 Chapter 1, Part 1 of The Life of Cicero, Volume 2 Cicero's life for the next two years was made conspicuous by a series of speeches which were produced by his exile and his return. These are remarkable for the praise lavished on himself, and by the violence with which he attacked his enemies. It must be owned that never was abuse more abusive, or self-praise uttered in language more laudatory. Cicero had now done all that was useful in his public life. The great monuments of his literature are to come. None of these had, as yet, been written except a small portion of his letters, about a tenth, and of these he thought no more in regard to the public than do any ordinary letter writers of to-day. Some poems have been produced, and a history of his own consulship in Greek, but these are unknown to us. He had already become the greatest orator perhaps of all time, and we have many of the speeches spoken by him. Some we have, those five namely telling the story of Verri's, not intended to be spoken, but written for the occasion of the day rather than with a view to permanent literature. He had been quite store, edile, pritor, and consul, with singular and undeviating success. He had been honest in the exercise of public functions when to be honest was to be singular. He had bought golden opinions from all sorts of people. He had been true to his country, and useful also, a combination which it was given to no other public man of those days to achieve. Having been pritor and consul, he had refused the accustomed rewards, and had abstained from the provinces. His speeches, with but few exceptions, had hitherto been made in favour of honesty. They are declamations against injustice, against bribery, against cruelty, and all on behalf of decent civilised life. Had he died then, he would not have become the hero of literature, the marvel among men of letters whom the reading world admires, but he would have been a great man, and would have saved himself from the bitterness of caesarean tongues. His public work was in truth done. His further service consisted of the Government of Cilicia for a year, an employment that was odious to him, though his performance of it was a blessing to the province. After that there came the vain struggle with Caesar, the attempt to make the best of Caesar victorious, the last loud shriek on behalf of the republic, and then all was over. The fourteen years of life which yet remained to him, sufficed for erecting that literary monument of which I have spoken, but his public usefulness was done. To the reader of his biography it will seem that these coming fourteen years will lack much of the grace which adorned the last twenty. The biographer will be driven to make excuses, which he will not do without believing in the truth of them, but doubting much whether he may beget belief in others. He thinks that he can see the man passing from one form to another, his doubting devotion to Pompey, his enforced adherence to Caesar, his passionate opposition to Antony, but he can still see him true to his country, and ever on the alert against tyranny and on behalf of pure patriotism. At the present we have to deal with Cicero in no vacillating spirit, but loudly exultant and loudly sensorious. Within the two years following his return he made a series of speeches, in all of which we find the altered tone of his mind. There is no longer that belief in the ultimate success of justice, and ultimate triumph of the republic which glowed in his verine and catalyne erations. He is forced to descend in his aspirations. It is not whether Rome shall be free, or the bench of justice pure, but whether Cicero shall be avenged and Gabinius punished. It may have been right, it was right, that Cicero should be avenged and Gabinius punished, but it must be admitted, that the subjects are less alluring. His first oration, as generally received, was made to the senate in honour of his return. The second was addressed to the people on the same subject. The third was spoken to the college of priests, with the view of recovering the ground on which his house had stood, and which Claudius had attempted to alienate for ever by dedicating it to a pretended religious purpose. The next, as coming on our list, though not so in time, was addressed again to the senate, concerning official reports made by the public soothsayers, as interpreters of occult signs, as to whether certain portents had been sent by the gods to show that Cicero ought not to have back his house. Before this was made he had defended Sextius, who as Tribune had been peculiarly serviceable in assisting his return. This was before a bench of judges, and separated from this, though made apparently at the same time, is a violent attack upon Vatinius, one of Caesar's creatures, who was a witness against Sextius. Then there is a seventh regarding the disposition of the provinces among the propritals and pro-consuls, the object of which was to enforce the recall of Piso from Macedonia and Gabinius from Syria, and to win Caesar's favour by showing that Caesar should be allowed to keep the two Gauls and Illyricum. To these must be added two others made within the same period for Cilius and Balbus. The close friendship between Cicero and the young man Cilius was one of the singular details of the orator's life. Balbus was a Spaniard, attached to Caesar, and remarkable as having been the first man, not an Italian, who achieved the honour of the consulship. It has been disputed whether the four first of these orations were really the work of Cicero, certain German critics and English scholars having declared them to be Parum Chicheronias, too little like Cicero. That is the phrase used by Knob, who published a valuable edition of all Cicero's works, after the text of Ernesti, in a single volume. Mr. Long, in his introduction to these orations, denounces them in language so strong as to rob them of all chance of absolute acceptance from those who know the accuracy of Mr. Long's scholarship. There may probably have been subsequent interpolations. The first of the four, however, is so closely referred to by Cicero himself in the speech made by him two years subsequently, in the defence of Plankius, that the fact of an address to the senate in the praise of those who had assisted him in his return cannot be doubted. And we are expressly told, by the orator, that because of the importance of the occasion he had written it out before he spoke it. As to the latinity it is not within my scope, nor indeed within my power, to express a confident opinion. But as to the matter of the speech, I think that Cicero, in his then frame of mind, might have uttered what his attributed to him. Having said so much, I shall best continue my narrative by dealing with the four speeches as though they were genuine. Side note, BC 57, Eitat 50. Cicero landed at Brindisium on the fifth of August, the day on which his recall from exile had been enacted by the people, and there met his daughter Tullia, who had come to welcome him back to Italy on that her birthday. But she had come as a widow, having just lost her first husband, Piso Frughi. At this time she was not more than nineteen years old. Of Tullia's feelings we know nothing from her own expressions, as they have not reached us. But from the warmth of her father's love for her, and by the closeness of their friendship, we are led to imagine that the joy of her life depended more on him than on any of her three husbands. She did not live long with either of them, and died soon after the birth of a child, having been divorced from the third. I take it there was much of triumph in the meeting, though Piso Frughi had died so lately. The return of Cicero to Rome was altogether triumphant. It must be remembered that the contemporary accounts we have had of it are altogether from his own pen. They are taken chiefly from the orations I have named above, though subsequent allusions to the glory of his return to Rome are not uncommon in his works. But had his boasting not been true, the contradictions to them would have been made in such a way as to have reached our ears. Plutarch indeed declares that Cicero's account of the glory of his return fell short of the truth. It may be taken for granted that with that feeble monster the citizen populace of Rome, Cicero had again risen to a popularity equal to that which had been bestowed upon him when he had just driven Catiline out of Rome. Of what nature were the crowds who were thus loud in the praise of their great consul, and as loud afterwards in their rejoicing at the return of the great exile, we must form our own opinion from circumstantial evidence. There was a mass of people, with keen ears, making artistic delight in eloquence and in personal graces, but determined to be idle, and to be fed as well as amused in their idleness. And there were also vast bands of men ready to fight, bands of gladiators there have been called, though it is probable that but few of them had ever been trained to the arena, whose business it was to shout as well as to fight on behalf of their patrons. We shall not be justified in supposing that those who on the two occasions named gave their sweet voices for Cicero were only the well ordered though idle proportion of the people, whereas they who had voted against him in favour of Claudius had all been assassins, bullies, and swordsmen. We shall probably be nearer the mark if we imagine that the citizens generally were actuated by the prevailing feelings of their leaders at the moment, but were carried into enthusiasm when enabled, without detriment to their interests, to express their feelings for one who was in truth popular with them. When Cicero, after the death of the five conspirators, declared that the men had lived, wixeront, his own power was sufficient to ensure the people that they would be safe in praising him. When he came back to Rome, Pompey had been urgent for his return and Caesar had acceded to it. When the bill was passed for banishing him, the triumvirate had been against him, and Claudius had been able to hound on his crew. But Milo also had a crew, and Milo was Cicero's friend. As the Claudian crew helped to drive Cicero from Rome, so did Milo's crew help to bring him back again. Cicero on reaching Rome went at once to the capital, to the temple of Jupiter, and their return thanks for the great thing that had been done for him. He was accompanied by a vast procession who from the temple went with him to his brother's house, where he met his wife, and where he resided for a time. His own house, in the close neighbourhood, had been destroyed. He reached Rome on the Fourth of September, and on the Fifth an opportunity was given to the then hero of the day for expressing his thanks to the senate for what they had done for him. His intellect had not grown rusty in Macedonia, though he had been idle. On the Fifth Cicero spoke to the senate, on the Sixth to the people. Before the end of the month he made a much longer speech to the priests in defence of his own property. