He had been early married to Pomponia, the sister of Atticus. This marriage that the two friends had hoped would draw closer their connection very nearly broke it. The couple found that their characters matched too well: both were hasty and passionate, and they could never agree, and the unbounded ascendency that Statius, a slave, had over his master’s mind completed the disunion of the household. In connection with this, it would be easy to show, from Cicero’s letters, what influence the slave often exercised in ancient families; a much greater one than is commonly supposed. Now that the servant is free, it would seem natural that he should take a more important place in our houses than before. But the contrary has happened; he has lost in influence what he has gained in dignity. When he became independent his master ceased to have any obligations towards him. They now live together bound by a temporary contract, which, by imposing reciprocal obligations, appears irksome to both sides. As this fragile bond may be broken at any moment, and as these allies of one day may become indifferent to each other or enemies on the next, there is no longer any ease or confidence between them, and they pass all the time during which chance brings them together in surrounding themselves with defences, and in watching one another. It was quite otherwise in antiquity when slavery was flourishing. Then, it was not for a short time only, it was for a whole life-time that they were united; accordingly, they set themselves to know each other, and to adapt themselves one to the other. To gain the master’s favour was the important thing for the future of the slave, and he took trouble to gain it. As he had no position to defend, or dignity to preserve, he gave himself up to him entirely. He flattered and served his worst passions without scruple, and at last made himself necessary to him. Once confirmed in this intimacy, by his constant subserviency, by private and secret services which his master was not afraid to demand, and which he never refused to give, he ruled the family, so that, however strange it may appear at first sight, it is true to say that the servant was never nearer being master than when he was a slave. This is what happened to Statius. Through the knowledge that he had of the defects of Quintus, he had insinuated himself so well into his confidence that the whole family gave way to him. Pomponia alone resisted, and the annoyance she suffered for this reason made her still more insupportable. She constantly worried her husband with unfriendly remarks; she refused to appear at the dinners that he gave on the pretext that she was only a stranger at home, or if she consented to be present, it was only to make the guests the witnesses of the most unpleasant scenes. It was, no doubt, one day when she was more peevish and cross-grained than usual that Quintus composed these two epigrams, the only examples that remain of his poetic talent.
“Trust your ship to the winds, but do not give up your soul to a woman. There is less safety in a woman’s words than in the caprices of the waves.”
“No woman is good; or if by chance you find a good woman, I know not by what strange fate a bad thing has become good in a moment.”
These two epigrams are not very gallant, but we must excuse them in the unfortunate husband of the shrewish Pomponia.
The political career of Quintus was not brilliant any more than his private life was happy. He owed the offices which he obtained more to the illustrious name of his brother than to his own merit, and did nothing to make himself worthy of them. After he had been aedile and praetor, he was appointed governor of Asia. To be invested with an unlimited authority was a severe test for a character like his. Absolute power turned his head; his violence, which nothing now restrained, knew no bounds; like an oriental despot he only talked of burning and hanging. He wished above all to obtain the glory of being a great lover of justice. Having had occasion to order two parricides to be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the water in the lower part of his province, he wished to give the same spectacle to the other part on his visit to it, that there might be no jealousy between them. He sought therefore to seize a certain Zeuxis, an important person, who had been accused of killing his mother, and who had been acquitted by the tribunals. On the arrival of the governor, Zeuxis, who guessed his intentions, fled, and Quintus, vexed at losing his parricide, wrote him most friendly letters to induce him to return. Usually, however, he dissembled less and spoke more openly. He sent word to one of his lieutenants to seize and burn alive a certain Licinius and his son who had embezzled. He wrote to a Roman knight named Catienus “that he hoped to have him suffocated one day in the smoke, with the applause of the province.”[[264]] It is true that when he was reproached with having written these furious letters, he replied that they were simple jokes, and that he had wished to laugh for a moment, but it was a strange way of joking, and shows his barbarous nature. Quintus had none the less an enlightened mind, he had read Plato and Xenophon, he spoke Greek admirably well, he even wrote tragedies in his leisure hours. He had all the appearance of a polished and civilized man, but it was only the appearance. Even among the most well-bred Romans, civilization was often only on the surface, and under their polished exterior we often find the rough and savage soul of a pitiless race of soldiers.
