“Let us live, let us love, my Lesbia, and laugh together at all the reproaches of stern old age. The sun dies to be born again; but we, when our short-lived light is once extinguished, must sleep an eternal night without awakening. Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred once more, then a thousand and a hundred again. Afterwards, when we have embraced thousands of times, we will confuse the reckoning to know it no longer, and leave the jealous no pretext to envy us by letting them know how many kisses we have given each other.”[[191]]

That is a remarkable moment in Roman society, when we meet with these polished assemblies, in which everything is talked of and all ranks are mingled, where the writers have their place beside the politicians, where they dare openly express their love for the arts and treat imagination as a power. We may say, to use a quite modern expression, that it is here that the life of society begins. There was nothing like it among the old Romans. They lived on the Forum or in their houses. Between the multitude and the family they knew little of that middle point that we call society, that is to say, those elegant and select assemblies, numerous without confusion, where we are at once more at liberty than among unknown persons in public places, and yet less at home than in the family circle. Before reaching this point it was necessary to wait until Rome was civilized and literature had won her place, which scarcely happened until the last age of the republic. And yet we must not exaggerate. That society which then had its beginning, seems to us at times very coarse. Catullus tells us that at those luxurious entertainments where such fine poems were read, there were guests who would even steal the napkins.[[192]] The conversations they held were often risky, to judge by certain epigrams of the great poet. Clodia who assembled at her house these clever men, had singular eccentricities of conduct. The elegant pleasures sought by a woman of society were far from satisfying her, and she fell at last into excesses that made her former friends blush. They themselves, those heroes of fashion, whose good taste was vaunted on all sides, who talked with so much charm and made such tender verses, did not behave much better than she, and were not much more delicate. They had much to reproach themselves with while their connection with Clodia lasted; when it ended, they committed the unpardonable fault of not respecting the past, and of failing in that consideration that is always due to a woman whom one has once loved. Catullus stung with coarse epigrams her who had inspired his finest verses. Caelius, alluding to the price paid to the vilest courtesans, called her, in open court, the quarter of an as (quadrantaria) woman, and this cruel epithet stuck to her. We see that this society had still much progress to make; but it will do it quickly, thanks to the monarchy which was about to commence. Everything changed with Augustus. Under the new government, these remains of coarseness which savoured of the old republic, disappeared; men made such progress, and became so fastidious, that the refined were not slow in laughing at Calvus and Catullus, and that Plautus passed for a barbarian. They polish and refine themselves, and at the same time become insipid. A courtly tone is spread over gallant literature, and the change is so sudden, that little more than a quarter of a century was needed for the descent from Catullus to Ovid. The amours of Clodia and Catullus ended very sadly. Clodia did not pride herself on being faithful, and justified her lover only too well when he wrote to her: “A woman’s promises must be confided to the wind, or written on running water.”[[193]] Catullus, who knew he was deceived, was angry with himself for submitting to it. He reasoned with himself, he chid himself, but he did not cure himself. Notwithstanding all the trouble he took to gain courage, love was the stronger. After painful struggles which rent his heart, he returned sad and submissive to the feet of her whom he could not help despising, and whom he yet continued to love. “I love and I hate, said he; you ask me how that can be, I cannot tell; but I feel that it is so, and my soul is in tortures.”[[194]] So much suffering and resignation touched Clodia very slightly. She plunged deeper and deeper in obscure amours, and the poor poet, who had no more hope, was compelled to separate from her for ever. The rupture between Clodia and Caelius was much more tragic. It was by a criminal trial that their amour was ended. This time Caelius wearied first. Clodia, who, as we have seen, usually took the first step, was not used to such an end to her amours. Enraged at being abandoned, she concerted with the enemies of Caelius, who were not few, and had him accused of several crimes, and particularly of having tried to poison her. This, it must be admitted, was a very sad morrow to the charming fêtes of Baiae! The trial must have been very amusing, and we may believe that the Forum that day did not lack curious hearers. Caelius appeared accompanied by those who had been his protectors, his friends, and his teachers, the wealthy Crassus and Cicero. They had divided his defence between them, and Cicero specially undertook the part regarding Clodia. Although he declared, in the opening of his speech, “that he was not the enemy of women, and still less of a woman who was the friend of all men,” we may well believe that he did not miss such a good opportunity of avenging himself for all the ill this family had done him. That day Clodia suffered for her whole family. Never had Cicero been so sharp and stinging; the judges must have laughed much, and Caelius was acquitted.