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, and his heart was very full of the subject. His first object was to thank the senate and the leading members of it for their goodness to him. The glowing language in which this is done goes against the grain with us when we read continuously the events of his life as told by himself. His last grievous words had been expressions of despair addressed to Atticus. Now he breaks out into a peon of triumph. We have to remember that eight months had intervened, and that the time had sufficed to turn darkness into light. If I cannot thank you as I ought, O conscript fathers, for the undying favours which you have conferred on me, on my brother, and my children, ascribe it I beseech you to the greatness of the things you have done for me, and not to the defect of my virtue. Then he praises the two consuls, naming them Lentulus and Metellus, Metellus as the reader will remember, having till lately been his enemy. He lords the praetors and the tribunes, two of the latter members having opposed his return. But he is loudest in praise of Pompey, that Samsecchiramus, that Chiruselemarus, that Arabarques, into whose character he had seen so clearly when writing from Macedonia to Atticus, that Cnayus Pompey, who by his valour, his glory, his achievements stands conspicuously the first of all nations, of all ages, of all history. We cannot but be angry when we read the words, though we may understand how well he understood that he was impotent to do anything for the republic, unless he could bring such a man as Pompey to act with him. We must remember too how impossible it was that one Roman should rise above the falsehood common to Romans. We cannot ourselves always escape even yet from the atmosphere of duplicity in which policy delights. He describes the state of Rome in his absence. When I was gone, you, you the Senate, could decree nothing for your citizens, or for your allies, or for the dependent kings. The judges could give no judgment, the people could not record their votes, the Senate availed nothing by its authority. You saw only a silent forum, a speechless Senate house, a city dumb and deserted. We may suppose that Rome was what Cicero described it to be when he was in exile and Caesar had gone to his provinces, but its condition had been the result of the crushing tyranny of the triumvirate, rather than of Cicero's absence. Lentilus, the present consul, had been, he says, a second father, almost a god to him. But he would not have needed the hand of a consul to raise him from the ground, had he not been wounded by consular hands. Catulus, one of Rome's best citizens, had told him that though Rome had, now and again, suffered from a bad consul, she had never before been afflicted by two together. While there was one consul worthy of the name, Catulus had declared that Cicero would be safe. But there had come two, two together whose spirits had been so narrow, so low, so depraved, so burdened with greed and ignorance, that they had been unable to comprehend much less to sustain the splendour of the name of consul. Not consuls were they, but buyers and sellers of provinces. These were Piso and Gabinius, of whom the former was now Governor of Macedonia and the latter of Syria. Cicero's scorn against these men, who as consuls had permitted his exile, became a passion with him. His subsequent hatred of Antony was not as bitter. He had come there to thank the assembled senators for their care of him, but he has carried off so violently by his anger that he devotes a considerable portion of his speech to these indignant utterances. The reader does not regret it. Abuse makes better reading than praise, has a stronger vitality, and seems alas to come more thoroughly from the heart. Those who think that genuine invective has its charms would ill spare Piso and Gabinius. He goes back to his eulogy, and names various praetors and officers who have worked on his behalf. Then he declares that by the voice of the present consul, Lentulus, a decree has been passed in his favour more glorious than has been awarded to any other single Roman citizen, namely that from all Italy those who wished well to their country should be collected together for the purpose of bringing him back from his banishment, him Cicero. There is much in this in praise of Lentulus, but more in praise of Cicero. Throughout these errations we feel that Cicero is put forward as the hero, whereas Piso and Gabinius are the demons of the peace. What could I leave as a richer legacy to my posterity, he goes on to say, opening another clause of his speech, than that the senate should have decreed that the citizen who had not come forward in my defence was one regardless of the republic. By these boastings, though he was at the moment at the top of the ladder of popularity, he was offending the self-importance of all around him. He was offending especially Pompey, with whom it was his fate to have to act. But that was little to the offence he was giving to those who were to come many centuries after him, who would not look into the matter with sufficient accuracy to find that his vanity deserved forgiveness because of his humanity and desire for progress. Oh, Lentulus, he says, at the end of the erration, since I am restored to the republic, as with me the republic is itself restored, I will slacken nothing in my efforts at liberty, but if it may be possible, will add something to my energy. In translating a word here and there as I have done, I feel at every expression my incapacity. There is no such thing as good translation. If you wish to drink the water with its life and vigor in it, you must go to the fountain and drink it there. On the day following he made a similar speech to the people, if indeed the speech we have was from his mouth or his pen, as to which it has been remarked that in it he made no allusion to Claudius, though he was as bitter as ever against the late consuls. From this we may gather that, though his audience was delighted to hear him even in his self-praise, there might have been dispute had he spoken ill of one who had been popular as tribune. His praise of Pompey was almost more fulsome than that of the day before, and the same may be said of his self-glorification. Of his brother's devotion to him he speaks in touching words, but in words which make us remember how untrue to him afterwards was that very brother. There are phrases so magnificent throughout this short piece that they obtain from us as they are read—forgiveness for the writer's faults—sic ulchisgar facinorum singular. Let the reader of Latin turn to chapter nine of the oration, and see how the speaker declares that he will avenge himself against the evildoers whom he has denounced. Cicero, though he had returned triumphant, had come back ruined in Perth, except so far as he could depend on the senate and the people for reimbursing to him the losses to which he had been subjected. The decree of the senate had declared that his goods should be returned to him, but the validity of such a promise would depend on the value which might be put upon the goods in question. His house on the Palatine Hill had been raised to the ground, his tuskill and informian villas had been destroyed, his books, his pictures, his marble columns, his very trees had been stolen. But worst of all, an attempt had been made to deprive him for ever of the choicest spot of ground in all the city, the park lane of Rome, by devoting the space which had belonged to him to the service of one of the gods. Clodius had caused something of a temple of liberty to be built there, because ground so consecrated was deemed at Rome, as with us, to be devoted by consecration to the perpetual service of religion. It was with the view of contesting this point that Cicero made his next speech, Prodomo Sua, for the recovery of his house, before the bench of priests in Rome. It was for the priests to decide this question. The senate could decree the restitution of property generally, but it was necessary that that spot of ground should be liberated from the thralldom of saccadotal tenure by saccadotal interference. These priests were all men of high berth and distinction in the Republic. Nineteen among them were consulares or past consuls. Superstitious awe affects more lightly the consciences of priests than the hearts of those who trust the priests for their guidance. Familiarity does breed contempt. Cicero in making this speech probably felt that if he could carry the people with him, the College of Priests would not hold the prey with grasping hands. The nineteen consulares would care little for the sanctity of the ground if they could be brought to wish well to Cicero. He did his best. He wrote to Atticus concerning it a few days after the speech was made, and declared that if he had ever spoken well on any occasion he had done so then, so deep had been his grief, and so great the importance of the occasion. And he had once informed his friend of the decision of the bench and of the ground on which it was based. If he who declares that he dedicated the ground had not been appointed to that business by the people, nor had been expressly commanded by the people to do it, then that spot of ground can be restored without any breach of religion. Cicero asserts that he was at once congratulated on having gained his cause, the world knowing very well that no such authority had been conferred on Claudius. In the present mood of Rome all the priests with the nineteen consulares were no doubt willing that Cicero should have back his ground. The senate had to interpret the decision, and on the discussion of the question among them, Claudius endeavoured to talk against time. When however he had spoken for three hours he allowed himself to be coughed down. It may be seen that in some respects even Roman fortitude has been excelled in our days. In the first portion of this speech, Prodomo Sua, Cicero devotes himself to a matter which has no bearing on his house. Concomitant with Cicero's return there had come a famine in Rome. Such a calamity was of frequent occurrence, though I doubt whether their famines ever led to the mortality so frightful as that which desolated Ireland just before the repeal of the Corn Laws. No records, as far as I am aware, have reached us of men perishing in the streets. But scarcity was not uncommon, and on such occasions complaints would become very loud. The feeding of the people was a matter of great difficulty and subject to various chances. We do not at all know what was the number to be fed, including the free and the slaves, but have been led by surmises to suppose that it was under a million even in the time of Augustus. But even though the number was no more than five hundred thousand at this time, the procuring of food must have been a complicated and difficult matter. It was not produced in the country. It was imported chiefly from Sicily and Africa, and was plentiful or the reverse not only in accordance with the seasons, but as certain offices of state were diligent and honest or fraudulent and rapacious. We know from one of the very iterations the nature of the Laws on the subject, but cannot but marvel that even with the assistance of such Laws the supply could be maintained with any fair proportion to the demand. The people looked to the government for the supply, and when it fell short would make their troubles known with seditious grumblings, which would occasionally assume the guise of insurrection. At this period of Cicero's return, food had become scarce and dear, and Claudius, who was now in arms against Pompey as well as against Cicero, caused it to be believed that the strangers flocking into Rome to welcome Cicero had eaten up the food which should have filled the bellies of the people. An idea further from truth could hardly have been entertained. No chance influx of visitors on such a population could have had the supposed effect. But the idea was spread abroad, and it was necessary that something should be done to quiet the minds of the populace. Pompey had hitherto been the resource in state difficulties. Pompey had scattered the pirates, who seemed however at this period to have been gathering ahead again. Pompey had conquered Mithridates. Let Pompey have a commission to find food for Rome. Pompey himself entertained the idea of a commission which should for a time give him almost unlimited power. Caesar was increasing his legions and becoming dominant in the West. Pompey, who still thought himself the bigger man of the two, felt the necessity of some great step in rivalry of Caesar. The proposal made on his behalf was that all the treasure belonging to the State should be placed at his disposal, that he should