Quintus came back from his province with a rather bad reputation, but, what is more surprising, he did not come back rich. Apparently he had embezzled less than his colleagues, and was not able to bring back enough money to restore his fortune, which was very much embarrassed by his extravagance; for he liked to buy and to build, like his brother; he had a taste for rare books, and probably also could refuse nothing to his favourite slaves. The exile of Cicero completed the confusion of his affairs, and at the time of his brother’s return Quintus was quite ruined. This did not prevent him, at the time of his greatest financial distress, rebuilding his house at Rome, and buying a country house at Arpinum and another in the suburbs, constructing in his villa at Arcae, baths, porticoes, fish-ponds, and such a fine road that it was taken for a work of the state. It is true that the poverty of a Roman of that time would make the fortune of many of our nobles. However, a day came when Quintus was altogether in the hands of his creditors, and when he could borrow no more. Then it was that he bethought him of the last resource of embarrassed debtors: he went to Caesar.
It was not, then, only the love of glory that attracted Quintus to Gaul; he went there, like so many others, to get rich. Up to that time, the results had not answered to men’s expectations, and they had not found among people like the Belgae and Germani all the treasures that they looked for; but they were not yet discouraged; rather than give up their brilliant fancies, after each disappointment, they put farther off that enchanted country where they thought they must find riches. As at this moment they were going to attack Britain, it was in Britain that they placed it. Every one expected to make a fortune there, and Caesar himself, by what Suetonius says, hoped to bring back many pearls.[[265]] These expectations were deceived once more; in Britain were neither pearls nor gold mines. They had a great deal of trouble to take a few slaves who were not of much value, for it was no use thinking of making them men of letters and musicians. For all wealth, these men only possessed heavy chariots, from which they fought with courage. Accordingly Cicero wrote humorously to Trebatius, who sent him news of this ill-luck of the army: “Since you find there neither gold nor silver, my opinion is that you should carry off one of those British chariots, and should come to us at Rome without stopping.”[[266]] Quintus was very much of the same opinion. Although he had been well received by Caesar, who had appointed him his lieutenant, when he saw that wealth did not come as quickly as he expected, he lost courage, and, like Trebatius, he had for a moment the idea of returning; but Cicero, who did not joke this time, prevented him.
He did him a very great service, for it was precisely during the winter that followed the war in Britain that Quintus had the opportunity of performing the heroic action that commended his name to the respect of military men. Although he read Sophocles with ardour and had written tragedies, he was at bottom only a soldier. In the presence of the enemy, he became himself again, and displayed an energy that had not been suspected in him. In the midst of populations which were in revolt, in entrenchments hastily raised in one night, and with a single legion only, he was able to defend the camp Caesar had entrusted to him, and to make head against innumerable enemies, who had just destroyed a Roman army. He replied in firm language to their insolent boasts. Although he was ill, he displayed incredible activity, and it was only after a sedition among his soldiers that he could be induced to take care of himself. I have no need to relate the details of this affair that Caesar has told so well in his Commentaries, and which is one of the most glorious incidents of the Gallic war. This grand feat of arms raises Quintus in our esteem; it effaces the meannesses of his character, and helps him to play with a little more credit the ungrateful and difficult part of younger brother of a great man.
III.
Cicero had clearly foreseen that, although Caesar in writing his Commentaries professed only to prepare materials for history, the perfection of his work would prevent sensible men from attempting to re-write it. Accordingly Plutarch and Dio have taken care not to re-write it; they are contented to epitomize it, and now we only know the Gallic war by the narrative of him who was the hero of it. However perfect the narrative may be, or rather because of its very perfection, we have much difficulty in contenting ourselves with it. It is the characteristic of these great works, which, as we might think, ought to exhaust public curiosity, on the contrary, to make it more active. By interesting us in the facts which they relate, they excite in us the desire to know them better, and one of the surest marks of their success is that they do not suffice for the readers, and make them wish to know more than they tell. This desire, for fresh details on the most important events of history, it is which renders Cicero’s letters to Trebatius and to his brother so valuable for us. Although they are fewer in number and shorter than we could wish, they have the merit of adding some information to that which Caesar gives on his campaigns. As they are more familiar than a narrative composed for the public, they introduce us farther into the private life of the conqueror of Gaul, and they permit us to see him in his tent, at those times of leisure and repose, of which he has not thought of speaking to us himself. This is certainly an interesting spectacle, it is the true complement of the Commentaries, and we cannot do better than carefully collect the scattered details they contain, in order to become well acquainted with Caesar and his surroundings.