The strangest thing is that this man, while so persistent in remaining neutral, was not indifferent. His biographer gives him this praise, that he always belonged to the best party,[[169]] and that is true; only he made it a rule not to serve his party; he was contented with giving it his good wishes. But these good wishes were the warmest imaginable. He had, though we should scarcely believe it, political passions which he dared to express in private with incredible vigour. He hated Caesar so much that he went as far as to blame Brutus for having permitted his interment.[[170]] He would have wished, no doubt, as the most furious demanded, that his corpse should be thrown into the Tiber. Thus he did not abstain from having preferences, and showing them to his most intimate friends. His reserve only began when it was necessary to act. He never consented to take part in the struggle; but if he did not share its danger he felt at least all its excitement. We smile at seeing him become animated and excited as if he were a real combatant; he takes his share in all successes and all reverses, he congratulates the energetic, he entreats the lukewarm, and even scolds the faltering, and permits himself to advise and reprimand those who seem to him, who did not act at all, to act too languidly. It is amusing to hear the reproaches he addresses to Cicero when he sees him hesitating to go and join Pompey; he adopts the most pathetic tone, he reminds him of his actions and his words, he entreats him in the name of his glory, he quotes his own words to him to persuade him.[[171]] This excess of audacity into which he allows himself to be drawn for others, sometimes produces rather comic incidents. At the moment when Pompey had just shut himself up in Brundusium, Atticus, moved by the most lively grief, wished for some attempts to be made to save him, and went so far as to ask Cicero to do some striking action before leaving. “It only requires a banner,” said he, “every one will flock to it.”[[172]] The worthy Cicero felt himself quite excited by these lively exhortations of his friend, and there were times when he was tempted to be bold, and when he only demanded the opportunity to strike a heavy blow. The opportunity came, and he relates in the following words how he took advantage of it. “As I arrived at my house at Pompeii, your friend Ninnius came to tell me that the centurions of three cohorts who were there, asked to see me the next day, as they wished to deliver up the place to me. Do you know what I did? I went away before daylight in order not to see them. What are, in fact, three cohorts? And if there had been more, what should I have done with them?”[[173]] This was speaking like a prudent man and one who knows himself well. As for Atticus we ask whether he were really sincere in the ardour that he showed for his cause when we see him obstinately refuse to serve it. Those grand passions that confine themselves so prudently in the breast, and never show themselves outwardly, are with good reason suspected. Perhaps he only wished to enliven a little that part of spectator that he had reserved for himself by taking part, up to a certain point, in the excitement of the struggle. The wise man of Epicurus always remains on the serene heights whence he tranquilly enjoys the view of shipwrecks and the spectacle of human conflicts; but he enjoys them from too far off, and the pleasure that he feels is diminished by the distance. Atticus is more skilful and understands his pleasure better; he goes into the midst of the fight itself, he sees it close, and takes part in it, while always sure that he will retire in time.

The only difficulty he found was to make everybody accept his neutrality. This difficulty was so much the greater for him as his conduct especially offended those whose esteem he was the most anxious to preserve. The republican party, which he preferred, and in which he reckoned most friends, was much less inclined to pardon him than that of Caesar. In antiquity itself, and still more in our days, great praise has been bestowed on that saying of Caesar at the beginning of the civil war: “He who is not against me is for me,” and the contrary saying of Pompey has been much blamed: “He who is not for me is against me.” However, looking at things fairly, this praise and this blame appear equally unreasonable. Each of the two rivals, when he expressed himself thus, speaks in character, and their words were suggested by their position. Caesar, however we may judge him, came to overturn the established order, and he naturally was grateful to those who gave him a free hand. What more could he reasonably ask of them? In reality, those who did not hinder him served him. But lawful order, established order, considers it has the right to call upon every one to defend it, and to regard as enemies all who do not respond to its appeal, for it is a generally recognized principle that he who does not bring help to the law when openly attacked before him, makes himself the accomplice of those who violate it. It was, then, natural that Caesar, on arriving at Rome, should welcome Atticus and those who had not gone to Pharsalia, as it was also that those in Pompey’s camp should be very much irritated against them. Atticus was not much moved by this anger: he let them talk, those thoughtless and fiery young men who could not console themselves for having left Rome, and who threatened to avenge themselves on those who had remained. What did these menaces matter to him? He was sure that he had preserved the esteem of the two most important and most respected men of the party, and he could oppose their testimony to all the indignation of the rest. Cicero and Brutus, notwithstanding the strength of their convictions, never blamed him for his conduct, and they appear to have approved of his not taking part in public affairs. “I know the honourable and noble character of your sentiments, said Cicero to him one day when Atticus thought it necessary to defend himself; there is only one difference between us, and that is, that we have arranged our lives differently. I know not what ambition made me desire public office, while motives in no way blameworthy have made you seek an honourable leisure!”[[174]] Again, Brutus wrote to him towards the end of his life: “I am far from blaming you, Atticus; your age, your character, your family, everything makes you love repose.”[[175]]

