Let us think for a moment of our own Francis Bacon, a man more like to Cicero than any other that I can remember in history. They were both great lawyers, both statesmen, both men affecting the omne scibile, and coming nearer to it than perhaps any other whom we can name; both patriots, true to their conceived idea of government, each having risen from obscure position to great power, to wealth, and to rank; each from his own education and his nature prone to compromise, intimate with human nature, not over-scrupulous either as to others or as to himself. They were men intellectually above those around them, to a height of which neither of them was himself aware. To flattery, to admiration, to friendship, and to love each of them was peculiarly susceptible. But one failed to see that it behooved him, because of his greatness, to abstain from taking what smaller men were grasping; while the other swore to himself from his very outset that he would abstain—and kept the oath which he had sworn. I am one who would fain forgive Bacon for doing what I believe that others did around him; but if I can find a man who never robbed, though all others around him did—in whose heart the "auri sacra fames" had been absolutely quenched, while the men with whom he had to live were sickening and dying with an unnatural craving—then I seem to have recognized a hero.
Another complaint is made against Cicero as to Ariobarzanes, the King of Cappadocia, and is founded, as are all complaints against Cicero, on Cicero's own telling of the story in question. Why there should have been complaint in this matter I have not been able to discover. Ariobarzanes was one of those Eastern kings who became milch cows to the Roman nobles, and who, in their efforts to satisfy the Roman nobles, could only fleece then own subjects. The power of this king to raise money seems to have been limited to about £8000 a month.[107] Out of this he offered a part to Cicero as the Proconsul who was immediately over him. This Cicero declined, but pressed the king to pay the money to the extortionate Brutus, who was a creditor, and who endeavored to get this money through Cicero. But Pompey also was a creditor, and Pompey's name was more dreadful to the king than that of Brutus. Pompey, therefore, got it all, though we are told that it was not enough to pay him his interest; but Pompey, getting it all, was graciously pleased to be satisfied "Cnæus noster clementer id fert." "Our Cicero puts up with that, and asks no questions about the capital," says Cicero, ironically. Pompey was too wise to kill the goose that laid such golden eggs. Nevertheless, we are told that Cicero, in this case, abused his proconsular authority in favor of Brutus. Cicero effected nothing for Brutus; but, when there was a certain amount of plunder to be divided among the Romans, refused any share for himself. Pompey got it all, but not by Cicero's aid.
There is another long letter, in which Cicero again, for the third time, tells the story of Brutus and Scaptius.[108] I mention it, as he continues to describe his own mode of doing his work. He has been at Laodicea from February to May, deciding questions that had been there brought before him from all parts of his province except Cilicia proper. The cities which had been ground down by debt have been enabled to free themselves, and then to live under their own laws. This he has done by taking nothing from them for his own expenses—not a farthing. It is marvellous to see how the municipalities have sprung again into life under this treatment. "He has been enabled by this to carry on justice without obstruction and without severity. Everybody has been allowed approach to him—a custom which has been unknown in the provinces. There has been no back-stairs influence. He has walked openly in his own courts, as he used to do when a candidate at home. All this has been grateful to the people, and much esteemed; nor has it been too laborious to himself, as he had learned the way of it in his former life." It was thus that Cicero governed Cilicia.
There are further letters to Appius and Cælius, written from various parts of the province, which cannot fail to displease us because we feel that Cicero is endeavoring to curry favor. He wishes to stand well with those who might otherwise turn against him on his reappearance in Rome. He is afraid lest Appius should be his enemy and lest Pompey should not be his friend. The practice of justice and of virtue would, he knew, have much less effect in Rome than the friendship and enmity of such men. But to Atticus he bursts out into honest passion against Brutus. Brutus had recommended to him one Gavius, whom, to oblige Brutus, he appointed to some office. Gavius was greedy, and insolent when his greed was not satisfied. "You have made me a prefect," said Gavius; "where am I to go for my rations?" Cicero tells him that as he has done no work he will get no pay; whereupon Gavius, quite unaccustomed to such treatment, goes off in a huff. "If Brutus can be stirred by the anger of such a knave as this," he says to Atticus, "you may love him, if you will, yourself; you will not find me a rival for his friendship."[109] Brutus, however, became a favorite with Cicero, because he had devoted himself to literature. In judging these two men we should not lean too heavily on Brutus, because he did no worse than his neighbors. But then, how are we to judge of Cicero?
