 Chapter 9, Part 2 The Second Conspiracy was attempted in the consulship of Cicero, B.C. 63, two years after the first. Catiline had struggled for the consulship and had failed. Again there would be no province, no plunder, no power. This interference, as it must have seemed to him with his peculiar privileges, had all come from Cicero. Cicero was the busybody who was attempting to stop the order of things which had, to his thinking, been specially ordained by all the gods for the sustenance of one so well-born, and at the same time so poor as himself. There was a vulgar meddling about it, all coming from the violent virtue of a consul whose father had been a nobody at Arpinum, which was well calculated to drive Catiline into madness. So he went to work, and got together in Rome a body of men as discontented and almost as nobly born as himself, and in the country north of Rome, an army of rebels, and began his operations with very little secrecy. In all the story the most remarkable feature is the openness with which many of the details of the conspiracy were carried on. The existence of the rebel army was known, it was known that Catiline was the leader, the causes of his disaffection were known, his comrades in guilt were known. When any special act was intended such as might be the murder of the consul, or the firing of the city, secret plots were concocted in abundance, but the grand fact of a widespread conspiracy could go naked in Rome, and not even a Cicero dare to meddle with it. Sidenote, BC 63, ITAT 44 As to this second conspiracy, the conspiracy with which Salastre and Cicero made us so well acquainted, there is no sufficient ground for asserting that Caesar was concerned in it. That he was greatly concerned in the treatment of the conspirators, there is no doubt. He had probably learned to appreciate the rage, the madness, the impotence of Catiline at their proper worth. He too, I think, must have looked upon Cicero as a meddling, over virtuous busybody, as did even Pompey when he returned from the east. What practical use could there be in such a man at such a time, in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of liberty in the republic and imagined that he could set the world right by talking? Such must have been the feeling of Caesar, who had both experience and foresight to tell him that Rome wanted and must have a master. He probably had patriotism enough to feel that he, if he could acquire the mastership, would do something beyond robbery, would not satisfy himself with cutting the throats of all his enemies and feeding his supporters with the property of his opponents. But Cicero was impracticable, unless, indeed, he could be so flattered as to be made useful. It was thus, I think, that Caesar regarded Cicero, and thus that he induced Pompey to regard him. But now, in the year of his consulship, Cicero had really talked himself into power, and for this year his virtue must be allowed to have its full way. He did so much in this year, while so really efficacious in restraining for a time the greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There were, too, enough of others anxious for the republic to bolster him up in his own belief. There was that Cornelius in whose defence Cicero made the two great speeches which have been unfortunately lost, and there was Cato, and up to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero, till he found himself candidate for the consulship, had contented himself with undertaking separate cases, in which no doubt politics were concerned, but which were not exclusively political. He had advocated the employment of Pompey in the east, and had defended Cornelius. He was well acquainted with the history of the republic, but he had probably never asked himself the question whether it was in mortal peril, and if so whether it might possibly be saved. In his consulship he did do so, and seeing less of the republic than we can see now, told himself that it was possible. The stories told to us of Catalan's conspiracy by Salist and by Cicero are so little conflicting that we can trust them both. Trusting them both we are justified in believing that we know the truth. We are here concerned only with the part which Cicero took. Nothing, I think, which Cicero says is contradicted by Salist, though of much of that Cicero certainly did, Salist is silent. Salist dams him, but only by faint praise. We may therefore take the account of the plot, as given by Cicero himself, as verified. Indeed, I am not aware that any of Cicero's facts have been questioned. Salist declares that Catalan's attempt was popular in Rome generally. This, I think, must be taken as showing simply that revolution and conspiracy were in themselves popular, that as a condition of things around him such as existed in Rome, a plotter of state plots should be able to collect a body of followers, was a thing of course. That there were many citizens who would not work, and who expected to live in luxury on public or private plunder, is certain. When the conspiracy was first announced in the Senate, Catalan had an army collected, but we have no proof that the hearts of the inhabitants of Rome generally were with the conspirators. On the other hand, we have proof in the unparalleled devotion shown by the citizens to Cicero after the conspiracy was quelled, that their hearts were with him. The populace, fond of change, liked a disturbance, but there is nothing to show that Catalan was ever beloved as had been the Gracchi and other tribunes of the people who came after them. Catalan, in the autumn of the year B.C. 63, had arranged the outside circumstances of his conspiracy, knowing that he would for the third time be unsuccessful in his canvas for the consulship. That Cicero with other senators should be murdered seems to have been their first object, and that then the consulship should be seized by force. On the twenty-first of October, Cicero made his first report to the Senate as to the conspiracy, and called upon Catalan for his answer. It was then that Catalan made his famous reply that the Republic had two bodies, of which one was weak and had a bad head, meaning the aristocracy with Cicero as its chief, and the other strong, but without any head, meaning the people. But that as for himself, so well had the people deserved of him that as long as he lived a head should be forthcoming. Then, at that sitting, the Senate decreed in the usual formula that the consuls would take care that the Republic did not suffer. On the twenty-second of October the new consuls Silanus and Morena were elected. On the twenty-third, Catalan was regularly accused of conspiracy by Paulus Lepidus, a young nobleman, in conformity with the law which had been enacted fifty-five years earlier, de we publica, as to violence applied to the state. Two days afterward it was officially reported that Manlius, or Malleus as he seems to have been generally called, Catalan's lieutenant, had openly taken up arms in Atraria. The twenty-seventh had been fixed by the conspirators for the murder of Cicero and the other senators, that all this was to be, and was so arranged by Catalan, had been declared in the Senate by Cicero himself, on that day when Catalan told them of the two bodies and the two heads. Cicero, with his intelligence, ingenuity, and industry, had learned every detail. There was one curious among the conspirators, a fair specimen of the young Roman nobleman of the day, who told it all to his mistress, Fulvia, and she carried the information to the consul. It is all narrated with fair dramatic accuracy in Ben Johnson's dull play, though he has attributed to Caesar a share in the plot for doing which he had no authority. Cicero, on that sitting in the Senate, had been specially anxious to make Catalan understand that he knew privately every circumstance of the plot. Throughout the whole conspiracy his object was not to take Catalan, but to drive him out of Rome. If the people could be stirred up to kill him in their wrath, that might be well, in that way there might be an end of all the trouble. But if that did not come to pass, then it would be best to make the city unbearable to the conspirators. If they could be driven out, they must either take themselves to foreign parts and be dispersed, almost else fight, and assuredly be conquered. Cicero himself was never bloodthirsty, but the necessity was strong upon him of ridding the Republic from these bloodthirsty men. The scheme for destroying Cicero and the Senators on the 27th of October had proved abortive. On the 6th of the next month a meeting was held in the house of one Marcus Porcius Leica, at which a plot was arranged for the killing of Cicero the next day. For the killing of Cicero alone, he having been by this time found to be the one the great obstacle in their path. Two knights were told off for the service named Vargunteus and Cornelius. These after the Roman fashion were to make their way early on the following morning into the consul's bedroom, for the ostensible purpose of paying him their morning compliments, but when there they were to slay him. All this, however, was told to Cicero, and the two knights, when they came, were refused admittance. If Cicero had been a man given to fear, as has been said of him, he must have passed a wretched life at this period. As far as I can judge of his words and doings throughout his life, he was not harassed by constitutional timidity. He feared to disgrace his name, to lower his authority, to become small in the eyes of men, to make political mistakes, to do that which might turn against him. In much of this there was a falling off from that dignity which, if we did not often find it in a man, we can all of us imagine, but of personal dread as to his own skin, as to his own life, there was very little. At this time when, as he knew well, many men with many weapons in their hands, men who were altogether unscrupulous, were in search for his blood, he never seems to have trembled. But all Rome