that he did not wish to compromise, and a man
may be allowed to reflect before he risks fortune, glory, and perchance
life on a single cast. Besides, the question was not so simple nor the
right so clear as they seem at first sight. Lucan, whose sympathies are
not doubtful, yet said that it could not be known on which side justice
lay, and this obscurity does not seem to be altogether dissipated,
since, after eighteen centuries of discussion, posterity has not yet
succeeded in coming to an agreement. It is curious that, among us, in
the seventeenth century, at the height of monarchical government, the
learned all pronounced against Caesar without hesitation. Magistrates of
the high courts, men cautious and moderate by their offices and
character, who approached the king and were not sparing of flattery,
took the liberty of being Pompeians and even furious Pompeians in
private. “The First President,” says Guy-Patin, “is so much on Pompey’s
side, that one day he expressed his joy that I was so, I having said to
him, in his fine garden at Bâville, that if I had been in the senate
when Julius Caesar was killed, I would have given him the twenty-fourth
stab.” On the contrary, it is in our own days, in a democratic epoch,
after the French Revolution, and in the name of the revolution and the
democracy, that the side of Caesar has been upheld with the greatest
success, and that the benefit humanity has reaped from his victory has
been set in its clearest light.
I have no intention to re-open this debate, it is too fertile in stormy
discussions. I only wish here to deal with so much of it as is
indispensable to explain Cicero’s political life. There are, I think,
two very different ways of looking at the question: our own first,
namely, that of people unconcerned in these quarrels of a former age,
who approach them as historians or philosophers, after time has cooled
them, who judge them less by their causes than by their results, and who
ask themselves, above all, what good or evil they have done in the
world; then that of contemporaries, who judge of them with their
passions and prejudices, according to the ideas of their time, in their
relation to themselves, and without knowing their remote consequences. I
am going to place myself solely at this latter point of view, although
the other seems to me grander and more profitable; but as my only design
is to ask from Cicero an explanation of his political actions, and as
one cannot reasonably require of him that he should have divined the
future, I shall confine myself to showing how the question was stated in
his time, what reasons were alleged on both sides, and in what manner it
was natural for a wise man who loved his country to appreciate those
reasons. Let us forget, then, the eighteen centuries that separate us
from these events, let us suppose ourselves at Formiae or Tusculum
during those long days of anxiety and uncertainty that Cicero passed
there, and let us hear him discuss, with Atticus or Curio, the reasons
that the two parties urged to draw him into their ranks.
What shows plainly that the judgment of contemporaries on the events
which pass before them is not the same as that of posterity is, that the
friends of Caesar, when they wished to gain over Cicero, did not employ
the argument that seems the best to us. The chief reason that is
appealed to now to justify Caesar’s victory is that, on the whole, if by
it Rome lost some of her privileges, it was for the advantage of the
rest of the world that she was despoiled. What does it matter that a few
thousand men, who did not make a very good use of their political
liberty, were deprived of it, if by the same stroke almost the entire
world was rescued from pillage, slavery, and ruin? It is certain that
the provinces and their inhabitants, so roughly treated by the
proconsuls of the republic, found themselves better off under the
_régime_ inaugurated by Caesar. His army was open to all foreigners; he
had with him Germans, Gauls, and Spaniards. They helped him to conquer,
and naturally profited by his victory: and this was, without his wishing
it perhaps, the revenge of the conquered nations. These nations were not
anxious to recover their independence; they had lost the taste for it
with their defeat. Their ambition was quite the reverse: they wished to
be allowed to become Romans. Up till then, however, that proud and
greedy aristocracy, who held power, and who meant to use the human race
for the benefit of their pleasures or their grandeur, had obstinately
refused to raise them to a level with themselves, no doubt in order to
preserve the right of treating them according to their caprice. In
overthrowing the aristocracy, Caesar overthrew the barrier that closed
Rome to the rest of the nations. The empire made the entire world Roman;
it reconciled, says a poet, and blended under one name, all the nations
of the universe. These are surely great things, and it does not become
us to forget them, us the sons of the vanquished, called by Caesar to
partake in his victory. But who, in Cicero’s time, thought it would be
thus? who could foresee and indicate these remote consequences? The
question did not present itself then as it does to us who study it from
a distance. Caesar does not anywhere allege the interest of the
conquered among the reasons he gives for his enterprise. The senate
never claimed to be the representative of the Roman nationality,
threatened by an invasion of the barbarians, and it does not appear that
the provinces rose in favour of him who came to defend them; on the
contrary, they were almost equally divided between the two rivals. If
the West fought on Caesar’s side, all the East repaired to Pompey’s
camp, which proves that when the struggle commenced its consequences
were unknown even to those who were to profit by them, and whose
interest should have made them clear-sighted. Besides, even if Cicero
had suspected the benefits that the world was going to draw from
Caesar’s triumph, can we think that this reason would have sufficed to
decide him? He was not one of those whose love for the whole of humanity
excuses them from serving their country. He would have resigned himself
with difficulty to the sacrifice of his liberty, under the pretence that
this sacrifice would profit the Gauls, the Britons, and the Sarmatians.
No doubt he was not indifferent to the interest of the world, but that
of Rome touched him closer. His temper was gentle and humane, he had
written in beautiful works that all nations are only one and the same
family, he had made himself loved in the province he had governed;
nevertheless, when Caesar opened the city and even the senate to the
strangers who accompanied him, he showed himself very discontented, and
attacked these barbarians with his most cruel raillery. He saw plainly
that those Spaniards and Gauls who were walking proudly about the Forum
were triumphing over Rome. His Roman pride revolted at this sight, and I
see no reason to blame him for it. If he could divine or even catch a
glimpse of the general emancipation of the conquered nations which was
preparing, he understood also that this emancipation would bring with it
the loss of the original, distinct, and independent existence of his
country. It was natural that a Roman should not wish to pay this price
even for the prosperity of the world.
Putting aside this reason, another, specious if not true, was much used
to entice the irresolute. They were told that the republic and liberty
were not interested in the war, that it was simply a struggle between
two ambitious men who were contending for power. In this assertion there
was a certain amount of truth capable of misleading thoughtless minds.
Personal questions certainly held a large place in this contest. The
soldiers of Caesar fought solely for him, and Pompey had in his suite
many friends and creatures whom thirty years of prosperity and power had
gained for him. Cicero himself gives us to understand, several times,
that it was his old friendship for Pompey that led him into his camp.
“It is to him and to him alone that I sacrifice myself,” said he, when
he was preparing to leave Italy.[50] There are moments in which he seems
to take pleasure in limiting the subject of this quarrel he is about to
engage in, and when, writing to his friends, he repeats to them what
Caesar’s partisans said—“It is a conflict of ambition, _regnandi
contentio est_.”[51] But we must be careful when reading his
correspondence of this period, and must read it with caution. Never was
he more irresolute. He changes his opinion every day, he attacks and
defends all parties, so that by skilfully putting together all the words
let fall in this discontent and uncertainty, one may find in his letters
grounds for charges against everybody. These are only the sallies of a
restless and frightened mind, of which we must not make too much use
either against others or against himself. Here, for instance, when he
asserts that the republic has nothing to do in the contest, he does not
say what he really thinks. It is only one of those pretexts that he
invents to justify his hesitation in his friends’ eyes and his own. So
rare is it to be quite sincere, I do not say with others only but with
oneself! We are so ingenious in proving to ourselves that we have a
thousand reasons for doing what we do without reason, or through
interest or caprice! But when Cicero wishes to be frank, when he has no
motive to delude himself or deceive others, he speaks in another manner.
Then the cause of Pompey becomes really that of justice and right, that
of honest men and of liberty. Without doubt, Pompey had rendered very
indifferent services to the republic before being led by circumstances
to defend it. He could not be trusted entirely, and his ambition was to
be feared. In his camp he affected the airs of a sovereign; he had his
flatterers and his ministers. “He is a little Sulla,” said Cicero, “who
dreams also of proscriptions, _sullaturit, proscripturit_.”[52] The
republican party would certainly have taken another defender if it had
been free to choose; but at the time when Caesar assembled his troops,
this party, which had neither soldiers nor generals, was really forced
to accept Pompey’s aid. It accepted it as that of an ally whom one
distrusts and watches, who, perhaps, will become an enemy after the
victory, but with whom one cannot dispense during the fight. Besides,
although Pompey might not altogether secure liberty, it was known that
it ran fewer risks with him than with Caesar. He was ambitious
doubtless, but more ambitious of honours than of power. Twice he had
been seen to arrive at the gates of Rome with an army. The democracy
called him, to make himself king, he had only to will it, and twice he
had disbanded his troops and laid down the fasces. He had been made sole
consul, that is to say, almost dictator, and at the end of six months he
had voluntarily taken a colleague. These precedents made sincere
republicans believe that after the victory he would content himself with
sonorous titles and pompous eulogies, and that his services would be
repaid, without danger to any one, with laurels and the purple. In any
case, if he had demanded something else, we may be certain that he would
have been refused, and that he would have found adversaries in the
greater number of those who had become his allies. There were in his
camp many persons who were not his friends, and who cannot be suspected
of having taken arms to win a throne for him. Cato distrusted him, and
had always opposed him. Brutus, whose father he had killed, hated him.
The aristocracy did not pardon him for having restored the power of the
tribunes, and for having united with Caesar against it. Is it likely
that all these eminent persons, experienced in affairs, were the dupes
of this indifferent politician who never deceived anybody, and that,
without knowing it, they worked for him alone? or must we admit, which
is still less likely, that they knew it, and that they voluntarily
abandoned their country, risked their fortunes, and gave their lives to
serve the interests and the ambition of a man whom they did not love?
Assuredly, for them, something else was in question. When they went over
sea, when they decided, notwithstanding their repugnance, to begin a
civil war, when they came to put themselves under the orders of a
general against whom they had so many reasons for ill-will, they did not
intend to intervene solely in a personal quarrel, but to come to the
help of the republic and of that liberty which were threatened. “But
here,” people say, “you are deceived again. These names, liberty and
republic, delude you. It was not liberty that was defended in Pompey’s
camp, it was the oppression of the people by a caste. They wished to
maintain the privileges of a burdensome and unjust aristocracy. They
fought to preserve for it the right to oppress the plebs, and to crush
the world.” At that rate the friends of liberty ought to keep for Caesar
the sympathies they generally accord to Pompey, for he is the liberal
and the democrat, the man of the people, the successor of the Gracchi
and of Marius. This is indeed the part he assumed from the day when,
almost a child, he had braved Sulla. Praetor and consul, he had appeared
to serve the popular cause with devotion, and at the moment when he
marched on Rome, abandoned by the senate, he still said, “I come to
deliver the Roman people from a faction that oppresses it.”[53]
How much truth is there in this pretence that he makes of being the
defender of the democracy? What ought to be thought of it, I do not say
by a patrician, who naturally thought much ill of the people, but by an
enemy of the nobility, by a new man like Cicero? Whatever anger the
disdain of the aristocracy had caused to Cicero, whatever impatience he
had felt at always finding in his way, in his candidatures, one of those
nobles to whom “_honours came while they slept_,” I do not find that his
ill-humour had ever led him to pretend that the people was
oppressed;[54] and I suppose that when it was asserted before him that
Caesar took up arms to restore him his liberty, he asked how long it was
since he had lost it, and what new privileges they wished to add to
those he already possessed? He called to mind that the people possessed
a legal organization, had their own magistrates to whom they appealed
from the decisions of others, magistrates inviolable and sacred, whom
the law armed with the enormous power of staying the action of the
government by their interference, and of interrupting political life;
that they had the liberty of speech and of the rostrum, the right of
voting, in which they trafficked for a living, and finally, free access
to all grades of the magistracy, and he had only to cite his own case to
demonstrate that it was possible for a man without birth and almost
without fortune to attain even the consulship. Such success in truth was
rare. The equality laid down in the law disappeared in practice. The
consular records of that period contain scarcely any but illustrious
names. A few great families seem to have established themselves in the
highest dignities of the state; they guarded the avenues to them, and
allowed no one to approach; but was it necessary, in order to break down
the obstacles that the cleverness of a few ambitious men opposed to the
regular working of the institutions, to destroy these institutions
themselves? was the evil so great that it was necessary to have recourse
to the radical remedy of absolute power? Was it impossible to think that
it would be more surely cured by liberty than by despotism? Had it not
been seen by recent examples that a strong current of popular opinion
was sufficient to overturn all this aristocratic resistance? The laws
gave the people the means of recovering their influence if they willed
it energetically. With the liberty of voting and of speaking in the
public assembly, with the intervention of the tribunes and the
invincible strength of numbers, they must always end in being masters.
It was their own fault if they left the power to others, and they
deserved the degradation in which the nobility held them, since they
made no effort to free themselves. Cicero had small esteem for the
common people of his time; he thought them careless and apathetic by
nature. “They demand nothing,” said he, “they desire nothing”;[55] and
every time he saw them stirring in the Forum he suspected that the
liberality of some ambitious men had worked this miracle. He was not,
therefore, led to think it necessary to accord them new rights when he
saw them use their ancient rights so little or so ill, and so he did not
regard the pretext put forth by Caesar for taking up arms as serious. He
never consented to look upon him as the successor of the Gracchi coming
to emancipate the oppressed plebs; the war which was preparing never
seemed to him to be the renewal of the ancient struggles between the
people and the aristocracy, of which Roman history is full. In fact, an
assembly of ruined nobles, like Dolabella, Antony, and Curio, marching
under the leadership of him who boasted of being the son of the gods and
of kings, little deserved the name of the popular party, and there was
something else at stake than the defence of the privileges of birth in a
camp to which so many knights and plebeians had repaired, and which
reckoned among its chiefs Varro, Cicero, and Cato, that is to say, two
burgesses of small fortune of Arpinum and Reate, and the descendant of
the peasant of Tusculum.
Caesar, however, does not seem to have been very much prepossessed with
this part of champion of the democracy. We do not find, on reading his
memoirs, that he speaks very much of the people’s interests. The phrase
just quoted is almost the only one in which they are mentioned.
Elsewhere he is more frank. At the beginning of the civil war, when he
set forth his reasons for commencing it, he complained that he was
refused the consulship, that his province was taken from him, that he
was torn from his army; he says not a word of the people, of their
unrecognized rights, of their crushed liberty. This was, however, the
moment to speak of them in order to justify an enterprise that so many
people, and those the most honest, condemned. What did he demand in the
final conditions he laid before the senate before marching on Rome? His
consulship, his army, his province; he defended his personal interests,
he bargained for himself, it never came into his mind to demand any
guarantee for that people whose defender he called himself. Around him,
in his camp, one thought no more of the people than they did of
themselves. His best friends, his bravest generals, had no pretension to
be reformers or democrats. They did not think, in following him, that
they were going to give liberty to their fellow-citizens; they wished to
avenge their outraged chief, and to win power for him. “We are the
soldiers of Caesar,” said they with Curio.[56] They had no other title,
they knew no other name. When some one came to speak to those old
centurions who had seen Germany and Britain, who had taken Alesia and
Gergovia, of abandoning Caesar and passing over to the side of the laws
and the republic, they did not reply that they were defending the people
and their rights. “We,” said they, “shall we quit our general who has
given all of us our ranks, shall we take arms against an army in which
we have served and been victorious for thirty-six years? We will never
do it!”[57] These men were no longer citizens but soldiers. After
thirty-six years of victories, they had lost the traditions of civil
life and the taste for it; the rights of the people had become
indifferent to them, and for them glory took the place of liberty.
Cicero and his friends thought that these surroundings were not those of
a popular chief who came to restore liberty to his fellow-citizens, but
those of an ambitious man who came to establish absolute power by arms,
and they were not mistaken. Caesar’s conduct after the war proves this
more than all the rest. How did he use his victory? What benefits did he
confer on the people whose interests he pretended to defend? I do not
speak of what he was able to do for their comfort and their pleasures,
the sumptuous feasts, the public meals that he gave, the corn and oil
that he so generously distributed to the poorest, the 400 sesterces (£3
4_s._) that he paid each citizen on the day of his triumph: if these
alms satisfied the plebeians of that time, if they consented to
sacrifice their liberty at that price, I pardon Cicero for not having
more esteem for them, and for not putting himself on their side; but if
they demanded something else, if they wished for a more complete
independence, for a larger share in the affairs of their country, for
new political rights, they did not obtain them, and Caesar’s victory,
notwithstanding his promises, rendered them neither freer nor more
powerful. Caesar humiliated the aristocracy, but only for his own
advantage. He took the executive power out of the hands of the senate,
but only to put it in his own. He established equality between all the
orders, but it was an equality of servitude, and all were henceforth
reduced to the same level of obedience.
I know that after he had silenced the public speakers, deprived the
people of the right of voting, and united in himself all public
authority, the senate that he had appointed, having exhausted flattery,
solemnly awarded to him the name of Liberator, and voted the erection of
a Temple of Liberty. If it is against this liberty that Cicero and his
friends are accused of having taken up arms, I do not think it is worth
the trouble to defend them from this charge.
Let us call things by their real name. It was for himself and not for
the people that Caesar worked, and Cicero, in opposing him, thought he
was defending the republic and not the privileges of the aristocracy.
But did this republic deserve to be defended? Was there any hope of
preserving it? Was it not manifest that its ruin was inevitable? This is
the greatest charge that is made against those who followed Pompey’s
party. I admit it is not easy to answer it. The evil that Rome suffered,
and which showed itself in those disorders and that violence of which
Cicero’s letters give us such a sad picture, was not of a kind to be
averted by a few wise reforms. It was ancient and profound. It became
worse every day without any law being able to prevent or arrest it.
Could one hope to cure it with those slight changes that the boldest
proposed? Of what use was it to diminish, as was wished, the privileges
of the aristocracy and to augment the rights of the plebeians? The
sources of public life themselves were seriously impaired. The evil came
from the way in which the citizenship was acquired.
For a long time Rome had drawn her strength from the country people. It
was from the rustic tribes, the most honoured of all, that those valiant
soldiers who had conquered Italy and subdued Carthage had come; but this
agricultural and warlike people, who had so well defended the republic,
could not defend themselves against the encroachments of the great
estates. Enclosed little by little by those immense domains where
cultivation is easiest, the poor peasant had for a long time struggled
against misery and the usurers; then, discouraged in the struggle, he
had ended by selling his field to his rich neighbour, who coveted it to
round off his estate. He had tried then to become a tenant farmer, a
metayer, a hired labourer on the property where he had been for so long
the master, but there he met with the competition of the slave, a more
frugal worker, who did not stand out for his wages, who did not make
terms, who might be treated as one liked.[58] Thus, driven twice from
his fields, both as owner and as tenant farmer, without work or
resources, he had been forced to migrate to the city. At Rome, however,
life was not more easy for him. What could he do there? There was little
trade, and usually it was not in the hands of the free men. In countries
where slavery flourishes, work is looked down upon. To die of hunger
without doing anything, is regarded by the free man as a privilege and
an honour. Besides, each noble had men of all trades among his slaves,
and as such a number of workmen were too many for himself alone, he
hired them out to those who had none, or made them keep shop in a corner
of his house for his own profit. Here again slave competition killed
free labour. Happily at this time Marius opened the ranks of the army to
the poorest citizens (_capite censi_). These unfortunate men, finding no
other resource, became soldiers. For lack of something better to do,
they achieved the conquest of the world, subjugated Africa, Gaul, and
the East, visited Britain and Germany, and the greater number of them,
the bravest and best, were killed in these distant expeditions. During
this time, the vacancies left in the city by those who departed and did
not return were ill filled. Since Rome had become powerful, people from
all parts of the world came to her, and we may well suppose they were
not always the most respectable.
Several times she had endeavoured to defend herself against these
invasions of foreigners; but it was useless to make severe laws to
remove them, they always returned to hide themselves in that immense
city without a police, and, once settled there, the more prosperous, by
means of their money, the others by means of base services or cunning,
succeeded in obtaining the title of citizens. Those who received it more
naturally, and without needing to demand it, were the freedmen. No doubt
the law did not grant them all political rights at once; but after one
or two generations all these reservations disappeared, and the grandson
of him who had ground at the mill and who had been sold in the
slave-market voted the laws and elected the consuls like a Roman of the
old stock. It was of this mixture of freedmen and foreigners, that was
formed what at this time was called the Roman people, a wretched people
who lived on the bounty of private persons or the alms of the state, who
had neither memories nor traditions, nor political capacity, nor
national character, nor even morality, for they were ignorant of that
which makes up the honour and dignity of life in the lower classes,
namely, work. With such a people a republic was no longer possible. This
is, of all governments, that which demands the greatest integrity and
political judgment in those who enjoy it. The more privileges it confers
the more devotedness and intelligence it demands. People who did not use
their rights, or only used them to sell them, were not worthy to
preserve them. That absolute power which they had invited by their
votes, which they had received with applause, was made for them; and one
understands that the historian who studies from afar the events of the
past, when he sees liberty disappear from Rome, consoles himself for its
fall by saying that it was deserved and inevitable, and that he pardons
or even applauds the man who, in overturning it, was only an instrument
of necessity or justice.
But the men who lived then, who were attached to the republican
government by tradition and memories, who recalled the great things it
had done, who owed to it their dignities, position, and renown, could
they think like us and resign themselves as easily to its fall? Firstly,
this government existed. They were familiarized to its defects, since
they had lived with them so long. They suffered less from them, through
the long habit of enduring them. On the other hand, they did not know
what this new power that wished to replace the republic would be.
Royalty inspired the Romans with an instinctive repugnance, especially
since they had conquered the East. They had found there, under this
name, the most odious of governments, the most complete slavery in the
midst of the most refined civilization, all the pleasures of luxury and
the arts, the finest expansion of intellect with the heaviest and basest
tyranny; princes accustomed to play with the fortune, honour, and life
of men, a species of cruel spoilt children, such as are only now to be
found in the African deserts. This picture did not attract them, and
whatever disadvantages the republic had, they asked themselves if it was
worth while to exchange them for those that royalty might have. Besides,
it was natural that the fall of the republic should not appear to them
so near and so sure as it does to us. It is with states as with men, for
whom we find, after their death, a thousand causes of death which nobody
suspected during their life-time. While the machinery of this ancient
government was still working it could not be seen how disorganized it
was. Cicero has, sometimes, moments of profound despair, in which he
announces to his friends that all is lost; but these moments do not
last, and he quickly regains his courage. It seems to him that a firm
hand, an eloquent voice, and the agreement of good citizens can repair
all, and that liberty will easily remedy the abuses and faults of
liberty. He never perceives the whole gravity of danger. In the worst
days, his thoughts never go beyond the schemers and the ambitious men
who disturb the public repose; it is always Catiline, Caesar, or Clodius
whom he accuses, and he thinks that all will be saved if one can succeed
in overcoming them. He was mistaken, Catiline and Clodius were only the
symptoms of a deeper evil that could not be cured; but is he to be
blamed for entertaining this hope, chimerical as it was? Is he to be
blamed for having thought that there were other means of saving the
republic than the sacrifice of liberty? An honest man and a good citizen
ought not to accept these counsels of despair at first. It is useless to
tell him that the decrees of destiny condemn to perish the constitution
that he prefers and that he has promised to defend, he does well not to
believe it entirely lost until it is actually overthrown. We may call
such men, if we like, blind or dupes; it is honourable in them not to be
too perspicacious, and there are errors and illusions that are worth
more than a too easy resignation. Real liberty existed no longer at
Rome, as I believe, the shadow only remained, but the shadow was still
something. One cannot bear a grudge against those who attached
themselves to it and made desperate efforts not to allow it to perish,
for this shadow, this semblance, consoled them for lost liberty and gave
them some hope of regaining it. This is what honest men like Cicero
thought, who, after mature reflection, without enthusiasm, without
passion, and even without hope, went to find Pompey again; this is what
Lucan makes Cato say in those admirable lines which seem to me to
express the feelings of all those who, without concealing from
themselves the sad state of the republic, persisted in defending it to
the last: “As a father who has just lost his child takes pleasure in
conducting his obsequies, lights with his own hands the funeral pyre,
leaves it with regret, as tardily as he can; so, Rome, I will not
forsake thee until that I have held thee dead in my arms. I will follow
to the end thy very name, O Liberty, even when thou shalt be no more
than a vain shadow!”[59]
IV.
Pharsalia was not the end of Cicero’s political career, as he had
thought. Events were to lead him back once more to power and replace him
at the head of the republic. His retired life, his silence during the
early days of Caesar’s dictatorship, far from injuring his reputation,
on the contrary enhanced it. Statesmen do not lose so much as they think
by remaining for a time outside of affairs. Retirement, supported with
dignity, increases their importance. That they are no longer in power
suffices for people to find some inclination to regret them. There are
fewer reasons to be severe towards them when their place is not coveted,
and as people no longer suffer from their faults the memory of them is
easily lost, and their good qualities only are remembered. This is what
happened to Cicero. His disgrace disarmed all the enemies that his power
had made him, and his popularity was never so great as when he kept
himself voluntarily from the public eye. A little later, when he thought
he ought to draw nearer to Caesar, he conducted himself with so much
tact, he adjusted so cleverly submission and independence, he knew so
well how to preserve an appearance of opposition even in his eulogies
and flatteries, that public opinion did not cease to favour him.
Besides, the most illustrious defenders of the vanquished cause, Pompey,
Cato, Scipio, Bibulus, were dead. Of all those who had occupied with
honour the highest posts under the old government, he alone remained;
consequently it was usual to regard him as the last representative of
the republic. We know that on the Ides of March, Brutus and his friends,
after having struck down Caesar, while brandishing their bloody swords,
called for Cicero. They seemed to recognize him as the head of their
party, and to give him the credit of the bloodshed that they had just
committed.
It was, then, circumstances rather than his own will that caused him to
play so great a part in the events which followed the death of Caesar.
I shall narrate later[60] how he was led to engage in that struggle with
Antony, in which he was to perish. I shall show that it was not of
himself and voluntarily that he began it. He had quitted Rome and did
not wish to return. He thought that the time for resistance under legal
forms had passed, that it was necessary to oppose to Antony’s veterans
good soldiers rather than good reasons, and he was not wrong. Convinced
that his part was finished, and that that of the men of war was about to
begin, he set out for Greece, when a gale cast him on the coast of
Rhegium. Thence he repaired to the port of Velia, where he found Brutus,
who was also preparing to leave Italy, and it was he who, always
scrupulous, always the enemy of violence, asked him to make once again
an effort to rouse the people, and once more to attempt the struggle on
the basis of law. Cicero yielded to the request of his friend, and
although he had little hope of success, he hastened to return to Rome
there to offer this last battle. This was the second time that he came,
like Amphiaraüs, “to throw himself alive into the gulf.”
Brutus did him a good service that day. The desperate enterprise in
which he engaged him, almost in spite of himself, could not be useful to
the republic, but was serviceable to Cicero’s glory. This was perhaps
the grandest moment in his political life. In the first place, we have
the pleasure and almost the surprise of finding him firm and decided. He
seems to have freed himself from all that hesitation that usually
troubled his conduct; and besides, it was scarcely possible to hesitate
then, for the question had never been so clearly stated. At each new
development of events, the parties stood out more clearly. For the first
time, the ambition of Caesar, of which everybody knew, by rallying round
the Roman aristocracy all those who wished, like it, to preserve the
ancient institutions, had enlarged the limits of this party and modified
its programme. By taking into itself new elements it changed in name as
in character; it became the party of order, the party of honest men, of
the “optimates.” It is thus that Cicero loves to name it. The meaning of
this name was at first rather vague, after Pharsalia it became more
precise. As at this moment there was no longer any doubt of the
intentions of the conqueror, as he was seen to openly substitute his
authority for that of the senate and people, the party that resisted him
took the name proper to it, and which nobody could any longer refuse it;
it became the republican party. The struggle was fairly begun between
the republic and despotism. And, that doubt might be still less
possible, despotism after Caesar’s death showed itself to the Romans
under its least disguised and, so to say, most brutal form. A soldier
without political genius, without distinction of manners, without
greatness of soul, at once coarse, debauched and cruel, asserted by
force his right to the inheritance of the great dictator. He did not
take the trouble to hide his designs, and neither Cicero nor anybody
else could be deceived any longer. It must have been a great relief to
that mind usually so undecided and uncertain to see the truth so
clearly, to be no longer perplexed by shadows, to have such a complete
confidence in the justice of his cause, and after so much doubt and
obscurity at last to fight in clear daylight. We feel that his mind is
at ease! how much freer and more lively he is! what ardour there is in
this old man, and what eagerness for the fight! None of the young men
about him show so much decision as he, and he himself is assuredly
younger than when he strove against Catiline or Clodius. Not only does
he begin the struggle resolutely, but, what is more unusual with him, he
pursues it to the end without giving way. By a strange contrast, the
most dangerous enterprise that he had ever undertaken, and which was to
cost him his life, was precisely that in which he best resisted his
usual fits of discouragement and weakness.
Immediately on his return to Rome, while he was still inspired by the
ardour that he had acquired at Velia from his conversations with Brutus,
he went to the senate and ventured to speak there. The first Philippic,
compared with the others, appears timid and colourless; what courage,
however, did it not need to pronounce it in that unconcerned city,
before those frightened senators, at a few paces from the furious and
threatening Antony, who by his spies heard all that was said against
him! Cicero ended then as he had begun. Twice, at an interval of
thirty-five years, he raised his voice alone, in the midst of a general
silence, against a dreaded power which would not tolerate resistance.
Courage, like fear, is contagious. The courage that Cicero showed in his
speech awakened that of others. This freedom of speech surprised at
first, then shamed those who kept silence. Cicero took advantage of this
first revival, which was still rather hesitating, to assemble a few
persons round him and find some defenders of the almost forgotten
republic. Here was the difficulty. There were scarcely any republicans
left, and the most determined had gone to join Brutus in Greece. All
that could be done was to appeal to the moderates of all parties, to all
those whom Antony’s excesses had shocked. Cicero adjured them to forget
their old enmities and to reunite. “Now,” said he, “there is only one
vessel for all honest men.”[61] Here we recognize his usual policy. It
is again a coalition that he tries to form as at the time of his
consulship. This part is clearly that for which he has most taste and
which suits him best. By the pliability of his character and his
principles he was fitter than anybody to reconcile opinions, and the
habit he had of approaching all parties made him not a stranger to any,
and he had friends everywhere. Thus his undertaking appeared at first to
succeed very well. Several of Caesar’s generals readily listened to him,
those especially who thought that, in the main, they lost less by
remaining citizens of a free state, than by becoming subjects of Antony;
and ambitious subalterns, like Hirtius and Pansa, who, after the
master’s death, did not feel themselves strong enough to aim at the
first place, and who would not be contented with the second.
Unfortunately it was still but a collection of chiefs without soldiers,
and never had there been more need of soldiers than at that moment.
Antony was at Brundusium, where he was waiting for the legions he had
sent for to Macedonia. Enraged by the unexpected resistance that he had
met with, he proclaimed that he would avenge himself by pillage and
slaughter, and he was known to be the man to do so. Every one thought
that already he saw his house sacked, his estate parcelled out, his
family proscribed. Fear reigned everywhere, men trembled, hid themselves
and fled. The most courageous sought on all sides for some one who might
be called upon to defend the republic. No aid was to be hoped for but
from Decimus Brutus, who occupied Cisalpine Gaul with some legions, or
from Sextus Pompey, who was reorganizing his troops in Sicily, but this
aid was distant and doubtful, and ruin was near and sure. In the midst
of this general panic, the nephew of Caesar, the young Octavius, whom
the jealousy of Antony, and the distrust of the republicans had up till
then kept away, and who impatiently awaited the opportunity of making
himself known, thought that this opportunity had come. He went through
the environs of Rome calling to arms his uncle’s veterans who were
settled there. His name, his liberality, the promises he lavished soon
brought him soldiers. At Calatia, at Casilinum, he found three thousand
in a few days. Then he addressed the leaders of the senate, offered them
the support of his veterans, demanding for sole recompense that they
would acknowledge him in the efforts he was about to make to save them.
In such distress there was no means of refusing this help without which
they would perish, and Cicero himself, who had at first shown some
distrust, let himself be seduced at last by this young man who consulted
him, flattered him, and called him father. When, thanks to him, they had
been saved, when they saw Antony, abandoned by some of his legions,
obliged to leave Rome where Octavius held him in check, the gratitude of
the senate was as lavish as their fear had been great. The liberator was
loaded with dignities and honours. Cicero, in his eulogies, raised him
much above his uncle; he called him a divine young man raised up by
heaven for the defence of his country: he stood surety for his
patriotism and fidelity; imprudent words for which Brutus reproached him
severely, and which the event was not long in falsifying!
The events that followed are too well known for me to have need of
repeating them. Never had Cicero played a greater political part than at
this moment; never had he better deserved that name of statesman that
his enemies denied him. For six months he was the soul of the republican
party, which was re-constituted at his call. “It was I, said he proudly,
who gave the signal for this awakening,”[62] and he was right in saying
so. His voice seemed to restore some patriotism and some energy to this
unconcerned people. He made them once more applaud those grand names of
country and liberty that the Forum would soon hear no more. From Rome,
the ardour gained the neighbouring townships, and gradually all Italy
was roused. This, however, was not enough for him, he went still further
to raise up enemies for Antony and defenders for the republic. He wrote
to the proconsuls of the provinces and to the generals of the armies.
From one end of the world to the other he chid the lukewarm, flattered
the ambitious, and congratulated the energetic. He it was who incited
Brutus, always undecided, to seize Greece. He applauded the bold stroke
of Cassius, which made him master of Asia; he urged Cornificius to drive
Antony’s soldiers from Africa; he encouraged Decimus Brutus to resist in
Modena. The promises of support that he invited with so much earnestness
arrived from all sides. Even enemies and traitors dared not openly
refuse him their co-operation. Lepidus and Plancus made emphatic
protestations of fidelity. Pollio wrote to him in a solemn tone “that he
swears to be the enemy of all tyrants.”[63] On all sides his friendship
is demanded, his support solicited, men put themselves under his
protection. His Philippics, which, happily, he had not time to revise,
are scattered through the whole world, very nearly as he spoke them, and
with the vivacity of the first sketch, preserve traces of the
interruptions and applause of the people. These passionate harangues
carry everywhere the passion of these grand popular scenes. They are
read in the provinces, they are devoured in the armies, and from the
most distant countries evidence of the admiration they excite arrives to
Cicero! “Your robe is even more fortunate than our arms,” says a
victorious general to him, and adds, “In you the consular has conquered
the consul.”[64] “My soldiers are yours,” wrote another to him.[65] The
credit of all the good fortune of the republic was attributed to him. It
was he who was congratulated and thanked for all the successes that were
obtained. On the evening that the victory of Modena was known at Rome,
the whole people went to his house to seek him, conducted him in triumph
to the Capitol, and wished to hear from his own mouth an account of the
battle. “This day,” he wrote to Brutus, “has repaid me for all my
trouble.”[66]
This was the last triumph of Cicero and the republic. Success is
sometimes more fatal to coalitions than reverses. When the common enemy,
hatred of whom has united them, has been conquered, private dissensions
break out. Octavius wished to weaken Antony in order to obtain from him
what he wanted; he did not wish to destroy him. When he saw him flying
towards the Alps, he made overtures to him, and both together marched on
Rome. From that time nothing remained for Cicero but “to imitate brave
gladiators, and seek like them to die honourably.”[67] His death was
courageous, whatever Pollio, who, having betrayed him, had an interest
in calumniating him, may have asserted. I would rather believe the
testimony of Livy, who was not one of his friends, and who lived at the
court of Augustus: “Of all his misfortunes,” says he, “death is the only
one that he bore like a man.”[68] This, it must be confessed, was
something. He might have fled, and at one moment he tried to do so. He
wished to set out for Greece, where he would have found Brutus; but
after some days’ sailing with contrary winds, suffering from the sea,
tormented above all by regrets and sadness, he lost heart for life, and
was landed at Gaeta, and went back to his house at Formiae to die there.
He had often thanked the gale that took him back to Velia, the first
time that he wished to flee to Greece. This it was that gave him the
opportunity to deliver his Philippics. The storm which drove him ashore
at Gaeta has not been less serviceable to his fame. His death seems to
me to redeem the weaknesses of his life. It is much for a man like him,
who did not boast of being a Cato, to have been so firm at this terrible
moment; the more timid he was by temperament the more I am touched at
finding him so resolute in dying. Thus, when, in studying his history, I
am tempted to reproach him with his irresolution and weakness, I think
of his end, I see him as Plutarch has so well depicted him, “his beard
and hair dirty, his countenance worn, taking his chin in his left hand
as his manner was, and looking steadily at his murderers,”[69] and I no
longer dare to be severe. Notwithstanding his defects he was an honest
man, “who loved his country well,” as Augustus himself said on a day of
sincerity and remorse. If he was sometimes too hesitating and feeble, he
always ended by defending what he regarded as the cause of justice and
right, and when that cause had been for ever conquered, he rendered it
the last service it could claim from its defenders, he honoured it by
his death.
II
CICERO’S PRIVATE LIFE
I
Those who have read Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus, and know what
place questions of money occupy in these private communications, will
not be surprised that I begin the study of his private life by
endeavouring to estimate the amount of his fortune. The men of those
days were as much concerned about money as the men of to-day, and it is
perhaps in this that these two periods, which men have so often taken
pleasure in comparing, most resemble each other.
It would be necessary to have at hand the account-books of Eros,
Cicero’s steward, in order to set down with exactness the expenses of
his household. All that we know with certainty on this subject is, that
his father left him a very moderate fortune only, and that he increased
this greatly, while we cannot say precisely to how much it amounted. His
enemies were in the habit of exaggerating it in order to throw suspicion
on the means by which it had been acquired, and it is indeed probable
that if we knew the total it would appear to us considerable; but we
must take care not to judge of it according to the ideas of our own
time. Wealth is not an absolute thing; a man is rich or poor according
to the position in which he lives, and it is possible that what would be
wealth in one place would scarcely be a competency elsewhere. Now we
know that at Rome wealth was far from being so evenly distributed as it
is among us. Forty years before the consulship of Cicero, the tribune
Philip said that, in that immense city, there were not two thousand
persons who had a patrimony;[70] but these possessed all the public
wealth. Crassus asserted that, in order to call himself rich, it was
necessary for a man to be able to support an army out of his revenues,
and we know that he was in a position to do so without inconvenience.
Milo contrived to get into debt in a few years to the amount of more
than seventy million sesterces (£560,000). Caesar, while still a private
person, expended, at one time, one hundred and twenty million sesterces
(£960,000) in order to make a present of a new Forum to the Roman
people. This outrageous extravagance implies immense fortunes. In
comparison with these, we can understand that Cicero’s, which scarcely
sufficed for the purchase of a house on the Palatine, and which the
adornment of his Tusculan villa almost exhausted, must have appeared
very moderate.
In what manner had he gained it? It is not without interest to know this
in order to reply to the ill-natured reports that his enemies
circulated. He says somewhere that the means by which a fortune was
honestly made at Rome were commerce, contracting for public works and
farming the taxes;[71] but these means, very convenient for people in
haste to enrich themselves, could only be used by those who had no
political ambition; they excluded from public honours, and consequently
did not suit a man who aspired to govern his country. We do not see,
either, that he acted like Pompey, who invested his funds in an
important bank and shared in the profits; at least there remains no
trace in his letters of undertakings of this nature. Nor could he think
of making money out of his works. It was not the custom then for an
author to sell his works to a bookseller; or rather, the trade of a
bookseller, as we understand it now, scarcely existed. Usually those who
wished to read or possess a book borrowed it of the author or of his
friends, and had it copied by their slaves. When they had more copyists
than they needed for their own use, they made them work for the public
and sold the copies they did not want; but the author had nothing to do
with the profits they drew from them. And finally, public offices could
not have enriched Cicero; we know that they were less a means of making
money than an occasion of expense and ruin, either by the price it was
sometimes necessary to pay for them, or by the games and entertainments
that were expected from those who had obtained them. It was only in the
government of provinces that immense gains were made. It was on these
gains that the ambitious nobles usually counted to repair the waste of
their fortunes that the luxury of their private life and the profusion
of their public life had caused. Now Cicero deprived himself of this
opportunity by yielding to his colleague Antony the province that,
according to custom, he ought to have governed after his consulship. It
has been suspected, indeed, that he then made with him some bargain by
which he reserved to himself a share in the handsome profits that he
relinquished. If this bargain existed, which is doubtful, it is certain
it was not kept. Antony pillaged his province, but he pillaged it for
himself alone, and Cicero drew nothing from it. Twelve years later,
without having desired it, he was appointed proconsul of Cilicia. We
know that he remained there only a year, and that, without doing any
illegal act, and while securing the happiness of his subjects, he
contrived to take back two million two hundred thousand sesterces
(£17,600), which gives us an idea of what might be gained in the
provinces when they were pillaged without scruple. Besides, this money
did not profit Cicero; he lent part of it to Pompey, who did not return
it, and it is probable that the civil war caused him to lose the rest,
since he found himself without means at its close. We must seek, then,
elsewhere for the origin of his fortune. If he had lived in our days we
should have no trouble in learning whence it came. It would be
sufficiently explained by his ability as an advocate. With an eloquence
such as his, he would not fail now-a-days to enrich himself quickly at
the bar; but at that time there was a law forbidding orators to accept
any fee or present from those for whom they had pleaded (_lex Cincia, de
donis et muneribus_). Although it was the work of a tribune, who had
made it, says Livy, in the interest of the people,[72] it was at bottom
an aristocratic law. By not allowing the advocate to draw a legitimate
profit from his talent, it kept away from the bar those who had nothing,
and reserved the exercise of this profession for the rich as a
privilege, or rather it prevented it becoming really a profession. I
think, however, that this law was always very imperfectly obeyed. As it
could not provide against everything, it was scarcely possible for it to
prevent the gratitude of clients finding some ingenious method to escape
its severity. If they were really determined to pay in some manner for
the services which they had received, it seems to me that the law could
only with difficulty prevent it. In Cicero’s time, they did not fail to
violate it openly. Verres told his friends that he had divided the money
he brought back from Sicily into three parts; the most considerable was
to corrupt his judges, the second to pay his advocates, and he contented
himself with the third.[73] Cicero, who on this occasion laughed at
Verres’ advocate, Hortensius, and at the sphynx that he had received on
account, took care not to imitate him. His brother affirms that up to
the time when he was a candidate for the consulship he had never asked
anything from his clients.[74] Nevertheless, whatever scruples we may
suppose him to have had, it is very difficult to admit that he had never
profited by their good-will. No doubt he refused the presents that the
Sicilians wished to make him when he had avenged them on Verres; perhaps
it would not have been prudent to accept them after such a notorious
trial, which had drawn all eyes upon him, and made him powerful enemies;
but some years afterwards I see that he allowed himself to accept the
present made him by his friend Papirius Poetus, for whom he had just
pleaded.[75] It consisted of some fine Greek and Latin books, and Cicero
loved nothing so much as books. I notice also that when he had need of
money, which happened sometimes, he preferred to apply to rich men whom
he had defended. These were less harsh and more patient creditors to him
than others, and it was natural that he should profit by their influence
after having aided them by his eloquence. He tells us himself that he
bought the house of Crassus with the money of his friends. Among them,
P. Sylla, for whom he had just pleaded, alone lent him two million
sesterces (£16,000). When he was attacked for this in the senate, Cicero
got out of it with a joke; which proves that the _lex Cincia_ was no
longer much respected, and that those who infringed it had no great fear
of being prosecuted.[76] It is very possible, then, that those nobles
whose honour or fortune he had saved, that those towns or provinces that
he had protected against greedy governors, that those foreign princes
whose interests he had defended in the senate, above all, those rich
societies of farmers of the taxes, through whose hands passed all the
money that the world sent to Rome, and whom he served so vigorously by
his reputation or his eloquence, had often sought and sometimes found an
opportunity of testifying their gratitude. This generosity appears to us
now-a-days so natural that we should scarcely blame Cicero for not
having always rejected it; but we may be sure that, if he sometimes
thought that he might accept it, he always did so with more moderation
and reserve than the greater number of his contemporaries.
We know one of the most usual forms, and, as it seems, one of the most
legal by which this generosity showed itself. It was the custom at Rome
to pay, after death and by will, all debts of gratitude and affection
contracted during life. This was a means that offered itself to the
client of discharging his obligations to the advocate who had defended
him, and it does not appear that the _lex Cincia_ threw any obstacle in
the way. We have nothing like it among ourselves. At that time, the
father of a family who had natural heirs might withdraw from his fortune
any amount that he wished, and give his relations, his friends, and all
who had been useful or agreeable to him, a good share of his estate.
This custom had become an abuse. Fashion and vanity had come to have a
large share in it. A man wished to appear to have many friends by
inscribing the names of many persons in his will, and naturally the most
illustrious were inscribed by preference. Sometimes people were brought
together in it who seldom met anywhere else, and who must have been
surprised to find themselves there. Cluvius, a rich banker of Puteoli,
left his estate to Cicero and Caesar after Pharsalia.[77] The architect
Cyrus placed among his heirs both Clodius and Cicero, that is to say,
the two persons who most heartily detested each other in Rome.[78] This
architect, no doubt, regarded it as an honour to have friends among all
parties. It even happened that a man set down in his will people whom he
had never seen. Lucullus augmented his immense wealth by bequests which
unknown persons left him while he governed Asia. Atticus received a good
number of legacies from people of whom he had never heard, and who only
knew him by reputation. How much more then must a great orator like
Cicero, to whom so many were under obligation, and of whom all Romans
were proud, have been often the object of this posthumous liberality! We
see in his letters that he was the heir of many persons who do not seem
to have held a large place in his life. In general, the amounts left to
him are not very large. One of the largest is that which he inherited
from his old master the Stoic Diodotus, whom he had kept at his house
till his death.[79] In recompense of this long-continued affection,
Diodotus left him all his savings as a philosopher and teacher. They
amounted to a hundred thousand sesterces (£800). The union of all these
small legacies no doubt made up a considerable sum. Cicero himself
values it at more than twenty million sesterces (£160,000).[80] It seems
to me, therefore, that there is no doubt that these legacies, with the
presents he may have received from the gratitude of his clients, were
the chief sources of his wealth.
This wealth was composed of property of different kinds. He possessed,
firstly, houses in Rome. Besides that which he inhabited on the
Palatine, and that which he had from his father at Carinae, he had
others in Argiletum and on the Aventine which brought him in an income
of eighty thousand sesterces (£640).[81] He possessed numerous villas in
Italy. We know of eight very important ones belonging to him,[82]
without reckoning those small houses (_diversoria_) that the nobles
bought along the principal roads to have somewhere to rest when they
went from one domain to another. He had also sums of money of which he
disposed in different manners, as we see in his correspondence. We
cannot estimate this part of his wealth with exactness; but according to
the practice of the rich Romans of that time, it may be affirmed that it
was not less than his houses or estates. One day when he is asking
Atticus to buy him some gardens that he wishes, he says to him, in an
off-hand way, that he thinks he may have about six hundred thousand
sesterces (£4800) in his own hands.[83] We have here perhaps one of the
most curious differences that distinguish that state of society from
ours. Now-a-days scarcely any but bankers by profession handle such
considerable sums of money. Our aristocracy has always affected to look
down upon questions of finance. The Roman aristocracy, on the contrary,
understood them well, and thought much about them. Their great wealth
was used to further political ambition, and they did not hesitate to
risk a part of it to gain adherents. The purse of a candidate for public
honours was open to all who could be of use to him. He gave to the
poorest, he lent to others, and sought to form with them bonds of
interest which would attach them to his cause. Success usually followed
those who had put the greatest number of men under obligations. Cicero,
although less rich than the majority of them, imitated them. In his
letters to Atticus he is almost always writing about bills and dates of
maturity, and we see in them that his money circulated on all sides. He
is in constant business relations, and as we should now say, has a
running account with the greatest personages. Sometimes he lends to
Caesar, and sometimes borrows of him. Among his numerous debtors are
found persons of all ranks and fortunes, from Pompey to Hermogenes, who
seems to have been a simple freedman. Unfortunately, counting them all,
his creditors are still more numerous. Notwithstanding the example and
advice of Atticus, he ill understood how to manage his fortune. He
constantly had costly fancies. He would have at any price statues and
pictures to adorn his galleries and give them the appearance of the
gymnasia of Greece. He ruined himself to embellish his country houses.
Generous out of season, we see him lending to others when he is
constrained to borrow for himself. It is always when he is deepest in
debt that he has the greatest desire to buy some new villa. He does not
hesitate, then, to apply to all the bankers of Rome; he goes to see
Considius, Axius, Vectenus, Vestorius; he would even try to soften
Caecilius, the uncle of his friend Atticus, if he did not know that he
was inflexible. Nevertheless he bears his troubles with a light heart.
The prudent Atticus tells him in vain that it is disgraceful to be in
debt; but as he shares this disgrace with a great many people it seems
light, and he is the first to joke about it. One day he told one of his
friends that he was so much in debt that he would willingly enter into
some conspiracy, if any one would receive him, but that since he had
punished Catiline’s he inspired no confidence in others;[84] and when
the first day of the month arrives, when payments become due, he is
content to shut himself up at Tusculum and leave Eros or Tiro to argue
with the creditors.
These embarrassments and troubles, of which his correspondence is full,
make us think, almost in spite of ourselves, of certain passages in his
philosophical works which appear rather surprising when we compare them
with his mode of living, and which may easily be turned against him. Is
it really this thoughtless prodigal, always ready to spend without
consideration, who exclaimed one day in a tone of conviction that moves
us: “Ye immortal gods, when will men understand what treasures are found
in economy!”[85] How dared this ardent lover of works of art, this
impassioned friend of magnificence and luxury, how dared he treat as
madmen people who love statues and pictures too well, or build
themselves magnificent houses? He stands self-condemned, and I do not
wish to entirely absolve him; but while we pronounce on him a severe
sentence, let us remember the times in which he lived, and let us think
of his contemporaries. I will not compare him with the worst men, his
superiority would be too evident; but among those who are regarded as
the most honourable, he still holds one of the foremost places. He did
not owe his wealth to usury like Brutus and his friends; he did not
augment it by that sordid avarice with which Cato is reproached; he did
not pillage the provinces like Appius or Cassius; he did not consent
like Hortensius to take his share of this pillage. We must then
acknowledge that, notwithstanding the blame we may lay upon him, he was
more scrupulous and disinterested in money matters than others. In the
main, his irregularities only injured himself,[86] and if he had too
much taste for ruinous prodigality, at least he did not have recourse to
scandalous gains in order to satisfy it. These scruples honour him so
much the more as they were then very rare, and few people have passed,
without stain, through that greedy and corrupt society in the midst of
which he lived.
II.
He does not deserve less praise for having been honourable and regular
in his family life. These were virtues of which his contemporaries did
not set him an example.
It is probable that his youth was austere.[87] He had firmly resolved to
become a great orator, and that was not to be done without trouble. We
know from himself how hard the apprenticeship to oratory then was. “To
succeed in it, he tells us, a man must renounce all pleasures, avoid all
amusements, say farewell to recreation, games, entertainments, and
almost to intercourse with one’s friends.”[88] This was the price he
paid for his success. The ambition by which he was devoured preserved
him from the other passions, and sufficed him. His youth was completely
taken up with study. When once these early years were passed the danger
was less; the habit of work that he had formed, and the important
affairs in which he was engaged might suffice to preserve him from all
dangerous impulses. Writers who do not like him have vainly tried to
find in his life traces of that licentiousness which was so common
around him. The most ill-disposed, like Dio,[89] banter him about a
clever woman, named Caerellia, whom he somewhere calls his intimate
friend.[90] She was so in fact, and it appears that she was not wanting
in influence over him. His correspondence with her was preserved and
published. This correspondence was, it is said, rather free in tone, and
seemed at first to give some occasion to the malicious; but it must be
remarked, that Caerellia was much older than he; that, far from being a
cause of dissension in his household, we only see her intervening to
reconcile him with his wife,[91] in fact that their acquaintance seems
to have begun in a common liking for philosophy;[92] a sedate origin
which does not forebode unpleasing consequences. Caerellia was a learned
lady whose conversation must have been very pleasing to Cicero. Her age,
her education which was not that of ordinary women, put him at ease with
her, and, as he was naturally quick at repartee, as, once excited by the
animation of conversation, he could not always govern and restrain his
wit, and as, besides, by patriotism as by taste, he put nothing above
that free and daring gaiety of which Plautus seemed to him the model, it
may have happened that he wrote to her without ceremony those
pleasantries “more spicy than those of the Attic writers, and yet truly
Roman.”[93] Later, when these rustic and republican manners were no
longer in fashion, when, under the influence of the gradually developing
court life, the rules of politeness were being refined, and manners were
becoming more ceremonious, the freedom of these remarks no doubt shocked
some fastidious minds, and may have given rise to ill-natured remarks.
For our own part, of all that correspondence of Cicero which is now
lost, the letters to Caerellia are those perhaps that we most regret.
They would have shown us better than all the rest the habits of society,
and the life of the fashionable world at that time.
It is thought that he was about thirty when he married. It was towards
the end of Sulla’s rule, at the time of his first oratorical successes.
His wife, Terentia, belonged to a rich and distinguished family. She
brought him in dowry, according to Plutarch,[94] 120,000 drachmae
(£4440), and we see that she possessed houses in Rome, besides a forest
near Tusculum.[95] It was an advantageous marriage for a young man just
beginning political life with more talent than fortune. Cicero’s
correspondence does not give a very good impression of Terentia. We
imagine her as an economical and orderly, but sharp and disagreeable
housewife, with whom it was difficult to live at ease. She did not agree
very well with her brother-in-law Quintus, and still less with Pomponia
her sister-in-law, who, however, did not agree with anybody. She had
that influence over her husband that a determined and obstinate woman
always has over a careless and irresolute mind. For a long time Cicero
left her absolute mistress of the household, he was very glad to shift
on to somebody else those occupations that did not suit him. She was not
without influence on his political life. She advised him to take
energetic measures at the time of the great consulship, and later she
embroiled him with Clodius, from dislike to Clodia, whom she suspected
of wishing to allure him. As no gain came amiss to her, she succeeded in
entangling him in some financial affairs, that Atticus himself, who was
not over scrupulous, did not think very honourable; but there her power
ended. She seems to have remained a stranger, and perhaps to have been
indifferent to her husband’s literary glory. In none of Cicero’s works,
in which the names of his daughter, his brother, and his son recur so
frequently, is there any mention of his wife. Terentia had no influence
on his mind. He never confided to her his private opinions on the most
serious affairs of life; he never admitted her to share in his opinions
and beliefs. We have a curious proof of this in his correspondence.
Terentia was devout, and devout to excess. She consulted soothsayers,
she believed in prodigies, and Cicero did not take the trouble to cure
her of this eccentricity. He seems even, somewhere, to make a singular
distribution of labours between her and himself; he shows her
respectfully serving the gods, while he is occupied in working for
men.[96] Not only did he not disturb her devotion, but he showed a
consideration for her which surprises us. When he was about to start for
Pompey’s camp, he wrote to her: “At last I am free from that uneasiness
and suffering that I experienced, and which caused you so much concern.
The day after my departure I recognized the cause. During the night I
threw off pure bile, and felt myself relieved as if some god had been my
doctor. Evidently it was Apollo and Aesculapius. I beg you to return
thanks to them with your usual piety and zeal.”[97] This is strange
language in the mouth of that sceptic who wrote the treatise _On the
Nature of the Gods_; but Cicero was, no doubt, one of those people, like
Varro and many others, who while they make little use themselves of
religious practices, think that they are not bad for the common people
and for women. There has survived a whole book of letters from Cicero to
Terentia, which contains the history of his household. What strikes one
on opening it is that, as we get further on, the letters become shorter,
the last are no more than short notes. And not only does the length of
the letters diminish, but their tone is no longer the same, and marks of
affection become more and more rare. We may then conclude that this
affection was not of the kind that increases with time; that common
life, which strengthens true personal unions, enfeebled this one.
Instead of being strengthened, it was worn out by length of time. The
earlier letters show an incredible passion, and this in spite of the
fact that Cicero had been married nearly twenty years; but he was then
very unfortunate, and it seems that misfortune makes people more tender,
and that families feel the need of drawing closer when heavy blows fall
on them. Cicero had just been condemned to exile. He departed very
sorrowfully from Rome, where he knew that his house was burnt, his
friends persecuted, his family ill-treated. Terentia had behaved very
energetically, she had suffered for her husband, and suffered with
courage. On learning the manner in which she had been treated, Cicero
wrote to her despairingly: “How wretched I am! And must a woman so
virtuous, so honourable, so gentle, so devoted, be thus tormented for my
sake!”[98] “Be assured, he tells her elsewhere, that I have nothing
dearer than you. At this moment I think I see you, and cannot restrain
my tears!”[99] He added with still more effusion, “Oh, my life, I would
wish to see you again, and die in your arms!”[100] The correspondence
then ceases for six years. It recommences at the time Cicero left Rome,
to go and govern Cilicia, but the tone is very much changed. In the
single letter remaining to us of this date, affection is replaced by
business. It has to do with a legacy that had fallen in very opportunely
for Cicero’s fortunes, and of the means of turning it to the best
account. It is true he still calls Terentia his very dear and
much-desired wife, _suavissima atque optatissima_, but these words have
the appearance of polite phrases. However, he shows a great desire to
see her again, and asks her to come as far as she can and wait for
him.[101] She went as far as Brundusium, and, by a lucky chance, she
entered the town at the same time that her husband arrived in the
harbour; they met and embraced on the Forum. It was a happy moment for
Cicero. He returned with the title of _imperator_ and the hope of a
triumph; he found his family united and joyous. Unfortunately the civil
war was just about to break out. During his absence parties had broken
with each other; they were about to come to blows, and immediately after
his arrival Cicero was obliged to make choice between them, and to take
his side. This war not only injured his political position, it was fatal
to his private happiness. When the correspondence recommences, after
Pharsalia, it becomes extremely matter-of-fact. Cicero returns to Italy,
and lands again at Brundusium, no longer triumphant and happy, but
vanquished and desperate. This time he does not wish to see his wife
again, although he never had more need of consolation. He keeps her at a
distance, and that without much ceremony. “If you come, he tells her, I
do not see how you can be useful to me.”[102] What makes this answer
more cruel is, that, at the same time, he sent for his daughter, and
consoled himself with her conversation. As to his wife she gets nothing
more from him than short notes, and he has the courage to tell her that
he does not make them longer because he has nothing to say.[103] At the
same time he refers her to Lepta, Trebatius, Atticus, and Sicca, to
learn what decisions he has taken. This shows clearly enough that she no
longer enjoyed his confidence. The only mark of interest he still gives
her is to ask her, from time to time, to take care of her health, a
superfluous recommendation, since she lived more than a hundred years!
The last letter he addressed to her is just what a man would write to
his steward to give an order. “I expect to be at Tusculum the 7th or 8th
of the month, he says; be careful to prepare everything. I shall,
perhaps, have several persons with me, and very likely we shall remain
some time. Let the bath be ready, and let nothing be wanting that is
necessary to comfort and health.”[104] A few months afterwards, the
separation which this tone foreshadows, took place between the couple.
Cicero divorced Terentia after more than thirty years of marriage, and
when they had children and grandchildren.
What motives drove him to this disagreeable extremity? Probably we do
not know them all. Terentia’s disagreeable temper must have often caused
those little quarrels in the household which, repeated continually, end
by wearing out the most steadfast affection. About the time that Cicero
was recalled from exile, and a very few months after he had written
those passionate letters of which I have spoken, he said to Atticus: “I
have some domestic troubles of which I cannot write to you,” and added,
so that he might be understood: “My daughter and my brother love me
still.”[105] We must think that he had good reason to complain of his
wife, to leave her thus out of the list of persons by whom he thought
himself loved. It has been suspected that Terentia was jealous of the
affection Cicero showed to his daughter. This affection was somewhat
excessive and so exclusive as possibly to wound her, and she was not a
woman to endure this without complaint. We may believe that these
dissensions prepared and led up to the divorce, but they were not the
final cause of it. The motive was more prosaic and vulgar. Cicero
justified it by the waste and misuse of his money by his wife, and
several times he accused her of having ruined him for her own benefit.
One of the most curious characteristics of that age was that the women
appear as much engaged in business and as interested in speculations as
the men. Money is their first care. They work their estates, invest
their funds, lend and borrow. We find one among Cicero’s creditors, and
two among his debtors. Only, as they could not always appear themselves
in these financial undertakings, they had recourse to some obliging
freedman, or some shady business man, who watched their interests and
profited by their gains. Cicero, in his speech for Caecina, coming
across a character of this sort, whose business was to devote themselves
to the fortune of women, and often to make their own at their expense,
depicts him in these terms: “There is no man one finds oftener in
ordinary life. He is the flatterer of women, the advocate of widows, a
pettifogging lawyer by profession, a lover of quarrels, a constant
attendant at trials, ignorant and stupid among men, a clever and learned
lawyer among women, expert in alluring by the appearance of a false zeal
and a hypocritical friendship, eager to render services sometimes useful
but rarely faithful.”[106] He was a marvellous guide for women tormented
with the desire of making a fortune; so Terentia had one of these men
about her, her freedman, Philotimus, a clever man of business, but not
very scrupulous, who had succeeded at this trade, since he was rich and
himself possessed slaves and freedmen. In early days Cicero often made
use of him, doubtless at the request of Terentia. It was he who got for
him at a low price some of the property of Milo when he was exiled. It
was a profitable piece of business, but not in very good taste, and
Cicero, who felt it to be so, speaks of it with some shame. On his
departure for Cilicia he left the administration of part of his property
to Philotimus, but he was not long in repenting of it. Philotimus, like
the steward of a great house, paid less attention to his master’s
interests than to his own. He kept for himself the profits he had made
on the property of Milo, and on Cicero’s return presented him an account
in which he figured as his creditor for a considerable amount. “He is a
marvellous thief!”[107] said Cicero, in a rage. At this time his
suspicions did not go beyond Philotimus; when he returned from Pharsalia
he saw clearly that Terentia was his accomplice. “I have found my
household affairs, said he to a friend, in as bad a state as those of
the republic.”[108] The distress in which he found himself at Brundusium
made him distrustful. He looked more closely into his accounts, a thing
that was not usual with him, and it was not difficult for him to
discover that Terentia had often deceived him. At one time she had
retained sixty thousand sesterces[109] (£480) out of her daughter’s
dowry. This was a handsome profit, but she was not negligent of small
gains. Her husband caught her one day pocketing two thousand sesterces
(£16) out of a sum he had asked her for.[110] This rapacity completed
the irritation of Cicero, whom other causes no doubt had soured and hurt
for a long time. He resigned himself to the divorce, but not without
sorrow. We do not break with impunity the bonds that habit, in the
absence of affection, ought to draw closer. At the moment of separation,
after so many happy days have been passed together, so many ills
supported in common, there must always be some memory which troubles us.
What adds to the sadness of these painful moments is, that when we wish
to withdraw and isolate ourselves in our sorrow, business people arrive;
we must defend our interests, reckon and discuss with these people.
These discussions, which had never suited Cicero, made him then suffer
more than usual. He said to the obliging Atticus, when asking him to
undertake them for him: “The wounds are too recent, I could not touch
them without making them bleed.”[111] And as Terentia continued making
difficulties, he wished to put an end to the discussion by giving her
all she asked. “I would rather,” he wrote, “have cause to complain of
her than become discontented with myself.”[112]
We can well understand that the wags did not fail to make merry on the
subject of this divorce. It was a just retaliation after all, and Cicero
had too often laughed at others to expect to be spared himself.
Unfortunately he gave them, a short time after, a new opportunity of
amusing themselves at his expense. Notwithstanding his sixty-three years
he thought of marrying again, and he chose a very young girl, Publilia,
whom her father, when dying, confided to his guardianship. A marriage
between guardian and ward is a real stage marriage, and the guardian
generally has the worst of it. How did it happen that Cicero, with his
experience of the world and of life, allowed himself to be drawn into
this imprudent step? Terentia, who had to revenge herself, repeated
everywhere that he had fallen violently in love with this young girl;
but his secretary, Tiro, asserted that he had only married her in order
to pay his debts with her fortune, and I think we must believe Tiro,
although it is not usual that, in this kind of marriage, the elder is
also the poorer. As might be foreseen, trouble was not long in appearing
in the household. Publilia, who was younger than her step-daughter, did
not agree with her, and, it appears, could not conceal her joy when she
died. This was an unpardonable crime in Cicero’s eyes, and he refused to
see her again. It is strange that this young woman, far from accepting
with pleasure the liberty that he wished to restore to her, made great
efforts to re-enter the house of this old man who divorced her,[113] but
he was inflexible. This time he had had enough of marriage, and it is
said that, when his friend Hirtius came to offer him the hand of his
sister, he refused her, under the pretence that it is difficult to
attend at the same time to a wife and to philosophy. It was a wise
answer, but he would have done well to have thought of it sooner.
III.
Cicero had two children by Terentia. His daughter Tullia was the elder.
He had brought her up in his own way, initiating her into his studies,
and giving her the taste for those intellectual things that he loved so
much himself, and which, it appears, his wife did not care for. “I find
in her,” he said, “my features, my words, my mind;”[114] accordingly he
loved her tenderly. While she was still very young her father could not
refrain from making allusion in one of his pleadings to the affection he
had for her.[115] This affection, certainly the deepest he ever felt,
was the great anxiety of his life. A sadder fate than that of this young
woman it is impossible to imagine. Married at thirteen to Piso, then to
Crassipes, and separated from them by death and divorce, she re-married
for the third time while her father was absent governing Cilicia.
Suitors were numerous, even among young men of illustrious family, and
it was not only the renown of the father-in-law that attracted them, as
we might think. He tells us that they supposed he would return from his
government very rich. By marrying his daughter these young men thought
to make an advantageous match which would allow them to pay their
debts.[116] Among them were the son of the consul Sulpicius and Tiberius
Nero, who was the father of Tiberius and Drusus. Cicero favoured the
latter, who even went to Cilicia to seek his consent, but his wife and
daughter, to whom on leaving he had given the right of choosing, decided
without him for Cornelius Dolabella. He was a young man of high family,
a friend of Curio, of Caelius and Antony, who till then had lived like
them, that is to say in risking his reputation and wasting his fortune;
he was, besides, a man of wit and fashion. This husband was not much to
the taste of Atticus; but it seems that Terentia was gained over by his
great name, and perhaps Tullia was not insensible to his fine manners.
