Cicero and his friends

by Gaston Boissier

III.

After Pharsalia, there was no want of malcontents. That great aristocracy that had governed the world so long, could not consider itself beaten after a single defeat. It was so much the more natural that it should wish to make a last effort, as it was well aware that, the first time, it had not fought under favourable conditions, and that, in uniting its cause to Pompey’s, it had placed itself in a bad position. Pompey inspired little more confidence in those who desired liberty than Caesar. It was known that he had a taste for extraordinary powers, and that he liked to concentrate all public authority in his hands. At the commencement of the civil war he had rejected the most just proposals with so much haughtiness, and shown so much ardour in precipitating the crisis, that he seemed rather to wish to get rid of a rival who hampered him than to come to the aid of the threatened republic. His friend Cicero tells us that when the insolence of his associates, and his own persistency in not taking advice from any one, were seen in his camp, it was suspected that a man who took counsel so ill before the battle would wish to make himself master after the victory. That is why so many good citizens, and Cicero among the chief, had hesitated so long to take his part; that is, above all, why intrepid men like Brutus had hastened to lay down their arms after the first defeat. It must be added that, if they were not perfectly satisfied about Pompey’s intentions, it was also possible they might be mistaken about Caesar’s projects. No one was ignorant that he wished for power; but what kind of power? Was it only one of those temporary dictatorships, necessary in free states after a period of anarchy, which suspend liberty but do not annihilate it? Was it a question of repeating the history of Marius and Sulla, whom the republic had survived? In strictness it might be thought so, and nothing prevents us supposing that several of Caesar’s officers, those especially who, when undeceived later, conspired against him, did not think so then.

But after Pharsalia there was no longer any means of preserving this illusion. Caesar did not demand an exceptional authority; he aspired to found a new government. Had he not been heard to say that “republic” was a word void of meaning, and that Sulla was a fool to have abdicated the dictatorship? His measures for regulating the exercise of the popular suffrage in his own interest, the choice that he had made in advance of consuls and praetors for several years running, the delivery of the public treasure and the administration of the revenue of the state by his freedmen and slaves, the union of all dignities in his own person, the censorship under the name of praefecture of morals, the perpetual dictatorship, which did not prevent him getting himself appointed consul every year; everything, in fine, in his laws and in his conduct indicated a definitive taking possession of power. Far from taking any of those precautions to hide the extent of his authority that Augustus employed later, he seemed to exhibit it with complacency, and without concerning himself about the enemies that his frankness might make him. On the contrary, by a sort of ironical scepticism and bold impertinence, that betrayed the great nobleman, he loved to shock the fanatical partisans of ancient usages. He smiled at seeing pontifs and augurs scared when he dared to deny the gods in full senate, and it was his amusement to disconcert those ceremonious old men, the superstitious guardians of ancient practices. Further, as he was a man of pleasure before all things, he loved power not only for the sake of exercising it, but also to enjoy its fruits; he was not contented with the reality of sovereign authority, he wished also for its outward signs, the splendour that surrounds it, the homage it exacts, the pomp that sets it off, and even the name that designates it. He knew well how much that title of king that he so ardently desired frightened the Romans; but his hardihood took pleasure in braving old prejudices at the same time that his candour no doubt thought it more honourable to give its real name to the power he exercised. The result of this conduct of Caesar was to dissipate all doubts. Thanks to it, illusion or misunderstanding was no longer possible. The question was now, not between two ambitious rivals, as at the time of Pharsalia, but between two opposite forms of government. Opinions, as sometimes happens, became clearly defined one by the other, and the intention of founding a monarchy, which Caesar openly avowed, brought about the creation of a great republican party.

How was it that in this party the boldest and most violent men formed the idea of uniting and organizing themselves? How, with growing confidence, did they come to form a plot against the life of the dictator? It is impossible to find this out exactly. All that we know is that the first idea of the plot had been formed at the same time in two quite opposite parties, among the vanquished of Pharsalia, and, what is more surprising, among Caesar’s generals themselves. These two conspiracies were probably distinct in origin, and each acted on its own account: while Cassius was thinking of killing Caesar on the banks of the Cydnus, Trebonius had been on the point of assassinating him at Narbonne. They finally united.

Every party begins by seeking a leader. If they had wished to continue the traditions of the preceding war, this leader was already at hand. Sextus, a son of Pompey, remained. He had escaped by a miracle from Pharsalia and Munda, and had survived all his family. Conquered, but not discouraged, he wandered in the mountains or along the shores, by turns an able partisan or a bold pirate, and the obstinate Pompeians united around him. But men no longer desired to be of a Pompeian party. They wished to have some one for chief who represented not merely a name but a principle, one who should represent the republic and liberty without any personal reservations. It was necessary that he should be in complete opposition to the government they were going to attack, by his life, his manners, and his character. He must be upright, because the power was corrupt, disinterested, in order to protest against the insatiable greed that surrounded Caesar, already illustrious, in order that the different elements of which the party was composed should give way to him, and still young, for they had need of a bold stroke. Now, there was only one man who united all these qualities, namely Brutus. Consequently, the eyes of every one were fixed on him. The public voice marked him out as the chief of the republican party while he was still the friend of Caesar. When the first conspirators went to all quarters seeking accomplices, they always received the same answer: “We will join you if Brutus will lead us.” Caesar himself, notwithstanding his confidence and his friendship, seemed sometimes to have a presentiment whence the danger would come to him. One day when they were trying to alarm him with the discontent and threats of Antony and Dolabella: “No,” he replied, “those debauchees are not to be feared; it is the thin and pale men.” He meant chiefly to indicate Brutus.