trembled, even according to Salast. I've already shown how he declares in one part of his narrative that the common people as a body were with Catiline, and have attempted to explain what was meant by that expression. In another, in an earlier chapter, he says that the state, meaning the city, was disturbed by all this, and its appearance changed. Instead of the joy and ease which had lately prevailed, the effect of the long peace, a sudden sadness fell upon everyone. I quote the passage because that other passage has been taken as proving the popularity of Catiline. There can I think be no doubt that the population of Rome was, as a body, afraid of Catiline. The city was to be burnt down, the consuls and the senate were to be murdered, debts were to be wiped out, slaves were probably to be encouraged against their masters. The Permota Quitas, and the Cuncta plebees of which Salast speaks, mean that all the householders were disturbed, and that all the roughs were eager with revolutionary hopes. On the 8th of November, the day after that on which the consul was to have been murdered in his own house, he called a special meeting of the senate in the temple of Jupiter-Stator. The senate in Cicero's time was convened according to expedience, or perhaps as to the dignity of the occasion, in various temples. Of these none had a higher reputation than that of the special Jupiter who was held to have befriended Romulus in his fight with the Sabines. Here was launched that thunderbolt of eloquence which all English schoolboys have known for its Cusque tandem abutere catalina patientia nostra. Whether it be from the ore which has come down to me from my earliest years, mixed perhaps with something of dread for the great pedagogue who first made the words to sound grandly in my ears, or whether true critical judgment has since approved to me the real weight of the words, they certainly do contain for my intelligence an expression of almost divine indignation. Then there follows a string of questions, which to translate would be vain, which to quote for those who read the language is surely unnecessary. It is said to have been a fault with Cicero that in his speeches he runs too much into that vain of wrathful interrogation which undoubtedly pulls upon us in English oratory when frequent result is made to it. It seems to be too easy, and to contain too little of argument. It was this probably of which his contemporaries complained when they declared him to be florid, redundant and asiatic in his style. This questioning runs through nearly the whole speech, but the reader cannot fail to acknowledge its efficacy in reference to the matter in hand. Catiline was sitting there himself in the senate, and the questions were for the most part addressed to him. We can see him now, a man of large frame, with bold glaring eyes, looking in his wrath as though he were hardly able to keep his hands from the consul's throat even there in the senate. Though he knew that this attack was to be made on him, he had stalked into the temple and seated himself in a place of honour among the benches intended for those who had been consuls. When there no one spoke to him, no one saluted him. The consular senators shrunk away, leaving their places of privilege. Even his brother conspirators of whom many were present did not dare to recognise him. Lentulus was no doubt there, and Cethigus, and two of the Sulin family, and Cassius Longinas, and Artronius, and Leica, and Curius. All of them were or had been conspirators in the same cause. Caesar was there too, and Crassus. A fellow conspirator with Catiline would probably be a senator. Cicero knew them all. We cannot say that in this matter Caesar was guilty, but Cicero no doubt felt that Caesar's heart was with Catiline. It was his present task so to thunder with his eloquence that he should turn these bitter enemies into seeming friends to drive Catiline from out of the midst of them, so that it should seem that he had been expelled by those who were in truth his brother conspirators. And this it was that he did. He declared the nature of the plot, and boldly said that such being the facts, Catiline deserved death. If, he says, I should order you to be taken and killed, believe me, I should be blamed rather for my delay in doing so than for my cruelty. He spoke throughout, as though all the power were in his own hands either to strike or to forbear. But it was his object to drive him out and not to kill him. Go, he said, that camp of yours and Malleus your lieutenant are too long without you. Take a friend with you. Take them all. Cleanse the city of your presence. When its walls are between you and me, then I shall feel myself secure. Among us here you may no longer stir yourself. I will not have it. I will not endure it. If I were to suffer you to be killed, your followers in the conspiracy would remain here. But if you go out, as I desire you, this cesspool of filth will drain itself off from out the city. Do you hesitate to do at my command that which you would feign do yourself? The consul requires an enemy to depart from the city. Do you ask me whether you are to go into exile? I do not order it. But if you ask my counsel, I advise it. Exile was the severest punishment known by the Roman law as applicable to a citizen, and such a punishment it was in the power of no consul or other officer of state to inflict. Though he had taken upon himself the duty of protecting the republic, still he could not condemn a citizen. It was to the moral effect of his words that he must trust. John Yubeo said si me consulis soideo. Catiline heard him to the end, and then, muttering a curse, left the senate and went out of the city. Salast tells us that he threatened to extinguish in the midst of the general ruin he would create the flames prepared for his own destruction. Salast, however, was not present on the occasion, and the threat probably had been uttered as an earlier period of Catiline's career. Cicero tells us expressly in one of his subsequent works that Catiline was struck dumb. Of this first Catiline-eration, Salast says that Marcus Tullius the consul, either fearing the presence of the man or stirred to anger, made a brilliant speech very useful to the republic. This, coming from an enemy, is stronger testimony to the truth of the story told by Cicero than would have been any vehement praise from the pen of a friend. Catiline met some of his colleagues the same night. They were the very men who, as senators had been present at his confusion, and to them he declared his purpose of going. There was nothing to be done in the city by him. The consul was not to be reached. Catiline himself was too closely watched for personal action. He would join the army at Faisuli, and then return and burn the city. His friends, Lentulus, Cethigus, and the others, were to remain and be ready for fire and slaughter as soon as Catiline with his army should appear before the walls. He went, and Cicero had been so far successful. But these men, Lentulus, Cethigus, and the other senators, though they had not dared to sit near Catiline in the senate or to speak a word to him, went about their work zealously when evening had come. A report was spread among the people that the consul had taken upon himself to drive a citizen into exile. Catiline, the ill-used Catiline, Catiline, the friend of the people, had, they said, gone to Marseille in order that he might escape the fury of the tyrant consul. In this we see the jealousy of Romans as to the infliction of any punishment by an individual officer on a citizen. It was with a full knowledge of what was likely to come that Cicero had ironically declared that he only advised the conspirator to go. The feeling was so strong that on the next morning he found himself compelled to address the people on the subject. Then was uttered the second Catilineration which was spoken in the open air to the citizens at large. Here, too, there are words among those with which he began his speech, almost as familiar to us as the quo square tandem. Abit, excesit, erwasit, errupit. This Catiline, says Cicero, this pest of his country, raging in his madness, I have turned out of the city. If you like it better, I have expelled him by my very words. He has departed. He has fled. He has gone out from among us. He has broken away. I have made this conspiracy plain to you all, as I said I would, unless indeed there may be someone here who does not believe that the friends of Catiline will do the same as Catiline would have done. But there is no time now for soft measures. We have to be strong-handed. There is one thing I will do for these men. Let them, too, go out, so that Catiline shall not pine for them. I will show them the road. He has gone by the we are Aurelia. If they will hurry, they may catch him before night. He implies, by this, that the story about Marseille was false. Then he speaks with irony of himself as that violent consul who could drive citizens into exile by the very breath of his mouth. Ego, wehemen zele consul qui werbo qui weis in exilio meicio. So he goes on, in truth, defending himself, but leading them with him to take part in the accusation which he intends to bring against the chief conspirators who remain in the city. If they, too, will go, they may go unscathed. If they choose to remain, let them look to themselves. Through it all we can see that there is but one thing that he fears, that he shall be driven by the exigencies of the occasion to take some steps which shall afterwards be judged not to have been strictly legal, and which shall put him into the power of his enemies when the day of his ascendancy shall have passed away. It crops out repeatedly in these speeches. He seems to be aware that some over-strong measure will be forced upon him for which he alone will be held responsible. If he can only avoid that, he will fear nothing else. If he cannot avoid it, he will encounter even that danger. His foresight was wonderfully accurate. The strong hand was