The Life of Cicero, Volume One

by Anthony Trollope

"Then come the band of followers which accompanies you diligently wherever you go. As to those who do this without special obligation, take care that they should know how much you think of them. From those who owe it to you as a duty, exact it rigorously. See that they who can come themselves do come themselves, and that they who cannot, send others in their places." What an idea does this give as to the labor of a candidate in Rome! I can imagine it to be worse even than the canvassing of an English borough, which to a man of spirit and honor is the most degrading of all existing employments not held to be absolutely disgraceful.

Quintus then goes on from the special management of friends to the general work of canvassing. "It requires the remembering of men's names"—"nomenclationem," a happy word we do not possess—"flattery, diligence, sweetness of temper, good report, and a high standing in the Republic. Let it be seen that you have been at the trouble to remember people, and practise yourself to it so that the power may increase with you. There is nothing so alluring to the citizen as that. If there be a softness which you have not by nature, so affect it that it shall seem to be your own naturally. You have indeed a way with you which is not unbecoming to a good-natured man; but you must caress men—which is in truth vile and sordid at other times, but is absolutely necessary at elections. It is no doubt a mean thing to flatter some low fellow, but when it is necessary to make a friend it can be pardoned. A candidate must do it, whose face and look and tongue should be made to suit those he has to meet. What perseverance means I need not tell you. The word itself explains itself. As a matter of course, you shall not leave the city; but it is not enough for you to stick to your work in Rome and in the Forum. You must seek out the voters and canvass them separately; and take care that no one shall ask from another what it is that you want from him. Let it have been solicited by yourself, and often solicited." Quintus seems to have understood the business well, and the elder brother no doubt profited by the younger brother's care.

It was so they did it at Rome. That men should have gone through all this in search of plunder and wealth does not strike us as being marvellous, or even out of place. A vile object justifies vile means. But there were some at Rome who had it in their hearts really to serve their country, and with whom it was at the same time a matter of conscience that, in serving their country, they would not dishonestly or dishonorably enrich themselves. There was still a grain of salt left. But even this could not make itself available for useful purpose without having recourse to tricks such as these!

b.c. 75, ætat 32.

In his proper year Cicero became Quæstor, and had assigned to him by lot the duty of looking after the Western Division of Sicily. For Sicily, though but one province as regarded general condition, being under one governor with proconsular authority, retained separate modes of government, or, rather, varied forms of subjection to Rome, especially in matters of taxation, according as it had or had not been conquered from the Carthaginians.[87] Cicero was quartered at Lilybæum, on the west, whereas the other Quæstor was placed at Syracuse, in the east. There were at that time twenty Quæstors elected annually, some of whom remained in Rome; but most of the number were stationed about the Empire, there being always one as assistant to each Proconsul. When a Consul took the field with an army, he always had a Quæstor with him. This had become the case so generally that the Quæstor became, as it were, something between a private secretary and a senior lieutenant to a governor. The arrangement came to have a certain sanctity attached to it, as though there was something in the connection warmer and closer than that of mere official life; so that a Quæstor has been called a Proconsul's son for the time, and was supposed to feel that reverence and attachment that a son entertains for his father.