have an army and a fleet, and should be for five years superior in authority to every proconsul in his own province. This was the first great struggle made by Pompey to strangle the growing power of Caesar. It failed altogether. The fear of Caesar had already become too great in the bosom of Rome and Senators to permit them to attempt to crush him in his absence. But a mitigated law was passed, enjoining Pompey to provide the food required, and conferring upon him certain powers. Cicero was nominated as his first lieutenant, and accepted the position. He never acted, however, giving it up to his brother Quintus. A speech which he made to the people on the passing of the law is not extant, but as there was hot blood about it in Rome, he took the opportunity of justifying the appointment of Pompey in the earlier portion of this oration to the priests. It must be understood that he did not lend his aid towards giving those greater powers which Pompey was anxious to obtain. His trust in Pompey had never been a perfect trust since the first days of the triumvirate. To Cicero's thinking both Pompey and Caesar were conspirators against the Republic. Caesar was the bolder and therefore the more dangerous. It might probably come to pass that the services of Pompey would be needed for restraining Caesar. Pompey naturally belonged to the optimates, while Caesar was as naturally a conspirator. But there never again could come a time in which Cicero would willingly entrust Pompey with such power as was given to him nine years before by the Lex Manilia. Nevertheless he could still say grand things in praise of Pompey. To Pompey have been entrusted wars without number, wars most dangerous to the State, wars by sea and wars by land, wars extraordinary in their nature. If there be a man who regrets that this has been done, that man must regret the victories which Rome has won. But his abuse of Claudius is infinitely stronger than his praise of Pompey. In the passages in which he alludes to the sister of Claudius I must refer the reader to the speech itself. It is impossible here to translate them or to describe them. And these words were spoken before the College of Priests of whom nineteen were consulers. And they were prepared with such care that Cicero especially boasted of them to Atticus and declared that they should be put into the hands of all young orators. Montesquieu says that the Roman legislators in establishing their religion had no view of using it for the improvement of manners or of morals. The nature of their rites and ceremonies gives us evidence enough that it was so. If further testimony were wanting it might be found in this address, ad pontifices. Cicero himself was a man of singularly clean life as a Roman nobleman, but in abusing his enemy he was restrained by no sense of what we consider the decency of language. He argues the question as to his house very well, as he did all questions. He tells the priests that the whole joy of his restoration must depend on their decision. Citizens who had hitherto been made subject to such penalties had been malefactors, whereas it was acknowledged of him that he had been a benefactor to the city. Clodius had set up on the spot not a statue of liberty, but as was well known to all men, the figure of a Greek prostitute. The priests had not been consulted, the people had not ratified the proposed consecration. Of the necessity of such authority he gives various examples. "'And this has been done,' he says, by an impure and impious enemy of all religions, by this man among women and woman among men, who has gone through the ceremony so hurriedly so violently, that his mind and his tongue and his voice have been equally inconsistent with each other. My fortune,' he says, as he ends his speech, all moderate as it is, will suffice for me. The memory of my name will be a patrimony sufficient for my children. But if his house be so taken from him, so stolen, so falsely dedicated to religion, he cannot live without disgrace. Of course he got back his house, and with his house about sixteen thousand pounds for its re-election, and four thousand pounds for the damage done to the Tuscalan villa, with two thousand pounds for the Formian villa. With these sums he was not contented, and indeed they could hardly have represented fairly the immense injury done to him. CHAPTER 1 His Return From Exile Part II Side note, B.C. 56, I. Tat. 51. So ended the work of the year of his return. From the following year, besides the speeches, we have twenty-six letters, of which nine were written to Lentulus, the late consul, who had now gone to Cilicia as pro-consul. Lentulus had befriended him, and he found it necessary to show his gratitude by continued correspondence, and by a closer tendance to the interests of the absent officer. These letters are full of details of Roman politics, too intricate for such a work as this. Perhaps I might almost say too uninteresting as they refer especially to Lentulus himself. In one of them he tells his friend that he has at last been able to secure the friendship of Pompey for him. It was, after all, but a show of friendship. He has sopped with Pompey and says that when he talks to Pompey everything seems to go well. No one can be more gracious than Pompey. But when he sees the friends by whom Pompey has surrounded, he knows, as all others know, that the affair is in truth going just as he would not have it. We feel as we read these letters in which Pompey's name is continually before us how much Pompey prevailed by his personal appearance, by his power of saying gracious things, and then again by his power of holding his tongue. You know the slowness of the man, he says to Lentulus, and his silence, a slow, cautious, hypocritical man who knew well how to use the allurements of personal manners. These letters to Lentulus are full of flattery. There are five letters to his brother Quintus dealing with the politics of the time, especially with the then king of Egypt who was to be or was not to be restored. From all these things, however, I endeavour to abstain as much as possible, as matters not peculiarly affecting the character of Cicero. He gives his brother an account of the doings in the senate, which is interesting as showing us how that august assembly conducted itself. While Pompey was speaking with much dignity, Claudius and his supporters in vain struggled with shouts and cries to put him down. At noon Pompey sat down and Claudius got possession of the rostra, and in the middle of a violent tumult remained on his feet for two hours. Then on Pompey's side the optimates sang indecent songs versus obscenissimi, in reference to Claudius and his sister, Claudius. Claudius, rising in his anger, demanded, who had brought the famine? Pompey shouted the Claudians. Who wanted to go to Egypt? demanded Claudius. Pompey again shouted his followers. After that, at three o'clock, at a given signal, they began to spit upon their opponents. Then there was a fight in which each party tried to drive the others out. The optimates were getting the best of it, when Cicero thought it as well to run off, lest he should be hurt in the tumult. What hope could there be for an oligarchy when such things occurred in the senate? Cicero in this letter speaks complacently of resisting force by force in the city. Even Cato, the law abiding precise Cato, thought it necessary to fall into the fashion and go about Rome with an armed following. He bought a company of gladiators and circusmen, but was obliged to sell them, as Cicero tells his brother with glee, because he could not afford to feed them. There are seven letters also to Atticus, always more interesting than any of the others. There is in these the most perfect good feeling, so that we may know that the complaints made by him in his exile had had no effect of estranging his friend. And we learn from them his real innermost thoughts, as they are not given even to his brother, as thoughts have surely seldom been confided by one man of action to another. Atticus had complained that he had not been allowed to see a certain letter which Cicero had written to Caesar. This he had called a pallinodia, or recantation, and it had been addressed to Caesar with the view of professing a withdrawal to some extent of his opposition to the triumvirate. It had been of sufficient moment to be talked about. Atticus had heard of it, and had complained that it had not been sent to him. Cicero puts forward his excuses, and then bursts out with the real truth. Why should I nibble round the unpalatable morsel which has to be swallowed? The recantation had seemed to himself to be almost base, and he had been ashamed of it. But, says he, farewell to all true, upright, honest policy. You could hardly believe what treachery there is in those who ought to be our leading men, and who would be so if there was any truth in them. He does not rely upon those who, if they were true to their party, would enable the party to stand firmly even against Caesar. Therefore it becomes necessary for him to truckle to Caesar, not for himself, but for his party. Unsupported he cannot stand in open hostility to Caesar. He truckles. He writes to Caesar singing Caesar's praises. It is for the party rather than for himself, but yet he is ashamed of it. There is a letter to Luceus, an historian of the day, then much thought of, of whom, however, our later world has heard nothing. Luceus is writing chronicles of the time, and Cicero boldly demands to be praised, ut ornes me apostulem. I ask you to praise me. But he becomes much bolder than that. Again and again I beseech you, without any beating about the bush, to speak more highly of me than you perhaps think that I deserve, even though in doing so you abandon all the laws of history. Then he uses beautiful flattery to his correspondent. Alexander had wished to be painted only by Appellis. He desired to be praised by none but Luceus. Luceus, we are told, did as he was asked. B.C. 56. Eitat. 51. I will return to the speeches of the period to which this chapter is devoted, taking that first which he made to the senate as to the report of the soothsayers respecting certain prodigies. Readers familiar with Livy will remember how frequently in time of disaster the anger of heaven was supposed to have been shown by signs and miracles, indications that the gods were displeased and that expiations were necessary. The superstition, as is the fate of all superstitions, had frequently been used for most ungodlike purposes. If a man had a political enemy, what could do him better service than to make the populace believe that a house had been crushed by a thunderbolt, or that a woman had given birth to a pig instead of a child because Jupiter had been offended by that enemy's devices. By using such a plea the Grecians got into Troy, together with the wooden horse, many years ago. The Scotch worshippers of the Sabbath declared the other day when the bridge over the Tay was blown away that the Lord had interposed to prevent travelling on Sunday. Bro had not been long back from his exile when the gods began to show their anger. A statue of Juno twisted itself half round, a wolf had been seen in the city, three citizens were struck with lightning, arms were heard to clang, and then wide subterranean noises. Nothing was easier than the preparation and continuing of such portents. For many years past the heavens above and the earth beneath had been put into requisition for prodigies. The soothsayers were always well pleased to declare that there had been some neglect of the gods. It is in the nature of things that the superstitious tendencies of mankind shall fall a prey to priestcraft. The quarrels between Cicero and Claudius were as full of life as ever. In this year Claudius being Edile there had come on debates as to a law passed by Caesar as consul in opposition to Bibulus for the