At first the marriage seemed a happy one. Dolabella charmed his
mother-in-law and his wife by his good-nature and kindness. Cicero
himself, who had been at first surprised at the haste with which the
affair had been carried through, thought that his son-in-law had a good
deal of wit and refinement. “For the rest, he added, we must be
resigned.”[117] He referred to the frivolous and dissipated habits that
Dolabella did not give up notwithstanding his marriage. He had promised
to reform, but kept his promise badly, and, however willingly Cicero
would have shut his eyes to his dissoluteness, ended by making
resignation very difficult. He continued to live like the youth of that
time, making an uproar in the streets at night under the windows of
fashionable women, and his debaucheries seemed scandalous in a city
accustomed to debauch. He attached himself to a fashionable woman,
celebrated by her amorous adventures, Caecilia Metella, wife of the
consular Lentulus Sphinther. She was the same woman who afterwards
ruined the son of the great tragic actor Aesopus, that madman who, not
knowing what to invent to ruin himself most quickly, had the strange
caprice, at a dinner that he gave to his mistress, to dissolve and
swallow a pearl worth a million sesterces[118] (£8000). With a woman
like Metella, Dolabella soon squandered his fortune, he then dissipated
his wife’s, and not content with betraying and ruining her, threatened
to divorce her when she dared to complain. It seems that Tullia loved
him very much, and for a long time resisted those who advised a divorce.
Cicero blames, somewhere, what he calls his daughter’s[119] folly, but
she had at last to decide for this after fresh outrages, and leave her
husband’s house to return to her father’s. She was enceinte. The
confinement that followed in these painful circumstances carried her off
at Tusculum at the age of thirty-one.
Cicero was inconsolable for her death, and his grief at losing her was
certainly the greatest of his life. As his affection for his daughter
was well known, letters came to him from all sides, of the sort that
usually console those only who have no need of consolation. The
philosophers, to whom his name gave credit, tried by their exhortations
to make him support his loss more courageously. Caesar wrote to him from
Spain, where he had just vanquished Pompey’s sons. The greatest
personages of all parties, Brutus, Lucceius, Dolabella himself, shared
his sorrow; but none of these letters must have touched him more
sensibly than that which he received from one of his old friends,
Sulpicius, the great lawyer, who at that time governed Greece.
Fortunately it has been preserved. It is worthy of the great man who
wrote it and of him to whom it was addressed. The following passage has
often been quoted: “I must tell you a reflection that has consoled me,
perhaps it will succeed in diminishing your affliction. On my return
from Asia, as I was sailing from Aegina towards Megara, I began to look
at the country surrounding me. Megara was in front of me, Aegina behind,
the Piraeus on the right, Corinth on the left. Formerly these were very
flourishing cities, now they are but scattered ruins. At this sight I
said to myself: How dare we, poor mortals that we are, complain of the
death of our friends, whose life nature has made so short, when we see
at one glance the mere corpses of so many great cities lying
around!”[120] The thought is new and grand. This lesson drawn from the
ruins, this manner of drawing moral ideas from nature, this grave
melancholy mingled with the contemplation of a fine landscape, are
sentiments little known to pagan antiquity. This passage seems inspired
by the spirit of Christianity. We should say it was written by a man
familiar with the sacred writings, and “who was already sitting, with
the prophet, on the ruins of desolate cities.” This is so true that
Saint Ambrose, wishing to write a letter of condolence, imitated this
one, and it was thought, quite naturally, to be Christian. Cicero’s
reply was not less noble. We see in it a most touching picture of his
sadness and isolation. After having described the sorrow he felt at the
fall of the republic, he adds: “My daughter at least was left me. I had
a place to which to retire and rest. The charm of her conversation made
me forget my cares and sorrows; but the dreadful wound I received in
losing her has re-opened in my heart all those wounds that I thought
closed. Formerly I retired into my family to forget the misfortunes of
the state, but can the state now offer me any remedy to make me forget
the misfortunes of my family? I am obliged to shun, at the same time,
both my home and the Forum, for my home no longer consoles me for the
trouble the republic causes me, and the republic cannot fill the void
that I find in my home.”[121]
Tullia’s sad fate, and the grief that her death caused her father,
attract us towards her. When we see her lamented so much we wish to know
her better. Unfortunately, not a single letter of hers remains in
Cicero’s correspondence; when he lavishes compliments on her mind, we
are obliged to take it upon trust, and a father’s compliments are always
open to suspicion. From what we know, we can easily admit that she was
an accomplished woman; _lectissima femina_, is the praise Antony, who
did not like her family, gives her.[122] We should like to know,
however, how she bore the education that her father gave her. We rather
mistrust this sort of education, and we cannot help fearing that Tullia
suffered somewhat from it. The very manner in which her father bewailed
her is, to our way of thinking, prejudicial to her memory. In composing
on her death, that treatise “On Consolation” which was filled with her
praises, he has not, perhaps, done her a great service. A young woman so
unfortunate deserved an elegy; a philosophic treatise seems to weigh on
her memory. Is it not possible that her father rather spoilt her in
wishing to make her too learned? It was quite the custom at that time.
Hortensius had made his daughter an orator, and it is asserted that, one
day, she pleaded an important case better than a good advocate. I
suspect that Cicero wished to make his a philosopher, and I am afraid he
succeeded only too well. Philosophy presents many dangers for a woman,
and Madame de Sévigné had not much reason to congratulate herself on
having put her daughter under the system of Descartes. That dry and
pedantic figure is not calculated to make us like women philosophers.
Philosophy succeeded still less with Cicero’s son Marcus than with his
daughter. His father was completely mistaken about his tastes and
abilities, which is not very extraordinary, for parental tenderness is
often more warm than enlightened. Marcus had only the instincts of a
soldier, Cicero wished to make him a philosopher and an orator, but he
lost his labour. These instincts, repressed for a moment, always broke
out again with added force. At eighteen, Marcus lived like all the young
men of that time, and it was necessary to remonstrate with him on his
expenditure. He was bored with the lessons of his master, Dionysius, and
with the rhetoric that his father tried to teach him. He wished to set
out for the Spanish war with Caesar. Instead of listening to him, Cicero
sent him to Athens to finish his education. He had an establishment like
a nobleman’s son. They gave him freedmen and slaves that he might make
as good a figure as the young Bibulus, Acidinus and Messala who studied
with him. About a hundred thousand sesterces (£800) were assigned to him
for his annual expenses, which seems a reasonable allowance for a
student in philosophy; but Marcus went away in a bad humour, and his
stay at Athens did not have the results that Cicero expected. No longer
under his father’s eyes he indulged his tastes without restraint.
Instead of following the lectures of the rhetoricians and philosophers,
his time was taken up with good dinners and noisy entertainments. His
life was so much the more dissolute as, to all appearance, he was
encouraged in his dissipation by his master himself, the rhetorician
Gorgias. This rhetorician was a thorough Greek, that is to say, a man
ready to do anything to make his fortune. In studying his pupil he saw
that he should gain more by flattering his vices than by cultivating his
good qualities, and he accordingly flattered his vices. In this school,
Marcus, instead of paying attention to Plato and Aristotle, as his
father recommended him, acquired the taste for Falernian and Chian wine,
a taste that continued with him. The only reputation that he was proud
of afterwards was that of being the hardest drinker of his time; he
sought and obtained the glory of conquering the triumvir Antony, who
enjoyed a great reputation in this line, that he was very proud of. This
was his way of avenging his father, whom Antony had put to death. Later,
Augustus, who wished to pay the son the debt he had contracted with his
father, made him a consul, but did not succeed in breaking him of his
habits of debauchery, for the sole exploit that we are told of him is,
that one day, when he was drunk, he threw his glass at Agrippa’s
head.[123]
We can understand what sorrow Cicero must have felt when he learnt of
his son’s early dissoluteness. I suppose he hesitated to believe it for
a long time, for he liked to delude himself about his children. So when
Marcus, lectured by all the family, dismissed Gorgias and promised to
behave better, his father, who was very willing to be deceived, was
eager to believe it. From this time we see him constantly engaged in
begging Atticus not to let his son want for anything, and in studying
the letters he receives from him to try and discover some progress.
There remains just one of these letters of Marcus of the time when he
seems to return to better habits. It was addressed to Tiro, and is full
of protestations of repentance. He acknowledges himself so humiliated,
so tormented by all his faults, “that not only his soul detests them,
but he cannot bear to hear of them.” To convince him thoroughly of his
sincerity he draws the picture of his life; it is impossible to imagine
one better occupied. He passes his days and almost his nights with the
philosopher Cratippus, who treats him like a son. He keeps him to dinner
in order to deprive himself of his society as little as possible. He is
so charmed with the learned conversation of Bruttius that he wishes to
have him near him, and pays his board and lodging. He declaims in Latin,
he declaims in Greek with the most learned rhetoricians. He only visits
well-informed men; he only sees learned old men, the wise Epicrates, the
venerable Leonidas, all the Areopagus in fact, and this edifying
narration ends with these words: “Above all, take care to keep in good
health, that we may be able to talk science and philosophy
together.”[124]
It is a very pleasing letter, but in reading it a certain suspicion
comes into our mind. These protestations are so exaggerated that we
suspect Marcus had some design in making them, especially when we
remember that Tiro possessed the confidence of his master, and disposed
of all his liberalities. Who knows if these regrets and high-sounding
promises did not precede and excuse some appeal for funds?
It must be said in favour of Marcus that, after having grieved his
father by his dissipation, at least he consoled his last moments. When
Brutus passed through Athens, calling to arms the young Romans who were
there, Marcus felt his soldierly instincts revive. He remembered that at
seventeen he had successfully commanded a cavalry corps at Pharsalia,
and he was one of the first to respond to the call of Brutus. He was one
of his most skilful, most devoted and most courageous lieutenants, and
often deserved his praise. “I am so pleased,” wrote Brutus to Cicero,
“with the valour, activity and energy of Marcus, that he seems always to
recall to me the father whose son he has the honour to be.”[125] We can
well understand how pleased Cicero must have been with this testimony.
It was while rejoicing over this awakening of his son that he wrote and
dedicated to him his treatise _De Officiis_, which is perhaps his finest
work, and which was his last farewell to his family and his country.
IV.
This study of Cicero’s family life is not yet complete; there remain a
few details to add. We know that a Roman family was not only composed of
the persons united by relationship, but that it also comprised the
slaves. Servant and master were then more closely connected than they
are now, and they had more community of life. In order to know Cicero
thoroughly, then, in his family, we must say a few words about his
relations with his slaves.
In theory, he did not hold opinions upon slavery different from those of
his time. Like Aristotle, he accepted the institution, and thought it
legitimate. While proclaiming that a man has duties to fulfil towards
his slaves, he did not hesitate to admit that they must be held down by
cruelty when there was no other means of managing them;[126] but in
practice he treated them with great mildness. He attached himself to
them so far as to weep for them when he had the misfortune to lose them.
This, probably, was not usual, for we see that he almost begs pardon for
it of his friend Atticus. “My mind is quite troubled, he writes to him;
I have lost a young man named Sositheus, who was my reader, and I am
more grieved perhaps than I ought to be at the death of a slave.”[127] I
only see one, in all his correspondence, with whom he seems to be very
angry; this was a certain Dionysius whom he sought for even in the
depths of Illyria, and whom he wished to have again at any price;[128]
but Dionysius had stolen some of his books, and this was a crime that
Cicero could not forgive. His slaves also loved him very much. He boasts
of the fidelity they showed towards him in his misfortunes, and we know
that at the last moment they would have died for him if he had not
prevented them.
We know better than the rest one of them, who had a greater share in his
affection, namely, Tiro. The name he bears is Latin, which makes us
suspect that he was one of those slaves born in the master’s house
(_vernae_), who were looked upon as belonging to the family more than
the rest, because they had never left it. Cicero became attached to him
early, and had him carefully instructed. Perhaps he even took the
trouble to finish his education himself. He calls himself, somewhere,
his teacher, and likes to rally him about his way of writing. He had a
very lively affection for him, and at last could not do without him. He
played a great part in Cicero’s house, and his powers were very various.
He represented in it order and economy, which were not the ordinary
qualities of his master. He was the confidential man through whose hands
all financial matters passed. On the first of the month he undertook to
scold the debtors who were in arrears, and to get too pressing creditors
to have patience; he revised the accounts of the steward Eros, which
were not always correct; he went to see the obliging bankers whose
credit supported Cicero in moments of difficulty. Every time there was
some delicate commission to be executed he was applied to, as for
instance when it was a question of demanding some money of Dolabella
without displeasing him too much. The care he gave to the most important
affairs did not prevent him being employed on the smallest. He was sent
to overlook the gardens, spur on the workmen, superintend the building
operations: the dining-room, even, fell within his province, and I see
that he is entrusted with the sending out the invitations to a dinner, a
thing not always without its difficulties, for one must only bring
together guests who are mutually agreeable, “and Tertia will not come if
Publius is invited.”[129] But it is as secretary, especially, that he
rendered Cicero the greatest services. He wrote almost as quickly as one
speaks, and he alone could read his master’s writing, that the copyists
could not decipher. He was more than a secretary for him, he was a
confidant, and even a collaborator. Aulus Gellius asserts that he helped
him in the composition of his works,[130] and the correspondence does
not belie this opinion. One day when Tiro had remained ill in some
country house, Cicero wrote to him that Pompey, who was then on a visit
to him, asked him to read him something, and that he had answered that
all was mute in the house when Tiro was not there. “My literature,” he
added, “or rather ours, languishes in your absence. Come back as quickly
as possible to re-animate our muses.”[131] At this time Tiro was still a
slave. It was not till much later, about the year 700, that he was
manumitted. Every one about Cicero applauded this just recompense for so
many faithful services. Quintus, who was then in Gaul, wrote expressly
to his brother to thank him for having given him a new friend. In the
sequel, Tiro bought a small field, no doubt out of his master’s bounty,
and Marcus, in the letter he wrote him from Athens, rallies him
pleasantly on the new tastes this acquisition will develop in him. “Now
you are a landowner!” says he, “you must leave the elegance of the town
and become quite a Roman peasant. How much pleasure I have in
contemplating you from here under your new aspect! I think I see you
buying agricultural implements, talking with the farmer, or saving seeds
for your garden in a fold of your robe at dessert!”[132] But, proprietor
and freedman, Tiro was no less at his master’s service than when he was
a slave.
His health was poor, and not always sufficiently attended to. Everybody
liked him, but under this pretext everybody made him work. They seemed
to agree in abusing his good-nature, which they knew to be
inexhaustible. Quintus, Atticus, and Marcus insisted upon his constantly
giving them news of Rome and of Cicero. Tiro so readily took his share
of each addition to the business that came upon his master, that at last
he fell ill. He fatigued himself so much during Cicero’s governorship of
Cilicia that, on the return journey, he had to be left at Patras. Cicero
very much regretted the separation from him, and to testify the sorrow
he felt at leaving him, he wrote to him as often as three times in the
same day. The care that Cicero took on every occasion of this delicate
and precious health was extreme; he became a doctor in order to cure
him. One day, when he had left him indisposed at Tusculum, he wrote to
him: “Take care of your health, which you have heretofore neglected in
order to serve me. You know what it demands: a good digestion, no
fatigue, moderate exercise, amusement, and keeping the body open. Come
back a good-looking fellow, I shall like you all the better for it, you
and Tusculum.”[133] When the illness was graver the advice was given at
greater length. All the family joined in writing, and Cicero, who held
the pen, said to him, in the name of his wife and children: “If you love
us all, and particularly me who have brought you up, you will only think
of re-establishing your health.... I beg you not to regard expense. I
have written to Curius to give you all that you want, and to pay the
doctor liberally that he may be more attentive. You have rendered me
numberless services at home, at the Forum, at Rome, in my province, in
my public and private affairs, in my studies and my literary work; but
you will put the finishing touch if, as I hope, I see you again in good
health.”[134] Tiro repaid this affection by an indefatigable
devotedness. With his feeble health, he lived more than a hundred years,
and we may say that all this long life was employed in his master’s
service. His zeal did not flag when he had lost him, and his time was
taken up with him to his last moments. He wrote his biography, he
brought out his unpublished works; that nothing should be lost, he
collected his smallest notes and witty sayings, of which, it is said, he
made a somewhat too large collection, for his admiration did not allow
him to distinguish, and he published some excellent editions of his
speeches, which were still consulted in the time of Aulus Gellius.[135]
These assuredly were services for which Cicero, who thought so much of
his literary glory, would have most heartily thanked his faithful
freedman.
There is one reflection that we cannot help making when we study the
relations of Tiro with his master, and that is, that ancient slavery,
looked at from this point of view, and in the house of such a man as
Cicero, appears less repulsive. It was evidently much softened at this
time, and letters have a large share in this improvement. They had
diffused a new virtue among those who loved them, one whose name often
recurs in Cicero’s philosophical works, namely, humanity, that is to
say, that culture of mind that softens the heart. It was by its
influence that slavery, without being attacked in principle, was
profoundly modified in its effects. This change came about noiselessly.
People did not try to run counter to dominant prejudices; up to Seneca’s
time they did not insist on establishing the right of the slave to be
reckoned among men, and he continued to be excluded from the grand
theories that were made upon human brotherhood; but in reality no one
profited more than he by the softening of manners. We have just seen how
Cicero treated his slaves, and he was not exceptional. Atticus acted
like him, and this humanity had become a sort of point of honour, on
which this society of polished and lettered people prided themselves. A
few years later, Pliny the younger, who also belonged to this society,
speaks with a touching sadness of the sickness and death of his slaves.
“I know well, he says, that many others only regard this kind of
misfortune as a simple loss of goods, and in thinking thus they consider
themselves great and wise men. For myself, I do not know if they are as
great and wise as they imagine, but I do know that they are not
men.”[136] These were the sentiments of all the distinguished society of
that time. Slavery, then, had lost much of its harshness towards the end
of the Roman republic and in the early times of the empire. This
improvement, which is usually referred to Christianity, was much older
than it, and we must give the credit of it to philosophy and letters.
Besides the freedmen and slaves, who formed part of the family of a rich
Roman, there were other persons who were attached to it, although less
closely, namely, the clients. Doubtless the ancient institution of
clientage had lost much of its grave and sacred character. The time had
gone by when Cato said that the clients should take precedence of
kinsmen and neighbours in the house, and that the title of patron came
immediately after that of father. These ties were much slackened,[137]
and the obligations they imposed had become much less rigid. Almost the
only one still respected was the necessity the clients were under of
going to salute the patron early in the morning. Quintus, in the very
curious letter that he addressed to his brother on the subject of his
candidature for the consulship, divides them into three classes: first,
those who content themselves with the morning visit; these are, in
general, lukewarm friends or inquisitive observers who come to learn the
news, or who even sometimes visit all the candidates that they may have
the pleasure of reading in their faces the state of their hopes; then,
those who accompany their patron to the Forum and form his train while
he takes two or three turns in the basilica, that everybody may see that
it is a man of importance who arrives; and lastly, those who do not
leave him all the time he is out of doors, and who conduct him back to
his house as they had gone to meet him there. These are the faithful and
devoted followers, who do not haggle about the time they give, and whose
unwearied zeal obtains for the candidate the dignities he desires.[138]
When a man had the good fortune to belong to a great family, he
possessed by inheritance a ready-made clientage. A Claudius or a
Cornelius, even before he had taken the trouble to oblige anybody, was
sure to find his hall half filled every morning with people whom
gratitude attached to his family, and he produced a sensation in the
Forum by the number of those who accompanied him the day he went there
to plead his first cause. Cicero had not this advantage; but, although
he owed his clients to himself alone, they were none the less very
numerous. In that time of exciting struggles, when the quietest citizens
were exposed every day to the most unreasonable accusations, many people
were forced to have recourse to him to defend them. He did so readily,
for he had no other means of making a clientage than by giving his
services to a great many. It was this, perhaps, that made him accept so
many bad cases. As he arrived at the Forum almost alone, without that
train of persons whom he had obliged, which gave public importance, it
was necessary for him not to be too particular in order to form and
increase it. Whatever repugnance his honest mind may have felt on taking
up a doubtful case, his vanity could not resist the pleasure of adding
another person to the multitude of those who accompanied him. There
were, in this crowd, according to his brother, citizens of every age,
rank, and fortune. Important personages no doubt were mingled with those
insignificant folks who usually formed this kind of retinue. Speaking of
a tribune of the people, Memmius Gemellus, the protector of Lucretius,
he calls him his client.[139]
It was not only at Rome that he had clients and persons who were under
obligation to him; we see by his correspondence that his protection
extended much further, and that people wrote to him from all parts
demanding his services. The Romans were then scattered over the entire
world; after having conquered it they busied themselves in making the
greatest possible profit out of it. In the track of the legions and
almost at their heels, a swarm of clever and enterprising men settled on
the just conquered provinces to seek their fortunes there; they knew how
to adapt their skill to the resources and needs of each country. In
Sicily and in Gaul they cultivated vast estates, and speculated in wines
and corn; in Asia, where there were so many cities opulent or involved
in debt, they became bankers, that is to say, they furnished them, by
their usury, a prompt and sure means of ruining themselves. In general,
they thought of returning to Rome as soon as their fortune was made, and
in order to return the sooner, they sought to enrich themselves as
quickly as possible. As they were only encamped, and not really settled
in the conquered countries, as they found themselves there without ties
of affection and without root, they treated them without mercy and made
themselves detested. They were often prosecuted before the tribunals and
had great need of being defended, and so they sought to procure the
support of the best advocates, above all that of Cicero, the greatest
orator of his time. His talent and his credit were not too great to
extricate them from the discreditable affairs in which they were mixed
up.
If we wish to become well acquainted with one of those great merchants
of Rome, who, by their character and their fate, sometimes resemble the
speculators of our days, we must read the speech that Cicero delivered
in defence of Rabirius Postumus. He there narrates the whole story of
his client. It is a lively story, and it is not without interest to sum
it up in order to know what those Roman business men, who so often had
recourse to his eloquence, were like. Rabirius, the son of a rich and
acute farmer of taxes, was born with the spirit of enterprise. He did
not confine himself to a single branch of commerce, for he was one of
those of whom Cicero said that they knew all the roads by which money
could come in, _omnes vias pecuniae norunt_.[140] He transacted all
kinds of business, and with equally good fortune; he undertook much
himself, and often shared in the enterprises of others. He farmed the
public taxes; he lent to private persons, to the provinces and to kings.
As generous as he was rich, he made his friends profit by his good
fortune. He created employment for them, gave them an interest in his
business, and a share in the profits.
His popularity therefore was very great at Rome; but, as sometimes
happens, his prosperity ruined him. He had lent a good deal of money to
Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, who probably gave him good interest.
This king having got himself expelled by his subjects, Rabirius was
induced to make him fresh advances in order to recover the money that
was at stake. He pledged his own fortune and even that of his friends to
provide for his expenses; he defrayed the cost of the magnificent royal
_cortège_ when Ptolemy went to Rome to demand the support of the senate,
and, what must have cost him still more, gave him the means of gaining
over the most influential senators. Ptolemy’s business appeared safe. As
people hoped much from the gratitude of the king, the most important
personages strove for the honour or rather the profit of reinstating
him. Lentulus, then proconsul of Cilicia, contended that they could not
refuse it to him; but at the same time Pompey, who received the young
prince at his house at Alba, demanded it for himself. This rivalry
caused everything to miscarry. The opposing interests counteracted each
other, and in order not to cause jealousy by letting one man profit by
this fortunate opportunity, the senate would not grant it to anybody. It
is said that Rabirius, who knew the Romans well, then gave the king the
bold advice to apply to one of those adventurers of whom Rome was full
and who flinched from nothing for money. A former tribune, Gabinius,
governed Syria. He was promised 10,000 talents (£2,200,000) if he would
openly disobey the decree of the senate. It was a large sum; Gabinius
accepted the bargain, and his troops brought Ptolemy back to Alexandria.
As soon as Rabirius knew that he was re-established he hastened to meet
him. To make more sure of recovering his money, he consented to become
his overseer of the revenue (_diaecetes_), or as we should now say, his
minister of finance. He wore the Greek mantle, to the great scandal of
strict Romans, and put on the insignia of his office. He had only
accepted it with the idea that he should never be better paid than if he
paid himself, through his own hands. This is what he tried to do, and it
appears that in raising the money promised to Gabinius he also
cautiously took enough to repay himself; but the people, who were being
ruined, complained, and the king, to whom Rabirius had become
intolerable now that he had no longer need of him, and who was no doubt
delighted to find a convenient means of getting rid of a creditor, threw
him into prison and even threatened his life. Rabirius fled from Egypt
as soon as he could, happy to have left only his fortune there. He had
only one resource left. At the same time that he administered the king’s
finances, he had bought on his own account Egyptian merchandise, paper,
flax, glass, and had laden several vessels which unloaded at Puteoli
with considerable ostentation. The report of this reached Rome, and, as
people there were used to the lucky adventures of Rabirius, rumour took
pleasure in exaggerating the number of the vessels and the value of
their cargo. It was even said, in an undertone, that there was among
these ships a smaller one that was not shown, no doubt because it was
full of gold and precious objects. Unfortunately for Rabirius there was
no truth in all these tales. The little ship only existed in the
imagination of news-mongers, and the goods that the others carried being
sold at a loss, he was quite ruined. His disaster made a sensation at
Rome, and was the talk of a whole season. The friends he had so
generously obliged deserted him; public opinion, which up to that time
had been so favourable to him, turned against him. The most indulgent
called him a fool, the most violent accused him of feigning poverty and
of withholding a part of his fortune from his creditors. It is certain,
however, that he had nothing, and only lived on the bounty of Caesar,
one of that small number who remained true to him in his misfortune.
Cicero did not forget him either. He remembered that, at the time of his
exile, Rabirius had put his fortune at his disposal and paid men to
accompany him, and therefore he hastened to plead for him when it was
proposed to include him in the prosecution of Gabinius, and he succeeded
at least in preserving his honour and liberty.
One trait is missing in this description. Cicero tells us in his speech
that Rabirius was only moderately educated. He had done so many things
in his life that he had not had time to think of learning, but this was
not usual; we know that many of his colleagues, notwithstanding their
not very literary occupations, were none the less witty and lettered
men. Cicero, recommending a merchant of Thespiae to Sulpicius, tells
him: “He has a taste for our studies.”[141] He looked upon Curius of
Patras as one of those who had best preserved the turn of the ancient
Roman humour. “Make haste and come back to Rome, he wrote him, lest the
seed of our native humour be lost.”[142] Those knights who associated
themselves in powerful companies and farmed the taxes, were also men of
wit and men of the best society. Cicero, who came from their ranks, had
connection with almost all of them; but it seems that he was more
especially connected with the company that farmed the pasturages of
Asia, and he says that it put itself under his protection.
This protection was also extended to people who were not Romans by
birth. Foreigners, we can well understand, regarded it as a great honour
and security to be in any way connected with an illustrious personage in
Rome. They could not be his clients, they wished to become his hosts. At
a time when there were so few convenient hotels in the countries one
passed through, it was necessary, when you wished to travel, to have
obliging friends who would consent to receive you. In Italy, rich people
bought little houses where they passed the night on the roads they were
accustomed to travel; but, elsewhere, they journeyed from one host to
another. To shelter a rich Roman in this way was often a heavy expense.
He always had a large train with him. Cicero tells us that he met P.
Vedius in the depths of Asia “with two chariots, a carriage, a litter,
horses, numerous slaves, and, besides, a monkey on a little car, and a
number of wild asses.”[143] Vedius was a comparatively unknown Roman.
One may judge of the suite that a proconsul and a praetor had when they
went to take possession of their provinces! However, although their
passage exhausted the house that received them, this ruinous honour was
solicited because numberless advantages were found in securing their
support. Cicero had hosts in all the great cities of Greece and Asia,
and they were almost always the principal citizens. Kings themselves
like Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes considered themselves honoured by this
title. Important cities, Volaterrae, Atella, Sparta, Paphos frequently
claimed his protection and rewarded it with public honours. He counted
entire provinces, nations almost, among his clients, and after the
affair of Verres, for instance, he was the defender and patron of
Sicily. This custom survived the republic, and in the time of Tacitus
orators of renown had still among their clients provinces and kingdoms.
It was the only mark of real distinction that remained to eloquence.
These details, it seems to me, complete our knowledge of what the life
of an important person was at that time. As long as we are satisfied
with studying the few persons who compose what we should now-a-days call
his family, and only see him with his wife and children, his life very
much resembles our own. The sentiments which are the foundation of human
nature have not changed, and they always lead to very nearly the same
results. The cares which troubled Cicero’s domestic hearth, his joys and
misfortunes, are much like ours; but as soon as we leave this limited
circle, when we replace the Roman among the crowd of his servants and
familiar friends, the difference between that society and ours becomes
manifest. Now-a-days life has become more plain and simple. We have no
longer those immense riches, those extensive connections, nor that
multitude of people attached to our fortunes. What we call a great
retinue would scarcely have sufficed for one of those clerks of the
farmers of the revenue who went to collect the taxes in some provincial
town. A noble, or even a rich Roman knight, did not content himself with
so little. When we think of those armies of slaves they gathered
together in their houses and on their estates, of those freedmen who
formed a sort of court around them, of that multitude of clients who
encumbered the streets of Rome through which they passed, of those hosts
they had throughout the world, of those cities and realms that implored
their protection, we can better understand the authority of their
speech, the haughtiness of their bearing, the breadth of their
eloquence, the gravity of their deportment, the feeling of personal
importance which they threw into all their actions and speeches. It is
here, above all, that the perusal of Cicero’s letters renders us a great
service. They give us a notion of lives lived on a scale such as we no
longer know, and thus help us to understand better the society of that
time.
ATTICUS
Of all Cicero’s correspondents, none kept up a longer or more regular
intercourse with him than Atticus. Their friendly relations lasted
without interruption and without a shadow till their death. They
corresponded during the shortest absences, and, when it was possible,
more than once a day. These letters, sometimes short to communicate a
passing reflection, sometimes long and studied, when events were graver,
playful or serious according to circumstances, that were written in
haste wherever the writers happened to be, these letters reflect the
whole life of the two friends. Cicero characterized them happily when he
said “They were like a conversation between us two.” Unfortunately, at
present, we hear only one of the speakers and the conversation has
become a monologue. In publishing his friend’s letters Atticus took good
care not to add his own. No doubt he did not wish his sentiments to be
read too openly, and his prudence sought to withhold from the public the
knowledge of his opinions and the secrets of his private life; but in
vain he sought to hide himself, the voluminous correspondence that
Cicero kept up with him was sufficient to make him known, and it is easy
to form from it an exact idea of the person to whom it is addressed.
This person is assuredly one of the most curious of an important epoch,
and deserves that we should take the trouble to study him with some
care.
I.
Atticus was twenty years old when the war between Marius and Sulla
began. He saw its beginnings and nearly became its victim; the tribune
Sulpicius, one of the chief heads of the popular party, and his
relation, was put to death with his partisans and friends by Sulla’s
orders, and as Atticus often visited him he ran some risk. This first
danger decided his whole life. As, notwithstanding his age, he had a
firm and prudent mind, he did not allow himself to be discouraged, but
reconsidered his position. If he had had hitherto some slight
inclination towards political ambition, and the idea of seeking public
honours, he gave them up without hesitation when he saw what a price
must sometimes be paid for them. He understood that a republic, in which
power could only be seized by force, was lost, and that in perishing it
was likely to drag down with it those who had served it. He resolved
then to hold himself aloof from public affairs, and his whole policy
consisted henceforth in creating for himself a safe position, outside of
parties, and out of reach of danger.
Sieyès was asked one day: “What did you do during the Terror?” “What did
I do?” he answered; “I lived.” That was a great thing to do. Atticus did
still more, he lived not only during a terror of a few months, but
during a terror of several years. As if to test his prudence and
ability, he was placed in the most troubled period in history. He looked
on at three civil wars, he saw Rome four times invaded by different
leaders, and the massacres recommence at each new victory. He lived, not
humble, unknown, allowing himself to be forgotten in some distant town,
but at Rome, and in full publicity. Everything contributed to draw
attention to him; he was rich, which was a sufficient cause for being
proscribed, he had a great reputation as a man of wit, he willingly
associated with the powerful, and, through his connections at least, he
was regarded as an important person. Nevertheless, he was able to escape
all the dangers that his position and his wealth created for him, and
even contrived to become greater at each of those revolutions which, it
seemed, might have ruined him. Each change of government, which hurled
his friends from power, left him richer and stronger, so that at last he
found himself placed, quite naturally, almost on a level with the new
master. By what miracle of cleverness, by what prodigy of skilful
combinations did he succeed in living honoured, rich and powerful at a
time when it was so difficult to live at all? It was a problem full of
difficulties; this is how he solved it.
In view of the first massacres of which he had been a witness, Atticus
decided to take no part henceforth in public affairs and parties; but
that is not so easy to do as one might think, and the firmest resolution
does not always suffice for success. It is useless to declare that you
wish to remain neutral; the world persists in classing you according to
the name you bear, your family traditions, your personal ties and the
earlier manifestations of your preferences. Atticus understood that, in
order to escape this sort of forced enlistment and to throw public
opinion off the scent, it was necessary to leave Rome, and to leave it
for a long time. He hoped, by this voluntary exile, to regain full
possession of himself and break the ties that, against his will, still
bound him to the past. But, if he wished to withdraw himself from the
eyes of his fellow-citizens, he did not intend to be forgotten by
everybody. He meant to return; and did not wish to return as a stranger,
no longer recognized, and lose all the benefit of his early friendships.
Thus he did not choose for his retreat some distant estate, in an
unknown province, or one of those obscure towns on which the eyes of the
Roman people never fell. He retired to Athens, that is to say, to the
only city that had preserved a great renown, and which still held a
place in the admiration of the nations on a level with Rome. There, by a
few well-placed liberalities, he drew to himself the affection of
everybody. He distributed corn to the citizens, he lent money without
interest to that city of men of letters, the finances of which were
always embarrassed. He did more, he flattered the Athenians on their
most sensitive side. He was the first Roman who dared openly to declare
his taste for the letters and arts of Greece. Up to that time it had
been the fashion among his countrymen to esteem and cultivate the Greek
muses in private, and to laugh at them in public. Cicero himself, who on
so many occasions braved this stupid prejudice, dared not appear to know
off-hand the name of a great sculptor; but Cicero was a statesman for
whom it was proper to show, at least now and then, that haughty disdain
for other nations which partly constituted what is called the Roman
dignity. It was necessary to flatter this national weakness if one
wished to please the people. Atticus, who did not mean to ask anything
of them, was more free; so he openly laughed at these customs.
Immediately on his arrival he began to speak and write Greek, to openly
frequent the studios of sculptors and painters, to buy statues and
pictures, and to compose works on the fine arts. The Athenians were as
much delighted as surprised to see one of their conquerors partake in
their most cherished tastes, and thus protest against the unjust disdain
of the rest. Their gratitude, which was always very noisy, as we know,
overwhelmed Atticus with all sorts of flattery. Decrees in his honour
were multiplied, he was offered all the dignities of the city; they even
wished to raise statues to him. Atticus hastened to refuse everything;
but the effect was produced, and the report of such great popularity did
not fail to reach Rome, carried by those young men of high family who
had just finished their education in Greece. In this manner the
reputation of Atticus lost nothing by his absence; people of taste
talked of this enlightened connoisseur of the arts who had made himself
remarked even at Athens; and during this same time the politicians, no
longer seeing him, lost the habit of classing him with a political
party.
This was an important step. There remained a more important one to take.
Atticus had seen betimes that to be rich is the first condition of
independence. This general truth was even more evident at that time than
at any other. How many people were there whose conduct during the civil
wars can only be explained by the state of their fortunes! Curio had but
one motive for serving Caesar, whom he did not like, namely, the
pressure of his creditors; and Cicero himself puts among the chief
reasons that prevented him going to Pompey’s camp, whither all his
sympathies called him, the money that Caesar had lent him, and which he
could not repay. To escape embarrassments of this kind and gain entire
liberty, Atticus resolved to become rich, and became so. It is of
importance, I think, to give here a few details to show how people got
rich at Rome. His father had left him a rather moderate fortune, two
million sesterces (£16,000). When he left Rome he sold almost all the
family property, that he might leave nothing behind to tempt the
proscribers, and bought an estate in Epirus, in that country of large
herds, where the land brought in so much. It is probable he did not pay
much for it. Mithridates had just ravaged Greece, and, as there was no
money, everything went at a low price. This domain quickly prospered
under skilful management; new lands were bought every year out of the
surplus revenue, and Atticus became one of the great landed proprietors
of the country. But is it likely that his wealth came to him solely
through the good management of his land? He would have willingly had
this believed, in order to resemble somewhat in this manner Cato and the
Romans of the old school. Unluckily for him, his friend Cicero betrays
him. In reading this unreserved correspondence we are not long in
perceiving that Atticus had many other ways of enriching himself besides
the sale of his corn and herds. This skilful agriculturalist was at the
same time a clever trader, who carried on all businesses successfully.
He excelled in drawing a profit, not only from the follies of others,
which is common, but even from his own pleasures, and his talent
consisted in enriching himself where others ruin themselves. We know for
instance that he was fond of fine books; then, as now, this was a very
costly fancy, but he knew how to make it a source of handsome profits.
He collected in his house a large number of skilful copyists whom he
trained himself; after having made them work for him, when his passion
was satisfied he set them to work for others, and sold the books they
copied to the public very dear. He was thus a veritable publisher for
Cicero, and as his friend’s works sold well it happened that this
friendship, which was full of charm for his heart, was not without use
to his fortune.[144] This commerce might be avowed, and a friend to
letters was not forbidden to become a bookseller; but Atticus engaged as
well in many transactions that ought to have been more repugnant to him.
As he saw the success that everywhere attended gladiatorial fights, and
that no festival took place without one of these grand butcheries, he
thought of raising gladiators on his estates. He had them carefully
instructed in the art of dying gracefully, and hired them out at a high
rate to cities that wished to amuse themselves.[145] It must be
acknowledged that this is not a suitable trade for a scholar and a
philosopher; but the profits were large, and the philosophy of Atticus
was accommodating as soon as there was a good profit to make. Besides,
he was a banker when the opportunity offered, and lent at a high rate of
interest, as the greatest nobles of Rome did without scruple. Only, he
was more circumspect than others, and took care to appear as little as
possible in the affairs that he conducted, and he had, no doubt, in
Italy and Greece, clever agents who made the most of his capital. His
business relations extended throughout the world; we know of his debtors
in Macedonia, Epirus, Ephesus and Delos, almost everywhere. He lent to
private persons; he lent also to cities, but quite secretly, for this
business was then as little esteemed as it was lucrative, and persons
who took to it were not considered either honest or scrupulous. So
Atticus, who thought as much of his reputation as of his fortune, would
not let any one know that he conducted this sort of business. He
carefully concealed it even from his friend Cicero, and we should be
ignorant of it now if he had not experienced some untoward accidents in
this risky business. Although usually great profits were gained, some
dangers also were run. After having suffered the Roman domination for
two centuries, all the cities, allied and municipal, and especially
those of Asia, were completely ruined. They all had less revenue than
debts, and the proconsuls, combined with the farmers of the taxes,
carried off their resources so completely that there was nothing left
for the creditors to take, unless they exerted themselves. This is what
happened once to Atticus, notwithstanding his activity. We see that
Cicero rallies him in one of his letters about the siege he is going to
lay to Sicyon;[146] this siege was evidently that of some recalcitrant
debtors; Atticus never made any other campaigns; and, in truth, this one
succeeded badly. While he thus went to war against this unfortunate
indebted town, the senate took pity on it, and protected it by a decree
against its too exacting creditors, so that Atticus, who set out from
Epirus as a conqueror, with flying banners, was reduced, says Cicero,
when he had arrived under the walls, to extract from the Sicyonians a
few poor crowns (_nummulorum aliquid_) by means of prayers and
flatteries.[147] We must, however, suppose that Atticus was usually more
lucky in the investment of his funds, and by his well-known prudence we
are assured that he knew how to choose more solvent debtors. All this
business that he carried on would certainly soon have made him very
rich; but he had no need to take so much trouble, for while he was
working so skilfully to make his fortune it came to him ready made from
another quarter. He had an uncle, Q. Caecilius, who passed for the most
terrible usurer of Rome, where there were so many, and who only
consented to lend to his nearest relations, and as a special favour, at
the rate of one per cent. per month. He was a hard, inflexible man, who
had rendered himself so hateful to everybody that the people could not
be prevented from outraging his corpse on the day of his funeral.
Atticus was the only person who had been able to get on with him.
Caecilius adopted him by will, and left him the greater part of his
property, ten million sesterces, a little more than £80,000. Henceforth
his fortune was made, he was independent of everybody, and free to
follow his own inclinations.
But was it not to be feared, that when he was back in Rome, the
resolution that he took to shun all ties would have a bad look? He could
not decently pretend indifference or fear as a reason for keeping aloof
from parties; he had to find a more honourable motive and one that he
might proclaim; a school of philosophy furnished him with it. The
Epicureans, sacrificing everything to the conveniences of life, said
that it was good to abstain from public employments to avoid the worry
they brought. “Do not engage in politics,” was their favourite maxim.
Atticus professed to be an Epicurean; henceforth his abstention had a
plausible pretext, fidelity to the opinions of his sect, and if he was
blamed, the blame fell upon the whole school, which always makes the
share of each individual very light. Was Atticus in reality a veritable
and complete Epicurean? This is a question that the learned discuss, and
that the character of this personage easily permits us to solve. To
suppose that in anything whatever he attached himself scrupulously to a
school, and pledged himself to be a faithful disciple of it, would be to
know him ill. He had studied them all for the pleasure that this study
gave to his inquisitive mind, but he was determined not to be a slave to
their systems. He had found a principle in the Epicurean morals that
suited him, and seized it in order to justify his political conduct. As
to Epicurus himself and his doctrine, he cared very little about them,
and was ready to abandon them on the first pretext. Cicero shows this
very pleasantly in a passage of the _De Legibus_. He represents himself
in this work chatting with Atticus on the banks of the Fibrenus, under
the delightful shades of Arpinum. As he wishes to trace back the origin
of laws to the gods, it is necessary for him first to lay down that the
gods concern themselves with men, which the Epicureans denied. He turns
then to his friend, and says: “Do you admit, Pomponius, that the power
of the immortal gods, their reason, their wisdom, or, if you like it
better, their providence, rule the universe? If you do not admit it I
must begin by demonstrating it.—Well then, replies Atticus, I admit it,
if you like, for thanks to these birds that are singing, and to the
murmuring of these brooks, I have no fear that any of my
fellow-disciples may hear me.”[148] Here is a very accommodating
philosopher, and the school will not get very much good from an adept
who abandons it as soon as he is sure that it will not be known. The
character of Atticus is here well seen. To embrace an opinion resolutely
is to pledge oneself to defend it, and to expose oneself to the
necessity of fighting for it. Now, philosophical quarrels, although they
be not bloody, are no less desperate than others; this is war all the
same, and Atticus wishes for peace in all things, at least for himself.
It is amusing to examine the part that Cicero gives him in the
philosophical dialogues into which he introduces him. In general he does
not discuss, he incites to discussion. Inquisitive and insatiable, he
asks, he interrogates continually; he compels a reply, he raises
objections, he animates the combatants, and during this time he quietly
enjoys the fight without ever taking part in it. We shall see, by and
by, that this was exactly the part he took in politics.
Atticus remained twenty-three years away from Rome, only visiting it at
long intervals and usually remaining but a very short time. When he
thought that, by his long absence, he was quite free from the ties that
attached him to the political parties, when he had gained independence
with wealth, when he had secured himself against all the reproaches that
might be made him on his conduct by giving his prudence the appearance
of a philosophical conviction, he thought of returning definitively to
Rome and there resuming his interrupted course of life. He chose a
moment for returning when all was calm, and, as if to break entirely
with his past, he came back with a new surname, by which people soon
learnt to call him. This name of Atticus, which he brought back from
Athens, seemed to indicate clearly that he would only live henceforth
for the study of letters and the enjoyment of the arts.
From this moment he divided his time between residence in Rome and in
his country houses. He quietly wound up his banking affairs, some of
which were still standing over, and took measures to hide from the
public the sources of his wealth. He kept only his estates in Epirus and
his houses in Rome, which brought him in a good deal, and the profits of
which he could acknowledge. His property continued to increase, thanks
to the way in which he managed it. Besides, he had none of those
weaknesses which might have endangered it; he did not care about buying
or building, he did not possess any of those splendid villas at the
gates of Rome or at the sea-side, the keeping up of which ruined Cicero.
He still sometimes lent money, but, as it appears, rather to oblige than
to enrich himself. He was careful, besides, to choose safe persons, and
showed himself without pity when debts fell due. This he did, he said,
in the interest of his debtors, for, in tolerating their negligence he
would encourage them to ruin themselves. But he did not stand upon
ceremony in dismissing those with whom his money would have run some
risk, even if they were his nearest relations. Cicero, relating to him
one day that their common nephew, the young Quintus, had come to him and
tried to move him by the picture of his poverty, added: “I took then
something of your eloquence; I answered nothing.” It was a good
contrivance, and Atticus must have employed it more than once with
regard to his brother-in-law and his nephew, who were always without
money. He had learnt how to make for himself a high social position at
small cost. He lived in his house on the Quirinal—which was more
spacious and commodious within than handsome without, and which he
repaired as little as possible—among the works of art that he had
selected in Greece, and the lettered slaves whom he had carefully
trained himself, and whom everybody envied him. He often assembled the
cultivated people of Rome at feasts where there was a great display of
learning. His hospitality did not cost much, if it is true, as Cornelius
Nepos, who had seen his accounts, asserts, that he only spent 3000 asses
(£6) a month on his table.[149] Cicero, always indiscreet, relates that
Atticus often served to his guests very common vegetables on very costly
dishes;[150] but what did it matter? every one considered himself
fortunate in taking part in these select parties, where they heard
Atticus talk and Cicero’s finest works read before they were published,
and it may be said that all the most distinguished persons of that great
period held it an honour to frequent that house on the Quirinal.
II.
Of all the advantages of Atticus, one is most tempted to envy him his
good fortune in attaching to himself so many friends. He took much
trouble to do so. From his arrival at Rome we see him busied in putting
himself on good terms with everybody, and using every means to please
men of all parties. His birth, his wealth, and the manner in which he
had acquired it, drew him towards the knights; these rich farmers of the
taxes were his natural friends, and he soon enjoyed a great reputation
among them; but he was not less connected with the patricians, usually
so disdainful of all who were not of their caste. He had taken the
surest means to conciliate them, which was to flatter their vanity. He
took advantage of his historical knowledge to manufacture for them
agreeable genealogies, in which he made himself partaker in a good many
lies, and supported their most fanciful pretensions by his learning.
This example shows at once his knowledge of the world, and the advantage
he drew from it when he wished to gain the friendship of anybody. We can
see what a close observer he must have been, and the talent that he had
for seizing and profiting by the weak side of people, merely by
considering the nature of the services that he rendered to each person.
He had proposed to Cato to undertake the management of his affairs at
Rome during his absence, and Cato hastened to accept this: a steward of
such capacity was not to be despised by a man who cared so much for his
wealth. He had gratified the vain Pompey, by busying himself in
selecting in Greece some fine statues to ornament the theatre he was
building.[151] As he well knew that Caesar was not accessible to the
same kind of flattery, and that, to attract him, more real services were
necessary, he lent him money.[152] Naturally, he attached himself by
preference to the heads of parties; but he did not neglect others when
he could serve them. He carefully cultivated Balbus and Theophanes, the
confidants of Caesar and Pompey; he even went sometimes to visit Clodius
and his sister Clodia, as well as other people of doubtful reputation.
Having neither rigid scruples like Cato, nor violent aversions like
Cicero, he accommodated himself to everybody; his good-nature lent
itself to everything; he suited all ages as well as all characters.
Cornelius Nepos remarks with admiration, that while yet very young he
charmed the old Sulla, and that when very old he could please the young
Brutus. Atticus formed a common link between all these men who were so
different in temper, rank, opinions, and age. He went continually from
one to the other, as a sort of pacific ambassador, trying to bring them
together and unite them, for it was his habit, says Cicero, to form
friendships between others.[153] He removed the suspicions and
prejudices which prevented them knowing one another; he inspired them
with the desire to see each other and become intimate, and if, later,
any differences arose between them, he became their intermediary, and
brought about explanations which made them friends again. His
masterpiece in this line is to have succeeded in reconciling Hortensius
and Cicero, and making them live amicably together notwithstanding the
violent jealousy that separated them. What trouble must he not have had
to calm their irritable vanity, which was always ready to fly out, and
which fate seemed to take pleasure in exciting still more, by putting
them in constant rivalry!
All these acquaintanceships of Atticus were certainly not real
friendships. He visited many of these personages only for the advantage
that his safety or his wealth might draw from them; but there are a
great number of others who were really his friends. To confine ourselves
to the most important, Cicero loved no one so much as he did him; Brutus
showed him an unreserved confidence to the last, and on the eve of
Philippi wrote him his last confidences. There remain too many striking
proofs of these two illustrious friendships for them to be called in
question, and we must admit that he was able to inspire a lively
affection in two of the noblest minds of that time. At first we are very
much surprised at this. His prudent reserve, that openly avowed
determination to keep clear of all entanglements in order to escape all
danger, ought, as it seems, to have kept aloof from him men of
conviction who sacrificed fortune and life for their opinions. By what
merit was he nevertheless able to attach them to himself? How was a man
so taken up with himself and so careful of his interests able to enjoy
so fully the pleasures of friendship, which seem at first sight, to
exact devotedness and self-forgetfulness? How did he succeed in making
the moralists, who assert that egotism is the death of true affection,
belie themselves?[154]
This is still one of those problems of which the life of Atticus is
full, and it is the most difficult to solve. Seen from a distance, even
through the praises of Cicero, Atticus does not seem attractive, and one
would not be tempted to choose him for a friend. And yet it is certain
that those who lived with him did not judge him as we do. They loved
him, and felt themselves from the first inclined to love him. That
general good-will that he inspired, that determination of every one to
pardon or not to see his defects, those lively friendships that he
called forth, are evidences that it is impossible to resist, whatever
surprise they may cause us. There was, then, about this personage
something else than we see; he must have possessed a kind of attraction
that is inexplicable to us, which was personal to him, and which has
disappeared with him. For this reason it is no longer possible for us to
understand thoroughly that strange attraction that he exercised at first
sight on all his contemporaries. We can, however, form some idea of it,
and the writers who knew him, especially Cicero, give a glimpse of some
of those brilliant or solid qualities by which he gained over those who
approached him. I shall enumerate them according to their testimony, and
if they still do not seem sufficient to justify altogether the number of
his friendships and their ardour, we must join to them in thought that
personal charm that it is impossible now to define or recover because it
vanished with himself.
Firstly, he had a good deal of cultivation, everybody agrees about that,
and a sort of cultivation especially agreeable to the society that he
frequented. He was not solely one of those pleasant triflers who charm
for a moment on a passing acquaintance, but who have not the
qualifications for a longer connection. He was a person of many
attainments and solid knowledge; not that he was a man of deep learning,
this title is not a great recommendation in the intercourse of society;
Cicero thought that people like Varro, who are perfect mines of
knowledge, are not always amusing, and relates that when the latter came
to see him at Tusculum he did not tear his mantle in trying to retain
him.[155] But, without being really a scholar, Atticus had touched on
everything in his studies, the fine arts, poetry, grammar, philosophy,
and history. Upon all these subjects he possessed just and sometimes
original ideas; he could discuss matters with learned men without too
great disadvantage, and he always had some curious detail to tell those
who were not so. Pascal would have called him a cultivated gentleman
(_honnête homme_); in everything he was an intelligent and enlightened
amateur. Now, for several reasons, the knowledge that an amateur
acquires is of the kind most current in society. Firstly, as he does not
study according to rule, he interests himself above all in curiosities;
he learns by preference racy and novel details, and it is precisely
these that people of society want to know. Besides, the very
multiplicity of the studies which tempt him, prevents him exhausting
any; his caprice always carries him off elsewhere before he has
thoroughly examined anything. The result is that he knows a great many
things, and always within the limits in which it pleases men of the
world to know them. In fact, the characteristic of the amateur is to do
everything, even what he only does for a moment, with enthusiasm. As it
is a personal taste that draws him to his studies, and as he only
continues them as long as they interest him, his language is more lively
when he speaks of them, his tone freer and more original, and
consequently more agreeable, than that of scholars by profession. Such
is the notion we must form of the learning of Atticus. It was too
extensive for his conversation ever to become monotonous; it was not
deep enough to run the risk of being tedious; it was, in fine, living,
for when things are done with enthusiasm it is natural to speak of them
with interest. This is what made his conversation so attractive, and
this is how he charmed the most fastidious and least favourably disposed
minds. He was still quite young when the aged Sulla, who had no reason
to like him, met him at Athens. He took so much pleasure in hearing him
read Greek and Latin verses and talk about literature, that he would not
leave him, and wished by all means to take him back with him to Rome.
Long after, Augustus felt the same charm; he was never tired of hearing
Atticus talk, and when he could not go to see him, he wrote to him every
day simply to receive his answers, and thus to continue, in some sort,
those long conversations with which he was so delighted.
We can imagine, then, that the first time people met this accomplished
man they felt themselves drawn towards him by the charm of his
conversation. In proportion as he was better known, other and more solid
qualities were discovered, which retained those whom his culture had
attracted. In the first place there was a great security in his
intercourse. Although he was connected with people holding very diverse
opinions, and though, through them, he had the secrets of all parties,
he was never reproached with having betrayed these to anybody. We cannot
see that he ever furnished a serious cause to any of his friends to keep
aloof from him, or that any of his connections were broken otherwise
than by death. This intercourse, so secure, was at the same time very
easy. No one was ever more indulgent and accommodating. He took care not
to weary by his demands or to repulse by bluntness. Those storms which
so often troubled the friendship of Cicero and Brutus were not to be
feared in his. It was rather one of those calm and uniform intimacies
which grow stronger from day to day by their regular continuance. It was
this especially that must have charmed those politicians who were
oppressed and fatigued by that bustling activity which used up their
lives. On coming out of this whirlwind of business, they were happy to
find, at a few paces from the Forum, that peaceful house on the Quirinal
into which outside quarrels did not enter, and to go and chat for a
moment with that even-tempered and accomplished man who always received
them with the same smile, and in whose good-will they had such a
tranquil confidence.
But nothing, assuredly, could have won him so many friends as his
readiness to oblige them. This was inexhaustible, and it could not be
asserted that it was interested, since, contrary to custom, he gave much
and demanded nothing. Here again is one of the reasons why his
friendships were so lasting, for it is always this sort of interchange
that we think we have a right to demand, and the comparisons that we
make, in spite of ourselves, between good offices which we render and
those which we receive, which in the end disturb the most firm
friendships. Atticus, who knew this well, had so contrived as to have
need of nobody. He was rich, he never had law-suits, he did not seek
public employments, so that a friend who was determined to recompense
the services he had received could never find the opportunity,[156] and
remained always under obligations to him, and his debt continued to
increase, for Atticus never wearied of being useful. We have an easy
means of appreciating the extent of this serviceableness, to see it
close, and, so to say at work, namely, to rapidly recall the services of
all sorts that he had rendered Cicero during their long intimacy. Cicero
had much need of a friend like Atticus. He was one of those clever men
who cannot reckon; when his account-books were presented to him he would
gladly have said, like his pupil, Pliny the Younger, that he was used to
another sort of literature: _aliis sum chartis, aliis litteris
initiatus_. Atticus became his man of business; we know his talent for
this profession. He leased Cicero’s property very dear, saved as much as
he could out of the income and paid the most pressing debts. When he
discovered new ones, he dared to scold his friend, who hastened to reply
very humbly that he would be more careful for the future. Atticus, who
did not much believe this, set to work to make up the deficit. He went
to see the wealthy Balbus or the other great bankers of Rome with whom
he had business relations. If the calamities of the times made it
difficult to get credit, he did not hesitate to dip into his own purse.
Those who know him will not think this generosity without merit. When
Cicero wished to buy some estate, Atticus at first would get angry; but
if his friend did not give way, he quickly went to visit it and discuss
the price. If it was a question of building some elegant villa, Atticus
lent his architect, corrected the plans, and overlooked the work. When
the house was built, it had to be adorned, and Atticus would send to
Greece for statues. He excelled in selecting them, and Cicero was
inexhaustible in his praises of the Hermathenae in Pentelican marble
that he had procured for him. In a villa of Cicero, we can well
understand that the library was not forgotten, and it was from Atticus
again that the books came. He traded in them, and kept the handsomest
for his friend. The books being bought, it was necessary to arrange
them, so Atticus sent his librarian Tyrannion with his workmen, who
painted the shelves, pasted together the detached leaves of papyrus, put
the labels on the rolls, and arranged the whole in such good order that
Cicero, enchanted, wrote: “Since Tyrannion has arranged my books one
would say that the house has a soul.”[157]
But Atticus did not stop at these services, which we might call
external; he penetrated into the home, he knew all its secrets. Cicero
kept nothing from him, and confided to him unreservedly all his domestic
griefs. He tells him about the violent temper of his brother and the
follies of his nephew; he consults him on the vexations that his wife
and son cause him. When Tullia was of an age to marry, it was Atticus
who sought her a husband. The one he proposed was the son of a rich and
well-conducted knight. “Return,” he said sagely to Cicero, “return to
your old flock.” Unfortunately he was not listened to. They preferred to
the rich financier a broken-down nobleman, who squandered Tullia’s dowry
and forced her to leave him. When Tullia was dead, of grief perhaps,
Atticus went to the nurse’s to visit the little child she had left, and
took care that it wanted for nothing. At the same time Cicero gave him
plenty of occupation with his two divorces. After he had divorced his
first wife, Terentia, it was Atticus whom he charged to get her to make
a will in his favour. It was to him also that he gave the disagreeable
commission to remove the second, Publilia, when she was determined to
forcibly re-enter the home of her husband, who would have nothing more
to do with her.
These are doubtless great services; he rendered others still more
delicate, still more appreciated. It was to him that Cicero entrusted
what was most dear to him in the world, his literary glory. He
communicated his works to him as soon as he had written them, he took
his advice in making corrections, and waited for his decision to publish
them. Thus he treated him as a friend with whom one feels at home, and
to whom one unbosoms oneself completely. Although he was eager that his
eloquence should be taken seriously, when he was sure of being heard by
Atticus only, he made no scruple of joking about himself and his works.
He introduced him without reserve to all the secrets of the craft, and
showed him the receipts for his most popular effects. “This time, said
he gaily, I employed the whole scent-box of Isocrates, and all the
caskets of the disciples.”[158] Nothing can be more curious than the way
in which he related to him one day, one of his greatest oratorical
successes. It was a question of celebrating the fame of the great
consulship, a subject upon which, as we know, he was inexhaustible. That
day he had a reason for speaking with more brilliancy than usual. Pompey
was present; now Pompey had the weakness to be jealous of Cicero’s
glory. It was a good opportunity to enrage him, and Cicero took care not
to neglect it. “When my turn came to speak, he writes to Atticus,
immortal gods! what rein I gave myself! What pleasure I took in loading
myself with praises in the presence of Pompey, who had never heard me
extol my consulship! If I ever called to my aid periods, enthymemes,
metaphors, and all the other figures of rhetoric, it was then. I did not
speak, I shouted, for it was a question of my stock subjects, the wisdom
of the senate, the good-will of the knights, the union of all Italy, the
smothered remains of the conspiracy, peace and plenty re-established,
etc. You know my thunders when I speak of these subjects. They were so
fine that day that I have no need to tell you more about them; you may
often have heard the like at Athens!”[159] It is impossible to quiz
oneself with greater lightheartedness. Atticus repaid these confidences
by the trouble he took for the success of his friend’s works. As he had
seen their birth, and had busied himself with them before they were
known to the public, he almost regarded himself as their parent. It was
he who took upon himself to start them in the world and make them
succeed. Cicero says that he was admirably well skilled in this, and it
does not surprise us. The means he most frequently employed to create a
good opinion of them, was to have the finest passages read by his best
readers to the clever men whom he assembled round his table. Cicero, who
knew the usual frugality of his repasts, begged him to deviate from it a
little on these occasions. “Have a care, he writes to him, to treat your
guests well, for if they are in a bad humour with you, they will vent it
on me.”[160] It was natural that Cicero should be extremely grateful for
all these services; but it would be judging him ill to suppose that he
was only attached to him for the benefits he received from him. He
really loved him, and all his letters are full of evidences of the most
sincere affection. He was always happy with him; he was never tired of
associating with him; he had scarcely left him than he ardently wished
to see him again. “May I die, he wrote to him, if either my house at
Tusculum, where I feel so comfortable, or the Isles of the Blest could
please me without you!”[161] Whatever pleasure he experienced at being
_fêted_, applauded, flattered, at having around him an obsequious and
admiring multitude, in the midst of this crowd and noise he always
turned with regret towards his absent friend. “With all these people, he
tells him, I feel myself more alone than if I had only you.”[162] All
these people, in fact, are composed of political friends who change with
circumstances, whom a common interest brings to you, and a rival
ambition takes away again; with them Cicero is obliged to be reserved
and careful, which is a torture for such an open-hearted nature. On the
other hand, he can tell Atticus everything, and confide in him without
restraint. So he hastens to demand his presence when the least annoyance
happens to him. “I want you, he writes to him, I have need of you, I am
waiting for you. I have a thousand things that disturb and vex me, and a
single walk with you will relieve me.”[163] We should never end if we
were to collect all those charming expressions of which the
correspondence is full, and in which his heart plainly speaks. They
leave no doubt about Cicero’s feelings; they prove that he regarded
Atticus not only as one of those steadfast and serious friends on whose
support he could count, but also, which is more surprising, as a
sensitive and tender soul: “You take your share,” he tells him, “in all
the troubles of others.”[164]
Here is something far removed from the notion we usually have of him,
and yet we cannot resist such clear testimony. How can we contend that
he had only a doubtful affection for his friends when we see all his
friends contented with it? Are we to be more exacting than they, and
would it not be wronging men like Brutus and Cicero to suppose that they
had been dupes so long without perceiving it? On the other hand, how can
we explain the fact that posterity, which only judges by the documents
that the friends of Atticus have furnished it, draws from these very
documents an opinion quite the reverse of that held by them? Evidently
it is because posterity and contemporaries do not judge men from the
same stand-point. We have seen that Atticus, who had made a rule not to
engage in public affairs, did not think himself obliged to partake the
dangers that his friends might run, through having taken part in them.
He left them both the honours and the perils. Sensitive, obliging,
devoted to them in the ordinary business of life, when a great political
crisis occurred that compromised them, he stood aside, and left them to
expose themselves alone. Now, when we look at the facts from a distance,
and are separated from them, as we are, by several centuries, we only
perceive the most important events, and especially the political
revolutions, that is to say, precisely those circumstances with which
the friendship of Atticus had nothing to do. Hence the severe judgment
we pronounce upon it. But his contemporaries judged otherwise. Those
great crises are, after all, but rare and passing exceptions; without
doubt contemporaries are much struck by them, but they are still more
impressed by those numberless small incidents which make up every-day
life, and which posterity does not perceive. They judge of a man’s
friendship by those services which are rendered every moment, and which
are important by their mere number, much more than by any exceptional
service which may be given on one of these great and rare occasions.
This accounts for the fact that they had an opinion of Atticus so
different from ours.
It is, beyond doubt, one of the characteristic traits of this person,
that it was a necessity to him to have many friends, and that he took
trouble to attract and retain them. We may refuse to admit, if we will,
that this need was, with him, the effect of a generous and sympathetic
nature, that it came from what Cicero admirably calls “the impulse of
the soul that desires to love;” but, even supposing that he only thought
of occupying and filling up his life, we must acknowledge that to fill
it up in this manner is not a mark of a vulgar nature. This refined
Epicurean, this master in the art of living at ease, knew “that life is
no longer life if we cannot repose on the affection of a friend.”[165]
He had given up the excitement of political strife, the triumphs of
eloquence, the joys of satisfied ambition, but, as a compensation, he
was determined to enjoy all the pleasures of private life. The more he
confined and limited himself to it, the more particular and refined he
became with regard to the pleasures it could give; as he had only left
himself these, he wished to enjoy them fully, to relish them, to live on
them. He needed friends, and among them the greatest minds, the noblest
souls of his time. He expended all that energy which he did not employ
in anything else, in procuring for himself those pleasures of society
that Bossuet calls the greatest good of human life. Atticus enjoyed this
good even beyond his desires, and friendship generously repaid him for
all the trouble he had taken for it. It was his single passion; he was
able to satisfy it completely, and friendship, after having adorned his
life, has shed a lustre on his name.
III.
Atticus appears in a favourable light in private life. He is less
fortunate when we study the course he followed in public affairs. On
this point he has not been spared blame, and it is not easy to defend
him.
We should not however be very unfavourable to him if we judged his
conduct entirely according to the ideas of our days. Opinion has become
less severe now on those who openly make profession of living apart from
politics. So many men aspire to govern their country, and it has become
so difficult to make choice among this multitude, that we are tempted to
look kindly upon those who have not this ambition. Far from being
blamed, they are called moderate and wise; they form an exception which
is encouraged in order to lessen the number of aspirants. At Rome they
thought otherwise, and it is not difficult to find reasons for this
difference. There, what we may call the political body was in reality
very circumscribed. Besides the slaves, who did not count, and the
common people, who contented themselves with giving or rather selling
their votes in the elections, and whose greatest privilege it was to be
entertained at the expense of the candidates, and fed at the expense of
the public treasury, there remained only a few families of ancient
lineage or more recent celebrity who divided all public employments
among themselves. The aristocracy of birth and of fortune was not very
numerous, and scarcely sufficed to furnish the required number of
officials of all sorts to govern the world. It was necessary therefore
that no one should refuse to take his part, and to live in retirement
was considered a desertion. It is not the same in our democracy. As all
offices are open to everybody, and as, thanks to the diffusion of
education, men worthy to occupy them may arise in all ranks, we need no
longer fear lest the absence of a few quiet people, friends of peace and
repose, will make a sensible and regrettable gap in the serried ranks of
those who struggle from all quarters for power. Moreover, we think now
that there are many other ways of serving one’s country besides public
life. Romans of high birth knew no other; they looked upon commerce as a
not very honourable means[166] that a private man might employ to make
his fortune, and did not see what the state might gain by it; literature
seemed an agreeable but trivial pastime, and they did not understand its
social importance. It follows that among them, a man of a certain rank
could only find one honourable mode of employing his activity and being
useful to his country, namely, to fill political offices.[167] To do
anything else was, according to their ideas, to do nothing; they gave
the name of idlers to the most laborious scholars, and it did not come
into their heads that there was anything worth the trouble of occupying
a citizen’s time beyond the service of the state. All the ancient Romans
thought thus, and they would have experienced a strange surprise if they
had seen any one claim the right, as Atticus did, not to serve his
country within the limits of his powers and talents. Assuredly Cato, who
never rested, and who, at ninety years of age, bravely quitted his villa
at Tusculum to go and accuse Servius Galba, the butcher of the
Lusitanians, would have thought that to remain in his house on the
Quirinal, or on his estate in Epirus in the midst of his books and
statues, while the fate of Rome was being decided in the Forum or at
Pharsalia, was to commit the same crime as to remain in his tent on the
day of battle.