But to Cicero, and to young Quæstors in general, the great attraction of the office consisted in the fact that the aspirant having once become a Quæstor was a Senator for the rest of his life, unless he should be degraded by misconduct. Gradually it had come to pass that the Senate was replenished by the votes of the people, not directly, but by the admission into the Senate of the popularly elected magistrates. There were in the time of Cicero between 500 and 600 members of this body. The numbers down to the time of Sulla had been increased or made up by direct selection by the old Kings, or by the Censors, or by some Dictator, such as was Sulla; and the same thing was done afterward by Julius Cæsar. The years between Sulla's Dictatorship and that of Cæsar were but thirty—from 79 to 49 b.c. These, however, were the years in which Cicero dreamed that the Republic could be re-established by means of an honest Senate, which Senate was then to be kept alive by the constant infusion of new blood, accruing to it from the entrance of magistrates who had been chosen by the people. Tacitus tells us that it was with this object that Sulla had increased the number of Quæstors.[88]Cicero's hopes—his futile hopes of what an honest Senate might be made to do—still ran high, although at the very time in which he was elected Quæstor he was aware that the judges, then elected from the Senate, were so corrupt that their judgment could not be trusted. Of this popular mode of filling the Senate he speaks afterward in his treatise De Legibus. "From those who have acted as magistrates the Senate is composed—a measure altogether in the popular interest, as no one can now reach the highest rank"—namely, the Senate—"except by the votes of the people, all power of selecting having been taken away from the Censors."[89] In his pleadings for P. Sextus he makes the same boast as to old times, not with absolute accuracy, as far as we can understand the old constitution, but with the same passionate ardor as to the body. "Romans, when they could no longer endure the rule of kings, created annual magistrates, but after such fashion that the Council of the Senate was set over the Republic for its guidance. Senators were chosen for that work by the entire people, and the entrance to that order was opened to the virtue and to the industry of the citizens at large."[90] When defending Cluentius, he expatiates on the glorious privileges of the Roman Senate. "Its high place, its authority, its splendor at home, its name and fame abroad, the purple robe, the ivory chair, the appanage of office, the fasces, the army with its command, the government of the provinces!"[91] On that splendor "apud exteras gentes," he expatiates in one of his attacks upon Verres.[92] From all this will be seen Cicero's idea of the chamber into which he had made his way as soon as he had been chosen Quæstor.

In this matter, which was the pivot on which his whole life turned—the character, namely, of the Roman Senate—it cannot but be observed that he was wont to blow both hot and cold. It was his nature to do so, not from any aptitude for deceit, but because he was sanguine and vacillating—because he now aspired and now despaired. He blew hot and cold in regard to the Senate, because at times he would feel it to be what it was—composed, for the most part, of men who were time-serving and corrupt, willing to sell themselves for a price to any buyer; and then, again, at times he would think of the Senate as endowed with all those privileges which he names, and would dream that under his influence it would become what it should be—such a Senate as he believed it to have been in its old palmy days. His praise of the Senate, his description of what it should be and might be, I have given. To the other side of the picture we shall come soon, when I shall have to show how, at the trial of Verres, he declared before the judges themselves how terrible had been the corruption of the judgment-seat in Rome since, by Sulla's enactment, it had been occupied only by the Senators. One passage I will give now, in order that the reader may see by the juxtaposition of the words that he could denounce the Senate as loudly as he would vaunt its privileges. In the column on the left hand in the note I quote the words with which, in the first pleading against Verres, he declared "that every base and iniquitous thing done on the judgment-seat during the ten years since the power of judging had been transferred to the Senate should be not only denounced by him, but also proved;" and in that on the right I will repeat the noble phrases which he afterward used in the speech for Cluentius when he chose to speak well of the order.[93]

It was on the Senate that they who wished well for Rome must depend—on the Senate, chosen, refreshed, and replenished from among the people; on a body which should be at the same time august and popular—as far removed on the one side from the tyranny of individuals as on the other from the violence of the mob; but on a Senate freed from its corruption and dirt, on a body of noble Romans, fitted by their individual character and high rank to rule and to control their fellow-citizens. This was Cicero's idea, and this the state of things which he endeavored to achieve. No doubt he dreamed that his own eloquence and his own example might do more in producing this than is given to men to achieve by such means. No doubt there was conceit in this—conceit and perhaps, vanity. It has to be admitted that Cicero always exaggerated his own powers. But the ambition was great, the purpose noble, and the course of his whole life was such as to bring no disgrace on his aspirations. He did not thunder against the judges for taking bribes, and then plunder a province himself. He did not speak grandly of the duty of a patron to his clients, and then open his hands to illicit payments. He did not call upon the Senate for high duty, and then devote himself to luxury and pleasure. He had a beau ideal of the manner in which a Roman Senator should live and work, and he endeavored to work and live up to that ideal. There was no period after his Consulship in which he was not aware of his own failure. Nevertheless, with constant labor, but with intermittent struggles, he went on, till, at the end, in the last fiery year of his existence, he taught himself again to think that even yet there was a chance. How he struggled, and in struggling perished, we shall see by-and-by.