distribution of lands among the citizens. There was a question as to a certain tax which was to be levied on these lands. The tax-gatherers were supported by Cicero and denounced by Claudius. Then Claudius and his friends found out that the gods were showering their anger down upon the city because the ground on which Cicero's house had once stood was being desecrated by its re-election. An appeal was made to the soothsayers. They reported and Cicero rejoined. The soothsayers had of course been mysterious and doubtful. Cicero first shows that the devotion of his ground to sacred purposes had been an absurdity, and he then declares that the gods are angry, not with him, but with Claudius. To say that the gods were not angry at all was more than Cicero dead. The peace taken as a morsel of declamatory art is full of vigor, is powerful and invective, and carries us along in full agreement with the orator. But at the conclusion we are led to wish that Cicero could have employed his intellect on higher matters. There are, however, one or two passages which draw the reader into deep mental inquiry as to the religious feelings of the time. In one, which might have been written by Paley, Cicero declares his belief in the creative power of some god, or gods, as he calls them. And we see also the perverse dealings of the Romans with these gods, things which were very troublesome, not to be got over except by stratagem. The gods were made use of by one party and the other for dishonest state purposes. When Cicero tells his hearers what the gods intended to signify by making noises in the sky and other divine voices, we feel sure that he was either hoaxing them who heard him, or saying what he knew they would not believe. Side note, BC 56, Eitat 51. Previous to the speech as to the Aruspiques, he had defended Cestius, or Cestius, as he has frequently called, on a charge brought against him by Claudius in respect of violence. We at once think of the common place from Juvenel, which Tulleret Gracos de Seditione cuarentes. But Rome, without remonstrating, put up with any absurdity of that kind. Cestius and Milo and others had been joined together in opposing the election of Claudius as Edile, and had probably met violence with violence. As surely as an English master of hounds has grooms and whips ready at his command, Milo had a band of bullies prepared for violence. Claudius himself had brought an action against Milo, who was defended by Pompey in person. The case against Cestius was entrusted to Albinovannus, and Ortencius took the defense. Cestius before had been one of the most forward in obtaining the return of Cicero, and had travelled into Gaul to see Caesar, and to procure Caesar's assent. Caesar had not, then, assented, but not the less great had been the favour conferred by Cestius on Cicero. Cicero had been grateful, but it seems that Cestius had thought not sufficiently grateful. Hence there had grown up something of a quarrel. But Cicero, when he heard of the proceeding against his old friend, at once offered his assistance. For a Roman to have more than one council to plead for him was as common as for an Englishman. Cicero was therefore added to Ortencius, and the two great advocates of the day spoke on the same side. We are told that Ortencius managed the evidence, showing probably that Claudius struck the first blow. Cicero then addressed the judges with the object of gaining their favour for the accused. In this he was successful, and Cestius was acquitted. As regards Cestius and his quarrel with Claudius, the oration has but little interest for us. There is not indeed much about Cestius in it. It is a continuation of the peon which Cicero was still singing as to his own return, but it is distinguished from his former utterances by finer thought and finer language. The description of public virtue, as displayed by Cato, has perhaps in regard to melody of words and grandeur of sentiment, never been beaten. I give the orator's words below, in his own language, because in no other way can any idea of the sound be conveyed. Footnote, Chapter 28 Qua in tempestate saia quieta est, et lucet intenebris, et pulsa loco manet amen, et qu'e hairet in patria, splendet qu'e per se semper, ne qu'e alienis un quam so dibus obsolescit. Regard this as a perfect allocation of words in regard to the arrangement both for the ear and for the intellect. End of footnote There is, too, a definition made very cleverly to suit his own point of view between the conservatives and the liberals of the day. Optimates is the name by which the former are known. The latter are called populares. Attached to this speech for Cestius is a declamation against Vatinius, who was one of the witnesses employed by the prosecutor. Instead of examining this witness regularly, he talked him down by a separate oration. We have no other instance of such a forensic manoeuvre either in Cicero's practice or in our accounts of the doings of other Roman advocates. This has reached us as a separate oration. It is a coarse tirade of abuse against a man whom we believe to have been bad, but as to whom we feel that we are not justified in supposing that we can get his true character here. He was a creature of Caesars, and Cicero was able to say words as to Vatinius, which he was unwilling to speak as to Caesar and his doings. It must be added here that two years later, Cicero pleaded for this very Vatinius at the joint request of Caesar and Pompey when Vatinius, on leaving the pritorship, was accused of corruption. The nature of the reward to which the aspiring oligarch of Rome always turned his eyes has been sufficiently explained. He looked to be the governor of a province. At this period of which we are speaking there was no reticence in the matter. Ciriere or Macedonia or Hispania had been the prizes, or Sicily or Sardinia. It was quite understood that an aspiring oligarch went through the dust and danger and expense of political life in order that at last he might fill his coffers with provincial plunder. There were various laws as to which these governments were allotted to the plunderers. Of these we need only allude to the leges Semproniii or Laws proposed B.C. 1-3 by Caeus Sempronius Gracchus for the distribution of those provinces which were to be enjoyed by pro-consuls. There were Praetorian provinces and consular provinces, though there was no law making it sure that any province should be either consular or Praetorian. But the senate, without the interference of the people and free from the tribunes veto, had the selection of provinces for the consuls, whereas for those intended for the praetors the people had the right of voting, and the tribunes of the people had a right of putting a veto on the propositions made. Side note, B.C. 56, I dot 51. Now in this year they came before the senate a discussion as to the fate of three pro-consuls, not as to the primary allocation of provinces to them, but on the question whether they should be continued in the government which they held. Pisa was in Macedonia where he was supposed to have disgraced himself and the empire which he served. Gabinius was in Syria, where it was acknowledged that he had done good service, though his own personal character stood very low. Caesar was lured in the two ghouls that is on both sides of the Alps, in northern Italy and in that portion of modern France along the Mediterranean which had been already colonized, and was also governor of Illyricum. He had already made it manifest to all men that the subjugation of a new empire was his object rather than provincial plunder. Whether we love the memory of Caesar, as of a great man who showed himself fit to rule the world, or turn away from him, as from one who set his iron heel on the necks of men, and by doing so retarded for centuries the liberties of mankind, we have to admit that he rose by the light of his own genius altogether above the ambition of his contemporaries. If we prefer, as I do, the humanity of Cicero, we must confess to ourselves the supremacy of Caesar, and acknowledge ourselves to belong to the beaten cause. Wictric scousa deis placuit, said Wicta Catoni. In discussing the fate of these proconsular officials, we feel now the absurdity of mixing together in the same debate the name of Piso and Gabinius with that of Caesar. Yet such was the subject in dispute when Cicero made his speech de Provinci's consularibus as to the adjudication of the consular provinces. There was a strong opinion among many senators that Caesar should be stopped in his career. I need not here investigate the motives either great or little on which this opinion was founded. There was hardly a senator among them who would not have wished Caesar to be put down, though there were many who did not dare declare their wishes. There were reasons for peculiar jealousy on the part of the Senate. Cisalpine Gaul had been voted for him by the intervention of the people, and especially by that of the Tribune Vatinius, to Caesar who was consularis, whose reward should have been an affair solely for the Senate. Then there had arisen a demand, a most unusual demand, for the other Gaul also. The giving of two provinces to one governor was altogether contrary to the practice of the State. But so was the permanent and acknowledged continuance of a conspiracy such as the triumvirate, unusual. Caesar himself was very unusual. Then the Senate, feeling that the second province would certainly be obtained and anxious to preserve some shred of their prerogative, themselves voted the further Gaul, as it must be done that it at any rate be said that they had done it. But as they had sent Caesar over the Alps, so they could recall him, or try to recall him. Therefore with the question as to Piso and Gabinius, which really meant nothing, came up this also as to Caesar, which meant a great deal. But Caesar had already done great things in Gaul. He had defeated the Helvetians and driven Ariovistus out of the country. He had carried eight legions among the distant Belgi and had conquered the Nervi. In his very year he had built a huge fleet and had destroyed the Veneti, a seafaring people on the coast of the present Brittany. The more powerful he showed himself to be, the more difficult it was to recall him, but also the more desirable in the eyes of many. In the first portion of his speech, Cicero handles Piso and Gabinius with his usual invective. There was no considerable party desirous of renewing to them their governments, but Cicero always reveled in the pleasure of abusing them. He devotes by far the longer part of his aeration to the merit of Caesar. As for recalling him it would be irrational. Who had counted more enemies in Rome than Marius, but did they recall Marius when he was fighting for the Republic? Hitherto the Republic had been forced to fear the Gauls, Rome had always been on the defense against them. Now it had been brought about by Caesar that the limits of the world were the limits of the Roman Empire. The conquest was not yet finished, but surely it should be left to him who had begun it so well. Even though Caesar would a demand to return himself thinking that he had done enough for his own glory, it would be for the Senators to restrain him, for the Senate to bid him finish the works that he had in hand. As for himself, continued Cicero, if Caesar had been his enemy, what of that? Caesar was not his enemy now. He had told the Senate what offers of employment Caesar had made him. If he could not forget yet, he would forgive former injuries. It is important for the reading of Cicero's character that we should trace the meaning of his utterances about Caesar, from this time up to the day on which Caesar was killed, his utterances in public and those which are found in his letters to Atticus and his brother. That there was much of pretense, or falsehood if a hard word be necessary to suit the severity of