To this pressure of public opinion, which wished to direct the action of Brutus, and to implicate him without his assent, it was necessary to add more formal exhortations in order to persuade him; they came to him from all sides. I have no need to recall those notes that he found in his tribunal, those inscriptions that were placed at the foot of his grandfather’s statue,[^[346]] and all those clever manœuvres that Plutarch has so well narrated. But no one better served the designs of those who wished to make Brutus a conspirator than Cicero, who, however, did not know them. His letters show us the disposition of his mind at that time. Spite, anger, regret for lost liberty break out in them with singular vivacity. “I am ashamed of being a slave,”[^[347]] he wrote one day to Cassius, without suspecting that at that very moment Cassius was secretly searching for the means of being so no longer. It was impossible that these sentiments should not come to light in the books he published at that time. We find them there now that we read them in cold blood; much more must they have been seen when these books were commented on by hatred and read with eyes rendered penetrating by passion. How many epigrams were then appreciated which now escape us! What stinging and bitter words, unperceived now, were then applauded and maliciously repeated in those conversations where the master and his friends were pulled to pieces! There was in them what Cicero wittily calls “the bite of liberty which never tears better than when she has been muzzled for some time.”[^[348]] With a little effort we find allusions everywhere. If the author spoke with so much admiration of the ancient eloquence, it was because he wished to put to shame that deserted Forum and that mute senate; the memories of the old government were only recalled in order to attack the new one, and the praise of the dead became the satire of the living. Cicero well understood the whole import of his books when he said of them later: “They served me as a senate or a rostrum from which I could speak.”[^[349]] Nothing served more to stir up public opinion, to put regret for the past and disgust for the present into men’s minds, and thus to prepare the events which were to follow.

Brutus must have been more moved than any one else in reading Cicero’s writings; they were dedicated to him; they were written for him. Although they were meant to influence the whole public, they contained passages addressed more directly to him. Cicero not only sought to arouse his patriotic sentiments; he recalled the memories and hopes of his youth. With perfidious skill he even interested his vanity in the restoration of the ancient government by pointing out what a position he might make for himself in it. “Brutus,” he said, “I feel my grief revive when I look upon you and consider how the unhappy fate of the republic has arrested the rapid advance to glory which we anticipated in your youth. This is the true cause of my sorrow, this is the cause of my cares and of those of Atticus, who shares in my esteem and affection for you. You are the object of all our interest, we desire that you should reap the fruits of your virtue; our most earnest wishes are that the conditions of the republic may permit you one day to revive and increase the glory of the two illustrious houses you represent. You ought to be master in the Forum and reign there without a rival; we are, in truth, doubly afflicted, that the republic is lost for you, and you for the republic.”[^[350]] Such regrets, expressed in this fashion, and with this mixture of private and public interests, were well calculated to disturb Brutus. Antony was not altogether wrong when he accused Cicero of having been an accomplice in the death of Caesar. If he did not himself strike, he armed the hands that struck, and the conspirators were perfectly right when, on coming from the senate house, after the Ides of March, they brandished their bloody swords and called aloud upon Cicero.

To these incitements from without there were added others of a still more powerful kind from Brutus’ own household. His mother had always used the influence she had over him to draw him towards Caesar; but just at this critical time Servilia’s influence was lessened by the marriage of Brutus with his cousin Porcia. Daughter of Cato and widow of Bibulus, Porcia brought into her new home, all the passions of her father and her first husband, and especially hatred of Caesar, who had caused all her misfortunes. She had scarcely entered when disagreements arose between her and her mother-in-law. Cicero, who tells us of them, does not relate to us their cause; but it is not rash to suppose that these two women contended for the affection of Brutus, and that they wished to rule him that they might draw him in different directions. Servilia’s influence no doubt lost something in these domestic discussions, and her voice, opposed by the advice of a new and beloved wife, had no longer the same authority when it spoke for Caesar.

Thus everything combined to lead Brutus on. Let us conceive this hesitating and scrupulous man attacked on so many sides at once, by the incitements of public opinion, by memories of the past, by the traditions of his family and the very name he bore, by those secret reproaches placed under his hands and scattered on his path, which came every moment to strike his inattentive eyes, to murmur in his heedless ear, and then finding at home the same memories and the same reproaches under the form of legitimate sorrows and touching regrets. Must he not at last give way to this daily assault? Nevertheless it is probable that he resisted before giving in, that he had violent struggles during those sleepless nights that Plutarch speaks of; but as these private struggles could have no confidants they have left no trace in the historians.

All that we can do if we wish to know them is, to try and find their faint impression in the letters that Brutus wrote later, and that are preserved. We see, for instance, that he returns at two different times to this same thought: “Our ancestors thought that we ought not to endure a tyrant even if he were our own father.[^[351]]... To have more authority than the laws and the senate is a right that I would not grant to my father himself.”[^[352]] Is not this the answer which he made every time he felt himself moved by the memory of Caesar’s paternal affection, when he reflected that this man against whom he was about to take arms called him his child? As to the favours that he had received or that he might expect from him, they might have been able to disarm another, but he hardened and stiffened himself against them. “No slavery is advantageous enough to make me abandon the resolution to be free.”[^[353]] It was with such considerations that he defended himself against the friends of the dictator, perhaps against his mother, when in order to dazzle him she pointed out to him that, if he would acquiesce in the kingship of Caesar he might hope to share it. He would never have consented to pay with his liberty the right to domineer over others; the bargain would have been too disadvantageous. “It is better to command no one than to be a slave,” he wrote. “A man can live without commanding, but life as a slave is worthless.”[^[354]]

