b.c. 59, ætat 48.
Such was the condition of Rome during the second year of the Triumvirate, in which Cæsar was Consul and prepared the way for the powers which he afterward exercised. Cicero would not come to his call; and therefore, as we are told, Clodius was let loose upon him. As he would not come to Cæsar's call, it was necessary that he should be suppressed, and Clodius, notwithstanding all constitutional difficulties—nay, impossibilities—was made Tribune of the people. Things had now so far advanced with a Cæsar that a Cicero who would not come to his call must be disposed of after some fashion.
Till we have thought much of it, often of it, till we have looked thoroughly into it, we find ourselves tempted to marvel at Cicero's blindness. Surely a man so gifted must have known enough of the state of Rome to have been aware that there was no room left for one honest, patriotic, constitutional politician. Was it not plain to him that if, "natus ad justitiam," he could not bring himself to serve with those who were intent on discarding the Republic, he had better retire among his books, his busts, and his literary luxuries, and leave the government of the country to those who understood its people? And we are the more prone to say and to think all this because the man himself continually said it, and continually thought it. In one of the letters written early in the year[250] to Atticus from his villa at Antium he declares very plainly how it is with him; and this, too, in a letter written in good-humor, not in a despondent frame of mind, in which he is able pleasantly to ridicule his enemy Clodius, who it seems had expressed a wish to go on an embassy to Tigranes, King of Armenia. "Do not think," he says, "that I am complaining of all this because I myself am desirous of being engaged in public affairs. Even while it was mine to sit at the helm I was tired of the work; but now, when I am in truth driven out of the ship, when the rudder has not been thrown down but seized out of my hands, how should I take a pleasure in looking from the shore at the wrecks which these other pilots have made?" But the study of human nature tells us, and all experience, that men are unable to fathom their own desires, and fail to govern themselves by the wisdom which is at their fingers' ends. The retiring Prime-minister cannot but hanker after the seals and the ribbons and the titles of office, even though his soul be able to rise above considerations of emolument, and there will creep into a man's mind an idea that, though reform of abuses from other sources may be impossible, if he were there once more the evil could at least be mitigated, might possibly be cured. So it was during this period of his life with Cicero. He did believe that political justice exercised by himself, with such assistance as his eloquence would obtain for it, might be efficacious for preserving the Republic, in spite of Cæsar, and of Pompey, and of Crassus. He did not yet believe that these men would consent to such an outrage as his banishment. It must have been incredible to him that Pompey should assent to it. When the blow came, it crushed him for the time. But he retricked his beams and struggled on to the end, as we shall see if we follow his life to the close.
Such was the intended purpose of the degradation of Clodius. This, however, was not at once declared. It was said that Clodius as Tribune intended rather to oppose Cæsar than to assist him. He at any rate chose that Cicero should so believe and sent Curio, a young man to whom Cicero was attached, to visit the orator at his villa at Antium and to declare these friendly purposes. According to the story told by Cicero,[251] Clodius was prepared to oppose the Triumvirate; and the other young men of Rome, the jeunesse dorée, of which both Curio and Clodius were members, were said to be equally hostile to Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, whose doings in opposition to the constitution were already evident enough; so that it suited Cicero to believe that the rising aristocracy of Rome would oppose them. But the aristocracy of Rome, whether old or young, cared for nothing but its fish-ponds and its amusements.
Cicero spent the earlier part of the year out of Rome, among his various villas—at Tusculanum, at Antium, and at Formiæ. The purport of all his letters at this period is the same—to complain of the condition of the Republic, and especially of the treachery of his friend Pompey. Though there be much of despondency in his tone, there is enough also of high spirit to make us feel that his literary aspirations are not out of place, though mingled with his political wailing. The time will soon come when his trust even in literature will fail him for a while.