those who judge the man hardly, is admitted. How he praised Pompey in public, dispraising him in private, at one in the same moment, has been declared. How he applied for praise, whether deserved or not, has been shown. In excuse, not in defence of this, I allege that the Romans of the day were habitually false after this fashion. The application to Leukeas proves the habitual falseness not of Cicero only, but of Leukeas also. And the private words written to Atticus, in opposition to the public words with which Atticus was well acquainted, prove the falseness also of Atticus. It was Roman, it was Italian, it was cosmopolitan, it was human. I only wish that it were possible to declare that it is no longer Italian, no longer cosmopolitan, no longer human. To this day it is very difficult, even for an honourable man to tell the whole truth in the varying circumstances of public life, the establishment of even a theory of truth with all the advantages which have come to us from Christianity, has been so difficult, hitherto so imperfect, that we ought, I think, to consider well the circumstances before we stigmatize Cicero as specially false. To my reading he seems to have been specially true. When Caesar won his way up to power, Cicero was courteous to him, flattered him, and though never subservient, yet was anxious to comply when compliance was possible. Nevertheless, we know well that the whole scheme of Caesar's political life was opposed to the scheme entertained by Cicero. It was Cicero's desire to maintain as much as he could of the old form of oligarchical rule under which, as a constitution, the Roman Empire had been created. It was Caesar's intention to sweep it all away. We can see that now, but Cicero could only see it in part. To his outlook the man had some sense of order, and had all the elements of greatness. He was better at any rate than a Veriz, a Catiline, a Clodius, a Pisa, or a Gabinius. If he thought that by flattery he could bring Caesar somewhat round, there might be conceit in his so thinking, but there could be no treachery. In doing so he did not abandon his political beauideal. If better times came, or a better man, he would use them. In the meantime he could do more by managing Caesar than by opposing him. He was far enough from succeeding in the management of Caesar, but he did do much in keeping his party together. It was in this spirit that he advocated before the senate the maintenance of Caesar's authority in the two Gauls. The senate decreed the withdrawal of Pisa and Gabinius, but decided to leave Caesar where he was. Momsson deals very hardly with Cicero as to this period of his life. They used him accordingly as, what he was good for, an advocate. Cicero himself had to thank his literary reputation for the respectful treatment which he experienced from Caesar. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether he did his best to forward that scheme of politics which he thought to be good for the Republic. To me it seems that he did do so. He certainly did nothing with the object of filling his own pockets. I doubt whether as much can be said with perfect truth as to any other Roman of the period, unless it be Cato. Balbus, for whom Cicero also spoke in this year, was a Spaniard of Cadiz, to whom Pompey had given the citizenship of Rome, who had become one of Caesar's servants and friends, and whose citizenship was now disputed. Cicero pleaded in favour of the claim and gained his cause. There were no doubts certain laws in accordance with which Balbus was or was not a citizen. But Cicero here says that because Balbus was a good man, therefore there should be no question as to his citizenship. This could hardly be a good legal argument. But we are glad to have the main principles of Roman citizenship laid down for us in this oration. A man cannot belong to more than one state at a time. A man cannot be turned out of his state against his will. A man cannot be forced to remain in his state against his will. This Balbus was acknowledged as a Roman, rose to be one of Caesar's leading ministers, and was elected Consul of the Empire, B.C. 40. Thirty-four years afterwards his nephew became Consul. Nearly three centuries after that, A.D. 237, a descendant of Balbus, was chosen as Emperor, under the name of Balbinus, and is spoken of by Gibbon with eulogy. I know no work on Cicero written more pleasantly or inspired by a higher spirit of justice than that of Gaston Boissier of the French Academy called Cicéran et ses amis. Among his chapters one is devoted to Cicero's remarkable intimacy with Cilius, which should be read by all who wish to study Cicero. We have now come to the speech which he made in this year in defence of Cilius. Cilius had entered public life very early, as the son of a rich citizen who was anxious that his heir should be enabled to shine as well by his father's wealth as by his own intellect. When he was still a boy, according to our ideas of boyhood, he was apprentice to Cicero, as was customary, in order that he might pick up the crumbs which fell from the great man's table. It was thus that a young man would hear what was best worth hearing, thus he would become acquainted with those who were best worth knowing, thus that he would learn in public life all that was best worth learning. Cilius heard all, and knew many, and learned much. But he perhaps learned too much at too early an age. He became bright and clever, but unruly and dissipated. Cicero, however, loved him well. He always liked the society of bright young men, and could forgive their morals if their wit were good. Claudius, even Claudius, young Cicero, Cilius, and afterwards Dolabella, were companions with whom he loved to associate. When he was in Cilicia as proconsul, this Cilius became almost a second Atticus to him, in the writing of News from Rome. But Cilius had become one of Claudius' many lovers, and seems for a time to have been the first favourite to the detriment of poor Catullus. The rich father had, it seems, quarrelled with his son, and Cilius was in want of money. He borrowed it from Claudius, and then, without paying his debt, treated Claudius as she had treated Catullus. The lady tried to get her money back, and when she failed she accused her former lover of an attempt to poison her. This she did so that Cilius was tried for the offence. There were no less than four accusers or advocates on her behalf of whom her brother was one. Cilius was defended by Crassus as well as by Cicero, and was acquitted. All these cases combined political views with criminal charges. Cilius was declared to have been a Catullinian conspirator. He was also accused of being in debt, of having quarrelled with his father, of having insulted women, of having beaten a senator, of having practiced bribery, of having committed various murders, and of having perpetrated all social and political excesses to which his enemies could give a name. It was probable that his life had been very irregular, but it was not, probably true, that he had attempted to poison Claudius. The speech is very well worth the trouble of reading. It is lively, bright, picturesque, and argumentative, and it tells the reader very much of the manners of Rome at the It has been condemned for a passage which, to my taste, is the best in the whole piece. Cicero takes upon himself to palliate the pleasures of youth, and we are told that a man so grave, so pure, so excellent in his own life, should not have condescended to utter sentiments so lax in defence of so immoral a young friend. I will endeavour to translate a portion of the passage, and I think that any ladies who may read these pages will agree with me, in liking Cicero the better for what he said upon the occasion. He has been speaking of the changes which the manners of the world had undergone, not only in Rome but in Greece, since pleasure had been acknowledged even by philosophers, to be necessary to life. They who advocate one constant course of continual labour as a road to fame are left alone in their schools, deserted by their scholars. Nature herself has begotten for us allurements, seduced by which virtue herself will occasionally become drowsy. Nature herself leads the young into slippery paths, in which not to stumble now and again is hardly possible. Nature has produced for us a variety of pleasures, to which not only youth but even middle age occasionally yields itself. If therefore you shall find one who can avert his eyes from all that is beautiful, who is charmed by no sweet smell, by no soft touch, by no rich flavour, who can turn a deaf ear to coaxing words, I indeed and perhaps a few others, may think that the gods have been good to such a one. But I doubt whether the world at large will not think that the gods have made him a sorry fellow. There is very much more of it, delightfully said and in the same spirit. But I have given enough to show the nature of the excuse for Cilius, which has brought down on Cicero the wrath of the moralists. The Life of Cicero Vol. 2 by Anthony Trollop Chapter 2 Cicero, I.T. 52, 53 and 54 SIDE NOTE BC 55, I.T. 52 I can best continue my record of Cicero's life for this and the two subsequent years by following his speeches and his letters. It was at this period the main object of his political life to reconcile the existence of a Caesar, with that of a republic, two poles which could not by any means be brought together. Outside of his political life he carried on his profession as an advocate, with all his former energy, with all his former bitterness, with all his old friendly zeal, but never, I think, with his former utility. His life with his friends and his family was prosperous, but that ambition to do some great thing for his country which might make his name more famous than that of other Romans was gradually fading, and as it went was leaving regrets and remorse behind which would not allow him to be a happy man. But it was now when he had reached his 52nd year that he in truth began that career in literature which has made him second to know Roman in reputation. There are some early rhetorical essays which were taken from the Greek of doubtful authenticity. There are the few lines which are preserved of his poetry. There are the speeches which he wrote as well as spoke for the Rome of the day, and there are his letters which up to this time had been intended only for his correspondence. All that we have from his pen up to this time has been preserved for us by the light of those great works which he now commenced. In this year, B.C. 55, there appeared the dialogue De Oratory, and in the next, the treatise De Repubblica. It was his failure as a politician which in truth drove Cicero to the career of literature. As I intend to add to this second volume a few chapters as to his literary productions, I will only mention the dates on which these dialogues and treatises were given to the world as I go on with my work. In the year B.C. 55, the two of the triumvirates who had been left in Rome, Pompey and Cassus, were elected consuls, and provinces were decreed to each of them for five years, to Pompey the two Spains, and to Cassus that Siria which was to be so fatal to him. All this had been arranged at Lucca in the north of Italy, with the Caesar was able to come as being within the bounds of his province to meet his friends from Rome or his enemies. All aristocratic Rome went out in crowds to Lucca, so that two hundred senators might be seen together in the streets of that provincial town. It was nevertheless near enough to Rome to permit the conqueror from Gaul to look closely into the politics of the city. By his permission, if not at his instigation, Pompey and Cassus had been chosen consuls, and to himself was conceded the government of his own province for five further years, that is down to year B.C. 49 inclusive. It must now at least have become evident to Cicero