In the midst of all these anxieties of which no one could know, an event happened which very much surprised the public, and which Cicero’s letters relate without explanation. When it was known that Caesar was returning to Rome after his victory over Pompey, Brutus went to meet him with an alacrity that everybody remarked, and that many people blamed. What was his intention? A few words of Cicero, to which sufficient attention has not been paid, allow us to guess. Before taking a definite resolution, Brutus wished to make a last appeal to Caesar, and to try once more to draw him towards the republic. He made a point of commending to him the men of the vanquished party, and especially Cicero, in the hope that they might be recalled to public office. Caesar listened kindly to these praises, welcomed Brutus, and did not discourage him too much. The latter, with too easy confidence, hastened to return to Rome, and announce to every one that Caesar was coming back to the party of honest men. He went so far as to advise Cicero to address a political letter to the dictator, which should contain some good advice and make some advances; but Cicero did not share in his friend’s hopes, and after a little hesitation, refused to write. In truth, Brutus’ illusions did not last long. Antony had anticipated him with Caesar. Antony, who by his follies had disturbed the tranquillity of Rome, had much to be pardoned for; but he well knew the means of succeeding in this. While Brutus was trying to bring Caesar and the republicans together, and thought he had succeeded, Antony, in order to soften his master, flattered his most cherished wishes, and no doubt made that crown which he so anxiously desired, glitter before his eyes. The scene of the Lupercalia showed clearly that Antony had carried the day and it was no longer possible for Brutus to doubt Caesar’s intentions. Antony’s plan, indeed, did not succeed this time: the cries of the multitude, and the opposition of the two tribunes, forced Caesar to refuse the diadem that was offered him; but it was well known that this check had not discouraged him. The occasion was only deferred, and was about to present itself again. With regard to the Parthian war, an old Sybilline oracle which said that the Parthians would only be conquered by a king was to be brought before the senate, and this title was to be demanded for Caesar. Now there were too many foreigners and too many cowards in the senate to admit of the answer being doubtful. This was the moment that Cassius chose to reveal to Brutus the plot that was being hatched, and to ask him to be its head.

Cassius, whose name becomes from this moment inseparable from that of Brutus, formed a complete contrast to him. He had gained a great military reputation by saving the remains of Crassus’ army and driving the Parthians from Syria; but at the same time he was charged with being fond of pleasure, an epicurean in doctrine and conduct, eager for power, and not very scrupulous about the means of gaining it. He had pillaged the province he governed, like almost all the proconsuls; it was said that Syria had found little advantage in being saved by him, and would almost as soon have passed into the hands of the Parthians. Cassius was bitter in raillery, uneven in temper, hasty, sometimes cruel,[^[355]] and we can well understand that he would not have shrunk from an assassination; but whence came the idea of killing Caesar? Plutarch says that it was through spite at not having obtained the urban praetorship which the dictator’s favour had accorded to Brutus, and indeed, nothing prevents us thinking that personal resentment had embittered that impetuous spirit. Yet if Cassius had only this insult to avenge it is not probable that he would have acted in concert with the man who had been a party to it and had profited by it. He had quite other motives for hating Caesar. An aristocrat by birth and temper, his heart was full of the hatred felt by the vanquished aristocracy; he must have a bloody revenge for the defeat of his party, and Caesar’s pardon had not extinguished the anger that the sight of his oppressed caste aroused in him. Thus, while Brutus sought to be the man of a principle, Cassius was openly the man of a party. It seems that he early had the idea of avenging Pharsalia by an assassination. At least, Cicero says that, a very few months after he had obtained his pardon, he waited for Caesar on one bank of the Cydnus to kill him, and that Caesar was saved only by the accident that made him land on the other bank. He resumed his purpose at Rome, notwithstanding the favours of which he had been the object. It was he who got up the conspiracy, sought out the malcontents, and brought them together in secret meetings; and as he saw that they all demanded Brutus for leader, he took upon himself to speak to him.

They were still at variance in consequence of their rivalry for the urban praetorship. Cassius put his resentment aside and visited his brother-in-law. “He took him by the hand,” as Appian relates, and said: “‘What shall we do if Caesar’s flatterers propose to make him king?’ Brutus answered that he purposed not to go to the senate. ‘What?’ replied Cassius. ‘If we are summoned in our capacity as praetors, what must we do then?’ ‘I will defend the republic,’ said the other, ‘to the last.’ ‘Will you not then,’ replied Cassius, embracing him, ‘take some of the senators, as parties to your designs? Do you think it is worthless and mercenary people, or the chief citizens of Rome who place on your tribunal the writings you find there? They expect games, races or hunting spectacles from the other praetors; what they demand of you is that you should restore liberty to Rome, as your ancestors did.’”[^[356]] These words completely gained over a mind that so many private and public solicitations had unsettled for so long. Still hesitating, but already almost gained, it only waited to find itself face to face with a firm resolution in order to yield.

At last the conspiracy had a leader, and there was no longer any reason to hesitate or to wait. To avoid indiscretions or weaknesses it was necessary to act quickly. Cassius had revealed everything to Brutus a short time after the feast of the Lupercalia, which was kept on February 15, and less than a month after, on March 15, Caesar was struck down in the curia of Pompey.

IV.

Brutus was in reality the head of the conspiracy, although he had not formed the first idea of it. Cassius alone, who had formed it, could dispute the right of conducting it with him, and perhaps he had for an instant the intention of doing so. We see that at first he proposed a plan in which all the violence of his character is shown. He wished that, with Caesar, they should kill his chief friends, and especially Antony. Brutus refused, and the other conspirators were of his mind. Cassius himself yielded at last, for it must be remarked that, although imperious and haughty, he submitted to the ascendency of Brutus. He tried several times to escape from it; but after many threats and fits of anger, he felt himself overcome by the cold reasoning of his friend, and it was Brutus who really conducted the whole enterprise.