used, and the punishment came upon him, not from his enemies, but from his friends, almost to the bursting of his heart. Though the senate had decreed that the consuls were to see that the republic should take no harm, and though it was presumed that extraordinary power was thereby conferred, it is evident that no power was conferred of inflicting punishment. Anthony, as Cicero's colleague, was nothing. The authority, the responsibility, the action, were and were intended to remain with Cicero. He could not legally banish any one. It was only to evident that there must be much slaughter. There was the army of rebels with which it would be necessary to fight. Let them go, these rebels within the city, and either join the army and get themselves killed, or else disappear whither they would among the provinces. The object of this second catalyne-aration, spoken to the people, was to convince the remaining conspirators that they had better go, and to teach the citizens generally that in giving such counsel he was banishing no one. As far as the citizens were concerned he was successful, but he did not induce the friends of Catiline to follow their chief. This took place on the 9th of November. After the oration the senate met again and declared Catiline and Malleus to be public enemies. Twenty-four days elapsed before the third speech was spoken. Twenty-four days during which Rome must have been in a state of very great fever. Cicero was actively engaged in unraveling the plots, the details of which were still being carried on within the city, but nevertheless he made that speech from Morena before the judicial bench of which I gave an account in the last chapter, and also probably another forpeso of which we have nothing left. We cannot but marvel that he should have been able at such a time to devote his mind to such subjects, and carefully to study all the details of legal cases. It was only on October the 21st that Morena had been elected consul, and yet on the 20th of November Cicero defended him with great skill on a charge of bribery. There is an ease, a playfulness, a softness, a drollery about this speech which appears to be almost incompatible with the stern absorbing realities and great personal dangers in the midst of which he was placed. But the agility of his mind was such that there appears to have been no difficulty to him in these rapid changes. On the same day the 20th of November, when Cicero was defending Morena, the plot was being carried on at the house of a certain Roman lady named Sampronia. It was she of whom Sallist had said that she danced better than became an honest woman. If we can believe Sallist she was steeped in luxury and vice. At her house a most vile project was hatched for introducing into Rome Rome's bitterest foreign foes. There were in the city at this time certain delegates from a people called the alabroges who inhabited the lower part of Savoy. The alabroges were of gallish race. They were warlike, angry, and at the present moment peculiarly discontented with Rome. There had been certain injuries, either real or presumed, respecting which these delegates had been sent to the city. There they had been delayed and fobbed off with official replies which gave no satisfaction, and were supposed to be ready to do any evil possible to the Republic. What if they could be got to go back suddenly to their homes, and bring a legion of red-haired Gauls to assist the conspirators in burning down Rome? A deputation from the delegates came to Sampronia's house, and there met the conspirators, lentilus and others. They entered freely into the project, but having, as was usual with foreign embassies at Rome, a patron or peculiar friend of their own among the aristocracy, one Fabius Sanga by name, they thought it well to consult him. Sanga, as a matter of course, told everything to our astute consul. Then the matter was arranged with more than all the craft of a modern inspector of police. The alabroges were instructed to lend themselves to the device, stipulating, however, that they should have a written signed authority which they could show to their rulers at home. The written signed documents were given to them. With certain conspirators to help them out of the city, they were sent on their way. At a bridge over the Tiber, they were stopped by Cicero's emissaries. There was a feigned fight, but no blood was shed, and the ambassadors with their letters were brought home to the consul. We are astonished at the marvellous folly of these conspirators, so that we could hardly have believed the story had it not been told alike by Cicero and by Thalist, and had not allusion to the details been common among later writers. The ambassadors were taken at the Milvian bridge, early on the morning of the third of December, and in the course of that day Cicero sent for the leaders of the conspiracy to come to him. Lentulus, who was then Prital, Cethigus, Gabinius, and Statilius all obeyed the summons. They did not know what had occurred, and probably felt that their best hope of safety lay in compliance. Ciparius was also sent for, but he for the moment escaped. In vain, for before two days were over he had been taken, and put to death with the others. Cicero again called the senate together, and entered the meeting, leading the guilty Prital by the hand. Here the offenders were examined, and practically acknowledged their guilt. The proofs against them were so convincing that they could not deny it. There were the signatures of some, arms were found hidden in the house of another. The senate decreed that the men should be kept in endurance, till some decision as to their fate should have been pronounced. Each of them was then given in custody to some noble Roman of the day. Lentulus the Prital was confided to the keeping of a censor, Cethigus to Cornificius, Statilius to Caesar, Gabinius to Crassus, and Ciparius, who had not fled very far before he was taken, to one Torentius. We can imagine how willingly would Crassus and Caesar have let their men go had they dared. But Cicero was in the ascendant. Caesar, whom we can imagine to have understood that the hour had not yet come for putting an end to the effete republic, and to have perceived also that Catterline was no fit helpmate for him in such a work, must bide his time, and for the moment obey. That he was inclined to favour the conspirators, there is no doubt, but at present he could befriend them only in accordance with the law. The alabroges were rewarded. The Pritals in the city who had assisted Cicero were thanked. To Cicero himself a supplication was decreed. A supplication was in its origin a thanksgiving to the gods on account of a victory, but it had come to be an honour shown to the general who had gained the victory. In this case it was simply a means of adding glory to Cicero and was peculiar as hitherto the reward had only been conferred to military service. Remembering that we can understand what at the time must have been the feeling in Rome as to the benefits conferred by the activity and patriotism of the consul. On the evening of the same day, the 3rd of December, Cicero again addressed the people, explaining to them what he had done and what he had before explained in the senate. This was the 3rd Catalan speech, and for rapid narrative is perhaps surpassed by nothing that he ever spoke. He explains again the motives by which he had been actuated, and in doing so extols the courage, the sagacity, the activity of Catalan, while he ridicules the folly and the fury of the others. Had Catalan remained, he says, we should have been forced to fight with him here in the city, but with lentulus the sleepy, and Cassius the fat, and Cethigus the mad, it has been comparatively easy to deal. It was on this account that he had got rid of him, knowing that their presence would do no harm. Then he reminds the people of all that the gods have done for them, and addresses them in language which makes one feel that they did believe in their gods. It is one instance, one out of many which history and experience afford us, in which an honest and a good man has endeavoured to use for salutary purposes, a faith in which he has not himself participated. Does the bishop of today, when he calls upon his clergy to pray for fine weather, believe that the Almighty will change the ordained seasons, and cause his causes to be inoperative, because farmers are anxious for their hay or for their wheat? But he feels that when men are in trouble it is well that they should hold communion with the powers of heaven. So much also Cicero believed, and therefore spoke as he did on this occasion. As to his own religious views I shall say something in a future chapter. Then in a passage most beautiful for its language, though it is hardly in accordance with our idea of the manner in which a man should speak of himself, he explains his own ambition. For all which, my fellow countrymen, I ask for no other recompense, no ornament or honour, no monument, but that this day may live in your memories. It is within your breasts that I would garner and keep fresh my triumph, my glory, the trophies of my exploits. No silent voiceless statue, nothing which can be bestowed upon the worthless, can give me delight. Only by your remembrance can my fortunes be nurtured, by your good words, by the records which usual cause to be written, can they be strengthened and perpetuated. I do think that this day, the memory of which I trust may be eternal, will be famous in history because the city has been preserved, and because my consulship has been glorious. He ends the paragraph by an allusion to Pompey, admitting Pompey to a brotherhood of patriotism and praise. We shall see how Pompey repaid him. How many things must have been a stir in his mind when he spoke those words of Pompey. In the next sentence he tells the people of his own danger. He has taken care of their safety. It is for them to take care of his. But they, these querities, these Roman citizens, these masters of