that Caesar intended to rule the empire. Though we already have Cicero's letters arranged for us in a chronological sequence which may be held to be fairly correct for biographical purposes, still there is much doubt remaining as to the exact periods at which many of them were written. Aberkin, the German biographer, says that this year B.C. 55 produced twelve letters. In the French edition of Cicero's works, published by Pankook, thirty-five are allotted to it. Mr. Watson, in his selected letters, has not taken one from the year in question. Mr. Tyrell, who has been my mentor hitherto in regard to the correspondence, has not unfortunately published the result of his labours beyond the year 53 B.C., at the time of my present writing. Some of those who have dealt with Cicero's life and works, and have illustrated them by his letters, have added something to the existing confusion by assuming an accuracy of knowledge in this respect which has not existed. We have no right to quarrel with them for having done so, certainly not with Middleton, as in his time such accuracy was less valued by readers than it is now, and we have the advantage of much light which, though still imperfect, is very bright in comparison with that enjoyed by him. A study of the letters, however, in the sequence now given to them, affords an accurate picture of Cicero's mind during the years between the period of his return from exile B.C. 57 and Milo's trial B.C. 52, although the reader may occasionally be misled as to the date of this or the other letter. With the dates of his speeches, at any rate with the year in which they were made, we are better acquainted. They are, of course, much fewer in number and are easily traced by the known historical circumstances of the time. B.C. 55 he made that attack upon his old enemy the late Consul Piso, which is perhaps the most egregious piece of abuse extant in any language. Even of this we do not know the precise date, but we may be sure that it was spoken early in the year, because Cicero alludes in it to Pompey's great games which were in preparation and which were exhibited when Pompey's new theatre was opened in May. Plutarch tells us that they did not take place till the beginning of the following year. Piso, on his return from Macedonia, attacked Cicero in the Senate in answer to all the hard things that had already been said of him, and Cicero, as Middleton says, made a reply to him on the spot in an invective speech the severest perhaps that ever was spoken by any man on the person, the parts, the whole life and conduct of Piso, which as long as the Roman name subsists must deliver down a most detestable character of him to all posterity. We are here asked to imagine that this attack was delivered on the spur of the moment in answer to Piso's attack. I cannot believe that it should have been so, however great may have been the orator's power over thoughts and words. We have had in our own days wonderful instances of ready and indignant reply made instantaneously, but none in which the angry eloquence has risen to such a power as is here displayed. We cannot but suppose that had human intellect ever been perfect enough for such an exertion it would have soared high enough also to have abstained from it. It may have been that Cicero knew well enough beforehand what the day was about to produce so as to have prepared his reply. It may well have been that he himself undertook the polishing of his speech before it was given to the public in the words which we now read. We may, I think, take it for granted that Piso did make an attack upon him, and that Cicero answered him at once, with words which crushed him, and which are not unfairly represented by those which have come down to us. The imaginative reader will lose himself in wonder as he pictures to himself the figure of the pretentious proconsul, with his assumption of confidence, as he was undergoing the castigation which this great master of obliquy was inflicting upon him, and the figure of the tall lean orator with his long neck and keen eyes, with his arms trained to assist his voice, managing his purple-bordered toga with the perfect grace, throwing all his heart into his impassioned words as they fell into the ears of the senators around him without the loss of a syllable. This lucius calpurnius Piso Caesaronius had come from one of the highest families in Rome, and had possessed interest enough to be elected consul for the year in which Cicero was sent into banishment. He was closely connected with that Piso frugui to whom Cicero's daughter had been married, and Cicero, when he was threatened by the faction of Claudius, a faction which he did not then believe to be supported by the triumvirate, had thought that he was made safe at any rate from cruel results by consular friendship and consular protection. Piso Caesaronius had failed him altogether, saying in answer to Cicero's appeal that the times were of such a nature that everyone must look to himself. The nature of Cicero's rage may be easily conceived, an attempt to describe it has already been made. It was not till after his consulate that he was ever waked to real anger, and the one object whom he most entirely hated with his whole soul was Lucius Piso. By the strength of Cicero's eloquence this man has occupied an immortality of meanness. We cannot but believe that he must have in some sort deserved it, or the justice of the world would have vindicated his character. It should, however, be told of him that three years afterwards he was chosen censor, together with Apius Claudius. But it must also be told that as far as we can judge both these men were unworthy of the honour. They were the two last censors elected in Rome before the days of the Empire. It is impossible not to believe that Piso was vile, but impossible also to believe that he was as vile as Cicero represented him. Caesar was at this time his son-in-law, as he was father to Calpurnia with whom Shakespeare has made us familiar. I do not know that Caesar took in bad parts the hard things that were said of his father-in-law. The first part of the speech is lost. The first words we know because they have been quoted by Quintilian. Oh ye gods immortal! What day is this which has shone upon me at last? We may imagine from this that Cicero intended it to be understood that he exalted in the coming of his revenge. The following is a fair translation of the opening passage of what remains to us. Beasts that you are. Do you not see, do you not perceive how odious to the men around you is that face of yours? Then with rapid words he heaps upon the unfortunate man accusations of personal incompetences. Nobody complains, says Cicero, that that fellow of yesterday, Gobinius, should have been made consul. We have not been deceived in him. But your eyes and eyebrows, your forehead and that face of yours, which should be the dumb index of the mind within, have deceived those who have not known you. Few of us only have been aware of your infamous vices, the sloth of your intellect, your dullness, your inability to speak. When was your voice heard in the forum? When has your counsel been put to the proof? When did you do any service either in peace or war? You have crept into your high place by the mistakes of men, by the regard paid to the dirty images of your ancestors, to whom you have no resemblance except in their present grimy colour. And shall he boast to me, says the orator turning from Piso to the audience around, that he has gone on without a check from one step in the magistracy to another? That is a boast for me to make. For me, Hominino, a man without ancestors, on whom the Roman people has showered all its honours. You were made Edile, you say. The Roman people chose a Piso for their Edile, not this man from any regard for himself, but because he is a Piso. The pritorship was conferred not on you, but on your ancestors, who were known, and who were dead. Of you who are alive, no one has known anything, but me. Then he continues the contrast between himself and Piso, for the speech is as full of his own merits as of the other man's abominations. So the oration goes on to the end. He asserts, addressing himself to Piso, that if he saw him and Gabinius crucified together, he did not know whether he would be most delighted by the punishment inflicted on their bodies or by the ruin of their reputation. He declares that he has prayed for all evil on Piso and Gabinius, and that the gods have heard him, but it has not been for death or sickness or for torment that he had prayed, but for such evils as have in truth come upon them. Two consuls sent with large armies into two of the grandest provinces have returned with disgrace. That one, meaning Piso, has not dared even to send home an account of his doings, and the other, Gabinius, has not had his words credited by the senate nor any of his requests granted. He, Cicero, had hardly dared to hope for all this, but the gods had done it for him. The most absurd passage is that in which he tells Piso that, having lost his army, which he had done, he had brought back nothing in safety but that old impudent face of his. All together it is a tirade of abuse, very inferior to Cicero's dignity. Le clerk, the French critic and editor, speaks the truth when he says, il faut avouer qu'il manque surtout de modération, est que la gravité d'un orateur consulaire, il fait trop souvent place à l'emportement d'un ennemi. It is, however, full of abuse and amusing as an expression of honest hatred. The reader, when reading it, will, of course, remember that Rome and manners allowed a mode of expression among the upper classes, which is altogether denied to those among us who hope to be regarded as gentlemen. The games in Pompey's theatre, to the preparation of which Cicero alludes in his speech against Piso, are described by him with his usual vivacity and humour in a letter written immediately after them to his friend Marius. Pompey's games, with which he celebrated his second consulship, seem to have been divided between the magnificent theatre which he had just built, fragments of which still remain to us, and the Circus Maximus. This letter from Cicero is very interesting, as showing the estimation in which these games are held, or were supposed to be held, by a Roman man of letters, and as giving us some description of what was done on the occasion. Marius had not come to Rome to see them, and Cicero writes as though his friend had despised them. Cicero himself, having been in Rome, had of course witnessed them. To have been in Rome and not to have seen them would have been quite out of the question. Not to come to Rome from a distance was an eccentricity. He congratulated Marius for not having come, whether it was that he was ill, or that the whole thing was too despicable. You, in the early morning, have been looking out upon your view over the bay, while we have been staring at puppets half asleep. Most costly games, but I should say, judging of you by myself, that they would have been quite revolting to you. Poor Esopus was there acting, but so unfitted by age that all his friends could not but wish that he had desisted. Why should I tell you of it all? The very costliness of the affair took away all the pleasure. Six hundred mules on the stage in the acting of Clytemnestra, or three thousand golden goblets in the Trojan horse. What delight could they give you? If your slave-protagonies were reading to you something, so that it were not one of my speeches, you were better off at any rate than we. There were two marvellous slaughterings of beasts which lasted for five days. Nobody denies but that they were very grand. But what pleasure can there be in a man of letters, when some weak human creature is destroyed by a sturdy beast, or when some lonely animal is pierced through by a hunting spear? The last day was the day of elephants, in