This is clearly seen, and in the manner in which it was conceived and executed we find his character and turn of mind. We have not an ordinary conspiracy before us, we have not to do with professional conspirators, with men of violence and adventures. They are not vulgarly ambitious men who covet the fortune or honours of others, nor even madmen whom political hatred misleads even to frenzy. No doubt these sentiments were found in the hearts of many of the conspirators; historians say so, but Brutus forced them to lie hid. He made a point of accomplishing his action with a sort of quiet dignity. It was the system alone that he aimed at; he was animated by no hatred against the man. After having struck him he does not insult him; he permits, in spite of many objections, his funeral to be celebrated, and his will to be read to the people. What occupies his thoughts most of all is that he should not appear to work for himself or his friends, and to avoid all suspicion of personal ambition or party interest. Such was this conspiracy in which men of very different characters took part, but which bears the imprint of Brutus’ own mind. His influence is not less perceptible on the events that followed it. He did not act at random, although Cicero accused him of doing so, and everybody repeats it; he had formed in advance a rule of conduct for the future, he had a well-defined plan. Unfortunately it was found that this plan, conceived in solitary reflection, far from the intercourse and acquaintance of men, could not be followed out. It was the work of a logician who reasons, who purposes to conduct himself in the midst of a revolution as in ordinary times, and wishes to introduce the narrow respect for legality even into a work of violence. He acknowledged that he was mistaken, and he had to give up successively all his scruples; but, as he had not the pliability of the politician who knows how to submit to necessity he gave way too late, with a bad grace, and always looked back with regret to the fine projects he had been forced to abandon. Thence came his hesitation and incoherence. It has been said that he failed through not having had an exact plan in advance; I think, on the contrary, that he did not succeed through wishing to be too faithful to the chimerical plan he had conceived, notwithstanding the lessons given by events. A rapid recital of the facts will suffice to show that it was this which caused the loss of himself and his party, and made the blood that was shed useless.

After the death of Caesar, the conspirators came out of the senate house, brandishing their swords, and calling on the people. The people listened to them with surprise, without much anger, but without any sympathy. Seeing themselves alone, they went up to the Capitol, where they could defend themselves, and shut themselves in under the guard of some gladiators. They were joined only by some doubtful friends who always join parties when they are successful. If there had been little eagerness to follow them there was still less desire to attack them. Caesar’s partisans were scared. Antony had thrown off his consul’s robe and hidden himself. Dolabella affected to appear joyful, and let it be understood that he also was one of the conspirators. Many left Rome in haste, and fled into the country; yet, when they saw that all remained quiet, and that the conspirators were contented with making speeches in the Capitol, courage returned to the most timid. The fear that this bold action had caused gave place to surprise at such strange inaction. The next day Antony had resumed his consular robes, reassembled his friends, and recovered his audacity, and it was necessary to reckon with him.

“They have acted,” said Cicero, “with manly courage, but childish judgment; animo virili, consilio puerili.”[^[357]] It is certain that they seemed to have prepared nothing, and to have foreseen nothing. On the evening of the Ides of March they were awaiting events without having done anything to guide them. Was it, as has been said, improvidence and levity? No, it was system and deliberate intention. Brutus had only joined the others to deliver the republic from the man who prevented the free play of the institutions. He being dead, the people regained their rights, and became free again to use them. The conspirators would have appeared to be working for themselves in keeping even for a day that authority that they had torn from Caesar. Now, to prepare decrees or laws in advance, to arrange about regulating the future, to consider the means of giving affairs the direction they wished, was not this to take upon themselves in some sort the duty of the entire republic? And what more had Caesar done? Thus, on pain of appearing to imitate him, and to have acted only through the rivalry of ambition, once the great blow struck, the conspirators had to abdicate. This is how I think their conduct must be explained. It was by a strange prejudice of disinterestedness and of legality that they remained voluntarily disarmed. They thought it glorious to act in concert only so far as to kill Caesar. That act accomplished, they were to restore to the people the direction of their affairs, and the choice of their government, leaving them free to express their gratitude to those who had delivered them, or if they so willed it, to repay them by forgetfulness.

There the illusion commenced: they thought there was only Caesar between the people and liberty, and that when Caesar no longer existed liberty would naturally reappear; but on the day that they called on the citizens to resume their rights, no one answered, and no one could answer, for there were no longer any citizens. “For a very long time,” says Appian on this occasion, “the Roman people was only a mixture of all the nations. The freedmen were confounded with the citizens, the slave had no longer anything to distinguish him from his master. In sum, the distributions of corn that were made at Rome gathered the beggars, the idle, and the scoundrels from all Italy.”[^[358]] This cosmopolitan population, without a past and without traditions, was not the Roman people. The evil was old, and clear-sighted minds must have perceived it for a long time. Cicero seems to suspect it sometimes, especially when he sees with what facility they traffic in votes at the elections. Nevertheless everything continued with apparent regularity, and things went on from the impulse they had received. In such a condition of affairs, and when a state only moves through habit, all is lost if this movement is arrested for a single day. Now, with Caesar, the old machinery ceased to act. The interruption was not long, but the machine was so dilapidated that in stopping it fell to pieces entirely. Thus the conspirators could not restore what was existing before the civil war, and this last shadow of the republic, imperfect as it was, disappeared for ever.