This systematic abstention of Atticus was not, then, a Roman custom; he
had it from the Greeks. In those small ungovernable republics of Greece,
where they knew no repose, and which passed constantly and without
warning from the sternest tyranny to the most unbridled licence, we can
understand that quiet and studious men should have grown weary of all
this sterile agitation, and ceased to desire public employments which
were only obtained by flattering the capricious multitude, and only kept
on condition of obeying it. Moreover, what value could this power, so
hardly acquired, so seldom preserved, have, when it was necessary to
share it with the most obscure demagogues? was it really worth while to
take so much trouble in order to become the successor or the colleague
of Cleon? At the same time that weariness and disgust kept honourable
men aloof from these paltry struggles, philosophy, more studied every
day, communicated to its disciples a sort of pride which led them to the
same result. Men who passed their time in meditating upon God and the
world, and who endeavoured to understand the laws that govern the
universe, did not deign to descend from these heights to govern states a
few leagues square. Thus they constantly discussed in the schools,
whether a man should occupy himself with public affairs, whether the
sage ought to seek public office, and whether the active or the
contemplative life was the better. A few philosophers hesitatingly gave
the preference to active life, the greater number sustained the opposite
opinion, and under cover of these discussions many men thought
themselves authorized to create a sort of elegant indolence in
voluptuous retreats embellished by letters and the arts, where they
lived happily while Greece was perishing.
Atticus followed their example. Importing this custom from Greece into
Rome, he openly announced his resolution not to take part in political
discussions. He began by adroitly keeping aloof during all those
quarrels that continually agitated Rome from the time of Cicero’s
consulship to the civil wars. At the very moment when these struggles
were most active he frequented all parties, he had friends on all sides,
and found in these widespread friendships a new pretext for remaining
neutral. Atticus was more than sixty years old when Caesar passed the
Rubicon, an age when the obligation of military service ceased among the
Romans. This was another reason for remaining quiet, and he did not fail
to use it. “I have taken my discharge,”[168] he replied to those who
wished to enrol him. He held the same course, and with the same success,
after the death of Caesar; but he then disappointed public opinion still
more. He was so well known to be the friend of Brutus that it was
thought he would not hesitate to take his side this time. Cicero
himself, who ought to have known him, reckoned upon it; but Atticus was
not inconsistent with himself, and took advantage of an important
occasion to let the public know that he would not be drawn in against
his will. While Brutus was raising an army in Greece, some knights, his
friends, started the idea of raising a subscription among the richest
men of Rome to give him the means of maintaining his soldiers. They
applied at first to Atticus, whose name they wished to put at the head
of the list. Atticus bluntly refused to subscribe. He answered that his
fortune was at the service of Brutus, if he had need of it, and asked
him as a friend, but he declared at the same time that he would take no
part in a political manifestation, and his refusal caused the failure of
the subscription. At the same time, true to his habit of flattering all
parties, he welcomed Fulvia, Antony’s wife, as well as Volumnius the
superintendent of his workmen, and, sure of having friends everywhere,
he waited for the result of the struggle without much fear.
The strangest thing is that this man, while so persistent in remaining
neutral, was not indifferent. His biographer gives him this praise, that
he always belonged to the best party,[169] and that is true; only he
made it a rule not to serve his party; he was contented with giving it
his good wishes. But these good wishes were the warmest imaginable. He
had, though we should scarcely believe it, political passions which he
dared to express in private with incredible vigour. He hated Caesar so
much that he went as far as to blame Brutus for having permitted his
interment.[170] He would have wished, no doubt, as the most furious
demanded, that his corpse should be thrown into the Tiber. Thus he did
not abstain from having preferences, and showing them to his most
intimate friends. His reserve only began when it was necessary to act.
He never consented to take part in the struggle; but if he did not share
its danger he felt at least all its excitement. We smile at seeing him
become animated and excited as if he were a real combatant; he takes his
share in all successes and all reverses, he congratulates the energetic,
he entreats the lukewarm, and even scolds the faltering, and permits
himself to advise and reprimand those who seem to him, who did not act
at all, to act too languidly. It is amusing to hear the reproaches he
addresses to Cicero when he sees him hesitating to go and join Pompey;
he adopts the most pathetic tone, he reminds him of his actions and his
words, he entreats him in the name of his glory, he quotes his own words
to him to persuade him.[171] This excess of audacity into which he
allows himself to be drawn for others, sometimes produces rather comic
incidents. At the moment when Pompey had just shut himself up in
Brundusium, Atticus, moved by the most lively grief, wished for some
attempts to be made to save him, and went so far as to ask Cicero to do
some striking action before leaving. “It only requires a banner,” said
he, “every one will flock to it.”[172] The worthy Cicero felt himself
quite excited by these lively exhortations of his friend, and there were
times when he was tempted to be bold, and when he only demanded the
opportunity to strike a heavy blow. The opportunity came, and he relates
in the following words how he took advantage of it. “As I arrived at my
house at Pompeii, your friend Ninnius came to tell me that the
centurions of three cohorts who were there, asked to see me the next
day, as they wished to deliver up the place to me. Do you know what I
did? I went away before daylight in order not to see them. What are, in
fact, three cohorts? And if there had been more, what should I have done
with them?”[173] This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows
himself well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in
the ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately
refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so
prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are with
good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a little that
part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking part, up to
a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise man of
Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he tranquilly
enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human conflicts; but
he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that he feels is
diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and understands his
pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight itself, he sees it
close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he will retire in
time.
The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his
neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his
conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most anxious
to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in which he
reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon him than that of
Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days, great praise
has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the beginning of the civil
war: “He who is not against me is for me,” and the contrary saying of
Pompey has been much blamed: “He who is not for me is against me.”
However, looking at things fairly, this praise and this blame appear
equally unreasonable. Each of the two rivals, when he expressed himself
thus, speaks in character, and their words were suggested by their
position. Caesar, however we may judge him, came to overturn the
established order, and he naturally was grateful to those who gave him a
free hand. What more could he reasonably ask of them? In reality, those
who did not hinder him served him. But lawful order, established order,
considers it has the right to call upon every one to defend it, and to
regard as enemies all who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a
generally recognized principle that he who does not bring help to the
law when openly attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of
those who violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at
Rome, should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as
it was also that those in Pompey’s camp should be very much irritated
against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he let them
talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not console
themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to avenge themselves
on those who had remained. What did these menaces matter to him? He was
sure that he had preserved the esteem of the two most important and most
respected men of the party, and he could oppose their testimony to all
the indignation of the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the
strength of their convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and
they appear to have approved of his not taking part in public affairs.
“I know the honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said
Cicero to him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend
himself; there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we
have arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me
desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made you
seek an honourable leisure!”[174] Again, Brutus wrote to him towards the
end of his life: “I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your age, your
character, your family, everything makes you love repose.”[175]
This good-will on the part of Brutus and Cicero is so much the more
surprising, as they knew very well the mischief such an example might do
to the cause that they defended. The republic did not perish by the
audacity of its enemies alone, but also by the apathy of its partisans.
The sad spectacle it offered for fifty years, the public sale of
dignities, the scandalous violence that took place on the Forum every
time a new law was discussed, the battles that at each new election
stained the Campus Martius with blood, those armies of gladiators needed
for self-defence, all those shameful disorders, all those base intrigues
in which the last strength of Rome was used up, had completely
discouraged honest men. They held aloof from public life; they had no
more relish for power since they were forced to dispute it with men
ready for every violence. It required Cato’s courage to return to the
Forum after having been received with showers of stones, and having come
out with torn robe and bleeding head. Thus, the more the audacious
attempted, the more the timid let them alone, and from the time of the
first triumvirate and the consulship of Bibulus, it was evident that the
apathy of honest men would deliver the republic over to the ambitious
nobles who desired to dominate it. Cicero saw this clearly, and in his
letters never ceases his bitter railleries against those indolent rich
men, doting on their fish-ponds, who consoled themselves for the ruin
that they foresaw by thinking that they would save at least their
lampreys. In the introduction to the _De Republica_ he attacks with
admirable energy those who, being discouraged themselves, try to
discourage others, who maintain that a man has the right to withhold his
services from his country, and to consult his own welfare while
neglecting that of his country. “Let us not listen,” says he in
finishing, “to that signal for retreat that sounds in our ears, and
would recall those who have already gone to the front.”[176] Brutus also
knew the evil of which the republic was dying, and complained more than
once of the weakness and discouragement of the Romans. “Believe me,” he
wrote, “we are too much afraid of exile, death, and poverty.”[177] It
was Atticus to whom he wrote these noble words, and yet he does not
dream of applying them to him! What strange charm then did this man
possess, what influence did his friendship exercise, that these two
great patriots have thus belied themselves in his favour, and have so
freely pardoned in him what they condemned in others?
The more we think of it, the less can we imagine the reasons he could
give them to justify his conduct. If he had been one of those scholars
who, wedded to their researches in history or philosophy, only dwell in
the past or the future, and are not really the contemporaries of the
people with whom they live, we might have understood his not taking part
in their struggles since he held himself aloof from their passions; but
we know that, on the contrary, he had the most lively relish for all the
small agitations and obscure intrigues of the politics of his time. He
was anxious to know them, he excelled in unravelling them, this was the
regular food of his inquisitive mind, and Cicero applied to him by
choice when he wished to know about such matters. He was not one of
those gentle and timid souls, made for reflection and solitude, who have
not the energy necessary for active life. This man of business, of clear
and decided judgment, would, on the contrary, have made an excellent
statesman. To be useful to his country he would only have needed to
employ in its service a little of that activity and intelligence he had
used to enrich himself, and Cicero was right in thinking that he had the
political temperament. And, finally, he had not even left himself the
poor resource of pretending that he sided with no party because all
parties were indifferent to him, and that, having no settled opinions,
he did not know which side to take. He had said the contrary a hundred
times in his letters to Cicero and Brutus; he had charmed them a hundred
times by the ardour of his republican zeal, and yet he remained quiet
when the opportunity came of serving this government to which he said he
was so much attached. Instead of making a single effort to retard its
fall, he was only careful not to be crushed under its ruins. But if he
did not try to defend it, did he, at least, pay it that last respect of
appearing to regret it? Did he show in any way that, although he had not
appeared in the combat, he felt that he shared in the defeat? Did he
know, while he grew old under a power to which he was forced to submit,
how to retire in a dignified sadness which forces respect even from a
conqueror? No, and it is assuredly this that is most repugnant to us in
his life; he showed an unpleasant eagerness to accommodate himself to
the new order of things. The day after he had himself been proscribed,
we see him become the friend of the proscribers. He lavishes all the
charms of his mind on them, assiduously frequents their houses, attends
all their _fêtes_. However habituated we may be to see him welcome all
triumphant governments, we cannot get used to the notion that the friend
of Brutus and the confidant of Cicero should become so quickly the
familiar of Antony and Octavius. Those most disposed to indulgence will
certainly think that those illustrious friendships created duties which
he did not fulfil, and that it was a treason to the memory of these men
who had honoured him with their friendship, to choose just their
executioners as their successors.
If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him as
Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in the
naïve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This indulgent
biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with the happy
chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot get over his
surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus,
withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so many proscriptions,
and preserve himself so skilfully where so many others perished. “If we
overwhelm with praises,” says he, “the pilot who saves his vessel from
the rocks and tempests, ought we not to consider admirable the prudence
of a man who in the midst of those violent political storms succeeded in
saving himself?”[178] Admiration is here too strong a word. We keep that
for those courageous men who made their actions agree with their
principles, and who knew how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill
success does not injure them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of
Atticus may say, there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is
drawn than from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly
deserves is that which his biographer gives him with so much
complacency, namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but
we know that there are other forms of praise which are of more value
than this.
CAELIUS
THE ROMAN YOUTH IN THE TIME OF CAESAR
There is perhaps no more curious figure than that of Caelius in the
history we are studying. His life has a special interest for us. He was
not, like Brutus, a brilliant exception among his contemporaries; on the
contrary, he quite belongs to his time; he lived as others lived around
him. All the young men of that time, the Curios, the Dolabellas,
resemble him. They are all, like him, corrupted early, little concerned
about their dignity, prodigal of their wealth, friends of facile
pleasures; they all throw themselves into public life as soon as they
can, with a restless ambition and great needs to satisfy, and with few
scruples and no beliefs. His history, then, is that of all the rest, and
the advantage we find in studying it is that we know at once the whole
generation of which he formed part. Now, thanks to Cicero, this study is
easy for us. Notwithstanding so many differences in conduct and
principles, Cicero always felt a singular inclination for Caelius; he
liked the conversation of this clever man who laughed at everything, and
was more at ease with him than with people like Cato or Brutus, whose
severity somewhat alarmed him. He defended him in the law courts when a
woman whom he had loved tried to ruin him, and this speech of his is
certainly one of the most interesting that remain to us. Later, when he
was obliged to go to Cilicia, he chose him for his political
correspondent. By a happy chance Caelius’ letters have come down to us
with those of Cicero, and there are none in all this collection that are
more witty and more racy. Let us collect all the details scattered
through them; let us try, in collecting them, to reproduce an account of
Caelius, and by it to gain an idea of what the Roman youth of that time
was. It is not without interest to know them, for they played an
important part, and Caesar made use of them more especially for the
revolution that he wished to accomplish.
I.
Caelius did not come of an illustrious family. He was the son of a Roman
knight of Puteoli, who had been in trade and acquired great wealth in
Africa. His father, who had all his life no other concern than that of
enriching himself, showed, as often happens, more ambition for his son
than for himself: he wished him to become a politician, and as he saw
that dignities were reached only through eloquence, he took him betimes
to Cicero, that he might make him a great orator, if it were possible.
It was not yet the custom to confine young men to the schools of the
rhetoricians, and to be contented with exercising them in imaginary
cases. As soon as they had assumed the _toga virilis_, that is, when
they were about sixteen years old, no time was lost in taking them to
some statesman of reputation, whom they did not leave. Admitted to his
most intimate society, they listened to his conversations with his
friends, his disputations with his adversaries; they saw him prepare
himself in silence for the great battles of eloquence, they followed him
into the basilicas and the Forum, they heard him pleading causes or
speaking to the assembled people, and when they had become capable of
speaking themselves, they made their first appearance at his side and
under his patronage. Tacitus much regrets this manly education, which,
placing a young man under the conditions of reality instead of retaining
him among the fictions of rhetoric, gave him a taste for real and
natural eloquence which strengthened him, by throwing him from the first
into the midst of real contests, and, according to his expression,
taught him war on the field of battle, _pugnare in praelio
discebant_.[179] This education, however, had its dangers. It taught him
things that it is better to be ignorant of for a long time, it
familiarized him with the scandalous and corrupt sights that public life
usually offers, it gave him a too rapid maturity and inflamed him with
precocious ambition. Must not a young man of sixteen, who thus lived in
intimacy with old and unscrupulous statesmen, and to whom were laid bare
without precaution the basest manœuvres of parties, must he not have
lost something of the generosity and sensitiveness of his age? Was it
not to be feared that this corrupting intercourse might end by giving
him a taste for intrigue, for the worship of success, an unbridled love
of power, the desire to attain a high position quickly and by any means,
and as, generally, the worst means are also the quickest, the temptation
to employ them by preference? This is what happened to Caelius. For
three entire years, three honest and laborious years, he did not leave
Cicero; but he perceived at length, that a young man like himself, who
had his political fortune to make, would gain more with those who wished
to destroy the government than with him who wished to preserve it, and
he abandoned Cicero to attach himself to Catiline. The change was
sudden, but Caelius never took the trouble to delay about these
transitions. Henceforth, we can easily understand, his life took another
turn; he became a seditious and turbulent man, whose biting speech in
the Forum and violence in the Campus Martius were dreaded. At the
election of a pontif he struck a senator. When he was appointed
quaestor, every one accused him of having bought his votes. Not content
with disturbing the comitia at Rome, we see him stirring up a popular
tumult at Naples, we do not know why. At the same time, he did not
neglect his pleasures. The debaucheries of those noisy young men of whom
he was one, continually disturbed the public peace. It is said that the
streets of Rome were unsafe when they returned at night from their
suppers, and that, after the manner of those giddy fellows that Plautus
and Terence depict, they molested honest women whom they met on their
road. All these follies did not go on without great expense, and the
father of Caelius, although he was rich, was not of a temper to be
always paying. No doubt at this time the honest merchant of Puteoli must
have regretted his ambition for his son, and thought it cost him dear to
have wished to make him a politician. Caelius, on his side, was not of a
temper to put up with reprimands easily; he left the paternal house,
and, under pretext of being nearer the Forum and business, rented a
lodging on the Palatine, in the house of the famous tribune Appius
Clodius, for ten thousand sesterces (£80). This was an important event
in his life, for it was there that he became acquainted with Clodia.
If we relied on the evidence of Cicero we should have a very bad opinion
of Clodia; but Cicero is a too partial witness to be altogether just,
and the furious hatred he bore the brother renders him very much
suspected when he speaks of the sister. Moreover, he partly contradicts
himself when he tells us she had kept up relations with very honourable
people, which would be very surprising if it were true that she had
committed all the crimes that he lays to her charge. It is very
difficult to believe that persons of consideration in the republic, and
persons who were careful of their reputation, would have continued to
see her if they had thought that she had poisoned her husband, and was
the mistress of her brothers. Cicero, however, did not invent this; it
was public rumour that he complacently repeated. Many people in Rome
believed it, Clodia’s enemies liked to repeat it, and mischievous verses
were made about it which were written upon every wall. Clodia’s
reputation was, then, very bad, and it must be admitted that,
notwithstanding some exaggerations, she partly deserved it. There is
nothing to show that she killed her husband, as she was accused of
doing; these accusations of poisoning were then widespread, and were
accepted with incredible levity, but she had made him very unhappy
during his life, and did not appear very much grieved at his death. It
is doubtful, also, whatever Cicero may assert, that her brothers were
her lovers, but it is unfortunately too certain that she had a good many
others. The sole excuse that can be pleaded for her is that this way of
living was then very general. Scandals of this kind had never been more
common among the great ladies of Rome. Roman society was passing through
a crisis whose causes, which go back a long way, deserve to be
considered. We must say a few words about them, in order to account for
the grave injury that public morals had received.
In a country where the family was respected as it was at Rome, women
could not fail to have much importance. It was impossible that their
influence, which was already so great within the house, should not
attempt to show itself outside, and the honourable place they held in
private life must one day tempt them to invade public life also. The
ancient Romans, so jealous of their authority, had the consciousness of
this danger, and neglected nothing in order to defend themselves against
it. We know how they affected to treat women; there was no sort of
unkind remarks they did not make about them; they got them attacked on
the stage and mocked them even in their political speeches:[180] but we
must not mistake the sense of these railleries and pity the objects of
them too much. They are only attacked thus because they are feared, and
all these pleasantries are not so much insults as precautions. These
rough soldiers, these rude peasants, have learnt, in living with them,
how subtle and enterprising their minds are, and in how many ways they
are more capable than themselves; consequently they take a good deal of
trouble to confine them to their households, and even that does not
suffice to reassure them; in the household itself they must be
subjugated and bridled. They affect to think and to say that they are
weak and untamed beings (_indomita animalia_), incapable of governing
themselves alone, and they hasten to provide for their management. They
are kept, under this pretext, in a continual state of tutelage; they are
always “under the hand” of their father, brother, or husband; they
cannot sell, buy, trade, or do anything without a council to assist
them: in acting thus the men pretend they are protecting them, in
reality it is themselves they are protecting against them. Cato, their
great enemy, ingenuously admits it in a moment of frankness. “Remember,”
Livy makes him say _à propos_ of the _lex Oppia_, “all those regulations
our ancestors made to subject wives to their husbands. Shackled as they
are, you have trouble to manage them. What will happen if you give them
their liberty, if you allow them to enjoy the same rights as yourselves?
Do you think you will then be their masters? The day they become your
equals they will be your superiors.”[181] This day arrived just about
the time of which we are treating. In the midst of the weakening of
ancient usages, the laws against women were not more respected than
others. Cicero says that the gallant lawyers furnished them with
ingenious means to free themselves from these laws without appearing to
violate them.[182] At the same time, men were accustomed to see them
take a more important place in society, and to recognize their influence
in the government of the republic. Almost all the politicians of that
time are governed by their wives or by their mistresses, thus the
innumerable gallantries of Caesar must have passed in the eyes of many
people, as later those of Augustus did, for profound policy, as it might
be supposed that he only sought to please the women in order to lead
their husbands.
Thus, by the abolition of the old laws, and by the alteration of ancient
maxims, women had become free. Now, it is to be remarked that, in
general, the first use made of regained liberty is to abuse it. We
cannot enjoy quietly the rights of which we have been long deprived, and
the first moments of liberty bring a sort of intoxication that it is
difficult to check. This is what happened to the Roman society of that
time, and all these irregularities that we notice in the conduct of
women then are partly explained by the allurements and intoxication of
their new liberty. Those who love money, like Terentia, Cicero’s wife,
hasten to take advantage of the right of disposing of their fortune,
that has been restored to them, they associate themselves with freedmen
and agents for doubtful gains, rob their husbands without scruple, and
throw themselves into speculations and trade, to which they bring,
together with an almost incredible rapacity, that taste for small
savings and economies which is natural to them. Those who prefer
pleasure to wealth give themselves up to all pleasures with a passionate
eagerness. The less bold take advantage of the facilities of divorce to
pass from one amour to another under cover of the law. Others do not
even take this trouble, and impudently flaunt their scandalous
behaviour.
Clodia was one of the latter; but among all her vices, which she took no
care to hide, we are forced to recognize in her some good qualities. She
was not grasping; her purse was open to her friends, and Caelius was not
ashamed to dip into it. She liked clever men, and attracted them to her
house. At one time she wished to persuade Cicero, whose talents she much
admired, to give up his foolish Terentia for her and to marry her; but
Terentia, who suspected it, succeeded in mortally embroiling them. An
old scholiast says that she danced better than it was proper for an
honest woman to do.[183] This was not the only art for which she had a
taste, and it has been thought possible to infer from a passage of
Cicero that she also wrote verses.[184] To cultivate letters, to seek
out clever men, to like refined and elegant pleasures, does not seem at
first sight to be blameworthy; on the contrary, these are among us the
qualities that a woman of society is obliged to possess or to feign.
They thought otherwise at Rome, and, as the courtesans alone had then
the privilege of following this free and accomplished life, every woman
who sought this ran the risk of being confounded with them, and of being
treated with the same rigour by public opinion; but Clodia did not care
for public opinion. She brought into her private conduct, into her
affections, the same passionateness and the same ardour that her brother
did into public life. Ready for all excesses, and not blushing to avow
them, loving and hating furiously, incapable of self-control, and hating
all restraint, she did not belie that great and haughty family from
which she was descended, and even in her vices her blood was recognized.
In a country where so much respect was shown for ancient customs, in
that classic land of _decorum_ (the thing and the word are Roman),
Clodia took pleasure in shocking the established customs; she went out
publicly with her male friends; she was accompanied by them in the
public gardens or on the Appian road, constructed by her great ancestor.
She boldly accosted people whom she knew; instead of timidly lowering
her eyes as a well-brought-up matron should have done, she dared to
speak to them (Cicero says that she even kissed them sometimes), and
invited them to her repasts. Grave, staid, and rigid people were
indignant; but the young, whom this freedom did not displease, were
charmed, and went to dine with Clodia.[185]
Caelius was at that time one of the fashionable young men of Rome.
Already he had a great reputation as an orator. He was dreaded for the
satirical sharpness of his speech. He was bold to temerity, always ready
to throw himself into the most perilous enterprises. He spent his money
freely, and drew after him a train of friends and clients. Few men
danced as well as he,[186] no one surpassed him in the art of dressing
with taste, and the beauty and breadth of the purple band that bordered
his toga were spoken of on all hands in Rome. All these qualities, the
serious as well as the trivial, were of a nature to attract Clodia.
Neighbourhood made their acquaintance more easy, and she soon became the
mistress of Caelius.
Cicero, notwithstanding his reserve, permits us to guess the life they
then led. He speaks in hints of those brilliant _fêtes_ that Clodia gave
to her lover and to the youth of Rome in her gardens on the banks of the
Tiber; but it seems that Baiae was the chief theatre of these amours.
Baiae had been for some time already the regular rendezvous of the
fashionable people of Rome and Italy. The hot-springs that are found
there in abundance served as the occasion or pretext for these
gatherings. Some invalids went there for their health, and their
presence provided an excuse for a crowd of healthy people who went there
to amuse themselves. People flocked there from the month of April, and
during the fine season a thousand light intrigues were carried on, the
report of which reached Rome. Grave folks took great care not to be seen
in this whirl of pleasure, and later Clodius accused Cicero, as if it
were a crime, simply of having passed through it; but Caelius and Clodia
were not anxious to hide themselves; consequently they gave themselves
up without restraint to all the pleasures that were to be found in that
country that Horace calls the most beautiful in the world. All Rome
talked of their races on the shore, the brilliancy of their feasts and
water-parties in boats carrying singers and musicians. This is all that
Cicero tells us, or rather only gives us a glimpse of, for, contrary to
his habit, and to our great loss, he has for once in a way been
discreet, in order not to compromise his friend Caelius. Fortunately we
can learn more about this society and satisfy our curiosity; to do so we
have only to turn ourselves to him who was, with Lucretius, the greatest
poet of that time, Catullus. Catullus lived among these persons who were
so well worthy of study, and had relations with them which permitted him
to depict them well. Everybody knows that Lesbia whom his verses have
immortalized; but it is not so well known that Lesbia was not one of
those fictitious persons that the elegiac poets often create. Ovid tells
us that this name covered that of a Roman lady, probably a great lady,
since he will not name her, and by his way of speaking we see clearly
that everybody then knew her.[187] Apuleius, who lived much later, is
less reticent, and he tells us that Lesbia was Clodia.[188] Catullus,
then, was the lover of Clodia, and the rival of Caelius: he also
frequented that house on the Palatine, and those fine gardens on the
Tiber, and his verses complete our knowledge of that society of which he
was one of the heroes.
I said just now that Clodia did not love money with the avidity of the
women of gallantry of that time and of all times. The history of
Catullus proves this well. This young provincial of Verona, although he
belonged to an honourable family, was not very rich, and after he had
lived a life of dissipation and pleasure for some time at Rome, he had
nothing left. His poor little estate was soon deeply mortgaged. “It is
not exposed, he says gaily, either to the impetuous north wind, or to
the fury of the _auster_: it is a hurricane of debts that blows on it
from all sides. Oh! the horrible and pestilent wind!”[189] By the
picture that he draws of some of his friends, still poorer and more
indebted than himself, we see clearly that he could not reckon upon
them, and that his purse which was “full of spiders” had no great help
to expect from them. It was not, then, fortune or birth that Clodia
loved in Catullus, but wit and talent. What attracted him in her, what
he so passionately loved, was distinction and grace. These are not
usually the qualities of women who live like Clodia; but, however low
she might have descended, she was still a great lady. Catullus says so
in an epigram in which he compares Lesbia to a celebrated beauty of that
time—“Quintia is considered beautiful by many men. I think her tall,
fair, erect: these are her attractions; I recognize them all. But that
their union forms beauty, that I deny. There is nothing graceful in her,
and in all that vast body there is not a spark of wit or charm. It is
Lesbia who is beautiful, more beautiful than all, and she has so much
grace that there is none left for the rest.”[190]
A woman like Clodia, who had such a decided taste for clever people,
must have been pleased to frequent the society in which Catullus lived.
We see plainly, by what he relates to us of it, that there was none more
witty and agreeable in Rome. It united writers and politicians, poets
and noblemen, differing in position and fortune, but all friends of
letters and pleasure. There were Cornificius, Quintilius Varus, Helvius
Cinna, whose verses had then much reputation, Asinius Pollio, who was as
yet only a youth of great promise; there was above all Licinius Calvus,
at once statesman and poet, one of the most striking figures of that
time, who, at twenty-one, had attacked Vatinius with so much vigour,
that Vatinius, terrified, had turned towards his judges, saying: “If my
opponent is a great orator, it does not follow that I am guilty!” In the
same group we must place Caelius, who, by his wit and tastes, was worthy
to belong to it, and over it Cicero the protector of all this brilliant
youth, which was proud of his genius and renown, and which saluted in
him, according to the expression of Catullus, the most eloquent of the
sons of Romulus.
In these assemblies of clever men, of whom many were political
personages, politics were not excluded; they were very republican, and
from them issued the most violent epigrams against Caesar. We know the
tone in which those of Catullus are written; Calvus had composed others
which are lost, and which were, it is said, still more cutting.
Literature, however, we can well understand, held in them at least as
high a place as politics. They did not fail to laugh at bad writers from
time to time, and in order to make an example, ceremoniously burnt the
poems of Volusius. Sometimes, at the end of the repast, when wine and
laughter had heated their brains, they sent each other poetic
challenges; the tablets passed from hand to hand, and each wrote the
most incisive verses he could make. But it was pleasure more than
anything else that occupied them. All these poets and politicians were
young and amorous, and whatever pleasure they may have found in rallying
Volusius, or tearing Caesar to pieces, they preferred to sing their
loves. It is this which has made them famous. The lyrical poetry of the
Latins has nothing to compare with those short and charming pieces that
Catullus wrote for Lesbia. Propertius mingles too much mythology with
his sighs; Ovid is only an inspired debauchee, Catullus alone has tones
that touch the heart, because he alone was mastered by a deep and
sincere love. Till then he had led a gay and dissipated life, and his
heart was wearied with passing connections; but the day that he met
Lesbia he learnt the meaning of passion. Whatever we may think of
Clodia, the love of Catullus elevates her, and we never see her in a
more favourable light than in this exquisite poetry. The verses of
Catullus seem to make real and living those _fêtes_ that she gave to the
youth of Rome, and of which we regretted just now the absence of
sufficient details; for was it not for these charming parties, for these
free and sumptuous repasts, that he composed his finest works? It was
there, no doubt, under the groves on the banks of the Tiber, that he
sang that fine imitation of Sappho’s most fervid ode that he made for
Lesbia. It was, perhaps, on the shore of Baiae, fronting Naples and
Capreae, under that voluptuous sky, in the midst of the attractions of
that enchanted land, that for the first time were read those verses in
which so much grace is mingled with so much passion, and which are so
worthy of the exquisite landscape in the midst of which I take pleasure
in placing them:
“Let us live, let us love, my Lesbia, and laugh together at all the
reproaches of stern old age. The sun dies to be born again; but we, when
our short-lived light is once extinguished, must sleep an eternal night
without awakening. Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred, a thousand, a
hundred once more, then a thousand and a hundred again. Afterwards, when
we have embraced thousands of times, we will confuse the reckoning to
know it no longer, and leave the jealous no pretext to envy us by
letting them know how many kisses we have given each other.”[191]
That is a remarkable moment in Roman society, when we meet with these
polished assemblies, in which everything is talked of and all ranks are
mingled, where the writers have their place beside the politicians,
where they dare openly express their love for the arts and treat
imagination as a power. We may say, to use a quite modern expression,
that it is here that the life of society begins. There was nothing like
it among the old Romans. They lived on the Forum or in their houses.
Between the multitude and the family they knew little of that middle
point that we call society, that is to say, those elegant and select
assemblies, numerous without confusion, where we are at once more at
liberty than among unknown persons in public places, and yet less at
home than in the family circle. Before reaching this point it was
necessary to wait until Rome was civilized and literature had won her
place, which scarcely happened until the last age of the republic. And
yet we must not exaggerate. That _society_ which then had its beginning,
seems to us at times very coarse. Catullus tells us that at those
luxurious entertainments where such fine poems were read, there were
guests who would even steal the napkins.[192] The conversations they
held were often risky, to judge by certain epigrams of the great poet.
Clodia who assembled at her house these clever men, had singular
eccentricities of conduct. The elegant pleasures sought by a woman of
society were far from satisfying her, and she fell at last into excesses
that made her former friends blush. They themselves, those heroes of
fashion, whose good taste was vaunted on all sides, who talked with so
much charm and made such tender verses, did not behave much better than
she, and were not much more delicate. They had much to reproach
themselves with while their connection with Clodia lasted; when it
ended, they committed the unpardonable fault of not respecting the past,
and of failing in that consideration that is always due to a woman whom
one has once loved. Catullus stung with coarse epigrams her who had
inspired his finest verses. Caelius, alluding to the price paid to the
vilest courtesans, called her, in open court, the quarter of an as
(_quadrantaria_) woman, and this cruel epithet stuck to her. We see that
this society had still much progress to make; but it will do it quickly,
thanks to the monarchy which was about to commence. Everything changed
with Augustus. Under the new government, these remains of coarseness
which savoured of the old republic, disappeared; men made such progress,
and became so fastidious, that the refined were not slow in laughing at
Calvus and Catullus, and that Plautus passed for a barbarian. They
polish and refine themselves, and at the same time become insipid. A
courtly tone is spread over gallant literature, and the change is so
sudden, that little more than a quarter of a century was needed for the
descent from Catullus to Ovid. The amours of Clodia and Catullus ended
very sadly. Clodia did not pride herself on being faithful, and
justified her lover only too well when he wrote to her: “A woman’s
promises must be confided to the wind, or written on running
water.”[193] Catullus, who knew he was deceived, was angry with himself
for submitting to it. He reasoned with himself, he chid himself, but he
did not cure himself. Notwithstanding all the trouble he took to gain
courage, love was the stronger. After painful struggles which rent his
heart, he returned sad and submissive to the feet of her whom he could
not help despising, and whom he yet continued to love. “I love and I
hate, said he; you ask me how that can be, I cannot tell; but I feel
that it is so, and my soul is in tortures.”[194] So much suffering and
resignation touched Clodia very slightly. She plunged deeper and deeper
in obscure amours, and the poor poet, who had no more hope, was
compelled to separate from her for ever. The rupture between Clodia and
Caelius was much more tragic. It was by a criminal trial that their
amour was ended. This time Caelius wearied first. Clodia, who, as we
have seen, usually took the first step, was not used to such an end to
her amours. Enraged at being abandoned, she concerted with the enemies
of Caelius, who were not few, and had him accused of several crimes, and
particularly of having tried to poison her. This, it must be admitted,
was a very sad morrow to the charming _fêtes_ of Baiae! The trial must
have been very amusing, and we may believe that the Forum that day did
not lack curious hearers. Caelius appeared accompanied by those who had
been his protectors, his friends, and his teachers, the wealthy Crassus
and Cicero. They had divided his defence between them, and Cicero
specially undertook the part regarding Clodia. Although he declared, in
the opening of his speech, “that he was not the enemy of women, and
still less of a woman who was the friend of all men,” we may well
believe that he did not miss such a good opportunity of avenging himself
for all the ill this family had done him. That day Clodia suffered for
her whole family. Never had Cicero been so sharp and stinging; the
judges must have laughed much, and Caelius was acquitted.
Cicero had solemnly promised in his speech that his client would alter
his conduct. In fact, it was quite time for him to reform, his youth had
lasted only too long. He was then twenty-eight, and it was really time
for him to think of becoming aedile or tribune, if he wished to play
that political part that had been his father’s ambition for him. We do
not know whether, in the sequel, he rigorously carried out all the
undertakings Cicero had made in his name; perhaps he avoided henceforth
compromising himself by too open scandals, and perhaps the ill success
of his amours with Clodia had cured him of these noisy adventures; but
it is very difficult to suppose that he became austere and lived after
the manner of the old Romans. We see that, several years later when he
was aedile and taking part in the most serious business, he found time
to learn and repeat all the scandalous tales of Rome. This is what he
wrote to Cicero, then proconsul of Cilicia:—
“Nothing new has happened except a few little adventures that, I am
sure, you will be glad to hear about. Paula Valeria, the sister of
Triarius, has divorced herself, without any reason, from her husband,
the very day he was to arrive from his province; she is going to marry
Decimus Brutus. Have you never suspected it? Since your absence
incredible things of this kind have happened. No one would have believed
that Servius Ocella was a man of intrigue, if he had not been caught in
the act twice in the space of three days. You will ask me where? In
truth it was where I should not wish it to be,[195] but I leave you
something to learn from others. I should be glad to think that a
victorious proconsul will go and ask everybody with what woman a man has
been caught.”[196]
Evidently he who wrote this entertaining letter was never so thoroughly
converted as Cicero made believe, and it seems to me that we still find
the harebrained young fellow who made so much racket in the streets of
Rome, and the lover of Clodia, in the man of wit who recounts so
pleasantly these trifling intrigues. We may affirm, then, without
temerity that, although from this moment his private life is unknown to
us, he never entirely renounced the dissipations of his youth, and that,
magistrate and politician as he was, he continued to the end to mix
pleasure with business.
II.
But Caelius was not only a hero of amorous adventures, and did not
content himself with the empty honour of giving the tone for elegance of
manners to the youth of Rome. He had more solid qualities. Thanks to
Cicero’s lessons he speedily became a great orator. A short time after
he had escaped from this honourable tutelage, he made a brilliant
commencement in a case in which he was opposed to Cicero himself, and
this time the disciple beat the master. Since this success his
reputation had continued to increase. There were orators in the Forum
that men of taste admired more, and whose gifts they considered more
perfect; there were none more dreaded than he, such was the violence of
his attack and the bitterness of his raillery. He excelled in seizing
the ridiculous side of his opponents, and in making, in a very few
words, those ironical and cutting observations on them which are never
forgotten. Quintilian quotes one as a model of its kind, which well
exemplifies the talent of this terrible wit. He is speaking, in this
passage, of that Antony who had been the colleague of Cicero in his
consulship, and who, in spite of all the eulogies that the Orations
against Catiline lavish on him, was but an inferior intriguer and a
coarse debauchee. After having, according to custom, pillaged Macedonia,
which he governed, he had attacked some neighbouring tribes in order to
obtain a pretext for a triumph. He counted upon an easy victory, but as
he was more taken up with his pleasures than with the war, he was
ignominiously beaten. Caelius, who attacked him on his return,
described, or rather imagined, in his speech, one of those orgies during
which the general, while dead drunk, allowed himself to be surprised by
the enemy.
“Women, his ordinary officers, fill the banqueting-hall, stretched on
all the couches, or lying about on the ground. When they learn that the
enemy is come, half-dead with fright, they try to awaken Antony; they
shout his name, they raise him up by the neck. Some whisper soft words
in his ear, others treat him more roughly and even strike him; but he,
who recognizes their voices and touch, stretches out his arms by habit,
seizes and wishes to embrace the first he meets with. He can neither
sleep, so much they shout to awaken him, nor wake, so drunk is he. At
last, powerless to shake off this drowsiness, he is carried off in the
arms of his centurions and his mistresses.”[197]
When a man possesses such a biting and incisive talent it is natural for
him to have an aggressive temper; nothing therefore suited Caelius
better than personal struggles. He liked and sought disputation because
he was sure to succeed in it, and because he could make use of those
violent modes of attack that could not be resisted. He wished to be
contradicted, for contradiction excited him and gave him energy. Seneca
relates that one day one of the clients of Caelius, a man of pacific
temper, and who, no doubt, had suffered from his rudeness, confined
himself during a meal to agreeing with him. Caelius at last grew enraged
because the man gave him no opportunity for getting angry, and
exclaimed: “Do contradict me that there may be two of us.”[198] The
talents of Caelius, such as I have just depicted them, marvellously
suited the time in which he lived. This thoroughly explains the
reputation that he enjoyed, and the important position he took among his
contemporaries. This fiery debater, this pitiless wit, this vehement
accuser would not have been altogether in his place in quiet times; but
in the midst of a revolution he became a valuable auxiliary whom all
parties contended for. Caelius was moreover a statesman as well as an
orator, and it is for this that Cicero most frequently praises him. “I
know no one, he told him, who is a better politician than you.”[199] He
knew men thoroughly, he had a clear insight into situations; he decided
quickly, a quality that Cicero much appreciated in others, for it was
just that which he most lacked, and when once he had decided, he set to
work with a vigour and force that gained him the sympathies of the
multitude. At a time when power belonged to those who were bold enough
to seize it, the audacity of Caelius seemed to promise him a brilliant
political future.
Nevertheless, he had also great defects, which sometimes arose from his
very good qualities. He knew men well, a great advantage no doubt, but
in studying them it was their bad side that struck him most. By dint of
trying them in every way, his startling penetration succeeded in laying
bare some weakness. He did not reserve his severity for his adversaries
only; his best friends did not escape his clear-sighted analysis. We see
in his private correspondence that he knew all their defects, and did
not stand on ceremony in speaking of them. Dolabella, his companion in
pleasure, is a poor babbler, “incapable of keeping a secret, even though
his imprudence should ruin him.”[200] Curio, his usual associate in
political intrigues, “is only an unstable busybody, changing with every
breath of wind, who can do nothing sensible,”[201] nevertheless, at the
time when he is treating them thus, Curio and Dolabella had sufficient
influence over him to draw him into Caesar’s party. As to Caesar
himself, he speaks no better of him, although he is preparing to embrace
his cause. This son of Venus, as he calls him, appears to him “but an
egotist who scoffs at the interests of the republic and only cares for
his own,”[202] and he has no scruple in confessing that in his camp,
where, nevertheless, he is going, there are only dishonourable men, “all
of whom have causes for apprehension in the past and criminal hopes for
the future.”[203] With such a disposition of mind, and so decided a
leaning to judge every one harshly, it was natural that Caelius should
not trust any one entirely, and that no one dared to count upon him with
confidence. To serve a cause usefully you must give yourself up to it
completely; now, how can you do so if you cannot shut your eyes a little
and not see too clearly its bad sides? Those cautious and clear-sighted
persons, who are entirely taken up with the fear of being dupes, and who
always see the faults of others so plainly, are never anything but
lukewarm friends and useless allies. While they inspire no confidence in
the party that they wish to serve, because they always make reservations
in serving it, they are not sufficiently enthusiastic to form a party
themselves, and always fall short of that degree of passion that leads a
man to undertake great things. Therefore it happens that, as they can
neither be chiefs nor privates, and cannot attach themselves to others
or attach others to themselves, they end by finding themselves alone.
Let us add that Caelius, who had no illusions about persons, seemed also
to have no preference for parties. He never sought the reputation of
being a man of principle, nor to put order and consistency into his
political life. In that, as in his private affairs, he lived from hand
to mouth. The circumstances of the moment, interest, or friendship, gave
him an accidental conviction to which he did not pretend to be long
faithful. He went over from Cicero to Catiline when Catiline seemed to
him the stronger; he returned to Cicero when Cicero was victorious. He
was the friend of Clodias as long as he remained Clodia’s lover; he
abandoned the brother at the same time that he left the sister, and
suddenly embraced Milo’s party. He passed several times from the people
to the senate, and from the senate to the people without scruple or
embarrassment. At bottom, the cause that he served was of little
consequence to him, and he had not to make much effort to disengage
himself from it. At the time that he seemed to be taking the most
trouble for it, he spoke of it in a tone that left people to imagine it
was quite foreign to him. Even in the gravest affairs, and when it was a
question of the fate of the republic, he did not appear to suppose that
it had anything to do with him, and that he was interested in its safety
or ruin. “It is your business, rich old men,”[204] he said. But what did
it matter to him? As he is always ruined he never has anything to lose.
Therefore all forms of government are indifferent to him, and curiosity
alone makes him take an interest in these struggles, in which,
nevertheless, he plays such an active part. If he plunges with so much
ardour into the tumult of public life, it is because events and men are
seen closer, and one can make piquant reflections on it, or find amusing
scenes in it. When he announces to Cicero, with remarkable perspicacity,
the approaching civil war and the misfortunes that are coming, he adds:
“If you were not running some risk, I should say that fortune was
preparing a great and curious spectacle for you!”[205] A cruel speech
that Caelius paid for dearly in the sequel, for one does not play at
these deadly games without peril, and often becomes a victim while
thinking to be only a spectator.
When this war, which he thus announced to Cicero, was on the point of
breaking out, Caelius had just been appointed aedile, and his great
anxiety was to have some Cilician panthers for the games that he wished
to give to the people. At this time, after having belonged more or less
to all parties, he made profession of defending the cause of the senate,
that is to say, that in speaking of the senators, he said, “our
friends,” and that he affected to call them “good citizens”; which did
not prevent him, according to his custom, having his eyes open to the
faults that the “good citizens” might commit, and scoffing at his
“friends” bitterly when the opportunity presented itself. Cicero thought
him cold and undecided; he would have wished to see him pledge himself
deeper. At the time of his departure for Cilicia, he did not cease to
extol the great qualities of Pompey to him: “Believe me, he said, trust
yourself to this great man, he will gladly welcome you.”[206] But
Caelius took good care not to do anything of the kind. He knew Pompey,
of whom he has drawn satirical portraits on different occasions; he did
not much admire him, and did not like him at all. If he kept aloof from
him at the time of his greatest power, he certainly would not, we can
well understand, throw himself into his arms when this power was
threatened. In proportion as the crisis that he had foreseen advanced,
he took more care to hold himself in reserve, and waited for the turn of
events.
It was, moreover, a time when the most honourable hesitated. This
irresolution, which does not seem to have been very surprising then, has
been much blamed in our days. It is easy, however, to understand this.
Questions do not present themselves to the eyes of contemporaries with
the same clearness as to those of posterity. When they are looked at
from a distance, and with a mind free from all prejudice; when, besides,
the results and the causes are taken in at the same time, and when we
can judge the causes by the results, nothing is easier than to come to a
decision; but it is not so when one lives in the midst of the events,
and too near them to take in the whole, when one’s mind is influenced by
previous ties or personal preferences, and when the decision one is
about to take may endanger one’s safety and fortune. It is not possible,
then, to see things so clearly. The state of anarchy in which the old
parties of the Roman republic were added to the confusion at that time.
To speak the truth, there were no longer parties, but coalitions. For
fifty years they had struggled, not for questions of principle, but for
personal questions. Parties being no longer organized as formerly, it
followed that timid minds which have need to attach themselves to
ancient traditions to guide them, drifted about, and often changed.
These striking changes of opinion in honourable and respected persons
disturbed the less settled minds, and rendered it difficult to make out
the right. Caesar, who knew of these vacillations, and hoped to profit
by them, did what he could to increase their causes. At the very moment
when he was preparing to destroy the constitution of his country, he had
the art to appear to respect it more than anybody. An expert judge in
these matters, and one who knows the Roman laws thoroughly, has
declared, after mature examination, that the law was on the side of
Caesar, and that the grievances he complained of were well founded.[207]
He took good care not to disclose all his projects then, or to speak
with so much freedom as he did afterwards, when he was master. Sometimes
he presented himself as the successor of the Gracchi, and the defender
of popular rights; sometimes he affected to say, in order to reassure
everybody, that the republic was not interested in the dispute, and
reduced the quarrel to a struggle for influence between two powerful
competitors. While he was gathering his legions in the cities of Upper
Italy, he only spoke of his desire to preserve the public peace; in
proportion as his enemies became more violent he became more moderate,
and he never proposed conditions so acceptable as when he was sure that
the senate would not listen to them. On the other side, on the contrary,
in the camp where moderate and wise men ought to be found, there was
nothing but rashness and stupidity. Those who showed some repugnance to
civil war were treated as public enemies; they talked only of
proscribing and confiscating, and the example of Sulla was in every
one’s mouth. It happened then, by a strange contradiction, that it was
in the camp where profession was made of defending liberty, that
exceptional measures were most persistently demanded; and while the man
who expected everything from the war, and whose army was ready, offered
peace, those who had not a soldier under arms were eager to refuse it.
Thus the two sides exchanged characters, and each appeared to speak and
act contrary to its interests, or its principles. Is it surprising that
in the midst of such obscurity, and among so many reasons for
hesitation, honourable men like Sulpicius and Cicero, devoted to their
country, but fitter to serve it in quiet times than in these violent
crises, should not have decided at once?
Caelius also hesitated; but not altogether for the same reasons as
Cicero and Sulpicius. While they anxiously asked themselves where the
right lay, Caelius only sought where the superior force lay. He admitted
this himself with singular candour: “In intestine quarrels,” he writes
to Cicero, “as long as one struggles by legal means, and without having
recourse to arms, one ought to attach oneself to the most honourable
party; but when one comes to war it is necessary to turn towards the
stronger, and regard the safest party as the best.”[208] From the moment
that he was satisfied with simply comparing the strength of the two
rivals, his choice became easier; in order to decide it was enough to
open his eyes. On one side there were eleven legions, supported by tried
auxiliaries, and commanded by the greatest general of the republic,
ranged on the frontiers, and ready to open the campaign at the first
signal;[209] on the other, few or no trained troops, but a great number
of young men of illustrious families as incapable of commanding as they
were little disposed to obey, and many of those great names that honour
a party more than they help it; on one side, military rule and the
discipline of a camp; on the other, quarrels, disputes, resentments,
rival authorities, differences of opinion, in short, all the
inconvenient habits of civil life transported into a camp. These are the
ordinary difficulties of a party that claims to defend liberty, for it
is difficult to impose silence on people who fight to preserve the right
of free speech, and all authority quickly becomes suspected when men
have taken up arms to oppose an abuse of authority. But it was the
character of the two chiefs, more than anything else, that made the
difference between the two parties. Caesar appeared to all the world,
even to his greatest enemies, a prodigy of activity and foresight. As to
Pompey it was clearly seen that he committed only faults, and it was not
any easier then than it is now to explain his conduct. The war had not
taken him unawares; he told Cicero that he had foreseen it for a long
time.[210] There was no great difficulty in foreseeing it, he had
appeared to wish for it; Caesar’s proposals had been rejected by his
advice, and the majority of the senate did nothing without consulting
him. He had, then, seen the crisis approaching from afar, and during all
that long diplomatic war which preceded actual hostilities he had had
the time necessary to prepare himself. Every one, therefore, believed
that he was ready, although nothing showed it. When he said, with his
usual boastfulness, that he had only to stamp his foot to bring up
legions, it was supposed he meant to speak of secret levies, or of
alliances not generally known, that at the last moment would bring him
troops. His confidence restored courage to the most terror-stricken. In
truth, such a strange self-confidence in the midst of such real danger,
in a man who had conquered kingdoms, and conducted great affairs, passes
our comprehension.
Whence then could this confidence come to Pompey? Had he no exact
information of the strength of his enemy? did he really believe, as he
said, that his troops were discontented, his generals unfaithful, and
that no one would follow him in the war he was going to wage against
his country? or did he reckon on the good fortune of his earlier
years, on the prestige of his name, on the happy chances that had
given him so many victories? It is certain that, at the moment when
the veterans of Alesia and Gergovia were assembling at Ravenna, and
approaching the Rubicon, Pompey imprudently exhibited a great disdain
for the general and for his troops, _vehementer contemnebat hunc
hominem!_[211] But this foolish boasting did not last long; on the
news that Caesar was marching resolutely on Rome, it ceased at once,
and this same man whom Cicero showed us just now disdaining his rival
and predicting his defeat, he shows us a few days later, terrified and
flying into the depths of Apulia without daring to halt or make a
stand anywhere. We have the letter that Pompey then wrote to the
consuls, and to Domitius, who attempted at least to hold out in
Corfinium: “Know, he tells them, that I am in great uneasiness
(_scitote me esse in summa sollicitudine_”).[212] What a contrast to
the over-confident words of just now! This is just the tone of a man
who, waking up with a start from exaggerated hopes, passes suddenly
from one extreme to another. He had prepared nothing because he had
been too well assured of success; he dared undertake nothing because
he was too certain of failure. He has no confidence or hope in any
one; all resistance seems to him useless; he does not even count upon
the awakening of a patriotic spirit, and it does not occur to him to
make an appeal to the republican youth of the Italian municipia. At
each step that his enemy takes in advance, he retreats still farther.
Brundusium itself, with its strong walls, does not give him
confidence; he thinks of quitting Italy, and does not believe that he
is safe until he has put the sea between himself and Caesar.
Caelius had not waited so long to take a side. Even before the struggle
commenced it was easy for him to see where the superior strength lay and
on which side victory would be. He had then boldly faced about and put
himself in the front rank among Caesar’s friends. He took his side
openly when he supported with his usual vigour the proposition of
Calidius, who demanded that Pompey should be sent back to his province
of Spain. When the hope of peace was completely lost, he left Rome with
his friends Curio and Dolabella, and went to join Caesar at Ravenna. He
followed him in his triumphal march through Italy; he saw him pardon
Domitius, who had been taken in Corfinium, pursue Pompey, and shut him
up closely in Brundusium. In the intoxication of these rapid successes
he wrote to Cicero: “Have you ever seen a man more foolish than your
Pompey, who brings us into such great troubles, and whose conduct is so
childish? On the other hand, have you ever read or heard of anything
that surpasses the ardour of Caesar in action and his moderation in
victory? What do you think of our soldiers, who, in the depth of winter,
notwithstanding the difficulties of a wild and frozen country, have
finished the war in an unopposed march?”[213]
When Caelius had once decided, his only thought was to draw Cicero after
him. He knew that he could do nothing more agreeable to Caesar.
Victorious though he was, Caesar, who did not delude himself about those
who served him, felt that he wanted a few honest men to give his party a
better appearance. The great name of Cicero would have sufficed to
correct the bad impression that the character of those about him
produced. Unfortunately it was very difficult to get Cicero to decide.
From the day when the Rubicon was passed till the capture of Brundusium
he wavered and changed his mind every day. Both sides were equally
anxious to secure him, and the two chiefs themselves approached him, but
in a very different manner. Pompey, always bungling, wrote him short and
imperious letters: “Take the Appian road as soon as possible, come and
join me at Luceria, at Brundusium, there you will be safe.”[214] Strange
language in the vanquished who persists in speaking as a superior!
Caesar was much more judicious: “Come, he says to him, come and aid me
with your counsel, your name, and your glory!”[215] This consideration,
these advances from a victorious general, who humbly solicited when he
had the right to command, could not fail to influence Cicero. At the
same time, to be more sure of gaining him over, Caesar got his dearest
friends to write to him, Oppius, Balbus, Trebatius, and especially
Caelius, who knew so well how to approach him. They attacked him on all
his weak sides at once; they revived his old grudges against Pompey;
they moved him by the picture of the misfortunes that threatened his
family; they excited his vanity by pointing out to him the honour of
reconciling parties and pacifying the republic.
So many assaults were bound to end by shaking a mind so undecided. At
the last moment, he resolved to remain in Italy, in some isolated
country house or in some neutral town, living apart from public affairs,
not siding with any one, but preaching moderation and peace to all.
Already he had begun an eloquent treatise on peace among citizens; he
wished to finish it at leisure, and, as he had a good opinion of his
eloquence, he hoped it would cause the most stubborn to lay down their
arms. It was an idle fancy, no doubt; but we must not forget that Cato,
who is beyond suspicion, regretted that Cicero had given up his plan so
soon. He blamed him for going to Pharsalia, where his presence was not a
great assistance to the combatants, while, by remaining neutral, he
could preserve his influence over the two rivals and serve as
intermediary between them. But one single day overturned all these fine
projects. When Pompey quitted Brundusium, where he did not think he was
safe, and embarked for Greece, Caesar, who counted upon this news to
retain Cicero, hastened to transmit it to him. It was precisely this
that made him change his mind. He was not one of those men who, like
Caelius, turn with fortune and decide for success. On the contrary, he
felt himself drawn to Pompey as soon as he saw him unfortunate. “I have
never desired to share in his prosperity, said he; I could wish to share
his misfortune!”[216] When he knew that the republican army had
departed, and with it almost all his old political friends; when he felt
that on that Italian soil there were no longer magistrates, consuls or
senate, he was seized with profound grief; it seemed that there was a
blank around him, and that the sun itself, according to his expression,
had disappeared from the world. Many people came to congratulate him on
his prudence, but he reproached himself with it as a crime. He bitterly
accused his weakness, his age, his love of repose and of peace. He had
but one thought, to leave as quickly as possible. “I cannot support my
regret, he said; my books, my studies, my philosophy are of no use to
me. I am like a bird that wishes to fly away, and I always look
seawards.”[217]
From that time his resolution was taken. Caelius tried in vain to retain
him at the last moment, by a touching letter, in which he spoke to him
of the probable loss of his fortune, and of the danger of jeopardizing
the future of his son. Cicero, although he was much moved, was content
to reply with a firmness unusual with him: “I am glad to see that you
are so anxious for my son; but, if the republic continues, he will
always be rich enough with his father’s name; if it must perish, he will
suffer the common fate of all the citizens.”[218] And, soon after, he
crossed the sea to repair to Pompey’s camp. Not that he counted upon
success; in joining a party whose weaknesses he was acquainted with, he
well knew that he was going voluntarily to take his share in a disaster.
“I come, said he, like Amphiaraüs to cast myself alive into the
abyss.”[219] It was a sacrifice that he thought he ought to make for his
country, and it is proper to give him so much the more credit for it as
he did it without illusions and without hope.
While Cicero thus went to rejoin Pompey, Caelius accompanied Caesar to
Spain. All relations became henceforth impossible between them;
consequently their correspondence, which had until then been very
active, stops from this moment. There remains, however, one letter, the
last that passed between them, and which forms a strange contrast to
those that precede. Caelius addressed it to Cicero a few months only
after the events that I have just spoken of, but under very different
circumstances. Although it has only come down to us very mutilated, and
it is not easy to restore the sense of all the phrases, we see clearly
that the writer was a prey to violent irritation. This zealous partisan
of Caesar, who sought to convert others to his opinion, has suddenly
become a furious enemy; that cause that he lately defended with so much
warmth, he now only calls a detestable cause, and thinks “it is better
to die than remain on that side.”[220] What had happened, then, in the
interval? What motives had led Caelius to this last change, and what was
the result of it? It is well to relate it, for the narrative may throw
some light on the policy of the dictator, and above all make us
acquainted with those about him.
III.
In his treatise, _De Amicitia_, Cicero affirms that a tyrant cannot have
friends.[221] In speaking thus he was thinking of Caesar, and it must be
admitted that this example seems to justify him. Courtiers are not
wanting when a man is master, and Caesar, who paid them well, had more
than any other, but we know of scarcely any sincere and devoted friends.
Perhaps he had some among those obscure servants whose memory history
has not preserved,[222] but none of those whom he placed in the first
rank, and whom he invited to share in his good fortune, remained
faithful to him. His liberalities only brought him ingratitude, his
clemency disarmed no one, and he was betrayed by those on whom he had
lavished most favours. His soldiers alone can really be called his
friends, those veterans who remained from the great Gallic wars; his
centurions, all of whom he knew by name, and who let themselves bravely
be killed for him under his eyes: that Scaeva, who at Dyrrhachium had
his shield pierced with two hundred and thirty arrows;[223] that
Crastinus, who said to him on the morning of Pharsalia, “This evening
you shall thank me dead or alive.”[224] These men served him faithfully,
he knew them and relied upon them; but he well knew that he could not
trust his generals. Although he had heaped money and honours upon them
after his victories, they were discontented. A few, and those the most
honourable, were grieved to think that they had destroyed the republic
and shed their blood to establish absolute power. The greater number had
not these scruples, but all thought their services ill rewarded.
Caesar’s liberality, great as it was, had not sufficed to satisfy them.
The republic was delivered up to them, they were praetors and consuls,
they governed the richest provinces, and yet they ceased not to
complain. Everything served them as a pretext for murmuring. Antony had
got Pompey’s house awarded to him at a low price; when they came for the
money he got in a passion and only paid with insults. No doubt he
thought that day that they were wanting in respect for him, and called
Caesar ungrateful. It is not uncommon to see those warriors, so brave
before the enemy, and so admirable on the day of battle, become again in
private life vulgarly ambitious, full of base jealousy and insatiable
greed. They began by murmuring and complaining; they almost all ended by
betraying him. Among those who killed Caesar were found perhaps his best
generals, Sulpicius Galba, the conqueror of the Nantuates, Basilus, one
of his most brilliant cavalry officers, Decimus Brutus and Trebonius,
the heroes of the siege of Marseilles. Those who were not in the plot
did not conduct themselves any better that day. When we read in Plutarch
the narrative of the death of Caesar, our heart bleeds at seeing that no
one tried to defend him. The conspirators were only about sixty in
number, and there were more than eight hundred senators. The greater
number among them had served in his army; all owed to him the honour of
sitting in the curia, of which they were not worthy, and these wretches,
who held their fortune and their dignity from him, who begged for his
protection and lived on his favours, saw him killed without saying a
word. All the time this horrible struggle lasted, while, “like a beast
attacked by the hunters, he strove among the swords drawn against him,”
they remained motionless on their seats, and all their courage consisted
in flying when Brutus, beside the bleeding corpse, essayed to speak.
Cicero recalled this scene, of which he had been a witness, when he said
later, “It is on the day when the oppressors of their country fall that
we see clearly that they have no friends.”[225]
When Caesar’s generals, who had so many motives for remaining faithful
to him, betrayed him, could he reckon more on those doubtful allies that
he had recruited on the Forum, and who before serving him had served all
parties? To accomplish his designs he had need of politicians; in order
that the new government should not appear to be a wholly military rule
he had need of the greatest number possible. Therefore he was not
squeamish, he took them without selection. It was the dishonest men of
all parties that came to him by preference. He received them well,
although he esteemed them little, and carried them everywhere in his
train. Cicero had been very much afraid of them when Caesar came with
them to see him at Formiae: “There is not a rascal in all Italy,” said
he, “who is not with him,”[226] and Atticus, usually so reserved, could
not help calling this retinue an infernal troop.[227] However habituated
we may be to see the initiative in such revolutions taken by men who
have not much to lose, there is reason, nevertheless, to be surprised
that Caesar did not find a few more honourable allies. Even those who
are most opposed to him are compelled to recognize that much which he
wished to destroy did not deserve preservation. The revolution that he
contemplated had profound causes, it was natural that it should have
also sincere partisans. How does it happen then that, among those who
aided him to change a government of which many complained, and from
which every one had suffered, there are so few who seem to act from
conviction, and that almost all, on the contrary, are only paid
conspirators working without sincerity for a man whom they do not love,
and for a purpose that they consider bad?
Perhaps we must explain the composition of Caesar’s party by the means
that he usually took to recruit it. We do not see that when he wished to
gain any one over to his cause he lost his time in demonstrating to him
the defects of the old government and the merits of that by which he
wished to replace it. He employed more simple and sure arguments: he
paid. This showed that he knew well the men of his time, and he was not
deceived in thinking that, in a society altogether given up to luxury
and pleasure, weakened beliefs only left room for self-interest. He
organized then without scruple a vast system of corruption. Gaul
furnished the means. He pillaged it as vigorously as he had conquered
it, “seizing,” says Suetonius, “all that he found in the temples of the
gods, and taking towns by assault, less to punish them than to have a
pretext for plundering them.”[228] With this money he made himself
partisans. Those who came to see him never went away empty-handed. He
did not even neglect to make presents to the slaves and freedmen who had
any influence over their masters. While he was absent from Rome, the
clever Spaniard Balbus and the banker Oppius, who were his agents,
distributed bounties in his name; they discreetly helped embarrassed
senators; they became the treasurers of young men of high family who had
exhausted the paternal resources. They lent money without interest, but
the services by which they would have to repay the loans were well known
to every one. It was thus they bought Curio, who set a high price on
himself; he was in debt for more than 60,000,000 sesterces (£480,000).
Caelius and Dolabella, whose affairs were in a not much better state,
were probably gained by the same means. Never was corruption practised
on a greater scale and displayed with more impudence. Almost every year,
during the winter, Caesar returned to Cisalpine Gaul with the treasures
of the Gauls. Then the market was opened, and the great personages
arrived one after another. One day, at Lucca, so many came at once that
two hundred senators were counted in the apartments, and one hundred and
twenty lictors at the door.
