The Life of Cicero, Volume One

by Anthony Trollope

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 Autronius, two years before the Consulship of Cicero, and he had then after his election been deposed for bribery, as had also Autronius. L. Aurelius Cotta and L. 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 Cæsar, the Prætor; but Cæsar, 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 Porcius Leca, Vargunteius, Servius Sulla, the brother of him of whom we are now speaking, and Autronius his colleague. In the trial of these men Cicero took no part. He was specially invited by Autronius, who was an old school-fellow, to defend him, but he refused; indeed, he gave evidence against Autronius 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.[221] 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 "novus 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 does 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—unless, indeed, you think it king-like so to live as to be a slave not only to no man but to no evil passion; unless you think it be 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 favors 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 causes 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 fracas 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 Clodius and of the mysteries of the Bona Dea, 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 Clodius; but I shall have to show also that the misconduct of Clodius was but the tool which was used by those who were desirous of ridding themselves of the presence of Cicero.

This Clodius, 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 Bona Dea, or Goddess Cybele, a matron goddess so chaste in her manners that no male was admitted into her presence. It was specially understood that nothing appertaining to a man was to be seen on the occasion, not even the portrait of one; and it may possibly have been the case that Clodius effected 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 Cæsar, the daughter of one Quintus Pompeius, and it was alleged that Clodius came among the women worshippers for the sake of carrying on an intrigue with Cæsar's wife. This was highly improbable, as Mr. Forsyth has pointed out to us, and the idea was possibly used simply as an excuse to Cæsar 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 Cæsar to have his wife suspected.

b.c. 61, ætat 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 Clodius, the son of Appius, has been taken dressed in a woman's clothes in the house of Caius Cæsar, 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."[222] A few days afterward 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 Clodius. 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.[223] Then there is a third letter in which Cicero is indignant because certain men of whom he disapproves, the Consul Piso among the number[224] 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.[225] This letter, though there is matter enough in it of a serious kind, yet jests with the Clodian 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 Clodius on the very day in question. There had, too, been an exchange of repartee in the Senate between himself and Clodius 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 raillery. It was known that Clodius 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.[226] 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—"comperisse omnia." Clodius, in the discussion before the trial, throws this in his teeth: "Comperisse omnia criminabatur." This gave rise to ill-feeling, and hurt Cicero much worse than the dishonor done to the Bona Dea. 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 awe 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 a witness, and enmity sprung from the words which were spoken both on one side and on the other. Clodius 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 Clodius had become his enemy. When a man was wanted, three years afterward, to take the lead in persecuting Cicero, Clodius was ready for the occasion.

While the expediency of putting Clodius 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 triumph. 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 Mithridatic 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 Clodian discussions. Cicero at once writes of him to Athens with evident dissatisfaction. When questioned about Clodius, Pompey had answered with the grand air of 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 Catiline successes. Pompey, we are told, did not bear this well.[227] 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.[228] More than 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. "Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius," he had said, in the last Catiline oration 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 Manilian 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 Epirus." 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 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. When of two men the first thinks 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 Brundisium, and had then disbanded his legions. I will quote here the opening words from one of Mommsen's chapters:[229] "When Pompeius, after having transacted the affairs committed to his charge, again turned his eyes toward 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 Pompeius 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 Pompeius, when barely landed at Brundisium, 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 Pompeius; but on those who lack courage the gods lavish every favor 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 do 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 Cæsar. 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 over all the Romans, it was his idea still to adhere to the forms of the Republic. Mommsen, 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 Cæsarean idea, despises Pompey because Pompey would not pick up the diadem. No such idea ever entered Pompey's head. After a while he "Sullaturized"—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 Cæsar had got the better of him, and that a stronger body of Romans went with Cæsar than with him, then proscriptions, 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 Cæsar's bosom. To carry on the old trade of Prætor, Consul, Proconsul, and Imperator, so as to get what he could of power and wealth and dignity in the scramble, was, I think, Cæsar's purpose. The rest grew upon him. As Shakspeare, sitting down to write a play that might serve his theatre, composed some Lear or Tempest—that has lived and will live forever, because of the genius which was unknown to himself—so did Cæsar, 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,[230] 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 airs which had annoyed Cicero had offended others. He was shorn of his honors. 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. Cæsar saw it all; and he thought of that conspiracy which we have since called the First Triumvirate.

b.c. 62, 61. ætat45,46.

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 favorites. 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 Clodius and Curio, in the Senate, in reference to the discreditable Clodian affair. The fragments which we have of this contain those asperities which he retailed afterward in his letter to Atticus, and are not either instructive or amusing. But we learn from these fragments that Clodius 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 Archias and P. Sulla I have spoken already. We know of no others made during this period. We have one letter besides this 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. Not 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 Proprætor 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.