In the latter months of his government there began a new trouble, in which it is difficult to sympathize with him, because we are unable to produce in our own minds a Roman's estimation of Roman things. With true spirit he had laughed at his own military doings at Pindenissum; but not the less on that account was he anxious to enjoy the glories of a triumph, and to be dragged through the city on a chariot, with military trophies around him, as from time immemorial the Roman conquerors had been dragged when they returned from their victories.
For the old barbaric conquerors this had been fine enough. A display of armor—of helmets, of shields, and of swords—a concourse of chariots, of trumpets, and of slaves, of victims kept for the Tarpeian rock, the spoils and rapine of battle, the self-asserting glory of the big fighting hero, the pride of bloodshed, and the boasting over fallen cities, had been fit for men who had in their hearts conceived nothing greater than military renown. Our sympathies go along with a Camillus or a Scipio steeped in the blood of Rome's enemies. A Marius, a Pompey, and again a few years afterward a Cæsar, were in their places as they were dragged along the Via Sacra up to the Capitol amid the plaudits of the city, in commemoration of their achievements in arms; but it could not be so with Cicero. "Concedat laurea linguæ" had been the watchword of his life. "Let the ready tongue and the fertile brain be held in higher honor than the strong right arm." That had been the doctrine which he had practised successfully. To him it had been given to know that the lawyer's gown was raiment worthier of a man than the soldier's breastplate. How, then, could it be that he should ask for so small a thing as a triumph in reward for so small a deed as that done at Pindenissum? But it had become the way with all Proconsuls who of late years had been sent forth from Rome into the provinces. Men to whose provincial government a few cohorts were attached aspired to be called "Imperator" by their soldiers after mock battles, and thought that, as others had followed up their sham victories with sham triumphs, it should be given to them to do the same. If Bibulus triumphed it would be a disgrace to Cicero not to triumph. We measure our expected rewards not by our own merits but by the good things which have been conceded to others. To have returned from Pindenissum and not to be allowed the glory of trumpets would be a disgrace, in accordance with the theory then prevailing in Rome on such matters; therefore Cicero demanded a triumph.
In such a matter it was in accordance with custom that the General should send an immediate account of his victorious doings, demand a "supplication," and have the triumph to be decreed to him or not after his return home. A supplication was in form a thanksgiving to the gods for the great favor shown by them to the State, but in fact took the guise of public praise bestowed upon the man by whose hands the good had been done. It was usually a reward for military success, but in the affair of Catiline a supplication had been decreed to Cicero for saving the city, though the service rendered had been of a civil nature. Cicero now applied for a supplication, and obtained it. Cato opposed it, and wrote a letter to Cicero explaining his motives—upon high republican principles. Cicero might have endured this more easily had not Cato voted for a supplication in honor of Bibulus, whose military achievements had, as Cicero thought, been less than his own. One Hirrus opposed it also, but in silence, having intended to allege that the numbers slain by Cicero in his battles were not sufficient to justify a supplication. We learn that, according to strict rule, two thousand dead men should have been left on the field. Cicero's victims had probably been much fewer; nevertheless the supplication was granted, and Cicero presumed that the triumph would follow as a matter of course. Alas, there came grievous causes to interfere with the triumph!
Of all that went on at Rome Cælius continued to send Cicero accounts. The Triumvirate was now over. Cælius says that Pompey will not attack Cæsar openly, but that he does all he can to prevent Cæsar from being elected Consul before he shall have given up his province and his army.[110] For details Cælius refers him to a Commentarium—a word which has been translated as meaning "newspaper" in this passage—by Melmoth. I think that there is no authority for this idea, and that the commentary was simply the compilation of Cælius, as were the commentaries we so well know the compilation of Cæsar. The Acta Diurna were published by authority, and formed an official gazette. These no doubt reached Cicero, but were very different in their nature from the private record of things which he obtained from his friend.
There are passages in Greek, in two letters[111] written about this time to Atticus, which refer to the matter from which probably arose his quarrel with his wife, and her divorce. He makes no direct allusion to his wife, but only to a freedman of hers, Philotomus. When Milo was convicted, his goods were confiscated and sold as a part of his punishment. Philotomus is supposed to have been a purchaser, and to have made money out of the transaction—taking advantage of his position to acquire cheap bargains—as should not have been done by any one connected with Cicero, who had been Milo's friend. The cause of Cicero's quarrel with his wife has never been absolutely known, but it is supposed to have arisen from her want of loyalty to him in regard to money. She probably employed this freedman in filling her pockets at the expense of her husband's character.
b.c. 50, ætat. 57.