In general, the fidelity of people who are bought does not last much
longer than the money they receive; now, in their hands, money does not
last long, and the day one tires of providing for their prodigality, one
is obliged to begin to distrust them. There was besides, in the case of
all these political friends of Caesar, a special reason why, one day or
other, they should become discontented. They had grown up amidst the
storms of the republic; they had thrown themselves early into that
active and bustling life, and they had acquired the taste for it. No men
more than they, had used and abused liberty of speech; to it they owed
their influence, their power, and their renown. By a strange
inconsistency, these men, who worked with all their might to establish
an absolute government, were those who could least do without the
struggles of public life, the turmoil of business, and the excitement of
the rostrum, that is to say just those things which exist only under
free governments. There were no men who would sooner find despotic power
burdensome than those who had not been able to support even the light
and equitable yoke of the law. Accordingly they were not long in
perceiving the error they had committed. They soon found out that in
aiding a master to destroy the liberty of others, they had delivered up
their own. At the same time it was easy for them to see that the new
government that they had established with their own hands could not give
them what the old one had given them. What, in fact, were those
dignities and those honours with which it was pretended to reward them,
when one man alone possessed real power? There were, no doubt, still
praetors and consuls; but what comparison could be made between these
magistrates, dependent on one man, subject to his caprices, dominated by
his authority, overshadowed, and, as it were, obliterated by his glory,
and those of the old republic? So then must inevitably arise mistakes,
regrets, and often also treasons. This is why those allies whom Caesar
had recruited in the different political parties, after having been very
useful to him, all finished by causing him great trouble. None of those
restless and intractable minds, undisciplined by nature and habit, had
willingly consented to submit to discipline, or heartily resigned
himself to obey. As soon as they were no longer under the eye of the
master and restrained by his powerful hand, the old instincts in them
gained the upper hand; they became again, on the first opportunity,
seditious as before, and though Rome had been pacified by absolute
power, troubles recommenced every time Caesar was absent. It is thus
that Caelius, Dolabella, and Antony compromised the public tranquillity
they had been charged to maintain. Curio, the head of that youth that
rallied round the new government, died too soon to have had the time to
be discontented; but we may conjecture, from the light and flippant
manner in which he already spoke of Caesar in his private conversation,
from the small degree of illusion he seemed to have about him, that he
would have acted like the rest.[229]
It is easy now to understand what reasons Caelius had to complain, and
how that ambition which the dignities of the old republic had not
satisfied at last found itself ill at ease under the new government. The
strange letter that he wrote to Cicero, and that declaration of war
which he made to Caesar and his party are now explained. He had early
become discontented. From the very beginning of the civil war, when he
was congratulated on the success of his party, he answered gloomily:
“What do I care about that glory which never reaches to me?”[230] The
truth is that he was beginning to understand that there was only room
for one man in the new government, and that he alone for the future
would have glory as well as power. Caesar took him on his expedition to
Spain without giving him, it appears, an opportunity of distinguishing
himself. On his return to Rome he was appointed praetor, but he did not
have the urban praetorship which was the most honourable, and Trebonius
was preferred to him. This preference, which he regarded as an insult,
caused him great vexation. He resolved to revenge himself, and only
waited for an opportunity. He thought it had come when he saw Caesar set
out with all his troops for Thessaly, in pursuit of Pompey. He thought
that in the absence of the dictator and his soldiers, in the midst of
the excitement of Italy, where a thousand contradictory rumours on the
result of the struggle were circulating, he might attempt a decisive
stroke. The moment was well chosen; but what was still better chosen was
the question on which Caelius resolved to begin the fight. Nothing does
more credit to his political ability than to have so clearly discerned
the weak sides of the victorious party, and to have seen at a glance the
best position he could take up for a successful attack upon it.
Although Caesar was master of Rome and of Italy, and it was seen that
the republican army would not check him, he still had great difficulties
to surmount. Caelius knew this well; he knew well that in political
struggles success is often an ordeal full of danger. After the enemy has
been vanquished one’s own friends have to be provided for, a task which
is often troublesome. That greed must be resisted which has hitherto
been tolerated, or even encouraged, when the time to satisfy it seemed
distant; it is necessary above all to defend oneself against the
exaggerated hopes that victory produces in those who have gained it, and
which yet cannot be realized. Usually, when one belongs to the weaker
party and wishes to gain adherents, promises are not spared; but when
one reaches power it is very difficult to keep all the engagements that
have been made, and those fine programmes that have been accepted and
scattered abroad become then a source of great embarrassment. Caesar was
the recognized chief of the democratic party; thence came his strength.
We remember that he had said, on entering Italy, that he came to restore
liberty to the republic which was enslaved by a handful of aristocrats.
Now, the democratic party of which he thus proclaimed himself the
representative had its programme ready prepared. It was not exactly that
of the Gracchi. After a century of often bloody struggles, hatred had
become envenomed, and the senseless resistance of the aristocracy had
made the people more exacting. Each of the chiefs who, since Caius
Gracchus, had come forward to lead them, had formulated for them some
fresh demand the more surely to draw them after him. Clodius had aimed
at establishing the unlimited right of association and of governing the
republic by secret societies. Catiline promised confiscation and
pillage; accordingly his memory had remained very popular. Cicero speaks
of the funeral banquets which were celebrated in his honour, and of the
flowers that his tomb was covered with.[231] Caesar, who presented
himself as their successor, could not altogether repudiate their
heritage; he must promise that he would finish their work and satisfy
the wishes of the democracy. At this moment the democracy did not appear
to care much about political reforms; what it wanted was a social
revolution. To be fed in idleness at the expense of the state, by means
of gratuitous distributions very frequently repeated; to appropriate the
best lands of the allies by sending colonies into the richest Italian
cities; to arrive at a sort of division of property, under pretext of
recovering from the aristocracy the public domain which it had
appropriated, such was the ordinary idea of the plebeians; but what they
most urgently demanded, what had become the watchword of all this party,
was the abolition of debts, or, as they said, the destruction of the
registers of the creditors (_tabulae novae_), that is to say, the
authorized violation of public faith, and a general bankruptcy decreed
by the law. This programme, violent as it was, Caesar had prepared to
accept in proclaiming himself the head of the democracy. As long as the
struggle was doubtful, he took care to make no reservations, for fear of
weakening his party by divisions. Therefore it was thought that as soon
as he was victorious he would set himself to work to realize it.
But Caesar had not only come to destroy a government, he wished to found
another, and he knew very well that nothing solid can be established on
spoliation and bankruptcy. After having used, without compunction, the
programme of the democracy to overturn the republic, he understood that
he would have to take up a new part. On the day that he became master of
Rome, his statesman’s instinct, and his interest as a sovereign made him
a conservative. While he extended his hand to the moderate men of the
old parties, he had no scruple in often returning to the traditions of
the old government.
It is certain that the work of Caesar, taking it altogether, is far from
being that of a revolutionary; some of his laws were praised by Cicero
after the Ides of March; which is as much as to say that they were not
conformable to the wishes and hopes of the democracy. He sent eighty
thousand poor citizens into the colonies, but over sea, to Africa and to
Greece. He could not think of altogether abolishing the donations made
by the State to the citizens of Rome, but he diminished them. In the
place of the three hundred and twenty thousand citizens who shared in
these under the republic, he only admitted a hundred and fifty thousand;
he ordered that this number should not be exceeded, and that every year
the praetor should fill up the place of those persons, thus privileged
by poverty, who had died within the year. Far from changing anything in
the prohibitive regulations that were in force under the republic, he
established import duties on foreign merchandise. He promulgated a
sumptuary law, much more severe than the preceding, which regulated in
detail the manner in which people should dress and live, and had it
executed with tyrannical rigour. The markets were guarded by soldiers
lest anything should be sold that the law forbade, and the soldiers were
authorized to enter houses and seize prohibited food even on the tables.
Caesar had taken these measures, which hampered commerce and industry,
and consequently were hurtful to the interests of the people, from the
traditions of the aristocratic governments. They could not therefore be
popular; but the restriction he put upon the right of meeting was still
less so. This right, to which the democracy clung more than to any
other, had been respected even to the last days of the republic, and the
tribune Clodius had skilfully used it to frighten the senate and to
terrorize the Forum. Under pretext of honouring the tutelar deities of
each cross-way, associations of the districts (_collegia compitalicia_),
comprising the poor citizens and the slaves, had been formed. Beginning
by being religious, these societies soon became political. In the time
of Clodius they formed a sort of regular army of the democracy, and
played the same part in the riots of Rome as the “sections” in ’93 did
among us. By the side of these permanent associations, and on the same
model, temporary associations were formed, every time a great election
took place. The people were enrolled by districts, they were divided
into decuries and centuries; chiefs, who led them to vote in military
order, were appointed; and as in general the people did not give their
votes for nothing, an important person named _sequester_ was appointed
beforehand, in whose hands the sum promised by the candidate was
deposited, and distributors (_divisores_) charged, after the voting, to
divide it among each tribe. This is how universal suffrage was exercised
in Rome towards the close of the republic, and thus this race, naturally
inclined to discipline, had succeeded in giving an organization to
disorder. Caesar, who had often made use of these secret associations,
who by them had managed elections and dominated the deliberations of the
Forum, would no longer suffer them when he had no longer need of them.
He thought that a regular government would not last long if he allowed
this underground government to work by its side. He did not shrink then
from severe measures to rid himself of this organized disorder. To the
great scandal of his friends, he suppressed, at a single stroke, all the
political societies, only allowing the most ancient, which presented no
danger, to continue in existence.
These were vigorous measures, and such as must have offended many
people; accordingly he did not venture to take them till late, after
Munda and Thapsus, when his authority was no longer disputed and he felt
himself strong enough to resist the democracy, his ancient ally. When he
set out for Pharsalia he had still to observe much caution; prudence
commanded him not to displease his friends, while so many enemies
remained. Moreover, there were certain questions which could not be
deferred, so important were they in the eyes of the democracy which
demanded their immediate settlement. One of the chief of these was the
abolition of debts. Caesar turned his attention to it immediately on his
return from Spain; but here again, notwithstanding the difficulties of
his position, he was not so radical as he was expected to be. Placed
between his conservative instincts and the demands of his friends, he
adopted a middle course: instead of abolishing the debts completely, he
contented himself with reducing them. Firstly, he ordered that all sums
paid up to that time as interest should be deducted from the capital
sums; then, to make payment of the amount thus reduced easier, he ruled
that the property of the debtors should be valued by arbitrators; that
they should assess it, not at its present value, but at that which it
had before the civil war, and that the creditors should be obliged to
take it at that rate. Suetonius says that, in this manner, debts were
reduced by more than one-fourth. These measures certainly still appear
to us sufficiently revolutionary. We cannot approve this intervention of
authority, to despoil without reason private persons of a part of their
wealth, and nothing can seem to us more unjust than that the law itself
should annul contracts which have been placed under its protection; but
at that time the effect produced on men’s minds was very different. The
creditors, who had feared that nothing would be left them, thought
themselves very fortunate not to lose all, and the debtors, who had
reckoned upon being altogether freed, bitterly complained because they
were still required to pay part. Hence disappointment and murmuring. “At
this moment,” wrote Caelius, “with the exception of a few usurers,
everybody herd is Pompeian.”[232]
This was a good opportunity for a secret enemy like Caelius. He hastened
to seize it, and to take advantage of the disaffection which he clearly
perceived. His tactics were bold. The plan which he devised was to take
upon himself this character of advanced democrat, or, as we should say
now, of socialist, which Caesar rejected, to form a more radical party
of all these malcontents, and to declare himself their head. While the
arbitrators appointed to value the property of the debtors performed
their delicate functions to the best of their ability, and the praetor
of the city, Trebonius, settled the disputes which arose upon their
decisions, Caelius had his curule chair placed beside the tribunal of
Trebonius, and setting himself up, by his own authority, as judge of the
sentences of his colleague, he declared that he would support the
demands of those who had any complaints; but whether it was that
Trebonius satisfied everybody, or rather, that they were afraid of
Caesar, no one dared to come forward. This first check did not
discourage Caelius: he thought, on the contrary, that the more difficult
his position became, the more necessary it was to put a bold face on the
matter, and therefore, notwithstanding the opposition of the consul
Servilius, and of all the other magistrates, he published two very
daring laws, one remitting a year’s rent to all tenants, the other
abolishing entirely all debts. This time the people seemed disposed to
come to the aid of him who took their part so resolutely; disturbances
took place; blood was shed as in former times in the Forum; Trebonius,
attacked by a furious multitude, was thrown down from his tribunal and
only escaped by a miracle. Caelius triumphed, and no doubt thought that
a new revolution was about to commence; but, by a singular coincidence,
he soon found himself the victim of the same error that later ruined
Brutus. In causes quite opposed, these two men so unlike each other
deceived themselves in the same manner: both had reckoned too much on
the people of Rome. One restored them liberty, and thought them capable
of desiring and defending it, the other called them to arms, promising
to share among them the wealth of the rich; but the people listened
neither to the one nor the other, for they were no more powerfully
stirred by evil passions than by noble sentiments; they had played their
part and they were aware of it. On the day that they had surrendered
themselves to absolute power they seem to have lost entirely all memory
of the past. From that time we see that they have renounced all
political activity, and nothing can rouse them from their apathy. Those
rights, which they had desired with such ardour, and gained with so much
trouble, that greed so carefully encouraged by the popular leaders, even
the tribunate and the agrarian laws, all become indifferent to them.
They are already that populace of the empire which is so admirably
painted by Tacitus, the most worthless of all peoples, cringing to the
successful, cruel to the defeated, welcoming all who triumph with the
same applause, whose sole part in all revolutions consists in joining
the train of the conqueror, when the struggle is over.
Such a people could not be a real support to anybody, and Caelius was
wrong to reckon upon them. If, by force of habit, they appeared one day
to be moved by those great promises which had stirred them so often,
when they were free, the feeling was but a passing one, and a small body
of cavalry which chanced to be marching through Rome was sufficient to
reduce them to order. The consul Servilius was armed by the senate with
the famous formula which suspended all legal powers, and concentrated
authority in a single hand. Aided by these passing troops, he forbade
Caelius to exercise the functions of his office, and when Caelius
resisted, he had his curule chair broken,[233] and dragged him from the
tribune from which he would not descend. This time the people remained
quiet, not a voice answered when he tried to awaken the old passions in
these dead souls. Caelius went home with rage in his heart. After such a
public disgrace it was not possible to remain longer in Rome.
Accordingly he hastened to quit it, telling everybody that he was going
to have an explanation with Caesar; but he had quite other projects.
Since Rome abandoned him, Caelius was going to attempt to rouse Italy
and recommence the social war. It was a bold enterprise, and yet with
the help of an intrepid man whose support he had procured he did not
despair of success. There was at that time in Italy an old conspirator,
Milo, who had made himself dreaded by his violence during the anarchy
which followed Cicero’s consulship, and when condemned later for
assassination, he had taken refuge at Marseilles. Caesar, in recalling
all the exiles, had excepted this man whose incorrigible audacity he
feared; but, on the invitation of Caelius, he had secretly returned and
awaited the turn of events. Caelius went to see him, and both wrote
pressing letters to the free towns of Italy, making them great promises,
and exciting them to take up arms. The free towns remained quiet.
Caelius and Milo were forced to make use of the last resource that
remained to them. Abandoned by the free citizens of Rome, and of Italy,
they appealed to the servile population, opening the prisons of the
slaves, and calling upon the shepherds of Apulia and the gladiators of
the public games. When they had by these means got together some
partisans, they parted to tempt fortune separately, but neither
succeeded. Milo, who had dared to attack an important town defended by a
praetor with a legion, was killed by a stone. Caelius, after having
vainly essayed to induce Naples and Campania to declare in his favour,
was obliged to retreat to Thurium. There he met some Spanish and Gallic
cavalry who had been sent from Rome, and as he advanced to speak with
them and promised them money if they would follow him, they killed him.
Thus perished at the age of thirty-four years this intrepid young man
who had hoped to equal the fortunes of Caesar. Never had such vast
designs so miserable an end. After having shown an incredible audacity,
and formed projects which grew more and more bold as the first attempts
failed; after having in a few months successively tried to raise the
people of Rome, Italy, and the slaves, he died obscurely by the hand of
some barbarians whom he wished to induce to betray their duty; and his
death, happening at the moment when all eyes were fixed on Pharsalia,
passed almost unobserved. Who would dare to say, however, that this end,
sad as it may be, was not deserved? Was it not just, after all, that a
man who had lived by adventures should perish as an adventurer? He was
not a consummate politician, whatever Cicero may assert; he failed to be
that, because he lacked conviction and a genuine devotion. The
instability of his feelings, the inconsistency of his conduct, that sort
of scepticism that he affected for all convictions were not less hurtful
to his talents than to his character. If he had known how to put greater
unity into his life, if he had early attached himself to some honourable
party, his capacities, finding employment worthy of them, would have
attained their perfection. He might have no doubt failed, but to die at
Pharsalia or Philippi is still considered an honour by posterity. On the
contrary, as he changed his opinions as often as his interests or
caprices, as he served by turns the most opposite parties without belief
in the justice of any, he was never anything but an immature orator and
a hap-hazard politician, and he died on the high-road like a common
malefactor. However, notwithstanding his faults, history has some
difficulty in judging him harshly. The ancient writers never speak of
him without a secret liking. The brilliancy that surrounded his youth,
the charms of his mind, the elegance which he knew how to preserve in
his worst disorders, a sort of daring frankness which prevented him
seeking honourable pretexts for dishonourable actions, his clear
judgment of political situations, his knowledge of men, his fertility of
resource, his strength of resolution, his boldness in daring all and in
constantly risking his life; these many brilliant qualities though
mingled with so many great defects have disarmed the most severe judges.
The sage Quintilian himself, little fitted as he was to understand that
passionate nature, dared not be severe upon him. After having praised
the graces of his mind and his incisive eloquence, he contented himself
with saying, by way of moral: “He was a man who deserved to have had a
juster sense of conduct and a longer life, _dignus vir cui mens melior
et vita longior contigisset!_”[234]
At the time that Caelius died, that elegant youth of which he was the
model, and which the verses of Catullus and the letters of Cicero have
helped us to know, had already partly disappeared. There remained
scarcely any of those young men who had shone in the _fêtes_ of Baiae
and who had been applauded in the Forum. Catullus died first, at the
very moment when his talents were being ripened by age, and were
becoming more serious and more elevated. His friend Calvus was soon to
follow him, carried off at thirty-five, no doubt by the fatigues of
public life. Curio had been killed by Pompey’s soldiers, as Caelius was
by Caesar’s. Dolabella survived, but only for a short time, and he also
was to perish in a tragic manner. It was a revolutionary generation
which the revolution mowed down, for it is true, according to the
celebrated saying, that in all times as in all countries revolution
devours her own children.
CAESAR AND CICERO
I
CICERO AND THE CAMP OF CAESAR IN GAUL
Cicero was not wrong when he said one day to Caesar: “After our time,
there will be great debates about you, as there have been among
ourselves.”[235] It is certain that he is that historical personage whom
men still discuss with most heat. None has excited more sympathy or
roused more animosity, and it must be admitted that there seems to be
something in him to justify both the one and the other. He cannot be
admired or blamed without some reservations, and he always attracts on
some side those whom he repels on another. The very people who hate him
the most, and who cannot pardon him the political revolution that he
accomplished, are forced into a secret admiration for him when they
think of his victories, or read his writings.
The more complex and disputable his character, the more necessary it is,
in order to form a just idea of him, to interrogate those who were in a
position to know him. Although Cicero was almost all his life separated
from Caesar by grave disagreements, twice he had occasion to maintain a
close intercourse with him: during the Gallic war he was his political
ally and his assiduous correspondent; after Pharsalia he became his
friend again, and acted as intermediary between the conqueror and those
he had condemned to exile. Let us inquire what he says of him at these
two periods of his life when he saw him most closely, and let us collect
from his correspondence, through which we become so well acquainted with
the eminent men of that time, the information it contains about him who
was the greatest of all.
I.
I must first recall the events which led Cicero to desert the
aristocratic party to which he had been attached since his consulship,
in order to serve the triumvirs, and how the courageous friend of
Hortensius and of Cato became so subservient to Pompey and Caesar. It is
not an honourable period in his life, and his most convinced admirers
say as little about it as possible. However, there is some interest,
perhaps even some profit, in pausing upon it for a moment.
Cicero’s return from the exile to which he had been condemned after his
consulship by the efforts of Clodius, was a veritable triumph.
Brundusium, where he disembarked, celebrated his arrival by public
rejoicings. All the citizens of the free towns that bordered the Appian
Way, waited for him on the road, and the heads of families with their
wives and children came from all the neighbouring farms to see him pass.
At Rome, he was received by an immense multitude crowded on the public
squares, or ranged on the steps of the temples. “It seemed,” said he,
“that all the city was drawn from its foundations to come and salute its
liberator.”[236] At his brother’s house, where he was going to live, he
found the most eminent members of the senate awaiting him, and at the
same time congratulatory addresses from all the popular societies of the
city. It is probable that some who had signed these, had voted with the
same eagerness the preceding year for the law that exiled him, and that
many clapped their hands on his return who had applauded his departure;
but the people have occasionally these strange and generous impulses. It
sometimes happens that they break away by a sudden bound from the
malice, distrust, and narrowness of party spirit, and, at the very
moment when passions seem most inflamed and divisions most clearly
marked, they unite all at once to render homage to some great genius or
to some great character, which, we know not how, has compelled their
recognition. Usually, this gratitude and admiration last but a short
time; but, should they endure only a day, they do eternal honour to him
who has been their object, and the glory they leave behind is sufficient
to illumine a whole life. Therefore we must pardon Cicero for having
spoken so often and with so much effusiveness of this glorious day. A
little pride was here both legitimate and natural. How could a soul so
sensitive to popular applause have resisted the intoxication of a
triumphal return? “I do not feel as though I were simply returning from
exile,” said he, “I appear to myself to be mounting to heaven.”[237]
But he was not long in descending again to earth. Whatever he may have
thought at first, he soon recognized that this city which welcomed him
with so much rejoicing was not changed, and that he found it much the
same as when he left it. Anarchy had reigned there for three years, an
anarchy such as we have difficulty in imagining, notwithstanding all the
examples that our own revolutions have given us. Since the triumvirs had
let loose the rabble in order to seize upon the government of the
republic, it had become entirely master. A daring tribune, a deserter
from the aristocracy, and one who bore the most illustrious name in
Rome, Clodius, had taken upon himself to lead it, and as far as
possible, to discipline it. He had displayed in this difficult work many
talents and much audacity, and had succeeded well enough to deserve to
become the terror of honest people. When we speak of the Roman mob, we
must not forget that it was much more frightful than our own, and was
recruited from more formidable elements. Whatever just dismay the
populace that emerges all at once from the lowest quarters of our
manufacturing cities, on a day of riot, may cause us, let us remember
that at Rome, this inferior social stratum descended still lower. Below
the vagabond strangers and the starving workmen, the ordinary tools of
revolutions, there was all that crowd of freedmen demoralized by
slavery, to whom liberty had given but one more means for evil-doing;
there were those gladiators, trained to fight beast or man, who made
light of the death of others or themselves; there were, still lower,
those fugitive slaves, who were indeed the worst of all classes, who,
after having robbed or murdered at home, and lived by pillage on the
road, came from all Italy to take refuge and disappear in the obscurity
of the slums of Rome, an unclean and terrible multitude of men without
family, without country, who, outlawed by the general sentiment of
society, had nothing to respect as they had nothing to lose. It was
among these that Clodius recruited his bands. Enlistments were made in
open day, in one of the most frequented spots in Rome, near the Aurelian
steps. The new soldiers were then organized in decuries and centuries,
under energetic leaders. They assembled by districts in secret
societies, where they went to receive the password, and had their centre
and arsenal at the temple of Castor. When the day arrived, and a popular
manifestation was wanted, the tribunes ordered the shops to be closed;
then, the artisans were thrown on the public streets, and all the army
of the secret societies marched together towards the Forum. There they
met, not the honest folks, who, feeling themselves the weaker party,
stayed at home, but the gladiators and herdsmen whom the senate had
fetched to defend them from the wilds of Picenum or Gaul, and then the
battle commenced. “Imagine London,” says M. Mommsen, “with the slave
population of New Orleans, the police of Constantinople, and the
industrial condition of modern Rome, and think of the political state of
Paris in 1848: you will have some idea of republican Rome in its last
days.”
No law was any longer respected, no citizen, no magistrate was secure
from violence. One day the fasces of a consul were broken, the next a
tribune was left for dead. The senate itself, led away by these
examples, had at last lost that quality which Romans lost the last, its
dignity. In that assembly of kings, as a Greek had called it, they
debated with revolting coarseness. Cicero surprised no one when he gave
his adversaries the names of swine, filth, rotten flesh. Sometimes the
discussions became so heated that the noise reached that excited crowd
that filled the porticoes near the curia, which then took part in them,
with so much violence that the terrified senators hastened to fly.[238]
We can easily understand that it was much worse in the Forum. Cicero
relates that, when they were tired of insulting, they spat in each
other’s faces.[239] When a man wished to address the people, he had to
take the rostrum by storm, and he risked his life in trying to keep his
place there. The tribunes had found a new way of obtaining unanimity of
votes for the laws that they proposed: namely, to beat and drive away
all who took it into their heads not to agree with them. But contests
were nowhere more violent than on the Campus Martius on election days.
Men were driven to regret the time when they trafficked publicly in the
votes of the electors. Now, they did not even take the trouble to buy
public offices; they found it more convenient to seize them by force.
Each party went before daylight to the Campus Martius. Collisions took
place on the roads leading to it. Each party hastened to arrive before
its adversaries, or, if these were already established there, attacked
them in order to dislodge them: naturally the appointments belonged to
those who remained masters of the place. In the midst of all these armed
bands there was no security for any one. Men were obliged to fortify
themselves in their houses for fear of being surprised. They could only
go out with a train of gladiators and slaves. To go from one quarter of
the city to another, they took as many precautions as if they had to
traverse a desert country, and they met at the turning of a street with
the same fear they would have had at the corner of a wood. In the midst
of Rome there were real battles and regular sieges. It was an ordinary
manœuvre to set fire to the houses of their enemies at the risk of
burning down a whole quarter, and, towards the end, no election or
popular assembly took place without bloodshed. “The Tiber,” says Cicero,
speaking of one of these combats, “was full of the corpses of the
citizens, the public sewers were choked with them, and they were obliged
to mop up with sponges the blood that streamed from the Forum.”[240]
Such were the obscure convulsions in which the Roman republic perished,
and the shameful disorders that sapped its remaining strength. Cicero
well knew that bloody anarchy and the dangers he was about to run, and
had therefore resolved, before re-entering Rome, to be prudent, so as
not to run the risk of having to leave it again. His was not one of
those minds that misfortune strengthens, and that feel a kind of
pleasure in struggling against ill-fortune. Exile had discouraged him.
During the long weariness of his sojourn in Thessaly, he had made a sad
review of the past. He had reproached himself for his occasional courage
and independence, for his boldness in combating the powerful, and for
the mistake he had made in joining himself too closely to the party
which he had judged the best, but which was evidently the weakest, as
though to act thus had been a crime. He came back thoroughly resolved to
entangle himself as little as possible with any one, to disarm his
enemies by concession, and to keep on good terms with everybody. This
was the course he followed on his arrival, and his first speeches are
masterpieces of policy. It is plain that he still leans towards the
aristocracy which had taken an active part in his restoration, and to
praise it he has noble expressions of patriotism and gratitude; but
already he commences to flatter Caesar, and he calls Pompey “the most
virtuous, the wisest, the greatest of the men of his age or of any
age.”[241] At the same time, he tells us himself, he took good heed not
to appear in the senate when irritating questions were to be discussed,
and was very careful to escape from the Forum as soon as the debate
became too heated. “No more violent remedies,” he replied to those who
tried to urge him to some brilliant action; “I must put myself on
diet.”[242]
However, he soon perceived that this adroit reserve was not sufficient
to ward off all danger. While he was rebuilding his house on the
Palatine, which had been destroyed after his departure, the bands of
Clodius threw themselves on the workmen and dispersed them, and,
emboldened by this success, set fire to the house of his brother
Quintus, which was close by. A few days later, as he was walking on the
Via Sacra, he heard all at once a great noise, and on turning round saw
sticks raised and naked swords. It was the same men who came to attack
him. He had great difficulty in escaping into the vestibule of a
friendly house while his slaves fought bravely before the door to give
him time to escape. Cato would not have been moved by this violence;
Cicero must have been very much frightened; above all it taught him that
his system of prudent reserve did not sufficiently assure his safety. It
was, in fact, probable that no party would expose itself to defend him
as long as he had only compliments to give it, and as he could not stand
alone and without support in the midst of all these armed factions, it
was really necessary that, in order to find the support he needed, he
should consent to attach himself more closely to one of them.
But which should he choose? This was a grave question in which his
interests were at variance with his sympathies. All his inclinations
were evidently for the aristocracy. He had closely attached himself to
it about the time of his consulship, and since that time he had
professed to serve it, and it was for it that he had just braved the
anger of the people and exposed himself to exile. But this very exile
had taught him how the most honourable course was also the least safe.
At the last moment, the senate had not found better means of saving him
than to make useless decrees, to put on mourning, and go and throw
themselves at the feet of the consuls. Cicero thought that this was not
enough. Seeing himself so ill-defended, he had suspected that people who
did not take his interests in hand more resolutely were not very sorry
for his misfortunes; and perhaps he was not wrong. The Roman
aristocracy, whatever he had done for it, could not forget he was a
“new” man. The Claudii, the Cornelii, the Manlii, always looked with a
certain displeasure on this insignificant townsman of Arpinum, whom the
popular vote had made their equal. Still they might have pardoned his
good fortune if he had borne it with more modesty; but we know his
vanity; though it was only ridiculous, the aristocracy, whom it
offended, thought it criminal. They could not tolerate the legitimate
pride with which he constantly recalled that he was only a _parvenu_.
They thought it strange that, when attacked by insolence, he dared to
reply by raillery; and quite recently they had shown themselves
scandalized that he had forgotten himself so far as to buy the villa of
Catulus at Tusculum, and to go and live on the Palatine in the house of
Crassus. Cicero, with his usual shrewdness, very clearly discerned all
these sentiments of the aristocracy, and even exaggerated them. Since
his return from exile he had yet other grievances against them. They had
taken much trouble to get him recalled; but had not foreseen the
splendour of his return, and it did not seem that they were very well
pleased with it. “Those who have clipped my wings,” said Cicero, “are
sorry to see them grow again.”[243] From this moment his good friends in
the senate would do nothing more for him. He had found his finances much
embarrassed, his house on the Palatine burnt, his villas at Tusculum and
Formiae plundered and destroyed, and they decided with reluctance to
indemnify him for these losses. What irritated him still more, was that
he saw clearly that they did not share in his anger against Clodius.
They showed themselves cool or remained silent during his violent fits
of anger. A few even, the most adroit, affected to speak only with
esteem of this factious tribune, and did not blush to give him their
hand in public. Whence came their regard for a man who had so little for
them? It was that they hoped to make use of him, and that they secretly
nourished the thought of calling in the mob to the help of the
endangered aristocracy. This alliance, although less usual than that of
the mob with despotism, was not impossible, and the bands of Clodius, if
they could be enlisted, would have permitted the senate to hold the
triumvirs in check. Cicero, who perceived this policy, feared to become
its victim; he bitterly regretted then the services he had tried to
render to the senate, and which had cost him so dear. In recalling the
dangers to which he had exposed himself in order to defend it, the
obstinate and unsuccessful struggles that he had maintained for four
years, the ruin of his political position and the disasters of his
private fortune, he said with sorrow: “I see clearly now that I have
been only a fool (_scio me asinum germanum fuisse_”).[244]
It only remained for him then to turn to the triumvirs. This was the
advice given to him by his friend the prudent Atticus, and his brother
Quintus, whom the burning of his house had rendered cautious contrary to
his habit; this was the resolution he was himself tempted to take every
time he ran some fresh danger. Nevertheless, he had some trouble in
making up his mind. The triumvirs had been heretofore his most cruel
enemies. Without speaking of Crassus, in whom he detected an accomplice
of Catiline, he well knew that it was Caesar who had let Clodius loose
against him, and he could not forget that Pompey, who had sworn to
defend him, had lately abandoned him to the vengeance of his two
friends; but he had no choice of alliances, and since he dared no longer
trust the aristocratic party, he was forced to put himself under the
protection of others. He had then to resign himself to his fate. He
authorized his brother to pledge him to Caesar and Pompey, and prepared
himself to serve their ambition. His first act, after his return, had
been to demand for Pompey one of those extraordinary powers of which he
was so greedy: by his exertions Pompey had been entrusted for six years
with the victualling of Rome, and on this occasion he had been invested
with an almost unlimited authority. A short time after, although the
public treasury was exhausted, he had a sum of money granted to Caesar
for the payment of his legions, and permission to have ten lieutenants
under his orders. When the aristocracy, who understood with what design
Caesar was carrying out the conquest of Gaul, wished to prevent him
continuing it, it was again Cicero who demanded and obtained for him
permission to finish his work. It was thus that the old enemy of the
triumvirs became their usual defender before the senate. The support
that he consented to give was not useless to them. His great name and
his eloquence drew towards him the moderate men of all parties, those
whose opinion was wavering and their convictions undecided; those, above
all, who, wearied with a too tempestuous liberty, sought everywhere a
firm hand that might give them repose; and these, joined to the personal
friends of Caesar and Pompey, to the tools that the rich Crassus had
made by bribery, and to the ambitious men of all sorts who foresaw the
advent of the monarchy and wished to be the first to salute it, formed
in the senate a majority of which Cicero was the head and the orator,
and which rendered to the triumvirs the important service of giving a
legal sanction to that power which they had gained by violence and
exercised illegally.
Cicero had at length obtained repose. His enemies feared him, Clodius
dared no longer risk attacking him, his familiarity with the new masters
was envied, and yet this skilful conduct, which gained for him the
thanks of the triumvirs and the congratulations of Atticus, did not fail
at times to disturb him. It was in vain for him to say to himself that
“his life had regained its splendour,” he did not feel less remorse in
serving men whose ambition he knew, and whom he knew to be dangerous to
the liberty of his country. In the midst of the efforts that he made to
satisfy them, he had sudden awakenings of patriotism which made him
blush. His private correspondence bears everywhere the trace of the
alternations of mood through which he passed. One day he wrote to
Atticus in a light and resolute tone: “Let us give up honour, justice,
and fine sentiments.... Since those who can do nothing will not love me,
let us try to make ourselves loved by those who can do everything.”[245]
But shame seized him the next day, and he could not avoid saying to his
friend: “Is anything sadder than our life, mine above all? If I speak
according to my convictions I pass for a madman; if I listen to my
interests, I am accused of being a slave; if I am silent, they say I am
afraid.”[246] Even in his public speeches, notwithstanding the restraint
he puts on himself, we can feel his secret dissatisfaction. It seems to
me that we discover it above all in that extraordinary tone of
bitterness and violence which was then habitual to him. Never, perhaps,
did he pronounce more passionate invectives. Now this excess of violence
towards others often comes from a mind ill at ease. What made his
eloquence so bitter at this time was that uneasy feeling which a man has
who is in the wrong path and has not the courage to leave it. He did not
forgive his old friends their raillery and his new ones their demands;
he reproached himself secretly for his base concessions; he had a spite
against others and against himself, and Vatinius or Piso suffered for
all the rest. In this condition of mind he could not be a safe friend
for anybody. It happened sometimes that he suddenly turned on his new
friends, and gave blows so much the more disagreeable that they were not
expected. Sometimes he diverted himself by attacking their best friends,
to show others and prove to himself that he had not entirely lost his
liberty. People had been very much surprised to hear him, in a speech in
which he defended Caesar’s interests, praise to excess Bibulus, whom
Caesar detested. One day even he seemed quite ready to return to those
whom he had called honest men before he abandoned them. It seemed to him
a good opportunity to break with his new party in a formal manner. The
friendship of the triumvirs had become very cool. Pompey was not pleased
with the success of that Gallic war which threatened to make his own
victories forgotten. Cicero, who heard him speak without restraint
against his rival, thought he might without danger give some
satisfaction to his irritated conscience, and wished by a brilliant
stroke to deserve the pardon of his old friends. Taking advantage of
some difficulty that was raised in regard to the carrying out of
Caesar’s agrarian law, he formally announced that on the Ides of May he
would speak on the sale of the Campanian lands which by this law were
distributed among the people. The effect of his declaration was very
great. The allies of the triumvirs were as much offended as they were
surprised, and the aristocratic party hastened to welcome with
transports of joy the return of the eloquent deserter, but in a few days
everything turned against him. At the very moment when he decided on
this brilliant stroke, the alliance between the triumvirs that was
thought to be broken, was renewed at Lucca, and, amid a concourse of
their flatterers, they once more divided the world between them. Cicero,
then, was about to find himself again alone and without support in the
presence of an angry and all-powerful enemy who threatened to deliver
him up again to the vengeance of Clodius. Atticus scolded; Quintus, who
had pledged himself for his brother, complained roughly that his
promises were being broken. Pompey, although he had secretly encouraged
the defection, affected to be more angry than anybody. The unhappy
Cicero, attacked on all sides, and trembling at the passions which he
had raised, hastened to submit, and promised everything that was
required. Thus this attempt at independence only made his slavery
heavier.
From this moment he seems to have resolutely accepted his new position,
from a feeling that he could not change it. He resigned himself to heap
more and more exaggerated praises on the vain Pompey, who never had
enough. He consented to become the agent of Caesar with Oppius and
Balbus, and to supervise the public buildings he was constructing. He
went further, and was willing at the request of his powerful protectors
to give his hand to men whom he regarded as his greatest enemies. This
was not a small sacrifice for a man who had such strong aversions; but
from the time that he joined their party so decidedly, he was obliged to
accept their friendship as he defended their plans. They began to take
steps to reconcile him to Crassus. This was a great matter which was not
done in a day, for when it was thought that their old enmity was
appeased, it broke out all at once in a discussion in the senate, and
Cicero abused his new ally with a violence that surprised himself. “I
thought my hatred exhausted,” said he naïvely, “and did not imagine any
remained in my heart.”[247] He was then asked to undertake the defence
of Vatinius; he consented with a pretty good grace, although he had
pronounced a furious invective against him the year before. The
advocates in Rome were accustomed to these sudden changes, and Cicero
had done the same thing more than once. When Gabinius returned from
Egypt, after having restored King Ptolemy against the formal command of
the senate, Cicero, who could not abide him, thinking it a good
opportunity to ruin him, prepared to attack him; but Pompey came to beg
him urgently to defend him. He dared not refuse, changed his part, and
submitted to speak in favour of a man whom he detested and a cause which
he considered bad. He had at least the consolation of losing his case,
and although he was always anxious for success, it is probable that this
failure did not give him much pain.
But he well understood that so much deference and submission, all these
notorious self-contradictions to which he was forced, would end by
rousing public opinion against him. Therefore, about this time, he
decided to write an important letter to his friend Lentulus, one of the
chiefs of the aristocracy, which he probably intended to be circulated,
and in which he explains his conduct.[248] In this letter, after having
related the facts in his own way and sufficiently abused those whom he
had abandoned, a convenient and common mode of anticipating their
complaints and making them responsible for the mischief he was about to
do them, he ventures to present, with singular candour, a sort of
apology for his political instability. The reasons he gives to justify
it are not always very good; but we must believe that better cannot be
found, since they have not ceased to be used. Under the pretence that
Plato has somewhere said, “one must not do violence to one’s country any
more than to one’s father,” Cicero lays it down as a principle, that a
politician ought not to persist in wishing for what his fellow-citizens
do not wish, nor lose his pains in attempting useless opposition.
Circumstances change, one must change with them, and suit oneself to the
wind that blows, so as not to go to pieces on the rocks. Besides, is
that really to change? Cannot one in the main wish for the same thing
and serve one’s country under different banners? A man is not fickle for
defending, according to circumstances, opinions that seem contradictory
if by opposite routes he marches to the same goal, and do we not know
“that we must often shift the sails when we wish to arrive in port”?
These are only the general maxims which an inventive politician can make
up to hide his weaknesses, and there is no need to discuss them. The
best way to defend Cicero is to remember in what a time he lived, and
how little fitted he was for that time. This elegant literary man, this
skilful artist, this friend of the arts of peace, had been placed, by a
caprice of fate, in one of the most stormy and troubled periods of
history. What could a man of leisure and study do among those deadly
struggles where force was master, a man who had no arms but his words,
and who always dreamed of the pleasures of peaceful times and the
pacific laurels of eloquence? A more manly soul than his would have been
needed to make head against these assaults. Events stronger than himself
confounded his designs every instant and played with his hesitating
will. On his entry into public life he had taken for his motto, leisure
and honour, _otium cum dignitate_; but these two things are not easy to
unite in revolutionary times, and almost always one of the two is lost
when we are too anxious to preserve the other. Resolute characters, who
know this well, make their choice between them at once, and, according
as one is a Cato or an Atticus, one decides from the very first day
either for leisure or for honour. The undecided, like Cicero, pass from
one to the other, according to circumstances, and thus jeopardize both.
We have arrived at one of those painful moments in his life when he
sacrifices honour to leisure; let us not be too severe upon him, and let
us remember that, later, he sacrificed not only his leisure, but even
his life, to save his honour.
II.
One of the results of the new policy of Cicero was to give him an
opportunity of becoming well acquainted with Caesar. Not that they had
been hitherto strangers to one another. The taste of both for letters
and the similar nature of their studies, had united them in their youth,
and from these early relations, which men never forget, there had
remained some natural sympathy and good-will. But as in later life they
had attached themselves to opposite parties, circumstances had separated
them. In the Forum, and in the senate, they had acquired the habit of
always being of opposite opinions, and naturally their friendship had
suffered from the vivacity of their dissensions. Yet Cicero tells us
that, even when they were most excited against each other, Caesar could
never hate him.[249]
Politics had separated them, politics reunited them. When Cicero turned
towards the party of the triumvirs their intimate relations recommenced;
but this time their position was different, and their connection could
no longer have the same character. The old school-fellow of Cicero had
become his protector. It was no longer a mutual inclination or common
studies, it was interest and necessity that united them, and their new
ties were formed by a sort of reciprocal agreement in which one of the
two gave his talents and a little of his honour, that the other might
guarantee him repose. These are not very favourable circumstances, it
must be admitted, to produce a sincere friendship. However, when we read
Cicero’s private correspondence, in which he speaks unreservedly, we
cannot doubt but that he found many charms in these relations with
Caesar which seemed to him at first to be so difficult. Probably this
was because he compared them with those which he had at the same time to
keep up with Pompey. Caesar at least was affable and polite. Although he
had the gravest affairs on his hands, he found time to think of his
friends and to joke with them. Victorious as he was, he allowed them to
write to him “familiarly and without subserviency.”[250] He answered
with amiable letters, “full of politeness, kind attentions and
charm,”[251] which delighted Cicero. Pompey, on the contrary, seemed to
take a pleasure in wounding him by his lofty airs. This pompous and vain
man, whom the adoration of the Orientals had spoilt, and who could not
avoid assuming the deportment of a conqueror merely in going from his
house at Alba to Rome, affected an imperious and haughty tone which
alienated everybody. His dissimulation was still more displeasing than
his insolence. He had a sort of dislike of communicating his projects to
others; he hid them even from his most devoted friends, who wished to
know them in order to support them. Cicero complains more than once that
he could never discover what he wanted; it even happened that he was
completely deceived as to his real intentions and made him angry,
thinking he was doing him a service. This obstinate dissimulation
passed, no doubt, for profound policy in the eyes of the multitude; but
the more skilful had no difficulty in discerning its motive. If he did
not express his opinion to anybody, it was because most frequently he
had no opinion, and, as it very commonly happens, silence with him only
served to cover the fact. He went at random, without fixed principles or
settled system, and never looked beyond present circumstances. Events
always took him by surprise, and he showed clearly that he was no more
capable of directing them than of foreseeing them. His ambition itself,
which was his dominant passion, had no precise views or decided aims.
Whatever dignities were offered to satisfy it, it was plainly seen that
he always desired something else; this was perceived without his saying
it, for he tried very awkwardly to hide it. His ordinary stratagem was
to pretend indifference, and he wished to be forced to accept what he
most ardently desired. We can well understand that this pretence when
too often repeated deceived nobody. Upon the whole, as he had
successively attacked and defended all parties, and after having often
appeared to desire an almost royal authority, had not endeavoured to
destroy the republic when he had the power to do so, it is impossible
for us to discover now what plan he had conceived, or even if he had
conceived any distinct plan at all.
It is not so with Caesar. He knew the object of his ambition, and saw
distinctly what he wished to do. His plans were settled even before he
entered public life;[252] in his youth he had formed the design to
become master. The spectacle of the revolutions on which he had looked
had given rise to the thought; the confidence that he had in his own
capacity, and in the inferiority of his enemies, gave him strength to
undertake it, and a sort of superstitious belief in his destiny, not
uncommon in men who attempt these great adventures, assured him in
advance of success. Therefore he marched resolutely towards his end,
without showing undue haste to attain it, but without ever losing sight
of it. To know exactly what one wants is not a common quality, above all
in those troubled times in which good and evil are mingled, and yet
success only comes to those who possess it. What, above all, gave Caesar
his superiority was, that in the midst of those irresolute politicians
who had only uncertain projects, hesitating convictions, and occasional
ambitions, he alone had a deliberate ambition and a settled design. One
could not approach him without coming under the influence of that
tranquil and powerful will, which had a clear idea of its projects, the
consciousness of its own strength, and the confidence of victory. Cicero
felt it like the rest, notwithstanding his prejudices. In presence of
such consistency and firmness he could not avoid making unfavourable
comparisons with the perturbation and inconsistency of his old friend.
“I am of your opinion about Pompey, he hinted to his brother, or rather
you are of mine, for I have sung the praises of Caesar for a long
time.”[253] In fact, it was sufficient to approach a man of real genius
to recognize the emptiness of this semblance of a great man, whose easy
successes and air of inflated majesty had imposed so long upon the
admiration of fools.
We must not, however, suppose that Caesar was one of those stubborn men
who will not give way to circumstances, and never consent to alter
anything in the plans they have once conceived. No one, on the contrary,
knew how to bend to necessity better than he. His aim remained the same,
but he did not hesitate to take the most diverse means to attain it,
when it was necessary. One of these important modifications took place
in his policy, precisely at the period with which we are occupied. What
distinguishes Caesar from the men with whom he is usually compared,
Alexander and Napoleon, has been well stated by M. Mommsen, namely, that
originally he was a statesman rather than a general. He did not, like
them, come from the camp, and he had as yet merely passed through it
when, by force of circumstances and almost in spite of himself, he
became a conqueror. All his youth was passed in Rome in the turmoil of
public life, and he only set out for Gaul at an age at which Alexander
was dead and Napoleon vanquished. He had evidently formed the plan of
making himself master without employing arms; he reckoned upon
destroying the republic by a slow and internal revolution, and by
preserving as much as possible, in so illegal an attempt, the outward
form of legality. He saw that the popular party had more taste for
social reforms than for political liberties, and he thought, with
reason, that a democratic monarchy would not be repugnant to it. By
multiplying dissensions, by becoming the secret accomplice of Catiline
and Clodius, he wearied timid republicans of a too troubled liberty and
prepared them to sacrifice it willingly to repose. He hoped in this way
that the republic, shaken by these daily attacks, which exhausted and
tired out its most intrepid defenders, would at last fall without
violence and without noise. But, to our great surprise, at the moment
when this skilfully-planned design seemed on the point of succeeding, we
see Caesar suddenly give it up. After that consulship in which he had
governed alone, reducing his colleague to inaction and the senate to
silence, he withdraws from Rome for ten years, and goes to attempt the
conquest of an unknown country. What reasons decided him to this
unexpected change? We should like to believe that he felt some disgust
for that life of base intrigues that he led at Rome, and wished to
invigorate himself in labours more worthy of him; but it is much more
likely that, after having seen clearly that the republic would fall of
itself, he understood that he would require an army and military renown
to gain the mastery over Pompey. It was, then, without enthusiasm,
without passion, designedly and on calculation, that he decided to set
out for Gaul. When he took this important resolution, which has
contributed so much to his greatness, he was forty-four.[254] Pascal
thinks it was very late to begin, and that he was too old to interest
himself in the conquest of the world. It is, on the contrary, as it
seems, one of the most admirable efforts of that energetic will that, at
an age when habits are irrevocably fixed, and when a man has definitely
entered on the road he must follow to the end, Caesar suddenly commenced
a new life, and, leaving in a moment the business of popular agitator
that he had followed for twenty-five years, set himself to govern
provinces and lead armies. This spectacle, indeed, is more surprising
now than it was then. It is no longer the custom to turn oneself into an
administrator or a general at fifty, and these things seem to us to
demand a special vocation and a long apprenticeship; history shows us
that it was otherwise at Rome. Had they not just seen the voluptuous
Lucullus, on his way to command the army of Asia, learn the art of war
during the voyage, and conquer Mithridates on his arrival? As to
administration, a rich Roman learnt it in his own home. Those vast
domains, those legions of slaves that he possessed, the management of an
immense fortune which often surpassed the wealth of several kingdoms of
our days, familiarized him early with the art of government. It was thus
that Caesar, who had as yet only had occasion to practise himself in the
government of provinces and the command of armies during the year of his
praetorship in Spain, had no need of further study to be able to conquer
the Helvetii and to organize the conquered countries, and that he found
himself at the very first attempt an admirable general and an
administrator of genius.
It was at this epoch that his intimate relations with Cicero
recommenced, and they lasted as long as the Gallic war. Cicero often had
occasion to write to him to recommend people who wished to serve under
his command. The ambition of the young men at that time was to set out
for Caesar’s camp. Besides the desire of taking part in great deeds
under such a general, they had also the secret hope of enriching
themselves in those distant countries. We know with what charms the
unknown is usually adorned, and how easy it is to lend it all the
attractions we wish. Gaul was for the imagination of that time what
America was to the sixteenth century. It was supposed that in those
countries that no one had visited there lay immense treasures, and all
who had their fortune to make hastened to Caesar to have their share of
the booty. This eagerness was not displeasing to him; it bore witness to
the fascination his conquests exercised, and helped his designs, and
accordingly he readily invited men to come to him. He wrote gaily to
Cicero, who had begged a commission for some unknown Roman: “You have
recommended M. Offius to me; if you like I will make him King of Gaul,
unless he prefers to be lieutenant of Lepta. Send me whom you will that
I may make him rich.”[255] Cicero had with him at that moment two
persons whom he loved very much and who had great need of being
enriched, the lawyer Trebatius Testa and his own brother Quintus. It was
a good opportunity, and he sent them both to Caesar.
Trebatius was a young man of much talent and great zeal for study, who
had attached himself to Cicero and did not leave him. He had early left
his poor little town of Ulubrae, situated in the midst of the Pontine
marshes, for Rome,—Ulubrae the deserted, _vacuae Ulubrae_, whose
inhabitants were called Ulubran frogs. He had studied law, and, as he
had become very learned in it, no doubt he rendered many services to
Cicero, who does not appear ever to have known much of law, and who
found it more convenient to laugh at it than to learn it. Unfortunately,
consultations being gratuitous, lawyers did not make their fortune at
Rome. Accordingly Trebatius was poor, in spite of his knowledge. Cicero,
who liked him unselfishly, consented to deprive himself of the pleasure
and use that he found in his society, and sent him to Caesar with one of
those charming letters of recommendation that he knew so well how to
write, and in which he displayed so much grace and wit. “I do not ask of
you,” he says, “the command of a legion, or a government for him. I ask
for nothing definite. Give him your friendship, and if afterwards you
care to do something for his fortune and his glory I shall not be
displeased. In fact, I abandon him to you entirely; I give him to you
from hand to hand as they say, and I hope he will find himself well off
in those faithful and victorious hands.”[256] Caesar thanked Cicero for
the present that he had made him, which could not fail to be very
valuable to him, “for,” he wittily remarked, “among the multitude of men
who surround me, there is not one who knows how to prepare a suit.”[257]
Trebatius left Rome reluctantly; Cicero said that he had to turn him out
of doors.[258] The first sight of Gaul, which resembled very little the
France of to-day, was not cheering. He passed wild countries, among
half-subdued and threatening people, and in the midst of these barbarian
surroundings which oppressed his heart, he always thought of the
pleasures of that cultivated city that he had just left. The letters
that he wrote were so disconsolate, that Cicero, forgetting that he had
felt the same regrets during his own exile, reproached him gently for
what he called his foolishness. When he arrived at the camp his
ill-humour was redoubled. Trebatius was not a warrior, and it is very
likely that the Nervii and the Atrebates frightened him very much. He
arrived just at the moment when Caesar was setting out on the expedition
to Britain, and refused, one knows not on what pretext, to accompany
him: perhaps he alleged, like Dumnorix, that he feared the sea; but,
even in remaining in Gaul there was no want of danger and tedium. Their
winter quarters were not comfortable; they suffered from cold and rain
under that inclement sky. In summer they had to take the field, and his
terror recommenced. Trebatius was always complaining. What added to his
discontent was that he had not found all at once the advantages he had
expected. He had set out unwillingly, and wished to return as quickly as
possible. Cicero said that he had looked on the letter of recommendation
that he had given him to Caesar as a bill of exchange payable to
bearer.[259] He thought he had only to present himself in order to take
the money, and return. It was not only money he went to look for in
Gaul; he expected to find there a post of distinction and importance. He
wished to approach Caesar and make himself appreciated. Cicero writes to
him: “You would much rather be consulted than covered with gold.”[260]
Now, Caesar was so busy that he was difficult to approach, and he did
not at first pay any great attention to this learned lawyer who came to
him from Rome. He contented himself with offering him the title and
emoluments of a military tribune, without the duties, of course.
Trebatius did not think this a sufficient reward for the length of his
journey and the dangers of the country, and thought of returning. Cicero
had much trouble to prevent this rash conduct. I do not think there is
any part of his correspondence more amusing and more lively than the
letters he wrote to Trebatius to induce him to remain. Cicero is at his
ease with this obscure young man, for whom he had such a lively
affection. He dares to laugh freely, which he does not do with
everybody, and he laughs all the more readily as he knows Trebatius was
low-spirited, and he wishes to console him. It seems to me that this
trouble that he takes to cheer up an unhappy friend makes his
pleasantries almost touching, and that his good heart here lends one
more charm to his wit. He quizzes him good-naturedly in order to make
him laugh, and jokes about things that he knows the good Trebatius does
not mind being bantered on. For instance, one day he asks him to send
him all the details of the campaign: “For an account of a battle,” he
says, “I trust above all the most timorous;”[261] probably because,
having held themselves aloof from the fight, they will have been better
able to see the whole. Another time, after having expressed some fear at
seeing him exposed to so many dangers, he adds: “Happily I know your
prudence; you are much bolder in presenting writs than in harassing the
enemy, and I remember that, although you are a good swimmer, you would
not cross over into Britain for fear of taking a bath in the
ocean.”[262]
To soothe his impatience he threatens him with the wags. Was it not to
be feared that if he returned, Laberius would put him in one of his
farces? A frightened lawyer travelling in the train of an army, and
exercising his profession among the barbarians, would make a funny
figure in a comedy; but, to silence the wags he had only to make his
fortune. Let him return later, he would certainly return richer; Balbus
had said so. Now, Balbus was a banker; he did not speak in the sense of
the Stoics, who affirm that one is always rich enough when one can enjoy
the spectacle of the sky and the earth; he spoke as a Roman and meant
that he would return well furnished with crown-pieces, _more romano bene
nummatum_. Trebatius remained, and he did well to do so. Caesar was not
long in noticing him, and was pleased with his friendship. He got
accustomed to camp life, and in time became a little less timid than he
was on his arrival. It is probable that he returned rich, as Balbus had
predicted, for if they did not find all the treasures they went to seek
in Gaul, Caesar’s liberality was an inexhaustible mine that enriched all
his friends. At a later period Trebatius passed through trying times,
and yet preserved the reputation of an honest man; this was an act of
justice that all parties did him, although they were not much in the
habit of doing justice. He had the rare good fortune to escape all the
perils of the civil wars, and was still living in the time of Horace,
who addressed one of his most agreeable satires to him. We see in it
that he was then an amiable and indulgent old man who readily laughed
and amused himself with the young. He talked to them, no doubt, about
that grand epoch of which he was one of the last survivors, of the
Gallic war in which he had taken part, of Caesar and his captains whom
he had known. By the privilege of his age he could speak of Lucretius to
Virgil, of Cicero to Livy, of Catullus to Propertius, and formed a sort
of link between the two most illustrious periods of Latin literature.
The other person whom Cicero sent to Caesar was his brother Quintus. As
he holds a large place in Cicero’s life, and played a rather important
part in the Gallic war, it will be proper, I think, to say a few words
about him. Although he listened to the same lectures and learned from
the same masters as his brother, he never had any taste for eloquence,
and always refused to speak in public. “One orator,” he said, “is enough
in a family, and even in a city.”[263] He was of a hard and yet
changeable disposition, and gave way to violent fits of anger without
reason. In spite of an appearance of great energy he was soon
discouraged, and although he always affected to be the master, he was
led by those about him. These faults, that Cicero bewailed to himself
although he tried to excuse them, prevented Quintus succeeding in his
public career, and troubled his private life.
He had been early married to Pomponia, the sister of Atticus. This
marriage that the two friends had hoped would draw closer their
connection very nearly broke it. The couple found that their characters
matched too well: both were hasty and passionate, and they could never
agree, and the unbounded ascendency that Statius, a slave, had over his
master’s mind completed the disunion of the household. In connection
with this, it would be easy to show, from Cicero’s letters, what
influence the slave often exercised in ancient families; a much greater
one than is commonly supposed. Now that the servant is free, it would
seem natural that he should take a more important place in our houses
than before. But the contrary has happened; he has lost in influence
what he has gained in dignity. When he became independent his master
ceased to have any obligations towards him. They now live together bound
by a temporary contract, which, by imposing reciprocal obligations,
appears irksome to both sides. As this fragile bond may be broken at any
moment, and as these allies of one day may become indifferent to each
other or enemies on the next, there is no longer any ease or confidence
between them, and they pass all the time during which chance brings them
together in surrounding themselves with defences, and in watching one
another. It was quite otherwise in antiquity when slavery was
flourishing. Then, it was not for a short time only, it was for a whole
life-time that they were united; accordingly, they set themselves to
know each other, and to adapt themselves one to the other. To gain the
master’s favour was the important thing for the future of the slave, and
he took trouble to gain it. As he had no position to defend, or dignity
to preserve, he gave himself up to him entirely. He flattered and served
his worst passions without scruple, and at last made himself necessary
to him. Once confirmed in this intimacy, by his constant subserviency,
by private and secret services which his master was not afraid to
demand, and which he never refused to give, he ruled the family, so
that, however strange it may appear at first sight, it is true to say
that the servant was never nearer being master than when he was a slave.
This is what happened to Statius. Through the knowledge that he had of
the defects of Quintus, he had insinuated himself so well into his
confidence that the whole family gave way to him. Pomponia alone
resisted, and the annoyance she suffered for this reason made her still
more insupportable. She constantly worried her husband with unfriendly
remarks; she refused to appear at the dinners that he gave on the
pretext that she was only a stranger at home, or if she consented to be
present, it was only to make the guests the witnesses of the most
unpleasant scenes. It was, no doubt, one day when she was more peevish
and cross-grained than usual that Quintus composed these two epigrams,
the only examples that remain of his poetic talent.
“Trust your ship to the winds, but do not give up your soul to a woman.
There is less safety in a woman’s words than in the caprices of the
waves.”
“No woman is good; or if by chance you find a good woman, I know not by
what strange fate a bad thing has become good in a moment.”
These two epigrams are not very gallant, but we must excuse them in the
unfortunate husband of the shrewish Pomponia.
The political career of Quintus was not brilliant any more than his
private life was happy. He owed the offices which he obtained more to
the illustrious name of his brother than to his own merit, and did
nothing to make himself worthy of them. After he had been aedile and
praetor, he was appointed governor of Asia. To be invested with an
unlimited authority was a severe test for a character like his. Absolute
power turned his head; his violence, which nothing now restrained, knew
no bounds; like an oriental despot he only talked of burning and
hanging. He wished above all to obtain the glory of being a great lover
of justice. Having had occasion to order two parricides to be sewn up in
a sack and thrown into the water in the lower part of his province, he
wished to give the same spectacle to the other part on his visit to it,
that there might be no jealousy between them. He sought therefore to
seize a certain Zeuxis, an important person, who had been accused of
killing his mother, and who had been acquitted by the tribunals. On the
arrival of the governor, Zeuxis, who guessed his intentions, fled, and
Quintus, vexed at losing his parricide, wrote him most friendly letters
to induce him to return. Usually, however, he dissembled less and spoke
more openly. He sent word to one of his lieutenants to seize and burn
alive a certain Licinius and his son who had embezzled. He wrote to a
Roman knight named Catienus “that he hoped to have him suffocated one
day in the smoke, with the applause of the province.”[264] It is true
that when he was reproached with having written these furious letters,
he replied that they were simple jokes, and that he had wished to laugh
for a moment, but it was a strange way of joking, and shows his
barbarous nature. Quintus had none the less an enlightened mind, he had
read Plato and Xenophon, he spoke Greek admirably well, he even wrote
tragedies in his leisure hours. He had all the appearance of a polished
and civilized man, but it was only the appearance. Even among the most
well-bred Romans, civilization was often only on the surface, and under
their polished exterior we often find the rough and savage soul of a
pitiless race of soldiers.
Quintus came back from his province with a rather bad reputation, but,
what is more surprising, he did not come back rich. Apparently he had
embezzled less than his colleagues, and was not able to bring back
enough money to restore his fortune, which was very much embarrassed by
his extravagance; for he liked to buy and to build, like his brother; he
had a taste for rare books, and probably also could refuse nothing to
his favourite slaves. The exile of Cicero completed the confusion of his
affairs, and at the time of his brother’s return Quintus was quite
ruined. This did not prevent him, at the time of his greatest financial
distress, rebuilding his house at Rome, and buying a country house at
Arpinum and another in the suburbs, constructing in his villa at Arcae,
baths, porticoes, fish-ponds, and such a fine road that it was taken for
a work of the state. It is true that the poverty of a Roman of that time
would make the fortune of many of our nobles. However, a day came when
Quintus was altogether in the hands of his creditors, and when he could
borrow no more. Then it was that he bethought him of the last resource
of embarrassed debtors: he went to Caesar.
It was not, then, only the love of glory that attracted Quintus to Gaul;
he went there, like so many others, to get rich. Up to that time, the
results had not answered to men’s expectations, and they had not found
among people like the Belgae and Germani all the treasures that they
looked for; but they were not yet discouraged; rather than give up their
brilliant fancies, after each disappointment, they put farther off that
enchanted country where they thought they must find riches. As at this
moment they were going to attack Britain, it was in Britain that they
placed it. Every one expected to make a fortune there, and Caesar
himself, by what Suetonius says, hoped to bring back many pearls.[265]
These expectations were deceived once more; in Britain were neither
pearls nor gold mines. They had a great deal of trouble to take a few
slaves who were not of much value, for it was no use thinking of making
them men of letters and musicians. For all wealth, these men only
possessed heavy chariots, from which they fought with courage.
Accordingly Cicero wrote humorously to Trebatius, who sent him news of
this ill-luck of the army: “Since you find there neither gold nor
silver, my opinion is that you should carry off one of those British
chariots, and should come to us at Rome without stopping.”[266] Quintus
was very much of the same opinion. Although he had been well received by
Caesar, who had appointed him his lieutenant, when he saw that wealth
did not come as quickly as he expected, he lost courage, and, like
Trebatius, he had for a moment the idea of returning; but Cicero, who
did not joke this time, prevented him.
He did him a very great service, for it was precisely during the winter
that followed the war in Britain that Quintus had the opportunity of
performing the heroic action that commended his name to the respect of
military men. Although he read Sophocles with ardour and had written
tragedies, he was at bottom only a soldier. In the presence of the
enemy, he became himself again, and displayed an energy that had not
been suspected in him. In the midst of populations which were in revolt,
in entrenchments hastily raised in one night, and with a single legion
only, he was able to defend the camp Caesar had entrusted to him, and to
make head against innumerable enemies, who had just destroyed a Roman
army. He replied in firm language to their insolent boasts. Although he
was ill, he displayed incredible activity, and it was only after a
sedition among his soldiers that he could be induced to take care of
himself. I have no need to relate the details of this affair that Caesar
has told so well in his _Commentaries_, and which is one of the most
glorious incidents of the Gallic war. This grand feat of arms raises
Quintus in our esteem; it effaces the meannesses of his character, and
helps him to play with a little more credit the ungrateful and difficult
part of younger brother of a great man.
III.
Cicero had clearly foreseen that, although Caesar in writing his
_Commentaries_ professed only to prepare materials for history, the
perfection of his work would prevent sensible men from attempting to
re-write it. Accordingly Plutarch and Dio have taken care not to
re-write it; they are contented to epitomize it, and now we only know
the Gallic war by the narrative of him who was the hero of it. However
perfect the narrative may be, or rather because of its very perfection,
we have much difficulty in contenting ourselves with it. It is the
characteristic of these great works, which, as we might think, ought to
exhaust public curiosity, on the contrary, to make it more active. By
interesting us in the facts which they relate, they excite in us the
desire to know them better, and one of the surest marks of their success
is that they do not suffice for the readers, and make them wish to know
more than they tell. This desire, for fresh details on the most
important events of history, it is which renders Cicero’s letters to
Trebatius and to his brother so valuable for us. Although they are fewer
in number and shorter than we could wish, they have the merit of adding
some information to that which Caesar gives on his campaigns. As they
are more familiar than a narrative composed for the public, they
introduce us farther into the private life of the conqueror of Gaul, and
they permit us to see him in his tent, at those times of leisure and
repose, of which he has not thought of speaking to us himself. This is
certainly an interesting spectacle, it is the true complement of the
_Commentaries_, and we cannot do better than carefully collect the
scattered details they contain, in order to become well acquainted with
Caesar and his surroundings.
I imagine that Caesar’s army did not resemble those old Roman armies
that are depicted to us in such grave and temperate guise, always
trembling under the rod of the lictors, and submissive at all times to
an inflexible discipline. It was, doubtless, sternly controlled in time
of danger, and never complained of this. No other army has ever
undergone greater fatigues and executed greater deeds; but when the
danger was over discipline relaxed. Caesar allowed his soldiers rest,
and sometimes diversion. He let them decorate themselves with splendid
arms, and even adorn themselves with studied elegance. “What does it
matter if they use perfumes?” he said, “they will know very well how to
fight.”[267] And in fact these soldiers, whom the Pompeians called
effeminate, are the same who, though dying of hunger at Dyrrhachium,
declared that they would eat the bark of the trees rather than let
Pompey escape. They were recruited for the most part among those
Cisalpine Gauls from whom Roman civilization had not taken the good
qualities of their race, an amiable and brilliant people who loved war
and carried it on gaily. The chiefs very much resembled the common
soldiers; they were lively and ardent, full of resources in critical
moments, and trusted more to inspiration than to routine. It is to be
remarked that no one of them had gained his reputation in earlier wars.
Caesar seems to have wished that their military glory should come from
him only. A few, and among these Labienus, perhaps the greatest of them,
were his political friends, old conspirators like himself, who, after
his example, and without any more preparation, from popular agitators
had become excellent generals. Others, on the contrary, like Fabius
Maximus and Servius Galba, bore illustrious names; they were partisans
whom he secured in the aristocracy, or hostages that he took from it.