Cicero had solemnly promised in his speech that his client would alter his conduct. In fact, it was quite time for him to reform, his youth had lasted only too long. He was then twenty-eight, and it was really time for him to think of becoming aedile or tribune, if he wished to play that political part that had been his father’s ambition for him. We do not know whether, in the sequel, he rigorously carried out all the undertakings Cicero had made in his name; perhaps he avoided henceforth compromising himself by too open scandals, and perhaps the ill success of his amours with Clodia had cured him of these noisy adventures; but it is very difficult to suppose that he became austere and lived after the manner of the old Romans. We see that, several years later when he was aedile and taking part in the most serious business, he found time to learn and repeat all the scandalous tales of Rome. This is what he wrote to Cicero, then proconsul of Cilicia:—

“Nothing new has happened except a few little adventures that, I am sure, you will be glad to hear about. Paula Valeria, the sister of Triarius, has divorced herself, without any reason, from her husband, the very day he was to arrive from his province; she is going to marry Decimus Brutus. Have you never suspected it? Since your absence incredible things of this kind have happened. No one would have believed that Servius Ocella was a man of intrigue, if he had not been caught in the act twice in the space of three days. You will ask me where? In truth it was where I should not wish it to be,[[195]] but I leave you something to learn from others. I should be glad to think that a victorious proconsul will go and ask everybody with what woman a man has been caught.”[[196]]

Evidently he who wrote this entertaining letter was never so thoroughly converted as Cicero made believe, and it seems to me that we still find the harebrained young fellow who made so much racket in the streets of Rome, and the lover of Clodia, in the man of wit who recounts so pleasantly these trifling intrigues. We may affirm, then, without temerity that, although from this moment his private life is unknown to us, he never entirely renounced the dissipations of his youth, and that, magistrate and politician as he was, he continued to the end to mix pleasure with business.

II.

But Caelius was not only a hero of amorous adventures, and did not content himself with the empty honour of giving the tone for elegance of manners to the youth of Rome. He had more solid qualities. Thanks to Cicero’s lessons he speedily became a great orator. A short time after he had escaped from this honourable tutelage, he made a brilliant commencement in a case in which he was opposed to Cicero himself, and this time the disciple beat the master. Since this success his reputation had continued to increase. There were orators in the Forum that men of taste admired more, and whose gifts they considered more perfect; there were none more dreaded than he, such was the violence of his attack and the bitterness of his raillery. He excelled in seizing the ridiculous side of his opponents, and in making, in a very few words, those ironical and cutting observations on them which are never forgotten. Quintilian quotes one as a model of its kind, which well exemplifies the talent of this terrible wit. He is speaking, in this passage, of that Antony who had been the colleague of Cicero in his consulship, and who, in spite of all the eulogies that the Orations against Catiline lavish on him, was but an inferior intriguer and a coarse debauchee. After having, according to custom, pillaged Macedonia, which he governed, he had attacked some neighbouring tribes in order to obtain a pretext for a triumph. He counted upon an easy victory, but as he was more taken up with his pleasures than with the war, he was ignominiously beaten. Caelius, who attacked him on his return, described, or rather imagined, in his speech, one of those orgies during which the general, while dead drunk, allowed himself to be surprised by the enemy.