This is why no one either listened to or followed them. Courage must have failed more than one of them in that Capitol where they were left alone, at the sight of the indifference of the populace. Cicero especially was distressed at seeing that they did nothing but make fine speeches. He wished them to act, to profit by the occasion, to die if need were: “Would not death be glorious for such a great cause?” This old man, usually irresolute, had then more resolution than all those young men who had just struck so bold a stroke. And yet, what did he suggest after all? “You must rouse the people again,” he said. We have just seen that the people would not respond. “You must convoke the senate, and take advantage of its fears, to extort some favourable decrees.”[^[359]] Assuredly the senate would have voted whatever they wished: but when the decrees had been made, how were they to be executed? All these schemes were insufficient, and it was hardly possible to propose anything more practical to men who were determined not to overstep the law. The only possible chance was boldly to seize the government, to hold it by violence and illegality, not even flinching from proscription, and to replace by an aristocratic dictatorship that popular tyranny they had just destroyed; in a word, to recommence the history of Sulla. Cassius perhaps would have done this, but Brutus had a horror of violence. Tyranny, from whatever side it might come, seemed to him a crime; he would rather have perished with the republic than save it by these means.

The few succeeding days passed in strange alternations. There was a sort of interregnum during which the parties contended with varying success. The people, who had not followed the conspirators, did not support their enemies either. As they did not know on what to rely men acted on both sides at random, and frequently in a contradictory and surprising manner. One day an amnesty was proclaimed, and Brutus went to dine with Lepidus; the next, the conspirators’ houses were set on fire. After having abolished the dictatorship they ratified the acts of the dictator. The friends of Caesar erected a column and an altar to him on the Forum; another friend of Caesar had them thrown down. It was in the midst of this confusion, while the two parties were wavering, undecided and hesitating, without daring to strike, while each was looking around it to see where the real forces were, that those who henceforth were to be the masters appeared.

For a long time a secret revolution had been in operation at Rome, which had been scarcely perceived because its progress was slow and continuous, but which, when it was complete, changed the character of the state. Campaigns had been short while they had only been fought in the neighbourhood of Rome and in Italy. The citizens had not had time to lose the traditions of civil life in the camp; there had not been a family either soldiers by trade, or generals by profession. But in proportion as wars were more distant, and lasted longer, the men who carried them on became accustomed to living at a distance from Rome. They lost sight of the Forum for so long a time that they forgot its controversies and customs. At the same time, as the right of citizenship was extended, the legion was thrown open to men of all races. This medley completed the destruction of the ties that bound the soldier to the city; he acquired the habit of isolating himself from it, of having separate interests, and of looking on the camp as his country. After the great Gallic war, which lasted ten years, Caesar’s veterans no longer remembered that they were citizens, and their recollections did not go back beyond Ariovistus and Vercingetorix. When it had become necessary to reward them, Caesar, who was not ungrateful, distributed the finest lands of Italy among them; and this partition was made under new conditions. Up to that time the soldiers, after the war, returned into the mass of the people: when they were sent to a colony, they were lost, and, as it were, absorbed among the other citizens; but now they passed without transition from their camp to the domains that had been given them, and thus the military spirit was preserved among them. As they were not far removed from one another, and could communicate with each other, they did not altogether lose the taste for a life of adventure. “They compared,” says Appian, “the toilsome labour of agriculture with the brilliant and lucrative chances of battles.”[^[360]] They formed then in the heart of Italy a population of soldiers, listening for rumours of war, and ready to answer the first call.

Precisely at that time there were many in Rome, whom Caesar had called there while they were waiting for him to grant them lands. Others were close at hand, in Campania, busied in settling themselves down, and perhaps disgusted with these preliminary toils of their settlement. Some among them had returned to Rome on the rumour of the events that were taking place, the rest were waiting to be well paid before deciding, and put themselves up to auction. Now, there was no want of buyers. The heritage of the great dictator tempted every one’s cupidity. Thanks to those soldiers who were ready to sell their services, each of the competitors had his partisans and his chances. Antony was predominant over all by the lustre of his consular authority, and the memory of Caesar’s friendship; but near him was the debauchee Dolabella, who had held out hopes to all parties, and the young Octavius, who came from Epirus to receive the inheritance of his uncle. There was no one, even to the incapable Lepidus, who had not got several legions in his interest, and who did not make some figure among these ambitious men. And all, surrounded by soldiers whom they had bought, masters of important provinces, watched each other mistrustfully while waiting to fight.

What was Brutus doing in the meantime? The opportunity of the Ides of March having failed, he might still have taken advantage of the quarrels of the Caesarians to throw himself upon them and crush them. The resolute men of his party advised him to try this, and to call to arms all those young men who, in Italy and the provinces, had applauded the death of Caesar; but Brutus hated civil war and could not resolve to give the signal anew. As he had fancied that the people would hasten to accept the liberty that was given back to them, he had thought that the restoration of the republic could be made without violence. One illusion led him to another, and that stab which began a frightful war of twelve years seemed to him bound to assure public tranquillity for ever. It was in this belief that, on coming out of the curia of Pompey where he had just killed Caesar, he ran through the streets crying, “Peace! peace!” And this word was henceforth his motto. When his friends, on learning the dangers he was running, came from the neighbouring municipia to defend him, he sent them back. He preferred to remain shut up in his house rather than give any pretext for the commencement of violence. Forced to leave Rome, he remained hidden in the gardens of the neighbourhood, disturbed by the soldiers, only going out at night, but always expecting that great popular movement that he persisted in hoping for. No one moved. He removed still further and took refuge in his villas of Lanuvium and Antium. There he heard the rumours of war with which Italy resounded, and saw all parties preparing to fight. He alone always resisted. He passed six entire months shrinking from this terrible necessity that became more clearly inevitable every day. He could not resolve to accept it, and asked advice of everybody.