The greater number, Crassus, Plancus, Volcatius Tullus, Decimus Brutus,
and later Pollio, were young men whom he treated with marked preference,
and whom he readily trusted in perilous enterprises. He liked the young
by personal preference, and also by policy: as they did not yet belong
to any party, and had not had time to attach themselves to the republic
by serving it, he hoped they would have less difficulty in accustoming
themselves to the new _régime_ that he wished to establish.
These lieutenants, whose number varied, did not alone form the ordinary
retinue of a proconsul. We must remember to add that crowd of young
Romans, sons of illustrious houses, destined by their birth for public
office, who came to serve their apprenticeship in war under him. They
were called his tent-comrades, _contubernales_. Soldiers like the rest,
and exposing themselves on the day of battle, they became after the
fight the friends, the companions of the chief whom they followed in all
his expeditions, as the clients accompanied their patron in the city.
They were present at his receptions, took part in all his recreations
and diversions, sat at his table, surrounded him when he sat on the
judgment-seat; they formed, in sum, what was called the cohort, we
should almost say the court, of the praetor (_praetoria cohors_). Scipio
Africanus, it is said, invented this means of adding splendour to the
public display of the supreme power in the eyes of the conquered
nations, and after him governors had taken great care to preserve all
this pomp which added to their prestige. These were not all; by the side
of these military men there was room for men of very various abilities
and positions. Able financiers, intelligent secretaries, and even
learned lawyers might be necessary for the administration of those vast
countries that a proconsul governed. Thus Trebatius himself, the pacific
Trebatius, was not out of place in the train of an army, and he had
opportunities of exercising his profession even among the Nervii and the
Belgae. If we add to these men, to whom their high offices gave a
certain importance, a crowd of inferior officers or subaltern servants,
such as lictors, ushers, scribes, interpreters, apparitors, doctors,
men-servants, and even soothsayers, we shall have some idea of that
truly royal retinue which a proconsul always carried about with him.
Caesar’s train must have been even more magnificent than that of others.
The ten legions that he commanded, the extent of country that he had to
conquer and govern, explain the great number of officers and persons of
all sorts by whom he was surrounded. Moreover, he naturally loved
magnificence. He readily welcomed all who came to see him, and always
found some office to give them in order to retain them. Even in those
wild countries he took pleasure in astonishing them by his reception.
Suetonius relates that he took with him everywhere marquetry or mosaic
floors, and that he had always two tables laid at which rich Romans who
visited him and provincials of distinction took their places.[268] His
lieutenants imitated him, and Pinarius wrote to Cicero that he was
delighted with the dinners his brother gave him.[269] Caesar did not
care much for these sumptuous repasts, and these rich dwellings, on his
own account. We know that he was temperate, that in case of need he
could sleep well in the open air, and eat rancid oil without blinking;
but he had a taste for display and luxury. Although the republic still
existed, he was almost a king; even in his camps in Britain and Germany
he had assiduous followers and courtiers. He could only be approached
with difficulty; Trebatius made the attempt, and we know that it was a
long time before he could reach him. No doubt Caesar did not receive men
with that stiff and solemn majesty that repelled them in Pompey; but,
however gracious he might wish to be, there was always something in him
that inspired respect, and it was felt that that ease of manner that he
affected with everybody proceeded from a superiority which was sure of
itself. This defender of the democracy was none the less an aristocrat
who never forgot his birth, and willingly spoke of his ancestors. Had
they not heard him, at the commencement of his political life, at the
very time when he attacked with most vivacity the institutions of Sulla,
and tried to get back their ancient powers for the tribunes, had they
not heard him pronounce over his aunt a funeral oration full of
genealogical fictions, in which he complacently related that his family
was descended at once from the kings and the gods? But in this he only
followed the traditions of the Gracchi, his illustrious predecessors.
They also defended public interests with ardour, but they called to mind
the aristocracy from which they had sprung by the haughty elegance of
their manners. We know that they had a court of clients at their rising,
and that they were the first who thought of making distinctions between
them which resembled the public and private admissions to the court of
Louis XIV.
The most remarkable thing in those around Caesar was their love of
letters. Assuredly they belonged no longer to the times when Roman
generals burnt masterpieces of art, or took a pride in being ignorant.
Since Mummius and Marius, letters had succeeded in penetrating even the
camps, which, as we know, are not their usual abode. Nevertheless, I do
not think that so many enlightened men of letters, so many men of
culture and men of fashion have ever been seen united in any other army.
Almost all Caesar’s lieutenants were private friends of Cicero, and they
took pleasure in maintaining a constant intercourse with him who was
regarded as the official patron of literature at Rome. Crassus and
Plancus had learnt eloquence in pleading at his side, and in what
remains to us of the letters of Plancus, we recognize, by a certain
oratorical exuberance, that he had profited by his lessons. Trebonius,
the conqueror of Marseilles, professed to relish his witticisms very
much, and even published a collection of them. Cicero, however, to whom
this admiration was not displeasing, thought that his editor had put too
much of himself into the introduction under pretence of preparing the
effect of the jokes and making them easier to understand. “They have
exhausted their laughter,” he said, “when they get to me.” Hirtius was a
distinguished historian, who undertook later to finish the
_Commentaries_ of his chief. Matius, a devoted friend of Caesar, who
showed himself worthy of this friendship by remaining faithful to him,
translated the _Iliad_ into Latin verse. Quintus was a poet also, but a
tragic poet. During the winter that he had to fight the Nervii, he was
seized with such an ardour for poetry, that he composed four pieces in
sixteen days: but this was to treat tragedy in a somewhat military
fashion. He sent the one he thought the best, the _Erigone_, to his
brother; but it was lost on the road. “Since Caesar has commanded in
Gaul,” said Cicero, “the _Erigone_ alone has not been able to travel in
safety.”[270] It is surprising no doubt to meet all at one time with so
many generals who are also men of letters; but what is still more
astonishing is that all those Roman knights who followed the army, and
whom Caesar made his commissaries and purveyors, collectors of stores,
and farmers of the taxes, seem to have loved literature more than their
habits and occupations usually admit. We find one of those he employed
in offices of this kind, Lepta, thanking Cicero for sending him a
treatise on rhetoric as though he were a man capable of appreciating the
present. The Spaniard Balbus, that intelligent banker, that skilful
administrator, who was able to put the finances of Rome into such good
order, and what was still more difficult, those of Caesar, loved
philosophy with more enthusiasm than one would expect in a banker. He
hastened to have Cicero’s works copied before they were known to the
public, and although he was by character the most discreet of men, he
went so far as even to commit indiscretions in order to be the first to
read them.
But among all these lettered men, it was Caesar who had the most decided
taste for letters: they suited his cultivated nature; they seemed to
him, no doubt, the most agreeable exercise and relaxation of an
accomplished mind. I should not, however, venture to say that his love
for them was wholly disinterested, when I see that this taste assisted
his policy so wonderfully. He was compelled to gain public favour by
every means; now, nothing attracts the general judgment more than the
superiority of intelligence united with that of force. His principal
works were composed with this intention, and we might say, from this
point of view, that his writings were part of his actions. It was not
only to please a few idle men of letters that, during the latter part of
his stay in Gaul, he wrote his _Commentaries_ with such a rapidity as to
astonish his friends. He wished to prevent the Romans forgetting his
victories; he wished, by his admirable manner of narrating them, to
renew, and if possible, to increase, the effect they had produced. When
he composed his two books _De Analogia_, he calculated that people would
be struck by seeing the general of an army, who, according to the
expression of Fronto, “busied himself with the formation of words while
arrows were cleaving the air, and sought the laws of language amid the
din of clarions and trumpets.” He knew very well the advantage that his
reputation would draw from these very diverse performances, and how
great would be the surprise and admiration at Rome when they received at
the same moment a treatise on grammar, and the news of a new victory,
from such a distance. The same thought also made him eager for Cicero’s
friendship. If his refined and distinguished nature found a great
pleasure in keeping up some intercourse with a man of so much
cultivation, he was not ignorant of the power this man exercised over
public opinion, and how far his praises would resound when they came
from this eloquent mouth. We have lost the letters that he wrote to
Cicero; but as Cicero was delighted with them, and it was not very easy
to please him, we must believe that they were filled with flatteries and
caresses. Cicero’s answers were also full of the most lively
protestations of friendship. He declared at that time that Caesar came
in his affections immediately after his children, and indeed almost in
the same rank; he bitterly deplored all the prejudices that had up till
then kept him apart from him, and he resolved to make him forget that he
was one of the last who had entered into his friendship. “I shall
imitate,” said he, “the travellers who have risen later than they wished
to do; they double their speed, and make such good haste that they
arrive at their destination before those who have travelled part of the
night.”[271] They vied with each other, as it were, in compliments; they
overwhelmed one another with flatteries, and emulated each other in
works in verse and prose. On reading the first accounts of the
expedition to Britain, Cicero exclaimed in a transport of enthusiasm:
“What prodigious events! what a country! what people! what battles, and
above all, what a general!” He wrote off immediately to his brother:
“Give me Britain to paint; furnish me with the colours, I will use the
brush.”[272] And he had seriously taken in hand an epic poem on this
conquest, which his occupations prevented him completing as quickly as
he wished. Caesar, on his part, dedicated his treatise _De Analogia_ to
Cicero, and on this occasion said to him in splendid phrases: “You have
discovered all the resources of eloquence, and are the first to use
them. In virtue of this you have deserved well of the Roman name, and
you do honour to our country. You have obtained the most illustrious of
all honours, and a triumph preferable to those of the greatest generals,
for it is better to extend the boundaries of the mind than to enlarge
the limits of the empire!”[273] This, coming from a victorious general
like Caesar, was the most delicate flattery for a man of letters.
Such were the relations that Cicero kept up with Caesar and his officers
during the Gallic war. His correspondence, which preserves the memory of
them, makes us better acquainted with the tastes and preferences of all
these men of cultivation, and shows them to us in a very living fashion
and draws us closer to them. This is, assuredly, one of the greatest
services it could render to us. We seem, when we have read it, to be
able to understand of what kind the meetings of these men must have
been, and can imagine ourselves present at their conversations. We are
entitled to suppose that Rome took up very much of their thoughts. From
the depths of Gaul, they had their eyes upon it, and it was to make a
little stir there that they took so much trouble. While marching over so
many unknown countries from the Rhine to the Ocean, all these young men
hoped that they would be talked about at those feasts and assemblies
where men of the world discussed public affairs. Caesar himself, when he
crossed the Rhine on his wooden bridge, reckoned upon striking the
imaginations of all those idlers who met together in the Forum, at the
rostrum, to learn the news. After the landing of his troops in Britain,
we see him hastening to write to his friends, and especially to
Cicero;[274] not that he had much leisure at that moment, but he looked
upon it no doubt as an honour to date his letter from a country where no
Roman had yet set foot. If he was anxious to send glorious news to Rome,
they were also very glad to receive it from Rome. All the letters that
arrived were read with eagerness; they seemed as it were to carry even
to Germany and Britain a whiff of that fashionable life, which those who
have enjoyed can never forget or cease to regret. It was not enough for
Caesar to read the _journals of the Roman people_, which contained a dry
summary of the principal political events, and a concise report of the
proceedings of the assemblies of the people. His messengers constantly
traversed Gaul, bringing him letters accurate and full of the most
minute details. “He is told everything,” said Cicero, “small as well as
great.”[275] This news, impatiently waited for, and commented on with
pleasure, must have been the usual subject of his conversations with his
friends. I suppose that, at that sumptuous table of which I have spoken,
after literature and grammar had been discussed, and they had listened
to the verses of Matius or Quintus, the conversation turned especially
upon Rome, of which these elegant young men, who regretted its
pleasures, were never tired of talking. Certainly, if we could have
heard them chatting about the last news, the political disorders, or,
what interested them more, the private scandals of the city, telling the
last rumours afloat, and quoting the most recent jokes, we should have
found it difficult to believe that we were in the heart of the country
of the Belgae, or near to the Rhine or the Ocean, or on the eve of a
battle. I imagine that we should have rather fancied we were present at
a party of clever men in some aristocratic house on the Palatine or in
the rich quarter of Carinae.
Cicero’s letters render us yet another service. They show us the
prodigious effect that Caesar’s victories produced at Rome. They excited
as much surprise as admiration, for they were discoveries as well as
conquests. What was known before him of those distant countries? A few
ridiculous fables that traders related on their return, to give
themselves importance. It was through Caesar that they were first really
known. He first dared to attack, and he vanquished those Germans who
have been depicted as giants, whose very looks caused terror; he first
adventured as far as Britain, where it was said the night lasted three
entire months, and all the wonders that had been related gave as it were
a tinge of the marvellous to his victories. Nevertheless, not everybody
willingly gave way to this fascination. The most clear-sighted of the
aristocratic party, who felt, though indistinctly, that it was the fate
of the republic that was being decided on the banks of the Rhine, wished
to recall Caesar, and to appoint in his place another general, who might
not perhaps complete the conquest of Gaul, but who would not be tempted
to carry out that of his own country. Cato, who pushed everything to
extremes, when the senate was asked to vote a thanksgiving to the gods
for the defeat of Ariovistus, dared to propose, on the contrary, that
they should deliver up the conqueror to the Germans. But these
objections did not change public opinion, which declared itself in
favour of him who had just conquered with such rapidity so many unknown
countries. The knights, who had become the financiers and merchants of
Rome, congratulated themselves on seeing immense countries opened up to
their operations. Caesar, who wished to attach them to him, invited them
to follow him, and his first care had been to open them a road across
the Alps. The common people, who love military glory and who freely give
way to enthusiasm, were never tired of admiring him who extended the
limits of the Roman world. On the news of each victory, Rome had public
rejoicings, and offered thanksgivings to the gods. After the defeat of
the Belgae, the senate, under pressure of public opinion, was compelled
to vote fifteen days of solemn thanksgiving, which had never been done
for anybody. Twenty days was decreed, when the success of the expedition
against Germany was reported, and twenty more after the taking of
Alesia. Cicero usually demanded these honours for Caesar, and he became
the mouthpiece of the public admiration when he said in his noble
language: “This is the first time we have dared to attack the Gauls,
hitherto we have been content to repulse them. The other generals of the
Roman people regarded it as sufficient for their glory to prevent them
invading us; Caesar has gone to seek them out in their own homes. Our
general, our legions, our arms have overrun those countries of which no
history has ever spoken, of whose name the world was ignorant. We had
only a footpath in Gaul; now the boundaries of these nations have become
the frontiers of our own empire. It is not without the signal favour of
Providence that nature gave the Alps for a rampart to Italy. If the
entrance had been free to this multitude of barbarians, Rome never would
have been the centre and the seat of the empire of the world. Now let
insurmountable mountains sink. From the Alps to the Ocean Italy has
nothing now to fear.”[276]
These magnificent eulogies, for which Cicero has been so much blamed,
are easily understood however, and, whatever politicians may say, it is
easy to explain the enthusiasm that so many honest and sensible people
then felt for Caesar. That which justified the unreserved admiration
that his conquests caused, was less their grandeur than their necessity.
They might threaten the future, at that moment they were indispensable.
They later endangered the liberty of Rome, but they assured her
existence then.[277] The patriotic instinct of the people let them
divine what prejudice and fear, although quite legitimate, hid from the
aristocracy. They understood in a confused way all the dangers that
might soon come from Gaul, if they did not hasten to subdue it. It was
not, in truth, the Gauls who were to be feared—their decadence had
already commenced, and they no longer thought of making conquests—it was
the Germans. Dio is quite wrong in asserting that Caesar wantonly
stirred up wars for the sake of his glory. Whatever advantage he drew
from them, we may certainly say that he rather submitted to them than
provoked them. It was not Rome that went to seek the Germans at that
time, but rather the Germans who came boldly towards her. When Caesar
was appointed proconsul, Ariovistus occupied part of the country of the
Sequani and wished to seize the rest. His compatriots, attracted by the
fertility of this fine country, were crossing the Rhine every day to
join him, and twenty-five thousand had come at one time. What would have
happened to Italy if, while Rome was losing her strength in intestine
struggles, the Suevi and the Sicambri had established themselves on the
Rhone and the Alps? The invasion averted by Marius a century before was
recommencing; it might have caused the downfall of Rome then as it did
four centuries later, if Caesar had not arrested it. His glory is to
have thrown back the Germans beyond the Rhine, as it was to the honour
of the empire to have kept them there for more than three hundred years.
But this was not the sole or even the greatest effect of Caesar’s
victories. In conquering Gaul, he rendered it entirely and for ever
Roman. That marvellous rapidity with which Rome then assimilated the
Gauls can only be understood, when we know in what a state she had found
them. They were not altogether barbarians like the Germans; it is to be
remarked that their conqueror, who knew them well, does not call them so
in his _Commentaries_. They had great cities, a regular system of
taxation, a body of religious beliefs, an ambitious and powerful
aristocracy, and a sort of national education directed by the priests.
This culture, although imperfect, if it had not entirely enlightened
their minds, had at least awakened them. They were frank and
inquisitive, intelligent enough to know what they were deficient in, and
sufficiently free from prejudice to give up their usages when they found
better ones. From the very beginning of the war, they succeeded in
imitating the Roman tactics, in constructing siege machines, and in
working them with a skill to which Caesar does justice. They were still
rude and unpolished, but already quite inclined for a superior
civilization for which they had the desire and instinct. This explains
how they did so readily accept it. They had fought for ten years against
the domination of the foreigner; they did not hesitate for a day to
adopt his language and usages. We may say that Gaul resembled those
lands, parched by a burning sun, which drink in with such avidity the
first drops of rain; so completely did she imbibe the Roman civilization
for which she longed before she knew it, that after so many centuries,
and in spite of so many revolutions, she has not yet lost the mark of
it; and this is the only thing that has endured to the present time in
this country where everything changes. Caesar, then, did not only add a
few new territories to the possessions of Rome; the present that he made
her was greater and more useful; he gave her an entire people,
intelligent, and civilized almost as soon as conquered, which, becoming
Roman in heart as well as in language, sinking her interests in those of
her new nationality, enlisting in her legions to defend her, and
throwing herself with a remarkable ardour and talent into the study of
the arts and letters, shed a new lustre over her, and for a long time
gave a new youth and a return of vigour to the failing empire.
While these great events were passing in Gaul, Rome continued to be the
theatre of the most shameful disorders. There was no longer any
government; scarcely did they succeed in electing magistrates, and there
was a fight every time the people assembled in the Forum or in the
Campus Martius. These disorders, of which honest men were ashamed, added
still more to the effect that Caesar’s victories produced. What a
contrast was there between the battles fought with Ariovistus or
Vercingetorix and those combats of gladiators that stained the streets
of Rome with blood! And how glorious appeared the taking of Agendicum or
Alesia to people who were only occupied with the siege of Milo’s house
by Clodius or the assassination of Clodius by Milo! All the statesmen
who had remained in Rome, Pompey as well as Cicero, had lost something
of their dignity by mixing themselves up in these intrigues. Caesar, who
had withdrawn in time, was the only man who had risen amidst the general
degradation. Therefore all those whose heart was wounded by these sad
spectacles, and who had some care for Roman honour, kept their eyes
fixed upon him and his army. As happened at certain moments of our own
revolution, military glory consoled honest men for scandals and distress
at home. At the same time, the excess of the evil caused men to seek an
efficacious remedy everywhere. The idea began to spread that, in order
to obtain repose, it was necessary to create a strong and durable power.
After Cicero’s exile, the aruspices had predicted that the monarchy was
about to recommence,[278] and one did not need to be a prophet to
anticipate this. A few years later, the evil having increased still
more, the republican party itself, notwithstanding its repugnance, was
forced to have recourse to the violent remedy of a temporary
dictatorship. Pompey was appointed sole consul, but Pompey had shown
more than once that he had neither the vigour nor the resolution
necessary to overcome anarchy entirely. A stronger arm and a more
determined will had to be sought elsewhere, and all eyes turned
naturally towards the conqueror of Gaul. His glory pointed him out for
this part; the hopes of some and the fears of others called him to
fulfil it; men’s minds became accustomed every day to the idea that he
would be the heir of the republic, and the revolution that delivered up
Rome to him was more than half accomplished when he crossed the Rubicon.
II
THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED
AFTER PHARSALIA
The civil war interrupted the intercourse that Cicero had kept up with
Caesar during the Gallic war. He hesitated for a long time to take part
in it, and it was after long indecision that the stings of conscience,
the fear of public opinion, and above all the example of his friends
decided him at length to start for Pompey’s camp. “As the ox follows the
herd,” said he, “I go to join the good citizens;”[279] but he went
half-heartedly and without hope. After Pharsalia he did not think it was
possible to continue the struggle: he said so openly in a council of the
republican chiefs held at Dyrrhachium, and he hastened to return to
Brundusium to hold himself at the disposal of the conqueror.
What regret must he not have felt, if his thoughts went back several
years, and he remembered his triumphal return from exile! In that very
town, where he had been received with so much rejoicing, he was
constrained to disembark furtively, to conceal his lictors, to avoid the
crowd, and only go out at night. He passed eleven months there, the
saddest of his life, in isolation and anxiety. He was distressed on all
sides, and his domestic affairs did not cause him less sorrow than
public events. His absence had completed the disorder of his pecuniary
affairs. When they were most involved, he had been so imprudent as to
lend what ready money he had to Pompey: the poniard of the King of Egypt
had at the same time carried off the debtor and put an end to his power
of paying. While he was trying to procure some resources by selling his
furniture and plate, he discovered that his wife was acting in concert
with his freedmen to despoil him of what remained; he learnt that his
brother and his nephew, who had gone over to Caesar, sought to justify
themselves at his expense, and were working to ruin him in order to save
themselves; he saw Tullia, his beloved daughter, again, but he found her
sad and ill, lamenting at the same time the misfortunes of her father,
and the infidelity of her husband. To these very real misfortunes were
joined at the same time imaginary troubles, which caused him as much
suffering; above all, he was tormented by his habitual irresolution.
Scarcely had he set foot in Italy when he repented having come.
According to his habit, his restless imagination always puts things at
their worst, and he is ingenious in finding some reason for discontent
in everything that happens to him. He laments when Antony wishes to
force him to leave Italy; when he is allowed to remain, he still
laments, because this exception made in his favour may injure his
reputation. If Caesar neglects to write to him, he is alarmed; if he
receives a letter from him, however friendly it may be, he weighs all
its expressions so carefully that he discovers at last some motive for
fear; even the broadest and most complete amnesty does not entirely
remove his fears. “When a man pardons so easily,” he says, “it is
because he defers his vengeance.”[280]
At last, after a sojourn of nearly a year in that noisy and pestilential
town, he was permitted to leave Brundusium. He returned to his fine
country houses that he liked so much, and where he had been so happy; he
found his books again, he resumed his interrupted studies, he could
appreciate again those precious things which we enjoy without thinking
about them while they are ours, and only begin to appreciate when we
have lost them for a moment, namely, security and leisure. He thought
that nothing could equal the charm of those first days passed tranquilly
at Tusculum after so many storms, and of that return to the quiet
pleasures of the mind for which he felt then that he was in reality
made. “Know,” he wrote to his friend Varro, “that since my return I have
been reconciled to my old friends: I mean my books. In truth, if I fled
from them, it was not because I was angry with them, but I could not see
them without some confusion. It seemed to me that in engaging in such
stirring affairs, with doubtful allies, I have not followed their
precepts faithfully enough. They forgive me, they recall me to their
company; they tell me that you have been wiser than I not to leave them.
Now that I am restored to their favour, I really hope that I shall
support more easily the evils that oppress us and those with which we
are threatened.”[281]
His conduct henceforth was clearly marked out. He owed it to the great
party he had served and defended to hold aloof from the new government.
He must seek in philosophy and letters a useful employment for his
activity, and create an honourable retreat far from public affairs in
which he could no longer take part with honour. He well understood this
when he said: “Let us preserve at least a partial liberty by knowing how
to hide ourselves and keep silence.”[282] To keep silence and hide, was
indeed the programme that suited him best, as it did all those who had
submitted after Pharsalia. We shall see how far he was faithful to it.
I.
It is very difficult to relinquish politics all at once. The conduct of
public affairs and the exercise of power, even when they do not entirely
content the mind, give a secondary importance to other things, and life
appears aimless to him who can no longer employ himself in them. This is
what happened to Cicero. He was certainly very sincere when, on leaving
Brundusium, he undertook “to hide himself entirely in literature”; but
he had promised more than he was able to perform. He soon wearied of
repose, and the pleasures of study at length seemed a little too quiet;
he listened with more curiosity to outside rumours, and, in order to
hear them better, quitted Tusculum and returned to Rome. There he
insensibly resumed his old habits; he returned to the senate; his house
was again open to all who loved and cultivated letters; he began again
to frequent the houses of the friends he had in Caesar’s party, and by
their means resumed intercourse with Caesar himself.
They were easily reconciled, notwithstanding all their motives for ill
will. The taste for intellectual pleasures which united them was
stronger than all political antipathy. The first irritation over, they
approached each other with that ease that the habit and experience of
society give, forgetting or appearing to forget all the disagreements
that had separated them. Nevertheless these relations had become more
difficult than ever for Cicero. It was not only a protector that he had
found in his old fellow-student, it was a master. There was no longer
between them, as formerly, an agreement or understanding that created
reciprocal obligations; there was the victor to whom the laws of war
permitted everything, and the vanquished who owed his life to his
clemency. The difficulty of the position was greater, because the more
right the conqueror had to be exacting the more public opinion commanded
the conquered to be reserved. It may be supposed that, at the time of
the Gallic war, Cicero defended Caesar’s projects through friendship or
conviction; but since he had shown that he disapproved his cause by
boldly expressing his opinions during the civil war, the deference he
might show to his wishes was nothing more than a sort of base flattery,
and a discreditable way of earning his pardon. Already his sudden return
from Pharsalia had been much blamed. “I am not forgiven for
living,”[283] said he. He was forgiven still less for his familiar
relations with Caesar’s friends. Good citizens murmured at seeing him
visit so assiduously the house of Balbus, go and dine with the
voluptuous Eutrapelus in company with Pansa or Antony, and by the side
of the actress Cytheris, take part in the sumptuous feasts that
Dolabella gave with the money of the vanquished; on all sides the
malevolent had their eyes open to his weaknesses. He had, then, to
satisfy at once all parties, to hold with the conquerors and the
conquered for the sake of his reputation or his safety, to live near the
master without being too confident, and without ever offending him, and
in these dangerous relations to make what he owed to his honour agree
with what was needful for his repose. It was a delicate situation, from
which an ordinary man would have had perhaps some trouble to extricate
himself, but which was not beyond the dexterity of Cicero. To get out of
it he had in his favour one marvellous quality which prevented him from
appearing too humble and too base, even when he was constrained to
flatter. Madame de Sévigné has said somewhere: “Wit is a dignity.” This
saying is true in every sense; nothing helps one more to pass through
difficult times without baseness. When a man preserves his wit before an
absolute master, when he dares to joke and smile in the midst of the
silence and terror of others, he shows by this that the greatness of him
to whom he speaks does not intimidate him, and that he feels himself
sufficiently strong to support it. To remain master of oneself in his
presence is still a way of braving him, and it seems to me that an
exacting and suspicious despot ought to be almost as displeased with
those who dare to be witty before him as with those he may suspect of
having courage. There is, then, below that courage of the soul that
inspires energetic resolutions, but near it, that courage of the mind
which is not to be despised, for it is often the sole courage possible.
After the defeat of the men of resolution, the men of wit have their
turn, and they still do some service when the others can no longer do
anything. As they are crafty and supple, as they can raise their head
quickly after necessity has forced them to bend it, they maintain
themselves with a certain amount of honour in the ruin of their party.
Their raillery, however discreet it may be, is a sort of protestation
against the silence imposed on all, and it at least prevents the loss of
liberty of speech after having lost the liberty of action. Wit is not
then such a trivial thing as people affect to consider it; it also has
its grandeur, and it may be that, after a great disaster, when all is
silent, downcast, and discouraged, it alone maintains human dignity,
which is in great danger of perishing.
Such was, very nearly, the part Cicero played at this time, and we must
acknowledge that it was not wanting in importance. In that great city,
submissive and mute, he alone dared to speak. He began to do so early,
he was still at Brundusium, not knowing if he should obtain his pardon,
when he frightened Atticus by the freedom of his remarks. Impunity
naturally rendered him bolder, and after his return to Rome he took
scarcely any other precaution than to make his raillery as agreeable and
as witty as possible. Caesar liked wit even when it was exercised at his
own expense. Instead of getting angry at Cicero’s jokes, he made a
collection of them, and in the midst of the war in Spain, he ordered his
correspondents to send them to him. Cicero, who knew this, spoke without
constraint. This freedom, then so rare, drew all eyes upon him. He had
never had more society round him. The friends of Caesar frequented his
society readily to give themselves an air of liberality and tolerance,
after the example of their chief. As he was the most illustrious
survivor of the republican party after the death of Pompey and Cato, the
remaining partisans of the republic crowded around him. People came to
see him from all sides, and all parties met in the mornings in his
vestibule. “I receive at the same time,” said he, “the visits of many
good citizens who are downcast, and those of our joyful
conquerors.”[284]
This attention no doubt had something flattering in it, and nothing must
have given him more pleasure than to have regained his importance. Let
us remark, however, that in regaining his position as a person of
eminence, whose friendship was sought and whose house was frequented, he
had already fallen short of the first part of the programme that he had
laid down for himself; the share he had, about the same time, in the
return of the exiles, soon made him forget the other. He had given up
hiding to respond to Caesar’s advances. We are going to see how he
ceased to keep silence in order to thank him for his clemency.
Caesar’s clemency is admired with good reason, and it deserves the
praises awarded to it. For the first time a ray of humanity had been
seen to shine in the midst of the pitiless wars of the ancient world.
No doubt about the extent of his rights had hitherto entered the mind of
the conqueror; he believed them to have no limit, and exercised them
without scruple. Who, before Caesar, had thought of proclaiming and
practising consideration for the vanquished? He was the first who
declared that his vengeance would not outlast his victory, and that he
would not strike a disarmed enemy. What adds to the admiration his
conduct inspires is that he gave this fine example of mildness and
moderation in a time of violence, between the proscriptions of Sulla and
those of Octavius; that he pardoned his enemies at the very moment that
they were massacring his soldiers who were prisoners, and burning his
sailors alive with their ships. We must not, however, exaggerate, and
history should not be a panegyric. Without attempting to diminish
Caesar’s glory, we may be allowed to ask what motive he had in pardoning
the vanquished, and it is right to inquire how and within what limits he
exercised his clemency.
Curio, one of his closest friends, said one day to Cicero, in a private
conversation, that Caesar was cruel by nature, and that he had only
spared his enemies to preserve the affection of the people;[285] but the
sceptic Curio was very much disposed, like Caelius, to look at people
always on their bad side: he has certainly calumniated his chief. The
truth is that Caesar was clement both by nature and policy: _pro natura
et pro instituto_;[286] the continuator of his _Commentaries_, who knew
him well, says so. Now, if the heart does not change, policy often
changes with circumstances. When a man is good solely by nature he is
good always; but when the reflection which calculates the good effect
clemency will produce, and the advantage which may be drawn from it, is
added to the natural instinct that inclines to clemency, it may happen
that a man may become less clement as soon as he has less interest to be
so. He who becomes gentle and humane, by policy, in order to draw men
towards him, would become cruel, by policy also, if he had need of
intimidating them. This happened to Caesar, and when we study his life
closely we find that his clemency suffered more than one eclipse. I do
not think that he committed any gratuitous cruelties for the sake of
committing them, as so many of his contemporaries did; but neither did
he refrain when he found some advantage in them. While he was praetor in
Spain he sometimes stormed towns which were willing to surrender, in
order to have a pretext for sacking them. In Gaul he never hesitated to
terrify his enemies by fearful vengeance; we see him behead the whole
senate of the Veneti, massacre the Usipetes and the Tencteri, sell the
forty thousand inhabitants of Genabum for slaves at one time, and cut
off the hands of all in Uxellodunum who had taken up arms against him.
And did he not keep in prison five whole years that heroic chief of the
Arverni, that Vercingetorix who was an adversary so worthy of him, that
he might coolly give the order to slaughter him on the day of his
triumph? Even at the time of the civil war and when he was fighting his
fellow-citizens, he got tired of pardoning. When he saw that his system
of clemency did not disarm his enemies, he gave it up, and their
obstinacy, which surprised him, at last made him cruel. As the struggle
was prolonged it took darker colours on both sides. The war between the
republicans exasperated by their defeats and the conqueror furious at
their resistance, became merciless. After Thapsus, Caesar set the
example of punishments, and his army, inspired by his anger, slaughtered
the vanquished before his face. He had proclaimed, when starting on his
last expedition into Spain, that his clemency was exhausted, and that
all who did not lay down their arms should be put to death. Therefore
the battle of Munda was terrible. Dio relates that both armies attacked
with silent rage, and that instead of the war-songs that usually
resounded, one only heard at intervals the words: “strike and kill.”
When the fight was over the massacre began. The eldest son of Pompey,
who had succeeded in escaping, was tracked in the forest for several
days and killed without mercy, like the Vendean chiefs in our wars of
the Bocage.
The most glorious moment of Caesar’s clemency was just after the battle
of Pharsalia. He had proclaimed in advance when he entered Italy that
the proscriptions would not recommence. “I will not imitate Sulla,” said
he in a celebrated letter, which no doubt was widely circulated. “Let us
introduce a new way of conquering, and seek our safety in clemency and
mildness.”[287] At first he did not belie these fair words. After the
victory, he ordered the soldiers to spare their fellow-citizens, and on
the battle-field itself he gave his hand to Brutus and many others. It
is wrong however to think that there was a general amnesty at that
moment.[288] On the contrary, an edict of Antony, who governed Rome in
the absence of Caesar, strictly forbade any Pompeian to return to Italy
without having obtained permission. Cicero and Laelius, from whom there
was nothing to fear, were alone excepted. Many others returned
afterwards, but they were only recalled individually and by special
decree. This was a means for Caesar to make the most of his clemency.
Usually pardons thus given separately were not given gratuitously, they
were almost always bought by the exiles with a part of their property.
Besides, they were seldom complete at first; the exiles were allowed to
return to Sicily, then to Italy, before opening to them completely the
gates of Rome. These steps cleverly managed, by multiplying the number
of favours granted by Caesar, did not allow public admiration to cool.
Each time the chorus of flatterers recommenced their praises, and did
not cease to celebrate the generosity of the victor.
There was, then, after Pharsalia, a certain number of exiles in Greece
and in Asia who were waiting impatiently for permission to return home,
and who did not all obtain it. Cicero’s letters do us the good office of
making us acquainted with some of them. They are people of all
conditions and fortunes, merchants and farmers of the taxes as well as
great nobles. By the side of a Marcellus, a Torquatus and a Domitius
there are entirely unknown persons like Trebianus and Toranius, which
shows that Caesar’s vengeance did not stop at the heads of the party. We
find also among them three writers, and it is worthy of notice that they
were perhaps the most hardly treated. One of them, T. Ampius, was a
fiery republican who did not show so much firmness in exile as one would
have expected. He was occupied in writing a history of illustrious men,
and it seems that he did not profit much by the good examples he found
there. We know the other two, who are not much alike, better: they were
the Etruscan Caecina, a merchant and a wit, and the scholar Nigidius
Figulus. Nigidius, who was compared with Varro for the extent of his
attainments, and who was, like him, at once philosopher, grammarian,
astronomer, physicist, rhetorician and lawyer, had particularly struck
his contemporaries by the extent of his theological researches. As he
was seen to be much occupied with the doctrines of the Chaldeans and the
followers of Orpheus, he passed for a great magician. It was believed
that he predicted the future, and he was suspected of raising the dead.
So many occupations, of such various kinds, did not prevent him taking
an interest in the affairs of his country. It was not thought, then,
that a scholar was excused from performing the duties of a citizen. He
solicited and obtained public offices: he was praetor in difficult
times, and was noticed for his energy. When Caesar entered Italy,
Nigidius, faithful to the maxim of his master Pythagoras, which commands
the sage to carry help to the law when it is menaced, hastened to leave
his books, and was one of the principal combatants at Pharsalia. Caecina
had appeared at first as firm as Nigidius, and like him was conspicuous
for his republican ardour. Not content with taking up arms against
Caesar, he had, besides, insulted him in a pamphlet at the beginning of
the war: but he was as weak as he was violent, he could not bear exile.
This frivolous and worldly man had need of the pleasures of Rome, and
was disconsolate at being deprived of them. To obtain his pardon, he
formed the idea of writing a new work destined to contradict the old
one, and to obliterate its bad effect. He had called it his _Querelae_,
and this title indicates well enough its character. In it he lavished
eulogies on Caesar without measure, and yet he was always afraid he had
not said enough. “I tremble in all my limbs,” said he to Cicero, “when I
ask myself if he will be satisfied.”[289] So much humiliation and
baseness succeeded in softening the victor, and while he relentlessly
left the energetic Nigidius, who could not flatter, to die in exile, he
allowed Caecina to approach Italy, and settle down in Sicily.
Cicero had become the consoler of all these exiles, and employed his
influence in ameliorating their condition. He served them all with the
same zeal, although there were some among them of whom he had reason to
complain; but he no longer remembered their offences when he saw their
misfortunes. In writing to them he showed a graceful tact in
accommodating his language to their situation and feelings, caring
little whether he was consistent with himself, provided he could console
them and be useful to them. He told those who lamented that they were
kept away from Rome, that they were wrong in wishing to return, and that
it was better simply to hear reports of the misfortunes of the republic
than to see them with their eyes; he wrote in the opposite strain to
those who supported exile too courageously, and would not beg for
recall, to the great despair of their families. When he met with a too
servile eagerness in anticipating and entreating Caesar’s kindness, he
did not hesitate to blame it, and with infinite tact recalled the
unfortunate to that self-respect which they had forgotten. If, on the
contrary, he saw some one disposed to commit a heroic imprudence and to
attempt a useless and dangerous move, he hastened to restrain this burst
of idle courage, and preached prudence and resignation. He did not spare
his pains during this time. He went to see the friends of the master, or
if necessary, he tried to see the master himself, although it was very
difficult to approach a man who had the affairs of the whole world on
his shoulders. He begged, he promised, he wearied with his supplications
and was almost always successful, for Caesar was anxious to draw him
more and more into his party by the favours he granted him. The favour
once obtained, he wished to be the first to announce it to the exile,
who impatiently awaited it; he heartily congratulated him and added to
his compliments a few of those counsels of moderation and silence which
he readily gave to others, but which he did not always follow himself.
There was no more important personage among these exiles than the former
consul Marcellus; neither was there any whom Caesar had so much reason
to hate. By a sort of cruel bravado, Marcellus had had an inhabitant of
Como beaten with rods, in order to show what value he set upon the
rights that Caesar had granted to that city. After Pharsalia, he had
retired to Mitylene and did not think of returning, when his relatives
and Cicero took it into their heads to obtain his pardon. While taking
the first steps they met with an unexpected obstacle: they thought they
only had to entreat Caesar, and they had to begin by appeasing
Marcellus. He was an energetic man whom the ill success of his cause had
not dispirited, a veritable philosopher, who had reconciled himself to
exile, an obstinate republican, who would not return to Rome to see her
a slave. Quite a long negotiation was necessary before he would consent
to allow them to crave anything for him from the conqueror, and even
then he allowed it with a very bad grace. When we read the letters that
Cicero wrote to him on this occasion, we greatly admire his skill, but
have some difficulty in understanding the motives of his persistence. We
ask with surprise why he took more interest in the return of Marcellus
than did Marcellus himself. They had never been very closely connected;
Cicero did not stand upon ceremony in blaming his obstinacy, and we know
that those stiff and self-willed characters did not suit him. He must
have had then some stronger motive than affection to be so anxious for
Marcellus’ return to Rome. This motive, which he does not mention, but
which we can guess, was the fear he had of public opinion. He well knew
that he was reproached with not having done enough for his cause, and at
times he accused himself of having abandoned it too quickly. When, in
the midst of Rome, where he passed his time so gaily at those sumptuous
dinners that Hirtius and Dolabella gave him, and to which he went, he
said, to enliven his slavery a little; when he came to think of those
brave men who had been killed in Africa and Spain, or who were living in
exile in some dull and unknown town in Greece, he was angry with himself
for not being with them, and the thought of their sufferings often
troubled his pleasures. That is the reason why he worked with so much
ardour for their return. It was of importance to him to diminish the
number of those whose miseries formed a disagreeable contrast to the
happiness that he enjoyed, or who appeared to condemn his submission by
their haughty attitude. Every time that an exile returned to Rome, it
seemed to Cicero as though he got rid of some remorse and escaped the
reproaches of the ill-natured. Therefore, when he had obtained, contrary
to his expectation, the pardon of Marcellus, his joy knew no bounds. It
went so far as to make him forget that resolution he had taken to keep
silence to which he had been faithful during two years. He spoke in the
senate to thank Caesar, and delivered the celebrated speech which
remains to us.[290]
The reputation of this speech has had very diverse fortunes. It was long
unreservedly admired, and, in the last century, the worthy Rollin
regarded it as the model and perfection of eloquence; but this
enthusiasm has much diminished since we have become less appreciative of
the art of praising princes with delicacy, and value free and open
speech more highly than the most ingenious flattery. We should certainly
sometimes wish for a little more dignity in this speech, and we are
especially shocked at the manner in which embarrassing recollections of
the civil war are treated in it. He should have said nothing of them, or
have spoken out more boldly. Ought he, for example, to hide the motives
that the republicans had for taking up arms and reduce the whole
struggle to a conflict between two eminent men? Was it the time, after
the defeat of Pompey, to sacrifice him to Caesar, and to assert with so
much assurance that he would have used the victory less well? That we
may be able to judge less severely the concessions that Cicero thought
himself obliged to make to the victorious party, we must recall the
circumstances in which this speech was delivered. It was the first time
he had spoken in public since Pharsalia. In that senate, purged by
Caesar and filled with his creatures, free speech had not yet been
heard. The friends and admirers of the master alone spoke, and whatever
excess we may find in the praises that Cicero gives him, we may rest
assured that all these flatteries must have seemed lukewarm compared
with those heard every day. Let us add that, as no one had yet dared to
make a trial of Caesar’s forbearance, its limits were not exactly known.
Now it is natural, that he who does not exactly know where rashness
begins has a little dread of becoming rash. When one does not know the
bounds of the liberty that is permitted, the fear of overstepping them
sometimes prevents their being reached at all. Besides, this orator who
spoke for an exile was himself one of the vanquished. He knew the whole
extent of the rights that victory then conferred, and he did not try to
hide it. “We have been defeated,” he said to Caesar, “you might
legitimately put us all to death.”[291] At the present time things are
quite different. Humanity has lessened these pitiless rights, and the
conquered, who knows it, does not give way so completely; from the
moment that he does not run the same risks it is easy for him to have
more courage; but when he found himself before a master who had absolute
power over him, when he knew that he only held liberty and life by a
favour always revocable, he could not speak with the same boldness, and
it would not be just to call the reserve imposed by such a perilous
position, timidity. There is yet one other way, simpler and probably
truer than the others, of explaining these rather too exaggerated
praises with which Cicero has been reproached, namely, to acknowledge
that they were sincere. The greater the rights of the conqueror, the
more becoming it was in him to renounce them, and the merit was still
greater when they were renounced in favour of a man whom there were
legitimate reasons for hating. Accordingly, the excitement was very
great among the senators when they saw Caesar pardon his personal enemy,
and Cicero shared it. What proves that all these effusions of joy and
thankfulness, with which his speech is filled, were not simply
oratorical embellishments, is that we find them in a letter which he
addressed to Sulpicius, and which was not written for the public. “That
day seemed to me so grand,” said he, relating that memorable sitting of
the senate, “that I thought I saw the republic rise again.”[292] This
was going very far, and indeed nothing less resembled the revival of the
republic than this arbitrary act of a despot in pardoning men who were
only guilty of having served their country. This violent hyperbole is
none the less a proof of the deep and sincere emotion that Caesar’s
clemency caused Cicero. We know how open that sensitive nature was to
the impressions of the moment. He usually allows himself to be seized so
forcibly by admiration or hatred, that he seldom keeps within bounds in
expressing them. Hence came, in the speech for Marcellus, some
hyperbolical eulogies and an excess of complimentary phrases which it is
easy to account for, although one would rather not have found them
there.
These reservations being made, nothing remains but to admire. Cicero’s
speech does not contain only flatteries, as is asserted, and those who
read it carefully and without prejudice will find something else. After
thanking Caesar for his clemency, he takes the liberty of telling him a
few truths and giving him some advice. This second part, which is
somewhat hidden now under the splendour of the other, is much more
curious, although less striking, and must have produced more effect in
its time. Although he revised his work before publishing it, as was
usual with him, he must have preserved the movement of improvisation. If
he had not at first found those grand periods, the most sonorous and
pompous of the Latin tongue, it is at least probable that he has not
changed very much the order of the ideas and the coherency of the
speech. We feel that he becomes excited and warmed by degrees, and in
proportion as he advances he becomes more daring. The success of his
eloquence, of which they had been deprived so long, the applause of his
friends, the admiration and surprise of the new senators who had not yet
heard him, that sort of transport a man feels in speaking when he
perceives he is listened to; in sum, the place itself where he was
speaking, those walls of the senate house to which he alluded in his
discourse, and which guarded the memory of so many eloquent and free
voices,—all this put him in heart again. He forgot the timid precautions
of the commencement, and boldness came with success. Was it not
attacking absolute power indirectly when he said: “I am grieved to think
that the destiny of the republic, which ought to be immortal, depends
entirely on the life of one man who must some time die.”[293] And what
can we think of that other saying, still sharper, almost cruel? “You
have done much to gain the admiration of men; you have not done enough
to deserve their praises.”[294] What must Caesar do in order that the
future may praise him as much as it admires him? He must change that
which exists: “The republic cannot remain as it is.” He does not explain
himself, but we guess what he wants. He wants liberty, not that entire
liberty that they had enjoyed up to Pharsalia, but a moderate and
regulated liberty, compatible with a strong and victorious government,
the sole liberty that Rome could support. It is plain that at this
moment Cicero did not think it impossible to make a compromise between
Caesar and liberty. Could not a man who so ostentatiously renounced one
of the least disputed rights of victory be tempted to renounce the
others later? And when he was seen to be so clement and generous towards
private individuals, was it forbidden to think that he might one day
show the same liberality to his country? However weak this hope might
be, as there was then no other, an honest man and a good citizen would
not let it be lost, and it was his duty to encourage Caesar by all
possible means to realize it. They were not then to blame in praising
him without restraint for what he had done, in order to urge him to do
still more, and it seems to me that the praises Cicero heaps on him,
when we think of the intention he had in giving them, lose a little of
that look of slavishness with which they have been reproached.
Caesar listened to the compliments with pleasure and to the advice
without anger. He was too pleased that Cicero had at last broken silence
to think of being angry at what he had said. It was important to him
that this statesman, on whom all eyes were fixed, should re-enter public
life in some way or other. While that powerful voice persisted in
remaining mute it seemed to protest against the new government. By not
even attempting to contradict him, it let it be thought it had not the
liberty to do so, and made the slavery appear heavier. He was then so
content to hear Cicero’s voice again that he let him say what he liked.
Cicero quickly perceived it and took advantage of it. From this moment,
when he speaks in public, we feel that he is more at his ease. His tone
becomes firmer, and he concerns himself less about compliments and
eulogies. With the speech for Marcellus, he had tried what liberties he
could take. Having once felt his ground, he was more sure of his steps
and walked with confidence.
Such was the position of Cicero during Caesar’s dictatorship; we see
clearly that it was not so humble as has been asserted, and that, in a
time of despotism, he was able to render some services to liberty. These
services have been generally ill appreciated, and I am not surprised at
it. It is with men something as it is with works of art: when we see
them at a distance we are only struck with the bold situations and
well-drawn attitudes; the details and finer shades escape us. We can
well understand those who give themselves up entirely to the conqueror
like Curio or Antony, or those who constantly resist him like Labienus
and Cato. As to those ingenious and flexible minds who fly from all
extremes, who live adroitly between submission and revolt, who turn
difficulties rather than force them, who do not refuse to pay with a few
flatteries for the right of telling a few truths, we are always tempted
to be severe towards them. As we cannot clearly distinguish their
attitude at the distance from which we regard them, their smallest
subserviencies appear to be cowardice, and they seem to be prostrating
themselves when they are only bowing. It is only by drawing near them,
that is to say by studying the facts closer, that we succeed in
rendering them justice. I think that this minute study is not
unfavourable to Cicero, and that he was not mistaken when he said later,
speaking of this period of his life, that his slavery had not been
without some honour: _quievi cum aliqua dignitate_.[295]
II.
In giving an account of the relations of Cicero and Caesar after
Pharsalia, I have purposely omitted to speak of the courteous contest
they had about Cato. It was such a curious incident that it seems to me
to be worth the trouble of being studied apart, and in order to
understand better the sentiments that each of the two brought into this
contest, perhaps it will not be amiss to begin by making the
acquaintance of the person who was the subject of the dispute.
A sufficiently correct idea is generally formed of Cato by us, and those
who attack him as well as those who admire him are very nearly agreed
upon the principal features of his character. He was not one of those
elusive and many-sided natures like Cicero, that it is so difficult to
seize. On the contrary, no one was ever more outspoken, more uniform,
than he, and there is no figure in history whose good and bad qualities
are so clearly marked. The only danger for those who study him is to be
tempted to exaggerate still more this bold relief. With a little
intention it is easy to make an obstinate block of this obstinate man, a
boor and brute of this frank and sincere man; that is to say, to draw
the caricature and not the portrait of Cato. To avoid falling into this
extreme, it will be proper, before speaking of him, to read again a
short letter that he addressed to Cicero when proconsul of Cilicia.[296]
This note is all that remains to us of Cato, and I should be surprised
if it did not very much astonish those who have a preconceived notion of
him. There is neither rudeness nor brutality in it, but on the contrary
much refinement and wit. The occasion of the letter was a very difficult
one: it was a question of refusing Cicero a favour that he very much
wished to obtain. He had had in his old age the aspiration to become a
conqueror, and he asked the senate to vote a thanksgiving to the gods
for the success of the campaign he had just made. The senate in general
showed deference to this caprice, Cato almost alone resisted; but he did
not wish to fall out with Cicero, and the letter he wrote to justify his
refusal is a masterpiece of dexterity. He shows him that in opposing his
demand, he understands the interests of his glory, better than he does
himself. If he will not thank the gods for the successes Cicero has
obtained, it is because he thinks that Cicero owes them to himself
alone. Is it not better to give him all the honour than to attribute it
to chance, or the protection of heaven? This is certainly a very amiable
way of refusing, and one that did not leave Cicero an excuse for getting
angry, discontented though he was. Cato, then, was a man of wit at odd
moments, although at first sight we might have some difficulty in
supposing so. His character had become supple by the study of Greek
literature; he lived in the midst of an elegant society, and he had
unconsciously taken something from it. This is what that witty letter
makes us suspect, and we must remember it, and take care to read it
again every time we are tempted to fancy him an ill-bred rustic.
We must, however, admit that usually he was stiff and stubborn, hard to
himself, and severe on others. That was the turn of his humour; he added
to it by his self-will. Nature is not alone to blame for those
self-willed and absolute characters that we meet with; a certain pursuit
of quaint originality and a little self-complacency, very often make us
aid nature and bring it out more vigorously. Cato was led into this
defect by the very name he bore. The example of his illustrious
grandfather was always before his eyes, and his single study was to
resemble him, without taking into account the difference of times and
men. In imitating we exaggerate. There is always a little effort and
excess in the virtues we try to reproduce. We take only the most salient
points of the model, and neglect the others which tone them down. This
happened with Cato, and Cicero justly blames him for imitating only the
rough and hard sides of his grandfather. “If you let the austerity of
your behaviour take a few tints of his gay and easy manners, your good
qualities would be more pleasing.”[297] It is certain that there was in
the old Cato a dash of piquant animation, of rustic gaiety, of bantering
good-nature, that his grandson did not have. He only shared with him his
roughness and obstinacy, which he pushed to extremes.
Of all excesses the most dangerous perhaps is the excess of good; it is
at least that of which it is most difficult to correct oneself, for the
culprit applauds himself, and no one dares to blame him. Cato’s great
defect was that he never knew moderation. By dint of wishing to be firm
in his opinion, he became deaf to the advice of his friends and the
lessons of experience. The practical conduct of life, that imperious
mistress, to speak like Bossuet, had no hold upon him. His energy often
went to the length of obstinacy, and his sense of honour was sometimes
in fault by being too scrupulous. This extreme delicacy prevented him
succeeding when he canvassed for public offices. The people were very
exacting towards those who asked for their votes. During the rest of the
year they allowed themselves to be driven and ill-used, but on election
day they knew they were masters and took pleasure in showing it. They
could only be gained by flattering all their caprices. Cicero often
laughed at those unfortunate and deferential candidates (_natio
officiosissima candidatorum_), who go in the morning knocking at every
door, who pass their time in paying visits and compliments, who make it
a duty to accompany the generals when they enter or leave Rome, who form
the retinue of all the influential orators, and who are forced to have
infinite consideration and respect for everybody. Among the common
people, upon whom after all the election depended, the more honest
wished to be flattered, the rest required to be bought. Cato was not the
man to do either the one or the other. He would neither flatter nor lie;
still less would he consent to pay. When he was pressed to offer those
repasts and those presents that for so long candidates had not dared to
refuse, he answered bluntly: “Are you bargaining for pleasures with
debauched young men, or asking the government of the world of the Roman
people?” And he did not cease repeating this maxim, “that it is only a
man’s merits which must solicit.”[298] A hard saying! said Cicero, and
one they were not accustomed to hear at a time when all offices were for
sale. It displeased the people, who profited by this venality, and Cato,
who persisted in only soliciting on his merits, was almost always
vanquished by those who solicited with their money.
Characters of this sort, honest and outspoken, are met with, in
different degrees, in private as well as in public life, and for this
reason they belong to the domain of comedy as well as to that of
history. If I were not afraid of failing in respect towards the gravity
of the personage I am studying, I should say that this haughty response
that I have just quoted, makes me think involuntarily of one of the
finest creations of our theatre. It is a Cato that Molière wished to
paint in the _Misanthrope_. We are here only concerned with the fortune
of a private individual, and not with the government of the world, we
have only to do with a lawsuit; but in his position, the Cato of the
Comedy speaks just like the other. He will not submit to customs that he
does not approve of. Even at the risk of losing his case he will not
visit the judges, and when people say to him: “And who do you then
intend to solicit for you?” he answers as haughtily as Cato: “Who do I
intend? Reason, my just cause, and equity.” Whatever we may feel, these
personages always inspire a great respect. We have not the heart to
blame them, but, nevertheless, we must have the courage to do so.
Honesty, honour, liberty, all noble causes in fine, cannot well be
defended with this exaggerated and strait-laced rigour. They have
disadvantages enough by themselves in their struggle with corruption and
licence, without making them more unpleasing still by a useless
stiffness and severity. To multiply scruples is to disarm virtue. It is
quite enough that she is forced to be grave; why wish to make her
repulsive? Without sacrificing anything of principle, there are points
on which she ought to give way to men in order to rule them. What proves
that those men, who boast of never giving way, are wrong is that they
are not as inflexible as they suppose, and that, in spite of their
resistance, they always end by making some concessions. That austere,
that stern Alceste, is a member of society after all, and of the best.
He lives at court, and we can see very well what he is. I do not say
only by his manners and appearance, although I imagine _the man with the
green ribbons_ dressed with taste and elegance, but by those turns of
phrase he employs, by those polite evasions which are also lies, and
which he will not endure in Philinte. Before breaking out against the
nobleman of the sonnet he uses adroit formulas where we only catch a
glimpse of the truth:
“Do you find anything amiss in my sonnet?”
“I do not say that.”
What is this “_I do not say that_,” which he repeats so often, but a
blameworthy compliance and weakness, if we judge it with the rigour of
the misanthrope? Rousseau severely reproaches Alceste for it, and I do
not think that Alceste, if he remains faithful to his principles, can
find any reply to Rousseau; it would not be difficult either to point
out contradictions of the same kind in Cato. This stern enemy of
intrigue, who at first will do nothing for the success of his
candidature, ends by canvassing: he went to the Campus Martius like
everybody else, to shake hands with the citizens and ask for their
votes. “What!” says Cicero to him ironically, whom these inconsistencies
put into good humour, “is it your business to come and ask for my vote?
Is it not rather I who ought to thank a man of your merit who wishes to
brave fatigue and dangers for me?”[299] This stern enemy of lying did
more: he had one of those slaves called _nomenclatores_ who knew the
name and profession of every citizen of Rome, and he used him like the
rest, to make the poor electors believe that he knew them. “Is not this
cheating and deceiving the public?” said Cicero, and he was not wrong.
The saddest thing is that these concessions, that compromise the dignity
and unity of a character, are of no use: they are generally made with a
bad grace, and too late; they do not efface the remembrance of past
rudeness, and gain nobody. Notwithstanding his tardy solicitations and
the aid of his _nomenclator_, Cato did not attain the consulship, and
Cicero severely blames the awkwardness that made him fail. No doubt he
could do without being consul; but the republic had need that he should
be consul, and in the eyes of many good citizens, to favour by
refinements of scrupulosity and exaggerations of honour the triumph of
the worst men was almost to abandon and betray it.
It is easy to understand these excesses and exaggerations in a man who
intends _to fly the approach of humankind_, like Alceste; but they are
unpardonable in one who wishes to live with men, and still more so in
one who aspires to govern them. The government of men is a nice and
difficult matter which requires a man not to begin by repelling those
whom he is desirous of leading. Certainly he ought to intend to make
them better, but it is necessary to begin by taking them as they are.
The first law of politics is to aim only at the possible. Cato often
overlooked this law. He could not condescend to those attentions without
which one cannot govern the people; he had not sufficient flexibility of
character nor that turn for honourable intrigue which make a man succeed
in the things he undertakes; he wanted some of that pliancy that brings
opposing pretensions together, calms jealous rivalries, and groups
people divided by humours, opinions and interests around one man. He
could only be a striking protest against the manners of his time; he was
not the head of a party. Let us venture to say, notwithstanding the
respect we feel for him, that his spirit was obstinate because his mind
was narrow. He did not at first distinguish the points on which a man
should give way and those that ought to be defended to the last. A
disciple of the Stoics, who said that all faults are equal, that is,
according to Cicero’s joke, that it is as wrong to kill a fowl
needlessly as to strangle one’s father, he had applied this hard and
strange theory to politics. His mind being restricted to the merest
legality, he defended the smallest things with tiresome obstinacy. His
admiration of the past knew no discrimination. He imitated the ancient
costumes as he followed the old maxims, and he affected not to wear a
tunic under his toga because Camillus did not wear one. His want of
breadth of mind, his narrow and obstinate zeal were more than once
hurtful to the republic. Plutarch reproaches him with having thrown
Pompey into Caesar’s arms by refusing some unimportant gratifications of
his vanity. Cicero blames him for having dissatisfied the knights whom
he had had so much trouble to conciliate with the senate. No doubt the
knights made unreasonable demands, but he should have conceded
everything rather than let them give Caesar the support of their immense
wealth. It was on this occasion that Cicero said of him: “He thinks he
is in the republic of Plato and not in the mud of Romulus,”[300] and
this saying is still that which best characterizes that clumsy policy
that, by asking too much of men, ends by getting nothing.
Cato’s natural character was that of opposition. He did not understand
how to discipline and lead a party, but he was admirable when it was a
question of making head against an adversary. To conquer him, he
employed a tactic in which he often succeeded: when he saw that a
decision that seemed to him fatal, was about to be taken, and that it
was necessary at any price to prevent the people voting, he began to
speak and did not leave off. Plutarch says that he could speak for a
whole day without fatigue. Nothing deterred him, neither murmurs, cries,
nor threats. Sometimes a lictor would pull him down from the rostrum,
but as soon as he was free he went up again. One day the tribune
Trebonius got so much out of patience with this resistance that he had
him led off to prison: Cato, without being disconcerted, continued his
speech while going along, and the crowd followed him to listen. It is to
be remarked that he was never really unpopular: the common people, who
love courage, were at last mastered by this steady coolness and this
unconquerable energy. It sometimes happened that they declared
themselves in his favour, contrary to their interests and preferences,
and Caesar, all-powerful with the populace, dreaded nevertheless the
freaks of Cato.
It is none the less true, as I have already said, that Cato could not be
the head of a party, and what is more deplorable is, that the party for
which he fought had no head. It was an assemblage of men of capacity and
of dignified personages, none of whom had the necessary qualities to
take the lead of the rest. Not to mention Pompey, who was only a
doubtful and distrusted ally, among the others, Scipio repelled every
one by his haughtiness and cruelty; Appius Claudius was only a credulous
augur who believed in the sacred chickens; Marcellus was wanting in
pliability and urbanity, and was himself aware that scarcely anybody
liked him; Servius Sulpicius had all the weaknesses of a punctilious
lawyer; and lastly, Cicero and Cato erred in opposite directions, and it
would have been necessary to unite them both, or modify them one by the
other in order to have a complete politician. There were, therefore,
only brilliant personalities and no head in the republican party before
Pharsalia, and we may even say that, as this jealous selfishness and
these rival vanities were ill blended, there was scarcely a party.
The civil war, which was a stumbling-block for so many others, which
laid bare so many littlenesses and so much cowardice, revealed, on the
other hand, all the goodness and all the greatness of Cato. A sort of
crisis then took place in his character. As in certain maladies the
approach of the last moments gives more elevation and lucidity to the
mind, so, it seems, that at the threat of that great catastrophe which
was about to engulf the free institutions of Rome, Cato’s honest soul
was yet further purified, and that his intelligence took a juster view
of the situation from the feeling of the public dangers. While fear
makes others go to extremes, he restrains the usual violence of his
conduct, and, while thinking of the dangers the republic is running, he
becomes all at once discreet and moderate. He who was always ready to
attempt useless resistance, advises giving way to Caesar; he wishes them
to grant all his demands; he resigns himself to all concessions in order
to avoid civil war. When it breaks out he submits to it with sorrow, and
tries by all means to diminish its horrors. Every time he is consulted
he is on the side of moderation and mildness. In the midst of those
young men, the heroes of the polished society of Rome, among those
lettered and elegant wits, it is the rugged Cato who defends the cause
of humanity. He compelled the decision, in spite of the outbursts of the
fiery Pompeians, that no town shall be sacked, no citizen be killed off
the field of battle. It seems that the approach of the calamities he
foresaw, softened that energetic heart. On the evening of the battle of
Dyrrhachium, while every one was rejoicing in Pompey’s camp, Cato alone,
seeing the corpses of so many Romans lying on the ground, wept: noble
tears, worthy of being compared with those that Scipio shed over the
ruins of Carthage, the memory of which antiquity so often recalled! In
the camp at Pharsalia, he severely blamed those who spoke only of
massacre and proscription and divided among themselves in advance the
houses and lands of the conquered. It is true that after the defeat,
when the greater number of those wild schemers were at Caesar’s knees,
Cato went everywhere to stir him up enemies and to revive the civil wars
in all the ends of the earth. Just as he had wished them to yield before
the battle, so was he determined not to submit when there was no more
hope of freedom. We know his heroic resistance in Africa, not only
against Caesar, but against the furious men of the republican party, who
were always ready to commit some excess. We know how he would not accept
the pardon of the victor after Thapsus, when he saw that all was lost,
and killed himself at Utica.
His death made an immense impression in all the Roman world. It put to
the blush those who were beginning to accustom themselves to slavery; it
gave a sort of new impulse to the discouraged republicans, and revived
opposition. During his life-time, Cato had not always rendered good
service to his party; he was very useful to it after his death. The
proscribed cause had henceforth its ideal and its martyr. Its remaining
partisans united and sheltered themselves under that great name. At Rome
especially, in that great, unquiet, restless city, where so many men
bowed the head without submitting, his glorification became the ordinary
theme of the discontented. “The battle raged round the body of Cato,”
says M. Mommsen, “as at Troy it had raged around that of Patroclus.”
Fabius Gallus, Brutus, Cicero, and many others no doubt whom we do not
know, wrote his eulogy. Cicero began his at the request of Brutus. At
first he was repelled by the difficulty of the subject: “This is a work
for Archimedes,” said he;[301] but as he advanced, he took a liking to
his work and finished it with a sort of enthusiasm. This book has not
come down to us: we only know that Cicero made a complete and unreserved
apology for Cato. “he raises him to the skies,”[302] says Tacitus. They
had, however, disagreed more than once, and he speaks of him without
much consideration in many passages of his correspondence; but, as often
happens, death reconciled everything. Besides, Cicero, who reproached
himself with not having done enough for his party, was happy to find an
opportunity of paying his debt. His book, that the name of the author
and that of the hero recommended at once, had so great a success that
Caesar was uneasy and discontented about it. He took care, however, not
to show his ill-humour; on the contrary, he hastened to write a
flattering letter to Cicero to congratulate him on the talent he had
displayed in his work. “In reading it,” he told him, “I feel that I
become more eloquent.”[303] Instead of employing any rigorous measure,
as was to be feared, he thought that the pen alone, according to the
expression of Tacitus, ought to avenge the attacks that the pen had
made. By his order, his lieutenant and friend Hirtius addressed a long
letter to Cicero, which was published, and in which he controverted his
book. Later, as this answer was not thought sufficient, Caesar himself
entered the lists, and, in the midst of the anxieties of the war in
Spain, he composed the _Anti-Cato_.