the world by whom everything was supposed to be governed, could take care of no one. Certainly not of themselves, as certainly not of another. They could only vote now this way and now that, as somebody might tell them, or more probably as somebody might pay them. Pompey was coming home, and would soon be the favourite. Cicero must have felt that he had deserved much of Pompey, but was by no means sure that the debt of gratitude would be paid. Now we come to the fourth or last catalyne-eration, which was made to the senate, convened on the 5th of December with the purpose of deciding the fate of the leading conspirators who were held in custody. We learned of what purport were three of the speeches made during this debate, those of Caesar and of Cato and of Cicero. The first two are given to us by Salist, but we can hardly think that we have the exact words. The Caesarian spirit which induced Salist to ignore altogether the words of Cicero would have induced him to give his own representation of the other two, even though we were to suppose that he had been able to have them taken down by shorthand writers. Cicero's words, we have no doubt, with such polishing as may have been added to the shorthand writer's notes by Tyro, his slave and secretary. The three are compatible enough with the other, and we are entitled to believe that we know the line of argument used by the three oraces. Silanus, one of the consul's elect, began the debate by counselling death. We may take it for granted that he had been persuaded by Cicero to make this proposition. During the discussion he trembled at the consequences, and declared himself for an adjournment of their decision till they should have dealt with Catalyne. Murena, the other consul-elect, and Catalyus, the prince of the senate, spoke for death. Tiberius Nero, grandfather of Tiberius the Emperor, made that proposition for adjournment to which Silanus gave way. Then, or I should say rather in the course of the debate, for we do not know who else may have spoken, Caesar got up, and made his proposition. His purpose was to save the victims, but he knew well that with such a spirit abroad as that existing in the senate and the city, he could only do so, not by absolving, but by condemning. Wicked as these men might be, abominably wicked, it was he said for the senate to think of their own dignity, rather than of the enormity of the crime. As they could not, he suggested invent any new punishment adequate to so abominable a crime, it would be better that they should leave the conspirators to be dealt with by the ordinary laws. It was thus that cunningly he threw out the idea that as senators they had no power of death. He did not dare to tell them directly that any danger would menace them, but he exposed the danger skillfully before their eyes. Their crimes, he says again, deserve worse than any torture you can inflict. But men generally recollect what comes last. When the punishment is severe, men will remember the severity rather than the crime. He argues all this extremely well. The speech is one of great ingenuity, whether the words be the words of Salast or of Caesar. We may doubt indeed whether the general assertion he made as to death had much weight with the senators, when he told them that death to the wicked was a relief, whereas life was a lasting punishment. But when he went on to remind them of the Lex Porchia, by which the power of punishing a Roman citizen, even under the laws, was limited to banishment, unless by a plebiscite of the people generally ordering death, then he was efficacious. He ended by proposing that the goods of the conspirators should be sold, and that the men should be condemned to imprisonment for life, each in some separate town. This would, I believe, have been quite as illegal as the death sentence, but it would not have been irrevocable. The senate or the people in the next year could have restored to the men their liberty, and compensated them for their property. Cicero was determined that the men should die. They had not obeyed him by leaving the city, and he was convinced that while they lived, the conspiracy would live also. He fully understood the danger, and resolved to meet it. He replied to Caesar, and with infinite skill, refrained from the expression of any strong opinion, while he led his hearers to the conviction that death was necessary. For himself he had been told of his danger. But if a man be brave in his duty, death cannot be disgraceful to him. To one who had reached the honors of the consulship it could not be premature, to know why's man could it be a misery. Though his brother, though his wife, though his little boy, and his daughter just married, were warning him of his peril, not by all that would he be influenced. Do you, he says, conscript fathers, look to the safety of the Republic? These are not the Gracchi nor Satininus who are brought to you for judgment, men who broke the laws indeed, and therefore suffered death, but who still were not unpatriotic. These men had sworn to burn the city, to slay the senate, to force Catiline upon you as a ruler. The proofs of this are in your own hands. It was for me as your consul to bring the facts before you. Now it is for you, at once, before night, to decide what shall be done. The conspirators are very many. It is not only with these view that you are dealing. On whatever you decide, decide quickly. Caesar tells you of the Sampronian law, the law namely forbidding the death of a Roman citizen. But can he be regarded as a citizen who has been found in arms against the city? Then there is a fling at Caesar's assumed clemency, showing us that Caesar had already endeavored to make capital out of that virtue which he displayed afterwards so signally at Elysia and Uxilodunum. Then again he speaks of himself in words so grand that it is impossible but to sympathise with him. Let Scipio's name be glorious, he by whose wisdom and valour Hannibal was forced out of Italy. Let Africanus be praised loudly, who destroyed Carthage and Numantia, the two cities which were most hostile to Rome. Let Paulus be regarded as great, he whose triumphed that great king Perseys adorned. Let Marius be held in undying honour, who twice saved Italy from foreign yoke. Let Pompey be praised above all whose noble deeds are as wide as the sun's course. Perhaps among them there may be a spot too for me, unless indeed to win provinces to which we may take ourselves in exile is more than to guard that city to which the conquerors of provinces may return in safety. The last words of the orator also are fine. Therefore, conscript fathers, decide wisely and without fear. Your own safety and that of your wives and children, that of your hearts and altars, the temples of your gods, the homes contained in your city, your liberty, the welfare of Italy and of the whole republic are at stake. It is for you to decide. In me you have a consul who will obey your decrees, and will see that they be made to prevail while the breath of life remains to him. Cato then spoke, advocating death, and the senate decreed that the men should die. Cicero himself led Lentilus down to the vaulted prison below in which executioners were ready for the work, and the other four men were made to follow. A few minutes afterward, in the gleaming of the evening, when Cicero was being led home by the applauding multitude, he was asked after the fate of the conspirators. He answered them but by one word, wixerunt. There is said to have been a superstition with the Romans as to all mention of death. They have lived their lives. As to what was being done outside Rome, with the army of conspirators in Etruria, it is not necessary for the biographer of Cicero to say much. Catiline fought and died fighting. The conspiracy was then over. On the 31st of December, Cicero retired from his office, and Catiline fell at the Battle of Pistoia on the 5th of January following, B.C. 62. A Roman historian writing in the reign of Tiberius has thought it worth his while to remind us that a great glory was added to Cicero's consular year by the birth of Augustus, him who afterward became Augustus Caesar. Had a Roman been living now he might be excused for saying that it was an honour to Augustus to have been born in the year of Cicero's consulship. CHAPTER X. Cicero after his consulship. The idea that the great consul had done illegally in putting citizens to death was not allowed to lie dormant even for a day. It must be remembered that a decree of the senate had no power as a law. The laws could be altered or even a new law made only by the people. Such was the constitution of the Republic. Further on, when Cicero will appeal as, in fact, on trial for the offence so alleged to have been committed, I shall have to discuss the matter, but the point was raised against him even in the moment of his triumphs as he was leaving the consulship. The reiteration of his self-praise had created for him many enemies. It had turned friends against him and had driven men even of his own party to ask themselves whether all this virtue was to be endured. When a man assumes to be more just than his neighbours, there will be many ways found of throwing in a shell against him. It was customary for a consul when he vacated his office to make some valedictory speech. Cicero was probably expected to take full advantage of the opportunity. From other words which have come from him on other occasions but on the same subject it would not be difficult to compose such a speech as he might have spoken. But there were those who were already sick of hearing him say that Rome had been saved by his intelligence and courage. We can imagine what Caesar might have said among his friends of the expediency of putting down the self-lorditary consul. As it was, Metellus Nepos, one of the tribunes, forbade the retiring officer to do more than take the oath usual on leaving office because he had illegally inflicted death upon Roman citizens. Metellus, as tribune, had the power of stopping