Cicero even tells, in his letters,[^[361]] of a sort of council that was held at Antium, to consider what it was needful to do. Servilia was there with Porcia, Brutus with Cassius, and a few of the most faithful friends had been invited, among whom were Favonius and Cicero. Servilia, more anxious for the safety than the honour of her son, wished him to withdraw. She had obtained from Antony, who had remained her friend, for her son and her son-in-law, a legatio, that is a commission to go and collect corn in Sicily. It was a specious and safe pretext for quitting Italy; but what a disgrace! to leave with a permission signed by Antony, to accept exile as a favour. Cassius would not consent; he spoke with passion, he was indignant, he threatened, “one would have said he breathed only war.” Brutus, on the contrary, calm and resigned, questioned his friends, being resolved to satisfy them at the risk of his life. Did they wish him to return to Rome? He was ready to go there. Every one cried out at this proposition. Rome was full of danger for the conspirators, and they would not uselessly expose the last hopes of liberty. What should they do then? They only agreed in bitterly regretting the course they had followed. Cassius regretted that they had not killed Antony as he had demanded, and Cicero did not care to contradict him.

Unfortunately these recriminations were of no use; it was not a question of complaining of the past, the moment had arrived for regulating the future, and they did not know what to resolve upon.

Brutus did not immediately decide after this meeting. He persisted in remaining as long as he could in his villa at Lanuvium, reading and discussing, under his handsome porticoes, with the Greek philosophers, his usual society. It was necessary to go away, however. Italy was becoming less and less safe, the veterans infested the roads and pillaged the country houses. Brutus went to Velia to join some vessels that were waiting to conduct him to Greece. He called his departure an exile, and, by a last illusion, he hoped that it would not be the signal for war. As Antony accused him of preparing for this, he replied to him in Cassius’ name and his own, by an admirable letter of which this is the end: “Do not flatter yourself that you have frightened us, fear is beneath our character. If other motives were capable of giving us any leaning towards civil war your letter would not take it from us, for threats have no power over free hearts; but you well know that we hate war, that nothing can drag us into it, and you put on a threatening air, no doubt to make men believe that our resolution is the effect of our fears. These are our sentiments; we wish to see you live with distinction in a free state; we do not wish to be your enemies, but we have more regard for liberty than for your friendship. We therefore pray the gods to inspire you with counsels salutary for the republic and for yourself. If not, we desire that your own party may hurt you as little as possible, and that Rome may be free and glorious!”[^[362]]

At Velia, Brutus was joined by Cicero, who also thought of leaving. Discouraged by the inaction of his friends, terrified by the threats of his enemies, he had already attempted to fly to Greece: but the wind had thrown him back on the coast of Italy. When he learnt that Brutus was going to leave, he wished to see him again and if possible start with him. Cicero often spoke with a heartrending accent of the emotions of this last interview. “I saw him,” he related to the people later, “I saw him depart from Italy in order not to cause a civil war there. O sorrowful spectacle, I do not say for men only, but for the waves and the shores. The saviour of his country was forced to flee, its destroyers remained all-powerful.”[^[363]]

The last thought of Brutus at this sad moment was still for the public peace. Notwithstanding so many disappointments he still reckoned upon the people of Rome; he thought enough had not been done to arouse their ardour; he could not resign himself to believe that there were no longer any citizens. He started with the regret that he had not essayed another struggle by legal means. Doubtless it was not possible for him to return to Rome and to reappear in the senate; but Cicero was less compromised, his fame extorted respect; men liked to listen to his words. Could not he attempt this last struggle? Brutus had always thought so; at this moment he dared to say so. He pointed out to Cicero a great duty to accomplish, a great part to play; his advice, his reproaches, his prayers, determined him to give up his voyage and return to Rome. He seemed to hear, as he said later, “the voice of his country recalling him!”[^[364]] And they separated not to meet again.

It was useless, however, for Brutus to resist; the inevitable tendency of the events against which he had been struggling for six months, dragged him into civil war. On leaving Italy he had come to Athens, where he passed his time in hearing the academician Theomnestes and the peripatetic Cratippus. Plutarch sees a clever dissimulation in this conduct. “He was preparing for war,” he says, “in secret.” Cicero’s letters prove that, on the contrary, it was the war that went to seek him. Thessaly and Macedonia were full of Pompey’s old soldiers, who had remained there after Pharsalia; the islands of the Aegean, the towns of Greece, which were regarded as a sort of asylum for the exiles, contained many malcontents who had refused to submit to Caesar, and since the Ides of March they were the refuge of all who fled from the domination of Antony. Athens, in truth, was full of young men of the greatest families of Rome, republicans by their birth and their age, who went there to finish their education. They were only waiting for Brutus in order to take up arms. On his arrival, there was a great and irresistible movement on all sides, to which he was constrained to give way himself. Apuleius and Vatinius brought him the troops that they commanded. The old soldiers of Macedonia assembled under the command of Q. Hortensius; so many came from Italy, that the consul Pansa at last complained and threatened to stop the recruits of Brutus on their passage. The students of Athens, and among them Cicero’s son and the young Horace, deserted their studies and enrolled themselves under him. In a few months Brutus was master of all Greece, and had eight legions.

At this moment the republican party seemed to awaken everywhere at once. Cicero had succeeded better than he had hoped at Rome, and had raised up enemies to Antony, who had defeated him before Modena. Brutus had just formed a considerable army in Greece. Cassius went over Asia recruiting legions on his passage, and all the East had declared for him. Hope returned to the most timid, and it seemed that everything was to be hoped for the republic from the co-operation of so many generous defenders. It was, however, at this very moment, when it was so necessary to be united, that the most serious disagreement broke out between Cicero and Brutus. Whatever vexation it may cause us, it must be told, for it completes our knowledge of both.