This moderation of Caesar has been justly praised: it is not common with
men who possess unlimited authority, and the Romans justly said, that it
is seldom a man is contented to write when he can proscribe. The fact
that he detested Cato adds to the merit of his generous conduct. He
always speaks of him with bitterness in his _Commentaries_, and although
he was accustomed to do justice to his enemies, he never misses an
opportunity of decrying him. Has he not dared to assert that in taking
up arms against him, Cato gave way to personal rancour and to the desire
of revenging his electoral defeats,[304] when he well knew that no one
had more generously forgotten himself in order to think only of his
country! This was because there was more than political disagreement
between them, there was antipathy of character. The defects of Cato must
have been particularly disagreeable to Caesar, and his virtues were
those that Caesar not only did not seek to acquire, but which he could
not even understand. How could he have any feeling for his strict
respect for law, for his almost servile attachment to old customs? he
who found a lively pleasure in laughing at ancient usages. How could a
prodigal, who had formed the habit of squandering the money of the state
and his own without reckoning, how could he do justice to those rigorous
scruples that Cato had in the handling of the public funds, to the
attention he gave to his private affairs, and to that ambition, so
strange for that time, of not having more debts than assets? These were,
I repeat, qualities that Caesar could not comprehend. He was, then,
sincere and convinced when he attacked them. A man of wit and pleasure,
indifferent to principles, sceptical in opinion, accustomed to live in a
frivolous and polished society, Cato could scarcely appear to him
anything else than fanatical and brutal. As there was nothing that he
put above refinement and politeness of manners, an elegant vice suited
him better than a savage virtue. Cato, on the contrary, although he was
not a stranger to literary culture and the spirit of society, had none
the less remained at bottom an old-fashioned Roman. Notwithstanding
their power, society and letters could not entirely overcome that
bluntness, or if you will, that brutality of manner that he owed to his
constitution and his race, and of which we find something even in his
finest actions. To cite only one example; Plutarch, in the admirable
narrative that he has given of his last moments, relates that, when a
slave refused, through affection for Cato, to give him his sword, he
knocked him down with a furious blow by which his hand was covered with
blood. To the eyes of a fastidious man like Caesar, this blow revealed a
vulgar nature, and I am afraid prevented him understanding the grandeur
of this death. The same contrast, or rather the same antipathy, is found
in all their private conduct. While Caesar’s maxim was to pardon
everything in his friends, and he therefore pushed complacency so far as
to shut his eyes to their treasons, Cato was too exacting and particular
with regard to his. At Cyprus he did not hesitate to fall out with
Munatius, his life-long companion, by showing an offensive distrust of
him. He was, no doubt, in his household, a model of honour and fidelity;
yet he did not always maintain that respect and regard for his wife that
she deserved. We know how he gave her up without ceremony to Hortensius,
who had asked him for her, to take her again without scruple after
Hortensius’ death. How different was Caesar’s conduct with regard to
his, although he had reason to complain of her! A man had been surprised
at night in his house, the affair came before the courts, he might have
avenged the outrage, but he preferred rather to forget it. Called as a
witness before the judges, he declared he knew nothing about it, thus
saving his rival in order to preserve his wife’s reputation. He only
divorced her later, when the report of the intrigue had blown over. This
was acting like a well-bred man of the world. Here again, between Cato
and him, it is the least scrupulous and in the main the least honourable
of the two, the fickle and libertine husband, who, by reason of a
certain natural delicacy, appears in a more advantageous light.
This contrast in conduct, this opposition of character, seem to me to
explain the way in which Caesar writes of Cato in his book, even better
than all their political disagreements. The fragments of it that survive
and the testimony of Plutarch, show that he attacked him with extreme
violence, and that he tried to make him at once ridiculous and odious.
But it was useless, it was lost labour. People continued,
notwithstanding his efforts, to read and admire Cicero’s book. Not only
did Cato’s reputation survive Caesar’s insults, it increased still more
under the empire. In Nero’s time, when despotism was heaviest, Thrasea
wrote his history again, Seneca quotes him on every page of his books,
and to the end he was the pride and model of honest men who preserved
some feeling of honour and dignity in the general abasement of
character. They studied his death even more than his life, for they
needed then, above all, to learn how to die, and when this sad necessity
presented itself, it was his example they set before their eyes, and his
name that was in their mouths. To have sustained and consoled so many
noble hearts in these cruel trials is assuredly a great glory, and I
think that Cato would not have desired any other.
III.
The conclusion to be drawn from Caesar’s conduct after Pharsalia, and
from his relations with Cicero, is, that he wished at that time to draw
nearer to the republican party. It was difficult for him to act
otherwise. As long as it was a question of overturning the republic, he
had accepted the support of everybody, and the worst men had come to him
by preference. “When a man was eaten up with debts and in want of
everything,” said Cicero, “and if, besides, he was shown to be a
scoundrel capable of daring anything, Caesar made him his friend;”[305]
but all these unprincipled and unscrupulous men, excellent for upsetting
an established power, were worth nothing in setting up a new one. It was
impossible that Caesar’s government should inspire any confidence as
long as some honourable persons, whom men were accustomed to respect,
were not seen with the master and alongside these adventurers, whom they
had learnt to fear. Now, honourable men were chiefly found among the
vanquished. We must add that it was not Caesar’s idea that one party
alone should profit by his victory. He had no ambition to work, like
Marius or Sulla, for the triumph of a faction: he wished to found a new
government, and he invited men of different opinions to aid him in the
enterprise. It has been asserted that he sought to reconcile parties,
and great compliments have been paid him for it. The praise is not
altogether just: he did not reconcile them, he annihilated them. In the
monarchical system, that he wished to establish,[306] the old parties of
the republic had no place. He had cleverly used the dissensions of the
people and the senate to dominate both; the first result of his victory
was to put them both aside, and we may say that after Pharsalia, there
was only Caesar on one side, and the vanquished on the other. This
explains how it was that, once victorious, he made use indifferently of
the partisans of the senate and those of the democrats. This equality
which he established between them was natural, since they had all
become, equally and without distinction, his subjects. Only he well knew
that in accepting the services of the old republicans he should not have
instruments always tractable, and that he would be obliged to allow them
a certain independence of action and speech, to preserve, at least
outwardly, some appearance of a republic; but that in itself did not
give him much uneasiness. He had not that invincible repugnance for
liberty that princes have who are born to an absolute throne, and who
only know its name to dread and detest it. He had lived with it for
twenty-three years, he had become accustomed to it, he knew its
importance. Therefore he did not seek to destroy it entirely. He did not
silence, as he might have done, the eloquent voices that regretted the
past; he did not even impose silence on that harassing opposition that
tried to respond to his victories by jeers. He allowed some acts of his
administration to be criticized, and permitted men to give him advice.
This great mind well knew that a country becomes enervated when the
citizens are rendered indifferent to public affairs, and lose the taste
for attending to them. He did not think that anything solid could be
established on passive and silent obedience, and in the government that
he founded he wished to preserve something of public life. Cicero tells
us this in a curious passage of his correspondence: “We enjoy here a
profound calm,” he writes to one of his friends; “I should rather
prefer, however, a little honest and salutary agitation;” and he adds:
“I see that Caesar is of my opinion.”[307]
All these reasons decided him to take one step further on that path of
generosity and clemency on which he had entered after Pharsalia. He had
pardoned the greater number of those who had borne arms against him; he
invited some of them to share his power. At the very time that he was
recalling the greater part of the exiles, he appointed Cassius his
lieutenant; he gave Brutus the government of Cisalpine Gaul, and
Sulpicius that of Greece. We shall speak further on of the first two; it
is important, the better to appreciate Caesar’s policy, to rapidly make
known the third, and to inquire how he had become worthy of the favours
of the conqueror, and in what manner he profited by them.
Servius Sulpicius belonged to an important Roman family, and was the
most celebrated lawyer of his time. Cicero gives him this great praise,
namely, that he was the first to bring philosophy into the law, that is
to say, that he bound together all those minute rules and precise
formulas of which this science is composed, by general principles and
comprehensive views.[308] Accordingly he does not hesitate to place him
much above his predecessors, and more especially, over that great family
of the Scaevolas, in which as it seemed Roman jurisprudence had been up
to that time incarnate. There was, however, a difference between them
and Sulpicius, which it is important to notice: the Scaevolas had given
to Rome, lawyers, augurs, pontifs, that is to say, they excelled in the
arts that are friendly to tranquillity and peace; but they were also
very active citizens, resolute politicians, valiant soldiers who
courageously defended their country against conspirators and against the
foreigner. They showed themselves, in their busy life, competent for all
affairs and equal to all situations. Scaevola the augur, when Cicero
knew him, was still, notwithstanding his age, a vigorous old man, who
rose at daybreak to meet his country clients. He was the first to arrive
at the Curia, and he had always some book with him, that he read so as
not to remain idle while waiting for his colleagues; but the day that
Saturninus threatened the public tranquillity, this learned man who
loved study so much, this infirm old man who supported himself with
difficulty, and could only use one arm, seized a javelin with that arm,
and marched at the head of the people to the assault of the
Capitol.[309] Scaevola the pontif was not only an able lawyer, he was
also an upright administrator whose memory Asia never forgot. When the
farmers of the taxes attacked his quaestor Rutilius, guilty of having
wished to prevent them ruining the province, he defended him with an
admirable eloquence and vigour that no threat could shake. He refused to
leave Rome at the time of the first proscriptions, and abandon his
clients and their business, although he knew the fate that was awaiting
him. Wounded at the funeral of Marius, he was dispatched a few days
later near the temple of Vesta.[310] However, such men were not
exceptional at Rome. In the best times of the republic, the complete
citizen had to be at once agriculturist, soldier, administrator,
financier, advocate, and even jurist. There were no specialists then,
and we should be forced to make now-a-days four or five different
persons out of one ancient Roman; but in the period of which we are now
speaking, these diverse aptitudes that were then required in a single
man were separated: each man gave himself to a special science, and we
can begin to divide men of study from men of action. It is difficult to
say whether the reason of this was that men had lost the energy of their
character; or perhaps we should think that since the masterpieces of
Greece had been made known, and each science had become more
complicated, one man could not any longer bear the burden of all united?
However this may be, if Sulpicius was above the Scaevolas as a lawyer,
he was far from having their firmness as a citizen. Praetor or consul,
he was never anything more than a man of learning and chamber practice.
In circumstances that require resolution, every time it was necessary to
decide and to act, he was ill at ease. We feel that this honest and
gentle soul was not made to be the first magistrate of a republic in a
period of revolution. His fondness for always playing the part of
conciliator and arbitrator in that time of violence ended by exciting
laughter. Cicero himself, although he was his friend, quizzes him a
little, when he shows us this great peacemaker starting off with his
little secretary, after having looked over all his lawyers’ rules, to
intervene between the parties at the time these parties only desired to
destroy one another.
Caesar had always thought that Sulpicius was not of a character to
oppose him vigorously, and had early worked to attach him to himself. He
began by making an ally in his house, and a powerful ally. It was a
matter of common talk at Rome, that the worthy Sulpicius allowed himself
to be led by his wife Postumia; Cicero, who likes to repeat scandals,
several times tells us this. Now, Postumia’s reputation was not
spotless, and Suetonius places her name on the list of those women who
were loved by Caesar. She is one of a very numerous company; but this
fickle man, who passed so quickly from one mistress to another, had this
singular privilege, that all the women whom he abandoned, remained none
the less his devoted friends. They forgave his infidelities, they
continued to take an interest in all his successes, they put those
immense resources of ingenuity and persistency which belong only to a
woman who is in love, at the service of his policy. It was no doubt
Postumia who decided Sulpicius to work for Caesar during the whole time
that he was consul, and to oppose the vehemence of his colleague
Marcellus who wished another governor of Gaul to be appointed. However,
notwithstanding all his weaknesses, Sulpicius was none the less a
sincere republican, and when the war had broken out, he declared against
Caesar, and left Italy. After the defeat, he submitted like the rest,
and he had resumed his usual occupations, when Caesar sought him out in
his retreat in order to appoint him governor of Greece. It was certainly
impossible to find a government that suited him better. A residence in
Athens, at all times agreeable to the rich Romans, must have been
especially so at this time when that city was the asylum of so many
illustrious exiles. Sulpicius could at the same time have the pleasure
of hearing the most celebrated rhetoricians and philosophers of the
world, and could talk of Rome and the republic with eminent persons like
Marcellus and Torquatus, and thus satisfy all his tastes at once.
Nothing could have been more pleasing, we should have thought, to this
scholar and man of letters, whom chance had made a statesman, than the
exercise of extensive power, without danger, combined with the most
refined intellectual pleasures in one of the grandest and most beautiful
countries in the world. We should, therefore, have thought that Caesar
had done the most agreeable thing for him, in sending him on duty to
that city where the Romans usually went for pleasure. Yet it does not
seem that Sulpicius appreciated these advantages. He had scarcely
arrived in Greece, when he was discontented at having gone, and longed
to depart. Evidently it was not the country that displeased him, he
would not have thought himself better off anywhere else; but he
regretted the republic. After having so timidly defended it, he could
not console himself for its fall, and blamed himself for serving him who
had overturned it. These feelings are clearly expressed in a letter that
he wrote to Cicero from Greece. “Fortune,” he tells him, “has taken from
us our most precious possessions; we have lost our honour, our dignity,
and our country.... In the times in which we live, those are most happy
who are dead.”[311]
When a timid and moderate man like Sulpicius dared speak thus, what must
others not have said and thought! We can guess this when we see how
Cicero writes to the greater number of them. Although he is addressing
officials of the new government, he does not take the trouble to hide
his opinions; he freely expresses his regrets, because he well knows
they are shared by those to whom he is writing. He speaks to Servilius
Isauricus, the proconsul of Asia, as to a man whom the absolute power of
one does not satisfy, and who wishes some restraints to be put on
it.[312] He tells Cornificius, the governor of Africa, that affairs are
going ill at Rome, and that many things happen there which would pain
him.[313] “I know what you think of the lot of honest people, and of the
misfortunes of the republic,” he writes to Furfanius, the proconsul of
Sicily, in recommending an exile to him.[314] These persons, however,
had accepted important offices from Caesar: they shared his power, they
passed for his friends; but all the favours they had received from him
had not thoroughly attached them to his cause. They made their
reservations while serving him, and only half gave themselves up to him.
Whence could this opposition come, that the new government met with
among men who had at first agreed to take a share in it? It proceeded
from different motives which it is easy to point out. The first, perhaps
the most important, was that this government, even while loading them
with honours, could not give them what the old republic would have given
them. With the establishment of the monarchy an important change in all
public employments was accomplished: the magistrates became subordinate
officials. Formerly, those elected by the popular vote had the right to
act as they pleased within the sphere of their functions. A fertile
power of initiative inspired every rank of this hierarchy of republican
dignitaries. From the aedile to the consul all were supreme within their
own limits. They could not be so under an absolute government. Instead
of governing on their own account, they were only the channels, so to
say, by which the will of a single man acted to the ends of the earth.
Certainly public security gained much by the cessation of those
conflicts of authorities, which had continually troubled it, and it was
a great advantage for the provinces that absolute power had been taken
away from their greedy governors. Nevertheless, if the governed profited
by these reforms, it was natural that the governors should be
discontented with them. From the moment that they were only entrusted
with the execution of the orders of another man the importance of their
functions diminished, and this sovereign and absolute authority whose
weight they always felt, finally vexed even the most submissive. If
ambitious men complained of the diminution of their power, honest people
did not get accustomed so easily as might have been expected to the loss
of their liberty. In proportion as they left Pharsalia behind, their
regrets became more lively. They began to get over the surprise of the
defeat, and gradually recovered from the fear it had caused them. During
the moments that immediately follow those great disasters in which men
have expected to perish, they give themselves up entirely to the
pleasure of living, but this pleasure is one of those to which men
accustom themselves so quickly, and which are taken so much as a matter
of course, that they soon cease to be sensible of it. All those
terrified people who on the morrow of Pharsalia desired only
tranquillity, when it had been given them, wished for something else. As
long as men are uncertain of their life, they do not trouble themselves
to know if they shall live free, but when once life is assured, the
desire for liberty returns to all hearts, and those who served Caesar
felt it like the rest. Caesar, we know, partly satisfied this desire,
but this satisfaction did not last long. It is as difficult to halt on
the road to liberty as on that to absolutism. One favour granted makes
men desire another, and men think less of enjoying what they have
obtained than of lamenting what they lack. It was thus that Cicero, who
had welcomed Caesar’s clemency with transports of joy, and who saluted
the return of Marcellus as a sort of restoration of the republic, soon
changed his opinion and language. As we get on further in his
correspondence, he becomes more bitter and more revolutionary. He who
had so severely condemned those who “after having disarmed their hands
did not disarm their hearts,”[315] had his own heart filled with the
bitterest resentment. He said on every opportunity that all was lost,
that he blushed to be a slave, that he was ashamed to live. He attacked
with his pitiless raillery the most useful measures and the most just
acts. He laughed at the reform of the calendar, and pretended to appear
scandalized at the enlargement of Rome. He went further. On the day that
the senate ordered Caesar’s statue to be placed beside those of the
ancient kings, he could not avoid making a cruel allusion to the manner
in which the first of these kings had perished. “I am very glad,” said
he, “to see Caesar so near to Romulus!”[316] And yet it was scarcely a
year since, in his speech for Marcellus, he had implored him in the name
of the country to watch over his life, and had said with much feeling,
“Your safety is ours!”
Caesar, then, had only malcontents around him. The moderate republicans,
on whom he reckoned to aid him in his work, could not resign themselves
to the loss of the republic. The exiles whom he had recalled to Rome
were more humiliated by his clemency than grateful for it, and did not
give up their resentment. His own generals, whom he loaded with riches
and honours, without being able to satisfy their cupidity, reproached
him for his ingratitude, and even plotted his death. The common people,
at last, of whom he was the idol, and who had so cheerfully granted all
his demands, the people themselves began to withdraw from him; they no
longer welcomed his victories with the same applause as formerly, and
seemed to be afraid that they had made him too great. When his statue
was placed beside those of the kings, the multitude, who saw it pass,
remained mute, and we know that the news of this unusual silence was
spread by the messengers of the allied kings and nations in all the
countries of the world, and caused it to be believed everywhere that a
revolution was at hand.[317] In the provinces of the East, where the
last soldiers of Pompey were hiding, the fire of civil war, which was
smouldering rather than extinct, constantly revived, and these perpetual
alarms, without leading to serious danger, prevented the public
tranquillity becoming settled. At Rome, Cicero’s works, in which he
celebrated the glories of the republic, were read with enthusiasm;
anonymous pamphlets, which had never been more violent or more numerous,
were eagerly sought. As happens on the eve of great crises, every one
was discontented with the present, unquiet about the future, and
prepared for the unforeseen. We know in how tragical a manner this
strained situation terminated. The stab of Brutus’ dagger was not
altogether, as has been said, an unpremeditated incident and a chance;
it was the general uneasiness of men’s minds which led to and which
explains such a terrible catastrophe. The conspirators were but little
over sixty in number, but they had all Rome for their accomplice.[318]
All this disquietude and rancour, those bitter regrets for the past,
those disappointed ambitions, this baffled cupidity, this open or secret
hatred, those bad or generous passions of which men’s hearts were full,
armed their hands, and the Ides of March were only the deadly explosion
of so much stored-up anger. Thus events frustrated all Caesar’s
projects. He did not find safety in his clemency, as he thought; he
failed in that work of conciliation that he had attempted with the
applause of the world: he did not succeed in disarming parties. This
glory was reserved for a man who had neither his breadth of genius, nor
his generosity of character—for the crafty and cruel Octavius. This is
not the only time that history shows us the sad spectacle of the success
of ordinary men where the greatest have failed; but in enterprises of
this nature success depends above all on circumstances, and it must be
admitted that they singularly favoured Augustus. Tacitus tells us the
principal cause of his good fortune, when he says, speaking of the
establishment of the empire: “There was almost no one left who had seen
the republic.”[319] The men over whom Caesar aspired to reign, on the
contrary, had all seen it. Many cursed it when it troubled the
tranquillity of their lives by its storms and agitations; almost all
regretted it as soon as they had lost it. There is, notwithstanding the
perils to which it exposes men, a singular charm and attraction in the
habit and exercise of liberty which cannot be forgotten when once it has
been known. It was against this inextinguishable memory that the genius
of Caesar was shattered. But after the battle of Actium, the men who had
looked upon the grand scenes of liberty, and who had seen the republic,
no longer existed. A civil war of twenty years, the most murderous of
all those that have ever depopulated the world, had destroyed them
almost all. The recollections of the new generation did not go further
back than Caesar. The first sounds it had heard were the acclamations
that saluted the conqueror of Pharsalia, of Thapsus, and of Munda; the
first spectacle that had struck its eyes was that of the proscriptions.
It had grown up among pillage and massacres. During twenty years it had
daily trembled for its property or its life. It thirsted for security,
and was ready to sacrifice everything for repose. Nothing attracted it
towards the past, as the contemporaries of Caesar had been attracted. On
the contrary, all the memories of the past which survived only attached
it more to the government under which it lived, and when by chance it
turned its eyes backwards it found many subjects for fear without any
subject for regret. It was only under these circumstances that absolute
power could peaceably succeed the republic.
BRUTUS
HIS RELATIONS WITH CICERO
We should not know Brutus without Cicero’s letters. As he has never been
spoken of with composure, and as political parties have been accustomed
to screen their hatred or their hopes under his name, the true features
of his character were early effaced. Amid the heated discussions that
his mere name raises, while some, like Lucan, exalt him almost to
heaven, and others, like Dante, resolutely place him in hell, it was not
long before he became a sort of legendary personage. To read Cicero
brings us back to the reality. Thanks to him, this striking but
indistinct figure, that admiration or terror have immoderately enlarged,
becomes more defined and takes human proportions. If it loses in
grandeur by being viewed so close, at least it gains something by
becoming true and living.
The connection between Cicero and Brutus lasted ten years. The
collection of letters they wrote to each other during this interval must
have been voluminous, since a grammarian quotes the ninth book of them.
They are all lost, with the exception of twenty-five which were written
after the death of Caesar.[320] Notwithstanding the loss of the rest,
Brutus still holds such a large place in the surviving works of Cicero,
and especially in his correspondence, that we find in it all the
elements necessary for becoming well acquainted with him. I am going to
collect these references, and to re-write, not the narrative of Brutus’
entire life, which would oblige me to dwell upon very well-known events,
but only the history of his relations with Cicero.
I.
Atticus, the friend of everybody, brought them together. It was about
the year 700, a short time after Cicero’s return from exile, and in the
midst of the troubles stirred up by Clodius, one of those vulgar
agitators like Catiline, by whose means Caesar exhausted the strength of
the Roman aristocracy that he might one day overcome it more easily.
Cicero and Brutus occupied at that time very different positions in the
republic. Cicero had filled the highest offices, and in them had
rendered eminent services. His talents and his probity made him a
valuable auxiliary for the aristocratical party to which he was
attached; he was not without influence with the people whom his
eloquence charmed; the provinces loved him, as they had seen him more
than once defend their interests against greedy governors, and still
more recently Italy had shown her affection by carrying him in triumph
from Brundusium to Rome. Brutus was only thirty-one; a great part of his
life had been passed away from Rome, at Athens, where we know that he
devoted himself earnestly to the study of Greek philosophy, in Cyprus,
and in the East, where he had followed Cato. He had not yet filled any
of those offices which gave political importance, and he had to wait
more than ten years before thinking of the consulship. Nevertheless
Brutus was already an important person. In his early relations with
Cicero, notwithstanding the distance that age and official position set
between them, it is Cicero who makes the advances, who treats Brutus
with consideration, and who seeks his friendship. One would say that
this young man had given rise to singular expectations, and that it was
already vaguely felt that he was destined for great things. While Cicero
was in Cilicia, Atticus, pressing him to do justice to certain claims of
Brutus, said: “It would be something if you only brought back his
friendship from that province.”[321] And Cicero wrote of him at the same
period: “He is already the first among the young men; he will soon be, I
hope, the first in the city.”[322]
Everything in fact seemed to promise a splendid future for Brutus. A
descendant of one of the most illustrious families of Rome, the nephew
of Cato, the brother-in-law of Cassius and Lepidus, he had just married
one of the daughters of Appius Claudius; another was already married to
Pompey’s eldest son. By these alliances he was connected on all sides
with the most influential families; but his character and manners
distinguished him even more than his birth. His youth had been austere:
he had studied philosophy, not merely as a _dilettante_ and as being a
most useful discipline for the mind, but like a wise man who wishes to
apply the lessons that it gives. He had returned from Athens with a
great reputation for wisdom, which his virtuous and regular life
confirmed. The admiration that his virtue excited was redoubled when his
surroundings and the detestable examples he had resisted were
considered. His mother Servilia had been the object of one of the most
violent passions of Caesar, perhaps his first love. She always held a
great sway over him, and took advantage of it to enrich herself after
Pharsalia by getting the property of the conquered awarded to her. When
she became old, and felt the powerful dictator slipping from her, in
order to continue to rule him, she favoured, it is said, his amours with
one of her daughters, the wife of Cassius. The daughter who had married
Lepidus, had no better reputation, and Cicero tells a merry tale about
her. A young Roman fop, C. Vedius, going through Cilicia with a great
train, found it convenient to leave part of his baggage with one of his
hosts. Unfortunately this host died; seals were put on the traveller’s
baggage along with the rest, and to begin with, the portraits of five
great ladies were found in it, and among them that of Brutus’ sister.
“It must be admitted,” said Cicero, who did not lose an opportunity for
a joke, “that the brother and the husband well deserve their names. The
brother is very stupid (_brutus_) who perceives nothing, and the husband
very easy-going (_lepidus_) who endures all without complaint.”[323]
Such was the family of Brutus. As to his friends, there is no need to
say much about them. We know how the rich young men of Rome lived at
that time, and what Caelius, Curio, and Dolabella were. Among all this
dissipation the rigid integrity of Brutus, his application to business,
that disdain for pleasures, that taste for study to which his pale and
serious countenance bore witness, stood out in higher relief by the
contrast. Accordingly all eyes were fixed on this grave young man who
resembled the others so little. In approaching him men could not help a
feeling that seemed ill suited to his age: he inspired respect. Even
those who were his elders and his superiors, Cicero and Caesar,
notwithstanding their glory, Antony who resembled him so little, his
opponents and his enemies, could not escape this impression in his
presence. What is most surprising is, that it has survived him. It has
been felt in presence of his memory as it was before his person; living
and dead he has commanded respect. The official historians of the
empire, Dio, who has so roughly handled Cicero, Velleius, the flatterer
of Tiberius, all have respected Brutus. It seems that political rancour,
the wish to flatter, and the violence of party have felt themselves
disarmed before this austere figure.
While respecting him, they loved him. These are sentiments which do not
always go together. Aristotle forbids us to represent heroes perfect in
all points in the drama, lest they should not interest the public.
Things go in ordinary life very much as they do on the stage; a sort of
instinctive dread holds us aloof from irreproachable characters, and as
it is usually by our common failings that we are drawn together, we feel
very little attraction towards a man who has no failings, and are
content to respect perfection at a distance. Yet it was not so in the
case of Brutus, and Cicero could say of him with truth in one of the
works that he addresses to him: “Who was ever more respected and loved
than you?”[324] And yet this man without weaknesses was weak for those
he loved. His mother and sisters had great influence over him, and made
him commit more than one fault. He had many friends, and Cicero blames
him for listening too readily to their advice; they were worthy men who
understood nothing of public affairs; but Brutus was so much attached to
them that he could not protect himself against them. His last sorrow at
Philippi was to learn of the death of Flavius, his overseer of works,
and that of Labeo, his lieutenant; he forgot his own self to weep for
them. His last words before his death were to congratulate himself that
none of his friends had betrayed him: this fidelity, so rare at that
time, consoled his last moments. His legions also, although they were
partly composed of old soldiers of Caesar, and he kept them tightly in
hand, punishing plunderers and marauders, his very legions loved him and
remained faithful to him. Even the people of Rome themselves, who were
in general enemies of the cause he defended, showed their sympathy for
him more than once. When Octavius proclaimed the assassins of Caesar
public enemies, every one sadly bowed their heads when they heard the
name of Brutus pronounced from the rostrum, and in the midst of the
terrified senate which foresaw the proscriptions, a voice dared to
declare that it would never condemn Brutus.
Cicero fell under the charm like the rest, but not without resistance.
His friendship with Brutus was troubled and stormy, and, notwithstanding
the general agreement of their opinions, violent dissensions arose
between them more than once. Their disagreements are explained by the
diversity of their characters. Never did two friends resemble each other
less. There never was a man who seemed made for society more than
Cicero; he brought into it all the qualities that are necessary for
success, great flexibility of opinion, much toleration for others,
allowance enough for himself, the talent of steering with ease between
all parties, and a certain natural indulgence that made him understand
and almost accept everything. Although he made bad verses, he had the
temperament of a poet, a strange mobility of impression, an irritable
sensitiveness, a supple, broad, and quick intellect which conceived
promptly, but quickly abandoned its ideas, and passed from one extreme
to another at a bound. He did not make a single serious resolution of
which he did not repent the next day. Whenever he joined a party he was
only quick and decided at the beginning, and gradually cooled down.
Brutus, on the contrary, had not a quick intelligence: he usually
hesitated at the commencement of an enterprise and did not decide at
once. Slow and serious, he advanced step by step in everything, but,
once resolved, he was so absorbed in his conviction that nothing could
divert him: he isolated and concentrated himself in it, he excited and
inflamed himself for it by reflection, and at last listened only to that
inflexible logic that drove him to realize his purpose. He was one of
those minds of which Saint-Simon says that they have an almost ferocious
consistency. His obstinacy was the real source of his strength, and
Caesar well understood it when he said of him: “All that he wills he
means.”[325]
Two friends who resembled each other so little must naturally have
clashed at every opportunity. Their first differences were literary. It
was a custom then at the bar to divide an important case among several
orators; each took the part best suited to his talents. Cicero, obliged
to appear often before the judges, went with his friends and pupils, and
gave out to them part of his work in order to be able to get through it.
He was often satisfied with keeping the peroration for himself, in which
his copious and impassioned eloquence was at home, and left them the
rest. It was thus that Brutus pleaded at his side and under his
direction. Brutus, however, was not of his school: a fanatical admirer
of Demosthenes, whose statue he had placed among those of his ancestors,
and nurtured on the study of the Attic masters, he sought to reproduce
their graceful severity and vigorous strength. Tacitus says that his
efforts were not always happy: by dint of avoiding ornament and pathos
he was dull and cold, and by too eagerly seeking precision and strength
he became dry and stiff. These faults were repugnant to Cicero, who
always saw in this type of eloquence, which was founding a school, a
criticism of his own, and tried by every means to convert Brutus; but he
did not succeed, and on this point they never agreed. After the death of
Caesar, and when something else than literary discussions was in
question, Brutus sent his friend the speech he had just delivered in the
Capitol, and begged him to correct it. Cicero took good care not to do
so: he knew too well by experience the self-esteem of the literary man
to run the risk of offending Brutus by trying to do better than he.
Besides, the speech seemed to him very fine, and he wrote to Atticus
that nothing could have been more graceful or better written. “Yet,”
added he, “if I had had to make it I should have put more passion in
it.”[326] Assuredly Brutus did not lack passion, but it was in him a
secret and repressed flame that only touched the nearest, and he
disliked to give the rein to those powerful emotions and that fiery
pathos without which one cannot carry away the multitude.
He was not then a docile follower of Cicero, and we may add that neither
was he an accommodating friend. He lacked pliancy in his relations with
others, and his tone was always rough and abrupt. At the commencement of
their intercourse, Cicero, accustomed to be treated with great respect
even by the highest personages, thought the letters of this young man
were curt and haughty, and felt hurt. This was not the only complaint he
had to make of him. We know the great consular’s irritable, suspicious
and exacting vanity; we know to what a degree he loved praise; he gave
it to himself liberally and he expected it from others, and if they were
slow in giving it he was not ashamed to ask for it. His friends were
generally indulgent to this harmless failing, and did not wait to be
invited by him to praise him. Brutus alone resisted; he prided himself
on his candour, and spoke out what he thought. Accordingly Cicero often
complains that he was chary of his praises; one day indeed he was
seriously angry with him. It was a question of the great consulship, and
of the discussion in consequence of which Lentulus and the accomplices
of Catiline were executed. This was the most vigorous action of Cicero’s
life, and he had a right to be proud of it, since he had paid for it
with exile. In the narrative that Brutus gave of the events of this day
he depreciated the part that Cicero had played in them to the advantage
of his uncle Cato. He only praised him for having punished the
conspiracy, without saying that he had discovered it, and contented
himself with calling him an _excellent consul_. “Poor praise!” said
Cicero angrily; “one would think it came from an enemy.”[327] But those
were only small differences arising from wounded self-esteem, which
might easily be made up; we must now mention a graver disagreement that
deserves to be dwelt upon, for it suggests some serious reflections on
the Roman society of that period.
In 702, that is to say, a short time after the commencement of his
relations with Brutus, Cicero went out as proconsul to Cilicia. He had
not sought this office, for he knew what difficulties he should find in
it. He set out decided to do his duty, and he could not do it without
bringing on his hands at the same time the patricians, his protectors,
and the knights, his _protégés_ and clients. In fact, patricians and
knights, usually enemies, agreed, with a singular unanimity, in
plundering the provinces. The knights, farmers of the public revenue,
had only one thought: to make a fortune in five years, the usual
duration of their contract. Consequently they exacted without mercy the
tax of a tenth on the productions of the soil, a twentieth on
merchandise at the ports, the harbour dues, the tax on pasture-lands in
the interior; in fact, all the tribute that Rome had imposed on the
conquered nations. Their greed respected nothing. Livy wrote this
terrible sentence about them: “Wherever the ‘publican’ penetrates, there
is no more justice or liberty for any one.”[328] It was very difficult
for the wretched cities to satisfy these insatiable financiers; almost
everywhere the municipal coffers, ill administered by incompetent, or
pillaged by dishonest magistrates, were empty. Money, however, had to be
found at any price. Now, of whom could they borrow it, except of the
bankers of Rome, who had been for a century the bankers of the whole
world? It was to them therefore that they applied. Some were rich enough
to draw from their private fortune money to lend to foreign cities, or
sovereigns, like that Rabirius Postumus, for whom Cicero had pleaded,
who furnished the king of Egypt with the money necessary to reconquer
his kingdom. Others, in order to run less risk, formed financial
companies, in which the most illustrious Romans invested their funds.
Thus, Pompey had a share for a considerable sum in one of those
joint-stock companies founded by Cluvius of Puteoli. All these
money-lenders, whether private individuals or companies, knights or
patricians, were very unscrupulous, and only advanced their money at
enormous interest, generally 4 or 5 per cent. per month. Their
difficulty consisted in getting paid. As it is only men who are quite
ruined who accept these hard terms, the money lent on such high interest
is always subject to risk. When the date of payment arrived the poor
city was less than ever in a position to pay: it employed a thousand
pettifogging tricks, spoke of complaining to the senate, and began by
appealing to the proconsul. Unfortunately for it, the proconsul was
usually an accomplice of its enemies, and took his share of their
profits. The creditors who had secured his co-operation by paying him
well, had then only to send into the province some freedman or agent who
represented them; the proconsul placed the public forces at the service
of private interests, gave this agent the title of his lieutenant, some
soldiers, and full powers, and if the insolvent town did not quickly
come to some satisfactory arrangement, it suffered the horrors of a
siege and of official pillage in time of peace. The proconsul who
refused to lend himself to these abuses, and who intended, according to
Cicero’s expression, to prevent the provinces perishing, naturally
aroused the anger of all those who lived by the ruin of the provinces.
The knights, the nobles, who no longer got their money, became his
deadly enemies. It is true he had the gratitude of his province, but
this did not amount to much. It had been remarked that, in those Eastern
countries “trained by a long servitude to loathsome flattery,”[329] the
governors who received most adulation, and to whom they raised most
statues were precisely those who had robbed the most, because they were
the most dreaded. Cicero’s predecessor had completely ruined Cilicia:
consequently they thought of building him a temple. These were some of
the difficulties to which an upright governor exposed himself. Cicero
extricated himself with honour. Seldom was a province so well
administered as his under the Roman republic; but he only brought back
from it some gratitude, little money, and many enemies, and very nearly
quarrelled with Brutus.
Brutus, though we can scarcely believe it, had a hand in this traffic.
He had lent money to Ariobarzanes, king of Armenia, one of those small
princes that Rome charitably allowed to live, and to the town of Salamis
in the island of Cyprus. At the moment of Cicero’s departure for his
province, Atticus, who himself, as we know, did not despise this species
of gain, recommended these two affairs to him very warmly; but Brutus
had invested his money badly, and it was not possible for Cicero to get
him repaid. Ariobarzanes had many creditors and paid none. “I cannot
imagine,” said Cicero, “any one poorer than this king, and anything more
miserable than this kingdom.”[330] Nothing could be got from him. As to
the business of Salamis, it was from the first still graver. Brutus had
not dared, at the beginning, to acknowledge that he was directly
interested in it, the usury was so enormous and the circumstances so
scandalous. A certain Scaptius, a friend of Brutus, had lent a large sum
to the inhabitants of Salamis at 4 per cent. per month. As they could
not repay it he had, according to custom, obtained from Appius, Cicero’s
predecessor, a company of cavalry, with which he held the senate of
Salamis so closely besieged that five senators had died of hunger. On
learning of this conduct Cicero was shocked, and hastened to recall the
soldiers of whom such bad use had been made. He only thought he was
hurting a _protégé_ of Brutus; but as the affair took a more serious
turn, Brutus showed his hand more openly, so that Cicero might show
himself more accommodating in arranging matters. As he saw that he had
no hope of being paid, except at a great reduction, he became quite
offended, and decided to let it be known that Scaptius was only a man of
straw, and that he himself was the real creditor of the Salaminians.
Cicero’s astonishment when he learnt this will be shared by everybody,
so much does Brutus’ action seem at variance with his whole conduct.
Certainly no one could doubt his disinterestedness and honesty. Some
years before, Cato had paid them a splendid tribute, when, not knowing
whom to trust, so rare were men of honour, he had appointed him to
collect the treasure of the king of Cyprus, and to carry it to Rome. Let
us be assured then, that if Brutus conducted himself as he had done
towards the Salaminians, it was because he thought he might legitimately
do so. He followed the example of others, he yielded to an opinion that
was universal around him. The provinces were still considered as
conquered countries by the Romans of that time. They had been conquered
too short a time for the remembrance of their defeat to be obliterated.
It was supposed that they also had not forgotten it, which led to
distrust of them; in any case it was remembered, and the conquerors
always thought themselves armed with those terrible laws of war against
which no one in antiquity had protested. The property of the vanquished
belonging to the victor, far from blaming themselves for taking what
they took, they thought they gave whatever they did not take, and
perhaps at the bottom of their heart they thought they were generous in
leaving them anything. The provinces were regarded as the domains and
property of the Roman people (_praedia, agri fructuarii populi Romani_),
and they were treated accordingly. When they consented to spare them it
was not through pity or affection, but through prudence, and in
imitation of good landowners who take care not to exhaust their fields
by over-cultivation. This was the meaning of the laws made under the
republic to protect the provinces; humanity had a smaller share in them
than well-considered interest, which, in exercising a certain restraint
on the present, is mindful of the future. Evidently Brutus fully
accepted this way of looking at the rights of the conqueror and the
condition of the vanquished. In this we touch one of the greatest
failings of this upright but narrow soul. Brought up in the selfish
ideas of the Roman aristocracy, he had not sufficient breadth or
elevation of mind to perceive their iniquity; he followed them without
hesitation till the time that his natural mildness and humanity got the
better of the recollections of his education, and the traditions of his
class. The mode in which he behaved in the provinces that he governed
shows that all his life there was a struggle between the integrity of
his nature and these imperious prejudices. After having ruined the
Salaminians by his usury, he governed Cisalpine Gaul with a
disinterestedness that did him honour, and while he had made himself
detested in the island of Cyprus, the remembrance of his beneficent
administration was preserved in Milan even to the time of Augustus. The
same contrast is found in the last campaign; he wept with grief at
seeing the inhabitants of Xanthus persist in destroying their city, and
on the eve of Philippi he promised his soldiers the pillage of
Thessalonica and Lacedaemon. This is the single grave fault that
Plutarch finds to censure in his whole life; it was the last awakening
of an inveterate prejudice of which he could never get rid
notwithstanding his uprightness of mind, and which shows the sway that
the society in which his birth had placed him, exercised over him to the
last.
Yet this influence was not felt then by everybody. Cicero, who, being a
“new man,” could more easily protect himself against the tyranny of
tradition, had always shown more humanity towards the provinces, and
blamed the scandalous gains that were drawn from them. In a letter to
his brother he boldly proclaimed this principle,[331] then altogether
new, that they must not be governed in the exclusive interest of the
Roman people, but also in their own interest, and in such a manner as to
give them the greatest amount of happiness and well-being that was
possible. This is what he tried to do in Cilicia: accordingly he was
very much hurt by the action of Brutus, and flatly refused to have
anything to do with it, although Atticus, whose conscience was more
elastic, warmly begged him to do so. “I am sorry,” he replied, “that I
am not able to please Brutus, and still more so to find him so different
from what I had thought him.”[332] “If he condemns me,” he said
elsewhere, “I do not want such friends. At least I am certain that his
uncle Cato will not condemn me.”[333]
These were bitter words, and their friendship would no doubt have
suffered much from these disputes if the grave events which supervened
had not drawn them together again. Cicero had scarcely returned to Italy
when the civil war, so long foreseen, broke out. Private differences had
to disappear before this great conflict. Besides, Cicero and Brutus were
united by a singular community of feelings. Both had gone to Pompey’s
camp, but both had done so without enthusiasm or eagerness, as a
sacrifice demanded by duty. Brutus loved Caesar, who showed him a
paternal affection on all occasions, and moreover he detested Pompey.
Besides the fact that his pompous vanity displeased him, he could not
forgive the death of his father, killed during the civil wars of Sulla.
Yet, in this public danger, he forgot his personal likings and hatreds,
and went to Thessaly, where the consuls and senate were already. We know
that he made himself remarked for his zeal in Pompey’s camp;[334] many
things however happened there which must have displeased him, and no
doubt he thought that too many personal rancours and ambitions were
mixed up with the cause of liberty which alone he wished to defend. This
also displeased his friend Cicero and his brother-in-law Cassius, and
these two last, indignant at the language of those madmen who surrounded
Pompey, resolved not to pursue the war to extremes as others wished to
do. “I still remember,” Cicero wrote later to Cassius, “those familiar
conversations in which, after long deliberation, we made up our minds to
allow our action, if not the abstract justice of our cause, to be
determined by the result of a single battle.”[335] We do not know
whether Brutus was present at these conversations of his two friends;
but it is certain that all three behaved in the same manner. Cicero, on
the day after Pharsalia, refused the command of the republican army;
Cassius hastened to hand over the fleet he commanded to Caesar; as to
Brutus, he did his duty as a brave man during the battle; but, the
battle over, he thought he had done enough, and went over to the
conqueror, who welcomed him joyfully, took him apart in confidential
conversation, and succeeded in obtaining some information about Pompey’s
retreat. After this conversation Brutus was completely gained over; not
only did he not go and rejoin the republicans who were fighting in
Africa, but he followed Caesar to the conquest of Egypt and of Asia.
II.
Brutus was thirty-seven years old at the battle of Pharsalia. This was
the age of political activity among the Romans. Usually a man had then
just been quaestor or aedile; he might look forward to the praetorship
and the consulship, and acquired a right to gain them by courageously
contending in the Forum or the Curia. The brightest hope of every young
man on entering public life was to obtain these high honours at the age
appointed by law, the praetorship at forty and the consulship at
forty-three, and nothing was thought to give greater distinction than to
be able to say, “I was praetor or consul as soon as I had the right to
be so (_meo anno_).” If by good luck, while a man held these offices,
fortune favoured him by some considerable war that gave an opportunity
of killing five thousand enemies, he obtained a triumph and had nothing
more to wish for.
There is no doubt that Brutus had conceived this hope like the rest, and
it is certain that his birth and his talents would have permitted him to
realize it; Pharsalia upset all these projects. He was not precluded
from honours, for he was the friend of him who distributed them; but
these honours were now only empty titles, since one man had seized all
real power. This man really aimed at being sole master, and admitted no
one to share his authority. “He does not even consult his own friends,”
says Cicero, “and only takes counsel of himself.”[336] Political life
did not exist for the rest, and even those whom the new government
employed felt time hang heavy on their hands, especially after the
violent agitations of the preceding years. God, according to Virgil’s
expression, gave leisure to everybody. Brutus employed this leisure by
returning to the studies of his youth, which he had rather interrupted
than forsaken. To return to them was to draw still nearer to Cicero.
He had not indeed forgotten him; while following Caesar in Asia he had
learnt that his friend, having retired to Brundusium, suffered at once
from the threats of the Caesarians, who did not forgive his going to
Pharsalia, and from the ill-will of the Pompeians, who blamed him for
having returned too quickly. Amidst all this irritation, Cicero, who, as
we know, had not much energy, was very downcast. Brutus wrote to him to
encourage him. “You have performed actions,” said he, “which will speak
of you, notwithstanding your silence, which will live after your death,
and which, by the safety of the state, if the state is saved, by its
loss, if it is not saved, will for ever bear witness in favour of your
political conduct.”[337] Cicero says that in reading this letter he
seemed to recover from a long illness, and to open his eyes to the
light. When Brutus returned to Rome, their intercourse became more
frequent. Knowing each other better they appreciated each other more.
Cicero, whose imagination was so lively, whose heart was so youthful, in
spite of his sixty years, became entirely enamoured of Brutus. This
constant communication with a mind so inquiring and a soul so upright,
reanimated and revived his talents. His friend always holds a large
place in the fine works that he published at that time, which succeeded
each other so rapidly. We see that his heart is full of him, he speaks
of him as often as he can, he is never weary of praising him, he wishes
to please him before everything; one would almost say that he cares only
for the praises and friendship of Brutus.
It was the study of philosophy that united them above all. Both loved
and cultivated it from their youth, both seemed to love it more and to
cultivate it more ardently when the concentration of the government in
one hand had removed them from public life. Cicero, who could not
accustom himself to repose, turned all his activity towards it. “Greece
is getting old,” he said to his pupils and friends, “let us snatch from
her her philosophical glory;”[338] and he at once set about the work. He
groped about for some time, and did not immediately hit upon the
philosophy that was suitable to his fellow-countrymen. He had been
tempted for a moment to direct their attention towards those subtle
metaphysical questions that were repugnant to the practical good sense
of the Romans. He had translated the _Timaeus_, that is to say, the most
obscure thing in Plato’s philosophy; but he quickly perceived that he
was mistaken, and hastened to quit that path in which he would have
walked alone. In the Tusculan Disputations he returned to questions of
applied morality and did not leave them again. The diverse characters of
the passions, the real nature of virtue, the relative rank of duties,
all those problems that a virtuous man proposes to himself during his
life; above all, that before which he so often draws back, but which
always returns with a terrible persistency and troubles at times the
most gross and earthly souls, the future after death; this is what he
studies without tricks of dialectical skill, without the prejudices of a
school, without a preconceived system, and with less anxiety to discover
new ideas than to accept practical and sensible principles wherever he
found them. Such is the character of Roman philosophy, of which we must
be careful not to speak ill, for it has played a great part in the
world, and it is through it that the wisdom of the Greeks, rendered at
once more solid and yet more clear, has come down to the nations of the
West. This philosophy dates from Pharsalia, like the empire, and owes
much to the victory of Caesar, who, by suppressing political life,
forced inquiring minds to seek other subjects for their activity.
Welcomed at first, with enthusiasm, by all minds unoccupied and ill at
ease, it became more and more popular in proportion as the authority of
the emperors became more oppressive. To the absolute authority that the
government exercised over external actions they were glad to oppose the
entire self-possession that philosophy gives; to study oneself, to
withdraw into oneself was to escape on one side from the tyranny of the
master, and in seeking to know oneself the ground to which his power had
no access seemed to be enlarged. The emperors understood this well; and
were the mortal enemies of a science that was so bold as to limit their
authority. Along with history, which recalled disagreeable memories, it
soon fell under their suspicion; they were two names, said Tacitus,
unpleasing to princes, _ingrata principibus nomina_.
I have not here to show why all the philosophical works composed at the
end of the republic or under the empire have a much greater importance
than the books we write now on the same subjects: this has been too well
told already for me to have need to return to it.[339] It is certain
that during that time when religion was confined to ritual, when its
books only contained collections of formulae and the minute regulations
of observances, and when it did not go beyond teaching its adepts the
science of sacrificing according to the rites, philosophy alone could
give to all virtuous and troubled souls which were tossed about without
definite aim and were desirous of finding one, that teaching of which
they had need. We must not forget, then, when we read an ethical
treatise of that time, that it was written not only for lettered idlers
who are delighted with fine discourses, but for those whom Lucretius
represents as groping after the way of life; we must remind ourselves
that these precepts have been practised, that theories became rules of
conduct, and that, so to say, all this ethical theory was once alive.
Let us take for example the first Tusculan Disputation: Cicero wishes to
prove in it that death is not an evil. What a trite remark in
appearance, and how difficult it is not to regard all this elaborated
treatment as an oratorical exercise and an essay for the schools! It is
nothing of the kind however, and the generation for whom it was written
found something else in it. Men read it on the eve of the proscriptions
to renew their strength, and came from their reading firmer, more
resolute, better prepared to support the great misfortunes that they
foresaw. Atticus himself, the egotist Atticus, so far removed from
risking his life for anybody, found in them the source of an unusual
energy. “You tell me,” Cicero writes to him, “that my Tusculans give you
courage: so much the better. There is no surer and speedier resource
against circumstances than that which I indicate.”[340] This resource
was death. How many people accordingly availed themselves of it! Never
has a more incredible contempt of life been seen, never has death caused
less fear. Since Cato, suicide became a contagion, a frenzy. The
vanquished, Juba, Petreius, Scipio, know no other way of escaping the
conqueror. Laterensis kills himself through regret when he sees his
friend Lepidus betray the republic; Scapula, who can no longer hold out
in Cordova, has a funeral pyre constructed, and burns himself alive;
when Decimus Brutus, a fugitive, hesitates to choose this heroic remedy,
his friend Blasius kills himself before him in order to set him an
example. It was a veritable delirium at Philippi. Even those who might
have escaped did not seek to survive their defeat. Quintilius Varus put
on the insignia of his rank, and had himself killed by a slave; Labeo
dug his own grave and killed himself on its brink; Cato the younger, for
fear of being spared, threw away his helmet and shouted his name;
Cassius was impatient, and killed himself too soon; Brutus closes the
list by a suicide, astonishing by its calmness and dignity. What a
strange and frightful commentary on the Tusculans, and how clearly this
general truth, thus put in practice by so many men of spirit, ceases to
be a mere platitude!
We must study in the same spirit the very short fragments that remain of
the philosophical works of Brutus. The general thoughts that we find in
them will no longer appear insignificant and vague when we think that he
who formulated them also intended to put them in practice in his life.
The most celebrated of all these writings of Brutus, the treatise _On
Virtue_, was addressed to Cicero, and is worthy of them both. It was a
fine work that was especially pleasing because it was felt that the
writer was thoroughly convinced of all that he said.[341] An important
passage preserved by Seneca survives. In this passage Brutus relates
that he had just seen M. Marcellus at Mitylene, the same whom Caesar
pardoned later at the request of Cicero. He found him employed in
serious studies, easily forgetting Rome and its pleasures, and enjoying
in this tranquillity and leisure a happiness that he had never known
before. “When I had to leave him,” says he, “and saw that I was going
away without him, it seemed to me that it was I who was going into
exile, and not Marcellus, who remained there.”[342] From this example he
concludes that a man must not complain of being exiled since he can
carry all his virtue with him. The moral of the book was that to live
happily one need not go outside of oneself. This is another truism, if
you like; but, in trying to conform his whole life to this maxim, Brutus
made it a living truth. It was not a philosophical thesis that he
developed, but a rule of conduct that he proposed to others and took for
himself. He was early accustomed to commune with his own thoughts, and
to place in this his pleasures and pains. Thence came that freedom of
mind that he preserved in the gravest affairs, that contempt for outward
things that all his contemporaries remarked, and the ease with which he
detached himself from them. On the eve of Pharsalia, when every one was
restless and uneasy, he was tranquilly reading Polybius and taking notes
while awaiting the moment of combat. After the Ides of March, in the
midst of the excitement and fears of his friends, he alone preserved a
constant serenity that rather annoyed Cicero. Driven away from Rome and
threatened by Caesar’s veterans, he consoled himself for everything by
saying: “There is nothing better than to rest upon the memory of one’s
good actions, and not to busy oneself with events or men.”[343] This
capacity for abstraction from outward things and this self-sufficingness
are certainly valuable qualities in a man of reflection and study: it is
the ideal that a philosopher proposes to himself; but is it not a danger
and a fault in a man of action and a politician? Is it right for a man
to hold himself aloof from the opinions of others when the success of
the things he undertakes depends upon their opinions? Under pretence of
listening to one’s conscience, and resolutely following it, ought a man
to take no account of circumstances, and risk himself heedlessly in
useless adventures? Indeed, by wishing to keep aloof from the multitude,
and preserve himself entirely from its passions, does he not risk the
loss of the tie that binds him to it and becoming incapable of leading
it? Appian, in the narrative that he gives of the last campaign of the
Republican army, relates that Brutus was always self-possessed, and that
he kept himself almost aloof from the grave affairs that were discussed.
He liked conversation and reading; he visited as a connoisseur the
places they passed through, and made the people of the country talk to
him: he was a philosopher in the midst of camps. Cassius, on the
contrary, occupied solely with the war, never allowing himself to be
turned aside, and, so to say, wholly intent upon that end, resembled a
fighting gladiator.[344] I suspect that Brutus must have rather
disdained that feverish activity entirely confined to ordinary duties,
and that this _rôle_ of gladiator made him smile. He was wrong; success
in human things belongs to the gladiator, and a man only succeeds by
throwing his whole soul into them. As to those speculative men, wrapped
up in themselves, who wish to keep outside of and above the passions of
the day, they astonish the multitude but do not lead it; they may be
sages, they make very bad party leaders.
And further, it is very possible that Brutus, if left to himself, would
not have thought of becoming a party leader. He was not hostile to the
new government, and Caesar had neglected no opportunity of attaching him
to himself by granting him the pardon of some of the very much
compromised Pompeians. On his return to Rome he confided to him the
government of one of the finest provinces of the empire, Cisalpine Gaul.
About the same time the news came of the defeat of the republican army
at Thapsus, and the death of Cato. No doubt Brutus felt it very much. He
himself wrote and persuaded Cicero to compose the eulogy of his uncle;
but we know from Plutarch that he blamed him for refusing Caesar’s
clemency. When Marcellus, who had just obtained his pardon, was
assassinated near Athens, some persons affected to believe and to say
that Caesar might well have been an accomplice in this crime. Brutus
hastened to write, with a warmth that surprised Cicero, to exculpate
him. He was at that time, then, quite under the spell of Caesar. We may
add that he had taken a horror of civil war in Pompey’s camp. It had
carried off some of his dearest friends, for instance Torquatus and
Triarius, two young men of great promise, whose loss he bitterly
regretted. In thinking of the disorders it had caused, and of the
victims it had made, he no doubt said with his friend, the philosopher
Favonius: “It is better to endure arbitrary power than to revive impious
wars.”[345] How, then, did he allow himself to be drawn on to recommence
them? By what clever conspiracy did his friends succeed in overcoming
his repugnance, in arming him against a man he loved, in involving him
in an enterprise that was to throw the world into confusion? This
deserves to be related, and Cicero’s letters allow us to catch a glimpse
of it.
III.
After Pharsalia, there was no want of malcontents. That great
aristocracy that had governed the world so long, could not consider
itself beaten after a single defeat. It was so much the more natural
that it should wish to make a last effort, as it was well aware that,
the first time, it had not fought under favourable conditions, and that,
in uniting its cause to Pompey’s, it had placed itself in a bad
position. Pompey inspired little more confidence in those who desired
liberty than Caesar. It was known that he had a taste for extraordinary
powers, and that he liked to concentrate all public authority in his
hands. At the commencement of the civil war he had rejected the most
just proposals with so much haughtiness, and shown so much ardour in
precipitating the crisis, that he seemed rather to wish to get rid of a
rival who hampered him than to come to the aid of the threatened
republic. His friend Cicero tells us that when the insolence of his
associates, and his own persistency in not taking advice from any one,
were seen in his camp, it was suspected that a man who took counsel so
ill before the battle would wish to make himself master after the
victory. That is why so many good citizens, and Cicero among the chief,
had hesitated so long to take his part; that is, above all, why intrepid
men like Brutus had hastened to lay down their arms after the first
defeat. It must be added that, if they were not perfectly satisfied
about Pompey’s intentions, it was also possible they might be mistaken
about Caesar’s projects. No one was ignorant that he wished for power;
but what kind of power? Was it only one of those temporary
dictatorships, necessary in free states after a period of anarchy, which
suspend liberty but do not annihilate it? Was it a question of repeating
the history of Marius and Sulla, whom the republic had survived? In
strictness it might be thought so, and nothing prevents us supposing
that several of Caesar’s officers, those especially who, when undeceived
later, conspired against him, did not think so then.
But after Pharsalia there was no longer any means of preserving this
illusion. Caesar did not demand an exceptional authority; he aspired to
found a new government. Had he not been heard to say that “republic” was
a word void of meaning, and that Sulla was a fool to have abdicated the
dictatorship? His measures for regulating the exercise of the popular
suffrage in his own interest, the choice that he had made in advance of
consuls and praetors for several years running, the delivery of the
public treasure and the administration of the revenue of the state by
his freedmen and slaves, the union of all dignities in his own person,
the censorship under the name of praefecture of morals, the perpetual
dictatorship, which did not prevent him getting himself appointed consul
every year; everything, in fine, in his laws and in his conduct
indicated a definitive taking possession of power. Far from taking any
of those precautions to hide the extent of his authority that Augustus
employed later, he seemed to exhibit it with complacency, and without
concerning himself about the enemies that his frankness might make him.
On the contrary, by a sort of ironical scepticism and bold impertinence,
that betrayed the great nobleman, he loved to shock the fanatical
partisans of ancient usages. He smiled at seeing pontifs and augurs
scared when he dared to deny the gods in full senate, and it was his
amusement to disconcert those ceremonious old men, the superstitious
guardians of ancient practices. Further, as he was a man of pleasure
before all things, he loved power not only for the sake of exercising
it, but also to enjoy its fruits; he was not contented with the reality
of sovereign authority, he wished also for its outward signs, the
splendour that surrounds it, the homage it exacts, the pomp that sets it
off, and even the name that designates it. He knew well how much that
title of king that he so ardently desired frightened the Romans; but his
hardihood took pleasure in braving old prejudices at the same time that
his candour no doubt thought it more honourable to give its real name to
the power he exercised. The result of this conduct of Caesar was to
dissipate all doubts. Thanks to it, illusion or misunderstanding was no
longer possible. The question was now, not between two ambitious rivals,
as at the time of Pharsalia, but between two opposite forms of
government. Opinions, as sometimes happens, became clearly defined one
by the other, and the intention of founding a monarchy, which Caesar
openly avowed, brought about the creation of a great republican party.
How was it that in this party the boldest and most violent men formed
the idea of uniting and organizing themselves? How, with growing
confidence, did they come to form a plot against the life of the
dictator? It is impossible to find this out exactly. All that we know is
that the first idea of the plot had been formed at the same time in two
quite opposite parties, among the vanquished of Pharsalia, and, what is
more surprising, among Caesar’s generals themselves. These two
conspiracies were probably distinct in origin, and each acted on its own
account: while Cassius was thinking of killing Caesar on the banks of
the Cydnus, Trebonius had been on the point of assassinating him at
Narbonne. They finally united.
Every party begins by seeking a leader. If they had wished to continue
the traditions of the preceding war, this leader was already at hand.
Sextus, a son of Pompey, remained. He had escaped by a miracle from
Pharsalia and Munda, and had survived all his family. Conquered, but not
discouraged, he wandered in the mountains or along the shores, by turns
an able partisan or a bold pirate, and the obstinate Pompeians united
around him. But men no longer desired to be of a Pompeian party. They
wished to have some one for chief who represented not merely a name but
a principle, one who should represent the republic and liberty without
any personal reservations. It was necessary that he should be in
complete opposition to the government they were going to attack, by his
life, his manners, and his character. He must be upright, because the
power was corrupt, disinterested, in order to protest against the
insatiable greed that surrounded Caesar, already illustrious, in order
that the different elements of which the party was composed should give
way to him, and still young, for they had need of a bold stroke. Now,
there was only one man who united all these qualities, namely Brutus.
Consequently, the eyes of every one were fixed on him. The public voice
marked him out as the chief of the republican party while he was still
the friend of Caesar. When the first conspirators went to all quarters
seeking accomplices, they always received the same answer: “We will join
you if Brutus will lead us.” Caesar himself, notwithstanding his
confidence and his friendship, seemed sometimes to have a presentiment
whence the danger would come to him. One day when they were trying to
alarm him with the discontent and threats of Antony and Dolabella: “No,”
he replied, “those debauchees are not to be feared; it is the thin and
pale men.” He meant chiefly to indicate Brutus.
To this pressure of public opinion, which wished to direct the action of
Brutus, and to implicate him without his assent, it was necessary to add
more formal exhortations in order to persuade him; they came to him from
all sides. I have no need to recall those notes that he found in his
tribunal, those inscriptions that were placed at the foot of his
grandfather’s statue,[346] and all those clever manœuvres that Plutarch
has so well narrated. But no one better served the designs of those who
wished to make Brutus a conspirator than Cicero, who, however, did not
know them. His letters show us the disposition of his mind at that time.
Spite, anger, regret for lost liberty break out in them with singular
vivacity. “I am ashamed of being a slave,”[347] he wrote one day to
Cassius, without suspecting that at that very moment Cassius was
secretly searching for the means of being so no longer. It was
impossible that these sentiments should not come to light in the books
he published at that time. We find them there now that we read them in
cold blood; much more must they have been seen when these books were
commented on by hatred and read with eyes rendered penetrating by
passion. How many epigrams were then appreciated which now escape us!
What stinging and bitter words, unperceived now, were then applauded and
maliciously repeated in those conversations where the master and his
friends were pulled to pieces! There was in them what Cicero wittily
calls “the bite of liberty which never tears better than when she has
been muzzled for some time.”[348] With a little effort we find allusions
everywhere. If the author spoke with so much admiration of the ancient
eloquence, it was because he wished to put to shame that deserted Forum
and that mute senate; the memories of the old government were only
recalled in order to attack the new one, and the praise of the dead
became the satire of the living. Cicero well understood the whole import
of his books when he said of them later: “They served me as a senate or
a rostrum from which I could speak.”[349] Nothing served more to stir up
public opinion, to put regret for the past and disgust for the present
into men’s minds, and thus to prepare the events which were to follow.
Brutus must have been more moved than any one else in reading Cicero’s
writings; they were dedicated to him; they were written for him.
Although they were meant to influence the whole public, they contained
passages addressed more directly to him. Cicero not only sought to
arouse his patriotic sentiments; he recalled the memories and hopes of
his youth. With perfidious skill he even interested his vanity in the
restoration of the ancient government by pointing out what a position he
might make for himself in it. “Brutus,” he said, “I feel my grief revive
when I look upon you and consider how the unhappy fate of the republic
has arrested the rapid advance to glory which we anticipated in your
youth. This is the true cause of my sorrow, this is the cause of my
cares and of those of Atticus, who shares in my esteem and affection for
you. You are the object of all our interest, we desire that you should
reap the fruits of your virtue; our most earnest wishes are that the
conditions of the republic may permit you one day to revive and increase
the glory of the two illustrious houses you represent. You ought to be
master in the Forum and reign there without a rival; we are, in truth,
doubly afflicted, that the republic is lost for you, and you for the
republic.”[350] Such regrets, expressed in this fashion, and with this
mixture of private and public interests, were well calculated to disturb
Brutus. Antony was not altogether wrong when he accused Cicero of having
been an accomplice in the death of Caesar. If he did not himself strike,
he armed the hands that struck, and the conspirators were perfectly
right when, on coming from the senate house, after the Ides of March,
they brandished their bloody swords and called aloud upon Cicero.
To these incitements from without there were added others of a still
more powerful kind from Brutus’ own household. His mother had always
used the influence she had over him to draw him towards Caesar; but just
at this critical time Servilia’s influence was lessened by the marriage
of Brutus with his cousin Porcia. Daughter of Cato and widow of Bibulus,
Porcia brought into her new home, all the passions of her father and her
first husband, and especially hatred of Caesar, who had caused all her
misfortunes. She had scarcely entered when disagreements arose between
her and her mother-in-law. Cicero, who tells us of them, does not relate
to us their cause; but it is not rash to suppose that these two women
contended for the affection of Brutus, and that they wished to rule him
that they might draw him in different directions. Servilia’s influence
no doubt lost something in these domestic discussions, and her voice,
opposed by the advice of a new and beloved wife, had no longer the same
authority when it spoke for Caesar.
Thus everything combined to lead Brutus on. Let us conceive this
hesitating and scrupulous man attacked on so many sides at once, by the
incitements of public opinion, by memories of the past, by the
traditions of his family and the very name he bore, by those secret
reproaches placed under his hands and scattered on his path, which came
every moment to strike his inattentive eyes, to murmur in his heedless
ear, and then finding at home the same memories and the same reproaches
under the form of legitimate sorrows and touching regrets. Must he not
at last give way to this daily assault? Nevertheless it is probable that
he resisted before giving in, that he had violent struggles during those
sleepless nights that Plutarch speaks of; but as these private struggles
could have no confidants they have left no trace in the historians.
All that we can do if we wish to know them is, to try and find their
faint impression in the letters that Brutus wrote later, and that are
preserved. We see, for instance, that he returns at two different times
to this same thought: “Our ancestors thought that we ought not to endure
a tyrant even if he were our own father.[351]... To have more authority
than the laws and the senate is a right that I would not grant to my
father himself.”[352] Is not this the answer which he made every time he
felt himself moved by the memory of Caesar’s paternal affection, when he
reflected that this man against whom he was about to take arms called
him his child? As to the favours that he had received or that he might
expect from him, they might have been able to disarm another, but he
hardened and stiffened himself against them. “No slavery is advantageous
enough to make me abandon the resolution to be free.”[353] It was with
such considerations that he defended himself against the friends of the
dictator, perhaps against his mother, when in order to dazzle him she
pointed out to him that, if he would acquiesce in the kingship of Caesar
he might hope to share it. He would never have consented to pay with his
liberty the right to domineer over others; the bargain would have been
too disadvantageous. “It is better to command no one than to be a
slave,” he wrote. “A man can live without commanding, but life as a
slave is worthless.”[354]
In the midst of all these anxieties of which no one could know, an event
happened which very much surprised the public, and which Cicero’s
letters relate without explanation. When it was known that Caesar was
returning to Rome after his victory over Pompey, Brutus went to meet him
with an alacrity that everybody remarked, and that many people blamed.