“Women, his ordinary officers, fill the banqueting-hall, stretched on all the couches, or lying about on the ground. When they learn that the enemy is come, half-dead with fright, they try to awaken Antony; they shout his name, they raise him up by the neck. Some whisper soft words in his ear, others treat him more roughly and even strike him; but he, who recognizes their voices and touch, stretches out his arms by habit, seizes and wishes to embrace the first he meets with. He can neither sleep, so much they shout to awaken him, nor wake, so drunk is he. At last, powerless to shake off this drowsiness, he is carried off in the arms of his centurions and his mistresses.”[[197]]

When a man possesses such a biting and incisive talent it is natural for him to have an aggressive temper; nothing therefore suited Caelius better than personal struggles. He liked and sought disputation because he was sure to succeed in it, and because he could make use of those violent modes of attack that could not be resisted. He wished to be contradicted, for contradiction excited him and gave him energy. Seneca relates that one day one of the clients of Caelius, a man of pacific temper, and who, no doubt, had suffered from his rudeness, confined himself during a meal to agreeing with him. Caelius at last grew enraged because the man gave him no opportunity for getting angry, and exclaimed: “Do contradict me that there may be two of us.”[[198]] The talents of Caelius, such as I have just depicted them, marvellously suited the time in which he lived. This thoroughly explains the reputation that he enjoyed, and the important position he took among his contemporaries. This fiery debater, this pitiless wit, this vehement accuser would not have been altogether in his place in quiet times; but in the midst of a revolution he became a valuable auxiliary whom all parties contended for. Caelius was moreover a statesman as well as an orator, and it is for this that Cicero most frequently praises him. “I know no one, he told him, who is a better politician than you.”[[199]] He knew men thoroughly, he had a clear insight into situations; he decided quickly, a quality that Cicero much appreciated in others, for it was just that which he most lacked, and when once he had decided, he set to work with a vigour and force that gained him the sympathies of the multitude. At a time when power belonged to those who were bold enough to seize it, the audacity of Caelius seemed to promise him a brilliant political future.

Nevertheless, he had also great defects, which sometimes arose from his very good qualities. He knew men well, a great advantage no doubt, but in studying them it was their bad side that struck him most. By dint of trying them in every way, his startling penetration succeeded in laying bare some weakness. He did not reserve his severity for his adversaries only; his best friends did not escape his clear-sighted analysis. We see in his private correspondence that he knew all their defects, and did not stand on ceremony in speaking of them. Dolabella, his companion in pleasure, is a poor babbler, “incapable of keeping a secret, even though his imprudence should ruin him.”[[200]] Curio, his usual associate in political intrigues, “is only an unstable busybody, changing with every breath of wind, who can do nothing sensible,”[[201]] nevertheless, at the time when he is treating them thus, Curio and Dolabella had sufficient influence over him to draw him into Caesar’s party. As to Caesar himself, he speaks no better of him, although he is preparing to embrace his cause. This son of Venus, as he calls him, appears to him “but an egotist who scoffs at the interests of the republic and only cares for his own,”[[202]] and he has no scruple in confessing that in his camp, where, nevertheless, he is going, there are only dishonourable men, “all of whom have causes for apprehension in the past and criminal hopes for the future.”[[203]] With such a disposition of mind, and so decided a leaning to judge every one harshly, it was natural that Caelius should not trust any one entirely, and that no one dared to count upon him with confidence. To serve a cause usefully you must give yourself up to it completely; now, how can you do so if you cannot shut your eyes a little and not see too clearly its bad sides? Those cautious and clear-sighted persons, who are entirely taken up with the fear of being dupes, and who always see the faults of others so plainly, are never anything but lukewarm friends and useless allies. While they inspire no confidence in the party that they wish to serve, because they always make reservations in serving it, they are not sufficiently enthusiastic to form a party themselves, and always fall short of that degree of passion that leads a man to undertake great things. Therefore it happens that, as they can neither be chiefs nor privates, and cannot attach themselves to others or attach others to themselves, they end by finding themselves alone.