Early in the year he declares that he would like to accept a mission to Egypt, offered to him by Cæsar and Pompey, partly in order that he might for a while be quit of Rome, and partly that Romans might feel how ill they could do without him. He then uses for the first time, as far as I am aware, a line from the Iliad,[252] which is repeated by him again and again, in part or in whole, to signify the restraint which is placed on him by his own high character among his fellow-citizens. "I would go to Egypt on this pleasant excursion, but that I fear what the men of Troy, and the Trojan women, with their wide-sweeping robes, would say of me." And what, he asks, would the men of our party, "the optimates," say? and what would Cato say, whose opinion is more to me than that of them all? And how would history tell the story in future ages? But he would like to go to Egypt, and he will wait and see. Then, after various questions to Atticus, comes that great one as to the augurship, of which so much has been made by Cicero's enemies, "quo quidem uno ego ab istis capi possim." A few lines above he had been speaking of another lure, that of the mission to Egypt. He discusses that with his friend, and then goes on in his half-joking phrase, "but this would have been the real thing to catch me." Nothing caught him. He was steadfast all through, accepting no offer of place from the conspirators by which his integrity or his honor could be soiled. That it was so was well known to history in the time of Quintilian, whose testimony as to the "repudiatus vigintiviratus"—his refusal of a place among the twenty commissioners—has been already quoted.[253] And yet biographers have written of him as of one willing to sell his honor, his opinions, and the commonwealth, for a "pitiful bribe;" not that he did do so, not that he attempted to do it, but because in a half-joking letter to the friend of his bosom he tells his friend which way his tastes lay![254]
He had been thinking of writing a book on geography, and consulted Atticus on the subject; but in one of his letters he tells his friend that he had abandoned the idea. The subject was too dull; and if he took one side in a dispute that was existing, he would be sure to fall under the lash of the critics on the other. He is enjoying his leisure at Antium, and thinks it a much better place than Rome. If the weather will not let him catch fish, at any rate he can count the waves. In all these letters Cicero asks questions about his money and his private affairs; about the mending of a wall, perhaps, and adds something about his wife or daughter or son. He is going from Antium to Formiæ, but must return to Antium by a certain date because Tullia wants to see the games.
Then again he alludes to Clodius. Pompey had made a compact with Clodius—so at least Cicero had heard—that he, Clodius, if elected for the Tribunate, would do nothing to injure Cicero. The assurance of such a compact had no doubt been spread about for the quieting of Cicero; but no such compact had been intended to be kept, unless Cicero would be amenable, would take some of the good things offered to him, or at any rate hold his peace. But Cicero affects to hope that no such agreement may be kept. He is always nicknaming Pompey, who during his Eastern campaign had taken Jerusalem, and who now parodies the Africanus, the Asiaticus, and the Macedonicus of the Scipios and Metelluses. "If that Hierosolymarian candidate for popularity does not keep his word with me, I shall be delighted. If that be his return for my speeches on his behalf"—the Anteponatur omnibus Pompeius, for instance—"I will play him such a turn of another kind that he shall remember it."[255]
He begins to know what the "Triumvirate" is doing with the Republic, but has not yet brought himself to suspect the blow that is to fall on himself. "They are going along very gayly," he says, "and do not make as much noise as one would have expected."[256] If Cato had been more on the alert, things would not have gone so quickly; but the dishonesty of others, who have allowed all the laws to be ignored, has been worse than Cato. If we used to feel that the Senate took too much on itself, what shall we say when that power has been transferred, not to the people, but to three utterly unscrupulous men? "They can make whom they will Consuls, whom they will Tribunes—so that they may hide the very goitre of Vatinius under a priest's robe." For himself, Cicero says, he will be contented to remain with his books, if only Clodius will allow him; if not, he will defend himself.[257] As for his country, he has done more for his country than has even been desired of him; and he thinks it to be better to leave the helm in the hands of pilots, however incompetent, than himself to steer when passengers are so thankless. Then we find that he robs poor Tullia of her promised pleasure at the games, because it will be beneath his dignity to appear at them. He is always very anxious for his friend's letters, depending on them for news and for amusement. "My messenger will return at once," he says, in one; "therefore, though you are coming yourself very soon, send me a heavy letter, full not only of news but of your own ideas."