What was his intention? A few words of Cicero, to which sufficient
attention has not been paid, allow us to guess. Before taking a definite
resolution, Brutus wished to make a last appeal to Caesar, and to try
once more to draw him towards the republic. He made a point of
commending to him the men of the vanquished party, and especially
Cicero, in the hope that they might be recalled to public office. Caesar
listened kindly to these praises, welcomed Brutus, and did not
discourage him too much. The latter, with too easy confidence, hastened
to return to Rome, and announce to every one that Caesar was coming back
to the party of honest men. He went so far as to advise Cicero to
address a political letter to the dictator, which should contain some
good advice and make some advances; but Cicero did not share in his
friend’s hopes, and after a little hesitation, refused to write. In
truth, Brutus’ illusions did not last long. Antony had anticipated him
with Caesar. Antony, who by his follies had disturbed the tranquillity
of Rome, had much to be pardoned for; but he well knew the means of
succeeding in this. While Brutus was trying to bring Caesar and the
republicans together, and thought he had succeeded, Antony, in order to
soften his master, flattered his most cherished wishes, and no doubt
made that crown which he so anxiously desired, glitter before his eyes.
The scene of the Lupercalia showed clearly that Antony had carried the
day and it was no longer possible for Brutus to doubt Caesar’s
intentions. Antony’s plan, indeed, did not succeed this time: the cries
of the multitude, and the opposition of the two tribunes, forced Caesar
to refuse the diadem that was offered him; but it was well known that
this check had not discouraged him. The occasion was only deferred, and
was about to present itself again. With regard to the Parthian war, an
old Sybilline oracle which said that the Parthians would only be
conquered by a king was to be brought before the senate, and this title
was to be demanded for Caesar. Now there were too many foreigners and
too many cowards in the senate to admit of the answer being doubtful.
This was the moment that Cassius chose to reveal to Brutus the plot that
was being hatched, and to ask him to be its head.
Cassius, whose name becomes from this moment inseparable from that of
Brutus, formed a complete contrast to him. He had gained a great
military reputation by saving the remains of Crassus’ army and driving
the Parthians from Syria; but at the same time he was charged with being
fond of pleasure, an epicurean in doctrine and conduct, eager for power,
and not very scrupulous about the means of gaining it. He had pillaged
the province he governed, like almost all the proconsuls; it was said
that Syria had found little advantage in being saved by him, and would
almost as soon have passed into the hands of the Parthians. Cassius was
bitter in raillery, uneven in temper, hasty, sometimes cruel,[355] and
we can well understand that he would not have shrunk from an
assassination; but whence came the idea of killing Caesar? Plutarch says
that it was through spite at not having obtained the urban praetorship
which the dictator’s favour had accorded to Brutus, and indeed, nothing
prevents us thinking that personal resentment had embittered that
impetuous spirit. Yet if Cassius had only this insult to avenge it is
not probable that he would have acted in concert with the man who had
been a party to it and had profited by it. He had quite other motives
for hating Caesar. An aristocrat by birth and temper, his heart was full
of the hatred felt by the vanquished aristocracy; he must have a bloody
revenge for the defeat of his party, and Caesar’s pardon had not
extinguished the anger that the sight of his oppressed caste aroused in
him. Thus, while Brutus sought to be the man of a principle, Cassius was
openly the man of a party. It seems that he early had the idea of
avenging Pharsalia by an assassination. At least, Cicero says that, a
very few months after he had obtained his pardon, he waited for Caesar
on one bank of the Cydnus to kill him, and that Caesar was saved only by
the accident that made him land on the other bank. He resumed his
purpose at Rome, notwithstanding the favours of which he had been the
object. It was he who got up the conspiracy, sought out the malcontents,
and brought them together in secret meetings; and as he saw that they
all demanded Brutus for leader, he took upon himself to speak to him.
They were still at variance in consequence of their rivalry for the
urban praetorship. Cassius put his resentment aside and visited his
brother-in-law. “He took him by the hand,” as Appian relates, and said:
“‘What shall we do if Caesar’s flatterers propose to make him king?’
Brutus answered that he purposed not to go to the senate. ‘What?’
replied Cassius. ‘If we are summoned in our capacity as praetors, what
must we do then?’ ‘I will defend the republic,’ said the other, ‘to the
last.’ ‘Will you not then,’ replied Cassius, embracing him, ‘take some
of the senators, as parties to your designs? Do you think it is
worthless and mercenary people, or the chief citizens of Rome who place
on your tribunal the writings you find there? They expect games, races
or hunting spectacles from the other praetors; what they demand of you
is that you should restore liberty to Rome, as your ancestors
did.’”[356] These words completely gained over a mind that so many
private and public solicitations had unsettled for so long. Still
hesitating, but already almost gained, it only waited to find itself
face to face with a firm resolution in order to yield.
At last the conspiracy had a leader, and there was no longer any reason
to hesitate or to wait. To avoid indiscretions or weaknesses it was
necessary to act quickly. Cassius had revealed everything to Brutus a
short time after the feast of the Lupercalia, which was kept on February
15, and less than a month after, on March 15, Caesar was struck down in
the curia of Pompey.
IV.
Brutus was in reality the head of the conspiracy, although he had not
formed the first idea of it. Cassius alone, who had formed it, could
dispute the right of conducting it with him, and perhaps he had for an
instant the intention of doing so. We see that at first he proposed a
plan in which all the violence of his character is shown. He wished
that, with Caesar, they should kill his chief friends, and especially
Antony. Brutus refused, and the other conspirators were of his mind.
Cassius himself yielded at last, for it must be remarked that, although
imperious and haughty, he submitted to the ascendency of Brutus. He
tried several times to escape from it; but after many threats and fits
of anger, he felt himself overcome by the cold reasoning of his friend,
and it was Brutus who really conducted the whole enterprise.
This is clearly seen, and in the manner in which it was conceived and
executed we find his character and turn of mind. We have not an ordinary
conspiracy before us, we have not to do with professional conspirators,
with men of violence and adventures. They are not vulgarly ambitious men
who covet the fortune or honours of others, nor even madmen whom
political hatred misleads even to frenzy. No doubt these sentiments were
found in the hearts of many of the conspirators; historians say so, but
Brutus forced them to lie hid. He made a point of accomplishing his
action with a sort of quiet dignity. It was the system alone that he
aimed at; he was animated by no hatred against the man. After having
struck him he does not insult him; he permits, in spite of many
objections, his funeral to be celebrated, and his will to be read to the
people. What occupies his thoughts most of all is that he should not
appear to work for himself or his friends, and to avoid all suspicion of
personal ambition or party interest. Such was this conspiracy in which
men of very different characters took part, but which bears the imprint
of Brutus’ own mind. His influence is not less perceptible on the events
that followed it. He did not act at random, although Cicero accused him
of doing so, and everybody repeats it; he had formed in advance a rule
of conduct for the future, he had a well-defined plan. Unfortunately it
was found that this plan, conceived in solitary reflection, far from the
intercourse and acquaintance of men, could not be followed out. It was
the work of a logician who reasons, who purposes to conduct himself in
the midst of a revolution as in ordinary times, and wishes to introduce
the narrow respect for legality even into a work of violence. He
acknowledged that he was mistaken, and he had to give up successively
all his scruples; but, as he had not the pliability of the politician
who knows how to submit to necessity he gave way too late, with a bad
grace, and always looked back with regret to the fine projects he had
been forced to abandon. Thence came his hesitation and incoherence. It
has been said that he failed through not having had an exact plan in
advance; I think, on the contrary, that he did not succeed through
wishing to be too faithful to the chimerical plan he had conceived,
notwithstanding the lessons given by events. A rapid recital of the
facts will suffice to show that it was this which caused the loss of
himself and his party, and made the blood that was shed useless.
After the death of Caesar, the conspirators came out of the senate
house, brandishing their swords, and calling on the people. The people
listened to them with surprise, without much anger, but without any
sympathy. Seeing themselves alone, they went up to the Capitol, where
they could defend themselves, and shut themselves in under the guard of
some gladiators. They were joined only by some doubtful friends who
always join parties when they are successful. If there had been little
eagerness to follow them there was still less desire to attack them.
Caesar’s partisans were scared. Antony had thrown off his consul’s robe
and hidden himself. Dolabella affected to appear joyful, and let it be
understood that he also was one of the conspirators. Many left Rome in
haste, and fled into the country; yet, when they saw that all remained
quiet, and that the conspirators were contented with making speeches in
the Capitol, courage returned to the most timid. The fear that this bold
action had caused gave place to surprise at such strange inaction. The
next day Antony had resumed his consular robes, reassembled his friends,
and recovered his audacity, and it was necessary to reckon with him.
“They have acted,” said Cicero, “with manly courage, but childish
judgment; _animo virili, consilio puerili_.”[357] It is certain that
they seemed to have prepared nothing, and to have foreseen nothing. On
the evening of the Ides of March they were awaiting events without
having done anything to guide them. Was it, as has been said,
improvidence and levity? No, it was system and deliberate intention.
Brutus had only joined the others to deliver the republic from the man
who prevented the free play of the institutions. He being dead, the
people regained their rights, and became free again to use them. The
conspirators would have appeared to be working for themselves in keeping
even for a day that authority that they had torn from Caesar. Now, to
prepare decrees or laws in advance, to arrange about regulating the
future, to consider the means of giving affairs the direction they
wished, was not this to take upon themselves in some sort the duty of
the entire republic? And what more had Caesar done? Thus, on pain of
appearing to imitate him, and to have acted only through the rivalry of
ambition, once the great blow struck, the conspirators had to abdicate.
This is how I think their conduct must be explained. It was by a strange
prejudice of disinterestedness and of legality that they remained
voluntarily disarmed. They thought it glorious to act in concert only so
far as to kill Caesar. That act accomplished, they were to restore to
the people the direction of their affairs, and the choice of their
government, leaving them free to express their gratitude to those who
had delivered them, or if they so willed it, to repay them by
forgetfulness.
There the illusion commenced: they thought there was only Caesar between
the people and liberty, and that when Caesar no longer existed liberty
would naturally reappear; but on the day that they called on the
citizens to resume their rights, no one answered, and no one could
answer, for there were no longer any citizens. “For a very long time,”
says Appian on this occasion, “the Roman people was only a mixture of
all the nations. The freedmen were confounded with the citizens, the
slave had no longer anything to distinguish him from his master. In sum,
the distributions of corn that were made at Rome gathered the beggars,
the idle, and the scoundrels from all Italy.”[358] This cosmopolitan
population, without a past and without traditions, was not the Roman
people. The evil was old, and clear-sighted minds must have perceived it
for a long time. Cicero seems to suspect it sometimes, especially when
he sees with what facility they traffic in votes at the elections.
Nevertheless everything continued with apparent regularity, and things
went on from the impulse they had received. In such a condition of
affairs, and when a state only moves through habit, all is lost if this
movement is arrested for a single day. Now, with Caesar, the old
machinery ceased to act. The interruption was not long, but the machine
was so dilapidated that in stopping it fell to pieces entirely. Thus the
conspirators could not restore what was existing before the civil war,
and this last shadow of the republic, imperfect as it was, disappeared
for ever.
This is why no one either listened to or followed them. Courage must
have failed more than one of them in that Capitol where they were left
alone, at the sight of the indifference of the populace. Cicero
especially was distressed at seeing that they did nothing but make fine
speeches. He wished them to act, to profit by the occasion, to die if
need were: “Would not death be glorious for such a great cause?” This
old man, usually irresolute, had then more resolution than all those
young men who had just struck so bold a stroke. And yet, what did he
suggest after all? “You must rouse the people again,” he said. We have
just seen that the people would not respond. “You must convoke the
senate, and take advantage of its fears, to extort some favourable
decrees.”[359] Assuredly the senate would have voted whatever they
wished: but when the decrees had been made, how were they to be
executed? All these schemes were insufficient, and it was hardly
possible to propose anything more practical to men who were determined
not to overstep the law. The only possible chance was boldly to seize
the government, to hold it by violence and illegality, not even
flinching from proscription, and to replace by an aristocratic
dictatorship that popular tyranny they had just destroyed; in a word, to
recommence the history of Sulla. Cassius perhaps would have done this,
but Brutus had a horror of violence. Tyranny, from whatever side it
might come, seemed to him a crime; he would rather have perished with
the republic than save it by these means.
The few succeeding days passed in strange alternations. There was a sort
of interregnum during which the parties contended with varying success.
The people, who had not followed the conspirators, did not support their
enemies either. As they did not know on what to rely men acted on both
sides at random, and frequently in a contradictory and surprising
manner. One day an amnesty was proclaimed, and Brutus went to dine with
Lepidus; the next, the conspirators’ houses were set on fire. After
having abolished the dictatorship they ratified the acts of the
dictator. The friends of Caesar erected a column and an altar to him on
the Forum; another friend of Caesar had them thrown down. It was in the
midst of this confusion, while the two parties were wavering, undecided
and hesitating, without daring to strike, while each was looking around
it to see where the real forces were, that those who henceforth were to
be the masters appeared.
For a long time a secret revolution had been in operation at Rome, which
had been scarcely perceived because its progress was slow and
continuous, but which, when it was complete, changed the character of
the state. Campaigns had been short while they had only been fought in
the neighbourhood of Rome and in Italy. The citizens had not had time to
lose the traditions of civil life in the camp; there had not been a
family either soldiers by trade, or generals by profession. But in
proportion as wars were more distant, and lasted longer, the men who
carried them on became accustomed to living at a distance from Rome.
They lost sight of the Forum for so long a time that they forgot its
controversies and customs. At the same time, as the right of citizenship
was extended, the legion was thrown open to men of all races. This
medley completed the destruction of the ties that bound the soldier to
the city; he acquired the habit of isolating himself from it, of having
separate interests, and of looking on the camp as his country. After the
great Gallic war, which lasted ten years, Caesar’s veterans no longer
remembered that they were citizens, and their recollections did not go
back beyond Ariovistus and Vercingetorix. When it had become necessary
to reward them, Caesar, who was not ungrateful, distributed the finest
lands of Italy among them; and this partition was made under new
conditions. Up to that time the soldiers, after the war, returned into
the mass of the people: when they were sent to a colony, they were lost,
and, as it were, absorbed among the other citizens; but now they passed
without transition from their camp to the domains that had been given
them, and thus the military spirit was preserved among them. As they
were not far removed from one another, and could communicate with each
other, they did not altogether lose the taste for a life of adventure.
“They compared,” says Appian, “the toilsome labour of agriculture with
the brilliant and lucrative chances of battles.”[360] They formed then
in the heart of Italy a population of soldiers, listening for rumours of
war, and ready to answer the first call.
Precisely at that time there were many in Rome, whom Caesar had called
there while they were waiting for him to grant them lands. Others were
close at hand, in Campania, busied in settling themselves down, and
perhaps disgusted with these preliminary toils of their settlement. Some
among them had returned to Rome on the rumour of the events that were
taking place, the rest were waiting to be well paid before deciding, and
put themselves up to auction. Now, there was no want of buyers. The
heritage of the great dictator tempted every one’s cupidity. Thanks to
those soldiers who were ready to sell their services, each of the
competitors had his partisans and his chances. Antony was predominant
over all by the lustre of his consular authority, and the memory of
Caesar’s friendship; but near him was the debauchee Dolabella, who had
held out hopes to all parties, and the young Octavius, who came from
Epirus to receive the inheritance of his uncle. There was no one, even
to the incapable Lepidus, who had not got several legions in his
interest, and who did not make some figure among these ambitious men.
And all, surrounded by soldiers whom they had bought, masters of
important provinces, watched each other mistrustfully while waiting to
fight.
What was Brutus doing in the meantime? The opportunity of the Ides of
March having failed, he might still have taken advantage of the quarrels
of the Caesarians to throw himself upon them and crush them. The
resolute men of his party advised him to try this, and to call to arms
all those young men who, in Italy and the provinces, had applauded the
death of Caesar; but Brutus hated civil war and could not resolve to
give the signal anew. As he had fancied that the people would hasten to
accept the liberty that was given back to them, he had thought that the
restoration of the republic could be made without violence. One illusion
led him to another, and that stab which began a frightful war of twelve
years seemed to him bound to assure public tranquillity for ever. It was
in this belief that, on coming out of the curia of Pompey where he had
just killed Caesar, he ran through the streets crying, “Peace! peace!”
And this word was henceforth his motto. When his friends, on learning
the dangers he was running, came from the neighbouring municipia to
defend him, he sent them back. He preferred to remain shut up in his
house rather than give any pretext for the commencement of violence.
Forced to leave Rome, he remained hidden in the gardens of the
neighbourhood, disturbed by the soldiers, only going out at night, but
always expecting that great popular movement that he persisted in hoping
for. No one moved. He removed still further and took refuge in his
villas of Lanuvium and Antium. There he heard the rumours of war with
which Italy resounded, and saw all parties preparing to fight. He alone
always resisted. He passed six entire months shrinking from this
terrible necessity that became more clearly inevitable every day. He
could not resolve to accept it, and asked advice of everybody.
Cicero even tells, in his letters,[361] of a sort of council that was
held at Antium, to consider what it was needful to do. Servilia was
there with Porcia, Brutus with Cassius, and a few of the most faithful
friends had been invited, among whom were Favonius and Cicero. Servilia,
more anxious for the safety than the honour of her son, wished him to
withdraw. She had obtained from Antony, who had remained her friend, for
her son and her son-in-law, a _legatio_, that is a commission to go and
collect corn in Sicily. It was a specious and safe pretext for quitting
Italy; but what a disgrace! to leave with a permission signed by Antony,
to accept exile as a favour. Cassius would not consent; he spoke with
passion, he was indignant, he threatened, “one would have said he
breathed only war.” Brutus, on the contrary, calm and resigned,
questioned his friends, being resolved to satisfy them at the risk of
his life. Did they wish him to return to Rome? He was ready to go there.
Every one cried out at this proposition. Rome was full of danger for the
conspirators, and they would not uselessly expose the last hopes of
liberty. What should they do then? They only agreed in bitterly
regretting the course they had followed. Cassius regretted that they had
not killed Antony as he had demanded, and Cicero did not care to
contradict him.
Unfortunately these recriminations were of no use; it was not a question
of complaining of the past, the moment had arrived for regulating the
future, and they did not know what to resolve upon.
Brutus did not immediately decide after this meeting. He persisted in
remaining as long as he could in his villa at Lanuvium, reading and
discussing, under his handsome porticoes, with the Greek philosophers,
his usual society. It was necessary to go away, however. Italy was
becoming less and less safe, the veterans infested the roads and
pillaged the country houses. Brutus went to Velia to join some vessels
that were waiting to conduct him to Greece. He called his departure an
exile, and, by a last illusion, he hoped that it would not be the signal
for war. As Antony accused him of preparing for this, he replied to him
in Cassius’ name and his own, by an admirable letter of which this is
the end: “Do not flatter yourself that you have frightened us, fear is
beneath our character. If other motives were capable of giving us any
leaning towards civil war your letter would not take it from us, for
threats have no power over free hearts; but you well know that we hate
war, that nothing can drag us into it, and you put on a threatening air,
no doubt to make men believe that our resolution is the effect of our
fears. These are our sentiments; we wish to see you live with
distinction in a free state; we do not wish to be your enemies, but we
have more regard for liberty than for your friendship. We therefore pray
the gods to inspire you with counsels salutary for the republic and for
yourself. If not, we desire that your own party may hurt you as little
as possible, and that Rome may be free and glorious!”[362]
At Velia, Brutus was joined by Cicero, who also thought of leaving.
Discouraged by the inaction of his friends, terrified by the threats of
his enemies, he had already attempted to fly to Greece: but the wind had
thrown him back on the coast of Italy. When he learnt that Brutus was
going to leave, he wished to see him again and if possible start with
him. Cicero often spoke with a heartrending accent of the emotions of
this last interview. “I saw him,” he related to the people later, “I saw
him depart from Italy in order not to cause a civil war there. O
sorrowful spectacle, I do not say for men only, but for the waves and
the shores. The saviour of his country was forced to flee, its
destroyers remained all-powerful.”[363]
The last thought of Brutus at this sad moment was still for the public
peace. Notwithstanding so many disappointments he still reckoned upon
the people of Rome; he thought enough had not been done to arouse their
ardour; he could not resign himself to believe that there were no longer
any citizens. He started with the regret that he had not essayed another
struggle by legal means. Doubtless it was not possible for him to return
to Rome and to reappear in the senate; but Cicero was less compromised,
his fame extorted respect; men liked to listen to his words. Could not
he attempt this last struggle? Brutus had always thought so; at this
moment he dared to say so. He pointed out to Cicero a great duty to
accomplish, a great part to play; his advice, his reproaches, his
prayers, determined him to give up his voyage and return to Rome. He
seemed to hear, as he said later, “the voice of his country recalling
him!”[364] And they separated not to meet again.
It was useless, however, for Brutus to resist; the inevitable tendency
of the events against which he had been struggling for six months,
dragged him into civil war. On leaving Italy he had come to Athens,
where he passed his time in hearing the academician Theomnestes and the
peripatetic Cratippus. Plutarch sees a clever dissimulation in this
conduct. “He was preparing for war,” he says, “in secret.” Cicero’s
letters prove that, on the contrary, it was the war that went to seek
him. Thessaly and Macedonia were full of Pompey’s old soldiers, who had
remained there after Pharsalia; the islands of the Aegean, the towns of
Greece, which were regarded as a sort of asylum for the exiles,
contained many malcontents who had refused to submit to Caesar, and
since the Ides of March they were the refuge of all who fled from the
domination of Antony. Athens, in truth, was full of young men of the
greatest families of Rome, republicans by their birth and their age, who
went there to finish their education. They were only waiting for Brutus
in order to take up arms. On his arrival, there was a great and
irresistible movement on all sides, to which he was constrained to give
way himself. Apuleius and Vatinius brought him the troops that they
commanded. The old soldiers of Macedonia assembled under the command of
Q. Hortensius; so many came from Italy, that the consul Pansa at last
complained and threatened to stop the recruits of Brutus on their
passage. The students of Athens, and among them Cicero’s son and the
young Horace, deserted their studies and enrolled themselves under him.
In a few months Brutus was master of all Greece, and had eight legions.
At this moment the republican party seemed to awaken everywhere at once.
Cicero had succeeded better than he had hoped at Rome, and had raised up
enemies to Antony, who had defeated him before Modena. Brutus had just
formed a considerable army in Greece. Cassius went over Asia recruiting
legions on his passage, and all the East had declared for him. Hope
returned to the most timid, and it seemed that everything was to be
hoped for the republic from the co-operation of so many generous
defenders. It was, however, at this very moment, when it was so
necessary to be united, that the most serious disagreement broke out
between Cicero and Brutus. Whatever vexation it may cause us, it must be
told, for it completes our knowledge of both.
Cicero was the first to complain. This man, usually so weak and
hesitating, had become singularly energetic since the death of Caesar.
Prudence, clemency, moderation, great qualities that he appreciated much
and readily practised, seemed no longer suitable to the circumstances of
the time. This great preacher of pacific victories preached war to
everybody; this stern friend of legality asked everybody to overstep it.
“Do not wait for the decrees of the senate,”[365] he said to one. “Be
your own senate,”[366] he wrote to another. To gain his ends, all means,
even the most violent, seemed good to him; all alliances pleased him,
even that of men whom he did not esteem. Brutus, on the contrary, even
while deciding to take up arms, remained scrupulous and hesitating, and
continued to dislike violence. Although his name has become famous
chiefly through an assassination, blood was repugnant to him. He spared
his enemies when they were in his power, in opposition to those inhuman
laws, accepted by everybody, which delivered up the vanquished
unreservedly to the will of the victor. He had just given an instance,
by sparing the life of Antony’s brother after having conquered him.
Although he was a bad man, who had shown his gratitude by attempting to
corrupt the soldiers who guarded him, Brutus had persisted in treating
him with kindness. We should not consider this a great crime,
nevertheless they were very much irritated about it at Rome. The furious
threats of Antony, from whom they had just escaped with so much
difficulty, the remembrance of the terrors they had endured, and the
terrible alternations they had passed through for six months, had
exasperated the most peaceable. Nothing is more violent than the anger
of moderate men when they are driven to extremities. They wish to make
an end at any price and as soon as possible. They recalled the
repugnance and slowness with which Brutus had begun the war. Seeing him
so yielding, so clement, they were afraid of seeing him fall back into
his hesitation, and still further defer the moment of vengeance and
security. Cicero undertook to let Brutus know of their discontent. In
his letter, which we still possess, he enumerates with much force the
mistakes that had been made since the death of Caesar; he recalls all
the weaknesses and hesitations that had discouraged resolute men, and,
what must have especially wounded Brutus, the absurdity of wishing to
establish public tranquillity by speeches. “Are you ignorant,” said he,
“what is in question at this moment? A band of scoundrels and wretches
threatens even the temples of the gods, and it is our life or death that
is at stake in this war. Whom are we sparing? What are we doing? Is it
wise to treat gently men who, if they are conquerors, will wipe out the
very traces of our existence?”[367]
These reproaches provoked Brutus, and he answered with recriminations.
He also was discontented with the senate and Cicero. Whatever admiration
he may have felt for the eloquence of the _Philippics_, many things must
have annoyed him in them. The general tone of these speeches, their
bitter personalities, their fiery invectives, could not be pleasing to a
man who, in striking down Caesar, had wished to appear passionless, and
rather the enemy of a principle than of a man. Now, if there is a great
love of liberty in the _Philippics_, there is also a violent personal
hatred. We feel that this enemy of the country is, at the same time, a
private and personal adversary. He had attempted to enslave Rome, but he
had also taken the liberty of quizzing the weaknesses of the old
consular in a very amusing speech. Cicero’s irritable vanity was roused
when he read this invective: “he took the bit between his teeth,”[368]
according to the expression of a contemporary. The generous hatred he
felt against a public enemy was inflamed by private rancour; a mortal
struggle began, followed up with increasing energy through fourteen
orations. “I am resolved,” said he, “to overwhelm him with invectives,
and to give him over dishonoured to the eternal contempt of
posterity;”[369] and he kept his word. This passionate persistence, this
impetuous and violent tone must have annoyed Brutus. Cicero’s flatteries
were no less displeasing to him than his anger. He bore him a grudge for
the exaggerated eulogies that he gave to men who little deserved them,
to those generals who had served every cause, to those statesmen who had
submitted to every government, to those men of ambition and intrigue of
every sort, whom Cicero had united with so much trouble, to form what he
called the party of the honest men; he was specially vexed at seeing him
lavish praises on the young Octavius, and lay the republic at his feet;
and when he heard him call him “a divine young man, sent by the gods for
the defence of the country,” he could scarcely contain his anger.
Which of the two was right? Brutus assuredly if we think of the end. We
see clearly that Octavius could not be anything but an ambitious man and
a traitor. The name he bore was an irresistible temptation for him; to
deliver the republic to him was to destroy it. Brutus was right in
thinking that Octavius was more to be dreaded than Antony, and his
hatred did not mislead him, when he foresaw in this _divine young man_,
who was so much praised by Cicero, the future master of the empire, the
heir and successor of him whom he had slain. Was it really Cicero who
was to blame, or only the circumstances? When he accepted the aid of
Octavius was he at liberty to refuse it? The republic had not, at that
time, a single soldier to oppose Antony, they had to take those of
Octavius or to perish. After he had saved the republic, it would have
been ungracious to haggle with him over thanks and dignities. Besides,
his veterans demanded them in a way that did not brook refusal, and
often gave them to him in advance. The senate sanctioned everything as
quickly as possible, for fear that they would do without its assent.
“Circumstances,” says Cicero somewhere, “gave him the command, we have
only added the fasces.”[370] Thus, before blaming Cicero’s compliance,
or complaining of his weakness, they should have thought of the
difficulties of his position. He tried to re-establish the republic by
the help of men who had fought against it and did not love it. What
reliance could he place on Hirtius, the framer of a severe law against
the Pompeians, on Plancus and Pollio, old lieutenants of Caesar, on
Lepidus and Octavius, each of whom wished to take his place? and yet he
had no other support than they. To that great and ambitious man who, on
the morrow of the Ides of March, wished to make himself master, he could
only oppose a coalition of inferior or concealed ambitions. Nothing was
more difficult than to steer one’s way in the midst of all these open or
secret rivalries. It was necessary to curb one by the other, to flatter
them in order to lead them, to content them in part in order to keep
them within bounds. Hence those lavish grants or promises of honours,
that profusion of praises and titles, and those exaggerated official
thanks. This was a necessity imposed by the circumstances; instead of
considering it a crime in Cicero to have submitted to it, they should
have drawn this conclusion, namely, that to attempt another struggle by
legal means, to return to Rome to arouse the ardour of the populace, to
trust again in the force of memories, and the supreme power of oratory,
was to expose oneself to useless dangers and certain disappointment.
Cicero knew this well. Sometimes, no doubt, in the heat of combat, he
might allow himself to be carried away by the triumphs of his eloquence,
as on that day, when he wrote naïvely to Cassius: “If one could speak
oftener it would not be very difficult to re-establish the republic and
liberty.”[371] But this illusion never lasted long. The momentary
intoxication over, he was not long in recognizing the impotence of
oratory, and was the first to say they could only place their hopes on
the republican army. He never changed that opinion. “You tell me,” he
wrote to Atticus, “that I am wrong in thinking that the republic depends
entirely upon Brutus; nothing is more certainly true. If it can be saved
at all, it can only be by him and his friends.”[372] Cicero had
undertaken this last enterprise without illusions and without hope, and
solely to yield to the wishes of Brutus, who persisted in his love of
constitutional resistance and pacific struggles. Brutus, then, had less
right than any one to reproach him with having succumbed. Cicero was
right in often recalling that interview at Velia, when his friend
persuaded him, notwithstanding his hesitation, to return to Rome. This
recollection was his defence; it should have prevented Brutus uttering
any bitter word against him, whom he had himself led into a useless
enterprise.
Cicero must have deeply felt these reproaches, yet his friendship for
Brutus remained unaltered by them. He still looks to him, he calls upon
him, when all seems lost in Italy. Nothing is more touching than his
last cry of alarm: “We are the sport, my dear Brutus, of the licence of
the soldiers and the insolence of their leader. Every one wishes to have
as much authority in the republic as he has force. Men no longer know
reason, measure, law, nor duty; they no longer care for public opinion
or the judgment of posterity. Come, then, and give at length to the
republic that liberty which you have gained for it by your courage, but
which we cannot yet enjoy. Every one will press around you; liberty has
no refuge but in your tents. This is our position at this moment; would
that it might become better! If it chances otherwise I shall only weep
for the republic; it ought to be immortal. As for myself, I have but a
little time to live!”[373]
A very few months afterwards, Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius, triumvirs
to reconstitute the republic, as they called themselves, assembled near
Bologna. They knew each other too well not to be aware that they were
capable of anything, consequently they had taken minute precautions
against each other. The interview took place on an island, and they
arrived with an equal number of troops who were not to lose sight of
them. For still greater security, and for fear that any one should carry
a hidden dagger, they went so far as to search each other. After having
thus reassured themselves, they held a long conference. There was no
longer any question of reconstituting the republic; what occupied their
attention most, besides the division of power, was vengeance, and they
carefully drew up a list of those who were to be slain. Dio Cassius
remarks that, as they detested each other profoundly, a man was sure, if
he was closely connected with one of them, to be the mortal enemy of the
other two, so that each demanded precisely the heads of the best friends
of his new allies. But this difficulty did not stop them; their
gratitude was much less exacting than their hatred, and in purchasing
the death of an enemy with that of a few friends or even relations, they
thought they made a good bargain. Thanks to these mutual concessions,
they soon came to an agreement, and the list was drawn up. Cicero was
not forgotten in it, as we can well understand; Antony urgently demanded
him, and it is not probable, whatever the writers of the empire may say,
that Octavius defended him with much zeal; he would have constantly
recalled to him a troublesome gratitude and a glaring act of perjury.
With the death of Cicero we have reached the end of this work, since we
only proposed to study the relations of Cicero and Brutus. If we wished
to carry it further, and to know Brutus’ end as well, it would suffice
to read the admirable narrative of Plutarch. I should be afraid of
spoiling it by abridging it. In it we see that Brutus felt intense
sorrow on learning that Cicero had perished. He regretted more than a
friend that with him he had lost a cherished hope, which he had been
unwilling to surrender. This time, however, he was bound to acknowledge
that there were no longer citizens at Rome, and to despair of that base
populace who thus allowed its defenders to perish. “If they are slaves,”
said he sadly, “it is their own fault rather than that of their
tyrants.” No confession could have cost him more. Since he had killed
Caesar, his life had been nothing but a series of disappointments, and
events seemed to play with all the plans he had formed. His scruples
about legality had caused him to lose the opportunity of saving the
republic; his horror of civil war had only served to make him begin it
too late. It was not enough that he found himself forced, in spite of
himself, to violate the law and fight against his fellow-citizens, he
was constrained to acknowledge, to his great regret, that in expecting
too much of men he was mistaken. He had a good opinion of them when he
studied them from a distance with his beloved philosophers. His opinions
changed when he came to deal closely with them, when he had to be a
witness of the debasement of character, to detect the secret greed, the
senseless hatreds, the cowardly fears of those whom he regarded as the
bravest and most honest! He was so deeply grieved that, on learning of
the last weaknesses of Cicero, he came to doubt of philosophy itself,
his favourite science, which had been the delight of his life. “Of what
use has it been to him,” said he, “to have written with so much
eloquence for the liberty of his country, upon honour, death, exile, or
poverty? In truth, I begin to have no more confidence in those studies
in which Cicero was so much occupied.”[374] In reading these bitter
words, we think of those which he spoke before his death; the one
explains the other, and each is a symptom of the same internal trouble,
which becomes great in proportion as the experience of public affairs
disenchants him more and more with men and with life. He hesitated about
philosophy, when he saw the weakness of those who had studied it most
deeply; when he saw the party of the proscribers triumphing, he doubted
of virtue.
It was fitting that thus should perish this man of thought, who had
reluctantly become a man of action, and who was thrown by the force of
events out of his natural element.
OCTAVIUS
THE POLITICAL TESTAMENT OF AUGUSTUS
Cicero liked young men; he willingly frequented their society and
readily became young again with them. Just after he had been praetor and
consul, we see him surrounding himself with promising young men like
Caelius, Curio, and Brutus, whom he took with him to the Forum and
taught to plead at his side. Later, when the defeat of Pharsalia had
removed him from the government of his country, he began to live
familiarly with those light-hearted young men who had followed the party
of the conqueror, and even consented, as a pastime, to give them lessons
in oratory. “They are my pupils in the art of speaking well,” he merrily
wrote, “and my masters in the art of dining well.”[375] After the death
of Caesar events brought him into connection with a still younger
generation, which then began to appear in political life. Plancus,
Pollio, Messala, whom fate destined to become high dignitaries of a new
government, sought his friendship, and the founder of the empire called
him father.
The correspondence of Octavius and Cicero was published, and we know
that it formed at least three books. It would have been very interesting
had it been preserved. In reading it we might follow all the phases of
that friendship of a few months which was to end in such a terrible
manner. Probably the earlier letters of Cicero would show him
distrustful at first, doubtful and coldly polite. Notwithstanding what
has been said, it was not he who called Octavius to the help of the
republic. Octavius came of his own accord. He wrote to Cicero every
day;[376] he overwhelmed him with protestations and promises, he assured
him of a devotion that could not fail. Cicero hesitated for a long time
to put this devotion to the proof. He thought Octavius was intelligent
and resolute, but rather young. He dreaded his name and his friends. “He
has too many bad men around him,” said he, “he will never be a good
citizen.”[377] Nevertheless he allowed himself to be gained over; he
forgot his mistrust, and when the _boy_, as he affected to call him, had
raised the siege of Modena, his gratitude was carried to an excess that
the prudent Atticus disapproved, and which displeased Brutus. The joy
that he felt at the defeat of Antony made him forget all restraint; he
was blinded and carried away by his hatred. When he saw “that drunkard
fall into the snares of Octavius, on coming from his debauches,”[378] he
was beside himself. But this joy did not last long, for he learnt of the
treason of the general almost at the same time as of his victory. It is
at this moment above all that his letters would become interesting. They
would throw a light on the last months of his life, the history of which
we do not know well. The efforts that he then made to soften his old
friend have been imputed to him as a crime, and I admit that, consulting
only his dignity, it would have been better not to have asked anything
from him who had so basely betrayed him. But it was not a question of
himself alone. Rome had no soldiers to oppose to those of Octavius. The
sole resource that remained in order to disarm him, was to remind him of
the promises he had made. No hope remained of success in reviving any
sparks of patriotism in that selfish mind; but the attempt at least
should be made. The republic was in danger as well as the life of
Cicero, and what it was not proper for him to do to prolong his own
life, it was necessary to attempt in order to save the republic.
Supplication is not base when a man defends the liberty of his country,
and there is no other way of defending it. It was, no doubt, at this
terrible moment that he wrote those very humble words to Octavius that
we find in the fragments of his letters: “Let me know for the future
what you wish me to do, I shall exceed your expectation.”[379] Far from
reproaching him for his entreaties, I admit that I cannot see without
emotion this glorious old man humble himself thus before _the boy_ who
had betrayed his confidence, who had played with his credulity, but who
has the power to save or destroy the republic!
Unfortunately there only remain fragments of these letters, which can
teach us nothing. If we wish to know him who held so great a place in
the last events of Cicero’s life we must look elsewhere. It would be
easy and instructive to reproduce here the opinions that the historians
of the empire give of him. But I prefer to keep to the method that I
have followed in this work to the end, and if it is possible, to judge
Octavius, like Cicero, by what he tells us himself, by his admissions
and his confidences. In the absence of his correspondence and memoirs
which are lost, let us take the great inscription at Ancyra, which is
sometimes called the political testament of Augustus, because he sums up
his whole life in it. Fortunately it has come down to us. We know from
Suetonius that he had ordered it to be engraven on brass plates fixed on
his tomb.[380] It is probable that it was very widely diffused in the
first century of the Christian era, and that flattery or gratitude had
multiplied copies everywhere, at the same time that the worship of the
founder of the empire extended throughout the universe. Fragments have
been found among the ruins of Apollonia, and it still exists entire at
Angora, the ancient Ancyra. When the inhabitants of Ancyra erected a
temple to Augustus, who had been their benefactor, they thought they
could not honour his memory better than by engraving this account, or
rather this glorification of his life that he had himself composed.
Since that time, the monument consecrated to Augustus has more than once
changed its destination; to the Greek temple a Byzantine church
succeeded, and to the church a Turkish school. The roof has fallen in,
dragging with it the ornaments of the summit, the columns of the
porticoes have disappeared, and to the ancient ruins has been added the
rubbish of the Byzantine and Turkish buildings, which are already also
in ruins. But by singular good fortune the slabs of marble which recount
the actions of Augustus have remained solidly attached to the
indestructible walls.
This is a favourable opportunity for studying this monument. M.
Perrot[381] has just brought from Galatia a more correct copy of the
Latin text, and an altogether new part of the Greek translation which
elucidates and completes the Latin. Thanks to him, with the exception of
a few lacunae of little importance, the inscription is now complete, and
can be read from beginning to end. We can therefore now perceive and
interpret its general sense.
I.
The first characteristic that we notice when we read the Ancyran
inscription, is its majestic tone. It is impossible not to be struck by
it. We see at once, by a certain air of authority, that the man who is
speaking has governed the whole world for more than fifty years. He
knows the importance of the things he has done: he knows that he has
introduced a new state of society, and presided over one of the greatest
changes of human history. Accordingly, although he only recapitulates
facts and quotes figures, all he says has a grand air, and he knows how
to give so majestic a turn to these dry enumerations that we feel
ourselves seized by a sort of involuntary respect in reading them. We
must, however, be on our guard. A majestic tone may be a convenient veil
to hide many weaknesses; the example of Louis XIV., so near to our own
times, ought to teach us not to trust it without examination. We must
not forget, besides, that dignity was so truly a Roman characteristic,
that its appearance was preserved long after the reality had
disappeared. When we read the inscriptions of the latter years of the
empire we scarcely perceive that it is about to perish. Those wretched
princes who possessed but a few provinces speak as though they ruled
over the entire universe, and their grossest falsehoods are expressed
with an incredible dignity. If we wish, then, to avoid being deceived
when studying the monuments of Roman history, we must be on our guard
against a first impression, which may be deceptive, and look at things
closely.
Although the inscription that we are studying is called “An account of
the deeds of Augustus,” it was not really his whole life that Augustus
meant to relate. There are great and intentional lacunae; he did not
intend to tell everything. When, at the age of seventy-six, and in the
midst of the admiration and respect of the whole world, the aged prince
reviewed his past life to make a rapid summary of it, many memories must
have disturbed him. There is no doubt, for instance, that he must have
been very reluctant to recall the earlier years of his political life.
It was needful, however, to say something about them, and it was more
prudent to try and gloss them over than to preserve a silence that might
give rise to much talk. He extricated himself in the following manner:
“At nineteen years of age,” he says, “I raised an army by my own
exertions and at my own expense; with it I restored liberty to the
republic, which had been dominated by a faction that oppressed it. In
return, the senate, by its decrees, admitted me into its number, among
the consulars, conferred upon me the right of commanding the troops, and
charged me together with the consuls C. Pansa and A. Hirtius to watch
over the safety of the state with the title of pro-praetor. Both the
consuls having died the same year, the people put me in their place, and
appointed me triumvir to put in order the republic.” In these few lines,
which form the beginning of the inscription, there are already some very
singular omissions. One would infer from them that he had obtained all
the dignities that he enumerates, in serving the same cause, and that
nothing had happened between the first offices that he had received and
the triumvirate. Thanks to the _Philippics_ we know those decrees of the
senate which are here alluded to with a certain shamelessness. The
senate congratulates the young Caesar “for defending the liberty of the
Roman people,” and for having defeated Antony; now, it was after having
concerted with Antony to enslave the Roman people, in that dismal
interview at Bologna, that he received, or rather took the title of
triumvir. The inscription preserves a prudent silence on all these
things.
What followed this interview was still more difficult to relate. Here
especially Augustus desired forgetfulness. “I exiled those who had
killed my father, punishing their crime by the regular tribunals. Then,
as they made war against the republic, I conquered them in two battles.”
It will be remarked that there is no mention of the proscriptions. What,
indeed, could he say about them? Could any artifice of language diminish
their horror? On the whole it was more becoming not to speak of them.
But as, according to the fine reflection of Tacitus, it is easier to
keep silence than to forget, we may be assured that Augustus, who says
nothing here of the proscriptions, thought of them more than once during
his life. Even if he did not feel remorse, he must often have been
embarrassed by the terrible contradiction between his past and his later
policy; for, whatever he might do, the memory of the proscriptions
always belied his official character as a clement and honourable man.
Even here, it seems to me, he betrays his embarrassment. His silence
does not entirely satisfy him, he feels that in spite of his discretion
unpleasant memories cannot fail to be awakened in the minds of his
readers; and, therefore, to anticipate and disarm them, he hastens to
add: “I carried my arms by land and sea over the whole world in my wars
against the citizens and foreigners. After my victory, I pardoned the
citizens who had survived the combat, and I chose to preserve rather
than to destroy those foreign nations whom I could spare without
danger.”
This difficult place once passed it became easier to relate the rest.
Nevertheless, he is still very brief with respect to the earlier times.
Perhaps he feared lest the memory of the civil wars should interfere
with that reconciliation of parties which the universal exhaustion had
brought about after Actium? There is certainly not a single word in the
whole inscription to revive the former rancours. He says scarcely
anything of his old rivals. There is at the most but a single disdainful
word about Lepidus, and an ill-natured but passing accusation against
Antony of having seized the treasures of the temples. The following is
all he says of his war with Sextus Pompey which gave him so much
trouble, and of those valiant seamen who had vanquished him: “I cleared
the sea of pirates, and in that war I captured thirty thousand fugitive
slaves, who had fought against the republic, and delivered them to their
masters to be chastised.” As to that great victory of Actium, which had
given him the empire of the world, he only recalls it to state the
eagerness of Italy and the western provinces to declare themselves in
his favour.
Naturally he prefers to dwell upon the events of the later years of his
reign, and we feel that he is more at ease when he speaks of victories
in which the vanquished were not Romans. He is justly proud to recall
how he had avenged the insults the national pride had suffered before
him: “I re-took, after victories gained in Spain and over the
Dalmatians, the standards that some generals had lost. I forced the
Parthians to restore the spoils and ensigns of three Roman armies, and
humbly to come and demand our friendship. I placed these ensigns in the
sanctuary of Mars the Avenger.” We can understand also that he speaks
with satisfaction of the campaigns against the Germans, being careful,
however, to pass over in silence the disaster of Varus, and that he is
anxious to preserve the memory of those distant expeditions that
impressed so strongly the imagination of his contemporaries. “The Roman
fleet,” he says, “sailed from the mouth of the Rhine towards the quarter
where the sun rises, as far as those distant countries where no Roman
had yet penetrated either by land or sea. The Cimbri, the Charydes, the
Semnones and other German tribes of those countries sent ambassadors to
ask my friendship and that of the Roman people. Under my orders and
direction two armies were sent almost at the same time to Arabia and
Ethiopia. After having conquered many nations, and taken many prisoners,
they reached the city of Nabata, in Ethiopia, and the boundaries of the
Sabaeans and the city of Mariba, in Arabia.”
But whatever interest we may find in these historical recollections, the
interest of the Ancyra monument does not specially lie in them. Its real
importance consists in what it tells us of the internal government of
Augustus.
Here again we must read with caution. Politicians are very seldom in the
habit of posting up on the walls of temples the principles that guide
them, and of imparting the secrets of their conduct so generously to the
public. It is evident that Augustus, who wrote here for all the world,
did not intend to tell everything, and that if we wish to learn the
exact truth, and to know thoroughly the character of his institutions,
we must look elsewhere. The historian, Dio Cassius, gives us the most
complete information on this subject. Dio is very little read, and it is
not surprising, for he has none of the qualities that attract readers.
His narrative is constantly interrupted by interminable harangues, which
repel the most patient reader. He was a man of narrow mind, without
political capacity, taken up with ridiculous superstitions, and he
attributes the same characteristics to his historical personages. Truly
it was worth while to have been twice consul in order to tell us
seriously that, after a great defeat, Octavius took courage on seeing a
fish leap out of the sea to his feet! What adds to the annoyance he
gives us is, that as he has often treated of the same subjects as
Tacitus, he constantly suggests comparisons that are unflattering to
himself. We must, however, take care not to underrate him; tedious as he
is, he renders us very useful services. If he has not the broad views of
Tacitus, he devotes himself to details and does wonders. No one has ever
been more exact and minute than he. I think of him as a zealous
government official who has passed through all the grades and grown old
in his profession. He knows thoroughly that official and administrative
world in which he has lived; he speaks of it accurately, and loves to
speak of it. With these inclinations, it is natural that he should be
interested in the reforms introduced by Augustus into the internal
government of the empire. He is anxious to let us know them in detail;
and, true to his rhetorician’s habits and to his unbridled love for fine
speeches, he assumes that it was Maecenas who proposed to Augustus to
establish them, and he takes advantage of the opportunity to make him
speak at great length.[382] The discourse of Maecenas contains, in
truth, what we may call the general theory of the empire. This
interesting sketch, which was realized later, aids us greatly in
understanding that part which we have still to examine of the
inscription of Ancyra. We should always bear it in mind in order to
apprehend thoroughly the spirit of the institutions of Augustus, the
motive of his liberalities, the hidden meaning of the facts he mentions,
and above all the character of his relations with the different classes
of citizens.
Let us begin by studying the relations of Augustus with his soldiers.
“About ... thousand Romans,”[383] says he, “bore arms under me. I
established in colonies, or sent back to their municipia after their
term of service, rather more than three hundred thousand. I gave land,
or money to buy it, to all of them.” On two different occasions, after
the wars against Sextus Pompey, and against Antony, Augustus was at the
head of about fifty legions; he had only twenty-five when he died. But
this number, reduced as it was, still weighed intolerably upon the
finances of the empire. The immense increase of expenditure that the
creation of great standing armies threw upon the treasury prevented
Augustus for a long time, notwithstanding the prosperity of his reign,
from having what we should now call a budget in equilibrium. Four times
he was obliged to aid the public treasury from his private fortune, and
he reckons the amounts that he presented to the state at one hundred and
fifty million sesterces (£1,200,000). He had much trouble to remedy
these financial difficulties, of which the expenses of the army were the
principal cause. This gave him the idea of creating a sort of military
pension fund, and of appealing, in order to fill it, to the generosity
of the allied kings and cities, and of the richest Roman citizens; and
in order to stimulate others by his own example, he gave one hundred and
seventy million sesterces (£1,360,000) at one time. But these voluntary
gifts being insufficient it was necessary to impose new taxes, and to
fill the treasury of the army with the proceeds of a tax of a twentieth
on inheritances and a hundredth on sales. Yet it seems that,
notwithstanding these efforts, pensions were ill paid, since this was
one of the grievances that the legions of Pannonia alleged in their
revolt against Tiberius. It is certain that the army of Augustus was one
of the greatest anxieties of his administration. His own legions gave
him as much trouble as those of the enemy. He had to do with soldiers
who felt that they were the masters, and who for ten years had been
corrupted by flattery and promises. On the eve of battle they were very
exacting because they knew how much they were required; after victory
they became unmanageable from the pride with which it inspired them. In
order to satisfy them, it would have been necessary to expropriate all
the inhabitants of Italy in a body. Octavius had consented to this at
first, after Philippi; but later, when his policy changed, when he
understood that he could not found a stable government if he drew on
himself the hatred of the Italians, he resolved to pay the proprietors
handsomely for the lands that he gave his veterans. “I reimbursed the
municipia,” he says, “in money, the value of the lands that I gave to my
soldiers in my fourth consulship, and later under the consulship of M.
Crassus and Cn. Lentulus. I paid six hundred million sesterces
(£4,800,000) for the lands situated in Italy, and two hundred and sixty
million sesterces (£2,080,000) for those situated in the provinces. Of
all those who have established colonies of soldiers in the provinces and
in Italy, I am, up to now, the first and only one who has acted thus.”
He was right in boasting of it. It was not at all the habit of the
generals of that time to pay for what they took, and he himself had
given another example for a long time. When, a little later, he dared to
resist the demands of his veterans, he had to maintain terrible
struggles in which his life was more than once in danger. In every way,
his demeanour towards his soldiers at that time is one of the things
that do him most honour. He owed everything to them, and he had none of
the qualities which were necessary to master them, neither the abilities
of Caesar nor the defects of Antony; and yet he dared to make head
against them, and succeeded in obtaining the mastery. It is very
remarkable that, although he had gained his power solely by war, he was
able to maintain the predominance of the civil element in the government
that he founded. If the empire, in which there was no longer any other
element of strength and life than the army, did not become from that
period a military monarchy, it is assuredly owing to his firmness.
Nothing is more simple than the relations of Augustus with the people.
The information that the Ancyra inscription furnishes upon this subject
is quite in accord with the discourse of Maecenas: he fed them and
amused them. Here, to begin with, is the exact account of the sums he
expended to feed them: “I reckoned to the Roman people three hundred
sesterces (£2 8_s._) a head according to my father’s testament, and four
hundred sesterces (£3 4_s._) in my own name, out of the spoils of the
war during my fifth consulship. Another time, in my tenth consulship, I
gave a gratuity of four hundred sesterces to each citizen, from my
private fortune. During my eleventh consulship I made twelve
distributions of corn at my own cost. When I was invested for the
twelfth time with the tribunitian power, I again gave four hundred
sesterces a head to the people. All these distributions were made to no
fewer than two hundred and fifty thousand persons. Invested for the
eighteenth time with the tribunitian power, and consul for the twelfth,
I gave sixty denarii (£1 10_s._ 4_d._) a head to three hundred and
twenty thousand inhabitants of Rome. During my fourth consulship I had
one thousand sesterces (£8) for each of my soldiers, previously deducted
from the spoil, and distributed in the colonies formed by them. About
one hundred and twenty thousand colonists received their share in the
distribution that followed my triumph. Consul for the thirteenth time, I
gave sixty denarii to each of those who then received distributions of
corn; there were rather more than two hundred thousand.” After these
truly startling liberalities Augustus mentions the public games he gave
to the people, and although the text has several lacunae here, we may
suppose that it did not cost him less to amuse the people than to feed
them. “I gave shows of gladiators[384] ... times in my own name, and
five times in the names of my children or grandchildren. In these
different _fêtes_ about ten thousand men fought. Twice in my own name,
and three times in the names of my son and grandson, I had combats of
wrestlers whom I had brought from all countries. I celebrated public
games four times in my own name, and twenty-three times in place of
magistrates who were absent or could not support the expense of these
games.... I showed twenty-six times in my own name, or in the names of
my sons and grandsons, African wild beast hunts, in the circus, on the
Forum, or in the amphitheatres, and about three thousand five hundred of
these beasts were killed. I gave the people the spectacle of a naval
combat, beyond the Tiber, where the wood of the Caesars now is. I had a
canal dug there one thousand eight hundred feet long by one thousand two
hundred feet broad. There thirty ships armed with rams, triremes,
biremes, and a large number of smaller vessels fought together. These
vessels contained, besides their rowers, a crew of three thousand men.”
Here, as it seems to me, is a curious and official commentary on the
famous expression of Juvenal, _panem et circenses_. We see clearly that
it was not a sally of the poet, but a veritable principle of policy
happily invented by Augustus that his successors preserved as a
tradition of government.
The relations of Augustus with the senate, we can well understand, were
more difficult and complicated. Even after Pharsalia and Philippi it was
still a great name that it was necessary to treat with consideration.
Depressed as it was, the old aristocracy still caused some fear, and
seemed to deserve some regard. This is well seen by the care that
Augustus takes in his testament never to speak of the senate but with
respect. Its name comes up at every turn with a sort of affectation. We
should say indeed, if we trusted to appearances, that the senate was
then the master, and that the prince was contented to execute its
decrees. This is what Augustus wished to be believed. He passed all his
life in dissembling his authority or lamenting about it. From his royal
dwelling on the Palatine he wrote the most pathetic letters to the
senate asking to be relieved of the burden of public affairs, and he
never appeared to have a greater aversion for power than at the moment
when he was concentrating all powers in his own hands. It is not
extraordinary that we find these methods again in his testament: they
had succeeded too well with his contemporaries for him not to be tempted
to make use of them with posterity. Accordingly he continues to play the
same comedy of moderation and disinterestedness. He affects, for
instance, to insist as much upon the honours that he refused as upon
those that he accepted. “During the consulship of M. Marcellus and L.
Arruntius,” he says, “when the senate and people asked me to accept an
absolute authority,[385] I did not accept it. But I did not refuse to
undertake the supervision of supplies in a great famine, and by the
expenditure that I made I delivered the people from their fears and
dangers. When, in return, they offered me the consulship annually or for
life, I refused it.” This is not the only time that he dwells on his own
moderation. More than once again he refers to dignities or presents that
he would not accept. But here, indeed, is something that passes all
bounds; “In my sixth and seventh consulship, after having suppressed the
civil wars, when the common voice of all the citizens offered me the
supreme power, I restored the government of the republic to the senate
and people. As a recompense for this action I received the title of
Augustus by a decree of the senate, my door was encircled with laurels
and surmounted by a civic crown, and a golden shield was placed in the
Julian curia with an inscription recording that this honour was awarded
me as a mark of respect to my virtue, clemency, justice, and piety. From
this moment, although I was above the rest in dignity in the offices
with which I was invested, I never claimed more power than I allowed to
my colleagues.” This curious passage shows how inscriptions may deceive
if we trust them blindly. Would it not seem that we should be right in
concluding that in the year of Rome 726, the republic had been
re-established by the generosity of Augustus? Now it was exactly at this
period that the absolute power of the emperor was delivered from all
fear of attack from without and, being quietly accepted by everybody,
was finally established. Dio himself, the official Dio, who is so ready
to take the word of the emperor, cannot accept this falsehood of
Augustus; he ventures to show that he is not deceived, and has no
difficulty in proving that this government, under whatever name it is
disguised, was at bottom a monarchy; he might have added that there was
never a more absolute monarchy. A single man constituted himself the
heir of all the magistrates of the republic, and united all their powers
in himself. He ignored the people whom he no longer consulted; he is the
master of the senate, which he chooses and forms at will; at once consul
and pontif, he regulates actions and beliefs; invested with the
tribunitian power, he is inviolable and sacred, that is to say, that the
least word let fall against him becomes a sacrilege; as censor, under
the title of praefect of morals, he can control the conduct of private
persons, and interfere, when he likes, in the most private affairs of
life.[386] Everything is subordinated to him, private as well as public
life, and his authority can penetrate everywhere from the senate to the
most humble and obscure hearths. Add to this that the boundaries of his
empire are those of the civilized world; barbarism begins where slavery
ends, and there is not even the sad resource of exile against this
despotism. Yet it is the man who possesses this appalling power, whom
nothing in his immense empire escapes, and from whose empire it is
impossible to escape, it is he who has just told us with a bare-faced
assurance that he refused to accept absolute power!
It must be acknowledged that this absolute power, which he veiled with
so much precaution, sought also by every possible means to reconcile men
to itself. All the compensations which might make a people forget its
liberty were given to the Romans by Augustus with a free hand. I do not
speak only of that material prosperity which made the number of citizens
increase by nearly a million in his reign;[387] nor even of the repose
and security which, at the close of the civil war, was the most
imperious need of the whole world, but also of that incomparable
splendour with which he adorned Rome. This was a sure means of pleasing
the people. Caesar knew this well, and had expended one hundred million
sesterces (£800,000) at one time, simply in buying the ground on which
his Forum was to stand. Augustus did still more. The Ancyra inscription
contains a list of the public buildings he constructed, but it is so
long that it is impossible to quote it all. He mentions fifteen temples,
several porticoes, a theatre, a senate house, a Forum, a basilica,
aqueducts, public roads, etc.; in truth Rome was entirely reconstructed
by him. We may say that no public building was passed over by him, and
that he restored all those that he did not rebuild. He completed
Pompey’s theatre and the Forum of Caesar, and rebuilt the Capitol; in a
single year he repaired eighty-two temples that were falling into ruin.
He did not expend so many millions without a purpose, and all this
profusion in such a careful ruler covered a profound political design.
He wished to dazzle the people, to intoxicate them with luxury and
magnificence in order to divert them from the intrusive memories of the
past. That Rome of marble that he built was intended to make them forget
the Rome of brick.
This was not the only compensation that Augustus offered to the people;
he made them nobler amends, and thus sought to legitimatize his power.
If he demanded the sacrifice of their liberty he took care to gratify
their national pride in every way. No man compelled the respect of
foreign nations for Rome more than he; no man gave her more reason for
pride in the ascendency she enjoyed among her neighbours. The latter
part of the inscription is filled with the gratifying recital of the
marks of respect that the remotest countries of the world paid to Rome
under his reign. He was eager to direct their attention towards this
external glory, lest they should fix it with some regret on what was
taking place at home. Those citizens whom the aspect of the deserted
Forum and the obedient senate depressed, he pointed to the Roman armies
penetrating among the Pannonians and the Arabs, to the Roman fleets
navigating the Rhine and the Danube, to the kings of the Britons, the
Suevi, and the Marcomanni, refugees at Rome, imploring the support of
the legions, to the Medes and Parthians, those terrible enemies of Rome,
who asked of her a king, to the most distant nations, the least known
and the best protected by their distance and their obscurity, moved by
this great name that reaches them for the first time and soliciting the
Roman alliance. “Ambassadors came to me from India, from kings who had
never yet sent to any Roman general. The Bastarnae, the Scythians, and
the Sarmatians who dwell on this side the Tanaïs, and beyond that river,
the kings of the Albanians, the Hiberi and the Medes sent ambassadors to
me asking our friendship.” It was very difficult for the most
discontented to hold out against so much grandeur. But his greatest
master-stroke was that he extended this consideration for the glory of
Rome even to the past. He honoured all who had laboured for her at all
times, says Suetonius,[388] almost as much as the gods; and to show that
none was excluded from this veneration, he raised again the statue of
Pompey, at the base of which Caesar had fallen, and set it up in a
public place. This generous conduct was also a wise policy. By claiming
a share in the glories of the past, he disarmed, by anticipation, those
men who might be tempted to use them against him, and, at the same time,
gave a species of sanction to his authority by attaching it in some sort
to these old memories. Whatever difference might distinguish the
government that he founded from that of the republic, both agreed on one
point: they sought the greatness of Rome. Augustus tried to reconcile
the past with the present on this common ground. He also had adorned
Rome, defended her frontiers, extended her empire, and made her name
respected. He had continued and completed that work on which they had
laboured for seven centuries. He might, then, call himself the
continuator and heir of all those who had set their hand to it; of Cato,
Paulus Emilius, and Scipio, and rank himself among them. He did not fail
to do so when he built the Forum that bore his name; we know from
Suetonius that, under those porticoes raised by him and filled with the
records of his actions, he ranged all the great men of the republic in
triumphal costume. This was the highest point of his political skill,
for by connecting them with his glory he received in turn a share of
theirs, and thus turned to his own advantage the greatness of the
political order which he had overturned.
These compensations that Augustus offered to the Romans in exchange for
their liberty seem to have satisfied them. Every one quickly got
accustomed to the new government, and it may be said that Augustus
reigned without opposition. The plots which more than once threatened
his life were the crimes of a few isolated malcontents, of young
thoughtless fellows whom he had disgraced, or of vulgar and ambitious
men who desired his position; they were not the work of political
parties. Can it even be said that there were any political parties at
this moment? Those of Sextus Pompey and Antony had not survived the
death of their chiefs; and, since Philippi, there were scarcely any
republicans. From that moment all wise men adopted the maxim “that the
vast body of the empire could not stand upright and stable without some
one to direct it.” A few obstinate men alone, who were not yet
converted, wrote violent declamations in the schools under the name of
Erutus and Cicero, or allowed themselves to speak freely in those polite
gatherings which were the _salons_ of that time: _in conviviis rodunt_,
_in circulis vellicant_. But those were unimportant exceptions which
disappeared in the midst of the universal admiration and respect. During
more than fifty years the senate, the knights, and the people used all
their ingenuity to find new honours for him who had given Rome internal
peace, and who maintained her grandeur so vigorously abroad. Augustus
has been careful to recall all this homage in the inscription we are
studying, not in a fit of puerile vanity, but to represent that
agreement of all orders in the state which seemed to legitimatize his
authority. This idea is shown especially in the last lines of the
inscription, where he recalls that circumstance of his life which was
most dear to him, because in it the agreement of all citizens had most
strikingly appeared: “While I was consul for the thirteenth time, the
senate, the order of knights, and all the people gave me the name of
Father of our Country, and desired that this should be inscribed in the
vestibule of my house, in the curia, and in my Forum, below the
quadrigae which had been placed there in my honour by a decree of the
senate. When I wrote these things I was in my seventy-sixth year.” It
was not without reason that he reserved this detail for the end. This
title of Father of his Country, by which he was saluted in the name of
all the citizens by Messala, the old friend of Brutus, seemed to be the
legal consecration of a power acquired by illegal means and a sort of
amnesty that Rome accorded to the past. We can well understand that
Augustus, even when dying, dwelt with satisfaction on a recollection
which seemed like an absolution, and that he was anxious to terminate in
this fashion his review of his political life.
II.
I should like to give, in a few words, the impression that the analysis
of this remarkable inscription makes upon me as to its author.
The whole political life of Augustus is contained in two official
documents which, by singular good fortune, have both come down to us; I
mean the preamble of the edict of proscription that Octavius signed,
and, according to all appearance, drew up himself, which Appian has
preserved; and the inscription found on the walls of the temple of
Ancyra. The former shows us what Octavius was at twenty, fresh from the
hands of the rhetoricians and philosophers, with all the genuine
instincts of his nature; the latter, what he became after fifty-six
years of uncontrolled and unlimited power; it is sufficient to compare
them in order to discover the road he had traversed, and the changes
that the knowledge of men and the practice of public affairs had wrought
in him.
The possession of power had made him better, a thing which is not usual,
and after him Roman history only gives us examples of princes depraved
by power. From the battle of Philippi to that of Actium, or rather to
the moment when he seems formally to ask pardon of the world by
abolishing all the acts of the triumvirate, we feel that he is striving
to become better, and we can almost follow the steps of his progress. I
do not think that we could find another example of so strong an effort
at self-conquest, and so complete a success in overcoming one’s natural
disposition. He was naturally a coward, and hid himself in his tent in
his first battle. I know not how he did it, but he succeeded in
acquiring courage; he became inured to war in fighting against Sextus
Pompey, and even courageous in the expedition against the Dalmatians, in
which he was twice wounded. He was cynical and debauched, and the orgies
of his youth, as related by Suetonius, do not yield to Antony’s; yet he
corrected himself at the very moment that he became absolute master,
that is just when his passions would have met with the fewest obstacles.
He was naturally cruel, and coldly cruel, a disposition which does not
often change; and yet, after having begun by assassinating his
benefactors, he ended by sparing those who attempted his assassination,
and the philosopher Seneca could call the same man a clement prince[389]
whom his best friend, Maecenas, had once called a common executioner.
Certainly the man who signed the edict of proscription hardly seems to
be the same as the man who wrote the testament, and it is indeed matter
for wonder that a man who began as he did was able to change so
completely, and to assume a virtuous character, or the appearance of
one, in the place of all the vices that were natural to him.