Cicero was the first to complain. This man, usually so weak and hesitating, had become singularly energetic since the death of Caesar. Prudence, clemency, moderation, great qualities that he appreciated much and readily practised, seemed no longer suitable to the circumstances of the time. This great preacher of pacific victories preached war to everybody; this stern friend of legality asked everybody to overstep it. “Do not wait for the decrees of the senate,”[^[365]] he said to one. “Be your own senate,”[^[366]] he wrote to another. To gain his ends, all means, even the most violent, seemed good to him; all alliances pleased him, even that of men whom he did not esteem. Brutus, on the contrary, even while deciding to take up arms, remained scrupulous and hesitating, and continued to dislike violence. Although his name has become famous chiefly through an assassination, blood was repugnant to him. He spared his enemies when they were in his power, in opposition to those inhuman laws, accepted by everybody, which delivered up the vanquished unreservedly to the will of the victor. He had just given an instance, by sparing the life of Antony’s brother after having conquered him. Although he was a bad man, who had shown his gratitude by attempting to corrupt the soldiers who guarded him, Brutus had persisted in treating him with kindness. We should not consider this a great crime, nevertheless they were very much irritated about it at Rome. The furious threats of Antony, from whom they had just escaped with so much difficulty, the remembrance of the terrors they had endured, and the terrible alternations they had passed through for six months, had exasperated the most peaceable. Nothing is more violent than the anger of moderate men when they are driven to extremities. They wish to make an end at any price and as soon as possible. They recalled the repugnance and slowness with which Brutus had begun the war. Seeing him so yielding, so clement, they were afraid of seeing him fall back into his hesitation, and still further defer the moment of vengeance and security. Cicero undertook to let Brutus know of their discontent. In his letter, which we still possess, he enumerates with much force the mistakes that had been made since the death of Caesar; he recalls all the weaknesses and hesitations that had discouraged resolute men, and, what must have especially wounded Brutus, the absurdity of wishing to establish public tranquillity by speeches. “Are you ignorant,” said he, “what is in question at this moment? A band of scoundrels and wretches threatens even the temples of the gods, and it is our life or death that is at stake in this war. Whom are we sparing? What are we doing? Is it wise to treat gently men who, if they are conquerors, will wipe out the very traces of our existence?”[^[367]]

These reproaches provoked Brutus, and he answered with recriminations. He also was discontented with the senate and Cicero. Whatever admiration he may have felt for the eloquence of the Philippics, many things must have annoyed him in them. The general tone of these speeches, their bitter personalities, their fiery invectives, could not be pleasing to a man who, in striking down Caesar, had wished to appear passionless, and rather the enemy of a principle than of a man. Now, if there is a great love of liberty in the Philippics, there is also a violent personal hatred. We feel that this enemy of the country is, at the same time, a private and personal adversary. He had attempted to enslave Rome, but he had also taken the liberty of quizzing the weaknesses of the old consular in a very amusing speech. Cicero’s irritable vanity was roused when he read this invective: “he took the bit between his teeth,”[^[368]] according to the expression of a contemporary. The generous hatred he felt against a public enemy was inflamed by private rancour; a mortal struggle began, followed up with increasing energy through fourteen orations. “I am resolved,” said he, “to overwhelm him with invectives, and to give him over dishonoured to the eternal contempt of posterity;”[^[369]] and he kept his word. This passionate persistence, this impetuous and violent tone must have annoyed Brutus. Cicero’s flatteries were no less displeasing to him than his anger. He bore him a grudge for the exaggerated eulogies that he gave to men who little deserved them, to those generals who had served every cause, to those statesmen who had submitted to every government, to those men of ambition and intrigue of every sort, whom Cicero had united with so much trouble, to form what he called the party of the honest men; he was specially vexed at seeing him lavish praises on the young Octavius, and lay the republic at his feet; and when he heard him call him “a divine young man, sent by the gods for the defence of the country,” he could scarcely contain his anger.

Which of the two was right? Brutus assuredly if we think of the end. We see clearly that Octavius could not be anything but an ambitious man and a traitor. The name he bore was an irresistible temptation for him; to deliver the republic to him was to destroy it. Brutus was right in thinking that Octavius was more to be dreaded than Antony, and his hatred did not mislead him, when he foresaw in this divine young man, who was so much praised by Cicero, the future master of the empire, the heir and successor of him whom he had slain. Was it really Cicero who was to blame, or only the circumstances? When he accepted the aid of Octavius was he at liberty to refuse it? The republic had not, at that time, a single soldier to oppose Antony, they had to take those of Octavius or to perish. After he had saved the republic, it would have been ungracious to haggle with him over thanks and dignities. Besides, his veterans demanded them in a way that did not brook refusal, and often gave them to him in advance. The senate sanctioned everything as quickly as possible, for fear that they would do without its assent. “Circumstances,” says Cicero somewhere, “gave him the command, we have only added the fasces.”[^[370]] Thus, before blaming Cicero’s compliance, or complaining of his weakness, they should have thought of the difficulties of his position. He tried to re-establish the republic by the help of men who had fought against it and did not love it. What reliance could he place on Hirtius, the framer of a severe law against the Pompeians, on Plancus and Pollio, old lieutenants of Caesar, on Lepidus and Octavius, each of whom wished to take his place? and yet he had no other support than they. To that great and ambitious man who, on the morrow of the Ides of March, wished to make himself master, he could only oppose a coalition of inferior or concealed ambitions. Nothing was more difficult than to steer one’s way in the midst of all these open or secret rivalries. It was necessary to curb one by the other, to flatter them in order to lead them, to content them in part in order to keep them within bounds. Hence those lavish grants or promises of honours, that profusion of praises and titles, and those exaggerated official thanks. This was a necessity imposed by the circumstances; instead of considering it a crime in Cicero to have submitted to it, they should have drawn this conclusion, namely, that to attempt another struggle by legal means, to return to Rome to arouse the ardour of the populace, to trust again in the force of memories, and the supreme power of oratory, was to expose oneself to useless dangers and certain disappointment. Cicero knew this well. Sometimes, no doubt, in the heat of combat, he might allow himself to be carried away by the triumphs of his eloquence, as on that day, when he wrote naïvely to Cassius: “If one could speak oftener it would not be very difficult to re-establish the republic and liberty.”[^[371]] But this illusion never lasted long. The momentary intoxication over, he was not long in recognizing the impotence of oratory, and was the first to say they could only place their hopes on the republican army. He never changed that opinion. “You tell me,” he wrote to Atticus, “that I am wrong in thinking that the republic depends entirely upon Brutus; nothing is more certainly true. If it can be saved at all, it can only be by him and his friends.”[^[372]] Cicero had undertaken this last enterprise without illusions and without hope, and solely to yield to the wishes of Brutus, who persisted in his love of constitutional resistance and pacific struggles. Brutus, then, had less right than any one to reproach him with having succumbed. Cicero was right in often recalling that interview at Velia, when his friend persuaded him, notwithstanding his hesitation, to return to Rome. This recollection was his defence; it should have prevented Brutus uttering any bitter word against him, whom he had himself led into a useless enterprise.