This good-will on the part of Brutus and Cicero is so much the more surprising, as they knew very well the mischief such an example might do to the cause that they defended. The republic did not perish by the audacity of its enemies alone, but also by the apathy of its partisans. The sad spectacle it offered for fifty years, the public sale of dignities, the scandalous violence that took place on the Forum every time a new law was discussed, the battles that at each new election stained the Campus Martius with blood, those armies of gladiators needed for self-defence, all those shameful disorders, all those base intrigues in which the last strength of Rome was used up, had completely discouraged honest men. They held aloof from public life; they had no more relish for power since they were forced to dispute it with men ready for every violence. It required Cato’s courage to return to the Forum after having been received with showers of stones, and having come out with torn robe and bleeding head. Thus, the more the audacious attempted, the more the timid let them alone, and from the time of the first triumvirate and the consulship of Bibulus, it was evident that the apathy of honest men would deliver the republic over to the ambitious nobles who desired to dominate it. Cicero saw this clearly, and in his letters never ceases his bitter railleries against those indolent rich men, doting on their fish-ponds, who consoled themselves for the ruin that they foresaw by thinking that they would save at least their lampreys. In the introduction to the De Republica he attacks with admirable energy those who, being discouraged themselves, try to discourage others, who maintain that a man has the right to withhold his services from his country, and to consult his own welfare while neglecting that of his country. “Let us not listen,” says he in finishing, “to that signal for retreat that sounds in our ears, and would recall those who have already gone to the front.”[[176]] Brutus also knew the evil of which the republic was dying, and complained more than once of the weakness and discouragement of the Romans. “Believe me,” he wrote, “we are too much afraid of exile, death, and poverty.”[[177]] It was Atticus to whom he wrote these noble words, and yet he does not dream of applying them to him! What strange charm then did this man possess, what influence did his friendship exercise, that these two great patriots have thus belied themselves in his favour, and have so freely pardoned in him what they condemned in others?

The more we think of it, the less can we imagine the reasons he could give them to justify his conduct. If he had been one of those scholars who, wedded to their researches in history or philosophy, only dwell in the past or the future, and are not really the contemporaries of the people with whom they live, we might have understood his not taking part in their struggles since he held himself aloof from their passions; but we know that, on the contrary, he had the most lively relish for all the small agitations and obscure intrigues of the politics of his time. He was anxious to know them, he excelled in unravelling them, this was the regular food of his inquisitive mind, and Cicero applied to him by choice when he wished to know about such matters. He was not one of those gentle and timid souls, made for reflection and solitude, who have not the energy necessary for active life. This man of business, of clear and decided judgment, would, on the contrary, have made an excellent statesman. To be useful to his country he would only have needed to employ in its service a little of that activity and intelligence he had used to enrich himself, and Cicero was right in thinking that he had the political temperament. And, finally, he had not even left himself the poor resource of pretending that he sided with no party because all parties were indifferent to him, and that, having no settled opinions, he did not know which side to take. He had said the contrary a hundred times in his letters to Cicero and Brutus; he had charmed them a hundred times by the ardour of his republican zeal, and yet he remained quiet when the opportunity came of serving this government to which he said he was so much attached. Instead of making a single effort to retard its fall, he was only careful not to be crushed under its ruins. But if he did not try to defend it, did he, at least, pay it that last respect of appearing to regret it? Did he show in any way that, although he had not appeared in the combat, he felt that he shared in the defeat? Did he know, while he grew old under a power to which he was forced to submit, how to retire in a dignified sadness which forces respect even from a conqueror? No, and it is assuredly this that is most repugnant to us in his life; he showed an unpleasant eagerness to accommodate himself to the new order of things. The day after he had himself been proscribed, we see him become the friend of the proscribers. He lavishes all the charms of his mind on them, assiduously frequents their houses, attends all their fêtes. However habituated we may be to see him welcome all triumphant governments, we cannot get used to the notion that the friend of Brutus and the confidant of Cicero should become so quickly the familiar of Antony and Octavius. Those most disposed to indulgence will certainly think that those illustrious friendships created duties which he did not fulfil, and that it was a treason to the memory of these men who had honoured him with their friendship, to choose just their executioners as their successors.