any official proceeding. We hear from Cicero himself that he was quite equal to the occasion. He swore on the spur of the moment a solemn oath, not in accordance with the form common to consuls on leaving office, but to the effect that during his consulship Rome had been saved by his work alone. We have the story only as it is told by Cicero himself, who averse that the people accepted the oath as sworn with exceeding praise. That it was so we may, I think, take as true. There can be no doubt as to Cicero's popularity at this moment, and hardly a doubt also as to the fact that Metellus was acting in agreement with Caesar, and also in accord with the understood feelings of Pompey, who was absent with his army in the east. This tribune had been till lately an officer under Pompey, and went into office together with Caesar, who in that year became Prital. This, probably, was the beginning of the party which two years afterward formed the first triumvirate, B.C. Sixty. It was certainly now, in the years exceeding the consulship of Cicero, that Caesar, as Prital, began his great career. Sidenote B.C. Sixty-Two, I. Tat. Forty-Five It becomes manifest to us, as we read the history of the time, that the dictator of the future was gradually entertaining the idea that the old forms of the republic were rotten, and that any man who intended to exercise power in Rome or within the Roman Empire must obtain it and keep it by illegal means. He had probably adhered to Catiline's first conspiracy, but only with such moderate adhesion as enabled him to withdraw when he found that his companions were not fit for the work. It is manifest that he sympathised with the later conspiracy, though it may be doubted whether he himself had ever been a party to it. When the conspiracy had been crushed by Cicero, he had given his full assent to the crushing of it. We had seen how loudly he condemned the wickedness of the conspirators in his endeavour to save their lives. But through it all there was a well-grounded conviction in his mind that Cicero, with all his virtues, was not practical. Not that Cicero was to him the same as Cato, who with his stoic grand eloquence must, to his thinking, have been altogether useless. Cicero, though too virtuous for supreme rule, too virtuous to seize power and hold it, too virtuous to despise as a feat the institutions of the Republic, was still a man so gifted and capable in so many things as to be very great as an assistant, if he would only condescend to assist. It is in this light that Caesar seems to have regarded Cicero as time went on, admiring him, liking him, willing to act with him if it might be possible, but not the less determined to put down all the attempts at patriotic Republican virtue in which the orator delighted to indulge. Mr. Forsythe expresses an opinion that Caesar, till he crossed the Rubicon after his ten years fighting in Gaul, had entertained no settled plan of overthrowing the Constitution—probably not, nor even then. It may be doubted whether Caesar ever spoke to himself of overthrowing the Constitution. He came gradually to see that power and wealth were to be obtained by violent action, and only by violent action. He had before him the examples of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had enjoyed power and had died in their beds. There was the example also of others who, walking unwearily in those perilous times, had been banished, as was Veriz, or killed, as was Catiline. We can easily understand that he, with his great genius, should have acknowledged the need both of courage and caution. Both were exercised when he consented to be absent from Rome and almost from Italy, during the ten years of the Gallic Wars. But this, I think, is certain, that from the time in which his name appears prominent, from the period namely of the Catiline conspiracy, he had determined not to overthrow the Constitution, but so to carry himself amid the great affairs of the day, as not to be overthrown himself. Of what nature was the intercourse between him and Pompey when Pompey was still absent in the East, we do not know, but we can hardly doubt that some understanding had begun to exist. Of this, Cicero was probably aware. Pompey was the man whom Cicero chose to regard as his party leader, not having himself been enured to the actual politics of Rome early enough in life to put himself forward as the leader of his party. It had been necessary for him, as a noble homo, to come forward and work as an advocate, and then as an administrative officer of the State, before he took up with politics. That this was so, I have shown by quoting the opening words of his speech, Prolegge Maniglia. Proud as he was of the doings of his consulship, he was still too new to his work to think that thus he could claim to stand first. Nor did his ambition lead him in that direction. He desired personal praise rather than personal power. When in the last catalyne-eration to the people he speaks of the great men of the Republic, of the two Scipios, and of Paulus Emilius and of Marius, he adds the name of Pompey to these names, or gives rather to Pompey greater glory than to any of them, Anteponatur Omnibus Pompeus. This was but a few days before Metellus as Tribune had stopped him in his speech at the instigation probably of Caesar and in furtherance of Pompey's views. Pompey and Caesar could agree at any rate in this, that they did not want such a one as Cicero to interfere with them. All of which Cicero himself perceived, the specially rich province of Macedonia which would have been his had he chosen to take it on quitting the consulship, he made over to Antony, no doubt as a bribe, as with us one statesman may resign a special office to another to keep that other from kicking over the traces. Then Gaul became his province, as allotted, Cisalpangaul as northern Italy was then called, a province less rich in plunder and pay than Macedonia. But Cicero wanted no province, and had contrived that this should be confided to Metellus Cheller, the brother of Nepos, who having been Prito when he himself was consul, was entitled to a government. This, too, was a political bribe. If courtesy to Caesar, if provinces given up here and there to Antony's and Metellus's, if flattery lavished on Pompey could avail anything, he could not afford to dispense with such aids. It all availed nothing. From this time forward, for the twenty years which were to run before his death, his life was one always of trouble and doubt, often of despair, and on many occasions of actual misery. The source of this was that Pompey, whom with divine attributes he had extolled above all other Romans. The first extant letter written by Cicero after his consulship was addressed to Pompey. Pompey was still in the east, but had completed his campaigns against Mithridates successfully. Cicero begins by congratulating him, as though to do so were the purpose of his letter. Then he tells the victorious general that there were some in Rome not so well pleased as he was at these victories. It is supposed that he alluded here to Caesar, but if so he probably misunderstood the alliance which was already being formed between Caesar and Pompey. After that comes the real object of the epistle. He had received letters from Pompey congratulating him in very cold language as to the glories of his consulship. He had expected much more than that from the friend for whom he had done so much. Still he thanks his friend, explaining that the satisfaction really necessary to him was the feeling that he had behaved well to his friend. If his friend were less friendly to him in return, then would the balance of friendship be on his side? If Pompey were not bound to him, Cicero, by personal gratitude, still would he be bound by necessary cooperation in the service of the Republic? But lest Pompey should misunderstand him, he declares that he had expected warmer language in reference to his consulship, which he believes to have been withheld by Pompey, lest offence should be given to some third person. By this he means Caesar and those who are now joining themselves to Caesar. Then he goes on to warn him as to the future. Nevertheless, when you return you will find that my actions have been of such a nature that, even though you may loom larger than Scipio, I shall be found worthy to be accepted as your Lilius. Infinite care had been given to the writing of this letter, and sharp had been the heart-burnings which dictated it. It was only by asserting that he, upon his own part, was satisfied with his own fidelity as a friend that Cicero could express his dissatisfaction at Pompey's coldness. It was only by continuing to lavish upon Pompey such flattery as was contained in the reference to Scipio, in which a touch of subtle irony is mixed with the flattery, that he could explain the nature of the praise which had, he thought, been due to himself. There is something that would have been abject in the nature of these expressions had it not been Roman in the excess of the adulation. But there is courage in the letter, too, when he tells his correspondent what he believes have been the cause of the coldness of which he complains. Coduerere ne cuyos animum ofenderes. Because you fear, lest you should give offense to someone. But tell me, he goes on to say, that my consulship has been of such nature that you, Scipio as you are, must admit me as your friend. In these words we find a key to the whole of Cicero's connection with the man whom he recognizes as his political leader. He was always dissatisfied with Pompey, always accusing Pompey in his heart of ingratitude and insincerity, frequently speaking to Atticus with bitter truths of the man's selfishness and incapacity, even of his cruelty and want of patriotism, nicknaming him because of his absurdities, declaring of him that he was minded to be a second sculler, but still clinging to him as the political friend and leader whom he was bound to follow. In the earlier years, when he could have known