[258] In another: "Cicero the Little sends greeting," he says, in Greek, "to Titus the Athenian"—that is, to Titus Pomponius Atticus. The Greek letters were probably traced by the child at his father's knee as Cicero held the pen or the stylus. In another letter he declares that there, at Formiæ, Pompey's name of Magnus is no more esteemed than that of Dives belonging to Crassus. In the next he calls Pompey Sampsiceramus. We learn from Josephus that there was a lady afterward in the East in the time of Vitellius, who was daughter of Sampsigeramus, King of the Emesi. It might probably be a royal family name.[259] In choosing the absurd title, he is again laughing at his party leader. Pompey had probably boasted of his doings with the Sampsiceramus of the day and the priests of Jerusalem. "When this Sampsiceramus of ours finds how ill he is spoken of, he will rush headlong into revolution." He complains that he can do nothing at Formiæ because of the visitors. No English poet was ever so interviewed by American admirers. They came at all hours, in numbers sufficient to fill a temple, let alone a gentleman's house. How can he write anything requiring leisure in such a condition as this? Nevertheless he will attempt something. He goes on criticising all that is done in Rome, especially what is done by Pompey, who no doubt was vacillating sadly between Cæsar, to whom he was bound, and Bibulus, the other Consul, to whom he ought to have been bound, as being naturally on the aristocratic side. He cannot for a moment keep his pen from public matters; nor, on the other hand, can he refrain from declaring that he will apply himself wholly, undividedly, to his literature. "Therefore, oh my Titus, let me settle down to these glorious occupations, and return to that which, if I had been wise, I never should have left."[260] A day or two afterward, writing from the same place, he asks what Arabarches is saying of him. Arabarches is another name for Pompey—this Arabian chieftain.
In the early summer of this year Cicero returned to Rome, probably in time to see Atticus, who was then about to leave the city for his estates in Epirus. We have a letter written by him to his friend on the journey, telling us that Cæsar had made him two distinct offers, evidently with the view of getting rid of him, but in such a manner as would be gratifying to Cicero himself.[261] Cæsar asks him to go with him to Gaul as his lieutenant, or, if that will not suit him, to accept a "free legation for the sake of paying a vow." This latter was a kind of job by which Roman Senators got themselves sent forth on their private travels with all the appanages of a Senator travelling on public business. We have his argument as to both. Elsewhere he objects to a "libera legatio" as being a job.[262] Here he only points out that, though it enforce his absence from Rome at a time disagreeable to him—just when his brother Quintus would return—it would not give him the protection which he needs. Though he were travelling about the world as a Senator on some pretended embassy, he would still be open to the attacks of Clodius. He would necessarily be absent, or he would not be in enjoyment of his privilege, but by his very absence he would find his position weakened; whereas, as Cæsar's appointed lieutenant, he need not leave the city at once, and in that position he would be quite safe against all that Clodius or other enemies could do to him.[263] No indictment could be made against a Roman while he was in the employment of the State. It must be remembered, too, on judging of these overtures, that both the one and the other—and indeed all the offers then made to him—were deemed to be highly honorable, as Rome then existed. "The free legation"—the "libera legatio voti causa"—had no reference to parties. It was a job, no doubt, and, in the hands of the ordinary Roman aristocrat, likely to be very onerous to the provincials among whom the privileged Senator might travel; but it entailed no party adhesion. In this case it was intended only to guarantee the absence of a man who might be troublesome in Rome. The other was the offer of genuine work in which politics were not at all concerned. Such a position was accepted by Quintus, our Cicero's brother, and in performance of the duties which fell to him he incurred terrible danger, having been nearly destroyed by the Gauls in his winter quarters among the Nervii. Labienus, who was Cæsar's right-hand man in Gaul, was of the same politics as Cicero—so much so that when Cæsar rebelled against the Republic, Labienus, true to the Republic, would no longer fight on Cæsar's side. It was open to Cicero, without disloyalty, to accept the offer made to him; but with an insight into what was coming, of which he himself was hardly conscious, he could not bring himself to accept offers which in themselves were alluring, but which would seem in future times to have implied on his part an assent to the breaking up of the Republic. Αἰδέομαι Τρῶας καὶ Τρωάδας ἐλκεσιπέπλους. What will be said of me in history by my citizens if I now do simply that which may best suit my own happiness? Had he done so, Pliny and the others would not have spoken of him as they have spoken, and it would not have been worth the while of modern lovers of Cæsarism to write books against the one patriot of his age.