If we are not disposed to show ourselves as indulgent towards him as Cicero and Brutus, with still more reason shall we not partake in the naïve enthusiasm that he inspires in Cornelius Nepos. This indulgent biographer is only struck, in the whole life of his hero, with the happy chance by which he escaped such great dangers. He cannot get over his surprise when he sees him, from the time of Sulla to that of Augustus, withdraw himself from so many civil wars, survive so many proscriptions, and preserve himself so skilfully where so many others perished. “If we overwhelm with praises,” says he, “the pilot who saves his vessel from the rocks and tempests, ought we not to consider admirable the prudence of a man who in the midst of those violent political storms succeeded in saving himself?”[[178]] Admiration is here too strong a word. We keep that for those courageous men who made their actions agree with their principles, and who knew how to die to defend their opinions. Their ill success does not injure them in our esteem, and, whatever the friend of Atticus may say, there are fortunate voyages from which less honour is drawn than from some shipwrecks. The sole praise that he thoroughly deserves is that which his biographer gives him with so much complacency, namely, that he was the most adroit man of that time; but we know that there are other forms of praise which are of more value than this.

CAELIUS

THE ROMAN YOUTH IN THE TIME OF CAESAR

There is perhaps no more curious figure than that of Caelius in the history we are studying. His life has a special interest for us. He was not, like Brutus, a brilliant exception among his contemporaries; on the contrary, he quite belongs to his time; he lived as others lived around him. All the young men of that time, the Curios, the Dolabellas, resemble him. They are all, like him, corrupted early, little concerned about their dignity, prodigal of their wealth, friends of facile pleasures; they all throw themselves into public life as soon as they can, with a restless ambition and great needs to satisfy, and with few scruples and no beliefs. His history, then, is that of all the rest, and the advantage we find in studying it is that we know at once the whole generation of which he formed part. Now, thanks to Cicero, this study is easy for us. Notwithstanding so many differences in conduct and principles, Cicero always felt a singular inclination for Caelius; he liked the conversation of this clever man who laughed at everything, and was more at ease with him than with people like Cato or Brutus, whose severity somewhat alarmed him. He defended him in the law courts when a woman whom he had loved tried to ruin him, and this speech of his is certainly one of the most interesting that remain to us. Later, when he was obliged to go to Cilicia, he chose him for his political correspondent. By a happy chance Caelius’ letters have come down to us with those of Cicero, and there are none in all this collection that are more witty and more racy. Let us collect all the details scattered through them; let us try, in collecting them, to reproduce an account of Caelius, and by it to gain an idea of what the Roman youth of that time was. It is not without interest to know them, for they played an important part, and Caesar made use of them more especially for the revolution that he wished to accomplish.

I.

Caelius did not come of an illustrious family. He was the son of a Roman knight of Puteoli, who had been in trade and acquired great wealth in Africa. His father, who had all his life no other concern than that of enriching himself, showed, as often happens, more ambition for his son than for himself: he wished him to become a politician, and as he saw that dignities were reached only through eloquence, he took him betimes to Cicero, that he might make him a great orator, if it were possible.