personally but little of Pompey, because Pompey was generally absent from Rome, he had taken it into his head to love the man. He had been called Magnus, he had been made consul long before the proper time, he had been successful on behalf of the Republic and so far patriotic. He had hitherto adhered to the fame of the Republic. At any rate, Cicero had accepted him, and could never afterward bring himself to be disloyal to the leader with whom he had professed to act. But the feeling evinced in this letter was carried on to the end. He had been, he was, he would be true to his political connection with Pompey, but of Pompey's personal character to himself, he had nothing but complaints to make. Side note, B.C. 62, I.T. 45. We have two other letters written by Cicero in this year, the first of which is in answer to one from Metellus Keller to him, also extant. Metellus wrote to complain of the ill treatment which he thought he had received from Cicero in the Senate, and from the Senate generally. Cicero writes back at much greater length to defend himself, and to prove that he had behaved as a most obliging friend to his correspondent, though he had received a gross affront from his correspondent's brother, Nepos. Nepos had prevented him in that matter of the speech. It is hardly necessary to go into the question of this quarrel, except in so far as it may show how the feeling which led to Cicero's exile was growing up amongst many of the aristocracy in Rome. There was a counter-plot going on at the moment, a plot on behalf of the aristocracy for bringing back Pompey to Rome, not only with glory, but with power, probably originating in a feeling that Pompey would be a more congenial master than Cicero. It was suggested that as Pompey had been found good in all state emergencies, for putting down the pirates, for instance, and for conquering Miss Redarces, he would be the man to contend in arms with Catiline. Catiline was killed before the matter could be brought to an issue, but still the conspiracy went on, based on the jealousy which was felt in regard to Cicero. This man, who had declared so often that he had served his country, and who really had crushed the Catilinarians by his industry and readiness, might, after all, be coming forward as another suller, and looking to make himself master, by dint of his virtues and his eloquence. The hopelessness of the condition of the republic may be recognized in the increasing conspiracies which were hatched on every side. Metellus Nepos was sent home from Asia in aid of the conspiracy, and got himself made tribune, and stopped Cicero's speech. In conjunction with Caesar, who was Pritul, he proposed his new law for the calling of Pompey to their aid. Then there was a fracker between him and Caesar on one side, and Cato on the other, in which Cato at last was so far victorious that both Caesar and Metellus were stopped in the performance of their official duties. Caesar was soon reinstated, but Metellus Nepos returned to Pompey in the east, and nothing came of the conspiracy. It is only noticed here as evidence of the feeling which existed as to Cicero in Rome, and as explaining the irritation on both sides indicated in the correspondence between Cicero and Metellus Keller, the brother of Nepos, whom Cicero had procured the government of Gaul. The third letter from Cicero in this year was to Sextius, who was then acting as Chrystor, or Pro-Chrystor as Cicero calls him, with Antony as Pro-Consul in Macedonia. It is especially interesting as telling us that the writer had just completed the purchase of a house in Rome from Crassus for a sum amounting to about thirty thousand pounds of our money. There was probably no private mansion in Rome of greater pretension. It had been owned by Livius Drusus, the Tribune, a man of colossal fortune as we are told by Momsen, who was murdered at the door of it thirty years before. It afterward passed into the hands of Crassus the rich, and now became the property of Cicero. We shall hear how it was destroyed during his exile, and how fraudulently made over to the gods, and then how restored to Cicero and how rebuilt at the public expense. The history of the house has been so well written that we know even the names of Cicero's two successors in it, Quensaurinus and Statilius. It is interesting to know the sort of house which Cicero felt to be suitable to his circumstances, for by that we may guess what his circumstances were. In making this purchase he is supposed to have abandoned the family house in which his father had lived, next door to the new mansion, and to have given it up to his brother. Hence we may argue that he had conceived himself to have risen in worldly circumstances. Nevertheless we are informed by himself in this letter to Sextius that he had to borrow money for the occasion, so much so that, being a man now indebted, he might be supposed to be ripe for any conspiracy. Hence has come to us a story through Aulus Gelius, the compiler of anecdotes, to the effect that Cicero was feigned to borrow this money from a client whose cause he undertook in requital for the favour so conferred. Aulus Gelius collected his stories two centuries afterward for the amusement of his children, and has never been regarded as an authority in matters for which confirmation has been wanting. There is no allusion to such borrowing from a client made by any contemporary. In this letter to Sextius, in which he speaks jokingly of his indebtedness, he declares that he has been able to borrow any amount he wanted, at six percent, twelve being the ordinary rate, and gives us a reason for this, the position which he has achieved by his services to the state. Very much has been said of the story, as though the purchaser of the house had done something of which he ought to have been ashamed. But this seems to have sprung entirely from the idea that a man who, in the midst of such wealth as prevailed at Rome, had practised so widely and so successfully the invaluable profession of an advocate, must surely have taken money for his services. He himself has asserted that he took none, and all the evidence that we have goes to show that he spoke the truth. Had he taken money even as alone, we should have heard of it from nearer witnesses than Aulus Gelius. If, as Aulus Gelius tells us, it had become known at the time. But because he tells his friend that he has borrowed money for the purpose, he is supposed to have borrowed it in a disgraceful manner. It will be found that all the stones most injurious to Cicero's reputation have been produced in the same manner. His own words have been misinterpreted, either the purport of them, if spoken in earnest, or their bearing if spoken in joke, and then accusations have been founded on them. Another charge of dishonest practice was about this time made against Cicero without a gram of evidence, though indeed the accusations so made and insisted upon, apparently from a feeling that Cicero cannot surely have been altogether clean when all others were so dirty, are too numerous to receive from each reader's judgment that indignant denial to which each is entitled. The biographer cannot but fear that when so much mud has been thrown some will stick, and therefore almost hesitates to tell of the mud, believing that no stain of this kind has been in truth deserved. It seems that Antony, Cicero's colleague in the consulship who became proconsul in Macedonia, had undertaken to pay some money to Cicero. Why the money was to be paid, we do not know, but there are allusions in Cicero's letters to Atticus to one Tuchris, a Trojan woman, and it seems that Antony was designated by the nickname. Tuchris is very slow at paying his money, and Cicero is in want of it, but perhaps it will be as well not to push the matter. He, Antony, is to be tried for provincial speculation, and Cicero declares that the case is so bad that he cannot defend his late colleague. Hence have arisen two different suspicions—one that Antony had agreed to make over to Cicero a share of the Macedonian plunder in requital of Cicero's courtesy in giving up the province which had been allotted to himself, the second that Antony was to pay Cicero for defending him. As to the former, Cicero himself alludes to such a report as being common in Macedonia, and as having been used by Antony himself as an excuse for increased rap in. But this has been felt to be incredible, and has been allowed to fall to the ground because of the second accusation. But in support of that, there is no word of evidence, whereas the tenor of the story as told by Cicero himself is against it. Is it likely, would it be possible, that Cicero should have begun his letter to Atticus by complaining that he could not get from Antony money wanted for a peculiar purpose—it was wanted for his new house—and have gone on in the same letter to say that this might be as well, after all, as he did not intend to perform the service for which the money was to be paid? The reader will remember that the accusation is based solely on Cicero's own statement that Antony was negligent in paying to him money that had been promised. In all these accusations the evidence against Cicero, such as it is, is brought exclusively from Cicero's own words. Cicero did, afterward, defend this Antony, as we learn from his speech Prodomo Sua, but his change of purpose in that respect has nothing to do with the argument. I note B.C. 62, I.T. 45. We have two speeches excellent made this year, one on behalf of P. Sulla, nephew to the dictator, the other for Archeas, the Greek scholar and poet, who had been Cicero's tutor and now claimed to be a citizen of Rome. I have already given an extract from this letter, as showing the charm of words with which Cicero could recommend the pursuit of literature to his hearers. The whole oration is a beautiful morsel of Latinity, in which, however, strength of argument is lacking. Cicero declares of Archeas that he was so eminent in literature that, if not a Roman citizen, he