Nevertheless we should find it difficult to love him, whatever justice
we are bound to do him. We may be wrong after all; for reason tells us
that we ought to appreciate people more for the qualities they acquire
by thus triumphing over themselves than for those they have by nature,
without taking any trouble. And yet, I hardly know why, it is only the
latter that please us; the former lack a certain charm that nature alone
gives and which wins our hearts. The effort is too apparent in them, and
behind the effort some personal interest; for we always suspect that a
man has taken so much pains only because there was some advantage to be
gained. This sort of acquired goodness, in which reason has a greater
share than nature, attracts no one, because it appears to be the product
of a calculating mind, and it is this feeling that causes all the
virtues of Augustus to leave us unmoved, and to seem at the most but the
results of a profound sagacity. They want a touch of nature and
simplicity in order to affect us. These are qualities that this stiff
and formal personage never knew, although according to Suetonius he
gladly assumed an appearance of plain manners and good-nature in his
familiar intercourse. But one is not a good fellow simply through
wishing to be it, and his private letters, of which we have a few
fragments, show that his pleasantries lacked ease, and that his
simplicity was the result of effort. Do we not know, besides, from
Suetonius himself, that he wrote down what he meant to say to his
friends, in order to leave nothing to chance, and that he even
occasionally wrote down his conversations with Livia beforehand?[390]
But, after all, that which spoils Augustus in our opinion is that he
stands so near Caesar; the contrast between them is complete. Caesar,
not to speak of what was really great and brilliant in his nature,
attracts us at once by his frankness. His ambition may displease us, but
he had at least the merit of not hiding it. I do not know why M. Mommsen
exerts himself in his _Roman History_ to prove that Caesar did not care
for the diadem, and that Antony, when he offered it, had not consulted
him. I prefer to hold to the common opinion which, I think, does not do
him wrong. He wished to be king, and to bear the title as well as to
exercise the power. He never made pretence of waiting to be asked to
accept honours that he passionately desired, as Augustus did. He was not
the man to make us believe that he only retained the supreme authority
with reluctance, and would not have dared to tell us, at the very moment
that he was drawing all powers into his hands, that he had restored the
government of the republic to the people and senate. We know, on the
contrary, that after Pharsalia he said frankly that “the republic” was a
phrase without meaning, and that Sulla was a fool to have abdicated the
dictatorship. In everything, even in questions of literature and
grammar, he was a bold innovator, and he did not display a hypocritical
respect for the past at the very time that he was destroying what had
come down from it. This frankness is more to our taste than the false
appearance of veneration that Augustus lavished on the senate after
reducing it to impotence; and whatever admiration Suetonius may express
for him, when he shows him to us, obsequiously saluting each senator by
name, before the sittings commenced, I am not sure that I do not prefer
the disrespectful behaviour of Caesar to this comedy, Caesar who at last
went so far as not to rise when the senate visited him. Both appeared
weary of power, but it never came into any one’s mind to think that
Augustus was speaking the truth when he asked so earnestly to be
restored to private life. The distaste of Caesar was deeper and more
sincere. That sovereign power, that he had sought after for more than
twenty years with an indefatigable persistence, through so many perils,
and by means of dark intrigues the remembrance of which must have made
him blush, did not answer to his expectations, and appeared unsatisfying
to him though he had so eagerly desired it. He knew that he was detested
by the men whose esteem he most desired; he was constrained to make use
of men whom he despised, and whose excesses dishonoured his victory; the
higher he rose, the more unpleasing did human nature appear to him, and
the more clearly did he see the base greed and cowardly treachery of
those who intrigued at his feet. He came at last, through disgust, to
have no interest in life; it seemed to him to be no longer worth the
trouble of preserving and defending. It is, therefore, the same man who
said, even at the period when Cicero delivered the _pro Marcello_: “I
have lived long enough for nature or for glory;” who later, when he was
pressed to take precautions against his assassins, answered in a tone of
despondency: “I would rather die at once than live in fear;” who might
well have said with Corneille:
“I desired the empire and I have attained to it;
But I knew not what it was that I desired:
In its possession I have found, instead of delights,
Appalling cares, continual alarms,
A thousand secret enemies, death at every turn,
No pleasure without alloy, and never repose.”
These fine lines please me less, I admit, put into the mouth of
Augustus. This cautious politician, so cold, so self-possessed, does not
seem to me to have really known that noble sadness that reveals the man
in the hero, that melancholy of a heart ill at ease, notwithstanding its
successes, and disgusted with power through the very exercise of power.
Whatever admiration I may feel for that fine scene in which Augustus
proposes to abdicate the empire, I cannot avoid being a little vexed
with Corneille that he took so seriously and depicted so gravely that
solemn piece of acting which deceived nobody in Rome, and when I wish to
render my pleasure complete in reading the tragedy of _Cinna_, I am
always tempted to replace the character of Augustus by that of Caesar.
I add, in conclusion, that all these insincere affectations of Augustus
were not only defects of character, but also political errors which left
most unfortunate effects on the government that he had created. It was
precisely the uncertainty that the interested falsehoods of Augustus had
thrown upon the real nature and limits of the power of the earlier
Caesars that rendered their tyranny insupportable. When a government
boldly states its principles we know how to behave towards it; but what
course is to be followed, what language held when the forms of liberty
are united with the reality of despotism, when absolute power hides
under republican fictions? In the midst of this obscurity every course
has danger and threatens ruin. Men are ruined by independence, they may
also be ruined by servility; for, if he who refuses anything to the
emperor is an open enemy who regrets the republic, may not he who
eagerly grants everything be a secret enemy, who wishes to show that the
republic no longer exists? In studying Tacitus we find the statesmen of
this terrible period moving at random among these wilfully accumulated
uncertainties, stumbling at every step over unseen dangers, liable to
displease if they are silent or if they speak, if they flatter or if
they resist, continually asking themselves with dread how they can
satisfy this ambiguous and ill-defined authority whose limits escape
them. This want of sincerity in the institutions of Augustus may be said
to have been the torment of several generations. All the evil came
because Augustus thought more of the present than of the future. He was
an able man, full of resources in escaping from embarrassing and
difficult situations; he was not in reality a great politician, for it
seems that his view seldom extended beyond the difficulties of the
moment. Placed face to face with a people who bore the kingship
uneasily, and who were not fit for anything else, he invented this sort
of disguised kingship, and allowed all the forms of the old government
to exist by its side without endeavouring to conform them to it. But if
he was not so great a politician as it has been pretended, it must be
admitted that he was an excellent administrator; that part of his work
deserves all the praise that has been lavished on it. By co-ordinating
all the wise observances and useful regulations that the republic had
created, by putting in force lost traditions, by himself creating new
institutions for the administration of Rome, the service of the legions,
the handling of the finances and the government of the provinces, he
organized the empire and thus rendered it capable of resisting external
enemies and internal causes of dissolution. If, notwithstanding a
detestable political system, the general lowering of character, and the
vices of the governors and the governed, the empire still had a time of
prosperity and lasted three centuries, it owed it to the powerful
organization it had received from Augustus. This was the really vital
part of his work. It is important enough to justify the testimony that
he bears to himself in that haughty phrase of the Ancyran inscription:
“I made new laws. I restored to honour the examples of our forefathers
which were disappearing from our manners, and I have myself left
examples worthy of being imitated by our descendants.”
III.
It was no doubt about the middle of the reign, when he who was the
absolute master of the republic was pretending to restore the government
to the people and senate, that Cicero’s letters appeared. The exact date
of their publication is unknown; but everything tends to the belief that
it should be placed in the years that followed the battle of Actium. The
power of Augustus, become more popular since it had become more
moderate, felt itself strong enough to allow some liberty of writing. It
was mistrustful before that time because it was not sufficiently
consolidated; it became so again later when it perceived that public
favour was passing from it. This reign, which began by proscribing men,
ended by burning books. Cicero’s correspondence could only have been
published in the interval that separates these periods.
No one has told us what impression it produced on those who read it for
the first time; but it may be fearlessly asserted that it was a very
lively impression. The civil wars had only just ended, up till that time
men were only occupied with present ills; in those misfortunes no man’s
mind was sufficiently free to think of the past, but in the first period
of tranquillity which that troubled generation knew, it hastened to
throw a glance backward. Whether it sought to account for the events
that had happened or wished to enjoy that bitter pleasure which is
found, according to the poet, in the recollections of former sufferings,
it retraced the sad years it had just traversed, and wished to go back
to the very beginning of that struggle whose end it had seen. Nothing
could satisfy their curiosity better than Cicero’s letters, and it
cannot therefore be doubtful that everybody at that time eagerly read
them.
I do not think that this reading did any harm to the government of
Augustus. Perhaps the reputation of some important personages of the new
government suffered a little from it. To have their republican
professions of faith disinterred was unpleasant for men who boasted of
being the private friends of the prince. I suppose that the malicious
must have diverted themselves with those letters in which Pollio swears
to be the eternal enemy of tyrants and in which Plancus harshly
attributes the misfortunes of the republic to the treason of Octavius,
who himself was not to be spared; and these lively recollections of a
time when he held out his hand to Caesar’s assassins and called Cicero
his father, were not favourable to him. All this provided subjects of
conversation for the malcontents during several weeks. But upon the
whole, the mischief was small, and these railleries did not endanger the
security of the great empire. What was most to be feared for it was that
imagination, always favourable to the past, should freely attribute to
the republic those qualities with which it is so easy to adorn
institutions that no longer exist. Now, Cicero’s letters were much more
suited to destroy these illusions than to encourage them. The picture
they present of the intrigues, the disorders, and the scandals of that
time did not permit men to regret it. The men whom Tacitus depicts to us
as worn out with struggles and eager for repose, found in it nothing
that could attract them, and the bad use that men like Curio, Caelius,
and Dolabella had made of liberty, rendered them less sensitive to the
sorrow of having lost it.
The memory of him who wrote these letters gained most by their
publication. It was very common at that time to speak ill of Cicero.
Notwithstanding the manner in which the court historians narrated the
meeting at Bologna and the honourable part they attempted to give
Octavius in the proscriptions,[391] they were none the less unpleasant
recollections for him. His victims were calumniated in order to diminish
his faults. This is what Asinius Pollio wished to do, when he said, in
his speech for Lamia, that Cicero died like a coward.[392] Those whose
devotedness did not go so far, and who had not enough courage to insult
him, took care at least to say nothing of him. It has been remarked that
none of the great poets of this time speak of him, and we know from
Plutarch that at the Palatine it was necessary to read his works in
secret. Silence therefore fell, as far as it was indeed possible, around
Cicero’s great glory; but the publication of his letters recalled him to
the memory of everybody. When once they had been read, this intellectual
and gentle figure, so amiable, so human and so attractive even in its
weaknesses, could not again be forgotten.
To the interest that the personality of Cicero gives to his letters, a
still more vivid interest is added for us. We have seen, in what I have
just written, how much our time resembles that of which these letters
speak to us. It had no solid faith any more than our own, and its sad
experiences of revolutions had disgusted it with everything while
inuring it to everything. The men of that time knew, just as we do, that
discontent with the present and that uncertainty of the morrow which do
not allow us to enjoy tranquillity or repose. In them we see ourselves;
the sorrows of the men of those times are partly our own, and we have
suffered the same ills of which they complained. We, like them, live in
one of those transitional periods, the most mournful of history, in
which the traditions of the past have disappeared and the future is not
yet clearly defined, and know not on what to set our affections, and we
can well understand that they might have said with the ancient Hesiod:
“Would that I had died sooner or been born later!” This is what gives
Cicero’s letters so lively though mournful an interest for us; this is
what first attracted me towards them; this is what, perhaps, will give
us some pleasure in spending a short time in the society of the persons
they depict, who, in spite of the lapse of years, seem almost to be our
contemporaries.
INDEX
Abeken, 23
Acidinus, 105
_Actium_, 302, 367, 382
_Aegean_, 350
_Aegina_, 102
Aesopus, son of, 101
_Africa_, 65, 75, 160, 200, 270, 286, 297, 318
_Agendicum_, 255
Agrippa, 106
_Alba_, 117, 226
_Alesia_, 186, 252, 255
Alexander, 228
_Alexandria_, 118
_Alps_, 76, 252, _seq._
Ambrose, Saint, 103
_America_, 231
Amphiaraüs, 71, 190
Ampius, T., 267
_Ancyra_, 362 and note, 369, 381
_Angora_, 362
_Antium_, 12, 346, 347
Antonius, orator, 42
Antony, 13, 20, 45, 70, 72 _seq._, 76, 81, 100, 104, 105, 158, 177,
197, 266, 276, 306, 331, 333, 335, 336, 339, 340, 345, 347, 350,
353, 356, 357, 360, 365, 370, 380
_Apollonia_, 362
Appian, 325, 342, 345, 381
Appius Claudius, 89, 285, 305, 314
Apuleius, 169, 350
_Apulia_, 186, 206
_Arabia_, 368
_Arcae_, 239
Archimedes, 287
_Argiletum_, 86
Ariobarzanes, 120, 314
Ariovistus, 252, 253, 255, 344
Aristophanes, 28
Aristotle, 108, 307
_Arpinum_, 4, 12, 61, 131, 216, 239
Arrius, 12
_Asia_, 49, 75, 85, 115, 120, 129, 230, 238, 267, 294, 297, 318, 319,
350
_Atella_, 120
_Athens_, 105, 107, 110, 126, 127, 133, 139, 296, 304, 305, 326, 349,
350
Atticus, 4, 10, 12, 13, 26, 53, 79, 85 _seq._, 89 note, 92, 95, 96, 98,
101, 106, 108, 111, 113;
his correspondence with Cicero, 123;
sources of his wealth, 127 _seq._;
attacks Sicyon, 130;
returns to Rome, 132;
his character, 134 _seq._;
his services to Cicero, 141 _seq._;
his conduct in public affairs, 147 _seq._;
his hatred of Caesar, 152;
194, 218 _seq._, 224, 236, 262, 305, 310, 314, 317, 323, 332, 355,
360
Augustus. See Octavius
Aulus Gellius, 110, 112
_Aventine_, 86
Axius, 87, 227 note
_Baiae_, 168, 172, 175, 208
Balbus, 135, 141, 188, 195, 222, 234, 247, 261
Basilus, 192
Bibulus, 70, 105, 155, 221, 333
Blasius, 323
_Bologna_, 356, 365, 390
Bossuet, 147, 279
_Britain_, 65, 232, 234, 240, 245, 249, 250 and note, 251
_Brittany_, 15
_Brundusium_, 73, 94, 97, 152, 187 _seq._, 210, 257, 258, 260, 304, 319
Bruttius, 106
Brutus, 21, 22, 58, 70 _seq._, 75, 77, 88, 102, 107, 136, 140, 151,
152, 154 _seq._, 158, 159, 176, 192, 243, 266, 287, 293;
his family, 305;
his character, 307;
his statue, 309 note;
his oratory, 310;
his usury, 312 _seq._;
joins Pompey at Pharsalia, 317;
submits to Caesar, 318;
close intimacy with Cicero, 320;
his treatise _On Virtue_, 324;
Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, 326;
becomes head of conspiracy against Caesar, 338;
his conduct after Caesar’s death, 340 _seq._;
retires to Greece, 348 _seq._;
disagreement with Cicero, 350, 359, 360
Brutus, Decimus, 74, 75, 176, 192, 243, 323
Bussy, 17
Caecilia Metella, 101
Caecilius, 87, 130
Caecina, 267, 268
Caelius, 3, 4, 100;
his family and education, 160 _seq._;
his relations with Clodia, 166 _seq._;
orator and statesman, 177 _seq._;
joins Caesar, 187;
goes to Spain, 190;
praetor, 197;
opposes Trebonius, 203 _seq._;
leaves Rome, 205;
his death, 206, 264, 306, 359, 389
Caerellia, 90, 91
Caesar, 4, 14, 21, 22, 33, 36, 40, 49 _seq._, 59, 61, 63, 68, 69, 71,
80, 85, 87, 102, 119, 127, 135, 151, 152, 154, 165, 171, 179, 183,
185 _seq._, 191 _seq._;
Cicero his political ally during the Gallic war, his friend after
Pharsalia, 209;
contrasted with Pompey, 225 _seq._;
sets out for Gaul, 229;
his army, 242 _seq._;
his victories, 252;
resumes intercourse with Cicero, 260;
his clemency, 263;
his cruelty, 265;
writes the _Anti-Cato_, 288, 304 _seq._, 308 _seq._, 321, 324, 326
_seq._, 333 _seq._, 344 _seq._, 379, 384, 385
_Calatia_, 74
Calidius, 187
Calvus, Licinius, 170, 171, 174, 208
Camillus, 283
_Campania_, 25, 206, 345
_Campus Martius_, 13, 25, 40, 155, 162, 213, 214, 255, 282
_Capreae_, 172
_Carinae_, 86, 251
_Carthage_, 64, 286
_Casilinum_, 74
_Cassius_, 75, 89, 293, 305, 306, 318, 323, 325, 330, 336 _seq._, 347,
350, 355
Catienus, 238
Catiline, 33, 46, 49 _seq._, 68, 72, 180, 199, 218, 229, 304, 311
Cato (Uticensis), 17, 20, 21, 40, 58, 61, 68, 70, 88, 135, 159, 164,
189, 210, 216, 252, 263, 276 _seq._, 291, 304, 305, 311, 315, 317,
326, 333
Cato, the elder, 33, 113, 149, 379
Cato, the younger, 323
Catullus, 168 _seq._, 174, 208, 235
Cherea, 8
Chrysogonus, 38
Cicero, his letters, 1 _seq._;
letters and speeches compared, 8;
compared with Saint-Simon, 9;
with Mme. de Sévigné, 14 _seq._;
his inconsistency, 17;
his political opinions, 24 _seq._;
defence of Roscius, 37 _seq._;
success of his candidatures, 40;
his eloquence, 42 _seq._;
tries to form a new political party, 47;
his irresolution, 56;
his opinion of the people, 60;
sets out for Greece, 70;
tries to form coalition, 73;
his death, 77;
sources of his wealth, 80 _seq._;
proconsul of Cilicia, 82;
exiled, 93;
returns to Italy, 94;
divorces Terentia, 95;
marries and divorces Publilia, 99;
his children, 100 _seq._;
his slaves, 108 _seq._;
his clients, 113 _seq._;
defends Rabirius Postumus, 119;
his hosts, 120;
his correspondence with Atticus, 123;
reconciled to Hortensius, 136;
teacher of Caelius, 160, 161;
his opinion of Clodia, 162;
defends Caelius, 175;
joins Pompey in Greece, 190;
Caesar’s political ally during the Gallic war, his friend after
Pharsalia, 209;
his return from exile, 210;
supports the triumvirs, 219;
becomes Caesar’s agent, 222;
his letter to Lentulus, 223;
sends Trebatius and Quintus to Caesar, 231;
demands honours for Caesar, 252;
joins Pompey at Pharsalia, returns to Brundusium, 257, 258;
to Tusculum, 259;
to Rome, 260;
is reconciled to Caesar, 260;
_Pro Marcello_, 271 _seq._;
Apology for Cato, 287;
his friendship with Brutus, 308;
proconsul of Cilicia, 312;
his philosophical works, 321 _seq._;
joins Brutus at Velia, 348;
returns to Rome, 349;
disagrees with Brutus, 350 _seq._;
publication of his letters, 388
Cicero, Marcus, 104 _seq._, 110, 111
Cicero, Quintus, 91, 110, 111, 114, 215, 218, 221, 231, 235 _seq._,
246, 251
_Cilicia_, 82, 97, 100, 111, 117, 159, 175, 182, 277, 305, 306, 312,
313, 317
Clodia, 92, 135, 162 _seq._, 180
Clodius, 13, 24, 33, 68, 72, 85, 92, 135, 162, 168, 180, 199, 201, 210
_seq._, 229, 304
Cluvius, 85, 312
Colbert, 9
_Como_, 269
Considius, 87
_Constantinople_, 213
_Cordova_, 323
_Corfinium_, 185 note, 186, 187
_Corinth_, 102
Corneille, 30, 385, 386
Cornelius Nepos, 134, 136, 158
Cornificius, 75, 170, 297
Coulanges, Mme. de, 16
Crassipes, 100
Crassus, 49, 51, 80, 83, 218, 219, 222, 243, 246, 336, 371
Crastinus, 192
Cratippus, 106, 349
Cremutius Cordus, 2
Curio, 4, 20, 53, 62, 100, 127, 179, 187, 195, 197, 208, 264, 276, 306,
359, 389
Curius, 111, 119
_Cydnus_, 330, 337
_Cyprus_, 289, 304, 314, 316
Cyrus, 85
Cytheris, 261
Dante, 303
_Danube_, 378
Deiotarus, 120
_Delos_, 129
Descartes, 104
Dio Cassius, 90, 241, 253, 265, 307, 356, 368, 375
Diodotus, 85
Dionysius, 105
Dionysius, slave of Cicero, 108
Dolabella, 20, 100 _seq._, 109, 179, 187, 195, 197, 208, 261, 306, 331,
340, 345, 389
Domitius, 186, 187
Drumann, 23
Drusus, 100
Dumnorix, 233
_Dyrrhachium_, 192, 242, 257, 286
_Egypt_, 118, 222, 318
_England_, 1
_Ephesus_, 129
Epicrates, 106
_Epirus_, 129, 130, 131, 345
Eros, 79, 88, 109
_Ethiopia_, 368
Eutrapelus, 261
Fabius, 33
Fabius Gallus, 287
Fabius Maximus, 243
Favonius, 327, 347
Fayette, Mme. de la, 16
_Fibrenus_, 131
_Formiae_, 4, 11, 53, 77, 193, 217
_Forum_, 2, 4, 5, 8, 13, 25, 30, 39, 44, 55, 61, 75, 80, 112, 114, 140,
149, 155, 160 _seq._, 175, 177, 193, 201, 204, 208, 212 _seq._, 225,
250, 255, 319, 333, 344, 359, 373, 378
_France_, 1, 232
Fronto, 248
Fulvia, 151
Furfanius, 297
Gabinius, 117, 119, 222
_Gaeta_, 77
_Galatia_, 362
_Gaul_, 65, 110, 115, 185 note, 194, 213, 219, 228, 229, 231 _seq._,
235, 239, 242, 246, 247, 250 _seq._, 296
_Gaul, Cisalpine_, 45, 74, 185 note, 195, 293, 316, 326
_Gergovia_, 186
_Germany_, 1, 23, 65, 245, 250, 252
Gorgias, 105, 106
Gracchi, 32, 48, 59, 61, 164 note, 183, 198, 245
Gracchus, Caius, 199
_Greece_, 32, 70, 73, 77, 102, 120, 126, 127, 129, 135, 142, 149
_seq._, 189, 200, 267, 270, 293, 296, 297, 320, 348, 350
Guy-Patin, 52
Helvius Cinna, 170
Hermogenes, 87
Hesiod, 391
Hirtius, 73, 99, 246, 288, 354, 365
Horace, 168, 350
Hortensius, 83, 89, 104, 136, 210, 290
_Illyria_, 108
_Italy_, 4, 64, 70, 75, 94, 120, 129, 168;
Upper, 183; 187, 189, 193, 198, 205, 206, 212, 253, 254, 258, 266,
268, 296, 317, 345 _seq._; 355, 371
Juba, 323
Knights, the, 47 _seq._, 119, 121, 135, 142, 144, 151, 160, 247, 252,
284, 312, 313, 380
Labeo, 307, 323
Laberius, 234
Labienus, 243, 276
_Lacedaemon_, 316
Laelius, C. (Sapiens), 33
Laelius, 266
_Lanuvium_, 346, 348
Laterensis, 323
_Latium_, 25
Lentulus, 117, 223, 311, 371
Lentulus Sphinther, 101
Leonidas, 106
Lepidus, 75, 305, 306, 323, 344, 346, 354, 356, 367
Lepta, 95, 231
Lesbia, 169 _seq._
Licinius Calvus. See Calvus
Licinius, 238
_Liris_, 26
_Livry_, 15
Livy, 1, 2, 77, 82, 164, 235, 312
Louis XIV., 245, 364
Louvois, 9, 16
Lucan, 52, 68, 303
_Lucca_, 195
Lucceius, 102
_Luceria_, 188
Lucilius, 33
Lucretius, 115, 168, 235, 322
Lucullus, 85, 230
_Macedonia_, 73, 129, 177, 349, 350
Maecenas, 369, 372, 382
Marcellus, 269 _seq._, 285, 296, 299, 324, 326, 374
Marcus. See Cicero, Marcus
_Mariba_, 368
Marius, 37, 49, 65, 124, 246, 254, 291, 294, 328
_Marseilles_, 193, 206, 246
Matius, 191 note, 246, 251
_Megara_, 102
Memmius Gemellus, 115
Messala, 105, 359, 381
Metellus, 164 note
Michael Angelo, 309 note
_Milan_, 316
Milo, 80, 89 note, 97, 206
Mithridates, 127, 230
_Mitylene_, 269, 324
_Modena_, 75, 76, 350, 360
Molière, 280
Mommsen, 1 note, 23, 31, 45, 213, 228, 287, 384
Montaigne, 33
Mummius, 246
Munatius, 289
_Munda_, 202, 265, 302, 330
_Nabata_, 368
_Naples_, 162, 172, 206
Napoleon, 228
_Narbonne_, 330
_New Orleans_, 213
Nicole, 16
Nigidius Figulus, 267, 268
Ninnius, 153
Octavius, 74, 76, 77, 106, 139, 158, 164 note, 165, 173, 264, 301, 302,
308, 316, 329, 345, 353, 354, 356, 357;
his correspondence with Cicero, 359;
Cicero’s opinion of him, 360;
Ancyran Inscription, 361 _seq._;
pro-praetor, triumvir, 365;
his war with Sextus Pompey, 367;
his victories, 367, 368;
his relations with his soldiers, 369 _seq._;
with the people, 372, 373;
with the senate, 373 _seq._;
population of Rome, 376 note;
his policy in rebuilding Rome, 377;
political greatness of Rome, 378 _seq._;
“Father of his Country,” 381;
change in his character, 381 _seq._;
effects of his policy, 386, 387;
publication of Cicero’s letters, 388 _seq._
Oppius, 188, 195, 222
Ovid, 169, 171, 174
_Palatine_, 37, 86, 162, 169, 215, 217, 251, 374, 390
_Pannonia_, 370
Pansa, 73, 350, 365
_Paphos_, 120
Papirius Paetus, 13, 83
_Paris_, 15, 213
Pascal, 138, 229
_Patras_, 119
Patroclus, 287
Paula Valeria, 176
Paulus Emilius, 379
Petreius, 323
_Pharsalia_, 51, 69, 85, 94, 97, 149, 154, 189, 192, 202, 207, 209,
257, 259, 261, 266 _seq._, 272, 275, 277, 285, 291 _seq._, 299, 302,
306, 318, 319, 321, 325, 327 _seq._, 337, 350, 359, 374, 384
Philip (tribune), 80
_Philippi_, 136, 207, 307, 316, 323, 371, 374, 380, 382
Philotimus, 97
_Picenum_, 213
Pilois, 15
Pinarius, 244
_Piraeus_, 102
Piso, 100, 220
Plancus, 75, 243, 246, 354, 359, 389
Plato, 26, 27, 31, 223, 321
Plautus, 90, 162, 174
Pliny, 113, 141
Plutarch, 77, 91, 193, 241, 289, 290, 316, 326, 331, 334, 337, 349,
357, 390
Polybius, 31, 325
_Pompeii_, 153
Pompey, 14, 21, 40, 49, 51, 56, 57, 70, 81, 82, 87, 110, 117, 135, 143,
152, 182, 185 _seq._, 197, 210, 215 _seq._, 256, 258, 263, 285, 312,
317, 318, 327, 335
Pompey, Sextus, 74, 330, 367, 370, 380, 382
Pomponia, 91, 236 _seq._
Porcia, 333, 347
Postumia, 295, 296
Propertius, 171, 235
Ptolemy Auletes, 117, 222
Publilia, 99, 143
_Puteoli_, 85, 118, 160, 162, 313
Quintilian, 177, 205 note, 207
Quintilius Varus, 170, 323
Quintus. See Cicero, Quintus
_Quirinal_, 134, 140, 149
Rabirius Postumus, 116 _seq._, 312
_Ravenna_, 186, 187
_Reate_, 61
_Rennes_, 15
_Rhegium_, 70
_Rhine_, 250, 251, 254, 367, 378
_Rhone_, 254
Rochefoucauld, La, 16
Rollin, 271
_Rome_, 2 _seq._, 12, 14, 24, 31, 37, 48, 51, 53 _seq._, 59, 62, 64
_seq._, 70, 72, 74, _seq._, 80 _seq._, 89 note, 91, 112, 115 _seq._,
124, 125, 127, 130 _seq._, 150 _seq._, 162 _seq._, 186, 195 _seq._,
210 _seq._, 218, 226, 262 _seq._, 280 _seq._, 297 _seq._, 304
_seq._, 312 _seq._, 320, 325, 326, 335, 341, 344, 349 _seq._, 361
Roscius, 38, 52
Rousseau, 282
_Rubicon_, 151, 186, 188, 256
Rullus, 43
Rutilius, 294
_Sabine country, the_, 25
Saint-Simon, 4, 9, 309
_Salamis_, 314
Sallust, 50
Saturninus, 294
Scaeva, 192
Scaevola, family of, 294 _seq._
Scaptius, 314, 315
Scapula, 323
Scipio (Africanus minor), 33, 286
Scipio (Africanus major), 243, 379
Scipio (Nasica), 70, 285, 323
Sebosus, 11, 12
Seneca, 50, 112, 178, 290, 324, 382
Servilia, 305, 333, 347
Servilius, 204, 205, 297
Servius Galba, 149, 243
Servius Ocella, 176
Sévigné, Mme. de, 6, 14 _seq._, 104, 261
Sicac, 95
_Sicily_, 74, 83, 115, 121, 266, 268, 297, 347
_Sicyon_, 130
Sieyès, 124
Sositheus, 108
_Spain_, 102, 187, 190, 197, 202, 230, 263, 265, 270, 288, 367
_Sparta_, 120
Statius, 236, 237
Suetonius, 194, 203, 240, 296, 379, 382 _seq._
Sulla, 36, 38, 45, 57, 59, 136, 139, 158, 245, 264, 291, 317, 328, 343
Sulpicius Galba, 192
Sulpicius, Servius, 102, 119, 184, 273, 285, 293 _seq._
Sulpicius (tribune), 124
Sylla, P., 83
_Syria_, 117, 336
Tacitus, 121, 161, 205, 302, 310, 322, 366, 369, 386, 389
Terence, 33, 162
Terentia, 91 _seq._, 99, 142, 165, 166
_Thapsus_, 202, 265, 286, 302, 326
Theophanes, 135
_Thespiae_, 119
_Thessalonica_, 316
_Thessaly_, 197, 215, 317, 349
Thrasea, 290
Thucydides, 21
_Thurium_, 206
_Tiber_, 152, 168, 169, 172, 214, 373
Tiberius, 100, 307, 370
Tiberius Nero, 100
Tiro, 88, 99, 106, 109 _seq._
Torquatus, 267, 296, 326
Trebatius, 95, 188, 231 _seq._, 240, 241, 244, 245
Trebonius, 192, 197, 203, 204, 246, 284, 330
Triarius, 326
_Troy_, 287
Tullia, 100 _seq._, 142, 258
Turenne, 16
_Tusculum_, 53, 61, 86 note, 88, 91, 95, 111, 138, 144, 149, 217, 259,
260
_Ulubrae_, 231
_Utica_, 286
Varro, 61, 93, 138, 259
Vatinius, 4, 8, 170, 220, 222, 350
Vectenus, 87
Vedius, P., 120
Vedius, C., 306
_Velia_, 70, 72, 77, 348, 355
Velleius, 307
Vercingetorix, 225, 265, 344
_Verona_, 169
Verres, 8, 83, 120
Vestorius, 87
_Via Sacra_, 215
Virgil, 113 note, 235, 319
_Volaterrae_, 120
Volcatius Tullus, 243
Volumnius, 151
Volusius, 171
_Xanthus_, 316
Zeuxis, 238
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E. C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
-----
Footnote 1:
The course of this work will show that I have made great use of works
published in Germany, especially the fine Roman History of M. Mommsen,
so learned and at the same time so living. I do not always share his
opinions, but the influence of his ideas will be perceived even in
passages where I do not agree with him. He is the master of all who
study Rome and her history now.
Footnote 2:
Corn. Nepos, _Att._ 16.
Footnote 3:
See Cicero’s _Epist. ad fam._ ii. 8 and viii. 1. I shall quote
Orelli’s edition of Cicero’s works in the course of this work.
Footnote 4:
I have attempted to clear up some of the questions to which the
publication of Cicero’s letters has given rise in a treatise entitled,
_Recherches sur la manière dont furent recueillies et publiées les
lettres de Cicéron_, Paris, Durand, 1863.
Footnote 5:
_Pro. Rosc. com._ 7.
Footnote 6:
_In Verrem. act. sec._ v. 11.
Footnote 7:
_In Vatin._ 2.
Footnote 8:
_Pro Font._ 11.
Footnote 9:
_Pro Rabir. post._ 13.
Footnote 10:
_In Pison._ 20.
Footnote 11:
_Ad fam._ ix. 21.
Footnote 12:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 15, 6.
Footnote 13:
_Ad fam._ xv. 17.
Footnote 14:
_Ibid._ xvi. 16.
Footnote 15:
_Ad Att._ xiii. 18.
Footnote 16:
_Ad fam._ xv. 16.
Footnote 17:
_Ad Att._ ii.
Footnote 18:
_Ad Att._ ii. 15.
Footnote 19:
_Ibid._ ii. 4.
Footnote 20:
_Ad Quint._ iii. 1, 4.
Footnote 21:
_Ad Att._ iv. 15.
Footnote 22:
_Ibid._ iv. 1.
Footnote 23:
_Ad fam._ ix. 24.
Footnote 24:
_Ad Att._ vii. 9.
Footnote 25:
_Ad Att._ vii. 1, 2.
Footnote 26:
Forsyth, _Life of Cicero_. London, Murray, 1864. Merivale, _History of
the Romans under the Empire_, vols. i., ii.
Footnote 27:
Abeken, _Cicero in seinen Briefen_. Hannover, 1835.
Footnote 28:
Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, etc., vols. v., vi.
Footnote 29:
Mommsen, _Römische Geschichte_, vol. iii.
Footnote 30:
_Pro Rosc. Amer._ 16.
Footnote 31:
_De leg._ ii. 1.
Footnote 32:
_Ad Att._ xii. 52.
Footnote 33:
It has been remarked that, in his _Republic_, Cicero speaks of
kingship with much esteem, and even a sort of emotion which may easily
surprise us in a republican like him; but he understands by it a kind
of primitive and patriarchal government, and he demands so many
virtues in the king and his subjects that we see very well that he
does not think that this royalty was easy or even possible. We cannot
therefore admit, as has been done by some, that Cicero meant to
announce beforehand, and to approve of the revolution that Caesar
accomplished some years later. On the contrary, he indicates in very
clear terms what he will think of Caesar and his government when he
attacks those tyrants who, in their greed for rule, wish to govern
alone, in contempt of the rights of the people. “The tyrants many be
clement,” he adds; “but what does it matter whether we have an
indulgent or a barbarous master? One is none the less a slave with
either” (_De Rep._ i. 33).
Footnote 34:
_In Verr. act. sec._ v. 70.
Footnote 35:
_De Rep._ i. 26.
Footnote 36:
_Ibid._ i. 34.
Footnote 37:
_De Rep._ i. 45.
Footnote 38:
In that curious letter that he wrote to Pompey after his consulship
(_ad fam._ v. 7), in which he seems to propose a kind of alliance, he
attributes to him the part of Scipio and takes for himself that of
Laelius.
Footnote 39:
_Pro. Rosc. Amer._ 8.
Footnote 40:
_Pro. Rosc. Amer._ 46.
Footnote 41:
_Ibid._ 29.
Footnote 42:
_Ibid._ 52.
Footnote 43:
_Ad Herenn._ i. 3.
Footnote 44:
_De Orat._ ii. 59.
Footnote 45:
_Pro Cluent._ 50.
Footnote 46:
I here employ the phrases of M. Havet, who has set this idea in a
clear light in one of the too scanty writings he has published on
Cicero. Speaking of this, we maybe permitted to regret that M. Berger
and he have not given to the public the excellent series of lectures
which they delivered at the Collège de France and at the Sorbonne, of
which Cicero was so often the subject. If they had acceded to the
wishes of their auditors, and the entreaties of all friends of
letters, France would have nothing to envy Germany on this important
question.
Footnote 47:
Varro, _De re rust._ ii. 1.
Footnote 48:
_De brevit. vitæ_, 5. _Non sine causa, sed sine fine laudatus._
Footnote 49:
On the exile of Cicero, and the policy that he followed after his
return, see the study on _Caesar and Cicero_, Part I.
Footnote 50:
_Ad Att._ ix. 1.
Footnote 51:
_Ibid._ x. 7.
Footnote 52:
_Ad Att._ ix. 10.
Footnote 53:
_De bello civ._ i. 22.
Footnote 54:
He even seems to say several times that the position of the plebeians
in the republic was, on the whole, better than that of the patricians
(_Pro Cluent._ 40. _Pro domo sua_, 14).
Footnote 55:
_Pro Sext._ 49.
Footnote 56:
_De bello afric._ 45.
Footnote 57:
_De bello civ._ ii, 32.
Footnote 58:
See the _Histoire de l’esclavage dans l’antiquité_ of M. Wallon, Vol.
II. ch. ix.
Footnote 59:
Luc., _Phars._ ii. 300:
_Non ante revellar
Exanimem quam te complectar, Roma, tuumque
Nomen, libertas, et inanem prosequar umbram._
Footnote 60:
In the study on Brutus.
Footnote 61:
_Ad fam._ xii. 25.
Footnote 62:
_Philipp._ xiv. 7.
Footnote 63:
_Ad fam._ x. 31.
Footnote 64:
_Ibid._ xii. 13.
Footnote 65:
_Ibid._ xii. 12.
Footnote 66:
_Ad Brut._ 3.
Footnote 67:
_Philipp._ iii. 14.
Footnote 68:
Apud Senec., _Suas_, 6.
Footnote 69:
Plut. _Cic._ 48.
Footnote 70:
_De offic._ ii. 21: Things had not changed when Cicero was consul. We
see that his brother, in a letter that he addressed to him then, says
that there were few knights in Rome, _pauci equites_, that is, few men
possessing more than £3200.
Footnote 71:
_Parad._ 6. _Qui honeste rem quaerunt mercaturis faciendis, operis
dandis publicis sumendis_, etc.
Footnote 72:
_Hist._ xxxiv. 4.
Footnote 73:
_In Verrem, act. prim._ 14.
Footnote 74:
_De petit cons._ 5 and 9.
Footnote 75:
_Ad Att._ i. 20.
Footnote 76:
A. Gell. xii. 12.
Footnote 77:
_Ad Att._ xiii. 45 _et seq._
Footnote 78:
_Pro Mil._ 18.
Footnote 79:
_Ad Att._ ii. 20.
Footnote 80:
_Philipp._ ii. 16.
Footnote 81:
_Ad Att._ xvi. 1.
Footnote 82:
His villa at Tusculum particularly had cost him very dear. What proves
it to have been of great value is that on his return from exile the
senate allowed him 500,000 sesterces (£4000) to repair the damage it
had suffered in his absence, and that he thought they were far from
having given him enough.
Footnote 83:
_Ad Att._ xii. 25.
Footnote 84:
_Ad fam._ v. 6.
Footnote 85:
_Parad._ 6.
Footnote 86:
It is not probable that Cicero wronged his creditors like Milo, who
only gave them 4 per cent. When he left Rome after the death of
Caesar, Cicero wrote to Atticus that the money that was owing him
would suffice to pay his debts; but as at that moment money was scarce
and debtors held off, he ordered him to sell his goods, if necessary,
and added: “Consult only my reputation.” _Ad Att._ xvi. 2.
Footnote 87:
_Ad fam._ ix. 26: _Me nihil istorum ne juvenem quidem movit unquam_.
Footnote 88:
_Pro Caelio_, 19.
Footnote 89:
_Dio Cass._ xlvi. 18.
Footnote 90:
_Ad fam._ xiii. 72.
Footnote 91:
_Ad Att._ xiv. 19.
Footnote 92:
_Ibid._ xiii. 21.
Footnote 93:
_Ad fam._ ix. 15: _on attici, sed salsiores quam illi Atticorum,
romani veteres atque urbani sales_.
Footnote 94:
Plut. _Cic._ 8.
Footnote 95:
_Ad Att._ ii. 4.
Footnote 96:
_Ad fam._ xiv. 4: _Neque Dii, quos tu castissime coluisti, neque
homines, quibus ego semper servivi_, etc.
Footnote 97:
_Ad fam._ xiv. 7.
Footnote 98:
_Ad fam._ xiv. 1.
Footnote 99:
_Ibid._ xiv. 3.
Footnote 100:
_Ibid._ xiv. 4.
Footnote 101:
_Ibid._ xiv. 5.
Footnote 102:
_Ad fam._ xiv. 12.
Footnote 103:
_Ibid._ xiv. 17.
Footnote 104:
_Ibid._ xiv. 20.
Footnote 105:
_Ad Att._ iv. 1.
Footnote 106:
_Pro Caecin._ 5.
Footnote 107:
_Ad Att._ vii. 1, 3.
Footnote 108:
_Ad fam._ iv. 14.
Footnote 109:
_Ad Att._ xi. 2.
Footnote 110:
_Ibid._ xi. 24.
Footnote 111:
_Ibid._ xii. 22.
Footnote 112:
_Ibid._ xii. 21.
Footnote 113:
_Ad Att._ xii. 32.
Footnote 114:
_Ad Quint._ i. 3.
Footnote 115:
_In Verr. act. sect._ i. 44.
Footnote 116:
_Ad Att._ vii. 4.
Footnote 117:
_Ad Att._ vii. 3.
Footnote 118:
Horace, _Sat._ II. 3, 239.
Footnote 119:
_Ad Att._ xi. 25.
Footnote 120:
_Ad fam._ iv. 5.
Footnote 121:
_Ad Att._ iv. 6.
Footnote 122:
_Ad Att._ x. 8.
Footnote 123:
Plin. _Hist. nat._ xiv. 22.
Footnote 124:
_Ad fam._ xvi. 21.
Footnote 125:
_Brut. ad Cic._ ii. 3.
Footnote 126:
_De offic._ ii. 7.
Footnote 127:
_Ad Att._ i. 12.
Footnote 128:
_Ad fam._ xiii. 77.
Footnote 129:
_Ad fam._ xvi. 22.
Footnote 130:
A. Gell. vii. 3.
Footnote 131:
_Ad fam._ xvi. 10.
Footnote 132:
_Ibid._ xvi. 21.
Footnote 133:
_Ad fam._ xvi. 18.
Footnote 134:
_Ad fam._ xvi. 3, 4.
Footnote 135:
A. Gell. xiii. 20.
Footnote 136:
Plin. _Epist._ viii. 16.
Footnote 137:
Virgil, however, always faithful to ancient traditions, places, in
Tartarus, the patron who had deceived his client beside the son who
had struck his father.
Footnote 138:
_De petit. cons._ 9.
Footnote 139:
_Ad fam._ xiii. 19.
Footnote 140:
_Ad Quint._ i. 1.
Footnote 141:
_Ad fam._ xiii. 22.
Footnote 142:
_Ibid._ vii. 31.
Footnote 143:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 144:
I have endeavoured to prove this with more detail in a memoir
published by the _Revue archéologique_, entitled, _Atticus, éditeur de
Cicéron_.
Footnote 145:
_Ad Att._ iv. 4, 8.
Footnote 146:
_Ad Att._ i. 13.
Footnote 147:
_Ibid._ i. 19.
Footnote 148:
_De Leg._ i. 7. He is still faithful to this part of an amateur in
philosophy, when he says further on (i. 21), that Antiochus had made
him take a few steps in the Academy, _deduxit in Academiam perpauculis
passibus_. He never penetrated further.
Footnote 149:
_T. Pomp. Att._ 13. All the preceding details are taken from the life
of Atticus by Cornelius Nepos.
Footnote 150:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 151:
_Ad Att._ iv. 9.
Footnote 152:
_Ibid._ vi. 1.
Footnote 153:
_Ad Att._ vii. 8: _soles conglutinare amicitias_.
Footnote 154:
It is the saying of Tacitus: _pessimum veri affectus venenum sua
cuique utilitas_.
Footnote 155:
_Ad Att._ xiii. 33.
Footnote 156:
It must be remarked, however, that the last letter that we have from
Cicero to Atticus (xvi. 16) contains a proof of the very active steps
that Cicero took to save a part of the fortune of Atticus which was
endangered after the death of Caesar.
Footnote 157:
_Ad Att._ iv. 8.
Footnote 158:
_Ad Att._ ii. 1.
Footnote 159:
_Ad Att._ i. 14.
Footnote 160:
_Ibid._ xvi. 3.
Footnote 161:
_Ibid._ xii. 3.
Footnote 162:
_Ad Att._ xii. 51.
Footnote 163:
_Ibid._ i. 18.
Footnote 164:
_Ibid._ xii. 14.
Footnote 165:
_Cui potest esse vita vitalis, ut ait Ennius, qui non in amici mutua
benevolentia conquiescat?_ (Cicero, _De Amicit._ 6.)
Footnote 166:
_T. Liv._ xxi. 63: _Quaestus omnibus patribus indecorus visus_
Footnote 167:
Scipio says so in the _Republic_ (i. 22): _Quum mihi sit unum opus hoc
a parentibus majoribusque meis relictum, atque administrate rei
publicae_, etc.
Footnote 168:
Corn. Nep. _Attic._ 7: _Usus es aetatis vacatione_.
Footnote 169:
Nep. _Attic._ 6.
Footnote 170:
_Ad Att._ xiv. 10.
Footnote 171:
_Ibid._ viii. 2.
Footnote 172:
_Ibid._ x. 15.
Footnote 173:
_Ad Att._ x. 16.
Footnote 174:
_Ad Att._ i. 17. See also _de Offic._ i. 21, and especially i. 26.
This last passage evidently contains an allusion to Atticus.
Footnote 175:
_Epist. Brut._ i. 17.
Footnote 176:
_De Rep._ i. 2.
Footnote 177:
_Epist. Brut._ i. 17.
Footnote 178:
_Attic._ 10.
Footnote 179:
_De Orat._ 34.
Footnote 180:
In the time of the Gracchi, the Censor Metellus thus expressed himself
in a speech in which he vigorously attacked bachelors: “Citizens, if
we could live without wives we should all dispense with that
encumbrance (_omnes ea molestia careremus_); but, as nature has willed
it to be as impossible to do without them as it is disagreeable to
live with them, let us sacrifice the charms of so short a life to the
interests of the republic, which must always endure.” This way of
encouraging men to marry seemed apparently very efficacious, since, at
the time when men married less than ever, Augustus thought he ought to
have the speech of old Metellus read to the people.
Footnote 181:
Liv. xxxiv. 3.
Footnote 182:
_Pro Muraen._ 12.
Footnote 183:
Schol. Bob. _p. Sext._ ed. Or. p. 304.
Footnote 184:
Schwab. _Quaest. Catull._ p. 77.
Footnote 185:
All these details, and those that follow, are taken from the _Pro
Caelio_ of Cicero.
Footnote 186:
Macr. _Sat._ ii. 10.
Footnote 187:
Ovid, _Trist._ ii. 427.
Footnote 188:
Apul. _de Mag._ 10. A learned German, M. Schwab, in a book that he has
just published on Catullus (_Quaest. Catull._ 1862), seems to me to
have put the truth of this assertion of Apuleius beyond doubt.
Footnote 189:
_Catull. Carm._ 26.
Footnote 190:
_Catull. Carm._ 86.
Footnote 191:
_Cat. Carm._ 5.
Footnote 192:
_Cat. Carm._ 12.
Footnote 193:
_Cat. Carm._ 70.
Footnote 194:
_Ibid._ 85.
Footnote 195:
Probably with some woman that Caelius loved. Cicero, in replying to
this letter, tells him that the rumour of his exploits has reached
Mount Taurus. Many suppose he means amorous exploits.
Footnote 196:
_Ad fam._ viii. 7.
Footnote 197:
Quint. _Inst. or_, iv. 2.
Footnote 198:
_De Ira._ iii. 8.
Footnote 199:
_Ad fam._ ii. 8.
Footnote 200:
_Ad fam._ viii. 6.
Footnote 201:
_Ibid._ viii. 4.
Footnote 202:
_Ibid._ viii. 5. The sense of this phrase is altered in Orelli.
Footnote 203:
_Ibid._ viii. 14.
Footnote 204:
_Ad fam._ viii. 13.
Footnote 205:
_Ibid._ viii. 14.
Footnote 206:
_Ad fam._ ii. 8.
Footnote 207:
See the excellent memoir of M. Th. Mommsen, entitled _Die Rechtsfrage
zwischen Caesar und dem Senat_. Breslau, 1857.
Footnote 208:
_Ad fam._ viii. 14.
Footnote 209:
We see at the end of the eighth book _De Bello Gallico_, that Caesar
had eight legions in Gaul, one in Cisalpine Gaul, and two that he gave
to Pompey. At the first threat of war he ordered those that were in
Gaul to approach the frontier. After the capture of Corfinium he had
three of his old legions with him.
Footnote 210:
_Ad Att._ vii. 4.
Footnote 211:
_Ad Att._ vii. 8.
Footnote 212:
_Ibid._ viii. 12.
Footnote 213:
_Ad fam._ viii. 15.
Footnote 214:
_Ad Att._ viii. 11.
Footnote 215:
_Ibid._ ix. 6.
Footnote 216:
_Ad Att._ ix. 12.
Footnote 217:
_Ad Att._ ix. 10.
Footnote 218:
_Ad fam._ ii. 16.
Footnote 219:
_Ibid._ vi. 6.
Footnote 220:
_Ad fam._ viii. 17.
Footnote 221:
_De amic._ 15.
Footnote 222:
It would be wrong to pass over the name of Matius in silence. A very
fine letter of his on the death of Caesar remains (_Ad fam._ xi. 28).
He was a true friend of Caesar; but it is to be remarked that he was
not one of those whom he made praetors and consuls, and whose debts he
had often paid. Matius never filled any important political office,
and his name would not have come down to us if it had not been for
Cicero’s correspondence.
Footnote 223:
_De bell. civ._ iii. 53.
Footnote 224:
_Ibid._ iii. 91.
Footnote 225:
_De amic._ 15.
Footnote 226:
_Ad Att._ ix. 19.
Footnote 227:
_Ibid._ ix. 18.
Footnote 228:
Suet. _Caes._ 54.
Footnote 229:
_Ad Att._ x. 4.
Footnote 230:
_Ad fam._ viii. 15.
Footnote 231:
_Pro Flacco_, 38.
Footnote 232:
_Ad fam._ viii. 17.
Footnote 233:
A very curious detail preserved by Quintilian, shows us that Caelius
retained his levity of character and bantering humour in the midst of
these grave affairs in which he staked his life. After his curule
chair had been broken he had another made entirely of leather thongs,
and took it to the consul. All the spectators burst out laughing. The
story ran that Servilius had had a strapping in his youth.
Footnote 234:
_Inst. orat._ x. 1.
Footnote 235:
_Pro Marcello_, 9.
Footnote 236:
_In Pis._ 22.
Footnote 237:
_Pro Dom._ 28.
Footnote 238:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 1.
Footnote 239:
_Ibid._ ii. 3.
Footnote 240:
_Pro Sext._ 35.
Footnote 241:
_Ad pop. pro red._ 7.
Footnote 242:
_Ad Att._ iv. 3. _Ego diaeta curari incipio, chirurgiae taedet._
Footnote 243:
_Ad Att._ iv. 2.
Footnote 244:
_Ad Att._ iv. 5.
Footnote 245:
_Ad Att._ iv. 5.
Footnote 246:
_Ibid._ iv. 6.
Footnote 247:
_Ad fam._ i. 9.
Footnote 248:
_Ad fam._ i. 9.
Footnote 249:
_In Pis._ 32.
Footnote 250:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 12.
Footnote 251:
_Ibid._ ii. 15.
Footnote 252:
This at least was the opinion of all the historians of antiquity. We
read in a fragment of a letter from Cicero to Q. Axius quoted by
Suetonius (_Caes._ 9): _Caesar in consulatu confirmavit regnum de quo
aedilis cogitaret._
Footnote 253:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 13.
Footnote 254:
Or only forty-two, if we place his birth in 654. See, on this point,
an interesting note in the _Life of Caesar_, by Napoleon III., Bk. II.
ch. i.
Footnote 255:
_Ad fam._ vii. 5.
Footnote 256:
_Ad fam._ vii. 5.
Footnote 257:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 15.
Footnote 258:
_Ad fam._ vii. 6: _nisi te extrusissemus_.
Footnote 259:
_Ad fam._ vii. 17.
Footnote 260:
_Ibid._ vii. 13.
Footnote 261:
_Ad fam._ vii. 18.
Footnote 262:
_Ibid._ vii. 10.
Footnote 263:
_De orat._ ii. 3.
Footnote 264:
_Ad Quint._ i. 2.
Footnote 265:
_Caes._ 47.
Footnote 266:
_Ad fam._ vii. 7.
Footnote 267:
Suet. _Caes._ 67.
Footnote 268:
Suet. _Caes._ 46, 48.
Footnote 269:
_Ad Quint._ iii. 1.
Footnote 270:
_Ad Quint._ iii. 9.
Footnote 271:
_Ad Quint._ ii. 15.
Footnote 272:
_Ibid._ ii. 16.
Footnote 273:
Cic. _Brut._ 72, and Pliny, _Hist. nat._ vii. 30.
Footnote 274:
Caesar wrote to Cicero twice from Britain. The first letter took
twenty-six days to reach Rome, and the second twenty-eight. This was
quick travelling for that time, and we see that Caesar must have
organized his mail-service well. Furthermore, we know his stay in
Britain was very short.
Footnote 275:
_Ad Quint._ iii. 1.
Footnote 276:
_De prov Cons._ 13, 14.
Footnote 277:
M. Mommsen completely settles this in his _Roman History_.
Footnote 278:
_De Arusp. resp._ 25.
Footnote 279:
_Ad Att._ vii. 7.
Footnote 280:
_Ad Att._ xi. 20. I read _cognitionem_ instead of _notionem_, which
does not seem to me to have any sense.
Footnote 281:
_Ad fam._ ix. 1.
Footnote 282:
_Ad Att._ xvi. 31.
Footnote 283:
_Ad fam._ ix. 5.
Footnote 284:
_Ad Att._ ix. 20.
Footnote 285:
_Ad Att._ x. 4.
Footnote 286:
_Bell. Afric._ 88.
Footnote 287:
_Ad Att._ ix. 7.
Footnote 288:
The general amnesty that Suetonius speaks of did not take place till
much later.
Footnote 289:
_Ad fam._ vii. 7.
Footnote 290:
It is unnecessary to say that I believe in the authenticity of this
speech: it has been disputed for reasons that seem to me futile.
Further on I shall reply to those drawn from the character of the
speech, by showing that it is less base and servile than has been
asserted.
Footnote 291:
_Pro Marc._ 4.
Footnote 292:
_Ad fam._ iv. 4.
Footnote 293:
_Pro Marc._ 7.
Footnote 294:
_Ibid._ 8.
Footnote 295:
_Philipp._ iii. 11.
Footnote 296:
_Ad fam._ xv. 5.
Footnote 297:
_Pro Muraen._ 31.
Footnote 298:
_Pro Muraen._ 35.
Footnote 299:
_Pro Mur._ 36.
Footnote 300:
_Ad Att._ ii. 1.
Footnote 301:
_Ad Att._ xii. 4.
Footnote 302:
_Ann._ iv. 34.
Footnote 303:
_Ad Att._ xiii. 46.
Footnote 304:
Caes. _Bell. civ._ i. 4.
Footnote 305:
_Philipp._ ii. 32.
Footnote 306:
It is not easy to say what Caesar’s projects were, as his work was
interrupted by his death. Some insist that he only desired a sort of
dictatorship for life; the greater number suppose that he thought of
permanently establishing monarchical rule. The question is too grave
to be entered upon incidentally, and settled in a few words. I will
simply say that perhaps he only thought at first of the dictatorship;
but in proportion as he became more powerful, the idea of founding a
monarchy seemed to take more consistency in his mind. Yet it may be
inferred from a passage in Plutarch (_Brut._ 7), that he was not
decided on the question of an hereditary succession when he died.
Footnote 307:
_Ad fam._ xii. 17.
Footnote 308:
_Brut._ 51.
Footnote 309:
_Pro Rabir._ 7.
Footnote 310:
_Pro Rosc. Am._ 12.
Footnote 311:
_Ad fam._ iv. 5.
Footnote 312:
_Ibid._ xiii. 68.
Footnote 313:
_Ibid._ xii. 18.
Footnote 314:
_Ibid._ vi. 9.
Footnote 315:
_Pro Marc._ 10.
Footnote 316:
_Ad Att._ xii. 45.
Footnote 317:
_Pro Dejot._ 12.
Footnote 318:
“All the honest men,” said Cicero (_Phil._ ii. 12), “in so far as they
could, have killed Caesar. Some wanted the means, others the
resolution, several the opportunity; no one wanted the will.”
Footnote 319:
_Ann._ i. 3.
Footnote 320:
The authenticity of these letters has been often called in question
since the last century, and has been debated in Germany quite recently
with much warmth, and a distinguished critic, F. Hermann of Göttingen,
has published some remarkable essays, to which it seems to me
difficult to reply, in order to prove that they are really letters of
Brutus and Cicero. I have summed up his principal arguments in
_Recherches sur la manière dont furent recueillies les lettres de
Cicéron_, ch. v.
Footnote 321:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 322:
_Ad fam._ iii. 11.
Footnote 323:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 324:
_Orat._ 10.
Footnote 325:
_Ad Att._ xiv. 1.—A very curious statue of Brutus is to be seen at the
Campana Museum. The artist has not tried to idealize his model, and
seems to have aimed at nothing but a vulgar exactness; but we can very
well recognize in it the real Brutus. We can trace in that low
forehead and the heavy bones of the face a narrow mind and an
obstinate will. The face has a feverish and sickly look; it is at once
young and old, as is the case with those who have never really been
young. Above all we perceive in it a strange sadness, that of a man
overwhelmed by the weight of a great and fateful destiny. In the fine
bust of Brutus preserved in the Museum of the Capitol, the face is
fuller and handsomer. The sweetness and sadness remain; the sickly
look has disappeared. The features exactly resemble those on the
famous medal struck during Brutus’ last years, and which bears on the
reverse a Phrygian cap between two daggers, with the threatening
legend, _Idus Martiae_. Michael Angelo commenced a bust of Brutus, of
which the admirable rough model may be seen at the Uffizi in Florence.
It was not a fancy study, and we see that he had made use of ancient
portraits while idealizing them.
Footnote 326:
_Ad Att._ xv. 1, B.
Footnote 327:
_Ad Att._ xii. 21.
Footnote 328:
Liv. xlv. 18.
Footnote 329:
Cic. _Ad Quint._ i. 1.
Footnote 330:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 331:
_Ad Quint._ i. 1.
Footnote 332:
_Ad Att._ vi. 1.
Footnote 333:
_Ibid._ v. 21.
Footnote 334:
_Ad Att._ xi. 4.
Footnote 335:
_Ad fam._ xv. 15.
Footnote 336:
_Ad fam._ iv. 9.
Footnote 337:
Cic. _Brut._ 96.
Footnote 338:
_Tusc._ ii. 2.
Footnote 339:
See on this question the very interesting work of M. Martha, _Les
Moralistes sous l’Empire Romain_.
Footnote 340:
_Ad Att._ xv. 2.
Footnote 341:
Quint. x. 1.
Footnote 342:
Sen. _Cons. ad Helv._ 9.
Footnote 343:
_Epist. Brut._ i. 16.
Footnote 344:
App. _De bell. civ._ iv. 133.
Footnote 345:
Plut. _Brut._ 12.
Footnote 346:
Those who employed these manœuvres well knew that they were taking
Brutus on his weak side. His descent from him who expelled the kings
was much contested. The more it was regarded as doubtful the more
anxious he was to prove it. To say to him: “No, you are not Brutus,”
was to put on him the necessity or the temptation of proving his
origin by his actions.
Footnote 347:
_Ad fam._ xv. 18.
Footnote 348:
_De Offic._ ii. 7.
Footnote 349:
_De Divin._ ii. 2.
Footnote 350:
_Brut._ 97.
Footnote 351:
_Epis. Brut._ i. 17.
Footnote 352:
_Ibid._ x. 16.
Footnote 353:
_Ibid._ i. 17.
Footnote 354:
Quint. ix. 3.
Footnote 355:
It must, however, be noticed that there are several of Cassius’
letters in Cicero’s correspondence, and that some of them are witty
and very lively. There are even puns in them.—(_Ad fam._ xv. 19.)
Footnote 356:
_De Bell. civ._ ii. 113. Plutarch relates the same thing, and almost
in the same words.
Footnote 357:
_Ad Att._ xv. 4.
Footnote 358:
_De Bell. civ._ ii. 120.
Footnote 359:
_Ad Att._ xiv. 10, and xv. 11.
Footnote 360:
_De Bell. civ._ iii. 42.
Footnote 361:
_Ad Att._ xv. 11.
Footnote 362:
_Ad fam._ xi. 3.
Footnote 363:
_Philipp._ x. 4.
Footnote 364:
_Ad fam._ x. 1.
Footnote 365:
_Ad fam._ xi. 7.
Footnote 366:
_Ibid._ x. 16.
Footnote 367:
_Ad Brut._ ii. 7.
Footnote 368:
_Ad fam._ xi. 23.
Footnote 369:
_Philipp._ xiii. 19.
Footnote 370:
_Philipp._ xi. 8.
Footnote 371:
_Ad fam._ xii. 2.
Footnote 372:
_Ad Att._ xiv. 20.
Footnote 373:
_Ad Brut._ i. 10.
Footnote 374:
_Epist. Brut._ i. 17.
Footnote 375:
_Ad fam._ ix. 16.
Footnote 376:
_Ad Att._ xvi. 11.
Footnote 377:
_Ibid._ xiv. 12.
Footnote 378:
_Ad fam._ xii. 25: _Quem ructantem et nauseantem conjeci in Caesaris
Octaviani plagas_.
Footnote 379:
Orelli, _Fragm. Cic._ p. 465.
Footnote 380:
Suet. _Aug._ 101.
Footnote 381:
_Exploration archéologique de la Galatie_, etc., par MM. Perrot,
Guillaume et Delbet. Paris, 1863. Didot. As the Galatians spoke Greek
and understood Latin ill, the official text was put in the place of
honour, in the temple itself, and the translation was placed outside
where every one might read it, in order to bring the narrative of
Augustus within their reach. But the exterior of the temple has not
been any more respected than the interior. The Turks have fixed their
houses against the walls, carelessly driving their beams into the
marble, and using the solid masonry as a support for their brick and
mud party-walls. All the skill of M. Perrot and his companion M.
Guillaume was required to penetrate into these inhospitable houses.
When they had entered they met with still greater difficulties. It was
necessary to demolish the walls, take away the beams and support the
roofs in order to reach the ancient wall. This was but little. The
wall was hammered and cracked, blackened by dirt and smoke. How could
the inscription that covered it be deciphered? It was necessary to
remain for weeks in dark and foul rooms, or on the straw of a loft,
working by candlelight, throwing the light in every direction on the
surface of the marble, and thus gradually winning each letter by
extraordinary efforts of courage and perseverance. This painful labour
was rewarded by complete success. Of nineteen columns of Greek text,
the English traveller Hamilton had copied five completely and
fragments of another; M. Perrot brings back twelve entirely new ones.
One only, the ninth, could not be read; it was behind a thick
party-wall that it was found impossible to pull down. These twelve
columns, although they have suffered much from the ravages of time,
fill up in great part the lacunae of the Latin text. They make us
acquainted with entire paragraphs of which no traces remain in the
original; and even in passages where the Latin was better preserved
they rectify at almost every step mistakes that had been made in the
interpretation of the text. M. Egger, in his _Examen des historiens
d’Auguste_, p. 412 _et seq._, has carefully and critically studied the
inscription of Ancyra. M. Mommsen, with the help of M. Perrot’s copy,
is preparing a learned work on this inscription, after which, no
doubt, nothing will remain to be done. (M. Mommsen’s work, that was
announced in the first edition of this book, has since appeared under
the title: _Res gestae divi Augusti ex monumentis Ancurano et
Apolloniensi_.)
Footnote 382:
Dio, lii. 14–40. See what M. Egger says of Dio in his _Examen des
hist. d’Aug._ ch. viii.
Footnote 383:
The figure cannot be read either in the Latin or Greek.
Footnote 384:
The figure cannot be read. The great number of gladiators who fought,
and no doubt perished in these bloody _fêtes_ will be noticed. Seneca,
to show how far men can become indifferent to death, relates that,
under Tiberius, a gladiator complained of the rarity of these grand
massacres; and alluding to the time of Augustus said: “That was a good
time! _Quam bella aetas periit!_”
Footnote 385:
There is some probability, according to a passage of Suetonius (_Aug._
52), that what the Greek text of the inscription calls absolute
authority αὐτεξουσιὸς ἀρχὴ was the dictatorship.
Footnote 386:
I have only summed up here a very curious chapter of Dio Cassius
(_Hist. Rom._ liii. 17). We see there clearly how the Roman
constitution, in which the separation of powers was a guarantee for
liberty, became, by the sole fact of their concentration, a formidable
engine of despotism.
Footnote 387:
The Ancyra inscription gives most precise information on the subject
of this increase. In 725 Augustus took the census for the first time
after an interruption of forty-one years: 4,063,000 citizens were
counted in this return. Twenty-one years later, in 746, the numbers
returned amounted to 4,233,000. In 767, the year of Augustus’ death,
there were 4,937,000. If, to the figures that Augustus gives, we add
the number of women and children who were not comprised in the Roman
census, we shall see that in the last twenty years of his reign the
increase had reached an average of very nearly 16 per cent. This is
exactly the figure to which the increase of population in France rose,
after the Revolution, from 1800 to 1825; that is, like political
circumstances produced like results. It might be thought, indeed, that
this increase of population under Augustus was due to the introduction
of foreigners into the city. But we know, from Suetonius, that
Augustus, contrary to the example and principles of Caesar, was very
chary of the title of Roman citizen.
Footnote 388:
Suet. _Aug._ 31.
Footnote 389:
_De Clem._ 9; _Divus Augustus mitis fuit princeps_. It is true that
elsewhere he calls his clemency a wearied-out cruelty.
Footnote 390:
Suet. _Aug._ 84.
Footnote 391:
See especially Velleius Pat. ii. 66.
Footnote 392:
Sen. _Suas._ 6.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end
of the last chapter.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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