which there could be no delight except as a vulgar crowd. You could not put pity them, feeling that the poor brutes had something in common with humanity. In these combats were killed twenty elephants and two hundred lions. The bad taste and systematical corruption of Rome had reached its acme when this theatre was opened, and these games displayed by Pompey. He tells Atticus, in a letter written about this time, that he is obliged to write to him by the hand of a secretary, from which we gather that such had not been at any rate his practice. He is every day in the forum, making speeches, and he had already composed the dialogues to Oratory, and had sent them to Lentulus. Though he was no longer in office, his time seems to have been as fully occupied as when he was prior to or or consul. We have records of at least a dozen speeches made B.C. 55 and B.C. 54 between that against Piso and the next that is extant, which was delivered in defence of Plankius. He defended Kisbius, but Kisbius was convicted. He defended Caninius Gallus, of whom we may presume that he was condemned and exiled, because Cicero found him at Athens on his way to Cilicia, Athens being the place to which exiled Roman oligarchs generally betook themselves. In his letter to his young friend Cilius he speaks of the pleasure he had in meeting with Caninius at Athens, but in the letter to Marius, which I have quoted, he complains of the necessity which has befallen him of defending the man. The heat of the summer of this year he passed in the country, but on his return to the city in November he found Crassus defending his old enemy Gubinius. Gubinius had crept back from his province into the city and had been received with universal scorn and a shower of accusations. Cicero at first neither accused nor defended him, but having been called on as a witness seems to have been unable to refrain from something of the severity with which he had defeated Piso. There was at any rate a passage of arms in which Gubinius called him a banished criminal. The senate then rose as one body to do honour to their late exile. He was, however, afterwards driven by the expostulations of Pompey to defend the man. At his first trial Gubinius was acquitted, but was convicted and banished when Cicero defended him. Cicero suffered very greatly in the constraint thus put upon him by Pompey, and refused Pompey till Caesar's request was added. We can imagine that nothing was more bitter to him than the obligation thus forced upon him. We have nothing of the speech left, but can hardly believe that it was eloquent. From this, however, there rose a reconciliation between Crassus and Cicero, both Caesar and Pompey having found it to their interest to interfere. Side note, B.C. 54, I.T. 53. As a result of this, early in the next year, Cicero defended Crassus in the senate when an attempt was made to rob the late consul of his coveted mission to Syria. Of what he did in this respect he boasts in a letter to Crassus, which, regarded from our point of view, would no doubt be looked upon as base. He despised Crassus, and here takes credit for all the fine things he has said of him. But we have no right to think that Cicero could have been altogether unlike a Roman. He speaks also in the senate on behalf of the people of Tenedos, who had brought their immunities and privileges into question by some supposed want of faith. All we know of this speech is that it was spoken in vain. He pleaded against an Asiatic king, Antiochus of Comergin, who was befriended by Pompey, but Cicero seems to have laughed him out of some of his petty possessions. He spoke for the inhabitants of Verate on some question of water privilege against the interamnates. Interamna, we now know as Terni, where a modern pope made a lovely waterfall, and at the same time rectified the water privileges of the surrounding district. Cicero went down to its pleasant Tempe, as he calls it, and stayed there a while with one Axius. He returned thence to Rome to undertake some case for Fonteus, and attended the games which Milo was giving, Milo having been elected Edile. Here we have a morsel of dramatic criticism on Antiphon the actor, and Arbuscula the actress, which reminds one of peeps. Then he defended Messius, then Drusus, then Scourus. He mentions all these cases in the same letter, but so slightly that we cannot trouble ourselves with their details. We only feel that he was kept as busy as a London barrister in full practice. He also defended Vatinius, that Vatinius with whose iniquities he had been so indignant at the trial of Sextius. He defended him twice at the instigation of Caesar, and he does not seem to have suffered in doing so as he had certainly done when called upon to stand up and plead for his late consular enemy, Gabinius. Valerius Maximus, a dull author often quoted but seldom read, whose task it was to give instances of all the virtues and vices produced by mankind, refers to these pleadings for Gabinius and Vatinius as instances of an almost divine forgiveness of injury. I think we must seek for the good, if good is to be discovered in the proceeding, in the presumed strength which might be added to the Republic by friendly relations between himself and Caesar. In the spring of the year we find Caesar a writing to Caesar in apparently great intimacy. He recommends to Caesar his young friend Trabatius, a lawyer who was going to gall in search of his fortune, and in doing so he refers to a joking promise from Caesar that he would make another friend whom he had recommended, king of Gaul, or if not that, foreman at least to Lepter, his head of the mechanics. Lepter was an officer in trust under Caesar, with whose name we become familiar in Cicero's correspondence, though I do not remember that Caesar ever mentions him. "'Send me someone else that I may show my friendship,' Caesar had said, knowing well that Cicero was worth any price of the kind. Cicero declares to Caesar that on hearing this he held up his hands in grateful surprise, and on this account he had sent Trabatius. "'Me Caesar,' he says, writing with all affection, and then he praises Trabatius, assuring Caesar that he does not recommend the young man loosely, as he had some other young men who were worthless, such as Milo, for instance. This results in much good done to Trabatius, though the young man at first does not like the service of the army. He is a lawyer, and finds the work in Gaul very rough. Cicero, who is anxious on his behalf, laughs at him, and bids him take the good things that come in his way. In subsequent years Trabatius was made known to the world as the legal pundit, whom Horace pretends to consult as to the libelous nature of his satires. In September of this year Cicero pleaded in court for his friend Plankius, against whom there was broad an accusation that in canvassing and obtaining the office of Edile he had been guilty of bribery. In all these accusations which come before us as having been either promoted or opposed by Cicero, there is not one in which the reader sympathizes more strongly with the person accused, than in this. Plankius had shown Cicero during his banishment the affection of a brother, or almost of a son. Plankius had taken him in and provided for him in Macedonia when to do so was illegal. Cicero now took great delight in returning the favour. The reader of this oration cannot learn from it that Plankius had in truth done anything illegal. The complaint really made against him was that he, filling the comparatively humble position of a knight, had ventured to become the opposing candidate of such a gallant young aristocrat as M. Juventius Laterensis, who was beaten at this election, and now brought this action in revenge. There is no tearing of any enemy to tatters in this oration, but there is much pathos. And, as was usual with Cicero at this period of his life, an inordinate amount of self-praise. There are many details as to the way in which the tribes voted at elections, which the patient and curious student will find instructive, but which will probably be caviar to all who are not patient and curious students. There are a few passages of peculiar force. Addressing himself to the rival of Plankius, he tells Laterensis that even though the people might have judged badly in selecting Plankius, it was not the less his duty to accept the judgment of the people. Say that the people ought not to have done so, but it should have been sufficient for him that he had done so. Then he laughs with a beautiful irony at the pretensions of the accuser. Let us suppose that it was so, he says. Let no one whose family has not soared above Praetorian honours contest any place with one of consular family. Let no mere knight stand against one with Praetorian relations. In such a case there would be no need of the people to vote at all. Further on he gives his own views as to the honours of the state in a language that is very grand. It has, he says, been my first endeavour to deserve the high rank of the state. My second to have been thought to deserve it. The rank itself has been but the third object of my desires. Plankius was acquitted. It seems to us quite as a matter of course. In this perhaps the most difficult period of his existence, when the organised conspiracy of the day had not as yet overturned the landmarks of the constitution, he wrote a long letter to his friend Lentulus, him who had been prominent as consul in rescuing him from his exile, and who was now proconsul in Cilicia. Lentulus had probably taxed him after some friendly fashion, with going over from the optimates or senatorial party to that of the conspirators Pompey, Caesar and Crassus. He had been called a deserter for having passed in his earlier years from the popular party to that of the Senate, and now the leading optimates were doubtful of him whether he was not showing himself too well inclined to do the bidding of the democratic leaders. The one accusation has been as unfair as the other. In this letter he reminds Lentulus that a captain in making a port may not always sail with her in a straight line, but must tack and haul and use a slant of wind as he can get it. Cicero was always struggling to make way against a headwind, and was running hither and thither in his attempt in a manner most perplexing to those who were looking on without knowing the nature of the winds. But his port was always there clearly visible to him if he could only reach it. That port was the old republic with its well and once successful institutions. It was not to be fetched. The winds had become too perverse, and the entrance had become choked with sand, but he did his best to fetch it, and though he was driven hither and thither in his endeavours, it should be remembered that to look us on such must ever be the appearance of those who are forced to tack about in search of their port. I have before me Mr. Forsythe's elaborate and very accurate account of this letter. Now, however, says the biographer, the future lay dark before him, and not the most sagacious politician at Rome could have divined the series of events, blundering weakness on the one side and unscrupulous ambition on the other, which led to the dictatorship of Caesar and the overthrow of the constitution. Nothing can be more true. Cicero was probably the most sagacious politician in Rome, and he, though he did understand much of the weakness, and it should be added of the greed of his own party, did not foresee the point which Caesar was destined to reach, and which was now probably fixed before Caesar's own eyes. But I cannot agree with Mr. Forsythe in the result at which he had arrived, when he quoted a passage from one of the notes affixed by Melmot to his translation of this letter. It was fear alone that determined his resolution, and having once already suffered in the cause of liberty, he did not find himself to be disposed to be