ought to be made one. The result is not known, but the literary world believes that the citizenship was accorded to him. The speech on behalf of Sulla was more important, but still not of much importance. This Sulla, as may be remembered, had been chosen as consul with Artronius, two years before the consulship of Cicero, and he had then, after his election, been deposed for bribery, as had also Artronius. El Aurelius Cotta and El Manlius Torquatus had been elected in their places. It has also been already explained that the two rejected consuls had on this account joined Catiline in his first conspiracy. There can be no doubt that, whether as consuls or as rejected consuls, and on that account conspirators, their purpose was to use their position as aristocrats for robbing the state. They were of the number of those to whom no other purpose was any longer possible. Then there came Catiline's second conspiracy, the conspiracy which Cicero had crushed, and there naturally rose the question whether from time to time this or the other noble Roman should not be accused of having joined it. Many noble Romans had no doubt joined, besides those who had fallen fighting or who had been executed in the dungeons. Accusations became very rife. One Vettius accused Caesar, the Praetor, but Caesar, with that potentiality which was peculiar to him, caused Vettius to be put into prison instead of going to prison himself. Many were convicted and banished, among them Portius Lyca, Vargunteus, Servius Sulla, the brother of him of whom we are now speaking, and Atronius, his colleague. In the trial of these men Cicero took no part. He was specially invited by Atronius, who was an old schoolfellow, to defend him, but he refused. Indeed he gave evidence against Atronius at the trial. But this Publius Sulla he did defend, and defended successfully. He was joined in the case with Hortensius and declared that as to the matter of the former conspiracy he left all that to his learned friend, who was concerned with political matters of that date. He, Cicero, had known nothing about them. The part of the oration which most interests us is that in which he defends himself from the accusations somewhat unwisely made against himself personally by young Torquatus, the son of him who had been raised to the consulship in the place of P. Sulla. Torquatus had called him a foreigner because he was a no-wuz homo, and had come from the municipality of Arpinum, and had taunted him with being a king because he had usurped authority over life and death in regard to Lentulus and the other conspirators. He answers this very finely, and thus so without an ill-natured word to young Torquatus, whom, from respect to his father, he desires to spare. Do not, he says, in future call me a foreigner, lest you be answered with severity, nor a king lest you be laughed at, lest indeed you think it king-like, so to live as to be a slave, not only to know man, but to know evil passion. Unless you think it king-like to despise all lusts, to thirst for neither gold nor silver nor goods, to express yourself freely in the senate, to think more of services due to the people than of favours won from them, to yield to none and to stand firm against many. If this be king-like, then I confess that I am a king. Sulla was acquitted, but the impartial reader will not the less feel sure that he had been part and parcel with Catiline in the conspiracy. It is trusted that the impartial reader will also remember how many honest, loyal gentlemen have in our own days undertaken the cases of those whom they have known to be rebels, and have saved those rebels by their ingenuity and eloquence. At the end of this year, B.C. 62, there occurred a fraca in Rome, which was of itself, but of little consequence to Rome, and would have been of none to Cicero, but that circumstances grew out of it which created for him the bitterest enemy he had yet encountered, and led to his sorest trouble. This was the affair of Claudius, and of the mysteries of the Bonadere, and I should be disposed to say that it was the greatest misfortune of his life, were it not that the wretched results which sprung from it would have been made to spring from some other source had that source not sufficed. I shall have to tell how it came to pass that Cicero was sent into exile by means of the misconduct of Claudius, but I shall have to show also that the misconduct of Claudius was but the tool which was used by those who were desirous of ridding themselves of the presence of Cicero. This Claudius, a young man of noble family and of debauched manners, as was usual with young men of noble families, dressed himself up as a woman, and made his way in among the ladies as they were performing certain religious rites in honor of the Bonadere, or goddess Sibel, a matron goddess so chastened her manners that no male was admitted into her presence. It was specially understood that nothing appertaining to a man must be seen on the occasion, not even the portrait of one, and it may possibly have been the case that Claudius affected his entrance among the worshipping matrons on this occasion simply because his doing so was an outrage and therefore exciting. Another reason was alleged. The rites in question were annually held, now in the house of this matron and then of that, and during the occasion the very master of the house was excluded from his own premises. They were now being performed under the auspices of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Caesar, the daughter of one Quintus Pompeus, and it was alleged that Claudius came among the women worshippers for the sake of carrying on an intrigue with Caesar's wife. This was highly improbable, as Mr. Forsythe has pointed out to us, and the idea was possibly used simply as an excuse to Caesar for divorcing a wife of whom he was weary. At any rate when the scandal got abroad he did divorce Pompeia, alleging that it did not suit Caesar to have his wife suspected. Side note, B.C. 61, I.T. 46. The story became known through the city, and early in January Cicero wrote to Atticus telling him the facts. You have probably heard that Publius Claudius, the son of Apius, has been taken dressed in a woman's clothes in the house of Caius Caesar, where sacrifice was being made for the people, and that he escaped by the aid of a female slave. You will be sorry to hear that it has given rise to a great scandal. A few days afterwards Cicero speaks of it again to Atticus at greater length, and we learn that the matter had been taken up by the magistrates with the view of punishing Claudius. Cicero writes without any strong feeling of his own, explaining to his friend that he had been at first a very lycurgus in the affair, but that he is now tamed down. There is a third letter in which Cicero is indignant because certain men of whom he disapproves, the consul Piso among the number, are anxious to save this wicked young nobleman from the punishment due to him, whereas others of whom he approves, Cato among the number, are desirous of seeing justice done. But it was no affair special to Cicero. Shortly afterward he writes again to Atticus as to the result of the trial, for a trial did take place, and explains to his friend how justice had failed. Atticus had asked him how it had come to pass that he, Cicero, had not exerted himself as he usually did. This letter, though there is matter enough in it of a serious kind, yet jests with the Claudian affair so continually as to make us feel that he attributed no importance to it as regarded himself. He had exerted himself till Hortensius made a mistake as to the selection of the judges. After that he had himself given evidence. An attempt was made to prove an alibi, but Cicero came forward to swear that he had seen Claudius on the very day in question. There had too been an exchange of repartee in the Senate between himself and Claudius after the acquittal, of which he gives the details to his correspondent with considerable self-satisfaction. The passage does not enhance our idea of the dignity of the Senate or of the power of Roman Raylary. It was known that Claudius had been saved by the wholesale bribery of a large number of the judges. There had been twenty-five for condemning against thirty-one for acquittal. Cicero in the Catiline affair had used a phrase with frequency by which he boasted that he had found out this and found out that, Comperissa omnia. Claudius, in the discussion before the trial, throws this in his teeth. Comperissa omnia criminabatur. This gave rise to ill feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonour done to the bonadere. As for that, we may say that he and the Senate and the judges cared personally very little, although there was no doubt a feeling that it was wise to all men's minds by the preservation of religious respect. Cicero had cared but little about the trial, but as he had been able to give evidence he had appeared as witness, and enmity sprung from the words which was spoken both on one side and on the other. Claudius was acquitted, which concerns us not at all and concerns Rome very little, but things had so come to pass at the trial that Cicero had been very bitter, and that Claudius had become his enemy. When a man was wanted three years afterward to take the lead in persecuting Cicero, Claudius was ready for the occasion. While the expediency of putting Claudius on his trial was being discussed, Pompey had returned from the east and taken up his residence outside the city because he was awaiting his triumphs. The general, to whom it was given to march through the city with triumphal glory, was bound to make his first entrance after his victories with all his triumphal appendages, as though he was at that moment returning from the war with all his warlike spoils around him. The usage had obtained the strength of law, but the general was not on that account debarred from city employment during the interval. The city must be taken out to him instead of his coming into the city. Pompey