Cicero must have deeply felt these reproaches, yet his friendship for Brutus remained unaltered by them. He still looks to him, he calls upon him, when all seems lost in Italy. Nothing is more touching than his last cry of alarm: “We are the sport, my dear Brutus, of the licence of the soldiers and the insolence of their leader. Every one wishes to have as much authority in the republic as he has force. Men no longer know reason, measure, law, nor duty; they no longer care for public opinion or the judgment of posterity. Come, then, and give at length to the republic that liberty which you have gained for it by your courage, but which we cannot yet enjoy. Every one will press around you; liberty has no refuge but in your tents. This is our position at this moment; would that it might become better! If it chances otherwise I shall only weep for the republic; it ought to be immortal. As for myself, I have but a little time to live!”[^[373]]

A very few months afterwards, Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius, triumvirs to reconstitute the republic, as they called themselves, assembled near Bologna. They knew each other too well not to be aware that they were capable of anything, consequently they had taken minute precautions against each other. The interview took place on an island, and they arrived with an equal number of troops who were not to lose sight of them. For still greater security, and for fear that any one should carry a hidden dagger, they went so far as to search each other. After having thus reassured themselves, they held a long conference. There was no longer any question of reconstituting the republic; what occupied their attention most, besides the division of power, was vengeance, and they carefully drew up a list of those who were to be slain. Dio Cassius remarks that, as they detested each other profoundly, a man was sure, if he was closely connected with one of them, to be the mortal enemy of the other two, so that each demanded precisely the heads of the best friends of his new allies. But this difficulty did not stop them; their gratitude was much less exacting than their hatred, and in purchasing the death of an enemy with that of a few friends or even relations, they thought they made a good bargain. Thanks to these mutual concessions, they soon came to an agreement, and the list was drawn up. Cicero was not forgotten in it, as we can well understand; Antony urgently demanded him, and it is not probable, whatever the writers of the empire may say, that Octavius defended him with much zeal; he would have constantly recalled to him a troublesome gratitude and a glaring act of perjury.

With the death of Cicero we have reached the end of this work, since we only proposed to study the relations of Cicero and Brutus. If we wished to carry it further, and to know Brutus’ end as well, it would suffice to read the admirable narrative of Plutarch. I should be afraid of spoiling it by abridging it. In it we see that Brutus felt intense sorrow on learning that Cicero had perished. He regretted more than a friend that with him he had lost a cherished hope, which he had been unwilling to surrender. This time, however, he was bound to acknowledge that there were no longer citizens at Rome, and to despair of that base populace who thus allowed its defenders to perish. “If they are slaves,” said he sadly, “it is their own fault rather than that of their tyrants.” No confession could have cost him more. Since he had killed Caesar, his life had been nothing but a series of disappointments, and events seemed to play with all the plans he had formed. His scruples about legality had caused him to lose the opportunity of saving the republic; his horror of civil war had only served to make him begin it too late. It was not enough that he found himself forced, in spite of himself, to violate the law and fight against his fellow-citizens, he was constrained to acknowledge, to his great regret, that in expecting too much of men he was mistaken. He had a good opinion of them when he studied them from a distance with his beloved philosophers. His opinions changed when he came to deal closely with them, when he had to be a witness of the debasement of character, to detect the secret greed, the senseless hatreds, the cowardly fears of those whom he regarded as the bravest and most honest! He was so deeply grieved that, on learning of the last weaknesses of Cicero, he came to doubt of philosophy itself, his favourite science, which had been the delight of his life. “Of what use has it been to him,” said he, “to have written with so much eloquence for the liberty of his country, upon honour, death, exile, or poverty? In truth, I begin to have no more confidence in those studies in which Cicero was so much occupied.”[^[374]] In reading these bitter words, we think of those which he spoke before his death; the one explains the other, and each is a symptom of the same internal trouble, which becomes great in proportion as the experience of public affairs disenchants him more and more with men and with life. He hesitated about philosophy, when he saw the weakness of those who had studied it most deeply; when he saw the party of the proscribers triumphing, he doubted of virtue.

It was fitting that thus should perish this man of thought, who had reluctantly become a man of action, and who was thrown by the force of events out of his natural element.