What Cicero did as Quæstor in Sicily we have no means of knowing. His correspondence does not go back so far. That he was very active, and active for good, we have two testimonies, one of which is serious, convincing, and most important as an episode in his life. The other consists simply of a good story, told by himself of himself; not intended at all for his own glorification, but still carrying with it a certain weight. As to the first: Cicero was Quæstor in Lilybæum in the thirty-second year of his life. In the thirty-seventh year he was elected Ædile, and was then called upon by the Sicilians to attack Verres on their behalf. Verres was said to have carried off from Sicily plunder to the amount of nearly £400,000,[94] after a misrule of three years' duration. All Sicily was ruined. Beyond its pecuniary losses, its sufferings had been excruciating; but not till the end had come of a Governor's proconsular authority could the almost hopeless chance of a criminal accusation against the tyrant be attempted. The tyrant would certainly have many friends in Rome. The injured provincials would probably have none of great mark. A man because he had been Quæstor was not, necessarily, one having influence, unless he belonged to some great family. This was not the case with Cicero. But he had made for himself such a character during his year of office that the Sicilians declared that, if they could trust themselves to any man at Rome, it would be to their former Quæstor. It had been a part of his duty to see that the proper supply of corn was collected in the island and sent to Rome. A great portion of the bread eaten in Rome was grown in Sicily, and much of it was supplied in the shape of a tax. It was the hateful practice of Rome to extract the means of living from her colonies, so as to spare her own laborers. To this, hard as it was, the Sicilians were well used. They knew the amount required of them by law, and were glad enough when they could be quit in payment of the dues which the law required; but they were seldom blessed by such moderation on the part of their rulers. To what extent this special tax could be stretched we shall see when we come to the details of the trial of Verres. It is no doubt only from Cicero's own words that we learn that, though he sent to Rome plenteous supplies, he was just to the dealer, liberal to the pawns, and forbearing to the allies generally; and that when he took his departure they paid him honors hitherto unheard of.[95] But I think we may take it for granted that this statement is true; firstly, because it has never been contradicted; and then from the fact that the Sicilians all came to him in the day of their distress.

As to the little story to which I have alluded, it has been told so often since Cicero told it himself, that I am almost ashamed to repeat it. It is, however, too emblematic of the man, gives us too close an insight both into his determination to do his duty and to his pride—conceit, if you will—at having done it, to be omitted. In his speech for Plancius[96] he tells us that by chance, coming direct from Sicily after his Quæstorship, he found himself at Puteoli just at the season when the fashion from Rome betook itself to that delightful resort. He was full of what he had done—how he had supplied Rome with corn, but had done so without injury to the Sicilians, how honestly he had dealt with the merchants, and had in truth won golden opinions on all sides—so much so that he thought that when he reached the city the citizens in a mob would be ready to receive him. Then at Puteoli he met two acquaintances. "Ah," says one to him, "when did you leave Rome? What news have you brought?" Cicero, drawing his head up, as we can see him, replied that he had just returned from his province. "Of course, just back from Africa," said the other. "Not so," said Cicero, bridling in anger—"stomachans fastidiose," as he describes it himself—"but from Sicily." Then the other lounger, a fellow who pretended to know everything, put in his word. "Do you not know that our Cicero has been Quæstor at Syracuse?" The reader will remember that he had been Quæstor in the other division of the island, at Lilybæum. "There was no use in thinking any more about it," says Cicero. "I gave up being angry and determined to be like any one else, just one at the waters." Yes, he had been very conceited, and well understood his own fault of character in that respect; but he would not have shown his conceit in that matter had he not resolved to do his duty in a manner uncommon then among Quæstors, and been conscious that he had done it.