was so great on his return from his methodatic victories that the senate went out to sit with him in the suburbs as he could not sit with it within the walls. We find him taking part in these Claudian discussions. Cicero at once writes of him to Athens with evident dissatisfaction. When questioned about Claudius, Pompey had answered with the grand air of an aristocrat. Crassus on this occasion, between whom and Cicero there was never much friendship, took occasion to belaud the late great consul on account of his catalined successes. Pompey, we are told, did not bear this well. Crassus had probably intended to produce some such effect. Then Cicero had spoken in answer to the remarks of Crassus, very glibly no doubt, and had done his best to show off before Pompey his new listener. Molzen six years had passed since Pompey could have heard him, and then Cicero's voice had not become potential in the senate. Cicero had praised Pompey with all the eloquence in his power, ante pornatur omnibus pompeus, he had said in the last catalineration to the senate, and Pompey, though he had not heard the words spoken, knew very well what had been said. Such oratory was never lost upon those whom it most concerned the orator to make acquainted with it. But in return for all this praise, for that manelian oration which had helped to send him to the east, for continual loyalty, Pompey had replied to Cicero with coldness. He would now let Pompey know what was his standing in Rome. If ever, he says to Atticus, I was strong with my grand rhythm, with my quick rhetorical passages, with enthusiasm and with logic, I was so now. Oh, the noise that I made on the occasion! You know what my voice can do, I need say no more about it, as surely you must have heard me away there in a pyrus. The reader, I trust, will have already a sufficiently vivid idea of Cicero's character, to understand the mingling of triumph and badinage with a spark of disappointment which is here expressed. This Pompey, though I have been so true to him, has not thought much of me, of me, the great consul, who saved Rome. He has now heard what even Crassus has been forced to say about me. He shall hear me too, me myself, and perhaps he will then know better. It was thus that Cicero's mind was at work while he was turning out his loud periods. Pompey was sitting next to him, listening, by no means admiring his admirer, as that admirer expected to be admired. Cicero had probably said to himself that they two together, Pompey and Cicero, might suffice to preserve the republic. Pompey, not thinking much of the republic, was probably telling himself that he wanted no brother near the throne. Even of two men the first think himself equal to the second, the second will generally feel himself to be superior to the first. Pompey would have liked Cicero better if his periods had not been so round, nor his voice so powerful. Not that Pompey was distinctly desirous of any throne. His position at the moment was peculiar. He had brought back his victorious army from the east to Brindisium, and then disbanded his legions. I will quote here the opening words from one of Monson's chapters. When Pompey, after having transacted the affairs committed to his charge, again turned his eyes towards home, he found for the second time the diadem at his feet. He says farther on, explaining why Pompey did not lift the diadem, the very peculiar temperament of Pompey's naturally turned once more the scale. He was one of those men who are capable, it may be, of a crime, but not of insubordination. And again, while in the capital all was preparation for receiving the new monarch, news came that Pompeyus, when barely landed at Brindisium, had broken up his legions, and with a small escort had entered his journey to the capital. If it is a piece of good fortune to gain a crown without trouble, fortune never did more for mortal than it did for Pompeus, but on those who lack courage, the gods lavish every favour and every gift in vain. I must say here that, while I acknowledge the German historian's research and knowledge without any reserve, I cannot accept his deductions as to character. I did not believe that Pompey found any diadem at his feet, or thought of any diadem, nor, according to my reading of Roman history, had Marius or had Sulla, nor did Caesar. The first who thought of that perpetual rule, a rule to be perpetuated during the ruler's life and to be handed down to his successors, was Augustus. Marius, violent, self-seeking, and uncontrollable, had tumbled into supreme power, and had he not died, would have held it as long as he could, because it pleased his ambition for the moment. Sulla, with a purpose, had seized it, yet seems never to have got beyond the old Roman idea of a temporary dictatorship. The old Roman horror of a king was present to these Romans, even after they had become kings. Pompey, no doubt, liked to be first, and when he came back from the east, thought that by his deeds he was first, easily first. Whether consul year after year, as Marius had been, or dictator as Sulla had been, or imperator, with a running command of all the Romans, it was his idea still to adhere to the forms of the Republic. Momson, foreseeing, if an historian can be said to foresee the future from his standing point in the past, that a master was to come for the Roman Empire, and giving all his sympathies to the Caesarean idea, despises Pompey because Pompey would not pick up the diadem. No such idea ever entered Pompey's head. After a while he, Sulla to rise, was desirous of copying Sulla, to use an excellent word which Cicero coined. When he was successfully opposed by those whom he had thought inferior to himself, when he found that Caesar had got the better of him, and that a stronger body of Romans went with Caesar than with him, then prescriptions, murder, confiscations, and the seizing of dictatorial power presented themselves to his angry mind. But of permanent despotic power there was, I think, no thought, nor, as far as I can read the records, had such an idea been fixed in Caesar's bosom. To carry on the old trade of praetor, consul, proconsul, and imperator, so as to get what he could of power and wealth and dignity in the scramble, was, I think, Caesar's purpose. The rest grew upon him. Miss Shakespeare, sitting down to write a play that might serve his theatre, composed some leer or tempest that has lived and will live for ever because of the genius which was unknown to himself, so did Caesar, by his genius, find his way to a power which he had not premeditated. A much longer time is necessary for eradicating an idea from men's minds than a fact from their practice. This should be proved to us by our own loyalty to the word monarch, when nothing can be farther removed from a monarchy than our own commonwealth. From those first breaches in republican practice which the historian Florus dates back to the Siege of Numantia, B.C. 133, down far into the reign of Augustus, it took a century and a quarter to make the people understand that there was no longer a republican form of government, and to produce a leader who could himself see that there was room for a despot. Pompey had his triumph, but the same aristocratic heirs which had annoyed Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honours. Only two days were allowed for his processions. He was irritated, jealous, and no doubt desirous of making his power felt, but he thought of no diadem. Caesar saw it all, and he thought of that conspiracy which we have since called the first triumvirate. Sidenote, B.C. 62, 61, Eitat 45, 46. The two years to which this chapter has been given were uneventful in Cicero's life, and produced but little of that stock of literature by which he has been made one of mankind's prime favourites. Two discourses were written and published, and probably spoken, which are now lost, that namely to the people against Metellus, in which no doubt he put forth all that he had intended to say when Metellus stopped him from speaking at the expiration of his consulship, the second against Claudius and Curio, in the senate, in reference to the discreditable Claudian affair. The fragments which we have of this contain those asperities which he retailed afterwards in his letter to Atticus, and are not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from these fragments that Claudius was already preparing that scheme for entering the tribunate by an illegal repudiation of his own family rank, which he afterward carried out to the great detriment of Cicero's happiness. Of the speeches extant on behalf of Archaeus and P. Sulla, I have spoken already. We know of no others made during this period. We have one letter besides those to Atticus addressed to Antony, his former colleague, which, like many of his letters, was written solely for the sake of popularity. During these years he lived no doubt splendidly as one of the great men of the greatest city in the world. He had his magnificent new mansion in Rome, and his various villas which were already becoming noted for their elegance and charms of upholstery and scenic beauty. Cicero's only had he climbed to the top of official life himself, but had succeeded in taking his brother Quintus up with him. In the second of the two years, B. C. 61, Quintus had been sent out as governor or proprietor to Asia, having then nothing higher to reach than the consulship, which, however, he never attained. This step in the life of Quintus has become famous by a letter which the elder brother wrote to him in the second year of his office, to which reference will be made in the next chapter. So far all things seem to have gone well with Cicero. He was high in esteem and authority, powerful, rich, and with many people popular. But the student of his life now begins to see that troubles are enveloping him. He had risen too high not to encounter Envy, and had been too loud in his own praise not to make those who envied him very bitter in their malice. End of chapter 10