twice its martyr. I should not have thought these words worthy of refutation had they not been backed by Mr. Forsythe. How did Cicero show his fear? Had he feared, as indeed there was cause enough when it was difficult for a leading man to keep his throat uncut amidst the violence of the times, or a house over his head, might he not have made himself safe by accepting Caesar's offers? A proconsul out of Rome was safe enough, but he would not be a proconsul out of Rome till he could avoid it no longer. When the day of danger came, he joined Pompey's army against Caesar, doubting, not for his life, but for his character, as to what might be the best for the Republic. He did not fear when Caesar was dead and only Anthony remained. When the hour came in which his throat had to be cut, he did not fear. When a man has shown such a power of action in the face of danger, as Cicero displayed at forty-four in his consulship, and again at sixty-four in his prolonged struggle with Anthony, it is contrary to nature that he should have been a coward at fifty-four. And all the evidence of the period is opposed to this theory of cowardice. There was nothing special for him to fear when Caesar was in Gaul and Crassus about to start for Syria and Pompey for his provinces. Such was the condition of Rome, social and political, that all was uncertain and all was dangerous. But men had become used to danger, and were anxious only in the general scramble to get what plunder might be going. Unlimited plunder was at Cicero's command, provinces, magistracies, abnormal leftenancies, but he took nothing. He even told his friend in joke that he would have liked to be an auger, and the critics of thereupon concluded that he was ready to sell his country for a trifle. But he took nothing when all others were helping themselves. The letter to Lentulus is well word studying, if only as evidence of the thoughtfulness with which he weighed every point affecting his own character. He did wish to stand well with the optimates of whom Lentulus was one. He did wish to stand well with Caesar and with Pompey, who at this time was Caesar's jackal. He did find the difficulty of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. He must have surely learned at last to hate all compromise. But he had fallen on hard times, and the task before him was impossible. If, however, his hands were clean when those of others were dirty, and his motives patriotic, while those of others were selfish, so much ought to be said for him. In the same year he defended Riberius Postumus, and in doing so carried on the purpose which he had been instigated to undertake by Caesar in defending Gabinius. This Riberius was the nephew of him whom ten years before Cicero had defended when accused of having killed Saturninus. He was a knight, and, as was customary with the equites, had long been engaged in the pursuit of trade, making money by lending money and such like. He had, it seems, been a successful man, but in an evil time for himself had come across king Ptolemy Alites when there was a question of restoring that wretched sovereign to the throne of Egypt. As Cicero was not himself much exercised in this matter, I have not referred to the king and his affairs, wishing as far as possible to avoid questions which concerned the history of Rome rather than the life of Cicero. But the affairs of this banished king continually come up in the records of this time. Pompey had befriended Alites, and Gabinius, when proconsul in Syria, had succeeded in restoring the king to his throne, no doubt in obedience to Pompey, though not in obedience to the Senate. Alites, when in Rome, had required large sums of money. Suppliant kings, when in the city, needed money to buy venal senators, and Riberius had supplied him. The profits to be made from suppliant kings, when in wonder of money, were generally very great. But this king seems to have got hold of all the money which Riberius possessed, so that the knight anchor found himself obliged to become one of the king's sweet when the king went back to take possession of his kingdom. In no other way could he hang on to the vast debt that was owing to him. In Egypt he found himself compelled to undergo various indignities. He became no better than a head servant among the king's servants. One of the charges brought against him was that he, a Roman knight, had allowed himself to be clothed in the half-feminine garb of an oriental attendant upon a king. It was also brought against him as part of the accusation that he had bribed, or had endeavoured to bribe, a certain senator. The crime, nominally laid to the charge of Riberius, was De Repetundis, for extorting money in the position of a magistrate. The money alluded to had been in truth extorted by Gabinius, from Ptolemy Alites, as the price paid for his restoration, and had come in great part probably from out of the pocket of Riberius himself. Gabinius had been condemned and ordered to repay the money. He had none to repay, and the claim, by some clause in the law to that effect, was transferred to Riberius as his agent. Riberius was accused as though he had extorted the money which he had in fact lost. But the spirit of the accusation lay in the idea that he, a Roman knight, had basely subjected himself to an Egyptian king. That Riberius had been base and sordid, there can be no doubt, that he was ruined by his transaction with Alites is equally certain. It is supposed that he was convicted. He was afterwards employed by Caesar, who, when in power, may have recalled him from banishment. There are many passages in the oration to which I would feign refer the reader had I space to do so. I will name only one in which Cicero endeavours to ingratiate himself with his audience by referring to the old established Roman hatred of kings. Who is there among us, who though he may not have tried them himself, does not know the ways of kings? Listen to me here. Abay my word at once. Speak a word more than you are told and you'll see what you'll get. Do that a second time and you die. We should read of such things and look at them from a distance, not only for our pleasure, but that we may know of what we have to be aware and what we ought to avoid. There is a letter written in this year to Curio, another young friend such as Cilius of whom I have spoken. Curio also was clever, dissipated, extravagant and unscrupulous. But at this period of his life he was attached to Cicero, who was not indifferent to the services which might accrue to him from friends who might be violent and unscrupulous on the right side. Bc. 53, Eitat. 54 This letter was written to Securio Curio's services for another friend, not quite so young, but equally attached, and perhaps of all the Romans of the time, the most unscrupulous and the most violent. This friend was Milo, who was about to stand for the consulship of the following year. Curio was on his road from Asia Minor where he had been quite still, and is invited by Cicero in language peculiarly pressing to be the leader of Milo's party on the occasion. We cannot but imagine that the winds which Curio was called upon to govern were the tornadoes and schools which were to be made to rage in the streets of Rome to the great discomfort here of Milo's enemies during his canvas. To such a state had Rome come that for the first six months of this year there were no consuls and election being found to be impossible. Milo had been the great opponent of Claudius in the city Rouse which had taken place previous to the exile of Cicero. The two men are called by Momsen the Achilles and the Hector of the streets. Cicero was of course on Milo's side as Milo was enemy to Claudius. In this matter his feeling was so strong that he declares to Curio that he does not think that the welfare and fortunes of one man were ever so dear to another as now were those of Milo to him. Milo's success is the only object of interest he has in the world. This is interesting to us now as a prelude to the great trial which was to take place in the next year when Milo instead of being elected consul was convicted of murder. In the two previous years Caesar had made two invasions into Britain in the latter of which Quinter Cicero had accompanied him. Cicero in various letters alludes to this undertaking but barely gives it the importance which we as Britons think should have been attached to so tremendous an enterprise. There might perhaps be some danger he thought in crossing the seas and encountering the rocky shores of the island but there was nothing to be got worth the getting. He tells Atticus that he can hardly expect any slaves skilled either in music or letters and he suggests to Trabatius that as he will certainly find neither gold nor slaves he had better put himself into a British chariot and come back in it as soon as possible. In this year Caesar reduced the remaining tribes of Gaul and crossed the Rhine a second time. It was his sixth year in Gaul and men had learned to know what was his nature. Cicero had discovered his greatness as also Pompey must have done to his great dismay and he had himself discovered what he was himself. But two accidents occurred in this year which were perhaps as important in Roman history as the continuance of Caesar's success. Julia, Caesar's daughter and Pompey's wife, died in child-bed. She seems to have been loved by all and had been idolised from the time of the marriage by her exorious husband who was more than twenty-four years her senior. She certainly had been a strong bond of union between Caesar and Pompey so much so that we are surprised that such a feeling should have been so powerful among the Romans of the time. Concordiae pygnus, a pledge of friendship, she is called by Paterculus, who tells us in the same sentence that the triumvirate had no other bond to hold it together. Whether the friendship might have remained valid had Julia lived we cannot say. But she died and the two friends became enemies. From the moment of Julia's death there was no triumvirate. The other accident was equally fatal to the bond of union which had bound the three men together. Late in the year, after his consulship BC 54, Crassus had gone to his Syrian government with the double intention of increasing his wealth and rivaling the military glories of Caesar and Pompey. In the following year he became an easy victim to Eastern deceit and was destroyed by the Parthians with his son and the greater part of the Roman army which had been entrusted to him. We are told that Crassus at last destroyed himself. I doubt, however, whether there was enough of patriotism alive among Romans at the time to create the feeling which so great a loss and so great a shame should have occasioned. As far as we can learn the destruction of Crassus and his legions did not occasion so much thought in Rome as the breaking up of the triumvirate. Cicero's daughter Tullia was now a second time without her husband. She was the widow of her first husband Piso, had then, BC 56, married Crassipez and had been divorced. Of him we have heard nothing except that he was divorced. A doubt has been thrown on the fact whether she was in truth ever married to Crassipez. We learn from letters, both to his brother and to Atticus, that Cicero was contented with the match when it was made and did his best to give the lady a rich dowry. In this year Cicero was elected into the College of Orcas to fill the vacancy made by the death of young Crassus who had been killed with his father in Parthia. The reader will remember that he had in a joking manner expressed a desire to divorce. He now obtained it without any difficulty and certainly without any sacrifice of his principle. It had formally been the privilege of the Orcas to fill up the vacancies in their own college, but the right had been transferred to the people. It was now conferred upon Cicero without serious opposition.